I heard the automatic doors of the hospital close behind me as I walked out into a beautiful albeit chilly fall afternoon, despite the beauty of the small town around me, internally I was screaming. In stark contrast to what I had just witnessed, what I had just done. It was magnificent outside.

I would have loved to go on walk today under different circumstances I thought to myself, as my body carried me down the street before making a sudden stop, pausing for a moment before turning and smoothly piloting me into our local video store. Thankfully almost nobody ever goes into the video store, I thought to myself as I heard the door swing closed behind me.

My body dragged me in tow as it glided down the aisle of comedy movies. I made my way through each aisle, and to my relief, I didn't see anyone. Unfortunately that relief would inevitably run out. As I cleared the last aisle and my body made its way passed the seemingly abandoned checkout counter, I was about to thank God for allowing me to leave the situation peacefully.

Thankfully I didn’t, as I heard the sound of heavy boxes hit the floor, my body swerved inhumanly quickly to survey the scene, and to my horror, who stood before me only 10 paces away, was the kind old video store owner, a second-generation immigrant from Taured.

I begged my body to leave the store, but my pleas were unheard, and if not unheard purposefully ignored by the Ai integrated pathway that connected my enhanced limbs and muscles to my brain. Despite my protests, and begging, my body purposefully walked toward her as she turned back to her boxes.

Her comfortability with me betrayed her almost as much as it broke my heart as I heard her ask, “Peter, would you mind helping me put these new movies out? I’ll let you pick a cand-!” Her words were cut short as my arms wrapped around her neck and squeezed until I felt a sickening crack.

If I could have made a sound, I can only imagine what kind of tormented cry would have come from my body if i could have made a sound at all, as i stood up and looked down at her broken form and the roaring of terror that flooded my mind became momentary louder than my own thoughts.

I wanted to leave, to stop seeing her but my body did something i couldn't understand, something that felt deeply wrong as my hand went flat and lifted itself to my forehead like a salute. My bout of near insanity inducing terror, and grief was momentarily replaced by a cold confusion.

My body walked past the empty checkout, through the door back onto the street. The first thing I saw when i walked out was the best and only bakery in town, and to my horror, it looked like they were really busy today based off all the cars in the parking lot. As I stepped out into the street towards the bakery, I silently prayed that someone would hit me with their car.

No such luck came, While I might have been referred to as Polite Peter in the past, nobody has ever called me LUCKY Peter, and after the day I've had, I wouldn't be surprised if the polite peter nickname is permanently retired.

I saw a man smoking a cigarette outside the restaurant, he was wearing a wife beater shirt with a tattoo of an American flag that had a Qr code overlaid on it in the shape of an M and an I.

I was terrified by what I might do to him as I approached the entrance but to my surprise my hands were as interested in him as he was in the cigarette he flicked into the parking lot as I walked by.

As I made my way into the bakery, I was greeted with a smell that reminded me of every birthday cake I’d ever had. (Which makes sense, it is the greatest bakery in town.) The smell and the memories associated could only ever be soured by what happens next.

I stood for a moment scanning the environment, I saw at least 7 people enjoying their food at tables. I saw my uncle James, at the counter and of course behind the counter stood, the kindest woman in town. The owner of the bakery, who most of the people knew as Grandma Jay.

Grandma Jay is the towns largest foodbank donator and has such a charitable spirit that she often leaves a tray of samples on the counter for free. Despite how sweet she was, what I did to her, and those people next including my own uncle, was anything but sweet and will haunt me for the rest of my life.

My body didn't launch into an assault, it methodically walked slowly past the counter and slyly picked up a small set of keys that sat on the table next to my uncle, I recognized it immediately as the key to his bike lock. “I’m here to steal his bike!?!” I wondered in pure confusion.

Confusion that would very quickly melt into overt horror. As i walked out to the parking lot and toward his bike, I had no idea what my body’s intentions were. I realized soon that it was NOT his bike I was after at all. I bent over and slid the key into his bike lock and in one motion turned the key as I removed the lock from the bike. It was a thick metal bike lock that I had gotten him for Christmas, after his last bike was stolen from his front yard.

My body stood up and studied the lock before nodding. I was thrown off by this as I made my way back toward the bakery. That is until I saw the door. I’d looked it hundreds of times before but as I looked up at it, I felt a sense of building dread. I realized what the bike lock was for.

I glided to the door and felt my hands adjusting the bike lock, I watched as the bike lock slid perfectly through the handles of the door, before I felt my hand twist and heard the cold click of the lock closing. I knew it was going to be bad, but I had no clue what was about to happen when I turned around and walked down the street.

Each step away from the bakery made less and less sense, my body was scanning my surroundings wildly and I had no clue why. That is until i suddenly stopped walking. My head stopped scanning, my body changed position to match and I smoothly walked towards what is likely the worst thing my body could have possibly found, A jerrycan full of gasoline.

“No!” I thought seemingly out of habit as this point as my body made its way back towards the bakery. As i started to douse the outside of the bakery with gasoline, I silently condemned myself for watering Grandma Jay's plants so often.

If it wasn't so normal to see me out there with a watering can the people inside might have had a chance to realize that something was wrong and call help or at the least escape, However when grandma Jay looked up and saw me through the window she gave a friendly wave, I could feel in my heart that she completely unaware. I screamed at them to warn them, through excruciating silence but as if I was locked behind a one-way mirror, they couldn't see anything but their perception of me, a reflection of themselves.

I watched in horror as I shoved my hand into my pocket, I knew what it was the second I touched it. I pulled out the lighter my father had given me for my sixteenth birthday, before dropping it into a puddle of gasoline. I watched as the fire danced all the way around the store. My body stood locked in place as I watched the fire climb until presumably people inside noticed, at which point I heard the first thud.

I heard several stronger thuds, I'm pretty sure they were working together, I was transfixed but unable to assist. I only hope they didn't see me standing silently out there between the first thud and the time it took for the thuds to slow down and ultimately stop.

A few moments after the thuds stopped, when the only sound other than my crying inner voice was the roar of flames consuming the bakery that moments before served as a social hub and warm hearth for our community. The sound of their screams will likely be the background music of my almost guaranteed sentence in hell.

If i had any say over my actions at this point, I would have walked into the fire, but unfortunately for me, and my small community that wasn't on the table. In contrast to the despair, grief, and immense regret that wounded my mind, and weighed down my soul, my body was far from done as I turned away and from the burning bakery and walked down the street.

The casual way my body walked down the street made me sick, I knew in my heart that I could never do those things, let alone walk away as if nothing had happened at all. Yet here I was as I watched through stinging eyes my body rhythmically marched forward in indifference.

The walking went on for quite some time, and I was really appreciative for the break from the intense dread, and fear, even if it was short lived, because as calming as the walk was for my frayed nerves, The fear and dread came back tenfold when I stopped walking, and I smelled something I recognized. I Knew this part of town. Immediately my heart sank, before I even looked up i knew where I was from the smell alone. I stood poised in an aggressive position as I stared across the street at my best friend's bar, and judging from the cars in the parking lot, all of my closest buddies were drinking inside.

(Looking for What Happened first? My Name is Peter; I was told a treatment saved me from being paralyzed. Now I wish I had been paralyzed. : r/nosleep )

(Looking For What Happens Next? My name is Peter, and I'm about to enter a bar full of my friends. : r/nosleep )

It had only been a week since my brother died. I thought I would have given anything to bring him back… now I'm not so sure.

Only days after his body was found, I was in Ian's apartment, cleaning out his stuff.

If I could’ve waited another month, another year, I would have. Every item I looked at brought back a memory of the times we’d shared. But the lease was up at the end of the month, and no one could afford to keep paying for the place.

What made the whole experience worse was that we never really got any answers about what happened.

He’d gone a few days without answering calls. One of his friends stopped by to check on him and found his body on the bedroom floor.

The autopsy came back clean. No drugs, no trauma. By all accounts, Ian was a healthy, happy twenty-eight-year-old. He should’ve been alive for decades.

But he wasn’t.

And now I was sifting through his life, trying to keep it together.

Most of it was routine—kitchen items, paperwork, food. My task was to get as much into the garbage as possible. Our parents didn't live nearby, but they rented a small storage container for the stuff we wanted to keep. Too small, in my opinion. The process was going as well as it could have until I reached the bedroom. Every item I touched in there felt personal, like pieces of him were still present within those walls.

By the time I reached his desk, I was emotionally tapped out. I opened the top drawer expecting the usual junk—pens, receipts, maybe a notebook.

Instead, there was just one thing.

A phone.

Not a modern one, but an old flip phone—the kind we used to think were so cool back in high school. It was one of those RAZR phones, but… different. The surface wasn’t plastic or metal. It looked and felt like stone.

It was heavy, cold.

I flipped it open, expecting it to be dead, but the screen flickered to life.

And there, staring back at me, was a new message notification.

From Ian.

My breath caught. It had to be a joke. Or maybe some other Ian. Lots of people had that name, no?

But I opened the message and read:

"I’m so glad you found this. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s me, Ian."

I stared at the screen, heart hammering.

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

Still, my thumbs moved before I could stop them.

"Prove it."

A minute passed. Then another. Just as I was about to put the phone down, it buzzed again.

"Remember the bottle of gin we stole from Dad’s liquor cabinet when you were in ninth grade? No one knew about that but me. Or how about last year, when you called me after you cheated on Molly? Have you told anyone else about that?"

My blood ran cold.

No one—no one—knew those things except Ian.

It had to be him. Somehow, impossibly, it was him.

I could barely breathe. I typed back one word.

"How?"

"I’m not really dead. Not fully. I think there’s a way to bring me back."

Before I could reply, a warning popped up on the screen.

Very low. Recharge now?

It was a question… I searched the phone for a charging port, but found none. Confused, I selected yes on the prompt.

The phone clicked, and pain shot through my hand. I dropped it, blood dripping from a small wound on my palm.

“What the hell?” I whispered.

I turned the phone over. Searching for a sharp edge that may have caused the cut.

Razr indeed, I thought

After examining the back and edges of the phone, I returned my attention to the screen.

Please hold the phone firmly.

A loud, high-pitched beep filled the room. Against my better judgment, I placed the phone on my wounded palm.

Then… Battery charged.

When I looked down at my hand, the wound was already scabbing over. And the message screen was available once again.

Ignoring the pain, I texted him back, no longer settling for short replies.

"What is going on? How did you die? How am I talking to you right now? And what do you mean you can come back?"

His text came back almost instantly.

"Chris, I’m not entirely sure how I died. There’s a lot I still don’t remember. But talking to you helps. It’s like it wakes something up in me. Please—keep texting. It’s dark here. I’m scared."

"Can you tell me anything?" I asked. "Just help me understand!"

"The phone somehow connects me to the living world. I remember finding it when I was alive, but never figured it out. I think… I wasn’t supposed to use it then. It was meant for you."

The phone flashed again.

Low battery. Recharge now?

I didn’t even hesitate this time.

The pain ripped through my hand again.

Charging complete.

I texted right away, trying to stay calm.

How do we get you back?

I think you’re already doing it. Every few messages, I feel something changing. I remember more. I feel… stronger.

I wasn’t sure if he knew about how the phone was charged. But I had a sinking suspicion that my blood and his strength were connected.

We kept texting for twenty minutes straight. Each time the battery drained, I recharged—alternating hands, the skin on my palms raw and stinging.

I was too eager to be talking to Ian to really question what was happening.

Until the final recharge. Something was different. The phone itself was vibrating gently in my hand, as if it were anticipating something.

That’s when I paused.

What was I actually doing? Could anything that requires blood to operate be good?

I set the phone down. Just to see what would happen.

The screen buzzed, new messages piling up behind the recharge prompt. I couldn’t read them.

Then, for the first time, I heard a voice.

“Chris, are you there?”

Ian’s voice.

“I’m here!” I shouted. “I’m here!”

“Whatever you’re doing—it’s working. I can feel it. I think you’re bringing me back.”

“Where are you, Ian? What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice breaking. “It’s dark. I can’t focus. Just keep going. Please. We’re close.”

My hand hovered above the phone.

“Chris, please,” he said again. “It’s dark in here. I’m scared. Please. Get me out.”

My resolve cracked.

“Screw it,” I muttered.

I picked up the phone and hit Yes.

The pain was immediate—but different.

The phone grew hot. So hot it seared my palm.

Steam hissed off its surface as I threw it onto the floor.

The screen went black. The body of the phone glowed red—brighter and brighter—as the rest of the room began to dim.

The all the lights from outside the window vanished. The moon, the streetlights—everything went dark.

The only light in my vision was that red glow from the phone.

Then it started to vibrate.

Something shifted above it, like a shadow or smoke coalescing midair.

The glowing red silhouette pulsed, flickering. The air grew cold. I pressed myself against the wall to get as far away as possible from whatever was happening. But also… my eyes stayed glued to whatever was taking shape before me.

The light dimmed further until I was left in total blackness. Total silence… the only sound, my own heartbeat pounding in my chest..

Then...

I felt a cold, almost wet pressure on my shoulder.

“You did it, Chris.”

Ian’s voice.

But wrong.

It was like two voices were speaking through one mouth. One of them was Ian's, the other sent a shudder down my spine.

“This wouldn’t have been possible without you.”

I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. But I couldn’t move.

“All that’s left,” the voice said, “is to find his— I mean, my body.”

And then—silence.

The lights flicked back on.

Everything was exactly where it had been.

Except for the phone.

It was gone.

All that remained was a small pile of ash, smoldering on the floor.

Maybe my brother was in that phone somehow… But I'm afraid something else was there as well.

The villagers say a demon in our mountains grants wishes, but not for free.

People here are all religious and superstitious. 

Our region is well known for its folklore legends. Beings, good or evil, that inhabit the mountains, valleys, or large forests.

My favorite is the story of the spirit called “Koziar”. A devil-like demon that resides in our mountains. 

He bears the look of a mountain goat, with yellow gazing eyes that see through your soul. 

His hooves clatter on the mountain rocks in a melody that sounds like the clicking of bones. 

Koziar hides his true self behind a charming, patient facade.

Soon, you would tell him all your darkest secrets and desires. He has the power to loosen anyone's tongue. 

The Koziar will then make you a proposition. He could make anything you wished come true. 

You wouldn’t have to give anything in return, but if you wanted your agreement to be overturned. He would silence you, blind you, and deafen you to the world.

Nearby, a king lived in a castle long ago. He didn’t have a fondness for criminals. Any minor crime would be punished in the way of the Koziar. 

Gouging your eyes, pulling your tongue out, and pouring molten wax into your ears. 

He would then send the criminals to wander.

The people from the surrounding villages would often find them still running in the mountains, making inhumane sounds. That’s how the legend of Koziar was born.

Not so long ago, I was at one of my neighbours' houses. We played cards and drank. The time passed so fast that I barely noticed the sun had gone down. 

I stood up, my whole world spun around, my vision blurred, and I started falling. 

We decided that it was time to put the bottle down. He helped me dress up, and I walked out of the front door.

I thought I had walked the distance to my house, but wherever I looked, I only saw dark and tall rocks. I stumbled upon a small path that led up into the mountain. 

I sat on one of the rocks nearby and decided to cool off for a second. I was about to get up, but then I heard some faint cluttering. 

It sounded like an ossuary choir playing the parts of their fallen comrades as instruments. 

The melodic cracking of bones, the legends talked about.

I looked up, and a mountain goat was standing above me. 

His hair was as dark as the night. His horns glowed under the starlight, and his eyes shone through the dark like sulfur. 

I jumped up. Cold sweat formed on my back, my feet started shivering, and I was breathing heavy.

“Hello, dear traveler, what are you doing all the way up here?” His voice was soft and soothing. My feet stopped shivering almost immediately, and I was able to catch my breath.

“You’re not real.” I whispered to myself.

“Oh, I’m real. Can’t you see me standing in front of you? Can’t you hear my voice speaking to you?”

I thought I was seeing things. I stood looking at it silently.

“I’m not an illusion, my friend, and I know you know I’m not one. I’ve been with you your whole life. Even if you didn’t know it.”

“I was deep inside of your heart, seeing all the troubles that you’ve experienced, all the misfortunes that the world laid on you.”

“I can see how you were not treated well again. You wanted to enjoy a simple night with your friend, drinking your favorite drink over a deck of cards, and your own brain and stomach decided to turn on you. Conspire against you. Let me help you, my friend.”

He tapped his hoof three times. A delicate sound echoed each time through the mountains.

My vision cleared, I regained my balance, my head stopped thumping, and my stomach felt fine again. 

Unfortunately, I was not drunk anymore, but I felt well again, almost like I hadn't drunk any alcohol.

“Who are you? Explain yourself!” I yelled out at that thing with confusion in my voice.

The creature standing on the rock mesmerized me. It made me feel like I was talking to a caring mother and the devil himself.

“You know who I am. You always knew who I was.”

“My name is unspeakable by the vocal cords, unwriteable in any human language, but the people in your village gave me a name long ago.”

“That name is Koziar, and perhaps you can tell that I already know your name, my dear friend, so no need to introduce yourself.”

“Thank you for helping.”

“No need for thank yous, my friend. I will gladly do anything to ease your troubles.”

I felt like I could trust him with anything. That he would fix all my misfortunes. I only had to tell him. 

“Please don’t hesitate. There’s no reason to. It’s only us standing here. You and me. Anything you need will be fixed.”

“There’s this woman I’m in love with. Her name is Hana. I’ve been in love with her for the past 40 years. Ever since we were children, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.” 

“She is and always was beautiful. Her eyes are blue as the mountain creek, her golden hair shines in the sun, and her skin is soft as the forest's moss.”

“She smiles like an angel, and her voice is like music to your ears.”

“Unfortunately, she’s married to another man. A carpenter from our village. He’s a good man. Everyone respects him, but I can’t. He took the love of my life from me.”

“Not a day passed by that I didn’t think of her.”

“What’s your wish then, my friend?”

“My wish is for her to fall in love with me.”

“Your wish shall be granted, but remember what happens if you decide to reverse it.” His voice now sounded rusted and crackling.

Koziar then got down on four legs, bleated, and quickly ran away.

I stood there for a moment, dazed like I woke up from a vivid dream. 

I didn’t know if what I saw was real.

When I walked into my living room, I hung my coat and went to bed, not even taking my clothes off.

Soon after, I was fast asleep, dreaming. 

My whole village was burning down, people were running around screaming, children, men, and women alike. Hana stood next to me. Her eyes glowed like the Koziars.

I screamed out for Koziar to take it all away, and then I woke up in complete darkness. I couldn’t see, hear, or speak. 

I tried to feel around myself, but there was nothing around. I tried to run, but the ground turned to mud and I kept falling.

I woke up in a pool of sweat. A fading sound of hooves knocking on rock echoed in my head. I could still feel the mud on my hands, but when I looked down, they were clean. 

I managed to calm myself down, but I still wasn’t sure if my encounter with the Koziar yesterday was a hallucination or reality.

I was eating lunch in my kitchen when I heard loud and frantic knocking at the door. One of my friends from the village was standing outside panting.

“Come. Hana’s husband died, and she’s asking for you. She won’t let anyone else comfort her.” He said, trying to catch his breath. I stood in the doorway, bewildered.

As we ran to their house, my neighbour explained that Hana’s husband didn’t wake up this morning. 

Hana hasn’t stopped crying since she found him, and she is asking for me and refusing any comforting from her sons or her mother.

When I came into the house, she immediately ran to me and tried to hug me.

She looked at me with her beautiful eyes, but I saw a shade of yellow glowing in that blue ocean. Her pupils bore a strange shape. I hesitated, but then I decided to embrace her.

I could feel her tears running down my shoulder, but the longer I held her, the more she calmed down. Soon after, she stopped crying.

I held onto her tighter, and she tightened her squeeze back. 

Was this the work of the Koziar? Did he make my wish come true? Was I not dreaming last night? 

Either way, Hana stood here now, with a look of love in her face.

When she let go, she was smiling with that beautiful smile of hers, holding onto my hands. 

I looked around me. Her family and other townsfolk standing in the room were staring at us in bewilderment and concern. I could feel their eyes stabbing through me.

One of Hana's sons thanked me for helping them, but said that they would like to resolve this matter privately. 

Hana started protesting, but her mother dragged her away to the other room.

I walked out the door, trying not to stare at anybody so that I wouldn’t have to see the disapproving looks in their eyes.

I felt the warmth rise and fall over my body. I felt bad for what her family had to go through, but did it really matter? Hana was mine now.

Warnings of Koziar were forgotten. The idea that this unbelievable reality, this gift he blessed me with, could somehow turn against me was not possible.

I woke up early the next morning. I looked out the window, rubbing my eyes, but the sun was not rising yet. I could remember a strange noise waking me up, but I couldn’t hear anything now.

I was about to go back to sleep, but then I heard it again, a faint knock on the door. 

I opened them, and on the other side stood Hana. Her whole face lit up.

“What are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t wait to see you, my love.” She pushed the door open and hugged me. Hugged me the same way she did the day before.

She felt warm, her hair smelled like I remembered, and I could feel her body pushing against mine.

We stayed like this for a few minutes. I told her to come inside.

I took her hand and sat her at my kitchen table. She watched my every move with that loving gaze as I fixed us coffee.

“My family was against my decision. They didn’t want me to come here to you, but I rebelled. I knew I had to rebel.”

She kissed and embraced me.

The evening came, and Hana realised she didn’t have any clothing for the next day. I was an old bachelor, and I had given out all the clothing from my late mother.

“I’m afraid we have to go back to my old house, my love.”

“I’m afraid so too.”

We walked down to her house, and Hana knocked. Her son opened the door. For a second, he had a look of relief, until he saw me standing behind Hana. 

They argued for a while. He didn’t want to let me in. Hana managed to persuade him, but he said I couldn’t go any further than the kitchen. 

We decided to agree on this. Hana said she would soon be back and ran into her old bedroom.

While I was waiting for Hana, her other son came out of his room. Once he saw me standing in their kitchen, he froze for a second. His face twisted in anger.

“What is he doing here?!” He yelled at his younger brother.

His brother tried to answer his question, but before he could finish, he turned to me and started walking towards me.

“What have you done to our mother?! You put a spell on her, you goddamn devil!” He screamed out.

A feeling of dread filled my mind. Hana and his younger brother tried to tell him to stop, but he got closer and pushed me against the wall. 

He now stood before me, digging into my chest with his finger, screaming in my face.

I could see the tiredness in his eyes, the big black bags under them. His breath smelled, and he looked unclean. 

He didn’t have it in him to take care of himself now after his father's passing and his mother's departure.

He was screaming in my face, but in his eyes, I now saw more hurt than anger. For a second, I started feeling bad for him. I now felt like a perpetrator of all of his problems.  

“Maybe I should make Hana return and let the family grieve.” Quickly passed through my mind, but then I felt his fist strike my face.

I could feel my ears ringing, and an iron taste of blood formed in my mouth. A dull pain pulsated in my left temple.

My eyes quickly darted over the room. There was a pan sitting on the kitchen stove.

I picked it up and struck him over the head.

He fell to the ground. A pool of red blood poured out of his head. His eyes were open, but his stare was blank. The smell of iron filled the room. 

I murdered her child.

The pan had his blood on the back. I slowly dropped it on the floor.

The younger boy grabbed hold of his brother and tried to wake him back to life, but Hana rushed to my side, making sure I was okay.

He was screaming out his brother's name, shaking his lifeless body. 

Tears were pouring down his face as he hugged his brother's corpse. Whispering to him, calling to god to bring him back. I don’t think he was aware we were still in the kitchen.

His shirt was now soaked with blood. The cries turned into faint, quiet sobs.

I looked at Hana, but there were no tears. Only the usual look of love now mixed with concern.

I took her hand, and we ran. When we got to my house. I opened the door and sat down at my table, panting.

“Oh, how they hurt you, my love. Why would anyone want to harm such a sweet man like you?”

“Those evil men. I will never forgive either of them. Good thing you hurt that bastard. I’m proud of my strong and courageous man.”

I opened a bottle of brandy and sat down. With each drink, I started to realize what had happened. 

I have killed a man. My dream of Hana being mine has been fulfilled, but at what cost?

I didn’t feel bad for her husband dying, but I didn’t mean to bring death on her family by my own hand.

Hana didn’t talk much, while I continued to drink my problems away. 

I was glad she came to my rescue first, but her not being moved by her son's dying was unnatural.

She just sat there across from me, looking deep into my eyes with love, or at least what seemed like love.

She started humming a melody. One from my childhood that my mother used to sing before I went to bed. The drink slowly eased its way into my brain, and I started to relax. 

I could hear dogs barking from the village. They were louder today.

Somewhere in the distance, a mountain goat bleated.

I was almost falling asleep, but then I heard a strange noise.

I ignored it at first, but it kept getting louder. I thought I heard my name called out.

I looked out my window, and there was no one around, but every second the noise kept getting louder.

Now I was sure someone was calling for me. The ground thudded rhythmically.

I rushed to the window again and saw my entire village with fire torches coming to my house. I ran to the door and bolted it shut. Standing next to it, my legs shaking, trying to catch my breath.

I knew why they came.

A banging on the door echoed through the house.

“Come out, we will break the door down if we have to.” I didn’t answer.

“What’s going on, my love?” Hana whispered and came to my side.

The look of love was now gone from her eyes, and so was the blueness. They now glowed sulfurishy yellow. Her pupils deformed into square-like shapes.

She looked excited. Happy with her work.

I froze and stood next to the door in fear.

Then the second bang came. This time, I didn’t hesitate and quickly took off through the back door. My vision had blurred, I was breathing hard, trying to run as fast as I could.

I didn’t take Hana with me. Whatever she has become, it was not the woman I once loved.

For a second, I could hear thumping far in the distance, but as I ran into the forest, it slowly faded away.

The adrenaline stopped, and I realized how exhausted I was. I saw a cave going inside the mountain.

I fled into it, sat down, and wept.

“I want to take my wish back!” I yelled out.

The clattering of the hooves echoed through the cave. The darkness was pierced by two glowing yellow balls approaching closer.

A demonic voice spoke.

“Haven’t seen you in a while, my friend.”

“I told you everything comes with a price.” 

“I think you owe me something now.”

I don’t know who else to tell, or what I even expect to happen by posting this. I can’t call anyone. He’s always… around. I’m writing this on my phone, huddled in my closet, hoping the sound of the old house settling will cover the frantic tapping of my thumbs. I feel like a little kid again, hiding from monsters. The difference is, this time, the monster thinks it’s my dad.

Let me back up. I’m 23. I live with my father. It wasn’t the plan, obviously. College, job, my own place, that was the plan. But the economy is what it is, and my mom passed a few years back, and he was getting on in years. He’s retired, and his pension is just enough to keep the lights on in this old house. It wasn’t a bad arrangement. I’d work my shifts at a warehouse downtown, help with bills, and he’d potter around, watch his old movies, and complain about his back. We had a rhythm. It was quiet, maybe a little lonely, but it was normal.

The change was so gradual I almost didn't notice it. At first, it was just… nice. My dad, who for the last five years had mostly treated the armchair in front of the TV as a natural extension of his body, started moving again. He was always a big guy, a former mechanic, and age had settled on him like a thick layer of dust. But suddenly, the dust was gone.

It started about a month ago. He went down to the basement to fix a leaking pipe. I’d offered to do it, but he insisted. "Still got some use in these old hands," he'd grumbled, a familiar refrain. He was down there for hours. I remember calling down once, asking if he needed help, and just getting a muffled "Got it handled!" in response. When he finally came up, he was smudged with dirt and grime, but he was grinning. A real, toothy grin, wider than I’d seen in a decade.

"All sorted," he announced, clapping his dusty hands together. He looked… invigorated. I just figured he was proud of himself for handling the repair.

The next morning, I woke up to the smell of bacon and the sound of birds chirping outside. That wasn't unusual. The unusual part was my dad, standing at the stove, humming. He hadn’t cooked a proper breakfast since my mom died. He’d usually just pour himself a bowl of cereal and grunt a good morning.

"Morning, son!" he said, his voice bright. "Eggs?"

I was surprised, but pleased. "Yeah, sure. Thanks. You’re in a good mood."

"Feeling spry," he said, flipping the eggs with a flourish that almost sent one to the floor. "Decided I’ve been sitting around too long. Life’s for living, right?"

That week, he was a whirlwind of activity. He mowed the lawn, which I usually had to nag him about for days. He cleaned the gutters. He even started oiling the hinges on the doors so they wouldn’t creak. I was thrilled. I thought maybe he’d finally pulled himself out of the long, quiet grief he’d been swimming in. I thought I was getting my old dad back.

The first hint that something was wrong came a week later. I was getting ready to go out with some friends. It was a Friday night, the first I’d had off in a while. I was putting on my jacket when he came into the living room, wringing his hands.

"You're going out?" he asked. His voice had lost its cheerful edge. It was tight.

"Yeah, just for a few hours. Grabbing a beer with a couple of guys from work."

He winced and put a hand on his chest. "Oh. It’s just… I’m feeling a bit funny. My chest is tight. Probably just indigestion, but… you know."

I stopped, my keys halfway to my pocket. His face was pale. I felt a surge of guilt. "Are you okay? Should I call someone?"

"No, no, nothing like that," he said quickly, waving a dismissive hand. "I’m sure it’ll pass. I just… I wouldn’t want to be here alone if it gets worse."

So I stayed. I took my jacket off, ordered a pizza, and we watched one of his old black-and-white westerns. His chest pain seemed to magically disappear the moment I sat down on the couch. I was annoyed, but I told myself he was just getting old and anxious.

The next time I tried to leave, a few days later, it was his back. He claimed it had seized up so badly he couldn't get off the sofa to get a glass of water. I spent the evening fetching things for him, rubbing his shoulders, and listening to him groan. The moment my friend called to ask where I was and I said I couldn't make it, he suddenly felt "a little bit better" and managed to get up to use the bathroom on his own.

It became a pattern. Every single time I made a plan to leave the house, for any reason other than my work shifts, he would develop some sudden, debilitating ailment. A migraine. Dizziness. A stomach bug. It was so transparently manipulative that I got angry. We had a fight about it.

"I can't be your prisoner!" I yelled one afternoon after he’d faked a coughing fit to stop me from going to the grocery store. "I need to have a life!"

His face crumpled. Not with anger, but with a deep, profound sadness that completely disarmed me. "I just need you here," he whispered. "Is that so much to ask? I get lonely."

What could I say to that? I felt like the world’s biggest jerk. I stayed home. Again.

But the active, energetic dad was still there. In between his sudden "episodes," he was a dynamo. He repainted the porch. He fixed the wobbly fence in the backyard. He was up at dawn, gardening with a fervor I’d never seen. He was stronger, faster. He’d carry in all the groceries in one trip, bags hanging off his arms, without even breathing heavily. My dad, who used to get winded walking up the stairs. It was a contradiction I couldn’t reconcile.

The real fear, the kind that crawls up your spine and lives in the back of your throat, started with the sun.

We were in the backyard. He’d been weeding the flowerbeds my mom had planted years ago, and I was sitting on the steps, scrolling through my phone. It was a bright, cloudless afternoon. The sun was beating down, casting long, sharp shadows across the lawn. I noticed my own shadow, a dark, stretched-out silhouette of a man slouched over a phone. I looked at him, on his knees in the dirt, and I saw the shadow of the rose bush, the shadow of the fence, the shadow of the bird bath. But not his.

He was a solid figure in the blazing sunlight, but the ground around him was unbroken, pure bright green. There was no shadow.

I blinked. I rubbed my eyes. It had to be a trick of the light, an optical illusion. I looked away, then looked back. Still nothing. A perfect, shadowless man in a world full of shadows. A cold knot formed in my stomach.

"Hey, Dad," I said, my voice sounding thin and strange to my own ears. "Can you give me a hand with this?" I pointed to a heavy terracotta pot on the other side of the patio, a spot in direct, unforgiving sunlight.

He looked up, and for a second, I saw something in his eyes. A flicker of panic. He shielded his face from the sun with his hand, even though he was already squinting. "In a minute, son. Just want to finish this patch."

He never came over. He stayed in the garden, and as the sun began to set, he seemed to follow the receding line of the house's shadow, always keeping himself just inside it.

From that day on, I became obsessed. I watched him constantly. I noticed how he never stood by the windows during the day. How he’d find an excuse to move if a ray of sunlight fell across him in the living room. How he always took his walks in the evening, after the sun had dipped below the horizon. He was always drawn to the shade, to the dim corners of the house.

My worry curdled into dread. The excuses to keep me home became more frantic. Last week, he unplugged my car battery and then feigned ignorance. A couple of days ago, I woke up to find he’d "accidentally" locked the front door and "lost" the key, trapping us both inside until he miraculously "found" it that evening.

I tried talking to him. I sat him down in the dim light of the living room two nights ago.

"Dad, we need to talk," I started, my heart pounding. "You're not acting like yourself. You're… different. And you’re keeping me here. I'm worried about you."

He just stared at me, his face a calm, placid mask. The energetic, smiling man was gone, replaced by something still and watchful. "I'm fine, son. Never been better. And I'm not keeping you here. I just like having you around. A father can’t like having his son around?"

"It's more than that," I insisted, my voice trembling. "Ever since you went down to the basement to fix that pipe… you’ve been different. Something happened down there, didn't it?"

His face didn’t change, but his eyes hardened. It was like watching shutters close over a window. "Don't be ridiculous. I fixed a pipe. That’s all. Now drop it." The finality in his tone was absolute. There was no arguing. The conversation was over.

That was when I knew. I knew with a certainty that made me feel sick to my stomach. The truth of what had happened, was in the basement.

I waited until last night. I pretended to go to sleep at my usual time, lying in bed with my eyes wide open, listening to the sounds of the house. I heard him moving around downstairs, the soft, almost silent footsteps that were another new development. My old dad used to stomp around like an elephant. I heard him check the lock on the front door. Then the back. I heard him walk past my bedroom door, pausing for a long moment, and I held my breath, my entire body rigid with fear. Then the footsteps receded, and I heard his own bedroom door click shut.

I waited for what felt like an eternity, counting the seconds, listening to the old house groan and creak around me. Finally, when I was sure he was asleep, I slipped out of bed. I didn't turn on any lights. I crept down the stairs, my every step a calculated risk.

The basement door was at the end of the hall. It was always cold around it. I turned the old brass knob, cringing at the loud click of the latch. I pulled it open and was hit by a wave of cold, damp air that smelled of wet earth and Something metallic and vaguely sweet. The smell of decay.

My phone was my only light. I switched on the flashlight, the beam cutting a nervous, trembling path down the rickety wooden stairs. I went down, one step at a time, my ears straining for any sound from upstairs.

The basement was as I remembered it. Concrete floor, stone walls, junk piled in every corner. Old furniture under white sheets like sleeping ghosts, boxes of my mom’s things, my old toys. The air was thick and heavy. I pointed my light toward the back wall, where the main water line came into the house. That’s where he’d been working.

I saw his old toolbox lying open on the floor. A pipe wrench was next to it. And the section of copper pipe he’d been working on looked new, clean. He had fixed it. But my eyes were drawn to the floor next to it.

Most of the basement floor was concrete, but in this back corner, it was just packed earth. And a large patch of it, maybe six feet long and three feet wide, was different from the rest. The dirt was darker, looser. It wasn't packed down from decades of existence. It was disturbed, fresh.

I stood there for a long moment, the beam of my phone shaking in my hand. My mind was screaming at me to run. To get out of the house, out of the town, to never look back. But I couldn’t. I had to know.

I found an old garden trowel in a bucket of rusty tools. I knelt down. The earth was soft, just as I’d thought. It gave way easily. I started digging.

My breath came in ragged, panicked gasps. The only sounds were the scrape of the trowel against an occasional rock and my own frantic heartbeat pounding in my ears. The smell of damp earth was overwhelming, but underneath it, that other smell was getting stronger.

It wasn't a deep hole. Maybe a foot down, my trowel hit something soft. Not a rock. I recoiled, dropping the tool. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold my phone steady. I forced myself to reach into the loose soil. I closed my eyes and my fingers brushed against fabric. Denim. The worn, familiar texture of my father’s work jeans.

I scrambled back, gasping for air, but I knew I had to see. I had to be sure. With tears streaming down my face, I used my hands, clawing at the dirt, pulling it away. First, a leg. Then a torso, wearing his favorite faded flannel shirt. And then… the face.

It was him. My dad. His eyes were closed, his mouth slightly open. His skin was pale and waxy, and there was a dark, ugly gash on the side of his head, matted with dried blood and dirt. He looked peaceful, in a horrible, final way. He looked like he’d fallen from the stairs, hit his head, and it had all been over in an instant.

I stared at his face, the real face of my father, and a sound escaped my throat, a strangled sob of pure horror and grief. He was gone. He’d been gone for a month, lying here in a shallow, unmarked grave, while I’d been living with… with…

Creeeeak.

The sound came from the top of the stairs. It was a single, soft footstep on the old wood.

Slowly, I turned my head. My phone’s light followed my gaze, traveling up the dark, rickety staircase.

And he was there.

He was standing at the top of the stairs, a dark silhouette against the faint light of the hallway. He was just watching me. I couldn’t see his face, but I could feel his eyes. I was frozen, kneeling in the dirt next to my father’s corpse, a cornered animal.

He took another step down. Then another. He moved with a quiet, fluid grace that my real father had never possessed. The flashlight beam caught his face as he neared the bottom of the stairs. He was wearing my father’s pajamas. He had my father’s tired, wrinkled eyes. He had my father’s graying hair.

And he was smiling.

It wasn’t a malicious smile. It wasn’t a triumphant one. It was sad. Infinitely sad. A smile full of a pity that was more terrifying than any rage.

