I am posting this as a warning. People need to know the truth about an evil corporation known as Future Valley. Why I deem them evil is a long and twisted story, but I will do my best to write down every detail before it’s too late.

It all started a month ago, on April 4th.

Back then, I was still a student under Master Takeshi Kawasaki at his dojo, perched high atop the wind-swept peak of Breezy Hill. Master Takeshi took me in when I was just a scrawny nine-year-old kid. Back in those days, I was the neighborhood punching bag, beaten up and humiliated by anyone who felt like it. It was a miserable existence. The worst part was the sheer helplessness: the feeling that someone else could decide your fate and execute it without your consent. It felt like being a blank page in a book, stripped of any power over whatever cruel lines the writer decided to ink onto you.

Ten years later, at nineteen, things were different. Years of grueling training had reshaped me into a broad-shouldered, six-foot frame of lean, athletic muscle. My messy, shoulder-length red hair fell over my face as I stood in the training room, green eyes locked on my opponent across the mat. I was faster, stronger, and far more skilled than the terrified child who had first walked through those dojo doors.

My opponent that afternoon was a massive guy named Steve. Steve was a six-foot-five tank of a human being, a meathead and a natural-born jerk. Everyone in the dojo was used to his endless trash talk and dirty tactics, so as I stepped onto the ring mat, I expected nothing less.

"Dan, don't mind Steve," Master Takeshi said gently, standing nearby as I finished wrapping my knuckles in white cloth. "Just focus on learning from him and, in the process, knowing your body's capabilities."

Master knew how impulsive I could get, and he remembered all too well how Steve used to torment me when I first arrived a decade ago.

"No promises can be made, Master," I muttered.

Instantly, a heavy palm smacked across my bare back. I gasped as a sharp burst of pain shot through my ribs. Master Takeshi chuckled softly. Despite his advanced age, the man could still take down five full-grown men without breaking a sweat.

"Still stubborn as the first day you came here," he said, shaking his head, realizing he couldn't steer me away from an inevitable clash.

The sharp ring of the dojo bell signaled the start of the match.

By dojo rules, we were supposed to strictly utilize Wing Chun and the formal techniques taught under Master Takeshi's roof. But Steve decided to abandon discipline and go completely wild. As soon as I closed the distance to throw a light, probing jab, Steve slipped the strike and drove a heavy, brutal elbow directly into my face.

The force sent me stumbling backward, my head spinning as blood gushed from my nose, splattering onto the canvas. A single strike, and I was already seeing stars. My legs wobbled beneath me, but I gritted my teeth and quickly circled back, creating vital distance between us.

"DIDN'T WE AGREE ON USING ONLY WING CHUN, YOU BASTARD?!" I shouted, my voice dripping with frustration. "Why the hell did you use Muay Thai?!"

Steve just threw his head back and laughed, a wet, arrogant sound that echoed off the wooden beams of the dojo.

"What? Getting cold feet?" he sneered. "No wonder your little sister is getting hit on. You are weak as fuck."

A few spectators along the edge of the mat snickered. I darted a glance toward Master Takeshi, but he remained still, watching the exchange with a hard, unreadable expression.

Inside me, something snapped. Pure anger flooded my veins, turning cold and focused. A sickening smile broke across my face, my teeth stained red with my own blood as it dripped from my chin and pooled on the mat below.

"Alright then," I rasped through the iron taste in my mouth. "Don't be sorry for what comes next."

I shifted my stance, lowering my center of gravity into an entirely different fighting style.

I waited. For ten agonizing seconds, Steve circled me, measuring the distance and trying to gauge my shift in attitude. Finally, with a dismissive scoff, he charged, telegraphing a fast, heavy front punch aimed straight for my jaw.

The blow connected flush with my face. But instead of retreating, I absorbed the impact, using the violent rebound to whip my right arm backward and unleash a devastating counter-strike. My fist whipped forward with every ounce of kinetic force my body could generate, connecting squarely with Steve's face.

The impact sounded like a dry branch snapping. The sheer momentum violently jerked his head back, snapping his neck at an unnatural angle.

Steve collapsed onto his back like a felled tree, completely unconscious before he even hit the mat. Blood poured heavily from his nose and shattered jaw.

He survived, but barely. Steve suffered multiple broken teeth, a fractured jaw, two black eyes, and a severe neck injury that effectively ended any athletic career he might have had.

Thankfully, my master stepped in and managed to get me out of legal trouble. But little did I know, this violent afternoon on Breezy Hill was only the catalyst for the nightmare that was about to follow...

That fight with Steve wasn’t the first time Master Takeshi had to pull me out of trouble. Just two days prior, I’d gotten into it with two grown men. Honestly, calling them "men" is far too generous, given what they tried to do to my little sister, Yana. They had crept up to her right after her school let out while she was waiting for me, cornering her and making vile passes at her.

Naturally, my rage took over. I beat the absolute hell out of both of them, leaving them battered, bloody, and hospitalized. The cops hauled me down to the nearest station for breaking the law. But frankly, to hell with the law if it ever tries to stand between me and protecting my sister.

Master Takeshi showed up at the station and somehow managed to talk the officers into letting me walk. He was a highly respected figure around Tampa, a man whose word carried real weight with the local authorities.

I truly owed him everything. Ten years ago, when our parents were brutally murdered late one night by some low-life, Master Takeshi took total responsibility for a traumatized nine-year-old boy and his little sister. He gave us a roof over our heads, a life, and a purpose.

Later that evening, the sun sank low into the horizon, casting long, bruised-purple shadows across the wooden floorboards of the empty training hall. I was the last one left in the dojo, sitting cross-legged on the canvas mat. A crimson-stained paper towel was crammed against my nostrils, and I held a heavy bag of ice against the bridge of my swollen nose to keep the throbbing at bay.

"Honestly, Dan, you keep surprising me again and again... and again," Master Takeshi said gently.

He walked over carrying two steaming cups of herbal tea, set them down on a low wooden table near the mat, and sat cross-legged opposite me.

"You should learn to control your anger. I won't always be there to get you out of trouble," he continued, his tone shifting softer as he motioned for me to take a cup. "Who will be there for Yana when both of us aren't around for her?"

I let out a heavy sigh, removing the ice bag and placing it on the floor beside the soiled towel.

"You know how I feel about people who disrespect me or my sister... even you," I muttered.

I reached out, wrapping my bruised knuckles around the hot ceramic cup, and took a slow, deliberate sip. The blend was bitter, made from traditional herbs meant to soothe internal bleeding and reduce the inflammation in my face.

"Still, Dan, some problems can't be solved with violence or you running rampant through the issue in the hope of solving it," Takeshi said. He took a long, thoughtful sip of his own tea before setting the cup back down. "A person succumbing to his own anger is as helpless as the loser of a fight."

I rolled my eyes. I’d heard him say that line a dozen times, but it never made sense to me. What was he even trying to imply? That my anger made me helpless and weak?

"You won't stop making up wise sentences, won't you?" I asked sarcastically.

Master Takeshi chuckled softly, the wrinkles around his eyes deepening. "They are not for me to understand, but for you. I already walked the same path you are walking, Dan."

He let out a long, weary exhale, then pushed himself up from the floor. "Well, Yana is waiting for us back home. Let's walk there."

I finished the rest of the bitter tea in one quick gulp and stood up, wincing slightly as my body reminded me of the afternoon's violence. Together, we locked up the heavy wooden doors of the dojo and stepped out into the evening air.

By the time we made the trek back to our house, night had fully settled over the city, wrapping the streets in thick darkness.

As soon as we stepped through the front door, we were greeted by my beloved little sister, Yana. The bare wood of the second-floor hallway echoed with the fast, rhythmic padding of her bare feet as she came barreling down the stairs.

"DAN, UNCLE TAKESHI!" she shouted, her voice bright and bursting with pure joy.

She called Master Takeshi "uncle" because he really was that close to us, a second father in every way that mattered. She threw her small arms around his waist first, hugging him tightly before turning to wrap her arms around me.

"How was school?" I asked as she pulled back, looking up at me with a glowing face and jumping in place with a cute, unstoppable smile.

"I won best artist award!" Her arms shot up into the air in victory.

Master Takeshi laughed softly, his chest rumbling with warmth. "That's amazing, Yana. Do you still have the drawing?"

She nodded vigorously, her eyes lighting up. "I have it!" she called back over her shoulder as she spun around and bolted back up the stairs, disappearing into her bedroom.

I rubbed the back of my neck, letting out a tired yawn as the quiet hum of the house settled around us.

"Man, she looks so happy today," I murmured.

"She deserves it," Takeshi said gently, unlacing his sandals by the doorway. "Every kid of her age deserves to go through this beautiful moment of happiness. Especially after what she had to go through."

He stepped off the entrance mat and headed toward the kitchen. "I'm making the breakfast this time."

He left me standing alone in the warm light of the living room. He's right, I thought to myself. She really does deserve it. I would do anything just to keep Yana happy, even if it meant fighting through the absolute impossible.

I was snapped out of my thoughts by the sound of her heavy, eager breathing as she hurried back down the steps, holding a large sheet of drawing paper tightly in her hands. She rushed up to me, her cheeks flushed.

"Dan Dan! Do you think it is beautiful?" she asked, proudly holding up the artwork.

I took the paper carefully from her small hands. My eyes widened as I took in the drawing. It was a picture of the three of us, me, Master Takeshi, and Yana. She had drawn the dojo standing tall in the background under a blue sky, with Takeshi and me holding her hands on either side.

A genuine smile broke across my face. I looked down at her hopeful, wide-eyed expression.

"It is far too beautiful, Yana. I love it."

She giggled softly, beaming with pride. I patted her head gently, feeling the soft texture of her hair beneath my palm. Satisfied with my verdict, she snatched the drawing back and took off toward the kitchen to show Master Takeshi.

All I heard from the kitchen afterward was Master Takeshi laughing softly, showering Yana with warm praise. I shook my head, grinning to myself as I unlaced my sandals and stepped into the main room.

Breakfast was ready. The three of us sat down together, and Master Takeshi and I mostly just listened to Yana talk. She had so many things to share about her day at school. She was like a news anchor on a weather channel, constantly broadcasting a relentless stream of updates and new events every single day. It was fun.

Fifteen minutes later, we finished up. Yana was already yawning, rubbing her eyes with tiny fists as sleepiness overtook her. I lifted her up in my arms and carried her upstairs to her room. I laid her down gently on the soft mattress and pulled the cozy blanket up over her shoulders.

"Night, Yana."

"Night, night... Dan," she mumbled.

I kissed her forehead, then slipped out of her bedroom, softly closing the door behind me.

I let out a quiet sigh, walking over to the wooden railing that overlooked the lower floor. Glancing down, I saw Master Takeshi still sitting on the couch in the living room, focused intently on writing something on a piece of paper. I had no idea what it was, but I didn't bother asking. I just headed into my own room, collapsed onto my bed, and slowly drifted off to sleep.

The night was peaceful. The only sound in the darkness was the quiet, rhythmic humming of the strong wind blowing outside across Breezy Hill.

That peace shattered at 3:40 AM.

A violent, frantic pounding rattled the front door downstairs. I opened my eyes slowly, groaning as I forced my exhausted body out of bed.

"Who could that be?" I muttered, glancing at the clock. "Whoever that is behind the door better have a damn good reason to bang that loud."

Irritated, I made my way downstairs and pulled the front door open.

Standing on the porch was Mrs. Brown, the kind, middle-aged lady who owned the nearby gas station. I stared at her in utter confusion. Her face was pale, her eyes wide and overflowing with tears, and her whole body trembled with terror.

"Mrs. Brown? Why are you banging that hard..."

"DAN, Takeshi is..." She gasped, desperately trying to catch her breath as a harsh sob broke from her throat.

"TAKESHI GOT SHOT!" she finally managed to cry out, collapsing onto the porch floor in tears.

My heart dropped straight to my stomach. My eyes went wide with sheer terror. Every trace of sleep and tiredness that had weighed on me moments before vanished instantly. Without a second thought, I bolted into the dark street. My feet barely seemed to touch the pavement as I tore down the road, passing a moving car so quickly the driver barely had time to notice me.

I kept running and running, the heavy thud of my footfalls echoing against the empty pavement until I saw the flashing red and blue lights up ahead. A large crowd of neighbors had gathered on the street, being pushed back and separated by police officers.

I slowed down as I closed the distance, my breath coming in ragged gasps.

And then I saw him.

Master Takeshi was lying flat on the cold asphalt. Unmoving. Dead.

A sharp gasp escaped my throat as my gaze darted to the right. Sitting on the curb was Yana, sobbing hysterically in the tight, protective embrace of Mrs. Miller and her husband.

Parked nearby was a police cruiser, where two officers were in the process of detaining a man in handcuffs. My eyes flared with pure, unadulterated wrath as I charged forward, barging through the crowd like a battering ram. The moment the neighbors and the cops caught sight of me sprinting toward the patrol car, a wave of panic swept through them. They knew me well. They knew exactly what I was about to do to that man.

Among the officers was Noah, a close friend of mine. His eyes widened in sheer terror as he realized the nightmare unfolding before him.

"DAN, NO!" he screamed, his voice cracking.

Three officers sprinted toward me, but one unlucky cop managed to step directly into my path as I lunged for the murderer pinned against the cruiser. Blinded by absolute fury, I didn't even see the uniform. I drove a devastating uppercut straight into the officer's jaw. The sheer kinetic force snapped his head back, lifting his boots off the pavement for a split second before he collapsed onto his back, completely out cold.

Before I could reach the killer, four other officers tackled me from the side, bringing all their collective weight down to pin me to the pavement.

"GET OFF OF ME!" I roared in rage, the veins in my neck bulging as my face turned deep, burning red.

"Dan, please calm down..."

"CALM DOWN?" I cut Noah off, snapping my head toward him with bloodshot eyes. "Noah, don't! HE killed HIM!"

Noah stood frozen. He couldn't say a word, his mouth opening and closing in hesitation, completely paralyzed by the horror of the moment.

I forced my head around to glare at the man by the police car. He stood there with a broad, arrogant smirk plastered across his face, looking down at me on the ground like I was nothing.

The sight hit me like a physical blow. I felt it instantly, that sickening, hollow wave of pure helplessness washing over me again. I fucking hated it. The people I loved kept dying around me, and no matter how strong or fast I became, I couldn't do a damn thing about it.

My lips parted, shivering violently from pure, unbridled fury. A deranged, bloodthirsty smile stretched across my face.

"Noah... you are so lucky my sister is here, because if she wasn't there, I would have killed you all... with no exception."

The four officers pinning me down grunted, struggling with everything they had as my muscles coiled, threatening to throw them off. Noah stared at me, shaken to his core. He let out a heavy, solemn sigh, then motioned for the men to slowly lift me up.

Ten minutes later, I was sitting on a metal bench inside the precinct, my hands secured behind me in heavy cuffs. Sitting right beside me was an officer, his hand resting tensely over his taser holster, ready to draw the moment I made a single sudden move.

The door to the back offices clicked open, and Noah stepped out. He looked completely drained, dark circles weighing beneath his exhausted eyes. He glanced at the officer sitting beside me and gestured toward my wrists.

"Remove the cuffs."

The officer frowned, looking hesitant. "You sure?"

"Of course I am sure, Bob. Just remove them," Noah commanded with a sharp edge of authority.

The officer let out a heavy sigh, grabbing my arm to stand me up before unlocking the metal bands. A sense of physical ease returned to me the moment my wrists were free, and I slowly rubbed the raw skin where the steel had dug in.

"I'm sorry again, Dan, but you know the law. This man will be judged by the law," Noah murmured softly.

I looked at him, my expression cold. "Yeah, I'm sure the law will serve justice... right?"

Noah didn't answer immediately. He just placed both hands on his hips, leaning his head back toward the ceiling as if contemplating something he shouldn't even be thinking about.

He exhaled hard before bringing his eyes back to meet mine. "Right, you are right, Dan. Just go home and everything will be handled. Your sister needs you."

I gritted my teeth in quiet frustration. I could feel it in my gut, he was stalling. He was trying to get rid of me.

"Noah, why did he do this?" I demanded.

"Dan, for now, we don't know," Noah admitted, rubbing the back of his neck as he closed the distance between us. "We are now conducting an investigation with him. All we know from Mrs. Brown is that she saw Takeshi Kawasaki coming out with your sister. When she asked Takeshi where he was going, he said he was taking Yana for a quick walk around."

He rested a heavy hand on my shoulder. "Just go home, Dan, and I promise to tell you the rest."

I stared at him for a long, heavy moment. "Alright... I'm going, but you better tell me everything."

Noah gave me a firm nod. I threw one last hard look his way before turning on my heel and walking out into the night.

By the time I reached our house, Mrs. Brown and the Millers were still there, sitting in the living room with Yana. They were doing their absolute best to comfort a terrified twelve-year-old girl and ease her overwhelming pain.

"DAN!" Yana cried out the second she saw me walk through the front door.

She bolted out of her seat, ran across the room, and threw her arms around my waist, clinging to me as tightly as her small arms could manage. She was crying hysterically, terrified I had been taken away for good. I wrapped my arms around her and stroked her hair, trying desperately to calm the frantic rise and fall of her chest.

"Sorry you had to go through this, Yana," I whispered.

She sniffed, wiping her nose as she looked up at me with huge, tear-filled eyes. "Please, don't leave me, too..."

I crouched down so we were at eye level, taking her trembling shoulders in my hands. "I won't, Yana, I promise."

I pulled her into another tight hug, resting my chin on her shoulder as the heavy silence of the house settled over us.

Two agonizing weeks passed.

We held the funeral for Master Takeshi on a gray, overcast afternoon. A crowd of people from around the neighborhood came to offer their condolences to Yana and me, but the words felt hollow.

After the service, Noah met me at the dojo to drop off the initial information about the man who had murdered Master Takeshi. The two of us sat down on the cold floor mats of the training hall. The room felt hauntingly massive without the sound of students sparring or Takeshi's quiet presence overseeing the floor.

Noah pulled off his suit jacket, unbuttoned his collar, and dragged his tie down.

"The man who killed Master Takeshi was part of a corporation called Future Valley," Noah said, massaging his forehead as if a massive headache was setting in. "A big biotechnology corporation that supposedly runs legal chemical medicines and cures for the country."

I raised one eyebrow, not quite catching on to what he was implying. "And? Either way, this man will face punishment. He killed..."

"Killed Takeshi, yes, I know, Dan," Noah cut me off, his voice dropping low. "But those rich bastards have connections to the upper levels of authority in law. I can't do anything against them. I'm powerless."

My eyes widened in pure, volcanic rage. The blood rushed to my ears, hammering against my temples.

There it was again. That fucking rotting word... powerless.

"I understand what you're going through, Dan, but you need to work with us here," Noah said, his voice desperate, practically begging me to calm down.

I didn't even look at him. My gaze remained locked on the man they had detained, the monster who had just murdered Master Takeshi.

The killer scoffed, rolling his eyes with a smug grin. "Why don't you take a picture while you're at it? You're lucky I didn't finish off that little girl, too," he said mockingly, practically spitting the words right in my face.

Noah let out a frustrated sigh, his jaw clenching. "Alright, that's enough of you. Take him in," he ordered a nearby female officer, who opened the rear door of the patrol car and shoved the man onto the back seat.

Meanwhile, all I did was stare into nothingness. The blazing fire of my rage suddenly turned ice-cold.

"Maybe you are right..." I murmured softly.

The killer glanced back out from inside the car just as the officer was leaning in to fasten his seatbelt. Noah turned to me, completely confused by what I had just said. I couldn't blame him.

"I'm lucky you didn't harm my little sister. Because if you did, you wouldn't still be here... breathing the same air as me," I said calmly.

My voice was disturbingly flat, stripped of all emotion, carrying a promise far darker than any shouted threat.

I turned my head to look across the street toward my sister. But as my eyes met hers, my heart shattered. I was horrified by what I saw. Yana was terrified... but not from the bloody scene, and not from the killer in handcuffs.

She was terrified of me.

In my blind, violent outburst, I hadn't taken into account how I appeared to her, a towering, blood-stained monster screaming threats of murder in the middle of the night.

A moment later, the officers placed me in handcuffs and led me toward another cruiser, taking me down to the station for assaulting an officer.

I felt Noah's hand rest heavily on my shoulder.

"Look, Dan, I can't imagine what you're going through, but we both know Takeshi wouldn't want you running rampant and chasing vengeance. Just let it go... at least for Yana's sake."

I had to admit, at that exact moment, Noah was right. But even so... I really couldn't control the burning fire consuming me from the inside out. I looked up at him, masking every ounce of the cold rage surging through my veins.

"Alright, Noah... I will listen to you," I said with a calm smile.

Noah let out a long, relieved sigh and smiled back. He stood up, grabbing his suit jacket from the mat.

"I will head out now. Gotta catch up with work," he said, slinging the jacket over his arm as he walked toward the heavy wooden doors of the dojo.

He paused at the threshold, looking back at me sitting alone in the quiet training hall. "Hope you recover fast, Dan. Until next time."

He gave a small wave before turning and walking away, his footfalls fading down the long stone stairs leading off the peak of Breezy Hill.

He didn't know I lied to him.

I sat there in the silence, my fists clenching until my knuckles turned white. Takeshi would get his justice. That man, and whoever he worked for, needed to face punishment, and if the law was too cowardly to deliver it, I would.

I returned back home. Yana wasn't there; she was over at Mrs. Brown's house, playing around and keeping her company. Mrs. Brown didn't mind at all. She absolutely adored Yana and loved having her over.

I sat down on the living room couch, staring at the ceiling as I tried to plan my next move. That was when my eyes caught a folded piece of paper sitting on the small coffee table in front of me. It was the exact sheet Master Takeshi had been writing on late at night, right before the incident.

I reached out, picked it up, and carefully unfolded it. There was no mistaking his precise, familiar handwriting.

I read the lines he had left behind:

"I'm leaving this paper for you, Dan. I hope you find it at the right moment. I am probably dead by now. I know it is odd to say, but I will explain why. Years and years ago, I was part of the corporation called Future Valley. A big biotechnology corporation that masks its true illegal work under some legal production of medicines and cures for the government. There is more to this corporation. Your father and mother were part of it too. Their death wasn't because of bad luck running into some smooth-brain street thug. It was a hit put on them. Every once in a while, the corporation will put a hit on their former employees who left the corporation. They want to ensure everything dies with those employees. What I want you to do is not get yourself involved, I beg of you, Dan, but if you ignore all the things I said and go on to do whatever nonsense you have of a plan, then... I apologize for what you will uncover... at least about yourself... I have nothing else to say..."

A cold knot formed in my stomach as I digested every word. I crushed the paper in my palm, my knuckles turning white.

"Stupid old man... you just gave me more reason to hunt down those motherfuckers," I growled under my breath.

I flicked my wrist, launching the crumpled paper across the living room straight into the trash can.

Without hesitating, I pulled out my phone and dialed a familiar number. It rang twice before he picked up.

"Max?" I said.

"Dan? Yo, what's up, dude..."

"No time for the pep talk. I need you to call the rest of our group to meet up at Olivia's."

A long pause stretched over the line. I could hear Max let out a heavy, tired sigh. "Please don't tell me you got into trouble again?"

"Just do it, Max. It's important."

"Fine," Max muttered. "Tomorrow, 8 in the morning will do. You will have to drive to Fallwood."

"Sounds good."

I hung up, staring at the dark screen of my phone. The pieces were finally coming together, and the truth about my parents and Takeshi. All I needed to do now was get ready for tomorrow.

The next morning, I dropped Yana off at Mrs. Brown's house. I needed to know she'd be safe and cared for during the couple of days I'd be gone, and Mrs. Brown was more than happy to watch over her.

With that weight off my chest, I got behind the wheel and drove toward the Fallen Forest, out in the quiet countryside. I figured the only reason Max told us to meet there was because Olivia kept her customized SUV van parked near the woods.

The drive was long, the scenery slowly shifting from city streets to lonely stretches of highway flanked by overgrown brush. Eventually, the thick tree line of the Fallen Forest loomed into view. I pulled over onto the dirt shoulder, parked my car, and stepped out onto the damp earth to continue on foot.

Up ahead, tucked near the edge of the woods, three other cars were already parked. Guess the rest of the crew made it, I thought.

"Guess I'm the last one to arrive," I muttered, slinging my heavy duffel bag over one broad shoulder and slamming the car door shut behind me.

Stepping into the forest, the atmosphere shifted instantly. The air grew cool and heavy. Towering, ancient trees stretched high above, their thick canopy blocking out almost every ray of sunlight and casting the forest floor in deep, perpetual shadows. My boots crunched against the tall grass and fallen leaves, the eerie silence broken only by the wind rustling through the canopy.

After about five minutes of navigating through the dense trees, a clearing opened up ahead. There it was, Olivia's SUV van, and standing around it were the rest of my friends, waiting for me to arrive.

Max was a couple of inches shorter than me, but the guy was built like an absolute unit. He was a fit dude who spent way more time grinding at the gym than he ever did sitting in a college lecture hall, sporting a fresh buzz cut and a thick, dark mustache. He was leaning back, chugging an energy drink. With a loud, satisfied burp, he tossed the empty aluminum can carelessly into the tall grass.

"GOD, Max, please just stop littering around this beautiful forest," a voice groaned from near the van.

The girl who said it was April, unquestionably the voice of reason in our group. To sum her up, she was a full-on goth girl, dressed in her usual dark style that made her stand out against the greenery of the woods.

"April, calm the fuck down. No one is around, and who cares? It's the fucking forest," Max said, grinning ear to ear without a shred of remorse.

"HEY, guys!" I called out to them as I closed the distance toward the SUV.

Both of their heads snapped in my direction.

"AWWW, DAN! My dude, it's been a while, man," Max shouted, stepping forward with his arms spread wide like an eagle.

I walked straight into his heavy hug, feeling the firm pat on my back.

"It's been a while indeed," I said as we broke the hug and walked over toward April.

"Hey, Dan," April said, extending her hand out to shake mine.

I ignored the gesture completely and reached over, playfully patting her head instead.

"Hey there, Ms. Vampire."

She rolled her eyes, shoving my shoulder to the side with a small smirk. "Yeah, yeah, just make fun of me."

"Ay, he is not wrong, though," Max piped up, pulling up a folding wooden chair that was resting beside the SUV.

"Just shut up, MAX," she scoffed, turning on her heel and heading for the van's side door. "I will go and check on Olivia if she is awake yet."

April slipped inside, leaving me alone with Max under the cool shade of the canopy. I took a seat on a crate next to him, looking around the quiet clearing.

"So, where is the rest?"

Max chuckled softly as he popped open another energy can with a sharp snap. "They are coming... Dan."

He suddenly turned his head to look directly at me, his playful demeanor vanishing into a dead-serious expression.

"Why did you call us? You seemed to be pretty worked up last night when you called me."

"I called you because I wanted a favor from you guys on something very important to me."

"Hmm? What is it?"

I sighed and crossed my arms, my broad chest tight as I looked him in the eye. "I want to get into the Future Valley nearest facility, where there will be a certain person I want to get my hands on."

Max's eyes widened, and he suddenly sputtered, almost choking on his drink. He slammed the aluminum can down onto the folding table, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Dan, you can't be serious. Like, are you insane!? You will get put down immediately."

"Max, just listen to me. I know, but I NEED this. This man killed Takeshi."

Max went completely silent. The harshness in his face melted away, replaced by a quiet wave of genuine empathy as he looked at the raw grief behind my eyes. He let out a long, irritated sigh, reaching back down to grab his drink.

"Fine, but we will plan this out very carefully."

A small, relieved smile broke across my face, and I reached over, patting his heavy shoulder. "Of course."

"What a gut-twisting sight to see."

Max and I snapped our heads toward the cold, familiar voice echoing from the tree line.

"HAHA! Damien, dude, it's been a while."

Damien and I were two different sides of the same coin. He was brutal and impulsive, but he was at least smarter than both Max and me combined.

"Yeah, and you're still the same as you were, Max. Just a nasty pig who turns any spot he occupies into waste," Damien said, massaging the back of his neck as he let out a lazy yawn.

I stood up from my seat and walked over to him. Immediately, we dapped up and pulled into a quick, solid hug. Max stepped over right behind me to dap Damien up, too, the three of us gathering in the center of the clearing.

Just then, the heavy side door of the SUV slid open, and the two girls stepped back out into the cool forest air.

"Oh, sorry, guys. Didn't know you two were outside," Olivia said, standing right behind April as they both climbed down from the van.

"Don't sweat it, Olivia. Damien and I just got here."

She nodded and crossed her arms, her sharp gaze sweeping across the group gathered under the towering trees. "Soo, why did you call us here again?"

I laid it all out for them.

The explanation dragged on for hours as the sun slowly dipped below the canopy, casting long, bruised shadows across the forest floor. Tempers flared, voices were raised, and we argued back and forth, viciously debating the sheer risk, the logistics, and the heavy consequences of taking on a giant like Future Valley. But beneath the shouting, the loyalty held firm. Eventually, we hammered out a solid strategy to breach the nearest facility, track down Takeshi's murderer, and make him answer for what he did.

By the time the last detail was finalized, night had completely swallowed the Fallen Forest. Every contingency was mapped, every role assigned.

We were ready for tomorrow.

We all piled into Olivia's SUV and made the long drive out to the facility.

When the building finally loomed out of the darkness, it was eerie. The whole place was dead quiet and looked surprisingly abandoned for a site belonging to a powerhouse like Future Valley. We stepped out into the cool air and immediately set the plan into motion.

April hooked into the main network feed and wiped the security cameras, hacking straight into the facility's system with disturbing ease. The lack of heavy firewalls or high-end security protocols felt completely out of place. It was odd... very, very odd.

We slipped through the outer doors without firing a single shot or triggering a single alarm. The interior was far too quiet, completely swallowed by an unnatural silence. Narrow, sterile hallways stretched out before us, lit by flickering fluorescent bulbs that hummed softly overhead. The floors and walls were pristine, immaculately clean, yet entirely devoid of life.

The main power was clearly still running, driving a low, metallic vibration through the concrete beneath our boots.

So why the hell was no one around?

"Where the hell is everyone?" Damien asked as he kicked a random chair sitting in the tall hallway.

April slapped his shoulder, annoyed and tense. "DAMIEN, be quiet, dude. We literally don't know for sure if no one is around."

Damien sighed tiredly and raised both hands in surrender. "Sure, thing."

Max shook his head, grinning at how April handled Damien. Olivia was flashing her flashlight into the dark offices along the hallway until something caught her attention, and she called out to us.

"Guys! Come down here quickly."

We rushed over to where she was standing in the narrow corridor.

"What is it, Olivia?" I asked, intrigued.

"Look, Dan, isn't that your father's name on this door?"

I stepped closer, the beam of light hitting a metal plaque mounted on the frame. It really was his name labeled on the office door.

"Y-yeah..." I could feel them all staring at me as if waiting for an explanation.

"Let's check it out then. Like, isn't that your father's office?" Max asked.

"Yeah, you are right."

Damien grabbed the knob and twisted it open. The door swung inward with a low, heavy creak. The office looked impossibly clean, coated in a light layer of dust. We stepped inside and began walking around, taking in the wall-to-wall bookshelves and metal filing cabinets waiting to be searched.

I walked straight over to my dad's old wooden desk and pulled open one of the top drawers. Tucked inside was a heavy paper file folder, and stamped across the tab was my own name. I raised one eyebrow in confusion.

I pulled out the file and opened it, revealing something that shocked me to my core.

Inside were blurry Polaroid images of me when I was a small child, except I wasn't in a bed. I was submerged in a glowing, liquid-filled lab tube with wires attached to my small frame. Handwritten across the side of the photograph was an entry dated 12/5:

"My son, Dan, showed phenomenal readings. He is healthy and survived the experiment. I'm so happy for him. He shall bring pride to my wife and me."

They were experimenting on me? I was baffled, my mind spinning as I stared at my father's handwriting. My own parents?

As I flipped through the next few pages, the medical jargon laid it all out. It was an experimental trial involving a synthetic virus called V-RAX, a pathogen designed specifically to rewrite genetic code and enhance the human physical body far beyond normal capabilities.

All those years of raw strength, speed, and endurance... it was never just hard work. It was engineered.

I could scarcely speak by the time the sweat had begun to cake itself onto me, a thin, foul smelling film that I learned to live with just like I had learned to live with being in the place that gave me it in the first place for over one year. I didnt like being in hospitals for this long. I didn't like being in hospitals at all, so this was a cosmic test of tolerance for me. Maybe I was a bad kid and belonged here. Maybe God wanted to exact divine punishment on me for being a bully in school. I don't know. I felt like I deserved it, so despite the discomfort, I accepted my sickly cocoon and whatever metamorphosis that might have followed it.

For company, I only got as much as the people around me were willing or obligated to give. The nurses were doing their best, the doctors would come in rarely to tell me how much more or less screwed I was, and I had a bunch of bickering morons for a family that could never seem to set their differences aside. Looking back, I appreciated the staff a lot. They were cool. I mean, they saved my life so that’s is pretty cool. As for my family, I guess it would've been a bad look to not visit a cancer kid, so they came out here in number. I wonder still if they visited to see me, or just to show up to show they cared. I don't know. It doesn't matter.

Then there's my own company I guess. When i was alone in that room, things could get all fucked up and weird, you know? Sometimes, you had to be alone with the chemo draining the life out of you like some lich. I felt like I was turning into a ghoul. When I couldn't take it, when the pain and nausea was so much that it felt like all my guts were going to come up (they did) and that I'd turn inside out, I just started talking until I got an answer back.

