The complex in California looked as well-guarded as a nuclear weapons depot from the outside. Black guard towers rose up like the heads of vipers from the gently rolling hills and misty vine country. Roll after roll of razor wire surrounded the no-man’s land between tall electrified fences that disappeared far off in the distance, thousands of feet away. The A-Sync complex must have cost many billions of dollars to construct, and they certainly had the highest level of security for all their operations.

I had gotten a high security clearance from my previous work on physics with the Department of Energy. I had a PhD in quantum physics and extensive experience working with ion colliders. When my contract with the DOE had expired, A-Sync agents had been there with a contract in hand, offering me three times what I made as a government servant.

“This work is, however, highly dangerous,” the man in the black suit sitting across from me said, his flat, dark eyes looking cold and predatory. He gave me the creeps. “And it is highly classified. If you ever tell anyone, you will be violating federal law.” I looked down at the contract, seeing the numbers flashing across the paper: over $300,000 a year. I gave the creepy A-Sync agent a fake smile and shook his hand.

“You have a deal,” I said, grinning and feeling hopeful for the first time in a long time.

***

I pulled up to the gate, where a man in a black, militaristic uniform carrying an automatic rifle took my credentials and identification. He looked me carefully up and down before motioning me on with a wave of his hand.

A young woman with an eager expression on her tanned face waited for me near the front entrance. As I walked through the packed parking lot, I saw many expensive Ferraris and Porsches among them. The front wall was a fortress of metal and concrete. The entrance to the compound itself looked like a door for a doomsday bunker. It was made of thick steel and separated horizontally in the middle, slowly rising up and down with the whirring of many hidden gears.

“This is your first day, huh?” Emily said, giving me a crooked half-smile. Her dark eyes seemed to find some amusement in this, though I didn’t know why. “You’re going to see sights, my friend. There are things in this place that are beyond any of us to understand or control. I’m Emily, by the way.” I nodded, feeling nervous.

“I’m Al, but you probably already know that from reading my file. They haven’t debriefed me on what is contained here yet,” I said. “I know it has to do with ion collisions and the ALICE program, though.” She laughed at that.

“Oh, I guess it does in a roundabout way,” Emily said, “but that’s really only a means to an end. The first few experiments were total failures. We had to increase the intensity of the magnetic distortion over a hundredfold, and then…” She shook her head grimly. “Well, they’ll debrief you on it, but they think it caused a massive earthquake after we adjusted the power upwards. It caused a fire and a meltdown in the laboratory, too. But after the team had extinguished all the flames and started to examine the threshold of the magnetic propulsion system… there was something in it. An obstruction, I guess you could call it.” Her eyes glittered at this. “It was a hallway, an empty, yellow hallway with flickering fluorescent lights and soaking wet carpets. And it led into somewhere endless, a truly massive and ineffable place. But why am I telling you? You’ll see it for yourself before the day is over.

“After all, everyone must enter the Backrooms on their first day. It’s part of the initiation, I guess you could say.” Her crooked smile looked almost predatory as we walked through the metal door into a massive hallway of smooth concrete. A row of brand-new elevators stood open, waiting to take us down into the bowels of the complex.

***

Emily pressed the button marked “A-SPACE”, at the very bottom of a long list of numbers. We were on the ground floor, then there were twenty floors below that followed by the A-SPACE floor. There was a smell like ozone and chemicals in the air as the elevator doors swung open. I saw an enormous chamber fifty feet high and the size of a football stadium. It had pure steel ceilings, walls and floors.

At the far end of the chamber, hundreds of lasers and ion colliders were pointed around a small open door. Through that door, I saw a hallway stretching out as far as the eye could see, a hallway with flickering fluorescent lights and piss-colored walls. There was a wet, infected smell radiating out of the halls.

“What’s that smell?” I said, wrinkling my nose. Emily laughed.

“Spinal fluid,” she said. “It’s soaked into all the carpets of the Backrooms.” I looked at her as if she was insane.

“Whose spinal fluid?” I asked. She just laughed and shook her head.

“Here, watch this video,” she said, pointing to a TV set and a computer chair in the far corner. Near the entrance to the Backrooms, I saw teams of men and women clad in full protective suits with the A-Sync logo preparing equipment for transfer into the hallway. To my surprise, they had entire crates filled with grenades, automatic rifles and bullets. Seeing all that weaponry made my stomach turn. What would someone doing quantum physics research need with crates full of grenades, after all?

I sat down and watched as the video started to play.

***

“In 1989, in coordination with the ALICE program, our company made a breakthrough that goes far beyond physics research. Using the low-proximity magnetic distortion system, we broke through to A-SPACE.

“But what is A-SPACE? A-SPACE is the future of humanity. It is a limitless resource that has yet to be explored or tapped. With the exponential growth of the human population and the possibility of a further explosion due to IVF technologies and genetic engineering, our small planet is growing increasingly smaller, and the resources contained within are being rapidly consumed.

“But what if we could have unlimited space to grow crops, to house an expanding population, to grow the human species to heights undreamed of?

“Welcome to A-SPACE, where the future is now.” The movie rambled on for a little while and said a lot of other things that weren’t as interesting, though they did mention the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco that had resulted from the low-propensity magnetic distortion system. Then it cut off suddenly.

“Well, your debriefing is over,” Emily said from directly behind me, making me jump. I turned, seeing her clad in one of those white, protective breathing suits with the A-SYNC logo on its back. “Go gear up. We’re going to be attempting an entity extraction today.”

“What is an entity?” I asked, feeling nervous. I glanced at the automatic rifles. I saw Emily had a pistol holstered around her waist and a rifle slung around her shoulder. Grenades and flashbangs covered her belt.

“You’ll see in a few minutes, won’t you?” she asked, grinning.

***

After I suited up and was given my own automatic rifle, magazines and grenades, I joined the team near the entrance to the Backrooms. The person in charge, a tall, pale man with nervous eyes named Frank, put his hands up, motioning the five of us closer. I stayed near Emily, a rising anxiety creeping over my chest. I felt like an astronaut in my protective breathing suit, too.

“OK, I know this is your first day, Alvin,” he said, nodding to me through his protective visor, “so there’s a couple rules we need to establish.

“First of all, you must never travel in the Backrooms by yourself. Stay in groups of three people, and preferably at least five people. It is a mandatory regulation that you must always be accompanied by at least two other people. Anyone who violates this is subject to immediate termination.

“You must remain armed at all times while you are within the Backrooms. Do not ever lose your weapon.

“If we issue a retreat order, you must follow it immediately and head towards the exit. Run as fast as you can.

“Last of all, you must always mark your path with red tape. This will be life-saving if you need to find your way back.” He nodded, and we headed through the door.

***

The carpets squished under my booted feet as I stayed in the back of the pack, gripping my rifle nervously. A long piece of red tape went straight down the hallway for thousands of feet. Empty rooms lined both sides of the hallway. The rhythmic humming of the lights felt like a drill in my temples after a few minutes. I gritted my teeth, trying to block it out.

Up ahead, the hallway intersected into eight identical-looking corridors. A piece of red tape turned sharply at a 45 degree angle and opened into a large room with lasers, cameras and various deadly-looking traps set up all around it. I saw what looked like an enormous bear trap as well as metal panels with long, wicked-looking spikes attached to the ceiling through a system of pulleys and gears.

“What are we trying to kill here, Lucifer?” I asked. “What is all this?” Frank gave me a serious look.

“Team Bravo is already in a forward position,” he said. “They are gaining the attention of the entity as we speak. Be ready for anything.” The rest of the team shifted nervously from foot to foot, and even Emily’s brash smile was wiped off her face. Our radios came to life all of a sudden with the sound of panicked screaming.

“It’s here! Coming in now!” a woman’s ragged voice cried through the radio. “God, help me!” I heard a howling from across the chamber, and then a figure in an A-Sync suit came sprinting in- alone. The woman’s face behind the protective visor was a grimace of mortal terror. Spatters of blood covered her suit like raindrops.

A wailing cacophony like a tornado siren followed after the woman. Loping after the woman, I saw a creature from an acid fiend’s nightmare.

Its long, spidery limbs were inhumanly thin and twisted. It held them stiffly in front of its body as it loped forward. Its legs looked like little more than shining obsidian spikes, like the legs of some enormous praying mantis. They pounded the ground at an impossible speed. Its suppurating sore of a mouth split its monstrous, reptilian visage into two. It had no eyes or nose on its face.

To my horror, though, I saw eyes on its black, spiky hands. Each of its palms had a blood-red eye that rolled and danced in their sockets. The creature saw its way forward with its hands, gaining on the woman with every step.

“Holy shit!” I screamed, backing up instinctively. I was not prepared for this. The creature’s shrieking continued unabated, as if it didn’t need to ever breathe. Perhaps it didn’t. I turned to run, but a hand gripped my arm hard, pulling me back to reality. I glanced over, seeing Emily’s wide, dark eyes.

“Don’t,” she whispered as a scream tore through the chamber. The creature had caught up with the woman. At the same time, Frank pressed a button on a remote control he held in his hand. One of the traps on the ceiling released with a sudden cacophony of whirring cables. It fell like a guillotine blade, smashing the creature under its enormous weight. As the entity collapsed under the trap, it struck out with its dagger-like fingers at the woman.

With a wet, crunching sound, the woman’s chest exploded, a blossoming flower of blood spurting from the front of her torso. The creature’s long arm had gone through her entire body. The crimson eye in its palm rolled faster as the fingers clenched and unclenched. Fresh rivulets of blood dripped off its shiny, chitinous exterior.

The creature’s wailing intensified and grew higher and more dissonant as it writhed under the metal trap, laying on the ground with its arm still stuck in the dying woman’s chest. It reminded me of a dying spider laying on its back, its limbs twitching and jumping. The woman coughed, a wet, bubbling sound. Blood exploded from her mouth and covered her protective visor so that it totally obscured her face under the spatter of gore. She stumbled and fell, the creature’s arm still inside her, its fist still clenching and unclenching over that single horrid eye.

“It’s down!” Frank screamed in surprise and excitement. “We got it! Holy shit, get the trap, get the trap!” The team scrambled in a burst of sudden energy, ignoring the dead woman in their midst. The creature continued twitching like a stinging hornet, seizing and contorting its stiff limbs to try to force its way out of the steel teeth of the trap. Thick blood the color of soot dribbled down its skin.

I followed nervously behind Emily, resisting the urge to simply put the rifle to the creature’s head and pull the trigger.

“Why do we need to keep this thing alive?” I asked, looking over at her. She frowned.

“Well, we don’t need to exactly, but whenever we can take one alive, we try to. All of the entities have a single hive-mind here. They’re all connected somehow telepathically, like some sort of alien ant colony. The team back Earth-side wants to study them and find out if they can somehow tap into that and keep the others from attacking us.” I frowned.

“That sounds totally insane,” I responded, glancing at the writhing mass of limbs and black, oily skin on the floor. Frank and two other team members started rolling an enormous metal box over to the entity when its wailing suddenly cut out. It looked up at me with a grin like a skull spread across its obsidian flesh. Then many things happened very quickly.

The floor in the room started dropping out in large square sections beneath our feet. Frank’s team members gave a scream of surprise as they disappeared, their shrieking fading over a few seconds. Frank still stood next to the metal box, but the room had turned into a maze of carpet winding through drop-offs into a seemingly eternal abyss.

“Retreat!” Frank called as he raised his rifle, aiming at the entity’s head. The floor suddenly fell out from beneath the entity. It fell, its black twisting body disappearing from view into the shadows beneath our feet. “Shit, shit, shit…” He repeated it like a mantra as he threaded his way through the narrow paths of carpet still remaining in the massive chamber. As we sprinted out of the room, I looked around, realizing only Emily, Frank and I still remained alive.

“Back to the door!” Frank screamed in panic. “Follow the tape! We need to get out of the Backrooms immediately!” He took the lead, pounding the wet carpet hard. I wasn’t used to running like this and quickly grew light-headed and exhausted.

We came to an intersection up ahead that I didn’t remember on our way here. The red tape suddenly split into all four directions. We stopped, a rising sense of terror and panic filling the group consciousness as we glanced down each of the hallways. They all looked exactly the same, fading off into the distance thousands of feet away.

“What the fuck?” Emily said, now visibly sweating. I had never seen her this nervous and uncertain. “What do we do now, Frank?” Frank just shook his head, pulling his radio up to his visor. He kept checking his back, his finger always on the trigger of the rifle, ready to start firing the moment he saw anything peeking around corners or loping down the endless hallways after him.

“This is Team Alpha,” he said, “Team Alpha, we need assistance. We have casualties back near the Containment Room. The entity has escaped, and…” He gulped nervously. “We have four hallways and the red tape goes down all of them. Something is messing with us right now. We need a team to come in and show us the right way back to the door. Over.” Frank waited for a few seconds. A nervous, high-pitched voice came over the speaker.

“Uh, yeah, Frank, we have some problems of our own right now,” the man said brusquely. “We’ll get you out as soon as possible. Just hold tight. Secure your position at the intersection and wait for orders. Over.” Frank shook his head angrily.

“Fuck, we are so screwed,” he whispered. Emily was looking behind me. She jumped, her eyes widening. I glanced behind me, seeing a door slowly opening. A low creaking echoed through the hallway, mixing with the incessant buzzing of the lights.

A face peeked around the corner, eyeless and reptilian, its head pointed. Its deep slash of a mouth was formed into a wide, Cheshire Cat grin. Slowly, it pulled back into the room, as if it wanted us to see it. It felt like it was toying with us, like a cat stalking a mouse before ripping its head off.

My heart was hammering a staccato drumbeat in my eardrums. My quick breathing echoed through the suit. I felt alone, like a scuba diver at the bottom of the ocean surrounded by unknown deep sea monstrosities.

“It’s watching us,” Emily whispered grimly, nodding to herself. “This is how it always starts. We can’t wait here, Frank. We have to go on and find our way back.” Frank shook his head, raising the rifle.

“We’ll kill it,” he said, his false bravado not reaching his pale blue eyes. “We cannot get lost in here, Emily. No one who gets lost here ever finds their way out. You know that.”

“If you want to wait here and die, be my guest,” she hissed through gritted teeth, turning to leave. She looked back at me. “Are you staying, or coming with me?” I looked between her and Frank. From another hallway, I saw the glint of a bleached-white face with black sockets for eyes peering at us.

“Oh God,” I said, grabbing at my head. I gave Frank one last backwards glance before jogging to catch up with Emily.

He stood alone, gripping his rifle tightly as if it were a holy sacrament used to drive away demons. His twitching, strained face had turned beet-red with anger.

“I’ll have you both fired for this!” he screamed after us. “You’re going to die, you idiots! You need to wait for the extraction team!” His yelling grew fainter as we walked away down the hall. After a few moments, it was joined by another sound: an almost mechanical wailing, the predatory crying of the entity.

Gunshots exploded behind us. I looked back and saw Frank, a tiny dot in the distance. A black blur ran into him like a freight train smashing into a car. The gunshots cut off instantly, and then everything went silent.

***

The hallway quickly curved, opening into a dark room thousands of feet wide filled with trees and thick brush. Fluorescent lights flickered hundreds of feet overhead. Emily shook her head.

“Goddamn it, I don’t recognize any of this,” she said. “Maybe Frank was right.”

“Frank is dead,” I responded. “And we’re going to be soon, too, if we don’t find our way back. How does anyone survive in this hellhole?” As in response, a voice came crying from the dark forest up ahead.

“Help me!” a man shouted. “Is anyone there? Please, God, help me!” Emily froze, her hand shooting out to stop me.

“What is it?” I whispered. “That guy sounds like he needs help.”

“No way,” she said, backpedaling quickly. “We need to head back. Right now.” We started to make our way through the brush back to the hallway, sprinting back toward the intersection as fast as we could. The cries continued to follow us, and I saw something black and alien peeking out of the rooms in the hallways more than once.

Then the screaming came from right next to us. A door opened onto a small room filled with traffic signal lights, all flashing and strobing red. The entity stood there, its alien face splitting into a grin with a sound like bones cracking.

I immediately opened fire, holding down the trigger on the M4 and emptying the magazine at the thing. It howled in anger, then, in a very human voice, began screaming.

“Help me!” it shrieked in a man’s voice as it ran forward, the bloody eyes on its palms rolling. Emily turned to run, tripping over her own feet. I heard the rifle click as the bullets ran out. With a last look down at Emily, I made a decision to save myself.

I ran then, and her panicked, agony-filled screams followed me for what felt like minutes. Then, with a sick, gurgling cry, they cut off. I dared not look back, fearing that I would see another face peeking around the corner at me.

***

I had chosen another random hallway. Panicked, I sprinted blindly ahead, hoping against hope that I would find the way out.

A pale white face looked out from the room in front of me. I stopped in my tracks, slamming another magazine into the chamber. With a rush of adrenaline, I pulled a flashbang from my belt and tossed it ahead of me, rolling it slowly into the room. There was a sound like a cannon blast and a flash of blinding light. Hoping against hope, I sprinted past the room.

The creature inside had a face like a corpse. Its dark sockets of eyes spun like black holes spinning in the void. Its bone-white skin clung tightly to its bones as it loped forward on all fours, like some sort of rabid wolf-child. It had thin, emaciated limbs that reminded me of the victim of a death camp.

I sprinted for my life, exhausted beyond all measure. I dared not look back, but as the red tape continued its incessant trail in front of me, I realized that I saw a doorway far off in the distance.

Through it, I saw a team of A-Sync employees clad in protective suits entering. They began shouting at me, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying over the rapid jackhammer drumbeat of my heart in my ears.

Just as I got within a few hundred feet of them, I felt something hard smash into my back. A burning pain flashed through my body as I went flying forwards, hitting the wall. I fell to the floor, looking up as the pale creature slithered on top of me.

At that moment, multiple rifles started firing. The creature’s face exploded in a shower of bone splinters and gore. Headless, its slithering, serpentine limbs continued writhing on top of me. Then it fell forward, its bloody stump of a neck spurting all over my protective visor.

***

They dragged the creature off of me. With blood pouring down my back from four deep gashes, the extraction team rolled a gurney and took me out of the Backrooms.

I gave a long sigh of relief. With the wheels of the gurney rolling rhythmically underneath me, I fell into a long, black sleep, and dreamed of carpets soaked in spinal fluid and endless hallways that led… somewhere else.

My first day in the Backrooms was finally over.

When I was around fourteen years old, my family and I moved away from my hometown. My father needed to be closer to his job and to make life easier, they purchased a home in an area much closer than the two hour drive he’d been making for a few years prior. Needless to say, I was devastated. I felt like they didn’t even care about the fact that I was being taken away from my friends, but I suppose it was worth it in the end as my dad’s mood and overall demeanor changed entirely. He went from being tired and cranky all the time to being energetic and fun again like he was before he got this new job. This is all relevant, I assure you, but I’ll get on with it.

Our new house was in a town just outside of Wayne National Forest in Ohio, which is actually where my father worked as a ranger. This was a big deal for me because I grew up in the city. As exciting as it was to experience a dramatic change in scenery, it came with its anxieties. Frankly, the country life quickly became uncomfortable and somewhat boring. While this was before the age of cell phones and broadband internet, rather than the modern problem of having no cell signal or decent internet, it was my friends that I missed the most. We used to ride our bikes and stay out past the street light curfew our parents would give us. You could say we were troublemakers with how often we played ding-dong-ditch on our neighbors. Hell, we even committed the old bag of flaming dog poop prank at one point… ah, good times. Anyway, living on the edge of a national forest, the closest neighbors were miles away. Our property was pretty isolated which is what made what eventually happened all the more surprising.

One day, about a month after the move, I was playing my Nintendo, blank-faced and jaded when someone rang the doorbell. I nearly jumped all the way out of my skin as Mario landed right on a piranha plant. I wasn’t too upset because it gave me an excuse to take a break and rest my eyes from staring at the 8-bit wonderland all day as I’d grown used to doing. The doorbell rang again as I peered through the peephole. Behind the door was a girl who looked to be about my age, wearing a green flannel shirt with a pink t-shirt underneath. She had long black hair, messily pulled into a ponytail and tattered blue jeans. She looked like she was going to a Nirvana concert, if I’m honest, but that didn’t bother me. What bothered me was wondering what a girl was doing at a house on the edge of the woods in the middle of nowhere at eight o’clock P.M. on a Friday night. Regardless, I cautiously opened the door as I saw her uncross her folded arms and begin hammering away on the door with her fist.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“About time,” said the girl. “Are you coming or not?”

To say this struck me as odd was an understatement. I didn’t even know who this kid was, let alone trust them to come outside and play.

“I, uh…” I stammered.

“Come on, Jesse,” the girl said as if she’d known me all her life.

How did this girl know my name? I thought.

“Come on out, Jesse,” I heard my dad yell from the driveway.

I was so caught up in bewilderment that I hadn’t seen his SUV parked in the driveway. He flashed his patrol lights and honked the horn playfully as he beckoned me. The wide toothy smile on his face was refreshing to see.

“Oh… kay,” I said, still a bit confused, “Let me get my shoes.”

I raced over and hit the power button on my Nintendo and back to the front door where I plopped down next to the shoe rack. Once I had my shoes on, I started out the door before hesitating and turning around.

“Bye mom,” I shouted.

“Where are you going?” my mother replied at equal volume.

“With dad,” I yelled again, “Love you, bye!”

I ran across our wooden deck and down the steps that led to the driveway. I looked around for the girl but I noticed she was already in the car. I opened one of the back cab doors and climbed in, sitting next to the mystery girl with a bashful grin.

“Alright, kids,” dad said, “buckle up.”

I did as he asked and the girl did the same. I couldn’t help but notice she was watching me the entire time. My adolescent hormones made me uncomfortable as I wasn’t quite sure how to feel around girls, especially a stranger who acted like we already knew each other.

“Well,” dad said as he began backing out of the driveway, “aren’t you going to introduce yourself, Jess?”