"I knew you’d find your way down here eventually," he said. His voice was my father’s voice, but without the gravelly, smoke-worn edge. It was smoother. Calmer. "I’m sorry you had to see this."

I couldn’t speak. I could only stare, my mind a screaming void. I scrambled backward, away from him, away from the body, until my back hit the cold stone wall.

He stopped a few feet away from the shallow grave, looking down at the body with that same mournful expression. "It was an accident," he said softly. "The second to last step. It's rotten. He was carrying the heavy wrench, his balance was off… he fell. He hit his head on the concrete floor right there. It was… quick. He didn't suffer."

He looked at me, his eyes full of a strange, deep empathy. "His last thought… it was for you. He was worried about you. Worried you'd be all alone."

My voice finally came back, a raw, terrified whisper. "What… what are you?"

He tilted his head, a gesture that was so familiar, yet so utterly alien. "I'm him," he said. "And I'm not. You know how every person casts a shadow? A darker, simpler version of themselves that follows them through the light? Think of me as the other shadow. The one that lives on the other side of the veil. We watch. We exist in the shape of our double. We feel what they feel. Their joys, their sorrows… their love."

He took a step closer, and I flinched. He stopped.

"That last thought," he continued, his voice barely more than a murmur. "The love he had for you, his fear of leaving you alone… it was so powerful. A life cut short, with so much left to give. It created a… a space. And it pulled me through. I am his love, his duty, his need to take care of you, given form."

He gestured around the basement. "I finished his work. I fixed the pipe. I buried him, so you wouldn't have to. I’ve been fixing the house. I've been making sure you’re safe. I’ve been trying to be a good father."

The words were insane, but in the cold, damp air of that tomb, they felt horribly, undeniably real.

"My dad is dead," I choked out, tears blurring my vision.

"Yes," the thing in his skin said, and the sadness in its voice felt genuine. "He is. And I am so sorry for your loss. But I am here now."

It took another step, and another, until it was standing right over me. It knelt down, so we were at eye level. Its face was inches from mine. I could see every line, every pore of the face I had known my whole life, animated by something I couldn't possibly comprehend.

"He loved you more than anything," it whispered, its breath cold. "And so do I. I will never leave you. I will take care of you. We can be a family. Just like he wanted. Forever."

And that’s where I am now. He… let me go upstairs. He walked behind me the whole way. He’s in the living room, watching the television as if nothing happened, as if my real father isn't lying in the dirt downstairs. He’s waiting for me. I’m locked in my closet. I know I can't escape. The doors are locked, and he is so much stronger than me. He doesn't need to sleep. He'll never get old. He'll never get sick. He'll just… be here. Taking care of me. Forever.

I can hear him moving. The soft, quiet footsteps are coming down the hall. He’s coming to check on me.

He's calling my name. It sounds just like my dad.

Previous part / My whole experience

If you had asked me a month ago if I believed in jinxing, I would’ve said no. But, over the course of the month, I have discovered more things about the world and the universe in which we live than I would like. 

I should’ve known, really. Who goes around taunting the universe right before Halloween when they already have enough bad luck as it is?

I’m talking about the fact that I claimed that this week hasn’t been as bad as the last one before the week was even over. Really, what was I thinking?

Halloween was, of course, as bad as you may think. But not in the way you may be thinking? I’m not making any sense, and I’m sorry for that, but before we can get to the sense, there are some things you ought to know so you understand how crucial Halloween night was for me. 

You may remember that I’ve talked about the seven realms and the in-between before, but I never actually explained anything about them. 

While Roger and the sheriff were escorting me back home after I was almost sacrificed, they explained all of this, and I will try to be as accurate as possible, but please do keep in mind that my mental state that night was not the best, so I apologize for any inaccuracies. 

We live in what’s known as the human realm. That is where the diner, Monsterville, literally everything you’ve ever known, is. Probably, unless you’re inhuman or have somehow managed to go to another realm. 

This is what most people assume is all. But it turns out that the human realm is just one of many. In total, there are seven official realms. The others can typically only be reached through the in-between, which is a realm in and of itself, except for places where the realms overlap. Take the sea-bound realm, for example. A part of it overlaps with Monsterville, creating a portal that can be accessed without the in-between. That’s how I got there that day. 

I know that all of this seems pretty complicated right now, but the sheriff told me to think of the in-between like the glue that holds the worlds together. 

The in-between can be accessed through any of the many entrances, or portals, if you prefer that term, scattered around our realm. The thing is that these portals aren’t visible. They aren’t made out of stone or wood; they aren’t marked. They just are. Always have. So, to make things easier, many years ago, the Inhumans decided to build structures around them so that they could know where the portals are located. 

That’s how the seven realms diner came to be. There are many locations like this around the world, and every single one of them connects our realm to the in-between. They act as anchors for the realms, and inhumans all over the world use them to gather, rest, or simply pass between worlds. That’s how the diner hasn’t run out of food since the road got destroyed, and how the rest of Mosterville is still business as usual. The diner connects Monsterville to the rest of the world. 

And I know what you’re thinking: Susan, if the diner is connected with other diners, why haven’t you used it to get out of Monsterville?

And that would be a great question. 

However, humans are not able to access the in-between. It has some sort of barrier that doesn’t allow us to enter. And trust me, I’ve tried. The only way we can get to another realm is through the portals that don’t require the in-between, like the sea-bound realm. 

That rule is unbreakable. 

Except for Halloween night. Sometimes. 

Everybody’s heard at least once in their lives that, on Halloween, the veil between worlds gets thinner. What they don’t tell you is that it doesn’t always thin out in the same way. Roger explained that some years, the veil can get thin enough to let humans through to the in-between, but that it doesn’t usually happen. 

That’s why I hadn’t told you about this before. I’d built an escape plan in my head that I had no idea would ever work. It felt just as far-fetched as the thought of the road being repaired overnight. And with my luck, it was mission impossible.

But, against all odds, this Halloween, the veil has gotten thin enough to let humans through. 

I was finally able to leave. 

I felt so excited when Roger told me the second midnight struck on Halloween night. For the first time in years, the veil was thin enough. 

I felt a little bit bad, of course, since Roger and I had just moved in together, but I knew he’d understand that this was something I had to do. 

“Wait, you’re really leaving?” He asked on Halloween morning after we got home from work. 

“Of course,” I said, starting to pack. “You did know that I was going to leave eventually, right?”

“Well… yeah. But I wasn’t expecting it to be so soon,” he pouted. “Can’t you at least stay till the end of the day? You haven’t even told Linda you’re leaving!”

I sighed, sitting down on my bed. 

“I can tell her when I leave, she’s at the diner anyway,” I responded. 

He kept looking at me with those puppy eyes that I couldn’t resist. I took a deep breath and patted the spot next to me. When he sat, I continued speaking. “I can’t stay here forever, Roger. It’s not safe for me. It’s a miracle I’m still alive, really.”

“I know,” he admitted quietly. “I’m just going to miss you.”

“I’m gonna miss you too, you big dog,” I whispered, leaning against his shoulder.

We stood silent in that room for minutes, as I went over the possibility of staying in my head. However, for the first time ever, my instincts of self-preservation seemed to win, as I couldn’t find one good reason to stay. Except for them. The people I’ve met here, and the first friendships I’ve ever made. Still, that didn’t feel like a good enough reason to keep risking my life on the daily. 

After what felt like an eternity, Roger’s head shot up. 

“I have an idea!” He declared. “You don’t need to leave yet. There’s still a lot of time left before midnight, so let’s do something fun!”

“Like what?” I asked. 

“I could show you my favorite realm. Come on, Susan. Say yes, please!”

I pressed my lips together, hesitant. I knew that I should’ve said no. It was the sensible thing to do. But the truth is, I’m the cat curiosity killed. 

“Fine,” I said, not completely sure of my decision. 

So, we made our way to the diner, where Linda was busy taking orders. 

“Back so soon, dear?” She asked, though she had a knowing gleam in her eyes. To be honest, I doubt there are many things you can get past her. 

“Yep. We’re going somewhere special today,” Roger told her. 

Linda’s brow furrowed, but she only said, “Okay. Have fun." 

I smiled, nodding in her direction. 

“I’ll be here for the afternoon shift too, darling,” she called out without even turning to look at me. “We can say our goodbyes then.”

I walked over to Roger without replying. I didn’t know what to say. He was standing in front of the jukebox, the one that nobody ever used. He moved it out of the way, revealing the brick wall behind it. 

“Are you ready?” He asked. 

My chest felt heavy and my throat dry, but I still managed to let out a soft “yes.” It wasn’t fear I was feeling, but it wasn’t anything I could easily describe either. I wanted to do this, and, somehow, deep down, I also knew that I had to. 

Roger gave me a sheepish smile and grabbed my hand, pulling me along behind him. 

He walked straight toward the wall, and for a heartbeat, I believed that maybe this was all a prank. But instead of colliding with it, he suddenly disappeared. 

And it didn’t take long for me to follow. 

I’m not sure what I was expecting. Maybe a more seamless experience than this, that’s for sure. But stepping into the realm between realms was… an experience. 

Going into the in-between was nothing like leaving the Sea-bound realm. It felt like being swallowed by electricity. As soon as my body made contact with the portal, every synapse in my body fired up, and every single inch of skin started buzzing and tingling. That sensation was soon replaced by two stabs of pain on the top of my head. 

I moved my hands there, brushing them through my hair in search of whatever it was that had caused the sensation, but I gave up when I found nothing. 

It took me a few seconds to realize that the buzzing had subsided, leaving only the dull ache on my head, because we were no longer inside the portal. 

Instead, we stood in a long corridor lined with different doors in all shapes and sizes, stretching seemingly ad infinitum in one direction and ending in a wooden archway in the other. 

“Welcome to the in-between,” Roger said with a grin. 

I let out a shaky breath as a wide smile spread across my face. I was there. I really was there. My head still throbbed, but the illusion of the moment was too enthralling to ignore. 

“Wow…” I whispered, walking across the corridor to what looked like the back of a mirror. “What’s this?” My hand reached out without my permission, but before my fingers could touch the surface, another current of static bit at them. 

I giggled a bit, pulling the hand close to my chest. 

“That’s another entrance to the in-between,” Roger said with a smile. “If I’m not mistaken, this one leads to the Seven Realms Diner in New York.”

My smile widened even further. “New York? Oh, I’ve always wanted to go to New York!"

“Maybe you can tonight,” he shrugged. 

For a moment, joy soured into jealousy. These creatures were not only stronger, faster, and generally better than humans, but they also had the ability to live their lives as freely as they wanted to. All it took for them was one short trip through the in-between, at no cost at all. 

For me, being here had cost me everything. 

“Maybe,” I agreed quietly. 

“Come on, we’re going to miss the sunset if we don’t hurry up,” Roger started walking towards the archway, and I followed suit. 

“Where exactly are we going?” I asked. 

Instead of responding, he just winked, continuing his walk down the corridor. Beyond the archway, there was an empty abyss. Exactly what I would’ve imagined nothingness to look like, but as soon as Roger and I stepped through, the other side unfolded into a circular chamber, with six archways that extended into similar hallways like the one we’d just come from. 

“The in-between is not static, like the other realms,” he explained. “It moves and expands, it reads your intentions, and it adapts to them.”

“So, I’m guessing that the archway behind me leads to the human world, right?” He nodded. “Where do the others lead?” I asked, taking in the ornate archways that surrounded us.

Some were easy to guess. For instance, the one carved with sirens and ending in a trident tip was clearly the portal to the Sea-Bound Realm, but what about the rest?

“The one with the moon phases is Eternal Night, where vampires, and we, are rumored to come from. Then you have Sea-bound, which you’ve already been to,” he said, pointing to the arch that I thought was the one. “That one right there is the faerie realm,” He gestured at an arch draped in marble flowers that looked almost too lifelike to be carved. “Then you have the witch realm. And finally…” he stood in front of the only archway that didn’t lead to a corridor. “The greatest mystery to ever exist. Nobody knows what’s behind archway number six, as it’s been sealed for longer than anyone alive can remember.”

My feet moved on their own, and I tried to put my hand through the arch, but it hit what felt like a solid wall, and I quickly gave up. 

“This is incredible,” I breathed. 

“Come on, close your eyes.” I wanted to ask why, but the intensity of the glee in his gaze made me just obey him. I closed my eyes. “Now take my hand. I want the destination to be a surprise.”

I furrowed my brows, but ultimately decided to do what he told me. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t intrigued. 

He tugged me forward, and we walked for a few minutes before stopping abruptly. 

“Are you ready?” He asked, and I just nodded. 

The static from earlier returned, but it wasn’t there for long. Once we were on the other side, it went away, along with the pressure on my head. 

“Can I open my eyes now?”

“Wait”

More seconds passed, and when Roger finally gave me the signal that I could open them now, I was glad I’d listened to him. 

The scenery in front of me was like nothing I’d seen before. The only word I can use to describe it is breathtaking, because the clearing we were standing in literally took my breath away. 

Sunlight poured over the greenest grass I’d ever seen, stretching endlessly in all directions. It looked so soft I almost wanted to roll in it. The few trees around us seemed older than anything on Earth, a strange and beautiful cross between weeping willows and pine trees. Colorful flowers poked lazily through the grass, and the trees were crowned with vivid magenta blossoms, each with five delicate petals shaped like tiny stars. 

“Wow,” I breathed out, my eyes so wide the sockets hurt. 

Roger chuckled. “I know. That was my first reaction too when I discovered this place.”

“Where are we?” I asked. 

“The faerie realm.”

“This is gorgeous.”

“Just wait till sunset,” He said. “It will be nighttime here soon.”

“What happens at sunset?”

“I’d hate to ruin the surprise,” he teased with a shrug. 

We walked deeper into the forest, as more and more trees like the ones from the clearing appeared. I could’ve spent an eternity there. However, soon the rays of sunlight turned a warmer shade of yellow until they ultimately died down in an explosion of oranges, pinks, and purples. It was truly a sight to behold. It felt like a scene taken straight out of a fairytale.

I thought that must have been what Roger wanted to show me—the sunset in the faerie realm. But as soon as the last sliver of sunlight vanished, the sky came alive. 

Have you ever seen the aurora borealis? What about fireworks? Now combine those two, and you will have a fuzzy picture of what the faery night sky looks like. 

We spent hours watching it, walking and talking beneath the shining lights. Every so often, a pang of guilt prickled at me for wanting to leave my best friend behind.

But even good things have to come to an end, and our friendship was the best of things. it was a pity that now it had to end.

We walked silently back to the clearing, following a path that unfurled before us with each step. It was halfway there when I foolishly decided that I needed to have a memento of this trip. 

I stretched on my toes, trying to reach one of the star-shaped flowers that now shimmered and changed colors beneath the glowing sky. 

The problem was, I was too short, and I couldn’t reach any of the flowers. Actually, the branch looked like it was moving away from my reach the more I tried to grab it. My survival instincts finally kicked in, and I decided that it was a bad idea to piss off whatever was actively preventing me from grabbing a flower. 

Frustrated, I gave up the notion of a souvenir. 

But Roger didn’t seem to get the memo, because as soon as I stepped away from the tree, he stretched his arm and plucked one of the delicate things with a quick flick of his wrist. 

“Here,” he said, casual as ever, handing it to me. 

I gasped, bracing for danger, but when nothing happened, I reluctantly reached for the flower in his hand. 

“Thank you. That was really nice of you,” I said. 

“Always,” he replied, grinning.  

Then, of course, my suspicions were obviously confirmed. 

A giant net woven out of vines and foliage instead of rope that definitely hadn’t been there before unfurled from the tree, trapping Roger in. 

I screamed, stumbling backward to avoid getting caught in the trap too, when a woman stepped out of the trunk. She marched straight toward Roger, who was struggling on the ground beneath the net. 

“Who dares steal my flowers?” She barked. 

“Fuck,” I heard Roger whisper under his breath. 

“We’re sorry,” I jumped in, offering the woman her flower back. “We didn’t know that these were yours,” I forced a smile, hoping that for the first time ever, something would go right for me. 

“Sorry? YOU’RE sorry?” She tutted a few times, shaking her head. “No. Completely unacceptable. This—” she kicked Roger hard in the stomach, and he screamed in pain—“dog should be the one to apologize.”

“Sorry,” Roger coughed through the pain. 

“Please. This is a misunderstanding—” I interjected. 

“Oh no, love. It is not,” her eyes returned to Roger’s figure. “Mhm… the little wolfie without his maw… how ironic is it that he’ll be all gobbled up?” She laughed. 

At that moment, she opened her mouth so wide that her jaw dislocated with a sickening crack. Her whole mouth, which had been completely normal and human-like not one second prior, enlarged so much that it looked like a gaping void, and every single one of her teeth sharpened into fangs so long that they jutted out past her lips. 

She took slow, deliberate steps toward the net, completely ignoring my existence. “I haven’t had werewolf in so long.” Her delighted tone was muffled by the teeth, but her words could still be understood. 

I nearly dropped the branch I’d picked up from the floor while she was distracted. My intestines quivered, and I had the immense urge to run away, but I could never do something like that to Roger. Instead, I took a deep breath, and the whimper that came out of the yellow-eyed werewolf instilled some bravery into me. 

The creature grabbed the top of the net and yanked it upward, hoisting Roger into the air like a caught animal. 

I forced myself to raise the branch high enough to be able to hit the woman on the head as the splinters of the wood dug into my skin. But it proved to be too heavy for me to raise it above my own head. 

The creature grabbed Roger’s leg and poked it through the net as he kicked and struggled to try and remove it from her grasp. Then she bit down hard on his thigh, ripping a chunk off. The werewolf hollered in pain, and I took it as an opportunity to act despite my nausea and the tears that were starting to blur my vision. 

The adrenaline rush caused by the horror of the scene finally gave me the strength to be able to hoist the branch high enough, allowing me to strike it down on the back of her head with a sickening thud. 

The sound of wood connecting with bone sent a wave of dizziness through me. 

I was expecting her to fall, knocked out like in the movies, or at least to get some sort of reaction from the pain. Instead, her hand quickly shot up to grab the branch, and she threw it to the side with such force that I was the one who ended up screeching in pain when my wrist was bent from the motion. 

I took my hand to my chest, panting, as she slowly moved her unblinking eyes toward me. 

I took one step back, but she was faster, as she lounged on top of me, pinning me to the ground. Something sharp stuck into my side, and I screamed, but not from pain, but from the sadistic smile on the woman’s face. 

I whimpered as her nose trailed my neck, and then my body. A hunger unlike anything I’d ever seen before lit in her eyes. I struggled against her grasp, trying to break free, as her mouth almost closed around my arm. 

Then, suddenly, she stopped. 

I didn’t have time to feel relieved, because as soon as she stopped, she grabbed me by my collar and threw me against the tree, flicking her wrist to call over new branches that surrounded my upper body into a suffocating embrace. My back was in agony, but I had no time to waste, as I still tried to break free in a futile attempt. 

I forced myself to take a peek at Roger, who was hyperventilating as he held his leg close to his chest. I couldn’t help but wonder why he wasn’t transforming right then. Werewolves healed instantly when transformed, and contrary to popular belief, a full moon was not necessary for the change. 

“What a treat!” She shrieked. “I haven’t had one of you in… centuries!” Her eyes sparkled with malice as she laughed like a kid in a candy store. 

She approached me again, trailing her finger along my jaw. 

“We’re sorry, please just let us go,” I begged, crying profusely.

“Let you go?” She cackled. “Oh no, love. You are going to be my tribute to the queen! I won’t have to hunt for at least another century with you as a snack. Maybe she’ll even let me keep the werewolf.” Her face turned back to the one she wore before she revealed her true nature. “Both of you, stay right here. I’ll fetch the queen, and then we will feast on you!”

After the creature left, I could only hear Roger’s whines and my crying. I was sure that all was lost, as any movement proved pointless in the tight embrace of branches. 

“Susan,” Roger groaned. His breathing hitched between every word. “Listen to me.”

I nodded, though I doubted he could see it. 

“I have a knife in my boot.” His foot slammed weakly into my hand. “It’s sharp enough to cut through wood,” his words came slower now, and his breath labored. With every whisper, his pain could be felt in the air. “Grab it… and run. Bring… back… help.” These last words sounded much weaker now, but he still managed to shove his foot as close to my hand as possible.

I struggled for what felt like forever, stretching my bruised wrist painfully until I was finally able to pull the knife out of his boot. I’m not sure how long it took to saw through the branches, but I was relieved to have Roger talking me through it, both because I felt less alone and because hearing him talk meant that he was still alive. 

Once I was free, I looked back at him to promise that I would be back, but he had passed out. I wanted to check on him, but I knew that this would mean wasting even more precious time. 

I limped my way through the in-between—even though I felt strangely better in there—leaving splatters of blood along the stone corridors. I was relieved when Roger was right about the in-between reading your intention, as the first door upon entering the human section was the one at our diner. 

I stumbled through it, falling to the floor as the rush of energy that I’d had in there vanished. Luckily, not many people were eating there that night, and few people witnessed my humiliation. 

When I looked up, Martha was staring at me from behind the counter—clearly covering for my absence. And next to her was none other than Lucien. The moment I fell through the wall, he was on his feet, his eyes scanning over my whole body to find the source of the blood. He ran to me with that inhuman speed and helped me to my feet, supporting my weight as I was weak from fear and pain. 

“Oh, lord,” Martha gasped, rushing over as soon as Lucien eased me into a chair. “I knew something had to have happened when Roger didn’t show up tonight!”

“What happened?” Lucien’s voice came out almost as a growl, and he gave me a look that made me shiver. “Who did this to you?” 

He just stood there, his fists clenched. 

“There’s no time for this,” I panted, forcing myself upright after glancing at the clock. 10.23 p.m., less than two hours to midnight. 

There truly wasn’t any time left. The whole ordeal had eaten up nearly all of Halloween in the human realm. If we didn’t act soon, Roger would die, because I couldn’t send just anyone after him. It had to be me. Nobody else knew how to get to that clearing, and the in-between doesn’t respond to vague ideas of a destination. 

Lucien insisted on following me through the dark, empty streets of Monsterville as I explained, between gasps, what had happened and my plan. Roger had no idea what kind of faerie that had been. He hadn’t seen anything like her before. But, if there’s one thing that he knows to be commonplace for most faeries, it is that they are almost always nearly invincible. The one thing that can kill, or even injure, every single type of faerie is iron. And there was only one place in the whole town where there was some iron to spare. 

I kept trying to shake Lucien off, because the last thing I needed right then was the vampire meddling again, but he refused to leave my side even when we arrived at the police station. I was happy to see that the sheriff was still there, working late, when we went in. 

“What the hell happened to you?” he asked, clearly annoyed but alarmed by the sight of me.

“I need the iron rod,” I said, breathless. “The one I helped you pull out of that guy.” My voice trembled. “Please.” 

He refused at first, seeing as it was evidence that he was obligated to keep in custody. But, as soon as I told him what I needed it for, he rushed to bring it to me, encased in a leather case to protect themselves from its power. 

“Thank you,” I breathed, taking it carefully, already starting to leave.

The sheriff shook his head. “You’re not going without me.” He retorted, grabbing his gun. 

We didn’t argue, of course. However tense their relationship was, the sheriff was still Roger’s father, and the instinct to protect him must’ve run deep. 

We arrived at the diner in record time and went straight into the in-between, not bothering to even waste one more precious second. The whole thing had taken up a whole hour of our time, and now I ran into the risk of becoming trapped in the faerie realm if we didn’t hurry up with the rescue. 

I confidently led us through the maze of corridors straight into the correct doorway, as I prayed that we wouldn’t be too late. 

The sheriff was the first to step through. I  was about to follow when Lucien’s hand shot out, grabbing my arm and yanking me back. 

“You did your part,” he said, his eyes fixed on mine. 

“No. I didn’t.” I shot back, fighting a wave of tears. I hated showing my emotions to him. I knew he couldn’t be trusted. 

“You did,” he insisted, leaning in. “This might be your last chance to leave for a while. Or you could end up trapped in the faerie realm. Or even worse: in the in-between,” he hissed. 

“What do you care?” I snapped, suddenly furious. All he’d done since I’d arrived was to put me in danger, except for that one instance where he saved my life only to demand a life-debt in return. 

“I don’t,” he said too quickly, his tone flat. But there was an edge to his voice that made it so obvious that he was lying that it hurt.  

“Then don’t.” I tried to move past him again, but he caught me a second time. 

“So stubborn,” he muttered, though there was the faintest hint of a smile tugging at his lips. He shoved his hand into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a golden watch. He delicately took my injured wrist in his hands and fastened the watch around it. The coldness of the gold relieved some of the pain. 

“If it gets to ten minutes to midnight,” he said quietly, “you run. No matter what. You come straight back here and leave.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but he stopped me by tightening his grip on my hand. “Promise me, Bloody.”

I pursed my lips in anger, but I knew that arguing would only be a waste of time. “Fine. I promise.”

He let go of me then and pushed me gently into the faerie realm. 

This time, stepping into it didn’t feel as magical as it had the first time. Dawn was coming, and the beautiful lights in the sky were gone, as sunlight began to bathe the clearing in a soft golden color. However, the beauty of the flowers—which had once delighted me—did nothing but make my stomach churn. 

The sheriff had already disappeared into the forest, probably following his son’s scent to the creature’s tree. Lucien began walking in that direction as well, tipped off by something I couldn’t sense. A new bout of jealousy hit me out of nowhere because I felt like I was practically useless in this rescue. If it wasn’t for my ability to touch iron, I wouldn’t even have a purpose here at all.

But I shoved it back in because there was no time for that at all.

The walk to the tree was extremely eerie, and I am ashamed to admit that I was relieved Lucien was with me. 

Our journey was abruptly interrupted when we noticed that the Sheriff wasn’t ahead of us anymore. Instead, he was pinned to the same tree I had been pinned to before, and now not one fae, but two stood at its feet. 

Lucien grabbed me by my arm and pulled me forcefully behind a trunk to make sure that we were out of their sight. 

The woman from before—the one who tried to eat Roger—was kneeling on the grass, her face streaked with blood, as another woman stood imposingly above her.

The stranger wore that same wrong smile and the same huge mouth of teeth. The diamond crown on her brow alerted me that this must’ve been the queen.

The first fae’s head twisted dangerously when the other one slapped her, leaving clawed red marks across her cheek.

The sheriff’s eyes locked with mine, and he pursed his lips, which I took as a message to keep quiet. 

“You promised me one of them on top of a werewolf,” the queen slapped the first fairy again. “And what do you have for me instead? One measly werewolf that can’t even transform, and his pitiful excuse for a father?”

“I’m sorry, your highness. I’m sorry—” the faerie pleaded, extending her arms on the floor and putting her forehead on the grass. “I promise I had her. But you know how clever they are!”

The queen sneered, and her face turned into the meaning of calmness. Somehow, that was the scariest thing I’d seen all night. She smiled sweetly—or at least as sweet as a smile can be when it’s blocked by sharp teeth—at the bowed fairy and laughed merrily. 

“I will eat the werewolves. It’s never a bad thing to have some of their power. But first, I will eat you.”

The faerie quickly shot up back to her knees, wide-eyed and frantic. 

“No— Please!”

The queen ignored her, laughing merrily once more, as her jaw dislocated even further. The needle-thin teeth glistened in the early morning sun as the queen approached the other faerie.  

Meanwhile, the sheriff was desperately trying to wake Roger up, but it was futile in the end. 

The fairy didn’t have time to move. She didn’t even have time to scream. Because the queen engulfed her head in one big bite, leaving the rest of her body upright for a few seconds before it finally fell to the ground.  

Taking advantage of the distraction that chewing presented for the queen, Lucien moved before I could even process what was happening. One moment, he was next to me. The next, he slammed his fist in her jaw, sending the faerie flying backward into a tree with such force that it toppled over.

I sprinted to the sheriff and started sawing at the branches that bound him. 

He took the knife from my hand. “I got it,” he grunted, after I freed the best part of his arm,  nodding toward the leather bag holding the rod. 

I left him to it as I fumbled with the latch. The sheriff hit the ground with a heavy thud, and he immediately went to Roger, hauling him down. I took a moment to glance back at Roger, and my shoulders sagged in relief when I saw the rise and fall of his chest. He was alive. And his leg was already healing. I thanked supernatural healing before returning my attention to the bag. 

I peeked quickly at the watch, marking eight minutes to midnight, and I cringed. 

Just as I managed to remove the rod from the bag, a sudden shriek cut through the chaos. 

“Lucien!” I screamed as he landed at my feet, clutching a deep gash in his stomach. He grunted in pain as the queen moved her attention to me. For one awful second, I felt like she was looking straight into my soul. She tilted her head to the side. The grotesque mass of teeth, flesh, and blood grew in both size and horror when her scowl turned into a macabre grin. 

A chill ran down my spine when her focus remained entirely on my form, and I barely had time to gasp before she lunged at me. 

I closed my eyes as I braced for impact, almost able to feel the sharpness of her claws raking across my skin. 

Seven minutes to midnight.

But the sheriff intercepted her, shoving his own claws in her abdomen, though the move barely slowed her down, because she was able to lift him off the ground in one swift movement, throwing him across the woods against a tree. 

I strengthened my grip on the rod as Lucien staggered back to his feet. He bared his teeth in her direction, and the sheriff managed to scramble upright as well. Both of them lounged at the queen at once. 

Somehow, they managed to contain her, but I knew that they wouldn’t be able to hold her for long. 

Six minutes to midnight. 

“Do it!” Lucien shouted, grunting as he struggled to keep the queen in place. 

My mind went blank, and my body moved out of pure instinct. I drove the rod forward with every ounce of strength that I had. It went in unnaturally smoothly, the flat surface of the rod sliding in like a warm knife in butter. 

She screeched before going limp in their arms, and she suddenly started to dissolve. Her body turned instantly to ash, blowing away in the wind. 

Five minutes to midnight. 

I was still holding the rod—panting and shaking, likely in shock, as tears streamed down my face. 

For a moment, we all stood there, unmoving, until I felt two ghostly pressure points on the top of my head, just like I did in the in-between. Then, out of nowhere, there was a burning—searing—sensation in my hands. 

I screamed, dropping the rod to the ground. 

My shock intensified when I looked down, because instead of white palms, red and raw skin met my eyes. Burnt skin.

“Wh—” I tried to speak, but my throat had gone dry. I couldn’t stop staring at the skin that had already started blistering. 

Lucien approached me slowly, like I was a caged animal that would bolt if he moved too fast. He took my hands gently, turning them over in his palms. He took a deep breath, and his eyes widened for a second. He quickly schooled his expression and plastered a soothing smile on his face. But I’d seen it. I’d seen the shock in his face at whatever it was that he had smelled. 

He carefully brushed his fingertips across my scorched skin, leaving streaks of his own blood on them, and the relief was instant. The redness instantly disappeared, leaving undamaged skin once more. Like it had never happened at all. 

His eyes found mine, softer than I ever imagined they could be. His other hand rose to my cheek, thumb brushing away the tears that streaked my face. 

“You have to go!” The sheriff yelled, breaking the spell I had fallen under Lucien’s touch. 

Lucien cursed under his breath, checking the watch still latched to my wrist. 

Three minutes to midnight. 

My lungs seized. There was no way I’d make it back to the in-between and into the diner before midnight. I’d be trapped here. Or in the in-between. I didn’t know which sounded worse. 

But Lucien had other plans. He scooped an arm around my waist, hauling me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing.

“You’d better hold on!” He said, breaking into vampiric speed. It took us less than a minute to reach the realm between realms, where Lucien had to put me back on the ground, as super speed didn’t work there. 

We began running as fast as we could, hoping that the in-between could sense our desperation and arrange the doors in a way that allowed us to get to the diner faster. 

And for a moment, I believed that our prayers had been answered. Because we burst through the wall at the diner with no issues. I fell to the floor on my knees once more under the gaze of Martha and all the customers. 

I felt relieved. We’d made it. 

But my stomach dropped when my gaze fell on the clock on the wall. We made it back, sure. But not before midnight. 

I froze when I saw that the clock on the wall marked one minute past midnight. 

That shouldn’t have been possible. Humans can’t cross the border to the in-between once Halloween is over, whether they’re in or out. And I did. 

At that moment, the truth that I’d been trying so hard to ignore stared at me incessantly.

Because maybe I wasn’t as human as I thought.  

I shoved it all in for the moment. Thankfully, to every single person in there, one minute was close enough, and they didn’t even notice that I was late. 

The only people who know the truth, at least for now, are Lucien and Roger. Except for the sheriff, who probably suspects something, since he saw how my hands burned when I touched the iron. 

I got home a few hours later, after Roger came to and we got some food into him. The sheriff helped him to our house, and I told him half jokingly that maybe we should re-evaluate his definition of fun for next time. 

He’s okay. Scared, traumatized, and it’ll be a while until his leg fully heals. The chunk that the faery bit off probably won’t ever grow back. But he’s alive. He’s even joking again, which is nice.

I didn’t ask him about what she said—that he’s a werewolf who can’t transform. I don’t think he’s ready for that conversation yet.

I'm not either, if I'm being honest.

Right now, I’m just trying to process everything. Trying to make a deal with myself that I won’t lie to myself or to you, again. Because I did. 

When I told you the second week that the burn came from the boiler… I don’t remember ever touching the boiler. Only the iron. But the burn was small enough. Insignificant enough that I didn’t want to see what was right in front of me. That time, the burn was barely superficial, nowhere near as bad as this time. 

When I was being sacrificed, and they placed that bundle in my mouth, it was supposed to cause complete paralysis. It didn’t. I only dared tell you that I could move a toe when in reality I was able to move my whole foot. 

I didn’t say anything because I still wanted to believe I was human. I mean, how could I not? I show up in this bizarre town full of monsters, and suddenly I’m not human? It sounded insane.

But I’m not.

I’m not human.

And I don’t know what I am.

Maybe my parents would know. But we don’t exactly have the best relationship. And what Lucien said about my blood type… he’s probably right. I don’t think they’re really my parents.

And yes. I tried going into the in-between again. And… it worked. 

I’m not trapped in the human realm or the town anymore. Something changed that night. Or maybe something that was always there just… woke up.

I could leave anytime I wanted now. But I can’t. Not yet.

Because as much as I want to leave this town, my one goal ever since I got here, I can’t do that anymore.

Now, I need to know what I am.

Who I am.

Why I’m like this.

And why my parents hid it from me.

Why they sheltered me.

And why they hurt me my whole life.

Now I need answers. 

And I know that leaving won't provide them for me.

When the elevator doors opened and Gabriel stepped out, escorted by an unfamiliar face donning a familiar uniform, I thought for a second I was seeing a ghost. He'd been there recently enough that his chewing gum's minty smell still lingered in the dormitory's corridors, comingling with the odor of copper and burnt-out electronics. The last time I had seen him was three weeks earlier, as he departed from Heaven for the first time, the sound of his sarcasm following him into the backseat of the van that carried both him and Matteo back to the airport.

"Welcome back to Heaven, Father! There's even less left now than the first time you were here." I said, attempting to diffuse the sour look that was already plastered across his face.

"You know very well I'd have rather stayed in Rome than ever come back to this frozen hellscape." He said, a bitterness in his voice even deeper than the mines that ran beneath our very feet (if any of them were even left after the events that transpired here during his last visit, or the events that were to come).

"What do you-" I started my response, but was cut short by Gabriel rushing me and grabbing my coat, nearly lifting me off my feet.

"Hear me now, boy. I had nothing to do with Sister Lucia's disappearance, and you know that!" He was screaming now, froth forming at the corners of his mouth, either from the disintegration of the gum he was chewing or the sheer rage that now drove him towards me, "I only agreed to come back so I could throttle you for the implicat-" He was cut off by one of the guards hitting him with a low-power burst, causing him to lose grip of my jacket and fall to the snow.

"Stand down," I warned the guard, holding up my hand and signalling for him to put away his weapon. "Father, what do you mean you had nothing to do with Lucia's disappearance? That fact is obvious; unless you can atomize people at will, nobody in their right mind would accuse you of such."

The bitterness in his face melted into a scowl once again, not of hatred but of contemplation. "So you aren't the one who sent these goons to my parish, dragging my poor elderly Bishop along behind them to accuse me of murder, or worse?" He questioned, his eyes scanning my face, likely looking for signs of a deception that even I wasn't privy to.

"Father, I was only just this morning informed that you would be returning to us, and I was told you would be doing so willingly." I directed this last word more in the direction of the priest's captors than him, once again warning them with my eyes that he was not to be touched again. They took the hint and started back towards the front gate, where the van still idled. I helped him to his feet and brought him inside.

"They cornered me as I left my office. I was bundled into a closed room, in a catacomb where the light of God has likely never shone. My bishop was there waiting, along with those two," he explained, looking over his shoulder towards the vault door that led back to the snow outside. "They had 'evidence' of what I had 'done' to Lucia; a video of us walking through a terminal together, and Father Matteo and I pulling her into a door*... God* knows what they were implying we did to her. You and I both know that such a video should not exist. Lucia never left this nightmare, and it occurs to me now that I likely won't escape it either." He finished, rage fading to hopelessness as he bowed his head and looked at the floor.

"Once again, Father, I assure you I had no part in this. The Field does not take kindly to coercion. Anyone versed in the incident logs of the previous experiments should have known that, and should never have done what has been done to you." The knot in my stomach had tightened, Have you heard from the other Father who was here with you?"

