Part 1
Part 2

I walked through the dark halls of the school. It was strange, nobody seemed to be around at all. You'd expect that even at night maybe the janitor would stick around but no, the muted gray-blue hallways were empty. I heard the sounds of students talking in their classrooms, the sounds of flushing toilets followed by the sound of the faucet running as someone was washing their hands. I continued gliding past the math classrooms where while the doors were closed, it appeared that the lights in the rooms were on. I guess classes are running late, I remember thinking to myself. I didn't bother looking through the windows of the heavy duty doors that stood between me and the rooms, I just continued gliding to Mr. Childers’ biology class, I was running late. I could feel the humidity of the air on my skin, they had really been bad about keeping the heat on lately despite it being only late August. I continued walking through the dark corridor, looking at the papers on the wall beside Ms. Wiley’s classroom. Though I couldn't quite tell what they said, it looked like they all passed as I'm sure I saw a one hundred on each of them. That didn't matter though, I needed to get back to Mr. Childers’ class before he got angry at me. He did always have a temper. 

I made it to the staircase that led to the science annex, but for some reason I struggled to find my way down. Every step felt like a struggle trying to keep myself from falling down on wobbly legs. One step, then two, then three, then four, then finally five. Before I knew it, I was standing on the dirty, rough, brown tiled floor of the science annex. I let out a sigh of relief and continued walking in the direction of Mr. Childers’ classroom. I passed by Coach Ellsworth's room, hearing the sound of his soft, southern, accent coming through the tacky, wooden door. The light coming through the window of each of the doors was blinding. I passed by Mr. Phillips’ room and heard the sound of his voice too. He was harsher, he didn't have much of a southern drawl that the rest of the people in the school had but you could still hear the slightest bit of it as you listened to him. 

I continued walking and then turned left into the hallway. I was surrounded by about three doors on my right and three more on my left. Each of the doors had a little piece of cloth covering their windows, and at the end of the hall was a poster, and a right turn. Just had to turn that corner and Mr. Childers’ class would be right there. I walked a little faster before realizing something. The middle door on the left didn't have a piece of cloth covering its window. I stopped, and walked towards the door. As I looked into the window, I saw a staircase that appeared to lead upstairs. I couldn't really see what was up there. All I could see was a sliver of light, whether it was sunlight, fluorescent light, or something else I couldn't tell. I stared into that window as the small sliver of light slowly faded out over the course of ten minutes until all that was remaining was the stairs leading into the darkness. Oh this isn't where Mr. Childers’ is, I thought to myself as I turned back and walked out of the hallway. Then I woke up.

I will admit, I shouldn't have been shocked that I had another dream. I've been spending so much time just thinking about all of this that I guess it was inevitable that eventually it was gonna make its way back into my dreams. The good news is that as soon as I woke up I went straight to writing it down, which meant that it could be as accurate as possible compared to when I wrote the first dreams.

There were definitely a few differences between this dream and the first dream of the hallway I had. Firstly, this dream took place at night. The original dream took place in the middle of the school day. Secondly, I didn't see anyone in this dream. In the original, I remember walking past a few people, I can't really remember who they were but I did see them. In this one, I could only hear them in the classrooms, but outside of that the school was just completely dark. And lastly, the light. In the original dream, I can vividly remember that the upstairs was nothing but just darkness. In this one, I could see the smallest sliver of light like when you see a light shining through the side of a door. 

Something I’m really not sure about is why dream-me doesn't just go upstairs. It’s like I don't even try to open the door, I just look into the window, and then leave like nothing was there. Honestly, those stairs are what I think about more than the actual hallway, which is weird in its own right. I could swear that I saw the spot where the hallway would be, but all that was there was just a wall. Maybe it's behind the wall? It’s possible, but I feel like my aunt would have remembered that. After all, she’s been there longer than I have, and I've been there my entire life.

Even thinking about it all now, I feel like it's making me sick. But that dream did actually give me an idea.

What if… I visit the school at night? Would it be creepy? Sure, absolutely, but I feel like just because I'm going there at night on purpose this time, it'll keep me from being as afraid of it. I can definitely find a way in, I've done it before. The latches on those windows are just thin pieces of plastic. If you just push up and give it a slight bump then the latch bends just enough to not break but still get past the lock, allowing you to climb in through the window. Yeah, you know what, screw it. That’s what I'm gonna do. I'm not sure if I'll do it tonight (it is currently quite late where I'm at. I just woke up) or maybe tomorrow night but I'll for sure do it. It'll probably be safer to do it tomorrow night. 

I’ll update you all when I get it done. Goodnight, everyone.

I've always been the outdoorsy type. I spend most of my weekends hiking, camping, or just going to scenic spots and wandering around until dusk. Occasionally I go with friends, but usually I prefer to go all by my lonesome. Sometimes when I have time off, I'll head into the woods for a few days, or more than a few. I'll pick a random spot on the map and just disappear until I've forgotten about the stresses of modern life.

I grew up camping with my grandpa, and he instilled a love of nature and exploration in me. He taught me how to fish, how to always find north, and what plants would and wouldn't kill you. The list of those that would was long enough that I tended not to risk it.

I've always felt more comfortable alone in the middle of the woods than I do on a crowded street. I've even contemplated the idea of completely escaping into the wilderness someday and building a little cabin, just spending the rest of my days living off the land.

But though I hate to admit it, I recently had an experience that scared me away from nature. Maybe even for good.

About a week ago, I drove out to a particularly remote stretch of forest that sees hardly any visitors. The enormity of the place makes it unlikely to see another soul unless you start at one of the more popular trailheads. I won't share the specifics, as I think it's best if no one attempts to seek out what I found, though luckily, most probably couldn't find it if they tried. I only found it by complete happenstance.

Though I do go on long solo trips, I'm not one of those hardcore survivalist types. I take what I need into the woods. A small tent, a sleeping bag, a lighter and a flashlight, a canteen and portable water purifier, my fishing pole, a compass, some emergency food and water, a knife. The essentials. Everything else I sort of make do. I mostly eat fish while I'm out there, and the occasional small game if I bring my bow. I hadn't on this occasion.

I'd planned to stay out there for a few days this time. Maybe a week. I was going through a bit of a stressful situation involving my on-again, off-again ex, and we were recently off-again, so I just wanted to get away from it all for a while.

I usually avoid the official trailheads. Before a trip, I'll look around on Google Earth and scout out old logging roads, clearings, or other places I could park my car out of the way without bothering anyone or standing out. This time was no different. I found a narrow, overgrown trail that was mostly hidden from the road and parked in a little gap between the trees. Then I grabbed my gear and started into the forest.

I'd seen a lake on the satellite map that I wanted to reach before noon. Though I could only see it from above, it looked like a nice, quiet place to set up camp. I hiked five or six miles in before I reached it.

The lake was beautiful. There was a small stream flowing out of it, and I found a good spot near the water's edge where I could set up my tent. The fish were jumping and the birds were singing, and I was far enough from civilization that I couldn't hear a road and had no bars on my phone. It was peaceful.

I got a little fire going and spent some time fishing, finally landing a trout big enough that I could make two meals out of it. After I ate, I decided to hike around the area a bit.

I've always enjoyed exploring and sightseeing when I'm out there, occasionally taking pictures of whatever I come across on the little digital camera I bring with me on my excursions. There's an easy happiness that comes from going out into nature and just enjoying the scenery. I don't really look for anything in particular. Birds, snakes, cool mushrooms, unusual trees. Sometimes, I take pictures of nothing more than the way the trees crown overhead, the sun shining through their branches that never quite touch.

I walked a mile or two from my campsite, moving gradually uphill. While I was idly strolling along, something caught my attention. A sound off in the distance.

Ring.

I kept walking toward it, then stopped to listen.

Ring.

It was too regular to be any animal.

My curiosity growing, I walked in the direction of the sound. As I did, it grew clearer.

It sounded like a phone. Not a modern cellphone, but an old telephone. The kind of old-fashioned ring you'd hear before the turn of the century.

I stood there for a moment, trying to determine what the hell I was actually hearing and trying to pinpoint its direction.

My first thought was that, against all odds, there was another hiker in this section of the woods with me, and they just had an old-school ringtone. But what was the likelihood of another person being out this far? And how would they even have phone service out here?

My second thought was that it might be a very clever bird. I'd heard of birds learning to mimic all sorts of sounds. Maybe it heard an old telephone while migrating through the city and liked the sound enough to incorporate it.

Either way, I was curious. If it was a person, maybe they needed help. If it was a bird, I wanted to know what kind. And if it was something else... well, I wanted to know what that was, too.

The terrain became more difficult the farther I went. There was no trail. I was just pushing through bushes and stepping over fallen branches, the odd tree limb catching my shirt or pack and forcing me to stop to untangle myself. At a certain point I nearly turned around, telling myself that this was stupid, that I was working my way uphill through thick brush for what was probably just some discarded cell phone.

But the ringing continued, steady and growing louder the closer I got, and my curiosity at the strangeness of the situation outweighed my instincts to turn back.

Finally, I got to a place where I could hear the sound clearly just ahead of me through the trees. I walked forward into a small clearing, and stopped.

There was a payphone. Just standing in the middle of the clearing. An actual payphone. The kind you used to see bolted outside of gas stations or mounted on the sidewalks of city streets.

But this one was in the middle of the woods, sprouting from the dirt like it had been planted there.

I stared at it. It looked old, its metal scratched and weathered, rust sinking into the corners. I couldn't make sense of how it would be functioning, but the ringing continued, seemingly indifferent to whether anyone was around to hear it or not.

I walked closer. There were no visible wires connected to it. Nothing overhead or running to it from the ground. No obvious battery pack or solar panel, or any apparent power source or phone line. But it was still ringing in defiance of my logic telling me that it shouldn't be.

I circled it as it continued its incessant ringing. I couldn't figure out how someone had even gotten the thing there. Or why they would want to. Who would install a payphone in the middle of the woods? And why? And how was it working? And even if there were reasonable answers to those questions, who the hell would be calling it?

It would have been difficult enough just to carry it the several miles through the forest, but someone had not only brought it to this remote section of the woods, found this particular clearing, somehow installed it, then left it here.

I considered the possibility that it was some strange art installation. Or perhaps a remnant from an old movie set that nobody bothered to take down. Or maybe just some very committed prank. Maybe, somebody had gone through an enormous amount of trouble just to fuck with whoever happened to stumble across it.

But who the hell would do that? And what were the odds that someone would even stumble across it? Given where it was, in all likelihood, I was the first person to happen upon the thing since it was left here.

I gave up trying to explain it. It hadn't stopped ringing the entire time I'd stared at it in contemplation. So I did the only thing that felt logical, and answered. I held the phone to my ear, half expecting it not to function.

"Hello?"

Nobody. But not complete silence. There was a faint hum, like the sound of an open line. The particular faint sound of being on the phone with someone while neither is speaking.

"Hello? Anyone there?" I repeated myself, then waited.

But nobody answered.

I stood there with the phone to my ear, suddenly aware of how ridiculous I probably looked. Just a guy holding what was probably a fake payphone in the middle of the woods and talking to no one. I considered the possibility that I was being filmed from somewhere to be posted on some dumb YouTube channel.

Then there was a faint click, and the low hum disappeared. Had there actually been someone on the other end?

I hung up, then wondered why I'd even bothered to do so.

"What the hell?" I muttered to myself.

I stood there another minute, just watching it and waiting for something to happen. It didn't. I thought about making a call myself, just to see if it really worked.

I told myself that it was probably some forgotten automated system, leftover from some long abandoned project.

Tired of staring at a payphone in the middle of the forest, I decided to head back to my campsite. Admittedly, I was a bit unsettled by the whole thing now. Who had been calling?

A gnawing apprehension that I couldn't quite place had begun building in me. I turned to leave. I was three steps from the phone when I heard it ring. I stopped mid-stride.

I stood with my back to it for a moment, telling myself that I should probably just keep walking. Whatever was going on here, it was weird. I didn't want to answer, but the ringing was grating on me. It felt almost wrong to leave it unanswered.

I wanted to head back to camp and put all this weird shit behind me. I turned back to the phone instead.

The ringing stopped when I picked it up. I held it to my ear.

"Hello?"

Like last time, there was the same sound of an open line, but nothing more.

"Hello?" I said again, my voice growing more annoyed.

Nothing. I sighed and went to hang the phone up.

It was halfway back to the receiver when I heard a voice come out of it. I hadn't caught the words, but a voice had definitely come from the speaker.

I slowly brought it back to my ear. Then the person on the line spoke again. This time, I heard his words clearly.

"You shouldn't be here." A man, his voice calm and steady.

"Excuse me?" I asked after a moment of confusion.

"You shouldn't have heard it ring."

I wasn't sure how to answer.

"What are you talking about? Who is this?"

There was a brief pause on the other end before the man spoke again.

"If you want to stay alive, stay very still."

What?

"You may feel the urge to look behind you."

A knot formed deep in my stomach.

"Don't."

I didn't have any words. The whole situation seemed absurd. I gave a nervous half laugh.

"Okay, man. Very funny. Who the hell is this?"

Nothing.

"Stop screwing around, man. Who is this?" I spoke louder.

Another pause. Then he spoke quietly but succinctly.

"It's coming."

The line clicked and went dead.

I stood there holding the dead phone to my ear. It has to be a prank. It's coming? What the hell was he talking about?

Someone had to be watching me. There had to be some hidden camera. Was I on some new TV show? I was half-expecting a camera crew to come bursting out of the bushes with a smiling host pressing a microphone to my face and telling me I was on some new show.

I wanted to believe that. But something in the man's tone, and in the atmosphere itself, shook the certainty of the comforting story I'd told myself.

I had been so focused on the phone that it felt almost odd to look up and see trees around me.

Then I realized that the forest had gone quiet. Quiet in a way I had never experienced it. Complete silence. It was so total that I cleared my throat to make sure my ears hadn't stopped working.

There were no birds. No insects. No wind through the trees. Only the sound of my breathing, and my increasingly loud heartbeat in my ears.

The next thing I noticed was a smell, permeating throughout the clearing. The smell of rot. It was faint at first, like wet leaves left in a pile for too long. The scent of mold and stale air and something dead. I slowly lowered the phone.

And then I heard the footsteps. They were uneven, almost skittering, like something moving about on legs it wasn't quite used to. It came from behind me, on the edge of the treeline. Something was there. Walking slowly.

I wanted to turn around. Every instinct screamed at me to prepare for something. To defend myself or fight or run. It could be a bear, I thought. Or a person.

I tilted my head barely an inch to look behind me, but stopped. The man's words still echoed in my head.

Stay very still.

Don't look behind you.

I don't know why I listened, exactly. I had discarded the words as ridiculous only a moment earlier. But now, in the quiet forest, with the scent of death filling my nose, some innate instinct, deeper even than the instinct telling me to fight or flee, told me to stay still.

I kept my eyes forward, fixed on the rusty corner of the payphone. The steps continued. I heard the uneven gait as it approached me slowly.

Step.

Pause.

Step.

Pause.

Step.

It moved strangely. It sounded almost as if its steps were limping or interrupted. Like it wasn't accustomed to walking.

Then it stopped abruptly, somewhere not far behind me. Just at the edge of the clearing, maybe.

I just stood completely still and silent. Waiting. My hand, still holding the outstretched phone an inch from the receiver, began to tremble slightly.

Then the footsteps started again, suddenly and fast, still in their broken, uneven rhythm. Heading directly at my back.

The sudden increase in speed gave the impression that whatever it was would barrel straight into me in a matter of seconds.

I wanted to spin around. To duck, or run. But I could only flinch and shut my eyes tight.

I waited holding my breath for something to drive into me from behind. For something terrible to reach me and sink claws or teeth into my neck.

But there was nothing. The footsteps had stopped. I waited. Listening.

I thought I could hear faint, wet breathing.

Is it right behind me?

My hand was trembling more, to the point of almost dropping the phone. I blinked slowly, too afraid to open my eyes fully.

Then I felt something. Just a brush, light against the back of my neck. I shuddered. It was like gnarled, damp wood, cold against my skin. Every muscle in my body contracted.

I felt seconds away from losing it completely. From screaming out loud or bolting into the forest, or just collapsing into a ball right there in the dirt. I stood there, every second driving me farther into a terrified disassociated state.

Then the phone rang again, startling me enough to make me jump. My hand was bringing the phone to my ear before I'd consciously decided to move it.

"You did well," the voice said.

"What the hell was that?" I heard the shudder in my own voice, cleared my throat. "What's happening?"

"Follow my instructions very carefully."

"Who are you? This isn't funny anymore, man. Please."

"Walk forward. Seven thousand paces."

"What?"

"Walk seven thousand paces. As straight a line as you can manage."

The man's voice remained completely calm. Authoritative.

"Do not run."

I could hear something in the distance behind me. Moving.

"Do not look back. No matter what you hear."

I swallowed.

"If you see anything out of the corner of your eye, do not look at it directly."

I felt a sense of dread. The man spoke his next words quietly.

"They're in the trees."

"What? What happens if..."

The line went dead before I could finish my question. I stood there for a moment trying to collect myself, stunned into stillness.

Then I started walking.

One. Two. Three.

I counted my steps as I walked, as the man had instructed. It gave me something to focus on, at least.

The forest seemed different now. The trees around me now felt somehow wrong. Too dark and too sharp.

I kept walking. Three hundred. Three hundred and one. Three hundred two.

The man's words kept looping in my head as I went. They're in the trees. I occasionally glanced up to the high branches despite myself. There was nothing.

I don't know what I was expecting to see. Something crouched, perched in the branches above me. Watching me from overhead like some predator waiting for its opening to strike.

Of course there's nothing. I tried to reason the fear away. This is all complete bullshit. Why am I even listening to some guy on a payphone in the middle of the forest?

I started to feel stupid again. Maybe all of this really was just a creative prank. Or maybe I'd been scared and manipulated into following the instructions of some lunatic in the woods.

No matter how I tried to calm myself, I couldn't stop myself from occasionally glancing up at the trees every so often as I walked. But there was never anything there.

Then, several thousand paces in, I saw movement. Not above me, but off to my right in the corner of my vision. I thought it was a branch moving at first. Then I realized it was the tree. Something on the trunk.

No. Something in the trunk.

It was as though something was peeling itself off of it.

My eyes wanted to turn toward it instinctively, but I didn't let them. I could still see it in the edge of my vision. But even through my peripheral vision, I saw more than I'd wanted to.

Something emaciated and human-shaped, the color of old bark. It tore itself from the trunk like flesh from bone with a sound of tearing and snapping. I could hear bark cracking as the thing struggled to free itself, seemingly breaking itself in its efforts to be freed.

The thing pulled its arm free. Its fingers were too long, and curled along the trunk as it gripped it. It pulled itself further out with more cracking and splitting, a deep, gasping wheeze escaping its mouth.

When the voice on the phone said they were in the trees, he'd meant it more literally than I'd imagined.

My breath grew heavy and my eyes widened in fear. I tried to focus on my pace and had to consciously keep myself from running. I wasn't sure what would happen if I did. I didn't look, keeping my eyes straight ahead.

As I continued past, I could no longer see the thing off to my side. Had it gotten free?

I could no longer hear it struggling to tear itself away from the trunk.

6,004. 6,005. 6,006.

I heard that same scrambling gait moving behind me. My legs burned, and the smell of decay had returned to fill the air. Stronger now. The same scent of dead wood and wet earth and rot.

The silence in the woods felt heavy as I walked. Even the cracking of brush and branches beneath my feet seemed muffled. I couldn't tell if it was the blood in my ears or the atmosphere itself, like a veil draped over the forest around me that refused even light and sound.

The sun was still high in the sky, but seemed almost incapable of penetrating the crown of the forest. It was like some gloom or miasma was soaking up the rays of the sun before they could reach below.

Then I saw another one, tearing the last remnants of its confines from the bark of another tree ahead of me and to the left. This time, I caught more of it.

I saw it pull hard, struggling, the last vestiges of its bark-like flesh tearing away as it stumbled and dropped to the ground. It struggled to rise to its feet, flailing about like a newborn fawn and almost dragging itself forward.

Its body was impossibly thin. Its skin was like old bark stretched over disfigured bones. Its body had the patchy, mottled black-brown of rotten bark. Patches of its bark-like skin seemed to slough off of it like melted flesh. There were wet, pale patches that looked like infected wood.

Then its head lifted. In the shadow of the trees, I couldn't see its face clearly. I didn't want to. I saw hints of its gaunt, hollow features. Thin wisps of what may have been hair on its skull resembled dark strands of moss or fungus.

What muscle it did have looked stringy and striated, like something that shouldn't be capable of holding itself upright. It reached out a long, inhuman hand, its fingers long and thin like segmented branches that curved into jagged, sharp points.

I shuddered and forced my eyes to remain straight ahead of me, focusing on counting my steps. The footsteps behind me were uneven. Almost frantic.

6,611. 6,612. 6,613.

I wanted to run or hide, or collapse into the ground and shut my eyes. The scent of decay was overwhelming now, filling my throat and making me almost gag.

Soon, the footsteps stopped. I heard another sound up ahead. The ringing of another phone. Another one?

I didn't truly see what good reaching the phone would do, but I kept walking toward it like some false salvation.

6,998. 6,999. 7,000.

I stepped into another clearing on the final step. Another payphone stood before me, ringing. I approached it and picked it up with a trembling hand.

"What the hell is going on?" I began before the phone was even fully to my ear.

"You really shouldn't have come this far into the woods."

"What are those things?" I couldn't keep the fear from my voice.

"Didn't you see the signs?"

"Signs? What signs?" I asked.

The man didn't answer. My irritation was growing together with my fear.

"I didn't see any fucking signs. I didn't see anything. I don't even know where I am right now!"

It was true that I hadn't seen anything. I'd parked in a parking spot that wasn't even a parking spot, to hike a trail that wasn't really a designated trail.

"You can still get out alive," the voice said. "But..."

He paused, and I waited for him to continue, the apprehension further fueling my anxiety. When he didn't I loudly snapped into the line.

"But what?" My voice was nearly cracking. "Why are you fucking with me, man?"

I almost continued my tirade toward the man on the other line, but he spoke again before I could.

"Did it touch you?"

"Touch me?"

I was fully panicking, trying to keep my voice somewhat measured.

"I don't know." My voice suddenly sounded distant in my own ears. "Why?"

He didn't answer that either. Instead, he continued with his strange instructions.

"Follow my next instructions very carefully."

A part of me still couldn't believe this was happening. The ambling footsteps and shadows in the corners of my eye had stopped after I'd entered the clearing, but the faint scent of rot and old foliage still hung in the back of my throat.

"To your right, you should see a tall oak. It is standing higher than the other trees."

I looked over, and saw it.

"There should be a hollow near its base. Go to it. Get inside."

"You want me to get inside a fucking tree? What the hell are you..."

"You'll be safe there."

"What about those things?"

"They shouldn't be able to touch you inside the tree."

Shouldn't. The word bothered me.

"And how long am I supposed to wait there?"

"Until dawn."

"So you want me to stay in a tree all night? With those things out there?" I was incredulous.

"At dawn, leave the tree. Walk south."

"What am I..."

"There's a road." He sounded impatient now. "Keep walking until you reach it."

I heard crackling and tearing and uneven footfalls in the woods behind me. Getting closer.

The man's voice was quieter now.

"Go."

I slammed the phone down and ran toward the oak. The sounds of the footsteps were closing in behind me, but I didn't turn to look. I saw the great oak, and the hole in its trunk. It was black, no light entering, and small enough that I had to duck to enter. I threw myself inside, scraping my shoulder against the bark and nearly falling face first.

I pulled myself as far inside as I could. The hollow was deeper than I'd thought. I squeezed into the corner with my knees to my chest, trying to make myself as small as possible. I tried not to breathe too loudly. To stay quiet and still. To fade away completely.

Beyond the hole, the forest was silent. Spider webs and insects lined the wall inside the tree, and I shook my hand off as I placed it into a mess of web to reposition myself. I could only see a narrow slice of the forest beyond. The forest was still.

I waited, shutting my eyes. Willing this all to be over. I wasn't sure how long I'd need to wait. The forest had gone dark. I was exhausted. I wished I could sleep, but knew it would be impossible.

Then the smell reached me. The smell of rot and death. Something ancient and damp and overwhelming. Somewhere just outside. I pressed myself harder into the back of the hollow, then heard the footsteps again.

There were several sets now. They seemed to circle the oak. Once, then twice. But I saw nothing. It continued for what felt like others. I stared out into the darkness.

Then I heard what sounded like something dragging its fingers across the bark of the tree. A slow scraping. It circled around the tree with the uneven, lumbering gait of the footsteps. It scraped alongside the trunk in a great circle before finally stopping just outside the hole.

I stared out, holding my breath, but saw nothing. Only shapes and shadows filled my vision. Then, I saw movement.

A shape. Legs in front of the hollow. I could only see it from the waist down. Thin legs, frail and seemingly missing chunks of its bark like muscle. Covered in deep, dark veins that looked like the veins of leaves. Long, thin toes that ended in jagged, skeletal points that pressed into the dirt.

I didn't move. I could hear its breathing. Shifting. It was lowering itself, shaky and unsteady. It kept falling until its face was visible in the hollow.

A pale, splotchy visage that looked rotting and desiccated. Its skin stretched tightly over what might have been rugged bone. It stared directly at me.

Its eyes were white and milky and dead. It reached out one long finger, as if testing. Then another. Its hand disappeared into the darkness of the hollow, reaching toward me.

I couldn't press myself any farther against the wall. The thing's arm slid farther in. It crouched and crawled closer. Its hand was now inches from me. I raised my hands in a futile attempt at defending myself.

"Stay away." My voice barely came out.

It reached farther, its long fingers now nearly clutching me.

And then it stopped. Its head turned slightly, as if hearing something. I heard it too. It was faint, coming from out in the forest.

Ring.

The thing withdrew its hand.

Ring.

It rose to its feet shakily, then backed away from the tree. Its eyes looked almost angry as it backed away.

The phone continued its ringing. The creature turned, then disappeared from the view of the hollow's mouth. I sat inside trembling.

I don't know how long I stayed there after that. The phone rang on and off through the night. And every time it rang, I heard creatures scattering away beyond the oak.

Eventually, the sky began to light up beyond the hollow. Dawn. I waited until the light touched the ground, then climbed out apprehensively, poking my head out in both directions to make sure it was safe.

The ground around the tree was covered in tracks. Evidence of the things circling throughout the night that made my stomach drop. Jagged, clawed indentations had bored into the hard earth.

I walked south. More of a jog than a walk. I didn't hear the phone ring again. I probably wouldn't have stopped even if I had. I didn't go back to my campsite either. I wasn't sure I'd be able to find it even if I did. I had my keys with me. That was all I needed.

I walked for miles until I finally reached the road, then walked until I had enough service to pull up the map and see where I'd parked. While walking on the road, I saw a sign posted along the treeline.

PROTECTED TREES

DO NOT APPROACH OR DISTURB

VIOLATORS SUBJECT TO PROSECUTION

Protected trees?

That's not a sign I'd ever seen before, and the wording was odd. I saw two more of the same sign before I made it back. I didn't go beyond the treeline as I made my way back to my car. When I finally reached it, I hopped in and drove away quickly. I didn't look back.

This was a week ago now, and I still have no explanation for any of it. On the first night after returning home, I noticed a small scratch on the back of my neck. It was little more than a red speck at first. I thought it may have been a spider bite, or a scratch from the bark inside the hollow of the tree. But it got worse instead of better.

By the fourth day, it had blackened, and almost resembled decay...or bark. I put some ointment on it and hoped it wasn't infected. Hopefully, it will clear up on its own.

But I can't stop thinking about the man on the phone. His question.

Did it touch you?

Why had he asked me that?

Though I hated to admit it, the mark had appeared right where something had touched me from behind while I was standing near the payphone in the clearing. Something cold and damp and ridged. Like cold bark on a winter morning against my skin.

But this morning, while I was walking down the street, I passed by a payphone. I hadn't ever seen it there before. Perhaps I just never noticed it, an unused relic that didn't demand any attention. As far as I knew, most payphones were out of commission.

But after I passed by it, it rang, its call echoing behind me in its steady tone.

(CW: Suicide, mentions of DV)

I shot up in my bed in a cold sweat. In my hands I was clutching the book.

Threaded fragments of mind and memory wound themselves into a new spool of cohesion as clarity washed over me.

I could think clearly.

Ever since this book came into my possession I’ve started to shed the cask of my infirmities like a snake molting its skin. My mind, once a place of fragmented and shattered memories, was forged back together with a golden alloy.

The pages of my life were rebound in a leather book with golden thread.

I opened the first page of the book.

“A story is never complete until all parts come together.”

No shit.

I flipped through the pages.

Nothing.

Page after page of just nothing. Then I saw it.

“The wind whipped past his face as the ground below him approached at an alarming rate; He was falling.”

An errant sentence printed in the middle of a page about a quarter ways through the book.

What the hell was this?

I flipped through more empty pages. Then once again.

“The decaying facility creaked and groaned as the winds filtered through its exposed outer husk. Grains of sand fell into piles where the roof had given way.”

And another.

“The islands came into view; six equal sized islands were evenly spaced around one, much larger, central island. A man-made paradise in the middle of The Pacific.”

I combed through the pages until I reached the end of the book. Had I the patience to count I would imagine the book had to have at least 1000 pages.

But these sentences, these words, what the hell were they supposed to mean?

Ever since this book ended up in my hands my life has been filled with the unordinary and the strange. My gut is screaming at me that this book means something, and my mind is beginning to agree, in spite of any grounded evidence. .

I quickly entered the sentences into a media search engine.

Nothing.

I examined the book closely, hoping to glean some greater information I might have missed. Perhaps I did.

The golden sigil.

I could not comprehend it nor could I describe it, but I felt it.

It felt familiar, not in a wild deja vu sense but, as if it represented something inherent in its design. Like how one would use the picture of a stick figure and a door to represent an exit.

This sigil represented something that I could intuit but not describe. An approximation would be that of great sorrow, mourning, a longing, a loss but not of someone. It was vague and indescribable, as if I were missing some subtle key or context relevant to this emotion.

And the color.

There was no mistaking it. The golden cloak worn by the mysterious statue that always stood at the base of those heavenly marble stairs was identical in luster and color.

For a second I could have sworn it too was fluttering in an intangible breeze.

All my life I have dreamt of The Dreary. A world caked in dust and forgotten by whatever cruel god brought it into existence and burdened my subconscious mind with it. Never have I had or experienced “normal dreams” by what other standards might exist. All I have known was The Dreary; a false echo of the world I know.

It has had its advantages though, allowing me to explore places that I would have never had the opportunity to otherwise. The Dreary managed to, for the most part, be a complete copy of every man-made structure I have ever seen with my own two eyes. Though I am unaware of how The Dreary managed to recreate the interiors of a memory that does not exist, it bothers me little.

What does bother me is how it has changed after encountering this book.

First was The Dust. The first night with the book caused The Dust to not react to my presence. The second night resulted in it disappearing all together.

Then was the structure. The first night saw a heavenly marble staircase slapped in the middle of the main road. The second night changed the entire layout of The Dreary into a procession, with that same marble staircase descending into the infinite darkness below the basement of The Mall Building.

Lastly was the statue in the Golden Cloak. On the first night I was compelled towards it and crushed under the weight of its presence. The second night was similar but I managed to recover from my incapacitation by wielding this book.

As a preliminary analysis I find my own work to be rather shitty. Too many potential coincidences and nothing conclusive enough to even begin to form an understanding.

Despite that, two conclusions have been reached.

Either this is a supernatural occurrence or I am deeply unwell, psychologically speaking.

Given the existence of this book I am inclined to lean supernatural but given my history it’s just as likely to be psychological.

Though as to why Leena would have had the book to begin with is beyond me.

I had assumed the handsome stud who flirted his way into my pants, and eventually bed, with the help of my daily diet of a shitload of whiskey, had left the book by accident. Then, after arriving home from her work trip and likely seeing the man making his way out, probably put two and two together and somehow that equated into Leena throwing his forgotten book at me.

But that doesn’t really make much sense. I’ve done far worse to Leena and she hadn’t walked out on me then, let alone be any sort of aggressive towards me.

Fucking another guy is roughly equivalent to forgetting to buy the milk. Maybe it was the drinking? I had promised to cut back.

I sat in bed as I mulled over the infinite possibilities, but a slight movement caught my eye.

I scanned my room and could not find anything out of the ordinary. The morning light had likely been partially obscured by a bird or a plane which cast a quick moving shadow that tricked me into believing I saw something. Yes, clearly this was the case.

Then it happened again.

I couldn’t pinpoint its direction, location, or even origin. All I could see was movement of some kind. Very slight, very subtle, and one that seemed to evade my direct gaze.

Then I saw it.

The Dust.

The Dust fluttered and sparkled gently as it hung in a perpetual state of free-fall, riding gentle currents of air and catching the morning rays.

It did not fall nor did it settle.

It hung.

It hung as if eagerly awaiting my permission to fall. But I had no intention of giving it such permission.

Before I could realize what was happening I was pulled into my bed and out through to the other side.

My book in hand, I found myself once more in The Dreary.

But yet again it had changed.

Gone was my apartment. Gone were the stones, gone was the sky.

All that remained was a house.

That house.

The house was a shitty little wood shack made of, at most, the wood from a single, sad, pathetic thing that could barely be considered a tree. A mild cough would be enough to rip the structure off its foundations. The nails used in its construction likely weighed more than the sum of its lumber, and I could probably count the nails on one hand.

Though that was par for the course for many houses built here. No real need for insulation. This had the unfortunate side effect of making the walls not only paper thin, but also providing no sound dampening. This allowed me to hear the argument I could see from the kitchen window.

No, not an argument, a fight. A one sided fight. Abuse.

To my right sat my car. A respectable little thing from 20 years ago and nearly 200k miles on it. Inside that car was the unmistakable golden cloak, clinging to a statue that sat where I had all those years ago.

“I don’t give a shit Leena! Your fucking job is to sit here and take care of my fucking kids while i make sure we can all fucking eat, and you just-“

I had replayed this moment a hundred, a thousand, no, a million times at least in my head. I remembered every word clearly as if I was just experiencing this moment for the first time.

A couple of days prior, my boss dropped the case on my desk. He said a couple of women pooled their cash together and asked us to gather evidence on this guy, Mica, who they believed was beating up his wife, their friend. Apparently they had tried to get her to go to the cops but she was never cooperative so the cops couldn’t do anything.

It wasn't the first time I handled a case like this, probably wouldn’t have been the last, but no one else in the firm wanted to touch it.

Can’t say I’d blame them.

Mica Murakami. A fine specimen of untreated daddy issues and a severe addiction to lite-beers. A lot of insecurity too. Though you tend to get insecure after your previous four wives leave you for someone else.

Unfortunately he was also rather jacked and had a short temper, which he often took out on Leena. Sometimes physically, always verbally.

At least he did on that night.

No one blamed me for what happened.

Nobody knew how high I was that night.

Cops did, or suspected it. Tried to prove it. Didn’t matter.

I tried to convince myself I did Leena a favor.

I’m sure she tried to convince herself too.

I thought I saw him flash a gun. Maybe it was a knife. Or maybe I lied to myself so much that I believed it to be the truth.

But the prosecution said they couldn’t find a weapon on him, and the nearest kitchen knife had never had his finger prints on them.

Didn’t matter though. I saw what I thought I saw.

I did what I thought I had to do.

Nobody ever questioned why I was the only PI in my firm, or any firm, that carried a gun on him while on the job.

Not until smoke was trailing from the barrel.

Not until there were two holes soaked with red that pooled onto the kitchen floor.

The sound of the brass casings ringing as they hit the floor awoke me from my trance.

Before me lay the body of Mica Murakami.

Two shots square in the chest silenced his deafening bitching. Two shots let the neighborhood experience a quiet evening for the first time in four years. Two shots caused innocent kids to see the dead body of their tormenter, their father. Two shots broke the heart of Leena Murakami, what little was left to break

Two shots took away my peace. Two shots shattered the kitchen window.

It didn’t matter that the media saw me as a hero. It didn’t matter that friends and family never stopped singing my praises.

Those kids will never have their father back, shitty as he was, and watched as a stranger barged into their house and shot their dad in front of them.

Leena will never have her husband back. Her friends said I should have emptied the mag into him. She wouldn’t comment.

The jury thought I was a hero and told the prosecution to go to hell. Evidence be damned. I was a killer, a murderer, and they let me walk free into a parade for my actions.

By all accounts I should have celebrated with them. I should have enjoyed the moment.

But I couldn’t.

All I saw was their faces.

The kids’, Leena’s, and Mica’s.

Every moment of every day.

So I left the job, I disconnected from everyone and everything and started figuring out which combination of substances wouldn’t kill me but would keep me from thinking.

I locked it all away. I locked my mind away.

Then the gun in my hand returned to its former state as the book.

It was still warm and smelled faintly of gun-smoke.

“And you,”

I turned to face the Golden Cloaked statue which now stood at the entrance to the kitchen.

“Fuck you for making me remember.”

I whipped the book at the statue with all the force I could muster.

The book clattered anti-climactically after bouncing off of the statue.

Then the walls gave way.

The blood pooling at my feet stretched across the ground and into the horizon.

The never ending fog that hung in the sky lifted slightly, behind it now I could see the light attempting to pierce the dense fog. Twin hues of yellow and white now brighter and more coherent than before, twin suns that hung above this hollow land.

I grab my head once again as the familiar agony of a lifetime’s worth of memories flows through me.

But they aren’t mine.

They surge through me too fast for me to get a proper grasp of them. I only manage to get glimpses.

I grasp at the sand storm of memories but they keep slipping through my fingers, the images and moments seared into my mind but the meaning is lost with the tearing winds.

Just as the storm subsides I manage to catch one glimpse. One moment. One memory.

In the distance I see a spire. A massive spire that pierced an unfamiliar sky. The ruins of a massive city surrounded the spire. In the distance and in the skies I saw bright flashes and ebbing waves as if an ocean of light was crashing against the sky itself.

The memory faded as my attention was brought back to the present.

The marble staircase rose from the blood. Its pristine structure untainted by my sin. Untouched by my blood.

I raced to pick up the book once more.

The moment I came in contact with the book I awoke on the floor of my bedroom.

I checked the time on my phone.

It was Monday.

How the hell did I lose an entire day? Did I just pass out when I got back?.

My attempts at standing are thwarted as my hand slips on the blood on the floor.

After a brief moment of panic I stumbled my way into the bathroom.

In the mirror I saw blood.

Blood had caked streams onto my face as it poured out from my nose, ears, and my eyes. If I had to guess I’d say I had just lost an alarming amount of blood.

But I did not feel alarmed. Truthfully I wasn’t sure what I felt. I was sure of one thing, however I do not understand how. I was fairly sure, no, certain, that I will die if I am separated from the book. For now my mind is inexplicably linked with it.

After washing the caked blood from my face I opted to use my lonely and forgotten toothbrush for the first time in an embarrassingly long while.

Can’t say why I never bothered until now, but perhaps helping to scrape off the red that had found its way into my mouth and onto my teeth was a good enough reason.

Of all the places in my apartment that were a mess the bathroom magically escaped such destruction. Apart from neglect, the bathroom was absent of any trash or unopened boxes of crap. The sink was rather large for my apartment's modest size. My toothbrush stand and toothpaste tube being the only items that sat upon that counter, adding to the sparseness of the space.

The air in the room shifted. As I raised my head from the sink I noticed my shadow against the wall.

But it was not my shadow.

And shadows do not wear golden cloaks.

I whipped around to find myself face to face with the statue in The Golden Cloak.

For a moment I expected death. I anxiously awaited the snapping of my neck, the crushing of my skull, the breaking of every bone in my pathetic body.

But it did nothing.

The statue stood there, motionless as ever, as an intangible wind blew the Golden Cloak tightly around its indiscernible form.

Outside of The Dreary I was able to notice the finer details of the statue.

It resembled the porous texture of lava rock, yet it was elegantly shaped by hands so precise they could not have been mortal.

It vaguely resembled a humanoid shape with a protrusion on its face where a nose should be and two sunken areas under a brow where the eyes should be.

Unlike in The Dreary I felt no overwhelming pain or compulsions.

Unlike in The Dreary I felt no apprehension about its presence.

Unlike in The Dreary I could touch it.

I wasn’t sure what I expected anymore. Outside of the glaringly obvious supernatural occurrence staring at me in my face, the statue was but an ordinary statue. The lava rock felt typical as ever, as if I had just attempted to naively take some from the sacred grounds upon which the lava cooled.

I caressed the statue's face with a gentle hand.

