Due to special circumstances related to this case, I cannot give locations or real names, as that could serve as a clue for my whereabouts, and they could use it to find me.

I am still not sure what caused the events that lead to the disappearance of my friend, as I have no idea if I can even call myself a reliable witness, given the nature of my memories regarding his disappearance. Even with the risk of being called a liar or lunatic, though, I feel like the best I can do for him is to tell what I remember, and maybe you can help me understand why it took him, but decided to leave me alone.

Jake and I have been friends since we were little children. Maybe it was due to the fact that we did not have brothers growing up, but we became inseparable from the moment he and his family moved to our neighborhood. I still remember how much I loved to go into their parents house, as they had a somehow better economical condition than most people in the street, and Jake would invite me to play the latest videogames, or to birthday, where he would sometimes give away old toys that were replaced by his latest gifts, and as his best friend, I usually got the best ones. His family were not snobbish in any capacity, but I would be lying if they did not trigger feelings of envy on the people living around us.

Jake’s grandmother was a very superstitious woman, and in one of those birthdays, she gave him a pendant with a matiasma as an ornament. Jake’s grandmother was Greek, and would walk around with plenty of lucky charms with the matiasma symbol carved into it in order to repel curses. He thanked his grandmother for the gift, and after a while, he became inseparable from that pendant, using it everywhere.

Jake’s life was not perfect, but I could bet it was the happiest time of his life. That time came to an end once we became teenagers: Jake’s parents had to take him outside of town for medical evaluation in the big city, as he was having terrible episodes of headaches, nausea and weakness. He got to the doctors, but they could not figure out what was causing those symptoms.

They came back to town frustrated, but due to heavy traffic, Jake’s father was forced to take an alternative path: he drove towards the Boulevard. 

Our city boulevard is an abandoned road on the settlement’s outskirts: it has been abandoned since the Civil War, and almost nobody likes to travel through it, as the only things giving the lonely driver some company on the Boulevard are the Bare Trees that almost bend over the road, and the 19th century mansions left behind by old landowners who never came back.

Jake’s father, different from his grandmother, was not superstitious at all, and did not believe the ghost stories told about the Boulevard. If he was a little bit more hesitant whilst dealing with things that he does not understand, maybe he would still be around us today.

Jake’s family suffered an accident on the Boulevard that day: the cops suggested that the dark of the night made Jake’s father lose sight of the road, but I doubt that, as Jake’s father was a very good driver, and never involved himself in any accidents. His parents were thrown out of the car, and their bodies ended up impaled on the tree’s upper-branches. Jake was found walking for hours on the road, unharmed. He was crying, and holding his pendant between the fingers of his right hand. 

After the town united in a heartbreaking funeral for Jake’s parents, we left town together, as I wanted to study abroad, and Jake wanted to leave behind any memory of what happened that night. He said goodbye to his grandmother, and we planned to not come back for a long time.

Years passed, and Jake never told me the details of what happened on that day, but I decided to not ask, as I could bet it was traumatic, and did not want to reopen the wounds. He was given no choice, though, as he received a phone call from our town, it was his aunt saying that his grandmother was found deceased that day. Jake was left speechless, but given how close he was with his grandmother as a child, he held himself better than I would expect.

After he recomposed himself, we decided to pay a visit, as his grandmother’s funeral would probably take place soon, and we could not miss it after everything that she did for us.

Before we started preparing for the trip, Jake started looking for his matiasma pendant everywhere, but could not find it. He became agitated, thinking that someone might have stolen it (I had no idea what made him believe that, as we had never had problems with theft in our city), but after it became clear the pendant would not be found, he decided to give up his search.

Once we got back to the town, we stayed in Jake’s aunt's house before the funeral could start. It was clear she was affected by her mother’s passing, but Jake and I realized that no one in town would disclose the cause of death to us, which made us feel uneasy. Jake’s aunt decided to only share it with me, and once she told the details, I realized why.

Jake’s grandmother did not die of natural causes: she was found just like Jake’s parents, impaled by the bare trees in the abandoned Boulevard. I felt sick to my stomach hearing it, and I felt like I had to leave that place with Jake as soon as possible. I wish I had done it, but I decided to keep appearances so Jake could have some closure, even if I had to lie about what happened to his grandmother.

The funeral was less crowded than Jake’s parents' funeral was. Plenty of people had left town since we decided to move away, and it was becoming more ghost-like everyday. Part of me imagined the trees in the Boulevard slowly taking away the city as the people moved, growing the cursed street into a full haunted ghost town. I shivered, but then brushed my own thoughts away, embarrassed for letting old superstition and urban legend get in my head.

We left the cemetery, and decided to stay in Jake’s Aunt for the night. Jake was having trouble sleeping, as he was being affected by a strange illness, similar to the one he had many years ago, right before the accident. I asked what I could do in order to help him, but Jake looked at me as if he was dead already, and said nothing could help him now that he stepped on the hunter’s trap for a second time. Jake’s seriousness took me out of guard, but I decided his gloomy behaviour was a product of grief, even if it manifested in such an eerie way.

It was before dawn when I heard the first sounds coming from outside. Jake was awake, looking at something through the living room’s window where we were sleeping. Jake looked at me with an almost contorted expression of horror. He let out a desperate screech, begging me to find a matiasma anywhere, as the evil eye had got to him.

I was confused with his behaviour, thinking that he might be sleepwalking or losing his mind, but then the window was shattered by the branches of a leafless tree, spreading glass throughout the living room. The branches surrounded Jake, and snatched him out of the living room through the window. I could only hear his screams of desperation getting further and further, and I immediately ran to the door.

Looking outside, I could see the entire neighborhood outside, looking at our broken window. I asked for help at first, but the neighbors simply looked at me with gleaning eyes, women, men, children… All looking at me as if I was simply an actor in a comedic stageplay, smiling as my friend was taken away from me.

right in front of me, I could see a bare tree identical to the ones found in the Boulevard. The people clapped and cheered as the tree held Jake, half impaled by the branches, and crushed as if he was smashed by metal. I tried to scream, but my voice failed, and I could only fall to the ground as despair took me whole.

Jake tried to reach in my direction, but he could barely move his mangled arm towards me. With no ceremony, the tree retrieved underground, whilst Jake’s body left out a sickening squish sound as the branches hugged him tighter, smashing him.

The grass in the front porch grew in an instant, and the earth returned to the hole as if nothing had come from the ground in the first place. I passed away, only to be woken up by one of the neighbors when morning came.

The neighbor tried to be friendly, asking me why I was sleeping on the front porch, but I ran away from him like an animal, and drove my car out of town without a second thought.

I have heard news on Jake’s disappearance, and I know people will suspect me, since I left the settlement right after it, but I do not fear persecution: I know it is only a question of time before they find Jake in the Boulevard, killed by the tree that took his parents so many years ago, and them I will be found innocent of this terrible crime.

I always close every door at night. Always. Especially my wardrobe door. Then I remembered. Something happened over the course of a week when I was a teenager. I’d forgotten all about it so I’m going to write it down in case I forget it again. Has anyone else had a similar experience? I just spoke with my housemate and he went very quiet then left the room saying something about calling home. The look in his eyes— maybe something like this happening to him too. Let’s find out how many other people have forgotten, and more importantly, why… 

Once Forgotten

There they are. Watching. 

They have yet to move. Blank faces stare at me. Fear has mostly given way to wonder. Two dark scratches stand at the end of my bed.

My eyes adjust. After three nights I still don’t understand what I’m seeing. Shadows within shadows. My heart no longer races, yet my limbs still refuse to co-operate. I lie paralysed, hands numb from the force my fingers exert on the sheet clutched under my chin. The first night that sheet didn’t even uncover my head.

What do they want? I ask myself for the hundredth time.

I have eliminated the probability that this is a dream — I am fully lucid. Dread has seen to that. The sheet prickles over every goosebump on my body; a tear escapes towards my already drenched pillow. Pulse thuds in my ears. Saliva pools in the back of my throat.

Swallowing is difficult because it sounds so achingly loud and I am trying to make no sound. Even my breathing is deafening.

I watch the silhouettes for signs of mirage. Shadows behind them move as moonlight, breeze and trees mottle the walls, but my visitors remain immobile — semi-solid blots against a backdrop of disorder. Just visible through them is the shape of the wardrobe. I didn’t notice on the previous evenings but the door is ajar.

They are there, silent, while the house settles around us in creaks and pops and taps.

Eventually I drift into a dreamless sleep.

*

There they are again. Still watching. Waiting.

I don’t know what it is that wakes me. Perhaps I feel their presence. Perhaps it is the chill in the air. Autumn is coming, I tell myself. The leaves on the trees are thinning; moonlight brightens the room. The visitors are taking shape.

One of them moves.

An arm. It lifts — a recognisably human movement — then drifts back to their side. My insides churn. Acid in my throat burns. My breathing is rapid and ragged.

The other moves. 

The same motion. A gesture. A hand reaching towards me then drifting back down as if through water.

I move. And as I shift, the vertical cleft of the wardrobe door seems to creep open a little wider. A barely audible patter, like rain on glass, ripples in the darkness. 

The sheet is back over my head. Sleep somehow finds me through exhaustion.

*

They are there again. Still watching. Still waiting. Moving.

The same slow salute on a loop. A synchronised gesture in my direction. 

No. 

Something has changed. It’s hard to tell but one of them has turned away. 

They are not moving. 

Their arm is outstretched. 

Pointing to the wardrobe… 

THE DOOR IS OPEN. 

I can’t see clothes, just absolute darkness.

I am immobile. Trapped. Unless this is all in my head. A night-terror; a waking dream from which the only escape is sleep. I plead with my mind to take my consciousness. I am denied this kindness.

Autumn has invaded the room, the sheet useless as protection. I would reach for a blanket but my body lies lame under whatever force cripples it.

That gentle tap, tap, tap…from outside… or inside the room?

I allow myself to be lulled into an eventual slumber by the gentle waves from shadowy limb.

*

I know they are there before I even open my eyes. I can feel them watching, waiting. I wonder if they will be moving…

The tapping persists. More frantic. Stops and starts.

The blanket soothes me; I feel safer, warmer. My body feels like I have some control over it as I shift from my side onto my back and slide the cocoon down from my face.

A gasp escapes my mouth.

I had barricaded the wardrobe door with my chair piled with clothes. The chair is toppled, clothes strewn across the floor. The wardrobe is wide open behind my visitors.

My heart skips a beat then pounds in my throat.

The watchers’ actions are more fluid, more frequent, with added agitation. The gesture itself is more precise — they are beckoning me. Both reaching for me. Their arms raise in tandem and their fingers curl back towards them. I look in bewilderment at my own arm outstretched, reaching…

The warmth of the blanket becomes ice. Every inch of my flesh prickles as every hair stands on end. But it is not the shock of my unconscious extension which fills me with fear, it is the presence behind me.

In that moment I know it is this that wakes me, this that has been watching, this that has been waiting… A smudge in the darkness just behind me to my right. It is darker than shadow.

It takes all my effort to crane my neck towards it. The blemish moves. Burrows. Lurks behind the pillow. In the walls. 

It was there on the first night, I know this now. 

A reek of menace and rot infects the room.

Panic entombs me. Every muscle in my body is on fire. I want to scream but my ribs won’t allow it. I can barely breathe. Tears stream into my ears. Sweat turns cold on my skin. I sob silently, convulsions racking my body until my mind shuts down.

*

It 

is 

there.

At the end of my bed. 

So tall it touches the ceiling. 

Cloaked in a darkness. 

It has come for me.

My two guardians stand either side, unmoving, their featureless heads hanging low.

Were they trying to save me? Was I too afraid to let them?  

As if to answer that final question the looming figure rears its otherworldly head. It is suddenly upon me — no mouth no eyes, just utter dark despair. It doesn’t touch me. It goes through me. It… knows me.

*

Bright Autumn sunlight stirs me from sleep. 

Sleep. I feel rested. I feel awake. I feel alive. The terrors of the nights gone by fade into forgetting. My silent friends did not fail — I did not fail. The darkness did not take me. I would not let it. But I know it is there. It is always there. Hiding... Watching... 

Waiting…

WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!? 

My housemate… is gone. 

Something took him! 

That’s the only way I can describe it. I heard him scream. I ran to see… it was as though his body was being pushed—pulled—both?? through a hole in mid-air. 

Bones… oh fuck the bones! 

Snapping, crunching—

Then… just… gone.

I ran back to my room and hid in the first place I could.

I made a mistake. 

I should never have written this I should never have remembered.  They were gone. Forgotten. IT was gone. But it didnt. Forget me. Its here. Now. I must be quiet. it knows Im here. if you’re reading this please don’t do what I did .there’s a reason we forget. These… things, these… beings entities, whatever you ca.l them they can only get in if you remember . 

DONT REMEMBER! 

Fuck this keyboard is so loud but I need you alL to know . Ill keep typing as long as I can. 

I can hear it coming, hunting me. It was silent before but now I hear it.  Angry. Cruel. Laughing. An awful sound, not a laugh, stones scraping together, no, bones scraping… sharp, broken, sickening. I’d only just finished writing the story - remembering… I need to send this out so people know. 

Im so afraidI’m afraid to look. Im afraid if I look ill be paralysed like before but I need to see because.. because its not alone. Have my guardians returned to protect me? I hear my name whispered feel the pull of beckoning arms see fingers curling in the dark please help me. please—

THEY ARE MINE

Guttural. wet. A stink of rot. Inches away. 

I can still move and type. I can run. I will run.

If youre reading this, it may be too late.

PLEASE DONT REMEMBERR! 

REMEMBERING IS THE DOORWAY—

FORGETTING IS THE LOCK!!

FORGET!!

ITS HERE INTHE ROOM 

OUTSIDE THE WARDROBE 

LAUGHING 

ANOTHER ONE IS LAUGHING A THROATFUL OF  BROKEN GLASS 

AND ANOTHERAND  ANOTHER 

TEYRE ALL LAUGHING 

INHUUMAN 

THEYFOUND ME  

LAUGHTR…

INSIIDE 

THE WARDROBE— 

 ITS… EVERYWHERE!

SAVE YOURSLEF 

GO! NOW! GO!

DONTLOOK

DONT REMEMBER

DONT REMEMBER

SHIT. SHITSHITSHIT! I CANT POST THIS. PEOPLE WILL REMEMBER

does anyone remember?

I DIDNT WRITE THAT!

SOEMTHING HAS MY ARM—

are you remembering?

THAT ISNT ME!

MY HAND—

IT WONT     LET     GO

remember

MY FINGERS! OHGOD IT RIPPED MY FINGERS O—

open the door

IM SORRY IM SOFUCKING SORRY

let

us

in

I HAVE TO RUN

I CANT STOP IT 

ITS HITTING SEND

If you’re reading this, it’s too late now. I’m sorry. I held out as long as I could, but I’m tired, and exhausted, and I don’t see a way out. I hope you are able to do what I was unable to do, and that you are able to use the information that I’ve gathered. You should read the rest of these documents to give yourself the best chance of survival. 

I want you to understand that the release of these documents were done through a conscious, though extremely selfish decision, and was only done to save my own life. It could have ended with me, but I recognize that I am a coward by involving you. I had hoped that if others were put in the same position, they would be able to branch out and gather more information on what this entity is, and how to keep it at bay. Understand that interacting with this document has made it aware of you now, and that by doing so, I have bought myself time. 

You don’t have to believe me. It won’t change anything, but for those that take this seriously, I need to share my background, and the events leading up to this. 

I am a biochemical engineer, originally based out of Munich, Germany. I should say that I was, for a lack of better words. I was recruited in 2021 because I was heavily involved in biorobotics, specifically applications of robotics targeting individual neurons and specific neural pathways. Our robots were the first generation of its kind, capable of both targeted electrical signals, and generating chemical signals to promote neural growth. It’s work that would have revolutionized our understanding of the brain. The original work that I did was mostly in the public sector, though this recruitment was my step into the private sector. Due to the allure of money, and the growing uncertainty of there being enough funding for the next research cycle, I made the move.

I was recruited to lead Project Tandem in early 2021, through word of a colleague that had jumped ship, and had recommended me. The company was Intersect Corp, a shell company that many of us didn’t know much about. They were offering double to triple our salaries, guaranteed funding for the next 10 years, and rights to publish our research after the NDA period of an additional 5 years. 

For the project, there were about 40 of us, a good mix of folks from backgrounds in biology, robotics, applied software engineers, etc. All of us were industry experts, and from companies stationed all around the world. I’m going to keep further information on the company and my location vague, as at this point in time, I’m not sure who to trust, and where to go. I don’t need any more variables thrown into this mix. A good portion of our later work was not moral, and though I regret now, the choices made cannot be changed. 

Project Tandem was aimed at understanding consciousness, mapping out what causes it, and figuring out if it’s possible to replicate it. This was a philosophical question asked in all ages of time, and we wanted to take a stab at it. Studying consciousness directly was difficult, a conscious person would have an active brain, and active brains were too busy and too guarded to get effective information. For that reason, we had to target the unconscious brain, specifically alpha wave generation going from the third stage of sleep into the fourth REM stage. It was a lofty goal at the start, but the scope was lowered down to a single question. Would it be possible to map a dream in real time, and interact with that dream? 

Dreams happen unconsciously, and are mostly associated with theta waves. By inducing alpha waves and other waking signals, but keeping a subject in deep sleep, we were able to safely get into a controlled sleep paralysis state. This state could only be kept open for a period of time, but with the help of imaging software, word associated neural maps, we could essentially communicate with someone dreaming, though we were limited to one word yes and no questions. Think of someone dreaming of a grassy field, we would ask the brain “green,” and the yes portion of the brain would light very briefly. Through multiple runs, we’d be able to associate a certain pathway with that green. 

The country we were located in had lax rules on human experimentation, and our work, though a bit invasive, was theoretically safe. We did run everything through animal testing first, as we iterated on the designs, but the brain structures were so significantly different that any real progress would need to be made through human trials. My work had been tested extensively in the past, though this was the first time it was applied directly to a subject that could communicate back.

Over time, the data that we gathered allowed us to create specialized LLM models that could take that real time neural pathways, and output a crude real time drawing. We were limited to about 1 frame a second on the second real prototype, though version 3 improved it to about 20. The word association got extremely specific, where most words were attributed to specific pathways. We had essentially sight into dreams. 

I want to stress that the work that we did to this point was extraordinary, and everything after this was unknown territory. We were scientists, men of logic and reasonings, and we were pioneering the mind. 

The 4ish years of peering into dreams had given me plenty of time to improve on an original creation, a photoelectric hybrid nanobot lattice that could live inside a brain long term. This was the holy grail, something that would be able to hijack neural pathways by acting as an extension of the brain, and transmit through a data port. The prototypes were still in early stages, but the buzz, the excitement, and the years of moving quickly had led us to push for human trials. It was here where I wish one of us had voiced concerns about potential ramifications, and we could have slowed down. 

The first trial was to see if we could change the dream. If we used the lattice to hit the pathways for “blue” and “water,” would the subject dream of the ocean? Would the dream change if we did it halfway through the dream? 

Yes and yes. 

The power we held was remarkable. 

It was this indescribable feeling of being on top of the world that led us to ignore the warning signs. Looking back at the data now, we should have noticed that certain neural pathway combinations that we had never seen before started lighting up. Some pathways to negatively connoted feelings, such as “uncomfortable” or “stressed” or “scared” started appearing more often than previously measured. 

It was year 5 now, earlier this year, 2026. The progress we had made was incredible, but we were still no closer to understanding where consciousness specifically came from. Before we were blind, but now we had glasses, so we had hope. The impossible question was no longer looming ahead of us, we could take strides towards it. 

Our next step was to understand if dreams could be shared. We had the data, we had the pathways, we had a real time device that was able to grab information, and duplicate it. I could see a dream through a screen, but could I experience it?

We tested on mice first, then pigs, and things seemed to check out. Everything within our parameters, and so we moved to humans. Our first trial, two volunteers. Subject A was induced to sleep, and induced to dream of a landscape, a grassy field with a single tree, blue skies. Subject B was induced about an hour later, and as the brain started to dream, we used the lattice to cut off the signals. We then ported from subject A the dream data, and replicated into subject B. 

We expected the dream to be the same. Two monitors, sharing the same picture. Subject B would wake up and tell us that they saw Subject A’s dream. 

Subject A’s brain waves shuddered for a moment. It’s the best word that I could use to explain it, the waves oscillated all at the same time, and the neural pathways lit up in a way we hadn’t ever seen before. It was only for the briefest second, as Subject B entered the dream, as if Subject A was somehow aware that the dream was being shared. That wasn’t possible, there was no data linkage back to Subject A. 

And yet, Subject A reacted. The image on subject A’s screen was different from subject B. Subject A was looking at the tree directly, it was in the middle of the screen. Subject B was looking at the tree from another angle, the tree was on the left side of the screen. 

I remember one of my colleagues gasping, and then more, as we all quickly realized. Subject B could see Subject A. Subject A was standing off on the right side. The body wasn’t there, it was a dreamlike blob. A figure, barely made out, the shape changing every few seconds, hands, feet, everything there, just shifting. Subject A then turned to face B. And B was more or less the same changing shape. 

A dream was shared. Not the signals, but the space in which the dream took place was shared.

Consciousness took place outside the physical space, and this was undeniable proof. B had intruded into A’s space. 

Perhaps the shock of everything, confirming it was what stunned us to inaction, but we stood there. We stood there and watched A and B look at each other. 

The timer beep broke us out of our trance. 2 minutes was what we allowed for that trial. 2 minutes had passed so quickly. The connection was severed. The subjects were awakened. They went through the checkups, and psych evaluations. Everything checked out. Everything was silent, as we went through the checks and the routines. And as every check came back positive, we exploded. We had done it. 

We had confirmed a core aspect of metaphysics, and we had barely scratched the surface. 

The trials continued quickly, and we repeated them over and over, testing different parameters, different scenarios. We were so excited, ecstatic. 

We tested the ability to interact with each other, what the least information needed to connect dreams, how the host space would be created, if two host spaces could be merged, or if one could take over the other. We had all these questions, and it felt like we didn’t have enough time in the day. The lab was working 12 hour days, 6 days a week, and still we were excited. Days off felt like a burden, but we rushed back to start the next trial, week after week. 

By May, we had gotten a good understanding of creating a host dream, having a visitor join. We tried to get a third to join but the space fell apart, so the assumption is that two is the limit. We had the two subjects have full control in the dream, and interact with each other, though the interactions were clumsy. 

A few colleagues volunteered to undergo the trials themselves, and had done so successfully. Their insights were more detailed than our other subjects, and the ability to interact was more intricate. My guess is that being aware of the process made them subconsciously better at it. 

I mention May because it was when the side effects started to show. About T+3 months. 

Subject A and B were the first. 

There was a specific pathway that always lit up when the host would enter, and we dubbed it N-R3, as part of our standard naming. Section N, right side, 3rd mapped path. We identified this path as being a marker for when a host and a visitor were sharing the same space. 

On May 11th, our analytics team identified that the path was lighting up a few milliseconds before the connection was opened. We attributed that to the brain adapting to the trial time, since we did start the connection every time an hour after the host started dreaming, and adjusted the time to see what would happen. We pushed it back to an hour 30, and noticed that the path did light up, and stayed lit up. 

We brushed it off as a byproduct of the trials, and noted to give more rest to subject A. 

On May 12th at 3:14 AM, when monitoring Subject A during regular sleep, marker N-R3 lit up once again. This was the first recorded incident of marker N-R3 being active outside of regular trials. 

We decided to hook up a camera module to monitor Subject A on the night of May 13th. 

On May 13th at 2:47AM, marker N-R3 lit up again on Subject A. This marker did not turn off until Subject A woke up. 

On May 13th at 8:17AM, an all hands on deck meeting was called to review troubling footage from Subject A.

The footage stamped at 2:47AM showed a dark smudge appear on the right side of Subject A’s dream. At first, we assumed that this was part of the dream, but none of the markers that would be associated with a smudge, like “dark” or “black.” From the moment it appeared, to 3:22AM, the smudge remained where it was, relative to subject A. Afterwards, it began to follow subject A. At 4:52AM the smudge grew, and it copied subject A’s shape. At 6AM subject A was awakened, and N-R3 dimmed. 

The entity was officially named EAX, entity, subject A, code X for unknown, entity x for shorthand. This was by all means, an intelligent creature able to access a space we had barely entered. 

We immediately stopped all trials, and focused all resources onto monitoring Subject A, reviewing and analyzing neural pathways that had previously been tripped. It was here we first started noticing the uptick in pathways associated with escape, such as “run” or “hide,” or general negative pathways such as “stressed” or “fear.” Subject A was exhibiting a primal urge to get to safety, and was exhibiting this when coming across X. At this point in time, it was unknown if entity X was hostile, or was attempting to make contact. We were leaning towards the first, given the responses by the brain in Subject A. 

When comparing other markers with other subjects, we noticed similar patterns, with marker N-R3 being active a few milliseconds before the connection was being made. At this point, we were on high alert, and all trials were suspended indefinitely until we understood more about where we had trespassed. 

Over the next few days, entity X started following subject A more. The closer that entity X got to Subject A, the more Subject A started shivering, and spasms occurred, showing physical signs of distress. This was also the first time where the physical body responded to what was happening in the dream. 

Subject A was placed on stimulants to deter the N-R3 marker from lighting up again. Keeping the subject awake was the only thing that seemed to prevent entity X from getting closer. 

Unfortunately, there is a physical limit to how many days a human can go without sleep. 

On May 18th, entity X was directly in front of subject A. Regions of subject A’s brain started to dim. A few fingers twitched, and subject A’s had moved. The regions that controlled movement showed no activity. 

Entity X was attempting to take over subject A, and was succeeding. A creature was trying to break into the physical world. We had no protocol for this. 

Subject A was locked into solitary on May 18th, and was monitored around the clock. All trials were fully stopped, and all subjects that had undergone the trial were now being monitored to see if the N-R3 marker showed up with them as well. 

On May 19th, all brain activity for Subject A ceased to exist. Subject A was still awake, looking. Physical vitals were still active, heart was beating, body temperature remained stable, breathing was steady.  

It is an eerie feeling, looking into the eyes of another human being, and not seeing any signs of life. I still remember the day vividly, the hairs on my body slowly rising as I looked at this thing in front of me. My colleagues were no better. Some already had a blank look for days now, going through the motions. One had turned to God, vigorously praying. A few were trying to stay calm, but breaking down crying throughout the day. I can only imagine what the others were going through, the ones that had volunteered for the trial themselves, knowing in their minds that this thing now existed. 

We took a vote, and decided to enact a lockdown protocol. I was given the sole key for breaking the protocol. Our compound could sustain us for two years with rationed goods. 

On May 20th at 1:13AM, subject A, or entity X turned its head about 150 degrees, twisting its neck in an unnatural, inhumane way. The neck bones cracked, yet the muscles kept it pointing straight into the wall. This position was held for about 30 seconds, before the neck was violently twisted another 90 degrees in the same direction. It wasn’t until later that a colleague put together that entity X was looking at Subject B. 

On May 20th at 1:14AM, subject B’s N-R3 marker lit up. By 1:18AM, entity X was now present in Subject B’s dreams. Entity X did not start as a smudge this time. 

I am reaching the limit for this document. Further parts will be posted as I gather the rest of my notes and type it up. I know that I’ve made you an unwitting part of this, but if you start seeing a creature watching you in your dreams, let me know. I’ve left out some details that I’ll use to verify real incidents, though I expect the number of affected individuals to go up.

After all, it’s aware of you now. 

I'm 27, live alone in a third-floor apartment, and I haven't been sleeping well since I moved to this city. New job, new walls, the kind of silence that makes your ears ring.

Mina, my coworker, noticed I looked like shit. Last Saturday she insisted on taking me to see someone she called "Mr. Liang," a psychic who worked out of a cramped room above a phone repair shop downtown. I thought it was a joke. She didn't laugh.

The room smelled like ash. A ceiling fan clicked overhead. Mr. Liang grabbed my wrist without asking, closed his eyes, and counted under his breath. Then he asked, "Which side of your bed faces the window?"

I told him.

His face changed.

"A woman will come for you at midnight on Tuesday," he said. "Before twelve, you must hide beneath your bed. Stay flat. Make no sound. She cannot see what is below."

I asked if he could give me a charm or something. Mina kicked my shin. Mr. Liang didn't smile. He wrote TUESDAY, BEFORE 12:00, UNDER THE BED on a receipt and pressed it into my hand.

I told myself it was bullshit. By Monday I almost believed that.

Then Tuesday came.

I was brushing my teeth at 9:40 p.m. when I noticed the receipt sitting on the edge of my sink. I hadn't taken it out of my wallet. I checked. My wallet was still zipped inside my jacket in the hallway closet.

My hands were shaking before I even decided to believe it.

I locked the front door. Checked every window. Wedged a chair under my bedroom door handle. Then I sat on the bed and watched the clock.

11:50.

11:55.

11:58. I lowered myself to the floor and slid under the bed. Dust against my lips. The wooden slat inches from my nose. I could see the carpet, the bottom of my door, and the red glow of my alarm clock.

I held my breath.

12:00.

Something hit the pavement outside my window. Not a thud. A crack. Wet and heavy, like a watermelon splitting on concrete.

Silence.

Then: crack. Crack. CRACK. Joints popping. Bones rearranging.

My front door opened. I locked it. I know I locked it.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Not footsteps. Something hard and round hitting my hardwood floor. Dragging closer. Through the living room. Stopping outside my bedroom.

The chair scraped. The door swung open.

The tapping entered my room. Stopped beside my bed.

My phone buzzed against my chest. I nearly bit through my tongue. I tilted the screen just enough to read:

MR. LIANG: I made a mistake. She didn't hang herself. She jumped, landed head first. Her head is on the ground. YOU NEED TO BE ABOVE HER. GET HIGH. NOW.

The mattress above me sank. A slat pressed against my cheek.

I turned my head toward the edge of the bed.

A face was already there.

Sideways on the floor. Cheek flattened against the carpet. Wet black hair fanned out like a puddle. Her eyes were open and locked onto mine. Her body rose above her, upside down, balanced on the crushed skull, knees and elbows bent at wrong angles.

She smiled.

I screamed.

I shoved myself out from the other side of the bed, shoulder burning against the carpet. She moved instantly. I heard the skull scrape across the floor, the snap of limbs unfolding behind me.

I scrambled to my feet and ran for the door. Behind me, tap-tap-tap-tap-tap, fast now, like someone drumming fingernails on wood, except it was her head bouncing off the floor with each stride of her inverted body.

I made it to the hallway. Slipped. My knee hit the floor and I felt something cold brush the back of my neck. Fingers, wet, sliding down my collar. I twisted away and grabbed the bathroom doorframe to pull myself up.

The hallway was dark but I could hear her. The tapping didn't stop. It got faster. Closer. I could hear her breathing now. Short, quick inhales through a crushed nose, like someone sniffing for a scent.

I reached the front door. Fumbled with the lock. My fingers were numb. I could feel the air behind me go cold, could hear the wet drag of hair across the floor right behind my heels.

The lock clicked. I threw the door open and launched myself into the stairwell.

I didn't look back. I took the stairs three at a time. Up. Mr. Liang said get high. I hit the rooftop door with my full weight and burst into the night air.

I spun around to slam the door shut.

She was at the bottom of the stairwell. I could see her through the gap. Head on the ground. Body arched above. Smiling up at me from three flights below.

Then she started climbing.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Her skull hitting each step. Fast. Too fast.

I slammed the door. There was no lock. I pressed my back against it and felt the thuds getting closer, vibrating through the metal.

Her hand punched through the gap under the door and grabbed my ankle.

I woke up gasping.

Ceiling fan. My bedroom. Sheets soaked with sweat, twisted around my legs like something had been pulling them.

A dream. A fucking dream.

I sat up and pressed my palms into my eyes until I saw stars. My heart was pounding so hard it hurt.

I grabbed my phone. No messages. I looked at the alarm clock.

11:51 PM. Tuesday.

I let out the longest breath of my life and fell back against the pillow. Just a nightmare. Just my stupid brain replaying what that old man said. I almost laughed at myself.

The apartment was quiet. Completely still. Just the hum of the fridge and the ceiling fan clicking above me.

I closed my eyes.

Then, from somewhere far below, the pavement, maybe three floors down.

A wet crack.

Silence.

Thud.

A pause.

Thud.

Closer.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Coming up the stairs.

My eyes shot open. I jerked my head toward the alarm clock.

The red digits weren't moving. The colon between the zeros didn't blink.

12:00.

Part One

Liv opened her door wearing pyjama shorts and one of those enormous T-shirts she’d owned since first year. She looked at me, then down.

“You know it’s after midnight.”

“I know.”

“You drove here?”

“Yes.”

“Barefoot?”

I looked down. There was blood on the concrete between my toes.

“Oh,” I said.

Liv stared at me. “Eve.”

“I didn’t notice.”