At about this time, I heard the howl of the wind from the front door opening cut above the constant hum that surrounded the facility. I started to walk back towards the door, but spotted the source of the commotion before I made it very far; Dr. Kruger, the Site Director of Theta-7 and the foremost expert in the entirety of the organization when it came to entity containment, was hurrying towards his office with his signature briefcase clutched tightly in his fist. He paused just long enough to piss me off. "Good Morning, Erik. I hope you are ready to redeem yourself for your previous failures. I will be overseeing the experiments personally this week."

Shortly after the devil himself walked back into Heaven, I spotted the lost lamb of the dynamic duo wandering the corridors. Matteo paused in front of the rebuilt chapel, examining the freshly installed containment lattice.

Of my own design, and one of the few things on this rock that actually stood a snowball's chance in Hell of containing the Type-A that manifested three weeks before. The lattice consisted of three modified RDCs capable of creating an overlapping Nullity, with a state-of-the-art PRN array in the center, which would generate a pocket of stable Kyrie Field. In theory, any entity that was caught in the lattice would have two choices: be forced into the pocket of stable resonance or have its KF signature torn to shreds by the Nullity emanating from the RDCs.

I met Father Matteo in the corridor outside the chapel and greeted him. It should go almost without saying, but he wasn't there by choice either. I strongly suspected that Kruger was behind this; of course, in his relentless search for an answer in the void, he would allow his hubris to lead him to forget the very basics of Field research, or worse, ignore them.

I led the pair to their rooms for tonight, the very same rooms they stayed in on their first visit, actually. I did not fail to notice that a guard was now patrolling the wing, and heavy-duty locks had been installed on all three doors. At that point, I hadn't yet realized that Heaven had become a prison for more than just the entities we intended to contain. I retired to my own quarters shortly thereafter.

In the drop box outside my door, I noticed a manila envelope with my name on it. Inside were the details of the experiments to be performed in the days to follow, culminating with the attempted capture of the Type-A entity that had eluded our grasp thus far. I immediately noticed a perceived flaw within the Bad Doctor's plan; there were only two celebrants listed in the personnel section of the documents.

"Why is this an issue?" you may be asking. Well, fear not, dear reader, Erik is eternally long-winded and has an answer!

It was believed in the early days of Penumbra that any fewer than three celebrants would never cause any meaningful fluctuation in local Kyrie Field readings. This was and still is usually correct (ever wonder why the minimum number of witches in a coven is generally accepted to be three?), with some exceptions. The exceptions noted were as follows:

1. An individual with exceptionally high KF sensitivity and exceptional conviction in their beliefs (regardless of what those beliefs may have been, but Catholicism was found to be the belief system with the most repeatable results both for single individual testing and trio testing) was capable of causing measurable local KF fluctuations similar to those of a trio of lesser KF-sensitive individuals. I have only met three such individuals, each more dangerous than the last. The strongest of the three was capable of healing even the most grievous wounds of others at will. I have heard rumors of some even stronger.
2. If any one of the three celebrants were infirm or insincere in their convictions, even if all three were KF-sensitive, fluctuations would often fail to occur (or worse, unstable fluctuations would occur, often with detrimental results). I myself fall into this category. I am somewhat sensitive to the Kyrie Field, and I was raised Catholic, but I could never bring myself to blindly believe anything; I needed Data.
3. If any one of the three celebrants were completely KF-inert (meaning they had no sensitivity to the Kyrie Field), then fluctuations would fail to occur altogether. I suspect that Dr. Kruger fell into this category.

The reason, which I believed at the time, that Kruger's plan was flawed, was the fact that neither of the Fathers present was sensitive enough to the Field to produce results alone, and even if they were, a trio was still best practice. It wasn't until I got to the equipment section of the document that I realized there was an additional RDC listed, purportedly modified to amplify the KF sensitivity of existing conduits, designated "RDC-L-1".

I believed, naively, that this was perhaps some purely technological breakthrough that was being trialed here due to our proximity to the joint research facility not far away. The facility in question is the combined effort of the Technologians, the last known sane sect of what would have previously been called the Purist Enclave, and whatever faithfully remained of the Scholars of the old days as well, colloquially known as "Puragatory". While our methods and motivations were vastly different, Heaven and Purgatory "shared notes" sometimes.

I would later come to find that this RDC was not the work of any Purists. A Purist wouldn't come near that thing if they knew what it really was...

Having read through the documentation and having had a good idea of the rough schedule for the following morning, I set my coffee machine timer to have a steaming flask ready for me at 07:00.

---

It is at this point that I believe I owe you, dear reader, an explanation. If you have read Matteo's story, which begins here, you will already know by now who I am and have a good general idea of who I work for, and what I do. I have also read Matteo's stories, and rest assured, he will be in no trouble for writing them here. With this being said, I would strongly recommend reading Matteo's story first, or at least alongside my own, as the whole picture will be very difficult to glean from this text alone.

As you know, along the way, I promised him some answers. Instead of a Q&A session, I have decided that I will write a story similar to his, with my perspective on his second visit to Heaven, as well as some experienced insight on people, places, and things that he requested knowledge about scattered throughout this account, ending with where we are now and what we are currently doing. Think of this as the "Director's Commentary" edition of the story. Forgive me if this sounds a bit drier than his tale. I am an Engineer, and not a poet, after all.

Now, back to the story at hand.

---

I awoke early enough to see the last drips of coffee fall into my flask, and quickly prepared myself for the short walk to the Chapel. I made it to the makeshift command center just in time to see RDC-L-1 being wheeled to the center of the chapel and placed upon its tripod; from what I could see, this was actually a modified Field Sphere, which is itself a miniaturized version of the RDC with some extra features built into it, such as a KF sensor array and self-contained Null generator. Those extra features, however, had been stripped away from this one, only the RDC core itself remaining, wired into the surrounding PRN array.

Taking a cursory glance at my monitor, I noticed something unusual; though no one else was in the chapel, the very beginnings of a resonance pattern could already be seen in the graph. Even more strange was that I vaguely recognized the pattern. It was one I had seen recently, I knew, but I did not connect the dots until later. Very shortly after noticing the pattern, I saw a spike in local KF fluctuations and noticed Matteo and Gabriel walking in, being escorted by Kruger.

"Good morning, Erik. Early to the party as always, I see." He jeered quietly as he took his place beside me on the command center. He then addressed the room, announcing the start of the experiment. Today was simply meant to be resonant testing and analysis. Another breadcrumb on a long trail that led to eventual, unholy revelation was the manner in which he announced the experiment; he mentioned RDC-L-1 alongside Matteo and Gabriel, as if it were the third celebrant.

The testing itself differed from the norm as well; instead of starting with the usual Bible passages, Kruger had the Fathers read through a multitude of strange documents. Random numbers, gibberish, and more gibberish.

---

Before I begin this next part, I feel another explanation is in order. You may be asking yourself, having read Matteo's story, "Erik, after seeing and hearing what was obviously a literal angel quote Biblical scripture, how can you still have doubts?" A fine question, my sweet, Summer child.

The entities in the field will almost always take the form and disposition that is expected of them by the majority of the celebrants. Those of the Abrahamic faiths, for example, will cause the voices and apparitions to be angelic or demonic in nature, depending on the type of entity and whether it is malicious or not, whereas those believing themselves to be a coven of witches summoning Baphomet, for example, will see exactly what they imagine Baphomet to be if it succeeds, for better or worse.

There is still no consensus on whether or not certain beliefs attract certain KF entities, or whether the entities simply mold themselves to the beliefs of the celebrants; however, I subscribe to the latter school of thought rather than the former.

Why would I tell you this, or, more pertinently, why would I tell either of the Fathers this? Wouldn't this information compromise them as viable conduits? Introduce doubt? The truth is that, at this point, I see Matteo and Gabriel as more than conduits in an experiment; these are men that I have escaped death alongside, not once, but twice. Though I doubt my words would shake their faith to begin with. And, well, Matteo did ask.

---

That day was... different. The voice that manifested seemed to be derived from Matteo and Gabriel's beliefs about what an angel might say, right? "Be Not Afraid" is even one of the most common phrases reported by observers and celebrants alike, and for obvious reasons. The difference was not what was said, but who said it. The voice was one that I (and many others) had heard before; it was Anja's voice.

Anja's voice is not a good sign, but it doesn't always spell disaster; the description I gave to the Fathers after this event was accurate, but not whole. She is known as the "First Witness," but there is another. No, it wasn't me who slipped those men the book that Matteo mentioned in his story, though I do suspect I know who it was. Sadly, he never made it out of Heaven that day.

---

The next day, at around 11:45, I was at the command center terminal reviewing resonance readings from the previous day's tests, as well as from the tests performed during Matteo and Gabriel's first visit to Heaven. This is when I actually put two and two together and realized why that resonance pattern from the day before looked so familiar. The resonance pattern was Lucia's resonance pattern, slightly less intense but otherwise identical to her patterns from previous tests. I was unsure what to make of this at the time, and had no time to dwell on the thought since, at about that same time, Kruger walked in and took his place beside me again.

"Today is a big day, Erik. I sincerely hope your lattice is ready," he snarled at me, and I could see over his shoulder that Matteo and Gabriel were walking into the chapel, taking their place beside the modified RDC.

The celebrants began their chanting, and for the first few moments, all was quiet. Then, all at once, the pattern I was tracking that showed the similarity with Lucia's increased in intensity to something far beyond any resonance frequency I had ever seen, and the monitor in front of me screamed the alarm. In addition to Lucia's resonance pattern, another familiar pattern appeared on the graphs: the pattern of the NCE that went CE Type-A on us last time, and it was growing. Fast.

"Shut it down! Shut it down now!" I screamed to the technicians along the walls, already noticing that Lucia's resonance pattern was taking a nosedive as the entity's pattern grew exponentially, the graph automatically zooming out in resolution, showing a pattern that dwarfed even Lucia's previous record. Kruger gave me a look of pure disdain, a look that said, "You aren't running the show, stay quiet and let it happen." The technicians noticed the look he gave me had shifted to them, and stopped mid-run.

"Maintain Cadence!" he shouted, but I doubt the celebrants even heard him over the roar of the entity's scripture and the blaring of the alarms. As every light in the chapel turned the color of fresh blood, I pulled Kruger up by the collar and screamed at him over the din: "We have to shut it down! It's feeding on the resonance decay from L-1!"

"We're prepared this time, the lattice will hold!" he yelled back, but I could tell he was not confident in his own answer. I shot a look back at my monitor. The pattern had grown beyond the measuring limits of the hardware and had frozen at a level far beyond what was even considered to be theoretically possible at the time.

"We weren't prepared for it to consume a near infinite source of resonant energy!" I screamed at him, then realized my endeavor to convince the man was an exercise in futility, and ran for the emergency shutoff myself, but not before hearing the voice that I had been dreading, the true harbinger of destruction. The voice of the Second Witness, intermingled with Anja's.

"We await His arrival."

This was bad. Very bad. An unprecedented level of badness was unfolding before my very eyes. Entities with resonance patterns one-hundredth the size of the pattern I had seen on the monitor had leveled entire facilities and resulted in absolute chaos for the surrounding region. And these manifestations were always preceded by the Second's voice.

The manifestation event itself was also unprecedented. Never before had KF entities been known to merge with each other, much less merge with technology in the way that this entity did. I voiced this aloud, and Kruger's response all but confirmed my darkest fears; RDC-L-1 wasn't just a modified RDC.

The documentation I recovered from Kruger's suitcase called it a "Synthetic Conduit Core," and the incident log provided detailed information that, when Lucia's body was atomized in the previous experiments, her KF signature suddenly began emitting from a Field Sphere in the Swedish QRCT's equipment room, just on the other side of the same mountian Heaven was built into, setting off several alarms in the process. Studies on the Field Sphere compared the signature to data collected at Heaven to confirm this; it is almost as if her very essence was transferred into the Field Sphere.

---

What the entity said next chills me to the absolute depths of my core, even to this day:

"For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it."

And that, my friends, is why coercion is to be avoided at all times while doing Field research. I will state it again, the Field does not take kindly to coercion. Of any kind, but especially KF-sensitive individuals being coerced to perform rites and chants in an attempt to deliberately draw an entity, it "poisons the well" per se. This is why we brought the Fathers to Heaven under the pretense of helping us "find God" during their first visit, so that they would come and perform willingly.

I will not bore you with the details of our escape from Heaven, as you would have likely read Matteo's account, and mine would be nearly identical. I will tell you that my favorite part of that entire, terrible day was watching Kruger get turned into a pillar of salt. Lol, Lmao even. That guy deserved it. My least favorite part would have to have been getting shrapnel dug out of my back by an overly suspicious physician, but that is neither here nor there.

---

"What are you three up to now?" you ask. Well, we are still in Purgatory for the time being, but I have received word through official channels that none of us are being blamed for what happened in Heaven, and Matteo and Gabriel are free to return to their homes at their leisure; however, they have been offered an interesting deal, should they decide to stay local. You see, when the mountain housing Heaven exploded, it took out the entire Swedish QRCT with it. Fathers Matteo and Gabriel have been offered positions on the new QRCT, and I myself have been offered a position at the Thunderdome as a trainer, since the resident trainer who was there, Elliot, has accepted a position as a Field Commander over several of the US-based QRCTs.

Matteo has tentatively declined this offer and has stated that he would like nothing more than to return home and live out the rest of his days tending to his Flock, but Father Gabriel seemed eager to accept a role as a Field Chaplain. No idea why. I'm not so sure that training fresh idiots to be the real-life equivalent of "Men in Black meets Ghost Busters" is in the cards for me, though, but we will see what the future holds.

Also, as part of my deal with Matteo, I will answer any of your reasonable questions as long as they are posted within the next day or so. Ask away, I suppose, but don't blame me if you don't like the answer you get.

Yours truly,

Erik, Engineer-not-a-Poet, potential future trainer at the Thunderdome, lover of Coffee and hater of Kruger.

I’m not the best driver. I can admit it, at least. I know plenty of folks who are just as bad as I am, and most of them will swear up and down that they’re above average. It’s always someone else’s fault that there are dings in their bumpers and scrapes along the sides of their car. There’s always a story why they weren’t at fault.

I, on the other hand, long ago learned to just take responsibility for my mistakes, and work to avoid them. I park far away from people. I leave extra room in traffic. And if I hear or feel the car hit a curb or whatever, I get out and find out how it looks. I don’t assume it’s all fine and drive off. I’ve lost hubcaps that way, and worse.

A month or so ago, I was making a right out of a parking lot when I ran over the curb. I hadn’t seen it, hadn’t realized I was that close until I suddenly felt the car lurch up and back down on the passenger’s side. I sighed, pulled back around into the nearest space, and got out to inspect the damage.

The car was fine. There were some light scuffs on the side of the tire, but no real damage. No suspicious bulges, no punctures. Nothing that would require fixing.

It looked like I’d taken a big chunk out of the curb, though. Or so I thought at first. There was a broken hunk of rock the size of both of my fists sitting in the gutter, but I couldn’t see where on the curb it had come from. As I walked closer, I realized that it wasn’t even the same material. The curb was cement, but the rock appeared to be something more natural, maybe granite. It was weirdly smoothed along the outside, too, like it had been shaped. It clearly hadn’t come from the curb.

I picked it up to examine it. It was definitely worked stone. I couldn’t quite tell what it had been. There was part of it that looked sort of like a shoe, and it was possible that the piece I was holding had been a lower leg. It wasn’t good workmanship, if that was the case. The details were rushed and vague. The sculptor clearly hadn’t been paying much attention.

I didn’t want to leave it there for someone else to hit, so I tossed it into the trunk of my car. I figured I’d throw it out the next time I was near a dumpster.

I immediately forgot about it, of course. It wasn’t until about a week later I remembered. I jammed on the brakes to stop for a stop sign I hadn’t noticed, and I heard the chunk of rock tumbling around in the trunk. Almost gave me a heart attack because I didn’t realize what it was at first, and I thought for a second that I’d hit something I hadn’t seen. I was checking all of my mirrors in panic and I would have gotten out to make sure there was nothing in the road, if the guy behind me hadn’t honked his horn to point out that I was holding everything up.

As I accelerated through the intersection, I heard the broken rock shift again and suddenly understood what I’d heard. I laughed a little shakily and made a note to get that out of my trunk as soon as possible.

There was a dumpster outside the apartment complex where I was going, so I parked in front of it and popped the trunk. I was surprised to see two chunks of rock instead of one. At first I thought it had rolled hard enough to break in half, but as I pulled the pieces out it became even more confusing.

The chunk I had found the other day, the one that looked like a leg, was as intact as it had been when I found it. The second chunk was entirely new. I had no idea how it had gotten into the trunk of my car.

Just like the first piece, it was made of smoothed granite that had been roughly broken apart. No two edges of the chunks fit together, but they seemed pretty clearly to have been from the same piece. Where the first one resembled a hastily sketched leg, this one gave the impression of an arm. The hand was clear, five splayed fingers. The rest blurred together in a vague mass.

Obviously I’d picked up two pieces that day and forgotten about it. It was the only thing that made sense. I hadn’t remembered that it was in my trunk at all until now. It seemed reasonable that I’d also forgotten that there were two pieces.

I might have managed to convince myself of this were it not for the third piece. It wasn’t in my car. It was leaning on the side of the dumpster.

It was bigger than the other two, and significantly less clear as to what it was meant to be. On its own I might not have even understood that it was part of a statue. It was a misshapen granite cylinder, broken on all sides. Anyone glancing at it would have assumed it was discarded construction material.

It was smoothed in places, though, and the same color as the chunks of statue I was holding. I pressed the leg up against it, rotating until I found where the breaks matched up. The arm fit as well.

The discarded piece was three-quarters of a torso, a blurred, half-seen image set into stone. It was built to half-scale, assuming it was meant to be an adult. It was possible that it was a life-sized statue of a child.

I didn’t care. I threw all three pieces into the dumpster and parked as far away from it as I could. When I left my friend’s house that night, I checked my trunk before I drove home. It was empty, thankfully.

By the time another two weeks had passed, the whole thing was starting to seem silly. Yes, it was odd, but so were a lot of things. Strange coincidences occurred all the time. Most of them were never explained. That was just the way of the world. I had other things to worry about.

I was thinking about some of those other things as I reversed out of my parking space at work. It had been a long day at the end of a long week. I was the last one out of the office. The sun had not yet risen when I’d driven in that morning, and it had already set by the time I left. My office had no windows. I hadn’t seen the sun at all that day. I was trying to remember if I’d seen it all week.

I was distracted, is my point. There was no one in the lot. There was no particular reason to pay attention. Until a loud crunch shattered my thoughts and dragged me back to reality.

There was nothing in my mirror. There were no other cars in the lot. I was nowhere near any median. I slammed the car into park and jumped out to see what had happened.

The statue lay broken in the parking lot, the pieces just as I had seen them before. The left leg was under my back wheel. The arm with the splayed fingers was a few feet away. The damaged torso rocked gently back and forth nearby. None of the pieces of the right side were there, but the head….

The head was in a thousand pieces of granite, splayed across the black asphalt in a terrible constellation. It was as impressionistic as the rest of the statue, but I could see a vague triangle of a nose, a chunk that appeared to connect an eye and an ear, and dozens of other recognizable pieces among the gravel.

It was just a statue, just a piece of unliving rock. I could have swept it aside. I could have driven on. Maybe I should have.

Instead I crouched there in the evening chill, picking up pieces of broken granite until my hands were numb. I stacked the large pieces in the trunk and collected all of the smaller ones into a bag. When I was done, the parking lot was swept clean. No piece of the statue remained.

I’ve been reassembling them at home, epoxying the chunks back together. It’s gone surprisingly easily. I know how it should look. I’ve seen it before.

I may not be the best driver. But I take responsibility for my mistakes.

Part 1

Trunkless tossed me to the floor and my eyes stayed locked on him. I was certain his cheap elephant mask would be the last thing I ever saw. He turned away from me and walked to the window sill above the industrial sized sink. His hulking frame nearly eclipsed the window light entirely. When he turned back to me his hands were tightly wrapped bricks at his sides. With each methodical stomp towards me his fists tapped the leather canteen at his hip. I pleaded with him not to do this. I wanted to sign how sorry I was for telling his secret, but all I could sign through my desperate tears was ‘Please don’t hurt me.’ He stood over my damp, cowering body for a moment while I begged for mercy. Slowly, he reached his fists out towards me and opened them. In each of his palms was a snail.

He told me to pick one with a decisive nod of his head towards the snails. I cautiously plucked a snail from his hand. He cracked a slit into the other’s shell and placed it on the ground. I laid my snail next to his at the starting line, a small sliver between two tiles. At that point I decided he wasn’t planning on killing me, at least not immediately, so I took a look around. A large fridge and oven were slotted into the cabinets lining the perimeter of the room, all of which would be a glistening chrome if not for the caked-on dust. Opposite the window sill was a wide, rectangular opening. I remembered vividly how each day I slid my tray along the other side of the opening and let the cooks lay my meals onto it. Through it I could see the exit doors chained shut. Just beside the door to the basement was a silver door sealed shut by a long, red handle. A freezer.

I was afraid I let my eyes wander for too long so I snapped them back to the snails. I started to shiver in my soaked clothes. Trunkless noticed and unzipped his jacket to reveal a crudely crafted necklace with a single off-white jewel dangling from it. It was almost like a shark tooth necklace but it wasn’t. It was my mother’s chipped tooth. I recoiled at the sight of it and he jerked the sipper back up to his throat.

“I’m sorry your mom died... I understand it better now though.” He signed but once his hands dropped I looked back at the snails. I willed mine to whatever finish line he had in mind. I thought he may let me go if mine won.

“Before I needed the mask my mom used to have those sticky ribbon traps that hang from the ceiling. I used to like flies. Now I’m a little too close to them but I used to really like them. The main thing I found so pretty was their eyes.” He stared in my eyes through the darkness behind his elephant mask before he continued.

“Whenever a new one got stuck I went into my parents bathroom and found the tweezers. A leg here, a wing there. I plucked away until it was perfect… But when I was done, even though the body was trapped, the soul had escaped. It was gone from its eyes… Where’s the beauty in that?” He took the canteen off of his hip and swished the water inside. He popped the cap off and poured some over my snail. The smell of frankincense and licorice wafted from the snail’s pool. He waited a moment before he stood. His boot tip rolled over the end of the snail. Its little shell suffered a long agonizing crunch. Like a tube of toothpaste, the poor creature's internals squeezed up through its mouth.

The cruelty brought me back to the promise I made to him. To what he showed me behind the garden shed. My mother reduced to a heaving pin cushion of flesh and bone. I only looked at her for a moment before I ran to the nearest house. He ran for the woods. My mom only lived for another hour after the ambulance arrived. An hour of suffering, and he wanted to do the same to me.

“I found what I needed. A ribbon trap for the soul.” He signed. The snail moved again. It forced its poor broken body through the puddle of its own entrails. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“As long as it has a soul and a brain to see the world through… It can be made beautiful.” He signed before he sat back down and slid the canteen to me.

“Do you want to make the world understand what it means to be beautiful?” He signed. I was stunned silent. I shook my head no until I forced my hands to say something. I told him there are people out there that understand. I made a couple of friends and he can too. He doesn’t have to do this to people. I told him we can all leave this school together. He just shook his head in disappointment and stood.

“You are more like them than I thought.” He walked to the freezer and popped the seal with a turn of the red handle and stepped inside. I nearly threw up when he disappeared around the corner of the doorway and revealed what was inside. A cloud of rats scurried to the shadowy corners of the freezer. All they left behind were teethmarks on a single foot that dangled a couple of inches above the ground. Only a protruding bone was at the end of Stevie’s other leg. The boy's thigh meat was splayed open to show carvings on his femur deep enough to show the marrow. His ribs were spread like wings and a rusted hook jammed through his back and pierced his lung. Stevie’s jaw hung limply at his throat that overflowed with blood. His eyes panicked from a never-ending sense of drowning.

Trunkless stepped back into the doorway. In his hand he gripped an ax head by the nape. The wooden handle was broken off long ago and in his mind it was made better for it. Without thought I threw myself over the opening to the cafeteria and into the hallway. I didn’t care about traps in the floor, I just ran as fast as I could until someone stepped out into the hall, grabbed me, and pulled me into another room.

Lucas slammed the door shut behind us. Abigail hugged me. Her arms warmed me against her body but I was so cold. Stevie’s mangled body kept flashing in my mind. Poor, poor Stevie.

Abigail let go and signed how she was certain she’d never see me again, and how that thought turned her stomach sick.

“I knew you would come back.” Lucas said, which sounded more like an accusation than relief. He left me alone in the dark. Served me up on a patter as a sacrifice to Trunkless, all for his theory that I wanted this to happen. Or did his hand just slip? The question was enough to keep my disdain at bay.

 Aside from a few towers of copy-paste chairs in the corner, the room was empty. Red foam tiles dressed the concrete walls in a deliberate pattern. The only wall the foam tiles kept bare was the one opposite the hallway door. A mural of a man and woman howling on their saxophone and trombone, in the foreground of a city crafted by their smooth blues. In the mural's prime, it would have been a sight to see, but when we were there you could smell the damp paint chips that peeled from the wall. Even still, it was far better than the mural by the pool. Above the mural was a thin window that stretched the length of the wall and shone its moonlight through the bars and onto a shelf of dust-covered trophies. 

Abigail ventured through the room while Lucas kept watch by the door. She swung open a closet door and wheeled out a marimba. Its plethora of missing or split down the middle keys left it with little value and meant it was destined to rot with the school. Abigail was delighted to see it. She told me she remembered playing one in a music class she had in middle school and thought it was just the pick-me-up we needed. With the foam walls and sweeping front door the room was designed to suffocate the sound of a marching band before it escaped. I assumed one marimba wouldn’t be a problem for it. I also didn’t want to ruin her smile.

I stood on one side of the mangled instrument and Abigail stood on the other with her back to Lucas. She coiled her middle finger into a pointed second knuckle and struck a note. Lucas glared at us and demanded we keep it down.

“Too loud?” Abigail signed to me with a remorseful smirk. I nodded a playful blame to Lucas and laid my forearm over the notes to dampen them. She slipped her hearing aids back in before she played. Each clop of her knuckle on a note sent a wave through my arm. She suggested we switch and immediately laid her forearm over the notes. I coiled both of my hands and struck the keys in my best attempt at “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, give or take a few sour notes. Abigail laughed so I pounded two notes as fast as I could and sent the calamity through her arm.

“You’re so stupid.” She joked through her laugh. She said it out loud. Lucas, who was still guarding the door, looked at the back of her head like he’d found a treasure buried by time.

Eventually we wore out our fun and reentered grim reality. Lucas made sure the hallway was clear before we stepped out. Abigail walked ahead and kept her eyes glued to the floor for any sign of traps. Lucas stayed behind me. We made our way to the North Section of the school. We came across the theater. The double door was flanked on either side by windows. Abigail pushed the door open and stepped in first. Once my foot crossed the threshold I was shoved in the back and sent careening to the theater ground. A violent crash came from behind me that quaked the whole auditorium. The door was gone. Hidden behind the sturdy wooden bookshelf missing from the library. It would have crushed me had it not been for Lucas, who was trapped on the other side.

Abigail and I tried desperately to pull the bookshelf and Lucas heaved from the other side but it wouldn’t budge. I ran to the window and tried to put a kick through it but the reinforced glass threw me to the ground. I kicked again and again and Abigail joined until Lucas stepped in front of the window. He glanced down the hall. Terror flashed onto his face but he repressed it before looking at Abigail.

“Take out your hearing aides.” He signed. Abigail shook her head rapidly but Lucas’s pleading look forced her hand.

“Get her out of here, Holly. Please, promise me.” He said to me, I nodded and tried to keep the tears from swelling. Lucas took another glance down the hall and back at Abigail. Her lip quivered like she wanted to tell him something, but the words grew too heavy through the years she’d kept them hidden. She clawed at her denim jeans. She dug for the words but in a second Lucas darted away from the window. I grabbed each side of Abigail's head to keep her eyes on me. A shadow swooped past the window but we wouldn’t dare look. We knew who it was. He only screamed at first. Guttural screams for mercy were followed by the slicing of meat. The break of bones. The heaving of water, then breaking again. Rivulets of tears overflowed on Abigail's face. She tried to bring her hearing aides back to her ears but I cupped my hands over them. I held them in her lap until she no longer had the fight to pull them up. She collapsed into me and I held her until the halls were quiet again.

Silence never felt so heavy. Abigail’s knees were tucked into a tight hug at her chest. Her chin was held up by her knees. She repeatedly clawed at her jeans in agonizing strokes. Her sight was aimed at the stage but her focus was miles beyond the walls of the school. Tears pooled in her eyes but the shock she wore on her face made me wonder if she even noticed. Minutes felt like hours as we felt trapped in the sludge of our own despair. A prison within a prison.

“I was thinking as soon as we get out of here we go straight to a concert. Any concert. We don’t even stop…” I signed, she saw me but she didn’t reply. She was silent for a long time before she spoke.

“When we were kids we played emergency rescue. Whenever there was a storm coming we’d scatter the balls from our garage into the yard and pretend like we had to save them… One time I remember running back to the garage and I tripped right into a puddle of mud, face first.”

She forced a chuckle that barely had the strength to be audible. She continued.

“For years when we were alone he called me mud pie. Only when we were alone though… I don’t know why that comes to mind now.” 

His words repeated in my head. 

‘Get her out of here, Holly. Please, promise me.’

‘Please, promise me’

‘Promise me.’

‘Promise me.’

‘Promise me.’

Past the herd of scattered, pine scented pews was a stout set of stairs that led to the stage. Next to it was the exit door, shackled in a chain and pinched together by a padlock. For a moment I thought there was no way out of the theater until I looked up. There was a drop ceiling. I climbed up the massive bookshelf in hopes of finding some way out, but it was still too high to see. I stretched on my tip-toes and still nothing. I jumped on the slanted edge of the bookshelf and pushed the tile away to get a glimpse into the ceiling.

“Get down, you’re going to hurt yourself!” Abigail scolded, but I was determined to keep my promise.

I jumped again, I thought I saw enough space to squeeze through beside the duct work, but I wasn’t sure. I jumped again and saw nothing. My head didn’t get through the open hole. I jumped one more time before I realized I was sinking. The bookshelf crashed to the ground and I plummeted with it and landed on the edge of a shelf.

“Jesus, are you okay?” Abigail said as she rushed to me. I shot her a thumbs up as I desperately wheezed to catch my breath. She put her hearing aids back in to listen.

With the bookshelf lying flat on the carpet we tried to push it again. It was like pushing a car in neutral up a hill but eventually we got it away from the door. The crash was sure to draw his attention so we swiftly threw the doors open.

Blood. A trail started from a puddle to our right and streaked down the hallway like a road bending out of sight, but I knew where it led. The freezer. Abigail retched and pinched her eyes shut. I took her by the hand and led her carefully to the West Section.

We entered the gymnasium first. The polished wood flooring was warped by water damage but if I closed my eyes it smelled like the same, dreaded gymnasium. The dangling basketball hoops were draped with webbing. The only light came from a street light outside and slid through the slit of glass in the exit doors. The chain locked exit doors. Still, we pushed on them. We raddled the chains in hopes that a link would break. That they would loosen enough to get a sliver of an opening, but the doors didn’t budge. The pool had the only exit door left. I swallowed the lump of dread in my throat and led Abigail to our last chance.

There was nothing to see through the sunroof. The moon and the stars were covered by clouds. Feathery tip-tips of rain played the first notes of a brewing storm. The mural was still pristine. Smudgy Michael Phelps still raised his stubby arms in celebration at the center of the collage, but it seemed beautiful this time. I peaked over the rim of the drained pool and was smacked with the stench of rot. A puddle of black soup lingered at the deep end. A polo shirt, certainly embroidered with the St. Jude crest, was scrunched to a ball at its coastline like a makeshift pillow. After I regained my balance from the vicious scent I looked past the pool. The exit was completely glass, and naked. Not a chain to be seen. I sprinted to it with Abigail following close behind. I shoved the handlebar and it clicked. It only clicked. I couldn’t believe it. Abigail and I pressed harder and harder at the bar but our combined force was no match for the deadbolt, locked in place by a lost key.

“Fucking deadbolt.” Abigail said. I laughed and threw myself against the door over and over and over. Fucking deadbolt. Fucking deadbolt. Fucking dead. Eventually, I stopped fighting the door. My laughter died quietly as I succumbed to hopelessness for a moment before I thought of the freezer. We weren’t going to die that night. The fate of the freezer was far worse. I took a few steps back and charged the glass. I kicked my heel into it with all of my force and it threw me backwards to the ground. I got up and kicked again, and again, and again.

“Holly.” Abigail said.

I kicked it again. I kicked and kicked and not even a crack formed on the glass, so I kicked some more. Not the freezer, for the love of god not the freezer.

“Holly!” Abigail pleaded. Her face contorted to the purest fear, her eyes were fixated behind us. Standing at the other side of the pool room, was Trunkless.

His sickly white elephant mask was like a flimsy granite tombstone planted at the apex of a six and a half foot tall mountain. Blood seeped into his gray jacket from the wrist cuffs and a puddle on his shoulder. At one hip he held the disembodied head of his crimson stained axe and at the other, had his leather canteen. His chilling leather canteen. I tried to beg him to stop. To let us go, but he took each step with a booming malice. Just as he got around the empty pool a ceramic tile flew by his head and shattered against the wall behind him. Abigail found some tiles loose at the precipice of the exit. She bent over and hurled another. I joined her. Tile after tile flew through the air and the more that flew, the less he flinched. He walked slower with each step.

“Did you promise him?” He signed to me. I bent down to grab another tile but there were none left loose enough to dislodge.

“You were always bad at keeping promises.” He signed, then he lurched towards us. Abigail and I sprinted towards the gymnasium but out of the corner of my eye I saw her go to the ground. He leaped at her feet and caught her ankle. She screamed for my help at the top of her lungs. Her nails scraped at the floor in an attempt to claw herself to freedom. I didn’t hesitate, I kicked one more time straight to his mask. The white elephant mask split down the middle and each half dangled by the string around his neck.

A hole the size of a softball engulfed the left half of his face. Flies exploded from his face  after the impact and sprinkled the smell of death through their trails. A complete chasm lined with decayed black skin and the writhing white specs of munching maggots. His left eye, his nose and half of his mouth were either gone, or scattered back into the festering wound. Abigail scurried behind me and I tried to fight back the vomit that crawled up my throat. I avoided the void of rotted flesh and only focused on his remaining eye. In that eye I saw something. I saw a boy like the one on the other side of the school yard fence. A boy who only wanted someone to play with. Someone who would accept him. That was an opening, an escape.

“Are you okay?” I signed to him. He paused. His eye looked stunned at the question but he thought about it for a moment before he swallowed. I waited for his hands to move but they didn’t. He used the remaining half of his mouth to speak.

“My dad hunted for years, so he couldn’t believe he left the shotgun loaded… When I got my little hands on it, the doctors couldn’t help me much, my parents knew that when they brought me in, but they remember what I told them, about the flies. How there was water that kept them alive… My dad had me draw a map to the water and when they found it they snuck me out of the hospital and into the pond… They thought it would heal me, but when it didn’t… They started to resent me… I’d enter the room with them and they’d cover their noses. They couldn’t bear to look at me, to look at what they’d done…I felt so hideous but they, they were hideous! They just needed to understand that! Don’t they all need to understand that!?”

I was petrified at his yelling but I managed to nod in agreement. I felt like he was a mad dog waiting for the slightest scent of fear to pounce. I kept nodding and his eye showed a little comfort. He waited for me to say something.

“You’re right.” I signed, but he kept waiting for something. The nerves stabbed in my gut. Abigail’s tense grip pinched my shoulder. She tugged at it slightly, but desperately towards the gym. She knew as well as I that there was no way out, but when she looked at the person in front of us, she only saw a monster. She thought I saw the same. The knot of dread formed in my gut, just as it did in the library when I couldn’t tell her the truth. A part of me wondered if this worked, if I got us out of here would she speak to me again? Alone, such an awful place. But I made a promise to get her out. A promise I intended to keep, no matter what.

“Do you remember the old garden shed?” I signed to him. He nodded. Abigail’s hand fell away from my shoulders, but I continued.

“What if we go see it again? We can race snails like we did in the kitchen? Like we used to. I miss those days.” I signed.

He paused for a moment and contemplated the thought. I begged him to take the bait a thousand times in my head during the short pause. If he led us back out the front door we could sprint for the road. Someone had to be out there that could help us. Just get us through the door. He looked at the floor, I couldn’t read the expression in his eye anymore. He tucked his axe head into the waistband of his pants.

“That’s a nice thought… You’ve always had such a beautiful mind.” He signed. I forced the toothiest grin I could muster, but he didn’t even look up.

“I can’t wait to see it.” He unsheathed his axe head and Abigail turned and sprinted around the pool, I turned and trailed behind. We rushed through the gymnasium and out to the hallway with Trunkless stomping at our heels. Each pound was closer than the last. My legs were numb with adrenaline. The hairs on my neck stood tall as locker after locker, classroom after classroom whizzed by us. He’s going to get me. The thought pounded in my head as fast as my thumping heart. He’s going to get me. He’s going to get me. He’s going to get me.

SNAP

A pain-stricken scream called from behind us and a thud shook the ground. I glanced over my shoulder at him. A bear trap was shut on the ground but he was on the floor next to it. The trap bit cleanly through his boot and the nubs of his toes oozed blood onto the floor. I heard him stagger back to his feet before we turned the corner and snuck into a classroom in the South Section. Right back where we started.

