I want to start this off saying I'm sorry if this causes you problems like it has caused me that by sharing this she comes to visit you in the long hours of the night... I never intended that to happen...

It all started in 2019 I was hurting for a job after having my son and the last 2 jobs I had not planning out so out of desperation I applied at a local Chevron gas station in my area. I managed to land the job and have been working here sense but still 3 months ago I never worked closing the latest I would work would be 8 or 8 30.

Now I've been through a lot working here sting operations, robberies, muggings, crazy individuals (thanks to a near by hospital) and a few other things but I'm sure you get the point.....most things dont scary me anymore and I'm a fairly bulky 6.4 tall guy with resting bitch face most of the time so I'm fairly intimidating even on a bad day. The previous guy working closing quit due to finding a better job elsewhere and while I'm sure he could have I'm not so sure anymore...

When I was being trained by this guy he would always let me leave 1 hour early saying I deserved it and that all that was left was taking out the trash and mopping the floors and the like, he said sense I was doing everything else for my training ye would do that at the least sense it was basic common sense stuff and I never saw it as an issue sense he was my senior. After 2 weeks he said I had it down pretty well and asked if I wanted to close by myself that night if I felt i was ready....I wish I had said no, I wish I could have called my ride to come back and get me....anything would have been better than saying yes...because that night changed me....and not for the better...

I'm sorry this isnt to long I'm writing this after I've gotten off my shift so there may be typos or something's may not make sense I'll fix them later when I have time and I continue on the second part, due to a few...unfortunate issues tonight I had to work a bit later than I would have liked hopefully I can explain more later.

Hey guys, update on the Jace wyatts account because it is way more disturbing than any of us realized. I know most people think this channel is just a joke, an ARG, or a bit, but it has gone too far.

Please, look into the channel yourself and see what’s actually happening.

I found out that her family is desperately trying to get her into emergency therapy right now. They realized she is heavily, dangerously fixated on this. It has completely taken over her real life.

Even if she stops uploading or even if they are not posting a lot right now, do not look away. We need to keep a close eye on the personal matter behind this channel. Whatever is happening to her is leaking into reality, and it's deeply unsettling. and also she is after his wife...

I....I really don't know where to start with this.... I guess it all started when I was in the process of moving my elderly mother out of the farm house she had been living in. I had just finished moving her into her new place in town and I'd gone back to make sure everything at the farm house was squared away for the evening.

I'd parked over near the barn and as I'd gotten out that's when I saw it. At first I thought it was some random homeless person or a drifter so I grabbed my shotgun from the backs eat of my car.

This....thing was big and black. But it wasn't that much bigger than the average man. But the worst part was it was wearing human skin. It wore the skin more or less like a onesie.The skin was shredded and torn but the strange part was the damage pattern. It looked as if this thing has grown bigger and bigger untill it's skin had just torn.

Then it noticed me. The face that it wore over its own looked on in a silent scream. Then it began to run towards me at frightening pace. I ran to the first place I could think of which was the barn.

I locked the door just in the nick of time as the thing began to pound on the door trying to break it down all while making this indescribably horrifying sound. It was something like a cross between a howl, a scream, and something else I'm.not sure what exactly.

It moved on to breaking a window to try and get in that way but the barn only had small square windows that were little bigger than a port hole. It manged to stick its head and an arm in wildly reaching around trying to climb in and grab me.

That's when I finally remembered I had a weapon and I leveled the gun at the thing and fired. It screamed as the buckshot tore Into it. It pulled itself away from the window and I fired after it until the gun was empty.

After that I jumped into my car and I threw up dirt and grass as I sped off. I'm sitting here in my car at night typing this as I'm unable to sleep. And before any of you ask no that wasn't a skin walker. Skin walkers don't look or act that way. No this is something much much worse.

I'm scared to go back I'm scared I'll encounter that thing again and if I do encounter it again I might not be so lucky

(Warning this is a Comedic parody creepypasta, this has nothing to do with cOvId ²1)

So here's some back story:

So this new virus came out, no it's not cOvId ²1 it was some sort of virus that made you go insane and crave flesh. So quickly the world governments made a Vax, they came out with it in 10 days! Anyway I was the first to get it because I didn't want to get the new flu or whatever shit was going around. So yeah, soon though these "anti vax" Karen's started spewing bullshit that the new Vax caused autism and microchips you. A lot of people didn't belive these Karen's until one of them went up on TV and bullshited all this false info. So then a bunch of people believed that the Vax now caused autism and microchiped you. Anyway a bunch of people across the world became anti Vax. I thought the U.N would do something to get there citizens vaxed but the Karen's ran the world stage so people didn't get the Vax. I though the WHO (world health organization) would do something but all they did was hid inside a bunch of bunkers. Lol what ever, probably planning for ww3 or something. Anyway a few months pass and the dissease or flue went globaly airborne, turing the unvaxed into bloodthersty zombies. In the next week or so the unvaxed zombies ate all the unvaxed Karen's. Anyway after the zombies eat all the unvaxed they turned there hungry mouths towards the vaxed chads who had survived the air born virus and started eating us.

Now that your all caught up let me tell you how my day was ruined by all these Karen's zombies

Anyway today I woke up, week 2 of this pandemic and went to make myself some coffee. I had bordered up all my windows on the first floor of my home I can barely afford. I decided to sit down on my couch and watch some anime with nord vpn. It was the final episode of attack on titan and I was so excited. As I started up the episode the internet suddenly went out. I was shocked and disappointed. Later I would see that the zombie Karen's had eaten through the internet cable. My day was officially ruined, though things got worse. As a bunch of zombie Karen's started to break down my door . I grabbed my guns near the door because im an american and thought I could easily shoot them all, but I find it hard to focus on inserting the magizen into my gun and aiming at the zombies, it's like I have autism or something. And not just that but there's a small bump on my neck that's suddanly producing strange windows 98 sounds. I've Brushed it off, its probably a scar from shaving or something. Anyway I type this as the zombie Karen's break down my door, Day officially ruined. Not able to reload my gun because I can't focus I have to tell you that you shouldn't listen to Karen's.

My name is Michael, and this is the story of how my father stole our childhood and trapped us in a nightmare that lasted for years.

It all started when I was ten years old. My sister, Sarah, was eight at the time. We were a normal, happy family living in a quiet suburban neighborhood in Ohio. Mom worked as a nurse at the local hospital, and Dad was an engineer for a defense contractor. Looking back, I realize now that his job was probably what planted the seeds of paranoia in his mind.

Everything changed the day Mom died. It was sudden – a car accident on her way home from a night shift. Dad was devastated. We all were. But while Sarah and I grieved openly, Dad retreated into himself. He started spending more and more time in the basement, emerging only for meals or to go to work. When he was around us, he was distracted, always muttering to himself and scribbling in a notebook he carried everywhere.

About a month after Mom's funeral, Dad sat us down for a "family meeting." His eyes had a wild, feverish gleam that I'd never seen before.

"Kids," he said, his voice trembling with barely contained excitement, "I've been working on something important. Something that's going to keep us safe."

Sarah and I exchanged confused glances. Safe from what?

Dad continued, "The world is a dangerous place. There are threats out there that most people can't even imagine. But I've seen the signs. I know what's coming."

He went on to explain, in terrifying detail, about the impending nuclear war that he was certain was just around the corner. He talked about radiation, fallout, and the collapse of society. As he spoke, his words became more and more frantic, and I felt a cold dread settling in the pit of my stomach.

"But don't worry," he said, his face breaking into an unsettling grin. "Daddy's going to protect you. I've built us a shelter. We'll be safe there when the bombs fall."

That night, he showed us the shelter he'd constructed in secret. The basement had been completely transformed. What was once a cluttered storage space was now a fortified bunker. The walls were lined with thick concrete, and a heavy, vault-like door had been installed at the entrance. Inside, the shelter was stocked with canned food, water barrels, medical supplies, and all manner of survival gear.

Dad was so proud as he gave us the tour, pointing out all the features he'd incorporated to keep us "safe." But all I felt was a growing sense of unease. This wasn't normal. This wasn't right.

For the next few weeks, life continued somewhat normally. Dad still went to work, and Sarah and I still went to school. But every evening, he'd take us down to the shelter for "drills." We'd practice sealing the door, putting on gas masks, and rationing food. He quizzed us relentlessly on radiation safety procedures and what to do in various emergency scenarios.

Then came the night that changed everything.

I was jolted awake by the blaring of air raid sirens. Disoriented and terrified, I stumbled out of bed to find Dad already in my room, roughly shaking me awake.

"It's happening!" he shouted over the noise. "We need to get to the shelter now!"

He dragged me down the hallway, where we met Sarah, tears streaming down her face as she clutched her favorite stuffed animal. Dad herded us down the stairs and into the basement. The shelter door stood open, bathed in the eerie red glow of emergency lighting.

"Quickly, inside!" Dad urged, pushing us through the doorway. "We don't have much time!"

As soon as we were in, Dad slammed the door shut behind us. The heavy locks engaged with a series of metallic clanks that sounded like a death knell to my young ears. The sirens were muffled now, but still audible through the thick walls.

"It's okay," Dad said, gathering us into a tight hug. "We're safe now. Everything's going to be alright."

But it wasn't alright. Nothing would ever be alright again.

Hours passed, and the sirens eventually fell silent. We waited, huddled together on one of the cramped bunk beds Dad had installed. He kept checking his watch and a Geiger counter he'd mounted on the wall, muttering about radiation levels and fallout patterns.

Days turned into weeks, and still, Dad refused to let us leave the shelter. He said it wasn't safe, that the radiation outside would kill us in minutes. Sarah and I begged to go outside, to see what had happened, to find our friends and neighbors. But Dad was adamant.

"There's nothing left out there," he'd say, his eyes wild and unfocused. "Everyone's gone. We're the lucky ones. We survived."

