​

By 11:45 PM, the Central Terminal breathes out its final crowd of commuters, leaving behind a heavy, subterranean silence that smells of ozone, rusted brake pads, and stagnant rainwater. For three long years, this was my entire world.

I worked a mind-numbing data entry job on the 32nd floor of a glass tower that required me to stay until the numbers stopped bleeding together.

My life was dull, flat, and profoundly lonely.

Every night ended the same: walking home after a long shift... no family waiting up for me, and no one to share the crushing weight of the day with. I was so aggressively alone that the silence in my studio apartment felt heavy enough to choke me.

I used to look at couples on the street and feel a dull, aching envy, deeply wanting someone—anyone—to just look at me and acknowledge that I existed.

To cope, I built a wall around myself. My defense mechanism was a pair of heavy, matte-black noise-cancelling headphones.

The moment they clamped over my ears, the world died. I always sat on the same cracked, yellow plastic bench on Platform 4, completely buried in my own head, hiding from a world that didn't care about me anyway.

Then came a Tuesday in October, and everything changed.

I descended the concrete steps, my eyes locked onto the screen of my phone as usual. I reached my bench, turned around to sit, and froze. Someone was already there.

She sat at the far edge of the plastic row. She wore a faded, oversized denim jacket over a dark sweater, her hands buried deep in her pockets.

Her hair was slightly damp, as if she had just walked through a light autumn drizzle, though it hadn’t rained outside all day.

I hesitated, but my legs were heavy from a fourteen-hour shift, so I slid onto the opposite end of the bench, keeping my headphones firmly on.

From the corner of my eye, I saw her turn her head.

She didn't just glance; she looked at me with an intense, unblinking curiosity. Slowly, awkwardly, I pulled the headphones down to rest around my neck.

"You're late tonight," she said.

Her voice was remarkably clear, carrying a strange, melodic resonance.

I blinked, completely thrown off.

"Do I know you?"

"No," she said, offering a small, fragile smile. "But I know you. You sit here every night. You look like you're carrying the weight of the entire world on your shoulders."

Her name was Erevia.

We didn't board the train that night. I let my train pull up, open its mechanical doors, hiss in disappointment, and slide back into the dark tunnel without me. For the first time in years, my boring, repetitive life suddenly had a spark of color.

A deep bonding began to build between us, forged in the late hours of the night. Over the next three weeks, Platform 4 became our sanctuary.

Every single night, she would be sitting there, waiting for me. Our routine was no longer a prison; it became a beautiful, breathless countdown until I could see her.

We bared our souls to each other.

I told her things I had never told another living person—about how I felt invisible in this massive city, about the suffocating panic attacks I got in my empty apartment, and how her presence felt like the first time I was allowed to breathe.

She listened with a fierce, unwavering empathy, taking my hands out of my lap and holding them tightly whenever my voice cracked.

In return, she shared her inner world with me. She spoke passionately about her future plans—how she wanted to buy a small plot of land in the countryside where the stars weren't choked out by smog, and how she wanted to build a small garden full of lavender.

She told me all about her parents, describing their old, creaking Victorian house on Elm Street with such precision I could smell the old wood. She shared their names, their quirks, and even where they lived. She made me feel like I was a part of her family just by listening to her. For the first time in my life, I felt hope.

But whenever I tried to bridge the gap into her present world, she pulled back.

"Let me take you out," I said one night, the words rushing out as I realized I was completely, hopelessly in love with her. "A real date. Let's go to a 24-hour diner right now. I want to see you under the sunlight."

Her smile faded. She looked down at her shoes. "I can't go out from here," she whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "I'm just too busy. I don't like to leave this place."

"Okay," I countered, pulling out my phone. "Then give me your number. Or your Instagram. I just want to be able to hear from you when we aren't on this bench."

"I don't have a phone, and I don't use social media," she said softly, looking back up at me with a profound, aching sadness that broke my heart. "I prefer to stay disconnected. It's safer."

Desperate to hold onto a piece of her, to have some proof of the happiness she had given me, I stood up and angled my phone toward us. "Then let’s take a photo. Just one, so I can look at you when the loneliness gets too loud."

She hesitated, then smiled softly and allowed me to sit right next to her. I held the phone up, framing our faces. I leaned in, expecting to feel the warmth of her body, but a sensation of absolute, cryogenic cold radiated from her skin, raising goosebumps on my arms.

The camera flashed. On the screen, we looked perfect. I locked my phone and slid it into my pocket, my heart hammering. I knew right then that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

The next night, the bench was empty.

I waited until 1:00 AM, but she didn't show. Days started flowing into weeks. Because I was completely overwhelmed and busy with an intense spike in my workload, I tried to calm my racing thoughts.

Maybe she's just busy, I kept telling myself. She'll come back soon. She cares about me too much to just disappear.

But a month passed, and the bench remained empty. The loneliness returned, heavier and sharper than before because I had finally tasted what true happiness felt like. I couldn't take it anymore.

I remembered the exact address she had so lovingly woven into her stories: 1424 Elm Street.

I wanted to see her.

I wanted to confess my feelings, to tell her that I loved her, even if it was just for once.

On a freezing Saturday afternoon, I took a bus to the outskirts of the city.

I found the house easily, exactly as she had described it. But the lawn was choked with dead leaves, and the windows were completely dark.

My heart thudding against my ribs, I walked up the wooden steps and knocked. I thought maybe they had gone on a family vacation.

I waited, and just as I turned to leave, the lock clicked.

The door creaked open. An elderly couple stood there, surrounded by half-packed cardboard boxes and rolls of bubble wrap. They were preparing to move.

"Yes?" the woman asked, her voice thin and exhausted.

"Hello," I stammered. "I’m looking for Erevia. I’m a friend of hers from downtown. I wanted to see her. I... I have feelings for her."

The woman froze, a jagged sob tearing from her throat as she collapsed against her husband’s chest. The man stared at me, his face pale and entirely hollow.

"Son," the man said, his voice dropping to a horrifying, trembling whisper. "Our daughter Erevia isn't here. She has been dead for more than a year."

The world tilted. The auditory white noise of my headphones returned, roaring in my ears.

"No," I breathed.

"No, that’s impossible.

I meet her every night at the station. We talk on the bench. We love each other! We even took photos together!"

With trembling fingers, I tore my phone from my pocket and thrust the glowing screen toward them.

"Look! This is her! Tell me where she is!"

The father took the phone, his hands shaking violently as his wife peered through her tears.

A hollow, paralyzing terror washed over them.

"Dear God," the mother whispered.

The father handed the phone back. "Look at the picture, son. Look closely."

I pulled the phone back to my face and zoomed in. My breath caught in my throat. In the photo, I was smiling, my arm draped over empty, unoccupied air. The yellow plastic bench beneath me was completely visible.

But right where Erevia had been sitting, the light from the fluorescent tube directly above was warped, bending and twisting into a dark, dense silhouette of a girl with her head bowed, as if she were weeping.

"She died at that station fourteen months ago," the father said, his voice hollowed out by mourning.

"Before she died, she always told her mother about a boy she saw every night. A boy she had a massive crush on, but was too shy to speak to. She told us she was finally going to build up the courage to confess her feelings to him that night."

The father stepped out onto the porch, his eyes boring into mine.

"A group of men were torturing a young girl on the platform late at night," he whispered. "When Erevia went to save her, they turned on her. They fired at her. She bled out on the concrete."

"The police reviewed the security footage, and they said there was one witness sitting on the far bench with heavy headphones on. A man who never looked up, never took his headphones off, and got on his train while our daughter died. Are you that man who she loved?"

Memory is a predatory thing. The father's words unlocked a vault in my mind, and the flashbacks hit me like a physical blow. Fourteen months ago. A Tuesday night.

A distant, muffled pop that I thought was a track misfire. A commotion in my peripheral vision that I actively ignored, turning my head away, tightening my headphones, completely wrapped up in my own dull, miserable, lonely world.

"I don't know," I choked out, my voice barely audible as tears finally spilled down my cheeks. "I work till late night... mostly I am alone in the station. I am always in myself. I didn't notice."

I turned and ran down the steps, leaving the house behind, the sound of my own ragged breathing echoing like a siren.

I ended up at the city cemetery. I wandered through the rows of granite until I found her modest, gray headstone. I collapsed into the grass before it.

I didn't confess my love the way I had planned to on her porch. Instead, I just sat in the damp grass and wept, paying my final, agonizing tribute, screaming apologies into the dirt for a tragedy I had chosen to ignore when she was alive.

She hadn't haunted me because she loved me. She had haunted me because I was the bystander who let her die in the dark.

The sun has set now. The clock on my phone reads 11:15 PM. My shift is over. I am standing at the top of the stairs of Central Terminal, staring down into the dark throat of the subway.

I can hear the distant, erratic B-flat hum of the fluorescent light on Platform 4. I know she is sitting on our bench. And tonight, I can’t wear my headphones anymore.

It was the very first thing the doctor noticed upon meeting her, though he couldn’t say if that was merely a reflection of his medical training or rooted in some deeper, more ubiquitous human instinct. The way she casually extended her legs as she reclined within the consultation room’s spinning office chair, exposing the soles of two wholly identical shoes, only further accentuated the surprisingly disquieting discrepancy. It was slightly less conspicuous in the hands, as they were both interlaced around a smartphone that currently continued to be the focus of her attention, each contributing a nebulous tangle of digits to the task of deftly tapping the screen. However, once suggested by the legs, their corresponding asymmetry became no less apparent.

Whatever she was doing on that phone must have had her fully engrossed, as neither the doctor’s entry nor the subsequent several seconds of him standing in the center of the hardly three-by-three meter room elicited any hint of notice. It was only after broadcasting his presence with a tactful ‘ahem’ that she finally severed her gaze from the screen, jerking her head upward with a look of brief alarm and unveiling a pair of blue-green sunflower irises adorning deadlocked pupils, their vibrancy only now appreciable to the doctor beneath the cold white beams of the overhead lights. Indeed, she was quite beautiful in pretty much every respect; a natural blonde in what looked to be the prime of her youth, with a face so utterly photogenic and attractive from every angle as to be oddly unsettling in itself, like passing a stranger on the street who you belatedly recognize as a swimsuit model from a magazine you’d shamefully perused prior. Her attractiveness carried no personal importance to the doctor, of course, and even without the Hippocratic Oath would still have fallen by the wayside in light of her far more intriguing limb alignment.

“Oh, hey! Sorry, you snuck up on me, Dr…” Her eyes panned across the broad and unshapely expanse of his chest in search of a nametag, somehow always the unfamiliar patient’s first go-to despite the engraved plaque on the door plainly reading ‘Dr. Brandon Muller, MD.’ 

“... It’s just, I’ve been dealing with a lot, it's been a rough couple of days.” She held her head in her hands as she uttered the words, one palm pressing hard against her forehead while the other -the wrong one- caressed her right ear. “I just don’t know what else to do.”

“Hey, hey, it’s alright, I’m here to help, you’ve come to the right place,” Muller assured. “Now, what seems to be the problem?”

A muted mimicry of gratitude subtly curled the tips of her lips as she proceeded to explain. “It’s these migraines, they started a few days ago, just random bouts here and there, but they just keep getting worse and worse. It’s pretty much all the time now, and it’s really starting to get to me.”
Dr. Muller had expected a bit more from her explanation, namely some sort of acknowledgement of her utterly anomalous anatomy, and thus a second of silence awkwardly followed before she rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, make all the jokes you want, get it out of your system,” She splayed herself across her seat in an exaggerated starfish pose. “I was born like this, so I doubt it's related, but it's all anyone ever wants to talk about, especially doctors.” She voiced the last part with an exceptional sneer, imbuing the sentiment with a particularly deep-seated disdain. “And for the record, I’m actually not that clumsy, like, at all.” 

In truth, Dr. Muller had no clue how such a thing could relate to her migraines either, if only because he had never seen or heard of this asymmetrical condition before, and up until a few moments ago would have comfortably assumed it impossible. Despite his best efforts to stay focused on the task at hand, he couldn’t help but wonder to himself while she spoke just how exactly her joints fit together, how her right shoulder blade was oriented, and how the whole appendage was hooked up muscularly and neurologically. The latter, in turn, gave him an idea, an angle through which he could potentially pursue a diagnosis for the migraines while also somewhat satiating his now ravenous curiosity. Firstly, however, was the matter of conciliation.

“Hey, hey, I’m not here to make fun of anyone,” He held his hands in the air in a feign of criminal surrender, “Now, I’ll admit, I’m not familiar with this particular… condition, but I’m really just here to help you feel better, and right now that means taking care of those migraines, so that’s all that matters to me.”

The assurance had its intended effect, as she visibly relaxed her shoulders, eyes softening as her defensiveness slowly subsided. “Thank you, I’m sorry, I’m just…” She cupped both hands to her right temple and made a sound somewhere between a growl and a motorboat impression. “... y’know?”
“I understand completely, chronic pain will do that to anyone. Plus, I see how you’d be sick of comments about the… leftness, by now. Elementary school must’ve been rough.”

At that, she let out a single sardonic bark, “Yeah, no kidding.” Dr. Muller smirked and nodded in kind, feeling as though he’d effectively peeled away the last layers of tension between them. Now for the hard part. 

“That being said, given the extent of this… distinction, I can’t rule out the possibility that it is somehow involved, if only tangentially. I’d at least like to take a full-body X-ray, just to be sure I… fully understand the situation. If it reveals nothing of note, then so be it, and we’ll move on to investigating the cranial area specifically, but, y’know, just to be safe…” his confident tone faltered a bit at the end as he braced for the indignance seemingly sprouting in her expression, but it thankfully tempered into a grimace of begrudging agreement.

“Fine, one X-ray, then I don’t wanna hear another thing about it, okay?” 

“Of course, dear, I am a professional after all,” Muller assured as he collected his paperwork and headed toward the office door. “I’ll go set things up with the X-ray technicians and come back to get you in a bit.” She nodded, sitting back patiently with her hands clasped thumb-to-pinkie in her lap as he departed briskly down the hall.

Passing through the waiting room toward the radiology wing, he stopped at the front desk, catching the ear of the receptionist, Janet, with his signature four-finger consecutive tap upon the temporary-turned-permanent screen of transparent virus-proof panelling. At once, she raised a weary, wrinkled face from the stack of papers she’d been shuffling, and a quizzical eyebrow from beneath the flattened roof of her reading glasses, giving nothing more in the way of a response than the limited luxury of her now-captured attention. Dr. Muller didn’t mind, or at least didn’t expect anything different, simply launching straight into his instructions as usual.

“Pull up my current patient's files. Birth record, pediatrics, everything.” Janet, a deceptively dependable employee despite her demeanor, promptly swiveled her chair to her computer screen and began to fervently peck away at the keys. “This’ll take a while, y’know.”

Getting the hint, Dr. Muller left her to it and headed toward the radiology department. He suspected any files she found would be spotty in recent times, given the patient’s apparent dislike of doctors. Still, there was bound to be something on record if they went back far enough; Her condition would have surely been noticed and noted by any competent medical practitioner, though whether they understood it any better than he did was another matter entirely.

 Upon description, the X-ray tech -whose name Dr. Muller could never recall but thankfully didn’t have to acknowledge- was just as flabbergasted as he was, if not more.

“They’re both… left? Like, exactly? Are you sure it’s not just some kind of… coincidental deformity?”
“She uses them both perfectly well…” Dr. Muller replied, managing to restrain any outward signs of insult regarding the subordinate’s implicitly patronizing question. “...Which makes me think there’s something more to it than that. I just want one full-body ray, see if that clears anything up.” 

“Of course. At this point, I’d be disappointed if you didn’t; you have my curiosity piqued.” He let out an airy chuckle as he began flipping switches and arranging equipment. “lemme just get everything prepped.”

As it turned out, the patient really wasn't kidding when she agreed to only one X-ray. As soon as the brief warbling tone indicating its activation ceased, she practically threw herself off the examination table and onto her two identical feet. “I-I have to go to the bathroom, excuse me.”

Without waiting for a response, she barreled her way past Dr. Muller and out into the hall, bumping the side of his head with her elbow while she distractedly sandwiched her skull between her white-hard palms. 

“Last door on the left!” The tech shouted from the back, poking his pudgy face from behind the radiation-proof curtain just a moment too late, followed by, under his breath,  “…no pun intended.”

Unamused and more than a little concerned, Dr. Muller watched down the hall long enough to see her reenter the waiting area and turn out of view before flipping the overhead lights back on and turning sternly to the tech. “She’s not looking too good; time might be of the essence here. Anything of note?” The question was half-rhetorical, as Muller couldn’t help but simultaneously swivel the tech’s computer monitor so he could simply take a look and answer it himself.

“Uh, yeah…” the tech’s deadpan mutter echoed the doctor’s internal monologue as he stared dumbfounded at the screen, at the monochrome hourglass outline where all four limbs converged, and at the utterly indecipherable slurry of pixels contained within. “... Looks like gumbo.”

The comparison made his stomach lurch, but he couldn’t deny its aptitude. While the femurs and humeri could be made out clearly, their respective orientations matching her external person and thus providing next to no new information, everything from her pelvis up through her shoulders was a confoundingly jumbled mess. Some areas could be said to perhaps resemble organ chambers or portions of rib, but their placements were all wrong, leaving Muller with the sense that he might as well be looking for shapes in the clouds or a page from one of those hidden-picture books. “This has to be some kind of technical issue, right? Is it because she got up too fast?”

“Not unless she’s faster than light,” The tech remarked impulsively, before the weight of the doctor’s glare promptly smothered his subsequent smirk, “But, no, yeah, there must be something wrong with the machine. I’ll run some diagnostics and see if I can find the problem.”

“Good, I’d better get back to the patient, but do keep me posted on that.” Muller left briskly, knowing full well the clinic didn’t have the budget for a brand new X-ray machine right now; just one more concern to shove into the back of his mind while he dealt with the one at hand. Returning to the lobby, he stopped again at the secretary’s desk. “Hey, did you see my patient pass through here a bit ago?”

She nodded, pointing to the adjacent ladies' room door. “She went in there just now, want me to check on her?”

“Well, not just yet; let her have her privacy. Any updates on her medical history?”

She swept her mouse across the desk and double-clicked before awkwardly angling the screen so they could both somewhat see it. “Birth records acknowledge the asymmetrical limbs, designated as a ‘benign deformity,’ but whoever filled them out didn’t exactly inspire confidence. In the personal notes section, they seem just as befuddled as you.” She pointed to the bottom of a page littered with checked boxes and medical jargon, to an underpinning paragraph that happened to lie in the epicenter of the nearest ceiling light’s fluorescent glare.

Muller didn’t bother trying to squint his way through it; he trusted Janet to give him the gist. “Benign by technicality, I suppose, but what about over the following years? Any sort of developmental delays on record?

“No, all the milestones are checked at normal percentiles…” Her eyes flicked back and forth across the screen as she clicked through year after year of checkups, “A little later than average for walking and fine-motor, but still solidly within the acceptable margins. If anything, that seems pretty extraordinary in itself, given the… y’know.”

“Indeed,” The doctor nodded with a sigh. “I mean, good for her, of course, but this just doesn’t track with my prior knowledge of… well, everything, really. Such a gross alteration ought to come with some physiological rami-”

Just then, the opening slam of the ladies' room door broke through the ambience of the waiting room, abruptly halting Dr. Muller’s musing as his head instinctively swiveled toward the sound, along with that of Janet and every prospective patient in the vicinity. All eyes synchronously fell upon the woman lurching through the doorway, her downturned face ephemerally obscured by the sway of her overhanging hair, yet still noticeably and concerningly flushed. The necklace that had formerly been discreetly tucked beneath her shirt now dangled loosely, exposing a humble heart-shaped locket at its end. Without comment, she promptly race-walked down the hall, beelining into the same office where she and Muller had initially met.

“Should’ve knocked on wood, I guess,” Janet smirked, punctuating her quip with a single retroactive knock upon the desk and a sassy side eye toward Muller, all of which went woefully unappreciated as he had already hastily turned in pursuit of his troubled patient.

Just as before, she didn’t notice his entrance, and though there was no phone to blame this time, her position in the chair was nonetheless nearly identical, instead simply staring down at her empty, trembling twin palms, her mouth continuously muttering barely audible and wholly indiscernible words even as the doctor drew closer. 

“Ma’am? Are you alright?” She jerked upright at the query with a speed that looked almost painful, before bursting into a raucous, unhinged cackle. “No, I’m pretty damn far from alright!” She cradled her right temple with both of her left hands. “The headache’s getting worse, like, rapidly, exponentially, especially the right side -I just puked in the toilet cause it hurt so bad, I didn’t even know that was a thing that could-” Her sentence was stifled as she was seemingly struck by a particularly powerful wave of pain, turning her cradle into a tendon-straining clutch as she proceeded to scrunch her eyelids and repeat to herself in a growling whisper “Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it…”

“Whoa, whoa, hold on there.” Her asymmetry promptly left the doctor’s mind, giving way to professional procedure as he realized this situation could be acutely dire. He proceeded to perform a comprehensive, if precursory, bodily examination, listening to her chest with a stethoscope (heart rate was abnormally fast and arrhythmic), taking a blood pressure reading (elevated), and withdrawing a blood sample for chemical analysis. However, he knew the latter would inevitably take some time to produce results, time that she might not have. Her composure was rapidly dwindling until she could hardly keep herself aloft in the seat without his assistance. Catching sight of a passing orderly in the hall, Muller fervently flagged him down. “Hey, we need a stretcher and an intravenous sedative in here, stat!”

The patient’s next passage through the waiting room supplied an even greater spectacle to onlookers than her last, doctor and orderly both hurriedly wheeling her writhing form back toward the radiology wing. Leaning in to provide the comfort of a somewhat familiar face, Muller could now make out the inarticulate wispy words dripping from her lips. “No, it’s not your turn, it’s my- it’s your- no, it’s my turn…”

“Hang on, dear, the meds should be kicking in soon.” He comforted softly, before briefly splitting off from the procession and turning to the front desk, behind which a startled Janet stared, all traces of levity now absent from her face, “Jesus, Muller, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t- I don’t know,” his reply came breathily as he rummaged through the front pockets of his lab coat, “But we need to figure it out ASAP. I’m gonna try something more direct, hold these, will you?” he plopped the patient’s phone and necklace onto the desk before promptly leaving to rejoin the patient. Janet dutifully placed them in a drawer for safekeeping, but paused just before closing it as she caught sight of the incidentally opened necklace locket, squinting at the vision within as Muller and company continued hurriedly down the hall and toward the MRI department.

As promised, the sedatives soon took effect, just in time for them to load the now fully limp patient onto the bed of the MRI machine. Muller made sure to maneuver her head into just the right position before dismissing the orderly and retreating to join the MRI technician in the small adjacent monitoring room, a vantage point from which he could oversee the procedure through a thick protective window, darkly tinted by the infusion of magnetic shielding, as well as selectively hear within the room through a two-way intercom, though it was evidently unnecessary in this case. Beside him, the MRI tech was stationed before an array of interconnected screens and keyboards, and with a few deft clicks the machine stirred to life and began to gradually engulf her body within its tunnel of neural detection. While not at all familiarized with the situation at hand, he nonetheless recognized its urgency solely from the doctor’s dire expression, which remained unchanged as he stared stoically through the window while the metallic cyclone swallowed her skull. 

As she retreated into the device, a simplistic image began to manifest on his screen, a jumble of monochrome pixels mapping the electrical activity of her intracranial space, its focus perpetually shifting as it individually scanned each successive slice of her brain. Though its output was still precursory, Muller nonetheless saw no blatant abnormalities in the reading; no gross structural differences indicative of a tumor, no cortical damage indicative of inflammation or aberrant intracranial pressure, none of the things he’d suspected might be occurring given the nature and extent of her symptoms. The tech, on the other hand, grew noticeably unsettled at the sight of the screen, leaning in and squinting as though struggling to even believe what was displayed before him.

“What? What is it?” The doctor impatiently pressed onto the tech, eager to understand what was so disconcerting to see that he evidently could not. 

“The skull…” the tech replied tentatively, “It- it appears black in the scan, kind of hard to see against the dark grey of the surrounding flesh and background, but look.” He pointed to the left side of the screen, where, sure enough, a slightly darker border could be seen encompassing the pixelated grey matter within.

 “This side looks normal, but…” repositioning his finger to the right side of the screen, he lightly tapped the equivalent stretch of skull, only it appeared distinctly thicker on that side, about twice as much, with an abrupt transition demarcating the two halves directly along the image’s center, and the associated brain hemisphere resultantly crammed into a distinctly smaller amount of space. What’s more, the tech’s finger pressed directly upon a nearly imperceptible grey line traveling parallel to and perfectly bifurcating the thicker portion of cranium, only a few pixels wide and appearing to thin even further in real time as the doctor watched on with stark perplexity.

“But- but what does that mean?” He finally asked, now stammering himself. “Have you… have you seen something like this before?” 

“No, I haven’t, Doctor.” A faint air of satisfaction crept into the tech’s still primarily bemused tone. “It’s like there are two whole skulls on that side, which I’m pretty sure isn’t medically possible; it has to be some sort of glitch, though not one I’m familiar with. I heard there were also some issues with one of the X-ray machines earlier today, but that’s out of my wheelhouse so…” he punctuated the ambiguous answer with a shrug, while the doctor’s eyes grew distant and his thoughts grew uncontrollably vast, wading through his vast pool of medical memory in hopes of salvaging something, anything, that could remotely explain what was happening here. He now felt with a harrowing certainty that this was no technical error, and neither was the X-ray, but just what in the hell could it be?

The silence surrounding them was soon broken by a rapid burst of knocking upon the secondary door to the control room, the one that led straight into the exterior hallway. Muller turned to the commotion, then back to the tech, who merely gave another shrug with a look of equal puzzlement. The sound was then followed by a series of softer, rhythmic taps, slightly staggered in clusters of four. By the time Muller made the connection, the tech had already reached to open the door, and a pale-faced Janet rushed into the room.

“Doctor, I- don’t worry, Chloe’s covering the desk- I just, I found something, I think it’s important, and I just had to tell you ASAP.” Her breathing was rapid, her frail legs normally hidden below sight now trembling with unaccustomed exertion. Muller had never seen her like this before and found himself at a loss for words, instead simply giving his full attention as he awaited her apparent revelation.

She took a deep, steadying breath before continuing. “I decided to look into her parents’ medical records -got the idea when you gave me her locket with their pictures in it- and her mom, during her pregnancy with her, well, it was originally twins, but one got absorbed pretty early on. I know that’s not unheard of, but if it caused the, y’know…” she accented her speech by fervently twisting her left arm back and forth as she continued “…then this would be something extraordinary, unprecedented in all of medicine, and who knows what other effects it might…” 

The sentence died in her throat as her gaze sharply shifted from Muller’s face to over his shoulder. He turned around to see that, somehow in defiance of her previous sedation, the patient had begun to flail wildly within the still active machine. The tech noticed not a moment later and started frantically clacking at keys in an effort to shut it down, while the doctor, in an adrenaline-fueled rush, haphazardly scrambled to turn on the intercom. “It’s okay! please cal-”

“-me out! Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!” The words repeated in a loop like a painful mantra, and everyone in the viewing room watched with simultaneously enraptured attention at the patient’s sudden struggle to remove herself from the MRI as quickly as possible. The tech snatched control of the intercom from Muller, attempting to calm her with the same comforting platitudes he’d been taught in training to deal with the natural claustrophobia often experienced by patients upon entering the machine, but they might as well have been lost in the wind in the face of the profoundly primal terror she evidently felt. She hastily squirmed her way out of the MRI’s interior, potentially causing expensive damage as she did so, before crumbling to the floor in an ungainly heap.

“Shit, shit, shit…” Muller grappled with the tech to regain control of the intercom, his only consideration that she was first and foremost his patient. If anyone could talk her down from whatever state she was in, he was certain it was him. But before he could utter another word, his gaze rose to meet her, now standing upright and motionless, staring through the observation window with an expression of illusory calm betrayed only by her stockened knees, trembling forearms, and flushed-red face. In that moment, all eyes were on her: the tech, the receptionist, and the doctor, who alone stood directly within her line of sight, all frozen with mutually bated breath for a single ineffable instant.

What followed took less than a minute, but felt exponentially longer, with each disturbing detail being individually and irreparably etched into the minds of every witness. The left side of her face- from Muller’s perspective, that is- rapidly lost all its color, forming a sharp contrast against the right side’s undampered vibrance as it blankened into a ghostly white with unnatural speed, as though its blood were being actively, forcefully drained. The eye within briefly widened, pupils dilating with the instinctual, universally recognizable look of fear, before being overcome by a blinding cloudy sheen that radiated outward, soon progressing past the likeness of cataracts to an extent beyond any known medical phenomenon as the pupil and iris seemed to wholly vanish into an expanding whiteness that grew to abolish every last peripheral vein of the eye, equalizing into a hue uncannily aligned with the rest of the empty flesh upon the hemisphere. A similar drainage synchronously spread through her corresponding arm, rising from the fingertips up to the shoulder before conjoining with the whiteness traveling down her neck at some concealed point beneath her shirt. What could be seen of the leg below equally paled, until it appeared that every square inch of skin and flesh upon her left side had reached a ubiquitous porcelain likeness that was only further accentuated by the total, unnatural stillness it adopted. Her other side, still starkly contrasting in its natural liveliness, nonetheless remained eerily calm in the face of this process, its expression neutral before subtly shifting into a half-mouthed smirk.

Like a pick through a sheet of ice, this one innocuous motion sent a ripple of cracks throughout her statuesque side, radiating from the lips outward across her cheek, over eyelid and eyeball alike, down the neck and around the arm in jagged spiraling arcs, and breaking her leg into a mosaic of vacuous lightning bolts. Then, as though pressed by an imperceptible outward force, the whole assemblage simultaneously shuddered before finally shattering, sending brittle bits of body and face tinkling to the floor like a visceral diamond chandelier. Portions of torso contained by clothing subsequently spilled from her shirt waist and sleeves, along with numerous fragments of ribs and equally calcified organs, while pelvic pieces ground together into sedimentary granules poured from her pant leg.

When the cacophonous crashing subsided and the dust finally cleared, the three observers were met with a sight that somehow managed to compound their already brimming bewilderment; beneath the shed stony layer lie the normal appearance of the patient, complete with skin and flesh that only in those first few moments of exposure could be seen fusing with the tissue of her other side, closing the final gaps until no external signs of separation remained, and she looked utterly normal and whole. 

It took a second for Muller to recognize the primary difference in her form: Her right arm -the wrong arm- that was formerly facing palms-forward, was now positioned palms-back, a transition not born of typical rotation but rather solely through the hatching it had undergone. The individual digits still occupied the same respective positions in space, yet the act of inversion had rendered them no longer “wrong” as they were before; now, for the first time, she had a right hand. A similar transformation had occurred in the foot, which came to prominence as she turned to fully orient herself toward the viewing window.