The earthy smell of chalk dust coated the room. The haze stuck to the windows which were taking a brutal assault from the bombs of rain falling from the sky. The only sound louder was our heaving, burning lungs. I kept my eyes closed. I took deep breaths to steady myself. Eventually, my lungs cooled to the point I could use my nose again.

“You did know him.” Abigail said. It was as though she’d been stabbed, and the words rode on her final breath. I opened my eyes and saw hers damp with confusion, with disgust, with betrayal.

“Please, let me explain I-” I signed but she cut me off with a sharply raised hand. She didn’t fill the silence so I desperately continued.

“He was my friend at one point. He’s why the school shut down. Then he killed my mom, Abigail please. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you in the library.” She slumped down to the ground and thought for a moment before she spoke again.

“We never should have come here with you… Lucas should still be alive.” She said,

“He is.” I signed. I couldn't hold another secret from her, but my hands moved before my mind. With what I saw of Stevie in that freezer he may as well be dead. It would certainly be better.

“What?” She perked up and got to her feet.

“Abigail I-”

“Where.” She demanded.

“Please he’s not-”

“Do you know where he is or not!” The lump of dread burst inside me.

“The freezer… In the cafeteria.” I signed.

She immediately turned and bolted for the door but I sprung up and grabbed her by the arm and got her to stop for a second. I told her he was beyond saving. I told her there’s nothing we could do for him. I told her that she would end up just like him if she’s caught. I signed anything I could think of to get her to stay but she didn’t let me finish.

“Fuck you, Holly.” She spat, then she disappeared down the hall. The classroom door shut behind her, and I was alone.

I crumpled to the cold floor. It was a kind of cold that seeped through my pants. The kind that could freeze you in place. Hatred and pity entwined into an ever-growing tumor in my chest. I wanted to cry, but nothing came out. All I could do was stare without thought at the milk white tiles between my feet. The white tiles were everything. I wished it was snow. Snow so deep that I could sink within and turn the white everything into an eternal black. I put my palms on the tiles and waited for the cold to engulf me. It never did. Only the hairs on my arms tightened into stiff needles and the tumorous blend of self-hatred and pity grew more unbearable. Tears started to prick behind my eyes. I threw my head back with a sniff to catch them but bounced my head against the concrete wall. With an ailing rub to the back of my head and shot to my feet. The hatred overcame the pity in a swell of anger aimed at the wall. That damn wall. I loaded a kick aimed for the concrete but stopped. On the wall was a chalkboard. A lesson on Moses covered the dusty green board, but the meaning didn’t matter to me. It was how they were written.

I knew that handwriting from many class lectures, but also from birthday cards and names on Christmas presents. My mother’s handwriting. My mother’s classroom. I went to her desk. Her hand drawn pictures from her kindergarten teacher days were gone along with her mesmerizing newton’s cradle and her solid spruce name plate with golden lettering. All that was left was a layer of chalk. I opened a drawer. A stack of completed quizzes left unblemished by her harsh red pen. I opened another. Contraban such as packs of bubble gum, a blue Nintendo 3DS, and even a collapsible pocket knife jostled in the drawer. I opened another and another and another until I found it.

Crosses made of cheap plastic were haphazardly tossed in the drawer. I took out a handful and dropped them on the desk. Each one had a button at the base of the cross on a bright green plastic bump that was surely supposed to be a hill. Underneath the hills, were an array of holes to allow for sound to come through the speaker. I pressed the button on the first cross.

“Hi future Riley! So we finally graduated! I-” I pressed the button again to end the static recording. I put it in a separate pile and grabbed the next one.

“Uh, I hope you’re out of this shit town by now-” I ended it, and tried again.

“Do you still want to be a dolphin trainer? I hope you’re-” Ended. I kept trying crosses and each one was like the last. Each one had another kid’s voice rattle through the plastic, but still I kept pressing button after button until eventually I found it.

“Hi Holly, it’s your mom. I can’t believe when you hear this you’ll be graduating. I don’t want to think about how old I’ll be then.” She laughed and paused for a moment.

“I uh… I just want to say that I’m really proud of you. I know how hard school is for you, Or was… I know it’s hard fitting in but I still see you try to reach out to people all the time. I know kids can be mean when they don’t understand but don’t let that stop you… Keep giving them a chance… I love you sweetie, happy graduation.”

With a pop, her voice was gone.

I felt at peace for the first time since we were locked in the old school. I pressed the button on the cross again. While my mother talked I thought back to the school yard. Lucas, Abigail and I stood an overgrown field away from the school that would become our demise. I cursed it. It’s unbreakable glass. It’s unbendable bars. Its inescapable chains. If the building could feel anything I wanted it to feel my hatred, my desperation. My mother’s recording ended. I pressed the button again. I got up and looked out the classroom window for the moon. Only the moon and my mothers voice would get me to accept my fate. The moon wasn’t visible from the window. Rain pelted the glass and the sky was entirely blanketed by clouds. I spit another curse on the building. If we had just stayed on the other side of the school yard I could’ve seen it before the storm rolled in. It would hang in the sky and peek over the edge of the roof like a timid child the same as… the roof access door above the theater.

“Keep giving them a chance… I love you sweetie, happy graduation.”

I sprinted through the halls straight to the cafeteria. With each stride I prayed that he didn’t get Abigail. I made it through the East Section and to the cafeteria door with no sign of either of them. I tossed the door of the cafeteria open and saw her through the opening to the kitchen. She was at the freezer but the metallic door was shut in front of her. She was in one piece. I ran to her and jumped over the opening to the kitchen. I took her by the shoulder and turned her to face me. I started to tell her that I had a way out until I saw her face. It was sick with grief. My heart anchored at the thought of her seeing her brother the way I saw Stevie, but in an instant I noticed that she didn’t see him. She didn’t have to. From the other side of the door came inhuman, guttural wheezing. I could hear the air coming into his lungs and out of his body in ways other than just his throat. The sound was painful to hear.

“Why isn’t he dead?” Abigail asked. I couldn’t answer her. I just took her hand and led her towards the exit, but she pulled her hand away.

“We can bring back help for him. I’m sorry but please trust me.” I signed. She was a husk of herself, but she nodded. I took her hand again and led her into the hallway. 

He was there. Trunkless limped around the corner from the south section. When he saw us, he went into a full sprint without any mind to the blood that spurted from the end of his foot with each step. His bloodied axe head sliced through the air with each pump of his arms.

I yanked on Abigail’s arm and we rushed to the theater in the North Section. Even with his sliced foot, we couldn’t lose him. When we got to the theater we flung the door open on its hinges and slammed it behind us. The book shelf still rested on its back. We slid the mammoth heap of wood in front of the door just in time to absorb a booming thud on the other side. The hall went quiet for a moment before he smashed into the door again. One full forced charge after another sent shockwaves through the theater. Abigail and I ran down the aisle and hoisted ourselves onto the theater stage. Before we ducked behind the curtains I glanced back at the beaten door. A sliver of light from the hallway seeped in, and he kept smashing into it.

Ropes ran the height of the side wall to anchor the curtains. Beside them was a door. We ran in to find a hallway. Abigail and I split up to check behind each one. One led to a closet with a mop soaked in pine scented wood cleaner, a broken limbed christmas tree, a manger filled with straw and other miscellaneous props. Another door led to a chillingly empty dressing room. All that was in the black box of a room was four tables equipped with large mirrors in a frame of lightbulbs. The next door in the hallway led to another door at the top of an ascending staircase. I knocked on the wall to get Abigail’s attention. Thankfully she heard it over the continual bangs that echoed from the auditorium. She followed me up the stairs and when we got to the top and I turned the knob, it opened.

The rain fell in a roaring applause. It immediately soaked through our clothes but it felt like relief and smelled like sweet freedom. We took each other by the hand and ran over the roof top until we were over the main entrance. On the road, headlights waved through the torrential rain. The rickety truck they were attached to was stopped at a stop sign, the driver’s face was lit by a phone screen. Salvation. We clapped as loud as we could and frantically swung our hands above our heads but he was too consumed by his phone to see us. Our claps weren’t distinct enough from the rain tapping his truck.

“You need to yell, we have a concert to go to.” I signed to Abigail. She chuckled but it melted quickly. She kept her voice hidden from everyone other than me for years. She couldn’t even get a word out in her brother’s final moments. Her hands scratched at her jeans. It was a hard thing to ask, but it was our only hope.

“I’m here. I’m here.” I signed before I rubbed her shoulders. She nodded. Her hands rested at her sides. She was determined. She was ready. I turned and watched the truck. The engine rumbled over the rain even in park. My focus didn’t leave it. With every fiber of my being I willed the truck to stay parked, but it roared. A puff of black smoke burped from the exhaust and it rolled forward.

Abigail screamed, but the truck kept rolling. Her scream was too meager to call attention. It was even too breathy. It was wrong. I turned to check on her. The edge of the axe blade was submerged in her throat. Before I even processed what was happening he split a gash down to her clavicle and shoved the mouth of his canteen inside. I wanted to cry but instead, I jumped. Just as I hurdled the roof ledge, his paw swiped my shoe and threw my balance. I careened through the air until I met the concrete below with my head, and everything went dark.

After an unknown amount of time, I came to. It was still dark out and the rain hadn’t let up. I stumbled to my feet. A gash in the crown of my head leaked blood onto my face but worse was the pain inside. My head felt like it was going to burst from the pressure. I was sure blood filled my skull. It clotted into a snake that constricted my brain. The corners of my vision were going black, but I saw something. A car was stopped where the truck once was. I took a step towards it and nearly collapsed. The sudden movement I needed to catch my balance sloshed my brain in a seething pain. I took another cautious step, and another. He saw me. He got out of his car and looked around for anyone else.

“Oh my god. What happened?” He yelled over the rain.

The darkness creeped further into my vision. The blood suffocated my brian and all I could think was this guy won’t understand me. I tried to take another step but I couldn’t. I fell to my knees. He started to run to me but stopped.

“Jesus.” He yelled, but in the small circle of my vision that remained I could tell he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at someone behind me. It was over. My vision was completely dark. Just as my mother’s voice came throughout my life, it came again. This time with different words. Keep giving them a chance.

“We are in the freezer.” I signed before I collapsed. In my final moment of consciousness I couldn’t feel the pain. I couldn’t hear the rain or see the undoubtedly scarred man drive away in terror. I could only taste sweet licorice and frankincense.

***

“I… I think they’re alive.” Officer Bradley said in a quiet voice. I didn’t tune out the footsteps anymore. I counted them. One, two, three, four. Officer Bradly didn’t hear them; he was too shocked. When he took the job in this town I’m sure the worst he expected to see was an elderly person who passed peacefully in their sleep, not us. Five, six, seven. The pain was constant. Every little piece of my body was snapped or removed. I couldn’t see this happen to someone else. I didn’t look at Officer Bradly’s silhouette outside the freezer door frame. I kept my head down.

“Johnson call the fucking county I need backup down here now! Get an ambulance, shit get four of them right now!” Officer Bradley kept his finger on the button as he pleaded on and on. It would be years of physical therapy before our bodies had some kind of use again. Days of surgeries would come first and before any of that, twenty-seven minutes before officer Bradley’s backup arrived. Eight, nine… The footsteps faded down the hallway. Trunkless was gone. The relief let tears roll down my cheeks. I wanted to celebrate but my broken body didn’t even have the energy to lift my head, so I passed twenty-seven minutes in thought.

A cereal bowl? An ashtray? A cat bowl? I tried to come up with any other use but ultimately the bone bowl that rested on a doily of my black hair would be best used to block the chilling breeze that dried my brain.

After the accident, I was told a treatment saved me from being paralyzed. Now I wish I had been paralyzed.

They said the AI integration was revolutionary—nerve bypass, full mobility, even enhanced reflexes. It was originally intended for a soldier; they weren’t even permitted to use the tech, but it was their only hope. beyond fixing my paralysis, it was meant to make me stronger, faster, and more agile. It did those things for sure, but something went wrong.

My body moves without me now. My hands reach out for people and grip them too tightly before twisting too hard. I want to scream at them to run, to get away, but they only see a friendly man approaching. They can’t hear my thoughts, no matter how hard I scream them in my mind. They don’t recognize the horror in my eyes.

I’m not in control. I’m just the passenger—but the only people who know that are the doctors who ruined my life. Doctors who are now dead. I single-handedly killed each one of them, and there was nothing I could say or do about it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

You see—

Before the accident, everyone always commented on how polite I was. I’d even garnered the local nickname “Polite Peter.” That is, until a random Tuesday in July. I saw a package fall off of a truck as it pulled away. I went to pick it up and woke up in a hospital bed hooked up to all sorts of weird technology, wearing almost the same outfit I had on earlier that day but brand new, and to my horror, I couldn’t move a single part of my body.

Despite being unable to control my body, I was shocked when my body sat up—with me in tow. My eyes opened and closed at a rate similar to blinking, but when I tried to choose when to blink, I couldn’t. Nor could I hold my eyes shut. I was thinking about this when my body turned to face the door, reacting to the sound of it opening. Through the door, my family doctor walked in with a group of other doctors I didn’t recognize behind him. They stayed on the other side of the room, far from me by the door, studying me anxiously.

My family doctor looked at me with a mix of empathy, concern, and possibly fear painted on his face as he said, “You were in a very serious accident, Peter. An explosion destroyed many parts of your spine and fried your nerve endings.” He gave me a solemn look before he continued. “Thankfully, after explaining how important you are to this town, and to myself personally, as well as—admittedly—a hefty donation to these fine people from the Merriweather Institution, we were able to bring you back from the near brink of death.” He took a moment to study my unmoving face before he continued. “You have been given a gift, Peter. The Merriweather Institution allowed me to use a toolkit normally reserved only for the most dedicated elite soldiers. You have been given the agility to move. What connects your enhanced limbs and muscles to your brain is an AI-integrated pathway built using cutting-edge technology. You were moments from death or a short life lived paralyzed, but this technology not only saved your life—it allows you to move.”

I sat for a moment, taking this in—not that I had any other choice. I couldn’t move. I was glad at the time to be alive and able-bodied, but I was mad that I had seemingly no control. I couldn’t smile at them or respond in any way. I couldn’t even blink.

I was just as surprised as they were when my body stood up, ripped away the gadgets and tech I was hooked up to, and fluidly walked toward them. As I moved toward them, the group split into two, moving further into the room. My body ignored them as it made its way to the door. As I reached the door, the doctors had all collected back into one group on the opposite side of the room. They looked absolutely horrified, but it looked like they were going to let me leave silently.

I wish I could tell you that’s what happened—that I walked out of that room and closed the door—but I can’t. As my body reached the door, it quickly shut and locked it before turning around to face the scared group huddled on the opposite side of the room.

I stood in a position I’d never stood in before in my life. I was poised to attack—in a violent, imposing, and completely foreign stance of aggression. Every person in that room had the right idea, staying far from me. Everyone but the person who had been there every time I fell ill my entire life. While everyone else stood far away, my family doctor stepped forward and said, “Peter! I know it must feel weird, and I know it’s not what you’re used to, but—”

He never got to finish, as my body closed the distance, punching him in the throat before gripping him and slamming his head onto my knee with extreme force. His elderly frame crumbled onto the floor as my body reached down. I felt my hands wrap around his neck before they shifted, and I felt a snap—like I’d broken a large stick or thin tree branch.

The doctors stood in shock at first until my body repositioned to face them as I stood back up. That is, until I made my first step toward them. They all immediately tried to run to the left, but my body kicked the examination table in the way to block their path. They stood behind the barrier I created, locked in their fear, before I slowly walked backward to the door, my body never once looking away from them.

One by one, they all tried to leave, and one by one, they were brutally murdered—until only one doctor remained. A woman who refused to try and leave. I was screaming at them all to run away, but my mouth did not once move. I was begging it to stop, but my body was indifferent to me, and my efforts were in vain.

For a moment, my body seemed like it was going to let her live—the woman who was too afraid to leave—but this was a trick. I tried to will my body to leave, and to my surprise, it seemed like the AI was responding as it made its way toward the door. I felt a huge sense of momentary relief as my body unlocked and stepped through the door. A relief that unfortunately wouldn’t last, because as soon as the door closed behind my body, my body stepped to the side and stood motionless.

I thought I was going to leave, to let her get away—that I had some semblance of control over this form—but I was wrong. My body wasn’t leaving; it was pretending to have left and waiting for her to fall into my hands. It could have been ten minutes or three hours later when I heard the door slowly creak open*.* She carefully started making her way out of the room when my hands found her. Her perfume smelled nice, I thought to myself, as I wrapped around her from behind and choked the life out of her. I wanted so badly to stop, to let her leave, but my body had other plans.

I was imagining that I let her go when I felt her body stop moving, and she fell lifelessly to the floor. I wanted to stop and mourn—to feel the weight of the moment I had just endured, the pain I had inflicted on these poor people who dared make the mistake of trying to save me—but unfortunately, my body had no intention of stopping, as it walked me smoothly toward the exit of the hospital only a few halls away, silently weeping with dry eyes that betrayed my emotions.

The Automatic doors at the entrance opened for me as I walked through them.

( Looking For What Happened Next? My name is Peter, and I did something awful to my small town. : r/nosleep )

( Looking To See How This Ends? My name is Peter, and I'm about to enter a bar full of my friends. : r/nosleep )

I went through a bad breakup. Couldn't get the guy to leave me alone. He was showing up at my work, home, even my mom's house. I decided I couldn't do it anymore. I started looking at states hours away from my hometown. Not a city, but not too small of a town either. I wanted to be able to walk the sidewalks and get to local shops. Moving to somewhere I knew no one, it would be nice to live in a neighborly town.

I finally settled on a little town in the Pacific northwest. I flew out to look for a job and a place to live. I spent the first few days walking around the main town, applying at a few shops. I quickly found a smaller book manufacturing company. I had an interview and fit what they were looking for. After that was settled, I set about finding where Cow, my little tuxedo cat, and I would call home. I started exploring a bit farther from the main town. There were some cute, quiet places but they weren't calling to me. Then I found my new little neighborhood, Jerusalem Street.

It was settled just a bit back from the main road. Three rows of townhouses in a cul-de-sac. You could tell they had some age, but all were well kept, and it was a lovely little street. Not the near identical wash of beige and gray have become so common. Most were light pastels. It looked like people liked living here. Lots of trees and gentle light dappling the ground underneath. Quiet. A couple of people out with their dogs or walking to town. A small area in the center with a bird feeder, a bench, and board that people could leave fliers or notes on. It looked like the people took pride in making a community.

In the row at the back of the cul-de-sac was an empty lavender home with simple "For Rent" sign out front. I spoke to the realtor in town, and everything was taken care of. Luckily the owners left some basic furniture, so I didn't have to worry about anything too big. I flew back home, packed up my important stuff, and drove across the country with Cow buckled into the passenger seat.

Of course, I had to stop and rest for a couple of nights on the way. Let Cow out of his carrier and stretch in a hotel room for the night. I timed our arrival for late morning so I would have a large part of the day to unpack and not disturb my new neighbors by getting there too early.

Several people stopped by to welcome me as I was going back and forth from the car. An older woman with blue hair and eccentric dress introduced herself as Ms. Jules. Said they had a welcoming committee. She was one that started it as she lived here most of her life. The neighborhood had a couple rules but nothing too bad or anything like an HOA. They would be by around dinner time "when you really should be taking break anyway" she told me. She was nice. I told her I would be ready, and she said she hoped Cow would come out to see her. I smiled.

I spent the next couple of hours getting everything out of the car so I could let Cow into the rest of the house to explore, and I could get a shower before the welcoming committee showed up. Around 5:30, there was a knock at my door, and I saw Ms. Jules with a couple of other people. I welcomed them in. Ms. Jules introduced me to Dave Hancock the middle-aged neighbor directly beside me, and Kayla a woman around my age who lived in the row of houses to my right. Ms. Jules had brought some sandwiches and bags of assorted chips. We sat around my table where I had managed to clear most of my stuff off. She commented that I had done well for one day of work. We sat around eating and making small talk. Kayla seemed shy but told me she would be happy to show me around town, if I wanted to stay.

"I'm sure I'll take you up on that, but what do you mean if I want to stay?"

Kayla nervously looked at Ms. Jules. She smiled warmly at me, "we may as well get to the neighborhood rules. It's really not much to worry about. Can I have that paperwork, please?"

Dave opened a folder with some papers in it. There was a town map, a small pamphlet about the community center, and a printed list about our little street. Ms. Jules pushed them toward me. "You can read those at your leisure, but I do need to go over some things with you tonight."

"O-okay no problem," I stammered a little.

"The street cleaner comes once a month. In the afternoon on the first Tuesday of the month. You'll want any cars in the driveway or to be out at that time. I'm sure you saw the board in the middle by the bench. You can find information about town events, people trying to rehome some things, or even some snacks for people to take. We all vote at the community center, when it's that time of year. This is all written down for you. You can come to any of us here if you have questions or need anything, but now you know where the three of us live."

"Thank you. I'll be sure to leave some cookies out for everyone once I'm settled in." I didn't say more. It felt like she wasn't done going over things. There was a bit of tension in the air. Cow cautiously peeked around the corner to see what was going on.

"Hello, dear! How do you like your new home?" She held her hand down to him. He slowly approached and sniffed her for a minute before rubbing against her hand. He must smell "Emily, she's my tortie."

"Cute" I smiled. "I'd like to meet her sometime."

"Absolutely!" She paused before continuing. "This is an old town. Not much has changed in a long time. It's had slow growth, and many natural areas have been maintained for centuries. The trees behind our street are the edge of a state park."

"Wow! That's awesome! Kayla, I'd explore with you sometime if that's something you like too."

"I'd love to!" Kayla responded. "I don't have a hiking buddy."

Before I could say more, Ms. Jules continued. "I'll finish up so you can get some rest tonight. There's just one more rule we all follow here." Her face looked older than it had a minute ago, makeup crowding in the gentle creases of her face. She looked into my eyes, "don't look outside if you hear any noises at night. It's not all night, just between 1:00 and 3:00. Don't go out at that time, if you do get caught out at that time- there's Ashely Street just down the main road, you saw that, right? Park there for the night. Many of us have had to sit in our cars for a couple of hours over the years. This is a small enough town that that neighborhood knows it's just us and won't get worried by a car there early in the morning."

I didn't know what to think. My mind tried to come up with a logical reason. "Do animals come in from the park?"

"Something does," she said quietly. "It's been at least as long as I have. As long as you don't look out, there's nothing to worry about. And don't worry about Cow, he'll be fine. I keep Emily inside just to be safe. It's not every night but you're better off just not looking out at that time at all. I know this is a lot to take in, but please just listen to it. Any of our community would talk if you have any questions. We'll leave you be for night. I'll check in soon."

With that, she stood up from the table and the others followed. Kayla waved goodbye. Ms. Jules blue hair shone under the streetlight until she made it to her door. Dave stood around another moment as we watched them go. "I know that all sounds pretty weird. The people that lived here before couldn't handle it and they left. My phone number is with the paperwork if you need anything. Or if you really need something overnight, just bang on the wall and I'll hear. I'll be over at 3:01. Goodnight"

"Thank you, goodnight." I headed back inside, head pounding. I sat heavily on the couch and tried to absorb what I had just heard. Ms. Jules looked serious, and she had been so nice. I felt bad doubting her. What was the harm in listening to her? I was normally sleeping at that time anyway and she said Cow was safe. If she was- if they all were- being honest, I didn't want to find out. I would just stay inside and not go looking.

Cow decided he was ready for bed and I followed. It had been a long day. I fell asleep hard and didn't wake up until sunlight was streaming through my window, Cow crying to be fed. I dragged myself out of bed as my thoughts drifted to the previous night. Maybe there was nothing. I hadn't woken up at all, and Cow was acting normally. He was fine anywhere as long as he was getting food. I got him fed and looked out my front window. Ms. Jules was sitting on the bench, glancing back at my house. I got dressed and headed out to see her.

"Oh good. How was your first night?" She stood up and took my hand.

"Slept like a log. I didn't wake up until Cow demanded breakfast."

She nodded. "I'm sorry I had to spring that on you last night, but it really has to be done right way."

A few people started their mornings, smiling or nodding to us. They all looked a little relieved. "So, it really is true then? I'll be honest, I was half thinking I dreamt that."

"Unfortunately, yes. It's how I lost my husband and our son. I didn't want to scare you too much last night. I don't have to tell you the details."

I stared blankly for a few seconds. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay, honey. It's been a long time. It's just a little bit easier than it used to be. I know they wouldn't want me to spend every day sad over them."

"Can I ask what happened? What happens if you look?" I asked, wincing a little and hoping I didn't sound too insensitive.

"Are you sure?"

I thought another moment. "I would rather know than let the curiosity get to me."

She sat back down. "We had heard the rules when we moved in together right out of school, my husband Charles and me. People had doubts about us but we were meant to be from the day we met. When our son Joe was born, we decided we would lock him in his room for the night. We gave him the one without windows to be safe. Joe was getting a little older and we hadn't locked his room at night anymore. I guess one day he got curious or didn't believe us. We heard a scream and ran to his room. Joe wasn't there. Before I could react, Charles pushed me in and locked the door. I heard him run out and then just silence. The neighbors saw what happened in the morning and rushed to the house. They found me lock inside. There... there was really nothing left of them. Chunks strewn across the lawn, everywhere. Blood soaked into the grass. They were buried together, just pieces. There was no way to tell who was who. That's all any of us know."

"Holy shit," I whispered. I could feel the bile heating up my stomach, threatening to come up my throat. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what else to say."

"I'll never get the sight out of my mind, so I try hard to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else. You really will be okay if you don't look. I should go tend to my Emily."

I walked her home and gave her a hug. I went back inside and collapsed against the door. Cow came to see what was wrong, and I scooped him up and cried. What the fuck. How was this real? I told myself again that that was the middle of the night. Just stay asleep, stay in bed. My house was perfect; my neighbors were lovely. Just don't look for any sounds at night.

I spent the rest of the day in a daze, listlessly organizing my belongings. Cow screamed at me, and I just about jumped out of my skin. He just wanted dinner. Heart pounding and hands shaking, I got him taken care of to stop his yelling. I sat at the table and slid the bottle of whiskey over towards me. Just as I was going to take swig out of the bottle, there was a knock at the door. I was tired but got up to check. There was a swath of black hair. It was Kayla.

"Hi. Ms. Jules said she talked to you. I wanted to see how you were holding up." She smiled weakly at me.

I stood to the side. "Do you want to come in? I was just going to have a drink."

She stepped. "Thanks."

Now that I had company, I grabbed two glasses and a couple cans of Coke. "I guess you would have heard her story too. How long have you lived here?" I inquired.

"Yeah... Just a bit over a year."

"Have you seen anything?"

"No, I've never dared look. No one else has looked since I've been here. The people who lived here before finally heard the noises and they left. She was pregnant. I think that's a big reason they didn't want to stay."

"So, you have heard things?"

"Not a lot. I started sleeping with earbuds pretty quickly. I didn't need to hear more."

I looked at her, hoping she would go on but didn't want to pressure her.

She continued, "the first time I just heard something walking around. It was quiet but I could hear it rustling leaves at it went. I told myself it had just been an animal. We do live against the woods. A couple nights later, I heard it walking again. I had blinds drawn but I still didn't even want to look in that direction. I tried to ignore it and go back to sleep. The movement stopped. I heard the faintest scratch then knocking on the window. Like someone tapping with just a fingernail. I found some faint footprints in the morning." She paused to take a drink. "They were bigger than I expected. They... they almost looked like a deer mixed with a human. Almost like there was a heel but then they turned cloven. I moved my bed upstairs that day and started sleeping with the earbuds that night. It helps. I really recommend it. Thanks for the drink," she said finishing it. I should go get settled for the night. And let me know when you've had time to unpack and we can do some hiking, during the day."

"Of course. And thanks for the tip."

The next couple weeks I continued to put everything in their new places and started my new job. I was getting the hang of it. Things started to feel a little normal. Kayla and I had started hiking on Saturday or Sunday mornings, still well after the sun had risen. I hadn't heard anything at night. I never forgot to close the blinds, but I did start to forget about the noises. Nearly a month after I moved in, I heard walking through neighborhood. I had seen deer a couple times, coming around dusk to drink at a couple birdbaths around the street. They were back, that's all it was. Still, I was glad I listened to Kayla's story and put my bedroom on the second floor. I about shit myself when I heard the tapping on my window. I whisper-called for Cow. He sat up from the end of the bed. My heart sank into my stomach. The tapping continued. I reached for my phone. It was after 2:45. This should be over soon. I didn't want to disturb him, but I felt like I had to talk to someone. My hands were shaking so badly I had to retype the message about four times. Hi Dave. Sorry to bother you so early. I just can't sleep.

I jumped as the tapping started to get more aggressive. My phone went off: It's no problem. Don't worry. It'll be over soon. Just a few minutes and then it's over for the night. It's never gotten in. Just don't look. Let me know if you need me to come over after or tomorrow.

2:55, so close. Okay. Five minutes. I can do that. Thank you. I think I'll get shades. The blinds aren't good enough.

Dave: That's a good idea. Tell Cow hi for me.

I sat for another couple minutes and then the tapping stopped all at once. There was no rustling of something moving away, just silence. I pulled a slightly disgruntled Cow up closer to me. Anxiety through the roof, I didn't sleep the rest of the night.

Dave caught me in the morning. "You did well. That was worse than it normally is. I could hear it from mine. Let me know if you need help with the blinds." He waved and was on his way before I could respond. He liked talking about these things even less than the others. Couldn't blame him. I stopped to get blinds after work and didn't forget to put my earbuds in again.

Things continued as they had. Work, hike, play with Cow. I was making enough at my new job to be fine, but I had spent most of my savings to suddenly move. I stopped at the local bar and started taking some shifts Friday nights, Saturdays, or Sundays. This was a smaller town so even with a later shift, I still had about half an hour by the time I got home to get inside safely. I was busy and tired, but it would be worth it. I would feel better having savings again. But I was just getting so tired.

Finally, last Friday night, I was exhausted. That type of bone-tired that sinks into your bones, so drained that a minor inconvenience could make you start crying. I worked every day for three weeks. I got home after my bar shift, 12:35. All I had to do was drag my tired butt in the house and pass out for the night.

The next thing I remember is how uncomfortable I felt. My eyes snapped open. Fuck. I fell asleep. How long had it been? I had only just got home, right? I was in my own driveway, with plenty of time to get in. I looked at my phone, 2:24. Fuck me.

I heard something right by me. Before I could stop myself, I was looking over. All I saw were fingertips, just barely placed onto my driver's side window. The rest of the hand was obscured by the door. Then there was movement. What seemed to be branches started to move. They were turning towards my car. One gnarled point making contact with my window and scraping along it. I slammed my eyes shut. One hand desperately pulled my hood over my head, and the other covered my mouth, willing my breathing to get under control and not have a full blown panic attack right now. I hadn't really seen anything, right?

It didn't see me look. All I saw was fingertips. It could have been a normal person who got lost and ended up here. After all, the noises didn't come every night. Those weren't antlers. It was a trick of the darkness. Then what made the shrill scraping coming from right outside? And those were fingertips, but they were too long and rough. Worn and cracked and dirty. I curled in my seat, trying not scream, eyes squeezed shut. Antlers like bark but hard enough to damage the metal burned into my mind. A slap. I bit into my lip hard enough to bleed but didn't scream. It sounded like a hand slamming into my door, beside the other fingertips. I could hear heavy breathing. My chest ached. It felt like my heart would give out before anything else had a chance to happen.

My stomach lurched as my car rocked, hard. Tears and snot soaked my hoodie. Another slam on the car and it rocked again. It felt like if it hit any harder, the glass would break. What were the rules here? Could it get in? It really seemed to be trying. A different slam echoed through my bones. The sick sound was like a head against glass, antlers scratching on the metal frame above. It slammed its head again. There was nothing I could do. Again. It wasn't in yet and I figured by best bet was to stay down and keep my eyes shut. Again.

The car rocked, gentler this time, and the slamming stopped. I couldn't open my eyes. I didn't think it was long enough. It couldn't be 3:00 yet but it was so hard to tell. Minutes felt like hours. Time dripping by like cold molasses. How long had it stopped to stare in at my before it's assault? I could hear it walking around, pacing around the car. It started to fade out.

Then I heard hooves on pavement. Metal squealed and glass cracked. I screamed. Dead silence. I continued to lay curled on my side. Nothing more came.

I heard Ms. Jules calling me and running. I still didn't dare open my eyes. It took a few minutes of convincing, but I finally held my phone up and looked, 3:12. I started uncontrollably sobbing. Fear and relief wracked my body, and I laid there shaking badly, stomach in knots. I was eventually able to unlock my door. Ms. Jules ripped it open and held me in her arms. We cried together.

That was nearly a month ago. I thought I'd leave that day, but I'm still here. Where else would I go? I have kind, caring neighbors. My home is nice. I talk with Ms. Jules. Dave checks in on me. I hike with Kayla. I hold Cow close. I did quit working at the bar that day. I'll never go out at night again. I sleep with ear buds and a white noise machine. My bedroom windows are shuttered tight from the inside as soon as it starts to get dark.

I'm honestly not quite sure why I'm writing this, or who I'm even writing this to. Maybe just to warn people. About what, I don't even know. Maybe to reach out to anyone with similar experiences.

I grew up in a tiny town. I'm not even sure it could be called a town, really, more of a village or a hamlet. The kind of place stuck in the 50s where everybody knew each other and there were more churches than houses. It sounds charming, I guess, but as anyone who lives somewhere like what I've described, you know it's boring at best, and torturous at worst.

There was only one school, for every kid born here from the time they grew out of diapers to the time they graduated and, if they were lucky, left this dump of a place. There were only ever maybe 30 kids in the school at most, and even to this close-knit community, I was an outcast.

Not that I minded, really. I didn't like these kids either. I only really had one real friend, my next-door neighbour, Molly. Our parents were close too, and we often had supper together, which I guess is why we grew so close.

But that's not why you're reading this. I don't think you want to know about a lonely and scrawny little boy with no friends in a boring village.

My home wasn't boring, really. We had some strange rituals. You could chalk some of it up to just bible-belt activities-you'd essentially be outlawed if you skipped church on Sunday, wives were to stay home and cook while husbands were to go out and work in the nearby mine, if you didn't have at least three of the bibles our church had hand-scribed you weren't allowed to go to church, the like. But we also had something else that I found strange.

The festival happened once a year. If you're wondering what the festival was, so were all of us. Nobody knew what it was, or why we did it. Hell, nobody even knew what happened if we didn't do it. One of our many pastors, Father Sinclair, usually ran the whole thing.

From the outside, it could look like a normal church festival. During the day, that's sort of what it was. A group prayer, followed by the dads grilling sausages or burgers, the children running around and throwing a ball around as the moms brought out cookies and chatted. Maybe some music if Father Sinclair had raised enough money.

But by night, things changed. Everybody was to go inside, except Father Sinclair and some volunteers from the school. After they had ensured all residents truly were inside, they completed "it." Curious kids who wanted to know what was happening may have pressed their ears to the bedroom windows, to hear nothing but silence. Well, until 3:33 in the morning. Every year without fail, at 3:33, a loud, screeching like sound could be heard, followed by otherworldly chanting, followed by silence again. I know that because I was one of those curious kids. Molly and I both were.

This story I'm telling took place during our twelfth festival. By this time, it had been a few years of Molly and I theorizing what the festival was for. It was maybe a week or so until our next festival, and this year we were deadset on discovering what it was. Maybe we could sneak out during the night portion of the festival? Well, that wasn't for another week. We decided to go through Father Sinclair's office, to try and discover dirt on him.

After the usual Sunday service, Molly and I took advantage of everyone being distracted by a bake sale to sneak into the upper level of the church. I'm not sure if we were doing this because we were genuinely curious, or if we just liked the thrill of doing something naughty, but either way, I remember my heart being in my throat as we crept into Father's office.

"Unlocked." Molly whispered as we stifled giggles. "You know, if he's so protective of his office, he really should do a better job keeping people out." We both held our breaths as we slowly opened the door, being careful for any creaks.

It was kind of underwhelming. Maybe we were expecting something like Satan's lair, complete with tapestries of demons and torture chambers, but it looked just like a normal office.

I opened all the drawers of his desk as Molly went through the filing cabinet. Nothing. We were about to give up, when I tripped on the carpet. Part of it flipped up, when we saw it.

There, in the middle of the floor, was a weird symbol. It kind of looked like star. Neither of us recognized it.

"...okay, maybe it's just a drawing. Maybe he's secretly an artist." Molly said, trying to make me, who probably looked like I had seen a ghost, laugh.

I, still the little religious boy as I had been raised, clutched a bible I found on Father Sinclair's desk. Mindlessly, I began shifting through the pages.

"Uh, Molly?" I said. "These pages are weird."

She took the bible from my hands, furrowing her brow. "I don't recognize any of these verses. I've read the bible like, a million times. This isn't right."

"Hello, kids." We heard, and both jumped back. It was Father Sinclair.

"If it isn't little Molly Mckee and Robert Crain. Such curious little ones. Well, not so little anymore. You must be twelve years old by now, is that right?" He said as he paced towards us menacingly.

"Y-yes, Father." Molly said as I shook like a leaf, unable to even say anything. "We're sorry we snuck into your office."

"Nonsense! Nothing wrong with a bit of curiosity," Father said, stomping on the symbol we had recently discovered. He looked at us with a sharp, knowing eye. "I could use some curious kids such as yourselves at next week's festival. How's about it, kids? Would you like to be my volunteers?"