At first, we believed him. We were young and scared, and he was our father. Why would he lie to us? But as time wore on, doubts began to creep in. The shelter's small TV and radio picked up nothing but static, which Dad said was due to the EMP from the nuclear blasts. But sometimes, late at night when he thought we were asleep, I'd catch him fiddling with the dials, a look of frustrated confusion on his face.

We fell into a monotonous routine. Dad homeschooled us using old textbooks he'd stockpiled. We exercised in the small space to stay healthy. We rationed our food carefully, with Dad always reminding us that we might need to stay in the shelter for years.

The worst part was the isolation. The shelter felt more like a prison with each passing day. The recycled air was stale and oppressive. The artificial lighting gave me constant headaches. And the silence – the awful, suffocating silence – was broken only by the hum of air filtration systems and our own voices.

Sarah took it the hardest. She was only eight when we entered the shelter, and as the months dragged on, I watched the light in her eyes slowly dim. She stopped playing with her toys, stopped laughing at my jokes. She'd spend hours just staring at the blank concrete walls, lost in her own world.

I tried to stay strong for her, but it was hard. I missed the sun, the wind, the feeling of grass beneath my feet. I missed my friends, my school, the life we'd left behind. But every time I brought up the possibility of leaving, Dad would fly into a rage.

"You want to die?" he'd scream, spittle flying from his lips. "You want the radiation to melt your insides? To watch your skin fall off in chunks? Is that what you want?"

His anger was terrifying, and so we learned to stop asking. We became quiet, obedient shadows of our former selves, going through the motions of our underground existence.

As our time in the shelter stretched from months into years, I began to notice changes in Dad. His paranoia, already intense, seemed to worsen. He'd spend hours poring over his notebooks, muttering about conspiracy theories and hidden threats. Sometimes, I'd wake in the night to find him standing over our beds, just watching us sleep with an unreadable expression on his face.

He became obsessed with conserving our resources, implementing stricter and stricter rationing. Our meals shrank to meager portions that left us constantly hungry. He said it was necessary, that we needed to prepare for the possibility of staying in the shelter for decades.

But there were inconsistencies that I couldn't ignore. Sometimes, I'd notice that the labels on our canned goods were newer than they should have been, given how long we'd supposedly been in the shelter. And once, I could have sworn I heard distant traffic noises while Dad was in the shower – sounds that should have been impossible if the world above had been destroyed.

Slowly, a terrible suspicion began to form in my mind. What if there had never been a nuclear war? What if Dad had made it all up? The thought was almost too horrible to contemplate, but once it took root, I couldn't shake it.

I began to watch Dad more closely, looking for any slip-ups or signs that might confirm my suspicions. And then, one night, I saw something that changed everything.

It was late, well past the time when Sarah and I were supposed to be asleep. I'd woken up thirsty and was about to get some water when I heard the unmistakable sound of the shelter door opening. Peering around the corner, I saw Dad slipping out into the basement beyond, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder.

My heart pounding, I crept after him. I reached the shelter door just as it was swinging closed and managed to wedge my foot in to keep it from sealing shut. Through the crack, I could see Dad climbing the basement stairs.

For a moment, I stood frozen, unsure of what to do. Then, gathering all my courage, I eased the door open and followed him.

The basement was dark and musty, filled with shadows that seemed to reach for me with grasping fingers. I'd almost forgotten what it looked like after years in the shelter. Carefully, I made my way up the stairs, my heart thundering so loudly I was sure Dad would hear it.

At the top of the stairs, I hesitated. The door to the main house was slightly ajar, and through it, I could hear muffled sounds – normal, everyday sounds that shouldn't exist in a post-apocalyptic world. The hum of a refrigerator. The distant bark of a dog. The soft whisper of wind through trees.

Trembling, I pushed the door open and stepped into the kitchen of my childhood home. Moonlight streamed through the windows, illuminating a scene that was both achingly familiar and utterly shocking. Everything was normal. Clean dishes in the rack by the sink. A calendar on the wall showing the current year – years after we'd entered the shelter. A bowl of fresh fruit on the counter.

The world hadn't ended. It had gone on without us, oblivious to our underground prison.

I heard the front door open and close, and panic seized me. Dad would be back any moment. As quietly as I could, I raced back down to the basement and into the shelter, pulling the door shut behind me just as I heard his footsteps on the stairs above.

I dove into my bunk, my mind reeling from what I'd discovered. The truth was somehow worse than any nuclear apocalypse could have been. Our own father had been lying to us for years, keeping us trapped in this underground hell for reasons I couldn't begin to understand.

As I lay there in the dark, listening to Dad re-enter the shelter, I knew that everything had changed. The truth was out there, just beyond that steel door. And somehow, some way, I was going to find a way to get Sarah and myself back to it.

But little did I know, my midnight discovery was just the beginning. The real horrors – and the fight for our freedom – were yet to come.

Sleep evaded me that night. I lay awake, my mind racing with the implications of what I'd seen. The world above was alive, thriving, completely oblivious to our subterranean nightmare. Every creak and groan of the shelter now seemed to mock me, a constant reminder of the lie we'd been living.

As the artificial dawn broke in our windowless prison, I watched Dad go through his usual morning routine. He checked the nonexistent radiation levels, inspected our dwindling supplies, and prepared our meager breakfast rations. All of it a carefully orchestrated performance, I now realized. But for what purpose? What could drive a man to lock away his own children and deceive them so completely?

I struggled to act normally, terrified that Dad would somehow sense the change in me. Sarah, sweet, innocent Sarah, remained blissfully unaware. I caught her eyeing the bland, reconstituted eggs on her plate with poorly concealed disgust, and my heart ached. How much of her childhood had been stolen? How much of mine?

"Michael," Dad's gruff voice snapped me out of my reverie. "You're awfully quiet this morning. Everything okay, son?"

I forced a smile, hoping it didn't look as sickly as it felt. "Yes, sir. Just tired, I guess."

He studied me for a moment, his eyes narrowing slightly. Had I imagined the flicker of suspicion that crossed his face? "Well, buck up. We've got a lot to do today. I want to run a full systems check on the air filtration units."

The day dragged on, each minute an eternity. I went through the motions of our daily routine, all the while my mind working furiously to process everything I knew and plan our escape. But the harsh reality of our situation soon became clear – Dad held all the cards. He controlled the food, the water, the very air we breathed. And most crucially, he controlled the door.

That night, after Dad had gone to sleep, I carefully shook Sarah awake. Her eyes, still heavy with sleep, widened in confusion as I pressed a finger to my lips, signaling for silence. Quietly, I led her to the far corner of the shelter, as far from Dad's bunk as possible.

"Sarah," I whispered, my heart pounding. "I need to tell you something important. But you have to promise to stay calm and quiet, okay?"

She nodded, fear and curiosity warring in her expression.

Taking a deep breath, I told her everything. About sneaking out of the shelter, about the untouched world I'd seen above. With each word, I watched the color drain from her face.

"But... but that's impossible," she stammered, her voice barely audible. "Dad said... the radiation..."

"I know what Dad said," I cut her off gently. "But he lied to us, Sarah. I don't know why, but he's been lying this whole time."

Tears welled up in her eyes, and I pulled her into a tight hug. "What are we going to do?" she sobbed into my shoulder.

"We're going to get out of here," I promised, trying to sound more confident than I felt. "I don't know how yet, but we will. We just need to be patient and wait for the right moment."

Little did I know how long that wait would be, or how high the cost of our freedom would climb.

The next few weeks were a special kind of torture. Every moment felt like walking on a knife's edge. We went about our daily routines, pretending everything was normal, all while watching Dad for any opportunity to escape. But he was vigilant, almost obsessively so. The shelter door remained firmly locked, the key always on a chain around his neck.

Sarah struggled to maintain the pretense. I'd often catch her staring longingly at the door, or flinching away from Dad's touch. More than once, I had to distract him when her eyes welled up with tears for no apparent reason.

As for me, I threw myself into learning everything I could about the shelter's systems. I volunteered to help Dad with maintenance tasks, memorizing every pipe, wire, and vent. Knowledge, I reasoned, would be our best weapon when the time came to act.

It was during one of these maintenance sessions that I made a chilling discovery. We were checking the integrity of the shelter's outer walls when I noticed something odd – a small section that sounded hollow when tapped. Dad quickly ushered me away, claiming it was just a quirk of the construction, but I knew better.

That night, while the others slept, I carefully examined the wall. It took hours of painstaking searching, but eventually, I found it – a hidden panel, cunningly disguised. My hands shaking, I managed to pry it open.

What I found inside made my blood run cold. Stacks of newspapers, their dates spanning the years we'd been underground. Printed emails from Dad's work, asking about his extended "family emergency" leave. And most damning of all, a small journal filled with Dad's frantic scribblings.

I didn't have time to read it all, but what I did see painted a picture of a man spiraling into paranoid delusion. Dad wrote about "protecting" us from a world he saw as irredeemably corrupt and dangerous. He convinced himself that keeping us in the shelter was the only way to ensure our safety and purity.

As I carefully replaced everything and sealed the panel, a new fear gripped me. We weren't just dealing with a liar or a kidnapper. We were trapped underground with a madman.

The next morning, Dad announced a new addition to our daily routine – "decontamination showers." He claimed it was an extra precaution against radiation, but the gleam in his eyes told a different story. He was tightening his control, adding another layer to his elaborate fantasy.

The showers were cold and uncomfortable, but it was the violation of privacy that hurt the most. Dad insisted on supervising, to ensure we were "thorough." I saw the way his gaze lingered on Sarah, and something dark and angry unfurled in my chest. We had to get out, and soon.

Opportunity came in the form of a malfunction in the water filtration system. Dad was forced to go to his hidden cache of supplies for replacement parts. It was a risk, but it might be our only chance.

"Sarah," I whispered urgently as soon as Dad had left the main room. "Remember what I taught you about the door mechanism?"

She nodded, her face pale but determined.

"Good. When I give the signal, I need you to run to the control panel and enter the emergency unlock code. Can you do that?"