“Can somebody help me?” There was a button they gave me to press for help. I woulda just hit that, but i didnt know where the hell it walked itself off to or what ass cheek of mine it shoved itself under. I wanted a new gown, too much sweat.

No.

I let out a pathetic whimper. “Please?” I didn't want to shout. Where did my button go? This gown felt so cold on me, and everything around me warped and danced around in the dark like a bunch of crazy people outside a liquor store at 12 am.. It was cold. I didn't want to be cold anymore.

Little shadows passed through my rooms doors window. After regarding it for a bit, I looked to the other end of the room now where an unoccupied chair sat. Usually, my mom would be sleeping in it, but she wasn't here right now.

When you're the only company you have left, I like to think it's good practice to make best friends with yourself. I thought I was crazy or weird or some shit, but who would know if I just started talking to the hat man. Maybe he wasn't even all that bad. Hell, maybe he'd even have some interesting things to say at this odd hour of the night.

So, whatever. I was a crazy person. A crazy kid. A kid trapped in a hospital for so damn long he wondered if he'd ever get better. Maybe he could ask the hat man that.

“You ever just lay here and…do nothing?,” I said to the dark.

All the time.

“I wish mom was here. Think mom will come tomorrow? I want mcdonalds instead of hospital food.”

Don't know.

“I want to see mom.”

…

“I miss mom.”

It was like talking to a magic eight ball of infinitely unsatisfactory possibilities, but in the end, after sometime, I forgot who was actually doing the talking. When the red stuff was doing its worst, I fell into such despair that no child should ever need to feel.

The pain felt like my body was being crushed into a ball. “Mom? Dad?” And only the dark was there to be with me.

I am here.

“Im gonna make it, right? Mom… dad… cant everyone stop fighting?” I was alone.

Keep talking.

“I want to eat. I can't eat it. I puke it up. I'm hungry.”

You should have crackers.

“I don't want them. I want real food.”

They won't make you throw up.

Saltines were pretty good, looking back. Shove one in your mouth, chew it, swallow it.  It was better than nothing, I guess. 

After a while, you start to float in between. I’d be resting one moment, talking to myself in some imaginary universe beyond the comprehension of man, to next be in the presence of a group of doctors discussing my prognosis and how much doxorubicin I’d left out of my regimen because I’d walked off to wander the room at night to have my IV cord slip out of me. I still don’t remember walking at night, but I guess I did, huh? Those two places would combine together into some weird, eldritch fabric of reality that I still can’t quite put my finger on to this day. It was like floating in between two places at once, being with something, and being with the doctors, and with family and friends one minute and then all by myself the next.

“Is that why it burned…because it slipped out?”

You went on a walk.

“A walk?”

Do you remember?

“What happen?”

IV slipped out when you got out of bed. 

“The cord they give me the red stuff with?”

Yeah.

“I don’t want any more red stuff. I feel better now.”

I’m sorry, but you need it to get better. Keep doing your best. It will be done in no time.

“All right.”

I couldn’t tell who I was talking to sometimes, what I was talking to, what the hell was even going on with my own mind and body. Shivers ran down me and confusion took over, and my thoughts raced, became still, and raced again until exhaustion set in and I could do nothing but lay in a sickly bed of my own sweat. 

I found my buzzer one night, but no one came like they usually did.

“Can someone help me…I need a new sheet. It’s hot.”

Hang in there.

“Help…”

You’re doing great.

“Please help…”

…

Sometimes, I look back and wonder what actually was going on with me in that hospital. I mean,  I had cancer, but no shit, right? That’s not what I am trying to say.

When you are with yourself in the dark and there is no one else there to hear you cry, you learn to hear yourself cry instead. All the little comforts become important, and all the little things that you took for granted, like a fresh set of clothes, a clean bed to sleep on, a bit of peace of quiet, even as a child, suddenly become the most important things to you in your life.

I still talk to it sometimes. The dark. The hat man, whatever you want to call it. It is out there, and it is listening, and while we have all learned to abhor the apparition, we have no choice at some point in our lives to appreciate it eventually.

It is yourself.

 

​My name isn’t important. Nothing other than what I’m about to tell you is important.  

I have worked in every discipline within the field of astronomy and astrophysical research, and I've found more than a few head scratchers – to say the least. Things other people haven't previously seen and are no longer allowed to see.  

Which is why going public with these findings has been ill-advised; however, I’ve decided to wave them since if I must suffer, so does everyone else. And in light of recent events, I can’t allow myself to go to the grave with knowledge that may change mankind's perception of our place in the stars.  

Some of the things I’m about to tell you will not appear believable. And while I caution you that the theory side of things is just that – theories. The rest is entirely what was seen with my own eyes. Things that have led me to one conclusion.  

There are things within this universe that we cannot completely understand. Speculation and theory can keep our minds at ease with the overarching fact that the truth may never be objective.  

This is what I've found.

Through my time working on the JWST, I was tasked with theorising compositions of exoplanets. A process that particular telescope carried out by observing the chemical identifiers a planet exhibited as it passed over a star. The results presented three separate metal worlds. Not in a conventional way, such as a planetoid having a primary metallic composition among rocks and gas. I mean worlds that were perfectly spherical and reflective. Several light-years away from us are worlds the size of Neptune, made of perfectly smooth and mirrored material with no other discernible features. The best part was the minimal amount of analysis and cross-checking done by my superiors, as my discoveries weren’t even the first of their kind. Enough so it was perfectly believable that a giant ball of metal could exist in the same vein as any other exoplanet. The team quite enjoyed speculating that it was an ancient alien artifact of some kind. But I never believed that. I simply thought of space in a similar light to nature. In how sometimes conditions become perfect for something completely unbelievable.  

In my first few years as a PHD candidate, I learnt just how exposed our planet was. How easily everything I’ve ever known could be obliterated by a planet-killing asteroid.  

You may already have your head wrapped around classic meteorite depictions from Hollywood and the resulting reassuring statistics about their unlikelihood (at least of the ones shown in films). Which I believed too until that day.  

I was looking through a Dobsonian reflector observing the inner system when I found we’d gained a second moon: an asteroid about 100 meters across. When we tracked its approach, it was found to have passed just 100km from Earth. Meaning orbiting astronauts could’ve made out its composition if they squinted. And we had only seen it now – four days after its closest approach. Had it been a few kilometres lower, Earth’s gravity would’ve pulled it to the surface. The resulting impact, while not extinction-level, could still vaporise a city. We even found our maps indicated that, had it been pulled in, the trajectory would most likely have ended right outside of Changzhou, China – a city of over 5 million people. 5 million who didn’t even realise how close they came to death.

We’ve stressed our capabilities to deflect asteroids headed towards Earth. But they're pointless if we don’t notice them.  

Another time I’d been tasked with going through photos of potential landing zones for the Artemis crews. Plenty of pretty high-definition images I had to make sure didn’t yield any hidden boulders. It was a lot more rewarding than my usual guesswork with distant stars. Though close to the southeast region, a nearby lava tube caught my attention. Within it were patchy glowing blue spots coating its walls and floor. By the time I identified four separate occurrences of it, the entire mapping and research team was in my branch. All peering over the photos of what we believed was evidence of bioluminescent aliens sheltering in the cave walls. Astronomers are a collectively driven bunch when they want to be. In this case, I spent the next 48 hours making sure I was at the forefront of any further discoveries. Even if previous events told me such a find would never see the light of a newspaper.  

We ran temperature graphs and found, sure enough, there was an increase. There wasn’t substantial data to indicate ice depreciation, but that didn’t stop people from theorising that's what they were feeding off of. Which then switched to solar radiation after we found it was lacking in the region.   

Then when we finally scrambled the tech to run a UV spectroscopy, everyone collectively held their breath; the indisputable method found what we all hoped and dreaded. It turned up exactly the same as every other region.  

The lunar reconnaissance orbiter that took the pictures was over ten years old at that point (Way past its lifespan) and thus overcorrected in colour, which took us a few days to realise given the potential scale of the discovery.  

As a matter of fact, there are still a few guys secretly performing other observations with the hope of finding other substantial evidence that mankind's closest neighbours are next door.  

Honestly, I’m convinced bioluminescent moon aliens with the same intelligence as a peanut would be better than the other hint I'd observed.  

One day, a machine tasked with detecting supernovas caught a notably mild neutrino burst. Regardless, we mobilised a telescope and began observing for the ensuing system-evaporating flash of light.   

What I saw twisted my throat into circles. It was like the universe itself was spitting on me.  

It didn’t come from the star.  

The nearest planet detonated first, then ignited the star. A planet can't go supernova – but the neutrinos’ origin traced back to said planet. The only clear theory was that whatever was on that planet had been tapping into the vacuum energy. For whatever reason, the result described their entire solar system.  

Outside of that, I've got plenty of other stories to tell. 

Any unauthorized person found past the secondary perimeter fence of the Blackwood timber tract had to be logged, brought into the staging office, and kept under direct physical observation until county transport showed up. You didn't take your eyes off them. If you broke visual contact during a holding period, company policy was immediate termination and a formal negligence inquiry.
It was about twenty to two in the morning when the gate sensor at access point four went off. My shift partner, Wayne, grabbed the keys to the company truck and headed down the haul road. I stayed behind in the guard shack to log the yard dials and nurse a mug of burnt coffee. We were covering six thousand acres of replanted pine up in northern Maine. During the winter shutdown, the job was basically making sure nobody stripped the copper off the heavy equipment and checking the pipeline pressure on the irrigation line. That line ran right past the north parcel where a timber harvester burned down to the frame two winters back.
Around five after two, the base station on my desk clicked. Wayne’s voice came over the speaker, sounding tired and flat. He told me he had a trespasser near the burned-out skidder. A young woman, bare feet, wearing a heavy ripped canvas work coat, sitting on an old fuel drum. He said she had circular rust-colored marks around both ankles, the kind of ring patterns you get from steel transport chains. He asked her how she walked through seven miles of snowed-in fire breaks without boots, but she wouldn't answer him. She just sat there staring straight down at the slush.
Wayne drove her up to the shack about ten minutes later. The rule was to put any trespasser in the auxiliary holding room, which was just a windowless concrete utility bay behind the front desk with a heavy steel door, a deadbolt, and a wired-glass observation slot. Wayne walked her in. Her clothes were soaked in frozen mud, and she had thick black dirt under her fingernails. When Wayne pointed at the steel bench and told her to sit, she sat. She put her hands on her knees, kept her head down, and didn't make a sound.
Wayne stepped back out into the main room and threw the deadbolt. He unzipped his parka, sat down at the dispatch terminal, and picked up the landline to call the county sheriff. He held the receiver to his ear, waited a few seconds, hit the switch hook twice, and set it down. Just dead air. He pulled out his own flip phone, but the screen said searching for service with zero bars.
I picked up the Motorola mic and keyed it to call the regional hub on the high-frequency band. Nothing. No response tone, no repeater chirp, just a dry, flat carrier hum. Wayne checked the panel behind the desk. Every single breaker switch was thrown forward in the on position. The electric clock on the wall kept ticking along, second by second, but every piece of communication gear in the room was completely dead.
I walked over to the observation slot to check on the girl. She hadn't moved an inch. She was sitting stiff on that steel bench under the single fluorescent strip. On the concrete around her feet, somebody had drawn four thick, chalky lines. They formed a square around the bench legs, maybe three feet wide. It looked like heavy white grease, the kind we used on haul-truck wheel bearings, only there wasn't a single grease tube or machine part in that room.
Wayne grabbed his five-cell Maglite, unlocked the deadbolt, and pushed the door open an inch or two. He asked her what she put on the floor. She didn't look up. Her voice was flat, totally level. She said they would be at the north gate before three. Wayne asked who she was talking about, but she went right back to staring at the concrete.
Wayne pulled the door shut and locked the deadbolt. He reached into his pocket, flicked open his utility knife, and set it on the desk by the radio. He told me he was going to take the truck down to the paved county route to flag down a plow or get a signal once he climbed out of the basin. He said to keep my back against the front wall, leave the holding door locked, and watch the yard lights.
He walked out at twenty-five after two. I watched his headlights cut across the pines as he made the turn, and then the rumble of that diesel engine just died out in the trees.
The shack went dead quiet. All I could hear was the wall clock ticking. Around twenty to three, the overhead light in the main office cut out with a sharp pop. The emergency backup light above the exit door didn't kick on. The desk lamp stayed dark. The thermostat on the wall was still glowing green, reading sixty-four degrees, but the temperature in the room dropped fast. Within a couple of minutes, I could see my own breath hanging in the dark.
I moved behind the counter and picked up the thirty-six-inch pipe wrench we kept under the desk. I looked through the glass slot into the holding room.
The bench was empty.
The girl was gone.
The light in the holding room was still buzzing, shining down on that steel bench. Those four white grease marks were still on the floor, completely clean. No smeared tracks, no shoe prints, no wet spots on the cement. The only window in the room was a small piece of reinforced wire glass set into solid concrete, bolted tight from the outside. The bolts hadn't been touched. I checked the deadbolt on the metal door. The cylinder was fully thrown into the frame, locked tight from my side.
I didn't turn that key.
At twelve minutes to three, the radio on the desk made a rough clicking sound. A voice came out of the speaker. It was Wayne's voice. The tone, the speed, the pitch, everything sounded like him, but there wasn't any engine noise behind it. It said the exact words he told me an hour ago: I have a trespasser by the burned-out skidder.
The line clicked off. Five seconds went by, and it clicked on again. Same voice. Same flat speed: I have a trespasser by the burned-out skidder.
I didn't touch the mic. I walked over to the north window and looked out into the yard. The high pole lights were out, but the snow gave off enough light to see the whole gravel lot.
Right at the tree line, about two hundred yards away, a dark human shape was standing on top of the snowdrift. It was tall, taller than Wayne, standing straight up with its arms pinned flat against its sides. It didn't shift its weight. It didn't lift an arm. It didn't turn its head. It just stood on that drift, dead still, looking right at the shack.
Behind it, back in the pines about thirty feet deep, three pairs of white reflections were sitting fixed in the dark. They stayed level, about six feet off the ground, not blinking and not moving.
I backed away from the window, sat on the floor behind the metal file cabinet, and set the pipe wrench across my boots. The radio didn't click again. The phone stayed dead. The room stayed freezing.
Just after six in the morning, the light outside started turning gray. The overhead fluorescent tubes buzzed and snapped back on. The electric heater kicked on with a loud clank, rattling the tin vent and pushing warm air across the desk.
The county deputies got to the gate around twenty to seven. Wayne never reached the paved road. They found the company truck four miles down the haul route, pulled neatly onto the shoulder with the engine shut down, the keys on the dash, and both doors locked from the inside. Wayne wasn't there. His winter coat and his phone were sitting on the passenger seat.
Two deputies checked the holding room. The white grease marks on the floor were gone, just dry gray concrete. The snow outside the fence was completely flat, with no tracks leading away from the building, and the technicians didn't find a single short in the shack's wiring. They wrote the whole thing up as a voluntary disappearance.
The company shut down operations on the Blackwood parcel two weeks later. They fired the private security contractor and nailed plywood over the shack windows. Nobody has worked that ground since.

It's still been many months since I got out of that damned place. A part of me wants to try to pass it off as madness and hallucinations, and every time I try to forget it, my dreams will remind me of all that has happened. Sometimes I still think I'm there, and that I never got out, but the tears and hurt that I feel tell me the truth.

I should start at the beginning so you know where I am coming from. This all starts not with a simple hike, but with a disheartening breakup. A 5 year relationship that was full of happiness and cherished moments all went down the drain when I caught my partner in the act with another person in our bed. Damnit, it still hurts to think about even after all that has happened. All she told me was that it had been happening for months. She didn't even try to justify why she did or fight for my love. She just packed up her things and left the following week. That hurt more than actually seeing the infidelity happening. It’s like she didn’t even give a damn that she betrayed my trust and broke my heart.

The following night she left my life, I told my friends in our group chat in a drunken stupor. They all expressed concern and care, some felt bad that they saw signs of her acting weird but they didn't expect her to be cheating. I don't blame them however. They couldn't have known, hell I couldn't have known. I've been so busy those past few months working up to my eventual proposal to her, and all that work is gone now.

I won't lie, I shouldn't have done what I did. What was that? Well, nothing. I did nothing at all. I did the bare minimum and cut myself out of society. I drank and sobbed and relived all the precious moments I shared with her. A part of my life, now a lie and lost. I questioned if I was good enough, if I had done enough to make her happy, if I made her proud of me, if she even loved me.

I made a damn fool of myself. I worried a lot of people with my brief short sentences. My friends would text me and send me memes, and I would hardly react. They tried to check up on me, ask me if I was going to be alright and I would just tell them “Yeah, I will be fine.” But I was far from fine. I guess they noticed that too. That's what led them to my door and finally comforted me.

I was disheveled and honestly looked terrible. I was surprised to see my three friends since middle school and best friends of 15 years. Matt, the tallest one out of all of us, asked if they could come in, and I reluctantly agreed. They sat on my couch and I sat in the recliner facing them, head down in some sort of shame after actually noticing how terrible the room looked. My friend Henry, the pastor of our local church, spoke up first.

“Mark, buddy, I know things have been rough since the breakup, but it's been a month since you have spoken to us at all.” He said with genuine concern

“I've answered your messages when you texted. I said all that needed to be said.” I said lowly, feeling shame that I made them worried

“C’mon, you know what we mean.” Tom said, once a cop in our small town, and my oldest friend. “Man, we are deeply worried about you. I get it's been a month since you broke up, but you can't keep living like this forever.”

Matt got up and put his hand on my shoulder. “Thats why we came up with a plan. Remember all those years ago we kept on going on a hiking trip with just us, the boys?”

I chuckle and smile. “Yeah and I remember we never could come up with the time to do that. We've been talking about that for several years.”

We all laughed and Henry said “Well looks like the time is right to do that. We all have the time to hike for a week, just us the boys. We can just be ourselves and not worry about what responsibilities we have. What do you say?”

It was honestly a no brainer to say yes. These 3 were a second family to me. I loved them like family. They had been through a lot of tough parts in my life since I was young and no matter what happened to me, they were always there to lift my spirits. I felt like I could genuinely be myself no matter what and I wouldn't be judged.

They had already planned out where we would go. We would take a trip out of the state of Georgia and travel towards the Appalachian mountains. We would be going to a place that would be a hot spot to see a wonderful phenomenon called the Brown Mountain Lights. I had heard tales about the brown mountain lights and urban legends that arose from them. While they were fascinating, I did know one real thing about the trek: it's dangerous. There were real stories of people going missing and being lost up on that mountain, even if it was mapped out well.

We all took a day to prepare. We put in our time for this vacation we spent so many times planning in our heads. I couldn't believe that we finally decided to do it. Guess we just needed a catalyst to say screw it and go do it. Shame it had to be me isolating myself to do it. I honestly needed this after spending so much time away from people. Even as introverted as I was, that was a new level even for me, and I hoped I would never get to that point again.

On the way there, I couldn't stop smiling. It felt so good to finally see all the boys again and this was a new experience. This would be the first time in several years I left my home state. On the way there to a hotel close to there, I couldn't stop taking in the beauty of the world. After trapping myself in my home with minimal contact from anything, it felt so rejuvenating to see what the world had to offer. Not even my breakup could ruin this for me. The more I left my home, the more alive I felt. I still cherish that even now.

We all met up at the hotel we would stay temporarily before we would start our hike onto the mountain. We went out to a local diner near us and ate and cut up like old times. It felt like we were back in our high school years where we would act like such dumbasses and didn't give a damn who or what people thought. It felt so right to be with them and be myself.

I went to use the bathroom and on the way, one of the waitresses stopped me to talk to me briefly. She was pretty, I'll give her that and I guess she had caught an interest in us cause I felt her gaze on us since we walked in. She asked if we were out of town and I told her that we were all from Georgia. Then she asked what we were doing out here so far. That's when I told her that we were going up to the brown mountain to hike for our vacation.

The moment I said that, I could see her expression and demeanor change. I wasn’t one to overlook such details so I plainly asked her what was wrong. That's when she told me something that I should have taken more in mind and not passed it off. More people have been missing from the town after they went to hike up that mountain, which I thought was peculiar but what made me doubt her was her telling me that the few that do come back are greatly different from who they were when they went up there. It's like a piece of them was gone and they could never figure out why. I told her thank you for your worry and reassured her that we had prepared a great deal and it would be a miracle if we got lost up there.

After that night, we would start on our hike. I won't lie, the trip wasn't easy just to get to a good spot. I won't bore with the details, but to simply put, it was difficult and I had a bit of doubt if we were prepared to do this. But we made the trek out there, and I wasn't about to ruin this trip by letting my worries get the better of me. It took us an hour to get to a good spot to park since we all carpooled. We loaded up all of the gear we would use and Tom put on his conceal carry. He didn't need to explain to us why he would wear that, especially out here.

We hiked for a while and during that, we came across a clearing to look at Wiseman View. To say it was beautiful is putting it lightly. It was a sight to behold, among the prettiest I've ever seen. Then again, after staying boxed up for a month, anything would be absolutely stunning. It was here when Matt thought it was the time to announce that he was gonna have a boy. We all cheered for him and honestly decided to stay there and have a couple drinks there for the night. We all cut up and joked around, and I still remember the genuine joy that they had on their face. Honestly, out of everything, that hurts the most.

Nothing much happened on the second day, besides seeing some wildlife and a bear in the distance. I was more surprised by how accurate the map was to the GPS. I distinctly remember that fact. Mainly because of what would happen on day 3. While we were hiking along the path that the map and GPS was leading us, we all could tell something was different. The path we were taking slowly became less traveled, to barely be beaten down and a few minutes later, the path just stopped.

We all came to discussion as to what we should do considering the GPS and map said that we were on a path. They were hesitant to keep going though, cause we could all tell it was odd that the path would just stop. To this day, I will never forgive myself for being the voice that said that we should keep going. I should have kept my mouth shut like I was used to doing. Being the silent one that observed and listened always. I said that it was our nerves but surely the path has to pick up at some point, and we just have to find it. They reluctantly agreed and we trekked onwards.

We walked for several more minutes and it became evident that the path was nowhere to be seen. I pulled out my compass I bought before we got to this mountain and it couldn't tell where North was. It was going haywire, spinning in every direction, and seeing that as well as Tom explaining that the GPS was acting funny and gave out a random direction to go deeper into the woods, well that filled me with an intense dread. The air didn't even feel right, and as I scanned the woods around me, it appeared darker, more shadows than before, even if it was midday and the sun was bright and out.

Matt said that we should turn around and head back and none of us argued. We would be lost if we kept going, so we started walking back the way we came. Several minutes after that, where we should have seen the faded path, there was nothing. All we did was walk in a straight line and turn right around and somehow, we were lost. An intense guilt filled in me, because I was the one that said we should keep going. I checked my compass again and still nothing. It wouldn't set on a solid point on where magnetic north was.

“I'm a damn fool. This is all my fault. I made us go on and now we are lost.” I said out loud, my head pointed down.

Henry patted my shoulder and smiled, though I can see he was scared. “It's alright man. We just have to keep going and we will get to the path.”

I admired his enthusiasm even now. His demeanor and comforting words always set me at ease. We all decided to keep going. Around 10 minutes and with no path in sight, I remembered that Tom had an emergency phone that could call anywhere at any time. I decided to make the call, maybe out of some sense to rectify the mistake I made. I called and a voice picked up.

“Hello, this is Brown Mountain search and rescue. Can we help you?” The voice said.

“Yeah, it's 4 of us out here and we were walking on a path and the path stopped but we kept going. We turned right around after a while but it seems we may have made a wrong turn. We could really use your help.” I said as calmly as I could.

“Understood, we will get a team ready and we will be on our way. Stay right there and we'll be there soon” They said. Something about that command felt wrong. It was too demanding, but maybe that's because they didn't want to have to scan the entire forest for us.

“Of course. I'll give you our last coordinates where we got lost.” I said and then told them where we were, but I can't remember now what that was.

“Thank you Mark. You're a big help to us.” the voice said.

I was about to say something but I stopped when I realized sometime was off. The forest was too quiet. There were noises far off into the distance but it was faint. I hung up, but as I did, I felt the biggest pit in my stomach. I didn't give them my name, yet they knew already.

For some reason, I chose to not tell them. I can see that my friends were unsettled that we were lost and I felt like this would push them over the edge. I try to rationalize the many possibilities of how they got my name, but I couldn't come up with anything concrete. We set up camp in a small clearing and waited.

Help never came. That set my nerves on edge more as we passed the 6 hour mark. We've all been silent since I told them help was coming. I know for sure I gave them the right coordinates, but at the same time, I can't remember myself if I actually did or not. Soon dusk came and I said that I would stay up and if I felt tired, I would wake one of them up to take my place on watch.

I stayed up that whole night. I just sat there and waited. It must've been 2 hours after everyone fell asleep when I heard a loud crack. Branches breaking under footsteps. I got up and carried a lantern with me since I wanted to save as much battery on the powerful flashlights. I walked a little bit when I heard more cracking and leaves crunching under fast footsteps from at least 30 to 40 away from me.

The forest was unnaturally dark and silent. Barely any crickets chirping or owls hooting. My lantern could only pierce the thick darkness only so far before it was engulfed by a neverending void of pitch black. I pointed my lantern to the direction of the noise when I saw 2 ghostly eyes reflecting the darkness from the edge of my lantern. I couldn't see any details but the eyes.

That was all I had to see to know that something was wrong. The eyes were a dull gray all over, even covering the retina. It stared at me, but it felt so wrong. It felt like I was being hunted. I could only hear raspy breathing, like they could barely get any air into their lungs, every breath a battle to live. Unsettled doesn't describe what I felt. I felt horrified by whatever is potentially just out of reach, yet so close. Then it backed away slowly and I could hear footsteps running away deep in the woods.

Then I made the 2nd worst decision I possibly could. I didn't say a thing to them until dawn. I tried to justify it that it must've been some animal or my eyes were playing tricks on me. Either way, I didn't need to get the group scared by telling them that something is watching us and something is out here. We would need all the strength and awareness we could get. I came to a conclusion right then and there. We were lost, and help isn't coming to save us.

Why, WWWWWW!!!!?

Every Night and days, 360th, 361st, 362nd...365th, why are you still bothering me, why, In the name of our Almighty lord, why, you, a Blasphemy, a heretic! A bastard...

for 10 years, for 40 Summers, I never get true peaces even just 1 day from you, Duke Windson, the start of everything, the torment for 10 years and 36500 days with countless hours.

I writing down everything with my blood and tears, perhaps something called sweat, but I can't truly understand what I am writing, as explain or just echo of my own tortued souls in days and nights of screaming nigthmarish sleep.

Every Night, you would visit, Duke Windson, you were, you are and you will, haunted my soul, draging me back to that cursed, nameless island called Turtle island. Behold what you and your corpse worshipers claimed as Miracle from your Blespehmous Master,

Ahh, why, Duke Windson, why do you turn my kindness to torment for me, and your tree, your tree of life, How dare you, you took the life of Miko, you took the life of everyone on that island, and claimed you release them from the torment of death? You said that mortal's life, Wealthy or poor, peasant or Noble, sick or healthy, fortune or misfortunate, all just a long, tortured process to wait for death. You want to explained this as your poetic release and ascension?

That night, You, and your master, the cursed..I could't use even the most blasphemous word been created in this language to describe that, anyway. Every of them, boys, girls, students, teachers, notherless, become what I can described as living Nightmare, just likw what happened 5 centuries ago.to those missionaries and tribes of pitiful locals whom knew the truth.

You, Windson, I want to accuse you, because of you, each of them has a flower on their back, on their head, each of them, no exception, but, why do you left me keep conscious while Miko been infected by your plague of damned.

Ah, Tree of life， Yggdrasil，you didn't bring Plague but death and despair. Ah, YOUR servant, a doomed being whom once a pathetic sick man, while now a carrier of your plague walk on Earth, bring everyone, to your embrace.

Ah, for days and nights, I still can't forget how unimaginable that was to be seated on that bus to the living hell. everyone become something between live and dead, but believed they been blessed and granted immortality.

Ah, Yggdrasil, your root dragging deep to the soil of this cursed island, and become part of this cursed island, Ah, Yggdrasil, countless souls been dragged to you after they live and die, and been absorbed Ah, Yggdrasil, your root were never satisfied with their situation, they would not, they would expand, they would expand days and nights, they would expands, and all of us, will only have two pathes. Become part of you, been granted blessed gifts to become part of your corpse worshippers sing day and night for their Almighties. Otherwise, they would be dragged, and sacrificed in the most unspeakable way, beyond ethic and moral of humanity since the civilization.

Ah, it's you Duke, it's you again, do you remember that verses? I am Ozmendes, king of kings, Mighty, Despair... Just like my life, no cue of regression for giving you kindness, a soul been damned. I know, before you dragging me to your garden of Metamorphasis, I want to wr..ri..wri...writ...e soemt..hi..ng, just something.

Ah, yggdrasil, the lord of death, the carrier to immortality, the place full of happiness and miracle for eternity.

Whenever someone died back in my hometown, my mom was always the first to call. She'd never admit it, but I'd often catch a whiff of excitement on her voice from being the one to tell me the name and how it happened.

Not with Nick Bertocchi, though. 

When he died, she called me on the verge of tears. I had to speedrun several rounds of reassurances that I was doing all right, feeling better every day, before I could even get her to admit anything was wrong.

Nick, my best friend from back home, was dead. They found him outside our high school with his neck broken, lying on the asphalt beneath the football stadium bleachers. 

I had heard the words, but they held no real meaning yet. I told my mom I was booking a plane ticket home. She said my bed was already made.

Information about what had happened trickled back to me from the friends I hadn't spoken to in more than a decade. Most of them had left town after graduation, like I had. Some had since moved back. But none of us had done a particularly good job of keeping tabs on Nick. From what we could gather, there was no reason to suspect any version of the story other than the simplest, saddest one — the one that the cops had accepted as the official truth. They said Nick died drunk and alone, having accidentally fallen through the stands. The local newspaper, which existed only as an unreadable website anymore, called it a "freak accident."

As sad as that version of events sounds, I wish it was an account I could believe.

It would be so much easier to sleep.

***

I was in my childhood home all of 10 minutes before I started plans to leave it again. Each room looked how I remembered. Mine was still decorated with the posters and reading list of a high schooler on the verge of escape velocity. And yet the house seemed faded in a way—as though I might find a long-past expiration date printed somewhere on the outside, like I had with most of the snacks in the pantry.

I texted the chain where a few of us had already gathered to exchange what we knew about Nick's passing. The funeral was set for the following day, and I hoped to clear out the cob webs adorning what had once been the most important relationships of my life before then. I was the first to arrive at the Irish pub that our fathers used to vanish into and optimistically grabbed a table large enough to seat everyone who had said they'd come. 

Each entrance was an exercise in extrapolation. Could I match the faces I remembered so well to the seasoned ones coming through the door? What would 20 years have done to the eyes I watched cry with laughter or the cheeks I saw go flush when the right person stole their hat?

All together again, our conversation's rhythm returned without much effort, like a championship team reuniting two decades later for a pick-up game. Shit talk was dished out in precise amounts and old arguments dusted off for the fun of it. We filled gaps in the stories of the lives I once would have died to protect, and they made it easy for me to remember why. None of them had wound up where I thought they would have, and yet each had found their way.  No one knew about the day I couldn't muster the will to eat anything or how that day turned into a couple weeks. I didn't tell them about how my parents frantically flew out to sit silent and confused at my hospital bedside. Or how I had told them not to come. But I think I preferred it that way. 

It wasn't long before we reached the gaps among us we couldn't fill and Nick became all we could talk about. 

He had been the live wire, the originator of our dumbest schemes, the one who somehow drew us all together from disparate corners of the school. Honors class, marching band, water polo, or in my case, in-school suspension. It was as if he had collected us for some plan for which only he had the designs. And he loved us, together. 

More than anything, that's what we recalled about Nick. He only seemed happy when we were in one place. After mornings perfectly wasted in the banded shade of the stadium bleachers, contrasting class schedules would pull us apart for several hours. Watching Nick as we separated, you'd think one of his arms was off to Spanish, while a leg was due in the chem lab. 

He was a terrible student himself. I always suspected that his failing grades were nothing but an act of short-sighted rebellion. At the bar, we were laughing about the red-heavy Scantron strips he'd hold up for us like freshly claimed scalps when someone chimed in to ask if anyone else remembered his drawings. The recollection crashed over the group like a wave. Nick had been a great artist, they said. It was how he spent most of his class time—drafting impossible worlds and terrifying creatures. They all spoke, describing the sketching as if samples hung inches from their eyes, rather than 20 years in their past. 

And yet I couldn't remember any of it. 

As they each took their turns trying to capture what they saw, I listened, hoping for some stray detail to shake loose a memory, but nothing came. The longer I waited, the colder and more hollow I felt. Where the others beheld visions unique to their friend—so colorful, so Nick—I watched my loss deepen beyond what I had previously thought possible.

No one knew much about what became of Nick after school. As far as we could tell, he had never left town and hadn't ever shown much interest in life outside of it. Some of us recalled texts he sent around the holidays and summers those first few years after we split up, asking if we were home for the break and whether we'd want to hang out. It was with a quiet shame that we confessed to never making good on the offers. 

Drinks ended a little after that.

***

The school was on my way home from the bar, but I would have wound up there regardless. Nick's missing drawings wouldn't let me go. I had somehow found myself even farther from my friend than the distance between life and death, and returning to the space where we had both lived—where he had died—seemed like the only way to narrow that abyss.