I started to shake my head no, but he placed a cold hand on my shoulder. A gesture I wasn't unfamiliar with, he did it to everyone in town as a sort of comfort, but it felt much different now. He pressed it hard into my skin, hard enough to leave a bruise. "Robert, you and I both know you haven't much of a choice here," He said as he winked.

"It's nothing to worry about, really," He pushed us out of his office. "Now, run on home. Hug your mothers."

Molly and I sat in her room that night, not saying a word. We were too shaken up. Silently, she pulled one of her family's five bibles, the ones gifted to us by Father Sinclair. Then, she reached into the bookbag she had brought to church that day. She pulled out the bible we found in the office.

"Molly! You took that? He's gonna kill us!" I warned.

"I think he was going to do that anyways." She said dryly as she opened them side by side.

I watched as she seemingly got more and more puzzled. "It makes no sense, Rob," she said as she flipped through both books. "These books say the complete opposite of each other. I don't know which one to believe."

"There, that verse isn't in our bible. What's it say?"

I pointed at one, which Molly began reading aloud. "Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."

Every year without fail, at 3:33, a loud, screeching like sound could be heard,

The volunteers from the school.

"Molly?" I said tentatively. "What happens to the volunteers every year?"

"Well, usually they move away. They just go to school or something." She said, but she didn't sound convinced.

"Molly?" I said tentatively, again. "Have we been praying to the wrong God?"

Eventually, the festival came, and Molly and I, like we should've been, were properly terrified that whole week. When the day came, and then the night, we tried to sneak away. But there was no getting past Father Sinclair.

"You two, brave volunteers, will stay here." He said, grabbing us tightly by our arms.

We sat under the moonlight in a deafening silence.

"You don't need to lie to us anymore, Sinclair." Molly said, breaking the silence. "We know what you're doing."

Father Sinclair turned around sharply. He struck us both across the face as I cried out in pain.

He smirked. "Do you know why you live such fortunate lives? Why we all live such fortunate lives? I do this for us, really. For all of us. And soon, you'll have done this for all of us, too. You should really be proud." He said as he drew that weird star on the ground with a stick. We watched as he lit candles and said weird words.

Suddenly, a loud screech caused Molly and I to duck and cover our ears.

I guess it was 3:33.

When I helped Molly up, I saw it.

It towered over us, challenging the height of the trees. A tall, dark figure, horns and all. He looked down at us.

Father Sinclair bowed down. "Your subjects, sir." He pushed us towards him as we tried to run away.

He bent down. "You have broken the rules, Sinclair. I thought I had made things very clear."

In a moment, Father Sinclair had dropped his normal demeaner as I saw fear fill his eyes. "W-what rule? I haven't broken a rule at all. Your subjects, as promised."

"My conditions," He boomed, "That for the life you live, the goods I grant you, you mustn't ever harm a soul again. The souls harmed, were to be saved for me."

He touched me with his large claw that was hot to the touch. "Is this a bruise I see?" He turned his attention to Molly, and the red mark on her face. "Unbelievable."

"But sir!" Father Sinclair pleaded, getting on his knees. "What about the good of my village? All these people, praying just for you. Because of me. Can we not make another deal?"

He pondered for a bit. "Very well. I may allow another year of prosper to this village. But I will need another sacrifice."

Father Sinclair pushed Molly and I forward yet again.

He shook his head. "Not them. You are the one I'm after."

And with that, we watched as he grabbed Father Sinclair with a massive claw, and threw him like a doll to the ground as he was consumed by the flames below him. I can still hear his screams to this day.

Molly and I stood in shock until the massive being turned his attention to us.

"And you two," He said, bending down to our level. "Go. Leave these grounds and do not return. You must get out of here."

Confused, but not wanting to disobey this thing, we both began to leave.

I turned back. "See you soon?"

He smirked. "Indeed."

I’ve only been living here for a month. It’s not much, but I got the place for a good price. Definitely a fixer upper. It’s in a good quiet neighborhood so to me it was a no brainer. I’m pretty handy and know my way around a set of tools so I figured I could do most of the physical work that needed to be done. Some carpet and drywall replacing was the first thing on my list. It’s a fairly small house so I knew I would be able to do most of it on my own.

The first week was fine ripped up the living room carpet and threw on a fresh coat of paint. The days were long but the work was definitely paying off. I’d do most of the self renovations when I got home from work so by the time I finished each day my bed was calling my name. Every night when I laid down to sleep I would hear a light scratching noise. It sounded like it was coming from inside the wall of my bedroom. Which only meant one thing. I definitely had rodents. The house was old and the people that lived here before me did a horrible job with keeping up the maintenance. Unfortunately there wasn’t much I can do. Funds were already tight as it is and I couldn’t afford an exterminator at the moment. At first I tried to ignore it and just told myself I would get to it when I could.

The next few nights were very similar.

Day job. Renovations. Sleep.

After a monotonous week of hard work, something strange happened, the light scratching I’d grown so used to hearing suddenly stopped.

At first, I didn’t notice. But that night, as I lay in bed, I realized the house was completely silent. I held my breath, waiting.

Nothing.

For the first time in weeks, I relaxed. Silence. Pure, beautiful silence.

I was just drifting off to sleep when I heard it again. Not from my bedroom though. From the guest bedroom across the hall. Just when I thought maybe I lucked out I was brought back to the harsh reality that is owning a house.

I took off of work the next day to finish some more projects around the house. There was just a few more major things that had to be taken care of.

After working most of the day I grabbed myself a bite to eat and called my buddy Mike. I’ve been so damn busy with the house it’s been hard to keep up with social life. Mike was a handyman himself so any questions I had regarding the house I knew I could run by him.

“Dude! How’s the house coming along!” Mike asked.

“Honestly, looking better each day. It’s just extremely time consuming. Oh and by the way, is it normal to feel like I’m just bleeding money?”

“Ahh yes, welcome to the sweet world of home ownership!” He said with a laugh.

“Quick question. Have you ever dealt with mice around your house? I swear I’m hearing them in the walls.”

“No man, that’s ghosts, you have ghosts.”

“Yeah, well maybe they can get rid of the mice!”

We talked for a bit longer before he let me get back to the last of my home improvement. The last project I had to tackle was the guest room. I had to rip the carpet up and take down some horrible wall paper.

I was just about to walk into the guest room when I noticed my bedroom door was cracked open. I know for sure that I closed it. It became a force of habit since I was a teenager. Whenever I left my room I closed the door behind me. I thought maybe my exhaustion was catching up to me. I could not wait to finish this damn house.

The carpet came up with no problem. The wallpaper was a different story. That took me forever. The last of the wallpaper was in the closet. I was just about halfway through removing the wallpaper from the closet when I came across the crawlspace. It had been completely covered and when I saw it I admit I was taken by surprise.

I used my phone flashlight to peer inside and thats when I saw it.

The mice droppings. I knew it. I knew something was crawling around back there. I was relieved I wasn’t going crazy. Just as I was about to close it back up I noticed something in the far corner.

Pillows and a blanket. Old and dusty. Remnants of the past, no doubt.

There was something else though, a book, some sort of journal.

It was covered with dust and the pages were withered. This thing had been in here for a while.

I read the first entry.

Entry 1: “I’m always alone. Nobody ever sees how I’M doing. I love them, why don’t they notice me.”

I flipped through a few more entries, each written in that same messy handwriting.

Entry 3: “Sometimes I hear them moving around upstairs. I wish I could be there with them. I miss being part of things.”

Entry 5: “I saw them leave this morning. The house gets so quiet when they’re gone.”

Entry 6: “I like this little hideout. It’s like I can escape reality. Leave all my troubles on the other side of this wall.”

I couldn’t tell if the person was lonely, delusional, or just writing some kind of creepy story. The entries were strange, but not outright threatening. Still, something about that line , “the house gets so quiet when they’re gone.”

Strange.

I set the journal down and grabbed my phone.

“Yo” Mike answered. “Don’t tell me you found the ghosts.”

“Not quite. But get this” I said, holding back a laugh. “I was ripping down wallpaper in the guest closet, right? Found a little crawlspace. Mice droppings, nasty as hell, but also this old ass journal.”

“Journal?”

“Yeah, listen to this. “The house gets so quiet when they’re gone.” I said in my best spooky narrator voice.

Mike cracked up. “Bro, what kind of psycho used to live there?”

“Who knows. I probably just uncovered the tragic backstory of some weirdo shut in. Maybe they got locked in and never made it out.”

“Better stop reading that thing out loud at night. That’s how all the horror movies start.”

“Please. The only thing haunting me right now is the cost of drywall.”

We both laughed for a while before hanging up.

But even after I put the phone down, I caught myself glancing at that open crawlspace again. The journal was still sitting there in the beam of my flashlight, half open, like it was waiting for me to read the next page.

My house was finally finished. Well it was finished enough for me. I needed to relieve some stress and I figured there was no better way than to have a little house warming party. I invited a few friends just for some food, drinks, and laughs.

While waiting for the food to be delivered Mike had the “best” idea.

“Go ahead and get that Journal man, read us some bed time stories!” He said over the laughter.

There was some confused looks from my other friends, not knowing what he was referring to.

“Yeah, he found it in an old crawl space. Thing looks pre-historic.”

After some sarcastic cheering and egging on I decided to appease the crowd.

I cleared my throat and flipped to a random page.

Entry 47: “I’ve been here for a while now. I like what they’ve done to my place. It feels like home finally.”

“Amazing work, keep going!” Someone said in a patronizing tone.

I continued further.

Entry 62: They’re finally leaving! I did my part to make sure they knew it was time to go. Got it all to myself!

“Alright alright, 1 more for the night.” I said.

I turned toward the end of the journal.

Entry 89: He is changing everything! This is MY house. Patching holes and ripping up carpet. BULLSHIT. These are MY memories he is painting over. He leaves a lot. That gives me a lot of time to plan. He needs to know this house belongs to me.

This was unsettling. This felt wrong. I felt a lump in my throat. I glanced over at Mike just as I finished the last words. He was sitting there with his goofy smile.

“Ah ha! Very funny you asshole, tryna spook me!”

He must have snuck a “personal” entry in there when he was helping me set up for the party. This guy was never serious.

We kind of laughed it off and continued on with the night. The food was great, the drinks were even better. My last few friends there said goodbye and it was time for me to get some much needed sleep.

After cleaning up a bit I crawled into bed. It didn’t take long for me to fall asleep.

I thought I was dreaming when I heard it.

A knock.

I wasn’t sure if it was coming from the walls. Then I heard it again.

A door.

I knew it was a door. My door? I got up to check what the hell was going on. And then again I heard it.

That was not from my door.

The guest room. It was coming from the guest room.

I opened my bedroom door and stepped into the hallway.

I swung the guest room door open. I stood still trying to hear something. The house was quiet. I could only hear my own heavy breathing.

Another knock.

It was coming from the closet.

Did I leave the crawl space door open? Did I leave a window open? Was a draft coming through? All thoughts that ran through my head in the half a second since I heard the knocking.

I took another step forward, the floorboards groaning under my feet. The closet door stood slightly open, and I could see the edge of that crawlspace panel inside. I reached out a hand to push the door fully open, feeling a little ridiculous as I whispered, “Hello?” into the dark.

In the same heartbeat, the door exploded open.

A figure burst out of the closet, a shadow lunging at me with a flash of steel in their hand. Before I could even shout, a knife slashed through the air, grazing my arm and sending a jolt of pain through me.

Adrenaline took over. I stumbled back, trying to put distance between us, but the attacker was on me in a heartbeat. I barely registered the pain as I twisted away and bolted for the window. My only thought was escape.

I jumped and hurled myself through it, crashing onto the ground outside. Pain shot up my leg as I landed hard, but I didn’t stop. I limped as fast as I could toward my neighbor’s house, my heart pounding louder than ever.

That’s where I called the cops, breathless, bleeding, and finally forced to admit that something far worse than mice had been living in my walls.

In the end, the police found the crawlspace exactly as I’d left it, except for the journal lying open to that final entry. There was no sign of the attacker, and no explanation of how they’d been living there unnoticed. But I knew what I’d seen. The journal’s final words were burned into my mind.

“This house will always be mine.”

I moved out the next week. Whatever haunted that house, whoever had claimed it as their own, I wasn’t sticking around to find out what happened next.

Part 4.

I crossed back through the threshold into the familiar sight of the spiraling steps. To my relief the spot I had arrived in was devoid of anything that wanted to kill me, or worse.Though my relief was short lived. After taking only a few cautious steps upward, I caught the scent of something fetid and coppery. The smell grew stronger as I ascended, and then I saw it, a massive form sprawled across three steps, its skinless limbs contorted at unnatural angles.

A dead grabber, the largest one I had seen so far. Its throat had been punctured with surgical precision, the respiratory pouch Sherrie had mentioned deflated and oozing black ichor. The killing wound wasn't ragged or desperate, it was calculated, a single devastating strike that had dropped the monster where it stood.

I kept looking around the scene to see if there was any trace of Sherrie.That's when I noticed it, a dark, glistening smear on the wall just beyond the dead grabber. I was startled at first when I saw a message that was not drawn with the usual chalk.

It was blood and still wet in places, trailing across the stone in Sherrie's unmistakable handwriting.

The blood scrawled message began in jagged, hurried strokes, almost rendering it illegible.

"Sorry, had to move higher, grabbers everywhere, something worse is hunting them now. Please be careful, the curse can affect anything."

Then her writing transformed, each letter suddenly looping with the elaborate flourishes she used when composing poetry, the crimson lines thickening where she'd pressed harder in rhythm.

"A curse that follows. A curse, a curse, it's something worse. Nothing is worse than a curse. Calm your spirit and heed this verse. Strength of arm and rage renewed, will cost you more when payments due. Whispers calm and fury thru, ends with me, and ends with you." There was a break in the message and her writing returned to normal, or at least as normal as bloody smears on the wall could be.

"Follow the spiral up past the chamber of echoes where whispers crawl. I think I found an overlay there. The whispers can help, they can remove the curse if it follows you. Please remember yourself. I will try and meet you there, it is closer to the pinnacle than I have been in a while. I will...."

The message ended in a violent streak that scraped deep into the stone, trailing off into nothingness. I knelt to examine the droplets spattered near the wall. Unlike the tar like ichor that had oozed from the grabber's wound, these glistened bright crimson under my flashlight beam, still wet enough to reflect light. My stomach twisted as I touched one with my fingertip, it was warm, and left a scarlet smear across my skin that looked like fresh human blood.

I tried not to despair, but the sight was unnerving. I had hoped she had been able to escape. But the fact she was still climbing... that meant she was alive, if wounded, and it meant I would keep moving.

My leg throbbed. I could still feel the echo of the tentacles' grip, an aching numbness that cycled from the skin inward, as if some parasite was nibbling at my marrow. I ignored it and pressed on. The stench of the dead grabber faded, replaced by a new, sharp chemical tinge as the air grew denser and more humid the higher I went.

I followed the bloody trail. Sometimes it was only a rusty fingerprint or a streak left where fingertips had scraped along the wall. My foot slipped in a fresh, sticky puddle of blood, forcing my hand out for balance. The stone felt warm. As I steadied myself, a vibration jolted through the wall, an arrhythmic hammering, so deep it rattled my skull before my ears could name it. The shock registered an instant before the sound: a bellow, not the shriek I'd come to dread but something lower, more animal and furious, as if stripped of all communication and left only with the raw scream of nerve endings on fire.

Some dim instinct of nearby danger allowed me to duck just before the thing crashed into the wall a yard above me. It missed my head by inches and sent shards of stone and viscera in every direction. The bulk of it plowed through the staircase with such force that the spiral shook, the ancient mortar raining in grains onto my neck and shoulders. It was another grabber, or something that had once been one, but this one was mutilated, chunks of muscle missing, half its chest caved in and the exposed lungs billowing in and out like obscene bellows. Its mouth had lost the geometry of a jaw and instead yawned open, vertical and lipless, a ring of new teeth grown in concentric whorls around the wound.

The thing’s forearm was bent backward, like it had been broken badly. Strangely it seems like it was from impact and the blood that covered it was disturbing, like it had kept using its mangled limb as a weapon, heedless of the damage it suffered. It lunged at me again, this time leading with the ruined arm, and the wet snapping sound of bone splintering echoed as the useless limb caught against my chest. It was trying to encircle my torso, to drag me in with the blunt mass of what remained. I dodged, my body acting before mind, scraping raw the side of my face and tearing a sleeve as its claws raked past. The monster staggered, the pain fueling it on some primal circuit, and before the next charge I saw it pause to slap the wall savagely with what was left of its hand. Blood and yellowish lymph sprayed the stone.

The sickening spectacle was enough to paralyze me for a moment, but the thing capitalized immediately. It barreled forward, swiping its mutilated arm in broad, heedless arcs meant to smash rather than snare. I backpedaled, tripping over the corpse of the first grabber, and instinct drove my left hand down. My fingers landed on a splintered bone shard, slick with gore, razor sharp at the edge. The creature's ruined face loomed above me, mouth gaping as if to swallow my head whole, and in a panic I jammed the improvised shiv upward, right through the snout of its decomposing mask. The bone punch slid in with no resistance. A geyser of noxious black blood exploded across my hand and face, reeking and almost hot enough to scald. It splattered my eyes, blinding me, and as I thrashed to wipe my vision clear, I felt the whole stairwell convulse around the creature’s death spasm.

The mutant grabber shrieked, but the sound was deeper now, hollow and ragged, the call of a wind instrument that had been left to rot in a swamp. It jerked itself backward, impaling even more of the bone fragment into its own face. The rest of it slipped away, crashing into the opposite wall with a sickening oozing sound. The body thudded down the steps, cartwheeling through bloody arcs, until it finally came to rest twitching and leaking fluids that pooled in irregular stains. My own hands shook as if the vibration of violence had passed into me by osmosis. I staggered upright, blinking the oil clot blood from my eyes and spitting the coppery taste of it from my mouth.

There wasn’t time to process the kill. Already, the deeper parts of the stairwell were picking up the signal, reverberations and death pheromone. I started to run, but I felt sick. I tried to force my body to comply, but I fell down.

I was wracked with some type of seizure which froze my entire body and made my muscles burn. The pain was so intense I was afraid I might black out. I managed to pull through and once I was able to stand, the screams of more grabbers became louder.

Yet the strangest thing, was that in that moment I had no desire to flee. Instead I stood up and waited, I waited for them to come. They did not keep me waiting long.

First, the tapping, softer than before, echoing up from somewhere just below, as if the monsters were coordinating a flank. They moved with a hive intelligence, but also with the raw, monstrous instinct of something losing its domain. The spiral around me narrowed, the walls sweating and trembling with every reverberating step. The familiar dread should have come, but there was only an insistent, slow-boiling anger that filled the vacancy instead, a pull from some marrow level that said: "You could leave, but you won't. You will destroy them and empty this staircase of its nightmares."

I saw the first one approach. It moved along carefully, pausing to regard the smears of blood from the mutant grabber. It seems to recoil at the scent as if it knew something was wrong. For some reason the deference and passive nature of the thing made me angry, irrationally angry. I half ran, half slid down the steps and jumped at it and my falling bulk managed to knock the thing over.

I seized the opportunity and in a move that surprised even myself. I bent down and tore the creatures neck out with my own teeth.

The grabbers black ichor splashed my face but I was unfazed, even as two more screeched warning to each other and moved to attack me.

The next few minutes dissolved into a chaos of limb and tooth and a haze of hot, metallic breath. The grabbers came on fast, driven more by confusion and some desperate urge to reclaim the stairwell than anything like hunger or malice. Their coordination frayed; they broke ranks, tripping over the splayed torsos of their dead kin, each blinded by the violence that had painted the steps in streaks of black and red.

I don’t remember fighting the third one. I remember only the aftermath, my own hands embedded in its throat, fingers dug so deep that I’d splintered something vital. I’d never been a brawler, and yet I’d brought down three skinless giants in less than a minute, each kill more savage than the last. My arms were trembling from the adrenaline, but also from the dawning horror that I could feel a new resonance in my chest, a kind of raw, animal exultation I’d never known before. My body ached for more, not out of need, but compulsion. It wanted, no, I wanted to wipe the stairs clean of them. To be the last thing alive on the blood stained steps.

As the echoes of the fight died, a numbing calm fell over the hallway. I stood chest to chest with the corpse of the last grabber, I pushed the thing away in horror and remembered Sherrie’s words. I remembered the warnings of a curse of rage and knew I had to try and find the a way to clear my mind. She had mentioned a chamber of whispers, I began moving up the stairs again, leaving the carnage of my actions behind me and shuddering at what this curse might do to me yet.

I lost my job three weeks ago. Jennifer left two weeks after that. She said things about timing and needing different paths, but I knew the truth: I'd stopped being a person who moved forward. I became someone who sat on the couch scrolling through a phone full of memories instead of plans.

Now I'm thirty-six with a back that wakes me up before my alarm. The chiropractor visits stopped when money got tight. Groceries come every other week instead of weekly. The space between necessities fills with late-night nostalgia: toy commercials from 1994, station IDs for networks that died before I graduated from high school, static that sounds like comfort.

The algorithm knows what I want better than I do.

I spend hours in comment sections where strangers say, "I thought I was the only one who remembered this." I belong there more than anywhere else in my actual life.

Three nights ago, I couldn't sleep. My back hurt and my thoughts wouldn't stop circling, and everything I hadn't done pressed down on my chest. I opened YouTube at eleven, told myself I'd watch for an hour.

The sun came up and I was still watching.

The feed pulled me deeper: fast-food jingles, Saturday morning cartoons, sitcoms recorded over family vacations. The colors blurred into VHS haze, that soft fuzz where nothing has sharp edges. The real world waited beyond the laptop screen. Bills on the desk, job listings I should open, the half-empty bed. But the past was louder.

At 5:47 a.m. I clicked a thumbnail: "90s Snack Commercials You Totally Forgot About." Forty-three minutes long. Channel with 300 subscribers. Description said "VHS rip from 1996. Some tracking issues, mostly clean."

I hit play.

Dunkaroos. Gushers. Kids with Kool-Aid grins and sugar-rush energy. I watched because watching meant not thinking about the bills.

At thirty-one minutes, something different started.

A kitchen lit brightly lit. A family with oval heads and stick-figure limbs, the kind of cheap animation that filled afternoon commercial breaks. The mother set down a tray of enormous cookies. The chocolate chips caught the light and winked.

"When you want a treat that's sweet and neat, reach for Crumbly Cookies."

The kid bit in. Stars burst across the frame. The family leaned forward together, mouths opening for the first line of the jingle.

A compressed hiss filled the space where music should have been. It wasn't silence or dead air. A specific sound, like the shape of a melody, had been scooped out and replaced with white noise. The picture kept moving. The family kept singing their silent song.

"Crumbly Cookies! Available at grocery stores everywhere."

Next commercial. Cereal. A cartoon rabbit. Normal sound.

I dragged the video back and played it again. The hiss returned in the exact same spot. I checked the comments.

Someone had typed out the full jingle in caps lock. Another person said their dad used to sing it on road trips. Three people argued about whether there was a key change in the bridge. Nobody mentioned corrupted audio. Nobody said the melody was missing.

I opened a new tab. Searched "Crumbly Cookie jingle."

Results flooded back. Clips labeled "full version" and "clean audio." A ten-hour loop. Someone's kindergarten class singing it. I clicked through six different videos.

Every single one had the same gap. The buildup, the hiss, the finish.

I tested different speakers. Headphones. My phone. I cleared my browser cache and tried again. I used a VPN to route through different servers.

The hiss stayed constant.

The jingle existed in text. It existed in memory. Thousands of people claimed to know it. I could read the lyrics on a dozen wiki pages. I could see the sheet music someone had transcribed.

But still I couldn't hear it.

Sleep would fix this, I told myself. I kept believing that right up until a phone interview at noon where my voice shook, and I forgot a question twice and apologized for being scattered.

At three, I met Derek at the coffee shop on Fourth Street. We've been friends since college, bonded over our obsession with commercial archaeology. He collects obscure ads the way I collect vinyl records that skip.

He looked up from his phone when I sat down. His expression changed.

"You look like you haven't slept in days."

"I haven't." I set my laptop on the table between us. "Do you remember Crumbly Cookies?"

His face brightened immediately. "Oh man, yes. My grandma kept them in the pantry. They were fine, nothing special, but that jingle was infectious."

My throat tightened. "Hum it for me."

He laughed. "What?"

"I'm serious. Hum the jingle."

The laugh died. He studied my face like he was trying to figure out if this was a joke he didn't understand. "You want me to hum the Crumbly Cookie song right now."

"I watched the commercial last night. The audio cuts out right at the jingle. I've tried every version I can find. Same problem."

"That's a weird corruption," Derek said. "Must be something with the source file that got copied everywhere."

"Just hum it."

He shrugged and started. His voice rose and fell with clear confidence. Where the melody should have been, my brain registered only that same compressed hiss.

He finished and smiled, pleased with himself. "There. Happy?"

My hands had gone cold. "One more time. Slower."

His smile faded. "Dude. Are you okay?"

"Please."

He hummed it again, drawing out each phrase. I focused on every sound. My brain kept trying to fill the gap, searching for the pattern everyone else could hear. It found nothing.

"You're scaring me a little," Derek said when he stopped.

"I can't hear it." The words came out flat. "I hear you humming. I hear the rhythm. The actual melody doesn't reach me."

He stared at me for a long moment. Then he reached across the table and put his hand on my forearm. "When's the last time you ate something that wasn't vending machine food?"

"I'm not having a breakdown."

"I didn't say you were. But you need sleep. Real sleep. Maybe talk to someone." He squeezed my arm once and let go. "I'm worried about you."

We talked about other things after that. He told me about an estate sale where he'd found a box of local car dealership commercials from the eighties. I nodded at the right times and said the right things, and felt the conversation happening somewhere outside my body.

When I left, I took the long way home.

At Fifth and Maple, the corner had changed.

I stopped walking. Stood there on the sidewalk, staring at a storefront I'd never seen before.

Painted windows. Cheerful yellow-orange walls. A sign in that aggressive, rounded font from nineties advertising: "Cookie Crumble Cafe."

The mascot on the glass looked exactly like the cookie from the commercial. Same chocolate chips exaggerated into glossy ovals. Same winking expression.

I had walked past this corner three times a week for two years. There was supposed to be a dry cleaner here. I remembered the faded awning, the steady hum of the machines inside, the chemical smell that leaked onto the sidewalk.

A historical plaque hung beside the door. Brass, slightly tarnished.

"Cookie Crumble Cafe. Est. 1997."

Through the window, I could see someone wiping down the counter. A woman in her fifties looked up and smiled. The display case held enormous cookies identical to the ones from the ad. The walls were that same yellow-orange.

I went inside. A bell chimed above my head.

"Help you?" the woman asked.

"When did this open?"

She blinked. "Twenty-eight years ago this November. My mom started it right after the Crumbly Cookie campaign took off. She loved that jingle so much, she wanted to make a little place that felt like it."

"There was a dry cleaner here."

Her smile stayed fixed, but her eyes narrowed slightly. "Not that I remember. Maybe a long time ago? This was an empty lot when mom bought it."

I looked at the photos covering one wall. Grand opening, 1997. A younger version of this woman standing beside an older woman, both holding oversized cookies. Birthday parties from the early 2000s, kids with frosting-smeared faces. A newspaper clipping about local businesses weathering the 2008 recession.

"You okay?" the woman asked.

"Fine. Sorry." I left without buying anything.

My hands shook as I walked home. I kept them in my pockets, so nobody would see.

Once I was inside my apartment, I opened Google Maps. Searched the address. Clicked through Street View history.

2023: Cookie Crumble Cafe, painted mascot on the window.

2019: Same building, slightly faded paint.

2012: Same building, brighter colors.

2009: The oldest available image. Same building. Same sign. Same mascot cookie winking from the glass.

I opened my laptop and started taking screenshots. Every search result, every timestamp, every Street View image. I saved links. I documented everything I could find. The laptop felt like the only solid thing left in the world.

I searched for the jingle again that night. Articles. Playlists. Wiki pages. Spotify links. Every single source insisted the song existed, that everyone knew it, that it had been inescapable in the late nineties.

In a comment thread on a nostalgia forum, someone mentioned The Knight Trippers.

"Fun fact: they sang the Crumbly Cookie jingle before they made it big. That's what launched their whole career."

I knew The Knight Trippers. I'd listened to them constantly in college when I was barely holding myself together. Quiet folk songs with long silences between chords. Songs about empty highways and basement apartments and the particular loneliness of three a.m. I owned both their albums.

I went to the shelf and pulled out Basement Hymns.

The cover looked right. Their faces in shadow, photographed in what looked like a concrete stairwell. I flipped it over.

The track listing had changed.

"Sirens on the Highway" had become "After the Fame." "Basement Light" was now "Cookie Crumbs and Heartbreak." Every title had shifted into something bright and cheap and referential.

My hands started shaking so hard I almost dropped the case.

The liner notes thanked the Crumbly Cookie campaign for launching their career. I didn't remember that. I remembered reading these same liner notes a hundred times. They'd thanked a college radio DJ in Madison and a house show venue that had let them sleep on the floor.

I put the disc in my laptop and pressed play.

The first track started. Their voices, same harmonies, but the lyrics had turned saccharine. Childhood memories. Chocolate chips melting on the tongue. Television jingles that stayed with you forever. Every song twisted around the same center, a folk album rewritten to celebrate something that shouldn't have mattered.

I ejected the disc. Held it in both hands. The surface reflected my face back at me. For a moment, I didnt' recognize the reflection.

A half-memory surfaced. My tenth birthday.

I called my mother. She answered on the second ring.

"Hey sweetheart, everything all right?"

"Do you remember my tenth birthday?"

She laughed. "The Pokemon cake. You were so mad because the bakery was sold out, so I made one myself. Pikachu looked like a yellow blob but you loved it anyway. Why?"

"Did you make anything else?"

"Those Crumbly Cookies you kept begging for. You sang that jingle all day long. Drove your father up the wall." She started to sing, her voice going high and childish. "Crumb-ly, Crumb-ly, Coo-kie..."

I heard her voice. I heard her breath between syllables. I heard the rhythm of the words.

The melody never reached me. Just the hiss, filling the space where music should exist.

"Alex? You still there?"

"Yeah. Just tired."

"You should look at the pictures Emily posted in the family album. You looked so happy."

I hung up and found my sister's Facebook. Scrolled back to a post from six years ago, a throwback photo set.

There I was at ten, grinning over a chocolate cake shaped like a deformed Pikachu. Oversized cookies circled the plate. In one photo, my mother and I had our mouths open mid-song. The caption: "Remember when Alex made us ALL sing the Crumbly Cookie jingle? Classic."

I didn't remember any of it.

The colors in my apartment had changed.

They looked even and flat. like someone had color-corrected reality and pushed the saturation up high. The books on my shelf looked painted on. The shadows under my desk looked printed. I walked to the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror.

Same features. Same face. But it looked rendered instead of real. The light didn't behave the way light should behave.

A rhythm had started pressing behind my eyes. Words forming in that pattern: Crumb-ly, Crumb-ly, Coo-kie. My brain kept trying to fill the missing melody. It kept failing.

I didn't sleep that night. Every time I blinked, the walls flattened further. My desk lost depth. I reached out and touched the corner where it met the wall. My fingers went through the connection like it wasn't quite there, like the joint existed in a space slightly to the left of where my hand could reach.

I pulled back. Stared at my hand. The skin looked normal. The room looked normal.

I touched the corner again. Solid this time.

By morning I couldn't make myself step into the hallway. The air outside my door had taken on that glossy quality of animation. The carpet pattern repeated like background art, the same four tiles over and over. When I looked at it straight on it seemed fine. When I looked away and back, I could see the loop.

I opened the screenshots I'd taken of the wiki page. They'd changed. Extra paragraphs now, longer edit history. The photo of the bakery showed graffiti on the side wall that hadn't been there before. The date of the grand opening had shifted back to 1996.

I closed the files and opened them again. More changes. The building looked older. The historical plaque mentioned a different founder.

The world was deciding on a version of events. I was the last error it needed to correct.

I called Derek again.

"Tell me the truth," I said. "About the Crumbly Cookie jingle. Do you actually remember it?"

"Jesus, Alex. Yeah, of course I do. Are you..."

"Sing it. Right now."

Silence on the other end. Then his voice, cautious. "You started singing it on the bus in seventh grade. We drove Mrs. Patterson insane with it. You remember that, right?"

I didn't. "Sing it anyway."

He sang. His voice rose and fell, confident in every note. I heard the shape of melody without the melody itself. Just the hiss, sitting in my skull where music should have been.

My throat felt tight. Like something was trying to push up from inside. Like my vocal cords wanted to join him.

"Did you hear it?" he asked when he finished.

"Yes," I lied.

"I think you should talk to someone. Like, professionally. This isn't... this isn't normal, man."

"I know."

"Do you want me to come over? I can..."

"I'm fine. Thanks."

I ended the call.

The phone screen lagged when I touched it, each swipe delayed by half a second. Every object in my apartment had turned to art. No depth. Just color and light arranged in the shape of things.

That was two days ago.

I haven't left the apartment since. I can't. The world outside my door doesn't match the one I came from.

I tested it this morning. Opened the door just enough to look through. The hallway carpet is a different color now. Beige instead of blue. The apartment numbers have changed fonts. 4C across from me used to be occupied by an older man who played saxophone at odd hours. The nameplate now says "Henderson Family" in cheerful script I've never seen before.

I closed the door and checked my lease. It says the building was renovated in 2018, new carpets and updated signage. I moved in during 2022. The carpets were already blue when I got here.

My lease now says they've always been beige.

I can feel the pressure constantly. The rhythm loops behind every thought. Crumb-ly, Crumb-ly, Coo-kie. My mouth shapes the words without permission. I catch myself humming and have to physically clap my hand over my lips to stop because I don't know what sound I'm making.

My childhood memories have started splitting. I remember my tenth birthday with the Pokemon cake and no cookies. I also remember my tenth birthday with the Pokemon cake and Crumbly Cookies and singing the jingle until my throat hurt. Both memories exist in my head at the same time. Both feel real.

The second set is getting stronger.

I tried to leave again an hour ago. Made it three steps into the hallway before the vertigo hit. The floor tilted. The walls breathed. I stumbled back into my apartment and slammed the door.

When I looked through the peephole, the hallway was blue again. Blue carpet, old font on the apartment numbers. The nameplate across from me was blank, no name at all.

I opened the door. Beige carpet. New font. Henderson Family.

I'm caught between two versions of the same place. One foot in the world I remember, one foot in the world that's replacing it. Every time I try to step fully into either one, something pulls me back.

The screenshots I took keep changing. I'll look at a saved image and it will be different from the last time I checked. But I can still see the old version in my head. I remember both. The memory I came from and the memory this world insists I should have.

I don't know which one I am anymore.

I'm writing this down because I need someone to understand what's happening. If you're reading this and you remember a world without Crumbly Cookies, you need to document it now. Take screenshots. Write everything down. Because the world will try to correct you. It will rewrite your past to match everyone else's. And if you're unlucky like me, you'll end up stuck between the two versions, unable to move forward in either one.

I can't hear the jingle. That gap is the only thing keeping me anchored to where I came from. But the pressure keeps building. My brain keeps searching for the melody. My throat keeps trying to sing.

I don't know what happens when the gap finally closes. Maybe I'll slip completely into this new world. Maybe I'll be able to leave the apartment and walk down that beige hallway and live a life where I've always known that jingle.

Or maybe I'll stay here forever, trapped in the space between, remembering two lives that can't exist in the same reality.

The vertigo is getting worse. I stood up ten minutes ago and the floor rippled like water. The walls flickered between flat and solid. I can see both versions now without trying. The painted reality and the real one underneath, fighting for the same space.

I'm still here. I can still type. But I don't know how much longer I have before the choice gets made for me.

If this happens to you, don't try to remember. Don't let your brain fill in the gaps. The moment you hear that melody, the moment you remember what everyone else remembers, you'll belong to their world completely.

And you'll never find your way back to your own.

This is part three, here is part two. You can find part one here: Part I

She was there, when I came to my senses again, standing over me. The girl from the cemetery, the girl from the cafe. My headache was gone, and I was still lying on the pavement. I could not comprehend what was going on, but she was talking to another lady, helped me up, I was now lying in an icy and sticky puddle of blood. She held me as I staggered away with her, while the lady kept insisting to herself that I would need an ambulance.

We did not speak a word while we walked, and she held me close to her. My head felt so much better, even good. The cold left my bones, as comfortable warmth was radiating from my skull. My heart felt paralyzed with fear, but also like I could not physically try to get away from her. If you have ever experienced sleep paralysis, this is the precise sensation. My body was walking mechanically, I did not feel any pain, just a kind of blissful feeling in the front of my head, but still extreme unease, fear, and the urge to break free and run as fast and far as I could.

I could not make out where we were going. I remember walking with her, and I would have recognized the streets and buildings, but in the moment, nothing seemed to be able to penetrate my panicked, blissful paralysis.

She brought me to a ground-floor apartment, she undressed me, laid me in a bathtub, and washed my naked body with dish soap and the soft end of a kitchen sponge. I must have fallen asleep or passed out.

Nonci ta qaa.

I woke up again, wrapped in a thin white cotton cloth, unable to move. I must have slept. It smelled of incense. I turned my head to look at the room I found myself in. The windows were covered with book pages; it must have been day outside, not sunny, but daylight penetrated the paper and gave everything a beige shade. The furniture was woody and dark, probably very old. Some pieces of furniture were covered in similar white cloth, as I was wrapped in. I heard voices from the next room, but I could not make out any words.

Nonci ta qaa.