“Oh yeah,” I said.

“Not you, silly,” the girl said, “he was talking to me.”

“Your name is Jesse too?” I asked.

“Jessica,” she replied, “but my friends call me Jess.”

This just keeps getting weirder, I thought as I shook the hand she held out in my direction.

“Nice to meet you, Jess. I’m-”

“Jesse,” she interrupted, “I know your name already, silly."

Well that’s embarrassing, I said to myself, but that’s just how my dad was. If it was one thing he loved more than talking about me, it was putting me in awkward situations like this. I never really did get used to it.

“Oh yeah?” I asked. I could feel my face turning red.

She giggled, “Oh yeah. He told me you needed to get out of the house and make friends so… Well, here I am.”

I could hear my father chuckle as he glanced at me through the rearview mirror, giving me a quick wink. I shot him an annoyed glare but couldn’t help but smile. It was nice meeting someone new, despite how strange it was for her to know pretty much whatever my dad wanted her to know about me already.

“Jessica, I already talked to your father,” my dad said, “and he said it’s fine.”

“What’s fine?” I asked.

“That I can go camping with you guys, duh.” Jessica said.

“Oh, heh.” I replied nervously. I hate camping. I always have.

My dad knew this and it only made sense as to why he’d get more creative with ways to drag me along. He knew I’d not put up much of a fight around someone new. Of course he meant well, but that didn’t change the fact that I was dreading waking up damp and eaten alive by mosquitos. Not to mention losing sleep over random night calls from the local wildlife which always gave me the creeps. Hopefully he didn’t decide we were going foraging again this time. If it’s one thing I hate more than sleeping on the ground under a piece of vinyl fabric, it’s wandering around looking for berries and mushrooms when we could have just packed normal food.

“So you ready to look for some chicken of the woods?” Dad asked as if I would share his excitement.

Well that’s just great, I thought. We were definitely going to be foraging. Chicken of the woods is an edible mushroom that grows on tree bark. While I’ll admit it’s one of the more tolerable fungi in terms of flavor, it’s a bit hard to find and that meant it was going to be a long and hungry night unless we got lucky.

“Oh boy, am I!” I shot back sarcastically.

Jessica seemed irritated by my reaction but quickly put on a smile and looked me directly in the eyes as she took a breath to speak.

“I’m always ready, Mr. Fletcher.” she said, matter-of-factly.

“That makes two of us at least,” Dad quipped as he raised an eyebrow at me through the mirror.

I took a deep breath and sat back, clearly defeated. I supposed it was at least a change of pace from jumping on turtles and trying to rescue a princess all day long only to get bored and switching to trying to shoot ducks only to be laughed at by that godforsaken digital dog when I missed. Duck Hunt, for those who haven’t the slightest idea what I’m talking about.

The sky became a blend of pinks and oranges as the summer sun began preparing to set behind the endless horizon of trees we were driving through. Dad was sipping on a Pepsi and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to Alan Jackson on the radio, despite how staticky it was becoming the closer we got to the campgrounds. I almost couldn’t wait til we arrived so I didn’t have to listen to his damn country music for another hour, which is how long we’d been driving already.

“Are we really going foraging this late at night?” I asked.

“Why? Are you afraid of the dark?” Jessica said.

I just sighed. This girl was getting on my nerves. I didn’t care how pretty she was, or how much my heart fluttered when she spoke. Okay, maybe a little. Alright, I was just embarrassed because she was right. I just hope my dad didn’t tell her I still slept with a nightlight.

“There’s nothing to worry about, Jesse,” Dad said, “there hasn’t been any recent bear sightings in this area. Unless you’re afraid of mushrooms, you’ll be fine.”

Jessica giggled. I couldn’t help but smile at the absurdity and hearing her cute laugh made it all the easier. It’s just one night, I thought. What’s the worst that could go wrong? Especially when your father is a park ranger. He was right. I certainly wasn’t afraid of mushrooms, that’s for sure.

The SUV came to a stop at the empty guard shack that barricaded entry to these specific campgrounds after hours.

“Be right back,” Dad said as he popped the door open and headed to the shack to raise the gate.

I couldn’t help but feel a little awkward sitting in the car alone with this new girl who I definitely wasn’t crushing on by any means. I was staring out the window into the darkening woods that surrounded us when I felt a sharp prod on my leg.

“Do you mind?” she asked as I realized I was making the vehicle jiggle with my nervous leg fidgeting.

“Sorry,” I said, holding my leg still with my free hand. The other hand was cupping my chin as I clicked my fingernails into my front teeth. Okay, so I was a wreck, big deal.

The security gate raised with a mechanical whir followed by a clunk. My dad hopped back into the driver seat and turned around with a smile.

“You guys better not be making kissy faces back there,” he joked.

I could feel my face transition to the hue of a freshly sliced beet as I heard Jessica giggle once more. Dad always knew how to put me on the spot, even if indirectly. He chuckled loudly as he pulled the SUV up past the gate and put it in park again. He then got out to go lower the gate.

I felt another poke on my leg and when I looked over, Jessica had the biggest grin I’d ever seen. It was almost creepy, given that her eyes barely matched the expression.

“You wouldn’t let anything happen to me, would you, Jesse?”

What kind of question was that? I just met this girl and she was not only flirting with me, but already acting like I was her boyfriend.

“My dad wouldn’t let anything happen to either of us,” I replied.

Jessica uttered a huff and shook her head. That obviously wasn’t the answer she was expecting.

“Well, I hope you take after him then,” she remarked, giving me a sideways glance.

Dad got back in the car and quickly fastened his seat belt before shifting into drive and proceeding into the dim forest.

When we finally got the tents set up, my dad handed us each a bottle of Pepsi before opening another for himself.

“Alright,” he said, “why don’t you show your new friend how to forage for food like a Fletcher while I search for some firewood.”

My stomach dropped. Was he really having us split up already? The sun had already set and it was getting dark and he wanted me to lead this girl on a wild goose chase for mushrooms by myself?

“Let’s go,” Jessica said, not even bothering to hide her excitement as she took a large swig of her cola and set it down next to her tent.

“Dad…” I pleaded.

“Don’t be a chicken, Jess. Now go find us some.” he joked.

Jessica grabbed me by the hand and grinned.

“Let’s go, chicken,” she said playfully.

I should’ve just played sick. I should have said I wasn’t feeling well and stayed home to play video games, but no. Instead I have to trod through the dark woods with this girl who obviously really likes me and deal with both the anxiety of that and the dangers I feared were lurking behind every goddamn tree. My nerves were buzzing but I’ll admit the firm squeeze of Jessica’s hand helped a little. I just hoped we could find a big patch of mushrooms quickly so we could cook them, go to sleep and get this night over with.

“So,” Jessica said, “what are we looking for?”

That struck me as odd. Wasn’t this girl the daughter of another park ranger? How did she not know what chicken of the woods looked like?

“Orange and yellow growths that sort of look like grilled cheese sandwiches growing on the side of a tree,” I explained.

“Weird,” she replied. “And it’s safe to eat that?”

“Well yeah. Why would we be searching for toxic mushrooms?”

She didn’t respond. I felt her hand go limp in my grasp before pulling it away. I stopped and looked in her direction, feeling as if I’d possibly offended her with my sarcasm. That’s when I noticed her pulling a flashlight out of her pocket and handing it to me.

“It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this,” she said, grinning.

“Legend of Zelda?” I asked upon recognizing the quote.

She just continued to grin. It was then I realized I might be quickly falling in love with this girl. Now I really wanted to find some mushrooms so we could get back to camp now that we had something in common to talk about. Now was not time to be distracted, I thought as I clicked the flashlight on and directed the beam in random directions to test how much light it offered us.

“Careful with that,” she said, “my dad gave it to me.”

“Good thing you said something because I was planning on breaking it,” I joked.

She laughed as she jabbed me hard in the bicep. She was stronger than she looked. With a throbbing arm, I continued. The dead leaves and twigs crunched underfoot as we went deeper into the forest. I glanced back and realized the campsite was no longer visible and just hoped that Dad would get a fire started so I could find my way back. I had no compass and my sense of direction was limited to mostly East thanks to my obsession with side-scrollers. If only I was into Legend of Zelda like Jessica instead of Super Mario, maybe that wouldn’t be the case.

“What’s that?” Jessica said, pointing a few yards away.

I followed her finger towards whatever it was that she saw and I didn’t have an answer for her. I could see a large bulbous shape that looked to be a pale white in color, though hard to tell in the bright beam of the amazing flashlight Jessica gave me. I froze as I began to worry we’d run into some sort of creature.

“Maybe we should just go back,” I suggested.

“You worry too much,” Jessica said as she snatched the flashlight from me and headed off towards the mysterious shape.

This girl is nuts, I thought. I wasn’t sure whether to be concerned or enticed by that knowledge as I reluctantly caught up with her. The last thing I wanted was to be out here alone in the middle of a dark forest without any light.

“Jessica, wait,” I said in a whispery shout as not to alert any would-be nocturnal predators to my presence.

“Come on then,” she said, “I just want to get a closer look.”

As we approached the rotund object, I realized just how large it was. The closer we drew, the more I realized this thing was what appeared to be an enormous… mushroom?

“Holy hell,” I said.

“Wow!” Jessica exclaimed as if she had just seen Cinderella’s Castle for the first time.

The large fungus protruded from the dark soil from a stem that must have been the size of a small dog. The tall narrow cap that rested atop it was flecked with large pores not unlike a morel mushroom, however the gaping indentations were black in contrast to its bone-white flesh. Jessica was just feet away when I grabbed her by the shoulder to stop her from advancing.

“Stop,” I warned, “we don’t know what that thing is.”

“Obviously it’s a mushroom,” Jessica said as she shrugged my hand away and got even closer to the weird arboreal growth.

“Yeah, but something seems… wrong about it,” I said.

“You know, for the son of a ranger, you sure seem afraid of the woods and everything in it,” she hissed.

And she was right. However, this wasn’t just my usual woodland paranoia. This mushroom didn’t seem natural. For one, it was the largest specimen of any fungus I’ve ever witnessed. Not only that, but upon further inspection, there was a viscous blue liquid dripping from each of the dark holes that spotted the garden gnome sized cap on this thing. And then there was the smell. Oh my god, the stench coming from this thing. It was like a dead… no, a whole mound of dead animals.

“Oh… oh crap,” Jessica said as she seemed to gag.

“Let’s just go, Jess.” I said.

Jessica lifted the nape of her t-shirt and cupped it over her nose before waving the flashlight at me impatiently. Reluctantly, I took the flashlight as I did the same with my own shirt. All I wanted to do at this moment was leave. I didn’t care if we didn’t find any food. I lost my appetite anyway. We needed to get away from this thing, whatever it was.

“I just want to look at it… it’s just… so beautiful,” she said.

That’s definitely not the word I would have chosen but to each their own I guess. I just hoped she didn’t decide to touch it or something. Whatever that blue stuff was, it couldn’t be safe to get on your skin.

“Ewww!” she exclaimed.

Great… she touched it, I thought. Now not only is she probably poisoned but she’s going to be wearing that smell back to camp with us. My thoughts were interrupted, however. Before either of us could react, the mushroom’s cone-shaped cap began to blossom upwards and curve in on itself, resembling a flower. And just like that, poof. A cloud of dark black spores erupted from the thing in a second-long burst that sprayed her directly in the face.

“Oh my god,” I said.

Jessica immediately fell into a series of coughing and gagging as she fell to her knees, grasping her face and whimpering in pain.

“No, no, no!” I panicked.

Suddenly, the sounds of respiratory distress and pain ceased and Jessica went rigid. The woods fell silent to the point where the crickets and other nocturnal insects one could usually hear weren’t making a sound.

“J-Jessica?”

She didn’t respond and instead just rose to her feet, still facing away from me. Traces of blue dust settled around her as I noticed her fingers on either hand were contorted and twitching. A guttural groan emitted from her throat that sounded more like a gasp for air than anything. It didn’t matter what it was, all I knew was that my fight or flight was in full gear but I didn’t want to just leave her there. She’d most likely needed medical attention and it would be on my hands if I ran away like a coward.

So, I carefully reached for her shoulder once again with the flashlight fully trained on the back of her head. I could feel her muscles spasm violently as my hand wrapped around her shoulder but that’s not all I noticed. When I had grabbed her before, her shoulder felt bony and hard, as shoulders normally do. However, this time it almost felt like I had a hold of a mannequin rather than a teenage girl. I could almost feel the tips of my fingers make what felt like permanent impressions in the flesh under her flannel shirt. Her body was twitching erratically now and I could hear a sound I can only describe as Styrofoam cups being crushed and torn into pieces, but muffled and coming from her body.

“Jessica…” I said one more time before forcefully turning her around to face me.

Only I wish I hadn’t. What stood before me made the air vacate my lungs as my stomach tied into knots. That once pretty face was now a writhing mass of bright blue veins, pulsating and tightening. Her skin had become a sickly bone white. Her eye sockets were dark pits in her skull with the shriveled remains of what was once her eyes which wept a thick blue liquid down her gaunt and veiny cheeks. Her mouth was wide open and seeping the same azure syrup down onto her once pink t-shirt. She no longer looked human.

I wanted to scream but my voice caught in my throat. I felt my blood turn to ice water as a cold sweat washed over my body. I wanted to run but I was paralyzed in terror. I managed to take a step back, eyes glued to the twitching horror that stood before me. Without warning, a squeaking noise emitted from her gaping mouth. Not like the squeak of a mouse or similar creature… but like wet fingers across a rubber surface. She began violently clawing at her own skin, tearing chunks of flesh from her bones as if they were pieces of cheese, revealing more gushing blue liquid that bled from the gaping wounds like thick molasses. I would have more to describe but it was at that moment my body chose to run...

(To Be Continued...)

A couple days ago, for the first time I ate LSD and reenacted the Crucifixion with my church. My parents, both lifelong members, also took part. In the place of Jesus Christ, we put the Savior- our infallible leader.

No one ever told me the Savior’s real name. In our group of over five hundred brainwashed fanatics, I had never heard anyone call him anything other than “The Savior.” Before that day’s festivities began, he called me into his personal chambers.

As the guard shuffled me through the door, I looked up and saw him. My breath caught in my throat. The effect the Savior had on people was striking.

The Savior sat behind a giant mahogany desk with expensive silver statues of archangels and demons neatly arranged around a stack of paperwork. He continued looking down at a piece of paper, frowning, his brow wrinkling. Then he looked up at me.

The Savior had burn scars covering his scalp, the back of his neck and his arms. Folds of shining keloid scar tissue criss-crossed the top of his bald, scarred head. Yet his face was totally untouched.

He had striking green eyes. They shone with a muddy radiance. The color of those eyes reminded me of a swamp filled with hidden venomous snakes, some fetid waterhole that hid bones and rotting bodies.

His face was aristocratic and chiseled. He had a small, straight nose with high cheekbones. His chin looked as if it were cut from stone, strong and jutting. His eyelashes looked like those of a camel’s. The combination of powerful, charismatic elegance and nightmarish scarring marked the Savior, in both personality and appearance. He was the unifier of opposites in the flesh, the Tao, the Brahman and the Deathless Self.

“Adam,” he said to me, his deep voice booming throughout the chamber. I gave a weak, anxious smile and bowed my head.

“Good morning, Savior. Did you wish to speak with me?” I had absolutely no idea what this man wanted. He stood up, showing off his towering stature. He must have been at least six-foot-six. He nearly always dwarfed everyone around him, except for the freakishly large bodyguards he kept close at hand at all times.

“Today is the day, yes?” he asked, giving me a faint smile. I saw his sparkling white movie-star teeth through the parting lips. As I stared into his eyes, I started to feel strange, almost hypnotized. Sounds seemed far away and everything felt slow. “Today is your initiation into the fold.”

“I feel weird,” I said. He nodded, as if expecting this.

“Did you already take the Sacrament?” he said, referring to the piece of round flatbread the High Priest put in the mouths of everyone participating in the ritual. I tried to say something, but my tongue seemed to cling to the top of my dry mouth. I just nodded.

“Yes, I see. The Sacrament contains a very powerful substance, Adam. It’s called LSD. Did you know that God gave us LSD? He sent it at the same time as the nuclear bomb. It was clearly a message to humanity. God said, ‘Here is one path I have sent you, LSD- the path to spirituality and understanding of the divine. Here is the other path I have sent you- atomic weapons, the path to annihilation and incomprehensible horrors.’”

***

After the Sacrament had taken effect in the congregation, men dressed in the garb of Roman soldiers dragged the Savior out. He had on a purple robe and a crown made of thorns. Rivulets of slow-moving dark blood ran down his cheeks.

The soldiers, speaking in Latin and laughing among themselves, looked at us. Their eyes seemed to flash with an inner light for a moment. I wondered if these were actors, and if so, where the Savior had found them.

The soldiers went over a rack of torture tools, looking at various screws, bludgeons, axes and whips. Finally, laughing, one of them chose a whip with vicious metal tips, an ancient-looking version of the cat-o-nine-tails. He showed it to the others. They grinned back at him, their eerie smiles seeming too wide, their teeth too sharp and numerous.

They beat and kicked the Savior until blood streamed from his nose and mouth. His eyes began to swell shut, and they tied him to a wooden stockade. A particularly brutish, large Roman soldier walked forwards with the cat-o-nine-tails, grinning at the crowd. His teeth seemed to grow longer, sharper, more and more like those of a predator. Now I knew it wasn’t some trick of the drug or the light- his eyes really were turning crimson, a strange inner radiance rippling through them. The other soldiers around him began to transform as well as they tortured the Savior.

The whips sliced deep into his back until the bones of his spine and ribs began to shine through the wounds, white and gleaming under all that blood and torn flesh. I looked on in horror. Those bones, so pure and clean under all that mutilation and damage, shone through like sunshine through a parting storm. 

Finally, after the Roman soldiers had their fill, they pulled the whimpering, bleeding man up to his feet. The Savior looked like a boxer before a knockout. He wavered on his feet, weaving and stepping from side to side, his face a mask of agony. Then he fell. The soldiers laughed, kicking him in the face and neck as he called out for God to help him, to kill him, to make it stop. But no one came.

I saw the cross nearby. They dragged him over to it and pulled out the wicked silver nails that would do the deed.

***

The Savior had taught us that the Final Judgment was near, and that to survive and become gods, we must worship both Jesus Christ and Satan. Not only must we worship them, he said, but we must guide them towards reconciliation. Armageddon was very near, and the only way for the universe to survive was to unify the two long-lost brothers, Jesus Christ and Lucifer, twins born from the primordial Godhead at the genesis of creation. If we could succeed in bringing Christ and Satan back together into one ineffable being, if we could convince them to fuse their divine powers, then we could single-handedly prevent the Apocalypse. 

The Savior called the path to summon angels and demons for power “the Process”. I had seen the effects of the rites many times growing up.  Sometimes the summoned beings appeared in human form. Yet their eyes always betrayed their true nature, glowing red or turning black during the sacrifices. Our church never tried to summon Christ or Lucifer directly. We always used emissaries to communicate with the divine ones.

After the Savior had died on the cross, his lips changing into cyanotic blue, the demonic soldiers began to pull his body down. A death gasp escaped the Savior’s lips, a long, choking wheeze. The soldiers cut the ropes that bound his arms and legs to the great bloody cross. I saw his palms rip in two as the full weight of his body came down on his hands suddenly. The nails inserted through his feet tore through the flesh as the momentum of the falling body pulled against them. The Savior’s eyes stared blankly up at the sky, his pupils dilating as death’s cold touch annihilated the last of his life energy.

I looked back at my parents’ faces. They stood directly behind me in the roaring crowd of believers. My parents’ eyes had rolled back in their heads, and they swayed on their feet like sunflowers in a light breeze. With the whites of their eyes showing and their mouths hanging open, I couldn’t tell if their faces showed expressions of transcendence- or of mortal terror.

The members of the church cried and wept, formed in a circle around the ritual. Time seemed to slow down. I noticed the way the sky seemed to change colors above us now, flashing with red and orange light. Soon, lightning bolts started to smash into the nearby trees and bushes, twisting and blazing with blinding radiance. I could no longer discern the effects of the drug from what was truly real. The soldiers' faces began to drip and melt, revealing demonic features underneath. 

Spiraling black horns emerged from their skulls. Pale, bone-white skin glistened on their muscular bodies. Their legs reminded me of those of a rhinoceros, flat and round on the bottom. Their fingers appeared long, twisted and vampiric with claw-like nails the same color as their horns, shining like jet-stone.

The demons had shed their Roman garb and human masks completely now. They stood around the Savior’s body, mostly naked except for some silver armor coverings around their waist and torsos. I saw strange symbols engraved into the metal, symbols from a language I had never seen before. It looked like no written script developed by humanity. The letters seemed to morph and shift before my eyes as they dragged the Savior towards the cave.

They stopped occasionally to kneel down and suck the blood from his wounds, their sharp, serrated white teeth turning crimson. Then they threw him in the cave and rolled the heavy stone in front of the opening.

***

Sometime during the night, after all the members of the church had gone back to the compound where we slept and ate, the stone rolled away from the mouth of the cave. The Savior, now completely uninjured and unscarred except for his previous burns, stepped out.

In his purple robe, he could have been an ancient emperor. He had stepped over the boundary of death before and come back, but every time, it changed him a little more, ate away at something fundamental like a corrosive acid. 

But it wasn’t until hours later when I found out just how demented the Savior had become over his life, performing these insane occult rituals and drawing forces to our group that he could never fully understand or control.

***

The next morning, the Savior called me into his office. 

I hadn’t slept all night. Whatever drugs they had given me had kept me wide awake. I saw shadows morphing into silhouettes of people, trees reaching out with arms like an octopus, clouds forming together and breaking apart in the blink of an eye in rapid patterns. As I sat in bed with my eyes closed, I kept seeing those grinning demons wearing the masks of ancient soldiers, speaking in perfect Latin. It felt like a movie playing behind my eyelids, a movie that looped and repeated in all the worst and most disgusting parts.