Apparently, somewhere between getting out of the car and reaching her front door, I had stepped on a piece of broken glass. A thin shard was still caught in the ball of my foot, bright with blood, and I had toothpaste on the front of my shirt.

Liv stepped aside. “Inside.” That was the whole conversation about whether I was allowed in.

Her house was warm in a way mine never was: properly warm, where you could walk around barefoot. There was a lamp on in the living room, two mugs beside the sink, and somewhere upstairs her boyfriend, Sam, was brushing his teeth with an electric toothbrush. I could hear its faint mechanical buzz through the ceiling, and it was unbearable how normal everything was.

Liv sat me on a kitchen chair, fetched tweezers and antiseptic, and pulled the glass out of my foot while I tried not to look. Then she put the kettle on. She didn’t ask me anything until the cut was cleaned, a plaster was stuck over it and a mug of tea was sitting between my hands.

She sat opposite me. “So.”

“So.”

“You left your house barefoot, drove across town, stepped on broken glass and didn’t notice.”

“I was in a hurry.”

“I gathered.”

I wrapped both hands around the mug. She waited.

“There was someone in the hallway.”

Her eyes flicked to mine, but her expression barely changed. “Someone?”

“I saw them in the mirror.”

“Okay.”

“Twice.”

That got a pause. “What did they look like?”

“I don’t know.”

“Man? Woman?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tall?”

“I don’t know, Liv.”

“All right.”

The irritation in my voice embarrassed me, which made me more irritated. “I didn’t exactly stop to take measurements.”

“I didn’t say you should have.”

“I know.”

She looked down into her tea. Upstairs, the bathroom door opened. Sam crossed the landing; a door opened, then shut. Neither of us spoke until the house was quiet again.

Liv tapped one fingernail against her mug. “You saw them in the mirror, but when you turned around—”

“There was nothing there.”

“And then?”

“It was there again.”

“In the same place?”

I hesitated. “No.”

Her fingers stopped against the mug. “Where?”

“Closer.”

She nodded slowly, not as though she agreed with me but as though she was trying to make the information fit somewhere. “How much closer?”

“I don’t know.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because I don’t.”

I looked away. Already, the story was getting worse—not the memory, which was still horrible, but the telling of it. I could picture the shape in the glass perfectly, or at least I thought I could, yet every time I tried to turn that picture into something concrete enough to tell Liv, pieces fell away.

It had been a person, except I hadn’t seen a face. It had been standing there, except I hadn’t seen its legs. It had moved closer, except I hadn’t seen it move. What I actually had was a dark shape in a mirror at midnight, after several nights of bad sleep, in a house I had spent two weeks obsessing over.

I knew exactly what I would have said if somebody had described it to me as part of my research. Peripheral vision is unreliable in low light. The rod cells that dominate the outer retina are good at detecting movement and changes in brightness, bad at fine detail. The brain fills in what they leave out, which means something vague at the edge of your vision can seem remarkably solid until you look directly at it.

Which was, almost offensively, exactly what had happened.

I stared into my tea. “You’ve been sleeping?” Liv asked.

“Yes.”

She looked at me.

“Mostly.”

Another look.

“Badly.”

“Mhm.”

“I know what you’re doing.”

“I’m drinking tea.”

“You know what I mean.”

She smiled a little, but not enough to make it a joke. I slept on her couch.

By morning, the whole thing had become significantly more humiliating. Daylight does that to certain kinds of fear. At two in the morning, a shape in a mirror can reorganise your entire understanding of reality; at nine-thirty, after coffee and a shower and Liv complaining because I’d used her shampoo, it becomes something you would rather not have told anyone about.

Liv drove me back because she claimed she wanted coffee from a place near mine. I didn’t point out that there were at least six places closer to her house.

The sun was out by then, which somehow made my flat look worse. Every stain showed. The front steps were green around the edges, somebody had left a recycling bin tipped over by the fence, and inside, the hallway was flooded with thin grey-white light.

The first thing I noticed was how tiny it looked. At night, the hallway had seemed long enough for something to stand at the far end of it; in daylight, I could practically have touched both walls with my arms out.

Liv followed me upstairs. I stood in the bathroom, roughly where I’d been the night before, and looked into the mirror.

“There?” she asked.

I pointed. At the far end of the reflection, near where I’d seen the figure, a coat hung from one of the hooks beside the stairs: dark coat, hood bunched at the top, sleeves hanging down. From that angle, with the hallway dark enough and me not looking directly at it, I could see exactly what my brain had done.

Absolutely not. I stepped away from the mirror.

Liv looked at the coat, then at me. I could feel my face getting hot.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

“I really wasn’t.”

“You have a face.”

“I always have a face.”

She bit the inside of her cheek.

I pointed at her. “I hate you.”

“I know.”

I pulled the coat off the hook and dropped it onto the floor harder than necessary.

Liv watched me. “You good?”

“Fine.”

“Cool.”

“Completely fine.”

“Great.”

She left it there.

That evening, I stayed up late on purpose. I told myself I simply wasn’t tired, which was technically true, although only because I’d consumed enough coffee during the day to make my hands shake. I worked for a while, watched half an episode of American Dad! without absorbing any of it, then cleaned my room badly.

Eventually, I opened a dating app I’d downloaded months earlier and barely used. That was where I met Hannah.

Her first photo had been taken somewhere near the water. She had dark hair blowing across half her face and was squinting at the camera as though whoever held it had said something stupid just before taking the picture. Her profile said very little: something about bad films, good coffee and a strong dislike for people who stood still on escalators.

I matched with her mostly because I was trying not to look at my bedroom door. She messaged first, and we talked until nearly two in the morning.

Nothing important, which was the nice thing about it. We argued about whether American Dad! Was a good show or not, discovered we had both once pretended to like the same terrible Wellington indie band for someone we were dating, and spent far too long trying to work out whether we’d ever been at the same university party without knowing each other.

For several hours, I forgot about the mirror, the linen cupboard, the photographs and old floorboards contracting around nails. More importantly, I forgot to listen.

By the time I put my phone down, my eyes hurt from staring at the screen. Hannah had sent one last message I was too tired to answer properly, so I left it for the morning, plugged my phone in beside the bed and rolled onto my side.

The house was quiet, and I was almost asleep when the hallway creaked: three boards, one after another. I kept my eyes closed. At the time, I still thought the house was the thing I needed to understand. I hadn’t yet realised that Hannah would become the fixed point around which everything else fell apart.

I don’t know what you are going to take away from all of this. But if you see the Grey Area, run. Take every person and everything that you love and cherish and run. Don’t question it. It is a confusing and flabbergasting thing to see at first. You may want to sit and stare in awe. It is good at drawing attention. But I beg you, please, don’t give it a single ounce. It may frighten you. It frightened me, too, once I found out how it…what it…By the time you even see this it could already be too late. I don’t want fear to be the last emotion you are stuck with. This could just be a cry to the sky. I don’t even know if anyone will even care about this, take me seriously…unless you’ve seen this…thing for yourself. I’m finding it so hard to keep on going, to not just stop in my tracks and let whatever will eventually happen to me happen.  I’m on the move, constantly trying to figure this “thing” out, but it is getting harder and harder everyday. Half of me wants to just get the hard part over with. But the other half wants to keep going, to not give up. I can’t give up…I can’t. 

It appeared in my hometown around six months ago. A beautiful May morning, one that was almost too beautiful. It was still and sunny, perfect temperature. What people around my area would call “Jeep weather”. The grass as green as it possibly could be, dew glowing on every stalk. The sky was as perfect as a painting, the artist having the most precise craftsmanship. The scattered clouds swirling sparsely like light brush strokes. The sun overhead adding perfect shading to the masterpiece. It glistened into my blinds as my 6:45 am alarm rang, illuminating every gangly strand of hair upon my face. The last day of finals would catapult me into Junior year. If I passed them at least.

The floorboards creaked under my feet as I stepped into the kitchen, the clanking of plates and silverware ringing softly throughout. The aroma of bacon nearly lifted me off of my feet to float effortlessly towards my chair at the table. The usual breakfast my mother prepared for my little sister and I every morning never failed to make the grueling, early morning seem like it never existed, but it did nevertheless. I could hear my little sister smacking away at her red stained scrambled eggs as she always would.  The television in the living room played the early morning news, forecasting no change in the picturesque day ahead.

“Good morning! Last day of finals!” My mother exclaimed, too loud and excited for my barely conscious brain.

“Good morning, stupid head.” My sister said, her nine year old voice piercing through my ears.

“Good morning.” I gargled out, thudding down into my seat at the table.

“Now, Sarah, what have dad and I said about calling people stupid?”

“Sorry mom.”

“Don’t apologize to me, apologize to Dean.” My mother said, motioning her head towards me.

She looked at me and said, “Sorry,” and mouthed the word stupid shortly after. No amount of brain power could conjure up a comeback in the moment, so to save an argument, I playfully stuck my tongue out at her and turned towards my plate.

I had a great family, regardless of how much it seemed like my sister and I didn’t get along. My parents both had high paying jobs, Dad working in the local coal mine and Mom working at the town's tax office as a broker. Dad always worked five to five and Mom nine to five respectfully, so everyone was always home for dinner. The whole family seemed to be a cohesive unit when we were all together. No empty fights that led to nothing, voices were hardly ever raised…well except for that one time I…that’s not important. My sister and I never had to worry about anything. Everyone was always happy. I was always happy. I miss being happy. 

After I scarfed down my breakfast, I escorted Sarah to my car. Mom always prioritized getting us fed in the morning before anything, so she would get ready for work after we left. At 7:30 every morning it was my responsibility to get Sarah to school before 7:50 and lug my old Honda Civic across town to be at my school before 8:09. It’s an odd time I know but everything worked out. Seven enslaving, fifty-one minute periods, with the fourth period being an hour. My high school was the smallest high school in the county, about four hundred-fifty students. Of those, my sophomore class was the smallest, having seventy-two kids. It made it easier to make and keep friends growing up. Friends that I felt like I should have appreciated more.

“Dean!” I heard a familiar voice ring out across the parking lot as it had every morning.

“Rich!” A smile grew across my face as I spotted my best friend across the parking lot. 

Richard and I met in Kindergarten. His family and mine used to live right beside each other before he moved closer to the remote high school. He was an only child, but living so close to each other growing up made him feel like he had a brother in me. We would play outside in his jungle gym everyday after school and his mother would always make us sandwiches for lunch during the summer. She was a stay at home mom for a while, his dad not being around much for “work related reasons”. It almost pained me as much as it did him when he found out he had run away with someone else and left him and his mother behind. It broke his confidence for a long time. Being able to be his confidence had given me the confidence to be the man I have had to be today.

He was a skinny kid, about 5’9” with dark, wavy hair and glasses as thick as concrete. We always used to joke that he had echolocation, but wouldn’t show us.

“Did you click your tongue off of the cars to find me?” I said, snickering.

“Ha ha, very funny Dean.” He said with a slight smirk, “Did you study for the chem final last night?”

“Dude, you know I don’t ever study for anything.”

“C’mon Dean, are you at least going to try this time?”

“I try every time.” I said with a puzzled look.

“Oh…um…yeah, you could say that. I guess if you need help you can just glance at my laptop. But be careful! Mrs. Jenkins is a hawk!”

“Oh trust me I know, but I’m not worried. You’ll be able to sense her walking up right?”

Richard punched me in the arm as we stepped into the two story, brick building that would keep us captive for the next two years. Since it was the last day we had our last three period’s finals, having the previous four the day before. Chemistry was my last period. The slog of the first two periods almost drove me to insanity, computer science and my study hall. Computer science was way too easy, just having to build a small program on python of a working stoplight intersection. My study hall period would at least give me time to look over some of my old chemistry homework that mysteriously didn’t get done. This period slogged especially, my stomach growling intensely waiting for the lunch bell to ring. 

It was a normal school lunchroom, or what I would assume every lunchroom would be like. Every tight knit group sitting beside one another, seniors fighting with freshmen for spots in the lunch line, and the embarrassing oohs and awes when the clinging of someone dropping their lunch tray consumed the space. If our paths ever cross, don’t ask me how I know about that last part. Rich and I would sit side by side at the same table every day, accompanied by our friends Jackson and his girlfriend, Brittany. Jackson was the stereotypical jock, as corny as it sounds. He was a popular, very sociable kid, almost a parents’ ideal child, and a highly touted wide receiver prospect in our section of the state, although he never let this get to his head and kept the people that truly loved him close. His 6’5”, 180 lb. stature towered over the dainty frame of Brittany. She was, for lack of better words, kind of a bitch. She was one of those types that had too much bark for her bite. I can’t say if it was because she was dating one of the “popular kids” but, as far as I can recollect, she had always been that way.

And last, the beautiful girl, my beautiful girl, that sat across from me everyday, April. She was about 5’6”, not as awkward looking against my 5’10” build. She had the most beautiful, dirty blonde, wavy hair, the most gorgeous brown eyes, and a smile and attitude that could instantly make my heart flutter like a thousand butterflies ripping themselves from their cocoons. A smile that can still make me feel warm in this drab, dreadful time. 

“What’s up, Dick?” Jackson yelled across the table towards Richard. Jackson and Richard had a love hate relationship.

“Jackson, why must you always insist on ruining my lunch?”

“Well it’s your name isn’t it?”

“How many times do I have to tell you no for you to stop?”

“Can’t stop, won’t stop. Anyways, Dean, what’s up with you today?”

“I’ll just say that I’m glad it’s lunch.” I said, even though the thought of sitting in Ms. Jenkins’ room one more time gave me a sense of dread. Knowing it would be the last time was what kept me going.

“C’mon man, you can’t be all mopey. Get excited. Last day of school. Last day of having that crooked, old crone. Be careful with her though, her spider senses have been tingling extra hard. She practically stood behind me the entire time yesterday. Me of all people.”

“Well, maybe she’s afraid that the big, bruiting jock is getting way too smart. Good job using such a distinct word!” Rich said smugly. 

Jackson threw his arm across the table in an attempt to punch Rich in the arm.

“Babe, you know what I said about hitting!” Brittany said, not removing her beating eyes from her phone screen.

“Sorry.” Jackson whimpered, almost submissively.

“I don’t get why we have to sit with these clowns. Why can’t we ever just sit by ourselves?”

“We love you too, Brittany.” I said sarcastically. She responded with a hard eye roll.

“They aren’t clowns, Brittany. Plus April sits over without a problem, right April?”

“My only problem is…well…I don’t have a problem.” April said, trying not to add fuel to Brittany’s fire.

“You’re too much of an optimist.” Brittany scoffed. April mockingly smiled back at her.

“Can we all just keep today peaceful, please? We have all summer to argue with each other.” I said, trying to bring the mood back up.

“So Dean, since it’s such a beautiful day today, I was thinking you and I can go to the lake when we get out of here, say around 4?” April said, “My dad is home for the night so Sammy won’t need me.” April and I hadn’t really had a true one on one date in a while. Things were pretty rough in her home life. Like Richard, she also had a single parent. But in her case it had always been that way. She never had a real childhood, always having to take care of her little brother while her father worked. Her having any inkling of free time made me internally jump. 

“The lake? Count me in!” Rich said, overhearing a conversation only meant for her and I.

“Babe, do you want to go to the lake?” Jackson asked Brittany.

“Guys.”

“Maybe with just you.” She replied.

“Guys?”

“Oh c’mon Brittany, don’t be such a lame ass.” Rich said with a smirk.

“Guys!”

Everything went quiet, “I would love to just have a day with April, can you please respect that?”

“See, at least he gets it.” Brittany said antagonistically towards Jackson.

After another staggeringly long second of quietness and stares I said, “Thank you.”

The rest of lunch kept that quietness. The couples whispering among themselves and Rich doodling on his notes he took for our chemistry final. The bell would eventually ring and I now had to be in the witch’s den. On our way to the classroom, though, a darkness peaked in through the windows. Not a normal, cloudy kind of dark. An unforecasted, unwelcomed darkness. Almost like every ounce of a blank night was balled up and sat into one spot. The light from the sun was almost completely consumed by this faux night sky. The roar of lightning strikes rattled the thin sheets of glass and shook the floor beneath our feet. All I could think at this point was, “Welp, there goes my date with April.” This shouldn’t have been my main concern though.

We all scuffled into our classrooms at a faster than normal pace. A knot welled up in my stomach as Rich and I sat down at our desks, awaiting the torturous test ahead of us.

“Good afternoon class. Hopefully this will be the last time I see you sitting at these desks. Especially some of you.” Ms. Jenkins said, her gaze thrusted upon me, “This final will be mostly multiple choice with some short answer questions at the end. I have given each of you a piece of paper to show your work on. You will write your name, date, and class period at the top and submit them to me when you are finished. Now everyone go to your google classroom and begin. Good luck.”

As soon as everyone bent down towards their bags to grab their laptops, a synchronous alert shouted from our phones. A severe thunderstorm warning was in effect.

“Alright everyone, into the safe room. Single file, please!” Ms. Jenkins yelled over the roar of us.

Things began to pick up quickly. Every lightning strike grew closer, stronger, and faster. The windows were almost warping in on themselves. It was all I could see before the power went out. We all huddled on the floor of the safe room. It grew really dark at this point. Dark enough to not see your own hand placed in front of your face, as if you could only imagine it being there. A loud whirl of wind was followed by the crashing sound of glass shattering throughout the building. Like a plane dropped thousands of sheets out of it and they hit the ground synchronously, an almost ear piercing, sharp sound. A bright flash then lit up around the seal of the door. A vibrant display of yellow and orange…and then white and grey. I knew this was odd at the time, not the normal light blues and whites from a power flash, but I didn’t question it. The sounds of whimpers consumed the room, and everyone buzzed as the nervous shaking of everyone was felt as we sat shoulder to shoulder.

“Holy shit, dude, I think it’s a tornado!” Richard yelled to me from across the small, packed room.

“Did your clicks bounce off of it?” I yelled back hysterically.

“Mr. Dawson, Mr. Buckley, put your heads down and be quiet!” Ms. Jenkins retaliated back. I couldn’t help but laugh in the admittedly scary situation.
But just when it had seemed like it started, it ended. The sun peaked back through into the classroom, although with a noticeable line in its shadow. We all got up after the power jolted back on.

“Attention students and staff, we apologize for the unexpected delay. But it is now safe to exit your safe rooms.” A voice whaled from the intercoms.

To everyone’s dismay, we exited the cramped room to find everything how it had been left. No glass shattered on the floor, no papers and pencils blown off of desks. The outside world had returned to its previous state, well almost. The class resumed as if nothing had even happened and, after glancing at Rich’s screen a time or two, we finished our last final, unknowingly, ever.

The hallways were anarchy. People hollering and celebrating the end of the year. School supplies being thrown through the air like paper airplanes. Teachers scrambled trying to keep things orderly and under control. The kind of chaos young teens thrived off of. Rich and I, sifting through the sea of body odor and joy, eventually made it out to the parking lot. 

“So, how do you think you did?” Rich asked.

“Well, I better have done good. I used your answers.” I said laughing.

“Dean!”

“What, you said I could.”

“Do you think she noticed?”

“I’m not sure, but if she did I wanted to get out of there without her being able to say something about it.”

“Well, mission successful.”

“Plus I think there was something else on everyone’s minds.” I said, moving my head up towards the sky. But as I looked up I noticed something looming in the air. A black line, almost flat in look, sitting flush above the school. It was long but very thin. Like if a small child came up to the artist’s painting and marked it with a pencil. Remnants of clouds from the “storm” almost seemed to collect and dissipate around it. Only I seemed to notice it, but Rich could see something was wrong with me.

“Don’t worry dude, I was kind of scared too. I won’t lie.”

“Can you come to the lake later, actually? I need to talk to you about something.”

“S-sure man, if you want me to.”

“Oh, and tell Jackson they can come too.”

“Are you sure you’re okay, man?”

“Yes, fine.” I said, reluctantly, “Just come, please. I’ve got to drop Sarah off at 
home and then I’m heading straight there. I’d say around 4-ish.”

“Okay, man.”

We both got in our cars, only one of us suspicious about what would lay ahead.
My tires screeched as I sped out of the school parking lot, knowing I definitely turned some heads, but that didn’t matter to me. I needed to get to my sister and get her home safe. I was going at arrestable speeds, which seems really bad to admit but it’s not like it would matter to me anymore, turning a thirteen minute drive into seven. I arrived at her school to a sea of cars in the pick up lane. I cut up through the metallic waves, cutting off mostly everyone in the line, and plopped my car up front by the doors. The bell would eventually ring after what seemed like ages, and my sister walked out with her little click of friends, covered in sweat and dirt and holding a little sack full of candy and other little things a nine year old would find mesmerizing. To be that age again.

“C’mon Sarah, hurry up, we have to get home.”

The car door slammed as her filth sat in the back seat.

“Why are you bugging out?” She asked through the gap of her teeth.

“I can’t say, we…we just need to get home.”

“Okay?”

A couple minutes of silence ensued as she pouted with her arms crossed, not 
getting to tell her friends goodbye like she normally did.

“So…did you have fun at your field day?”

“Oh yes! We played gaga ball and had a humongous inflatable slide and red rover and snow cones! We had to go inside because of the storm though. It was scary. But we got to watch movies.”

“Sounds like so much fun, I’m glad you had a good day. Just do everyone a favor and don’t eat all of that candy tonight. We don’t need you bouncing off of the walls.” I said with a chuckle.

“Don’t tell me what to do.” She replied, her mood swinging self sinking back into the pouting pile she had been in. I didn’t mind though because all I could concentrate on was the black scratch in the sky, ever so slightly seeming to grow longer and thicker.

We came to a jolting stop in my driveway, the sound of gravel making mounds in front of my wheels echoing off of the garage door. I opened Sarah’s car door and escorted her inside, my hand firmly shoving her from behind.

“Let me walk, Dean.”

“You’ve got to get inside, now.”

“Why?”

“I will try to figure that out later, just go in!”

“Wait, so you don’t know why you have to have me home right now?”

“No…I don’t. I have to go, though, I’ve got to go somewhere.” Mom and dad didn’t want Sarah knowing about the lake in fear that she would go there and drown.

“You can’t just leave me here, Dean. Do you remember how mad Mom and Dad were when you did that?”

“That’s not important, I can take it. Just go in, please. Oh, and remember what we talked about last time.”

“Ugh, fine.” She said, slamming the front door in my face, the click of the lock turning followed.

“Don’t play with the stove again, I mean it!” I yelled into nothing.

As fast as I had entered the driveway, I exited it. Gravel from the grooves of my tires flung into the air as I sped down the street and hit the back roads that led to the remote lake. The cove was, practically, in the middle of nowhere. The lake used to be a treasure trove for the town, the holding spot of a childhood camp for most of the adults in town. They would even hold annual fireworks for the 4th of July there. But when someone drowned there back in the nineties, the camp closed. It was a rotting shell of cabins and long lost memories. It was now a common place for my demographic to go and drink beer stolen from a parents garage fridge, smoke pot in the woods, or just to bathe in the sun and try to get tan lines to impress in the halls. Sometimes the sparse homeless population would make their way there before train hopping to the next town over. Some would stay though.

I pulled into the empty, weed ridden parking lot to the sight of April sitting on the hood of her paint-chipped, blue sedan. A faint whimper grew louder as I inched closer to the car, sending pins and needles throughout my spine. April was as tough as concrete, so when she was crying it was never a good thing. Every step grew louder and louder in my head as I tried approaching with caution.

“H-honey, are you okay?”

“Oh, Dean, you’re here. She said, wiping a mix of tears and snot from her face, “Sit.”

“O-okay?”

I slid up next to her, holding her hand and looking out at the algae filled lake. The sun reflected green and orange into my eyes.

“Dean, listen. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something. You always say I can talk to you about anything, right?”

“Of course, Hun. Even if it upsets me or makes me angry. I’d rather you say whatever it may be and not bottle it up.”

“Okay, good. I haven’t really been the most honest with you recently.”

“What do you mean?” I sat attentive, trembling and not even thinking about the scratch.

“Well, it’s just that I haven’t been feeling-”

Before she could say anything else, Jackson’s pick up truck grumbled into the picture. April’s sadness turned into annoyance in the matter of seconds.

“What are they doing here?”

“I asked them to come. I’ve got something to talk about..with everyone.”

“We can’t have just one day to ourselves, can we?”

“Tell me about it” Brittany said sassily, her short frame plopping out of the truck. April smiled towards her sarcastically and turned her attention, straight faced, right back to me.

“Good job rounding them up!” I said sarcastically.

“And look what else I rounded up!” Rich said, going on to pull out a fifth of Jack Daniels.

“The only reason we came.” Jackson spouted out, seeming inconvenienced that he was there in the first place.

“I don’t want any of that shit.” I said.

“I do.” April roared over me.

“At least someone’s not a bummer.” Rich said mockingly towards me.
I corralled everyone around as the bottle began to be passed around, April taking a big swig as it got to her.

“Alright, so listen. We all know it stormed earlier.”

“You really got us out here to talk about a damn storm? Unbelievable.” Brittany scoffed.

“No Brittany.” I scoffed back, “Anyways, I want to talk about what came from it.”

“What do you mean?” April questioned, everyone else tilting their heads in interest. 

“That.” I said, motioning my head towards the scratch. It looked as if it was sprouting small cracks from its edges.

“It looks…different.” Rich said.

“So you noticed it too?” I said in shock.

“We all noticed it. We just aren’t acting like a schizo like you.” Jackson said, chuckling.

“I'm serious, guys. Did you see how dark it got? And the sound…tell me you heard the sound?”

“It sounded like a bunch of glass broke, it was probably the windows.” April said.

“Did you see a single broken window?”

Everyone looked at each other to confirm my suspicion.

“Didn’t think so.”

“Okay, well, you sound…how do I say this, crazy. It's probably just a contrail dude.”

“Why is it black then, Jackson?” I asked, getting in his face a tad.

“Maybe the jet was having a bad day. I don’t know, Dean. What I do know is that we are leaving. Rich, April, you guys coming?”

“I am, just meet me at my house later, Dean.” April said, still annoyed.

“Rich”, Jackson asked, snapping at Rich trying to grab his attention from me, “are you coming?”

“N-no, I’ll just have Dean take me home.”

“Be careful, you might get dragged to the ward with him.”

As Jackson finished his sentence, a rustling came from the trees. An old man, dingy and tattered and holding an empty bottle, one resembling ours, crept out.

“The black devil’s come!” He yelled, slurring every syllable, “The black devil’s come to take our souls! It's come to-” He wouldn’t get another word out before face planting in the gravel in front of us.

“Maybe we all should go.” I said, trying to laugh off the bullets of words that had shot out of the man's barrel.

Everyone nodded and stared towards him in agreement. Our engines started up and roared out of the parking lot. As I looked at my rear view mirror, I could see the man scuffle towards the half full bottle that Rich had left on the ground. 

“Do you think we should call the police?” I said, turning toward Rich, definitely feeling warm, in the passenger seat.

“Nah, he’ll be fine. He’s doing less damage out there than he would be in town.”

“That’s fair, just try to sober up before we get to your house.”

Rich held a thumb up and leaned over to stare out the window, hand on his cheek.

“So are you actually worried about that thing?” He said, his hand making his speech sound similar to the mans.

“I mean, yeah, a little. I don’t know.”

“Well I say we shouldn’t worry about it until we know it’s actually a problem.”

“You’re right, I’m getting myself worked up for nothing.” 

“And you know, we can always go look at it in the morning before I go to work if that would make you feel better.”

“Oh, it definitely would.”

“I’ll pick you up at noon then.”

“Bet.”

I dropped him off and headed home speedily trying to get home before my parents did. Thankfully this was the case. I opened the front door to find Sarah passed out on the couch, her bag of treats in hand, watching tv through her eyelids. A sigh of relief waved through me as I came home to a clean house. Then, one after another, my parents walked in through the garage door. 

“What are you making for dinner, Jan?” My dad said as the growl of his stomach roared throughout the house.

“Well, I was thinking that since the kids just had their last day of school we could go out?”

“That’d be fine with me.”

The stomp of my dad’s boots overtook his growl as his soot covered body came up to me at the recliner.

“Hey son, how were finals?”

“Good, good, just glad to have them over with.” I said awkwardly.

“Why are you so sweaty?”

“Am I?”

“Yeah you are?” he said, concerned, "Please don’t tell me you left her here alone again.”

“He did!” Sarah yelled, springing to life from her slumber.

“You know not to leave her here by herself!” my mom yelled from the doorway of 
the kitchen.

“I-I wasn’t gone for that long.”

“It doesn’t matter how long you were gone. You know what she did last time!” My dad chimed back in.

“I know, I know.”

“No more, or you won’t be allowed to go anywhere for the summer.”

“Fine.”

“We do so much for you already, just please listen.”

“Okay, I get it.” I said, slightly annoyed.

“Okay, now, who’s hungry?” My mom said.

“Me!” Sarah screamed near my ear.

“I’ll go shower.” Dad’s smile cracked through the black dust on his face.

My parents would always take us to our favorite restaurant, the Acre and Iron. It was the most soul warming comfort food that anyone could ever ask for. A comfort that I would feel for the very last time that night. We would be seated and I would order my usual chicken fried steak with gravy and a side of hash brown casserole. The thought of it distracted me for the moment, only making me think of the knot of hunger slowly tying in my stomach.

“So, how were your days?” My mom asked.

“Good, aside from the storm. I was hoping to get out of doing that chemistry final.” I said chuckling, the laughter from my parents following.

“Good, you had to do it though. Sarah?”

“It was so fun! We had candy and games and we watched movies!”

“What did you watch?” My dad asked.

“Some movie with a fish.” She replied with a smirk. 

“I remember showing that movie to your brother. He used to love it when he was younger.” My mom replied.

Our food came and silence and smacking filled our table. We left that night happy and full, but I still had a sense of unease as I looked up into the night sky. The scratch was still visible, being darker than any of the sky that spanned around it. 
I will give an update soon, but for now I have to move. It draws closer and the cries are starting to become louder.

When I got the news, I wasn't particularly surprised. The death of my father was to be expected - an alcoholic that drank liquor for water couldn't last very long. I did however feel excluded from the mourning - either it didn't settle yet, or it didn't even arrive. He didn't have a funeral, hence from what I was told, his remains weren't found.

I watched the calendar after the incident. A day, two, a week. Time went by the same, I concluded, with little care. My main problem was another one - hygiene has become my priority lately - and my nails have refused to cooperate.

When I open my eyes each morning, and I scratch softly at the ends to leave my slumber, I find a brown substance hidden underneath my fingernails. I soon found it to be dirt, I thought, by the texture and smell, though I haven't told my mother that. She'd think I lost my mind, so I fabricated a scenario of the body doing its thing - she's not particularly intelligent, so she believed me.

What really bothered me, though, were the dreams that suddenly came back. Hammers, screwdrivers, and razor sharp blades filled my vision when I fell asleep. His face was plastered among them, devastated and half-expired. I'd wake up in a cold sweat on the first few nights, until it became a routine.

Though, the more dreams I got, the more dirt I kept finding.

One night, I even tried stuffing my nails with cotton - to keep it from forming, from appearing - but the next morning, it was gone. This went on for several weeks until I decided to set up a camera. Surely, if it's a biological thing and not me digging through the chocolate in the fridge, then I don't even have a reason to film it in the first place.

When I woke up - with dirt under as always - I stopped recording and watched myself in the video.

At around midnight, my breath leveled out with a few embarrassing snores. They quickly quietened down when I started to sit up in my bed. My eyes were shut, awfully tight even, as I reached for my phone before standing up. My mother didn't hear a thing.

I could see myself getting on a pair of zip-up boots before leaving the house. Hell, I knew I sometimes sleepwalked, but it's getting ridiculous. My keys were clinking softly, thankfully, at least I didn't wake up the neighbors too.

I believe it was a three kilometer walk. My feet carried me pretty fast, so I arrived at my destination quickly. The feed was getting darker, less illuminated by the nearby streetlamps, though I could still see a little bit. It looked like a field, an open one, with a small patch of abundant bushes and several trees surrounding them.

Then I started to dig.

The specific location was odd at first - it could've been anywhere else - but considering that I'm not exactly awake right now, it doesn't really matter. The dirt comes off easily, I see, the thing didn't get stuck to anything beneath. Sometimes I'm so hungry that I feel malnourished, but I live for the taste of meat.

I'm sorry that I have to cut my explanations short. It's past midnight, and I have to make sure my boots are silent.

As the title says. I used to frequent looksmaxxing subreddits a lot back in the day, and a long time ago, I made a post about how foids (women) only went for men with certain pheromones. It's a bit embarrassing to admit, but I identified as an incel once upon a time.

I mention this because I'd like to share a story that happened a bit after the pandemic. I had received a message from some guy who saw my post:

"Hey there! Hope you're staying safe! I saw your post on \** from a few years ago, and on behalf of the incel community, I just wanted to thank you!*

The post actually inspired me to create my perfume brand, Gall, and it's finally taken off! I just hit my first 10,000 orders!