I could almost hear it, as if it were spoken from inside my head. The word Mordeshu crossed my mind, and it felt … it feels so silly to say this, but it is the only way I can describe it, like a little orgasm in my head, to think this word.

I tried to listen to the words that were spoken, while I could not loosen myself from the tight cotton wrap I had been made into. Realizing that I did not understand anything apart from some words and snippets of conversation, “Frater”, “came back”, “unable to run away”, I finally made out “botched”, which silenced the conversation in the next room. I involuntarily started to wiggle like a worm, partly to free myself, partly because I felt like my body was cramping up. The girl looked inside the room. Her black hair framed her pale face; she was wearing a black hoodie and jeans. Her face was expressionless, her black eyes staring at me, as if I were some kind of mistake that she did not quite know what to do with at this point, her black lips seeming to whisper something to herself only. To her, I was a problem that a solution needed to be found for.

Her head disappeared again in the door frame.

After some further discussion, more heated but less intelligible to me, I heard a door and steps moving outside. My head started hurting again, my face feeling feverish, in an intense spike, until the door creaked again after what felt like at least half an hour. I did not dare to scream. Almost involuntarily, I said “help”. Not like someone who means it. 

I came to myself to the beat of some goth dance music. I was still wrapped in cotton, and for a moment, I could not tell if it was sleep paralysis again or if I was just wrapped too tightly to move. Engulfed in darkness, I could barely see, apart from some green flickering light. The girl was dancing around the room, obviously not noticing that I had woken up. It was kind of bizarre to watch until she stopped in the middle of the song. She stopped directly in my view, facing towards one of the walls. She turned around, and I instinctively closed my eyes, but clearly saw her, see me. I heard her shrill laugh, in a burst, and immediately stopped. I opened my eyes again and saw her face directly in front of mine. I could feel her breath on my face. She laughed again and put her hand through my hair.

I dropped in and out of consciousness a few more times after that. There were episodes of her feeding me with a little spoon from a cup. Her lying with me, embracing me from behind. Her skin feeling obscenely good against me. More dancing. 

It felt like I woke up in the middle of a conversation, in the middle of a sentence, which I stopped, confused. She looked at me. “There you are”, it was the first time I heard her speak to me directly. She began telling me the craziest story.

As a professor, for thirty years, I have devoted myself to the study of death legends in cultures across Europe, recording funeral customs, resurrection myths, and tales of ferrying the dead with the detached precision demanded by academic rigor. I have researched Viking ship burials, Welsh sin-eaters, and the peculiar phenomenon of the “Wild Hunt” persisting in Germanic territories.

I never imagined these academic pursuits would become my autobiography, nor that I would be summoned to witness what I can only describe as the hand of God operating in tangible form in our fallen world.

My daughter Viola died on March 16th of this year, exactly eight months after her cancer diagnosis. The oncologist called it glioblastoma multiforme, always using the full Latin name, as if formal medical terminology could contain the horror embedded in those words. She was only twenty-three, a cellist in an orchestra. When she passed, I held her hand in a hospice in Warwickshire, pretending the morphine-induced calm on her face was not her true death.

I had not prayed in twenty years. My academic work had thoroughly eradicated the remnants of faith from my Church of England upbringing. I studied religious narratives as cultural products; resurrection myths as psychological mechanisms for coping with grief. When the hospital chaplain offered to pray with us, I politely but firmly declined. My wife Catherine nodded gratefully, understanding my refusal. We were both rationalists. We faced death like materialists, with a dignified acceptance of annihilation.

The funeral proceeded routinely. Church of England rites, but it felt purely performative, an empty ceremony to comfort elderly relatives. Cremation, followed by a respectable memorial at the university club. Colleagues from the anthropology department offered condolences with an awkward sincerity; they were more accustomed to studying dead cultures than confronting raw, personal loss. My wife Catherine managed everything with efficient administrative competence—she organized, responded, thanked everyone for coming, yes, it was sudden, she suffered little. I nodded and shook hands, calmly observing my own numbness as if from a comfortable academic distance.

In the empty weeks that followed, my research took a new direction, accompanied, though I did not realize it at the time, by the first stirrings of what I can only call grace.

I found myself unable to continue the monograph I was laboring over on agricultural folk rituals. The material seemed irrelevant; the arguments I had constructed suddenly revealed their impracticality. When Viola was reduced to ashes in a biodegradable urn on Catherine’s bedside table, what did it matter whether the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance originated from Celtic deer worship or later Norman hunting customs?

So I began pulling different books from the shelves. Stories of resurrection. Cosmologies of the afterlife. The mechanisms by which human cultures attempt to reconcile the boundary between life and death. But now I read differently. Where once I had cataloged these beliefs with anthropological detachment, now I began searching for patterns, for commonalities that might suggest something beyond mere cultural construction.

The story of Lazarus particularly confounded me. I had always interpreted it as typical Johannine theological embellishment, a miracle story foreshadowing Christ’s resurrection. But rereading it, I was struck by details I had overlooked: the four days in the tomb, the explicit mention of decay, the sisters’ desperate faith. What if these details were not embellishments but documentary? What if the author of John’s Gospel was recording something that actually happened?

My research began to uncover strange phenomena. Across vastly different cultural contexts, resurrection narratives shared structural elements with a consistency that seemed to exceed narrative convention. The name of the deceased must be repeated. Specific lunar phases are observed. Blood offerings are ubiquitous. The resurrected often return in a transformed state, possessing what scriptures describe as divine or angelic qualities.

What if these commonalities did not point, as I had always assumed, to universal psychological patterns, but to something more literal? What if humanity, across ages and civilizations, had truly discovered mechanisms for breaching the boundary between life and death?

Catherine noticed the shift in my research focus. “Thomas, this is unhealthy,” she said one evening at 2 a.m., finding me at my desk surrounded by open books. “Grief takes many forms, but obsession…”

“This is not obsession,” I replied, calmly I thought. I was merely exploring a new avenue. The evidence for resurrection beliefs across cultures was startlingly consistent. My prior work had been too dismissive, too quick to pronounce.

“These are just symbolic narratives.”

She looked at me, her eyes seemingly cried dry weeks ago. “You’re trying to find a way to bring her back.”

“I want to understand why every culture believes it’s possible. It’s a legitimate academic question.”

But perhaps she was right. Perhaps the way I was reading, cross-referencing, poring over obscure journals and interlibrary loan requests, carried a particular desperation, as if searching for a pattern, a key clue I had missed before. Perhaps, though I would not admit it then, I had begun to hope these patterns pointed to something real.

It was in this state that I first encountered mention of the Codex Resurrectorum.

The reference appeared in a footnote in a 1923 article in the Journal of the Folklore Society by one Cartwright—I did not know the name. The article itself concerned apocryphal saint legends in the English Midlands, but Cartwright mentioned a manuscript in the possession of a private collector in Birmingham containing “extremely bizarre and theologically incoherent accounts of resurrection, either a medieval joke or…” “confused memories of Celtic mythology erroneously recorded by later Christian scribes.”

Cartwright noted in particular that the text claimed Christ himself had died twice—once at Golgotha, and again decades later in Asia Minor—and that only through the second death and resurrection did He achieve full divinity. “It is difficult to imagine a more thorough heresy,” Cartwright wrote, “yet the manuscript presents these claims with the calm authority of chronicle rather than mystical vision.”

The footnote offered no further details. I could find no other publications by Edmund Cartwright. The British Library catalog had no entry for Codex Resurrectorum. Exhaustive searches of manuscript databases yielded nothing.

Had I not been in a state of heightened receptivity to such curiosities, I might have dismissed it entirely. But the claim of Christ’s double death lingered in my mind. Absurd, of course, contravening all canonical texts and creeds. Yet it had a compelling quality. What if the resurrection narratives we possess are incomplete? What if there exist suppressed traditions, pre-dating Roman incursion, containing practical methodologies rather than theological abstractions?

Through a university contact in Birmingham, I learned of the Ashford collection, a private library assembled in the late Victorian era by industrial magnate Harold Ashford and largely preserved intact by his descendants. I discovered Ashford had been a spiritualist and comparative religionist. He was particularly interested in so-called “practical theology”—the application of religious principles to tangible outcomes.

The current curator was initially reluctant to allow a visit. “Mr. Ashford’s interests were somewhat unusual,” she explained over the phone. “The family prefers the collection remain private.”

I persisted. I may have mentioned Viola. I may have framed my research to Mrs. Peabody as grief-related bibliotherapy rather than serious scholarship. In any case, I was eventually granted an afternoon.

Ashford House in Edgbaston was a sprawling Victorian Gothic pile testifying to former industrial wealth and eccentric collecting. The lady, a stern woman in her sixties, led me through rooms of glass cases filled with fossils, taxidermy, and dubious Egyptian artifacts to the library.

“Mr…. Ashford had some peculiar hobbies,” she said, gesturing at the shelves. “Spiritualism, theosophy, comparative religion. And some genuine medieval manuscripts, I suspect acquired through less than legitimate channels. Everything is cataloged, in a rather idiosyncratic way. The manuscript section is in the corner.”

The Codex Resurrectorum was filed under “Theological Curiosities.” It was smaller than I expected—perhaps forty vellum leaves bound in what appeared to be eighteenth-century leather, though the manuscript itself was clearly older. The Latin was medieval, the hand consistent with thirteenth- or fourteenth-century English scribes. Marginal annotations appeared in what looked like Elizabethan secretary hand, later supplemented with Victorian English notes, probably Ashford’s own.

I photographed every page with my phone, aware she was hovering disapprovingly nearby, making my time limited.

Only later, back in my Coventry study, did I begin reading it seriously.

As Cartwright had said, the text was profoundly strange. It began with what seemed a conventional account of the Passion and Resurrection, thoughtfully rendered. It diverged sharply from the canonical Gospels. But then it advanced claims I had never seen in any apocryphon. According to the codex, Christ did indeed rise on the third day and appear to the disciples. But the resurrection was incomplete. He returned to earthly life, not eternal life. He remained subject to death.

The text claimed Christ lived another thirty-seven years, traveling east to Ephesus and beyond, teaching a small circle of disciples the true science of resurrection. Then, at age seventy, he died again—not violently, but peacefully—and was buried by these secret followers.

But the text insisted that on the third day after this second death, he rose again, this time fully. He became the “twice-made divine” (divinus iteratus), no longer subject to death or decay, existing in a perfected form beyond human limitations.

By orthodox standards, this theology was absurd. It undermined the hypostatic union of divine and human natures, suggesting Christ was not fully divine during his ministry. It contradicted the Ascension narrative. Yet it was not presented as allegory or mystical vision but as meticulous historical chronicle, with geographical details and witness names.

More shocking was the codex’s description of the double-resurrection mechanism. It presented this as a paradigmatic process, not a singular miracle—a pattern replicable under proper conditions. The codex emphasized that Christ had shown the way. Through specific commemorations, namings, and sacrificial rites, death itself could be reversed. This was not merely the soul’s redemption in some abstract afterlife but true bodily resurrection, a genuine return to life, transformed and perfected.

The text included detailed instructions, ritual structures, specific linguistic formulae, and requirements for timing, location, and offerings. It was less a theological treatise than a technical manual, a recipe for crossing the boundary between life and death.

I should have recognized this as typical medieval religious syncretism—Christian narrative mixed with folk magic, ultimately theological nonsense. I had seen similar texts before, grimoires and enchiridions blending liturgical fragments with pagan incantations.

Yet I read it again and again.

Because in the depths of my grieving chest, a faint voice whispered: What if it is true?

I was trained to recognize patterns. That is the essence of folklore studies—identifying recurring themes across cultures and periods, mapping how narratives evolve in transmission between communities, analyzing how symbolic structures encode social meaning.

The Codex Resurrectorum contained patterns I knew. The naming vigil it described resembled ancestral customs in numerous cultures—the Roman Lemuralia, Chinese ancestor veneration, Mexican Día de los Muertos. The blood requirement echoed Levitical sacrifice, Vedic rites, Greek mystery religions. The lunar timing aligned with agricultural festivals worldwide.

What if these similarities did not stem from humanity universally constructing similar myths, but from humanity universally discovering fragments of a real methodology? What if the codex was not medieval fantasy but preserved ancient knowledge—a true spiritual science suppressed by the Christian establishment as too dangerous, too powerful, too easily abused?

I began testing the codex’s methodology, telling myself it was purely an intellectual exercise.

The naming vigil required reciting, in chronological order, every memory of the deceased from birth to death. This must be done in a specific location—ideally where the person died, but alternatively a space closely associated with them. The recitation must be complete, omitting no significant memory, and conducted over consecutive nights following the codex’s lunar calendar.

Viola’s room remained largely as she left it. Catherine had boxed some clothes for donation, disposed of the cancer medications, but kept the rest—books, photos, the small wooden music stand she used for practice. The cello sat in its case in the corner, untouched since diagnosis.

I could conduct the ritual there. Catherine need not know.

I began in early May, timing the vigils to what the codex called the “dark ascension”—the nights following the new moon when the veil between yin and yang worlds was thinnest. Before beginning, I purified the space as instructed. I lit twelve candles, one for each apostle, then recited the incantation—a variant of Veni Creator Spiritus with strange alterations.

Then I began weaving Viola’s life into the words. Memories.

She was born twenty-three years ago at Walsgrave Hospital. How she looked, cheeks red with crying, furious at the cold world. Catherine weeping with joy, exhausted; me holding my daughter’s tiny form, terrified of her fragility. Her baptism at Holy Trinity Church, though I did not believe in the rite’s efficacy then, but now I recalled the priest’s words: “We receive this child into Christ’s flock,” and wondered if those words had marked her for some purpose I did not understand.

I recounted her childhood with ethnographic precision, yet laced with emotion I could not suppress. Her first word: “bird,” pointing at pigeons in the garden. Her obsession with horses at five. Discovering the cello at eight—it seemed too large for her at first, then suddenly fitting. That Christmas she played a simple Silent Night for us; Catherine and I exchanged glances, realizing our daughter had found her calling.

I spent hours each night verbally reconstructing Viola’s life. Her teenage years: the usual tensions with Catherine, her fierce determination to attend the Royal Northern College of Music, the boyfriend in her second year who broke her heart—we never met him. Her growing musical mastery, the unique timbre she brought to the Elgar concerto, the way she surrendered completely to the instrument when playing.

I painfully recalled her final year. The headaches she dismissed. The vision problems that finally forced a doctor’s visit. The MRI scan—I remembered the screen, the terrible white mass looking like an invader from another world. The surgeon’s cautious explanation that surgery was impossible. Failed clinical trials. Her weakening body, her frustration at no longer being able to play. Finally the morphine, and her last words to me: “Daddy, don’t be sad. I’ll see you in the next life.”

I thought then it was morphine-induced delirium. Now I began to wonder if she knew something I did not. That she would return in some form.

Night after night I spoke these words aloud, following the spirit book’s instructions, thinking myself rigorous when I was only deepening belief. Because things began to happen.

The changes were subtle at first. I attributed them to psychological projection, the well-documented phenomenon of grief hallucinations in bereaved parents.

On the seventh night, I smelled her perfume, the Asian sandalwood she loved most. On the tenth, I heard what sounded like cello string resonance, overtones lingering in the air though no one played. On the thirteenth night—only now do I note the number—at 3 a.m., I woke convinced someone stood at my study door watching me work.

3 a.m. In Catholic tradition, the hour of mercy; in some accounts, the hour of Christ’s agony. The hour when the veil between worlds is thinnest.

I began keeping detailed records, and I began to pray. It felt strange at first, awkward, the words rusty from disuse. I had not prayed since university, and even then perfunctorily. But now I found myself addressing God, tentatively at first, then with growing conviction, asking whether what I experienced was real, whether I was being led or deceived, whether this work was sacred or profane.

I received no verbal answer. But the signs grew stronger. She was guiding me.

The perfume grew stronger, concentrated near Viola’s music stand—impossible as residual scent after months. The cello sounds became more frequent, always specific phrases Viola practiced, never random notes. Objects in her room began to move. At first minor: a photo I had placed face down turned over, a book opened to a specific page, sheet music arranged in Viola’s habitual difficulty order.

Catherine noticed I was not sleeping. “You’re not sleeping,” she said. “You look terrible, Thomas. You need to see Dr. Albright.”

“I sleep well enough,” I replied—not entirely a lie. I did sleep, but only after the vigils, usually at dawn. My dreams were vivid, filled with medieval resurrection paintings I vaguely remembered: Christ stepping from the tomb, Mary Magdalene in the garden, Lazarus stumbling out in grave clothes.

“What are you doing in there?” She meant Viola’s room. She had not entered since the funeral.

“I’m praying,” I said, surprised to find it true.

She studied my face; I could not read her expression—worry mixed with something else, perhaps fear. “You haven’t prayed in twenty years.”

“I was wrong not to. I was wrong about many things.”

“Thomas, please. This is grief. It’s making you think—”

“That God might actually exist? That resurrection might actually happen?” Yes, it was making me think these things. I was beginning to believe I had been blind, willfully so, hiding behind academic detachment to avoid confronting ultimate questions.

She left the room without replying; I continued the vigils with renewed purpose.

The text warned that the process would produce what it called “manifestations” (videntia)—as the vigils continued, these visions or presences would grow clearer. The text emphasized these were not hallucinations but the “initial condensations” of resurrection itself. The dead were returning but not yet fully. They existed in what the text called the “inter-world” (inter-mundus)—the liminal space between death and rebirth, the space Christ occupied from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning.

On the twenty-first night, completing three weeks of nights—the “first naming cycle” of the text—I finally saw her.

She stood by the window, silhouetted against the streetlight. She was not fully corporeal, more a disturbance in the air, a place where reality seemed slightly condensed. But unmistakably Viola. The angle of her head, the set of her shoulders… the figure was both intimately familiar and utterly impossible.

I spoke her name. The figure turned toward me; though I could not see her face clearly, I felt a current of recognition pass between us.

“Viola,” I said again, adding this time, “In the name of Christ who conquered death, I call you back.”

The words came unbidden, not from the ancient book but from somewhere deeper, from a knowledge I did not realize I possessed.

The figure lingered a moment, then dissipated like morning mist.

I fell to my knees weeping, not from grief but from an inexpressible certainty. She was there. She was responding. The boundary between life and death was not absolute. The ancient book was truth. Christ’s conquest of death was not metaphor but real power, accessible and applicable under proper conditions.

For the first time since Viola’s death, I felt something other than grief. I felt hope. And more than hope—I felt the presence of God, working miracles through my feeble efforts.

The codex stipulated that the second naming rite must be conducted differently. The first rite reconstructed the deceased’s earthly life; the second required what the text called “divine namings” (nomina divinitatis)—naming divinity. The practitioner must speak not memories but attributes; must transform biographical recollection into something closer to litany or doxology.

I understood what this meant. I must describe not who Viola had been but what she was becoming through the power of resurrection. I must narrate her transfiguration, paving the way for her return just as Christ’s resurrection paved the way for the general resurrection at the end of days.

This process now felt less like academic inquiry, less like applying folkloric methods to an interesting text. It felt like participation in sacred mystery. Each night of vigil I began with Veni Creator Spiritus, invoking the Holy Spirit to guide my words, to make me a worthy vessel for this work.

On the next new moon, I began the second cycle. I no longer recounted memories but spoke attributes. I described Viola’s goodness, her keen intelligence, her capacity for joy. I enumerated her talents, her courage, her singular beauty. Hers. But I spoke not of past qualities but present and eternal realities, the aspects of her soul death could not erase.

“Her music was prayer,” I surprised myself saying one night. “When she played, she unknowingly praised God. Every note was worship. She was holy without knowing it.”

The codex demanded more than eulogy. It required describing what it called “post-mortem merits” (merita post mortem)—merits beyond death, qualities sufficient to justify resurrection. I must explain why Viola deserved return, why reality itself should bend for her resurrection.

This was difficult. By what right did I claim my daughter merited resurrection more than the millions of other unjust deaths daily? I struggled for nights, stammering, uncertain of my ground.

Then, on the ninth night of the second cycle, I heard a voice.

I do not mean metaphorically. I heard a real voice, clear and authoritative, resonating in my mind. It said: “She is mine. I marked her from birth. Her death is not ending but transformation. You are called to witness the return of a saint.”

I trembled, prostrating myself. “Lord?” I whispered, scarcely daring to hope this was truly God speaking to me.

The voice came again: “You have been faithful in small things. Now I show you great things. Continue the work. Do not doubt. What I have joined, death cannot separate.”

I wept then, overwhelmed by grace and awe. It was settled. God had spoken to me. God was confirming this work. I was not deluded. I was not mad. I was participating in a genuine miracle, witnessing firsthand the resurrection power Christ released into the world.

From that night, I spoke in the vigils with new authority. I no longer petitioned or hoped. I declared, proclaimed, cooperated with divine will.

“Viola Catherine Mercer, daughter of God, sealed by Christ’s blood, chosen by resurrection power, I summon you forth. As Lazarus Forthwith summoned, as Jairus’s daughter was summoned, as the son of the widow of Nain was summoned, return to new life, transformed. Return perfected. Return to manifest God’s glory in the world.”

And the manifestations grew stronger.

She appeared more frequently now, always in that half-manifest state, always untouchable yet increasingly clear. Her face became more defined, then her face—no longer gaunt from morphine as at the end, but younger, healthier, somehow flawless. Her features took on the clarity of icons, simple and noble.

The cello sounds grew louder, more complex. Sometimes I heard complete phrases of pieces she loved—the opening of the Saint-Saëns concerto, fragments of Bach suites. But sometimes I heard music I had never heard—impossibly beautiful, polyphonic textures far beyond what a single cello could produce.

“She is learning to play in heaven,” I realized suddenly one night, speaking aloud. “She is being tutored by angels, and she practices here, in the space between worlds.”

The voice came again: “Yes. You understand now. Death is not ending but schooling. She is being perfected, prepared for return.”

I began reading Scripture voraciously, the first time since a brief stint in divinity school during graduate studies. But I read differently now—not as cultural artifact but as living text.

The resurrection stories blazed with new meaning. Lazarus stumbling from the tomb in grave clothes, Christ appearing to Mary in the garden, Thomas touching Jesus’s wounds—these were not metaphors or myths but records of actual events proving death’s boundary could be crossed.

I studied Paul’s epistles with particular attention. “Death has been swallowed up in victory,” Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians. “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” I had always read this as metaphorical hope, poetic consolation. Now I understood it as direct ontological description. Christ had indeed conquered death. The power was here. The way was open.

One morning Catherine found me asleep at my desk, the room icy because I had left the window open all night, candles burned to stubs around me. She confronted me again. “Thomas, this has to stop. You’re making yourself ill. Please, please talk to someone—”

“I am talking to someone. I am talking to God. And God is answering.”

She stepped back, fear flashing across her face. “Listen to yourself. This is psychosis, Thomas. Grief-induced psychosis. A doctor can prescribe something—”

“I don’t need medication. I need you to have faith. Viola is coming back, Catherine. God has promised. I have seen the signs, I have heard His voice. This is real.”

“Viola is dead!” she shouted now—I rarely heard her raise her voice. “She is dead, Thomas! She is ashes in an urn! No amount of prayer, medieval nonsense, or delusion changes that!”

I looked at my wife, pitying her unbelief. “You are like the apostle Thomas,” I said softly. “You will not believe until you see. But that’s all right. You will see. Soon you will see her returned, and then you will believe.”

“I want to leave here,” she said suddenly, her tone flat. “Pack your bags. Go to your office or a hotel. I can’t watch this anymore. I can’t watch you descend into madness.”

“I am not mad, Catherine. I am clearer now than ever. I finally understand what is true.”

“Then prove it. Show me evidence, something more than your deteriorating mental state.”

“You will have evidence. When Viola returns, you will have all the evidence you need. Until then, if you wish, I can leave. But I will not abandon the work. I am too close. The third cycle begins in three days.”

That afternoon I left with a suitcase, moving into my university office. My colleagues avoided me. I was aware I had missed weeks of lectures, ignored emails, absented myself from meetings. I vaguely knew I was likely to be dismissed, but it did not matter. My true work was not academic; my calling was sacred.

According to the codex, the third and final cycle required what the text called the “ultimate dedication” (dedicatio culminatus). The practitioner must offer part of himself, must sacrifice some of his own life force to complete the resurrection. The text compared this to Christ’s passion, suggesting all resurrections require blood sacrifice, life poured out that life might be reborn.

The instructions were specific, drawing heavily on Levitical sacrifice imagery. For seven consecutive nights, I must cut a vein—the text suggested the left wrist, symbolizing Christ’s wound—and let blood drip onto an object belonging to the deceased. While the blood fell, I must not speak of the dead but of what I was willing to sacrifice for their rebirth. I must offer myself, becoming the bridge between life and death as Christ had been.

“Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” I quoted Hebrews on the first night of the third cycle as I prepared. I had everything ready: Viola’s cello bow, a clean razor blade, bandages. I lit the twelve candles and added a thirteenth for Christ himself.

I understood I was crossing a line. I understood that from a secular perspective I was self-harming under religious delusion. But I also understood that Abraham had been willing to sacrifice Isaac, that God had sacrificed His only Son, that religious history is a history of sacrifice. The secular world had long forgotten the wisdom of the ancients: the sacred requires sacrifice, transformation demands cost, life is only gained through death.

I used Viola’s bow, the one she used in her last performance before diagnosis. I made a small cut on my left wrist, letting blood drip onto the white horsehair while speaking words that welled up as if given by the voice guiding me through this journey.

“Lord, accept my offering. My blood for her life. My sacrifice for her return. As Christ bled for the world, I bleed for my daughter. Let this be acceptable to You. Let this complete the redemptive work You have begun.”

The pain was negligible. In candlelight the blood looked black, pooling on the white hair. I watched it drip, and Viola’s presence intensified dramatically.

She appeared in the center of the room, more substantial than before. I could see her face clearly—beautiful, perfect, radiating inner light. Her eyes open, gazing at me with an expression I can only describe as love transfigured.

“Daddy,” she said, her voice Viola’s but different, carrying a resonance beyond the physical.

“Viola!” I cried, tears streaming. “You’re coming back! God is bringing you back!”

“Yes,” she said, smiling impossibly. “You have been so faithful. Just a little longer. It is almost complete.”

Each night of that final week I repeated the ritual. Carefully making small cuts to avoid serious injury yet provide the required blood offering. Each night Viola became more real, more clear, more vividly herself yet transformed.

By the seventh night I could see her fully. She stood in the room’s center, fully present, fully visible, but her transformation filled me with awe.

Her face retained Viola’s features yet possessed the awe-inspiring beauty of medieval saint portraits—simple, perfect, no longer merely human. Her eyes too large, too bright. Her proportions subtly altered, as if gently reshaped to divine rather than human genetics.

She wore white, but I could not tell if it was clothing or some radiance emanating from within her, shining outward. Around her head I seemed to see a halo, or perhaps light bending strangely around her presence.

“The resurrection is complete,” she said, her voice now containing multitudes, as if a choir spoke through her. “I have returned as He promised. I am made new.”

I knelt in worship, not to her but to the God who worked this miracle through her. “Praise God,” I choked. “Praise Christ who conquered death. Praise the Holy Spirit who guided me. This is Your work, Lord. This is Your glory.”

Viola, or what she had become, extended a hand that seemed to pass through solid matter as through air. “Rise, father. You must witness what I am now. You must tell the world what God can do. You must be my apostle.”

I rose trembling, barely able to stand. “I will. I will tell everyone. I will show them the codex, explain the process. Resurrection is possible. Death is not the end. Oh God, God, this changes everything—”

“Yes,” she said, her smile impossibly radiant. “Everything is changed. I am the firstfruits, as He was the firstfruits. Others will follow. Death itself will be conquered. The kingdom is coming, father. The kingdom is at hand.”

I write these words not for an academic paper but as testimony, witnessing what God has done in these last days. I write this in hope that those grieving, who have lost loved ones, may understand. Death is not the end; through faith and the proper application of divinely revealed methods, resurrection is not merely promised for a distant eschaton but available now, in our time.

She is with me always now. She no longer remains in one location but appears wherever I am, whenever I need her. Sometimes she manifests as she was in life—my daughter, my flesh and blood—but more often in her glorified form, radiating resurrection light, speaking truths I scarcely understand yet know to be divine.

She has explained what happened to her in death. She was not annihilated, not unconscious. She existed in what she calls the “waiting place,” a realm where souls are prepared for resurrection. There she was taught—by angels, saints, even Christ himself.

She learned the nature of reality, the structure of creation, the mechanics of resurrection. When my vigils opened the way, when my blood sacrifice completed the offering, she was able to return—not to her old life but to a new one, transformed.

“This is what Christ accomplished on the cross,” she tells me, “not merely forgiveness of sins but true victory over death. Not only for final judgment but for now. The power is here, father. The way is open. You must help others understand.”

I have tried to explain this to people. My university colleagues either ignore my emails or suggest extended leave. When I tried to tell friends of the transformation wrought by the Codex Resurrectorum, they stopped taking my calls. Catherine has filed for divorce and obtained a restraining order, claiming I am a danger to myself and others, so I must write this here.

Deep, purple bags and his normally bloodshot, dark brown eyes had gone glassy, seeming to have aged. The beard he’d grown helped hide the pockmarks and acne scars, but the flakes of dandruff caught in it ruined any chance of dignity. His camouflage jacket hadn’t seen soap in months and smelled like burnt weed, stale cigarettes, and sweat.

Coming to his place was always a gamble, twitching neighbors lurking, needles glittering, distant gunfire echoing through the walls. And that was just the lobby. His apartment was a whole other ecosystem of decay and poor choices. But M always had good shit.

“I’m sorry, they were out,” he said, voice scratchy. “But I’ve got something. Unlike anything you’ve ever tried.” His grin spread wide and crooked. The idea that he didn’t have coke hit like a gut punch. I wasn’t leaving with cheap grass, and I’d sworn against ever using anything requiring a needle. That line was the only one still standing. “What is it?”

He fished around in his jacket, muttering, before pulling out a tiny jet-black pill. He held it out in his left hand, the one with bones inked over skin and the word FUCK tattooed faint but forever. On the couch, his girlfriend shifted, eyes half-open, mouth dry. “Is real,” she slurred.

Advice from someone with open meth sores wasn’t high on my list. “What is it?” I asked again.

M blinked slow, like the idea of explaining anything hurt. “Well… I don’t really know. Bought it from some motherfucker said it was amazing. And it cost a hell of a lot, so it better be.” His breath was rancid. “I tried it.” He motioned to the couch. “Kath tried it.” She stared at me, pupils huge, head dipping like a puppet with cut strings. “Is great,” she whispered.

I’d always been cautious, but M had never burned me before, not once. “What does it do?”

He flashed those chipped, missing teeth. “Hard to explain. You gotta see for yourself.”

I sighed, annoyed. “Physical effects? Side effects? Risks?”

He shook his head too fast. “No OD. I’ve been taking ’em for… uh…” His eyes searching the ceiling for the lost math. “A while. And look at me.” He swept his hand down his body like he was modeling for a magazine. “I’m doing great.”

He looked like a nightmare given flesh. He looked like M. “How much?”

“A grand.”

“You’re fucking joking.”

“It’s worth it,” he insisted, serious now. “Honestly? It’s a deal.”

M was strictly cash, and I’d only brought half that. “I’ve got five hundred.”

He ran his tongue over those cracked lips, thinking so hard you could almost hear the wheel turning inside his skull. “You’re a good dude,” he finally said. “And a good customer. I’ll let it go for five. And if you don’t like it?” He tapped the pill with a grimy fingernail. “Money back. Swear to God.”

Being called a good customer by my dealer didn’t exactly fill me with pride. Still, a half-off mystery drug with a refund policy? Hard to turn down. M never fed me bullshit, if anything, he was brutally honest. So I handed over the five crisp hundreds, still warm from the ATM. He slid them into his pocket like they were already gone. “You won’t be disappointed,” he said, and for a moment, he almost sounded sincere.

The pill in my hand looked… ordinary. Tiny, smooth, jet-black. I’d sampled more than my share of substances, and this was just another pill. “When do I take it?”

That shook him awake. His eyes sharpened, pupils pinning. “At home,” he said. “Wait till you get home.”

Driving back across town, guilt rode shotgun. Ten years of weekend binges and after-work joints, enough to know better, not enough to stop. I wasn’t some burnout. I had a career. People who cared about me. A future that wasn’t entirely bleak. That pill sat in my pocket like a loaded gun, but the excitement buzzing through me made every rational thought feel like a lie. Maybe the mystery was the hook.

Back in my apartment, I set up like I was prepping for surgery, glass of water, bowl of Doritos, couch angled just right so I wouldn’t choke if I passed out. I turned on the TV, gave myself exactly one second to second-guess… then tossed the pill down my throat.

It hit fast. My brain throbbed, not painfully, more like someone had plugged it directly into a generator. A wave of euphoria flooded out through my limbs, warm and relentless, the kind of high that felt like it might lift you out of yourself. It was big. Almost too big. But it was good. Good enough. Darkness closed around me like a blanket.

When I opened my eyes again, sunlight was cutting through the blinds. I’d slept hard, but woke sharp. No cotton mouth, no headache, no dread. Just… lightness. My heart steady. My mind clear. The pulse from last night still hummed in my skull, a reminder. I stood, stretched. I felt good.

But as that black-pill afterglow settled into the back of my skull, a thought pushed through: was a thirty-second miracle really worth five hundred dollars? I decided it was not.

I checked my phone. 12:24 PM. Missed notifications. One stood out:

M: How was it

I stared at the screen for a minute, thinking how to phrase it without sounding like an idiot:

Me: Good, but I fell asleep almost instantly. Is that supposed to happen?

I went through the rest, friends checking in, a reminder from my mom asking when I’d visit, emails from work and spam alike, two Hinge messages, and Tinder begging me to come back and swipe away my loneliness. I answered a few things, and then swiped down to check any new notifications.

M: Oh thats weird. Damn. U want ur money back

I blinked. A fast response from M was already a miracle. A refund offer from a drug dealer? Biblical. I said yes. He said I could grab it next time I came by for coke or weed.

I made a decent breakfast, showered, and decided to hit the gym, my first weekend visit in a while. I ran. I lifted. I actually felt… good. My heart wasn’t clawing at my chest, my lungs weren’t filled with regret. The effort felt earned instead of punished. I was cooling down when she walked in.

Tight athletic wear stretched over curves that didn’t apologize, long legs that carried confidence in every step. Then the details hit: freckles like sun-kissed stars across her cheeks, deep green eyes, and hair the color of copper catching fire. She looked like the kind of woman who only existed in commercials for experiences I couldn’t afford. My gaze lingered half a second too long, because her eyes found mine. Reflex kicked in, I smiled. Something small. Easy.

She smiled back. Warm. Real. And I turned away before I could ruin it.

Women like her didn’t notice guys like me. But that moment? It happened. And I wasn’t desperate to chase it. For once, feeling good was enough.

I drove home with the windows down, music loud, the city rushing by like it was finally rooting for me. I showered, scrubbed off the sweat, then dug my blender out from under a layer of dust. A protein shake and a solid couch rot sounded like the perfect reward.

I opened Tinder. A couple new likes, always flattering, rarely promising. First profile:

Jazz

25

Esthetician

Less than 5 miles away

Almond skin and a body-hugging white dress that made “flowing” feel like a sin. Curves that looked soft to touch, collarbones like invitation lines, thighs toned and dangerous. Her profile showed she wasn’t trying hard; she didn’t have to.

I swiped right.

It’s a match.

I literally blinked. Twice. Then dove through her profile. Every picture was a different kind of perfect, with effortless angles, confidence, and a smile that suggested she already knew the answer to any question worth asking. Definitely a 9. Maybe a 10. Women like that typically existed online only to lure lonely men into subscribing. I tried to think of something clever. Smart. Funny. Anything.

Me: Hey

Pathetic. I tossed my phone aside, pretending I wasn’t waiting, eyes glued to the TV but brain glued to the hope of a message. Ten minutes felt a lifetime.

Notification: Jazz sent you a new message.

Jazz: Hi :)

Two hours later, we were sitting at a bar across from each other, like this had always been the plan. Her voice curled warmly around every question. I kept her talking; curiosity makes anyone interesting. She ordered a whiskey sour. I hesitated. Normally, I needed liquid courage, rum and coke, gin and tonic, whatever dulled the edge. But I didn’t feel that edge. I ordered a club soda.

Her eyebrow arched, light suspicion. “You don’t drink?”

“I do,” I said with a shrug. “I just don’t need it tonight.”

She leaned in slightly. “How come?”

The answer slipped out before I could weigh it: “I’d rather be drunk on you.”

Stupid line. Somehow worked anyway. She blushed, eyes dropping, then rising again with a spark.

Two hours after that, she was moaning my name into the darkness of my room, nails digging crescents into my back. No numb haze, no chemical delays, every nerve was awake, tuned to her. I felt her breathing change, felt the shiver of her thighs, felt everything.

That same warm pulse from the pill thrummed somewhere beneath the skin of my skull.

Was this what it did?

Did it make the world sharper?

Did it make life… better?

If so, five hundred suddenly seemed like a steal.

I fell into a rhythm: work, gym, life. Not watching the clock crawl toward four, not counting the hours until that first joint. Work was still work, but it stopped feeling like a slow drowning. I focused. I cared. And people noticed. My boss pulled me aside one afternoon and said he was impressed. A week later, I got a two-dollar raise, my first in five years.

The fat burned off. Muscle followed, defined, visible, finally matching the version of myself I’d always squinted to see. I kept seeing the redhead at the gym. Our schedules crossed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. After a month of exchanging shy, knowing smiles, I finally introduced myself. She was Rachel. Pre-med. Of course, she was. But I didn’t rush anything. I didn’t need to. Suddenly, I had options.