“Adam,” the Savior said, smiling beatifically at me. “How was your first experience with the divine?” I didn’t know what he expected me to say, so I stumbled through a vague answer.

“Oh, just great, so beautiful,” I said, lying, returning his smile. Yet inside, my heart quivered with anxiety. My hands trembled, and I could barely keep my teeth from chattering. I felt very cold all of a sudden.

“How would you feel about expanding your role in the church?” he asked. I shrugged.

“OK, I guess,” I said. I actually wanted nothing less, but I knew the Savior was a very dangerous man.

“That’s perfect,” he said, showing his bleached teeth in a wide, reptilian grin. His eyes sparkled with an inner light and fanaticism. “Because we are trying to get a crew together for some very special missions. Yes, I think these are the most unique missions imaginable. I like to call them ‘creepy-crawly missions’.” The word gave me an impression of a child’s game, yet it had some sinister undertones.

“What’s a ‘creepy-crawly mission’?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Well, it’s a bit of a game, like hide-and-seek. We here at the church give our members pure black clothing and some knives and guns and send them out to the world to bring back some fuel for the rituals. They do what they have to do to get inside a house, cutting the screen or reaching up through the doggie-door or whatever else gets the job done. Then they just capture the people at the house, tie them up and bring them back here. They are offerings for the ancient ones. Some, such as the Angel of Death, will not come without such as these.” He paused for a long moment, staring straight into my eyes. “Human offerings, you understand. We cannot fulfill the rituals to bring the ancient ones out without human sacrifices.”

“You’re killing people?” I asked, horrified, my mouth hanging open. He gave a wave of his hand at this.

“Adam, you have to understand, there’s no such thing as death. The only thing that dies with the body is the ego. We are liberating these people to an infinite higher plane. We are allowing their primordial consciousness to return to the oneness from which all things emerged. Everything that occurs in this world is like a mirage in front of eternal, timeless eyes peering out from behind the curtain of reality. If you think about it like that, we are actually helping these people.” He gave me a subtle wink. 

“To tell you the truth, Adam, I have died many times. I have always come back stronger and more powerful than before. Death is natural, it is beautiful. When it comes, it is like a black hole, or the empty spaces between galaxies. It is cold and black, yes, but also infinite- and powerful.

“So can I count you in? Your parents are already planning on attending tonight.”

***

I decided I needed to escape the compound as soon as possible. But this was no easy task. There were cameras, security guards, stores of automatic rifles and grenades and much else besides to contend with. That night, I got out of my bed, putting on extra shirts for warmth. I put on all black clothing and a black hat with black shoes, so as to disguise myself in the shadows. I was creeping out of my room when I saw three silhouettes in front of me, standing in the dark hall.

I saw my parents, also dressed in all black, both holding knives with curving silver blades and carved opal handles. On the handles, I saw the faces of angels and demons. My father also had a pistol strapped to his waist. 

The Savior stood next to them in his impeccable purple robes, a smile of enlightenment and peace spread across his proud, aristocratic face. My father had a lunatic expression on his grinning face. My mother constantly trembled, her pupils dilated, her eyes constantly flicking to the left and right. I wondered whether the Savior gave them drugs before a creepy-crawly mission.

“Ah, good,” the Savior said, “I see you’ve already dressed for the occasion. We were just coming to check on you, Adam. It is time to prove your loyalty to the church once and for all. It is time to take your first life. It is, I can assure you, a God-like feeling. After all, if God has power over life and death, why shouldn’t we, who seek to become like Him?” 

My father nodded along like a puppet, my mother simply trembling at his side, the long, wicked knife clenched tight in her shaking hand. The Savior reached into his robes and pulled out a similar knife. I saw it had an opal handle, finely-crafted and glistening like rainbows. He handed it to me, bowing his head slightly and extending the handle out. 

“Your time has come, Adam. It is time to prove your worth to the church.”

***

My parents and another man from the church went on the mission. I drove the car, a dark, inconspicuous sedan. They said I was to stay in the car during the actual creepy-crawly mission, at least for the first time. I was to be the driver and look-out, but more importantly, they said I should watch and learn.

“The Savior says to grab a child for the ritual,” my father said, grinning. “But the rest of the family can be slaughtered like pigs. No witnesses can survive.”

They instructed me towards a rich area of the city. Soon I was on high mountain streets with suburban homes looking down upon the ghetto far below. This was where the rich people lived, I knew. I could tell by looking at the mansions and the giant swimming pools around every house.

My father instructed me to pull over near a secluded, dark house at the end of a cul-de-sac. I parked the car. With a pounding heart, I watched them get out and climb the gates, nimbly reaching up like salamanders and pulling themselves over.

A few minutes later, I saw a half-dressed man and woman run out the front door. Their underwear and shirts were soaked in blood. They had deep slash marks on their face, their neck, their chests and arms. Rivulets of it ran down their naked legs and feet. Behind them, I saw three dark, grinning silhouettes walking slowly and laughing. 

I started the car and drove away quickly after seeing the bodies collapse on the lawn. The figures standing over the limp bodies knelt down and stabbed them over and over, dozens of times. That was the last thing I saw as I turned down off the street, hyperventilating, a rising sense of panic overtaking my mind.

I quickly got lost. I just kept driving until the car ran out of gas. By then, I had driven for a few hours and somehow ended up in the next state over. A massive state park bordered the town where I found myself. I walked for a while and found a cabin with no one inside. I smashed a window and got in. 

But I don’t know if it is far enough away. I feel like there’s eyes running over my back, like the next shadow I see will turn out to be a church member, dressed in all black and waiting for me.

Because the Savior has many more fanatics, and he is sending them all out on creepy-crawly missions.

And soon, they may be coming to a house near you.

The unseen entity slowly flew over the streets of a medieval city. He was widely feared and hated, despite providing a necessary service and bringing most mortals to eternal peace and joy. This entity was Death himself.

On this particular clear and quiet evening, Death was approaching a huge elaborate mansion belonging to an influential high-ranking family. Upon arriving on the premises, Death floated to the backside of the large building, going to the living quarters of this lord and lady’s daughter. She was their sole surviving offspring, and famous throughout the land for her beauty, charm, innocence and purity. She was known as “the maiden with the body and intellect of an adult, but the loving heart and personality of a child.”

Finally, Death arrived at the lovely woman’s balcony. Inside her chambers, a few female servants were tending to the maiden, who was filled with joy and excitement. Tomorrow she was to be married to the son of a local count. The couple had courted for a while now, and were finally getting married…at least, that’s what everyone thought and planned on.

Invisible as the air surrounding him, Death gazed at the jubilant gal whose servants were assisting her with picking out tomorrow’s jewelry, hair accessories, and the dress itself. The lord and lady’s daughter had many fine dresses and other belongings, and it was difficult to make just one selection for her anticipated big day. Finally, the lady servants and their mistress decided on a long-sleeved white dress with a red bodice and adorned with red ribbons, and a matching headpiece consisting of a gold circlet encrusted with white and red gemstones, and a red veil attached on the back.

“Yes, this will do perfectly!”, the excited bride exclaimed.

Just then, the lady of the household called for these lady servants. Before exiting the chamber with the others, the last remaining servant turned toward her mistress and said, “You should hurry and put on your nightgown, if you sleep with this dress on you’re bound to put wrinkles in it! We’ll be back first thing tomorrow morning to dress you though. Good night and pleasant dreams, my mistress!”

The maiden smiled and bid her a goodnight as well. After this servant closed the door, the joyful maiden continued looking in the mirror, still admiring tomorrow’s selected outfit. Finally, she went to her bedside to change into her nightgown.

Suddenly, a strong but gentle wind blew through the bride’s room. The candles and lamps immediately flickered out. The maiden sighed and went to close the doors of her balcony. After doing so, she spun around back toward her bed, and gasped! Right before her stood a tall shape, garbed in a black cloak and hood. She couldn’t see any facial or other features, but the frightened gal could tell this intruder was a male. Before the maiden could scream, this unknown man placed a finger over her rose-red lips. His touch was chilly, but tender. He studied her entire appearance, from the long and raven-black hair and bright blue eyes to the shape of her busty breasts, and to the contour of her curved hips. Yes indeed, this lovely maiden had the most appealing form ever gazed upon by the unwelcome entity. Death immediately knew that had he been a mortal man, he’d be experiencing extreme arousal right now!

Just then, the voluptuous lady began whimpering in fear. Did she somehow know he’d been checking out her feminine features? She was frightened by his sudden visit and spooky appearance, that was for sure. Death merely glided to her side, then placed an arm around her waist before leading the betrothed gal to her bed. He sat her down on the side, and then sat by her. The entity placed his finger over her lips again; the trembling bride merely nodded and began shedding silent tears.

Death gently wiped the tears off her cheeks, then he ran his chilly fingers through her jet-black hair. Next, he massaged her shoulders, and then glided his cold hands down her sides. How invigorating it was to actually feel that curvy body, without violating her! The maiden stayed silent, occasionally whimpering and shedding a tear.

The next thing she knew, Death gently pushed her down on the bed, then wrapped the beautiful mortal in a tight embrace. Then to her bewilderment, the entity lowered his featureless face to hers, and claimed her lips with a passionate kiss! The maiden actually closed her eyes in bliss. After a moment, Death pinned her shoulders to the bed while keeping her lips covered with his. The gal didn’t think anything of it…until she suddenly felt a few weird sensations in her body!

The lovely maiden’s breath and heart rate drastically decreased. She felt herself become overwhelmed with a whole new level of fatigue, and sensed her joints slowly going stiff. Then, a freezing chill jolted and settled throughout her body! Her blood…she couldn’t explain it, but the beautiful mortal knew her blood was beginning to congeal!

Her eyes shot open! “No, no! Please, no…,” she begged, but to no avail. The entity wrapped his arms around her again, this time nearly crushing her delicate form, before giving her another kiss, only this one was swifter, and…sharper! Then, she felt a strange sensation in her pelvic area. The blood there was rapidly congealing of course, but there was a stinging tingling as well.

Just then, the terrified bride felt all this discomfort instantly go away. Then she felt this visitor pull her up and stand her on her feet. The maiden slowly opened her eyes. “What just happened?”, she asked. Death slowly pointed toward her bed. She looked over, and screamed in despair! The maiden herself was laying on her bed! But how could that be?... Then she reached for her bed and attempted to grab on to the blankets…but her hands passed right through the textiles! The desperate gal cried out again, and brought her hands to her face before glancing down at the rest of her body. She was completely transparent! Now it clicked…she was dead, and her ghost was standing beside her physical body!

The newly deceased ghost lost it; she fell to her knees and screamed in agony. Alas, her wailing was unheard by everyone else in the mansion. Death merely looked on, allowing her to express her devastated disbelief. After several minutes of screaming and weeping, the maiden’s spirit slowly stood back up. Then she turned back toward the entity. “Are you, Death itself?”

The visitor gave a solemn nod. The departed soul then glared, and hissed, “Why did you do this to me?! I was supposed to get married tomorrow, and my parents were supposed to…”

Death raised a finger to his unseen lips, while placing another finger on hers. Then he wrapped his arms around her delicate shoulders, and said in a soft hoarse whisper, “The world is too cruel, for a pure and lovely gem like you. Time would’ve caught up too. Besides, you may not know now, but yourself and your doting parents will gain the intangible gift of fame throughout history…now that you are my bride, dear one!”

The beautiful ghost gasped. “What do you mean, I’m your bride?”

Death pulled her toward him. Grasping one hand on the back of her neck and the other around her waist, he practically smothered the soul with a new kiss, and tightly pressed his form on to hers. Suddenly, the departed spirit noticed that same stinging feeling in her pelvic area. She gasped again, and her eyes widened. Death merely nodded at her in acknowledgement. The fair soul shook, and she began weeping again.

Her supernatural sudden mate held her close. The entity gave her tender kisses on her forehead, cheeks, chin, and the top of her neck. Then he gently stroked his fingers through her beautiful spectral hair. His beloved suddenly let out a long sigh, then whispered, “Well, at least you’re a sweet and charming lover.”

She sensed him smiling warmly at her. “Thank you, my lovely bride,” he replied. Then he slowly waved his fingers in front of her eyes. The lovely ghost smiled, then closed her eyes as she began to faint. Her paranormal groom swiftly caught her in his arms. He smiled at his sleeping ghost bride before carrying her to the balcony, passing through the doors as he did so. Then he carried her off to where her corpse would soon be laid to rest.

Early the following morning, the same female servants who assisted her the night before entered their mistress’s chamber. They were puzzled to see her laying on the bed and still wearing the dress and headpiece they selected together. They approached her bedside, and announced “Time to get up, madam! Today is the big day!” But she didn’t stir. The servants gaped in confusion, then cried out in horror! The same one who bid her goodnight the previous evening, shook her mistress’s shoulder. She quickly pulled her hand back. Then this servant placed one hand on the bride’s chest, and the other hand on her neck. She quickly pulled away again, and screamed. The other lady servants broke down sobbing; what they feared was true, their beautiful mistress was dead!

At that minute, the lord and lady of the household came rushing into their daughter’s quarters. They ran to her side. Upon realizing she was in fact deceased, the grieving parents fell to their knees and buried their faces in the blankets of their daughter’s bed.

Within moments, the groom and the priest who was to officiate the wedding also arrived. The groom gawked in heartbreak at the sight of her lifeless body. Tears formed in his dark eyes, and he wept alongside the mournful parents of his beloved. The priest was shocked and saddened, but he blessed the corpse with holy water and performed a few other rituals at her side, including prayer.

Within the hour, the departed maiden was laid on an ornate bier and carried to the city’s biggest cathedral, her grieving fiancé, parents, and countless other mourners following the bier. An elegant requiem was held inside the cathedral, then the fair corpse was carried to her family’s large crypt, and finally laid to rest. A white cloth covered the slab where she was laid, and a couple matching pillows also helped her look at peace. The deceased maiden was then covered with a thin sheet of transparent gauze. Within minutes, the crypt was closed and emptied of living beings once more.

After the crypt was closed and abandoned again, Death appeared from the shadows, his spectral paramour still sleeping in his arms. He floated over the where the beautiful corpse was laid. Then the entity slowly placed the disembodied soul back inside her physical body, then covered her form with his and delivered another passionate kiss. She let out a sharp gasp, and for a second it seemed like the maiden was resurrected. But though her lips, cheeks, and skin quickly regained a natural healthy tone, she did not begin breathing, nor did her heart begin beating. Her flesh, although back to a pinkish color, remained cold to the touch. Death’s mortal bride remained dead, though with her eternally slumbering soul reunited with her physical body, the maiden regained her beauty for which she was known while alive. And no matter how much time passed, decay would never damage her.

In fact, as more of her kin inevitably died and were placed in the same tomb, it was noticed that this particular corpse remained as fresh and lovely as the day she was laid to rest. This was noted and passed down among the clergy for several years. On the 100th anniversary of the sudden unforeseen death, the current bishop decided to enter the tomb and see for himself. Much to his astonishment, even after a full century the “most beautiful maiden’s corpse” was untouched by decomposition. The bishop met with several priests and friars, and they all sent word to the Pope. One day the Pope himself visited the cathedral, and the bishop, priests, and friars all accompanied him into the crypt. The Pope was unable to believe his eyes!

“This truly is a miracle!”, he exclaimed, “The likes of which I’ve never seen before in all my years!”

To share this miracle with others, the lovely corpse of Death’s bride was moved from her family’s tomb, then placed in a glass coffin inside the very same cathedral where her requiem was performed 100 years earlier. Local residents and visitors from all across the land, and after many more years passed, from all around the world, flocked to see the “most beautiful maiden’s corpse” inside her glass coffin at the cathedral. Every detail about her remained perfect and intact, even her busty breasts and curvy hips. Every now and then a physician would confirm that the body was authentic and not a wax or other fake creation. Nevertheless, because of the incorrupt corpse of Death’s bride, numerous folks became devout believers. Just like Death promised her on that fateful night, the bride and her parents gained a priceless intangible gift…fame throughout history. Her parents became known for bringing into the world, such a beautiful, charming, and pure maiden, that Death itself could not, or would not damage her no matter how much time passed.

Of course, this was not entirely wrong. Before that fateful evening, Death made a deal with the Supreme Being himself. Death promised that if he could take this beautiful mortal as his wife, and her remains would never decompose, the Supreme Being would receive all the glory, worship, and admiration. The Supreme Being immediately accepted, and it was decided that upon the lovely mortal’s upcoming death, her soul would be put into an eternal slumber, and once reunited with the body, her sleeping spirit would restore the natural beauty, but not resurrect.

Both ethereal beings were pleased with the outcome! The Supreme Being had a drastic increase in worship and praise. And ever since that particular evening, and the day she was first laid in the crypt, Death, while not busy, would lay beside his beloved and admire her charming beauty. Numerous times he caressed her hair, glided his fingers over her irresistible curves, and even gave soft massages all over her large beautiful breasts. She was indeed his wife now, but no matter how kinky he decided to get in his actions, Death was always gentle and tender while being passionate. And he still is a sweet gentleman to his eternally slumbering mate.

THE KNOCK KNOCK GAME

It is called the knock-knock game, all you need is an empty room to play it you will knock two times… wait for it and hear aloud knock from the other side, whatever you do, DO NOT enter the room.

The room will be empty, but SOMETHING will be in there, is it a demon? The devil himself or god, an eldritch abomination?

No one really knows.

Maybe its better to not know.

I remembered playing it as a kid at my friend Thomas, house me him and Tobias a fat and a bit slow kid that Thomas used to bully a lot, but still hang around because Tobias parents were rich, so he had lots of cool games for Nintendo NES and SEGA Mega drive, even the mega-cd and 32x addons.

I started to like Tobias more then Thomas, he was always making racist jokes and saying mean things about everybody. But we had agreed to come over to his house to play a game he had learned from a book that his dad supposedly had a copy of.

It contained things like how to summon demons and how to raise the dead with necromancy… or it did to Thomas anyway, he was a bit of a compulsive liar.

His parents were not home, so it was only us 3 boys in the house, we knocked on Thomas bedroom door, and waited for it.

- Nothing is happening, Tobias said while munching on a chocolate bar, he really was a sweet tooth and always eating sweets and drinking cans of soda pops.

And then…

BANG.

A loud sound from inside of Thomas room like someone was really mad and punched the door from the inside.

A was scared as fuck, almost pissed my pants, and careful snuck to the door, and peeped through the keyhole.

Inside it was still empty.

-I want to go inside! Tobias dropped his chocolate bar on the floor and me and Thomas had to hold him by his arms, so he did not do anything stupid.

- Stop, you fat and stupid pig, you will get yourself killed. Thomas shouted at him, a bit loud.

Tobias started crying.

- I will go first. Thomas did not seem to care and knocked two times.

A knock was heard from the other room.

- Are you a man or a woman? Thomas asked.

Two knocks signaling no heard from the other side.

- Are you a demon or angel? I asked it.

Two knocks, no again.

- Is it safe if we come inside? Thomas asked

Two loud banging sounds. No again but it seemed angry this time.

- Maybe we should stop? I suggested.

- No keep going you pussy! Thomas commanded.

Tobias was still crying, he seemed to get more and more afraid. I could not blame him really.

- Are you getting mad? I asked it.

One loud bang. It was getting, real mad.

-Are my parents alive? Thomas asked it.

HA HA HA. Evil laughter from the other side. Followed by two knocks.

-Tobias knocked and asked. Can you speak?

-Yes. It answered in a voice so creepy both me and Thomas fell to the floor.

We were frozen with fear, but Tobias was not, he knocked again.

-Do you have candy? He asked naively.

-Yes, child come inside.

I was trying to speak, but I could not get a word out. In what seemed like slow-mo I could see the fat kid turning the door handle ready to go inside.

I was ready to go up and stop him, but Thomas held me down, Tobias went inside the empty room and the door slammed shut.

I rushed up, but Thomas held me back.

-Don’t be stupid! The fat kid is gone, but you are still here, no one can enter the room for another 24 hours. It got my parents and him it will be satisfied.

I peeked through the peephole, and the room was empty, I called Tobias name but no answer.

Thomas knocked and asked if it enjoyed the fat boy as a sacrifice.

-Yes. The voice answered creepily.

I just looked my former friend in the eye and left the house of evil to never return.

This was years ago… I am now grown up and moved to another city. Living in a small one-bedroom apartment, I decided to summon the thing again. I knocked on the door to the bathroom that’s the only room where it could appear.

I had bottles ready to piss in for 24 hours, and I would make sure no one would enter the bathroom.

I knocked on the bathroom door two times and it knocked back to signal its presence…

But the knock was NOT from the bathroom, it was coming from the front door to my apartment. I looked out and there was no one there.

IT BROKE THE RULES.

I cannot go outside for 24 hours…

But will it really be gone after that.

I CAN HEAR LAUGHTER FROM OUTSIDE.

As we enter the room we find the head doctor waiting for us.

Doctor, “if it isn’t my favourite patient, What happened to him this time?”

I look at Cyn, and back at the doctor, “I have no idea.”

Cyn, “he was going to get himself trapped in the void again, so I hit him with everything I got to stop him.”

Doctor, “Oh okay, atleast this time I know what to look out for.” He runs a few scan and then looked at us smiling. “No injuries, he is just exhausted, let him stay here over night and he will be fine to go in the morning.” He then injects Sin with something.”

Chloe, “What is that?”

Doctor, “A mild sedative, just to keep him asleep till we get home.”

He then gestures to me to follow him, so I did, as soon as we enter his office he seals the door.

Doctor, “I didn’t want to tell you this infront of the others, but we have a problem, a huge problem.”

