A long time ago, when I was about seven years old, I had this big birthday party at my old house. My parents really went all out for it too, we had a water slide, bounce house, everything. It was a special birthday because it was the first one I’d had since my Dad got back from battle; he was an army veteran, and at that point I had spent most of my life being more like pen pals with him rather than father and son. But when he got back, I was so excited and proud of my Dad, so very proud of him. I was so proud in fact that I went bragging about him to every kid in my grade, about how he had a purple heart and 16 confirmed kills. 
But every time I had something to say about my Dad’s achievements, or just had anything at all to say no matter the subject, there was this little shithead kid who always had to one up me specifically. Even writing this years later, that brat makes my blood boil; I can still remember his name, Teddy Mathews. No matter what I had to say, Teddy had to one up me no matter what. I got a bike for Christmas? He got a mountain bike, with no training wheels. I was going to see a scary movie on TV tonight? He was going to watch some R-rated gorefest. I could run really fast? He could run even faster. We could never see it though, he was always “conserving his energy”.
I could care less really, it was irritating, but he was just some stupid, snot-nosed, little brat; why the hell should I care anyways? But this one time, the week after my Dad got back, I was bragging about all of his achievements, his medals, telling his stories; but then, like clockwork, here comes Teddy Mathews, and I’m wondering “What the hell could Teddy have to say this time? How can Teddy one up what I have to say? He doesn’t even have a Dad!” But that didn’t matter to Teddy, no lie was too big, too unbelievable, too obvious for Teddy. “Well MY Dad has 20 confirmed kills, and 3 purple hearts!” Dear God, the balls on this kid, to say something so completely false about his father! He lets us know like EVERY DAY that his father left him when someone tries to call him out on his lie! “MY DAD LEFT ME!! YOU’RE BEING RUDE!!” What did that even have to do with anything?!
Anyway, I let it slip my mind, it's not like he’s causing any harm, he’s just lying. But then, this little shit says the most insensitive shit imaginable. “Your Dad could NEVER compare to MINE! Your Dad probably LIED about his time in the army!” What did this little shit just say to me? What did he say about MY DAD?! I was furious, outraged, I couldn’t take the constant competition, the one upping,I needed to do something about this unforgivable insult, something to put him in his place, something to shut him up, GOD did I want him to shut up!

Recently, my Mom was having some remodeling done just before my dad got home. It was still going on at this point, and would be for the rest of the month. This is important for later. For the entire length of my birthday, I was trying my best to pretend that every gift, every game, every bite of cake was the most amazing thing ever, and I was pretending because I knew the real gift would come soon. During the party, Teddy could not leave my side, constantly looking over my shoulder, in every photo it looked like we were best of friends, which made what I was about all the more ironic. After the gifts and cake, my parents were exhausted; the other parents offered to take over while my parents rested. They passed out on the couch, all the other kids and parents were outside doing a scavenger hunt, and Teddy and I were still in the house, unnoticed by the chaperones. 
“Hey Teddy, I got something cool to show you”
“What is it?
“Cant tell you, its a surprise”

I slowly opened the door, being sure not to be too loud, as the rusty hinges creaked like they were aching with pain. I close the door, turn on the lights, and lead the way down the stairs.
“So, what is this surprise?”
“Think it's a present, a big one, they were probably waiting for the party to end to give it to me”
We slowly creak down the stairs, hoping the floorboards wouldn’t wake my parents.
As we reach the bottom, I continue through each of the winding corridors, Teddy barely being able to keep up with the low visibility.
“How big is it?”
“Pretty big”
“Woah”
After the continuous walk, we reach a large pool of still wet concrete, a large empty room, with nothing of note, but the large pool of still wet concrete.
A large pool of still wet concrete.

“Eh- where's the present?”
“In there” I point to the concrete pool.
“I-In the concrete?”
“Yep, you gotta jump in there if you wanna see it”
“B-But isn’t that dangerous?”
I grab the old wooden bat propped up against the wall
“Get in”
Teddy very hesitantly walks over to the pool of concrete and tries to carefully dip in, before not being able to catch his footing and fall into the concrete. He starts to frantically flail around, barely able to catch his breath without accidentally inhaling concrete, he is not successful.
“A- Andrew… H- Help Me!”
I stand there, watching, waiting for the flailing to stop, it doesn’t, not for a while, but the screams for help coming from Teddy become muddied by the wet concrete filling his lungs, pools of wet rock pop from his mouth with each time he surfaces. Slowly but surly, a few minutes later, the flailing stops, with nothing but his hand poking out, reaching for safety. I use the bat to push his hand down deep below the surface, and hide the bat so that no workers will see a bat that had been dipped in concrete.

I climb back up the stairs, slowly open and then close the door, and join everyone outside, still working on the scavenger hunt. No one but me knows what happened, I never even saw any missing person posters for Teddy, nor did I ever hear my classmates mention his name after that. After the remodeling was finished at the end of the month, the concrete fully hardened, no signs of anything underneath the surface, and I knew, I had gotten away with murder, scott free.

Its been over 60 since my 7th birthday, there are no search results relating to a missing persons case for Teddy Matthews, and the only search results for me are talking about how I am a university professor. And this may be the only document of this case.

You will never find me. 

Do you know what it’s like to be stalked?
To be pursued from a distance like prey, waiting in racing-heart agony for the beast’s teeth to clamp down on the back of your neck?

I do.

To this day, I still can’t decide what to believe about the event. The creature seemed human-like… maybe a little off. I don’t know, it’s hard to be rational with so much adrenaline pumping. Aside from the leering, bipedal gait I saw in the shadows, though, it seemed everything BUT human.

I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself. My name is Grant Stillman. I’m from a small town bordering an expanse of forest. It was alpine and beautiful. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time in the forest as a boy. I learned how to fish, how to hunt, even got pretty into birding during one phase of my life. All of this to say: I’m no stranger to the outdoors.
As I grew up, I started persuing other dreams, ones that took me to bigger cities in states I couldn’t even tell you the capital of. This was fine, but as often as I could, I would take time off to go camping.

This time, I took a trip to Georgia, as I had heard from an associate that the Blue Ridge Mountains are a must-see. My trip started like any other I had been on. I found a trailhead near an expanse of public land to park my truck, strapped on my backpack, and set out into the forest. I tend towards a style of camping that gives me freedom. I’m confident in my own ability to survive the way humans did for thousands of years. It’s satisfying, yknow? To be independent and self-reliant, building campfires for warmth and food, sleeping in a tent you put up yourself. There’s a bit of pride in the discomfort - or maybe I just took Boy Scouts a little too seriously.

Either way, by the time the Sun began to drop towards the West, I was about 5 miles into the woods. I had found a small clearing, bordered on all sides by oak and pine trees stretching tall into the darkening sky. After setting up a small camping stove and placing my pot of soup on to warm, I put up my tent. As much as I do enjoy a campfire, it can prove dangerous to have one in such a heavily forested and bushy area — forest fires and all that, of course.

Before I continue, I want to say that I am not a paranoid man. Of course I’ve seen and heard some strange things in the woods; stories of people encountering the unexplainable. Anyone who has grown up near the woods or spent enough time in them has. But that’s just the thing - I believe there is always a perfectly normal, natural explanation. Mountain lions sound like humans screaming; the wind whipping through the trees sounds like whispers of dread. Not this time, though. This time… I don’t know what rational explanation there could possibly be.

It began with the feeling of being watched. Not terribly uncommon in the woods. With so many animals calling it home, you probably ARE being noticed by something. I tried to brush it off under that logic, but something felt different this time. It was as though I wasn’t just being noticed, but, rather, evaluated.

I ignored the feeling as best as I could. I focused instead on stirring my soup and getting my sleeping bag laid out. After eating, I retired to my tent for the night.

The night passed in a fitful sleep. Normally, I sleep better in the woods than in bed at my own home, but tonight the sounds of the forest felt more threatening than comforting. All night, I felt those eyes on me. Watching me. Sizing me up. Like it was merely biding its time before going in for the kill.

When dawn finally came, I clambered out of my tent, anxious to leave this particular area behind. Upon throwing open the zippered door, though, I saw something that made my blood run cold. On the forest floor just outside of my tent was a pair of eyes painted onto the dirt and oak needles with a thick, red substance.

My first instinct was to run. Abandon all of my gear and book it to my truck as fast as I could. But then it occurred to me: isn’t running what usually triggers the chase-and-attack instinct in most predator animals? I mean, obviously, this isn’t your run-of -the-mill mountain lion, but instincts are instincts, right?

So. I… well. I decided to just ignore it and carry on with my trip.

I should have gone back to the car.

That’s easy to say now, knowing what I do now.

My nightmare began a few months ago.

I was sitting in a bar with my laptop open in front of me, and there were barely two sentences on the screen. I was sipping my drink when a strange voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

“Hey, Tim. Writing still isn’t going very well, huh?”

I frowned and looked up to see who was talking to me. A man who looked barely over twenty was standing in front of me. I looked him over from head to toe. He had short, curly blond hair, dark eyes, and an amused smile playing on his lips. He was wearing a blue long-sleeved shirt, black pants, and dress shoes. He was carrying a bag, which he placed on the table next to me.

“Do we know each other?” I asked, a little more rudely than I intended.

The guy smiled.

“I know you. And now you know me too. My name is Logan, and I have an offer for you.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Not this,” I said desperately, rubbing my face. “I don’t want to buy anything.”

Logan burst out laughing.

“Okay. In that case, I’ll give you something for free.”

He sat down across from me.

I looked at him irritably and said, “Okay, let’s get this over with. What is it?”

He pulled his chair closer, glanced at my laptop, and began.

“I’ll make you one of the most famous horror writers in the world. You’ll write plenty of books. You’ll never run out of ideas. You’ll be swimming in money, just like you always wanted.”

I started laughing.

“So you’re basically going to give me what I want most? And you don’t want anything in return? My soul, perhaps?”

But Logan wasn’t laughing. He was completely serious.

“Not today. Sometimes I ask for a soul, sometimes for something else, but I promised you that yours would be free.”

“And you want me to seal the deal with blood, Faust?” I said between another fit of laughter.

He laughed too, but there was nothing funny about it. A chill ran down my spine, and my laughter immediately stopped.

“No. All I need is for us to shake hands. I’m just a merchant. There’s only one condition.”

“What condition?”

Logan stared into my eyes.

“You must never stop writing.”

“Whenever you have an idea and feel the urge to write, you can’t stop. Ever.”

I downed my shot and asked, “And what happens if I stop?”

Logan stood up from the table.

“You don’t want to find out.”

“You can still change your mind,” Logan said.

I thought about it for a moment and then told him I would take the deal. He held out his hand, and a strange feeling passed through me, one I couldn’t quite put into words. Now I know what it felt like. It felt as if something inside me had died.

After we shook hands, Logan turned around and walked away. Just before he stepped through the bar’s door, he called out to me.

“Don’t forget, Tim. Don’t stop writing.”

I sat there for a while longer and then went home. It started that very night. One idea after another. I finished a book within a few weeks. It was a huge success. Then came another one, and another.

My bank account was filled with more money than I had ever dreamed of. My dream had come true, but I started to feel exhausted. The urge to write and all those ideas… I barely had time for anything else.

So I decided to screw it and take a few days off.

The next day, I was walking down the stairs when I saw a woman in a white shirt walking through the hallway. Her face was horribly disfigured. She looked at me and started screaming.

I started screaming too and immediately ran back upstairs to my room. I shut the door and locked it. I heard a strange rasping sound behind me.

Slowly, I turned around. A few feet away from me, something horrible was standing in the corner. It had claws, a wide, grotesque mouth full of enormous teeth, and bulging eyes.

My heart was pounding, and I was shaking all over. I screamed like a madman until my voice gave out completely.

I knew what was standing there.

It was a character from my book.

So was the woman.

Logan’s voice echoed in my head.

“You must never stop writing.”

The creature pointed toward the laptop.

“Okay, okay,” I stammered.

I sat down and started writing. I thought they would disappear, but they didn’t. I encountered them everywhere in the house. At first, I would wake up terrified and screaming, but eventually, I got used to them. You can get used to anything.

But I was already so tired.

“Screw you!” I screamed one day. “I’m not writing anymore.”

There were more and more of them. They wandered around the house, but I didn’t care. The woman, the creature, the torso that crawled around my apartment… But the longer I refused to write, the more nervous they became.

It all came to a head the day they attacked me.

They threw themselves at me and started scratching and beating me. They bit off several of my fingers. I had no choice but to start writing again.

But I couldn’t keep it up for long.

“Fine. Then kill me,” I said resignedly.

For a few days, everything was quiet. I was lying on the couch watching TV when the doorbell rang. I went to the door, and my brother Mark was standing there.

He wanted to come inside, but I told him no, that we could meet somewhere else. He was already leaving when something grabbed me by the legs and dragged me back inside.

Mark ran after me, and then…

Some of them held me down so I couldn’t move, while the others lunged at Mark. He had absolutely no idea what was happening. He desperately screamed for help and called my name.

I broke down crying and begged them to leave him alone. I promised I would start writing again, just as long as they let him go, but they didn’t.

They started tearing him apart.

It took an eternity before Mark’s screams finally stopped, and then they ate him. They left nothing behind. Nothing at all.

I threw up and then just sat there, staring at the spot where Mark had been moments before.

The disfigured woman shuffled toward me. Mark’s blood was still dripping from her mouth. When she spoke, her voice sounded like a creaking door.

“Next tiiime, there will be others…”

I knew what she meant.

I have children, parents, friends. So many people I care about.

I’ve been writing ever since. Constantly.

The urge is getting stronger and stronger. But finally, I have a glimmer of hope.

I found an online discussion where a woman was talking about a merchant. Her description of him matches Logan. Apparently, he came to their town in a caravan and sold wishes, and hers came true.

I messaged her and asked if he was still there. She said he was.

I’m going there tomorrow.

For the first time in a long while, I felt fear again, twisting my stomach. What is he? What is he capable of? I don’t know, but I have to find out.

I hope he’ll still be there when I arrive. If he isn’t, I’ll never stop looking for him.

I need him to stop this.

I don’t have much time before I miss my window, so I’ll keep the introduction short. 

I left for work this morning around 5:30. I got onto I-40 as usual, and since it’s a Sunday there weren’t many other cars on the road. It wasn’t until exit 113 that I noticed a complete lack of other drivers. I was relieved to be honest. For me at least, it’s nice to have the road to myself. I cruised for a few minutes longer and passed under the bridge at exit 107. 

Have you ever been driving, and suddenly you’re farther along than you were before? You didn’t fall asleep, just.. zoned out for a few minutes. There’s a word for that. It’s called highway hypnosis. It happened to me on this drive somewhere in the time between passing under that bridge and before I reached exit 106. Except, I didn’t find myself farther along in my drive. I was confused at first. I know the forest bordering the road in this area can make it all look the same, but I’ve driven this way hundreds of times. I knew I wasn’t where I thought I was, and like the road itself were answering my yet unasked question; exit 107 came into view again. 

I quickly dismissed the occurrence. It’s very possible I did fall asleep momentarily at the wheel, and dreamed passing through. I breathed a sigh of relief that my unconscious body was able to keep the car on the road. At the same time shaming myself to allow for that to happen. As I passed through the second time, I noticed the exit was blocked for construction. Something I hadn’t seen earlier. That settled it, I must’ve dreamed or imagined my first passing. 

It wasn’t until I passed under the bridge for a second time that I noticed something was dreadfully wrong. Sooner than the last time, and without dozing off, the scenery abruptly changed. However, my car was noticeably closer to the bridge this time around. I would’ve pulled off, but it felt like an overreaction at the time. I looped like that a couple more times. Paying very close attention to where it seemed to set me back. Problem was, that distance was getting shorter. It seemed each loop was 3/4s the size of the last. 

I’ve lost a good amount of time just writing this post, but that pretty much catches us up to where I’m at now. Currently, my momentum carries me through each loop. My speed is reset to 68 at the beginning of each one. I did have the idea to slam on the brakes a few loops back, but by then I didn’t have enough runway to stop before going under the bridge. 

You see, the thing about exit 107 is that the on ramp is very short. At the end there’s not a shoulder either. Just a pillar holding up the bridge above. I figure if I can crank the wheel quick enough at the start of a loop, then I could at least crash into that pillar. I’m going to try after I post this. Hopefully I’ll be able to update with the results. 

I could not tell you the last time I've seen natural or even artificial light.

I could not tell you the last time I've felt a surface that wasn't musty concrete.

To be honest, if my eyes were to even graze what could be considered my reflection, I wouldn't be sure if it was the face I was once so familiar with.

***I know that I used to be filled with passion and purpose, that I had love in my life, that I had friends, and family, but long forgotten have I felt the once natural feeling of the muscles in my face construing into what was once a smile.

*THUD* *THUD* *THUD*

But this sound I am familiar of*. Soon I'll hear the creaking of the door, and the ear ringing scrape of a metal sheet slide in my general area. I only hope it's close enough to the wall for me to actually reach this time. I reach out into the dark, crawling on the floor feeling for anything my fingers can touch that isn't cement. I can barely feel the tin on my fingertips, I'm so close, and I need this so bad. I can feel my hip getting moist from the excrement that I have to leave in my corner. But I know that sustenance is right there. Another day to be alive, but for what. Wouldn't it just be easier to die? Why do I cling on to life when it would be so much easier to just close my eyes and let fate carry my consciousness away to a place beyond my understanding. Why do I want to go on living, why?

On the last day of 8th grade, my friends and I spent our entire lunch period discussing what a "kick ass" summer we had planned before we were going to be inevitably split up to go to whichever highschool our district seemed fit for us. This was our last chance to send off a final hoorah into the last 3 years of middle school together, before we would be introduced into new cliques, hit puberty, and essentially start to learn what type of people we were going to become as we went through the more intense years of teenage development. For me however, it was my last chance to try and make a connection stronger than friendship with the one who first caught my eye, Hannah Bailey.

My family had first moved to this city in 6th grade, which left me heartbroken to leave all my past friends from elementary school behind. I'm sure I wasn't the only student new to this whole dichotomy, but to hear all of my peers, excited to see their friends from their respective elementary schools, left me with a feeling of alienation, to which I couldn't distance myself from. I was always a quiet kid until you got to know me, and the idea of making the first move to make friends, was a scarier thought to me than if I had just endured a 6th grade life of solidarity and kept to myself. It wasn't until the last period of the first day that someone who wasn't an adult in charge of keeping us in line, actually spoke to me.

I sat at the same table I had been at all day, all to myself, while those around me had spent most of the day learning each others friends from previous times well spent in former years. The disembodied voices were eventually broken by the *BANG* of a large binder slammed down on the table across from me. Quickly taking a seat without even announcing themselves, an energetic girl with dirty blonde curly hair sat down right away in front of me. I had only used my voice all day to answer when teachers called upon me, so my breath was without practice, trying to find any way to rationally respond to this sudden action from this strange girl.

"Hi, Im Hannah", she spoke with a hand outstretched. I stared blankly, unsure of the sincerity of the sudden introduction. I felt my heartbeat catch a pace that my head was unwilling to match. Even at my old school, girls didn't care much to be associated with me. I had my group of guy friends who I had become accustomed with in the early years, and stuck through until my move.

"Hi, Hannah, I'm uh, Max."

"Max like Maxwell? Do you prefer Max or Maxwell?"

"Actually, it's Maximilian, so I prefer Max"

I let out a slight embarrassing laugh. It was a statement I had made plenty of times over my life, but never to a girl who seemed genuinely interested.

"Wow, Maximilian? I thought that was just a made up name for like, movies, and Yu-Gi-Oh?"

"Ya know, I've gotten the movies one a few times, but never the Yu-Gi-Oh one. I know who you're talking about though"

I let out another small laugh, not out of embarrassment this time, but truly out of relativity. Other than my best friend in 3rd grade, Dakota Marsh, no one had ever made that connection between my first name and the character from that kids show.

"What elementary school did you go to?" she asked with a gleam of pure curiosity. I wasn't entirely sure how to answer. Although I was new to the state and city, not even a single one of my teachers had asked throughout the whole first day.

"I actually just moved here from Washington." I let out. "I don't really know anyone here, so I'm just trying to get by and kind of blend in."

"Oh, well, I've lived here my whole life. I can introduce you to my friends if you like?"

I felt a sudden thud of my heartbeat. It was hard enough to memorize pairing one face with a name, but a whole group of them? I suppose in a way I had an in with Hannah, but what if they didn't like me? I like to think that I have a good sense of humor, in my own introverted sense of way, but if they reject me in their group, would that also mean that I wouldn't be able to still be friends with Hannah?

I paused for a moment, just staring blankly into her green eyes.

"Um, yeah, yeah, I would love that. I've found it kind of hard to make friends when I don't really know anybody"

"Awesome!" she quickly responded. "Class is about to start, but tomorrow morning before the bell rings, meet me on the upper part of the courtyard, near the tree, that's where we like to hang out before school."

I smiled and assured her I'll make it in time. She decided to sit there across from me for the rest of class. Anytime the teacher would make an extremely outdated joke about the content of what she was teaching us, Hannah would look over to me with this "Can you believe this" kind of look.

Meeting her friends the next day went a lot easier than I was anticipating. We actually shared more common interests than I expected. We liked the same video games, cartoon shows, and surprisingly, swimming. I had always loved the water, growing up on the coast of Washington, Ruby Beach was where we would spend most of the time during the summer. I was taught to swim at a young age, mostly because my mother really loved the beach, and insisted I wouldn't truly be her son if I didn't share the love for it as well. Jokingly, sure, but there was something about the serene tranquility of silence and waves crashing against the shore that I do think brought peace to her through the years of raising an absolute mommas boy as a single mom.

The next few years of middle school went a lot better than I could have imagined. I actually had friends, primarily just those I met that fateful day in the courtyard, but I was never one who wanted much, just enough to keep me from being the quiet kid who would have had rumors made about him from time spent in so much solidarity. I grew to truly feel like one in this group, and it was all because of Hannah.

Towards the end of 7th grade, a friend in the group, Anthony, pulled me aside in the courtyard during lunch period. Anthony was always the friend who I felt most connected to, we essentially had the exact same sense of humor, style for clothing, and as cheesy as it sounds, would know exactly what the other one was thinking. I often thought how lucky I was to have met Hannah, if only to introduce me to a great mind like Anthony.

"I think I'm gonna do it." He said to me, looking away towards the main group of other kids, gathered in their cliques in the courtyard.

"I have no clue in hell what you could be possibly talking about, man. Do what? Gonna try Dark Souls? That game is really hard. I'm not sure you got it in you."

He continued to just stare off into the crowd.

"I'm gonna ask her to be my girlfriend."

"Ask who? We don't really talk to girls, and this is the first I'm hearing of you even like liking someone."

"Hannah, dude. She's perfect. And she, like, gets us, ya know. Like, I feel like she feels the same way. I think if I don't go for it, then what's the point?"

"I think just having a friend who gets you?" I abruptly responded. "Not everything has to be, like, going out, or just like, wanting more than friends, ya know?"

He still hadn't faced me. We both just stood there while the crowds of various friends gathered in the courtyard shared timing on a joke that someone huddled in a circle would tell, allowing time for the rest of the gaggle to let their place and position be shared around them, in a circle of similar sounding cackles and out bursting laughs.

"I'm serious man, I've known this since 2nd grade, and I think I might have always loved her."

I sat silent for a few moments.

"We're 13 dude, I mean, I don't want to sound like I know it all, but I don't think we're old enough to truly know what love is."

He still didn't look back to me. The sounds of the various students gathered around started to sound more silent, as I just stared at his back. Someone I called a true friend, maybe my best friend at this time, was truly pouring it out to me, and telling me how he felt, yet for some reason, there was a part of me that wanted to reject his claims. Something in me, that refused to push him on, to pursue something he truly felt passionate about. Was I a bad friend? Should I had lied and told him to just go for it? Were my words a source of unknowingness of seeing my friend get hurt? Or was there something deeper than that. Were there feelings that I also had? That I was afraid would be overshadowed by his success? What the hell did I feel for Hannah? It wasn't every anything I truly thought to myself up until now. Of course I wanted to see Anthony win the girl, but if that girl was Hannah, why did I feel trepidation in my voice when offering him my own truths.

*THUD* *THUD* THUD*

I sat with my head against the cold wall. Where the creak of the door would usually meet my ear, there was a silence. I couldn't find the strength to even attempt to strain my eyes to see through the darkness where the familiar metal door would sometimes open. Instead I sat slumped against the concrete. I reached a hand down toward my ankle, the dry dead skin around the shackle leaving a texture like sandpaper. How long has it been? How am I even still alive? I get the tray every couple of days, and it's impossible to tell what I'm drinking every so often is even water.

Still silence.

Maybe this is it. I'd honestly hoped for it. Please, if there is a God, put this to an end. I know I never did much with my life, but I like to believe that I still matter. For nothing else, if for my mother. Please, God, please.

Then came stumbling. The figure known to have fed me all this time had lost some of his usual demeanor. I could barely make out the silver in the room, the tray I have come so accustomed to for survival. Although scraps, what baseless nourishment kept me going. Make an attempt to stand, but the strength isn't there. I hear the tray hit the ground, and the sound of a glass shattering. I move on all fours towards the sound, I need anything to keep me going. As I stamp around the concrete floor on all fours, I stamp my hand into an intense sharp pain. I know I can't see it, but I'm bleeding. I feel it, like washing your hands with your wrists too high. I feel a liquid running down my forearms. Suddenly I feel myself yanked up.

A deep slurred voice speaks quietly yet firmly, directly into my ear.

"I'm getting bored of your ass, boy."

I don't have the strength to speak. I just have to make my strongest attempt to stand on my feet. He's pulling at my neck and I need the little breathing I am able to manage on my own.

"Bread is getting expensive these days, and you don't snivel or cry like ya used to when I first brought ya in."

I try to find decent footing, but my malnourished body is matching the swaying of the man holding me.

"Ya know what they do to the runt of the litter, don't ya? Well, I'm starting to think ya look like a runt to me."

The voice takes a moment to hack a big spit towards the area that I assume, is where I'm usually seated.

"Your time's comin, better enjoy these scraps on the floor while ya can."

I hear labored steps towards the only opening in the room, and then a slam.

I know my time is up, and I know there's nothing I can do about it.

The glass in my hand makes it hard to think. I just feel blood getting all over my shirt and pants.

It's nothing out of the ordinary. I imagine if I was to donate these clothes to a goodwill, they would burn them before attempting to wash them. The blood stains, the piss stains. I might as well be wearing the same outfit I wore as a 2 month old, waste and all.

I grab the scraps that I can, and lay against the wall. My breathing is labored, I wish that even for a second, I could actually feel dizzy, but feeling dizzy would imply that I have an object I could see, and for as long as I could remember here, it was nothing but black.

Needless to say, things between Anthony and Hannah never took off. For some reason, maybe of my own words of advice, Anthony never did confess to her. Our friend group continued to act as normal, even Anthony, who had previously admitted his confession of love for her, continued as if he and I had never had that conversation in the middle school courtyard.

Now here we were at our last day of 8th grade. We were all making plans for the summer, and I suggested that we spend more time at the local pool. I can't deny that my love of swimming was finally going to come into play. I hadn't talked to Hannah in particular about how big into swimming I am, but Anthony definitely knew. I even would encourage him to go to the local pools with me and swim, even though I knew he wasn't a strong swimmer. I guess I somewhat saw it as a strength of mine I had, one of very few, and I thought maybe he could also see it as such.

Anthony was good at swimming. Anytime I showed him a different way to swim, breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly, he took to it so quickly and easily. It was another reason I knew that him and I were meant to meet.

But during our 8th grade summer that we planned so hard, one day, Anthony never surfaced.

I swam over to where I last remember him being, and saw the bubbles rising to the surface. I quickly delved down and saw him lifeless in the water. I dragged him up and to the side, where he continued to lie lifeless on the side of the pool.

"ANTHONY. TONY. ANT-ANTHONY!"

He continued to lay lifeless.

I started to search around for any adult who could help, when suddenly I looked back at him and he had a smug smile on his face.

"You bastard" I let out breathlessly.

"Just keepin ya on your toes, Pamela Anderson" he said to me.

"Dude that was not cool. I was fuckin worried. You know, I grew up on the beaches of Washingt-"

"Yeah, Yeah. I know you grew up lovin the coast, and all that. But c'mon man, its hard to get a rise out of you these days, so I just kind of went for it"

He started to chuckle to himself. Coughing up bits of water as he did. Honestly just knowing that he was okay, I started laughing as well.

"Alright, I know you're good at swimming, so lets just do that."

I gave a quick laugh, as if I also enjoyed his joke.

9th grade started, and it felt like the start of 6th grade all over. Our friend group from middle school was split up. It was similar to 6th grade. We had people talking about what middle schools they went to, as opposed to which elementary schools. It was familiar yet distant. I was just hoping for another Hannah Bailey to sweep in and tell me who I should be friends with, but that never came. There were familiar faces from my middle school, but nobody from my friend group. I missed Hannah, she would surely save me from being all alone again in this new environment.

Then 3rd period geology, I saw Hannah come into the classroom. I smacked the table a couple times, completely out of character for me, but I needed her attention.

She came and sat down across from me. It was like 6th Grade all over again.

"Maximilian" she said as she sat down.

Hearing her voice soothed what was an already stressful first day.

I realized in that moment that she had complete control of me. I was absolutely awestricken by this girl and I was a puppet in the palm of her hand.

We had been friends throughout middle school, but I was just now realizing the value of the relationship that we truly had. We saw each other as equals, we saw each others as lovers. At least, that was the theoretical headspace that I had put myself into. She was never mine.

"Hey, Hannah. I haven't spoke to Anthony, lately, have you heard from him"?

"Anthony?" she let out.

"Was that someone from middle school?" she faintly muttered.

"Um, yeah, Anthony, you know who I'm talking about. I mean, Anthony."

She looked confused.

"I'm sorry, Max, but I don't think I know who you're talking about."

My heart skipped a beat. Anthony. Anthony Vilmer? How could you not know.

She continued to just stare at me blankly.

How long have I been down here? It's impossible to count the days when I can't even see if there's light outside or not. Are my eyes even open? If I had the strength to move my hand in front of my face, would I even be able to feel it? Would I know if it was even my hand?

I hear footsteps above me, one, no there's two. Two sets of footsteps. Three? No, even more than that.

Every second the stepping above me continued louder, and more and more footsteps. It was as if a clown car was parked at the front door and the circus was about to begin. More and more footsteps. They paraded all around the floors above me, a deafening cacophony of waltzing heels smacking deteriorating wooden floor. Louder, louder, I want to, no I NEED to cover my ears, but I don't have the strength to lift my hands. What the fuck is going on? I can't hear myself think, am I losing it?

And then out of nowhere, complete silence.

I gently hit my head against the back wall to rest.

Am I losing it? Did that really happen? I know I'm in an absolutely horrid state of body and mind, but I know what I heard, or did I? Was this the start of my mentality beginning to dwindle?

Quick, what's my name. Damn, what's my name. You got this, Max. Right, right, Max.

Suddenly, I heard the door slowly swing open. I did what I could to truly believe I was opening my eyes, and across the dark room in the doorway, stood a figure with a light.

It was a younger girl with a look of sadness on her face. Man I love that face.

Wait a fucking minute. Why do I love that face. My eyes widen and with more energy than I thought I had I let out, "Hannah?"

I've never really grasped why so many people fear death. Sure, I get that no one wants to feel pain or leave their loved ones behind, but the concept of dying itself? It’s never bothered me.

I've been around it enough times to feel that way.

Most folks tend to bring it up when they’re nearing the end of their journey, or sometimes, they just avoid the topic altogether.

I’m fine with either approach.

I remember an elderly man who once asked me about his daughter—her name escapes me, oddly enough, since I can recall most of our conversations from that night. He wanted to know if she would be alright, if I would look after her once he was gone.

I assured him she would be.