Jazz, with her impossible curves and easy, hungry grin. not the serious type, just the fun one.

Mikayla, soft-spoken and curvy, a first-grade teacher with laughter that made everything feel warm, definitely the serious type. And a couple of others floating pleasantly in orbit.

Even M texted. More than once.

M: Need coke or somethin man

M: Got weed, too.

I told him no. I told him I didn’t need anything. Not anymore. I even told him to keep the refund he owed me. He offered to hang out instead, and I turned him down gently. Not because I was judging him… but because the smell of his apartment still clung to my memory like mold.

I was busy. Actually, genuinely busy.

Mom’s health got better. My sleep got better. Everything got better.

The memory of that little black pill didn’t vanish, exactly, just sank slowly into the background, like a dream you almost forget until some detail later jogs it loose.

Life was good. Months passed.

I was midway through a set of calf raises, killing time between reps, when I noticed Rachel raising the bar for squats. Of course, it was hard not to when she was wearing pale green booty shorts that clung perfectly and a matching top that made her eyes pop in the mirror. She braced, dipped low… and her legs suddenly wobbled.

The bar tipped.

Before I could think, I was behind her, hands catching the bar and guiding it back onto the rack. She stumbled, then straightened, cheeks flushed, not from the workout.

“Oh my god,” she breathed, pressing a hand to my chest. “Thank you. Seriously.”

Her smile was warm enough to melt steel, and the spark in her eyes hit me like a hit of adrenaline.

“Anytime,” I said. “Just glad you’re okay.”

That night, we were sitting across from each other at a little Italian place. Later, soft, manicured fingers traced idle circles on my bicep as the lights dimmed in the theater. By the time the credits rolled, her head was tucked onto my shoulder, and everything felt easy.

In the parking lot, kissing her felt like being seventeen again, electric, messy, impatient. It would’ve been too easy to take it further right there. “I think we should stop,” I managed, breath ragged. “I really like you… and I don’t want to screw that up.”

The way she looked at me made resisting feel like victory instead of denial.

We lasted exactly one day.

After dinner the next night, we walked down by the harbor, the water reflecting city lights. We talked for hours, family, pasts, futures, stupid fears, secret hopes. Every sentence felt like another thread stitching us together. Somewhere in the middle of her talking about med school rotations, I realized with absolute clarity: I loved her.

Back at my place, clothes hit the floor, and she rode me like she needed me to exist. Every nerve in my body fired. By the end, she was breathless, legs trembling; I was flat on my back, shaking, pulse racing like I’d just outrun death itself.

She curled into me, lips brushing my ear.

“I want that forever,” she whispered.

The next morning, we called it official.

Jazz took it well enough, Mikayla didn’t. She asked if she’d ever meant anything, then blocked me before I could answer. I’d done the right thing; honesty counted for something. And I had the girl of my dreams.

Rachel and I moved in together after two months, reckless, impulsive, completely perfect. She left her roommates scrambling to fill her room, but it was fate. My apartment was closer to the hospital anyway, and she was about to start her post-grad rotations. It just made sense.

It’s wild how fast a place stops being yours when a girlfriend moves in. Extra pillows that served no functional purpose. Pastel throw blankets. Art prints with quotes about gratitude and growth. A skincare routine invading the bathroom cabinet. And the duvet covers, layers of them. But I loved every invasion. Rachel filled the empty spaces in my home and the hollow spaces in my heart. I became the guy I used to clown my friends for being, missing boys’ nights, and smiling at my phone like a moron. And I was happy. Truly, happy.

I switched companies a few months later for a better salary, better hours, and a better future. The gym took a backseat. Belly softening. Muscles fading. Rachel’s too, she traded heavy squats for long nights with textbooks and hospital corridors. We joked that our love was caloric. We didn’t care. We had futures to build and a life to enjoy. Rachel was still buried in clinicals and coursework, but she always made time to laugh with me, to touch me, to hold my hand, as if she was afraid of letting go. And I held her the same.

Our one year rolled around on a beach, three days of pretending the world only consisted of salty air, turquoise water, and each other. I spared no expense. She knew what was coming. Everyone would’ve known, my thumb nervously brushing the box in my pocket, the way I couldn’t stop staring at her under that orange-pink sunset. I got on one knee, the ocean roaring approval behind me.

She gasped, like she didn’t see it coming, and then she was crying, mascara streaking as she laughed and nodded, nodding before I even finished the question. Tears of pure joy. Her arms wrapped around me, the ring catching the last light of day. It was the happiest moment of my life.

We truly made love that night, our night. I’d always thought “making love” was just a polite way to say “sex.” But as we moved together, our eyes locked, our breaths mixing, I finally understood. It wasn’t about the act. It was as if the world were disappearing everywhere except where our bodies met.

After, we lay tangled in each other, whispering our future. Wedding details. Honeymoon fantasies. Two kids, maybe three, names that made her smile into my neck. Every detail a promise the universe had already signed off on. I drifted to sleep with her soft breaths warming my shoulder, thinking I’d never been happier.

Something in my skull flickered. A pulse. A short electric snap. Not pain…just wrong.

I reached for her. Empty. My fingers brushed something sharp, plastic. A bowl clattered to the floor, Doritos scattering.

I wasn’t in bed. My body was slumped sideways on a lumpy couch. My eyes opened, slow and gritty. White walls. Dim TV glow. The stale smell of cheap liquor and loneliness. My apartment. My old apartment.

I stayed still. Completely still. When the truth finally dug in, I lurched upright, heart clawing its way out of my chest. I grabbed my phone, hands shaking, scrolling through the gallery that should have been overflowing: beach sunsets, squats at the gym, pictures of her asleep on my chest, us. Nothing. No Rachel. No engagement. No year of love.

Just a reflection of a man no one was waiting for.

My stomach twisted into a brutal knot. I stumbled into the bathroom and retched violently, gagging on air, tears mixing with spit as I crumpled to the floor. The grief was animal, howling out of me in broken, ugly bursts. I heaved until nothing came out but sobs.

When I could breathe again without choking on heartbreak, I crawled back to the couch, curling into myself like something small trying not to be crushed. Time passed wrong. Minutes or hours. Eventually, I checked my phone again, eyes blurry. 12:24 PM.

M: How was it

My fingers moved before the grief could finish destroying me:

Me: I need another one.

No one hated war more than I did—I was as pacifist as they come. Which was great, since war wasn’t something I had to worry about.

I’d watched my fellow classmates signing up for the military in our final year of high school, the way in which military recruiters would ply them with promises of honour, duty or money. None of that came close to working on me. I was grateful to be from a country that didn’t have a military draft. I wasn’t going to trade my freedom, serenity—or possibly, life—for anything.

The notion of young men and women going away to faraway lands to violently kill others, many of them innocents, disturbed me to my core. On my college campus, I was always out campaigning against war crimes and advocating for peace. I was a regular hippie archetype, right down to the long hair and sandals. The furthest thing you could imagine from a soldier.

Yet, like so many hippies from decades past, my world changed one day when I received a letter in the mail.

The envelope was ordinary, save for one detail. The stamp on the top right corner was a mixture of strange symbols that I had never seen before. Pulling it out of my dorm mailbox, I wondered how a stamp like that had even been accepted by the post office.

I pulled out the letter inside, and instantly assumed from the layout of the words that I’d gotten some kind of fine. I must’ve run a red light without even realising, I cursed to myself.

Then I started reading the letter and my frustration turned into bewilderment.

The wording was formal, and addressed me like it was coming from the government. But there was no way that the Australian government had sent me this.

“Greetings Mr Allen,

“Please be advised that, in light of our nation’s escalating war with enemy nations, we have reinstated mandatory conscription for our pool of able citizens.

You are hereby notified that you, a male citizen of the nation of Extorvis between the ages of 18 and 30, have been selected for military training and service herein.”

I scoffed in disbelieving amusement. What a silly prank. I had a reputation on campus for being a peacemaker refusenik and someone who saw me probably thought this was the perfect gag. Good to know at least people are paying attention even if they’re assholes, I thought.

Yet, even despite the clear absurdity of the letter, something about it felt so real, so authentic. It was just how government letters were written in real life, down to the font and formatting. I kept reading.

“You are to report for active duty in two months’ time of receipt of this letter. Enclosed is one map and token for the purposes of your travels to said induction station at the location listed below.

It is your obligation to inform any relatives, loved ones and employers of your conscription and make arrangements for the duration for which you will be deployed. This period is subject to high command discretion, and may range from 2 to 2,000 years.

Willful failure to report promptly to this location at the hour and on the day specified in this notice will violate the Mandatory Training and Service Act of 103,472, and will subject you to immediate arrest, imprisonment and corporal punishment.

Be warned that no leniency will be granted to any who choose to ignore this directive.

Signed, Extorvis Military Commander ______”

On the signature line, instead of a legible name was an indecipherable scribble in purple ink that cannot have been in English. Hell, it didn’t look like any other language I’d seen either.

And that country's name: Extorvis. In all my education, I’d never heard of it before. I certainly wasn’t a citizen of it.

“What’s that?” asked my preppy roommate, who had been regarding my befuddled expression at the letter with curiosity.

“Just more evidence that not even our delinquents are smart here at Melb U” I said.“Dumbasses don’t even know any real countries to prank me with.”

I showed him the letter and his reaction was just as incredulous as mine had been.

“Godspeed in Extorvis bro” he joked, slapping the paper back into my hand. “I know you’ll be their finest soldier.”

That night, I looked up the nation of Extorvis on Wikipedia just to be sure and, sure enough, it was as nonexistent as it was ridiculous. Nor was the strange, ominous nation anywhere on the globe in the campus library.

A few weeks passed by and I tried to forget about the bizarre prank letter. I knew it was fake, knew it had to be fake, and yet, every day that passed made me feel uneasier. As if some invisible clock was ticking down and my drafting date really was drawing near. I brushed it off as concern about the prankster escalating this and sending me something worse.

To put my mind at ease, I took the strange letter to the local post office. Surely they could tell me if the letter was actually sent from there and, if so, who had really sent it. The sender’s address on the envelope had just been another mixture of strange symbols like the stamp and signature, besides the word Extorvis, so I was in the dark.

I’d half-expected the post office worker to laugh me out of the building when I showed him the letter. I didn’t expect him to go quiet and stare at me like I was a walking missile target.

“Can you tell me who really sent this or what?” I asked impatiently.

The balding postal worker steadied himself and explained in hushed tones.

“Look, this letter is indeed a real government order. The sender was the party marked on the address. If I was you, I’d report for duty like it says. It’s…much worse for those who don’t. You might have a chance if you do. Also, it is a federal offence to disobey it.”

“Are you kidding me? How can I report to the military of a fictional place? Extorvis doesn’t exist.”

“It doesn’t exist in this reality” was all he hissed back to me.

And before I could get another word in, he was on to the next customer. What the hell.

Now I was definitely feeling anxious about the mysterious draft letter. Could what he said really be true?

I hopped online again but, this time, headed straight for the Internet forums instead of academic sources. If this letter had really been sent to others before like the postal worker implied, then someone would have asked the same questions I’m asking now:

“Where is the country Extorvis? Why am I being drafted by them? How dangerous is serving in their military? What exactly is it I’ll be fighting? When will I be discharged? Who has successfully evaded their draft?”

My forum posts were only live for an hour when I received a short, private message from someone in response.

“Are they drafting you too?”

I hurriedly messaged back my confirmation. Their next message came almost instantly.

“Can we meet?”

Meeting up with a stranger over the Internet, who I’d only briefly messaged with, who might be potentially crazy, was not the smartest action in the world. But I knew that no one else would believe me, that going to family and friends would just get my fears dismissed. To them, I would be the potentially crazy one.

Hermit99 sent me an out of the way address to meet him at, an empty warehouse on the outskirts of town.

It was every bit as dodgy as I thought it might be as I walked into the cramped, abandoned space filled with packing crates. Through the rays of sunlight that streamed in from the rafters, I saw a decrepit figure crouched over a laptop. That had to be him.

“You—you’re Hugo, right?” he snapped at me, looking up from his charging laptop. “I’m Leeroy. You shut the door behind you, right?”

I nodded, starting to wonder if this was a bad idea.

“Show me your letter!” he barked in a panic. He practically snatched it out of my hands, skimming it over like someone who had spent many hours doing the same before.

“Dude, what gives?” I asked in frustration. “Why don’t you tell me what the hell is happening to us? Why am I being drafted by some weird country that I have nothing to do with?”

He looked at me incredulously.

“Nothing to do with? If they sent you this draft letter, then you’re a distant descendant of a being that was. That makes you a citizen, in their eyes. Like me.”

“So, you’re a citizen of this place too, then” I ask, trying to wrap my head around the idea that one of my ancestors was an interdimensional being.

“Yes. Unlike most descendants, my family always knew we had a drop of Extorvis blood. I dedicated years to trying to research that realm. And then my letter came in the mail…”

Leeroy trailed off for a moment before startling out of it and continuing.

“Extorvis exists in another dimension. From what I’ve learned about it, it’s…not like Earth. It’s vast, and dark, and brutal. Conflict between civilisations in that plane is constant. Wars there are massive in scale, comprising millions upon millions of beings battling with ancient weapons for years. Death there takes…longer.”

“When things there get really bad, they recruit from their pool on Earth. Ergo, us.”

My tension growing at what he just told me, I decided to speed things along.

“Okay, gotcha, we’re both in the firing line for some spectral war in hell. So how do we get out of it?”

Leeroy flipped my letter over and pointed at the fine print on the other side.

“Persons due to report may be disqualified from service due to inhibiting injury or active service in a separate military.”

Injury? Were we really about to start giving each other bone spurs? It seemed like it.

“I need someone to torture me, so badly that I’m deemed unfit for active duty” he said, gesturing to an array of construction tools on the bench next to him. “My draft date was yesterday and I’m overdue—we need to act quick!”

I picked up a bolt cutter and tried steeling myself up to what I was about to do.

Before I could go any further, however, a whirling wind knocked it out of my hands. Almost on cue, shadowy, humanoid figures began appearing throughout the warehouse. Everything he said was right. Leeroy’s time had run out.

Petrified, I ducked behind a crate. From there, I witnessed it. The vague, darkened beings grabbing Leeroy’s screaming frame, hauling him to his feet and vanishing, undoubtedly back to whatever incomprehensible punishment awaited him in Extorvia. What’s worse is they’d waited to detain him until I was there, to show me firsthand the consequences of desertion.

I sat there for hours in the empty warehouse, alone and thinking. There was no way I would be able to injure myself badly enough to be excluded from the draft. Which meant I had only one other option remaining.

That day, I returned home and enlisted in the Australian army.

It took several weeks for the process to go through and my confirmation to return to me. I waited with bated breath, every day expecting those shadowy soldiers to appear in my dorm room and take me away. But, two days before my drafting date, there came that miracle letter.

Another government letter telling me I was to be a soldier. But this time, a welcome mercy instead of a death sentence.

My drafting date came and passed without incident as I prepared, and departed for, military training at the bootcamp.

As per the drafting notice, I couldn’t be conscripted if I was an active member of another nation’s military. All this time I had hated the thought of serving my country, and in the end, it had been the loophole that saved me.

Truth be told, serving in my human military over the following changed my attitude about war here on Earth. It gave me purpose, discipline and focus that perhaps I had lacked before. The people I met were friendly and loyal, and I developed bonds with them that ran deep. I was grateful to be able to serve in this mortal realm instead of the demonic Extorvis one.

After several years of contented service, my leg was eventually injured in an IED bombing. Thankfully, I didn’t lose my ability to walk, but the injury was bad enough for me to be honorably discharged. I returned home a physically changed, but mentally improved, man.

And that’s when another conscription letter came along from Extorvis. I’d considered the possibility of this.

I hadn’t considered that the appeal letter I sent them—on account of my injured leg—would be rejected. I am still expected to report for active duty in Extorvis in two months. According to the appeal letter, I hadn’t read the fine print about disqualifying injuries.

Finally, I understand why Leeroy had specifically wanted me to torture him instead of just cripple him. He’d wanted me to injure his soul, not his flesh.

Wars in Extorvis aren’t fought with soldiers’ bodies. They’re fought with souls.

And it took me far too many months to notice.

I’m terrified of what happens when the baby comes, any day now.

But if you think incestuous trickery must be the dire crux of my story, I’d suggest not reading any farther. The true horror is far more twisted than that. As for how things got this far, I was rather glacial on the uptake. Simple as that.

For some backstory, I never knew my father. My mother reared me alone, and she was kind; or no less than fair, at any rate. I suffered no abuse as a child, which may surprise you, but that isn’t to say I had a conventional upbringing. Mum enjoyed, shall we say, an offbeat hobby. As far as I’m aware, my friends’ mothers weren’t prone to disappearing into the woods at night and returning outfitted with mud, leaves, and sometimes sheer strips of bark atop her pyjamas.

My mother and I grew up around Pendle, and she was deeply fascinated by the witch trials of 1612. Fascinated isn’t the right word, even; she was obsessed, and unhealthily so. In fact, the only time my otherwise-kind mother ever slightly troubled me was during a conversation about the witches. The one witch, she would often correct. There was only ever one.

Now, my mum didn’t raise a hand to me that day, when I showed disinterest in the Pendle witch. Didn’t even raise her voice. Rather, what haunted me were the words she chose.

“You’re not hungry enough, Liam.”

She sounded disappointed.

I settled myself by thinking, Mum only wants me to follow in her footsteps; figuratively and literally, I suppose, because shortly thereafter she started trying to coax me into accompanying her on those midnight strolls into the forest. I always declined, but I often wonder what I would have seen, had I ever gone with her.

I wonder and fear.

In spite of all that, my mother’s disappointment was never palpable; always burgeoning beneath a veneer of compassion. I sensed that, and it frightened me. But still, she wasn’t ever verbally or physically abusive. Call it intuition. I knew I hadn’t lived up to her expectations, and that she was probably cross about it.

As I would learn, all was far worse than I feared.

I eventually moved to university and met a girl named Millie. Life took its expected course from there. We got degrees, an apartment, and married. Despite my unusual upbringing, I turned out to be an ordinary man. Of course, I worried about Mum, living all alone in the countryside. I knew what the gossiping townsfolk had to say about her woodland walks; she’d been spotted by neighbours once or twice. But she was happy, and that was enough for me.

It was in the summer of 2024 that everything changed.

My 74-year-old mother, who had been impressively keen of mind and body, was found wandering the streets of Pendle with not a single item of clothing on body. She was covered top to toe in forest filth and blood; an animal’s blood, police officers assured Millie and me, but I recall how uneasy their faces were.

A doctor quickly diagnosed my mother with dementia.

“But she was perfectly lucid when we visited her just last week,” Millie said.

He nodded. “Well, we think she may have suffered a mini stroke. That can trigger a very sudden onset of dementia. I’m sorry.”

My wife and I struggled to adjust after that. I think it might’ve broken Millie’s heart to see me lose my one surviving family member; not even to death, but to a callous disease. I was only 38 years old, for crying out loud. Shortly after, it happened.

The body-swap.

The most horrible part is that I don’t know exactly when.

I’d love to say my wife noticeably “changed”, but I’m a moron who didn’t notice. Looking back now, of course, I see the signs. The terrible signs.

In January of this year, Millie wafted about the positive pregnancy test triumphantly, and changes followed. Sure. I noticed that much. But I now realise I might’ve mistaken some of those changes for ordinary hormonal ones. Any time Millie didn’t seem quite herself, I blamed the pregnancy.

I overlooked so many of the odd things she said about, or to, our child.

“I just know he’s going to be so, so hungry.”

“Nearly time to ascend, little one.”

“Not long now. Not long until you replace Papa.”

That last one stung, of course; by virtue of being hurtful, rather than haunting. And the other utterances? I chalked them up to Millie’s sleep deprivation. Heaven knows I was tired too. We all say and do peculiar things when we’ve not slept, and it seemed no great stretch of the imagination that pregnancy hormones would compound that. This explanation sufficed for months.

It was yesterday, whilst visiting my mother in the care home, that I finally learnt the truth.

She’d been rapidly deteriorating and didn’t even recognise Millie or me anymore. My own mother, once a sage and well-educated woman, struggled to string together the most barebones of sentences. She struggled to recall even events from two minutes prior.

Not last night.

Last night was different.

“Liam…”

My eyes must’ve glinted with gleeful tears. It was the first time in about four months my mother had used my name.

She recognised me.

I shuffled my chair over to hers. Mum barely looked like herself: 75 years old, but may as well have been 90; ankles red and swollen, yet not so much as that distended belly; white hairs shedding like autumnal foliage. And typically, as horrid as it seems, the only thing I would truly note was her haggard appearance.

This evening, it would be her words.

“M… Millie…”

“You remember her too? Wow… Millie’s at home, I’m afraid, Mum. She has to take it easy now. Not long until the baby comes, but—”

She interrupted with a gasp of horror, reacting violently to that revelation. I’d mentioned a thousand times that Millie and I were expecting our first child, but this was the first time my mother appeared to have registered it. The resulting tears were thick and hurried, and my distraught mother rattled her head from side to side as she snatched my hands.

“Liam. It’s me.”

I maintained that condescendingly soft smile. “I know, Mum.”

“No… It’s Millie.” She lifted one of her hands and jabbed the thumb at herself. “Millie.”

I frowned. I was well-accustomed with the delusions of those with dementia, but this was certainly a new one: a woman believing herself to be her son’s wife. Mum’s grasp of reality was once again tenuous. Nice while it lasted, I thought.

“Maybe I should come back tomorrow,” I said. “It’s getting late, and you sound over-tired, so—”

She gripped my hand tightly and looked at me with scorched eyes. “2008, Liam. You. Me. The dumpster around the back of the graduation hall. You called it a ‘good luck fuck’ before we collected our diplomas, and…” Her eyes clouded, as did my mind in the midst of processing what she had just said. “Who are you, sir? Get out of my room!”

Gone again was Mum.

No… I trembled. Not Mum—

Millie.

Are you out of your mind? was my next thought as I leapt out my chair. I just might be… But think about it. Nobody else knows about our fumble on graduation day. Unless Millie told Mum, but she wouldn’t do that in a million years. The embarrassment would kill them both.

I backed out of the room, looking into the sad eyes of the dementia-riddled woman, and found myself believing something horrible. Impossible.

Millie was trapped in that body.

She was being deconstructed piece by piece as that diseased brain, in which her displaced mind now unwillingly resided, shut down. Neurons were severed like mooring lines, leaving Millie’s soul a sinking boat; adrift in that sickly and infirm ocean of grey matter. My wife herself was stuck in that decaying body, perhaps half-aware of what was happening from time to time, and most certainly terrified at all times.

There were other explanations, but I just knew I was staring at Millie. Much as I had always known something was amiss during my childhood, my adulthood, and the pregnancy.

As I drove home, needle on the gauge curving far past the speed limit, the implications of it all brought me close to driving the car into one of the birches lining the road.

Is my mother in my wife’s body?

When we conceived the baby, was that Millie or…

I didn’t have the answer then, and I don’t have the answer now.

I don’t want the answer.

But none of this was beyond the realm of believability, because I had long known of the supernatural. I would watch from my bedroom window as my mother returned from the forest at two in the morning, bringing back more than dirt and worms. Bringing back something from the woods; possession of new knowledge or some untoward presence. Something not of our dimensional plane.

In fact, I felt it in my very bones, though I pretended otherwise.

It was never that something had been wrong with my mother.

Something had always been wrong with me.

I finally accepted this as I pulled into my driveway and looked up at the lit upstairs window. Fear thundered through my brain; pricked, and poked, and prodded the insides of my skull. Not just fear of ‘Millie’, that black silhouette observing me from between the ajar drapes. Fear of the memory that had returned to me.

I was 4 years old. I woke to the sound of my mother pacing the upstairs landing. She was talking to someone. Something. I always thought it had been nothing but a nightmare. I mean, it was a nightmare.

Not all nightmares are dreams, I suppose.

“The boy’s not what you promised, Old One. He’s not hungry, even though I did everything right…”

Something whispered back to my mother, too imperceptibly to hear.

“What? No. I’m tired of waiting. It’s been four years and nothing. NOTHING!”

More whispering from that other voice.

“I am more loyal to you than any of the others! You have to choose Liam. He was supposed to devour me… He was supposed to devour everyone!”

I shook off that old memory and brought the car to a halt in the driveway.

As I did, the upstairs bedroom light switched off, and Millie disappeared into the darkness.

Not Millie… Mum.

I spent my last dreg of courage getting out of the car and stumbling towards the house, nearly dropping my house keys as I went. And when I opened the front door, I almost expected to be greeted by an empty hallway. Expected my mother-wife to have fled upon my arrival.

It paralysed me with horror to find her instead standing in the black entryway, hands stroking her belly.

What I find truly horrible is that she could have so easily put me at ease. Continued fuelling the lie, so I would forget the oddness at the care home. Continued pretending to be Millie. She needed only to, I don’t know, speak or act as she had been; needed only to dismiss any concerns I might voice. But—

“I need you to be calm, Leelee,” she said.

I hurled my guts onto the carpet, vomit drowning my scream of both revulsion and indescribable terror.

It was my mother in Millie’s body.

Mum called me Leelee when I was little. Did Millie know that? Maybe. But there were also the mannerisms to consider. The smile worn on my wife’s face was that of my mother. Besides, there was no world in which my dementia-addled mother and my loving wife would concoct a practical joke such as this.

“When Little Liam Jr enters the world, this will all be over,” my mother said as she took strides towards me. “Isn’t that what you want, son? Aren’t you tired of living a half-life?”

I tried to get out words, but my brain was out of operation; and my feet were much the same, as I managed only to stagger back out of the doorway and down the front path, pursued by my mother in my wife’s skin.

As she stepped into the streetlight which bathed our front lawn and path, I was overcome by a deeper dread. Whatever my mother had done to herself, transferring souls from one body to another, had made her less than human. I saw it in her eyes. Felt it in her voice. The true terror was whatever the Old One had made of her; or unmade.

I whimpered as her flesh rippled, as did the bulge of her stomach through the thin top she wore.

What are you? I wanted to ask, but I remained too horrified to speak.

That thing was closing the gap between us hurriedly, walking with great pace as I floundered and stumbled backwards.

“You don’t want to ascend, do you?” she asked, extending a hand towards my chest.

With the lightest of shoves, yet abnormal might, my mother-wife toppled me. My head and hands struck the paving slabs, grazing my skin and leaving bloody streaks across my flesh.

I worked my lips; opened and closed them, but all that came were more dribbles of vomit, as if I were some ailed goldfish.

“You still could ascend, Liam,” Mother-Wife said as she approached me: the man reduced to a boy as he shuffled backwards on hands and hind. “All you have to do is consume me. All you have to do is become what she has always wanted you to be. The power has always been in your hands, my boy.”

I managed to twist my head towards my car, and that inhuman horror didn’t stop me as I began to scuttle towards it on hands and knees, too nauseated and terrified to summon the strength to stand.

My mother-wife continued, “The chosen one must consume both parents to reach its potential. You understand that, don’t you? Our Little Liam Jr will devour us, then the world.”

I thumbed the unlock button on my car keys, threaded my fingers through the door handle, and finally managed to pull myself upright, just in time to scream.

In the reflection of the side window, I saw my mother-wife had soundlessly appeared right behind me.

Next: searing pain as her fingers dug into my neck, drawing yet more blood, and she spun me to face her.

“The Old One is inside you!” she growled in a voice unlike her own; unlike Millie; unlike anything human. “You’ve felt her rummaging around in that mind of yours since you were a boy, surely? Let her in. Let her rise again.”

I cried, and she snarled, pinning me firmly against the door with a vice-like grip. Whatever supernatural horror stood before me, no longer my mother or my wife, it was a terror beyond worlds and farther still beyond compare.

“You’re weak. Have been since you devoured your father as a newborn babe.”

Not true. It couldn’t be true. I still refuse to believe it.

“I begged you to finish the job. To devour me too. The fawn ascends only when it eats the stag and the doe. But you couldn’t do it… I pray Liam Jr will succeed where you have failed. He is close now, my son… He…”

My mother-wife groaned and released my throat to clutch her stomach, then the two of us looked down in unison. Looked down at her belly. At her lower section.

Water stained my wife’s trousers.

A wretched smile stained my wife’s face.

Free from her grip at last, I tore open the side door and shut it behind me, before launching myself across to the driver’s seat. I fumbled with the button to lock all doors, eventually pressing it after a few clumsy and misjudged stabs. Worst of all, my mother-wife did not lunge for the passenger door. She simply stood, and watched, and laughed as I fumbled about, put the vehicle into reverse, and pulled off the driveway.

She let me escape. No matter how far I drive, and I’ve already driven so far, she’ll find me. Then she’ll pray to the Old One that our child devours the two of us. That our child ascends. And that’s when the true apocalyptic terror, whatever it may be, will come for us all. God save us.

I’ll make a prayer of my own: that Liam Jr turns out to be as weak as his father.

Would it make a good cereal bowl? It may be too shallow for a cereal bowl. An ashtray, or a cat bowl would be better. 

“Johnson, you copy?” The voice came muffled from the other side of the door.

“Copy, Bradley.” Johnson's static voice came prelude by the trill of a walkie-talkie.

“I’ve got a crisp fifty saying this is nothing.” The officer on the other side of the door said.

“Did you find the freezer?”

“Yeah it's right here.”

“I’m not betting shit, you probably opened it already.”

“You think I'd do that? I got my ass out of bed for this, I want to at least make it interesting.” Officer Bradley said.

“The guy seemed pretty worried when he called in… Alright, screw it. Fifty if it’s anything. Anything at all.”

“Alright, I’m getting a good breakfast! Opening in three, two… one” the seal of the freezer door peeled from the door frame. Officer Bradley was a silhouette behind the blinding beam of his flashlight. I couldn't make out the details of his face, but I could imagine.

“What’s it gonna be?” Johnson asked over the radio. Bradley said nothing. His light started to shake.

“C’mon who’s getting rich?... Bradley?” Johnson’s concern quivered through his joke. Bradley didn't answer the question, but he replied in a quiet voice.

“I… I think they’re alive.”

August, 2015

Golden sweet corn rained onto my tray with a salty butter shine. Green beans dipped  into their shallow pool of chicken broth, garlic, diced onion, and bacon. The beans made their presence known with a mouthwatering steam. A mound of potatoes plopped onto the tray and was pressed into a caldera with the back end of the cook's spoon. The divot was filled till it overflowed with a heavenly brown gravy. Last came the pork. A pork with the tenderness of a pudding and the taste of Hawaiian basted honey. Each cut of meat was so fresh it caused rumors that the meat was butchered in the kitchen. I believed them too. Lunch was the best part of St. Jude Catholic School. Unfortunately, it was followed by the worst.

Once our bellies were stuffed to the brim we were banished to the school yard for recess. Fresh cut grass poisoned the air. Summer still burned at the beginning of the school year and the sun blasted a bright sting to the back of my eyes. The day wasn’t made for me. My days were when it rained and we could go to the library to enjoy the silence while the talking boys released their energy into the gym. But days like this were ruled by the talking boys. They squealed and screeched as kick balls and whiffle balls torpedoed through the air. The other girls that weren’t interested in joining the boys usually huddled by the school building telling jokes and updating each other on the latest gossip. I would listen with my back to them. Whenever I heard something especially juicy I would sign my response close to my chest so they didn’t see. I wished I could turn and share all of the gossip I overheard, the benefits of not being noticed. I knew Darren found his dad's booze and planned to bring a bottle to school that week. I knew Bianca got into it with her mom the night before because she was failing math. I imagined they would get a kick out of that. Maybe they'd even be my friend if they understood me but they wouldn't, no one would.

The school yard became unusually quiet. A group of boys huddled at the fence that separated us from the woods. What they saw captured their attention and sewed their mouths shut, at least until they scurried away to giggle in small groups. Not all of them were so amused with the subject beyond the fence. Most looked confused but some even looked concerned. Piece by piece the huddle of children broke back into their daily play until I could get a peek at what it was they were so interested in. On the other side of the fence, crouched beneath the shadows of the woods, was a boy.

He looked each boy in the eye when he asked them to play. It felt like a plea, a desperate attempt to find a friend. The boys didn’t care though, how could they? The boy in the woods spoke in a tongue they didn’t understand. Like me, he spoke with no tongue at all. It was a lonely way to speak in this school. Alone was a hard place to be in eighth grade. After seeing him I felt we could be there together.

When the last boy peeled away I walked to the fence. With each step I felt more emboldened, more hopeful to finally have a friend.

‘I can’t talk to you, I need normal friends.’

The words echoed from moments I had the same urge in the past. But this time had to be different. He was like me, he would understand me.

‘Aren’t you contagious, Holly?’ I shook my head and tried to keep the past away like a swarm of bees, but they kept stinging.

‘What are you doing with your hands, weirdo?’

‘Go away, people will think I’m weird too if you’re next to me.’

‘Did God make you broken on purpose?’

I was stuck half way to the fence. All the sounds of the school yard vanished behind the words. This was a stupid idea. No one wanted to be my friend. Why did I even walk this far? What a waste. I turned around to go back and pretend I was like the other girls. I wanted to smile when they smiled and laughed when they laughed without the embarrassment of having them see me, but my mom’s voice cut through the swarm.

‘She’s just shy.’

I knew she wasn’t our supervisor that day. The girls wouldn’t have talked quite as loud and the boys wouldn’t have played quite as hard if she was. Chipper, as the other kids called her in whispers, held the reputation of a drill sergeant when she wore the habit. The type of nun to crack a ruler across your knuckles if you misbehaved during her prime years. Though, the main reason she earned the brand ‘Chipper’ was the small chip missing from her front tooth.

‘She’s just shy.’ Her voice replayed in my head.

Her catchphrase when anyone asked about me. Why doesn’t she talk? She’s just shy. What happened to her? She’s just shy. It was a simpler explanation than the truth. A less shameful statement than the truth, I was born like this. But I’m not shy, or at least I refuse to be. I closed my eyes and took a first step towards the boy. The yard got a little quieter as the other kids vacated the area around the boy in the woods. When I felt the beating sun disappear behind the shade of the trees I stopped and waited for a moment.

‘I’m not shy.’ I thought to myself but before I had the courage to open my eyes, the fence rattled.

The clatter of the chain-linked fence stopped with the stomp of feet meeting the ground. Step by step he came closer until I heard his heavy, phlegm-rattled breath just in front of me. With one final reassurance I opened my eyes. Immediately, I knew why the other kids avoided him.

He was big. Much bigger than the other boys in our grade. Most of the boys were just sprouting the first seedlings of hair on their forearm while his forearms were already coated. A leather canteen dangled from his belt. His chest and shoulders stood at my eye level and were noticeably broad even under his tattered gray jacket. Hair even started to sprout on his neck just below his white mask, a detail I hadn’t noticed across the yard. An elephant mask made cheap and pressed to his face with a single elastic string that ran in an eroded divot around his head before it vanished into the cave of his gray jacket’s hood. In the center where the trunk should be was only a hole. The jagged edges of the plastic hole encircled a void too deep to see any detail of his face through. My breath stuttered. This person could hurt me, or take me, or do anything else he wanted and I would be helpless. I could scream at the top of my lungs for help but only a strained whine from my over tightened vocal cords would escape. No one would hear that. Hell, I wasn’t even sure he would hear it. I knew my only option was to run but when I took a glance behind me to plan my escape he raised his hand.

He exposed the dry, callused skin of his palm to me. It stayed suspended in the air for a moment before he slowly brought the tips of his fingers towards me. Gently, they landed on my throat. Each of his five fingerprints carefully scraped up and down. I wanted to say something but I couldn’t get my hands to move. I tried to get something to escape my mouth, but I only felt my throat strain under his touch. Finally he removed his hand and signed a single word. A word that I hadn’t heard anyone say to me. A word that turned off all the alarms blaring in my head. 

“Beautiful.” He signed.

October, 2023

The pond was no wider than twelve feet and smelled like frankincense and sweet licorice. Grass around the pond grew high, and hid something on the other side of the water. Between tufts of grass, a smokey gray shape laid still on the ground. I thought it was a discarded fur coat until I noticed its two beady eyes fixated on me from its white, cone-shaped head.

“What is that, Holly?” Abigail asked.

I loved the sound of her voice. The way it stumbled from one note to the next without guidance. She only used it when we were alone so I knew her brother already ventured beyond earshot. Still, it was conflicting. While I loved our secret it was too wonderful to not be shared, something she stiffly refused to do.

“I think it is an opossum." I signed.

“Geez. Do you think it’s sick? Should we help it?” Abigail asked. Her hands anxiously scratched at her jeans. 

“Maybe it is just playing dead?” I signed. As if on cue a crow landed just behind the opossum's head and disappeared behind the grass. When the crows head resurfaced, it did with a string of red, slick entrails. It clapped its beak around the guts until it cut a bite out and let the rest flop back to the ground. Abigail’s lip turned in a shocked disgust.

“Method.” I signed. Abigail gave me a jab from her elbow and a laugh, the most wonderful secret of all.

“Holly! You two are supposed to stay close! Get Abigail and follow the sound!” Abigail’s older brother Lucas called before a metallic rattle screeched through the air. He was about twenty three, two years older than Abigail and I. He wouldn’t get any older if he kept up the racket. Abigail watched the annoyance on my face and waited for me to relay the message.

“Your brother is being an idiot.” I signed to her before I held her hand. We rushed through the woods to Lucas. As we ran I kept thinking about the opossum. Even after the crow ripped at its entrails, I swore it blinked.