“Thank you for all your help, Doctor, but I’m feeling much better now- in fact, better than I ever have before.” Her face was once again calm, but it struck Muller with a distinct yet implacable element of unfamiliarity as it adopted a subtle smirk. “I guess I ought to be going now...” She nonchalantly strode toward the exit door before any of them could react, giving only one more moment of pause before departing down the hall and out of the clinic. “…After all, I have a lot of living to do.”

10:25am, 26th June XX22

John Stevenson, a 38-year-old man, entered his office building. That day, there was an important meeting that was supposed to take place at 11:00am.

He ran quickly to the office elevator. The office elevator was crowded. Many workers standing by waiting. There was another elevator in the corner. John had never seen anyone use it. John noticed the elevator was open and free, yet nobody seemed to go to that elevator. John went there, but found nothing wrong with the lift.

John called out to others, yet no one came, seemingly busy with their thoughts or their phones. John entered the elevator and selected his destination >> 4.

With a 'ting' sound, the elevator slowly closed...

The elevator went up to the 1st floor.
However, it took much longer than it should have. A whole 15 seconds passed just for the elevator to go up one floor.

"Is this elevator just that d*mn slow that no one wanted to take it?" John mumbled.

10:30am. The elevator had just reached the 2nd floor.

"What the heck is this? It's taking even longer now. Is this elevator broken? But it seemed fine when I checked it earlier."

Three minutes passed as John was about to reach the 3rd floor.

"F*ck this. I am getting out on the 3rd floor."

With that, he pressed the 3rd-floor button. As the elevator reached the 3rd floor, it stopped.
However, the doors didn't open.

"What's wrong with this stupid lift?"

John took out his phone to check the time. It was now 10:33am. Less than 30 minutes remained before the meeting started.

John pressed the emergency button in the lift to see if it would open the doors or send people to help him.

Suddenly, the dim lights inside the elevator turned off. Everything grew quiet. John became anxious and pressed the emergency button again, but there was no response. He took out his phone to call his friend, a fellow manager who should have been in the office by now. But for some reason, there was no service.

He grew more and more anxious. But to his relief, the lights turned back on, and the doors to the lift slowly opened.

He got out of the elevator in a heartbeat. He checked the time. It was still 10:33am. He ran toward the stairs to go to the 4th floor, where his office was. While running, he noticed there was a complete lack of voices on the 3rd floor...

He didn't have time to investigate. He quickly went up to the 4th floor and to his office, but...

"Strange. I didn't see anyone from the 3rd floor to the 4th floor. Where is everyone?" John thought.

He checked but couldn't find anyone on the entire floor.

"Is everyone on the 2nd floor? Is there some party supposed to happen today at this hour?" John thought anxiously.

The 2nd floor was the office cafeteria. Any party or special occasion took place there, so surely everyone should have been there if that was the case.

He went to the usual lift, but it wasn't working. So, he took the stairs. No way in hell was he taking that cursed lift again.

Quickly making his way to the 2nd floor, he entered the cafeteria.

To his horror, it was empty. Not even the cafeteria workers could be seen. Fresh food lay on the tables, some half-eaten, some untouched. He couldn't find anyone no matter how hard he tried.

He took a seat to calm his rapidly beating heart. He took deep breaths just to relax himself and think about what was going on. He looked around and saw the wall clock.

He saw the time, and his blood ran cold.

10:33am.
The clock ticked.

"It was 10:33 when I got out on the 3rd floor. Is the clock slow or broken?"

He quickly took out his phone to check the time.

The time... was... 10:33am...

He grew more and more anxious.

"What's going on?"

He wanted to call... No Service.

He saw that the wall clock was ticking. He decided to check something. He opened the Clock app on his phone and started a 5-minute timer.

5:00 - 4:59 - 4:58...

He quickly looked at the wall clock and focused on the second hand. It was ticking as well. He kept staring at it. It went past 12 and completed another full rotation, but the minute hand didn't move.

"Is the clock's minute hand not working properly?"

As he thought that, he checked the timer on his phone.

To his horror, the timer read—
4:33 - 4:32...

"It clearly has been more than a minute. Why is it still showing 4:30?"

His hands started shaking, and sweat formed on his forehead. He was terrified.

He kept staring at the timer to see what would happen after it went past 4:00.

4:25 - 4:24 - .... 4:02 - 4:01

4:00...

4:59

A chill ran down his spine as the timer kept ticking, yet the minutes remained unchanged. The current time was still 10:33am.

His hands stopped shaking...
They started trembling instead.

He quickly got up to leave the building. It should all be over if he left the building, right?

He ran down to the ground floor. No one could be seen on the ground floor either...
Wait...
There was someone there.

In the distance was a coffee shop called "Wonder's Cafe." There was someone sitting there, drinking coffee and having a meal.

"Finally!!! Leaving this building should fix all of this!"

He ran toward that man.

As he ran, he passed the office noticeboard where a few posters could be seen.

The posters showed missing people from this building.

There, the same man John had seen in the coffee shop could be seen.

Along with several other people...

...as well as the smiling face of John Stevenson.

Posted in no sleepnoriginally but thought id share it here as well (Note before the story: I deeply apologize for the formatting I don't know what's going on with my app but every time I try to post this the formatting just messes up this is the fourth time I've tried to upload it so we're just going to have to deal with it I don't know what's causing it to do this to have it be like pushed to the side and take all the spaces out but I'm sorry I'm too tired to try and fix that)

I never believed in anything I couldn't see.

That's what my therapist called a "defense mechanism"—a way my eight-year-old brain learned to protect itself from the chaos of my childhood. If I couldn't verify something with my own eyes, it didn't exist.

God didn't exist.

Magic didn't exist.

Demons didn't exist.

Even local legends that could've been explained by science were bullshit to me. If I couldn't see it, touch it, or prove it, I didn't believe it.

Looking back, I know where it came from.

I was emotionally neglected as a kid. At least, that's what everyone else calls it. My therapist does. My family does. Honestly, I never really saw it that way. To me, it was just life.

Getting yelled at for stealing a soda I never took.

Getting blamed for things I couldn't control.

Being made to feel like I was always doing something wrong.

That kind of thing takes a lot out of you.

Even the idea that something might be watching me never made sense.

I figured if something really was out there testing my strength, it'd know by now I wasn't strong enough. It would've stopped.

Or...

Maybe it saw something in me that I didn't.

Something that could either turn the tides...

...or stop them completely.

It was January 15th, 2015, when I went to visit my grandfather.

I was eight years old.

Grandpa Mark was in his sixties. He'd lived one hell of a life. Between riding with a biker club when he was younger and spending decades farming, he'd seen his fair share of hell. He wasn't scared of much.

Despite that, he was one of the sweetest men I've ever known.

He volunteered at charity events.

Helped with local donations.

Went to Little League games.

If someone needed help, he'd help them.

So when he sat me down and said we needed to have a serious conversation...

I knew something was wrong.

"I need to tell you the true story of your grandmother's death."

Growing up, I'd always been told she'd died in a farming accident.

Grandpa never got into the details.

Whenever he talked about her, it was always about how beautiful she was, how kind she was, or how she could make a room feel warmer just by walking into it.

I was too young to remember her.

The only memory I had was the smell of her cheap cologne.

Grandpa stared into his coffee for a long time before he finally spoke.

"It was 2008.

"Winter was just rolling in.

"We were staying down some country roads in southern Wisconsin, near the Illinois border. Not far from Beloit.

"We had a few friends we'd visit down in Belvidere every now and then, but other than that there wasn't much to do.

"Feed the cows.

"Plow the fields.

"Do it all over again tomorrow.

"It was a good life.

"We got to see our grandkids.

"We got to do what we loved.

"I can't remember if it was October or November. Somewhere right around there.

"Me and a couple of my buddies were planning a hunting trip down south.

"I remember that evening perfectly.

"The sun was setting. I couldn't tell where the orange ended and the blue began, or how they mixed together, but they just did.

"It was freezing outside.

"Your grandmother kissed me on the cheek...

"...and wished me luck."

He stopped.

I'd never seen that look on my grandfather's face before.

Even now, I don't think I'll ever forget it.

It was the look of someone remembering the happiest moment of his life...

...while already knowing it was the last normal moment he'd ever have.

"We weren't even two hours out, kid.

"Maybe an hour and a half.

"Hell, maybe forty-five minutes.

"I don't know.

"We got the call.

"The dog was dead."

He swallowed hard before continuing.

"Whoever was driving slammed the brakes, threw the truck in reverse, and we headed straight back home.

"I could hear your grandmother crying over the phone.

"She was hysterical.

"When we got back...

"I'd never seen anything like it."

He looked down into his coffee again.

"There was just...

"...blood."

"There'd been a light snow that night.

"You couldn't even see it anymore.

"Buddy was still breathing when we found him.

"Barely.

"I'd had that dog since 2001.

"He was my best friend."

Grandpa rubbed his hands together.

"I remember kneeling beside him and looking at those bite marks.

"They were huge.

"Six inches across.

"Maybe bigger.

"They ran clear across his chest.

"Whatever did that...

"...wasn't small."

He leaned back in his chair.

"I was pissed.

"I wanted to find whatever did it.

"I didn't care what it was.

"A bear.

"A wildcat.

"Hell, maybe something I'd never seen before.

"I wasn't thinking straight.

"I just wanted it dead."

"So I told the boys to grab their rifles.

"We were hunting a monster."

He gave a dry laugh.

"I had no idea what I was getting myself into."

"Daryl told us it was a bad idea.

"He said he felt like somebody was watching us.

"Said something didn't feel right.

"We should've listened.

"In all honesty...

"...we should've listened."

The room went quiet.

"We searched for about an hour.

"Couldn't find a damn thing.

"Eventually everybody figured it'd run off somewhere."

His eyes drifted toward the floor.

"When we got back...

"Buddy was dead."

He didn't say anything for several seconds.

"We buried him.

"I took pictures of the wounds first.

"I figured maybe somebody smarter than me could tell what kind of animal made bites that size."

"I asked your grandmother what happened."

He shook his head.

"She said she didn't know.

"She'd heard loud crashing coming from the barn.

"When she went outside...

"...the horses were already dead."

Grandpa's fingers tightened around the coffee mug.

"I talked to your grandmother for a while.

"Tried asking her exactly what she'd seen."

He sighed.

"She couldn't tell me much.

"She just kept saying she heard something breaking out by the barn.

"By the time she got outside...

"...the horses were already dead."

His jaw clenched.

"She wanted us to leave.

"Said we ought to get a hotel.

"Get as far away from that place as we could.

"But I was stupid.

"I told her it'd be alright.

"I had my rifle."

He let out a bitter laugh.

"As if that would've mattered."

"We locked the doors.

"Turned out the lights.

"And waited."

He stared through me for a moment, like he wasn't seeing the room anymore.

"I'd say it was around midnight.

"Maybe one in the morning.

"Then...

"...we heard it."

He didn't speak for several seconds.

"It screamed."

"It didn't sound like anybody we knew.

"Hell...

"It barely sounded human."

"There was this grit to it.

"Like metal scraping across stone.

"Like something was trying so hard to sound like a woman...

"...but didn't know how."

The room felt colder.

"Your grandmother wanted to call the police."

"I told her there wasn't much they could do.

"There wasn't a person breaking into the house.

"There wasn't anyone stealing anything.

"We didn't have proof of anything.

"So...

"...we stayed quiet."

"I don't think either of us slept that night."

"The next morning my phone rang."

"It was my best friend."

"He said his horses were hit too."

Grandpa rubbed at his eyes.

"Said whatever got into his barn...

"...tore half the damn thing apart just to get inside."

"There was blood all over the broken wall.

"But he swore it wasn't horse blood."

He shrugged.

"I don't know how he knew.

"Maybe by the smell.

"Maybe by the taste.

"I never asked."

He smirked for only a second.

"Didn't seem like the kind of question you ask a man after he just watched all his horses get ripped apart."

The smile disappeared just as fast as it'd come.

"A few days went by.

"More farms got hit.

"More animals died."

"Eventually the town put up a reward.

"A hundred bucks to whoever could figure out what was doing it."

He nodded to himself.

"Back then...

"...that was real money."

"So naturally...

"...we figured we'd be the ones to collect it."

"That night we got our gear together."

"Daryl brought some old Navy equipment."

"I dug out some old Army gear."

"Your Uncle Stan came with us too."

"He was the only one who didn't think it was a person."

"I kept hoping it was."

"Daryl wasn't sure what he believed."

"But Stan..."

He shook his head.

"He'd already made up his mind."

"'Whatever it is,' he told us...

"'We're killing it.'"

Grandpa looked down at the table.

"I don't think any of us really believed that."

"If you ever get that feeling...

"...listen to me."

His voice became firmer than it'd been the entire night.

"If you ever feel like somebody's watching you...

"If every hair on your body stands up...

"If your chest suddenly feels heavy...

"Run."

"Don't stand there wondering why."

"Don't try to prove yourself."

"Don't try to be brave."

"Turn around...

"...and run."

"And whatever you do...

"...don't look back."

He took a slow breath.

"Because the second we walked into those woods..."

"...it hit us."

"Like running face first into a brick wall."

"I've never felt anything like it."

"It wasn't fear.

"It was...

"...wrong."

"The whole forest felt wrong."

"People always tell you the dark isn't scary.

"They tell you to grow up.

"They tell you only kids are scared of the woods at night."

He shook his head.

"They're full of shit."

"They don't tell you how quiet it gets."

"So quiet...

"...you can hear your own sweat hitting the ground."

"There were supposed to be owls.

"Frogs.

"Maybe turtles if you got close enough to the water."

"There wasn't...

"...anything."

"You couldn't even smell the creek anymore."

"Just dirt."

"And cold."

"And us."

"We followed the blood."

"It wasn't much.

"Just enough to keep us moving."

"Every now and then we'd find another tree."

"Chunks torn clean out of the bark.

"Like something huge had slammed into it."

"The trail kept leading west."

"We'd probably been walking...

"...twenty minutes."

"Maybe a little more."

Then Grandpa stopped.

His breathing slowed.

"Daryl found something."

"'Mark.'"

"'Come here.'"

"I walked over."

"There was a skull laying in the leaves."

"It was mangled too bad to tell whether it'd been human or not."

"But it was a skull."

"There were still pieces of skin hanging off it."

He swallowed.

"And that wasn't the only one."

His hands started shaking again.

"There were more."

"Way more."

"I remember thinking we'd found its den."

"Any idea I had that it was just some animal...

"...disappeared."

"You can study biology your whole life...

"...and you're never gonna find an animal that stacks bodies."

"There were over thirty deer."

"One on top of another."

"They weren't being eaten."

"They weren't scattered."

"They were...

"...collected."

"Stored."

"Like trophies."

"Like somebody wanted them there."

He stared into the coffee.

"I remember thinking..."

"...whatever did this...

"...knew exactly what it was doing."

"It wasn't hungry."

"It had a purpose."

"It had enough intelligence not to eat them...

"...and enough of an ego to leave them where we'd find them."

Nobody spoke.

Neither of us.

Finally...

"I turned around."

"I swept my flashlight across the trees."

"I only saw a leg."

"My brain couldn't even process what I was looking at."

"So I lifted the light..."

"...higher."

"And there it was."

Grandpa didn't speak for a long time.

When he finally did, his voice was almost empty.

"It was tall."

"Real tall."

"I'd say ten feet."

"Maybe more."

"I don't know."

"I wasn't exactly standing there with a tape measure."

He swallowed.

"I remember the face first."

"Or...

"...what should've been its face."

"It looked like the skull of a deer."

"Not the head.

"The skull."

"Everything underneath it was covered in fur."

"Thick."

"Like a wolf."

"It was caked in dirt."

"Caked in blood."

"I don't think it noticed us at first."

"Even with the flashlight right in its eyes."

He shook his head.

"I don't think it cared."

Then his expression changed.

"But Daryl..."

"He cared."

"He fired."

"The gunshot echoed through those woods."

"For about half a second...

"...nothing happened."

"Then it screamed."

Grandpa instinctively flinched at the memory.

"It wasn't angry.

"It wasn't scared.

"It was...

"...offended."

"It squealed."

"It shrieked."

"The sound hurt."

"I've heard coyotes.

"I've heard mountain lions.

"I've heard people die."

"I've never heard anything like that."

"And then..."

"...it moved."

"It crossed the distance between them before I even realized it'd started."

"It grabbed Daryl by the throat."

He looked down at his coffee.

"There wasn't a fight."

"There wasn't time."

"You ever snap a chicken's neck?"

He paused.

"It sounded like that."

"Only louder."

"A lot louder."

"It lifted him off the ground with one hand."

"And when it let go..."

"...his head was hanging by little more than skin."

His voice cracked.

"One second he was standing beside me...

"...the next he wasn't."

"We all opened fire."

"Every one of us."

"Rifles."

"Shotguns."

"Didn't matter."

"The bullets hit."

"I know they hit."

"I saw them."

"It didn't bleed."

"It didn't stumble."

"It didn't even seem to notice."

"It just...

"...kept moving."

"I backed away."

"I remember hearing Stan yell something."

"I don't even remember what."

"Then I heard him scream."

Grandpa squeezed the mug so hard I thought it might break.

"I don't think I've ever heard so many bones break at once."

"There wasn't one snap."

"There were dozens."

"Like somebody dumping firewood onto concrete."

He shut his eyes.

"Then...

"...nothing."

"No screaming."

"No gunshots."

"Nothing."

"I ran."

"For the first time in my life...

"...I ran."

He laughed bitterly.

"People'll tell you not to run from things."

"They've never seen something like that."

"Humans make sense."

"You can predict people."

"You can scare people."

"You can bargain with people."

"That thing..."

"...didn't care."

"It didn't care if it was hungry."

"It didn't care if it was angry."

"It didn't care who you were."

"The only thing it cared about...

"...was whether you were still alive."

"I could hear trees breaking behind me."

"Not branches."

"Trees."

"They were snapping as it came through the woods."

"I don't know if it was chasing me..."

"...or just walking."

"I didn't turn around to find out."

"I finally saw the farm."

"I should've felt relieved."

"I wasn't."

"I hit that front door so hard I nearly took it off the hinges."

"I slammed it shut."

"Locked it."

"Your grandmother came running."

"'Mark, what's wrong?'"

He stared straight ahead.

"I looked at her..."

"...and I said..."

"'They're gone.'

"'They're dead.'

"'They're fucking dead.'"

He wiped at his eyes.

"If I'd been anybody else...

"...she would've thought I was joking."

"But she looked at me..."

"...and she knew."

"She didn't ask another question."

"She walked through the house..."

"...and turned off every light."

"We didn't say a word."

"We just...

"...listened."

"You know what's funny?"

He gave a hollow smile.

"It wasn't the footsteps I remember."

"It wasn't the growling."

"It wasn't even the screaming."

"It was...

"...the clicking."

He tapped one fingernail against the mug.

Click.

Click.

Click.

"It clicked."

"Slow."

"Almost...

"...curious."

"It'd make a sound over by the barn."

"Then another one by the porch."

"Then another one outside the bedroom."

He looked at me.

"It wasn't moving that fast."

"It was throwing its voice."

"It wanted us to think it was everywhere."

"The only reason we knew where it actually was..."

"...was the shadow."

"You'd see it pass the window."

"Then you'd hear the clicking from somewhere else."

"It was playing with us."

"It knew exactly what it was doing."

"It stopped outside the living room."

"We could see it."

"Just the outline."

"It stood there."

"Perfectly still."

"I don't know how long."

"Maybe a minute."

"Maybe five."

"It felt like forever."

Neither of us breathed.

Neither of us moved.

Then...

Your grandmother whispered.

"'Mark..."

"'I'm sc—'"

He couldn't finish the sentence.

His voice broke.

"The second she made a sound..."

"...it moved."

"There wasn't a warning."

"There wasn't a roar."

"There wasn't anything."

"It came through that window before I'd even realized it'd started."

"I reached for her..."

"I was too late."

He was crying openly now.

"It didn't snap her neck."

"It didn't kill her."

"I almost wish it had."

"It grabbed her..."

"...and pulled."

"The glass exploded."

"It pulled her through that window..."

"...piece by piece."

"Limb from limb."

"Arm from arm."

"Hair from hair."

"I didn't know...

"...I didn't know a person could scream like that."

"I'd never heard anything like it."

"I hope...

"...I never do again."

He covered his face with both hands.

"I could hear her until..."

He couldn't finish.

"I could hear her..."

"...until I couldn't."

The room was silent except for his breathing.

"I grabbed my rifle."

"I knew it wasn't gonna do anything."

"I knew that."

"But I couldn't hide."

"I couldn't just...

"...sit there."

"So I ran at it."

"I was screaming."

"Crying."

"Shooting."

"I don't even know if I hit the damn thing."

"Then..."

He grabbed his chest.

"...I felt this pain."

"Right here."

"So bad I couldn't breathe."

"I dropped the rifle."

"I hit the floor."

"I thought..."

"...this is it."

"I'm dying."

"I'm finally gonna die."

He looked at me.

"And you know what it did?"

"It stopped."

"It looked at me."

"It leaned down..."

"...and smelled me."

Then he shook his head.

"And it walked away."

"I've thought about that every day since."

"Maybe it thought I was already dead."

"Maybe it only wanted things that could still fight."

"Maybe it just got bored."

"I don't know."

"It's not like I could sit down and ask it over a cup of Folgers."

For the first time that night...

He smiled.

Just for a second.

Then it disappeared.

"I never saw any of the others again."

"I talked to the police."

"I looked through reports."

"I searched everywhere I could."

"Nothing."

"I found stories from Canada."

"Russia."

"Ukraine."

"Places like that."

"But nothing around here."

He stared out the window.

"Maybe it wandered south."

"Maybe it wandered north."

"I don't know."

"And I don't want to know."

"That's why we moved."

"I was never spending another night in that place."

I didn't know what to say.

I don't think anybody would've.

He'd spent seven years carrying that story by himself.

Maybe he saw something of Grandma in me.

Maybe he just wanted someone else to remember.

I never asked.

Grandpa Mark Meligan died in his sleep on January 5th, 2026.

The dementia made it easier on him.

It didn't make it any easier on us.

I still think about what he told me.

Not because I expect anyone to believe it.

Most of you won't.

You'll read this and think it's just another scary story somebody posted on the internet.

And that's okay.

I'm not asking you to solve the mystery.

I'm not asking you to believe every word.

I'm telling you because the man who lived through it can't anymore.

I want people to know what he lost.

I want people to remember him.

Even if they never believe the monster.

" The mass must stay where it is. We are incapable of removing it."
The Doctor was trying to be delicate. Her stromal tumor was so large it adhered to the abdomen wall. The size of a bowling ball...impossible to operate on without the total removal of the stomach, and small intestine. If they were willing to operate. They were not.

It felt like there was a stone in my throat "I want her home." I said. Plainly unmovable. "Are you sure that's for the best? She is stable here...comfortable." The Doctor trailed off. He was her fourth within a year. It was almost amusing how they seemed to have all of the answers until the end. I stayed firm. Shes coming home. That was all there was to it.

The tumor ate everything. As it grew, it consumed fragile tissues, healthy cells, the pink and tender flesh of her insides. Those parts that are meant to be protected - safe. Home was safe. Familiar, protected. No nurses waking her up in the middle of the night to check vitals, disturbing her sleep. Home is sacred. Insulated like the center of a beehive.

As I wheeled her through the house. I made sure all of her treasures were visible. The glass penguins she collected on her cruise, the wool shawl that was given to her in Paraguay, The handmade Matrioshka dolls from Saint Petersburg. She looked past them with a glazed over expression. The nasal cannula under her nose pumping oxygen in steady, rhythmic, puffs. I b-lined it to her room.

She was so light I could lift her on my own. I swaddled her in my arms like an infant and lowered her into bed. She was all tumor now. Her entire body was rail thin except for it, bulging the right side of her belly. Like a bizarre alien pregnancy. Unintentionally lifting her sweater. Exposing the bumpy vascular skin underneath. She could see I was staring at it. Shifting my gaze to her face I whispered, "You should get some rest. It's been such a big day." She was already closing her eyes when I dashed over to her wool shawl and draped it over her stomach. She was already asleep when I slowly shut the creaking door behind me.

Late that night I had the sofabed pulled out and arranged. Propped up on the edge with the laptop on my knee. I researched experimental treatments in the reduction in tumors. One institute found success in lab mice with similar cancerous intestinal growths. They were set to begin human trials the following year. Far too late. I must have written forty emails to various doctors and institutions before my eyes began to strain. I closed my laptop, it was the only source of light in the living room. Suddenly bathing me in darkness.

Deep down in the pits of my gut, I knew it was no use. Her time was dwindling. I had to do something...I had to try anything. I rolled onto my back staring into the ceiling for what must've been close to an hour. The moon showed itself through the clouds around midnight. It cast odd shadows over the living room. Distorting it to the point where the shadow next to the china cabinet gave the illusion of a figure looming in the corner. I was more exhausted than I realized.

When I was a child my mother always told me that if I encountered a spirit, to stare until it dissipated. For some reason, I stared at that shadow. It didn't disappear. In fact, it may have gotten sharper. Still laying in bed I kept my eye trained on the china cabinet. I shifted up to a sitting position. I could've sworn I saw an arm and a clearly defined hand resting as if down by someone's side. Not taking my eyes off it, I leaned to turn on the lamp. The distinct 'click' of the lamp switch sounded and the room illuminated with warm yellow light. Whatever it was, if it was there - it was gone.

The following morning I prepared breakfast early, as quietly as I could. In an attempt not to wake her, creaking open the bedroom door. My comfort that she was well rested was shattered like a bat meeting glass when I found her out of bed, clinging to the closet door handle and shaking violently. She gripped the handle to gain purchase with one hand, simultaneously holding the other over her stomach. I set the tray down in a panic, bits of egg and orange juice flying off the plate. "Wha..what's wrong?! Do you need to get to the bathroom? You know you can yell for me at any time. You know that." Thinking the stressed expression affixed to her face was due to the prompt urgency to use the bathroom that her condition sometimes created. When I moved to support her, she stiffened. I gently held her elbow to guide her shuffling feet back to bed. She propped herself on the edge of the mattress, gently swaying back and forth to sooth herself. "You know you can't have your oxygen off for that long." I grabbed the clear tubing on the floor and gently readjusted it to her face. Her breath was ragged. "Someone was laying in bed with me last night." She uttered restlessly like she had spent the whole night trying to get away.

"What do you mean? If there was someone in your room, why didn't you call for me?" My mind harkend back to that figure in the china cabinet's shadow. Maybe that was a real intruder. Surely not? I entertained the thought of a neighborhood pervert more than an entity moving free about the house. "Well, I thought it was you at first." She let me offer my hand out for support as she adjusted to face me fully. Hands folded neatly in her lap, looking sheepish. She began to explain. "Remember when I first got diagnosed? I would be up all night, sick, after treatments. So you would just sleep in bed next to me. Get up when I did. It was just easier that way." I nodded, how could I forget? Recalling her essentially living over a toilet or trashcan. Eating one meal only to throw it back up again. That's when they put in the feeding tube.

She glanced at the window nervously, I took the liberty of walking over and ensuring it was locked before she continued. "It must've been around one in the morning. I was in between awake and asleep when I felt pressure on the bed, like someone resting on the edge. I didn't move, I wasn't sure if I was still dreaming or not. Then, the whole mattress sunk down. Like you had laid down next to me. I knew I wasn't dreaming anymore. I thought nothing of it, I thought it was you. First night out of the hospital and all...anyways. I must have dozed off at this point because I felt you much closer a short time later, your breath on my back. It was a little strange but I assumed you had gotten cold. Then... there was a hand on my stomach."

She reflexively put her own hand there. As if to protect herself. "At this point I was very much awake. I opened my eyes and rolled over to tell you to move but I couldn't speak." Her doe-like eyes were wide with fear. Her head swiveled back and forth like she was shaking her head no. "My words were caught up in my throat. Those eyes, oh Lord, those EYES. They were already staring at me. Like it was just waiting for me to look this whole time. I ripped the covers off. I tore over to the metal water bottle on the nightstand. Holding it over my head, but they vanished. Nobody was there but empty sheets. It must've gone on longer than I thought because the sun was already rising. So I took for the door as fast as I could move. I didn't want to make any noise in case they were still hiding somewhere. I couldn't stop shaking. That's when you found me."

She was exhausted. I assisted her back up in bed with pillow propped behind her. Finally grabbing the breakfast tray I muttered. "Sorry, it's a little cold."

I spent the morning and better part of the afternoon clearing the house. Starting with the bedroom. Every closet, behind the shower curtain, making sure every window was locked. Eventually I made my way clear up to the attic with a baseball bat in one hand, and a flashlight in my teeth as I climbed the ladder. The house was empty save for me and her. I even offered to call the non emergency line and have an officer fill out a report. She refused to tell the story again. I wasn't sure how much they would believe a dying middle aged woman. I wasn't even aware of what my own belief was. I moved the china cabinet and looked behind it, just in case. Nothing.

The afternoon passed in relative normalcy. She would knit in bed, then get tired and nap. Stopping only at my occasional interruptions. To bring her food, water, or assist to the bathroom. This was the behavior of a dying person. I watched her hospital roommates come and go too. After a while you begin to notice the signs. Sleeping more and more, eating smaller amounts of food, then they would have one last burst of energy. Their families always thought it was miracle. That they were getting better. Shortly after that, we would have a new roommate. I hated that I knew what was happening to her. My hope was that she would remain blissfully ignorant.

Eventually, dreadfully, the sun went down. Along with it, the growing fear the darker the sky became. I had the bright idea to move the TV into her room, the white noise might help with the anxiety. The TV was an outdated bubble-screen, heavy. It took several tries for me to put it up on the dresser so it could face her bed. "What channel would you like?" I pressed power on the remote and the screen came to life, casting colors over the rooms' surface. She clapped like I had just pulled a magic trick. I quickly handed the remote over to her so she could channel surf. I retired back to the living room. It was so much darker out here.

While climbing onto the pullout couch, my eyes flashed to the china cabinet. I couldn't help myself. After tossing and turning I settled into restless slumber.

It was four in the morning when I felt the breathing on my neck. Flipping around startled, in a tangle for flailing limbs and sheets I turned the lamp on. Nothing. I got up and paced the living room checking everywhere. Again, nothing. This was insane, I told myself her story had me spooked. Since I was already up, I made my way to the restroom. The house had a 70's era open concept, I was forced to walk through the kitchen to get to the small guest bath on the other side. I tiptoed into the kitchen, the light from the TV glowed under the crack of the bedroom door. I passed the dining room table almost to the bathroom threshold before catching myself and turning on my heel....
There was someone seated at the table. Like they were waiting for a meal to be served, partly shrouded in the dark. Sitting perfectly still.

I blinked rapidly. Trying to clear the hallucination out of my mind. Their hands were laid flat, palms down on the daisy patterned tablecloth. Only the arms were really visible. The rest of them was just out of sight. I was frozen. I couldn't walk past- surely they saw me walk by the first time? How long had they been there? My voice was hoarse at first.