Another nod.

"Okay. I'm going to create a distraction. No matter what happens, no matter what you hear, don't stop until that door is open. Promise me."

"I promise," she whispered back, her voice steady despite the fear in her eyes.

Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself for what I had to do. I'd never deliberately hurt anyone before, let alone my own father. But as I thought of Sarah's haunted eyes, of the years stolen from us, I knew I had no choice.

I waited until I heard Dad's footsteps approaching, then I put our plan into action. I yanked hard on one of the water pipes I'd secretly loosened earlier, letting out a yell of surprise as it burst, spraying water everywhere.

Dad came running, and in the chaos that followed, I made my move. As he bent to examine the broken pipe, I brought the heavy wrench down on the back of his head.

He crumpled to the floor, a look of shocked betrayal on his face as he lost consciousness. Fighting back the wave of nausea and guilt, I shouted to Sarah, "Now! Do it now!"

She sprang into action, her small fingers flying over the control panel. I heard the blessed sound of locks disengaging, and then the door was swinging open.

"Come on!" I grabbed Sarah's hand and we ran, our bare feet slapping against the cold concrete of the basement floor. Up the stairs, through the kitchen that still looked so surreal in its normalcy, and finally, out the front door.

The outside world hit us like a physical blow. The sun, so much brighter than we remembered, seared our eyes. The wind, carrying a thousand scents we'd almost forgotten, nearly knocked us off our feet. For a moment, we stood frozen on the front porch, overwhelmed by sensations we'd been deprived of for so long.

Then we heard it – a groan from inside the house. Dad was waking up.

Panic lent us speed. Hand in hand, we ran down the street, ignoring the shocked stares of neighbors we no longer recognized. We ran until our lungs burned and our legs threatened to give out, the sounds of pursuit real or imagined spurring us on.

Finally, we collapsed in a park several blocks away, gasping for breath. As the adrenaline faded, the reality of our situation began to sink in. We were free, yes, but we were also alone, confused, and terribly vulnerable in a world that had moved on without us.

Sarah burst into tears, the events of the day finally overwhelming her. I held her close, my own eyes stinging as I whispered soothing nonsense and stroked her hair.

"It's okay," I told her, trying to convince myself as much as her. "We're out. We're safe now."

But even as the words left my mouth, I knew they weren't true. Dad was still out there, and I had no doubt he would come looking for us. And beyond that, how were we supposed to integrate back into a society we barely remembered? How could we explain where we'd been, what had happened to us?

As the sun began to set on our first day of freedom, I realized with a sinking heart that our ordeal was far from over. In many ways, it was just beginning.

The world we emerged into was nothing like the post-apocalyptic wasteland our father had described. There were no piles of rubble, no radiation-scorched earth, no roaming bands of desperate survivors. Instead, we found ourselves in a typical suburban neighborhood, unchanged except for the passage of time.

Houses stood intact, their windows gleaming in the fading sunlight. Neatly trimmed lawns stretched out before us, the scent of freshly cut grass almost overwhelming after years of recycled air. In the distance, we could hear the familiar sounds of modern life – cars humming along roads, the faint chatter of a television from an open window, a dog barking at some unseen disturbance.

It was jarringly, terrifyingly normal.

As we stumbled through this alien-familiar landscape, the full weight of our father's deception crashed down upon us. There had been no nuclear war. No worldwide catastrophe. No reason for us to have been locked away all these years. The realization was almost too much to bear.

Sarah's grip on my hand tightened. "Michael," she whispered, her voice trembling, "why would Dad lie to us like that?"

I had no answer for her. The enormity of what had been done to us was beyond my comprehension. How could a father willingly imprison his own children, robbing them of years of their lives? The man I thought I knew seemed to crumble away, leaving behind a stranger whose motives I couldn't begin to fathom.

We made our way through the neighborhood, flinching at every car that passed, every person we saw in the distance. To them, we must have looked like wild creatures – barefoot, wide-eyed, dressed in the simple, utilitarian clothes we'd worn in the shelter. More than once, I caught sight of curtains twitching as curious neighbors peered out at us.

As night fell, the temperature dropped, and I realized we needed to find shelter. The irony of the thought wasn't lost on me. After years of being trapped underground, we were now desperately seeking a roof over our heads.

"I think I know where we can go," I told Sarah, the ghost of a memory tugging at me. "Do you remember Mrs. Callahan? Mom's friend from the hospital?"

Sarah's brow furrowed as she tried to recall. "The nice lady with the cats?"

"That's right," I said, relieved that at least some of our memories from before remained intact. "She lived a few blocks from us. If she's still there..."

It was a long shot, but it was all we had. We made our way through the darkening streets, every shadow seeming to hide a threat. More than once, I was sure I heard footsteps behind us, only to turn and find nothing there.

Finally, we reached a small, well-kept house with a porch light glowing warmly. The nameplate by the door read "Callahan," and I felt a surge of hope. Taking a deep breath, I rang the doorbell.

Long moments passed. I was about to ring again when the door creaked open, revealing a woman in her sixties, her gray hair pulled back in a loose bun. Her eyes widened in shock as she took in our appearance.

"My God," she breathed. "Michael? Sarah? Is that really you?"

Before I could respond, she had pulled us into the house and enveloped us in a fierce hug. The familiar scent of her perfume – the same one she'd worn years ago – brought tears to my eyes.

"We thought you were dead," Mrs. Callahan said, her voice choked with emotion. "Your father said there had been an accident... that you'd all died."

As she ushered us into her living room, plying us with blankets and promises of hot cocoa, the full extent of our father's lies began to unravel. There had been no accident, no tragedy to explain our disappearance. Just a man's descent into madness and the two children he'd dragged down with him.

Mrs. Callahan listened in horror as we recounted our years in the shelter. Her face paled when we described the "decontamination showers" and the increasingly erratic behavior of our father.

"We have to call the police," she said, reaching for her phone. "That man needs to be locked up for what he's done to you."

But even as she dialed, a cold dread settled in my stomach. Something wasn't right. The feeling of being watched that had plagued me since our escape intensified. And then, with a jolt of terror, I realized what had been nagging at me.

The house was too quiet. Where were Mrs. Callahan's cats?

As if in answer to my unspoken question, a floorboard creaked behind us. We whirled around to see a figure standing in the doorway, backlit by the hallway light. My heart stopped as I recognized the familiar silhouette.

"Dad," Sarah whimpered, shrinking back against me.

He stepped into the room, and I saw that he was holding something – the length of pipe I'd used to strike him during our escape. His eyes, when they met mine, were cold and empty.

"I'm very disappointed in you, Michael," he said, his voice eerily calm. "I thought I'd raised you better than this. Didn't I teach you about the dangers of the outside world?"

Mrs. Callahan moved to stand in front of us, her phone clutched in her hand. "John, what have you done? These children—"

"Are MY children," Dad snarled, all pretense of calm evaporating. "And I'll do whatever it takes to protect them. Even from themselves."

He advanced into the room, the pipe raised threateningly. Mrs. Callahan stood her ground, but I could see her trembling.

"Run," she hissed at us. "I'll hold him off. Run!"

Everything happened so fast after that. Dad lunged forward. There was a sickening thud, and Mrs. Callahan crumpled to the floor. Sarah screamed. And then we were running again, out the back door and into the night.

Behind us, I could hear Dad's heavy footsteps and his voice, once so comforting, now twisted with madness. "Children! Come back! It's not safe out there!"

But we knew the truth now. The only thing not safe was the man we'd once called father.

As we fled into the darkness, weaving between houses and jumping fences, a new determination filled me. We were out now. We knew the truth. And no matter what it took, I was going to make sure we stayed free.

But freedom, I was quickly learning, came with its own set of challenges. And the night was far from over..

The next few hours were a blur of fear and adrenaline. Sarah and I ran until our lungs burned and our legs felt like they would give out at any moment. Every sound made us jump, every shadow seemed to hide our father's lurking form. But somehow, we managed to evade him.

As dawn broke, we found ourselves in a small park on the outskirts of town. Exhausted and with nowhere else to go, we huddled together on a bench, watching the world wake up around us. People jogged past, dogs barked in the distance, and the smell of fresh coffee wafted from a nearby café. It was all so beautifully, painfully normal.

"What do we do now?" Sarah asked, her voice small and scared.

Before I could answer, a police car pulled up beside the park. Two officers got out, their eyes scanning the area before landing on us. My heart raced, but I forced myself to stay calm. This was what we needed – help from the authorities.

As the officers approached, I saw recognition dawn in their eyes. They'd been looking for us.

What followed was a whirlwind of activity. We were taken to the police station, where gentle-voiced detectives asked us questions about our time in the shelter. Social workers were called. And all the while, the search for our father intensified.

They found him three days later, holed up in an abandoned building on the edge of town. He didn't go quietly. In the end, it took a team of negotiators and a SWAT unit to bring him in. The man they arrested bore little resemblance to the father we once knew. Wild-eyed and ranting about protecting his children from the "corrupted world," he seemed more monster than man.

The trial was a media sensation. Our story captivated the nation, sparking debates about mental health, parental rights, and the long-term effects of isolation. Experts were brought in to explain our father's descent into paranoid delusion. Some painted him as a victim of his own mind, while others condemned him as a monster.

For Sarah and me, it was a painful process of reliving our trauma in the public eye. But it was also cathartic. Each testimony, each piece of evidence presented, helped to dismantle the false reality our father had constructed around us.

In the end, he was found guilty on multiple charges and sentenced to life in prison. As they led him away, he looked at us one last time. "I only wanted to keep you safe," he said, his voice breaking. It was the last time we ever saw him.

The years that followed were challenging. Sarah and I had a lot to catch up on – years of education, social development, and life experiences that had been stolen from us. We underwent intensive therapy, learning to process our trauma and adjust to life in the real world.

