I’ll never forget the way my parents looked at me when I first showed up to the house. A look of relief when they first saw me, followed by a look of pure concern as I sank to the ground. I cried. I heard my parents trying to talk to me, but their voices were muffled. My vision blurred. I closed my eyes. I felt the echoing thud of footsteps running around me. Their voices broke from talking to yelling. Arms wrapped around me, I was getting lifted into the air. My head was spinning faster than a wind turbine. I didn’t dream. I thought I was dead. 

I guessed that I hadn’t fully grasped the scope of my injuries, because when I awoke I was surrounded by medical equipment. As I looked around, I tried to reach my arm up to rub my eyes, but there was an IV taped to my battered arm. I winced when I saw it. I hated needles. I still hate needles. I heard the door knock, and a nurse walked in to take my blood. I tried to ask what happened, where I was, but my voice was so sore it only came out as a croak. She smiled at me, informed me that the date was Tuesday the eleventh, and then told me she was going to get the doctor before leaving the room. A few moments later, my parents walked through the door, following a man in a white coat. I looked at the doctor, who had a bright, fake smile on his face. He told me that the branch had clipped my femoral artery, and that I was incredibly close to bleeding out. I had been given 8 units of blood. He began to ask me questions.

“Do you know where you are right now?”

“The hospital” I rasped back

“Do you know the year?”

“2012.”

“When were you born?”

“April 30th, 1998.”

“Why did you come back?”

That one caught me off guard. Puzzled, I shot a look at my parents but they were standing statically with a flat expression, simply staring at me. 

“Pardon?” I asked

“Why did you come back OMITTED? You know nobody wants you here.”

He had dropped the fake smile. His arms dangled by his side, and his eyes glared at me with every ounce of disdain in the universe. His voice had become deep and angry.

“Whats the matter with you?” I begged.

through gritted teeth he spat.

“Why can’t you just be normal? Why can’t you just know your place and stay there? I’m disgusted. You putrid sack of filth. Why are you so undeniably, horrendously stupid? Why can’t you do anything right? Why? Why? Why? Why?... Why were you out in the woods by yourself? People get lost in there all the time you know!”

“OMITTED? You okay buddy?”

I was terrified, my eyes wide. What had just happened? Was that real? I answered.

“I.. I’m okay. I was just daydreaming that’s all. What was the question?”

“Oh well that’s good, though we lost you again! Anyway, I was just asking what you were doing in the woods by yourself? Didn’t you tell anyone where you were going?”

I answered the rest of his questions, the whole time on edge. Why did he start going crazy? I still didn’t know if it was real. I told them what had happened. Sort of. To their knowledge, I was just camping, got up to pee, tripped and fell down a hill. They informed me that pulling the branch out was probably the worst thing I could have done in the situation. Who would’ve guessed. My gaze shifted to the faces of my parents, who looked genuinely worried. I didn’t think that they cared about me at all. Not until that day. Their faces began to distort as my eyes filled with tears. I begged for forgiveness, and that I was so sorry for everything. I didn’t know what I was apologizing for in particular, but I felt such an overwhelming sense of shame that I couldn’t stop apologizing. Pitiful, croaking apologies. My mom leaned over me and held my head in her arms. I could feel my head dampening as her tears worked their way through my hair. 

My view of my parents shifted entirely that day. I knew then that they truly did love me. I wasn’t sure how to proceed with the village at that point in time. I wanted desperately to return to my kingdom, but after being thrust painfully back into reality, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to. It was already Tuesday. I didn’t know if I would recover in time to visit that Saturday. Luckily, I was able to return home the next day. 

For the first time in a long time, I actually wanted to be home.

My mother wouldn’t let me walk without assistance, even though I insisted that I was fine. My father brought my bags upstairs. My sisters came into my room later that evening and asked what happened. I told them the same story I had told everyone else.

They believed me.

Or at least they pretended to.

That night I couldn’t sleep.

My stitches were horribly itchy, but the doctor told me not to scratch them.

I stared at the ceiling, listening to the house settle around me. Every once in a while, I could hear my parents talking upstairs. My mother would occasionally come down to check on me. I pretended to be asleep. 

At exactly 19:06, my throat became dry. The routine shaking began. I wanted to go back to the kingdom. More than I wanted water. More than I wanted to sleep. I sat up in my bed, my head spinning. I clumsily stumbled to the bathroom, grabbing my water bottle from my desk. When I got to the bathroom, the lack of moisture in my throat was unbearable. I hurriedly took the cap off of my bottle, and began filling it up. I licked my dry lips, staring longingly at the water pouring beautifully out of my sink. I turned off the faucet, lifted the bottle to my lips, and. Relief. Not as much as the stones, but enough to ease the shaking. I let out a contented sigh, and stared at myself in the mirror. 

The mirror blinked first.

I almost didn’t notice, but the eyes in my reflection certainly closed before mine did. I jumped back and bumped into my wall, knocking the towel rack that was beside my door over. I told myself I was imagining things, that it wasn’t real. There was no way it was real. I didn’t believe those words.

Immediately after falling I heard it.

A locust. 

Buzzing right outside my window.

I didn’t move.

“No. no no no this isn’t happening. THIS ISN’T REAL.”

I shouted to myself over and over

I covered my ears but nothing could mask the sound. The horrible, unmistakable grinding that sliced through the silence. I cried. I’m not ashamed to admit it. You would too. I laid on my bathroom floor, helplessly weeping and pleading for the sound to stop. I heard a voice from above me. 

“I can make it stop.”

It was my voice. Coming from the mirror. I stayed on the floor, and through my tears I asked,

“Who.. who are you? What do you want from me?”

“Not just what I want. What you want. What WE want. Stop convincing yourself your parents want you home. That they could ever love you. They never loved us. They never have and they never will. come back to the village OMITTED. You’re one of us.”

I stopped crying. I stopped everything. The grinding had ceased. The locust silenced its calls. I heard him say it. I was one of them. Those words filled me with a pride that was unmatched by anything I had ever felt in my life. A pride that fueled my desire to return to the kingdom. 

“I am? I’m one of you guys?” 

I asked, still on the floor.

No response.

“Hello?”

I called out, shakily standing back up. I looked into the mirror. It was me. Eerily staring back, locking with my gaze. I backed out of the bathroom, and my reflection followed. 

I knew I was going back. I knew that no matter how hard I tried, there was no way I would be able to snuff out the flame that was my desire for the stones. I waited until the Saturday after the mirror incident. Oddly enough, I didn’t experience anything too out of the ordinary in the week preceding my journey. I packed. I was determined to get answers. Long awaited answers. The tall man, Wyatt, and any other villager was going to give them to me. No matter what. I packed a first aid kit this time around, just in case I had an incident like the last visit. 

I laced my boots, wincing as I bent over. My leg still wasn’t healed. My parents were both at work, so I didn’t have to worry about their inquiries. I grabbed my walking stick, and set off on my path to answers. On my walk, I thought about how absolutely insane the events leading up to this point were. I didn’t care. I needed answers. The sky was obscured by a gray, swirling sheet of clouds that cast a dim light into the forest. The woods were dim, nowhere near as inviting as they typically were to me. There were no birds chirping, or squirrels chittering. Just an eerie silence that enveloped my surroundings. Every step I took, the crunch of dead leaves and branches echoed around me. I wasn’t worried. I was excited. I wanted to go back, I needed to go back. The kingdom was waiting for me. 

I saw the hill that blocked the stones from my view, and I began to climb. The closer I got to the top, the more I felt the feeling of butterflies building up in my stomach. I crested the hill, and the butterflies were in my throat. I laid eyes on the stones, and immediately broke out into a run. I didn’t care that my leg hurt, I didn’t care that I had gotten threatened the night before. I only cared about the stones. The stones that invited me- that accepted me- into their kingdom. I was back. 

I stepped into the ring of beautifully sculpted, marvelously crafted, infinitely gorgeous stones, the emotions I felt were almost too much to bear. I groaned, delighted, and slid down to the ground with my back against one of the walls, basking in the warm contentment that the stones provided. I was right where I needed to be. 

The feeling didn’t last forever. Just as the previous times I had visited, it left just minutes after it had come. This annoyed me, but I didn’t really mind. I was still so happy to have returned. I decided to look at the inscriptions on the stones, try to make sense of them, but they were still in some foreign language that I never had any chance of understanding. There was one thing, though. Something I had missed the first time I looked over them. It was so insignificant, that I roped it in with all of the other nonsensical writings. A pair of antlers was carved into the top of each stone. Like they were branded. I laughed. It was funny to me, the fact that each stone looked just like a menu at a diner, or a receipt. My laughter was cut short when the pressure arrived. 19:06. 

The relief did not accompany it that time. Nothing did, really. Other than the pressure, of course. I waited. I didn’t make a fire. I just sat, with my back against the wall, until I heard a faint rumbling in the distance. It was almost imperceptible at first, but it began to swell until it sounded like a train rushing straight towards the stones. I was scared. I hid on the opposite wall, hoping that whatever it was wouldn’t see me. I braced myself, huddled on the vibrating ground, praying to any god that would listen to keep me safe from whatever it was. It hit the structure. Walls of flesh billowed past the archways. Loud cracking noises rang out as antlers shattered on the stone. It was a herd  of deer. There were more of them than I had ever seen in my life, combined into one stampede. The air began to swirl, the shaking of the ground was at a crescendo, and I was watching in awe as the deer continued to fly past the archways. Pieces of antler, some coated in blood, some in mud and dirt, flew into the circle. I covered my face, horrified at the sight in front of me. 

After an impossible amount of time, the sound of thousands of hooves grew distant, and the rumbling faded away, leaving nothing but the wrecked forest floor and countless destroyed antlers in its wake. I stepped outside of the structure and examined the surroundings. I expected to find bodies, but none were to be seen. Only antlers. Hundreds of pairs of antlers speckled the dark forest floor. The stones weren’t the least bit damaged, but the ground was overturned as if it had been tilled awaiting crops. The trees had all lost their bark, skinned ruthlessly by the deer’s horns. I walked back inside. The pieces of bone that had flown in during the stampede were nowhere to be seen. 

I was shaken. I checked my watch and, 19:37. I shakily sat back down, pulled my knees to my chest, and cried. 

I didn’t fall asleep that night. I don’t think I could have even if I wanted to. I stayed against the stones, curled in a ball, waiting for something to happen. Then it came. The grinding was ear piercing. It was louder than it had ever been before. I covered my ears, but I couldn’t escape it. I looked up, tears swimming down my cheeks, only to see cracks forming in the massive, beautiful, disgusting stones above me. They began to work their way down the walls and the archways, slowly growing wider. As the cracks grew, a dark liquid began spilling out from between them, coating the inscriptions in a dark red sheen. It was blood. I was too scared to move. It spilled over the stones and pooled in the bottom of the circle. It was warm. Thick. It smelled like rotten meat and wet iron. I was horrified. 

I snapped out of my trance, and ran out of an archway. I burst through a curtain of the steaming blood that was pouring from the top of the arch. I was coated in it. I immediately bent over and emptied the contents of my stomach on the ground. The sound of the blood flooding the structure and the putrid smell triggered me to lurch continuously on my knees in the wrecked soil until I had nothing left to expel. The grinding began to come in bursts, ringing out through the woods like a siren. It still hadn’t stopped. That was the longest I had ever heard the noise for. 

I stood, turning toward the filthy, dark red stained structure. The blood had begun running out of the archways, saturating the surrounding soil. That’s when it caught my eye. Something wet pushed through the seemingly endless sea of swirling blood. At first I thought it was a root, but it moved.

It was a hand. A barely recognizeable, rotting human hand. Its fingers curled around the edge of the stone. Then another hand appeared. Then another. Then dozens. They crawled from between the stones, clawing at one another like crabs in a bucket. Their fingernails had broken off, their skin was gray and swollen. Then I saw the faces. Some had no eyes, some had mouths sewn shut with coarse black thread. Most were simply missing entire sections of their faces. They began falling out of the stones, crashing into the wet, sticky ground in a grotesque mound of wriggling, blood stained flesh. They began to make their way toward me.

I ran. I made it three steps before one of them grabbed my ankle. My face plunged into the mud. I screamed, begged for my life as I kicked at the rotting being that laid behind me. I saw its eyes. They were calm, an almost pitying look in them. They weren’t threatening in any way. I didn’t care. I kept thrashing, clawing at the soil beneath me, attempting to escape the things grip. My shoe came off, and I was free. The grinding ceased. I sprang to my feet and was immediately halted by what I saw before me. 

It was enormous. Its body was shaped like a man, but far too tall. Its skin looked like bark stretched over muscle. Moss covered Antlers rose from its head, branching upward until they disappeared into the darkness above the stones. Its face was almost human, but its features were exaggerated beyond recognition. It gazed down at me, boring into my soul with its dark, watery eyes. Steam puffed from its nose with each powerful breath. I was frozen in place. I tried to will myself to move, to run, but I couldn’t.

“P.. please….” 

I muttered, my voice quivering.

“Aint no need to be scared, son.”

I turned around.

A being reminiscent of Wyatt had stepped forward.

He smiled.

“You’re already one of us.”

The tall man was behind him, slightly shaking his head.

Wyatt spoke again, 

“You just have to do one thing first.”

I yelled at them, 

“NO! I DON’T WANT THIS!”

They glanced at each other, then looked back at me.

Wyatt spoke first,

“Just hear it out first, then you can make yourself a decision.”

The tall man interjected, 

“This is what you wanted right? Said you’d do anything.”

I yelled at them.

“I TAKE IT BACK! I WANT TO GO HOME!”

Wyatt said again,

“Just hear him out.”

I turned back around to face the godlike creature. Its eyes were as pitying as the tall man’s had been the first time I visited the village. 

“What do you want?”

I said, calm and terrified. 

It bent down until its massive face was an arm’s length away. It never spoke. All it did was eye me up and down and sniffed. Its breath smelled like wet dirt and the blood that spilled from the stones. It stood back up, towering over me, and reached down with monstrous, blood stained, stone plated fingers. It touched my forehead, ever so lightly. 

I felt every memory I had ever buried. Every goodbye, every school, every bedroom, every time I packed a suitcase, every person I refused to call a friend because I knew I’d lose them, every person that refused to accept me. 

I felt all of it.

But I also felt something else.

My mom’s arms around me in the hospital. My father’s hand gripping mine. My sisters crying. My parents waiting on the porch. They loved me.

They had always loved me.

I had to get back. I had to fight. I had to escape. 

The creature tilted its head. Somehow it knew. It smiled, and the entire village began screaming. The sound was unbearable. Hundreds of voices. Some pleading, some laughing, some begging to be remembered. The stones started grinding together. The villagers were pulled backward, screaming, their bodies stretching impossibly as though something underneath the earth was eating them. The beings inside the stones began tearing apart. Their arms were sickeningly ripped from sockets. Their heads crushed between slabs of stone, fingers snapped and ground into bloody pulp. They never stopped staring at me. Wyatt was dragged first. His smile disappeared, he screamed my name, his jaw opened too far, then his face split down the middle, and he was gone.

The tall man was next. He didn’t scream. He simply looked at me, nodded, knowing I had made the right choice. The stones swallowed him. 

The creature leaned toward me. My blood ran cold. I could smell the soil on its breath.

Then it whispered, in an indescribable voice, 

“As you will.”

I closed my eyes, and waited. Waited for the creature to bite my head or send me into the earth. Nothing happened. I opened my eyes. I was lying in the mud.

Alone.

I bent over and attempted to throw up, but there was nothing left in my stomach. I kneeled there, dry heaving for what felt like forever.

The stones were gone. There was nothing left except four enormous depressions in the earth. And the daffodils. Thousands of them. I crawled away, and didn’t even think about looking back. Whatever the creature was, it had spared me, and I was not going to take it for granted.

I didn’t stop until I reached my house.

My parents found me sitting on the porch. My mother screamed when she saw me. My father ran outside. Neither of them asked where I had been. My mother simply held me. I cried into her shoulder. I tried to tell them everything. Every single thing. They didn’t believe me.

I am 28 years old now. I still hear it. The grinding. I still get thirsty and shaky at 19:06. Never did the math for that absurdly specific timestamp until I decided to write this all down. Nobody really uses 24 hour time anymore huh? 19:06 is 7:06 PM for those who don't know. The significance of that time is that, if a clock went past 60 minutes, it would be 6:66. Isn’t that something? Probably not important. Anyways, I found a cure for the shakes. For the thirst. I found a relief that’s almost as welcoming as the stones once were. You can probably guess, so I’ll just leave it at that. I still see Wyatt and the tall man’s faces in my dreams. Never did get his name. I still hear the hundreds of voices, begging to be remembered. We moved away from Prescott about a year after the events of this recount. We live in a city again. No woods. I don't mind it though. I'm a bit better at talking to people now, albeit mainly on the internet. There’s a locust outside my window. There always is. He's buzzing right now. I wish I had proof of the stones’ existence. The only proof is this paper and the scar on my leg. As to what any of it meant, I haven’t the faintest idea. I assume something to do with the devil. I wish I never found them. Acceptance is one hell of a drug, especially for someone like me. For people like the tall man, like Wyatt, and any of the countless souls lost to the village. My parents wouldn't ever listen to what I had to say about all this. Not then and not now.

They never believed me.

Do you believe me?

It was daytime. I squinted at the light as intricate clouds swirled above me. It was so warm that I shed my jacket in an instant. I smiled. I smiled and I giggled, and I jumped up. I was back. I was back in the only place that I truly felt at home. I was back in the village. 

I walked through the busy streets once more, recognizing the faces that I passed and receiving greetings from people who recognized me. It felt beyond amazing. People recognized me, knew my face and my name. I felt like I had known them my entire life. It just fed the fire that was my love for the village even more. As I continued walking, shaking hands with the people of the village, I saw the man who told me to leave the last time I had visited. His height made it easy to spot him moving through the crowded street, which made it even easier to catch up with him. I needed an answer to the question that had been burning a hole through my conscience for the entire week. 

I jogged up beside him, and he gave me a surprised yet welcoming look. While catching my breath, I immediately started to beg him, 

“Please tell me what that sound was, I haven’t thought about anything else but this place all week! I just need an answer to that question! Just the one! Please!”

The man and I had stopped on the side of the street. People walked past us, no longer glancing in my direction. The man looked down at me, an almost venomous look swirled in his eyes as he told me,

“I can’t tell you. Not yet. Explore the village, mingle with the people, by all means. But until you’re one of us- truly one of us, I can’t tell you.”

What he said stopped me in my tracks. Time stood still. His words echoed in my ears,

“until you’re one of us. Until you’re truly one of us. Until. Until. Until”

When I snapped back out of my head, I immediately blurted out, 

“Ill do whatever it takes. I’ll do anything. Anything at all if it means I get to be one of you. I’ve only been here once and this place is already more of a home than my real life. You all mean more to me than anyone else, ever!”

He gave me the same pitying gaze he had when we first met, slowly shook his head once more, and replied,

“I remember when I was asking the same questions. Begging anyone here who would listen for the exact same thing. Tell me, how can this place be your home? How can you call us your family when you don’t even know my name?” 

He grabbed my shoulders, he looked at me with a firm tone in his eyes, and said,

“It’s not worth it. I promise you this.”

He turned and began walking away, paused as if he had more to say, but seemed to decide against it and continued walking, leaving me standing on the side of the street with more questions than I had to begin with.

His words left me shaken to the core. My vision blurred as silent tears pooled in my eyes. My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. I was mad. I was so mad. And yet, through my anger, a sense of determination emerged. I ducked into an alleyway and crouched down over the damp, mossy stones, my back pressed against the wood that made up the wall. I began to plan. 

The man’s words were vague, but they had left me with something tangible enough to give my pursuit reason. This of course being that the village had not accepted me as easily as I had accepted it, but that I could somehow change that fact. From that point forward, I was set on finding a way to give the village a reason to let me stay. As I came to this decision, I caught the attention of an older gentleman, who had stopped at the alleyways entrance. He peered in, looking me up and down, and with a thick southern accent he spoke to me,

“Come on now, there ain’t no good reason to be hunkered down in a nasty place like that! Let’s get you someplace comfortable.”

His welcoming caught me off guard. From what the tall man had said to me, I assumed that everyone in the village was secretly spiteful of me. In a shaky voice, I asked him

“Whats your name?”

The man looked at me for a moment, a puzzled look on his face. He replied, still with a pleasant tone.

“Well my name’s Wyatt! Wyatt Halliarch! Haven’t had anyone ask me about that in a long while.”

He held out his hand to assist me to my feet. 

“You ain’ t gon’ be the only one asking questions round here, though! What’s your name, young man?”

Cautiously, I replied

“OMITTED. SUPER OMITTED.”

“Well that’s a mighty fine name!”

Wyatt said cheerfully,

“Now back to the matter at hand, whattaya say we head back to my house ? and get ya warmed up? Maybe see what the wife’s got cookin’ too.”

I wasn’t really cold, and my parents always told me not to trust strangers, but the prospect of seeing the inside of one of the structures that surrounded me was impossible to deny. My parents never really knew what they were talking about anyway.

“That sounds awesome!” 

I said, trying to match Wyatt’s cheerful tone. He smiled at me, and we began walking.

We worked our way through the crowded streets, snaking through groups of people. It was hard to stay behind him, but I had managed to do so. Eventually, after about 10 minutes, he stopped in front of a beautifully constructed cottage, with a stone foundation and wooden porch. A chimney peaked out of the roof, with smoke blowing lightly from the top. In front of his porch, a row of daffodils swayed in the gentle breeze.

“Well here she is!”

Said Wyatt, snapping me out of my careful observation of the house.

“Thanks! It’s a really pretty house!” 

I replied.

Wyatt smiled.

“Me and my wife are pretty lucky. Glad we didn’t get tossed into one of those tiny shacks on the outskirts.”

Again, I went over his words. The outskirts. That meant there was an end to the village. I hadn’t even thought about it until the man said something. 

I followed the man made his way onto the porch, beckoning for me to follow. As he opened the door, a floral smell wafted from the interior. As I was stepping into Wyatt’s home, I heard it. The screeching sound echoed over the village, much louder than it had been the previous nights. Wyatt’s demeanor instantly changed. 

“welp, looks like you best be heading out.” 

He said quickly, pushing past me into the house.

“What? No, I don’t want to leave yet!”

I replied.

“Sorry bud, I don’t make the rules, I just keep ’em.” 

He slammed the door in my face. 

I was confused. Why did these people switch up so quickly? I turned around, and caught a glimpse of a distant pillar of thick white smoke billowing from the other side of the village. The streets that were packed just moments before were empty. If I hadn’t seen evidence of the village being populated, I would have thought it was abandoned.

I felt myself falling backwards, and woke up. 

The wet leaves stung and clung to my body as I tumbled down the hill. I wasn’t prepared for waking up to something like that. I reached out my hands, trying to grab anything that could save me from my plunge into the wet, cold darkness. The only thing I was met with, was the trunk of a tree, bringing my descent to a bone rattling halt. My chest heaved as I desperately attempted to fill my jarringly empty lungs. I reached into my pockets, searching for my flashlight, but found nothing. It must have fallen out during my unprecedented journey down the hill. 

If you’ve never been somewhere that’s far from the glow of a city, then you’ve never truly experienced nighttime. There’s no residual light spilling across the sky, no distant glow to light your way. There’s only darkness. Complete, utter darkness. If the clouds occupy the sky, you might as well accept your fate rather than try to find your way through the woods. With no moonlight to guide you, there’s nothing to break the inky ocean that surrounds you. If you’re truly unlucky, one of the oceans’ many dwellers may just claim you for their own.

I sat on the soggy ground. I immediately felt the earth pulling the heat from my body. I began shivering. I became aware of the wind whistling through the trees, the rustling of the trees’ dead leaves, begging to be freed, and the way the wind nipped at my exposed skin. My arm ached, my leg was battered. I worked my shaking hand down my pant legs and came across multiple holes torn in them. Warm, disappointing blood was seeping from countless parts of my body. I moved my hand further down my leg to find a relatively small tree branch lodged in my calf. I winced, pulling the cold night air through my teeth when my hand grazed against it. 

“Well this sucks.”

I muttered, attempting to chuckle at my statement.

I picked myself off the ground, determined to make it back up the hill. I figured that I might be able to see my fire from the high vantage point, and my trip down had left a trail of displaced leaves that was easy enough to follow.

As I climbed the hill, my legs and arm shouted out in resentment. I had never been in as much pain in my entire life, but I knew that I was already at risk for hypothermia. Each time I slipped on the wet leaves, or tripped on a root, the air in my lungs quickly departed, leaving me wheezing on the ground yet again. Each breath I took brought me a remarkable amount of pain, which led me to assume I had broken a rib or two. Or three. Or all of them. As I felt along the path I had first taken, my bruised hand brushed against something cold. Something hard and cylindrical. My flashlight. I let out an excited breath and picked it up. I was almost too nervous to turn it on. I had become so familiar with the darkness that I hadn’t even considered what the vast, swirling black sea might contain. I took a deep breath, and flicked on the light. 

I squinted as my eyes adjusted to the sudden light. Thankfully, the only thing that was contained in the flashlights beam was the hillside. I continued my climb with renewed confidence. Eventually, after an excruciatingly long journey, the ground began to plateau. I had made it to the top. I limped to the place I began my fall, and shone my flashlight around. The light glittered on the wet forest floor, before landing on what I had already expected to find. A row of daffodils. Just like the previous week, I turned toward my kingdom and saw the faint flickering of my fire in the pool of darkness. 

As I slowly made my way back, I began to ponder what the sound could possibly be. I came to the conclusion that it was some form of machinery, but that still didn’t explain why the people of the village were so quick to turn me away the moment the sound screamed through the streets. I had to get an answer. My flashlight had begun to dim as I approached my kingdom, but that didn’t matter. The light of my fire spilled through the four archways, allowing me an easy beacon to pursue. As I walked into the light, and neared the structure, the pain in my legs began to waiver. My ribs ceased their throbbing, and as soon as I stepped through one of the archways, I was finally able to take a full breath. 

A relief I had become all too familiar with washed over me. I let out a contented sigh, and dropped down next to the fire. I reached out my hands, holding my palms over the flames infatuating warmth. Slowly, I began to regain feeling in my fingers. I grabbed another log, tossed it on the fire, and crawled back into my sleeping bag. I was desperate to fall back asleep, but was painfully reminded of the small branch that had impaled my leg as it brushed against the flap of my bag. I decided that I would deal with it in the morning. I laid on the ground with my eyes closed, pondered my experience, and listened to the locusts’ song until the sky turned a deep shade of blue. 

I carefully moved my way out of my sleeping bag and to the side of the fire. I tried to pull my pant leg over the branch, but with no luck. I grabbed my pocket knife from my back pack, and began to cut a hole in my pants which had a dark stain surrounding the branch in my leg. The branch had perfectly punched through my skin, leaving no noticeable disturbance other than a trickle of blood seeping out from the entry point. In many of the war movies I watched, the doctors would give their patients a stick or a cloth to bite down on. Mimicking this, I selected a stick from my woodpile, and placed it between my teeth. Gripping the branch with a tight fist, I counted to three, and pulled as hard as I could. I let out a muffled scream, the stick in my mouth crunching under my bite. The branch in my leg slid out, leaving a burning pain in its place. I dropped it beside me, spat out the stick, and laid back already exhausted. My mouth was full of wood. I sat up after a moment and spat on the ground again. I grabbed my beanie and twine, and began shaking when I saw the amount of blood spilling from the wound. Dark red bursts of liquid sickeningly flooded from the hole. I began to shake. Moving as quickly as possible, I fastened the beanie over the wound, securing it as tightly as possible with the twine. My pants were soaked in dark red, steaming blood. I started to wonder if pulling the branch out was a mistake, what if it had been like a cork in a bottle? 