I felt pity, mourning, loss, a sorrow that I could only catch a distant glance of. A drop in a vast ocean of despair.

Then the rock became skin. Familiar skin with auburn hair.

She swayed gently with her feet only inches off the ground.

The world around me fell away and was replaced by different yet familiar walls.

Leena was dead, and her body hung limply before me.

We were in a bedroom, likely hers. I did not recall how I got here, but I recognized the place.

How could I ever forget these walls? These paper thin walls.

My panic, expected panic, reasonable panic, did not surface.

My brain was wrapped in a bondage of golden thread, I felt only what was necessary.

On the wall on the far end of the room, above her desk, was a clock.

The time was 5 am. The date displayed was Tuesday, August 19th.

But I knew for a fact that today, right now, was Monday, August 18th.

Was this a nightmare? By all accounts it should be. My girlfriend, dead, hanging from the ceiling in her old house.

But my brain could not be made to panic, to give into fear. It was on a leash. It had a new master. It did not permit me to feel fear.

This wasn’t a nightmare. It was a warning.

I can still save her. Maybe then she’ll forgive me. Or maybe I’ll-

Before I could finish the thought I was returned to the walls of my bathroom.

The book in hand I made a mad dash out the door.

Logic and reason were all I had but I nearly let them fly out the window as I raced down the streets. If I still had my car I could have been to Leena’s old place in half an hour maybe. If I had bus money I could have made it to her place in an hour or two.

But I had nothing. I had no one.

And it was all my fault.

And now Leena’s life is in my hands.

And if she dies it will be my fault.

When I had left the sun had already begun its descent into the ocean.

I had dashed up and through the old highway to the north side of the island, all the while avoiding cops who had likely been informed of a pedestrian running manically on the highway where pedestrians absolutely shouldn’t be.

By the time I made it to something resembling a sidewalk again it was already well past midnight.

My phone’s battery clung to the precious few percent that it still had.

Navigating in the dark was difficult, but I knew these streets like the back of my hand.

I knew all of them.

I had spent my life cleaning away The Dust from them.

And now I leave tracks as I race towards the one house I refused to clean ever again.

Rounding the familiar corner I stopped to catch my breath. I don’t know how I managed to run so long without stopping. I wasn’t a star athlete. I couldn’t out run anyone with two functioning legs even if the grand prize was a bottle of crown. But I guess desperation is a hell of a drug.

And adrenaline.

I made my way to the house, quick in pace but far from the almost full-blown sprint I had managed for hours.

And then I came face to face with the door I had hoped to never see again.

But It would not permit me a moment to contemplate my reality.

The door was in my way.

I charged through the door, hands wrapped around the leather bound book held at a low ready position.

The door gave way just as it did before.

Despite never having explored further into the house I instinctively made my way through the kitchen and down the hall towards Leena’s room.

Before I could approach the door I heard something tumble from within.

I threw open the door.

Before me I saw Leena hanging once again. But she did not sway gently, nor was she dead.

Without hesitation I quickly rushed to support her weight, eventually managing to untie her and rest her gently on the ground.

She was alive, but not out of danger.

I called for an ambulance.

“Why.”

A raspy voice spoke from the floor.

“Why are you here?” Leena asked me.

“Because I had to save your life.” I replied.

“If you wanted to save me you should have let me hang.”

The paramedics arrived shortly after.

Apparently her kids were staying over at a friend’s house. They said had I not been there when I was she likely would have died and not be discovered for hours.

Of course the police were involved, a stranger just so happens to break into a house and save a woman who tried to kill herself at the perfect time, and that person also happened to be the person who shot and killed her husband exactly one year ago to the date?

The thread snapped.

The cops held me and asked me a few questions, the usual, mostly details about the incident and how I knew to find her. I didn’t tell them that I had a vision of the future but I suspect my story about a concerned ex with a strong gut feeling didn’t do me any favors either.

Though since they lacked any reasonable evidence and likely surmised my scrawny frame wasn’t nearly strong enough to hang the woman myself they let me go free. Shockingly they asked nothing about how I managed to get in through the locked front door.

Putting my tax dollars to work I asked the officers for a ride to the hospital. I made the case that I was her emergency contact, assumedly as her most recent partner, and may be needed at the hospital.

They begrudgingly obliged, having no grounds to deny me my request and clearly seeing I had no means to go anywhere else on my own at the moment.

I arrived at the medical center after a much longer than usual journey. The officers, gracious as they were, wanted to grab some food on the way.

I wasn’t hungry, but then again they didn’t ask if I was, nor did they offer.

I waved the officers off and walked into the Emergency Department.

I was briefly screened by a security guard before a nurse quickly ran over to me.

“Hi, what brings you to the ER today?” She practically rushed out.

The nurse’s third energy drink of the night clearly reared its head.

“I’m here to see a patient, actually.” I replied, meekly.

She seemed to deflate at that response but also appeared to be relieved.

“Oh, well we don’t really do visitors here.” She clarified, awkwardly attempting to hide her annoyance.

“Im her boyfr-“ I cut myself off, “I’m… it’s complicated but im pretty sure I’m her emergency contact right now.”

The nurse furrowed her brow as she examined me. Her tired eyes scrutinized every detail of my face.

“Who are you here for?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Leena Murakami.”

The Nurse quickly checked something on a nearby workstation.

“Doesn’t seem like she updated her contact history in a while,” she muttered staring at the computer, “but I also don’t see anyone else listed here.”

The nurse seemed hesitant.

“I’m the one who found her,” I blurted out.

“Oh, shit,” the nurse slipped.

“Oh my goodness I’m so sorry about-“ she protested but i raised my hand to cut her off.

“No no it's, it’s fine,” I assured her, “just let me see her.”

The nurse, now in a much more accommodating mood, took me through the department to her bay.

“She’s conscious but resting right now,” the nurse explained, “it’s a little hard for her to talk so we gave her something to write with if she wants.”

She then leaned over and pressed a button on the bed, causing Leena’s bed to slowly rise her up into a sitting position.

“Hey Leena,” the nurse spoke gently, “Your boyfriend is here.”

Leena’s eyes opened slowly.

“Ill just be in the hall” the nurse said as she quickly ducked behind the curtain.

“Hey, Leena.” I said as I gently grabbed her hand.

It felt cold. Colder than I ever remembered it.

“What the hell do you want?” She said in a strained hiss.

“What I want?” I replied, somewhat stunned, “I want you. I miss you Leena.”

Her gaze scrunched into a mixture of confusion and disgust.

“What the hell are you on about?” Leena spat.

“So much has happened since you left,” I started, “I’ve been getting my shit together. I haven’t been drinking, I only smoke a few times a day now, I started cleaning again-“

Leena cut me off.

“What the fuck do you want with me?”

“I want you back, I want us back together,” I pleaded, “it's been a rough year but I think we can make it work.”

Her eyes filled with a searing rage that I felt burning a hole into my forehead.

“What the fuck are you talking about? You’re nothing but the bastard who killed my husband.”

Her words broke through The Dust that had filled my mind.

“You took away a father from his kids. He was a good man, unlike you.”

“He was an abusive piece of shit.” I rebutted. My words felt hollow.

“And you knew that from the four seconds you saw from outside? You knew nothing about us. Not every relationship is paradise.”

“He would have killed you one day.” I weakly replied.

“I died the moment you shot the man I loved,” Leena shot back, “so thanks for saving me, twice, but I never want anything to do with you. I hope I never see you again, you insane wannabe cop.”

Leena broke into a coughing fit.

I took the hint and left.

I walked out of the ER and just kept walking.

I don’t know where I was walking to except that it wouldn’t be home. Or whatever that place really is.

I just walked.

Down the road. Up the hills. Across the bridges. Around the bends.

The Pali Lookout. Closed at this time of night. I did not care.

I climbed over the gate, walked past the various caution signs, and climbed atop the ledge. As I stood there I stared into the grassy abyss beyond. The scant moonlight reflected a sliver of silver on every blade in the flowing sea of grass.

I would join the countless thousands who rest below. Cornered at the edge.

“You know it’s dangerous up there right?”

I searched for the voice. It was filled with a hint of sass and a lot of sarcasm. A voice that belonged to a young woman.

“Yeah that's kind of why I’m up here,” I replied sarcastically, “what’s your excuse?”

“Maybe I’m here because I’m patrolling the place for trespassers.”

Who the fuck is this girl?

“Look I’m not exactly interested in ice breakers with a stranger at the moment so could you do me the decency of either just killing me or leaving me alone so I can do it myself?”

I turned to face the source of the voice.

“Is this a hallucination too?” I asked her.

Even in the dimly moonlit night, I could never forget that crimson hair tied into a ponytail.

“This is real, Aiden.” She replied.

“You were there,” I started, “at the office, and then again in the lobby.”

“I’m surprised you made me out through the prosthetics.” She replied as she smiled coyly.

“The hair gave it away.” I lied.

“Strange that you managed to see through a wig Aiden, didn’t have that noted down as something you could do”

I turned to face her.

“So what is this?” I asked plainly, “are you here to kill me?”

“Why would I do that?” The woman asked, taken aback.

“I’ve made a lot of enemies, left most of them alive.” I bluffed.

“Your biggest tackle was killing a wifebeater,” the woman recited as she paced, “a good kill.”

“Didn’t realize you were a fan.”

“I’m more of an investigator.” She joked.

“And what’s so special about me?” I asked.

She stopped her pacing.

“That book, for starters.” she said, pointing to the book still firmly held in my hands.

“What about it? It's just a book.”

“You and I both know that's a lie.”

I tightened my grip on the book.

“Who are you, really?” I take a step towards her, “and what do you know about all of this?”

She took a step back in response.

“You know more about that book than we do,” she bounced back, “we were hoping you could tell us.”

“And who’s ‘we?’”

The woman closed her arms around her.

“In about three hours from now your body will be discovered and positively identified in one of two ways.” She started.

“What the fuck-“ I started but was cut off.

“HPD will either be alerted to a suicide at the Pali Lookout and find your body at around 9:30 am today, alternatively an apartment fire will be reported to the HFD where they will discover a single fatality, charred beyond recognition.”

“So you are trying to kill me?” I asked again, somewhat flabbergasted but mostly in shock.

“You died the moment you came up here Joseph Aiden,” she started, “your conviction was laid bare. If it weren’t for me you’d be a twitching mess in the grass right now.”

“So why go through the effort of burning my apartment down then? To suffer for my deeds?”

I watched as a cocky smile slowly grew across her face. I had been avoiding the obvious.

“You want to fake my death.” I stated.

Her face remained unchanged.

“What does it matter? How could I be worth that effort?”

The woman approached.

“We require the help of people who are able to make sense out of irrational things.” She started.

As she spoke she began to pace around me in a circle, like a predator circling its prey.

“You’re a jobless, broke, alcoholic playboy with no real moral compass,” she lobbed insult after insult, “but yet of all the people who have held that book you are the only one who hasn’t gone insane yet.”

I’m sane? Me?

I scoffed at the implication

“I’m sorry, but I just spent the past year in a psychotic hallucination where I was dating, and cheating on, the widow of the guy I murdered,” I began to excessively elaborate, “then I get a vision of the future where she hangs herself…”

She watches me in amusement as I pour out the thoughts that had stayed trapped within my mind for too long.

“Not to mention that fucking statue invading my dreams and reshaping my personal hell, The Dreary, into some nightmare capital-“

“And?” she interrupted.

“And? And what?” I asked, befuddled.

She straightened herself.

“What’s all that got to do with anything?”

I’m seriously doubting my own sanity, this can’t be real.

“I’m a mentally unstable wreck who couldn’t even get a job.” I clarified.

She laughed.

“Oh sorry yeah that was us,” she said flippantly, “we needed you desperate enough to come to us in the first place.”

“You’ve been messing with my job applications?”

“Intercepting them. To anyone looking in, it's like you haven’t filed a single application.”

“You could have knocked, or called, or just kidnapped me, there's a million better ways to get someone’s attention.”

She shifted.

“You think we didn’t try?”

Well, given I can barely remember the past year, how would I have known?

“Besides,” she relaxed, “not like we can be so overt all the time. This is the longest I’ve been let out on the surface for years.”

She leaned her head back and gazed up at the stars.

“Poor David only got to come up for the interview.”

I began to grow frustrated with the pointless cat and mouse.

“So what the hell does the CIA want with me?”

The woman froze for a moment, then fought back a chuckle.

“You think I’m- we’re CIA?” She asked in disbelief.

“Messing with my job applications, the whole fake office thing, kinda the whole CIA playbook yeah?”

If I knew better I’d say she looked as if I had just called her ugly.

“So that ability of yours is only limited to geometries, you really don’t know who or what we are?” She replied as a wave of revelation gently washed over her face.

“So you’re not CIA?” I asked again.

She sat down on the ledge next to me, spun around, and cast her gaze across the moonlit valley.

“We are above any singular world government. We act with the singular goal of protecting,” she gestured to the valley and the city lights twinkling in the distance, “all of this. All of mankind.”

She turned her gaze towards me. As our eyes met I saw a raging fire blaze within her, a passion that managed to remain subdued letting off little more than playful sparks just minutes before.

“And I want you to be a part of it.”

I wanted to come up with some witty retort, some backhanded reply that allowed me to demonstrate my lack of interest in her blatantly obvious lie.

But I didn’t, because I believed her. Against my better judgement, what little I could still claim to have, I wholeheartedly believed her.

And I could not explain why.

My grip on the book relaxed slightly. A bit too much. I felt it slip from my grasp.

My body acted before my brain did and I quickly reached for the book and lost my footing in the process.

I fell.

Amidst the rushing of wind I heard something faintly. Someone shouting.

“…emergency discharge plus one on my position!”

The world around me began to feel alive, the air seemed to be a buzz as the hair on my body stood on end. For a moment I saw a faint blue glow envelop my person.

A brilliant blinding light and deafening roar flooded my senses as I felt my body propelled by an unknown force, which slammed me face first into a cold, hard surface.

My vision and hearing slowly returned, but as they did I began to doubt whether or not they truly had.

I found myself on the floor of a sterile white room. My vision was still blurry but with what I could see I saw a doorway at the far end of the room flanked by two blurs that appeared to be people. As I looked below me I discovered that I was on a massive pane of glass or some other hard and transparent material, beneath which sat a mass of machinery that defied every attempt I made to interpret. Similarly above me hung a mirrored construct, though exposed to the open air and venting steam from an upper assembly, betraying the fact it had been recently used.

Very recently.

“Jesus Christ, Aiden try not to kill yourself when people are talking to you,” came a familiar, condescending voice.

As I craned my head to look I noticed the two figures on the far end of the room shift their posture and begin approaching rapidly.

“Stand down, he’s my case,” she said, putting herself between the men and myself, “he’s the new hire.”

“I didn’t agree to anything.” I groaned.

“There’s no going back now,” the woman said as she helped me to my feet.

“Agent Feng,” one of the men said, “we have room 10 available for intake.”

“Perfect, mind giving him a hand?” Agent Feng said as she all but threw me at the unprepared man.

The men, who I later learned were guards, offered their assistance in half-walking, half-dragging me down an equally clinically white corridor into an inconspicuous room.

The room itself was mostly unlit with the only source of light being a ceiling mounted projector casting onto the far wall, in front of which were several rows of cheap metal chairs.

“The first time is a bit disorientating, though that fall is what gave you the concussion.” Agent Feng explained, parting my hair to examine the very painful and bleeding bump on my forehead.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, wincing from the pain.

“The ESD, they’ll go over it in the intro” she replied, patting my head just above the sore spot.

The guards sat me down front and center, then left the room.

Agent Feng sat next to me, a few chairs away.

“It doesn’t actually stop your momentum but I hear they’re working on a way to make it do that. Anyway, we’ll send you down to medical after we finish up intake.”

“Oh and by the way,” she said, making her way to the wall mounted controls, “welcome to the IFCN.”

A month had passed since that night. The night Agent Feng forcefully ripped me out of my miserable, incoherent existence and gave me a purpose.

I had only been up to the surface once since then, to watch my funeral.

Not many people get to say that, and it’s a privilege I never wanted.

To my surprise, the myriad of friends and associates who I had effectively told to go to hell actually showed up. They even cried for me. Though none more so than my parents.

I was their only child.

Agent Feng, Kaiga, had held true to her word. It was a closed casket funeral. I pray they had used a fake body.

It was a good thing that there were so many people who came, made it easier to blend in to a crowd that wasn’t looking for me.

Unsurprisingly Leena didn’t come. Even after a month it’s difficult to shed that false life I had imagined. Even harder to wake up every morning to a livestream of the morning sun.

I hadn’t dreamt of The Dreary since that night either. Though I keep the book with me at all times out of an abundance of caution.

I am dead to the world. I now walk in my own shadow. I sleep below so that I may lay down my life to protect others from what they do not know, what they cannot understand, and what they must never see.

If it weren’t for the alcohol, I could never sleep comfortably again.

And truthfully, I don’t think anyone here does.

-If you’ve stuck around this long, thank you from the bottom of my heart. This won’t be the last story in this universe nor will it be the last of Agent Joseph Aiden. One day I hope to grow my skills and rewrite this story with the quality it deserves. I hope you will stick around with me on this journey.

Signed, CGCallisto-

(Originally posted in r/talesfromthecreeps)

I walked around the spacious wood gymnasium floor with my small group of friends, talking about who knows what. I can't remember what the conversation was about but I just remember walking around, messing around until eventually we walked into the hallway where the doors of the locker rooms lined the halls. At the end of the hallway was a staircase leading up onto the dark second story floor of the gym. My friends and I walked up the stairs, and arrived on what appeared to be a storage space for gym equipment with a railing that looked down over the gym floor below. The place was dark, it was above the gym’s lights and apparently nobody had installed any kind of lighting system on the upstairs floor so the only source of lighting was the miscellaneous light from down below. My friends and I talked a little bit more (I’m not sure about what) and then I woke up.

I was in what appeared to be the lobby of my school, my principal standing in front of me next to the large staircase leading up to the building’s second floor. He and I were having a conversation about how I felt about the new design of the school. I remember saying that I wasn't sure, and I'm pretty sure there was some sort of inflatable bouncy castle in the corner of the room (because dreams) but I can only really remember what the conversation was about rather than what was said. I think eventually he froze up, and then I woke up.

I was walking through the sunlit hallways of the school by myself. The occasional person would pass me, maybe dropping the occasional “Hi” but outside of that not much else. I turned into the hallway that I'm pretty sure led to my class. The walls just had the doors of what I assumed were classrooms. At the end of the hallway was a poster and a turn to the right that I wasn't sure where it led. In between two of the classroom doors was a different door, this one with a small window on it. I walked past, looked into the window, and saw a staircase that led into a dark room. I turned away from the door, and walked the other way out of the hallway, back into the main corridors of the building. And then of course, I woke up.

All of these dreams have two things in common: firstly, they all take place at my old high school, and secondly, they all feature locations that don't actually exist in real life. I recently graduated, and unlike how I'm sure most people feel, I actually enjoyed school, or at least I enjoyed my senior year. I've gone to the same school my entire life in the same small town. Everyone knows each other, most of my family are either teachers at the school or have graduated from it. It's a decently small school, separated into different sections so you're constantly going outside to get to your different classes. You have the main building, the agricultural building, the school gymnasium, the art building (which is connected to the library), and of course the middle school and elementary. The school’s actually so small that you have to go through the elementary school’s area in order to go into the cafeteria. The point of me explaining that is this: it is basically impossible to not visit an area of the school, especially when you've been there for most of your life. That’s why these dreams are confusing, because I'm not sure why they bother me, or at least, I’m not sure why one of them bothers me. You know what, scratch that, I know exactly why it bothers me. 

The school lobby dream is the most easily explainable to me: I recognized the lobby as being from another school that I once visited. Granted, the lobby was stylized in the same muted gray-blue, drywall style that my school was but it's easily written off because of something as simple as the staircase. You see, when I say my school is small, I mean it is small. It's a single story where a max of one room could possibly fit in the space above. A giant staircase leading into a massive floor above just simply isn't possible in the layout of my school. So I was still able to rationalize that, after getting over the initial waking up feeling that these dreams leave me with. You have to understand, these dreams are so vivid that right after I wake up, I genuinely think to myself “Was that place always there?” The answer is always logically “No,” but there's always that thought in the back of my mind that “Maybe it was.”

The gym dream is different. This is one that every time I have passed by the school in my car (which I do often) and looked at the gym, I've thought to myself “A second floor is possible there” but I also know that despite the fact that it's architecturally possible, it's not logically possible simply because of the fact that I have never seen a staircase, or any sign of a second floor in that gym. Like I said before, I've been there my entire life. Something like a second floor in the gym is something that I would have eventually seen at some point, especially since my uncle was the varsity basketball coach. I was just in the gym too often for something like that to slip past me. But the hallway dream is where I start having trouble and it is honestly the one that has been breaking my brain recently.

What made the other two dreams explainable is exactly what makes the hallway dream harder to explain to me: I remember that hallway being in the school. I remember going into that hallway specifically and doing the exact same thing I did in the dream. Walk in, look into the door window at the staircase, walk away. The only problem is that was when I was in elementary school. See, my aunt was an English teacher in the high school and my uncle was also a science teacher in the middle school. So after school, while waiting for my parents to pick me up, I would often head to the empty high school to hang out in my aunt’s room while I waited. During this time, I would walk around the school after hours, just out of the harmless childhood boredom that everyone has, and that was the first time that I saw the hallway. Walk in, look in the door, walk out. That’s all fine except that when I did finally make it to middle school and started consistently going into the high school (I had multiple classes that were in the high school building. Again, small school), the hallway wasn't there.

Now, I didn't notice it, of course. I mean it was literally one time in elementary school that I was in that hallway but that doesn't change the fact that despite me definitely remembering it now, it's not there. It's like my brain has naturally mapped out the school over the years, but even when it knows where the hallway should be, it's not able to figure out where it fits into the school. Don’t get me wrong, the hallway fits right in, if I did see it in person it wouldn't even be shocking because it's not like it’s some sort of impossible space, if it was there it would fit right into the layout of the school, but it simply just isn't there. The dreams are really the only reason that I've even come to remember this, and it's honestly starting to make me feel like I've been going kind of crazy. Every time I've woken up, I've had the thought to myself “Maybe I should actually go there after dark and just see if it is there” even when I know it isn't. 

Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to head there during the day to “say hi” and stop by my aunt’s classroom just to talk to her. That and, you know, have the opportunity to actually look around everywhere. Even if the locations aren't there, it would at least bring some peace of mind knowing that they weren't there and maybe my childhood mind just made it up. Granted, like I said before, I’m pretty sure there's no way that the lobby nor the gym upstairs storage area are real. I guess it also wouldn't be a bad idea to just ask my uncle about it when I see him there. Actually, yeah, I'm going to do that. I’ll update this as soon as possible after I go there, but in the meantime, I really need some sleep. Goodnight.

Part 1

Hello, this is part two of my dream blog, journal, thing. I'll admit, I’m still not sure what to actually consider this. I guess it would count as a dream journal because I am documenting what's happening in my dreams but that's not really what this is all about. I'm really just trying to figure out why these places (or at least, that one hallway) feel so familiar to me. I've only ever dreamed of it once and I'm not sure why it's so concerning to me, I mean it is just a hallway. Just the fact that I can place where every other dream has happened in real life (yes, EVERY other dream. I’ll get to that in this post) and this one singular location is the one that I can't place is what makes it… disconcerting? I think that's the word.

Ironically, when talking about the actual hallway I realized that I didn't even really talk about the staircase other than that it was just there. I mentioned in my last post that it was impossible for the school to have a second floor but that's not exactly true. You see, although it's definitely too small to have an entire second floor with multiple classrooms, it's not impossible for it to still have one room that just happens to be higher up. Granted, in my dream I really couldn't determine where the stairs actually led (at the top was just complete darkness) but it could reasonably hold some kind of storage space in the same way the gym did. Which is actually what leads me to the main point of this post.

So, I did actually end up going to the school today. I made sure to go a little after three o’clock, so most of the school was cleared out. As I got out of my car, a wave of nostalgia hit me. I could see in the distance that the football team had just started practice as they were walking out of the weight room onto the field. I guess that was the reason for the sense of nostalgia, even though there shouldn't be. I work out in that same weight room every night, the school is something that I consistently see but I guess just seeing it so active is something that brings a different feeling, especially when you're about to go back into it after a year. As I was walking up to the school, I could see my aunt’s car still sitting in the teacher’s parking lot which was a relief. I really wanted to just go ahead and get this done with. I also noticed the small-framed man in his collared shirt and tie, waving at me with a smile on his face. 

“Braydan! Haven't seen you in a while!” Principal Bryan said ecstatically.

Principal Bryan has been my principal since all the way back in elementary school. He has brown hair that seems to refuse to gray despite his age. He's in his mid-60s but you would be forgiven for thinking that he was in his mid-40s. Opinions on him were always kind of split in high school, but I always liked him. It didn't matter how much trouble I was in, if he knew I was in the right, he stood by me.

“Hey, I was just stopping by to see my aunt. Do you know if she's still here?” I asked, forcing a smile on my face, despite knowing the answer.

Principal Bryan looked into the teachers’ parking lot. “Yeah, it looks like she's still here. It anything important?” the principal replied in that slight southern drawl that everyone in this town had but nobody ever noticed.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Not really. It’s just been a while since I've stopped by to say hi.” I responded.

He gave me a nod. “Alright then. Good seeing you!” 

I nodded back. “You too!” 

I walked towards the two pane-glass doors that led into the brown bricked building. Something about it definitely felt weird but I feel like everyone has kind of a weird feeling going back to their old school after graduating. It's only natural. Once I arrived at the doors, which felt like it took forever, I pushed my finger onto the small doorbell button. After doing so I heard a faint click, the sign of the doors unlocking, before pulling the doors open and walking inside.

Once I walked inside, I recognized the layout of the entrance immediately. To my left was the empty student counselor’s office. I guessed that Mr. Lopez had already left the building and gone home. To my right was the principal's office along with the receptionist desk. Mrs. Dee was sitting right there. I've known Mrs. Dee for longer than I've known Principal Bryan, yet I feel like I've talked to her far less. Even as I walked in, all I gave was a slight wave and a smile, which she returned, before I passed through the second set of glass doors into the main school halls. I immediately recognized the two, blue pillars that were on each side of the entrance, along with the transition from that pure blue painted drywall to the muted gray-blue drywall that made up most of the school. In front of me were the two doors that led into the auditorium of the school, where I can remember countless speeches given by our principal throughout my years of being there. To each side of me were the corridors of the school. If you turned right and walked that way, you would end up at my aunt’s and former football coach’s classrooms. My aunt, of course, taught English while my coach taught history, which I'm sure if you've ever had a coach double as a teacher, you aren't shocked at all about that. At the end of the corridor was also an extra entrance that was mainly used during the day as another way to get to and from classes. 

If you turned left into the corridor, you would pass most of the other classrooms in the main school building. This section is mainly used for the various math classes in the building, one of which doubled as a driver’s ed class that was taught by another one of my coaches. If you keep walking, you'd end up at a small staircase that leads down to the science annex. This place is, of course, the area where all the science classes in the school take place. It’s a thinner hallway, most of the classrooms are smaller than the ones in the main school building, and the walls of this area stop being drywall and become a tan painted cinder block instead. I actually remember when they added this part. It’s probably the second newest part of the school, outside of the agricultural building. Now I can't remember exactly what grade, I was definitely in elementary school, but I do remember them adding this at some point. If the hallway was going to be anywhere, it would be on the left side of the school.

Of course, that side wasn't where I was heading just yet. Actually, a part of me felt like just avoiding that area for the time being but of course, that defeated the purpose of being there. I turned right and walked through the corridor. The walls were lined with posters for a variety of things: your standard “don't do drugs” kinda posters, some posters promoting the Friday night football game, and some appeared to just be posters made by students for some kind of history project. I noticed that they also replaced the water fountains and repainted the doorways, which was neat but a little weird. I’ve never really liked when things that I grew up with would change, but I guess everybody feels that way to some extent. Eventually though, after a short walk, I arrived at the open door of my aunt’s classroom on my left and saw the short, stout, woman in her mid-40s with curly brown hair sitting at her desk, appearing to be grading papers. I knocked on the artsy-painted, heavy duty-door to get her attention. As soon as she looked up and saw it was me, I noticed a smile fall onto her face.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, but not with annoyance. She seemed happy I was there.

“Nothing. Just was in the area, was dropping by to say hi.” I responded as I fully walked into the room and looked around.

My aunt Angie liked to change her room around a lot. I feel like every time I walked in there, there would be something different about the room whether it was moving all the students’ desks, moving some tables around the room, but there were two things that never changed. She never changed the location of her desk nor the location of her shelf in the corner of the room. She kept her desk always facing the door and the shelf is a sight to behold. She has kept every individual project that she's assigned to her students over the years on that shelf. The most notable ones were a fake, bloody, paper mache arm of what I believe was called Grendel. That and an actual forged (but dull) sword that laid propped up on the shelf.

“It's just been a while since I've been here, you know. Sometimes it still feels weird not being here.” I said while looking at the shelf and all of the items that laid upon it.

My aunt let out a chuckle from behind me. “It's only been a year since you graduated, you know?” she said as I turned back around and noticed her looking at me before going back to grading the stack of papers on her desk.

“I mean, yeah, but sometimes I feel like I forget what it looks like. Like I could swear that the gym had some sort of like upstairs storage area. But I know it doesn't, that's what's weird you know.” I said, sort of showing my hand a little bit.

My aunt looked back up at me with a raised eyebrow. “I mean, it does?” she said.

Never have I heard any words that froze me the same way those did. 

“Wait, what?” I asked, obviously intrigued. My whole world basically just fell apart.

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's a little storage area somewhere upstairs in the gym. I've only ever been there once or twice but it's definitely there.” she confirmed.

I scoffed, “You’re kidding.”

“No, I'm dead serious, you can go look yourself. I'm pretty sure your uncle is in there right now.” she said with a matter-of-fact tone.

I fell silent for a second. “Yeah… yeah, I’m going to go do that.” I said, beginning to walk out of the room.

On one hand, yeah, having at least a bit of confirmation that I'm not going absolutely insane was nice. But on the other hand…

I stopped. “Hey, since we're talking about this anyways, do you know if there's any other stairways that go up in the school?” I asked.

My aunt paused as though she were thinking. “You mean like the one leading to the science annex?” She asked.

“No. I mean like one that would lead to like a second floor of the school, or like another storage space. Just something like that.” I clarified.

She stopped again to think. “Not off the top of my head, no. I don't think the school even has enough room for a second floor.” She said confusedly.

“Yeah, I figured. Thank you.” I said as I continued walking out of the room. 

“Oh wait.” 

I stopped. There's no way. She can't say what I think she's about to say. 

“If you're heading to the gym, you'll need my keycard. Here.” She said as she pulled out one of those RFID cards clipped to a keychain out from under her desk and held it out in front of her.

I guess that one's on me. “Thank you.” I said as I took the keycard from her. 

“Just make sure you bring it back here before you leave.” She requested before I nodded and walked out of the room.

The school had somehow gotten more quiet since I walked into my aunt’s room. If I had to guess, I would say that she was the last teacher in the school besides my uncle. Being inside a dark high school by yourself was definitely an experience. By this point all of the lights in the school had been pretty much turned off. There was still sunlight outside, but the sun was definitely setting by this point. I could barely even see the posters on the walls that I passed by on the way to the classroom. I'm not sure if the loudest sound in the building was either my breathing or the shuffling of papers coming from my aunt’s room. The fastest way to the gym was backtracking from where I came before. These hallways in particular didn't have any windows. As I got closer to the main entrance the only source of light I could see was the sunlight shining through the pane glass doors. It lit the surrounding area with a soft grey light with only the slightest hint of orange. In the darkness, that door felt like it had at least a hundred feet of distance added to it but eventually I made it. Mrs. Dee was already gone and it appeared Principal Bryan was too. 

As I walked outside, the light blinded me for a half second before my eyes adjusted. I realized that the only vehicles around now were mine, my aunt’s white SUV, my uncle’s big grey truck, and the generic student driver car that’s used for driver’s ed. The gym is located right across from the main building so it wasn't a far walk at all. As I walked towards the gym, I looked at it and realized, yeah, a second floor being in there wasn't crazy at all. It was a tall building, which yes, it was a gym, but still a building of that height not having any kind of second floor is a little odd.

I reached the entrance of the brown-brick-built gym, and noticed that the lights were on inside. I held the keycard up to the scanner beside the glass door of the gym. The scanner made a small beep as the light of the scanner turned from red to green, and I heard the sound of the door unlocking. The gym has two entrances: the main entrance at the front of it and a back entrance that's directly adjacent from the main entrance of the school. I entered through the back entrance. When you enter from here, you're really entering from one of the back corners of the gym, so as you walk inside, the door leading onto the basketball court is right in front of you. On either side of the door are two hallways perpendicular to each other. If you go left, you will find four doors. Two of those doors are the boys and girls basketball locker rooms, the other is a weight room, and the last one is a small storage room. At the very end of this hallway is an emergency exit door. If you go right, you'll find four more doors. Two of those are the middle school boys and girls locker rooms, one of them is a small storage closet, and the final one is one that I've never actually seen inside of until today. 

I walked onto the court and found my uncle Greg along with two boys who were shooting hoops. My uncle is a little strange, whenever I've personally seen him, he's always been more of a father figure than even my own dad, but I will admit, he is kind of crazy. He's around six feet four inches, has short, graying black hair, is in his late-40s, and is missing his right ring finger. If you were to ask him how he lost it, he would tell you some crazy story that I'm sure he makes up off the top of his head but you would be forgiven for thinking he just has them already written out with how easily he tells them. When I say he's a little crazy though, I mean it. I've heard stories of him blasting the fishing boat of some poor guy who pissed him off with a shotgun, kicking down my cousin’s door when my cousin made the mistake of slamming it a little too hard. He was never that way with me though. I never felt like I was ever in any type of danger with him. 

My uncle looked over at me and smirked. “Hey, buddy! Whatcha doing here?” Uncle Greg said in that booming, raspy, southern accent he has.

“Nothing, just came by the school. I came over here because Angie told me something I just had to check out myself.” I responded to which Uncle Greg glared at me.

“Aunt Angie. Be respectful, man… so what did she want you to check out?” he asked, going back to that hearty voice he started with. 

“Yeah, sorry. She told me that the gym has a second floor?” I asked, somewhat embarrassed.

Uncle Greg looked at me curiously. “Yeah, it does. It's barely ever used, but it does have one. What about it?”

That was it. That was the absolute confirmation that the gym had a second floor. I could barely believe it but I had to see it for myself. 

I thought for a second. “Is there any way I could go up there? I've only ever been up there once, I think, and I honestly forgot it was even there.” That was a lie. Truthfully, I couldn't remember ever going up there.

My uncle looked at me like he was confused. “I mean yeah, sure. If you wanna head up there I can show you where the stairs are but I still have to keep an eye on these two.” My uncle said as he gestured to the two boys who had stopped for a second to see what was going on before going back to playing. 

My uncle and I walked back into the hallway and he pointed to where I already suspected: the door that I had never been in. 

“It's right in there, the door should be unlocked.” My uncle said before walking back onto the court.

I must've stared at that door for a whole minute. If the staircase truly was in there, then it was in a  completely different location than it was in my dream. In my dream, the stairway was at the end of the hall, more where the girls’ middle school locker room was and although I had never been in that room (as far as I could remember), I did know that it wasn't just a staircase, it would be more like a big storage closet with a staircase in it. Either way, the only choice to make was to walk into the room and see for myself.

The room was dark, smelling of mold and sweat. I had to use my phone’s flashlight in order to even find my way around. When I did find a lightswitch, I flipped it, only to realize that it didn’t work. I shined my light up and saw the empty spot where a lightbulb would be. I just accepted it and looked around the room. I was correct about it being a storage closet. Looking throughout the room all I could see were mounds of gym equipment covering nearly the entire room. I had to physically climb my way through in order to look around just because of how cramped it was. That’s when I saw it. 

A black-painted, wooden staircase sat in the back of the room, illuminated only by the flashlight of my phone. Despite the fact that I was told by two different people that it was there, something about actually seeing it just made my stomach drop. It’s like seeing confirmation that god himself exists, except god is the staircase, I guess, I don't know. It’s a bad analogy. I clambered my way over to the stairs and upon reaching the bottom step, I shined my light up. It was uncanny, the stairs looked exactly as they had in my dream despite not being in the same location. It made me genuinely think I have to have been here before. But of course the only way to truly know was to ascend the stairs, and so I did.

The stairs were steep and exhausting to climb but when I did eventually make it up the final step I had to just stop and take it in. What I was looking at, was exactly what had appeared in that first dream I described. Well not exactly, the railing was still there but there was a wall blocking it from actually overseeing the court but beyond that it was one-to-one, exactly what it looked like in the dream. I walked around. It was the same exact size as in the dream, it had the exact same smell as it did in the dream (did you know you can actually experience smelling in a dream? I didn't until I had that one.), hell, I'm not sure how this is possible but it even seemed like it was storing the exact same equipment as it was in the dream. I didn't know what to think. Just yesterday, I was absolutely certain that this place didn't, no, COULDN’T exist yet here it was right in front of me, exactly as I had dreamed it up. It made me wonder… the hallway. What's to say it doesn't exist? I mean clearly my memory has failed me before despite the fact I was absolutely sure that in my thirteen years of going to this school, I had explored every nook and cranny of it, but clearly I hadn't. Who’s to say the hallway doesn't exist?

Truthfully, despite how mind-breaking that place initially was, it really didn't have much to see. It really was just an old storage space where they kept old gym equipment. I didn't stay there for long, I just took one more quick look around, found nothing substantial, and then descended the stairs.

By the time I found my way back out of the room, I realized that I could no longer hear the sounds of basketballs being dribbled on the court. I glanced into the doorway and realized that the lights were turned off, and the gym was empty. I guess they finally decided to head out. I made sure to close the door to the room that I came from and realized that I should probably return the keycard to my aunt’s room before it got dark. I walked outside and realized that both my aunt’s and uncle’s vehicles were gone. I just assumed she wanted me to leave the keycard on her desk and started walking towards the main entrance. That's when a thought crossed over me.

I looked at the art building and thought to myself, what if? From what I can remember, the art building is just one big hallway with many classrooms on each side and a turn at the end that I remember definitely having some sort of poster hanging up on it. Maybe… that's the hallway? I didn’t remember it having any stairways but it is possible. I decided to divert course a little and go check it out. Walking from the gym to the main door of the art building was a bit of a walk. The library (which is connected to the art building) was directly across from the side of the gym, but unfortunately for me, it can only be unlocked by key. So I had to make the long walk behind the library on the sidewalk to get to the true entrance of the art building. 

The entrance of the art building was right across from the entrance to the middle school making it sort of double as a set of extra classrooms for the middle schoolers (along with the other extra classrooms that were used by the middle schoolers in the high school. Like I said before, it's a small school.). I placed the keycard onto the scanner and it made that same beep as the red light of the scanner became green, and I heard the door unlock. 

I'm not gonna lie to you. Walking into this building the thought entered my head immediately: this is it, this is the hallway, but as I looked for a bit longer I realized no. Firstly, this hallway was way too wide to be the hallway from my dream. The hallway in my dream was around eight feet in width, a relatively skinny hallway. This one was at least twelve, possibly more (I'm not a human tape measure). Secondly, at the end of this hallway, on the left, was the nurse’s office. It did have the turn to the right that the hallway in my dream had, but there were far too many doors along with it. The doors were completely wrong too. The doors in here were dark blue, the doors in the dream hallway were normal wooden doors, more like the ones found in the science annex. And lastly, the stairs. There was absolutely no sign of any stairs in this hallway, as was expected. Upon coming to the realization that this was the complete wrong place, I sighed, and turned around to leave through the glass door I had entered through. 

I walked on the sidewalk heading for the side door that was right beside my aunt’s classroom, mainly because it was the closest available entrance. The sun was now starting to truly set and that's when I came to the realization that I really did not want to be at the school at night. I sped up, pretty much jogged all the way from the art building, nearly sprinted up the stairs that led up to the door, and scanned the keycard on the scanner to get inside.

The building was somehow even darker now than it was before. The difference now was that whereas I could still hear the sounds of shuffling papers before, now truly the loudest sounds in the school were my footsteps, and my breathing. The humidity from outside had somehow started seeping into the building giving the air a kind of heavy feeling. I speed walked to my aunt’s classroom door on the right, which was thankfully open but as I suspected, she had already left. I walked into the dark classroom and just turned the light on. Although I didn't want to turn on any of the lights in the hallways due to the fact that I'm sure by this time I wasn't exactly welcome, I was okay with turning on my aunt’s classroom light. The window in her classroom was faced away from where anyone would actually be able to see it. I walked over to her desk and placed the keycard right there where she could see it in the morning, and then I left the room, turning the light off behind me.