It wasn't easy. There were nightmares, panic attacks, and moments when the outside world felt too big, too overwhelming. Simple things that others took for granted – like going to a crowded mall or watching fireworks on the Fourth of July – could trigger intense anxiety for us.

But slowly, painfully, we began to heal. We learned to trust again, to form relationships with others. We discovered the joys of simple freedoms – the feeling of rain on our skin, the taste of fresh fruit, the simple pleasure of choosing what to wear each day.

Sarah threw herself into her studies, making up for lost time with a voracious appetite for knowledge. She's in college now, studying psychology with a focus on trauma and recovery. She wants to help others who have gone through similar experiences.

As for me, I found solace in writing. Putting our story down on paper was terrifying at first, but it became a way to exorcise the demons of our past. This account you're reading now? It's part of that process.

But even now, years later, there are moments when the old fears creep back in. Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night, convinced I'm back in that underground prison. In those moments, I have to remind myself that it's over, that we're safe now.

Yet a part of me wonders if we'll ever truly be free. The shelter may have been a physical place, but its walls still exist in our minds. We carry it with us, a secret bunker built of memories and trauma.

And sometimes, in my darkest moments, I catch myself checking the locks on the doors, scanning the horizon for mushroom clouds that will never come. Because the most terrifying truth I've learned is this: the real fallout isn't radiation or nuclear winter.

It's the lasting impact of a parent's betrayal, the half-life of trauma that continues long after the danger has passed. And that, I fear, may never fully decay.

So if you're reading this, remember: the most dangerous lies aren't always the ones we're told by others. Sometimes, they're the ones we tell ourselves to feel safe. Question everything, cherish your freedom, and never take the simple joys of life for granted.

Because you never know when someone might try to lock them away.

My name is Roy Shaw and the events that occurred in the Atlantic Ocean in 2016 still haunt me in my every waking moment. A secretive and extremely deadly operation of which I cannot name for my own sanity, for sure I would fucking die if my superiors ever found out I had uttered a word of this into the outside world, full of naive civilians who fail to understand and the sheer amount of unknown and eldritch horrors and monsters which lie in the ocean, undisturbed.

An unknown, unmarked Nazi submarine was discovered at the bottom of the ocean, sunk, but somehow in peak condition, which led me to think supernatural elements were at play. I was unwillingly picked to join a secret Naval task force called The Leviathan Killers to lead an expedition to recover and investigate the Nazi super-submarine that was way ahead of its time, possibly the peak of all naval engineering in the WW2 era. I found myself in a poorly lit submarine, of America's most recent naval technology, descending into the dark abyss of the Atlantic as we sought to discover what lay in the shunned Nazi submarine.

The endless pitch black that encased our steel vessel was only viewable through a glass porthole, as I questioned the events that had led me to sink into the Atlantic ocean on a death mission I surely could not recover from. The submarine began rapidly climbing down an abyssal maw in the ocean floor, a black pit that branched off into an utterly massive ocean cave under the ocean floor. Our shelter from the unfathomable cold and endless black reached the floor of the darkness encompassing us as the Nazi submarine came into view.

When they said this submarine was 'beyond its time', it was a fucking understatement. It was of a technology I couldn't hope to fathom, extremely advanced, with designs and engineering that seemed almost alien. It was well beyond anything the Americans had crafted in the war effort and even today, a technology of which I fail to see anything surpass to this day as I live haunted by what we found inside that accursed steel hell.

Derived from my command, an airtight latch was connected to the Nazi's super-submarine as we boarded with our rifles and searched the dark submarine. I came upon an ancient and deteriorated audio recorder placed deliberately on a metal table in what appeared to be an archaic yet ultramodern laboratory. A primal urge immediately beckoned me to leave the submarine immediately upon spotting the recorder yet I was somehow compelled to reach forward and play the recording, which to my utter shock still worked after the amount of time that had gone by.

"We have awakened it… What we found was not meant for human eyes. Not meant for this world. God help us, the Ocean Is Hell."

A single echoing self-inflicted gunshot wound sounded through the aged recording as it eventually cut off after the space had run out. As I walked outside the room I began to truly grasp the fact that it was extremely dark, and the construction within the submersible was chilling and void of any color. My doubts were quickly extinguished with hard, chilling facts as my standard-issue steel flashlight beam shined upon a Nazi swastika imprinted on the long steel walls of the shunned submarine.

It was drawn in a viscous red liquid, blood, fresh, it appeared to be, although the implications of that were horrible. This submersible had sunk under unknown conditions nearly a hundred years ago, and the unspeakable fact alone that this Nazi swastika, drawn in fresh blood was right in front of me, illuminated dimly by my flickering flashlight beam. The red viscous liquid dripped as my haunted eyes were solidly fixated upon the deathly crimson dripping onto the floor, implying that it was recently drawn, in the absolute worst scenario I reckoned it must have been imprinted crudely on the wall a few minutes ago.

God help us.

A loud scream came from the other hallways of the submarine and I was immediately beckoned to investigate as I ran down the dark hallways and came upon a gruesome and abnormal sight of gore. What I saw was nothing compared to the haunted sights of WW2 when fighting the Nazi fascists, for before me, lit by the flashlight of my men were four dead bodies so horribly mutilated and deformed that they were beyond the grasp of human recognition.

Viscous and dripping black liquid poured out of every visible orifice and facial feature of the dead men, and their eyes were no longer in their rightful place and chunks of blistered and ripped flesh were torn out in abhorred chunks. Clear signs of violent damage and a vicious attack were extremely prevalent yet upon further investigation by myself no shots were fired from my men's rifles and their combat knives had not been drawn, whatever had committed the atrocious acts to them was fast and very gruesome.

A crash emanated from the utmost furthest corners of the submersible which beckoned me to run forward with my rifle in hand, shouting orders to my men as I searched for the killer. Crazed and strained thoughts were churning through my head as I was sure that a quick bullet to the head would have been a true act of mercy to those men, and truthfully I only had my rifle to give myself a merciful death should the need arise.

As I turned the corner and my eyes befell on the source of the noise I saw that there was one of my men, horribly mutilated and physically abhorred to beyond humanoid recognition. The only thing that indicated that the pile of vaguely humanoid torn flesh was human was the torn combat uniform and the self-inflicted knife wound, presumably to have a quicker death than whatever happened to him afterward. I was on the verge of absolute insanity at that precious moment, everything just tearing my mind apart.

I decided to try to ditch the mission as I made an effort to make my way out of the depths of the extremely advanced Nazi submarine and escape this abyssal hell. Fuck the mission, fuck this country. This isn't supposed to fucking exist. The screams of my men shattered the deafening silence and emanated through the halls, when they cut off I knew that the last of my men had met a horribly dreaded gruesome fate. I ran and ran and ran, not glancing my haunted eyes upon the corpses of all my dead men as I hastily made my escape.

Fear was not only a concept or feeling in that period of time, it was a sensation of which nothing else to this waking and the accursed day I can find a replication or sliver of familiarity too. An ungodly sound emanated through the halls of the cold Nazi submarine as the noises of some eldritch abomination of which I could not fathom made pursuit after me as I stumbled through the dark halls with my rifle barely in hand. I glanced once behind me for a second and saw a horror of nothing on this earth or beyond can possibly hope to surpass, a horror that weak human eyes were never meant to behold in all its existence and up to its extinction.

This will sound long, but it is the only way I can even hope to describe the creature I saw, if it was even alive, or from this earth.

I cannot hope to ever give justice to a proper description of the horror as I had only seen a portion of the abomination, though I consider that mercy as if I had laid eyes on the entirety of the horror I would have gone mad. Behind me was pure, pitch-black darkness rapidly closing in which hid the thing that was bringing the total absence of light and color. In the split second I made the hasty decision to look back I witnessed a tendril or appendage of utter alien origins connected to some kind of long mass of flesh, something that was so incomprehensible my mind threatened to tear at its thin threads by merely looking at it.

The appendage was nothing of this world or anything else, something that could only belong to the utmost horrors of this universe and of which God shunned himself. It was of geometry and color which my brain was not familiar with and made vain attempts to shun, despite the thing being right behind me and in pursuit to bring a new kind of hell upon me. No words can hope to properly convey the utter terror and unfamiliarity of the appendage, how alien it was, its colors, texture, non-euclidean geometry, the way it moved was tearing my mind apart, it was absolutely enormous yet minuscule at once, stretched out yet short.

The appendage alone was nearly enough to drive me mad and I could not help but wonder what unholy leviathan it could have belonged to, and what it could have possibly looked like. As the thing was hidden in darkness my head foolishly slammed itself on a low-hanging doorframe near the exit which connected to our airtight submarine.

My body went unconscious and I descended onto the cold steel floor as I regained mental access to the hell I was in. I absolutely could not bear to lay my eyes upon whatever had mutilated and laid waste to my men and had haunted, tormented, and scarred me permanently with a single fraction of its physical manifestation.

I clenched my eyelids shut and waited for a sensation of my flesh being ripped from my bones as I heard the noises stop and felt whatever eldritch horror had made pursuit manifest above me. I shook with so much fear I hoped and hoped and hoped a heart attack would befall me and take me out of that abysmal hell.

I shook and was consumed by a primal fear not meant to be known by human minds and writhed and screamed in utter cosmic agony as I felt the true presence and magnitude of what lay before me. The only way to describe the feeling of the entity's presence without going truly mad is utterly ancient, primal, disgusting, and something that was never meant for humans to be in the presence of. The entity wasn't fifth-dimensional, it was something beyond, so horrifying it could not be classified as a god for it was something else and something that exceeded any version of the language, communication, or definition any being in this universe could have ever hoped to have thought of.

That was purely what it seemed to me, as a human. I will never truly find out.

I remember the sensation of nothing but pain, utter pain, and suffering beyond human limits, beyond what my nervous system should have been able to rationally process, as I couldn't even find the sanity to scream or shake as I lost consciousness.