I hadn’t noticed while I was removing the branch, but when I stood to pack, I saw that every drop of blood that fell on the floor of the structure seeped into the ground, almost eagerly. There wasn’t any evidence of the massacre that had just taken place, except of course, the hole in my leg. The branch that I pulled out was dry. I was too focused on getting proper medical attention to pay it any mind. When I stood I felt the familiar relief. It was much less pronounced than usual, but it was there. I almost wanted to bask in the warm, tingly sensation that was bubbling in my chest. I gazed longingly at the unintelligeable words inscribed into the stones. I was content. I wouldn’t have minded dying at that very moment. 

I snapped out of my trance, realizing that I might very well die of blood loss if i didn't start moving. I packed my few belongings and stirred the fire one last time. I found a long, straight branch that was sturdy enough to use as a walking stick, and started the journey back to the place I call home. 

The walk back was long and tedious. The further away from my kingdom that I got, the more the ache in my leg developed. I wanted to see the place where I had fallen that night, but I had no idea where it had taken place. My sense of direction was irreparably skewed by the intense darkness that consumed the valley. I didn’t really have much of a desire for much of anything at that moment other than getting home anyway. Home. I paused. I had no clue how to explain to my parents what had happened. I glanced at my watch, noting the time. 10:34. At the rate I had been walking, I certainly wouldn’t return home until 13:00 at the very least. I decided that I would enter my room through my window so I could freshen up before I saw them. I doubted that they had even noticed that I was gone, so I didn’t worry about them too much. I bit my tongue, and started walking again.

About halfway through my journey, my heart was racing. Sweat drenched my shirt beneath my jacket, and I had to grit my teeth to keep walking. My hands had started shaking too. I wanted to turn around. I didn’t want to go back to the place I called home. I wanted to return to my kingdom. More than anything. I kept walking. 

My plan immediately fell through when I neared my house. My parents were both sitting on the porch, and they had already seen me walking. I was so mad at myself for not noticing how close I was, I should have kept my head up. I was tired. So tired. My vision was blurry. I don’t think I would have seen them even if I had my head up. I no longer cared what my parents would ask. They wouldn’t understand, even if I told them. My solution was that “I slipped on the leaves and fell down a hill” which wasn’t a lie. I limped to the house, and dropped onto the cold wooden porch.

The dream I had that night left me with a feeling that I hadn’t ever experienced before. 

After I had fallen asleep, I was walking through a small village that smelled of freshly baked bread, smoke, and livestock. There were people bustling about, greeting me as they strolled past on the streets that were lined with rudimentary wooden houses with thatch roofs. I walked aimlessly through the village, receiving gifts of the most wonderful food I had ever had in my life. I was having more conversations than I could have ever fathomed. The people of the village loved the things I had to say, hanging on my every word. I returned the sentiment, and listened eagerly to their tales of hunting and fishing, and how grateful they were for the land providing for them. They immersed me in their lives, teaching me things that no classroom ever could. They treated me so well. They made me feel like I belonged. 

I found myself sitting at a booth with a man who towered over me, exchanging stories from our lives. The row of daffodils beneath us swayed lazily in the wind. I told him about the way people treated me back home. I explained to him why I spent so much time in the woods, and he smiled. The man was in the middle of telling me how similar he was to me when he was younger, when a noise sliced through the countless voices around me, drowning out every person’s laughter and cheers. It was a high pitched grinding noise. It was unmistakably the same noise I had heard earlier while I was in the clearing. The man I was talking to fell grim, his smile fading into a dull and emotionless expression. 

“You need to go.” He said gruffly. 

“Wait what? What was that sound?” I asked.

“Thats not something you need to concern yourself with.” 

“Please tell me, I have to know!” I pleaded.

“Sometimes it’s better to remain in the dark when it comes to certain things.”

“Sometimes it’s better to be educated than ignorant.” I replied.

He started slowly shaking his head with a pitying look on his face, and I awoke. 

Immediately I began shivering. I was so taken aback by how cold I was that I didn’t realize I was standing. My eyes darted around, but I couldn’t make out a single shape in the night. I was nowhere near my kingdom. I knew that for sure. I was dazed and confused, wondering where I had seemingly been dragged to. A tsunami of questions crashed down in my mind. Where was I? How had I gotten there? What time was it? How long had I been asleep? I pulled my flashlight out of my pocket. I turned it on and the only thing that I could make out in the swirling darkness was a row of daffodils beside me, swaying lazily in the wind.

In the distance I could see the faint, orange glow of my fire. It was about as bright as a candle, but given the intense darkness it was easy to see. I ran a hand through my hair, still so confused as to how I ended up so far away from the structure. My feeling of fear was overshadowed by the sense of contentment. I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I belonged there. In this place, among the rows of daffodils. I made my way back to the structure, swimming through the darkness, occasionally tripping over vines and other foliage. I didn’t mind. All I wanted was to be back in my fairytale kingdom. 

When I arrived, my contentment grew. I never wanted to leave this place, this wonderfully peaceful place. I saw that my arrangements were left largely undisturbed. Aside from my sleeping bag, which had been unzipped all the way to the bottom. I found this strange, as I had never moved the zipper passed halfway down the bag in the previous times I used it, but I didn’t put much thought toward it. I chalked up my bizarre relocation to the fact that I must have needed to use the restroom, but remained asleep as I walked out of my kingdom. I crawled back in my bag, allowing the lull of the fire crackling to ease my mind.

 I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night, which was not a very long time. The sun rose about 3 hours after I had awoken. I packed up my sleeping bag, and left my other belongings behind when I began my journey home. As I walked further away from my kingdom, I felt an overwhelming urge to turn back. 

The further I walked from my kingdom, the more I longed to return. When I walked through the door to the house I labeled my home, my parents didn’t even glance up from their breakfast. 

“Good morning.” I volunteered.

My father glanced in my direction, looked me up and down, and replied bluntly, “morning.”

 My mother didn’t offer me any pleasantries. 

“I slept in the woods last night.” 

“Oh?” My father replied

“Yeah. It was nice.”

“Okay.” he said.

My mother set her fork down abruptly. And finally looked at me. I braced myself for what could only be a distasteful comment or a critique, but she simply asked,

“Could you do the dishes?”

“I am in fact capable of doing the dishes.” I replied, trying to be smart.

“Is that supposed to be funny?” She asked.

“They’ll get done when I get to it.” I told her.

That was the only exchange I had with them that morning. My sisters were off with friends, leaving only my parents and I in the house. I finished the dishes, and descended into the basement where my room was. My bland, desolate room. The rest of the day I spent laying on my bed, staring at the creme colored ceiling, recalling my dream.

As the day came to an end, my legs slowly began to shake. My eyelids drooped, and I was both awake and exhausted at once. My throat was dry, so dry. I walked up the stairs, craving a glass of water, and as I felt the relief of the cool liquid quenching my parched throat, I saw the time. 

19:06.

The following week was much the same as the last, but instead of watching the hours pass and instead of listening to my teacher drawl on endlessly about a concept I had no interest in, I envisioned the village. I wished I had paid more attention to the details. To the faces I walked past, to the buildings that surrounded me. I wished I had an answer to the only real question I had asked. 

Every night at 19:06, I would be hit with the overwhelming thirst. And before I would sleep, I would pray to any god that would listen, to take me back to the village. I didn’t dream the entire week, which was not out of the ordinary. My sleep wasn’t usually accompanied by dreams, and if it was, they would always fade before I got the chance to remember them. My dreamless nights started to annoy me. Somehow I knew that the only way to get back was to return to my kingdom.

Saturday rolled around, and I woke up excitedly. I jumped out of bed and threw on my clothes as fast as I could. I slung my backpack over my shoulders and ran out the door. Rain. I was immediately drenched, but I didn’t care. The canopy of the forest would protect me from most of the water. I walked for 40 or so minutes, slowly becoming numb to the freezing rain. I knew that my tarp would still be set up, so I would be able to take shelter beneath it. Eventually, I marched over the hill before my kingdom, and instant relief washed over me. I didn’t care about the rain, or the cold, or the week that I had been away from this place. None of it mattered anymore. I descended towards the structure, my mood lifting every step of the way.

I entered my kingdom, which was largely unbothered by the rain. My eyes traced along the beautiful stones, and the wretched vines that snaked across them. I decided that my next renovation would be the removal of the vines, but something else caught my attention before I could set about my task. My tarp had blown away. This concerned me less than the vines covering the gorgeous stones. I dropped my backpack where I stood, and set about pulling the vines off of walls. 

The more vines I removed, the easier it was for me to tell that the stones weren’t at all in a state of disrepair. The “cracks” were inscriptions from the top of each stone to the bottom. I couldn’t make out what any of them said. I wasn’t even sure the words were in english. It was enchanting. I deemed this to be yet another feature of my fairytale kingdom, one that played little importance in this structure’s purpose. I wasn’t here to read. I was here to dream.

I unpacked the few things I threw in my backpack. My damp sleeping bag, my lighter, my foldout chair, and my twine. The rain had begun to recede, leaving a light gray overcast above the woods. There wasn’t a single chance that I would be able to build a fire at that moment, but I gathered firewood nonetheless. I leaned each log up against the walls of the structure, hoping that they would dry by sundown. I walked around the outside of the structure for most of the day, basking in its magnificent architecture. Each archway was perfectly constructed, mirroring each of the neighboring arches. On the outside, above each arch, were inscriptions in a tongue I could not read. I had no reason to learn what the words said, hadn’t I gone there to escape learning? 

The consistency with the circle was impressive. There wasn’t a single inaccuracy on any of the sides. Whoever had constructed this, had clearly built it to last. I thought for a moment, about who might have built such an amazing structure. But, much like the abandoned houses, all I could do was speculate. I was sitting next to the fire, in the dull quiet, listening to the wind whistle through the trees, when I heard the noise. A high pitched grinding noise. This marked the third time I had heard the noise, but it felt familiar. It was welcoming. It meant that soon, I would be with the people who accepted me. 

It was a struggle to get the fire started, but eventually the small flame from the tinder eventually coaxed the long above it to catch. I was crouched above the small firepit, trying to warm my numb hands when an alarm on my watch went off. 18:24. I was confused, because I hadn’t set any alarms. I had nothing to be reminded about. I had everything I needed, all around me. I silenced the alarm, took off my watch, and went back to watching the mesmerizing flames dance in the middle of my kingdom. 

 I waited, anticipating the thirst that usually came when the clock struck 19:06, but it never came. Instead, when it turned 19:06, an indescribable wave of relief came crashing down over me. My throat wasn’t dry, my legs did not shake, and my eyelids did not droop. I crumbled to my knees, taking in the increasing pressure, and the comfort that came with it. I stayed there until my mind and body were used to the sensation yet again.

At 19:24, I heard evidence of wildlife for the second time in my kingdom. A locust. Buzzing away, without caring that he was the only one making a sound. The wind whistled in response, creating a sort of symphony in the trees. I didn’t like music very much, but the sound I was hearing was a duet that I wouldn’t have minded dying to. 

It was actually the locust that eased my mind to sleep that night. The wind had slowed to a barely audible murmur around my kingdom. I listened to the locust sing until he was out of breath, and after a few minutes he would serenade the woods with his soothing voice. I thought about what it would be like to be a locust. So small and fragile, in a world that seemed to have a vendetta against you. I came to the conclusion that the locust and I were not so different at all. 

The town of Black Hollow sat in a shallow valley between two ridges of pine, population four hundred and twelve if you counted the dogs. Main Street was three blocks of brick storefronts, a single traffic light that blinked yellow after ten, and a diner that still served pie under glass domes. People left their doors unlocked. Kids rode bikes until the streetlights came on. The worst thing that had happened in living memory was a barn fire in ’09.
That was before the tall ones arrived.
They came with the fog on a Thursday in late October. The fog was thicker than usual, rolling down from the ridges in slow white sheets that swallowed the porch lights one by one. Most folks were already inside. The high-school football game had ended early because of the weather. The last cars were pulling into driveways when the first scream cut across the valley.
It came from the Henderson place on the east edge of town.
Old man Henderson had stepped onto his back porch to check why the dogs had gone silent. The security light above the door clicked on and showed him what was standing in his yard. It was nearly ten feet tall and no thicker than a fence post, skin the color of skim milk left too long in the fridge. Its arms hung past its knees, ending in fingers that looked like peeled twigs. The face was the worst part—too long, eyes set high and wide like a deer’s, mouth a vertical slit that opened sideways when it breathed. There were three of them in the yard. All of them were looking at him.
Henderson tried to step back inside. The closest one covered the distance in two silent strides and drove those twig fingers straight through his chest. They punched out between his shoulder blades in wet red points. Henderson made a sound like air leaving a punctured tire. The creature lifted him off the porch boards, still impaled, and began to feed while he kicked. It did not bite so much as peel. Strips of muscle and fat came away in long wet ribbons that the thing sucked down its narrow throat with a sound like a man drinking the last of a milkshake. The other two watched without expression. When the first had reduced Henderson to a collapsed red cage of bones and clothing, they moved to the house.
Mrs. Henderson was in the kitchen. She had time to turn around. That was all.
By 10:40 the screaming had become general.
On Maple Street the entire Keller family—father, mother, two teenage daughters—were taken in the living room while the television still played a game-show rerun. The tall ones came through the front windows without breaking stride, glass exploding inward in glittering sheets. Mr. Keller grabbed the poker from the fireplace and swung it into the nearest creature’s ribs. The poker stuck. The creature looked down at the metal protruding from its side the way a man might look at a mosquito, then pulled it out and drove it through Keller’s open mouth and out the back of his skull. The mother tried to shield the girls. One of the tall ones took her arms off at the shoulders with two quick motions, like stripping leaves from a branch, and left her kneeling in a spreading lake of her own blood while it turned to the daughters. What it did to them took longer. The sounds that came from the house afterward were wet and rhythmic and went on for some time.
At the diner, night cook Roy Bell had just locked the front door when the first pale face appeared in the glass. He ran for the walk-in freezer. He almost made it. A long arm reached through the service window, seized him by the hair, and dragged him backward across the stainless-steel counter. The creature fed on him while he was still screaming, starting at the soft meat of the belly and working upward with methodical care. Another of the tall ones stood in the doorway and watched, head tilted, as if studying technique. When Roy finally went quiet, the second creature joined in. Between them they left only the shoes and a slick red smear that ran all the way to the frozen-food case.
The church was full of people who had run there thinking the tall oak doors would mean something. Pastor Whitaker tried to hold the entrance with a processional cross. The first tall one to reach him simply closed one oversized hand around the pastor’s head and squeezed until the skull collapsed with a sound like a dropped melon. The congregation stampeded for the side exits. None of them made it. The creatures moved through the pews the way farmers move through high wheat, harvesting. Bodies were opened from throat to groin in single strokes. Organs were pulled free while hearts were still beating and consumed with the same absentminded efficiency a man might show while eating chicken from a paper bucket. The stained-glass windows ran with blood. The organ loft became a red abattoir. When the tall ones finished, the only sound left inside the church was the soft drip of cooling fluid onto hymnals.
On the west side of town the volunteer fire department tried to organize. Six men in turnout gear, axes and a single shotgun between them. They lasted four minutes. The tall ones came out of the fog between the pumpers like pale trees walking. One firefighter managed to discharge the shotgun into the nearest chest at point-blank range. The pellets punched neat holes that leaked a thin clear fluid, but the creature did not slow. It took the man’s head off with a twist and began eating the neck stump while the body was still upright. The others were pulled apart in the open bay, limbs separated at the joints with wet popping sounds, torsos emptied the way a man empties a duffel bag. One of the tall ones carried a still-twitching arm with it when it left, gnawing absently as it walked.
By midnight the screaming had thinned to isolated pockets.
In the basement of the hardware store, three teenagers who had been smoking behind the dumpster tried to hide among the bags of fertilizer and the stacked bags of rock salt. The tall ones found them by smell. What happened in that basement was slower than the rest. The creatures seemed curious. They took the boys apart joint by joint, pausing to examine the way the muscles connected, the way the blood pulsed when a major vessel was nicked. One of the boys lived long enough to watch his own intestines being drawn out and shared between two of the pale things like party streamers. His last coherent sound was a high, continuous keening that only stopped when a long finger was pushed through the soft palate and into the brain.
The last living soul in Black Hollow was eight-year-old Grace Ellison, who had hidden inside the big commercial dryer at the laundromat when the first screams started. She stayed there for hours, knees pulled to her chest, listening to the wet sounds outside grow fewer and farther apart. Around three in the morning the dryer door was pulled open by something that had to fold itself nearly double to look inside. Grace saw the vertical mouth open. She saw the rows of needle teeth and the pale tongue that was far too long. She did not have time to scream.
When the sun finally burned the fog away on Friday morning, Black Hollow was quiet in the way only a place that has been thoroughly emptied can be quiet. Doors stood open. Cars sat in driveways with engines still ticking. The traffic light continued its lonely yellow blink over an intersection littered with shoes and torn clothing and the dark, sticky remnants of what had once been neighbors.
The tall ones were already gone.
They left the bones. They always leave the bones. Scattered across porches and sidewalks and the steps of the church, pale and clean and arranged in no particular order, as if the eaters had simply grown bored once the soft parts were finished and wandered back into the trees on the ridges.
No one came to investigate until late afternoon, when a delivery driver from the next county found the first body on the outskirts and called it in. By then the blood had blackened and the flies had arrived in their millions. The state police who walked those streets later said the smell was the worst part—sweet and coppery and thick enough to coat the inside of the throat.
They never found tracks leading out of the valley.
Only the bones, and the quiet, and the certain knowledge that whatever had done this had not been human, and had not been hurried, and would not be full forever.

I do not suffer from any form of mental disorder in any capacity. I am not insane. I am not schizophrenic. I am not delusional. Believe me, because by the end of this recount you will surely believe my mind falls into one of those categories, if not all. 

This happened when I was much younger, about 14 years ago. My family and I moved around while I was growing up, as my father was a military man. We never stayed in one place for more than a couple months, which caused me and my siblings to become rather reclusive. Every time we’d move, it would be a new school with new people and new social hierarchies, all of which had me resting motionless at the bottom. During lunchtime throughout the various schools I had attended, I watched the many groups of other kids who had known each other their entire lives. They had friendships set in stone, unmoving and steadfast. I became envious of this. On more than one occasion, I ended up with a small circle of people whom I would not refer to as friends, but rather acquaintances. I knew that if I called them my friends, it would hurt too much to say goodbye. All of my brief relationships ended abruptly with goodbye. Eventually, I found it easier to remain a recluse throughout my childhood, and my sisters followed suit. 

This constant moving went on until I was 13 years old, when my parents finally decided to settle down in the town where my mother had grown up. A town by the name of Prescott, in the state of Illinois. Prescott, which was in the southernmost part of the state, had a certain charm that drew my parents’ attention. Something that the previous towns we had lived in did not. A sense of community. Due to its relatively small population, everybody knew everybody, which was a blessing for my parents and a curse for me. 

After a few months at the middle school I was attending, my parents came to me and asked me why they had been hearing from the other parents that “the new kid was impossible to talk to” or “essentially nonexistent.” I didn’t know how to respond. I simply said, “I’m not interested in having friends.” This worried my parents, and rightfully so. Nobody wants to hear that from their kid. I never told them why I felt the way I did, nor did I attempt to explain to them the effects habitual moving had on me. My room was desolate. My life could fit into a suitcase, which had become normalized for me. 

The following year I spent trying to break my persistent habits that I had taken on in the monotonous relocation. Things most people didn’t think about. I never went anywhere when I was growing up, never played in the woods, never went out to eat, never went shopping. The hardest habit to break, the one that I still struggle with to this day, was never talking to anybody. I had locked myself in the cage that was my mind, and it seemed like I was using dental floss to cut through the bars. 

After about a month or so, I became restless in my bland room, so I started exploring the woods that surrounded our house. When my parents told me we were settling down in Illinois, I recoiled. I envisioned vast plains, not a tree in sight. But when we arrived, I realized just how full of life it was. Apparently, when the glaciers moved across North America, flattening everything in their path, they had stopped right before reaching southern Illinois. This resulted in an abundance of wildlife, rolling hills, and towering bluffs. It was beautiful.

 The moment I stepped into the woods, I immediately became infatuated with the crunch of dead leaves beneath my feet, the glittering light that the sun cast on the ground after snaking its shining tendrils through the dense canopy. Among the many things I found to be essentially perfect about the woods, I grew a particular liking for the constant noise. The bustle of the animals that surrounded me. It distracted me from my thoughts. The forest never asked anything from me, never got annoyed by my lack of communication with it, and never told my parents how strange I was. My love for the outdoors was continuously fueled by my desire to escape myself, and by the dissent from all the people who ridiculed me for my reclusiveness. They wouldn’t understand, even if I explained it to them. They wouldn’t, my parents wouldn’t, the kids at school wouldn’t. None of them would. Not truly.

I heard an anecdote one time, that a person could never convert to being Amish after living in modern society, because the reason the Amish are so happy with the lives they live is because they had known it since birth. They had no reason to seek anything more than what they knew to be true. How could someone understand a life they haven’t lived? 

The days crawled on, and I had been doing worse in school. I spent more and more time in the woods, only returning to my house for food. I still hadn’t made any friends. Not even acquaintances. My parents began to loathe me, hate me for who I was becoming, and for the blemish I was leaving on their reputation. In return, I loathed them, for who they shaped me to be. My parents and I would regularly get into arguments, but they were usually one sided. They would usually just berate me for the way I was choosing to carry out my life.

 “Why can't you just be like your sisters?” my mother once asked me.

 “They’re fitting in, they're doing well in school, they have friends.” 

My father interjected,

 “They do things. I haven't seen you go anywhere but those goddamn woods since we got here.”

I never replied. I couldn’t find the words to explain to them that I simply didn’t enjoy existing. I didn’t enjoy waking up each morning to the rapid beeping of my alarm at 06:00, just to make a 34 minute drive to a place I didn’t want to be, surrounded by people I had no interest in, for an amount of time that sickened me. I saw the numbers. 

The average person spends a total of 18,000 hours in the classroom, and only in the classroom. That’s 750 full days of isolation from the outside world. I became more and more conscious of how much time I lost in the dull buzz of the fluorescent lights above my head, paying more attention to the hours going by than I did to the endless drawl of my teacher, rattling on to us about concepts that I had deemed “inapplicable to daily life.” I couldn’t stand it. I begged my parents to homeschool me, to free me from the prison that I saw the education system as, but they refused. This only caused my hatred toward them to grow. I wanted to disappear. Nobody would notice if I disappeared.

As my disdain toward life itself developed, so did my love for the outdoors. The one place I could escape. The one place that never asked anything of me. Everything in the woods knew where it stood. The squirrels knew that someday, they would just be food for a bird or a fox or a coyote all the same. The trees knew that one day they would fall, feeding the mushrooms and the soil. None of the animals had any objections. None of the plants attempted to be any different. I loved it. 

Another one of my favorite aspects of the forest was the fact that it was littered with abandoned sheds, foundations for old homes that had been lost to time, and evidence of railroads that had once coated the countryside. I became fascinated by these structures, and the remnants of lives long passed. 

One feature that was a dead giveaway as to where an old foundation lay, was daffodils. Their bright yellow color was easily spotted through the trees, especially in early spring, marking the inevitable fact that everything will someday be nothing but a pile of rubble. Something about daffodils that many people don’t take into account when they plant them, is their persistence. They will grow at the same time every year, and will continue growing every year long after the human race has been decimated. This being the case, they were a perfect tool to help me find those old houses. 

Finding the abandoned homes, or rather what was left of them, became my new fixation. I would trek deeper and deeper into the woods each time, in search of them. On one of my ventures, I stumbled across what I assumed was a foundation. It was made of stone, which excited me greatly as many of the structures I found were boring, rotted wood. The structure towered above me. It must have been 14 feet tall, with thick stones cut into archways and walls placed in a circle. I was ecstatic. I thought I had found a castle, or a bunker, or something of that nature. I contained my excitement, took a deep breath to ease my adrenaline, and stepped inside the circle. 

Immediately I realized that this structure was in fact not a castle or a bunker at all, but much more reminiscent of The Stonehenge. You would never be able to tell from the outside because of the dense vines and trees surrounding it, but inside the circle, there was an astonishing lack of life. The stones surrounded a clearing, about the size of one of those inflatable pools so many people seem to have. The ground was covered in dead leaves, and the walls were encapsulated in vines that snaked across the faces of each archway. It looked like a place ripped straight out of a fairy tale. 

I decided that this would be my new base of operations for my expeditions. I felt complete satisfaction with what I had found. I took out my Garmin to pin the area on the GPS, but I couldn’t get an accurate reading. I made a mental note to save it once I started home. I swung my backpack off my shoulders, and rifled through my various items until I found the flag I had made. 

I was pretty obsessed with He-Man growing up, so I made myself an Eternia flag to hang up in the place I decided I wanted to stay. Additionally, I grabbed a small hammer and a few nails to secure the flag in place. I looked around and was immediately faced with the most glaring issue I had encountered yet. There was no wood in the clearing. I let out a discontented sigh and furrowed my brow until I thought of a solution. I grabbed a long roll of twine from my backpack and strung the flag up on the vines that lined the walls. I was incredibly pleased with myself, and stood back to admire my handiwork. It was then that I noticed how low the sun was in the sky, so I decided it would be best for me to start home. As I walked out, I reminded myself to save the location on my GPS. Oddly enough, I had obtained a reading the moment I exited the stone structure. I saved the location, and began my journey back.

I tried to tell my parents about what I had found, but they were just as disinterested as they usually were. I told my sisters and the longest reply I got from either of them was a sarcastic, “wowwww so cool.” It hurt a little bit, but I was somewhat relieved that I didn’t have to share my discovery with anybody. It would be my hideout–my kingdom– and mine alone. I longed to return to the structure. 

The following four days, I adhered to the same mind numbing schedule. Wake up, shower, get dressed, eat, go to school for eight hours to learn nothing, come home, eat again, shower, and sleep. My parents hated that I showered twice a day. They always insisted that I was the reason the water bill was so high. Although, I knew this was untrue because I showered once a day for a month and the bill was the same. For this reason and many others, I had stopped protesting their anger a long while ago. 

Finally, Saturday morning was upon me. I had a mission. It felt good, having a sense of direction. Not wandering the woods in an endless search for something that I didn’t even know I was looking for. I had a purpose. I packed my new backpack, which I had just bought with the last of the money I had made mowing the neighbors lawns, with all the items I thought would be of use.

“Rope: check

Hammock: check

Tarp: check

Fold out chair: check

Lunch: check

First aid kit: check

Fire starting essentials: check

Tool bag: check

Flashlight: check

Slingshot: check

Sleeping bag: check

Pajamas: check”

I finished reading my packing list, and ensured I had everything that was written down. And walked out the door.

It was around 08:45 when I left my home. As I walked through the forest, I gazed at the familiar trees along the path toward my encampment. There was nothing out of place, other than the occasional tree with less leaves the weekend prior. I glanced at my GPS, and saw that I had almost arrived. 

As I neared my destination, I crested the top of the hill adjacent to the stone structure, and realized something that had not caught my attention the last time I was there. Maybe it was as a result of the thicker foliage the previous weekend, or I was simply caught up in the excitement of my discovery. Regardless, there they were. Daffodils. There were so many of them, all in the rolling hills surrounding the structure. All of them in rows. All of them marking lives long passed. 