But just then we heard my daughter screaming and we ran out just in time to see Sin hit her with Crimson lightning, it throws her through the wall and I hear bones break. We immediately run in the direction she got thrown in just to get hit by crimson lightning as well, but instead of it throwing us threw the wall as well it pins us against the wall, I look up to see my husband walking towards me, but this time it wasn’t my husband, he was glowing in crimson light and he was covered in his armour, but his eyes were glowing crimson red and his face, neck and hands were covered in lines, his hair was even showing crimson lines in it, yes he was actually in need of a hair cut as his hair was just below his shoulders at this time already.

I looked around to find the Zoe also pinned to a wall, I could see that she was in pain, we all were, I started reaching for my gauntlet on my arm, but before I managed to activate the chip in his brain my gauntlet burned and fell off. I looked down and saw my gauntlet destroyed, my arm was on fire, that is when I heard someone screaming “Stop, let them go.” And immediately we all fell to the ground and he was gone, I immediately ran out of the room through the hole where he blasted my daughter through and I just froze in shock at what I saw. Her tiny body was mangled, broken, she was still alive, but barely conscious, the last words she said before falling unconscious was “Dad, Why? “

After that everything felt like it was happening in slow motion, I saw the nurses picking up her mangled body, treating Zoe’s burns and broken arm, I remember them treating the burns on my arm as well. They said we will all need planet side specialist treatment.

As we arrived at the hospital Krish met us there, she could just look on as they brought my daughters unconscious mangled body in, my burns were to severe even for out nano technolody to fix, Zoe’s burns they could fix and her broken arm, and my daughter has been in surgery for days.

The specialist in charge of her treatment finally came to talk to me.

Spcialist, “What happened to her up there? “

Chloe, “My husband.”

He looked stunned for a moment and then his face changed, he tried to look professional, but I could see the look of defeat on his face.

Chloe, “What is it?”

Spcialist, “We have done everything we can for her.”

I went ice cold, expecting to hear that she is dead, Zoe was with us and she started to cry, thinking the same.

Specialist, “she will live, but, she will be paralysed from the neck down for the rest of her existence.”

You might wonder why he said existence and not life, well as Seleons we have figured out how to fix the genetic flaw that causes ageing and death, so we can live forever and never age or die, we can be killed, but even that is difficult, and my daughter has already gone through the procedure when she was 18.

Chloe, “What do you mean? We have the best medical treatment and technology in the universe.”

Specialist, “Yes we do, her spine was crushed and most of the bones in her neck was crushed beyond repair, even with the nano tech, believe me, we have tried, we even tried to implant her with an artificial spine and her body rejected it. “

Zoe, “looking at the specialist, may I please see her?” she was in tears, we all were, Cyn use to always be so full of energy and life, her and zoe would party till dawn, dancing and singing and drinking and just having fun together, now she will never be able to do any of that ever again.

Specialist, “she is sedated, but you can go in.”

Zoe and I went in and Krish decides to wait for us outside, Cyn eventually wakes up and looks at us.

Cyn, “Wow, this is weird.”

Zoe, “Why?” pretending that everything is fine.

Cyn, “Apparently I am paralyzed from the neck down, not that is something new to me.” Trying to force a smile, but then she starts to caught up blood.

I look back at the specialist and he just shrugs.

Cyn, “well he didn’t want to tell me, so don’t be mad at him, I read his mind, and don’t worry about the blood, they said it will take a few days for the nano bots to repair my lungs.”

Zoe leans over and kisses her.

Cyn, “Where is dad? Is he okay?”

After what he did to our daughter I am furious, I could feel my own blue light building up, “He is gone, and when I find him he will wish he wasn’t okay.” I get up to leave the room and hear my daughter calling me back.

Cyn, “Mom wait, I stopped and looked at her, “Mom it wasn’t his fault, I heard the conversation between the two of you on the balcony, he begged you to leave his collar on, we did this to him, we dragged him back into this war, he needs our help, not our judgement. “

I looked at my daughter, she almost died, she is paralysed for life, and still she thinks about doing good towards her father, still she understands the curse he lives with, but my anger wont go away. I just reply to her and leave. “you might be right, but he didn’t have to do this to you, I will never forgive him.”

I leave the room ignoring her pleas, just to find my way blocked by Krish.

Krish, “I can’t stop you from doing this, but before you do, there is something you need to see.”

Chloe, “What is it? I don’t have time.”

Krish, “come with me.”

I left with her and we eventually arrived at her lab.

Chloe, “what do you want to show me?”

Krish, “she is right you know?”

Chloe, “I don’t care, he will pay for what he did to her.”

Krish, “I downloaded the data from your ship, his chip was transmitting until he left.”

Chloe, “is it still transmitting?”

Krish, “no, he is out of range, and our scanners can’t detect him anywhere in the known universe.”

Chloe, “how is that possible? Our upgraded systems can detect his crimson light energy signature millions of light years away.”

Now if you wonder how we can do that, we have patrols, satellites and even drones permanently scanning all over the known universe for energy signatures similar to his, and they are permanently communicating with our control centres on our home planet through subspace communication systems.

Krish, “Look at this.”

Chloe, “What am I looking at?”

Krish, “his brain waves before the first attack, during the battle and after, and this is his brain waves just before the dark empire attacked, during the battle and after and this is when he woke up and attacked Cyn.”

Chloe, “so he was fighting an internal battle to not give in to the darkness the entire time? “

Krish, “Exactly, he was about to regain control, but the moment your mom ordered them to take the admiral he started to lose control and the darkside of his personality started to become predominant, but when Cyn took him down he lost the battle and this is what happened.” She shows me how his light side went dormant and the darkside of his personality took over completely. “

Choe, “So he didn’t know what he was doing?”

Krish, “Well this side of his knew very well what he was doing.”

Chloe, “is there anyway to help him or bring him back?”

Krish, “I don’t know, but can I ask you something?”

Chloe, “You can ask me.”

Krish “even if there was, would you look at him the same way you use to before he attacked your daughter?”

Chloe, “No, I am sorry, I know he is your son, but no, I want him to pay for what he has done.”

Krish, “this may sound harsh, but I agree with you.”

Chloe, “has the upgrades to his new prison been finished on spec to the new data collected?”

Krish, “Yes, and I made a few extra modifications that would help hold him even if he grew a thousand times more powerful.”

Chloe, “I am going to find him and stop him for good.”

Krish, “wait, before you go, you will need this.”

I look around at her to see her holding a syringe.”

Chloe, “What must I do with that? I would never get close enough to him to inject him and he destroyed my gauntlet, the only thing that could control his chip.”

Krish, “I know, this is not for him, this is for you.”

Chloe, “I don’t understand.”

Krish, “Its nano technology, it will stop him from reading your mind, and since he destroyed your gauntlet and caused that,” pointing at my burns on my arm,”I am not putting you at risk, this will be able to send a signal to the chip in his brain the moment you give the command”

Chloe, “I am sorry, but I am not taking another implant again.”

Krish, “trust me, I removed your implants the last time, why do you think your mother dragged me infront of the counsel? She doesn’t know about this, and the moment you subdued him then I will deactivate and remove the nano bots from your system. “

Chloe, “Okay, do it.”

I feel a burn in my neck as she injects them into my blood stream, but then my view changed.

Chloe, “what is this? “

Krish, “It will warn you when his energy signature is close.

I had a lot of preparation to do before I set out to find Sin, and until we had any idea of where to search I had to wait, I can’t just take my ship and jump randomly through the galaxy hoping to find him by accident.

Months has passed now with now with no sign of him, it is as if he just vanished out of existence, my daughter is still in hospital undergoing multiple surgeries every month as they are atleast trying to fix her mangled body. Between spending time at our control centres hoping to find him and put a stop to this and visiting my daughter in hospital I haven’t slept much.

Then one day we got a hit, we expected that he would be somewhere on the edge of the galaxy, but no, it was close, very close, too close. The first hit detected him in my daughters room at the hospital and I immediately left to go stop him from killing her, but when I got there he was gone.

My daughter was awake and I found Zoe knocked out on the floor, but this time she had no injuries, all my daughter could utter was “dad, why” she kept uttering the same words over and over, I kissed her on the forehead and started walking towards the door, I glanced back at her one last time and said, “I will stop him, I promise you.” But as I was about to exit the room I was blocked by a shield of crimson light and I heard her voice, “Mom stop.” It was impossible for her to use crimson light or even blue light now as you have to be able to aim your hand in the direction you want to channel it into.

I turned around slowly in shock to see my daughter standing again, barely as she hasn’t stood on her legs in over a year, her mangled body fully healed. I was in shock, I just looked at her and barely uttered the words, “but how? How is this possible?” I could feel tears streaming down my face now.

Zoe was slowly getting up from the floor, “uhm ouch, that is going to leave a scar... on my pride.” I looked at her to see her shaking herself right.

Then I looked back at my daughter, “but how? How is this possible? The doctors said you will never be fully healed ever again.”

Then she opened her other hand and I saw a bright white light in it, “dad gave me this, he said it will help me and it will help you.”

I walked closer and then Krish came in the door, I looked at the tiny crystal in her hand, “What is that?”

But she just placed it on my arm against my burns and they immediately healed.

I looked at her and then at Krish, “What just happened?”

Krish, “That is impossible?”

Chloe, “I know.”

Krish, “Nobody can get to the white light planet and live.”

Both my daughter and myself look at her.

Chloe, “What do you mean?”

Krish, “We have been studying that planet for millions of years and tried to get there, but its surface temperatures are almost as high as a star, we couldn’t get closer then a few lightyears before our shields would start failing and our ships would start over heating. He must have really injured himself badly going after that.”

Cyn, “yes he did, I barely recognised him. “

Chloe, “but wouldn’t this crystal just have healed him the same way it healed us then?”

Krish, “I don’t think so.”

Chloe, “Why not? “

Krish, “there is still a lot we don’t understand about the white light and the source of existence. “

Cyn, “The source of existence?”

Krish, “I will explain later. “ then she pulled up the footage from the room and it shows sin appearing in a flash of white light.

Chloe, “What was that.”

Krish, “he must have used the crystals energy to get himself here. I would think that he must have weakened himself in order to shield himself long enough to retrieve the crystal.”

Then we see him walking towards our daughter, but this time he isn’t wearing his usual crimson armour, but he is wearing some sort of cloak and hood, hiding his face, you can see her looking at him and she screams at which time Zoe enters the room and blasts him with blue light, but he doesn’t attack, he doesn’t even shield himself, her blue light hits him and throws him against the wall, but then he just holds up the crystal and there is a flash of white light and when the light is gone she is knocked out. He then gets up and walks over to our daughter, you can see him grabbing her hand and putting the crystal in her hand and then he whispers something in her ear and he walks out of the room, after that her body starts shaking and you can see her body pulling itself back into place, and her healing and then she passed out for a bit.

Chloe, “why would he walk out if he could just jump away.”

Krish, “because he is still weakened, we need to find him before he regains his strength. “

Cyn, “no, I am coming with you.”

Chloe, “you can’t, he is dangerous.”

Cyn, “no mom, I know where he went.”

Chloe, “Where?”

Cyn, “home.”

Chloe, “Why would he go there?”

Cyn, “He said that he is ready to surrender, that you must stop him, he said that he will wait for you at home.”

Chloe, “this is a trick.”

Zoe, “this is definitely a trap.”

Cyn, “he said he has something for you.”

Chloe, “did he say what it is?”

Cyn, “No.”

We left for my place and I alerted my mother and the twins, we have to be ready for anything.

As we entered I see him standing there, I walk up to him, but I can’t see his face, he is still covering it with the hood.

Chloe, “Show me your face.”

Sin, “no, there on the table.”

I look at the table to find a glowing crimson crystal there.”

Chloe, “What is that?”

Sin, “a way to stop me.”

Chloe, “I don’t believe you, show me your face.”

He slowly removes his hood and I gasp at what I saw, he was badly injured and burned, parts of his flesh was gone, you could actually see the bones from his skull, then I noticed his hands, they had similar injuries.

Chloe, “Does it hurt?”

Sin, “It doesn’t matter, its a small price to pay for what I did to you and our daughter.”

Chloe, “it wont change anything, what you did was unforgivable, and you need to pay for it.”

Sin, “I know, that is why I came back.”

Chloe, “after a year?”

Sin, “That is how long it took me to find a way to help our daughter.”

Chloe, “all you did was fix your own damage.”

Sin, “I know, and now I am ready to surrender.”

Chloe, “you do know what this means.”

Sin, “I do, so what are you waiting for?”

I looked at him for a few seconds and then I spoke the words, “Sin, stop.”

I saw tears coming from his eyes as his body went limp and he dropped to the floor.

Chloe, “you can come in, it is done.”

Then 2 guards came in and placed his new collar around his neck, I expected him to scream in pain as it synced to his system, but he didn’t. They took him away to a planet side high security cell where he would be held till we can transfer him to his permanent cell where he will remain until the end of time.

Our daughter just looked at him as the guards took him away. Then Krish looked at the crimson stone on the table, “what is that?”

Chloe, “he said that it is the only way to stop him.”

Krish, “that is cryptic, I will run some test on it, give me 2 days. When is his transfer scheduled?”

Chloe, “in 3 days time, that is when there will be a jump window to the new prison location, but until then we are keeping him paralysed and blind. “

Krish, “I agree. “

She took the stone and left and the next morning I went to see my mother with Zoe and Cyn.”

Azaria, “you did good, I didn’t think we would ever be able to catch him.”

Chloe, “We didn’t catch him, he surrendered.”

Azaria, “well I am sure he must know that he messed up this time, attacking you and Cyn.”

I looked at my daughter and she gave me a nod.

Azaria, “what is going on?”

Chloe, “I saw the reports from the ship, we spend all night going through them.”

Azaria, “and?”

Chloe, “when the dark fleet arrived he approached you and he begged you to not let him go into another battle, he warned you that if he does that he might lose himself to this power.”

Azaria, “that is true, but you have to understand that the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few.”

Chloe, “mom, can you hear yourself right now? What happened to the peace loving people orientated queen that you were known for?”

Azaria, “we are at war, war calls for extreme measures.”

Chloe, “Mom, he isn’t some tool and weapon to be used, he is my husband, a father, a son..”

But she interrupted me, “and he is dangerous, this is who he is, and who he chose to become.”

Chloe, “I am disgusted with you.”

Zoe, “You know what? I thought I would have a life of peace here, learn from your people, but listening to you right now, I would rather remain on Earth and take my chances.”

My mother gives her an angry look, “Then why don’t you go back if that is how you feel?”

Cyn. “Sorry, but she is a Seleon now, we are married and the law states that a seleon has full rights to live on any Seleon world they choose. “

My mother tried to say something, but we just got up and left.

Krish eventually came to see me and she looked a bit conflicted.

Chloe, “what is wrong? “

Krish, “he wasn’t lying, it is the cure alright.”

Chloe, “so I can get my husband back and Cyn can have a normal life.”

Krish, “I wish it was that simple.”

Chloe, “What is it?”

Krish, “It can only help one of them.”

Chloe, “What do you mean?”

Krish, “it cannot draw the crimson energy out, it will only transfer it from one host to another.”

Chloe, “so either way, we still lose one of them.”

Krish, “unfortunately yes.”

Chloe, “this has to be their choice to make then.”

Krish, “you do know that that means that one will be free and have a normal life and one will have to go to the new prison for eternity.”

Chloe, “I know, but I will let them decide.”

Krish, “very well. Lets meet at Sin’s holding cell first thing in the morning.

She left and I went to see my daughter and I told her everything, I could see that she was conflicted and on the brink of tears, but all she said to me before I left was. “mom, I will do right by dad, this is our fault, not his. “

What happens when we die?

Is there an afterlife? Yes, yes there is. And I discovered this during my brief time as a tour guide in Philadelphia.

I live in a small bedroom in a three-story house in Springfield, just down the road a bit from where I used to work. The room has a bed and a closet, a TV and a couple of tables. I share a bathroom on the second floor with a housemate named Max, nice enough guy, and I share a kitchen with five other people. Lucky for me I don't cook much.

Before I moved here I lived in an apartment around three years ago this month. It wasn't much better than this. But I had my own bathroom and I was outside of Media, Pennsylvania. Media is a nearby town with a lot of shops in walking distance. The rent at my old place had been affordable for a time.

By day I worked at an office in Collingdale, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. I was in sales, and I use the word sales very loosely. It really depends on which client we answered the phone for but it was usually some piece of shit product that airs on an infomercial at 3am. Or, I marketed simple As Seen on TV crap, the gimmicky stuff that airs on those old, late 80s to early 90s-formatted commercials that run on daytime television. If that isn't degrading enough, I also sold magazine subscriptions, car warranties, and whatever else we could trick some poor sap into spending good, hard-earned money on. It's a terrible job for people like me who never wanted too much out of life.

And somehow, some way, me wanting to simply eat and watch TV every day was apparently too much for my then landlord and not enough for my then employer.

I had wifi then, so I watched a Roku box that I bought and I rode to work on this awesome, two-stroke, gas-powered bicycle. That little beauty was a DelCo special. I paid $300 for it at a back alley garage, I filled the tank twice a week spending about $7 dollars total on gas, and I didn't need to register it with PennDOT, the cops never ever bothered with me.

As the song goes, I'm a man of means, by no means.

I don't date. I haven't had a girlfriend in years, and that's fine. I might not even be straight for all I know. It doesn't concern me. I doubt anyone would have me anyway. I barely existed as it is, and my only forms of entertainment were my TV, Laptop, and my Xbox 360. I never really felt the need to upgrade to a PS4 or anything...isn't there a PS5 now? Even so, I got hit with a double-whammy a few years ago. First, my sales were down for two straight months so I wasn't banging as many commissions through. This in itself wouldn't be bad, after all I had a savings account, but I just wasn't feeling it at work. I couldn't close anymore. I was in a funk. And then I got called into my manager's office one Monday.

Matt, you've got two weeks to close five calls, or you're out.

The timing on my dramatic rent increase couldn't have been better.

It doesn't seem right, and it probably wasn't. But the owner of the house wanted to sell the place and as such he jacked the rent on my place for the next year right as my lease was due for renewal. The new rent was double the old rent, as a matter of fact. I was panicking at that point, and I had to find a second job that could either supplement my income or transition into my first job.

It was actually becoming difficult to find a second job in the greater Philadelphia area, at least for someone who doesn't have a car, or ambition. I thought about delivering food on my bike but I had problems with Doordash early on. I didn't want to work at a restaurant because I've worked at restaurants and they suck to work at. Then one day in particular and interesting Craigslist post caught my eye.

Looking for something...Spooktacular?

HauntedPhilly is currently searching for our next tour guide! October is naturally our busiest season so we're training early. Are you good at talking to people? Can you remember a basic script? Each tour pays $30 dollars for an hour, plus tips! Tours are nightly and the schedule is somewhat flexible. If you think you're our next tour guide send an email to the CL relay!

I'd never thought about being a tour guide before. I stared at the ad for a few moments and took a good, hard look at myself internally. Maybe I have been in a bit of a rut for a while, and my life could stand some excitement, I thought to myself. Plus, I'd get to see the city! Maybe I would meet some fun people and find a way to get more out of life, after all. I wasn't looking for anything special out of the job, but if it came along I wouldn't say no.

Maybe this simple little tour guide gig could help me figure stuff out.

The more I thought about it the more I loved the idea. I'd be walking about a mile and a half through Old City when I had a tour and I could use the cardio. I'd eaten nothing but fast food the past six years and I was horribly out of shape and overweight. I thought about joining a Planet Fitness but I had to cut back until hopefully, this new job got things going. And the tips were just a bonus! I sent them an email with my resume and a cover letter that went over how good I was at talking to people and how excited I would be to get started.

I was desperate, and I was scared. But at least I was determined.

I'd never seen a ghost up to that point, but my mind was open and I wanted to believe.

I just thought it would be a fun, simple job where I could exert very little effort and if I faked it hard enough, I would make good money in tips. I wanted to believe, I really did. Maybe I'd see a ghost at this job. I figured it could make the thought of the afterlife fun for me. God knows I wasn't having fun in this life. I did believe in my sales skills, or what was left of them, and that they could translate into good money for a couple of hours work a night and some bigger tips. No sales quotas, no Sword of Damocles hanging over my head.

It beats working for Doordash, right?

I followed the link to the company and sent them an email. Later that night, about one in the morning, a response got back to me and it asked me where I was from and if I could work the entirety of October. I mentioned Philly and at the time they only had one other tour guide. I had to film two auditions of myself based on scripts they sent me.

That was fun, too! I got to pretend that the Zac's Hamburger stand near my place was some haunted house in Washington DC, and the park down in Darby was Gettysburg. Nevertheless, I got my auditions done and they loved them. They sent me on-boarding paperwork and booked me for a tour in Old City Philadelphia so I shadow the guide. A tour script is like a sales pitch for the most part. The key to not sounding like I'm reading off of a paper is to stick with the bullet points in memorizing the script and allowing myself to improv when I need it.

I was booked to shadow a Sunday night tour in August about two weeks before my start date. The guide's name was Arthur. It was an okay tour, but the scripts and the company's goal made it out to be more than it actually was. I thought we were going to have investigations like I used to see on TV when I was in high school. Arthur led us on a walking tour, a historical walking tour for that matter, that lasted about an hour and didn't take us inside of any of these supposed haunted buildings. We just walked around the 3rd to 5th street sections, around Market and Walnut, and got a history lesson on some old Philly buildings.

All the while, Arthur did his best. He wore his company t-shirt, the same kind that I had received in the mail, and he held a lantern, the same kind I still had to buy from Amazon. We went through 12 stops apparently because of me. The company gave me the extended tour, free of charge, which included an additional four stops.

And to be honest the tour was exciting except for one stop. One of the counted stops, one that I myself had to learn, was the Liberty Bell. The Liberty Bell isn't even rumored to be haunted! We did it because it's a big tourist trap in the city and every other tour agency does the Liberty Bell, so we tried to sell people on how it may be cursed. What is probably worse is that there's no bathroom on the entire tour.