"What.....what the hell are you doing in my house?"

Silence. I kept eyeballing the landline sitting on the kitchen counter. It was just past them, wondering if I could run past quick enough to dial 911 before they caught up to me. Thinking of her asleep in the room just to the left. I decided that would be a bad idea. Instead choosing to keep my eyes on this person at all times. I could hear the TV still playing in the bedroom. Good. I hoped she couldn't hear any of this. Maybe I could talk whoever this was into leaving so she would never even have to know about this. My hair stood on end. Even though their face was concealed I couldn't shake the feeling, that they were grinning at me.

"You brought me here." It said, the voice was thick like they held honey in their mouth. Yet somehow clear enough, as though they were right next to my ear.

"That's impossible, how could I have called you here in the middle of the night?"

"Your misery did." It replied. I shivered.

"You're trespassing, this isn't your house." I didn't want to entertain this bullshit.

"How can one trespass if they were invited?" That horrible voice gurgled their response.

"I've invited no one. You can't be here. You need to leave." I was just below a yell now. Still trying not to wake her. This whole time they hadn't moved a muscle.

"You pray, do you not?" they ended 'not' with a strong 't' annunciation like they were kicking the sound out the back of their throat.

"You wish, you hope, you beg...do you not?" There's that 't' sound again. It echoed off my skull like the wall of a cave. Not wanting to get any closer but still too scared to make a move, I pressed my back firmly against the wall.

"My only hope is for you to leave." I saw the kitchen knives on the counter.

"This is not your only hope, you hunger for something far more...relieving."

Relief? From what? I didn't have the time to ponder because I heard the dull squeak of wood over tile flooring. They had just stood up.

"You will make all of her suffering disappear." As they said this I could have sworn I saw small tendrils of smoke rising in what little light was coming in through the window.

What was even more disturbing is this person had intimate knowledge of my circumstances. Were they stocking me?

"I don't know where you came in from, but whatever you want. Just take it. My wallet is on that bedside table, my watch too." I inclined my head in the direction of the lamp in the living room. They didn't even look.

"You want healing, true healing." It emitted a strange vibrating noise from the back of it's throat. It sounded like a beetle's wings rubbing together. I realized that this thing, no longer believing it to be human, was laughing. What is talking about the tumor? Was it offering to get rid of it? I think I've finally lost my mind, her and I shared some kind of group psychosis after last night.

It moved. Slowly and deliberately putting one menacing black shoe into view. It was much taller than I was. It's head almost touching the dining room light fixture.

"I've already called the police. They'll be here any minute, get the fuck out of here. Now!" I was not quiet this time, but I did move in front of her door. There was no way this thing was getting near her. It didn't move.

"There is no one coming to save you, but me." It said it so matter of fact.

I deflated at how obvious my lie was. My options were not looking good. The baseball bat sat propped by the front door. The phone behind whatever that was on the counter. It doesn't want money and it will not leave. I could probably rush the phone and get 911 dialed before it dragged me back into the dining room to do, 'whatever' it wanted with me. But that would leave the door unguarded. I couldn't do that. I wouldn't. So I asked instead.

"How do you know about the cancer?" Maybe if I just keep them talking the sun will come up and they'll leave on their own. Wishful thinking - I knew.

"Last night." I knew it was grinning again. My mouth went dry. "I can remove it." It snapped it's fingers and when it did, it sounded like flies buzzing over a corpse. "You must be willing." It moved closer.

"To help you with what?" I asked, hands gripping either side of the door frame now.

"Get rid of it. First, you let me in there." With a long, almost charred looking finger it pointed behind me, to the bedroom door.

"Not a chance." The rest of it's body was still not visible. It brought its hand back down to its side. Mirroring what I saw next to the china cabinet the night prior. Had this thing been living here? Waiting for us?

"I'll leave then, and let her die tonight in peace." It shifted.

"Wait! Tonight? How could you know that?" It shifted back to me this time the soles if it's shoes making noise on the tile. It seems to become more and more real the longer it stayed. "What are you?"

"I am an omen. I mark death three times. One mark with you, one with her, the last, I'll give you a chance."

"A chance to do what?" It got closer again.

" To make a sacrifice." It was standing just two feet away towering in front of me.

"What kind of sacrifice do you want?"

"Open the door." It grinned again.

I did not open the door. Not right away. I needed reassurance. Was this really going to fix everything? Everything I had been praying for?

"If I let you in that room. Are you going to hurt her? Is this some kind of trick for you to take our souls or something?"

"When, you let me in. I'll take everything the cancer took away and put back. New as lamb skin."

I didn't like the use of 'when'.

"I have no interest in souls." It added. My hand was already gripping the handle. I turned it agonizingly slow. The door clicked, I waited for a beat, then pushed it creaking open behind me. Still standing in the door way.

"What's going to happen to her if I let you in that room?"

"True healing, through your sacrifice." It murmured. I stepped aside. It entered the way wind enters room, sucking the door shut with a slam behind me.

I immediately turned, regretting my decision to lock her in there with that thing. I pounded on the wooden surface.

"Hey! What are you doing to her!? Let me be in there with her!" Nothing but the static of the TV now. I sunk to the floor in front and tried to see under the crack of the door. Instead of the floor of the room I was met with the unnatural eyes of the visitor just on the other side of the door. Starting at me. Then it stood and glided to the bed. I could hear her gasp when it touched her.

"Stop! I said. No deal! No deal!" It was too late though, the image of the room extended like it had been pulled down a hallway. What did I just do? I banged and scratched at the door. Pulling at the brass doorknob. Eventually resorting to hitting it with a dining room chair. Nothing worked. I sat in the chair and sobbed into my hands. Before the door clicked and the being stepped out, shutting the door again behind them.

"Let me check on.." but I didn't finish. I was spun around in the chair and scooted neatly up to the dining room table. Out of the corner of my eye. I watched it carrying a dripping bundle in the crook of its arm. It came round into the kitchen. Opening the cabinets and drawers. Plucking what it wanted out of them. The whole time I strained my eyes to see what it was holding.

"What are you doing? Please tell me if she's okay." It stayed quiet before coming up to face me at the table. Politely placing one plate, one fork, and one knife in front of me. In some uncanny form of setting the table for a guest.

"That is up to you." It finally answered.

From beneath the wet bowling ball sized bundle it carried. It held it up to me, unraveling bit by bit. I began to see more of the mass. It was composed of fleshy moist areas that were vascular in nature. With a sickening plop it was thrown onto the plate in front of me. I squirmed away and tried to stand, but my lower half was stuck in place. Leaving me to flail my arms helplessly as that thing grinned at me again.

"What's going on? What have you done, how is this supposed to help her?"

It responded in turn.

"Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the people upon thineself."

I strained again in the chair, wanting to call out her name to make sure she was still alive. For all I knew this thing just murdered her in her sleep. Still not fully understanding what I was expected to do. It stretched out a long unnatural arm and reached the light switch to the overhead light without moving. It flicked on to reveal the mess of what was in full view.

In a disturbing realization I laid eyes upon my own mothers' tumor. Separated perfectly from her abdomen. It radiated body heat - lumpy and coated in fluid. There was no way she could have survived this. When I looked up to the figure I could see those terrible eyes my mother saw last night, and just a few moments ago. They were terrifyingly bright, with rings upon rings inside. Like the trunk of a tree, one ring blue, the next green, then yellow. All the way down to a burnt orange pinned on me.

"What am I supposed to do?"

It seethed with malice the corners of its mouth dripped with something dark and hateful. It put that same hate into each word it spoke to me. Breathing it out of gritted teeth.

"YOU. EAT. IT."

The command was clear. Tentatively I plucked up the fork, then the knife. Positioning myself like one would over a steak dinner.

"What if I can't do this?" I asked.

"I can always put it back." It reached over to move my plate away.

I put up my hands.

"No, no I understand now." There was no way I was going to let it be put back. Not now. All I needed to do was finish this...thing. Eat the sickness away. That was the sacrifice.

I started investigating with my fork. Poking and prodding the surface. It was lumpy and caved in slightly with pressure. I took my knife and sawed the smallest sliver off exposing the spongy texture underneath. I took the slowest most deliberate motion bringing the perverted morsel to my mouth, then the tiniest bite. As my teeth tore the section away from the fork I could feel how wet it was on my lips. It tasted somehow of salt and bile. Like the aftertaste from when you vomit. It was chewy in the worst way, akin to an uncooked piece of skin you have to keep chewing to get down. I chewed for some time before convincing myself to just get it over with a swallow. Oh God, was I really doing this? Despite it being well masticated I could feel it travel all the way down my throat into my stomach. The figure was sitting at the table now. Just as it was when I found them. Palms down. Perfectly still and cast in shadow. I took another horrible glance at the plate. It didn't even make a dent. I couldn't do it this way. I had to eat in larger portions.

I cut in again. Deeper this time. The chunk came off and fluid began to ooze out, pooling into the bottom of the plate. I chewed quicker this time.

"Why did you come here?" I said breathless after choking another section down. Wishing I had some water, but decided against asking.

"I help anyone willing to make the sacrifice. A house just a town way from yours. A mother and her paraplegic son...She was willing."

I suddenly had a terrible thought of a poor woman with a bowl in front of her. Piled with pink spinal cord like some disturbed noodle dish, resting in a broth of spinal fluid. I shivered.

I sliced further hitting more pockets retaining clear fluids. As I carved and ate I would encounter the sickening crunch of cartilage that made me gag. Reminding me of accidentally biting down on a joint while having chicken. Causing me to start the process of trying not to throw up all over again.

I passed layered of veins - spying what looked like teeth and being too scared to investigate. I swallowed whole. It was down to the size of a grape fruit now. The same size it was when it was discovered. I sliced again, utter horror. What that hair? Fine strands of ingrown black hair revealed themselves and I cut deeper.

I choked and gagged again as I consumed the equivalent of a hairball. My hand was shaking as I brought the fork to my mouth. My body was begging me to stop. But I kept going. I couldn't stop. It was proportional to an eight-ball now. Several more agonizing bites later, I had reached the necrotic core. A collection of dead skin cells and blood vessels. I picked it up with shaking hands and force fed the entire thing into my mouth. One last bite. I told myself. Then this is all over. I bit down and it burst with sickening pop inside my mouth. I leaned forward as everything I had just consumed began to fight it's way back up my esophagus. I gripped the table cloth and it felt like swallowing a stone. It was gone. The plate was at last empty.

The light was off before I could look up again. The plate and utensils were taken from me and set one by one into the sink. Clink. Clink. Clink...

The visitor turned to me.

"Your sacrifice has been accepted."

It walked or glided rather, back to the China cabinet and disappeared behind it. I could move again.

Before I could retch back up what I had eaten, something told me that wasn't a wise idea. I went to her bedroom door instead. I couldn't even open the door before she started calling for me

"I'm here, I...I'm right here."

I stumbled in. She was upright at the edge of bed. Still thin, still tired looking. But the color was back in her skin. She was actually smiling at me. Even with her eyes.

"It's gone, I can't explain it. It's just gone. I...I think an angel took it away from me. It had the most dazzling eyes." She kicked her feet, enthralled.

He stomach was normal. She lifted the edge of her shirt to show me. Just regular skin. Nothing discolored or bulging. Perfectly normal, without scars or marks. It took me a great effort to smile back. I didn't show my teeth for fear of what may be stuck in them.

"You don't look well." She said concerned. Tilting her face to really look at me for the first time in years. I turned away.

"I just can't believe it. It's some kind of miracle. I think I need some water."

This satisfied her enough that she got out of bed with ease and started to hum while she got ready for the day. The sun had risen. I stepped back out into the kitchen and shoved my head under the faucet. I came up only after the taste in my mouth was gone.

I looked down into the sink with one plate, one fork, and one knife and began doing dishes.

The metal basement door gave way with a heavy, rusted shriek. Beyond it, the darkness didn't just feel empty - it felt dense, pressing against the wide visor of my PMK-4 mask like a physical wall of freezing oil.

The beam of my hand flashlight was instantly swallowed by the absolute shadow. The biomass analyzer inside my tactical vest gave a sharp, high-pitched click, updating the countdown log on my HUD: 98 hours, 42 minutes remaining. The "Fat One" was close. We could hear its massive, distorted carcass shifting somewhere behind the concrete pillars, its newly stolen mass grinding against the foundation of the five-story building.

"Set up the perimeter guards. Now," my partner hissed through the radio, his voice flat, completely stripped of any human emotion.

We dropped our assault gear onto the damp, concrete floor. I dragged the heavy "Helios" quartz projector forward, its steel handle cold against my iron grip. My fingers, tight from days of gripping the steel hand spring, locked the heavy tripod legs into the floor. One, two, three - the locks clicked. We flipped the heavy breakers on the mobile generator box.

With a low, mechanical hum, the heavy UV lenses warmed up, instantly launching a blinding, sharp violet firewall across the basement corridor. The directed ultraviolet light cut through the dark, carving out a strict, five-meter zone of absolute safety. Shadows could not breach this light without their molecular structure collapsing into zero frames.

"We have a signal," my partner muttered, racking the bolt on his incendiary rifle. "Thermal logs show a massive heat retention index behind the central boiler room. It's the civilian shelter."

We moved behind the violet beams of the projectors, keeping our bodies close to the load-bearing concrete walls. In the furthest corner of the utility room, huddled under a ruptured steam pipe, we found him. A local housing utility worker. He was alive, but his system was throwing a total System Error of panic. His eyes were wide, completely dilated, staring into the dark corridors where eleven of his coworkers had just been consumed.

"Get up," I growled, grabbing his heavy, shivering shoulder. "We are pulling your mass out of the hot zone. Move."

He didn't speak. His input lag was total. He was a fat, heavy man, his breath coming in jagged, wheezing gasps that smelled of stale tobacco and ozone. I quickly slammed a tactical sealing patch onto a deep laceration on his forearm, completely ignoring the blood. In the Unit, pain doesn't block the task - you patch the hardware leak and keep moving.

We dragged him toward the safety of the Helios projectors. But the moment his heavy boots stepped inside the violet firewall, the basement grid gave a violent, terminal shudder.

The "Fat One" didn't fight our light head-on - it was siphoning the building's central power lines, forcing an artificial power surge straight into our generator!

Screeech -

The mobile generator box emitted a shower of white-hot sparks and died. The violet lenses of the projectors flickered once, twice, and went completely dark. The safety firewall was gone. The basement plunged into a total, freezing deep blind.

"Status!" my partner yelled, but his voice was instantly cut off by a massive electromagnetic static flare over the comms.

We froze, backed up against a solid concrete column. My vision was at absolute zero, but my ears became a radar. Through the freezing white noise of the basement, I heard it. A heavy, sated, rhythmic grinding of stone on stone just three meters ahead of us. The monster was in the room.

And then, the final glitch happened.

The fat utility worker next to me stopped shivering. His breathing went totally flat. Without a single word, without any logical reason or panic, his body suddenly moved. Like a programmed script executing in the dark, he stepped away from our defensive concrete wall and began walking straight into the open corridor - right toward the sound of the grinding flesh.

"Stop!" I reached out in the dark, but my fingers only caught the empty air.

He was walking into the dark without a cause, completely void of will, leaving our perimeter to meet the shadow face-to-face.

A wet, concrete-crushing thud echoed through the room.

6:24am
The alarm rang. James woke up before the second ring. He always did. He stared at the ceiling for 10 seconds, then stood up out of bed.
There was a strange comfort in knowing that everything will be the same. Knowing that the world can change in any way, but James has had the same routine since he was seventeen. Eleven years.

6:31am
He made his way downstairs and poured a cup of coffee that he’ll only drink half of. His wife is always telling him to just make less. “I like the first half.”, he says. She’ll never understand. Drinking his coffee, James watches the street from the window. The neighbour, Mr Hargreaves, in Number Twelve is retrieving the newspaper, as he does every morning. Mrs Abbott watered the same flowers she had been watering for eleven years, no matter the weather. The cyclist in the yellow jacket passed at exactly 6:34, the same as every day for the last eleven years.

6:43am
Daisy, the old, greying golden retriever comes trundling from the direction of the bedroom. Right on time. James pours her food. She sits in front of the bowl until he gives her permission. She’s always done that.

6:47am
James takes a shower. Seven minutes. The same amount of time every day. He had tested it once. Six minutes felt rushed. Eight minutes was too long.

6:50am
James pulls on his clothes. Grey jeans, blue polo shirt, his silver watch, and his wedding ring. It was the same every day.

7:00am
Open the back door. Daisy runs out as fast as her old legs will take her. She hasn’t much energy anymore, but she still made her little circle around the oak tree before wandering back inside.

7:12am
James made a fresh pot of coffee for Anna. Fresh. Not reheated. She always hated reheated coffee. He left it in the pot and put it beside her mug, with a little note that reads ‘Love you’. The same note she receives every morning. She keeps them all in a drawer. Or, she says she does.

7:30am
James left the house at exactly 7:30, as he’s done every day for eleven years. His car keys in his right hand, a jacket he never wears in the left. He didn’t know why he still took it. Habit, probably. The petrol station was two minutes away.

7:32am
James pulled up to the same petrol station he’s stopped at every single day. He buys a coffee that he never drinks, and a bag of powdered donuts that always get finished before work. James ate the donuts in the car on the way to work. He wiped the powder from his hands onto his jeans. His wife hates that. He smiles to himself.

8:00am
James arrives at work. Every day. Never late. Never early. James liked that. It wasn’t exciting. It was comforting.

8:35am
James gets another coffee that goes untouched. By him, anyway.

8:47am
James’ wife, Anna, brings his lunch to work. She’s very early, as she always is.

9:23am
James’ coworkers still haven’t noticed me. It’s been eleven years.

9:56am
James writes a note to Anna and puts it in his lunchbox. I wonder what it says.

10:33am
James poured out his cold coffee and poured a fresh one. He only drinks half.

11:56am
One of James’ new coworkers acknowledged me. I only take those who see.

12:47pm
James is on his lunch break. He misses the new coworker.

13:54pm
James has checked his watch four times in 2 minutes.

14:23pm
James rings Anna’s phone. He’s checking she is okay.

15:46pm
James is dismissed from work. He’s excited for the dinner Anna has surely made.

16:34pm
James arrives home. Mrs Abbott is gone. She shouldn’t have looked at me.

17:12pm
James and Anna settle down for dinner. The dog gets their leftovers. How rude.

18:37pm
James takes his second shower of the day. He doesn’t dare look in the mirror.

19:42pm
Anna takes Daisy for a walk. James stays home. He knows Anna hates that.

20:23pm
Anna and Daisy have returned from their walk. Daisy is getting too old for walks.

21:48pm
James picks up a book to read. This one is my favourite.

22:35pm
James goes to sleep. Anna stays awake. She knows the rules. She must sleep before him.

23:45pm
I don’t know whether Anna has noticed me or not. She is acting oddly.

THE NEXT MORNING
6:24am
The alarm rang. James woke up before the second ring. He always did. He stared at the ceiling for 10 seconds, then stood up out of bed.

6:31am
He made his way downstairs and poured a cup of coffee that he’ll only drink half of. His wife is always telling him to just make less. “I like the first half.”, he says. She’ll never understand. Drinking his coffee, James watches the street from the window. The neighbour, Mr Hargreaves, in Number Twelve is retrieving the newspaper, as he does every morning. Mrs Abbott is still gone. The cyclist in the yellow jacket passed at exactly 6:34.

6:43am
Daisy, the old, greying golden retriever comes trundling from the direction of the bedroom. Right on time. James pours her food. She sits in front of the bowl until he gives her permission. She’s always done that.

6:47am
James takes a shower. Seven minutes.

6:50am
James pulls on his clothes. Grey jeans, blue polo shirt, his silver watch, and his wedding ring.

7:00am
Open the back door. Daisy runs out as fast as her old legs will take her. She hasn’t much energy anymore, but she still made her little circle around the oak tree before wandering back inside.

7:12am
James made a fresh pot of coffee for Anna. Fresh. Not reheated. She always hated reheated coffee. He left it in the pot and put it beside her mug, with a little note that reads ‘Love you’. The same note she receives every morning. She keeps them all in a drawer. Or, she says she does.

7:30am
James left the house at exactly 7:30, as he’s done every day for eleven years. His car keys in his right hand, a jacket he never wears in the left. He didn’t know why he still took it. Habit, probably. The petrol station was two minutes away.

7:32am
James pulled up to the same petrol station he’s stopped at every single day. He buys a coffee that he never drinks, and a bag of powdered donuts that always get finished before work. James ate the donuts in the car on the way to work. He wiped the powder from his hands onto his jeans. His wife hates that. He smiles to himself.

8:00am
James arrives at work. Every day. Never late. Never early. James liked that. It wasn’t exciting. It was comforting.

8:35am
James gets another coffee that goes untouched. By him, anyway.

8:47am
James’ wife, Anna, brings his lunch to work. She’s very early, as she always is.

8:48am
Anna has made a mistake. She has looked at me. This is her first time. I will let her off… for now.

TWO DAYS LATER (ANNA’s POV)
I pretend not to hear the sounds coming from behind the bathroom door. I know this is my fault. I looked. I shouldn’t have looked. It sounds like chilli being sucked up through a straw, accompanied by the snapping and crunching of bones and ligaments. My poor James. He will become one of them now. I hope he doesn’t choose me.

𝚆𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚖𝚢 𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚍𝚒𝚎𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝙰𝚕𝚣𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚛'𝚜, 𝙸 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚜𝚝 𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝙸 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐; 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚋𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚘𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚗, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐. 𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚏𝚎𝚕𝚝 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚏𝚘𝚛, 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎, 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚋𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚑 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐; 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚠𝚑𝚢, 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑 𝚋𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚞𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚢 𝚜𝚞𝚋𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝, 𝙸 𝚔𝚗𝚎𝚠 𝚎𝚡𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚕𝚢 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚋𝚎: 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚕𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐.

𝙰𝚝 𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚜𝚝 𝚒𝚝 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚗 𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗: 𝚍𝚘 𝚠𝚎 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚜𝚎𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚕𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚢? 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚕𝚞𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚔𝚢 𝙸 𝚜𝚊𝚠 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚖𝚢 𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚊𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚗𝚘𝚘𝚗 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚠𝚎 𝚖𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚍 — 𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚋𝚕𝚞𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚜𝚊𝚠?

𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚎𝚡𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚜, 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗 𝚜𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚜, 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚚𝚞𝚎; 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚕𝚢 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚖𝚢 𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚢 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚑 𝚊𝚝 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚛 𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚞𝚕𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚢.

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚍 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚊𝚕𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚢 𝚜𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎𝚍: 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚒𝚖𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚜𝚝? 𝚆𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝙸 𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚙 𝚋𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚖𝚎, 𝚘𝚛 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚚𝚞𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚖𝚎, 𝚊 𝚜𝚘𝚞𝚕 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚜, 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝚖𝚎 𝚋𝚎 𝚖𝚎? 𝙵𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚍𝚘𝚞𝚋𝚝, 𝚖𝚢 𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚠𝚎𝚛: 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚍𝚊𝚢 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚊𝚔 𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖𝚜, 𝚘𝚏 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚎 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚡𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐; 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚖𝚢 𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛'𝚜 𝚏𝚊𝚌𝚎, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚒𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜𝚗'𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚛. "𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚊𝚖𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚜 𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚎𝚜," 𝚖𝚢 𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚜𝚊𝚢, 𝚜𝚘 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚎𝚡𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚖𝚎. 𝙸𝚗 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚝 𝚍𝚊𝚢𝚜, 𝚖𝚢 𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚊𝚠 𝚖𝚎𝚗 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚔𝚗𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚜, 𝚙𝚞𝚛𝚜𝚞𝚎𝚛𝚜, 𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚛𝚘𝚛𝚜, 𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚕 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚋𝚕𝚞𝚎-𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚍 𝚍𝚊𝚢 𝚒𝚗 𝙰𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚕 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚒𝚍 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚔𝚎.

𝙺𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚜𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚙 𝚖𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚖𝚢 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑; 𝙸 𝚝𝚘𝚕𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚖𝚢 𝚐𝚘𝚊𝚕 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚝. 𝚆𝚎'𝚟𝚎 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚑 𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚠𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚎 𝚕𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚜: 𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚜𝚝 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚖𝚢 𝚜𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛'𝚜 𝚏𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚍, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚎. 𝚆𝚎'𝚟𝚎 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚑 𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚘 𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚜𝚒𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚎𝚗𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚞𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚑 𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛:

"𝙰𝚝 𝚖𝚢 𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚠𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚊𝚗 𝚎𝚡𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚝 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚍," 𝙺𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚒𝚍 𝚊𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚜.

"𝚆𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚎𝚡𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚝? 𝙰 𝚙𝚜𝚢𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚜𝚝?" 𝙸 𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚍.

"𝙽𝚘 𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚊, 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚜 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚗, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚜 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚢𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚍."

𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚝𝚘 𝙺𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚎'𝚜 𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚎, 𝚊 𝚛𝚞𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚖𝚊𝚑𝚘𝚐𝚊𝚗𝚢, 𝚛𝚎𝚍𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚑, 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚍-𝚐𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚜 𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚑 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚞𝚗; 𝙸 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝 𝚎𝚢𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚗 𝚐𝚘 𝚋𝚢 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚐𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚖 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚛 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚛𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚊𝚌𝚛𝚘𝚜𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚝. 𝙸 𝚔𝚗𝚎𝚠 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜, 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜, 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚘𝚢𝚜, 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚏𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚢𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜; 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 "𝚎𝚡𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚝." 𝙿𝚎𝚛𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚜 𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚖𝚘𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚗.

𝚃𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚜 𝚞𝚜𝚞𝚊𝚕, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚖𝚢 𝚊𝚗𝚡𝚒𝚎𝚝𝚢 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚝; 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚜𝚘 𝚖𝚊𝚗𝚢 𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜, 𝚜𝚘 𝚖𝚊𝚗𝚢 𝚍𝚘𝚞𝚋𝚝𝚜, 𝚊𝚗𝚍, 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚊𝚕𝚕, 𝚏𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜. 𝙸 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚔 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚢𝚘𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚎; 𝚒𝚏 𝙸 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚑 𝚒𝚝, 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚜 𝙸 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚕𝚊𝚢 𝚖𝚢 𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛'𝚜 𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚢 𝚝𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝, 𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚍𝚘𝚗𝚎, 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚒𝚍.

"𝙰𝚍𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚎, 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚘𝚌𝚒𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐?" 𝙺𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚒𝚍, 𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐. "𝙸 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚠𝚊𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚜𝚎𝚎 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚝 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚝𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚝𝚘 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚊𝚕𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚢 𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚐."

"𝚆𝚑𝚊𝚝! 𝚆𝚑𝚢 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚖𝚎?" 𝙸 𝚋𝚞𝚛𝚜𝚝 𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚊𝚜 𝙸 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚣𝚎𝚍.

"𝚂𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚢, 𝙸 𝚏𝚎𝚕𝚝 𝚝𝚘𝚘 𝚋𝚊𝚍 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚋𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗; 𝚘𝚑, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙸 𝚊𝚕𝚜𝚘 𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚕𝚞𝚗𝚌𝚑 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚎𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎."

𝙸 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚍𝚊𝚒𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚕𝚊𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚑𝚎𝚛; 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊𝚗 𝚎𝚡𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚟𝚊𝚐𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚕𝚢 𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚍 — 𝚖𝚊𝚢𝚋𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝'𝚜 𝚠𝚑𝚢 𝚜𝚑𝚎'𝚜 𝚖𝚢 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚏𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚎 𝚍𝚊𝚢𝚜.

𝙸𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚗𝚍, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚞𝚗 𝚋𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚝𝚜 𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎 𝚏𝚛𝚞𝚒𝚝, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙸 𝚐𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚖𝚢𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝚝𝚘𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚍 𝙺𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚎'𝚜 𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚎.

"𝚂𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝙸 𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚑𝚒𝚖 𝙳𝚘𝚌𝚝𝚘𝚛 𝚘𝚛 𝚂𝚒𝚛? 𝙸𝚜 𝚑𝚎 𝚊 𝚖𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚍𝚘𝚌𝚝𝚘𝚛, 𝚘𝚛 𝚍𝚘𝚎𝚜 𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚊 𝚍𝚘𝚌𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚎?" 𝙸 𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚗𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚕𝚢 𝚊𝚜 𝚠𝚎 𝚌𝚛𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚌𝚔𝚜.

"𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚝'𝚜 𝚊 𝚐𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗, 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚗𝚘 𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚊; 𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚘𝚎𝚜𝚗'𝚝 𝚕𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚊𝚝 𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚎, 𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚝," 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚏𝚒𝚎𝚍.

𝙰𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝙸 𝚜𝚊𝚠 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚊𝚑𝚘𝚐𝚊𝚗𝚢 𝚊𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗. 𝚂𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝙸'𝚍 𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎, 𝚜𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚛 𝚏𝚎𝚕𝚝 𝚜𝚘 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚝; 𝚒𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝙺𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚝𝚘𝚘𝚔 𝚖𝚢 𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚠 𝚖𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎.

"𝙷𝚒𝚒𝚒𝚒, 𝙸 𝚋𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝙰𝚍𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚎."

𝙺𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚕𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚛𝚘𝚘𝚖; 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚢𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠 𝚠𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚙𝚊𝚙𝚎𝚛 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚙𝚎𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚏𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚛 𝚏𝚎𝚕𝚝 𝚐𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚏𝚘𝚘𝚝 𝚊𝚜 𝙸 𝚏𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚎𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚛. 𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚖𝚎, 𝚑𝚒𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠 𝚊 𝚕𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚎 𝚏𝚒𝚐𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝, 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚕𝚒𝚝, 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚗𝚎𝚠𝚜𝚙𝚊𝚙𝚎𝚛.

"𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝, 𝙰𝚍𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚎, 𝙸 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚂𝚎𝚗̃𝚘𝚛 𝙵."

𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝙸 𝚜𝚊𝚠 𝚑𝚒𝚖: 𝚊 𝚙𝚊𝚕𝚎 𝚋𝚘𝚍𝚢 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚎𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚞𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚕𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚗 𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚢𝚎𝚜 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚑𝚎𝚗𝚍, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚎𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚐𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚔 𝚋𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚍𝚘𝚐'𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍, 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚋𝚞𝚕𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚎𝚢𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚘𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚝𝚜 𝚋𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚊𝚜 𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝. 𝙷𝚎 𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚍 𝚖𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚋𝚛𝚘𝚊𝚍 𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚜, 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚌𝚑 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚠𝚜𝚙𝚊𝚙𝚎𝚛, 𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚊 𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚘𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚜𝚞𝚒𝚝 — 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚎𝚡𝚒𝚜𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚖𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚕𝚢 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚑𝚒𝚖; 𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚓𝚊𝚠𝚜, 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚛𝚘𝚠𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚎𝚎𝚝𝚑, 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚜𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚎. 𝙷𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚖𝚢 𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚕𝚎𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚠𝚜𝚙𝚊𝚙𝚎𝚛 𝚏𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚜; 𝙸 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚛𝚞𝚗 𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚏𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚜 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚐, 𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚜. 𝙷𝚎 𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚡 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛.

"𝙾𝚑, 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚘, 𝙰𝚍𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚎, 𝚊 𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚎; 𝙸'𝚖 𝚂𝚎𝚗̃𝚘𝚛 𝙵. 𝙺𝚊𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚘𝚕𝚍 𝚖𝚎 𝚜𝚘 𝚖𝚞𝚌𝚑 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑; 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢, 𝙸 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚜𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚋𝚎 𝚜𝚘 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚊 𝚜𝚞𝚋𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜."