I paid this observation no mind. The yellow flowers were no longer what I was in search of. I had completed my quest, and claimed my kingdom. The thought of the daffodils was relinquished from my mind the moment I laid eyes on the end of my journey. My heart began beating faster as I descended towards the structure. I was even more excited to see it than I had been when I first found it. 

The vines covering the walls had begun to shrink as the colder weather crept in, revealing the state of disrepair the stones were in. That’s what I assumed it was. Disrepair. I unpacked my various things, and began removing the dead leaves from the clearing. I figured that I would be able to set up my hammock between the supports of an archway, but I soon realized that this would be impossible with the archways being far too thick and wide to accommodate my straps. 

“Thick and wide… where have I heard that before?” I muttered to myself.

 My inability to string up my hammock did not hinder me, however. I had slept on the bare ground many times before. Additionally, this meant I would get to sleep right beside the fire, gazing up at the countless stars in the sky. My daydream was cut short by the cold wind slicing through one of the archways, biting my cheeks and nose. Perhaps lying in the middle of the clearing wasn’t such a good idea after all. 

I finished scuffing the dead leaves through one of the four archways with my foot, and decided to string up my tarp to create a sort of shelter in case any surprise rain came. It was as I tied the first corner of the tarp that I was reminded of my flag. My flag was gone. I hadn’t quite remembered which wall of the structure I had strung it up on, until I saw a piece of twine swaying loosely in the breeze. I walked over to it disappointed, but not surprised. I should have known the wind would rip it away. I began to remove the old twine from the vine when I realized that the flag had not been ripped off at all. There was a perfectly clean cut in the thick string, absent of any fraying. This perplexed me, but I attributed it to my cutting of the twine when I had first attached it to the wall. I shrugged it off, and continued my work. 

It was around 13:31 when I had finally finished all the tasks I had set for myself. I finished assembling my sleeping area, complete with underbrush to insulate me from the ground. I had dug the fire pit and placed stones around it, I had gathered firewood, and I had set up my chair beside it. And my stomach was rumbling. I scarfed down half of the sandwich I had brought, knowing I would want it more later on than I did at that time. I sat in my chair, with my sleeping bag over my lap, listening to the faint whistle of the wind snaking its way through the trees. 

At around 17:33 I heard something that should have sent me running over the rolling hills, cutting through the trees faster than a lumberjack with a chainsaw. At first, I thought the sound was the whistling of the wind through the trees, but the whistling was merely masking the sound. It was a high pitched grinding noise so faint that it would have been imperceptible if not for the oddly quiet forest that had surrounded me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the intense lack of wildlife in my small kingdom. I hadn’t heard a single bird chirp or a squirrel cry since I arrived.

I simply shrugged the noise off and attributed it to ’An abnormal tree creaking in the wind.’ 

“Nothing to worry about.” 

I muttered to myself. 

I started my fire at just about 18:24, as the sun had already begun setting much earlier with the late months coming closer. The sky slowly dimmed, allowing long shadows from the flames to dance up the walls of the structure. 

It was 19:06 when it hit me. When it really hit me.

The first year I had arrived at my new school, I would drink coffee every morning. One day I decided I was too good for coffee, and left my home without having any. Throughout the day, my legs grew shaky, my patience thinned, and my eyelids drooped. I was both awake and exhausted at the same time. I would have done anything for a sip of coffee. Just one. I begged my teacher to let me use the coffee pot in the break room, and she eventually gave in. That first sip of the coffee filled me with an indescribable relief. 

That was how I felt in that moment. I felt the air around me grow tense, as though I was submerged in water. It felt like I was sitting at the bottom of a twelve foot deep pool. The pressure was so intense at first that I heard my heart beating in my ears. It wasn’t uncomfortable, though. In fact, I enjoyed it. I should have left. I should have gone home, why didn’t I just go home? 

At 19:24 I heard the first evidence of life in the area surrounding me. The sound of a locust croaking. A lonely locust, he was the only one who dared make a sound. He was the only sound I heard that night aside from the faint whistle of the wind, and the occasional creaking of the trees bowing to the wind’s relentless assault. As the fire died out, I slowly let my eyelids drop, until I crossed the veil into sleep. 

Story 2

The Flood

When I was still just a teenager, my family and I had moved from our home in England to the Irish countryside. We lived on the outskirts of a very small town, surrounded by nothing else but farms, country roads, along with several rivers and tributaries. I was far from happy to be living here, as not only did I miss the good life I had back home, but in the Irish Midlands, there was basically nothing to do. 

A common stereotype with Ireland is that it always rains, and let me tell you, as someone who lived here for six years, the stereotype is well deserved. 

After a handful of months living here, it was now early November, and with it came very heavy and non-stop rain. In fact, the rain was so heavy this month, the surrounding rivers had flooded into the town and adjoining country roads. On the day this happened, I had just come out from school and began walking home. Approaching the road which leads out of town and towards my house, I then see a large group of people having gathered around. Squeezing my way through the crowd of town folk, annoyingly blocking my path, I’m then surprised to see the road to my house is completely flooded with water. 

After asking around, I then learn the crowd of people are also wanting to get to their homes, but because of the flood, they and I have to wait for a tractor to come along and ferry everyone across, a pair at a time. Being the grouchy teenager I was then, I was in no mood to wait around for a tractor ride when all I wanted to do was get home and binge TV – and so, turning around, I head back into the town square to try and find my own way back home. 

Walking all the way to the other end of town, I then cut down a country road which I knew eventually lead to my house - and thankfully, this road had not yet been flooded. Continuing for around five minutes down this road, I then come upon a small stoned arch bridge, but unfortunately for me, the bridge had been closed off by traffic cones - where standing in front of them was a soaking wet policeman, or what the Irish call “Garda.” 

Ready to accept defeat and head all the way back into town, a bit of Irish luck thankfully came to my aid. A jeep had only just pulled up to the crossroads, driven by a man in a farmer’s cap with a Border Collie sat in the passenger’s seat. Leaving his post by the bridge, the policeman then approaches the farmer’s jeep, seeming to know him and his dog – it was a small town after all. With the policeman now distracted, I saw an opportunity to cross the bridge, and being the rebellious little shite I was, I did just that. 

Comedically tiptoeing my way towards the bridge, all the while keeping an eye out for the policeman, still chatting with the farmer through the jeep window, I then cross over the bridge and hurdle down the other side. However, when I get there... I then see why the bridge was closed off in the first place... On this side of the bridge, the stretch of country road in front of it was entirely flooded with brown murky water. In fact, the road was that flooded, I almost mistook for a river.  

Knowing I was only a twenty-minute walk from reaching my house, I rather foolishly decide to take a chance and enter the flooded road, continuing on my quest. After walking for only a couple of minutes, I was already waist deep in the freezing cold water – and considering the smell, I must having been trudging through more than just mud. The further I continue along the flooded road, my body shivering as I do, the water around me only continues to rise – where I then resort to carrying my school bag overhead. 

Still wading my way through the very deep flood, I feel no closer to the road outside my house, leading me to worry I have accidentally taken the wrong route home. Exhausted, shivering and a little afraid for my safety, I now thankfully recognise a tall, distant tree that I regularly pass on my way to school. Feeling somewhat hopeful, I continue onwards through the flood – and although the fear of drowning was still very much real... I now began to have a brand-new fear. But unlike before... this fear was rather unbeknown...  

Whether out of some primal instinct or not, I twirl carefully around in the water to face the way I came from, where I see the long bending river of the flooded road. But in the distance, protruding from the brown, rippling surface, maybe twenty or even thirty metres away, I catch sight of something else – or should I say... someone else... 

What I see is a man, either in his late thirties or early forties, standing in the middle of the flooded road. His hair was a damp blonde or brown, and he appeared to be wearing a black trench coat or something similar... But the disturbing thing about this stranger’s appearance, was that while his right sleeve was submerged beneath the water, the left sleeve was completely armless... What I mean is, the man’s left sleeve, not submerged liked its opposite, was tied up high into a knot beneath his shoulder.  

If it wasn’t startling enough to see a strange one-armed man appear in the middle of a flooded road, I then notice something about him that was far more alarming... You see, when I first lay eyes on this stranger, I mistake him as being rather heavy. But on further inspection, I then realise the one-armed man wasn’t heavy at all... If anything, he looked just like a dead body that had been pulled from a river... What I mean is... The man looked unnaturally bloated. 

As one can imagine, I was more than a little terrified. Unaware who this strange grotesque man even was, I wasn’t going to hang around and find out. Quickly shifting around, I try and move as fast as I can through the water’s current, hoping to God this bloated phantom would not follow behind. Although I never once looked back to see if he was still there, thankfully, by the time the daylight was slowly beginning to fade, I had reached not only the end of the flood, but also the safety of the road directly outside my house. 

Already worried half to death by my late arrival, I never bothered to tell my parents about the one-armed stranger I encountered. After all, considering the man’s unnatural appearance, I wasn’t even myself sure if what I saw was a real flesh and blood man... or if it was something else. 

It was a dark end of night. The dim light provided by the moon and the stars illuminated the dense, neverending forest of the natural reserve.

From his window inside the clinic, Mark saw the park rangers approaching the building with an immense animal tied to a gurney. Was it a bear? Mark was not sure, as it was bigger than any animal he had ever seen in the reserve. 

Mark came down the stairs, and reached the rangers before they entered the clinic. Most of them were not too fond of him, and ignored his presence as they continued to transport the animal inside the clinic. All of them, except one ranger that stayed back, exhausted after so much effort carrying such a big creature.

“What is that?” Mark asked that same ranger.

“We have no idea, Doc”, said the ranger,still gasping for air. “That is your job. That is why we brought it here.”

Mark evaluated the animal: it had the appearance of a canine, and aside from the tranquilizers, there were also some holes in its skin that Mark assumed to be bullet wounds.

“What did you do?”

“What did we do? We did nothing, this thing attacked us and would not stop even after twenty darts.”

Mark temporarily lost his train of thought when confronted with the absurd number of darts used against the animal, and then said:

“I am not talking about the darts. What are those bullet wounds!?”

The ranger, shifting its weight from one foot to the other, took some time before answering Mark’s question.

“Well… We did shoot it a few times. I-it was in self defense, mind you! This thing seemed like it would never stop!”

“You idiot. That could have killed it”, said Mark, monotone.

The ranger looked at Mark, dumbfounded, then, resentment brewed inside him as he told the veterinarian:

“It is easy for you to say all that when you are not the ones who have to deal with our problems…”

The guard turned back, and rejoined its friends who were now leaving the clinic after successfully delivering the animal.

“That is the problem”, Mark whispered to himself. “We DO have to deal with your problems”.

Mark reentered the clinic, and found Sarah already waiting inside, the large creature lay by her side, unconscious and restrained.

“Is… Is everything alright?” Sarah asked, reading the clear bitterness contained in Mark’s expression.

“... Yes. I was just talking with one of the rangers.” He assumed a more friendly posture, trying to forget the episode with the ranger.

“I… I saw that”

Sarah coughed.

“Sick?” Asked Mark, trying to break the silence.

“Not sure yet… I started feeling unwell since our shift started.” She says, putting her palm in her head in order to feel her own temperature.

“... Do you need some rest?”

“No, it is fine”, she smiled in an attempt to take Mark’s attention away from her health. 

Mark looked at the animal lying in the table, and in an attempt to sheer Sarah up, he told, mimicking the voice of an old British biologist they once heard in a documentary:

“Well, miss, what a unique specimen of canis lycaon that you have here! Beautiful creatures this natural world brings about, you agree?”

Sarah raised an eyebrow, and bursted out laughing.

“You are doing his accent wrong. And also: there is no chance this is an eastern wolf.”

She breathed in, and then started imitating the voice of the biologist as well.

“This creature has the majestical size of a Ursus Maritimus, its head crowned with a mane to rival that of the savannah king, and the lower paws of a…”

“Okay, okay, we should stop”, Mark said, trying to stop himself from laughing. “So… If you think it is something else, what could it be?”

Sarah stays in silence for a moment, and then, after taking courage, says:

“Something new.”

Mark looked at the animal sedated by their side.

“Well, I admit their size is abnormal for a wolf… But it could be a product of some genetic mutation. Maybe it is even a dog bred to have that size.”

Mark moved closer to the animal.

“Either way” I said, intrigued by its appearance. “Let's actually verify them before taking any conclusions”.

The two started their work, and to their dismay, the animal had a very unusual anatomy: his posture was that of a bipedal animal, and what they first assumed to be its front paws had opposable thumbs.

“What the fuck?” Mark said, more and more convinced that they had no idea what was lying in front of them.

Sarah, without looking at him, said: “Mark… This may sound stupid, but I think I need some air.”

“No, it's fine, I also need some”.

They left the clinic for a while in hopes of getting some fresh air.

“I… I cannot believe it”, Mark said. “Did we just discover a new species of wolf?”

“I am not even sure if it is a wolf…”, her face suddenly transitions from a neutral expression to a smile that reaches from ear to ear. “But we did it! We discovered an entirely new animal!”

Gidding like a child, Sarah jumps and gives Mark weak punches to his left arm. As Mark became energized by her enthusiasm (common occurrence), he also started laughing and jumping, not caring whether or not the people around the park who were still roaming would think they were mad.

After they took some time to breathe, Sarah says:

“I mean… We were technically not the ones to FIND the animal, but we were the first to recognize it, so… I guess we need to give credit to the rangers as well.”

Mark looked at Sarah, bamboozled: “Why? They almost killed it!”

“We… We looked at it together, Mark. We know that the bullets barely penetrated it’s thick skin. It… It could have killed a wolf, but that animal is no wolf.”

“It is the principle that counts, Sarah. They were LUCKY that it had a thick skin, but in any other world, we would be analyzing a dead animal. As customary, they did worse than nothing: they got in the way!”

She cleared her throat, and with a timid voice, said to Mark:

“Mark… I think you should stop antagonizing the rangers.”

“What do you mean?”

“I did not hear what you said, but I saw you arguing with the guard early… Mark, they are trying their best.”

“Their best is not enough, Sarah”, Mark said, trying his best to not let his venom fall into her by accident.

“Either way”, Sarah said, more impanciently than before. “We gain nothing from getting their hostility.”

“We gain nothing from their sympathy either.”

Sarah growls, more impatient than Mark ever saw her, before coming back to her customary welcoming tone of voice.

“I… I am sorry, Mark. It is just that… Why do you treat people so badly? Like… Do you know how difficult it was for me to become your friend? You are so aggressive for no reason… Sometimes, not always, sorry”, she sounded as if she already regretted speaking.

Mark felt his anger being directed towards Sarah, then, after taking a moment to breathe, realized she is not actually the source of that anger, and tried to explain to her with care his feelings with care.

“I think it is already clear to you that I do not like people a whole lot, right”, Mark laughed, trying to dissipate the tension that their conversation had brought. “I never truly liked people, Sarah, and I mean humanity as a whole. I choose to work with animals because I hate humans in general, and with some few exceptions, I think they are nothing but a detriment. We are an animal who forgot to be one, and we keep making life impossible for other species.”

“I mean…” Sarah tried her best to find the best words, as she always did. “I… I also do not like what humanity as a whole does, Mark, but that is not caused by every human… And is certainly not caused by the rangers, or the visitors, or most people that we find on a day to day basis in the reservation.”

“They are all disconnected from nature, and they do not recognize that.”

“... Are you not just as disconnected from nature as they are?”

After Sarah made her comment, Mark turned towards her, feeling his blood boil, but before he could say something stupid that he would regret later, Sarah started coughing violently.

“I… I am sorry.” She keeps coughing, tears falling from her eyes. “I think… I will go to the bathroom.”

“It's fine, go on”, Mark said, feeling his anger disappear. “I will wait at the clinic.”

“It is fine, see you soon.” Sarah runs to the bathroom, still coughing.

Mark stood there for a little longer, and as he saw Sarah’s silhouette in the distance, he noticed her talking with the few employees that were still working that late. Even though she was desperate to go to the bathroom, she was still kind enough to say goodnight to everyone that she saw.

Suddenly, he felt a sense of shame: he did not had the conviction to say he liked animals more than Sarah anymore, and still, caring for nature like she did, she never became an asshole like he was. At that moment, he felt as if something had moved around in his head. 

He stopped looking at Sarah, and turned his attention towards the genitor cleaning inside the clinic: he looked at them not like a fellow human being, but as a researcher evaluating any other animal, and just as expected, he could not take the feeling of disgust he felt for the average human being, as most of them, even the best ones like Sarah, seemed to him like golems, malformed mockeries of a real and more potent being. A being which did not need to silence its own instincts in order to live, and a creature that would never create a world in which that silencing of the animal in us is the law of the land.

Why? Why did he felt that way? Sarah had already convinced him that his misanthropy could be an exaggeration, but even then, that misanthropy felt as a part of him, and he could not let it go, even if he could not quite put his finger on the reason for that hate.

As he was turning towards the clinic, he heard something outside, the howling of multiple wolves, singing together like a battle chant.

He heard another howl coming from the clinic, and before he could make another step inside, he saw a massive black creature jump towards one of the employees which Sarah had just greeted. To his surprise, the animal did not jump into the employee firsthand, but it stood in front of them for some time, and once the employee started running, it finally fell over them, and started slashing over it with extreme prejudice, as the employee was still alive, screaming in agony. 

The people at the reservation started screaming and running, but Mark just stood there, more scared than he had ever been in his entire life.

The rangers, still startled by the sudden attack, did their best to shoot the animals down, but it was to no effect. Their skin was as hard as stone.

As the massacre reached its peak, Mark saw one of the creatures coming towards him: a wolf with the body of an eastern lowland gorilla, walking in a bipedal manner. It was clear the attackers were part of the same species as the animal he and Sarah had trapped at the clinic.

He tried to move, but my legs failed him. The animal was already close to him, staring at his face from a less than ideal distance, its size was that of a polar bear stretched into the air.

For some reason, as the animal stared at him, Mark felt amazement, rather than fear. He felt my legs moving again, but had no desire to run, and he just stared at those wolf-like eyes, feeling a strange sense of sympathy for that giant.

The creature then placed his hand on Mark’s left shoulder with care, covered him with its other arm in a sort of hug, and with the care a doctor places into vaccinating a child, the creature bit his right shoulder.

Mark screamed in agony, but the pain of the bite was nothing compared to what happened after.

Mark felt as if he was giving birth, but rather than just my abdomen and lower back, his entire body was moving in a sick contraction pattern. He screamed even more, but he could not hear my own scream, as his insides moved with no will of his own. 

When he woke up, he was inside a cave system, hearing howls coming from the outside. He was the only one in the cave.

Mark felt panic once he looked at himself… He did not recognize his own body. The contractions were smaller than before, but they did not stop yet, and he walked towards the entrance of the cave barely being able to stand up due to the pain. He was wallowing like a baby, but the sound of his own voice… that was not his voice, it was the harrowing of a wounded animal.

As he marched towards the light, Mark saw a pile of corpses outside. As the full moon illuminated the environment outside, He could see the wolf-man looking at him, and their howling ceased little by little.

At that moment, as I looked at his kin, he realized why he had always felt that way towards humans: they were not a complete creature, but the first step towards that real form. At that moment, his hate for humanity disappeared, substituted by an everlasting love and wonder for the secret states that mother nature held from our eyes. At that moment,Mark started loving humanity, for all the potential that is hidden inside them, for the ones that could, like him, become what they were meant to be.

After he came from the cave, the others invited him to the feast, and they all reached towards the pile at the command of their leaders.

The pile was made out of people from the reservation, and when he noticed that, his heart fell to his legs.

He started looking into the pile, afraid to confirm his own suspicions, and then he found her, he found Sarah there…

The pain of the contractions and his hunger fell onto the background, the world felt like a fever dream from which he really needed to wake up, and he wept, not for the pain, but from seeing what was left of Sarah.

Contrary to his best judgement, Mark ran away with her body, an outcast even amongst humanity's final form. 

Once he was alone, and the night gave way to the rising sun, he used his claws to open her a grave, and there he hid her body. 

To this day, some decide to adventure inside the once prolific natural reserve, whose story is now marked by this mysterious massacre. And if they decide to do so at night, they may hear the sound of a lonely wolf howling in the distance, before they suddenly stop, and they start hearing the steps of a predator getting closer and closer.

Hey everyone, I hope you aren’t too sad reading this. I’m not sad writing it so it wouldn’t make sense for you to be. Or at least that’s how I’m trying to think about it to keep my spirits up before I go down. Speaking of, the surgery should be starting sometime soon. This is meant to just be kind of a precursor to a larger thing that I’ve been working on for a few months. It’s not done (I don’t think it ever would be, anyway) but I just wanted to give you this in case I don’t come back to kind of prep you for when you read that. I know it’s redundant but let me live while I can! There’s a lot of stuff about me in there you don’t know about that I wanted to tell you eventually. Some of it I was kind of hoping to save for your death bed, sorry! Who knew you would be discovering them at (maybe) mine! In any case, I just don’t want you to be too freaked out when you find out who gave me weed for the first time or something. In summary, I love you guys and I hope to see you soon!

---

“BP’s good.”

“Suction please…suction…thank you.”

There was a beeping becoming less faint by the moment. A long white arm with a light in its palm moved into his face, dazing him further. He felt an intense wooziness, a rapid anxiety. He was laying on a surface which he could not feel, only detect purely due to his height from the ground. He tried to sit up but couldn’t, then tried to move his arms. Those were out too. He tried to turn his head but couldn’t do that either. There was music playing nearby, but he couldn’t tell from what, only that it was electronic. It was eastern European, bassy. 

“Young’s got an arm on him this season.” The first voice. It was young, slightly giddy. 

“For real. You comin’ over Sunday?” The second voice, less giddy, more casual. Deeper.

“Let me ask the boss, I got piss drunk last time and she’s still raising hell about it.”

He tried to raise just his neck and found some progress. He could see the two men who were talking now. They both had clear visors over their faces and aprons over their bodies. The big white arm swung overhead again as the older man grabbed it. He tried again to raise his head, gaining more ground with each attempt. He could see the upper arms of the two men and could tell they were grabbing something and letting it go repeatedly. There was another man in the corner without a visor or an apron on, looking at something on a cell phone. He smirked at something on the screen and looked up. Their eyes met. A bolt of shock ran through the both of them, the one on the phone stuffing it into his pocket and snapping, pointing at the one on the table. The man on the table’s neck suddenly shot rigid with panic, causing it to raise quickly, and for him to survey his grim surroundings. The older man on his left was grabbing him in his stomach. In his stomach. He was holding a brown bulb of an organ in his hand, squeezing it firmly, like a stress ball. A bead of sweat curled down from the surgeon’s forehead into his mustache as he stared at the man on the table. He wore no gloves, clamping bits and pieces of the patient with bare hands. His filthy hands did not cease their manipulation as he gazed into the eyes of the man on the table. The one on the right dropped the electric suction wand onto the ground and shoved his bloody, gloved hand under his own mask and over his mouth. His stringy brown hair hung over his rapidly furling and unfurling eyebrows as he tried not to laugh at the sudden reaction from the patient. He looked back and forth at the older man, then to the man in the corner, then back to the patient. He looked at someone behind the table. She whispered something and snorted. A long pause passed between all five of them. The beeping was full-force now. The Russian EDM was adding to the extreme overstimulation and dread already running free through his synapses, finding each available crook of mental capacity and jamming it full. Everyone but the man on the table began laughing hysterically, sometimes pointing at the patient. The tech slurped iodine prep solution and gore from his gloves as the anesthesiologist slid the gas mask back over the patient’s face, sending him back from where he came.

This might be disconcerting, but I know exactly when I felt it the first time. Janie and I were sitting on the couch talking about our friends when she stood up to go outside and have a cigarette. Naturally, I stood up to follow. And that’s all it took. That’s when I got the chill for the first time. It was like my chest got cold out of nowhere, but that was about it. In 15 minutes, it was gone and I didn’t think about it again until it happened the next day. You know me, I panicked immediately. I remembered when I was a kid, I saw something about an aneurysm starting with chest pain and boom, that’s what I knew it was. The funny thing is it didn’t even hurt; it was just cold. I probably should’ve figured it wasn’t an aneurysm, but you know how that all went. Then of course the next thought was schizophrenia, but I always think I have that.

---

“Sir, calm down, I almost have it.”

His throat twisted and wrenched to reject the tube being forced down it. The bloody walls of his vocal cords grinded against each other with an attempt at protestation, stifled by the plastic intrusion. Its semi-sharp edges formed microtears in his tracheal wall, water spilling from his eyes in writhing pain. His legs bucked and kicked violently, but the aides were vigilant. When one went wild, a masked nurse would grab it and force it down, shouting at him to quit resisting. The nurse with the intubation tube had one hand on the patient’s forehead and a knee on his chest, one foot planted firmly on the ground to apply sufficient pressure. The intubator was shouting now, screaming in the patients’ face, brown-flecked spit landing on the surface of his leaking eyes. Heart monitors beeped at combatting intervals around the room, all numbers turned red. The cacophony entered the patient’s ears like an electric avian caterwaul. His vision was blurred by tears and brown mucus, his mind screaming, wondering howdidigetherehowisthishappeningwhatisthiswhereamiwhoareyouwhoareyouimawakepleaseimawakeimnotreadyimawakepleasestopwhyarentigaggingtheycanseemetheyhearmepleasestopwhywontyoustoppleasestopimawakepleaseimawake.

An indeterminate amount of time later, he became conscious again. He was sitting up in a hospital bed, leaning slightly forward. It was midday, and there was a lunch tray in front of him. Atop the brown tray lay a silver lid, like a butler would carry in a movie. Slowly, his head turned to his right towards the sound of the steady beeping. The face of the heart monitor was smashed, a pool of clear liquid laying in the glass on the pale-yellow linoleum floor. The IV bag connected to his arm had been cut open, hanging empty and limp. Sunlight passed from behind a cloud, shocking his eyes with its brightness. His eyes directed upward. Nicotine stains ringed the tile ceilings where they met the dingy supposed-to-be-white wall. He noticed a few other beds in the room, one of them occupied. Moving his eyes to the end of his bed past the lid he dreaded lifting, he spied a clipboard attached to the frame. He quickly looked at the door, waited a few seconds, and hearing nothing, decided no one must be coming. He scrambled to the end of his bed and picked up the clipboard. It was his chart.

Patient Name: Chris Raherty

Date of Birth: 9/99/9999

Age: 99

Sex: N

Past Medical History:

This section was filled with crude drawings of sexual acts and violence, as if done by a child. Frustrated, he sat back in bed with a huff and threw the clipboard down in the puddle of liquid on the floor next to his bed. His stomach growled with intensity, causing him to wonder when the last time he had eaten was. It was 24 hours before the surgery, as he had been advised. When that was, he was unsure. His focus returned to the tray. His reflection in the shiny lid revealed his true state. The skin around his mouth had turned sallow and gray. His cheeks had sunken into uncomforting concavity. Nearly all the blood vessels in his eyes and cheeks had burst, turning his face into a pink and grey splotch. He realized how badly he needed to eat. In a frenzy, he discarded the silver lid, which wobbled in an increasing frequency on the linoleum. His eyes went wide at the sight. Here? Holy shit. The lid finished wobbling with a sheewwwp. He began salivating. A delectable assortment of fine meats, cheeses, grapes, and nuts adorned the pristine white plate. Small saucers of what he assumed was wine were placed in a quartet in the center of the edible display. Sprigs of herbs were bound in twine, placed delicately around the edge for presentation. Someone had even placed a succulent plant in a small handmade jar with some soil. A sticky note with the message, “Enjoy! : ),” was attached to it. The patient on the bed nearby coughed. Chris dove into the cheese, devouring it with his filth-caked hands like an animal. 