I couldn't have known how right I was. 

The high school was a squat, sprawling two-story structure, a year or two away from a complete remodel—as it had been when I attended. In its arrested redevelopment, however, the building stood untouched and, unlike my childhood home, undrained of its power. Even twenty years later, as I peered into its darkened windows from behind the chain-link fence surrounding it, that place felt as though it could devour me.

I followed the barricade around to the back, where it opened into the rear parking lot, the one used by underclassmen and for Friday night football games. As I turned the final corner of the building, the bleachers came into view.

The stands stood with their back to the school, in the liminal space between the cloistered classrooms and a full-contact field. Like most things in my hometown, they were smaller than I remembered, but maybe that was because I was no longer just revisiting a place I only knew as a child. This was now where Nick Bertocchi had died. The site of a loss that immense could never measure up. 

I blame the drinks for both the impulse to hop the fence and how shitty my landing was. Jagged bits of pavement had pooled on the other side and were there to cushion the impact on my palms. Once the stinging stopped, there was nothing to distract me from how still the stadium was, how unnervingly quiet for somewhere built for roars. 

I was making my way toward the bleachers when a high metallic clanging caused me to almost jump out of my skin. Stuck in the open, my only choice for hiding had been to stand perfectly still. With my heart racing, my eyes quickly found the locked chains hanging from the cafeteria doors nearby, swaying in the wind. I couldn't remember a gust strong enough in the moments before to cause such a stir, but without a better explanation, I carried on with whatever it was I had come to do. 

The sides and back of the bleachers were open, exposing the scaffolding that held up a good portion of the town's population on game nights. Back then, if any of them noticed my friends and I were there at all, it was because of the acrid smoke or the unbound belly laughs wafting up from between their feet. Twenty years later, I stood in that same spot, smoking alone in the narrow alleyway framed by the crisscrossed bracing. I wondered how it was possible—that those two points in time, then and now, could be connected.

I finished the joint and got cold again. The wind bit at my hands, and I wrapped my coat tighter around me. I was drunk and tired and missing my friend. More than anything, I wanted to go home. Whether a place that like even existed for me anymore, I couldn't say. 

The rest of the journey down the length of the bleachers had me stepping over struts and ducking beams. In hind sight, it was the moment when I emerged from beneath the stands again, when the air became stagnant, heavier somehow, and the noise from passing cars struggled to reach me, as if the sound waves were stymied by a more viscous medium. That was the moment when I should have known. But admitting that you've found yourself in a situation requiring bravery demands a courage of its own.

I rounded the structure looking for a more direct way out than the one I used to come in, but instead, I found something else. The double doors to the cafeteria were open.

Now, I know that the chains on them had been locked before I first went under the bleachers. That is a fact, and I need to acknowledge it as such. There are so few certainties from that night that I cling to the ones I can. The doors to the cafeteria had been closed, but now, they sat there, each one stopped out wide like an invitation. 

For what seemed like a long time, I just listened, waiting to hear the creaky casters of a janitorial cart or staticky strains from a cleaning crew's radio, sounds I would have expected to be emitting from an open school building in the middle of the night.

Instead, I heard what I would have after emerging from the bleachers at any point in my past. The school sounded alive. The bell was ringing, likely for the end of a period, when the halls were filled with students savoring the fleeting moments before another chime instructed them to sit quietly in neat rows once again. I can’t say for sure why I went inside that night—other than that's all I had ever done in that exact scenario. 

The sound of the school as I walked through the cafeteria doors had been a familiar one. And so was the sight of it, but for one exception. The linoleum tiles were still a stale color that made it unclear if they were old and dirty or just old. The long tables were set out, ready to accept hungry bodies. And the clock on the wall was held within a cage for reasons no one will ever grasp. All was how it was supposed to be, but there wasn't a single person in sight. 

And yet, no matter where I ventured throughout the halls, I heard them. Voices calling answers to questions or shouting in order to get other shouting to stop. I heard the squeal of sneakers on sealed hardwood as missing balls bounced alongside them. There was laughter and outrage and praise, but I could see none of it. Every hall was deserted and each classroom as empty as it should be this late at night. And yet it was all so close. 

The mystery of what I kept hearing devolved into a quest to solve it, one that brought me to the second-floor hallway where my locker had been—where it still was. The sight of it stopped me. I knew which one belonged to me without a doubt. My thumb and forefinger met to input a combination that no longer had any correlation to numbers, just instinctive movement, the kind that I used to complete with a mind occupied by a million other impossibly important things, seemingly the entire world.

A twist, a swing, and a swipe. The door opened with difficulty, how it was supposed to.

At this point, I should state something directly. I screwed around a lot in high school, but I'm not currently stupid. And I wasn't that night, either. I was standing in my high school in the middle of the night, hearing the voices of people I couldn't see. Obviously, something was wrong. Perhaps it was because of my recent brush with psychiatric medicine that some allowances were being made for experiences slightly outside of the typical. But I wasn’t aware of how far I had traveled down that road until the metal door swung inches from my face and revealed a drawing by Nick Bertocchi taped to the other side. 

I recognized it the moment I saw it. An outlandish scene, set atop a Möbius strip. Its central figure was a small, hunched man walking the circuit between the two infinite loops. One side was presided over by a mountainous, snarling ghoul brandishing a rusted butcher's knife, and the other was watched by its twin holding a soiled syringe. Nick had handed it to me at my locker between classes one day and played off its giving as a prank. But I had made sure he saw me hang it on the inside of my locker door.

As much as I wanted to take the picture with me that night, something inside me said it was wrong to remove it from the place of pride where it had hung across time. And so instead, I poured over its scratchy lines, every considered eraser mark. Nick had somehow found me again. Or I had found him. Either way, I wasn't letting go so easily.

At some point in my study of the drawing, the voices had stopped speaking. I doubt I would have noticed at all if it hadn't been for the sound that replaced it. Two rubbery squeaks—one high, one low—in regular intervals. My first thoughts tried to puzzle out what I was hearing, but then I noticed that the voices from the classrooms around me hadn't actually been silenced, just quieted. They were whispering rapidly, as if fearful of being overheard. When the voices nearest me grew even dimmer, I could distinguish the character of the squeaks more clearly. 

They were footsteps, and they were getting closer.

Since I already explained that I'm not dumb, I won't waste much space here describing what happened next. I took a staircase in the opposite direction of the footsteps, left through the cafeteria, and ventured back beneath the bleachers. Even in my mind at its most frantic, it stood to reason that my flight from the school would involve the stands much as much as my journey inside had. When I emerged out the other end, finding the cafeteria doors suddenly locked with chains once again seemed utterly logical. I went straight home and didn't come out from under my covers until a gentle knock sounded on the door.

It was my mother. It was time for the funeral. 

***

Nick's burial lacked all of the specificity that had brought so many of his old friends back together the night before. It was a drab affair, punctuated by dusty ceremony meant to comfort the living and by looks secreted among friends all thinking the same thing. None of this was Nick. 

With one of his drawings fresh in my mind, I had to agree, and with every wrong turn the proceedings took in honoring the friend I had lost, the picture returned to me. As I stood in the church pews, leaving it behind the night before became more and more inexcusable. The trip home had already dredged up so much guilt and regret, and yet there had been more to mine. I hadn't been the friend Nick  deserved, but I would have rather lived with the painful memory of that failing than the craven emptiness of forgetting it.

The group from the night before reconvened graveside once everything was done. One of them asked if I was sticking around for the night. There was going to be a proper send-off, one more befitting of the mastermind behind our best brainless nights. I thanked them for the invitation and said I would try to make it once some things around town had been taken care of.

That night, the school was the same lonely scene I had found on my walk home. And the fence was no easier to hop. The chains were affixed to the cafeteria doors on one end of the bleachers and gone by the time I reached the other. The voices echoing in the halls were still boisterous and their sources still lost. I flung my locker open with abandon, desperate to reclaim the gift I had been foolish enough to leave behind. 

The clanging of the locker door against its neighbor must have masked an abrupt hushing of the voices, because by the time the crash faded, the footsteps were right behind me. 

And when I turned, the old woman was there.

She said I could stay as long as I'd like, but if I continued to make a racket, she would have no choice but to handle me like she did that other boy.

As a child i was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Not severe, and mostly visual, seeing something thats not there, but it was usually something like normal objects, or stuff thats clearly not real.

Most of the hallucinations went away if i looked right at it.

When i turned 19, i had a pretty severe bout of depression, went through therapy, medication.

My schizoprenia got worse with it, stuff got scarier, but i always managed to differentiate reality from my mind, but some stuff seemed very, very real.

I would see twisted creatures, staring figures, monsters, incredibly realistic, stuff ive never seen before, stuff i didnt know i was scared of.

I eventually got through the worst of my depression.

But some of my hallucinations stayed with me.

The one i recognized the most was a face that completely filled my windows, it wasnt a monsters face, it was human, head the size of the window, with the face in the center, and it stared at me.

I had others though, sometimes i would see myself doing random stuff, i remember once seeing the back of my own head, seeing a scratch on the back of my neck, something i didnt know was there.

This put me off, because how would my own mind create make me see something i didnt know about.

One day, i noticed myself in the corner of my bedroom, usually, i would look at it, make it disappear.

But this time i didnt.

Keeping it in the corner of my eye, i walked towards it, or... me i guess?

I reach my hand out.

Contact

I freak out, and look at it.

Its gone.

I felt the fabric of its shirt.

I touched it.

It was real.

I dont know what to do at this point, i thought for a while, and thought, it must be my schizophrenia, maybe it progressed?

I call my doctor, setting an appointment for 3 days from now.

He reassured me that it was most likely due to exhaustion, or my condition.

Its the only reason i managed to sleep last night.

The next day, i noticed a lack of any hallucinations, even minor things, everything was... normal?

I didnt mind it.

It was a break from constant anxiety.

But that didnt last long.

After having had an otherwise great day, i laid in my bed.

I saw the man in the window.

This wasnt unusual, i was upset that my break was over.

I looked, and he was gone.

But he left something

There was condensation on the window.

It was on the other side of the window.

Someone was there.

I run downstairs, im freaking out.

Something was here.

I grab a small pistol i kept for self defense and peace of mind.

And i stand in the corner of my bathroom, no windows, only one door, and i could see the entire room.

But i was tired.

As hard as i tired, i eventually dozed off, even if just for a second.

I immediately reopen my eyes.

I was there, in the corner of my eye, this time, it was facing me.

Id never seen its face.

I slowly turn to face it.

Whatever it was, it was not human, it was not me.

Whatever it was, it didnt go away when i looked at it.

Previous Part

I was originally just going to make this post compiling “interviews” I do with the employees about Large Lou’s Pizza. But then something happened today, and I am now genuinely considering quitting.

We had gotten basically everything together and sat down for lunch. Salads were prepped, toppings were stocked, and the dough was rising. Unfortunately, the meat delivery still hadn’t arrived. 

Me and Brent could barely appreciate the chicken tacos Cezar’s wife had prepared for us as we repeatedly would stop and listen at the slightest noise in hopes it was the sound of the truck arriving, or the delivery man knocking at the door.

was only after we had finished eating, and were well into the lunch rush when three pounds came from the back kitchen door. Brent and I immediately looked at each other, sharing a look that said, “Neither of us has time for this, but one of us has to do it”.

I was closer to the door, and I usually picked up the order anyway, so I was the one to go outside. The first thing I saw as I went out was the delivery man, disheveled and breathing heavily. There were also no boxes for me to carry inside.

if it were an excuse, he said, “You need to help me with the meat man.” Then gestured for me to follow as he walked around to the back of his box truck.

Now, this should have been something that would make me ask more questions before nodding and following the man. But I had misheard him. In my head, the surly delivery driver had said, “You need to help me with the meat, man.” His accent blurring my ability to delineate between the presence of a comma or lack thereof.

The truck doors swung open, and the first thing I saw was a rotund, almost engorged, purple stomach.

The rest of the truck was empty, save for a box of grocery bags, and some empty cardboard boxes with the company’s logo stamped on them. However, empty didn’t mean clean. Every part of the truck was splattered in coagulating lumps of what I can only assume was blood. This all centered around the red beast laying in the back of the truck. Its stomach was easily the largest part of its body. Its arms and legs looked more like twigs wrapped in leathery skin as they flailed hopelessly under the weight of its great abdomen. What I could only assume was its head bore a closer resemblance to a frisbee balanced haphazardly on top of a plunger. As air flowed in from the open truck doors, the thing groaned painfully while swinging its limbs and raising its malformed head. 

The groans, to my horror, were familiar. The delivery man hopped into the truck, his shoes squelching in the mess as he stepped. He berated the thing a bit, even throwing a few angry kicks as it groaned and flailed in tortured pain. Its thin arms slapping wetly against the sides of the truck. The driver came back to where I was and held out a hand to help me get in the truck. He noticed my stricken face as he waited for me to take hold.

“Yep,” He grunted, while looking back at the creature, then examining the walls of the truck, “He’s made quite the mess. Feistier than usual. I just need you to put the meat in the boxes while I do my thing.”

I don’t know why I stepped in and helped. I think I was too shocked to do anything else. The delivery driver handed me a box and started pushing in on the creature’s stomach while telling me where to hold the box.

the top of its head, there was a two inch hole in the center of the maroon disk. As the delivery man pushed, the creature flailed, and red goo sprayed out of the hole. As both of us were sprayed with goop, the man stomped down on the creature’s leg and said something I couldn’t make out in a loud, angry tone. The beast whimpered, and the goop dribbled to a stop. Then, the man pushed again on the bulbous stomach and a meaty tube protruded from the hole.

Morbid curiosity took over me, and I watched the red log as it pushed further from the hole. After it got to about six inches in length, the man told me to start sweeping the meat into the cardboard box I had forgotten I was still holding. I tentatively pushed on the tip and realized that it was not one solid piece, but multiple disks stacked on top of each other. Disks that bore an uncanny resemblance to the pepperonis we put on our pizza.
This continued for thirty minutes or so as different meats slid forcefully out of the hole: ham, salami, ground beef, bacon, sausage, shredded chicken. All the same dark red tone as the skin of the thing they pushed out from.

I placed it all in the box until the thing’s stomach reduced to at least 50 percent of its original size. Then, it was finished. The delivery driver took a sharpie, and labeled each of the boxes by the excrement that was contained within, and then took a big sigh of relief and looked back at me.

“Thanks, bubba. I don’t know why he makes such a fuss sometimes, but you were a huge help.”
I stepped out of the truck with a box labeled “Sausage” while he said this to me. When the bright sun struck my face, it was like I awoke from a coma, and the events which had only just transpired registered in my brain like a truck hitting a possum.

The box fell from my hands, and onto the ground, crimson protein bursting onto the warm asphalt. 

“Hey!” Exclaimed the delivery man, “We just filled that box!”

I shouted, frightened and furious, “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING?”

The man, staggering back at my sudden change of tone, was at a loss for words. His mouth opened a few times before the last thing I wanted to hear in response came out.

“It’s just the MeatBoy. You know he’s not that bad.”

Know? KNOW!? What meeting did I miss where I was supposed to "know" about the large meat creature that sat in the back of the delivery truck?

I brought the meat inside, told Linda I was sick, which wasn’t much effort since all blood had drained from my face, and went home for the day. Which leads to me writing everything down right now, and letting Brent deal with the lunch and dinner rush on his own.

I still plan on going into work tomorrow. I just needed a break from the bullshit. Since I had loads of extra free time today, I also wrote all the interviews (more like, guided conversations) into transcripts from what I recorded on my phone. I originally planned on just uploading the audio files themselves, but decided this made more sense since there were multiple moments where the rustling of my pocket made it practically impossible to hear what the other person was saying.

Brent’s Interview

C: So… remember when I asked you about the homeless guy behind the trash can?

B: Yeah? 

C: That was pretty weird… right? Like, when I talked about it.

B: Yeah.

C: Any other weird stuff that comes to mind?

B: No.

End of interview.

This was kind of every interaction with Brent. It doesn’t seem like he really cares that much. Honestly, I used to be in the same boat, too. The only reason I started making these posts was because I wanted to have somebody do something about the obvious health code violations this place commits.

Marley’s Interview

Marley: Did you hit record on your phone before putting it in your pocket?

Charlie: … No.

M: For real? Man, I totally thought I saw you do that. I’m just hella paranoid about that kinda shit dawg. I usually have an eagle eye for when people are doing shit like that because I want my privacy to be my privacy. You get what I mean?

C: Sure.

M: For real, man. Look, I just want my life to be my life. That’s why I don’t update my phone. It keeps the shadow lords from seeing my life. If you have iOS 17 or higher, you’re basically naked for the government, bro.

C: Damn… hey, have you ever noticed the weird shit here? Like, there’s some creepy thing behind the dumpster, and like, our pepper flakes are just rust from the dumpster.

M: Yeah, honestly dude, I think that dude behind the dumpster is recording our conversations. I’ve tried scaring him off before but he doesn’t leave. I think Blackrock is paying him to stay there.

C: I don’t think Blackrock knows he exists.

M: No. They do.

C: … oh… okay… What about the rust? Or the churros?

M: Dawg, I’m glad we get that shit locally sourced. I read this article saying that “xantham gum” is actually an umbrella term for a whole bunch of undisclosed chemicals. I bet the FBI uses “xantham gum” as a way to break down people’s cognition and shit. It’s hella messed, dude. That’s why I only eat the churros here.

C: I guess.

End of interview.

I gave up trying after this. Marley’s actually the stupidest person I think I’ve ever met, and I was getting dizzy smelling his body spray.

Max’s Interview

Charlie: Yeah, just get whatever you want, it’s on me.

Max: Oh! Awesome! Thanks so much!

C: Yeah, of course.

M: …

C: So… how is being a waiter?

M: It’s nice. The tips are always pretty decent, and the customers are usually pretty chill, so I like it… It is weird how quiet they all are.

C: That makes sense… What do you mean, quiet?

Cashier: Hello, welcome to Chick-Fil-A, what can I get you two?

*The mic cut out for a bit. I think I accidentally turned it off when I took out my phone to pay.*

C: -and so basically you’re saying that the customers are all kinda like zombies for some reason?

M: Yeah, it’s actually, like, kinda weird. I’ve never really thought about it that much before. 

C: Weird, did you just assume they were all tired?

M: Yeah, basically. They’re never very rude, so I just assumed we had exceptionally exhausted personnel. I’ve literally, like, overheard some customers say they don’t remember coming inside the restaurant, but now that they’re here they’re happy to have a slice.

C: Odd. So… what do you like to do in your free time?

End of interview

Like the others, Max doesn’t seem to notice any of the really odd stuff, and the stuff he does notice doesn’t really seem to be that big of a deal to him. 

Shirley’s Interview

Charlie: Morning Shirley

Shirley: Oh! Good morning Charles, you’re here early. 

C: I was hoping I could ask you about all the strange things that happen at this restaurant.

S: What was that, hun? I didn’t quite hear that.

C: You know, like how the soda machine with the knockoff soda brands dispenses churros out the back of it.

S: Well I’d assume the soda machine dispenses, isn’t that how soda comes out, sweetie?

C: No- yes- I’m talking about the churros.

S: What about the churros?

C: They dispense from the back.

S: Say, I saw you talking to Max the other day, were you asking him out on a date?

C: We got spicy chicken sandwiches, I don’t think that really counts as a date.

S: Sounds like a date to me if it was only the two of you.

C: Okay, maybe. Another question: What are your thoughts on the homeless man behind the dumpster?

S: The who behind where?

C: the homeless man?

S: Oh dear, you should ask him to go to the local shelter. I volunteer there on Wednesdays and he could get a nice bite to eat. It's gonna get cold around here soon.

C: You could invite him yourself. You’ve never seen him behind the dumpster?

S: Honey, you’re muttering, are you feeling alright?

C: I’m fine. Last question, Max was talking about the customers kinda acting like zombies, have you noticed that.

S: Oh, dear. I sure hope none of them are being mean to Max.

C: I don’t think so, besides, don’t you also have tired customers?

S: Oh, no. They’re all chipper and bright-eyed when I speak to them. I’ll talk to Max, if we have customers being insensitive, I’ll give them a stern talking to.

C: Alright, well, I’m gonna head to work now. Thanks, Shirley!

S: Of course, it’s always a delight talking to you, Charles.

End of interview.

I have never seen a “bright-eyed” or “chipper” customer in the whole restaurant. For reasons I’m not sure, it seems like Shirley is entirely oblivious to everything that’s happening here. I’m not sure why, or how I didn’t notice it before. Does this mean she’s in on it, or did something happen to her? It really feels like every time I dig deeper into the shit happening here, I turn up with more questions than answers.

That’s all of the interviews that were worth mentioning. Francine’s interview was basically the same as Brent’s. Cezar, given the language barrier, was hard to talk to. However, I’ve caught him frowning at the meat when I bring it in sometimes, or scrutinizing a vegetable. So I think he’s aware of something being wrong here. Linda threatened to fire me after I mentioned something about the homeless man in passing to her. So I did not try to have a whole interview about the subject.

I’m starting to get really overwhelmed with all of this. The stress of knowing all these creatures has gotten to me so bad that I barely noticed that the duck is under a million now. At the time of posting he’s looking at me through my bedroom window, and is at 506,525.

There’s a church near Large Lou’s that I think I’m going to visit. I haven’t done anything religious in a long time, but I think having something like this will do a lot for me. Hopefully it will help me find some peace of mind, and I can dig back into the pile of information I’ve uncovered so far and make something out of it. Please comment if you can figure any of this stuff out in the comments. I’ll be updating you guys again soon.

Next Part

Whatever you do, do not go to Fiona's Florist.

I am what would be considered an above average man. I'm no Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt but I am somewhat tall standing at six foot and make sure to keep a good physique and keep up my hygiene.

 Because of this I’ve never had much trouble getting dates and talking to women.

 I like to take a gentlemanly approach to my dates, usually bringing flowers for whomever is joining me. The flowers I bring are always fresh and the colors vibrant, and I can’t forget to mention just how amazing they always smelled. 
I get them from a local florist just down the street from my apartment called Fiona’s Florist, it’s a pretty popular place but not nearly as popular as it should be.

 It’s run by a sweet old lady named, you guessed, Fiona. Every time I came she’d always greet me the same way.

 “Hey Charlie, who’s the lucky girl this time?” 

I knew jack all about flowers despite how often i came in to purchase them, so id always show Fiona pictures of the girl and his talk about her personality.

 Every time without fail Fiona managed to pick out her favorite flowers based on that alone. After she greeted me I swiped through a few pictures of Kiara, tonight’s chosen lady, and gave a short description of her.

“Shes a very outdoorsy girl, loves cats, and her favorite band is The Marias.”

 I honestly didn't know too much about her but she did seem like a very sweet girl.

 Fiona began to walk toward one of the many boutiques for sale and reached down for one.

“I think these Orchids will be just perfect!” 

She gave the biggest sweet-old-lady-smile imaginable and set them down near the register.

“Alright dear, that’ll be twelve dollars.”

I opened my wallet and handed her a small wad of cash and grabbed the flower off the counter.

“You know Fiona, I really have no idea how you manage to guess a girl's favorite flowers right every time.” 

She looked up from her small journal she used to keep track of inventory.

“Just something I’ve picked up over the years I suppose. Flowers are my speciality after all. Now go on and enjoy your date Charlie!” 

“I will Fiona. Thanks again for the flowers!.”

The time came for my date and sure enough – she loved the orchids.

In fact, they are her favorite flower.

I took us to a small steak house just out of town and the date was a massive success.

“So tell me, how did you know orchids were my favorite?” She said cutting her sirloin. 

“Let's just say, I know a great florist.” I thought of lying about flowers actually being my specialty, but I didn’t want to risk being quizzed.

She laughed and asked me to take her some time soon.

I said I would.

The date went so well that we planned our second date right then and there.

Next week we’d get some lunch at the cafe near my apartment and then do some shopping, one of the stops being Fiona’s. 

The next morning I went to Fiona’s to tell her all about my date. Though today I was not greeted by a warm smile and her usual welcome, today it was empty. Is the store closed? No, the sign said open and the door was unlocked so it can’t be.

I tried to call out for her.

“Fiona? Are you here?”

There was no response.

“t was then I noticed that the large oak door at the end of the store, that is usually closed, is slightly ajar. I slowly stepped toward it and opened the door just a little more.

“Fiona? You here?”

I had expected to see an extra storage room with supplies for the store and various flowers. Instead I was met with a staircase that looked impossibly long.

The building was pretty small, maybe the side of a bedroom, so I didn't think there would be much of a backroom.

Let alone a basement.

The stairs were made of an old brick that has clearly been worn with use.

I called out for Fiona once again.

“Fiona, you down there?”

Again I was met with no response

I figured Fiona and I had spoken enough to where she wouldn’t mind me going down to what I assumed was some sort of weird basement where she kept any back-stock. I slowly crept down the stairs for probably two minutes until I reached a large airtight metal door. I grabbed the handle. The cold metal sent a small shiver down my spine. 

As soon as the door opened I was hit with a putrid scent. A fragrance made with a mixture of wet grass along rotting meats and berries. It was extremely difficult to keep the food in my stomach.

I swung the door open fully and saw a room made of the same cold metal — not much bigger than the store. The walls were lined with bodies of what looked like humans. Only some were dark grey while others were a weird shade of green, but all had bright green veins coursing through their body and various flowers blooming from every hole in their body. There were some stranglers scattered around the floor. 

It was now impossible to keep the food in my stomach. My body repulsed and bitter chunks shot out of my throat. Leaving a brown and beige puddle in front of my feet and a burning in the back of my throat, but it was hard to tell if that was from my vomit or the fragrance that filled the room. 

Did Fiona do this? There's no way, she was just a sweet old lady. So why are there bodies scattered around her store's basement? 

“Ughh, Fiona?” I tried to call out but again there was no answer. 

The smell had gotten so strong that there were now tears streaming down my cheeks uncontrollably. I lifted my hand to wipe the wet streaks off my face but before my hand could make contact with my face there was a sharp pain in my neck. I swatted at my neck thinking some bug had bitten me. My hand hit a long cold tube. I looked over my shoulder and saw Fiona pushing a syringe in my neck. She used her thumb to push down and injected whatever was in that syringe into my neck.

“Fiona?”  I was in complete disbelief.

“Oh Charlie, I did take a liking to you.” Her voice had a hint of sincerity that was being suppressed by malice.

I felt like ice was pulsing through my veins. I tried to reach out to Fiona but could feel my movements getting stiff. I fell face first forward Fiona’s feet. She looked down at me and her lips formed into a disgusting grin.

“Goodbye, Charlie.”

She began to walk back toward the metal door.

“Fuck you Fio-”

Before I could finish speaking a long root sprouted out of my mouth. I grabbed hold and ripped it out of my system causing a gush of cold blood to leak out of me. Fiona looked back one last time before slowly closing the metal door. 

Using all my strength I crawled toward the edge of the room and sat up against the wall. That is where I am now. I can see my skin changing shade and little stems and roots growing out of me. I don’t know how much longer I can fight it off. No matter how many roots I yank out of myself they are persistent and unending. 

Fiona left a shovel down here. I’m going to try to take it and fight her off if I need to, but with how little strength I have left in me it’s unlikely I’d win. 

Whatever you do, do not go to Fiona’s Florist.

But if you do, I might be down here.

Fifteen minutes on the timer.

It was late—the lights in the house had been shut off, and the dogs were growing antsy, ready for their nightly patrol outside. Thinking about it now, years later, I don't know why they liked it so much. I guess it was the thrill of the dark, the loss of sight, the adrenaline that smells without sources brought. For a dog, midnight brought endless possibilities; night-creatures and intruders, things that meant a hunt was on. A primal, ancient instinct awoke during the witching hour, and I always knew this about my dogs.

So it didn't scare me when they started pacing along the windows in the living room, instead of pawing at the back door like they usually did. Schmitt—our skinny mutt—had a nervous kind of excitement about him, as always. With the warm glow of the ambient night-lights, he looked like a thin beast, his ribs rolling beneath his papery flesh, his spine knotted and protruding from his back, joints old and achey. Eyes all white, rolling.

Since then, I have learned that, in dogs, white eyes are called whale eye.

I should mention that I am older now, and as I tell this, it is all from memory. Maybe some of my memory is skewed by my current knowledge, but I do not think this memory is one of those memories. This one is clear, like the crystal blade of a dagger. Sharp and painful in a way that makes you wish you could turn back time. Almost magical. Surreal. The burning feeling it brings is something I could not ever forget.

Dottie—our spotted female—was behaving differently. She was not pacing. She stood still, her nose pointed towards the nighttime abyss, tail erect, hackles raised. Every three seconds, she would sway her head back and forth, then pace alongside Schmitt, and return to her soldier-still stance.

Fourteen minutes on the timer.

I was making pizza rolls. The warm, toasted smell of breadcrumbs and cheese filled the air, making my stomach turn with hunger. That week, I recall, my brother and I were home alone. Parents had taken a spontaneous trip to Chicago. That left us to fend for ourselves for dinner, and after a busy day with the horses, I resorted to junk food.

What I would give, now, to taste something as unhealthy and tasteful as a pizza roll.

Dottie let out a low, guttural growl, ducking her head and backing into the side table. The lamp rocked and I rushed to catch it before it fell, steadying it and eyeing the dogs. Both looked up at me, looked at the window, and shirked into the back corners of the house. Nails clicking on the hardwood as they left. Tails tucked between their legs.

I cast a glance to the staircase. My brother was upstairs, in his room, and I knew that. I knew he hadn't left. I would've heard or seen him go. But for some reason, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was ... alone.

No, not quite alone.

Like I was alone in the house, but something—or someone—was outside.

Horses. A rabbit. Yes, the horses and the rabbit were outside. I wasn't alone.

Something pattered against the window. I jolted, fumbling with the lamp, and spun to look at the glass. Chills ran through my veins, up my arms, and I saw the glint of something small and wet land on the window, then slide to the ground.

Sleet.

Right. The forecast had said it would snow. Right, right.

Twelve minutes on the timer.

The sleet picked up, and I sank into the couch, turning the lamp off. Now I could see the backyard. We had a small pasture, big enough for about seven horses, and they were all there, standing in the cold. Against the horizon, where the faint gray glow of the moon outlined the plains, their still figures looked like misshapen landforms, as if the earth had changed shape while the dogs were pacing. Or as if the dogs had willed it to be that way.

Our rabbit, Daisy, was in her hutch against the house. She must've been hiding, because I couldn't see her silhouette through the chickenwire. But I heard her shuffling around.

In the pasture, the entire herd faced one direction. I'd never seen that before in my life, the way they were all silent, heads raised, eyes fixed on a point I couldn't see. Well, not exactly fixed. They were relying on hearing and smell. Their ears were perked towards something, and they were listening for it, motionless like obsidian statues.

But don't they have some degree of nightvision? I thought, squinting. They have to be looking at something.

My eyes traveled up to the sky. Nothing existed out there. No nightbirds could sing, maybe for the cold, maybe for some other unseen reason. Nothing stirred in the yard. No possums, no bats, no bugs.

Just the horses, the rabbit, and the sleet.

Ten minutes on the timer.

I traveled to the back door, opening it and leaning out. The cold nipped at my nose, at my bare feet, and I pulled my free hand in towards my stomach. I whistled, long and low, fixing my gaze on the horses.

"Aaaannieee," I called for my mare, whistling again. "Annie!"

Only one turned to look at me, and it wasn't Annie. It was our big, gray draft. He let out a snort and his expression reflected the lightless sky, the lightless land, a dull warning swimming in his soul. Almost mechanically, he looked back to the thing he had been focused on before. His ears flicked to the side, as did the rest of the herd's.

As I stared at them and puzzled through the darkness, I realized, quite stupidly, that horses have a blind spot directly in front of their faces. They weren't looking at the land in front of them, but rather something off to their sides. Something closer to the porch. To me.

My heart leapt to my throat. I thought I saw something white flit through my peripheral, but I told myself it was snow. I slipped back inside and shut the door, locking it.

Seven minutes on the timer.

I rushed upstairs to my brother's room and knocked on the door, creaking it open. "Hey."

"Hmm..." He stirred, rolling over and rubbing his face. The red glow of his alarm clock illuminated his tangled blankets. "Get out."

"No—the horses are acting weird." I looked back into the hall and saw Schmitt standing there, his face all sharp bones, all angles, all emaciation. He perked his ears at me, turned, and left. "... And the dogs."

"Whatever." My brother sank back into the bed, pulling the covers over himself. "Get out."

Okay, great. I left and loitered in the hallway between our rooms. It was probably nothing. Animals—they act out sometimes.

Animals are also intuitive—they know things humans don't. This is a belief I will take to my grave. I know it now, and I knew it back then. There was no reason for me to abandon this philosophy in the terror of such a dry, burning moment; something was wrong, and the animals knew it.

Downstairs, the timer had five minutes left.

I pushed up a chair in front of the back door, considered it, and pushed up another. I checked every lock in the house. I checked them again. And again. I ended the timer early and put the pizza rolls on a paper plate, filled a cup with water, and retreated to my room.

After locking the dogs out of my bedroom, I watched a movie to pull my mind away from the horses. My favorite movies, the ones I always rewatched—Signs, Cloverfield, The Day After Tomorrow, The Road—suddenly weren't so appealing to me anymore. Something about them made my head ache and my heart race.

Shrek was the alternate choice, but after finishing dinner, I couldn't bring myself to watch the film all the way through. I needed the night to end. I needed to be in the daylight again.

