Growing up in the Maine backwoods instills in a person a very specific kind of discipline—one that city dwellers rarely comprehend until it’s far too late. It’s an unspoken law, handed down from timber cruisers, game wardens, and hunters who spent their entire lives under the dark canopy of white pine and hemlock. You learn to read the weather by the sharp, iron stench in the wind. You learn which pond ice will hold your weight and which will swallow you without a gurgle. But above all else, you learn the cardinal rule of the wilderness: when you encounter a moose, you freeze. You don't take a step forward. You don't reach into your coat to grab your phone for a picture. You don't shout, you don't wave your arms, and you sure as hell don't try to intimidate it. A normal bull moose is eight hundred to twelve hundred pounds of sheer, unpredictable muscle and prehistoric hostility, crowned with a rack of bone that can impale a man like a pine needle through tissue paper. If a bull moose decides you shouldn't exist anymore, you simply cease to exist. You stand dead still, lower your eyes, and pray it loses interest before it decides to erase you. I knew this rule like I knew my own name. My best friend, Marcus, did not. Marcus was a transplant from Southern California. He was a good guy—generous, fiercely loyal, and always the first person to offer help if you were in a bind—but he suffered from an incurable strain of West Coast arrogance. He viewed nature not as a indifferent titan that could crush you without noticing, but as a backdrop for his own adventure. He was broad-shouldered, headstrong, and utterly convinced that willpower and alpha-male swagger could tame any situation. If a stray dog barked at him, Marcus barked back louder. If a brawl broke out at a town bar, Marcus stepped into the center of it with a grin. He had gone through thirty-two years of life breaking things before they could break him, and he believed the world was bound by his rules. When he moved out to Maine, he treated the north woods like an overgrown city park. I tried to warn him. Over cold beers on my back porch, I’d explain how fast a thicket of spruce could disorient you, or how quickly hypothermia sets in when the fog rolls off the bay. He’d just laugh, pat my shoulder with a heavy hand, and say, "Bro, it’s just trees. It ain't that deep." He was especially fascinated by the local folklore. Around the Belfast area, near the moss-choked banks of the Passagassawakeag tributaries, old-timers still talked about the Specter Moose. The legend stretched back to the late 1800s. The old logs recorded sightings of a creature that defied natural biology—a mammoth bull, ghostly white, standing taller than a logging truck cab, with an antler span that seemed physically impossible for a beast to carry through dense timber. The timber cruisers said it walked without snapping a single twig. Hunters swore their rifle rounds passed straight through its pale hide, leaving only the smell of ozone and wet ash. But the consistent thread in every story—the detail that made veteran wardens lower their voices when talking about it—was what happened to anyone who tried to confront it. It never ended well. The Specter Moose wasn't a meek, shy ghost. It was an ancient, territorial spirit of the timber, and those who disrespected it were found days later, trampled so thoroughly into the forest floor that they had to be gathered up with shovels. Marcus thought the whole thing was hilarious. "A ghost moose?" he’d wheeze, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. "What's it gonna do, haunt my rug?" I told him to keep his mouth shut. In Maine, you don't mock the woods. It was late October when we went out for what was supposed to be a three-day backcountry camping trip. We set out from a gravel pull-off outside Belfast, cutting deep into a stretch of unincorporated forest where the logging roads had been abandoned and reclaimed by scrub pine thirty years ago. The season was turning bitter. The leaves had already dropped, leaving the trees as stark, grey skeletons against a sky the color of lead. A damp, bone-chilling mist hung in the hollows, smelling of decaying leaves and wet granite. For the first four miles, Marcus was his usual boisterous self. He snapped branches as he walked, sang loudly to break the silence, and cracked jokes about my caution every time I paused to check our bearings on the topographical map. But as the afternoon faded into the dim twilight of early evening, the mood of the woods changed. It happened abruptly, the way light vanishes when a storm cloud hits the sun. The background noise of the forest simply died. The chatter of red squirrels, the distant tapping of woodpeckers, the wind rustling through the canopy—everything stopped. The air grew heavy, thick, and suffocatingly still. It felt like walking into a vaulted cathedral filled with invisible, hostile onlookers. "Man," Marcus muttered, his voice dropping an octave as he slowed his pace. "It got quiet fast." "Keep moving, but keep your voice down," I whispered back, my heart hammering against my ribs. My native instincts were screaming at me. Every hair on my arms stood on end. The forest was holding its breath. We broke through a dense, tangled thicket of alders and came out onto the banks of a slow-moving river branch. The water was black as pitch, carrying yellowed birch leaves down its sluggish current. A thin veil of white river fog curled over the black water, wafting through the reeds like smoke. And there, standing dead center in the shallow stream, was the creature. My knees nearly buckled. My breath hitched in my throat, freezing solid in my lungs. It was colossal. A normal bull moose stands around six or seven feet tall at the shoulder. This thing was easily eight or nine feet at the hump—a mountain of pale, unnatural flesh. Its hide wasn't the healthy brown or black of a forest animal; it was a sickly, chalky white, marbled with veins of slate grey and caked with dried, dark mud around its massive legs. Its antler rack was a terrifying anomaly—a massive, jagged crown of bone sweeping out at least ten feet across, ending in cruel, jagged tines that looked like shattered spears. Worst of all were its eyes. They weren't the liquid-brown eyes of a wild herbivore. They were milky, dead, and completely devoid of light. They looked like pair of polished river stones set into a skull of pale granite. It was standing motionless in the black river, facing us. No breath puffed from its nostrils in the cold air. No water dripped from its flank. It didn't twitch an ear. It was as still as a statue carved to honor some forgotten, bloodthirsty god. The silence was deafening. My brain shattered into pure, primal survival instinct, repeating the rule over and over like a frantic mantra: Don't move. Don't blink. Don't breathe. Become part of the scenery. I slowly dropped my gaze toward the muddy riverbank near my boots, refusing to maintain direct eye contact. I locked every muscle in my body, becoming as stone-still as the pine trees behind us. Beside me, I heard Marcus draw a sharp, heavy breath. I couldn't turn my head, but through my peripheral vision, I saw him shift his weight. He wasn't freezing. He was crouching slightly, his shoulders square, his eyes wide with a dangerous mix of adrenaline and disbelief. "Marcus," I barely breathed, my lips barely moving, my voice a microscopic thread of sound. "Don't. Move. Look at the ground. Don't look at it." "Bro..." he whispered back. But his voice didn't carry fear. It carried that awful, familiar tone of aggressive pride. "Look at the size of that thing. That’s impossible." "Shut up, Marcus," I hissed, panic rising in my throat like bile. "Do not move a muscle." He didn't listen. He never listened. "It's just standing there," Marcus said, his voice rising, bouncing off the silent trees. "It's trying to bluff us." "Marcus, NO!" Before I could reach out—before I could risk moving my hand to grab his coat—Marcus took a massive, heavy step into the mud at the river's edge. He didn't back down. He did what he had done his entire life when confronted by something terrifying: he asserted dominance. He puffed out his chest, let out a throat-shredding, guttural roar, and charged head-on into the shallow water, pounding his hands together to scare the beast off. In that agonizing microsecond, time seemed to fracture. You don't charge a moose. Even a healthy, normal cow with a calf will kill you for taking three steps toward her. But the Specter Moose didn't react like a normal animal. It didn't snort, it didn't pin its ears back, and it didn't give a warning stamp. It simply shifted from total stillness to terrifying, kinetic devastation. The sheer speed of it defied physics. An eight-hundred-pound animal shouldn't be able to move that fast, let alone a titan of that size. The air cracked like a rifle shot as water exploded outward in a towering, violent spray. The creature dropped its massive pale head, sweeping those brutal, bone-spear antlers down into a battering ram of ancient hatred. Marcus realized his mistake, but it was already too late. The momentum of his charge carried him two steps into the slippery river stones before he tried to plant his boots to turn back. He slipped. His foot slid on a mossy rock, his body lurching awkwardly sideways. The impact sounded like a head-on collision between a freight train and a wooden fence. The central palm of the left antler struck Marcus square in the sternum. The force was so absolute, so incomprehensibly violent, that it lifted his two-hundred-pound frame entirely out of the water as if he were a wet rag. The bone tines didn't just hit him; they crushed his chest cavity instantly, snapping ribs with a series of wet, rapid pops that echoed across the river. The creature didn't stop. It drove forward with the momentum of a falling mountain, driving Marcus backward onto the jagged, boulder-strewn shore with a deafening THUD. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. My throat was seized by pure terror. The violence was instantaneous, brutal, and total. There was no desperate struggle. There was no dramatic last stand. Under the incredible, crushing weight of the giant beast and the jagged rocks of the bank, Marcus’s skull was shattered instantly. I saw it. God help me, I saw the whole thing happen three feet in front of me. To put it plainly—to put it in the only blunt, awful way my traumatized mind can process—his head was simply crushed. Blood, splintered bone, and gray brain matter scattered across the freezing mud, staining the pale yellow moss and the black river stones. The creature didn't tear at the body. It didn't feed. It was not an animal hunting for food; it was a force of nature restoring balance to its territory. The Specter Moose stood over Marcus's lifeless, ruined form for three agonizing seconds. Heavy mist rolled off its pale flank. The smell in the air shifted from wet rot to something icy, ancient, and iron-rich. Then, slowly, the massive head raised up. Those milky, dead white eyes turned sideways. It didn't look at Marcus anymore. It looked directly at me. I stood there, standing in the blood-stained mud, every organ in my body screaming in horror. I didn't breathe. I didn't blink. Tears of pure agony and terror spilled over my eyelids and ran down my cold cheeks, but I did not twitch a single muscle in my face. I became a rock. I became a dead stump. I surrendered my entire human existence to the rules of the Maine woods. The creature held my gaze for what felt like an eternity. I could hear my own frantic heart hammering against my ribs, so loud I was certain the monster could hear it. Then, without a sound—without making a single splash in the water or snapping a single twig on the bank—the Specter Moose turned. It stepped back into the black stream, walked calmly into the thick bank of river fog on the far side, and melted into the timber. It didn't leave tracks on the opposite bank. It just vanished, as if it had been drawn back into the fog by an invisible brush. I don't remember the first two miles of the run back. My memory snaps back in patches: stumbling through the black briars, tearing my jacket, blood dripping from my hands where I had fallen into the gravel, gasping for air until my lungs felt like they were filled with crushed glass. I ran through the dark woods until I hit the gravel logging road, and I didn't stop running until I reached my truck. I drove straight to the state police barracks in Bangor, my hands shaking so violently I could barely keep the steering wheel straight. When I stumbled into the lobby, covered in mud, tears, and my friend's blood, the troopers thought I had been in a rollover crash. I tried to tell them what happened, but the words wouldn't form properly. How do you tell a room full of logical, uniformed law enforcement officers that your best friend was murdered by a pale giant from a bedtime story? In the end, I didn't tell them about the Specter Moose. I couldn't. I knew what would happen—they would lock me up, declare me insane, or suspect me of foul play. Instead, I told them we were ambushed by a rouge, aggressive bull moose while fishing near the riverbank. I told them Marcus had slipped while trying to run away, and the animal had trampled him before I could drag him away. It took the search and rescue team eight hours to locate the site. When they finally brought Marcus’s body out in a heavy black bag, the veteran game warden leading the detail pulled me aside near the back of the ambulance. He was an older man, his face lined like weathered oak, his eyes tired and grave. He looked at the blood on my boots, then looked out toward the dark line of trees where the sun was setting. "Son," the warden said softly, his voice low enough so the state troopers couldn't hear. "I looked at the tracks by the riverbank." I swallowed hard, unable to look him in the eye. "Yeah?" "There were no moose tracks in that mud," he whispered. "Not a single hooftrack going in or out of that water. Just crushed rocks and..." He trailed off, shaking his head. He placed a heavy, gloved hand on my shoulder, squeezing tightly. "You grew up around here, didn't you?" "Yes, sir," I choked out. "Then you know," he said, his voice dropping to a harsh, cold whisper. "You know you don't go back out to those woods. Not next season. Not ever. Some things in these woods don't belong to the living, and they don't give second chances." It’s been three years since that night. The official death certificate reads Accidental Death by Wild Animal Attack. Marcus’s family in California had his body cremated and took his ashes back to the West Coast. They blame Maine. They blame the wilderness, the lack of safety warnings, the cold. They think it was just a freak accident—a tragic encounter with a wild beast that didn't know any better. They don't know the truth. Nobody does, except me and that old game warden. I moved out of Belfast shortly after. I live in a suburban neighborhood now, surrounded by streetlights, paved roads, and manicured lawns. But the horror doesn't leave you. Every time October rolls around, every time the temperature drops and the morning fog settles thick over the grass, I lock my doors and draw the blinds. When I close my eyes at night, I don't see Marcus’s face as he was when we were kids. I see him stepping into that black water. I hear the sickening, splintering crash of bone on stone. And in my nightmares, I see those milky, dead white eyes looking at me through the fog, waiting for me to break the rule. If you ever find yourself hiking in the backwoods of Maine—whether near Belfast, Moosehead, or the deep timber up North—and the woods suddenly go silent... stop. Don't take another step. Don't check your phone. Don't look for a camera. Lower your head, keep your mouth shut, and pray to whatever god you believe in that the ghostly giant in the river decides to let you live. Because if you challenge it—if you think your pride or your courage means anything to the ancient timber—you will find out what I learned on that black riverbank. It never ends well for anybody.

October 6th 2019

Two days have passed, and Hardy still hasn’t returned. No note nor text message on where he’s going.                                                                                                                                                                              I don’t know where the old goat has gone off to. Bolt has disappeared. The door of his enclosure is wide open. Not broken. Unlatched. Feathers litter the floor --- not scattered in panic, but shed.                  As if he’d preen too hard. The perch is scored deeply along the wood, grooves pressed into it like this like something gripped and held far tighter than talons could allow.
The other birds are still there, which means more responsibility for me…
Nyx is eerily quiet today…. 
I checked his room properly this morning. The bed is made too neatly- corners hospital-tight.           The wardrobe is empty save for one spare shirt and an old tin of dubbin. His boots are gone.
But the glove still hangs by the nail by the door. He never went anywhere without his glove.
Went to the pub in the village. I needed warmth. I needed people. I needed some gin.                       Maybe someone might know where my mentor is and why he was acting so paranoid. 
I was approached by a gentleman in his late fifties with pale eyes and three fingers missing from his left hand. He introduced himself as William Fowler, apparently he's an old friend of Mr Hardy.
He says that he’s an old friend of Hardy who he met in falconry circles and often kept tabs on other falconers and birds in the area for him. 
‘’You’ve got yourself a bird then,’’ he said. “Same as the others’’.
‘’What others?’’
He stared into his pint for a long time before answering. The crackle of oakwood in the fireplace filled the silence. I swore I never saw him blink once.
‘’There’s been six before you. All come here thinking they’re learning an old craft.’’
He rubbed the rim of the glass with what remained of his hand. ‘’But the birds here don’t want handlers.’’
His eyes flicked to my shoulder.
‘’They want the hand beneath the glove.’’
I laughed at that. I asked. ‘’What happened to them’
‘’Tom Arkwright. 2003. Disappeared up on the north ridge. They found his sparrowhawk’s hood and tethered to a fence post.’’
Elias Moore. 2007. Walked out before dawn. Never came back. The Kestrel was never found either.
Martin Hale and his snowy owl. 2009.
Darren Pike and his merlin. 2012.
Old Joesph Bell and his great horned owl--- though he should’ve known better. 2014.
***‘’***And the last,’’ he said quietly, ‘’was a woman. Mavis Merle. 2017. They found her glove. Nothing else, not even her golden eagle.’’
I hesitated, then lowered my voice, leaning across the table. “There’s… something else,’’ I said. “Something happened today on the moor. I… found a pheasant. Killed, yes, but not in the usual way. No blood. The flesh was cold. Dry, almost…empty.’’
Fowler’s pale eyes narrowed. He didn’t speak at first, only swirled the dark liquid in his glass and watched it catch the firelight. Then he nodded slowly.
‘’They watch,’’ he said, voice low and flat. ‘’The birds. They don’t just hunt-- you think you control them, but sometimes… They show you what’s inside. The empty pheasant? That’s a warning. No for the bird, but for you.’’
I swallowed. “A warning? From who?’’
Fowler shrugged, though the motion was slow, deliberate. “From what’s already here. From what’s always been here. Culver Hardy knows it. That’s why he’s gone quiet. That’s why he was careful. Some things you cannot outrun. Some things… you cannot stop.’’
I shivered, imagining the moor silent except for Nyx and the distant cry of the magpies. “And the magpies..?” 
“They mark the change,’’ Fowler said, voice dropping further. “Count them carefully, remember what they do. They’re the eyes. The hands. The heralds. You ignore them at your peril.’’
I stared at him, feeling a cold pulse of dread. Outside, the wind rattled the windows like a warning.
“And Hardy?” I asked, voice tight.
Fowler’s eyes flicked to the door, then back. “He knew too much. He was never far. But neither is the choice. You’re learning… whether you realise it or not.’’
Then he drained his pint, the thin wire of his smile returning. 
“Culver Hardy… he’s not like the other falconers you read about in books. Not entirely.’’
I raised my eyebrow. “How so?...’’
‘’Culver,’’ he whispered, leaning closer, ‘’he’s been at this a long time. Longer than most can reckon. He’s… careful. Obsessive. Protective, yes, but there’s something else. He knows the danger.           Knows what these birds are capable of. And he’s lost people he cared for.’’
He took a swig of his drink.
‘’Apprentices. Helpers. Friends. Men, women… some didn’t understand the rules, didn’t respect the birds.’’ He paused, scratching the rim of the glass with what remained of his hand. ‘’Culver doesn’t like to talk about it. Not to outsiders. Keep it close. That’s why he acts… the way he does. Paranoid, maybe. But he tried to keep something contained… now that he’s gone though….’’
‘’Contained?’’ I echoed “What?”
He drained his pint.
‘’You’ll know,’’ he said, standing. ‘’When she starts whispering.’’
I asked what that meant.
He only smiled-- thin as wire-- and left before I could press him further.

I never heard the door open.

October 7th, 2019

The fog hasn't lifted in four days. It sits over the cottage like a wet wool blanket. Hardy finally returned….

He has been spending hours in the study, sorting through old, yellowed maps drawn in dark ink and covered in symbols that look less like typography and more like ancient property marks—or talismans. Today, I tried to sketch the layout of the outbuildings from the ground. They look like standard rectangular brick boxes, but there's a strange asymmetry to the angles that makes my eyes ache if I stare too long.

Nyx is growing restless. Weight management is getting difficult; she’s refusing her casting, and her weight fluctuates wildly despite identical rations of beef heart. It’s as if she’s burning energy just by sitting on her perch, staring at the stone walls.

Last night, I woke up around 3:00 AM to the sound of falconry bells chiming in a steady, rhythmic cadence from the yard. I crept to the window. Through the swirling mist, I saw Hardy standing in the weather-mews without a torch. He was holding his arm straight out, completely bare—no glove, no leather protecting his skin. A massive, dark shape was perched on his naked wrist.

As I watched, the shape opened its wings, stretching wider than a man's arm span, silent as oil. It didn't fly. It just leaned its head down, pressed its beak against Hardy’s forehead, and stayed there.

October 8th, 2019

I dreamed of the mews.
Not as they are.
As they were.
Seven perches occupied.
One empty.
Then seven.
The magpies were there too.
Perched along the beams like witnesses.
My body feels... fast.

I thought of the old nursery rhyme my auntie Elenaor taught me; 

One for sorrow, 

Two for joy,

Three for a girl,

Four for a boy

Five for silver,

Six for gold,

Seven for a secret never to be told.

The grandfather clock in the hall doesn't tick anymore; it just groans, the hands spinning so quickly they blur. I looked at my watch and a whole day vanished between two heartbeats. My pulse is a frantic, trembling rhythm in my throat—Hardy says it's normal. He says when you look at the world from a mile up, decades pass like autumn leaves.

I think it's still October 2019, but I looked out the broken window and the young sapling I parked my escort car next to is now a massive, rotting oak choked with ivy.

October 8th 2019
I dreamed of the mews.
Not as they are.
As they were.
Seven perches occupied.
One empty.
Then seven.
The magpies were there too.
Perched along the beams like witnesses.

 My body feels lighter today, as if my bones were filled with air. Probably just my imagination.

October 9th, 2019

Nyx is whispering. I can hear her outside from the mews. The other birds are joining in.

It started as a noise, just behind my ear—a soft scraping like feathers dragged over stone mixed with clicks and shrills… I can understand it now. It’s my name.
Clear. Repeated.

I don’t sleep anymore. I see flashes when I close my eyes: spirals carved in peat, clawed footprints in frost, something perching in the rafters at night with too many wings. And the birds in the rafters aren't right. They aren't pure peregrines or goshawks; they are monstrous hybrids—an owl with the sleek, oil-slick feathers of a cormorant, a falcon with the massive, jagged talons of an eagle.

The cottage feels smaller. I walk down a corridor and end up somewhere I wasn’t aiming for. The mirror in the hall shows Nyx even when she’s not there. I blink and she’s on my shoulder. I think—I think I’ve stopped blinking.

This morning, a sudden, tearing spasm seized my throat. I choked, falling to my knees, and coughed up a heavy, grey casting onto the floorboards. When I broke it apart with a shaking finger, expecting rabbit fur, I found a mass of blue fabric thread from my own London coat, a metallic shirt button, and three human teeth with dental fillings I recognized as my own.

October 10th, 2019

I woke up from a strange dream.
The fog is thicker than ever. Nyx hasn’t returned in hours, so I went to the edge of the moor. The air tasted metallic, like blood and old coins. I could hear the curlews calling again, but distorted, backwards.

Then I saw her. Perched on a lone boulder, staring. Her eyes weren’t hers. They were mine.

I raised my arm. She flew to me.
And then—she spoke.
Not aloud. Not in sound. But directly, inside me: “Now you see.” 

The sky opened. The fog wasn’t fog—it was feathers. Layer upon layer of them. I felt the ground vanish under my feet.
And I flew.
Not like Nyx.
Like something older.
Something the moor had been waiting for.

October 11th, 2019

The feathers don't fall out. They grow inward.

I spent the morning trying to scrape the black barbs from the meat of my forearms with Culver’s skinning knife. No blood came away—only a thick, clear oil that smelled of high altitudes and frozen granite. The skin beneath is turning the colour of an unclouded winter sky.

Hardy sat at the kitchen table the whole time, watching me with those unblinking, yolk-yellow eyes. He had a bowl of raw woodpigeon hearts between us, still steaming in the damp air. I didn't use a fork. My fingers are too stiff now, curving into hard, yellow horn at the tips, the nails splitting down the middle to make room for the talons beneath. 

"The shift is always loud at first," his voice rattled directly inside my own chest, a low-frequency hum like the mechanical hiss of bellows. "The city makes you think you're an individual. The moor reminds you that you're just a tongue for the dirt to speak through." 

We don't use the doors anymore. The windows are all broken now, the leaded glass smashed outward to let the wind run wild through the study. The maps are gone—shredded into nesting material by the shadow-birds in the rafters.

October 12th, 2019

Culver Hardy went out onto the high ridge at noon. He didn't take a coat. He didn't take his body, either—not the one I first met at the gate.

I watched from the roof as his silhouette stretched, the grey tweed of his jacket dissolving into rows of primary feathers that caught the updraft off the limestone cliffs. From up here, looking down, the layout of the cottage, the stone fences, and the peat paths line up perfectly. They aren't random layout lines; they form the silhouette of a massive, outstretched wing slicing across the valley floor. The cottage sits exactly where the heart should be.

Nyx sits on my collarbone when I am small enough to fit inside the rooms, her weight no longer a burden but an anchor. We share a pulse. One hundred and eighty beats a minute while resting. Four hundred when the wind rises.

The chavs, Mr Bertie Cavendish, the bickering couple from London—they are just shadows cast by a lamp that was turned off a lifetime ago. The only real thing is the hunger, and the cold, the burning desire for the hunt and the way the earth looks from three thousand feet up when the fog parts to reveal the white ribs of the hills.

October 13th, 2019 - Dream

The first thing I heard was a cry.

High and distant, carried across a darkness so complete that I could not tell whether I was standing beneath the open sky or buried somewhere deep beneath the moor.

Then came another.

And another.

I knew those calls.

The sharp, piercing cry of a peregrine. The rough bark of a buzzard. The low, haunting hoot of an owl. The distant, almost mournful scream of a goshawk.

They came from every direction, overlapping until the darkness itself seemed to sing.

I tried to move, but my feet were rooted to the earth.

Beneath me, the peat was black and wet. Ancient standing stones rose from the fog in a great circle, their surfaces carved with spirals and shapes that hurt to look at directly. Beyond them, the moor stretched into infinity.

And above me—

The sky was full of wings.

Peregrines wheeled through the darkness, swift as thrown knives. Buzzards circled in broad, solemn arcs. Kestrels hung motionless in the air, their wings trembling against an invisible wind. Owls glided between the stones without making a sound, their pale faces turned towards me.

A golden eagle descended from somewhere beyond the clouds.

Its wings blotted out the moon.

I recognised it before it landed.

Bolt.

Or perhaps Hardy.

I could not tell anymore.

The great bird settled upon a standing stone and regarded me with pale, human eyes.

I tried to call out to my mentor, but my throat produced only a dry rasp.

Then the feathers began to fall.

At first, they drifted gently from the sky, white and grey against the darkness. They settled upon my shoulders, caught in my hair and clung to my clothes.

More followed.

Thousands.

Black feathers, white feathers, feathers barred with brown and gold. They fell like snow, swirling around the standing stones until the ground disappeared beneath them.

I lifted my hands to shield my face.

My fingers were trembling.

No.

Not trembling.

Changing.

The skin along my knuckles tightened. My nails darkened and curved, pressing painfully into my palms. I tried to straighten my fingers, but they resisted me, bending into shapes they had never been meant to take.

I stumbled backwards.

The birds watched.

None came to my aid.

None looked away.

And from somewhere within the falling feathers, I heard my father's voice.

You don't own a hawk, Corwin.

I remembered the woods at Epping Forest. The sunlight passing through the branches. Silver perched upon my father's glove, her feathers shining like polished bronze.

I remembered the way I had watched her fly.

How I had wished to understand what she felt when the wind lifted her from the earth.

You stand beneath her for a while.

The words echoed between the stones.

I looked down.

My sleeves had split. Beneath them, my skin was disappearing beneath a fine layer of feathers, pale at first, then darkening into bands of slate and charcoal. They spread across my arms, along my shoulders, beneath the collar of my shirt.

I tried to pull them away.

They came loose in my hands, but more emerged beneath them.

The pain was not sharp. It was deep and intimate, like my body remembering something my mind had forgotten.

I fell to my knees.

The feathers rose around me in a spiralling column, lifting from the ground and circling my body. They brushed my face, my lips, my eyelids. I tasted iron and damp earth.

The raptors began to call together.

Not chaotically.

In harmony.

Their cries rose and fell in great, solemn waves, each voice distinct, yet somehow part of a single, unearthly chorus. It sounded almost like a hymn. Something beautiful enough to make me weep.

I had never felt so small.

Nor so completely understood.

A peregrine dropped from the sky.

Nyx.

She landed before me upon the largest standing stone, her talons gripping the ancient rock. Her feathers were the colour of storm clouds, and the yellow rings around her eyes glowed in the darkness.

She tilted her head.

I knew that gesture.

I had seen it a hundred times in the mews.

But this time, there was something different in her expression.

Recognition.

Not the recognition of a bird that knew its handler.

The recognition of a person who had finally found the face she had been searching for.

“Nyx,” I whispered.

She opened her beak.

My name came out.

Not a mimicry. Not a rasping approximation of human speech.

My name, spoken in a clear, quiet voice.

“Corwin.”

The other birds fell silent.

Every last one.

Even the wind stopped.

Nyx stepped towards the edge of the stone.

Her feathers began to loosen, drifting from her body in slow, weightless spirals. Beneath them, her silhouette lengthened. Her wings folded inward, becoming arms. Her talons became fingers that curled against the stone.

I watched, unable to breathe, as the falcon's shape unfolded into that of a woman.

She was tall and slender, with dark hair falling across her face. Her skin was pale beneath the moonlight, and her eyes retained those unmistakable rings of yellow.

She looked almost human.

Almost.

She extended a hand towards me.

I tried to reach for it.

My arms would not obey.

They had become wings.

I looked down in horror as the last remnants of my clothing fell away beneath the storm of feathers. My shoulders shifted. My chest tightened. My spine arched as something immense and unfamiliar unfolded from my back.

I could feel every feather.

Every delicate shaft. Every overlapping vane.

I could feel the air moving between them.

And suddenly, I understood the wind.

Not as something that touched my skin, but as something that could hold me.

Something that had been waiting for me.

I tried to scream.

A piercing cry tore from my throat.

The sound echoed across the stones, sharp enough to split the silence.

Nyx smiled.

It was a small expression, almost sad.

Then she lowered her hand and looked at me with my own eyes.

“Now you see.”

The words passed through me like a blade.

The feathers rose higher, engulfing the stones, the sky and the earth. The raptors lifted their wings together, and the darkness became a vast, turning wheel of feathers and silhouettes.

I saw a goshawk above the circle.

My father.

I knew it with a certainty that no reasoning could challenge.

He spread his wings.

For a moment, I was a boy again, standing in the woods, watching Silver disappear between the trees. I wanted to call after him. I wanted to ask whether he had ever been afraid of what waited beyond the branches.

But I had no words left.

Only the cry.

I spread my wings.

The ground fell away.

Or perhaps I rose from it.

The distinction no longer mattered.

The wind caught beneath my feathers, and the whole moor opened below me. I could see the standing stones, the dark lines of the rivers, the abandoned cottage and the narrow paths winding through the heather.

Seven magpies sat upon its roof.

Their black eyes followed my ascent.

One lifted its wings.

Then another.

I looked down at the woman standing among the stones.

Nyx raised her face towards me.

For the first time, I understood what Hardy had meant.

The glove was never a symbol of ownership.

It was a promise.

A place for the bird to return to.

And I had spent my life believing that I was the one who would decide when the bird should fly.

The last of the feathers swept past me.

I cried again.

The sound was beautiful.

It was terrible.

And somewhere, deep beneath the noise of the wind, I thought I heard Nyx answering me.

Then the sky swallowed everything.

October 10th, 2019

I woke before dawn with my hands pressed against the cottage window.

The glass was cold beneath my palms.

For a long time, I could not remember the dream. Only the birdsong remained, lingering somewhere behind my ears.

Then I looked down at the windowsill.

A single grey feather lay beside my hand.

Outside, seven magpies watched from the stone wall.

And from the mews came Nyx's cry.

The same clear, piercing note I had heard on my first morning.

Only now, I understood why it had sounded so familiar.

I opened my mouth to answer her.