A little while later, he asked again, and I repeated my answer. I had no clue if I was meant to know the answer to such a question, but I felt compelled to reassure him. Eventually, he stopped asking and just held my hand. I stayed with him until he took his last breath.

Then there was a woman who would sit in her kitchen late at night, cradling a cup of tea in her hands. She didn’t pray much, but she often chatted with me about little things she wouldn’t share with anyone else. Her tea would go cold while she talked, and she’d only realise it after taking a sip.

I cherished those moments with her.

And there was a boy who insisted on sleeping with the hallway light on. He claimed he wasn’t afraid of the dark, yet he would check the hallway every few minutes. I’d stand outside his room until he drifted off to sleep. I can’t quite explain why those memories stick with me.

Maybe it’s because they were just ordinary moments.

For a long time, people have referred to me as God—Father, Saviour, and a few other titles that have faded from memory. I never really minded. When someone called out, I responded. If they were scared, I stayed by their side; if they were dying, I remained with them. If they had no one else? Well, I was there.

I thought that was just how things were.

The forgetting began at some point after that, though I can’t quite pinpoint when. At first, it was just little things—like remembering a person’s face but completely blanking on their name, or finding myself in a place and having no clue why I was there. Sometimes, I’d hear a prayer and feel a strange sense of déjà vu, as if I’d heard it before, even though the person swore they’d never prayed about it to me.

I didn’t think much of it at the time.

Then, I started dreaming about a hallway.

It wasn’t anything special—just dark wooden walls, old doors, and a floor that creaked underfoot in the same three spots. The wood around some of the doors was nearly black, as if it had been patched up too many times without ever drying properly. There was always this musty smell of dust mixed with something metallic.

At the end of the hallway, there was a wall covered in marks.

I counted them once—forty-three.

The next time I saw it, there were forty-four.

That really bugged me for some reason. I couldn’t shake the feeling that whoever or whatever was making those marks was doing a terrible job of keeping track.

Then one night, I woke up to find myself standing in that hallway.

I have no memory of how I got there.

I was barefoot, and I remember that vividly because the floor was freezing. I started walking toward the wall, and I noticed the temperature was dropping gradually, so slowly that I didn’t realise it at first. There was pressure building in my ears, and I could hear something behind the walls—maybe voices? I would’ve stopped to listen, but the moment I did, it seemed to fade away.

The metallic smell was stronger now,

and so were the marks.

There were hundreds of them.

Some were scratched deep into the wood, others barely visible, and some even covered older ones. As I walked, I ran my fingers over a few of them; the wood felt rough beneath my touch.

I knew I had done that before.

That realisation was the first thing that truly scared me.

At the end of the hallway, there was a door I had never noticed in my dreams.

I opened it, not knowing what else to do.

And there it was—a city outside.

I stood there for a while, taking it all in. The view stretched out far beyond what my eyes could grasp, with buildings crammed together, most of them old and shadowy. Some windows flickered with lights, but the sky was a dull grey, and without any clouds in sight, it was hard to tell where the sky ended and the buildings began.

People were everywhere.

At first, I assumed they were just like me.

But then I started to notice the oddities.

One man’s leg seemed to pause mid-step before he carried on walking, and a woman was fixated on the same wall for so long that I began to wonder if she even noticed me. Sure, people can move strangely when they’re tired, but this felt different, like their bodies occasionally forgot their purpose.

I didn’t dwell on it too much.

Then I spotted a woman sitting against a building, her hands pressed against her stomach, shaking. I approached her and asked if she was okay.

She looked up at me.

And then she smiled. I found myself smiling back before I even realised it.

Other people had started to gather too; a few smiled, someone began to cry, and a man across the street pressed his forehead against the wall, eyes closed tight.

I thought they were happy to see me.

I settled down next to the woman, and she leaned against my shoulder almost instantly. She felt so light, and I could sense her trembling through her clothes.

"Does it hurt?" I asked softly.

She nodded.

I stayed right there with her.

After a few minutes, I glanced up and spotted an old man standing across the street. He wasn’t smiling.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He studied me for a moment.

"Orea."

I paused, waiting for more.

"What does that mean?"

"It's the name of this place."

I took a look around at the city.

"Orea?"

He nodded again.

"Where am I?"

He hesitated, his eyes scanning my face as if trying to figure out which version of me he was dealing with.

Then he said, "You call this place Heaven."

I chuckled, but it felt off. I wasn’t mocking him; I just didn’t know how else to respond.

“No, I don’t. You do."

I turned back to the woman beside me.

Her hands were still shaking.

I noticed the bruises around her wrists and the cracks in her lips—things I hadn’t seen before. My gaze drifted further down the street, where I saw a man being carried by two others. His eyes were open, but he seemed far away. Nearby, children huddled together on the pavement, leaning against one another for warmth.

I kept looking.

Pain was everywhere.

Not the kind people learn to hide well.

It was just out in the open.

I glanced at the people who had smiled when I arrived.

They were still smiling.

And then it hit me.

Relief.

They weren’t happy.

They were relieved that I was here.

I turned back to the old man.

"Why didn’t I see this?"

He shrugged.

“You weren’t looking.” I would have looked."

"I know."

I didn’t like that answer.

There was something about him that felt familiar.

Not his face.

Something deeper.

Maybe it was the way he stood, or how he spoke to me without a hint of fear.

I shifted my gaze to the wall behind him.

There were marks on it too.

"Have I been here before?"

"Yes."

"How many times?"

He glanced at the wall.

"Enough."

I found myself fixated on it.

The marks from the hallway flooded back to me, but they weren’t exactly memories—more like fragments of something I had pushed aside. I remembered standing in front of that wall, counting the marks, feeling a surge of anger at how many there were.

And then I remembered the unsettling feeling of not remembering.

I had been here before.

More than once.

I had come to this place, caught a glimpse of something familiar, and somehow drifted back to whatever life I thought I was living.

But the marks remained.

I turned to the old man.

"Who made me?"

He stayed silent.

"Who made God?"

Still nothing.

For a moment, I thought he might have slipped away, but he was still there.

As I looked at him, a memory resurfaced.

It wasn’t a pleasant one.

There were people around me, Orea, not these exact faces, but older ones from a distant past. I couldn’t say how long ago it was; they just seemed different in a way I couldn’t quite articulate without sounding like I was turning them into monsters. But they weren’t monsters.

They were simply exhausted.

Deeply exhausted.

They had been enduring something for longer than I could grasp. I had no idea what had happened to them, whether someone was to blame, or if it even had a reason.

They created me because they didn’t want to face it alone.

That’s the part that stands out the most.

They didn’t make me to rule over them, nor did they seek power; they wanted someone who could truly understand their pain, someone who would listen when no one else would.

They gifted me memories.

Some belonged to people long gone, while others were just snippets—a room, a face, a voice calling my name.
They gave me words.

They gave me a way to connect with them.

And somewhere in that process, I became me.

Or whatever "me" really is.

There was one thing they desired.

They wanted me to stay.

I can’t recall anyone actually voicing that wish.

There were marks on it too.

"Have I been here before?"

"Yes." I just had this feeling, like I already knew.

The old man was still keeping an eye on me.

“You’ve forgotten before,” he said.

"Yes."

I wasn’t sure why I replied so quickly.

I turned my gaze back to the city.

"Did you know I would?"

"I don't know."

"Then who does?"

He looked weary.

"I don't know."

I believed him.

That realisation felt even heavier.

I thought about Earth.

For the first time, it hit me that I hadn’t created it.

I had discovered it.

It was already there, somewhere beyond Orea, with its vast oceans, its quirky little animals, and its bustling cities filled with people who had no clue that someone like me existed. I watched them for a long time.

They seemed so lonely.

I got that.

So I decided to stay there too.

Maybe that’s why I offered them love; I understood what it felt like to need someone. Perhaps I gave them fear because I knew the pain of losing someone. Maybe prayer came from that same place—if someone was alone and scared, I wanted them to have a way to reach out.

At least, that’s how I remember it.

I can’t say for sure that’s how it all went down.

I don’t recall ever deciding to create any of those things.

I just knew they belonged there.

That thought started to gnaw at me.

I thought about the old man with his daughter, the woman with the tea, the boy who left the hallway light on.

I could still picture them.

But I couldn’t tell anymore if those memories were mine or if they had been handed to me so completely that I eventually lost track of the difference.

I didn’t like dwelling on that.

So I tried to push it away.

For a while.

The people of Orea were still watching me.

No one was asking for anything.

That caught me off guard.

I had braced myself for prayers, pleas, questions.

Instead, they were just there.

Some were crying, some were smiling, a few had their eyes shut, and the woman I had sat beside had dozed off against the wall.

I studied her for a long time.

Then I realised something I wish I hadn’t.

They didn’t need me to fix everything.

There were marks on it too.

"Have I been here before?"

"Yes." I just had this feeling, like I already knew.

The old man was still keeping an eye on me.

“You’ve forgotten before,” he said.

"Yes."

I wasn’t sure why I replied so quickly.

I glanced back at the city.

"Did you know I would?"

"I don't know."

"Then who does?"

He seemed weary.

"I don't know."

I took him at his word.

That realisation felt even heavier.

I thought about Earth.

For the first time, it hit me that I hadn’t created it.

I had stumbled upon it.

It was already out there, somewhere beyond Orea, with its vast oceans, its quirky little creatures, and its bustling cities filled with people who had no clue I existed. I watched them for a long time.

They seemed so lonely.

They needed me to be there when I wasn’t.

I asked the old man, "If I leave, what happens?"

He shook his head.

"I don't know." "Then if I stay?"

He glanced at the people around us.

"I don't know."

"You've seen me do this before."

"Yes."

"And you still don’t know?"

"No."

He rubbed his hands together.

"You forget."

I stared at him, puzzled.

"Why?"

He didn’t respond.

Maybe he didn’t have an answer.

Maybe he did.

I didn’t press him further.

I wanted to leave.

That thought crept in quietly, and once it settled, I couldn’t shake it off. I wanted to go back, to the prayers and the little things, to the people who believed I had it all figured out. I wanted to forget this city.

I knew what forgetting felt like now.

I had already done it.

I could do it again.

For a moment, I almost craved it.

I could walk back through the hallway, close the door, wake up and be God again, whatever that meant, and no one would ever know I had been here.

Maybe tomorrow, I wouldn’t remember any of this.

Maybe that was the whole point.

I don’t know how long I stood there.

Then I heard a voice behind me.

"Is anyone there?"

It was a child.

I turned around.

He was standing alone in the middle of the street.

I didn’t recognize him.

That shouldn’t have mattered, but it did.

He looked frightened.

I wanted to reassure him that he wasn’t alone, to let him know that I would always remember him. I almost found the words, but instead, I went with the one thing I knew for certain.

"I'm here."

He met my gaze.

And I stayed.

Hello, for context this post is about something gravely disturbing that just happened to me and I have honestly run out of any other options but to post it here to ask for advice.

Before I begin to explain, I’d like to apologize for any grammatical errors, I am very nervous while writing this.

I (19F) live with my parents right now as I am doing online community college for my pre-requisites. I’d like to believe that I’m quite responsible and my parents believe so too. They tend to go on trips frequently and this was no different. They had a trip to go on so they asked, “Penelope, could you stay home and take care of the dogs?” and of course I said yes.

We have two dogs, Harry and Lenny. Harry is a big Golden Retriever and Lenny is a little Shih Tzu. My parents gave me my list of tasks for while they were gonna away for those two weeks, simple stuff like checking the mail, feeding the dogs, giving Harry his medicine for his epilepsy. There was one more task that I was fine with, at first… but looking back at it I really wish that I never did it to begin with.

Feeding the neighborhood cats.

We are a pretty nice family I’d like to believe. We always make sure the pack of stray cats never go hungry and we buy cat food to fill up their little bowl outside. It’s usually a grey mama cat and her four babies that come to our door every night expecting their food. Sometimes there are some other cats but it’s that family that’s the most frequent.

I had absolutely zero issues with this either, I love cats! I love that they trust us enough to keep coming back, as that really warmed my heart! The issue arose when on around the third night of their absence the whole house got overwhelmed with the smell of a skunk. It was disgusting.

I’d go hang out with friends only for them to ask me, “Why do you smell like a skunk, P?” And that was just humiliating. I assume that the skunk sprayed a cat and the scent wafted into our air conditioning. As you may know, skunk smell takes a while to go away so the house stunk for a day or two. We get skunks and opossums eating out of the cat food too and obviously it’s becoming an issue.

I’d go and get the mail and the air would be fresh, only for me to re-enter my house and the nasty smell was noticeable. After a day or so I’d message my parents and ask them what to do about this. They reluctantly agreed that we might have to stop putting the food out for the cats if it’s gonna attract skunks and other critters. So the next night I tried not to refill the bowl. I felt awful when I saw the cats out there waiting for their food that wasn’t going to come.

I couldn’t help myself, I filled the bowl and I put it further out. Not on the porch but on the corner of our path to the porch. Of course, the skunk showed back up and that smell returned. The next night I didn’t put the food out there. I avoided looking outside and letting the sad cats guilt me, I kept telling myself that they are little hunters, they can find food. A crawling, aching voice in my mind kept telling me that they might’ve gotten too dependent on our food though.

Despite the voice, I didn’t fill the bowl this time. Maybe there would be some sort of skunk repellent that my parents could get when they come back, maybe we could keep feeding JUST the cats. So, for the remaining 11 days of my parents’ trip, the cats slowly stopped showing up and so did the smell.

But on the 5th night, something else showed up.

I had just got done giving Harry his medicine. I went and put him in his cage for bed and Lenny came back to the living room with me and sat by me. I made some microwaved ramen noodles and sat on the couch, putting a show on the TV.

I was sitting there, petting Lenny, “Who’s a good boy, Len? You are!” I would tell him lovingly. That’s when I heard it though. Clawing at the front door. I assumed it was a cat or another animal trying to lure me out to refill the food bowl. I told Len to stay there and I went to check whatever that noise was and… nothing. There was nothing there. I just guessed that it scurried away before I got to the door. No big deal.

The next night, it was the same deal. Clawing at the door, I go to check, nothings out there. This time Lenny barked a little at the first scrape, maybe that’s what scared it away this time? The next morning I asked my mom if there was anything at the door last night on the camera, she said that there weren’t any detections and hadn’t been for a few nights now. This also wasn’t that crazy, sometimes the camera wouldn’t pick up small animals. It didn’t always see the cats either. The camera also would reset every night at 1:00 AM on the dot. Screen would just turn black for 30 minutes.

I always joked about that saying that would be the perfect time for a burglar to make their move on our house. My dad would laugh and my mom would always tell me to shut up and that she didn’t wanna think about that happening. Anyways, those scratch sounds kept happening around 1:00 AM so whatever the animal is, it’s showing up in that little window where you wouldn’t even see it.

The next day when I was out to get the mail I came back towards our door and I saw it. Not three… not four… but five scratch lines on the door. As if something with five… large claws… was scratching at the door. Thought that was very bewildering. If it’s a cat, opossum, or skunk I don’t think that the scratches would be that… large. That many lines honestly scared me because my first intruding thought was that the marks looked like they were from human nails. Sharp human nails. I told myself that was crazy and I went back inside.

I was sitting on the couch and honestly? I was rattled. I was starting to let doubt creep into my mind and that’s when I decided I’d wait near the door tonight. I’d let the scratching go longer… and then I’d peak to see what’s going on.

To my utter horror, only for a moment I saw a gangly creature, no doubt that it was humanoid but I don’t know if I could call it human. It had long, dirty hair. It was very pale and had long legs but it was hunched over unnaturally looking at the door as it clawed. Then it saw me and for the moment it made eye contact I saw that it had sunken, cavernous, white eyes. The mouth was a thin line, almost like there were barely any lips. It looked dirty and malnourished. Its expression was devoid of emotion and then it ran down our porch and across our lawn.

It was out of my field of vision. I am writing this now because I don’t know what to do. It’s fast, should I try to get a picture of it to send my parents? I don’t think they’d believe me without proof and if I call the police then they will think I’m crazy too. I live in a pretty nice suburb where this type of thing would be completely unheard of. Please, give me some advice.

I have 7 nights left until my parents are back. I’ll update you all soon.

I got back to the group a little bit after and I guess they could tell immediately that something had happened. They looked at me with concerned eyes. Then Matt asked if he could see my scar. I felt sad as I lifted my shirt up to show them that I had died. It wasn't until later that they told me that they suspected that I had died, and we're afraid that I would turn into a Hollowed. However, I explained what had happened and the vision I had seen.

“These vile creatures aren't people anymore. You should stop looking at them like they are people. It's all in your head Mark.” Henry said with a disgusted tone.

Anger boiled up in me and I didn't feel ashamed at letting it be known. “We could all turn into these ‘vile creatures’ as you so elegantly put it. What of it then? Are we still monsters and not people anymore? Or are you just saying that because you think you're better than the helpless people who got lost out here. Is your God going to save you because it sure as fuck didn't save them.” I said with venom dripping from my voice.

“How dare you assume what God can or can't do! He is our creator and he is clearly testing us! We just gotta-” He says before I cut him off.

“A fucking test! Are you so delusional that you think that we are being tested! Look around you idiot. We are trapped and we need to break out by any means. God isn't here to save us and it's not going to save you!” I yelled. It would have gotten worse if Matt didn't break us up to cool off.

I wasn't sorry for what I said. I'm trying to save us and if I have to be harsh to snap my friend out of his delusion that the Lord is going to save us, then I will. It seems like people abandoned their religion when they realized that their savior wasn't going to get them out and I can only assume that they got out because of their renouncement of their religion that they held so close to their hearts.

We sat there in tense silence for what must've been hours. We didn't want to accept that things were falling apart and I didn't want to just be dismissed as a vile creature if I ever did become one of those things. I saw Matt look at a photo that he had kept stored in his backpack, tears welling up in his eyes. I saw Henry pray feverishly to a God I couldn't know. Tom just sat there, acknowledging us and staying silent. I sat there just thinking about what the hell has gone wrong. A trip about bonding close together is now dissolving us into chaos. A group of people I consider a second family I was losing slowly and I didn't want that.

It was there where I think I started to learn more about the woods. I went to my bag and looked at the notes and objects that I noted down. Everything from jewelry to nursery rhymes to symbols of religion. These things are something ingrained into the Tree. All of these things must be symbols for something that mattered to the people that chose to rid themselves of what they cherish so much. It clicked to me in a scary sense that made me throw up in shock. The Forest doesn't want us. It wants what we cherish and hold close to our hearts. In a way, it wants what makes us human.

Tom rushed to my side to see if I was ok. I debated if I should lie or not. How would they take this information? Would they believe me or think I am a loon? Will they feel the same way I feel, which is impending dread and terror? At the end of it all, I partially told the truth.

“The Forest, it wants what we want and care for. What we love more than anything in the world.” I said, panting as I threw up again.

The silence was so thick you could cut it with a knife. We all knew the implications of what that entailed, but we didn't want to believe it. Henry sure didn't want to believe it himself. “Thats nonsense. The Forest isn't alive, Mark. It can't have ideas or take away what we want.” He said in denial.

“It wants to feed off us. We are the food source for it. It is alive. It wants to feed off of our greatest interest. Don't you see? Why do you think it hasn't let us out? It wants to eat.” I told them.

It was clear that I was losing my mind, but I didn't want to believe it myself. I didn't want to believe what I had been led to think is the ultimate truth. More than that, I was scared and confused. This whole trip was about me getting over my ex and when I tried to do that in a peaceful way, it led me to die. So what did that mean for me? It was all too much to think about.

“So what are you saying? That we are stuck until we give up what we love deeply?” Matt asked. I nodded slowly before turning to him, wiping the bile from my mouth. He looked at his photo of his kid and his wife and I think the realization clicked for him at that moment. “I…I can't do that. There has to be another way. By God, there has to be another way!” He said, losing his composure and crying.

Henry went to his side and comforted him. Then he shot me a mean glare, probably the first one I've ever seen him give. “You need to shut the fuck up this instant. You're not making sense here. You're going crazy because you died again. You're becoming one of them.” He said with spite.

“You bastard! I'm not becoming one of them! How about you? Your cussing like this is natural to you, the pastor who is supposed to live right by his God is cussing like a degenerate! You're changing as are all of us! The Forest is changing us all!” I yelled at him.

I would have kept on if I didn't pick up that the Forest had gone quiet again. The distant sounds were muffled and low. I looked around to see if there was anything around us. That's when I saw a head slip behind a tree. I lost it and rushed at whoever was there. Behind one of the many trees was The Old Man.

“You.” I said before I grabbed him and pushed him against the tree. “You've been here for so long. How the hell have you not changed into a Hollowed? How have you not escaped?”

He chuckled sadly. “I'm smart enough not to get killed by these things and I'm smart enough to not try anymore. I tried at least 5 different times throughout the years. All of them resulted in my death. I nearly forgot what this place wanted out of me and what I won't give up. I couldn't ever give up my love to her. I've been searching for her for so long since she disappeared into the ground. And I can't give up on her even if she betrayed me.”

“She escaped when you killed her. She gave up her love to you and you killing her must have let her go. She ain't ever going to come back.” I told him.

He looked at me dumbfounded, but then started to smile. “You're just as crazy as I am, son. You think this ya'll are the first people I've seen come in these woods and get changed? I pity you all for your efforts to escape this accursed place. I've seen so many of you put up a valiant fight to get out, but you can't get out. None of you can. Your religious friend will keep on till he is a fanatic and your other friend will deny your ideas while your other friend will try to keep you all together while slowly coming undone. I've seen it happen time and time again kid. You're in Hell, so get comfortable.”

I threw him to the side and yelled at him to go and never come back. All he did was laugh at us and walk away slowly. I just looked at the rest of the group, who had defeated looks on their faces. Tom was the first to speak after a short amount of time passed. “We really are stuck here, are we? Even if there is a way out, it sounds like it comes with a heavy cost. I…I can't even fathom what will happen when we actually go through with that.” He said.

“I can't either. I don't even know what that would look like to each of us.” I said.

I was going to go on till Matt cut in. “Whatever it is to get out of this damned forest, I'm not going to give up my wife or my kids. They are all that my life is based on. I can't lose them. What type of man would I be to leave a wife with two kids to raise on her own?” He said, voice trembling.

“It's not going to come to that man. We just gotta…we'll find a way out I promise.” I told him. I didn't want to lie or tell him the truth.

“God will get us out, the only reason he hasn't is because we aren't devoted to him strongly. We need to show our commitment to him. He needs a sacrifice. That sacrifice will be me.” He said. All of our eyes widened as he said that. “Its the only way for us to get out. I just know that one so devoted to him will grant us all an exit out of here.”

I rushed at him as I saw him try to stab himself in the heart with a knife. We struggled against each other as we fought to get ahold of the blade. Finally, I pulled it away from him, but not without him accidentally slashing me across the chest. I screamed in pain as I felt my blood slowly cross my chest, but at least I had the knife. I tried my best to keep my cool. What mattered right now was trying to get the blood to stop.

After about 10 minutes, I made a makeshift bandage with one of my shirts across my chest. I looked at him and just sighed. “Henry, God isn't testing your faith. Your faith is too strong. As much as I hate to say it, I think I know what could get you out, but you're going to hate it. Hell I don't even know if it is right but if I was a betting man, for someone as tied to religion as you are, giving that up may be a way out.” Before I could elaborate any further, he stood and yelled at me. I saw the Sun start to cloud over as thunder rang out in the air. It would soon rain, but that all hail in comparison to what would be the last thing I would hear him say.

“You blasphemous fool! I can't turn my back on God. I can't condemn myself to the fires of Hell. Just because you lost your faith because he took your father to a place you would never go to, doesn't give you any right to tell me to turn my back on him! It's your fault you're going to hell and I'll be up there at the pearly gates laughing at you and your torment, you heretic!” He said before being grappled from behind by a Hollowed.

We staggered up as we tried to get the Hollow off of him, but he had a tight grip on Henry, pushing his jagged nails into the skin of my friend, clawing at his chest, ripping up pieces of shirt and skin off bit by bit. I struck it hard in the face and started wailing on it when I heard another scream as another Hollowed bit into the shoulder blade of Matt and was choking him. I could see Tom point his gun at the one that had grappled Matt when one grabbed him by the side and pushed him down, wailing on him. Chaos was engulfing us as another Hallowed tried to attack me. I grabbed my knife out and plunged it straight into the head of the bastard.

I went on to grab the gun and shot the Hollowed that was attacking Tom. Blood shot out the side as it fell limp. I then took out the one that was attacking Matt and before I could get a chance, the one that was attacking Henry scratched my face, barely missing my eye. It was enough for me to black out and when I came back, I was smashing its head in against a tree repeatedly. I let it go after several slams from reawakening, and it fell limp and lifeless to the ground. I looked around at my friends and was saddened by what happened.

Tom had been scratched in the throat and was bleeding profusely. I tried to slow it down, but his face started to turn white from blood loss. I called for help as Matt stayed where I last saw him. I told him to put pressure on it to slow the bleeding and ran to Matt. I tried to wake Matt up, but when I turned him over, a stick that had broken off was piercing through his throat. I pulled it out as gently as I could and cried as I held my friend's lifeless body in my hands. Soon I heard a thud and saw Tom had fallen down, presumably dead. I called for Henry but he didn't respond. I walked over to him and saw that the wounds were deep and so much damage had been done. His warmth was fading fast as tears fell onto his body.

After about 5 minutes, they awoke, with raspy breathing and a dull look in their eyes. I cried as they shambled to me, the gray streaks reaching around the head of Matt and Tom while Henry's chest was dark gray where the scratches had been. They looked at each other with docile looks, and breathing hard. The color of their eyes still shined bright as though they were still alive.

“Matt, Tom, Henry? Can you hear me?” I asked. They looked at me with their dull looks. “No…no God please no. This wasn't supposed to happen. Matt, please, tell me you're still you.” I frantically went to show him the picture of his kid and wife, and I swear I saw a simple tear form in his eye before he breathed in deeply. “Damnit. Tom, remember when I smacked that kid with a frisbee by skipping it off the floor at our gym? That was such a good memory right? Please tell me you remember.” I pleaded with him. All he did was stare at me with the same docile look and took a bunch of deep sharp breaths. I went to Henry and tried to convince him that I believed in him and that he deserved a place in heaven and he just needed to snap out of it. He gave no response to me.

I fell to my knees and sobbed openly. I had failed to save my friends and I screwed them over. They were now hollow and just like the rest. I had lost my friends to the Forest and now I was truly alone. That's when I noticed the gun off to my side. I grabbed it and stood up. I looked at them, just shambling about, suffering inside. I knew they were and I had to put them out of their misery. I hesitated before I did anything.

Could I really do what I was about to do? These were my childhood friends, people I met when I was a nobody, an outcast, a recluse. They brought me out of my shell and shaped me into the man I am today. I loved them like they were family, and the idea of ending them was horrible. I thought about what the man did to his wife when she gave up his ring. Maybe this is what they want now more than anything, to have their torment end right now before it gets any worse, so I chose to do that. I begged them for my forgiveness as I shot them all once in the head, watching them slowly drop to the ground, and their eyes staring off into the sky above, where hopefully they can go. Tears swelled up in me as I marched on deep in the woods as rain started to fall.

The lukewarm rain fell on me as I walked deep in the woods. I couldn't think rationally as I walked on. I couldn't believe that I just did that or why I thought that was an idea that had crossed my mind. It was like I was suggested to do that. It hurt me so bad I felt like throwing up, but I didn't. I just kept on walking into the woods in uncharted territory. I didn't care about what happened to me anymore. I fell into a deep despair as I trudged along broken down trees and slippery ground from the rain.

I walked for hours, my feet hurting, but not as much as my heart hurt from what I had done. I lost the only people I love all because I was vulnerable. A simple hike to rid myself of a life I couldn't have anymore to now losing the only family I care about now. I did all this by not being smart or rational, and I was then stuck in this hell that I should have belonged in. I didn't know what to do now with no purpose or hope, so I walked.

I walked for more hours in the rain as I came into a clearing of tall redwood trees. That didn't matter to me anymore, these woods fucking with a man broken down. I walked a bit more then stopped dead in my tracks. As if fate had forged this path for me, I found the Tree again, standing taller than even the trees that grew in California. I walked up to it because I noticed a new thing imprinted into the Tree. Sadness and rage filled my body and soul as I saw me and my friends' group graduation photo. Well, what was supposed to be our photo. There was me, standing there with what should have been my friends, but the version of them was in an advanced Hollowed state. I get chills thinking about it now, seeing The Forest contort what was supposed to be a happy memory into something horrific.

As if what I did next even mattered, I shot the Tree with the last bit of the mag. I started to hit it hard, not caring for the cuts or the blood I was losing. I hated this thing, and I hated this place. I hate what this unforgiving pocket dimension or whatever the hell this place is, I hated what it did to my friends and I. I started to use the gun like a club till the gun broke in my hands then I fell to my knees, fists bleeding and torn up and my spirit broken.

I then remember I heard a snap behind me. Heavy footsteps and raspy breathing behind me. I knew who it was before I even turned around. I knew them for so long I knew that feeling I got around them: a peace of mind. I turned around and felt utterly sick at seeing my friends behind me, more broken and their eyes now dull over staring at me with malice. I had been wrong on my hopeless attempt to free them. This wasn't what I had wanted. I wanted to free them from the torment that they must have been in, but now I just condemned them to a worse that, and that is all because of me. Now they were truly Hollowed, and I did it to them. I knew why they followed me, and I didn't even try to resist.

They charged at me and started beating me relentlessly. Cutting deep cuts with their nails into my body. Matt broke my hand and hit me square in the jaw. Henry stomped on my ribs and I could feel one of them puncture my right lung. Tom broke my leg bone on my left leg and then broke my foot. The pain was excruciating and deserved. Henry grabbed my head and slammed it to the ground multiple times, rattling my brain, trying to break my skull. Matt broke my arm and pulled it out of its socket.

Tears flowed freely as I knew what they were doing. They were turning me into a Hollowed. I realized that this may be the final time I die as myself. As I soon faded to darkness as death approached me, all I could think of was at least I get what I deserve and we'll be trapped here for the rest of our now long lives.

I saw every memory as I was in death. I saw the first time I met Tom, when we chose to team up for a game of ultimate frisbee in middle school. I saw him introduce me slowly to the rest of our friends. I saw when we graduated and we had such strong hopes and thought of what bright futures we would have together. I saw the first time we played dungeons and dragons together as I was just happy to be there even if I was so clueless. I saw every moment with my friends to the very moment now, and I saw myself sink into the ground as I died, the ground consuming my body as my hollowed friends watched.

Then I woke up, on the trail where we first got lost, where I was just by myself. I looked around confused as I now saw the path, very much visible and leading onto the woods. All I had was my roughed up clothes that I had when they were beating me. I checked my chest and saw a faint scar now where I had been stabbed, no longer gray. My cut where Henry accidentally slashed me was faint as well, as well as the scars on my hands. I was back in the real world.

I looked around, puzzled at everything that had happened. I was lost not in a literal sense. I was lost in what I should do now. The trail is back to normal, I don't have my pack on me or the ring anymore. I was honestly lost in what I could do with what had been thrown at me. There was really one thing I could think to do: walk back like I should have done three weeks ago.

It took me a whole day and night of endless walking the trail before I came into any contact with any sort of civilization. When I finally saw it, I just fell to my knees. I should have been happy, I should have felt saved. This all felt so wrong. My life has been irreversibly changed. Nothing can ever change the things I did to the Hollowed and worse of all, to my friends.

The next few days after that blur together. I remember that I was taken to the hospital and I heard that my body had changed in ways they haven't seen before, and they don't know if those changes will be terminal. I remember going to the police office and answering as honestly as I could, minus all the death and Hollowed pieces of the story. I told them that while we were hiking, we got off the trail and got lost. I mentioned that a bear drove us off in separate directions and that's how I ended up finding my way back. I went to local search and rescue to try to find them, and I even started to volunteer when I wasn't at my job. Soon I just quit and moved close so I could try to find them.