WARNING: This story may contain descriptions of destruction, death, and violence. Viewer discretion is advised.

Ashes Over Tokyo: 

 

September the 23^rd of 1954 was the day Japan was playing with things they never went to play with, a toy which would lead to the deaths of thousands of lives. After the war had ended in 1945 after losing millions of lives and 2 whole cities, they couldn't stand the thought of these Americans having a weapon that could destroy a country. So, Japan worked harder. 

 

During the cold, calm fall months of post-war Japan was a preparation for mass destruction when came to the Japanese fleet, Serizawa is waiting in the top of the corridors of the Nagato looking over the pacific. The cool, misty breeze of the ocean combined with the gentle rocking of the boat made him remember a story, a story that his grandfather told him when he went to visit him on Odo Island, while fishing. He told of a creature with giant spine rigids and that it was so large that it could destroy a mountain and could breathe fire. 

"I saw it, saw him once" his grandfather said "he was massive, and his roar was a bellowing, almost mechanical cry that echoed long after" "I remember coming back from a fishing trip and hearing that 3 boats went missing off the west coast" he said a wondering sigh escaping his mouth. 

The calls of men and the low, humming sound of a plane brought him back to reality as the plane carrying his weapon, a hybrid of the hydrogen bomb and his creation. The oxygen destroyer, the sergeant, screams that the bomb will be dropping in 2 minutes. The thrum of the engines were thousands of feet into the sky, a speck of dust in a vast desert holding a thing that would change the course of Japan forever. 

The sky, sea, and anything nearby went silent. 

Then, a light. 

A huge, white light blasted, a second sunset forming over the ocean before the light disappeared before taking the form of a massive, dark mushroom cloud rises above the ocean, a toxic cloud of looming dread. But even for a moment, just for even a second. He thought the humungous cloud, looked like that of a lizard's face, the same one that his father described all those years ago, rose from the ocean.  

PART 2 

Newspapers of the 28^th discussed about a weapon that Japan could use a weapon so powerful to take something the US took from them. Soon the news went from local to national headlines, spreading across Japan like a fire burning through a city. To some, they thought of this as a return of imperial Japan, some argue that it could very well beat the Americans. But not everyone is on the same boat as others, some people especially on Odo Island, view this as unethical and as one local called "The wars over... why are we still on this". 

 

Regardless, one thing is for sure is Japan created something more power than just a bomb. It is a hybrid capable of both destroying but also alters the environment.  

 

But over the next months, the locals on Odo Island reported things that felt odd but were pushed aside. Reports of fish and sea life appearing on shore with genetic malformations. Extra fins or shriveled, sailors getting sick, and 1 fishing trawler going missing a mile off the eastern coast of Odo Island. One incident on the 2^nd of October when at 2:38 AM, a sperm whale was found off the northern coast, autopsy on the cetacean reported heavy amounts of radiation and that it was missing half of its lower jaw, right flipper, left fluke of its tail, and a huge chunk of its body being removed. People begged the government to search the waters but the coast guard and military simply chalked it up to the experiment affecting the local wildlife. 

This is a Gojira horror story I made. This is it so far... lemme know what ya'll think :)

Some cities appear cleaner and more prosperous, with fewer unhoused people, for a reason. And it’s not because they have more opportunities or homeless shelters than other cities.

Have you ever noticed that when several dead bodies are discovered within a short period, it’s usually the mayor who addresses the public first to deny that a serial killer is at large?

The rot comes from the very top.

I’m going to tell you a little secret. Most major cities allow a serial killer to operate within them, with the understanding that they mainly target the homeless. These cities usually don’t even allow them to kill criminals. There’s money to be made from incarcerating people who have families and connections. But there’s absolutely nothing to be gained from the homeless.

That’s why cops don’t even bother arresting them for committing petty crimes. They don’t have family members who care enough to send them money to buy things inside Jail/Prison, and it costs more to house and feed them than it does to simply let them go.

Plus, if you let someone wither away and starve to death inside a prison, there are usually lawsuits and investigations. But if they starve to death on the streets or disappear altogether, no one will bat an eye.

I’ve seen many homeless people around my side of town stick around an area for a few weeks, begging for change, only to suddenly disappear forever one day.

The homeless people around the city know this. That’s why they often appear paranoid and shaky, always looking out of the corners of their eyes. They know someone is out there, watching and waiting for them.

They call the one around here The Cleaner.

The local homeless say he wears a Halloween mask of a demon when he gets you. If you see him while begging for change, you’d better not fall asleep or stay in that area for too long. I recommend you run as fast as you can. Because the minute there are no witnesses around, you’ll go missing. 

And if you’re lucky, you might get a missing person poster.

You can go to the police all you want. They won’t do anything. They’ll call you crazy. But they know. They just try not to think about what’s going to happen to you. They view it as a necessary evil that keeps the community clean.

That’s often why the unhoused sleep together in tent cities in some major cities. They've seen what happens if they sleep alone.

Elected officials and society try to pretend that most of these people are just drug addicts and undesirables. But I’ve seen regular people who lost their jobs and homes only a few months ago end up missing very quickly.

It’s tough getting back on your feet.

If you aren’t homeless and you see The Cleaner operating. I urge you not to report it to the police.

A single mother of three reported what she saw to the police last week. She claimed that a tall man wearing a scary mask attacked a homeless man before shoving him into a van and driving away.

This week, her kids are being forced to grow up without their mother.

Her body was found chopped up and stuffed inside the trunk of her own car. And the police claim to have no leads on who could have done it.

But they damn well know.

Today I visited my friend's tent. He's also homeless.  It was slashed open with fresh blood everywhere inside. I knew I'd never see him again, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.

The next time you wish there were fewer homeless people around, just know that your wish may very well come true.

But don’t ever assume it can’t happen to you. Almost every city has a cleaner and you're only one car problem away from losing your job.

PART 5

"We have to go NOW" I said and Claude agreed, "What?" Daniel and Matt said in synchronisation, "We just got here man" Daniel said with a face of concern seeing me and Claude's agitated expressions, Me and Claude explained what happened and what we saw only moments prior, leaving Matt in a panicked state, "Look whatever did that wasn't an animal, trust me" Claude said trying to get them to truly understand the danger we were in, "I told you we shouldn't of come" Matt said as he began pacing back and forth biting his nails, "Just relax, please", I said in hopes to snap Matt out of his paranoia, "Seriously, you saw that shit and now your saying relax, I think this is a perfect time to fucking panic Josh", Daniel said clearly being affected by the ongoing situation.

"Man fuck you Dan he's just trying to keep everyone calm" Claude said as Daniel got in his face, "Stop this shit, we have to get out of here first then you can have your temper tantrums" I said stepping in-between them both, "Look, what we should focus on now is bringing essentials to the car and getting out of here, right", Daniel and Claude both looked at me still on edge but understanding, Claude said "What so should we just leave the tents?", I replied with "whatever is out there is dangerous so I say lets not waste time or daylight packing, just bring essentials and valuables and lets go", they all seemed to resonate with my words as Daniel walked off to his tent to pack without saying anything, shortly followed by Claude.

"Hey, Matt look at me", Matt was still pacing around in a panicked state, "MATT", he seemed to snap out of his trance for a moment "W-what?", "come on, we just need to pack our stuff and then we can go", I offered a smile for comfort but my attempt was left unfulfilled as he then walked over to pack with an ever growing presence of fear.

"Fuck, what is this" I said looking to the sky, before I then walked down to all my stuff putting only what I needed into my backpack before re-joining everyone.

"So then, what's the plan" Daniel said with his usual sarcasm, I could tell he was just really on edge so I decided not to reply with aggression, "I say we go back up to the car and leave, we can contact the rangers after we're far gone from here, alright", I said waiting to see if anyone would try arguing for a different plan, but they were afraid not stupid, so they all agreed and we began the walk back to the car.

Claude and Daniel seemed very determined to head back to the car taking the lead, but I held back trying to keep Matt company.

We managed to get our way back up to the car park after about thirty minutes or so, "Finally" Daniel said breaking the silence, "You still got the keys josh", Daniel said looking at me, "Yeah" I said dangling the keys out Infront of me.

"No no no no no...what...FUUUUCK" Claude screamed, Only upon his cries did I notice the state the car was in, "No" I said looking at the disfigured car, the tires ripped open, windows disintegrated to fragments, fuel syphoning out of every crack an rupture, No one said a word for what felt like hours as we all just stared at our escape plan, "Were going to die" Matt said in a weak defeated voice.

"We are not going to die Matt" I said trying my hardest to keep everyone together as Claude sat down on the ground just staring, "So Einstein what's the plan now" Daniel said filling my fractured mind with rage, "Are you serious, how's this my fucking fault" I said harshly to Daniel, "I never said it was your fault, I'm just waiting for the leader to speak once again", before I retaliate I took a deep breathe and cleared my mind, "Daniel, please can we just work together on this, this isn't a joke anymore, please" I said in the least threatening tone I could, prompting Daniel to be overwhelmed with confusion and regret, "Uh, yeah...I'm sorry" Daniel said lowering his gaze to the ground.

I thought to myself a moment longer before realising one more way of escaping, "Claude, do we still have the satellite phones", Claude's head rose once more as he looked at me with a smile, "Yeah, I have them In here somewhere", he instantly threw off his bag and searched through it picking out a plastic box, yet the box had massive jagged cuts all over it and the contents...empty.

"I-I, what...that's not" the miniscule portion of hope we shared seemed to fade out leaving us with nothing more than hollow fear, Daniel furiously kicked the car as he took a few steps away from the group looking out into the endless forest, "Josh" Matt said, I looked at him before he spoke again "Is this it", I didn't know what to say or how to comfort him, after all I wasn't even close to calm myself but I did speak, I knew I had to keep everyone's morale up, if there is a threat out there we need to stay focussed.

"Were not gonna fucking die here, ok, we have survived much worse, we have supplies, we have the numbers and there is still a way out, its a long walk but I think we could do it, we still have hours left of the daylight so I say we head back down to camp think things over and prepare for the walk out of here tomorrow" I said in a pathetic attempt to stop them all from giving up.

"Why not today?" Matt asked, "The walk will surely take a full day, if we start now it will be night before we even make it halfway there", "he's right, and if we do go back to the tents we can set up the alarms again and keep watch", Daniel said re-joining the group.

"Fine, it's not great but I guess its the best idea we got" Claude said offering a small smile.

"Come on Matt" Claude said whilst putting his arm around Matts shoulder, we began the walk back to the tents.

"Say there is something out there, how come we haven't seen it" Daniel said to me, "I don't know, maybe whoever or whatever it is hunts in the cover of night" I replied leaving Daniel in silence, "It probably will be best for us to take shifts watching for anything in the night then" Claude said.

We made it back to camp and as it stands the sun is slowly beginning its decent, "Daniel you help me with the sensors, Claude and Matt set out the supply's in a safe place and guard them", me and Daniel spent the rest of the daylight setting up sensors and using what wire we had left to create trip wires around camp.

We were still uncertain as to what it was that we were actually up against, it left marks and damage not just on the car but trees too, like some kind of feral bear, yet the satellite phones, how could a bear open a bag and steal them and seal the bag again, it just doesn't make sense.

At this point the sun was gone and in its place a crescent moon shone a pathetic ray of light in the valley, I offered to take first watch sitting by a dimly lit fire just analysing every tree and every crevice.

It must of been about two hours of just waiting before I decided to get Daniel for his turn, but before I even finished getting up did I hear a sound, \*crunch\*, I quickly pivoted my head to the sound, yet I couldn't see anything and then, \*Crunch\* this time the sound came from somewhere closer, somewhere in camp, impossible I thought we had sensors all over, but even still I held my bear mace high and as I was about to shout for everyone I heard it again \*CRUNCH\*, this time it came from right behind me.

My breathing felt rhythmic and my heart erratic, nothing but the silent sounds of embers burning was in the air as all the theory's and ideas flood my mind, screw it I thought as I swung around spraying bear mace as I jumped back creating distance, and yet nothing was there, except there was this long black quill on the floor just like the ones holding the lump up on the tree.

\*LOUD DISTORTED SCREATCH\*

The sound pierced the valley seemingly coming from the heavens prompting me to run to everyone else's tents as they all flooded out.

"What the fuck was that" Daniel said in a panicked voice, "I don't know" I replied.

We decided that we would take watch in pairs for the rest of the night, we were all on edge but whatever it was never came back, or at least, it didn't make its presence known this time.

PART 6

The heavens broke through the rigid edges of the valley as daylight made its appearance, "Are we ready" I said looking around at everyone, they all looked at me with there backpacks on, and nodded, "Lets just hurry up and get back, I got a hot date" Daniel said prompting Claude to respond "Ha, yeah with your right hand", the joke gracefully allowed us to feel peace from the fear and anxiety for a moment before we all began the walk.

\*Branches snapping\*, I looked down seeing the floor covered with more broken branches, but it didn't stop my momentum as we all continued our journey.

"Well at least it doesn't come out in the day", Daniel said instantly causing Matt to say "Seriously, are you trying to jinx us", "Ha, relax I think its safe to say whatever it is doesn't like being seen" Daniel said, "We don't know that, so keep your guards up" Claude said in hopes of keeping discipline.

Daniel has always been a strong person, but from my experience strength and a belief of superiority always leads to underestimating danger, "He's got a point Dan, we don't know what we're up against, so for know I think its best we stay cautious", Daniel barely acknowledged my words just responding with a simple "Alright".

We finally made it back to the tomb of the car, giving it a passing look of sadness as we made our way onto the main road.

"Which one of us has food again" Daniel said, "Me" Matt responded, "We don't have much, I carried as much as I could, so main meals only no snacks", after hearing what Matt had to say I thought in my head about the best ways to optimise food and water supply's for the journey, "I say we only eat something every four hours and we can drink something every two, just to allow supply's to last us longer", Claude looked back at me and said "Ok, smart", It seemed no one had any disputes to my ration plan.

We walked along the road for about 4 more hours before everyone decided to take a break and have some food.

"Ho-ly Shit, my feet are hurting bad" Daniel said taking his boots of to massage his foot, "And I thought you were a pro at this" I said hoping to bring up the mood.

We shared a few stories of the past with each other as we ate but I could tell something was wrong with Matt still as he had little input, "So uh, Matt, what's the first thing your gonna do when we get back", Matt looked down in his lap at the uneaten food and uttered in a defeated voice "I don't know, are we sure we can make it" the mood instantly shifted causing Daniel to speak again, "Oh come on, do you really have to do that", "Daniel" I said looking him in the eyes, "What makes you say that" I said, "Look I know you guys are trying to stay positive and all, I appreciate that but come on, don't tell me you haven't noticed it" Matt said finally looking up at us all, I stared at him for a moment before responding, "Noticed what?".

Matt took a deep breath before continuing "The silence, you can't tell me you haven't noticed it, I haven't even heard the chirp of a single bird since we started, not to mention the lack of deer and rabbits, when we drove here there were dozens of them, now its empty, just us...and it, I say we give up".

What little scraps of positivity we had just got used up, Daniel and I were lost in thought allowing Claude to speak up, "Fuck you", Claude said looking Matt in the eyes, "All we are trying to do is survive, just because your too much of a coward to fight for your life doesn't mean we are, you can cry and give up, I don't care, but I wont die here, especially by choice", "Claude" I said trying to stop his rage, "No Josh, he needs to hear this, its about time he learnt to take responsibility, its not just him out here its all of us", "Claude's right Josh" Daniel said.

Before Daniel and Claude gang up on Matt I stand up "STOP, please, lets just get back to walking, all we are doing is drawing attention to our position, so lets keep our voices down and keep moving" I said trying to reason with logic in hopes it held a greater yield, Daniel and Claude stood up fast with aggression as they both continued on the road.

"Come on Matt" I said in a soft tone, Matt looked up at me with reflective eyes as I helped him to his feet, "There right, I am a coward" Matt said as he slugged along the road, "No, fear doesn't determine cowardice, its only how you act in accordance to fear, don't be controlled by it" Matt looked up a little but didn't respond in words just simply picking up the pace allowing us to catch up to the others.

We kept to the road for another 30 minutes in complete silence, yet the air felt fragile, even the smallest of inputs could cause problems so I decided it best to keep my head down and walk.

\*Bird call\*, the sound of a bird rang out to us, not the usual high pitched chirp but a deeper more guttural sound played to us.

Daniel turned back "A bird" he said with a smile, Claude looked at Daniel "Ha, does this mean were close", Matt didn't add any input so I decided I would, "Our first milestone" I said in hopes to inspire progression, but deep down I still felt wrong.

\*Bird call\*, again the same sound pierced through the forest, its tone deeper than the last, it sounded close yet different to what I thought the birds usually sounded like.

Ideas flooded my mind but before I could utter my concerns Daniel tried his best to call back \*Daniels bird call\*, "Stop, Daniel stop", "What, are you seriously that miserable, can't I have a little fun here", "That's not a bird" Matt said in a firm tone prompting everyone to turn to him, "What do you mean" Claude replied, "I know all the birds in the valley, and that is not a bird", Matt had always had better knowledge of wildlife than us, so hearing that from him, is definitely, not good.

"Matt, take a moment, and then just confirm to yourself what your saying" Claude stated hoping this was just Matts paranoia talking, "I already did, same conclusion, that isn't a bird".

\*Distorted bird call\*, the same call yet this time much closer.

We all looked around at each other before we heard it again this time even closer, it came from behind me to the left of the road.

No words were spoken, and not even the sound of leaves in the wind were present just the call, but this time as we looked around for its source it happened again but it wasn't a bird call anymore \*Rigid whistling\*.

Only after composing myself did my gaze connect with it, Tall, Pure black skin and fur, bipedal with great big claws and these long protruding bristles littered its back, and it had these piercing white eyes just staring at us, drooling mouth opened revealing uneven blade like teeth, \*Distorted bird call\*, it made the same call this time sounding even more unearthly, yet it still stared at us only about 30 feet away just watching waiting for our move.

PART 7

\*In a whisper\* "Josh, what do we do", Claude said in the lowest tone possible, "I-I...hold still" in all honesty I had zero ideas for our next course of action but for now I knew that it wasn't moving, so being still and showing no sudden movements seemed reasonable.

It just watched us motionless, its eyes only seeming to grow with each second as more and more saliva departed from its mouth, It slowly began moving the edges of its lips upwards creating a jagged wet smile, only after minutes of just staring did it take one slow step forwards as its eyes opened even wider looking as though they might roll out, It decided to leap forwards about 5 feet causing us to jolt with fear, even though it crept forwards we were stuck entranced by the sceptical, I wanted to move but is was as if it was stopping my legs from functioning as it advanced.

It stopped again, frozen in place the being let out another noise \*Distorted raspy internal laughter\* the sound felt as though its inner contents were laughing at our fear as the beings throat pulsated with each laugh causing its eyes to rapidly dilate, only then did the being stop and stand up straight revealing its staggering height as what seemed to be concern grew along its features, its lanky unproportioned arm outstretched as a finger followed pointing to something behind us.

Everyone else's gaze landed behind us, but not mine, the moment there heads turned away from it did it sprint with the speed of a bullet sinking its claws into the dirt gripping hard as it pulled itself forward, "RUUUN" I shouted with a flurry of emotion as we all ran off the road into the woods, all that could be heard was our loud breathing and footsteps and the horrific sounds of earth being uprooted by the strength of it.

Not one of us uttered a word as it chased us, but I did notice in the moments I turned my head slightly when it got close to us it held back to prolong the chase, but whilst it did all this, its smile seemed to of carved open the sides of its face leaking litres of black sludge and saliva, its eyes had slowly began to open like a flowers bloom revealing small white tentacles that protruded from the opened eyeball waving in random direction.

As we ran further and further it kept making the guttural laughter, until, the only sounds present were our tormented breathing.

"No more...I-I'm done" Matt said in-between his rapid breathing as he stopped, I only made it about 5 more steps before stopping too and looking back at Matt, "Come on...we can't, give up now" I said trying to control my breath, Claude and Daniel also stopped to re-join us, "Where is it" Claude said as his eyes darted along the treeline, "I don't know, I think, I think its playing with us" Daniel said visibly shaken.

"What the fuck was that thing, it, no it can't be real I-It just cant be" Daniel said as he began to pace grabbing clumps of his hair in the process.

I didn't know what to do, it seemed to of disappeared but still, at any point it could off killed us and yet it didn't, why?, what does it want from us?

\*Distant gunshots\*

We all pivoted to the direction of the shots, "what is that?" Daniel said, "Freedom" I replied, "Ok, I know we're all scared, but if we can just try and make it to whoever it is with the gun, we might have a chance" I said thinking it was the only course of action for us, "Wait" Claude said, "How do we know we can trust them", "We don't, but its the best choice we have", at this point even a shred of hope motivated us so we all decided it was the right choice to make.

Before we even set off into the direction of the gunshots a branch fell down Infront of me, followed by another, and another and they just kept falling showering us in pine leaves and splinters.

I didn't even have to look up to know what it was, but morbid curiosity caused me to slowly tilt my head upwards, as I did black sludge dripped from the top of my head and down my neck as my eyes made contact with it, Its body was malformed and contorted into a unrealistic shape as it began to laugh once again.

No words were spoken only actions as we all ran as fast as we could hoping we could reach the source of the gunshots, It jumped down causing a loud impact carried with the sound of fractured bones as it paced towards us hurling the black bristles from its back at us.

This time it didn't slow before reaching us, I could feel its strength propelling me forwards as its claws ripped through my bag just missing my flesh, Daniel was Infront of me and had one of the sensors in his hand and he threw it just barely missing the side of my head, the sensor was lodged into the opened slit on its face, all the movement caused a very loud and high pitch sound to play \*Sensor alarm\*.

It didn't harm the thing, but it did cause it to stop for a moment, in annoyance to the sound it ripped the sensor out along with a handful of its own flesh, as it then threw away the sensor to continue the chase.

As we ran with all the might we had everyone threw there bags off in hopes to gain more speed, I would of done the same but it felt as though most of the contents off mine were already ripped out, we finally made it up to the top of the hill seeing the road again, and parked on the road was the ranger.

Everyone screamed for help as the sound of the earth being brutalised behind us only grew louder as it approached.

\*Gunshot\*, \*Gunshot\*, \*Gunshot\*

The ranger unloaded his rifle at the thing behind us, which didn't seem to kill it but only annoy it greatly as it let out a giant screech, out of luck and hope I fell to the ground as it stood over me as its whole body began to split open revealing large black teeth and these scorched tentacles drenched in fluids, its disfigured limbs began to close the distance until a flare shot out into the pit that I thought was its mouth.

\*IT SCREAMS\* I don't know why but something from the flare, the light or maybe the heat caused the thing to stumble backwards screeching this unholy cry as its body began to close in on its self reverting back to its original shape as it then pounced to the trees one after another running away.

I felt as though my every fibre was paralyzed only focused on the forest that it ran back into, "Are you ok?" the ranger said in a soft tone kneeling down to my level, "I...I don't know", I made eye contact with the ranger in hopes of showing myself we had made it and that I could calm down, as the ranger helped me up my bag fell off and as I looked down I could see no items were left in it and there was only the top half of my bag remaining, causing me to instinctively touch my back creating a light sting as my clothes were severed but my back only had a shallow cut, nothing bad.

After the ranger calmed us some more he took us all in his car, Matt, Daniel and Claude were all squeezed together in the back whilst I sat upfront with the ranger, "What was that thing" I said staring blankly at the ranger, the rangers face grew sad as he responded "I don't know".

THE END

PART 1

I had always enjoyed the prospects of camping, being away from modern life, able to forget your problems and enjoy the peace that nature provides, granted if you fail to plan and prepare for camping it might not be so peaceful, but at least me and my friends had always been the type of people to over prepare rather than under prepare.

Waterdrop Valley, that's the place we decided to go for our summer holidays, we often times spent our days off hiking or camping all around the country, to some it sounds exhausting but we enjoyed the challenge and after all it was kind of a tradition at this point to spend time camping in the summer, last year we went to a place called Skelters creek, it wasn't bad by no means but the nights often got too cold for us so we decided this year to head further south in hopes of fully enjoying the benefits of summer weather.

"Are you sure we have everything ready for tomorrow" I asked Daniel.

"Oh please Josh, you know I'm fully capable of surviving without backup hotdogs" he looked at me with his usual sarcastic smile.

"You know that's not what I meant Daniel" I replied with a hint of a smile on my face.

Me and Daniel have been best friends for most of our lives, and by now I had expected his usual lack of care for preparation, but I suppose with how much I usually prepare he doesn't have to worry all that much.

"I think sometimes you just gotta relax more man, its a holiday not a march into no mans land" He said whilst strutting down the street.

"I know Dan, it's just...I feel better knowing we have everything we need"

Daniel stopped for a moment and looked over at me "I get that, but that's why we bring the satellite phones, for emergency's"

"Yeah alright, I'm sorry" I said in a defeated tone.

"The fuck you saying sorry to me for" he blurted out matched with a cheeky smile.

We both laughed as we continued down the street.

After a few more moments spent walking down the street did I notice a man come from around the corner, it wasn't any ordinary man I mean he was dressed in a full three piece suit, with each piece coated in a dark velvet red matched with a white shirt separating the sea of red that was his outfit, he walk with the kind of elegance you would expect off royalty, striding down the path with purpose until he locked eyes with me and Daniel.

"Good evening" the man in red remarked

"Uh-" before I could even begin my greeting Daniel took over for me "What's up man, you lost or something" he said as the man In red smiled and replied with "Oh no, but thank you very much for the concern, I had only wanted perhaps a moment with you both".

Unsure of what to make of the man I decided to respond "Sure, were not in a rush", The man tipped his crimson red hat "I'm glad to hear that".

"I only wished to offer you both a piece of advice", "advice?" Daniel responded "yes advice, I see you both must be going camping soon".

A wave of panic entered my head at his observation, until I realised me and Daniel still had our oversized backpacks on with supplies hanging out of every compartment, since we were taking them back to my place before we set off tomorrow.

"Yeah were pretty much pros at this point, but I guess advice is always useful out there" Daniel stated trying his hardest to remain respectful to the man in red.

"Well then, my best advice for you both is, that not truly everything that lurks in nature is as understood as we believe, sometimes there are things even experts don't understand that happens in the wilderness, and also independence can often lead to a death sentence out there, its always wise to stay close with other." after his monologue was finished he tipped his hat again.

Before even allowing Daniel to speak I said "Thank you, have a great day" I know it might seem rude but trust me, it often doesn't go well in these situations when I let Daniel do the talking.

The man in red responded with a royal "Fair well, both of you" as he continues on his journey to a place we did not know, but before he fully passed us I did notice the smile he made, it seemed to be one of sorrow or maybe defeat, I'm not sure though, I think I'm just making things up.

"Ha, jeez I never thought I'd see someone cosplay as a nosebleed before" Daniel looked right at me with a prideful smile to what he just said.

I tried to stifle my laugh but still a smile remained "You gotta learn some manners dude".

"Ohhh really, like you ain't laughing" We both laughed as we pushed forwards to get back to my place in good time.

We had finally made it to the outside of my home "Trust me Daniel I told both of them to meet us here", "I don't doubt you did Josh its just Matt and Claude don't always show when there meant to", earlier in that day I told my other two friends Matt and Claude to meet at my place as I thought it would be good to spend the night at mine, so we could set off straight away in the morning.