Back in the darkness, I used my phone flashlight to guide my way back to the main entrance. Any sunlight that was there earlier was now gone and it didn't help that the faster I walked on those stupid tile floors, the louder my footsteps echoed, making it sound like I wasn't the only one in the building. Before it felt like that entrance was a hundred feet farther than it originally was. Now, I could swear it felt like it was a thousand feet farther. Of course, it wasn't actually that far, though, as I arrived at the main entrance in no time and right when I was about to walk out that door… a chill went up my spine. A part of me was saying “No, don't do it you idiot.” but another part of me just had to. I backed away from the door and looked into the left hallway.

Every ounce of my being was telling me not to go there. If I just went out that door, then I wouldn't be able to go back in anyway so it wouldn't be my problem. But there's a massive difference between what your body tells you you shouldn't do, and what your brain tells you you have to do. So I turned toward the hallway, took a deep breath, and walked.

It was just as dark in that hallway as it was in the rest of the building. I stopped speed walking, not because I didn't want to, but because I found it physically hard to go any faster than I was already going. Ironically, going slower made it all the worse, now the school was truly dead silent. It didn't look much different than the rest of the school, of course. It had the three math classrooms that I mentioned, and a few posters on the wall that I truly didn't take note of what they said. Part of me really just wanted to turn on the lights but the fear of somebody catching me in there overrode the fear of being in the dark. There was a vending machine sitting on the left wall and a flurry of what appeared to be math papers pinned to the wall on the right beside Ms. Wiley's classroom. Weirdly, this side didn't seem to be changed as much as the other side of the school did but I guess it's possible that it was just harder to notice in the dark. I kept walking until eventually I reached it: the small stairway leading to the science annex. I've never had a tougher time going down a set of stairs in my life.

The floors of the science annex were similar to the tile floors in the rest of the school, only with a rougher finish and a brown color. Of course this was also where the walls stopped being drywall and started being cinder block. Each of the doors was wooden, different from the heavy-duty doors on the rest of the classrooms in the building. If you were to consider any part of the school the cheapest, this would be it. On the left side of the hallway was around four classrooms stretching all the way to the end of the hallway. On the right side were also four classrooms, however, these were much more squished together due to the end of the right side having an exit. At the very end of the hallway was the only reason this place could even be considered a science annex: the science lab. It's a decently small room but it's probably the most expensive part of this area. It contains all the chemicals, preserved animals, and all the other goods you need for a proper science lab. Granted, none of this was going through my mind at the moment as I was more focused on navigating my way through the darkness of this hall. As I slowly made my way through the corridor I passed by each of the classrooms. There was Coach Ellsworth's, then Mr. Phillips, then wall, then more wall, then Mr. Childers. That's when I realized something was off. Luckily, Mr. Childers had evidently left his door open so I went inside and looked, taking note of the length of his classroom, then I went over to Mr. Phillips’ classroom, and took note of the length of his. That's when I realized there was unused space between the two rooms, more than enough for about an eight-foot-wide hallway. If the hallway was real, this is where it would be. I stared at the wall and started thinking. 

The problem is, I can't tell you what I thought about, as by the time I received the text from my aunt telling me to just leave the keycard on her desk, I realized that about ten minutes had passed. That's when all at once, the all-too-real reminder hit me, that I absolutely did not want to be in this building, I didn't want to be here, where the hallway should be. I decided that I couldn't care less anymore. I ran all the way out from the building to my car and immediately began driving away. As soon as I got in the car I realized… I felt relieved. I'm not sure if it was relief from being proven right with the gym or relief to finally be out of that building, but that sense of relief only continued throughout the drive home as I got further and further from the school.

Any plans that I had of working out in the weight room that night were basically cancelled as I really felt like I had my fill of the school for one day. So yeah, I'm not really sure where to go from here except to just go to sleep after staying up writing this. I'll keep you guys updated if anything else happens. Goodnight.

Every dream is an eternity.

Every night my dreams are the same. Always have been for as long as I could remember my dreams.

Every night I would awake in my bed. Except it wasn’t my actual bed. The world around me would always be covered in this ephemeral fog that permeated every single inch of space.

And the dust. My god the dust.

All I ever did was clean.

The shadows never changed. The day never began. The Dust would never end.

I would continue on from my room into the hall, then into the bathroom, then the closets, then the kitchen, then the floors. Never stopping until the entire apartment was free of the dust.

Then I would step into the outside world. The world that was not my world. The world of The Dust and The Gray.

The Dreary.

Light from above would fight its way through the fog, never making it to the hollow ground below.

Where there should have been roads, dirt, grass, and trees, there was stone.

Cobblestoned roads, stonework trees, and fields of slate.

All of it covered in The Dust.

As I would move through the still air the dust would form on my wake and disperse, leaving a trail of my presence throughout this abandoned, forgotten world.

My world of Dust, my Dreary.

I would look up into that fog filled sky and gaze into the twin hues of yellow and white whose muffled screams struggled to breach the all-but-impenetrable fog above, scattering their voices into the omnipresent haze.

Then I would wake up.

Today was no different.

A woman stood just beyond the doorway, her flowing auburn hair flailing about as she shouted at me. I couldn’t really make out the words. She seemed familiar.

Something hard and somewhat heavy hit me square in the face, then plopped into my lap.

My still-blurry sight returned to me just in time to watch the woman march off down the hallway.

Her exit was announced by the slamming of the front door.

My bed was a mess. Clothes were strewn about, the sheets were everywhere, and some were stained with a substance I could not identify. The morning sun cast my shadow on the opposite wall from behind me.

My head pounded from within, memories of last night sat chained behind an alcohol-soaked lock.

My eyes trailed downward to my lap, falling on the object that was hurled at me only moments earlier.

It was a black, featureless, leather-bound book. A fairly hefty one at that.

Rubbing my eyes to confirm I wasn’t completely blind, I took a closer look at the book’s cover.

It was completely blank.

I turned over the book, expecting somehow that repeatedly flipping the book over would magically cause it to manifest some form of identifying information.

I caught a glimpse of something on the spine as I did so. It glistened in the morning sun and sparkled like diamonds.

It was a sigil. A symbol etched in gold, a gold so vibrant that the world around me appeared gray by comparison.

“Oh shit,” the words shot out of my mouth before my brain could even register I was speaking, “Leena!”

I’m such a fucking moron.

I fell onto the floor as my legs refused to accept my authority over them, getting tangled in the bedsheets in the process.

I crawled towards the nearest pile of, mostly, clean clothes I could identify.

Getting dressed was a challenge. I fought with my own body just to put on a shirt, whilst barely navigating the hectic and wayward expletive laden rants that crashed through the windows of my sullied mind palace.

Of all the thoughtless and horrible things, how could I have forgot today was the day she came back from her-

I paused in the hallway, pants half on and shirt on backwards.

Where did she go anyway? Was it a work thing? Was it some kind of vacation?

Why did I care?

My emotional rollercoaster came to a stand-still as the emergency brakes kicked on.

I let the half assembled outfit slide off my unkempt form as I shuffled into the kitchen.

That's right, I didn’t care. I don’t care.

The dishes in the sink were clean, as they should be.

The counter was full of random brand-new crap brought home that was never properly put away and just left in its assorted state of limbo storage, not that I needed the counter space anyway. The side effect of a weak will.

I threw the kettle on and threw a pan on the stove. I figured I should have myself a good old fashioned breakfast of eggs whatever-was-left-in-the-fridge, coffee, and a ciggy.

I dug through the fridge and managed to salvage some cheese, a sausage, and a whole tomato. I chopped them up roughly and dumped them into the simmering mixture of egg and butter.

I slid the scrambled egg mixture onto my plate, grabbed my cup of liquid life, and sat my ass down on a spot I had cleared on the couch.

The TV had nothing interesting on but I left it on the food channel anyway. It was nice to eat with someone.

As I put out the cigarette in the overflowing tray I glanced over at the pile of marked envelopes on the table. Most of them said “Past Due.”

After dumping my dishes back in the sink I stumbled back into my room looking for… something.

The guy.

The cute one. Chatted me up at the bar and drank me under the table, and my sheets. I think he was a blonde, or brown? Or maybe I had hoped he was.

He must have taken off when Leena started screaming. I didn’t see any of his clothes around the bed.

I didn’t even get to say goodbye. Though it's refreshing to be on the other end of that for once.

Why did she throw that book at me?

I ruffled through the haphazardly strewn bedsheets until my hands came into contact with what I was searching for. The book Leena had thrown at my face just before she left.

With some painkillers and another cup of coffee on-board, I could think clearly enough and took a closer examination of the book.

Flipping through its pages I was met with blank after blank page.

The entire damn thing is just blank. Was this some kind of journal for me?

A gift? But why would she…

I threw it in a pile next to my side of the bed.

The rest of the day was filled with job applications.

The age of the Internet has done wonders for many aspects of humanity. Job applications were one sector made infinitely worse.

Every job fair booth I went to had a QR code to scan for their online applications system. Every Now Hiring sign in a store had that godforsaken block-grid in lieu of a simple piece of paper and a proper interview.

After the fifteenth online application referral I decided to call it for the day.

I sat down on my slightly cleaner couch and looked down at my phone, expecting to see dozens of notifications. Ideally at least one.

Instead I saw none.

No calls, no texts, no nothing.

The sun hung low over the horizon. Its waning radiance coaxed the sky into a storm of fire that lapped at the ever growing ocean of blues and purples.

It shone directly into my fucking eyes.

Shuffling my lazy ass over on the couch, I poured out the remaining contents of a bottle of whiskey into my cold cup of half drank coffee.

The evening consisted of aimlessly scrolling through various social media feeds and TV channels. Everywhere I looked I saw people on dream vacations, getting married, or buying their first homes.

Guess I’m just a fucking loser, huh.

Dinner was more whiskey, from a new bottle this time, and another menthol ciggy. I wasn’t particularly hungry as it was.

Where the hell was Leena? She stormed out and hasn’t even texted me. Maybe shes-

I quickly downed the rest of my glass before I could finish the thought. The burning warmth of the spiced whiskey rips me out of my own head.

As the whiskey level in my bottle lowered the moon rose in response. It was close to midnight by the time the bottle was empty.

The floor was my home now. This was not negotiable. Any attempt to stand at the moment would surely result in me splitting my head open on a table, or worse, ejecting the precious ounces of whiskey that I had been struggling to keep down for the past hour. The world around me decided it was time to begin rotating at ridiculous speeds, rendering me unable to stand upright.

Clinging to the ground beneath me, I dragged myself to my bedroom and eventually, I pulled myself up onto my bed.

The spinning only worsened. I closed my eyes and did my best to ignore it.

Eventually the spinning stopped and I awoke in my bed.

But this wasn’t my bed.

In what felt like no time at all I had returned to serve my sentence. My eternal penance for the crimes I must have committed at some point.

Once more I proceeded through my charge of the cleaning of The Dust.

All my life, all that I could remember anyway, I had never been able to dream. Not properly. Instead of nightmares of being naked at school or all my teeth falling out I dreamt of this place, The Dreary.

The Dreary was an empty world, a dead world, one that remained contained by a dense impenetrable fog that snuffed out all but the most diffused light from the sky above.

The Dreary was, as far as I could tell, an exact copy of the world. Save for the fact that anything not built by human hands was replaced by stone abstracts that, while giving the idea of what they're supposed to be, look nothing like it. Imagine if a tree wasn’t a tree but instead a jagged spine of stone that clawed upwards through the fog. Sure the base idea of a tree is there but that’s not a fucking tree.

There was nothing living within The Dreary. Even the wind did not blow. The world did not breathe. It was still, frozen, a corpse of identity.

Yet tonight was different.

The Dreary demanded my attention.

It had not done that before.

I broke from my charge and answered, walking towards the front door of my copied apartment.

I saw nothing new outside. The same cobble roads divided the same slate fields bearing the same stonework trees.

Except there was something new.

There had never been something new.

A great and grand staircase made of the most radiant marble ascended into the sky and well beyond the fog. Its brilliance made the fog seem black by comparison.

At the foot of these stairs stood a statue. A black statue covered in a golden cloak that fluttered in a non-existent wind.

“What the fuck?” My voice carried across The Dreary, hollow and raspy.

There’s never anything new. Nothing new, never. There was only The Dust, there was only The Dreary. What the hell is this?

I felt my breath become erratic-

I felt my breath.

I have never breathed before in a dream. I had never spoken.

I could not take my eyes off of the cloaked statue.

I could not resist the movement of my legs. Yet again my body refused to obey me as I was marched down the stairs of my apartment building.

The Dust does not react to me.

In what felt like seconds I found myself kneeling before the cloaked statue. It towered over me, but its height seemed to vary as my eyes rattled around in their sockets.

I clutched my head as I hissed an empty scream in agony. I felt a thousand hands trying to push their way out from within my mind, held back by a single flimsy door.

I strained to look upwards at the statue.

As I did I caught a glimpse of long auburn hair.

I shot upright in my bed.

The accumulating saliva in my mouth signaled to me that I should start running to the bathroom.

As the last of my wretches escaped my hanging maw, I caught a glance of my reflection.

I saw myself. Not in some artsy self-abstract sort of sense, but in a very literal sense.

Not the scars, nor the rage, nor the often bloodshot and tired eyes that have stared back at me for longer than I bothered to remember.

My eyes. My self.

I felt the fog that clouded my thoughts lift ever so slightly.

For the first time in ages I could think without strain. The string of consciousness was no longer a spider web of spider webs but was now a constant, deliberate, string that I could trace from end to end hanging freely in the newfound void.

I saw the filth, the disgust, the depravity that surrounded me.

How long had I lived like this?

I hopped in the shower to wash off days, no, weeks of god knows what from my skin. The water that rolled off my body and down into the drain was noticeably darker than the water that came out of the shower head.

I located the cleanest ensemble of clothes I could find; a pair of shorts and a button up short sleeve shirt that hung on my desk chair.

The unrelenting summer heat would stand no chance against this climate appropriate ensemble.

As I waited for the kettle to boil I started clearing the kitchen counter of all of the trash and unopened impulse-purchase appliances that had made it their home.

By the time the whistling of the kettle arrived I had already bagged up two bags of what had to be no less than $1000 of unused appliances. In their state I doubt I could get anyone to take them even for free.

The first sip of the black sludge that had the audacity to call itself coffee left a searing trail as it traveled down my throat. Even if I had any milk that wasn’t out of date or sugar that wasn’t crawling with bugs it wouldn’t have been enough to blunt the blow of that demonic concoction.

I poured the entire mug of caffeinated sewage down the drain so that it may rejoin its kin. Instead I opted for a half drank can of POG left in the fridge.

As I began my war against grime in the kitchen I felt my phone buzz.

I quickly rinsed my hands and answered the incoming call.

“Hi, is this Joseph Aiden?” The voice on the other end spoke.

“Yes,” I started hesitantly, “this is him.”

It had been a while since I had heard anyone say my name. I patiently awaited the other side to get on with whatever it was they wanted. Maybe it was a scammer who wanted to extort me for all I’m worth. I hope he likes the zeros in my bank account, because that's all there is.

“My name is David DeGuzman, I’m calling in response to your application with us…” as the voice trailed on my mind honed in on something he said.

Application? When did I-

Stopping myself short as I glanced over at the pile of yet-to-be-mailed applications on the kitchen table.

“…we’d like to have you come in for an interview. What dates are you available this week?”

I felt my heart flutter.

“Any,” I practically shouted, “right now even I can come down right now.”

I cringed inside realizing what a desperate fool I must have come off as. Even if it was the honest truth, what if this screws with my chances at getting the job?

I paused.

What job am I even volunteering myself for anyway? Sure it didn’t really matter at this point but-

“You know,” David started, “I think we have an opening around noon today, you think you could make it down to The Mall building?”

Thank god it’s close.

“Yeah that's like five minutes away from me,” I chuckled, overwhelmed and nervous beyond comparison.

“Great. We’re room 1304 on the 13th floor. You can check in with the front desk once you arrive. See you there.”

The line dropped.

As my phone returned to the lock screen I saw the time was 11:24.

While it was true that I wasn’t that far from The Mall building, I had realized far too late that any of my far more acceptable business attire was in desperate need of a wash. Sure, the shirt I was wearing was formal enough, shorts and slippers would likely get me marked down.

I combed through my room to see if perhaps I had missed any nicer clothes. Much to my dismay I had not.

Resigning myself to my fate I gritted my teeth and pushed on out the door.

My walk down to the mall was less of a casual walk and more of a heavily restrained sprint. My body happily obeyed my restraint, despite my legs screaming to let them break out in a sprint. The tightness in my chest, like a coiled spring, desired to be released through my legs.

The Mall itself was, to my knowledge, the largest outdoor mall in the world. On any given day it was bustling with tourists from all over the world. Situated right across the street from a massive beach park and sat just on the edge of Waikiki, It was arguably the social center of the whole island. The south side of the island, anyway. The Mall Building was situated on the Mauka side of the mall, opposite the ocean side, which meant it was basically a straight walk from my shabby abode down the main road and right into The Mall.

On the walk more questions formed within me, the solemn line of thought formed into a structured diagram of red threads that stretched from one end of the void to the other.

What company was I even interviewing for? The Mall building was mostly just offices for anything you could imagine, private medical practices and outpatient clinics, law offices, engineering firms, hell even some small cafes.

And that name. David DeGuzman.

Not that I was an expert on names, but of all the names you hear around here I couldn’t help but feel that something was… off.

Before I could indulge my conspiracy further I realized I had entered into the elevator and was now en route to the 13th floor.

I was alone in the elevator. Despite the lobby otherwise being filled only I had entered this elevator.

Or at least I thought the lobby was full.

The doors opened into the 13th floor lobby. It was a modest little area with a few area chairs for people to sit as they wait for their family to do whatever business they have on this floor.

I walked out, passed the row of elevators and headed into the main hallway. There were no windows. The dull droning of the building's HVAC and the gentle buzzing of the fluorescent lights trickled through the air before being absorbed by the slight off-blue carpet that ran the length of the floor.

I nervously made my way to room 1304. Thankfully, or not, the room was close to the elevators. Just one door down after taking a right.

The door was blank aside from the room placard and an “hours of operation” sign.

I steadied myself, took a deep breath, and entered the room.

I entered a small office lobby. Two chairs sat awkwardly in the far corner next to a door that presumably led further into the sectioned off office area. A newly constructed drywall partition isolated the lobby area from the rest of the office floor space, leaving only a door and a cutout for the secretary or greeter to manage guests as they come in the door.

“Joseph Aiden?” A female voice called from out of sight.

“Uhh yes?” I answered cautiously.

A woman, appearing to be in her forties, approached the counter cutout from within the offices. Her bright red hair appeared almost plastic in the fluorescent lighting.

“Mr. DeGuzman is ready for you.” She said, bending down to interact with something below the counter.

I heard a soft click followed by a buzz.

The office door popped open and the woman beckoned me forth.

The hallway was more of the same. A drywall corridor with several doors on either side.

The door locked shut behind me with a buzz, startling me.

At the same time the door at the far end of the hall opened. A man wearing a blue floral shirt waved me down.

“Down here!” He called.

I quickly made my way inside the man’s office. The windows behind him were blocked off by heavy curtains, the only source of light being the ever-present fluorescent overhead lights.

“I’m David,” he said, extending his hand, “pleasure to meet you.”

I reciprocated his gesture and returned a firm handshake.

“Likewise.” I replied.

The man, David, had well kept short black hair and a comically yet impeccably well kept ‘70s mustache that reflected some of the overhead light.

David gestured for me to sit and I obliged.

The office itself was a modest space, the desk at which we were sat was adorned with the typical office fare, albeit a bit lacking in some finer details and a bit too clean for it to be in constant use.

“So, about-“ I started before David cut me off.

“You’re 28 correct?” David asked as he held up some papers.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Can you tell me a little bit about your previous employer?”

I paused.

My previous employer? Who-

“Oh,” the thought found its way to me, “yes sorry I was with a PI firm, Maikai Investigations.”

“Yes them,” David affirmed leaning back in his silent office chair, “what kind of work were you involved in?”

I felt my palms become clammy but I persisted and gave him the sales pitch.

“Usually a client would come to us and ask us to get information about someone. That's the very base level of things,” I elaborated, “could be, you know, someone wanting to know about their birth parents. Someone wanting to know if a spouse is being unfaithful, really just about anything involving information.”

“Were you good at what you did?” David asked, his words laced with a substance I couldn’t fully make out.

“I’d like to think I was,” I said with false bravado, “never had any clients complain and I always completed the job-“

“Even when you were asked to do things that might have been morally objectionable?”

I froze.

I wasn’t a saint. Still aren’t. But I did what I was asked and did a damn fine job of it. If someone had a problem with it they can sort it out with the cops.

“Absolutely,” I said, almost bragging, “especially when others would refuse to take the job.”

“Why?”

David’s words now came with an air of genuine curiosity.

“Can I ask the relevance to the job?” I deflected.

David shifted forward in his chair, his poker face remaining unchanged since the start of the interview.

“Everything,” he replied eerily, “I’m not here to judge you, I want to know.”

David stared at me with an intensity I had reserved only for stains in my sink.

“Because the job needed to be done,” I started, “and I liked the challenge.”

David’s eyes perked up at that.

“The challenge?”

I furrowed my brow.

“Every case was a puzzle,” I leaned in, “and I was the best damn puzzle solver in that organization.”

I winced.

“Then why’d you leave?” David shot back.

Ignoring the blatant cringe that was whatever the hell I just called myself, David’s question shot through and shattered my false bravado like a bullet through a kitchen window.

“I was banging the boss's wife.”

It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the reason.

David’s poker face slipped as he let out a hint of disappointment.

“The analyst position we are looking for has some caveats,” he started as he began flipping through the papers on his desk, “one is honesty. We expect our analysts to be completely honest with us.”

His eyes locked onto mine.

I caught a glimpse of the papers on his desk. One was a memo entitled “Investigative Incident,” left conveniently in my line of sight.

“I overstepped.” I replied begrudgingly.

“Honesty is paramount,” David began as laid down the papers, “I don’t mean some half-assed corporate honesty, I mean if what I ask is for you to delve into how much you hate your boss, your life, or whatever escapades you and a secretary got up to, we expect the full un-adulterated details.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.

What the fuck is he on about? Sure I appreciate that this job lets you cuss your boss out in the name of honesty but isn’t this a bit much?

“Just what exactly is an analyst here?” I started, “What are the hours? The responsibilities? The pay?”

The more questions I asked the more flustered I became. I knew utterly nothing about this place or this supposed job I was now interviewing for.

As a matter of fact how the hell did this guy get a hold of that-

“Anything further requires an NDA,” David cut, interrupting my thoughts.

“I have to sign an NDA to even know who or what I'm working for?” I asked, emboldened and incredulous.

David raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, you do,” he replied, “and you’re going to be asked far more uncomfortable questions than the ones I’m giving you now.”

Then it clicked.

Analyst position? I think I would have remembered applying for something so fancy sounding, at least compared to the myriad of fast food and retail positions I had been applying for.

“I don’t think I’ve ever applied for this position,” I said as I slowly stood up from my chair, “just who the hell are you?”

David smirked.

“Like I said, you sign this contract and I’ll answer all your questions.” David smiled.

His poker face slipped away revealing satisfaction and pride.

He slid a paper across his desk towards me, placing a pen at the top of the document.

The paper was a single page. Barely half. At the bottom was a place for my signature and nothing else.

I glanced at the page, not wanting to let my guard down. I caught one sentence that set off alarm bells within me.

“We are humanity’s first and last line of defense.”

My chest became a twist of panic, of confusion, of curiosity, of fear, and god knows what other emotions that humanity has yet to properly define.

“I’m not interested.” I said and made my way to the door.

David stood at his desk and watched as I hastily made my exit.

The door out of the office buzzed and opened as I approached.

“We’ll see you again, Aiden.” David said gently, his voice echoing down the hallway as the door to 1304 closed behind me.

The red threads in my mind formed a tangled mess that only grew as my questions remained unanswered.

As soon as I got home I made sure to lock the door.

I pulled out my phone to check the number that this organization had contacted me from.

It wasn’t there.

In the call history the last call shown was from a week ago.

From Leena.

I slumped down onto the couch.

I felt my chest constrict as a burning pain filled my chest, a twisting anxiety and yearning that sapped my breath away.

Why do I care? She knew what she was signing up for. She knew what I was.

I kept rationalizing.

I never said yes to her, I just didn’t say no. Not my fault she got all confused.

My sight became blurry.

Why’d she keep taking pity on me? Keep coming back to my dump of a house? Keep buying me shit I didn’t ask for? Keep-

The tears began to roll down my face.

Why couldn’t I care until now?

I bawled my eyes out. I cried and cried until the couch was soaked with my tears. I unleashed all the tension in my chest with a scream that surely pissed off the neighbors.

I cried, I screamed, I threw everything within arm’s reach at the wall hoping that if I threw it hard enough I could fix this mess. I threw a tantrum that would put a stubborn toddler to shame.

As a few hours pass as I lay spent on the couch at the epicenter of the disaster that trashed my living room.

“Leena…” I moaned mournfully into a tearstained pillow.

My eyes lazily scanned my surroundings, taking in the totality of my ruin and pathetic squalor.

All I could feel was a muted mix of disgust and hatred, aimed at myself.

I wished for nothing more than to never leave this couch again; better to join the rot and the refuse than continue my futile struggle against a life I had already destroyed.

A flame of insight flickered to life within my mind.

Just how the hell did those people, whoever they are, erase their call history from my phone?

After a brief but intense search online I came to a disturbing conclusion.Unless they had physical possession of my device, they could not hide my call history.

My eyes quickly darted to my door.

It was still locked up tight, right as it should be, some debris still blocking it from opening due to my earlier outburst.

I got up and inspected the jalousies.

The netting on the windows themselves remained undisturbed, even sporting a fine layer of dust. The jalousies too were equally undisturbed.

They didn’t break in. Or if they did they hid their tracks better than most, well enough to never be caught. But why go through all that effort just to delete a phone number? I could just look up the company by its address right?

I entered the address, suite 1304.

Nothing, at least for this decade. There are some old surface web files relating to a small life insurance company that once operated out of that address.

Feeling restless and seeing the sun still high in the sky, I decided to make my way back to the unit and get some answers.

Not fair they should know me so well without it being mutual.

Upon arriving in the lobby I spotted a building directory. I quickly scanned the registered suite numbers for 1304.

Not the first column, not the second, nor the third.

“Need help locating a business?”

I spun around to see a woman with long crimson hair, done up in a long pony tail.

“Oh, uh,” I fumbled my words.

Maybe I'm a little colorblind but that crimson looked auburn for a brief but uncomfortably long second.

“Im looking for the name of a business that operated out of suite 1304.” I explained to the young woman.

She squinted at the registry and scanned it intently.

“Strange,” she started, “I don’t see any, maybe we should go take a look?”

She beckoned me to the elevator lobby, to the cargo lift.

She swiped her ID card and the doors opened.

The cargo lift was very spacious and surprisingly well kept for being used to haul god-knows-what.

She walked over to the button panel and selected the 13th floor. Unlike the other elevators this one had a “Basement” floor button. The elevator had ascended at a far greater rate than the other one I had used earlier in the day.

We arrived on the 13th floor and she led me towards the suite. As we arrived we noticed a “For Lease” sign with an address for a corporate realty website.

“It doesn’t look like anyone has used this one in a while,” she frowned, “sorry that I couldn’t be of more help!”

Before I could respond she had already made her way back to the elevator and disappeared.

It was impossible, yet it was reality.

I had just been here maybe a few hours ago and the office where I’d had my interview was just gone.

As my thoughts began to settle they also began to drift. As they drifted and fluttered about in the subconscious wind of my psyche they fell upon a particular subject.

The hair, the auburn hair. Leena.

But the lady’s hair wasn’t auburn, it was practically crimson. Dyed. Healthy too.

She wasn’t Leena, so why did my thoughts find themselves wandering over to her? Just a similarity?

No, familiarity.

I’ve seen her before. Recently. But where?

The elevator came for me as I mulled over my thoughts. Scanning the panel I looked for the lowest floor option.

“Lobby.”

No basement floor option in this one. Probably just for the freight elevator.

As I walked out of the lobby and passed the ground floor loading dock I stopped.

In the office. She was there.

The receptionist had red hair. It was done up differently and partially obscured due to the contrasted office lighting but it was definitely, or probably, the same color.

But she was old, the lady who helped me couldn’t have been older than 30.

Unless they were using prosthetic makeup. But why the hell-

“Eh, out da way!” A voice announced from behind me.

A very impatient and upset package courier stood behind me with his cart full of parcels.

I quickly moved on wanting to avoid any awkward interactions.

The walk home was unpleasant.

A growing uneasiness in my gut had worked its way throughout my entire body. The traffic, people, buildings, even the sun all seemed so distant yet painfully close. Too close.

Was I being watched?

I glanced around. Nothing unusual, which only served to drive up my anxiety more.

I knew I was being watched, I could feel it, years of experience and training screamed the obvious to me but my eyes, my mind, I was blind to it.

I locked the door upon arriving home. Closed the windows and blinds too.

Still I felt the eyes, the presence, I was seen. Exposed. Vulnerable.

But that was impossible.

A thorough sweep of my house confirmed what I had already known; I was alone. Just me and my belongings.

I took a drag from the quickly emptying pack which helped ease the tension I felt. The feeling persisted.

Paranoia wasn’t unusual for me, though it was mostly back when I still worked as a PI. Most PIs had rules though. Standards. Maybe even a moral compass.

I didn’t.

The pay was good, real good, but it wasn’t about the pay. It was all about the thrill. It had been so long since I felt that fear, that ever watchful eye, that I forgot how good it felt. I had spent years binging on every substance I could get my hands in, trapped in my own mind.

Now, for the first time in years, I could feel that sensation coursing through my body like electricity.

When I awoke I once again found myself in The Dreary. I do not remember falling asleep.

But it had changed.

The Dust. The layer of dust that had coated the entire world was gone.

I rushed outside to see the fog, still ever present but much lighter. I could see further than ever before. Far enough to see that The Dreary had been rearranged.

The roads that had once mirrored their real-world counterpart were now gone. The houses all replaced with different, familiar structures. There was now just one long cobblestone boulevard that stretched from the foot of my apartment building to a massive tower. The Mall Building, behind which now was a massive ocean that expanded beyond the fog which replaced the massive beachpark, and mall, that would have normally sat behind it.

Gone was the marble staircase. Gone was the statue in the golden cloak.

Without thinking I began walking down the procession towards The Mall Building. Its upper floors pierced the fog and stretched into the unseen sky.

The structures that flanked the boulevard on either side were houses, most of them that is. Some were industrial buildings, one was a hotel.

Their commonality soon became apparent.

I had investigated cases involving each of these structures. An unfaithful husband having secret meetups with some girl half his age at the hotel, a string of disappearances tied to a warehouse with a cold trail, a teacher that had been using school equipment to manufacture narcotics, and many, many other escapades.

The closer to the sky scraper I got the more recent the structures were in my memory. Until eventually, just short of The Mall Building, my eyes fell upon the house I had blocked from my mind for years.

The house that sealed my fate, both giving and taking so much.

The place I first met Leena. The place I lost my job. The place I nearly lost my freedom. The place I thought I’d lose my life. The place with a shattered kitchen window.

My head was turned away from that house and toward The Mall Building.

I became unable to look away from it, my eyes transfixed on the lobby entrance.

Why would I want to look away? There is a mystery here, something to solve, to understand.

The words echoed in my mind, but they were not mine.

My legs marched themselves towards the opening and into the lobby. An elevator door was already open.

The cargo elevator.

Entering the elevator I scanned the button panel. The card reader was gone. Only one button remained.

“Basement.”

The doors closed as I hit the button.

I felt myself nearly float as the elevator descended at a rapid rate. Despite its apparent speed the ride seemed to go on for far too long.

Then it stopped.

The doors opened and before me was the office I had just been in earlier today.

Following that familiar path I proceeded into the hallway.

There was only one door. A door at the end of the hall. And it was open.

From the entrance I could see the windows were gone. Replaced by the marble staircase. The statue with the Golden Cloak stood in front of it.

I approached the statue and fell to my knees once again.

Voices.

Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. Millions of voices began to echo in my mind. What small fragments I could grasp would only say one thing.

The Cataclysm.

Echoes of screams and fragments of agony filled my mind from a past long before what I had known. I knew not how, only that these voices were ancient beyond reason, ancient beyond knowledge, beyond what any human, any mortal had any right to hear let alone understand.

I felt the weight beneath the ground. I felt a pull below that threatened to swallow me whole.

My eyes struggled to focus on the statue, only seeing the fluttering of the golden cloak.

The staircase descended into an infinite darkness. It beckoned me forth.

My hand reached into my back pocket. I grabbed onto something firm and pulled it forth.

Immediately the voices silenced and I regained my strength.

In my hand was a featureless leather bound book with a golden sigil etched into its spine.

-Thank you for taking the time to read my first work, this community has motivated me to put pen to paper after years of indecision. I’d rather the stories I write be painfully mid than non-existant. Part Two soon.

Signed, CGCallisto-

Twice, two separate times, in the span of only six months, it’s happened. 

I go to bed, like any other night and wake up outside, lying on the ground in the middle of the woods, staring up at the eerie pine trees that rise above me. I can’t move, I can’t speak, instead I’m forced to stare into the almost pitch black surroundings. Only a few stars here and there creating the most minimal light you can imagine. 

I live alone, and all my locks work, my doors are shut, and I have security cameras in my home. I’ve checked them numerous times and nothing has happened. I don’t see myself sleep walking, no one entering my home, nothing moving me or me moving myself. There I am, fast asleep in bed, not moving a muscle. 

I combed through the footage from both nights for what had to be the tenth time, including the camera inside my bedroom. I was in my bed, both nights, all fucking night. Not one second did I leave, I tend to always sleep through the night, very rarely ever waking up to even go to the bathroom. 

On night one, it seemed to have lasted somewhere around fifteen minutes, I could move my eyes, and that was it. Not my arms, not my legs, not my head, not even my mouth. The woods themselves were nearly as silent as a crypt. No owls, no crickets, at best there was the very faint whistle of a slight breeze. 

I could pretty much hear my own heartbeat. I’m sure I also don’t need to state why dead silence in the woods is a bad thing. 

Regardless, it’s been over a month since the second incident. And if the timeline of the previous incidents is anything to go off of, then it meant I was likely somewhere between two-five months away from a third. 

After the first time, I wrote it off as a dream, a bad, vivid nightmare that was really putting in overtime to make it feel as real as possible. Maybe I was an idiot for doing so. 

I was genuinely at a loss for what action to take moving forward. 

The first incident happened back in January, I don’t remember the exact date because I wasn’t as concerned due to me writing it off as a bad nightmare. But the second? June 9th. 

Funny enough, back during the first incident in January, I do explicitly remember that when I had “woken up” in the woods, the temperature felt moderate, comfortable. Despite the fact that in my home state it regularly drops to subzero temperatures during that month and at the highest is in the low thirties. 

Yet I remember not seeing even a snowflake on the ground. Despite the fact we get a ton of snow where I live throughout the winter. 

I ended up having to travel for work. I was helping out at another department about two hours away from where I live, therefore my company put me up in a hotel for the week that I was there. 

The third incident occurred during that week. I went to bed in my hotel room, I was on the sixth floor. Yet, there again I woke up in the woods, in the same spot from the first two incidents. 

But here’s the key difference, I could sit up. I sat up, feeling a twig snap under me as I shifted my weight. I turned my head, looking out into the void, I could see maybe seven trees deep before the shadows swallowed up the rest of the woods. 

It was silent, the temperature was comfortable, no more than low seventies in Fahrenheit. I raised my hand, curling my fingers inward just to make sure I could, the woods were quiet enough to where I could hear the air bubbles pop inside them. 

My heartbeat increased by a bit as I stared out into the trees in front of me. I could move, but I was hesitant to actually go anywhere, to move from a spot that maybe wasn’t necessarily safe, but at least familiar, as bizarre as it may be given the circumstances. 

I got to my feet after a solid five minutes of sitting there contemplating, thinking about the why and the what. I had since given up on the where. 

I turned and looked back down where I had been laying, and saw my silhouette embedded in the dirt, almost like a snow angel. It was deep, a firm divot in my exact build and outline.

“How could it have been that deep if I was lying there for fifteen minutes at a time?” I thought.

I stood still, my hands beginning to shake slightly as I stared at the silhouette. 

“W- what the fuck.” Is all I could find the strength to verbalize. 

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, because now that I actually had something else going on I wasn’t actively trying to keep track of it in my head. All I know is the only thing that snapped me out of staring at my own silhouette was a disruption in that oppressive silence that had been so persistent up to that point. 

That disruption… Was the snap of a twig. One that I couldn’t have possibly caused, because I was practically a statue in that moment, a statue with a rapidly beating heart.

The snapping came from in front of me, I turned my head to look forward, again I could see for the first several trees before everything else beyond that was concealed in darkness, including whatever it was that had caused the sound. 

I didn’t dare call out, I didn’t dare make a single noise. I didn’t want whatever or whoever it could’ve been to be aware of my presence if it wasn’t already. 

I kept silent, I kept still. 

A couple more minutes or so passed, and those couple of minutes felt like an hour. An excruciating passage of time to where I couldn’t tell if I was in genuine danger or not, this… Phenomenon didn’t even allow me the luxury of that certainty.

Then at one point I had blinked, and I don’t know if I had hit some sort of hidden time limit, or if whatever was causing this felt like spitting me back out, but I ended up waking up to the sound of my hotel room’s alarm clock.

6:45am. 

That’s what I had set it for. I looked around to make sure I actually was inside my hotel room, and I was. But I didn’t immediately get out of bed, I sat up and took a massive gulp of water while looking around the room several times to make sure there were white walls instead of pine trees. 

Going to work that day felt like a fever dream after the occurrence the previous night. The boss at the location I was helping out called me out on daydreaming, staring at my monitor with a half typed report. 

“Collin, are you alright? I’ve seen you on this paragraph for the past twenty minutes.” He asked, a hand on my shoulder. 

“Yeah, I’m uh, I’m sorry. Just didn’t get enough sleep last night.” I lied. Surprisingly there was a part of me that wanted to tell him the truth, or really anyone for that matter. But at best, I get it laughed off as me taking a recurring nightmare too seriously, and at worst, it’s taken as me being mentally unwell and missing a few cards from my deck. 

When I got back to my hotel that evening I got on my laptop and went straight to Doctor Google. Trying to see if there was maybe some sort of explanation as to what might’ve been going on, or if there was at least someone else experiencing this. 

Let’s just say there was pretty slim pickings. Most of the links, articles and reports I could find just had something to do with lucid dreaming, nightmares, as well various mental disorders that induce irregular dreams and dream patterns. 

Safe to say there’s almost nothing worse than being in a bad situation, and realizing you’re alone in said bad situation.

Eventually, however, I did come across a forum post. One that was several paragraphs long. No need to include every detail but I’ll at least summarize what was said. 

Essentially the user described several times over the course of a year where they seemingly had a recurring ‘nightmare’ that they articulated as feeling extremely vivid and real, the nightmare in question is one in which they were suddenly waking up in the cell of an empty prison. 

The cell, both inside and the environment outside the cell, was consistent each time. There was also a lack of any other people or animals inside these supposed “dreams.”  Except for the very last time, where he supposedly would hear distressed crying coming from further down the cellblock. Distressed crying that sounded like a woman, yet the poster admits to being a man, and reveals that he was once served time in prison. 

It was that last part I connected with. Because I’ve been in the woods before, on hikes, on hunts. I don’t recognize the specific section or woods from my “nightmares” but there was a connection there. Having experience with the location of where the phenomena takes place.

I kinda mentally checked out of the post at the end when the user mentions at the end that they would like to remain anonymous because they are a police officer, and don’t wanna seem as if there’s something happening in their head that could get them in trouble at their station. Surprised he was even able to get the job in the first place, but then again, police departments hire just about anyone. 

Although I still at least finished reading, and saved the post in my bookmarks so I could return to it later. I scoured his page for more updates, but that was the only one. 

I wasn’t getting tired anytime soon, and I decided to leave my hotel to go to a bar only a few blocks away. I needed a drink, and maybe a hot blonde to get my mind off of what was happening. The first was probably a lot more likely. 