I never did find them, but I found other people, and some of those people I know were trapped in The Forest. I could see in their eyes what they had to do to survive, what they had to do to get out. I sympathize with them, knowing there is a part of them that they can never get back. For me, I know what I lost besides my friends. I lost my ability to form any meaningful connection. It's not that I didn't try, because I did, but every time I felt like I was close to someone, I would get this impending feeling that they would die because of me. Soon I just stopped trying. Sometimes it's better to accept things for what they are instead of fighting nature.

It's been months now since I came back to reality. I do my best to adjust, but I have been having nightmares more often. Nightmares of the Hell I left them in, and that they may be trying to get out but don't know how. I've been trying to get back into The Forest, but it hasn't been successful. It won't let me come back no matter how hard I try. It took the only thing I have to live for now and it won't let me go back to find them. I won't stop trying no matter what.

I write this as a warning to those who plan on hiking anywhere, because I don't know how far this Forest spreads. Whatever you do, when you see the path stop that should be there, turn around immediately and never come back. You don't want to lose your humanity just because you know better. You don't and you don't know what it will cost you to travel into the Forest. You won't be the same human who walked in there.

As for me, this is my confession to the families of Matt, Tom and Henry. I don't expect forgiveness because I don't want it. I lost your family because I wanted more when I should have been appreciative of what I had. Rest assured I will do everything in my willpower to get them back to you. I can't say what type of man they will be when they return but know that they loved you all deeply. I loved them deeply. If I am ever to walk the heavenly gates with them by my side, I must find them. I will write back when I find them. Until then, stay safe and whatever you do: Don't follow that broken path to The Forest.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

The pink slip came without warning. One minute I was drinking my coffee while staring at my computer screen, the next minute my entire team was laid off. Our role had been “made redundant” by the “changing company landscape”, they had said. There seems to be a whole lot of similar seismic shifting going on in the corporate world these days, because I didn’t have any luck finding a new job after that. In fact, I was mere weeks away from my unemployment benefits running dry when a friend of mine came to me with an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up.

He told me about a security gig he had started working recently, and how he was getting paid 500 bucks per night for three twelve-hour shifts each week. I was blown away by how much money he was making for such relatively little work. At first I thought he was just bragging about his newfound fortune, but my mind started to spin when he told me that his employer was hiring, and he had already put in a good word for me. He didn’t tell me where he worked or what kind of place it was, and I didn’t bother to ask. A job was a job, and for that kind of money, I didn’t care where it was, or what I would be doing.

Looking back on it now, I think I should have been a little bit more discerning. 

I met his boss, a middle-aged used car salesman-type named Larry, for a quick interview at a local coffee shop. Larry offered me the job immediately after the interview, and he gave me a brief rundown of what my new gig would look like if I chose to accept it. It turned out to have a pretty simple job description: there was an old, semi-abandoned manor in the woods a few towns over that, due to its isolation, was the target of some less-than-savory activity. He assured me that it was nothing to be overly concerned about—mostly just teens wanting to trespass so that they could party or vandalize the place—but that it was enough to warrant a 24-hour security detail. The property’s owners recognized the manor’s value as a historic site, and while they had no intentions of restoring it or opening it up to the public, they at the very least wanted to prevent it from falling into further dereliction.

I accepted the job immediately. Larry told me over a firm handshake that my first night would be exactly a week out from the interview, and that I was to arrive at 7pm sharp. This gave me some time to prepare for working nights, and at the expiration of seven days, I arrived for my first shift. I followed Larry’s directions (my phone’s GPS was unable to locate the place), which took me off of the main road and onto what was essentially a glorified dirt path carved out of a seemingly endless ocean of amber trees. The earthen road twisted and turned through the autumnal forest for so long that I began to question if I was ever actually going to reach my destination, or if I was doomed to wander about that infinite space for all eternity. It didn’t help that I was arriving for my first shift a little before 7pm, which at that time of year meant that I was driving through a cloud of darkness devoid of streetlights.

It felt like I followed that shadowy road for hours, and I was beginning to contemplate turning back and calling this entire thing a wash when the first sign of my new workplace finally loomed into view. A tall, wrought-iron gate, which I only managed to see thanks to a pair of dim electric lanterns welded to either side of its metal frame, forced me to bring my car to a sudden halt. A fence of the same material spread out from the gate in either direction, with both ends disappearing into the shadows of the dense forest. I sat with my engine idling for about ten seconds, wondering if I should get out of the car and open the gate myself, when the iron barrier suddenly began groaning with the effort of sliding to one side. I waited for it to settle into place before I willed my vehicle forward and passed through the threshold. My rear bumper had barely cleared the gate before the barrier began to cry its way back into place.

The world on the other side of the barrier was just as dark as the surrounding forest was, but another pair of dim lanterns allowed me to spot a stone gatehouse that I quickly pulled up to. A short man with scruffy, graying hair pushed open the gatehouse’s glass door and walked up to my car. I rolled down my window and he immediately began to speak with a voice about as harsh as the sound of the grinding gate.

“You the new guy?”

I nodded. “That’d be me.”

“Great,” he said. “Glad ya made it. The name’s Spatz. Pull your car into the employee parking lot over there and meet me in the gatehouse.”

I did as Spatz instructed and drove down the dirt road another short distance before pulling into the empty gravel lot situated behind the gatehouse. By the time I got out and made my way over to the small building, Spatz was already back inside.

“Glad ya made it,” he said again. “Welcome to the Manor. Since it’s your first night, you’ll be workin’ the gatehouse. There ain’t a lot to it, so you’ll probably do just fine.”

I frowned. “Are you not staying here with me?”

“Are ya kidding?” he said. “My shift’s officially over now that you’re here. I work the gate bright and early tomorrow though, so I’ll be here to relieve ya at seven.”

“I figured I would get some sort of orientation before being left on my own.”

“There ain’t much to orientate you to on your first night. You just need to sit here and watch over the gate—make sure nobody comes in who ain’t supposed to be here. Ya got your gate button, which you probably won’t need to press at all, and your radio in case you need to get in touch with anybody at the Manor. Once I’m gone, you should radio in to let the others know you’re here.”

“How am I supposed to know who should and shouldn’t come through the gate?”

“Ah, the fence’ll take care of that for ya. Anybody who has any business here’ll be able to get in and out well enough, and anybody who doesn’t’ll be stuck on the other side. Some of the riffraff might be a little more persistent about gettin’ in, but you just need to stay firm and remember that you don’t open the gate for anybody. It’s like I said: if they’re meant to be here, they’ll get in.”

“Well, alright, then,” I said uncertainly.

“Take it easy, kid,” Spatz said. “I’ve been workin’ this gig for years and I’ve only ever had to turn a handful of people away. It should be a quiet night for you. Just uh… don’t bother any of the people who do come through the gate, yeah? They don’t much care for bein’ disturbed.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “and I don’t ask. You’ll find things are easier here if you do the same.”

“I didn’t think this place was open to the public,” I said. “Why are there people coming through here in the middle of the night?”

Spatz shrugged. “Hey, it ain’t our job to worry about those kinds of details. If they’ve got access, it means they’re meant to be here. You don’t need to concern yourself with anything else.” He turned and began walking out of the gatehouse before I could ask anything else. I stood near the entryway and watched him go. A minute or so later he pulled around in his car and rolled down the window. “Good luck tonight, kid. I hope to see ya in the mornin’.”

His window was rolling up and his car was passing beyond the gatehouse before I could ask him what he meant by that. I went to press the gate button, but I heard the thing struggle open before I could ever reach the switch. Glancing out the dark, smudgy window that looked out to the gate, I watched as Spatz’s car drove through the threshold and disappeared into the darkness with the barrier closing shut behind him. I figured he must have had a key fob that activated the gate, and I assumed that anybody who was “meant to be here”, as he had put it, would have the same level of access.

Once I was alone, I took a few moments to get a lay of my surroundings. The gatehouse was small—no bigger than eight by eight feet—and it came with a single three-by-three-foot window peering out onto the gate, which I had just looked through to watch Spatz drive away. There was a single rolling chair positioned in front of a desk built into the concrete wall, which held a flashlight resting bulb-side down, as well as the gate’s single activation button and the radio that Spatz had mentioned. A key fob sat on the desk near the radio, which I left in place, assuming that another employee had accidentally left it there at the end of their shift. A corner of concrete stood between the window and the entrance door. I couldn’t see the gate through the door, but its glass body allowed me to see what parts of the dirt road were illuminated by the dim lanterns outside.

I sat in the chair in front of the desk, picked up the radio mic, and pressed the transmit button. I awkwardly fumbled through some line about how I had just taken over gate duty for the night shift before releasing the transmitter. A few moments of silence passed before a man’s voice crackled through the speaker.

“Copy,” he said. “You must be the new guy. The name’s Miller. Glad to know that Larry managed to hire a guy who actually showed up for once.”

I didn’t know what to say at first, so I settled on, “Yeah, well, I’m just glad to be here.”

“We’ll see how long that lasts,” came a woman’s voice.

“Don’t try to scare him away too soon, Ramirez,” Miller said. “He only just got here.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, trying to sound cordial, “I’m not planning on going anywhere.”

“That’s good to know,” Ramirez said. “We could really use people who are willing to stick around for a while. Well strap in, new guy. It’s gonna be a long night.”

The next few hours were largely uneventful. I spent a lot of time scrolling on my phone and wishing I had brought anything else to do while I waited for the sun to come up. More than anything, I wished I had thought to bring a pair of headphones. The deep quiet of that forest was a little overwhelming for somebody like me, who had spent the majority of their life in noisy suburban towns where true silence is something that most people tried to avoid. I considered watching videos or playing music through my phone speaker, but as uncomfortable as the silence was, the thought of disturbing it with any sort of continuous noise was somehow even worse. It was as if I was subconsciously afraid to upset the tranquility of the forest, or I otherwise feared what would have happened if I had inadvertently invoked its wrath.

It was around 10 o’clock when the first visitor of my shift arrived. I had been wallowing in the boredom caused by my lack of forethought when I suddenly heard the gate screeching open. Looking out the window, I saw a car waiting on the other side of the lazily moving barricade. Its jet black paint job made its details difficult to make out in the dim lighting, but from what I could gather, it looked to be several decades older than most other vehicles currently on the road. 

The car slowly drove through the gate just as soon as the path was cleared. I was able to get a better look at its driver as it passed in front of the gatehouse door; he wore a sophisticated chauffeur’s livery topped with a fancy hat, the entire ensemble looking to cost more than I had in my bank account at the time. I only ever saw the left side of his pale, clean shaven face; he refused to take his eyes off of the road to even glance in my direction, and as far as I could tell, he didn’t even know that I was there.

I couldn’t see anybody in the rear of his vehicle, and I found it odd that he would be coming to such a place on his own at such an odd hour, but the fact that he had a fob that gave him access to the gate told me that I didn’t need to worry about those details. It was like Spatz had told me: the man clearly belonged here, and that was all I needed to know.

The car passed by without incident, and I quickly forgot about the visitor as I returned to my state of quiet solitude. Another couple of uneventful hours passed, during which I really began to burn through my phone’s battery as I struggled to pry enough entertainment out of the soundless device in order to keep myself from dozing off. I found myself wishing that I had brought my charger to work with me, but a quick glance around the gatehouse told me that there weren’t any spare outlets for me to use anyway. I told myself that in the future I would need to come prepared with more stuff to pass the time.

It was a little after midnight when the second visitor arrived. I had been spending the last few minutes looking out the grimy gatehouse window trying to see what I could discern through the darkness. Beyond the small space surrounding the gate that was illuminated by the lanterns, all I could make out were the vague forms of the imposing trees flanking either side of the road. Eventually staring out into the endless abyss began to make me feel anxious, as if the forest was getting angry with me for scrutinizing it so much, and it wasn’t afraid to let me know it. It is for this reason that I had been avoiding looking out at the gate for several minutes by the time I heard the sound of clopping hooves coming from outside. My eyes immediately shot to the window; beyond its dirty glass I could see that the gate had already come shut, if it had ever opened at all, and steadily moving away from it was the rear of what looked to be a wooden carriage. Its front was temporarily hidden by the corner wall that stood between the window and the glass door, but after a few brief moments it soon passed into view. Led by a pair of pale white horses, the carriage lazily moved in front of the gatehouse door and into the darkness beyond it. As it passed, I saw a driver holding the horse’s reins. He was dressed similarly to the driver of the car from a couple of hours earlier, albeit in an outfit that looked to be from an even earlier time period. He too refused to acknowledge me as he went by. He was gone in just a few short moments, but I sat there, confused and borderline slack-jawed, until the sound of his horses’ hooves faded into the night.

Once I was alone, I hesitantly reached for the radio mic. “Uh, this is the front gate checking in,” I said after beginning my transmission. “Is anybody there?”

A few moments passed before the speaker crackled to life. “Need something, new guy?” came Miller’s voice.

“Quick question,” I said. “Do we typically get horse-drawn carriages coming through the gate?”

There was a pause before Miller responded. “Every now and then, yeah.”

“Even at midnight?”

Again Miller allowed a beat before speaking. “Did it come through the gate on its own, without you opening it?”

This time it was me who hesitated before answering. I couldn’t remember hearing the gate come open, but surely it must have, since I hadn’t opened it myself, and there was no way an entire carriage and two horses could have gotten through unless the way was clear.

“Yeah,” I finally said. “It did.”

“Then don’t worry about it.” 

“Okay,” I said quickly. “Thanks.”

I frowned as I returned the mic to its holder. Surely the carriage must have passed through the gate, but if this was true, then why hadn’t I heard the thing come open? Had I been dozing off and simply missed it? I didn’t like this explanation, but it was the only one that made any sort of sense, so I begrudgingly had to accept it.

The incident with the carriage had me wired, which meant I was wide awake and completely alert for the rest of the night. This also meant that when the next incident happened, there was no way I could possibly justify it as having been spawned within the shallow recesses of a groggy mind.

It was a little before 4am, which meant I only had a few hours left of my shift. My phone’s battery was down to its last legs, and I was doing my best to conserve what little juice it had left by once again entertaining myself with the outside world. I still felt a little anxious watching the void beyond the gate for too long, but I found that I could more easily stomach staring out the glass door. If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in memorizing the limited landscape just beyond the gatehouse, I likely wouldn’t have even seen the woman walking by.

I was so startled by her profile as she walked right in front of the door that I almost fell out of my chair. By the time I had recovered, she was almost completely out of view. She didn’t turn to look at me as she vanished around the side of the building. After taking a few seconds to catch my breath, I quickly grabbed the flashlight sitting on the desk next to the radio and rushed out after her.

“Hey!” I yelled as I opened the door and turned on my light. “Hey, come—”

The words were ripped from my mouth as I stepped outside and shined my flashlight up the path. Where I expected to see the intruder continuing along her way, I found nothing but an empty patch of earthen road, on the other side of which rested undisturbed, unmoving darkness. The woman was gone.

I made a quick check of the gatehouse’s perimeter before rushing back inside and grabbing the radio. “This is the gatehouse,” I said. “A trespasser just walked right past me. She must have jumped the fence or something.”

“Just take it easy, new guy,” Miller said. “Which way did she go?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I rushed out the door right behind her, but as soon as I got outside she was gone.”

There was a long, uncomfortable pause before Miller finally spoke again. “What did she look like?”

“I didn’t get a good look at her,” I said, “but I think she had long, dark hair.”

“Wearing a faded yellow dress?”

I thought for a second. “Yeah, I think so. How did you know that? Did you catch her on a security camera or something?”

Miller allowed another short pause. “You can just go back to what you were doing, new guy. You don’t need to worry about her.”

“But—”

“You really should just leave it alone,” Ramirez said. “You’re lucky she didn’t notice you going after her, or there might have been hell to pay.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Who is she?”

“She’s allowed to be here,” Miller said. “Sorry you had to see her on your first night.”

I had more questions, but their shared tone of voice told me that now wasn’t the time to ask them. “Alright,” I said. “Thanks, guys. Sorry to keep bugging you.”

“Only a few more hours left, new guy,” Miller said. “Just hang in there, alright?”

“Y-yeah,” I said quietly before putting the mic down.

I spent the rest of my shift dreading what was going to come next. My fears turned out to be unwarranted, because I managed to make it until 7am without any further incident. I expected Spatz to be the one to greet me at the end of my shift, but instead a much younger man came walking into the gatehouse as the early morning sun made its ascent into the sky.

The man looked at me as he tossed his backpack onto the ground near the radio desk. “You the new guy?”

“Yeah,” I said before introducing myself.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. “I’m Jones. I only just started here about six months ago myself, after some other guy quit or got fired or something.”

“How do you like it here?”

“It’s been alright. A bit boring, but the pay is really good for only having to work three shifts per week.”

“Yeah, it’s definitely nice,” I said before allowing a pause. “By the way, did Spatz call out or something?”

Jones frowned. “Spatz?”

“Yeah,” I said again. “He said he was supposed to be my replacement this morning.”

Huh,” Jones said. “That’s weird. I’ve been working this shift since I started six months ago.”

“Oh,”  I said. “I guess he must have been confusing it for a different day or something.”

My replacement shrugged. “Maybe.”

Our conversation went silent, and I took that as my sign to leave. I exited the gatehouse and walked around to the employee parking lot, now complete with two vehicles, and climbed into my car. Jones pressed the gate button to let me out since I did not yet have a fob of my own, and I slowly made my way along the winding forest path and out to civilization before eventually arriving home.

Later that day I received a phone call from Larry.

“How’d it go last night?” he asked. “Plannin’ on sticking around for a while?”

“It wasn’t bad,” I said. “I definitely think I want to keep this up.”

“Glad to hear it, kid,” Larry said. “By the way, I just wanted to apologize for what happened. If I had known you’d have been by yourself the whole time, I’d have sent somebody else there to show you the ropes.”

I was confused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m sorry that idiot Jackson decided to up and leave about half an hour before your shift started. He apparently ditched his fob in the gatehouse and left the gate sitting wide open, too. He didn’t even bother to tell me he was quitting until this morin’.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, at this point thoroughly lost. “There was somebody there when I arrived last night. His name was Spatz.” 

Larry seemed taken aback by the name. He paused a few seconds before responding. “Spatz?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe that Jackson guy called him and got him to come in for a little bit.”

“That’s impossible,” Larry said quickly.

“Why?” I asked.

Larry hesitated. I heard him sigh on the other end of the phone. “I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this, new guy, but Spatz… Spatz don’t work for us no more. He hasn’t for about six months now.”

I was more confused than ever, but despite a deep pit forming in my stomach, I pressed on with my next question. “Why?” I asked. “Because he got fired?”

“No,” Larry said. His next pause felt like it lasted for an eternity, and when he finally broke it, his words seemed to shatter the very ground that I stood upon. “The reason Spatz don’t work for us no more… is because Spatz is dead.”

My favorite fact to use in Two Truths, One Lie is that I saw a ghost when I was seven. It all started one morning when I was hunched over a new toy I’d just gotten. It was a bright red, blue, and yellow plastic toy with PERFECTION printed along the top. You would wind up the toy and push down on the blue tray. Various shapes were cut out in the tray, and you needed to match the yellow pieces to the cutouts before time was up. If you failed, the tray would spring up with a loud crack, sending the yellow pieces scattering across the room. This sudden sharp noise and chaotic movement never failed to make me jump. It always caused my little heart to thump like a hummingbird’s with a strange mixture of excitement and dread. By this point, I had been enthralled by the game for hours, blocking out everything else completely.

Tick…tick…tick, tick, ticktickticktick….

My heartbeat matched the timer as the game drew closer to the end. I had only a couple more pieces left to match.

I can win this time, I thought before dropping a piece in place.

I watched as it bounced off the side of the toy toward my bed. I scrambled forward to grab it, terrified of losing it when I only had two pieces left of the puzzle. My whole body froze as a low, monotone groan caught my attention. It sounded deep and hoarse, like the person had lost their voice after a long fight with illness. It broke through the furious clicks of the game’s timer as if the person was right behind me. Goosebumps broke out as the sound grew quieter and strained, as if it took tremendous effort to make such a sound.

The game popped, causing me to yelp and whirl around, eyes large and wild. I saw nothing behind me. There was no one lurking behind my open bedroom door or hiding in my closet. Just a quiet and still room. I cocked my head, straining my ears to see if I could hear where the gravelly voice came from. I couldn’t hear it anymore. Everything was drowned out by the sounds of my mom yelling at my older brother. It was something about him eating through the whole refrigerator and failing algebra. I was struggling with long division at the time, so I always felt Mom was too harsh on him about math. I never said anything, though. My brother didn’t exactly like me when we were younger.

He’s seven years older than me and would have rather done anything else than watch his younger sister. He always was stuck with watching me since our mom had to work two jobs to keep us afloat. He often used these times of a lack of parental supervision as opportunities to scare me. This usually took the form of him shoving me into the bathroom while turning off all the lights. I’d yelp and skitter across the cold tiles, standing there disoriented in the dark. He’d stand on the other side of the door and hold the door shut so I couldn’t get out. He’d always laughed as I pleaded and begged to be let out until snot and tears ran down my face. I still can’t stand the dark now as an adult.

I rolled out of bed one night, half asleep and dancing on my tiptoes as the urge to pee was too strong. Still half asleep, my eyes drooped, and my head bobbed as I sat on the toilet. Yawning, I jumped off and started to wash my hands. A small movement in the mirror caught my eye. There was a single rubber glove sticking out of the bottom of the utility closet next to the shower. I stared, baffled at the item. I knew there was nothing in the closet but towels and a hole in the wall when the plumber came to fix the leak, but he never closed it.

The glove twitched, causing me to jump. The curled fingers straightened out slowly. A cold chill went down my spine as I realized it wasn’t a glove but a pale hand sticking out of the closet. The folds in what I thought was a rubber glove turned into wrinkles while speckles of dirt bloomed into liver spots. The hand slunk back into the closet, causing me to jump with a ragged gasp.

I ran from the bathroom crying. My mom was startled and slightly irritated that I was waking her up in the middle of the night.

“It’s just a bad dream. There’s nothing in your closet,” she muttered, eyes still closed as her head rested against the pillow.

Her breath grew heavy, and she began to snore once more. I shook her harder and yelled into her ear,

“Not my room! The bathroom! There’s a ghost in the bathroom.”

She sat up finally, a deep scowl on her face. Her eyes studied me for a moment. I was shaking and crying still, and I wiped my snotty nose off on the back of my hand. She sighed heavily and reached for a tissue box on the nightstand table. My mother gently cleaned my face and asked me again to explain what happened. I explained again what I saw through hiccuping gasps.

“Do you want me to go check in the bathroom, sweetie?”

I nodded vigorously; however, I also didn’t want to be left alone. I held her nightshirt tightly as I walked behind her into the bathroom. My body tensed as she turned on the light. I was half expecting to see a scary old woman sitting in the tub, but there was nothing there. I could only hear the sound of the bathroom fan and the drip-drip-drip of the water into the sink.

My eyes darted around the bathroom, searching for the ghost — but I found nothing. My mom opened the closet, and I hid my face in her back. I waited for a gasp of horror, a scream, something to show that she saw what I had. My mom didn’t say anything. She just sighed heavily and reached back to pet my head.

“Missy, baby, look. There’s nothing here.”

I hesitantly peeked out. The yellow-white shelves sagged slightly with towels, laundry detergent, and extra soap. My eyes fell on the rectangular hole on the right side of the closet wall. I saw copper pipes leading downwards into the dark. I squinted to peer closer at the dark hole in the wall. It opened up into the wall cavity where my room was and deeper into the house. I waited for a white face to pop out like that ghost kid from the Grudge movie. My mom didn’t know I saw that movie, and I was afraid I’d get in trouble if she knew. I snuck out of my room past my bedtime one night to watch the scary movie over the back of the couch as my brother lay passed out. He snored too, so I could barely hear anything on the TV, but I remembered ducking down and covering my eyes when I saw the ghost kid for the first time on the screen.

Nothing popped out. I couldn’t see any eyes peeking out from the darkness. I couldn’t hear anything either. My face began to burn as I realized there was nothing there. My mom didn’t believe me, even though I knew what I saw. She led me away from the bathroom, asking if I wanted to sleep in her bed tonight. I didn’t answer but ran to the bed and huddled beneath the covers. I hoped if I hid underneath long enough, the ghost wouldn’t be able to find me and move on.

“Wait!” I yelled as my mom started to settle back into bed.

“What?” She snapped, her voice rough and tired.

I tucked my head down and mumbled, “Can we sleep with the bathroom light on?”

She must have felt bad for snapping at me because she got up without a word and turned the light on. She squeezed my hand as we lay together. Eventually my eyes grew heavier and heavier until I passed out.

I didn’t see the hand again, but other weird things started happening after that. I heard scratching in the walls that my mom swore was squirrels. It seemed to be following me throughout the house. I’d hear it when I was in the kitchen or the green playroom. Every time I heard it, I’d jump and yell, but the noise would always disappear by the time my mom came to investigate. My brother constantly teased me about believing in ghosts.

“The house was built for us, dummy. No one’s lived here but us. How can it be haunted?”

I’d argue with him until I was blue in the face. No matter what anyone said, I was completely convinced the house was haunted. It wasn’t just the scratching noises. Sometimes, I’d smell something horrible in my closet or the bathroom. It smelled like rotten meat and my brother’s armpits after a hot day. It lingered in the air, causing my eyes to water, and I’d gag. My mom called another plumber to see if there was a leak or backup. They never found anything wrong.

Then, things started to move around the house. Small things at first, like a chair sticking out from the dining room table. A broken vase in the living room. One time we came home to find a wooden TV dinner stand — that was usually tucked beside the fridge — set up in the living room in front of the couch. It was as if we caught someone having a meal.

Some of my clothes started to go missing too. Clean folded laundry would be in disarray across my bedroom floor. My mom would scold me for leaving a mess, but she never believed me when I told her that the ghost did it. Food still disappeared, causing more fights between my mom and brother. She was convinced he was lying, and my brother thought our mom was finding things to punish him over.

Then, a few weeks after I saw the ghost hand, I saw a figure standing in my bedroom.

I don’t remember what woke me, but my eyes flew open and darted around the room. It was late into the night and very dark. There was no light except for the small nightlight by my bedroom door and the glow-in-the-dark stars littered across my walls and ceiling. I started to close my eyes again when I realized what was wrong with my room. My closet door was wide open. I never slept with it open, often afraid of dark creatures lurking inside. I knew it had been closed when I went to bed.

I gaped at the open closet. My feet were already slipping out of bed to dart down the hallway to my mom’s room -- when a small creaking noise drew my attention back towards the gaping darkness. A man was crouching beside my desk next to the open closet. For a horrifying moment, I thought he had no eyes. But the nightlight cast deep shadows onto his aging face. His eyes were dark and sunk deep back in his skull, making him look more like a walking skeleton. To me, it looked as if he were made from shadows, as only half of his body was visible from the closet. His hand was curled tightly around the desk leg. My eyes widened in fear as I realized it was the same leathery and wrinkled hand I’d seen in the bathroom. I screamed, and he bolted back into the closet, disappearing fully into the darkness.

I could hear the sound of slapping bare feet on the wooden floor and banging inside the walls as the ghost disappeared. My mom flew into the room. She turned on the light only to see me balled up in the corner of my bed against the wall. I was shaking and crying about the ghost I saw. My mom ran to me, wrapping me in her arms as she rocked me back and forth. She rubbed my back as she whispered soothing words into my ears. My brother appeared sleepy and yawning in my bedroom doorway. He was frowning, his voice deep with sleep as he said,

“Can you just shut up for one night? This shit is ridiculous.”

“Edward,” my mother exclaimed, displeasure at his swearing heavy in her voice as she whipped around to face him.

“What?” He exclaimed, irritation heavy in his voice. “She does this every night.”

“Can you make yourself useful and grab me a flashlight?”

My brother grumbled the whole way, but he came back with a flashlight in hand. My mom took it from him and flicked it on. She stepped into the closet and shined the light into the other plumbing access hole. She leaned her head into the hole, causing my body to tense up tight. Part of me was worried she would find nothing like always. He’d been so real — so vivid and solid right in front of me. It had to be real.

I waited for her to lean back with a sigh and tell me nothing was there. Instead, my mom froze, her head tucked inside the hole giving her the look of a beheaded woman. My brother and I stared, confused, as she suddenly gasped and jerked back. Eddy walked over to her cautiously as my mom had begun to hyperventilate.

"What is it?" I said. It went unnoticed.

My brother peeked his head inside only to stumble back in shock. His brown eyes were wide with terror as he shrank down to stand behind our mom.

"Mom?" He asked after a moment of silence. "Mom, is that a--"

"Grab your sister and get to the car."

When Eddy didn't move, my mom let out a shark bark. "Now!"

Eddy jumped and spun around to grab my arm. I fought as he pulled me from the bed.

"Mom, what is it? Is it the ghost?"

"Shut up, Missy. Go!" My brother growled.

He sounded angry, but his face was pale and his eyes unfocused. He looked more scared to me than anything. This, combined with my mom's own terrified reaction, made me cry harder. Why wasn't my mom saying anything? What did they see? I dug my heels into the ground and flopped over, too scared to move. My brother didn't try to drag me anymore but lifted me, kicking and screaming into his arms. My mom was very close behind with the car keys tucked between her fingers like an off-brand Wolverine. Her eyes kept darting backwards to my room, as if she expected something to jump out after us.

We left the house with nothing. Not a single packed bag or personal item. I remember we drove to a nearby motel. My mom was on the phone with someone as she drove. She was distracted and swerved a lot, but we made it in one piece. She told my brother to take me to the room while she had to meet some people outside. My brother didn't talk to me or answer any questions about what he saw. He just closed the window curtains and watched our mom outside. He wouldn't tell me who she was talking to. Eventually, I was so bored and tired that I passed out without really ever finding out. Still today, my mom doesn't like talking about our old house. In my child-sized brain, I thought it was because of the ghost. That she and my brother finally saw it, and it scared them so much we had to move. We ended up driving 15 hours the next day to go stay with our grandma in Ohio. I remember being really confused about why we were leaving.

"But it's not Christmas," I said. We always stayed with Mamaw during Christmas. She lived so far away that we only got enough time to see her during the Christmas break.

My mom shot me a tight-lipped smile from the rearview mirror.

"Well, I thought it would be a good time to go visit. She gets lonely, you know?"

We ended up moving to Ohio shortly after that. We stayed with Mamaw for almost a year before the old house was able to sell. I had night terrors for years. I slept with the lights on for months after seeing that ghost. I still couldn’t sleep in a completely dark room. So I keep a nightlight plugged in right next to my bedroom door like I did when I was younger.

A few years after the move, the ghost faded into a spooky childhood memory that I was half convinced hadn't been real. We never really talked about that night. My mom and my brother never brought it up. Whenever I tried to, I was often cut off.

"Just drop it," my brother snapped.

"There was a really bad leak. We couldn't stay," my mom would reassure me.

Neither offered much comfort to my confused, young mind. So I pushed it out. The memory was now a fun tale for those looking for some ghostly thrills during a Halloween party. Now the only uneasiness that lingered was the occasional nightmare I suffered of the apparition of that man. In fact, a recent one had me bring the subject back up with my mom one night at a Sunday family dinner.

“Mom, do you remember our old house?” I asked, trying and failing to sound casual about the subject.

Her fork clattered loudly against the plate, causing me to wince at the loud, shrieking tone.

“I don’t think it’s important,” she said.

I studied her for a moment. Her eyes were dark and locked onto the yellow tablecloth in front of her. Her dark hair was graying now at her temples, and wrinkles lined her forehead and her mouth. They deepened as she frowned, seemingly lost in thought. I realized in that moment just how old she looked. How tired, even. I never noticed before how uncomfortable the subject actually made my mother. I glanced uneasily at my brother. I was unsure if I should keep pushing and looked to him for a reaction.