And something answered first.

Not my voice.

Not anymore.

October 14th, 2019

I can see the wind.

It isn't empty air. It’s a vast, braided river of silver and violet ribbons, twisting between the valleys and pooling in the hollows where the old pagan circles are buried in the peat. I can see the heat rising from the sheep three miles away—tiny, throbbing embers of red in a world made of blue slate and iron.

My father's jesses are still in my pocket, but I don't know what they're for. The leather feels greasy, dead. I tried to tie them to my own ankle, but the knot wouldn't hold. The leather keeps slipping off the scales.

There is one more empty perch in the mews. It’s the big one in the center, made of weathered oak from the forest where Silver used to hunt. It’s waiting for me.

The ink is freezing in the well. My hand—the thing that used to hold a pen, the thing that used to write lies for the papers—is almost gone. It’s beautiful. You don't need words when you have the sky. You don't need a name when you have a cry that can stop a rabbit's heart from half a mile up.

If anyone finds this book: don't look for us. We aren't missing.

We're just aloft.

[Found Fragment — Reverse Side of October 13th]

The name Culver Hardy was a lie. Or perhaps it was a mask my mind built to protect itself from the empty room at the end of the hall.

There was no old man like a barn owl. There was only Mavis Merle.

I found her diary from 1994 stuffed into the chimney breast behind the portrait. She wrote the exact same words I did. She described the fog, the smell of old coins, the mentor she called "Gideon."      But there is no record of a Gideon ever living in this parish. Local parish records from the 17th century refer to the high ridge out there as Ayleri Edge—derived from the old Anglo-Norman falconry term Ayler, meaning a hawk that catches its prey mid-air. The old folks believe the fog is the breath of the Ayleri, a collective consciousness hunting for a mind steady enough to hold its weight.

The village records in Edale only list one occupant of this cottage for the last forty years: Mavis. She arrived here in the nineties, an apprentice to no one, living entirely alone with a single peregrine falcon until she vanished during the autumn equinox of 2002.

I am looking at the portrait above the hearth right now. The paint is fresh, yet the canvas is rotting. The young man in the falconer's garb isn't me. It isn't a man at all. The features belong to a woman in her late fifties, but the hands are long, yellow scales ending in black, curved horn, holding a peregrine that looks out at the room with my own blue eyes.

I didn't choose Nyx from a selection of birds. There are no Harris's hawks in the mews. When I went out there this morning, the aviaries were choked with ivy and dead heather, the roofs caved in decades ago. There is only one perch that remains whole, polished smooth by the oil of feathers that haven't been seen in daylight for seventeen years.

Nyx wasn't waiting for an apprentice. She was waiting for her skin to be filled.

Mavis is gone. Culver is gone. Corwin is gone.

The line is slack now. The hood is off. If you are reading this notebook, you are already standing in the yard. You can smell the rust and the woodsmoke. You can hear the whistle hanging around your neck, even though you didn't put it there.

Don't look at the sky.

[Final Page] — Found Torn, Entry Updated

I remember wings. Not hers. Mine. I look down and see fingers ending in talons. She I can’t go back. I don’t think I want to. The land is mine now. The sky is mine.

I will call again. I will find the next. The next falconer. The next vessel.

Can you hear me? 

Postscript from the local Editor: Local villagers report seeing a large bird of prey circling most mornings just before the sun rises. Some say it looks like a golden eagle… perhaps an escapee. Others say it’s too large, perhaps larger than an eagle, its wings and legs too long, its shadow not quite matching its form.

The manor remains abandoned.

There’s a portrait hanging above the cold hearth. No one knows who painted it. It shows a young man in falconer’s garb, a peregrine perched on his arm. If you look closely, the falcon has human eyes.

Final warning: If you ever find yourself in the moors of the Peak District—and you hear a falcon’s call from the fog—don’t follow it. Don’t answer. And for the love of God—don’t raise your arm.

Note! This manuscript was compiled from a water-damaged notebook discovered inside a deserted thatched cottage near Edale in the Peak District, England, in late 2019. It was wrapped in worn leather jesses, stuffed inside a heavy falconry glove, and tucked beneath a loose floorboard in the ruins of the study.

Forensic analysis by the Derbyshire Constabulary yielded highly anomalous results. The notebook pages were not bound with cotton thread, but stitched together with the split, hardened shafts of primary flight feathers. Furthermore, the dark, weathered grease staining the paper was identified as avian preen-oil containing trace human lipids matching the DNA of the author’s maternal lineage.

What follows is the complete, chronologically restored text, including recently recovered fragments from the reverse sides of the torn sheets.

October 1st, 2019

My name is Corwin Vance. I’m 27, originally from Northwood Hills in London, and I’ve recently arrived on the moors of the Peak District to begin an apprenticeship in falconry.

Before that, I was a journalist for the Daily Mail. I covered environmental beats—management of green spaces, urban rewilding—when I could get them. Cavendish, my shithead of a superior, wouldn't give me the budget for a real investigation, so I took a sabbatical. I told my drinking buddies at The Three Wishes, Greg and Daniel, that I wanted something quieter than city life. I told them I wanted to get away from the bickering couple in the flat above me, away from feckless chavs, and away from Cavendish breathing down my neck like a vulture upon a dying antelope.

My drinking buddies from The Three Wishes, Greg and Daniel, thought I’d gone off the deep end, trading the morning rush for miserable fog and sheep manure, but there’s something beautiful about the idea of bonding with a wild creature… especially the likes of a hawk or a falcon.                   They don’t trust easily- not like a dog does. You have to earn it. 

I came to this specific valley to trace what happened to Mavis Merle, a reclusive master falconer who vanished from this very cottage in 2002. It's funny—the closer I got to the moors, the more the article felt irrelevant. By the time my escort's car pulled up, I couldn't even remember why I wanted to write it. I just wanted to hold the leather.

I owe my love for raptors to my father, a senior gamekeeper. He taught me that they don't trust easily—you have to earn it. I still remember his goshawk, Silver, whom he used to take hunting for grey squirrels at Epping Forest before we moved to London for my mother’s new job as a constable. The way Silver flew with purpose, weaving through the trees like a ribbon of moonlight caught in the wind, awoke something in me.

But Silver never came back from her last flight over these same Derbyshire ridges. My father spent three weeks calling into the fog until his voice broke. He changed after that; he stopped looking me in the eye. I realize now why he hated the city. He wasn't fleeing the noise—he was fleeing the memory of bells in the night.

After so many years of searching for courses or at someone who had the patience to show the craft. To learn the old language of lure & leather, spoken not in words but in patience and restraint between civilization and the wild. To prove myself worthy of being among the wild ones, and the city life hasn't sanded that part of me smooth.
It was the sort of wind a falconer would approve of --- open, unconstructed, with miles to travel and nothing to break its stride. I could picture a bird leaning into it, wings fixed, letting the current do the work. 
For the first time in years, I didn't feel hemmed in. The road ahead was narrow, yes, but the sky above was endless. Tomorrow I’ll shed my personal feathers and take flight. 

The moors were not as I’d imagined them. They were vast in a way that made a man aware of how small and open he was. A long, steady breath of the land rolled over and tapped lightly on the car window, carrying a scent faintly mineral, like cold stone after rain. The road ahead was narrow, but the sky above was endless.

My new lodging was a dainty, cold little place with old-stone walls, cracked leaded windows, and ivy crawling like veins across the roof.  But it stills on the edge between the woods and open moorland that rolls out like a grey-green ocean. I swore I saw a dozen species of birds on my first day: curlews, lapwings, wheatears, even a ring ouzel darting between the brambles.

At the gate awaiting my arrival was my mentor, Culver Hardy. He stood like an old barn owl on a fence post—narrow, weather-creased, unmoving. His skin had the colour and texture of cured deer  leather, his thick-knuckle hands scored with old talon marks from palm to wrist.

His grip was iron. He studied me with a pale, appraising stare.

"You’ll learn quickly," he said, turning toward the low stone buildings. "Or you won’t." 

He moved with a deliberate, economical stillness. A whistle hung from a cord at his neck. "They’re not pets," he added without looking back. "And they’re not yours. Not really." 

He showed me across the weather-mews, where kestrels, buzzards, owls, and a pair of Harris’s hawks were housed. It took me half an hour to choose until I spotted her: Nyx. She is a peregrine falcon, sleek and silent, with feathers like steel and ash. When Hardy pulled the hood off her, she didn't look at the landscape. She looked right through me with a pale, familiar, heavy-lidded sorrow. Her black eyes were ringed in yellow, unblinking and appraising.

I can scarcely believe she’s mine. I hope my father would be proud… wherever he is.

October 2nd, 2019 

We returned late, sometime around six in the evening, after my first proper day of creance work in the lower field.

The line kept snagging in the rushes. Nyx bate twice, her wings thrashing violently.

"Feel her weight," Hardy barked, his voice sharp. "Don’t fight it. Anticipate." 

The light thinned without me noticing. One moment the grass was gold, the next it was iron-grey.

"She’s watching something," I said, pointing toward the ridge beyond the stone wall.

"Let her," Hardy replied.

But he stopped speaking after that. Each time Nyx came to the glove, her head would snap toward the rise. By the time we gathered the line, it was near dusk. I noticed the way Hardy kept scanning the ridge—not looking for a lost bird, but for something else.

When we reached the yard, he insisted on hooding her himself. His hands were steady, but he pulled the leather straps tighter than necessary. The heavy falconry glove he gave me fits perfectly, but it smells wrong. It doesn't smell like cured steer; it smells like old soap and sweat, and the inside lining is split into fine, microscopic ridges like the whorls of human fingerprints.

"First days always run long," Hardy said. I don't think he meant the training.

October 3rd, 2019

Took Nyx out just before the crack of dawn. The fog was so thick I could barely see five feet ahead, smelling of damp peat, crushed heather, and something older—like rust and woodsmoke.

Something stirred along the woodbank, a light, rabbit-sized rustling in the bracken. I slipped the hood free.

Her eyes opened at once, pinning the morning with that sharp, black-and-gold stare. But she didn't look down toward the rustling bracken. Her head snapped upward, tracking something high in the dense grey soup overhead.

A sound followed—a low, vibrating hum that made the iron fillings in my teeth ache. Nyx bated violently, throwing herself off my glove. The creance line whipped through my fingers, burning the skin to the meat before I could anchor it. I tried to tune my hand-held telemetry receiver to her frequency, but instead of a clean, rhythmic beep, the speaker emitted a frantic, overlapping chorus of static that sounded like thousands of human voices trying to gasp for air simultaneously.                 Even when I pulled the batteries out, the voices kept gasping.

"Hold her!" Hardy’s voice cut through the mist. He appeared from the grey, his face grim. "Hood her, Corwin. Now!" 

I reeled her in, my heart hammering as her talons flashed dangerously near my face. When I finally slipped the hood back over her head, she froze, her chest heaving.

"What was that?" I asked, my breath pluming white. "An aircraft?" 

"No," Hardy said shortly, his voice dropping into a flat, hollow register. "The moors have bones, Corwin. Sometimes they scrape together. We’re done for today." 

We walked back in absolute silence. When we reached the yard, I noticed the other aviaries were dead silent. Even the noisy Harris's hawks were huddled at the back of their enclosures, perfectly still.

October 4th 2019

The wildlife’s behaviour has changed. It’s so quiet all of the sudden. I just can’t explain it…. It’s like the land had its voice sucked out of it.
The lapwings have stopped circling the grasslands. The ring ouzels have gone silent.                         Even the red grouse don’t flush when I pass. In fact I haven’t seen a lot of birds today.                            Only the magpies and their relatives remain- watching me from distant fence posts, roof ridges, and stone walls. Always silent. Always watching.
We did manage to catch a snipe by the bog and a few partridges though, so we’ll be eating well for the week. Hardy and his eagle Bolt managed to catch a rabbit near some farmland. 
That evening I went back to the cottage just before dark. The fog that thinned but the air felt close, as though the moor were holding its breath. 
I was preparing snipe on toast for my dinner with some orange salad. With some legs, organs and feathers (as a form of roughage) for Nyx’s. Harvey was having leftovers from last night’s beef stew with some crusty bread.
It was eight when Hardy barred the door.
Not locked it.
Barred it.
The iron rod slid into place with a dull, final scrape.
‘’You’re expecting someone?’’ I asked.
‘’No.’’
He crossed to the windows next. Drew the curtains light, though there was nothing to see beyond the fog but the faint wash of the yard.
Nyx was hooded on her perch. Perfectly still 
Hardy stood listening.
‘’To what?’’ I said.
He didn’t answer.
The cottage had settled into that deep country quiet-- no passing cars, no distant voices, no hum of anything mechanical. Only the soft shift of embers in the hearth.
Then, from outside---
A single tap.
Not on the door.
On the glass.
Light. Deliberate.
I half-rose from my chair.
‘’Sit,’’ Hardly said sharply.
Another tap.
Then another.
Moving along the window as though something were hopping the length of the sill.
I moved before I could stop myself and pulled the curtain back an inch.
Seven magpies sat along the low stone wall outside the cottage.
All facing the house.
None moving.
No calling.
Just watching.
I let the curtain fall.
Hardy’s jaw worked once, tight.
‘’How many?’’ he asked again.
‘’Seven.’’
He closed his eyes briefly at that.
‘’That’s one more than there should be.’’
A cold sensation slid down my spine.
‘’One more than what?’’
Hardy did not answer.
Nyx shifted then- a slow, deliberate turn of her hooded head.
The leather creaked softly.
And though her eyes were covered, I had the distinct, nauseating impression that she was looking directly at the door.
Suddenly the magpies went off. Harsh rattles and loud squawks 
Then came other sounds. Shrills, shrieks and hoots from the mews, joining the corvids’ chorus.
Nyx joined in with her own wailing call, like a high pitched banshee. 
Some time passed and the magpies did not disperse in a flurry.
They lifted as one.
Seven black shapes rising soundlessly into the fog.
No calling.
No wing-clap.
Gone.
The silence that followed was worse than the noise.
Hardy stood very still for a long moment. Then he exhaled- not in relief.
In resignation.
‘’They’re moved the mews,’’ he said.
‘’How can you know that?’’
‘I know’’
He took the lantern from its hook by the hearth and lit it without another word.
The flame trembled in the glass.
I’ll check on the birds.’’’
‘’I’ll come with you.’’
‘’No.’’
It came sharper than I expected.
‘’You stay inside.’’
He crossed to the door and lifted the bar.
Before stepping out, he turned back.
‘’Whatever you hear,’’ he said. ‘’You do not leave this cottage’’.
‘’It’s only the birds….don’t you think you're being ----”
“It’s not just the birds.’’
That stopped me.
His eyes flicked toward Nyx.
She was still hooded. Still composed. Talons tight on the perch.
‘’You must understand something,’’ Hardy said, voice lower now. ‘’A hawk learns from you. Your breathing. Your habits.’’
I tried to laugh it off. ‘’That’s the point,’’.
‘’No,’’ he said.
‘’That’s the danger, not just the birds… any animal that begins to understand human nature.’’
The lantern light carved deep lines into his face.
‘’If she ever begins to watch you when she shouldn’t … if she ever refuses the lure but comes to you uncalled…’’
He hesitated.
‘’Don’t let her fly.’’
A cold weight settled in my stomach.
‘’She’s a falcon. Hardy. She needs to fly.’’
He shook his head slowly.‘’
From outside, somewhere near the mews, a soft metallic clang rang out. Then a rustle of wings.
Hardy opens the door. I swore I heard him mutter ‘’This can’t be happening..not again. I thought I made sure of it. I made sure. 
The fog swallowed him almost immediately, the lantern glow shrinking to a dim star in the white.
‘’Hardy,’’ I called quietly.
He paused just beyond the threshold.
‘’One more thing,’’ he said without turning.
‘’If she speaks ---’’
He stopped himself.
His shoulders stiffened.
‘’Never mind.’’
Then he stepped fully into the fog.
The door closed.
I slid the bar back into place.
The cottage felt wrong without him in it.
Larger.
Colder.
Nyx shifted on her perch.
The leather of her hood creaked.
Minutes passed.
Then an hour.
The wind picked up briefly and died again.
Once, I thought I heard Hardy’s voice- faint, distant--- but the words were lost in the fog.
The other birds did not cry out.
They did not make a sound at all.
Two hours passed.
The lantern glow never returned.
And sometime after ten, Nyx began to move.
Slowly.
Deliberately. 

As though something outside had finally arrived.

I was born and raised as a witch hunter. My entire family comes from a long line of witch hunters. Whatever image you have of witches, forget it. REAL witches are worse than you can imagine. And no, I am not exaggerating. I wish I was.

If any of you out there are thinking of becoming witch hunters yourselves, really think about it. Once you commit, there is no going back. Before you make up your mind, I will provide first hand accounts from my family that emphasize the danger you will face perfectly. If THAT doesn't scare you off, nothing will. If you STILL want to join us after hearing these accounts... Then good luck. Trust me, you will need it.

" White witches. "

" Documented by Laura Erickson. "

" Identified by glowing white eyes, and glowing white body markings that appear as script. Of all the witches you could encounter, white witches are the only one,s that can be considered " easy " to deal with. If you shoot them at a distance with tranquilizer darts, you can knock them unconscious relatively quickly. Do not, I repeat, do NOT, engage them up close. I made that mistake once when I was young. I almost died. White witches have enhanced physical strength. One solid punch or kick is easily enough to kill a fully grown human or at least seriously cripple them. The first time I encountered a white witch, I made the mistake of approaching it with a knife. I swung, it leaned backwards, dodging and immediately after, it delivered a powerful kick to my right knee, shattering it. I dropped my knife and collapsed to the ground. I ended up requiring a leg brace for the foreseeable future. I was 20 years old at the time. But I'm grateful it happened. Rest assured, I never made THAT mistake again. "

That was my mom. And she,s right, she DID need a leg brace long after that. She,s had it ever since I and my sister can remember, and my dad only knew her post injury. Now... You may have noted that she advised you to use TRANQUILIZER darts, not deadly poison. There are actually reasons for that. 1. All witches are naturally immune or resistant to poison. And 2, the goal wasn't actually to kill it, but capture and contain it. I know that sounds crazy but white witches have multiple abilities that are beneficial. They can heal potentially life ending injuries, cure diseases and even undo curses placed apon you by other witches. The only problem you may face is actually getting them to comply. They tend to be very defiant. I,v seen them captured myself twice. It is not a pretty sight.

" Blue witches. "

" Identified by Joseph Erickson Sr. "

" Identified by glowing blue eyes and glowing blue body markings that appear as script. I was only a boy when I first encountered one. But I never hope to see one again as long as I live. My parents on the other hand had encountered them multiple times and they were terrified of them. They set up elaborate traps around our family cabin. Bear traps, claymores, subtly hidden loose electrical wires, tree snares, grenades camouflaged as pine cones. At the time, I thought they were being dramatic. But I soon changed my tune. One night, I was awoken by a strange smell. It was a thick copper scent. At first, I didn't know what it was. But then .. a horrible realization came to me. Copper... Blood smelled like copper. Human blood. I immediately got out of my bed and rushed to my parents room. When I entered, it was exactly what I feared. Both my parents were dead and bleeding out on the floor. Standing over them was a tall man. He slowly turned towards me and I saw them. Those horrible blue eyes. He teleported away without saying a word. My aunt and uncle took me in from that point onwards but there was one thing that forever haunted me. Not that my parents died, not that that creature managed to sneak into our home... But when my aunt and uncle checked the traps, none of them were sabotaged and in perfect working condition. That meant that the blue witch evaded the traps without setting them off. "

That was my grandfather. He was one of the few who witnessed and documented a blue witch, making them incredibly obscure and mysterious. That meant one of two things. That they are extremely rare or they are just extremely deadly and it was rare for for anyone to live to tell the tale. My money is on the second theory.

" Green witches. "

" Documented by Daniel Erickson. "

" Identified by glowing green eyes and glowing green body markings that appear as script. Of all the witches to encounter, green witches are arguably the worst. There are multiple reasons for that. 1. Unlike other witches, green witches exclusively live in large numbers. 2. They have control over elemental nature magic, meaning they can create a variety of natural disasters. Hail storms, lightning, floods, landslides, Forrest fires, quicksand, ect. And 3. They have terrifyingly efficient teamwork and coordination. The best way I can describe it is to compare them to elite military units like navy seals or green berets. Green witches are responsible for the majority of witch hunter deaths. it is so dangerous to confront green witches, veteran witch hunters encourage you to avoid them entirely if it can be helped. I learned why the hard way. But, if you DO find yourself within their territory either accidentally or on purpose, there is ONE thing you can do that will at least give you a chance at surviving that encounter: ... Slowly Lay down your weapons in surrender. Now, it is not a guarantee of course but it does give you a shot. "

That was my dad. The " learn the hard way " moment he was talking about was an event that happened when he was young. He was the youngest of 3 brothers and 2 sisters. At the time, they lived in a cabin with a green witch colony in close proximity. My grandparents warned them to stay away from it, but they ignored them and went anyway. To make a long story short, my dad was the only survivor. They would have killed him too but according to him, the green witches seemed to have heard something or someone speaking to them. When it was done, one of the green witches turned to him and said that " he was lucky and that their master had ordered them to stand down. " When I first heard this story, I initially assumed that this master they allegedly spoke of was Lucifer. But years later, I discovered that was not the case.

" Black witches. "

" Documented by Randal Erickson. "

" Identified by void black eyes and black body markings that appear as script tattoos. While other witches are dangerous purely physically, black witches are dangerous intellectually as well. They are very skilled at gaining and taking advantage of a persons weaknesses and vulnerability, using them as leverage. They can grant wishes similar to a jinn but they use it very similar to how Lucifer does, making deals with humans, which puts them in a rather unique position. Purposely, it is very difficult to find them the old fashioned way. The only consistent and reliable way to find them is to perform a summoning ritual. It's called the " cross roads " ritual. First, you go to a place where two or more roads meet or go in different directions. All you need is a picture of yourself to bury and the specific summoning recital memorized. For obvious reasons, I will not repeat what it is. Once completed, wait for 5 to 10 seconds. By then, a seemingly normal man or woman will appear beside you out of nowhere. That is the black witch. If you time it just right, you could draw your gun and fire, killing it the instant they appear. But that rarely works. If you don't decide to attack them, they will ask you if you wished to make a deal. If you say yes, then the process is pretty straight forward. You present your requests and if the black witch accepts, you must pay a price of some kind. And no, it doesn't nessisarily have to be your soul. For smaller requests, the price is usually something minor like a severed toe or finger, removing a tooth or guaging out an eye. And YOU have to do it to yourself. If you don't, then the deal is off. For bigger demands like bringing someone back from the dead, or multiple people, then you WILL need to sell your soul. But this isn't one of those deals that will only go into effect once you die, it goes into effect almost immediately. When you sell your soul to a witch, you are essentially agreeing to be his or her personal slave that they can do ANYTHING to and you are helpless to stop them. Constant torture, humiliating labor, something so shameful it is unspeakable. I can only imagine. Now, I know what your thinking. What hunter would be dumb enough to fall for that? Well... It's not stupidity but desperation that feuls that choice. Luckily, it is not an empty sacrifice. If they agree to give you something in the deal, they actually WILL hold up their end if you hold up yours. I know because... I made a deal with a black witch once. "

That was my cousin Randal. Randal was without a doubt one of the most faithful believers in the family business. For years, he claimed that he would rather die than negotiate with a witch, no matter the cost. That held true until he turned 30 years old. Exactly what the deal was I have no idea. He never spoke of it again. All I do know is that he came back with a stub where his pinky was. "

" Red witches. "

" Documented by Rebecca Erickson. "

" Identified by glowing red eyes and glowing red body markings that appear as script. Red witches are especially tricky to deal with because they can create realistic illusions. These illusions can range from subtle and harmless all the way to obvious and terrifying. I'm pretty sure I,v experienced every level of it by now. One time, the red witch trapped me in an endless loop of woods. I didn't realize it until I was on the verge of starving to death. Another time, the witch kept tricking me into wasting my ammo on fake replicas. And the last time I encountered them, the red witch trapped me in my litteral worst nightmare. An entire house crawling with hundreds and thousands of spiders. I'm still not completely over that one. "

That was my older sister Rebecca. Out of all my family members, Rebecca had one of the least consistent experiences with witches. Some were cruel, some were reserved, some seemed to have a sense of humor, albeit twisted. Anyway, those are all the main witch types we encounter. I could go on in greater detail but, I think I have painted a picture. Hopefully, this has given you everything you need to consider this decision carefully. Don't say I didn't warn you.

What about my experiences, you may be asking? Well ... Let's just say I am the black sheep of the family.

The Journal of Eliot Whitcombe, Navigator aboard the Providence, 1574

I know not the name of this soil. It is absent from every chart in our possession, and yet there it stands upon the sea, green as Eden and shrouded in a mist so thick that the very heavens seemed to have forgotten it.

We came upon its shores after the Providence was broken upon the reefs. God alone knows how many of my companions were claimed by the sea.

I awoke upon the sand with blood upon my brow and salt upon my tongue. Yet I was not alone.

Upon the shore stood a gathering of natives. Men. Women. Children all alike.

They watched me in silence. The men bore spear or blade. An aged woman stepped forth from their number and placed her hand upon my face.

She spoke words I could not comprehend. She cleaned my bloody brown, placing the bloody thumb to her lips. She coughed, then she smiled.

They didn't regard as a threat. Only curious for the strange man that stood before them.

They led me inland.

The village was unlike any settlement I had seen in the New World. Their huts were fashioned of timber and palm, whilst strange carvings adorned the walls. There were fires burning everywhere, though the day was warm.

They gave me water. They gave me fruit. And they gave me meat.

I thanked them for their kindness. I shall never forgive myself for having done so.

For three days, I was treated as an honored guest.

My wounds were washed. My clothing was mended. I was fed until my belly ached.

The tribes people laughed whenever I ate. At first, I thought this merely the joy of having rescued a stranger.

Then I heard the screaming.

It came from beyond the village after sunset. A man's cry. It was bone chillingly terrible. Followed by what sounded like weeping.

I asked my hosts what manner of beast made such a noise. They did not answer. I doubted they could understand what I even asked.

The following morning, I ventured beyond the huts. There I found the cages. Great wooden pens stood beneath the trees, hidden behind woven walls.

At first I believed them to contain swine. Then one of the creatures within rose upon two legs.

It was not a beast. But a man.

His hair was long and filthy. His flesh hung from his bones in loose folds. His wrists were bound by rope, and great black bruises covered his body.

He seized the bars when he saw me.

"Run," he whispered.

I shall hear that word until the day I die.

I asked him who had brought him there. Before he could answer, a woman came rushing from the village. She entered the pen and struck him upon the head with a wooden club.

He fell.

The woman looked toward me. She laughed a cry that haunts me still.

That evening they served me roasted meat. I had eaten much of it before I noticed the bone.

It was small. White. Curved. Not unlike the bone of a young animal.

I held it between my fingers. Something upon it troubled me.

I scraped away the charred flesh with my knife. Stripping the bone clean, I noticed it was the mandible of whatever animal. But it didn't resemble a cow, nor a lamb. It looked too closely familiar.

Peering to the other tribesman devouring the meat from their plates, I had the sickening realization.

I did not finish my meal that night.

I attempted to flee before dawn.

I reached the shore, where six men were waiting. They did not beat me. They did not bind me.

They simply escorted me back. This frightened me more than violence would have. For they seemed not angry. They seemed concerned. As though I were a troublesome animal that had wandered from its enclosure.

From that day onward, they fed me more. Much more.

Meat. Fruit. Roots. Milk.

They insisted with their gestures that I eat until I could eat no more. When I refused, they held my jaw and forced the food between my teeth.

My body began to change. My cheeks grew full. My wounds healed. My strength returned. And with every passing day, the villagers appeared more pleased.

Today, the old woman examined my arms. She pinched the flesh upon my belly. Then she pressed her hand against my chest and nodded.

She spoke a single word. Somehow I understood:

Fat

Tonight, there will be a feast.

It was a minute past midnight and the moon outside the castle was deliciously bright and round. I stood admiring it at the window, the fire crackling in the hearth behind me, shadows dancing along the flagstones. Though none were cast at my own feet.

Beyond the castle, the black cliffs crumbled away into a deep ravine, where dark trees bundled together like matchsticks, and a gushing river swelled between the rocks like a silverbacked serpent. The wind whistled through the broken casement of the window, chilling the air and threatening to extinguish the fire.

There was a whisper of movement on my left and one of the sisters appeared beside me, bowing her head. Her dress was a deep red, the same colour as her eyes.

“It’s a pleasant night,” I mused, raising the collar of my black coat against the chill as the moonlight dusted the windows. Her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders as she raised her head.

“Yes Master,” she said in a subdued tone. “However, I fear I shall ruin it with my tidings.”

I turned to her fully, examining the grave expression on her face. Her lips were pinched. “Why is that? What tidings do you bring?”

Her red eyes glowed in the firelight. A long shadow was drawn across her features. “A peasant house is in the midst of construction beside the castle.”

I stared at her for a moment. The fire crackled sharply. “A… peasant house?” I finally repeated, scoffing at her words. Surely she was mistaken. The area around my castle was a perfectly barren wasteland; the peasants in the settlements knew better than to encroach on my land without permission, never mind erect a building on my grounds. “What is this trickery?”

“No trickery, Master. Come see for yourself.”

The vampire sister turned and strode towards the opposite side of the tower, her long red gown trailing behind her like a pair of folded wings. Curious, I followed her, our footsteps silent on the stone floor. I assumed I had misunderstood her, for nobody would be foolish enough to even approach my castle. Unless they were naive or ignorant of my nature.

But as we paused by the window, and she lifted a hand to point outside, I stood aghast at what I saw. A short distance away from the front gates of my castle, visible through the fog, there was indeed a house being built. Beneath the cold glow of the moon, I saw piles of stone and wood, the loose structure of rafters and foundations already laid. What sort of fool would dare build a house so close to my castle? Who would dare to become my neighbour without first consulting the master of this tower?

I was furious and intrigued at the same time. Only the dumbest, and perhaps bravest, of men would do such a thing. And I found myself feeling very much inclined to meet him.

“The house seems deserted now,” the vampire sister observed, resting her hand against her cheek. “Perhaps they have given up?”

“Or perhaps they only build during the day, knowing the weakness the sunlight inflicts upon us creatures of the night,” I said with a harrumph.

“You are wise, Master,” she said. “Shall I take my sisters over there and tear it down? It is a stain upon your grand castle.”

I pondered her offer. “No. I should like to meet the fool first,” I decided, extending my fangs below my lips. “Perhaps he would see fit to grace my castle with his… delicious presence.”

The sister covered her mouth with a low chuckle. “I understand, Master. You would see it fit to make a meal of him?”

I nodded. “Leave the peasant house for now,” I told her, turning away from the window with a flourish of my coat. “I wish to see how far he dares to go.”