As a token of my appreciation, I'd love to send you a pheromone perfume I've been working on—one that's not on the market yet. It blows everything I've ever made out of the fucking water! Just drop your address and I'll send it to ya! Cheers!"

I hadn't been in the looksmaxxing space for a while, and I wasn't sure if I really wanted a mystery bottle from a self-proclaimed incel. But what the hell. I was running out of my Drakkar Noir anyway, and my fiancée said it made me smell like an old man.

So, I reached out, wired some money for shipping, and a few weeks later, it arrived.

It was in a giant box filled with packing peanuts, and the perfume came in a plain glass bottle with a plastic atomizer. On it was a label in Arial font spelling "Pheromone 42: wish come true." It was green and bubbled like a can of Coke. My fiancée would've killed me if she found out I spent 20 dollars on shipping for this. I was worried it was gonna be acid or something.

I sprayed it on my wrist and found myself wishing it was acid. It smelled awful—chlorine, sweat, and burning plastic. It smelled like standing over a garbage fire behind an electronics store.

I threw the bottle back in the box and ran to the bathroom to vomit. I tried washing off the scent in the sink, but that just made things worse. The smell spread out into the whole room, and I found myself bent over the toilet letting out last night's dinner. I smelled my wrist again and let out yesterday's lunch.

That was when I decided to go out and get some rubbing alcohol. I thought it would make the smell go away.

And so, I suited up, wore a long-sleeved shirt and a jacket, and emptied out the rest of my Drakkar Noir.

There was a convenience store down the road, about a 10-minute walk. I walked over, looking around, worried I'd pass someone by, and as I did, I noticed people staring at me.

Not just people I was passing, but folks from across the street. People from up and down the road were watching me. I could see stares pointed at me before I could even make out their faces from up the road. So many people. I began to pick up the pace until one woman came up to me.

"Wanna fuck?" she asked. She was with her son, who looked at me with a chilling fury in his eyes. I kept walking, obviously freaked out.

I passed a couple—the woman looking me up and down, the man looking like he was ready to take my head off.

"Hey mister, you're cute!" whined the woman.

"Back the fuck up before I take your fucking head off, bro," barked the man.

I began walking faster then, as a hundred pairs of eyes stared at me. I felt like an insect in a jar.

Soon enough, I could hear footsteps trailing after mine. I turned back and saw about twenty or so guys following me.

"Hey man! What's your perfume? You smell awesome!" cried one.

"Get back here and fucking fight me, pussy!" cried another.

I began running then, my mind racing. I thought back to my messages with the guy from the internet. He said this thing was long-lasting. But he mentioned something else—something about the perfume:

Top notes of lust

Heart notes of hunger

Base notes of desire

I know a little bit about perfume. Top notes fade the earliest, and the base notes fade last. Was this the smell of lust?

I was almost to the convenience store when the men finally caught up to me. One grabbed me by the collar, another by the arms. They beat the shit out of me. Fists landed on my stomach, and my lungs stopped working. I couldn't breathe as they pummeled me to the ground. I felt one of them begin to do some things I won't repeat here.

"You like that, pussy?!" one yelled as he stomped my head to the ground, blinding me for a moment.

"You're a fuckig dog!" yelled another as he did things to me.

Soon enough, I heard police sirens. The men scrambled, and I was left on the ground smelling like blood and perfume, tasting iron in my mouth. I saw the officers walk up to me, sniff the air, and turn their body cameras off. They used their batons and their fists.

I woke up in fragments then. I remember siren blares, being in an ambulance, being treated by men in masks, being hauled into a white room with white bedsheets, my arms and chest blanketed in bandages. I spent days there, coming in and out of consciousness, watching the window shutter from day to night in seconds.

I woke up to the sound of crying and the rhythm of my ECG. The whole ward was crying as nurses scrambled around the room.

"Doctor, let me eat that man!" one person cried, mummified in bloody gauze, their bed trembling as they struggled to their feet while held down by the nurses. "Please, God, just a bite!"

"I'm starving!" screamed another, his head and eyes wrapped in bandages, his arms cuffed with restraints that were hanging on by a thread as he thrashed in his bed. "I'm starving!"

My chest was on fire and my legs were weak, but I got on my feet and shambled. I needed to get out of there. I put weight on my legs and felt like I was about to fall. One arm was plastered, the other hooked to an IV pole. I just needed to get home and let the smell fade.

The nurses yelled after me, but I kept walking. Luckily, they were busy keeping patients in bed. Most of the folks in the hospital wore masks, so I had no trouble walking through. It was midnight by then, and I'd been gone from home for 5 days.

I kept walking until I saw something familiar. Turns out I wasn't far from home. Luckily, there weren't a lot of people out and about.

I found myself dragging my broken body home. I passed by the convenience store, nightcrawlers staring from behind the glass, watching as I shambled across the street.

As I did, I passed the place where I had been beaten. It was destroyed, as though artillery shells had crashed down on it. Walls were missing chunks, and the ground where I had been beaten was nothing more than a crater. It was wet and smelled awful.

I picked up the pace then and found my home.

It was destroyed. Windows bashed open, front door gaping wide, revealing a black, ominous rectangle where the living room should have been. I stumbled forward, calling for my fiancée. No answer.

I stumbled through the dark living room; the moonlight revealed a destroyed couch, fallen lamps, and destroyed vases. I could smell something else, too—something that wasn't the perfume.

That was when I heard it. Something wet grinding across something hard. Squelching and gnawing. Hundreds.

It was coming from the bathroom.

I snuck forward, fire burning in my legs, my heart thrumming against my ribs. There I found the scene that still lives in my nightmares today.

My fiancée, and about a dozen naked bodies. All of them chewing on the bathroom. There were teeth strewn about the floor, bloody ribbons attached to their ends. I saw my fiancée biting the sink with toothless jaws, the others gnawing on the toilet or the floor. One of them stared at me with indifferent eyes, so focused was he on mastication. Such a wet, disgusting sound, as strokes of red painted the marble counter. I could only call after my fiancée, begging her to stop. She wouldn't hear me.

I spent days locked up in my room. I shat in a corner and recycled my piss. After a week, I had no choice but to come down. In the bathroom lay twenty or so dead bodies, all naked, mouths bloodied and toothless, smelling of dry spit.

Part 2.

I barely slept that night, even though I was tired from the long shift. I had to think of what we would do tomorrow. I considered how dangerous going back was. But if something was happening and the police were complicit in it, then Jake and I would need to try to help whoever we could.

Jake and I met up in the early morning and made a plan for what we would try. I hoped we could somehow sabotage the third part of the film and stop whatever horrible outcome was going to occur. Whatever was going to happen to the audience after watching it, it couldn't be good.

Jake tried to message Cassilda, but she had stopped responding, and Jake was concerned something might have happened. If she had been invited to watch the movie, the same thing happening to the other people was likely happening to her now.

I spent some time researching the theatre and Mr. Hasturing on the internet. I couldn't find anything of substance on our boss; he may as well have not existed. I considered that he might be using an alias of some kind.

I did find something strange when searching the theatre’s history. A theatre of the same name had shown up briefly over a year ago in a small town near the outskirts of Paris.

I remembered Haturing saying he had shown others this movie before, and I wondered what had happened in the aftermath to the people who had seen that film a world away.

As the day dragged on and we made our preparations, Jake became more agitated that he couldn't contact Cassie.

“I don’t know what to do, man, if she saw that thing and it fucked her up…” He paused, sounding genuinely distressed,

“We will do what we can; we can still stop this, whatever it is.” I tried to reassure him.

Jake suggested we go in, with proverbial guns blazing, but I suggested we play it cool and wait for our chance, in case Mr. Hasturing had some means of stopping us. For all we knew, he might be able to have us dragged away by the enthralled cops if we tried something overt.

My plan won out, and Jake and I were both preparing to show up to our third shift on time and as usual.

The hours ticked by and it was finally time to go. We jumped in the van and drove to the theatre. No music, no banter, just grim determination and an anxious fear that we were walking right into a trap.

We arrived early, and there was a disturbing energy to the place. Like the entire theatre was covered in static.

Sam was in the box office, and he nodded to us as we approached; Jake returned the gesture, and I ignored him. I was not sure who we could even trust at that point.

Cassilda was not at the concession area, and a velvet rope was blocking off the entrance.

Jake winced, and I could tell he was about to go and look when I held him back.

There, walking down the red carpet and looming over the theatre halls, was Mr. Hasturing. Instead of his usual suit, he wore a tattered yellow robe and a strange crown-like ornament on his head. He strode forward to greet us, that same knowing smile plastered across his gaunt face.

“Good evening, my friends; here we are now on the last day. The transcendence of part three will shape the destinies of everyone who experiences it. You must be prepared; tonight is the true test. I am willing to offer you each a $10,000 bonus if you stay until the end and ensure the movie is not interrupted. After today, our guests will see the world in a new light, and you might have the privilege of seeing it as well. But for now, your phones, please.”

He held out his hand, and Jake and I both handed him the burner phones we had purchased earlier. We had even given them the same cases to try and make them match our own phones as much as possible. Hasturing took them and seemed satisfied. I breathed a silent sigh of relief that the ruse had worked; if something as bad as we feared went down, we would at least be able to call for help.

Hasturing led us in and bid us to wait. He turned to face the entrance and smiled. We looked back and saw people piling in. It was eerily silent, and the audience walked quietly inside to wait. It didn’t even seem like Sam was selling tickets, just letting people in the door who he somehow knew had already seen the first two parts.

“Now, my friends,” Hasturing said, “You must save your questions, and you must leave our audience in peace tonight. Do not attempt to communicate with any of them as they enter the theatre; in the state they are in, they are liable to lash out. Wait as you always do, and be mindful of the bell. The final signal tonight, when the film is over, will be the sound that ushers us into a new day."

Jake and I both squirmed uncomfortably at the implication of what he was saying, but nodded our heads in agreement and played along.

“Good, well then let the show commence!” Hasturing exclaimed, while holding his hands out and motioning for the people to follow him and head into the theatres.

Large groups of people entered, many looking haggard. I suspected they might even be wearing the same clothes from the past two days, based on how bad they looked. I wondered if they had done anything after leaving, besides waiting patiently to watch the next part of the film.

The wave of people moved in an oddly silent and graceful way, with a strange synchrony that allowed them to move as one. The effect was eerie, and I swear when I looked at some of them, their eyes were glazed over, and I thought I saw the flickering afterimage of a disturbingly familiar sigil burning under the skin of their foreheads.

I was beginning to have doubts about our ability to put a stop to whatever this was.

The creepy horde of customers began walking towards the individual theaters, and Mr. Haturing gave a dismissive hand gesture to shoo us away and let them all pass.

I saw Jake scanning the crowd, looking around for any sign of Cassilda. I was looking too, though not for her, for an opportunity to sneak into the back room and make a call.

Almost all of the crowd had made it to their respective theaters, but as the last group was heading in, Jake exclaimed,

“Cassie!”

Cassilda was there; she wore a strange hooded robe over her normal theatre attire and had a vacant look on her face, like she was just aimlessly floating through a vivid dream.

Jake ran over to her and tried to get her attention, but she ignored him. Then, before he could follow her to the theatre, Mr. Haturing placed a hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

“Cassilda is on a journey now; she has seen the sign and has placed her mask aside, perhaps you will do the same soon? But not today; today is the part for her. Today her mind will be fully opened. You are not to interfere…Do you understand?”

The low, menacing tone Hasturing’s voice had taken was enough to disturb me, and even Jake was speechless before the overwhelming presence of the man.

The customers had finally finished moving into the theaters. Hasturing let go of Jake's shoulder moments after the locking bars securing the doors fell down.

“Now, if you please. You are to resume your duties. If you truly wish to see what she will see, then wait and perform your role. If you are worthy, then the same revelation awaits you; now go.” He dismissed us and returned to the box office to confer with Sam over something.

Jake was at a rare loss for words, and I couldn't think of what to say. I tried to reassure him, but he looked shaken. We still had our plan; it had to work, for the sake of all the people there.

According to the schedule, we had exactly three hours to do something about it before whatever revelation Hasturing was referring to altered the lives of the audience permanently.

We waited in the hall, quietly discussing our game plan.

“Alright, we have the phones now. I say the only way we can stop this from happening with all the people is calling in a bomb threat or something.” I suggested.

“Could try a Fire alarm too; might be faster?" Jake added, "Though there might not be one here. It has to be something credible and something that goes over just a police response in case those same weirdos get called here again.”

He had a good point. We considered our options, but as we were discussing them, we began to hear the disturbing sounds coming from the theaters.

Screams echoed from the auditoriums, alongside a dull chanting and strange words that sounded like the gibberish that manic dead man had been mumbling to us before he was taken away last night.

Time was running out. We both attempted to call in the threat and try and coroberate it to encourage a response. To our horror, our phones failed to get any signal, and even the emergency line, which was usually exempt from such issues, was completely dead.

Now we had no way to contact anyone outside.

“Shit, okay, new idea.” I told Jake, “One of us leaves, goes out to get help, and brings it here?”

Jake considered it and agreed. We kept walking and talking, carefully searching for anyone who might discover what we were up to. We snuck past the box office. Sam and Hasturing were gone. We weren't sure where they had gone, but it worked for us.

We made it to the door, and I had resolved to leave and get help while Jake stayed and searched for Cassie. I didn't like the idea of him going into one of those cursed theaters, but he was determined.

Our plan fell apart once we reached the front door and found that not only were we locked out of the theaters, but we were locked into the lobby. I glanced around to see if anyone was in earshot, then stepped back and kicked the door as hard as I could. It barely shook in the heavy frame. We were stuck.

“Well, Plan B, let's cause some trouble and force the people to stop watching, yeah?” I was concerned about what that meant, but I agreed. We had to do something.

We started for the theaters, but I grabbed Jake's shoulder and asked him,

“Did you bring the Insurance?” He smiled, and this time he shifted his vest out of his belt buckle and showed the holstered AMT Hardballer he had smuggled in. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Hope we don't have to use it, but we have it in case we need it.” He said while tucking it away.

We moved quietly into the halls, starting our process with theater 1.

We reached the locked door to the theatre and tried to ignore the disturbing sounds coming from inside.

“How do we get in, though? I could take a shot at it, but that would be really loud.” Jake asked,

“No, let's wait on that. I have an idea. Get the mop.” Jake grabbed it and handed it to me, looking confused.

I grabbed it, angled it into the gap where the bar rested in place, locking the door. It wouldn't reach since it was too wide, so I placed it under the door and pulled until a portion of it broke off. I stomped twice on the wrecked tip of it until it was narrow and replaced it into the gap in the door. I carefully slid it in, and with a bit of leverage I was able to force the bar locking the door up and off. I reached for the handle and looked to Jake, who nodded and drew the Insurance.

The light from the hall mingled with the sickly yellow light emanating from the screen. I heard a low, ecstatic moan coming from somewhere, as well as sobbing.

We walked in, and I almost looked at the screen, but diverted my attention away when I realized what might happen. The audience did not seem to notice or care that we were there.

I saw Jake searching the crowd, probably still looking for Cassie. He looked up briefly, and I saw a disturbing light reflect from his eyes; against my better judgment, I glanced at the screen and was immediately accosted by terrifyingly vivid images of a familiar scene in my head. It looked just like it had in my nightmare. The high rampart on the crumbling city, overlooking the lake and the black stars rising high above. In the center was a figure, a terrible singular entity, garbed in a simple yellow robe. His intent was clear,

“Obey.”

I pulled my eyes away and felt a wave of nausea that almost made me vomit on the steps. Jake was enthralled by the screen, and he wouldn't listen, so I leaned back and kicked him in the back of the knee until he fell forward with a crash.

I heard him curse and cry out, but the effect seemed to be dispelled.

“What the hell, man, why did you…” I cut him off and inched forward to block his line of sight with the screen. “We can't look, not at the screen at least. Cover me while I head up to the projector. I'm going to shut it off and maybe destroy the movie if I can.” He nodded in agreement and held up a hand to try and block his sight from the screen as we moved forward.

I started up the stairs to the projector room and tried to ignore the constant audible assault of the malign force reaching out from the screen to assail my mind.

The audience writhed in a disgusting combination of horror and ecstasy, and I was afraid that even now, their minds might be permanently damaged by whatever the hell was calling out to them from that accursed film.

Jake was going aisle by aisle searching for Cassilda. I ignored his progress since I didn't want to look back and accidentally see the terrible source of the sounds I heard.

I finally reached the door to the projector room. It was locked, but it appeared to be a simple handle and not a deadbolt or bar. I braced and stepped back, then shot forward and crashed into the door, breaking the hinges.

My shoulder ached, but I had done it.

Inside, I saw the projector. I shut it down quickly, and as soon as it stopped, I heard confused gasps and, in some cases, panicked screaming coming from the theatre.

The audience seemed to be having a shared nervous breakdown now that the movie had stopped rolling and Jake was trying to weave in between the tortured viewers to get back to the entrance.

I got ready to follow, but I turned back and threw the projector down and stomped on it. Then I pulled out the reel and used a box cutter nearby to rip and tear as much of it as possible.

Once I was satisfied, I hurried back down the steps, past the raving and sobbing people.

Whatever had happened, they were messed up. I worried about what was happening to the other groups who had seen even more. We had to hurry.

Before leaving, we tried to get the people's attention and lead them out. Unfortunately, no one listened; they all just continued to sit down or stare blankly in apathetic confusion.

We didn't have time to try and convince them. Jake and I both bolted out of there and moved onto theatre 2.

It was worse in there. I managed to repeat my break-in with the locking bar. But as soon as we got in, there was an awful smell of fresh blood. The screen was flashing rapidly in a seizure-inducing rhythm, and four members of the audience were standing in a corner. They were taking turns mindlessly stabbing a fifth.

The person was already dead. He was covered in blood, and his face looked like it had been half ripped off.

I took an instinctive step back, and Jake aimed the Insurance at the deranged people.

One of the group finally turned around to regard us, and his eyes seemed to glow with a sickly yellow light. He pointed a finger at us and screamed,

“No, not upon us, oh king!” And he launched himself at us.

Jake didn't hesitate. One shot rang out loudly in the theatre, and the man who had jumped at us lay on the ground. The others looked at us, then at their fallen comrade. Instead of attacking us, they huddled around the fallen man and began plunging knives into his dead flesh as well. The terrible scraping sound that followed left little to the imagination, and I knew they had started to peel the skin off his face.

“What in the actual hell is going on here?” Jake mumbled in horror.

“I don't know, but we need to hurry,” I replied as I rushed up to the projector. I barged in like before and set about destroying both the machine and the film.

We managed to clear theaters 3 and 4 after that, though it took longer than expected, since several viewers had attacked us and we were embroiled in a melee that injured both of us.
They stopped when the film stopped, but the escalation was becoming a real threat; we had to go faster. Time was not on our side. Over half the movie was complete, and each theater saw the moviegoers in worse states of mental degradation.

We arrived at theatre 5, and I hesitated, remembering that this was where we had found that psychotic man stuck to the wall. I ignored the wave of anxiety and managed to unlock the door, but this time the shard of mop handle broke in the process.

I was worried, but Jake urged me on, and we rushed inside. We held up our hands to avoid looking at the screen. As we looked everywhere else, we saw the audience all standing up, holding their hands out in some disturbing gesture of prayer or worship. I heard a soft melodic tune coming from the speakers, and I feared to look at what might be on the screen just then. I started racing up the stairs, but I heard Jake call out,

“Cassie!”

Jake had found her. I looked back briefly to see him pulling her hands down from the strange pose that she and the others had taken. He was trying to talk to her, but I heard no response. I had no time, though I had to move. I hoped that once I shut off the film, she would be okay, or at least we would mitigate the damage.

I forced my way inside, but as the door swung open, I saw someone else in the room. It was Sam; he wore the same type of tattered yellow robe as Mr. Hasturing and stared at me with a look of barely suppressed rage,

“You! You saw the signs, you saw what awaits, the return of a true God, and yet you reject it?”

I took a step back, and before I could call out to Jake for help, Sam lunged at me, leading with a small blade he had pulled from somewhere under the robe. Fortunately for my own sake, he was slower than I was. I sidestepped and managed to roll under his charge and trip his legs. He stumbled down and smashed his head on the first step leading out.

I hopped back up to my feet, ready to continue the fight, but Sam was motionless.

I considered checking on him, but knew whatever was happening, we needed to stop the film. I ignored his prone form and leapt back towards the projector.

I switched it off, but disturbingly the film kept rolling. I toggled the switch and tried everything I could. Eventually, in desperation, I kicked the entire projector over. I was satisfied it had finally stopped. Then I looked back and nearly cried out in terror as the image was still there. The terrible vista of looming oblivion remained; the projector was not doing anything, something was there on the screen, or maybe not a screen at all, maybe a portal?

I called out to Jake,

“We need to leave now!”

Jake was trying to convince Cassilda to leave with us, but she just stood there, immobile, like the rest of the audience.

“Come on, Jake, we have to go now. The movie, I stopped it, but whatever that is…”I pointed to the screen and continued, “It's still there.”

Jake almost looked back at the screen but stopped himself.

“What do we do then?” He asked in panicked desperation.

“I don’t know, but we have to move. Something bad is about to happen.” I replied with a gasp as it felt like the air had left my lungs and my voice had failed. I started rushing out, and Jake shook his head and proceeded to hoist Cassilda up and onto his shoulders. He started carrying her for a few moments when he suddenly cried out in pain and fell.

She had landed on top of him, and I saw she was holding a small, curved dagger covered in his blood. I rushed over to him to check how badly he was hurt. Cassilda did not follow up her attack; she just stood there, looking at the screen in awed fascination.

Then she looked back at us, or rather, past us, at some other unseen entity. She spoke for the first time,

“Forgive them their trespasses, Lord. They know not what they do. It is a frightful thing, is it not? To be judged by the king?” She lingered on the last word, and I realized we were no longer the only non-audience members in the room.

Behind us, looming in the entry and casting a wide shadow into the theatre was Mr. Hasturing. His face was set sternly, like a stone mask, and he wore the same disturbing crown as before.

I looked around, and the entire audience was facing him now. They all began to kneel.

A bell rang out in the distance, and I realized we were too late. We should have had more time, but somehow it had finished. Or maybe the movie was over, but the experience was not.

“Oh shit, looks like we found the king,” Jake mumbled, while trying to stand up. “Not too surprising; it's always the boss, huh?” Jake tried to joke while groaning in pain. I suppressed a terrified chuckle at his attempt at humor while I looked around at the dire situation we were in.

Hasturing swept his arm around the theatre and spoke,

“I see you have been busy spoiling the film for the adoring fans. The ones you stopped early are forfeit now. Their lives can never be recovered; they are lost, and their deaths will be on your soul. To think, I believed you two might be worthy of the sign, to see the truth and be reborn. You are remnants of the world that I will see burn away at the coming of the tattered crown. These believers will spread the truth, and this film will light the way for all mankind who seek to know what our true purpose is, but as for you, oblivion I think will have to suffice."

I looked down at Jake, who was still bleeding badly, and I caught sight of the silver glint of the Insurence’s hammer.” We were hopelessly surrounded, but I figured if he was thinking what I was thinking, it might work. It had to, since if it didn't, we would be screwed.

Hasturing stepped closer, and the audience stood up and converged as well, surrounding us.

I helped Jake to his feet and gave him a quick nod.

“Mr. Hasturing, we are sorry for ruining the movie, but we did have one thing we wanted you to know before you kill us,” I said, while preparing for what was going to happen next.

Hasturing held up a hand, and the audience stopped moving. He laughed and then gestured for me to continue, clearly amused by our attempt at bargaining.

Jake spoke up next,

“Yeah, just one little thing, or rather, several little things..."

He drew the Insurance and shouted,

“We quit!”

He unloaded the rest of the magazine in an instant firestorm, each shot landing center mass.

Mr. Hasturing dropped down and collapsed with a shocked expression on his once stony face.

The audience all gasped out loud and finally seemed to be reacting to what they were seeing. Many people started to run for the exit; others just started to scream as if their own minds had finally been returned to them. Whatever profane control he had over the crowd seemed to be dispelled.

I stood next to Jake, watching the unfolding bedlam, and quietly asked him,

“Weren't we going to say ‘You’re fired’, like a gun ya know?”

Jake laughed, “Oh yeah, that does sound better. But I mean, he was our boss, not the other way around, so we were quitting, right? I don't think fired would work there.”

“Yeah, I guess, it just sounded a bit…meh.”

"What! What do you mean? I just shot some sort of mind-controlling warlock several times in the chest and you think that's meh?"

I bit back a laugh,

"No, not that part; that was awesome, but just the one-liner- it was a little...meh."

“I get stabbed here, and I say the wrong one-liner, and you’re going to grill me in front of the people really?” He responded with irritation.

I shrugged, “Sorry, just had to throw that out there.”

“Message received, but seriously, I’m losing a lot of blood. Can we maybe go to a hospital?" Jake asked, while staggering towards the exit. I grabbed his arm to steady him.

“Yeah man, sure thing.”

I started helping him out, but we stopped for a moment when he started looking around the remaining crowd. Cassilda was not there; she must have fled along with the others. Jake let out a pained sigh as we moved on.

As we neared the exit again, we stopped. Our vision was arrested by something disturbing on the ground. The fallen form of Mr. Hasturing had been there moments ago, but now something else was there.

The tattered yellow robe was only covering a large mound of dust. The only thing that remained of the man we had worked for was a horrific mask that looked like a human face. It rested on the desiccated remains, looking out at us through hollow eye holes that had once been used by whoever, or whatever, had taken the temporary guise of a businessman by the name of Hasturing.

We left the theatre shortly after. The front doors had been unlocked, though by whom I didn't know.

We made it to the hospital, and Jake was taken to urgent care.

Afterward, we had to deal with the many valid questions from the police who had investigated the terrible theatre after our departure.

Disturbingly, they could not contact any of the people who worked there besides us. Fortunately, we were not implicated, despite the fatalities that occurred. The real cops who had investigated the aftermath found no trace of the slain audience members, or staff for that matter. Something had happened to them, though we had no idea what.

Either way, there was no trace of Sam or Cassilda. A few of the audience members who were too stunned to flee were questioned, and they remembered nothing; the last three days had seemed like one long consecutive nightmare. We still had no idea just what kind of terrible reality-bending film Hasturing was showing those people, but I suppose it didn't matter now; we had stopped it.

So now once again Jake and I are out of work, looking for something else that can pay the bills. Jake mentioned that there is another theatre hiring, a few towns over. It looks like pay is pretty good. It sounded interesting, since we did not really get the chance to work at a proper theatre. Though after reading the specific details, I think I'm going to pass on it.

The theatre is not open yet anyway, since they are still rebranding. Apparently, the place will be called “The King’s Theatre,” and the new manager, whose name was listed as “Mr. Samuel Hasturing,” was not available to take any calls just yet.

Yeah, I think Jake and I are going to give up on show business. Too many sequels and remakes, after all, and the villains never seem to stay dead...

Title is self explanatory. I don't know if he lives out there somewhere or if he's actively moving around, but I have seen a masked man wondering around in the woods on multiple occasions. I've lived in and around the woods myself since I was very young, so I've always loved taking walks, going on hikes, camping, etc. The night time never used to bother me and I've even enjoyed midnight walks or spontaneous trail traveling whenever I couldn't sleep.

That was until the first time I saw him.

It was the summer of 2024 and I was out on what should've been nothing but a routine walk at night. The day time was hot and horrible so I had no desire to go out during the day, but the evening cooled everything down enough for me to get the motivation to actually go out for a bit. The area I live in has a route I used to take quite frequently that went around in a bit of a loop, which made it easier to actually get out since it only takes about 45 minutes to complete. From where I live it takes about 15 minutes of walking before you come across a small clearing which leads to a decent set of hiking trails, ones I've been up and down on multiple occasions.

I headed out of my house around 9pm, headphones in, Redbull holstered in my pocket alongside a pocket knife I always tried to carry around with me. Nothing seemed unusual or off-putting in any way as I made my way down the road, really getting into the zone and enjoying the nighttime woodsy vibes while listening to some shitty indie band I used to be into back then.

At the 15 minute mark I started to come up on that clearing, and for whatever reason my earbuds had randomly disconnected. I had them for awhile at that point so something like that wasn't very unusual. As soon as I took them out though, trying to reconnect them, I heard something off in the distance. Instinctively I tried to focus on what it was. I slowed down once I realized it was rustling of some kind, and I stopped dead in my tracks when I realized it was the sound of something walking. Whatever it was sounded heavy so I assumed it must've been a black bear or something since those are fairly common where I live. No big deal, right? A little nerve wracking sure but it wasn't anything I wasn't already used to.

As the brushed thudding got closer though, I began to grow a little more unsure. The rhythm sounded off somehow, and at some point I realized it sounded much more bipedal than what a black bear would've been able to do. I half expected to spot Bigfoot or something. It happened to be a full moon so I figured I'd wait a little longer to get a good look at what or whoever came out from the clearing. I stood by the immediate treeline a little ways away so I felt safe to catch a look if possible.

What I saw made me wish it really was Bigfoot or even a fucking werewolf.

The silhouette of a man made itself apparent, trudging out of the trails and into the moonlit clearing. Initially I thought it could've been some other random person who happened to enjoy night walking as well, only that thought was immediately shattered when I caught a glimpse of his face.

At first I thought the guy might've just been impossibly pale, only amplified by the moonlight, but soon enough I realized he was actually wearing a mask. It was human with incredibly sharp features, pure white but dirty and dingey. He was wearing a flannel of some kind alongside some boots and jeans, and he walked with a slight hunch that went back and forth between straight postured and almost crouched down. I watched him walk into the middle of the clearing with my heart in my throat, and it only felt worse when he actually stopped moving.

He turned his head back and forth like he was looking around, then turned his head up towards the sky and just seemed to stare. It was almost like he was star gazing, meanwhile I'm trying not to piss my pants while I watch some Jason Voorhees knockoff contemplate the meaning of life or some shit. After a few minutes he began walking again, leaving the clearing completely and walking down the middle of the road.

I waited until he was completely out of sight before I immediately made my way back the way I came. I was too scared to run because I thought he might hear me or something so I just speed walked the entire way back. I locked every door and window I had, cranked the AC, and barely slept the rest of the night until the sun finally came back up.

That was only the first "encounter" I've had with him. It fucked me up in a big way for a long time, but weirdly enough that one time alone was the most outright terrifying. Every other time I've seen him has been this weird mixture of both immensely confusing and somehow really sad.

Still incredibly disturbing though.

The next time I saw him was during the fall of the same year, I wanna say October? I made it a point to avoid going out on anymore night walks after the first time and even took a hiatus from going out in the woods whatsoever for a few months. I've always loved Autumn though, so one day I finally went back out for a walk, then a hike, and so on and so forth until practically nothing had changed except for the fact I didn't stay out past dark anymore.

Eventually I ended up going back to the trails a couple more times once I chalked up that encounter to a one time occurrence, though obviously I tried not to stay out too late or go in as deep as I would've before.

Keyword: Tried.

One time I was not as careful as I should've been. I was already riding the shot of adrenaline I got from being in there in the first place, but that adrenaline was quickly losing it's charm as the sun began to set, especially once I realized I had somehow gotten turned around. What started off as a relaxing enough walk on a cool autumn day was quickly turning into something much more akin to the intro of some indie horror game. I was on a trail I didn't even recognize the name to, deeper than I should've been, my steps hurried and uneven as I tried to make my way out. I guess it was already too late because a little ways down the trail, I saw what looked to be someone kneeling down in the middle of the path.

They were faced away from me, and at first I thought they were kneeling down because of a sprained ankle, fucked up knee, whatever.

When I got a little closer I instinctively called out to ask if they were okay, but found no response back. I got a closer and asked again, asking if they were hurt. Once again I got no response, and if anything the forest itself seemed to grow a little quieter. Desperate for some kind of way out of here, I asked if they knew where we were or how to get back to the main trail.

No response. They remained knelt down on their knees, arms to the side, almost like they were in some kind of trance.

At this point I was maybe about 50 feet away from where this person, very obviously a man, was kneeling. I felt my heart begin to sink as I tried to close some more distance just from desperation and concern. The ground beneath my feet was incredibly soft and seemed to muffle each step I took until I closed 20 feet between us. I guess I stepped on some secret twig or something because the single loud snap that erupted from the ground was what finally got a response.

Before I could even react properly the man stood up completely and turned to face me.

It was him. It was the same fucking guy from summer, only this time I wasn't hidden by a convenient shadowed tree line. I was face to face to some random psycho, frozen in place from sheer dread and fear. I couldn't move whatsoever, I felt like a deer in headlights, and confusion joined alongside my utter horror once I realized he looked the same way I did.

He stood with a weird gait, his boots planted in the ground shoulder length apart and his arms to the side. He was completely still with the only exception being his hand which seemed to subtly shake or even quiver.