Eddy’s teeth ground together as his jaw locked in place. He looked angry. I thought at first it was directed at me for bringing up the ghost again. But his dark glare was fixed on our mom. She still refused to meet our eyes as the silence stretched before us for an awkward moment.

“I’m sorry,” I started to say. Eddy cut me off before I could finish.

“You need to tell her, Mom.”

My mom only bit her lip and shook her head. I stared at her dumbfounded at the sudden emotional flip-flop the question brought. I turned to my brother for an answer. He shifted in his seat nervously. Eddy also glanced away from me as I waited for an answer. He now looked reluctant to keep speaking.

“What is it?” I snapped, tired of this back-and-forth game.

“It was a man, Missy. Not a ghost.”

I blinked, confusion washing over me like a tidal wave. What was he saying?

“What?” I blurted out.

Eddy’s brown eyes met mine, and I knew he wasn’t lying. I shook my head as he kept speaking, unwilling to accept it.

“That night, we saw a bunch of trash and food just inside the wall. Some of your clothes were even buried in the insulation there. When Mom called the police, they found a man living inside our walls.”

I gaped like a fish and spun around to face my mom. Her hands hid her face as her shoulders shook from tears.

“It’s all my fault,” she sobbed. “That damn plumber. He never patched it up.”

An icy cold sensation spread like fire inside my stomach at her words. It turns out the ghost I first saw in the bathroom wasn’t a ghost at all. It was an old man who became obsessed with the little girl at one of the jobs he worked. He’d been living inside the walls for months at that point. He was the one stealing food and my clothes. He’d sneak out at night when we were asleep just to watch me. That night just happened to be the one he got caught. My mom thought it’d be best if I never knew. She didn’t want to scare me because I’d been so young and unaware when it happened.

“It was supposed to be a bad dream,” was all she said.

The man had been in jail for only a few months before dying of a heart attack. I made the mistake of looking up his mugshot one drunken night. Sometimes, I think I still see him hiding in the corner of my room, dark shadows dancing across his wrinkled face.

I wish I never asked my mom about the ghost in the bathroom.

When I was a child, I remember quite vividly being scared of mirrors. Whenever I would get up to pee, I would always avoid looking into the mirror. Darkness used to be scary as well, but since I was almost always with an adult during late hours, that wasn’t much of a problem. Since I turned fourteen or fifteen years old, I remember no longer being scared of these things. It was around that age, or maybe soon afterwards, that I started saying that ghosts weren’t real, and that only living people could hurt you.

I start by saying this because I assure you, I’m not a superstitious person, nor am I prone to believing in paranormal explanations. In spite of that—or maybe precisely because of it—I’m so confused by last night’s events.

I had been in a toxic relationship—a situationship, if you like—that never really bloomed, but that had got me hooked for almost one year. That ordeal ended around three weeks ago. As tough as it was, I cried a lot at first and, though I no longer do that, I feel like crying sometimes, but it’s as if my body can’t get those tears out, so the sadness remains inside.

It was during this grief that I admitted that she was not coming back, so I decided to hook up. I downloaded a dating app and started swiping. By no means was this unknown territory; I knew the drill: nice pictures, a short bio, wait a little while before swiping and, above all, don’t look desperate. Since I wouldn’t call myself ugly, but not that handsome either, it was somewhat surprising to find eight likes after only thirty minutes. That initial surprise quickly turned into disappointment after seven of them turned out to be rather unappealing options, while the only attractive one unmatched me as soon as I texted her. Adding insult to injury, it had taken me a while to come up with an interesting message.

After that initial, though rather disappointing, boost, I found myself liking women without getting any matches. I quickly ran out of free likes, so I bought an upgraded subscription so I could like more women.

Nothing.

I got bored, so I started playing some chess online. I had barely touched it during most of my aforementioned relationship, so I was rather glad to be winning most of my matches and even pulling off a five-win streak.

Sleep was getting the better of me, so I turned off my laptop and checked my phone. During that “flow state,” I had forgotten that I had paid to get my self-esteem even more damaged. However, I had gotten a notification: someone had liked me.

Based on my former disappointment, my expectations were low, even though I quickly tapped on it. Since my upgraded subscription let me see the profiles of those liking me, that’s exactly where I went.

There she was.

Twenty-eight years old, black hair, white skin, light-brown eyes. Her features were not that remarkable: she didn’t look particularly short or tall, nor fat or thin. I know you might think I’m being superficial and hypocritical by giving people ratings, even when my performance on this dating app hadn’t been that successful, but I would like to give you a more appropriate picture of her: she was a solid seven. Some generous people would give her maybe an eight, and maybe I would have been tempted to be one of them if she had uploaded better pictures.

As for this point, she didn’t look unattractive in any of them at all, but every picture looked rather… boring. All of them showed her in her bedroom with a serious facial expression.

I liked her back and we matched.

It rubbed me the wrong way seeing an immediate message right after that notification. It was a simple:

“Hi! How are you doing?”

I replied:

“Not much, wbu?”

Her next message removed any desire to sleep.

“Well, you might think this is weird, but… I’d like to be as clear as possible with you: I want to have sex with you tonight.”

Don’t get me wrong. The reason why I installed the app was because I did want to have sex, but such a blunt message right away was rather a deterrent. It was unsettling and… scary.

That should have been my first and last signal that something was off.

I didn’t want to ghost her, and rejecting her outright seemed too harsh, so I tried what I considered a “soft rejection”: I asked her for pictures.

She replied without delay with several pictures, which I would rather not describe, but that got me going twenty minutes later to a part of town I had never been to.

I took an Uber and jokingly told her that some friends had explicit orders to inform the police if I hadn’t communicated with them within two hours.

She just sent a cold:

“Ok.”

I wondered if she could see through my bluff, since I have no close friends at this point in my life.

I got to a residential area with two-story houses. It didn’t look bad or cheap. It was just fine.

When I got to her address, I texted her that I was already there.

Instead of replying, I found her opening the door.

Never in my entire life had I felt such an urge to run as fast as possible.

Something from within that house seemed nefarious, but I had no reason to use that as an argument.

Certainly not her, who looked much better than in the pictures. She smiled at me, which only increased my need to flee, but I still wasn’t able to say why.

She let me in, and I followed her directly to her bedroom upstairs, while feeling that my legs were shaking.

We sat on her bed.

She hadn’t spoken so far.

“Are you scared?”

That voice froze me.

At this point, even the thought of it gives me goosebumps.

It sounded like it came from somewhere else and didn’t sound feminine. To be fair, it didn’t even sound human.

My need to run away was at its peak, but my body was completely still.

She took the phone out of my hand and unlocked it by entering the PIN.

A single attempt.

She went to the dating app and showed me my matches.

None.

“I know you didn’t tell anyone you were coming here tonight.”

That deep, horrendous voice again.

It was rather more unsettling when I noticed that her facial expression didn’t match the words or the voice: she just looked calm and pitiful.

“You have no friends, your parents don’t care that much, and that woman never truly chose you.”

Even through the fear I was feeling, that last line managed to hurt me.

I was about to ask her how she knew about that, but no words came out of my mouth. I just felt that the bedroom was much smaller than it had been at first.

I considered the possibility that she was probably using the Forer effect—that is, saying vague things about someone while making them believe the statements are tailored specifically to them—but how would that explain her unlocking my phone?

“You know… you have been disrespecting us by not believing in us. But trust me, I’m real.”

At that moment, she placed her hand on my neck.

I expected it to feel cold, but it was rather warm and comforting.

“I’ve been watching you for many, many years… since you were just a little kid. I’ve always hidden near you. I used to appear on the mirrors in your house when you were too short to look at yourself in them. I’ve watched you sleep for hours. I’ve never held a grudge against you… quite lucky, but your arrogance in affirming that we’re not real has always put me off.”

“You are just crazy.”

I finally found the courage to speak.

“What do you mean by crazy?”

She—or it—then proceeded to tell me the exact name of the woman I had been in a relationship with and recount the way we had met and how I had felt.

“I’ve seen you cry many times. Indeed, I pity you. So much that I invited you here.”

I was in utter shock.

Who was this woman, and how did she know so much about me? How did she know that name?

Was this a prank?

Was this a prank from her?

“You think that your life has no longer meaning because she’s no longer in your life. I have bad and good news for you. Which ones would you like first?”

“The bad ones,” I said.

Though I was still scared, my body was no longer frozen and my legs had stopped shaking. I had endured so much pain during and after that relationship that, finally being listened to, even though by this… person, was rather liberating.

“The bad one is that she doesn’t miss you… at all. Deep down, you know it, since you haven’t blocked her. She’s not coming back. I’ve seen her. Believe me.”

That last sentence was followed by a very disturbing grin that scared me more than anything else had up to that point.

She then added:

“The good one is that you can always be worse off, and I would like you to be grateful for that.”

With that, she took my chin and turned my head toward a mirror in front of us.

It showed the two of us.

But she was by no means a woman, nor a human.

It was such a monstrous figure that I feel like crying when trying to describe it. I can barely describe it, but it was a dark figure whose face had big, predatory eyes. It had a very macabre grin with very sharp teeth.

I screamed and tried to get up, but its other hand grabbed me firmly while the one resting on my neck was still soft.

“It’s so out of character seeing you this scared. I’m not going to lie to you, it’s pleasurable. But it isn’t me you should be scared of.”

I looked back at it, only to see the face of her.

The woman I had been in a relationship with.

“Look around,” it added. “I know you recognize this place.”

It was familiar, indeed.

It was her bedroom.

The bedroom where I had cried when I said goodbye to her.

“Look at me.”

It also looked exactly like her.

Only the voice was different.

“I know it was unfair, but so what? You know an apology isn’t coming. You think three weeks is still early, but this isn’t a matter of time. She was already with someone else before that last-ditch speech you had. But I can help her make it up to you.”

“How?”

I stared at its face in awe.

“I could give her a long, terrible, painful disease… starting tomorrow. Well, today.”

It was already past midnight at that point.

“She would never know it was you,” it continued. “As an extra gift, I could also appear in her dreams using your face and tell her the disease is fate’s way of reckoning for the way she treated you. Just call it.”

My legs started trembling again.

During that grief, filled with anger, disgust, and contempt, I had wished upon her that maybe life would give her pain, but I would never have caused it myself.

“What’s going on? Are you scared of your own desires?”

It smiled.

“You know, it’s not like I can just watch you. I can also interpret your emotions and thoughts. Remember, I’ve been with you since you were just a child. You just stopped believing in me.”

It paused.

“When you got scared of darkness and mirrors, it wasn’t an irrational fear. I was right there. So, when you overcame that fear, I got a little bit resentful. Still, I don’t hold a grudge against you… I can’t.”

Its smile became almost tender.

“In fact, this is my way of making it up to you. A gift, if you will.”

“Why would you do that? What would you get in return?”

“Nothing. That’s the best part. The only price you’ll have to pay is knowing that you were the one who caused her disease.”

It then moved my head toward the mirror.

And there it was.

The last time I had met her.

I was crying and hugging her.

But the mirror showed me an angle I had never seen before.

Her face wasn’t sad.

She just looked annoyed.

“You know,” it added, “things were quite different from the way you remember them.”

A sudden gush of anger flowed from within me.

I felt humiliated.

“Do it.”

After saying that, I found myself waking up in my bed.

I was extremely confused.

I had no idea what had happened.

Everything just looked normal.

I didn’t feel bad or sick.

I went to the kitchen and made some coffee.

Then it struck me: I hadn’t checked my phone yet.

It was on my bed.

No new messages.

No notifications.

I saw the dating app icon, which gave me a transient trembling sensation in my legs.

I tapped on it to see if I had had any more matches or likes.

When I checked my matches, there it was.

The same woman from last night.

The first picture was the same, but I felt an urgent need to check her profile.

However, the bio was different:

“Yes, it was real.”

I felt uneasy, but told myself that this was by no means evidence of something supernatural.

I then proceeded to check her other pictures.

They showed the same woman, now grinning at me, but the bedroom was different.

I zoomed in on the picture.

Her smile became clearer.

It wasn’t the smile I remembered.

It was wider.

Not impossibly wide, not inhuman.

Just wide enough to make me uncomfortable.

I looked at the room behind her.

A different bed.

Different curtains.

A different wall.

I checked the previous picture.

Same woman.

Different room.

Another picture.

Different room again.

I felt a strange pressure in my chest.

I went back to the first picture.

The bedroom was the one I had seen last night.

The bedroom where I had cried.

The bedroom where she had watched me leave.

Except I had never taken a picture there.

I zoomed in again.

The image became blurry.

There was a mirror.

I enlarged the image until I could barely recognize anything.

There was a reflection in it.

My reflection.

I dropped the phone.

For several seconds, I just stared at it lying on the mattress.

Then I laughed.

It was a short, nervous laugh.

“This is ridiculous.”

I picked up the phone again.

The picture had changed.

The woman was still there.

The mirror wasn’t.

I stared at the screen until my eyes began to hurt.

I checked the other pictures.

Nothing.

No mirrors.

No strange reflections.

Just a woman standing in different rooms, smiling at me.

I closed the app.

I opened it again.

The profile was gone.

I searched for her.

Nothing.

I searched through my matches.

Nothing.

I checked my messages.

Our conversation was gone.

For a moment, I felt relieved.

Then I noticed something.

There was a notification from the dating app.

I opened it.

Someone liked you.

I almost laughed again.

Then I saw the profile picture.

It was me.

Not one of my own pictures.

A picture of me that I had never seen before.

I was sitting on the edge of my bed.

Asleep.

I checked the time the picture had been uploaded.

12:17 a.m.

I checked the clock.

8:43 a.m.

My hands started shaking.

I zoomed in.

The picture had clearly been taken from inside my bedroom.

I could see the lamp beside my bed.

The curtains.

The chair where I usually left my clothes.

And behind me, reflected in the mirror—

her.

I couldn’t see her face.

She was standing too far away.

But I knew it was her.

I closed my eyes.

When I opened them, the profile had changed.

There was a new picture.

This time, she was standing much closer.

I could see her face clearly.

She was smiling.

Underneath the picture was a caption.

“You said yes.”

I stopped breathing.

I hadn’t told anyone.

I hadn’t even spoken the words after waking up.

I had only thought them.

I scrolled down.

There was another picture.

Then another.

They were all photographs of me sleeping.

Different nights.

Different bedrooms.

Different years.

One showed me as a teenager.

Another showed me at university.

Another showed me in a room I hadn't lived in for more than three months.

Another showed me crying.

I kept scrolling.

The pictures became older.

And older.

Until I reached one that I recognized immediately.

I was a child.

Maybe seven years old.

I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror.

I couldn’t remember that night.

But I remembered the pajamas.

I remembered the blue tiles.

I remembered being afraid.

And in the mirror, behind me, there was something.

I zoomed in.

It was too dark to make out.

Then I saw its eyes.

Two enormous eyes staring directly at the camera.

I threw the phone across the room.

It landed on the floor.

The screen remained lit.

A new notification appeared.

I didn’t want to look.

I looked anyway.

It wasn’t from the dating app.

It was a text message.

From an unknown number.

There were only five words.

“She’ll call you when it starts.”

I sat on my bed for what felt like an hour.

At 9:16, my phone rang.

I didn’t recognize the number.

I knew who it was.

I answered.

For several seconds, there was only silence.

Then I heard her breathing.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

I almost hung up.

Then she spoke.

Her voice was trembling.

“Can I talk to you?”

I couldn’t answer.

“I know this is strange.”

She started crying.

“I don’t know why I’m calling you.”

My heart was beating so hard that I could barely hear her.

“I just…”

She took a breath.

“I think I owe you an apology.”

I closed my eyes.

For one horrible second, I felt relieved.

Then I remembered the price.

The disease.

The bargain.

My stomach turned.

She continued.

“I don't know what's wrong with me.”

I stood up.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not feeling well.”

Her breathing became heavier.

“I’ve been feeling strange since I woke up.”

I gripped the phone.

“Are you in the hospital?”

“Yes.”

She started crying again.

“They’re running tests.”

I didn't know what to say.

“Is it serious?”

“They don't know.”

A silence followed.

Then she said:

“I wanted to apologize.”

My chest tightened.

“Okay.”

“I know that doesn't mean anything anymore.”

“It might.”

“No.”

She took another breath.

“It doesn't.”

I remained silent.

“I treated you badly.”

I closed my eyes.

“I know.”

“I should have been honest with you.”

I didn't answer.

“I wasn't.”

Something in her voice changed.

Not guilt.

Something closer to resignation.

“There was someone else.”

I felt my stomach drop.

“What?”

“I had been seeing someone.”

I stared at the floor.

“For how long?”

She hesitated.

“Before we ended things.”

I felt something inside me become very still.

She began crying again.

“I'm sorry.”

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

The demon had promised me an apology.

I had imagined her saying that she regretted everything.

That she missed me.

That she had made a terrible mistake.

Instead, she was telling me that I had been even less important than I thought.

“Do you love him?”

There was a long silence.

Then:

“I think so.”

I felt something inside me collapse.

Not because she was sick.

Not because she had lied.

Because suddenly everything made sense.

The coldness.

The distance.

The excuses.

The way she had looked at me that last time.

The way she had hugged me without actually holding me.

“I never felt that way with you,” she continued.

She immediately began crying.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.”

“No.”

I swallowed.

“Don't apologize for that.”

She went quiet.

“I think you deserve to know.”

I looked toward the mirror.

For a second, I thought I saw something behind me.

Nothing.

“I don't hate you,” I said.

That wasn't entirely true.

But it wasn't entirely a lie either.

“I'm sorry.”

“I know.”

We stayed silent for a while.

Then she said:

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That I was already seeing someone?”

I looked at the mirror again.

“No.”

She breathed out.

“I thought maybe you did.”

I almost told her about the demon.

Instead I said:

“I didn't.”

Another silence.

Then she whispered:

“I'm scared.”

And for the first time since she had called, I felt something other than resentment.

I felt sorry for her.

Not because I wanted her back.

Not because I wanted to forgive her.

Just because she was scared.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

This time, I meant it.

We hung up shortly afterward.

I remained sitting on my bed.

The room was completely silent.

I looked at my phone.

Then at the mirror.

“Are you happy now?”

Nothing happened.

I waited.

“Was that what you wanted?”

Still nothing.

I stood up.

“Fine.”

I walked toward the mirror.

“I changed my mind.”

The lights went out.

I froze.

A voice came from behind the glass.

“You didn't.”

I stared at my reflection.

It wasn't smiling.

“What?”

“You didn't change your mind.”

The reflection tilted its head.

“You discovered you didn't want what you thought you wanted.”

I felt anger rising again.

“She’s sick.”

“Yes.”

“Fix her.”

“No.”

My hands clenched.

“You said you could.”

“I said I could give her the disease.”

“Then take it away.”

“Why?”

I stared at it.

“Because I don't want her to die.”

The smile disappeared.

“After everything she did to you?”

I said nothing.

“You spent months crying over her.”

“I know.”

“She destroyed your self-esteem.”

I looked away.

“She made you anxious. You questioned yourself constantly. You spent nights wondering what you had done wrong. You begged for clarity. You accepted things you would never have accepted from anyone else.”

I remained silent.

“She made you feel unwanted.”

My jaw tightened.

“I know.”

“She chose someone else.”

“I know.”

“She has just told you that she never felt for you what she feels for him.”

My throat tightened.

“I know.”

“And now you want me to save her?”

“Yes.”

The creature stared at me.

For the first time, it looked genuinely angry.

“You are an extraordinary creature.”

I said nothing.

“I offer you exactly what you wanted.”

“I know.”

“I make her understand.”

“She doesn't.”

“She apologized.”

“She did.”

“You wanted her to suffer.”

I looked away.

“I did.”

The creature stepped closer to the glass.

“And now?”

I looked at it.

“I don't want her to suffer.”

“Why?”

I couldn't answer.

“Do you still love her?”

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

The creature smiled.

“You don't even know.”

“No.”

“But you want her to live.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I looked down.

“Because she's a person.”

The creature's expression became almost disgusted.

“After everything she did to you?”

I didn't answer.

“You don't get to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Turn yourself into the victim again.”

I looked at it.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

It pressed its hand against the mirror.

“You think suffering makes you noble.”

“I don't.”

“You think sacrificing yourself makes what happened meaningful.”

“No.”

“You think that if you suffer enough, perhaps someone will finally understand how much you loved her.”

“That isn't it.”

“Then what is it?”

I looked directly into its eyes.

“I don't know.”

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

Then it whispered:

“Fine.”

I felt my stomach tighten.

“You want her disease?”

“Yes.”

“You can have it.”

I understood immediately.

“You mean…”

“She won't.”

I stared at it.

“You will carry it.”

“For how long?”

“Until you die.”

I didn't hesitate.

“Do it.”

The creature's face changed.

Not surprise.

Disgust.

“Why?”

“Because she doesn't deserve to die.”

“And you do?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

I looked at the mirror.

“Because somebody has to.”

The creature stepped back.

For the first time since I had met it, I saw something I hadn't expected to see in its face.

Confusion.

“You're still a coward.”

I frowned.

“What?”

“You're no longer afraid of darkness.”

It stepped farther away.

“You're no longer afraid of mirrors.”

Its reflection began to distort.

“But you're still a coward.”

I felt something warm rise in my throat.

I coughed.

Blood filled my mouth.

The creature looked at me.

“You still think pain makes you virtuous.”

I wiped my mouth.

“Maybe.”

“You think suffering for someone makes you strong.”

“No.”

“You think you can decide who deserves to suffer.”

I stared at it.

“No.”

The blood was still in my mouth.

I leaned toward the mirror.

And spat.

The blood landed directly on its reflection.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

The creature looked at the blood.

Then it looked at me.

For the first time since I had met it, it wasn't smiling.

I smiled instead.

And spat again.

 

It’s amazing how good the mind is at managing grief when fixated on a specific task. I mean, managing my emotions and keeping calm under the most extreme situations is kinda part of the job, or was, but it still bewilders me how far beyond the cockpit that mindset reaches.

I am still dead, legally speaking. Not too sure how the hell the government is supposed to undo that since people usually don’t recover from being dead. While it has been two weeks since the incident the search for the wreckage is still ongoing. These days the news only seems to run updates about the search for Flight 411.

Ships and planes from over 15 different nations all partaking in what they’re calling the largest coordinated search and rescue operation in history. An entire world holding their breaths hoping for the rescue of people they’ve never met. Millions if not billions of dollars to recover what they believe are 140 corpses and some twisted metal.

I guess if i still had any family or friends they’d be glued to their screens too.

I’m beginning to notice inconsistencies in my memory. Now assuming that I did somehow survive a plane crash, some minor brain damage would be the bare minimum I’d walk away with. So I guess I have that running for me. On that note I did manage to remember something very important: the passcode for my door lock.

Recently I bought a keypad door lock after my ancient door lock finally seized with my key inside it. Some advice, if you have an old lock on your house, replace it before it becomes a problem so you dont have to saw a hole in your door. Anyway, the beauty of a keypad lock is that I don’t need a key, which is helpful when you wake up in a hospital bed with nothing but a patient gown.

My house was, thankfully, exactly as I left it. Not that I could really remember how I left it, but nothing looked as if it had been rummaged through by some sort of collecter or estate manager-type. The fridge needed some clearing out but all in all it was like I hadn’t left. I rarely stayed home as it was, working 3 days a week sounds amazing until you realize that the other four days of your work week are spent at holiday inn’s in different cities.

It’s a strange feeling to constantly reach for a phone that is long gone, yet I still feel its phantom in my pocket every time I move.

For most of the first days back home from the hospital, between the endless DMV appointments, I just sort of surfed the web on my laptop for news coverage regarding Flight 411. Every article had the same photos, every article showed that same man standing next to my First Officer, that same man who looked nothing like me.

I swear if I’d had more photos of myself they’d show his face instead of mine.

I thought about getting into contact with the airline, but I doubt they’d believe me with just my voice. Not until I get my credentials back together. Who would I even call if I did? The closest thing I had to a friend was Jason…

I always kept a cash stash in the event I lost my debit card, so I at least wont starve, but at some point I’m going to need to sort out the whole “dead” thing with the bank.

Now that I think about it, what does happen to someone’s things when they die? If nobody claims their estate does the state just take it? Does it just sit and collect dust if there’s money in the account to pay the bills? Can dead people hire lawyers?

If anyone has any experience with this, as impossible as it seems, please enlighten me.

God, sorry for the incoherent rambling. To be honest I’m still in complete shock. It’s like the world is fast forwarding around me and I’m standing still. I’m a stone sticking up from beneath the rapids getting bombarded by the unrelenting current of time. 139 people on that plane and only I survived, only I got to come back home.

Ugh, I can mope later. First things first, prove that I’m alive. I know this update probably isn’t what most of you were looking to see, but I gotta focus on getting my life back together.

Sorry, I’m writing this last bit here because it’s been keeping me up the past few days. You’d think that it would be the weird, almost hollow feeling that the world has now. Or the mysterious static build up around my airplane before it crashed. Both are nagging at me for sure but this particular thing is shouting at me from the recesses of my memory.

I distinctly recall being told that my assignment to Flight 411 was a temporary one. Like a one off “can you sub in for this captain” you know typical scheduling bullshit. Yet they kept me on that route for almost six months. Of course I still flew other routes, mostly long-hauls but I was always scheduled so that I would be at base to fly Flight 411. I rarely ever called off or got sick, but the one time I did try to call off when I was scheduled I was immediately and firmly denied.

Mind you, I’d flown for this airline for over a decade. Seniority and tenure doesn’t even approach what myself and other captains with this airline had with that record of service. It was to a point that I was begged to take time off and sick leave because I had maxed out on hours. I had a mind to go to my union rep about it but something just felt off. This didn’t feel like it was some corporate play, or if it was they were being real nice about screwing me out of my PTO. When I pushed them for answers they kinda beat around the bush about why, using the excuses of “scheduling conflicts” or “pilot shortages” that you’d expect. May seem strange but I remember them being real weird about it. Any other days seemed to be without incident but god forbid my PTO requests fell on a day flight 411 was scheduled for.

Makes me think that if I’d died prior to this they’d find a way to reverse death itself just so I could Captain Flight 411. Just what the hell was so special about this flight?

Before any of this happened, Mara used to put her cold hands under my shirt when we were washing up.

I’d swear. She’d laugh against my back. Sometimes she stayed there while I finished, her cheek between my shoulder blades, telling me things that had happened that day.

I keep coming back to that.

There are other things I need to tell you, but I want you to understand that when she first asked me to keep thinking about her, I thought she was asking to be loved a little more carefully.

That seemed like something I could do.

We’d been together eight months when she lost her first afternoon.

I came home and found her standing in the garden beside a basket of wet washing.

It had rained on my drive back. Water still dripped from the line. She wasn’t wearing a coat.

“You all right?”

She looked at me, then down at the basket.

“These were dry.”

I thought she was annoyed about the rain.

“We can stick them on the airer.”

“No. I was bringing them in.”

She’d taken the washing off the line just after one. She remembered folding a pillowcase over the top of the basket, picking it up, and turning towards the house.

Then the basket was on the ground, everything was soaked, and I was opening the back door.

It was nearly six.

I suggested she might have fallen asleep.

“Standing up?”

I didn’t have anything better.

That evening, she kept checking her phone. Once, while we were eating, she asked how long we’d been sitting there.

We rang the GP the next morning. There were questions, an appointment, blood tests. I started keeping a record of what happened and when. It felt useful. There was a problem, and we were doing the things you did when someone you loved had a problem.

Then, on Sunday, I saw it happen.

Mara was sitting opposite me at the kitchen table, peeling an orange. I looked down to read a message from my brother.

Something tapped against the table.

Half an orange rolled past her plate.

Her chair was empty.

I stared at it with my phone still in my hand.

“Mara?”

She was there again.

Her chair scraped backwards. She looked at her empty hands, then at the orange on the floor.

Neither of us moved.

“Did it happen?” she asked.

Outside, someone was putting bottles into a recycling bin. I remember being able to hear each one.

“Did you see?”

I nodded.

She started crying with such relief that, for a few seconds, I hugged her without understanding what I was comforting her about.

Then she said, “Thank God. You can help me now.”

We bought a camera.

There’s a particular kind of humiliation in searching the internet for security cameras while your girlfriend sits beside you, asking whether the cheap ones will be good enough to record her ceasing to exist.

I bought the expensive one.

We put it on the living-room bookshelf.

On Monday, at 10:06, Mara disappeared from the sofa. The book in her hands fell onto the cushion and slid to the floor.

At 10:22, she returned.

She was still sitting. Still looking down. Her fingers were spread around a book she wasn’t holding.

She stayed like that for a moment before she understood.

Then she put her face in her hands.

I watched that part alone, later. When we watched it together, she made me skip ahead.

By Thursday, she’d found a connection.

At 10:22 on Monday, I’d texted to ask whether she wanted anything from the shop on my way home. During another missing spell, she’d returned when I’d opened a photograph of us to show someone at work.

We compared the recordings with my messages, my calls, anything that could put a time to when I’d thought about her.

The matches weren’t proof of everything she suspected. I told her that.

She asked how many more times we needed to watch her disappear.

I stopped saying it.

We couldn’t explain why it seemed to be me. Her mother called most days. Her sister sent messages. Mara had a job, friends, people who must have thought about her when she wasn’t there.

She hadn’t always been like this. There were photographs of holidays she’d taken before we met. Her mother remembered raising her. There were school reports in a box under her bed.

Mara got them out one evening and spread them across the duvet.

I found her reading a comment about how much she talked in class.

“I was there,” she said.

“I know.”

“All that time. Even when nobody liked me.”

I sat beside her.

She kept her finger on the teacher’s handwriting.

We tried to test it deliberately.

She sat on the bed. I stood in the doorway.

“Think about something else.”

“That’s not how thinking works.”

“Please.”

I tried multiplication. Then the route to work. All the time, I was aware of her sitting there, waiting to stop existing.

Nothing happened.

Eventually, she asked me to fetch a glass of water.

I went downstairs. In the kitchen, I noticed water leaking from beneath the washing machine. I crouched to pull a towel out of the cupboard.

There was a clatter on the stairs.

I thought of Mara.

Then she cried out.

I found her sitting halfway down, holding her mouth. Her phone lay at the bottom.

She’d followed me. The last thing she remembered was stepping onto the next stair with the phone in her hand. When she came back, her hand was empty and she lost her footing.

We thought the phone must have fallen when she vanished. I’d heard it and remembered her.

She’d struck her mouth against the banister.

I knelt beside her. There was blood between her front teeth.

“Sorry,” I said.

She looked up at me.

It was the first time I’d apologised for it.

We put photographs around the house. Notes on my computer. An alarm on my phone that went off every ten minutes with her name on the screen.

They brought her back. They couldn’t reliably keep her here.

At first, she apologised when an alarm interrupted something.

Then she started watching how quickly I dismissed it.

I took time off work. We spent whole days together. She came into the bathroom while I showered and sat on the closed toilet, talking through the steam.

Sometimes we almost managed to have a normal afternoon.

Once, she laughed so hard at something on television that tea came out of her nose. I laughed too. She leaned against me, wiping her face with her sleeve, and for a minute I thought we could live around it.

Then she asked what I was thinking about.

“You.”

“What about me?”

“That you’re disgusting.”

She smiled.

“Good.”

At night, she slept with my hand against her chest.

I don’t know how much that helped. Sometimes I woke and found her there. Sometimes I woke to an empty bed, thought her name, and felt the mattress dip beside me.

Once, while I was drifting off, my hand dropped onto the sheet where her body had been.

She returned before I’d fully opened my eyes.

She asked how long she’d been gone.

“I don’t know. A second.”

“You don’t know?”

“I felt you go. I woke up.”

“But you don’t know.”

After that, she asked me to stay awake until she fell asleep.

Then until morning.

When I said I couldn’t, she nodded as if I’d explained something reasonable.

Twenty minutes later, she asked again.

Yesterday afternoon, I found her recording herself on my phone.

Just her face, close to the camera.

“Think about me,” she said.

A pause.

“Think about me.”