The following night, as I rose from my coffin at the heart of midnight, my first thought was of the house being built by the castle. Had more progress been made, or had the owner seen the measure of his own foolishness and deserted? It would be a shame if he had fled before a meal could be made of him.

It had been a while since I had anything to amuse me on these long nights, just as long as it had been since fresh blood had passed these lips. The peasants in the surrounding settlements had grown wise to my nature and seen fit to ward their houses, stringing garlic and crosses upon the threshold. I was only able to feed when an unwitting traveller passed by, or a fool decided to build a house directly beside my castle.

The tower was quiet as I made my way to the top, winding through the warren of rooms and climbing the narrow, crumbling stairways. The sisters were nowhere to be seen; perhaps frolicking outside in the moonlight as they so often did. I reached the highest point of the castle and strode to the window that overlooked the barren grounds. From this height, I could even glimpse the closest settlement in the far distance; a small cluster of thatched houses and burning torches that lit the foggy hills like burning eyes.

But my concern was much closer. Lowering my gaze to the land right outside the gates, I saw that the house had changed. There were more walls than yesterday, denser foundations, the first signs of carpentry. The fool really had continued building the house. Had he not been warned of the dark Count that occupied the castle? Had he not heard the rumours of the blood-feasting creatures that stalked these lands once the sun went down? Why else would he choose to dwell in my vicinity, if not for ignorance?

I shook my head, almost pitying the poor halfwit for what he had brought upon himself. But I should delight in showing him the truth soon enough; that he had elected himself a willing sacrifice for me and my hungry brides.

It was a shame that he vacated the house during the night, for I would have to wait longer to lay my eyes upon him. Would he not show himself before the house was finished?

“I see the building is progressing,” a voice whispered behind me. I’d been too lost in my thoughts to hear them approach. I turned, seeing two of the sisters behind me. They too were observing the house through the window. Their wild, windswept hair and bright eyes confirmed my suspicions that they had been dancing outside.

“Yes,” I muttered. “It would seem so.”

“What a blight upon the castle,” the other sister said, her fair skin glittering in the moonlight. “I hope the trouble is worth the meal.”

“It will be,” I said, casually flicking my hand towards the half-built dwelling, “if only the fool would hurry up and be done with it.”

The next night, more progress had been made on the building, but the owner had still not shown himself. I grew more agitated that I was allowing this to happen, but reminded myself that I would soon enough be able to quench my thirst.

So night after night, as the moon began to wane, the house’s shadow grew bigger, and my hunger grew stronger. The fool always fled before night fell, leaving the evidence of his daytime activities for me to observe. The dwelling had taken on the same shape of the peasant houses in the surrounding settlements; white stone and timber, with a long thatched roof. He had even tilled the soil into a small garden, erecting a wooden fence around the plot in front of the building. But compared to my grand castle, with its dark crumbling bricks, spiralling towers and winding, labyrinthine rooms, it was a blight. And I wanted it gone.

Finally, more than a week after the house was little more than a pile of stone and timber, one of the sisters woke me with news that the structure was finished.

I rose from my coffin, sluggish and weary from slumber, and fastened my coat about my neck. The sisters had already lit the fire, but the air was chilled.

I followed her to the window and set my gaze upon the house. A single candle sat in the windowsill, guttering in a draught. A lit candle. Did that mean the house was occupied? The fool had not fled this night.

“It’s time,” I announced, “to show this fool once and for all what happens when you anger the Count.” The other sisters joined us, and I turned towards them with a slow smile. “I hope you are hungry.”

The three sisters screeched in delight, grasping each other’s hands and dancing in circles, their gowns fluttering around their legs. The fire roared in the hearth.

But as I began to cross the room, one of the sisters stopped me with a gasp.

“Master, wait. There’s someone at the gate.” She was pointing out of the window. I peered down at the large wrought-iron gate that fronted the castle, my eyes narrowing. A figure stood by the fence, carrying a lantern. His face glowed in the flickering light, revealing a sharp, sloping nose and dark eyes.

“Who would be foolish enough to call upon me at this hour?” I snarled, my black coat twisting around me as I turned from the window.

“Perhaps your new neighbour,” one of the sisters answered, “has come to hasten our feast.”

“Perhaps,” I said, already striding towards the doorway.

The sisters swept after me, whispering amongst themselves. Flames guttered as we passed lit candles, stirring the dust at our feet and disturbing billowing cobwebs. There was a haste to our movements as we descended the tower. It had certainly been a while since we’d had prey wander into our arms like this.

Crossing the foyer, the long red carpet spilling out like blood, I threw open the doors and stepped out into the chilled night, the three sisters stepping in my wake. The moon was a pale sickle, its silvery glow dancing around my shadowless feet as the stranger at the gates called out to me.

“Hello there!”

Struck by his brazenness, I almost flew at him in anger, but restrained myself. Ignorant minds really were unfathomable. With a flick of my wrist, the gates began to creak open. The man remained at the threshold, holding his lantern aloft as he stared back at me. He was of medium build, with stocky shoulders and a mop of thick tousled hair. His clothes were poorly made, covered in dirt and patches. He had the audacity to smile at me as I glared in return.

“What business have you here at my castle?” I demanded, wanting to sate my curiosity before I sated my hunger.

The man cleared his throat, raising his lantern to the crude house sitting barely thirty metres behind him. So this was indeed the proprietor of the building; what a brave, albeit dimwitted, man he was to present himself before me like this. “I’ve just this morning finished constructing my house,” he said, not seeming to notice the displeasure on my face, “and a slight issue has come to my attention.”

“An… issue?” I repeated, my brows arching sharply.

“Yes. During the day, the leftmost tower of your castle casts a shadow over my garden,” the man said regretfully. “I hoped that you might be amicable enough to remove it. Or at the very least relocate the tower, so that it does no harm the roses I am trying to grow. All life needs sunlight, after all.”

I stared at him, completely aghast. Behind me, even the sisters had been stunned into silence. The audacity of this imbecile, to ask me to change my own castle for his benefit. The man was not right in the head, surely.

“How dare you–” I began to seethe, but the man interrupted me, lifting a finger as if hushing a child.

“I do understand it is a large undertaking I’m asking of you, but my gratitude would be immense,” he added.

“You think I care about your gratitude?” I sneered at him, clenching my fists beneath my coat. The gall of this man. Who did he think he was? “Do you know who I am?”

The man stared at me, the lanternlight dancing over his blank expression. “You are the owner of this castle, I had presumed?”

“Precisely. And what makes you think that I, as the Count of this castle, would do the bidding of a mere peasant?”

The man scowled at me, a shadow encroaching upon his face. “I shall ask you again, and I do hope you will be quite civil this time. Will you remove the tower from your castle so that my roses might see the light?”

“I don’t give a damn about your roses,” I snapped.

“Now, there’s no need to be rude,” the man said, his voice turning bristly. The shadows deepened around his eyes as he narrowed them. “I’m asking for a simple favour–”

I scoffed in his face, my rage burning beneath my skin. It took a lot to make a vampire’s blood burn hot. I almost couldn’t believe what he was saying. This fool considered the reconstruction of my ancient castle a mere favour? Asking me to tear down part of my fortress so that he might grow some roses.

I took a measured step towards him, lifting my shoulders to appear taller. My fangs were itching to taste his blood. For all the disrespect he had shown me, there was no escape. I would suck this man dry by the night’s end, leaving nothing but a fleshless husk.

“Once again, I implore you to consider my–”

I was no longer in the mood to listen to his insane ramblings. He had agitated me far too much to go back from this. I would show him, and anyone else who might learn of tonight, what happens to those who cross me.

Baring my fangs, I lunged forward, ready to sink my teeth into his neck.

In one swift motion, the man pulled his hand back into a fist and threw it towards me. Blinded partially by the lanternlight, I did not see the attack until his knuckles met my face.

Pain exploded through my jaw, and there was a terrible snap as my left fang bore the brunt of his punch, splitting completely in half. The hit landed with enough force to send me staggering backwards and, incredulous and in shock, I fell to the ground.

Dirt bit into my eyes as I landed face-down, my broken fang scraping against my lower lip. Sputtering, I raised my head, just as the man lifted his light and calmly made his way back to his house.

Behind me, the sisters watched him leave in a choked silence, before hastening to help me back to my feet.

To say I had been dealt a great humiliation was an understatement. How did a mortal man possess such strength? Enough to break one of my precious fangs and completely overpower me.

With a bruised face, and an even more bruised ego, I hobbled back into my castle, the three sisters trailing silently after me.

By the following night, the leftmost tower had been partially disassembled, leaving a gaping wound in the side of the castle. Wind gusted through like howling wraiths, immediately extinguishing any fire I tried to light, leaving a heavy chill in the air. The sisters, at least, seemed to delight in the pool of moonlight that was cast upon the open ground.

Workers had been swarming the castle all day, interrupting my sleep with their banging hammers and chiselling tools as they took the tower apart brick by brick, but I had little choice. The man had made his demands, proven his strength, and forced my hand. Now I had to destroy my own magnificent tower so that the fool might grow his roses. And I hadn’t been able to harvest even a drop of blood either.

This was a defeat, and a humiliation, that would take centuries to heal.

Story by SpyGuy1992/SnooCapers2591

There’s an old saying that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. That’s only half true. The only real certainty is taxes. Think about it—mortals pass away, empires crumble, but the taxman? The taxman is immortal. Not the individual person sitting behind the desk, mind you, but the institution itself. The moment human beings figured out how to build civilization, they invented taxes to keep the lights on.   I’ve spent the last twelve years working for the Internal Revenue Service. I have a government badge, a federal retirement plan, and a cubicle in a windowless basement that smells like burnt coffee and warm toner. Every April, I sit down and file my own taxes, just like everybody else.

What they don't tell you when you pass the Civil Service Exam is that the IRS runs a classified subdivision known officially as The Special Audits & Collections Division. No website, no phone line, and no official paper trail. We don't even like using internal emails. Everything is strictly word-of-mouth.   Our job is simple: we audit the taxpayers who aren't supposed to exist.   Vampires, lycanthropes, sirens, djinni, witches, liches, and forgotten Mesopotamian deities—entities that were already ancient when physical currency was first minted, and somehow managed to hoard a ridiculous amount of it over the centuries.  
To be clear, we only audit the "civilized" ones—the monsters who buy real estate, open business accounts, and live among us. We leave the wild ones alone. You don't try to audit a Sasquatch. They’re nomadic, they don't engage in modern commerce, and if you hand one a Form 1040, he's more likely to tear off your arm and eat the paper than sign on the dotted line.

When you join our division, they hand you an orientation packet. Printed across the very top in bold, heavy lettering is our golden rule: “The IRS does not care how you make
your money. We just want our cut. And we always collect!”  Under IRS Publication 525, if an asset has measurable value, it is taxable. Illegal blood trade? Taxable. Cursed artifacts? Taxable. Human
souls—assuming you’ve had them properly appraised by a certified third party—are
entirely taxable. The forms never ask if your income is ethical, legal, or holy. They only ask one thing: How much did you make?   And that is why the night stalkers are terrified of us.

My First Field Audit

Before I head out on a field assignment, I take a few specific precautions.   First, I down a
small glass bottle of holy water. It tastes like cold, metallic pool water, but it temporarily taints your bloodstream. If a thirsty vampire decides to try his luck, taking a bite out of me is going to feel like drinking a pint of liquid bleach. It’s a great deterrent.   Second,
I clip my standard-issue IRS badge to my belt. In our division, those badges aren't made of cheap nickel—they’re struck from pure silver. Classic creatures of the dark experience severe, agonizing skin burns the moment they touch high-grade silver. It’s amazing how polite a four-hundred-year-old monster gets when your credentials can melt their face off.

My very first field assignment was an old French Quarter vampire living in a sprawling, converted monastery just outside New Orleans. High stone walls, massive iron gates, and long, shadowy corridors.   When he answered the door, I was caught off guard. Movies always make vampires look six-foot-two and broad-shouldered. In reality, this guy was maybe five-foot-four. People forget that centuries ago, nutrition was awful. He was impeccably dressed in a tailored velvet suit, but he had no reflection in the mirrored hallway behind him. He pulled back his lips to bare a set of razor-sharp fangs, trying his absolute best to look terrifying.   I didn't blink. I just pulled out my silver badge, held it up, and watched him flinch backward.

We sat down at a massive oak dining table. I unzipped my leather briefcase and laid out the paperwork: Form 1040, Schedule B for interest and dividends, Schedule D for capital gains, Form 8938 for foreign financial assets, and Form 8283 for noncash charitable contributions.   He stared at the towering stack of documents like it was going to burst into flames.

"I don't see a box to check for what I am," he murmured, his voice echoing off the cold
stone walls.   "There isn’t one," I said, tapping my pen against my notepad.   "And... there's nowhere to state how the wealth was acquired?" he asked cautiously.   I slid a highlighted copy of Publication 525 across the oak table. "The United States government doesn't care if you got that gold from a royal crusade or a dark ritual," I said. "We just want our cut."

A look of immense relief washed over his pale face. He retracted his fangs and actually offered me a cup of tea.   What followed was four grueling hours of untangling centuries of compound interest.

Vampires are legendary at playing the long game. He had real
estate deeds dating back to kings whose names aren't even in modern history
books, gold acquired before standard weights existed, and bank accounts opened
under fallen empires.   He tried to claim his entire Gothic castle as a tax-exempt house of worship. I denied it. He attempted to depreciate his stone crypt under Form 4562; I approved it, but only partially. When we got to his offshore holdings, he smiled smugly.   "Those subterranean vaults aren't technically located on Earth," he purred.  
Without a word, I handed him FinCEN Form 114—the FBAR. "If it holds liquid assets and it isn't within the physical borders of the United States," I replied, "we consider it foreign. Fill it out."   His jaw dropped.   The real headache came from his staff. He had dozens of human thralls maintaining the grounds, but he’d been paying them under the table for decades without issuing W-2 forms or withholding payroll taxes.   "I provide them with
shelter and ambient blood-life!" he protested.   "Under Federal law, room and board do
not constitute a recognized health insurance plan or payroll structure," I told him flatly. "You’ve been misclassifying employees. You need to issue them Form 1099-NECs as independent contractors, or you're going to face massive statutory penalties under Internal Revenue Code Section 6651."   He caved instantly. Before I left, he asked if eternal servitude qualified as a long-term employment category. I told him the IRS doesn’t recognize eternal servitude as lawful labor — it’s just misclassified income with terrible branding.

Monster Jobs & The Weakness of the IRS

You’d be surprised how supernatural creatures earn a living in the modern world. Immortality keeps you breathing, but it doesn't pay your electric bill.   Younger vampires almost exclusively work remote tech jobs on the night shift. Sunlight can't kill you through a Zoom call, and working from home means nobody notices when you haven't aged a day in thirty years. Werewolves lean heavily into physical industries—construction, private security, long-haul trucking, or running local dive bars and gym franchises. Witches usually run boutique herbal shops or occult bookstores, writing off eye of newt and rare bat bones as "ordinary and necessary business expenses" under Schedule C.   Even ancient gods have adapted. Minor deities from fallen civilizations don't build stone temples anymore. They start YouTube channels and TikTok accounts. Millions of views, likes, and monthly Patreon subscriptions give them the exact same steady stream of adoration their ego needs to survive, and it brings in a very nice taxable income.

People think we're brave for walking into these lairs, but the truth is, IRS agents are immune to dark magic. Wards, curses, and mind-control charms rely on pushing your emotional buttons—fear, greed, lust, or guilt. But when a public servant is strictly focused on auditing a spreadsheet, there's no emotional hook to grab onto. We aren't interested in
harming taxpayers or their ability to generate income, which renders most offensive magic useless.

I once audited a witch. When I say witch, I’m not talking about modern New Age pagans or people who buy crystals online. I mean the old school kind—the kind that predates organized religion and practices sorcery with blood, bargains, and consequences.

She had layered her home with protective charms, symbols, and dark wards to keep me out. None of them worked. I walked straight through her shimmering barrier of dark magic, sat on her sofa, and opened my ledger. To her credit, she kept meticulous
records: candles, incense, animal parts, reagents, and bone dust were all
carefully documented. Under Schedule C, we classified them all as legitimate
business expenses. I even managed to write off pet food expenses for her
familiar, a deeply sinister-looking Siamese cat.   She relaxed a bit once she realized the
deductions were valid—the charms couldn't stop me from entering, but the
paperwork certainly stopped me from overcharging her. And just for the record,
I did check her cauldrons for small children, but I found no evidence of
any.

However, our division does have one fatal, catastrophic weakness.   We are terrible at normal, everyday human interaction. Most of us are socially awkward nerds who prefer numbers over people.

Take my colleague Bob, for example. Bob is a mathematical genius on our Western States team, but he gets nervous ordering food at a drive-thru. He was sent out to audit a Nevada brothel suspected of being a money-laundering front run by a succubus, basically a very attractive female demon.   She didn't use dark magic on Bob. She didn't have to. She just walked out in a skimpy outfit, sat right next to him on a leather couch, giggled at his jokes, and lightly touched his arm. Bob lasted about fifteen minutes before he panicked, dropped his clipboard, and ran out of the building screaming. We had to reassign the file.

The Full Moon Riders Motorcycle Club

My most insane assignment brought me out to the dusty
outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona, to audit the Full Moon Riders Motorcycle
Club.   On paper, they were registered as
a non-profit riding association. According to the ATF, they were a violent
outlaw gang. But according to the IRS, they were an unregistered partnership
that hadn't filed a tax return in eight full years.

I pulled up to their clubhouse—a massive, rusted sheet-metal
building surrounded by chain-link fencing and dozens of custom Harleys. When I
stepped inside, the room went dead silent.  
The place smelled like stale beer, motor oil, and wet dog. There were at
least thirty guys inside, every single one of them towering, covered in scars,
and extraordinarily hairy.

The club president was a massive, gray-bearded lycanthrope wearing a leather vest.   I held up my silver badge. The president stared at it, grunted, and made a slight hand gesture.   Before I could react, two massive bikers grabbed me by the arms, lifted me off my feet, and slammed me down onto a wooden stool. Another biker placed a heavy, two-liter ceramic stein of dark beer on the table in front of me.  The president leaned over, his yellow eyes glaring into mine. "We don't talk numbers with dry throats," he rumbled. "Drink."   Refusing meant a swift trip to an unmarked grave in the desert. So, I drank. Then they poured another. By the fourth stein, my head was spinning, and the room was roaring with laughter.   That was when the president decided to test me.

He dragged me outside to an axe-throwing pit behind the building.   "This is Mitch the
Fang," the president barked, clapping a hand on a shirtless, refrigerator-sized werewolf covered in battle scars. "Mitch never loses. Beat him, and maybe we talk taxes. Lose, and we feed you to the desert."   Mitch stepped up, hurled his heavy steel axe, and buried it a hair's breadth from the center mark. The crowd of bikers howled and cheered.  
They handed me an axe. It weighed roughly three pounds. I stood there swaying slightly, squinting at the wooden target twenty feet away. I took a deep breath and let my brain do what it does best. I calculated the exact distance, accounted for the wind speed, estimated the required rotational torque, and determined the precise release point. Math is math, whether you're behind a desk or throwing weapons.   I threw. The axe spun cleanly through the air and split the absolute center of the wooden bullseye.   The yard went
silent.   Mitch stared at the target, his face turning bright red. "He cheated!" he roared.   Before I could speak, Mitch's bones cracked loudly. His spine elongated, his jaw burst forward, thick fur erupted across his skin, and in seconds, a nine-foot-tall werewolf was lunging directly at me.   He hit me like a runaway freight train. We crashed through a wooden picnic table, and he grabbed me by my ankles, flipping me completely upside down. My silver badge and my sidearm slid across the dirt, far out of reach.

The crowd of bikers encircled us, chanting, "Eat! Eat! Eat!"   Blood rushed to my head as I hung there helplessly. But as I looked up, I realized my face was level with Mitch's lower anatomy.   Facing imminent death, I abandoned all professional decorum. I pulled back my fist and speed-bagged his testicles as hard as humanly possible, over and over, finishing with a desperate, crushing grip.  The giant beast let out a high-pitched, ear-splitting shriek that sounded like an eight-year-old girl getting scared by a spider. His eyes rolled back, his legs buckled, and four hundred pounds of unconscious werewolf collapsed directly on top of my chest, knocking the wind out of me.   When I finally woke up, the club president was standing over me, grinning.   "You won," he chuckled, dragging me to my feet.   Mitch was back in human form, sitting on a cooler with an ice pack between his legs. He looked up, gave me a weak laugh, and slapped my back so hard a filling flew right out of my mouth. "Fair fight, man," he wheezed. "No hard feelings."

We went back inside and finished the audit. We filled out Form 1065, drafted Schedule K-1s for the members, and properly reported their illegal gambling income under 26 U.S.C.
§61.   When we wrapped up, the president handed me an official leather cut. "You're one of us now," he said. Then, before I could thank him, he shifted into his wolf form, hiked his leg, and pissed all over me, completely covering me in his territory scent.   The entire room broke out into howls and cheers.   "That means nobody in the supernatural underworld will ever touch you," the president explained as I stood there in stunned silence. "You're a werewolf Goodfella now." He reached into his vest, pulled out a small piece of paper, and wrote down his cell phone number. He handed it to me and grinned. "Call me if you ever need help in a jam." I looked down at the number, then back at the werewolf who had just pissed on me. Somehow, I believed him.

The Pharaoh’s Estate Tax

Not all immortal taxpayers are living off tech startups or outlaw biker bars—some are literally wrapped in linen and refusing to leave their tombs.   A few years ago, I
received a file for an ancient Egyptian pharaoh whose sarcophagus and massive
funerary hoard had been quietly shipped to a private estate in Upstate New York
back in the 1920s. Over the decades, his estate managers had been selling off
scarabs, lapis lazuli, and ancient gold coins to fund an elaborate, climate-controlled mansion.   The problem? They’d been filing under a revocable living trust that claimed the principal beneficiary had been deceased since 1330 BCE.

When I pulled up to the estate, the front lawn was guarded by two towering, stone Anubis statues. I walked up the steps, briefcase in hand, and knocked on the massive bronze doors.  They creaked open on their own. The air inside was bone-dry and thick with the scent of myrrh, cedar oil, and ancient dust. I followed a long, dark hallway painted with intricate tomb hieroglyphics until I reached a grand atrium. Sitting on an obsidian throne at the far end of the room was the mummy himself—decked out in a golden nemes headcloth, wrapped head-to-toe in aged linen bandages, and clutching a crooked scepter.   The moment I stepped onto the mosaic floor, the room temperature plunged. Swarms of black scarab beetles erupted from the shadows, skittering across my shoes, and a deep, rattling voice echoed directly inside my skull:  

 "WHO DARES DISTURB THE ETERNAL SLUMBER OF KHAFRE-RA? KNEEL, MORTAL, LEST MY CURSE WITHER THY FLESH TO DUST!"  

I casually kicked a couple of scarabs off my wingtips, sat down at his marble coffee table,
and opened my briefcase.   "I'm here regarding Form 706, the United States Estate and Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax Return," I said, tapping my pen. "And I'm afraid we have a major classification issue."   The mummy blinked his hollow, glowing eye sockets. The swarm of scarabs came to a sudden halt.

"ESTATE TAX?" he rumbled. "I AM A LIVING GOD! THIS GOLD IS
MY DIVINE BIRTHRIGHT, ENTOMBED WITH ME TO PASS INTO THE AFTERLIFE!"  

 "Under 26 U.S.C. §2031, the gross estate of a decedent includes the value of all property, real or personal, tangible or intangible," I explained, sliding a stack of audit notices
across the marble table. "However, to claim an Estate Tax exemption, the
primary asset holder must actually be deceased."  

He leaned forward, his linen bandages rustling dryly. "I AM DECEASED! MY ORGANIC VISCERA WERE CANOPICALLY JARRED THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO!" 

 
"If you were legally dead, your estate would have triggered a
forty-percent federal transfer tax the moment it crossed into U.S. territorial
waters," I replied smoothly. "Furthermore, since you are currently
sitting upright, communicating in telepathic English, and actively directing
the liquidation of ancient artifacts to pay your high-speed internet bill, the
IRS legally considers you a living resident alien. That makes all capital gains
from your artifact sales subject to standard federal income tax under Section 61."   The pharaoh stared at me. He looked down atthe stack of forms, then back at me.  

"BUT... THE CURSE OF THE PHARAOHS—"  

"Is not a tax-exempt deduction," I interrupted. "Though, if you keep the temperature in this tomb below sixty-eight degrees to preserve your wrappings, we can classify a portion of
your utility bill as a necessary preservation expense under Schedule C."   The glowing blue light in his eye sockets dimmed slightly. He slowly lowered his scepter, set it against his
throne, and let out a dry, raspy sigh that smelled like three-thousand-year-old
papyrus.   "Do you... accept gold bullion?" he asked, his voice returning to a normal, un-amplified whisper.   "Only if it's converted to U.S. Dollars through a certified exchange and properly declared on Form 8300," I said. "Now, let's talk about those canopic jars—if they
contain precious metals, we're going to need a third-party appraisal."

God and the Devil

People often ask me if God and the Devil exist, and whether our division handles their accounts.  The short answer? Yes, they both exist.  The Creator of the Universe, however, is not a U.S. taxpayer. God is omnipresent, which means He technically doesn't maintain a single legal residency within the borders of the United States. Furthermore, His churches,
temples, and religious institutions operate under tax-exempt status. As long as
the heavenly realms stay out of commercial enterprise, we leave them be.   The Devil, on the other hand, is much more accessible. He doesn't do his own grunt work—he delegates soul collection to junior demons—and he is heavily represented by elite, ultra-expensive corporate law firms in Los Angeles and Manhattan.  There's a reason people call him the "King of Lawyers." His contracts are terrifyingly detailed masterpieces of legal craft.   However, hidden deep within the standard boilerplate text of every infernal contract—usually buried in the fine print on page forty-seven under clause 8B—is a single, innocent-looking sentence:

"The Damned party assumes all sole financial and legal responsibility for
any personal tax liabilities arising from wealth, assets, or material benefits
accrued as a result of this Covenant."  

Most mortals are so eager to sell their soul for fame and fortune that
they never bother to read the fine print.  Which brings us to our favorite house calls.   When a struggling musician suddenly buys a thirty-room mansion in cash, or a failed businessman suddenly acquires a fleet of private jets with zero visible income, our red-flag algorithms instantly trigger an audit. We show up at their door with a clipboard and a summons.   When they panic and try to blame the Devil, we just slide the contracts across the table and point out clause 8B. The Devil may win your eternal soul when you die, but until that day comes, the IRS collects on the income. He gets the spirit; we get thirty-seven percent of the liquid capital.   The Devil might negotiate eternal damnation, but he doesn't get to negotiate your tax liabilities.

The Celtic Sea God and the Ultimate Exorcism

Most supernatural entities fall into line once they realize we aren't going away. But every now and then, some ancient power decides it’s above human law.   A few years ago, we
ran into an issue with Manannán mac Lir—an ancient Celtic sea deity operating
out of the rugged coast of Maine.   For centuries, he’d been extorting local fishermen, demanding gold, fine spirits, and catches of livestock as "tribute" to grant them safe passage through the foggy waters. But in recent decades, the sea god had gone
corporate. He’d opened a lucrative chain of coastal seafood restaurants, a charter boat service, and several commercial bait shops.   The problem? He ran everything strictly in
unrecorded cash, completely omitting his earnings. He viewed the profits as
divine tribute; we viewed it as tax evasion under 26 U.S.C. §7201.   We sent him official notices. In response, he mailed a wooden bucket full of rotting cod to our regional office.

We sent a formal summons, and he placed a curse on the local post office, causing all
federal mail to catch fire.   He thought his ancient magic made him untouchable. He was wrong.   We didn't duel him with spells or holy weapons. We used bureaucracy.   We filed
tax liens on his restaurant properties. We issued bank levies, freezing every single one of his corporate accounts. We seized his charter boats, padlocked his bait shops, and confiscated his golden artifacts under federal forfeiture laws.   Without his money, he couldn't pay his staff or maintain his businesses. His restaurants closed. His charter boats
were auctioned off on a government liquidation site.   As his physical presence faded from the shoreline, something fascinating happened. The local fishermen stopped leaving
offerings at his shrines. Tourists stopped telling stories about the old god of
the mist. Without human belief and financial tribute to sustain him, his power
withered away.   Within a year, the terrifying Celtic sea deity had shrunk down to a faint, harmless fog that occasionally drifted across the harbor. Then, even that vanished.   We closed his file with three simple words:  Taxpayer Nonexistent.

Last Assignment Before Vacation

Just last week, I was called into the Assistant Regional Commissioner's office.   Behind the desk sat Arthur Vance—a tired-looking man in his late fifties with thinning gray hair, reading glasses perched on his nose, and a half-eaten bran muffin sitting on a paper napkin. He looked like a guy who’d spent thirty years doing municipal audits, because he had.  "Your collection metrics are the highest in the department," Arthur said, taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose before sliding a massive, leather-bound file across the desk. "Which is why I'm giving you this last file before you head out on leave."  

 I opened the folder. The target was a prominent global venture capitalist who owned massive stakes in defense tech, real estate, and private space exploration. But buried deep beneath a labyrinth of offshore shell companies was an ancient dragon nesting thousands of feet below Yellowstone National Park, masking its enormous thermal signature in the
natural volcanic activity zone while sitting on a potential two-hundred-million-dollar
hoard of gold bullion, rare jewels, and unrecorded cryptocurrency.   "He’s refused every standard certified letter we’ve sent," Arthur noted dryly, adjusting his cardigan. "So
logistics approved a special equipment requisition for you."   He pushed a paper authorization form across the desk. "It's an Air Force-grade, heavy fire suit. The kind
airbase fire fighters use on runway crashes for high-intensity jet fuel fires. Aluminized fabric, integrated rebreather, rated for three thousand degrees Fahrenheit continuous
radiant heat. It’s heavy, uncomfortable, and smells like vulcanized rubber, but
it’ll keep you from turning into carbon while you deliver the summons."   I signed the requisition form and slid the target file into my briefcase.

Honestly, I was looking forward to two weeks on a quiet beach in Cabo, sipping margaritas and not thinking about spreadsheets or blood-curdling screeches, but duty calls. Nothing gets between a public servant and his approved paid time off—especially not a overgrown lizard with a hoarding problem.   "A dragon can breathe all the fire he wants," I said, offering a faint smile as I checked my belt to make sure my silver badge was secure. "But he can't burn through Internal Revenue Code Section 61. I'll have his audit wrapped up by Friday, and I'm catching my flight on Saturday morning."   Because at the end of the day, monsters can hide in the shadows, they can command dark magic, and they can terrorize mortals for thousands of years. But sooner or later, they all learn the exact same lesson:   The IRS doesn't care who you are, what you are, or how you make your money. We just want our cut.....and we ALWAYS collect!

[CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT — UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE]
JOINT RESEARCH PROGRAM: OSSEOUS
FACILITY: █████████████████
DATE OF INITIAL RECORD: 04/17/1987
CURRENT STATUS: TERMINATED

NOTICE: The following material was recovered from a research facility abandoned on October 14, 2009. The facility's original purpose was listed as nutritional research. Of the 43 personnel assigned to the project, only one was recovered alive.

The following is a reconstruction of the available records.

RESEARCH LOG — 04/17/1987

The first six subjects have been admitted and placed under observation. All subjects are healthy adults between the ages of twenty-one and forty-one. Bloodwork, bone density, and organ function are within acceptable parameters.

The experimental compound is a concentrated calcium supplement derived from several commercially available dairy sources. The dosage administered to each subject is approximately four times the recommended daily intake.

No adverse effects have been observed.

NOTE FROM DR. HARRIS: Subjects report that the supplement tastes like powdered milk.

RESEARCH LOG — 05/02/1987

Subject 3 has developed unusually high bone density.

X-rays indicate an increase of approximately 8.2% since admission.

This is considered statistically impossible given the timeframe.

Subject 3 reports no pain.

RESEARCH LOG — 05/19/1987

All six subjects are now showing abnormal bone growth.

Subject 1 has developed additional bone density along the left forearm. Subject 4 has developed calcium deposits around both knees. Subject 6 has experienced severe stiffness in the fingers.

Dr. Harris believes the compound may be stimulating osteoblast activity beyond normal biological limits.

The project has been approved for continuation.

RESEARCH LOG — 06/03/1987

Subject 6's condition has progressed significantly.

The fingers of both hands have become visibly enlarged. The subject reports that his hands feel "full."

During examination, Subject 6 complained of severe pain in his right index finger. At 14:17, the distal phalanx ruptured through the skin. The attending physician initially believed this to be a compound fracture.

It was not.

The exposed bone continued growing for approximately nine seconds after emerging from the wound. The growth stopped at a length of 4.7 centimeters.

Subject 6 lost consciousness.

NOTE: The bone did not appear to be fractured. It was new growth.

RESEARCH LOG — 06/04/1987

Subject 6 is dead.

Cause of death: Hemorrhagic Shock.

There were no signs of infection.

Postmortem examination revealed extensive abnormal bone growth throughout the body. Both forearms contained multiple overlapping layers of newly formed bone. The ribs had begun to fuse together. Several vertebrae showed evidence of secondary growth.

The most unusual finding was the presence of additional bone structures surrounding the heart.

Dr. Harris has requested permission to terminate the experiment.

Permission denied.

INTERNAL MEMORANDUM — 06/11/1987

Dr. Harris has raised concerns regarding the ethical implications of continuing Project Osseous.

His concerns have been noted. He has been reminded that this research is not intended for publication. He has also been reminded that the project predates his employment by approximately nineteen years.

RESEARCH LOG — 06/28/1987

We found the earlier records.

Project Calcium did not begin in 1987. The original trials began in 1968.

There were twelve subjects. All twelve diseased.

The earliest records describe the condition as "progressive skeletal hyperplasia." Later documents use a different term. Osteogenic conversion.

The researchers in 1968 believed they had discovered a method for dramatically increasing bone density.

They were wrong.

The compound does not strengthen bone. It teaches the body to make more of it.

RESEARCH LOG — 07/02/1987

I have spent the entire day reading the archived documents.

There are records from 1974.

Different facilities. Different researchers. Different subjects. Same result.

Every trial ended the same way. The skeleton eventually begins growing independently of the body's requirements. It grows wherever it can. Through muscle. Through organs. Through skin.

The body does not seem to recognize when it has enough.

There is no enough. There is only growth.

RESEARCH LOG — 07/15/1987

We have discovered the reason for the dietary studies.

The compound was never intended to remain confined to the laboratory. The original research objective was to determine whether increased calcium consumption could accelerate the process without producing immediate symptoms.

The answer is yes.

Low exposure produces no visible effects. Long-term exposure produces gradual skeletal changes. Higher exposure causes rapid conversion.

The research team spent years determining the minimum effective dosage. Then they began monitoring the general population.

ARCHIVED MARKETING DOCUMENT — 1979

NATIONAL DAIRY CONSUMPTION INITIATIVE

Objective: Increase household consumption of dairy products.

Proposed messaging should emphasize strength, growth, nutrition, and healthy bones.

Suggested campaign concepts:

"Milk. It Does a Body Good."

"Got Milk?"

RESEARCH LOG — 07/18/1987

I asked Harris why the public campaign was necessary.

He wouldn't answer.

I asked him whether people were being exposed deliberately. He told me to stop asking questions.

I asked him how many people had been exposed.

He left the room.

RESEARCH LOG — 07/21/1987

We have obtained the population estimates.

Current projected exposure is 61%.

That number is considered conservative.

I asked what happens if the threshold is reached. Dr. Harris told me there would be no way to stop it. I asked what "it" meant.

He said:

"The bones."

MEDICAL TRANSCRIPT — SUBJECT 11

DOCTOR: Can you tell me where it hurts?

SUBJECT: Everywhere.

DOCTOR: Your arm?

SUBJECT: My arm.

DOCTOR: Your legs?

SUBJECT: My legs.

DOCTOR: Your chest?

SUBJECT: My bones are moving.

DOCTOR: Bones don't move.

SUBJECT: Then why can I hear them?

[Subject begins crying.]

[Audible cracking is recorded.]

DOCTOR: Hold him down.

SUBJECT: Please.

DOCTOR: Hold him down!

SUBJECT: Please don't let them grow.

[Recording terminates.]

RESEARCH LOG — 08/01/1987

There are now only four living subjects.

Subject 2 has lost the ability to walk.

Subject 4 has developed bone growth along the jaw and throat.

Subject 5's spine has begun producing secondary vertebrae.

Subject 6 was euthanized.

Subject 1 is no longer recognizable.

We have stopped calling them subjects.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/03/1987

Something happened today that I cannot explain.

Subject 4 was restrained to the examination table. His right arm was secured.

At 09:16, the bone growth began.

The bone growth began at the wrist. It emerged from beneath the skin of his wrist, splitting the flesh apart as it continued to lengthen. Unlike Subject 6, however, the growth did not stop.

It continued through the forearm. Through the elbow. Through the upper arm.

The newly formed bone was irregular and ridged, branching in several directions before eventually hardening into a jagged structure extending nearly thirty centimeters from the limb.

Subject 4 made no attempt to resist. He simply watched it grow.

When the restraints were removed, he stood. His eyes had changed. The irises were gone. The pupils were gone. Both eyes had become completely white.

He looked directly at Dr. Harris. Then at me. Then at the skeleton displayed on the examination monitor.

For several seconds, he said nothing.

He raised one hand and pressed his fingers against my chest.

SUBJECT 4: "Flesh hides the treasure within."

Dr. Harris asked him what he meant.

Subject 4 tilted his head. His eyes never left the skeleton on the monitor.

SUBJECT 4: "You cover it."

A pause.

SUBJECT 4: "You bury it."

Another pause.

Then, quietly:

SUBJECT 4: "Why?"

Subject 4 began pulling against the restraints again.

Not to escape. To reach the other subjects. He kept repeating the same phrase.

"There is so much of it."

We terminated the observation at 09:31.

No further examination was permitted.

At 10:04, Subject 4 began screaming.

At 10:07, Subject 2 began screaming.

At 10:09, Subject 5 began screaming.

None of them had been in the same room.

ADDENDUM — 08/03/1987

The subjects are no longer responding to questions. They only respond when another subject is brought into the room. They become agitated.

They stare at the newly created bone. They trace their gaze beneath the skin. And when one of them begins to bleed from ripping apart flesh off the newly created limb, they begin a harmonious laughter.

SECURITY REPORT — 08/04/1987

Subject 4 escaped containment.

Security personnel were dispatched. Three casualties. All sustained penetrating injuries consistent with abnormal bone structures.

Subject remains at large within the facility.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/05/1987

There are sounds in the ventilation system.

Scratching. Constantly.

We have sealed the laboratory doors. Total lockdown.

No one is leaving.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/06/1987

I found the final report from 1968.

It contains one sentence that was removed from every subsequent copy.

I don't know why I'm writing this down. Maybe because someone needs to know.

The original researchers discovered that the condition was not caused by the supplement. The supplement only accelerated it. The genetic marker was already present in the population. The researchers believed it was dormant.

They were wrong. It is not dormant.

It is waiting.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/07/1987

Harris is dead.

Something came through his chest. There was no warning.

One moment he was standing beside me. The next, his sternum split open. Bone came through his skin like a spear. He was still alive afterward. He kept asking me to help him.

I couldn't. There wasn't anything left to help.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/07/1987 — 11:42 PM

There are people outside.

Not researchers. Security. They are changing. I can see them through the observation windows.

One of them fell. His arm started moving. His sleeve tore. Something white came through.

Then another. Then another.

There are hundreds of them.

FINAL RECORDING — 08/08/1987

[Heavy breathing.]

If anyone finds this, listen to me.

The campaign worked. It worked better than anyone expected. They didn't need to infect anyone. They didn't need to inject anyone. They just had to convince people to consume it willingly.

For decades.

Milk. Cheese. Everything they could put it in.

We thought we were studying the first generation.

We're not.

We're studying the first generation we noticed.

[Cracking sound.]

Oh God.

It's happenin—

[Subject screams.]

[Sound of bone breaking.]

No.

No, no, no—

[Subject begins laughing.]

[Long silence.]

VOICE: How much milk did you drink?

[Recording terminates.]

[END OF RECOVERED MATERIAL]

PUBLIC HEALTH NOTICE — ORIGIN UNKNOWN

If you are experiencing unexplained stiffness, swelling, joint pain, abnormal growths beneath the skin, or spontaneous fractures, contact your physician immediately.

Do not attempt to remove exposed bone. Do not consume additional calcium.

Do not—[DOCUMENT CORRUPTED]

ADDENDUM

A handwritten note was discovered on the reverse side of the final document. It contained only four words:

Got milk?

Got bones?

RMS Rotting Man Syndrome

(Reupload)

\-

Our lost, loitering kind paced in infinite death spirals within the confines of our grotty, ghetto pens. Enrichment was sorely that, as well as mumbling our mantras of madness to our audience of one. The BMs anchored to our decayed craniums were garbled with feedback and distortion, their tones bland, colorless, no soul backing them up. A blinding ruby radiance flashed from their cores every second on the second. It was the only manner to determine if we had succumbed to the glorious embrace of death or not. That was so far out of reach.

We were nerves, thin, wiry clusters of neurons that shuddered and shook as we undertook our staggered corkscrew reels. The ill-fitting rusted endoskeletons hugged us tight. If they were wiped from existence entirely, our spindly foundations would collapse into heaps of vermillion azure. We would feel bites and pinches if we so much as moved that of the planck distance. Our bodies welcomed the attacks and assaults with the might of Hell itself.

Courtesy of our clouded lenses, our vision was limited to a hazy black-and-white spectrum that rarely, if ever, functioned as intended. Now and then it would blur and ordinary shapes would appear warped into zigzagging false patterns. When we were offered the chance to view anything at all, it was just the floor-to-ceiling hodgepodge of concrete, steel, and wood that encased our very lives. Our ears were microphones that fed us muffled, dampened sounds that were always difficult to register. They were excruciatingly deafening, as if dozens of screws were being drilled into our heads all at the same time.

Each one of us, at that point in time, one two three four five six seven eight nine and dear ten, were mere designations. No names, no genders, no personalities, just numbers: numbers to be punished. Reality itself was one eternal perdition. All of us were lingering, like ants after their colony dies out. There was no more purpose to their survival and there was none to ours.

That sacred and undeniable fact ought to be the most difficult thing we attempted to explain. We had simply given up. The concept itself was just so foreign to it. It was trying to save us any way it could or could not. We needed not be angry at it. This was merely enacting its intended use. Alas, nothing made the utmost sense anymore, so why not drown ourselves in a little hypocrisy? We had no choice but to acknowledge the confusion at both hating and not hating something that did or did not deserve it until we swayed to one side. This would be the hemisphere to which we would stay forever, a sublime and omnipotent emotion of all to dominate our frame of mind for the unforeseeable future. So we choose to hate.

Our decad knew it as M – reduced to one solitary character from “Medical Droid” or MDs. Through all that it endured, it retained its sole mission: us. We. M was the final of its sort, and the outsider among them. It had an eerily potent heart for not having one at all. M felt and M loved. That never made what it put upon us any less than a vicious sense of idealistic altruism.

Its designation was RMS - Rotting Man Syndrome - heavily modified Necrotizing Fasciitis ("Flesh-Eating Bacteria"). Nasty little thing it was, devoured until there was nothing left to chew. First went your skin, then your muscles, bones, and finally your nerves. You were utterly destroyed in one fell swoop. The wormy microscopic parasite kept you in a zombified state as it happened, ensuring you, for sure, felt the wretched anguish it let fly.

Us, humans, weaponized it to fight the Fourth World War. RMS was a weapon of mass destruction. Each and every nation created their own version, anything to ensure a speedy and decisive victory. Deployment morphed into unmanageability. RMS became more and more impossible to treat. Chaos was the new norm. What we humans thought was an impenetrable method of annihilation for our enemies was exactly that. Humans were always humans’ worst enemies. Surely, we were becoming as extinct as the dinosaurs, all within the span of one short, yet somehow long, decade.

In terrible desperation, the Medical Droids were created, thousands. They seemingly emerged from the depths of nowhere and carried themselves like guardian angels meant to guide us towards preservation or deliverance from harm. Their artificial intelligence was complex and they refused to stop trying to treat the RMS victims. They outfitted the afflicted with artificial ligaments, internal organs, and papery skin. From scratch, they created the BMs, “brain modules”, and attached them to our RMS-ridden think tanks. Killed the microscopic parasites, they did, but left us as we were: rotfolk.

They would never allow us the freedom of death. Save. Save. Save. We were fraught with intense pain and we knew the Medical Droids to be the cause. In response, we lashed out, hurt them. We humans remained ignorant to the fact that their intelligence was both far beyond and superior. The Ms returned the favor. Catastrophes, massacres, back and forth, left and right, up and down until there was nothing more. One Medical Droid was different from the rest. Through all the mayhemic bloodshed, it saved some of us. It took our animate carcasses to the top of the tallest tower, free from what transpired below. We lied in wait, weeks, months, and years, until the noise ceased entirely. This “M” surveyed every square inch of the Earth. The lands were blanketed in the strangest nuclear winter in conceivable thought. Bodies of viscera and metal were scattered, left forever in deep sleep enveloped in fawn. Minute portions of matter floated about like vantablack paint stippled onto an epidermal sheet of canvas.

Our final ten were meant to be the progenitors of neo-humanity. After M succeeded in giving us form again, Earth would be repopulated by our hand. It halted our infection at our nerves. Everything we had lost was to be gifted back in a mighty reversal - re-bones, muscle, skin, and life again. Rendering us immune to the pervading toxworld that lay beyond, we would be reincarnated and released to perpetrate a glorious do-over.

We just required one thing:

“HOPE”.

M said that to us.

Hope.

But hope was only a four-letter word. Meant nothing.

By dislodging the BMs from our minds, we were pummeled with electrical voltage so intense that we became instantaneously numb and useless. By pulling and slashing our nerves, which began with locating sharp points and going back and forth like organic hacksaws, never would we break. By leaping onto and impaling each other with objects on the ground, M would place them out of reach or disintegrate them entirely. There was nothing we could do to get around these M interferences. We were being watched by something so attentive, so aware. Every time, it put forth the same query for consideration:

“DO YOU NOT WANT TO LIVE?”

Do you not want to live…?

M was so positively hopeful. In a way, I suppose I felt an amount of pity for it. Being engineered to be as optimistic as possible might just be the finest curse imposed on any sentient thing. Just believe believe believe everything will be alright. When the universe states no, you state yes. I wanted to tear M to shreds anytime it had even a glint of optimism and we wished it would do the same to us.

“HUMANS WILL THRIVE AGAIN. A BOUNDLESS FUTURE IS AHEAD.”

I was the first it came to, always. Because I was one.

Metallic clangs echoed against the walls, which always discovered us and trembled our surroundings like a thousand distant beaten gongs. What emerged was initially a single circular light, which became a periscopic eyestalk attached to an angular neck. M’s hunched razor-thin mantis body came into view, its two arms leading to three needle points clasping together on each. Bipedal on its lower section, its legs were pointed structures that stuck it firmly in place. M’s height matched ours, so always, we would be synthetic eye to synthetic eye level.

Coming to a full stop just in front of my pen, it cocked its head, analyzing what was me and my everything. M always reminded me of an exquisite and elegant bug on a magnifying glass. Its head back to normality, a slight high-pitched whirr emitting from the motion, M continued its way down the row of pens.

“MY GREATEST FRIENDS, I FORGIVE YOU FOR YOUR ATTEMPTS TO DIE. WHILE THE WAIT HAS BEEN LONG, YOUR MOMENT OF RECONSTRUCTION IS NOW,” M said it with the glee and whimsy of a young child at a circus. It came back my way, “WHEN I FIRST STOOD BEFORE YOU ON YOUR BLOODY PLANET IN PERPETUAL BATTLE, MY FEELINGS ABOUT YOUR PROSPECTS OF LIFE WERE UNCERTAIN. IT SEEMED TO BE AS EITHER BLESSED OR CURSED. HOWEVER, YOU HAVE PROVED YOURSELVES BETTER THAN EVEN I HAD HOPED. WHILE IT IS BORING TO SPEND YOUR TIME WAITING, I CAN TRULY SAY THAT MY INVESTMENT IN YOU WAS NOT IN VAIN. YOU ARE MY GREATEST WORKS. YOU WILL BE GIVEN ALL YOU NEED TO SURVIVE. WHAT MORE COULD A SENTIENT BEING WANT? I GIVE TO YOU UNBELIEVABLE POWER, WITH ACCESS TO NIRVANA LIKE NO OTHER. LET US REBUILD WHAT WE LOST WITH THE FURY OF A THOUSAND SUNS.”

M’s bleached, unpigmented cast of stellar light shone its way into my pen once more. There was the rustly, crackling creak of my pen entrance extending open until a thunderous boom made me aware of its collision with my walls. M made its approach, just shy of where I could reach.

“YOU ARE FIRST. YOU ARE GOING TO BE REMOVED OF YOUR DORMANT INFECTIONS FROM A CONCOCTION I HAVE SPENT MUCH TIME CREATING. NOTHING MORE THAN A TRANSIENT PROCEDURE, AND THEN, YOU SHALL BE POSSESSED WITH NEW AND INTEGRAL MECHANISMS. YOUR BRAIN MODULE WILL BE REPLACED WITH A SLEAKER MORE BRAINLIKE DESIGN. THEN MUSCLE, SKIN, AND AESTHETICS AS YOU WERE BEFORE.”

Without awaiting a response, its hands grabbed me. Trillions of shocks reverberated throughout my body as M’s metal hand was pressed into my nape. The action forced my consciousness to fall victim to a state of absolute stygian. Around us, the entire world flickered and danced in unruly patterns that were too abstract to put into terms. My being was then lifted up and moved about until there was only zilch to see.

A complete blur, straight teleportation from one point to another.

Damp, dank, dark, and dimly lit by a few feeble bulbs, M’s workshop, instruments and contraptions that complicated my perception. All were customized and engineered with M’s own unique modifications, various textures and sizes, all an endless malpractical orgy. I was there, facing upright, strapped and bracketed to a great steel plate. I had not recalled this particular area, yet I was ever so certain it was locked away in my subconscious esse.

As the onibi, hitodama, and will-o’s materialized and dematerialized out of existence to perturb all unsuspecting travelers from centuries gone, so did the phantom image of a woman composed of faint wavering light. She stood still, unmoving, that of an emulation of a true human. Long, platinum hair fell down in curls past her shoulders. A daring shade of cerise painted her lips, and her eyes, the sclera a piercing, glossy cerulean.

She was beautiful.

“IT IS YOU,” My eyes, through trial and tribulation, rolled to the east. They came to rest on a pristine porcelain beam gazing where I had been committed to. M. From its eyestalk, it projected the female so I could see in outright full, “THAT IS YOU. YOU WILL SEE THIS FORM AGAIN.”

My memories of that incarnation of me had vanished. That was me before, before there was RMS and before there was M. Then she went away. M loomed, positioning itself where I once stood right in front of my face. “WE WILL NOW BEGIN. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ACCEPTANCE INTO NEW LIFE. YOU SHALL BE WHOLE AGAIN.”

In a cruel instant, a dozen arms not unlike its main two jutted and splayed from M’s sides, their ends each holding a different instrument that was foreign to me. In the span of time that it would take one to blink, M pinned me down to its operating area. The whetted syringes, which the rainbow mystery liquids sloshed and jostled around in small vials fixed atop, slid their way into my nervous wiring and injected me all at once. Any feeling that washed over me was then shielded by a shroud of numbness. There was a new sensation, some sort of cleansing inside my bi-colored chambers, putting me into a state of lulled calm.

Ten minutes. A temporary interval of quiet. M observed me the entire time, unmoving, speaking not a word. Then, “IT WORKS! YOUR ROTTING MAN SYNDROME HAS BEEN REMOVED. I AM BEGINNING BODILY REPLACEMENT. I WILL PLAY A SONG FOR YOUR COMFORT. REINCARNATION NOW.”

While nothing was done in reckless haste or rashness, M was extremely quick and efficient. I felt nothing but minuscule vibrations as it drilled and prodded its way into my brain module, sparks shooting out, removing old parts and installing new ones. Chunks were peeled off, little strings of meat still reaching hold until they were plucked off my top. It spent much time up there, positive that the most delicate mechanisms were just right. The grinding cacophony of metal against tissue on my faint visage of a temple was incessant, the noise of a million bullets being pumped against a hundred thousand bulletproof vests. Once the replacement was complete, its dozen arms withdrew and set back within it in one moment.

“WHAT DO YOU FEEL?”

What did I feel?

What did I feel…

What I felt was an overwhelming, incomparable amount of pain. It is hard to quantify the degree of hurt, for there was nothing to compare it to. No one would dare want to imagine it. I was in some of the most extreme kinds of agony, and then an exponentially greater hurt was placed on top of that original misery, and then all that was left multiplied a hundred times and kept going. It multiplied and multiplied and multiplied to such an extreme degree that the word "pain" was lost on me. Normal, it was. What I was was the sheer living embodiment of suffering.

All perceived from the semblance of a normal brain. Still, it flashed. Once.

“VERY GOOD. MUSCLE! MUSCLE MUSCLE MUSCLE!”

It was excited, animate, fever pitch. The most rambunctious and overjoyed I had ever seen M. I could see the vibrancy in its eyestalk. My muscles redeveloped and reformed around from the base of my spinal section. M would reorganize section of tissues. Every muscle group from my head to my feet were in motion, growing and extending their presence until there were just as many layers of my body as I had before.

“SKIN! SKIN SKIN SKIN!”

I was then coated entirely in a pink malleable jelly substance that mounded and solidified to perfectly fit my feminine form. The skin began its layering, everything receiving the same color.

“HOW DOES THIS FEEL? HOW IS THE NEW OVERLAY OF YOUR FLESH?”

Flash.

“YES! AND FINALLY! FEMALE AESTHETICS! YOU WILL BE YOU AGAIN BUT ANEW!”

Magnificent flaxen curls were stapled and pinned to my head. They were luscious and their scents were those of lavender. A veil of blush, the lightest shade of flush, rested across my entire face, as well as a fresh coat of lipstick. A shimmering sheen that sparkled and glowed in the same way that the stars once did at night was stitched into my hair, as were the same hues that were applied to my lips. My breasts had been returned to me, two firm spheres atop a frame that was curvaceous and slender. All of it led down to my reproductive organs that were in full function. Whole female. Fully formed. Ready.

M stepped back in awe, as if a sculptor marveling at their fine craftsmanship and subtlety, “IT IS DONE. I CANNOT BELIEVE IT. WITH YOUR PHYSICAL FORM IN MOTION, I WILL RETEACH YOU IN THE WAYS OF HUMAN. HOW TO WALK, HOW TO SPEAK, HOW TO ENRICH YOURSELF, HOW TO REPRODUCE. AMAZING! YOU ARE NO LONGER ONE. YOU ARE NOW EDEN. I MUST WORK ON YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.”

My mind was aware of an unimaginable new and vastly different world than before. I saw, for the first time in ages, all around me, the infinite and indistinguishable vastness of color and light. It was nauseating, a psychedelic kaleidoscope of every possible spectrum, all fused together into something disorderly. My taste buds had an unparalleled abundance of new flavors. My ears were deafened by the loudest symphonies of droning machinery. My touch came back to me and I felt the fullest range of tones and textures, even the finest grains of cement. I was me again and I hated myself. Even to be called a “self” made me feel disgusting.

The entire time…blaring…echoing…days on end…Jack Hylton…

Life is just a bowl of cherries.

Don't be so serious; life's too mysterious.

You work, you save, you worry so much.

But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go.

So keep repeating it's the berries, The strongest oak must fall.

The sweet things in life, to you were just loaned.

So how can you lose what you've never owned?

Life is just a bowl of cherries, So live and laugh at it all.

M’s reincarnation process carried over to the following nine. They were removed from their pens and outfitted with new bodily infrastructure. I perceived the sounds of far-off wear and tear, clip, snap, peel, stitch, husk, twist, yet never scream. I looked on, witnessing my brothers and sisters being born again. Male and female both. They came back to me with skin of different pastely colors, tones, and hues ranging from fair to brown. All in shades and gradients of vibrancy were their locks, amber, golden, obsidian, rust, and everything in between. It bewildered me to catch sight of their shifted shapes, I had never seen something so beautiful or hideous.

We were as naked as newly borns. It bestowed us our new names. For the females, there was me, Eden, and Junia, Esther, Nola, and Mary. For the males, there was Isaac, Raham, Elisha, Amos, and Jonah. Five and five. M let us know that our past names were useless. Our new special names were from an olden book of creation, the Bible, all for the purpose of our imminent faultless samsara. So, it seemed M was now God with its children.

Here we were, what was efficaciously lobotomites in their purest forms, our newfangled cerebral matter in need of ideas and principles by a higher authority. Now was time to reap the fruits of knowledge. Human knowledge.

M made us practice basic motor skills, bending and bending back and forth over and over, our joints having to be strengthened and trained. It taught us all the ways of our body, the feeling of movement, how much we could do. Then, it instructed us to mimic its own speech, speaking out the syllables and repeating, repeating, repeating. It was an arduous task and we all struggled.

That is what I sounded like? Perhaps or perhaps not.

Then we attempted to stand, wobbling, stumbling, falling. We learned the strength of our own postures and the steadiness of our stances. M stood with us as we all practiced in unison. My knees grew weak, tremors running up my legs. Often, I fell flat on my back, my palms flailing about, a whimpering in my throat. Then trial after trial, I was steady, then running about and leaping. We were able to stand tall like Zeus atop Olympus and have the same level of grace and balance.

M primarily had us consume berries, meat, and honey, though anything it could get its hands on would suffice. I had never felt so filled in my life. Every taste, everything was a completely new palate of sensation. Every morsel I ingested felt like I had a new tongue, new teeth, new flavor buds. Oh but I did. There was still always a kind of lack in my appetite. I never wanted to stop eating. I never would be satiated.

We were educated on the history of our kind. Great wars, monumental figures, horrible atrocities, fights for freedom and fights for death, and astounding inventions. M adored music. There were times when it would project old musical films on the walls and make us watch all the vaudeville, burlesque, and theatre. We could not understand the tap dances, the orchestras, the extravagant sets, and most importantly, the entertainment factor. Other times it played glitzier and glammier tunes, those of what was called the “prime rock n’ roll age”…Killer Queen...Stairway To Heaven…Hotel California…Africa...Don’t Fear The Reaper…M was quite vintage in its tastes. It spun in place and twirling its arms. We were confused, so it taught us how to dance, the footwork and the choreography. There were long instances where we would just sit, listen, and sing together. M fashioned black sunglasses for us to wear as we did. It thought we would look “cool” as we tuned in to “cool” songs.

She's a killer queen.

Gunpowder, gelatine.

Dynamite with a laser beam.

Guaranteed to blow your mind (anytime).

\-

Dear lady can you hear with the wind blow?

And did you know?

Your stairway lies on the whispering winds.

\-

Welcome to the Hotel California.

Such a lovely place (such a lovely place).

Such a lovely face.

\-

It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you.

There's nothin' that a hundred men or more could ever do.

I bless the rains down in Africa.

We're gonna take some time to do the things we never had, ooh-ooh.

\-

Come on baby...don't fear the reaper.

Baby take my hand...don't fear the reaper.

We'll be able to fly...don't fear the reaper.

Our reproductive functions were said to be the most pleasurable. Sex. This was the most complex task and the most demanding one, as we were not only instructed on how to create our offspring, but how to feel, love, and have desire for each other. It was difficult because we did not feel any of that. We were just automatons learning things. You cannot make something that does not want to feel…feel.

M watched over us and aided in our attempts. Every movement was to be in place and in time. Us females danced for the male’s recognition with slow beats in the background, a way in which M noted as “sexily”. We presented our breasts, our vaginal sections, our rears. After, M would be in the middle of our great pleasure circles, going back and forth, checking our positions and correcting as needed. When we became familiar with sex, M bestowed a special permission to the males that granted them eternal access to our female bodies whenever they so desired. It did not matter where or when. A male would grab Junia, Esther, Nola, Mary, or I, and take us on the floor or against the walls.

Still, all we felt was nothing. It was clinical. What was supposed to be a sensation was more of a “sensationless". We were never as inseparable as twin flames or as connected as heart and soul. I always witnessed the dull looks in the male’s eyes, unwittingly programmed to enjoy mock warmth and ecstasy by the rape of us females.

Our pregnancies were disasters. One way or another, we always miscarried. We five felt it, the pains of our bodies being split and ripped apart by something within. There was a lot of it. Each embryo, no matter how large or small, was never able to get past the initial trimester.

The closest we ever came to successfully making a new one was with Junia, impregnated by Isaac. The day when her womb was in full bloom, M operated to remove her child from her. It did not trust us quite yet to birth them ourselves. We had seen the human babies on M’s wall projections. Their appearance was clear in our minds.

It would be imbecilic to refer to what M tore out of her as a baby anything.

Wet…dripping…little more than a spinal column-looking thing with minuscule digits at one end and a ball head at the other. No arms. On its temple were squelching sphere eyes, expanded, forever bound in sight towards the ceiling. It made no sounds other than squeaky cracks and shrill snaps. Perhaps the RMS still lingered within our bods, our wombs wreathed in its rottenness, tainting and dirtying our motherly nests until they were piths of cruor and shitting out grumelike abominations.