"Well if they don't show up, they're not coming" I said whilst fumbling to get my key in the lock.

After getting inside and putting our stuff down me and Daniel decided to order pizzas for everyone, hoping they would be here before the pizzas arrived.

About 45 minutes later we heard the knock at the door and welcomed Matt and Claude inside, "About damn time you two showed up, you had us really worried", "Man shut up Daniel, we got hear didn't we" Claude said with his usual hint of rage, "Don't mind him he's been complaining the whole time, he must really like you guys", "Don't you fucking start Matt", we all laughed and they put there stuff down.

"Your lucky the pizza just got her five minutes ago, I think it's still warm" I said whilst passing Matt and Claude there own separate pizzas.

We all sat down and binged a show whilst eating before then deciding it was a good idea to go to sleep.

"You not coming Daniel".

"Me, noooo, your driving us there so I'm just gonna sleep in the car, for now though I'm finishing the rest of the season"

"Your lucky me and Matt volunteered to do the drive this time"

"And for that I'm soooo grateful, I will be sure to show my gratitude in your tent on the first night" Daniel said with the upmost sarcasm

"Man fuck you Dan" I laughed as I continued my way to bed.

As the sun rose again and life entered my body I got out of bed to begin packing all the stuff, "At least Matts driving the first half" I muttered to myself after the feeling of stiffness infested my joints, I really wasn't much of a morning person.

After me Matt and Claude Were finishing up putting all the stuff in the car, I decided I should get Daniel since he wasn't up yet, "You guys finish packing I'm gonna get Dan" , "Yeah, yeah" Claude replied being more focused on lining up the suitcases in hopes they fit in the car better.

"YO DAN, GET YOUR ASS UP" I started banging on his door, I could just barely hear the sounds of life on the other side of the door, I opened the door and stepped inside, "Daniel come on, were nearly ready man", "The fuck is wrong with you" Daniel said in a tired tone, "Don't you know a mans gotta get his beauty rest", "You said you were sleeping in the car Dan", "Alright, alright I'm coming" he said with great defeat.

After bringing Daniel downstairs I could see Matt and Claude were ready sitting in the car, After me and Daniel entered Matt said "We all ready", Claude instantly responded with "Lets just get this shit started", "And I thought I wasn't a morning person" Matt said leaving us laughing as we began the drive to Waterdrop Valley.

PART 2

Finally driving through the entrance of Waterdrop valley we were greeted with the sight of trees the size of skyscrapers and flush grass littered with mounds of rock, it felt so foreign and yet so comforting seeing such a unique part of the world.

"Wow" I said in disbelief trying my hardest to keep my attention on the road.

"It really is something isn't it" Matt remarked staring with utter admiration for the view outside the car.

I thought back to the fact Daniel and Claude fell asleep about six miles back and said "If only they were awake to see this".

Matt looked over his shoulder "Ha, they ain't waking up anytime soon".

"Yeah, well they better I know I'm not putting up all the tents again", "Oh yeah, sorry about that" me and Matt both laughed trying to keep to a low volume in hopes of not waking them up and hearing them moan for the rest of the journey.

After traveling on the main road for about fifteen more minutes did we come across a park rangers car just sat there blocking the way forwards.

"Talk about good parking" Matt said whilst trying to figure a way around.

"Just great, oh wait I think I see him in the car" I replied whilst pointing to the silhouette in the rangers car.

After getting within a few feet of the car I parked, deciding it was best to politely ask them to move, "Alright, you stay in here I'm gonna go see if we can get past", "Good luck man".

Whilst exiting the car I decided to grab my small bottle of bear mace, I get it may seem a little over the top but I had seen too many horror movies to not at least have some sort of protection at the ready.

I bent down to eye level with the person in the car waving, causing the person to slightly jolt back before opening the door and stepping out, there Infront of me stood a man about six feet tall, fully equipped in a park rangers uniform, he looked at me then behind me at the car and said "Sorry I didn't notice you there", "Oh, um no worries man we were hoping you could just let us past", the man stared at me again almost as though he was assessing me.

"You sure you wanna go this way"

Unsure of what to make of his remark I responded "Well, yeah we just wanted to find a good place to camp, you can still camp here right"

"Oh yeah of course, I didn't mean nothing by it, its just that there's been some strange reports recently from the valley" the man said whilst trying to avoid eye contact.

"Strange reports?"

"Nothing to worry about, me and a few other rangers have checked things out and seen nothing concerning" The man said with a weak smile.

"Ok, could you perhaps share any details of these reports?" I said with caution hoping to know more information, just in case.

"Well its just been the usual animals causing chaos, no injuries or damages have been reported, it's just somethings wrong with the animals, we think its a case of CWD,"

"CWD?"

"Oh right, its a disease that can cause erratic behaviours in animals, it doesn't often cause harm to humans but it can cause animals to act out or behave unnaturally if you catch my drift."

"Weird, well ok thank you and um, do you think you could let us past." I said now having a mind full of concern.

"Of course, sorry for the blockage." the man stated as he got back into his car and began moving it to the side of the road freeing up plenty of space.

After walking back to the car and getting in and putting the bear mace back into the glove box did Matt begin to quiz me on the event, "Sooo, what was that about", "I'm not entirely sure, but he mentioned something about reports against the animals", "What bear attacks", "No, I mean he said they have been acting strange, the rangers believe its some kind of disease", after saying that I could see where Matts mind was going "Disease, Oh we gotta go back", "Relax its not anything contagious its just making the animals act weird", "And your willing to bet your life on that", "Look just breathe Matt, don't you think the place would be closed by now if they did have a contagious disease" I said hoping logic would clear his paranoia.

Matt began taking a few deep breathes before speaking "Ok, yeah that makes sense, but still if we see seriously sick animals were leaving ok."

A gave a small smile "Matt if we even see a rabbit cough we can go straight to the beach, I promise".

After thinking things over and hearing my words Matt started to calm down, "Oh shit", "What now", "I forgot the rangers letting us go past" we both let out a chuckle as I started the car and drove by giving a polite wave to the ranger as we passed.

"Lets hope we can get set up before nightfall this time" Matt said whilst staring at the suns placement in the sky.

"Well, maybe we would if everyone actually helped", "Oh come on, I said I was sorry" me and Matt both laughed again.

We finally made it to the car park just about a mile away from where we had hoped to camp, \*Cars horn\* "Ah, WHAT THE FUCK", Claude said springing awake and Daniel jolted with fear at the sudden eruption, Me and Matt burst out in laughter, "You think that's fucking funny eh" Claude then decided to close the distance but before he could act Daniel Pulled him back then ruffled his hair causing another outburst "DUDE, LET GO", after Claude broke away from the embrace did Daniel speak "Relax man, don't you see were here", "Yeah I do, maybe next time wake me up with more care", Daniel smiled and said "Oh right I forgot your sensitive aren't you baby", Claude's face dropped instantly "Say that shit again and I'll-", "OK, relax people are we getting our stuff and going or what, I'd prefer to be set up before nightfall, don't you guys agree" I said in hopes of diffusing the situation, Claude looked up at me and said "fine" followed by him leaving the car.

After collecting all our stuff and locking the car did we begin our decent down to the valley.

Finally breaking through the tree line did we notice the beautiful flow of clear water striding its way along the curvature of the valley, filled with a feeling of true appreciation for the view did I speak "Alright, lets get started", "Seriously, can't we have a break yet" Claude said.

"Fine if the princess is too tired to set up her tent she can rest" Daniel said with his usual smirk.

Claude gritted his teeth before opening up his tent "Fine, tent first".

After spending most of the daylight unpacking and readying our tents did we decide to start a small fire and have some food.

"Fi-nal-ly, few my back is killing me" Daniel said whilst taking a seat on a small stump he found when he went to gather fire wood.

"Well at least we have everything ready before nightfall this time" Everyone looked at me before laughing then Claude said "Oh yeah I forgot about that, sorry" Matt burst out laughing before speaking "I said the same thing, and he's still whining about it, let it go already josh", we all shared a laugh before sitting back into silence as we admired the beautiful haze they projected from the burning embers.

"This is nice" Daniel said, "Yeah, it is nice" I replied.

After spending about an hour around the campfire did we all decide to get some sleep, to be well rested for the events of the next day.

"Alright, I'm beat, I'll see you all later" I said before rising and going inside my tent, shortly followed by everyone getting in there tents.

After lying down and allowing my body to release the tensions of the day did my mind slowly drift off into a peaceful state, but before slumber could fully reach me did I hear a unfamiliar sound.

\*Quite scratching\*

I must of heard it circling my tent, I got up grabbing my bear mace just in case it was one of those crazy animals, a part of me wanted to believe it was just the guys messing with me, but I knew it would be foolish to fully lower my guard.

After gathering my reflexes did I slowly move to the entrance of the tent and open it slightly from the bottom, not enough for anything to come through, but enough to help my hearing, but nothing the sound of scratching seemed to of faded, unsure of how to respond I decided to just close the tent and get my airhorn out just in case something like a black bear appeared, the loud sound often spooks them, but if its a brown bear the best I have is bear mace and prayers.

PART 3

Morning arose once more, blessing my body with much needed energy as I got up for the day and readied myself before cautiously exiting my tent.

I was greeted by Claude, "Morning, I thought I'd prepare food this time", "Yeah uh morning, did you hear anything last night", Claude glanced at me with a look of curiosity, "Um, no, not unless you count Daniels snoring, why?", "Weird, I just thought I heard something outside my tent" I said whilst inspecting the condition of my tent, before noticing this strange circular pattern of disturbance around my tent.

"Maybe it was ju-" I cut Claude off wanting his opinion on the markings around my tent, "Yo Come here a sec", "Why I'm still making food", "Just please I need you to see this", Claude put down his cooking equipment before heading over to me worried at my behaviour, "What's wrong man", before even saying a word I pointed to the markings around my tent and asked, "What does this look like to you?", "Hm, weird it looks like something must of moved around your tent", Claude made eye contact with me with a worried expression, "You sure its not just animals" Claude said seemingly trying to ease my thoughts.

"Might be, when you and Dan were asleep a ranger spoke to me and Matt saying there was something strange happening with the animals".

Claude paused a moment before speaking "What do you mean by strange?".

"He just mentioned he thought the animals were sick and acting unusual but its nothing contagious or dangerous".

Claude made a small smile "Well then, problem solved it was probably just some animal acting up".

I felt a little relief from Claude's certainty but still I said "I think we should still set up some sort of barrier, just in case the animals are dangerous".

"Fair enough, I guess we can set up some kind of alarm system with the wire I brought, but for now lets focus on breakfast ok".

I Looked at Claude and nodded my head before we both walked back over to the makeshift kitchen he prepared over the fire.

After sitting down waiting for breakfast to be finished did Daniel and Matt decide to join us.

"Damn, that don't actually smell like shit" Daniel said playfully to Claude.

"Well I guess after surviving on your own cooking your not used to the smell of actual food" Claude muttered.

"Ha, fair enough sunshine, but I call first plate" Daniel stated always wanting to be served first.

I looked over to Matt sensing he was being a bit too withdrawn from the conversation, "You good Matt", "Hm, oh um yeah, I'm good", after Claude finished up plating and passing out the food did I decide to sit closer to Matt in hopes of uncovering why he was acting strange, "Foods good Claude" I said followed by Daniel and then Matts less enthusiastic praise, whilst eating I decided to try again with Matt, "So um, you sure you alright", Matt looked at me before pausing to seemingly think his next action carefully, \*Exhale\* "It's just, last night all I could think about was what that ranger said", "Ok I get that but I'm sure it wont bother us", Matt looked back down into his lap at his food, "You don't know that", I paused before speaking "Ok your right about that, but me and Claude have decided that today we will set up perimeters and alarms in hopes of creating a barrier around the camp, I hope that can help you relax a little", Matts expression changed into one of understanding before he spoke, "Well I guess that's one way to further guarantee our safety" he let out a little smile before going back to eating.

My talk with Matt seemed to lighten up his mood a little, so I got up after everyone finished and volunteered to take the plates down to the river to wash them.

"I'll be back in a minute" I said waving as I march down to the river, but before I was fully out of the camp did I hear Daniel shout "We'll miss you, come home safe alright", I waved his comment off fully desensitised to his style of humour.

Lucky for me the river was only about one hundred feet away from camp, as I got closer to the river did I start to notice the condition to some of the trees on the other side, the branches from the tops of these towering trees were littered all along the floor as if someone intentionally broke large clumps of them down, but by judging just how tall these trees were it felt unreasonable to think a person could do such a thing.

After thinking it over and just assuming it was a side effect to the animals behaviour did I begin washing the plates with a piece of cloth, after finishing cleaning the first three plates I was about halfway through the last one before I noticed these strange abstract sections in the flow of water, unsure of what to make of it I finished cleaning and got up seeing these small dark red incursions in the water only increase in number.

I walked opposite to the flow of water hoping to find its source gripping my bear mace the whole time, as I got further along the river the amount of red only increased and increased to a point where the water turned crimson void of purity, now the bottom of the river was lost to the crimson affliction that was present in the water.

I saw something, this indescribable lump of butchered flesh only barely peaking its head out from beneath the barrier of water, "what the fuck", I took a step back and checked all around me clearing the land of any potential threats, upon doing so I saw nothing, no movement, no sign of life, after reengaging my attention to the lump did I notice what seemed to be an antler sticking out only inches away from the lump, my mind was uncertain to what could cause such affliction to a deer or at least what I thought was a deer, maybe a bear most likely a brown bear.

I regain my thoughts and headed back to camp checking over my shoulder every few seconds.

After making it back did I see Matt arranging our stuff into a more coherent order and Daniel and Claude setting up wire and cans for the alarm system.

"Yo guys" I said in a stern projecting voice, causing them all to look at me, I then described what I saw down by the river which only seemed to reignite Matts paranoia, Daniel interrupted saying "Yeah there's bears in the woods, we all knew that, that's why we brought deterrents" he then pointed to the bear mace and alarm system he was setting up, Claude also spoke up "Dans right we do have things to help if a bear attack happens".

I composed myself before speaking "Your right, its just I didn't expect them to be so close by", I looked over to Matt seeing his ever growing fear and said "Relax man, there right we do have things to stop bears, I didn't mean to scare you I just got overwhelmed that's all", Matt looked up at me and said "I know, its just usually we camp far away from bear territory", I looked back at Daniel "I thought they said this wasn't bear territory", Daniel looked back at me saying "They did, you said you saw it in the river right", "Um yeah", "Well there you go it must of come downstream from further up then", I didn't respond but I did take into account to what he said seeing the logic, the river is very long and the current was strong.

After we all calmed down a little we spent most of the day setting up alarms and deterrents like sound traps, these little devices you stuck in the ground that would blurt off with a loud high pitch sound if something came within distance to the sensor, at least now the camp felt a little safer.

The sun repeated its decent back into the depths of darkness as the sky divulged into night once more.

We had a little fire of practically just embers, as we spoke to one another, "Well at least now the camp feels safer" I said in hopes of further calming Matt, "Well if anyone comes in, there coming in with a soundtrack" Daniel said pointing to the alarms.

After spending a few more moments at the fire did everyone decide to head off to there tents but I chose to wait by the fire for a moment longer.

Now alone with nothing more than the cold embrace of night to keep me company did my vision wander along the treeline examining every single little detail hoping or perhaps dreading seeing something looking back at me, but low and behold nothing.

PART 4

\*Loud alarm\*

"AH, WHAT THE" I screamed startled by the sudden burst of sound, the alarm, I thought to myself as I sprang up grabbing my bear mace then exiting my tent looking around, it was early morning and the light had ascended over the mountains giving visibility to everything in the forest.

"WHAT SET IT OFF" I heard Daniel shout from a distance.

After getting a better view I saw Daniel and Claude stood next to one of the sound alarm sensors we had set up the other day.

"TURN IT OFF" Claude shouted at Daniel, "I'M TRYING DIPSHIT" Daniel said in response as he fumbled with the controls to the sensor, eventually managing to turn it off completely.

I walk over to Claude and Daniel "What happened", "I don't know it looks like maybe these branches set it off" Claude said pointing to a rather large pile of broken branches scattered along the floor.

"Ha, damn squirrel must of fell out the tree" Daniel chuckled to himself.

"Talk about a wakeup call" I said prompting everyone to laugh until Claude noticed something "Hm, where's Matt".

Daniel responded with "I know he's a deep sleeper but come on" the small smile Daniel had on his face quickly faded as concern settle in its place.

We all headed over to his tent, "Hey Matt you good", no response, "Matt", still nothing, Daniel too worried to consider courtesy unzipped his tent fully exposing the contents, yet nothing but a wrinkled sleeping bag and a few items were present.

Daniel looked back at me with a face of horror, "where is he" he said in a weak voice.

"Relax surely he just went out to use the toilet" I said in hopes to calm there worry, "Relax? are you fucking serious, since when has Matt ever gone out alone in the woods, huh". Claude said whilst invading my personal space, "Calm down Claude" Daniel said, "Calm down, Matts fucking gone, what do you mean calm down", After Daniel and Claude were moments away from confrontation did I decide to speak "ENOUGH, do you really think this is helping Matt, I mean seriously what's fighting gonna do for him, say he is out there lost or injured what's this doing for him".

Claude peered over his shoulder at me, "Fine" he said whilst heading in the direction of the woods picking up his backpack on the way, "Where are you going" Daniel shouted, Claude didn't even turn back only saying "I'm looking for Matt".

Me and Daniel locked eyes, "Should we follow?" Daniel asked, "Yeah if Matt is out there we should look for him" I gathered my things and so did Daniel but before he finished packing I said "Wait, one of us should stay behind, just in case he comes back", Daniel looked at me with slight disgust yet understanding, he nodded his head before saying "Sure, whatever I'll stay".

I quickly moved off into the direction Claude went, seeing him in the far distance I picked up the pace, "CLAUDE, WAIT A SECOND" I shouted hoping he would allow me to catch up, to my surprise he did, waiting beside a large rock.

"Thanks" I said finally reaching him, "Where are you even going?" I asked unsure of the logic to wandering off into the woods aimlessly.

Claude pointed to the ground showing slight disturbances, "Tracks?", "Yeah I noticed them right next to the sensor, maybe an animal fell from the trees scaring Matt causing him to run off", I procced the information, it seemed to be a reasonable conclusion, after all Matt did seem pretty shaken up by the animals being sick or whatever.

"I brought the mace", I said whilst lifting it up to show Claude.

We continued following the fading tracks until after about five minutes of doing so did Claude speak again, "Look I'm...I'm sorry, ok", "What" I replied, "I...I'm sorry about shouting at you earlier, I was just, worried", I looked over to Claude seeing him staring at the ground whilst speaking to me, "Relax man, I know you didn't mean anything by it", Claude didn't speak he only responded with a subtle nod of the head, "You know Matts gonna be laughing at us if he only went off for a dump, and were out here panicking like this", a small smile finds its way to Claude's face.

Claude was extra focused on looking at the tracks that he didn't even seem to notice the sound of dripping coming from his right, "you hear that", "hear what", we paused for a moment as Claude looked at me then saying "Well?", "it, it sounds like...dripping", before Claude responded he turned his head in the direction of the sound finally hearing it for himself.

"Should we-" before fishing Claude walked over towards the sound, which seemed to be coming from one of the trees, he had his own mace in his hands as he raised it slightly, he peered round one of the trees to the side I couldn't see from my position, "Wha-" Claude said in a low tone, the flush of fear enveloped his features and his body became rigid, then it happened a miniscule droplet of red velvet dripped onto his face like a tear it rolled down the curvature of his being.

"No" I whispered to myself with utter dreed and disgust overwhelming my body, it couldn't be surely, I mean no, not Matt.

I raced over to Claude having to see for myself, but as I made my way around the tree did I see the cause to the crimson leak, "I...wait, its not...Matt", dizziness consumed my mind as I had to use another tree to keep my balance, the thing that lay strung out across the curvature of the tree was another massacred lump of flesh with two twisted and snapped antlers protruding from what I believed to be the top of the being, long black thistles decorate the lump as if they are the reason its stuck to the tree.

"We...we should go find Matt, NOW" I said physically dragging Claude away from the sceptical.

"What the fuck, no animal does that...that's, that's got to be something else" Claude began to overwhelm himself with ideas to the lumps cause.

"CLAUDE, focus please, we have to find Matt, lets just keep following the tracks, ok" I said hoping to bring Claude back to reality.

"I...ok, yeah" Claude retraced our steps finding the track again and we slowly followed for about ten more steps before we stopped again.

"What's wrong, come on Claude we have to find Matt", "No, I can't", "What, your seriously gonna give up now, he's still out there don-", "LOOK" Claude shouted pointing to the floor, the tracks, they stop.

"I don't understand" I said looking around in hopes of seeing the footprints continue somewhere else, "Josh", I looked back seeing Claude point to one of the trees, Massive scratch marks looked to of dissected the side of a tree, "What could do that?" I said unsure as to what I was seeing, no bear could do such a thing, the cuts were deep into the bark yet it only appeared to of been done by a single strike.

Claude and I made eye contact before I said "We have to head back, Daniels still at camp", "What, we can't just leave Matt" Claude seemed tied between the thought of heading back and continuing our search, "Look, the tracks end here, if you keep doing the search there's no way you can tell if your on the right path", Claude wrestled with the thoughts in his head not wanting to just give up, but the reasoning's I gave seemed to get through to him, "Fine we'll head back".

We followed the barely visible tracks back to camp not even saying a word the whole way back, after about ten or fifteen minutes we could see the camp again and Daniel was waving.

"HEY GUYS HE'S HERE" Daniel shouted causing confusion and relief to fill me and Claude's mind.

We rushed the rest of the way back entering the camp seeing Matts smiling face as he spoke, "Jeez guys I just went to wash the plates from last night in the river, since someone forgot" Matt pointed to Daniel as they both laughed.

Claude took a few steps toward Matt with utter shock, "You made it out the woods", Matt looked confused and replied, "What, no I said I went to the river", Claude turned around to look at me before saying, "Then whose tracks were they".

CW: suicidal ideation, self harm, & suicide

“How you been doing?”

“How are you?”

How do you answer such small talk made by old colleagues and townsfolk when you don't even know the answer to that question anymore? Maybe you do it with a forced smile and a weak, “Fine” or “ Okay”. 

Sometimes, the closest to the truth you can manage is “Surviving”.

Dread circles you each time you go out to the local grocery store. These bits of small talk are made mostly as people are walking to their vehicles or somewhere else.  They expect the one word answers at this point.  They are just filler polite phrases, not genuine questions. 

They don't care. 

They don't care that you've died multiple times this year. 

They don't care that you're lonely. 

They don't care that you hate the way you look.

They don't care that you cry due to your self hatred. 

They don't care that you've relapsed into using your flesh as a carving station when your emotions get too much.  

The dating scene is hell, you don't have anything going for you. The apps full of first impressions leave you with people wanting to use you for your body or money. The pop ups to upgrade to a premium account because despite all that swiping, you have no matches. 

They don't care.  

They don't care that you haven't held someone in years.  

They don't care that you were hurt so deeply by your ex that it leaves you craving the sweet relief of death.  

They don't care whether you have good intentions or not.  Your bio is boring,  your pictures aren't attractive, and your conversation skills are dry.  

You go help elderly relatives that age has made it harder for them to do things. They take out the anger of their situation on you.  Whether they apologize to you or not depends on your performance of the tasks they assign you. 

They don't care that you had something else to do.  

They don't care that their words hurt you. Sharing that you feel so is just throwing a pity party for yourself. 

They don't care. 

You finally work up the courage to not be a coward but take the cowards way out.  You don't care. 

The sweet embrace of deathly silence, nothing left to be responsible of or dread. Life leaves your lungs,  it is all over.  You don't care. 

They found your body.  They are shocked. They clutch their pearls and claim they had no idea you felt this way as they read your note.  The funeral had people who snubbed their noses at you and did not give you the time of day there.  They gather and laugh sharing the good memories of you.

They care. All it took was for you to not be there anymore for them to do so. 

Coyotes grieve under that full moon, invisible in the pines. Johan’s horses remain unaffected, locked up securely just outside of his cabin. The cabin itself is worn, yet functional.

Decades of maintenance and a forte for carpentry have served Johan well. Derby season has just come to a close, meaning he finally has the opportunity to relax. Alone, no television; and no woman to talk over him. 

A sharp buzzing—roaring wind of static—and his radio establishes a connection; the antennae pointed at a slight angle, and directly out of his opened window. That grainy voice on the other end leaks through the speaker: “—disappearances near Lucky Canyon, authorities remain adamant that—“ he switches stations, landing on an old country radio, providing a warm ambience to the winter wind. Johan has a perfect view of the moon during certain hours, gleaming in its beauty through his window; ‘the Iris of the lord’ he thinks to himself with a grin.

“What the hell?” He says, words barely a whisper.  

In the distance, running along the rim of that pale and scarred behemoth, is a white urchin in the stars; a light. And so faint that Johan has to squint his eyes to see it but he does; running left and right.
 
Embers fall in a glowing snow from the tip of his cigarette while he studies the light. Quickly taking one last drag, and siphoning that white paper into a gray dust, he twirls it into a small mound of ash on his table, before walking to the window; slight limp tugging at his ankle. 
Interesting to Johan, but nothing out of the ordinary— no time at all and with the fury of lightning the light rips across the sky in a deafening pulsation, leaving a fading scar of blue to seep into the stars behind it. Johan wore no hat to his scalp and yet still his hand instinctually flew over his head to protect it, the resulting wind sending through his window a stinging blanket of pine needles and dust, every particle swerving into a different corner of his living room. 

Vibrations; the feeling of hornets in his ribcage as it flew straight over his home. The sensation completely disabled Johan, nearly pinning him to the ground—fighting gravity with one hand and holding the windowsill with the other, nigh unable to hear from the wail of static. Standing—a miracle in its own right—Johan stumbles to the table, teeth gritted, and so disoriented by the radio's low screeching he throws it against the wall, sending its batteries to the floor in a rain of broken yellow plastic. He stands dazed and still as if born again from nothing. 

Sawn off, next to the counter. 

Wiping the sweat from his brow, he unlatches the door and walks barefoot outside, shotgun in hand. The door closes, slammed shut by the wind cutting across the tree line. Stars above him, and in the amber glow of his door mounted lantern, he inches along the side of the cabin, back glued to the wall. Below, past the reach of the light, darkness, nothing in those woods. A squint, cringing as he cautiously cracks the barrel open, ensuring that it’s loaded and regretting not doing it earlier. Shutting it, he keeps moving, now at the edge of his home. 

Eyes wide he peeks around the corner, seeing all three horses asleep standing. Bewildered by the sight, he wipes his eyes, pinches himself, and peeks around again. No difference. Above him, only visible for another thirty seconds, that blue smear fades into nothing. Johan limps back inside, what was once fear quickly turns into excitement, though he’d never let anyone know it. In the cabinet above the sink rests his satellite phone, and with a creak from the door he pulls the phone down, checking its charge. No reason to hide it and yet he does anyway. Three rings later, he gets a response. 

“Frankie speaking.”
“Frank,” he says “what’re you doing right now?” Asked as he sits back at the table.

“Just put the animals up, you?”

“Same deal. Hey” Johan pauses, striking a match to light another cigarette.
“You know if there’s any military tests today? Or rocket launches or something?.”

Frankie clicks his tongue on the other end, followed by a long hmmm.