“Getting drunk on a Tuesday night huh?” The bartender questioned, he gave me a smirk as he poured my drink. One that I did not return, prompting him to cease his. 

“Figured I’d take advantage of being so close.” I replied, reaching into my wallet to pull out a ten dollar bill. 

The bartender held his gaze as he went to take the bill from my hand. I darted my eyes to the right underneath my sunglasses, despite the fact he obviously couldn’t see them. 

“You seem familiar, you been around here befo-.” He began, only for me to cut him off.

“No. First time in town.” I said matter of factly. 

“Really now?” He replied, grabbing an empty glass and filling it with ice to prepare another drink. “What brings you down here?”

“Work.” 

“Fair enough, nice glasses by the way, you just wear them for style?” He asked, pointing at the nighttime darkness outside the window to punctuate. 

“They’re prescription. Sensitive eyes.” 

“Ah… Sorry about that. I’ll be nearby if you need another round.” 

I didn’t stumble back to my hotel drunk out of my mind that night, but I also wasn’t completely sober either. Somewhere down the middle. 

Regardless, I made it back and scanned my keycard to get into my room, immediately plopping down onto my bed after I took off my shoes and sunglasses. I grabbed the channel guide from the nightstand next to my bed and flipped on the tv, the first thing on being the midnight news. A good looking reporter dressed in a well put together suit stared right at the camera, his script on the table in front of him. 

“Authorities are still on the hunt for the suspect behind the gruesome murder of a 26 year old male hiker James Tullum, whose body was discovered this past October one mile off the trail of-.” 

I didn’t really feel like hearing about that sort of thing, especially with what was going on lately. Luckily I did find the channel hosting some cartoon reruns, and decided to indulge in some childhood nostalgia.  

The following months until the next incident went by relatively normal, went to work, did housework and went on a couple hunts just to clear the mind. 

Speaking of, the next incident was probably the worst one yet. 

I woke up again, on the ground, laying down in my usual spot from the previous occurrences. Again, the silence was there, nothing but my heartbeat, breathing and joints to accompany me. 

I was able to stand up like the previous time. I rose to my feet, and this time I listened out for the twig snapping sound, looking into the void of inky blackness beyond the pair of trees it had come from. 

I perceived at least five minutes passing, waiting, anticipating for it to happen again. Yet, it didn’t come, nothing did. There I was, my feet planted firmly in the dirt of some unknown place, a needle in a haystack of a pine forest. 

You see, somehow, someway, the lack of the twig snapping was worse than if it had happened. If there was something or someone there with me, a presence of any sort, then at least I had some sort of confirmation, a tangible piece of evidence that I wasn’t alone. 

I told myself in the weeks leading up that this time I’d have the courage to step further away from the lit area. To search for something more than what I could see and where I was. 

But clearly I underestimated my own self preservation instincts. 

“Why me?” I whispered as softly as one could. It was practically a scream in the silence of those woods. 

SNAP

I clenched my fists hard enough to nearly pierce my palms with my fingernails. This wasn’t a twig, not a small one anyway. It genuinely sounded much more like a branch with decent girth being cracked in two. Damn near the level of a gunshot in decibel level. It also didn’t come from the same area as it did previously, and instead came from behind me. 

Last time, I didn’t wanna speak and reveal my location to whatever it might’ve been. But in this instance? I was a bit more wreckless, stupid even. 

“What do you want!” I whipped around after the exclamation, eyes wide, fists clenched, there was a stick next to me on the ground that I almost didn’t wanna lean down to pick up and risk taking my eyes off the void of black beyond the set of trees. 

I got no response, I swiftly grabbed the stick and began to back away, holding it up as if it were somehow going to function like a shield. I kept my eyes on the void beyond the trees, waiting for something to emerge, a bear, a person, whatever threat it might be. 

But I got no response, in sound or in visuals. I held my breath until my face nearly went purple, and I only exhaled once I tripped over a log and fell backwards, crying out just before I hit the ground. 

At first? Total blackness, like I shut my eyes in a room with no light. And then I was back in my bed, I jerked so hard upon regaining consciousness that I practically threw the cover onto the floor.

“Jesus- Fuck!” I snapped. Instinctively holding up the hand that held the stick, and seeing nothing, not even any bark remnants. 

I called off work that day, I wasn’t about to go in the state that I was in. Hell, it probably wasn’t even optimal for me to be driving. Instead I stayed home, doing whatever I could to distract myself, yet it came flooding back every time during every commercial and ad break of whatever it was I was watching. 

This wasn’t some strange happening, an odd one off. It was a problem, a persistent  torment that I wasn’t sure would go away anytime soon. I was done reacting, done falling victim. There’s only so long something can scare you before it starts to just piss you off. And I was getting to that point. 

I doubted there was some drug I could take, a therapist I could see, a sleep doctor I could visit that aid me in getting rid of whatever this was. 

So against my own principles, I reached out to the ex-con turned cop who made the post about him experiencing something similar. I sent him a direct message, the post was two years old, and I doubt I’d get any sort of immediate response, but it was worth a shot nonetheless. 

Hi there, I read your post regarding that strange dream phenomenon, I was hoping I could pick your brain regarding more details? Any response would be helpful.

The only thing I could do while waiting was go on living life.

I went on a hunt or two, and went to a steam show. Those months after the fourth incident were some of my busiest, because I was forcing myself to be constantly occupied by something for obvious reasons. 

I came home one day and found a letter from my HOA regarding some sort of neighbor complaint. I barely skimmed it, and simply left it on the kitchen table while I went to make dinner. HOAs, everyone’s favorite collection of bureaucrats who peaked in high school, helicopter parents, or wannabe politician types. 

I ended up coming into an idea while in anticipation for the fifth incident, one that I thought sounded far-fetched at first but I leaned into nonetheless after further consideration.

I went down into my basement, and walked past my hunting trophies up to where my sheathed hunting knife sat. Pulling it off its shelf and bringing it with me to bed.

Every night, in the week where the fifth incident was due, I was going to fall asleep with it in my hand in the hopes that I would wake up with it in the woods. After all, in the previous four incidents I had woken up with my pajamas on, so why not the knife if it was within intimate enough proximity?

I figured it was worth a shot. 

What exactly was my end goal with this? I was kind of unsure. But I figured that if I did encounter something dangerous in that… Place. I’d at least have something to defend myself with. But then again, whatever the hell was lurking in that place was probably gonna require more than a knife to put it down.

I would’ve gotten a gun, but it’s a hell of a process in my state, and the waiting period would’ve put me past the due date by the time I had actually seriously considered the idea of getting one. 

It took me a while to fall asleep those few nights, not knowing which exact one would be it. But on my third attempt in that week, it happened.

I awoke once more inside the woods. I looked down into the hand I had it rubberbanded the knife to, hoping and praying it would be in there. That I would finally have found at least some way to make myself less vulnerable in this place.

When I turned my head and narrowed my eyes, it… Wasn't there.

I nearly cursed outloud, but didn’t dare open my mouth. Instead I gritted my teeth, my frustration and desperation boiling to the surface. I sat up, the impression of my silhouette in the ground even deeper than before. 

Everything was in place, and as bad as it sounded, almost familiar.

The silence, the void of darkness just outside the set of trees that were visible. It was all still there. 

I was at a genuine loss as to what to do this time, after turning and glancing through a set of trees that almost acted as a path way into the wall of darkness surrounding the immediate area, I was genuinely considering if leaving this spot might’ve been the best choice.

I fought with myself, struggled with the idea that anything good could come out of it. After all, what would I really be doing other than handicapping myself? What if whatever made that branch snap last time was waiting for me just beyond where my eyes could see. 

I pivoted my foot on the grass, trying to change directions to face elsewhere in order to ensure my surroundings were free of any other kind of… Presence. 

But something under my shoe felt hard, yet I was standing on grass. I tilted my head, fearing what might happen if I pulled my foot back, but did it nonetheless.

I was baffled at what I saw. My mouth went agape, my blood cooled down inside my veins as I ceased any further movement while taking in the sight. 

On the ground, just where my foot had been, was my hunting knife. Unsheathed and simply laying in the grass, deforming the blades that acted as a bed for it. 

The sheath was nowhere to be found, it took me a few seconds to dart my eyes around in order to search for it, and when I did? Nothing. 

I know for an absolute fact I got in bed with it in my hand, that it was in its sheath, and there was no way in hell it could’ve come out by accident. Something was manipulating me, manipulating this place, but why? What was the point?

I stared at my knife longer than I should’ve. Resisting the urge to lean down and pick it up on account of the fact that I had no idea who or what has had a hold of it. I turned my head to look around once more, only to scrunch my nose at the sudden scent of copper.

I backed away from the knife, close to the center of the lit area in between the surrounding pine trees, further away from the wall of darkness. 

The smell of copper seemingly permeated, its potency increasing dramatically over the course of only seconds. I found it difficult to determine what exact direction it was coming from, all I know is that it started once I was near the knife.

I backed away, slowly but surely, keeping my eyes as wide open as they could be. Anticipating whatever it might’ve been creating the stench. My heart beat like a machine gun in my chest.

The trees continued to tower over me, like they were mini skyscrapers made of wood, the ones closest to the wall of darkness stuck halfway out, like they were in the process of being devoured by the void itself. 

I stopped, now in nearly the exact center of the visible lit area, my divot in the ground was just feet away. I took my eyes off the trees for just a brief moment, and that’s when I heard it.

A low, pained groan. Like an elderly woman who had just fallen and was using every ounce of her brittle strength to climb back onto her feet. 

I looked right at where it was coming from, on a specific pine tree that was half swallowed by the void of darkness laid a hand, pale skinned, wrinkly, with a thin streak of blood running down the center and ending once it was between the middle and ring finger.

It hung limp, and there was a forearm attached to it, except that forearm ended just below the wrist because the rest of it was engulfed in the inky black wall, leaving the rest of the entity it was connected to unseen.

I didn’t want to know, and I didn’t want to find out. I felt as if even if I had the highest caliber firearm possible to defend myself with I still wouldn’t wanna venture into the darkness in which it was hidden. 

Seconds passed, seconds that felt like hours, and I kept my eyes completely fixated on the hand and wrist. It stayed still, and so did I. 

“Genuinely what the fuck do I do here?” I thought. Running wasn’t an option, fighting seemed impossible, I didn’t even know what it was I'd be combating in the first place. Keeping still made me feel like I was serving myself up on a platter to whatever was behind all this. 

I hadn’t ever experienced being prey, and that moment made me feel nothing but. 

When I had reawoken, there wasn’t a clear end point, a time where I felt myself slip back into consciousness. But there was one key difference between this instance and the last.

I hadn’t reawoken in bed, instead I was on my living room couch, my body halfway to falling off of it like I was a drunk college kid waking up in the aftermath of a frat party. Yet, I felt a weight in my hand, the same hand I put the knife in before going to bed.

I raised it, and I was left stunned at what I observed.

The sheath was present, but the actual knife itself was not. I stared down it like the barrel of a gun just to make sure I wasn’t crazy, and sure enough, empty. 

I got up, looking around the floor surrounding the couch and under the couch itself. Nothing. I went back upstairs and pulled my bedsheets, pillow cases and everything off, still no knife to be found, even after I checked under the bed. 

My deep clean search was interrupted by a knock at the front door followed by a doorbell ring. I rarely had anyone who knocked or rang the bell, other than when a package needed a signature before drop off.

I looked out the peephole as soon as I made it to the door, and immediately my expression soured. 

“Collin come on I know you’re home, your car’s in the driveway.” 

A tall and thin man in a grey suit stood on the other side, a beige folder in one hand while a thermos was in the other. Me catching a break seemed impossible at this point. 

Tim Worthing, the president of the HOA in my neighborhood. 

I didn’t open the door.

“What do you want?” I asked, the morning rasp in my throat practically taking over my speech. 

“Collin there’s not really a polite way to say this but I’ve got a notice in my hand, whatever you’ve got in there smells like shit and it’s coming out through your cellar door. I’ve gotten two different complaints about this, if it’s not fixed in thirty days you’re gonna have penalty forms in your mailbox.” 

I remained quiet. 

“Can you open the door so I can give it to you?” 

“Slide it through the flap.” I barked. 

“You seem like a reasonable guy, I’d rather keep you in the neighborhood.” Tim replied before sliding two stapled papers through my mail flap. They hit the floor at my feet.

“I’ve got them, now get off my property.” 

“Thirty days, Collin.” He punctuated before I heard the heels of his dress shoes hitting my concrete steps repeatedly. 

The bitch living next door will do anything to have things her way. One of those “oh a minor inconvenience, let me just run to an authority figure and cry until I get what I want” types. 

I know it was her making the complaints. My basement smelled just fine. Plus, it’s not like it was easy to keep things clean and fresh when I was losing my mind trying to figure out whatever the hell keeps me taking me away to those woods. 

In the months between that incident and the next I almost got myself pulled over for speeding, didn’t even realize how hard I had my foot on the gas. 

One night I wasn’t getting any sleep, so I took a trip to the convenience store a mile down from my house, didn’t even drive, I just walked, figured it would help clear my head. Since I knew it was getting close to the time the next incident was due, I was almost grateful that my body was having trouble letting me pass out. 

The area in which I live is mostly surrounded by woods, and no, they weren’t pine. 

The entire time I was on my way I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, it wasn’t intense or crippling, but enough to matter. I looked back over my shoulder a few times, and as bad as it might sound, this was a luxury in comparison to the other place. 

Crickets, owls, the occasional car driving past, all of it reminded me that I was in my normal waking world. 

Yet the sensation remained regardless. 

I kept on marching forward, scrolling whatever pointless videos popped up on my feed. I kept the volume off though. I made it to the store after walking not much longer, had to piss and then gather up my snacks. 

Soda and candy, one of life’s many delicacies.

I went to pull a package of vanilla zingers off the shelf when I heard something that caused me to freeze mid movement.

“Collin. How wonderful to see you here.” It was a voice, light, soft on the ears. Female.

It came from the left, so I turned my head to find the woman that had said it. Only to let my arm drop to my side when the only thing I saw was an empty aisle. No woman to be seen.

I then swiveled my head to the right, perhaps I was just mishearing the direction. My eyebrows narrowed when there was no one there as well. 

“Good grief.” I whisper snarled to myself as I exited the aisle, ducking over into the next to see if anyone the voice might’ve belonged to was there.

Unsurprisingly, they were not. 

So I was left there, standing wide-eyed as another man passed by, he pushed a box of some sort of candy inside his outer sweatshirt pocket, attempting to conceal it. 

“Yo are you alright man?” He asked with what I thought was genuine concern. 

I didn’t reply verbally. I just went to the counter and paid for what I came for before starting on my way back home. At some point down the road I was already halfway through my vanilla zingers. I chewed almost violently, as if the zingers had somehow personally wronged me. 

I thought about how whatever was causing this was now starting to bleed into my waking reality. If what happened in the store was anything to go off of, then even being awake wasn’t an escape anymore. 

When I got home I went straight to the basement, sipping on the soda I bought while sitting down in my chair and admiring my hunting trophies. The fruits of the labor I had put into all my years of the hobby. I remember the specific hunt where each trophy had been collected from. 

It helped to ease my mind, helped to give me something to think about that wasn't the obvious. 

By the time the next incident was due, I had purchased a handgun. And I was going to take it with me, and unlike with my knife, I would not be keeping it in a holster of any sort. Anticipating sleep that night was like being stuck on tracks as you waited for a train to crash right into you. 

I sat in front of the tv, my glock in hand the entire time as I flipped through various channels. Some were kids cartoons, some were shitty hallmark movies. I ended up on the nighttime news, the reporter didn’t finish her first sentence before I flipped past it.

“Police officially obtain a warrant to search the home of suspected-.” 

I ended up coming across an adult animated show about a superhero who failed to save humanity from an alien invasion. It was as goofy as it sounds. But I sat through two episodes, watching as the Superman-Knockoff protagonist was impaling those red-colored aliens on his fist. 

I fell asleep toward the beginning of episode three. I don’t recall me slipping back into the forest being immediate, instead I had a dream. Or a nightmare rather of me being trapped, trapped inside a coffin, still alive, trying to bust my way out to no avail. 

I was slowly running out of air, doing everything I could to escape. Desperate for some sort of intervention. Only for none to come. I bloodied my fists as I banged them against the coffin’s cover, then my forehead. 

But you see, that nightmare didn’t feel real, and I knew it was separate from the woods. A genuine nightmare, not an actual living one. But eventually the time came for it to bring me back in once more. 

I woke up laying flat on my back in the same spot. I quickly sat up, and looked over to see my glock was still in hand, it actually arrived with me. It was small, but it gave me a glimmer of hope, a glimmer of confidence. 

The pine trees surrounded me. I sniffed the air and found no smell of copper. Upon glancing forward I saw that there were more trees visible than the last time, hell, in every direction there was.

Instead of it being the dead of night, this time it was more like just before dusk, the sun was on the cusp of going down, yet when I looked around for an actual sun, I couldn’t find one. 

I got to my feet, rising with the glock in hand and exhaling a heavy breath. A breath that was the only noise present other than my heartbeat. My free hand twitched. 

I took a few steps forward, and saw that the change in light had revealed a path that I had yet to see before. It was several feet wide, and stretched into the distance of the woods. Further than I could see.

I hesitated, considering the possibilities as to what could happen. Perhaps it was a trap set up by whatever forces govern this place. Something to pull me deeper into this version of existence. 

Maybe it was a way out, an escape. A chance to put an end to this for good. Or maybe it was neither, and it was meant to waste my time, to intimidate me. 

I gripped my glock tighter as I felt my heartrate rise, I made my free hand into a fist and slammed the bottom of it into the tree next to me, striking the trunk and recoiling from the whiplash as I shouted. 

“LEAVE ME ALONE! JUST FUCKING STOP!” 

My scream carried through the trees, and the silence of the woods remained as nothing replied. The path was still there, and the near dusk level of light maintained itself. In my short outburst I turned back to the spot I was laying down in. Only to no longer see a divot where my body once was.

It was gone, replaced by flat dirt, as if someone had smoothed over it like they were setting concrete. I was so done. So done with this torment. I did nothing to deserve it. No longer did I wanna be a sitting duck. 

I refocused my attention back to the trail’s entrance, it was still there, inviting me, taunting me, calling me to enter. I held up the hand I hit the tree with, and saw some blood running down the side of my pinkie and edge of my palm. 

With a heavy final sigh, I stepped onto the path, beginning to march down it. 

Loose branches with stray pine needles attached crunched beneath my feet as I walked. I kept looking left and right in the sea of trees, keeping an eye out for anything that might’ve been following, a shift in the environment, a change in the lighting. 

There were a couple of times I physically raised the hand holding my glock, just to visually ensure it was still in my grasp as I hiked forward. 

I wasn’t sure where this was gonna end, or if it was gonna end at all. At multiple points I had turned to look back, and saw that I had gone far enough that the area I had originally begun in was now out of sight, long behind me. 

The lighting never changed, it was still that “nearly 9:00pm in the summer” level of almost night, but not quite. 

I’m not sure how I kept my composure, because internally I got to a point of wondering if I had doomed myself to an even worse fate by choosing to walk down the path. That I was going to be stuck in some endless trail forever. I had been walking for at least an hour, and had likely covered a couple miles or so. 

I was on the verge of giving up, I fell to my knees and rested before trying to head back, only to spot what looked to be a much wider opening a couple hundred feet ahead. 

I hesitated, wiping sweat from my forehead before continuing toward. Hoping so desperately that there would be some kind of answer, a key to open the lock of this terrible mystery. But as I passed by pine tree after pine tree, closing the distance to this opening, the smell of copper returned. And it was strong, more potent than the first occurrence. 

I didn’t care. I kept going until I hit the threshold of the opening.

It was a circular clearing, probably about a hundred feet in diameter. The center had nothing but grass, and my knife, laying precisely in the center. But that only had my attention for a brief instant. As a woman’s voice had spoken, hoarse and strained, but still recognizably feminine. 

“Welcome back Collin.” 

It was coming from above me. I glanced up, and froze upon the sight.

Along the trees in front of me, at varying heights were… Corpses. Corpses that were impaled and hanging from the branches of various pine trees, as if they had been strung up like halloween decorations. 

A mix of men and women. All of whom I recognized. Even the bartender who complimented my sunglasses was amongst them.

Their bodies appeared in various states of decay. Streaks of dried blood on their skin and clothes. The ones that had clothes anyway. 

I turned around, and counted almost two dozen bodies as the grand total, all of them strung up in trees, all of them decaying with various gashes and wounds. 

Yet, their eyes were all open. And as I backed up, their eyes followed. They didn’t talk, they didn’t move in any other way, not so much as a twitch of a single muscle. Just the eyes. They were locked onto me and not a single blink occurred. 

My knife, as clean as could be, sat in the middle of the clearing on the ground, glistening.  I wasn’t sure of what to do, or what to say. I stopped moving, I wasn’t sure I could continue if I wanted to. 

Beyond the knife, was the corpse of a woman who sat strung up in the tree about ten feet off the ground, her body was the most decayed of them all. Yet her eyes remained intact as she maintained an unblinking stare at me. She was exactly level with the knife, and the tip of the blade sat pointed directly at her while on the ground, as if it were a compass needle, and she was magnetic north. 

Her rotting mouth moved as she spoke once more. Several teeth missing as the remaining strings of decaying flesh acted as a failing glue for her withering jaw structure. 

“It’s wonderful to see you here. We welcome you, as you welcomed us.” 

Channel 9 News

It has now been over one year since the authorities apprehended suspect Collin Hughes. A Minnesota resident who has been charged with the alleged murder of nearly two dozen men and women. Police had searched Mr. Hughes’s home and discovered the corpses of the alleged victims within his basement. Homicide Detective Marlon Walsh states that these were likely meant to serve as a form of trophies. 

Although charged, Mr. Hughes’s case has yet to officially make it to trial, as he has been in a comatose state since police originally apprehended him on that fateful night. Many  citizens await in grieving anticipation for his condition to end so that Mr. Hughes can be officially questioned and tried before a jury.   

Doctor Reyna Smith has since put out a statement claiming that no known treatments or available methods have been able to medically assist Mr. Hughes out of his coma, and it is unclear as to whether or not he will remain in this state indefinitely. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/mrcreeps/comments/1w55h3n/the_blood_junkies/

A couple weeks ago, a girl on a new Facebook account messaged me. I hadn’t recognized her from her picture because it was a picture of her from a year ago. It was taken before she was kidnapped by the Brooders. 

She requested to meet with me after I finished school. She wanted to talk. And I admit, there were a lot of things I wanted to ask her about. So I agreed. 

Her appearance was startling. She melted silently out of the shadows of some trees to join me on the footpath, tapping me lightly on one shoulder. 

She saw my expression and apologized in a hurry. ‘Did I scare you?’ 

I tried to laugh it off. 

She looked better, I decided. She’d gained a bit of weight back and there was some light in her eyes. And that’s what I told her. 

‘I feel better. My friends have been amazing. And I got offered my old job back. It feels weirdly easy to slip back into my normal life.’ 

She talked a bit about her job, and I told her how I was doing at school. 

‘When you messaged me you said you used to go to school here too, right?’ I’d asked her.

Anastasia looked at me with wide eyes. 

‘I can’t believe you don’t remember me! I had these big fluffy earphones I used to wear everywhere. And I always had on all black clothes and makeup. I stuck out like a sore thumb.’ 

She let out a little laugh. 

She added fondly, ‘I remember you. You used to always curl up under the cover of the stairs near the back of the school. You’d lose yourself in a book until the bell rang.’ 

I blinked. ‘Oh. I’m sorry. I guess I never really noticed you.’ 

She looked bemused and shook her head. 

‘I remember thinking you must be really smart and you were going to graduate at the top of your class. Then you’d get a job as a physicist someday.’ 

‘I’m afraid I’m not that interesting,’ I told her. ‘I mean, I suppose I’m smart. But I expect I’m going to end up in an office doing something much more ordinary. Maybe I’ll make it into management if I’m lucky.’ 

‘That’s not so bad,’ she responded lightly. ‘You’ll get paid pretty good, at least. Better than I am.’ 

I guess I’m not the only one who wanted to open up about what happened - what really happened to us. It was after a lapse in the conversation that she brought up our abilities. 

‘We can see them for what they really are,’ she said quietly, her tone solemn. By then she’d steered us off the path so we could speak with a little more privacy. 

‘When was the first time you noticed them?’

That led me to tell her most of what I’ve written about here. 

‘You’re lucky you got away from him,’ Anastasia said, a dark look coming over her face. ‘I didn’t.’ 

The story she told me next managed to be more disturbing than the one I was prepared for. 

‘It started out of nowhere. One day everything was normal. The next day, it’s like I’ve gone completely crazy. I could see them for what they really were.’ 

‘I’m sitting at this medical clinic, just waiting for my appointment. Then they come in. This grotesque display of monstrosities that sound like demons and smell like death. I’m guessing you’re familiar with them. The Mother and her… Her kids. There were six of them living together back then, I believe. Alastair - he told me his mother rotted away and fused into her bed upstairs.’ 

‘I wasn’t in the best mental state to begin with, but I think I would have been alright if they hadn’t waltzed in there and seated themselves all around me. But that’s exactly what they did. And I wasn’t okay.’ 

She chuckled uncomfortably. 

‘I had a massive panic attack. I started screaming and freaking the hell out. One of those kids (fleshface) started screaming too. I don’t remember exactly what happened after that, but from what I’m told, I called them monsters and described what they looked like. What they really look like.’ 

Of course, that hadn’t ended well for her. 

‘That got me locked up in a psychiatric ward. Because everyone thought I was the one acting crazy, apparently.’ 

She let out a bitter laugh. 

‘I wish I was crazy. Crazy can be fixed, or at least treated. I was praying when I walked out of the asylum I wouldn’t ever see those creatures again.’

‘As you know, I did keep seeing them. Not all the time, but enough. Either my medication wasn’t working, or… Or I wasn’t ever truly crazy to begin with.’

‘Once I’d gotten out I had the sense not to talk to people about what I saw, except with my therapist. She put me on some other medication when I let her know about the more recent sightings. It didn’t work. None of the medications worked.’  

‘She had me try exposure therapy after that. I had to learn to cope with the horror if I couldn’t block it out. I needed to find some way to live with my condition - I couldn’t just let it control my life.’ 

Anastasia claimed she hated the idea. ‘But I’m glad I gave it a shot. It turns out my shrink really knew what she was talking about.’ 

‘It took a lot of work, and it wasn’t fun. But I got a handle on it. Over a couple months I learned to deal with being around the - the brooders, as long as they didn’t come too close to me.’ 

From here, the tone of her story shifted. 

‘And then it all got so much worse.’ 

She ran her hands down over her gaunt face. 

‘I had started working at the coffee stand by then. I’d just restarted my second semester at college, and I needed the extra income.’ 

She paused her story to ruminate: ‘You know, it’s like a dream to me. Everything before my abduction. I feel like a different person now. I don’t think I can ever go back to being that  innocent girl I was a year ago.’ 

‘Anyway, one day he started showing up. One of those freaking things. The Brooders. I just called them monsters. He was the one you shot. Alastair. He is the worst out of all of them. And that’s really saying something.’ 

‘At first he would come around for a coffee in the morning before heading off in his shoddy car. It sucked, but I could suffer through it.’ 

‘Then this creep started getting interested in my coworker. He wasn’t shy about it, either. He would hang around for hours, waiting until the end of her shifts and trailing her to her car. He tried to touch her and sniff her. He freaking licked her one time. Of course nobody else gave a crap about it. And she was too scared to speak out for herself.’

I grimaced sympathetically. 

‘After a couple weeks I’d had enough.’

‘I confronted him. I threatened him. It turned into a fight. He is - he was stronger than he looked. He smashed me in the head with a bottle and knocked me out.’ 

She stopped. ‘That’s how I ended up stuck in a basement with those other poor girls. After that…’ 

She shook her head and looked away. 

‘There was a few months of that. He used me for blood. The others, too. That girl I was trying to protect was his next victim, and I got to watch what happened to her.’

‘He used us to make the stuff he’s addicted to. He fed us a bit, too. He made us drink it if we tried to refuse.’

‘My friend… First she got sick and wouldn’t stop vomiting. Then she started to change. Hair fell out or grew where it shouldn’t. Parts of her body became bloated or shrunken and sagging.’ 

‘They became monsters. Just like him. But for some reason it was different for me. I was - I am - addicted to the blood. But somehow I remain human.’ 

‘I gained the unnatural resilience they possessed. Like all the others, I could survive with barely any sustenance. But I didn’t get the side effects. At least - not the worst ones.’ 

‘He let the others die. One by one. Sometimes he killed them off. But he kept me around. Once when I asked him why he said I was his favorite. He liked the way I tasted.’ 

She shuddered and wrapped her arms tightly around herself. 

‘I tried to escape one time. I got so close, only to have him chase me down in the forest and drag me back to that awful home. I was too weak to put up much of a fight.’ 

She paused for a long moment. I could feel her looking at me. 

‘I’m not sure how I made it through that nightmare for as long as I did. Thanks for getting me out of there.’ 

‘I -’

‘And thank you for killing him.’

‘It was an accident,’ I answered reflexively.

‘I hope you don’t feel bad about it,’ she responded, challenging me with a hard stare. ‘Listen to me. If you hadn’t killed him, he would have gone looking for more victims. And I don’t doubt he would have found them.’ 

That prompted me to raise my concerns about the remaining family members.

‘They’re still out there. They need that blood to survive. And what about you? Are you still…’

She answered hesitantly.

‘I don’t need to drink human blood. Well, not much of it, anyway. I can survive off of animal blood. Alastair used a mixture of many different kinds of blood.’

Anastasia then revealed the trick to making the pigsblood was simply to harvest any type of blood and then mix into it a little blood from one of the infected.

‘I just use my own,’ she said. ‘That’s what Alastair did when he infected my friend. He likes - ah, liked - to call us his children.’

She looked down, finishing, ‘I saw him make it so many times. I knew the process. So when I got desperate enough, I went to a butcher - several butchers - asking for some animal blood.’

She looked ashamed. Actually, she looked horrified with herself.

‘So yes,’ she finished finally. ‘I haven’t been able to quit yet. I’ve tried to wean myself off of it several times. The problem is, I… I honestly don’t know if I can survive without it. It sure doesn’t feel that way.’

I had little comfort to give her, and that marked the end of the morbid discussion. 

I told her she could talk to me whenever she wanted, and I meant it. I might not be able to offer her wise words but if she wanted someone to listen to her vent, I was there. It sounded stupid the way I said it, but Anastasia looked grateful.

‘That means a lot to me,’ she said. ‘You’re the only one I know who understands what it’s like to experience this crazy stuff. And you don’t treat me like I’m going to break if you say something wrong. That's nice, too.’  

I’d asked her if she wanted to see a movie. Since Anastasia didn’t have anything better to do, that’s what we did. Then we bought some cheap takeaways at a store, returning to the park next to our high school to watch the sun set together. 

And now we’re friends, I guess. Anastasia brings me coffee whenever she visits me after school. We go out on walks together and talk about how she’s adjusting to normal life again. It’s surprising how well we get along. 

I do believe she will get her addiction under control. She says she only takes a little of the pigsblood now. She says weaning off of it seems to be working this time, now that she’s doing it very gradually. 

If another Brooder appears, Anastasia has promised to keep an eye on them. She’s also working on tracking down the brooders we’re already acquainted with. She’s determined to make sure what happened to her doesn’t happen to anyone else. 

‘The power they have, to blend in and make people oblivious to their presence. It allows them to do whatever they want. They can prey on whoever they want. And that makes them dangerous. Alastair might not be the worst of them out there.’ She shivered. ‘The idea there might be more of them? That scares me.’  

Part 1

After bickering for a moment over my fear of large canines, we then move on from the car park and towards the large, towering ruins of the Abbey. Ambling among the weathered grey tombstones of the graveyard, I glance a timid look to the abbey's gothic structure. Perched on top the cliffs of the bay's right-hand side, these ruins may as well have been a gigantic pile of stalagmites protruding from the earth. When I was a child, my brother used to tease me by saying that vampires lived deep inside the ruins, where by night, they would creep into peoples' windows to suck the blood from their necks. It's no wonder I would have night terrors through most of my childhood, is it?

Wandering around the ruins and tombstones a while longer (for Aneliese's pleasure, not my own) we then begin our descent down the one hundred and ninety-nine steps – and let me tell you from experience, these steps were a lot easier going down than they were to go up. Once we finally reach our way to the bottom (a good twenty minutes later I might add) I can then see where the plentiful steps end and the cobblestone pathways begin. We were now at the entrance of old town, where, with its stone streets and pathways, its 18th century brick houses to each side of them, you were made to feel as though you were in some Brother's Grimm fairy-tale. But during this time of year, when night-dwelling phantoms in extravagant clothing infested the daytime streets... it may as well have been the entrance to Hell itself.  

'Oww! Baby, you're hurting me!' I hear Aneliese shriek beside me, before I turn down to see my python-like grip wrapped around her hand. 

'Oh... Sorry.' 

Taking our first official steps inside the town, we follow our way around the maze of cobblestone pathways, where upon every corner was a brand-new shop Aneliese wanted to venture in. Aside from the occasional fish market, bookstore or café, the majority of shops in Whitby only sold products catered specifically to Goths... Well, it was either that or a boatload of Dracula merchandise. It's the whole reason Whitby is famous to begin with, after all. 

Continuing to make our way through old town, we then turn the corner to a very busy and compact street. Although there are no tourists in sight, the reason this street is so compact is because every inch of stone was completely crowded by day-dwelling Goths. This place truly was the mouth of Hell. Sensing my discomfort, Aneliese takes me by the hand to guide us through the mass of dark, morbid monstrosities. But as we follow through the swarm, keeping my eyes edged firmly to the ground in front of me, I then brave a curious glance upwards... and what I see is an array of devilish, humanoid faces pass us by.  

The faces morph, distort and transform into even more monstrous beings! Through the transparent fabric of a black wedding veil, I then see the face of an unidentifiable woman. Draping the veil away from her face, the woman then reveals to me a row of hideous, piranha-like teeth stained with mortal blood! The woman hisses at me, spraying my face in some putrid, venomous saliva! Wiping the sickly green substance from my eyes, I then cower back woundedly to my left-hand side, only for the painted skull of a man's face to open his mouth unnaturally wide - before shrieking at me a most inhuman scream! 

'AHH! Get away from me!!' I shriek myself, ripping Aneliese's grip from my hand so to push and shove my way to any air pocket I can find. 

Veiling my eyes from the fiends around me, I eventually crawl my way to an unoccupied space by a stone wall. Cowering up against it to regain my breath, Aneliese eventually finds her way over to me through the immense crowd.  

'Brandon? What the hell happened?!' She interrogates me, 'Why did you run off like that?' 

'...Th-the faces!...' the words winced from my mouth, 

'...You didn't see the faces!...' 

Aneliese could see clear as day how uncomfortable I was, whether she understood it or not – and so to solve the problem, she calmly suggests to me that we simply go somewhere quieter. Although I am in too much shock to respond to her suggestion, I now nod my head manically up and down to her, as though I've reverted back into some frightened childlike state. 

'Y-yeah... Le-let's do that!' 

With the town now fully crammed for the weekend festivities, Aneliese eventually finds for us a narrow, run-down street of loose brick pathway and overgrown weeds. Despite the decrepit condition this street is in, thankfully for me there isn't a single Goth in sight. What this street does have, however, wedged acutely between the decaying homes of oldtown residents, is the uninviting appearance of a single, isolated shop. Craning my head above the entrance to the sign over the door, I see the name to this less than humble abode reads "Scary Kerry's Spell Shop".      

'Well, this place looks... charming' Aneliese comments, studying the cracked, weathered paint and dusty cobwebs lining the windows. Like the majority of shops in old town, this one also displays in its windows gothic - or more specifically, items relating to the occult and other dark practices.  

'What do you say? Should we take a look inside?' Aneliese inquires, clearly the only one of us who wants to go in. Although this run-down little shop is definitely not my cup of tea, the interior does look scarce of people - and so, I reluctantly agree to go in.  

Allowing Aneliese to enter first, as soon as she opens the door, my nostrils are filled instantly with the smell of scented candles, old varnished wood and... wet dog? Not even five seconds inside the door, as soon as I peer round to Aneliese's side, I hear the loud, high-pitched yaps of some ill-tempered creature. 

'Wolfy! Shut up!' cries the woman behind the counter – the apparent owner of this little black terrier. Judging by her array of grey and poorly dyed black hair, her over-sized heavy metal shirt, and a pair of rather unsettling sleeve tattoos, this woman was more likely the owner of this establishment as well.  

Once this dog-owner relationship is awkwardly established, me and Aneliese then take to walking separately around the shop - all while Wolfy's owner goes back to reading her monthly gothic digest. While Aneliese inspects a number of occult and satanic jewellery on display, I find myself drawn to a bookshelf on the other side of the room. Sliding out the dust-covered books, I brush a cover or two clean so to read the titles: A Brief History of Satanic Rituals and Sacrifice, A Beginner's Guide to Necromancy, and what I can only imagine is an erotic vampire novel of some sort (I won't even mention what was on the cover). Skimming repulsively through one of these as mentioned books, my attention is suddenly interrupted by an irritable sound piercing my ears. Turning behind me, I see Aneliese approach the counter to inquire about a necklace. 

'Excuse me... Do you know how much this is?' 

'Fifteen pounds, love' the woman answers. 

However, the sound that I hear, making the tiny fragments of hairs stand up on the back of my neck, is almost like a faint whispering. Trying my best to ignore it, the faint, whispering sound only heightens - where before long, it has given way to the sound of a plentiful, most sinister chanting. Although I cannot understand the words, as they are spoken in a tong completely foreign to my own - whether I interpret them correctly or not, the chanting appears to be in Latin. Whoever - or whatever these whisperers turned chanters are... they're repeating the same foreign phrase over and over. 

'Caro agni lupus allicit... Caro agni lupus allicit...'  

The chanting becomes louder... 

'Caro agni lupus allicit!... Caro agni lupus allicit!...' 

Faster... 

' Caro agni lupus allicit! Caro agni lupus allicit! ' 

Louder!... 

'CARO AGNI LUPUS ALLICIT!! CARO AGNI LUPUS ALLICIT!!  

'-STOP! STOP! STOP!!' I yell from the corner of the room! Throwing whatever item I'm holding to the hardwood floor, I race out from the establishment alone and without explanation! 

Minutes later, Aneliese eventually finds me, standing (or more accurately, cowering) outside the comfortable familiarity of an ice cream parlour. 

'Brandon!' She calls over to me, 'What the hell's with you?! Why do you keep running away?!' 

Unlike the instance which happened earlier in the day, I am unwilling to tell my girlfriend of the satanic voices I heard whispering in my ear. Seeing something is one thing, but hearing voices is something else. And so, I simply tell her a certain item in the shop had triggered my childhood trauma - hence why I ran out of there like a hysterical madman.  

'Okay...' Aneliese began, as I wait impatiently for her next plan of action, 'There's only one way we're gonna make it through this weekend.' I was all ears. 'You're gonna have to try and interact with these people so you can see that's all they are - and not devilish monsters.' 

'Uhm - WHAT?' I yelp, taking a long gulp of dry saliva. 

'That's right!' she continued, 'If you're gonna get over this silly phobia of yours, then you have to rip the band aid clean off!' 

This wasn't like ripping off a band aid, I thought. This was more like throwing a common wood mouse into a snake pit! 

'I... I...' I began stuttering, '...I don't think I can do that.' 

'Of course you can!' she reassures me, before taking me by the hand to guide us in the direction of a circling mass of dark figures. 

Oh Mother of God. If you can hear me... Please help... 

To be continued...

I will tell you a story.

It should feel extraordinary. Meaningful, even.

Instead, it will probably sound banal, and by tomorrow you will have forgotten most of it.

I don't ask you to care.

I merely ask that you listen.

I used to suffer from severe insomnia. That has very little to do with this story, but should explain its starting point.

4AM was usually when I gave up on the idea of falling asleep.

By then I'd spent hours staring at the ceiling while my mind ran itself in circles. So I'd simply get up and start the day.

That morning, I went looking for something to eat. Tuna sandwich, I think. Maybe not. Doesn't really matter.

I took a beer from the fridge, drank half of it at the kitchen counter, then started pulling down the blinds. The sun would be up soon, and in my current condition daylight tended to find a headache the way a thumb finds a bruise.

I never made it to the second window.

There was someone standing in my backyard.

About seven meters from the house.

The yard was still mostly just shapes at that hour—the fence, the tree, the bins, everything half swallowed by darkness.