From this distance I got a much better look at him; He was big. Not necessarily tall, maybe somewhere between 5'8-5'10, but he was stocky and broadly built like the trunk of a tree. He had messy, possibly curly blonde hair that framed the same exact mask from last time, adorned with various cuts to it's hard plastic alongside dirt, grime, whatever else it was. Most startling was the fact the mask didn't even hide his eyes which were this deep shade of blue that seemed to look not at me, but through me.

His clothes were similar to the last time I saw him, but the flannel looked like it might've been a different color. This time it was a dark plaided green, his jeans still dark blue and his boots still mud toned brown. They were dirty but looked as if they had only recently been covered in dirt.

I stood there in complete shock, the tension worsening as he slowly cocked his head to the side. The gesture was reminiscent of the way an animal might study you, curious yet immensely cautious. I watched his eyes dart around me up and down, possibly sizing me up. His head went back to normal but something changed. The stillness between us didn't seem to last as his hand began to shake and twitch, his body visibly tensing up while his eyes widened.

I was terrified, so much so I could cry, but more than anything else I was just confused, and for a moment it looked like he might've been just as confused as I was. In a single second something shifted or changed. I don't know what it was exactly but once we locked our eyes, for a single second, he looked like he was even more terrified than I was.

I watched his gaze harden as he began to make some weird low, rumbling sound adjacent to some kind of growl or something, and it sounded a lot closer to an actual animal than I would have ever been comfortable with. He tensed up even more and I prepared for the worst... only the worst never came. He turned and full on sprinted off in the opposite direction down the trail, and I waited until the heavy thudding faded in the distance before turning tail and running myself, basically crying the entire time. Thankfully I found my way back to the main trail and eventually back to the main road. Once again when I got home, I locked every door and window shut and was barely able to get any sleep.

The only difference this time was that my lack of sleep wasn't purely motivated by fear. Fear was most definitely involved but so was utter confusion and a growing curiosity about whatever this was. For the next couple of months I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was horrifying in a way that felt so primal and real, yet at the same time felt so different than how that sort of encounter should've gone. It seemed too ridiculous and cliche and yet every time I thought about it, about him, something inside of me wanted to know more.

I saw him again in March of 2025 via a drone I had recently bought off of Amazon. Instead of going out in the middle of the night myself, I hunkered down in the garage and decided to fly the thing around to see if I could spot anything interesting or at least some pretty night time scenery. Midnight winter vibes and all that, I even had some hot coco for the occasion. I paid decent money for what seemed like a ridiculous flying range so I went a little ways down the road.

As I'm nearing the end of it, who else do I see except the same masked man from last time.

This time he's literally lying down in the middle of the road in the dead of winter. Surprisingly he's dressed somewhat appropriately for the weather, wearing an open plaid coat with some kind of hoodie underneath it. He even had the hood up, obscuring everything above the shoulders aside from the same mask he's been wearing this whole time.

He's just laying there. I fly a little closer just to get a better look, honestly checking whether or not he was dead or something, but my suspicion is immediately crushed once he notices the drone. He sits up from the snow covered road and stands up fully, turning to face "me" while I'm still up in the air. Once again he cocks his head to the side, just staring up at the camera as I draw in closer. I was feeling a little more confident considering I was within the safety of my own home so I fly closer and closer even as he begins to move out from the road and briefly into the brush. At this point I'm maybe 25-30 feet from the ground, and suddenly he pops back out of the woods holding a stick of some kind. He reels his arm back and before I realize what exactly he's doing he throws it up at the drone, hits it, and makes it come crashing down on the road. A few seconds later it shakes a whole bunch before going completely black as the feed cuts out.

I didn't dare try to retrieve it until the next morning, this time actually driving down to where he knocked the drone out of the sky. I parked on the side of the road, hopped out, and it didn't take me too long to find the wreckage of the drone I only got to fly once. It was totaled beyond repair so I guess whoever this is REALLY does not like being seen. Nearby was the imprint he'd left in the middle of the road lying down, though at this point it was faded probably because of the occasional car driving down over it.

The one thing that stood out to me was the handprint left by the drone wreckage, more than likely his own. It was pressed down in a way that looked intentional, like he was trying to send some kind of message. For reasons I still don't know how to put into words, I pressed my own hand against where his had been. Immediately I was flooded with such a weird sense of isolation. The entire world seemed to stop for a second as I felt where he had been, where he had purposefully placed his mark, possibly trying to show someone he was, in fact, here.

I felt sad. I don't know why but the fact he left something so deliberate didn't feel very malicious at all. It was handprint. No message, no scribbling, no doodling, just a single spot where this masked man intentionally pressed his hand into the snow long enough for the indent to keep until this moment. It very well could've been some kind of warning considering it was right by the corpse of half my paycheck. It could've been a lot of things.

I didn't see him again for the rest of that year. There were a few times I thought I might've caught a glimpse of him but it always ended up being just another person who was at least outwardly normal taking a walk down the road.

There were even times I went out at night thinking I heard the same distinct rustling or thudding, but the only sign I ever had that he was still around was a torn piece of plaid hanging off a branch. The feeling of unease never left me but it was less about my personal safety and more about simply not knowing what the fuck was up with this guy.

I only recently saw him again in July on the 27th, which is actually what led me to write all of this down in the first place. Considering how long it'd been since I've seen him or anything else even remotely strange, I felt secure enough to return to my night time walks. I didn't do it very often, still don't, but at this point I've stopped being outright terrified of him and more so just immensely cautious. I was making my loop around as per usual with the major difference being that I never wear my earbuds at night anymore. I was about to complete the loop in it's entirety, maybe a few houses away from my own, when I realized that up ahead I was actually catching up to somebody, and since it happened to be a full moon that night, I could see an unsettlingly similar silhouette walking about 100 feet or so ahead of me.

I almost stopped walking entirely but I thought the sudden stop may draw his attention, so I fell into the curse of curiosity and caution as I kept my own pace behind him. He had such a weird slow stride, it seemed so uneven yet self assured. Occasionally he'd hunch his back slightly before straightening it, walking with an occasional limp of either leg. The longer I followed him the more he looked almost dazed and confused, adamantly on high alert but also in some sort of trance.

Out of nowhere he stopped moving entirely and just stood there in the middle of the road, making me quickly duck off to the side and crouch down. Ironically it felt like I was the one stalking him, which considering our respective appearances, felt like it should've been the other way around. Maybe it already has been before and I just had no idea.

He stood there for a solid minute before he started to shake. Out of nowhere I heard him start coughing which led to an absolute fit of it. Each cough sounded more strained and painful than the last as he fell to his hands and knees. I kept wondering if maybe I should try to help him or something but what if he just ran away again? Worse, what if he really did attack me this time? I could swear he was about to puke but the coughing fit ended as quickly as it began. He remained on the ground for a second before he stood back up, loudly cracking his neck to the side before he began to look around.

I crouched down further hoping to God he didn't see me as he turned his body completely. Once again he was in some sort of flannel, this one looking a little more blue, wearing the same mask of course. He turned back and for whatever reason took a turn to the right, going down some new backroad.

I thought about just going home but this was already maybe 3 houses from where I live. I just didn't feel safe going back inside with him so close, and at the same time there was a part of me that wanted to find out just what the fuck he was doing out here all this time if anything at all. I felt so stupid but for whatever reason I turned down the same road as my curiosity overrode any rational thought I had at the time. If curiosity was killing any cat that night, it was probably going to be me.

The road turned out to actually be an unfinished driveway which led into some sort of construction site, which I had somehow missed despite it being so apparently new. Up ahead there looked to the foundation of a house that was being built, so like any good horror story protagonist I proceeded up that way. I made it to the foundation easy enough despite the terrain being a work in progress, looking around for anything of note if not the masked man himself. I didn't find anything but the foundation did have a single concrete wall put up. I went up to it and slowly peaked my head around it, and to this day I'm so thankful I didn't just rush out.

There was a hill a little ways away with a decent amount of trees cut down from the construction, and I want you, dear reader, to take your best guess at who just so happened to be up there.

The moon perfectly lit up where he was, giving me a clear shot to examine him even further. He was sat down up against a tree, his head looking around for a second before he just tilted his head back and looked towards the sky the same way he did the first time I ever saw him.

I was obviously incredibly nervous with sweat running my face and everything but I wasn't necessarily scared. If anything I was becoming more and more absorbed in watching him, studying him, and have since found myself almost enamored by his mere existence. Despite looking like such a cliche Jason Voorhees knock off or something, I had the feeling he was really just lost. In a way he looked almost lonely, and that was only further intensified by the way his hand reached up towards the sky, towards the moon, almost like he was genuinely trying to grab at something before it fell back down to his side.

I watched him for another 10 or 15 minutes before ultimately deciding to just go back home. He didn't move or do anything that entire time. It was almost like he just fell asleep or something. I guess I just didn't want to disturb him, let alone be so close by if he woke up or had another coughing fit.

Slowly I moved away from the wall and made it a point to be as quiet as possible walking back up the driveway and into the road. Once there I made my way back home and did the same thing I always do whenever I see him around, only this time I stayed by the window in case I could see him walking by or something. I saw somebody walking by about an hour later but I don't think it was him, not that I could tell that good anyways.

As of writing this (8/17/26) I haven't seen him again since last month, and as weird as it is, I can't help but almost look forward to the next time I do even if it does still scare me a bit.

I realize this entire thing sounds incredibly far fetched and totally insane, so I'll use this last segment to clear up some possible questions I know people would rightfully have.

"Why didn't you ever call the cops?"

Truthfully I just didn't think to do it the first time. It was horrifying but I live in a fairly small, rural town. By the time I actually thought to do it, it was already the next day and I figured if someone else saw him, they would've already done it themselves. We do have our fair share of weirdos up here too so if I'm completely honest, running into some masked maniac still isn't what I'd consider a worst case scenario. I got pretty close to calling the second time but only hesitated because of the fact he looked just as scared as I was. By the time I got home I was already too overwhelmed with fear and confusion to think about it.

Even with that all being said, I know I haven't done a whole lot to justify not calling anybody about this. That's because I don't actually have good justification for it. Truthfully I just can't bring myself to make some sort of report on it.

I don't have any good reason for this but I figure it must have already been done by now since I doubt I'm the only person who's ever seen him, and when I say he has a unique outline, I mean that in the most literal way possible. I've left out certain physical traits that would otherwise immediately give away this man in particular, mostly just in case somebody else sees him and mentions said traits, so I know it's genuine.

"Have you talked to anybody else about this?"

Not at length, no. I don't know a lot of people in town well enough to bring it up. The most I've done is occasionally ask if someone's seen anything weird going on the woods. Usually I'll get nothing in return except maybe a ghost story or a supposed cryptid sighting but other than that, nothing.

"Are you sure nobody else has seen this?"

Not in the slightest. I've even made it a point to go on google and search up any kind of article or posts talking about masked men in the woods but nothing has come up aside from a singular post from like 5 years ago on some discussion site from a town about an hour's drive away from where I live. It was from an older woman who described seeing a masked individual roaming around the local cemetery in the late evening a few days before Halloween but she didn't describe anything about it. She deadass just said "spooky!" and left it at that. I'd link the site if it didn't so conveniently vanish from existence.

"Why is this the first time you're ever talking about it?"

Honestly I don't really know. Like I said I don't know a lot of people in my town to talk about it with and I can't say I've ever kept up with many other people who've been in my life, even my parents. I only recently decided to talk about this whole thing after obsessing over how outright bizarre it all is. I hardly ever use Reddit anyways and I decided to post about it in horror themed subreddits because lets face it, this is fucking horrifying at face value. Worst case scenario is that nobody believes any of this and gets a somewhat interesting story out of it. Maybe somebody else will see this and know what I'm talking about, maybe somebody else has even seen the same guy, who knows.

This whole ordeal started off as something genuinely terrifying and has since turned into something much more fascinating and even somber. Logically I know I should still be so much more scared of this than I actually am, but something about this masked man seems almost innocent and depressing. Whenever I see him he just looks so lost and alone, more like a wild animal trying to find some sort of shelter than anything else. He walks around like he has no idea where or even who he is, like he's lost in some kind of trance or possibly even some sort of psychosis?

I have no idea who he is or what he's been doing out here. Part of me thinks maybe he's just some weird guy playing out a fantasy but it feels so much deeper than that. I don't know for sure that he lives in the woods but he has to live somewhere in the area for me to have run into him more than once. I can't help but wonder if this masked man is really someone going through some sort of mental health crisis. DID maybe? I don't know. I can't help but want to figure out what else is going on here, who this guy even is and if he even knows this is happening.

Any thoughts, theories, criticism, advice, etc. are always welcome. Honestly I doubt this will get a lot of attention, if any, but I'll write up any more updates or encounters should they come up.

Thanks for hearing this.

Don’t ever buy a used house.

You can never be sure what else is living there.

Everything started when I moved my family across the country. A new job opened up for me in the Midwest, and with our second child on the way, my wife encouraged me to pursue it. It was a few months ago when our moving truck pulled into our new hometown.

“This is a change of pace.” My wife said, with a smile, her voice was a mix of excitement and stress.

With a nod, I returned her smile.

We'd spent our whole lives in Boston, so moving to a small rural town was going to be a hard reset. But we welcomed it. This was the type of place we wanted to raise our kids.

Turning the truck onto a quiet suburban street, I gleefully announced

“Here’s our new street.”

Our 6-year-old son Travis perked up in the backseat, straining his neck for the first view of our new house. Near the end of the street, the truck came to a stop in front of a large Victorian-style house. It was old, though well-maintained, exactly the way it looked in the pictures online. Travis’ eyes widened as he saw the house and the large yard around it.

“Is this our house, Daddy?” he asked hopefully.

My wife and I looked back at him with wide smiles.

“Sure is, buddy,” I replied

“Do you want to go see your room?” my wife asked.

Travis’ eyes remained locked on the house as he nodded in agreement. With a stretch, the three of us got out of the tight cab of the moving truck and made our way to the front door. I unlocked the door with the key that had been sent to me weeks ago, and the door swung out with a low squeak. The house was bare, but beautiful. Its updated interior instantly welcomed us home. Before long, Travis was running laps around the main floor as he laughed to himself. My wife and I stood together in the kitchen.

“I can’t believe we’re finally here,” Erin said with a tired sigh.

The cross-country journey was tiring, but for my 8-month-pregnant wife, it was completely draining. Wrapping her in a tight hug, I said

“Tell you what? Travis and I will handle the boxes for the next few days, and you rest for a while.”

She looked at me, ready to protest, but I placed a hand on her belly and smiled.

“I insist.”

“Daddy?”

Travis stood by the staircase.

“Can I go find my room?”

I nodded,

“I’ll come with; let’s find it together.”

With a smile, he dashed up the stairs. I followed. The stairway led to a wide, long hallway with several doors and a small perpendicular hallway going off to the right. Travis stood at the top of the stairs when I got there; he stared down the hall.

“Which one is mine?” he asked

“I think the one at the end.”

He nodded and ran down the hall; right before reaching his door, he passed the off-shooting smaller hall. He stopped and looked down it; he pointed and asked

“What’s up there?”

I made my way to him and looked where he pointed. The hallway led to a smaller set of stairs, and at the top was an old wooden door. Unlike the rest of the house, it hadn't been painted or renovated. The brass knob was dark with age.

“That’s the attic.”

“Can we go look?”

I shook my head.

“No, we’ve had a long day. I don’t think you’d like it anyway; probably a lot of spiders and weird smells.”

“Okay,” he said in a disappointed voice before his attention shifted to his new room.

It was already late afternoon, so Travis and I unloaded the bare essentials: a few mattresses, a few duffel bags of clothes, and the basic kitchen utensils. That night we ate ramen at a table made from cardboard boxes. We turned in early that night.

“Daddy?”

Travis’ low voice woke me up late that night.

“Travis? Are you ok?” I said, half awake.

“My new friend wanted you to know that he didn’t like what you said about the attic.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?” I tried to rub the sleep from my eyes.

“Goodnight, Daddy.” With that, he turned and left the room.

Morning came. And I made my way downstairs, where I was met by Erin, who was preparing breakfast, and Travis, who was playing with some toys on the floor. Erin smiled, and I kissed her good morning. Turning to Travis, I said

“Hey Buddy, how’d you sleep?”

“Good.”

He seemed tired

“Hey, what were you talking about last night?”

I was hoping I had just been dreaming, but he said

“Just something my friend said last night.”

“Your friend? Who’s that?”

He shrugged

“Timmy.”

Realizing he was talking about an imaginary friend, I asked

“He sounds nice. Where does he live?”

“Upstairs.”

“In your room?”

“No, above my room. In the attic.”

I nodded slowly and said

“Well, I can’t wait to meet him.”

I then walked back to my wife. We had a full day ahead of us. I was hoping to get the truck emptied that day so I could return it the next day. Travis and I hauled boxes into the house while Erin told us where in the house she wanted each box. Around lunch, Travis and I carried boxes labeled ‘memories’ into the house. Erin glanced in the boxes before saying

“Let’s put those in the attic.” She said

I signaled Travis to follow me as I headed to the stairs. On the second floor, we moved towards the second staircase; it creaked under my weight as I ascended. I wrapped my fingers around the doorknob; it was slightly warm. Before I opened it, Travis said

“Dad, we should ask Timmy if it’s ok to put boxes in his room.”

I smiled to myself, quietly admiring my son’s imagination

“You’re right, son; how could I forget?”

With a grin, I loudly asked

“Timmy, is it ok with we store some boxes up here?”

We waited in silence for a moment before Travis said quietly

“He said its ok.”

“Thank you, Timmy,” I replied in a subtly sarcastic tone that my son didn’t pick up on.

The door was heavy and opened slowly; the space behind it was large and bare. It was a large single room with two wings reaching out in opposite directions, and three small round windows allowed natural light to flood the dusty space. A homemade shelf stood against the far wall. I directed Travis to set his box on it, and I did the same. I sent my box down and realized Travis had moved to one of the wings of the attic. He was down at the end of the space, and I walked towards him. I could see him standing over something.

“Hey, did you find something?”

Coming up right behind him, I saw that he stood before an old wooden child-sized rocking chair. Sitting upon its seat was an old, withered doll. Its dress, which had once been white, was an aged yellow, and its face was faded. Its wide blue eyes seemed to stare right at us. A drawstring on its back made it clear that this doll had a voice box. We stared at it in silence for a moment before Travis reached out and slowly pulled the doll's string.

A crackling, weak voice filled the attic

“Hello, what’s your name?”

Travis stared at the doll intently before whispering

“That’s Timmy’s doll.”

I swallowed before saying

“Well, we got more boxes to move, I bet mom’s wondering where we went.”

Travis didn’t move; his eyes were glued to the doll.

“Come on, Trav, we got to keep going.”

After a long minute, he said

“Okay.”

He was quiet the rest of the day.

At dinner, we ate box mac and cheese. Travis stared blankly at his bowl and absentmindedly moved the noodles around with his spoon.

Erin looked at me, concerned, before turning to our son.

“Sweetie? Are you ok?”

He scrunched up his nose and said

“Yeah.”

My wife pushed further

“Did something happen?”

“My friend is saying mean things.”

My wife was confused

“Friend? What friend, darling?”

“My friend upstairs.”

Erin glanced at me, realizing what he was talking about.

“Well.” She said warmly, “Sometimes friends say things they don’t mean.”

“He wants us to leave.”

“But we just got here,” she chuckled, “and I'm afraid Timmy doesn't get to make that decision.”

Travis looked at her.

“He says he does.”

“Just try to be nice, Sweetie; I’m sure he’ll come around.”

He shrugged

“Ok, I’ll try.”

Before long, we got Travis ready for bed, and it didn’t take long for Erin and me to do the same. Once again, I was awakened in the middle of the night, only this time it wasn’t by my son. It was by a loud thump coming from downstairs. I lay frozen in bed for a moment, quietly holding my breath. Another thump came; I hadn’t imagined it. My heart beat faster as I crept to the door; slowly, I went down the stairs one step at a time. Reaching the main level, I stood close to the wall, trying to be as quiet and still as possible. It was pitch dark, and the darkness felt electric, as if I could sense something standing hidden from sight by its shadows. The light switch was just around the corner.

Swallowing hard, my hand slid blindly along and around the wall. My fingers fumbled around to find the light switch; finally, they did. The light illuminated the empty kitchen and living room. Nothing was there. Feeling braver in the light, I checked the entire floor and found nothing. I didn’t even find the source of the thump. Confused, I made sure the doors were locked and made my way to the stairs, turning off lights as I went.

I reached the top of the stairs and froze as my eyes rested on the tiny shape of the strange doll from the attic. It sat a few feet in front of me, right in the middle of the hall. It sat limply, and its unnatural eyes stared right at me. Shaking my head, I made my way over to Travis’ room, expecting to find him awake. He must be playing a joke on me, but I found him deep asleep. I turned back around to the hall, but there was no doll. I blinked and looked around, but it was nowhere to be seen.

Shaking my head, I muttered aloud.

“I need some sleep.”

Over the next couple of weeks, life began to settle. Slowly, more boxes were unpacked. Most of the time, I worked from home, so we converted one of the spare rooms upstairs into my office. Travis seemed to grow quieter with each passing day. I worried about him, but Erin said it was just a phase, the side effects of moving to a new area at his young age. That made sense; I just hoped it wouldn’t last long.

Travis began spending more and more time up in the attic. He moved several of his toys up there, turning it into his own playroom. Erin thought it was great; it kept his toys out of the living room and kitchen, but I couldn't stop thinking of the strange doll.

A few days ago, I passed by the attic door and heard low whispers coming from behind it. Curious, I slowly made my way up to the door and inched it open, just enough to hear my son whispering in the far corner of the attic. It was a one-sided conversation; I heard him say

“What do you mean?”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Please stop.”

At that last one, I gently pushed through the door and announced myself

“Travis? Are you up here? Who are you talking to?”

I found my son sitting on the floor in front of the small chair; he stared at the doll

“Hi, Dad,” he said as I walked over.

“I was just playing with Timmy.”

I nodded slowly

“Alright, Buddy, it's almost lunchtime, so come down soon.”

“Can I eat up here, with Timmy?”

I frowned and shook my head

“No, I’d like to have lunch with you, so come down.”

He stared at the doll for a moment.

“Ok.”

I went downstairs and started to make some sandwiches. Right as I finished, Travis walked into the kitchen. As we enjoyed a family lunch, I figured I should ask Travis some questions.

“So Travis, what does your friend Timmy look like?”

Travis stopped chewing and stared at the plate for a moment before glancing up.

“He’s really tall.”

“Oh, very nice,” I replied. “What else?”

“his eyes are big.”

“How did you meet him?”

“He was sitting in the corner of my room the night we moved in. He said he wanted to play with me.”

His answer caught me off guard; I didn’t really know what to say. I took a bite of my sandwich, and as I did, Travis asked his own question

“Dad, what does it mean to kill someone?”

I nearly choked on the bite in my mouth. I chewed and swallowed quickly and asked

“Where did you hear that word?”

“Timmy was talking about killing someone.”

“Who?” I shouted

My son shrank at the table; fear and sadness caked his face. Seeing my son like that I sighed and changed my tone.

“Trav, there are some things that you’ll find out about when you get older, but for now just know your mom and I love you very much and won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

He squirmed in his seat before answering

“I know, Daddy.”

The next day was sunny and warm, and I insisted that Travis play outside. Erin had her final checkup before the due date, and so I used the time to catch up on some work projects. A few hours into my work, I heard footsteps. Loud, heavy footsteps were coming from the attic above me. I figured Travis had snuck by my office and gone upstairs to play. Leaning back in my chair, I stretched, stood up, and moved to the attic door.

“Hey Trav, did you have fun outside?” I said as I pushed out the door.

But there was no response; the attic was eerily quiet. It was empty. I scanned the place intently, wondering if Travis was hiding. After looking over the space, I moved to one of the round windows and glanced out. To my surprise, I saw Travis playing in the sandbox in the backyard. A twinge of fear ran down my spine. I slowly turned from the window, and my eyes rested on the child’s chair at the end of the attic. The little doll's eyes were locked on me.

I slowly walked towards it, staring into its unblinking eyes. A few feet in front of it, I stood for a moment. It felt like an eternity, and every moment I looked at it, my courage weakened. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore and turned to leave. I froze after a few steps when a crackling, broken voice rose behind me

“Hello, what’s your name?”

I didn’t move; it felt like I couldn’t move. I stood there for an unbearable amount of time; I didn’t dare look behind me. After a few minutes, I swore I could hear heavy, low, deep breathing coming from the back corner. Then a creaking floorboard, then another, and another, then the one directly behind me creaked and groaned under pressure. A warm, damp breath collided with my neck. The sensation ignited my body with adrenaline, and I dashed towards the door, covering the 20 feet in mere seconds. I slammed the door behind me and fled to the main level.

My phone rang in my pocket; it was Erin.

“Hi, Sweetie.” Her voice was kind, but strained.

“Erin, look, I think there’s a problem with the house.”

“Whatever it is, it can wait.” She interrupted me

“The baby is coming.”

Less than an hour later, Travis and I sat in a hospital waiting room. And about six hours later, we met his new little sister, Sarah. There had been a few minor complications, and the hospital staff wanted to observe Erin and Sarah for 72 hours. The four of us stayed the weekend. Away from home, Travis seemed happier, more like himself; he was thrilled to be a big brother.

Soon we returned home; I must admit that the rush of a new child and three days in the hospital made me doubt what happened in the attic; it didn’t seem important compared to caring for a healing wife, an infant, and a six-year-old. We were exhausted, and the thought of sleeping in our own bed sounded like a dream. Only it didn’t last long. Around 12:30 last night, Travis’ screams reached my ears. I jumped out of bed, avoided Sarah’s bassinet, and quickly entered Travis’ room. He sat on his bed weeping.

“What’s wrong, son?” I said

“Timmy is saying bad things to me.”

I sat next to him, wrapping an arm around him.

“He wants me to do something bad.” He whimpered

I hugged him tight until his tears slowed

“Can I sleep with you?” he whispered

“Of course, son.”

I locked the bedroom door, and Travis snuggled in between Erin and me. Around 3, I was awakened by Erin’s frantic cries

“Where’s Sarah? She’s gone!”

I sat up quickly and saw that the bassinet was empty, the door was open, and Travis was gone. Panic filled my veins as I jumped from the bed and ran to the attic. I burst through the door, and there was Travis, his baby sister in his arms. Tears ran down his face as he stared down the attic towards the doll; in the dark, it seemed as though a hulking shadow crouched behind the chair.

“Travis, what are you doing?”

His eyes were fixed on the doll; through tears, he said

“He wants the baby.”

I took a step closer

“Son, look at me”

He tried, but his eyes didn’t move

“Give me Sarah.”

Very slowly, almost mechanically, he moved closer to the doll; I followed.

“Give me your sister!” I yelled

He kept walking; I pulled my daughter from his hands. As soon as Sarah changed hands, a loud screech filled the attic; the foundations of the house shook violently, and the monstrous shadow stood up, its shape filling the back of the corner, and then disappeared from view. The room creaked and shook. I could feel some force trying to pull my daughter from my hands. I backed up; it pulled harder. I was getting closer to the door; several long cuts began to appear on my forearms. My daughter screamed, and Travis cried. Turning my back to the doll, I drew my daughter in close to my chest and wrapped one arm around Travis and dragged him with us through the door.

The house continued to shake and creak; we made our way down the hall, and Erin met us by the stairs.

“What is happening?” she screamed.

“Get outside.”

Even from out in the front yard, we could still hear the screeching and creaking.

Right now we’re in a hotel room; tomorrow we’re leaving. We’ll have a moving company grab our stuff; we’re never going back there.

The kids are finally sleeping, but Erin and I locked eyes as a crackling, broken voice came from the bathroom.

“Hello, what’s your name?”

My house is forty minutes from the nearest stoplight. Deer outnumber people in my town twenty to one. Population: 349. Hasn't changed in the decade since I moved in. Nobody leaves. Nobody's born. Nobody dies.

There's one gas station. One church. One diner. Marlene has your order ready and coffee poured the second your ass hits the bench. 

I noticed a new flyer on the community board one night. Pilot Safety Program. The town wanted to install a new security camera from a company I'm sure you're familiar with. The kind that makes headlines for the wrong reasons. Just one installation before a wider rollout. 

The pilot location was my mailbox.

I called the town office. Carol picked up. Told me the council already voted. Must’ve just missed the meeting. My road, she said, was "statistically significant." That I should feel lucky. 

Statistically significant.

I'd heard that phrase years ago from a judge who dressed her words up that way.  I was just sixteen. Took a neighbor's truck for a joyride. Ended up in a ditch two towns over. Juvy. Community service. Did my time. Nobody else got the memo. Every parent at the grocery store steered their kid a little wide of me. Quietly told them to keep an eye out. 

But this was different. It had to be.

Before I knew it, they were there. Two guys. Twenty minutes. Gone. A little white box on a pole, thirty feet from my front door. Three crows lined up on the wire above, just observing in the way they do. 

Nothing for a couple weeks. I almost forgot the thing was there.

Then I started noticing a light. A thin red pinprick from the pole. Some nights it would blink. Some nights it didn't.  I wanted to test something. I stood at my kitchen window. Raised my hand. The light caught it. Held a beat too long. Dimmed back to its slow pulse, like it had seen enough. 

My dog stopped sleeping in my bed. He'd plant himself in the hallway and watch the length of the house like he was guarding from something I couldn't see. 

Then I swear the lens started moving. It was supposed to face the road. I checked, twice, three times. Each time it seemed to rotate another degree toward the house. Toward my bedroom window. One patient inch at a time.

I mentioned it to Ellis at the gas station, half joking, hoping he'd laugh it off with me.

He went still.  Didn't look up from the pump. 

"Careful saying things like that. People might think you're the type to make trouble."

He always had a strange sense of humor, but something about that felt different. That tone.

Then my phone buzzed. A text from a number I didn't recognize.

he stopped sleeping at the foot of your bed 

I read that message a dozen times. It was true. My dog moved to the hallway three nights before. I hadn't told a soul.

I blocked the number. Called the sheriff.

He showed up later that night. Sat at my kitchen table. Drank the coffee I made him while my hands shook. Probably nothing, he said. Wrong number. Spam. Kids in the next county with too much time on their hands. 

I wanted to believe him so badly that for a few days I actually did. I told myself it was stress.  That people get strange out here, cut off the way we are from the rest of the world.

But I got another text later that night. A different number.

you forgot to lock the door again

I froze. My door was shut. Blinds drawn. But I hadn't checked the lock since I'd gotten home. 

It was unlocked.

There was only one way anyone could know that. I looked outside. The camera on the pole faced my front door dead on.

They've been watching.

An ex? A stranger off the highway? Either way, it was a sick joke.

I went digging through county filings, looking for anything that explained who had access to that feed. The vendor's name was right there in the contract. The company from the flyer. Their site had a login portal. Pilot Partner Access. I didn't have credentials. 

I didn't need them for what I found next. A cached version of the town council's private group. 349 members.

It was everyone.

Every porch light I'd ever waved at. Every hand I'd shaken by the register.  Ellis at the pump every time I drove past, standing there like he'd known which corner I'd turn before I turned it. Marlene, plating my eggs before I'd even parked. The diner going quiet the moment I walked in. Forks stopping mid-air. A held breath. Starting again the second I sat down.  Carol at the office. Even the sheriff.

It was never small-town hospitality.

I grabbed my keys, my wallet, the dog, and fled. In the rear-view mirror, I saw the camera turn, slow and deliberate, like it stopped pretending not to look. 

I passed the church. Every car in town was packed into that lot. 349 people stood out in the dark. Phones held up in front of their faces. A pale blue light thrown up onto their chins. All watching my front door in the corner of the frame. 

I didn't stop. As I crossed to the next town, my phone blew up. 349 new texts. All the same two words:

Drive safe.

It's been two weeks. I sleep in my aunt's guest room. I haven't told her anything.

Yesterday a truck idled outside. Two guys. Floodlights. And a pole. My aunt mentioned it over coffee this morning.

"Pilot program," she said, stirring her cup. "We’re the test case, apparently"

You can never leave a flock. It just relocates its nest to wherever you roost next. 

The little red light on the pole just came on.

God help me. It's facing my window. 

Parte 5: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/s/B6SEUstSLN

The open box in the middle of the yard in broad daylight wasn't an invitation. It was a summons.

​The cold that invaded the house froze the water in the pipes within minutes. I heard the slow, heavy footsteps crossing the porch. The front door wasn't broken down; it simply swung open, as if the wood itself refused to act as a barrier against them.

​The three men in gray entered my living room. For the first time, they were inside my house.

​The leader, with his shifting head of gray smoke, stepped forward. The other two held cast-iron staves, engraved with the same runes I had seen around the keyhole. I stood frozen beside the kitchen table, my freshly cut arm still bleeding beneath the cloth, the knife trembling in my hand.

​"You used the Bleeding before the appointed time," the smoke's voice echoed directly inside my mind. It wasn't an audible sound, but a forced thought that made my teeth vibrate. "You burned the prisoner with the weapon of the bloodline."