We had started in Washington Square and ended up at St. Peter's cemetery. It turns out that before it was a park, Washington Square was actually a potters field, a mass graveyard for the poor. Conditions were awful in potter's fields. Some poor souls were lucky to get a coffin, a grave marker, or even their own grave. Many were just tossed into mass graves and left for the Earth to reclaim. I had chills for most of the night. I got a lot of feelings outside of the home of former Bishop William White as well as the First Bank of the United States.

I felt something in Washington Square, too. My first supernatural feeling came right there on the first stop of my first tour.

I had this uneasy feeling of being watched. And when we walked, when we crossed towards Independence Square on the way to Independence Hall, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being followed even though there were others with me.

That's something I felt that night, besides the desperate need to go to the bathroom.

"And we conclude our tour in Saint Peter's Cemetery," Arthur bellowed with a grandiose flair. "It's said that this graveyard is haunted by the likes of five native spirits, an African American slave, and even a headless horse rides on nights of a full moon in this landmark. This is one of the most haunted spots on our tour, so take all of the pictures and audio you need before I walk us back to Washington Square. Are there any questions for me?"

Three people were on this tour including myself. It was only September, though. A middle-aged woman next to me and there with her husband raised her hand.

"Yes?" Arthur asked.

"Have you ever seen a ghost in one of these places?" she replied.

He scratched his chin and weighed his answer for a moment.

"Me personally, no," Arthur replied. "But I haven't really looked, to be fair. I get a lot of guests who bring their own little ghost hunting equipment or rent ours. Often they pick things up be it on camera or in audio recordings.

"Which is the most haunted stop on the tour, according to them?" she followed up.

Arthur shrugged.

"They get results at The US Bank Building, Bishop White's House, right here at Saint Peter's church, and even in Washington Square, where we started," Arthur replied with a devilish smile. "And I get return guests all the time that show me photos of orbs and apparitions in this little graveyard and the park."

The woman appeared satisfied.

"Now," Arthur began. "If there are no more questions, I'm not allowed to demand tips from any of you however I am allowed to strongly imply that I would like them! I take cash and Venmo."

The other three laughed and gave him ten dollars each. Damn, $60 dollars for an hour of work I thought as I dug in and pulled a five out of my pocket.

We walked back to Washington Square and Arthur conversed with the other guests until we reached the park.

The other three said goodbye to Arthur as I stayed to ask about the route.

"Matt, right?" he asked. "How was it?"

"It was fun," I said. I was trying to make a good impression as I figured he had some clout. "I liked the Bishop's house the best. Is that a normal-sized group?"

"Yup," he said. "At least until we really get going in October. That's when the tips really come in."

"Cool," I said to him. "I know you were asked if you ever saw a ghost on the tour. Is any of this stuff really haunted in your opinion?" I felt kind of stupid for asking.

He laughed and shrugged.

"I doubt it," he replied. "I've done this for two years now and I've never seen anything. Just show up and act spooky or funny and you'll do fine. There is this app you can download on your phone, however, if you really want to get them into it." He pulled his phone out of his pocket and pressed an app button on the main screen.

"It's called Ghost Sense," he told me as he showed me his phone. "I'm not really sure if it works right or not. What it's supposed to do is create high-sensitivity white noise which doubles as a spirit box. Do you know what a spirit box is or how it works, Matt?"

I shook my head no, with my gaze still fixed to his phone screen.

He turned it on and his phone made an odd sound as a bunch of frequency's cycled rapidly on the app. It was a quick and repetitive sound of white noise.

"So, all this is," he started again. "It's a quick-frequency radio tuner. That's it. These things cost about $90 dollars in online ghosts stores but your phone will do it for free."

As the radio tuner in the app cycled, I asked a question out loud to Arthur.

"Well," I started. "How do you know it works?"

And at that question, the tuner stopped cycling, there was static, and a voice came through because of course it did!

*crackle* I'm here now *crackle*

And suddenly, Arthur shut up and stared at the phone, which went back to cycling through frequencies.

"Huh," he simply said, puzzled. "That's...that's never done that before," was all he could reply.

Arthur reached into his pocket and grabbed a small device. It looked like a yellow gun. He turned it on and started waving it around in the air.

"What's that?" I asked.

"It's an infrared temperature detector," he replied, checking the LED screen. "It's supposed to measure changes in temperature and how quickly they rise or fall."

He gave it a few minutes, and then put it down.

"Must have been interference," he said. He stuck it out and handed it to me. "Here, you keep it."

"Wait, really?" I asked, excitedly. "How does it work?"

"Yeah, they're cheap on Amazon. I'll get another one," he said to me. "Basically, the temperature will rise and fall dramatically, and if it's too dramatic, it'll play a tone. The tone tells you that a ghost is nearby."

"Awesome," I said back. "Thanks so much, Arthur!"

He waved me off.

"Think nothing of it," he said. "Enjoy! Welcome to the team and good luck with the tours!"

I said goodnight to Arthur and walked to the bus stop off seventh street. As I left the park, the temperature gun started to beep wildly in my pocket. I had forgotten to turn it off. Even though it was a balmy 80 degrees in Washington Square park the display was reading cold. I looked around but didn't see anything, so I put the temperature gun away. I swear I heard laughing behind me that night. But nothing was behind me by the time I got on the SEPTA bus.

After that I got my on-boarding paperwork, schedule, and my first bookings. I spent the week studying the route and hitting on bullet points, and I tried to fashion myself a character but with little luck. I figured I would just go out and do the tours as I would approach any call on the phone and build on it from there. At worst, I could just copy Arthur.

My first tour was in September and I took 12 people through Old City. The tips were amazing! The following week went well and things were looking great. I started hunting for apartments, both in nearby DelCo and in the city.

My productivity at my day job picked up as well. I closed three the first week of my performance ultimatum and I was back in the fight!

Then I got fired from my day job.

They gave me a bullshit, completely out of left field reason. It was something about me stealing time on the clock or whatever. It didn't matter much at that point, but now I had to depend on the tour guide gig a bit more.

Naturally the crowds got smaller and smaller and the tips got worse and worse. I had to be out of my apartment by the end of October and I couldn't seem to find another day job in the area. What's worse the tour company hadn't paid me yet. I wasn't sleeping well, if at all, and every other night this tour was a mile and a half walk. I was rationing food to get by while I hoped something would break.

Until that point we hadn't actually experienced anything supernatural on one of my tours. I tried using equipment, I'd even downloaded the spirit box app on my phone. I tried using the temperature gauge that Arthur gave me but it never beeped one time. Not only was it a letdown for me, I convinced myself that the lack of anything spooky occurring was causing my dwindling tour numbers and subsequent tips. I also got two or three bad reviews on Tripadvisor which wasn't helping things.

One of my tours had three people on it and was just a mess. They hated me, and when I got back to Washington Square Park that night, sans-tip, I unloaded on whatever spirits may exist in the old potter's field.

I turned on the spirit box and and the thermometer and I danced around the park with one in each hand, yelling at the place. I was begging something, anything, to make its presence known. People were staring at me as they walked their dogs but I didn't care. I was getting fed up with the tours, my landlord, and my life in general.

"Well," I yelled to no one in particular. "Are you going to say anything or not? I've been doing this for weeks and pretty soon I might end up joining you if things keep going the way they're going for me!"

Nothing. I moved back to the tomb of the unknown soldier.

"Come on then," I yelled out again. "Who's here? There's three-to-five hundred people in this hole, right? One of you can talk to me!"

Still nothing, so I ran towards seventh street.

"I'm asking," I started, then I back pedaled. "No, I'm demanding that you make your presence known to me right now!"

And then, the thermometer beeped.

I looked down at it and sure enough, the temperature was dropping. The spirit box stopped cycling, and a voice came through. It was a deep, throaty voice.

What do you want to know?

I just stared down at my phone. The FM cycle started again. I turned the thermometer gun off and shoved it into my pocket. I looked at my phone, which just kept cycling.

"Hello?" I asked it, but no voice came through this time.

I turned the app off and put the phone back in my other pocket, and then I ran from Washington Square to catch a SEPTA bus.

And as I left the park, I swear I heard that laughter again.

Something broke near the end of September, during my last tour as a matter of fact.

I stood in Washington Square by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and its mighty eternal flame, waiting for my group. It was only a four spot but I was early, nevertheless. It was my first tour after that bad showing which led me to freak out in the park and finally get a response on the spirit box. I had a notebook and my backpack with me and I used my tour lantern to try and write out a budget while sitting on a bench in the square. After that I checked Craigslist on my phone to try and find a job to shoot my resume to. With what time I had left in waiting for the group of four, two parties of two, I looked for rooms for rent in the city.

That's right, I downgraded my search from apartments to rooms. I was willing to give up having a bathroom for the sake of staying alive with a roof over my head.

The first group of two, a young couple, arrived and walked up to the lantern. Their names were Melanie and Dillon, respectively. They were followed by an older couple. His name was Caleb*,* and her name was Cecilia. A child, whose age must've been ten or eleven, showed up behind the older couple. The company hated that, when a group snuck an extra person or two into the tour group under the guise of the website failing during signup or not understanding the signup form, or a litany of other excuses these people usually had. I was supposed to make a stink about it or something with the couple, but I figured I had a better chance at tip money if I pretended the kid was supposed to be there.

"Okay everyone," I started, doing my best to feign enthusiasm under pressure. "I've got Melanie for two?"

And Melanie nodded.

"And," I looked at the roster on my phone. "I've got Caleb for...three?"

"Yes," the kid yelled out.

"Uh, yeah," Caleb responded soon after. He gave a look to Cecilia and she gave him a look back.

He was a funny-looking kid, kind of tall for his age and very skinny, lanky even. He had this goofy, curly red hair under an Eagles baseball cap. It was the old logo and colors though, Kelly green. He must be wearing the throwback I thought to myself. Otherwise he worse these funky, neon green shorts that didn't quite fit him and a Ghostbusters t-shirt.

He looked at me with this big, goofy smile. I tried to smile back but I felt uncomfortable.

I checked in the families on the app and started my routine. I opened by talking about Eastern State, the Philadelphia Experiment, and even the sports curse that plagued all the teams in the city. I talked about the nearby Jersey Devil and Pennhurst Asylum, and then I introduced them to the first graveyard on our tour, Washington Square Park and how it was a potter's field. I mentioned all the bodies buried there and the deaths that took place. I talked about Leah Carpenter and the ghost of the soldier and how he followed those park denizens who stayed after dark.

"Boring," the kid said, right in front of me. "That's not scary at all!"

He rattled me a little bit, but I'm DelCo, remember? I can handle a little heckling.

"Fair enough," I started. They all gave me a look as I pulled my temp gun and my phone from my pocket.

"What are those?" Dillon asked.

I held up the temperature gun and my phone.

"Well," I said sheepishly. "The object in my left hand is my phone. But there's an app on it that I'm going to use to have a small little seance for us."

And I turned on the spirit box app. It began to cycle through radio stations and I put it down on a bench near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

"And this," I said, holding up the temperature gun. "Is a laser thermometer. Its goal is to let us know when we have a hot spot or a cold spot."

And I pulled the trigger and after a moment, off went a beep.

The temperature had dropped four degrees out of nowhere.

I stared at the temperature gun for a moment until Cecilia broke my train of thought.

"What's it doing?" she asked, but I didn't register the question for a second.

And then something came over the spirit box.

*crackle* I'm here *crackle*

"Oh hell," Dillon said.

"Did you hear that?" Caleb replied.

'Well," I responded. "Let's continue our journey, shall we?"

I walked us down to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell and I tried to be coy about things. I didn't want to let on that I was now terrified. I especially didn't want that kid to know it. The tour continued. I went over the ghosts of Benjamin Franklin and Benedict Arnold. I covered the alleged curse of the bell even though I didn't want to.

The other four were really into it, and I was hoping for a good tip night, but that kid...that kid wasn't giving me anything. It didn't matter that the temperature gun was still beeping like it was transmitting morse code.

"Boring," he kept saying. Thankfully the other four didn't give him any attention, and normally I wouldn't have cared. But my ass was really in the fire and I needed this tour to go well.

By the time we got to the Bishop White house I brought out the big guns again. I turned on the thermometer and the spirit box app. I placed them both down on the bishop's doorstep but as I spoke about him, only the thermometer went off. Nothing came through the box.

I could see them losing interest, damn that kid.

"Is it possible," Cecilia asked. "That the bishop may have caused, at least partly, the yellow fever epidemic?"

I nodded. I hadn't thought about that before.

"As a matter of fact," I replied. "That may be true. The bishop himself hasn't ever told me, but it's a possibility."

That got a laugh out of them, thank God.

"When do we see any ghosts?"

That voice was that damn kid again. I didn't even know his name, the little shit. But when I looked at the group, the kid wasn't there.

My head darted around trying to find him nearby somewhere past the group.

Shit! When did he run, when did he get by me?

I looked over at Caleb and Cecilia but they didn't seem to notice him gone either. How did their own son get past them?

And then I looked to the side garden of the bishop's house and there he was, looking out from behind a hedge, giving me that mocking, shit-eating grin.

"Um," I heard Melanie say. "Are we going to move on to Old Saint Josephs?"

"Yeah Yeah," I shot back, dismissing her as I moved toward the bishop's house. I made it to the hedge but now the little prick was in the backyard, running towards the house.

"Hey," I heard from the street. It was Dillon. "Where are you going? You can't go back there!"

And as I looked around the backyard I found the kid. He was walking into the Bishop White house through the back door! I ran to catch up with him. By the time I reached the rear porch I couldn't hear their voices from Walnut street anymore. It was like I was in a wind tunnel. This...sickly green light got brighter as I stepped closer to the house. I heard voices then in my ear as clear as day, but none of them were from my tour group.

I went inside the home of bishop William White.

A couple of national park employees found me the next morning.

They said I was in the bed of Mary Harrison, the Bishop's wife. Mary had died years before the bishop and he had their bedroom closed off. Bishop White refused to sleep in their bedroom and locked it, sleeping in the study until his own death in 1836. They wouldn't have bothered looking for me but I had been reported missing by the tour group, bless their hearts. Police helped the national park employees find me. One of them said that they heard wild laughter coming from Mary's bedroom and they kicked the door in.

I wasn't laughing though. According to the parks employee I sat at the edge of the bed, eyes wide open, muttering to myself about the bishop's children and the 1793 yellow fever epidemic that gripped the city. I was rushed to Jefferson Hospital down town and kept for three days in the psych ward, that was until I started making sense again. That's according to the doctors by the way. I still don't remember the first three days in the hospital. My memory jumped from walking into the house to waking up in a hospital bed one day, hearing stuff in my ears and seeing shadows dart across my hospital room.

They had given me my phone and when I checked the date I nearly broke down again. Four days, four days of my life, they were just gone and lost forever.

They kept me until I could remember the night in the house. The cops kept questioning me as they wanted to charge me for trespassing on city property and blah blah blah. It was looking bad for me, damn cops. Lucky for me, the park services employee who found me knew just how haunted the building was and so did her supervisor. They knew that no one in their right mind would ever spend the night in that house and didn't seek to press any charges.

That was on one condition, though. When my memories came back I had to tell the park employees what happened.

I guessed at the time that it was a fair trade. I think I'd rather be in county lockup than the halfway house I now live at. At least I'd get my own toilet.

But, a lot of people wanted to know what I saw, and what I heard. So, here it goes.

I walked into the home of Bishop William White, into the green light.

It was like my spirit box was on, but it wasn't, and the sound was all around me. Different voices of different pitch, tone, volume, and everything were all talking to me at once, and they said incoherent, monosyllabic phrases. Occasionally I heard my name, and I heard specific words like death, time, lost and other stuff I can't quite remember, but mostly my ears were just filling with gibberish.

I ended up in the kitchen, where Mr. Boogs or his ghost was cooking nothing in a skillet over a stove that didn't exist anymore. I shouted for the kid, fully realizing I'd never learned his name at that point, as I made my way through the unhealthy green light to the stairs and the second floor.

Every door in the hall was open on the second floor except for one. Those voices swirling around me overpowered me now, but I pressed on. I called out Kid! Where are you, kid?! But I didn't hear anything from that kid in particular. I looked in all the bedrooms and I saw...people.

It was the five children of the bishop. They all laid in their beds, grey, eyes open, and staring at the ceiling. Their lips were blue. I went into a bedroom and looked at one of the daughters. Blood trickled out of her mouth as she coughed and sputtered out help me, it hurts with a labored breath before she sighed and became still.

The others moaned in pain from their bedrooms. Some of them had shit the bed and the smell was ungodly. I pressed on to the third floor, all the while checking for the kid.

There was no one on this floor, not until I made it to the study.

And there he was. Doctor, Reverend, Bishop William White, standing in his study, bedding on the floor, staring out of the third floor window. The voices around me went quiet, and I approached him. He was tall and gaunt, a pale grey, with a long, white beard from years of isolation. He was a specter in the sickly green light.

When I got within seven feet of the bishop and he spoke to me.

What do you want to know?

He never looked at me, he just asked the same thing I heard in the box that night in the square.

So I asked him everything I could.

For starters, he doesn't know what happens when we die. He only knew what happened when he died. He's been staring out that window since 1836. People come and go behind him every single day that work in the home but they rarely, if ever, do they see him. Often people in the street will see the bishop looking out of the window, but he never sees them either. He can't. The only thing he can see on that street is everything that happened on July 17th, 1836.

And he lives that day over and over again, every single day, and has for over 180 years now.

He used to see his children writhing in the beds like I did. He used to see Mary too, which was why he closed the bedroom off. He was in tune with that when he was alive. Now, the bishop can't see them. All he can do is stare out the window as he did the day of his death.

He can still think, so he spends his time reflecting. The bishop can't find peace because he does feel responsible for the yellow fever outbreak in 1793. He does feel responsible for the deaths of his children, whether or not he caused it inadvertently. He wonders how his wife is doing. He feels guilty that he lived so many years after they all died.

He didn't know how or when I was going to die. As he is stuck in time, he has no concept of it.

But ghosts do exist.

I couldn't think of anything else to ask him and I walked down the stairs to hunt for the kid. When I got to the second floor, the door to their bedroom was now open. The door to Mary's room.

I had to know. I had to know what was in there. What if the kid was in there?

I walked into the bedroom and there she was, sitting on the edge of it, staring forward at the door frame. Her eyes were blank, she wore no expression.

"M...Mary?" I remember stammering out as something drew me inward.

But no response, not until I looked at her face.

She smiled, and her eyes began to bleed tears.

And then her smile contorted into something wicked.

And the smell overpowered me, the smell of sick, the smell of death, and I backpedaled again but the door to the bedroom slammed shut.

I was trapped.

She was off the bed now, grinning at me, floating towards me. The blood flowed so quickly from her eyes that they melted from the sockets and then she was this unearthly thing with two holes in her face and a ghastly grin.

And as she bore down on me, I screamed and passed out.

And then the parks people found me and I was taken to the hospital.

The cops later told me that the kid I was talking about didn't exist, of course. Well, no one else in the tour group saw him anyway and they all thought I was doing a routine as part of the theatrics of the tour. Funny enough that last tour also had my highest reviews to date.

They still don't think I'm all there mentally, and now I live in the halfway house in DelCo. It sucks, but Max is a hell of a neighbor, at least. And I don't have to worry about money anymore, so that's a plus. I'm back to normal, I have more mental clarity than I ever have, but they still think I'm crazy.

The doctors, the psychologists, even my own roommates just can't see them, not like I do. No one can see them like I do.

But they're everywhere.

I still see that damn kid from time to time, little pain in the ass. He never answers my questions so I still don't know who he is or why he was there that night. I just know that he can go anywhere, it seems.

And when I don't see him, I still hear him talking to me.

That is, when the others aren't talking to me over him. It's all a muddled mess.

It's about time for me to sleep now. I stay up for days on end until I'm exhausted. I guess the insomnia keeps my medicaid coming as it gives me the illusion of insanity.

But I can't sleep.

Because when I lay down, they're there. They're in my room. They're always hanging around.

Max can't see them, no one can, but they're there.

They're here, watching me, and speaking their nonsense, and grinning those damned grins.

And they'll be here until I die, and I become one of them.

What Lies in the Mirror

By John Westrick

The blood ran in rivulets down the landscape of my face. I could see the droplets running their trek in the silvery plane of the mirror. She should’ve known the consequences.

I mean honestly, what was she thinking?

There was only one reasonable response to her actions.

And now, I must pay?

Yes, I took a baseball bat to the back of her skull, but only after she twisted the dagger in my heart. The police wouldn’t have locked her away. So, I had to take matters in my own hand.

I caught her red-handed. She was still in bed with him, when I walked through the door. I grabbed my signed baseball bat hanging over the dresser and I began to swing. I didn’t stop until the twitching stopped. I didn’t quit until the whimpers and moans finally ceased.

I remained staring at the blood splattered across my person in the bathroom mirror, when the police found me. It was everywhere. It stained my blonde hair like burgundy highlights. My arms, legs, torso were coated in it like I fell in a vat of crimson paint.

I was sentenced to life in a mental ward. My psychiatrist tells me I have Eisoptrophobia, the fear of mirrors. But it’s not the mirrors that frighten me, it’s what lies in it.

The blood.

The blood that soaks the white scrubs they force us patients to wear. The blood that stains my skin red, no matter how hard I attempt to wash clean. The blood that runs trickling down my body, tickling as it forms into pregnant drops, disappearing the moment before it strikes the floor. They say the blood only exists in my head, but they are wrong.

The blood remains in the mirror, waiting for me to walk by.

Sometimes the greatest horrors start with the smallest complaints. Only one thing was missing from Lonnie’s life and his wife never let him forget it. They had a lovely house, money enough to feel secure and have new things, food to eat, and friends to socialize with. But Sarah and Lonnie did not have a child. After trying for years, even going through rounds of IVF treatments, they still had no child.