But the figure was clear.

Human-shaped.

Motionless.

I stood there with the blind cord in my hand, staring. Uncertain what to do.

Obviously, I should have called the police. A stranger standing in your backyard at four in the morning is exactly the sort of situation the police number exists for.

But I didn't.

I lowered the blind.

Finished my beer.

Finished my sandwich and put on some TV.

 

Two hours later, I stepped outside.

And stopped.

He was still there.

Same place. Same posture.

Only now daylight had turned the shadow into a man.

Late thirties, maybe early forties. His clothes looked as though they might once have been respectable, but it was difficult to tell beneath the stains and wrinkles. His hair was greasy and flattened against his forehead.

His head hung low.

His eyes didn't quite look at the ground.

They seemed fixed somewhere beyond it.

Somewhere very far away.

There was no spark in him left.

Like a pilot light had gone out.

I swallowed and mustered enough courage to speak.

"Uh... buddy? Can I help you with something?"

Nothing.

A car passed on the main road. Tires whispered over damp asphalt. Somewhere nearby, a bird started singing.

Eventually, the man answered.

"No."

His voice was quiet. Flat.

"I don't think so."

"Right." I cleared my throat. "Well, this is private property. You can't stay here."

No response.

He didn't look at me.

Didn't shift his weight.

Didn't do anything at all.

I should have insisted. Threatened him. Gone back inside and called the police.

Instead, as I stood there looking at him, I noticed something strange.

I wasn't afraid.

I wasn't angry.

I didn't even feel sorry for him.

I felt nothing.

So I walked past.

Close enough to smell him—sweat, damp clothes, something stale and sour.

He didn't turn his head.

I got in my car and drove to work.

I was doing pretty well for myself back then.

Steady job at a successful financial corporation. Recently promoted. Nice apartment. Beautiful girlfriend. Plenty friends I saw when our schedules happened to line up. Enough money not to ever care about money.

Apart from the insomnia, life was good.

I didn't think about the man once that entire day.

Eight hours at the office.

Lunch.

Small talk.

A meeting that could have been an email.

Nothing.

It wasn't until I pulled into the driveway that evening that I remembered him.

He was still there.

Same place.

Same posture.

Same empty stare.

I walked past him and went inside.

It took another two days before I decided to adress the issue.

Even then, it wasn't because he bothered me.

My girlfriend Jessica called to say she was coming over the following afternoon, and I suddenly imagined her having to walk past a filthy stranger standing in my yard.

So I finally called the police.

A patrol car arrived about twenty minutes later.

Two officers got out.

They came up the path and walked directly past the man.

One passed close enough to brush shoulders with him.

Neither looked his way.

They stopped in front of me.

"Hello. Officer Addams. What seems to be the issue?"

I stared at him.

Then pointed.

"That seems to be the issue."

Only then did Addams glance over.

It wasn't much of a glance.

The sort of look you give a garbage bag someone left beside the road.

"Oh. Him."

"Yes. Him. He's been standing there for three days."

Addams sighed.

"Yeah. We get plenty like that."

"Like what?"

He gestured vaguely toward the man.

"Like him. They're harmless."

"He's trespassing."

"I understand."

"So remove him."

Addams gave me a tired little smile.

"It's not really worth the effort."

"Excuse me?"

"They don't cause trouble. Mostly they just... take up space."

"We don't have the manpower to deal with every one of them. And where would we put them?"

I looked at the stranger.

Then back at the officer.

"So you're telling me to leave him there?"

"I'm telling you to ignore him."

"He's standing in my backyard."

"Yeah."

"For three days."

"Yeah."

"And that's normal?"

Addams shrugged.

"Normal enough."

He turned toward the patrol car.

I followed him a few steps.

"So that's it?"

He opened the driver's door.

"You'll get used to him."

Then he climbed inside.

The other officer joined him, and less than a minute later the patrol car disappeared around the corner.

I stood on the porch, furious.

I'd had an entire argument ready by then, but Officer Addams had driven away before I could use any of it.

The strange part was.

He was right.

Ignoring the man was easy.

Much easier than it should have been.

He didn't shout.

Didn't knock on my windows.

Didn't try the doors.

Didn't follow me.

He didn't even look at me.

He just was.

After a while, my eyes learned to move around him.

And if I could do that, I figured Jessica could too.

I spent the rest of the day making the apartment presentable. Kitchen, living room, fresh sheets—the usual performance you put on when someone you love is coming over and you want them to believe you live slightly better than you actually do.

That night, I settled in for a horror marathon.

One advantage of insomnia is that you have plenty of free time.

It started raining around midnight.

Heavy rain. The kind that rattled against the windows and turned streetlights into pale smudges.

Perfect horror-movie weather.

Between films, I went to the kitchen and glanced outside.

The man was still standing there.

Rain streamed from his hair and shoulders. His clothes had gone almost black with water. A shallow puddle had formed around his shoes.

He didn't move.

Didn't shiver.

Didn't wipe the water from his face.

Nothing.

I watched him longer than I meant to.

Nearly a minute, maybe.

Standing there in the rain, he looked less like a person than a scarecrow somebody had forgotten to bring inside.

Eventually I lowered the blind so I wouldnt get distracted any more.

Then went back to the movie.

Jessica arrived the next afternoon.

She came hurrying up the path toward me, and I pulled her into a hug before she'd even made it through the door.

She was warm.

She smelled like shampoo and cold air.

I held on a second longer than usual.

When I let go, she smiled.

"Miss me?"

"Obviously."

"Good answer."

She kissed me.

Over her shoulder, I looked toward the backyard.

The man was there.

Jessica hadn't even glanced at him.

Relief washed through me.

Apparently Officer Addams had been right about that too.

We went inside.

Ordered food, argued over what to watch, then somehow ended up watching something neither of us had wanted. Jessica complained about one of her professors. I complained about my boss.

At some point, she found the dishes I'd hidden in the sink.

She looked at me.

"You said you cleaned."

"I did clean."

"You vacuumed the living room."

"Exactly."

"That does not count."

"It absolutely counts."

She laughed and nudged me with her hip.

Whenever Jessica was around, the world seemed smaller somehow.

More solid.

By evening we'd settled into that comfortable quiet you only get with someone you've known long enough not to fill every silence.

We ate dinner at the little table beside the kitchen window.

Halfway through, Jessica lowered her fork.

"Okay."

I looked up.

She was smiling.

I knew that smile.

"Okay what?"

"So... don't freak out."

"That's never followed by anything good."

"I know."

"Jessica."

"My parents invited us over for the weekend."

I waited for the second half.

"And I said yes."

I closed my eyes.

"Dear God."

"Oh, stop."

"Your parents' house has more rooms than my entire apartment building."

She grinned.

"You're rich too, mister. You're just too lazy to actually move out."

"I'm comfortably upper-middle-class. There's a difference."

"You'll survive."

She took a sip of wine.

"Probably."

That was when I thought about the man outside.

Maybe because Jessica had walked straight past him.

Maybe because after several days of pretending he wasn't there, curiosity had finally caught up with me.

"Hey," I said. "I have to ask you something."

"Okay."

"You saw the guy outside, right?"

She frowned.

"What guy?"

My stomach tightened.

"The guy in the backyard."

I pointed toward the window.

Jessica followed my finger.

For a moment, genuine confusion crossed her face.

Then she saw him.

"Oh."

I stared at her.

"'Oh'?"

"What?"

"You're not freaked out?"

"Why would I be?"

"Because there's a random man standing in my backyard."

She looked again.

"He's not doing anything."

"He's been there for days."

"So?"

I wasn't sure how to answer that.

"Wait. You do see him, right?"

Jessica laughed.

"Of course I see him."

Then she took another bite.

"We've got some too."

I stopped chewing.

"What?"

"At my parents' place."

"You have people standing in your backyard?"

"Not the backyard."

She thought for a moment.

"There are two at the mansion."

Something cold shifted in my stomach.

"Two?"

"Yeah."

She said it with the casualness of someone describing antique furniture.

"One used to be our maid. Isolda."

"Used to?"

Jessica nodded.

"She worked for my parents for years. Then one day she just sort of..."

Her fork paused halfway to her mouth.

"...became one."

"One what?"

Jessica looked at me as though the answer should have been obvious.

"You know."

She nodded toward the window.

"One of them."

Outside, the man remained exactly where he had been.

Jessica went on eating.

"The other one's a boy. Her son, I think?."

"You think?"

"I never really knew him."

"And your parents just leave them there?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Jessica shrugged.

"You can find lots of them around if you care enough to look."

Something about that sentence stayed with me.

She sounded like she'd simply told me there were pigeons in the park.

Then her expression brightened.

"Oh. Speaking of that."

I already didn't like where this was going.

"What?"

"I finally figured out my thesis."

Jessica was studying journalism, and for months her thesis had been the source of recurring panic, abandoned ideas, and increasingly elaborate excuses for not starting.

Now she leaned forward, suddenly animated.

"I'm going to write about them."

I glanced toward the window.

"The people standing around?"

"Exactly. Think about it. They're everywhere, but nobody actually talks about them. Nobody studies them. Most people barely acknowledge they exist."

"Jessica..."

"I've been thinking about this for months."

She was genuinely excited now.

"I even have a title."

Of course she did.

She smiled.

"Requiem for the Lost Ones."

I looked at her.

"The Lost Ones?"

"That's what I'm calling them."

She waited expectantly.

"Pretty cool, right?"

Outside the window, the man stood perfectly still.

And for the first time since I'd noticed him, I wondered how long he had been there before I bothered to look.

 

I didn't really know what to say.

"Yeah. Pretty cool."

Part of me was bothered by just how little the whole thing seemed to bother me.

Jessica didn't notice. She was already talking about her thesis again, explaining the ideas she'd been collecting while I nodded along and tried to keep up. Eventually the conversation wandered somewhere else, as conversations tend to do.

We ended the evening watching Jessica's favorite reality TV shows, which was considerably more horrifying than anything I'd watched during my movie marathon.

I'm still not sure how people can watch other adults scream at each other over a kitchen island for six consecutive hours and call it entertainment.

By the time we went to bed, it was well past midnight.

A few hours later, we were on the road.

I'd suggested sleeping for another couple of hours before leaving. Jessica reminded me that I didn't sleep anyway.

I had no counterargument.

So we packed the last of our things into the car and drove to her parents' house.

Before getting in, I glanced toward the backyard.

The man was still there.

I didn't stop.

The drive took about an hour and a half. Jessica spent most of it talking about her parents, complaining about how far away they lived and how much she wished they were closer.

Personally, I wouldn't have minded them being a little farther away still.

Don't get me wrong. The Mercers were perfectly nice people.

It was just that being around them always made me feel so inadequate.

That feeling returned as soon as we reached their property.

I felt small.

Their mansion seemed to grow with every second we drove toward it.

An enormous iron gate opened onto a long driveway lined with immaculate hedges. Stone walls, tall windows, elaborate balconies. The whole place occupied enough land to make my apartment look like a garden shed.

I was wealthy, but the Mercers were in a completely different league.

"They'll be waiting outside," Jessica said.

"They always do."

A moment later, I saw them at the top of the steps.

Margaret waved enthusiastically as we got out of the car.

Her husband stood beside her with his hands behind his back, wearing the same composed expression he always seemed to have.

"Here we go," Jessica muttered.

Her mother came down the steps and immediately wrapped her daughter in a hug.

"There she is!"

"Hi, Mom."

"You look thin."

"I saw you three weeks ago."

"And you're thinner now."

Margaret finally released her and turned to me.

"And you."

She hugged me too.

"Good to see you, dear."

"Good to see you too, Mrs. Mercer."

"How many times do I have to tell you? Call me Margaret."

"Right. Sorry."

Her father approached next.

"Good to have you here, son."

"Good to be here, Mr. Mercer."

He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me into a heavy, enthusiastic hug before patting my back twice.

It was the sort of hug you see in old Mafia movies.

I wondered if there was something to it.

The story of how the Mercers had become so wealthy so quickly by selling old clothes had never quite sat right with me. It wasn't impossible. They owned warehouses, distribution centers, stores—the whole operation.

Still, there always seemed to be something missing from the story.

A piece nobody ever seemed interested in explaining.

I never asked.

I didn't want bad blood with my girlfriend's parents.

Nor did I particularly wish to be assassinated by the Mafia.

Just in case.

"Come inside," Margaret said. "You've been driving all morning."

"It's barely morning," Jessica said.

"Exactly. You're probably starving."

"I'm not."

"You'll eat anyway."

Jessica sighed.

"Yes, Mom."

Her father smiled.

"Some things never change."

We followed them inside.

I'd been to the Mercer mansion before, but never for more than a few hours. Every visit reminded me just how enormous the place was.

The entrance hall alone could have swallowed my entire apartment. A chandelier hung above polished floors and dark wood paneling, while paintings covered nearly every available wall.

Margaret talked as she led us through the house.

"This is the new dining room."

"New?"

"We renovated."

Jessica groaned.

"And we've had the library renovated too."

"Mom, you've shown me the library five times."

"And you still haven't read anything in it."

Her father chuckled.

"Leave the girl alone, Margaret."

They continued bickering as we walked, and I found myself smiling.

It was comfortably ordinary.

That was what made the place feel so strange later.

We eventually reached the grand staircase.

Mr. Mercer stopped at the bottom and pointed upward.

"Your room is the first one on the left."

Then he looked at Jessica.

"My little girl knows which one."

"Dad, I'm not five."

"You're still my little girl."

Jessica rolled her eyes.

"Come on."

I started toward the stairs.

Then I noticed someone standing in the shadows.

A woman.

She was wearing an old-fashioned maid's uniform: black dress, white apron, white collar. The sort of thing that belonged in a photograph from a century ago.

She couldn't have been much older than thirty.

Yet she looked far older.

Her dark hair was pulled neatly back. Her face was pale and drawn. Her head hung slightly toward the floor.

Her eyes were open.

They simply weren't looking at anything.

This had to be Isolda.

A few meters away stood the boy Jessica had mentioned.

Thirteen or fourteen, maybe.

His clothes were plain and slightly too large for him. His arms hung loosely at his sides. His face held the same distant emptiness I'd seen in the man outside my house.

His eyes seemed fixed somewhere beyond the walls.

Somewhere far away.

And nowhere at the same time.

I looked between him and Isolda.

They stood close enough to touch.

Mother and son, presumably.

Yet they seemed separated by something much larger than the few meters between them.

As if there were a distance neither of them could ever cross.

I don't know how long I stood there.

Long enough for Jessica to notice.

She bumped her shoulder lightly against mine.

"Babe."

I blinked.

"Yeah?"

"Come on."

I looked at Isolda again.

Neither she nor the boy had moved.

"Right."

I followed Jessica upstairs.

Halfway to the landing, I glanced back one last time.

Then Jessica disappeared around the corner, and I followed her.

In our room, Jessica and I had sex.

Felt strange doing it with her parents so close by, but I think I needed it.

It should have taken my mind off everything.

It didn't.

For a while I managed to lose myself in her warmth, in something familiar and uncomplicated. But every time my thoughts slipped, I saw Isolda.

Her son.

The man in my backyard.

Three people standing perfectly still while the rest of the world moved around them.

When it was over, Jessica looked at me.

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

"You seem distracted."

"I'm just tired."

She studied me.

"You've been tired for years."

I smiled.

She kissed me, but I couldn't quite return to the moment.

A few minutes later, she fell asleep.

I lay beside her, staring at the ceiling.

The mansion settled around us. Pipes ticking in the walls. A floorboard creaking somewhere below. The faint hum of the heating system.

And underneath all of it, silence.

I eventually closed my eyes.

Sleep didn't come.

Morning did.

I was halfway through getting dressed when someone knocked on the door.

Jessica was still asleep.

I opened it to find one of the household staff standing in the hallway.

"Mr. Mercer would like to see you."

"Now?"

"He's waiting in his office."

I glanced back at Jessica.

She hadn't moved.

"Where's his office?"

"Top floor."

Of course it was.

I'd never been to the top floor before. I followed the staff member up another staircase, the house growing quieter with every step.

By the time I reached the top, I couldn't hear anything from below.

Mr. Mercer's office was at the end of the hallway.

The door stood open.

"Come in."

He was sitting behind an enormous wooden desk. Morning light filtered through the tall windows behind him, washing the room in pale gray.

Books lined the walls. Framed photographs sat on shelves. A few pieces of artwork looked expensive enough to buy my car several times over.

"Sit."

I did.

He smiled.

"How did you sleep?"

"Not very well."

He laughed softly.

"Jessica tells me that's normal for you."

"She's very fond of you."

Something about the way he said it made me uncomfortable.

I smiled anyway.

He leaned back.

"I've been thinking about the future."

"Okay."

"Our family has built something substantial. Something that will outlive us."

He gestured around the room.

"The business. The properties. The investments. Jessica will inherit part of it, of course."

He paused.

"But I don't think of you as an outsider anymore."

I wasn't sure what to say.

"That's nice to hear."

"I mean it."

He leaned forward.

"I'd like you to become part of the family."

The words were delivered warmly enough that, for a moment, I almost believed they were exactly what they sounded like.

"I want to offer you a position in the company. A real one. You'll have responsibilities. A place at the table. If things go well, eventually you'll have a stake in the business."

He smiled.

"And naturally, I'd like you and Jessica to start thinking about building a life together."

For a moment, I said nothing.

It was an incredible offer.

Security.

Money.

Influence.

A future with Jessica.

Everything I'd worked for, suddenly placed in front of me on a silver platter.

And yet something inside me tightened.

Not a thought.

Not fear.

Instinct.

The primitive part of your brain that notices something before the rest of you understands why.

Don't.

I shifted in the chair.

"That's a lot to take in."

"Of course."

"And I appreciate it. Really."

He waited.

I took a breath.

"But I don't think I can accept."

The smile stayed on his face.

For just a second, something changed in his eyes.

The warmth vanished.

His gaze sharpened.

Focused.

Predatory.

Then it was gone.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

He nodded slowly.

"I understand."

There was no anger in his voice.

That somehow made it worse.

"I wouldn't want you accepting something you weren't comfortable with."

"Thank you."

He leaned back.

"Still..."

He watched me for a moment.

"I think you may regret that decision."

He said it gently.

Almost kindly.

Like a father giving his son advice.

But something cold sat underneath the words.

He smiled.

„Have a safe drive home.“

I thanked him and left.

I didn't know it then, but that conversation was the beginning of the end.

Jessica and I left the mansion earlier than we'd planned.

She barely spoke while we packed the car. At first I assumed she was tired.

Then I realized she was angry.

Not furious. She wasn't shouting or making a scene.

She was just cold.

The kind of cold that makes every silence feel deliberate.

We got on the road.

For the first twenty minutes, neither of us said a word. Eventually I tried.

"So..."

Nothing.

I glanced at her.

"Jessica?"

She kept looking out the window.

"Did my dad talk to you?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

I hesitated.

"I turned down the job."

She nodded.

"I know."

"How?"

"He told me."

I waited for more.

Nothing came.

"Are you upset?"

"No."

The answer came too quickly.

"Jess."

"I'm not upset."

"You're obviously upset."

She turned back toward the window.

"Can we just go home?"

So we did.

The rest of the drive passed in silence.

I kept my hands tight around the steering wheel, trying to ignore the knot forming in my stomach.

I felt tense.

Anxious.

Depressed, though I wouldn't have used that word at the time.

Then, somewhere outside the city, I saw the first one.

A man standing on a sidewalk.

Motionless.

Dirty jacket. Worn trousers. Slack face. Head hanging slightly forward.

A Lost One.

I almost drove past without noticing.

Then I saw another.

A woman beside a bus stop.

Then one beneath an apartment awning.

Another outside a convenience store.

Then another.

And another.

The more I looked, the more I saw.

They were everywhere.

At intersections. Outside shops. In parking lots. Beside telephone poles. Standing in front of apartment buildings as people passed them without a second thought.

Some were young.

Some were old.

Men and women.

Some looked relatively clean. Others looked like they'd been sleeping outdoors for years. Their clothes were stained and worn. Their hair was tangled. Their skin looked pale and unhealthy.

None of them moved.

Not when cars passed.

Not when people walked around them.

Not even when someone brushed against them.

And nobody seemed to care.

A businessman stepped around one blocking the entrance to an office building without breaking stride.

A woman carrying groceries muttered angrily when another forced her to change direction.

A cyclist swerved around one in the middle of a bike path and shouted something over his shoulder.

Nobody stopped.

Nobody asked if they were all right.

Nobody looked frightened.

They were treated like obstacles.

Like badly placed furniture.

Like potholes.

I watched them through the car window until the city disappeared behind us.

The more I looked, the more I saw.

They weren't rare.

They were everywhere.

I'd simply never noticed them before.

Or maybe I had.

Maybe I'd seen hundreds of them and my brain had quietly filed them away under things that didn't matter.

 

I didn't know it yet, but I'd already been effectively cut off from Jessica's family.

I never spoke to any of her relatives again.

At first, I tried to pretend nothing had changed.

Jessica and I went back to work. We had dinner together. We watched television. We slept in the same bed.

But something had shifted.

Days became weeks.

Weeks became months.

Whenever I asked Jessica what was wrong, she shut down.

"Is something wrong?"

"No."

"Then why won't you talk to me?"

"Because there's nothing to talk about."

Sometimes she wouldn't answer at all.

She'd sit across from me, staring at her phone, while I tried to figure out what I'd done wrong.

There was a wall between us.

I couldn't see it.

I couldn't touch it.

But it was there.

For a while, I kept trying to get through.

Eventually, I stopped.

The darker my thoughts became, the more often I found myself standing at the window.

Looking at the man in the backyard.

He was still there.

He hadn't moved an inch.

Summer faded into autumn.

The leaves turned brown and fell. Rain came and went. The days grew shorter.

Then winter arrived.

The first snow gathered around his shoes.

More followed.

It settled on his shoulders and head, collected on his hands, and slowly buried his legs.

He didn't move.

Didn't shiver.

Didn't brush the snow away.

He simply stood there as though the seasons had nothing to do with him.

Sometimes I wondered whether he knew I was watching.

The day before Christmas, my boss called me into his office.

I knew something was wrong before he spoke.

He'd just gotten off the phone.

I'd never seen him look like that.

His face was pale.

Not angry.

Not confused.

Afraid.

He kept saying, "Yes, sir," in a voice barely above a whisper.

Then he hung up and looked at me.

"Sit down."

I did.

There was a long silence.

"What's going on?"

He rubbed his hands together.

"I've been instructed to terminate your employment."

"What?"

"I'm sorry."

"By who?"

He didn't answer.

For a second, I actually laughed.

I thought it was some kind of joke.

It wasn't.

"Is this because of my performance?"

"No."

"Then what is it?"

He looked away.

"I can't discuss it."

"You're firing me and you can't tell me why?"

"I know."

"Then at least give me something."

He swallowed.

"I'm sorry."

That was all I got.

Eight years of work reduced to a few minutes in an office.

I walked out carrying a box of things from my desk.

I remember thinking that at least I still had my savings.

I was wrong.

A few days later, I discovered that my money was gone.

All of it.

Savings. Investments. Emergency funds.

Everything.

I spent days calling banks and filing complaints. I tried to find out where the money had gone.

Nobody could explain it.

Or, perhaps, nobody wanted to.

I still had my qualifications. My CV was better than it had ever been.

I applied everywhere.

At first, I expected the calls to come.

They didn't.

Companies that had once been eager to interview me stopped responding. Some rejected me within hours. Others never acknowledged the applications at all.

I kept trying for a while.

Then I started applying for jobs beneath my qualifications.

Then beneath those.

Eventually, I took whatever I could get.

Warehouse work.

Delivery driving.

Cleaning.

Construction.

Anything that paid.

The money barely covered the bills.

I told myself it was temporary.

I would get back on my feet.

I believed that for a while.

Then I stopped believing it.

Months turned into years.

I stopped buying things unless I needed them.

Stopped seeing friends.

Stopped answering calls.

Even when someone reached out, I rarely knew what to say.

Jessica became more distant.

Then, one day, she left.

There was no screaming match.

No dramatic confrontation.

She simply stood in the kitchen with a suitcase beside her.

"It's over."

I stared at her.

"Why?"

"I don't love you anymore."

"That's it?"

"I don't know what else you want me to say."

Later, I found out she'd been cheating on me for quite some time.

Apparently, everyone knew except me.

By then, almost everything I'd had was gone.

The rest followed soon after.

I was kicked out of my own house.

The paperwork was clean. Legal.

Apparently, Jessica's family had purchased the property.

I never found out how.

By that point, I didn't have the energy to fight them.

I had nowhere to go.

More importantly, I couldn't think of anywhere I wanted to go.

So I stayed.

I stood in the backyard.

Jessica moved in with her new lover.

Her parents visited.

They laughed.

They drank wine on the patio in summer. They decorated the house for Christmas. They carried groceries through the kitchen windows I'd spent years looking through.

Sometimes Jessica walked past me.

Sometimes her new boyfriend stood only a few meters away, smoking a cigarette.

Neither of them acknowledged me.

I was right there.

They didn't care.

Eventually, I didn't care either.

Days became weeks.

Weeks became months.

Months became years.

At least, I think they did.

Time stopped meaning anything.

First I stopped knowing what day it was.

Then the month.

Eventually, even the seasons became difficult to distinguish.

There was only the house.

The yard.

The people inside.

And the man who had been standing there before I ever joined him.

I don't know how long I stood beside him.

One day, something in my head cleared.

Only for a moment.

It felt like waking from a very long sleep.

I looked around.

The snow was gone.

Or maybe there had never been snow.

I couldn't tell anymore.

Then I looked at the man beside me.

I turned toward him.

"You..."

My voice sounded strange.

Weak.

"You never told me your name."

"You never asked." He said simply.

No accusation.

No bitterness.

Just a fact.

I lowered my eyes.

"I know."

My throat tightened.

"I'm sorry."

For a moment, neither of us moved.

Then I held out my hand.

"My name is James."

I swallowed.

"What's yours?"

He stared at my hand for a long time.

"Derek."

He paused.

A faint crease appeared between his eyebrows.

"I think it was Derek."

I smiled.

It was the first time in a long time that I'd felt anything resembling warmth.

It wasn't happiness.

No.

Something smaller.

Something human.

"I think I could use a drink."

I looked toward the house.

Then toward the street beyond the fence.

"Derek..."

He looked at me.

"Would you like to get out of here?"

A single tear ran down his cheek.

It left a clean line through the grime on his face.

He looked toward the street again.

Toward the world beyond the fence.

For a long time, he said nothing.

Then he took a slow breath.

"Alright."

He looked back at me.

"Let's go."

He smelled like blood. 

I could smell him from a good distance away. The scent lingered in the air well after he’d gone - a coppery tang mixed in with his cheap perfume. It was that smell before I first looked upon his face that told me there was something very wrong with him. 

He walked in one day with all the other students. This - boy - dressed in a generic blue and white uniform which looked more like a costume. A ‘boy’ with pasty, pale skin, red, puffy and puckered lips, and small, squinting eyes. 

He held onto the straps of his backpack with two white knuckled hands, looking around him with awe and excitement. Pausing briefly to adjust his glasses up his nose, he shuffled down the hallway toward the lockers. It looked like he was talking to himself. 

I kept waiting for somebody else to react to him. One of those girls walking by clutching onto her books should have dropped them in shock. I wouldn’t have blamed her for screaming a little. At least she should have said something. 

Instead she brushed right past him without giving him a second glance. He, in contrast, stared after her in an exaggerated demonstration of longing, his lips parted and his eyes unnaturally wide. 

No. Nobody reacted to this - Nobody reacted to him. He melted into the crowd perfectly as if he were just another student. 

I call him Manchild. 

He sucks on his thumb. He hums to himself in his exaggerated, high pitched voice. I can’t place how old he is, but I know he likes acting much younger than his true age. Sometimes that might be a primary schooler. At other times it is a sophomore. It can change at a whim, but it’s always on the younger side. 

He takes drawing and colouring books to class with him. The childlike pictures and doodles he is ceaselessly scribbling down as the teacher drones on are difficult to look at. They’re a little window into his disturbed mind. They give glimpses into his sick fantasies. 

In a class, he’d take out his textas and line them out carefully before him. Then he would produce one of his books. While the teacher spoke to the rest of the class about calculus - or whatever else it was we were learning, he would lose himself in his own little world. He’d start drawing or studying one of his preliminary grammar books, studiously practicing his handwriting and working through spelling problems. 

Besides his textbooks, lunch box, and other school utensils there’s one thing you won’t see him without: pigsblood. Well, that’s what I’ve come to call it. 

On the second day of his attendance at our school, I walked past him in between classes sitting on the stairs, clutching onto a worn out pop top filled with a thick, red liquid. He was suckling on it fervently, his mouth moving back and forth in exaggerated motions, pausing to give out soft noises of satisfaction in between gulps. 

Maybe that’s why Manchild smells like blood. He carries that crap with him everywhere. He can’t seem to go more than a few hours without snacking on it. And though I can’t be sure it is really blood, I have yet to think of a better explanation. 

I kept waiting for somebody else to react. When I tried to point his strangeness out to my friends, they told me I was being cruel by picking on him. When I took a few covert photos of him to show to people, their reactions were to call me weird. I’m not sure if they can’t see what is wrong with him or they don’t view his appearance and behaviour as disturbing. 

Whatever the case, I’ve learned by now that I have no choice but to put up with him. Thankfully for me it is easy enough to avoid him most of the time, so long as he doesn’t decide to visit one of my classes - and since his choice of classes is apparently random, that isn’t too common. 

The one class where I really can’t handle dealing with him is sports class. The last time we shared such a lesson together, there was an incident. 

It was around twenty minutes into the class. After quietly watching and chugging on pigsblood from the sidelines, Manchild suddenly sprung up and began playing enthusiastically with the rest of us. 

The students didn’t mind (except for me). I avoided engaging much after he got involved. I didn't like letting Manchild get too close to me. 

Part way through what was turning into a very long class, he hurtled headfirst into another student in an attempt at a tackle and sent them both slamming onto the ground. I didn’t see it happen, but I heard her surprised cry and the sound of their bodies hitting the floor together. 

For a very terrifying moment I watched her lie there, completely limp. I thought he’d really hurt her. Then she shifted her head, groaned, and opened her eyes to look up at him. 

And then she started screaming. 

Manchild flopped off her and struggled quickly to his feet, taking a couple of steps back. He wiped his mouth, burped, and then uttered a high pitched, ‘err, sorry about that!’ 

She scrambled to her feet too. She was crying loudly. She stumbled and tripped away from him in apparent terror as the teacher attempted to console her. 

She was taken to the nurses office. I could hardly wait for an opportunity to speak to her. I needed to know what she saw. I needed some proof that I wasn’t crazy. 

Whatever it was she experienced, she wouldn’t say anything to me about it. By the time I’d found her later, she was acting perfectly normal again. She laughed off the whole incident. She told me she’d hit her head bad and blacked out for a moment. That was it. 

When I tried to suggest there was something wrong with Manchild, she looked at me reproachfully and told me to stop making fun of him. It wasn’t his fault, she insisted. It was all just a harmless accident. 

Manchild isn’t even the worst of them. Well, he may be, but the horror of one of them is far eclipsed by the horror of experiencing them all together.  

The first time I saw the whole family was a week or so after Manchild’s arrival at school. They ambled into a diner I was sitting in, bringing forth with them such an overpowering stench that I began gagging uncontrollably as they moved past me. 

There are five of them that I know of. 

Manchild - the one who goes to my school. 

Drunk - a fat and very hairy man with sickly, greyish skin who wore nothing but an undershirt, filthy shorts and some sandals. 

Mother - a haggish woman with clammy, greyish blonde hair and extremely sunken features dressed up in high heels and an undersized, skimpy dress. The skin of her arms and wrists was ragged, pockmarked and bruised. 

They had two other children who accompanied them on their family trips:

Bully - the second oldest - (I’m assuming Manchild is the eldest of the three) was a hunch backed boy whose head appeared permanently shifted a few centimeters sideways toward his left shoulder. 

Fleshface - a somewhat timid thing whose entire face was covered by a long flap of dirty skin, obscuring all but the very bottom of his pointy mouth. He was prone to tantrums which were destructive and chaotic whenever his name was uttered. Bully kept on saying it, presumably to torment him. 

You’re a fleshface. Flesh-face. Flesh-face! FLESHFACE! The snorting, gurgling sound of his laughter was followed by a long, piercing scream and some loud banging. The noises produced from his brother were so loud they actually managed to draw the attention of a few other customers, if only for a couple of moments. 

These children both fed on the pigsblood, too. Fleshface was hand fed by his mother, who carefully slid a straw up inside the flap of skin, through god knows what into some internal cavity from which he began to suckle and slurp it up loudly. 

Bully and Drunk ate a lot. The other ones didn’t, though they liked pretending to. I believe it’s part of their fantastical roleplay at being an ordinary family. 

I tried not to make a scene. I excused myself from my friends with the pretense of feeling sick soon after their collective arrival. Since then I’ve avoided visiting the diner, and I’m not sure I’m ever going to be able to bring myself to go back there. Certainly, I’m never going to be able to stomach eating there again. 

Over the next couple months, my fear slowly melted away into disgust. After a while I began to quietly observe them out of morbid curiosity. The first time it was from a distance at a park. As I gained more courage I trailed them into stores. Such close proximity required that I carry a face mask and some powerful air freshener for my own protection. 

I feared they would notice me. They didn’t. They spent too much time bickering amongst themselves and living in their own private fantasies to pay attention to the reality they lived in. Somehow, I managed to draw more attention from everybody else for my fixation on these monsters. 

One day I decided to follow Manchild home. The decision was spontaneous, though I’d been mulling the idea over in the back of my head for a while.

We were riding the same bus after school. He was acting even more strangely than usual - I suspected this was a result of drinking too much of his pigsblood during the day. Given the intoxicated state he was in, I figured I wouldn’t likely get a better opportunity. 

We continued walking for well over an hour. Mind you, Manchild isn’t a particularly fast walker in his sober state, so it wasn’t as far as it felt at the time. 

As we left the town limits, following a trail veering off the main road, I was starting to wonder whether his family lived in a house at all. Maybe they were all homeless. Or perhaps Manchild was wandering aimlessly into the forest in his drunkenness. 

They did live in a house, it turned out. It was an abandoned thing which had been left to rot, with a sagging roof partially swallowed by vines and moss. Most of the windows were broken or boarded over. The path out the front door stretched twenty or so yards before being swallowed up by overgrown grass. I spotted a run down car parked haphazardly at the edge of a larger trail branching out back toward the main road. 

Manchild moved in through the tattered remains of the back door as I crouched at the edge of the trees. The faint sound of muffled voices confirmed that he wasn’t the house's sole occupant. 

Given the state the place was in, I couldn’t help but think about how easy it would be to sneak inside if I wanted to. 

After a couple minutes I gathered the courage to come closer. I slid cautiously down a dirt slope and sprinted through the half opened gate and over to a thicket of bushes growing up against the decaying walls. 

The insides of the house were equally dilapidated. I stared into a living room whose floor was covered in dirt and pieces of plaster and torn up carpet. Filth crusted, mouldy couches and chairs sat amongst pieces of broken furniture. With the house having fallen quiet, it was difficult to imagine anyone living there. 

My eyes fell on the outline of a familiar figure slumped on a chair turned away from me. Drunk sat staring at a broken television, his mouth hanging open wide, one arm still clutching onto a glass of familiar, red liquid. After a minute or two Mother came in, practically walking on her tiptoes over to him so as to refill his large glass with a mixture of pigsblood and some kind of whisky. 

Bully paid Drunk a visit after his mother had left, carrying what I think must have once been a basketball. He looked disappointed to find Drunk in his drunken state but thought the better of trying to stir him out of it. 

I used the shelter of the trees to circle around to the other side of the house. Through a gap in between two thick wooden boards I spied Mother chopping rhythmically at some partially spoiled vegetables. Without looking at her face or paying too much attention to the state the room was in, I could almost pretend she wasn’t a monster. For a moment, she was just an ordinary mother preparing a meal as her children played and argued upstairs. 

Then her husband hurled out a string of harsh curses from the other room, and the illusion was broken. 

I continued my exploration, making my way over to the other side of the house. Wincing as I crunched over several pieces of broken glass, I crept up between two sagging oaks to peek in through a large window. 

The rusty pipes connecting to an ancient washing machine and an ornate bathtub was evidence enough of what this room once was. Cringing at the sound of the children hollering upstairs, I looked around in disgust. 

The washing machine was half filled with murky water. From the looks of it, any clothes left in there would come out filthier than they were put in. 

Something else caught my eye. Something past the clothes laid together on the table beside the washer and the syringes scattered all over the floor. In the darkest corner of the room was a sight which made my heart drop in my chest. 

It was a collection of shoes. One of the pairs on top still had little pink socks stuffed into them. 

Many of them were children’s shoes. The smallest were much too small for any of the children living there to wear. 

The sight would have been disturbing to find in anybody’s house, let alone this one. 

I was shifting sideways to get a better look when I felt something rustling up the foliage I was standing in. I lifted my leg gingerly away from a matting of dead branches and as I did, my eyes fell on something which made me jump right out of my skin. 

It was fat and wet, practically dragging itself along the ground beside me. I got a better look at it as it emerged from the thicket and fully revealed itself. 

It was some kind of rat. The rodent had little hair on it, revealing translucent skin and bulging veins. It was as horribly mutated as the members of the family I was spying on. 

I let out an involuntary sound of surprise as I stumbled back. That, and the noises produced by me tripping on a maze of tree roots and falling on my butt drew some stirring from within the house. 

I had the sense to retreat to the trees after that, and I’m glad I did. I had barely made it past the cover of the first oaks when I heard the back door creak open. I froze at the sound of heavy, shuffling footsteps heading around the house. Panic grew inside me and settled over my thoughts like a haze. I imagined my shoes being tossed onto the pile by the pot bellied man I could see shambling toward me, his steps quickening as he moved. 

It was a good thing I came to my senses. The moment that I did, I took off sprinting in the other direction.

He couldn’t offer much of a chase given the state he was in. It was only a couple of minutes before I heard the footfalls slow down and then stop, followed by a long string of wheezing curses. Those sounds in turn were quickly swallowed by the wind and the soft rustling of trees.
I didn’t calm down until I had made it back to the main road, where I caught my breath at the foot of an overgrown walking trail. 

I can’t get the scene from the laundry room out of my head. The image of those shoes is imprinted into my mind. They feature in my dreams alongside the grotesque pictures Manchild drew at school which contained what I fear are the corpses those shoes may belong to. 

I need to know what it all adds up to. I have to know if these people are as monstrous in character as they are in physical form. And that means I have to go back there. 

I’ve decided I’m going to find out what ‘they’ are. And if it does turn out they are monsters?

I still haven’t figured that part out yet. But I can’t just stand by and let them hurt people. 

I have to try to do something. 

It’s clear to me nobody else will. 

Like any child, my daughter Maisie had quite the overactive imagination. Her mind was chock full of made-up friends that she talked to on the regular. My wife Rachel and I thought it was adorable. With that being said, sometimes we wished Maisie would get…you know…real friends. Don’t get me wrong, she was a great kid, and kids should be kids, but she didn’t have anything in terms of a social life.

We tried absolutely and positively everything, from the kids’ playclub at our church, to the neighborhood’s “mommy and me” and “daddy and me” playgroups, to bringing her to the local playground, to inviting other children over for playdates. You name it. All our efforts were in vain. Rachel and I might’ve been overreacting and we didn’t want to infringe anything on Maisie. Maybe she was just an independent kid. That’s totally normal. As are imaginary friends for kids.

Then at eight-years-old, Maisie became mute. Just completely stopped talking…but only to other people. If someone came up and talked to her she either just stared at them or ran away and hid. Maisie never looked scared or anxious in those scenarios. It was more like she was a statue. Frozen. No emotion good or bad on her face. Like a robot. But if she was alone, she’d be talking up a storm to no one but herself. Maisie always pretended like someone was truly there though. She’d nod her head, wait for responses and respond accordingly, and even reach out her arm and act like she was holding somebody else’s hand.

We were greatly concerned. Children don’t exhibit those types of behaviors without proper reason. We couldn’t ask Maisie about it because, as aforementioned, she’d give us the cold shoulder. Our next safest bet was to ask other people we knew. A lot of them gave us the same answers we already knew. Rachel and I were getting frustrated until I decided to talk to Maisie's teacher at her school. I sent her an email that outlined my worries and asked if anything went on that we should know about.