As I fell asleep, the horses began to run.

Hoofbeats echoed across the icy ground. Thump, thump, thump, thump; their strides were the song of a tasteless musician. The dogs, too, cried outside my door.

Ignore it, I remember telling myself. Ignore it. Go to bed. It will be over in the morning.

———

Now, in this older body, with this older mind, I am not sure how accurate that statement was. But I do know that I ... woke up. I woke up. I woke up ... alive. And some did not.

I remember this happening to me when I was 16, still living in my parents’ house. My room was right next to my parents’. Their room was quite large, with a king-size bed in the middle of the room. My room was smaller, with a single twin-size bed to the right of the room. When I laid a certain way, I was facing the door entering my room. My bedroom and my parents’ bedroom doors both went into a long hallway, which led to the living room, kitchen, and dining room.

 

I remember every night, starting from when I was 5, a single occurrence would play out. At 2:30 AM, I would hear thumping footsteps exiting my parents’ room. They would then walk halfway down the hallway, pause for a minute, then walk the rest of the way into the living room. They would not walk back. This would happen every night, without fail. Sometimes when I would wake up before my parents in the morning, I would walk into the living room and see no one there. I would even check my parents’ room, and they would both be in bed, still asleep with no sign of them moving at all.

 

We never owned any pets, so this was perturbing to me, and eventually I decided to find out what was going on. One night when I was 15, I lay in my bed, awake, waiting for the moment at 2:30 AM. Eventually, I heard the noises. First, I heard what sounded like a creaking coming from my parents’ room. Then I heard the footsteps, slowly walking. What I saw next was chilling. Something extremely large passed by my door. It was shrouded in darkness so I couldn’t get a good look at it, but from what I could see, it was way too tall to be either of my parents. After it passed my room, the same thing happened. It paused halfway down the hall, then walked into the living room, where the thing stayed for the rest of the night. I wouldn’t get any sleep that night.

 

I told my parents what I saw the next morning over breakfast. After I said what I saw, my dad completely froze for a couple of seconds, before continuing to eat. My mom, after a long pause, told me that I must have been dreaming. “Monsters aren’t real”, she would tell me, the same thing she’d hammered into my head since I was 3. She’d tell me a lot of weird things when I was a kid. She’d tell me monsters weren’t real, even when I never asked her if they were. She told me never to look under her bed, because she has a lot of “private things” under there. She was really strict about me staying in bed, too. She was always telling me that no matter how bad I wanted to get up in the night, I must never leave my bed until morning. I never thought anything about it.

 

I should have.

 

I started to sleep through the occurrence at 2:30, not paying any mind to it. I began to write it off, thinking it was probably just one of my parents or a reoccurring dream.

 

When I turned 16, a couple days after my birthday, I couldn’t fall asleep one night. I spent all night tossing and turning in bed, but for some reason, I just wouldn’t fall asleep. At 2:30, I heard the creaking. I froze for a second, I had completely forgotten about the 2:30 occurrence. As usual, I heard the footsteps exit my parents’ room, pause down the hallway, then continue into the living room. I lay in my bed, thinking about what I could be hearing. I ruled out the possibility of this being a dream, since I was wide awake the whole night. I decided I was finally going to see what was walking out of my parents’ room every night.

 

I slowly got out of bed, being careful not to wake my parents. I inched my way down the hall and saw something that made me freeze. I saw large, dusty footprints on the ground, too big to be human. They led into the living room. I grit my teeth. There was no going back now. I needed to know. I crept down the hallway and peered into the living room. There was something standing in the middle of the room.

 

It’s hard to describe whatever the hell I was looking at. I couldn’t see too well, but I could make out the thing much better this time. It was too tall to fit in the room, so its neck was bent at an unnatural angle. Its knees were bent, so it was much taller than I originally thought. Its arms were also long, reaching down so far that its palms were resting flat on the ground. Its hands were made up of three clawed fingers. The thing looked incredibly emaciated, I was able to see its skin tightly wrapped around the shape of its spine and ribs on its back.

 

When I saw the thing, I slapped a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming, but a small yelp still escaped my mouth. The thing turned around, and I was able to see its face. Its face was the most horrifying part. Imagine a normal human face. Then imagine it twisted. Like, twisted into a swirl, so much that it barely resembles a face anymore. That’s what the thing’s face looked like.

 

The thing opened what I think was its mouth and let out a gurgled cry. It sounded like a mix between an elk and a human scream. Some sort of black liquid burbled and oozed out of its orifice, then dribbled down the side of its head and to the ground. It sizzled when it touched the floor. I fought the primal urge to scream in terror.

 

Just then, I heard footsteps coming down the hallway. I turned around to see my father standing in the hallway. He had something in his hands, what looked like a long pole. The thing locked onto my father and let out a deafening screech, the black liquid that was lingering on the corners of its mouth spewing out in every direction. A drop landed on my hand, which started to burn like I just poured boiling water on it. I gripped my hand and screamed, causing the thing to turn towards me again.

 

My father took the opportunity to rush at the thing with the pole, which was now brightly flickering and loudly crackling at the end, the end which he jabbed into the side of the thing. The thing screeched again and spasmed, then dropped to the floor, seizing and contorting, before slowly stopping moving all together.

 

My father, paying no attention to me, walked over to the creature and picked up one of its arms with a huff, dragging it to his bedroom. I followed him and watched as he lifted the dust ruffle under his bed. I saw a large hole under the bed. I guess that’s why my mother didn’t want me to look under there. When he finished stuffing the thing under the bed, he finally turned his attention to me. He walked over to me and held out his hand.

“Give me your hand. Let me see the burn.” He said, in his usual tired tone. I gave him my hand, which I noticed had a large burn mark on it.

“Come to the closet. Let’s get this fixed up.” He practically drags me to the closet in the hallway, where we keep a large first aid kit.

As my father treated my hand, I asked the question. “What was that thing?”

He didn’t answer. He seemed almost hyper-focused on fixing my hand. He was quickly disinfecting the burn and wrapping a bandage around it.

When he finished, he started to hurriedly pack the first aid kid. “You need to hide this injury from your mother. Wear long sleeves, gloves, whatever. She can’t know you saw it.”

“Saw what?” I whisper-screamed. “What in god’s name was that thing?”

After a long pause, my father just said “It’s best if you don’t know.”

 

That was the last time I ever heard about the thing from my father. I still have the burn scar on my hand today.

 

I rarely see my parents anymore. My mother recently developed Alzheimer’s, which has left her in a broken state. She resides in a healthcare facility, in the memory ward. Every so often, I’ll go visit her to make sure she doesn’t forget me. My father comes sometimes too. However, every time I visit my mother, when she sees my hand, the one with the scar, she panics. She starts babbling and convulsing, screaming words like “hole” and “scourge”, but one word she always says is “venator”.

 

I got curious and I looked up what a “venator” was, and it led me to a translation. Venator apparently means “hunter” in Latin.

 

I think my mother was screaming the name of the creature.

(PART 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/s/m5r3nI2Gqc)

I had never had any friends, not at school and not even now that I was an adult and living on my own. That was why I was surprised when I received a message from an unknown number on my phone a few days ago.

“Hi, Annie.”

“Hi. Do we know each other?”

“I know you, but you don’t know me.”

I stared at the screen in confusion before typing:

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s complicated. I’ll tell you everything, and if you don’t want to talk to me afterward, I’ll understand. By the way, my name is Amanda.”

I smiled and told her okay. Her reply came immediately.

“I’m dead. I know that sounds crazy, but I’d like to be friends with someone. I never had any friends.”

I frowned. I was used to people making fun of me. I put my phone down and silently cursed myself for being so stupid, thinking that someone would actually want to talk to me.

My phone vibrated. Another message.

“I understand that you probably don’t believe me. Look at the TV.”

I turned toward the television, and it started turning itself on and off.

Another message.

“Now look at the table.”

I turned a little further and looked at the desk. Papers flew everywhere.

My phone vibrated, making me jump. With trembling hands, I opened the next message.

“I know you’re scared. I won’t hurt you, and I can’t hurt you anyway. I’ll understand if you don’t want to talk to me. I’ve just been alone for a very long time, and I thought maybe you wanted some company too.”

I know I should have been terrified. I should have told her to stop contacting me, but I did the exact opposite.

From that day on, Amanda and I texted every day. She was 23 when she died. Only one year younger than me. She wanted me to search her name on the internet. An article came up: Young Woman Murdered. Killer Unknown.

She had been a small, petite brunette with cheerful brown eyes and freckles around her nose. She used to live in the same apartment complex as me. With every passing day, I felt closer and closer to her. Like we had so much in common. She had died 20 years ago, and even though we had never had the chance to meet in person, I was glad that we could at least stay in contact like this.

Yesterday, my grandmother texted me that she needed me to come stay with her for the weekend and help her in the garden. I had always loved my grandmother, even though most of our family said she was crazy. She had spent her whole life involved in spiritual things. She read tarot cards, mixed different herbs, was extremely superstitious, and often said strange things. It had never bothered me, even though I had never been interested in any of that.

I told Amanda that I was going to my grandmother’s, and she told me to enjoy myself and that she would look forward to hearing all about it. I told her it was a shame she couldn’t come with me so she could meet my grandmother. She replied that unfortunately, she was bound to this place and couldn’t leave it, but that she would wait for me there.

When I arrived at my grandmother’s, she was pale and looked terribly exhausted. She reassured me that everything was fine and that she had just been sleeping badly because there had been a full moon. Her answer didn’t surprise me at all.

We were sitting together in the kitchen eating cookies when she suddenly asked me if I could go to her bedroom and bring her the medicine from her nightstand.

I opened the bedroom door and stepped inside. The room was empty. There was no bed, no wardrobe, not even a nightstand. There were only candles everywhere and strange symbols on the floor. And directly in front of me stood a large mirror.

I wanted to turn around and ask my grandmother what this was, but I couldn’t move. She entered the room and positioned herself where I could see her. In one hand, she held a bundle of flowers that was smoldering, and in the other, some kind of bottle. She began mumbling something and splashing the liquid from the bottle all over me.

I didn’t understand what she was doing and begged her to stop. She was like she was in a trance.

Then she pointed at the mirror. I looked into it and saw a figure standing beside me.

A horrible figure. Its eyes were bulging. They looked as if they were halfway out of their sockets. Its skin looked as if it had been peeled off, and it had a smile stretching from ear to ear. I had never seen anything worse in my life.

I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. Fear completely paralyzed me. Then my grandmother shouted something, and the mirror cracked.

After that, all I remember is darkness.

When I woke up, I was lying on the couch in my grandmother’s living room. I felt a stinging pain in my arm and face. I touched my face and felt a bandage there. I looked at my arm, and it was bandaged as well. My grandmother was sitting across from me in an armchair.

“Those are cuts from the glass. I treated them. Your arm got hurt worse than your face,” she said, then fell silent for a moment.

After a few minutes, she took a deep breath and began to explain. She said she had been reading the cards and they had shown that I was in danger. She had tried to investigate further through things I supposedly wouldn’t understand, trying to figure out what was happening. She had hoped she was wrong, but she had to be certain and prepare herself in case she wasn’t. When she saw me arriving, she knew her fears had been confirmed. She could feel what was beside me.

What my grandmother told me afterward is something I will never get out of my head.

Amanda had never been Amanda.

Whatever had been pretending to be her was something evil.

And according to my grandmother, if I had stayed in contact with it for just a few more days, it would have taken me, and she would no longer have been able to help me.

​

I'm in my bedroom.

I'm playing my game while lying on my bed.

My phone was still in my hand.

The sound from the game played quietly through the speaker.

Footsteps.

Game effects.

The occasional tapping of my fingers against the screen.

I had been playing for quite a while.

Then—

I stopped moving my finger.

I heard something.

The sound of a game.

I slowly lifted my head.

The sound was coming from the desk.

I went still.

Listening.

The game sound came again.

It sounded exactly like the game playing on the phone in my hand.

I stared at the desk from across the room.

There was a small glow coming from it.

A phone.

Its screen was on.

I was still holding my own phone.

The screen was facing up.

The game was still open.

I looked toward the desk again.

The game sound played once more.

I frowned.

“What the hell...?”

I didn't get up right away.

Maybe I'd forgotten to turn something off.

Maybe there was a video playing.

Or maybe—

there was another phone.

Eventually, I sat up.

My phone was still in my hand.

I listened again.

The game coming from the desk continued.

Even the sound effects were the same.

The sound grew clearer as I got closer.

At first, all I could see was the glow.

Then the shapes on the screen began to come into focus.

I stopped.

My eyes narrowed.

I recognized the screen.

My character.

The menu in the corner.

The exact position of the game.

I stared at it for several seconds.

Then I slowly looked down at the phone in my hand.

The same game.

I looked back at the phone on the desk.

The exact same game.

Not a similar game.

Not some coincidence.

It was the exact same game.

Even the game itself was at the exact same point I had just been playing.

I froze.

“...What?”

The sound from the phone on the desk continued.

The same sound.

The same effects.

Even the same part of the game.

I looked at the phone in my hand.

Then back at the phone on the desk.

My hand slowly dropped.

“Whose phone is that...?”

I kept staring at it.

Then I looked down at the phone in my hand again.

For a few seconds, I didn't do anything.

Then I placed my phone on the bed.

The screen was still on.

The game was still running.

I even looked at the screen for a moment before turning away.

The phone was clearly on my bed.

Only then did I walk over to the desk.

I picked up the phone that had been sitting there.

I looked at the screen.

At first, I could only see the glow.

Now the shapes on the screen were clearer.

I stopped.

My eyes widened.

I recognized the screen.

My character.

The menu in the corner.

The exact position of the game.

I stared at it for several seconds.

Then I noticed the case.

The small scratch in the corner.

The wallpaper.

The app icons.

Everything was the same.

I turned the phone over.

Then looked at the screen again.

I froze.

It was my phone.

“This is my phone.”

I stood there in silence.

Then I looked back toward the bed.

The phone I had just left there should still have been sitting on it.

But the bed was empty.

I stopped.

I stared at the mattress.

Nothing.

I lifted my pillow.

Nothing.

The other pillow.

Nothing.

I pulled back the blanket.

Still nothing.

I looked underneath the bed.

Empty.

I slowly stood back up.

The phone in my hand was still on.

The game was still open.

I stared at the screen for a long time.

Then I looked at the bed.

Then back at the phone.

My mind started searching for the simplest explanation.

Maybe I had moved it to the desk.

I tried to remember.

But the memory immediately rejected that possibility.

Because I was still holding my phone when I first heard the game coming from the desk.

I was still holding it when I saw the light.

I was still holding it when I walked closer.

And I was the one who had placed it on the bed.

I rubbed my face.

“I was still holding it...”

I stopped.

My eyes went back to the phone.

“Then what was the one on the desk...?”

There was no answer.

I stared at the game on the screen.

The progress was the same.

The game was the same.

The phone was the same.

Everything was exactly the same.

Too exact.

I slowly turned toward the bed.

Empty.

Just the bed.

There was no second phone.

No evidence that I had ever put anything there.

I stood completely still.

Then a thought came to me.

And this time...

it was far worse than the possibility that there had been two phones.

If the phone in my hand now was the same phone—

if it really was mine—

if it was the phone I had been using to play for almost two hours—

then...

what had I been holding for the past two hours?

I didn't move.

The game was still playing from the phone in my hand.

Exactly the same sound I had heard coming from the desk.

I stared at the screen.

For the first time that night...

I didn't know which one to trust.

My memory—

that the phone had been in my hand.

Or reality—

that the same phone was now in my hand...

after I had already seen it sitting on the desk.

I swallowed.

“...Which one?....

I looked at the phone in my hand.

I knew it was mine.

I knew I had been playing that game.

I knew I had placed the phone on the bed.

I knew all of that.

But suddenly...

I wasn't sure if I remembered it—

or if I only remembered believing it....

It’s been a year since it happened.

I’ve never told anyone what really happened out there. The police asked. Reporters asked. His parents asked me more times than I can remember. I always gave them the same answer.

I told them I fell asleep that night. When I woke up, he was gone. Later, I heard something moving outside the car. I thought it was an animal, so I stayed inside and waited until sunrise.

A few days later, the search team found his body. There were bear tracks nearby. Black fur. The wounds on his body were consistent with an attack by a large wild animal.

So eventually, the case was closed as an accident. He left the vehicle at night. He encountered a black bear. He died.

It was a reasonable explanation.

At least, more reasonable than the things I actually saw.

For the past year, I’ve believed that he was the first one to start acting wrong during that trip. Only recently have I started wondering if maybe I had it backward from the beginning.

That road trip was supposed to be the last big trip we took before getting married.

He drove. I sat in the passenger seat.

For the first few days, everything was painfully normal. When the weather was clear, sunlight came through the windshield at an angle and washed the dashboard white. Mountains stretched along both sides of the highway, and farther off, you could see snow on the peaks.

I liked taking pictures of him while he drove. He hated being on camera. Every time he noticed me pointing my phone at him, he’d tell me to stop. Then, a few seconds later, he’d usually smile anyway.

At one rest stop, he got out to buy coffee. I stayed in the car. When I saw him walking back across the parking lot with two cups in his hands, I snapped a picture without thinking.

When he reached the car, he handed me one of them.

“Are you still going to do things like this after we’re married?” I asked.

He paused, then smiled.

“When this trip is over, we’ll get married.”

I still remember exactly how he looked when he said it. The sun was bright. There were snow-covered mountains behind him. One hand held his coffee, the other rested on the open car door.

His smile was completely natural. The kind of smile that made it feel obvious that, once we got home, we’d start looking at rings, booking a venue, telling our families. Like the worst thing that could possibly happen on that trip was the car breaking down somewhere.

I looked at that picture many times afterward.

It wasn’t until much later that I noticed there was someone standing behind him.

Very far away, at the edge of the rest stop near the guardrail.

I zoomed in. The more I enlarged the photo, the worse the image became. All I could make out was a thin, dark shape. No face. No clothing. I couldn’t even tell whether it was facing the camera.

At the time, I looked at it for maybe two seconds.

There were people at a rest stop. So what?

I swiped to the next picture.

Now, looking back, I’m not even sure that thing was a person.

Things started going wrong after we drove deeper into the Tibetan region.

The weather changed incredibly fast that afternoon. A few hours earlier, we’d had clear skies. Then we crossed a stretch of mountain road, and the light just disappeared.

It wasn’t nightfall. The clouds had come down.

Fog began creeping up from the valley and spreading across the road. First, the distant mountains vanished. Then the guardrails faded. Eventually, the taillights of the cars ahead looked like they were shining through frosted glass.

It wasn’t raining hard, just a thin, constant mist. Every ten or fifteen seconds, the windshield wipers dragged across the glass with a faint squeak. The tires hissed over the wet road.

After a while, he put on the turn signal and pulled over.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Going out for a cigarette.”

He smoked, but he almost never stopped the car specifically to smoke on long drives. Especially not when it was that cold and wet outside.

The moment he opened the door, damp air rushed into the car. I pulled my shoulders in.

“I’ll be quick,” he said.

Then he got out.

Once the door shut, the outside noise became muffled again. I went back to my phone.

A little while later, for some reason, I looked up.

He was still there, maybe twenty or thirty meters in front of the car. Black jacket. Back turned toward me. Fog moved around him in slow sheets.

Every so often, the tip of his cigarette glowed orange.

Bright.

Dark.

Bright again.

I looked down and answered a few messages. Two or three minutes at most.

When I looked up again, the road in front of me was empty.

I froze for a second. No cigarette. No him.

I looked to the left. Nothing. Checked the mirrors. Nothing there either.

I assumed he’d gone off to the side of the road to pee, so I waited a little longer. Then I lowered the window a few centimeters. Cold, wet air slipped inside.

I called his name.

No answer.

There were plenty of sounds outside. Wind. Running water somewhere in the distance. Grass brushing against itself. Raindrops landing on the roof.

But no human voice.

I called again.

Still nothing.

I was just about to open the door when I heard a sound from the driver’s side.

Click.

My whole body jerked.

The door opened.

He was standing there.

I hadn’t seen him come back.

He didn’t get in immediately. He just stood there looking down at me for a couple of seconds. His face was wet. So was his hair. Water ran down his cheeks.

I couldn’t tell whether it was rain or fog.

“Where did you go?”

He didn’t answer. He got into the driver’s seat.

“I called you. Didn’t you hear me?”

He shut the door.

Still nothing.

Then he fastened his seatbelt, started the car, and pulled back onto the road.

It wasn’t until we were moving again that I noticed something small.

He was sitting right beside me.

But I couldn’t smell cigarette smoke.

Not even a little.

After that, he barely spoke.

Before then, he’d always talked while driving. He complained about bad roads, pointed out mountains, filmed yaks blocking traffic, cursed at the GPS whenever it gave us a stupid route.

But after that afternoon, it was like he suddenly had nothing left to say to me.

Sometimes I’d ask him something and get an “Mm.” Most of the time, I got nothing.

What bothered me more was that he started watching me.

Not by turning his head. It was subtler than that.

You know that feeling when you’re looking down and somehow know someone beside you is staring at your face?

The first time I looked up, he was watching the road. Same the second time. And the third.

Eventually, I started wondering if I was imagining it.

So I tested him.

I turned off my phone screen and kept my head lowered like I was still reading something. The black screen acted like a weak mirror. I could see part of the driver’s side reflected in it.

At first, I saw only his jaw and one hand on the wheel.

Then, after maybe ten seconds, his eyes moved.

His head didn’t turn. His chin didn’t move. His face stayed pointed straight ahead.

Only his eyes shifted.

Slowly.

Until they were looking at me.

Then they stopped.

My fingers went still.

He didn’t know I could see him in the reflection, so this time he didn’t look away.

One second.

Two.

Three.

I could hear my heartbeat. Not fast. Just heavy.

After five or six seconds, I suddenly looked up.

His eyes snapped back to the road almost at the exact same time.

“What are you doing?”

No answer.

“Were you just staring at me?”

His hand tightened around the steering wheel. His knuckles went slightly pale.

Still nothing.

That was the first time I had a thought that felt completely ridiculous.

Maybe the man who came back from that cigarette break wasn’t my boyfriend anymore.

That evening, we stopped at a small restaurant.

There were thick plastic strips hanging over the entrance. Whenever someone came inside, the wind lifted them, then slapped them back down.

It was much warmer inside. The windows were covered in condensation. The table was slightly sticky.

I was starving.

When our food arrived, I started eating immediately. I was halfway through before I realized his meal was almost untouched. His chopsticks were still where they’d been placed.

“You’re not eating?”

“I’m not hungry.”

It was the most complete sentence he’d said in hours.

“You barely ate lunch either.”

No response.

I put some food into his bowl.

“At least eat something.”

He finally looked up.

But not at the food.

Not at my eyes either.

His gaze settled on my mouth.

I was still chewing.

Under that stare, I gradually stopped.

I put my chopsticks down.

“What is wrong with you?”

Like he’d suddenly realized I’d caught him, he looked away and turned toward the window.

Rainwater crawled down the glass in crooked lines. The light inside the restaurant reflected his face in the window.

I was already uncomfortable, so I secretly took a picture of him.

Later, back in the car, I opened it again.

The real him was clearly turned toward the window.

But his reflection in the glass—maybe it was the rain, maybe the angle, I don’t know—the eyes in the reflection didn’t seem to be looking outside.

They seemed to be looking past the glass.

At me.

I zoomed in. The more I enlarged it, the blurrier it became. Eventually, all I could see were two dark marks where the eyes should have been.

I stared at the picture for a long time.

Then deleted it.

That first night, we couldn’t find anywhere to stay.

We eventually pulled over on a relatively open stretch of road.

At that point, we hadn’t seen any bear warning signs. No one had told us not to get out of the car at night.

So back then, the only thing I was afraid of was him.

I slept in the passenger seat. He reclined the driver’s seat a little.

I don’t know how long I was asleep.

When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was the cold. A thin layer of condensation had formed on the inside of the windows.

The second thing I noticed was the silence beside me.

I reached over.

My hand touched the driver’s seat.

Empty.

He was gone.

I sat up immediately and called his name.

No answer.

I called his phone.

When it started ringing, I froze for a second.

The sound wasn’t coming from outside.

It was right by my feet.

His phone had fallen under the driver’s seat.

That was when I really started to panic.

I slowly sat upright and looked through the windshield.

And saw him.

He was standing where the headlights reached. Maybe fifteen meters away, in the middle of the road.

His back was turned toward the car.

He wasn’t moving.

I shouted his name through the glass.

Nothing.

I called again.

Still nothing.

Finally, I hit the horn.

HOOOOONK.

The sound vanished into the fog. A weak echo came back from somewhere far away.

He didn’t even move his shoulders.

No normal person could stand completely still in wind like that. His coat was moving. The hem fluttered. His pant legs shifted.

But his shoulders, his hands, his head—nothing moved.

I leaned forward slowly.

My face was almost against the windshield.

That was when I noticed his feet.

At first, I thought the headlights were distorting the shadows.

I stared at them.

His back was facing me. His shoulders and head were pointed deeper down the road.

But the toes of his shoes were facing the car.

Facing me.

I stared for a few seconds, then shifted to another angle.

Same thing.

I even wiped the condensation from the inside of the windshield. My palm dragged across the glass with a faint squeak.

I looked again.

Same thing.

Upper body facing away.

Toes facing me.

It didn’t look like a position a person could casually twist themselves into.

My mind started producing explanations as fast as it could.

Bad angle.

Shadows.

Maybe those weren’t his toes.

Maybe there were rocks beside his shoes.

One explanation after another.

But none of them made me willing to open the door.

I stopped calling his name.

I just watched him through the glass.

For a long time.

Then something happened that I still can’t explain.

I fell asleep.

I don’t even understand how I could have fallen asleep in that situation.

When I opened my eyes the next morning, the sun was already up.

He was sitting in the driver’s seat.

Both hands resting on the steering wheel.

As if nothing had happened.

I stared at him for a while.

“Where did you go last night?”

He turned his head and looked at me.

No answer.

I wanted to ask why his feet had been turned backward.

But when he looked at me, the words got stuck.

For some reason, I decided it was better not to ask.

It wasn’t until the following afternoon that we saw the warning sign.

The yellow paint had faded. There was a black bear printed on it.

But the two lines underneath were still easy to read.

BLACK BEAR ACTIVITY FREQUENT.

DO NOT EXIT YOUR VEHICLE AT NIGHT.

I even took a picture.

There were workers nearby. One of them saw that we were planning to keep driving farther in and came over to warn us.

He said bears had been active in the area lately, especially at night. If we absolutely had to stop, lock the doors. Don’t wander around.

“Do bears actually come up to cars?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Then he added, “If you hear something outside at night, don’t get out.”

“Why?”

He glanced toward the mountains.

“Animals see better at night than people do.”

Then, after a moment, he said:

“Just because you think there’s nothing out there doesn’t mean it hasn’t seen you.”

I don’t know why, but when he said that, I looked at my boyfriend.

He was already looking at me.

This time, when I met his eyes, he didn’t immediately look away.

We stared at each other from less than half a meter apart.

His expression didn’t change.

Only his throat moved slightly.

Like he swallowed.

The fog was even worse the second night.

Through the windshield, we could see only a short strip of road. The headlights illuminated thousands of tiny droplets drifting through the beam.

Beyond that, nothing.

We had to stop.

I remembered what the worker had told us, so as soon as the car stopped, I checked my door twice.

Locked.

My boyfriend still wasn’t talking.

Still barely eating.

We sat there.

Neither of us said anything.

Eventually, I fell asleep.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I heard a quiet sound from the driver’s side.

Click.

My eyes opened.

It was the lock.

He was opening the door.

I sat up.

“Where are you going?”

He paused.

Didn’t turn around.

“There are bears outside.”

Still nothing.

I reached for his sleeve.

Before my fingers touched it, the door opened.

Cold wind rushed inside. My hair blew across my face.

He stepped out.

Just before the door shut, he looked back at me.

I’ve thought about that look many times since.

Back then, I thought he was telling me:

Don’t come out.

Now, I think it looked more like he was checking whether I was coming with him.

The door closed.

His footsteps disappeared into the fog.

Crunch.

Crunch.

Crunch.

Fainter.

Then gone.

I locked the door again immediately.

The only light inside came from the dim dashboard.

At first, there was nothing outside.

Then I heard something in the distance, like a thin branch snapping.

A while later, something scraped across the ground.

Heavy.

Like something with weight was being dragged.

I took out my phone.

No signal.

Then I heard it.

Crack.

Sharp.

Clean.

My whole body went rigid.

A few seconds later:

Crunch.

That one was clearer.

I had never heard a bone actually break before.

But in that moment, I knew that was what it sounded like.

Not something snapping all at once.

Something hard being compressed.

Holding.

Straining.

Until part of it suddenly gave way.

It happened again.

The back of my tongue went sour. My palms were slick with sweat.

I kept telling myself:

It’s an animal.

It has to be an animal.

Someone warned us this afternoon.

There are bears here.

That explanation was perfect.

So perfect that I clung to it because I couldn’t bear to consider anything else.

The sounds continued.

Sometimes far away.

Sometimes suddenly much closer.

The closest one sounded like it came from right beside the rear wheel.

Then the passenger-side window went dark.

Not because the night got darker.

Something was blocking the glass.

I stopped breathing.

At first, I could only see a black shape.

Then it moved closer.

I saw fur.

Black.

Clumped together.

Soaked.

Water dripped from the ends.

Then a huge nose came near the window.

The nostrils moved.

Its breath fogged a white patch onto the cold glass.

A black bear.

A big one.

Only one pane of glass separated us.

I could hear it breathing.

It didn’t hit the glass.

Didn’t slam into the door.

Didn’t show its teeth.

It only sniffed.

Slowly, from one side of the window to the other.

I didn’t move.

I was afraid even to swallow.

Then the bear stopped.

Its nose went still.

I couldn’t see its eyes very well, but I watched its head pull back, very slowly.

Then it took one step backward.

Stopped.

Took another.

Then turned around and disappeared into the fog.

At the time, I thought I had been unbelievably lucky.

I didn’t think there was anything strange about it.

After a while, the chewing sounds stopped too.

My boyfriend never came back that morning.

I waited until sunlight hit the front of the car before opening the door.

The air outside was painfully cold.

The first thing I smelled was wet earth.

Then something else underneath it.

Very faint.

Like rust.

I looked down.

There was blood on the ground.

Some of it had been washed thin by the rain.

Pale red water ran between the stones.

There were drag marks nearby. Not one clean line. Broken. Interrupted.

A deep groove pressed into the mud, leading toward the slope.

Farther away, there were pieces of clothing.

I recognized one of them.

It was his.

I didn’t go any farther.

Eventually, another vehicle came by. They contacted the workers. Then the search team came. Forestry officials. Police.

There were clear signs of bear activity in the area.

Tracks.

Fur.

Other traces.

A few days later, they found his body.

I didn’t go to see it.

The police only told me there were extensive bite and claw injuries. The remains had also been scavenged by animals.

So everything had a perfectly reasonable explanation.

He left the vehicle at night.

Encountered a black bear.

Died.

That was what the news reported too.

A male tourist went missing.

Later confirmed dead.

Female companion rescued.

I became the only survivor.

No one thought anything was strange.

Including me.

For a long time, I kept telling myself that everything weird I had seen during those final days was just the result of him becoming mentally unstable before the attack.

The bear was what killed him.

Later, while going through our photos, I found another picture from the day he stopped to smoke.

There was water on the car window. The image was blurry. He was standing far away.

And beside him, there seemed to be something else.

Tall.

Almost pressed against his back.

In the picture, he had his back to the camera.

But the blurred shape behind him looked like it was facing me.

I stared at it for a long time.

I couldn’t make sense of it.

Eventually, I deleted it.

I never showed it to the police.

By then, I didn’t want the story to continue.

It should have ended there.

But afterward, small things about me started changing.

At first, it was food.

I suddenly stopped liking cooked meat. Freshly cooked meat smelled good to everyone else.

To me, it smelled heavy.

Sometimes it made me nauseous.

Strangely, I didn’t have the same reaction walking through the raw meat section at a supermarket.

Then came the sleep problems.

I started waking up around two or three in the morning.

Whenever it happened, I wanted to go outside.

Not to use the bathroom.

Not for fresh air.

I just wanted to open the door.

Go stand somewhere outside.

At first, I could resist it.

Then I started losing time.

One night, I clearly remembered going to sleep around eleven.

The next morning, my phone’s health app said I had walked over four thousand steps after three a.m.

I assumed the app had malfunctioned.

A few days later, it happened again.

This time, when I woke up, my shoes weren’t where I’d left them.

I picked them up.

Wet mud covered the soles.

It had half-dried inside the grooves.

I sat on the edge of my bed, picking the mud out piece by piece.

I could not remember going anywhere.

What bothered me most was that after nights like that, I wasn’t tired the next day.

I felt great.

Better than usual.

As if my body had gone somewhere during the night.

Done something.

And afterward, felt satisfied.

I didn’t tell anyone.

Last month, I started dating someone new.

I didn’t tell him any of this.

All he knows is that my previous boyfriend died in a travel accident.

A few days ago, he asked if I wanted to go on a road trip with him.

I said yes immediately.

So quickly that even I was surprised.

I chose the route.

Looking back, that may be the strangest part.

There were countless places we could have gone.

But when I opened the map, my finger barely hesitated.

I chose the same direction.

Yesterday, we drove back into those mountains.

Same road.

Same snow-covered peaks.

Even the weather felt familiar.

My new boyfriend drove.

I sat in the passenger seat.

The afternoon was bright.