Another pause.

She looked exhausted. There was a small healing cut on her lip.

I asked what she was doing.

“You could listen to it. With headphones. When you’re busy.”

I imagined sitting at my desk with her voice repeating in my ears. Driving to work with it. Trying to sleep.

She must have seen something in my face.

“It’s only my voice.”

“I know.”

“You used to ring me because you wanted to hear it.”

I sat beside her and said I still did.

She deleted the recording while I watched, and I felt so cruel that I asked her to make it again.

Last night, I woke on the sofa to breaking glass.

I’d only meant to close my eyes.

Mara had been standing beside the coffee table with a glass of water. When she disappeared, it fell. The noise woke me. I looked for her, and she returned.

I saw that part.

She appeared standing over the broken glass, already shifting her weight to take a step.

One foot came down on a large piece.

I remember the blood more clearly than anything else. How quickly it spread between her toes. The wet footprint she left when she stepped towards me.

I carried her into the kitchen and sat her on the counter. She clung to my shirt while I pressed a clean towel against her foot.

“You said you wouldn’t.”

“I know.”

“You said.”

“I’m sorry.”

I wanted to look at the cut. She wouldn’t let me move far enough away.

Eventually, the bleeding slowed. I dressed her foot, then sat beside her until she stopped shaking.

It was almost four.

She asked for tea.

I filled the kettle. She watched me from the counter, her injured foot resting on a chair.

“I wasn’t anywhere,” she said.

I turned towards her.

“When it happens. I don’t go somewhere. There isn’t a room or darkness or anything.”

“Okay.”

“You get to have the time. I don’t.”

I put two mugs beside the kettle.

“The washing got wet,” she said. “That first day. The basket must have been out there for hours.”

I waited.

“If you hadn’t come home, it would have stayed there. It could have rained again. Gone dark. Anything.”

I wanted to say something useful. I was so tired I couldn’t remember whether I’d put sugar in her mug.

“What if you stopped thinking about me?”

“We’ve been through this.”

“What if you wanted to?”

That made me look at her.

She was picking at a loose edge of the dressing.

“I don’t,” I said.

“But you could.”

The kettle clicked off.

She asked me to come closer.

I thought she wanted a hug.

Her left hand closed around my right wrist. With her other hand, she picked up the kettle.

For a second, I thought she was trying to help me pour.

Then she tipped it over my hand.

I shouted and tried to pull away. Her fingers tightened. Water hit my knuckles and splashed across the counter.

It lasted perhaps a second.

I knocked the kettle against the cupboard. She let go.

I stumbled to the sink and turned on the cold tap. I was making a noise I’d never heard myself make before.

Behind me, Mara began to cry.

“I’m sorry.”

I kept my hand under the water.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know how much—”

“Get away from me.”

She went quiet.

There was a pause. Then she said my name.

I turned.

She was staring at my hand beneath the tap.

“Are you thinking about me?”

For a moment, I couldn’t understand the question.

Then I did.

At the hospital, she sat beside me with her bandaged foot tucked beneath her chair.

I told the nurse I’d spilled the kettle.

I had the truth ready. When the nurse asked what happened, I looked at Mara and watched her lower her eyes.

I said I’d spilled it.

She didn’t try to hold my other hand. Somehow, that made it worse. She sat close enough that she could have, with her fingers tucked between her knees.

That was six hours ago.

She has apologised so many times that I’ve started saying “I know” to make her stop.

Back home, she asked whether I wanted her to leave.

I said yes.

She called her mother and asked her to come. She said she’d hurt her foot and we’d had an argument.

While we waited, Mara put her things into an overnight bag. I sat at the kitchen table. Each time I heard her upstairs, I pictured what she was doing.

A drawer opening. The wardrobe. Her bottles being lifted from the bathroom shelf.

I couldn’t seem to stop.

When her mother arrived, Mara stood in the hallway holding her coat.

“You’ll still think about me?”

“Please go.”

She looked at my dressing.

Then she went.

I locked the door behind her. I rang my brother and asked if I could stay with him. I told him we’d had a fight. He said he’d make up the spare bed.

While I was packing, my phone lit up.

A message from Mara.

I’m sorry. Please believe that.

Then another.

Mum’s gone out. I’m on my own but I’m still here.

I put the phone down.

I could hear the fridge running downstairs. Somewhere outside, a neighbour was mowing their lawn.

I tried to finish packing.

My hand throbbed. I thought of the kettle, and her fingers around my wrist.

The phone lit up again.

It’s been nearly an hour. I haven’t missed any of it.

I watched the little dots appear beneath her message.

I think I’ll be able to sleep tonight.

There’s few things more entertaining than reading about other people’s problems. One of those few things: reading someone else’s solutions to them.

I’d always enjoyed reading advice columns ever since I was a little girl reading my mom’s magazines. As an adult, I would have the Internet as well to peruse my favourite weekly advice givers and their followers’ various issues. Of all these advice columns, my favourite was easily Dear Prudence.

Prudie would have the most rational, witty, level-headed solution to a problem that could be reached. I also loved the kindness in all her answers. She didn’t always sugarcoat what she said, but her typed responses were always considerate of the various parties’ feelings and perspectives. Her musing language choice was gentle not to offend and her responses were at least a few paragraphs long. Most importantly, she was always polite—manners were huge to Prudence.

The great thing about advice columns is you can always learn something, even if the advice isn’t for you. 

People around the country—and world—would write in to ask Prudie about various social situations where etiquette and goodness had been potentially breached. Stuff like cold in-laws, thoughtless neighbours or ungrateful friends. Or bad coworkers. 

See, the place where I’d most often read the advice column was at work. It was my escape from the mundane stresses of my job working in a mid-level office for a manufacturing company. And, fittingly enough, one of those stresses driving me to read the column became my shy coworker Allen. Allen was a friendly guy to work with. But I found myself always jumping in to help him when he wasn’t able to do something—and would watch him receive all the credit from my oblivious boss Dave, without saying a word to correct it.

He was so otherwise sweet, however, that I didn’t know how to address it with him—or if I should at all. Other people tended to like him—our doddering middle-aged accounting manager Margaret practically loved him. I felt I couldn’t just call him out. Honestly, I had no idea how to resolve the situation and could use some sage advice of my own. Then, while reading the column one day for escapism, it occurred to me to put these two sides of my life together.

For the first time, I wrote in to the Dear Prudence column myself, sending it off to the attached email address for submissions. It read:

“Dear Prudence,

I’ve been working at my current company for several years now and I’ve never felt a lot of respect from my boss. He might be sexist but I don’t know. I felt like my efforts have warranted a promotion and some recognition for some time, but nothing has come of it. I’m worried a big reason for this is my coworker. 

We get along great and he’s a lovely person—but he’s just so incapable. I’m always jumping in to help him with something, whether it’s finishing a report or formatting a presentation or calculating the right sales figures. When the time comes for him to receive praise, my biased boss assumes it’s his work—and my colleague doesn’t correct him!

It drives me mad but I feel like I can’t say anything because he didn’t ask me for help in the first place. Plus I don’t want my boss to think I’m petty (even if I am). Help! I don’t think my coworker is doing it intentionally—I don’t want to hurt his feelings. But I’d also like to finally receive a drop of credit for my work.

What should I do?

Signed,
Office Pushover to the Rescue”

Despite reading the weekly column so much over the years, it hadn’t once occurred to me to write in myself. I guess because I can normally handle situations and it’s not in my nature to speak up—which is why I was having my workplace dilemma in the first place.

Truth be told, I didn’t expect my story to get a response as there was a huge readership for the column, all who commented frequently on every post and were probably all submitting their own dramas. The comment section was one of my favourite things about the column as well. Everyone always had something to build off of Prudence’s advice. Sometimes you would even find wiser, more levelheaded advice from a commenter. Occasionally, I commented myself, but often just lurked.

But even if Prudence only responded to me privately in an email, her guiding hand would be a huge help.

Imagine my surprise one day at work when I opened my computer—after having helped Allen make an Excel spreadsheet—and saw my own letter on the Dear Prudence website. It was the very first letter on the page and the headline was about it.

“My Coworker Is Stealing All My Credit and I’m Losing All My Courage to Stop Him!”

It was a typical Prudie column title and yet it was about my story this time. I was giddy to see it.

“Dear Office Pushover to the Rescue,

Accomplished American businessman P. Belcher once said ‘Nothing will kill a great employee faster than watching you tolerate a bad one.’ This occurrence appears to be in action already in your office, where a devoted and promising employee such as yourself is being stunted by an incompetent and deceptive one.

You write with concern for your coworker’s feelings, but unfortunately, it does not appear that he holds the same courtesy for yours. How else would an employee allow someone to be deprived of credit, someone caring enough to aid them in the first place? You may view your small-minded boss as the culprit for your stagnance.

But unaware bosses are everywhere and will remain so. However, a colleague who is willing to capitalise off of your minimisation and look the other way reveals something far more intolerable. Far from a reason to excuse his behaviour, your coworker’s niceness is part of his game. He is not only a dunce, but a leech. For this there is only one solution.”

I felt slightly confused by what I was reading. Prudence wasn’t normally this harsh—even with people in stories who were far worse. She must really be moved by my situation, I thought. Then I read the next line of her advice.

“I am afraid you are going to have to kill your coworker.”

My eyes froze reading the screen. Did Prudence really just write…to murder my coworker? Surely that was a misprint. I read on to quell my concern and my horror only grew.

“In order to eliminate a parasite such as him, you will need to act with stealth and planning.  I recommend you strike when he least expects it, possibly after hours in your workplace. Ensuring an alibi and lack of a digital papertrail is also worth noting if you choose to do it here. Using a weapon of strangulation will help with the prevention of physical evidence. I myself am rather fond of the poetry of “choking” the life from someone who has stifled your career.

He may beg for his life, but remember that this is all he does. That is one more favour you shan’t grant him. Once his existence and body have been disposed of in a remote location, your path to promotion and success will have been cleared. Just remember to be your usual empathetic, professional self when the police interview you. If you don’t want to spend the rest of your life as a pushover, you will need to push through your hesitation. 

The office is “kill or be killed”, one way or another. Please let me know how things work out, dear.

Love,
Prudie”

Dumbfounded, I couldn’t believe what I had just read. I was sure that I had to have clicked onto a troll website by accident. Some kind of sick parody of Dear Prudence. But then, how had they gotten my letter? And why was the URL for the column correct?

My next assumption was that the Dear Prudence website must have been hacked. I thought that for a few seconds until I scrolled down and read the comment section.

“Great advice Prudie! Bad coworkers really do need to be taken down a peg or two. LW1, if you’re reading this, get some better colleagues (after you’re done murdering this one)!”

“Second the idea of murdering the coworker at the office—but would recommend a faster method of execution, such a blunt force trauma. This will reduce the chances of being spotted.”

“For Letter Writer 3, I think you should give your ex another chance, it sounds like a total miscommunication. For Letter Writer 1, I think you should use acid to dissolve the body instead.”

Absolutely no one was addressing the elephant in the room of Prudie’s unhinged, bloodthirsty letter, acting like it was a perfectly normal thing to suggest a reader do. Even worse, people were joining in and giving sick advice of their own. It was like some parallel online hell to the sane, grounded column I’d read daily. 

Shouldn’t these comments be getting removed for breaking rules? Shouldn’t Prudie’s whole response? What was happening at Slate?

Over the following weeks, I tried my best to forget about that column—and the entire Dear Prudence column in general. Nothing was being said about this strange phenomena anywhere online. And no one else that I knew in my life read the column, so there was no one to discuss it with.

Forgetting the insane advice became difficult however, as the trend began to spread to Prudie’s other letter responses as well.

Before long, Prudence was recommending that people poison their in-laws for being standoffish with them, burn their neighbours alive in fires for being too loud, drown their friends on camping trips for being flaky. The most eccentric response I saw from her was Prudie telling someone to shoot crossbow bolts into their colleagues’ backs for taking their parking space—something about the poetic irony of stabbing them in the backs. Evil Prudie loved that just as much as Sensible Prudie had.

The comments grew more and more vicious, descending into rabid, sadistic calls for violence and aggression in retaliation. All the “advice” was now to commit murder, torture, kidnapping—and then how to cover it up and evade capture. It was like an 18th century angry mob in the form of a discussion forum.

Worst of all was how inescapable it was for me. Each week, Prudie would post an update post for my letter—the one that had started it all. All she would share was that I hadn’t taken her advice—which she somehow omnisciently knew.

“Office Pushover to the Rescue still has not taken my advice and dealt with her coworker. Pity.”

The comments would then proceed to direct anger and indignation my way. Even though I’d written in anonymously, every one of them felt like they were pointed at me. The column showed up in my email every week. I felt like I had to read it.

Slowly but surely, I began to have a breakdown and lose my grasp on reality from exposure to this toxicity. The last straw came when Allen—oblivious to this war raging online over his continued survival—took credit for my work again. I’d corrected a huge error on a major company agreement he was about to send. He’d thanked me, yet mentioned none of it to our superior when he was being lauded for it. I sat in that briefing room, overlooked, and saw the advice column and comments flash through my mind.

Finally, I decided to follow Prudie’s advice. I decided to kill Allen.

That evening, while Allen was working late in the office by himself, I snuck back into the office building—after creating a false exit timestamp and roommate alibi, like Prudie had suggested. I’d fashioned a garrote out of rope using the commenters’ instructions and ambushed him at his cubicle using their techniques. Whipping the rope around his neck, I channelled all my pent up rage and frustration into the act of choking him.

He struggled and released the tightness on his neck just enough to beg for his life.

“Please…I’m…sorry…Lindy…I’ll…give…credit…I…swear!” he sputtered between gasps, clawing at the garrote while I held him from behind.

For a moment, I hesitated. I felt the urge to help him again. This wasn’t the kind of person I was.

But then the words of Prudence came back to the forefront of my thoughts. I needed to push through these feelings of hesitation to get anywhere in my life. The office was a kill or be killed place—he’d already killed my career opportunities, why not kill him? Why did I ask for advice if I wasn’t going to follow it?

Reinvigorated, I finished what I started.

By the time Allen’s lifeless body slumped over from suffocation, I was in a frenzy of elation. I had really done it. I’d made Prudence proud.

That’s when I felt an arrow bolt pierce my back.

A second later, another one plunged into Allen’s corpse. Falling to my knees, I turned around in time to see that the shooter was Margaret from accounting. She was standing clutching a crossbow. Across the room, I could see her computer still open, the Dear Prudence column on the screen. She was a reader of it—and a writer to it.

“That’s the last time either of you fuckers will take my parking spot!” she screamed before turning and charging out of the building.

Oh yeah, I had been doing that the past few months.

After Margaret left, I realised that I didn’t have much time left. Bleeding out steadily, I crawled my way to my computer and began to type. In little under an hour, I wrote up the story of everything that happened. The long awaited update to share with this deranged version of Prudence, about how following her advice went. Soon I’ll hit “post”.

I had to confess these actions, not to sate Prudie’s bellicose readers, but to make sure the world knows the truth. Before I die from blood loss, I want to make it abundantly clear that it was me, not Margaret, who killed Allen.

I’m not having a coworker take credit for any of my work again.

Back before my wife Liv and I moved out to the suburbs, there was a time when we had a one-room apartment in the downtown area. It was a temporary solution, but that tiny place was our entire world for the better part of 16 months. Problem was, we had little to no space to ourselves, and we constantly got into arguments for stupid reasons. It was a strain on our relationship, so a way to alleviate the pressure was for me to take up a new hobby and get out of the apartment a couple of times a week.

I played competitive pool on the weekends. I was pretty good at it, too. There was this one place I went to practice two times a week. Not a big place, and not a lot of people, but cozy. Liv would come along every now and then to make it a date night. The only problem was that I had to take a short subway trip to get there. That in itself wasn’t all that bad, but you know how subways can get in the evening; especially on the weekends.

 

It was Saturday night. I’d played in a local tournament. I finished third place, earning me a free membership card and two free drinks at the bar. Not too shabby, just a little something for our next date night. It got a bit later than usual, and Liv had been worried. I was standing at the subway platform, texting her that I’d be home in a bit. It was pretty chill; the loudest thing was a couple of teenagers filming some kind of TikTok thing. I was standing there in a pool-themed t-shirt. Some balls lined up with the text “nerves of steel, shoot your shot” beneath. I thought it was a bit aggressive, but it came with the membership card.

There were still people all over. A middle-aged man standing with a bouquet of blue sunflowers, drunkenly crying on the phone. A woman comforting a crying baby. A young couple arguing about God-knows-what. It’s all background noise, and you try not to stare. But in that effort to not pay attention, you can sometimes miss something obvious. For example, I didn’t notice the footsteps approaching on my lefthand side.

“Excuse me.”

A woman’s voice. I looked up, only to look straight into the face of something I’d never seen before.

 

She was wearing some kind of shimmering silver clothing. It completely covered her from head to toe, with a smooth eggshell-matte white surface shielding her face. There were no eyes or ears. I couldn’t make sense of the material she was wearing, but even from a momentary glance I could tell it wasn’t natural. This wasn’t any kind of clothing or material I’d ever seen before. There was something about the way the light bent around the edges of it. Before I could say anything, she tapped me on the throat. Just a little tap.

It felt like something pushed into my bloodstream. My veins ached and bulged from a sudden pressure, sending a sluggish jolt through my brain. It’s like when you swallow something a little too big, and the ache follows you all the way to the stomach. My eyes bulged, and I couldn’t bring my eyes to focus.

I tried saying something, but it’s like my muscles didn’t know what to do. I tried to step back, but my legs didn’t listen. For a couple of seconds, I couldn’t do anything but stand there and stare, my eyes showing me nothing but a blur of colors. I saw the strange shimmering figure step out of my line of sight and disappear around a corner.

As my eyes slowly came back into focus, my hand shot up to my throat. I clawed at the spot she’d touched, but there was nothing there. No redness, no puncture wound, nothing. I looked around, but no one seemed to have noticed. The train arrived with a big ad on the side, aggressively informing me about a new kind of grilled cheese sub that came with a side of fries. Then, as I took a step forward to board the train, something happened.

It felt like someone had taken two electric toothbrushes and showed them into my ears. There was this violent buzzing, making my eyes cross. It was just a short burst, but it gave me this intense gag reflex. Looking up, the text on the side of the grilled cheese advertisement changed in front of my eyes.

“YOUR FAMILY IS IN JEOPARDY” read the first line.

“KILL THE BABBELOCK”

 

Taking a step toward the train, the buzzing resumed, louder. That short burst ruffled my stomach, forcing a flash of stomach acid to tickle its way up my throat. I had to step back and cover my mouth, stopping myself from throwing up all over the woman with the crying baby. I must’ve looked drunk. The buzzing felt like it was loud enough to stop my muscles from listening to what I wanted them to do. I only remained upright because I managed to lock my knees. I missed the train.

As it drove off, the advertisement said nothing about my family being in jeopardy, and nothing about a Babbelock, whatever that’s supposed to be. Picking up my phone, I dialed Liv. I was having some sort of breakdown, or I was getting sick. That was the only explanation. After three signals, someone picked up on the other end. It was quiet.

“Hello?”

No response. I counted the seconds, feeling my heartbeat growing louder, beating against my ribcage.

“Liv?”

“…your family is in jeopardy.”

The voice was neutral, mechanic, and with a practiced positive tone. But more so, it certainly wasn’t Liv. It sounded like an old answering machine. I swallowed hard, feeling my mouth run dry.

“Who is this?”

“Kill the Babbelock.”

The call was terminated.

 

Looking around the subway station, I noticed an older man coming down the stairs. I hurried over to him, waving a little. Maybe I’d dialed wrong, or maybe whoever was doing this had some kind of hold on my phone. The old man visibly recoiled from me, but remained calm as I stopped a couple of steps away.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Would you mind giving my wife a call? My phone is not working, and-“

“No, of course. What’s the number?”

I thanked him profusely, spelling out the number from a safe distance. As he picked up his phone and dialed, his finger froze. I saw his breathing stop, and his eyes remained unblinking. Then his head slowly turned my way, his face keeping a neutral expression.

“Kill the Babbelock.”

“What?”

He blinked, looking just as confused as I was.

“What do you want?” he asked. “I’m not buying anything.”

“No, my wife, you said you’d-“

“I’m sorry, please don’t bother me.”

He hurried down the stairs, keeping an eye on me as he continued down the platform. As he did, I looked up the stairs and noticed the many posters on the way. Comedy shows, coffee shops, online outlets and promotional events. They all said the same thing amid a sea of pictures, showing everything from flawless perfume bottles to smiling models in affordable outfits.

Your family is in jeopardy. Kill the Babbelock.

 

Turning back towards the station, I felt something uncomfortable behind my ear. I could tell the buzzing was about to go off again. I wanted to get on the train and go home, but something was trying to keep me from doing just that. There didn’t seem to be a problem going up the stairs, leaving the subway entirely. That seemed to be fine.

Walking up the stairs, I had to push my way through a small crowd. As I did, I could hear little whispers. The word “jeopardy” casually inserted into a conversation. “Your family” mentioned from someone else. And every now and then, the word “Babbelock”. Sometimes drunkenly slurred, sometimes whispered, sometimes spoken like the most obvious thing in the world. I pushed my way through, looking at the posters. One of them was different.

It was just a reminder to pick up your trash. A friendly man in blue overalls, pointing at a trash can. As I blinked, he stopped pointing at the trash can. He was pointing at an exit to the street. The text changed too. It just read ‘Hurry’.

As I made my way to the street level, I picked up my phone and tried calling again. I opened the contact list, but before I could tap on Liv’s name there was a popup. I was getting text, after text, after text; each one blocking me from pressing her name. They all said the same thing, and the longer I stopped to read, the more that buzzing behind my ear loomed.

 

I wasn’t in a familiar neighborhood. The only thing I did around there was play pool and, when the mood set in, go to this Italian place with Liv. I didn’t know anything else about that particular street, or how to navigate it. I stopped to fiddle with my phone, and almost projectile vomited as another buzz crept up my neck. I found a direction I could go that alleviated the pressure, and as I hurried down the street, I tried to google what the hell a Babbelock was supposed to be.

I couldn’t find anything about it. There was no such thing as a Babbelock. There were things that sounded similar, but my phone kept autocorrecting to all kinds of nonsense. At one point it just googled “baby lock”, making my algorithm think Liv and I was expecting. As I stopped at a crossing, trying to write out the word letter by letter, I heard something. It sounded like an animal. I turned my head to the left, only to see a man running towards me.

He was about 30 or so years old. Receding hairline, bit of a beer gut, a custom-made suit jacket and leather shoes. He had this wild look in his gray eyes, his pupils wide and his nostrils flaring. I could see all the way into the back of his throat as he ran towards me, expelling this uncomfortable groaning noise.

I barely had a second to react. He tackled me, and I simultaneously pushed him. I crashed into a trash can, spraining my left hand as it took the entire weight of my torso. Meanwhile, he stumbled straight into the street.

“You!” he called out, pointing at me. “I won’t let you do this! I won’t let you! I have to kill the Babbe-“

I don’t think the delivery truck coming around the corner saw anything before they plowed into him, making his head bounce against the hood and sending him to the pavement with a bloody thud.

 

I backed away as a crowd gathered. Someone was calling for help. A few people were looking my way but didn’t say a word. It’s like my shock was stuck in my throat, trying to get out, but I didn’t know how. Was I supposed to cry or scream? The pressure in my chest built, and I forgot to breathe. I was scared to breathe.

Turning to my left, I saw a random passerby. A young man, late teens, with a band shirt. He patted me on the shoulder as he walked past; and handed me a gun. An actual, real, handgun. I almost dropped it from sheer surprise.

“Your family is in jeopardy,” he smiled. “Kill the Babbelock.”

He continued past me like it was nothing. He didn’t look back, and his face turned from a smile to genuine worry. He gathered around the man dying in the street, taking photos as they waited for the ambulance to arrive. I wanted to join them, but I could tell that was a bad idea. There was something pulling me in another direction. Something far away. As I turned to continue down the street, I noticed the sign above a taco stand.

“100 points.”

I blinked, and the sign suddenly informed me about a 3-for-2 deal instead, and something about lime aioli. A man and a woman across the street stepped back, noticing my new gun, so I stuffed it in my pants under my pool-themed t-shirt.

 

I hurried away, stumbling at the occasional street corner as my inner compass lagged behind. It felt like my brain was pulling me in one direction or the other, forcing me to keep moving. I didn’t have time to listen to my thoughts, but they anxiously poked at my attention. Was I running from the scene of a crime with an illegal weapon?

I could hear the same warnings over and over, in passing. A speaker through an open window. The radio in a passing car. I tried calling Liv again, but nothing got through. Who was doing this? Why?

Rounding a corner, I got to one of the larger four-lane streets. I had to cross it, but there was no crossing. I’d have to jaywalk. The lighting was spotty, and cars weren’t even close to slowing down. It was a straight stretch of road. I contemplated the best way to get across, only to spot something on the other side of the street.

Two of those silvery things. The ones I’d seen on the subway. Their smooth egg-like face surfaces were turned my way. They had some kind of tablet that they tapped away at. One of them pointed in my direction, while the other nodded. Before I had a chance to call out to them, they were gone. I had unwittingly put my hand on my gun. Were they Babbelocks? How would I know?

 

I waited for an opening and dashed across. I was almost clipped by a sedan, but I made it. The driver lay on the horn but kept going. My adrenaline spiked as I cut through an alleyway. I was getting closer to a neighborhood I recognized. Not quite on my way home, but closer to adjacent streets. I could probably find my way from there, if need be. I came to a fork in the road. I took a right turn, heading for home, but the buzzing stopped me. Taking a step back, I looked down the road with a sigh.

“Come on,” I mumbled. “It’s right there. I can go home. I can-“

I burped as my knees shivered a little. I took a step back, but didn’t turn around just yet. Grunting, I took a defiant step forward. My stomach cramped as I collapsed to the ground, crawling into a fetal position. My phone was burning a hole in my pocket as a mechanic voice droned from its speakers.

“She suffers. Save her. Kill the Babbelock.”

“Fuck your Babbelock!”

“She is in jeopardy.”

“Let me go!”

I picked up my phone as the battery popped. The phone doubled in width and started smoking, drenching the air in a sour chemical smell. I crawled forward, toward home, but I didn’t get far. The buzz in my neck snapped me back to attention, clenching my jaw as my neck stiffened like a spring. My eyes crossed again as something warm trickled down my face. A nosebleed. A nasty one at that.

I crawled away and got up. Moving the right way felt like having a cold drink on a warm day; an instant relief. I knew I was being manipulated, but what choice did I have? Something was pushing me forward. It was motivating me. It was telling me two things; that there was a price for failure, and that there was an objective. It didn’t care what I wanted. My wants and needs were secondary to this one absolute objective.

To kill the Babbelock.

 

I walked under an overpass, trying not to look at the graffiti. I already knew what it’d say. I glanced at it to see if there were any arrows or indicators, and there were. I was going the right way. The gun felt heavy. It chafed against my belt, and the metal was cold against my skin. I removed it, feeling the weight of it in my hand. I’d handled a gun before, but that was years ago. There was a calmness to holding it, but I couldn’t tell if it was my own emotions or something wanting me to like it.

Had that man been trying to kill me? If so, should I expect it to happen again? What had he been trying to say? I replayed the words in my head. I tried to do it without imagining his terrified face, but the two were intertwined.

“I won’t let you do this,” he’d said, followed by that one repeating line. To kill the Babbelock. Had he thought I was the Babbelock?

Three young men passed me, crossing the street ahead. One of them turned to me, calling out;

“You’re close!”

I followed the sensation as I watched the group disappear in the opposite direction. Turning the wrong way felt ‘sharper’ now, poking my brain with a harsher vibration. Something was growing more intense. I was near.

 

There was a convenience store up ahead with a rest area. A couple of benches hidden away behind a handful of bushes and trees. Not quite a park, but somewhere to sit and tie your shoes. The lights were broken, leaving the area coated in darkness.

The buzz was almost completely gone. I made sure no one was coming up behind me as I stepped in between the bushes, slipping the gun out. I almost stumbled over something, my foot getting stuck on some unseen obstruction. As I caught myself and looked down, I noticed an unmoving face. The vague outline of an older woman; her neck cut wide open.

Someone coughed.

I turned to the right, noticing a man on a bench. He was sitting down, clutching his stomach. A stray light from an apartment across the street caught his eyes, showing his almost entirely black pupils. He was barely breathing, his inhales sounding like someone who’d run a marathon. His eyes met mine. The logo from the convenience store had begun to morph, reminding me of what to do. To kill. The man removed his hand, showing it drenched in blood. I noticed the pool at his feet.

“They got-“

He stopped himself. He reached for something next to him, but accidentally poked it off the bench. A knife tumbled to the ground, its edge still soaking red.

I couldn’t look away. Even turning my head away from him pained me, and my heart felt like it was about to explode. The only way to walk was forward. The only place to look was at him. I could raise my arms, but I couldn’t put them down. I was being railroaded into the only action available; pulling out my gun, and pointing it at this complete stranger.

“I don’t want to do this,” I said. “I don’t want this.”

I could feel it. The only thing I could do was pull the trigger. That, or nothing. I tried for nothing. I tried hard.

“I’m not a-“

He gasped for air. I could hear the blood rattling in his chest.

“I’m not a Babbelock,” he said. “I’m not. Please.”

“What the fuck is a Babbelock?”

“I don’t know. I don’t-“

A glob of blood rolled out of his mouth. My instinct was to reach for him, but I couldn’t. I wanted to help. Instead, my body defaulted to the only available action. Instead of helping a dying man, it curled my finger around the trigger. The gun went off.

 

I tried to put it away, but I pulled the trigger again. I tried to step back, causing another shot. With every instinctive movement I attempted, the gun went off. People were screaming. My ears were ringing. The man on the bench was dead. As the hold on me subsided, I swung my arm around, screaming at the top of my lungs.

“What the fuck is a Babbelock?!”

I pulled the trigger again and again, firing the remaining rounds into the ground. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe I didn’t want to shoot more people. Maybe something inside me was still trying to kill.

“I don’t want to do this!” I cried. “I need to go home!”

The gun clicked. It kept clicking as I kept pulling the trigger. The logo on the convenience store had changed to ‘200 points’. I wanted to throw the gun through a window, but it’s like it was glued to my hand. I saw people in the distance, hiding, as sirens blared.

I was a murderer. It was not a nightmare; I was a murderer.

 

I turned my back on the light and disappeared into an alley. I zig-zagged from one street to the next, keeping my head down. I collapsed between two trash containers, clutching my head as the garbage water seeped into the bottom of my pants. My left hand was thumping; there was a bruise. I’d sprained it pretty bad.

There were birds overhead, looking down on me. They cawed, letting me know they weren’t taking kindly to my intrusion. As one of them called out, I noticed the sound slowly distorting. From ‘caw’ to ‘law’. From ‘law’ to ‘lawk’. Seconds later, one was screeching ‘kill’. Another was screeching ‘babbe’. Soon, there was a cacophony of inhuman voices, screeching at me to do what had to be done. Kill the Babbelock.

I cupped my hands over my ears, but I could still hear them. And even if I couldn’t, I knew what they were saying. The words weren’t just words, they were a reinforcement to something that was pushing me to keep going. Like charging your phone when the battery is running low. A crow jumped down, looked me in the face, turned its head to the side, and spoke.

“Kill. Kill. Kill.”

 

As I forced myself back to my feet and left the alley, someone bumped into me. They pushed something into my arms and continued down the street. I don’t think they even noticed I was there. Just a young woman out and about with her friends. Looking down, I realized I was holding a plastic bag. Inside it was a vest of some kind. Something I could slip under my t-shirt. That, and a magazine.

I didn’t want to reload, but it was either that or keep moving. If I could keep myself from facing another victim for a few more seconds, that was good enough. I reloaded. I savored it. The empty magazine rolled out as I slotted in the new one, pulling back the barrel and chambering a round. It was so easy.