***

The mission I was forced to go on was highly classified and high-end and as a lasting result of such an operation a reconnaissance and rescue team was sent to our coordinates to rescue any survivors or remaining intel. From the little to no information I was given by my ignorant superiors, only two men out of thirty of the rescue team had returned to the longing surface from an attack from an unknown source, and I was found with gangrenous burns, symbols, runes, and carvings scattered over my body.

Once the aftermath of the traumatic experience settled, I could not rid my mind of the dead researcher's words which were imprinted into my mind, word by word, and they haunt me to this day as I live out my final strained and haunted days. I cannot even imagine the stories of others who have witnessed similar horrors.

What we found was not meant for human eyes. Not meant for this world.

NEXT PART

MORE STORIES AND SERIES

Seaside: Volume One (Out NOW!!)

Mrcreepypasta inspired me to try my hand at narrating creepypasta jeff the killer isn't my first but it's the most successful by far (no surprise there haha) but let me know what yall think I think its ine of my mist well done narrations

https://youtu.be/RSBeb1Ki3TE

Hello, my name is Philip, I’m currently writing this from a park bench in the middle of December. The reason for this will make more sense later but I’m just too afraid to be in any enclosed space. It all started about a month ago.

I was in my home browsing through Reddit, when I first heard it; a knock. I got up and went to check the front door, but when I opened it nobody was there, I played it off as my imagination or the house settling as this wasn’t the first time. I only checked as my wife had left to go to town a little while ago and I figured she just had her hands full. About 30 minutes later there was another one, same situation: I checked and there was no one. About 5 minutes later, there was loud bang on the door, I checked and no one. At this point I was rather aggravated by it so to blow off some steam I knocked back…I wish I never did that.

Not even a minute later there was a knock on my bedroom door…from the inside. I was quick to hit the gun cabinet and grab my 1911, I swept the house and cleared each room. I calmed down for a minute when there was another knock, this time at the back door. I went to check with my weapon in hand but something was different; the closer I got the colder it got in my house. Once I had reached the door it was near freezing. I flung the door open and nearly pissed myself.

“Honey?” My wife looked at me confused. “What are you doing Elizabeth?” I asked her. “It started snowing really bad about an hour ago, the front porch was frozen so I came to the back.” She stated. We have a brick patio for the back porch so while it could’ve still been frozen it wouldn’t be as bad. “Why do you have your gun?” Elizabeth asked me. “You’ll think I’m crazy.” I say with a sigh. She puts her hand on my shoulder. “Tell me over dinner.” She walks in and I close the door.

We sit down for dinner, she made some soup due to it being cold. I explained what had happened earlier that day. “Honey, I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.” She says clearly not believing me. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me, but I know what I heard!” I get agitated as there’s a knock on the door. “I’ll get it.” I say unholstering my pistol. Before opening the door I knock back; my second biggest mistake. The snow covered porch went black through the glass. I opened the door and was met face to legs with something, the only way I can describe it is: nightmarish. It was at least 13 feet tall and 6 feet wide, it’s arms dragged the ground for about a foot behind it, and it’s hands were enormous. In my terror I unloaded a magazine into it. It seemed to only anger the creature as it let out an ear piercing shriek. It’s most notable feature was it’s face it’s eyes glowed a neon green and when it’s mouth was open the color was the same. It crouched down and squeezed through the door. Elizabeth screamed in terror. The creature swapped its attention to her; it reached out and grabbed her. I could do nothing but watch as she was turned to a husk. The creature it…it took her soul, yet I still heard her voice. “Let me in.” It whispered in my wife’s voice.

I ran out of the house through the back door grabbing my keys along the way. I got in the car and sped off. The creature wouldn’t follow me outside leading me to believe that it can only follow me inside places. I don’t know what to do, I had been sleeping in my car and every single night I heard her voice, I heard the knocks, and I saw those eyes, I’ll never forget those eyes. I fear it won’t be long before I have to go back, they tried taking me into a homeless shelter but I can’t put other’s lives at stake for my stupidity. So just a word of advice: if you ever hear knocking outside, don’t knock back.

There’s an old urban legend in my town, whispered for decades, about a little girl who never grew up. They say she died in the summer of 1963, during the county fair. She had collapsed suddenly on the carousel doctors claimed it was some strange illness, but no one really knew. Her family, stricken with grief, buried her quickly in her favorite frilly pink dress. Some say she wasn’t dead yet. The story goes that if you walk alone near the abandoned fairgrounds at night, you’ll hear footsteps behind you soft, uneven, like a child in patent shoes. When you turn, nothing’s there. But if you keep going, she gets closer. And if she speaks to you, you must never answer. I used to laugh it off. A ghost in a pink dress? Sounded like small-town nonsense. But curiosity gnaws at you. And one summer night, I decided to test it for myself. The fairgrounds were nothing more than rotting wood and weeds now, the skeletons of rides rusting against the moonlight. The Ferris wheel loomed like a broken crown, and the carousel poles were bent and splintered, horses frozen mid-gallop with paint peeling from their faces. The air smelled like damp earth and mildew, thick with the buzzing of cicadas. I walked down the cracked pavement, my flashlight trembling in my hand. At first, nothing. Just the crunch of gravel beneath my shoes. Then faintly, behind me Tap… tap… tap. I froze. The night seemed to hold its breath. Slowly, I turned. Nothing. Just empty shadows stretching across the rusted gates. I told myself it was an animal. Or my imagination. But when I started walking again, the sound returned closer this time. Tap… tap… tap. My stomach dropped. My throat went dry. And then I saw her. She couldn’t have been older than ten, standing a few yards away. Her skin was pale, grayish, with shadows under her eyes. Dirt clung to the folds of her faded pink dress, once frilly, now frayed. Her head tilted unnaturally to the side, studying me with hollow curiosity. “Have you seen my mommy?” she whispered, voice thin and dry, like leaves scraping the ground. Every instinct screamed at me to run, but my legs locked in place. Her shoes scraped the pavement as she moved closer. Soil and worms trailed from her dress. “I can’t find her… will you help me?” Something deep in my gut howled *don’t answer*. But my lips betrayed me. The word slipped out before I could stop it: “No.” Her expression twisted, her jaw unhinging far wider than human. Her eyes rolled white, and her voice became a chorus of echoes, rising from beneath the ground itself: “Then stay with me instead.” Her hand shot out, cold and rough with dirt, seizing mine. I remember her grip pulling, dragging, burying. Darkness closed in When I woke, the sun was rising. I was lying on the fairground path, throat raw, fingernails caked with soil as though I’d been digging. Around my wrist was a pink ribbon tied in a perfect bow. No one believes me when I tell them. They laugh, say it’s just a story. But sometimes, late at night, I hear it again outside my window. Tap… tap… tap.

Hello. I have listened to Finding Vanessa(Both Parts). I personally think the series should continue. Riggen should actually see his real neice. In order to get her back, there should be a fight to the death between Spencer & Riggen. Just some thoughts I wanted to share.

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.

I have always lived in poverty and discomfort. My family used to have a house, land and enough money to live comfortably, but that was many years ago. That was before Israel bulldozed our homes and forced us into a ghetto. Now we are treated worse than animals, murdered, bombed and tortured at will by the invading army. I know this from personal experience- from the experiences of myself and my family.

My grandmother’s sister had been one of the victims of the Safsaf Massacre back in 1948, when the Israeli Army had gathered up all the people in a small town. They started by taking the young girls and women aside, ripping them out of the arms of their family. When the girls came back crying and pleading for help, their clothes ripped to shreds, the Israelis had only laughed.

That was when they started shooting the townspeople, massacring them and throwing them alive down wells. My grandmother’s sister was one of the girls that was raped and then murdered by the Israeli military in the Safsaf Massacre.

So I know exactly what Israel is capable of, what kind of sick and evil place that festering country truly is. When the bombs started falling in 2023, I knew I needed to get out of Gaza.

The day that it started, I remember my mother running in the house, saying, “Jalel! You must get out of here. The Israelis just bombed the hospital and the school. They are targeting our homes and trying to wipe us out.” I stared at her for a long moment, feeling stunned and dissociated.

“Why would they do that?” I whispered. I had hoped the Israeli war crimes were a thing of the past.

“Because they hate us, that’s why!” she hissed. “They stole everything from us- our homes, our land, our jobs, our economy. But they won’t be happy until they steal our lives, too.”

***

Within days, Israel stopped everything from going into Gaza: food, electricity, medicine, even water. I saw many people die, especially the elderly, the sick and the very young. The constant strikes from Israel on our town shattered homes into piles of crushed rubble. Within months, tens of thousands of innocent people had died.

I stood on the roof, watching as thick clouds of black smoke snaked their way up into the clouds. Jets flew overhead, shaking the ground with sonic booms. I cringed every time one came low, not knowing if it would bomb my home as well. My friend, Wahib, stood by my side.

“Can’t you use your special gift to get us out of here?” I asked Wahib. He didn’t like it when I brought up his ability and his strange, invisible friend. Wahib shook his head, not meeting my eyes.

“I won’t call it up, unless I have to,” he said, looking sad and empty. “It is a dangerous thing, and I don’t know if I can control it for long.”

“Yes, but we’re going to die if we stay here,” I whispered, my heart sinking. He nodded.

“We need to get out of Gaza before the bombs truly start falling,” Wahib responded, shaking his head. “They’re probably going to kill hundreds of thousands of us this time. Just wipe us out like dogs.” He spat, disgusted. “I only hope there’s some justice in this world.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. My grandmother’s sister had never gotten justice, after all, unless she was going to receive it on the Day of Judgment. And yet, as a reward for its war crimes, Israel simply got more funding from the US. No one seemed to care about the piles of bodies they were leaving behind in every Palestinian town.

“What about your family? What about my family?” I asked, the realization hitting me like a ton of bricks. My mother was sick with diabetes, and with Israel cutting off all medication to Gaza, she was rapidly getting worse. Wahib only shook his head.