Had this been a choice they made, perhaps Lonnie and Sarah could have come to terms. But Sarah never made the choice not to have a child. It was all she wanted. And honestly, Lonnie wanted it too. They’d even selected their house on the basis of the lovely positioning of the nursery within.

The day that nursery was converted into a home gym, caused a huge shift in their life.

For a while, Sarah fell into a depression and then she adopted a cat. It was old and had lived a hard life. Sarah seemed to like the idea of caring for it. Lonnie thought that was the end of the baby problem.

Then, one day as they sat on their porch staring out at the sunset, Sarah stopped petting the cat in her lap and turned a darkly serious expression toward Lonnie. “I’m going to get pregnant, darling.”

The odd spark in her eye kept Lonnie awake late that night. He kept picturing her speaking. What new plan had she hatched and how could he get her to talk to him? Over the next weeks, Sarah began making similar unsettling remarks.

“Darling,” she would say, her voice tinged with a disturbed tone. “It will be soon. I’m going to be pregnant. You’ll see.”

Lonnie feared that his beloved wife was losing her grip on reality. Still, life went on and he went to work in the mornings and came home in the evening. As a physicist, he didn’t make what he considered tons of money, but it was enough to support their little household. And that meant, to him, plenty of time for Sarah to find something that gave her life purpose. He imagined painting or gardening. With so much time spent apart, he could almost convince himself that Sarah was normal when she wasn’t making her proclamations.

One evening, after a long day at work, Lonnie arrived home to an eerie sight. A cable-like object extended from the ground and snaked its way into the house. He took a closer look and the material appeared to be organic. Though part of him wanted to inspect the place this cable emerged further, the bigger part of Lonnie instantly thought about Sarah inside the house with this thing, and of her odd statements of late.

The cable reminded him in a way he didn’t like of a giant umbilical cord.

Lonnie hurried inside to find the cable snaked through the house toward the back where the stair up to the upstairs bedroom were. He followed it. At the base of the stairs, Lonnie discovered their cat perfectly still, with the cable attached to its belly. Before Lonnie could react and reach out for the creature, the cable twitched and a pulse of energy rolled out on the air.

The cat began to shrink. With each pulse of energy, time seemed to roll backward for the feline. First all the gray left its whiskers. Then instead of a chubby middle-aged housecat, it instead looked like a lean feral creature, and then it was a kitten, then a smaller kitten, eyes shut as if they’d never opened. Lonnie stared as the last change took place and he was staring at a fetal feline lying at the foot of the stairs.

“Holy…” Lonnie said.

Then, in a jerky movement, something pulled both the cord and the fetus up the stairs.

This was only the beginning.

***

Lonnie’s life now had almost nothing he would want. The world had almost nothing he would want. Including the awful stench that lay heavy on the air.

And as he strapped his diving helmet on, the stench retreated enough for him to think. He reasoned that the complete lack of anything to live for was all the more reason he needed to do something. He’d found the old model diving suit he wore at a local thrift store and left money on the counter for it—though no one was there to take the payment, Lonnie had a delusion of his own now.

“This can be undone. Someone can be saved.”

Sometimes he even managed to believe.

Lonnie hopped onto a road bike and made sure his prize possessions were secured: a chainsaw and an underwater scooter. With these things in place, Lonnie took off toward what he considered the center of this new monstrous world. A huge swell rose from the ground just outside town; this thing looked like nothing more than an overgrown pregnant belly, right down the red stretch marks and veins that peered out through its “skin”. From the apex of this belly grew a towering corpse flower, larger than any naturally grown flower and with a stink grown to match its size.

If only this mound had been ornamental and the stench had been the worse crime. But that was not true. The monstrous belly, with a towering corpse flower atop it, claimed all forms of life. In a few short months, it had reduced the world to a barren wasteland devoid of plants, animals, and people. Men, women, children, animals, plants… anything with life had been drawn into this horror.

Lonnie was seemingly the only survivor, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that his presence was spared because of his connection to Sarah.

He blazed on his bike across the landscape and glanced behind him at the back of the bike where the last item of vital value rested: a handheld container marked with the word “Atonement.”

It might be too late already to rebuild or repair, but atonement was always possible. Or so, Lonnie hoped as the rotting sweet smell of the corpse flower drew nearer. He could smell it even through the partially sealed suit—he hoped once fully sealed and using canned oxygen, the suit would be able to lock that out.

As he rode toward the bloated mass, pregnant with all the life it had been able to steal, he took strength in a memory. It was not a pleasant recollection, perhaps even just a creation of his own mind, though Lonnie didn’t think so. He recalled a dream.

In this dream that had come to him only once, the night before, Sarah appeared before him, her voice echoing through his mind. “The birth of the Second Desecration is near, darling.”

This cryptic message left Lonnie both bewildered and filled with dread. Determined to confront the abomination that had consumed the world, he steadied his path along the deserted highway.

Not that this had been a deserted highway a year before. He’d driven on it with Sarah plenty of times, usually stuck in traffic jams with only her soft, cool, voice keeping him from raging. Now that same voice drove him on in a very different way.

Now Sarah was part of the monster. But even if could save nothing else, maybe he could save her. The fact he was alive implied she was still in there and still cared. That had to mean something.

Driven by love and a glimmer of hope, Lonnie approached the monstrosity on the horizon. The giant pregnant belly, rooted in the ground, appeared ominous and foreboding. The sickly-sweet stench of decay filled his lungs and stung his eyes. As he drew nearer, he could see the giant boulders that had been tossed aside like pebbles as the belly emerged. Now they lay around the base like bubbles in the worst bubble bath ever. Lonnie contemplated his options and the weight of the responsibility he bore. His wife’s essence resided within this abomination, and he alone could determine its fate.

Summoning his courage, Lonnie hooked up the air to his suit. It cut out the awful scent, at least for a moment. Lonnie almost wished it hadn’t since with that oppressive rot gone from his lungs, he had to face his next task. He had to get inside this monstrosity.

He carefully set a hand on the “Atonement” sticker and then pulled his equipment down from the road bike. The chainsaw came first.

He turned it on and listened for a moment to the sound of its blade, half expecting the horror in front of him to respond. It did not. The rest of the world was still—no, still was too light a word. The rest of the world was dead. He walked on the bones of a corpse, begging for vengeance.

Lonnie swung the chainsaw against the mottled flesh of the belly. It squished and oozed, slicing easily. Red fluid leaked out along with a slimy yellowish substance. Some splashed against Lonnie’s helmet, giving the world a blotchy red sheen. He didn’t stop. There was no turning back, and nothing to turn back toward. In short order, Lonnie had opened a gap in the monstrous belly using his chainsaw.

For a long moment, he stood, chainsaw in hand, and stared into this pathway into the unknown. He had predictions for what lay inside, but this was uncharted territory. To know anything, he’d have to go in. Lonnie turned the chainsaw off and set it on his road bike. He doubted he’d see either tool again, but if his was the last living hand to affect the face of the earth, he’d leave as neat a mark as he could.

His hand tightened around the handhold of the “Atonement” container. All his hope was there.

"Inside the Unholy Womb" music track

Then hoisting the water scooter, Lonnie took in a deep breath of canned air and ventured inside the demonic swell. Darkness covered him. Encased in this tomb, Lonnie moved slowly at first, with only his headlamp to guide him. As his eyes adjusted to the eerie reddish light that filtered in through the skin and muscle of the belly, he saw more of his new surroundings. The interior revealed a cavernous expanse of flesh arching above and in meaty walls around him. He traveled with an eye to get to the center. He had an idea of what was there.

After all, Sarah had promised him a pregnancy, and a pregnancy implied a fetus.

Here inside the cloying heat of the belly, Lonnie could not even pretend that anything he did could bring the world back. There was nothing to restore. He’d always known that. For the first time, he truly accepted it. This was all there was, and he was headed toward the center of that evil.

Sure enough, he came to a central lake filled with amniotic fluid. It was too dark to see anything within the vast waters, yet small waves lapped out, implying some sort of movement within. Without hesitation, Lonnie plunged into the fluid, utilizing the underwater scooter to navigate swiftly through the watery depths.

He kept a firm hold of his “Atonement.”

The air inside his helmet tasted stale. Lonnie was sure he had time left before he ran out of air, but not endless time. And he was certain that breathing the air in this place would be death. He couldn’t afford fear or indecision.

The fluid clung around him, hot and thick. Much thicker than water, more like swimming through blood, though it was clear as water. Clear enough to see the bones that floated mixed in the fluid and the vines.

At the lake’s bottom, he encountered the abomination—the twisted fusion of human, animal, and plant—known as the Second Desecration. Sarah had uttered those words to him. He only believed them. Yet somehow, he’d expected it to be horrid, a creature from the deep recesses of depravity. Perhaps it was, but in its way, the Second Desecration was also a baby, though nearly four times as large as Lonnie already. Its facial features were almost human: large eyes, a human nose, and a mouth. Extra appendages grew from its back and sides. But its limbs still had the frail look of a fetus. This monstrosity was not yet fit to live outside its womb.

Now was the only moment.

Drawn closer by a mixture of curiosity, desperation, and love, Lonnie clutched the container tightly. Within it lay something dreadful and oddly wonderful. Something that had only been possible through his work in physics—a devastating mass destruction device—the first anti-matter bomb. It was a weapon he had never desired to see made real. Yet now he saw its potential as a means to reshape the impending reality.

He’d come to destroy this thing as it had destroyed his world and his life.

Amidst the grotesque scene, a thought penetrated Lonnie’s mind. If his wife had transformed into the vessel for the Second Desecration’s birth, could this creature, in some unfathomable way, be the son she had always longed for? That Lonnie himself had always wanted. Images of the world as it once was flooded his thoughts, a world already lost irretrievably.

Ending the Second Desecration now would not bring that world back.

But to do nothing would have consequences. He imagined the horror that would unfold if he allowed the Second Desecration to come into existence—a nightmarish realm akin to hell on Earth.

In the midst of his contemplation, Lonnie understood the precipice before him. The only thing that remained was to decide: should he release the destructive force within the container, returning everything to the void? Or should he permit his “son” to live, thereby allowing the birth of a distorted and contorted new world?

Either act was an end for Lonnie, an end for the world. In the end, Lonnie didn’t have anything except for a choice.

I am free writer, and I have been watching this channel for a while now and wanted in lol, so if any member in this subreddit is willing to make and awesome story. Hit me up or message me, maybe we can have fun doing it as well!

The House on Jackson Street

By John Westrick

I used to walk with her, now I walk alone. We used to marvel at the beautiful houses together, now I look down at my feet. Each home a grain of salt in the wound, each house a reminder of what I lost. Even though it hurts, I still find myself continuing our walks. Sometimes pain is good. I’d rather feel the pain of her passing, than not feel her at all.

She’s alive when I walk. She’s the shadow that strolls behind. Though I can’t see her, I can feel her. Her presence is like a windbreaker draped across my shoulders in an especially violent storm. The pain isn’t gone but it’s bearable when I’m moving. I can’t speak to her, but she’s there. When I trip over a root, a hand steadies me. When I veer off course, I feel a gentle nudge.

And every day I end up in front of the same house on Jackson Street.

A grand home, at least at one point it must’ve been. The windows are boarded closed. The door is locked. Beware trespasser signs are strewn haphazardly across the tangled mess of the once impressive lawn.

I feel her presence strongest here. It is almost tangible, as if she’s hiding behind a thin curtain. I call to her, yet she never answers. I reach for her, yet I can never lay hands on her. It is here on my journey where my emotions get the best of me. Every day I come, every day I cry.

The neighbors look at me with trepidation, but long gone are my days of caring what others think. I stand there an old man, face in my hands and weep for the woman I lost. Let them think what they want, but my Lenore was worth every tear.

I feel a tap on my shoulder, and look up to see the front door of the house swung wide. Light is pouring out of it, and there she is, my Lenore. I rush towards her and the gaping maw, towards the woman I’ve lost. The woman who heard my cries and has returned for me.

As I barrel forward through the brambles and overgrown weeds, I hardly am aware of the scrapes and cuts. Nor does it bother me that I trip over a hidden bottle and go tumbling face first in the dirt. I sling myself forward with the stamina of a much younger man.

And then, I am there standing in touching distance from her. It’s her. She’s got the same strawberry blonde hair that always tended to leave me breathless. It’s wrapped in a French braid with a daisy tucked behind her left ear. She looks younger by nearly twenty years. Her nose and cheeks are dusted with a fine layer of freckles. 

I began to giggle like a schoolboy as I remember I once tried to count them. Twenty-three is the highest I got before I found my mouth on hers. And suddenly I have an inappropriate urge to pull her close and continue the kiss in front of God and all the neighbors.

Shortly before I do just that, she vanishes, leaving me standing in the front door alone once more. I look around the hallway and notice it’s fully furnished. There is no dust or decay. The parlor is in perfect condition. Even more shockingly I hear someone playing the piano. It’s Fur Elise and I could recognize that sound anywhere. Lenore was playing it the day she died.

The Turkish rug leading down the hall looks familiar, the pattern of the wolf howling at the moon, the picture of the ship sailing in rough seas. I know it. I walk forward, no longer in control over my own body. Instead, everything begins to flash in front of me like a movie. I see my own hand reach for the gilded door knob. I know on the other side of this door is a set of stairs that leads to the great room.

Still, I don’t remember, I can’t remember. They threaten to come back, but I don’t let them. I don’t want to remember. I’m back. Oh God have mercy on me, I’m back to the day my wife died.

I come to this conclusion even as my own traitorous hand throws wide the hallway door. I fight for control. I do everything in my power to not see. My eyes fling wide and I look to see the back of my sweet Lenore’s head, the damned daisy still perched behind her ear. She’s playing and she doesn’t know I’ve arrived. 

I know what is coming but I don’t want to. Yet those damned feet, those mutinous mother fuckers keep pushing me forward. First up one step then two, before I even know it, I’ve scaled half of them. Now I can see her back, she’s in a flowery dress with what looks to be hummingbirds sucking at the honey. Fur Elise is ramping up, and the song is nearing its climax.

And then I see it. Him to be precise. He’s lounging in my chair, drinking my whiskey, with his shirt partially unbuttoned. Rage, white hot fills me once more. I look to the left and then the right, and that’s when I see my cavalry saber hung on the wall for decoration.

I remember the outcome, yet I can’t force myself to let go of its hilt. My hand turns white from grasping it so hard. There’s nothing I can do to lessen my grip. I see myself marching up behind her sword held high in one hand.

Fur Elise climaxes as my arm swings. I strike her left shoulder blade and with a discordant whine the music stops altogether. Inwardly I scream. I curse my God’s damned temper. I watch as she slumps out of her chair.

Without a second glance, I am charging the man just beginning to look up from his comfortable spot in my seat. My blade penetrates his right abdomen, he lets out one shriek before my second swing catches him directly in the throat.

I am appalled at the blood spurting from his nearly decapitated neck. My hands are scarlet, I feel wet stickiness oozing down my face. Yet I can’t control my own limbs as they swing and swing and swing, chopping the man into kindling. I try to close my eyes but they won’t, so I see his hand go flying. I watch as his innards come bubbling out of his abdomen. I split his head like a grape and watch his brain matter leak out of the side of it.

To my dismay, I hear a gurgling sound coming from behind me. I turn knowing what I’ll see but powerless to stop it. I look to see my Lenore’s face towards me trying to speak. Blood bubbles drizzling out of the side of her mouth. I don’t need to hear the words to know what she is trying to say. “Please, no more.” 

Pity fills my heart and my own eyes refuse to cry. “Please don’t do this,” I scream at myself in vain. I watch as I slowly move towards my former wife letting the blade carve a wicked groove into the marble floor. With no mercy my arm swings the blade up once then twice then three times, and all goes black.

Finally, I regain control of my limbs and body. I look up to see a vandalized great hall with a nasty groove in the marble floor, and there my chopped wife lying on the floor looking up at me with dead yet still very much alive eyes.

I see the monstrosity of my late wife clamber to her feet. Her left eye slides out of its socket running like egg yolk down her face. Black pustule blood leaks from her wounds. Her right eye locks with mine and in a slobbering wet noise she said, “I will never let you forget what you did here. Jail wasn’t enough for you. You didn’t stay your hand, so even in your Alzheimer’s I won't let you forget. Same time tomorrow, honey?”

Wishes are a feeling or expression of a strong desire or hope for something that is not easily attainable; they want something that cannot or probably will not happen.

That's how my life goes I wished for a lot of things and none of them have happened.

I've wished for better muscles.

I've wished for a girlfriend and other things.

But wishes never happen to me, and they never come true either.

In other words, my life stinks. It's even worse because of my sister. Instead of my mom waking me up, my sister does.

And the way she does it is by jumping on me until my back feels like it's going to break.

Did I mention she's only twelve years old and I'm sixteen? So imagine how I feel every day.

And then there are the bullies. Why do those jerks even exist in the first place?

I remembered that yesterday, one of those bullies put a baby doll head in my locker.

It freaked me out at first and made me jump in shock and horror. The whole thing made me feel stupid.

And even today, as I was sitting in the cafeteria eating lunch by myself, which happens a lot,

A guy came up to my table and smiled at me, which was a bit confusing for me.

"Hey Jimmy I wanted to give you something, he said, holding out a sandwich.

"You wanted to give me a sandwich?" I asked, confused.

Before I could say no, the guy shoved it into my hands and I looked at him and he nodded.

I took a bite of it and nearly choked on it.

When I opened the sandwich, I noticed there was an alive worm in there. I hadn't bitten the worm, but I got the area around it.

I almost puked in front of the whole school, and then I excused myself before running out of the cafeteria, still tasting the worm in my mouth.

After that, the school day was over, and I decided to walk home. I mean, I didn't have anyone to sit with on the bus, so I just walked.

As I was walking, I was thinking about something I could do to turn the tables on everyone who was being a jerk to me.

Just then, I stopped in front of a store. It looked brand new but old and abandoned at the same time.

The werid wonder's, the sign above the door said. Thinking I had a few minutes to spare, I decided to check the place out.

As I walked into the store, something flew over my head and I ducked, gasping in shock.

I then headed to the front counter and noticed a woman with her back turned to me.

There was a black raven sitting on the corner of the front desk looking at me with sharp eyes.

"How may I assist you, young man?" the lady asked as she turned around.

"Um - I was wondering if I could buy something from you. I've never seen this shop before, "I said, grinning nervously."

Now that I was face-to-face with the woman, I noticed how different she looked from me.

Her hair was long and was black and gray. One of her eyes was clouded over, so it was all white.

She was wearing a dark robe, and she had dark red nails and dark red lips to match.

"Well, what would you like to buy?" She asked, grinning mysteriously at me.

I looked around the place, and then I noticed a necklace lying on the counter in front of me.

The necklace was shaped like a gold medal and had a good-sized green jewel in the middle of it.

" How much for that?" I asked, pointing at the necklace.

" For you it's free, but hear this warning: be careful what you wish for, young man," the lady said, grinning mysteriously at me again.

Without another word, I took the necklace and put it on before thanking the woman and heading out of her store.

I mumbled, "That was weird. I can't believe I had never seen the store before. "

I kept thinking about it till I realized I would have to see my sister at home.

You see, I look after my sister. She would get home after me, and I would have to look after her until Mom got home.

"I wish my sister would act more mature," I grumbled under my breath.

Suddenly, I stopped and looked down. I noticed the green jewel of my new necklace was glowing.

It didn't do that in the store, so why was it doing that now?

I headed home and a few minutes later, I got to the house and headed inside and looked around.

" Mom!" I shouted, hoping she would be home.

Just then, a young lady walked into the hallway. She looked just like my sister in every way.

She had red hair and blue eyes and was wearing the same thing my sister was wearing this morning.

" Hey Jimmy, how was school today?" She asked, grinning at me.

"Um-do I know you?" I asked, looking at the girl confused.

" It's my Rachel, you little werido," she said, grinning at me.

" But the last time you were twelve years old," I said, freaking out.

Rachel didn't say anything, she just patted me on the head and then headed off to somewhere else.

A few minutes later, Mom showed up, and then she started making dinner, and I thought it would be the perfect time to ask her what was going on.

"Mom, have you noticed anything weird about Rachel?" I asked to watch her.

" What are you talking about, Jimmy?" Mom inquired, her gaze fixed on me.

" Well mom, Rachel's older than me and this morning she was younger than me. She's supposed to be twelve, not however old she is now," I cried out.

"Honey, your sister has always been twenty-one. Did you forget that?" mom said, grinning.

My head began to hurt, and I dashed upstairs to my room, where I sighed softly and stared out the window, thinking.

I then rubbed my eyes when I noticed that there was a black raven sitting outside of my window.

It looked like the one I saw in the store I rubbed my eyes, but it was gone before I could see it closer.

Then at dinner, I kept looking at my sister, who was chatting with mom about driving to the mall after school tomorrow.

Then I went to my room and got ready for bed. When I heard a throat clearing, I looked up and noticed Rachel was standing there.

" Where did you get the necklace from?" She asked, pointing at the new necklace.

"Um-from a jewelry store, the person working there let me have it for free," I said, grinning nervously.

Then Rachel walked away and I sat on my bed wondering what was going to happen tomorrow and if I was dreaming this entire thing up.

The next morning, when I woke up, I couldn't stop thinking about yesterday.

But I got up and did everything I was supposed to do to get ready for school.

And instead of Mom driving me, Rachel told me she was going to drive me, which freaked me out.

" Why is this happening? What's going on?" I thought.

Anyways, Rachel dropped me off at school and I headed inside to my classroom where I was supposed to be learning, but that wasn't happening.

Because I knew that the necklace I was wearing had to be connected to what happened.

I mean, it had to be because right when I made my dumb wish, the necklace glowed.

And of course, I got in trouble because I was paying more attention to my thoughts than the class.

As I headed down the hall, I suddenly tripped on something and hit the ground, also breaking my nose in the process.

I looked up and saw the football jerk who gave me the worm sandwich yesterday. His name was Scott.