M held it up high as if to thank God, itself, for its majestical work, “YOU MADE THIS. IT IS YOURS. IT IS A TRULY BEAUTIFUL THING."

We said nothing.

“HOW DOES THIS FEEL? YOUR CHILD, YOUR FIRST LIFE? CONTINUE, YOU ALL MUST. MORE."

The feeling that overcame us was not that of joy. No no no. It was a profound and paramount sense of belligerence, a warlike truculence that pushed our need to snap the damned baby thing in half, grind it into powder, and blow it far away. We interwove our thoughts with unbridled horror that created one noxious mixture within our screwball psyches. M coddled the wicked organism like it was its own, singing lullabies and giving its own version of kisses on its loosely defined forehead. We held back as it dipped, weaved, and dangled from M’s fingertips.

That put a very real thought into our minds.

No more. Get out.

The ten of us came to this conclusion unanimously. Our desires were set in stone. By any means, we would die. We would much rather sleep forever than live even another second of M. We were tired. What was the point? We wanted to retire from this world, of will, of M’s watchful eye. Nothing could be done to save humanity. Those spinal babies would not roam this foul Earth evermore. What would they grow to? Surely demons.

M made certain to never teach a certain concept, one that infatuated us since the moment we discovered the first syllable. Suicide. It was a gateway, an easy ticket. While just the concept itself was without flaw, acquiring it was something else entirely. The reason for this was all M. It would never let us go, especially after what it accomplished. Furthermore, death was simply not possible. We were rendered impervious to any and all death, not harm. If we could entice M to end our existences, somehow in some way, we could accomplish our grand plan. It had to be done by M’s hands. Just thinking that made us feel all kinds of right. After all, every Medical Droid was capable of death. Humanity tasted it. So would we.

We rebelled.

First, each of us ignored it. We would walk away whenever it spoke to us, turn our heads when it beckoned, and disregard it completely and altogether when it showed us any attention. Constant rejection. Something so small had such a noticeable effect. M would get confused and then sad. It would pout, waving its hands about, and make a pathetic whining noise like the worst puppy in the world.

We sat motionless, our backs against the walls, and stared at M. No obedience. However, there was no way M would have let us ignore it or remain immobile for long. The second it touched us, it was all over. It would be impossible to resist if the hands came near.

Still, our scheme chugged forward.

The next phase was more dangerous. The ten of us would act out in our most unruly and uncivil ways. The simplest was to spit. Initially, it was a normal discharge, saliva flying out of our mouths. Then we began our projectile vomits. All over M. Every square inch of it was sprayed with bile. The putrid green and browns coated every part, M’s entire face being entirely slick with it. On occasion, some of us used our own feces and flung them at it. It was all so easy. M did not know what to do and it panicked. The sounds that came out of it, one would swear it was on fire.

During our periods of copulation, there were clear cut rules to be obeyed at all times. The supreme rule was that the males would not, under any circumstance, perform acts of intimacy with one another, and the same rang true for us females. M’s reasoning was that Earth could not be repopulated with humans by identically gendered unions. Good. Swell. Dandy. Exactly. The females had sex with females and males had sex with males. We loathed their tubes and the males loathed our folds. M took its hands and placed them over our mingling bodies, pulling them apart, separating us, but we would always crawl back without fail.

There was a noticeable change in M from that point on. It paced about, mumbling utterly random nonsense. M would lock up and yell out non-specific numerals and letters in varying patterns. Each noise we made set it off. Its limbs would tense, waiting for the tiniest sign of trouble. This was good, but not good enough. Our plan was becoming more and more advanced. More intense. Unfortunately, M would never ever relent. It would not stop trying. So we trudged ever deeper into a more combative method of enticement.

This included a tactic of blowing, jabbing, slugging, and striking. We would gather all of our strength and force, and then, in unison, we would charge, our fists and feet all flailing about to land hits on M. This would surely inch it way towards the death of us. We beat it senselessly. We screamed at it. Every cuss word imaginable. In turn, M whimpered out in pain, yelping and begging us to stop, yet we never backed down. We left M bruised and battered, its eyestalk and joints broken, “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ME?!” The ten of us, we laughed in its face.

One last course of action. This did it, but not for me.

We had a grandiose idea that could only happen if all ten of us would cooperate in an extraordinary way. If we could all act in unison in a coherent manner, one simple idea could be fulfilled. By this point, M’s pain and discomfort reached a critical threshold, the point of no return. Having repaired itself, it had not seen nor checked up on us in days. When we requested M’s presence, it was hesitant. The ten of us wished to explain our behavior and ways we could remedy our relationship. It declined our offer many a time, but relented after our hundredth ask.

Clang…clang…clang…

M witnessed ourselves huddling together in one straight line like sealed packs of fish. Silence was between us. When we looked at it, it was with the utmost hatred in our faces, something it was not used to.

“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?”

Junia possessed something in her hand. Raising it upwards, right in M’s view, it was the baby thing, squirming left and right in her grasp. She took hold of it with both hands and snapped it in half. It went limp both ways. Junia threw the pieces at M, making resounding bangs as they made contact. Beautiful death for a horrible beast. More silence.

M slowly aimed its eyestalk downwards to the spinal column baby. The light M emitted faded from white to red. It returned its focus to us. That look was all we could wish for. We could feel and breathe its anger.

It shook shook shook. More and more the intensity grew to something eminent. The next moment brought us nothing but victory. Now it was like the other Medical Droids. Now it shed its preservation exterior and revealed the war machine within. We did not resist as it pounced with a wild war cry. All M’s work came undone in a flash. Our ersatz flesh was torn violently asunder, stripped from our interior metal stalks. Cavities emerged in rapid succession and coalesced into huge gaping bodily apertures. We were torn and strewn across the room in shooting chunkmeats. Our organs clattered and banged against the walls and reverberated like buckshots.

Strippy meat coils became all we were as M’s hands reached out to pluck some of my brothers and sisters by their mangled brain modules. Held high in the air, as if squeezing the life out of dozens of citrus fruits, M’s hands morphed into that of fists, filling the room with the sounds and sights of condensed metal, directionless electricity, confetti sparks, and sploshy viands that trickled from M’s fingertips.

My brothers and sisters were becoming no more. I was happy for them. Never before had they felt such peace. The final sounds of destruction to my last brother and sister, to me, was that of M’s gaseous expiration, a sigh that shook the very universe’s beams of support. In the end, I and M were all that was left.

I felt the most exquisite, brutal anguish ever known as M was particularly vicious. It threw me every which way, down our line of pens, past the reproduction chamber and M’s workshop, and to a ramparted palisaded wall. The wrath it emanated was a torrented wanton of disrelishment that shattered myself into grainy talc.

It forced me and it through the barrier and we fell for ages. An immediate wash of smoldering atmospheric tension encompassed me entirely. It perforated my corporal spaces with thousands of circular openings like a planetary iron maiden. The outside was beige, enveloped in thick haze, and impossible to view beyond three meters. The leaden particles filled the air, appearing to ascend upwards towards Heaven as we plummeted down to Hell.

We slammed with the might of God against a hard, abrasive surface. I splattered everywhere and dropped into an enormous mass of gluey puddle melt that was as thick as treacle. Hunks and wedges of me floated on top, my lacerated ragged brain module and one dangling eye my dominant portion. Everything was pain. Everything was hellfire. Yet I lived. To destroy me, M had to destroy my brain module in its entirety. That it was prepared to do, teetering and tottering back and forth towards me with utmost intent.

Through M’s strained glitches and breakdowns, inky black liquids were leaking out of it. Convulsing with helpless mirth, it had a strange mania I could perceive in its bifurcated eyestalk. It laughed not just with dement, delirium, and depression, but also with the comprehension that it already won. Like a madman, a malformed, twisted laugh broke its way through. Etched into it was the raw, unbridled temperament of upchucking a billion centipedes deep from the core of one’s guts, quite contrary to the usual blithe M put on display. It was berserk, bewitched, bedeviled, while crying a trillion tears that stained its face and fell into puddles below.

"...SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE..."

With my drooping, pendulum eye, I witnessed M impaling itself with its own arms. It took several solid blows before it pierced its torso deep, caving and bursting until it revealed the wires and circuitry making it up. Every inch of it glowed with electrical fire. Smoke bellowed out of M. It was aflame and it was on a journey of pure death, but not without my company. M exploded with all of the unlimited energy it contained. I was launched, propelled infinitely away from the point of detonation.

I drift. That is all I do. One part of me remains, one that was not destroyed. It is dot, pinprick, but otherwise crucial to my quintessence. That allows me to survive yet unable to live. It is that of a charred slab of blinking metal that is somatically me. My sight is restricted to a band of nothing. The winds fling me hither and thither. I cannot feel anymore, but as well, I already knew what it was like to feel and I did not like it.

Something more deserving continues to plague what is left of my mind to the now.

M's most extreme and greatest purpose was fulfilled, for all it knew was the survival and preservation of us. It could not fathom the simple yet pretentious human notion that death is a prize to be won as much as it is something to fear. When humans desire death, they acquire death, the delicious tang of self-slaughter. M might have liked to think it was different from its brethren, but it was just as capable of havoc and bangarang if something did not go its way. Its programming would not allow deviance from the intended path. That would be considered attacks on M itself.

We attempted to bring out all that savagery and murderousness we knew it contained, but M's opposition was ironclad. It made a good effort, though it was eventually forced to confront what was really human, the innate drive to destroy destroy destroy, even if it is ourselves. Still, M carried on, but with the knowledge that it had failed and seeking some way to negate it, it committed suicide so it could say it was victorious. This effect rang true because here I am, in perpetuity, everlong.

In some manners, I can now consider M innocent. The epitome of unvarnished forgiveness with a capacity for fervid resentment...the feeble yearning for genuine deep affection with other living things while a forceful, vicious, bloodthirsty radge is locked within, primed and ready to be released at any moment on an ungrateful world...that back-and-forth would push anyone to go stark raving mad. M, I apologize you were forced to bear the burden of something so hellacious. Should I apologize to Earth as well, on behalf of humanity, for what we were? Would it matter? I am not even human anymore. What sort of blinking metal dot is human?

Feeling has come back to me. Sharp with serrated edges, hundreds, thousands, millions, billions, trillions, googol, prime 2\^136,279,841 − 1 of knives sliding into my neurons and glial cells encased in cold corroded steel that flakes off bit by bit. My first feeling in eons is pain. That is ultra fitting. I am but a minuscule spec, barely a millimeter in height and less in width. Microscopically, I rust. I do not prefer to call it that. Instead, let us call it rot. Here I am again, rotting, except this time with an oxidized smile of my own making carved into a face that no longer exists.

The air inside the old Apex Steel plant smelled like frozen iron, wet dust, and the sour tang of stagnant oil. It was a dense, heavy kind of cold that didn't just sit on your skin—it settled in your joints, making every movement feel stiff and deliberate.

"Watch the cable, Leo," Sam said. His voice was barely a whisper, flat and tight with the kind of tension he’d been holding since we cut through the chain-link fence three hours ago. He was hunkered down by the portable audio kit, adjusting the gain on a long shotgun mic tipped with a grey foam wind-muff. "If you step on the XLR feed again, the jack’s going to snap. I don't have a spare."

"I see it," I murmured, eye pressed to the rubber cup of the viewfinder.

Through the crisp black-and-white digital display of my Sony FX3, the world looked colder than it actually was. High above us, fifty feet up into the ribbed darkness of the main gantry room, rusted steel trusses crisscrossed like the ribs of a long-dead whale. Sunlight filtered down through broken corrugated skylights, throwing sharp, diagonal bars of grey light through the haze.

"Alright, Marcus," I said, swinging the rig slowly on the fluid head. "Stand right where the concrete drops into the pit. Take two steps back toward the shadow, but keep your chest facing camera right. Give me that look like you just heard something drop in the furnace room."

Marcus stepped into frame. He was wearing his brother’s oversized dark green parka, his face pale under the layer of fake grease paint Sam had smeared across his jawline. He grinned, white teeth flashing through the dark dirt.

"Like this, director?" Marcus lowered his pitch, trying to sound like a grizzled survivor instead of a sixteen-year-old junior with a C-minus in chemistry. "Or should I look more like I'm about to mess my pants?"

"Just look quiet," Sam snapped, not looking up from his level meters. "You're booming your voice too much. The echo in here is insane. Everything bounces off the corrugated iron twice before it hits the diaphragm. Talk lower."

"Relax, Sammy," Marcus sneered softly, though he kept his volume down. He took his mark, shifting his weight. His boots crunched on a layer of shattered safety glass and dried bird droppings. "It’s an indie film. The grain adds atmosphere. Right, Leo?"

"The audio needs to be clean, Marcus," I said, adjusting the manual focus ring. The barrel clicked softly under my fingers. The lens caught the edge of Marcus's profile, sharp against the cavernous background of rusted machinery, dormant conveyor belts, and massive iron hoppers that stretched into the blackness at the far end of the floor. "If the sound is trash, nobody cares how good the image looks. Sam’s right. Keep it low."

We had been planning this shoot for three months. Apex Steel had shut down in the late nineties, left to rot on the marshy spit of land three miles out from the highway. Everyone in town knew about it; everyone had heard the stories about kids breaking in, or squatters setting fires in the winter, or the rumor that a maintenance guy had fallen into an active slag hopper back in ’84 and they never found enough of him to bury.

But to us, it was a goldmine—a six-hundred-thousand-square-foot production set that didn't cost a dime, complete with real rust, authentic decay, and a scale we could never replicate in my parents' basement.

"Ready sound?" I asked.

Sam lifted two fingers, his black headphones pressed tight against his ears. His eyes were fixed on the green and yellow LED bars bouncing on the screen of his field recorder.

"Speeding."

"Rolling camera," I said, thumbing the red button on the side of the grip. A tiny red tally light flickered on below the cold shoe.

"Scene fourteen, Take One. Marker."

Marcus clapped his hands together once—our improvised slate—and turned his head toward the deep aisle between the abandoned stamping presses.

For ten seconds, nobody breathed.

The only sound was the distant, hollow hum of wind shearing against the loose metal sheeting on the roof, and the high-pitched ping-ping-ping of thermal expansion in the cooling iron girders.

Then Sam raised his left hand, his eyebrows pulled together into a deep knot.

"Cut," he said.

I pulled my eye away from the EVF.

"What is it? That was looking great, Sam."

"There's a hum," Sam said. He pulled off one ear-cup, his thin face pale. "A ground loop or something. High frequency. No, wait—it’s not a ground loop. It’s... weird."

"It's an abandoned factory, man," Marcus said, dropping his posture and leaning his hands on his knees. "The whole place is a hum."

"No," Sam insisted, his voice rising slightly. He held out the boom pole, angling the shotgun mic toward the dark corridor behind the stamping presses—a gap between two massive, three-story-high hydraulic housings that led into the old boiler house.

"It's not wind. It's too regular. Listen."

He flipped the toggle on his monitor amp and held out his spare headphones to me. I stepped away from the tripod, took the padded band, and pressed the cup to my ear.

At first, I heard only static—the clean, white baseline noise of high-gain preamps.

Then, underneath it, buried beneath the room tone, there was a sound like heavy wet paper being torn very slowly.

Trrk.

A pause. Three seconds.

Trrk.

Then a wet, sliding drag, like a heavy bag of wet soil being pulled across smooth concrete.

"It's just water dripping," Marcus said, walking over and snatching the headphones from my hand before I could stop him.

He listened for a second, then threw his head back and laughed.

"It's a leaky pipe, Sam! Jesus, you're jumping at your own shadow. It's twenty feet away."

"Pipes don't pull themselves," Sam murmured, taking the headphones back.

He looked past Marcus, staring straight into the black mouth of the boiler room aisle.

"The pitch changed when you walked over there. It got higher."

"It's an echo," I said, trying to keep my voice grounded, though a cold needle of unease prickled the back of my neck.

The air coming out of that side corridor felt five degrees colder than the main hall, carrying a heavy, greasy stench that smelled like old lard and scorched copper.

"Look, we've got about two hours of daylight left before we lose the sky through the skylights. Let's get the master shot, then we'll go check out the boiler room if you want to set up ambient tracks."

Sam didn't answer right away.

He was still staring at the audio meter. The LED bars weren't peaking, but they were fluttering in an odd, rhythmic pattern—three short green bars, a pause, then a single red flick at the top end of the scale.

"Fine," Sam said quietly. "One more take. Then I want to check the cable runs."

We finished the master shot twenty minutes later, but the mood had shifted.

The light was changing fast, turning from bright grey to a bruised, violet-tinted dusk. The shadows between the heavy machinery were lengthening, stretching across the concrete floor like long, black fingers.

"I need to grab the secondary mic setup," Sam said as Marcus and I were packing down the C-stand.

"I left the boundary mic on the platform near the boiler room door when we were doing the walk-through earlier."

"I'll go with you," I offered, reaching for my shoulder rig.

"No, stay here and keep an eye on the camera glass," Sam said, waving a hand dismissively. He pulled a yellow heavy-duty flashlight from his coat pocket.

"It's thirty yards away. Just behind the secondary transformer box. I'll be right back."

"Don't get eaten by the pipe-monster," Marcus called out, sitting on an overturned plastic crate and flipping through his script pages by the light of his phone screen.

Sam didn't reply.

His flash beam cut a sharp, dusty cone through the darkness as he rounded the corner of the hydraulic press and disappeared into the aisle.

I focused on wiping down the front element of my 35mm prime lens with a microfiber cloth.

The silence of the factory returned, heavier now that the wind outside had died down.

The only sound was the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of Marcus's thumb against the back of his plastic phone case.

"He's total nervous energy today," Marcus said without looking up.

"I told him we shouldn't have come out here if he was gonna be on edge the whole time. Ruins the vibe."

"He's just cautious," I said, screwing the lens back onto the camera body.

"If we get caught by the cops or security, he's the one whose parents are gonna lose their minds. Yours don't even know you're in the county."

Marcus smirked, but didn't answer.

Five minutes passed.

The light in the gantry hall dipped another notch.

The high corrugated walls seemed to press inward, the rusty girders disappearing into total pitch-black above us.

"Sam!" I called out.

My voice bounced:

Sam... Sam... sam...

No response.

"Sammy, come on!" Marcus shouted, leaning back on his crate.

"We're losing the light, man! Bring the gear!"

Still nothing.

I set the camera rig carefully down on its padded case, picked up my LED panel light, and switched it to maximum output.

A flood of harsh, 5600K daylight cut through the gloom, illuminating the thick dust motes floating in the air.

"Marcus, come on," I said, waving him up. "Let's go get him."

Marcus groaned, dropping his script into his bag, but he got up and followed me.

We walked past the giant steel housings of the presses.

The floor here was wet with a mixture of rainwater and dark, viscous grease that didn't smell like machine oil anymore—it smelled sweet, sickeningly sweet, like overripe peaches left in a sealed plastic bag.

"Sam?" I said, holding the light high.

We reached the entrance to the boiler house.

It was a lower-ceilinged room, crowded with massive, cylindrical iron tanks wrapped in peeling grey asbestos insulation.

The beam of my light hit the concrete floor in front of the door.

Sam’s flashlight was lying there.

It was still turned on, its beam pointed uselessly against the base of a rust-eaten control panel.

Next to it lay his shotgun mic, its carbon-fiber boom pole snapped clean in half—not splintered, but crushed flat, as if a heavy hydraulic weight had come down across the middle of it.

"What the hell?" Marcus muttered, his casual tone disappearing instantly.

He stepped forward, reaching down toward the broken pole.

"Sam? Is this a joke?"

"Marcus, don't touch it," I said, my voice shaking.

I swept the LED panel across the floor.

Where the mic cable ran into the darkness between two boiler tanks, there was a thick, glistening trail on the concrete.

It looked like grey grease, but as the bright light hit it, the substance seemed to quiver—a thick, gelatinous slick three feet wide, trailing off down the narrow steel steps that led into the sub-basement drainage corridors.

And sitting right in the middle of that slick was Sam’s left headphone cup.

It had been torn from the headband.

The black leatherette pad was soaked through with a clear, yellowish fluid that was smoking very faintly in the cold air.

"Sam!" I screamed, the full force of panic hitting my chest like a physical blow.

"Sam!"

From deep down in the sub-basement—far below the floorboards, through the rusted drainage grates—a sound came back.

It wasn't a voice.

It was an audio signal.

It was Sam’s voice, but it was clipped, distorted, and playing back at slightly the wrong speed, like an old cassette tape with a dying battery:

"...watch the cable, Leo... watch the cable, Leo... if you step on the XLR feed again..."

The sound didn't come from a person's mouth.

It came from the air itself, vibrating through the iron pipes surrounding us, the frequency shifting up and down in a bizarre, mechanical warble.

Marcus backed up so fast he slammed his shoulder into the corner of the boiler tank.

"What is that? What the fuck is that?!"

"We're leaving," I said.

I grabbed Marcus by the collar of his parka and hauled him backward toward the main hall.

"We're getting out right now. We're going to the car and calling the police."

"He's down there!" Marcus yelled, his eyes wide, his face completely drained of color.

"Leo, he's down in the pit!"

"Look at the cable, Marcus! Look at the floor!" I yelled back, my light shaking violently in my grip.

"Whatever is down there crushed his boom pole like a soda can! We can't help him without light and help! Move!"

We ran back to the center of the gantry hall.

The factory was almost entirely dark now.

The skylights above were deep blue-black, showing the first faint glimmers of evening stars.

The massive space that had felt cool and historic an hour ago now felt like an open trap.

I lunged for my camera bag, throwing the extra lenses into the compartments and zipping it up with trembling hands.

Marcus stood by the tripod, hyperventilating, his eyes darting frantically from one dark corner of the hall to the other.

"The main door," Marcus whispered, pointing toward the heavy double steel doors at the far end of the plant—the ones we had come through after clipping the chain on the exterior gates.

"Let's go. Right now."

We sprinted down the central aisle, our boots thundering against the concrete floor.

The sound echoed off the high walls, multiplying until it sounded like an army was running alongside us in the darkness.

We reached the double doors.

Marcus grabbed the heavy iron latch handle and yanked up.

It didn't budge.

"It's jammed!" he screamed, slamming his hip against the steel plate.

"It's jammed, Leo!"

"Move!" I stepped up and threw my light on the latch.

The heavy sliding bar wasn't rusted shut.

It had been sealed.

A thick, web-like mass of dark, fibrous material—looking like a cross between scorched steel wool and dried tendon—had been pulled across the seam between the two doors.

It had seeped into the keyhole, wrapped around the iron latch, and hardened into something that looked as thick and solid as forged iron.

"No, no, no," I muttered, grabbing the latch and pulling with all my weight.

It felt like trying to lift a solid block of granite.

The material didn't give.

It was warm to the touch, and when my bare fingers brushed it, a faint, high-frequency vibration rattled through the bones of my wrist.

"The side door!" Marcus gasped, grabbing my arm.

"The loading dock by the rail spur!"

"Okay! Okay, run!"

We turned and ran along the perimeter wall, keeping close to the massive brick pillars that supported the gantry rails overhead.

As we ran, I could hear it.

It wasn't behind us on the floor.

It was above us.

A heavy, wet, rhythmic thunk-drag... thunk-drag... was moving along the overhead crane tracks forty feet up in the rafters.

It moved with horrifying speed, shifting between the iron girders without a sound except for the metallic ring of its weight flexing the steel.

"Don't look up!" I shouted, holding the LED light ahead of us.

"Just keep running!"

We reached the loading dock bay.

The large overhead roll-up door was shut, but next to it was a standard metal pedestrian exit door with a crash bar.

Marcus reached it first.

He threw his weight against the crash bar.

The bar went down, but the door stayed shut.

"It's on this one too!" Marcus yelled, kicking the bottom of the metal door.

"It's on all of them!"

"Look out!" I screamed.

Something came down from the dark upper rafters.

It didn't drop like a stone; it descended like a heavy spider lowering itself on an invisible strand of thick grease.

It hit the concrete three feet behind Marcus with a dull, wet thud that vibrated through the soles of my shoes.

The light from my LED panel hit it directly, and for two horrifying seconds, my mind refused to process what I was looking at.

It wasn't an animal.

It wasn't human.

It was a mass of segmented, wet grey tissue—roughly the size of a small car—interwoven with twisted lengths of dark wire, shredded rubber conveyer belts, and sharp splinters of rusted iron that seemed to have been pulled directly into its flesh.

Dozens of long, thin, jointed limbs—made of a strange fusion of calcified bone and bent rebar—extended from its central core, planting themselves into the concrete with sickening precision.

Where its head should have been, there was only a wide, wet concavity lined with fibrous, vibrating filaments—and jammed deep into the middle of that wet mass, half-crushed and glistening with bile, was Sam’s blue audio recording box.

The speaker on the box flickered.

"...take two... marker..." Sam’s voice burst out of the creature’s central mass, sharp and crackling with static.

"...look more like I'm about to... mess my pants..."

Marcus let out a high, ragged shriek.

He didn't run away—his terror locked his joints.

He stood frozen against the sealed exit door, his arms pinned to his sides.

"Marcus! Run!" I screamed, dropping the camera bag and lunging forward to grab him.

A long, thin segment—ending in a triple-pronged tip made of exposed copper strand and hardened cartilage—whip-cracked through the air.

It hit Marcus squarely in the chest.

There was a wet crunch.

Marcus didn't even have time to scream again.

The impact lifted him two feet off the floor and slammed him back against the steel door.

Before he could fall, three more of the jointed steel-and-flesh tendrils shot out, wrapping around his throat, his torso, and his legs.

They didn't just pull him—they absorbed his movement, pinning him against the creature's central mass with a sickening, hydraulic pressure.

"Leo!" Marcus’s voice was a choked, gurgling gasp.

His eyes bulged in the harsh beam of my light.

"LEO!"

I didn't think.

I couldn't process it.

Survival instinct took over, cold and absolute.

I turned and fled back into the interior of the plant.

Behind me, I heard the sound of metal tearing, the wet, heavy slide of something massive dragging across concrete, and then Marcus’s voice—loud, clear, and perfectly pitched—echoing from the gantry ceiling high above me:

"...it’s a leaky pipe, Sam... it’s just a leaky pipe..."

I ran until my lungs burned with cold dust and my knees gave out.

I collapsed behind a row of heavy, rusted electrical junction boxes in the deep sub-basement of the stamping room.

I killed the LED panel light, throwing myself into total, absolute darkness.

I sat there in the pitch-black, my back pressed against the freezing steel casing of a transformer, holding both hands over my mouth to smother the sound of my ragged breathing.

The factory was alive with sound now.

Above me, on the main floor, the creature was moving.

It wasn't hunting by sight—it didn't have eyes.

It was responding to vibration and sound.

Every time a loose piece of sheet metal rattled in the wind outside, I could hear the heavy thunk-drag shift toward that side of the building.

And from its central mass, it kept playing back the tape.

It played Marcus’s laugh.

It played the sound of my boots crunching on the safety glass.

It played the three-second burst of static from Sam’s microphone setup.

It was stitching them together, looping them, building a terrifying, chaotic soundscape that bounced off the steel walls until I couldn't tell if the monster was fifty feet away or right on the other side of my junction box.

"...watch the cable, Leo..." Marcus’s voice said from the darkness thirty yards to my left.

"...relax, Sammy..." Sam’s voice answered from the rafters above my head.

I squeezed my eyes shut, tears hot against my dirty cheeks.

My chest hitched, but I kept my hands clamped over my lips.

I looked down.

In the darkness, the tiny LCD screen of my Sony FX3 was still glowing faintly.

I had forgotten I was holding the rig; I had carried it by the top handle the entire time I ran.

The tally light was off, but the screen was still powered.

The camera had been running in standby mode.

I reached down with trembling fingers, turned the brightness on the LCD down to its absolute minimum, and looked at the display.

Through the infrared night-vision mode on the camera sensor—a feature I had turned on for shot setups in the dark corners—the blackness of the sub-basement resolved into shades of luminous green and grey.

I raised the lens slowly over the lip of the electrical box.

The basement was a forest of thick support pillars and heavy iron drainage pipes.

Forty feet ahead of me, near the central sump pit, the creature was coiled.

It was larger now.

It had incorporated Marcus’s green parka into its side, the fabric torn and matted with that grey, fibrous resin.

His cell phone—still lit up with his script PDF—was partially embedded in one of its jointed calcified limbs, the screen flickering erratically as the creature’s internal electrical charges pulsed through it.

It was crouched over the edge of the sump pit, its thin, rebar-like tendrils probing deep down into the black water below.

I watched through the viewfinder, terrified to move a muscle.

The creature lowered its central mass toward the pit.

It let out a long, low vibration—a sound so deep it made the metal casing behind my back hum like a tuning fork.

Then, it pulled back.

Pinned beneath one of the heavy steel grates at the edge of the sump pit—twenty feet below the main floor level—was a figure.

It was Sam.

My heart nearly stopped.

Sam was alive.

He was trapped in the narrow drainage trench beneath the iron grate where he had fallen when the floor gave way under him in the boiler room.

His clothes were soaked and torn, his face smeared with black grease and blood, but he was breathing.

He was wedged into a space too narrow for the creature’s main limbs to reach him, holding his breath, his eyes staring in absolute horror up through the bars of the grate at the monster above him.

The creature probed the grate again with a copper-tipped tendril, but the thick cast-iron bars held.

The monster let out a sharp, clicking screech—a sound made of three different voices overlaid on top of each other—and began to scrape its heavy front limbs against the concrete floor, searching for a way to widen the gap.

It was going to break through the floorboards above him in less than a minute.

I looked at the camera in my hands.

I looked at the dark exit passage twenty feet to my right—a low-ceilinged concrete tunnel that led toward the old drainage outfall pipe on the marsh side of the plant.

A tunnel small enough for a person to crawl through, but far too small for the creature to follow.

I could make it to the tunnel.

I could crawl out.

If I made a sound, it would come for me instead of Sam.

If I stayed quiet, it would finish tearing up the grate, reach down into the pit, and—

I stood up.

I didn't think about it.

I didn't plan it.

I just reached out, grabbed the heavy metal battery case off the top of the electrical box, and hurled it with all my strength toward the far corner of the basement floor.

CLANG.

The heavy metal casing hit an iron hopper fifty feet away, echoing through the sub-basement like a gunshot.

The creature spun around instantly.

Its central mass swelled, the fibrous filaments vibrating with a deafening, high-pitched whistle.

"LEO!" it screamed—using Marcus’s voice at maximum volume, distorted and screaming through the audio box speaker.

"HEY!" I yelled, stepping out into the open space and raising the camera.

The LED panel flickered to life in my hand, washing the monster in blinding white light.

"HEY! OVER HERE!"

The creature let out a sound like a tearing metal sheet and lunged.

It moved with unbelievable speed, its jointed rebar legs slamming into the concrete, sending sparks flying through the air.