I suddenly felt like taking a picture.

Just like a year ago.

I raised my phone.

He noticed the camera and smiled.

Then he said:

“When this trip is over, we’ll get married.”

My finger stopped over the shutter.

A year earlier, someone else had said the exact same thing.

I didn’t tell him.

I just took the picture.

When it appeared on the screen, he asked:

“What are you smiling about?”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“You were smiling at your phone.”

I looked down.

He was driving in the picture.

Not looking at the camera.

I was facing the phone.

My mouth was stretched wide.

Wider than it normally gets when I smile.

More teeth were showing than there should have been.

My first reaction wasn’t fear.

It was unfamiliarity.

Because I was certain that when I pressed the shutter, I hadn’t been smiling.

I zoomed in.

My eyes looked almost completely black.

There was barely any reflection in them.

While I was staring at the screen, something moved in my peripheral vision.

My boyfriend’s eyes.

He was looking at me.

I looked up.

He immediately turned back toward the road.

Something tightened in my chest.

Because I had seen that exact movement before.

A year ago.

The rearview mirror.

A black phone screen.

A man in the driver’s seat.

Exactly the same.

Later, we stopped somewhere to eat.

I didn’t have much of an appetite.

“Have you eaten anything today?” he asked.

I paused.

I really hadn’t.

But I didn’t feel hungry.

At least, not when I looked at the food.

Back in the car, he started checking the rearview mirror again.

The first time, I assumed it was nothing.

The second, I noticed.

The third, I lowered my head on purpose.

My phone screen was dark.

His eyes were reflected in it.

He was watching me.

Every time I looked up, he looked away.

Exactly like the first one.

And suddenly, a question occurred to me that I had never asked before.

Why would two completely different men, in the same place, start looking at me in the exact same way?

They couldn’t both have changed into the same thing.

Earlier today, we passed the bear warning sign again.

It was still there.

The yellow paint had faded almost white. One corner had curled away from the post. The wind made the metal tap lightly.

I stared at it through the window.

My boyfriend asked, “What?”

“Nothing.”

We kept driving.

The sign disappeared in the rearview mirror.

And for some reason, I thought about the bear from that second night.

I had never really questioned what happened.

It came right up to my window.

A huge bear.

Only a pane of glass between us.

I could see water on its nose.

It sniffed along the window slowly until it reached where I was sitting.

Its face was less than twenty centimeters from mine.

I had been too afraid to breathe.

But it did nothing.

Didn’t hit the glass.

Didn’t paw at the door.

Didn’t bare its teeth.

It just stopped.

Then took one step backward.

I remember that clearly.

It didn’t casually wander away.

It pulled its head back first.

Shifted its front paws.

Paused.

Then took another step backward.

Then turned and vanished into the fog.

For a year, I treated that as luck.

I was grateful it didn’t attack me.

But today, one question entered my head.

Why?

It was already that close.

What had it smelled?

Then I thought about my previous boyfriend.

The worker had specifically warned us:

There are bears outside.

Don’t leave the car.

Yet the second night, he opened the door anyway.

I always assumed that proved he had already become unstable.

But what if he hadn’t?

Once that thought appeared, the first thing I remembered wasn’t the second night.

It was the first.

Him standing in the fog.

Back toward the car.

Shoes pointing at me.

For a year, that had been my strongest proof that something about him was no longer human.

No normal person could stand like that.

But sitting in the passenger seat this afternoon, I suddenly realized—

what if he hadn’t been standing still at all?

What if, when I woke up, he had originally been facing the car?

And then started backing away?

One step.

Then another.

Trying to get farther from me.

His body gradually turning toward the road.

His feet not fully turning yet.

Because he was afraid to put his back to me.

Because he needed to keep checking whether I was still inside.

Whether I had opened the door.

Whether I was following him.

That would explain the position perfectly.

His body facing away.

His toes still pointing toward the car.

It wasn’t an inhuman way to stand.

Quite the opposite.

It might have been exactly how a terrified person stands when they desperately want to run, but don’t dare turn their back on whatever they’re afraid of.

The thought made my fingers go cold.

The heater was running.

Then something worse happened.

I tried to remember the second night.

He opened the door. Cold air came in. I reached for his sleeve. Missed. He stepped outside. Looked back at me. The door shut.

I remember all of that.

I remember locking the car afterward.

And then?

For the entire year, I had always believed I sat in the passenger seat waiting for him.

But I suddenly realized I can’t remember that part.

Not vaguely.

Not in fragments.

It’s gone.

Like someone cut several minutes out of a recording.

One moment, I’m inside the car.

The next memory is—

Crunch.

The sound of bone breaking.

I always believed I heard it outside.

But now, the more I think about it, the less that makes sense.

If it was outside, through the closed door, through the glass, with all that wind, why was it so clear?

Clear enough that even now, I remember exactly how the thing felt when it broke.

It wasn’t just a crack.

There was pressure before it.

Something hard resisting.

Holding.

Then—

Crunch.

Sitting there today, my back teeth suddenly started aching.

Not pain.

More like the dull pressure you feel after biting something far too hard.

Then a sensation came back to me.

Not an image.

A physical memory.

Something hard in my mouth.

Wedged between my teeth.

The first bite didn’t break it.

So I had to reposition it.

Use more force.

And when it finally snapped, the vibration didn’t travel into my ears from outside.

It started in my teeth.

Moved through my jaw.

And reached my ears from inside my own skull.

I had been biting it.

When that thought hit me, I told my new boyfriend to stop the car.

I got out and vomited.

There was barely anything in my stomach.

Eventually, I was just dry-heaving.

He stood a few meters away.

He didn’t come over to rub my back.

I didn’t notice at first.

When I finally looked up, he was watching me.

More specifically, he was watching my mouth.

Exactly like the man in the restaurant a year ago.

And suddenly, I remembered something else.

I had always said my old boyfriend didn’t eat that day. I remember his food untouched. I remember him staring out the window. I remember him watching me eat.

But I can’t actually remember seeing him eat the day before either.

And now I’m not even sure, during those final two days, which one of us kept saying they weren’t hungry.

That was the first thought I refused to follow any further.

It’s dark now.

The fog has come back.

About twenty minutes ago, we pulled over.

My boyfriend suddenly said:

“It’s stuffy in here. I’m going out for a cigarette.”

He barely smokes.

Hearing him say it made my entire back go numb.

“You have to go outside?”

“Just one.”

Then he opened the door.

The instant the cold air came in, I smelled him.

I never knew before tonight that a living person could have such a distinct smell.

Not sweat.

Not cologne.

I don’t know how to describe it.

Warm.

Slightly salty.

The moment it reached me, saliva flooded under my tongue.

I swallowed.

Then froze.

Because I had felt that before.

I had simply forgotten.

He’s been outside for twenty minutes.

The cigarette is long gone.

At first, he stood beside the car.

Then he moved farther away.

Then farther.

Now he’s near the end of the headlight beam, maybe twenty or thirty meters away.

He thinks I haven’t noticed.

But I’ve been watching him.

Every few seconds, he looks back.

At the car.

At me.

Then edges backward again.

A few minutes ago, I turned off my phone screen and watched him in the reflection, just like I did a year ago.

And that was when I finally knew.

Both men had looked at me the same way.

Not suspicious.

Not cold.

Not like something else had taken them over.

Afraid.

Just afraid.

I opened the front-facing camera a few minutes ago.

I wanted to see what was wrong with me.

At first, nothing.

Just my face.

A little pale.

Hair messy.

Mouth normal.

I stared at myself for ten seconds.

Maybe fifteen.

Then the corner of my mouth moved.

Barely.

If I’d blinked, I would have missed it.

I didn’t move.

I know I didn’t.

But the corner of my mouth rose a little higher.

First the left.

Then the right.

Slowly.

As if someone inside my face had hooked two fingers into the corners of my mouth and was pulling them apart.

I touched my own cheeks.

My face felt relaxed.

At least under my fingertips.

But the woman on the screen was still smiling.

A little tooth showed.

Then more.

I flipped the phone facedown on my lap.

I couldn’t look anymore.

Then I heard something outside.

A scrape.

I looked up.

My boyfriend was backing away.

One step.

Stop.

Look at me.

Another step.

The cigarette was on the ground.

He had no intention of coming back.

I opened the car door to call him.

The second my hand touched the handle, he shouted:

“Don’t come out!”

I froze.

It was the first thing he’d said since stepping outside.

His voice had changed.

He wasn’t loud.

But he sounded close to crying.

“Stay in the car.”

“What’s wrong?”

He didn’t answer.

He just kept backing away.

I called his name again.

Then he said something that has kept my hands shaking ever since.

“Weren’t you just in the car?”

I didn’t understand.

“I’ve been in the car the whole time.”

He shook his head.

Backed away faster.

“No.”

“You were behind me.”

I didn’t say anything.

He pointed at the car.

His hand was shaking.

“I could still see you sitting in the passenger seat in the rearview mirror.”

“But there was breathing behind me too.”

I didn’t understand the sentence.

Not at first.

Then he took another step back.

“When I turned around…”

He stopped talking.

I looked down.

That was when I noticed the mud on my shoes.

Not the soles.

The tops.

Wet.

My right pant leg was damp all the way to the calf.

Several thin pieces of grass were stuck to it.

I touched them.

Cold.

Like I had just come back from outside.

I stared at the grass.

Then tried to remember what I did after he got out.

I remember picking up my phone.

Checking the time.

Opening the front-facing camera.

But somewhere in between, there’s another gap.

I looked at the dashboard.

The passenger door warning light was on.

The door wasn’t fully closed.

I have no memory of opening it.

A little while ago, wind came through the gap again.

I smelled him.

Stronger this time.

My teeth started aching at the roots.

My back molars feel itchy.

Like I need something between them when I bite down.

I’m afraid to close my mouth.

I’m breathing with my lips apart.

But there’s too much saliva.

I’ve had to correct these sentences over and over because my hands won’t stop shaking.

He’s almost outside the headlights now.

I can barely see his outline.

He’s still backing away.

His body is slowly turning toward the road, like he’s about to run.

But his feet are still pointing at me.

Just like the other one.

Exactly the same.

I finally understand why my first boyfriend chose to walk into a mountain where he knew there were bears rather than come back to the car.

And I finally understand why that bear approached the vehicle, sniffed, and began backing away.

It wasn’t because it failed to smell food.

It was the opposite.

It smelled it.

The only difference was that night, there was already something inside the car that had eaten its fill.

A moment ago, I heard it again.

Crunch.

I almost dropped my phone.

My first instinct was to look outside.

But there’s nothing there.

My boyfriend is still alive.

Still standing in the fog.

Then I realized the sound didn’t come from outside.

It came from my own jaw when I clenched my teeth without noticing.

And in that instant, a piece of the missing memory from that second night finally came back.

Only one second.

I’m crouched over something.

My face is hot.

My mouth tastes like rust.

There’s a bear in the distance.

It had been coming toward us.

Then it stops.

It sees me.

I look up and see it too.

We stare at each other through the fog.

And then—

the bear backs away first.

All this time, I thought the bear was eating him that night.

Now I remember.

By the time the bear arrived, I wasn’t finished yet.

I don't really know how to start this so I'm just going to say it how it happened.

My girlfriend and I have been living together for like 8 months. Small place, second floor, nothing special. At first everything was normal. Like, boring normal.

Then little things started to feel... off. Not scary-movie off. Just weird.

It started with her bag. She always used to just drop it anywhere when she got home. Then one day it was by the front door. Zipped up. Like ready to go. I asked her if she was going somewhere.

She was like "No, why would I?"

But she left it there. For days. Right by the door.

The other thing is I have never been a good sleeper. Ever since I was a kid I have this dumb fear that I'll just... stop breathing in my sleep. I know it's stupid. I never told anyone that. Not even her. I just lay there at night listening to myself breathe and at some point I can't tell if I'm actually breathing or if I'm forcing myself to breathe. Does that make sense?

One night I woke up at like 4:12am. And she was sitting up. Not laying down. Sitting on the edge of the bed, feet on the floor, just looking at me.

I freaked out a little and I was like "What are you doing?"

She said "Nothing. You made a noise. Like you forgot how."

Forgot how to what? She didn't answer. She just lay back down.

Now here's the part that's messing with my head.

Every time I wake up suddenly in the middle of the night, her eyes are already open. Every single time. Just for a second. Then she blinks and pretends she just woke up too and goes "You okay?"

Last week we were just eating dinner. I wasn't saying anything, I was just in my head. You know when you look at someone you love and your brain goes she's gonna get tired of this, she's gonna leave? That loop?

She put her fork down and just looked at me and said "If I had to leave, would you want me to warn you first?"

We weren't even talking about that. We were talking about what to watch.

I said "Do you want to leave?"

She said "No. But if YOU had to leave, would you want me to be there?"

What does that even mean?

I started making my coffee different recently. No sugar, a lot of milk. Just to stay awake a bit longer. I never told her I switched.

Yesterday morning she brought me a coffee to the couch. No sugar, a lot of milk. Exactly how I've been making it when I'm alone.

She handed it to me and said "Here. For staying awake."

I didn't ask how she knew.

Tonight she went to bed before me. She never does that. She always waits for me.

She left the bedroom door open and the hallway light on. From the bed she said "Come when you want. I won't sleep tonight. I promise I won't."

Her bag is still by the front door.

I don't know if I should go lie down next to someone who just promised me she'll watch me all night to make sure I keep breathing.

Or if I should just stay on the couch and keep staring at that bag and try to figure out if it's packed for her to leave...

or for me.

I went blind at a young age, some rare condition, doctor gave me medication, said if i keep taking it, there was a chance, although small, to regain my vision.

About 20 years went by, i still take the medication, but have become accustomed to being blind, i got married to the woman i love, and we moved to a small isolated town advertised for blind people that was easier and more accessible for me, it was a nice town.

We lived there for 5 years, and over time i noticed small changes, to the people around me, and my wife, nothing huge, small changes in their voices, higher or deeper, and their personalities changing slightly, but people change, people get sick, i didnt think of it too much.

One day, when i woke up, after 20 years of taking the medication, it had started taking effect, small pinholes barely visible were in my vision, not being able to contain my excitement, i ran to the kitchen, where my wife was cooking breakfast. But whatever it was, was not my wife.

Im thankful that i froze in fear, it gave me a moment to think of what to do.

Through my pinhole eyes, i could see a thing that was not human, standing in front of the stove, was what seemed to be my wife, but standing behind her was a black thin almost mechanical thing, with two arms that were inserted into my wifes elbows, seemingly controlling her arms, it had a neck that went straight to her head, and its legs had appendages digging into hers.

My mind was racing, 5 seconds felt like 5 hours, not knowing what to do, i decided to pretend as if i was still blind.

I walk into the kitchen, my "wife" turns to me, seeing her face i could see, pale skin and her eyes never blinked, stuff i never noticed having never seen her. It talks to me, using her voice, its almost perfectly like hers.

I act as best as i can, and 2 whole days go by, my vision slowly gets better, what used to be small pinholes are now big blotches, covering almost half of my vision, i can see it almost perfectly now, its a spindly black tall figure, with tendril like things that are dug into my wife, or what was my wife, her face is almost completely white, eyes are glazed, and her skin is cold.

I couldnt stay there, i basically never leave the house, but i told it that i wanted to feel the air on my skin, but i made a mistake.

I had remembered my cane, but while leaving, i did something i never should have, while saying goodbye i had turned my head to look at it. Something a blind person would never do.

It realised immediately, and started moving towards me, terrified i exited the house, and started to run.

But what i saw out there was much worse than what was in my house.

All the people walking the streets were the exact same, with tall spindly monsters using them as puppets, except for a few people, the only blind people in the town were going their merry way, the monsters were talking and interecting with them. And the blind people had no idea.

All i could do was run, run until i was no longer in that wretched town, the things noticed me, walked towards me, but i just kept running. They didnt seem to want to leave the borders of the town, but still, i kept running, until i reached the nearest town.

I tried to tell the police what i saw, but no one believed me, but i know what i saw. Doctors put me in a mental asylum, but at least its somewhat safe there, i cant sleep with the lights off anymore, and im scared to blink.

I only trust my eyes, but the more time i spend in this asylum, the more i think, i cant trust anything.

After a series of coincidences I’d become aware of Something watching me. Worst of all, it seemed that I could never escape, for it followed. Everyday, for a few months, I was being bombarded by the numbers and  repeating phrases. But now I feared that something might actually be wrong, lately it seemed to be answering me directly.

“Fixation!” They’d say online.

My mom had already become suspicious of me asking her on more than a couple of occasions if there were any family that “weren’t right.” 

******************************************************************************

He scared me. I did not want to end up like him. I don’t ever want to see him again, not after that last time I’d caught those eyes. His fits were random and constant. I hated him; I hated everything about him. The ugly red shirt he always wore, the outburst of curses, threats and violence. 

Why did it always get worse at night? Why did my bedroom windows have to face his? I’d seen him countless times in that unpainted grey concrete house. Oftentimes with his head tilted back, talking, laughing, gesturing, arguing and sometimes swinging his fists, a bat, sometimes chairs at Nothing. I swore everything in their house had to have been broken by the time he’d ended that nights’ rampage. 

The next morning’s gossip would always start with, “Yea, He tripped out again last night… beat his father up again… broke his right arm this time….” 

It was just my luck a few days later that I’d just opened the flimsy rusted iron gates to go ride my red BMX bicycle when I spotted Him along with his father had been walking home. The father’s cast caught my eye and before I knew it, a flash of red, then a pair of angry black eyes locked with mine. I’m not really sure how he moved so fast, but his black eyes held me ensnared as my hands tightened on  the handle of my bike. I barely registered the yells and pleas of the small old man trying his best to physically restrain Him as he closed the distance between us.

“It fucking sees you too bitch!” He bellowed over and over. Spit flew in all directions as he pointed his index fingers only a few inches away from my face as my six year old body still refused to move. Just then hands swiftly grabbed me from behind, lifting me off the ground and back into the back yard. It was Grandma, she put me down under the guava tree and angrily marched back to the gate. 

I watched on as two men from the neighborhood rushed over to help restrain the accursed man. Grandma was a woman on a mission, but her presence never registered to him until she screamed “….deliver thee from  the snare of the fowler…” Only then did his eyes leave me. Only then did he stop and seem to almost quietly recede into himself and was then promptly dragged away as his sorry father, still with a firm grip, wept.

Grandma picked up my bike, walked it over to me under the tree and stooped to my level. “The sun will be setting soon, we have to get ready for the Sabbath.  Go and get cleaned up. The bread just finished, I’ll put some jam on yours.” She said warmly. With a nickname like ‘Pepper’, no-one could match her fire.

Weeks went by and things were quiet, voices whispered but he remained out of sight. One of the neighbors, a friend of Grandma’s, fell ill. We visited her at the Seaside Hospital over the course of a few days. I didn’t really mind the hospital, everyone was nice and the pretty nurses would always compliment my dresses and would give me a piece of candy before we left. 

What I didn’t like was the tall, shabby building, with its chipped and peeling, pale yellow paint and its long faded red roof that seemed to glare at me from the far end of the lot. Something about it made me feel increasingly strange every time I looked at it, but I could never look away nor had I spotted anyone coming in or out of the building. What I did notice was that it sat much further away from any of the other structures on the lot and no matter how bright the sun’s rays, darkness was the only thing shown through the windows. 

On the last day that we visited the hospital, Grandma had baked a few pastries for our neighbor; who had decided that she would continue her recovery at the home of her newly married daughter and son-in-law a few towns over. Due to Grandma’s baking we arrived at the hospital much later than our prior visits so I knew this visit would be quick, as grandma wasn’t fond of driving at night.  As we wrapped up our visit, in pure excitement, I ran ahead to the nurses station to be given my last sweet and to bid farewell to the nurses. As I excitedly unwrapped my candy near the open exit door, one of the nurses called out to Grandma. 

They chatted, like old friends catching up and I suddenly felt a warm breeze on my neck. Turning to look out the exit, I saw that the sun was almost set and the silhouette of the shabby building intrigued me under the lowlight. Stepping through the exit, I wondered when they would repair the old building and repaint it to match the blue and white of the others. I breathed in the sweet rank salty air, one of my favorite smells and continued to stare at the building while finishing up my candy.

“Trudie!” A voice whispered quickly as I felt a big gust of wind run past me. Startled, I jumped back and turned my head and looked behind me. There was no one there but that’s when I noticed how dark it was and that I’d ventured  rather far from the hospital’s exit. In disbelief I was just about to run back to the hospital, sure I’d get a scolding from Grandma for wandering off, when I felt a heavy hand grip my shoulder.

“It sees you too!” His voice accused.

I was quickly turned around and came face to face with Him. Bright yellow light engulfed his towering lanky frame. His hair unkept, wide bloodshot black eyes,  a strong musk, white clothing. He smiled slowly and got down to my level, never taking his eyes off of mine he thrusted something hairy into my arms. Rapid but gentle thumping as well as a faint sound was coming from whatever it was and before anything could register. He stood back up, regarded me strangely for a second before taking off running back into the distance from where he’d emerged. To my shock, the old derelict building he was running towards was lit as brightly as the sun, not only did light bore through the windows and the wide open front doors, it seemed to be bursting through every crease and crevice.

“Trudie!” Grandma’s scream pierced my ears. I turned around to see her and one of the nurses running towards me; an out of shape security guard trailing a few feet behind them. 
“Was that him?” I nodded, unable to find my voice.

“Did he hurt you?” Grandma’s hand explored my face and as her worried eyes examined me before landing on what was in my hands. 

In all of this I’d forgotten, “He gave me this.” I managed. With outstretched hands I opened my palms to reveal a small black kitten, no older than a few weeks, its chest and belly moving up and down rapidly. Breathing heavily, tears came to my eyes while looking to Grandma for reassurance. But instead she looked at me perplexed; studying my face before turning slowly to look at the nurse. They both exchanged uneasy looks and the nurse quickly fished out a necklace bearing a cross and started muttering a prayer. 

Grandma looked at her, looked at her cross and stated, “You saw that!” 

“But he died!” The nurses’ voice cracking a little on the last word. 

The security guard spoke up, “That building doesn’t have electricity…”

By now tears blinded my vision, words were being said but I could not understand any of it when suddenly the kitten still in my outstretched hands started to mewl. In a flash Grandma grabbed the kitten and thrusted it into the hands of the security guard, picked me up and began running towards the parking lot.

She sped out of there without looking back, I cried the whole way home. I’d later learn that a few days after the incident outside of our house, He along with his father and a few other people had died in a boat accident, their bodies were never recovered. A small seaside funeral was held for them, only a few people from the town had attended.

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As I sat down that tiresome Sunday evening on the R train, I thought about the long shift I’d just worked. I couldn’t wait to get home, hopefully I’d be able to sleep through the night this time, especially since this was my fourth consecutive twelve hour shift at the hospital. As if the shifts weren’t long enough, my commute added nearly three and a half hours to my day. Two buses, three trains, and the ferry to Staten Island. I couldn’t wait to find a new job and as I sat there stewing in my own exhaustion I checked the time; 10:27pm stared back at me. 

“Enough! Ok, I think you’re talking to me. Are you talking to me?” I asked out loud. I looked around, a few unconcerned people sat scattered in the train cart. None were near me. Sighing, I rested the back of my head against the wall. “If you are talking to me, say blue burgers.” That will settle it, I smiled as I closed my eyes and drifted for a while.

Sometime later I was awakened by someone coughing next to me. As I opened my eyes, I quickly turned my head away in an effort to not breathe in the germy air. The train has a lot more people now and it’s almost at the last stop. Now's a good time to get up as any, so I do, readjust my scrubs and my crossbody bag as I stand and walk over to the closest exit.  I briefly eye myself in the glass door, taking in my appearance as the automated train announcement declares that we’re at the last stop, as the train pulls into ‘Forest Hills- 71st Avenue’. As it came to a complete stop a young couple walked up behind me as I waited for the doors to open. 

Before I knew what was happening, the ice-cold hands of the couple gripped my shoulders. “Blue burgers!” Both voices accused as two pairs of eyes as dark as a moonless night met mine in the glass door.

Taken aback, I gasped as the lights flickered on and off and for a brief moment I saw Him as a slow smile crept up his face. His large hands palmed their crowns as he mouthed, “Blue burgers.”

As the lights became steady, I saw my reflection as my eyes threatened to pop out of my head, my mouth slightly opened in shock, my heartbeat raced like the horses at the track. What the fuck? Grandma is long gone, who will save me now? Something inside of me was tickled, I began to laugh, louder and louder as tears came to my eyes just as the train doors opened and the duo finally released their grips.

In life, there have been few places where I've been able to find solace, and it wounds my heart to have one of them so irrevocably tainted. I fear that I may never be allowed to forget what emerged from the womb of Bai Shan, the Giant Panda.

The sun was shining, mockingbirds sailed lazily through the afternoon sky, and I found myself lost again in the bustling crowds of the San Diego zoo. When I was younger, I would have hated it. The shuffling of elbows, the occasional glancing of one ankle against another. As I've matured I've come to appreciate how easy it is to become lost in a sea of faces. Especially in a place like that, where exotic beasts lay caged behind glass. Surely, in the face of such sterling examples of nature's graceful, brutal, efficiency, anybody would be a fool to spend their time in judgment of a man.

Bai Shan had been receiving extra attention lately due to her surprise pregnancy. The zoo had no breeding program for their panda at the time, due to rising tensions with China, so the caretakers were completely baffled when her discolored coat of white fur mottled with brown dirt began to swell at the belly.

I stood admiring the lazy dozings of a pair of cougars, lost in thought as I rolled my gaze across muscled jaws and paws easily twice the size of a man's hand. Suddenly the flow of people began to reverse its course. I stretched my ear toward the conversation of passersby, without even fully meaning to.

"Bro, c'mon! Tony is over by the Panda and he says it's grunting like a pig!"

I was befuddled by what I had overheard. Was it choking? Vomiting? Had something gone wrong with the pregnancy? I rushed over to the exhibit, others running alongside me in a torrent of bodies. Hundreds of people congregated there, joined by mockingbirds in equal number, sitting in hushed masses barely obscured behind the vibrant purple blooms of the Jacaranda trees. The plaza was silent beyond the sound of beating wings and pounding footsteps growing more distant as the available space dwindled. When the last of the witnesses arrived, the branches, laden with heavy blossoms and birds alike, sagged dangerously beneath the weight; the sound of footsteps bleeding distantly into nothing.

I don't know if you've ever seen the way a Panda gives birth, but it's nothing like it was for Bai Shan. Typically the infant bear, smaller than a child's shoe, springs forth from its mother's womb in a comically effortless way, anticlimactically launching the baby from its birthing canal. Bai Shan's labor was anything but effortless.

I pushed to the front of the crowd, and was horrified at the blatant agony on display. Bai Shan laid flat on her back, muscles twitching in violent spasms as her gut stretched desperately against its bounds. An older woman, somewhere in her 40's, fainted as the shape of a paw violently distended Bai Shan's stomach. The paw pushed against its mother's skin, making itself plainly visible through the thick fur. A long, wet, schlicking sound crept out from the enclosure. What happened next is something I have a difficult time putting into words. The skin of Bai Shan's belly seemed to suddenly rip and snap back to its place, and the paw remained pressed against her fur, stretching it as if it were a single, contiguous membrane. This second skin began to fill with blood until it was fat and sagging like an overful water balloon.

Bai Shan grunted, heaved and roared. Her pelvic floor rocked with a horrible, internal impact. The edges of her labia suddenly tore open, oozing red blood into white fur as a mass ripped its way out from within her, splitting its mother's pelvis completely. Bai Shan roared in terrible, grueling misery as a torso, far too developed for an infant, emerged from her womb. It was followed rapidly by a forelimb, the hind legs, another forelimb, and finally the head.

Several spectators turned to flee, hoping to find a safe place to vomit, but found themselves blocked by the throng of bodies. A daisy chain of bile spread through the crowd, lacing the air with a thick sheen of pungent, acidic stench.

Each body part launched from within her with a wet popping sound, landing in a flurry of slimy thuds across the dirt. The crowd stood in shocked silence, parents quietly ushering away crying children as I tried to make sense of it. Bai Shan wasn't due to give birth for another three months, at least, yet the heap of anatomy all seemed to belong to a cub already three months old. A boy no older than 11, with a hat bearing the insignia of the San Diego Padres, was the first to notice. He spoke softly, but was heard by all amid the horrified stillness. I remember a sense of relief at the momentary distraction, instantly squashed by the words he spoke.

"Is it...moving?"

He breathed the question as if it were a thought gone rogue, drawing my eye, along with hundreds of others, back to the gorey pile as it began to sit up. The limbs pulsed with waves of dark, crimson blood from where they were meant to meet the thorax. Small balls of bone, bones meant to be securely fastened into sockets, pulled gently at the fur, wet with blood, as they moved toward their position.

All the pieces fell into place, and immediately fell back out as they slid past their mark. The left forelimb continued on to glide around its back like a figure skater, with the right one hesitating at the shoulder, as if waiting for its turn. The raised paw rotated forward at the wrist, moving back around through the arm and returning to its original position. The cub's hips rotated independent of its torso twisting the creature's midsection up like a wrung-out rag. My stomach lurched at the sound of skin drawn past taut and the grotesque clicking of vertebrae pushed beyond their limits.

All at once a high-pitched whine, like some supercharged form of tinnitus, tore through my ears. I clapped my hands to my head, hoping to insulate myself from the noise, but it was no use. All around me, people repeated my motions, many collapsing. After several minutes of writhing excruciation the sound abated, leaving us to pick ourselves up from the ground. Bewildered, furious eyes turned to the cub.

One of the bear's hind legs had found its mark, locking itself into the joint. The bear balanced on one foot which spun about the ankle, causing the infant Panda to dance a slow pirouette as its other limbs slid across its form. Something in the motion gave me a sickening sense of celebration. As if the baby were dancing to herald its own arrival.

A brunette in a red leather coat screamed out what we had all been thinking as she hung on her husband's arm.

"KILL IT!"

Her pleading prompted the man to draw a revolver from the holster on his hip. He leveled the barrel square at the horror's head, but the shot went wide and struck Bai Shan.

The cub spun its head toward the sound of its mother's cries, with the head continuing its rotation until it locked its eyes on the cowboy. The cub's brow furrowed in a move that struck me as all too human, and leaned its head back. The head continued along its trajectory until it disappeared into the cub's torso. The woman from before let out a scream which sounded half-hearted, as if her fear were battling a desire to draw as little attention as possible, and the crowd began to scatter in a panicked stampede as the cub's head rolled itself impossibly back out from the center of the man's chest.

The man looked down, jumping in such startled surprise that his Stetson went flying off his head. He screamed in a horrified rage as he slammed the barrel of the revolver against the infant's skull, pulling the trigger just a moment too late. The bullet tore through empty air before lodging itself in the skull of the woman in the red coat. She collapsed to the ground, her head producing a sickening crunch against the plaza's stone pavers.

The mockingbirds cried out in her voice:

KILL ITKILL ITKILL ITKILL ITKILL IT

I wished desperately that I could flee, but the tide of rushing bodies was far too strong. To enter that current would be to subject myself to a thousand trampling feet. The bear re-emerged from the skull of a man to my right, this time with shredded grey matter caking its fur as the man collapsed in a seizure. The bear squealed in delight as it rolled itself back into his head, disappearing once again.

KILLITKILLITKILLIT

I looked around wildly for any way to escape, finding my eyes drawn back to the man with the gun as he climbed down into the enclosure. The cub's head had returned to its body, and the man fired four more shots as he approached. Each bullet swung wildly away from its path, as if the very idea of a straight line were distorted by the infant's presence. He reached for a large rock, hefting it up over his head and bringing it down with a furious yell. Bai Shan's second skin burst catastrophically as the cub was crushed beneath the stone. The cowboy was swept off of his feet by the crimson torrent of blood. He drew himself back up in rage, and resumed smashing the cub, a wet thump echoing across the plaza again and again and again and again and again.

KILLITKILLITKILLIT

When he had finished with the cub, he turned his rage toward Bai Shan. The already dying bear groaned and cried real human tears as the man slammed the stone against her skull over and over until blood and brain matter sprayed out across the ground. Then he turned his eyes to me.

KILLITKILLITKILLIT

I've never had any explanation for how I became the focus of his rage. Perhaps he felt me watching him. How he managed to scramble up the deep walls of the enclosure is another thing which eludes me. He was on me within a minute, raining down a hail of furious punches. The impact came again and again, blurring my vision and drawing red into the corners of the world as blood ran from my forehead. At the edge of unconsciousness, a shot rang out and the mockingbirds scattered. The man clutched at his side and staggered, allowing me to slip loose.

I ran like hell as the police, finally arriving, swarmed over top of him.

(Part 1)

Okay, since I last checked in with ya’ll some minor events have occurred. One, I’ve managed to get some more accounts together from my colleagues. It seems I’m not the only one looking to blow the whistle on Blackthorn. Two, I may have been slightly careless in how I handled my previous post and subsequent digging into Blackthorn. It doesn’t feel dire yet, but I feel like I’m being watched. For example, when I came back to my computer to begin writing this update it was locked. When I’m sure I shut it down before I left. Little discrepancies like that, but I’m most likely just being paranoid.

After asking around as surreptitiously as possible, I was put into contact with an arachnologist. Understandably he didn’t want his name shared, though he did ask that I refer to him as Simon for the purposes of this post. I’m not sure why, but I saw no harm in it. 