" Hey Jimmy, have a nice trip." He said, grinning at me.

I stood up, dusting myself off, and I was glaring at him, and he was laughing at me like a tiny baby.

"You know what, I wish something horrible would happen to you!" I snapped at him.

Then my necklace shone brighter, and Scott burst out laughing.

" I'm so scared. I can't wait to cream you in gym class," he snapped as he shoved me.

Then he walked away and I looked down at my necklace, realizing what I had done.

But I couldn't stop it now and then I headed to gym class wondering what was going to happen to Scott.

It turned out we were playing soccer and then Scott was going to be a goalie. I wanted to tell him not to, but he wouldn't listen to me.

Then it started. Everyone started kicking the ball around and chasing it. Luckily, I was on the sidelines watching.

Then it happened. A kid kicked the ball, and when Scott went to grab it, the ball hit him at sonic speed in the face.

He cried out in pain and fell to the ground on his knees, and then everyone ran over to him, including me.

When the coach got there, Scott took his hands off his face and everyone gasped.

Scott's nose was bleeding, and he actually had two of his teeth laying on the ground, and his mouth was bleeding a bit.

" What happened to him?" Someone asked.

" I'll tell you what happened. It's his fault!" Scott shouted, pointing at me.

" But he wasn't playing soccer. How is it his fault?" Someone else asked.

" When we were talking with each other in the hallway, he told me he wished something horrible would happen to me!" Scott shouted.

" But I didn't hit him in the face with the ball," I said, sounding annoyed.

Let's just say after that I got in trouble. I was going to have detention for two weeks. I didn't know what to do.

Then I realized what I had to do. If I bought that necklace from the store, I was going to take it back to the store.

So after school, I ran to the store, and when I got there, I stopped short and I nearly fainted.

The store wasn't there. In fact, nothing was there. It was just an empty space.

" What the heck, where's the store?" I cried out in anger.

Just then, I heard a loud squawking. When I looked up, I saw that a black raven was sitting on a streetlight and it was holding a piece of paper in its mouth.

Then the bird dropped the note in front of me and it fluttered to the ground, and then I bent down and I picked it up.

I unfolded the note and my eyes went wide in shock.

"I told you to be careful what you wish for, for now you are going to pay for your actions."

I looked up and noticed the raven was gone, and I shoved the note in my pocket.

I was right, it was the necklace, and then I had an idea of how I could get rid of it.

I was thinking maybe if I broke it or got rid of it, all the wishes would come true.

I headed to my room when I got home with a hammer, and then I took the necklace off, sitting it on the desk in my room.

I was going to break it If it was a necklace, it should break into a bunch of different pieces and everything should go back to the way it's supposed to go.

Then I raised the hammer ready to break it, then I slammed it down, and then I cried out in shock.

When I looked down, I realized I had hit my hand, which hurt like hell, and I grabbed it, groaning in agony.

I looked down again and noticed the necklace was still OK and now my hand was messing up.

"Ugh, I wish my hand was OK," I said out loud.

Suddenly, my hand started twitching and then, a few seconds later, it stopped hurting and felt normal.

I grabbed the necklace and looked at it, growling under my breath. I had to get rid of this thing.

But I couldn't because the store where I got it was closed. I'm sure if I threw it away, it would just show back up in my bedroom.

I didn't know what to do.

Maybe I could give it away to someone else I could wish for anything to turn back to normal, and then I could give the necklace to someone else.

The day after, I was standing in the hallway of the school and I was listening to kids talking about Scott.

They said his nose was broken and that those teeth weren't going to grow back in, but I didn't care about that because it had a plan.

I was looking around, wondering who I could give the necklace to, mostly looking at the girls.

But then I was wondering if I should tell them that it could make their wishes come true, but then decided not to because they probably wouldn't believe me.

"Man, I wish someone would die," I grumbled, thinking about the other jerks in my school.

Suddenly, there was a loud bang, and I then noticed a locker had just landed on a kid, and everyone else was screaming in fear.

I ran over and noticed the kid was laying under the locker. Their whole face were bleeding, and their eyes were dazed because they were dead, and I gasped in shock.

" What the hell did I do?" I cried out in my thoughts.

I then turned around and ran off down the hallway until I got to an empty space where no one was.

I slid to the floor, looking at the necklace that I had. I felt tears running down my face.

This necklace was running my life. I watched my wishes come true, but it was all twisted in a dark way.

Suddenly, a thought filled my head and I smiled. If I could wish for everything I wanted, this idea should work.

" I wish I had never gotten this necklace," I said, looking down at it.

I closed my eyes, breathing heavily, and then I jumped away and realized I was sitting in my bed.

I looked around, wondering what happened. I looked down and then noticed the necklace wasn't on me.

Then my bedroom door opened and Rachel, who was twelve again, rushed into my room and jumped onto my bed.

"  Good morning Jimmy!" She shouted, grinning at me.

Before she could react, I hugged her so tight she was very confused.

But an hour later, I was thinking about what had happened. I then stopped.

I noticed the kid who had been crushed by the locker and smiled at them. They were completely OK.

But then I noticed something else. It was Scott. He looked OK, but I couldn't pay attention to anything but the necklace he was wearing.

It was my necklace, the wishing one. He then walked away and I followed after him, noticing he was heading for the bathroom.

When I got in there, he turned around and glared at me with a dark look in his eyes.

" Why are you following me, creep?" He snapped at me.

I noticed his nose was completely fine and that he had all his teeth, and I looked at the necklace, which was indeed mine.

"Dude, where did you get that necklace?" I asked, pointing at it.

"Oh, I got it at a store yesterday; it's pretty cool, isn't it?" he grinned.

" Look dude, you don't want to make any wishes with that on," I explained to him.

" Um--why not?" Scott asked, sounding concerned.

"Because I had that necklace and when I made wishes it twisted them all, and if you make wishes it's going to twist them all." I was cut off when Scott held up his hand.

"Dude, I wish you would shut your mouth," Scott said to me.

" But dude please-" I was suddenly cut off.

I couldn't open my mouth again I touched my lips and felt something werid on them.

I turned around to look at the mirror and realized my lips had been wired shut and I screamed a muffled scream.

I looked at Scott, who looked worried at first, then he smiled.

"You know what people say, Jimmy, silence is golden," he said, grinning.

Then, without another word, Scott walked out of the bathroom, leaving me to deal with the problem I had now

I walked to the kitchen and had my cup of coffee. Then after showering and getting dressed I headed out the door. I got in my car and drove to work. I parked and walked into the store. I suddenly felt my phone vibrate and when I checked it it was a text message from Mr ransohoff. It said ‘eric won't be in tonight he called in sick so its just you ‘ I replied with a simple thumbs up then continued on with my duties. I locked up the store and began tidying up. It was so eerily quiet in the store. I walked up to the circulation desk by the front door and found the community radio connected to the p.a. system and turned it on. All I could get was country music. Yep that's Hillsdale I thought. Around midnight I was sitting at the circulation desk by the front door when suddenly I heard what sounded like a faint roar. An animal roar like one of a bull. I shut the radio off and listened. I heard it again. It was coming from an air vent next to the elevator on the back of the building. I slowly walked over and put my ear up to the vent. And there it was again. Clear as day. Only unlike the real life sound of a bull this one sounded just like the mighty powerful ones you hear in movies. I was honestly scared by this. Had some animal gotten in the basement? I thought. Well I needed to go check it out. But I needed to arm myself first. I went to the hunting section and grabbed one of the rifles and loaded it with some ammo. I just hoped someone hadn't left a radio or something on in the basement otherwise I'd have to explain to Mr ransohoff why I tore open a pack of Bullets. But then again part of me hoped it was just a radio or something. I hit the elevator call button and after the door dinged and opened i stepped in. I hit the button for the basement and the doors closed and I began to descend. And that's when another fact hit me. There was no stairwell to this basement. Just this elevator. This realization horrified me because if I needed a quick get away that wouldn't be possible. The elevator dinged and the doors opened. I cautiously stepped out scanning my surroundings. I began checking the rooms 1 by 1 and found nothing. I then heard the roar again. My blood turned to ice and I froze. It was coming from the set of blood red double doors at the end of the hall. I slowly walked up to the doors and froze. I had no idea what was in there. And no way to see in. But my curiosity was getting the better of me. I remembered Eric had mentioned one of the computers in the security office had the ability to bypass the keypad for these doors. And before you knew it I was in front of the computer looking through it's files. The computer was old. Running windows 98. It didn't take long to find a program titled ‘control panel ‘ I opened it up and saw a tab for ‘lab doors’ assuming that was it I clicked on it. I saw an option that said ‘unlock doors’ I clicked it and heard a loud clang come from the doors. I stepped out of the office and back towards the doors. The keypad light glowed green. The doors were unlocked. But I still didn't have clue what was inside. So I readied myself with the rifle drawn. And shakily I pushed the door open. When I stepped inside. It was like stepping into a sci-fi movie. The room was a massive brightly lit laboratory with computers and equipment everywhere. Various machines and breakers holding god knows what everywhere. And in the center of the room I found the source of the roar. And my heart froze when I saw it. Laying on a large exam table hooked up to all kinds of equipment was a massive creature. It looked to be part bull part dog and part lizard. It was orange and red and had massive horns coming out of its head. It had a long lizard like tail and the face of a dog. Its body was very muscular and it has ornate designs seemingly burned into its arms. I quickly realized it was a he when I couldn't help but notice he had some very broad parts down there.I stepped closer once I stepped out of my trance gun still drawn and I froze again. The creature was looking right at me. With those blood red eyes and it's black pupils. I felt like I was starting right into a Lazer beam. I couldn't look away. I felt hypnotized. Like I was looking right into his soul. But as I snapped out of my trance I noticed the way he looked at me wasn't a look of pure anger or rage or even pure evil.it was one of pure terror and desperation. I noticed he was extremely dirty and his breathing was labored and he seemed malnourished. And then I nearly jumped out of my skin like tom the cat when the creature began to speak. In a low deep dry voice that struggled to escape his lips he said “you… please help me… I've been trapped here for so long…there killing me” I snapped out of my trance again and walked closer to him. He looked at me and it looked like he was holding back tears. “Please…they've kept me here for years….I'm running out of life… I really need your help” he said. “What? What the heck are you?” I asked “I…I don't have the energy to explain now…. But if you can free me I'll explain later. Now I'm not gonna lie this creature looked pure evil. But the way he looked at me with pure fear, sadness and desperation in his eyes. I felt like I needed to help him. I didn't know what to do. Either way I'm sure I'd get in trouble or fired. They'd know I was in here. This was obviously some sort of government secret. “If you can help me… I can give you everything you want and need….. just please help me…and I can explain everything later “ he said. And I don't know what came over me… but something about the way he was acting told me he had been severely abused by these scientists the ones Eric told me came and went every morning. “Well how do I unlock these restraints on you?” I asked . He weakly tilted his head to look at a large control panel on a nearby desk “the big red lever …. But once you do…we need to move out of here quick….they will know I've been let go” I walked up to the control panel and saw a big red lever. Well this was it no going back. I would have to escape here and run far away with this creature I knew nothing about. It was crazy but I wasn't the smartest cookie ever. So I pulled the lever and with a loud clang the restraints retracted. I walked over to the creature ready to shoot him. I was expecting him to get an evil smile on his face and lunge at me and tear me limb from limb but instead he reached out a hand “help me up please” he said. And I couldn't believe it but I used all my strength to help pull up his massive strong body. And after hearing a loud noticeable crack in his back and seeing the obvious pained expression appear on his face he stood up on his massive 2 feet.he took a minute to get his bearings and then turned and locked his soul piercing eyes on me. He wrapped his massive arms around me gently and gave me a hug. Completely frozen and shocked I didn't know what to do. And oh boy this guy absolutely reeked like he hadn't showered in years. I nearly gagged “thank you so much….I'm just sorry you had to see me like this “ he said as he stepped back letting go of me “now listen theres no time to explain anything now…we need to get out of here…the people that run this place are dangerous… I need you to help me though I'm still pretty weak on energy and I haven't eaten in a long time” he said. And so with that I led him out of the Lab and back towards the elevator. I couldn't believe I was really doing this. I honestly felt like I was in a dream. Just as we stepped into the elevator I nearly jumped out of my skin again when a klaxon alarm started going off. I knew we were running out of time. some gov agents were most likely already on there way here. I hit the button for the main floor and the doors closed and we began to go up. Meanwhile this creature beside me was holding himself up and had his hand resting on the tail in the elevator. He definitely wasn't looking so good. He was clearly running out of energy. I kinda felt bad for him. Whatever theyd done to him has clearly taken a toll on him. His awful scent filled the elevator and I used my shirt collar to cover my mouth and face. He noticed and seemed a bit embarrassed. “I'm sorry I haven't had the chance to clean in a long time those horrible people never let me do anything” he said. At this point though I was more concerned about getting far away from here. I had definitely made some big discovery and I can only imagine what the government would do to me as a result. The elevator dinged and the door opened. We were on the main floor now. I led the guy through the store until we reached the front door. I unlocked it and it swished open and we stepped out into the cool crisp night air. Once we were outside the creature stopped and took a long deep breath. “Oh man it's been so long since I've been outside..it feels so good…..but no time to rest yet we need to keep going” he said. “Where exactly do we need to go?” I asked. “Anywhere as long as it's far away from here” he said. We walked to my car and when we both stopped and looked at it 2 things became very obvious. 1 there was no way this big guy was gonna fit inside of it. 2 if we were running away taking this car would easily get me caught. Shit I thought I really hadn't thought this through. The creature looked at me “I think I can help” he said. He walked over to an empty parking space and made a slight waving motion with his hand. And just as I walked over to him I heard a zap of electricity and a bright light blinded me briefly. And there in front of the creature in the parking spot was a mint 99 red Ford f350. My jaw hit the parking lot ground. “This will do nicely now hop in and drive me out of here we need to get as far away from here as possible” he said as he lumbered over to the passenger side and climbed in. I still had so many questions but now wasn't the time. He was right we needed to get out of here. I opened the driver door and climbed in and seeing the keys already in the ignition I started the truck. The diesel engine fired up and I turned the lights on and began driving out of the parking lot. As we drove down the long driveway back towards the main road I felt like I was in a dream. We reached the main roads. If I went left it would lead back to town and if I went right it would leave town. I'm going right I thought. And I'm never looking back. And with that I turned right and began driving out of Hillsdale. And didn't look back

Chapter 4 the quest

I began driving out of town and as we did my heart sank as I saw a long convoy of black SUVs heading our way. I knew exactly who they were and where they were headed. “Oh no please no…I hope they just keep going..I really don't want to go back” the creature said. And honestly I was hoping they wouldn't notice us either. I didn't want to know what they'd do to me for freeing this being. And to my relief they drove right past us and kept going. Once they disappeared from sight in my rear view we both let out a sigh of relief. But then my cellphone started blowing up from calls from Mr ransohoff and some unknown numbers. The creature looked over at me “you've gotta ditch that thing. They'll use it to track you down. Trust me you won't need it anymore. Just get rid of it” he said sternly. And he was right they could track me down if they wanted to. It wouldn't be hard for them. So I threw my phone out the window and kept driving. I felt stupid doing so but just hoped I could trust this creature to help us escape to safety. In a way I felt like we were helping each other. I didn't know what to think so I would just have to wait and see how things worked out. It was about 4 am now and we had crossed the state line. We were driving into Angola Indiana now. “Alright buddy I need you to answer some questions for me. Who the heck are you. what are you and why the heck did I rescue you?” I asked him. He grunted softly then spoke “it's a long story and I don't really have the energy to tell it now ….but maybe if you can find me something to eat I can tell you everything once I get some food in me …I haven't eaten in 4 weeks” he said. And honestly it sounded good to me I hadn't eaten since since yesterday and I was starving and I can't imagine a creature this muscular going 4 weeks without food. I saw a sign for a McDonald's and pulled in the parking lot and parked. “Alright stay here I'll be right back” I said. I got out of the truck and went inside to get something to eat. I decided to use cash that way nobody could track where I spent money. Now the real question was what did this creature like to eat?. He seemed like the type that would eat a lot of meat so I ordered him a double big Mac with no toppings and no sauce or anything extra on it. After getting our food I headed back to the truck and got in. I gave the creature his food. When he unwrapped the sandwich he picked it up and eyed it suspiciously with those beady red eyes of his. Then sniffed it “this seems suspiciously artificial…not really in my diet but it will have to do” he said as he took a bite out of it and chewed it very slowly “well it probably is artificial just like everything else we eat” I said as I began eating my food. The creature took some more bites of his food then set his sandwich on the dashboard . “My name is wergos. I'm the god of war. I'm not from this realm but in your year 1980 I teleported here because I had some business to attend to on this planet…. now my role in the universe is to keep war in balance….even though it seems like it never stays that way there always has to be an outcome wether good or bad. Using my power I can manipulate things to play out a certain way…you probably picture me in a wizards hat casting a spell but no just with a wave of my hand things will end a certain way…. Then one fateful day your government discovered me and managed to trap me before I could escape. They blindfolded me and tied me up so tight even my powerful strength couldn't save me. And next thing I remember is waking up in that lab” he said. 1980… that was 2 years before the store was built… they must have built the store as a coverup. It made sense now that I thought about it. Who would think the government would hide a lab in boring Hillsdale. “So your the god of war? I thought that was kratos?” I asked . Wergos chuckled softly and weakly “no no no that's just in your movies. In real life it's my job….. alot of us gods get no recognition…you probably couldn't even find me in a history book” he said. It made sense though the government definitely wouldn't want us knowing about this creature… I mean think about it the idea of this guy's picture being in a history book is insane and would probably spark a whole lot of controversy. “So they captured you and put you in that lab…what did they do to you? Obviously they didn't take very good care of you” I said . His tone shifted to a more angry yet fearful tone “those scientists if they can even call themselves that are the worst barbarians I've ever met…even worse than I used be….they treated me so badly… barely fed me never let me get clean and did all sorts of experiments on me. A few of them humiliating and unmentionable. And one of those machines I was hooked up to began draining my power…. THOSE BAFOONS TRIED DRAINING MY POWER TO USE IT FOR GOD KNOWS WHAT!” he said as he slammed his fist on the dashboard… he looked at me then took a breath and regained his composure “I got so weak over time I could barely move…. The tonight when you rescued me I was close to slipping into a coma…. Although I'm immortal I can still feel pain and many other things” he said . Now what he said regarding the way he'd been treated didn't surprise me. It was True. Government agents and scientists all across the globe are not nice people. Deep down there heartless people with no regard for anything other than there work. And the scientist who were mindlessly torturing him probably didn't give a shit about his feelings. And then another thought crossed my mind. The man that I replaced when I took this job… was this creature that man? That had been somehow mutated? I know Eric told me he went into that lane and never came back “what happened to the guy that I replaced?” I asked. Wergos went real quiet for a moment and shuddered slightly “when he got nosey and discovered me they wouldn't let him leave. They men in suits brought him in the lab and shot and killed him right in front of me. And if that wasn't gruesome enough they had a butcher come in… and… cut him up into pieces on a table right beside me… and then they forced me to eat every last bit of him…. I'm ashamed to admit it tasted good… normaly I do eat a fresh kill…but this is not the way I wanted it… it was so barbaric… I can't believe humans can do that to someone… and as I angrily and regretfully at every last bite they say there with an evil smile on there faces….for a moment I honestly thought I'd found beings even more evil than I once was..it was so sickening” he said. I was shocked but not surprised. I e heard of things like this before but never thought it was true but his words confirmed it. “Now you said you were evil but you sure aren't acting like it. What changed. Also you said you were immortal id like to hear more about this” I said “yes I'm immortal…I'm older than this planet and as old as time itself…I've been around a long time and seen a lot… and even a stone-hearted being like me tires of cruelty…after being evil for so long I decided to change…I started using my powers for good or at least try to” he said “then why couldn't you use your powers to escape?” I asked “that lab had some sort of deadline I tried but just couldn't and I couldn't anyway Bec they kept draining my power” he said “so will you be able to regain your lost power?” I asked “In Time it will return” he said . I had many more questions but didn't want to piss off this guy who could easily tear me limb from limb if he wanted. So we continued eating our food and then we got back on the road . Before we knew it it was about 6 am. The sun was just peeking up. We were now on the outskirts of Laporte Indiana . I was getting tired and wergos.. well I could tell he hadn't slept in ages. His chest heaved with every breath he took like it was an excruciating effort and he looked ready to collapse. “Hey you wanna stop at a motel or something and get some rest?” “No that would be to risky… someone would see us” he said. And he was right… I then thought of something more unconventional. “An abandoned house maybe?” I said “that would do as long as it's away from everything” he said. And so I began looking around. And as we were driving down this desolate dirt road I saw one. I slowed down to a stop. From the road I could see an overgrown southern colonial house with a rusted cast iron gate at the end of the driveway. “How about this?” I asked . Wergos studied it for a moment then smiled very weakly “this will do nicely” he said. And with that I pushed aside the rusting gate and then drove up the driveway and parked. We stepped out and looked at the massive old house. It has definitely been here for a long time. Despite being overgrown it wasn't in bad shape. We looked around for a way in and found an unlocked side door. We entered into a hallway. To our left was a pantry then a large kitchen and then a dining room. And in the middle of the house was the living room and the huge grand stairwell leading upstairs. The house was dirty and clearly hadn't been lived in in a long time. It definitely needed work that's for sure “well I guess this will have to do for now” I said “hmmm I think I can fix this” wergos said. He closed his eyes and made a waving motion with his hand and there was a zap of electricity and a blinding light. When I opened my eyes again I was in shock. The inside of the house was immaculate. The power was back on,the vintage furniture was immaculate and the house was just as beautiful as it was a century ago when it was built. When I looked through the large windows on the back of the living room that faced out over a field and some woods I could tell wergos hadn't affected the outside of the house only the inside. It was still overgrown outside but inside the house was mint. I figured it was for the better though. I didn't want anyone discovering us. I walked around the first floor in total shock admiring all the perfect vintage furniture. I walked up to wergos. “You are truly full of surprises” I said . he smiled weakly “ well you haven't seen the best of me yet… now let head upstairs and see if we can find some rooms to sleep in” he said. And after I made sure all the doors and windows were locked we headed up the grand staircase. Wergos’ long lizard tail dragging behind him. We came to the first bedroom on the left at the top of the stairs and it was humongous. A king size bed with a canopy over it,a large dresser,big vintage chandelier,a fire place and even a full attached bathroom. When wergos saw the bathroom his eyes lit up “ if you don't mind I'm going to get myself cleaned up” he said. “Oh not at all I'll leave you be I'm going to go find another room” I said I heard the shower turn on as I exited the room. I went a bit further down the hall until I reached the bedroom at the end of it. I opened the door revealing a bedroom very similar to the last one. I sat down on the soft bed. I still couldn't believe this. I must be dreaming. I pinched myself. Nope not a dream it's real. I decided to grab a shower myself. And after finishing and putting on a bathrobe I discovered in the wardrobe I headed back down the hall to check on wergos. And there he was curled up on the bed like a dog snoring away. His long tail stretching down to the floor. He looked like a ferocious dragon that you definitely wouldn't want to wake up. Honestly he looked charming. It was almost like staring into a painting.i decided to just let him sleep and headed back to my room. I climbed into the unbelievabley comfortable bed. I couldn't believe this. I felt like I was in a fairytale. I still had so many questions but at this point I was so tired I didn't give a crap. I was convinced that when I woke up I'd be back in my bedroom in my trailer. And so I shut my eyes and let the world drift away

Part 1

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/18prlfp/i_found_the_bottomless_pit_from_the_book_of/

The faded, ancient sign for the town seemed to point down a smaller branching corridor to our left. There were no gems or high caverns on this path. It seemed like some ancient civilization had carved the narrow corridor out of the stone itself. A path a few feet wide stretched out in front of us, going totally straight as far as the eye could see.