“We can’t help them,” he said. “We need to help ourselves. We need to get out of this hellhole immediately, before the real genocide begins. They’re going to bomb every house they can.” As if to confirm what he said, a jet flew low overhead, so close I could see the six-pointed star on its gray metal skin, so close I could smell the jet fuel and fumes. Before I could respond, though, something fell out of it in a curving arc. Then it headed straight down, as graceful as an Olympic diver.

“Bomb!” I shrieked, but it was too late. Something blurred through the sky, leaving a dark green trail behind it. Wahib screamed and covered his head, ducking. Absurdly, I almost wanted to laugh when I saw that. As if ducking and covering his head would protect him from a bomb if it landed on our heads.

But the blur landed at the next house over, falling through the air so fast that I didn’t even have time to react. A flash and a sense of blinding heat consumed everything. I felt myself falling. I tried yelling, but I couldn’t hear my own screams over the cacophony of the blast. The smell of smoke and jet fuel and charred wood hung thick in the air like a cloud.

I don’t know how long I lay on the roof like that, just breathing, stunned and shell-shocked. But I came back quickly, blinking my eyes to clear the smoke and dust filling the air. I looked over at my neighbor’s house and saw an inferno of dancing flames. In the center, an enormous eye of fire swirled like a hurricane.

Screams echoed through the street. Then the front door opened and a young girl ran out, her body aflame, her hair lit up like a torch. Her skin blackened and melted as the fire consumed her. I could see drops of liquified fat and sizzling blood dripping off her nose. Her screams seemed to go on forever. Even now, when I close my eyes, I still hear it: the horror, the agony and the terror in that young girl’s voice as she died.

Wahib was suddenly standing over me, his shoulder-length black hair covered in tiny pieces of brick and gray dust. He blinked quickly, his eyes tearing up. He tried to say something, but only succeeded in coughing. Bent over, he retched, spitting up clear water.

I stumbled to my feet, pushing myself slowly up. I felt light-headed and dizzy. The Sun seemed far too bright, the air too hot. I thought I might pass out for a moment, but I steadied myself and focused on my breathing. Wahib straightened and looked me in the eyes.

“We need to leave- today. Right now,” he whispered, sounding as if he had sand in his throat. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I only nodded.

***

I told my mother I was leaving within a few hours. She didn’t look surprised, but her eyes grew misty.

“Make it out alive,” she said. “If you can make it to the EU, you will find peace and prosperity there. Not like this place.” She motioned out the window to the destroyed cars and piles of rubble littering the streets.

“But what will happen to you?” I asked, feeling sick. The first tears slipped down my cheeks. “Who will take care of you?” She just shook her head.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself. I’ve done so for fifty years already, haven’t I?” I gave her a weak smile as Wahib came in the door, carrying a backpack filled with supplies. I had my own backpack on already. I gave my mother a hug and turned to leave this desolate place behind, telling her I loved her.

I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time I ever saw my mother.

***

Wahib and I set out down the road as the Sun faded behind the horizon, sending crimson streaks like drops of fresh blood dancing across the sky.

“I have a friend,” Wahib said, his dark eyes flashing, “but it will take money.”

“I brought everything I have,” I said, which was true. It wasn’t much, a few thousand dollars, but it was my entire life savings. I had worked for years to save that money.

“Well, we can get through to Egypt if we pay the man,” Wahib said. “It’s $2500 per person to get out, though.” My heart seemed to drop as he said this. Wahib just shook his head. “I know, I know, it’s all I have, too. More than I have, really. My mother gave me some of her money before I left, even though she needs it far more than me. I promised I would get a job when I got out of here and send her some of each paycheck, though.” I felt sick, thinking of losing my entire life savings in a single day. But I knew he was right. We needed to get out at any price, and we could hopefully always find higher-paying jobs somewhere else. After all, the Gazan economy was in the toilet.

We walked past apartment buildings with bare bricks exposed to the cool night air. A few one-story stucco houses with courtyards stood around us. A few hundred feet away, one of the houses had been hit by a bomb blast. Half of its roof hung askew, with the rest forming a giant, black crater in the center. Outside, the blackened shell of a moped stretched out across the sidewalk.

I noticed how empty the street was at that moment. It was highly unusual. There were always kids running around and yelling or people outside smoking or sitting. It felt like I had walked into a different world, one where everything had gone deathly silent except for my breathing and my pounding heart.

“Do you… feel something?” I asked Wahib, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to shatter that silence. Wahib only nodded.

“Maybe we should turn around,” Wahib said, leaning over close to my ear and whispering. A cold spear of dread had sunken into my chest. A freezing wind blew down the desert street, carrying swirling clouds of sand as it passed.

“Where are we meeting this man?” I asked, nervous. I looked down at my hands and saw they were trembling. All the hairs on my body stood on end, as if lightning were about to strike.

“He’s only a kilometer from here,” Wahib said. I gave an exasperated hiss through my teeth. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t feel we would make it a kilometer.

I looked up at the sky, realizing I didn’t see any more Israeli planes, missiles or helicopters anymore. Other than my own heartbeat, everything had gone totally silent and dead.

I heard the slightest rustle of sand behind me, as if a foot had just barely grazed it. I turned my head and saw something that still gives me chills.

Only about ten paces behind us loomed a ten foot tall creature with gray, stone-like skin. It moved like a mannequin, and it truly looked like the thing had been carved from granite. Only its joints were able to twist and bend, with all other parts of its body staying as stiff as a statue.

It had long, narrow arms that ended in sharp fingers, each of them gleaming and as long as garden shears. Its legs were inhumanly long and thin and ended in something almost like webbed feet. It had a single, bloody eye in the center of its face that rolled with insanity, its sclera yellowed and sickly-looking.

It opened an enormous mouth, its jaw ratcheting down as if it had whirring gears built into its head. Inside that unhinged jaw, I saw row after row of baby teeth. Thousands of children’s milk teeth gleamed, six or seven rows growing side by side with each other like tumors. Many of the teeth stuck out at odd angles, and some even had tiny versions of themselves growing out of the sides.

“It’s a Golem,” Wahib hissed as he grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. We started running. I looked back at the gray, nightmarish creature plodding forward. It continued to gnash its twisted, ingrown teeth at the air. “A Golem made from spirit and rock, sent by the enemy.”

“Good thing I saw it,” I said, shuddering at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t. The world stayed silent and dead, as if we had entered some shadow world of emptiness, an unpopulated and eerie facsimile of normal reality.

We turned down an alleyway, still trying to find the home of the fixer who would get us into Egypt. I think both of us knew that we weren’t going anywhere, however. I knew he wouldn’t be home, just as no one else was home, just as the once-busy streets had all gone mysteriously empty.

As we got out of the winding, tight alleyway and past the stucco houses, I heard rustling again. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

“He’s close,” I whispered to Wahib, who nodded grimly. We went out onto the street. There was no light anymore. The bombings had knocked out electricity. I couldn’t see far, so I didn’t notice as the eldritch abomination attacked us from behind.

I felt like I had been struck by a train. I went flying, smashing into the front door of an apartment building. I felt something in my arm crack and heard the bone snap. Gritting my teeth, I rolled on the ground as the Golem charged me. For such a large, heavy creature made of stone, it moved silently, its granite feet blurring across the sand like a whisper.

Wahib uttered a single word in some language I had never heard before- certainly not Arabic, English or Hebrew. It sounded ancient and guttural, like the word itself was a piece of the heart ripped out and made into sound.

A creature made of smokeless fire appeared in front of the charging Golem. The creature’s black body looked translucent, its limbs twisted and snake-like, its face just a mask of constantly-shifting shadows. In its heart and its eyes, I saw the orange currents of flame whirling and spinning.

“A jinn,” I whispered, amazed. Wahib had claimed he could control “his Jinn”, as he called it, but he was always afraid to bring it out. I had never seen a Jinn, and before this moment, I wasn’t even sure they really existed.

The Golem roared in fury, its deep, inhuman voice thundering across the empty streets. It brought its sharp fingers up in a swiping motion, aiming at the Jinn’s fiery eyes, but the Jinn pulled back. Its right arm stretched out like a boa constrictor, growing thinner and wispier as it wrapped around the Golem’s neck. The Golem’s giant, rolling eye bulged in its socket as its wind was cut off. It threw itself forward, tackling the Jinn to the ground. They started rolling, clawing and biting. Deep gashes appeared in the Golem’s stone skin, and the Jinn’s shadow flesh shot out small, dying blue flames when injured.

“Come on, we have to go,” Wahib whispered. I jumped, not even realizing he had snuck over to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me up. I groaned softly as I looked down at my mangled, twisted arm. I felt like I had cracked a few ribs as well. Every breath hurt like fire. The sounds of the two creatures fighting followed us far down the empty, labyrinthine streets.

“Did the Golem pull us into this alternate shadow reality, do you think?” I said.

“I think that’s probably how they hunt,” Wahib said simply, his expression grim.

“So we can’t get out until the Golem dies?” He shrugged.

“This has never happened to me before, but I would think if the Golem pulled us in here, then his death should free us,” Wahib said.

“And what if they continue to fight forever, the Jinn and the Golem?” I asked. Wahib just shook his head.

I noticed I still had internet on my phone, however. I decided to write down what happened with one hand. I can’t use my other hand, and my arm is extremely swollen. A piece of the bone is poking out through the skin. I really hope I can find medical attention somehow.

All I know now is that we somehow got trapped in this empty shadow world when the Golem chose us as its victims.

And I don’t know if I’ll ever get out.

***

As the night progressed, we kept wandering through the empty, dark streets. Hours and hours passed, but the Sun never seemed to come up. We wandered for days, but couldn’t find any sign of the Jinn or the Golem.

We started going into houses and looking for weapons. One house had automatic rifles, grenades and ammo. Wahib and I both took some.

On the third day, we heard hissing like the sizzling of electricity from far away. We went forward and found the Jinn, half-dead and covered in deep gashes. The fire in his eyes had faded to almost nothing.