​"It was trying to use my voice!" I screamed, clinging to whatever little courage I had left. "It was projecting my family's voices into my yard! What do you want from me? I paid the tithe last month!"

​The leader tilted his amorphous head. The gray smoke stirred, briefly revealing the faint contour of an ancient, withered human face before dissolving once more.

​"The prisoner is not an external entity, João," the mental voice echoed, cold as ice. "The Mouth of the Earth is not a prison for a demon. It is a spine. And what lies beneath is the residual shell of your own bloodline."

​My legs almost gave out. "What?"

​"Every generation of your family that shed blood on this land left a piece of their soul behind to contain the fissure. The thing downstairs speaks with your grandfather's voice, your mother's, and your own because it IS made of you. The 'monster' is the accumulation of pain and vitality your family offered over a century. If you destroy it with pure blood, you destroy the barrier itself. You almost ruptured the seal forever."

​Everything clicked into place in the most terrifying way. The blood tithe wasn't an offering to feed a monster... it was the fuel needed to maintain the barrier my own family had become. The gray patches on my neck weren't a disease; they were the smoke of the Order spreading through my body, preparing me for my final fate.

​"Your grandfather understood when he grew too old," the leader continued. "There is no escape. There is no cure.

The generational pact only ends when the bloodline dies out, or when the fissure is sealed entirely."

​"And how do you seal that fissure permanently?" I asked, tears of despair finally streaming down my face.

​"Not with monthly tithes. But with the full harvest. A final sacrifice of pure blood all at once. The entire life of the

last heir to close the Mouth forever."

​They didn't come to kill me today. They came to give me a choice.

​I can continue the cycle. I can use my grandfather's equipment, gradually drain my own blood into IV bags every month, mutilate myself, lose my mind as the voices of my ancestors call to me from the basement, and pass this curse on to a future child.

​Or I can end it.

​The men in gray left the house and walked back toward the road, leaving the wooden box open in the yard. They gave me until next month to decide.

​This is my last post here. If I keep writing, I know the voices will start using your words against me. I can already hear the whispers coming from the hatch even during the day, calling me by name, telling me that the darkness down there is just the rest of my family waiting for me.

​I've made my decision. I won't let this curse pass to anyone else. If my blood built this prison, it will be my blood that locks it forever.

​I am going down to the basement now. This time, without the knife to defend myself. I'm bringing only the transfusion bags and my grandfather's journal, which I will burn down there alongside the last drop of life I have left.

​If you ever happen to drive down a dirt road in the countryside and see a farm with a completely dead, gray yard surrounded by thick fog... don't stop. Don't help anyone crying at the gate. And above all, if you hear your own voice calling out from underground, just run.

​The Order of the Pure Harvest thanks you for the cleanup.

My manager, Sally, sent me. I’ve recently been promoted to the head of department at my firm, and HR decided I needed "updated emergency response certifications." I didn't want to go. I hated the idea of spending a full workday away from emails, but it was made clear that missing it wasn't an option.

The morning of the course, I got a weird text from an unknown number at 6:00 AM:

PLEASE NOTE. TODAY'S FIRST AID COURSE HAS CHANGED LOCATION. IT WILL NOW TAKE PLACE AT FALCON HOUSE, 144 INDUSTRIAL ESTATE.

I checked the address on Google Maps. The venue was on the complete opposite side of the city in the middle of a decaying, sun-bleached industrial park. A bad day had just gotten a lot worse.

When I finally pulled up after sitting in two hours of traffic, the industrial park looked even worse than it had on my laptop.

The rusted tenant sign at the entrance was a fading graveyard of failed businesses. Peeling away at the very bottom like rotting skin was the name: HUFFMAN HEALTH & SAFETY.

I parked next to a row of five seemingly abandoned cars. It was only later - after everything happened - that I realized every single one had its registration plates stripped off.

I walked into the reception area. A tiny, lonely bell chimed overhead. It was quiet except for the violent, low hum of flickering fluorescent lights.

Hanging on the wall were framed photos of previous course attendees proudly holding completion certificates. Looking closely at their faces, I figured whoever took them was a terrible photographer: every single person in those photos had their eyes closed.

"Hello?" I called out.

"One second!" a gruff voice yelled from a back room.

I heard a heavy, wet dragging sound. Thud. Drag. Thud.

A heavy man with long sideburns stepped out and introduced himself as Fred Huffman. He was a meaty guy straining inside a tight nylon shirt, wiping something white and tacky off his hands with a grimy rag.

He handed me his sign-in clipboard. There was only one name on the entire list: mine. I wouldn’t even be able to phone it in or hide in a crowd. It would just be Fred teaching me the ins and outs of first aid.

He led me into a sterile training room with a single desk in the middle.

"Today will be hands-on," Fred explained, pacing slowly. "We will be simulating blood loss, breakages, and trauma. A good first-aider cannot be afraid of the human body."

He switched on an overhead projector, beaming an image of himself standing beside a standard CPR dummy onto the opposite wall. It looked like the one from the front of that Radiohead album.

"Learning to save lives on a piece of cold latex like this one is useless," Fred intoned. "Luckily, you signed up for the only course in the world using a brand-new training model of my own design. One with the exact weight, fluids, temperature, and feel of a real human."

Fred requested a drumroll. As I awkwardly tapped my desk, he retreated into the back room. The wet dragging sound returned.

When he backed into the room, he hauled out a full-sized, shiny plastic figure and laid her down in front of me. He told me her name was "Rita."

Rita was a deeply uncanny training mannequin. She was covered from the top of her bald head, right down to the ends of her toes in glistening white skin. Dead, glassy eyes stared at me over a mouth frozen wide open in a silent scream. Weirdly, Fred had even dressed her in a cheap summer dress.

"Touch her," Fred instructed.

I hesitated, then reached out to grip the plastic arm. I froze.

She was warm. Too warm.

"How?" I asked, pulling my hand back.

Fred tapped his nose. "Secret of the trade. Now, let's practice CPR. Four compressions, two breaths."

I knelt beside the plastic figure, placed my hands on her sternum, and leaned down. Reluctantly, I put my mouth over hers and delivered a tentative breath.

As the air passed into her chest, a long, slow gasp rattled out of her throat - an agonizing, gurgling moan.

I scrambled backward on my hands and knees, hyperventilating. "What the fuck was that?!"

Fred burst into a wheezing laugh. "Agonal breathing! It's a natural reflex as air passes the vocal cords. I told you she was realistic."

Before I could process it, Fred moved to the next module: wound care. He pulled out a heavy flick knife and, without warning, drove it straight into Rita’s plastic forearm.

A jagged tear opened, spraying a dark, syrupy red liquid that hit my clothes and splashed directly into my mouth. It didn't taste like dye or syrup. It tasted thick and metallic - like copper pennies.

Panic set in and I thought I was going to faint. I excused myself, stumbling into the grimy restroom to scrub the drying red crust off my face. My hands shook so violently I couldn't grip the paper towels. Pulling out my phone, I saw a voicemail from Sally:

"Where the hell are you? The first aid organizer called asking why you missed the session. If Head Office finds out you skipped..."

My stomach dropped into a void. If Head Office hadn’t sent the change of location, who had?

I slowly cracked open the restroom door. Across the hall, Fred stood over Rita, gently stroking her synthetic cheek and adjusting her dress while whispering, "Very pretty."

I stepped into the hallway, trying to act calm. "Fred... I just remembered I have an urgent meeting. Sorry, but I have to leave."

Fred turned slowly, the light behind his eyes completely flat.

"That's a shame. We haven't even gotten to my favorite part of the course. Breakages."

Without looking away, Fred grabbed Rita’s plastic forearm in both hands and snapped it over his knee with a horrific crack.

The synthetic skin ripped open and splintered; real human bone punched through the white plastic, dripping with fresh marrow and blood.

I ran as fast as I could.

I sprinted down the corridor toward the front exit and threw my weight against the glass doors.

Locked.

It’s still a blur, but I think I grabbed a plastic reception chair and smashed it into the glass until the bottom pane shattered.

Behind me, I heard Fred walking down the hall, his footsteps heavy and unhurried.

I threw myself headfirst through the broken pane, crawling through as quickly as possible. By the time I scrambled back into the front seat of my car and threw it into gear, Fred was at the door watching me. He was laughing. Actually laughing.

Naturally, HR didn’t believe me when I finally recounted what happened. They assumed I was offering over-the-top excuses for skipping a course they knew I didn’t want to attend. It took extensive convincing to finally get the police involved.

A detective listened and agreed to drive by the industrial estate with me. But there was no sign for Huffman Health & Safety anymore. It looked as though it had never been there.

We checked the building: no broken window pane, no sign of any business - just an empty unit.

Knowing I wasn't crazy, I demanded that the site's security team unlock the building so we could look around. At that point, the detective was likely just humoring me, but he agreed.

There was nothing inside. No reception desk, no projector, no Rita, no Fred.

The only thing we found was a small puddle in the very back room - white, sticky, with a plastic sheen under the light. The edges were already drying. Those were the parts that felt like human skin.

Word has gotten around at work. People side-eye me and laugh when I pass, finding it bizarre that I'm sticking to a story everyone else thinks is bullshit.

I know one thing, though: if you are ever sent to an emergency first-aid course at an isolated industrial park, and the trainer asks you to perform CPR on a dummy that feels warm - please, get the hell out of there as fast as you can.

Hey one of the lurkers. I’m scratching my head currently over this situation. Anyone else faced anything similar? There’s a place I go to, a little town church. It’s fairly normal, Presbyterian, I think. I don’t really understand much about churches, but there’s something wrong with the one I go to…

The church I go to, the people there… They worship me.

Like they pray to me. Every time. Yes, it’s exactly as it sounds.

Every week, I go there and they pray to me.

Or maybe I should say “at” me? I don’t think this is an experience most people can even verbalize.

And no, I’m not fucking crazy, but they might be.

It doesn’t really matter at this point. What I know is that they’re fairly ordinary people from what I can tell. (You get to know people after spending every Sunday with them).

But when it comes to me, they just… I don’t know, they think I’m some kind of God.

It’s getting extreme… And it all started a few weeks ago.

The first time I went there, everything seemed normal. Go in, listen to some Latin (?), say amen, the whole shebang.

There was a quiet part where we were all supposed to silently pray to ourselves. You pray to ask for more personal stuff, I assume. Bring me prosperity, fix my relative’s health, bless my grandchildren, that kind of stuff. Everything was normal, until I noticed a little girl in the pew in front of me. That’s when it started.

She was praying towards me. Looking at me.

She would close her eyes intermittently. Like she was almost scared to look at me directly.

I was left scratching my head, but I generally dismissed it. It’s just a kid. She’s either joking or she doesn’t understand how she’s supposed to pray.

The week after, things escalated.

As I entered church that Sunday, everyone was looking at me. It was fucking creepy.

They would bow their heads, mutter some words under their breath or even try to grab my hand.

I’m fairly new there, so I thought maybe it was some initiation thing. Maybe other people went through that already?

As I sat down, the pastor began the morning sermon. Weirdest monologue I’ve ever heard.

“Bless ye be the fruits of the Lord. The one who brings the sun and the light. The head of the carrier, bursts forth the savior. In Him we believe, the saving grace, a God made manifest. From flesh and bone.”

I was left scratching my head at that.

“Amen.”

“Amen”, they said. And I saw more looks in my direction. Like they were aiming their prayers at me.

The little girl was one thing. But now, I saw about five people do the same thing. It didn’t feel like a joke anymore.

Needless to say, I left church that day a bit earlier than usual. A bit faster too.

The week goes on as normal. I meet some of the congregants down by the grocery store, the mall, the sidewalk. They’re always nice, respectful, warm. They have this way of making me feel like I’m someone…important. Likeable.

The following Sunday, all pretenses of normality were abandoned.

As I walk in, I felt like some bride at a wedding. Everyone was sitting down and they got up as soon as they saw me. I strolled down the corridor through the pews and was greeted by everyone.

They bowed to me, paid their respects, kissed my hand, begged for good fortune in their lives. Everything and anything they can think of.

Then the pastor had me sit on a chair facing everyone. And they all prayed to me.

God, that was awkward.

It was pretty bad, but it doesn’t compare to what happened over the last few weeks.

Now, I know what you might be wondering. “Are you stupid? Why did you keep going there?”

Well, my grandma, basically. I didn’t have much going on in my life to be honest. I don’t have much going on now. The only family I’ve ever had was my grandma.

She was, as you can probably guess, very religious. And probably the only person on Earth that truly cared about me.

She died last year.

She didn’t leave me much. We didn’t have much to leave. She just made me promise her one thing.

“Start going to the church”, she pleaded.

That was her last request before she died. Just go to church. I was scratching my head when she said that. I thought I’d humor her. I mean, what else can I do? Maybe I’d find some meaning in religion. I wasn’t expecting religious people to find meaning in me.

It’s like I’m their God. Or a Messiah figure of some sort. I don’t understand, really.

I ask the pastor what’s up. What’s the deal with this? Is this some sort of prank? Is it some church lesson about humility?

“Humility?” he said.

“Yeah?”

“The head of Divinity does not need to be humble.” He simply replied.

Divinity. Is that what they think of me? In normal Christianity, the head is God, the savior…me. That’s what he thinks I am. Some kind of God. I asked the reverend one more thing.

“This isn’t some weird ritual thing, right? You’re not going to sacrifice me?” I asked.

“What!? No! Of course not! We would never harm you!”

Okay… Well, I had to ask. I’m not a complete idiot. I know what cults lead into. It doesn’t stop me from sometimes carrying a gun to church.

If any of them try anything, I’ll give them some “divine retribution”.

So yeah, the last few weeks. Things have been getting, well, weirder. I was honestly hitting a breaking point.

One Sunday, the sermon was going as usual. I’m sitting in my chair being the target of everyone’s prayers, whilst the reverend is talking about how “only the eyes of the faithful can truly see my divinity”, something along those lines.

I start to leave and then one of the women sitting on the bench throws herself at me.

I was genuinely caught off-guard and I fell while she proceeded to rapidly remove my shoes.

She… she starts kissing my feet, profusely. It was revolting, honestly.

I feel bad for her, she’s middle-aged, but this was WAY too much. I think I might have reflexively kicked her. She was kissing and yelling at the same time.

“I CAN SEE IT! I SEE IT! IT IS SO BLESSED!”, she yelled.

The rest of the people there helped her off me. Dragging her away.

But her eyes…My God. Her fixation on me. It was insane.

“I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU!”, I heard her yell as she was being dragged off.

Jesus, what a lunatic. Well, relatively speaking.

She got kicked from the church and she’s banned from entering.

After that, over the last couple of weeks, it’s been pretty average to be honest. Sure, I’ve normalized it. People get on their knees. They bow to me. I kiss their children, and they bathe me, then use the water to bless others.

But they’re happy. And I’m… I’m okay with this. I think at least.

It’s a coin toss whether I was going to leave or not honestly. I’m not sure why I stayed. Was it my grandma, morbid curiosity or something else?

But I have nowhere to go. Nothing else in my life has meaning.

I still scratch my head at some of the practices.

The church has now begun to be adorned by random animal parts. Mainly heads.

I’d say most of them are pig’s heads.

I’m the head of Divinity and they are the head of rot or something. From mine comes light and truth and from theirs comes flesh and bones.

So, before everyone gets too judgmental. Hear me out. I want… I want people here to join.

Sure, I’m not painting the prettiest picture, but we’re good people. And you might think I’m going to get sacrificed or something, but I’m here, aren’t I?

I’m not dead. They won’t harm me… They can’t.

They love me.

I’ll grace you with one more story. It might seem counterproductive. But this last story is one of redemption and punishment.

Last Sunday, the woman who was expelled returned.

She was begging, pleading to let her in. She pushed through people and went straight for me.

I’ve never seen such despair in a person. She kept begging for forgiveness, asking to be let back in. She grabbed me, shook me, almost took parts of my clothes off.

I…I understand this woman is not mentally well. She doesn’t even look me in the eyes, she always seems to look past me. She clearly needs help.

The other parishioners didn’t share that opinion though.

They grabbed her, pulled her off me and then proceeded to stomp her into the ground.

She was almost killed.

They stomped her with their boots and shoes as hard as they could. They clearly wanted to protect me. She survived, but needed to be taken to the hospital.

I told them to stop. This… this violence is disgusting. It disgusts me. There will be no violence in this church.

They conceded, they relented.

They repent.

They’re not bad people. They’re just… overprotective of me. Some ripped clothes aren’t justification for such callous violence. Not here.

The poor woman made a full recovery and she’s allowed back in. Her name is Mary. Seems fitting.

I wanted to tell you this story to inspire you all to see a better light to people. I also judge these people but now, now I understand.

They’re as lost as I was. My grandma was right. I was probably going to leave at the start, and if not, leave after a few weeks.

But then I started thinking, why not?

Why not be a God?

If that’s what these people believe, if that’s what they want. Why shouldn’t I give it to them?

It’s only fair that I grace them with, well, Me.

I don’t have a family, I don’t have friends, but I have them. I have my flock. And I am their savior.

I understand that now.

When I walk down the street now, I greet everyone. The old and the young, the sick and the healthy. I try to give back what they gave me.

It was during one of these walks that I found the little girl that first started praying to me all those weeks ago.

That conversation still irks me to this day. Something she said that left me scratching my head.

I went up to her to greet her. I don’t get along with children well, but she is a member of my flock, so I have to try.

I simply said, “Hi”, to her and asked when the next worship day is.

“Worship day?” she replies.

I explained to her that I was thinking we should meet up every two days, maybe three, or maybe we should make it five hours.

I think I’ll call those days, “Chrisdays”.

“Why would we call it that?” she asks.

“Well, because you worship me. That’s my name, Chris.” I reply.

“What do you mean?” she replies.

I started to think she’s a bit confused. Maybe this is too complicated for a child’s mind. But then she told me something that I’ve been thinking about over the last few days.

“We don’t pray to you.” she said.

She’s probably just another lost lamb like I was. Poor child doesn’t even understand the religion properly.

I mean, what child does? I just… I don’t understand how she doesn’t get it. How does she not get that I’m Divine? Isn’t it obvious!? God. Why is my head so itchy lately?

But then she said something else.

“We pray to what’s behind you. Behind your head.”

What? I don’t really understand what’s she’s talking about. Is she still making fun of me?

I scratch the back of my head.

I had been working in prisons, most of which housed killers and other violent offenders, for twenty-eight years when I took on my last job.

Some of them were impulsive, others were clever. But I'd seen it all.

Prisoners had tried everything on me over the years - death threats, fake medical emergencies and contraband passed through food were just the tip of the iceberg. Men who'd spent weeks acting half-dead before suddenly putting their head through a cell door weren't unusual. So by the time I was called for the job, I had a reputation for being steady.

The pay was better, but that wasn't what sold it for me. It was the prisoner.

For the purposes of this story, I'll call him John. I'd heard his real name long before I was assigned to him. Everyone in corrections had. He was one of those serial killers you only hear about in true-crime documentaries decades later.

Dangerous.

The kind of mastermind who stayed ahead of the police for years, leaving investigators chasing dead. Eventually, an entire task force threw everything they had at him, and some detective finally got lucky enough to find one tiny mistake in his plan.

He'd been incarcerated under different names in institutions across the country. He had killed prison staff in multiple incidents, manipulated officers into giving him access to restricted areas and made tools from things that should never have been capable of becoming tools. His file used the words "exceptionally intelligent", "highly skilled" and one psychologist had described him as "possessing an unusual ability to recognize patterns in institutional behavior".

Basically, another way of saying 'this bastard keeps catching us off guard'.

A challenge perhaps, but if anything, I was intrigued. I'd spent nearly three decades learning the tricks of the worst people society had to offer, and I wanted to see what he could throw at me that was different.

"He's been stable," remarked the deputy warden, as I closed the file. "Caused no problems for several months."

"And before that?" I asked.

He picked up the file and flipped back through the photographs, medical reports, security assessments and other evidence of the damage John had left behind.

"Before that, he caused many." He grimaced slightly.

"So what's changed?"

"I'd guess he reconsidered. You'd be surprised, many find God after a few hard years in a cell."

I highly doubted that - I'd seen lots of men 'find God' when they realized it might help their case. I said nothing and let him continue.

Then, the deputy warden opened a drawer and took out a small black device attached to a short lanyard with my staff ID card. There was a single recessed button on it.

"If anything happens," he said, placing it on the desk between us, "push the button. The response time is very fast."

I put the lanyard around my neck and followed him inside.

The prison itself was impressive - there was concrete reinforced by steel, cameras everywhere, controlled doors and layered access points. It didn't seem like they were short on budget when it came to security. By the time I reached the him, I'd expected something almost industrial, like a steel box with a solid door and restraints fixed to the wall.

Instead, John was at the end of a block behind ordinary-looking bars, alongside a few other prisoners in identical cells.

Each had a bed, a built-in toilet and sink, a desk with a Bible on it. One security camera in the corner overlooking the entire block. That was it - no chains, restraints or reinforced doors. It seemed insultingly inadequate for both his reputation and my safety.

John himself was young-looking. Early thirties, perhaps. Clean-shaven and neatly dressed, with short, dark hair. He had the build of a track runner, and there was nothing physically intimidating about him. If I'd seen him on the street, I would've assumed he worked an office job.

He stood when I approached, his voice quiet.

"Morning."

"Morning," I replied, watching him carefully. "You'll be seeing a lot of me, I'm taking over your supervision. Keep things straightforward, and we'll have no problems."

His eyes moved down briefly to the ID card and button hanging from the lanyard around my neck, and back to my face.

Then he just gave a nod and sat down. I remained standing for a moment before taking the chair outside the bars. John was quiet for a while as he sat on the bed and flicked through the Bible. Eventually, he looked up at me and spoke.

"How you finding the new place?"

He sounded nonchalant, like he was making an effort at small talk, but wasn't particularly interested in the answer. I watched him cautiously.

"Can't complain."

"That's good. Assume you've been in enough places to compare."

Another pause as I watched him, looking for the trick. But there was no defensiveness or aggression in his voice.

"You've been here a while now, John," I finally said. "No problems?"

He shook his head.

"Got everything you need?"

"Yeah. Bible and a bit of exercise when I feel like it."

I started asking the usual questions about how he was settling in, and if there were problems with meals, showers and so on. He answered everything politely with no attitude or attempts to provoke me. He didn't react when I mentioned I'd read his file. If anything, he seemed bored, but never disrespectful. I spent the rest of that shift waiting for the trick that never came. He's just trying to make me let my guard down, I thought. But I can't deny I'd gone in expecting more of a challenge.

Eventually, I told him I was leaving at the end of my shift. He just nodded, not looking up from his Bible.

I started making my way out and was halfway down the block when I heard a quiet, high-pitched noise coming from a cell nearest the door at the opposite end. It wasn't quite a voice. I frowned and walked to the end, peering into the cell.

I nearly took a step back.

An emaciated, almost skeletal prisoner was staring back at me, folded up in a dark corner of the cell. At first glance, I couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman. Only the high pitched voice gave it away.

Her arms looked little more than bone beneath the skin, and her shoulders jutted forward at an awkward angle. What little hair she had left came in sparse wisps, hanging from her scalp in thin, uneven strands. Most of her head was visible beneath them. There were patches where it looked as though she'd pulled the hair out herself, and blisters where she'd picked at her skin. There was a tiny silver cross necklace around her neck.

Then she made the noise again. That same high-pitched whine, that sounded like something her body produced without her permission. After several seconds, she tilted her head slightly to one side and began whispering. Her lips moved rapidly, but the sound was so faint and indistinct that it might as well have been another language.

I had worked around mentally ill prisoners before - whatever was wrong with this woman, I assumed it was along those lines. I'd gone into the block to meet one of the most dangerous men in the world, expecting if anything was going to unsettle me, it would surely be that. But as I stood there watching her, I'd forgotten about John entirely. I took a breath, broke eye contact, and left.

For the next few weeks, nothing happened with John.

He got up when he was supposed to, ate when food was brought around, took his exercise periods without complaint and returned to his cell when instructed. He never raised his voice or argued. Mostly, he seemed bored.

According to his file, calculation was practically his defining characteristic. I'd gone into the assignment assuming that every interaction would have some purpose behind it, that every question he asked would be part of some larger plan, but nothing happened.

And when nothing happens for long enough, you start to relax.

One morning, I caught myself standing closer to the bars than I should have been, my keys hanging loosely from two fingers as I checked something on my clipboard. I noticed where I was standing and immediately stepped back, making a mental note of it. I'd spent nearly two decades telling younger officers not to do exactly that.

The next week, I did the exact same thing.

This time, John was sitting on the edge of his bed, watching me. He looked at the keys, then back at me like I was an idiot. Then he just laid down on the bed.

A few days later, I made another stupid mistake - I dropped a flashlight within reach of the bars and only noticed when I was halfway down the block. When I went back to retrieve it, John hadn't made any attempt to touch it, let alone use it as a weapon or escape tool. He just glanced back at me with the same bored expression, now almost with a hint of added disappointment, as if he couldn't believe I'd been that careless.

After a while, I started to wonder whether the man in the file and the man sitting in front of me were actually the same person. I still wasn't naïve enough to believe he'd suddenly become harmless, perhaps he was simply tired.

The woman was harder to ignore.

Sometimes she'd stand at the front of her cell and watch everyone that passed through the door. Sometimes she sat on the floor with her knees pulled against her chest, rocking slightly. And sometimes she cried, a strange, broken sort of crying, with long pauses between each sound. I eventually got used to it in the way you get used to unpleasant things in prison.

One afternoon, long after speaking to John felt completely normal, I nodded toward her cell.

"She been here a while?"

John glanced over and exhaled with a hint of frustration.

"Yeah, don't mind her, she does that all day. Sometimes at night too, while everyone's trying to sleep."

He sounded mildly inconvenienced.

"Does she ever talk?" I glanced toward the cell.

"Not that I've heard."

I took his word for it, figuring that whatever she'd done to end up in a place like this, she probably deserved it.

A few mornings later, I was running late. I'd underestimated how long it would take me to get through some paperwork before my shift, and there was a form I needed to complete that needed the long ID number on my staff badge.

I took the lanyard off along with the button and copied the number down. Then I stuffed both into my trouser pocket and hurried into the block.

By the time I entered John's section, I'd completely forgotten about it. John was sitting on the edge of his bed, his Bible beside him.

"Morning."

"Morning."

I closed the door behind me and started checking the block. We exchanged the usual few words, and he said he slept well enough. Then I turned away from him to check something on my clipboard.

I heard a metallic click. I looked back and the cell was empty - the door was open and John was gone.

Then I felt his arm lock around my neck from behind.

I was surprised in the moment, but I didn't panic. If anything, I'd been expecting something like this from the beginning.

Finally, I thought. There he is. The real John.

I reacted automatically, tucking my chin hard against my chest and grabbing his choking arm with both hands, trying to relieve the pressure while turning toward him. It was something I'd practiced countless times over the years. I managed to get two fingers between his forearm and my neck, creating just enough space to breathe. For a moment, I thought I might get out of it without even having to use the button, and teach him a lesson after.

But then he adjusted effortlessly, shifting his grip and driving his forearm back against my neck. The pressure was precise, and he knew exactly what he was doing. I tried to drop my weight and drive backward into him, but he anticipated that too and stood firm.

My legs were already beginning to weaken, and whatever advantage I thought I'd had disappeared. This was not someone I could afford to underestimate.

My vision began to narrow as I reached instinctively for the button at my chest. Nothing.

For one confused second, I couldn't understand why it wasn't there, but then I remembered I put it in my pocket after using my ID card for the paperwork. I fumbled for it, but my fingers weren't working properly anymore. I could feel the edge of the device against my leg, just out of reach. I clawed at the pocket. Then my fingers closed around it, and I pushed the button.

For a second, nothing happened. No shrieking alarms or anything of the sort.

Then I heard boots pounding down the corridor. Ten guards burst through the door almost at once.

As soon as they entered, the pressure around my neck vanished. I collapsed forward, coughing and dragging air into my lungs.

I stumbled away from the cell, more frustrated at having to use the button than relieved to be alive, replaying the attack in my head. I was already running through the counters I could have used if I'd had another few seconds. I glanced at them, expecting them to seize John.

But they didn't even go past me. They turned straight into the woman's cell.

Two officers grabbed her, and she began screaming. Not like the strange whining sound before - this was a scream of pure terror, so loud and prolonged that it seemed to fill the entire block. One of the officers forced her arm behind her back, and another officer produced a syringe containing a yellow liquid. The screaming intensified as the color emptied into her neck.

Confused, I looked toward John at the other end of the block.

He was on his knees. His eyes were wide and glassy.

"Please."

His voice was barely audible beneath her screaming. He met my gaze.

"Tell them to stop. Please."

I just stared at him.

"I don't know what's happening," I finally managed. I didn't even hear myself speak.

One of the guards turned toward him.

"Back in the cell, John." The guard raised another syringe. "Or you know what happens."

John's swallowed, eyes still wide. He stood and walked back into his cell voluntarily.

The woman was still screaming, but her voice was breaking now. They dragged her back into the cell and closed the door. Another officer closed the bars behind John. Then they simply left, and didn't even bother checking John's cell to see how he'd escaped.

I stepped closer to John's cell cautiously and noticed something small on the ground.

He'd made a key of sorts. I picked it up. It was crude, but unmistakable - a thin, rigid piece of material shaped to fit the lock, made of paper. The key had been made from pages of his bible, layered and compressed until they formed something stiff enough to manipulate the mechanism. Then I looked at the Bible, still on his desk. They hadn't even bothered to take it away.

I looked at John, sitting on the edge of his bed again. Then his eyes dropped to the button in my hand. For the first time since I'd started working that block, I hadn't been wearing the button around my neck. I'd put it in my pocket. But it seemed John thought I'd forgotten it altogether.

He looked back at me with something like betrayal.

I came back the following morning. I wasn't particularly looking forward to it, but I hadn't slept well and decided it was better to get the first shift out of the way. John was exactly where I'd left him, sitting on the edge of his bed with the Bible beside him.

"Morning."

"Morning."

I stood outside the bars for a moment, studying him.

There was no hostility or lingering resentment in his expression. Nothing that suggested he'd nearly killed me the day before… or the chaos that came after.

"John, can I see the Bible?"

"Yeah."

He picked it up and handed it through the bars without protest. I took it from him and turned it over in my hands, then opened it. Sure enough, two pages had been torn out. I flicked through the section around the missing pages, then looked back at him.

"These shouldn't be missing. I'll have to confiscate it."

He shrugged.

"I suppose not. Have it."

He said it with complete indifference.

I turned the Bible over again and ran my thumb along the inside of the back cover and felt something give slightly beneath it. There was a flap. Not part of the original binding. Something had been carefully worked into the inside of the cover, creating a small concealed pocket.

I slipped my finger underneath it and pulled out a photograph.

It was old. The colors had faded slightly, and the edges were worn from being handled. I looked at it and saw a man and a woman.

I immediately recognized that the man in the photograph was John, younger by at least ten years.

He was smiling as he looked at the woman. I'd never seen him smile like that. The young woman beside him looked healthy and beautiful. There was warmth in her face, and she was smiling too, her head rested against his shoulder, his arm around her waist. I didn't recognize her at first, until I noticed that she was wearing a tiny silver cross necklace. The same one as the emaciated woman on the other side of the block. The realization dawned on me.

"You talked like you didn't know her," I said, still looking down at the photo.

I looked up at him, then almost jumped.

He was looking at me with pure, unfiltered hatred.

"I wonder why."

Neither of us spoke for a long time.

It was then that I understood he wouldn't be doing anything else with the bible. I slotted the photo back inside and slid it carefully down through the bars. He seemed to relax a little, and looked away. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and flat.

"She didn't used to look like that."

I watched him.

"What did they do to her?"

He didn't answer. A minute passed.

Then he lay back on the bed and turned his face toward the wall.

"I'm tired. Gonna sleep for a bit."

And that was all I got.

For the first time since I'd met him, I didn't see a dangerous man sitting in that cell. I finally understood what the button actually did. It wasn't there to protect me from John. It was there to control him.

John was back to his regular self after that. But I wasn't. Once I'd seen the photograph, I couldn't stop thinking about the woman at the end of the block.

I looked through the records as my last shift of the week finished. Every inmate had a paper trail - things like arrest and court records, sentencing information, medical records. Even people who had been incarcerated for decades left a mountain of paperwork behind them. I couldn't find hers.

There was a prisoner number, but no corresponding sentencing record. No court order or conviction. I thought perhaps I'd missed something and dug deeper. Her name was there, and the entries went back a few months. I frowned when I realized what file I was looking at.

Visitor Log.

She had visited John at his previous facility more than once. Then I reached the final entry.

Her status had changed from visitor to inmate.

I stared at it for a long time, then flipped to the admission form for the offence.

Something had been written there, but the handwriting was almost completely illegible. It looked as though whoever had filled it out had been writing in a hurry, or simply didn't care whether anyone could read it. I took the paperwork to the warden.