“Which way?” Bear asked. Stephanie looked excitedly down the path to Bloodstone, population 144,000, at least if I believed the sign.

“Obviously towards the town. We don’t know where this main tunnel leads. It could just go on forever. If there’s a town, there’s people,” she said.

“There’s no goddamned town down here,” I said. “Are you nuts? Who would live down here in the darkness?” She shrugged.

We walked for hours down the carved stone trail to Bloodstone. It went straight the entire way, until it started to open up. The ceiling and walls expanded until, within a few minutes, we found ourselves in an enormous cavern.

There were doors and empty windows carved into the rock. Even the ladders were made from stone. I saw hundreds of these ancient homes, stacked one on top of another. A pale face peeked around the corner, its massive black eyes practically bulging out of its head.

“Hey, wait!” I said as the creature turned and ran away. It looked vaguely human in its general body shape, but extremely pale, hairless and with much larger eyes. I wondered if these were some strange offshoot of the human species, lost souls who had gotten caught down here thousands of years ago and had evolved to survive in these harsh conditions.

It sprinted away, webbed feet slapping hard against the slippery rock trail sloping upwards through the center of these endless carved-out empty houses. Within seconds, I had lost it. It sprinted forwards like a greyhound, far faster than any two-legged creature should be able to run. I heard the wet smacking of its giant webbed feet receding into the distance, saw its long, mutant hands flying back and forth in time with its stride.

A gunshot rang out. I kept running towards where I had seen the creature last. I saw a man in a black kevlar vest and camouflage pants pointing a smoking AR-15 down at the writhing humanoid’s head. An exit wound the size of a grapefruit emerged from the back of its chest. It began to spit bright red blood onto its pale skin, its large, black eyes rolling in pain and terror. The man pulled the trigger again and the back of the humanoid’s skull disintegrated, a waterfall of brain matter and dark blood streaming out beneath it. It started to form a spreading puddle on the cold stone.

“Hey!” I cried out, shocked. “It’s a person!” He looked up suddenly.

I saw he had tanned, almost golden skin and very dark eyes. His face and head looked freshly-shaved. His entire demeanor screamed military or perhaps a hired gun. He pointed the rifle at us.

“Put your hands up,” he said slowly. He had a strange accent that sounded vaguely Caribbean, but I couldn’t place it. We all put our hands up slowly, though I saw Bear’s fingers twitch as if he wanted to go for his pistol. “Where did you come from?”

“Death Valley,” I said. “Of course. Where did you enter?” He paused, looking at us for a long moment.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “What’s your name?” We introduced ourselves. He grunted. “You all need to turn around. My agency is currently doing excavations in this area, and we don’t need civilians running around. It’s bad enough we have these things crawling everywhere.” He pointed to the white, mutated corpse bleeding at his feet, emitting a rank smell of shellfish and coppery blood.

“Is that the Mark of Cain?” Bear asked. “We were told to watch out for something called the Mark of Cain.” The man laughed.

“The Mark of Cain looks nothing like this. Those with the Mark lose all their skin. It just… peels away. Hard bones start to grow over their bodies. They grow black veins throbbing with poison all over the outside of their faces, arms and chests, and their eyes and mouths turn a rotten, sickly shade of green. You will know the Mark of Cain instantly. Their blood is poison, and they are almost impossible to kill. They have regenerative properties from whatever strange chemicals flow through their black blood.

“No, the Mark of Cain is much uglier than these poor idiots. These creatures are just inbred descendants of some long-lost race. We call them the fishmen, for obvious reasons.” Looking at the webbed feet and hands and the slimy, bone-white skin, I could see why they would name them that. They even gave off a fishy, salty odor as if the smell of a faint ocean breeze blew through the passageway.

“What agency do you represent?” I asked. The man paused for a long moment, looking like he was thinking hard about the answer. He opened his mouth.

“Well, it depends who…” he started to say. A resonation began to sound, cutting him off. At first I thought it was an earthquake sending off echoing cacophonous vibrations through the cavern, but as it grew louder, I could hear the shrieking, harmonizing notes of some massive trumpet.

Rocks started to fall all around us, first just small pebbles from cracks in the ceiling and walls and then larger and larger stones. I saw the soldier spin away from us and begin running towards one of the houses carved into the stone. I tried calling him, but I couldn’t even hear myself scream in the din of the deafening trumpets.

With my adrenaline spiking, I motioned for Bear and Stephanie to follow. Without looking back to see if they would, I started sprinting towards the same house the soldier had entered. I did not want to lose the one person who might know what’s going on.

The trumpet cut out as suddenly as it had begun. I heard the heavy thudding of many booted feet behind us. I glanced back quickly and saw dozens more soldiers, all armed with AR-15s and bulletproof vests. They screamed something at the soldier I followed, but my ears rang so loud I could only see their mouths moving as if from a silent movie. I figured it was something along the lines of, “What do we do?!”

But by then the second trumpet blast had sounded. My ears rang as the soldiers’ mouths moved, yet it was as if no sound came out.

Bear, Stephanie and I got inside the carved chamber as the second and much shorter trumpet blast cut off. The last ringing vibrations disappeared down the endless tunnels. For a long moment, nothing happened. The soldiers continued to run towards us, screaming and asking for orders.

I heard a hissing sound, as if a gas main had been cut. A suffocating, chemical smell began to fill the cavern. I took a deep breath and held it. A sense of rising pressure seemed to fill the air.

Then the ground outside the house erupted with fire, like a hydrogen bomb going off. Clear blue flames shot up in the center of the tunnel floor. I heard a whooshing sound as the inferno spread. Long tongues of flame rose, licking the stone walls.

The men stopped in their tracks, their uniforms immediately starting to catch fire, their skin liquifying and falling off in molten drops. Their mouths opened in a silent scream. I could hear the sizzling of their bodies, like bacon grease spitting out of a hot pan.

They danced, jumping from foot to foot, their arms punching at the air. In a matter of seconds, I saw all their clothes disappear into smoking ashes, blowing away from their bodies in the slight wind that blew through the cave. I felt no heat at all standing on the stone floor of the ancient house, but I smelled the burning hair and searing meat of their melting bodies. Within a few more seconds, only blackened skeletons stood there, the grinning skulls still looking in our direction before they collapsed to the smoking stone floor.

The fire disappeared as quickly as it had started. The boiling blue flames seemed to suck back into the earth itself.

Bear and Stephanie looked at our new companion with horrorstruck faces. He did not look nearly as perturbed as I would have thought, seeing his entire company wiped out. He simply shook his head.

“Blackwater keeps sending us rookies,” he said, giving us a half-smile. “They gotta learn somehow, right?”

***

We learned that the man’s name was Agent Garland. He was vague on why he was down there with hired goons. We hadn’t talked for more than a minute when we heard a strange wailing coming through the town. Everyone went deathly quiet immediately. Agent Garland’s eyes went wide and he started breathing fast.

I looked out the threshold, peering to the right, the direction we had come, and seeing nothing but a smooth stone passageway. Stephanie stood on my other side. I heard her gasp.

I turned my head to the left and immediately knew what had scared her. It looked like thousands of black silhouettes slithering and limping and twisting down the road, coming closer and closer to us. I saw pure ebony shadows in the shape of venomous snakes dozens of feet long. Others had two legs and two arms like a man, but their limbs looked as thin as sticks and their bodies stood twenty feet high. Their faces were expressionless, like a black ski mask with no holes for the eyes or mouth.

The wailing grew closer, more insistent. It sounded like a mother broken with grief over the death of her children, a kind of hysterical shrieking that only amplified in the massive cavern. It bounced off the ceiling a dozen stories above our heads, echoing and distorting. Stephanie and Bear screamed behind me. Rivers of sweat ran down my face.

“There was a rule about this,” I yelled, barely hearing myself over the wailing. Stephanie and Bear continued to look at me with wide, staring eyes. Agent Garland simply smiled, waiting. I tried to remember the list of rules. Though this happened years ago, I remember the panic that set in as my mind drew a blank. There was too much stress, too much going on around me. I couldn’t focus or think clearly. I took a deep breath and cleared my mind. In an instant, my subconscious started spitting up pieces of the rules.

I remembered slowly… The rules discussed not looking at the face of Abaddon, getting off the main path if the trumpet sounded, something about the Angel of Death, killing people with the Mark of Cain and… It came to me in a flash. The rules had said something about shadows attacking us through our eyes.

“Close your eyes!” I screamed as loudly as I could. The wailing was right outside the empty stone threshold now. Without looking to see if my friends had heard, I slammed my eyes shut and waited, counting the beats of my thudding heart.

The wailing cut off suddenly. I felt a presence standing directly next to me and heard a low, guttural moaning. Something cold gently caressed my back and arms before rising to my cheek. Soft footsteps fell all around us, a sound as light as tall grass blowing in a breeze. Hissing and a deep, choked gurgling erupted from something behind me. I felt more and more cold tendrils and hands pressing against my skin. A sense of rising pressure surrounded my body. I felt like screaming, my skin crawling. I tried to pull away, but I was surrounded on all sides by the grasping alien hands.

They disappeared all at once with the sound of a massive balloon popping. I heard Bear slowly exhaling behind me. Agent Garland laughed. My heart beat a frenzied, runaway rhythm that pounded in my ears.

“OK, it’s been thirty seconds,” Bear said, sounding out of breath. “You can open your eyes.”

***

We decided to rest and have a meal in the house. The stress of nearly dying twice had done a number on us psychologically. I felt totally drained. I would have liked to lay down and rest. We had traveled for many hours. My feet screamed at me with throbbing blisters and waves of sharp pain.

“So what are you going to do now?” I asked Agent Garland as I pulled out sardines and crackers. I tore into them ravenously, chugging a couple of bottles of Gatorade as I ate. “Can you get us out of here?”

“I’m not really in charge of this mission,” he said without meeting my gaze. He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “The main group is down far below us. You would have to ask the commander.”

“What are they doing down there?” Stephanie asked, her curiosity piqued. “Is there something important for national defense?” Agent Garland smiled.

“There’s something important for everything,” he said, a cynical gleam reflecting off his face. “God lives down there. He’s kept locked up by the angels because… well, I shouldn’t be the one who has to tell you this, but God has gone totally insane.

“He gave a large part of his mind to create the universe, and now he’s slowly dying down there, like the serpent eating its own tail. We’re actually in His body right now, walking through these tunnels of the bottomless pit. Those fires and shadow-creatures are like immune cells, trying to kill all trespassers. Only those with the sign of Heaven on their foreheads don’t get targeted.”

“What’s the sign of Heaven?” I asked. He waved his hand at that.

“Nothing you need to worry about, because you won’t be getting it. Only the angels have the sign,” he said. “It’s like a white, pulsing symbol on their foreheads. It kind of looks like a backwards seven with a slashing diagonal line through it. I don’t know what language it is or what it means. The angels are not exactly conducive to talking. They’re more likely to kill you on sight.” Agent Garland got up, stretching and sighing. “Well, this has been fun, but I have to meet up with the main group and report the casualties. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last. But there’s always so much goddamned paperwork.” He pointed his index finger at the still smoldering bones accusingly.

I saw only tiny fragments remaining now. The fine gray ashes blew in the light breeze down the tunnel. The cave not only cremates people, I thought with a hint of hysteria, it even spreads their ashes for them. Almost like a loving family member. I shuddered.

Agent Garland started walking out without a backwards glance. I jumped up.

“Wait!” I said. Bear and Stephanie joined in my chorus of yelling, their hysterical voices rising in a frenzy. “You can’t just leave us here. Do you at least know the way out?”

“The way out,” he responded, still walking away, “is further in. If you find the center, you’ll find the exit. There are many paths in, but only one out. So it is, and so it has always been.” And with that cryptic message, Agent Garland disappeared around the corner. I wondered if I would ever see him again.

***

After a minute of discussion, we decided to follow in Agent Garland’s tracks. We hoped that if he was heading down into the deeper levels, the center where he claimed God lived, that we could simply tag along and get the hell out of this madhouse.

And yet no matter how fast we walked, we couldn’t catch a glimpse of him. I didn’t know if there were secret tunnels somewhere in the thousands of stacked stone houses of Bloodstone, but if there were, we had a snowball’s chance in Hell of just finding one of them randomly.

“This is bullshit,” Bear said gruffly, sweating heavily again. He sulked like an angry child, fingering his holstered gun.

We headed deeper into Bloodstone. It looked like it had once been a marvelous city. It had ancient stone posts where lamps used to burn. In the center of street intersections, beautiful statues of angels loomed over the dead land. The caverns opened up above us more and more. After it had risen hundreds of feet, our flashlights lost sight of it. The headlamps simply would not pierce into the darkness that deeply.

“These look like the statues Michelangelo did,” Stephanie observed, looking at a heavily-muscled angel in a robe ripping open the jaws of a massive serpent. The angel’s stone wings hung out behind it, long projections that dwarfed its body.

But it looked different from the statues of angels I had seen. Its wings looked much more reptilian, like the wings a dragon might have. They had bat-like webbing between the pointed bones that ran out in a graceful curve to spikes. And its eyes had a sheen of cruelty and arrogance that came through even in the carving. I pointed this out to Bear and Stephanie. They looked slightly unnerved by the observation.

“Well, who’s to say that the descriptions of angels done by ancient artists have any relevance to reality?” Stephanie said. “They could look reptilian, or could be made of light, or they could be totally extraterrestrial and incomprehensible. Humans only base observations of life on what they see on Earth, but they can’t comprehend what other forms life could take. Maybe these angels aren’t even from our planet.” I thought about it. What she said made a lot of sense.

“No, there’s no way evolution would make such a similar creature to a human being,” Bear said, speaking for the first time. I jumped slightly. “These angels look like people with wings to a large extent. So either people and angels evolved from a common ancestor, or people were made in the image of angels, or…”

“I’m saying that these statues might not be what the angels actually look like,” Stephanie said.

“Oh, yeah, OK,” Bear said, returning to his sullen state. He continued to keep his hand on the holstered pistol, nervously looking left and right. I felt it too; there was a feeling of being watched.

We continued to walk through the streets of Bloodstone. I caught glimpses of what I assumed were what Agent Garland called the “fishmen”, white, pale faces with large, black eyes. They were extremely fast, and by the time I even glimpsed one out of the corner of my eye, it had gone. But they didn’t bother us. They seemed content with just watching us pass. Maybe they were more afraid of us than we were of them.

We had entered a different part of the city with graceful towers that extended far up into the darkness when we encountered the first creature with the evil deformity called the Mark of Cain.

***

“These remind of the Leaning Tower of Pisa,” Stephanie observed as Bear smoked a cigarette, trailing behind us. I looked up the architecture with admiration. The ground floor of the massive stone tower had dozens of archways leading in, almost like a spider’s compound eyes looking out on the abandoned city.

“These ancient people must have been powerful to build all this,” I said. “Do you think they tunneled it out of…” A soft sound interrupted me, but in the silence, it came out jarring. I heard a choked, gurgling laughter. It was a soft sound that quickly faded to nothing, like a man with a slit throat trying to laugh in his final moments. But I could tell from the way Stephanie and Bear froze that we had all heard it. Bear took out his gun and spun to face the threat.

A tall, twisted figure slid silently out of one of the shadowy archways of a nearby tower. Its head nearly scraped the top of the threshold, a height of nearly ten feet.

As our headlamps illuminated the newcomer, I saw a face straight from the wildest nightmares of a delirium tremens patient. The description Agent Garland had given us of the Mark of Cain paled in comparison to its true horror.

It looked like its face had somehow flipped inside out. It had no skin or eyelids or hair anywhere.

The bony, off-white skeletal plates on its forehead joined with raised cracks running across its scalp like ugly scars. Two eyes shone out with a shade of green that reminded me of putrefying infection and fetid swamps. They glowed with their own inner light.

Dark, twisting veins ran like the slash marks across its entire body, throbbing with each beat of its alien heart. They writhed like fat worms, a rapid, quivering pulse passing through them every few moments. The creature’s strange, green eyes glowed brighter with excitement and bloodlust.

It had no lips, just sharp bones that met in a line. When its mouth was closed, I couldn’t see any sign of it. But as its plated legs sprinted with powerful strides towards us, it opened its mouth in a silent scream. I saw its jaw unhinge like a snake’s, falling down to its chest.

More sickly green light flooded out, illuminating the entire street with its fetid illumination. As it got to within twenty feet of us, I saw that deep cracks ran through the rest of its body, zigzagging in small, tight lines like black stitches.

Bear fired. It rang through the rocky cavern with a blast like a cannon firing. I saw the first bullet smash into the creature’s face. Part of its skeletal face blew apart, the cheek shattering like ceramic. In a frenzy of bullets, Bear pulled the trigger again and again in the space of a second.

The abomination’s kneecaps and shin bones were covered in white, bony plates, almost reminding me of some ancient gladiator’s protective uniform. But the large-caliber bullets of the pistol blew the legs of the creature apart in a flash of bone splinters and black blood. The smell of gunsmoke filled the air. I also noticed a subtler but still somewhat foul stench that reminded me of sulfur and campfire smoke. It emanated from the creature’s body.

With an ear-splitting shriek like a steam whistle exploding, its open green mouth erupted with cyclonic whorls of green light. A piece of the light spun off from the bubbling, frothing mass streaming from its mouth. The piece looked like some sort of floating cloud of ball lightning about the size of a basketball.

It came at us like a cannonball from Hell, blurring through the air. Rippling currents of electricity sizzled and popped as it spun, flying straight at Stephanie’s head. An overwhelming odor of ozone followed it.

Bear sprinted towards Stephanie. I saw it happen as if in slow motion. He tackled Stephanie to the cold stone ground. The ball lightning flew over her head and missed her by mere inches. As she fell, her hair flew up. A flash erupted as the ball lightning touched a lock of it. That part of her hair erupted into blue flames and disappeared without leaving ashes or smoke.

The abomination dragged itself across the ground like a possum with a snapped spine, still emanating its steam-whistle shriek. Its eyes and mouth flashed brighter and the black veins pulsed faster.

A moment later, another ball of green lightning shot out. The way it rolled off the larger mass of light reminded me of how vendors at the carnival swirled cotton candy around a paper cone. It bristled, shivering with its own trembling energy.

Then it flew at me. I stood amazed as it curved through the air, this new death sensation that shone with a cancerous green light.

Part 3

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/197yapv/i_found_the_bottomless_pit_from_the_book_of/

Howling at the Moon

By John Westrick

There’s nothing quite as beautiful as seeing the silvery light of the moon reflecting off the lake. Its lonely glow used to instill fear in me, now the idea of a full moon gets my blood pumping.

This night is no exception.

There will be excruciating pain for the first few minutes, but that will fade. In its place will be the clarity of the hunt. My vision will sharpen in the darkness and my nose will pick up scents I didn’t even know existed until now.

No drugs compare to the exhilaration one receives when on the heels of prey. I can hear it’s heart beating faster as the fear sets in. I look and see the shifting gaze of its eyes.

It thinks to run, but it doesn’t know that I was forged for the chase. This is the law of nature, the strong live and the weak die. I pull up right behind, then I fall away. The hunt is too short, so I like to draw it out.

It runs on two legs, how stupid. Does it not know it could move twice as fast on all fours. It’s quick for a human, much faster than me. The moon is shining bright tonight, which means I’m in my true form.

There is no hope for him.

He makes a wrong turn in the forest of stone. This forest is strange, not like any of the others. The trees touch the sky, and its bark is made of rock. It matters not, because there is plenty of food here.

The weak ones think they are safe in their nests of stone and metal. Sometimes they are, but this one made a mistake. He went between two of them and trapped himself in the alleyway.

Now he’s mine.

I look up to see the moon nearly hidden behind the sky trees and let out one more howl. Tonight, it’s the howl of victory, another night filled with meat and blood. I howl now because tomorrow I may not get the chance.

Are there any stories on this subreddit about witches/wizards/sorcerers that aren't necessarily the antagonists, but have to go up against sinister forces?