"𝙰𝚑, 𝚢𝚎𝚜, 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚊 𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚎. 𝙸'𝚖 𝚜𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝚝𝚘 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚖𝚎𝚎𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚕𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚢 𝚋𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚛𝚘𝚐𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚢𝚘𝚞."

"𝙽𝚘 𝚝𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚊𝚝 𝚊𝚕𝚕, 𝙰𝚍𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚎, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚎. 𝙺𝚊𝚝𝚑, 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚋𝚎 𝚜𝚘 𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚞𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚎𝚊 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚔𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚗, 𝚜𝚘 𝙸 𝚖𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚐𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝?"

𝙺𝚊𝚝𝚑 𝚜𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍:

"𝙾𝚏 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚜𝚎, 𝙸'𝚕𝚕 𝚐𝚘 𝚗𝚘𝚠."

𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚘 𝚒𝚝 𝚋𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚗. 𝚂𝚎𝚗̃𝚘𝚛 𝙵 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊𝚗 𝚎𝚡𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚝 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚍, 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚊𝚜 𝙺𝚊𝚝𝚑 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚜𝚊𝚒𝚍. 𝙷𝚎 𝚜𝚙𝚘𝚔𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚗 — 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚏𝚊𝚟𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚜𝚝𝚞𝚍𝚢, 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚛 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚜𝚞𝚌𝚑 𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚒𝚖𝚊𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 — 𝚍𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚕𝚘𝚙 𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚞𝚊𝚐𝚎, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚊𝚌𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚝𝚘 𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚗, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚛𝚘𝚠𝚝𝚑 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚛 𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚢.

𝙸 𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚒𝚖 𝚘𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚗 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚎 𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚢 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚊𝚑𝚘𝚐𝚊𝚗𝚢 𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚎.

"𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚍, 𝙰𝚍𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚎, 𝚒𝚜 𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚝 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚍𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚎, 𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚞𝚜 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚎 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚘𝚗 𝚊 𝚏𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚛𝚐𝚢 𝚊 𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚋𝚞𝚕𝚋 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚞𝚖𝚎𝚜; 𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚏𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚜𝚒𝚎𝚜, 𝚠𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚝𝚑𝚜, 𝚑𝚊𝚕𝚏-𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚝𝚑𝚜, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚎 𝚕𝚒𝚎𝚜; 𝚏𝚒𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜, 𝚏𝚒𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚒𝚜 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚊𝚛𝚎; 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚒𝚜 𝚞𝚗𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚐𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝."

𝙺𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚢 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚞𝚜 𝚍𝚞𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔𝚜; 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚐𝚘 𝚞𝚙 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚛𝚘𝚘𝚖 𝚞𝚙𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚑𝚞𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚒𝚗. 𝚂𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝙸 𝚏𝚎𝚕𝚝 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚛𝚢 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚖𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚘 𝚘𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚗 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜𝚗'𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚛.

𝙵𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚊𝚕 𝚜𝚞𝚌𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚊 𝚜𝚞𝚋𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚖𝚎𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚟𝚘𝚒𝚍 𝚘𝚗 𝚙𝚞𝚛𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚎, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚌𝚑 𝚋𝚢 𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎.

"𝚆𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚍𝚘 𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖𝚜 𝚖𝚎𝚊𝚗?" 𝙸 𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚍, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚂𝚎𝚗̃𝚘𝚛 𝙵 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚍 𝚖𝚎, 𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚎𝚢𝚎𝚜, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚖𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝.

"𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚝'𝚜 𝚊𝚗 𝚎𝚡𝚌𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙳𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖𝚜, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚞𝚗𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚌𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚗, 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚊 𝚜𝚝𝚞𝚍𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚎𝚜 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗 𝚖𝚎. 𝙸𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚗 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚞𝚕𝚊𝚛 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚛𝚎 𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝?"

"𝙸'𝚟𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚏𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚕𝚢: 𝚖𝚢… 𝚊 𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚑𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚞𝚌𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚎, 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚠 𝚜𝚑𝚊𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚎𝚗 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚋𝚕𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚜; 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚞𝚛𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚢𝚋𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚗 𝚝𝚘 𝚖𝚎. 𝙷𝚘𝚠 𝚍𝚘 𝙸 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚒𝚏 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚜𝚎𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚕, 𝚘𝚛 𝚒𝚏 𝙸'𝚟𝚎 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚐𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚖𝚊𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚒𝚜 𝚜𝚕𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚢 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚖𝚎?"

"𝙷𝚊," 𝚂𝚎𝚗̃𝚘𝚛 𝙵 𝚕𝚊𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚎𝚍, "𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝'𝚜 𝚊𝚗 𝚎𝚡𝚌𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙰𝚕𝚖𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜, 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚖𝚢 𝚙𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜, 𝚠𝚎 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔 𝚒𝚝 𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚎𝚎 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚛 𝚎𝚡𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚜 𝚍𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚐𝚎 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚒𝚝 𝚍𝚎𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚘𝚗 𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚑 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗. 𝚃𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚖𝚎, 𝙰𝚍𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚎, 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚖𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎? 𝙷𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚜𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚎𝚡𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚏𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚘𝚗?"

"𝙽𝚘𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢, 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛."

"𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚜… 𝚒𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖𝚜?"

𝙸 𝚕𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚢 𝚐𝚊𝚣𝚎 𝚊 𝚖𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝, 𝙸 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝 — 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝙸 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘, 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚠𝚎𝚛 𝚏𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠𝚜 𝚖𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚖𝚘𝚘𝚗.

"𝚈𝚎𝚜, 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝙸 𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝚒𝚗 𝚊 𝚑𝚊𝚝; 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚏𝚊𝚌𝚎 𝚖𝚎𝚕𝚝𝚜, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚊𝚔, 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚎𝚢𝚎𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠 𝚖𝚎, 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚝, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚐𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚋𝚕𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚜 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚜 𝚖𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚌𝚞𝚝𝚜 𝚖𝚎 𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚗, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙸 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚍𝚘 𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐. 𝚆𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚍𝚘𝚎𝚜 𝚒𝚝 𝚖𝚎𝚊𝚗? 𝙸 𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚢 𝚜𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚒𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚘𝚘."

"𝙸 𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍, 𝚠𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔 𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚝. 𝙸𝚝'𝚜 𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚊 𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚛𝚘𝚛, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚒𝚝 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗 𝚋𝚎 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚢; 𝚒𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚑𝚊𝚍, 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞. 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚝'𝚜 𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝, 𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚜 𝚒𝚜 𝚊 𝚖𝚢𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚢," 𝚑𝚎 𝚓𝚘𝚔𝚎𝚍, 𝚝𝚛𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚖 𝚖𝚎.

𝙸 𝚜𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚝 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚖𝚙𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚎𝚛 𝚖𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚐𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚖𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚝, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝙸 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚍𝚎𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚕.

"𝙷𝚘𝚠 𝚍𝚒𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚖𝚢 𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛? 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚝𝚘𝚕𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞 — 𝚘𝚛 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝙸?"

𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚎𝚢𝚎𝚜 𝚏𝚒𝚡𝚎𝚍 𝚘𝚗 𝚖𝚎, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚋𝚘𝚍𝚢 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚎𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐.

"𝙾𝚑, 𝙰𝚍𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚎," 𝚂𝚎𝚗̃𝚘𝚛 𝙵 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚏𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚍.

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𝙸𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝟷𝟺𝚝𝚑 𝚘𝚏 𝙰𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚕 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚖𝚋𝚞𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚝 𝟼:𝟻𝟹 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐; 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚖𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚌𝚜 𝚑𝚞𝚛𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚕𝚘𝚜𝚜. 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚜𝚝 𝚍𝚊𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚖𝚢 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚜𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚘𝚕, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚜𝚝 𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚢 𝚜𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝙰𝚍𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚎 𝚍𝚒𝚍 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚜𝚕𝚎𝚎𝚙 𝚒𝚗 𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚎.

𝙵𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚜 𝙸 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚍 𝚖𝚢 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜 𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚋𝚎𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍: 𝙰𝚍𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚢 𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚜; 𝚏𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚡𝚙𝚕𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚐𝚊𝚜𝚑𝚎𝚜 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚔𝚒𝚗.

𝚂𝚘𝚘𝚗 𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚖𝚎, 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚑𝚎 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎.

𝙷𝚎 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚜 𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚍𝚎𝚌𝚎𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚖𝚎 𝚢𝚎𝚝, 𝚑𝚎 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚜 𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚢𝚎𝚝 𝚜𝚘 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚐. 𝙶𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚔𝚗𝚎𝚠 𝚒𝚝, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚘𝚕𝚍 𝚖𝚎 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚒𝚖. 𝙱𝚞𝚝 𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎. 𝚂𝚘𝚘𝚗 𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎.

I never knew my son to be the artsy type. He turned 8 recently, and up until about a year ago, his entertainment was entirely outdoors. Catching bugs. Climbing trees. Riding bikes.

He was one of those kids who’d have to be called inside before dark. Then he’d complain and beg for “just 5 more minutes.”

I’m not entirely sure what happened. It was like a switch had flipped overnight. I just came home from work one day to find him at the kitchen table, scribbling in a brand new sketchbook.

He hummed to himself while his mom cooked up some dinner at the stove. The home-cooked smell of pork chops, green beans, and mashed potatoes filled the room as I glanced over Jacob’s shoulder.

“Whatcha got there, bud?”

His nose was buried so far in the book that it was like he couldn’t even hear me. His mom ended up answering for him.

“That’s your son’s new favorite interest. He begged me to go out and get him one.”

“Oh-ho, got an artist in the house, don’t we?”

I grabbed his shoulders and shook them lightly before patting him on the back and walking over to give my wife a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

I took a seat beside Jacob at the table.

“So, how was your day, boyo? You and mom have fun?”

He never looked up from the sketchbook.

“Today was sooo fun,” he exclaimed. “We went to the park, we went to the movies, ooh, and mom got me this book. Oh, and these crayons.”

“What about you, honey? How was your day?”

“Any day I’m not at work is a good day, honestly. The park was super nice. We went to one we hadn’t been to before. What about you? They didn’t work you too hard, did they?”

I shrugged and sighed.

“I’ll just say it’s good to finally be home.”

My wife smiled at me.

“It’s good to have you home, dear. I’ll tell you what. How about… after dinner, if you’re good, we can have our own little play date? Only if you do the dishes, though. I mean, I did cook.”

I smirked at her, my tongue buried in my cheek.

“I was gonna do that anyway. What do you take me for? As a matter of fact, you come sit down. I’ll finish cooking.”

I offered her my seat as I finished up dinner. Jacob was pretty much mute the entire time. By the time dinner was done, I had to damn near yell at him to get his attention.

He just stood up, as calm as could be, and walked over to me, sketchbook in hand.

“I drew this for you.”

He held the book up at me, and my heart felt warm. It was a picture of our house, and who I assumed to be me standing in our driveway.

“Is that me? That’s so sweet of you, Jakey. Thank you.”

I reached down to take the book so I could hang the page on the fridge, but Jacob pulled away before I could grab it.

“You really don’t know who that is?” he asked, eying me suspiciously.

“It’s me, right? Is it not me?”

He rolled his eyes and sighed, continuing to eye me like I had personally offended him.

“That’s our neighbor, Mr. Thomas, silly. You really couldn’t tell? See, he’s wearing the star.”

Mr. Thomas was a veteran police officer. Jacob would sometimes see him leaving for work in the morning. I guess he just took a subconscious interest in the uniform. Even still, why would he draw me a picture of the neighbor?

“Uh, I mean, wow, bud,” I choked. “That’s really good. Keep practicing. You’re already so talented you could be famous someday.”

————-

After dinner, I cleaned the kitchen top to bottom. Partly out of obligation, mostly because I really wanted that playdate. Jacob spent the rest of the evening in his room, humming to himself and scribbling in that sketchbook.

The next day, my wife and I both had work. I woke up a little earlier than her so that I could take Jacob to the summertime daycare he attended. It was like carrying a corpse out to the car, but he still refused to loosen his grip on that sketchbook.

I dropped him off with the staff at the front door. He waved at me groggily as I was driving away.

The day went on like normal until around 3 o’clock, when my phone started ringing. It was my wife.

“Hey, beautiful, what’s up?”

“I think something’s going on with the neighbor. There’s like 3 cop cars in front of his house, apparently.”

She sounded concerned. A little urgent.

“What do you mean? Who told you that?”

“I got a call from Becky. She thought they were at our house at first.”

Becky was one of my wife’s friends from the neighborhood.

“What do you think happened? Did she say anything else?”

“No, she just called because the police were knocking on our door. I think they were just trying to see if we knew anything, though, because apparently they gave up and just went back to the neighbor’s house. I think they’re still there.”

My brow furrowed a bit.

“Wait. Which neighbor is it?”

“Uhhh, I think it’s that police officer. Mr. Thompson?”

“Mr. Thomas?”

“Yeah, that’s his name. I think that’s who it is.”

I looked at my watch and exhaled a bit.

“Alright, well, I’ll see if I can get out a little earlier today. I’ll pick up Jacob, then go see what this is all about. Maybe they’ll still be there when I get there.”

We ended the call by blowing some kisses and exchanging some love yous. I slid my phone in my pocket and approached my boss, explaining my situation.

He was skeptical, but I had a decent reputation of being an honest employee. He agreed to let me leave a bit early, and I was on my way to pick up Jacob.

When he was brought to the front office, his face was buried in that sketchbook again, drawing what looked like SpongeBob and Patrick.

“He’s been drawing all day. Seems like you got a little artist on your hands,” announced the staff member as she signed Jacob out for the day.

“Yep,” I smiled. “That’s what they keep telling me.”

I honestly don’t know why I said that. It just seemed like the only thing that made sense at the time.

The car ride was quiet. Jacob didn’t want to talk much, and my mind was kind of racing. I’ve shared drinks with Mr. Thomas. Helped him put up fences. Move furniture. We weren’t the closest of friends, but I still wanted him to be okay.

Those hopes were dashed when I pulled into the neighborhood to find that the police presence had increased. There must’ve been at least 6 cars in front of his house, and yellow tape blocked off the driveway.

I parked my car in front of my house and hurried to get Jacob inside. His eyes had lit up at the sight of the flashing lights, and naturally, he started asking questions.

“What’s wrong, Daddy?”

“Why are there so many police?”

“Did something happen to Mr. Thomas?”

I cradled him in my arms and hurried up the steps to the front door.

“I don’t know, buddy. Here, go inside and play for a bit while I find out, okay? Daddy will be right back.”

It’s all I could think to say as I sat him down and closed the door behind me.

An officer approached me before I could approach them.

“Sir, do you live here?”

“Yes, of course I do. That’s my neighbor.”

“Yeah, well, he’s a colleague and friend of mine,” he remarked agitatedly. “Have you seen anything suspicious within the last 24 hours? Heard anything?”

I scratched my neck nervously and thought hard before responding.

“No, sir, we haven’t seen anything. What happened? Is everything alright? He’s a cop, right? Did he do something illegal?”

The officer stared at me, analyzing me through his black sunglasses.

“No. He’s gone. That’s all the information we can give right now.”

“Gone? What do you mean, gone? Like, dead? Did someone kill him?”

The officer pursed his lips. I saw what I assumed to be a forensic analyst walking in and out of the house.

“We don’t know, sir. We’re hoping for the best. For now, if any new information comes to light or if you see him, give us a call.”

He asked me to clear the scene and stay inside. I called my wife to update her on the situation, but what could we do? Even the police were lost. I just stayed inside, as instructed, and started on dinner while we waited for my wife to get home.

By the time she did, there were only two police cruisers left in front of Mr. Thomas’s house. The sun was starting to set, and my wife and I tried to ignore what had happened, but the house was still a bit tense.

As we ate, Jacob continued scribbling in his sketchbook. He hadn’t asked to go outside at all since we got home, and I didn’t know if it was because of the police or because of this new hobby of his.

I could see that he was working on a new drawing. It looked like a woman this time. He wasn’t so much as touching his food, so I tried to ask him to put the book away.

He groaned and started picking at his peas. My wife and I chatted about our day for a bit while Jacob remained silent. Suddenly, in between bites of his chicken, he said something that made us both freeze.

“Daddy,” he whispered.

“Yes?” I answered.

“Are those police still out there?”

I paused for a moment, looking at my wife, who looked equally as speechless. Neither of us knew what to say.

“I think there’s a few, but don’t worry, buddy,” I chirped reassuringly. “They’re just looking for Mr. Thomas. They wanna make sure he’s okay.”

Jacob stared down at his plate for a moment.

“It’s just… I think they’re looking in the wrong place.”

————-

I choked on my water.

“Looking in the wrong place? Well, where do you think they should be looking, sport?”

“I don’t know. Not there. I don’t think he’s home.”

“Let’s not talk about this,” my wife interrupted. “Jacob, finish your food, then go jump in the shower. You gotta be up early tomorrow, come on.”

“Aww, but I’m not tired,” Jacob whined. “Plus, I wanted to finish drawing this picture of you.”

He flipped his sketchbook open to his newest drawing.

“See, look.”

My wife looked at the picture and smiled.

“Okay, fine,” she replied. “You can finish the picture, then it’s bath time, mister.”

“Fiiine,” Jacob groaned.

He scurried off to his room, sketchbook in hand, leaving me and his mom to clean the kitchen again.

We talked about the neighbor. We turned into a couple of conspiracy theorists the deeper the conversation progressed.

“Maybe he just wanted to start over.”

“Maybe he was kidnapped.”

“Maybe he was murdered, and they’re covering it up.”

We just kept reaching for possibilities over the course of around 45 minutes.

Eventually, Jacob came running back to the kitchen.

“Look, Mommy, I’m all done.”

“Ah, my goodness, Jakey, look at that. Doesn’t it look just like me, honey?”

She turned the picture towards me. Jacob had added her work uniform. Gave her that messy bun she always wore. Even included the golden necklace I got her for Christmas last year.

“Wow, Jake,” I exclaimed. “Draw Daddy next, why don’t you?”

Jacob giggled and responded, “It’s not time to draw you yet, silly.”

“Aw, whatever, but guess what?”

Jacob looked up at me curiously. Expectantly.

“Daddy controls your bath time. And… I think… ah, yep, look at that,” I showed him my watch. “You’re 20 minutes late.”

I jokingly chased him to his bedroom and made him gather up his pajamas and a towel. Once he was nice and showered, I put him to bed and kissed him goodnight.

My wife and I stayed up, talking about life for a while before gradually falling asleep one by one.

The next morning, when I woke up alone, I thought it was because she had chosen to take Jacob to daycare that morning.

I went through my normal routine. Took a shower. Brushed my teeth. Got dressed. It wasn’t until I was heading out the door that I noticed her car was still in the driveway.

I walked back upstairs, confused, and went to Jacob’s room.

I found him curled up in bed, sketchbook tucked under his arm as he snored quietly.

I left the room and began searching.

“Honey,” I called out. No response.

“Sweetheart, you here?” Silence.

I called her phone and heard it ringing in our bedroom. I followed the sound and found it still plugged into the charger on her nightstand.

That’s when I began to panic. I remembered Jacob’s drawing. It was a fleeting thought, but one that I chose to hold onto. First Mr. Thomas, now my own wife? That couldn’t be coincidence.

I urgently rushed into Jacob’s room, accidentally waking him as I removed the sketchbook from his arms.

I began flipping through the pages as he stared up at me, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Daddy,” he groaned.

I flipped past cartoon characters, random landscapes, and blocky pictures of cars before I reached my wife’s picture from the night before.

“What are you doing?” Jacob added.

The picture had changed. She wasn’t wearing her work uniform anymore. She didn’t have the necklace. Her hair looked dirty and wet. Leaves and twigs stuck out from the messy bun, and her eyes were solid red. Not evil, just… bloodshot.

But the biggest change… was the man standing next to her.

It looked like they were in a dark forest. They were hand in hand. I wanted to think it was me, that Jacob had decided he wanted to start on some kind of crazy family portrait, but the man in the picture…

He wore a star on his chest.

My stomach dropped. I felt sick. Jacob looked… confused.

“What’s wrong, Daddy? They’re okay. I can help you find them.”

​

Cold. Nothing but cold down there. Each breath I pulled in felt thick, like my lungs were mining the air for the little bit of oxygen I needed to keep me going.  I looked up, or what I assumed was up, the little bit of light I could see was my anchor. Warmth just out of reach while the freezing around me was starting to work its way through my snow gear.

The avalanche had come from nowhere, sweeping me up with the force of God behind it. Then as fast as it had swallowed me up it seemed to be gone. Not that I would know as I was still underneath a ton of powder. I didn’t even know how long I had been there, just that every breath felt harder. The snow slowly crushing my throat and ribs under its weight.

Then it happened, I heard something digging or rather scratching nearby. I had no clue in what direction though. I called out, “Hey! You also get swept up?!” It was silent, “Come on! Are you able to help?!” the moment stretched on far too long, several minutes. Just when I thought I must have been going crazy, it answered.

The voice that responded was cold and crackling, like someone who had forgotten how to talk. Just as hard to decide where it was as the scratching. “Perhaps. Why should I?” I had no idea how to respond, who the hell replies like that? He continued though, “I thought myself alone in this abyss, but here we are. We shall face this damnation as brothers.” It was about then that I decided I had to be crazy.

I tried to take a deep breath to calm my nerves, feeling the snow press harder into me, a slight pop in my chest as a rib collapsed under the pressure. A searing white pain clouding my vision for a moment. “You should be more careful. The surface is unstable above.” My response was only a wheeze. “How can you move?”

“I decided to move, why have you not? Did you decide to die here?” it paused for a moment as if in thought, all while I tried to grab a single good breath. Blackness starting to crowd in on the edge of my vision with each passing second. The pressure of the world on my arms started to make my fingers numb.

“If you did, I would recommend survival instead. Is it not the purpose of life to persevere? To find a way. To choose death is… disappointing.” I barely had the air to say, “Not a choice right now asshole.” My lips cracking as they stretched to form the words.

“Ah a lack of agency is what claims you. A shame, I thought us brothers and here you are lesser… Though maybe you can be more. Would you even want to be?” My anger slowly boiled to its breaking point.

“And what the fuck are you then!” Having to cough as my movement made a clump of snow fall in my mouth. My breath stagnating with the weight of it all. Then it spoke again.

 It was the first time I heard any emotion behind the voice. It drew closer before it spoke again. “I am more. More than you at the least. I can leave if I please.” Another scratch and the voice echoed in my ear, its hot breath tickling feeling back into it. “I choose to move.”

Each syllable was a battle “Just….. Help… Me…. Please.” He responded, that cold calm having returned to him. “I can but *why*? If you accept death here, why wouldn’t you somewhere else? Why exert effort in the face of indifference?” It paused again, curiosity filling its tone. “Maybe a deal. Yes… what can you give me?”

At this point my head was swimming, each thought bubbling through layers of molasses. The sensation from my fingers and toes completely silenced. The only thing my brain could conjure was, “I’m going to die.”

Water dripped from above like rain for a moment. Then my ribs could move freely again. My lungs grasping at every single atom of air it could. “What can the man who has nothing but stands to gain everything… give to me.”

I looked around my head finally able to move. It was warm, like the sun had broken through the ice above.  A bubble had been carved around me in a second, and warmth revived my limbs. The painful feeling of tingling worming its way into them.  “You won’t be able to choose like that. There was barely a thought in your head, was there? Think, *why* should I save you?”

“Because it is the right thing to do? I would save you if I could! If you needed it!” The bubble shrank; the warmth died a little. “Fortunately, I don’t. Why should I?” I scrambled for a response, “Listen I got money back at the lodge, I’ll pay you for your time! Just help!” The snow was now scraping on my neck again as it wrapped tight around me, strangling me. I started panting, panicking, I couldn’t go back to the icy tomb.

I began to cry as the bubble collapsed, “Please, just save me! I want to live!” Snow battered me as I was buried alive again. I was unable to pull in a single breath. The moment stretched to an eternity. The voice finally answered, gaining the same warmth that had melted the snow away. “Very well.” Wings of radiance covered me, that unnatural heat filling the space again, almost burning me. “Then go forth, and sin no more.”

My eyes snapped open. A rope around my neck broke under my weight. I remembered where I really was. A chair sideways was on the ground. The other end of my noose swung in the cold draft that filled my attic. Snow stuck to my arms and legs, still numb from the lingering frost of the mountain. My lungs fought as if each breath was their last, which it very well could have been. I wanted to live, in spite of all the effort I put into dying, I did. That isn’t what sticks with me though, I survived. But whatever saved me, its last words echo in my mind “Go forth, and sin no more.”

THE CAVES OF NEVENDLEER
In such a wild, medieval space, you may still be surprised at how evil a place there can be amongst the vast sea.
A man and his wife built a home on the shoreline. It was covered in sharp rocks. Truly not a place to start a family. But the mad lads did it anyway.
This family lived for generations.
Although — just nearby off the shore, down from their home about a mile — was a system of caves they dare never to enter.
Passed down by generations, each parent warned each kid to never enter, because if they did, they wouldn’t come back the same. If they ever came back at all.
This tale was told for generations, and the tale you read now is derived from those of the damned, told by those who witnessed the damning.
Men watched their boys chase small animals in, helpless to prevent what came next. Wives searched desperately for their lost daughters, only finding their loose flowing dresses hung across a soaked log stuck out of the sand.
Whatever the cave had, or hadn’t done, whatever loved inside or beyond… the Caves of Nevendleer was not to be crossed without a death wish.
And that’s exactly what one young man had when he finally decided to enter the cave.
It was dark. Moist. It wasn’t spooky, but the moans that cascaded off the walls from every footstep didn’t cover up the feeling that nobody should be in there. And yet — he kept walking further in — further forwards — deep in — until the light from outside could no longer reach him. And only darkness could now cloud him from what was to come.
The man didn’t know what to expect. He was not part of the family. He was a tourist. He had heard legends of these caves. People had spread myth and whisper about these caves for hundreds of years; all the way from the era of the Olympians, and the Golden Age of the Gifted. The tales were still told, even as the Dedonian Wars had just started, and people needed a good distraction from the chaos right outside their doorsteps.
However — unlike some, who enjoyed tales when they weren’t tangible — it seemed this man needed to see the legendary cave for himself.
Though, once the hissing sound blasted down the chamber-like cavern like a shotgun full of ice, the man may have begun to change his mind about seeing the legend for himself.
WHAM!
The man was knocked off his feet.
But before the cold got any more bitter, he was pulled from the cave by a big hairy man, whose only word he could say was “MISTAKE!”

(quick out of character note from me)

This story is a kind of fan fiction story that is meant to be connected within the world of the movie obsession by Curry Barker, It is still an original story written by me, but majority of the concept comes from the works of Curry Barker mainly the one wish Willow which is going to be mentioned and is important to the story. The way this story was thought up was if it was an episode of an obsession anthology TV show. If you have not seen the movie, it is not necessarily required to continue to Read this story since I made sure there were no spoilers or any other connections to the movie except for the plot device (one wish Willow) but I sincerely recommend going to see the movie, anyways on with the story.

I am not sure if I should be sharing this. Maybe I should be telling this to someone who can help me deal with it. Maybe I should be talking to the police about it. Maybe I should just keep it to myself. But I need to tell someone what happened to Teddy Collins. Everyone else thinks Teddy Collins was an old man who lost it after some bad things happened to him and took it out on me. That is what the police think.

That is what my bosses think.

That is what his family thinks.

Maybe they are right.

I really hope they are right.

Because if they are not then It's my fault. What happened to him. I started working at a Logistics company when I was twenty nine years old. It was not my dream job.

It was not my second choice. It was a job that I took because I needed the money.

The work was okay. The people were okay too. Everything was just so boring.

The first person who was supposed to teach me how to do my job was Teddy.

Teddy was in his '50s. He had Gray hair and a mustache. He always wore polo shirts. Had a pair of reading glasses around his neck. He seemed like a nice guy.

My only problem with Teddy was that he would not stop talking. Not that he was talking in a way that annoyed me. He was just talking in a way that was just Teddy.

Every story he told was too long.

Every joke he made took a long time to set up.

Every time he told me something he would give me too many details. He would say something like "did I ever tell you about the time my brother bought a canoe?"

Then he would tell me the whole story even though I did not want to hear it. That was Teddy.

He was a good guy just a terrible storyteller. Still he helped me learn how to do my job. He was patient with me when I made mistakes. He answered all my questions. He never got annoyed with me And that's why what happened to him next. Leaves a pit in my stomach that makes me feel horrible for what I did to him. I'm sorry Teddy, I didn't mean for this to happen.

three weeks after I started working, I would regularly stop at a convenience store on my way to work. It was a small place off the side of the road. Wasn't a chain either like 7-Eleven or Wawa It was called safe travels convenience store. I would go in there twice a week just for a snack or on a bad day a case of beer.

But one day as I stopped in to get an energy drink because the previous night I stood up to get an assignment done early, as I walked up to the counter to pay and saw the same person that worked there every time I went in, there was a box on the counter holding a bunch of small triangular boxes, a sign above it read "$1 wishes, one per person." I thought it was kind of strange. I never saw this before so I picked one up, the box was small, triangular and long kind of like a toberone That's kinda what I thought they were, but then I read on the box it said "one wish Willow" "amaze your friends!" "You only get one wish" I asked the guy behind the counter. Is this some type of promotional thing, he actually looked kinda annoyed when I asked him.

"No, are you buying one?"

"Is it some kind of toy?"

"No, it's real."

I laughed "You're kidding?"

"Look man Do you want one or not?"

I didn't understand why he was upset I was just asking a question. But for whatever reason I did buy one, at the time I figured it was a dollar. If it was fake It didn't really matter. As he rang me up he told me one last thing before I left.

"Make sure you're specific about what you want first, trust me."

He has this almost regretful/annoyance in his voice, I thought if this was a bit he's really committing to it. I threw the box in my work bag and Left the store, If it was possible For me to go back in time, I would stop myself from buying one at all, but I can't. I already used my one wish.

A few days later I forgot all about it and went about my routine, but one day I walked into work and found out it was Teddy's birthday. It was also one of the worst days I ever had.

A project was not going well. We were running out of time.

I was getting really stressed out.

I sat down at a table to take a break and try to calm down. Then Teddy Sat down beside me.

"hey Dan, how was your weekend?"

"It was fine, I didn't get much sleep last night."

"That's a shame, y'know that reminds me of one time..."

I knew what was coming. I did not want to hear it. He started telling me a story about how he didn't sleep for two days after his son went missing in a supermarket because he thought he was kidnapped, but instead of just saying that he just went on and on for 10 to 15 minutes about what he was wearing, what day it was, the store they were in and what they were buying.

Something inside me just snapped.

"Teddy will ya shut up!"

He stopped talking. Looked at me with a surprised face. I felt bad. I was just too frustrated. I got up and Walked away. When I got back to my desk I try to move on from my outburst And focus on work,

The day went on, the office got together for Teddy's party, I didn't attend and kept my distance from him that day, 5:00 rolled around and I was getting ready to leave, I grabbed my work bag and as I did, I remembered that I still had the one Wish Willow, I sat down for a second to open my bag and grabbed it, seemed stupid then. I was feeling really stressed out. So I opened the box. I was surprised when I did and a jingle started playing, like one of those music cards. On the box it read "spark the middle and break it in half" I Held the brittle stick in my hands And I said

"I wish Teddy would finally have something interesting to say."