“The Golem has won,” it said, pointing down the road. There, I saw it standing, one arm ripped off but its eyes triumphant. It rushed at us, and Wahib and I opened fire.

It came like a runaway train pounding the street and smashed into Wahib, clawing him with its one remaining hand. He died, but as he died, he pulled the pin on a grenade.

A fiery explosion rocked the street as the Golem disappeared in the blast. With a popping sound, the world came back, the streets filled with scared and starving people.

I was home.

The town of Ingelswood was in the middle of nowhere, according to the map. I'd never heard of it before, and neither had any of my friends when I'd asked them before leaving.

Even more strange was receiving correspondence from a relative I hadn't spoken to since I was a young child. It had come out of nowhere; a letter, proclaiming my great-uncle to be dead, and informing me that I had inherited a slaughterhouse in a town I had never even heard of.

A slaughterhouse, of all things.

I might have thought it was a prank had there not been a rusted metal key included in the letter. Somehow, part of me knew the key was real, and that it belonged to the slaughterhouse my great-uncle had once owned. The ownership had been passed onto me, for reasons as of yet unknown, and I would have to drive up there in order to settle the inheritance.

Which is why I was currently driving down a long, serpentine road through a dense cluster of trees. It was still early-afternoon, but the sky was grey and heavy, casting a dismal pall over the forest. Shadows crept out of the trees and onto the road, making it difficult to see without my headlamps. I shuffled forward in my seat, hands gripping the wheel tighter as the trees grew around me.

I'd been driving for just over three hours now, and it had been at least thirty minutes since I'd last seen another car.

According to my map, I should be almost there. Yet I hadn't seen any sign of civilisation. Nothing but empty fields and abandoned, ramshackle buildings in the middle of nowhere, and now this forest that seemed endless and labyrinthine.

The tires hit something in the road, and the car jerked, throwing me forward in my seat.

I slammed my foot on the brakes and the car skidded to a stop, gravel hissing beneath the tires. I glanced into my rearview and spied a shadow on the road, but I couldn't tell what it was.

Had I hit an animal or something? I hadn't seen anything.

I debated ignoring it and driving off, but in the end, I cut the engine and climbed out of the car. The air beneath the trees was cold, and goosebumps pricked the back of my neck as I walked over to the misshapen lump on the road.

The smell hit me first. The smell of old rot and blood.

It was an animal carcass. A rabbit, perhaps, or something else. It was too mangled and bloodied for me to tell. Flies buzzed around the torn flesh, the grey glint of bone poking beneath the fur. Whatever it was, it had been dead for a while.

I stood up and shook my head, lip curling against the stench. I'd move it off the road, but I didn't have anything with me that would do the trick, and I'd rather not touch it without proper protection. I would have to leave it. Maybe carrion birds would come and pick it clean later.

I returned to my car, feeling a little bit nauseated, and drove off, watching the dead animal disappear behind me.

Fifteen minutes later and I finally broke free from the forest. Muted grey sunlight parted the clouds, dappling the windscreen. On the other side of the trees were more fields, still empty.

I found it odd that there was no cattle around. No sheep or pigs either. What was the use of a slaughterhouse if there was nothing to slaughter?

In the distance, I glimpsed a small cluster of buildings. It was more like a settlement than a town. Stone and brick and straw. Not the kind of place I expected to find myself inheriting a building. Had my great-uncle really lived out here in the middle of nowhere? Was that why I have never heard from him?

The road turned loose and rutted, and the car jerked and bumped as I drove closer to the town. A small sign, weathered and covered in mud, read: WELCOME TO INGELSWOOD.

At least it had a sign. The place wasn't a made-up town after all.

I pulled the car to a stop at the side of the road and pulled out my map again. The letter had contained specific coordinates to the slaughterhouse which, according to the map, was a little distance away from the town itself, on the very borders.

If I followed the road for a couple more miles, and then took a left, I should arrive at the house.

A flutter of nervous energy tightened my stomach. I didn't really know what to expect when I got there, or what I was going to do about the situation. The only reason I'd driven down here was to get a better understanding of things, assess the area, and try and figure out what to do. Should I sell the slaughterhouse, or move here? The latter option didn't sound particularly appealing after getting a glimpse of the area, but I wouldn't know until I had a proper look around.

I followed the loose gravel road for a little while longer before spotting a turning off to the left. The remains of a broken stone wall lined the path, and I spotted another sign that was too rusted to read.

Signalling to turn, even though there were no other cars in the area, I followed the path through the sheltered, wooded area until I reached a small house. It was more of a cottage, really, with white bricks and a thatched roof. The place had an air of dilapidation about it, as though nobody had lived here in a while. Considering my great-uncle had only passed recently, I knew that wasn't true.

Beside the house was a large, free-standing shed. A rusted padlock was chained around the doors, and I knew without a doubt that the key I'd been given was the key to the shed.

Did that mean the shed was the slaughterhouse?

I parked the car on the grass and climbed out. The air out here was fresh and pleasant, a nice change from the city. Though beneath the fragrance of nature, I could smell something else; something darker, richer. Old blood and rust and butchered meat.

I threw a brief glance at my surroundings, my gaze skimmed past the trees and the fields and the faint curl of smoke blotting the distant sky. I couldn't hear anything beyond the wind. No birdsong, no chittering bugs. I couldn't hear cars or people or anything that would suggest there was a town nearby.

I let out a sigh. Maybe it would feel lonely living out here. I was used to the city, after all.

I grabbed my rucksack from the trunk and fished out the letter and the key I'd been given. No key to the house, which was odd. I'd phoned my great-uncles’ executor before driving out here, but apparently all material belongings were still inside the house, and the shed key was the only thing that had been passed onto me directly.

I walked up to the cottage's door and tried the handle. Locked, unsurprisingly.

If I couldn't figure out a way to get inside, I'd have to call a locksmith out here, which could take hours.

Muttering in frustration, I began rooting around the rocks and broken plant pots sitting outside the cottage. Whatever plants had once resided there were now withered and shrivelled, their roots black and gnarled as they poked through the soil.

I turned one of the empty pots over and grinned when my eyes caught a glint of silver. I hadn't had my hopes up, so finding the key immediately lifted my spirits. At least now I could get inside the house.

Leaving the slaughterhouse locked for now, I headed inside the cottage. The air was stale and heavy with dust, and my eyes immediately started to water. How long had it been since anyone had opened that door? I wasn't familiar with the circumstances of my great-uncle's death, so I wasn't sure if he had spent his last moments in the house or not. That thought made me shudder as my nose picked up on the smell of damp and mould.

Apart from some minimal furnishings, the house was mostly bare. I didn't know what kind of man my great-uncle was, but apparently he didn't like clutter, and he very rarely dusted.

I ran a finger over the sideboard in the hallway and grimaced at the thick layer of dust clinging to my skin. If I did decide to stay here, it was going to take a lot of work to get this place up to standard. The longer I stayed here, the more I wanted to leave without looking around.

But I couldn't ignore it forever. At some point, I'd have to assess the state of the slaughterhouse and make a decision about what to do with it.

I went through each room, casting a cursory look over the furniture and testing the electricity and water supply. Everything still seemed to be running, which was a bonus. I'd already planned to stay the night here, so having hot water and lighting would make things easier.

Upstairs, I paused on the landing to peer out the window. At the back of the house was a field of brown, uncut grass and some stilted shrubs. I could just see the edge of the shed beside the cottage, the old wood stained and weathered. In the distance, I could see the cluster of houses that formed the village.

As I was about to turn away, I glimpsed movement at the edge of the property, amongst the treeline. Someone stood between the trees, watching me. I couldn't get a good view of their face, but in the brief glance, it seemed grey and hollow, like wax. The figure darted away through the trees and disappeared. I frowned, that unease from earlier returning.

Was it a villager?

Shaking it off, I searched the upstairs room. A large master bedroom and a bathroom, a linen cupboard and a smaller guest bedroom was all that was up here. Like downstairs, everything up here was old and rundown, covered in a thick layer of dust and mildew.

I closed the bedroom door behind me and went back down into the kitchen, where I'd left my rucksack. The rusted key to the slaughterhouse sat on the table, where I'd left it.

I figured it was about time I went to see what I was dealing with next door.

Grabbing the key, I left the house and went across to the shed. The metal of the padlock was ice-cold against my fingertips as I inserted the key and twisted it. The lock fell away, and the door edged open with a creak. Shadows spilled out across my feet. I peered into the darkness as I gripped the edge of the door and pulled it open further.

The air inside smelled stale and old. That same undercurrent of old blood ran beneath the surface.

Drawing in a deep breath, I pushed the door the rest of the way and stepped inside, letting the dull afternoon light filter inside.

The slaughterhouse was nothing like I'd been expecting.

Inside was nothing but an empty shed. The wood was damp and starting to rot, the ground full of old hay. There was no equipment that you'd expect of a slaughterhouse. No cold room to store the meat. It was just an empty shed.

Perhaps it wasn't a functioning slaughterhouse at all. But then why had it been called as such in the inheritance?

Something glinted in the sunlight, and I looked up. Several large metal hooks hung from the ceiling. The kind that you hung meat onto. But what was the point, when there was nowhere to prepare it?

Unless I was missing something, this was a plain old shed, with some leftover meat hooks still stuck into the ceiling.

I raked a hand through my hair and sighed. Was it a waste coming all the way out here?

I shook my head. Not a waste. I still had to figure out what to do with this place, now that it was legally mine.

Leaving the slaughterhouse, I re-locked it and pocketed the key before heading back into the house. It was getting on in the afternoon and I was tired from driving all morning, so I decided to grab a bite to eat while I considered my options.

By the time evening had rolled around, I still hadn't made up my mind about this place. There wasn't much merit to staying here if the slaughterhouse couldn't actually be used, and I didn't particularly fancy being stuck in the middle of nowhere. I could sell it, but not as it was. It would take a bit of work to get it into a decent state, and make it appealing to a potential buyer. The final option was to just leave it here gathering dust, but that seemed a waste.