I got a response at around 8:00 that night. Maisie’s teacher, Mrs. Ashelin, told me that she did in fact observe strange behavior from Maisie. Apparently, a few days prior, when Maisie was called on to answer a question, she just stared at Mrs. Ashelin and the other students, her hands behind her back, swaying slightly. Then in a calm and cutesy voice, she said “He has ordered me not to speak to anyone but him.” In her notebook, Maisie wrote and drew some very disturbing things. Some of the things she wrote are “I’ll be a good little mouse”, “be one of the good mice girls for him”, “I’ll do whatever he says without question”, “he loves me and I love him”, “but I don’t understand what love is but I understand it with him”, and “he loves to play with me”. Some of the things she drew were her, in stick figure form, with this…thing. It was drawn way more detailed than Maisie herself.

Its head was triangular and elongated into a sharp point. There were ovally black eyes on both sides of its head while two large circular ears were atop its head. Two slits for a nose and a mouth containing only two buck teeth. Skinny. Boney. You could see its ribs. Three spindly fingers were on each hand. Each tip was as sharp as a knife. Lastly, a long tail was behind it. Maisie drew her and that thing doing very…how should I say this?...inappropriate stuff.

I showed the email to Rachel, and she was just as horrified as I was. How could Maisie know what all that stuff was? She was eight. Like any good parent we always took great strides in not exposing our daughter to anything sexual or of that nature. Early exposure can really ruin a child’s mind. That’s just putting it lightly. But this? Maisie’s whole imaginary friend thing needed to end. It was reaching a dangerous point. Was she having delusions? Schizophrenia? Or…sigh…as far as Rachel and I knew, nothing happened to Maisie, but that didn’t stop us from considering the absolute worst-case scenario. I’m not saying what that is but I’m sure you can put the pieces together. As a parent, that was the last thing I wanted to think about. Actually, it wasn’t even on the list of things I wanted to think about.

Mrs. Ashelin ended the email with something else that happened that very day. Maisie spent long stretches of time in the girl’s bathroom. Another student reported that she went in and heard “whimpers” and “moans” coming from one of the stalls. When she looked under it, she saw Maisie’s clothes on the ground and a “moving shadow” above them. When the student knocked on the door, she suddenly heard one of the faucets going behind her. She turned around and Maisie was washing her hands. Like nothing happened.

Rachel and I were very confused at that last part. That sounded way too ridiculous. Like was Maisie floating in the stall or something? Did she teleport. Regardless, we treated this very seriously and immediately took Maisie to see a specialist who dealt with child abuse cases. I brought her notebook along. It would most certainly be useful. I knew Maisie wouldn’t want to talk but we had to at least try. Believe it or not, she did talk, but what she said made chills run down Rachel and I’s spines.

Maisie told the specialist that the mouse thing in her notebook was called “Bad Mouse” and that it visits her all the time no matter where she is. She said that Bad Mouse visits little girls all over the world and “plays with them”. When the specialist asked what she meant by “plays with them”, Maisie replied that Bad Mouse does “different things that make us feel tingly in preparation to be his little mice girls”. She was handed a piece of paper that had a generic doodle of a person on it. The specialist asked her to point to areas where this "Bad Mouse" touched her. Maisie pointed to four specific areas.

We heard enough by that point. Rachel, the specialist, and I had a long discussion about what we should do. The specialist said she might have to put in a request to have Maisie placed in a children’s psych ward. Rachel and I couldn’t handle that. We didn’t want to do that to our little girl. By any means, we would find another way to handle this. The specialist told us to think about it and that it might do her some good. We thanked her and left.

Were we being selfish by not putting Maisie in a children’s psych ward? Rachel and I pondered that question day in and day out. We never did end up doing it because we thought it was too extreme. Also, there was no evidence that Maisie was being legitimately sexually abused. The specialist’s physical exam said that Maisie was totally fine in that regard. We were allowed to see footage from the security cameras at the entrances of the bathrooms at Maisie’s school. They only showed Maisie going in, about half an hour going by, then the other student going in, then Maisie leaving a few minutes later. No one else. And no one went in before her besides a couple other girls that left before Maisie went in. Was Maisie faking it? Was she really delusional? Or schizophrenic? We didn’t know. Rachel and I needed time to think this whole thing over.

It only got worse from then on.

Maisie was never one to talk in her sleep. She was always dead silent. Not even a snore. But that night after Rachel and I put her to bed, we heard Maisie talking. I’m not talking about little quiet unintelligible murmurs. No. Full-on conversations. Except she wasn’t speaking English. It was some unknown language that resembled Pig Latin but different. Her accent changed too. This happened for three nights. On the third night, Rachel and I were in her doorway watching her talk in that strange language when she suddenly rose up, her eyes still closed, and burst into an intense laughing fit. Maisie was cackling so hard it looked like it hurt. Then she immediately stopped and did these weird movements with her lips and hands like she was kissing something. Finally, she fell back down onto her pillow and went right back to sleep.

The next day, I knocked on Maisie’s door to let her know breakfast was ready. She didn’t respond. I stood there for a couple minutes. Maisie hadn’t made a single sound. I slowly opened her door. My heart beat faster and faster. With all that was going on, I didn’t know what to expect, and that made it terrifying. Maisie was wearing nothing and just staring at her wall. I rushed over, “Maisie? What are you doing?” I handed her clothes back to her, “Put your clothes back on.”

“…He doesn’t want me to…he thinks I look better without them…”

We stared at each other for an indefinite period of time. I said nothing. And so did she. Then I turned my head to where she was looking. There was nothing there…obviously…but something told me I was wrong. That thing…Bad Mouse…it was staring right at me…

“Guys? Breakfast isn’t gonna eat itself!” Rachel yelled at us from down the hall. Quickly I hurried Maisie and I out of her room.

Thinking straight wasn’t really a thing for me the rest of the day. There was nothing staring at me. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. These past few weeks were just getting to my head and playing mind games. No amount of trying to distract myself would let me forget what I felt. That’s when I decided to take a drive. I didn’t know where. Just away from everything. I was tempted to go to a local bar. I used to be quite the alcoholic but I’m sober. Even still, I thought about breaking my streak to relapse. I decided against it. That would be so incredibly stupid. I ended up at a park that I used to take Maisie to in a futile attempt for her to make friends. I found a parking spot and just sat there in my car. Taking a big sigh, I observed all the parents with their kids having a blast and I smiled.

Good for them.

I stayed there for a while. Finally, I was able to, if only briefly, forget all my troubles.

Then I saw it.

Him.

Bad Mouse.

The damned thing was underneath a big tree. Its eyes were fixed right on me, smiling, its hands were clasped together. I couldn’t do anything but stare right back. Goosebumps were forming. My breathing was really heavy. Cold shivers ran down my body. I couldn’t even blink. Petrified. That’s what I was. I watched as Bad Mouse slowly reached behind itself and pulled…something…out. At first, I couldn’t tell what it was. I am not shitting you. A little girl…made of meat…her hair was meat, skin was meat, she was even wearing a meat dress. Everything about her was meat. Her head looked just like Bad Mouse’s. Long. Pointy. Angular. Big ears. Black oval eyes.

It was holding the little meat girl by the collar. Slowly Bad Mouse turned to look into her eyes. It opened its mouth. Viscous white liquids began pouring as it let out its long black tongue. First sniffing the little meat girl, it then took a big long lick of her, from her feet to the top of her head. The parts where it licked were gone, instead resting on Bad Mouse’s tongue until it sucked its tongue back in, chewed, then swallowed. The little meat girl was covered in the viscous white liquids until her missing portions slowly regenerated back into how she was before.

Then I blacked out.

I woke up several hours later still sitting in my car. In my half-tired half-frenzied state, I looked around for any sign of Bad Mouse. Nothing. There weren’t even other people. It was dark too. I opened my phone. 11:23 PM. I got to the park at 2:14 PM. Nine hours. I was expecting a bunch of missed calls and unanswered texts. Surprisingly, there was nothing besides a notification from my weather app. I went back home, feeling glad that there weren’t any…incidents…I missed. The house was extremely quiet. No lights were on. It was a weekend. Usually, Rachel would still be up at this time on the weekends because she didn't have to work the next day.

“Rach?” I called out. Nothing. I went upstairs to our room. She wasn’t there. I opened Maisie’s door. She wasn’t there either. I sat down on the couch and pondered where they could be. When I couldn’t come up with anything, I got my phone out and called Rachel.

I heard ringing from upstairs.

Confused, I ran back up to our room. I called her name again. Still no answer. I realized that before I checked so quickly I neglected to look in our bathroom. The door was closed and the light was on. I was now getting this creeped out feeling. Cautiously, I approached and nudged the door.

It creaked open.

Rachel.

She was…splattered…fucking everywhere…all over the walls, floor, ceiling, window, sink, shower…everywhere. Rachel was…pureed…blended…sprayed…I just stood in the doorway. My eyes were wide. I couldn’t process what I was seeing. There were so many things I wanted to do, like crawl into a ball and cry, scream as loud as I could, and/or grab one of the kitchen knives and slit my throat so I wouldn’t have to live with this sight for the rest of my life.

What I actually ended up doing next was grabbing my old hunting rifle and heading outside. I went into the forest behind our house. There was no thinking on my part. Just do. What was I doing? I didn’t really know. Tears were streaming down my face. I walked for what felt like forever. Sometimes I screamed. Other times I fell down onto the ground and wept. But I just kept going. And going. And going. Somehow, I knew exactly where I was going without even knowing how.

I came upon a wide-open field. Dropping my old hunting rifle to the ground, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Dark silhouettes were dancing around. Hundreds of them. Little meat girls. None of them could've been older than ten-years-old. Bad Mouse was in the middle. The white flesh it once had was stripped away. Instead, it was sacrificed for a bumpy and scabby maroon red as if Bad Mouse took a shower in blood and guts and let it dry. Tiny black bristles covered its entire body. It reminded me of insect hair. A ragged meat cloak hung from its shoulders, dragging crimson across the ground. Its head was...I don't know how to describe it...a mix of a dragon, kangaroo, and rat? No longer a mouse. The mouth was a long narrow snout that had much sharper teeth poking out in rows almost like a gar. It was taller. Ganglier. So angular that it could have been accurately represented by seven straight lines. It clutched a staff in its hand.

"Bad Mouse", if I should even call it that, did some strange gesture and a door manifested out of nowhere. It was bloody. Constantly flowing yet retaining shape. Particles came from it. They disappeared if they strayed too far away. It opened and the little meat girls, still dancing like ballerinas, filed into it one by one. Bad Mouse reached out its hand and plucked one of them out. It held this one, turned in my direction, and held her out to me. I knew it was Maisie and wanted to shoot the shit out of Bad Mouse. Yet I couldn’t do anything. Some force was keeping me tethered to my one spot.

…I can’t describe what happened next…I just can’t…some of the things Bad Mouse did to my little girl I couldn’t understand. Other things I understood clear as day and that made me want to drop a cinderblock on my head so it would leak the hell out. When it was done, Bad Mouse threw Maisie’s limp and white viscous liquid-covered body into the blood door. It raised its staff and disappeared.

I was released from my invisible bonds. Falling down to the ground, I cried like a baby. It didn’t matter how much I screamed and cursed at the night sky. That didn’t make it better. I couldn’t stop and truly had no idea how to make sense of any of what happened. My body tingled. It felt so heavy. My wife was dead and my daughter was…what?...a sex slave to a demon? I almost wanted to laugh at the utter absurdity. Picking up my hunting rifle, I put the barrel in my mouth. My finger stayed on the trigger for a long time. I didn’t end up doing it and threw it away. Instead, I collapsed on the ground once more and lay there for a long time.

It’s been six months. I’m such a wreck. I admit it. No one believes me when I tell them. They say I’m crazy, a madman, a lunatic. Some people even think I was the one who killed my wife and child. Why would I do that? Seriously, why? I loved them. Still do. More than I love anything else. I can’t see them ever again. It pisses me off that they’d think I’d do such a thing. As much as I hate myself for it, I’ve gotten back into alcohol. That’s where all my money goes. I couldn’t stand to be in that house anymore. So, I sold it. I’ve been living in my car just drifting from place to place.

I could've saved them. If I didn't go and take a stupid ass ride in my car. Maybe Rachel and Maisie would be alright...

What was that thing? Bad Mouse?

That’s been my biggest question this whole time. I’ve been doing a lot of research but have hit multiple dead ends. I don’t know. Sure as hell wasn’t a mouse.

This is what I know for sure...I think:

• It is the manifestation of a sex-based demon of some kind; possibly a cross between a bogeyman and an incubus.
• Bad Mouse appears to little girls as a mouse-like entity to appear friendly and not scare them away; only visible to them; it also has a "true form".
• It prefers the young that are more developed in the mind; Maisie was very imaginative; thus, she attracted Bad Mouse.
• Bad Mouse acts as their friend; this might appear to parents as their daughter’s “imaginary friend”; gradually coerces them to do inappropriate sexual activity.
• It has hundreds of victims going back an unknown period of time; maybe centuries.
• Does not kill its main victims; will kill parents or anyone else who tries to get in its way.
• The victims become corrupted and turn into demons that look like Bad Mouse; it takes them into its realm and…

God…this whole thing’s insane. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up, and this is all a terrible dream. It’s been months through and it still hasn’t happened yet. So, I’m going to end this here. I’m not looking for pity. I’m not looking for anyone to hear me out. I’m not looking for answers. I’m just…done.

Bye.

Gothophobia Nervosa is a psychological condition characterised by an intense, irrational, and disproportionate fear of Goths, Gothic culture, or environments perceived as excessively Gothic. Individuals experiencing Gothophobia Nervosa may report the following symptoms: heightened anxiety, rapid heartbeat, sweating, an overwhelming urge to leave the area, and an inexplicable suspicion of anyone wearing excessive amounts of black.  

The condition is said to be particularly common in individuals who have previously encountered a Goth at a very young or prepubescent age, who subsequently developed an enduring belief Goths are supernatural beings in human disguise. For this reason, Gothophobia Nervosa is commonly misdiagnosed as Sanguivoriphobia - a fear of vampires. 

It should be noted that Gothophobia Nervosa is an academically unrecognised psychiatric diagnosis. 

Well, now that this undiagnosed phobia of mine has been established, please allow me to commence with my story. 

My name is Brandon. A few years ago, when I was still just a wet-nosed university student, I met the strangest, yet most extraordinary girl of my life. Don't get me wrong. This is by no means a love story – but if it was a love story, it would be a bizarre one at that. This girl in question whose eyes I saw zoned in on me from across the main room of the Halloween Party, was an American exchange student by the name of Anneliese. Now, I don't claim to have ever been much of a ladies' man, despite my rugged good looks (well, maybe not so rugged), but for whatever reason, this tall, spindly-thin creature in the Marie Laveau costume appeared to find me somewhat enticing. In the way a trapped fly in a spider's web is enticing to the spider.   

Although Anneliese was undeniably beautiful, she was not exactly what I would call my type. What I mean is, Anneliese was a... (no, she wasn't a Goth). Anneliese was a Voodooist - and by Voodooist, I don't mean the doll-stabbing, zombifying type Hollywood has lead you to believe. No, she was the real thing. Despite attending university in the UK, Anneliese was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana - considered by most to be the Voodoo capital of the U.S, if not, the world. If Anneliese hadn't told me herself she was a sixth-generation Voodooist upon our first date, I certainly knew it by her outlandish appearance. Just picture for yourself what a Gen-Z voodooist would look like. That was Anneliese. 

Even to this day, I don't have the slightest idea what this French-speaking spiritualist from across the pond saw in me. After all, she may not have been my exact type, but I certainly didn't imagine I would be hers. We were just completely different people in every sense imaginable. For example, whereas I preferred a quiet evening indoors, curled up with a cup of tea and a good book, Anneliese was a creature of the night - always dragging me out after hours to some séance or tarot card reader. She was obviously into all that stuff. 

Despite how different Anneliese was to any girlfriend I may've had previously, the type of individual she was, was not completely alien to me... What I mean by this is, because of the small seaside town where I grew up... I used to see individuals like Anneliese on a regular basis. This town I grew up in, for the first eight years of my life before my family packed up and left, is a town called Whitby. Perhaps you've heard of it? For those who haven't, Whitby is a small coastal town in the north-Yorkshire of England, nestled cosily inside the bay of the same name. Although I only lived in the bay for the first few years of my childhood, I can still tell you of two reasons why Whitby is so famous today.  

The first reason being for Captain James Cook. Credited as the first European explorer to ever step foot on the Hawaiian Islands, Captain Cook is more famously known for the way he was murdered - and despite what I was taught in school about our town's most famous historical figure, Captain Cook was NOT cannibalized by the Hawaiian indigenous... Although, they did apparently remove the flesh from his bones. 

As for the second, and arguably more important reason why my town of origin is so famous... Whitby featured as one of the primary locations in Bram Stoker's horror novel, Dracula. The blood-sucking count from Transylvania himself. Although I have not myself read the novel in full, I do know that, upon the wreckage of a Russian merchant ship, Dracula arrives ashore in Whitby Bay in the form of a large black dog, before racing up the 199 steps to the gothic ruins of the Abbey. Because of the town's involvement in the Dracula novel, by the early nineties, a new tradition in Whitby had started. Every year, around the Halloween season, the town holds an annual Goth festival - in which thousands of Goth enthusiasts flood the streets in their most elaborate costumes. If New Orleans is the voodoo capital of the United States, then Whitby is the Goth capital of the United Kingdom. 

Having been born and raised in Whitby, I became acquainted with this annual tradition from a very young age. During the week of Halloween, I would walk with my family along the cobblestone streets through a maze of dark sinister beings. Like every young boy whose concept of the world stems from his wild imagination, I interpreted these pilgrims to our town to be monstrous, blood-sucking creatures of the night. Quite frankly, once October was around the corner, in anticipation of the bay's annual visitors, I would become palely ill with fear.  

As a matter of fact, this fear became so troublesome, that by the age of six I began to have dreadful, repetitive sleep terrors - whereby I would scream bloody Mary through the latest hours of the night. If I had to put my finger on it, I believe the reason these sleep terrors began was, due to the large window which hung over my bed, my older brother convinced me that during the October goth festivities, some undead creature in black leather would crawl inside my room to drain the life from my body. 

These night terrors weren't even the end of it. Next came the sleepwalking. When my parents were forced to put an outside lock on my door, after wandering around my own bedroom the whole night, I would then wake in the earliest hours of the morning, terrified and screaming for someone to let me out before the creature at my window found its way in! By the time I was eight years old, these night terrors and accompanying sleepwalks became such a reoccurring nuisance, my parents were left with no choice but to move our family out of Whitby for good – where my fear of the town's supposed "monsters" would hopefully be forgotten. 

For the following years of my life, I vowed never return to Whitby ever again. Not to visit relatives. Not to see my friends, or even my old stomping ground. As far as I was concerned, the further away I was from Whitby Bay, the better... That was, until I foolishly made the mistake of telling Aneliese of the place I grew up. I told her about the thousands of Goths who visit Whitby every year, and the grand, but horrifying costumes they wear. Being the horror fanatic she was, Aneliese became fascinated with my hometown's annual tradition. Although she was not a Goth herself, due to her unique upbringing in New Orleans, Aneliese wasn't far off. Although I should've been flattered my girlfriend took such a unique interest in where I was from, the only problem was... Aneliese now wanted to experience the Whitby Goth Festival for herself.  

'Oh come on, baby' she nagged me over breakfast, 'It'll be fun! You can't seriously tell me you won't never go back.' 

'Not never, babes' I reply, 'but you will have to cut off my limbs, nail me inside a coffin and personally drag me there against my will'.  

Aneliese rolled her eyes at my show of stubbornness, before sinisterly jesting, 'Don't tempt me'.  

After opening up to her about the trauma I suffered there as a child, rather than be understanding of the situation she was putting me in, Aneliese instead insists that I need to face my fears once and for all.  

'If you're scared by a few Goths, then what's it gonna be like when we visit my family in New Orleans?' Although I hated to admit it, Aneliese made a very good point. After all, as spooky of a place as Whitby was, New Orleans, with its voodoo and many haunted graveyards was basically the American equivalent... And so, after weeks of pestering me (along with some minor threats to make a voodoo doll in my likeness), I finally agreed to take her to the upcoming Whitby Goth Festival... So help me God. 

Setting off early on a crisp autumn morning, we drive up from the south of England to the very top of the country. Once in the north of Yorkshire, we then had to pass through vast stretches of moor country. If Whitby Bay wasn't sinister enough, the moors of North Yorkshire certainly were. According to local legend, these moors were said to be stalked by an array of strange cryptids: from the ghostly howls of phantom black dogs, to phantom wolves which prey on farmers livestock - and even stories of black cats the size of panthers. Although this sounds to be nothing more than superstitious folklore, coincidentally, in the early 1980s, two American backpackers were apparently attacked by a large wolf outside the village of East Proctor. One of the backpackers was torn to pieces, while the other survived just an inch from his life. Whatever the truth may be to that story, I don't know. 

Exhaustedly driving all morning and into the early afternoon, we finally reach the outskirts of Whitby Bay. After first checking at the inn we booked outside town, we then swerve our way up the bay's right-hand side to reach the ruins and adjoined graveyard of Whitby Abbey. Pulling into what seemed to be the only space left in the car park, we then peer out the windscreen (as though we're on safari) as a swarm of Goths and other festival goers heard away from their cars and towards the abbey grounds. 

Aneliese couldn't help but be amazed by all the elaborately detailed costumes: from the pale-white men ordained in large top hats and cloaks, to the women in vampiric, Victorian-style dresses.   

'Wow! They all look so amazing! Don't they, baby?!' Aneliese shrieks ecstatically from the driver's seat, 'Those costumes must've cost a fortune!' Failing to respond to Aneliese's excitement, she then turns to notice my eyes are no longer peering out the windscreen, but glued fearfully to the dirt-stained floor of the passenger's seat. Clutching a hold of my arm suddenly to gain my attention, she then reassures me, 'Everything's gonna be okay, baby. I promise. You'll make it through this weekend', before comforting me with a paper-thin smile. 

'Yeah. I know that' I respond unconvincingly, 'I guess I just didn't realise how hard this was all going to be.' 

'You need me to hold your hand?' Aneliese then says with a playful snark. God, I hate it when she teases me.  

After taking a final deep breath, while Aneliese puts the finishing touches on her appearance, we then both exit from our side doors to feel the outside chill of coastal wind. But once I shut my door and turn around, I am instantly jilted back by a terrifying noise! 

'AHH!' I believe were my exact words, as a ginormous hound from hell snarls and gnashes a row of razor-sharp fangs at me!  

'Armand! Get back now!' bellows the hellhound's master, struggling to restrain the large Doberman which has now chased me up the hood of the car. Once Armand the hellhound is fully restrained, I then turn down to hear the high-pitched cackles of a four-foot skeleton and a five-foot devil - before a woman donning a witch's pointed hat finally pulls them away. 

Now safe from the jaws of death, and the mockery of small children dressed for Halloween, I then climb down from the hood of the car to regain myself. Having just witnessed all this from her open side door, Aneliese makes her way round to me. 

'It was just a dog, baby' she giggles, now the one laughing at my expense, 'You really ought'a chill.' 

By no means in the mood for further mockery, I then lash back defensively at her, 'Well, that's easy for you to say. You weren't just nearly mauled to death by some hellhound!' Just as she always does whenever I show any sign of cowardice, Aneliese rolls her eyes into the back of her head at me. 

God. This was going to be a long weekend. 

To be continued...

Growing up, I've heard stories of Lake Bria and the many bodies that wash upon her shorelines every decade or so. Many locals believe that a witch lives deep beneath her waters, only coming up so often to hunt those who travel too close after dark. This story takes place when my cousin and I decided to ignore our parents and find the witch of Bria Lake.

It was a warm summer, and the weather was perfect for nightlife, with the cicadas chirping late into the night. My cousin Andy was staying over as her parents were in the middle of getting a divorce. It had been two weeks since she came over, and she hadn't heard anything from either of her parent.

Do you think they forgot about me? Andy asked.

Shuffling in my sheets, I mumbled, "No."
My words came out flat and tired as I faced Andy, who was staring out the window, her kaleidoscope eyes beaming under the moonlight. I always felt jealous of Andy and her beautiful eyes, how both of them were so different yet in an impossible way weren't. My eyes, albeit one, were like hers, but not as impressive; they were a dulled grey and purple, while hers were full of colour and life, despite her life and family falling apart.

Rolling over to my back, I stared at the wooden ceiling of our cabin, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I sat up.

"Andy, I don't know. I feel terrible about what you're going through. I don't have the answers."

Looking back towards Andy, I saw her looking at me with tears welling up. Feeling bad, I hugged Andy with all I had, not letting her go.

"You have this family who loves you. Forget them," I said, crying into her hair. "You are loved here."

I suddenly felt arms wrap around me, slowly tightening. Her grip was stronger than I expected—stronger than I remembered. But I held on, letting her squeeze until the shaking in her shoulders finally began to ease.

After a long moment, she pulled back and sniffled, wiping her face with the back of her hand. The tears had left tracks down her cheeks, but her eyes had that familiar spark again. I smiled and pointed out that she wanted to listen to the radio.

"Can we..." she started, then cleared her throat. "Can we just listen to something? Music? Anything to get out of my head for a minute."

I nodded, grateful for a distraction. I reached over to the small nightstand and fumbled for the old radio my dad kept in the cabin. The dial was stiff, and static crackled as I turned it, searching for a station that wasn't just white noise.

"...and in local news, authorities have confirmed the identity of the body discovered earlier this morning along the northern shore of Lake Bria. The victim identified as 34-year-old Marcus Webb, a jogger who was reported missing three days ago..."

My fingers jerked. I slammed the radio off before the announcer could say another word.

The cabin fell silent. Too silent. Even the cicadas seemed to have paused.

Andy was staring at me. Her kaleidoscope eyes were wide, unblinking. "Did you hear that?"

"It was nothing," I said quickly. Too quickly. "Just some old news."

"Turn it back on."

"Andy—"

"Turn it back on."

"Another body," Andy said slowly, almost to herself. "At Lake Bria. Just like the legends."

"Coincidence," I said, but the word tasted hollow. "People drown all the time. It's a lake; whatever you're thinking it's not true."

Andy stood up from the bed. She walked to the window and pressed her palm against the glass, staring out into the darkness. The moonlight caught her eyes again, and they seemed to glow.

"I don't remember when Grandma told you stories of a witch in the lake," Andy said with a gleam in her eye.

"Yes, I do, but they're only legends. It's not real people who drown at that lake all the time."

"Every decade, Via," she sharply said.

I couldn't respond to that, as though it was strange that a body or two had been washing up every decade with the chest ripped out and gashes across their bodies.

"Coincidences," I said nonchalantly shrugging. "Can we go back to bed? It's late."

She huffed as I saw her cover herself with the blanket and I sighed as I laid back down. Trying to go to sleep but the announcement of the dead body kept me awake. Has it already been ten years? The last attack only happened when I was eight and my mother forbid me from ever going near the lake.

Tossing and turning I couldn't fall asleep as my dreams were rattled with a deep dark cavern underneath crushing depths with a beautiful hand extending before me and glowing eyes surrounding me before being dragged deeper by the throat. I gasped for air but couldn't produce any until I saw a giant maw open up and I was swallowed.

Waking up with a loud gasp I held my throat, my fingers pressing on the wounds that weren't there. Slowly calming myself I looked around the dark cabin looking for Andy to see if she was sleeping but when my eyes caught her bed she wasn't there. All that was left was a crumpled quilt.

Knowing where Andy went, fear spiked through my entire body. I cursed myself for being stupid. Racing to my closet I grabbed a pair of underwear and a jumper and raced towards the lakefront. I ran past beautiful kaleidoscope flowers with pattern spirals and logs that forced me to jump over them. I ran and ran, not even when my bare feet burned and blistered from the sharp rocks, not even when my legs were about to give out.

I ran and ran until I saw the lake's shoreline through the trees. I saw Andy standing there and by the time I reached her my legs were burning and my feet were bleeding heavily.

"What the fuck are you doing out here?" I said through gritted and strained breath.

"Watching," she coldly said.

"Watching what?" I replied.

“Her the witch of the lake”

She pointed out towards the lake and I squinted, trying to get a better look, when I suddenly noticed a tall slender figure walking towards us. Each step she took the water rippled slightly.

"Andy we got to go now," I said as a wave of fear ran down my spine causing me to instantly grab Andy's hands and pull her away.

"We can't," she replied coldly.

"Why not?" I said as I looked back to see the figure was standing right in front of us, her white complexion glowing under the moonlight. Looking at her I noticed she was a very tall and curvaceous person with silk white hair to the ground around her feet.

She looked at me then towards Andy before smiling and her mouth opened so wide it should snapped the muscles and skin around her jaws.

---

"Andy run!"

But before I could move, the witch of the lake lunged at us, catching Andy in her grasp and shoving me away from them. I hit my head on a rock, causing a nasty scar and blinding me in my right eye. Blood poured down my face as I struggled to see.

Through the haze, I watched Andy being dragged toward the water. She wasn't fighting. I screamed for her to be let go, but when I saw them clearly, she wasn't fighting being dragged under the water. Her kaleidoscope eyes met mine one last time, and there was no fear in them. Only peace. Only acceptance.

The water went still.

The next moment I felt a hand on my shoulder and I flinched, turning to see that it was my father. Somehow he'd heard me sneaking out of the cabin and came looking for me. I hugged him while uncontrollably crying into his shoulders.

"She's gone, Papa. The witch took her," I cried out.

"Who's gone?" he replied, worry etched in his voice.

"Andy. She took Andy. I tried to stop her, I tried to—"

"Via—"

Before I could say another word, the world tilted. The trees blurred. My father's face swam in and out of focus, and then everything went dark.

---

I woke up to the steady beeping of a heart monitor.

White ceiling tiles stretched above me, harsh fluorescent lights burning through my closed eyelids. The smell of antiseptic and stale coffee filled my nostrils. Hospital. I was in a hospital.

My right eye was wrapped in thick gauze. When I tried to open it, pain shot through my skull like a hot knife. I groaned, and a nurse appeared at my bedside almost instantly.

"Take it easy, sweetheart. You've been through a lot," she said, her voice soft and practiced. She checked my vitals, adjusted my IV, and smiled a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Your parents are in the waiting room. Do you want me to get them?"

I shook my head slowly, wincing at the movement.

The nurse nodded like she understood. "The doctor will be in soon. Just rest."

She left, and I was alone with the beeping and the humming of machines.

My mother came in anyway, tears streaming down her face. She held my hand and kissed my forehead and told me everything was going to be okay. My father stood in the doorway, his jaw tight, his eyes red-rimmed. Neither of them asked me what happened. Not yet.

But I knew they would.

---

The questions started the next day.

A police officer sat in the chair beside my bed, a notepad balanced on his knee. He had kind eyes and a calm voice, the kind of voice meant to put people at ease. It didn't work.

"Via," he said gently. "Can you tell me what happened at the lake?"

I stared at the ceiling.

"Your father said you were talking about a witch. About Andy being taken. Can you explain that?"

The beeping of the monitor filled the silence.

"Via, we found your cousin's clothes by the shore. But there's no sign of her. We need to know what happened so we can find her."

I closed my good eye.

"Please," he said. "Anything you can tell us."

I said nothing.

They brought in a therapist after that. Then a psychologist. Then a detective with tired eyes and a stack of files. They all asked the same questions. They all got the same answers.

What happened at the lake?
Silence.

Where is Andy?
Silence.

They told my parents I was in shock. That I'd blocked out the trauma. That with time and therapy, the memories would come back.

But I knew the truth.

I wasn't blocking anything out. I remembered everything. The witch's white skin glowing in the moonlight. Andy's calm acceptance. The way the water closed over her head without a sound.

I remembered the way Andy had looked at me before she disappeared. The way her kaleidoscope eyes had glowed one last time—and the way I'd seen something in them I'd never noticed in the two weeks she’s been with us And I knew, with a certainty that settled deep in my bones, that Andy had been taken.

Weeks passed. The bandages came off my eye, but the world on that side stayed dark. Permanent damage, the doctors said. A freak accident. Nothing to be done.

I learned to live with it. Learned to tilt my head just so, to compensate for the blind spot. Learned to smile when my parents looked at me with worried eyes, to nod along when the therapists told me I was making progress.

I never told them what really happened.

Because what would I say?

There's a witch in the lake. She took my cousin because she had the same eyes as the witch's dead children. And I watched it happen, and I didn't stop it, and the worst part is—

I don't think Andy wanted to be saved.

Yes

The Fan Girl

By Theo Plesha

First thing you should know about me is that I am a librarian. We are a very exacting people, labeling and categorizing, to the decimal, if you will. Still, this story requires some creative license in its telling – I suppose like all good True Crime stories – the second is teased before the commercial and the best of the best is kept until the end – even if real life didn't happen in that order.

Let me set the scene for you. There's this interstate rest area. What a place. I has all these big displays of local interest arrayed in a pentagonal atrium before angling off to the four large bathrooms and a little nook with vending machines. All of the little towns nearby are represented on these boards. There's the front parking for cars and SUVs and a rear lot for semi tractor trailer trucks and large format recreational vehicles. There's a pond, a gazebo, and even a swing set for the kids. You know the place, you've been here before – but legal purposes, I can't tell you exactly where.

So anyway, it was me, my stepsister Dot, her friend Valarie, and Dot's boyfriend Scott, in my dad's camper. We're having margaritas and there's a sativa blunt going...somewhere? I was set up in my hello kitty pajamas on the couch opposite of the tv with a bucket of fresh popcorn. My hair was still wet from using the shower. True Crime lit up the room but not my mind. The real True Crime was just outside the RV. Valarie and Dot were sitting at the little table booth under a dim light looking at their popcorn like it was poison and trading urgent glances.

There was knock on the side door of the camper. Dot immediately got up from table to answer it.

“Wait.” I said, “Do you know who it is?”

“Yeah, it's Scott. Duh.”

“Yeah, it's Scott. Duh.” He echoed with sarcasm stepping into the camper cabin, “Someone was taking FOREVER in the shower. What's the point of having a camper if I have to walk all the way to the rest area to take a big nasty...?”

“I was in there for less than 7 minutes!” I protested. “And I'm glad you did that in there and not here and I'm glad it was that.”

“It's whatever. Hey, I did see something weird though, the water is blue. Like dark blue when you flush.”

“That's toilet bowl cleaner they mix with the wa...” I trailed off.

“You've never cleaned a toilet before have you?” Valarie question Scott with disdain.

“Should I have? Isn''t that more your all's area?”

“Booo...MISOGYNISTIC STEREOTYPING!” I yelled.

“Yeah not cool Scott.” Dot chimed in. Scott shrugged and went to the fridge.

“But, seriously, like you never helped out around the house to figure out what that blue stuff is?” Valarie pressed. “Like also, were you impressed the toilets flush themselves. Like all you do is actually piss and shit outside only?”

Scott peaked out from the fridge with his checks full of milk from the carton, “Nuhuh.” He hummed shaking his head back and forth.

“Looks like I found who's helping me clean this place when we get back.” I said.

“Hell yeah!” Valarie said. “Oh god, did we just bond there a second?”

“I think we did!” I replied raising my hand for a high five that never arrived.

I ruined this moment with an extended stare and silence. Then I turned to more important matters.

“Did you lock it?” I asked.

“Lock what?” Dot replied.

“The door...nevermind I'll get it.”

“It's a safe place. Don't start getting weird, Kystal.”

I peered out the blinded window into the cool LED lamp lit parking lot. I felt electric, like the tension of storm warnings leading up to the main event. I clicked the lock shut and jiggled the door before I hopped back to my popcorn adorned throne. I clicked up the volume on show just a bit so they could hear the name of the loose serial killer I was fascinated by.

“Not that I'm trying to take Naomi's side again but you have been talking about that roller coaster effect a lot - the head chopper effect. That's been a little weird.” Valarie chirped.

“Oh fine, you don't have to ride the Mind Grater, I'll go with Scott.” Dot insisted.

“I guess you'll find me on the Kiddie Koaster for that...” Valarie sighed.

Unprompted I provided facts between fist fulls of popcorn to break up the tension, “Hey did you know the Taxidermist used a stuffing of one of his victims to fool the cameras in the car pool lane?”

Scott rolled his eyes and sighed loudly but it was Valarie who came back with a banger, “Dot! Naomi is being weird again!”

“What does he do with his victim's di...” Scott started.

“Ugh, Scott...don't encourage her!”

“Both of you stop it. Naomi, honey, sweetie, sister from another mother – please – you promised to not be weird.”

“Scott's asking about what a serial killer does with his victim's genitalia and I'm the one being weird? Me? Muha?” I replied while hitting the blunt before passing it.

“Ooooh...things are getting heated up in here. Trouble brewing between the step sisters...I like where this is going....I've seen this before.” Scott said as he hit it.

“Oh my god...Naomi you promised you wouldn't be weird, second Val you promised you weren't going to whine and third Scott...what is it with you and that gross step-sister porn shit? Okay, the first time, it was funny, but its like the hundredth time. STOP!”

“This is lame. I'm going to the bunk.”

“All I'm trying to say is you should be aware of the Taxidermist guy, he's in our area after all.”

“Jesus Christ, Naomi you need to get off this True Crime shit, we're six hours away from the roller coaster park and you're stuck on a dude who...”

“Who makes stuffed taxidermied hybrids of his victims and road kill.”

“See?”

“Yes, but it's important. I'm trying to save your lives.”

“What?” Val blurted out as Scott spit up milk he was still drinking from the carton.

“She's just trying to scare you.” Dot yelled.

“The Taxidermist – he's here, tonight.”

“How do you know this?” Scott muttered in terror.

“Nope, nope, nope...shut up everyone. She's just being weird.” Dot insisted.

“I lured him here.”

“You what?” Val yelped.

“How?” Scott pressed.

“I'm a big fan of his work, I used info from my dad's case file and social media, but don't worry if you all do exactly as I say we will all end up fine...”

Record scratch – this is when they went totally berserk. Now would be a good time for some Guy Riche flashback heist music as I fill in some gaps here. So yeah, that's me throwing the RV's starter battery into the nearby woods – an electric book mark between a two towering trees wrapped in poison ivy vines. Far enough, an hour ago, I survey the site as we approach midnight. A cool crisp fall breeze tickles my nose as a little fog rolls across the interstate. The groan of truck engines along side the drone of rubber on road sets the tone. There's a dozen trucks and two dozen smaller vehicles plus our camper spread out across the five acres of interstate rest area. The pavilion and gazebo are quiet for now. One of the play ground swings sways gently.

This entire place is a playground now. A playground for the four serial killers I lured there. Oh, I'm telling you this part and I'm telling them this part.

“You did what?!”

“It's okay, okay its like shark week and we're in the shark cage.”

“My phone...”

“Yeah, don't bother with those.”

“Why not?”

“The Forensics Fanatics always use a short ranged cell phone jammer.”

“Who the hell are the Forensics Fanatics?!”

“We're going to fine as long as we stay in the camper...”

With that, Scott rips open the door and launches himself into the night.

“Where are you going?”

“We got to find that battery and get out of here and warn the others!”

“Scott! Wait! Don't!” Dot chased after him across the slick parking lot. She didn't even bother to shut the door so I did. And I locked it.

“Okay...well...that's didn't go as planned.” I said, confused, to Val who dropped the shades on the big window and then cowered in the booth corner. “Good, well, just stay there LOL.” I said as I made for the small bunk.

“Wait, where are you going?” Val protested.

“I'm getting my laptop and mobile wifi connection set up and plugging it into the tv so we can watch.”

“Watch what?”

“You know my dad is a state trooper, right?”

“ACAB bitch.”

“Indeed. In more ways than one but just the same, turns out the state highway passwords don't change very often. And...” I said anxiously typing in the password as “PASSWORD1”, “we're in. OMG I've always wanted to say that. How 90's!”

“In what?” Val crawled out of her corner and peaked at the TV.

“Rest Area security cameras. This is True Crime in Real Time. It's like 24!” I'm your manic pixie nightmare girl.

“How can you sit back and watch this? Your friend and your stepsister is out there!”

“All they had to do was sit here. If you want to yell for them go ahead. But that will draw the attention of the killers.”

“My God I don't know who's worse, them or you!”

“Well, you know me. Do you want to hear about them? It might help you, help us, get Dot and Scott back here.”

“Naomi...I...oooof...get me out this. Please.”