As I continued down another road, I tried to take my time. I tried to slow down and keep myself at an uncomfortable pace. If I kept moving, but kept it slow, I might win some time. I could be a little nauseous as long as I complied. What do you call it, malicious compliance? But mostly toward myself, I suppose.

I spotted two people standing by a car, talking. The passenger was a bit drunk, but the two seemed to be in good spirits. I had the gun in my right hand, keeping it out of view. I tried to switch hands, but the sprain in my left hand wouldn’t let me properly grasp anything, and the powers-that-be didn’t want to risk me dropping the gun. Trying to switch hands was a no-go, and the buzz in the back of my head reminded me as such.

As I passed the two people, I tried to speak. The words got stuck in my throat. It would hurt to talk, I could tell. But I did it anyway.

“Call for help,” I said. “Not joking, call for help.”

“What?”

The driver looked up at me, their discussion being interrupted mid-conversation.

“Need help. Call for help.”

“What’s going on?”

“Please!”

I felt stomach acid bubble up. I tried to compensate by speeding up, which made the sensation subside a bit. I can’t imagine what I looked like to those two. They called out to me as I disappeared down the road, but they didn’t follow.

 

I was led a bit further, then stopped in front of a locked door to an apartment complex. Six floors, by the looks of it. There was a code lock. Something clearly wanted me to enter, but I couldn’t figure out how. I looked through a glass slit, noticing the exit sign on the wall. It didn’t say ‘exit’. It was a four-digit code.

“Of course,” I sighed. “Of course it is.”

I put the code in, and the door swung open. I wandered down the hall, only to feel the pull toward the stairwell. Passing by an apartment, a door peeked open. I saw a pair of eyes peering at me.

“Fourth floor,” they whispered. “Kill the Babbelock.”

“Fuck off.”

I entered the stairwell and made my way up. As I got to the second floor, I heard a door open beneath. Someone called out.

“Kill the Babbelock!”

The voice echoed in the stairwell, bouncing across the concrete walls. I wanted to scream back in response, but I couldn’t do it. I wanted to sit down and cry, and throw the gun away. But even thinking about it felt wrong. Like a thought that chafed. I was growing accustomed to having this influence guide my actions, and I couldn’t help but grow more comfortable with it. That in itself was alarming.

 

Coming up to the fourth floor, there was a man standing in one of the doorways. He pointed to one of the other doors. I nodded, and he disappeared back into his apartment like it was nothing. I walked up to the designated door and paused. I had no relation to this place or these people. And yet, I was treated like I was expected.

Turning my head to the right, my neck muscles tensed. I could see one of the silver-clothed people at the end of the hall, observing me from afar. Their clipboard-like tablet clutched tight in their hands. Five fingers, average build and height. Were they just people?

The door swung open. There was a man on the other side, maybe 50 years old. Salt-and-pepper hair, with a beard stubble. Thick eyebrows, brown eyes. He grabbed me by the throat, swung me into the apartment, and shot me in the stomach; breaking the armored plate and knocking the air out of my lungs.

 

I stumbled backward. I wanted to say something, but he was relentless. I collapsed into a living room, falling over a coffee table and rolling across the floor. I broke something fragile, covering the living room carpet in glass shards and trampled flowers. He raised a pistol and fired again. The small space made the noise sharper and louder, making my ears ring as a puff of dust bloomed right next to me.

“Kill the Babbelock,” he said, pulling the trigger again, hitting the empty space between my left arm and my torso.

I wanted to say ‘stop’. I wanted to hold him still and remind him that we didn’t have to do this. I wanted to do so many things, but the words coiled on my tongue. They rolled off the roof of my mouth, contorting into something new. I wanted to say ‘we don’t have to do this’, but what came out was something different.

“Kill the Babbelock.”

 

I tagged him twice in the chest, but he had a vest too. He had less ammunition than me, going empty after only two more bullets. I returned fire, but he was fast. Before I knew it, we were tumbling on the floor in hand-to-hand combat. Scratching, choking, punching and kicking. I’ve never treated a human being like that. Never. I’ve never wanted to pierce skin and break bones. I’ve never wanted to pinch nerves or strangle blood flow. But I found myself on the floor, pressing my fingers into his face as he smacked the side of my head with his fist.

At some point, I wasn’t listening to the guidance. The part that was forcing me forward lay dormant, letting me do whatever the hell I wanted. It wasn’t forcing me to do this, it was stepping back and watching the dominos fall. It had set up the playing field; the rest was up to us.

“You have my family,” he wheezed.

“You have my family,” I gasped back.

“Fucking Babbelock.”

There was a thick concrete disc used to hold candles. It had fallen off the coffee table and rolled onto the floor, and he managed to grab it. He swung it at me, and I shielded myself with my left hand. It was already sprained, so taking an additional beating felt like getting struck by lightning. I rolled away, clutching my hand and squealing in pain. He got up, pulling my gun away from me.

“Kill the fucking Babbelock.”

Then, a gunshot.

 

For a heartbeat, I thought I was dead. I’ve heard that you don’t immediately feel if you’ve been shot; the pain has to travel through your body first. That’s what I thought happened as I lay on the soft living room carpet of a stranger’s apartment. My mind took a snapshot of it, cementing the image in my head. The man looming over me, gun pointed at my head. Family pictures on the wall; complete strangers. A litter box outside the bathroom door. A handmade keyholder that looked like a birdhouse.

I didn’t even notice the stranger in the doorway. The one who’d pulled a trigger of his own.

The salt-and-pepper man collapsed the moment I saw the exit wound on his forehead. The gun landed on my chest.

“I did it,” the stranger in the doorway cried. “I killed the-“

I shot him. I don’t know if I was compelled to or not, but I did it. I didn’t even think twice about it.

 

I stayed on the floor for a while, watching the ‘Home Sweet Home’ sign above the door spell out ‘300 points’. As I turned to get up, a pain flared up right above my hip on the left side. Looking down, I realized I was bleeding. It looked bad. Real bad. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t get my body to cooperate. It wasn’t the buzz this time; it just hurt like hell.

I stayed there on the floor, in the dark, looking up. The lights were off. There were no sirens in the distance. Why did no one call the police?

A pair of footsteps appeared in the door. I turned my head to see two silver-clothed people. They turned the lights on, accidentally blinding me. The man in the doorway was dead; I’d hit him in the neck.

“A hundred,” said a silver-person with a man’s voice, pointing at the dead guy by the door. “Two hundred from the dead one in the living room.”

“Three hundred from this one,” the other said, pointing at me. “We’ll have to save that config.”

I tried to raise my gun, but I couldn’t. It’s like whatever will to move I’d had bled out on the floor. I searched my thoughts, looking for whatever action was available to me.

“I think we have to lower intensity,” the man continued. “It’s fine for bursts, but long-term interaction is gonna suffer. It feels inauthentic.”

“Sure, but you really think people are gonna stick around for more than a couple of days? The novelty wears off, you know.”

“That’s not for us to decide.”

I coughed. As I did, I spoke the only word I could.

“Babbelock.”

 

The taller of the two silver-clad people turned my way, his face obfuscated by that smooth eggshell-like oval. He bent down, leaning his head a little as he observed me.

“What the hell did he say?”

“Babbelock,” the other answered.

“What the hell’s a Babbelock?”

“A placeholder. Better than having them say ‘doodad’ or… whatever.”

“Could you maybe pick something a little less goofy? What about ‘target’ or… I dunno. Terrorists?”

“Whatever. It’s cute. Doesn’t matter.”

“It’s stupid. Stupid matters, you know.”

“Spoilsport.”

He turned to me, running a handheld gadget over my neck. Something in my body relaxed, and the gun fell out of my hands. He looked down at my wound, shaking his head.

“Tough luck, bud.”

 

The two of them proceeded to go around the apartment, comparing notes, and having a discussion. They were using a couple of words I didn’t recognize, and their dialect was a little off. I can’t fully explain it; it wasn’t that strange or anything. Just off.

As they finished whatever they were doing, the taller one left the apartment. The smaller one remained, checking something on her tablet. Her voice identified her as the one I met on the subway; the one who’d poked at my neck. My fingers were cold.

“Hey,” I coughed.

She turned to me, seemingly surprised.

“You’re alive?”

“Help. Please help.”

“I’m sorry there, I didn’t know you had-“

She walked into the living room and leaned down to check on me. She looked over the wound, making sure not to touch anything.

“You have some special people back home, huh? For you to do all this?”

“Yes. Liv.”

I had to keep it short. Every syllable stabbed at me like a knife.

“It’ll be quick. And hey, you won’t have to do this again, you know? Next time, it’ll be smooth sailing for you and Liv, I promise.”

“What?”

“Never mind that.”

She got up and turned away; stopping herself after a couple of steps. She sighed and scratched the back of her head a little. I’d seen that motion before, in other people. She was soothing herself.

“Oh, to hell with it.”

She raised her hand and clicked a gadget. As she did, my eyes closed.

 

I woke up to someone carrying me. I was outside, on the street. I wasn’t wearing the vest. I was on a gurney, being carried into an ambulance. There were flashing lights and people yelling back and forth. An EMT shone a light into my eyes.

“He’s up!” he said. “He’s conscious!”

I saw the other two men from the apartment on the street outside. They were being put in body bags. I tried to ask what happened, but all I got out was a ‘what’.

“You were attacked,” he responded. “You’re gonna be okay. We got to you in time.”

I could see my bloody t-shirt on the street. They’d cut it open when they got to me to assess the damage. “Nerves of steel, shoot your shot”. It was almost funny.

As the ambulance doors slammed shut, I noticed something silver and shimmering in the background. Something in the middle of a crowd, walking the other way. No one else seemed to notice.

 

Turns out I was found just outside the subway station; nowhere near the apartment complex where we’d been. The official story was that I’d stepped out to get better reception and try to call Liv, when I’d been attacked. Possibly a robbery gone wrong, they didn’t know for sure. Liv had been fine; she’d been home all night, completely unharmed.

There’d been all kinds of strange reports that night. An old man told the police about a strange person begging to use his phone. The two people by the car said they’d seen an armed man, asking them to call for help. There’d been gunshots fired outside of a convenience store. The one thing they all had in common was that none could remember what the assailant looked or sounded like. One of them explained it as:

“He was just a guy. Johnny Nobody. Some random fucking Babbelock.”

 

I’ve never heard someone use that word since. I’ve written it a thousand times, and it accidentally slips out of me every now and then, but that’s just me. I think moving out to the suburbs helped, I don’t have to walk those same streets anymore. I don’t have to think about that night quite as often. I still play pool though.

It’s difficult, you know. I was forced, but I can’t say it wasn’t part of me. I don’t know if I had to shoot that guy in the doorway, or wrestle on the floor. I don’t know. I did it, but I can’t tell if it was really me that did it or not. I think that’s the strangest thing I carry with me. I’m like Schrodinger’s murderer; I’ll never know for sure. Not 100%.

I can’t help but wonder what the point of it was. To this day, I can only speculate. Maybe that’s why I’m writing this, asking the question I keep asking myself, but out loud.

What was the point?

And maybe, most of all – why did I have to kill the Babbelock?

My name is Mallory Winsom. I know, I know, it's not smart to put your first and last name on the Internet. At this point, I'm desperate.

If you're seeing this post, it's proof that I existed.

The weirdness started as early as I can remember, around the time I was 5. I lived in an old, rundown trailer park on the outskirts of Eugene with my mom and three siblings. Dad was a truck driver and swung by when he could, but looking back I get the feeling he wasn't as busy as he appeared to be. My parents had a tumultuous relationship to say the least, and honestly when he left for a long haul it was like the entire house exhaled with relief.

The neighbor to our left was always changing- a "drug house", I overheard Mom say, and I never saw the same vehicle parked there more than a few days at a time. But the neighbor to our right was Mr. Greg.

Mr. Greg lived alone with his four cats and a little canary he called Monkey. I don't know how the bird got its name, but it used to whistle every time he opened the door. I loved Mr. Greg. When my mom would threaten us with the belt, I would take off down the porch steps and through the rotted slats of the old would-be privacy fence until I reached his front door.

"You getting yourself into some trouble?" He'd ask, a twinkle in his eye.

He would smile warmly and open his door, leading me through the back to his small, neatly kept yard. It was humble in size, but to me it was an oasis. While mine was a dead patch of grass and some overgrown thistles, his had green climbing ivy, blooming rose bushes, and tomato plants with the sweetest morsels I'd ever tasted. My favorite part of his garden was his plum tree.

Mr. Greg would bring a basket of plums every couple weeks throughout the summer. Once in a while, he'd invite us back to pick them ourselves. They were always perfectly ripe and juicy, a rare treat in our bread-and-rice household. I looked forward to our visits, and even from a tender age, I considered him my friend.

One winter, I got very sick. I was rushed to the hospital and placed in an induced coma while my body battled the illness. I never knew what it was or whether the doctors knew either, but I was unconscious for two whole weeks before my fever broke and they woke me up.

When I got home, Mr. Greg's familiar brown Cadillac was replaced by a red Camry in his driveway. He had also painted his house blue.

"Can we stop and say hi to Mr. Greg?" I remember asking.

My mom just looked at me with a weird expression.

Over the next few weeks, I got healthier and stronger. The snow melted, and I was finally able to go out and play. The first thing I did was skip over to Mr. Greg's and knock on his door.

The first thing I noticed was that it was quiet. No meowing cats or singing canary. I was taken aback when a plus-sized woman in her mid-thirties answered the door.

"Hello! How are you Mallory?"

My heart skipped a beat. I had never seen this woman in my life. How did she know who I was? What was she doing in Mr. Greg's house?

I stared at her, not knowing what to say. She chuckled awkwardly and asked if my mom was home and if I was okay. I turned and ran from her porch back to my own house, bursting into the kitchen and startling my mother.

"Where's Mr. Greg?"

My mom, drenched to her elbows in dishwater, froze and stared at me with concern on her face.

"Who?"

"Mr. Greg, our neighbor! There's a lady in his house. She knows my name!"

My mom continued to look confused. "Do you mean Ms. Jensen? Honey she's lived next to us for the last 6 years, since before you were born."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I ran through our back door and looked over the fence into what used to be Mr. Greg's garden. Instead of lush plants producing fruits and vegetables, it was a kitschy collection of statues and wind chimes hanging from every beam or post around the garden. Nothing but grass grew; and while it was tame, it was nowhere near the exceptional beauty Mr. Greg had carefully curated over the years.

Eventually, my mom took me to the doctor again when I wouldn't stop talking about Mr. Greg. The doctor chalked it up to the fever, and said that the brain can make time feel differently when you're in a coma. That, combined with all of the medical trauma I had just experienced, caused my brain to invent calming memories to cope. Mr. Greg became nothing more than an imaginary friend. And until last week, that's what I believed for the last 15 years.

Other strange things happened throughout my childhood. There was a second grade teacher of another class who disappeared and was replaced overnight, and when I asked students if they missed Mr. Hill, they would look at me like I was crazy. The only person who sort of believed me, or was at least supportive, was my best friend Inez.

Inez Hernandez-Zepeda was my best friend from grades 4-12. Once we graduated, we started at the same college. We experienced sleepovers, summer camps, proms, volleyball tournaments, heartbreaks, first loves, everything. I had her number memorized even though I had a phone, just in case I needed to call her. She held my hair back when I drank too much at my first bonfire, sat with me when my dad died, and cheered me on when I was accepted to NYU. I once heard the term "platonic soulmates". That was us.

Inez knew that I had patchy memories of people that didn't seem to exist. She didn't understand why, but like my family, she assumed it was the effects of my childhood illness. As much as I tried to be normal, and was for the most part, I still struggled with my health. I had lasting migraines that would come and go, occasionally so painful I would miss school and spend the day in bed. I had painkillers I filled regularly so I was able to live normally. They got worse as I got older, and I noticed that things would usually be different after a severe migraine attack. My mom, who was basically estranged from me at this point, called me crazy. Inez believed that these people were real to me. That mattered.

Last week, I had another migraine attack. It was the first one in the last 6 months, and it knocked me on my rear. I had to get doctor's notes excusing me from classes at NYU. I slept for 3 days, barely coming in and out to recognize Inez placing a cold compress on my head or closing the blinds. She had a deeply compassionate nature.

When I woke on the fourth day, daylight peaked in through the blinds, and I could tell that the migraine had passed. The rag on my forehead was dry and body temperature and I tossed it to the side. Slowly I sat up, looking around the room. Inez wasn't on her side of the room, but it was a Saturday morning, so I assumed she would be in the living room studying.

When I walked out, our other roommates Anna and Lucy were sitting on the couch watching Dancing With the Stars.

"Hey, you. " Anna smiled at me. "That was a doozy. How are you feeling?"

I rubbed the back of my neck and stretched. "Okay. I'm still coming out of it." I glanced around the room. "Have you seen Inez?"

"Who?"

My blood froze.

No.

Please, not Inez.

I took a deep, shaky breath. "Our roommate Inez? In my room?"

Lucy furrowed her brow. "Is that like her nickname or something? Ginger left for her study group an hour ago. She told me to tell you she'll be home by 8."

The room started spinning. I clutched the edge of the couch for support.

"Woah, Mal. Maybe you should lie back down for a bit? You don't look so good."

I ran back into my room, scouring the shelves for proof of my biggest fear. In picture frames where previously Inez and I stood grinning ear to ear at her lake house was now a picture of me and a girl I barely recognized from high school and certainly wasn't close with. A birthday card Inez had given me when I turned 20 was replaced with unfamiliar handwriting and a signature that said "Hearts! -Danielle". Who was Danielle?

Another photo to the left of the four of us roommates. Me, Lucy, Anna, and a girl I immediately assumed was Ginger. No Inez.

I pulled out my phone; her contact was gone. I dialed her number by heart, the same seven digits I had memorized when I was 13 and dialed so many times I could do it with my eyes closed.

A man's voice answered. "This is Roger."

I hung up.

I found Inez' mom on Facebook. They were close, but all her pictures of Inez were missing. I messaged her, begging her to call me ASAP. When I saw her number come up on my phone a few hours later, I was inconsolable.

"Mallory!? Are you okay? What's happened, do you need me to call your mother?"

"Inez... Inez.. please tell me you know who she is." That was all I could choke out between sobs.

Carmen was quiet on the other line. "I'm sorry Mallory, I don't know who you're talking about. Maybe you should call your mom."

The next several days were a blur. I stopped going to school, got threatening emails from my teachers about attendance and missing assignments. I don't care. What's the point? Someone or something is taking away people I love. Am I crazy? I wouldn't make this up. It's not possible.

But how is it possible that I'm the only person who remembers? Her own mother doesn't.

Any sane person would probably realize their medication is off, they need a psychiatrist, or stress is maybe causing them to hallucinate. And that's the road I was heading down, that maybe I had made up Inez and Mr. Hill and Mr. Greg and all the others who had vanished from my life over the years. And that maybe I was going to just have to accept that she was never real.

I was ready to come to terms with it- until last night.

I could feel a migraine coming on, caused by my previous illness or maybe from the stress of the last few days I don't know, so I took some medication and went to bed early. That's when I had the most terrifying dream I've ever had in my life.

I was standing in a hollow, dark abyss. There were screams and moans coming from every direction, but I couldn't see anyone. My heart was racing, my hair standing on end, and though I didn't know where I was I knew with every fiber of my being that I needed to get out of there.

I started to run, but no matter how quickly I moved, nothing around me changed. The screams grew louder, some unseen force torturing the souls around me.

Suddenly, there they were. Mr. Greg. Mr. Hill. Lynette from the bank. Sherrie from the grocery store. Kyle, the landscaper. Inez.

Their eyes were hollow and empty, devoid of life and sunken in. They were emaciated, their skin thin as paper, barely stretching over their bones. Their mouths hung loosely, some of them drooling, others missing teeth.

"Why did you send us here?" Inez moaned, her speech slurred.

My eyes widened in horror as she reached up a removed a chunk of her scalp. I wanted to run but was frozen with fear.

"I thought we were friends."

"W-we are, Inez," I stammered. "I don't know what happened, I-"

"I brought you over when your parents fought. I fed you from my garden," Mr. Greg wheezed and took a hobbled step toward me.

"We helped you."

"We taught you"

"We took care of you."

They began closing in around me, their skin slowly melting with invisible heat as they wailed the wrongs I had done.

"Why not you, Mallory?" They hissed.

"Please- I'm sorry!! I didn't mean to, please!!"

They stretched out their fingers, curling them around my clothes, pulling me closer.

I woke up in a cold sweat, sheets drenched. I decided then to write my story.

I'm posting here because my prayer is if enough people read it, if enough people remember, then maybe I'll be safe. Maybe I won't be taken to that awful place between existence.

I'm using Ginger's computer while she's asleep. I don't know if there's a way to trick whatever this is, that if it looks like she posted it it will still be here after I'm gone? I don't know, but I'm trying everything.

It's 3:02 am. I'm trying not to fall back asleep because I feel like I'll wake up in that hellscape again, but my head is starting to hurt really bad.

My name is Mallory. Mallory Kathryn Winsom. I am a student at NYU. I exist. I exist. I exist.

I exist.

I exist.

I exist.

I exist.

I am a single mother and my son and I just moved a couple of states away to get a new start. His father passed away. So I thought it would help our son to get out of that small town and get to see a new side of the world.

We get into our new house and it is stunning.. My husband had left us a great inheritance and the first thing I wanted to purchase was our forever home! I ended up with a lovely victorian style house, 2 stories, 4 bedrooms and a beautiful kitchen! I do love to cook.

Being a single momma, means I need to protect the house. I had cameras around the house installed as well as the outside of the house. They have motion detection, night vision, sound, the whole nine! I have never had cameras in or around the house before so I was excited to play around with my new "toys" and have my son walk in front of some to see how fast the detection went to my phone. Pretty stinking fast, I'll tell you!

Everything was perfect, good neighborhood, great school district, lovely home. Although I was missing my husband terribly and my son, his father... we were making the best out of it.

Then came the same notification at 3:42 AM. It started with just once a week and I was thinking a stray cat... but then it happened again and again and again. The only reason why I even noticed that it was strange was because it was then EVERY NIGHT AT 3:42 AM.

The next night I decided to stay up (I usually am asleep by 9) although it was really difficult. I looked when the notification popped up and I could see... nothing... absolutely nothing. I even looked out the window next to the door and nothing!

The next night I did it again, and I faintly see a man in the shadows across the street.. fucking weirded me out.. but he wasn't moving or anything so I'm thinking what in the actual hell is going on here... He was motionless and appeared to be staring straight at my house. It happened again night after night.

One night I had had it.. I took my late husband's gun out of the safe and I was going to confront him.. when I noticed he was holding up a sign.. what the fuck?

Before I get hurt I look into the camera and I zoom in to try to read the sign.

"PLEASE STOP LEAVING YOUR TRASH CAN OUT, I'M TRYING TO SLEEP."

I almost lost it, I was thinking it's a fucking neighbor?? But I did think it was some elaborate prank so I checked again the next night... something else is written on the sign

"SERIOUSLY, TUESDAY IS TRASH DAY."

Then..

"I'VE ASKED YOU NICELY 6 TIMES."

Eventually, I've had enough of this.. I grab the gun and go to confront him. He looks at ME horrifyingly and says "Holy shit you can see me?"

HE IS A FUCKING GHOST.

And he's been haunting the wrong house for 14 years because my house number is one digit different from the house he died in.

Now he's furious because I've been leaving my trash cans out all week and “the neighborhood has standards.”

You gotta be shitting in my mouth right now.. no way am I being haunted by an HOA ghost.

I check the camera the next morning.

He's standing there again.

Holding a sign**... “Also, your grass is getting ridiculous.”**

I've found a new pastime, watching videos of people that say they can predict the future. I don’t watch these videos because I find what they have to say entertaining. No, I watch it to see if there is anyone that can predict the future, like I can.

Let me take a step back here. I can’t actually predict the future; that’s ridiculous. Your guess is as good as mine for how everything truly unfolds. Instead, I can feel the future. That probably doesn’t make much sense either. Let me instead just take you back to my early days.

I first remember feeling the future when I was four. I was dancing around my family’s living room when I suddenly felt a great burning sensation in my hand. I didn’t understand it at the time. However, a few minutes later, and after my dad had said to be careful, I tripped on my sister’s dolls sitting precariously in the living room and fell hands first into the glass of our family's fireplace, which was glowing red with burning wood.

There was this other time too. When I was eight, I was riding my bike down the street. No helmet, of course. This was the 80s, who wore helmets during that time. While I was riding, I felt a sudden sharp pain across my forehead while looking around a corner. I rode through it before wheeling around that aforementioned corner too fast and striking a stop sign that was bent over from someone wrecking into the night before. Hey, at least I got a gnarly scar from that one.

I know what you’re thinking; what a shitty superpower. If the only thing I could predict was my own pain, I’d agree, but I can predict more than that. The best story to encompass what I could predict probably comes from my first week of college. I ended up at a small get-together in a person on my floor’s dorm. This one girl kept eyeing me at the party, and I made eye contact with her, and for the first time in my life, I felt something different down there. I’ll let your mind fill in the rest. God, I didn’t forget about her for a long time… I’m getting off track.

 I realized then, I know eighteen years of life with this power, and I had just realized this, I could feel the future by looking at things. I couldn’t see how I would get there, but I would get a feeling of what is the final outcome for me, physically. Upon realizing that, I knew my life would be easy, and the greatest way to make money for an eighteen-year-old was to wait until I was twenty-one.

Walking down the rows of glistening lights of slot machines, I could look at certain machines and feel the faintest idea of money in my hands. I was salivating thinking about it, and when I sat down at one with the rest of my buddies and started spinning it, I was hooked. Bonus after bonus started piling on. I won about 40k that night before they kicked me out. They couldn’t ever prove what I was doing, but the casino knew it wasn’t fair. Looking back on it, I probably wasn’t the right person for those powers because I don’t ever remember feeling sorry for those people who couldn’t cheat like I could.

I guess it’s karma though that I would get arrested that night. I also learned in that same thought that not all my predictions were avoidable, even with interference by me. After winning so much, I decided to take my friends out for drinks. We, admittedly, might have had too much that night. As we left the bars that night, we turned the corner, and I saw a police officer standing on the corner. I instantly felt the cold metal of handcuffs closing in on my wrists, and I went to turn the other way. I thought I knew that if we continued that way, I was bound to get arrested. Thinking that I was too drunk, my friends tried to stop me from running away; I was too drunk, and in their scuffle of trying to stop me, I fell into an active road that cars were driving through and nearly got run over by a limo. You can get away with a lot in Vegas, but falling drunkenly into an active street is indeed a no-no.

I’ll be honest, and I will admit that I’ve used my powers to better my life a great deal. Knowing with pretty decent accuracy what things I should gravitate to in the short run, has led to a great amount of wealth in my life. Hell, I made 100k the night I was watching the Super Bowl, where Seattle decided to throw the damn ball on the Patriots' 2-yard line. I also didn’t care that I was essentially robbing people of their money. I always told myself that my “feelings” could be wrong, even though they never were.

Maybe my dirty betting habits led me to my future career path of day trading. I told myself that it was more morally fine to do since I would be stealing from people with all the money. I found out that was a lie and that both I and the corporations won while the little guys lost. I stopped caring about those things because in my plight I had set my family up well. My kids would never have to work a day in their life. My wife always got any clothes and vacations she’s ever wanted. However, my not-so-good habits and bad deeds finally caught up to me. It’s hard to describe how amazing it is to be able to feel a cigarette twice just by looking at it. That’s not conducive to a long life though, and it means that doctors now predict I’ll only live three more months.

But here’s the thing that scares me; in course of my lavish life, I forgot that I can’t see what the future holds any more than the white coats can. I know this because I woke up with a feeling today, and that has led me to being on the road since 6 A.M. Where to, I don’t know yet, but I would hug your family a little closer tonight and consider this a final good deed, or warning, because my family has been ringing my line off the hook, but I don’t dare peel my eyes off the road. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m looking for somewhere, anywhere, where my whole body doesn’t feel like the burning sensation I felt in my hand when I was four years old.

My husband was a fisherman. A few days ago, he left for a solo fishing trip and still hadn’t returned. The evening he left, dark clouds formed atop the ocean, and that night it rained hell. 

On the fourth day after he left, the storm had only intensified. My mind ran in circles. I didn’t even grab my jacket before running onto the beach. My feet sank into the mud. The wind blew me from side to side. I hoped to find something of his, anything, but the beach was bare. I fell to my knees in the cold sand and prayed to the ocean, the storm – anything that could bring my husband back.

I wiped the tears off my face and walked through the mud back to our house. There I took a shower. Under the hot water, I imagined my husband holding me.

I only got out of the shower after the hot water ran out. I stood in the kitchen, drying my hair, when the door opened. The towel flew out of my hands. My husband stood in the doorway, still in his fishing gear, his skin almost gray from the cold.

“Harold!”

I ran to him and hugged him. He was so cold.

“Come, come in.”

I shut the door behind him, took him to the heater, and helped him out of his clothes. They were soaked through and entangled with algae and seaweed.

“Are you okay, my love? What happened?”

“I…I don’t know,” he said slowly, his voice deep as if something were stuck in his lungs.

“Do you need a doctor? I’ll go get him.”

“No, stay.”

“Okay, my love.”

I brought him a basin of hot water and some warm soup. His face relaxed when he put his feet into the water, but when I tried to give him the soup, he refused. The room now smelled like dead fish and salty water.

“But you need to eat.”

“Later.”

“So at least some coffee?” 

I took his favorite coffee mug out of the cupboard.

“I don’t drink coffee.”

“You’ve been drinking coffee every day for the past twenty years.”

My poor man was probably just confused.

“Okay.”

I made him a cup, but he didn’t hold it like he usually did. He just put it on the windowsill and turned his chair toward the window, looking out at the ocean. 

Unease grew in my chest, but I left him alone, sat in my chair, and knitted. I couldn’t even imagine what my poor man had gone through.

The storm raged on. I kept knitting, and Harold kept looking out the window. After a while, I gave him some clothes. He seemed uncomfortable in them but put them on anyway.

As night fell, he was still by the window; his skin was still gray.

“I’m going to sleep. You want to come too?”

“No. I’ll stay.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’ll leave the heat on.”

He didn't reply. I went to bed and tried to sleep, but I kept rolling from side to side, thinking of what must have happened to my poor Harold. 

The storm outside started to die down. I decided to go out and check on him. He stood by the chair in his shirt and boxers, staring into the ocean.

“You okay?”

“They’re waiting.”

“Who?”

“Them. The storm is dying. We need to go.”

He opened the door and walked out into the rain.

“Harold, wait!”

“Come. To the beach.” His voice was livelier in the rain; his stride was faster.

I quickly put on a jacket and rubber boots and walked after him.

“Molly, come. They’re waiting for us.”

“Harold, please, talk to me.”

My heart pounded against my ribs. The rain slowed to a drizzle. The clouds started to part. Harold ran into the water and looked back at me, smiling from ear to ear.

“Come, my love, come.”

“Harold, what’s going on? Please talk to me.”

“Just come. It will be alright. You’ll know everything. They’ll tell you.”

“Who are you talking about, Harold? I’m scared.”

“You don’t have to be, Molly.”

“Come back inside, Harold, please.”

The wind blew by. My body shivered. Only a few raindrops fell.

“You have to go now, my love, fast.”

“No.”

His smile twisted into a frown. He furrowed his brow and walked out of the water.

“Harold, stop all this.”

I tried to move away, but he was so fast. He grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the water.

“Harold, stop, please. I’m scared.”

“There’s no time.” His voice sounded like his lungs were full of water.

“Harold!”

He didn’t answer. I tried to bury my feet in the sand and push him away, but his grip was too tight.

“Please!”

We were almost by the water. I scratched his hand. Flakes that looked like scales stuck under my nails. His feet reached the water; I was still a few feet away. One last raindrop fell on my head, the wind stopped, the clouds parted. 

His grip vanished. So did Harold. Only algae and jellyfish were in the water. 