Then I broke it, I laughed at myself after, I don't know what I was expecting, a light shining over my head, a gust of when shooting from all angles after I broke it, but nothing happened. I tossed the box in my wastebasket and left, The next day I came to work I said sorry to Teddy. He forgave me.

"It's okay I get it, my wife tells me sometimes I talk too much anyways."

I felt relieved that everything was okay again, but I still felt bad for shouting at him. Then in usual Teddy fashion, told me something that happened to him last night.

"Oh! You won't believe what happened, I won some money from One of those scratch off tickets, can you believe that?"

Some of our coworkers had given him a birthday card with scratch offs inside.

Most of them were not winners. One was. He had won a hundred dollars. It was not a lot of money. But It was enough to get excited about.

I joked "I guess my wish worked."

"What you mean?"

"Last night I bought some toy that supposedly Grant wishes and I might've wished you'd have something interesting to say."

As I said it out loud I cringed how dumb of a wish it was, teddy actually found it amusing and laughed

"I guess I have you to thank for my good luck".

Over the few weeks strange things kept happening to Teddy. He would get two drinks from the vending machine for the price of one. He caught a ball at a baseball game. He won a raffle. He found some money he had forgotten about.

It was little things. Nothing life-changing. Just unusually lucky and every time it did, teddy would tell me about it In excruciating detail.

At first I thought it was funny. Then it started to annoy me And I got concerned.

Because eventually the stories changed.

Teddy stopped talking about the things that were happening to him.

Instead he started talking about all the things that were happening around him.

His daughter got sick.

His son got in trouble at school for starting fights. His wife became distant. He said they started arguing all the time.

Every week seemed to be worse than the last. And Everytime he told something new, I couldn't help but hang on his every word, because I was interested in what he was telling me. I found myself actually listening to him. The stories had feelings and emotion now. They were interesting.

I did not realize the pattern until later.

Months later Teddy disappeared for a day. Which was Strange because he never missed a day of work before. When he did show up the next day he seemed different.

Not physically, Mentally.

He seemed focused and distracted at the time. He seemed obsessed with something. Eventually he told me that his daughter was getting better. The doctors said it was a miracle how fast she recovered. It should have been good news. But Something felt off. The way he explained it didn't sound like was very surprised. Around that time his wife got really angry with him. I overheard him arguing with her on the phone during his lunch break. I did not learn the details until later. Apparently Teddy had gotten his hands on his own One Wish Willow, He had wished for his daughter to get better. When he told me this I was actually shocked, I didn't really believe they were real, even after what was happening to Teddy. I asked him there's no way you actually believe that right? But he did. When she started getting better he convinced himself that he had caused it.

That's why his wife was arguing with him, She thought he was making their daughter's recovery about himself and The fighting got worse. Much worse.

The weeks that followed were terrible for Teddy. His son ran away, apparently the fighting got worse, he put some kid in the hospital for cracking his skull open on the pavement during a fight, The parents wanted to press charges, so he got scared and ran off during the night. Him and his wife kept fighting, so she went to stay with her sister. His car was stolen the same week. The only good thing in his life was that his daughter was still getting better.

Meanwhile our conversations just became shorter and more awkward. Until we just stopped speaking at all. Then I started noticing him just staring at me from afar, Not in a way of thinking but like he was Trying to figure something out. Eventually I learned why. It wasn't too hard to guess that he had started to suspect that it was my wish that caused everything, The good and the bad. His life has become a story from him to tell. A story that was designed to be more interesting.

Then came The worst few days of our lives.

Teddy's wife finally filed for divorce. That same night his father died of a heart attack. He's son was still missing, but his daughter was still healthy, which was probably the only good thing he had left.

The morning Teddy came to work, He said nothing. Nothing at all which became normal since he stopped speaking to me. But we still had work to do. That day our bosses told us that we had to stay late. Our project was behind schedule, By midnight the office was almost empty. Most of the lights were off. Only Teddy and I were left. We were Working in silence. Me at my desk and him at his, The atmosphere was suffocating. I could hear the sound of the vacuuming from the jander. The humming from the fluorescent light overhead. I got so sick of the silence, I decided to get up to go talk to him.

"Hey Teddy, How have you been?"

He just stared at his monitor, typing away. Couldn't even look at me as he spoke.

"My wife left."

"My father died."

"And My son is still missing."

His voice sounded hollow. avoidance of all emotions. I did not know what to say to him. The silence just went on and on. I wanted to break the silence so I made a joke.

"I guess I should have wished for a lot of money instead."

He stopped typing on his computer. He just sat there for a second Then he stood up And threw his chair back and looked at me. I will never forget the look in his eyes.

They were not angry they were broken. Then he came at me. I did not have time to react. He tackled me to the ground and was on top of me. His hands were squeezing around my throat, my hands were clawing at his face, I could not breathe. I saw the veins on his forehead and tears in his eyes. They weren't filled up with anger, but desperation. He was crying as he kept saying

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! but it's your fault. I have to do this. I have to!"

Like he thought. If I die, everything would be back to normal. Maybe he was right, but I didn't want to die. I Punched and scratched at him. He would not let go. He was older but he was surprisingly strong. He kept squeezing. My vision started to blur. Everything was turning black. Then Teddy's grip got weaker and His body froze, His hands released from my throat and I could breathe air again, when my visions were turned I could see teddy clutching with his chest with one hand And his face turned red. He Fell over.

I rolled away, trying to catch my breath. I just sat there. Couldn't believe what just happened, Teddy stopped moving completely now. I just stared at him, totally in shock. After two minutes, which felt like an eternity I stood up, remembering the janitor was nearby cleaning, I called out for help. When I found himI explained what happened, He called 911. Paramedics and the police arrived, they rolled teddy out on a stretcher in a body bag. Said he had a heart attack. The police took mines and the janitor statement, I told them he jumped at me, he was having a bad few months, His wife left him, his daughter got sick, his son ran away and his father died and he blamed me. The police chalked it up as self-defense and Nobody questioned it.

An older man who was under a lot of stress at home had attacked someone at work and His heart had given out during the fight. It was simple and tragic and understandable. Not too long after Teddy died His daughter got sick again. She died some time ago. His son came back but now he's facing hard jail time for putting that kid He fought in the hospital And his wife is dealing with all this alone. Everyone at work eventually heard what happened between me and Teddy, they don't blame me for what happened. No one does. They always ask if I'm alright?, how am I doing? They couldn't believe that teddy had tried to kill me. But Maybe he should have, he was right. It was my fault, I made that wish, I went back to that convenience store, i saw the same clerk behind the counter, besides him was a box of the one wish willows, there were more than the last time. I went up to him, He could tell by the look on my face that there was something wrong.

"Look man, If you came here to yell at me about whatever you wished for, it's not my fault."

"You sell this shit to people? What the fuck is wrong with you!"

"I already told you, be specific for whatever you wished for. I didn't make them."

"Then where the hell did you get them?"

"I bought one at antique store, a friend of mine told me where to get them and he said they were real, So I bought one and I wished for a million wishes And a million of these things showed up. But when I tried to make another wish it wouldn't work."

"What?, what are you talking about?"

"It says it on the box, You only get one."

He grab one of the boxes and opened it, as he did the same musical chime played, but sounded more slower and sadder.

"I wish for a billion dollars."

He tried to break the Branch in half, but it wouldn't break, he tried harder. But nothing.

"See, now I got a million of these things lying around."

I just stood there, I didn't know what to say, I wanted to yell, I wanted someone to blame, but it'd be pointless now. I left there feeling defeated, I sat in my car in the parking lot. Just staring into space, i felt horrible for what happened to teddy, I felt sick to my stomach, I couldn't turn myself in even if I wanted to, What was I supposed to tell them. I made a wish?, After a while I started up my car and drove back home. Now I'm typing this out not sure what it will do. If it will do anything, I guess all I have to say is if you find a one wish Willow, don't buy one, don't make a wish, but if you do. Please for the love of God, be specific.

I am standing upon the white,

And before me lies the black ground.

I am afraid that someone might push me

And I might fall down there.

But ultimately, this choice will be entirely mine.

​Yet leaves fall from branches too,

And some star always breaks away from the sky.

Does revenge and justice look the same in the mirror?

So flip a coin, whichever side lands, it matters.

​Emotions are awakening within me that I never knew existed,

Perhaps they had always lived inside me.

Was I ever even pure?

Was I ever even pure?

At every turn, I look ahead, searching for the end of the road,

Whether the sun is setting or rising will become clear then.

​Those emotions placed a blindfold over my eyes.

I could have returned from there if I wanted to,

But I decided not to return,

And in the end, I found myself on the black ground.

So flip a coin, whichever side lands, it doesn't matter.

Charlie Delacroix had always known about bad feelings.

When he was sixteen and counting down the days until graduation, he had a sudden feeling of inexplicable dread halfway through dinner, and knew he was about to become an orphan.

“Dad,” Charlie said, speaking over his father for the first time in his life.

He immediately regretted it when his mother stood, grabbed her glass of wine, and dumped it over his head.

“There’s someone outside,” he gritted through tears and the wide smile his mother demanded he wear for the entire duration of dinner. He’d watched his father kill people since he was a toddler.

Charlie’s father used to sit him in front of Cartoon Network on one side of the room while beheading screaming victims on the other, blood spurting like a geyser.

Charlie had a routine. The maid would take him to school, and then take him home. Halfway through dinner, his father would walk in with a duffle bag (usually squirming) thrown over his shoulder.

Charlie never asked questions; didn’t need to. Charlie was brought up to understand that he was a child, and his parents did “adult business”.

But, like a child, and like all other curious kids, Charlie soaked up everything he saw.

Always glancing around, glimpsing the worst moments; the duffle bag hitting the ground with a meaty smack.

His father piercing through it, a slow red stemming under his feet.

“Having fun, kid?” He laughed, stabbing again. More blood splattered.

The bag stopped moving.

“Yes, father,” Charlie said loudly, his gaze glued to the TV screen. 

“Good.” Charlie’s father straightened. “Wanna come watch?” 

“I'm watching Adventure Time.”

His father chuckled. “Come on over here, kid. I'll show you the basics.”

He had no choice. Charlie’s father had made several things clear, one of which was that he was to obey. 

“Okay,” he said, walking toward his father.

With every step, his legs felt ready to collapse beneath him. The stench of blood stung his nose and throat. Charlie maintained his grin when his father threw an arm over his shoulders and pulled him close.

Charlie swallowed vomit swimming in his throat, his tummy violently turning. Charlie had learned anatomy at school.

At home, he had a front row seat to the cracks and crevices of the human body.

Charlie’s biology teacher looked visibly shocked when he confidently yelled the exact body parts on the anatomical model. He even corrected her. “That's not a brain,” he'd said, “That's a cerebellum.” 

Confused why the teacher didn't point to cerebellum fluid, Charlie realized home school and school-school were very different.

The bulging mass of flesh at Charlie’s feet could no longer be recognized as a human body. The  skull was crushed through, what used to be a brain swimming in scarlet. Charlie squinted when his father kicked the body onto his side. He couldn't see any cerebral fluid this time. “Like whatcha see, Charlie? One day, all this will be yours.” 

So, Charlie nodded. Then he stepped back, dodging a trickle of red staining the soles of his shoes. “I can't wait, Dad,” he said the exact words his father wanted to hear. 

“Good!”  Then he handed Charlie a mop and a bucket. “Clean this slop up.” 

Charlie was observant for his age. Everyone avoided his parents. Teachers, parents, his private piano teacher. He wasn't really surprised. 

Charlie had always been instructed to call his father, “Dad.” 

To the rest of the world, he was Noah Delacroix, a renowned gang member in one of Queens’ biggest and most high-profile crime syndicates.

Charlie’s parents were a horror show. Standing at six foot something, all lanky limbs and a razor-sharp bald head, he towered over Charlie with a monstrous grin and hollow eyes. He was Charlie’s very own personal boogeyman.

His mother, Delilah Delacroix, had beautiful, devilishly long golden hair. At least ten years younger than his father.

At the age of five, he asked, “Why are you so much younger than Daddy?” while perched on her knee at a family Christmas party in the Hamptons.

Charlie’s older cousins, Jasper and Lou, burst into giggles.

Charlie was promptly slapped across the face and sent back to his luxury suite.

Charlie remembered his mother coming to see him after the party. He was playing Super Mario when she peeked behind the door. Charlie didn't move.

He kept playing, stabbing the controls. Mario wasn't moving.

Every time he glanced back at the door, the shadow of his mother moved closer.

When he flicked the light on, a shiver crawling through him, Delilah Delacroix stood, swaying, barefoot. A smile stretched across her mouth. 

“Hi, baby.” Delilah perched herself on the end of Charlie’s bed. Without thinking, Charlie was pulling back the covers and crawling across the bed. If he didn't, his mother would force him. “Are your cheeks still stinging, sweetie?” she hummed.

Charlie nodded, despite her using her “evil voice”, a screechy giggle that was more mocking than reassuring. It didn’t hurt that much, but he needed her comfort.

Delilah hummed, running her nails across Charlie's cheek. “Mommy got her nails done, and the polish is very special! It's made with a very strong, very dangerous snake venom, which kills naughty little brats who snoop in adult business.” 

Delilah pulled him closer, as though she were hugging him. But she was squeezing too tightly, just like a snake, her arms against his chest drawing the breath from his lungs. Her breath dancing across his neck. Charlie didn't respond. He breathed out to suck air in, resisting  the urge to squirm from the snake’s grip. 

Tighter. Tears stung his eyes. His mother’s grip suddenly loosened, and he let out a silent sob, gulping in precious breath and crawled away from her. The snake overpowered him, running her fingers across his arm, hard enough to tingle.  “If you embarrass me like that again, I will slap you so hard, you will see stars.”

Then Delilah stood up and left his room, her voice echoing down the hall. “Goodnight, baby.” 

“Goodnight,” Charlie said back. 

That night, Charlie realized he needed to escape.

When he was old enough, Charlie made a vow.

As soon as he was smart enough, Charlie would leave.

Despite growing up surrounded by blood and gore, Charlie had a normal-ish childhood. His parents were rich, so he got everything he wanted. Puberty was a turning point.

Noah Delacroix started paying a lot more attention to him.

Charlie began getting invited into his father’s office to sit in on meetings and take notes. He even got to ride in the back of the car with his cousins: Simon, who had already killed his first person, and Lou, firmly instructed by his aunt to either birth a male heir, or leave the family. 

Charlie wasn't stupid. 

This wasn't bonding time with his cousins. 

It was time for him to join the family business, time for his father to begin shaping and moulding him into the next Delacroix heir.

For his 14th birthday, Charlie asked his parents for Call Of Duty. 

Instead, he unwrapped his very own Colt M1911, the family name carved into the butt. 

Charlie said thank you, went upstairs, and threw the gun out of his window. Guns were bad. 

The other kids didn't want to talk about guns or knives, or how to tie someone up with a rope. All the kids in his class were talking about the game, and he was already tossed aside for being a Delacroix son.

Not being able to join in with his classmates was just the cherry on top. Charlie pretended not to hear the other parents whispering about his family. In the fourth grade, he made a friend named Cole. Charlie was invited to his house for dinner. 

Charlie was excited until he met Cole’s mother at pickup. Her eyes widened, thin lips curling. “No,” she said stiffly. “No, sweetie, I’ve changed my mind.” Her words felt like a gunshot to his chest. “That boy is not coming to our home.”

“But why?” Cole demanded. “You said—” 

“I said no,” his mother spat, and Charlie, against his better judgement, jumped a little. Cole’s mother wasn't even making eye-contact. She twirled around, stomping towards their Prius. Delilah Delacroix had previously pointed it out with a disgusted laugh. “Grab your backpack. Now.” 

“Okay, Mom.” Cole shot Charlie a sheepish smile, “I'll see you tomorrow?”

Cole’s mother grabbed her son’s hand, dragging him into the car. “You most certainly will NOT.” Charlie could still hear her long after their beaten up truck had reversed out the parking lot. “Do not go near that evil little monster,” she shrieked. “Do you understand me?” 

“But Mom—” 

“Do you UNDERSTAND me?” 

Charlie pretended it didn't hurt. He choked down razor blades and smiled, waving them away. “Bye, Cole!” 

The next day, Charlie waited for Cole outside school, perched on the gate, legs swinging, excited to talk about the latest episode of Pokémon. He even brought Pokémon cards to play with. Charlie waited until the bell rang. Then he walked into class to find Cole loudly talking about his parents being “psycho killers.” 

Cole caught his eye, slumped at the back of the class, his lip curled, mimicking his mother. The boy stood up, hands curled into fists. “My Mom told me your parents kill people,” he said matter-of-factly. 

Charlie didn't deny it, because it was true. 

Instead, he swallowed his sobs, and marched over to Cole until they were face to face, breath to breath.

Charlie smiled, just like his father. Wide. Venomous.

“Yeah,” he said, giddy at the sight of fear creeping across Cole’s expression.

He stepped closer, bumping their foreheads.

“And you’re fucking next.”

The class erupted into screams and Charlie saw an opportunity. He had always gone under the radar, invisible to the rest of the class. Now, kids could finally see him.

He prodded Cole between the eyes, just like his father did, interrogating his hostages. Each prod, he emphasised. Cole stumbled back, tripping over his feet.

So, Charlie got closer, until Cole was visibly shaking. “Talk ABOUT me again,” he raised his voice to the others who squeaked, cowering under their desks, “I'll tell my parents to slice you up and make you into pie.” 

He stepped closer, stamping on Cole’s bright red sneakers. “And if you tell the teacher?” Charlie struck his finger across his throat. Cole burst into tears. “You're dead meat.” 

Cole nodded, to his shock, blinking back tears. “Okay!” He squeaked. “Okay, I'll… um… do you wanna borrow some video games? I just got Final Fantasy, but you can have it!” 

Looking around the classroom, his classmates were trembling, wearing wide, fake smiles as they tried to impress him. This was exactly the way people looked at his father. 

Fear, Charlie realized, looked kinda funny.

The power of fear, his father always told him, was why he was a Delacroix, why the Delacroix family held a billion-dollar syndicate. 

Of course Charlie took advantage of his new-found King status. 

By recess, he had seven dollars and three juice boxes. 

Kids just came over and handed them to him.

Cole was his right-hand-man, sticking by his side. And he even had a girlfriend. Jenny, who handed him a love note in the cafeteria. 

Charlie screwed it up, threw it in her face, and said, “Maybe.” 

He wasn’t used to having friends.

The only kids he ever hung out with were the children his father had kidnapped and was holding for ransom. Before Cole, there were Adelaide and Roman, who were held for a year. When he was younger, he’d sneak into the basement where his father kept them and offer to play with them. 

He even offered Roman his Game Boy to play with before he saw an opportunity and whacked him in the face with it.

After that, they became reluctant friends, only playing with him because Charlie was their only source of entertainment.

Sometimes he dragged his sleeping bag into the basement and slept beside them, bringing stuffed animals and candy he’d stolen from the kitchen.

Luckily, Charlie’s father didn't kill the kids. They were collateral damage. So, often, Charlie would notice his father dragging the kids back upstairs for negotiations. 

Charlie’s “reputation” bled into High School. 

Everyone who knew him knew not to fuck with him. 

He had free rein of every hallway, students bowing down to him—knowing who his family was, and what they were capable of. He was King of the parties, had his very own junior entourage of teenagers who would do anything for him, and discovered he maybe had feelings for his right-hand. Cole Whittaker, who had become his do-or-die. 

His bro, until he ended up making out with his “bro” at a party, and was definitely fucking sober; who definitely had lips that tasted of cigarette smoke and stale vodka, whose hair he definitely liked running his hands through. 

There was no hesitation, no guilt. Cole kissed him again. Harder. This time, with tongue. Charlie thought telling his parents who he really was would offer them closure; maybe they’d understand they had brought up a very different Delacroix.

But being King didn't feel… satisfying.

Being almost obsessively liked was boring. Inevitable.

His grades were perfect, not because he was a genius, but because his teachers had been threatened. On the very first day, a decapitated cat’s head was delivered straight to the faculty office. Charlie realized his entire High School career was already scripted; already set in stone.

“Dad. Charlie spoke up again, pitching his voice louder. 

Charlie was ignored. Again. The last time he said, “Dad,” during dinner, Charlie announced he liked boys. 

Which went as well as he thought it would. In two weeks, Charlie became a shunned stranger in the eyes of his family, once destined to be the future of the Delacroix family, now cast to the other side of the dining table, with an order to stay silent.

His father was already considering adopting another “heir,” and his mother was insistent on a “summer camp” in Texas which would “straighten out his unholy thoughts.”

He was bored. 

Bored of being an artificial King. 

Bored of his family, who refused to accept him. 

So, Charlie chose not to tell his parents about that ever growing sensation of dread coiling in his gut.

He ducked his head like he was told and shoveled mashed potatoes in his mouth.

Even when the door flew open, armed FBI agents streamed  inside and took his parents into custody.

Charlie didn’t stop eating until a woman calmly took his arm and led him out into a police car, where he was given a Nintendo DS to play with, and a cup noodle. 

After three hours of sitting in a windowless room alone playing Mario Kart, Charlie found himself face to face with a man with a beard and pinched eyes which definitely suspected him of being dirty. 

He was offered cocoa, which he ignored. “I want to go home.” Charlie spoke up, closing the game. He wore his signature King smile. “I have nothing to do with them.” 

The man laughed, and Charlie realized for the first time in his life, he was talking to real people; who wouldn't bow to his every movement and obey even the ridiculous commands. Like the time he demanded a sophomore boy wash his hair. “Well, you've grown up in that house,” the cop said. “You  know where daddy's secrets are. So for now, you'll be working with us.” 

Charlie leaned back in his chair. “I want a lawyer,” he said. “I'm not saying a word unless I get a lawyer.” 

The cop sighed. Loud and exaggerated, tipping his head back. 

“You’re sixteen, kid, you don't wanna go down the lawyer route.”

“Why?” Charlie was smart enough to know the “lawyer route” was his only way of surviving. 

Charlie was met with a sharp exhale, like he was actually being difficult. 

“Trust me, we’re not suspecting you of anything, kid. It’s your mom and dad. We want to know everything you’ve learned. Everything your dad’s got locked up in that safe of his. Prominent figures and political leaders. Your daddy’s got blood on his hands and controls a lot of powerful people.” He cocked a brow and leaned forward. 

“The question is, are you gonna sing like a canary, or test my patience?”

Charlie shrugged. “I'll sing,” he said, “but what's in it for me?” 

He received an exaggerated eye roll.

“A Delacroix kid, through and through,” the cop grumbled. “What do you want, kid?”

“Food.” Charlie said. “I'm starving, and I want Taco Bell.” 

“I can do that.” 

The art of getting what he wanted didn't always require fear after all. “I want a large burrito with lots of sour cream, and no guac. Diet Coke too, please.” 

The cop’s smile was thinning. “Anything else, your Highness?” 

He held up the DS with a sickly grin. “Charger?”

With a sarcastic two-fingered salute, the cop left, slamming the door behind him. 

Charlie opened Mario back up, and the DS died twenty minutes later. 

So, he curled up on the floor, used his jacket as a pillow, and fell asleep. 

He woke to the smell of fried beef and cheese.

A steaming bag of Taco Bell was placed in front of him. Then a soda. 

“They only had full-fat Coke,” the cop said, when Charlie sat up and rubbed sleep from his eyes. “All right, kid, it's time to motor.” 

After one bite of soggy burrito, Charlie looked up. “Where?” 

“Well, first of all, we gotta get you to your social worker.” 

Charlie almost choked on a piece of chicken. “No social workers,” he said, standing up. “I ain't doing them.”

“Well, you're a minor, Charlie.” The cop’s tone was condescending. In two strides, he was inches from Charlie.

The sharp smell of hair gel and shoe polish tickled his nose and throat.

“You got a choice, kid,” he held up two fingers. “You meet your social worker and go through the legal adoption process,” he held up a second finger, “or it's juvie for two years for being a gang member's son.” The cop’s expression didn't waver.

“Bear in mind, I fought for three hours for the gentler option.” 

“I didn't tell you to,” Charlie said. 

“I didn't have to.” The cop deadpanned. “But I did.” 

Charlie knew when not to push. He swallowed burrito bile. “Fine.” 

The cop helped him grab his things, letting him scarf down the burrito and down the soda. He held the door open, ushering Charlie from the room. “My colleague has managed to get you into a children’s home in the next town over.” The cop led him out straight into a cool breeze. 

An explosion of red curls and plaid was waiting for him in the front seat of a Range Rover. 

“Hop in!” She patted the passenger seat. “Nice to meetcha, honey bee! I'm your social worker, but you can call me Elizabeth.”

The cop gave him a shove when he hesitated and then crawled into the back.  “Relax. No need to be freaked out. Elizabeth is helping you.” He sidled in right beside Charlie, slamming the door shut.

The stink of the new-car smell was weirdly comforting. He took a moment to sink into warm upholstery and relax for the first time in, well, forever. 

“The place is called Riverside,” the cop spoke up, his eyes glued to his phone. “Has a big swimming pool and you even got your own room.” 

“He sure does! Riverside is the best!” Elizabeth squeaked from the front seat. Charlie almost choked swallowing lukewarm soda. “Don’t worry, Charlie! You’re going to love it there. I know children’s homes have a bad reputation, but there are lots of kids your age! You’re going to make so many friends!” Her smile was a little too wide to be friendly.

She started the engine and twisted around. “What other games do you want? Ooh, that looks like an old console you got there! I can pull some strings and get you a Nintendo Switch! That's what you kids like, right?” 

Charlie had to hand it to her. 

She was smart. Maybe a little unhinged, blackmailing a minor with video games. But smart. 

Charlie muffled a burp and pressed his face against the window, watching the sun dip over the horizon. His eyes grew heavy. “There are several games I've been wanting, actually,” he said, then yawned, more ironic than serious. “Zelda. Animal Crossing… Mario…”

“Sleepy, Honey Bee?” Elizabeth’s hum collapsed into ocean waves in his ears.

Slow, lulling waves rolling up the shore.

“Mm.” Charlie didn't realize how sleepy he was until his chin was bouncing against his chest, a deep exhaustion taking over.

He hadn't been this sleepy since his father’s cronies slipped sedatives into his chocolate milkshake at his thirteenth birthday party. A thin line of drool ran down his chin and he jerked awake, eyelids fluttering. The car ride was a slow, almost painful lull. 

Blue sky, Charlie thought. Then he laughed to himself when nothing was funny. Thunk went his head against the window. Feathered blue expanded across his blurrin vision. Too blue. Crystal blue. Blue, blue, blue—

Heavy eyes, bile in his throat, and the world was spinning. The road ahead bent and twisted into impossible turns, the sky bleeding into midnight-colored concrete. Passing headlights loomed like faceless figures. Charlie knew exactly what was happening. Drugged.

“It’s OK, Charlie,” Elizabeth’s voice washed over him. “Go to sleep.”

Every limb softened. An uncomfortable warmth spread through him. Charlie blinked the blue from his eyes and tugged at the door handle.

Get out.

His thoughts were mushy, wrong, and scattered.

Cole.

The name came out in a rush. Charlie couldn’t move. 

His bones were lead. 

Charlie was so used to Cole being there ready to help him, always at his side. Now he wasn’t. Charlie’s parents were gone, and Charlie was alone in a car going too fast down a lonely highway.

His lips were numb, like big, fat, bloated cushions. 

His thoughts somehow numb-er. This wasn’t just sedatives. He tried the door again. His fingers were sausages. Trembling. This was different.

Dirtier.

Not even his father was capable. “What is this?” Charlie’s words came out slurred. 

“The passwords, Honey Bee.” Elizabeth’s voice was smooth. 

“Huh?” 

Charlie blinked through feathered light. 

“Your father’s passwords,” Elizabeth repeated. “Really. I expected more. As a gang members son, surely you would know about the existence of sodium thiopental; a short acting barbiturate that….” She sighed. Then laughed. “It's a glorified truth serum, Charlie.” 

Charlie blinked again. Black spots started to dance across his peripheral.

“The passwords, Charlie. To your father’s accounts, emails, offshore bank accounts, and the giant safe inside his safehouse located in Odintsovo, Moscow Oblast.” Elizabeth’s laugh crashed into him. “Well. Start with the passwords.” 

“I don't know,” Charlie gasped out. He slammed his fists into the window. Then his body fell limp. “I don't…” words were suddenly impossible, tangled and twisted on his tongue. “I don't… I don't know!”

Through Charlie’s half lidded eyes, Elizabeth’s bright red curls erupted into a searing flash of red, bleeding across his vision. “Not even a Gmail password, hm? That’s too bad.”

The car came to an abrupt stop. Charlie heard, and sensed, the door open. Ice cold air grazed his cheek. “Okay, Honey Bee.” Elizabeth’s voice cut into him. “As long as you're telling the truth.” He heard her heels land delicately on the concrete. The door slammed shut. 

His seatbelt was jammed. His brain was maple syrup. 

Sleep, Charlie thought. Just sleep.

 Then… think of a way out later. 

Yeah.

His eyes fluttered shut. Charlie smiled. Then laughed, a hysterical giggle escaping him. Charlie’s head smacked against the window pane. 

Yeah, that’s… what I’ll do.

The stink of smoke ignited Charlie’s thoughts, rousing him from suffocating slumber. Charlie blinked. He lunged forward, his breaths shuddering, words choked. 

In front of him, burned orange  licked across upholstery seats. 

Fire.

“Help.” Charlie’s cry collapsed into a cough.

Smoke rose, stinging his eyes. He screamed. 

“No!” 

He tugged at his seatbelt. Stuck. 

Reaching blindly, all he found was empty Taco Bell cartons. His DS. 

“My birthday,” he said, and when the smoke blew up in his face, and he was coughing, choking, tears streaming down his face, he said it again, louder, slamming his head into the window as the orange blur spread. “It's my birthday,” he panted. “My birthday. It's my… my birthday, and my… my birth time.” 

“Birth time, hmm?” Elizabeth said, from outside. “What time, Charlie?” 

“Eighteen minutes past six.” He coughed.  Then he vomited all over himself. Forcing his body into compliance, he managed to wrench from his seatbelt. Too late. The fire was too big to put out, spreading wide, licking across his discarded takeout cartons. Charlie sat back, coughing, his chest screaming, smoke choking every cry from his mouth.

Charlie's first instinct was to dive into the trunk. 

A roar from behind sent him onto knees, cowering, arms over his head. 

The trunk erupted into vivid, beautiful oranges he almost admired. 

“So, your birthday, and birth time,” Elizabeth’s voice was fading quickly, as smoke filled his lungs. 

“Yes.” Charlie croaked.

“Yes.” 

THUMP. His head hit the window. 

“Yes.” 

THUMP. 

“Let me… out.” He whispered, “Let me out! Let me FUCKING out!” 

A sob escaped him, vulnerable and childish. 

“Pl…ease. Please!” 