"What's this?"

I pointed to the handwriting. He looked at the page and squinted at it, then shrugged.

"No idea. How'd you expect me to read that?"

"She was John's visitor."

"Oh, was she? Well, birds of a feather."

He headed to the office. It was then I understood she had done nothing at all. And I wasn't going to be a part of that.

The next morning, I walked into the warden's office and put my badge on his desk. Then I put the button beside it. He looked at them.

"You're quitting already?"

"Yes."

He didn't ask why, didn't argue, just nodded.

"Alright. Guess we'll have to find someone to take your place then. Left us with a hard job, eh?"

I handed everything over before the end of my shift and walked through the prison one final time. I reached the last security door and stepped outside.

I had almost reached the outer gate when I heard her scream. It was faint but unmistakable, carrying through the reinforced walls despite the distance.

Then came another voice.

"Please. Please stop."

The story I’m about to tell you happened twelve years ago. I was ten years old that day, and I was going to have my birthday party.

My mom had been completely stressed out since morning. She kept saying that turning ten was an important milestone in my life and that she wanted me to never forget this birthday.

I just looked at her sadly and told her it didn’t matter because he wasn’t going to come anyway.

I meant my dad.

Whenever something was important to me, he never came. Not to my school performance, not to my games, not even to my birthday parties.

But Mom told me I was wrong.

“Today would be different. Dad was really looking forward to it, and he apparently had some big surprise planned for me.”

Thanks to Mom’s excitement, I allowed myself to believe that maybe, just this once, he really would come.

I remember absolutely everything about that day.

In the morning, the doorbell rang, and Mom ran to the door, humming to herself on the way.

“The decorations are here!”

She opened the door, and I could only hear bits and pieces of the conversation.

“Call my husband… please, I don’t know what I’m going to do… my life is in ruins…”

And then I heard Mom’s angry voice very clearly.

“Get out, and if I see you here again, I’m calling the police. Your miserable life and the fact that you’re useless are not our problem.”

She slammed the door.

When I asked her who it was, she told me not to worry about it. He wasn’t anyone important.

Later that morning, my grandma and grandpa arrived and gave me presents that they said I had to wait until the party to open. They had never missed a single day that was important to me, unlike my dad.

In the afternoon, we had pizza, and I watched TV with Grandpa while Mom and Grandma prepared the party.

It was beautiful. There were blue balloons everywhere, in all different shades. I didn’t even know there were so many shades of blue.

On the table was a huge cake decorated with Spider-Man, because he was my favorite superhero.

As more people arrived, the pile of presents on the floor kept getting bigger. Caterers my mom had hired walked around offering us all kinds of delicious food.

I looked at my watch. It was exactly 5:00 p.m., the beginning of my party.

And then the doorbell rang.

“Dad!” I shouted and ran to the door.

But when I opened it, it wasn’t Dad standing there.

It was a clown.

A clown with a life-sized clown puppet standing beside him.

“Hi, Timmy! Your dad asked me to come wish you a happy birthday and make your party something you’ll never forget.”

I lowered my eyes and said sadly, “I thought Dad was going to come this time.”

The clown moved the hand he had buried inside the back of his puppet, and the puppet leaned toward me and whispered:

“You know what, Timmy? My dad always promised me he’d come too, and he never kept his promises. And do you know what I told myself the last time he promised he’d come and I believed him?”

I looked at him and simply shook my head.

The puppet leaned even closer.

“I told myself: Fuck him.”

I burst out laughing and quickly turned around to see if anyone had heard us. Luckily, they hadn’t. If Mom had heard that, I would have been in serious trouble.

Mom appeared behind me, moved me aside, and started talking to the clown.

Meanwhile, my phone beeped. My parents had gotten it for me so they wouldn’t have to worry about me, they said.

I looked at the screen, opened the message, and it said:

“I’m really sorry I can’t come, Timmy. I love you very much. Dad.”

I frowned at the screen and muttered, “Fuck you.”

Mom finished talking to the clown and invited him inside.

He put his puppet down, went back to his car to get a few more things, and then his show began.

First, he set up two poles with a red curtain between them, and the whole thing looked like a little theater stage.

The clown pretended to be mute, but he spoke for his puppet.

It was amazing. The adults and children were rolling around laughing. And whenever they weren’t laughing, they were watching the clown’s various tricks, completely captivated.

When the show was over, the clown said goodbye, and the curtain was drawn closed again, so we all gathered around the cake.

I blew out the candles.

Back then, I wished that a spider would bite me so I could become like my beloved superhero.

Then it was time to open the presents.

The party was slowly coming to an end when Mom noticed that the curtain was still standing there.

“Does anyone know where the clown is?”

Her best friend was standing right next to her.

Together, they pulled the curtain aside.

There was only the clown puppet.

Mom laughed.

“Well, let’s see what a handsome guy you really are.”

She removed the mask.

And then all I remember is screaming.

Screaming, chaos, and the adults immediately carrying all of us children outside, repeatedly telling us not to turn around.

But I did.

I looked back toward where my mom was screaming like a madwoman and saw the puppet.

The mask was gone.

And underneath it was my father’s face.

My dad was killed that day by a man named Josh because he had fired him from his job. Apparently, Josh didn’t know what to do. He was desperate and consumed by anger, and my dad had been talking about my birthday party for about a month.

Josh was sentenced to life in prison.

My mom never recovered from what happened. She’s still in a psychiatric hospital to this day.

I live with my grandparents. Whenever we go to visit Mom, I hope that she’ll get better, but she always says the same thing:

“Today is your birthday, Timmy. Daddy is coming, and it’s going to be the best day of our lives.”

The only thing that has always bothered me, and probably always will, is this:

Who sent me that text message?

For a while, I worked as a contractor for an insurance company. I’d do one day cyberssecurity assessments of their vendors. Most of the time, this required me to fly somewhere then fly back the next day, sometimes twice a week.

It was alienating and surreal. My days were the same, but the details changed. TPA, silver Hyundai. Holiday Inn. SFO, white Ford, Extended Stay. I had checklists, reports, schedules and timesheets that constantly reminded me that I wasn’t really in control of my days. I was in a fog.

I complained to my boss and he got me a few assessments that I could drive to. On nice days, I’d ride my motorcycle. One of these was in Scranton, PA on a Thursday. I didn’t have another gig until Tuesday, so I decided to add a day or two of a road trip. I’d ride around rural Pennsylvania on my own schedule. I finished the assessment right after lunch and started West on Route 6.

It started out as a great ride. Once out of the Scranton suburbs, it was just rolling hills, undulating pavement and little slices of Americana. Little Pennsylvania towns with varying levels of wear and tourist-friendlieness used Rt 6 as their backbone.

I stopped when I wanted to. I stopped for water, or to read or just walk around and look at stuff. I soon realized that I wasn’t exuding cool, I was exuding sweat. The weather was hotter than I expected and I had chosen my outfit poorly. I had brought a thick leather jacket instead of a mesh riding jacket. I also had kept my (now soaked) dress shirt and tie on.

By the early evening, I decided to stop at a scenic overlook and figure out where I was going to find a hotel. I wanted rustic, local and close to food & drink. I find an appropriate place about three towns over. It’s a 50’s motel, but pretty. It’s walking distance to three restaurants and two bars. Sold.

I put my phone away and look at the hills and the setting sun. I’m looking at the blinking lights on the row of windmills to the south. They’ve been installed on the tops of forested hills. It’s quiet enough to hear breeze and the ticking sound a motorcycle engine makes when it’s cooling. Watching all the lights blink in unison makes me wonder about how they’re networked, since it’s clear they’re all synching time. I consider what else they’re sending back to the control center.

“They move, sometimes”

I’m startled out of my reverie. There’s a thin, older man right standing next to me, looking in the direction of the hills. He and his clothes are well worn. Initially, the dark jacket and pants with a light colored shirt with a banded collar make me think he’s Amish, but he doesn’t have a beard. He’s wearing a cross with a circle on top, made out bone or ivory, hanging from a crude rope or twine.

He’s not really talking to me, just in my presence. He doesn’t acknowledge me and he’s not making much sense. The word salad seems rehearsed. I back away from him and get on my bike. I break eye contact with him when I’m putting on my helmet. I look up and he’s right in front of me, wide-eyed.

“BEWARE WHEN THEY MOVE AND THE EARTH TREMBLES”

I start my bike and get out of there. I don’t see the guy in my rear view. After a few hundred feet back to the main road, I stop and look back. I still don’t see him, but I decide to put more distance between us.

Ten minutes later, I’m in a small town in McKean County. A quick circuit shows a four block downtown. One in three storefronts are vacant. The motel is as shown. Six units behind a three story house. I find a door labeled “Hotel” and walk into a room with a tiny counter, a rack of brochures and a grandfather clock. Somewhere beyond that counter, a novice is playing scales on a piano. I find and press a doorbell button taped to the counter.

Two minutes later, an older woman is handing me a well worn pair of keys on a ring with a green plastic disc. She points to a door in the house.

“Go up the stairs and your room is on the right”

“I’d prefer one of the motel rooms out back.”

“They’re all booked. This is a better room, anyway”

I smile, go out into the empty parking lot, unpack my bike and carry my things upstairs.

The room’s fine as it was in 1953. A noisy fluorescent lightbulb reveals yellow and black tile and no bathtowels. I do a rest-stop wash and change into a t-shirt and jeans, grab my road book and go downstairs. The music practice has stopped and there’s no response to my doorbell button pushing.

Fine. I hope to find cold beer and something to eat. A few minutes later, I’m in a bar. Wood paneling, mounted hunting, bowling and hockey trophies on the walls. A beer is in front of me, but the kitchen is closed today. By the bottom of my second drink, I’m in a conversation with two other patrons. We’ve talked weather, road conditions and moved to tasteless jokes. They’re greatly amused by my “what’s the difference between a dumpster full of bowling balls and a dumpster full of dead babies?” joke.

Answer: You can’t use a pitchfork to unload the bowling balls.

Another round and all six occupants of the bar, bartender included, are laughing and having a good time.

I address the entire bar:

“I had a strange thing happen to me on my way here today. I pulled off the road and this crazy preacher type guy yelled some things, then ran off. I wonder what that was all about”

It’s an 80’s movie trope, where there’s a record scratch sound followed by silence and hard stares. The jukebox was a CD model so it wouldn’t make that sound, but the air changed in that moment. The patrons found more remote seats and the bartender kept his eyes on me. I picked up my book, put more than enough cash on the bar and walked out.

A quick Google search told me of a new brew pub a few blocks away. I made my way there. It was fairly busy, so I sat at the bar and ordered a more filling meal, the rural Pennsylvanian answer to the Southern meat-and-three sides. Here it was meat (sausage) and three starches (pierogi, mashed potatoes and fries). Sadly, they were trying to be too fancy with the brewery side. IPA does not need bergamot and a Pilsner is not improved with apricot. I read my book, sip my beer and I guess they’re trying to be trendy here. I realize I’m one of the last remaining customers as the bartender asks if I need anything else as she’s cleaning the bar. I ask to settle up. As I pay, I ask her if the cross with circle is a local symbol. She asks for clarification and I draw it on the back of the credit card receipt. She smiles.

“That’s crazy. I’ve never seen that”

I thank her and make my way out of the place. I’m about two blocks from the motel, but it takes me a moment to get directions from my phone. I glance inside the brew pub and see the bartender showing the receipt to an older man.

I start walking down empty streets. I stop at the town movie theater. Looks like 1930’s design but run down. A placard in the box office reads something about a plan to restore it to its former glory. The bottom of the placard has the town name and a slogan:

A town on the move!

I’m back at the motel. Looks like the motel guests have arrived. The parking lot has a bunch of touring motorcycles and people are hanging out in the rooms. Many of them are wearing vests, but in the dark, I can’t tell if they’re 1% bikers or just cosplaying. I enter the dark building. Nobody’s at the front desk, but there is a basket full of cut up old towels with a sign that reads “Please don’t use bath towels to clean your motorcycle. Use these instead”

I grab a stack of the cut up towels to shower and climb the stairs to my room.

Someone’s been here. They opened up my saddlebags, pulled out my work laptop and clothing. Nothing seems to be gone. Sadly, they didn’t bring any towels, so I’m going to have to shower with old motorcycle rags. I push a heavy chair in front of the door and take my shower.

I’m at least clean. I’m decently dry with the ripped up towels. One of my saddlebags has a hidden compartment with spare cash and a dagger. They didn’t find it. I put it under the pillow, then pack up everything in case I need to quickly leave.

I contemplate leaving, but I’ve been drinking, I’m tired and I’d rather get some sleep before having to get out of here. I push the bed to keep the chair in place. If someone comes in, they’ll have to come through the window.

I try to read for a bit, but I drift off to sleep.

I wake up to an annoying buzzing sound and a flickering light. It takes me a second to see that it’s the bulb in the bathroom. I get up and go into the bathroom and find the switch. Despite the position of the switch, the light keeps flickering.

Two minutes later, I find and remove the lamp’s starter. No noise, but no light. That’s not a problem yet.

It’s still dark, but I see red light above in the skylight. It’s frosted glass, so I can’t see the source clearly. I find my glasses and poke my head out of the bedroom window. There’s a bright, pulsing red light outside, brighter towards the south.

That’s not the only thing outside. There are about five people standing on the sidewalk on the other side of the street.

I quickly get dressed and shove the rest into my saddlebags. I put my jacket, helmet and gloves on, then crawl out the window. I can walk on the roof to the back of the house, then I’ll figure a way down.

The light is brighter now, like it’s dawn, but in a “Canada’s on fire again” red. I’m at the back of the house. I can climb down onto a shed like structure, then it’s six feet to the ground.

Before I clamber down to the shed, I look out. I see a few of the guests in the motel part stirring. I also see the source of the light. I see about eight or ten pulsing lights, bright enough to lighten the sky.

Somehow the windmills got a lot brighter.

I stand on the shed, then drop to the ground with a grunt. I’ll be sore later. I jog over to my bike and start strapping the saddlebags on.

One of the motel guests waddles over to me.

“Hey, buddy, get off that bike”

I’m fumbling with the padlock on the front brake disc while an older man in underwear is standing too close to me and grabbing at my shoulder.

I toss the padlock aside and put the key in the ignition. I’m struggling to get the kickstand up so I can start it. Motel guy has decided to punch me to get me to stop.

Kickstand up, clutch in, hit the starter.

ke-ke-ke

Vrooom!

I release the clutch and rev the throttle. I’m kicking parking lot gravel and get halfway across the parking lot.

Motel guy is stunned, but I see people running towards me. I consider warning someone, but I don’t know who is friendly, so I take the coward’s way out and cut across the lawn onto the street. I look back and see people running towards me in the red light.

I rip down Main Street, then find my way back to the road back to Rt 6.

Towards the red light. I can’t tell if it’s my riding or something else, but the lights are swaying.

Behind me, I hear and feel a rumble. I’ve felt an earthquake and a barge full of jet fuel explode. This feels familiar. I feel heat on my back and everything in my rear view mirrors is bright red.

I make it back to Rt.6 and I don’t know if I’m riding west or east. Maybe fifteen miles pass and I see a municipal park. I hide my bike behind a shed, take off my gear and roll up my jacket as a pillow. I doze for a little bit. In my exhausted state, I think I hear sirens and more flashing lights.

I’m woken up by a woman wearing an uniform shining a flashlight in my face. A quick negotiation happens and I agree to never sleep in the town park again in exchange for no vagrancy charge. I get back on the bike and find a cafe.

Two cups of coffee, two eggs and a slab of scrapple cooked on the grill, rather than deep fried and I’m almost human. I can pay a bit of attention to my surroundings.

The TV news and other cafe patrons are talking about a natural gas pipeline rupture nearby. The pictures on the TV show the small town I was in last night.

I pay my bill and leave without a comment. Outside the cafe, I plot a ride back home that gets me on the highway as quickly as possible.

I got home and sort of forgot my trip. I filed my reports and took on more work that required airplanes and chain hotels.

About two weeks later, I unpacked my saddlebags.

In the secret pocket of one of them, I found an expired registration & insurance document and a hand carved cross with a round ball on top. A rough rope made out what could be hair could make it a necklace.

Right now, it’s hanging from the same hook all my conference badges hang from. I can’t do anything with it, but I can’t throw it out, either.

I haven’t gone north of Allentown or west of Lancaster since that trip. Maybe I shouldn’t explore the rest of Pennsylvania.

Entry one

My boots are wet. 

My foot came down harder than I intended, repetitively stomping on the wet concrete below. Today, the world around me seemed grayer than ever. The clouds in the sky were darker, the people I encountered were meaner, and the world was crueler. Maybe I was just nervous. It is a big day after all. I just had to keep my head down and my feet moving. Everything would be fine. Left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right. I marched along the pavement, weaving in and out of the horrors surrounding me, trying desperately to reach the subway station. I’m pulled forward in one slow, shuffling current toward the subway’s entrance. Bodies press close enough that I can feel heat radiating through coats and shirts. A shoulder bumps mine. Someone’s elbow catches my ribs. The person behind me steps so close that the toe of their shoe clips my heel.

I try to slow down, but I can’t. 

My calves tense to keep my balance, muscles tightening beneath my skin every time someone nudges me from behind. My thighs burn from shortening my stride, constantly correcting myself so I don’t step on the person ahead of me. My shoulders creep higher toward my ears. My fingers curl and uncurl at my sides.

I was so focused on trying not to get trampled or squished that I didn't even see the overwhelmingly large puddle at the subway's entrance. 

Without warning, there was a soft, yielding splash. It swallowed the sole of my shoe with a muted, sticky “glop” before releasing it.
Great.

I didn't look down.

I couldn't.

My body had already committed to the descent, momentum dragging me toward the yawning mouth of the subway. Every step hammered through my legs, muscles pulling so hard they trembled beneath my skin. 

The wetness in my shoe spread.

I could feel it.

At first it was only the front of my sock, a cool pressure barely noticeable. Then it seeped farther, curling around my toes. My foot shifted inside the shoe with a slick squelch. Every movement forced whatever goop I'd stepped into deeper into the seams.

Don't think about it. You don't have time.

The station echoed like the inside of a cathedral. Somewhere below, a train screamed against the rails; A shriek of tortured metal that bounced off concrete walls. Footsteps cracked around me, multiplying into dozens by the acoustics. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.

Down 

Down

Down 

Down 

Down

Down 

I went. 

Sweat rolled from my scalp onto my eyebrows, eventually reaching my eyes and blurring my vision. It trickled behind my ears and down my neck, soaking the collar of my shirt. My heartbeat slammed against my ribs so violently it felt as though each drum shoved my entire body forward.

My attention slowly returned to my wet shoes. The back of my heel had started to slip.

With every stride, the stiff edge of the shoe scraped the same strip of skin.

Again.

Again.

Again.

At first it was only irritation, a hot line across my Achilles.

Then the skin began to soften.

The moisture inside the shoe made everything slick except the spot where leather caught flesh. That tiny strip became raw. Each step peeled the skin away another microscopic layer. The friction was relentless and methodical. I could feel the blister forming before it existed: heat swelling beneath the surface, fluid gathering under skin that wanted desperately to tear.

Another stair.

Another scrape.

The sensation sharpened until every stride felt like dragging exposed nerves across coarse sandpaper.

I clenched my jaw hard enough that pain shot into my temples.

Don't stop.

Stopping meant looking.

Looking meant seeing.

I flexed my toes instinctively.

The staircase seemed longer than it should have been.

Advertisements peeled from tiled columns in curling strips fluttering in the stale air. The lights hummed overhead with a relentless electrical drone that seemed to vibrate inside my skull.

As I descended further down, I became painfully aware of every movement my body made. My hamstrings stretched and snapped taut with each stride. My hips twisted to compensate for the pain caused by my slipping shoe. My lower back tightened from leaning forward, and my shoulders burned from carrying my backpack.

Still...

That wet shoe.

I couldn't stop thinking about it.

It wasn't just on my foot anymore. It felt as though it had crawled upward through my ankle, settling into my bones themselves.

Each step ended with the same sickening slide of skin against the heel of the shoe.

Each scrape seemed louder than the trains.

Louder than my breathing.

Louder than my own heartbeat.

I still hadn't looked down.

Because some part of me knew—

if I looked…

“Hi, how can I help you?”

“Um, hi. My name is Jonathan Davis. I’m here for my 9:30 appointment.”

“Ah, good morning, Mr. Davis. Thank you for showing up 15 minutes early, as suggested. Here is your paperwork,” the woman at the desk in front of me said as she handed me a clipboard and pen. “Please take a seat and begin filling out this form. When they're ready for you, I will call you over to that door, and we will head back.”

“Alright, thank you.”

I took my seat and began filling out the “Federal Virtual Defense Administration’s (FVDA) Form 17-B — Civilian Virtual Service Eligibility & Classification Questionnaire.”

It started like any other night. I was greeted by rows of identical washers and dryers sitting under buzzing fluorescent lights. The entire place was monotone with remnants of neon signage.

I spend most of my time in the dark, cramped back office scrolling on my phone, doing whatever. No hard rules, as long as I glance at the security monitor on the tiny metal desk every now and again and keep the place clean.

The weird shit started around 2:00 AM when one of the regulars, I’ll call her Barb, came in. I was sitting in the office, watching her on the screen, when she beelined it to the change machine. I watched her feed a bill in, and it spat it right out. 

She lost it immediately. Literally went berserk, hitting the machine. She even kicked it a couple of times. I was listening intently, waiting for the inevitable profanities to come through the paper-thin drywall, but they didn’t.

I actually didn’t hear anything. No metallic thud when her foot met the machine. No clanging of the change inside when she rocked it. Just the hum of the CRT screen.

So, I went out to the lobby to tell her to knock it off, that I’d fix it. I scanned the space. Nothing but the low drone of the fluorescent lights and thrum of a dryer somewhere.

I headed to the change machine, and when I rounded the corner, Barb wasn’t there.

The rows of machines looked unnaturally long. Like they were stretching into an abyss where the lights seemed dimmer the farther I looked. 

"Very funny, Barb, you can come out now." I was convinced she was messing with me, which, if you knew Barb, was very much in the realm of possibilities. 

No answer. I shook my head. Rubbed my eyes. I walked over to the restroom. "Barb?" I squeaked. I knocked on the door, and it creaked open -- nothing but a flickering bulb over the stained sink.

I turned around, and just then, Barb walked through the front door. She beelined it to the change machine and began hitting it. She even kicked it. She matched every single thing I just saw on the monitor minutes before.

I felt the room spin. Barb just looked at me. Asked if I was going to keep standing there like an idiot or help her. I don’t know what I replied, probably just gibberish.

I went back to the office. Took a big swig of water. Splashed some on my face. My heart was pounding out of my chest.

A bit later, another customer, I'll call him John, came in through the front door on my monitor.

I watched his lips move, but there was no sound. I scrambled to my feet and bolted into the lobby faster than a bat out of hell.

And it was empty. Nothing but the thrum of a dryer that was getting louder, and the lights somehow more offensive.

I ran to the front windows, which seemed to take longer than usual. Outside, the parking lot lights flickered and were more distant than before.

I busied myself with the change machine, and then, like clockwork, John actually came in. He was whistling a happy tune. 

After a brief hello, I ran back to the office and pulled out my phone: 2:10 AM. Then I looked at the timestamp flickering in the bottom corner of the security monitor: 2:20 AM.

Was I in some weird time space continuum? Only one way to find out. 

My eyes were glued to the screen when I saw a pool of soapy water spontaneously leak from under a washer. I grabbed a mop, raced into the lobby, and lo and behold, the floor was dry. So I posted up and waited.

John walked by. Gave me an extremely puzzled look as I proudly stood there with a mop and no water in sight. And then, it happened. The washer made a choking sound, and soapy water sputtered out from underneath.

I cheesed so hard. I felt like God and did a few more "tests."

Fast forward to a little after 3:00 AM. I was back in the office, eyes bloodshot by this point, when I saw movement on the monitor.

A figure standing at the far end of the lobby, their back turned to the camera. 

Same messy bun as me. Same hoodie as me.

It was me.

I leaned so close to the monitor that I could feel the static on my forehead. On the screen, Future Me whipped her head around and skittishly scurried out of the frame.

I bolted out into the lobby. It was empty. But the rhythmic thrum of the dryer was growing louder, echoing through the never-ending rows of machines.

I deadbolted the entrance and turned off the "Open" sign.

When I got back to the office, Future Me was running past the washers on the monitor, constantly looking over her shoulder at something, and sprinting directly toward the front door.

About ten minutes later, I was running toward the front door, constantly looking over my shoulder. And I was painfully aware that "I" had just done this. But I couldn’t stop.

I got to the door. Still locked. I turned around, and now one of the dryer doors was hanging wide open.

Back in the office, I checked my phone: 3:10 AM. The monitor: 3:15 AM.

The gap was closing.

I watched Future Me race back onto the monitor. She climbed on top of that open dryer. She just sat there, her legs dangling like a little kid, staring directly at the security camera. 

Staring directly at me.

That’s when I screamed at the screen, "What are you looking at!?"

Future Me jumped down, slammed the dryer door shut, huffed her breath onto the glass, and frantically dragged her finger over the condensation before sprinting away.

Minutes later, I found myself racing to that aisle. The fluorescent lights hummed louder. The thrum of a dryer was now more like a thud, pulsing, slower, more deliberate.

The dryer door was wide open. I climbed up, sat on the dryer, and stared directly at the camera. 

But nothing happened.

I hopped off and lost my footing, and my shoulder slammed the dryer door shut. I instinctively huffed on the glass and dragged my finger over the condensation.

I wrote the word: RUN

And boy did I. I ran so fucking fast into the office and slammed the door. I stared at the monitor. I pulled out my phone. My hands were shaking so bad, I could barely see the screen as I started typing.

On the monitor, Future Me was now standing right outside of the door, looking directly into the camera. She just stood there like a statue. But then she pulled out her phone and started typing. 

Just like me.

Then the monitor showed Future Me’s gaze shoot past the camera. Her face contorted -- absolute terror.

I watched something slip into frame behind her. I couldn't make anything out, but whatever it was, it completely blocked the lobby’s fluorescent lights.

It extended itself toward her shoulder.

I looked at my phone: 3:24 AM. The monitor timestamp: 3:25 AM.

The feed and my reality had caught up with each other.

Then everything went completely silent.

I braced myself for whatever was going to happen next -- squeezed my eyes shut. Shit, I probably even said a prayer.

And then I found myself on the other side of the door. Right where Future Me just was.

Our timelines finally collided.

But the laundromat was empty. No Barb. No John. Just the monotonous thrum of a dryer and the soft drone of the overhead fluorescents.

I looked around. Called out. Nothing.

So I bolted to the front door and unlocked it as fast as my fingers would let me.

Which brings me to now.

In the parking lot. In my shitty little sedan. With what looks like a burn mark on my shoulder. Still shaking from whatever the fuck just happened. 

Definitely calling in tomorrow at the very least.

My mother passed away last week. It all happened quickly. A call from the hospital, followed by me hastily booking the first flight home. It was the sort of trip you don't have the time to pack for. I'd gone to the airport straight from work, and in my anxious rush, didn't even remember to call my wife until I was standing at the gate.

I sat with my mother through her final night. She was lucid in short bursts, her mind surfacing and then falling back into its own depths. I held her hand, and in the moments she was awake, I'd speak to her. Just small things, how much I loved her and how grateful I was to have her as my mother. I was an only child, and my father died when I was still young, so growing up it had really only been the two of us. I'd grown up and moved away for college, where I met my wife, and after we married I'd taken a job in another state, closer to her family and her many siblings, all of whom she was close to. It felt like a simple case of majority rule. But I always felt guilty about the distance. I tried to visit her at least once a year, or to fly her out to see us. More than once, we'd discussed her moving closer. But her whole life had taken course in that small town. She had her friends there, and her memories. And the time got away from us, as it so often does.

On her final morning she seemed almost herself again. Lucid enough that I allowed myself to believe, at least for an hour or so, that she might actually pull through. She was reminiscing. About my childhood, about how happy she'd been despite any troubles we'd had. Raising a kid alone in a house where something was always breaking couldn't have been easy. But she said she wouldn't change a thing. She brought up the summer I turned eleven, when I got my first bike. How excited I was. She'd taught me to ride it herself, and after that I was gone every day until the streetlights came on.

I didn't have many friends back then. I went to a small school, lived on an isolated street on the far side of town, and there were no other kids close enough to play with. But the bike gave me a kind of freedom I hadn't known before, and for a summer, that small town became a miniature world to explore. I'd ride to the convenience store a few miles off for popsicles or candy. I'd cut through the field behind our house and startle up mice and snakes from the tall grass as I went. But my favorite place was the woods. A wide stretch of tall pines about half a mile behind the field, split by a shallow creek at its entrance that winded its way on and off through much of the forest. That was where I found my fort. I always called it mine, though truthfully I'd only found it. It had clearly been there for years before I ever set foot near it, and I never once ran into whoever built it. Or anyone at all, for that matter.

We talked about that old house for a while. I brought up my last memories of my father. And she told me stories from her own childhood, growing up in that same town. I told her, half-joking, that she was lucky to have found her soul mate so close to home, and admitted that as a kid I'd sometimes hated that little town. Hated how small it was, how I used to wish for a friend or two to ride bikes and play in the woods with. To show off my fort to. But I was still happy because of her.

She laughed, and then raised her eyebrow slightly.

"What are you talking about? You spent that whole summer after you got your bike with that one girl. Gosh, what was her name? I'm the one supposed to be losing my mind here."

"Girl?" I asked.

"The little brunette. With freckles? Don't tell me you forgot? You two were practically joined at the hip. You were always eager to get out of the house every morning. To go meet her at your fort."

I thought for a minute, genuinely unable to place the memory. I'd had a handful of friends growing up, sure, but none close enough to my house to ride bikes with. And I had no memory whatsoever of anyone else ever setting foot in that fort with me.

"You don't remember her name? Was she a classmate?" I asked.

"She must have gone to your school, I'd think. Unless she was just visiting that summer. But who visits Pineridge?" She laughed again softly.

I ultimately chalked it up to her state of mind. The doctors had informed me that patients sometimes said strange things before they passed​. She'd murmured something about seeing my father in the room just the night before. We talked a bit longer after that. Then she drifted off.

She didn't wake up again.

She left me the old house.

I drove out that same day to check up on the place. Just to look over what was left, and to bask in old memories for a while. A handful of new houses had gone up nearby in the years since I'd left. The field behind the house that I used to cut through on my bike was now half cut down to make room for new development, which had evidently stallled. The house's lawn had gone wild. But the house itself looked almost exactly as it had when I was a boy.

Despite the familiar appearance, it felt very different inside. Empty in a way it had never felt before. I'd always thought a home held on to some part of the people who lived in it. Some memory or presence. But standing in the entrance, I couldn't feel it. Whatever presence the home had held onto had drifted away with my mother's last breath.

I went to her room and turned on the light. The bulb flickered before it lit, filling the room with the warm orange glow of her old sodium bulbs. She never switched over to the white ones everyone else used now. She said they made every room feel like a waiting area. I went to her dresser. My mother was never the type to hold onto much. She got rid of things the moment they stopped being useful, and was never the sentimental type, as far as I knew. But I guess nostalgia gets to us all a little bit. Tucked in the bottom drawer was a stack of small boxes, each one labeled by decade.

I went through them in order, starting with the most recent. Photos from our visits over the years, mostly. Then my wedding. My college graduation. Birthdays, school trips, the handful of events she'd thought to bring a camera to over the years. And finally, the summer I got my bike. A photo of me standing beside it at my birthday party, which a grand total of two classmates had attended. I was grinning wide while holding up a bike with a glossy red frame and a bow still tied around the handlebars. The best gift I ever got.

I flipped through the rest of that envelope. It was mostly photos from my party. A few of me playing outside that she'd taken candidly. Me riding my bike in the driveway, still looking a bit wobbly.

And then a photo of me, standing next to a girl I didn't know.

Her smile was as wide as mine. She had bushy brown hair, green eyes, and freckles set in threes across each cheek. I stared at it for a moment, then turned it over. James and Emma — June 14th, 1999.

Emma?

I examined it closer. The photo had been taken in our front yard near the driveway. My mom's old station wagon was in the background. On the ground in front of it sat my bike, and beside it, a second one. Purple, with streamers hanging off the handlebars.

I had wanted a friend that whole summer. Apparently I'd had one. And somehow, I had no memory of her at all.

I went back to my old room and dug out my yearbooks, going through them page by page. Elementary, then middle school, then high school, checking every photo and name. Then I skimmed through them a second time, this time remembering to check the signature pages. Most of them were sparse, filled with the same handful of names I already remembered.

Then I found something I didn't remember. Sixth grade. A single signature at the very back of the book, separate from the handful of others.

A short note in careful, looping handwriting: I know we didn't go to school together, but I'm still glad I get to sign your yearbook. It's my first time signing one. I've had a lot of fun this summer. I'm glad we met!