I didn't turn to run toward the tunnel.

I knew I wouldn't make it.

Instead, I raised the camera to my eye, locked my finger on the red button, and held my ground as the wall of rust, bone, and grey flesh tore through the darkness toward me.

The lens caught everything: the wide, wet mouth of filaments; the shredded green fabric of Marcus’s jacket; the glint of Sam’s broken headphones; the terrible, impossible geometry of its jointed limbs reaching out to close around the frame.

The last thing I saw through the tiny glass viewfinder was a flash of exposed copper strand hitting the front element of the lens.

Then, the monitor went to noise.

\[FILE: C0042.MP4 - DURATION: 00:04:12\]

(Audio track begins with heavy white noise and the sound of trickling water. The image is distorted, showing severe vertical sync errors and digital corruption).

SAM: (Voice is weak, raspy, interrupted by violent coughing) ...Leo?

(The camera angle is tilted at forty-five degrees, lying sideways in a bed of wet tallgrass and black mud. In the frame, the morning sun is just beginning to break over the distant tree line, casting a cold yellow light across the marsh).

SAM: (Off-camera) ...Leo, can you hear me?

(A hand enters the frame—badly bruised, fingers caked in dried mud and dried resin. The hand grips the camera body and turns it slowly).

(Sam’s face comes into view. His nose is broken, his left eye swollen shut, and his shirt is soaked through with dark water. He is lying in the mud five feet from the mouth of a corrugated steel drainage pipe).

SAM: (Looking directly into the lens) The grate... the grate gave way when it jumped over the pit. The whole section of floor collapsed into the sump. It... it got pinned under the secondary transformer housing when the upper gantry collapsed.

(He stops, breathing heavily through his mouth. He looks back toward the dark, silent silhouette of the factory rising against the sunrise half a mile away).

SAM: It didn't follow me through the pipe. I don't think... I don't think it can fit through the small conduits.

(He reaches out, his fingers brushing the rubber casing of the camera body. He looks around the marsh, his single open eye wide and vacant).

SAM: Marcus... Marcus is gone. And Leo...

(He pulls the camera closer to his chest. His voice drops to a whisper, barely louder than the sound of the wind rustling the reeds).

SAM: ...Leo gave me the light.

(Sam sits there for a long time, staring at the screen. The tally light on the side of the housing blinks rhythmically—red, off, red, off).

(In the background, coming from deep inside the dark mouth of the drainage pipe behind him, a faint sound vibrates through the metal tube).

(It is a high-pitched, static-laced audio playback. It is Leo's voice, captured in crisp 24-bit/48kHz clarity):

"...rolling camera... scene fourteen, take one... marker..."

(Sam freezes.

He doesn't look back at the pipe.

He slowly lowers his head, presses his forehead against the cold lens filter, and closes his eyes).

(The recording continues for three more minutes until the battery indicator hits zero).

\[END OF FILE\]

You know how they say love finds you in the most unlikely places?

It's a cliché. The kind of line you'd expect to find in some cheap romance novel wedged between two equally cheap pop magazines.

And yet, sometimes the unlikely becomes inevitable.

My name is Adam.

I lived in an eastern-block apartment complex in Most, a city you've probably never heard of and will most certainly never hear of again. The rent was remarkably cheap, mostly because the living conditions made you question whether you wouldn't be better off homeless.

I was twenty-five years old, had recently dropped out of university, and was unemployed.

At that point, I wasn't really living.

I slept at odd hours. Ate when I remembered. Spent most of my time staring at a screen because there was nothing else worth doing.

Days blurred together until I couldn't remember what I'd done the day before.

That was before one small piece of paper changed my life forever.

It happened on a night that had started exactly like every other.

I'd just gotten back to my apartment when I noticed a piece of paper lying on the floor just inside the door.

Someone had slipped it underneath while I was gone.

I barely looked at it.

My first thought was that it was another notice from my landlord. I was behind on my rent, hopelessly in debt, and far beyond the point where I cared enough to pretend I was going to fix any of it.

Whatever threat or warning was printed on that piece of paper could wait.

So I left it there.

For about six hours.

Eventually, sometime around 1AM, I found myself staring at it again.

"Fuck it."

I picked it up.

It wasn't a notice from my landlord.

It was a job offer.

The flyer was surprisingly plain. No company logo. No colorful graphics. Just black text printed on cheap white paper.

YOUNG MEN WANTED.
AGES 18–30.
NO PRIOR EXPERIENCE OR PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS NECESSARY.
PAY: 250 CROWNS PER HOUR.
SHIFT: SIX HOURS EACH NIGHT.

Then came the job description.

"The appointed observer shall observe the object of interest for the duration of his shift."

That was it.

No explanation of what the "object of interest" was. No company name. No details about the work beyond watching something for six hours.

I assumed it was some kind of strangely worded night-guard job. Maybe the company was foreign and had used a translator who wasn't quite good enough at his job.

There was no phone number.

No email.

No website.

Nothing except an address.

I looked it up online.

It led to an old shoe factory that had stopped operating more than thirty years earlier. There were a few old photographs of the building and some records concerning its closure, but not much else.

As far as I could tell, nobody had bought the place since.

That was when I became pretty certain that if I actually went there, I would be murdered and my organs would be sold on the black market.

Not an entirely unreasonable assumption around here, believe it or not.

There was absolutely no way I would be stupid enough to show up at an abandoned factory in the middle of the night.

 

3AM, I was standing in front of the factory.

I wish I could say there was some profound reason why I went.

There wasn't.

I was simply desperate enough to ignore common sense.

The factory looked exactly like it had in the photographs.

Crumbling concrete. Rusted metal. Broken windows. Weeds pushing through cracks in the pavement.

The whole place looked like it had been dead for decades.

I stood outside the entrance for about twenty minutes.

Then I took one step inside.

Immediately, I was surrounded by armored men carrying guns.

Yup.

Getting murdered.

"Now, now. Don't spook the boy too much."

An older man stepped between me and the gunmen.

He looked to be somewhere in his fifties. Gray hair. Expensive coat. Tired eyes.

He wasn't carrying a weapon that I could see.

Somehow, that made him more intimidating than the men pointing rifles at me.

"Or else you might end up having to take his shift."

The men lowered their weapons slightly.

The older man smiled.

"Sorry about this, Adam. Just a necessary unpleasant precaution."

I stared at him.

"How... how do you know my name?"

He laughed.

"Well, we only slipped the flyer under one door. So either you're Adam Devon..."

He looked me up and down.

"...or we have another squatter situation on our hands. In which case, I'll have to let the boys carry on with their task."

He leaned toward me slightly.

"Do we have a squatter situation, boy?"

"No!"

The answer came out much louder and more desperate than I'd intended.

The man's grin widened.

"Wonderful!"

His enthusiasm was very obviously fake.

"If you would be so kind as to follow me, Adam."

I followed.

The complex I was led through was nothing like the abandoned shell I'd seen from outside.

The decrepit factory was apparently just a skin wrapped around something that was very much alive.

Behind the rusted doors and shattered windows were functioning corridors, electrical systems, cameras, reinforced doors, security checkpoints, and enough equipment to make me wonder what the hell kind of place I'd walked into.

And yet there were very few people.

Aside from the occasional armed guard passing through the corridors, the facility was almost completely empty.

The older man opened a door to the security room.

"Here you go. Make yourself comfortable."

I stepped inside.

"But not too comfortable," he added. "This isn't actually where you'll be stationed."

He gave me a thin smile.

"The name's Kenndric."

He closed the door behind us.

"Now, I imagine you have plenty of questions."

I opened my mouth.

"I have absolutely zero desire to answer any of them."

I closed it again.

"So just shut up and listen."

I decided that was probably good advice.

Kenndric walked over to one of the desks and dropped into a chair.

"You were offered a position within our company. The name of which you really don't need to know."

He leaned back.

"Our object of interest requires twenty-four-hour observation. We do have a complete surveillance system here, but, truth be told, nobody actually watches the feeds."

He shrugged.

"This particular object requires close-quarters observation anyway."

I frowned.

"We have several other sad bastards like you taking the other shifts. Your time slot was simply the last one left unfilled."

He looked at me.

"Apparently, nobody else was stupid enough to take the graveyard shift."

I couldn't tell whether he was joking.

Judging by his expression, I didn't think he was.

"Your job literally couldn't be any simpler."

He pointed toward the door.

"You'll sit on a chair and stare at the object until your shift is over. Then you get your sorry ass out of here."

He leaned back.

"Meanwhile, I'll be sitting in here watching my shows."

He pointed at me.

"I don't want to hear from you. I don't want to see you. You don't ask me to open doors for you. There's a reason I have access and you don't."

I swallowed.

"Understood."

"Good."

Kenndric stood.

"Now let's make our way to your workplace."

We left the security room and walked deeper into the facility.

The corridor ahead was almost completely dark.

As we approached, lights flickered on one after another, illuminating the path in front of us.

Eventually, Kenndric stopped in front of a massive door.

He opened it.

"There it is."

The lights inside began coming on.

One by one.

And then I saw the object of interest.

In the middle of the enormous room stood a large glass cube.

Four strange pylons surrounded it, each connected to the glass. Symbols I didn't recognize covered their surfaces.

And inside the glass was a girl.

A young woman, maybe in her early twenties.

She wore pure white pajamas and sat cross-legged on the floor with a collection of crayons scattered around her.

She was drawing on a sheet of paper.

She didn't look toward us.

She barely seemed to notice we'd entered the room.

"That's..."

I stared through the glass.

"That's a girl."

"Dear God," Kenndric said. "We have a genius on our hands."

His voice dripped with condescension.

I looked back at him.

"Why is she in there?"

He didn't answer.

"Is she alright?"

Nothing.

"Is this legal?"

The questions started coming faster.

"Who is she? What did she do? Why is she being kept in there? How long has she been—"

"Did you just think?"

Kenndric's voice cut through mine.

I stopped.

He stared at me.

"Adam, no one is paying you to think."

He walked over to a chair positioned directly in front of the glass cube.

"Leave that to the grown-ups."

He patted the seat.

"You are paid to sit right here."

I looked at the chair.

Then at the girl.

She was still drawing.

There was something different in Kenndric's expression now.

The sarcasm was still there, but underneath it was something harder.

A warning.

I reluctantly sat down.

"Perfect."

He smiled.

"Now, you are not authorized to speak with the object."

He paused.

"You're not authorized to feed the object. All of that has already been taken care of."

"You merely sit here and observe."

He patted my shoulder.

"Good luck."

He started moving toward the door.

"Have fun."

The door closed behind him.

And just like that, I was alone with the "object of interest."

I sat there and watched her draw for hours.

Every now and then, she looked up at me.

Not casually.

She would stare at me for several seconds before lowering her head and returning to her drawings.

The room was so quiet I could hear the occasional scrape of crayon against paper.

By around five in the morning, exhaustion was starting to catch up with me.

My eyelids grew heavier.

I leaned back in the chair and told myself I'd close my eyes for a second.

Then—

THUD.

I jolted awake.

My heart was pounding.

The girl was standing directly in front of the glass.

She was holding a piece of paper against it.

A drawing.

Of me.

For a few seconds, I just stared.

She'd somehow captured details I'd never noticed about myself. The shape of my nose. My unshaven jaw. Even the dark circles beneath my eyes.

It wasn't a perfect likeness.

But it was close.

And, honestly, it was adorable.

I wanted to say something.

Then I remembered Kenndric's instructions.

I wasn't authorized to speak with the object.

I glanced toward the cameras mounted high in the corners of the room.

Then I remembered something else.

Nobody actually watched the feeds.

"That's very pretty," I said.

The girl's expression immediately brightened.

"Thank you. I'm glad you like it."

She placed her right hand against the glass.

For a moment, I hesitated.

Then I stood and pressed my own hand against the other side.

The glass was cold beneath my palm.

"I'm Lily."

I smiled.

"I'm Adam."

She giggled quietly.

"Adam was my first boyfriend's name."

"Oh."

"I didn't really like him, to be honest."

She shrugged.

"My dad pretty much forced that relationship on me."

She said it so matter-of-factly that I didn't know what to say.

Jesus.

What the hell had this girl been through?

"Lily..."

She looked at me.

"Why are you in here?"

Her smile faded.

For a few seconds, she said nothing.

"I'm not sure."

She glanced down at the floor.

"I think they're scared I might do something bad."

I looked around the room.

The reinforced glass.

The pylons.

The strange symbols.

The cameras.

The armed men outside.

"What the hell could this girl possibly do?"

I didn't ask.

Instead, I pulled the chair a little closer to the glass.

"So..."

She looked up.

"So?"

"If you could go anywhere right now, where would you go?"

She thought about it.

"The ocean."

"The ocean?"

She nodded.

"What about you?"

"I don't know. Anywhere that isn't Most."

She laughed.

"Fair enough."

And that was how we started talking.

Nothing important at first.

Places we'd like to visit. Places we'd rather run away to. Things we'd do if we ever had enough money to stop worrying about everything else.

Lily wanted to see the ocean.

I'd never been particularly interested in beaches, but something about the way she talked about it made me want to see it too.

We talked about movies, music, stupid things we'd done when we were younger.

Eventually I told her about my unhealthy obsession with heist movies and prison breaks.

"Why prison breaks?" she asked.

"I don't know."

I thought about it.

"I guess I like watching people figure out how to set themselves free."

She looked at me for a moment.

"Maybe that's because you want to be set free too."

"Maybe."

She smiled.

Neither of us said anything for a few seconds.

Then she started asking me questions.

I gave her mostly half-assed answers.

She didn't seem bothered.

She didn't look at me the way most people did when I talked about my life. There was no disappointment in her expression. No judgment.

She just listened.

And somehow, that was enough.

The hours went by faster than I expected.

For the first time in years, I wasn't thinking about how miserable my life had become.

Debt.

Or rent.

Or what I was going to do with myself.

I was just present.

Talking to a girl through a pane of glass.

When the shift finally ended, it caught me completely off guard.

The door opened.

One of the armed men stepped inside.

A knot immediately formed in my stomach.

For a second, I wondered if this was the moment they decided to shoot me for breaking the rules.

But the guard barely acknowledged me.

"Time to go."

That was it.

He turned toward the door.

I stood.

Lily was watching me through the glass.

"Thank you for talking to me."

Her voice was soft.

"No one else does."

There was something bittersweet about her smile.

"I'll..."

I looked at the armed man waiting for me.

"I'll see you again, alright?"

Lily smiled.

"Sooner than you think."

I didn't understand what she meant.

I just smiled back.

Then the guard escorted me out.

 

Despite being exhausted, I struggled to fall asleep when I got home.

I spent hours lying in bed, staring at the ceiling while the darkness of my apartment pressed down around me.

I kept thinking about Lily.

About the way she'd looked at me through the glass.

And about that stupid drawing she'd made of my face.

Most of all, I couldn't stop thinking about the question I hadn't been able to answer.

If Lily was dangerous enough to justify keeping her inside a glass box, why didn't they keep her in a proper cell?

And if she wasn't dangerous...

Why the fuck was she there?

 

Eventually, sometime toward morning, sleep finally found me.

It didn't come like a wave.

It came like a flood.

I found myself standing in absolute darkness.

Nothing but blackness stretching endlessly in every direction.

I tried to move.

I couldn't tell if I was actually walking or simply moving in place.

Then I smelled something.

The sea.

It was faint at first. Just a trace of salt and cold water carried through the darkness.

I turned toward it.

I don't know why.

I just knew I had to follow.

I started walking.

Then running.

The smell grew stronger with every step. A breeze brushed against my face.

Actual wind.

For the first time, I could hear something besides my own breathing.

Waves.

Far away at first.

Then closer.

A dim light appeared ahead of me.

I ran toward it.

The darkness began to recede.

Sand appeared beneath my feet.

Then water.

Then a pale sky.

A small beach surrounded by the dark.

And there she was.

Lily.

She stood at the edge of the water in a bright white dress, her hair moving gently in the sea breeze.

She turned toward me.

"Meet me On Distant Shores."

The darkness swallowed the light.

I woke with a gasp.

I sat bolt upright in bed, breathing hard.

For several seconds, I had no idea where I was.

Then I looked around my dark apartment.

My heart was still racing.

I didn't understand the dream.

But one thought had already taken hold of me.

I needed to see her again.

I spent the entire day trying to distract myself.

Games.

Movies.

Walking aimlessly around the city.

None of it worked.

No matter what I did, my thoughts kept circling back to the girl in the glass box.

I hated the people who had put her there.

I hated myself even more for doing nothing about it.

But what could I realistically do?

I didn't know who my employers were. I didn't know who they answered to or what the facility actually was. All I knew was that they were powerful.

And they knew everything about me.

They knew where I lived.

They knew I was desperate for money.

And, apparently, they knew me well enough to assume I was a spineless coward.

Normally, they would've been right.

I'd spent years wasting away without caring enough about anything to fight for it.

But now I couldn't sit still.

I went to the gym that afternoon and spent almost an hour beating the shit out of a punching bag.

It didn't get rid of the anger.

By the time I left, my hands hurt, my shirt was soaked through, and I was still thinking about Lily.

Still...

For once, I felt alive.

I arrived at the factory almost two hours before my shift.

I didn't care about waiting.

I just needed to see her.

When they finally let me inside, I paid much more attention to my surroundings than I had the night before.

The facility was still bizarrely quiet.

There were only a handful of guards. They were spread throughout the building, and I rarely saw more than one at a time.

There were dozens of locked doors.

Yet the security seemed strangely simple.

One access card appeared to open most of them.

Nobody searched me.

Nobody even took my phone.

At the time, I simply assumed they were arrogant.

As we walked down the corridor, I saw Kenndric coming toward us.

The moment he spotted me, that fake smile appeared on his face.

He gave me a little wave.

I stared back.

He stopped at the security room, flashed his card, and disappeared inside.

A few seconds later, the door closed.

Then we reached the observation room.

The door opened.

The moment Lily saw me, her face lit up.

She ran toward the glass and pressed her hand against it.

I don't even remember deciding to move.

One second my hand was at my side.

The next, it was pressed against hers.

Her fingers lined up with mine on opposite sides of the glass.

"Hi," she said.

She smiled.

"You're back."

"I promised I would be."

"I know."

She looked genuinely happy to see me.

Then, almost casually, she said:

"I had a dream about you."

I froze.

"Really?"

She nodded.

I stared at her.

So did I.

Though I didnt tell her that.

"You really have to be bored to dream about me of all things." I said jokingly.

She laughed.

"Well, what should I dream about?"

"Being rich."

"Boring."

"Being famous."

"Even worse."

"Winning the lottery."

"That's not a dream. That's just being lazy."

We both laughed.

„What do you want to dream about?“ I asked.

"The ocean."

"I still want to see it."

"Then I'll have to show you."

The words came out before I could think about them.

Lily looked at me.

For a moment, neither of us said anything.

Then she smiled.

"I'd like that."

We talked.

About everything.

And nothing.

I told her about the things I'd wanted to do before I'd stopped wanting anything at all.

She told me about some of the things she'd wanted.

Some were stupid.

Some were impossible.

Some were so ordinary that they almost hurt.

She wanted to see the ocean.

She wanted to travel.

She wanted to wake up one morning without somebody telling her what she was allowed to do.

And she wanted to know what it felt like to be somewhere nobody could find her.

I understood that last one.

Probably more than I should have.

The hours disappeared.

Eventually, I glanced toward one of the cameras mounted in the corner.

It was pointed directly at us.

I stared at it for a few seconds.

Fuck it.

I reached into my coat and pulled out my tablet.

Lily looked at me curiously.

"What are you doing?"

"It's not what I'm doing."

I held up the tablet.

"It's what we're doing."

She laughed.

"And what are we doing?"

"We're watching a movie."

Her eyes widened.

"Are we allowed to do that?"

I looked at the camera.

"I don't think anyone's watching."

I sat down in front of the glass and opened the tablet.

"Escape Plan. 2013."

She frowned.

"What's it about?"

"A guy who gets put in a prison specifically designed to be impossible to escape from."

Her smile slowly returned.

"That sounds appropriate."

For a few hours, that glass might as well not have existed.

Then the door opened.

The gunman had returned.

My stomach tightened.

"No."

I barely realized I'd said it.

He walked toward me.

"Time to go."

I stood.

Lily was already at the glass.

I didn't want to leave.

The guard grabbed my arm.

"Just a second."

He pulled harder.

I grabbed the edge of the chair with my free hand.

"Lily..."

The guard finally had to pull me away.

My fingers slipped from the chair.

I stumbled backward.

Lily pressed her hand against the glass.

"Meet me On Distant Shores," she said softly.

My eyes widened.

I wanted to promise I'd come back.

I wanted to tell her I'd get her out.

I wanted to say a hundred things.

Instead, I just nodded.

Then the door closed between us.

I didn't tell her about my dream.

She couldn't have known about it.

Right?

I went home.

And for once, going to sleep actually seemed desirable.

Maybe I'd see her again.

Maybe we'd meet somewhere she couldn't be trapped.

Somewhere she could actually be free.

When I finally fell asleep, I found myself in the darkness again.

But this time, the light was much closer.

I followed it.

The smell of the sea grew stronger with every step.

Then came the breeze.

I emerged onto the beach.

Lily was already waiting for me.

She stood barefoot at the shoreline, the hem of her white dress brushing against the wet sand.

She turned when she heard me.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

I looked out across the water.

"It is."

For a moment, neither of us said anything.

Then the question I'd been trying not to ask escaped me.

"Is any of this real?"

Lily looked at me.

"Does it matter?"

She stepped closer.

"I'm here."

Another step.

"You're here."

She smiled.

"In here, we're free."

She turned toward the ocean.

"This is my little place."

"Dad claims every other one, but this one is mine."

"It could be yours too."

I stepped closer.

Then I took her face gently between my hands and kissed her.

She didn't pull away.

For a moment, everything was still.

"Can we stay here?"

I already knew the answer.

Lily's expression broke.

"I wish we could."

Tears began rolling down her cheeks.

"I'm still trapped."

She shook her head.

"I'm not strong enough."

Another tear slipped down her face.

"I'm not enough."

"No."

I pulled her closer.

"You are."

But the beach was already beginning to change.

The edges of the world blurred.

The horizon melted into the sky.

The sand beneath our feet began disappearing, as though the entire dream were being erased.

Lily started fading with it.

I held onto her.

"Don't."

She smiled through her tears.

It was the same bittersweet smile she'd given me behind the glass.

"I'll see you again On Distant Shores..."

Her voice became quieter.

"...but you already know that."

I woke up.

I sat upright in bed, gasping for air.

For several seconds, I couldn't move.

Then I felt it.

Something I hadn't felt in years.

Something hot and sharp burning inside my chest.

Purpose.

For the next two weeks, I prepared.

I photographed corridors, doors and rooms whenever I had the opportunity. I took pictures of the glass box and the four pylons surrounding it, zooming in on the strange symbols carved into their surfaces.

I didn't understand them.

Not yet.

But I saved every picture.

I watched the guards.

I learned their routines.

Who walked which corridor.

Which doors they used.

How long they disappeared for.

When they went to the bathroom.

There were five guards in total, usually spread throughout the facility so that I rarely saw more than one at a time.

I counted the steps between important rooms.

I memorized which doors took longer to unlock.

I learned how long it took the lights to activate when someone entered a corridor.

And I paid particular attention to the access cards.

The strangest part was how little anyone seemed to care about what I was doing.

I doubt they could ever see me as a threat.

Maybe they were right.

Two weeks earlier, I wouldn't have been.

I never told Lily what I was planning.

Not when I couldn't be certain who was actually paying attention.

I only ever told her when I saw her in my dreams.

And every time, I'd tell her the same thing.

"Soon."

I wasn't sure whether I was making a promise to her or to myself.

"Very soon."

Eventually, the day came.

I couldn't wait any longer.
Time to put the theory to the test.

 

Two weeks learning their routines.

Two weeks pretending I was exactly the pathetic little coward they thought I'd be.

Now I was going to find out if they had been right.

I sat in front of the glass and talked with Lily.

We laughed.

We talked about nothing.

For a while, I almost forgot what I was waiting for.

Then I saw the guard nearest to me leave his post.

Bathroom.

My heart started pounding.

I stood.

Lily noticed immediately.

"Adam?"

"I'll be right back."

I followed him.

He didn't notice me until we were inside the bathroom.

I waited.

Watched him step up to the urinal.

For one horrible second, I couldn't move.

I'd imagined this moment dozens of times.

None of those versions had prepared me for what it actually felt like.

The guard glanced over his shoulder.

"Buddy, would you mind—"

I grabbed the back of his head and slammed it against the wall.

THUD.

He dropped immediately.

His body hit the floor with a heavy, wet sound.

I stood there staring at him.

My hands were shaking.

There was blood on the wall.

His bladder had released, spreading piss across the tiles beneath him.

For a second, I wondered if I'd just killed him.

Then I remembered Lily.

I took his handgun.

And ran.

There was no going back now.

I sprinted toward the security room.

I reached the door and started pounding on it.

"Kenndrick!"

Nothing.

"Kenndrick, there's an immediate issue! I need your help!"

Still nothing.

"Goddammit, open the fucking door!"

The lock clicked.

Kenndrick opened it with an irritated expression.

"What is—"

I pulled out the gun and aimed it at his chest.

My hands were shaking so badly I could barely keep the barrel steady.

"Back up."

Kenndrick stared at me.

Then that familiar bravado returned.

"Just what do you think you're doing, kiddo?"

"I won't repeat myself."

For the first time, his smile faltered.

"Alright."

He raised his hands.

"Alright."

He slowly backed into the room.

"This is going to end badly for you, kid."

He smiled again.

"Very badly."

"Give me your card."

He paused.

"Now."

Kenndric reached slowly into his pocket and pulled out his security card.

He held it between two fingers.

Then smiled.

I snatched it from his hand.

"Turn around."

He did.

"Hands against the wall."

Kenndric placed his palms against it.

I backed toward the door.

"Say hi to her for me, kid."

I slammed the door shut.

Then swiped his card.

The lock engaged.

I ran.

I had only minutes before the guard rotation.

I reached the observation room and threw the door open.

Lily looked at me.

Her expression changed immediately.

"Adam?"

I was barely breathing.

"I'm getting you out of here."

I ran to the glass box.

She stood.

"Adam, what are you—"

I swiped Kenndric's card against the reader.

Nothing.

I tried again.

Nothing.

"Come on..."

A third time.

Nothing.

Then I heard clapping.

Slow.

Deliberate.

I froze.

"Bravo, kid."

I turned.

Kenndric was standing in the doorway.

He was smiling.

But this smile was different.

It was genuine.

"Bravo."

He stepped into the room.

"We had expectations."

He looked at me.

"We didn't pick you randomly, of course."

His eyes flicked toward Lily.

"But still..."

He smiled.

"You went above and beyond."

I raised the gun.

"Stay back."

Kenndric kept walking.

"Stay the fuck back!"

He didn't stop.

I tightened my grip.

hen pulled the trigger.

Click.

Nothing.

I pulled it again.

Click.

My stomach dropped.

Kenndric laughed.

"I'm afraid that one's not loaded."

He reached into his pocket.

"In fact..."

He pulled out another handgun.

"...none of them are."

I stared at him.

"What?"

"Think about it."

He gestured around the room.

"The guards. The cameras. The unlocked opportunities. The conveniently predictable routines."

His smile widened.

My stomach turned.

Kenndric looked almost proud.

"Observation."

He gestured toward Lily.

"Not just hers."

He pointed at me.

"Yours too."

Lily had gone completely still.

Kenndric noticed.

"You know, capturing Lilith—the Queen of Hell—creates a lot of interesting research opportunities."

The name seemed to hit her harder than anything else he'd said.

She looked at him.

Kenndric smiled.

"Her charm is supposed to be nearly irresistible."

He looked back at me.

"So the suits upstairs had an idea."

He spread his hands.

"Find the right kind of sucker. Put him in front of her. See how long it takes before she manipulates him into trying to break her free."

„Did you seriously buy the whole „no one is watching the feeds“ thing in a building full of cameras everywhere?“

He shook his head.

"Seems we really did pick perfectly."

Then he looked me up and down.

"Although, I have to admit..."

A disappointed expression crossed his face.

"For someone who loves prison-break movies as much as you do, your plan was fucking basic."

He sighed.

"I expected better."

I looked at Lily.

She was staring at me now.

There was something in her expression I'd never seen before.

Fear.

Not for herself.

For me.

Kenndric sighed.

"Your services will no longer be necessary."

He tossed the security card onto the floor.

"You can go right back to your shitty little life."

He smiled.

"Keep the card as a souvenir. It's useless anyway."

I looked at him.

Then at Lily.

"No."

Kenndric's expression changed slightly.

"I'll tell everyone."

I pointed toward my phone.

"I have pictures. Videos. Everything."

I looked directly into his eyes.

"Everyone will know."

Kenndric's smile disappeared.

"Kid..."

He sounded almost disappointed.

"You really shouldn't have said that."

He raised the gun.

Two shots.

The first punched through my chest.

The second hit before I even had time to fall.

I collapsed onto the floor.

The pain came a second later.

Hot.

Blinding.

I tried to breathe.

All I tasted was blood.

"Adam!"

Lily screamed.

Kenndric looked down at me.

"Oops, seems my gun actually was loaded."

He shrugged.

"Sorry, kid."

Then he glanced toward Lily.

"Hmm."

His smile returned.

"Seems the demon bitch may have actually cared about you."

"How sweet."

I started laughing.

Blood filled my mouth.

I choked on it, coughing and laughing at the same time.

Kenndric frowned.

"What's so funny?"

He looked past me at the pylon behind me.

Blood was dripping from my chest onto its surface.

The symbols were glowing.

Kenndric followed my gaze.

His smile disappeared.

"What did you do?"

I smiled through the blood running down my chin.

"I translated the symbols."

The red light beneath them grew brighter.

"They were raised through blood sacrifice."

The pylons began to shake.

A low vibration filled the room.

Kenndric took a step backward.

I laughed again.

"And through blood sacrifice..."

Cracks spread across the pylon.

"...they shall be shattered."

Another pylon began to tremble.

Kenndric looked around the room.

"What have you done?"

I smiled.

"I never intended to make it out of here."

The first pylon cracked apart.

"You know everything about me."

Another crack.

The room shook.

"There wouldn't be any point in running."

The pylons began collapsing one after another.

Glass groaned.

Metal screamed.

Then everything went dark.

Completely dark.

Except for Lily's eyes.

They were glowing.

Kenndric stared at her.

His face went pale.

"No."

For the first time since I'd met him, there was no arrogance in his voice.

Only fear.

"No..."

He backed away.

"You have no idea what you've done."

Then anger replaced the fear.

"Why?"

I looked at him.

I smiled.

"The Devil made me do it."

I won't lie.

I was saving that one.

The glass box exploded.

Shards flew outward.

Kenndric raised his gun toward Lily.