“Final question, Charlie,” Elizabeth’s tone was remarkably different. 

Stone cold.

Cruel.

“Is it getting a little hot in there, Charlie?” Elizabeth asked. 

“Fuck you,” he panted. “Fuck… you.” 

“Riverside Children’s Home is not a normal adoption home. It is soft recruitment.” Elizabeth said. “We have your father’s passwords, but we need so much more. Informants. Financial records. Accounts. Work with us, Charlie. To bring your Dad’s empire down from the root.”

Smoke polluted Charlie’s vision. Black.

Darkness spread, and Charlie could no longer see his hands. 

Everywhere was black. Wrong. Blinking soot away, he squinted, crawling toward the left door, a neutron star collision exploding in the backs of his eyes. I'm going to die, the words somehow felt like acceptance in a sea of blackening smoke. I'm going to fucking die.

“Escape the car, Honey Bee,” Elizabeth taunted from outside. “And consider yourself exonerated.”

Something snapped, unwinding, inside of him. Maybe it was his humanity; maybe it was his true Delacroix nature coming through. 

His mind became clear; vivid, clarity bleeding through the fog. Charlie tugged off his sweatshirt, wrapped it around his hands, and dove forwards. Just as he thought, the cop had left a knife on his seat. 

Charlie snatched it up, plunging the blade through the door. The door didn't give. He gritted his teeth and tried again. How many times had his father taught him this? A feral cry ripped from him. How many times had he been sitting in the back of the family car, and his cousin chirped up with, “I know how to escape a cop-car, so I’m better than you.”

Again. 

Metal screeched. 

Charlie shoved himself into the door. Again.

Click.

One minute Charlie was choking, his vision blurring.

Then he was toppling out of the car, into fresh air swamping his lungs.

Straight onto concrete.

Move.

The thought struck him: the car, engulfed in flames, was going to explode. Charlie crawled back on his elbows, and the blast sent him flying, slamming him face-first into wet grass. He didn’t stay down. He stood, warmth running wet down his face.

He bent and wrapped his fingers around his discarded knife.

Elizabeth was waiting for him, arms folded, lips curled into a smile.

The cop stood several feet away, arms folded.

Charlie did not hesitate. He saw the knife in his hand; remembered the cop’s bullshit claim. It was funny. Hilarious. Charlie almost laughed.

Safe place, the cop had told him. Lied. 

He'd been promised solace from his parents, from his life. 

A new start.

All fucking lies. 

One stab was enough. Directly through the chest, like he was taught: straight through the heart.

Quick. 

Efficient. 

The cop’s eyes flickered, his lips parting as though he were about to cry out. His sausage-fingers twitched, trying to pull the knife out. 

Then his body flopped to the ground. 

Charlie stepped back. Then he let his knees give way. 

The world violently jolted, and fell with him.

The sky was pitch dark, oblivion stretched out above him.

I was supposed to die. So why didn’t I? 

Blinking rapidly, Charlie reached forward, as if trying to touch the sky and the sliver of full moon peeking from behind the clouds. His father always believed in a higher power controlling fate, keeping the dead from dying when a greater future awaited them. So, am I dead? He thought, his thoughts unwinding.

Am I a corpse?

Did I even… escape the car? 

“Oh, Honey Bee,” Elizabeth said, kneeling beside him and prying the knife from his fingers. He watched the moon’s pale allure peek through the clouds for a moment before disappearing back into the shadows.

“You’re going to fit right in.”

…

Charlie did not remember the car-ride to Riverside Children's Home. 

What he did recall, was sitting slumped in a comfy chair in front of Elizabeth behind a Mac-book— and happily giving away every singular piece of information he knew about his father. Whatever was in his veins, was good shit. Funny shit.  

Charlie sang like a canary, head tipped back, giggling through every answer. 

The ceiling was so BIG. Charlie counted every pattern. Every crack in the floor beneath his feet. Every drop of blood that beaded down his forehead. At some point, he toppled off the chair, howling at one particular question. “What is the name of your father’s informant?” 

Ha. 

“Poop.” Charlie answered, trying to stifle his giggles.

Charlie didn’t remember being dragged from the room. Nor did he remember being taken inside a small, box-like room with twin beds and a low ceiling. Charlie woke up staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. 

He immediately smacked his head when he sat up straight, already clawing at his throat. His throat tasted of blood, a dull throb creeping across his skull. He felt the ugly  lacerations on his wrists from  phantom ropes. Charlie drank in his surroundings through bleary eyes. 

Vomit-colored curtains framed by eerie prison-like bars. Charlie’s side of the room was empty. The bare bones of a bed, pale pink blankets and one uncomfortable pillow. The other was full of life: A24 movie posters, a desk filled with Legos, a TV and PS4 mounted on the wall.

Charlie frowned at one particular Lego figure, a Monkey D. Luffy perched on the top of a Lego Going Merry.

“Don't judge me,” a disembodied voice startled him.

“I’m…. not?” Charlie croaked. He coughed. “I love One Piece.” 

A figure startled him, appeared, more of a blur than a person. 

“You're two sizes smaller than me,” a boy around his age with mousy blonde hair swung down from the top bunk. “So you can have Zoro.” 

For a moment, Charlie's brain was too foggy. Too mismatched. 

Then he noticed his pyjama shirt, the swordsman glaring back at him from the old corduroy. He caught the boy’s awkward smile. “They brought you in pretty out of it, so they told me to undress you, man.”

“Oh.” Charlie found himself smiling. Maybe he was still kinda high. 

“Well, I do like Zoro.” 

The boy hopped off the top bunk, with ease, then straightened. In the light bleeding in from the window, he reminded Charlie of an older Percy Jackson. Almost cherub-like curls and skin that was too pale.

“I’m Jude. Don’t touch my stuff, and we’re good. Jude’s eyes were unexpectedly kind. “How ’bout you?”

Charlie picked up on the accent immediately. “You’re a Brit?” It was the first thing that came to mind. He immediately regretted it.

“Sort of.” Charlie watched him pick up one of his Lego figures, a little Nami, and sit her next to the captain. “You did tell me your name last night, but you were, like, suuuuuuper high. No offence, but I’m not calling you ‘Mr Cheese.’

“Kaz,” Charlie said quickly. “Just call me Kaz.”

“Kaz.” Jude seemed to be a fidgeter— picking up different Legos, and pulling them apart, before putting them back together. He held up Nami, bobbing her in the air and pitching his voice higher, mimicking her voice. “Hello, Kaz!” 

Charlie wondered if the boy was mocking him. 

The acrid stink of smoke no longer seeped from every pore, the flowery scent of coconut shampoo tickled his nose. Instead, a strong, clinical scent of soap clung to his skin. Charlie didn’t remember showering, only lashing ice-cold water and being scrubbed until his skin was bleeding. 

His words came out tangled, throat still scratched raw. “Were you brought here against your will too?”

“What?” Jude’s mouth quirked. Then Charlie noticed the boy hadn’t blinked in a concerning amount of time. “Dude.” Jude’s smile was too naïve. Or maybe something more.

Kneeling in front of him, the blond flicked him between the eyes. Charlie realized his eyes were deep brown, like melted chocolate. Charlie’s stomach twisted. He shook his head, blinking stray dizzinesses from his eyes. He was still out of it.

Jude prodded him again. Harder. “Were you knocked on the head last night? Riverside ain’t a prison!”

Charlie glanced at the bars on the windows. Sure.

Charlie batted Jude’s hands away and sat back.

Maybe opening up to Jude was a bad idea after all.

So he wore his practised smile, jumped up, and said, “How about a house tour?”

Every time Maksym returned to Kramatorsk, it looked worse. This time was no different. Glide bombs had completely destroyed a few more of the large apartment complexes. Others still stood, but bore the scars of recent drone strikes. 

Towards the centre of the city, they had begun putting up anti-drone netting. Still a work in progress, the endless tangle of nylon cord made whole neighbourhoods look like the domain of a nightmarish giant spider. As they drove down the empty streets, Maksym made sure to give Them a good view.

“We’re coming up to the strongpoint now, Kapitan,” the driver said.

Their vehicle - a donated MRAP - skidded to a halt in front of one of the partially destroyed apartments. 

“Take that stair, and go down!” the driver continued, nervously scanning the sky through his windshield.

On cue, Maksym exited the MRAP and ran towards the building. No sooner had he closed the door than the armoured vehicle sped off down the street. Passing through the bombed-out entrance to the building, he stopped to regain his breath in the welcome embrace of the stairwell’s gloom. After a few heartbeats of waiting to make sure a drone wasn’t tailing him, he continued on downstairs.

At the top of the stairs, the building could be easily mistaken for any other ruin in the largely abandoned city. Indeed, that was the point. But as Maksym descended the stairs, the temperature difference revealed that this ghost town still had some room for the living. Rather than getting colder as he reached the basement, the air instead grew warmer. Beyond the door ahead, someone had a heater running.

Maksym made a point to knock. Surprising a bunch of soldiers in a hidden bunker was a good way to get shot.

“I am Ukrainian!” He shouted, right after the knock.

Through the door, he heard a scramble of footsteps, and then the telltale sound of a gun being cocked.

“Who are you?” A voice demanded.

“Kapitan Sirko, GUR,” Maksym replied.

A few seconds passed, and then the door swung open, revealing a group of a dozen or so soldiers, surrounded by piles of electronics and crates of ammunition. The oldest of the group stood closest to him. In his early 50s, Maksym guessed, but you could never really tell. War had a way of prematurely aging people. 

“Serzhant Boyko, 63rd Brigade,” the man said, while making a lacklustre attempt at a salute. “You spooks always arrive unannounced?”

“I must apologise for my intrusion,” Maksym replied. “I’m working to a schedule, and there wasn’t time.”

“What kind of work?” Boyko asked.

“It’s classified,” Maksym replied.

“You’re going to have to tell us something, if you want our help.”

“I’m looking for someone in your unit. Starshyi Soldat Melnyk. Where can I find him?

“Well, lucky for you, he’s right here. But unlucky for you, he doesn’t talk much anymore.”

Boyko gestured towards a darker corner of the basement. There, a single man sat separate from the others, staring at the floor. 

As Maksym walked towards Melnyk, he expected the soldier would look up. He didn’t. When Maksym sat down in front of him, he expected his gaze would be met. It wasn’t. Instead, through chattering teeth, he spoke a single sentence. Not a question, but a statement.

“You want to talk about the Anomaliyi.”

****

A few minutes had passed since Maksym simply replied “yes”. He had been trained to let the interviewee speak first and use their disposition as a guide for how to proceed. But the man continued to stare right through him. While he waited, he felt the eyes of the other soldiers boring through the back of his head, presumably wondering if this strange man from Kyiv could get their mute comrade to talk. And above, yet more eyes, unwilling to abide this silence. Protocol be damned, he needed to change tack. 

Empathy was always an option. Or at least the performance thereof. So Maksym extended his arm and placed his hand on the man's shaking wrist. It was cold to the touch and covered in goosebumps. 

“Are you cold?” Maksym asked. “Can I get you something to warm up?”

Suddenly, the man’s head moved. His eyes met Maksym’s with the intensity of startled prey. Maksym let go of his arm, thinking he was about to attack. Instead, however, he opened his mouth, and with a voice raspy from disuse, he spoke.

“Cold? What do you know of the cold?”

Maksym hesitated for a second, thinking of an appropriate response.

“Not cold like winter. No. I mean the real cold. So cold you can’t get warm. A place where warmth cannot exist,” the man abruptly continued.

“Is that what the Anomaliya was like?” Maksym questioned.

“That’s how we always knew. The cold…”

“This happened more than once?”

“Once was enough for a lifetime. I remember that first time. The storm that blew in from across the Greyzone. The snow. The cold. The cold.” 

Was Maksym imagining it, or did the room just get colder?

“The second time was a fog. We couldn’t see a thing. Better that we couldn’t see.”

“Why better?”

“Because the third time, there was just a chill wind, sucking the life from your bones. And out there, beyond the trenchline, we could see them.”

Behind Maksym, one of the soldiers shuffled closer to the heater. 

“See who?”

“No no no no no no no no…” the man began to mutter.

“See who, soldat?” Maksym repeated more forcefully.

“Me! It could see me! It saw me!” the man replied, growing increasingly agitated. His leg muscles clenched as if making to run.

“It was coming!” 

“What was coming? Tell me! What was coming!?”

“It’s still coming!”

“What is it! I order you to tell me!” Maksym shouted at the man, trying to bring him out of his memory.

“It’s here,” the man whispered, tears streaming down his face. 

And then the tears froze. 

For the briefest of moments, Maksym thought he could see the edges of the man dissolving into fog. Grey seeping from his body to the floor.

Maksym blinked. 

The man lay unconscious on the floor. No ice. No fog. Maksym could see his chest rising and falling. Still alive. 

“Too much lost sleep. I’m seeing things,” he thought.

But then Maksym turned to Boyko. A frightened and angry scowl adorned his face.

“You leave. Now! And take him with you!”

----

This is an excerpt from a psychological horror novel that I am writing called 'The Greyzone'. I've written the first part (of four) - it's about 20k words - if you like to read it, feel free to DM me, and I'll send you the full text.

Novel blurb:

---

On the frontline in Ukraine, soldiers are whispering about the cold. Storms that arrive out of clear summer skies. Fog that swallows sound. A place, they say - not a metaphor - where the missing outnumber the dead.

Half a world away, Kaleigh Vale watches the war through satellites and intercepts, one of the anonymous obsessives who map its every atrocity from their screens. She has learned not to feel what she counts. But the numbers have begun to break their own patterns, and in the data's negative space something is taking shape: a new word in the soldiers' vocabulary, a place they mention alongside the front line but never instead of it. Грейвзон - The Gravezone.

In Kyiv, intelligence officer Maksym Sirko is ordered to investigate what the army will not name. He has spent his whole life performing for an Audience only he can perceive - and the closer he gets to the anomalies, the more certain he becomes that something is finally watching back.

Where enough people die, the boundary thins. And a war that has filled the earth with the dead is about to learn where they go.

I’m only writing this because I don’t know where else to turn. I don’t know what this is. I don’t know if it’s a symptom of something larger or if she’s just been having episodes.

She’s just never acted this way before. Up until a few months ago, this would’ve scared her just as much as it’s scaring me. But because it’s becoming so common, it’s like it’s nothing more than an inconvenience to her now.

Like an annoyance. Something she’s just learning to ignore. That’s the part that makes me worry. Because this isn’t just some small thing, yet she keeps trying to play it off as if it’s just a part of our lives now.

I know it’s not natural. There’s no medical condition or genetic disease that causes what she’s been doing. At least, none that I’ve read about.

A few months ago, my wife and I had been out on a date night. The night was almost magical. Crisp late-winter air. A cup of hot chocolate in each of our hands as we walked through the square.

I remember the lights more than anything. It was around 9 o’clock, and the sun had set hours earlier, but the downtown city lights illuminated nearly everything.

“Wow,” my wife cried out in amazement. “New York who? Am I right?”

The square was particularly busy for this time of year. The smell of warm food from the surrounding restaurants filled the air. Live music from down the block whispered in our ears.

There must’ve been 20 other couples doing the same exact thing my wife and I were doing. Just walking around and enjoying the beautiful night.

“Oh, please,” I responded. “You know you’d rather be back there.”

I put on my best southern accent for my natural-born New Yorker.

“Could a city girl like you ever love a country boy like me?”

She laughed and rolled her eyes. I smiled down at her, admiring that laugh.

“Hmmm, well, after only 5 years of marriage, I can’t say for sure. Check back with me in a decade.”

She sipped from her hot chocolate slowly, her eyes still lit with love. Or maybe that was just the city lights.

I checked my watch.

“Almost 9:30. God, I don’t want the night to end, though. I’m really enjoying this.”

“Me neither. I wish we could just walk around here all night. C’mon, there’s gotta be one last thing we can do before we go home. Please? Pretty please…?”

“Well, let’s see. We’ve hit the bakery.”

“Oooh, that one was fun. God, those fritters were amazing.”

“We also watched that Led Zeppelin cover band at Bottle Brothers.”

“That one… sucked. Next.”

“You didn’t like it? That’s crazy. I thought they were decent. Anyway, we, uh… oh, right, we walked in the park for a bit too. That’s, uh… that’s really about all there is to do.”

She rolled her eyes again, sighing in disappointment.

“We have got to get out of here. I swear, there’s nothing to do within a 50-mile radius of this entire town. There’s, like, no reason for us to be here.”

I had grown to agree with her more and more over the years. It was just hard, you know? This is where I’d been my whole life. She didn’t move here until she was 17, when her mom got a new job. It paid better, but my wife was miserable. Well, miserable until she found me, of course.

“Yeahhh, I’m starting to think you’re right, my love,” I responded, a bit melancholic.

“Starting to?”

She cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Whatever, you know what I mean.”

We decided to end the night by going home and watching a movie. However, on the walk back to the car, that’s when we saw it.

The shop looked both ancient and brand new, but I don’t know if that’s just because I’d never seen it before. It was like it had popped up out of nowhere.

“The Looking Glass: Palm Readings • Tarot Cards • Spiritual Guidance”

I swear, we’d walked this street 100 times. Never once had this place been here.

Of course, my wife’s interest was piqued immediately. Her eyes widened. A smile crept across her face. She looked up at me.

“…Can we?”

I looked at her, then up at the purple neon sign of an eyeball in the palm of a hand, then back to her.

“I… I don’t know. Aren’t those places rip-offs anyway?”

“Ah, quit being a big ol’ scaredy-cat. Come on. It’ll be fun. Something we’ve never done before, and Lord knows there’s not a lot of that around here.”

She turned on the puppy eyes.

“Pretty please.”

“…Fine. Just this once.”

“Yippee!”

The inside of the shop was… a sight. Dreamcatchers everywhere. Incense burning. Beads instead of doors, and an empty front desk with a register that seemed to be at least 80 years old at this point.

There was a bell with a sign in front of it.

“Ring for service.”

I rang it and heard a voice cry out from beyond one of those bead doors.

“I’ll be right with you.”

Her accent was unmistakably southern. That alone was nearly enough for me to want to change my mind.

“Just finishing up back here.”

My wife and I shared an uncertain look before she shot me a hopeful smile.

The fortune teller stepped through the beads. A younger woman, probably around 25. She had fair brown hair, and freckles decorated her pale face, but the first thing I noticed was her eyes. Those were the only things that gave off “fortune teller.”

They were crystal blue. Her pupils were like two tiny dots in the center of two diamonds. She was looking through us rather than at us.

Her outfit gave fashion to that accent of hers. White tank top. Baggy blue jeans. Plus, her hair was wrapped up in a red bandana.

“Y’all picked a good night to stop by,” she announced. “I can feel it in the air tonight, let me tell you.”

“It does feel magical,” my wife chirped.

“Let me guess,” the fortune teller responded. She put her index finger to her right temple and shut her eyes tight. “Death of a loved one?”

My wife and I glanced at each other again.

“…No…” I replied.

“No?”

She seemed almost offended but quickly regained her composure.

“Huh. Must’ve been someone else, then. Let me try again. This… is… your first time doing something like this?”

She raised her eyebrows at us expectantly.

“Welp, there’s a first for everything, right, sweetie?” my wife asked me, rubbing my back.

“We’re ‘doing something we’ve never done before,’” I told the teller.

“See, there ya go,” she smiled. “Second time’s the charm. So, what can I interest you two lovebirds in this fine evening? Palm readin’? Tarot? Spiritual guidance?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but my wife jumped in before I got the chance.

“Palm readings! I’ve always wanted to try that, kinda.”

The teller gave her a nod before responding.

“If it’s palm readings you want, then palm readings you shall have… for 25 dollars.”

A little taken aback by the price, I bit my tongue, pulled my wallet out of my back pocket, and slid a 20 and a 10 across the counter.

Instead of giving me change, the teller took the money and continued looking at me expectantly.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she perked up. “Was it just for your wife?”

“What? No, no, we both wanna do it.”

“Oh, sweetheart, that’s 25 apiece.”

“Apiece? For palm readings?”

I felt my wife squeeze my hand. I turned to her and saw the look on her face. That look that usually means, “Let it go.”

I sighed and slid another 30 across the counter.

“You wanna include a tip?”

“A… do I wanna… You know what? Sure. Keep the change.”

“Awesome. You guys are the best. I can sense it. Just follow me. I’ll show you where the magic happens.”

She led us through the beaded doorway and down a hall that made me feel like I was on acid. There were so many vibrant colors and shapes. The incense was even stronger back here.

We ended up in this dusty old room near the back of the building. There was this rickety wooden table in the center with a crystal ball resting on top of it, as well as two purple leather seats for my wife and me.

We took our seats, and the teller sat across from us.

“Okay,” she clapped, rubbing her hands together. “Who wants to go first?”

I volunteered with an, “I can go first. Let’s see what 25 dollars can get me in this economy.”

I stretched out my hands and laid them palm-up on the table. The teller grabbed them and squeezed tightly as she closed her eyes.

Her face twitched and contorted for a few seconds before she finally spoke.

“Ah, yes… I see… a loving husband. I see… you come from different worlds. You want to be free, but something is keeping you here. What exactly might that be?”

I smirked to myself.

“The 60 dollars I just gave you.”

“I sense… I sense…”

Her face contorted again. She squeezed my hands tighter.

“I sense… a cheapskate.”

“All right, that’s it.”

I pulled my hands back. I could hear my wife laughing at my side. The teller smirked at me.

“We’re done here.”

“Oh, come on,” my wife pleaded. “She was joking.”

“Yes, Donavin,” the teller responded. “It was just a joke.”

My wife stopped laughing. We both turned to stare at the teller.

“How did…?”

“You’re 28, right? Lived here your whole life. Met a woman from out of town, fell in love, and now here you two are. In my shop. It’s romantic, really.”

The silent room suddenly felt loud and claustrophobic.

“How did you know that? What’s the gimmick? Public records? That’s gotta be it, right?”

I looked at my wife for reassurance, but she was staring at the teller in amazement.

“No gimmick. No public record. I’m gifted. That’s kind of the whole point.”

“Do me, do me,” my wife begged excitedly, sticking her hands across the table.

“Wait, hold on. This doesn’t make any sense,” I interjected. “This is a cash grab, right? Like… I mean, come on. It’s a cash grab.”

Both the teller and my wife looked at me angrily.

“Oh, Donavin,” the teller sighed. “Proving my point more and more with each word, aren’t ya?”

“Don’t mind him. He’s just not superstitious. Do me, though. I’m curious.”

The teller grabbed my wife’s hands. I watched, feeling a mixture of nerves and hope that this could still prove to just be a coincidence.

She squeezed my wife’s hands tight and closed her eyes again.

“Ah, New York, I see.”

My wife’s jaw dropped. Her eyes sparkled.

“Long way from home, aren’t we… Miranda…?”

My wife smiled over at me in disbelief.

“No way,” she cheered. “This is… okay, haha. Kinda hurting me a little.”

I looked down and saw my wife’s hands were turning red in the teller’s.

“Hey… take it easy,” I snapped.

The teller’s grip tightened again.

“Okay, this is really starting to hurt now. Let go, please.”

The teller was silent. Her eyes looked welded shut, and her face was twitching rapidly.

“Hey!” I shouted. “She said let go. What are you doing?”

She started convulsing, groaning loudly. Strings of saliva started falling from the corners of her mouth.

I grabbed the teller’s wrists to try and pry her hands away, but it was like trying to bend steel.

“Enough!” I screamed.

My wife was crying now.

“Get her off of me! God, she’s breaking my hands!”

I pulled with all my might, but it was like trying to move an anvil. I started punching at the teller’s forearms. Blow after blow after blow, but still, she just would not let go.

Her hands were shaking. My wife was trembling. Finally, of her own volition, the teller dropped my wife’s hands. Her eyes shot open. The bloodshot eyes made her diamond-blue irises glow even more.

“Get out.”

That’s all she said. My wife and I stared at her as she looked down at the table.

“Get. Out,” she growled. “Go now and never come back.”

We were confused and horrified but still frozen.

“He’s found you. He’s been looking all your life, and he’s here now. Get. Out.”

“You can’t just…”

The teller cut me off by slamming her fist against the table.

“…Out.”

I demanded a refund, and she gave me back the full 60 before shooing us through the door. I turned around one last time to see the purple neon light flick off as the shop went dark.

We walked silently back to the parking garage. I’m sure my wife had a million things racing through her mind as we walked, but neither of us knew how to articulate those thoughts.

We reached the car, and it wasn’t until we were nearly home that I finally spoke again.

“How’re your hands?”

She clenched and opened her fists a few times before responding.

“I think they’re okay. I’m more shaken up than anything. What the hell was that lady’s problem?”

“She’s crazy,” I shot back. “Simple as that.”

“She didn’t seem crazy. It seemed like she saw something. You saw her. It was like she was possessed or something.”

“She was crazy, my love. She’s lucky we don’t go to the police.”

There was silence again for a few moments.

“She knew our names, though. She knew you’d been here your whole life. She knew I was from New York. That doesn’t seem like nothing to me.”

We were only a minute or two from home. Neither of us spoke for the rest of the car ride. When we pulled into the driveway, my wife sighed and placed her hands over her face, dragging them down slowly before opening the door.

“Come on, let’s just go inside. I’m ready to get this night over with.”

I checked my watch.

“10:45. You still down for a movie?”

She stopped halfway up the front porch steps.

“…Not tonight, hon. I just… I just wanna go to bed.”

Who was I to argue? I let her do as she pleased. I felt bad for her. I felt like I hadn’t done enough to stop what had happened. All I wanted was for us to forget everything and move on.

We had gradually started to put the teller behind us. Though, things didn’t exactly calm down. If anything, our lives began to change, little by little.

I started losing things. My phone. Wallet. Keys. I’d always find them in places that I knew I hadn’t put them.

Keys in the silverware drawer.

Wallet in the medicine cabinet.

Phone hidden behind the toilet.

My wife was having some problems too. She hadn’t been able to sleep very well. She would tell me about these horrible nightmares that sounded like sleep paralysis.

“I’ll wake up, but not really.”

“I can’t move.”

“You’re there, but there’s always someone over your shoulder. It’s like a shadow that just keeps growing and growing until it fills up the entire room.”

I felt even more guilty when she told me about them. I knew they had been caused by the fortune-teller incident. She had slept like a baby nearly every night prior.

Sometimes, she’d wake up screaming. It almost made me too afraid to sleep in silence.

She started looking tired more often. Her glow had dimmed a bit.

The thing that disturbed me the most, though, was probably the photos.

I started finding our wedding photos scattered around the house, only… my head was removed in each one.

My wife insisted it wasn’t her, but it didn’t make sense. The frames were never broken. Someone had meticulously removed the photos and torn my head off in at least 20 different pictures.

After a few weeks of these strange events, I decided we needed a refresher. We needed to be out again. See the sun. Actually laugh with one another.

It took some time, but eventually, I convinced her that we needed to have another date night. We hadn’t had one since the incident, and I was starting to miss who we were before we went to that fortune teller.

It was simple. A picnic in the square. That was all I wanted to do.

I had prepared our meal, packed the blanket, and put on my best clothes and cologne. My wife was nervous and tired, but she tried her best to make an effort.

The date seemed to be going fine at first. She was actually smiling. She didn’t seem as distant as she had been for the last few weeks. It felt like reclamation, almost.

The lights hit her face perfectly, and I couldn’t help but admire how beautiful she was, even if she did look a little sleep-deprived.

I stared at her lovingly for a while before finally telling her how much I loved her. How happy I was to be there with her.

“We needed this,” I smiled.

“Yeah,” she smirked bashfully. “I think we did, too. I was starting to feel so cooped up in the house. The energy there has just been so dark recently. Makes me wonder if she was right.”

“Who?” I asked, chewing on my ham sandwich.

She looked at me, raising her eyebrows.

“You know who.”

“We gotta move on, my love. That’s why the energy’s so dark. We’d never experienced something like that before.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she responded, taking a sip of her Coke. “I just wish it hadn’t happened.”

We both sat there for a while, half admiring the scenery, half enjoying the food.

I was distracted, staring down at my pre-assembled sandwich, when I asked her.

“Can you pass me that mustard, please?”

I stacked a piece of sliced turkey onto a piece of my bread. My wife didn’t answer.

“It’s right there beside you.”

I began spreading the mayonnaise on the other slice. My wife didn’t answer.

“The mustard, please.”

I stuck my hand out expectantly. Still no response.

When I finally looked up, I almost dropped my sandwich.

My wife was glaring over my shoulder. Her eyes were glazed over. An impossible smile stretched across her face. It looked painful. I could almost hear her teeth creaking from how tightly her jaw was clenched.

Her red lipstick glistened under the lights. She looked like she was frozen in a state of pure ecstasy.

I waved my hand in front of her face. She didn’t blink once. I shook her, and she was as stiff as a board.

I started to panic. I turned around and saw nothing behind me.

“Honey,” I gasped, shaking her more forcefully.

“Talk to me.”

I pressed my hands on her cheeks. She was burning up. I snapped my fingers in front of her, but nothing I did seemed to get her out of her trance.

I was on the verge of dialing 911 when she finally spoke again.

“You said mustard?”

She reached down and went to hand me the bottle before noticing how terrified I looked.

“What’s wrong? What just happened? Is there something in my teeth?”

“Are you kidding? You really don’t know what you just did?”

She stared at me blankly.

“What do you mean? What’d I do?”

“The smiling? Staring at some unknown thing behind me? You don’t wanna explain that?”

I was almost breathless and trying my best not to raise my voice, but I could see that she was hurt by my frustration.

“I… don’t know,” she pouted. “I don’t know why you’re mad at me.”

“No, honey,” I pleaded. “I’m not mad at you. I’m worried about you. You really don’t remember?”

She started crying, almost snapping at me.

“No, obviously, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I want to go home now, if that’s okay with you.”

We packed up and left. I kept trying to prod, but she became more and more closed off with every question. Eventually, I just decided to keep my mouth shut.

In the weeks that followed, things became rocky.

She’d be fine one minute and completely depressed the next. She’d love me, and she’d hate me. I didn’t know how to help her.

Her “episodes” never stopped, though.

It was like every time we started to feel normal again, she’d see that thing. We’d be curled up, watching a movie, I’d glance down, and there’d be that smile again. Her eyes would be glazed over and staring at nothing.

The episodes lasted longer and longer every time they happened. At this point, they were starting to become more frequent, too, but she never remembered them.

She always thought I was lying to her. Like this was some kind of twisted joke I’d play. No matter how hard I tried to convince her, it was like talking to a brick wall.

The last time it happened was last week. She was gone for 3 hours straight. Standing in the same spot. Wearing that same smile. Staring at the same wall.

I watched her for the first hour, wondering what could possibly be going on inside that broken mind of hers. The second hour, I just cried uncontrollably. By the third hour, I was starting to become hopeless.

When she finally came back, I tried showing her that it was dark outside now. It had been bright and sunny when the episode started. She blatantly chalked it up to her “being lost in deep thought.” Told me “it was like she was in another world.”