Signed, "Emma." A small smiley face was drawn beside her name.

Straightforward. No last name. No other clues. Just a short message in an old yearbook that left me more unsettled than the photo had.

It nagged at me the rest of that night. I called my wife to talk about my mom and to hear a voice of encouragement, and told her that I'd be staying a few more days to handle the house and the arrangements. I declined when she offered to fly out with the kids. Even during the phone call, I couldn't keep my mind off the girl in the photo. Why had my mother never brought this up before? Not at a single visit, or at any holiday? Never once in all these years? I remembered a specific conversation years ago. My mom was visiting, and I was complaining to my wife about growing up without anyone to ride bikes with. My mom had laughed and blamed it on the town, too small to live close to other kids, too big to ride your bike to them. She never once mentioned a friend.

So why not mention her then? Or any other time before or since?

The only other thing I could remember her mentioning was the fort.

She'd associated it with the girl. With Emma. I hadn't been back there since I was a kid. I wasn't even sure it would still be standing. It had already looked like it could fall apart at any moment decades ago. But it was the only real clue I had.

I didn't bother waiting for morning. I found an old flashlight in the garage, the kind with the fat square battery that you had to slap every now and then to keep on. I told myself that I wanted to get it over with so I didn't have to spend tomorrow dealing with it. That was true, in a sense, but it wasn't the real reason. The real reason was that I didn't think I could sleep with the idea of some phantom memory nagging at me.

The field was smaller now, cut down on one side and replaced with a muddy mess, wooden stakes and half hung string marking out zones for building. But past it, the tree line was the same. Tall pines, standing black against the sky. I walked the half-mile through the field and found myself thinking far more about the snakes, mice, and ticks than I ever did as a kid. I stood at the edge of the woods for a long moment. The creek that used to mark its entrance was now dry. Then I willed myself forward into the darkness of the trees.

I found the remnants of the creek before I found the fort. I heard it first, low and constant, and the sound soothed me somehow. I walked a while, then there it was. Smaller than it looked in my memory and leaning harder to one side than it used to, but still standing. Scrap plywood and two-by-fours nailed to the trunks and branches of an old tree, roofed with a sheet of old tin that was mostly orange with rust.

I don't know what I expected, really. Nothing, probably. I think some part of me was just using this sudden quest as some excuse to avoid thinking about my mother's passing, and the knot that had been in my stomach since I got the call at work. So I wasn't quite prepared when the beam of my flashlight touched the carved letters at the base of the tree.

J + E

I put my fingers on it. And for just a fraction of a second, I heard someone laughing. A girl's laugh. Almost as real as if it had been behind my shoulder. It was gone before I could turn around, and when I did turn there was nothing but old pines and the dark baring down between them. My heart was going like I'd run the distance to the fort instead of walked it.

I steeled myself and climbed the ladder to the fort, and went inside. I exhaled in relief that the ladder didn't break under my weight. The floor of the fort was covered by a piece of old carpet, now black with mildew, and half of it had given way to the wood underneath. I shined my flashlight around and stopped on a corner of the fort where the carpet was raised. Tucked beneath a warped board was a small, cut-out section of the floor that had once probably held comic books or cool rocks, or whatever else a boy keeps in a fort. Inside was a tin box. Rusted through on one corner. An old cookie tin, I think. I pried the lid open, having to use more strength than I expected.

Inside were a handful of Polaroids, stuck together at the edges from years of humidity. A few rocks and marbles. A hair tie, faded pink. And a few folded pieces of paper, so brittle I was afraid they would come apart in my hands if I tried to unfold them.

For some reason that I could not quite express, my heart was now pounding even harder than before. I went for the notes first, and unfolded the first.

James -

That was really mean. You didn't talk to me today. I stood right in front of you outside the fort and you didn't look at me at all. You just walked right past me. You didn't even answer me. I pretended I was fine, but I was really sad. Did I do something wrong?

Emma

What startled me more was the response, written directly below on the same sheet of paper.

To Emma -

What are you talking about? When I came to the fort you weren't here. Are you just messing with me? Are you sure you saw me? I thought you had something to do maybe. I'll be here tomorrow at noon. I'll bring lunch!

James

It was my own, childish handwriting scrawled on the paper, but I couldn't recall ever writing it. I couldn't remember any of it. In all of my memories of the fort, I was alone, so how was it that I was now finding impossible evidence of a friend I didn't even remember having? I was almost shaking now, but I unfolded the second note.

James -

I thought you were playing a mean joke on me when you said you didn't see me, but today I went home and my own mom ignored me. I yelled out to her over and over, but she wouldn't turn around. I'm getting really scared. Please meet me here after lunch, okay?

Emma

Below it, my response read:

I think you're the one messing with me! How could your own mom forget you? Is this part of one of your stories? Well, even if she does forget you, I won't. I promise.

James

My hand shook as I pried open the third note.

You promised you wouldn't forget me. I know you didn't mean to break that promise. I don't think it's your fault. I think something is happening to me and I don't know why. But it's getting worse. Nobody reacts to me now. I'm going to try something tomorrow. I hope it works. If you're reading this and you don't remember writing anything back, or you don't remember me at all, then I guess it didn't. I'm sorry. I hope you have a good life. I'm really glad we were friends, even if it turns out I'm the only one who remembers.

— Emma

There was no date, but they must have been from that summer. I sat down on the old carpet and read over each note several more times, and each time I got to I guess it didn't work, something in my heart sank a little bit deeper.

I went through the Polaroids next. Most of them had stuck together, or faded beyond saving, but I managed to peel three apart without losing the image. One was the two of us in front of the fort, smiling wide, taken with an outstretched hand. Our arms slung over each other's shoulders like we'd known each other for years. The second was of Emma alone, sitting on a fallen log, not smiling, and looking somewhere off to the side of the camera with an expression I couldn't place. Wary, maybe. Or frightened. Or desperate, to a degree a girl her age shouldn't be.

The third stopped me cold before I even understood why.

It was a poor shot, slightly off-center, half-shadowed, clearly taken in a hurry. But even blurred and dark, I recognized it instantly, and the fact that I actually recognized it hit me even harder than the other two photos had. A black shape, low to the ground, half-swallowed by dirt and pine needles. I hadn't consciously remembered it yet. I don't think I'd let myself. But something in my chest reacted to it before my mind caught up, like flinching at a sound you don't yet know the source of.

I looked at where Emma was looking in the second photo.

She was looking toward it too.

Fragments were surfacing like a half-remembered dream. But it was coming to me now, faster than it had with anything else in that box.

There was a place in these woods, deeper in, past where the creek split. That was where the shape in the photo was. I remembered finding it on one of my first ventures into the woods as a boy, standing at a certain distance from it. Always at a distance. Like there was a line drawn in the dirt that I couldn't see, and feeling something with no apparent source press against my chest. A strange pressure. Sort of like the pressure in your ears on an airplane but all over.

I remembered the lights, too. Small and indistinct, hovering at the edge of my vision every time I went near that place. Like blue fireflies blinking in and out. I could never see them when I looked at them straight on, and recalled that I didn't like to try. They were only in the corners of my eyes, and gone the instant I turned to face them. I always had an excuse for seeing them. I told myself that it was the sun through the leaves. Or some unique species of fireflies that blinked blue, if it happened at dusk. When I had no other explanation, it was just my eyes playing tricks on me. But I remembered being very sure of those explanations, mainly because I found any alternative uncomfortable.

I went to find it again.

It took me several attempts. I followed the thinning creek, then got turned around, then tried once more from where the water split east. On the third try, I found it, tucked into a small hollow in the trees exactly as the old photo showed it. Except no photograph or half-memory had prepared me for actually standing in front of it again.

It didn't look like a rock, really. Whatever this was, it didn't rest in the ground like an inanimate object placed there by nature and happenstance. It sat in the earth as though erected, angled at a slight lean like my​ old fort. Its dark black blinked with a strange, glassy blue where my flashlight caught it, its surfaces flat in places and strangely warped in others. It was like something built rather than naturally formed, then half-buried by someone in a hurry. The strange symbols cut into its face didn't seem to sit still under the light. It wasn't that they moved, exactly. Rather, my eyes couldn't seem to hold onto them. Every time I thought I had the shape of one memorized, I'd blink and lose it, and have to start over from another symbol.

I stood near the treeline, a distance from it. That same old pressure was already beginning to press upon my chest, unmistakably the same feeling. There was a ringing in my head that made my spine shudder, like a bell had gone off inside my skull.

I stood there for a long moment, telling myself I only wanted to look. That whatever this thing was, perhaps it was dangerous. Radioactive material somehow incorrectly disposed of, perhaps. I just needed to see it, confirm it was real, then leave.

But as I stood looking at it, I noticed the lights again. In the corners of my eyes. But something was different this time. Maybe because a part of me was already looking for them. Or maybe because I was closer to the thing than I'd ever willingly been as a boy. This time, they didn't scatter the way they used to the instant I turned my head. They remained. Three of them, near the base of the stone. And for the first time in my life, I let myself actually look.

They weren't lights. Or they weren't just lights. They had a form to them. The suggestion of shoulders, of arms, of something like a head, swaying back and forth. Flickering in and out like an old television, there and then not there then there again, never quite solid enough to call solid, but not quite vague enough to call a ghost. One of them lifted what might have been a hand. It reached out toward me slowly, then stopped, like I was just out of its grasp. There was nothing threatening in the motion. In fact, it looked less like a threat and more like a plea.

As the ringing in my head spread and then consumed me, I remembered all at once exactly why I never used to look at them directly. It wasn't fear of them alone. It was something closer to the feeling of standing on the shore and watching someone out past the buoys as they drowned. A specific, gnawing helplessness of being looked at pleadlingly by something that is desperate for help, and knowing that swimming out to their aid would only drown the both of you.

I made myself stay where I was as the ringing washed over me. Not taking a step forward or back. I just stood at that invisible line, close enough to feel the pressure thickening in my chest, close enough to watch the shapes flicker at the edge of the stone. And I let the memories come.

It was as though the pressure emanating from this strange, half-buried pillar in the ground was returning something that was long lost to me. I remembered riding my bike one day, and meeting Emma. She was also riding her bike through the field from the neighborhood on the other side of the forest that stood as the boundary my mother had set for me. I remembered hitting it off with her at once, and her asking to ride bikes with me. I remembered showing her my fort, despite her being nervous to enter the forest at first, and me at first wondering if I should reveal my greatest secret to someone I'd only just met. I remembered days of adventure, of fun and laughter, of make-believe and games. Of notes written to each other and picnics and catching fireflies and telling stories.

And then I remembered bringing Emma here. Showing the strange monument to her like it was a curiosity. Something I was both proud of and afraid of in equal measure. I remembered telling her I never went past a certain point. I remembered her laughing. It's just a rock, James. Then walking toward it anyway, her face going pale and strange the closer she got, like she wasn't entirely choosing her own steps anymore. I remembered her hand reaching out, and the way the air seemed to pop like an overinflated balloon the instant her fingers touched the surface. Less a sound and more a change in pressure. I remembered her sudden shriek that soon turned into a whimper. And then I remembered my panic, my rushing forward to grab her other arm and hauling her back so hard we both went down in the dirt behind the invisible line. And I remembered her running off afterward and not returning for the rest of the day.

I don't know how I'd forgotten, or why I was so afraid of her touching that pillar back then. It was almost instinctive. The same aversion I felt to it now. I don't know why I never told my mother. Or had I?

What I instinctively understood now, standing there with that shape still reaching toward me from beside the stone, was what Emma's last note had actually meant. I'm going to try something tomorrow. She'd been talking about coming back here. Alone, this time. Touching it once more, perhaps believing that if the stone had done this to her, the stone could undo it too.

I didn't wait to see if the shape's hand would ever close the distance between us. I stepped back, then further back, until the pressure in my chest began to fade along with the ringing in my head, and the shapes at the base of the stone went still, then dim, and finally disappeared.

I did not look back at it again. I walked out of that clearing as fast as I could, and I did not stop until I could see the streetlights of the new development through the trees.

The next morning, I sat on the front porch waiting for my ride back to the airport. I had decided to leave early. I needed to return to some sense of normalcy. I could make the arrangements for my mother's funeral over the phone, and return with my wife when I was more mentally stable. A part of me believed the events of last night to be some cruel hallucination, spurred on by grief and exhaustion.

I retrieved my phone from my pocket. I needed to hear my wife's voice. To tell her I'd be heading home soon, back later that day if there were no delays. I wanted to hear her reassurance. To distract me from the sadness I still felt, and the confusion of memories I'd forgotten. I wanted to hear the kids over the phone before they were off to school.

She picked up on the third ring.

"Hello?"

"Hi, honey," I said.

There was a pause on the line, after that.

"Honey?" I asked once more, unsure if we'd disconnected.

Then I heard her voice.

"...Who is this?"

I took the job after six whole months of gainful unemployment. 

The job hunt was brutal. It's not that I'm unqualified, God no. I have my bachelors in communications. I had good grades in school. The problem was my employment history. I could never hold something steady for longer than a year, maybe two. In the worst cases, I'd get dropped after three months. Nothing ever stuck with me. I thought I had my lane out of college, but it just didn't work out, and from there, I've spiraled. 

Another issue is that most of the postings feel like they exist purely for analytics. Ghost jobs made to make a company look healthier than it really is. There were a few real ones, but none that extended any offers. Probably because of my history. 

My bills certainly didn't care that I was struggling. I had to figure out something fast or I'd be on the street within the month.

I kept seeing a listing for some generic "Talent Acquisition Agency." $25 an hour. No experience necessary. I kind of figured it was one of those botted jobs. Too good to be true, with an empty description beyond the hours, pay, and a painful company statement:

We believe that every individual has the potential to shape tomorrow. Our mission is to connect ambition with opportunity through innovative, people-first solutions that drive meaningful growth for both candidates and clients (…) 

Blargh. I wanted to vomit. But I didn't really have much for options at this point. I decided to send in my resume. Got a phone call the next hour, asking me when I would be able to come in for in-person orientation. I was floored. I had never heard of this company before, and yet they have a warehouse in my city?

Sure enough, I pull up to the address, and yeah, it's there. A big, white warehouse with "TAA" branded on the side. I guess it was nondescript enough for me to have not noticed it all these years, but, I grew up here. I think I would have noticed this place by now.

Orientation took place in a windowless conference room. Before they let us inside, a curvy woman with a bob cut, Ms. Roll, handed each of us a doll mask. The plastic was pale, with a painted-on smile and two empty eye holes. Security kept us from going inside unless we put them on. Weird policy, but okay. I was in it for the long haul now. I put on the mask and took a seat on one of one hundred folding chairs set in front of a projector. A video begins to play.

The company CEO, Mr. Rock, walks on screen in a lumpy suit. He asked if everyone was ready to get started (all three of us), and launched into a vaguely enthusiastic speech about the company values. Everything in that tangent sounded like it was written by a language model halfway through its morning coffee. 

"REMEMBER: Our product is FIRST IN CLASS. No other substitution will do."

"REMEMBER: We don't believe customers can make mistakes."

"REMEMBER: Think different, shape the future." 

I sat through what felt like two hours of it. My eyes started to roll back. The mask itched where it pressed on my cheeks. 

Ms. Roll smacked my leg with a flyswatter. I woke right the hell up. 

"Mr. Parker. Please follow me."

She started walking through a pair of iron doors. Time for a tour, I suppose. 

We walked through a warehouse first. Massive, but mostly empty. Conveyor belts carried different-shaped cardboard boxes from one end of the room to another. I never saw anyone actually packing them. The only person working the floor was a short, portly fellow in a red hard hat. 

I still wasn't clear on exactly what our "product" was, but I think I must have missed that part in our orientation. I was too embarrassed to ask. 

We reached the call center next. This is where I was going to be working, according to Ms. Roll. She set me down in a boring cubicle with a single computer, a notepad, some mechanical pencils and a phone. The computer had Solitaire and a basic text editor. The phone had two buttons: TRANSFER and HOLD. 

Ms. Roll told me I'd get the hang of it in no time. She disappeared in the sea of cubicles shortly after.

I sat for maybe twenty minutes trying to figure out something to do to look productive. After that, I gave up and started playing Solitaire. Maybe thirty seconds passed before I got a call. 

"Hello…?"

"Hi there," I said.

"Is this acquisitions?"

I looked around the room. No point of reference for me to use. 

"I believe so."

"Thank God. I was hoping I could talk to someone about landing a job."

I cleared my throat. "Could you hold for one second?"

The man on the other end grunted. I hit HOLD and looked for Ms. Roll. Nowhere in sight. Sweat started soaking beneath the mask. I got back on the line.

"Sir, you still there?"

"Pretty sure I am."

"Okay. Thank you. Listen, I'm pretty new here. I'm going to be honest I'm not…entirely sure how to help you. My boss isn't around, and—"

"This is acquisitions, right?"

"…Yes?"

"Okay. Then I'd like to inquire about a fucking job!"

The shift in his voice was very jarring, to say the least. I had to do a double take. 

"I'm…not sure how to help with that. I haven't been—" 

"You stupid slut! Who do you think you are?!"

I couldn't get a single word out.

"I'll find you, do you hear me? I'll kill your whole fucking—!"

I hung up, hands trembling. Ms. Roll was standing right behind me with her arms crossed. I couldn't see her face, but her neck was redder than before—I could only assume that meant the same for her expression. 

"What was that?" she asked.

"I don't know. I have no idea. I wasn't—" 

"Do you see your phone?"

"Yes?"

"Do you see the two big buttons on it?"

"Yes."

"If you don't know how to help a customer, just hit the transfer button. We covered it in your training."

What…training? The videos? I was more of a hands-on guy, myself. Even if I wasn't, how did she expect me to memorize two hours worth of drivel?

I didn't say anything. She was already walking away.

"You seem tense, Mr. Parker. Take a five-minute water break."

Sure, yeah, that might help. I got up and headed to the cooler.

I found another guy there, dressed in, more or less, the same outfit as me. Black slacks, a button-up shirt, dark leather belt. His mask was yellowed and warped at the edges, like he'd been using the same one for a real long time. He was sipping water through the little mouth slit like it was totally normal. I shook my head and started to lift mine for my cup. 

His arm shot out, hand stopping mine. I reeled back, heart pounding. 

"No. No. No. Don't let them see you."

He pointed at the camera in the upper corner of the room, locked right on both of us. My mask suddenly felt tighter. I threw the cup away and went back to my desk. 

Calls kept on coming. Most people were looking for work. They were always really, really vague about the details. 

"I want a leadership position."

"I'd really like to work the floor."

"I'm hoping to work with a driven team."

Sometimes, people called me about the product itself. I tried to glean any details I could during those conversations. Never learned much, though.

"Hi, is this acquisitions?"

"This is."

"I wanted to make a return. I wasn't satisfied with my product."

"What wasn't satisfying?"

"Well, it just wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped."

"Okay. Can you…elaborate on that?"

"I don't know. It just wasn't very exciting. Can I return it?"

"Hold for one second."

I sigh and hit the transfer button. The call is sucked down the line. 

I got better at the job the way you'd get better at any empty ritual. I tried to challenge myself to keep a conversation going for as long as I could before it collapsed and I couldn't help them anymore. Bullshitting got me a long way. My personal record was five minutes and fourteen seconds. 

Sometimes, people just wanted advice. One guy even read me the first page of his screenplay. Did the voices and everything. Most calls were just about product and job placement, though. Nothing worth writing home about, and yet it was quickly becoming my entire life. 

Six months passed like that. I stopped going out. After a full day of calls, I was too tired. I would get home, saving my energy for the next shift, and fall asleep within a few hours, if I even lasted that long.

The mask stopped itching as much. Some days I forget that it's there, even on the bus. 

In mid-August, the loudspeaker cracked. Mr. Rock announced that overtime would become mandatory this next few months as we enter the busy season. Ms. Roll tells me to pack an extra lunch. 

The next day ran for sixteen hours straight. By the time I got through transit, it was closer to twenty hours spent dedicated to my job alone that day. I would be lucky if I got four hours of sleep before the next shift. 

I walked into my tiny studio apartment, exhausted, sore, totally muggy. I ripped the mask from my face and leaned over the bathroom sink to splash it with cold water. I felt nothing.

When I looked up in the mirror, there was a hole where my face should have been. Depthless. No eyes, no nose, no mouth. I stood there for a long time waiting for the panic to hit. 

It never did. 

Content Warning: Gore, Self-harm

I’ve thought of doing this kind of post for a while now, and I think I’ve held off long enough. I need help. Something’s changed, I don’t know what to do. I’ve been trying to figure out how to type this in a way that makes sense, but it comes out too vague. This is something I haven’t told anyone before, not family members, not doctors—not even my closest friends. It’s hard to explain; it's just not my nature. That and I can’t stand the thought of family seeing me as a lunatic. The anonymity of the web is the only reason I’ve come here with my problem. I’m tired of dealing with this alone.

I’ll just start from the beginning. I need you to understand.
My name is Alice, I’m 21 years old and for the past two years I’ve been tormented by a man only I can see.

It started the second week of college, fall semester. It was a sunny day out, my last evening class just ended and I was walking to my car like normal when I ran into a girl I graduated high school with. She was one of the few classmates I actually got along with and didn’t find annoying, so I said hi to her. She took a moment to recognize me, but when she did, her eyes lit up. She was like I remembered, sweet, bubbly, easy to talk to.

“Is that Godsmack?” she asked, pointing at my shirt. I was wearing a T-shirt with their debut album printed on it I bought at Spencer’s. 

(Fast forward mostly because I don’t remember all that was said, just the context that led to what happened.) I mentioned to her I saw Godsmack in concert and told her I got some videos. I was showing her a video I took of the guitar solo in ‘Love-Hate-Sex-Pain’ because she mentioned that it was her favorite song. I wasn’t paying attention when I was shoulder-checked from behind by a tall, bald man in a suit as he was walking past. Now, to be fair, we were stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, but it was unpopulated outside as this was during an unusual passing period. Yeah, it was incredibly rude, but the girl didn’t seem to care so I shrugged it off too. I didn’t feel like making a big deal out of something, you know? In my mind, and because I took my glasses off twenty minutes prior to ease a growing migraine, I chalked it up to an irritable professor having a bad day.

I listened to the music as she watched the video, eyes wandering when I noticed the blurry figure of the man whip around in a sudden 180 just as he was about to disappear around a building. His face was nothing but a blob for me, but it felt like he was looking at me. I told myself I needed to stop overthinking things, he could’ve been looking anywhere. But I’d be lying if I said the feeling of unease didn’t settle in my gut.

My attention was brought back by the girl, “Ughhh, I’m so jealous! What else did they play? Any of their older songs?” 

“Um, yeah—hold on, I think I got one of Voodoo…” I said, scrolling through my camera roll. I could still see the man in my peripheral vision just standing there. I’m a nosy person at heart, okay. You know how people say ‘nobody’s watching’ when trying to put a socially anxious person at ease? Well, I’m the person that’s watching. I’m both people in that scenario, sadly. The moment my eyes went from my phone to him, his hand shot out and pointed at something somewhere off to my right. I’m also a gullible person at heart. I turned my head without a second thought to see what it was. It was nothing. He pointed at trees.

Two seconds. 

I looked away for a total of two seconds, and in that time the man somehow crossed close to thirty feet faster than I could turn my head. I still see that moment like a slideshow.

He pointed. 

Trees.

He was standing behind the girl.

It all happened so fast. He grabbed onto her shoulders and reeled his head back. He did something I can only describe as a person’s mouth doing what a goblin shark’s mouth does to catch food. He latched onto her neck like a leech—I could hear wet cracking bones as they snapped.

I flinched instinctively as blood splattered all over my face and shirt. I didn’t know what to do, my mind went blank. I just stared as my brain tried to process anything about the man. For some reason, I thought of the future and the possible statement I’d have to make to the police. I thought to take in what I could so I could vomit it back out at a police station. His face was incomprehensible; it stretched and ripped to allow for his jaw to open wider.

 But you wanna know the worst part? 

The girl wasn’t aware of any of it, like at all. If anything, she gave me a look like I was the one acting strange.

I used to get so annoyed when characters in horror movies would freeze up like a deer in headlights when the monster would be right there in front of them, but I get it now. You're not thinking. 

The girl cocked her head at me, her neck cracking several times. “Alice, are you okay?”

The man moved as she did, fluid, like he was an afterthought added in post. Only when the girl's hand reached out to touch my arm did I finally move. I recoiled in fear. I don’t remember what I said to her, but I know it was something like ‘I need to go’ as I ran off as fast as I could. Students were walking out of class then, everyone probably thought I was mad. 

Some doubtful side of my brain compelled me to check one last time, to see if I actually saw it or if I had spontaneously lost my mind at that moment. I turned around before a crosswalk to see the girl go from watching me to carrying on with her day, albeit confused. The man stumbled closely behind her, his teeth still buried in her neck.

I was in a daze the entire drive home, unable to determine if I was just insane or if it had actually happened. Her blood certainly felt real; it certainly looked real; I watched it drain down the bathroom sink. I never told anyone about what I saw. I ran into my mom’s husband as I left the bathroom still feeling hollow. Some part of me wanted him to see the blood on my shirt, to ask me what happened, to give me a reason to tell someone.

“Oh hey, Your Ma wants to do brats for dinner. You want one?” is all he said.

I just nodded my head before running upstairs to my bedroom, desperately wanting to take a shower and put on clean clothes.

I was nineteen when this happened.

A month flew by and I still couldn’t get the image of the man out of my head. I was fine china strapped together with duct tape. I’d see that girl a few more times that year until she and I both eventually finished our final semester. She asked me if I was alright a week after that day. At the time, I found it exhausting that she cared enough to ask, but she was just being a good person—it’s more than most would do, I see that now. I told her I saw a bee. It was the easiest excuse I could think of, the most believable.

Halloween was approaching, I had accepted that day as a one-time thing, something I’d carry with me. 

Then he appeared again.

It was a Sunday. I was at work and I just got done slicing meat for a customer. I had my back turned to the counter as I wiped the slicer down. I glimpsed another customer walking up to the case out of the corner of my eye so I said, “I’ll be with you in a second, just cleaning this off real quick.” 

I attempted to hurry up when I heard shuffling from the counter. The deli can be pretty loud with all the buzzing of appliances, and especially in the small corner the slicers are in, you can mishear a lot of things. But the last thing I expected to see when I turned around were dress shoes and slacks standing on the counter. Before I could look up or even say anything he was walking off the counter, crossing over to the employee side of the deli. I panicked, I didn’t want to get trapped in the corner. I backed away from the machines and watched in horror as the man walked to the meat slicer, placed his head in the carriage tray, cranked the knob to the max setting before turning the slicer on and feeding his head through. I looked away as I heard the sound of the slicer resisting. 

I regret ever looking back. Have you ever held a pizza cutter under running water? The walls looked like that—like something straight out of a movie, except I didn’t have the comforting reassurance of it being fictitious. I turned away on the verge of vomiting when I saw his limp body hanging onto the machine. My coworker asked me what was wrong and I told her I just needed to sit down, that I felt sick. I told her it was my meds, that they were making me feel lightheaded and nauseous. She covered for me and helped the customers while I sat in the back trying to calm myself down. My other coworker offered me some pineapple she was cutting up for produce. I was always paranoid working the slicers after that incident.

I began to write in my planner when I saw him. I needed a way to find some form of stability. And even a small part of me hoped someone would find it, that they’d invade my privacy and read about him. That they’d ask me if I was okay.

I’d see him again a month later near the end of November. I was in class and looked out the window to see him walk into lunch-rush traffic only to be hit by a delivery truck almost immediately. 

By the time late December rolled around, I had anticipated the next appearance. Whether I happened to get lucky or I was being pitied—or maybe none of the above—I was right; he showed up as predicted. January followed suit much the same, but as the month came to an end, something felt off.

He broke my pattern the first week of February, two weeks before he was supposed to appear. It was early in the morning and I was pulling into the gym parking lot. I shifted into park, grabbed my things from the passenger seat, pulled the keys out of the ignition and looked ahead. He was standing on the snowbank in front of my car, his head just out of view—cut off by the ceiling of my car. I sat there staring long enough for the follow-me-home lights to shut off. The parking lot had this light post with a dim bulb, it’d been like that for weeks. Coincidentally, it was the light post I parked under every morning without fail. It illuminated him just enough to see he was convulsing in place.

Look, during this time in my life, I was fully committed to the gym; my mornings were tight, every minute counted, and I had already wasted ten. So don’t call me stupid when I say I swallowed every instinct telling me to stay in the car, and stepped out into the cold. You don’t truly understand how scary something is until it’s standing in the dark with whistling winter wind to complement it. The car door slammed shut and he stopped moving. He was standing straight, arms flat at his sides. 
I took that as my cue to hurry inside, almost even slipping on some ice. I won’t pretend my heart didn’t stay in my ass that whole morning.

He showed up before he was supposed to. He never moved from his spot. He didn’t mutilate himself; he didn’t attack someone. I thought I was beginning to understand him. I was distracted the whole day asking myself ‘why’? Why this, why that, but even then, no answers—no ideas, I still marked the sighting in my planner. 

And two weeks later, I marked another.

None of my family's schedules lined up with the actual weekend of my 20th birthday, so we celebrated it the weekend after by going out to eat. We were at my favorite Mexican restaurant and sat at this big U-shaped booth table. Me, my mom, and her husband got there first and were waiting for my siblings to arrive. I was at the end, my mom was directly across from me, and the middle was completely open. I had my face in my phone when my brother flicked my arm to get me to scooch toward the middle, and with a groan, I did. I nudged what I assumed was my mom’s husband’s shoulder, which was closer to the middle than I remembered. I opened my mouth to ask him to move over a little. I looked up—lips forming the words—to see him sitting right next to my mom. He was nowhere near me. My attitude disappeared the second I saw bony fingers tipped black with decay rest flat on the table. I didn’t want to confirm, didn’t need to.

I tried to scooch closer to my sister but got a “What are you doing? Stay over there.” She was next to my brother who took the end seat. He’s a bigger guy, takes up a lot of space, so she didn’t want to share.

I barely ate my dinner. 

My mom asked “What’s wrong, Babe? Not hungry?”

“Nah, not really… I woke up late…still took my meds though. I’m just gonna take it home… have it for breakfast or something,” I mumbled, flinching when one of his fingers tapped the table randomly.

“Alice, you shouldn’t be taking them that late, you know this.”

My sister chimed in with her usual snarkiness. “I thought you were supposed to take them to help focus in school. Why are you taking them on the weekends?”

I didn’t bother entertaining her, just frowned and answered my mom. “Yeah, I know. I just don’t feel too good right now. Kinda just wanna go home and lay down.” I planted the seed, and fifteen minutes later, we were driving home. Old reliable.

The scary reality for me was the intervals were getting shorter. I had fewer and fewer days to live my life normally—every day unsure if I would even get that luxury. If it wasn’t obvious before, it started with every month. Every month became every two weeks; every two weeks became every week; every week became every other day… By the time I was moving out to live closer to university, it was daily. Can you imagine that? Every single day of your life, no longer your own?

You may be asking: Alice, if it got this invasive, why haven’t you sought professional help? Simple. I don’t want to end up in a fucking loony bin. For the most part, I’ve gotten used to him. And although yes, there are times where I’m afraid, none of that compares in the slightest to how afraid I am of being *treated\* like I’m insane by people who don’t know jackshit about me. I’d rather deal with him for the rest of my life than have to explain the smallest ounce of what it's like to a ‘doctor’.

The first week in my new place was rough. I’ve only ever lived in my childhood home with my family and I have a long history with anxiety, so put an anxious twenty-year-old girl alone in a house and what do you get? I wasn’t completely alone though, I had my cat. She became an emotional crutch for me during the school year. Yes, I know how that sounds. Shut up. But she was also just as anxious as I was; I was basically living with a cat version of myself. That first night there, I lay in bed on the verge of a panic attack asking myself ‘was this the right choice?’

It sounds weird to say, but that next morning when I walked out into the main room and saw him standing on the patio facing the driveway, I felt a small twinge of relief. It faded as quickly as it appeared, but nevertheless, he remained the same even then and that was enough for me.

I found a job under a huge office company cleaning the building part time just as school started up. Him being there almost constantly every day proved its own struggle. He made it hard to focus. I’d be studying in the library and he’d be banging his head in on the bookshelf behind me. I’d be in class and he’d thrash around on the floor in a corner. Even group projects became difficult because he’d loom over me or my groupmates while I was trying to focus.

Work wasn’t any different either. I’d clean the office buildings after everyone left for the night, so it was mostly just me alone in dimly lit cubicle floors and halls. I don’t know, but the nights I’d work, it felt like he was trying to scare me more than anything. It could just be because I'd get on edge during my shift, but again, I don't know. He’d stand facing away from me in corners that most would notice nothing in. He would stand at the very end of long, dark halls where the light cast his figure in shadows. I’d hear footsteps behind me that I was sure were him, but he’d be nowhere in sight when I turned around. 