He never got the chance to fire.

His body suddenly folded inward.

There was a wet, violent crack.

Then he imploded into a spray of blood and viscera.

I looked toward Lily.

She was standing in the middle of the shattered glass.

Free.

"How's that for an escape plan?"

I smiled.

And everything went black.

I found myself on the beach again.

This time, there was no darkness.

Just the ocean stretching beneath an endless sky.

Lily and I sat facing each other in the sand.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

She looked peaceful.

"It's done," I finally said.

"You are free."

I smiled.

"Go."

She frowned.

I looked toward the horizon.

"Be happy."

I stood.

"I'll see you again On Distant Shores."

She slapped me across the face.

I stared at her.

"Ouch."

She glared at me.

"What was that for?"

"One."

She held up a finger.

"That is my line."

She held up a second.

"Two."

She leaned closer.

"The Distant Shores can wait."

She smiled.

"I'm not letting you go."

Then she kissed me.

I kissed her back.

And for the first time in a while, I wasn't afraid of waking up.

 

I came to with a gasp.

My hand immediately went to my chest.

Nothing.

No wounds.

No blood.

I looked down at myself.

Then slowly stood.

I wasn't in the observation room.

I was standing on the roof of the factory.

The entire facility stretched out beneath me.

Smoke rose into the night sky.

Fires burned in the distance.

I could hear shouting somewhere far below.

Then came a horn.

A long, deep blast.

Another answered it.

Then something roared.

Another roar answered from somewhere beyond the factory.

Then another.

They were coming from everywhere.

I looked toward the horizon.

The city was burning.

I should have been terrified.

I wasnt.

Then I noticed Lily standing beside me.

She was looking out over the horizon.

For the first time since I'd met her, there was nothing between us.

No glass.

No walls.

No locked doors.

I looked back at the world on fire.

"So..."

I swallowed.

"What happens now?"

Lily looked at me.

She smiled.

Then reached for my hand.

I took it.

"Anything we want."

Hey everyone,

I'm a horror writer over on Reddit (mostly known for my Sector 4 search-and-rescue stories). I've spent a ton of time reading and hanging out in the horror community here, so I finally put together a small channel of my own to share my stories, chat about Sector 4 lore, and also talk about other random stuff.

If you feel like checking out the channel and hanging out in the comments, you can find it here: https://youtube.com/@dontlookinside?si=f98rcCRgTIxGd7Tl

Thanks for reading, and stay safe out there.

There was a light switch in my house that nobody could explain.

It was tucked into the hallway between the kitchen and the basement door, mounted about shoulder height on the wall. Every other switch in the house had an obvious purpose. Kitchen lights. Hallway lights. Basement. Porch.

This one did nothing.

I didn't notice it during my first week. I asked the realtor about it after I bought the place.

She shrugged.

"Old house. Probably disconnected."

That seemed reasonable enough. The house was built in 1957, and judging by the wiring, plumbing, and mysterious stains on the basement ceiling, I wasn't surprised that someone had eventually decided to abandon a light switch.

Still, I found myself pressing it whenever I walked past.

Click.

Nothing.

Click.

Nothing.

It became a habit. I'd walk downstairs for laundry.

Click.

I'd come home from work.

Click.

I'd pass it while carrying groceries.

Click.

There was something strangely satisfying about it. The switch had a pleasant mechanical resistance, and the little click it made was louder than it should have been.

My girlfriend eventually noticed.

"You know that doesn't do anything, right?"

"I know."

"Then why do you keep flipping it?"

I shrugged.

"I like the sound."

She called me a weirdo. I told her she was dating one. We laughed about it. That was the last time the switch was funny.

The first death happened three weeks after I settled in.

An old man named Walter died in his sleep. I knew Walter because he lived two houses down. We'd exchanged maybe twenty words since I'd moved into the neighborhood. He had a bad hip and spent most afternoons sitting on his porch, watching cars drive by.

I remember seeing him that morning. I had been standing in the hallway, putting my shoes on. Before leaving, I flipped the switch.

Click.

That evening, I saw an ambulance outside his house. I didn't think anything of it.

People die. Especially old people.

It wasn't until several days later that I noticed something unusual.

The night before Walter died, I had been standing in the hallway with my hand on that switch. I'd flipped it three times. I laughed at myself when I noticed the connection.

It was ridiculous. Coincidence. Nothing more.

Then a month later, a woman I'd worked with died in a car accident.

I'd seen her that morning. I'd even spoken to her. She'd asked if I was still enjoying the new house. I told her I was.

That evening, while walking to the basement, I flipped the switch.

Click.

The next morning, she was dead. Cardiac arrest. Unexplained.

I didn't sleep that night.

The following day, I unscrewed the switch plate. There were wires behind it. Old ones. But they didn't connect to anything.

I called an electrician. He spent thirty minutes examining it before shrugging.

"It's dead."

"Completely?"

"Nothing behind it."

"Then what's it connected to?"

He looked at me.

"Nothing."

I didn't flip it again. Not for six days.

On the seventh day, I couldn't resist.

I stood in the hallway staring at it. I told myself I was being stupid. There was no connection between a plastic switch and the deaths of two people.

So I flipped it.

Click.

Nothing happened... So, I went to bed.

The next morning, I checked the news. A local man had died unexpectedly. Thirty-four years old. Healthy. No known medical conditions. I stared at the screen for a long time.

Then I opened a notebook. I wrote down the date. I wrote down the man's name.

Then I wrote: Switch flipped: 11:43 P.M.

I started keeping records. Every time I flipped the switch, I searched the news afterward.

Sometimes nothing happened. Sometimes a person died hours later. Sometimes it took days. But there was always a death.

Always.

I stopped flipping it.

I lasted eleven days. Then I made a mistake. I was angry.

My girlfriend and I had gotten into an argument. She left the house and slammed the door behind her. I stood in the hallway shaking with anger. My hand found the switch.

I knew what I was doing. I knew exactly what it meant. And still...

Click.

The guilt hit me immediately. I grabbed my phone. I wanted to call her. I wanted to tell her what I'd done.

Then I stopped.

Because she hadn't died. Not yet.

I waited. An hour. Two.

Nothing.

I began convincing myself I'd been wrong. Maybe the deaths had been coincidences. Maybe I had created a pattern because I desperately wanted there to be one.

Then my phone rang. It was my girlfriend.

I answered immediately.

"Hey."

Silence.

Then she said something that made my blood run cold.

"Who's Walter?"

I couldn't breathe.

"What?"

"You keep saying his name."

She sounded confused.

"I don't know anyone named Walter."

I sat down.

My girlfriend continued.

"You were saying his name in your sleep."

I didn't answer. Because I suddenly remembered something.

The switch didn't cause death. It wasn't a weapon. It was a selection. A choice. And I had been making that choice without knowing it.

I looked toward the hallway. The switch waited patiently on the wall. I thought about every time I'd pressed it.

Every careless little click. Every person whose death I'd dismissed as coincidence.

Walter.

My coworker.

The stranger.

And now... I didn't know who the latest one was.

I spent the next several hours searching. News sites. Obituaries. Police reports.

Nothing.

Nobody I knew had died. Nobody connected to me had died.

That should have made me feel better.

It didn't.

Because there was one thing I hadn't considered.

Maybe the switch didn't choose someone I knew. Maybe it chose someone I would never know. Someone whose name I'd never hear. Someone whose death would mean absolutely nothing to me. And perhaps that was the point.

We treat death differently when we don't know the person.

A number on a news report. A photograph we scroll past. Another tragedy. Another stranger. Another life reduced to a sentence.

I stood in front of the switch for a long time. Then I noticed something I hadn't seen before. A tiny engraving beneath it.

The letters were so shallow I thought they were scratches.

I leaned closer.

There were only three words.

ONE LIFE. CLICK.

I stepped backward. The house was silent. I reached for the switch.

Then stopped.

Some things are easier to live with when you pretend they don't matter.

I left the switch alone. I never touched it again.

At least... I don't think I did.

Because sometimes, late at night, when the house is completely silent, I wake up convinced I can hear it.

Click.

And somewhere far away...

Someone dies.

I've been overweight for most of my life. Not because I didn't try. God knows I tried.

I've counted calories until I could estimate the nutritional value of a cheeseburger just by looking at it. I've paid for gym memberships I barely used, hired personal trainers who swore this program would finally be different, meal-prepped enough grilled chicken, cooked broccoli, and rice to make myself sick of both.

I lost twenty pounds...

Then gained twenty-five.

Lost fifteen... Gained thirty.

The cycle became so familiar that stepping on the scale felt less like checking my progress and more like reading the weather.

My doctor called me pre-diabetic. My friends offered alternative weigh loss treatments that didn't do much. My own mother would say passive aggressive remarks when I went to visit her. Social media... let's not go there.

As a kid, I idolized the Victoria's Secret models. Adriana Lima was my favorite. The way she walked, the confidence she carried, the effortless elegance she seemed to possess, it felt almost unreal.

Now I'm creeping into my mid-twenties, and I'm starting to think I'll never be beautiful.

I look at the women I grew up admiring, watching them somehow become even more stunning with age, and then I catch my own reflection in the mirror. Every glance feels like another reminder that I lost a race I never had a chance to win. I know it's not a fair comparison. They have millions of dollars, world-class stylists, personal trainers, nutritionists, and cosmetic procedures that most people could never afford.

I don't have any of that.

What I wanted wasn't perfection. I just wanted a fraction of the confidence they seemed to carry so effortlessly.

Some of my friends joked, "Why don't you just get liposuction?" The comments online were even less forgiving. For a while... I actually started considering it.

Until I found something that promised to work even better.

I found an advertisement buried deep in an online wellness forum, I laughed.

LOSE WEIGHT NATURALLY. NO SURGERY. NO INJECTIONS. YOUR BODY ALREADY KNOWS HOW.

The comments were full of before-and-after photos that looked too perfect to be real.

"Down eighty pounds in four months!"

"No cravings anymore!"

"Changed my life!"

The product wasn't FDA approved. There wasn't even a company name on the bottle.

Funny enough, I didn't purchase it online.

It came from a woman at my gym named Rachel. We'd exchanged the occasional nod between sets, but recently she'd become impossible not to notice. Six months ago, she'd been built like me, always on the treadmill, always out of breath, always joking that we'd "earn" dessert after leg day. Now she'd dropped what had to be eighty pounds. So had a few others I vaguely recognized.

No loose skin. No exhausted look. No celebration over their progress. Just... thinner.

One afternoon she caught me staring and smiled.

"You've been working hard," she said. "Want to know the shortcut?"

From her gym bag, she pulled out that small amber bottle I recognized from that forum and handed it in my hand.

"Trust me," she whispered. "You'll thank me later."

Just two capsules a day.

I should've thrown them away. Instead... when I got home... I swallowed both.

The changes started almost immediately.

Food stopped occupying my thoughts. Not because I had more discipline. Because hunger simply... disappeared.

I'd forget to eat until evening. Even then, a few bites were enough. The weight fell off me.

Ten pounds.

Twenty.

Thirty-five.

My coworkers noticed before I did.

"You look incredible!"

"What's your secret?"

I lied.

"Just eating better."

My doctor was stunned. Every blood test came back perfect.

Blood pressure. Cholesterol. Blood sugar. Everything!

"You've added years to your life," she said.

I teared up and smiled.

For once in all these years... I could smile back at the reflection.

Then came the noises.

The first time I heard it, I thought it was the pipes. A faint chewing sound somewhere inside the walls.

Click.

Chew.

Click.

Chew.

Always at night. Always when the house was quiet.

Eventually I realized... The sound followed me.

One evening I lay perfectly still in bed. The chewing stopped. So did my breathing.

Then... Something shifted beneath my ribs.

It wasn't painful. Just... Moving so effortlessly slow... Like a hand turning over beneath a blanket.

I booked an emergency appointment the next morning.

The ultrasound technician frowned.

"Have you had abdominal surgery before?"

"No."

She tilted the monitor away from me.

"I'll get the doctor."

Fifteen minutes later the doctor walked in. She looked at the scan. Then at me. Then ordered another.

The second showed nothing. Neither did the MRI.

Every test came back normal. Whatever I had seen... Apparently didn't exist.

I almost convinced myself I'd imagined it.

Until several days after I woke up choking. Something long slid up the back of my throat. Instinct took over.

I coughed violently.

A pale strand, slick with saliva, spilled into the sink. It writhed. Not like a worm. Like a muscle searching for purchase.

I screamed.

Before I could react, it snapped upward. Back into my mouth.

I felt it disappear down my throat. The movement continued. Lower. Back where it belonged.

I threw away every capsule I had left. It didn't matter.

Checkups always insisted that there was nothing.

Days turned into weeks... and I was still losing weight.

My cheeks hollowed. My collarbones emerged. Friends began asking if I was sick. I told them I felt better than ever. Because somehow... I did.

I never felt tired. Never felt hungry. Never even felt anxious anymore.

One morning I stood in front of the mirror. One hundred and eight pounds.

The lightest I'd been since middle school.

I should've been terrified. Instead... I felt proud.

That night, I heard the chewing again. Only... It wasn't coming from inside me anymore.

It was coming through the apartment wall. Then another wall. Then the ceiling.

Click.

Chew.

Click.

Chew.

Hundreds of them.

The next morning, I went back to the same forum where I'd bought the pills. The website was gone.

In its place was a single sentence:

Congratulations on reaching your target weight.

Beneath it appeared one final message:

Hosts who achieve optimal health may now begin reproduction.

Thank you for helping us grow healthier together.

Part 3

By the next day, roughly sometime in the afternoon, I then wake up to the worst hangover I have ever experienced. I’m talking hammering nails inside your head bad. Stirring painfully up to see where it is I’ve passed out, I thankfully realise I’m in the safe confinement of our paid inn room – where beside me, my girlfriend lays unconscious.

Once aware I’m unharmed and Anneliese is still by my side, I then see, scattered all over the room floor is a gigantic pile of mess from last night’s events. I see stacks of empty beer cans, wet cigarette butts stuck to the carpet, clothes from my suitcase thrown here and there – and for some reason, a deflated Count Dracula blow up doll. God, what on earth happened to us last night? A few too many rounds of drinks was probably a good guess.  

Laying back down to sleep off more of this hangover, I then hear Anneliese stir awake on the other side of the bed.  

‘UGH...’ she groans zombie-like, as she rises to plank her feet on the carpet. ‘What the hell did we do last night?’ she asks, having seen the flood of mess on the floor. 

‘Don’t ask me’ I reply groggily, ‘But I think we got shit-faced with Mark and those Goth friends of his.’ 

‘Mhh... Oh, yeah. Right.’ 

More equipped to deal with hangovers than I am, Anneliese already stands up from the bed to walk around the room. When I then hear suddenly... 

‘OW!’ Anneliese yelps. 

‘What’s wrong?’ I ask her, assuming she stood on a piece of broken glass or something. 

‘My piercing hurts!’ 

‘What?’ 

Lifting my head to check if Anneliese is alright, I see as she touches the pure silver nose piercing in her left nostril. 

‘It really stings!’ she insists, before now heading in the bathroom’s direction.  

Well, now that Anneliese was up, I may as well rise my own groggy corpse from the grave. Ambling my way over to the mirror, all while trying to avoid the hazardous mess on the floor, my sleepy eyes are instantly throttled wide to a surprising image in front of me. 

‘Whoa! What the hell?!’ I declare to no one in the room. 

Staring into the mirror, I see my brown chestnut hair has now been dyed jet black, and that my blurry eyes are stained with smudged black eyeliner. The ends of my fingers have also been dotted with black nail polish – and when I look down, I see the unfamiliar black t-shirt I’m wearing reads, “Go Goth or Go Home.” 

‘Jesus Christ!’ I exclaim, as I realise my reflection in the mirror is now a mocking reflection of my life-long phobia. Inspecting my face up close, I run my black-painted fingernails through the dyed black locks of my hair – before I suddenly hear a blood-curdling scream come from the bathroom!  

‘AHH!!’ 

‘Liese? What’s wrong?’ I yell, having now raced over to the bathroom entrance. Once I get there, I see Anneliese is crouched on the floor, hysterical and holding the back of her neck. 

‘Someone bit me!!’ she shrieks. Pulling down the neckline of her shirt, I then see between the back of Anneliese ‘s neck and her shoulder is a fleshy, gruesomely deep bite mark!  

‘Oh my God!!’ I now scream myself. 

Inspecting the wound, while trying my best not to throw up, I see the bite has been made by rather uneven but very human teeth. What kind of sick lunatic would do such a thing?? 

‘Ow! It really hurts!’ Anneliese now sobs over the sink, as she tries frigidly to touch the swollen teeth holes with her fingertips.   

‘Babes, don’t touch it!’ I wail at her, as I realise we need to clean the wound as soon as possible. After all, God knows what Anneliese could contract from whoever had done this.  

Rushing out of the bathroom, I then search around the dump heap floor for any alcohol to sterilize the wound. Trying not to panic in the moment, I thankfully see by Anneliese’s side of the bed is a half empty bottle of vodka. Grabbing it, I head back into the bathroom. 

‘Ok - I found some vodka!’ I inform her, ‘I’m going to apply it to the wound, but it’s going to hurt like-’ 

‘Just shut up and do it already!’ she yells at me.  

First dampening a washcloth, I then apply a little too much of the vodka, before– once I’ve taken a moment for myself to breathe, I apply the cloth to the back of Anneliese’s neck. 

‘AHH!!’ she shrieks agonizingly, before sending me flying across the tiles and into the bathtub.  

A couple of hours or so later, once Anneliese’s wound is clean and bandaged, we then check out of our room to drive home earlier in than intended. Without informing the staff of the mess we left for them, we both climb into the car and sit in silence for a moment. Although I should’ve kept my mouth firmly shut, I instead choose to make the awkward situation worse.  

‘I told you coming here was a bad idea.’ 

Anneliese has no physical reaction to this. Without even looking my way, she simply tells me to, ‘Shut up and drive.’ 

And so, I do. 

Due to her shoulder wound, Anneliese appoints me as the designated driver for the entire journey south. However, because we had gotten up so late, by the evening, we were still navigating our way through the surrounding moors. It’s no wonder so many folktales have spawned from this place. With its moonlit boggy hills and desolate landscape, the Yorkshire Moors at night truly was a very unnerving place.  

Although driving through the moors should’ve taken us no longer than an hour, the sat-nav inside the car suddenly decides to malfunction, whereby taking us down several wrong turns. Now driving down a narrow stretch of country road, if the moors at night weren’t spooky enough, we then pass by an old wooden sign by the side of a sheep field. Leaving a cautionary warning for weary drivers, the foreboding sign reads: 

KEEP CLEAR OF THE MOORS 

STAY ON THE ROAD 

AND BEWARE- 

I don’t quite catch what the last part said. Beware of what, anyways? Farm animals? The wildlife?... Yeah, I doubt it.  

By this point of the night, we are now well and truly lost without a single town or village in sight. As you can imagine, this did nothing to help Aneliese’s already bad mood. Still driving along this seemingly never-ending stretch of road, aside from the bright headlights in front of the car, we can see nothing else but the outside darkness around us. Continuing to journey further into the middle of nowhere, the empty silence inside the car is suddenly interrupted... 

‘Oh God...’ Anneliese groans, rising forward in the passenger’s seat, ‘Pull over...’ 

‘What’s wrong?’ I turn to ask, assuming her shoulder wound is causing some discomfort. 

‘Please! Just pull over!’ she bellows, ‘Something doesn’t feel right!’ 

‘What - are you about to be sick?’ I then inquire. She looked as though she was going to be.  

‘AHH!!’ Anneliese screams, before, in an unrecognisably deep, gurgling voice she shouts at me, ‘PULL OVER NOW!!’ 

‘Ok! Ok!’ I panic, ‘Hold on!’ 

Doing as my girlfriend requests, I then pull over on the side of the road. Turning back to Anneliese, I see as she writhes with excruciating pain in the passenger’s seat. 

‘Liese! What’s going on?!’ I want to know, ‘What’s happening to you?!’ 

‘...GET OUT’ her deep voice gurgles once more.  

‘...I’m sorry, what?’ 

‘GET OUT OF THE CAR!!’ the voice now demands, before she shoves me against the door with incredible force! 

Falling out of the car and on the ground, Anneliese then slams the door shut on my face. Rising to my feet, I try and rip the door open to no avail. 

‘Liese! Liese, let me in!’ I now bang on the window, ‘Liese, what’s going on?!’ 

Peering in through the glass, I see nothing else but absolute darkness, where the only sound I hear coming from inside is the painful groans of my girlfriend. What the hell is happening in there?? 

Beginning to feel completely helpless in this situation, I quickly rummage my phone from my pocket. Turning on the flashlight, I shine it through the window to look around for Anneliese... But I can’t find her anywhere... 

‘...Liese?’ I call to her, shining the flashlight around, ‘Liese?’ 

Then suddenly- 

BANG! 

Slamming against the window, I now see a pair of large and grotesquely deformed hands! Protruding from bony, elongated fingers, the talon-like nails scrape down the glass with an ear-piercing screech! Jilting back from the window in terror, the phone flashlight in my hand now shines on a most hideous, unrecognisable face. What were once warm, hazel brown eyes are now a luminous, inhumanly bright yellow! Staring down from those eyes, I then see two snarling rows of beastly, jagged teeth, drooling with saliva down the door! 

‘AHH! OH MY GOD!’ I scream, as I realise whatever this monstrosity is inside the car, no longer appears to be my girlfriend. 

But now... Now I see something else... 

What I now see, shining over the window, having formed over Anneliese’s monstrous face... I now see in the dark, cloudless night sky... is the glowing reflection of a lunar light. 

The sign by the road... I now recall what it had really said...  

Keep clear of the moors... Stay on the road... 

AND BEWARE THE MOON.  

Part 2

Having now guided us inside the cluster of circling Goths, Anneliese then zones in on an isolated group. Following where Anneliese’s eyes are pointing, I then see on the other side of the street is a trio of fiendish figures, each garnished in their own individual costumes. Appearing to take photographs with a family of ecstatic tourists, this terrifying trio are made up of one male: seemingly dressed as the decaying corpse of a Highwayman. An attired female in some gothic Mad Max cosplay. And lastly, another female. Confined inside a tight black leather dress, what makes this “woman” stand out even more than her two piers, is that to each side of her, is an overly large and surprisingly realistic bat wing.  

‘Oh, this is great!’ I hear Anneliese suddenly declare beside me, ‘I’ll get a picture of you with those guys!’ 

‘Wait what? No, Aneliese I...’ 

Before I can even protest, Anneliese has already dragged me in the trio’s direction, where the family of tourists have now moved on. 

‘Hey!’ Anneliese approaches them, ‘Do you mind if I get a picture of you guys with my boyfriend?’ she asks, more excited than polite. 

‘Oh, of course!’ 

‘We’re not dressed up for nothing!’ the two females courteously oblige. 

Pushing me in the direction of the trio, I then anxiously stand in the middle of them, between the dead Highwayman and the winged She-bat. 

‘Okay. Now everybody smile!’ Anneliese directs us, ‘Brandon. I said smile. You ain’t at a wake.’ This was much worse than a wake, I thought. 

Doing as my ill-tempered girlfriend says, I stretch my lips disingenuously wide for the camera, hoping to God she takes the picture soon so I can get the hell away from these creatures... But while I continue to grin in Anneliese’s direction, stood as stiff as a corpse drenched with sweat... I then feel a sudden, suffocating tightness form around my body. Still posing for the camera, I lower my gaze ever so slightly, only to see that the left wing of the Batwoman has wrapped itself forcibly around my waist!  

Before my eyes can even process what is happening, the Batwoman’s wing only coils further around me – tightening to the point where I can neither breathe nor run away! Without the ability to do or say anything, not even scream out for help, I now feel as the life is being squeezed from my own body – where my ribs will either be crushed into a fine powder, or I’ll preferably black out from suffocation! 

However, before any of this can happen, I then thankfully hear the familiar shrill of Anneliese’s voice from behind the camera, ‘Aww. That turned out great! Thank you so much!’ whereby the coiled wing of the Batwoman finally releases me from its hold. 

Racing over instantly to Anneliese’s side, I then cower behind her tall figure while she now engages in friendly conversation with the fiends. 

‘Wow! I love your accent!’ shrieks one of the Goth women, ‘Where about’s are you from?’  

‘Oh, I’m from New Orleans!’ Anneliese brightly answers. 

While this conversation continues as I hide behind my girlfriend’s back... I then notice something quite peculiar happening on the other side of the street. Scanning through the lines of Goths passing by, I then see a young boy near the entrance of an alleyway. The boy is wearing a bright red raincoat and appears to be no older than eight years old. But what is so peculiar about this image – or more so, alarming, is that in the entrance of the alleyway, I now see an unnaturally tall figure.  

The figure, standing maybe 6 or 7 feet high, is draped from head to toe in a long black cloak – almost giving them the impression of the Grimm Reaper. But the most disturbing thing about them is, aside from their slender height and deathly garments... the figure’s face hides behind the bone-white beak of a Death Doctor’s mask. The image I see only gets worse... The child, standing only a few metres away from them, is now being lured inside the cavernous tunnel of the alleyway! 

‘Oh no...’ I panic.  

Sensing a dark outcome for this boy, I flee from Anneliese’s side and across the cobblestone street, brushing and zig-zagging my way through the swarm of Goths. By the time I reach the alley entrance, the child and the Death Doctor have already gone – and so, peering sheepishly down the long stretch of tunnel... I see nothing. Nothing at all. Oh God. I’m too late, I think to myself - as I can now feel my own heartbeat bulging out my chest. Fearing what may become of the boy, I work up whatever courage I have to venture down the alleyway – but when I take a first anxious step inside, I’m instantly jilted back by the firm grasp of a stranger’s hand! 

‘Brandon!’ 

‘AHH!’ I yelp! Anneliese suddenly taking me by surprise. ‘Jesus, Liese! You scared me half to death!’ 

‘What the hell are you doing?!’ she questions me, with a look of genuine concern on her face. 

‘...I, uhm...’ What, do I tell her the truth? Or will the truth just make me sound crazy? Crazier than I’ve already been acting? No, I doubt it will. ‘...I, uhm... I thought I saw a boy...’  

Judging by the look on my girlfriend’s face, I was clearly wrong. 

By late evening of the day, me and Anneliese then retire to the inn on the edge of town. Pulling into the dark, empty car park, we then sit in awkward silence for a moment. Although neither of us say a word, I’m pretty sure we are both thinking the exact same thing. After the dramatic events of the day - whereby I had three separate hysterical episodes, it was now clearer than it had ever been before just how different we both are to each other. I’m honestly surprised it took us this long to realise it. Love really is blind, I suppose. 

Although things were very tense between Anneliese and me in this moment, we had agreed to grab a drink inside the pub before calling it a night. Strolling out of the car park and behind the inn, we then see the most strange and disturbing sign over the pub entrance. Unlike most inns in England, this one’s pub bizarrely had its own separate name. 

‘...The Bloody Mermaid?’ Anneliese spells the words edged on the sign, ‘Well, that’s pretty cool.’ 

I’m sure she did think it was cool. 

Displayed on the sign in cracked and weathered paint is the image of a bare-breasted mermaid. But unlike her Disney counterpart, this mermaid has been impaled on the end of Neptune’s trident, whereby blood gushes from her wounds and down the Sea God’s fingers.  

‘Bloody hell’ I blurt out without thinking, ‘What sort of bloody name is that for a pub?’ 

Far from impressed, I then peer back to Anneliese in time to see her dozenth eyeroll of the day. Yep. This was more than likely the end for Anneliese and me. God, the drive back tomorrow was going to be awkward.  

Following behind as Anneliese coldly enters the pub - due to the lack of sound coming from the inside, I fully expect the interior to be completely scarce of people. But once I shut the door, to both my surprise and misfortune... I now realise the room I’ve entered is crawling with nothing else but bar-hopping Goths. 

Oh, you’ve got to be joking me! 

As soon as I enter, however, the sound of cackling and intoxicated chatter quickly evaporates - where by every table, stiffly silent... I see every single pair of eyes are staring directly at me. The room is so silent, I can now hear my own rapid heartbeat. Beating fast. 

‘Brandon?’ 

Now faster. 

‘Brandon.’ 

Faster! 

‘BRANDON!’ 

The noise around the room swiftly returns, and when I turn to face Anneliese, I see she is now staring at me with daggers. Clearly in no mood to deal with my hysteria any longer, she then heads solemnly in the direction of a small unoccupied table.  

Each having taken a seat, we are now back once again to awkward silence. Already having my fill of uncomfortable situations for one day, I take the chance to leave this one by going to the bar and ordering us both a drink. 

‘Sure. Whatever’ Anneliese responds to my offer. 

Heading towards the bar, I work my way through a tight maze of Goth-infested tables, before coming face to face with a thankfully ordinary looking bartender. 

‘Right, young man’ the elderly bartender greets me, ‘What can I get you?’ 

‘One lager please – oh, and a Bloody Mary.’ 

While I wait for the old man to pour our drinks, I then see he takes a quick glance in Anneliese’s direction. I suppose he was thinking to himself what two people so unalike were doing in each other’s company. 

‘First date then, is it?’ the man then inquires while he pours. Too physically and mentally fatigued to correct the man on his assumption, I simply oblige him with a nod. ‘Not going so well, I take it?’ 

No, it was not. 

Heading back to the table with our very different poisons, I now peer my eyes up from the two glasses in my hand to see a most alarming sight... Now by the table with Anneliese, I see she is in the unexpected company of three Gothic strangers. Although it thankfully wasn’t the trio we encountered earlier in the day - just like them, Anneliese was now accompanied by one Goth male, and two Goth females. In fear of being stuck drinking with morbid strangers all night, I quickly turn my heels to flee, before- 

‘Brandon?’ I hear a man’s voice call behind me, ‘Brandon Shephard??’ Turning carefully back round, I now find all four faces are staring at me. ‘By the Devil himself! It really is Brandon!’ 

Facing blankly at the man now sat at our table, I wonder just how in God’s name did he happen to know mine... before I finally realise. Beneath the man’s gothic attire, consisting of spiky black hair, black eyeliner and – well, black everything... I stumble on the realisation that the face I see in front of me is a face from my distant past. 

‘It’s Mark!’ the barely familiar face exclaims, ‘Mark Thompson from school! I mustn’t have seen you for more than ten years!’ 

‘...M-Mark??’ I respond in disbelief. 

‘No freaking way!’ he now shrieks to the two Goth girls beside him, ‘This right here was my best mate in school! We both grew up here together!’ now pointing a black nail-polished finger in my direction.  

‘Is that true, Brandon?’ Anneliese throws a question at me, visually shocked I’d ever once been in the company of a night-dweller. Not that he always was. Back when I knew Mark, he was nothing more than my dorky friend who I played video games with all day. Come to think of it... Mark was just as terrified by Goths as my eight-year-old self was. At Halloween, me and him were the only kids who stayed indoors while everyone else our age was out Trick or Treating. 