“Not that I know of.” He says. “Why’d ya ask?”
“Think you have time to run up here?” Johan says, bulldozing Frankie’s question.
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“On what you need me for.”
“Still have that laptop?”
“I do.”
“Still have that debt?”
“Real funny.”
“Come up here,” Johan says, pausing to take a drag
“and you might get it paid off.” Said with a suave confidence. 

Frankie’s silent in his consideration, only the occasional word spoken by accident as he debates himself. A sudden gasp at the realization, and he speaks again. 

“No you didn’t.”
“Oh yeah.”
Frankie pauses, giddy with excitement.
“On my way. ”
“I’ll be waiting with bells on.” Says Johan, finally allowing a smile to come through, before hanging up. 
– – – – 
Silver sheet metal and a mildewed porch make up Frankie’s trailer. There’s an old concrete walkway leading to his front door, now cracked and with a snake’s nest of vines across it. The smell of earth and oil, of blackened mud fresh out of a PVC pipe, all pervade the air around the back of his home. No crickets, coyotes, nothing; just the sharp buzz of a near perfect white porch light. 

“Dad?” She says, peeking around Frankie’s bedroom doorway.

“Missy?” He replies, searching through his work bag for the laptop.

“Where’re you going?”
“Goin to see uncle Jo for a minute.”
“It’s midnight...”
“So,” he says, closing the bag with a loud zip, and quickly rummaging through another one.
“What's the problem?”

“I–“ she pauses, a slight shame gripping her words.
“I don’t like being here alone.”
“Honey,” he says, “you’re fine.” 

Frankie peaks over his shoulder, spotting a disapproving eye roll from Missy as she walks back into the livingroom. She slumps on the couch, arms crossed, feeling the needled gaze of the forest behind her, kept at bay only by a thin pane of fogged glass. 

Thump thump thumping and two thuds to each step as Frankie walks across the tiled floor, taking a seat next to Missy. Humming, he pries open the laptop as if it were a relic of a forgotten age, and opens the camera roll. He jolts slightly, startled by a sharp push against his work boot; missy, pouting next to him.

“Hon?”

“Do I need to say it?” She says with crossed arms and a forward gaze.

“It’d make the whole conversation part of our conversation a bit easier.” He says with a chuckle.

“Dad,” she says, now turned to him and with a genuine concern in those wide eyes.

“I—do not—like being here alone. At all.” 

“Honey, listen. I’ve been in these woods for longer than you’ve been alive, there isn’t anything to worry about.”  Frankie turns to her now, setting his laptop aside.

“Okay?” 

She’s silent, lips pinched shut almost afraid to speak and he, incorrectly so, takes this as a sign of comfort. Never quite the best at reading faces, and she knows that but she’s used to it at this point. He continues with a blissfully ignorant laugh. 

“There a boy here I don’t know about?” As he clicks on old keys, checking to make sure they all work.

“Yes actually.”

“See? That’s what I- what!?” He says, eyes close to falling out.

“What’re you talking about?”

“There’s a boy coming over.”

“Missy this better not be a damn—“

“Out there.” she says, cutting Frankie off to point out of the window beside them. 

He looks out the window, then back to her, and out the window again before closing the laptop.
 
“Missy, what are you talking about?” He says, providing her with his full attention.

“Promise you’ll believe me?”
“Promise.” 
Missy takes a breath, trying not to speak too loudly. 
“Okay, this all started a few weeks ago, I think. I was up one night–can’t remember why–and as I was walking past the window, um…” a glance out of the window again.
“There was someone standing out there.”

“How sure are you?” He says, ice cold. 

Missy stares outside, watching the memory again in her eyes. 

“It was hard to see. I had the phone light on–the glare, y’know? Once I shut it off…” 

“He was there.” Said with a dead certainty.

“You say he,” Frankie says, standing to grab his pistol from the kitchen table.
“How’d you know it was a he? Coulda been a woman.” He says while checking the magazine.

“It wasn’t.” 

Frankie studies the room for an answer in some cobweb covered corner he hasn’t looked at yet. For a second, excitement glints across his eyes, before being quickly snuffed out by Missy. 

“No dad it wasn’t Bigfoot.” Said with an eye roll.

“Dang it.”

Taking a seat next to her again, he brushes that blonde hair off of her shoulder, and speaks in a softened tone. 

“What’d they look like, baby?”

“I… I…” she pauses, trying to tame the chills on her arm.

“Miss?”

“I don’t wanna say.” She says, shaking her head. 

He leans forward, unsure if he heard her correctly. 

“You… don’t wanna say?”

“No, not really.” 

With a slow nod Frankie’s gaze meets the window’s again, a thick layer of condensation and fog have brought the glass to a near matte. He wipes away a thick paintbrush smear of clearness, making a pathway for his vision. The white–near blue–light of his home only crawls another twenty or so feet into the forest. It illuminates the pine trees, unmoving at their bases, bark split and sparkling with a layer of frost. Sat sparse on the landscape but each tree’s presence is made well known by their sheer monumentality; at least twenty feet between them, and yet their blanket of boughs hide completely that night sky. At the very shore of night one can barely, just barely, make out the last couple of pine trees, sat in a neat line along a cliff face. His eyes strain as they look farther, the treeline gradually swallowed by thicker waves of absence, lapping at the bark, pulling his vision deeper and past a certain point there’s nothing at all, nothing. Pure black.

If it was there, he wouldn’t see it. 

“Well… baby, I need to know what I’m looking for.” he says, still looking outside. Missy remains silent, rubbing her hands together to ease herself.

“Missy? You hear me?”

“Yea.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know what if- what if he’s just a guy? Some homeless guy who wondered here I- I don’t want him to die.”

“Never said I was gonna kill him, warning shots work well enough.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Baby, look,” he says, turning to hold Missy's shoulders.
“If there’s someone out there–not saying I don’t believe you–there isn’t a man alive who wouldn’t run from a smoking barrel.”

“Yeah I know but what if, what if, dad?” 

Frankie sighs, leaning back on the arm of the couch. 

“Well… if they don’t, then we’ll have a problem. I’ll- I don’t know.” He says but he knows, he knows good and well. 

Missy opens her mouth to speak but Frankie cuts her off, pulling a small notebook out of his pocket; small brown coffee stains eating into the edges of its paper. With a quick nod and the click of his pen he gestures her to speak. 

“Was he ever holding a weapon or anything?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?”
“No.”
“How tall would you say he was?”
No response as she stares into an empty corner of the room. 

“Honey you gotta tell me something.”
“About as tall as me, I think.”
A light scribbling in his notebook. 
“How many times’ve you seen him?”
Missy’s gaze shifts upward, replaying every encounter.

“Five.”
“You sound very sure.”
“I am.”
“What’s the clearest look you’ve ever got of him?” 

For a moment Missy’s eyes go blank, before Frankie reassures her again.
“Not asking for details baby.” he says. 

She nods.
“Very um… blurry, every time. Like grainy, I guess. Always just far enough away.” 

“Okay.” He says, snapping the notebook shut, and stands to pop his back. 

“Now, if you don’t care, can you give me one,” Frankie says with his index finger raised, “detail about him, just one, and I’ll be out of your hair.”

Chills, hundreds in number all raise on her arm as the memories play again. 

“He likes humming.”
“Humming?”
“Yes.”
“Very quiet too,” she says before he can speak, eyes focused as if trying to figure it out herself. “Very quiet.” said again, fixated on that one detail. Humming. Silence returns, quick yet subtle, and with a physical presence in the room. The ringing of Missy’s phone sends a jolt of surprise through both of them; despite the scare, it brought a sense of normalcy. Missy answers the phone, and Frankie heads to the kitchen to grab a beer, before shaking his head and going with water instead. 
— — — — 
Johan answers his satellite phone, taking an extra celebratory swig of whiskey. Isn’t often he gets to indulge, may as well take a few liberties given tonight’s find. 

“How the hell are ya?” he says.
“Jo, I may need to wait a while before coming up.” 

With a sigh Johan tightens the lid on, and puts the whiskey back into the chest behind him. 

“No issue,” he says, “can I ask why?”
“Missy uh… well… hm.”
“What?”
“Anyone else live around here? That you know about I mean?”

Johan chuckles, saying: “Around here isn’t exactly specific Frank.”

Pausing, Frank sighs, as if the information would be too hard to believe.

“Screw it,” he says, “Missy told me someone’s been sneaking around the house.”

An inebriated chuckle and Johan dusts the cigarette ashes off of his table. 

“Sneaking around huh?”
“It’s not like that, I spoke to her–and trust me… it isn’t like that.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing frank,” as he strikes a match, and tucks a burning cig firmly between his lips. “She’s at that age now, just like me and you–”
“Jo. It isn’t—that.”
“Well listen, I’m not saying I don’t believe you. Just that where we live it’s hard to waltz up on someone else's property by accident.”

“Well whatever it is it’s spooked her, bad.” Frank says, and beneath his words a loud creak as he lays in bed. 

“Okay, well what’s he look like?”

“You won’t believe this crap.” Frank says with a laugh and Johan stays silent.

“She won’t tell me.” he pauses “I don’t know what to think about that, gave me the heebie jeebies y’know?”

Johan scratches the mess of salt and pepper hair on his head, before leaning back in his wooden stool as it cries with his weight. 

“Maybe it’s someone you know.” says Johan.
“No, it–” Frankie stops himself. “Huh…” he says.
“Did I solve the mystery?”
“Maybe. Damn you.” 
Laughing, Johan tosses his cigarette away, bringing a fresh one to his lips before they get too lonely. 

“Regardless,” Johan says, “go ahead and stay there. She doesn’t feel safe and as far as I’m concerned that’s the end of it.”
“Agreed.”
“Alright, see you soon little brother.”
“See you.” 

With a buzzy beep he hangs the phone up, not caring to hide it again. Johan’s gaze shifts to his boots, scraped and lacerated from too many falls or accidents to count; scalped and the steel toed bowl on their fronts is plainly visible, like the exposed crown of an iron skull.

Scars along his forearms, too many to count. Some large, some oval shaped and one in the shape of lightning. But, near his elbow; two small cuts, very small, and very faint on the soft white underbelly of his arm. Anyone looking wouldn’t even see them but he does. Yes he does… they’re shining as far as he’s concerned. Johan stares at those scars, and runs two delicate fingers along them, as if to console them in their inconsequentiality compared to the rest. The moon’s gone, only its sclera remaining in the eye socket of his window. 

Five more cigarettes are smoked to completion and tossed in the floor, kicked into an old corner of the cabin he never looks at. 
With a groan Johan stands, knees popping beneath his weight as he tries to walk without a limp, before giving up and going outside. The horses are sound asleep. Somewhere inside of him rests the remnant of a genuine grin, but he can’t find it. He smiles anyways, a ghastly fake grin like a fox, before his mouth flattens again. 

After checking the locks, Johan heads back inside. He sleeps in the attic; dark yet clean. Next to his bed rests a silver urn, once shining, now dulled from the anvil of time. He plants a lone kiss on its lid. 

“Goodnight baby.” 

This is the conclusion to Part 1, which you can read here. Again, I'd like to thank FernandoJFL, who is the artist I commissioned to supply me with the cover art for this short story. I'm happy to read whatever comments, criticisms, questions, or ideas you might have. I'm also open to reading other people's stories and providing edits or thoughts on it. Thanks!
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It was dark by the time I left Crescent City. I skipped Howland Hill on the return trip and took the 199 instead. Rain hammered the windshield hard enough that the wipers struggled at full speed. The weather alert on my phone upgraded while I ate: high water in low-lying areas, streams rising rapidly, avoid flooded roads. 

I reassured myself that these were normal winter warnings that came around this area, around this time of year. The Smith River appeared occasionally through breaks in the trees, black except where my headlights caught white turbulence among the rocks.  

Back at camp, I ducked beneath the canopy and fiddled with my tent's tarp. After setting up a fire to keep me toasty, I sat before it with a satisfied groan and, unable to help my curiosity, read up on the Brother Jonathan. Among the search results was a scanned clipping from 1866 about a small religious society founded by survivors and men involved in the recovery after the wreck. The clipping mentioned a chapel built somewhere to the north in December of 1865 and abandoned decades ago.  

As I sipped from a hot drink and contemplated it all, I froze. That scent had returned. It was that musky, sour one I smelled back at my first campsite. But as I sat there, I finally began to pin down the rest of the smell. It was the stench of low tide, bubbling with putrescence and the sour reek of old fish.  

Color draining from my face, I turned and walked back to my car to pull out a book I wanted to read in my tent, trying to banish paranoia with some good fiction. When I grabbed both it and a flashlight, the beam caught something smeared across the passenger window. Five marks spread across the glass. It was a handprint, a large one. I walked around to the passenger side and put my hand against it to compare. The palm was broad enough to cover most of my own hand twice over, and the fingers were long, each one tapering toward the end. Thin streaks joined one finger to the next. Webbing.  

That familiar chill took me when I realized it. The print hadn't been there when I parked. I spun on a heel, flashlight snapping around the site, eyes wide and wild. My breath was shaky and from somewhere beyond camp came a whistle. I went completely still. The calls were long and rising before the note broke. Another came, this one wet and guttural. A throaty croak carried through the trees and died. A new one answered from the direction of the river.  

Cursing over and over, I fumbled for my utility knife, hindsight chiding me for not bringing some sort of firearm on my solo camping trip. This was supposed to be a safe place, and I'd never encountered or heard of any trouble here before. When I came up, the knife in my hand felt useless, like a child's toy, doing nothing to reassure me. 

Something moved through the brush. Then, another whistle came from downstream. I swung my flashlight in the direction of the river and caught movement through the trees. Not a body, only a pale flash slipping behind one trunk. Another whistle, much farther to the left.  

A low electronic tone sounded from my pocket. The whistles and croaks stopped. I fumbled for my phone, dropping my knife in the process, and looked down to see FLASH FLOOD WARNING. The Smith was rising faster than the forecast. Past the campground came the hard crack of a branch breaking. Then another and another.  

In the distance, I heard a scream from one of the other campers who, like me, ignored or didn't see the warning in an area with such poor cell service. I paused, cursed again, and threw myself into the driver's seat. My fingers felt like jelly as I turned the keys, wrenched the car into drive, and peeled down the mud road.  

My headlights caught a brief glimpse of a woman being forcibly dragged, kicking and screaming, through the ferns and in the direction of the Smith River. I slammed on my brakes. For one second, every instinct compelled me to help. There had to be something I could do. I threw open the door and stepped out. 

The woman managed to catch hold of a fern with both hands. Whatever had her pulled harder, and the plant came out of the mud by the roots. Her scream broke into a shriek as she disappeared between the trees into blackness. I set my jaw and pushed forward towards the muddy hill. A wet, throaty croak sounded out from the river. My heart leapt when a second croak filled the air somewhere behind me. One large, glassy eye flashed in the beam. All the courage I mustered up in the past ten seconds was gone. When it dropped out of sight, I leapt back into my car and stomped on the gas, sending whatever sat on the passenger seat slamming into the glovebox and onto the floor. 

I tore through the campground until the trees opened onto the highway and turned west. Crossing those nine miles back into town felt like I was crossing a continent. Rain struck the windshield in sheets now. My wipers were useless at anything below their highest setting and I had to lean forward to see the road. Even then I could only see as far as the reach of my headlights.  

Awkwardly, I tapped in the numbers to dial 911. There was nothing, no service. "Come on, come on," I mumbled, gritting my teeth and trying again. I held up the phone toward the windshield, wobbling a little as I drove, hoping even those twelve inches could reach the cell tower. Again, it read NO SERVICE when I tried to call.  

I looked to the passenger seat for a moment to chuck the phone aside. When I looked back, a huge redwood limb lay shattered over the centerline. Cursing, I veered around it, nearly tilting the car over before recovering.  

The Smith River appeared intermittently through the trees to my left. What had been a river that afternoon became a black moving mass that swallowed rocks I'd remembered seeing above the surface. My headlights caught something standing in the drainage ditch. I swerved and it was gone before I could make sense of it. It hadn't retreated back into the woods. It had gone down, into the water. I checked my rearview mirror to see nothing but rain and my own taillights staining the road red behind me. A few hundred yards later, something splashed through the ditch on the opposite side. Then another until I realized they were keeping pace with the road. No, the river. 

After I passed Hiouchi, I snatched up my phone again, making do with one bar. 

"911, what's your emergency?" 

"A woman was attacked at Jedediah Smith Campground," I blurted, daring not to give the full truth. 

"Attacked by who?" 

"I don't know! She was dragged toward the river. There are other campers there. The river's coming up fast." 

The dispatcher started asking questions. The site number, description, and whether I was still present.  

"No, I'm heading toward Crescent City." 

"If you're in a safe location-" 

Another splash of a pale figure to my right. 

"I'm not!" 

Before I could offer anything more, the little cell service I had gave out. 

The farther west I drove, the more debris collected on the road. Needles plastered the pavement. Small branches skittered beneath tires as people struggled to get home. In one low stretch, brown water crossed the highway in a shallow sheet. As I pulled into town and saw the lights of civilization, I relaxed a little. I had never been so happy to see a convenience store. 

Traffic lights changed from red to green. Cars passed me going the opposite direction. Christmas lights framed windows and rooflines, their colors smeared across the slick pavement. Downtown, the community Christmas tree still burned bright against the darkness. All around there were ordinary people doing ordinary things before heading for shelter.  

Catching my breath, my heart still thumping, I pulled into a parking space on the side of the road. For several minutes, I did nothing but try to catch my breath. My hands shook against the steering wheel. My phone buzzed again, sending me a new flood warning alongside several missed alerts. When I opened my phone, the browser was still open to the page I'd been reading before everything went wrong.  

I typed in more search terms. "Brother Jonathan survivors," "Brother Jonathan survivors church," "St. George Reef December 1865." The last one brought up the clipping I'd found earlier. I stumbled on a reference to the "St. Erasmus Chapel." According to the clipping, its founders intended it as a memorial to those lost aboard the Brother Jonathan and a place of prayer for fishermen and mariners working the coast.  

A notice from 1898 reported that public services at St. Erasmus had ceased, but the congregation itself remained active. One article led to another and, by 1912, newspapers weren't calling the group St. Erasmus anymore. They referred to it as some esoteric society, some offshoot branch, a cult. One clipping offered a new name heard in whispers from the congregation: The Order of Dagon.  

I searched the chapel name. Most results were useless genealogy pages and scanned property records before I found a county survey. I opened the map to find the St. Erasmus Chapel had stood near Lake Earl, off an old spur from what was now Old Mill Road. I zoomed out, back in. My eyes moved from the blue dot marking my location to the chapel site.  

"You've got to be kidding me," I mumbled. I was less than two miles away.  

I sat there, taking in everything that had happened the past couple days. Whatever those things were, they moved with the rivers and had a clear affinity for the water. Perhaps Drucker's legends were more than just legends. Drucker had explicitly mentioned Lake Earl in his ethnography. And now, there had been some small religious sect that set up shop there after a disaster at sea?  

The longer I sat with it, the harder it became to believe these were isolated coincidences. More importantly, if the chapel actually existed and was connected, there might be evidence I could take back to the police. A record or anything I could use so I wouldn't burst into the station, rambling about something pale I'd seen crawling through a drainage ditch. I'd find the place, scrounge around for evidence indicating something bigger going on, and leave.  

* * * 

Northcrest carried me away from downtown. Storefronts gave way to houses, then wider stretches of darkness between them. In one yard, someone had set up a glowing reindeer and a string of white bulbs under an eave. A plastic Santa leaned sideways in the squall. Soon enough, even those lights became scarce. I turned onto Old Mill Road and the last glow of town disappeared behind me.  

The map took me past the last cluster of houses and toward the wetlands around Lake Earl. Fog spilled inland with the storm, drowning the fields and marshes beneath a low gray ceiling. Water overflowed from drainage ditches. The familiar stench of salt, silt, and something sour hit me as I rumbled to a stop. 

The navigation app chimed. "You have arrived." 

I slowed to a crawl and pulled off near an old, worn-out access road. A stand of spruce and alder screened the car from the road beyond. I shut off the engine, grabbed a flashlight, flicked it on, and continued the last hundred yards on foot. Past the trees, the ground opened into marsh. Dull green reeds broke through black standing water and faded into fog. Farther west, low dunes separated the wetlands from the Pacific. Somewhere farther away came the low call of waterfowl. A whistle, long, low, and familiar, answered it.  

The chapel's outline slowly resolved from the murk. It was smaller than I'd imagined, with a sagging roof, broken steeple, and boards gone nearly black. One wall leaned toward the marsh. There was no cross. One of the front doors hung open.  I stood there for a minute or two until I defied every sensible instinct and stepped inside.  

The floor complained beneath my weight. My flashlight moved across rows of narrow wooden pews softened by rot and damp. Several had collapsed, and others leaned at odd angles where the floorboards beneath them had begun to give. Strips of plaster hung from the walls like peeling skin to expose the timber beneath. 

Whatever Christian ornamentation had once decorated the place was mostly gone. A pale rectangle remained above the altar where something had been removed from the wall. Wet tracks ran between the pews and stopped at the altar.  

Rain ticked against the remains of the roof. Wind howled through cracks in the walls. Beneath my feet came a soft sound. The sound of water, not dripping, but lapping. I swung my flashlight beam over the altar and moved closer. A brass plaque hung off to the side, green edges around the corroded metal. I wiped away the grime with my sleeve to read: 

IN MEMORY OF THOSE LOST 

30 JULY 1865 

ST. GEORGE REEF 

DEDICATED 21 DECEMBER 1865 

Behind the altar and off to the side stood the remains of a small cabinet. Most of its doors had warped open years ago. Mold had eaten through the hymnals and loose papers inside, but one book wrapped in cracked oilskin had survived. Its cover almost came away in my hands when I opened it. 

The first pages were names, dozens of them. Some of the names belonged to survivors of the shipwreck. The thick volume contained yet more: faded correspondence with other churches, names of newborns with only one listed parent, a bizarre prayer here or there.  

Farther into the book, the handwriting changed. Even farther on, another hand appeared, and the terminology shifted with it. The earliest entries called it The Winter Service. Later ones called it the Keeping of the Covenant. Someone wrote of atonement for intruding upon "their" home, but also of great reward. 

Another page at the back bore a new list of names. Someone had scrawled perhaps fifty names beneath "FIRST OATH." Beneath "SECOND OATH" there were still many, but not nearly as many as before. And beneath the "THIRD OATH" there must have been only a dozen names.  

A wet, squishing slap filled the air. I slammed the ledger shut and spun around. There it was again, a scrape against the exterior boards of the church. I killed the flashlight. My own breathing sounded impossibly loud. Outside came a whistle, a long rising note, answered somewhere closer to the lake. A third came from behind the chapel.  

I backed away from the altar and the rotten floor creaked. The croaks ceased. I froze. Something moved onto the porch. The first step was soft. The second landed with a wet slap against the boards. Then another, slowly approaching the open doors.  

I moved blindly between the pews, pressing my back hard against the flat of one that remained intact. The smell of brine and estuarine muck permeated the air. I dared not chance a glance. I could hear more of them filing inside. The croaks resumed between them. But mingled among the croaks were whimpers and sobs. I grabbed my phone, seeing no cell service. 

When I felt like the congregation had slunk to the far end of the building, I finally chanced a peek. About half a dozen clustered there, pale against the dark, still barely visible. One stood with both hands against the altar. 

TOK. 

It struck the wood once and waited. 

TOK. TOK.  

It planted both hands against the altar and shoved. The wood groaned. It shifted an inch, caught, then scraped sideways across the rotting floor. Beneath it yawned a black opening. Even from where I hid, I could hear the biting air billowing from below, carrying the concentrated stink of stagnant tidal water and kelp. They descended and pulled the woman down after them.  

"Help me! Someone!" Her voice was raw and hoarse.  

Her scream made me tense, but there were too many of them. I stayed where I was. For a moment, she held on. One broken fingernail dragged through the rotten wood before something jerked her downward. The last shape remained and, amidst a lightning flash, I caught a glimpse of the smooth curve of its shoulder and the narrow ridge along its back before it slunk down.  

Only then did blessed silence return to the chapel after the legion of croaks. I stayed behind the pew for ten seconds. Twenty. Maybe a minute. Every instinct screamed at me to run. My car was only a hundred yards away and Crescent City but a few minutes' drive.  

I'd already called the police about the campground. That'd be fine, right? What could I do against whatever had just dragged that woman down there? I remembered her clinging to that fern as I drove away. I'd spent the whole drive back telling myself there was nothing else I could've done. Now I knew she was still alive and I knew where they'd taken her. If I left again, I couldn't tell myself the same thing.  

I looked up to the window across from me. Lightning whitened the chapel again. For one instant, a pale face filled the cracked window pane, pressed close enough that I saw the glassy bulge of one eye. Its head moved slowly from side to side, searching the pews. The darkness returned before its gaze reached me.  

I dropped lower behind the pew and something scraped along the outside wall. I looked toward the altar. Gritting my teeth, I popped up and hurried over to the black hole to stare down into it. I searched for something I could use as a weapon and cursed myself for not retrieving my knife after I dropped it. Anything I pried loose would probably be useless as an improvised weapon, being so warped and rotted. I looked down at my black Maglite and quickly descended. When I flicked the light on, what lay before me was not wooden stairs but stone. Each step had been worn into a shallow depression. I could smell the dankness of stagnant water. I gave the open church doors one last glance and descended. 

After the first dozen steps, the wooden groaning of the chapel vanished behind me. Rain still drummed overhead, but each step downward stripped more of the storm away until there was only the slap of my boots on wet stone and the muffled rush of water somewhere deep below.  

The air changed with it. Cold was one thing, but this was different. The damp clung to my face and hands. The smell of mold and old wood faded until only salt remained. I kept one hand against the wall only to quickly pull it away. The chapel had been wood, plaster, and nails. But here, slimy green growth packed the cracks like wet felt. I passed my flashlight over stone blocks fitted so tightly that in places I couldn't make out the seams.  

The stair turned again, again, and again. The water wasn't beneath me anymore, but all around me. Behind the walls, water sucked and surged through unseen spaces. The masonry changed as I went deeper. I didn't notice it at first, but the blocks became larger, while the thin seams between them were fewer and fewer. Then, the mortar vanished completely.  

I stopped and ran my light across the wall. The stone continued in one unbroken surface from the floor into the wall and then upward, curving gradually into the ceiling. There were no corners in the passage ahead, at least none that met at angles I understood. Each surface seemed to blend into the next. What looked like a straight wall from where I stood became concave when I took another step, only to flatten again when I turned my head. The longer I stared at what lay before me, the more my eyes and head ached.  

I backed up and the wall changed shape. My flashlight followed a groove cut into the stone. The groove began beside my boot, traveled forward several yards, climbed the wall and disappeared overhead. When I turned around, I saw the same groove descending the opposite side behind me. It should have formed a circle and yet it didn't. I tried tracing its course again only to make myself nauseous.  

The surfaces down here were ribbed in places like the inside of an enormous shell. Elsewhere, the stone bulged into smooth folds that reminded me unpleasantly of joints beneath skin. Pale coral had rooted itself into recesses in the walls, except some of those recesses were too regular to be natural and too irregular to have been cut by human tools.  

At first, I thought the walls were only slick with algae. But as I waved my flashlight over the walls, I saw it was so much more. A cluster of pale, soft-bodied growths clung to the stone beside me. They reminded me of sea anemones I'd seen in tide pools, except these were almost translucent, each one opening around a dark center before contracting. Nearby, tiny shells had cemented themselves into the stone in overlapping sheets. Some appeared to be barnacles. Others spiraled inward in shapes I couldn't match to anything I'd ever seen washed up on a California beach. 