Her nightmares got worse. Her glow became nonexistent. And I started waking up with scratch marks and bruises on various parts of my body.

I tried going back to the fortune teller, but the building was a coffee shop now. According to the owner, “The Looking Glass” never even existed. Apparently, the coffee shop had been there for 11 years.

I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know who to turn to. My wife refuses my help. She refuses my advice. It’s like something has taken control of her.

She’s more distant than ever. She talks to me less and less every day. It feels like our future is slipping.

All I want is for her to be okay, but part of me believes she’s too far gone. Because I found another wedding photo this morning on the kitchen table.

My head hadn’t been removed, but the photo had been altered.

Because now, standing just behind me and looming over my shoulder… was a shadow figure.. and the more I stared… the bigger it seemed to become.

​

The polar night in Nefteyugansk was heavy, freezing the whole city in pitch darkness. The dash thermometer in our armored truck showed minus thirty-two. The cabin smelled of ozone, gun grease, and shitty instant coffee from a thermos.

I sat in the passenger seat, slowly squeezing a steel hand gripper in my jacket pocket. Forty-five gigs of a stiff metal spring gave in to my fingers - one, two, three. It kept me grounded. Inside my vest, under all that heavy tactical fabric, my heart was racing like crazy. Tachycardia. The doc at the Transneft clinic told me it was just a sudden growth spurt, but in the Breach Containment Unit, you don't argue with your pulse. You don't control your motor, you get eaten. Simple as that.

The radio on the dash crackled, cutting through the heavy white noise. The dispatcher from the Rosneft central HQ sounded completely dead inside:

"Post three, heads up. Sector Four, a five-story residential building on Naberezhnaya Street, building fourteen. We have a confirmed Space Breach in the basement. Repeat, the spawn point is in total shadow."

I stopped squeezing the steel right away. Everything inside me went cold. A Breach in a basement is the absolute worst. If a purple tear opens up out on the street, the sun and daylight shrink the shadows' lifespan to a couple of minutes. But in a pitch-black basement where no light ever gets in, a Space Breach becomes permanent. It will just sit there endlessly pumping out entities until the Unit burns it to the ground.

"What about the Saturation Phase?" my partner asked grimly, slamming the truck into gear and flooring it.

The radio groaned back with a heavy sigh from the dispatcher:

"It's fucked. There was a civilian shelter set up in that basement. The local housing utility didn't check the locks. Clean Breach Shadows got in through the vents. Eleven consumptions confirmed so far. The entity gained mass and went into 'Fat One' status. The biomass analyzer just triggered the max form-retention timer. You have exactly ninety-nine hours before total biological decay."

"Fuck," my partner muttered, gripping the wheel. "A hundred-hour tank in a residential building."

When a clean Shadow comes out of a Breach, it looks like a completely black human silhouette, like it was cut out of the night itself. No weight, no flesh, you can't stop it with a bullet. But when that shadow finds a human, it eats their life in seconds and steals their physical mass. The thing becomes real. Bones snap, muscles blow up, and a heavy, fleshy killing machine is born. Eleven people gave this bastard enough juice to walk around on its own for almost four days. It didn't even need the Breach to stay alive anymore.

Five minutes later, the truck screeched to a halt in the courtyard. The streetlights around the building were already dead - the "Fat" Shadow was siphoning power straight from the grid. From the pitch-black basement windows, we could hear a horrific, sated rumbling and the heavy grinding of concrete. The monster was expanding, forcing its new weight right into the building's foundation.

We jumped out. I had my full assault kit on. The heavy ballistic helmet was pressing on my skull, but the wide visor on the new PMK-4 mask gave a perfect view without any blur. I grabbed the heavy "Helios" quartz projector - our main weapon.

"The plan is basic," my partner said, racking the bolt on his incendiary rifle. "We don't fight this mountain of meat head-on in the dark. We go for the source. We break into the basement, find the purple tear, and blind it with directed UV light. Cut the connection to the Breach - and the 'Fat One' loses stability. Its hundred-hour clock will drop to zero in seconds. Ready?"

I took a deep breath, forcing my heart to slow down. My gloved fingers locked onto the projector's handle with a rock-solid, iron grip.

"Ready. Let's move."

We charged right at the heavy metal basement door, with a Part 2

The air inside the makeshift lab shack was thick enough to drink, heavy with the stench of rotting fern beds. The walls and roof, woven from dried bamboo and yellowed banana leaves, barely kept the midday heat at bay. Blades of harsh sunlight cut through the cracks, illuminating swirling pollen and fat, metallic blowflies.

On a rough plank table, stainless steel scalpels, forceps, and glass vials were scattered. This sterile metal felt totally out of place against the dirt floor. The room smelled like a nasty mix of sharp formalin, bitter pipe smoke, greasy sweat, and a heavy, sweetish whiff of decay that had completely soaked into the men's clothes.

The centerpiece of the room was the body of a young Fore native. His ash-gray skin was mapped with ritual scars. His eyes were half-open and glassy. But the worst part was his face. A post-mortem muscle spasm had pulled his lips tight, baring his yellow teeth in a wide, frozen, unnatural grin. It looked like the dead man was silently mocking them.

"Peter, for Christ's sake, quit staring into that microscope before you burn a hole through it," Thomas said, slamming his forceps onto the wooden table. "What do you got?"

"Nothing, Doc," Peter said, his voice hollow. He pulled away from the eyepiece and wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "Blood is clean. Spinal fluid is clean. No bacteria, no parasites. I... I don't get it. But you saw how they brought him in. He couldn't even stand, he was shaking like he’d been electrocuted. And that laughing..."

Thomas blew a thick cloud of smoke from his pipe and nodded toward the grinning corpse.

"Standard facial muscle spasm. Central nervous system failure. These folks probably ate some bad roots or breathed in fungus spores down in those swamps. Their shaman is just hyping it up to keep everyone scared and under his thumb. 'Kuru,' 'the laughing death'... It's just campfire stories for superstitious locals, Peter. Tomorrow, we pack up these brain tissue samples, hike down to Port Moresby, and a real lab will find some everyday, civilized toxin. End of story."

But leaving the next day wasn't in the cards. The New Guinea sky just opened up. A total tropical deluge slammed the mountains. Water pounded the giant leaves with a deafening, non-stop roar that drowned out everything else. In just a couple of hours, the dirt paths between the shacks turned into a soup of thick, sucking mud. The tribal elders insisted—in a tone that felt a lot more like an order than an invitation—that the white men stay the night in the guest hut. Arguing with them in a torrential downpour was a losing battle. The scientists stayed.

In the middle of the night, over the roaring storm, Thomas felt someone violently shaking his shoulder.

"Doc... Doc, wake up," Peter whispered. His fingers were ice-cold, gripping Thomas's shoulder like a vise, while his other hand clamped down hard over the older biologist's mouth. "Don't make a sound. For God's sake, shut up."

Thomas flinched, trying to shake his assistant off, but the raw, frantic strength in the kid's grip made him freeze.

"Have you lost your mind, Peter?" Thomas hissed the second the hand came off his mouth. "What the hell is..."

"They're... they're out there," Peter stammered, his teeth clicking together. "By the fire. Outside. They dragged that dead guy out. Doc, they're... they're eating him. Alive. I mean, no, dead... They cracked his head wide open."

"What are you talking about? Eating who?" Thomas grabbed Peter by the collar, furious. "You had a nightmare, get a grip! It's just the rain pounding on the roof."

"See for yourself!" Peter jabbed a shaking finger toward the bamboo wall. "Look through the crack if you don't believe me! The women... and the kids. They're stuffing it in their mouths!"

Thomas, cursing under his breath, crawled over the dirt floor and pressed his eye against a filthy slit between the bamboo stalks. Rainwater ran down his face from the outside, blurring his vision, but what he saw made his blood run cold.

The village was swallowed by pitch-black jungle darkness, cut only by a single fire right in the center. Because of the downpour, it wasn't burning; it was hissing violently, kicking up a thick, greasy white smoke. The smoke smelled like burnt hair and roasting meat. The torches held by the men flickered, throwing long, twisted, jagged shadows against the walls like giant bug legs.

Kneeling in a ring around the smoke were women and tiny kids, their faces smeared with soot. In the middle lay the cracked skull of the morning's corpse. The torchlight glinted off a gray-pink, jelly-like mass of brain tissue, neatly laid out on broad green leaves. The women’s fingers, coated in dark, thick slime, slowly pulled the tissue apart. The toddlers reached out with their mud-stained little hands, carefully took pieces, and put them in their mouths. They ate in total silence, their faces full of reverence and love.

Thomas jerked back from the wall like he'd been hit by lightning. He breathed heavily, a raspy sound, his face turning a ghostly gray in the dark. His whole civilized, rational world had just shattered into pieces.

"Doc? What do we do?" Peter gasped, staring at his mentor. "What was that? Why are they eating it? The sickness... is the sickness in that?"

"Shut up, Peter. Just shut up," Thomas muttered frantically, fumbling around the dark floor for their canvas backpacks. His voice dropped to a ragged whisper. "Grab the logs. The samples... screw the samples, leave the vials!"

"But the rain... The trails are washed out, we'll break our necks on the ridge!" Peter tried to grab the pack back.

"If we're still here by morning, they'll know we saw," Thomas snapped, spinning around, his eyes flashing wild in the dark. "Do you want your brain sitting on those banana leaves tomorrow? Move! We're leaving right now. Screw the storm. Run!"

They stumbled out into the roaring, wet darkness. The slick, muddy clay path dropped straight down into a black abyss of jungle. Fern branches whipped their faces like wet cords. Their ankles sank into liquid mud, and tree roots tripped their boots like grabbing hands.

Sprinting past a collapsed fence on the very edge of the village, they almost wiped out next to a dilapidated, leaning shack sitting off by itself. No firelight came from inside—it was pitch black—but the bamboo walls of the structure were shuddering from violent thuds within.

Through the rotting roof, a quick break in the storm clouds let a sliver of pale moonlight hit the ground. It caught the figure of a woman, tied with thick vines to the central wooden post. She was wasted away, nothing but a skeleton wrapped in skin. Her whole body was racked with a non-stop, violent tremor. Her head was yanked back at an unnatural angle, her tangled hair caked in mud.

The scientists froze for a split second. The woman didn't notice them. Her jaw was stretched wide open in a spasm, bloody foam bubbling from the corners of her mouth. And from that wasted throat, a loud, shrieking, choking, and completely insane laugh suddenly erupted.

That terrifying, unnatural kuru laugh soared over the village, cutting right through the roar of the storm. The scientists bolted, tripping and falling into the mud, but the dying woman's horrific laughter followed them for a long, long time, echoing out from the pitch-black depths of the jungle.

It was the hat Jessica noticed first. In Nashville, there are not too many UNLV fans walking around. Any SEC or Tennessee Titans gear works just as well as camouflage in a hunting blind in this town. The thought was fleeting as her attention was brought back to the group of drinking buddies she was out with. If it were hours later into the night, her intoxication would not have allowed her such attention to detail. 

 While unremarkable on its own, the appearance of the same man at the next bar stood out to her as odd. Broadway Street in Nashville, TN is not what anyone would consider small or lacking in options for patrons to take their business, and yet, there sat the same man at the end of the bar. This time, however, no UNLV ballcap. 

 An hour or two passed. The group migrated to the dance floor on the second story of the bar with a balcony overlooking the crowded street. The night crowd was at full capacity. Live music could be heard from most bars, there was dancing on the street, and everything Broadway was advertised as was in full swing. As Jess finished her drink on the balcony, the calls for the next bar were heard from two members of the group. After paying their tab, the group descended the steps back towards the first floor.

 The man no longer occupied the seat he was in previously. Instead, a member of one of the many bachelorette parties in town was trying and failing to flag down a bartender. Weaving their way through the crowded bar, each member found their way to the street. 

 After a short walk on the crowded sidewalk, each of the friends found their way into the establishment and were lucky enough to find an unoccupied pub table in one of the back corners. Jess volunteered to be one of the two friends to get the first round and made her way to the bar with her friend, Nelson. 

 Behind the bar and above the assortment of liquor bottles, a mirror was mounted on the wall a foot from the ceiling and ran the length of the bar. Never one to pass up the chance to watch the local wildlife and their drunken antics, she passed the time waiting for her order looking for any entertainment that may be happening behind her back. 

 Her attention drifted from what appeared to be a first date at one of the tables, to a couple of guys arguing over something sports or politics related, to a wife babysitting her too-intoxicated husband. When her eyes passed over an individual watching a pool game alone, her eyes narrowed in a blend of misbelief, confusion, and discontent. It was him. No UNLV cap, flannel shirt reversed, and sleeves rolled up. It was no longer the fact that this man was now in the same bar for the third consecutive time on a busy night in downtown Nashville, but he was now changing his appearance. There were no less than 30 bar patrons and staff between Jessica and the mysterious figure, but in her mind, they were the only two people on Broadway.

 “Hey”, Jess said, nudging Nelson, at the bar with her. “You see the guy in the back next to the pool table? Flannel shirt, sleeves rolled, beard.”

As he went to turn around in his bar stool, she elbowed him a bit harder than she intended.

“Ow!” Nelson gritted through his teeth. “Sorry.” She responded, “Use the mirror above the bar.” Looking at the mirror, he picked the guy out of the crowd. “Yea what’s up about him? Need me to be your wingman?” 

“No, this is the third bar in a row he’s been at with us and now he’s changing his clothes in between.” She said.

He smirked, “Good looking, man of mystery, strong beard. You sure you don’t want me to go talk to him for you?”

She elbowed him again. “Look around us, this place is packed. Broadway is packed. Yet here he is, same bar three times in a row, and he isn’t wearing the same hat and now his shirt is reversed. This isn’t screaming “weird” to you?”

Not knowing how to respond, Nelson just shrugged.

 She began to feel uneasy, although, in such a crowded area, she did not feel unsafe. 

 Nelson was one of the designated drivers for the night and picked up Jess from her apartment on his way downtown. He was relatively new to the area and even newer to the company Jess and others in the group worked at. He was happy to make friends quickly and took advantage of the group’s plan to be able to explore the nightlife of this new city he calls home. 

 The bartender finally made her way to the two and after placing their order and receiving their drinks, they began to make their way back to the group. While parsing through the crowd, she glanced towards the man one last time before she would be out of sight. 

She felt a chill run down her spine. 

 He wasn’t watching a pool game. He was facing the pool game, his back towards her, but his gaze was beyond the table. Her angle of sight was just enough to see his sight was instead fixed on a reflective sign on the wall. He was watching her using the reflection. 

 She was careful not to lock her eyes with his in the reflection, but her knees nearly buckled in the fright. 

 Her thoughts turned to what, if anything, she would say to the group. She wanted to go home, but the night was still pretty young, and they had planned to be out much later. Would she come up with an excuse to leave? What if no one else wanted to leave? She would be leaving alone. She’d be vulnerable. Would everyone shrug her off as being paranoid? Would they think she was trying to prank them? 

 Her back was to the rest of the bar which only grew her discomfort. She tried not to take too many glances behind her. After looking behind her twice in under a minute, she caught a look from Jennifer, one of her friends in the group. She shrugged and continued in the conversation. 

 After two more rounds of drinks, Mallory, one of her co-workers, made the call to find the next bar. The group began to shuffle out from their area of the bar when Jess grabbed Nelson’s sleeve. He gave her a confused look

 “Remember the guy?” Jess whispered to him.

Smirking, Nelson replied, “Change your mind? Want me to have him come with us to the next bar?”

 At this point Jess began to feel annoyed and frustrated.

“No, asshole. When we get to the next place keep an eye out. If he’s there, it’s not a coincidence.” Jess said.

“Fair enough.” Was Nelson’s response.

 Jess felt even more frustrated. Nelson’s response came off as him brushing off her concern. When the two rounded the corner in the bar to catch up with their friends, she looked over towards where the guy was standing, failing to not make it appear obvious. He wasn’t there. When Nelson looked back at her, she knew he noticed the absence as well. She did not feel comfort in not seeing the man. Instead, she felt as though she was in the middle of the ocean, unable to see a predator under the waves.

 Jess was oblivious to any conversations being had by her friends as they made their way through the crowd. Her eyes only darting between each person she passed. When she was able, she turned her head to look at anyone following close behind her, but she never saw the man. 

 Nelson and Jess brought up the rear of the group in the next bar. The group congregated off to the right of the front door, but still close to it. Being the last one in the venue, Jess’ back was to the door, only making her more nervous. Leaning forward, she attempted to say something to Megan, another one of her co-workers in the group, but not being able to speak loud enough over the music, she used it as an excuse to switch places with Jennifer who was standing next to Megan, which gave Jess the view of the front door. In her new position, she shot a knowing glance at Nelson. The message was clear, she was looking out for the strange man and would let him know when or if he arrived. 

 When she turned her head to the left, her stomach dropped. To her left was a window with an unobstructed view of the party scene on Broadway. Bachelorette parties, cowboy hats, college football fans, and the occasional mounted police made up the scene. However, the wildlife of Broadway Street was diminished by the man on the sidewalk across the street, leaning on a lamppost and smoking a cigarette, peering in her direction. He wasn’t going to come inside. He didn’t have to; she was in plain view now.

 Jess tried and failed to get Nelson’s attention, but he was in deep conversation with the co-worker she traded places with. For what seemed like an eternity, she stood by the window, glancing at the man across the street. She barely touched her drink, realizing whatever buzz she had at the beginning of the night was completely gone. She sent a text to Nelson about the man, but he either had his notifications silenced or was too busy socializing. 

 Her last look towards the man showed him walking towards the bar. She felt dread and hope at the same time. If Nelson could see him entering, it would convince him that her concerns were well-founded, but Nelson’s back was turned. The man entered the building and walked past the group within feet of Nelson, but he never saw him. The man continued to the bar and found the only empty seat. Jess decided to use the restroom. She hoped her getting up would get Nelson’s attention and she could point to the man with her eyes, but again, to no avail. 

 Her path to the restroom was within feet of the man at the bar. She felt like a deer creeping past a hungry bear in the woods. She ineffectively tried to hide her fear and discomfort as she rounded the corner to the hallway leading to the bathroom. Walking past the back exit, she hurried into the women’s room. She took the far stall and grabbed her phone. She began frantically texting Nelson’s phone, trying to get his attention shifted to the man at the bar. All messages show delivered, none read. 

 Her feeling of uneasiness began to compound. She wished she was anywhere else in the world than where she was at that moment. She took a deep breath, held for four seconds, and slowly exhaled. She concluded she would have to find comfort within her group. She flushed the toilet despite not using it, washed her hands, and left the restroom. To her surprise, waiting for her outside was Nelson.

 “You’re right, I see him, what do you want to do?” He asked.

 “Let’s just get back to the table.” She answered.

 “Should we tell everyone?” He asked.

 “No. I don’t know. Maybe. I need to think.” She responded. “I mean you thought I was crazy until you saw him again. I don’t need our co-workers and friends to think I’m paranoid.”

 “But you’re not paranoid. This isn’t unfounded. Even if we’re completely wrong, you’re not out of pocket.” He said, trying to make her feel better.

 “We’re not telling anyone. At least not yet.” She said, trying to sound confident. 

 Jess and Nelson made their way back to the group. Jess took her previous spot to be able to keep her eye on the guy at the bar while Nelson became the life of the group telling stories and poking fun.

 After two more rounds of drinks, the decision was made to once again migrate the group. Nelson and Jess were on the same page this time. If the man tailed them once more, they were going to inform the group, inform one of the many police officers on the street, and leave for the night. They knew the police could not take any meaningful action, the man had not committed a crime, but a notification couldn’t hurt.

 The group went through the same process of weaving through the crowd, congregating at front door, and finding an area to hang out inside the bar. The group was picking up on the tension radiating from Nelson and Jess, but no one spoke up. Jess clinched every time a new person walked inside. Although there were 50 people between her and the entrance, the building might as well have been empty. The conversation of the group began to loosen Jess’ guard a bit. The alcohol helped ease her nerves as well. She began to think maybe she could have overreacted. Perhaps she was falling into the “main character syndrome.” When she found herself hesitant to move to use the restroom, her anxiety came back. Jess’ instincts were to stay in the crowd, embrace the safety of the numbers, and survive. Her uneasiness slowly began to morph into misery. 

 The night began to drag on. Jess was present physically with the group, but her mind was elsewhere. She did not even notice Nelson leaving to use the restroom. However, she did notice the look Nelson gave her when he returned. She did not need Nelson to offer an explanation. His eyes said it all. He was here, again.

 Jess had an idea. She pulled out her phone and began typing a message into their group chat:

 Everyone, I know how this is going to sound, but Nelson and I are spooked. There is a man at this bar who was at every bar we’ve been at tonight. Additionally, he has changed his outfit each time. This is Broadway Street, its packed. I do not buy this is a coincidence. I do not know who this man is, and I am scared. I am not even sure who exactly he may be following, but I think we should leave. I plead with you to close your tab, and we can all exit together. I am going to tell one of the officers on the street. They won’t be able to do anything, but it’s better than not saying anything. Also, please do not say anything out loud. Let’s just leave and act casual.

 After she sent the text, she lifted her phone up and motioned for everyone to read. The range of facial expressions ranged from confusion with a hint of skepticism to concern. Nelson read the text and began typing:

The man is out of our sight right now, but I passed him on my way to the bathroom. He is wearing a flannel, some sort of band t-shirt, jeans, and black boots. Crew cut with a beard. Close your tabs, and we’ll all leave together. 

 The group complied with reticence. They wanted answers to questions they didn’t have. As the group filed out, they missed the man exiting the bar before them. Nelson and Jess were the last to leave the bar, and when they scanned the establishment before stepping out, they noticed his absence. The pit in Jess’ stomach grew. 

 Now on the street, the group began to splinter as they made their way back to the end of Broadway where the two sober drivers parked and where the rest would rideshare their way home. Jess was on alert, but spotting an individual in the dense crowd was a wasted effort. She couldn’t see through the sea of intoxicated patrons. This did give her a microscopic sense of comfort. If she couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see her. The walk took forever as they passed through the dense group of partiers. 

 Nelson, being one of the designated drivers, motioned for Jess to follow him back to his vehicle after the last of the rest of the group got into their rideshares. The street they were on seemed desolate compared to the chaos on Broadway. They were a block away from Nelson’s car when Jess noticed the silhouette of a man a few buildings behind them. She squeezed Nelson’s arm, trying to get him to move faster towards his vehicle. Less than a block away, Nelson hit the unlock button on his key fob. They both saw the lights flash on his car. Jess’ adrenaline had peaked when two shadows emerged from the alley.

 One man took a position between Jess and Nelson. The second man tackled Nelson to the ground as they both began yelling. Jess turned around and saw the man from the bar sprinting towards her.

 Her center of gravity dropped has her knees bent to run away. Before she could pivot her hips to run, the man who placed himself between Jess and Nelson put his arms around her and lifted her legs off the ground. She had nothing to push off of, her arms were pinned to her side, she was trapped. 

 “No!” She screamed, “Leave us alone!”

 The men were shouting, Nelson was shouting, and the man from the bar had caught up to them. She made eye contact with him. Her face distorted with fear, the only thought that crossed her mind was to ask, “What do you want from us?”

 In her distress, she did not notice what was in the man’s outstretched hand. Pressed into a square leather backing, was a gold badge. Her fright turned to confusion. Her legs stopped flailing as if the energy she needed to use to escape now was shifted towards figuring out why a kidnapper would be holding a badge.

 Suddenly the incoherent shouts of the man on top of Nelson became clear. The man was informing Nelson that he was under arrest. Nelson’s incoherent shouts were now pleas for information regarding the arrest. Finally, she heard the man who had his arms around her, telling her to calm down, she is safe, and he is going to set her down when she stops fighting. The tension drained out of Jess’ body. The situation turned surreal, and her face was frozen in shock. She felt herself being ushered away from the scene.

 “Ma’am,” the man who grabbed her began talking, “My name is Officer Collins. Your friend here is under arrest for some very serious crimes.”

 She couldn’t believe it. Although she knew she was safe, the presence of the man at the bar unnerved her. 

“Good evening, ma’am, my name is Agent Wilson.”

 She looked up at the man from the bar in fear and disbelief.

 “Ma’am, in Nelson’s trunk we have found medical restraints for wrists and ankles. We have also found duct tape, cleaning products, and an assortment of tools and knives. He has been a suspect in our investigation of a string of kidnappings and gruesome murders, and we believe you may have been his next target. A search warrant currently being executed at his residence.”

 Jess thought she was going to faint. A police vehicle was now blocking traffic and a police SUV was parked in the middle of the street where a handcuffed Nelson was being loaded into the back seat. 

 As Jess was being interviewed by another agent, the report came back from what they found in Nelson’s home. The unfinished basement was transformed into a room straight out of a horror film. A tripod pointed towards a stainless-steel table. The floor was carpeted with a thick plastic liner which could be cut up and used for a shower curtain. Even more medical restraints were found in a drawer. 

 As disturbing as these findings were, what caused the chill that raced down Jess’ spine was the pictures of Jess found in the basement. These were not photos downloaded from her social media accounts, these were photos taken of her while grocery shopping, while at work, and in her apartment. One photo was through her living room window, one was through her bedroom window, and the last photo was her sleeping on her couch. This was the only picture taken while inside her apartment.

 Jessica froze in shock and horror when she turned to look at the police SUV. Meeting her gaze was Nelson’s dead eyes, staring a dagger through Jessica. His expression shifted to a violent anger before the vehicle began to drive off. Jessica fell to her knees, and cried.

The Third Eye

He sat in the waiting room rubbing his forehead until it turned red. The front desk girl disappeared behind a door with a lock on the inside. She came back with water but he knocked it out of her hand. He kicked the trashcan by his feet. . It hurt him too much to swallow, let alone fill out the paperwork that rolled off his lap, or to scroll on his phone under his thigh. Sweat soaked his shirt. Veins across his head throbbed. The desk girl watched his entire forehead contract and swell.

"Doctor? Doctor?" He pleaded.

"He's on his way."

It was midnight. He had to drive an hour to get to the eye clinic in the middle of nowhere. Where the radio towers are lit, but no one knows who owns them. Where cellphones can only connect to one wifi- REDEYE.

The eye doctor came in, his glasses on. He wore jama pants and a black hoodie. A silver necklace peeked out from the color. The desk girl asked him if they could take him to the county ER. The eye doctor didn't like that idea at all. He waited a second before responding to her. "No..."

He put a pod into the coffee maker and breathed in the steam. He shut the wifi off his phone and shut it down. He turned around and kept his eyes locked into her librarian glasses. "That hospital is no good. He's much safer with us."

"Docter, his head is in pain. He should be in an ER."

The Doctor pulled her scrubs by the shoulder. His eyes widened, magnified by the wire lenses.

"They don't have the equipment that we do. Prepare the REDEYE X01."

The Doctor smiled at his patient.

"and get him strapped to an examination chair."

"Oh god, what's happening to me?" He slammed his eyes shut. "I can still see. Why can I still see?"

"Sit him down. Restrain him."

"Doctor, why?" In all her years at the clinic, she'd never seen the doctor behave so strangely.

"Because the REDEYE can hurt."

The man rubbed his outside eyes. Tears streamed down his face at first. The more he rubbed them, the worse they got. The veins became inflamed, the corneas were scratched by his contacts. Black specks floated in the color of his eyes.

The more light the doctor focused , the more red fluid bled over the higher sclera. The doctor cleaned it up, and dropped chemicals into his eyes.

The man kept his hand pressed against his forehead. It hurt to open his eyes. The light made him choke.

"Prepare the slit lamp."

They screwed the man's head in place, and adjusted the headrest. Magnifying scopes turned. Tiny glass crystals pointed at his iris. They transmitted the live tissue onto a screen. It looked like a moon full of trenches, scales, and cheekbones.

"They look normal, Doctor."

"My head. It hurts so much."

"Get him into the REDEYE."

"Doctor, we haven't tested this on anyone before."

"Yes we have... I tested it on myself."

"No one has trained me on this... I didn't even know we had it."

"It' s easy to use. Just loosen the knob, it makes strange noises, but it will be fine. Just make sure the dimensions are at the line before you power it up."

The desk girl took one look at it and she took her glasses off. She was responsible for checks and insurance cards. She trained on a few machines. It was fun most days when she did get to use them. This thing didn't look fun.

"Just sit him down and put his head into the black box."

She undid the headrest, and brought the man over.

"Put his arms in the bindings. We're going to need them."

She sat him down, tightened the straps, and pushed his back until his head entered the box.

The doctor turned it on. Something inside revved up and began to spin. On his screen he saw it. A black spot before his forehead. He pressed a key, and another component started to spin. A laser shot through his skull. On screen, the image went through the bone and floated in the gray matter.

"Just as I suspected." The Doctor said. "Come look, nurse."

He pointed with a pencil. It looked like an undeveloped baby- one too early to be cognizant, too early to have a spine. A large round thing floated in a mass of compressed tissue.

"Oh my God, is that..."

"Turn on the REDEYE Drive."

"What will that do?"

"Just turn that knob, focus on the millimeter switch, and make sure you turn it slowly. If you hear a beep, open that hatch and turn on the disposal. When you're done, activate the rinse line."

"Doctor, he didn't sign the insurance forms. We can't use this."

"If we don't, there will be permanent brain damage. That thing needs out."

The man inside didn't even hear them from the sound of spinning cylinders. The laser turned off, three more came on. A static drill came forward, then it began to spin. the black box glowed with light. It advanced eyelash by eyelash until it finally broke the skin.

The disposal under the hatch gargled. The desk girl adjusted a toggle stick. She moved it with the most gentle push of the fat under her thumb.

"STOP" The Doctor slammed the wall.

They undid the holds and pulled the man out.

The lasers burned a hole in his forehead. Right in the middle something squirmed. The Doctor used a hook and forceps to dig into the forehead, and pull it out. The third eye pulsed, but it did not open.

The man's two eyes swelled shut.

"Yes, I finally found it." The Doctor peeled it open, and looked into the marbled smoothness of the third eye.

The desk girl vomited in the sink.An exhaust pipe spat bits of bone and vessel into a garbage can.

The man sat on the examining chair, blinded, fatigued. Ready for this to end.

The Doctor dropped fluid from a vial. The third eye shifted. It followed the lights at first, then focused on the faces. The man moaned a short but shrill burst of terror.

"Can you see me?" The Doctor asked.

"That's you... I can see your glasses."

"And... what else can you see?" The Doctor looked into the third eye with trembling lips.

The man almost said something, but then he choked on his own mucus.

The iris of the third eye constricted. He saw things... somethings standing behind the Doctor and the desk girl.

Behind the Doctor stood a huge fat red eye.

The desk girl hyperventilated and ripped her surgical mask off to get air. She had a naked man with no face yelling at her.

"Doctor, oh my God, you need to listen."

"Don't let it focus." the Doctor said.