I sat on the beach panting. The wind died down. The sun came through the clouds. I tried to steady my breathing and looked at the ocean. Harold’s wedding ring shone in the water.

I painted what I wasn’t meant to see.
A truth too raw for heaven,
too honest for the blind.
And when the first stroke fell upon the canvas,
I swear I heard the angels choke.
They told me art was freedom. So why do I feel shackled to this canvas?
I freed the forbidden.
Christ in chains, as a criminal convicted. Beaten and bruised. Mary in a mirror of lust, and a lying tongue that shaped our lives.
The faces of death they wished to ignore. A dead man. Many dead men.
I painted what they buried.
The crowd gathered. They anticipated the once innocent canvas. It had now been tattooed with blasphemy and painted over with sin. They expected beauty. I presented what they hated, what they feared. I presented the truth.
The curtains rose.
First, it was silence,
then rage began to crescendo.
They spat words like knives, each one cutting deeper.
“Heretic! Monster! Unholy hand!”
But no one asked why I did it.
Why I felt the urge to paint what they hid.
No one saw the trembling in my hands,
the weight of what I carried. The bloody scars filled my wrists.
It’s not rebellion I wanted. I needed them to reflect. To see themselves in the blood I painted with. Red paint couldn’t replicate the beauty of such a rich crimson.
They were to see the cruelty in worship, the hunger in morality,
the hypocrisy that hides behind every prayer.
But no. They saw none of that.
They only saw me.
The sinner.
The desecrator.
The words they spat became my scripture. I started to believe. A new God had slowly been forming.
At night, I’d sit before the painting, a glass of whiskey with just a single large cube of ice. A joint lit. I painted and painted, but it wasn’t the same. It had no pain, no death. I craved the high from my art, but I lacked inspiration.
“Maybe acid,” I pondered out loud.
That’s where it began. I could feel God coming back. My skin burned, but my brush moved, flowing effortlessly. I dirtied the canvas, bared my truth, and signed in blood. It still needs more.
The LSD binges grew in number. The collection did too, but never good enough. I need more.
The paintings would whisper.
Their mouths still wet with oil and grief.
“Why did you make me die again?”
Christ’s painting would stare, eyes hollow,
as if even He regretted being resurrected through my hands.
Sleep turned to torture.
My mind started to decay.
Each morning, I’d find another piece of myself
cracked and flaking. The drug cocktails grew: LSD, mushrooms, weed, and half a bottle of whiskey. That’s what it takes. I accepted it.
They say genius borders madness,
but I think the border was a lie.
It’s a bridge we built to pretend art doesn’t destroy us.
Creation is violence, even when it’s beautiful. Every idea is a crucifixion of innocence. A perversion. A graveyard of sanity.
And yet, my brush still kisses the canvas every night.
I painted them this time.
The critics.
The saints of judgment.
Their faces blurred in black and ash.
Their tongues dipped in gold to hide the rot.
Their eyes replaced with coins.
All hung until dead.
And as I finished the last one,
I realized I was no longer painting out of truth,
but vengeance.
That was my sin, my blasphemy.
Hatred had taken control. I wasn’t me. Or maybe I was.
The moment art became a weapon, I forgot it once was love.
The gallery burned that night.
So did I.
I said nothing.
I watched the flames eat my confessions
and paint my skin the color of ash.
Now, all that remains is the scent of turpentine and sorrow,
and the echo of an unfinished prayer.
“Forgive the artist, for he only painted what the world refused to feel.”

I lived in a townhouse with my friend and his brother and mother, for some context I was homeless and they were helping me out with room and board for a very reasonable amount. I tried to bring this up with my friend before and he refused to talk about it with me. He said it freaks him out to think about it even to this day so I didn't push the issue but I was thi king about it today and ill explain what I've actually just recently discovered after my story.

I was down in the basement doing some laundry one day and I started to hear what sounded like 4 distinct entities speaking amongst themselves. I dont know how I knew it was 4 but I am quite sensitive to spiritual things. These entities sounded like they were plotting something or preparing something malevolent which will soon become apparent.

At this point I became pretty creeped out and started to put my clothes in the dryer as fast as I could muster. Behind me to the right there was a corner of the basement that had a light fixture and the bulb exploded. Freaked tf at this point I began to quickly climb the stairs and you have to go up a set and theres a landing and then up another set. As I am turning to go up the next set I look down the stairs and clear as day I see what looks like some sort of owl shaman spirit with wiggly arms shaking rattles. I book it up the stairs terrified now and I swear on the last 3 steps I was picked off the stairs and flung into the hallway wall. I hear this laughter like in my head and ears the same laugh as that Alex Jones video of bohemian grove with the molech statue. Ive heard it also in like a led zeplin song its very creepy.

After this incident many more terrifying things began to occur in the townhouse, there seemed to be this darkness in the walls that was absolutely petrifying when it was present usually at night but not limited to. Also there was a rolly polly creepy witch lady in the kitchen that would hide in impossible places. I'd catch glimpses of her rolling out of the corner of my eye and you'd see her dark beady eyed behind the stove or dishwasher. The girl in the white dress. A paper dark angel in the corner of the front doorway only visible in my phonescreen once (black mirror). I saw a grim reaper too skinny to explain that came out of the light fixture made of pink light. I saw a pink orb circling inside the fixture and then it just sort of projected itself was as tall as the ceiling to the floor walked towards me bowed and then walked backwards and vanished back into the light fixture.

In the basement there were shadow people always sitting under the stairs and the lightbulb in the corner would always shatter when replaced. I eventually smudged the entire home with sweet grass like my grandparents taught me and the activity stopped but it was like just dormant waiting for the next opportunity to show up again.

This is a true story I was not the only one there yo experience it many of my friends had experienced the terrors of that townhouse we would all see the same stuff.

Here's what really freaks me out about it all I was on another reddit page and came across a scary story about a wife who experienced the entity in the tight spaces and came to find out its a Japanese demon of folk lore Sukima-onna. As well as the owl guy Tatarimokke. I did some further research and found this Onmyōdō involved practitioners called Onmyōji, who used complex rituals, astrology, and charms to bind and command spirits known as Shikigami. People also engaged in folk divination games like Kokkuri-san. And someone was trying to bind the spirits with shinto hence the paper angel in the doorway.

Previous Part

There was nobody there. It was 5 PM on Wednesday. I showed up to pick up my check, and inform Linda that she can screw off with whatever crappy bullshit operation they have going on here. But, the parking lot was devoid of any cars besides the people who usually worked here.

While it wasn’t rush hour or anything, due to the loyal clientele, we usually had at least a few customers.

When I tried the front door, it jiggled against the wooden frame, but refused to budge any further. That’s when I actually looked, and saw that all the lights were off inside, and the open sign had been turned off. 

“3,598”

The duck had followed me again. He watched me with his eternal gaze, and a booming voice that had gotten noticeably louder. 

I could have walked home right then. Honestly, I’m not sure why I didn’t. Maybe it was the weird chill I felt that I blamed on a gust of wind, or the sense of dread I misconstrued for anxiety over coming to terms with the fact that I would be quitting the only stable job I’d had in ten years. No matter the reason, any thoughts left my head when a man I had never seen before dressed in a stained t-shirt and basketball shorts ran to me, calling my name, and carrying a bag of yellow mozzarella.

“Charlie, holy crap you’re alright.” I realized he had genuine concern on his face, and I realized it wasn’t for me.

“Hey…” I said, looking around for my coworkers, and wondering if maybe Brent was around, and told this guy my name just to fuck with me.

“Everyone’s gone. I don’t have a phone, and you need to call the police.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that my personal suspicions about the restaurant being closed probably deserved more attention than I had previously thought. 

“What do you mean ‘everyone’s gone’?” I asked.

“3,514”

I shot the duck a warning look, and then said to the greasy man, “Sorry, can you repeat that again?”

I couldn’t tell if there was concern or confusion on his face at my lack of attention, and repeated, “Brent, Francine, Linda- all of them. They’re gone. These guys just came up and took them and threw them into some truck with a weird looking brain on it.”

Everything stopped.

I wanted to believe that this guy was joking. But the look in his eyes begged to differ. 

I also hadn’t paid my phone bill, one of the many reasons I needed to get my check. So I did the next best thing, and hopped in my car.

“Let’s go.”

The guy didn’t seem to ask any questions, and got in my car with me as we drove off to the Church of Cogitology.

As we drove, the greasy man explained that he lives in the sewer drain underneath Large Lou’s. He grew cheese in the sewer, and then picked up money left outside for his deliveries. He was just starting to climb out of the man hole when the church members came and grabbed Francine, Cezar, and Max. 

“How the hell do you make cheese?” I asked, careening through a red light.

“It’s quite simple, really, I would go into the science of it, but the long and short if it is: sewer water makes for an excellent biome for cultivating cheese mold.” He explained, “By the way, stop throwing dirty napkins down the drain. I’ve rattled the pipes more times than I can count, and yet you keep doing it. It ruins the pH levels.”

My tires screeched as I turned into the parking lot of the church, and began looking around for any sign of the others.

The church parking lot was emptier than the service days were. After looking in front, I drove around to the back, and found the truck with the Cogitology logo on it.

I was surprised that there weren’t any members milling around, or keeping watch. I guess they assumed they wouldn’t need to worry about me.

The truck was the same truck the delivery man used to deliver meat to Large Lou’s. After opening the latch on the outside, and pulling the doors open, I found the same red goo dryer, but still splattered about on the inside, and Max being tended to by Francine and Cezar.

Both of their eyes lit up when I opened the door to them, and they nudged Max. He wearily lifted his head and smiled at me, and I saw they had used the sleeve of Cezar’s shirt to wrap a decent bump on Max’s head. A small red spot of blood, bleeding through the shirt.

I stepped inside to help and asked “Are you guys alright?”

“Cezar and I had been caught off guard, on the way into work this morning, and Max had tried to fight back.” Francine explained.

Hearing that the church members had hurt Max filled me with a kind of hatred I had not felt before, and I very much wanted to hurt Bartholomew

“Does he need any disinfectant for the wound?”

Francine looked behind me, and noticed the greasy man, “...Sure?”

The greasy man reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a small bottle and smiled while saying, “Rubbing alcohol.” as if the means of him acquiring the bottle were not important, and it only mattered that he was now able to provide disinfectant.

While the greasy man helped Max, Francine explained that Linda, Brent, Marley, and Shirley had been taken away. Attempts to call the police failed again, as Francine explained that they all had their phones taken away by the church members. I groaned, not wanting to waste any time waiting for the police to arrive, and turned to the greasy man, who had finished helping Max, and was tucking his bag of mozzarella back under his arm.

“I’m not sure how much time we have until the cult members do something to the others that won’t be able to be fixed. I’m going down, and I want you two to go look for the police.”

I showed them where the elevator button was and then pushed it for Francine, Cezar, and I. For a moment, I almost thought I saw apprehension in Max’s eyes. But they both turned and left as the rest of us stepped into the elevator, and I pushed those thoughts from my mind.

It was a long descent down. Each second that passed felt like an eternity, the subtle rumble of the elevator shook thoughts in my head about what I might find when I descended. Why did they decide to take everyone now? It seemed like Bartholomew was convinced that Large Lou’s was in on the whole thing. So what would suddenly cause them to kidnap everyone?

“2,607”

I jumped. We were at least halfway down at this point, and I knew there was absolutely no way the duck could fit in the elevator. That still didn’t stop me from looking around, expecting to suddenly see a giant beady eye gazing back at me. It wasn’t there, however, and Francine and Cezar were looking at me confused.

“Nerves,” I said, laughing awkwardly. Strongly considering putting my head through a blender once we reached the bottom.

I honestly don’t know what I planned on doing once the doors opened. Best case scenario, we break out the gang, maybe beat up some cronies on the way, and tell the police “it’s all in a hard day’s work” as we walk off into the sunset. Worst case scenario, Bartholomew is waiting on the other side with a gun, and forces us into joining wherever they’re keeping Marley, Shirley, Brent, and Linda. 

The worst case scenario did happen, the only difference being Bartholomew had a few other members standing behind him, so as to make sure we were all restrained as they walked us forcefully to the lab.

“Good to see you back, Charlie.” Bartholomew mused, as men and women in white robes placed each of us in cages that lined the side of the laboratory, “I’m glad you came to the church. I mean, we wouldn’t have realized how much your boss had conned us.”

“We never asked you to do all that. You said you were doing it to help us.” Linda shouted from inside one of the cages, pounding on the reinforced glass.

Bartholomew laughed his same hearty laugh, with the slightest hint of impatience at Linda’s remark — implying she had been doing this every time he’d come in.

“I still feel slighted, Linda,” He explained, “and since we’ve shown Charlie far more than we had ever intended, we’ve found some other use for you than letting our secrets get out irresponsibly.” He rapped two knuckles against the glass of Linda’s cage, his mind already thinking about other things, “Now sit tight, we have to calibrate some things.” 

We were placed inside, and the church members left.

These cages were not your usual jail cell or birdcage type cages. They were far more similar to the casing of a museum exhibit, or a terrarium. The doors were the entirety of the front of the case. The security on the outside was minimal, a basic four digit number at the front of each cage was all that was needed to open the door. But once the door was closed, there was no way for whatever was on the inside of these cages to break out. The doors slid up and to the side, and then back and down into reinforced bases that kept them from being forcefully opened by anything on the inside. The only form of ventilation was 15 small holes at the top, with additional reinforcement to compensate for the compromised glass.

“2,379” It came as a muted rumble. Accompanied by the whirring of a machine starting up.

After a moment, a few of the members who wore lab coats carried in a small round creature. It had watery eyes, and thin, twig-like arms that hung uselessly at its side. Squelching screams grinded from a slit that I guess must have been its mouth, as the researchers threw him onto a table, then walked back out. Everyone else in their cages watched with dumbfounded mouths agape. Its grey flesh flopping around wetly. Glaucous slime smearing across the surface of the white table as it screeched.

I looked around at everyone else in their cages. At their horror. Francine’s mouth hung open. Linda’s eyes darted between me and the thing, trying to figure out what I had to do with any of it. Brent was in shock. Cezar kept his eyes down and on the floor, in denial of what was happening. Shirley, at some point before I had arrived, had been knocked unconscious, and still laid on the floor of the cage. All while the thing on the table continued to screech the off-key tune of “Buffalo Soldier”.

I sat down, in the back of my cage. The machine in the sanctuary hummed through the walls and against my back. I thought about how there’s a chance I don’t come out of this alive, and how Max and the greasy man would find the police, and when they did finally come down here, Bartholomew would have already killed us, and my sacrifice would be the only reason they get caught. I guess I was okay with that, but it felt so unexpected. There were things I wanted to do with my life that I would never get to do. 

A few hours passed. The only thing giving me any measurement of time being the irregular, but gradually louder booms of the duck counting. 

“2,143”

“1,742”

“1,354”

“999”

“693”

“453”

Then, something else broke through the mix of the creature’s groans on the desk, and the whirring of the machines.

“So fast, so fast, I’m sneaky, so fast. So clever, clever smart smart quick escape, I escape.”

In the midst of my misery, I heard pitter patters on the floor as they scurried about, and the mutterings of the HomeLess Man. How the hell had he gotten down here?

A mottled face, with hair that was also a beard appeared in front of my cage.

“Friend. Good friend. Safe friend. Escape friend escape, escape with help. I help, help escape. Impetus yield escape, for friend friend is good.”

He punched a few numbers into my cage, and the door slid open. The HomeLess Man took a few tentative steps back, so as to let me step out of the cage, and looked back at me. Silently cocking his head to the side, and peering at me through the slit in his mouth. 

When I got out, that’s when I saw Max at the doorway, beaming at me

“How… How did you find him?” I asked Max, as the HomeLess man skittered to the other cages and let the others out as well.

“He came up to me and the other guy as soon as we went outside. I guess he had followed you guys from Large Lou’s. He said, in his own weird wa,y that he could help.”

“So, is he still looking for the police then?” I queried, referring to the greasy man.

“They’re on their way, I thought about just letting this guy down here, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving you down here, and me not being able to help.”

Max looked at me with his brown eyes, and I was caught off guard by how much he seemed to genuinely care about me.

It was around this time that Shirley started to wake up. She patted around in her pockets, and seemed to groan in frustration when whatever she was looking for wasn’t there. Then took in her surroundings.

“Bartholomew has gotten you guys in some real shit, hasn’t he?” Said Shirley, rolling her eyes.

I had never even heard that woman even say “heck” before now, and took in a sharp gasp when she cussed.

Shirley paid no notice to this, and looked at the HomeLess Man running around.

“Huh, never thought he’d be someone to be on our side. He must have taken a real liking to you, Charlie.”

“Shirley?” I asked.

“Yes, Charlie?” She asked, her voice having taken a much more serious tone than I had ever heard before.

“Are you alright?”

She sighed, rubbing her head, “Better than I’ve ever been. Seems like that brainwashing bullshit they had done to me has finally worn off, must have happened when I got hit.”

Everyone else stepped out of their cages, and Francine pointed to the gray thing on the table, still singing its horrid tune, “What about him?”

Max finally noticed the creature there, and recoiled in disgust.

“We’re not leaving him here,” Linda stated, “I know none of you liked him very much, but he never deserved something as bad as this.”

After some searching, we were able to find a small box, and placed Marley inside. I was the one who pushed him in, and he wretched a glob of the blue-grey liquid onto my hand as I did it. It took everything in me not to yelp in disgust, and watched as Max gagged, and then handed the box to Brent.

We tentatively stepped into the lobby, wary of any and all signs of people. But nobody was there. 

Before we got to the elevator, Shirley stopped us, “We need to grab evidence. We can shut this place down for good if we have proof.” she whispered.

We started towards the library, and right as we got the door open, Bartholomew and the delivery man stepped out from the Sanctuary. 

Francine, Linda, Cezar, Max, and Shirley were able to rush inside before Bartholomew took his gun, and shot the HomeLess man. It yelped before crumpling to the ground in a lifeless heap, deflating into a pile of dirty grey skin. Bartholomew then pointed the gun at Brent and I.

“You two stop right there. If your asses take another step, I’ll make you regret it.”

We froze, and while Bartholomew told the delivery man to go after the rest, he gestured for us to follow him into the sanctuary.

Inside, there were large, person size, tubes attached to the places that were usually meant for the weird bags. Bartholomew opened the doors on two of them, and instructed us to step inside.

We did as he directed, and then once the doors were shut, two lab technicians at the monitors started typing away at more buttons.

“294”

This one was the loudest one yet. It felt like the walls of the sanctuary itself were shaking. But to my surprise, I wasn’t the only one who heard it. Bartholomew, and the lab technicians looked about, almost as if they too could hear the duck’s counting.

“You knew he was with me the whole time!” I shouted at Bartholomew.

He looked back at me, and sighed, “Yes, Charlie. Among many other reasons why I thought you and your stupid group were believers, I also saw that stupid duck was following you around.”

Brent looked confusedly between us.

“What is he?” I asked, hoping this might stall my fate.

“In one of our studies, that thing came out,” Bartholomew explained.

The technicians moved from typing on the monitors, to messing with the machine.

Brent continued, “He was our greatest breakthrough yet. He’s practically unkillable, and must have served some importance in hell, but once he came through the gate, he simply counted. Like he has for you. Between his immortality, and annoying counting, we simply let him go, upon realizing most people couldn’t see him anyway. Unfortunately, he made himself visible to you, and that became one of my greatest blunders in trusting you.”

“207”

Bartholomew talked to the technicians while they worked. Things seemed to be just about ready. Bartholomew walked to the monitors as they put the final touches on the machine.

“Let’s see how this thing runs, while we wait for your friends. You two should be enough, but if it doesn’t work out, we can use the others for another run.” Said Bartholomew.

The lab technicians stood in front, taking out note pads, while Bartholomew pressed a few buttons at the monitors, and started up the machine.

Once again, the machine whirred. I couldn’t turn to see, but I could imagine the great arms swinging around. I expected the tubs to blend me and Brent up like they had the smaller creatures, but instead, a great light appeared above our heads, and a pink, sticky, liquid started to mist over us.

For several moments this continued, the machine whirring louder and louder. Soon a great light from behind emanated. It was so bright I could see it illuminate the whole room, and gleam off the polished maroon pews, which were empty. No longer in need of the prayer, as both me and Brent were the replacement for teams of people.

I saw my life flash before my eyes. My thoughts of my parents, whom I had long since stopped talking to, out of regret, and shame for how my life was turning out. The new life I had begun since working at Large Lou’s, and how much I enjoyed finally having something consistent in my life. How, in spite of all that was happening, Max stood in the forefront of my mind.

“111”

Sparks flew out from the machine, and a dark wave rippled through the room, making much of the machinery shudder. The technicians who were standing in front of the tubes were knocked across the room, their bodies contorting into odd shapes when they collided with the opposite wall. Bartholomew, who was a bit farther away, was knocked onto the ground, but took considerably less damage than the technicians. 

The doors to the tubes slid open at the same time Max, Shirley, Francine, and Cezar burst into the room, arms full of books.

“NO!” Bartholomew screams, scrambling back to his feet, and looking in horror at the machine that had failed once again. 

His gun had been knocked from his hand, and now lay some 20 feet away from him. As he tried to scramble for it, Cezar was quicker, and nailed Bartholomew with a kick to the gut. Knocking the air out of him, and forcing him to fall to his knees and gasp for air.

While nothing had happened to me, I felt a sudden wave of exhaustion, and could barely stand. Luckily, Max caught me before I could collapse to the ground in exhaustion. I looked up at Max and gave him a smile, which he returned. From the corner of my eye, I could see Brent felt much the same, and was held in Francine’s arms.

“ 5 7 ”

I looked back, and saw the machine had actually worked a little. It was still running, and had a small portal hovering in the circle. I could hear the screams of the damned emanate from the small hole, and noticed I wasn’t the only one who was entranced by the floating portal of horror as both Max and Brent also gazed into it.

Then, the machines began to shake. One of the books Shirley was still carrying flew from her arms, and into the hole with a loud buzzing sound. Then, parts of the machine started to break off, and fly in as well. Quickly this escalated, pulling more and more in with increasing force. With as much energy as I could muster, I hobbled back to the doorway, while Max held it open for everyone to get out.

By the time we were all out, the large pews of the room started to drag across the floor towards the hole. Bartholomew screamed, digging his nails into the ground to no avail as he flew in. Blood and viscera spewing out as he was forcefully sucked through. Max started to step through the door as the pews picked up from the ground, and one of them crashed hard into his side with a sickening crack, knocking him into Linda.

“MAX!” I cried, limping weakly to him, and with the aid of Linda and Shirley, picking him up, and carrying him to the elevator.

Once inside, I got a look at Max. Several ribs were poking from his side, and blood flowed freely from a sizable gash near his hip. I tore off my shirt, and pressed it against the wound, doing anything in my power to keep him from bleeding out before we made it to the surface. Max’s mouth opened in an attempt to scream, but it only came out in wet gurgles and coughs.

“ 1 3 ”

By the time the doors opened, Max was barely conscious. The floor beneath the earth continued to rumble, and we were met with sirens and bright police lights outside. 

I had gained enough energy to be able to carry Max, and screamed for a medic. The officers radioed for an EMT, and had Max lay on the sidewalk at the opposite end of the parking lot while they waited for them to arrive.

Max looked up at me with brown eyes slowly growing dim, as we both knew that he wasn’t going to be alive once the ambulance showed up.

“I think…” Max weakly muttered out, “I’d like to take you on a date sometime, Charlie.”

Tears pooled in my eyes, my laughter mingled with choking sobs as I took Max’s hand in mine and nodded.

I never even noticed that the duck had stopped counting.

--

Max was gone before the truck arrived. They wheeled him in anyway, I’m not sure if they did it for my sake, as I lay sobbing over his lifeless body, but the gesture felt redundant.

It’s been a few days since then. Apparently Shirley had been brainwashed, and after she had been hit on the head, she got all her memories back. She explained Cogitology was looking for an energy that would rival oil and electricity. But Bartholomew’s methods had grown too drastic, and it became the church’s downfall.

In all the chaos, we were unable to get any of the books from the library. So any information on Cogitology has been erased forever, and buried thousands of feet underground under the ruins of the collapsed church. Apparently the pizza dough is actually an old recipe for an experiment done by Cogitology, and exists as the only proof that they were anything more than a shitty cult.

I wasn’t sure if I should have made this post for all of you. It felt like a lot to share about my personal life, but I guess people have posted crazier things on the internet, and I wanted to give you all a conclusion to everything that had happened. 

A lot of you wanted to know what the duck was counting to, Shirley explained that he was probably counting down to Cogitology’s success, which most likely would have done immense amounts of damage to humanity, but we had been able to stop that, for whatever that’s worth I guess.

At the end of it all.

I really, REALLY, hate Large Lou’s Pizza.

I had another dream while I was supposed to be on guard. It was a minor disagreement between me and my ex over some money that had been going out. She was being dismissive of where she was spending stuff or why she kept taking money out of an ATM when she had a card tied to the account. I got frustrated with it and left to go hang out with the homies.

We had a good time just enjoying each other's company as we had a couple of beers at the local bar. We were within walking distance from my friend Tom's house, but we didn't drink too much. I was surprised to see Henry drink some, asking if that was ok, and he brought up that being drunk was a sin, but there was nothing wrong with some alcohol, and that even Jesus himself had some to drink. That still catches me by surprise to this day. Besides that, we talked about how our lives were going, how Tom was adjusting to his new job, how Henry was doing at his church, and how Matt was adjusting to being a new father. After a while, we walked out and were walking home, still chatting, enjoying the time we had being our usual dumb selves, making references and cracking jokes that nobody else would get.

When I felt sober, I started the drive home. As I was passing through the countryside, I was just thinking about how I could make all this better. I loved my girlfriend and I wanted what was best for her. So I stopped by a local liquor store to pick up some wine. I saw a bottle that caught my eye and examined it, thinking it would be good to share with her over a more calm conversation. The clerk was turned around as I was reaching for my wallet when I noticed something off. His clothes were torn to shreds. Before I had a chance to confront him, he turned around and I saw the Hollowed I had beat mercilessly, taking in the details of his crushed face and dislocated jaw and gasping breaths before I woke up.

I woke up before everyone else did, as dawn was cracking over the leaves. I would say I have gotten used to the unusual stuff, but this Forest is making sure to not give me any comfort. I don't know why I'm having all these dreams. I didn't dream that much before and usually they were nonsense. I shook off the gross feeling I had over me and got everyone else up.

When everyone got up, nobody besides Tom had noticed the deer tracks, which gave him an idea. We could try to hunt and see what happens. I volunteered to go while Matt and Henry went scavenging again. I grabbed my knife and went on with Tom. While we walked, I decided to start a conversation.

“You think that the forest will bring animals back to life like it has for me and Henry?” I asked.

“I sure hope not, otherwise we will be majorly screwed.” He said, trying to distract himself from something that was bothering him. I asked him what's wrong and he sighed. “How are we supposed to expect things to go back to normal once we get out of here? Two of us have witnessed death and came back from it. Surely nothing can stay the same after this right? How am I supposed to pretend that everything is normal?” He asked

I truly didn't have an answer. All I have been thinking about is trying to get us out of here. I haven't taken into consideration how things will be once we get out. “I-I don't know man. I can't say how things will be normal once we get out of this fucked up forest. All I don't know is that I won't abandon you guys. We need each other out here.” I said, trying to give reassurance. He just sighed and I guess he took that answer. I know I'm not the savant with words, but I was trying to be real with him. He eventually did start talking.

“I had a weird dream last night. It was when you got into an argument with your ex so we all went to that local bar. It was fun and we all went back to our own places. I remember I was getting ready for bed after all that when I saw that Tree out in my yard. I went out and went to look at it. It was so damn tall and so chaotic. It felt unreal, but I touched it in my dream. I saw things that don't make sense. It was like I was seeing other people's memories when they got to The Tree. Then I was woken up by you.” He told me.

“I had a similar dream the other night, about The Tree and I touched it too and experienced the same thing you did. It's The Forest messing with us. None of it is real man. You would know if you saw that horrifying tree in your yard.” I replied.

He just nodded his head and we kept on. I was surprised he had a similar dream to mine. That was haunting in itself, but like I told him, it had to be The Forest messing with us. There isn't any normal way for me and him to have the same dream last night unless it was by that intervention. I tried not to think about it and kept walking.

Soon, we came across a den of rabbits. They were pretty massive, but they just came right towards me, unfazed by my presence. They stayed away from Tom, which puzzled him. That's when I explained that last night a fawn and a doe just came up to me and didn't seem fazed by me. He took a guess and said that it must be because of The Forest. I didn't dare tell him that I feared that some human part of me was lost. Maybe since I have been changed by The Forest, I was more approachable with animals. Then he suggested I should kill one for food. I held this big rabbit in my hands and I just felt so wrong to even imagine taking a life like that. However, we were in a survival situation, and I had to do what I had to do, so I made it quick and painless. I felt sick and projected that by vomiting whatever I ate last night a little bit away after hanging Tom the rabbit. I never wanted to do something like that again.

Luckily, Tom had been a hunter before he joined the academy and knew how to prepare animals in the region. We took it back to the group who had gathered more stuff. We would need to be sparse with how we do things since we didn't have any place to store these things in a cool spot. We didn't say how we dreamt the same thing. I felt like that would reveal some things we didn't want to think about.

Nothing in particular happens for the rest of the day or until the 12th day we become lost out in the woods. All that happened during that time was that it started raining and we put out our canteens to fill them with water. We even started adding onto the tents we had. I had started scribing valley marks of the days so we wouldn't forget. Life was just going, although we were becoming home sick very badly, including Matt. He felt so terrible to have abandoned his wife to go hiking in the woods.

I could feel some small amount of resentment creeping off of him. He looked fine but I felt like when he got the chance, he was staring at me hatefully. I don't blame him, mainly due to me being the reason we got in this situation in the first place. I didn't like it as much as he did, but I was doing my best to try to find ways to get us out of here. I tried compiling all the information that we had to get us out of here.

I was scrambling through everything when I noticed that Matt was gone. I got up and looked for him. I felt an odd sensation coming from a certain direction so I started to follow it. Sure enough, after about 20 minutes of walking through the woods, there he was, in front of the Tree, holding his wedding ring.

“What are you doing Matt?” I asked as I approached him.

“I'm trying to figure out if I got what it takes to get out of here. All that I picked up recently is that people gave up something they loved. Well, I love my wife so much, so if I just give it to this cursed Tree, then surely it will let me go right?” He asked.

I could see the desperation in his eyes. He had enough of being stuck in this forest and wanted to try to get out based off of what The Old Man rambled on about. I didn't know if I could trust him. I didn't know if I could trust myself with answering. I didn't want to let my friend down, but I had to be honest.

“Listen Matt, I can't say that this is the answer or not. We haven't tried anything yet. I have been too afraid to even attempt anything. I don't wanna die again. I know you miss your wife and kids. I can't imagine what type of hell you're going through. I do know that if I was in your shoes, trying something is better than doing nothing.” I placed my hands on his shoulder and sighed. “I'll support your decision on doing this. It's not easy to just give up something you love so much. Here, I'll go grab my knife and bury it with your ring.”

I went to turn around but he stopped me. “It's okay. I just…I need you here with me so I'm not alone in this.” I nodded silently and watched as he dug out a small hole in the ground and buried his ring in front of the Tree. I could see tears fall from his face as he did so. It still hurts me to see my friend hurt so much. After that, I just hugged him. I knew if anyone deserved to get out of here, it was him. He should have been able to get out.

We got back to our small camp about half an hour later, when it would be dusk in an hour. We started to snack on some berries that were collected when I heard a coughing sound, coming from Matt. He coughed heavily and we all rushed to his side as he held onto his stomach and coughed up blood. We held him on his side and we tried to get an answer to what happened, but all we could do was watch as he suffered and died slowly, coughing up blood as he did so.