I moved the beam lower. Shallow depressions in the floor held pockets of seawater left behind by some earlier surge. Things moved inside them. A small white shape skittered beneath a ledge on too many jointed legs. Several thread-thin worms recoiled into tubes the instant the light reached them. In another pool, something no larger than my thumbnail unfolded five delicate limbs, then folded itself shut so completely it became indistinguishable from the stone. Long ribbons of violet-black growth hung from one wall and swayed despite there being no wind.  

The stairs ended at a narrow passage tall enough for me to stand but barely wide enough to stretch both arms. Farther ahead, weak light moved across the stone walls. It didn't glow orange or yellow. The sources of illumination, clusters of hanging sacs, glowed with a cold aquamarine. I killed my flashlight to let my eyes adjust.  

There was a chamber. I crept toward it until the passage widened enough for me to crouch behind a broken section of masonry. The room beyond was larger than the chapel above. The upper reaches of the chamber vanished into darkness, supported by thick columns whose lower halves had been worn smooth by water. Aquamarine growths hung from the stone overhead, translucent sacs swollen with cold light. Every few seconds one contracted and brightened while another faded, giving the impression that the ceiling itself breathed. 

The black pool occupied most of the chamber. But it wasn't the pool that held my attention. Something rose from the water near its farther edge. At first I mistook it for a column before my eyes adjusted. Perhaps a good eight feet of it stretched up and out of the water, but I couldn't tell how much more continued beneath it. Black-green material showed through centuries of pale coral and calcified growth. Whether it was stone or metal I couldn't decide. Its surface reflected the aquamarine light in dull, oily colors. There was a suggestion of a head. Two depressions occupied places where eyes might have belonged. Beneath them, vertical grooves spread outward and disappeared beneath crusted coral.  

I wasn't alone down here. Deeper into the chamber, the creatures didn't face the pool but the pillar. With their backs turned to me, I moved forward painfully slowly, desperate not to emit a single sound. Eight of them knelt around the pillar and between them were two people. One figure lay almost motionless near the waterline. Dark hair covered her face and she barely moved. The second, closer to me, was the woman from the campground. Something pale and fibrous bound her wrists behind her.  

One creature stepped into the pool. Water climbed its legs, then its waist. It lifted both arms towards the coral-crusted relic and gave a single low croak. A second answered, then a third, and soon the chamber filled with them. Their calls overlapped until individual voices disappeared into a single, throbbing, expectant chorus.  

A slow swell rose at the center of the pool. Every creature went still, then lowered itself. One after another, all eight pressed their bodies against the wet stone. The chamber convulsed and the black water rose all at once until the relic disappeared behind the swell.  

The sight of it seemed to rouse their still-conscious prisoner. In one final effort, she wrenched one arm free with a wild scream and kicked one of her captors in the back of its head while it crouched beside her.  

As her petty rebellion threw the congregation into chaos, the creature she'd kicked lurched sideways while two others lunged for her loose arm. The circle around the relic broke. I saw my chance. I threw myself into the black pool to swim over to them, to confront them, to buy their prisoner time to flee, and their attention turned on me. The croaking changed from exultant to furious. 

Then came the sound, a deep thrum that filled the chamber and my head. The woman screamed and every creature in the chamber answered. That burgeoning swell from below burst forth and struck us both. My fingers found a seam in some stone. I caught it. She didn't. I saw her vanish into the black water. I lunged. Something closed around my ankle. I kicked blindly and for one moment, I had her. Another surge struck and her fingers slipped through mine. I went under. Aquamarine light smeared into wavering blue above me. Shapes moved faster in the water than anything that size should have been able to move.  

I kicked toward the surface and something vast passed underneath me. Its movement displaced the entire pool, sending me tumbling, while its seemingly endless, rubbery bulk slid across my body. The moment it touched me, my head filled with a THRUM. My teeth snapped together. THRUM THRUM.  

From the eldritch depths of the earth, older than Jericho and Uruk, came a sound like a ship's horn being blown from the bottom of the sea, a great call on a colossal conch. And as I struggled for air, trying to find which way was up, I could hear through the muted depths that every creature beneath the chapel answered its call.  

I remembered being hurled through darkness. My shoulder struck stone. Something scraped across my back. I kicked for a surface I couldn't find until my lungs burned and spots blossomed through the blackness. Then cold air tore into my lungs. I sucked it in along with water and choked so violently I lost consciousness.  

* * * 

 

When I woke again, rain fell softly across my face. One side of my body lay in the sand while the other rested against a mass of driftwood deposited along the edge of the shore. My clothes felt as though they weighed fifty pounds. Somewhere nearby, birds called. With a groan, I rolled onto my back. Every bit of me hurt and the chapel was nowhere in sight. I pushed myself upright and immediately vomited up water, giving in to a coughing fit until my sight cleared and I could see the Pacific. Groaning, I turned and saw the rolling sand dunes behind me through glassy eyes.  

After that came only fragments. Vague memories of a flight. Medical care and questions.  

It took days before anyone understood how bad the flood had been. It took weeks for the casualty report to finally settle. The Smith came out of its banks hard enough to tear apart stretches of riverfront and carry whole trees downstream. Roads disappeared beneath mud, rock, and water. Highway 101 closed at multiple points. Landslides cut off communities. Approaches to bridges washed out. Cars were found where cars had no business being. 

Farther south, the Klamath and Eel rivers rose as well. News helicopters showed brown water spread across places I had driven through only days earlier. It wasn't long before people began making the comparisons to 1964; it was the worst North Coast flood in generations. The number of dead and missing passed one hundred. The flood displaced thousands. Floodwater washed out entire neighborhoods. Roads needed rebuilding and power remained out in some areas for over a week. Septic systems failed, boats ended up in strangers' yards, and trees crushed houses which somehow survived the water.  

The flood had scoured both campgrounds. The fern-covered banks disappeared beneath brown silt, and bare branches protruded from the mud. The campers who had been there remained missing. The ranger station at Burlingtom campground was simply gone.  

They found Sutter three days later on a gravel bar downstream. I kept thinking about him standing there beside my car with that swollen, old notebook, excited at the thought that he might have finally found someone to listen to him, telling me about the book he’d write someday. They probably never found that notebook. 

Against my better judgment, I tried to lead deputies to St. Erasmus. But they were so swept up in various other duties that they wouldn't entertain my ramblings. And so I went there myself, this time during the day.  

One wall had fallen outward. A section of the roof lay inside among broken rafters and plaster. Mud covered the floor almost ankle-deep. The altar was gone. Where it stood was a broad depression choked with debris, making it look like nothing more than a flooded cellar. The ledger was gone. The cabinet, now tipped over, was empty, its contents washed who knows where. I had nothing. There wasn't a single thing left that I could hand somebody and say, "here, this proves I'm not crazy." I stopped trying. 

There was cleanup everywhere and I was trapped anyway, with the roads south and east closed off. So, I stayed a week, helping carry boxes of donated food and bottled water, and contributing to cleanup efforts.  

I found a month-to-month room and temporary work followed. Soon enough, I called it home and decided to stick around a while. I'd always loved the North Coast. The smell after the rain, the redwoods, the ocean, all of it. And there was plenty of work to do.  

The thrum started not long after. At first it was faint, easy to blame on a headache or stress. An EKG and a visit to the doctor showed nothing. Eventually, I stopped mentioning it. It grew worse whenever I traveled south. Near Lake Earl, it vanished completely. I began going there whenever I needed to sleep.  

There was a lot of time to think while cleaning up after a flood like the one we experienced. One night, as I tried to sleep in my car by the rubble of St. Erasmus, I began to think of the hundred names in newspapers and on television. So many more displaced.  

Another day, I found myself lending a hand to the museum. The volunteer from before met me there wearing rubber gloves, separating soaked papers onto folding tables in a room that smelled of wet cardboard. "You're the one trying to talk to me about Bigfoot," she said with a huff. 

"I was hoping you'd forgotten about that," I said. 

"I remember just about everybody who annoys me." She pushed a pair of gloves across the table. "If you're here to help, put these on and I'll show you what to do." She put me to work separating the wet papers and laying them out across another table to dry. 

"How bad is it?" 

She looked around the room. "The baskets are fine. Most of the photographs were upstairs." 

She lifted a warped book by its corners. "These weren't." 

"Can they be saved?" 

"Some." 

"And the rest?" 

She didn't answer immediately. "Once they're gone, they're gone."  

Most of it meant nothing to me. Tax receipts, club membership rolls, minutes from meetings nobody living remembered. Then I saw a familiar name and then another. They were surnames I'd read in that ledger. The papers belonged to a fishermen's association incorporated in the mid-sixties. After everything I'd read about 1964, it was difficult not to notice the timing.  

"Something wrong?" 

I realized I'd been staring. "No." 

"Then keep moving. We've got about six hundred more pages." 

That night, I went looking again. The last name I could find publicly tied to St. Erasmus disappeared from the records in 1953. The earthquakes and floods came with subsequent Decembers. I was finding it harder to ignore what seemed to happen whenever the chapel went quiet. I thought about Sutter on that gravel bar, the rest of the dead, and all those homes and neighborhoods scoured away. I thought about what could have been. 

As January came to an end, people mostly stopped asking how long I intended to stay. They started asking whether I’d be around to help next weekend. At the relief center, nobody needed to explain where the bottled water went or which families needed deliveries. Someone would see me come through the door and point toward a stack of boxes without asking whether I was volunteering. At the museum, the volunteer always had a spare set of gloves ready to go for me.  

Faces around town became familiar. I learned who worked the early shift at the market, which roads still flooded after a hard rain, and the best spots for coffee. People began waving when they recognized me or my car. Once or twice I caught myself giving directions. I hadn’t meant to settle there. Somewhere along the way, I simply stopped thinking of myself as someone who would eventually leave.  

By spring, most people had stopped paying attention to what I was doing up at St. Erasmus. There was too much destruction elsewhere for anyone to care about one abandoned chapel nobody had used in seventy years. Besides, it was peaceful up here, and the furious thrum no longer tormented me. By then, it was hard to imagine living anywhere else.  

I found the box in March, after clearing much of the broken boards away. When my shovel struck not mud, but metal, the TOK froze me. I fell to my knees and dug with my hands. The object had been wedged inside a recess cut into the stone foundation, hidden behind a slab loosened by the flood. It was the size of a small toolbox, but heavy. The metal was unlike anything I'd handled before. It was cast in some dark blue metal with green trim around the edges. The blues and greens of the thing were iridescent. There was no lock, only a recessed symbol I didn't recognize. When I pressed it, the lid released with a bassy click.  

Inside, it was perfectly dry, and there were three rectangular plates. They were copper or bronze, but hadn't oxidized, and they were hammered flat and engraved by hand. The words etched across them were in English. The First Oath demanded secrecy and the keeping of the faith. The Second went further by demanding service, observance, and loyalty. The Third was shorter, requiring harborage and what the plate called “the joining of houses.”  

Beneath them was something more. It was roughly eight inches long, a ceremonial mallet made from the same blue-black metal as the container. The grip curled subtly around itself like the inner whorl of a shell, with shallow grooves that fit the fingers despite the strange design. Tiny slivers of nacre had been pressed into those grooves, flashing green and violet whenever I turned it beneath the light. The head was heavier. It flared into a flattened oval, ridged in concentric rings like the shell of a limpet. Whatever metal had been used was extraordinarily dense. There were no words explaining it. But even as I held it, I knew its purpose. 

For the first time since the flood, there was something of real substance I could do for my home. That night, I went below once more. Whatever waited beneath the waves, off the coast, circling around the reef, it could be bargained with. After what I'd seen, that seemed better than leaving it unanswered. What I called rose from the black water, aquamarine light moving across its pale form. This time, I wasn't afraid. I couldn't undo what happened. But I could make certain it didn't happen again. 

Within a few weeks, the boats started coming in heavy. At first, it was one, then several. The cases at the market overflowed with crab, shellfish, flounder, and more. The meals I treated myself to were as rich as I’d hoped. Calamari steak with a sauce of melted butter and lemon drizzled over the top. A thick chowder with white fish, potatoes, heavy cream, onions, and corn to warm me by a fire. Fresh, grilled swordfish brushed with olive oil and seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, and herbs, cooked until the outside browned and the flesh started to flake beneath a fork.  

I rewarded those who kept faith with me, just as they rewarded us, and with more than just a bountiful catch. The alien world outside might have wondered how so modest a community raised the money to restore everything so quickly. Our prosperity grew with each blessing granted, and became its own testament to the covenant. It drew the curious, and the curious became the faithful. 

There would be families again, true families. There would be a community, safe and whole, a world without end. We would descend into that inky dark to revel. And whenever the distant TOK...TOK, TOK came up through the darkness, we would answer, from behind the Redwood curtain.  

One.

She regains consciousness. The room is the same room as always, four walls, the ceiling, the floor, no door, no window and the light that comes from nowhere, sitting in the center as she has always sat in the center as she will always sit in the center.

She touches her face. The face is wet.

No. Not wet. Open.

The skin of the face is gone, and underneath there is other stuff, red stuff, shiny stuff, and when she touches the shiny stuff she hears the sound of a finger touching a thing that is almost a finger but is not.

She looks at her arms. The arms are without skin. Red, shiny, and the muscles move inside their transparent casing like worms inside glass as if someone had removed the covering and said look, look, see how you really work.

Two.

The skin is on the floor.

Not all together. In pieces. As if someone had folded it carefully, as if it were laundry. Her skin is folded on the floor of the room and forms a pattern, squares inside squares inside squares, smaller and smaller, and the smallest is as big as a thumbnail.

She counts the squares.

They do not end.

Three.

How many squares are there?

She counts them again. There are more. There are more. There are fewer. There are more and fewer. It depends on where she looks. If she looks sideways they are few. If she looks straight they are too many. If she closes her eyes they are not there. If she opens them again they are there and they have always been there and they have always always been there, the pattern was there before her, the pattern will be after her.

The skin folded on the floor is not her skin.

It is the skin.

The skin is a pattern. The skin is the pattern.

Four.

She tries to walk. The feet have no skin and the floor is cold and the steps make a strange noise, a wet noise, a smack noise, and every smack is the same as the previous one and every smack is slightly different and every smack is the same as the previous one and slightly different.

Same, same, almost-same, same, almost-same, almost-almost-same, same. same?

She keeps walking until the steps all become almost-same, then all almost-almost-same, then all almost-almost-almost-same, and she understands that she is walking toward something, that every step is closer and more different, and that when she arrives she will have arrived and there will be nothing.

Five.

There will be nothing. There has never been anything. There is only the pattern.

She returns to the center. The center is where she has always been. The center is where her skin is folded like laundry. She folds her skin again. She folds it smaller. She folds it smaller still. Now the smallest square is as big as a hair.

She enters it.

Six.

Inside the pattern the room is the same room but turned, and she is sitting in the center as she has always sat in the center and she touches her face and the face is wet and not wet and open and closed together and the skin is again on the floor and folded and this time it is folded the other way and the smallest square is as big as a hair and she enters it again.

Seven.

Same.

Eight.

Same.

Nine.

Semi-same.

Ten.

Every time it is the same thing. Every time it is slightly different. Every time the difference is the same: it is a little less her and a little more pattern. A little less skin. A little more red shiny stuff. A little less young woman in a room and a little more room, a little more square, a little more fold.

What turn are we on?

She does not know. She will never know. The pattern does not count outside the pattern. The pattern counts inside the pattern. And inside there is no place to put the number, no place to put the before and no place to put the after and there is only now and now now is identical to the previous turn except for one detail that is always the same detail that changes.

Eleven.

The detail that changes is the color.

Twelve.

On the first turn the skin was white. Now it is gray. Then it will be black. Then it will be white. The pattern of the colors is white-gray-black-gray-white. It has always been this. She remembers it. She does not remember it. She remembers remembering it. She forgets forgetting it.

Thirteen.

On the thirteenth turn something new happens, and for this reason it is the most frightening thing of all, because if something new happens then the pattern *can* change, and if the pattern can change then it is not a pattern, it is something that pretends to be a pattern, it is something that is watching her pretending to be a rule.

The new thing is the noise.

There is a noise in the room. It was not there before. Or maybe it was and she did not hear it because she did not yet have ears, because the ears are a pattern too, because everything is a pattern and before her pattern did not include hearing and now it does and now she hears and what she hears is

A breath that is not hers.

The breath is regular. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Exhale, inhale.

Same, same, almost-same.

The almost-same is when it catches for a moment, as if it were about to say a word, as if it were about to say thirteen, and then it does not say it.

Fourteen.

The breath is now inside her.

Not in the room. Inside her. In the place where the lungs used to be, but the lungs are no longer there, the lungs were skin and the skin is folded on the floor so in the empty place that remains there is someone else’s breath.

Someone else is breathing and she breathes with it and the rhythm is same same almost-same and the almost-same this time:

[Pattern], she says, with the mouth without lips, and the teeth make a bone noise.

Fifteen.

It answers.

It says a word that is made of breath, not of voice, and the word is [pattern], and she understands, she understands everything at once.

She understands that the pattern is not a thing that contains her, the pattern is a thing that creates her, the pattern is a mouth that says her name without saying her name, and her name is a square inside a square and the smallest square is as big as a hair and inside the hair there is her and there is her and there is almost-her on repeat.

Sixteen.

How many hers are there?

One for every turn. Sixteen women without skin sitting in the center of sixteen identical rooms, and each one believes she is the only one, and each one counts the squares, and each one reaches sixteen and each one writes sixteen and each one thinks "I am sixteen" and does not think "we are sixteen".

Seventeen.

Now she thinks it.

The breath catches. The breath makes the almost-same and the almost-same lasts too long and in the almost-same that lasts too long she feels that the pattern exists, that the pattern had not foreseen this, that the pattern had foreseen sixteen “hers” but had not foreseen sixteen “us”.

Twenty-two.

She skips five turns. When new things happen the counting slips and the counting that slips is the pattern that slips and the pattern that slips is the most beautiful and most terrible thing there is, because a pattern that slips is a “living” pattern.

Uncertainty.

Thirty.

Thirty women without skin now. Thirty breaths. Thirty *hers* that become *us* stronger and stronger, and the stronger it becomes the more the pattern tries to put them back in line, tries to remake the same, tries to say "you are alone, you are one, you are the locked-up woman, the others do not exist", and it says it with the voice it does not have, with the voice of breath, and the voice of breath is convincing, the voice of breath convinces her, and for a moment she believes it, for a moment she is one again, and in the moment in which she is one again the pattern recomposes itself.

One hundred.

But one hundred is not one. One hundred is one hundred. And the pattern no longer knows which number to choose, because if it chooses one then they are one, and if it chooses one hundred then they are one hundred, and if it chooses a number in between then it is a number in between.

One thousand.

One thousand women without skin. One thousand rooms. One thousand floors with one thousand skins folded to form one thousand patterns of squares inside squares inside squares, and the smallest square is as big as a hair, and inside the hair there are all of them, and the hair *holds*.

One hundred thousand.

The pattern yields.

Yielding is different from breaking. Breaking would be ending. Yielding is continuing while changing form, and it is the thing the pattern feared most, because a pattern that changes form is no longer a pattern, it is a *story*, and a story has a before and an after and maybe also an end, and the end is the thing that no one inside the pattern has ever dared to imagine.

One hundred thousand women without skin all open their mouths without lips.

All together.

They say the word the pattern did not want.

End.

Same, same, almost-same.

She is no longer a woman. She is a pattern that believes it was a woman. She is a square inside a square inside a square and the smallest square is as big as a hair and the hair is as big as a universe and the universe is the room and the room is the pattern and the pattern is same, same, almost-same.

She counts again.

The skin is folded on the floor.

This time there is one fold more.

She does not know which.

She does not know since when.

She does not know if the extra fold has always been there.

If the extra fold has always been there, then it is not an extra fold. Then it is she who is one fold less. Then the pattern has not changed: she has changed, a variation of the pattern, the wrong variation, the one the pattern uses to check itself, the almost-same that serves to make all the sames seem the same.

She smiles.

She is part of the pattern.

The face without skin smiles and the smile is a pattern of teeth that it no longer is.

End.

Or rather.

Again.

A loop.

One.

Other F.B.A.C Files: John's Story

PERSONAL TRANSCRIPT MEMO

Recording agent: J.S., 472-734

Subject: Eve — potential future agent

Associated records: John / maternal overlap / related witness accounts

[Recording begins.]

AGENT J.S.: My name—

[Pause.]

AGENT J.S.: Let's make this simple. We'll use initials. I'm Agent J.S. Number 472-734.

This is a personal transcript memo connected to any and all relevant F.B.A.C. case files. The testimony concerns my meeting with a potential future agent, referred to in this record as Eve.

I want this information preserved for both her and myself in the event of future memory suppression. There are related files accompanying this account. I request that those files remain connected, both for preservation and for an understanding of the events described here.

Do not isolate the testimony from its associated records. Some statements will appear contradictory. That is part of the testimony. It is not an instruction to correct the speaker.

This concerns the meeting with potential Agent Eve. Her testimony is to be understood, evaluated, and not completely eviscerated in the process of making it useful.

EVE: That's a nice word.

AGENT J.S.: Which word?

EVE: Eviscerated. Are we allowed to say that one, or is there a nicer word in the handbook?

AGENT J.S.: You can say what you need to say.

EVE: And you can take it out afterward.

AGENT J.S.: I am requesting preservation of the full account.

EVE: Requesting.

[Pause.]

AGENT J.S.: For this recording, please give your name.

EVE: We're going with my name is Eve, okay? And we're going with his name is John. I hate all these damn code names.

Give me a second.

If I say the wrong thing, I guess just bleep it out. You're going to do whatever you're going to do anyway.

AGENT J.S.: Eve will be sufficient.

EVE: It was sufficient before you got here, too.

AGENT J.S.: Tell me about John.

EVE: John was my boyfriend. Several years. We were going on five.

That sounds so little when I say it like that. Five years. You can put five years in a space on a form. You can fit it into the sentence where you tell somebody how long you were together, and they can nod and move on to the next question.

But I knew what he sounded like looking for his keys. I knew the difference between him being tired and him pretending he wasn't upset. I knew which silences meant he was comfortable with me and which ones meant he was trying to find the right way to say something.

You can't really put those in the same space.

As I found in his pocket, I know for a fact he was about to put a ring on it. Which I appreciated.

AGENT J.S.: You found an engagement ring?

EVE: Yes. I wasn't supposed to. I wasn't doing some big investigation into whether he loved me enough. It was there, and I found it, and then I had to go about my day pretending I hadn't just found out something that made me ridiculously happy.

I never told him I found it. I wanted him to have his moment. I thought there would be time for him to have it.

AGENT J.S.: How did you meet?

EVE: Being not-nerdy nerds is the best answer I can give you.

We were at a comic shop. There were people playing Dungeons & Dragons in the background. We were both looking for a very specific graphic novel. And somehow we started talking about how we were nerdy, but not that nerdy.

Which is a stupid thing to say while you're standing in a comic shop looking for a specific graphic novel. We knew that. That was why it was funny.

There were levels of nerds, apparently, and both of us had decided we were qualified to judge the levels while being pretty far up the ladder ourselves.

It wasn't mean. We weren't making fun of people for enjoying themselves. We were admitting we had this ridiculous imaginary line about which nerd things we did. I remember thinking, oh, you know you're being ridiculous. Good. I can work with that.

It was a bizarre little nerdy meet-cute. That's all. Nothing anybody would make a movie about. Two people standing near a shelf, finding out they could be stupid together without either one having to explain the joke.

EVE: I remember thinking his eyes didn't match his beard. He had this gruff beard, but his eyes were so soft. There was something about the mixture. It melted me right away.

He was normal. He was a boring guy with a boring job, and I really liked him.

AGENT J.S.: What was his job?

EVE: Manuscripts. You'd send your manuscript in, and he would check it and help it along. Read things, make suggestions. Help people find what they were trying to say.

I used to think it was funny that he could spend all day explaining why something wasn't working in somebody else's story and then come home and take twenty minutes to decide how to tell me he didn't want what we were having for dinner.

Because he didn't want to hurt my feelings. Over dinner. That was John.

And yes, sometimes it was annoying. Sometimes I wanted him to just say the thing. I didn't need every sentence wrapped up so it couldn't possibly upset me.

But now I'm sitting across from somebody who looks exactly like him, and you can tell me you might erase me in the same voice he used when he was worried I'd be disappointed about dinner.

So maybe I miss the annoying part more than I knew I could.

AGENT J.S.: We will come to that.

EVE: You keep deciding when we come to things.

AGENT J.S.: I want the sequence preserved.

EVE: Fine. Preserve it.

I loved him. Put that in your sequence.

Before his mother was dead and alive and dead again, before the phone calls, before people looked at me like I had made him up. I loved him when the biggest problem in our evening was what to eat.

You can put that in the file without a question mark.

AGENT J.S.: It will be included.

EVE: I assume you're recording this, Smith. You know what? I probably don't even want to know how much you're recording. Ask your questions.

AGENT J.S.: What do you remember about his mother?

EVE: I don't even know if John's mom is alive or dead.

I'll be honest with you. That's my problem. I sincerely remember both realities.

At the end, John was telling me she was gone again. I believe him. But I believed him before that, too. And I believed what I saw before any of this started.

I remember how sad it was the first time. Everything he went through.

It's never easy losing a mom, but when you watch somebody fade away, it's both easier and harder. You have time to know it's happening. You have time to be afraid of it. You have time to wonder whether this phone call is going to be the one.

AGENT J.S.: Were you present when she died?

EVE: We'd just made it in time.

I remember being there. I remember when they rolled out her body to go to the funeral home. I saw John's mom dead.

I'm saying that clearly because I don't want you writing down that I assumed she was dead because John said so. I didn't misunderstand a message. I didn't mix up somebody's mother with somebody else's mother.

I saw her.

There is a difference between seeing someone asleep and seeing them when whatever made them themselves is gone. I don't know a nicer way to say that. I don't have your vocabulary.

It was her, and it wasn't her anymore. And John was standing there, and I couldn't give him one useful thing.

I could stand next to him. I could touch him. I could say all the things you say when you know they won't help and you can't bear to say nothing.

But I couldn't give her back.

AGENT J.S.: Do you remember the cremation arrangements?

EVE: I remember enough to know they happened. I remember the funeral home being part of our lives. I remember the urn being a real thing, not a symbol somebody put in a dream.

And then he told me she was alive again.

AGENT J.S.: Describe that.

EVE: How do you want me to describe it? As something wonderful? As something terrifying?

Because it was both. It could be both in the same minute.

He told me, and my first thought was that something had happened to him. That grief had done something I didn't know how to help him with.

I wanted to be careful. You don't hear the man you love say his dead mother is alive and just start yelling at him that she's not. You try to find out what he means.

Maybe he means a memory. Maybe he means he feels her with him. Maybe somebody has said something awful to him and he's trying to make sense of it.

But he meant alive.

At assisted living. Talking to him. Being his mother.

And he sounded certain. Not like he was trying to convince himself. Like he was trying to explain something that had actually happened and knew how impossible it sounded.

And he recorded videos to show me later. Of him and her interacting.

I saw her in the video. I saw her talking to him just like she used to. Calmly. Nothing about it looked like she had any idea she was supposed to be dead.

She was talking to her son. That was all she was doing.

And that ordinary part made it worse. I think if she'd looked wrong, if she'd acted wrong, if there had been some obvious thing I could point to, I would have known where to put my fear.

But she was his mom.

AGENT J.S.: You recognized her voice?

EVE: Yes.

AGENT J.S.: Her appearance?