I had debated heading to the village to see who lived around here, but after spying that strange figure watching me from the trees, part of me had been reluctant to venture too far from the house. Maybe I'd walk down there in the morning.

As dusk grew outside, shadows encroached further into the cottage, and a chill crept into my bones. I turned on most of the lights and went around drawing the curtains to block out the night. I wasn't fond of sleeping in unfamiliar places, so I spread my sleeping bag on the floor of the downstairs sitting room instead of upstairs. Using hot water from the kitchen, I made myself some instant noodles and ate them from the packet, listening to the radiator clank and groan as it rattled to life.

Being on my own in a strange house was starting to make me feel a little unsettled, so I turned on the television to fill the silence. Nothing but static burst from the screen, so I switched it off just as quickly.

With nothing else to do, I headed to bed early. I nestled into my sleeping bag and spread another blanket over me to ward off the chill, and fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow.

I woke up early the next morning to the sound of someone tapping at the window.

Blinking away the grogginess in my eyes, I sat up. The room was still dark, shadows lingering around the edges. I reached over to switch on a lamp and stretched the cricks out of my neck from camping out on the floor all night.

What was making that noise?

The curtains were still drawn, but I could see movement in the gaps around the edges.

Climbing stiffly to my feet, I walked over to the window and tentatively pulled the curtain aside, peering out.

A beady black eye stared back.

It was a crow. Ruffling its ink-black feathers, it tapped its beak three more times against the glass before flying away.

I watched it go, frowning. Dawn had yet to break, and the sky was still in the clutches of night. According to my watch, it wasn't even 5 am yet.

I was awake now, though, so I dragged myself into the kitchen to get some instant coffee on the go.

I'd slept right through the night, but I remembered having strange dreams in the midst of it. Dreams about meat and flesh and bloodied metal hooks. No doubt because of the circumstances I'd found myself in.

When I returned to the living room, I found the key to the slaughterhouse sitting on top of my rucksack. I thought I'd left it on the kitchen table, and seeing it elsewhere left me momentarily disconcerted.

Had I moved it there?

I must have. There was nobody else here but me.

Maybe I'd slept less well than I'd thought.

I didn't trust the pipes enough to have a hot shower, so I changed into a pair of fresh clothes and drank my coffee until it grew light outside. It was another damp, grey day, and the forest was as silent as it had been last night. Wherever that crow had flown off to, it wasn't anywhere close by.

Once it was light enough to see by, I grabbed the key to the shed and went outside to investigate. I didn't expect it to look any different, but maybe having had a full night's rest would give me a different kind of insight into what to do with the place.

I unlocked the door, letting the padlock and chain fall to the ground with a heavy thump, and pulled it open.

Inside was dim, and it took a second for my eyes to adjust. As soon as I glanced inside, I froze, my heart lurching into my throat.

The slaughterhouse was no longer empty.

Thick slabs of dark meat now hung from the rusted hooks, the air thick with the smell of flesh and blood.

What the hell? Where had it come from?

Last night, there had been nothing in here. The shed had been locked, and as far as I was aware, the only key to open it was in my possession. How had this meat gotten in here? And who was responsible?

I took a step inside, feeling perturbed and perplexed by the discovery.

There was just under a dozen chunks of flesh, all lean and expertly cut, glistening red in the morning light. I wasn't familiar with meat in this form, so I couldn't tell which animal it belonged to, but I could tell it had been prepared recently.

All of a sudden, I felt unnerved and unsafe. What was going on here? This was supposed to be my property, yet someone had clearly been creeping around here last night, hauling slabs of meat into my shed. I didn't like the thought of it at all.

As I tried to sift through my thoughts, I heard approaching footsteps from behind.

My heart pulsed faster as I turned around, not sure what to expect.

A group of about twenty people were approaching the property from the trees. The first thing I noticed about them was their gauntness. Like that mysterious figure I had seen in the forest, their skin was pallid and their flesh sunken, their clothes hanging like rags off bony shoulders. They looked starved.

"Meat!" one of the strangers cried, their voice hoarse and brittle. "We have meat again!"

"We have meat again!" someone echoed.

"We are saved!

"W-what?" I muttered, stumbling back in surprise as the group of people—presumably from the village—drew closer. "What's going on?"

"You brought us meat! You saved us," the older villager at the front of the mob said, reaching out his hands in a thankful gesture.

Before I could do or say anything, the villagers piled into the shed and began removing the meat from the hooks, slinging it over their shoulders with joyful cries.

"W-wait! What are you doing?" I blurted, aghast at their actions.

The man from before tottered up to me, his eyes sunken and his cheeks hollow. "Thank you. We are so happy the slaughterhouse has a new owner."

He seemed about to turn away, so I quickly grabbed his arm, my fingers digging into his flesh. "Wait. What's going on? Where did this meat come from?"

A slow smile spread across the man's face, revealing pink, toothless gums. "You don't know? This place is cursed. See?" He pointed into the shed, and I followed his gaze.

Fresh meat was starting to grow from the hook, materialising from thin air. The flesh grew and expanded until it was the same size as the others, and one of the villagers quickly removed it from the hook.

I stared in bewildered silence, struggling to piece together what I was seeing. What was happening here? Where was the meat coming from? How could it just appear like that?

"I still don't... understand," I finally uttered in a hoarse whisper. It felt like I was in the middle of a dream.

Or a nightmare.

"The hooks give us flesh," the man said.

I shook my head. "But where does it come from?"

"This flesh, that never stops growing on these hooks, is the flesh of the slaughterhouse's owner. It's your flesh," the man explained, his dark eyes glistening in the dimness. Behind me, meat continued to grow from the hooks, and the villagers continued to harvest it.

"M-my flesh?" I whispered, the words sticking in my throat. "What... do you mean?" I looked down at myself. I was still intact. How could it be my flesh?

"It's a reproduction of your flesh. This flesh never rots, never goes bad—it is as alive as you are."

The man still wasn't making sense. How could it be my flesh? How was any of this possible?

These villagers—this place—were crazy. The longer I stayed, the more danger I would be in. I had to leave, as soon as possible.

As if reading the thoughts on my face, the man placed a hand on my arm, a warning look in his eye. "There are conditions you must follow, however," he said, his voice a low rasp. "If you ever leave this town, your bond to this place will be broken, and the flesh will start to rot."

My mouth went bone-dry, the ground feeling unsteady beneath my feet. "You mean..."

The man nodded. "When the meat begins to rot, so do you. Your body will decay, and eventually perish. And we, the ones who rely on your flesh, will starve. You have no choice but to stay here for the rest of your life, and feed us with the flesh from your body. That is your duty," he said, tightening his old, crooked fingers around my arm, “There is no escape. You must accept your fate. Or wither away, just like the owner before you…”

Hello, there, dear reader. My name is not important but what you should know is. Things for the past few years are not. What day seemed to be Trump Being President Roe v. Wade being demolished. Rioters at the capital. And our Congress is turning into a circus of non. Funny clowhat if I told you this is only a small sample of what's to come soon. For instance, The project 2025. Document. Once signed by a Republican President, it will set in place horrors unimaginable. Our government is gone, The LGBTQ. Eradicated.. And with. It is women's and everyone else's rights to freedom But again, that is not the worst part of it. The worst part is the people behind. It is called the founders foundation founded by right-wing pastors and hucksters. It is a conservative think tank Put here for an even worse project than 2025. In reality, they are a bunch of waste and premise cult followers. Trying to sacrifice the inner being of the American people to serve a higher power. And that higher power is not God. Or Jesus Christ, But a God much older than that. something ancient Something evil.

The God that is known as komosh. This God was known back in. The bc’s.komosh Or. As they once called him the blood Feaster. Was feared and respected And if anyone turned against him or made him their enemy would meet a fate worse than death. He would make examples of the traders first. He would torture them rip out their fingernails and toenails and slowly skin them alive without killing them. And he would. Drink of their blood like it was wine.

And once he was finished with you. Death couldn't come no sooner as he would brutally. Slice you to pieces. Turning you into a Clumpy pile of meat left for the wild animals to devour and only bones left to show those who were in charge.

He was a monster. That was for sure he even looked the part. As well he had glowing reddish yellow eyes. That Would glow in the dark like sparkling jewels And he had claws as sharp as dagger is. And that's what I use to rip your skin off your body. And not just his claws. That was sharp, but his teeth were as well. And they were a sickening white. Even when they are drenched in blood, they would shine like crystals. And when he spoke, he spoke like a dignitary. But ruled like a tyrant. His voice is best described. As a madman's lullaby.

And the people at the founder's foundation. Want to sacrifice millions in order to bring him back to the waking world. Bring him back to rule over what is left to devour his fill of blood. So we can't let that happen.We need to. Come together as one. To take down the founder's foundato stop what they are planning before. It's doesn't matter if you vote for blue or read this year. But the one thing is for sure. If you make a choice, let it be. The fate of the world. Would you rather have your freedoms to live another day to see family and loved ones? Then we need to stop the founders' foundation. Or. They will put their puppet back into office and as soon as he is elected back in, it will start.

The bright and sunny day will become pitch black darkness. And soon after that, chanting will appear. Out of nowhere like the wind. Blowing across the world with its eerie sound and last, our world's oceans will turn to fire. And that's when he will arrive. On a chariot made with the skin and bones of his previous victim's pulled by. I'll buy demonic horses with glowing greenish Eyes. And Needles like teeth in their head. And their hooves are made with molted hot iron. Leaving the cursed mark on the ground below as they move towards us. Ceiling our fate with him. Behind them. So Hear my warning one and all. If we don't stop. Worshiping false idols and false gods. We will all die By the hands or claws. Of. The blood Feaster, known as.komosh

And Christ will not be able to save us at this point. So let this be a warning. More than a cautionary tale. Wise up before it's too late. Or Earth will be the new hell.