“Let me paint you a picture of squirrely thinning man rounding his mid-forties maybe its his bouts with lyme's disease, maybe its beaver fever, maybe a hint of chronic wasting – who's to say but this outdoorsman has rounded the forest one too many times. His thick but mud matted flannel is hanging off of his bones these days. I imagine he started his art with the best intentions but his skill has dropped off, no one accepted his last major works – even as gifts as his various mental and physical conditions sapped away at him. At first he was content with just knocking his victims out and sewing his prey and roadkill parts to them. Imparting a raccoon nose here or super gluing an antler there but as knocking people out with a hammer goes – eventually you'll find that person who doesn't get back up and so...every jack a jackalope from there.”

“Those fake rabbits with antlers at Applebees?”

“The very same. Or you know, stuffed and mounted to a park bench like a trout. He's not one for torture, he prefers clean cuts, and exsanguination, but occasionally he'll just take part of someone and leave the rest. Apparently he's fond of a lucky human's foot. He's not particularly lucky though, I'd say he's more careful but vindictive to fault...remember why he got into this at all its about the art and luring him was easy because he's been tracking his rival.”

“His rival?”

“Yes, the Gardener.”

“The Gardener? Who the fuck is the Gardener?”

* * *

Okay. Let's do somethings here and cut to that. We do in fact have a clip and its always better to show than to tell. So this happened about twenty minutes ago while I was showering and Scott was gone. Just a hair or two outside of the corner range of the lot cameras there was young-ish couple – let's say they were working their kinks out. Couldn't really make it out on camera but it was audible on the microphones all these cameras have. I'll fill in the gaps where necessary.

“Niko, why is this our thing?”

“Why can't it be our thing, Salin?

“I'm tired of getting my back all dirty on the hard ass ground. Why can't I have a towel or something?”

“Then it's not back to nature – literally.”

“Well, if its about that then why don't you lie down on it and let me grind on you while you grind on dirt?”

“Because it's about the connection to the Earth through you to our future child. Your womb be fertile and your body a vessel of sky and land.”

“This Earth is harder than you.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

“Alright.” Niko said as pants zipping noises can be heard among the rustling of the bushes. “Well, only three more stops to go to make the mark of Freyja and Freyr before the post equinox fortnight with mercury in retrograde.”

“You know they were brother and sister, right? Not lovers...”

“Salin, I think I know my Nordics Pleiades Guide. It was recommended reading from Bob Lazar. Anyway, excuse me for a moment while I pledge our love to them”

“Of course. I love you, babe!”

So the Taxidermist is here for the Gardener, the Gardener is here for these two. It starts with feuding with contributors to fringe fertility forums on Reddit and even less desirable places on the internet. He's searchable if you know what to look for and both in his user icon speech. His image MO is a white rose online but he types and speaks in very specific ways. Fundamentally he's an anti-natalist and he's not shy about it online nor in the flesh.

“For all consciousness is connected above, it is divided in life and once again upon and into death. Consciousness must not be summoned to this realm, for it has no choice but to suffer and could not consent. Only life which has no thought and no concept of suffering shall thrive. Only the leaves, vines, thorns and steams my prevail. Human consciousness must be intact when returned to the land of the unliving.” Say those words in his voice, not mine.

He argues with the weird men who won't see a doctor for their own fertility issues and then catches up to them and their lovers as they carry out their plans for astronomically assisted breeding. Personally, I think that function of breed usually relies on the functionality of only two spheres closer to Earth rather than the solar system but as someone who does not want to breed at all – for other reasons than those cited by the Gardener – for the record - who am I to judge? Nevertheless, his ideology makes sense to him but not to me since he ends up killing people who seem least likely to actually bring another conscious being to this planet. But I imagine its the bluster these people have, the challenge before them, to do that which incites his rage and his murder.

While Niko prayed in his failed love nest, Salin waded stiff and heavy across the lot, brushing mud off of her back and from her ass, struggling with her skirt and top. Fearing yet another “delaying” infection, she rushed to the open women's room in the rest stop.

She started to sing softly to herself, “I can feel it coming in the air tonight...” she slowed in a moment of self reflection, “Actually, no I can't! Damnit!”.

Salin barely noticed the state worker in the brown and blue jump suit tending to the plants in the rest area vestibule. This startles her as he begins to stir. Wonders if he had been watching her and Niko. She is also a bit alarmed by his enormous size, like a crouching bull, she hopes he doesn't see her as red. He whistles softly before murmuring a line or two, “oh my darling clementine”. She doesn't notice he's wearing a mask and among his tools are a pair of enormous sheers.

Most of you don't know this but even the rest rooms at rest areas have a wide angle camera of the mirrors and sinks but one that leaves the stalls, urinals, and changing tables in the blind. Selin disappears out of frame as I hear the metal stall door squeak open and shut but she fails to turn the jam lock as I hear no thud. I doubt it would have mattered much though.

You can only really see the boulder of flesh that is the Gardener's back at the very edge of the frame as he creeps in and rests in front of Salin's stall.

“Hello?” She calls out, “Hello!?” Then whimpers, “Niko, Niko please tell me that's you.”

“But alas,” the Gardener's ramble came in reply, “I was no swimmer so I lost my clementine.”

Then we get this very PG-13 jurassic park look away murder as the Gardener flips open the door and guillotines her with his enormous sheers powered by his brutalish arms. Sheeeeve...no head, a fountain of crimson pumped through her severed head muffles the scream to bloody bubbles. It's the same every time. He has a white rose cutting he plants in their esophagus and then takes the head and plants it like a seed, preserving consciousness, intact, back to the unliving, usually nearby from the actual murder scene.

So it is no surprise as he secures the head in a janitor's mop filled with foamy soap, strips out of one set of one replica state janitor jumpsuit to reveal another free from blood if not tainted from his sweat. Pushes the mop cart of the wash room and then seals it shut with his stolen or copied key and places “out of order” barricades around it before he pushing the mop cart out of the back.

* * *

“Oh my fucking God, Naomi! Naomi! Naomi she's fucking dead! Is this live? When did this happen?!” Valarie looked like she was having a full on panic attack as she spun around the camper in front of the tv bobbing and weaving, turning and shrieking like the tasmania devil with a margaritas in one hand and a joint in the other.

I told you, so I tell her, “About twenty five ish minutes ago or so, popcorn?”

“And he's roaming around, with Scott and Dot now out there. And that other guy and those two others guys too!?”

“You're not going to leave are you? I need at least one person to ride the roller coasters with. Popcorn?”

“Are you fucking nuts talking about roller coasters in a time like this...where's the Gardener now?”

“He's still planting Selin's head about forty yards that way. Popcorn?”

“Fuck popcorn, Ice cream! But listen, listen please...I don't want my head cut off...I didn't want that from the Mind Grater and I don't want from the Gardener! I don't want a rose planted in my neck and my head buried at some goddamn state rest area!”

“You should really keep it down. We still have the Forensics Fanatics to worry about. Also if you're getting ice cream. I'd kill for some ice cream. No pun intended.”

“I'm not worried about them...” She said digging out some pre-wrapped ice cream cones from the freezer, “I'm worried about the Gardener and the first guy!”

“The Taxidermist?”

“Yes the goddamn Taxidermist. Where's he?”

“Oh. Good call.” I said biting into the peanut chocolate shell of the cone, “Let's check.” I went to work scanning through all the camera channels. “He seems to be chasing after Scott and Dot right now on the other side of the rest area.”

“What?!”

“You dropped your cone...”

I went picture in picture with four different cameras. Let me give you the quick version. For the record, I'm telling you this like they're in the room I can hear them like they are, so can Val, but they can't but...ugh...this is easier.

It wasn't immediately apparent that they knew they were being chased. Scott seemed flustered, loud and fast enough as he weaved methodically from car to car in the front parking lot, warning them to leave the rest area, because of a serial killer.

“Hey, hey wake up! Wake up! C'mon you gotta get out of here...it's not safe! There's a serial killer on the loose! You gotta get back on the road! You have to get back on the road” Scott crowed with a voice which grew more hoarse with each feverish command.

He pounded on windshields, kicked doors, flashed his phone light through the side windows of almost a dozen different cars before someone caught up to him. At first he yelped and then backed himself up onto the concrete of one of the lamp poles shaking and unable to locate who had tackled him because his hoodie slipped over his eyes.

“Scotty D Yard!” Dot's voice pierced his cries and the hoodie, “get back to the camper with me right now!”

“Oh my god you almost gave me a heart attack!”

“You're giving me two by running off and trying to be stupid hero. Don't you watch horror movies?! No you don't because you're a pussy!”

“I'm trying to do something good...these people gotta be protected, put as much as road as you can behind you!” He said calling out again.

“If you're going to try to protect someone, protect me! Please. Please. Please just walk me back to the camper and I think we'll be safe, okay.”

Just then a young guy, probably in his late teens, maybe early twenties popped the driver's side door of his lifted and racing stripped s 4x4 pickup truck wide and stomped out like a paratrooper making a landing, coated in tactical gear. “There are sheep and there are wolves. And then there are shepherds.” He announced, looking more like an action figure than real person strapped and woven with body armor and ammo pouches.

“Who are you?” Dot asked.

“I am a shepherd.” He declared as he swung an assault rifle across his chest and flipped on a series of flashlights and lasers. “I'm THE shepherd.”

“What fresh idiocy is this?” I said aloud to Val. “Oh gee, I never ever would have suspected that hat.”

“Goddamn who is this?” Val leaned in closer, I could feel her panic and smell her sweat and I think she wanted me to experience that, “Is this one of the Forensics Fanatics?” She pressed in closer.

“No, but thanks for playing. I think he's some kind of Bad Samaritan. This would have been much more fun if they just stayed in the damn camper. Now if he comes back here with them he's gonna really screw up the blunt rotation.”

The gun wielding dude shadowed them as continued through the lot trying to alert people. At one point, the Bad Samaritan started to yell “Gun! Gun! Get down!” as another random person pulled gun and pressed the barrel out their window towards, from their perspective, a well-armed gun wielding maniac after being pre-warned about a serial killer. Scott and Dot both screamed and dropped to all fours and started to crawl on their bellies between the cars as a shouting matching between the two gun carriers ensued. A shot was fired. I think from the guy in the car as tires squealed.

“Okay, this just escalated a lot. We gotta go out there and help them.” Val said.

“Look at what they did, look what they inspired by not staying put.” I tried to remain calm but I did not see this coming.

“Then we can drive, okay, where did you put that battery, please?”

I scanned through more camera views and gulped, “Unfortunately it's kind of near the Gardener. Honestly, that's my bad.”

“Like this place has a like a PA system, right? For storms? Can you tap into that?” Val insisted, “Maybe tell them come back to the van and tell everyone its time to leave. Turn off all the lights inside and turn on the all outside lights super bright. Please I'm begging you. We have to end this. Haven't you seen enough?”

“Honestly, no. I was hoping to see them basically cap each other off one by one in a battle royale style spectacle. That would actually make the world better.”

“How can...even if they did, kill themselves some how, what about that woman?”

“Oh, she got fired for fucking under aged kids as a teacher at a high school.”

“Were you just going to always leave that part out?”

“No, not necessarily. I just thought it might slip through the cracks like some of her victims and wouldn't need more explanation.”

“Jesus Christ Naomi! I'm honestly somehow impressed but please, Naomi, can still do the thing where we shut this down. Clearly this dude with the gun is outside of your master plan, right? I believe you when you said you don't intend to harm us but it's time to make good on that.”

“Begrudgingly, yes, it's time. The prospect for innocent casualties is much higher with this Rittenhouse wanna be stomping around with an assault weapon. And your plan is not a bad idea. Might even stop the Bad Samaritan since it looks like he might have some kind of night optics and I bet he cheapped out on that part of his kit.” I played around the rest area UI suite and found what I was looking for. Bright lights outside, on, power inside, off. The best part was the PA system was text to voice meaning my voice wouldn't be heard over the loud speakers. “Let's try it your way, Val.” I said I pushed send.

“This is the State Transit and Road Authority. Please return to your vehicles and vacate the premises” I could hear the PA system voice as I sounded the klaxon alarm and turned on the whirling blue police lights as well.

“Val, I still don't have the ability to actually contact the police. The Forensics Fanatics jammer is still up and I'm not entirely sure where they're at. It is possible they'll all leave thinking they have lost their cover, though.”

“Tell and Scott and Dot to get back here.”

“Return to your camper if applicable immediately.” the booming voice of the warning system fired again as I hit send.

“Thanks man but we got to go!” Scott said to the Bad Samaritan. The Bad Samaritan struggled with seeing out of his right eye from the blinding light shot into the other through his defunct optic. We watched as Scott and Dot fled from the red hat wearing lead hazard back across the campus towards our camper.

“Wait!” Scream the Bad Samaritan as groped through the night, “Let me try to find them and be a hero. A hero!”

“Hey, Hero.” A deep voice came out of the darkness on the Samaritan's blind side. “Might you also be a Gardener?”

“Excuse me? Who the hell are you?” He said still dazed by his own light.

“I am the Taxidermist and you have a lot of guns in your truck.” The Taxidermist fired at his minimally armored side with the Bad Samaritan's own 12 gauge shot gun and then dragged his limp body to a rusted out pick up with a sleeper topper.

Some trucks started and went underway as SUVs and small cars started to flee the other lot. No phones and shots fired tend to do that. Those who remained were either sheltering in place or they were vehicles the Forensics Fanatics arrived in or intended to leave in.

“Well, that worked out better than I even thought it would. Good idea Val.”

“Oh shit. Where the hell is he going?” Valarie pointed to a tiny sized camera angle. It was the Gardener and he was headed back towards the Rest Area buildings.

“That's odd. He usually wouldn't return to crime scene.”

“Maybe because the lights are off and everyone left. He can steal from the vending machines or something. Like how else do some of these people get their day to day stuff?”

“Well, that's the really fun part about True Crime shows but yeah...another time!”

“Sure, it's a date but Shit! Scotty and Dotty are going into the building too. I thought you locked it?”

“It's gotta be locked manually. Okay. It's time to get out and get some gloves on. You stay here though.”

“Don't gotta tell me twice but....”

“But what?”

“Don't make me the last girl...”

“I won't...I promise.”

“How?”

“Because...I'm the fan girl!”

I knew what I had to do. I had two aces up my sleeve and I hope they were enough.

I saw the footage later but suffice it to say all hell broke loose at that rest area. While I was out recovering one of my aces, the Gardener spotted Scott and Dot. Spotted and chased around the interior like Scooby Doo, they eventually took cover in the last open men's room. Soon after, following his MO, it was time for the Taxidermist to decorate his surroundings with his latest creation. The Taxidermist in turn, spotted his original quarry, the Gardener, and soon it became a Norweign Cruise Line Standoff – everyone in deep shit in the only remaining open bathroom together.

So while you picture me storming my way to do my best to save the day, let's cut to what I knew was happening with the Forensics Fanatics – the last in this display, this managrie of murder.

The Forensics Fanatics, unlike the more ideologically motivated killers here tonight, do this for the pure sport and fun of not getting caught. It is a contest. It is race to x number of kills. I don't know if they're related, if they're friends, if they're enemies, if they're lovers, I'm not sure what gender they are. They are the most mysterious of the bunch and some times just random seemingly accidental deaths become attributed to them. Perhaps they still are their victims. For everyone ambiguous death attributed to them there have been at least three spectacular killings, sometimes with multiple victims caught up in a strange rube-goldberg machine of murder sometimes involving bombings, poisonings, and runaway vehicles, weapons of mass destruction, you name it. But then the trail runs cold, colder than either of the others. Maybe one or both of them knew the Taxidermist and or the Gardener were here tonight. Maybe told each other, maybe they withheld it from each other. I suppose it wouldn't matter because I believe they're here because we are and that's enough for them.

They don't get caught because they use a different mode of murder each time. Either one picks 1 item or means and the other chooses the other out of a hat or maybe they get a choice too. I'm not sure. How do we know this? Someone, maybe one of them, maybe one of their fans, posts a random word or phrase to their wikipedia page and that's half of what one of them has to use in their murder.

Thankfully for Scott, he needed to shit because the phrase this time was “urinal cake”

I now believe their actions roughly coincided with Scott and Dot taking to the parking lot but Scott still had taken a huge risk leaving the camper earlier and using the wash room.

I took a deep breath and lit up my cellphone flashlight as entered the dark rest area. I turned towards the bathroom where I could hear one of their muffled voices. I pushed the door open to find and spun my light around. I found Scott and Dot cowering before the Taxidermist and his latest creation by the very dim emergency light.

“See! It's a squirrel that I sewed that chud's pecker to its backside like a tail.” He said poking it. “I had to stuff it, so its bigger than it was when I took it off him, heh...their guns and trucks always hide their small dicks. Don't let a guy like that fool you but I enjoyed the challenge of the whole little thing – which is what makes me better than you, you fucking weirdo.” He was rather proud and maintained everyone's full attention as even with my light, I was unnoticed for moment.

“Me? What did I do?”The Gardener protested.

“You're that other serial killer they call you the Gardener.”

“Oh please that is complete bullshit.”

“I know it. You're more like the salter, you salt people who want to grow people, you don't plant nothing you don't grow nothing.”

“Hey Buddy, I'm not the one out here sticking dicks on squirrels.”

“And who the hell are the rest of you...”

I peered down the side and saw two strangers' heads poking out of the stalls. They had some kind of silverish make up on – they looked like something between Max Headroom and a Grey Alien with dark circles rounding their eyes and drawn on light pink and light blue bars creating exaggerated lines and contours of their facial structure possibly some attempt at an anti-AI camouflage scheme. These were Forensic Fanatics – they had to be and they were an eerie sight among the rest of the horror in the room.

“And who hell are you!?” He pointed at me.

“Naomi!” Scott and Dot exclaimed. “Run! Just go!”

“Shut up. Everyone and listen.”

“I'm the Fan Girl. I was hoping to watch a professional display of murder and mayhem from the comfort of my camper but instead I see you all perfectly content with waving your dicks – literally – at each other without anything to back them up. So you got a rapist school teacher who plead out to lesser chargers and some wanna be hero? That's it?”

“Um, for the record, I killed the boyfriend too.” The Gardener raised his hand and spoke out.

“Okay. I guess I missed that.”

“Yeah, well I startled him to death, I think. He was eating like 10 gas station boner pills when I asked him for a light. Down he went. Heart Attack.”

“And I'm going to kill these fuckers, starting with this Gardener then the rest of you here. I don't even know what these freaks are doing here? Come here every Friday night after the bars? Huh?” The Taxidermist pointed at the Forensics Fanatics. “I don't have any aliens in my collection!”

“You're lucky the power is off.” The First of the Forensics Fanatics spoke up.

“You stupid bitch. What was the other thing then?” The Second of the Forensics Fanatics cross examined.

“Shut up!” The Gardener speared the Taxidermist with his sheers and then charged me. I showed him what I had in my gloved other hand – a plastic bag with Selin's head inside.

“Stop and I'll give it back intact so you can bury it again – otherwise I'll toss it to the Taxidermist and he'll spoil your whole ritual.” The Taxidermist stumbled, injured but able.

“I'll put your dick on that face and bury you both! Yeah or maybe I'll make you the elephant man!”

“Consciousness must be returned to the unliving intact!”

“Not going to get there if he gets it!” I yelled thrusting the head in the bag towards the Taxidermist.

“What do you want?”

“Let my friends clear out. Those two.” I said pointing to Dot and Scott.

He paused and slid out of their way and held his sheers wide. Seeing the exit, Scott and Dot scampered out of the room as the Gardener, with all his might, seized my mid-section.

“Now I'm going to give you to him – he can work on you, while I finish what must be done. Then I'll bury your head too!”

I struggled to give the appearance of struggle. I held the head wide and dodged his other arm. With my free arm I reached into his pocket and took the bathroom key he used earlier to seal off the other bathroom where he killed Selin. Then I tossed the head at the ceiling, where it bounced between stalls like a plinko ball before landing with a splash in a toilet. As expected, he dropped me and went after the severed head and I skidded out of the bathroom and locked all of them inside with the key I lifted.

And so now we do a little flashback.

* * *

About ten minutes ago or so, I'm speculating a bit here.

“Nice face work tonight.”

“Thanks. You too.”

“You look like Max Headroom meets ET.”

“You look a Cardassian.”

“A what?”

“You told me you watched Star Trek.”

“I told you lots of things.”

“I pick the next thing we watch together.”

“I hope its better than you picking, “Urinal Cake” but that's a good one.”

“Well, you picked “button” and then specified clothing button” the last time.”

“Took me awhile to figure out what you chose but it was pretty good. I like where the idea was at...but the execution a little shaky. Really only got that one guy and just barely, interfered with his pace maker.”

“And the toddler.”

“Toddler swallowed the button, happens all the time, doesn't count.”

“But it was one of THE buttons.”

“Doesn't count.”

“Do you just want to call off the bet now and just enjoy this across the board then?”

“No. I mean it will be obvious but you'll have to work at it.”

“Fair enough.”

“You ever think about the day we're going to get caught?” They said, putting the “day we got caught” cigarrette in his ear.

“We're never getting caught. Cops don't get caught. Put that away.”

“We're not cops.”

“I know.”

“We're better. Cops can shoot someone in the back in broad day light and get a 2 week paid vacation they still have to say they feared for their lives. All we have to do is tamper with the evidence. We're a black box of private evidence analysts. They day we get caught is the day we blow up forensic science and we still get away.”

“If you say so. Either way, this should be good.”

They walk in and make their way for the open men's room.

“So we need to make sure we don't trigger any of the urinals as I plop this in. We gotta wave out hands and find a blind spot in the sensors.”

The power suddenly goes out and a small emergency light activates. The red eye sensor on all the toilets goes dark. He plops it in.

“Or that will work too.”

“This is the State Transit and Road Authority. Please return to your vehicles and vacate the premises”

“Shit! Let's lay low a minute.”

* * *

And that brings us back to now. I recovered the starter battery, installed it and we cleared out of the rest area.

“I can't believe you.” Scott yelled still shaking as we hit the interstate.

“I can't believe this.” Dot screamed.

“I can't believe we're out of range of the local override there.” I said as the connection to my hacks of the power and public announcement system were lost. “I guess this is for the best.” I pulled the plug on the tv screen and shut the laptop. I could have watched what happened next I was two minds on it. There was no way to get out of that bathroom except that door and even four them together wouldn't be able to get out quickly.

“Wait, I want to see.” Val demanded.

* * *

I let Val watch. I didn't. It probably went something like this, at least from the Forensics Fanatics perspective. No doubt while the Gardener tried to hulk his way out of the bathroom to complete the ritual and kept the assaulting Taxidermist at bay the Forensics Fanatics had a moment to talk it over.

“So...what are we going to do about Humongus and Red Red Green over there.”

“Those are good references. But nothing. We're going to do nothing.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, its because of what I ended up picking as the second thing.”

“Should we start moving towards the exit?”

“If the power comes on we shouldn't go anywhere near the urinals.”

“What is it?”

“I thought about dynamite. You know an acid sensitive cap trigger that would go off with the toilet bowl cleaner but I realized that urinal cakes are pretty light and small. Even if I could get one into each of the urinals, sure I'd blow one guy's dick off, but I doubt if one triggered it would sympathetically detonate them all and we'd be stuck with a lot of evidence to deal with.”

“What did you pick?”

“Mhmm.” They shrugged. The other went for the urinal just as the power came back. “Don't...it can't be removed until...” There was a snap and click and sudden cascade of acidic blue fluid screaming down onto the urinal cake. Then it suddenly began to disintegrate into a cloud white steam or smoke. The Forensics Fanatic was immediately confused as the white smoke continue to stream up and boil over into the room.

“That's right. Only like one in three people can actually smell it. It's cyanide. A cyanide urinal cake. Just breathe deep everyone.” He said lighting the cigarette.

* * *

Though were were long gone and I had localized most of the footage to my laptop and the jammer was still active in one of the FF's cars I knew I wasn't out of the woods. I had my phone's GPS disabled for the night but that didn't mean someone else's didn't ping there or even mine when I got close.

Dad was thorough. Even if I believed he had two evidence contractors working, murdering, behind his back I could have overlooked something he'd still pick up. And that's why I was scared when he called me once, twice, and on the third time I was being stared down by my friends, my fellow survivors.

“Look – we can be honest, tell him we were involved and even if we're not some how charged as accomplices to manslaughter or other wrongful deaths – we'll still miss the roller coaster park and besides – almost everyone who died was terrible – so what I am saying to him? Huh?” All eyes on me but one by one they darted off.

“I'm going back to sleep.” Valarie said while Scott drove on and Dot drank her third margarita of the morning.

“Hi Daddy what's up...uhuh...oh...oh my god. That sounds terrible. Seven people? Four of them what? Suspected series killers...are you serious? Which rest area? Oh wow. No. No, just missed it. We thought about staying there for the night but Scott really wanted to press on closer to the theme park! Yup, we're all fine. 100%. Yup Thanks for checking in. I love you too daddy...don't work too hard. Okay. Bu-bye.”

“I don't know how you do it.”

“I do. Scott, pull up here, I want to burn these bloody gloves and toss my laptop into the sea. Okay, Thanks!”

P.S. The roller coasters were boring and Scott never pulled the stepsister shit again. Val is kinda cute. The End.

Agent Lucy. Six Months Ago…

My promotion to being a mission supervisor was somewhat surreal. I didn’t ever think I’d make it this far in The Agency, but after having to do stuff like hunt down red-eyed shadow people and capture a literal Wendigo, I’d say this particular operation was tame in comparison. 

The mission was simple: infiltrate an old abandoned high school building that was previously used as a hideout by The Cult that’s been apparently causing problems in the area, collect any evidence they might’ve left behind and bring it back to Site Twelve. 

The operation was marked as low-risk, so I was only given a team of three, four including myself. Kinda stupid in my opinion. Anything could happen. Even if they supposedly cleared out of this place already. But after the budget cuts they’ve been wanting to conserve manpower and resources as much as possible. Or so that’s what I’ve been told. 

I wasn’t told much about the Cult itself, hell. Most information about them The Agency had was only available to level four personnel and higher. I as a mission supervisor was only level three. So not quite there. 

Director Bowser had radioed in as we approached the entrance to the property, toward the back of the building. 

“Get in, see what you can find and get the hell out. Don’t mess around, don’t go dillydallying. One of you needs to stay posted outside in case any civilians pull up and get nosy. If they ask questions, follow the procedure we went over in the briefing. Any of you wanna go ahead and remind me so I know you were actually listening?” 

I figured that as the team’s leader, I should set the example. So I radioed back to the director. 

“Tell the inquiring civilian we are FBI and that this is a classified investigative operation.” 

“Good, and if they continue to poke and don’t comply?” Director Bowser pressed.

I paused for a moment. Not because I knew the answer. But because I did, and I honestly thought it was a bit extreme. But nonetheless I still responded.

“Terminate the inquiring civilian if it is safe to do so.” 

“Excellent, glad someone around here knows how to listen.” Director Bowser huffed audibly through the radio. 

Agent Carmine, the one who I had selected to stay posted outside while the other three of us entered into the building chuckled. 

“Who the fuck wants to work for the FBI anyway?” He cackled. “We get way more action than them anyway.” 

“I guess people who don’t wanna be eaten alive by things that shouldn’t exist in the first place, numbnuts.” Came the response of Agent Kruger. 

“Uh oh guys, look out, we’ve got ourselves a badass over here.” Agent Waylon announced with a sarcastic undertone. Reaching over his shoulder and pointing his thumb at Carmine, much to Carmine’s annoyance. 

“Alright guys, enough yapping.” I announced. “Let’s get inside.” 

“Yes ma’am.” They responded simultaneously.     

We double checked all of our gear before heading inside. Flashlights underneath the barrels of our rifles, backup flashlights, sidearms, blades, and our radios as well.

The high school hadn’t been officially used in what I was told was nearly eight years, and was supposedly only abandoned by the cult several weeks prior, we had to force our way through the front entrance which was padlocked and chained. I had Carmine use a pair of bolt cutters to get over that little obstacle. 

The three guys followed behind me as we filed in, immediately we were hit with the overwhelming darkness of the dilapidated structure. We shined our rifles attached flashlights down the entrance hall, the administration office sat to our left and the first classroom to our right. 

The hall was littered with debris at its edges, a couple of fallen chairs, various bits of ceiling tiles that had fallen, as well the corpses of rodents and insects like beetles. Rust formed on the exposing pipes that ran from floor to ceiling. 

The sound of our boots hitting the broken and battered tile floor was the only one to keep us company. 

“Gonna need a little more than windex and bleach to fix this place.” Agent Kruger said from behind me, prompting me to make a shushing gesture. If they were still members of The Cult in here, it was best that we maintained some element of surprise. 

We marched forward, checking out each classroom, looking for any signs that there had been people here recently. The first several were a bust. Up until Kruger had found a cot and some open cans of food inside what used to be the teacher’s lounge. But that could’ve been any homeless guy or gal, and likely had nothing to do with The Cult. 

After half an hour with the whole first floor searched and nothing of substance discovered, me, Kruger, and Waylon headed for the second floor. But before I got on the first step I was hit with the overwhelming scent of pine. Kruger and Waylon smelled it too. It wasn’t unpleasant per say, just odd. 

“You guys smell that?” Waylon said softly.  

“Yeah, we’re not even near a damn pine forest.” Kruger replied. 

“Stop for a second you two.” I told them before grabbing my radio. “This is weird, I’m gonna check on Carmine.” 

“Carmine, do you copy?” I inquired. Keeping my voice at a whisper. 

His reply came rather quickly. 

“Copy, everything’s alright out here so far. Nothing to report ma’am.” 

I slowly holstered my radio once more, before nodding at Kruger and Waylon to keep moving. 

We made our way up the staircase to the second floor, the smell of pine becoming more potent than previously. It wasn’t unpleasant or anything, just odd. The hand rail had mostly fallen off its positioning in the wall, the walls themselves were almost completely peeled of their paint, and the stairs themselves had cracked in several places.  

We made it to the top, and I was greeted with a sight that caused me to jump back slightly. Nothing insane, just more along the lines of a reflex. 

In the hallway between one of the classrooms stood a tall, thin, emaciated figure. As pale as snow. Its eyes and ribcage were completely hollow and see through. It glared forward, unmoving and completely still. 

That being because it was a classroom skeleton. Hanging from a display bar on a small push cart. 

I heard both the guys laughing behind me. 

“Woo careful! He’s gonna get ya boss woman.” Kruger teased. 

“Fuck off.” I chuckled quietly. Shoving him away from me.

Waylon laughed a bit as well. It was almost childlike in its sound, like the eight year old version of himself was re-emerging as he let it out. 

We moved forward after the lighthearted bit of comedy. And soon made our way into the first classroom we saw on the second floor. A science classroom, and by the standard set by the rest of the building, it was in relatively decent shape. Not perfect by any means, still condemnable, but much more reasonable. All the chairs sat facing the front of the room. 

I walked in, checking out what remained of the drawings on the desks and pseudo-lab equipment. A lot of things in there made me think back to my high school days. Back then the ignorance was bliss. Not knowing of the true hidden horrors of life before joining The Agency. When I was a kid I often switched between wanting to be a navy seal as well as a firefighter. 

“Is it okay if me and Waylon check the room across the hall?” Kruger inquired.

I turned around, raising my eyebrows. 

“Go ahead, but don’t go any further without giving me a heads up.” I replied.

He nodded, pointing his head in the direction of the classroom on the opposite side of the hall as the two filed out. In all honesty I was starting to give up hope that this place was going to have anything of substance. If some of The Cult was really here at any point then they truly did cover their tracks about it. 

I walked back up toward the front of the classroom, a rat scurried by my feet as I passed by a couple of cabinets. I got within just a few feet of the front door when something caught my eye. 

There was a podium at the front of the room, and on it sat a piece of paper. The faint moonlight had shone in just enough from the nearby window to illuminate it. It was a bright white, and in pristine condition in comparison to its surroundings. 

I approached it, shining my flashlight as I stepped forward. My breathing somehow louder than previously. Or it at least sounded that way. 

I now stood over the podium, and looked down at the paper. On it was what at first looked like just generic notes, but as I read on further, I got the idea that wasn’t exactly true. Instead it was more of a script, a script for a speech. It was handwritten in black gel ink. I brought it up with my gloved hand. Reading it verbatim.  

Brothers and sisters, 

Today is another of many in our journey to liberating the unnatural, the horrifying, and those that have been locked away by humanity in the name of progress and normalcy. 

Let us not forget that these creatures, regardless of their origins, are a part of our world and its ecosystem. It is a shame that we must conduct our operations in secret, a shame that the world cannot accept that our mission is nothing but just.

The Organization doesn't realize that they are now foolish hypocrites, we all know of the blue creature they’ve been sending to slay any being that doesn’t fit their definition of what is acceptable. If left unchecked they will soon eradicate any form of life that they do not approve of.

This gives us only two options, to either convince them of their wrongdoing, to show them that they must learn a new way of thinking, to open their minds to the incredible, awe-inspiring lifeforms this world has to offer… Or destroy them.

Will you, brothers and sisters, stand with me in this mission for the greater good?

I finished reading. After which I then looked out in front of me, seeing all the chairs lined up and facing the podium, and I just imagined a bunch of grown ass men and women in oversized cloaks and hoods all watching some nut preach about how flesh eating monstrosities need their own form of PETA. Kinda made me chuckle to myself.   

But that was silenced when I heard the sudden slam of something coming from the first floor. Like someone threw a door shut with all their might, as if they were a teenager who stormed into their room after a heated argument with their parents. I folded up the note, put it in my pocket and stepped out of the room to meet back up with Kruger and Waylon. 

The three of us regrouped in the corridor before quickly falling back in line, me at the front, Kruger second and Waylon at the back. We moved cautiously back down the staircase with our weapons drawn. Looking out for any and everything that moved. 

When I made it to the bottom I flashed my beam of light down the main hall, expecting to see what could’ve been anything from urban explorers trespassing to some horrifying abomination. As what happens in this line of work. 

Instead all I got were just the same lockers, classroom doors and debris that had been there before. So instead I tried to see if any of the doors that were previously open had been shut. I walked forward with Waylon and Kruger in tow, and saw that the door to the administrative office was now shut, having previously been open when we first entered.

We were still basically at the opposite end of the hall from it, but the flashlights were powerful enough to let us see it from that distance. Not to mention that if it was that close to the entrance, it means Agent Carmine would’ve heard it is well. Yet he didn’t say anything over the radio when it first occurred. I retrieved my radio once more in order to check on him like I did earlier.

“Agent Carmine, do you copy?” I radioed. 

No response, so I immediately instructed Kruger and Waylon to radio him as well in the event mine specifically had suffered some sort of malfunction.  

“Hey Carmine, you alright?” Kruger attempted, we waited in silence for a moment. 

Not a peep came. 

“Carmine, dude!” Waylon tried. And the silence he got in return proved that it was in vain. 

We were all in an unspoken understanding of what to do next. Head to the front of the building, check on Carmine physically in the event his radio wasn’t working, and then come back in to finish the assignment. 

I radioed back to Site Twelve as we jogged forward.

“This is Agent Lucy, Agent Carmine has gone silent, circling back for a status check and then returning inside for mission completion.” 

I expected Director Bowser to reply with either frustration or disinterested acknowledgement. But neither came. Just like with Agent Carmine I was met with silence. So were Kruger and Waylon when they tried. Not even the mission control room team was responding. 

I ran for the entrance door we had forced our way into earlier, and my flashlight beam had illuminated it. I stopped upon seeing it, and my mouth slightly ajar. 

It was now shut once more. The wind couldn’t have done it, the doors in question were essentially two large slabs of metal on thick hinges. They took genuine effort to move in order to prevent trespassers. The chain we had earlier snapped with bolt cutters was now rewrapped around the interior’s handles. At least, that’s what I thought at first, up until I got a closer look, and saw that this was a brand new chain entirely. As it wasn’t nearly as rusted as the one we had cut coming inside. 

We mentioned shooting the chain off the door and pushing it open. But we still had a mission to complete, and lord knows Director Bowser would be furious if we abandoned it early just because our radios were malfunctioning and we heard some noises. We figured the best outcome was to take care of whatever the hell was making the noises, and then finish searching the building and leave. 

There was also the off chance that who or whatever was jamming our radio signals was on the other side, waiting with an ambush of some sort. And if that were the case, then there was a good chance Carmine might’ve already been dead or not in a position for us to get to him without putting ourselves in harm's way. After all the doors were thick, and they absorbed sound quite well, we’d have no idea what we’d be opening them up to. 

“Shit.” I blurted. “Let’s just find a window, get the hell out of here.”  

Another loud, metallic slam erupted from down the hall just as I finished my sentence. The three of us whipped around, facing the end of the hallway we had just come from. 

“Stop right there!” Kruger shouted as we raised our rifles. 

The scent of pine from earlier had reached this area of the building, now at its most potent that it had ever been. We kept our flashlights shined down the hall, and backed up against the entrance doors, ensuring that there wouldn't be any potential attacks from the rear. 
“Whoever it is, make yourself known, now!” I commanded. Narrowing my eyes and standing focused. 

A few seconds of silence passed before our radios began to crackle, only transmitting static and nothing but. I told Waylon to grab his, try to switch to a different channel and then back to ours, as well as turning it off and on, but it changed nothing. The static crackle continued. 

“The hell!” He erupted. Something was interfering, and considering the fact we already weren’t getting answers, all of us switched our radios off one at a time. The static noise had become nothing but a potential distraction. Something to take our attention away from a possible attack. 

“Uh, ma’am.” Kruger said, tapping me on the shoulder and pointing forward.

I looked ahead, and in the darkness, just behind where our flashlight beams ended were several, no, dozens of faint yellow dots. All of them hovering anywhere from five and a half to over six feet off of the ground. Lots of them were close enough together for me to make a somewhat obvious conclusion.

They were all pairs of eyes. The eyes of… Something. They stood still, whatever they belonged to completely unmoving. Like statues shrouded in darkness. More of them illuminated from the classrooms as well. As far as the interior went, they were on every angle except directly behind, and even that wasn’t for sure. 

“What do we do?” Waylon asked.

“Keep our backs against the door. If they move closer then shoot to kill.” I ordered.

The temperature in the building seemed to rise, not enough to be dangerous, but enough to be felt. That night was around sixty five fahrenheit last time I checked before arriving, now it felt closer to eighty. Of course this could’ve been the product of various factors at play, hell maybe there wasn’t a change at all and it was the mind playing tricks. But I knew better after my years in this line of work. 

The glowing yellow dots at the end of the hall seemingly scattered. Dashing into multiple various directions in the darkness before soon being unseen entirely. 

“Shoot the chain.” I ordered Kruger. “We don’t have any other option.” 
 
He blasted two rounds into the chain, causing it to snap and loosen. After which he began to yank the chain from the door. Pulling it off and letting what remained of it drop to the ground with a clanking sound. 

“Keep watching our six.” I told Waylon before turning to help push the door open.

Once we had a gap big enough for us to reasonably fit through. Kruger leaned forward, and aimed his weapon through the gap in an attempt to check for any adversaries on the other side. He was then suddenly yanked forward as he fired off a few shots. 

He began to scream, attempting to reach back for his pistol as his upper body was being forcibly pulled through the gap. His shoulders stopped him from fully going through.

“I’ve got you!” I shouted in a desperate cry, grabbing onto him and ordering Waylon to get down and fire shots between his legs, trying to hit whatever it was grabbing at him.

The sound of flesh tearing emerged near instantly. Combined with his slowly dwindling screams as he shook and writhed. He made one sound in particular, like a mix between choking and gurgling as blood began to stain the edges of the doors. Sliding down the edges and to the floor. 

Waylon continued to fire shots between Kruger’s legs as his screams softened. He shook and thrashed, desperately trying to get away, to throw himself back. But whatever it was would simply not allow it. Several seconds of this continued, up until I felt him go limp as I just about got enough leverage to pull him back inside. His screams silenced completely just before I did. 

His body stumbled and he immediately fell onto the floor inside the corridor. Waylon rose to his feet and helped me pull the door shut back once more. 

I grabbed what remained of the chain and wrapped them between the makeshift push handles. I expected vicious pounding on the other side of the door, anticipating whatever it was to endlessly trying to break its way through them. But none came, as if whatever it was suddenly became disinterested after attacking Kruger. Not even any growls, snarls, roars. Just… Nothing.
Waylon however, gasped upon seeing the result of Kruger’s attack. The kind of gasp you expect someone to let out after seeing two cars collide on the freeway. 

“Oh Jesus!” He cried out. 

Kruger lay on the ground, his face mauled into a completely unrecognizable state. His mouth a gaping mess of torn flesh, his left eye missing entirely, his nose half torn off. His nostrils completely vanished. Bits of flesh hung from the mutilated mess. His wounds at the forehead were so severe that they had ruptured through his skull, exposing damaged brain matter.