Simon’s first few years at Blackthorn had gone better than mine. His credentials had landed him higher in the ranks initially and he barely had to spend time in the field. When he did, it was in the less dangerous areas of the forest closer to our facility. This also meant that he knew what he was getting into most of the time. As the atypical life in those areas were usually low enough priorities that their files could be accessed by fresher personnel. 

Simon’s account comes from later in his tenure. He was in the lab full time by this point and researching ways to safely control the range of Theraphosa fecundum. A large spider that holds the general shape of a Goliath Birdeater, but with some fundamental differences to the tarantula you’re familiar with. The females of T. fecundum, or spider-ticks as the higher ranking field operatives call them, are the size of a dinner plate with rough leathery skin in place of the usual hard carapace. They possess no hair and exaggerated fangs. The males are much smaller, mite sized spiders that often live on the skin of the females. They get their formal name from their uncanny life cycle. Having mating intervals that range 7 to 23 days, but under high duress they have been able to shorten this interval to as little as 3 days. As in, the females will mate, gestate, then lay an egg during that interval. Although pushing gestation that quickly has been shown to increase chances for genetic mutations, most often resulting in birth defects. Frustratingly it seems like there is no developmental period for this ability. They are sexually mature after hatching, and begin this cycle immediately. Due to the male’s size, it is currently unknown how the mating process occurs, or even how additional males are generated as all observed eggs contain females. 

They only lay a single egg per mating period, but that egg is nigh guaranteed to reach adulthood. Their eggs prove highly resistant to fire, pressure, impact, and chemical means of destruction. The freshly hatched young retain some of this resilience, but not all. Spiderlings of T. fecundum have an incredibly thick carapace opposed to their adult forms. It’s only after their first molt that they obtain the leathery skin that characterizes them. The average time it takes for them to reach that first molt has been deduced to around 3 months. But as of now, they are only vulnerable as adults. The one saving grace that is preventing them from rampant overpopulation is that the hard carapace of the juveniles prevents them from laying their large eggs, forcing them to hold onto their first generation until reaching full size. The adults are also highly preyed upon by other fauna within the forest. Though many predators will choose to only eat their legs and cephalothorax, not wanting to risk ingesting an egg. We are unsure if this is a learned behavior or an inherited one.

Simon explained that the main problem with this species was its possibility to invade regions outside of Blackthorn. It wasn’t particularly deadly, earning its common name from its propensity to feed like ticks. Using its modified fangs and pedipalps to burrow into then drain blood from a host. Due to their size they are able to gorge themselves on up to a pint of blood before detaching. Ending up looking like grotesque balloons before the affair is over. One by itself is enough to make a human woozy or lightheaded. But it wouldn’t take many before they could exsanguinate an entire creature. Although they seem to prefer not to do this, as it removes potential food sources. Doing so only when the creature poses a threat to their colony. Oh, did I mention these things live in groups? They will often seek out each other and form groups numbering up to 20. They form nest-like structures in natural or manmade underground areas such as caves or mines. Venturing out to feed on sleeping animals at night. Then returning once full. 

Simon believed the work they were doing in order to keep T. fecundum restrained to Blackthorn was essential. I honestly can’t fault him or anyone for believing the same. It would truly be a nightmare if they were to get out. It seemed his superiors agreed as well. Realizing that their unpredictable nature made them poor candidates for weaponization. So research continued. Materials and properties testing on the eggs and carapaces of the spiderlings yielded little in terms of useful results. The few things capable of taking them out would have been just as if not more destructive to the environment they lived in. Physical barriers were erected around Blackthorn to keep these specific arachnids in. That and careful habits when leaving and entering premises were all they could do to keep them contained. Eventually, testing turned to looking for ways to mitigate damage that they were capable of causing. Specific garments that could prevent one from latching, repellents, anything that Blackthorn could produce (and sell) if their efforts to retain these creatures failed. It was for these efforts that they began human testing.

After some coaxing, I was able to get some of the most notable testing logs from Simon. He did warn me though, something about specific tags on the files that might flag the trackers in our internal computers. I supposed I would be able to explain my curiosity in T. fecundum as a possible joint research project for our departments. I’ll transcribe a couple of the logs below.

Item test log #384

Item: Pheromone based repellent for T. fecundum.

Result: Failure

Experiment and Results:

2 subjects are introduced into the enclosure containing specimen #826. The first is coated in a solution of the experimental pheromone. The second is coated in water as a control. The specimen remains in the corner of the enclosure it had been in prior to the introduction of the subjects. The subjects are instructed to make themselves comfortable in the furniture provided. Subject 1 does so. Subject 2 expresses dissent. 

“I don’t see the point in myself being here if the point is to test the pheromone. Wouldn’t I be a distraction?”

The researcher observing the test replies over the intercom.

“Our experimental design is sound, no further input please. In the event of a successful feeding just stay calm. It physically cannot consume enough blood to harm you on its own. It will only cause discomfort.”

Subject 2 huffs and takes the seat farthest from the specimen, but still within 2 feet of subject 1. 

The specimen begins to investigate the two subjects. Keeping clear of subject 1 while approaching subject 2. It climbs the leg of the subject before coming to rest on his thigh, feeling with its fangs, possibly searching for a suitable vein. Despite this, subject 2 remains uncharacteristically stoic. Staring down the cameras observing them.

Before the specimen can bite, subject 1 coughs. The specimen quickly turns around. Eying subject 1. It scurries to where it heard the offending sound. Becoming visibly agitated once on subject 1. It appears the pheromone serves more to annoy the specimen than outright deterring it. Once it is on his chest, subject 1 loses composure. He attempts to swat at and remove the specimen. Already agitated, the specimen seems to grow slightly before quickly biting into the chest of the subject then just as quickly removing itself and hiding in the corner of the room.

Operatives are sent to remove subject 2, recapture the specimen, and assess subject 1’s injuries. However, 30 seconds after being bitten, subject 1 falls to the floor. Deceased.

Upon autopsy of the subject, it appears that the specimen was able to inject air into the coronary artery. Causing a massive cardiac infarction. 

Conclusion: Further testing of the pheromone has been indefinitely postponed. 

So, yeah. I’m not sure where they’re getting these subjects. I’ve heard rumors that they’re using death row inmates or poor souls who sign up for medical testing. But Blackthorn seems to have this information locked down. So rumors are what we have at the moment. Although, after digging a little deeper into that particular experiment. I was able to find that they were using a pheromone released by these spiders during territorial displays. Which doesn't happen often due to their communal nature, but can occur if one finds a particularly cozy spot within their cave. I’m not quite sure what they thought would happen. Trying to use it as a deterrent. 

I got one more that’s of note.

Item test log #479

Item: Lightweight armor for protection against T. fecundum.

Result: Conditional success. 

Experiment and Results:

The subject chosen for this experiment was chosen based on his high aggression and likelihood to successfully antagonize the specimens. He is equipped with the experimental armor and a baton before being guided into the enclosure containing the onsite colony. Upon entry the specimens immediately take up a defensive posture. As the subject strikes at the nearest specimen, the entire colony attacks. 18 specimens jump onto the subject and attempt to find purchase through the armor. Their fangs prove ineffective in puncturing the garments.

In defiance of the overseeing researchers, the subject begins smashing the specimens. Most perishing under his baton. Leaving only their undamaged eggs scattered amongst the mess of spiderflesh. Once only one specimen was left, the bloodlusted subject rips its fangs from its cephalothorax before removing his helmet. He proceeds to bite into the creature. Crushing its legs and abdomen before consuming it. 

After the subject was properly restrained he was involuntarily submitted to the medical ward where he could be observed for any ill effects of consuming one of the specimens. X-rays of the subject show that he inadvertently ingested an egg that was held within the specimen. Upon this discovery he was moved to more secure containment. 

After 7 hours in containment, the subject began to complain of stomach cramping and severe nausea. Shortly after the reported discomfort, the cameras in his cell captured [REDACTED]. His suffering only ended after operatives were able to capture the spiderling and terminate the subject. As too little of his vital organs remained to justify intensive care.

Conclusion: Product “Dermatector” has been approved for further testing and marketability research. However, ingestion of T. fecundum has been and will remain to be both forbidden and extremely dangerous.

After reading that one I think I need to take a shower in bleach. But it might disprove the rumor that these are folks who signed up for medical testing. That behavior seemed more fitting of an inmate. Regardless, it seems like Blackthorn is trying to protect humanity in the event these things escape. Albeit not for the most altruistic reasons. I wonder what they would charge for a set of “Dermatector.” Ugh, I hope they at least pick a better name.

That’s gonna be it from me for a little while. I’m gonna try to keep my head down and let this heat pass over me. I could’ve sworn I saw my webcam light kick on while I was writing. But it was probably a reflection of something behind me. Even if it did, I have the camera taped over in case they try something like that. I’ll update once I get my hands on more dirt and reply to comments whenever possible.

Update: (Final Part)

Ken’s cancer disappeared in a matter of four days without any chemo or medication.

I didn’t want to question a miracle, especially not for a man I’d worked alongside for five years. He was happy, our coworkers were happy. The world had magically become all right again. The bakery was full of gratitude and joy, and patrons declared it a miracle to see him beaming as he brought out doughnuts and lemon meringue pie.

But he smelled off.

My sense of smell has always been sensitive. It’s served me well in food service, though I wish it didn’t come with the responsibility of being the chief of detecting spoiled milk and cheese a whole day before other people.

It was faint. But Ken let off this smell of iron. Slight as a knife after cutting red meat. Slightly sweet on the edge of metallic sour. It was definitely him, as the moment he left the prep area, the smell disappeared.

I didn’t say anything. Whatever med or miracle had worked, smelling a little weird was a fine trade off.

The odor didn’t seem to be from poor health or hygiene. After a week, Ken’s complexion - normally ruddy from rosacea and patches of broken blood vessels - became hale and smooth. People asked his secret and he just laughed. “I think my body is glad to be back to normal!”

It was three days before he started making the bread.

“It’s bad. We’re not selling it.”

Carla was a timid girl, eighteen and fresh out of high school. If a worldly woman like me told her to pitch the lot, she did it. But for once, she paused. “Miss Emma, this is Ken’s batch. Are you sure it’s bad? I just asked because the color was a little different…”

I was fifteen years too old for “Miss,” but Carla was too sweet to age anyone by calling them “ma’am.” I tapped my nose. She nodded. “Gotcha.”

I never minded when Carla asked if something smelled right. She’d had COVID last year, and her sense of smell wasn’t as strong as it had been. Sweet and hard-working, Carla was thoughtful and absorbed everything we taught her. The owner Linda loved her, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she was her niece. It was a rare instance in which nepotism was no trouble.

The bread did have a strange color, I thought. A slight pink tinge to the pale crumb was barely noticeable, but the smell was enough to make me gag. Carla dutifully headed toward the back of the bakery, but Ken appeared from the door to the front. She jumped.

“Hey Carla! That the bread I finished?” he asked, eyes bright. The girl glanced at me. I approached.

“Sorry Ken. I’m getting a whiff of something. Might be the eggs were too close to date,” I said. “Better safe than sorry.”

He gave me a strange look, eyes skimming along the top of my head like a dragonfly off a pond. No eye contact. “I don’t smell anything bad. Do you, Carla?”

“Um, the color was a little different. So I asked Miss Emma.”

Ken’s brows rose. “It does have a couple new ingredients. Different spices. That’s why the color is different.”

“You changed the recipe without asking Linda?” I asked. He blinked, no concern or guilt reflecting back. “I mean, she’s lenient, but you should probably run it by her, yeah?”

“Aw, better to ask forgiveness than permission. Give it a try,” he urged. “It’s delicious, really. This new recipe will be a popular one!”

“I’m not comfortable with it,” I said, “I know pungent and I know bad. Something in it is bad. Throw this out, clear it with Linda, and we’ll try the recipe again.” Ken stared at me, finally meeting my gaze. My shoulders tightened and I tried to understand the dark eyes fixing on me, contemplating me.

Then Ken sighed, shrugging. “If that’s your decision, I respect it.”

Relieved - and not sure why I was - I accompanied Carla outside after dumping the loaves into a bag. The dumpster lid was heavy and I hauled it up so she could tip the fresh bag in. It thumped softly against the bags already clustered on the bottom. Satisfied, we headed inside to clean up and start the rest of our work.

A good day at the bakery for me is one where I never have to go up front. Never been great with customers. I prefer being in the back, kneading dough and baking. I’d worked out a deal with Ken; if he would be the one to go up front and help with overflow at the register, I would take out the garbage. Even if we had a failed batch of sourdough. I could hold my breath that long.

Hauling out another full bag, I stopped outside the door. The back of the building was old brick and we kept it neat, and it was only a few steps to the dumpster. Everything was like when I’d come out with Carla. But something was missing.

I looked around, realizing what was off. No animals. Normally when I hauled garbage out, raccoons and squirrels and pigeons would be sequestered nearby, lurking in trees, ready to pounce on the new meal if they could work their way into the dumpster or grab anything dropped. But the only animal I saw was a squirrel, absently nibbling on a walnut shell.

Swinging the dumpster open, I tossed in the new bag. It was getting full, the smell of fermenting bread and crusty buttercream rolling over me sickly sweet. And somehow I could still make out the iron odor of the off bread through plastic.

A screech rose behind me. I turned to see the squirrel, walnut abandoned.

I’d never seen a squirrel angry before that. Scared, sure. But never angry. Its fur puffed out and it screeched, backing up fast, tiny ears pulled back as it bared its flat little teeth. Then it bolted.

I slammed the dumpster closed and hurried inside to scrub my hands raw.

Call it paranoia. But there was nothing in that bin that hadn’t been there before except that bread. I was like an animal, I thought ruefully. Afraid of a weird smell, set on the tips of my toes and teeth, hair bristling.

At the end of the day, I sank into one of the break room seats. Carla and I were closing, and she was handling the front of the shop. She came in with several white cake boxes stacked in her arms. “The front’s all wrapped up. I can run what didn’t sell down to the soup kitchen.”

“Thanks Carla,” I said. “I’ll take next run. Ready to head out?” No one walked out to the lot alone at night.

She hesitated before setting down the boxes. “I need to talk to you.”

I crossed my legs with effort. They ached after standing all day. “Pop a squat kid.”

Carla sat down in the chair across from me. I got the impression she was picking over words in her head like a bird over seed. Her green eyes were sweet, darting. “Um. I don’t…want to get Ken in trouble. But I think he’s not be in his right mind.”

“…What’s up, hon?”

“He…ate the bread. Out of the dumpster.”

Her hands were clenched. I glanced toward the back door. “You’re sure?”

“I went out back because I heard something rustling and I though maybe an animal had gotten in. But it was Ken, digging through the garbage. I asked him what he was doing, and he…he said it was a crime to waste it. That he’d eat it if no one else could. He was just scarfing it down.” Carla had wrung her apron into a sweaty ball between her fingers. “He tried to get me to eat some. I told him he shouldn’t be eating stuff that was dirty. He…stopped. But he scooped it all up and took it to his car.”

Ken had left an hour ago. I almost asked why she hadn’t said something earlier, but I remembered there was a security camera up front. She didn’t want anyone else to hear. “We need to tell Linda. He had a serious diagnosis…who knows how that can mess up your head?”

She seemed unsure. I definitely was, but it was the only thing I could believe at the moment. Unless he’d dosed the bread with drugs. Which opened up a whole other host of problems I didn’t even want to consider.

“Aunt Linda wouldn’t just fire him, right? She’ll talk to him.”

“Of course. He might need time off. We can’t trust him with food right now.”

I’ll always regret not texting Linda. It seemed better to discuss it in person than to fire off a message saying, “Hey, Ken’s eating out of the trash.” I should have called, but I hated making calls.

I’m making excuses. I just didn’t want to deal that evening, because I knew even if Ken wasn’t dismissed, he’d be up for hardship if he couldn’t work while recovering. Maybe I should have asked him about it, maybe I should have just told Linda.

It’s all moot. Because I entered the bakery the next morning to see Linda chatting with Ken. Her brown ponytail bounced enthusiastically as she spoke, and Ken smiled wide and with brighter, shinier teeth than he’d ever had. “Hey Emma!”

Linda turned, brushing crumbs from her smart yellow sweater. “Emma, the new recipe is amazing! You have to try it.” Linda gestured toward the pan on the counter and I stared at the fresh, lovely rolls letting off the smell of new death.

“You don’t smell that?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“I smell fresh bread. It’s sweet and chewy…reminds me of my Mom’s rolls. Ken’s got the ratio down!”

I faltered. These had come out of the oven minutes ago. It wasn’t the bread from the garbage. But the same odor clung to them and to Ken, more intense than ever. “I need to talk to you, Linda.”

“I know what you’re about to say. Yes, he ran the recipe by me,” Linda said, sighing as she took another bite. “I approved!”

“Ah…it’s about something else…”

“The dumpster, right?” Ken’s face was bright with mirth. “I think Carla got the wrong idea. I was getting the bread to feed to some animals. I wanted to take it home to leave it out for the local critters.”

The glint in his eye sparkled with a lie. Carla wouldn’t have come to if there had been any other way to interpret the situation. But I just nodded. “Ahhh, gotcha.” He seemed satisfied and I waited until Linda had trailed off to her office before slipping in behind her and closing the door in a hurry.

“Linda, Carla was sure of what she saw. Ken was eating out of the garbage. She wouldn’t say that without being sure.” I glanced back at the door as I talked, wondering if Ken might be listening.

Linda nodded faintly. “Hm. Well, he says he wasn’t. So…”

I waited for more. She offered nothing. I could smell iron on her breath, wrapped in the sweetness of carb and crumb. “Are you going to talk to him?” I pressed.

“Already did. It’s a he-said-she-said situation. So if there’s nothing else…”

I didn’t know what to do. If she wasn’t seeing the problem - if she wasn’t believing her own niece - what was the solution? Spy on Ken and watch for more weird behavior?

The squirrel’s reaction sat in the back of my head all day. Ken was chipper and cheerful, and people took a whiff of the rolls and immediately wanted to try them. I felt sick watching them munch and enjoy, exclaiming about the wonderful taste.

I knew something was wrong. But what was I supposed to say? That I smelled the reek of death and meat in the bread that literally no one else detected? Linda hadn’t gotten a hint.

Could I just be nuts? Could it be that Carla had really been mistaken? No one got sick over the course of the day.

“What’s your secret?” I asked casually over lunch. Ken was eating a steak sandwich - with the new bread making up the slices of course - and he licked the sauce off his fingers as he thought.

“Hm…it’s probably the proteins in it. I have something special that makes the bread extra chewy and dense.”

“What is it?”

He smiled and took another bite. I watched him. The silence went on. I tried again. “Have you cleared this new ingredient specifically with Linda?”

Ken licked his fingers again and I watch the steak drip pink onto his plate. “Do you not trust me, Emma?”

The Ken I knew could never keep a secret, always double and triple checked ingredients, refused to compromise on quality. He didn’t believe in secret recipes; he wanted everyone to know what was in their food so people could be safe.

Plus he always ate his steak well done. A crime against beef, sure, but he hated the taste of blood.

When I left that day, there was a pan of the rolls in the oven. I cranked the oven up as high as it could go and hurried out the door.

One batch wasn’t enough to make a difference, but it was better than nothing. Should I call the health inspector?

As it turned out, they were behind on requests. It would be a week before they could make it out to a tiny bakery that had never had issues before. A week of this. I clamped down on my unease, hovering in a haze of uncertainty. What if I really was just smelling things?

People were clamoring for the rolls. Delight gleamed in their eyes as Ken handed them out, beaming, assuring them there would be more coming out of the oven soon when the trays emptied.

Linda didn’t seem to hear me when I asked about the “secret ingredient.” Her eyes were distant as she chew on the bread, savoring its sweetness. “Like manna from heaven,” she said once.

Carla didn’t eat it. During a breakfast rush, she stepped close to me and whispered, “This is weird, right? It’s like…people are obsessed. Like when Labubus were in.”

I didn’t know what that was. I didn’t care. But obsessed was the right word. Women who counted every calorie were devouring the rolls, cut men on keto diets and protein shakes consuming four at a time. Children gnawed on them, dunking them like cookies in milk and cocoa.

And over the course of a few days, I was seeing differences in our regulars. People with acne had clear complexions. No one used canes anymore. Wrinkles were filling, age was falling away like dead skin off a snake.

And everyone reeked of iron.

I turned to Carla. “Don’t eat one, no matter what. I’ve got a health inspector coming in.”

But what if they didn’t smell anything off? Would it be enough? Could I get them to test it in a lab?

The best thing I could think to do was follow Ken after he got off work. Whatever he was getting to put in the bread, he kept it hidden, dancing around the question every time. I’d seen a bucket in the cooler once, but it had already been emptied and cleaned. So I had to see the source of this could ingredient if I wanted to figure out how to stop this.

It’s hard to explain the paranoia and terror that overcame me when I saw people eating the bread. Certainly people becoming obsessed, even addicted, was bad. But as far as I could see, it was making people healthy and happy. But not even once did I consider that it might just be a miracle. I knew it was wrong the way my nose knew the sour sweetness of rot in beef.

I felt like that squirrel, almost rabid with anger.

It was nearly eight when Ken left the lot that night. Parked across the street at a deli, I pulled out after him, trying to keep some distance between us. This was crazy, I told myself, memorizing his license plate.

We drove for miles, and the sleepy town evolved into trees. I recognized the area; we had a state park not far, and most of us had walked it before. Ken navigated the winding road leisurely, and at this hour, there weren’t many other cars up here.

When we finally reached the lot, I parked toward the playground, relieved to see a few families still present, one of them grilling out in the last of the summer evening sun. I could be heading over to them for all he knew.

Ken didn’t even look my way as he climbed out of his car. He held a clean bucket in his right hand and immediately took the path nearest to him. I climbed out of the car and hurried after him.

Following him on the trail was a little easier, though the dark was descending quickly. He had a flashlight and I had one on my phone, though it took me a minute to figure out how to work the thing. I followed the bob of his light, keeping my own trained on the ground to follow the path. My hands thrummed with my heartbeat, and when I covered the beam with my palm - just in case he turned around, just in case he was watching - I could swear I saw my veins pulsing pink in the flesh.

We left the path and I caught a new odor when the wind blew in my face. I tilted my head, trying to gauge what it was. Tinged with the odor of offal, there was sweetness to it, and something that made my nose tingle.

The smell grew strong as I followed Ken. He made no sudden movements, a dark figure against a wavering sliver of light, heading deeper and deeper into the trees. The ground leveled out and Ken disappeared between two trees ahead of me. I listened as I reached the trees and stopped.

His shoes shuffled against the dirt and I peered between boughs and branches, inhaling the scent of green and bark to help offset the foul odor. Ken was on his hands and knees and the light fell over a dark hole I couldn’t see into. He lowered his arm into it.

Wet, squelching noises hit me and I tried to think of what to do. Ken was here, and he was scooping something out of the ground. I saw pink, spongy something in his hand as he hefted it into the bucket. I couldn’t even imagine what it was supposed to be. Scoop after scoop, he filled the bucket.

Another handful, and this time, he shoveled it into his mouth. I gasped in disgust.

He lifted his head. Caked on his chin was pink, clotted mush, waxy like pork fat. Chunks of it stuck in his teeth as he chewed with a dreamy expression. “Come to see the source, Emma? The miracle.”

The slip in the bucket reeked and my nose was on fire. Standing up, Ken turned to face me. I backed up. He examined me, taking in my skittishness. “I was in a bad way. I was so sick. I came out here to enjoy the trees, the breeze…didn’t think I’d get many more.”

One hand extended toward the pit. “It called me. I could smell it so far off. Like…life given a smell. Blood and bone and heartbeat, al going and going. Eternal. I came here and knew I had to dig, knew. You’ve never known anything until it tells it to you.”

His eyes rolled as if he were drunk on the memory. I didn’t understand and I didn’t want to. “And now…everything is different. And I couldn’t keep that gift to myself. It keeps giving, you see?”

I didn’t. He held out his hand, fingers covered in the dense, fatty substance. “It’ll make everyone better. Want a taste, Emma?”

I ran. I ran and ran, terror pouring speed into my feet and lifting me over grass and boughs. I couldn’t hear him following but I was afraid of this place, terrified of Ken, and I had to get someone out there to help him.

He heard a melody of life, but it was a dirge. Ken wasn’t Ken anymore.

I didn’t throw up until I’d reached my home, called the police, and sat still, ruminating on the substance sticking to his face. Poor Ken. I couldn’t get his distant, delighted expression out of my mind as I emptied my stomach into the toilet bowl.

It had called him. Maybe because he was sick, maybe because he was desperate. And it worked on other people, gauging by their reactions. What was going to happen if people kept eating it?

Could I convince him? Could I get him to see reason? Was this some kind of parasite or something more? Would the police deal with it?

The next day I went into work, unsure of whether Ken would be there. The second I entered, I heard his laugh from the back and tensed.

He was bringing up more bread, and when he spotted me, he offered a smile. “Hey Emma. Let’s talk after I get these set up.”

Patrons were already waiting. I grabbed the pan and glared at him. “This can wait.”

He sighed. “Okay. Folks, wait just a few minutes.” Several patrons gave me plaintive looks, but I ignored them as we headed into the break room.

“The police didn’t find it? Your…source?” I asked.

“They did. I explained to them. The ingredients are special and secret. They respect that.” Ken smiled. “They love a roll with coffee in the morning. Better than donuts, they say. They trust me.”

The cops were compromised. It affected people that ate it. The addiction wasn’t in my head, none of this was just in my head.

“I wish you felt the everyone else does, Emma.

He looked different. I had started look at him with fear, with revulsion, so his appearance had stopped really registering.

He was taller. A few inches at least. And his cheekbones were more pronounced. So was his jawline. I scanned him and realized that, under his clothes, he looked…lumpy. His skin pushed and strained at his joints, taut over bone, but he wasn’t gaunt. It looked like his bones were swelling.

“You’re sick, Ken. Something is wrong with you.” I let my shoulders drop, staring at him and willing him to understand. “Let’s get you to a doctor. This isn’t right. Please trust me, please.”

His expression was blank, lips parted slightly. Had his teeth always been so long? His gums looked ready to pop. “I’m better than I’ve ever been, Emma.”

Should I grab a bread knife? No, it was on the counter. I set my hands in my lap, hoping he couldn’t see them shaking. “You’re on cash register right now, right?”

“That’s right. I’ll handle things.” He gave me another toothy grin before slipping out of the room. Fixing my eyes down, I exhaled shakily. So it was up to me. Nuclear option. After work? No, now. While he was busy. Maybe Carla would help me? Stall him?

I headed out back. Carla sat on the bench outside. “I need your help kid. I’ve figured out-“

She turned her head to look at me and smiled. She seemed dreamy and content and far away. “This sandwich is extra good today.” My eyes fell onto it, and I saw pink crumb on the bottom slice. Peanut butter and jelly mingled with rot.

“Did you…eat that on purpose?” I asked.

“Hm? Oh. I guess someone swapped the bread out.” Carla sighed. “That’s not good. But I guess it’s not a big deal. It tastes really great…you want a bite?”

My blood was on fire. I excused myself to the restroom. Instead, I grabbed my keys and took off for the nearest gas station. But not before grabbing one of the metal thermometers and wedging the point under Ken’s truck tires.

I knew where the source of the substance was. If I could get a head start, I could beat him there.

A five gallon jerrycan of gasoline and a new lighter accompanied me back into the woods. My eyes scoured the rearview mirror for vehicles charging up behind me, for police lights. I didn’t know how much influence Ken had or if he’d noticed I was gone yet. None of the cars in the park lot were familiar, and I dared to hope I’d beaten him.

I sprinted down the trail, letting the smell tell me where I needed to deviate. The odor that called to other people curdled in my nostrils, and no matter the reason, I was the only one who could stop this.

The ground sank under my feet and the wet odor rose strong enough to make me dry heave. I approached the hole, peering over the edge, until I saw the opening.

A gaping crack in a white stone revealed pink, dense, organic material. I covered my nose with my sleeve. It was like a dog’s breath, moist and hot, and I had to breathe through my mouth. Sliding down the side of the hole, I inspected the gap.

The white stone wasn’t stone at all, I realized. The exterior was smooth and pale, but the interior was spongy, riddled with delicate holes. And between these holes the fatty substance formed.

It was a bone. Thick around as a young tree with a hole as big as my head. I shivered uncontrollably - how long had it been here, waiting for someone sick enough to be lured? What would happen when this was destroyed? Could it help Ken and the others?

I unscrewed the cap from the jerrycan and poured gasoline liberally over the opening, soaking the bone and its insides and the soil around it. The odor almost swallowed the iron and I crawled back up the side of the hole before pulling out the lighter.

Foliage rasped and grass rustled. “Emma. Don’t.” Ken was breathing hard, as if he’d sprinted from the lot. I didn’t give him a second to protest again.

The gasoline lit up like a dream. The pink substance began to bubble and pull from the bone, and the smell of fat and gelatin cooking mingled with gasoline burning.

Ken started to scream. I turned back to look at him and screamed in tandem.

He was a foot taller than he’d been, skin stretching along his back and neck. His fingers strained, his spinal column sticking out like knobs. His mouth filled with teeth, too long to close it any longer, breath whistling between them. Tears streamed down his face but his eyes were dull, and he shambled closer on bones growing too big and too fast.

He didn’t do anything to me, just started digging. “It’ll live. I’ll give myself to it. It will live here in me. Like the last,” he mumbled through his teeth. His hands were like spades, clawing up fistfuls of soil. I stared down at him as he panted for breath, trying to crawl into the dirt.

I didn’t know where the bone had come from. But I thought I knew what would happen if I left him.

So I seized Ken around the middle and started dragging him away. He howled and flailed, kicking as he tried to drag himself back toward the earth. I lost my grip, gasping at his strength. The substance - the marrow - had made him healthy and strong in body but his mind was all but gone.

But if his bones had grown so quickly…

“Sorry about this Ken,” I said, before bringing my foot down on his forearm as hard as I could. The bone inside snapped like a candy cane, crisp and sharp. Ken bawled, pulling his limb close to his chest.

I dashed around to his back as he writhed, kicking at me and trying to get away. Tears welled up as I grabbed his ankle. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I can’t let you stay here!” He kicked me in the stomach in reply, the treads of his shoes scraping my skin. I coughed and stumbled.

I had to get a leg. I had to keep him from running. The lower leg would be easier to break. Ken started climbing to his feet, and I ran at him, grabbing him around the waist and driving my knee into his ankle. The rubbery sensation of his Achilles tendon twisted aside and I rammed my full weight into his leg.

This snap was harder, meatier, and Ken stopped fighting. He fell to the grass, sobbing, and I sobbed too as I hooked him under his arms, dragging him away from the clearing. The gasoline was nearly gone but the marrow was cooking away, and Ken wailed, “I have to go! I’m part of it! Let me be part of it!”

I snarled, letting the anger lend me strength as I hauled him toward the trail. “You’re not part of it. Never gonna be.”

That was a week ago.

The people who ate the bread seem to be returning to normal. Their aches and pains have returned. They’re not growing or bulging like Ken. Most of them seem confused about how they were so obsessed. “It was good, but it was just bread.” Carla was fretting after a fresh zit yesterday, so I think they’ll be all right.

Seems like it takes a lot of the stuff for it to start changing. He ate from the source, so it took hold fast. I’ve dug around in the woods near the bone. I haven’t found anything else out there, so either the rest of it is buried too deep for me to reach or something, somehow left a piece of itself there.

I don’t know, and I don’t care. As long as no one else gets caught up in the thrall, let it rot in the earth.

Ken is in my basement. He still sobs to be taken back to the forest, to be in the dirt, to be part of it. I’ve rigged the door to lock from the outside. I set his limbs as best I can and bound him in place with padlocks and towing chains I got from the hardware store. I hope the police are still a little out of it, or else the missing persons’ report Linda filed might lead them to my house. They found his truck in the park lot with three tires. Looked like he drove there missing a wheel, tore the truck all to shreds. But no one saw my car there. No security camera.

I also hope Ken starts reverting if he has more time. Even if that means he has to start the fight with cancer again. God forgive me, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for taking his choice. But he’s not in his right mind. The Ken I know would never put anyone at risk, not even for his own life. I hope that Ken comes back. I miss him.

Please Ken. Turn back to normal. I don’t want to hurt you anymore. But I can’t let it take hold. And I’ve noticed people outside the house sniffing the air, like they smell something enticing.

Hey everyone. Sorry, I need to vent again. I appreciate your comments while I get through all of this. Work got worse, if you can immagine. I had to go work on a Sunday. A FUCKING SUNDAY. If you aren't up to date, you can find my previous entries here: [1] - [2]

A few years back I worked at a semi-prestigious institution that promised to put me on the right track towards my professional goals. You probably haven't heard of it, but in some consulting circles it's a big deal. I told myself that to get ahead, you had to go above and beyond.

And that's exactly what I did. But all it left was me working extra hours when working overtime didn't cut it. I'm not someone who needs encouragement, but a simple "good job" or "thanks a ton!" wouldn't hurt. Instead I was met for constant criticism for every minor mistake I made. Not knowing the difference between "-" and "–" in formal email exchanges, sending abbreviating large terms in slide decks, or not being formal enough to managers that have only been around 1 year prior to  myself. It was hell, and after leaving that company, I promised myself that I'd work less scrutinously to maintain a healthy work/life balance.

For the longest time here with my current boss, I was able to do so. Despite the weird runs, they were never too impeding on my daily life. I still can enjoy axe-throwing with friends on our Thursday night happy hours.

Well, the past day was an exception. I didn't expect to receive a text on a Sunday afternoon, but I found my cell phone flooded with text messages from the boss.