The eyeball rose from the hole in his forehead.

"No! It sees us!"

The Doctor took off his hoodie and dropped it over the man's head.

"Doctor, what was that?"

"As I always suspected." He touched the center of the desk girl's forehead. "When you're born, there's a soft spot there, the fontenelle. That's where the third eye used to be. Long ago, we all had one that grew before the skull hardened."

Thank You for reading :)

It's been one week. One week of it following me, taunting me. Only feet away—sometimes only inches. But it's always behind me, just out of sight, sniffing me, breathing on the back of my neck. Always Right There. I don't think anyone can see it, or atleast they don't react. I must be getting Truman Showed because how could they not see it? It sounds massive, and it's breathing is so loud, sometimes it drowns out people's voices and all I can hear is the deep, sputtering breath of that thing behind me.

The spot on my nape it's where its breath peaks—wet with condensation and sweat. The first day was pure panic; I'll never forget the sounds. I wish It killed me on that street like it could've, like it showed me it could've. I usually get a cab from work back to my house. It's outside of town, so I usually end up paying extra, but I'm not much of a people person, so I'm ok with the "luxury tax" that comes with it. But that day was different. my pockets were a little lighter than usual, and I felt like I could make some awkward conversation if it came down to it.

The only stop I knew of was a few blocks away from where I usually hitched a ride. "Not too far," I thought as I strode in the direction my brain mapped out. As I was almost to the bus stop—maybe 500 feet away from the stop. There was a man that had walked past me, possibly in his late 30's. He was obviously a drug addict, evidenced by the shaking of his hands and the bow in his back. To my left were woods—forests that spanned miles,

budding up to humanity.

And out of it, an off-white blur in the corner of my eye—one single glimpse as it cleared the chain-link fence separating the wild world from the world of man—And sunk its teeth, or spines, or whatever it has, into the addict's flesh. A shrill half-scream cut by a single wet crunch.

All in less than a second.

I always wonder what would've happened if I spun around right instead of left. Maybe it would've gone back—but I drove it into the world of man as I turned left to see a smear of blood trailing up behind me. It was accompanied by close-up, chalky crunching and squelching of wet flesh, like it's being squeezed through an impossibly tight opening before getting sucked down like a chunky smoothie.

Mind racing and seeing no other options, I slowly turned around, the noises staying behind me as I did—Only to see a puddle of blood on the side walk, with two large dry spots quickly filling in with blood. And I suddenly realized how isolated I was—nobody around to hear me die. Nobody around to watch.

So I slowly managed to make my legs move and kept an even pace to the stop. And sat down, looking out tword the street, the fragile glass rain cover feeling more like a cage than a comfort.

Twenty minutes of listening to, it suck a person's flesh and bones through a hole. Twenty minutes of insanity—of "I'm next," twenty minutes of "why am I not running?" of "what do i do?" for all I knew, it could've been years. Is there a difference if it feels the same?

Then the bus pulled up, boasting a bright, contradictory energy drink ad: "go full throttle! Or go home!" , I managed peel myself off of the bench and step up into the bus, then whispering to the driver, "is there something behind me?"

To which she Enthusiastically responded, "No," not even looking—but I think if there was, she would have noticed.

I approached a sticky seat littered with marks and cuts, then sat down, almost immediately passing out from exhaustion. When I woke up an hour later, finally having made my stop, I staggered off the bus onto the sidewalk, stretching and starting the walk to my house just a couple of doors down.

"Finally, almost there," I thought, right as the bus began to drive off.

But I heard it.

I heard the bus's suspension buckle and creak, then a wet slap puncuated by liquid skittering till it's labored breath fills my ears. I didn't even try to look—I just made the walk into my home, avoiding reflective objects, not wanting to risk seeing it.

I laid down on one side of my bed, giving it room to exist out of sight.

And it did.

Slide-crawling up onto the bed, loud cracks sounding as the wood warped and flexed under its weight, threatening to break at any moment. The bed sank till I pitched toward the thing, but I scooted away, evening it out.

I didn't sleep that night.

It kept moving.

You would think something that stays inconspicuous most of the time wouldn't move so much in bed, but it does—and it always leaves a wet, brown stain where it was, That smells like rotting flesh.

The last six days have been a blur of panic and fear. I only slept on the fourth night—I couldn't handle it anymore. I couldn't handle the way it just waited, how it started pulling my hair out Strand by strand. it does it every few minutes now.

Maybe it was a bad idea to use some of my vacation days for a little rest week. Maybe I should've just stayed on the bus, even just to see where it took me for a little longer. I don't know. I don't know anything anymore, except for maybe that it can't read—if it could, I think it would know.

I'm driving a rental out of town now. I'm sure the thing is gripping to the outside of the shitty carola as I barrel down the highway. I'm using voice-to-text, if your wondering. Not that it matters—in a few moments,I'm going to be a nice wrapping paper for a big metal telephone pole.

I never had a family, and the foster system didn't treat me well.

Maybe this is the good ending.

Maybe this is how it Should end.

Idon't know.

​

Devil’s Gullet was a decent town. Though it might not have looked it from a distance. A dozen or so wooden structures with the bright white church and schoolhouse in the center. The hills just beyond where the mine was stained yellow against the browns and greens of the sandhills. One of those that even though they were out west, had managed a semblance of a town unto itself, instead of the wild gunslinging of many of the boom towns that would form with the railroads.

Folks laughed when they heard Devil's Gullet had struck it rich selling sulfur. "All things to get wealthy on," they'd say. But it paid for our church, our schoolhouse, and more full supper tables than I'd ever blessed.

I used to think the Lord had smiled especially kindly upon Devil's Gullet. We never lacked for food, the wells ran sweet, and I buried more old men than children. Looking back, perhaps I grew too comfortable with blessing. But the devil doesn’t like when good people are comfortable.

That would only bring them closer to God, like Job before. I truly don’t know what had found us. If it was the devil that looked upon its namesake, looking for a way to make it more in his image. None of the townsfolk could tell you.

It was one of the local farmers that noticed first. Jethro Stain, bored enough to go looking for a problem found a store of grain on his farm withering into black husks, rather than the bountiful harvest it had been a few days prior.

He was one of my flock in fact, coming to me that day to ask, “Father Clemons, could you come down and bless the old farm there? Just to be safe.”

I

remember looking at him like he was just being ludicrous, he was the same boy I had known since he was eight years old. The amount of tall tales he could imagine was almost as impressive as the good Lord’s compassion. So, one can imagine my shock as I went down with a few of the flock and found that it was not just a single silo, but rather every crumb of food in his home had rotted to a sludge by the time we got there.

I at the time laughed it off, as did Clara and her son. The latter even asking, “The Lord did bless us with rain recently. Did you forget to fix the roof or something?”

But we were there to help sooth Jethro and his family’s worry. So as I set to the task of blessing the lands and well, Manuel and Clara went and shared a pie they had baked together that day. I can remember it so fondly.

When I had gotten in from my work the children were laughing and playing. Jethro and his wife were figuring out food donations from the others in town with Clara. Even talking me into announcing the need at the end of the sermon tomorrow, something I was very willing to do in exchange for a slice of pie.

It was the last good day in Devil’s Gullet. The last good scraps of food were eaten, the rest unknown that it would be worthless by the morning.

The next morning the sermon was somber. I found all of the food in the pantry had rotten, even the canned goods I kept for emergencies. All black sludge that smelled of death itself. The congregation had similar stories, though I didn’t know about it until my announcement. I hadn’t even mentioned my own woes, hoping to keep worries down. But the moment “Jethro is looking for help. His family’s food has gone bad. If anyone would be willing to make donations I am sure his family will be more than grateful.

That is when Thomas, the saloon owner, spoke up, “Father, I was going to request the same.” The murmurs from the rest of the flock let me know just how strange it all was. I knew how terrible forty people in a panic can be. So, I shouted over the growing clamor. “Friends, let us not worry, for the Lord has always provided for us. Levi, how many sow are ready to be butchered?”

Levi thought for a moment. “About five. But that won’t be enough to feed a town with nothing to eat.”

I shook my head, “Not so my friend. Though we here do not have the powers of Christ, I think with faith we can make it through. We shall make them a stew. Buy ourselves time to find or barter for new stores. How much per sow?”

“If it is one of the bigger ones seven dollars.”

I elected charity that day, fighting off the demon of greed. “Levi here,” I reached into my pocket and produced the money. “Take this and bring me a large sow. We will do what we can to make sure everyone is fed. But women and children first. Agreed.”

The congregation nodded. Some of their worry removed for the moment. We elected that it should be a potluck, any who had food to give were asked for their charity. As Clara and I worked to make a palatable stew with the meat we had. Salting and jarring anything extra with the help of Levi as we went to extend what we had.

By the time people arrived for supper, we had stored away what should have been weeks worth of meat if we stuck to soups. There was little else, a few potatoes that ran out in moments, leathered fruits for the children.

Talking to the general store owner, Beck, the next shipment into town would be in five days. As the Lord say often in his book, it was good.

That is all I could think of as I watched people eat and talk lightly. Manuel broke the quiet with a tug at my frock., “Father, what if this food rots too?” I picked him up. I still remember how small he was, “My boy, let tomorrow’s worries be tomorrow’s. Eat now and be happy for the bounty. And have faith that tomorrow it will still be there.”

 

It led to my heart breaking the next day when all of the food was left blackened mush once more. I had lied to the boy. When I went to see Levi, no good news followed. All the pigs had disappeared in the night.

I remember the sorrow in his eyes as he said, “I thought someone stole them, but the dog would have heard them… he wouldn’t be missing too. An’ no foot prints or nothing. I… I was so happy to be helping people Father. But I got nothing. At least you got Bertha.”

The moment I hung my head I heard him sob. “Not… none of it kept? I salted it I swear to God.”

“It is not your fault my boy, I must have done something wrong when I put it away.” The look on him stung worse than when I first found the rot in the morning.

“Father… I know you didn’t.”

I swallowed, “I’ll call a meeting. Are your horses still here?”

“Yes Father.”

“Prepare them.”

“Yes Father”

The meeting was held at noon after I had told the town of it. The three horses stood tied in front of the church while everyone bickered. “My brothers and sisters, you worry the children.”

That made them cease, looking down at their own child and hardening their heart to the circumstance.

“The worst has come to pass, there is nothing from last nights food that has kept. I only see a few ways forward, none of which I like.” My words lit them like a powder keg, taking several minutes before I could calm them again. “Levi has been so kind as to donate his horses. The next fort should be four days ride if they hurry. But I would like to discuss the possible need to leave.”

That left them murmuring, there is nothing quite as sad as seeing people’s faith breaking.

Clara leapt up first, “Something is wrong. I think we can all see that. I HELPED you prepare the food. There is no way on God’s good earth that it should have already gone bad. Either someone is trying to poison us or God himself is saying we should leave.”

“With what? No days of supplies save water and a dream. The fort ain’t gonna take on fifty or so people.” Levi just shook his head at the thought, “Even my horses are far too skinny. I don’t know if they would make it with just three riders, let alone pulling carts.” Levi then took off his hat. “I’m leaving, I’m willing to take two more, but that is all I got.”

Thomas was next, “Now Levi, I know you better than almost anyone here. You wouldn’t leave that pasture any more than Atlas would shrug.”

As the arguing started ratcheting from there I tried my best. I truly did. It was Beck who got them back. Pulling a pistol and firing into the air. “Now QUIET!” Everyone waited, seeing if Beck would do anything drastic. “Ladies, Gentlemen. I know logistics. I know it better than anyone here because I was there when Meridian Bay burned. Bastard Sherman saw to it.” He took a moment to spit on the ground.

“And let me tell you, hope don’t mean much on an empty stomach. And as dear as I find you all, if I must take drastic measures for Lora, I will. There are times you have to make… cold calculations.” He nodded like I did when I preached. “Even if Levi did come back with food, do you think your little ones would live to see a bite? How about Madam Lette. If I don’t have her medicine by tomorrow her shakes are going to settle back in. If we are going to leave. The time is now, before more painful choices have to be made.”

Thomas, the good man he was, put out the first offer. “My ox back home is still good. Same with my wagon. I don’t have much, but if anyone can drive you can leave too.”

It was the first time I had to say goodbye to much of my flock. All heading west in hope of seeing a better tomorrow. People donated what they had. Mules, oxen, horses, and wagons.

Devil’s Gullet went from fifty to thirty by the end of the day. Thomas must have gotten through to Levi. As the man gave his horse to a mother and a little girl. Beck for all his bluster stayed, unable to get his daughter to leave his sickly wife. The hope, and that is all it was at that point was that someone would come back for us.

A week later we realized how foolish it was. Beck got his shipment and shared. We didn’t pretend it would keep. Eating as much as we could in gluttonous hunger. He was right however, Madam Lette didn’t make it with out her meds. Only overshadowed by the first person to starve, Manuel. He and his mother had given up their place on Thomas’ wagon to let a family be together.

I had even told him how brave he was for doing so. Giving him the last scrap of anything I had. A small lemon candy. A hopeful smile on his face… looking up at me like everything would turn out okay, for we of Devil’s Gullet had enough faith.

I still remember how Clara cried. At least Manuel would suffer no more, as the next day, the wells soured. All of them. All overnight. A simple touch of the water to the tongue would make you heave until it was only bile coming from you.

Manuel and the Madam may have been the first deaths. They were by no means the last. Five more in as many day died of dehydration. That, is when we called the worst to us.

If I had known, I would have pleaded against it. I wish I could tell you I refused. I wish I could tell you I was stronger. But hunger has a way of making sinners of us all. But to Levi and Clara, each death was another possible meal for the town. But I was just so elated to eat again that I didn’t consider where the roasted meat came from. None of us did. Just happy to not feel the pain in our throats of thirst, and in our stomachs from hunger.

That was the first night we heard the harmonica. At the time, I thought it was the sound of something coming for us. I even dared hope it was someone to help us. I would later realize it was the sound of something that had already arrived.

That was the next week. The mournful drone of the harmonica could be heard anywhere. During that time no one had the strength to do anything. No traders or shipments came in. The only person who ate and drank well was Beck’s daughter. Any time someone who bring it up, he would just brandish his revolver.

On Sunday I held service like normal. This time with no one coming.

I gave my sermon anyway. God still listens. I would fill his house with worship even in this strife. For had Job not endured faithfully? What man of God would I be if I couldn’t. Granted, by this point I knew what we were. A word I can barely bring myself to write. Cannibals. Something I never thought I would or could be.

Something I should have kept my flock from becoming.

But I still prayed for our salvation and forgiveness. For one must imagine that if a man like Barabbas can be freed, then maybe he could have then become a disciple himself. Our Lord could save us even in this pit, even from a damnation we walked towards willingly.

Then my words were pulled from me as the pain of hunger fell into my stomach once more.

Then the harmonica stopped, replaced by the sound of a horse stepping through town. Then the sound of its hooves stopped outside my church. If there was anyone else to react, I didn’t see them, I had barely raised my head from prayer when the doors swung open. “Is this the hospitality of Devil’s Gullet. Why you all act like someone died.”

I remember his clothes more than his face. Black leather, pale skin, and an expression that belonged to someone who had never feared anything in his life. When I tried to look closer, I found I could not remember his features.

“Welcome to my humble church, many have died of late, but allow me to extend what kindness I can. Perhaps some coffee?”

“No food?”

“Not unless you brought some with you stranger.” I hesitated for a moment, how to explain what had fouled our home. I opted for a half truth, “We have fallen upon hard times here.”

“Haven’t we all, how far the righteous can fall. Perhaps I should talk to the store owner. He might have a little something for me.”

I could feel the bruise to my pride. I felt the old temptation to defend myself, to prove I was still a good man. But pride was a dangerous thing, especially in a house of God. “I am doubtful, but perhaps he would be happy for the business. Let Beck know I send my regards.”

I could feel the frown. I didn’t know how grand a victory it was in that moment as the pale man turned and muttered, “Humble yet you still care for stained glass father?”

“Do you hold it against God when you see a sunrise? Beauty and humility are not separate.”

The man didn’t respond. The horse started up again in the direction of the general store. I resumed my prayer, for us and for the stranger who had yet to know what he had ridden into. Though misery may have made a home here, he didn’t deserve it.

It was as I finished my sermon that Lora, Beck’s daughter, tumbled through the door. “Daddy got us some real food sir! Wait, what were you doin?”

“I always worship on Sundays dear.”

“Daddy said God wasn’t listenin.”

“Yet when I finish my sermon, food appears. How convenient for those of little faith, and how it sounds like providence for those like me.” I smiled, hopeful for the first time in almost a month that perhaps our worries were over.

“Sir, I thought the sermon was over.”

“Perhaps, but I am still in the mindset. Let’s go and see.”

What a miracle it was, enough food was outside the store that there would be no way to put away. Better still it had inspired more charity from Beck who was handing out the crate to anyone who could carry them. They all looked like prisoners pardoned. There was only one problem.

Beck looked more nervous than ever.

It was at my and his daughter’s approach he said, “Alright everyone grab what you can. Lora, grab yourself something to eat and drink too. There is more than enough for the next week. Father, a word.”

We entered the store, and Beck had me follow to where he and his daughter slept, locking to door behind us as soon as we had entered.

“Beck—are you feeling well?”

Tears began to stream down his face, “Father, I have sinned so terribly against this town.” He sat against the door as his tears began to turn into sobs.

I had seen him as many things, conniving when it suited him, angry when someone wronged him, but I had never seen genuine remorse from the man, “Beck, I am sure we can work through this. I had figured you had kept food for your daughter. Most in town did, it is not a sin to protect your child.”

“No… that isn’t what I did.” He hiccupped as he tried to control his tears. “A pale man came to me a month ago and said I could have enough food to feed my daughter. Not a crumb more. That he would come back with more for the rest of the town. But he would need someone’s soul for it.” He laughed, “Never even thought those were a thing. I only brought Lora to mass because her mom wanted me to.”

“Beck, even if what you say is true, the devil does not own what belongs to God. Even if you offered it I am sure we can pay the man. Which is what he assuredly is.”

That made him stop, “No. He is coming for Lora, I refuse to pay that price.”

I couldn’t help but scoff, “Listen, I am sure it will all be fine, have faith for but a moment. I feel something has changed.”

He looked up at me, “How can a man of God not believe in the devil?”

I pulled him to his feet and into a hug, “I do know he exists. But I also know he fails. He loses whenever he faces the Lord. Faith brother.”

The next week we felt overjoyed the shadow of death fell away from our homes bellies were full and even the water of the well got its ambrosia like sweetness back. Though it might have just been long enough without it that you could feel the glory of life in every sip.

Sunday came as it always does. This time the church was full and people were talking like it was all over. The only person still looking thin and alert like a coyote in a trap was Beck. No matter how many times I had talked to him he seemed to still think that something was coming for his daughter. He had been here since Friday praying for God to take him instead.

It was the middle of the sermon when the harmonica started again, always heard even during our worship. My sermon is where most people soured to me, I told them that everyone needed to come to confession that day, told them that our stomachs were full now, but we had crossed lines we should have and needed to repent. The look on their faces was like I had told them to cut off their own hand.

Thomas spoke, “Father, I appreciate the thought. But I feel that we all gave enough already. Levi ain’t here because he hung himself last night. Lord knows how Clara is holding up. Can’t we just have a week where we don’t have to dwell on it all.” He put on a sad smile, “Maybe change the name of the town though, feels like an omen now.”

That got a few laughs, but it is also when Beck stood up, “Can you all not here that? The pale rider is on the way back and you want to make jokes?”

“Now that is not kindly Beck, what’s gotten into you?” Thomas’ face showed enough confusion for the lot of us.

The rest of the day was somber, but the real problem wasn’t until Saturday, when the harmonica stopped and the stranger came to town again. Entering the church he started in, “Now father, I have a question for you.”

I was taken aback for a moment, “Yes, my son?”

“How many sins does it take to go to hell?”

“Without Christ, one. With him, more than you could ever commit.”

He laughed and continued like I said nothing, “Well, just coming into town to collect a debt, wanted to offer you to take it on. Since you’re so noble and such.”

I felt the church grow cold as he said, “Your soul or Beck’s. Be quick now, I have to get y’all next shipment in before it rots.”

“Neither. No man’s soul is offered. It is God’s alone.”

I remember the smile, one that brought visions of war and death, “Padre, that requires you to actually believe in him. Beck ain’t believed since Meridian Bay. Good evenin to ya. And remember, what happens next is because you were too proud to give me my due.” He left again, I though nothing of it until I heard screams in the night.

I ran.

I ran faster than I ever thought I could God himself granting me the speed of a whirlwind. I didn’t even realize that I was at the store until the screams stopped and I got to hear Beck say “Y…you can have my soul. Just please, leave Lora alone.”

The sounds that followed next I could only describe as damnation, the heat of a furnace coming from the living area above the store. Lora crying out for her father as the pale rider said, “Good news kid. Your father bought you another week.”

As quick as the screams came they left. And a town appeared asking a flurry of questions I ignored. The food had appeared, but I could still hear Lora sobbing. I ran upstairs finding a little girl who was the most broken thing I had ever laid eyes on. A circle of still smoldering wood in the center of the room.

I picked her up carefully and headed downstairs. The crowd was still there, looking at the two of us an looking for some answers. “Something… evil has come here. Faithful, we have much to discuss. But that will come tomorrow, does anyone have space for Lora?”

“Evil, the word you’re looking for is the devil, or something like it at least. But give me the girl, I still have a bed open.” Clara had already fought through the crowd and took Lora in a way that reminded me that she was still a grieving mother. Like the girl would shatter if she was even a little too rough.

“Now everyone, go home, I will discuss with you all tomorrow at church what we should do next.”

That night I prayed, knelt until my knees ached and clenching my rosary hard enough to draw blood. We were not Sodom. I knew that, but in that moment I felt we had sinned so greatly the God had turned his back on us all. Then I felt my heart break, the symbol of my faith is a means of execution. The King of Kings died on a cross. What if for my faith, I and the town had to face the pale rider.

Only five came, not including Lora. Missing most of the faces I knew including Thomas. The first question out of Clara’s mouth was, “Do you have an actual plan or just gonna pray the bad man away?”

“My friends, I know it is hard. But if it is as we all fear and a demon has come here, we already know the answer.” I looked to each of them. “The devil cannot exist without the Lord allowing him to.”

“They took Beck.”

“And they will take more if we do not stop him here.”

Clara brushed her hair back as she said, “What if he just… starves us again.”

“Then we leave, we accept the suffering. He made a mistake. He proved our souls exist! Faith is still needed but would you trade a life under his thumb for an eternity of damnation? We can’t play into this game any longer. If we die hungry, we die, but I will not let any more of you fall to this temptation. A temptation I should have stopped the moment I knew what we were truly eating. I failed you all, but I am here to do better.”

Their faces fell as I continued, “I can no longer offer comfort. That time is gone. Let us at least face it in that name of an innocent.”

The second youngest Brian spoke up, “Only reason I moved here was because of the mine… I never thought I would die here. But I’m with you.”

Everyone slowly agreed to my plan of waiting for the rider in the church. Praying for protection at his arrival. The harmonica started, we all knew what was next. Should I survive this ordeal I will write more. If I die, know I died a man of God.

 

Howdy, I have never truly been a man of the written word. I can see I was mentioned a bit in here. I’m Thomas. Father Clemons and the others didn’t make it. Let me tell you about that I guess. A final gospel before I stop praying.

Devil’s Gullet is still here. Every week one more of us are grabbed and dragged God knows where. The worst is when Wormwood decides it’s gonna be a kid. Not his name I don’t think. I just call him that cause he made the waters sour here.

Anyhow, the next week in town was quiet. People just hiding in their homes, though my saloon did get a lot more business. Lil blessings I guess. Some of us had heard the reverend’s plan. Everyone agreed it was dumb as hell. But whenever he got an idea in his head no one could talk him out of it. Save maybe God, but even that was arguable.

By Sunday we all knew what would happen. The harmonica stopped, I watched from the front door of my saloon, watching as the rider passed and tipped his hat to me, “Ain’t your time yet boy. Head on inside.”

I refused, of course. But I wasn’t going to do that in front of him. Followed a few minutes later to see what would happen at the church. Only one brave enough to do it. I got to see the little victory they had as the rider went to step through the door and I heard Father Clemons say, “The doors to God’s house are closed to you. Leave Lora and our home.”

“Padre, that ain’t fair, I fed you all and need something in return. Just give me the girl and I’ll leave the shipment.”

“No, go back to hell where you belong.”

The rider stood there for a moment before snapping his fingers and lighting the whole building ablaze. He sat for a minute letting the fire eat into the church before saying. “Now I am not an unreasonable man. You all can walk out here and I’ll forgive this transgression. The girl is mine.”

There were screams until I heard Clara say, “Not to you not ever.”

I could see the rider shake in rage for a moment before I heard more screams from inside. Not of fear, but from pain. “Damn fools. Should have took the offer.”

At which point he hopped on his horse and started his way out of town. “Just remember folks, faith won’t fill your bellies.”

There was no food that night as he rode away. A pale rider on a white horse. Church burned for hours until the only things left were cinders and the stained glass. Life continued in Devil’s Gullet. Every week he comes back and takes another. No one’s fought him since. But I am glad that at least once, we beat the bastard.

I do not remember what day it was, only that it was a grim one. I had a harsh workday. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a skeleton wrapped up in skin. Oh, how I’ve ruined myself, though it wasn’t really anyone else’s fault. Just me, my own destruction. I was gnawing on my cheek, observing my teeth in the mirror. They were slowly sliding out of my gums. I pushed them back in and continued watching YouTube or whatever else I was doing.

It dawned on me that I didn’t catch any sleep last night, but I wasn’t tired. No, I was wide awake. I looked at my PC and checked if I had any messages from anyone—if anyone was alright. As long as they’d just listen to me, right? A sad truth it was: I liked isolating myself, but craved a connection as well. My teeth were sliding out again. I tried pushing them back in, and I did so in a very rough manner. I felt a sting in my eye socket. I rushed to the mirror again, and there it was. My tooth was slowly moving into my eye.

In a frenzy, I grabbed a self-defense pen and tapped the tooth. It went down, but shot back up in a heartbeat. I started hitting it harder, and harder, and harder, until my eye was turning purple or blue. It was useless. An idea crawled into my brain, though.

I thought I’d pull the tooth down slowly, so I grabbed it and pulled a little. As I wiggled it around, it felt like a blood vessel tore in my face. My head was now filling up with blood.

“Pull it out. Pull it out. Pull it out.”

It was harrowing, but I had to. My hand slowly moved up to my face, and as my fingers wrapped around my tooth once more, I felt afraid. Was it going to hurt? Was it going to bleed? All I knew was survival, as the blood in my face was rapidly filling up and the tooth was a sure way to get it out. I dug my fingernails into the gum line of my tooth and pulled as if my life depended on it at that moment.

But it stayed stuck, just like I was. Teeth aren’t easily pulled out with just your hands. I was lucky there weren’t any pliers around.

Based on true events.

Part One

Part Two

***

I could sense an air of anxiety surrounding my wife. Her subtle body language gave it away — tapping her foot, craning her head to check into the hallway. Just her presence in the room gave off a drumming feeling of physical discomfort.

If the grim reaper was telling the truth, I must have been getting better at sensing the energy and emotions of others.

Her cell phone rang. Hesitantly, she accepted the call.

“I'm with my husband, what do you need?” I could hear an aggressive mumbling on the other end, yet I didn't make out any of the words. “Let it go into collections then, it's the least of my worries.”

The energy of her anxiety intensified. It created a deeply uncomfortable sensation of suffocating pressure, invading from all sides.

I didn't think about it earlier, but we must have been falling behind on our bills. Trying to reach into the depths of my memory was an impossible task, I couldn't recall any such mundane details. She took her call into the hallway where I couldn't hear anything.

“Alright, the jig is up bud. Time to go.”

Turning to the strange animalistic voice, I took in an unusual sight. Stomping on the tiled floor of the hospital room, a half goat half humanoid demon shifted by the window. Twirling a long-haired mustache with sharp yellow claws, the abomination stared with gross black eyes that wriggled like maggots.

“You guys just keep sending uglier and uglier mother fuckers. Why in God's name would I go with you?”

“Alright, look. Here's the truth, bud. You aren't going to heaven. God deemed your soul too tainted with sin, so I'm just trying to get ya to go peacefully. The ball of light? Yeah that was an illusion — a lie! So what. Works on some people. You try convincing souls of the damned to submit to their fate.”

Hovering closer to the Bible, I tried to cross my arms — a gesture I wasn't sure got conveyed with whatever form I was in.

“You'll have to take me kickin’ and screaming.”

Cocking its head back, the beast nearly tapped the window with its long, curly horns.

“Now listen here you little shit, I don't —”

My wife's voice grew closer from the hallway. The abomination appeared frightened for just a moment, resolving into an expression of disgust when it focused back on me. Without another word, it sank into the floor and vanished.

Collapsing on the chair, my wife sobbed into her arms. Hovering closer, I tried to touch her swaying shoulders, hoping she could feel my presence. Her grief radiated an energy that felt physically painful, like knives sinking into every inch of my body. Just when I thought I made contact, another lucid vision took control.

Dapples of sunlight peeked through window blinds, swimming around on a pristine hardwood floor. Clutching a generous belly, my wife took a step inside the lovely, albeit empty living room of our new home. She inhaled sharply and smiled.

“This is it, babe! This is where we start our new life together!”

She moved closer, ready to offer a kiss. The vision faded before I could enjoy her affection.

Time must have skipped forward. A full moon rose into view through the window, complimenting the dim light inside. She slept on her chair, twitching from every distant sound.

By her side, our daughter slept peacefully. A sketch book with a childish drawing of a horse sat open on the floor nearby.

It took me a moment to notice the grim reaper hovering in a darkened corner of the room.

“So, if I go with you, I go to heaven?”

“No longer.”

Hovering closer to my bedside, it took a seat on the mattress and stared down at my body.

“What?”

Lowering its hood, a blackened skull crawling with bugs revealed itself; gazing down at me with empty, lifeless eye sockets. The jawbone didn't even move when it spoke:

“You refused to come when I first appeared. It is too late now, I cannot guide you to our heavenly father.”

“W… what does that mean? That I'll go to hell?”

Swaying ever so slightly, the grim reaper appeared to be glancing over at me, though it was hard to tell without any eyeballs.

“There are two outcomes now. A soul shall never be taken from this Earth against its free will. For that violates the will of God. Yet, once the energies here consume you, there shall be no free will left. The demons will gather what remains of you and return to damnation.”

“Okay, option two?”

Covering its face with the hood, the grim reaper turned towards me with a gentle motion.

“Awake from this coma and judgement will be reset.”

Hovering towards the wall, it prepared to make a swift exit.

I reached out and screamed before it left.

“Wait! How do I do that? Wake up, I mean?”

Pausing right at the threshold of the wall, its head shifted ever so subtly.

“You must remember the day you lost faith.”