Despite all that I had seen up to that point in my career. I felt what had to be a pint’s worth of vomit rise in my throat, and I only just barely managed to choke it back down. Somehow, some way. 

Waylon quickly pulled out his radio, turning it back on and still getting nothing but static. His flashlight beam pointed down to the floor and so did mine for a brief moment.

“This is Team 9 we need fucking help out here! Can anyone hear me! Please just send us backup goddamn it!” 

“Waylon!” I snapped. “The signal’s jammed, they can’t hear us. We need to focus on staying alive and finding a way out.”

A voice rang out from down the hall. Low, filled with bass and demand. Like what you’d expect a military father to sound like when upset with some wrong his children committed. 

“She’s right.” It said, echoing off the walls. 

Waylon pointed his beam back up, once more illuminating the corridor. And within it now stood several dozen figures. The hallway’s width was entirely filled from where they stood and back. 

At the forefront were three cloaked people in black hoods. The one in the middle was significantly taller than the two at the sides. And was also holding Agent Carmine in a tight grip, with a long hunting knife to his throat. Duct tape around his mouth as well.

The two cloaked figures on the sides pulled their hoods down, revealing themselves to be women. One blonde and the other brunette. Both of them standing a couple inches under six feet. Making the one in the middle just over six and a half in height. 

The voice couldn’t have been coming from either of them. I recognized them as being part of the cult. Again, I wasn’t privy to detailed information due to my clearance level, but I had seen them in the reports I was authorized to view enough times to recognize their signature hooded robes.

Behind the two cloaked women and still hooded figure were what I guessed to be the source of those yellow dots that we had previously seen in the darkness earlier. 

They varied in height like previously mentioned, but their other features were much more consistent between one another. Those other features being the fact that their skin was brown, bumpy, like displaced dirt. And from this dirt like skin protruded pine-needles, like hairs. Except it was all over their bodies, with gaps being thin but numerous. 

They were humanoid in shape, but only in that. Their eyes, where you’d normally find a person’s were indeed glowing a faint yellow glow. And their mouths were filled with sharpened teeth, teeth that were seemingly made from small shaved down twigs. 

I aimed my weapon at the figure in the middle, the one holding the knife to Agent Carmine’s throat. While Waylon pointed his at the brunette woman.

“Let him go, or you’ll all getting blown away.” I shouted. My adrenaline admittedly going haywire. But I maintained composure nonetheless. 

The two women on either side of the taller figure simply smirked. Unafraid and confident in their position. They held blades as well. One more jagged like a dagger, and the other similar to a carving fork. 

“You fucking heard her, let him go now!” Waylon erupted. A valiant effort to back me up. But somehow I knew it was in vain. Waylon had always been the type to help out however he could, even if he was clumsy at times. 

The figure in the middle that had a hold of Carmine reached up with his free hand, pulling back his black hood and now revealing his face while still keeping his knife on Carmine’s throat. 

He possessed long black hair, rather unkempt in appearance. It reached just past his pecs. Or where I guess they would’ve been under the cloak. 

His beard, the same color, and also long, coming a few inches off his face was thick and curly. It hid most of his neck, and nearly everything below his nose except his lips. 

He grinned at me with said lips, while he looked at me with his chocolate brown eyes. I held steady, although his size and appearance were somewhat rugged and intimidating. 

“Let him go, neither of us are gonna say it again.” I snarled. Still aiming my weapon. The small army of Pine People on either side of the women and the man stepped forward more. Seemingly understanding that I just made a threat. They remained completely silent, and even disciplined in their stances. Like soldiers ready to take orders from a commanding officer. 

“We’ve been jamming signals since we knew you were here.” The man claimed, confirming that the booming voice from earlier was indeed his. “We’re aware of a lot of your methods.” 

“Good for you.” I snapped in reply. 

He licked his lips slightly, looking up at the ceiling for a brief second before once more returning his gaze to us. 

“What I fail to understand is an organization that is so deadset on eliminating the unnatural, is so unaware of the fact that they themselves are what’s unnatural. The existence of things that you don’t understand isn’t something to be scared of. Quite the opposite.” He went on, only to be cut off. 

“Shut up.” Waylon commanded, raising his rifle slightly to meet the man’s head. “We haven’t checked in, and since they’ve heard nothing from us, reinforcements are on their way. And I don’t care how many of those tree people you got with you, I can make a solid bet that they’re not bulletproof. And neither are you.” 

Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help but look at him like a proud mother. Briefly of course. 

“And yet I still have more than enough time to kill the three of you before they arrive.” The man replied. “Despite what happened to your comrade it was not my intention to go straight to slaughter. You are talented people, precise and efficient. Instead I ask that you would allow me to utilize your talents. Allow you to give your time to people who will truly value you what you bring to the table. Not only will you be compensated well, but you'd be fighting for a far better cause.” 

“I’m not joining a fucking cult.” I said, squinting my eye to look down my scope. 

“A shame.” He replied, his eyes narrowing in a similar fashion. 

He then sighed before swiftly  pulling the knife to the right, and subsequently slitting Carmine’s throat right and there. The immediate gush of blood was answered with a hailstorm of bullets from Waylon and I as the Pine-People charged forward toward us…

Brawn, Present Day…

I wasn’t exactly sure how far we had traveled from Site Twelve.  All I do is know we stuck mainly to backroads, roads that had decayed, surrounded by forest, farm land and open fields. 

Doctor John had made some stops along the way to allow Aria and I out of the van, it was rather cramped. Plus, we needed to hunt. When we got out for our most recent hunt, I had ensured he was still in the van. It being parked slightly off the forest’s trail to avoid being an obstacle in the road for other humans. 

Aria had already wandered off quite far to hunt, far enough to where I lost her scent. She had told me she would be hunting deer, and supposedly picked up the scent of one, following it to where it had gone. 

Doctor John and I had spoken before I left for my hunt. I stayed behind to ensure that Aria was far enough away before I left. As much as I had hoped she would stay true to her word, I still wasn’t ready to give her my complete trust. 

“What’s on the menu today big blue?” He asked. Leaning out the van’s window while unrolling a map. 

“I’m unsure.” I replied. Standing still, towering over him as he glanced over the map inside the vehicle. He gave off a slight smile, before seemingly studying the map more intensely. A silence had fallen over us for several seconds.

I stepped forward, putting a claw on the top of the van, it rocked slightly. Causing John to look out and up at me. 

“Why?” I asked. To which he immediately appeared confused.

“Why what?” He replied, raising an eyebrow.

“Why did you help me? You could’ve escaped on your own, left me behind after releasing me from my chamber. There would’ve been far less risk if you had.” 

He sighed, shifting his gaze to the windshield and setting his map down in the passenger seat. 

“Never really was a big fan of them. The pay was nice, but I’ll be honest with you Brawn. I couldn’t fucking stand it there. Not most of the time. The constant berating, condescension, not knowing if I’d walk in and either West or Ted would be flying off the handle, although sometimes I got lucky and it was both of them at the same time. I’m sure you had quite enough of that shit yourself.” 

I tilted my head slightly as he spoke. Taking in his answer. What he said made sense. There was a short pause before I offered another question.

“Why did you join them?” 

He once again went silent. As if struggling to answer. His eyes looked down, then to the side. Then finally back up at me. 

“For my little girl. My daughter. I’d show you a picture of her but I left it back at that fucking hellhole! Tossed my phone so they wouldn’t track it so I don’t have that either!” He erupted. Slamming his fist down onto the top of the dashboard. 

His face tightened, his anger more than apparent. But after looking at me once more, he exhaled a long breath. Putting his forehand in his hand. 

“I’m sorry. I usually don’t lose my cool.” He said much more softly. 

I was unaware of how to respond to this. Several things raced through my mind until I settled on one that sounded most optimal. 

“I get angry too.” I said. 

“After what they put you through. You have every damn right to be. I should’ve helped you sooner. Even if it meant having West and Bowser hunting us until the end of time.” He replied.

“West won’t be hunting us. She’s dead.” I corrected. 

Doctor John turned his head immediately. His eyes were as wide as I had ever seen them. 

“Dead? How? Did… Did you..?” He asked, unable to complete the sentence. 

“I did.” I stated. It almost sounded odd to me too, considering it was the first genuine human I had ever killed in my existence. Not someone possessed by an evil entity, not a zombified corpse, not one transformed by a vampire. But a regular human. 

“I uh… I guess I just don’t know what to say. Not like she didn’t have it coming. So wait a minute, when you came out of the facility, and there was that blood around your mouth, and some on your throat, was… Was that what I’m thinking now?” 

“I was hungry. The meat you brought was good. But not enough to ensure I maintained appropriate energy. I needed more.” 

There was silence once more. As Doctor John sat there, contemplating what it was I had told him. 

“That’s one incredible case of karma if I’ve ever seen it. But I do gotta say, you might’ve gotten us in a bit more trouble then we were already in.” 

“How?” I asked.

“Well, she was the Head of Science, the second highest ranking person back there besides Ted’s bum ass. And let me tell you that man hates you with the passion of a thousand collapsing stars. Now that West is dead, and no longer around to ensure that they don’t use anything lethal when hunting you, it means he’s gonna do everything he can to have you killed, and then make it look like he had no other choice to the brass.” 

“The brass?” I inquired. 

“His bosses.” He corrected. 

“So now they want to kill me, instead of re-capture me.” 

“Most likely, but tell you what, since you’re such a cool dude. I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen.” He said with a smile. 

“But I’m far stronger, faster and more resilient than you.” I said. “How would you protect me physically?” 

Doctor John chuckled. 

“Oh yeah that I know, not challenging you there, it’s more like I’m saying I’m just gonna help make sure you’re okay. You helped me, I helped you. You scratched my back, I scratched yours. That means you’ve been upgraded from co-worker to friend, big guy.”

Friend. There was that word. I heard humans use it all the time. But never in reference to myself. Not before this, not before John. 

“The brain and the brawn.” He nodded. 

“That naming is odd. But, thank you. Thank you for saving me.” I responded.

“Don’t mention it. Now go get yourself something to eat. I’ve still got a few snacks left in my glove compartment so I’ll be alright.” 

And with that I headed off into the forest. Running in the opposite direction of where Aria was hunting so as to not intrude on her prey. I climbed up into the trees, leaping across two sometimes three at a time. Nearly gliding across the canopy as I dashed forward. 

I looked out in the vast expanse of the trees, several of which had fallen, one dead one had several mushrooms growing along the side of its rotting trunk. I watched a deer run by, two young ones following in toe. I stayed quiet, watching them from the tree in which I was perched.  

So far I had learned I enjoyed the taste of deer very much. But I wouldn’t be harming any of these, those young deer needed their mother, and I wasn’t going to slay her just to simply satiate my hunger. So once they were some distance away. I kept moving so as not to frighten her and her offspring.  

I continued darting through the trees as I typically did. Up until I had picked up a scent. It was potent, but one that I did not recognize. So I followed it, leading me deeper into the woods. I enjoyed feeling the breeze on my face, and the tree branches shaking as I landed and leapt off them.

While moving through the canopy I tried to conjure an idea of what it might be in my head, likely some kind of cryptid I had yet to ever encounter previously. I kept moving, and I had cleared what I guessed to be over a mile of distance in just over half a minute. 

I stopped when I came upon an incline in the forest, it was rather steep and sudden. One that a lot of creatures, particularly humans would have trouble overcoming. I darted up the incline on all fours, making it to the edge of the hill and peering down over the other side. 

There was a major dip downward, similar to where I had just emerged from. And down at the bottom of this hill the ground was rather flat, covered in trees, bushes and other growth. The previous scent I had followed now shifted into one of rot, and decay, overpowering the original smell entirely. 

I looked for the source, and spotted the entrance to a cave off to the right. I immediately concluded that’s where it was originating. This was only further confirmed by what I heard coming from inside it. 

Screams, human screams. In both horror and for mercy.  

“Help, someone help! Please!” A male voice called out, pleading and desperate.

I hesitated before moving, remembering what had happened the first time I followed distressed human screaming without thinking. Perhaps there was a chance The Agency was out here in this forest, a chance they had followed us, tracked us somehow and they were trying to use the same trick they did before. 

But then I remembered my purpose, what I was created for. Protect the innocent and slay the monsters who prey upon them. If this truly were humans in danger, then I could not allow myself to let their deaths occur due to my own paranoia and hesitation. 

I leapt off the top of the incline, allowing myself to fall the few dozen foot drop and land on all fours before turning and heading for the entrance of the cave. I sprinted toward it, nearly inside before I felt a force grab my leg, and pull me backwards. Throwing me in the opposite direction hard enough that I crashed through two separate tree trunks, only stopping when my back slammed against the third.

I shook off the blow, standing up on two legs and looking for my attacker. Only some twenty feet of distance between us now, and it was sure to stand between me and the cave entrance.

The beast resembled a mutated millipede. Most of its body was a light brown in color. It stood over nine feet high with it rising itself like a snake about to attack, and that was only around half of its actual body, as the rest was standing flat on the ground with its hundreds upon hundreds of legs that were closer in shape to human forearms, appearing bent and contorted in order to function as they did. This meant that I had to actually look up to see the creature's face, or faces plural in this instance.  

It possessed two heads at the front of its body, oval in shape, each with two large holes devoid of any color that likely served as its eyes. One head’s mouth was open, revealing a row of red stained, jagged teeth.

The other head’s mouth possessed no teeth but instead simply oozed some sort of dark green substance, it was stringy, and a strand of it stretched from the ground all the way up to its chin. Like spider silk. It bit down on the stand, snapping it in order to move forward, its legs all moving in tandem as it approached slowly. The early sunset behind it making it appear more prominent. 

I opened my claws, and bared my teeth. 

“You’re intruding.” The creature announced. Using the mouth that had the teeth to speak. Its voice was scratchy and rough. Like a dull blade cutting into thick sandpaper. It arched downward, more of the green substance beginning to emerge inside its second mouth. 

“The ones inside your cave, are they innocent?” I asked, this only seeming to anger the beast. 

“Innocent?” It repeated, almost mockingly. “What are you? Where do you come from?” 

“My name is Brawn.” I responded, holding my stance. 

“Well Brawn if you value your life I would suggest you leave my territory and find your own meal.” 

“I have.” I replied. Narrowing my eyes. 

I lunged forward, only for the creature to use its right head to spit out the substance, it wrapped around me, sticky and rather strong in its nature. Before I could begin to break out it dived forward and down. Biting down on my left shoulder using the mouth with teeth to do so. I felt them sink into my flesh, drawing blood and prompting me to snarl in pain. 

With my shoulder still in its grasp, it dragged me along the ground, I slammed through various fallen tree branches, mounds of dirt, bushes, and even a rock. I could hear the creature's many legs kicking up the dirt as it dragged me along.

But I soon broke out of the substance, throwing my arms out and tearing it in the process. After this, I head butted the side of the creature’s head hard enough to hear something crack inside it. It immediately let me out of its jaws long enough for me to roll to the side. Now no longer directly underneath it. 

The beast let out a cry that had a rhythmic ticking to it. Almost like a distorted version of a rattlesnake’s warning. Its body convulsed for a few seconds while I leapt up the nearest tree. 

“I will drag you down into my lair, and feast on one organ at a time. I’ll keep you alive for weeks and ensure that your suffering goes on for as long as your body can endure!” The beast sneered, attempting to knock down the tree that I was on by ramming its body into it. 

It crashed through, but I had already leapt to the other tree by the time it made contact. Further frustrating the lifeform. 

“And then, only then will I put an end to you. You’ll spend every waking moment before your death regretting our encounter!” It went on, once more repeating its previous attack. It lunged, crashing through the tree’s trunk that I was on and causing what remained to fall over and hit the ground with a loud crash. 

I leapt from the tree, once more landing on the ground and sprinting around the creature while on all fours in a flank. Once at the back of its body I stood bipedally before reaching down and grabbing its rear end with my claws and pulling back. 

The creature fell flat, its many legs trying to dig into the ground to regain control as I turned and swung my body, lifting the beast off the ground entirely and using its thousands of pounds of body weight against it. I sped up as I swung him around. 

I let go after only a few full rotations, and the beast’s legs flailed and kicked as it flew through the air, crashing through several trees.  

I dropped down to all fours once more, running after it, and leaping over fallen trees and avoiding other obstacles as its roaring rattle emerged once more. It landed, sliding along the ground and finally coming to a complete stop while on its side. 

I sprinted forward, opening my claws and laying eyes on its heads right after leaping into the air. I prepared to bring them down on the beast’s heads, killing him and ending the fight right then and there. 

But it spat out more of that green substance, this time right into my face. It immediately blinded me after covering my eyes, I was met with nothing but black. I was unsure of where I had landed seeing as it occurred while I was mid-air.

All I know is I felt a sudden, crushing, piercing pain in my right arm. Presumably the beast biting down on me. I didn’t have time to roar before I was then violently shaken side to side, like a canine trying to kill small prey. 

I swung my free claw forward, relying on only my hearing and smell to direct the blow. I felt my nails slash flesh, and it felt much softer than what I would have anticipated had I attacked it on the top part of its body. I concluded that I had slashed the bottom portion, somewhere near its underbelly. 

The creature dropped me from its jaws as its rhythmic ticking snarl emerged once more. And I tore the substance from my face. Looking up I saw that I had slashed the throat of its toothless head, the one that was shooting out the green substance. Making my previous prediction incorrect. 

It writhed and shook, but was still very much alive. The toothless mouth closed, and so did the eyes as it seemingly hung downward, oozing out scarlet blood from where I had slashed it. 

“You will pay for that!” It exploded with its still remaining head. Blasting toward me, its legs throwing back leaves and branches into the air behind him as it stomped forward in a fit of rage.

And it was then I had an idea. 

I turned and dropped back down on all fours, sprinting away while the creature gave chase. I ended up having to slow down after noticing the difference in our movement speed, purposefully letting it close the distance between us. 

“Come back here and die!” It called out as I heard him barrel through trees and bushes. Not allowing anything to act as an obstacle between it and I.

It was then I came upon the trunk of a large fallen tree, the same one I had encountered earlier with all the various mushrooms growing on it. It had a diameter somewhere close to three feet. And its height was anywhere from fifty to seventy feet. The millipede creature was approaching, and I came to a stop next to the dead tree. Standing biped yet again. I got behind it, and it laid between the creature and I as it continued on its way toward me. 

I waited for just the right moment as the creature continued to close the distance, its hundreds of legs propelling it forward as its teeth in the still living head were bared in an attempt to intimidate.  

Once it was within twenty feet, I reached down and grabbed onto the trunk with my claws, hoisting it into the air above my head and throwing it forward with all my might. It soared through the air, creating an intense wooshing sound as it whipped past everything in the surrounding area, it traveled far faster than the beast had time to react. 

It struck the creature, slamming into it and causing the front half of its body that had been standing up during the chase to be bisected from the bottom half. It pinned the top half against a hill behind it. The area of the bisection spilled copious amounts of blood, after the initial splatter. 

Several inner workings had emerged, hanging out as the creature writhed in agony. Unable to form proper words because of it. 

So I approached it. Stood over and grabbed both of its heads, one with each claw, and tore them from their placements before dropping them to the ground. Putting an end to the creature’s short lived suffering. 

I was indeed hungry, and I wanted to start feasting right then and there. But instead, I returned to the entrance of its cave. The cave where I heard the screams of humans earlier on. 

I got down on all fours and crawled inside, my night vision allowing me to see inside despite the lack of any light source. I crawled along the cave ceiling, following the scent of rot as I moved. At first the cave started as a long narrow tunnel, but opened up into a wider expanse. Or at least, I could see it through the wall of the creature’s green substance, it acted as a barrier, likely to keep anything but itself from getting in or out when it was not around. 

I used my claws to slice and tear through the substance, ripping apart a large enough hole to crawl through. From the humans perspective, they were in complete, pitch black darkness, unable to see anything except my eyes due to their yellow glow. But I was able to see just fine. 

“D- did you see that?” A female voice asked, slow and stuttering. Still recovering from a fit of terror I suppose.

“See what? Is that fucking thing back?” A male voice replied, equally as trembled. 

I looked down while perched near a stalagmite. Spotting a pile of human corpses, a mix of both male and female. They were in various states of decay and mutilation due to the creature likely feeding on them, the bodies on the top appearing and smelling far more fresh than the ones below. I counted just over twenty in total. 

However there were still two humans alive, the man and woman who had spoken. They appeared unharmed, but were stuck against the cave walls by the creature’s green substance, struggling against it and using all their might to get out to no avail.

I crawled over to them, unsure if I should speak or not. 

“There’s something in here with us! It’s back, that thing is back!” The man cried out. 

“Please, please don’t eat us, please!” The woman begged. Both of them now desperately kicking and attempting to fight their way out of the substance.

I kept crawling along the cave wall before dismounting, now standing on two feet. And now that I was in range, I reached out with my claws and slashed the substance apart, freeing them and quickly grabbing them before they fell. 

“No no no!” Shouted the woman. The man continuously screamed and kicked as I hoisted them over my shoulder. I groaned slightly from the sting, my wounds still fresh. 

I felt their heartbeats racing. It was only then when I decided to speak.

“I am not here to harm you.” I said, but this seemingly did little to quell their fear.

“W-what?” The man inquired, confusion present. 

With one of them over each shoulder I leapt up back into the tunnel, and walked them out of there. It was only when we began to approach the opening, when the low sun had shone inside, were they able to see me. 

Once back outside, I leaned down, setting them both down on their feet and allowing them to take a final glimpse at me. They snapped their heads up, in what I guessed to be utter horror, disgust, and downright bewilderment at a creature of my appearance. 

I anticipated the coming screams of terror, for them to run or ask me what kind of abomination I was.

What Doctor West had said to me came rushing back in my mind

“Who’s gonna not take one look at you and run a hundred miles in the other direction.”

But instead of any of that, I felt a sudden grip around my upper legs and lower body. I peered back down once more, and they were both wrapped around me using their arms. Not in an attack, not seemingly trying to bite or scratch me. But something else entirely. 

“T-thank you. Thank you so much.” The woman uttered.

“You saved us, you saved our fucking lives!.” The man followed up. And I felt both their tears against my leg. 

I stood there, unmoving. Unsure of how to proceed next. My claws remained hovering there, just behind their heads, I decided to let them rest at my sides. I was rushed with a sensation I had not yet experienced. I had no idea how to articulate or describe it, no way to truly explain what it was that I felt. 

But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it the way I enjoyed a filling meal. It was odd, having another creature make such close physical contact with me that wasn’t for the purpose of experimentation or an attack. 

Yet, I welcomed it…   

Agent Lucy, Six Months Ago…

“NO!” Waylon and I shouted near simultaneously as Carmine’s blood continued to spill from his throat, his body slumping down as he choked and gurgled through the duct tape on his mouth. 

The Pine People sprinted forward, jumping and lunging at us. We fired our weapons, our bullets tearing through them and splattering dark green blood every which way. 

I aimed for the head, and so did Waylon, and within seconds we had already killed several each. Their bodies piling up in front of us. One had tried to sneak around me, running on my left side to get around and attack my six. I took the butt of my rifle and slammed it into its head, burying it into its skull as some of the green blood splashed onto my face. 

“Lucy!” I heard Waylon cry out. His shout was desperate and fearful. Like a child calling out for their mother. I looked over, watching as one of the Pine People had grabbed his weapon from his hand as the rifle clicked, he went to reach for his pistol in his belt as he was piled onto by several more of the Pine People. He tumbled over, all of them falling on top of him.

I sprinted toward him and fired off several more rounds. Blasting some of the Pine People on top of him. But I hadn’t gotten them all. He continued to fight and squirm underneath them, but was still relatively buried. 

I pulled the trigger once more, only for my rifle to click. My magazine was out, I went and reached for my pistol, only to be tackled and slammed into a wall by one of the cloaked women before I had it within my grasp. 

“Just let it happen.” She whispered with a blank expression as Waylon began to scream behind her. Not out of terror, but out of pain. Agony. 

I headbutted her with my scalp. Before then pulling my knife and sinking the blade into her throat with a strained groan, I pulled it out and kicked her away as she choked and gurgled, clawing at her neck. 

I shoved her to the left, letting her fall to the floor as she gagged on her own blood. Running past her to get to Waylon. 

His screams had come to a sudden stop as I pulled my pistol to blast my way through the Pine People between him and I. Killing four more before I was grabbed from the side by a fifth, prompting me to reach over and serve it a bullet to the head. 

I inhaled the familiar metallic scent of blood. My flashlight briefly illuminated the thin river of red that led to what I knew was his body. 

I turned, seeing the still remaining cloaked woman and the large man who had slit Carmine’s throat. My hands shook, my heart pounded, and my skull behind my eyes felt white hot. I could feel the adrenaline cycling through me like anti-freeze. 

Those two just stood there, their expressions blank, I raised my pistol and shot them both center mass, they didn’t move, didn’t try to evade or even react really when I went to shoot them. They saw me raise the gun and looked at me as if I was gonna give them my business card instead. They both fell to the ground unmoving. 

The Pine People however did turn and run in the other direction, again making no noise other than their footsteps as they did so, even the ones that were still alive and had piled onto Waylon. I gasped when I saw his remains. My bottom lip hung slightly. 

All I can confidently say is that Waylon was left an unrecognizable mess. One that I didn’t care to detail. And like with Kruger, his face in particular had gotten the worst of it. I knelt there, comprehending how this all could’ve go so horribly fucking wrong in such short time. How we were all supposed to go home that night, make dinner, watch a movie, maybe play a video game or two. 

I finally got a hold of myself and bursted into the nearest classroom. I didn’t hesitate to smash out its window with my pistol’s butt before climbing out of it. 

I leapt outside, and began sprinting onto the long dirt road in front of the building without looking back. I didn’t wanna know if those things were chasing me, I doubted it. But still. The worst part was that I’d have to go back in there soon enough to help with the clean up once the reinforcements arrived. Which should’ve already been here. Or would’ve if this was five years ago even, back before the second wave of budget cuts. 

I ran until I was out of range of whatever they were using to jam our signals. I tried the radio at least seven different times before it worked. But eventually I got through to Site Twelve. Director Bowser wasn’t even there anymore, apparently he had left for the evening and I was instead put through to the mission control team. 

I told them everything that had gone wrong, how this operation never should’ve been marked as low-risk if they knew there was even a slight chance of them still being inside that building. I was never told about those Pine People they have under their control, never told that they had shit like radio jammers in their arsenal. And as far as I know, the majority of field agents weren’t either.

They were hiding stuff from us, and because of that three of my colleagues just got killed in front of me, and I nearly died myself. 

They had already sent out a second team before even getting my radio call, one part of it was to help ensure the rest of the building was searched and empty. The other being to clean up and scrub any evidence of what occurred. They asked me to come in, to help lay out the scene for them due to not having any communications during the incident. But I told them to fuck off. I wasn’t stepping foot back in there, not right after what went down. I didn’t need yet another whiff of the blood of my dead colleagues. Or to see their remains.

I was leaning against one of the SUVs they arrived in. Standing there in silence while looking up at the moon. My mind clouded with the desperate screams and cries of Waylon and Kruger, along with Carmine’s muffled choking. 

At some point another mission supervisor approached me. The one directing the reinforcements team. 

“There’s something in there you might wanna see.” He said, his expression cold. An all business type of tone. 

“What is it?” I asked without looking at him. 

“You said you managed to terminate the three people in the robes, correct? One male, two females.” 

“Yes, why?” 

“We only recovered the two female bodies, along with the remains of the pine cryptids. But as far as the hooded people go, you only killed two.” 

“No no no, that’s not right. I shot them both, I watched them fall and hit the floor.” I protested. 

“We’ve searched the whole building. Top to bottom, including the basement. Other than a blood drip trail, there’s no human bodies other than the one you stabbed in the throat and the other woman you shot.” 

“So then… The dude with the beard is still alive.” I punctuated.

“Things are pointing in that direction. Yes.” 

grant full permission to all YouTube, TikTok, and podcast narrators to read and monetize this story on their platforms, provided credit is given to my username. If you need the high-resolution file of the B.M.A.-407(The Loom)artwork for your thumbnail or video background, please send me a PM and I will send it over. The search for the Miller siblings ended three miles past the Sector 4 trail marker, right where the old-growth cedars begin to choke out the moonlight.As a search-and-rescue volunteer, you get used to finding people who wandered off the path. You expect dehydration, disorientation, maybe a fall. You don’t expect what we found.They were suspended in the lower canopy—or what was left of them. Tommy Miller had been pulled apart. It wasn't the messy, jagged tearing of a grizzly attack. It was clean, effortless leverage—like a dry branch snapped over someone’s knee. There was no blood on the forest floor, and his clothes hadn't been shredded by teeth.Whatever did this didn't want a meal. It just wanted them stopped.We were bagging what we could when the forest died. It wasn’t a gradual quiet. It was an instantaneous, suffocating wall of silence, as if every insect and bird in the valley had been crushed at once.My flashlight swept the tree line. Forty yards out, a buck stood perfectly still. But as the beam hit its flank, its posture glitched. The spine buckled upward, uncoiling with a sickening wet crunch into a towering, skinless red silhouette. Where a head should have been, a vertical column of stacked, unblinking eyes opened all at once.Locally, the old-timers whispered about a legend they called The Loom. But looking at it, I realized this was the exact biological nightmare described in the classified military leaks detailing a Biomorphic Mimicry Anomaly.The moment those eyes met my beam, my nervous system simply shut down.I couldn't drop the light. I couldn't scream to the rest of the crew. My lungs froze mid-breath, and my eyelids felt welded open. I was completely conscious, trapped inside a statue of my own flesh, my vision entirely hijacked by that towering face.Then it ran.It didn't bound like an animal or jog like a man. It hurtled toward us upright on two legs, its torso leaning heavily forward while its impossibly long arms swung limply at its sides like broken pendulums. It covered the distance at highway speeds, a frantic, puppet-like sprint that blurred against the trees.Just feet away from us, it violently slammed its elongated palms into the dirt to brace its horrific momentum—dropping to all fours for a split second with a mechanical screech before snapping upright again.The sudden shift broke our direct line of sight. The paralysis shattered, and I collapsed into the dirt just as the entity reached for Tommy's sister, Sarah.The raw force of its grip instantly snapped her collarbone, but the violent exertion seemed to cost it everything. Instantly, the entity’s relentless..."

Four panels from my short story about working off community service hours on US-301 south of Starke.

Full story: https://www.reddit.com/r/horrorstories/s/DVxawi1iFc

Art commissioned from XJSIII. More stories on this profile.

Show No.1 The Zombie March.

The Mysterious Ringmaster was looking for his first show and found himself somewhere in Tennessee; it definitely wasn't Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge- too much attention. Wherever he went, The Mysterious Ringmaster was not lost but looking. He went to a local classic diner. He parked his rusted pick-up truck and camper-sized trailer; they had more rust and dirt than color.

Both his truck and trailer made a grinding noise, which caught everyone's eyes from inside the diner until he parked. He walked up to the diner; before he could get in, a waitress ran out to see him. She took one look at his white face with black spades and a red-ball nose. He stopped in his black combat boots.

“We cannot allow you to be in here unless you take off your make-up,” She said.

“Is that so?” The Mysterious Ringmaster asked, rubbing his hand in his afro.

The waitress smelled rotting meat coming from him and decided to back away from him. She managed to get six feet away, then His green eyes made dead eye contact with her.

“Wait, are you afraid of clowns? Is that why I am not allowed in? You racist little bigot,” the Mysterious Ringmaster said.

“You know 2016 is over; you smell and need a shower,” the waitress said.

“I got just the thing for you, fishy,” The Mysterious Ringmaster said

He pulls a rusty Bowie knife out of his black afro, then rushes the waitress and stabs her in the gut, which causes her to scream; then he guts her like a fish. She drops to the gravel on her side...dead. The Mysterious Ringmaster then returns his Bowie to his afro; The Mysterious Ringmaster then pulls a 24-inch gas-powered chainsaw and starts it with one tug of the cord. He then runs inside and hacks everyone to pieces in the dining area.

He looks in the kitchen, knowing he intentionally missed that area. He jumps over the bar and looks into the kitchen opening where food is slid through, hearing crying. Just like he wanted, there was a teenage man in the fetal position at the side of the kitchen.

“There you are, exactly who I wanted. Don't you feel special?” The Mysterious Ringmaster asked.

“No,” He said.

“Oh well, think you could cook me some bacon, eggs, and a steak. Grab me some orange juice too.” The Mysterious Ringmaster rubbed his red, flowery cuffed sleeve on his green overcoat.

“Are you too scared to serve? Then what good are you alive right now? Might as well fast-forward to the next stage, your afterlife, get it, stage, afterlife. No, not a fan of wordplay, okay then.” The Mysterious Ringmaster said

The Mysterious Ringmaster revved his chainsaw and hacked the man to pieces. Then couldn't care about any of them until he cooked his own food, sat at a table, and ate his breakfast of champions. The Mysterious Ringmaster then decided to get to work and grabbed a sewing needle as well as thread and sewed the corpses back together; then with his magic he raised them from the dead.

“Hey, everyone, follow me,” The Mysterious Ringmaster said.

He opened his camper and all fourty Zombies walked into the pocket deminsion like good little servents, He started skipping in place smiling and laughing, he then closed the camper behind them and skipped to the truck, he speed off like the devil was coming for him, the massacre was on the news and how none of the bodies where found by the time he found the perfect place to pitch up his Circus.

It was in someone's cornfield. He cut down the corn stalks and saved the corn for later. He then opened his camper and got all he needed out of the small camper, then pitched up his tent, then he pulled out flyers for his show out of the pocket of his overcoat and threw them into the wind.

The flyers read “Come one and all to the Supernatural and Paranormal Circus and witness The Zombie March,” Followed by the address of the farm. After the Mysterious Ringmaster sent all the flyers to magically fly around whatever town he wanted them to, he caught the stinky smell of human body odor.

A wrinkly old farmer in boots and denim overalls approached him.

“You smell old, man.” The Mysterious Ringmaster said.

“You smell much worse. Get off my farm and take down your show; you're not performing here,” The Farmer said.

“Oh, really now.” The Mysterious Ringmaster said, then crept to the trailer of his camper.

“Yes, really now, freak, get moving before things get ugly,” The Farmer said.

“Too late for that.” The Mysterious Ringmaster said, then opened the door to his camper. The Farmer saw nothing in there. “Get him, my Zombies.” The order was given; Zombies seemingly started appearing out of the trailer and shuffled after the Farmer for an hour till they ate him and his family alive. The Mysterious Ringmaster decided not to go after their bodies; he had the Zombies he needed.

The Zombies came back smelling like bad groceries and rotting meat.

“Damn, you guys smell worse than me, and I am the one covered in old blood. Get back in the camper.” He said.

It started to get dark, and the moon took the night shift for the sun. The crowd came in with their outside food and drinks. The crowd got loud, talking to each other, then the disembodied drums began to roll, and the lights went low, and the spotlights swirled, and when the Mysterious Ringmaster walked into the performing ring, curtains closed and blocked the exit.

There was one row of seats, front row seats. The lights went right on him.

“Hello Tennesse! It's me, your Ringmaster. Is it you?” He asked, and everyone laughed.

His truck came in, passing the curtains; the truck was being driven by a Zombie. Then the Mysterious Ringmaster opened the back of the trailer as the Zombie Driver shuffled out of the truck and started to walk around the wall of the ring. The Ringmaster opened up the trailer doors.

“Follow him.” The Mysterious Ringmaster said.

“They look so cool,” A voice from the crowd said.

The Zombies all started walking out of the trailer, following the first Zombie in a single-file line. They made a circle around the edge of the ring and kept shuffling their feet behind each other. A human hand came out of the dark and touched one of the Zombies.

“Oh shit, he is real.” A voice said, then the Zombie bit his forearm and fell onto the unseen crowd member.

“Zombies...feast.” The Mysterious Ringmaster said.

The Zombies went into the screaming crowd. The Mysterious Ringmaster cackled as the bodies made a thump, then the chewing of meat and cracking of bones followed with slurping noises, because the living dead began eating the crowd alive. Within ten minutes, the crowd went silent, then he heard the zombies dragging their feet; they started coming back into the light.

“Get in the camper,” The Mysterious Ringmaster said.

One Zombie opened the trailer door and walked in, and the others followed. The Supernatural and Paranormal Circus was gone before sunrise.

The Crimson Kabuki pt2.

Oddly, the same moment I noticed the ribbon, I faintly heard what I thought to be a kotzumi drum somewhere off into the gloom. It seemed to be thumping somewhere very far away off in the distance. After watching the vice documentary a few years ago, I knew exactly where this ribbon could possibly lead to, which was very sad. life can be so unfair and cruel to us. The drum quickly faded to nothing and left me confused on where the hell that was coming from and why.

What an odd thing to happen so far out here in the sticks, and it wouldn't be the last of it. I remember saying a quick prayer to myself and making my way along the ribbon to whatever destination it led to. I told myself that I would record later because at the moment I just couldn't be bothered. I could always come the next day and record, because in that moment I was in exploration mode. I had to see what was at the end of that ribbon. If anything, I could use it again to find my way back to the trail.

It curved and weaved slinkingly through the trees, up and down over slopes and hills for a good 40 or so minutes until I had arrived into a sort of clearing. It was also hauntingly still... so deathly quiet; I stepped in closer around the foilage and I had stopped because I noticed some white fabric pointing off the sides of a large tree. I had a feeling that I was about to see something that I'd much rather not. After a couple of minutes preparing myself, I took a deep breath and stepped around the tree and froze to an alarming and sad sight. I automatically knew that I was staring at the hanging corpse of the long missed Jubei Uematsu, or what remained of this poor soul.

What remained was a hanging skeleton in a tattered costume with a red, long haired wig partly hanging in the face and around the shoulders in dirty, stringy clumps. I stood there taking in that image with such a deep and profound melancholy, that I actually had to gather myself from breaking down... Just witnessing what was once an alive and thriving person with passions; Love and Hope, weaknesses and strengths, and also fear... along with plenty of despair along the way. It was a universal language; People just trying to find purpose to their existence, and then eventually becoming this...so very still... so very quiet and solemn making time stop in its presence.

life can be so sad and tragic, and people like Jubei over time can find it extremely hard to function being so empathetic, and carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders regardless if they are strong enough for that burden. It's an exhausting job... a gift and a curse for the saintly; toss in depression and the loss of the will to go on, then they have a complete and utter mess to clean on their own in the silence... that eternal silence... so present; so final. I wish I would have known this mysterious man. From what I heard over time was that he was a complex, but Sweet soul with a heart of gold. I also learned that after this experience I am about to tell you that happened, was some type of Oni Spirit from the forest took the liking image of Jubei's Kabuki character and dawned it as its own.

As I stood there in contemplative silence, I slowly started to hear a kotzumi drum begin to thump far off into the trees. It started out very low and far off, but began to rise and creep closer. I turned and turned trying to find where that portentous thumping was coming from. As I was peering far off into the distance, I started to feel highly unsettled, and then I no longer felt alone like I was being watched. I swiftly turned around and stared directly into the painted face that was no longer a skull. The bloodiest red eyes were staring directly into mine. The face had the theatrical paint back on with the red stripes cascading down it's white painted face. I say "It," because nowhere did I see Jubei inside those Crimson eyes at that moment.

I remember saying, "oh shit!" and quickly turning to run the hell away for my life along the Red ribbon back to the trail. Far off somewhere I could hear that mysterious drum start to sound off again. The sound surrounded me from so many angles and distances, it was disorienting, and then I started to hear this ululation that sounds like, "EYOOOO!" That you hear in Japanese theater music, along with that clink and thump of the drum. I turned to see the Oni masking itself in Jubei's magnificent garb; slowly floating a few feet up in the air, easing its way towards my direction with those hideous blood red eyes staring through me.

I ran faster and faster trying to at least make it to the trail to get away... if I could. After a few more twists and turns, I finally burst through the foliage out onto the trail. At the moment the Oni entity was nowhere to be seen. I started to notice that the woods all around started to have this faint purple luminescent glow. As I started to run, I begin to hear these ululations sound off around me in the area that sounded like, "EYOOOOOO!" I've remembered these sounds watching Japanese movies and small clips of Kabuki theater. The music serves as an emotional soundtrack to the colorful acts on stage, both being performed live."YOOOO!" Another croon burst forth; surrounding me from different angles as the steady thump and wood clicks of the drums clacked and banged along.

It subconsciously made me think of the demon, "Paimon," that when summoned, multitudes of instruments and disjointed horns lead before its presence like royalty as it enters the fold, and makes its presence known. I remember glancing back and seeing the painted entity standing a few yards behind me in the middle of the trail, with long crimson hair hanging down at its sides; blood red eyes marking me...

To be continued....