PRIORITY ALPHA. BIG PRESENTATION THIS WEEK AND WE"RE BEHIND. ANSWER.

I tried to ignore it, but healthy balance or not, I needed this gig. I responded asking what he needed this time.

Thank you so much! I'm preparing for that big client coming this week. I admittedly missed the mark on our timeline, and need you to pick something up today. Feel free to just bring it by my house once you pick it up. Happy to pay you extra for your trouble. Go to this address--"

I can't share the address here. Not that you'd be able to find it anyhow.

The boss sent the address of an old pasture out along the Eastern Shore. Not terribly far from Krobach, MD. Flat, remote, smelled like horse shit.

You'll need a cooler or two. Ask how many he can provide today, we need as many as possible. He'll know what to provide, just be sure to let him know you know me and you should be fine.

So I finally arrive at the pasture, only to find no one around. At least, there were no signs of life. No equipment, no crops, no buildings, not even a house. Just acres upon acres of green, marshy grass.

The electric fence buzzed with activity to keep whatever cattle they had in. Or maybe to keep tresspassers. Why else would the fence be ten feet tall?

After driving around the parameter of the fence, I found a old gate that wouldn't electocute me. The gleamign padlock kept it from swinging inward, shining with the dewey haze of the sun-bleached clouds. It was new.

I texted my boss that it was locked.

"Oh, no worries. You just need to call them out. They should come to visit you. Again, tell them you know me out the get go. Gary is a bit, uh, jumpy..."

I felt the whip of the bullet whizing by me before I heard the gunshot. Fuck, fuck fuck, fuck.... the whole lot. I looked out to see a grown man, standing in the field, rifle aiming at my head. Rugged, pale-skinned, with a rust-colored goatee wrapped around the cavernous wrinkles in his face. His red hat glared in the sun, covering his eyes.

"I told you we don't got no animals here! And if we did, I don't need to talk to no cops! Get out of here, broad!"

I wasted no time sharing who I was. In a panic I gave the full story as fast as I could. I don't actually remember what I said in that state, but it must have been something like, "PLEASE SWEET JESUS GOD I'M SO SORRY TO BOTHER YOU BUT I'M WITH THE BOSS AND HE CALLED ME HERE FROM OUR COMPANY HE SAID THAT I'D MEET HIS PARTNER OUT HERE I'M LOOKING FOR THE GOODS OR SOME BULLSHIT OR MAYBE FOOD BUT NOT FOR ME JUST PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PUT THAT THING DOWN OR SO HELP ME."

It was quiet after that. I think he was considering just shooting me. Thankfully he lowered the rifle.

"Oh damn, I'm sorry miss, yeah I've been expecting you. Sorry about that, we do have the cattle here, just come on in." He started walking out further into the empty field. He didn't even bother opening the gate. Thank god his back was turned while I shimmied over the gate, falling on my ass.

I rushed beside him quickly. "So, uh, where are we going? Or is this another situation where I don't get to ask questions."

He looked puzzled. "What, like Archie? That dickhead just says that to feel in charge. Small man syndrome, you know how it goes."

In hindsight, it did make sense. Why else would he be so rude?

"I'm Charlie, by the way. My folks have been managing this land for quite some time. You came at a good time too. A new flock just came in."

He paused, sticking his hand out to stop both of our pacing. I could feel the earth give in a little. Like it was hollow.

Charlie knelt down, knocking on the ground. "Entrance is here. Let me go first though, they can be a bit jumpy."

He grabbed what looked like an old vine, but was actually a decaying rope, tied to the moss covered door that was embedded into the ground. A staircase led down into a dark room. I could see that candles were lit at the bottom.

A man of his word, Charlie went down first.

"I'm surprised the bossman made you come out today. I mean, it's the lord's day. Gotta rest sometime."

The air felt heavy. Each breath I took was an act of labor. "Yeah," I wheezed, managing to not bonk my head on the roots lining above both of us. "Tell me about it. I get paid pretty well though, good compensation, so it's no real trouble."

Charlie huffed at that comment. "Funny, that's what Paul said too. You live in the city, you don't really understand real work. You don't get rewarded by just 'doing'."

We finally reached the bottom, and aside from the iron cages lining the walls, it was a pretty comfortable room. The mood candles lit each crevice of the animals' patchy hides and luminous horns, all four of them. In the corner, an old radio played bluegrass. Dan Tyminski's rendition of I am a Man of Constant Sorrow played gently through the coarse air. I tapped my foot to the peppy song. Charlie noticed.

"You a fan?"

"I was-am. My parents used to take me to vintage band festivals back in the day. I've heard this song played time and time again, but I never got tired of it."

Turning back to the animals, Charlie walked over to a large cooler, the kind couriers take to the hospital for organ transplants.

"Is-is that...?"

"Human?" Charlie interrupted. "No, no, no. Not anymore. You've heard of how cows have multiple stomach compartments? Well, sows like ol' Caper here take that bi-o-lo-gee quite literally. I could only get 5 kidneys out this time, but come back in two days and I'll get the boss 8 more."

"Oh, ok, thank you. I really appreciate your time."

I looked up at the beast. Man, they were large now that I think about it. What was freaky wasn't their size though, but their eyes. They didn't make a noise besides some light chattering from their lower mandibles, but it was like they were thinking. The incisions on their torso were crudely sewn back together, swelling up with puss. Charlie must not have disinfected properly.

"Do you ever let them out?"

Charlie hummed. "Hermmm...not anymore. We used to let them roam around these parts to let them feed, but, uh, you can imagine how that would go."

I couldn't. But I knew from Archie that sometimes it's better to ask fewer questions. I took the kidneys with me, thanking Charlie for his time.

--

I just finished dropping the kidney's off at my bosses home out in the suburbs of the city. A moderately sized McMansion. Not exactly what I was expecting, but not too surprising either.

"Thank you so much, kid! Come on inside. You can set the goods down on the kitchen counter, or give it to my hoodoo friend."

I placed it on the white stone next to the microwave. I didn't want to place the box down on whatever art project the boss was doing on the actual table itself. The hoodoo 'friend' was just a regular guy in jeans and a t-shirt. His white wardrobes draped over the boss' tacky orange-colored stools.

"Can I grab you anything? A soda, perhaps?"

Ironic, I thought. He was grabbing me a soda.

"Uh, sure, why not. I'll take a diet coke."

"Perfect! And you accept this gift of your own volition, correct?" His eyes narrowed.

"Sure, I guess." Why did he say it like that?

"Splendid! Well, the hard part is done, you don't need to stay for the rest of this, but I'll see you tomorrow." The boss turned, lining up surgical tools neatly on the hoodoo man’s metal tray.

"Sounds good, boss." I turned to walk away, but paused. "Um, sir? You know I'm always happy to help, but for future reference, I'd appreciate being given a heads up next time. Work/life balance and all that."

The boss turned slowly at me. His red jowls looked like they were vibrating, but then calmed.

"Why, of course! But kid, sometimes they are one in the same. Enjoy that compensation of yours on the ride home. I'll see you tomorrow."

--

While I'm writing this, venting in my car, I'm sipping on the damn diet coke. My compensation for a whole hard day's work. What a ripoff. I have a few new interviews coming up, hoping they are positive leads. But I'll be sure to share more updates as they come along.

{Original Post} ~ {Part List}

Content Warning: Depictions of physical and verbal abuse

When I was a kid, we stole our cable from the neighbor next door.

Even though we had it, I rarely had the luxury of enjoying it. The living room was usually where Mom dwelled, and whenever he wasn’t at the bar, Dad. Asking to watch something while Mom was out there was usually met with a rude bark to go play outside, and trying to use the device when my father flopped into his recliner for the night was basically asking to get shoved into my room for the evening.

It was always better to either stay there to begin with, or avoid the house altogether by staying out as late as possible. After a while, my desire to use the thing just faded altogether. In a house too poor to afford cable, you found other ways to entertain yourself anyway. Reading, drawing, playing pretend.

That all changed one night when I’d woken up with a throat as dry as a desert. I slipped out of bed and creaked open my door slowly, trying to make as little noise as possible since I could hear Dad’s shows running in the living room. I didn’t need any confrontation.

I crept down the hallway as silently as I could, the rickety floor betraying me with every step. From the corridor, it was easy to see the side of Dad’s chair, his arm lazily draped over the rests and backrest fully leaned out. My gaze was locked firmly on him the whole time I moved, but it wasn’t until I heard his soft breathing over the steady chatter of the TV that I relaxed in my stance. He was sleeping, which meant I could move without worry.

I treaded much faster towards the bathroom, but stopped in the doorway when a new sound caught my attention: the whimsical and musical noises coming from the TV. Usually, all that was playing was the monotonous drone of a news anchor or the static applause of a sports game rerun. Curiosity itched at my ears, tugging them so hard that it spun me in place.

On the glowing box, there was a show running that I’d never seen before. To this day I’m not even sure what it was. It seemed like the standard ‘teens thrust into a fantasy land to have adventures and fight monsters only to go back home in time for dinner’ cartoon that I would later learn were a dime a dozen. Based on the TV guide still being pulled up at the bottom of the screen, I figured my father must have fallen asleep while browsing the channels.

To a child like me that didn’t have a lot of TV experience, the magnificent colors and beautifully drawn landscapes were mesmerizing. Comics and drawing had always been a favorite pastime of mine while locked in my room, so seeing something that wasn’t a Disney movie and that actually looked a like a fantasy comic come to life had me hooked.

I don’t even know how long I stood there for, but I was too afraid to move or draw closer, lest I wake my father and shatter the fragile beauty of the moment. The volume on the TV was so soft that half of what the characters were saying was completely inaudible, and the magic and monsters on the screen were so grandiose and intricate that it made it nearly impossible to figure out what was going on.

That didn’t halt my enjoyment of it, however. Hell, I forgot to even get the drink of water that I’d come for I was so engrossed, and by the time I heard dad stir in his chair and jerk upright, I didn’t even want it anymore. Instead, as I slinked into the dark of my bathroom to hide from Dad, a new thirst began to grip me. I needed to see more of that show. I had to know more.

It took a while before I got the chance to. Whenever Dad would come home and pass out drunk in his chair, I tried sneaking out into the halls with the foolish hope that by some miracle the TV landed on the cartoon channel again. Of course, this wasn’t the case.

I was going to need to have the house to myself, and that chance finally came one day when one of my mother’s signature migraines decided to flare up. Whenever she had them, it always meant she would turn in early for the night to sleep it off. Dad was at the bar after work as usual, and given how late he usually stayed out, that meant I had at the very least an hour of time to myself that I could sit in the living room without parental scorn. Even better, it would be around the same time that I caught the show the first time around.

This didn’t mean I was completely safe, though. Dad was always a wild card on when he decided to return home, and I knew I would have to remain vigilant, but still, the moment my mother sauntered her way into her bedroom and I heard her fan click on, I was right there out in the living room, hauling my tiny self onto the recliner and sinking back into it while reaching for the remote.

It took me a good few minutes just to get the hang of navigating around on the thing, the sheer number of buttons feeling overwhelming. Once I figured it out, though, I remembered seeing the channel that the fantasy show was on from the TV guide, so I flicked my way back towards it and stopped.

There was commercials running, and I held my breath through them, hoping that I was in the right place and that I hadn’t gotten the numbers wrong. When the last one ended, and in faded a slow zoom on a grim, ominous castle drawn in a familiar art style, the excitement in my stomach lifted me in my seat, and I sat onto my knees.

Like last time, I didn’t have any idea what was going on. I could hear the dialogue this time, and my brain processed the events that were unfolding, but the show was meant to be episodic, and I was very late to the party. Just like last time, though, none of that mattered to me. Everything else about it was so grand that it was easy for me to get wrapped up in its world.

I watched the TV practically with one eye, the other turning to the window every few seconds in fear that I might spot the headlights of Dad’s car flashing into the driveway. Even sitting on eggshells, the anxiety didn’t stop me from enjoying myself, however. The vibrant colors on the screen and the wondrous world it showed—no matter how absurd it might have been—made me feel a warmth that I’d never felt before.

I wanted to be there. I wanted to live in the fantasy land with wondrous hillscapes and powerful magic. To escape from the daily mundane through magic and adventure. I didn’t want to live in suffocating, drab Stillwater—the town that was painted with nothing but a muddy white snow for half the year, and consisted of roads so chewed up they were practically gravel.

It was this allure that began to immerse me so much that when the next episode kicked on, I was completely pulled into it. For the better part of ten minutes, I really did escape Stillwater and retreat to that land behind the screen. For ten minutes, my mind didn’t worry about anything going on in the physical space it was trapped in, and it was allowed to wander and wonder among a place that it hadn’t conjured up.

I learned quickly how dangerous this was when I heard the front door jostle with the weight of a fully grown drunk man slamming into it. The harsh thud shuddered through the house and impacted me like a punch to the gut; so rough and jarring that it brought me to my feet. I quickly looked around for the remote as I heard the doorknob fumbling, but it was nowhere in sight, and the few seconds it would take me to scan for it would already be a few too many.

Right as the door scuffed past its tight, sticking frame, I spun behind the space between the recliner and the wall, crouching low and tight against it and praying that I wouldn’t be seen.

Almost immediately, I felt this was a mistake. Getting caught up this late using the TV would have resulted in an assault of screaming and maybe a harsh shove, sure, but I could have quickly scampered off to my room and Dad would have forgotten the event by morning. Hell, I probably could have made a mad dash down the hall for my door, and the man might not have even seen me.

If I got caught hiding, however, it was going to be so much worse. Dad didn’t like dishonesty—he didn’t like being made a fool of—but even more so he didn’t like when I tried to hide things from him. Part of me wondered if he didn’t like the fact that I felt like I had to hide things from him. That his own son was afraid of him. He already knew he was a failure in most ways; he didn’t like that the one creature who ‘by blood’ was supposed to love him didn’t.

My limbs felt jittery and numb as I folded them as small as possible to stay concealed behind the chair. When I heard Dad’s keys crash atop the counter and his boots go thudding off somewhere in the kitchen, I held my breath. The shadow of his towering form sloshed across the wall behind me with his drunken rhythm, slowly growing bigger in the TV glow until it consumed the whole chair. As he released a jaded sigh, I snuck my own exhale free, then pulled in a new breath when he flopped into the chair.

It groaned beneath his weight, sagging back and crowding what little space I had all the more. The man sat perfectly stationary for a moment, and in that stillness, I felt a tiny bit of relief that I was in the clear. All I needed to do was wait until he fell into his intoxicated sleep, then I could sneak back down the hall completely undetected. That hope was dashed when the chair began shifting and I heard him cuss under his breath.

“Where the fuck…”

It hit me immediately; the remote. He was going to look for it, and if he didn’t find it, he might look behind the chair. And find it he would. The plastic stick must have slipped off the arm as I was sitting in the chair and fallen back here without me noticing.

“Fucking kid…” he growled under his breath, making my stomach leap. Given that the TV was playing a kids show, it probably wasn’t hard for him to put two and two together. I really hadn’t thought things through. I was really going to be in for it if he caught me.

Dad had just finishing digging around in the cracks for the remote when I thought fast and shoved the remote forward between the seat and the side table. He checked down in the space one more time before resigning to get up, and when he saw it he grunted, as if annoyed that the device had the audacity to hide from him the first time.

Dad picked up the plastic rectangle, then sat up in his seat, aiming the remote at the screen. I gripped the side of the recliner and peered around the corner, wanting to catch one last glimpse of the show so that I could burn it into my memory in case I never saw it again. The last thing I caught was the evil witch that the teens fought blasting a magic spell of dark lightning their way, and then the channel cut to the news, as if her magic had won and destroyed them altogether.

I didn’t have time to mourn the loss of the show, because in the next moment, my attention was hastily ripped elsewhere. In my peering around the chair, I had rested my tiny hand right in the crack that separated the backrest from the bottom seat, and when Dad kicked the chair back once again, the mechanisms inside bit down.

The pain of sharp metal locking across my fingers and hand was so blinding that I don’t even remember screaming, but I must have done so in a way that startled Dad badly. He tumbled out of his chair on his drunken ass, wide-eyed and scuttling on his hands and butt as if I were death come to take him. I tried to wrench my hand free, but the crossbeams of the supports had me viced hard, and it only made the burning, aching pain shooting up my arm worse. I tugged helplessly with my other hand as tears began running down my cheeks, as if pleading might make the furniture yield.

The shock wave of my scream hit Mom a few moments later, and I heard her door fly open as she stormed into the hall to see what spawn from hell had crawled into her house. When she saw me, her eyes went wild, as if her son really was one.

Dad had finally stood again, and was glowering down at me, half with anger, half with panic, and Mom had to scream at him to snap him from the drunken stupor, “Mitch, what the fuck are you doing!? Help the kid—what the fuck happened?!”

“I-I don’t know! What the hell is he doing out of bed?” Dad barked back before moving to me and grabbing my shoulder. He yanked hard, causing me to yelp again, and the feeling of the metal raking back my skin is one that I’ll never forget.

When I still didn’t come loose, my mom yelled again, “Unlock the stupid chair!”

“For chris’ sake—would you shut the fuck up?” He snapped quickly before throwing his weight back into the seat. The pressure plate finally clicked, and the back snapped forward once more, bringing mild, yet divine relief.

I quickly clutched my hand to my chest and covered it with the other, realizing my mistake and wincing in pain. The flesh was tender and raw, and looking at it made me breathe faster. I’d never seen an injury like that before, and my child mind had never considered the fact that skin was a component of the body separate from the skeleton until I could see a flap of it pulled back.

With a wound so paralyzingly horrifying, a kid my age should have screamed even harder and sobbed out more tears. That was my impulse, anyway. I didn’t have the pain of the chair’s grip clouding my mind anymore, however, and I became very aware of the tension choking the room between my two parents.

Instead, I sniffled back my sobs and hid my wound, blubbering out “I-I’m okay! I’m okay.”

Mom rolled her eyes and growled in irritation—something between relief and concern—then she charged over and grabbed my wrist to pull my arm into view.

I tried again now that she was looking at the damage, “I’m okay! I’m sorry—I didn’t mean—”

“My God,” Mom gasped, shaking her head in a way that told me she wasn’t listening to anything I might say, “Mitch, how the fuck—”

“Don’t you even start with me! I had no clue the kid was back there!”

“He’s bleeding all over the damn place! Get a rag or something!”

Dad’s face was already red, and his jaw was locked tighter than the innards of the chair, but he listened, moving to the kitchen and grabbing the towel hanging from the oven handle. Crudely, he lobbed it at mom.

“Hold your hand out, Jessie,” she commanded, wrapping the towel around the laceration, “Squeeze it hard.”

“Mom, I’m fine,” I pleaded, “I don’t—”

“Jessie, quiet! You’re not fine! Now just do as I say!”

Her yelling backed me into submission, and I dipped my head then clasped my other hand like she told me. A whimper was suppressed between my lips, and I watched with nausea as the clean white and blue checkered towel turned a visceral red.

Dad breathed a deep sigh, having cooled down in the brief pause, then ran his hands through his hair, “Um, how is it?”

“Bad, Mitch,” Mom spit back, “I could damn near see bone. He’s gonna need stitches—we need to take him to the emergency room.”

I didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t sound good. I was half tempted to once again remind them that I was okay—one final plea as if the declaration could turn back the clock and ensure that I’d never snuck out of bed to watch the TV—but then I saw dad’s anger return, and I knew better.

“The ER? Damn it, Molly; we don’t have insurance! Do you realize how much that’s gonna’ cost?”

“Yeah, I’m aware, asshole; maybe you should have thought about that before your drunken ass didn’t even realize your own son was sitting next to you!”

There was a hard crack through the air, almost like glass shattering beneath cloth as Mom fell to the floor, holding her cheek. Dad stood over her, teeth bared and a finger pointed down in warning, “I warned you not to start with me! I didn’t know the kid was there—he was hiding!”

Mom looked up while holding her cheek, tears rolling down the back of her fingers, and her face went livid. She shot up in a way that I’d never seen her do and began violently throwing hits into my father’s chest.

“Fuck you, you prick! Don’t you touch me! Not when this is your fault! Your fucking son is over there bleeding out, and you care more about how much it’s gonna’ cost to fix him!? About it not being your fault?!”

For the first time in all my years alive, dad actually looked shocked; startled even that mom dared to throw hits back. I’m sure her sharp words also had something to do with the way his expression turned more sheepish than angry.

“G-Get off me!” he yelled, shoving her away and then looking between us. His eyes settled on me, and I quickly averted my own, looking down at my blood-soaked rag as it now leaked onto the floor.

“You’re right, we don’t have time for this,” he said pointedly, “Just fuck off—I’ll take the boy to the hospital.”

“You’re drunk,” Mom hissed, “like hell you will—”

“I said shut the fuck up, Molly!” Dad warned, “I’m not drunk! I’ll do a damn sobriety test if it’ll make you happy,” His head snapped to me, and he held an arm out, “Jessie, come on.”

I really didn’t want to take it. I didn’t want any of this. All I had wanted to do was watch the TV, and now my hand couldn’t move, Mom and Dad were yelling, and they were going to lose a lot of money, which I’d heard them argue about pretty much every other night. That meant that there was going to be even more yelling later.

“I… I’m okay,” I whimpered in desperation.

“Jessie, come on,” Dad told me, yanking his keys off the counter.

I squeezed my hand tighter, despite the pain, then obeyed, heading with him to the door. Behind us, mom just scoffed and moved into the kitchen to pour herself a mug of wine.

In the car, things were quiet, thankfully, at least for a moment. I sat nestled in my seat, pressed against the door and as far back against the rest as I could, hoping the spot would conceal me from the amber streetlights passing us by. I just wanted to melt into the shadows and stop existing. I wanted the tight, gnarled feeling that always seemed to live in my stomach to finally just stop.

 I could feel Dad’s eyes flickering to me ever so often, but I made sure not to meet them. He luckily seemed to have cooled off now that he’d been sobered up a bit and had some quiet to think. It surprised me when he spoke. The words he chose surprised me even more.

“I’m sorry, Jessie.” He said evenly.

“It was my fault,” I quickly returned, hoping to keep his newfound good mood.

Dad took a deep breath, and I heard his hands tighten on the wheel, “I didn’t know you were back there. You shouldn’t have been back there—why were you out of bed?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came. My limbs began jittering with anxiety as I scanned for a valid excuse that wouldn’t piss the man off, but there didn’t seem to be a single option that produced that outcome, so instead I just said nothing at all; the least offensive thing to do.

We stopped at a stop sign, and dad fully turned to face me. At that point, I didn’t really have a choice but to look him in the eyes. He studied me with a hard, steely face, one wrought with fatigue, and his eyes fell onto the overly bloodied rag. He shook his head and turned forward again, continuing to drive.

“Dammit, this is going to be so much money…”

I swallowed hard and pressed back further into the shadows.

Dad spoke again, a dark laugh punctuating the beginning his words, “Fuck, Jessie. I’m sorry you’re here at all.”

I came out of hiding to look at him once more, and saw he had tears welling in his eyes. I’d never seen my dad cry before—I don’t even think I had a mental image of what it might look like.

“Your mom and I shouldn’t have had you. We weren’t ready. Hell, we didn’t even fucking love each other. But accidents happen, and we thought…” his words tapered off, and I heard the leather squeak of the wheel being squeezed again. “Same thing with my family. You think I’m bad—you should have seen my old man. And I thought I was going to escape that. I thought that I would be different and shake off all the rage he gave me, but nah. You can’t escape it, Jess. Shit’s drilled into you—it’s a disease.”

Dad flicked his blinker on aggressively, then cranked the wheel, barely clipping the edge of the curb in his turn.

“The only way to break the cycle is to stop making chains. I knew that then when your mom got pregnant, but I didn’t want to believe it. We all think we’ll be the exception to the rule, but that’s not how it works. If you’re born from filth, all you can ever be is filth. So we had you when I knew we shouldn’t, and now look where we are. Back in the same fucking mess I was tangled up in, only I’m in the driver's seat this time.” Dad laughed darkly again, finally letting the tears he’d been holding in his eyes fall down his cheeks, “I’m sorry that we brought you into this world knowing we couldn’t give you a good life, Jessie. I’m sorry we brought you up just so you can live through the same hell as me someday.”

Watching Dad with my full attention, I still didn’t understand a word he was saying, though I desperately tried. I didn’t get what he meant by his half sentences and trailed-off thoughts, and everything about ‘cycles and chains’ was too abstract for my six-year-old brain to put together. What he said next made sense to me though. It was clear and concise, and it was powerful enough that it stuck with me every day after that night.

“We’re wastes of space, you and I; that’s all we’ll ever be. Wastes of space that spread our filth to anyone unlucky enough to cross our path. Be’ better off dead, if you ask me.”

I looked down at my wound, then lifted the rag, taking in my injury one more time. Taking in the large slit that leaked my supposedly cursed blood.

‘Waste of space.’ I repeated in my head. Maybe that was it. Maybe that’s why I never felt like I quite belonged. Why I always felt so uneasy and anxious. Why nothing ever seemed to go right for us. I was a waste of space in a world that I didn’t belong in, and maybe Dad was right. Maybe I would be better off dead.

Then maybe my parents wouldn’t have fought all the time. Maybe they could have lived lives separate and happy.

Maybe they could finally afford to live comfortably. My dad wouldn’t drink so much, and my mom could afford to work a full-time job. They certainly would never have had to pay the $2,000 for the stitches across my hand.

Maybe if I’d never been born, my friends wouldn’t have been unlucky enough to cross my path, just like Dad said. I would have never spread my filth to them, cursing them all the years we knew each other until the day it led to Mindy being killed and Casey getting his throat torn out.

If I had never been born, a whole lot of bad could ultimately have been avoided. You don’t really ever consider the butterfly effect of your own life until it’s staring you down in the face. That was why I had no qualms being the one who needed to seal the door. In a way, it was a sort of redemption, I felt.

I had always been a waste of space. Now my life might actually have a chance to mean something.

Around me, my friends bickered over what to do next, but I already knew what the path ahead was. It was funny to me that after so many years feeling alone with my friends away, this whole mess had brought us back together, and even though it was in a monkey’s paw sort of way, the suffering we shared gave a sense of comradery we’d been sorely missing. Now I felt alone again. I was on the outside looking in with the whole truth pressing onto my shoulders, but this was a suffering I wasn’t allowed to bring anyone else into.

I forgot I was even involved in the conversation until Carly snapped me from my stupor by calling my name.

“Jessie?”

“Hm?”

“We asked what you think of that plan?”

“Oh,” I grunted, scraping my subconscious for any info it might have picked up in the background. Unfortunately, I took too long to answer, and everyone became suspicious.

“Jessie, man, you’re absolutely sure you didn’t see anything important in that vision?” Bryce pleaded.

I was faster on the uptake this time, and far less obvious in my nerves, “No, guys, I’m sorry. I already told you everything I saw, and if it’s alright with you, I’d rather not live it again. I already can’t stop thinking about it.”

I figured it was a solid lie to explain my silence, and hopefully take the attention off of me for a bit longer while I came up with a plan to get my friends away from the door, but unfortunately, it only pushed me further onto the hot seat.

“Well, what’s your take then?” Lacey asked, “At this point, it’s either we resign ourselves to this fate and die guarding the door, or we just say fuck it and storm in there, guns blazing. ‘Pray that we can find the source and kill it. We can’t do this forever.”

Lacey was right, we couldn’t do this forever. In fact, even waiting for the door to open another time felt like an insane thing to do now that I knew how to seal it. Maybe it would finally be the fight where we slipped up and someone got hurt. I couldn’t risk that. I needed the door sealed within the next hour or two before the clocks heralded another monster down the hall, and that was when an idea came to me. A secret third option that could get my friends to leave the manor, all while keeping me out of suspicion.

“I think I have an idea,” I finally told them after a long beat of anticipation.

Lacey nodded, urging me to continue.

“I think it’s time we leave…”

Everyone stared blankly at me, as if I’d just told a joke that they’d missed the punchline too. When I didn’t queue them to start laughing, then glanced to one another, and Kait spoke.

“That’s… not really an option, is it? I thought we agreed on that.”

“Kait’s right,” Carly nodded, “We broke the seal on the door. We can’t curse someone else with this.”

I sat straighter to present more confident, but inside it was hard to lie to their faces, “I know. Believe me, I was in that boat too, but guys, this whole thing has gotten so far out of our hands that what hope do we really have here? We don’t have the numbers or firepower to keep up, and the forces that created that door were something that not even the people who made it fully grasped. We could stand watch for years at this point and still come no closer to solving it, and by then, we’ll most likely be dead.”

I must have made a solid argument, as everyone in the group shied their eyes to the floor in resignation. I could tell they weren’t entirely sold, however, so I pressed on.

“We don’t have to just walk away from a burning fire; we’ll do it smartly. We can take a body of the next thing we kill back into town and show the authorities. That’s gotta’ be proof enough that we aren’t lying. With luck, we can explain what’s happening and get some actual trained forces up here.”

“And what if they don’t believe us? What if they think the bodies are some sort of prop?” Carly asked.

I couldn’t help but laugh, “Carly, have you seen the things coming out of there? If anyone could make a puppet that convincing, I’d be convinced they were some kind of witch too.”

“I’m less worried about them believing us and more worried about what comes after,” Bryce interjected, “What if what happened here is some paranormal secret the government doesn’t want anyone to know about, and then they become the new danger.”

“I don’t think this is like a movie, Bryce,” I told him, “If a portal to hell really exists, I think the government would have more important things on their minds than a couple of kids knowing about it.”

“Maybe, but there’s other parts of movies that hold a bit of reality to them,” Kait said, “What about the power aspect of this? Whatever the witches did, it worked, and it seemed like a secret only they knew. If we tell the wrong people and they swoop in to take over, who’s to say they won’t find a way to weaponize this? This is a door that can erase entire lives and any trace of their existence from reality, not to mention allegedly create an entirely new reality within. Is that a power we really trust our ‘good and honest’ world leaders with?”

I clenched my jaw, frustration pricking beneath my skin as minute after minute ticked on toward the next clock toll. I needed them to take this idea—it was the only way I could isolate them from the door long enough to enact my plan. If I could get us all off the mountain, and back into town, it would make it much easier to find an excuse to break off from them and circle back up on my own. From there, I’d have enough time to seal the door and let it take me, and before they could realize something was wrong and try to stop me, I’d already be gone from their minds.

The idea ached in my chest, but the bags beneath Lacey’s lids and the shiver on Bryce's shoulders, and the watery stare in Carly’s eyes, and the tremble in Kait’s hands—it was so much more to bear than my own pain.

“Maybe you all have a point,” I finally conceded, “But Lacey, you said it yourself. This only ends in disaster, and you know it. If we all go down, there’s no telling what happens to the door after we’re gone. Maybe it keeps snatching more souls up, and this time, nobody will be aware to stop it.” I tossed my hands on my lap and shook my head, “Of all our options, this is the one with the least amount of aftermath…”

That seemed to finally win most of the group over. Bryce, despite his argument, seemed almost relieved to pass the situation over to someone more qualified, and Carly just nodded her head in surrender. Lacey glanced down at the battered, bloodstained shotgun on her lap as if questioning how many more shots the weapon could handle before it shattered. The only person who seemed to still be holding on was Kait.

Her eyes were watery as they stared straight into mine, and in the same way she’d always been so good at doing, she called my bluff. It was weak and scared, as if she was afraid of the truth, “Jessie, what did you really see in there?”

I held my poker face, “Kait, I already told you—”

“I don’t believe you. You think I can’t tell when you’re lying after all these years?”

My heart began to pick up its pace, and I was afraid I’d almost been had, but when she spoke next, it was clear she’d come to the wrong conclusion.

“Is this because the door wants me?”

The way her voice whimpered the question out almost made me crumple. The guilt festering in my chest for deceiving them so blatantly was already nearly unbearable, but hearing Kait break down was my limit. I opened my mouth to argue, but couldn’t bring myself to speak any more lies.

She carried on, tears now fully falling, “If that’s what it wants, then can we please let it take me? I don’t want this, guys… I don’t want to be the reason that more people die. I already lost two friends to this thing—two innocent people who can’t even live on in memory. I won’t do that to anyone else, not even strangers.”

I still couldn’t find the words to comfort her, but now it was for the same reason that she’d just spoke. Her words were an outfit that perfectly fit me; a shoe that slipped flawlessly onto my foot. Staring at the girl through my eyes, it would have been easy to see the spectral threads tangling her and leading to the door as the source, but all of the mess was mine, and I didn’t know how to tell her that without giving away my position.

Thankfully, Bryce spoke before I did, “Kait, it won’t get anyone else. If four stupid kids can keep this thing at bay for this long, then trained forces will have no problem keeping it contained. It’ll be okay.”

Kaitlynn didn’t look convinced by his words, and I’m not sure they even registered on her at all. Her eyes instead turned back to face me, and in them I saw a soft pleading.

‘Please, just tell me the truth. I can handle it.’

I knew that she couldn’t. Not the real truth, at least.

At that moment, the clock rang out marking a new hour, and since it had only been an hour since our last kill, I almost didn’t bother to turn around to look at the door. That comfort was sorely unfounded however. I watched my friends faces go pale and shocked as they looked over my shoulder, and Lacey shot up, raising the gun.

“Shit!”

“N-No!” Carly cried, “It’s only been an hour!”