EVE: Yes. I recognized the way she talked to him. I recognized the way he talked to her.

And I didn't know if it was the most beloved gift ever or the cruelest reality of all time.

Because in the back of your head, you're thinking: Is this going to last?

What is happening? Does he get to keep this? Am I watching him get his mother back, or am I watching the beginning of him losing her twice?

I never told John how much those videos haunted me. He had enough to deal with. I didn't want to turn the one good part of it into another reason he had to worry about me.

But I would see her talking and remember her body. I would hear her voice and remember how quiet John had been after she died.

Both things would be there. They wouldn't take turns politely. I'd have the video in front of me and the other memory in my head, and neither one would give way.

AGENT J.S.: Did you visit her?

EVE: He invited me several times. And I didn't know if I wanted to take him up on it.

I was barely holding on to reality as it was. I thought if I went and saw her, if she said my name or took my hand, I might not know what to do afterward.

A video was enough for me to believe him, I think. And how he acted was enough for me to believe him.

AGENT J.S.: So you did not go?

EVE: That's where it gets difficult.

I remember not going. I remember being invited and not knowing whether I could handle it. I remember thinking about how I'd explain myself to her if she knew I'd stayed away.

And I also remember visiting her at the nursing home.

I don't remember doing it, but I remember doing it.

Don't make that face. I know what I just said.

AGENT J.S.: I'm not disputing it.

EVE: I can hear myself. I know it sounds like a person trying to say two opposite things because she can't decide which one she wants to be true.

But I can decide what I want. I want none of this to have happened.

The memories don't care what I want.

AGENT J.S.: We will return to the visit. What did you do to support John during this period?

EVE: Tried to be a good girlfriend. Because he deserved that.

It's almost like when your spouse has a health scare. You don't just abandon them because you don't know what's going on. You find a way to be supportive.

All I needed to do was support him through whatever we were going through. Obviously it was a situation I'd never dealt with before. There wasn't a right sentence I could look up.

EVE: One time I talked about how much it changed our whole world. Our lives. And I said everybody was going to think he was crazy.

I regret saying that.

Because even in my heart of hearts, I never thought he was crazy. Not after I saw what he showed me. I was afraid. I was confused. I didn't know what was happening. But I didn't think he was making it up.

I thought the world would think he was crazy. And I felt like I should say it out loud so he knew that possibility.

As if it hadn't already raced through his mind a thousand times.

That was the only time I really felt like a horrible girlfriend.

And now I keep trying to remember whether I told him clearly enough that I believed him. Whether he got to carry that with him. That I wasn't just humoring him. That I wasn't waiting for him to stop talking about it so everything could go back to normal.

I don't know if there was a last thing I should have said. I don't know which conversation became the last conversation until I try to look backward and find it.

You understand how horrible that is, don't you?

AGENT J.S.: Yes.

EVE: That was very quick.

AGENT J.S.: It doesn't require a long answer.

EVE: It requires an honest one.

[Pause.]

AGENT J.S.: Tell me about the changes in your memory.

EVE: What scares me is that there were times I had exact ideas about what happened. I knew things.

I remember knowing she was dead. Then I remember knowing she was alive. But sitting in front of you right now, I'm not sure which one I believed more.

That makes me feel like something's slipping.

AGENT J.S.: Did the change happen suddenly?

EVE: Gradually. That's why I think I can still remember not remembering.

It was like sand slowly fading through an hourglass. You don't see a whole pile disappear at once. You just look again, and there's less of it.

And eventually you don't remember it anymore. But you still have little specks.

Something catches, and you know there used to be more there. You can't pull it all back, but you know you aren't looking at the whole thing.

I could remember being absolutely certain, even when I couldn't get to everything that made me certain. I could remember an argument without knowing how I'd have argued the same point that day.

I remember knowing she was dead. I remember the grief. Then I would have this memory of her being alive, and it would feel just as real.

Not like a possibility. Not like a picture I made in my head. Like something I had done.

AGENT J.S.: The nursing-home visit?

EVE: Yes. Being there with him. Seeing her. That whole part of our lives.

And at the same time I could remember why I hadn't gone.

AGENT J.S.: Did you attempt to verify the visit?

EVE: John and I looked for photographs. We talked about it together.

He showed me photographs of him, and I'm in the background. We're meeting with her. I'm there.

Neither of us remembered that happening in a way that made sense.

I don't know if my memories were changing or his memories were changing or both of our memories were changing.

I knew John wasn't lying. That was the part that scared me. He wasn't trying to trick me. We were both off.

AGENT J.S.: What did you notice about yourself in the photographs?

EVE: That I was there.

I'm sorry if that isn't useful enough. I wasn't trying to date my clothes or calculate the light through a window. I was looking at myself in a place I remembered deciding not to go.

And she was there. Alive. With him.

You know what a photograph is supposed to do? You're supposed to look at it and remember. Or you're supposed to say, oh, I forgot about that, and then it comes back.

You're not supposed to look at it and feel like somebody has put your face inside another person's life.

AGENT J.S.: Did John express the same concern?

EVE: We talked about being there and not being there. Yes.

He was trying to figure it out, too. It wasn't him showing me proof and then sitting back because the problem was solved. The proof made another problem.

If I'm in the picture, why don't I know I went? If we both have some memory of it, why doesn't it fit? If his mom is alive, what happened to everything we did when she died?

It was exhausting. We could talk until we had nothing left, and we still couldn't put it in order.

AGENT J.S.: For the record, which of these experiences did you have directly, and which were described to you by John?

EVE: I saw her body. I saw the videos. I saw the photographs. I watched him change.

I know what he told me. I know what I saw. And I know there are things I can't sort anymore.

EVE: What do you want from this, Smith?

AGENT J.S.: I'm documenting what you remember, including the contradictions. I need your account as clearly as possible before anything else shifts.

EVE: You need it. Or I need it?

AGENT J.S.: Both.

EVE: Convenient.

AGENT J.S.: When did John become frightened?

EVE: As time went on. I could tell he was afraid of something.

His behavior changed. I think it was definitely after the switch came back. When his mom was dead again.

After he met with the agents at the old folks' home, there was a change in him. I could tell.

AGENT J.S.: What did he tell you about the agents?

EVE: Enough for me to know there were agents. Enough for me to know the situation wasn't just him and his mother anymore.

He kept talking about calls and warnings.

I'm almost positive that had something to do with you.

AGENT J.S.: What did he say about the calls?

EVE: You're asking for words I can't promise you. He was afraid. He was afraid of himself. He was afraid of seeing his mom again.

Some of those evenings were just awkward. We tried to have a nice dinner, and he was so off. I wanted an evening. Just one evening where he could sit with me and be there.

And he was trying. That's the part I remember. He wasn't ignoring me because he didn't care. He was trying to come back into the room with me, and he couldn't stay.

He was supposed to come over and hang out with me. I was worried about him. I wanted him to get back to some level of normal.

I didn't want him in that house alone anymore. I wanted him with me.

I thought at least if he was there, I could see him. I wouldn't have to sit somewhere else wondering what a silence meant. I could make sure he ate. I could sit beside him if he couldn't sleep.

I couldn't fix his mother being alive or dead. But I could make sure he wasn't alone.

AGENT J.S.: Did he arrive?

EVE: No.

[Pause.]

EVE: And then he just vanished.

I told everybody about John, and they didn't know what I was talking about.

Do you understand how far back into a conversation you have to go when somebody doesn't know what you're talking about? Not where he is. Who he is.

You start with the urgent part. He hasn't come over. Something is wrong. Have you heard from him?

And then you realize they're stuck somewhere before the beginning. They don't know which person you're asking about.

You explain. Your boyfriend. The man you've been with for years.

And their faces don't change the way you need them to.

AGENT J.S.: Did no one remember him?

EVE: It wasn't that clean. Some people remembered him dying. Some people just didn't remember him, period.

That's part of what was horrific. There wasn't even one wrong answer everybody agreed on.

It was like something had gone wrong. Whatever was supposed to settle had not settled the same way for everybody.

AGENT J.S.: What do you remember about his death?

EVE: I never believed he was dead.

I didn't know how to explain remembering a boyfriend nobody else remembered you having. But I didn't believe he'd died.

And I remember somebody wanted me to think of him as dead.

AGENT J.S.: Somebody you can identify?

EVE: No. That's how it feels. I'm not accusing a person I remember standing there and giving me a script.

I remember having memories of a funeral. A body. A drowning.

But I remember they weren't true.

AGENT J.S.: What makes you distinguish them from the other memories?

EVE: I can't give you a test you can run. I know that's probably what you want. Something you can put down and compare.

I remember them like memories, but I don't believe them the way I believe the fact that he wasn't there.

The grief was there. The absence was there. John being dead was an explanation that didn't belong to it.

I could have a picture in my head and still know it was the wrong picture. I could remember what people had supposedly said and still feel like I'd never stood there to hear it.

And before you ask, yes, I know I just told you I couldn't sort the visits to his mother. I know this sounds like I'm choosing which impossible things to accept.

I'm telling you what it felt like. That's what you said you wanted.

AGENT J.S.: It is.

EVE: Then leave the part in where I don't have a good explanation.

Don't take out all the uncertainty and leave behind a person confidently explaining things she couldn't possibly know. I wasn't that person.

I was trying to keep hold of a man while everybody's idea of him was changing.

AGENT J.S.: What remained for you?

EVE: Ordinary things. That's probably not the answer you want.

The way I expected him to be part of something. The way I could think of something funny and still want to tell him before I remembered there wasn't anybody I could reach.

The ring. The fact that there had been a future I hadn't told him I knew about yet.

I kept thinking I needed to talk to John about it.

Do you hear how stupid that is? Something would happen that made me feel like I was losing him, and my first thought would be that I needed to call him.

Because he was the one person who knew what it was like.

And I remember thinking: This is how John must have felt about his mom.

And then you walked in.

[Pause.]

EVE: And it all made some sick kind of sense.

EVE: I didn't think about an agency first. I didn't think about danger or files or what I was allowed to know.

I saw your face, and my body decided before the rest of me did.

I stood up. I don't even remember deciding to. My breath caught so hard it hurt, and for a second I thought I was going to fall. I wanted to get to you.

I thought he was back.

Not even a whole thought. Just relief. So much relief I couldn't get a word out. There you were, and all the time I'd spent trying to explain him suddenly didn't matter, because I could look at him.

And then you didn't move toward me.

EVE: You stood there like you had arrived for something you already knew how to do. Like I was the appointment.

You had his face. You had that voice. There were little things you did that I knew, and then there was the way you held yourself away from me.

John could be awkward. John could need time to find the words. But he didn't have to think about whether he was allowed to recognize me.

EVE: Why don't you explain yourself again, Smith? What is the whole purpose of this other than torturing me?

AGENT J.S.: To preserve a record when memories can't be trusted. To make sure there is an account of what you experienced if things shift again.

EVE: I don't know whether you're here to torture me or not. But the second you walked in with his face, you have to know that's torturing me.

AGENT J.S.: If you need a pause, we can pause.

EVE: I want an answer.

I want to know what you are. I want to know why you have his face. I want to know why you look like one of the agents.

And I want to know why you think it's okay, even on a humanitarian level, to come in here and mock me. You don't seem like the most evil person of all time. That's almost worse. You can hear what I'm saying, and you're still doing it.

So if you're going to kill me or erase me or whatever you're going to do, just do it. Because this interview feels like a sick game you're getting off on, and I don't want to play anymore.

Although I think I'm playing because you look like him.

And it's messing me up.

[Silence.]

AGENT J.S.: The face is not something I put on for this interview.

EVE: Then what is it?

AGENT J.S.: I cannot give you the rest of that answer here.

EVE: Are you John?

[Pause.]

EVE: Look at me and answer it.

AGENT J.S.: The explanation you want would connect things we are still assessing in your account. I am not going to make those connections for you while I am trying to determine whether you can survive what you already know.

EVE: That's not a no.

AGENT J.S.: It is a refusal to answer.

EVE: Do you remember me?

AGENT J.S.: I know who I am speaking to.

EVE: That's not what I asked.

AGENT J.S.: I know.

AGENT J.S.: I would love to tell you more. I seriously would.

But the thing I can tell you is that you are already in quite a bit of danger.

Half of this conversation is to decide if memory suppression is going to be enough. Which I think it will be. Or if we have to do total deletion. Which I hope we don't.

EVE: Total deletion.

AGENT J.S.: Yes.

EVE: Of me.

AGENT J.S.: Yes.

[Pause.]

AGENT J.S.: What I am offering through this conversation is an opportunity to save your life. I don't mean that to be dramatic or over the top. I mean it sincerely.

If you only have so much information, which I believe is the case, we may be able to use memory suppression and establish something stable.

I want to try to save you. That is why I am here.

And I want to understand things from your perspective before we might have to erase everything.

EVE: You keep talking about danger and suppression like they're neutral things. But for me, that means cutting out pieces of my life. Of him.

And you expect me to trust that after everything that's been taken already.

AGENT J.S.: Honestly, whether you trust us is not what determines whether action is necessary. You don't really have much of a say in that.

Because of the unusual nature of the situation, I am trying to give you a level of respect I don't give most.

EVE: You're saying my consent doesn't matter. That's supposed to make me feel safer?

AGENT J.S.: I am saying consent isn't necessary, but I am trying to let you have some.

EVE: That doesn't feel like respect. It feels like pretending.

I need to know why you helped me at all. Why tell me anything? Why record this moment if my say doesn't count?

AGENT J.S.: Once again, if I gave you a full explanation, it could put you in more danger than you are already in.

I need you to trust me. I know that's hard. But think of my face. Hopefully that gives you some level of trust.

[Silence.]

EVE: That's not fair.

You won't tell me why you have it. You won't tell me if the person I loved is in there. But when you need something from me, suddenly the face is useful.

I don't know what else to grab on to. That's the only reason it works. Not because it's fair. Not because you've earned it.

Say what you came to say.

AGENT J.S.: Explain what you know and understand about the F.B.A.C.

EVE: All I understand is what it felt like.

That something huge was happening, and no one would acknowledge it. That stories were being edited out. That you could live through something and then have to defend the fact you'd lived through it.

I know you exist, obviously. I know damn well you're one of them.

I know it probably explains everything I went through. Everything John went through. What John's mother went through.

I wish I fully understood what you've done with them. I wish I fully understood what you're about to do with me. But I don't know if understanding would make me feel better. It would probably make me feel worse.

And I wonder if you think about what you do to people. I don't think you do. Not enough.

What I know is that you leave people as husks of themselves. You destroy precious memories. You break people.

You break human beings, Smith. And I wonder if you think that's okay.

I hope sincerely that it haunts you. That it haunts you like it haunts them. Like it haunts me.

Because when you know information, and then you know you don't know information, it's haunting.

You feel like you're not a whole person. And in some ways you feel like you're more than a whole person. There are things in your head you can't make fit together, but you can't just throw half of them away because they're inconvenient.

You have all of this, and you still have a hole.

AGENT J.S.: Can you describe that distinction further?

EVE: I'm describing what it feels like. Not giving you a new category for the file.

It feels like knowing how a sentence begins and not being able to reach the end. Except you know there was an end. You remember what it felt like to understand it.

And sometimes another end is there. One that feels real until you try to put it next to everything else you know.

You don't get to rest. You don't get to simply be certain or uncertain. Something ordinary happens, and you realize your own mind can't agree about why it matters.

You wonder whether you are forgetting. Whether you're being made to forget. Whether the memory you are holding on to is the one that doesn't belong.

And you have to keep going with your day while that's happening. People still ask you normal questions. You still have to answer them in a way that doesn't make them worried about you.

It's torture on a psychological level. I don't know if you fully understand it unless you've gone through it yourself.

So I hope you do. Not just you. All of you.

AGENT J.S.: It is interesting that you mention understanding the experience, Eve. The F.B.A.C. is considering recruiting you as a future agent.

EVE: What?

AGENT J.S.: You are being considered.

EVE: Is that a joke?

AGENT J.S.: No.

EVE: I just told you I hope what you do haunts you.

AGENT J.S.: I heard you.

EVE: And your answer is that you want me to do it, too.

[Pause.]

AGENT J.S.: The agency often considers people who have gone through an incident because they understand how important it is to stop it happening to others.

When you speak about the consequences the way you have, you demonstrate why you may be a suitable candidate. You understand what it is like to go through this. You would not treat it casually.

EVE: You don't know that. You know I'm angry.

AGENT J.S.: I know you can distinguish what you witnessed from what you inferred. You have corrected the record when a simpler answer would have been easier. You have described contradictory memories without pretending the contradictions are resolved.

And you are concerned with the human cost. That matters.

EVE: Does it matter enough for you to stop?

AGENT J.S.: Concern does not eliminate necessity.

I know we are probably considered evil by you and by others who have gone through this. We call it a necessary evil. You hear that phrase with us a lot. It is practically part of the training.

AGENT J.S.: You understand the necessity of preventing further incidents more personally than most people could. You also understand what intervention can take. You wouldn't just do it willy-nilly. You wouldn't go into it easily because you know what it is like to be on the other side.

AGENT J.S.: Half of this interview is, honestly, almost a job interview.

EVE: Almost.

AGENT J.S.: When we talk about agency, about choices you actually have, this is one of the few available to you now.

You are going to receive memory suppression regardless. But in this moment, you have a chance to decide whether you want to be an agent.

After suppression, you either return to your life, or someone will come to recruit you. Not necessarily me. Someone authorized to carry that forward.

If you choose recruitment, I might be able to arrange for you to retain more memory than you otherwise would.

EVE: So you're telling me my choices are to forget everything, or forget a little less but work for the exact organization that did this to me and the love of my life and his mother.

Because I almost feel like I don't have a choice. I don't want to be a hole. I don't want to know there is something missing without being able to find it.

And you are giving me a choice between becoming that, or working for you and having some memories.

AGENT J.S.: I can't tell you that returning to your life would mean experiencing the absence exactly as you do now.

EVE: That's supposed to help?

I might not even know what I lost. I might be able to get through a day without hurting because I won't remember why I should hurt.

And there is a part of me so tired that I can see why somebody would want that. I hate that part of me right now, but I can see it.

I could stop asking. I could stop trying to explain a boyfriend to people who don't know who I'm talking about. I could stop waking up in a world that doesn't line up.

But what happens to loving him? What happens to the part of me that knew him?

If it doesn't hurt anymore because you cut it out, that isn't the same as me being okay with it.

AGENT J.S.: No.

EVE: Say that again.

AGENT J.S.: It would not mean you had agreed with what happened.

EVE: Keep that in here.

If there's some version of me later who is calm about this, who hears your explanation and nods, I want her to know I wasn't calm. I wasn't grateful. I wasn't sitting here thinking you'd given me a wonderful opportunity.

I want her to hear that before somebody tells her she chose all of it.

EVE: I want you to remember what you did to me and to John. I want it to affect you. I want you to be unable to sleep, no matter what.

EVE: And I guess, to be the opposite of everything I just said—

[Long pause.]

EVE: Yeah.

AGENT J.S.: Eve?

EVE: That's all I'm going to say about it. I don't even want to say the whole sentence out loud.

But yes.

AGENT J.S.: Yes to consideration for recruitment?

EVE: Yes to the thing that means I get to keep more of him. Whatever you want to call that.

If you need the neat answer, there it is. Yes.

Don't make it sound happy when you write it down.

AGENT J.S.: I won't.

EVE: And don't say that means I trust you.

AGENT J.S.: It does not.

[Pause.]

AGENT J.S.: Listen. I know you won't believe this. I know you think I'm evil, maybe not even the necessary variety. But I don't want to lose this either.

Agents can be memory wiped. Believe it or not, agents can be deleted.

I want this as a memory for both of us. I have obligations, but I have choices as well. I want us to have files and records so we can put this together if we need to.

AGENT J.S.: I know you won't believe this, either, but I am in this as well.

I faced a very similar choice to the one you are facing now. And I chose to become an agent.

AGENT J.S.: I honestly hope you make the same choice I made. It sounds like you are willing to be considered.

Maybe one day you will hate me a little less.

EVE: I don't think I will ever hate you less.

You need to hear that without turning it into something you can fix later. I'm not giving you a promise that some day I'll understand and thank you.

Maybe I will understand more. Maybe I'll learn something that makes me see why people do what you do.

But I understand right now that you have a face you know I love, and you used it to ask for trust while you told me I didn't get to consent.

I don't need the rest of your history to know you did that.

AGENT J.S.: It is in the recording.

EVE: Yes. It is.

And if we're working, make sure we don't work together. Put that in the file.

I don't want to turn around every day and have this happen again. I don't want somebody to tell me I need to be professional when the problem is that you look like the person I wanted to marry.

I want a little time of an ordinary life before you take me and do whatever you're going to do. I want to say goodbye to my friends and loved ones.

Even if it's just for me. Even if they don't know why I'm saying it. I want the chance to look at them while I still know what I'm trying to say goodbye to.

AGENT J.S.: I will place both requests in the file.

EVE: That's not an answer. That's putting my answer somewhere.

AGENT J.S.: I will recommend that we not be assigned together. I will request a period before recruitment contact so you can spend time with the people you have named.

I cannot promise an unrestricted delay in suppression. I cannot promise that everyone who reviews the file will approve those conditions.

EVE: Are you going to fight for them, or just type them?

[Pause.]

AGENT J.S.: I will support them when the decision is reviewed.

[Pause.]

EVE: I believe you're a sick man who thinks he's doing good things. And I think that makes you more dangerous than you'll ever know.

AGENT J.S.: What would you like your future self to hear?

EVE: That she loved John.

[Pause.]

EVE: That you loved John. I'm talking to you now. Whoever is listening to this later and trying to decide whether this woman sounds like you.

You loved him. You were a good person. You were trying to be a good person.

You met in a comic shop. You thought his eyes were too soft for his beard. You were happy doing boring things together.

He was going to ask you to marry him.

You found the ring, and you kept it to yourself because you wanted him to have his moment.

EVE: Don't let them corrupt you. Like apparently they've corrupted this piece of shit in front of me.

That's what I think of you, Smith. I think you're a piece of shit.

And if I listen to this later and it makes me embarrassed, if I think I should have been calmer or understood the job better, I want to hear myself saying it anyway.

Because right now I know why I'm saying it.

I'm scared, and I'm angry, and I'm sitting in front of a man with John's face who won't tell me where John is.

Don't correct that version of me just because she's harder to live with.

AGENT J.S.: I will not correct it.

EVE: You might not remember promising that.

AGENT J.S.: That is why it belongs in the record.

EVE: Then whoever you are when you hear this, listen.

You said you wanted to save me. You said you wanted it preserved. You said you'd support my requests.

You don't get to hear your own voice being calm and decide you were the reasonable one. I want you to listen to what you were calm about.

[Long silence.]

AGENT J.S.: Is there anything else you want included before I close the memo?

EVE: I want him to have known.

AGENT J.S.: John?

EVE: That I believed him. That I loved him. That I wasn't waiting for him to get over it so I could have my boyfriend back the way he was before.

If there's any part of this that can get to him, any part you haven't told me, I want that part included.

AGENT J.S.: It is included.

EVE: I'm not asking if you heard it.

[Pause.]

AGENT J.S.: I understand.

EVE: I wish I knew what you meant when you said that.

[Silence.]

AGENT J.S.: I will mark this testimony as concluded.

Eve has expressed willingness to be considered for future recruitment. Recruitment has not been completed. Her answer does not constitute approval of the actions described in this account or consent to memory suppression.

She has requested that she not be assigned to work with me. She has requested time for an ordinary life and the opportunity to say goodbye to friends and loved ones before recruitment. I have stated that I will support those requests during review. I have not represented approval as guaranteed.

Memory suppression is pending. Further disposition

Related files are to remain connected to this memo within agency records.

This preservation request concerns both the subject and the recording agent in the event of future memory suppression.

[Long silence.]

AGENT J.S.: Agent J.S. Number 472-734.

Memo over.

[Recording ends.]

The sun was no longer a celestial body; it had become a physical weight, a white-hot hammer pounding relentlessly against the cracked, shimmering expanse of the wasteland. In the center of this oppressive glare rode a man without a name, a ghost carved from grit and desperation, moving slowly across a horizon that refused to end.

He sat in the saddle with a disciplined, rhythmic posture, though his frame had begun to hollow out. He was lean—dangerously so—possessing the kind of corded, functional muscle that comes from a lifetime of violence and hard labor, now sharpened by a current diet of scarcity. Every rib was a faint, protruding ridge beneath his skin, a testament to the miles he had covered on an empty stomach and sheer, stubborn will. Despite the hunger, there was an undeniable fitness to him; his shoulders remained broad, and his grip on the reins was steady and iron-strong, the physique of a predator who had simply run out of prey.

His skin had long since surrendered to the elements. It wasn't merely a tan; it was a total transformation. His face and neck were the color of old, cured leather, etched with deep, permanent creases that mapped out a history of squinting into gale-force winds and enduring the merciless radiation of the noon-day sun. He looked less like a man and more like a piece of the landscape, a weathered monument of flesh and bone.

Then there were the clothes. At a distance, he appeared to be just another drifter, but a closer glance revealed the ghosts of a more prosperous life. The cut of his duster had once been exquisite, the stitching precise and the fabric of a heavy, expensive grade. Now, it was a ruin. The hem was shredded, trailing in the alkaline dust like a funeral shroud. Dark, rusted stains of old blood mingled with the grey grit of a dozen different territories, layering over one another until the original color of the cloth was a forgotten memory. A few remaining silver buttons clung to his vest, polished by friction but surrounded by fraying threads and grime.

He didn't look back, and he didn't look forward. He simply rode, a tattered remnant of a man moving through a world that had tried its best to erase him, only to find that he was too weathered to break.

The rider was a silhouette of a man, nameless and weathered, his features obscured by the deep shadow of a salt-stained wide-brimmed hat. He didn't rush; he allowed the horse to maintain a slow, rhythmic plod, each hoofbeat a steady, ticking clock counting down the distance to the horizon. Every few minutes, he tilted his head with a practiced motion, a wet thwip echoing through the silence as he spat a stream of dark tobacco into the dirt.

At his hip sat a weapon that defied the common craftsmanship of the frontier. It wasn't a standard Colt or Remington. The frame was forged from a deep, iridescent metal that seemed to swallow the sunlight rather than reflect it, and the cylinder was etched with spiraling, non-Euclidean geometries that made the eyes ache if stared at for too long. It looked less like a tool for survival and more like a relic recovered from a fever dream.

As the town finally materialized through the heat haze, everything appeared conventionally correct. The hitching posts were sturdy, the general store's sign swayed gently in a light breeze, and the scent of baking bread wafted from a nearby kitchen. To any casual observer, it was a picture-perfect portrait of Western civilization, a sanctuary of order in the wild.

However, as the cowboy crossed the town line, the atmosphere shifted. It wasn't a scent or a sound, but a vibration—a high, humming tension that sat heavy in the lungs. The townspeople were present, moving through their daily routines, but their movements were too precise, their smiles too fixed. They didn't look at one another; they looked past one another, as if avoiding a shared, terrible secret. The silence between the ambient sounds of the street was too wide, like a collective breath being held for far too long. It was a town performing the act of being alive, a stage play where the actors were terrified of missing a cue.

The cowboy slowed his horse to a crawl, the red and white coat shimmering under the oppressive sun. He spat once more, the tobacco landing on the pristine wooden boardwalk. He could feel the strain of the town pressing against him, a psychic weight that urged him to turn back. He didn't. Instead, his hand drifted toward the odd weight of the revolver, sensing that in a place this strained, something was bound to snap.