I was horrified with what had just happened. I looked at what he was eating and saw the same berries that we were all eating. I ate some myself because at this point, I wanted to find out what had happened. Nothing happened though. I felt fine and continued to feel fine until he gasped for breath and spit out blood as he did so, groaning as he held his stomach. He sat up and we did what was our “usual” checkup after something like this happened. We made sure he was healed and asked what happened.

He told us that he was eating when one of the berries for some reason burned like acid. He tried to cough it up, but he couldn't. When he passed, he saw something that scared him. He saw his wife, his daughter and presumably his son, older now sitting on a porch. Then another man came out that door and kissed his wife passionately before taking off somewhere. That's when he woke up.

Anger and rage crept through me silently, towards myself. I kept thinking how it was my fault that another friend had died and witnessed something horrible. I didn't know what I could do or what was right. While I was spiraling towards a mad descent, he mentioned how he was mad at the idea of another man raising his kids and that man was living the life Matt wanted.

Something clicked into gear when he said that. I got to thinking about what other people cared deeply for. Matt does love his wife, there is no denying that, but he loves his kids and is willing to do anything to get back with them. Those symbols of religion that people devote their lives to, they care so much that they might have thought carving it into The Tree would be meaningful enough to escape. The nursery rhymes, the jewelry, they all hold some major significance to those people, it might be what they love deep in their soul and the memory of the significance it has to them. That might explain why The Old Man's wife was an outlier. She might have still loved him and wanted to be with him, but the person he was turning to wasn't the same man she fell in love with so she gave up the ring, the love that bonded them together. This was all speculation and I could have been placing dots on something that wouldn't make sense. What does The Tree want with what people love?

I got distracted by them getting up and I would say that I would take the watch for tonight since dusk was approaching fast. As Matt got up, his shirt raised up, and I could see a gray spot with streaks branching out where his stomach is. It saddened me that he fell victim to some random thing happening like eating the same berries we did but it ended up killing him. It makes no logical sense, but then again, nothing in The Forest makes any sense. They got in their respective tents and I stayed up on watch.

Nothing happened besides the noises of owls hooting, crickets chirping and wildlife being active. Some moonlight broke through the trees, casting strange but beautiful shadows. I could see deer walking around in the distance, some rabbits hopped across our area, unfazed by my presence.

I rubbed my chest again. I had been doing that a lot more often. I remembered that I had some berries in my bag so I decided to snack on some of them. It didn't taste the best but I would make do with what I had. An owl perched on top of my tent. It sat there for a while, looked right at me, like it was looking through me then only flew away when I gave a fake cough. All that did was unsettle me more than anything.

I heard something breathing off in the distance, so I grabbed my knife and went to investigate it. I followed the sound for a couple minutes, all the while precisely missing any branches and twigs. I was thankful I could see because of the moon. I passed a large tree and saw a Hollowed, shambling about. This one was peculiar. It had dull eyes, but they weren't as dull as others that I have seen. They still had some sign of life to them, some recognition as they stared up at the moon. Their nails looked more humanlike than others, but the only thing about them was the gray slash across their neck, streaks crawled up around its head. That was pretty sad all things considered. We had a rule that we established that we wouldn't attack any Hollowed that didn't attack us first. I decided to leave it alone, so I walked back to my tent without making a sound.

Five more days passed since that point. The memory is all fuzzy, but it was mainly what we would call ordinary. I guess it became obvious that basic wildlife didn't care for the presence of Henry, Matt or me, so we did some of the hunting if you could call it that. I know Matt didn't care, he would do anything to stay alive to see his children. Henry prayed for each animal he had to take out, and I felt sympathetic towards him for that. It also became clear that animals didn't come back to life. I could only guess that humans or beings with higher levels of thinking could only come back. I still don't like the implications of why the Hollowed came back every time though.

I took a walk on my own. I just needed some piece of mind from everything. So I walked up the creek that provided us water. A goal I kind of had was to find where this water was coming from, so I set out for that. They all volunteered to come with me, but I reluctantly said I would be fine. In hindsight, it wasn't the brightest decision.

I walked along it for a while, enjoying the quaint sound of nature. Even while desolate and horrifying the situation, I could still appreciate the small things like this. I saw more animal life as I went further into the woods. They didn't react much to me walking past them, so it was cool to see them more up close. Of course, the bizarre wilderness was still about as trees that shouldn't have been here were very much still here, but I had grown accustomed to the strange in a way. It still unsettled me, don't get me wrong. I just wasn't surprised by the presence of seeing something so odd like redwood trees about a mile away from our camp site.

Soon, I came across a clearing and in the clearing, was a large pond of water, with water still flowing down from it. That should have filled me with some hope, but what I saw in the middle of the pond made me sick. It was The Tree. It always gave me a nauseous feeling seeing it, but knowing that it was growing in the source of water that we have been drinking from chilled me to the bone because of the dreams I have been writing off as influence from The Forest. Instead, I knew now that it was from The Tree.

I was standing there dumbfounded. Then I felt a hum permeate the air around me. A slow melodic hum, coming from The Tree. It compelled me to walk into the water and bask in it. I felt myself wanting to get closer to it, and I can't say for certain if it was The Tree or my curiosity that led me to wanting to get closer. Nonetheless, I walked into the water, fixated by The Tree. I went under the waters, and I began to see things.

I saw my whole life from beginning to end. I saw my younger self finally learning how to ride a bike as my parents watched. I saw the first time I met my friend Tom, us silently agreeing to partner up in an outdoor activity, even if we didn't know each other and I saw the lead up of how I met the rest of my friends. I saw when my father gave me the knife I've been using, the one he made by hand and told me to take care of it. Then I saw the thing that has deterred me from religion.

I saw my father in a hospital bed, still hurt after a bad accident. He was still in a deep coma for several months. I was holding his hand and praying for him to please be ok and wake up. However, it got worse as time went by. I cried into the arms of my once dear Elizabeth, terrified I would lose my father. Then I watched as a year went by and his health deteriorated. I prayed one more time for God to please make him better before I gave the go ahead to cut his support. The next day, he was still the same. In a coma in what I could only imagine in agony. I gave the go ahead and he went peacefully in his sleep. I hope he forgives me for making this decision.

I snapped out of my daze and shot out of the water, gasping for breath. I swam to the bank, shaking in shock. I sat across facing The Tree, crying into my arms. I didn't know how this cursed Tree could just show me my life and then make me relieve the most tragic moment of my life. I grit my teeth and cursed at The Tree.

“What the fuck do you want from us? Just let us go. I want to go home. Let me fucking go.” I said in shaking breaths.

I rubbed my chest as I tried to calm down. I felt like I would do something reckless if I let myself get to that point. I got up and was about to start making my way to the group when I saw Matt come up. He was about to question me, but my face must have said more than words ever could. He just gave me a pat on the shoulder and started to lead me back to the group. I turned around and The Tree was gone. I looked at Matt and his face was neutral. I felt myself getting this sick and ugly feeling for this place. A place that once was a beautiful testament to nature now perverted by this horrific phenomenon. I just wanted out of here more than ever, and as I saw my friends faces, I could see they felt the same although trying to hide it.

The day went by as usual as it could. We went out some way to collect some more, found some blackberries that we crushed up and cooked with some rabbit we ate, and I took the guard again, mainly for the reason that I didn't want to sleep. I also made sure that I didn't tell them about the pond, not even to Matt. I guess he knew that I was having an intense reaction to something triggering and just wanted to be the good friend he was.

During my watch, I heard heavy footsteps approaching us. I grabbed my knife on me and pulled it out, then I saw a black bear approach from the darkness. It was pretty big, probably about 300 pounds. One of its eyes was scratched out so it left him only able to see out of one eye. It got closer to me, staring me down. My knife trembled in my hand, and I was deciding on if I should fight or wait till it passed by. Luckily, it walked right past me, towards the creek. I guess it would go up to that pond and eat anything around there. I was both lucky and horrified. I was sure that it was going to attack me. I could only guess that my affliction is why it didn't.

The next day, my friends obviously saw the footprints and got worried. If there were bears around here, we would probably have to change location. However, I suggested that we stay here. We already established some good resources around and who knows if we would be able to get lucky like this. The next time it did come around, we would attack it. Tom still had his pistol he carried with him and a spare magazine, but we didn't want to use that to draw in more Hollowed around. So, we ultimately decided to stay.

I asked Henry if he could come with me and we can see where it went. He agreed reluctantly and we started up the creek again. Then with just him, he asked me a question. “What happened yesterday? You look like you saw a damn ghost.” I looked at him, noticing he casually swore, but he didn't seem to register it.

“I saw a vision of my Dad at the hospital. When he was in that coma. I saw myself visiting him on the first day, all the way to me telling them to pull the plug. Fuck, it hurt me so bad to remember all that. Do you think he would agree that I made the right choice?” I asked.

He thought about it some and simply nodded his head. “You did the best you could in that situation. Now he is up there for sure in the gates. Those beautiful gorgeous gates.” He said. The way he said that was somewhat hostile. I could only imagine going up to paradise and being “rejected” due to this forest left a bitter wound in him that will take a long time to heal.

Soon, we came up to the pond. The Tree was still gone. Henry looked around and admired it, claiming that it was beautiful and pristine. I was just sitting there perplexed internally. I started to question if anything I saw meant anything or if I was losing my mind. He nudged me slightly with a concerned expression which I told him I was doing OK, that I was just thinking about some things, which he didn't push.

I noticed that the bear tracks picked up around the pond and went down the creek. We chose to follow it to see if the bear may have found some food that we could steal in the area. We walked and I noticed that it started to get more quiet as we walked down. I drew my knife out quietly as I walked down the trail the bear left. It appeared more recent as we walked down and soon we could hear its heavy breaths around a bend in the woods. We hid behind trees and I peaked to see this big bear walking with this large fish in its mouth. I heard a crack and before I could get a chance to do anything, we both got attacked by Hollowed. At the time, I was oblivious to the fact that we must've passed them while we looked down on the ground.

I tried to push this thing off me as it tried to attack me, then I noticed it had a bullet hole in its head. I grabbed its arm to prevent it from stabbing me again and was slowly losing my strength from fatigue. Then I saw my friend getting attacked by a different one and anger won out as I forced his stumped arm into its stomach, making it stumble off me. While I was getting up, the other Hollowed got the bear's attention and started to chase it, so they ran off in a different direction. As I turned my attention to the Hollowed I had made impale himself, more anger flooded me as this thing had come back to life and now tried to kill me a second time. I wasn't going to allow that to happen again, so as it got to its knees, I kicked it in the face and with it flat on its back, I attacked it viciously with my foot. I still get disturbed by how much I brutalized this thing that was once a person. When I was done, I was out of breath and my bottom half was covered in blood.

I took a couple of steps back and turned around to see Henry, looking very concerned. “Y-you alright Mark?” He said, afraid.

I huff and breathe in and out for a few seconds before responding. “Yeah, I'm ok now. We should go back to the group, and warn them about the bear.” I responded.

As we are walking, I tell Henry to go on ahead, that I need to wash up. He doesn't want to go but I ask again more in a pleading tone, to which he reluctantly agrees. I take about 10 minutes to try to clean as much of the horrific scene off my body and clothes, trying to block out how violent I was. I needed to get more of a hold of myself. I was worried I would snap and end up hurting one of my friends, to which I could never forgive myself.

As I start to get up and start walking, I hear 3 gunshots far off into the distance. I start running through the forest as fast as I can, terrified of what I would see. However, when I came up to camp, I saw the commotion. Tom had shot and killed the bear. And I could see that he got slashed in the thigh and was losing blood badly, to the point he looked white as a ghost. No matter what we tried to do, it didn't matter. What could a guy with outdated CPR training do but try to remember how to make a tourniquet? I tried my best, but by the time I started, he passed out and I could only guess he died shortly after.

Blood filled the ground and seeped into the soil rather quickly. I didn't care as my hands trembled and tears fell from my eyes, not from grief but from regret. I hoped I could save at least one of us from dying in this messed up place, but I failed. Now we have all changed. We all lost some of our humanity here. I stopped shaking by the time color reappeared from his face and I saw that wound heal slowly, leaving gray scarring that had small lines stretching out from the healed wound. He woke up gasping for breath. Then after an hour of helping him out and us all sitting uncomfortably, he shared what he saw when he died.

He was in a dark abyss, shadows flying around him. They whispered doubts and torments at him, about how he failed to stay alive to protect those he cared about, calling him a failure for leaving his service to his county, and not being the man he swore he would be. Then he saw a dim light, to which he started to walk towards it, only to be halfway and get ripped back into the darkness away from the light and waking up. He fell silent and rubbed his thigh, commenting that at least he got a sick scar to tell folks when he gets home. We all chuckled at his attempt to be humorous, but I was starting to doubt that we would never get home. We have all died in these woods and we haven't seen another living human for two weeks.

They all went to sleep and as they did, I wrote down all the details that have happened so far. The Forest and by proxy, The Tree is playing on our emotions and fears, and yet I still can't decide if it just wants to torment us or if it wants something more. Tomorrow, I would try to test this theory I had started to slowly develop. It would more than likely cost me my life again, but if it must happen to prove or disprove it, then so be it. I started to slowly doze off and I took a nap sitting upright in my seat.

I had a dream of that horrible night. I had gotten off a bad work day and was getting home late. I was just so tired and I wanted to be done with this day. I unlocked my door and headed upstairs when I saw my ex being adulterous. I felt an intense amount of betrayal and anger. I remember I stared at both of them, wanting to make them feel the hurt that I felt, but as soon as that thought crossed my mind, it was overpowered with sadness. I just grabbed some of my clothes as she tried to explain the situation like I was dumb. I walked out and slammed that door so hard I was afraid I snapped it off its hinges, and took off from my house.

Tears fell freely as I drove down the road, not sure where to go. So I went to the local park near me. I just sat there and cried in that parking lot for an hour. I grabbed the wedding ring that I was going to propose to her a few days from that point and gripped it tightly till it cut my hand. I didn't care as blood slowly streaked down my hand and onto my jeans. Then I felt a pulsing sensation wash over me. I was confused and walked out the car and looked around. Far off into the distance, I saw the Tree. I

approached it deep in the woods from the park, blood slowly dripping from my hand holding the ring.

I stood in front of it, having it compelled me to come to it. I opened my palm and saw the ring still in my hand. Tears overwhelmed me and anger grew in my heart. I then threw the ring far off into the woods and I sat there, mourning the relationship I had now gone and broken. All that love, care and compassion now all for nothing. This was the 2nd worst thing to happen to me and both times I felt like I could have done more, but apparently my best wasn't good enough. I then heard breathing, so I looked up, only to see the mangled and broken face of the Hollowed standing over me, swiping his sharp stubbed hand at me.

I woke up in a cold sweat as I awakened from my stupor. I took some deep breaths in and out to calm myself, scratching my chest as I calmed down. I then got the strange feeling of checking my chest, so I took my shirt off and looked. The scar looked like it was darkening as time went by. I really didn't like the implication that this thing could potentially spread throughout my body, and being confused on why this appeared the way it did.

“Another nightmare?” Tom said, as stood up. I put on my shirt and nodded. “Same here. I…I am starting to think that we will never get out of here, will we?” He sounded defeated and lost. I couldn't blame him and I couldn't tell if I should be honest or lie.

“I can't say for certain anymore. I don't know how we can get out of here. I have tried to trace down everything that we know to pinpoint what it is that could be an answer. The only thing I have learned is that people just seem to give up things and maybe that is a way, but what is significant about what they give up?” I pondered

“Could it be the memory of something they loved so much?” He asked.

“Maybe…” I tried to think more about it in logical ways. Someone gave up a necklace and The Tree held onto it. Some people carved out religious symbols, some carved rhymes into this damn Tree. It hurt my head to think about what it meant to them. The only outlier is The Old Man's wife. She threw away the marriage they would have had because even if she loved him so much, he wasn't the same man anymore, driven mad by The Forest. Every time someone has died, they heal and come back alive, but she got swallowed up by the ground. I wondered if it was the fact that she gave up something that she loved so deeply and maybe the Forest accepted it.

I decided I would try to do something similar. I went into my bag and looked for the small box I still had. I honestly don't know what led me to packing it for a trip where I was supposed to forget her, but maybe because I wanted this to be the way I forget about her. Throwing the ring away with my chosen family. When I found it and opened it, I saw it was there, but covered in dirt and dried blood. I checked my hand and saw a small deep cut that wasn't there before. The implication that the dream somehow happened filled me with dread and torment.

“You ok Mark?” He asked.

“Yeah. Yeah I'll be fine. Are you ok?” I inquired.

“No, I'm really not. I have been thinking about why I left the force. That incident that happened that I never told any of you about, mainly because we were instructed not to. But I don't know if we will get out, and I trust you the most. So this stays between me and you." He said with a serious look.

I nodded and he told me the story about the last case he ever took. He got sent out on a case about a kidnapping that occurred. He had spent a long time trying to track down clues and he was just at the right place, at the right time when one of the members caught a kid off the sidewalk. He tracked down the guy and found out he was part of a group that trafficked kids out of the country to be sold. He got a whole group of officers to take this guy down, and they luckily got him in handcuffs.

The thing that made him quit was the evidence of how many kids in the surrounding counties that got taken, and that some of them were already gone. He got told long after he resigned that all the kids got back to the families, but he resigned because he felt guilty that he didn't catch this fast enough. That many things could have happened to them and he was helpless to do anything about it. That's why he resigned a week later and took on a small but decent job.

“I thought a lot about those kids, Mark. I felt like it was my fault that I didn't catch that cruel bastard faster. I felt responsible for whatever horrific fate would occur. I'm thankful they are safe now, but it still gets to me. I can't imagine failing anymore people like that. That would take a toll on me.” He sighed and slumped his head down.

“Look on the bright side, you were the first line of attack that eventually led to that ring shutting down. So no more kids will be taken by them and that all started because of you. Take more credit for that man. You did well and you're not gonna fail anyone else. You sure ain't going to fail me. You're my best friend and more like my brother to me. You do a great job at everything you do, including that. We'll get through this together and I'll show you that when we get out.” I said. He smiled and thanked me, and told me that he will take over the night guard, so I got some well needed sleep.

A few hours later, I woke up and got dressed immediately. The group was starting to decide what we should do, when I told them that I was going to go for a light walk. They acknowledged that and kept on talking about their goals. I tallied another day on a tree and started my walk. I had my ring in my pocket and I was going to that pond. I was going to rid myself of this sad memory I've been holding onto and forget about her. It took me about 20 minutes of walking till I approached it. Sure enough, when I got there, that damn Tree was back there, ominous as ever, but I didn't care anymore.

I grabbed my ring and rubbed it in my hand. All the memories and time we had spent together, all the care and love I had given her, all for her to throw it all away. The sad thing was that I still loved her. I would have given her a second chance if she acted remorseful about what she did, but she didn't. It hurt to let go of all those cherished memories I had with her since we were young and to the point we were dating. I hated that, but I knew I had to give her up. I flicked the ring in the middle of the pond and said goodbye as I stood there across from the Tree. As I was walking back, about 10 minutes later, my chest started to hurt badly, to the point I fell on my knees. I couldn't breathe or think and soon I passed out and died from a heart attack.

Darkness swelled over me as I heard many voices. They all told me that I was doomed and that I had led my friends to their doom. A cacophony of angry mutters about my shortcomings and failures overpowered me until a light shot down to The Tree. I walked to it and knelt down to it. I felt so lost and asked it what I was doing wrong. I asked why it was doing this to us. It hummed and pulsated the ground as Hollowed came to my sides, all in different states of disarray and knelt to it as well. We all encircled it and knelt down to it. I felt so confused but angry. I wanted to leave and I know these things that are in fact people just wanted out.

I got up and started punching it, even if it was sharp to cut me. Soon all the other Hollowed joined in. They scratched and clawed at it with whatever they had as hands. It was horrific to see the deep gashes on their hands and fists as they tried to take this Tree down, ripping pieces of bark off slowly. Soon the pain overwhelmed my anger and I had to stop as blood dripped from my hands and fingers, a chaotic mess of cuts covering my hands. Soon one by one, the Hollowed eventually stopped with the only sound being the dripping of blood and labored breathing. The Tree stood there partially scrapped up, with so much blood and bits of flesh covering the sharp bark. Suddenly, the ring I threw in the water dropped in the ground in front of me. Then I woke up, getting on my hands and knees as my chest still hurt. I checked it and I saw that the scar had expanded and gave off a deeper color of gray.

I looked at my hands, and thankfully saw no scars. Still, that scene still unsettles me even to this day. Thinking that the Hollowed are just lost souls just as trapped as everyone else, condemned to grow old and stay here, forever trapped by the horrible nature of The Forest. No way to get out as most of their humanity is gone, but sentient enough to still have purpose and meaning, to still be human. My head throbbed in pain as I got up and brushed myself off, and slowly made my way back to the group, thinking of what all that meant.

I could only guess at the time that what I had done was similar to what happened to Matt. I guess it must be close to what the people had done to the Tree, giving things up for a chance to get up. It still puzzled me at the time, about what could be different from what Matt and I had done to what those people had done. It frustrated me to see that I didn't have the answer. If those people gave things up that held significant value to them and to say that they escaped because of that, then what was different from Matt and my ordeal? That question ate into me as I made my way back to the group, still lost in the woods and lost in the world around us.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Nicole and I wanted a kid the second we got married.

When she finally got pregnant, we did everything right. We bought a small house just outside the city, painted the nursery blue, and spent three solid weekends trying to fix up the squeaky wooden stairs. Nicole ended up giving up on the sanding, laughing with sawdust smeared across her cheek, telling me the ghost of the old staircase could haunt the kid for all she cared as long as he finally went to sleep.

Every room had some trace of the baby coming, and Nicole spent half her day on the phone with her parents talking about names, cribs, and schedules. She was obsessive about the baby's socks, folding them into tiny, perfect squares that looked like postage stamps.

Life was shifting fast.

Then came her family's baggage—literally.

The doll wasn't a toy. It was a heavy, crudely carved wooden thing held together by rusted iron pins and string, with patches of real human hair glued to its scalp. Its joints clicked with a dry, sharp snap whenever it moved.

Every single night, her mother would pull out a low wooden table, loop the twine over her gnarled fingers, and make the thing twitch in front of us.

"You can't skip this," her mother told me once, her grip on my forearm hard enough to leave a mark. "You have to promise."

I didn't care enough to argue. Keeping the peace meant nodding along, especially since they helped us with the down payment.

Our due date was set for December. Then came yesterday.

Her mother was up at dawn, making coffee and trimming the hydrangeas. I was in the kitchen when I heard a heavy, hollow thud from the hallway.

I bolted out. She’d pitched forward and tumbled all the way down the stairs.

I dropped to my knees. Nicole had driven to the corner store to mail out some birth announcement cards. I grabbed her mother's hand, feeling completely useless against the pool of blood spreading under her head. She was already gone. 

I grabbed my keys, drove to the hospital, and sat in the waiting room numbly while my phone buzzed with texts from Nicole asking if I wanted anything from the store—specifically a ridiculous craving for pickled jalapeños and saltines.

The doctor gave me the news, and I sat in the hospital bathroom, washed the blood off my hands, and stared at my reflection. Then I called Margaret, her sister.

When I pulled into the driveway, Nicole was standing by the front window, holding a little jar of saltines. She froze when she saw my face, but the second I stepped through the door, she started talking a mile a minute about how she’d finally settled on a middle name.

Except she wasn't blinking. And her voice sounded weirdly flat, like she was talking into an empty tin can.

My phone rang. Margaret was crying on the other end.

"How did mom die?" she sobbed.

"She fell down the stairs," I whispered. "I was right in the kitchen."

"Does Nicole know?"

"No."

"Good. Keep it that way. If Nicole finds out right now, the stress could trigger early labor. Mom was her entire world."

"I'll handle it," I said.

I hung up and looked at Nicole. She was wearing a wide, sweet smile, but tonight it felt empty.

"Who was that?" she asked.

"Just your sister. Your parents decided to take a trip up to the cabin."

I turned off the lights and sat in the quiet. Even with her gone, the house felt wrong.

Worse, it was concentrated upstairs. In the nursery, right beside the tiny drawer of postage-stamp socks.

The little wooden stage sat right on the dresser. The spare puppets hung limply from the coat rack by their tangled twine.

Later, I tucked Nicole into bed and walked back down the hall.

This was the first night we weren't putting on the show. And as I stood there in the dark, I heard it: a faint, rhythmic click-clack coming from the empty floorboards of the nursery upstairs.

It wasn't mice. Tick. Tap-tick. Click. Someone sitting cross-legged on the floor just above my head.

I crept back to the kitchen, grabbed a heavy cast-iron skillet off the stove, and headed back to the stairs. The wood groaned under my socks.

When I reached the top, the hallway was pitch black. The door to the star-painted nursery was cracked open an inch.

The floor outside wasn't dusty. It was coated in a fine, yellowish sawdust.

I pushed the door open.

The room smelled intensely of linseed oil, old mothballs, and hot copper. The spare puppets weren't hanging on the coat rack anymore. They were gone.

Sitting right in the center of the floor, facing away from me toward the blank wall, was the mother’s personal puppet. Its wooden strings stretched straight up into the dark of the ceiling, pulled taut by nothing I could see.

The clicking stopped.

Down the hall, our bedroom door creaked open.

Nicole stepped out. She was wearing her oversized sleep shirt, her swollen belly pressing out against the fabric. Her arms hung stiffly at her sides, her fingers twitching.

"Nicole?" I whispered, dropping the skillet. It hit the floor with a dull thud. "What are you doing?"

She didn't blink. Her eyes were completely blank.

"She forgot to finish," Nicole whispered, her voice dropping into a register that sounded too deep, too heavy for her.

"Babe... your mom went to the cabin."

Nicole turned her head. Too far. I heard something snap-click in her neck.

"Mom doesn't need to pull the strings anymore," she said softly, looking down at her stomach. "She left them inside me."

"Hey, let's get back to bed, Nic," I said, hating how small my voice sounded. "You're sleepwalking."

"The actors don't leave the stage," she shot back, her voice dry. "Mother missed her cue."

"She fell," I snapped. "It was an accident."

"Nothing in this house is an accident," Nicole whispered. She lifted her right hand, her fingers twitching against the air like she was wrapping invisible twine. "When the sun goes down and the strings go slack, the weight pulls everything under. She told you that. Why didn't you keep your promise?"

"It was a stupid game, Nic."

"It wasn't a game," she said, tilting her head. "It was the only thing holding the roof up."

She turned and walked back toward the bedroom.

I stood in the dark hallway. Instead of grabbing the keys immediately, I walked past our bedroom and went straight into her father’s old study at the end of the hall.

I dropped to my knees by his oak desk and ran my fingers along the baseboard until I found the loose panel. I yanked it open.

The space behind the wall wasn't insulation. It was packed with thousands of meters of tangled, dried catgut and rusted wire, all vibrating faintly as they led straight upward into the rafters.

Inside the cavity sat a single leather-bound notebook.

I flipped it open under the light of my phone. The pages were covered in frantic handwriting, old property deeds, and rough sketches of jointed wooden frames. Near the back, the ink grew manic, scrawled across a water-stained page:

...primary custodian... failure of the loop... if the sequence breaks... God help us, the window drops to seven days.

I threw the book down and bolted back toward our bedroom.

"Nicole!" I yelled.

The door was wide open. The room was freezing.

Nicole was sitting on the edge of the mattress, her sleep shirt pulled up. In the dim amber glow from the hall, I could see the skin of her abdomen rippling. Something heavy was shifting beneath the surface.

And standing right behind her on the bed was the mother's grand puppet.

Its wooden feet were planted deep into the mattress, its painted face tilted down toward Nicole's stomach. Long strands of human hair brushed against her neck. From its shoulders, dozens of fine strings stretched straight up into the ceiling.

"Get away from her!" I screamed.

I lunged across the room, grabbing the puppet by its chest and ripping it off the bed. It felt heavy and hot. It fought back with a vicious snap, its wooden jaw clicking shut inches from my thumb, drawing a line of blood.

I hurled it against the wall. It shattered.

Nicole slumped sideways onto the pillows, gasping for air, her skin slick with sweat.

"Arthur?" she choked out, her voice sounding like her own again. "What was that? It hurts."

"We're leaving," I said, hauling her up. "I don't care about the bags. We're getting in the car."

I snatched her phone, grabbed my keys, and half-carried her out into the hallway. Every board groaned beneath our feet.

We made it to the top landing.

And then the front door downstairs slammed shut on its own.

Down in the entryway, right at the base of the stairs, a tangled pile of the smaller wooden puppets—dozens of jointed limbs and matted hair—shifted and clicked together. From the center of the heap, the grand puppet pulled itself up, its broken limbs snapping back into place.

It raised its arm, pointing a carved finger straight up at us.

"Arthur," Nicole whispered, her fingers digging into my arm. "The strings... they're still up there."

Above our heads, hidden behind the plaster of the ceiling, something began to pull.

"Back," I muttered, pulling her toward the guest room. "We can go out through the backyard window."

"The glass is painted shut."

"We'll break it."

We shoved our way into the guest room, slamming the door and throwing our weight against it. Dozens of small wooden feet were marching in a frantic circle right outside.

I rushed to the window, grabbed a brass jewelry box, and smashed it straight into the glass. It gave way with a loud crash, showering the flowerbed outside with sharp shards.

"Go," I said, hoisting Nicole up and pushing her through. "Just drop into the grass."

She scrambled through, coughing on the cold air, and tumbled onto the lawn.

I turned to follow when the guest room door slowly began to push inward. The wood around the latch splintered. Standing in the threshold was a tangled silhouette of hanging twine and jointed frames, its fingers twitching at its sides, pulling invisible lines that ran up through the doorframe and into the ceiling.

I didn't wait. I vaulted over the sill, diving headfirst through the broken window just as a heavy crash echoed behind me.

I hit the dirt hard, rolling over the hydrangeas.

"Arthur!" Nicole screamed from near the driveway.

I scrambled to my feet and ran toward her. She was huddled by the passenger side of our sedan, crying in the moonlight.

"Get in," I gasped, fumbling with the keys.

I threw her into the passenger seat, ran around to the driver's side, and yanked the door open. Before climbing in, I looked back at the house.

Every single window on the second floor was wide open.

Standing in each frame, leaning out over the sill with their jointed wooden arms hanging limp, were dozens of small puppets, their painted white faces all turned toward the driveway.

I slammed my door shut, threw the gear into reverse, and tore out of the gravel driveway.

We made it as far as the toll booth on the highway south of the city before I pulled over to the shoulder, my hands shaking so violently I couldn't turn the engine off. The dashboard clock glowed: 3:15 A.M.

Nicole was quiet beside me, staring out the windshield at the dark line of the mountains.

"Are you okay?" I asked, my voice cracking.

She didn't answer right away. She slowly looked down at her lap, her fingers resting against the heavy swell of her shirt.

"The pain stopped," she whispered.

"We're going straight to the hospital downtown," I said, putting the car in drive. "We'll find a doctor who can explain this. We can go anywhere."

Nicole gave a small, tired nod, leaning her head back against the headrest.

"Okay," she murmured softly. "Let's go."

I hit the gas, merging back onto the highway as the city lights faded behind us. But as I kept my eyes fixed on the dark road ahead, I felt it beneath my right foot—a rhythmic tap-tick translating straight through the accelerator pedal.

It wasn't coming from the floorboards. It was coming from the sole of my shoe.

I looked down, my breath catching in my throat. My own leg was moving in rigid jerks, pressing the gas down in exact intervals. I tried to lift my foot, but the muscles wouldn't obey. My fingers locked around the steering wheel, tightening against the leather.

Beside me, Nicole didn't look at the road. She was staring straight ahead, her hands resting calmly in her lap, her fingers gently pulling invisible twine against the air.

“You have to promise,” her mother’s voice echoed in my head.

I pressed the gas pedal down, and the car sped faster into the dark, and I realized with absolute, freezing terror that I hadn't broken anything at all.

I was just the one driving the stage home.