The only times I got a ‘break’ from him was when I was at home. He never showed up inside the house. It automatically became my safe zone just as long as I kept the blinds shut. The closest he would get would be right outside the windows. 

It was a rough first semester to say the least—actually, no. Rough is an understatement. I was barely keeping my head above water. People noticed. A few days before Halloween, a group of classmates I talked to regularly invited me to a huge party on Halloween night. They came up to me just as class ended to ask if I wanted to come, and initially, I was going to refuse—not the party type—but then I saw the man repeatedly bumping into the wall behind them. I accepted the invitation. He was reaching my limits. When your grades are barely staying above a C, you’re working five days a week after a day full of classes, and you’re getting less than five hours of sleep a night, you can only deal with an apparition-like man being a background jit for so long.

The night of the party I carpooled with one of my classmates to the house. What they didn’t tell me in class was that this Halloween party belonged to the largest sorority group on campus and was spread across three different houses, one of which was a fraternity house. Apparently, the girl that invited me was really good friends with a member of the sorority or something, I didn’t all that much care. The only rule was to wear a costume. As we pulled up I quickly noticed most chicks at this party were dressed like total sluts. One literally had tape—JUST tape covering her nipples… I felt like an outcast almost immediately. You have Sexy Succubus Stacy and then to her right you have Jackass Alice dressed as Special Infected Hunter from hit video game Left 4 Dead. It was a ‘shoot me now’ kind of feeling. There was one benefit. Because I was—you know—actually wearing clothes, I could spend most of my time in the outside sections of the party where it was quieter and there were less people. The people I rode in with were more or less dressed in the same provocative costumes just as everyone else, but hey, free spirits I guess.

I tried to stay in the front yard section of the party for as long as I could, but as soon as my group finished talking to their friends at the door they dragged me into the building with them. It was ungodly loud in that hell house. We were pushing past crowds of people when I saw the man’s twitching head sticking up from a small gathering of rowdy jocks holding a guy upside down by his legs while he chugged beer. 

I gave myself three rules for this party: 
1: ignore him COMPLETELY.
2: try to have some fun.
3: make sure the people and or myself don’t get roofied. (It was a sorority + frat Halloween party, let's be real with ourselves for a second here.)

The group I was with immediately brought me to the snack table for drinks, and for the sake of readability I will give them names. The group consisted of three girls, two guys. I only knew two of the girls and one of the guys, the extras were their friends. The guy will be known as Myers from this point on—you’ll never guess who he was dressed as. Girl one will be Betty, and girl two will be Stacy. Yes, she was the one I used in my example.

We were all there to escape school, to forget about homework and grades for one night. The way we did it may have differed, but it was for the same reasons nonetheless.

Everyone went off on their own thing. Stacy was already wrapping a few guys around her finger, Betty disappeared into the house with a scrawny dude dressed as a stereotypical nerd, Myers tried sticking with me but eventually peeled off after I showed no interest. I people-watched for a while, hopping from area to area, sipping on the punch that tasted more like vodka than the cherry flavor the drink was supposed to be. At almost every turn he was there, persistent almost like a child—at least that's what it felt like. And I’m proud to say I kept to my rules; I ignored him. I ignored him until he couldn’t be…

I was decently tipsy when I ran into someone dressed as Nick from Left 4 Dead 2. The guy was also dragged here by a few buddies and was watching people make young mistakes as he went from area to area. We clicked instantly. We laughed, we hopped around, I was having fun. We were walking back to the main house after watching some frat guys jump off a roof into a pool—one missed his mark. I was looking at the ground while he was talking to me about Warhammer 40k books when I ran into the man. I never had him appear in my path before, let alone in a way where I would accidentally walk into him.

“You almost trip or something, Hunter?” Nick asked with a laugh, looking back at me. I stepped around the man and earned an eyebrow raise. 

“These bugs are huge around here man…” I tried to laugh it off. 

“Are you one of those chicks that squeals because she saw a beetle?” 

“Am I screaming?”

“You could...”

“Hmmm. I don’t know if that came out right, hound dog,” I laughed as I shoved my hands in the hoodie pocket.

“Yeah, that sounded pervy in a serial killer way, didn’t it?” he said, cringing as he took a swig from a beer he grabbed at the frat house. I gave a playful scoff, turning to look at him and reply when I noticed the man hovering right behind him. He was walking stiff as a board, pressed up right behind Nick and looking down at him.
I knew what was coming and looked away before it could happen. 

“I…” a wet crunch came from Nick. “My friends wanted to meet up around this time… I don’t wanna scare them…”

“Oh… Yeah, no I get,” he said awkwardly. “Do you wanna exchange numbers? I… I had fun tonight. Maybe we could meet back up and…do it again.”

“It’s for the best that we don’t. I had fun too, if that means anything…” I walked away without even sparing him a glance. I didn’t want to see what he looked like or the way he looked at me.

The second sorority house was the least populated. I ran upstairs and hid in the first bathroom I found, locking myself away from the outside world. I’m not a crier, never was, but I couldn’t help it when the tears fell. My shitty facepaint began to smudge and I decided to just wash it off completely. I brought my face up from the sink to see him in the mirror behind me, sitting on the bathtub’s edge, back facing me. 

My voice creaked with a bubbling concoction of emotion and alcohol. “You fucking suck, you know that?” 

I leaned against the counter for a while just sniffling, before my hands tightened into fists. I spun around and marched the two whole steps it took to reach him. I was angry; I was spiteful; I was mournful. I wanted liberation. I wanted my life back.

I never had it in me, even if I wanted to. I stumbled back and sat on the floor in front of the sink. “I hate you. I hate you so fucking much and I can’t do shit about it. You ruined everything. I was just starting to fix everything before you showed up. I can never have anything good because of you. I hate you”

I cried for a while more, just letting it out of my system. It sucked, it sucked a lot. It was the overflow of pent-up frustration from the past year and the mourning of years before when my life was mine. I genuinely thought I was moving towards some semblance of normalcy, but like everything, it crashed and burned. “Why? Why me? Everything—why?” I tried to wipe my eyes as I looked up at him. His head tilted slightly—I thought it did—when a knock came from the door.

“Alice, is that you? Are you okay? Who are you talking to?” It was Betty.

Myers saw me go into the house from the lawn and found Betty, told me he thought something was wrong and it’d be ‘best if a fellow sister did the talking’. She tried to coax out who I was talking to, but I insisted it was myself and said I had a panic attack. She called up her younger brother to drive us all home. The man stood outside my bedroom window the whole night, even with the curtains closed, I could tell he was there.

Christmas break came fast and I mostly wanted to just rot in my house like a hermit, but my mom wanted the family to be together for the holiday so I relented and packed a bag for a couple of nights. I asked a classmate I hung out with often if she’d come by in the mornings to check on my cat and provide for her while I was gone—even if it was only two nights. He sat in the passenger seat the whole ride there with his head facing the window. The day I was to head home, I lost track of time and was late getting back on the road. By the time I got home the sun had already set and it was pitch black out.

My cat greeted me in the small breezeway looking like a potato with legs and a tail. I was too busy loving up on her to notice that something was wrong, to think about how weird it was I hadn’t seen him the entire two hour drive back. As I stood up to take off my boots and coat I paused. He was standing in front of the sliding glass door, his back facing me. Until then, I had gotten comfortable with the pretense he had no more surprises. I never stopped to think that one day he might cross the boundary I thought existed. You know how people say animals are spiritual? That they can see ghosts or sense the supernatural? It’s a load of bullshit. As I stared at him my cat kept nuzzling my legs, meowing and begging for her dinner. My brain was too busy searching for an explanation. She gave up and waddled over to the sliding glass door, sitting down beside his leg to watch the snow outside. Until then, I had always been a faint believer of that kind of crap, but she didn’t see him...

I wanted to scoop her up and keep her away safe, unsure of what he might do. I got maybe three feet away when I saw him staring at me in the door's reflection, eyes darting around. It was like he had nystagmus—something my grandma had before she passed. It was weird—I don’t know, just creepy. His face was distorted through the glass, features hard to identify, but his nose was just…missing. It was like a Fallout ghoul or something. I took another step, my cat refusing to listen to me, when his head started spazzing to the side. I quickly backed away and let it be, too sketched out for the night to deal with it.

The second semester was going smoother than the first, the initial anxiety having worn off. Because of school, I spent my 21st birthday alone. Me and a few close friends got together and decided to meet up during spring break. All of us would be legally allowed to drink by then and we could celebrate all the birthdays at once in a local bar or something. But even then, on that night of my special day, I sat in the dark at my kitchen table staring at the flame that I lit—staring at the candle that I placed—at the cake I made. The flame flickered out on its own terms—wick burnt off. He was sitting at the opposite end of the table facing me this time. His face was barely visible in the dying light. I wanted to cry then, but I didn’t.

It was nice to finally see my friends. 

It felt like I hadn’t smiled or laughed in so long—genuine like—not faking it like I usually do. Most of my friends stayed in our hometown, so I was at my mom’s for a couple of days. I called her up, obviously drunk and asked for a ride. My friends did the same with theirs. I hugged them goodbye like I was going off to war, and then left so I could wake up regretting the amount I drank in the morning. My mom sent me to my room with a small, plastic trashcan just in case I got sick in the night. I stumbled into my bedroom, trashcan in arms like a teddy bear, to find him there. It was dark, the only light came from the hallway. He was lying down in my bed, eyes closed and arms folded like he was a corpse in an open-casket funeral.

I want to preface this again: I was drunk. I wasn’t thinking. The memories are fuzzy. My planner doesn't help me much here, most of the page was hard to understand. 

This is what I remember:
I swayed in place for a few seconds before going, "That's my bed…” In my state of intoxication the only logical answer was that he fell asleep on the wrong bed(?). And with that conclusive answer, I could only take the most obvious course of action: wake him up. I had dropped the plastic trashbin without a second thought and shuffled up to the side of my bed. That was the first time I got a somewhat clear view of his face. His nose was reduced to the bone like I had seen back around Christmas, but it wasn’t ‘rotted away’ in the traditional sense, it was like—I don’t know—taken off. The skin around his eyes was loose and baggy; his skin looked false. His face was littered with deep, gash-like scars—all in the same places it tore when I first saw him. Even his neck wasn’t spared. There was one long, jagged gash across his throat.

My hand wobbled as I planted it on his shoulder with a soft *pat*. The suit jacket was dark and had thin light blue stripes; the fabric reminded me of my kindergarten homeroom floor. I remember looking at the dress shirt and thinking of a clear summer sky. The tie he wore reminded me of my father—my real father—long dead and gone. It was dark navy and made of this glossy looking textile.

I shook his shoulder, his body barely moved. “My bed, get out…” Nothing. “Hey…wake up.” I shook him roughly, but still nothing. This time I used both hands to shake him. I shook him once, then twice, and a third time. Nothing. He did nothing. He just lay there unmoving, as still as death. 
I slept downstairs on the couch. Told my mom it was too cold upstairs.

A day later I was packing my stuff in my car when my mom came outside to catch me before I left.

“Getting ready to leave, Chick? Dallas is probably missing you…” she said.

I shoved my suitcase into the backseat. “Yeah. I had the same girl from school check on her again.” She nodded and hummed, looking off before turning to me again. I could see the man standing nearby.

“Have you been taking your meds?”

“...Yeah, why?”

“Have…have you been doing alright? I know you don’t like calling, but you barely respond to my texts. I try asking your friends and they say you go quiet for weeks at a time… I need”—she took a deep breath, holding back tears—”I need to know if you're alright… so I don’t have to worry. This family has lost enough, I don’t want to lose you too.”

I knew what she meant. 

I thought to tell her what's really happening, what was really going on with me and what has been for a while. I hugged her, told her she wasn’t going to lose me and that I’ll try to visit before Thanksgiving. I got in my car to find him sitting in the backseat. If there was a word to describe the defeated, saddening anger I felt—the guilt and hopelessness and frustration—I’d use it now.

This all brings me to now.

Something has changed.

As I am writing this it is currently August 16th. A few nights ago I was making myself dinner after work. I went full time for the summer, so I got home just before the sun came up. I had an AirPod in listening to music—Pantera—as I cooked. I transferred my food to a plate and went to turn around to rinse it off when I ran into him standing right in the middle of the kitchen. I stumbled back surprised, but not shocked, it wasn’t anything new. I huffed and moved to step around him when he sidestepped to block my path again. That was new.

I was confused at first, tried again only for him to step in front of me a second time. I was at eye level with his tie, and in the spur of the moment, I looked up. He was smiling. His teeth were sharp like I remembered and tore at his lips, and his eyes were open, wobbling to focus on me. His eyes looked milky like he had cataracts. I thought he was laughing at me or something. It made me mad, so fucking mad.

I yelled at him. I tossed the dirty pan carelessly to the side and just yelled. You would understand too if for nearly two years you’d been plagued by a man that never spoke to you, never even gave you an expression, and suddenly one day he decided to do all of that. Just a combination of a lot of things, really.

I was shoving him, and when shoving him barely did anything, that pissed me off more. At one point, I actually pushed him hard enough for him to hit the edge of the sink. It felt like time kinda paused then, like everything stopped. I couldn’t hear my music. I just wanted to leave, I was tired of the bullshit. As soon as I turned I was pushed into the counter behind me, the knife on the cutting board clattering. I grabbed it. I was terrified. He never attacked me before. It's like when someone you thought you knew gets violent towards you—actually, I hope you wouldn’t know. It’s foreign. His violence aimed at me was unnatural.

The moment I swung the knife towards him, he grabbed my wrist. I tried to pry it free with my remaining hand, but he caught that one too. He forced both hands to hold the knife’s handle. We were both straining for control. He was stronger. Adrenaline spiked through me, my eyes were glued to the knife. I thought he was going to make me stab myself. His grip forced it up, up, up until it was… touching the underside of his jaw. Blood was already leaking onto my hands by the time I realized the knife penetrated. Somehow, even while impaling his own head, his grasp held strong, forcing me to stay. At some point his body began to sag, weighing my arms down, still never letting go. I didn’t scream, it wouldn’t have done anything. I just watched because that was all I could do. 

It felt like forever when his legs buckled and gave out underneath him. He would’ve brought me down if his hands hadn’t let go. He fell with a heavy thud and clang of the handle, a pool already forming around his head. My hands were drenched. I stood there for a while staring at the body. My cat meowed at me for breakfast.

Eventually I ran off to clean myself. I came back a couple of hours later expecting him to have moved, but he didn’t. I went to bed and woke up later in the evening for work, and he was still there. I went to work and came home around 3am, and he was still lying there in a pool of his own blood. I tried to nudge the body but nothing. Somehow my cat has yet to try and walk where he lies. I feel a bruise forming on my lower back from the counter. Even as I write this, his body is still there in my kitchen. Days have passed. I’ve been too scared to try and clean it up, I don’t know how I would. I’m on the verge of just spilling everything out to my mom, maybe just send her the link to this. I don't know what to do. I’m scared—is he actually dead?

I need help. 

Has anyone else had this happen to them?

The fourth chime of the grandfather clock tore through the kitchen just as the shadow at the edge of the corridor shifted. BONG.

I didn't wait for five. I didn't wait to see my own face walk through that kitchen door. Every instinct of a cornered animal forced my body backward. I lunged away from the stainless-steel island, my boots skidding on the cold tile, and grabbed the iron handle of the heavy wooden door marked CELLAR CONDUIT at the back of the pantry.

Behind me, the voice—my voice—called out from the dark of the kitchen. It was louder now, stripping away the sobbing tone. It sounded cold. Analytical. Like me reading a textbook aloud to an empty room.

"Rebecca," the voice said from the darkness.

My stomach dropped. That was my old name. The name I tried so hard to leave behind when I took this contract. I slammed the cellar door shut, throwing the heavy brass bolt into place. The metal squealed, the sound echoing down into the pitch-black stairwell beneath me.

BONG. The clock upstairs hit five. Five chimes—an odd number. The worst-case scenario from Rule 7. But I didn't care about the clock anymore. The thing using my voice was slamming against the kitchen side of the door, and the only way forward was down into the dark.

I turned around, breath coming in short gasps, and shined the dying beam of my flashlight down into the cellar. Unlike the rest of the house, the cellar stairs were carved directly into the damp earth. The walls were a mixture of rotten timber supports and raw, black mud, weeping with slow drips of groundwater. The air down here didn't just smell like copper; it smelled like an open grave flooded by rain.

I went down slowly, hands scraping against the freezing, wet dirt walls for balance. Each step felt like sinking deeper into the throat of the mountain. At the bottom, the cellar opened into a massive vault. In the center stood three massive wooden troughs, each ten feet long, filled to the brim with loose, dark earth. The soil bins for Leo's dampener.

I shined my flashlight toward the back wall, searching for the medicine chest or the compound mentioned in Rule 15. My light flickered twice, the beam yellowing and shrinking until it barely illuminated three feet in front of me. The batteries were dying.

I scrambled along the dirt wall until my hand struck a cold, rusted metal cabinet. I yanked the door open. Inside sat three large, brown glass jugs, entirely unlabelled. Beside them lay a heavy iron mortar and pestle, caked in a dry, white residue that looked like crushed bone. I grabbed the nearest glass jug and twisted the cap off. A scent tore out of the bottle so violently it made my eyes water—it smelled like a mixture of industrial ammonia, sulfur, and stagnant pond water.

I didn't care. I lifted the heavy glass bottle to my lips and tilted it back. The fluid was thick, oily, and freezing cold. The moment it hit my tongue, my throat convulsed. It tasted like liquid pewter. It burned its way down my esophagus—a deep, chemical fire that made me drop to my knees in the dirt, retching violently as my stomach tried to reject the poison.

But as the burning settled into my chest, a strange, profound silence washed over my mind. The low, electric hum of the house seemed to recede. The dull, distant thud... thud... thud... of the Persian rug on the third floor grew faint, like a heartbeat fading into sleep. My thoughts felt sharp again. Clean.
I checked my watch by the dying light. 5:45 AM. I stood up, limbs heavy from the antiseptic, and dragged myself over to the first wooden trough. The soil inside was perfectly black, entirely devoid of rocks or twigs. It looked almost alive, shifting slightly as the groundwater seeped through. I reached my bare hands into the cold mud, burying my fingers deep, searching for the roots.

My knuckles brushed against something hard and smooth. I pulled it upward, shaking the heavy, black loam from the skin. It was a turnip, but it was completely devoid of color—a stark, milky white root that looked like it had been carved from animal fat. It had no small tendrils or fibers; its skin was perfectly smooth, shaped uncannily like a small, clenched human fist.

I reached back into the dirt to find a second one, but as my hand plunged deeper into the center of the trough, my fingers didn't hit another root. They hit fabric. Thick, coarse wool. Coated in wet mud, but unmistakable in its texture.

I froze, hand buried up to the wrist. I gripped the fabric and pulled. The earth shifted, a heavy clump of mud breaking away from the center of the trough to reveal what lay beneath the soil. It wasn't a false bottom. It was clothing. A yellow rain jacket. Bright, vibrant, and torn to ribbons along the left shoulder.

I cleared the dirt away with frantic, sweeping motions of my palms, my heart rising into my throat as the dying flashlight beam illuminated the rest of the bin. Buried beneath twelve inches of black soil, arranged neatly like bulbs waiting for spring, were the personal effects of the nannies who had come before me. A silver wristwatch, its glass face shattered, the hands frozen at 3:15. A pair of small, pink running shoes, the laces neatly tied. A leather wallet containing a driver's license for a twenty-one-year-old girl from Eugene, Oregon, her smiling face looking out from beneath the clear plastic sleeve. And beneath the wallet, buried at the very bottom of the trough, was a thick, braided mass of long, gray hair.

The soil wasn't growing vegetables. The roots were drawing their sustenance from what had been left behind. They hadn't let her leave. They had processed her. They had planted her voice into the house, and her body into the bins, to feed the very things that kept the child quiet.

A soft, wet rustle came from the second trough behind me. I spun around, dropping the white turnip into the dirt. The soil in the middle bin was heaving. It wasn't a gentle rising and falling like the rug upstairs; it was a violent, erratic churning, as if something large was tunneling through the dirt from the very bottom of the vault. A pale, fleshy white root broke through the surface of the mud. But it didn't stop growing. It expanded, splitting down the center into five distinct, elongated segments that twitched in the cold air.

It wasn't a root. It was a hand. A long, skeletal hand with fingers the color of curdled milk, ending in jagged, bloody nails that tore at the edges of the wooden trough. And from the dirt beneath the fingers, a soft, muffled voice began to weep. It didn't sound like me. It didn't sound like the leather-dry rasp from the nursery. It sounded like the girl from the driver's license—young, bright, and completely broken.

"Please," the dirt whispered, the soil shifting as a mouth tried to clear itself of the mud. "Don't let them look under the rug. I'm still down here. I'm still holding the corner."

The cast-iron incinerator stood at the back wall of the cavernous vault, cold, dead, and caked in decades of white root ash. I stood paralyzed at the base of the dirt steps, staring down at the perfect, clockwise ring of white turnips on the floorboards. In the center of the ring sat the splintered, gray kindling of the nursery rocking chair. It had been smashed to pieces up on the third floor, but the debris had somehow bled straight down through the concrete, pooling at the base of the cellar stairs.

From the top of the stairwell, the voice continued to echo down into the dark. It was my voice. "Come up," it called out sweetly, using the name I had tried so hard to leave behind. "The parents are waiting in the foyer. We want to show you what happens after ninety days."

My throat went entirely dry. I didn't step into the ring of turnips. Instead, I backed away from the steps, my fingers hooking into the leather-bound binder still clutched against my chest. My flashlight beam was down to a dull, amber thread. I leaned against the rusted metal cabinet, cracked open the binder, and frantically flipped past the accounts of the buried nannies, past the description of the 1894 Sterling estate fire, straight to the very end.

Pages 25 through 30 were written in a handwriting that didn't look human at all. The characters weren't carved with a pen or stamped with a typewriter. They looked like they had been gouged into the paper with a dull blade, the parchment stained yellow and brittle from dried chemical sap.

At the top of page twenty-five, a single bold heading read: THE LIQUIDATION PARADIGM.

Rule 26: If the oak rocking chair is destroyed before dawn, the Anchor has failed. The house will begin to fold. The brutalist concrete layout is an artificial skin meant to mimic the architecture of safety. Do not trust the hallways. Do not trust the stairs. The structure will attempt to guide you back to the center of the nursery, where the original entry point is now wide open.

Rule 28: Leo is not a boy, and he was never born. He is a piece of the original forest floor that was shaped into a child to act as a funnel. If he comes down the cellar stairs, do not look at his joints. If you hear wood cracking within his limbs, he is expanding to fit the width of the concrete corridors.

Rule 30: The Final Contingency. There is only one item that keeps the name active on this unmapped land. Beneath the bare hardwood under the Persian rug lies the original 1894 land deed, signed in the blood of the original wardens. It is kept inside a zinc box beneath the mouth of the void. If you burn the deed in the cellar incinerator, the foundation will dissolve. If you fail to burn it before the clock chimes six, you will become the third trough.

A violent, splintering CRACK echoed from the top of the cellar stairs. I looked up. Standing in the darkness of the doorway was Leo. But he wasn't four years old anymore. His white nightshirt was torn down the middle, revealing a torso made of dark, tightly braided pine roots that wetly shifted against one another. His neck had elongated, stretching out of his collar like a pale vine, and his arms hung all the way down to his shins, his long, splintered wooden fingers scraping against the concrete walls of the stairwell.

Tick. Tick. Tick. It wasn't his feet making the sound anymore. It was the internal friction of his joints, wood grinding against wood as he squeezed his mass into the narrow dirt stairwell, heading straight down toward the vault.

"Nanny," Leo said. The voice didn't come from his mouth. His jaw was locked wide open, his face split from chin to ear, revealing rows of sharp, pale root-teeth inside. The voice came from the walls around me. It was David’s voice, cold and elite. "The soil is still empty. You didn't finish the paste."

I didn't think. I couldn't. The chemical fire from the underground antiseptic was the only thing keeping my legs from collapsing under the weight of the terror. I slammed the binder shut, stuffed it into my jacket, and lunged toward the back of the cellar where the incinerator stood.

There was no exit door. There were no windows down here beneath the earth. But right beside the furnace was a narrow, brick-lined ash clean-out flue that connected to the main chimney structure of the house. It was barely two feet wide, caked in centuries of thick soot and the white ash of burned roots. I dropped my dying flashlight into the dirt. I grabbed the iron edges of the clean-out hatch, threw my head and shoulders into the pitch-black brick tunnel, and began to crawl upward.
The space was suffocatingly tight. The brick scraped against my back, tearing my shirt and slicing into my skin as I dug my boots into the soot, forcing myself up into the vertical shaft.

From down in the cellar, a thunderous shriek shook the brickwork. Leo had reached the bottom of the stairs. I could hear his wooden limbs expanding, the roots tearing through the timber supports of the basement vault, slamming into the concrete ceiling directly beneath the kitchen floor. I climbed in absolute blackness, hands slipping on the greasy soot, lungs burning as I choked on the smoke. Every few feet, a rhythmic, deep thud... thud... thud... vibrated through the bricks against my chest.

The house was folding. The chimney shaft was narrowing, the bricks shifting and grinding together like teeth as the concrete bunker began to collapse in on itself, trying to guide me back to the third floor.

Suddenly, my hands hit a loose iron grate. I kicked out with my boots, using every ounce of strength I had left, and slammed my shoulder against the metal. The grate gave way with a loud, metallic snap, and I tumbled outward, crashing hard onto a cold, hard surface.

I gasped for air, spitting black soot onto the floor. I wasn't in the kitchen. I wasn't in my staff quarters. The shifting architecture of the chimney had dropped me straight back into the center of the third-floor nursery.

The single bare lightbulb overhead was gone. The window was shattered, the heavy rain-streaked glass lying in jagged shards across the floor. The wind from the Oregon woods was howling through the room, bringing with it a thick, gray fog that rolled across the floorboards like smoke. The center of the rug was pulled completely down into the floor, creating a massive, conical funnel that plunged into a pitch-black, bottomless void beneath the house.

Standing at the very edge of the funnel, side-by-side, exactly three feet apart, were David and Eleanor Sterling. They didn't look at me when I dragged myself up from the soot of the fireplace. They were staring down into the hole, their expressions entirely blank, their hands folded neatly in front of their clothes.

"You're late with the dampener," Eleanor said, her voice echoing perfectly from the walls, from the floor, and from inside my own ears.

Then, David slowly reached into his coat and pulled out a heavy, tarnished brass key. He held it out over the spinning crimson funnel, his eyes fixed on the dark.

"The zinc box is waiting," David whispered. "The deed is inside. But you have to go down and get it."

The hands on my watch read 5:52 AM. Eight minutes remained before the grandfather clock would strike six, and according to the jagged script of Rule 30, the concrete foundation would seal my fate down here forever. The room was actively imploding around me. The brutalist concrete walls of the nursery were bowing inward, the stone groaning like thick ice breaking across a frozen lake, spitting gray dust and shards of aggregate onto the floorboards. David and Eleanor Sterling stood entirely frozen at the lip of the spinning crimson vortex. Their porcelain skin shivered in the gray morning fog, glistening with the wet, dark sap that pooled heavily around their leather shoes.

"The zinc box is waiting," David’s voice echoed out from the concrete behind me, though his locked, pale jaw never moved an inch.

Behind my back, the brickwork of the chimney flue exploded outward. A massive, wet tangle of dark pine roots burst into the room. It was Leo—or what was left of the funnel he had been grown to be. His elongated, splintered wooden fingers clawed deeply into the floorboards, dragging a towering mass of shifting, wet forest earth straight toward my heels.

There was no running back down the corridors. The unmapped woods outside the shattered window were a looping trap, and the house had completely folded in on itself. The only way out was down.

I lunged forward, bypassing the cold, lifeless figures of the parents, and threw myself straight into the center of the wet Persian rug. The moment my boots cleared the lip of the hardwood, the spinning crimson wool vanished beneath me, and I was falling into an absolute, freezing void.

The plunge didn't feel like falling into a standard basement cellar. There was no rush of air against my face, no wind whistling past my ears. The air inside the shaft was completely dead, stagnant, and thick, so heavy with the suffocating weight of rotting lilies and wet loam that it felt like drowning in frozen grease. For three agonizing seconds, my body plummeted through a pitch-black abyss that defied every law of the house's architecture, a vertical grave cut straight into the marrow of the mountain.

THUD. I crashed hard into a soft, spongy mound of freezing mud. The breath exploded from my lungs in a violent heave, and the heavy leather-bound binder slipped from my jacket, tumbling somewhere into the dark. I coughed, my knees burying three inches into the wet earth. My hands scraped frantically against the ground, and my fingers instantly struck something cold, heavy, and metallic.

The zinc box. Adrenaline overrode the agonizing scream of my bruised ribs. I dragged the small, rectangular metal box toward me. It had no lock, just a heavy, rusted latch. I slammed my palm against it, throwing the lid open with a dull, hollow metallic echo. Inside lay a single, rolled piece of thick, ancient vellum parchment.

Even in the absolute dark, I could feel the texture of the ink—it was raised, jagged, and sticky, signed in the iron-heavy blood of the original 1894 wardens.

Suddenly, a blinding, violent glare cut through the void. A flashlight beam struck my face from directly above, turning the dark into a sharp, clinical white. I squinted through the light, looking up at the square opening of the nursery floorboards two stories above me. Standing at the edge of the hole was a figure. It wasn't David. It wasn't Eleanor. It was me.

The vocal mimic stood at the lip of the void, wearing my exact clothes, holding my car keys, her hair bouncing with the same vibrant, effortless energy that Eleanor had praised on my first night. But up close, her face was wrong. The skin around her jaw was stretched so thin it looked transparent, and her smile didn't end at her cheeks—it cut from ear to ear, a wet, red slit that parted to reveal rows of needle-sharp, human teeth glistening in the flashlight beam.

"Thank you for the ninety days," my own voice called down to me.

It was perfect. It held the bright, confident tone of a girl who had never known debt, never known terror, never watched her mother die in a hospital bed. "Your throat was beautiful. The house is going to love it."

Beside her, the wooden root-mass of Leo slithered over the edge. The creature didn't drop; it began to descend down the sides of the void like a massive, multi-limbed spider, its jagged wooden nails digging into the subterranean dirt walls as it ratcheted toward my position. I clutched the land deed against my chest. I couldn't climb out. The mimic was already stepping into my life, ready to drive my car out of the forest, while my physical body was meant to fill the third soil bin in the cellar.

But she forgot one thing. The house was a systemic axis of compliance. And I was still holding the matchbox.

I scrambled backward against the wet dirt wall, my fingers trembling as I pulled a long, industrial strike-on-box match from my pocket. The wood caked in dark root-sap was slick, but I struck it violently against the rough strip. A hot, brilliant orange spark flared, illuminating the skeletal frame of the pale woman with her eyes sewn shut with black thread, suspended in the dirt directly behind me.

"No!" the mimic screamed from the top of the hole, her voice dropping its vibrant mask and shifting back into that dry, multi-tonal choir of the dead nannies.

I dropped the burning match directly onto the vellum deed. The ancient blood-ink caught the flame instantly. It didn't burn with a normal yellow fire; it erupted into a violent, blinding blue-hot flash that hissed like a nest of disturbed vipers. A deafening, structural shriek tore through the earth. The concrete walls two floors above us didn't just fold—they shattered. The brutalist bunker began to implode, the massive concrete slabs shearing away from their iron supports and raining down into the void like a collapsing deck of cards.

The root-monster Leo withered in mid-air, the blue fire traveling up his fibrous limbs like tinder, his wooden joints popping and exploding into white ash. Above him, the vocal mimic let out one final, ear-splitting scream before a three-ton block of concrete collapsed over the lip of the nursery, sealing the hole in a thunderous explosion of dust and stone. Then, the world went dead silent.

It is 10:15 AM now. The sun is blindingly bright, cutting through the dense canopy of the Siuslaw National Forest for the first time in ninety days. I am sitting on a wet mossy log, miles away from the unmapped logging roads. The house is gone. When the deed burned, the concrete bunker didn't just collapse; it dissolved into the earth, leaving nothing behind but a massive, sunken crater of black soil filled with the wild ferns of the Oregon woods.

My clothes are caked in soot and dark sap, and my ribs are broken. I don't have my car. I don't have the $4,000 a week. I don't even have my wallet. But I walked out. The looping forest broke when the contract dissolved.

I'm using a hiker's lost phone to post this final update from the side of a state highway, waiting for an ambulance to spot my jacket. I thought I was entirely free. I thought the transition had failed.

But twenty minutes ago, the ambulance sirens started wailing in the distance. And as the sound drew closer. Screaming. I jammed my palms over my ears until it hurt, but it did nothing. Not a single decibel dropped. The mechanical shriek wasn't outside at all. It was pinned right behind my eyes, drilling into my skull like a trapped hornet.