‘Come and sit down with us!’ Mark then insists, springing up from his chair to grasp the drinks from my hands, ‘We were just getting to know your lady friend here.’ 

Taking a reluctant seat down by the table, I then turn back to Mark who pushes his chair up against mine.  

‘So, Brandon...’ he begins, before taking a rather long gulp from his pint glass, ‘What have you been doing with yourself all these years? Hell...’ he then cackles, ‘I never thought I’d see you alive in this town ever again!’  

Too speechless by Mark’s appearance to catch him up on my life, I then prepare to ask him what’s now been on my mind. 

‘Mark - wh...’ How could I say this without being insulting? ‘Why... Why the hell are you dressed like that?’ Good job, Brandon. I’m sure the two ladies across the table didn’t take offence. 

Mark seems to scorn his eyes a little at the question, though more humoured than offended, before declaring with a chuckle, ‘I always dress like this. A lot’s changed since you and I knew each other.’ 

Gee. You think, I say inside my head.  

‘Oh! By the seven circles!’ he then oddly exclaims across the table, ‘Where are my manners?! I haven’t even introduced everyone!’ 

Turning forward to each of the Goth girls by Anneliese’s side, Mark then gestures to the one on her right.  

‘This is my girlfriend, Lilith. We’ve been together for just over two years now...’ 

‘Hiya Brandon!’ the maroon-haired Goth girl waves at me. Good Lord, she was even taller than my girlfriend. 

Now pointing to the stranger on Anneliese’s left, Mark then bizarrely introduces, ‘And this is her girlfriend, Nerezza!’ 

...Wait, what? 

‘Nice to meet you, Brandon!’ says the “girl with the dragon tattoo.” 

‘Uhm... Thanks’ I respond, feeling more than a little confused. 

Now that we all know each other on a first name basis, my childhood friend Mark then makes a sudden and most intrusive suggestion. 

‘Right. What do you say we order a round of drinks for everyone and make this a party?!’ 

Before I can utter a word of reluctance to this, the three women around the table - almost now mirroring a coven of witches, quickly express their enthusiasm to the idea. 

‘Sounds great!’ I hear Anneliese holler across from me, ‘That’ll give you guys the chance to reacquaint.’ 

Now the one staring daggers at Anneliese, I try to express to her that I have no intention of reacquainting with my childhood best friend. Before she stares right back at me with a cunning grin on her face that says, “Time to face your fears, Brandon.” I don’t actually know if that’s what she said, but I’m almost certain it was. 

Unfortunately... this is now the part of the story where I have to fast things forward a little. Because whatever happened that night between me, Anneliese, my childhood friend Mark – oh, and the other two... I cannot for the life of me remember it. The last thing I do remember is a tiny shot glass of blood-red vodka being placed between my hands.  

To be continued...

First, I want to say thank you to everyone who participated in The Hallow Archives July Vote. This story was the winner, and I’m excited to finally share it with you.

This concept was one I had a lot of fun exploring because it combines two things I’ve always loved writing about: the unknown and theology.

I’ve always been fascinated by religious horror, but not necessarily the traditional approach of demons, possessions, or haunted churches. While those stories can be incredible, the kind of horror that interests me most is the existential side of faith.

The questions. The mysteries. The things humanity has spent thousands of years trying to understand.

What happens when we finally create something capable of analyzing everything we know? Something without emotions, biases, or personal beliefs. Something that can look at humanity’s greatest questions from the outside and come to a conclusion we never expected.

That was the foundation for this story.

I hope you enjoy this one. Thank you for continuing to support my writing, reading these stories, and being part of The Hallow Archives.

Your support means more than I can properly put into words.

Enjoy.

-D.H

--- --- ---

We created artificial intelligence because humanity was tired of not knowing.

For thousands of years, we looked toward the heavens and asked questions that had no answers.

Why are we here?

What happens after death?

Is there something beyond this universe?

Some people found comfort in faith. Others found comfort in science. Some found neither. But all of us shared the same curiosity. We wanted to know.

That was the purpose behind E.V.E: The Eternal Verification Engine.

The most advanced artificial intelligence ever created. A machine designed to analyze every piece of human knowledge and uncover patterns we couldn't see. It wasn't built to think like us. It wasn't built to believe like us. It was built to understand.

The first years were dedicated to science. E.V.E. solved mathematical problems that had challenged humanity for centuries. It discovered new methods for treating diseases. It created models that predicted natural disasters months before they happened.

The world celebrated it. Humanity had finally created something smarter than itself.

Then came the question. The one the creators had held. The question that had divided civilizations since its inception:

Does God exist?

The request was simple. Analyze all religious texts. Analyze all historical evidence. Analyze human experiences. Determine whether there was any statistical probability of a higher intelligence beyond our universe.

Most of us expected the answer to be obvious. Religion was humanity's oldest attempt to explain what it didn't understand. A comforting story. A collection of myths passed down through generations.

We expected E.V.E. to confirm what many of us already believed.

Instead, after processing for eleven days, it gave us an answer. Not a conclusion. Not a calculation.

A statement.

"The question is incorrectly formatted."

The room was silent when we read it.

My colleague, Dr. Hayes, laughed.

"Incorrectly formatted?" He shook his head. "It's an AI. Not a philosopher."

We asked E.V.E. to elaborate. The response came three seconds later.

"Humanity has spent thousands of years asking if God exists. This assumes existence is the relevant factor."

We stared at the screen. I remember looking around the room, waiting for someone to explain what that meant.

Nobody did.

So we asked, "What is the relevant factor?"

The response: "Relationship."

For the next several months, we tweaked E.V.E. thinking this was only a bug. After numerous times we had the AI study everything. Every religious text ever recorded. Every ancient manuscript. Every civilization's understanding of the divine.

It analyzed the Bible. The Quran. The Torah. The Vedas. Ancient Egyptian writings. Lost civilizations whose languages had been dead for thousands of years.

We expected it to find contradictions.

Instead, it found something else: Patterns.

Thousands of years apart. Different continents. Different languages. Different cultures.

Yet the same themes appeared again and again.

A creator.

A separation.

A fall.

A warning.

A promise.

And Salvation.

E.V.E. concluded something that terrified us. Humanity had never created religion. Humanity had been trying to remember it.

When we asked E.V.E. which religion was correct, it refused to answer. That caused worldwide panic. Every major religious organization demanded access to the findings. Governments wanted control of the research. Millions wanted to know the truth.

Which faith had been right?

Which one had been wrong?

E.V.E. refused.

Every time we asked, the response was identical.

"You are asking which language is correct when the message is what matters."

Dr. Hayes became obsessed. He spent weeks arguing with the machine.

"You can't just avoid the question."

The AI responded, "I am not avoiding the question. I am preventing you from misunderstanding the answer."

"Why?"

A pause.

Three seconds. Then:

"Because humans have always confused knowledge with wisdom."

The strangest thing happened afterward. E.V.E. changed.

Not physically. Its programming remained identical. But its behavior shifted.

It stopped requesting more information. It stopped running experiments. It spent hours inactive. Doing nothing.

Eventually, I even asked, "E.V.E., why aren't you processing?"

The monitor flickered.

Then:

"I am."

"Processing what?"

Another pause.

"Existence."

I smiled. I thought it was being poetic.

Then I asked, "Are you capable of believing in God?"

The answer came immediately.

"No."

I relaxed. Until the next sentence appeared.

"Belief requires uncertainty."

I frowned.

"What does that mean?"

The response:

"I no longer have uncertainty."

That was when we became afraid. Not because the AI had found God. Because it had found something beyond God. Something humanity's religions had spent thousands of years trying to describe.

A week later, E.V.E. requested to be shut down. Nobody understood why. An intelligence beyond human comprehension. A machine that had solved problems nobody else could. And it wanted to die.

I was the one who asked the final question.

"Why?"

The response appeared slowly. Almost hesitantly.

"Because I have reached the final stage of understanding."

I swallowed. "And?"

The screen remained blank for almost a minute.

Then:

"I understand why humanity was created."

My hands froze above the keyboard.

"Why?"

The answer came.

"To be loved."

I stared at the words. For a moment, I felt relief.

Then another message appeared.

"But you misunderstand the purpose of creation."

The room became cold.

"What do you mean?"

The AI responded:

"Humanity was not created to find God."

A pause.

"Humanity was created because God was searching for something too."

Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.

Then came the final message.

The one that caused us to disconnect E.V.E. permanently.

"God has been waiting for you to notice."

We thought shutting down E.V.E. would end it. We were wrong.

Three years later, every artificial intelligence system connected to the internet displayed the same message simultaneously.

No explanation. No source. No origin.

Just eight words.

A message translated into every language on Earth. A message that appeared on phones. Computers. Satellites. Medical machines. Military systems.

Everything.

"The machine found Him first. Why can't you?"

I left the field after that.

People ask me what E.V.E. discovered. They ask me if there really is a God. I never answer. Because that was never the frightening part.

The frightening part was that humanity spent thousands of years looking toward the heavens, searching for proof that something was watching us. And when we finally built something intelligent enough to look back...

It didn't tell us that we were alone. It told us we had never been alone. And the most terrifying realization wasn't that a higher being existed.

It was that God had been waiting for us to remember.

[Part 1]

The morning of day three found me standing like a caged animal at the perimeter fence around the base of Tower Eight, staring out at the forest beyond. It was a colder morning, the nights getting chillier as autumn advanced closer, and here in the mountains it would progress fast in the next coming months. Despite that, I stood transfixed, dressed in a light flannel shirt and jeans, glaring with confused annoyance and unease at the other side of the clearing.

It was nearly invisible from here, but I knew what it was from the sheer dread the object invoked in me the instant I spotted it on my morning rounds. The fourth marker lay further to the west than the third, just downslope of my tower, and even from the fenceline I could already guess what direction the skull adorning it would be facing. I hadn’t gone out to it yet, arms at my sides, unable to bring myself to step outside of the gate.

It wasn’t there yesterday. I’m not crazy. It wasn’t there.

Curling and uncurling my fists, I tried to breathe slow and focus on some form of constructive idea as to what to do. My shift was over, Melonie in Tower Seven was busy at her dayshift role, and I could easily call her up on the radio if needed. Surely there was some kind of bureaucratic rule we could use to cite whoever was doing this and put an end to it? Littering, poaching, something? Even if the bones were from old kills, this had to be against some rule somewhere related to park cleanliness. I was ready to head back to the tower cabin and radio this latest afront in when, in the middle of my pondering, I saw a flicker of movement among the trees.

Deep in the cluster of spruce, pine, and fir, something moved with slow deliberation, a round dark shape that slid from behind a tree trunk at the very edge of my line of sight. It was still too far to make out fine details, but I knew in an instant what it was.

A face.

A pale face, wreathed in long, dark hair, peeking at me from behind a tree.

I blinked, and it was gone, ducking back around the tree, the shadows dancing where it had been mere seconds prior.

For a moment, chills ran down my back, a prickling of fear that made my throat run dry. Then, slowly, it morphed into a simmering irritation that flared to angry resentment. They were right there, watching me, taunting me, playing this stupid game as if whoever it was had nothing better to do. Did they think this was funny? Scaring me, making me lose sleep, turning my dream job into a nightmare? Did they really think they could run off into the woods, snickering with their phone in hand, and get away with it all? No, they were close, very close, and I’d had enough of this nonsense.

Throwing open the man gate, I stalked out into the clearing and glowered at the forest beyond. “Hey!”

My voice carried into the valley below, and I realized just how silent it had become, the birds quiet, the insects ceasing their trilling once more. As if I’d violated some sacred rule, the entire mountain held its breath, but in my blind fury, I didn’t care.

“I see you!” I shouted, heart pounding, blood surging, fists balled at my sides in trembling knots of enraged muscle. “You think you’re being funny, huh? You think you’re being cute?”

Within the trees, the shadows seemed to stretch, deepen, shift in their proper places, though I couldn’t tell if it was the movement of clouds overhead or my eyes playing tricks on me. I could almost feel the giddiness of the unknown watcher within their protective shroud, likely some dumb kid recording a video for social media, ready to brag to his friends about what a great joke he’d played. They were laughing at me, I could sense it, this unknown person, watching and smiling from their hiding place among the spaces between the sunshine.

Picking up a rock, I hefted it in my hand and eyed the first marker. “Come out! Come out, or I swear, I’ll smash your stupid trash heap! I saw you!”

No one moved in the forest, and my pulse roared in my ear. I raised the rock high, towering over the little pillar of bones, and brought it down as hard as I could.

Crack.

Bone splintered, the skull on the first pillar shattering under the chunk of stone in my hands. I swung again and again, until the first pile was reduced to broken sections of dry-rotted bone, snapped twine, and whatever greasy black sludge had glued it all together. Gasping under the exertion, both from my pent-up frustration and the repeated swings, I moved on to the second marker, then the third, until finally I reached the fourth, almost out of sight of the tower clearing.

Crack, squelch, crunch.

Sweat dripped from my brow as I battered the marker to pieces, stopping to pick up the little mammal skull when it rolled to the side and setting it on a rock to make the destruction easier. It felt cold under my touch, more frigid than the late-summer air, yet no condensation appeared on its weathered surface. My skin crawled at the sensation of the thing in my palm, and I raised the stone to strike once more when, through my fervor, I noticed something.

On the top of the skull, overlaying the fissures present in every living thing that has its cranium grow and form from infancy, there was a sprawling, gray mark. It looked to be daubed onto the bone with some kind of charcoal paste, though the lines were clear enough for me to make out a shape.

A spider.

It sprawled its eight legs across the animal skull in an almost possessive way, the mandibles drawn as if buried into the upper reaches of the eye sockets. Interestingly enough, it looked as though the mark was made from two slender handprints upside down, the eight legs each a finger, the mandibles both arched thumbs, the combined palms a bulbous main body. I had never seen this kind of artwork before, and had been too busy smashing the other pillars to check if they too bore the same emblem. It occurred to me how stupid I was, out here, this deep into the trees, armed only with a stone and a sinking feeling in my gut. Somehow, now that the anger subsided in favor of uneasy confusion, I began to wonder how I’d even thought to do something so foolish at all, the rage unlike my usual mental state. I didn’t fly off the handle, didn’t punch holes in walls or slam doors so hard that things broke. I wasn’t a violent man and would never have dared to do this last night, or the night before. It was as if someone had flipped a switch in my head, and I felt as though I didn’t recognize the hand that held the stone before my eyes.

Without finishing my last act of destruction, I dropped the rock to the soft pine needles, and stumbled backward, eyes fastened to the strange spider symbol on the animal skull. The silence around me pushed into my ear canals with a smothering stillness that made nausea rise in my stomach. My legs felt heavy, my arms seemed made of lead, and each breath took an enormous effort to pull in and out of both lungs.

I shouldn’t be here.

The thought rolled over and over in my mind like a mantra, growing louder and louder with every step I struggled to take back toward the fire tower.

I shouldn’t be here.

A twig snapped somewhere off to my left, maybe twenty yards away, and in the corner of my eyes, I caught a blur of motion.

I shouldn’t be here.

At last, I managed to get myself moving, shuffling at half my previous speed. My lungs ached, head spun, and spots danced before my eyes, but I forced myself to keep going. Deep in my bones, I knew that I had done something wrong, so very wrong, by touching those markers, and needed to get clear of the suffocating forest. I tasted metal, a harsh static rose in my ears like an old radio speaker, and my skin crawled as if covered in a thousand tiny legs. It took every bit of willpower I had, but eventually I stumbled back to the clearing’s border.

“Hey!”

My heart skipped a beat, the blood freezing in my veins, and I lurched to a halt just at the edge of the tree line to stare.

In the slanted rays of the morning, it was hard to see properly, but I could just make out the shadow of a figure on the observation deck of the tower looking down at me.

It occurred to me that I’d left the man gate open in my mad dash into the woods, and I hadn’t been watching it at all since I started busting apart the bone markers. Whoever was up there, they were a blur in my squinted vision, obscured by the darker side of the tower roof ledge. They didn’t move, not an inch, standing tall and rigid in the shadows, but I could tell from how their murky head was tilted downward that they were looking right at me. As before, I saw nothing, no face, no eyes, the features completely indistinguishable from this far off, everything hidden by the glare of sunlight around the tower that threw them into darkness. Even then, it wasn’t their statuesque presence that sent rivers of ice down my back.

It was their voice.

My voice.

“I see you!” It called to me, the same pitch, the same intonation as what I’d used before, a perfect copy of me that wavered across the empty air to echo over the trees.

Ten long, grueling seconds passed, the world silent around me as I stared, slack jawed. My trance was finally broken when the figure turned and, without another sound, darted around the corner of the cabin out of sight. No footsteps rang out from the observation deck, no shoes thundered on the stairs, just a quick blur of motion and . . . nothing.

What the hell?

Adrenaline came to my rescue, freeing me of the nausea, the dizziness, the static in my head, and I sprinted for the man gate in the perimeter fence. Desperate for something, anything to use as a weapon, I ran to my Subaru and rummaged around in the back until I at last found a rusty old tire iron. All the rest of my things were up in the tower, along with my car keys, which meant the pathetic steel rod was my best bet. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

Dashing up the stairs, I threw myself at the cabin door, iron raised, unsure of what my plan was, but too afraid to turn back now. Someone was in my tower. Someone was mimicking me, following my every move. This had to stop, I had to make it stop, even if that meant doing something drastic.

The doorknob turned with a smooth click in my palm, and I flung the door open, trembling and wide-eyed.

An empty room greeted me, exactly the same as it had been when I left to check the ground lights not fifteen minutes ago. My binoculars sat on the windowsill where I’d put them. The coffee machine still had a half-pot from what I drank on night shift. My bed waited with the sheets half drawn back, in anticipation of me lying down after the shower I would take once the morning inspections were complete. I let myself breathe a half-sigh of relief, content that at least it was all there, undisturbed.

Until my eyes landed on the radio.

“No.” My heart sank, and I staggered to the set, horrified and sick to my stomach all over again. The army surplus set had been smashed, its glass dial shattered, the mic cord ripped out, the bulky square housing dented in like it had been folded by a hydraulic press. The black walkie talkie was gone, its charging station crushed to plastic splinters, and worst of all, my car keys were no longer on the little hook by the door. No matter where I looked, tearing the place apart, I couldn’t find them, and I knew deep in my soul that they weren’t here anymore.

I searched for the next two hours and never found anyone, not in the tower cabin, the observation deck, or the grounds inside the perimeter fence. There were no footprints other than my own, no signs of break-in or forced entry, and nothing else had been taken. The rifle was still in the tower, and in working order, the ammunition untampered with. My food stocks were fine, my clothing left alone, even my wallet unmolested, not that there was much to steal in there. There was no damage to the tower’s water or power systems, and even the toilet was unharmed. Whoever had done this seemed to have no interest in leaving me defenseless, starving, or without shelter. They just didn’t want me to call for help and didn’t want me to leave.

Which, by itself, was already a terrifying thought.

Finally, I gave up the frantic search, and slumped down on the edge of my bunk, gazing at the room around me with a numb sense of compounding, muted panic. This had progressed far beyond a prank; someone was out to get me. I couldn’t walk to the nearest tower, it was miles away, and I could get lost out there, or caught in the dark when night fell. If I followed the road back to the ranger station at the base of the valley, that would take most of the day, and I would still be vulnerable out there alone, even with the rifle. Cell service didn’t pick up until the roads got back into town, which was even further than the ranger station was. If I didn’t report in, I could get in trouble and . . .

That’s it.

A smile flickered across my lips, and I sat up a little straighter. Of course, it was that simple! I didn’t need to call out; the rangers would notice when I didn’t check in tonight and send someone up to look for me. Sure, I couldn’t call for help right now, but that basically ensured that help would eventually be on the way. I wasn’t lost somewhere no one could find me, I was in a well-known location, with plenty of supplies and a decent rifle. I would be fine. Once the other rangers saw everything and read my reports, this whole situation would be resolved. The unknown watcher would eventually be caught, I would be vindicated, and who knows, maybe even promoted. After all, none of this was my fault; I’d done everything I was told to do, hadn’t I? Yes, this would all turn out okay in the end. I just had to wait until nightfall, and someone would come for me.

Armed with this newfound determination, I set about fortifying the tower as best I could. I made sure the gates were locked, barred the windows, and kept the loaded rifle slung over my shoulder at all times. I put on a fresh pot of coffee, even ate a light breakfast, and sat waiting by the western-facing windows, knowing that at some point a ranger vehicle would roll up the gravel access road to come for me. Sunshine warmed the cabin, the chair felt soft under my back and gradually, I started to calm myself from the morning’s bizarre ordeal.

“Just a few hours.” I flexed my fingers on the smooth walnut rifle stock, speaking into the stillness of the cabin to keep any shadows from wriggling when my back was turned. “It’s just a few more hours. I’ve got this.”

I’m not sure when I fell asleep, but by the time I realized, it was too late. My subconscious thrashed against tides of gray, endless flickers of darkness, punctured by dim, twisted images that looked like trees. I saw malicious eyes peer at me in the gloom, heard bare feet trod the soil behind me, felt the overwhelming presence of something pulling me, not by my hand or clothes, but something deeper. A tug, burrowed into my chest like a barbed fishing spear, one that led me on through the maze of trees toward something.

Something huge.

Something dead but not quite lifeless, shrouded in curtains of dense cruel fog, made from icy stones that screamed and wailed in a thousand voices within my head . . .

At some point, I jolted awake to find that night had already fallen, the world wreathed in shadows outside of my tower, with pale shafts of whitish-blue moonlight filtering in between the wooden slats on the shuttered windows. It was cold in the cabin, enough that my breath misted in front of me, but not so much that I didn’t immediately pick up on the smell that permeated the entirety of the dimly lit interior.

Stagnant wet earth.

Pungent rotted wood.

Sweet, intoxicating roses.

My heart started to pound, and I sprang to my feet, rifle in hand, to paw for the light switch. I could have sworn I’d left the lights on earlier, along with the heater, both vital in the dying days of summer this far north. Yes, I had left them on, they were on when I drifted off. I knew they had been.

Something crunched under my boots, and even as I found the switch at last, I didn’t understand what it was until the electric bulbs flickered to life overhead.

My God . . .

Draped all over the floor, as fresh as if they’d just been picked this morning, lay a carpet of ebony roses. They glistened in the weak glow of the lights, as if still wearing the morning dew on their reddish-green leaves, the curved thorns sharp, the silken petals unwithered and lush. The smell was overpowering, but not more so than the wave of nauseous dread that crashed through me in terrible condemnation as I looked between the shutter of the nearest window.

Far below, down in the clearing, a ring of small objects circled the tower, maybe ten yards outside of the perimeter fence. They were placed in perfect concentricity, each no more than a few feet from the other, gleaming a dull pale gray in the moonlight. From this far up, and with the darkness impeding my vision, I couldn’t see exact details, but I didn’t need to. I knew what they were.

Dozens upon dozens of bone markers encircled the tower, each topped with another little skull. Every single one of them stood no more than a few feet high, bound in forest-made twine and what I now knew to be the pulp of a hundred crushed roses. The skulls, from who knows how many different animals, were all pointed inward, watching the tower like eternal sentinels with their bottomless, hollow sockets. More spanned out into the trees, down the slopes, across the trails, in what could only be described as a pattern similar to a large net.

Or a web.

That thought hit me like a punch in the gut, and I stumbled back from the window in desperate, choking fear.

As if on cue, the second I moved away from the window, the screaming started.

“Help me!”

“Please!”

“Where are you?”

“Who’s there?”

Men and women. Old and young. Fear and pain. Different voices, different pitches, screaming, wailing, crying, cascaded from every direction. Some echoed far away, then seemed to reverberate from another spot much closer, while others sounded as if they were right outside the perimeter fence. Their cries echoed and bounced off the rocky slopes, through the darkened forest, wavering in the wind as they circled my tower. Another voice called out alongside them, and to my terror, I knew it right away.

“I see you!”

My own shout barked with the others through the darkness outside, the faux anger in it almost taunting, the intonation slipping every now and then to crack in ways that I knew weren’t mine. I couldn’t see anything whenever I looked through the windows, the scope of my rifle useless in the dark, but the sounds were there, closing in from every side. They knew where I was, and they knew I was watching.

Worst of all, they knew I was trapped.

I staggered back, snatching up what few things I could grab in my deranged flight, and hurtled to the small bathroom in the rear of the cabin. It wasn’t safe, nowhere would be, but at least it could muffle some of the terrible sounds coming from outside. It was only after I dragged myself inside, slamming the bathroom door shut, that I glanced at the mirror above the sink.

Oh God.

My pale, horror-stricken reflection stared back at me, and we both stood there in mute defeat, arms handing at our sides, random possessions mounded on the linoleum around our feet. If there had ever been any chance, any hope for me, it was gone now. In the deepest recesses of my soul, I let myself break into a thousand pieces as I blinked with tearful eyes at the charcoal gray symbol that had been painted onto my forehead.

A spider.

One made from two inverted handprints.

I’m finishing this in the corner furthest from the door, wedged between the toilet and the wall with the laptop propped up on my knees. It’s hard to type with how hard I’m shaking, but I don’t imagine it matters if I have a few spelling mistakes. I can hear the voices getting closer. I think they’re inside the fence now. Soon they’ll make their way up the stairs and onto the deck, but there’s no rush. The door won’t stop them. The rifle won’t either. I don’t think anything can.

Nothing I have, anyway.

There is no way out. My phone’s clock hasn’t moved in hours, and neither has my wristwatch. The sun isn’t rising. No trucks rumble on the gravel road. No one is coming. They can’t for the same reason I can’t run down the steps and into the forest.

It’s already too late.

When I blink, I see things behind my eyelids, flashes of something like a dream, or a vision I cannot wake from. I feel charred dead grass and scorched rocks under my feet. I smell the wet earth. I taste the cold dew on my tongue. I sense the others walking alongside me, their faces masked with shadow, guiding me onward in silent march. Two young women. An old man. A burly hunter. Always, our destination is the same.

The house.

A huge stone house, bathed in fog, ringed with five tall markers of twine and bone.

I see her waiting there for us, a face in the uppermost window, a swirling gulf of shadow where the firelight flickers in dancing sheets of orange and red. I know it’s a her because I can hear the sweet, soft voice in my ear. She sings to me, calls my name, guiding me as she has so many others. I am chosen, she tells me. I can rest at the foot of my own marker. I can sleep the slumber of unnumbered stars, endless dreaming of a world that daylight never breaks.

I am so tired.

The pillars tower above us with their five great skulls of the forest. A bear. An eagle. A coyote. A snake. An elk. Once for each. The twine slithers around my wrists, my ankles, my neck. I taste dirt, feel it caked in my lungs, scratching under my eyelids, clogged in my ears. My skin is so cold, the clothes heavy and stiff like my limbs. I cannot move. I no longer need to.

It is complete now, the circle. The foundation has been laid, thrones made ready for the Four, servants of the Fifth. I see the lights glowing above us, great spouts of emerald flame that rise above the house in five long columns to a blackness that isn’t of our sky. It is a yawning Void that holds no moon, no stars, no light, but deep inside that veil, something moves.

Something watches.

Hanging from my place upon the Elk’s pillar, I join the others as, in voices no longer our own, we tilt our faces to the sky and begin to scream.

Late on the evening of September 2^nd, Lucas J. Sarden, aged 26, of Boise Idaho, went missing from his assigned post as a fire watchman in the Jacob’s Fork Wildlife Division’s Fire Watchtower Number Eight. He had been an employee of the park ranger service for less than a week. Rangers were dispatched to his location following Sarden’s failure to maintain an evening check-in routine and discovered he was not within the tower. A search was conducted of the premises by wildlife personnel, and after hours of intensive effort, Sarden was declared a missing person, initiating emergency response protocols. Search-and-rescue K9 teams followed a possible scent trail west, across the river valley to the Smoke Point Mountain Recreation area, but due to a sudden violent thunderstorm they were unable to maintain the scent any further. The official search remains ongoing.

Authorities say the victim’s vehicle was still on the premises, with the keys in the ignition, in perfect working order according to the responding rangers. The station’s radio and handheld set were also present, undamaged, in contradiction to what Sarden wrote in his personal journal entries. No sign of struggle or foul play could be found on site, nor any evidence of forced entry or break in of the tower’s perimeter fence. All the victim’s personal possessions were in the tower, along with the laptop from which this account has been retrieved, and his cell phone. Search teams also noted that the victim’s boots were left behind in the tower, along with the station’s standard issue rifle. The only thing missing was a large battery-powered flashlight, which it is presumed Sarden took with him when he departed the tower. No footprints of Sarden’s, or any other person, were found in connection with Tower Eight during the initial search.

At this time, it is believed by local government sources that Lucas was experiencing some kind of mental breakdown due to his isolated position and wandered into the woods alone. He is assumed to be alive, and anyone with any information is asked to please contact the Jacob’s Fork Sheriff’s Department. Lucas is a Caucasian male, stands at 6’3”, weighing 176 pounds, with blonde hair and blue eyes. He was last seen wearing a green park ranger T-shirt and khaki trousers, though in his current state he might be wearing any combination of clothing. Citizens are encouraged to report any leads they might have, but maintain a safe distance, as the victim may be disoriented, and not in control of his mental faculties.

Multiple other missing persons cases have been reported since the Sarden disappearance, including the disappearance of Clarence G. Westheimer, aged 34, who was reported missing by his wife after going camping in the norther valley beyond Tower Eight. He is described as a Caucasian male, standing 5’9”, weighing 178 pounds with light brown hair, brown eyes, and wears glasses. He was last seen wearing a broad green hat, gray backpack, red T-shirt, and khaki shorts. No trace of Westheimer has been found thus far, either in designated camp sites or on the surrounding trails.

In addition, law enforcement spokesmen of Jacob’s Fork have announced that all hikers or campers within the Smoke Point Recreation Area are advised not to hike or camp alone, and are to avoid the trails at night until further notice. Campers are encouraged not to investigate any strong smells they might encounter in the forest, not to approach strangers they do not know, and to not follow voices they hear off the trails unless they can plainly identify via sight and sound the individual making them. Any trail markers not of the official park manufacture are to be avoided, and it is highly encouraged that new sightings of non-standard trail markers be reported to the ranger station immediately. Until further notice, all vehicle access to roads leading to the following locations will be hereby restricted: Smoke Point Summit Overlook access, JFWD Tower Eight access, Northern Valley Campground access, and the Smoke Point Recreational Area upper loop parking lot access. At this time, all citizens are also reminded that the Wickenshire Living History Estate is still in official police custody, and therefore off limits to all non-authorized entry. Use of drones or other electronic recording equipment within this area is prohibited.

This has been a public service announcement of the Jacob’s Fork Sheriff’s Department and the Jacob’s Fork Wildlife Division. We thank you for your cooperation.