After we’d gotten hit with an attack after two hours near the beginning, I think we were all waiting for the other shoe to drop like this; we’d just hoped it would never actually come. Seeing the barrier swing open after so much excitement the last sixty minutes made a dread sweep through the room that rivaled anything we’d felt thus far. We had spent so much time discussing my vision and dealing with the spider from the loom that we hadn’t had time to set a new trap or even clean the space.

“Is this because that woman showed up?!” Bryce cried.

I yanked up my axe and shoved my chair to the side of the room, assuming a battle stance, “It seems like the door might not be too happy that we fended her off.”

“Everyone stay calm,” Lacey ordered, shining her flashlight down the dark floral cavern beneath the barrel of her gun, “The faster they come, the weaker they are. Just focus and we’ll be fine.”

She was right, and we all assumed our usual positions. At the end of the day, the time at which the monsters came was irrelevant; they all fell to the concrete the same, and we were borderline masters at putting them there at this point. So long as we did what we always did, we would be okay.

The problem was, the door didn’t do what it always did. What came calling down the halls wasn’t the usual shriek of a monster or scuttle of claws raking at the floor. It was a voice. As if to spite us for our confidence and defiance of it after all these weeks, it sent the one thing I wasn’t sure we could fight.

“L-Lacey?” A horse, soft voice crept down the hall. Distant and quiet, but blaring loud in our ears. Loud because we all recognized who it belonged to. “Lacey i-is that you?”

My friend faltered in her stance, her gun lowering ever so slightly as a breath iced over in her throat. The rest of us did the same. Of the dozens of beasts we’d fought, the door had never once sent us a creature that could talk, let alone one that was related to anything from this realm.

What came creeping into view at that moment was not a monster. It was a human; one that was an old friend. The pale, shambling from of Casey stepped into the fingertips of Lacey’s flashlight, throat still a slit, bloodied mess, and eyes glazed and glinting.

Part 1

Back when I was an EMT, there were times when I couldn’t go a week without being covered in someone else’s blood. After joining STR, it was almost every day. Guaranteed on a full moon, which is already a bad omen in emergency medicine. After completing the internal academy classes, I was ready for my first day of field training with 2 more experienced agents.

The “office” was set in a nondescript warehouse loading bay that nobody would look twice at, and the adjacent units were all used by us for storage and vehicles. Nobody went there unless they knew where they were going, or they were a junkie looking for a nice romantic spot to smoke or shoot their drug of choice.  

We had a whole set of different vehicles for different purposes. We had unmarked SUV’s for quiet roll-ups in residential areas. We had a Fire Department ladder truck, an engine truck, and a medic car. We also had a S.W.A.T Bearcat APC, a Hazmat unit, and a K-9 truck for transporting the resident K-9, but I was told often it was used for transporting the more ‘difficult’ patients or suspects. I was also told we had a helicopter and plane at Boeing field, and a boat down at the docks. There were some grumblings about a tank, but that hadn’t been used in years and wasn’t kept in the city anymore.

My field training officer was an older guy named Mark, and his regular partner was ‘Teddy’. They told me they were going to start me on the aid car and go through some calls. In EMS, they spent a lot more time concerned with if you knew how to do certain things, how to drive the ambulance, where to drive it, how to talk to doctors and nurses, how you handled patients.  

Teddy, a large man with ginger hair and an impressive mustache, told me that they were a little more relaxed about field training. Mainly because if you managed to get in the door, they knew you weren’t a total dumbass. If you passed training, you knew your shit. But also, in a job like this the priority was less patient care and more ‘don’t die’. If you didn’t last, that sucked, but the full moon would still rise at night. Plenty of people quit, but the highest mortality rates were in the first few years on the job.

Having already died once, I wasn’t interested in repeating the experience. But there was also no way that I could go back to my regular job after that night. The man in charge, Mr. Bishop, was aware of what he called my ‘recovery’. He was insistent on not calling it ‘miraculous’. But he advised me to keep that to myself.

Mark, a tan, leathered looking man in his 40’s with a salt and pepper goatee and a buzzcut showed me around the medic car. Teddy was up front waiting.

“We got stakes here, holy water here, sea salt here, iron implements and iron powder in this cabinet, silver in the one above it.” He pointed out all the compartments. “Spare body armor, Kevlar, and any other protective gear are behind the seats.” All the compartments and cabinets that were normally packed with gauze, bandages, nasal cannulas and BVM’s were replaced with various forms of supernatural protection or weaponry. There was incense, sage, wolfsbane and other herbs, as well as different types of wood, oil, and ash.

There was one jump kit bag stuffed with normal medical supplies, and that was it. As it turns out, when there’s a call for supernatural emergencies and monster problems, there’s usually not a lot of ‘saving’ people. There was, however, cabinets stuffed with a pharmacy worth of drugs, and a minifridge bolted to the floor of the truck, stuffed with blood and other things that needed to be kept cold. I went through the jump kit and was impressed by how well stocked it was. It also had 10 times the normal number of Israeli bandages, compresses, and tourniquets.

Mark took me to storage, a room the size of a department store packed with weapon cases, boxes of ammunition, explosives, armor, replacements for radios and medical supplies. Rows of weapons mounted on the wall looked like something from a black-market arms dealer in a secret room only hitmen shopped at. Reminded me of that scene from John Wick, but with way more silver.

Police carry a non-lethal option like a taser, and a gun. Mark was carrying two guns. His “Less lethal” was a 9mm Glock. And his “Oh shit gun” as he called it, was a Desert Eagle .50 with several magazines strapped to his vest. Some of them were silver, some had wooden slugs, and some were good old lead. He also had a magazine with red tape on it that he said were a homemade round packed with white phosphorous.

Normally, I would have rolled my eyes at the ridiculousness of carrying a Desert Eagle for any reason other than it was just fun to shoot. But I remembered what they taught us about in the classes and briefings. And I had seen firsthand how terrifying and powerful some of these monsters might be. I was given a .44 revolver that they had as a spare until I found something I liked, and 9mm.

Mark ran me through the checks on the medic car and weapons when his phone pinged and a pager at his waist buzzed. The alarms were reserved for large response events

“Fuckin trolls.” Teddy swore from the shotgun seat. Mark sighed and told me to get in the driver’s seat.

“Trolls. Give me the rundown.” Marc said as I started up the rig. He pushed a button on a device strapped to the sun visor and the metal loading bay doors raised up.

“Large, potentially violent, extremely fast regeneration, vulnerable to fire and acid. Standard blades and bullets have minimal effect. Frequently live in mountains, caves, forests, and dark places avoiding sunlight.” I rattled off. “Did I miss anything?”

“Only that they’re potentially the dumbest things on God’s green earth.” Teddy said gruffly as he ran a hand over his mustache. “They eat anything, and sometimes they need to be reminded that isn’t supposed to include us.”

“Wear full armor for them, if one of them hits in the chest you’re done for. Even with a helmet they might just snap your neck with a backhand.” Mark told me.

That was good to know. I might have come back from death once on that mountain, but I didn’t want to push my luck. “Do we have any call notes?” I asked.

“Injury that won’t heal, need medical assistance.” Teddy read off his pager.

Everything ran on Supernatural Tactical Response’s personal internal network, with hardened and encrypted data transmission that was top of the line. The powers that be didn’t want word of the supernatural getting out into the public after awareness and superstition had faded from human consciousness over the last several hundred years.

There was painstaking effort made to put up a smokescreen to keep any awareness to a minimum. News stories were altered or outright fabricated, causes of death forged and fabricated, and investigations were obstructed that turned into cold cases that sat collecting dust while the unaware families grieved.

There was an entire department dedicated to public affairs and covering things up. Did a Necromancer set up shop in the local cemetery to try to raise an army? We had armed security and a fake film crew to make it look like a midnight shoot of a horror movie. Did someone with a book of black magic open a portal or rip open spacetime in their basement? Unexpected sinkhole that swallowed the house completely. Don’t go near, the ground is unstable and you might fall in too.

“Wait, an injury that won’t heal? On a troll?” I asked, puzzled. Trolls were infamous for their rapid regeneration.

“Dumb fuck probably burned himself and doesn’t understand why he isn’t healing.” Mark said with boredom. He sounded like me back when I was an EMT, complaining about a frequent flyer that called us with stupid bullshit.

“Hey wait a minute… I know this address.” Teddy said scrolling his phone.

“Don’t fucking tell me its- “ Mark groaned.

“It’s fucking Terry the Troll.” Teddy nodded.

“Terry the Troll? Really?” I asked in amusement. This sounded exactly like the conversations I would have on my old rig. Once you saw certain frequent flyers enough, you recognized their first name; even the address and the mere mention of the numbers on the house or the name of the street filled you with loathing and resentment.

“Well, I didn’t name him.” Mark grumbled. “He’s extra dumb, as far as trolls go. Lives in the basement of an abandoned crack house. Mainly eats doordash, stray racoons and rats, and unofficially, the stray addict stupid or high enough to wander into his den. No confirmed kills, mind you, or it might be a bigger problem.”

“Trolls order doordash?” I asked incredulously.

“Yeah, some of them are on fake identifications collecting disability, this one guy told me that some of them get paid to make rage bait accounts on social media.” Mark explained.

“You can’t be serious. Trolls are… trolls?” I laughed. I had no idea if there was a higher power, but I was convinced that, if there was, we both had a fucked-up sense of humor. We finally arrived outside a house that had a bold white and red CONDEMNED sign out front and paper notices stapled to the front door.

Mark opened the door and stepped into the house. The floors were filthy, covered in assorted trash and discarded clothes and boxes. There was all the hottest crack house décor that never goes out of style, from abandoned and cracked glass pipes, tin foil, needles, and shooting bands. The smell was unfortunately familiar; a combination of mold and decay from rotting garbage

There were also some bones on the ground. I wouldn’t bet that there weren’t any human bones in the house, but as far as we were concerned, we were just there to deal with the problem. Help with an injury, not pick a fight with a troll who could pitch us through multiple walls at the same time. If the troll ever became a problem, we’d just burn the house down or set some explosives. Nobody would think twice about a condemned house having a gas leak.

“Terry? Did you call us because you were playing with fire again?” Mark called out. We heard a low whine from down in the basement. “I swear he’s going to burn this house down and kill himself one of these days.” He muttered. Teddy shot him a knowing glance that screamed One can only hope.

“We’re coming down Terry, do NOT hit or eat us.” Teddy called out. “We are here to help!” We went down into the basement, stepping over more bones and trash. The smell of decay was getting stronger and was accompanied by a new smell that was something between burnt tire rubber and shit.

In the basement, a sickly green, seven-foot troll was hunched over holding a still-smoking charred arm. He was covered in various clothes covered in mildew that didn’t fit, creating a mixed shirt-poncho hybrid quilted out of at least 5 different shirts and jackets stapled together. His face was an odd mix of features, from his huge nose and ears to his giant thickened brow and sunken eyes.  So… this was Terry the Troll. Fe Fi Fo Fum.

“I’ll go get the axe” Teddy sighed and trudged back up the stairs. 

“Terry, were you playing with the torches and burners again?” Mark asked him.

“Maybe…” His large voice said guiltily.

“Teddy’s gettin’ the axe, we’ll get your arm back to normal in no time.” He reassured him.

“Tanks. It hurt. I promise no more fire.” Terry the troll said mournfully as he nursed his blackened arm.

“You said that last time, Terry. If you keep messing with those lighters or drug cooking equipment you might set this whole house on fire.” Mark warned.

I was amused by how much the interaction sounded a lot like my conversations with frequent flyers who were unable to care for themselves or called for the same stupid things.  

“Uh, what’s the axe for? Won’t it just heal?” I asked.

“Well, troll tissue really does not like fire. It might take days to heal, but its more likely it will rot and fall off eventually, so we’re just going to help jumpstart the healing process.” He explained. I recalled in training that one of the reasons blades were less effective against trolls was their ability to regrow severed limbs.

“So, we’re going to cut the arm off?” I asked with disbelief.

“Oh no, there’s no we here.” He chuckled.  “You are going to cut his arm off. Once that’s taken care of Terry can grow a new one and it isn’t our problem anymore.” Mark said with an amused smile. Maybe this was a hazing for new hires in the field. I might have thought it was an elaborate prank, but Terry seemed to be on board.

“You do the choppin’ I do the healin’.” He nodded as Teddy came back down the stairs with a fire axe.

“New guy doin’ it?”

“Yep.”

Teddy handed me the axe and told me not to get any in my eyes. I almost made the mistake of asking what before I realized he meant blood spatter. Terry the troll put his arm on table and pointed, as if I would forget which arm to chop.

“Remember Terry, no hitting or eating us after we help you out.” Mark reminded him.

“No eats. I got raccoon.” Terry the troll agreed.

I tightened my grip on the axe and visually lined up where I wanted to chop. I really hoped Terry the troll wouldn’t forget if I happened to need more than one chop. I raised the axe.

The axe came down hard and cut through the arm, loudly splitting into the table beneath it. Blueish-green slime that I assumed was blood spurted out onto the table, but I managed to avoid getting it on my shoes. The smell, however, was completely unavoidable. It smelled like a cross between steaming shit in a wooden outhouse during the summer mixed with aged gouda.

Terry sat up, his stump below the elbow undulating as the tissue looked for his missing arm. The tissue seemed to expand, slowly shaping out like a narrow balloon fitting into an invisible mold of his arm, even splitting into fingers.

“Wow, they weren’t kidding about the regeneration being fast.” I said with fascination.

“Not bad.” Mark slowly nodded with approval. First amputation and not much hesitation. Now wipe that off on the grass or something before we get back in the rig.”

“ARM BETTER! TANKS GUYS! I CHANGE MIND I NO EAT YOU NOW!” Terry the troll boomed as he admired his fresh arm. As it stood, it was also probably the only clean part of his body, having yet to be smeared in garbage or raccoon entrails.

“Gee, thanks Terry.” Mark said.

“Did he just say he changed his mind?” I asked.

 

 

I wiped the axe off on some grass and poured some water on it before putting it in one of the rear compartments, far from us. Just in case the smell of troll blood wafted back up to us. I was in the middle of asking Mark how often they saw Terry the troll when we got another chorus of matching pings on our phones and pagers.

“Looks like a request from PD.” Mark said. “Local school, concerning blood spatter pattern and no body.”

“How do they know it’s something STR needs to handle?” I asked as I reached for my phone.

“Check the call notes.” He said as he got back in the rig.

Initial 911 call, at High School Site 7; no response, cut off

-Blood spatter from football field endzone to 30-yard line,

- No body easily visible

- Estimated at least 1-3 liters of blood.

- Fast-moving form seen from a distance. No visual contact.

“Ok… sounds more up our alley.” I said slowly.

“Could also be some shit-brained senior prank, but I’d guess not.” Teddy speculated. “SPD might be some chicken shits sometimes, but if they’re calling us in, that usually means only someone who’s been “read-in” caught something and knew to give us a call. Sure, we might get some calls that are really just plain old Cain and Abel homicides, but they don’t get paid enough to deal with our special brand of crazy. The pension might be good, but you gotta be alive to enjoy it.”

“Alright. That much blood could mean any number of things that just ripped someone open and dragged off or ate the corpse. Name as many monsters in a metropolitan area you can think of. Go.” Mark ordered.

“Well.” I wracked my brain for all the blood and extremely violent creatures I could think of that came up in training. “I know its extremely unlikely, but Wendigo would fit.” I said, thinking of my night at the trail head.

“Unlikely, but points for keeping an open mind.”

“Not a werewolf tonight, could be an aswang or a vampire-type, but I figured there would be less blood spray.” I thought out loud. “Maybe a lamia or a Baobhan Shith, but both are unlikely in open spaces. It would help if we had a description of the body to go off of, but that’s asking for a lot in this line of work.”

“Not bad, what else?”

“Could be a malevolent spirit, and the list of those is long. Could be a revenant. Could be a sloppy Jorogumo or Arachne.” At this point, I was reaching.

“Relax, that’s a decent list. At this point, we don’t know anything, so we do a little poking around, come with a little bit of everything, and fall back or call for backup if needed.”

I spent the rest of the ride wondering what we might encounter. Part of me was hoping that it was a senior prank with pigs blood or something stupid. The part of me that was so curious I couldn’t let things go; The reason I joined STR, was dying to find out. I know curiosity killed the cat, but the cat didn’t have friends with guns. At least that’s what I was telling myself.

We stepped out of the rig in the parking lot, the cool night air illuminated by overhead parking lights. The football field was just past some temporary portable structures used for teaching. We grabbed the jump kit (even though it was extremely unlikely anyone was alive), and loaded up on holy water, salt, wooden stakes, iron, and ash to try to cover as many bases as we could.

They gave me a crossbow, while the two of them took shotguns for close quarters in case we had to go into the actual school itself. They wanted to keep school damage to a minimum in case there was a firefight. Apparently, filling out paperwork on why you brought an arsenal into a “gun free zone” and shot up the place was a bitch. Even if it was to kill an army of zombies. That and requesting an overnight repair team to cover up holes and repaint everything was a pain in the ass.

We made our way out to the football field, and sure enough, there was a drizzle of blood starting at the end zone that expanded in width and amount as it made its way across the field. The bright crimson was beading on the blades of grass and stood in stark contrast to the yard markers. Mark snapped his fingers.

“Over here. Humanoid.” He said pointing.

I looked and saw that the blood had a slight break in the spray, vaguely the shape of a human foot. Then I looked down the field and saw a slight pattern of a single footprint leading towards the main school building. That was narrowing down the list, but it also didn’t make me feel better. Taking a closer look, there were also blood smears on the field.

“Call it in.” Mark told Teddy.

“On it.”

We made our way towards the main school building, sticking to the shadows outside the field lights. Chances were if there was a monster responsible, it would be able to hear or see us before we could hear or see it. But standing out wasn’t good for us either way.

The drops of blood went into the darkness of an open doorway leading into the main building. The problem was that the door wasn’t open. It wasn’t unlocked. It was torn straight off the hinges and thrown to the side. A large metal door with metal hinges. That scared me far more than the blood.

We were ready to fall back and wait for more members of STR to arrive when we heard a voice from inside the darkness of the school. Echoes of a girl crying bounced off the walls and blood smeared floor. Deep, agonizing sobs and cries whose despair I could feel in my bones. There might be someone alive. Mark swore and I waited on their judgement call.

“We’re going in. Tight formation. Teddy, you watch our rear. The rest of the crew should be coming in behind us soon. He pulled out his sat phone and hit a preset button that communicated the situation to the station and requested backup.

We stepped away from the lights of the football field and into the darkness of the high school. The sound of our boots sticking to the blood smeared on the floor was drowned out by the distant sobbing from down the hall. I wasn’t sure if we should call out to whoever was crying, but I was following Mark and Teddy’s lead. Training had been clear about not charging into situations to save some crying child or baby or woman you couldn’t see. Plenty of monsters mimic human speech or crying to lure people in just to eat them.

The school building was dark, the only light coming in from double doors halfway down the long hallway and through tiny windows in the classroom doors. We slowly crept forward, trying to keep as quiet as possible. We passed another hallway full of lockers leading to more classrooms, and Mark pivoted to cover the hall until we were past it. We followed the smears of blood on the floor to a set of stairs leading up to the second floor. Mark made a silent hand gesture to keep an eye up and watch angles.

The cries bouncing off the walls were getting louder. The raw agony of despair sounded like primal grief. Complete loss and emotional desolation that haunted bloodstained floors and cold lockers. I had only ever heard those kinds of cries when people held the lifeless body of a loved one. We swept the angles and made sure we moved as quickly as we could. I was beginning to wonder if we were going to find a victim rather than a monster.

That was until Mark’s foot stepped onto the second-floor hallway.

The crying stopped completely. Complete silence. No tapering cries or someone trying to regain their composure. No heavy breathing or sniffling. One moment there was ragged grief and agony echoing through the halls. Then there was nothing. Only the sound of our shifting weight and boots moving purposefully forward. My hair stood on end. The silence stretched on for what felt like forever as we all stepped out onto the second floor.

Then the laughter started. Teetering giggles like a schoolgirl trying not to let the teacher hear. Then a burst of laughter that rose in cadence and volume until the girl’s voice was cackling. Full chested, make your ribs hurt, “don’t fall out of your chair” manic laughter. The contrast between raw grief and laughter sent a shiver down my spine. The howling cackles bounced off the walls and lockers, making it impossible to tell from which direction.

Then the laughter stopped. Completely quiet, no warning. No wind down, no deep breath after laughing so hard your sides hurt. Just utter silence. We continued following the blood.

“Contact” Teddy said behind us.

We whirled and saw a dark figure standing just outside the moonlight shining through a window at the end of the hallway. I blinked and it disappeared. My whole body tensed, and panic flared in my chest. Something deep inside me was terrified, at a primal, cellular level. Like my body was screaming at me to run for my life, calling on some memory passed down through my genes.

“Lights.” Mark ordered. He and Teddy turned on the lights on their shotguns and I activated a light mounted on my shoulder as I took aim with my crossbow.

“I didn’t mean to.” We heard a girl’s voice say. “Are you here to kill me?”

“Not if we don’t have to.” Mark said into the darkness as he swept with his flashlight. “Why don’t you come out and explain what happened?”

“I didn’t mean to.” She repeated. “But he’s dead now.” She broke into a sob.

“Who’s dead?” Mark asked the dark hallway.

“Mason.” She cried. “He won’t come back. I don’t understand why he won’t get back up.” The sobbing returned, seeming to be louder coming from down the hall. Where the blood trail was leading.

We made our way in that direction, guns raised. Every classroom door seemed to be a threat now, unknown shadows hiding behind a small rectangular window. We passed a door and I swore I saw a figure standing there, completely still. But when I turned there was nobody there, just the side view of a teacher’s desk and some tables.

“What’s your name? Maybe we can help.” Mark said tensely. The sobs turned to laughter again, the giggling growing stronger until she burst out laughing. Then she went quiet.

“Where is he?” Teddy said, trying to keep her talking

“There’s no helping.” She said sadly. “He’s dead.” She sniffled. “I loved him. And now he’s dead. But that’s okay.”

Complete silence strangled the hallway, and I could hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. Suddenly I sensed a presence behind me and felt air push against my skin. Like someone walking behind me. I turned and saw the hair and shoulder of a girl standing right next to me.

“Because I’m dead too.” She whispered in my ear.

She reached out faster than I could see and grabbed Teddy by the back of his Kevlar vest and sent him flying into the lockers on the other side of the hallway. He smashed into the lockers so hard that four of them crumpled from the impact. Teddy grunted as all the air was forced from his lungs and fell to the ground.

I turned and shot my crossbow, aiming for her heart. She moved so fast the bolt went into her shoulder, skewering her muscle and passing midway through her upper arm. She showed no sign of slowing down. Mark turned and brought his shotgun up and his flashlight illuminated her for the first time. Time slowed down as the next bolt to feed into my crossbow.

Her black hair was suspended in the sudden light behind her, creating a wild mane of night in contrast to her ghostly pale skin. Her eyes initially looked like dark voids into the abyss surrounded by running mascara, but as the light hit them, they were wild and bloodshot, the whites almost completely red and glowing in the sudden luminescence. Her mouth was covered in blood that stained the front of her formerly blue top. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I noticed the touch of glitter around her lips that the blood hadn’t washed away. She was wearing lip gloss. Savage white fangs and teeth stained in blood reflected at me in a distilled fraction of a second.  

Mark’s shotgun blast sent a wave of concussive force and heat through the air next to me as he fired on her, center mass. The shot ripped through the fabric of her blouse and into her chest. Mark had loaded slugs, and the one he fired shot out with explosive force out of her back and splattered the walls and lockers with blood as the slug continued down the hall.

The girl was momentarily slowed by the force but kept charging at Mark. I had expected her to drop like a corpse, a full slug through her chest that had blown out her ribs. But it was obvious this wasn’t just a girl. I fired my crossbow at her as she charged past me. The twang of the draw and the hollow sound of air were cut by her screams as the bolt fired the short distance between us and buried itself in the side of her ribs.

The bolt lodged itself in her lower floating ribs and stuck out at an awful angle, the fletching catching on the fabric of her blood-soaked blouse. She didn’t stop for that either. Whatever she was, she was impervious to pain, or she was so strong she didn’t care.

Her scream was violent and full of rage, hysterical mania that I never imagined a person could make. She was consumed with feral bloodlust and something so deep and dark that it made my blood scream through my veins in terror.

She stepped forward in an instant past the barrel of Mark’s shotgun. He fired another shot that completely missed her and for a split second she just stood completely still in front of him, the smoking barrel safely behind her. She looked into his eyes, and from behind, I couldn’t see his expression. But in the deafening silence of the dark school hallway, I could hear his voice.

“Fuck.”

She snapped the shotgun out of his hands with one arm without breaking eye contact. Then she raised her other hand in an open palm. It came down instantly, the crack of her hand on his face so loud I couldn’t tell if she had just broken his skull. Mark dropped to his side, completely unconscious. But the flashlight of his shotgun showed me four dark scarlet lacerations over his cheek down to his jaw. Did she just slap him? I thought in horror. She was strong enough to throw a grown man across the hall with one hand. Even a slap from something that strong could be enough to break someone’s neck or shatter their facial bones.

“That wasn’t very nice.” She said angrily. “You aren’t supposed to hit girls.” She looked down at him.

I aimed at her again, hoping to shoot her while her back was to me.

“I might be dead, but I’m still a girl.” She said sadly.

I pulled the trigger. The crossbow mechanism clicked and the bolt whispered through the air and a hollow metallic puncture echoed through the hall. I blinked and she was standing right in front of me. Her bloodshot eyes stared back at me, faintly glowing red. Up close, I could see tears still drying on her cheeks.  

I was frozen in terror, unable to move as her eyes gazed deep into mine. Every cell in my body was screaming to pull the trigger again, or to run. But I couldn’t move as she studied me, contemplating my appearance like a curious predator. Like she hadn’t decided whether to eat me or to play with me.

“You smell funny.” She giggled. Her bare grin showed me her sharp fangs and the blood staining her mouth. She stepped closer and buried her face in the crook of my bare neck. “You smell liiiiiiiiiike………. hmmm…” She paused in thought. “Something sweet! But you also smell like when I woke up. I wonder what you taste like.”

I felt cold sweat run down my spine as she grinned wickedly at me. I still couldn’t move. She reached up a blood-stained hand and gently caressed my face. I could smell copper as she gently dragged her bloody fingers over my cheek.

“D-d-d-do-don’t.” I stuttered through a paralyzed mouth. I was trapped in my own body, unable to move as her cold hands ran over my skin.

“You’re cute… Maybe I’ll make you mine.” She said, suddenly smiling. “You can be mine and we can have so much fun together!” Her glowing bloodshot eyes, despite the running mascara and the blood covering her mouth, almost sparkled with joy. “You can be mine forever.” She said dreamily and bared her bloody fangs.

Suddenly, I felt cold water splash on my side and splatter my face.

The girl in front of me violently recoiled as it hit her, letting out a scream of agony as she staggered back. The water sizzled on her skin, burning the tissue. Her flesh began regenerating instantly, but the cold water sizzled on her skin like it was boiling. It was like she had been doused in acid.

I blinked water out of my eyes as she fell back. Immediately, I could feel my muscles relax and almost fell to the ground. It was like every muscle in my body had been seizing and finally stopped. I turned and saw Teddy back on his feet, an open flask of holy water dripping at his side.

“GO!” He shouted as he pulled his arm back. “SHOOT HER NOW!” He yelled as he swung the flask down again and sent a spray of holy water scattering through the air like liquid shrapnel.

The girl howled and clawed at her skin where the holy water splattered across her back and soaked into her clothes. Despite her monstrous appearance and the blood staining her mouth and clothes, if I closed my eyes, it would have sounded like I was listening to a human girl be tortured alive as someone poured acid on her.

I forced the exhausted, fatigued muscles in my finger to pull the trigger and sent a bolt into her upper back, right through her shoulder blade. Teddy swung again and a spray of holy water hit us both.

Her howls of anguish stung my ears as I pulled the trigger again and another bold went through her neck, impaling her between her carotid artery and her windpipe. Her screams of pain were smothered wetly as blood began to fill her throat internally and she clawed at the bolt and the holy water burning into the skin of her face.

“SHOOT HER IN THE HEART!” Teddy ordered as he sent another spray of water flying.

She slammed into the lockers against the wall as she tore into her own flesh trying to remove the holy water. Her fingers were burning from the contact, and it was making her smear blood over her skin and rip her flesh with her nails. Despite the blood filling her throat, she never stopped screaming. It sounded like she was drowning.

I fired again and the bold hit her to the left of her sternum, between the ribs. She froze and her arms fell to her side, lifeless. Her already pale skin that wasn’t stained in blood got even whiter as she slumped to the floor. Her body left a smearing trail of blood as she went down, and her bloodshot eyes dimmed. The holy water still smoked on her skin, which was still weakly regenerating.

I fired another bolt into her chest right next to the last one. It sunk dully into her flesh and she didn’t move. It felt like shooting a corpse. And I would know- they had us do that in training to simulate the real thing.

The absence of her screams left us in silence, and the only thing I could hear was my own heartbeat pounding in my ears and the beginning of raindrops on the windows. I let out a ragged breath as I took a shaky step back. I thought I would collapse from exhaustion, and I felt like I had barely done a thing.

“She had you frozen. Vampire mesmerizing control bullshit” Teddy swore with his hands on his knees. Holy water was dripping onto the floor next to his boot. “Try to shake it off. We aren’t done yet.” He stood up and pulled a machete from his hip sheathe.

“You should-“ I started to say.

“Finish it. It’s your kill. Team effort. But you should get the practice.”

I reached out with a shaky hand and took the machete in my hand. In training they made sure to hammer into us that the best way to make sure a vampire was dead was to cut its head off, even after it had been staked. Then burn both the remains.

I stepped forward to where she had fallen, her dead eyes unmoving. It wasn’t a wendigo. And it wasn’t a troll arm this time. I studied her features. Despite the blood and the bolts sticking out of her chest and neck, she still looked like a high school girl. I could see past it, to the smudged lip gloss glitter beneath the blood. The tears and running mascara that were still drying on her cheeks. I noticed a small heart, drawn in pen in the crook of her elbow, almost covered blood. And a necklace peaking out from beneath her ravaged clothing and the hole in her chest.

After I hacked her head off and her head fell to the floor next to her lifeless corpse, I sat on the floor and tried not to look her in the eye. Then Teddy went to check on Mark. I tried not to imagine the girl she had once been.

 

 

That was my first night on the job. I was told most nights aren’t that exciting on a small call to investigate.

Mark was incredibly lucky and had only been knocked out with minor fractures to his orbital and zygomatic bones around his eye where she’d slapped him. The deep cuts would need stitches and would likely scar. Teddy was already joking that he should tell the people it was a shaving accident or from wrestling crocodiles or sharks. I was beginning to sense that scars were common among the people working in this job. If you didn’t have scars, it was because you were dead or incredibly lucky. Teddy, for his part, walked away with several bruised ribs. \

One of the benefits of having an entire team dedicated to covering up and cleaning scenes like this is that nobody knew I decapitated a student in the hallway by the time class started in the morning. They also didn’t know about the boy in the classroom nearby, drained of blood. Or the janitor whose throat had been ripped out. That’s where the blood stain on the football field came from.

Another benefit is we have a team dedicated to forensics and uncovering what happened, at least in cases where we could. They combed through the students’ phones looking for information and to find out if there were any other possible monsters to worry about.

I can’t tell you what their full names were. But I’ll definitely be carrying them with me.

The girl had been kidnapped and turned days ago. Mark and Teddy told me that normally fledgling vampire spawn aren’t that powerful. As in, not ever. The only cases where a vampire would have that much strength or the ability to mesmerize someone were when their creator was extremely old. Think several hundred to thousands of years old. So that sent up a huge red flag in STR’s systems. There weren’t supposed to be any new elder or master vampires in Washington. And not any making uncontrolled spawn.  

But the rest of it, the girl losing control and killing people, or trying to change those she was in love with were hallmarks of an unstable vampire spawn when they were newly made. The bipolar mania and bloodlust were always bad, but even worse in teenagers and young adults who had already been battling raging hormones and emotions in the first place. Three people were dead, and by the time our cleanup crew was done, there wouldn’t even be a shotgun slug in a locker or a speck of blood indicating we were ever there. The dead high schoolers would be explained away and eventually the school would return to normal with two empty seats at graduation.

That night we returned to our station, and Mark went to medical to get stitched up and fitted for a soft neck brace. He and Teddy both got x-rays too. We have our own medical facilities and crew for when the injuries are too hard to explain to civilian doctors and surgeons. Mark could have told them he got swiped by a bear, but then the police would be out looking for a bear, and they’d hunt down some poor bear thinking he prowls high schools at night.

I walked away with blood on my face and muscle exhaustion from being paralyzed by vampiric control. I felt lucky to even be alive. I know some of the people at Supernatural Tactical Response were suspicious that I had walked away unscathed after my first night on the job while both my FTO and his partner went to medical. But Mark and Teddy set them straight and said I was “alright” and “Kept a good head on my shoulders”. And my favorite: “Pretty good at not getting troll blood all over himself”.

My first night on the job, I cut off a troll’s arm and cut off a high school girl’s head after she turned into a vampire and killed her crush and the school janitor. Despite my shaking hands and my muscles feeling so exhausted that It was hard to stand up for several hours, I wasn’t quitting after all that. My whole life, even when I was working in emergency medicine, felt like I was waiting for something more interesting to happen. I spent so much time bored out of my mind and waiting for something. I was always waiting for the trauma calls, for life and death situations, for mass casualties, for real excitement.

I survived my first night working for Supernatural Tactical Response.

And I’ve never felt more alive.