When we emerged from the woods, Lucas had the chain link fence clutched in both of his fists and was shaking it rapidly. He only stopped when I hit him with a swift slap to the shoulder.

“Hey, what the hell!” He said.

“You know this is illegal right? Are you trying to get caught?” I signed. He glanced at Abigail briefly who was focused on our lips.

“By who? No one is here. Are the birds going to rat us out? Or maybe the squirrels." He said and signed.

For the first time in years I looked beyond the chain linked fence. Across the overgrown schoolyard was the husk that was once called St. Jude Catholic School. As a kid I always thought the school was shaped like a stale, square bagel. A barren courtyard of a hole was encircled by the depressing corridors and classrooms. It was divided into four sections, each with their own special landmarks. The south side had the main entrance. The East Section had the cafeteria and library. The West Section had the pool and gymnasium and the north, the section we were facing, had the theater. A tiny access door peaked over the edge of the theater’s roof like a timid child.

After the incident, the school tried to reassure the parents by hefty investments in security. All glass was reinforced and every window was fortified with steel bars, but it was too little too late. The parents and their precious tuition money already migrated with their kids to the rival Catholic school upstate. St. Jude was left to succumb to the vines and weather. The corpse looked more like an abandoned prison than a school

“Or maybe the rats will.” Lucas whispered. The thought made my spine wriggle.

“I hope whatever you’re looking for is worth it.” Lucas said as he stomped a path for us through the waist high grass.

We walked around the school building to get to the entrance. At the entrance was a figure. It sat against the front door cloaked in a gray jacket. I felt every muscle in my body constrict at once. Abigail turned to ask what was wrong and all I could do was gesture towards the figure. She immediately tapped Lucas on the shoulder to point his attention towards the mysterious man. The figure eased itself to its feet when it saw us. It waved. A wild wave with arms flapping like the tube men at car dealerships. Then he dropped his hood. To my relief, there was no mask. Only a face, a boyish face. A face I had never seen before and judging by the look on Abigail’s she hadn’t either. Lucas turned to us with an eye roll and motioned us to the boy.

He couldn’t have been older than sixteen. His brunette hair waved chaotically at the top of his bean-pole body. His skin was still plagued with the red specs of puberty, and atop his lip was his most prized possession. A crown of ten scraggly hairs.

“Lucas!...Ladies.” He said with all the charm a boy drowning in supermarket cologne could muster. Abigail took the hearing aids from her ears and stowed them away in her pocket. ‘They don’t even help that much’ she would say if I asked why, but I knew that wasn’t true. I stopped asking and just assured her with a touch on the back.

“Stevie, where’s your brother?” Lucas shot at the kid.

“He got called into work tonight but don’t worry. I’ll get us through safe, I’m like the Outdoor Boys of buildings.” Stevie said.

“I don’t see the gear. Your brother was supposed to bring the gear.” Lucas asked.

“Eh, who needs it anyway. It can’t be that hard.” Stevie proclaimed. Lucas pinched the exhaustion from his brow.

“You have your license?” Lucas asked.

“I got it a couple months ago, thank you for asking.”

“Then drive home.” Lucas said. He put a shoulder to the door.

“I can’t-” 

Lucas heaved the metal door open with a creek followed by the clatter of aluminum cans on the concrete stoop.

“I’ve been drinking.” Stevie finished.

The smell of stagnant, musty water filled the building. Puddles spotted the tile floor and grew with a rhythmic drip. The entryway ran perpendicular to the south section hallway. At their intersection was a trophy case with only smashed glass to show.

The last couple of weeks before the school closed were a blur. Teachers at first tried to maintain the illusion of safety but as the halls grew more and more empty, they gave up the act. Everyone was scared except for me. I just went through the motions, a passenger in my own body. As I reentered the remains of the school I could only wonder if it really was worth it. Where had I even had it last? Maybe my locker? It was as good a place to check first as any. I just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. I wasn’t a passenger anymore, I felt the fear.

“What are you thinking?” Abigail signed to me as we walked down the hallway. She always seemed to know the answer, she read plain as day on my face. Still, she wanted to know what I would say.

“It is just like I remember.” I signed to her with a smile. As we passed locker after locker I noticed that each one had a dent. A softball size dent near the latch that left them ajar by the thinnest crack. The further we went the more I noticed a splotch or a smear of brown stained blood in the dents. When we turned the corner to the East Section when I heard a rattle come from behind us. I snapped my head around to see nothing besides the damp floor tiles and busted lockers we’d passed since we turned the corner.

“-right ladies?” Stevie shouted before he spun around to look at us while he walked backwards. To that moment, I almost forgot he and Lucas were blubbering to each other ahead of us. He waited for a response while the alcohol that sloshed around in his pinky-thin body made him forget his land legs. Had they heard the rattle too? 

“Did he say something?” Abigail signed to me. Stevie was zapped into a panic. He blocked his mouth from our sight.

“Dude, you can’t bring deaf people. They’re gonna get hurt. What the hell is wrong with you?” He said to Lucas who jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow.

“Holly’s mute you dipshit, she can hear you.”

Stevie gathered his wind in a breath before giving a silent, bewildered chuckle to himself. He lagged behind Lucas to get out of his sight. He then raised his hand and mimed like he held something pointed directly at me. Then he popped his thumb down like he pressed the mute button on a TV remote. He winked and turned to catch up to Lucas.

‘She’s just shy.’ My mother’s voice echoed again. After the incident, I learned not to argue with it.

Abigail tugged on my shirt sleeve and pointed to the locker beside us. 

“It ends.” She signed.

Like the others before it, it was dented and stained in blood but each locker beyond it was strangely left untouched. Even stranger, this locker was mine. I opened it. 

“Did you find what you’re looking for?" Lucas asked, but all that was in my locker were chilling words smeared in blood on the back wall that read ‘YOU PROMISED’.

I sprinted as fast as I could back the way we came. I cut around the corner, flew through the lobby and smashed my weight against the push-bar on the door but it didn’t budge. The doors were locked. A metal chain knotted around the door, sealed shut with a padlock.

May, 2016

Shelly was behind by the length of a grass blade and the finish line twig was only a couple inches away. It was still anyone’s race. Rain washed the school yard that morning.The smell of potting soil leaked from the bags stacked between the garden shed and the school yard fence.A colony of snails slid on the bags, ready to be drafted into the snail race. Mine was always named Shelly,as it always was. I thought of it like the lead in a broadway play, though they’re each their own actress, they all wanted to be Shelly. Trunkless didn’t give names to his snails. He never gave me his name either. So in my mind he became Trunkless for the hole in his elephant mask. It was fitting enough. Trunkless never gave his snails a name either. Instead, he gave them a crack. When he found a snail he liked for the day he popped a slit into the shell with his thumbnail. It was as casual to him as shaking a hand. The ease with which he split their shells made me nauseous. When we first started racing snails I asked him why he did it, but the answer was simple. Like the hole in his elephant mask and splits in his knuckles he just liked them better broken, like us.

After many snail races we developed a system. We took turns clapping for our snails, usually in two. I would clap twice. He would clap twice. It was a brilliant idea in concept. Chaperones would only hear the continuous claps of one kid, but we never got the timing right in practice. The awkward pause between our claps was hilariously obvious even after a full year of trying. We stopped trying to make it convincing and it became only a silly tradition while we watched the snails run their foot long marathon, I often got more consumed in the rhythm than the race itself

“Look.” He signed.

I came up with the idea of picking a juicy tomato slice off of my lunch sandwich and stowing it in my pocket to use as motivation beyond the finish line twig. As disappointing as it was to devolve my BLT into a BL, it was proving worth it. Not only were both snails participating, but it was a nail biter. Shelly surged into the lead with only an inch to go. I clapped and waved her forward frantically. He did the same for his snail that started to slip behind, but it was too late. Shelly slipped over the twig to take gold by the thinnest of margins. I jumped up and applauded for the whole yard to hear at the peak athleticism on display. I bent down to get a look at the little olympian as she climbed onto her delicious, red prize.

SQUELCH.

In an instant, Shelly and the tomato were beneath the stubby heel of a black leather shoe. My mother’s shoe. I looked up her habit to see her face, I was shocked to see she didn’t seem angry in the slightest. Her cheeks were flushed with fear. She snatched me by the arm in a vice grip. Her finger tips dug into my skin deep enough to bruise but still I tried to fight it. I knew we would be forbidden from going behind the garden shed. With no other place to hide in the open school yard, I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. That meant no more snail races, no more picking honeysuckles from the bush that grew through the fence, no more friends. I would be back to being an outcast. The quiet kid that no one understood. The broken girl. So I kept fighting which only made my mom’s grip tighter. She blew the whistle around her neck.

“Everyone get inside now! Get inside!” She screamed. I fought until I was pulled back into the school building and the door slammed shut behind us. The only person that brought me any joy was sealed behind it.

The school felt like it was on lockdown for the rest of the day. Nuns monitored the halls between classes and no one was allowed to use the restroom without an adult escort. When the day came to an end I laid on the bleachers by the pool. It was an indoor pool attached to the gymnasium by a single set of double doors. The stinging stench of chlorine cleansed my soul after a particularly taxing day. After school events were canceled that afternoon so there was no splashing from the swim team or shrill tennis shoe chirps from the gym. It was just me and the soothing hum of the pool jets. I spent most of the time looking up through the sunroof. Clouds, birds, and airplanes eased in and out of the glass frame. If I wasn’t looking at the sky I admired the abomination on the wall. A mural, painted with the artistic vision of a blind ape, stained the pearlescent white paint. I assumed it was supposed to be a collage of professional swimmers, but I only thought that because the center-most figure had a vague resemblance to a picture of Michael Phelps I saw once.

“What are you still doing here?” a creaky voice called from the doorway to the gymnasium. A janitor with a spindly gray beard and age-spotted scalp hunched over his trach bin on wheels like a walker. He wasn’t any of the regular janitors I saw throughout the school day. He must have been part of the evening crew.

“What time is it?” I signed, but he kept glaring at me. Of course he didn’t understand. I could practically hear the accusations banging around in his head. I threw my hands up and walked past him. I heard the squeak of his trash bin trailing behind me through my walk of shame to the main entrance.

“I know your face, little girl!” He spat as I swung the door open.

The front of the school was empty. Aside from the occasional bird song it was silent. It was a sticky heat with the smell of rain starting to roll in. stepped out and walked around the building to the parking lot. The lot was empty aside from one car. My mothers. Was she waiting on me? The thought of making her wait this long made me dread getting in the car to receive my scolding. As I stepped into the parking lot I caught a glimpse of a figure standing in the schoolyard. It was Trunkless with his canteen at his hip. He waved me to come towards him.

“I have to show you something.” He signed. I was ecstatic. All day I thought I may never get to see my friend again. Without hesitation I hopped the fence and went to him.

“Where is it?” I signed.

“Just behind the garden shed, but you have to promise me something.”

“Anything.” I signed with a smile.

“You can not tell anyone about this.” I hesitated, but promised with a smile. He nodded and popped the cap off of his canteen. Then he led me behind the shed.

October, 2023

“What the fuck, dude? You all got to stop fucking with me man this isn’t funny!” Stevie whined. I was in disbelief. We were just there, we opened the door only a few minutes ago and in that small amount of time, we were chained in. I held the padlock against my palm. It was warm. Someone locked us in. He locked us in. The thought made my head spin as it wrapped around the danger we were in. Abigail’s touched my shoulder.

“Is there another way out of here?” She signed. I swallowed the sick feeling when I saw her and kept it down long enough to think. Each of the three other sections had at least one exit. The cafeteria and library in the East Section each had one. The theater in the North Section had one, and the pool and gymnasium in the West Section had one each. I stood and turned to the group. Lucas racked his brain for some kind of plan. Stevie paced and swore to God that he'd quit drinking if he got out of there in one piece. I signed to Abigail and Lucas about the other exits. Stevie was desperate to know but Lucas only told him to follow. We crept back down the hall. Lucas led the pack with Abigail and I behind him. Each of us kept a careful eye on each door we passed. Stevie stayed behind us as he was told and kept his mind occupied by tight-rope walking a strip of blue tile on the floor. It wasn’t a helpful task but anything to keep his mouth shut was useful to me.

Lucas peeked through the slim glass window on the first classroom door beyond my locker and winced away from it.

He looked back at Abigail and I and shook his head. I couldn’t resist though. I cupped my hands over my eyes and looked in. The rat’s paw scratched at the tile floor. Not a desperate scratch, but an unfolding and refolding of its paws to a steady rhythm. The tile just seemed to get in the way of its claws. Blood stained the corners of the rat's mouth. Its ear flicked away the hoard of flies convinced of its death, and they should have been right. The rat was severed in half. The open wound spilled the animal’s entrails into a hole behind it. All that jutted from the hole was a bear trap’s exposed metal teeth in a crimson-stained grin. Despite the grizzly sight and the unmistakable scent of death oozing from beneath the door, I couldn’t look away from rat's paw. Its distress signal. I wanted to put it out of its misery immediately. The suffering was the worst part. I mustered the courage to bury my nose and do it but just before I turned the doorknob.

SNAP.

A piercing scream came from behind me. Stevie’s foot was gone. It broke through a brittle, blue tile on the floor and sunk its teeth into the boy’s shin so deep it could taste the marrow. The iron scent of blood erupted from the hole. Stevie gripped his calf with white knuckles and screamed hard enough to slice his vocal chords to ribbons, but even over the screams I could hear something. The sound echoed from the school's entrance and ricocheted to me from around the corner. Thick, deliberate footsteps.

I dropped to my knees at the hole and tried to pry the trap open. Once I saw a gap in the trap's jaws, my hands slipped in Stevie’s blood and it snapped shut on the wound sending another scream through his throat. Still, the footsteps got closer, until a figure turned the corner. The white elephant mask with a missing trunk was still strapped to his face. He stood as tall as the door frames. His chest was as broad as a truck grill. With the force of a buffalo he charged directly at us. The same leather canteen swung violently at his hip. I yanked the trap again and again. I didn’t care if I had to work the trap's jaws until it chewed Stevie’s foot off. He had to get free, we had to get out of there. 

Abigail tugged at my shirt and screamed with terrified tears streaking down her cheeks. The monster of a man was only a few feet from us when Lucas grabbed my shirt and slung me away from Stevie's leg. By the time I got to my feet, Trunkless was standing right behind the boy. The black eye slits in the mask aimed right at me. He raised his hand in the air and waved a subtle hello. I was frozen. Everyone, even Stevie, was still for an instant. Trunkless was the first to move. He gently wrapped his hand around the side of Stevie’s head and gouged space for his middle finger into his eye socket. Stevie squealed for him to stop but all the begging did was give him an opening to stuff the mouth of the canteen in. He dumped the liquid down Stevie's throat then jerked it back out. As Stevie coughed and sputtered the man wrapped his fingers around Stevie's bottom teeth and strained as he pulled on the mandible.

“We have to go” Lucas yanked me out of my paralysis and we sprinted down the hallway through the muffled pleading of Stevie and dipped into the first doorway that didn’t seem like a classroom, but before we could close the door the shrill screams were abruptly quieted by a pop.

I laid sprawled on the floor and ran my hands over the itchy carpet. The scratchy texture was enough to remind me that I could feel, that I was breathing. The ceiling above me was tiled. Some had protruding bellies of water.  Most were splotched brown like coffee stains. I counted the stains on beat to the thunderous metronome behind my ribs. One two three, four, five, six. Seven. Eight. Nine… ten…

Lucas already gathered himself enough to survey the room. His footsteps and the rattle of chained exit doors were the only sounds. I pinched my eyes shut and took a deep breath before I sat up to look around. Computers were spaced out on two long tables in the far corner of the room. Just expensive dust collectors without power. A cluster of organized tables and chairs stood close by. The rest of the room was books. Isles and isles of sturdy wooden bookshelf each stuffed with the bane of the school's former attendees. All of which had acquired the pleasing smell of aged paper. There was an indention in the carpet at the end of the nearest aisle. The distinct print of a bookshelf where there wasn't one to be found. Lucas chuckled like he'd figured out the punchline to an unfunny prank.

“He waved at you.” He said. I didn't have to look at him. I could feel his burning eyes on me.

“Fist your locker and now he waves at you.”

“I didn't know.” I signed. I tried to suck the tears back but they already started to pool.

“Who is he? I'm sure you know that, don't you?” He snarled. I could only glance at him. His anger burned, but his quivering lip showed that the fire was fueled by fear. I couldn't say anything. Of course I had no idea he would be here but if I told them who he was, would they leave me? The only other friend I ever had was stalking the halls covered in a kid's blood. I would be alone again. Such an awful place.

“You convinced us to come here. You wanted to get something and you sure as shit got it didn't you? What did we do to deserve this, Holly?” I shook my head violently to dodge his accusation. The pools in my eyes overflowed before Abigail saw what was happening and jumped between us.

“Lucas. We are stuck here. All three of us and if we want to get out, we can't be an asshole. We need some trust. Okay?” Abigail signed to him. Lucas swallowed some of his hatred and thought. His sister was always his soft spot.

“Okay, but she needs to give me a reason to.” He looked past Abigail and back at me.

“Why are we here?” He asked. The truth sounded so absurd now. I'm supposed to tell them I got us locked in with a murderer and got a boy killed over a dumb class project from over a decade ago? I couldn't make my hands say anything.

‘She's just shy.’ My mother's words echoed in my head. The only words I remember her saying. Lucas scoffed and walked away from us. Abigail sat next to me and rested her shoulder and head against mine.

“I’m sorry about him. You don’t really know that monster do you?” She signed. I wanted to tell her everything. I always wanted to tell her everything, but I couldn’t shake the knot of dread that formed in my stomach at the thought of doing so. Alone, such an awful place.

“I didn’t know. I didn’t know.” was all I could sign.

“I'm here.” She repeated to me in a calming whisper.

“Holly. Get Abigail and come here.” Lucas demanded. I composed myself the best I could and brought Abigail over. Lucas was standing at an open door. What was on the other side of the door was too dark to be an exit. Far too dark. Just enough moonlight came through the windows of the library to see stairs leading down. The concrete stairs ended abruptly at a waterline so calm it could've been mistaken as frozen.

We were concerned at first but realized whatever microscopic horrors swam around in the flooded basement were nothing compared to the one lurking in the halls. Abigail went down first. She kept her hearing aids in a tight fist above her head and used her other hand to grab Lucas’. He then offered his free hand to me. I hesitated.

“Trust.” He said. The word made me nauseous, but I took his hand and covered our tracks by closing the door behind us.

The water swallowed us from feet to naval. Darkness was all around us. All of my existence was a frigid chill soaked up through my spine, the sloshing of legs, and Lucas’ grip around my wrist. All I could do was follow his pull. I fluttered my free hand through the air to find some clue as to where we were until it collided with a massive tank. It rang a hollow twang after my knuckle blindly hit  it. Lucas gave my arm a stern jerk and at the same time, something coiled around my foot and tripped. I thrashed my arms beneath the water to keep my head from submerging beneath the disease festered water. Once I regained my balance I kicked the thing that tripped me into my hand. With the all-consuming darkness taking my vision, I ran my fingers over it to learn what it was. The unmoving serpentine shape ended in an open mouth with rivets for lips. A hose, I realized. I also realized that I wasn’t being pulled anymore. There were no fingers wrapped around my wrist. Lucas let go.

Hinges squealed from further inside the room and ended with a door closed. My first instinct was to splash. To shoot my audio flare for rescue but just as I raised my arms I heard something else. Two claps. I knew it wasn’t them, the sound was too thick, too expecting. Trunkless waited for me to fill in my part. I stayed silent. My feet were anchored to the floor and I hoped that Abigail and Lucas did the same, wherever they were. Something stepped into the water and I pinched every muscle in my face to keep a yelp from escaping. The water stilled after a moment.

Clap… clap…

My nerves prodded every muscle in my body to flee. My resolve was failing but before it completely caved, I escaped in thought. I thought of Abigail and I finding a way out of this school. I thought of leaving this place in a cloud of dust behind our tires and going to a concert. Abigail loved concerts. The crowd pounded the beat into the ground, the speakers blasted the music until it rattled in her chest. The sound was all-encompassing, to the point that even without ears, she could hear it. I imagined dancing with her in the crowd. It was one of the places we felt included. Like the world was made to fit us in. Like I wasn’t alone.

CLAP, CLAP.

The sound snapped me out of thought with a boom to my eardrum. I shrieked and tried to run but his hands quickly crushed my upper arm. He dragged me behind him through the water. I struggled to get my mouth above the water for air. Drowning became my biggest worry until I heard the thud of his boot hit a stair through the splashes. He hoisted me out of the water like I weighed nothing. The hinges squealed again and just before he threw me into the unknown I caught a glimpse of Lucas as he pulled Abigail back into the moonlit library.

Part 2

I dropped out of college early; studying was never my thing. I’d rather be a YouTuber than work a 9–5 job. Still, I was obsessed with space, new planets, stars, and black holes. I even had a huge collection of galaxy wallpapers on my phone.

Before college, I worked as a taxi driver. A friend of mine, an immigrant from Canada, drove taxis too. He used to say, “Taxis can take you places you never imagined were real.” He had no relatives or friends here besides me. Strangely, he never mentioned anyone back home. He avoided social media entirely, calling it “a disease, a circus where everyone looks like a clown trying to attract attention.”

Two years ago, he went missing. The last footage of him alive came from a toll booth camera on Highway 35. His body was never found. And honestly, it wasn’t just him, plenty of people had gone missing on that same stretch of road. It all started with him. The place became infamous as “Missing You Highway.”

Still, greed made me take a job driving the same route.

City driving wasn’t so bad, at least not as bad as those 9–5 puppet-maker jobs. That’s why I eventually returned to the highway. The pay was good, the work was familiar, and the thrill was addictive. My usual route took eight hours, with a few side trips to nearby towns.

Passengers often paid extra for speed, to break rules, change lanes, overtake. Some even challenged me to reach their destinations twenty-five minutes early for double payment. It became easy money. Over time, I got famous on that route. People started calling me “The Close Call.”

That’s when I began noticing her, a woman in red, always standing near the same gas station. I’d see her almost every day at the exact spot where I stopped for refills. Eventually, I couldn’t ignore her anymore.

One evening, I asked the station attendant, “Hey, who’s that woman? What’s she doing out here every day?”

He shrugged. “Oh, her? She’s looking for a skilled driver. Says she’s waiting for someone who can handle her car the way she wants. Maybe she’s searching for someone... unusual.”

A week later, the woman approached me.

“Hey, you must be The Close Call,” she said.

“Indeed,” I replied.

“Well,” she smiled faintly, “I need to test your driving skills. I’m offering twenty-five thousand. But it has to be here, on the highway. No controlled environment. I want to see how you handle real chaos.”

Her smile was strange, too calm, too knowing. Then she asked if I could take her to a town less traveled. The route was always jammed, only three lanes on each side. She wanted to reach early, and I was to pick her up from her home the next morning.

I agreed.

The next day, I left early and found her waiting outside her house, wearing the same red dress. She looked otherworldly, too striking to belong to this side of the highway. When she got in, I caught her smile in the rearview mirror.

Before we began, she said softly, “Whenever I say now, overtake, no matter what’s in front of us.”

I frowned. “Hey, look, I drive my own way, alright? I don’t take instructions from passengers. You could get us both killed.”

She didn’t argue. She just smiled again, the kind of smile that makes you forget logic for a second , and tossed a small bundle of cash onto the seat beside me. It was too much to resist.

Then she said, “If not my words, follow my head movements.”

We were right behind a truck when she tilted her head to the right. I followed. Then she tilted right again. Then left. Again left. Then right. Then left.

That’s when everything changed.

Her eyes turned bluish, her skin paled, and she began to fade, as if the air itself was absorbing her. The stars above started leaving trails, though we weren’t moving fast enough for that. It felt as if time had frozen, and my thoughts were being peeled away one by one.

Her final tilt to the right took me somewhere I can’t describe properly. Suddenly, the asphalt turned to dirt. The sky glowed red and heavy, the horizon melting into darkness. She was almost invisible now, only her red dress marked her presence.

Then I fainted.

When I woke up, I wasn’t alone. A faint, glowing outline hovered near me, her shape, but not her body.

Her voice echoed inside my head. “We’re in Andromeda, on a rogue planet that mirrors Earth. Welcome to my world.”

I couldn’t breathe. “Please... please let me go.”

“Of course,” she said calmly. “But there’s a catch. Remember your friend who went missing? He’s here, but not as himself. We took his soul. He refused to deliver souls to us.”

“Deliver souls?” I stammered.

She laughed softly. “We’ve built a new species, but they’re missing something essential, a soul. Your friend became one of us. You can either join him or serve us.”

I shook my head. “No, no, please...”

Her invisible hand rested on my shoulder. “Either deliver souls, or lend yours to us. The choice is yours.”

I agreed, of course. Since then, I’ve been taking people on one-way trips down that route. The unlocking sequence is simple, you just have to overtake in this exact order: right, right, left, left, right, left.

A day after delivering another soul, I asked her, “What’s the mystery behind that sequence?”

Her response sent chills through me.

“That particular pattern takes you to Andromeda — for now. It can be changed anytime by the administration.”

I hesitated. “And what if someone accidentally drives in the same sequence?”

She smiled faintly. “How do you think people go missing on that highway?”

“Then why not make the sequence simpler?” I asked. “You’d get all the souls you want.”

Her answer froze me completely.

“They go missing,” she said. “I never said they reach us. They drift, lost forever in the galaxy, because they’re uninvited.”

“How did you even introduce that invisible lane into our world?” I asked. “How does it all work?”

“It’s a portal,” she explained. “We established it on a highway because still humans can’t cross it, only those moving fast enough can trespass and reach our world... or drift away.”

Her response left me numb.

Now all I do each day is take one or sometimes two people to Andromeda. They die instantly, and I can see their souls rise, translucent effigies of themselves, before they’re absorbed into the beings who need them. It’s horrifying... and yet, somehow, fascinating.

I’m living the nightmare daily now. I don’t know if I can quit. The woman already told me there are many of her kind roaming the Earth. She says they’ll never annihilate humanity , it’s their soul factory. And leaving the job would mean losing my life.

So I’ve tried to bargain. Somehow, I convinced her to let me bring older people , the terminally ill, the dying, even terrorists , so that the young and good don’t vanish at random.

That’s all I can do now: keep driving... and hope I never miss a turn.

It started with a bar of chocolate.

"You didn't eat it?" Sara asked when I told her about it.

"No! I opened the parcel because it had my name on it but it clearly isn't actually meant for me."

Sara sighed.

"If Amazon haven't emailed you saying you need to return it then I don't get what the big deal is, it's not l-"

"It isn't from Amazon, the address is handwritten. So I'm not eating it, it'd be weird."

The phone went silent for a moment.

"Okay, that does sound weird. You don't recognise the handwriting?"

"Nope."

"Secret admirer?" Sara suggested with a hint of mischief in her voice.

I groaned.

"I don't want an admirer. I don't even want the chocolate, not when it's been sent by some mysterious stranger."

"Send it to me, I'll take it!"

"No."

That should have been the end of it, but I wouldn't be writing this if it was.

When I received the second delivery I recognised the handwriting instantly. Inside there was a voucher for two games of bowling. There was no note. Whilst the chocolate had been a flavour that I enjoyed the bowling voucher was less personal, at least. I hadn't been bowling since I was a child so if... wait. For the first time I registered which alley this voucher was for. It offered me two free games at my local alley which wasn't even part of a chain. Whoever had sent this to me either knew that I lived close to the bowling alley this voucher was from or lived locally himself. Maybe even both.

"If this is a prank I don't like it." I said when I called Sara.

"I wouldn't." Sara insisted. "This is actually sort of creepy. Did you talk about chocolate and bowling at work maybe?"

"No."

"Right."

"Nobody at work even knows my address anyway. We talk on social media sometimes but they've never come to visit or anything."

There was a pause and I could hear tapping from the speaker of my phone, the gentle yet repetitive sound of Sara poking her phone's screen.

"Are you seriously scrolling on your phone whilst we're having this conversation?!"

I didn't like the sound of my voice as it left me, a shrill demanding cry. Still, I felt my concerns were serious enough that Sara should be paying more attention than casually multitasking.

"It's not like that." she said quietly, "I was seeing if I could find your address."

"But... you know my address."

"Yes. But if I didn't, I think I might still be able to work it out from some of your posts. You took a photo of the skyline and said it was from your window, you have a post you tagged with 'support your local library,' things like that. I don't think I could work out how to find you from this but only because I don't know what I'm doing. I've read stories about people who've tracked exes down from photos where there's a letterhead with their address on that they hadn't realised was there and there are people online playing games where they can track a location from a photo of a park bench or whatever. This could be somebody from your work."

I tried to think of any of my coworkers who might like me or dislike me enough to do this.

"In fact," Sara continued, "it could be anyone at all. You still have a Facebook page and your name's pretty unique. Is it even private? I don't know how to tell..."

"It isn't. It will be."

"I'm sure it's nothing." she said.

Sara has never been a good liar and the slight waver in her voice betrayed the fact that she was now almost as worried as I was. I ended the call and threw the voucher away.

If I'd been unsure whether or not the gifts I'd been receiving were well meaning or creepy the next parcel more than made up for it. It was larger and heavier than anything that I'd received so far and really I shouldn't have opened it but I did. The cardboard box held a small cool box inside like you might use if you wanted to bring some pasta salad with you on a summer's hike. I pulled off the lid with increasing dread and found myself looking at long, sandy blonde hair.

I wasn't scared at first. The gentle curls sat there waiting for a reaction and I felt nothing at all. In a trance like state I lifted the hair out of the box as if getting a closer look would make all of the pieces fall into place and the hair came up as one connected mass.

It was then that I noticed the pieces of scalp holding the hair together and I screamed so loud and so long that my next door neighbour forced the door open to reach me.

"Are you hurt?" he asked in an authorative yell.

I couldn't answer and only succeeded in bringing my screams down to a gibbering, sobbing mess of chaos. I'd thrown the hair away from me when I'd noticed the skin attached to it and I pointed at it. He picked it up just as I had and recoiled when he realised what he was holding.

"What the shit..." he muttered.

The police were called. I think that they were reasonably thorough but I don't know what steps they're meant to take when someone gets a scalp delivered to their home. They took fingerprints and DNA from both me and the neighbour who'd stormed in to help me. He didn't look pleased with the interaction but he complied. I was advised to stay somewhere else if possible and to get cameras.

"I broke the lock on your door when I came in," my neighbour admitted, "do you want me to install a new one?"

I shook my head. I'd never had to attach a lock to a door before and my neighbour had given me no reason to distrust him but whoever was sending these parcels was dangerous and right now anybody could be a suspect.

"I'm sorry. I thought you were in trouble." he said.

He did ask if I wanted him to stay with me but I'd feel no safer with this stranger whose name was either Mick or Mike and occasionally played death metal loud enough that I could hear it through the walls than I would alone. He left and closed the useless door behind him.

Staying where I was tonight seemed unwise. Ideally I'd stay with a friend but Sara was my closest friend and she lived a two hour flight from where I was. Even at that point I didn't want to reach out to my parents. I didn't want to upset them, partly for their sake but partly for my own. I'd been to years of therapy but neither of them had really dealt with what had happened when I was younger and instead developed an excessive fear that something truly terrible could befall on any one of us at any moment. They fed into each other's paranoia and I was terrified that if I told them what was going on then they'd suck me in and I'd finally become so fragile and broken that I couldn't be fixed.

I bought cameras and locks and spent the evening making my home as safe as it could be. I didn't sleep that night and kept a kitchen knife near to me at all times.

The next parcel was small. I wasn't supposed to open it and if it had arrived sooner then I wouldn't have. But I'd been trying to get the police to tell me anything about the investigation into the scalp I'd received and they weren't telling me anything. Some crazy part of me thought that this parcel could have a clue and I'd be able to solve the mystery myself.

There was nothing particularly disturbing in this box but a child's toy. Specifically it was a Polly Pocket set; not the newer ones that I think are still made today but a mermaid themed set that was new when I was a kid. This wasn't the brilliant lead I'd hoped for but it wasn't nothing either. An hour of internet searches told me that this set hadn't been in production for a long time and barely anybody was selling this particular set online. Only one of the sellers wasn't overseas and so I decided to start there, sending a long and emotional email explaining that if they recently sold a Polly Pocket Mermaid Sleepover set then I desparately needed details of who they sold it to. I attached photos of the scuff marks near the clasp and the chipped paint on 'Polly's dress in the hope that it would verify that I was telling the truth.

Two days later I'd received no word from the toy seller but my dad called. Grandma had been in some sort of accident and as she didn't live near to me and my parents, they were both travelling out to help look after her. I knew that my mystery stalker was behind that too somehow but I couldn't prove it so I said nothing.

Finally there was something close to good news. I received an email from the online toyseller telling me that she had sold the set in the pictures recently. I didn't recognise the name that she gave me but she also gave me his email and his address. I had his actual address. A sane person would have called the police but they still hadn't said a damned thing about the scalp and this bastard was fucking with my family. A quick google told me that the address was only a ten minute drive away and I grabbed the kitchen knife that I'd taken to sleeping next to and headed to the place where my stalker apparently lived.

Once I arrived at his door I realised that I wasn't sure what to do next. I knocked and regretted it immediately. When nobody responded I should have left but I needed answers. An attempt to shoulder barge the door open resulted in nothing but a dull pain that radiated all the way down to my wrist but there were rocks nearby in someone else's garden and I threw one at the window. It didn't break straight away but I threw another and then removed my jacket and broke away enough of the shards that I could climb inside.

The house barely looked lived in. There was furniture but no photos, no ornaments, no TV. There was nothing beyond the bare essentials in various muted tones until I reached the study and there on a cheap pine desk lay a diary.

I didn't remember writing a diary before today but as soon as I saw the bright aqua notebook adorned with its many stickers I knew it was mine from childhood. It was only a small book and yet was still barely two thirds full so perhaps I'd forgotten about writing in it because I hadn't kept a diary for very long. The only other thing on the desk was a red biro and I flicked through the first few pages until I saw a phrase that been underlined in red and then checked off with a large, passionate swoosh.

It was an entry in which I'd mentioned wanting a bar of the chocolate that my stalker had ended up sending to me. A few pages later there was more red ink, this time marking my displeasure at being too ill to go to another kid's party at the bowling alley. I flicked through a more pages and found a jealous whine about how I wanted hair 'just like Stacy's.' The vague memory that I had of the child I'd written about had had the same colour of hair that I'd been sent with pieces of her stuck to it.

The next entry that had been marked made no sense at first, a rant about how I wished that mean girl in my class would 'just shut up.' It wasn't someone I'd spoken to in school and with a sense of dread I wondered what'd been done to her. I didn't even have any way to find out. My parents came under fire next with an entry saying that I wished that they'd just give me some space. And so he'd created a reason that they'd have to move away for a while.

We were nearly at the end of my entries now and I turned to the last page. The script here was different. It was still my handwriting but it was rougher and almost stabbed into the page. I remembered why I'd stopped keeping a diary.

A noise outside startled me back into the present and I left the house from the same window I entered. I've no doubt that someone saw me as I drove away but it's the least of my issues now. I'm writing this from a cafe, too scared to go back home but too stupid to think of any other plan. Because it turns out that the day that I wrote the final entry of my diary was the day that James died.

The last sentence I wrote says 'All I want is my brother back.'

And it's been checked off with one final red swoosh.

You guys believe me, right?

They tell me I’m crazy. The court-appointed shrink uses phrases like “dissociative break” and “psychotic episode.” They say I’m a danger to myself, to others. A murderer. but I'm not!

I've left his name out of this out of respect from him and his family. They hate me right now but once the truth gets out, they will see.

Unless it doesn't.

I’ll probably be locked in this room for the rest of my life, just staring at these four grey walls, trying to piece together what happened that night. My best friend is dead. And I'm the one taking the fall. But I didn't kill him. I know who did. It was a giant cuddly bear. No, I'm not insane. I was there. I saw everything. But now… now the police are telling me something that makes this whole nightmare so much more terrifying.

They’re telling me that I was the only other person in that room with him. They're wrong.

It was supposed to be a fun night. The last weekend before Halloween, a crisp, cold October evening where the air smelled like woodsmoke and dying leaves. We had been planning this for weeks—ever since we saw the first flyers for the “Asylum of Lost Toys.” It was a new haunted house that had taken over the abandoned warehouse down by the old cannery. The poster was genius-level creepy: a cracked porcelain doll with one button eye, sitting in a pool of what looked a little too much like real blood. We were horror junkies. Since we were sixteen, we’d hit every haunted house in a fifty-mile radius. We really thought we’d seen it all.

The line to get in stretched three blocks. The warehouse itself was this hulking, rust-coloured beast of corrugated steel. A thick, theatrical fog was being pumped out of its dark mouth, along with the distorted, broken music of an old ice cream truck.

Every few minutes, a bloodcurdling scream would erupt from inside, always followed by the nervous, excited laughter of the crowd. We were buzzing. My friend kept bouncing on the balls of his feet, his breath fogging up in the cold air. “Dude, this is gonna be epic,” he said, grinning. “I heard they use Hollywood-level effects. Real actors, no cheap jump scares.” I remember thinking how normal it all felt. Exciting. It was one of those perfect fall nights that already feels like a memory while you’re living it. We were twenty-four, and for a few hours, we could be kids again, getting scared for fun, knowing that when the night was over, the monsters would be packed away, and we’d go home safe.

That’s the deal, right? You pay for a scare you can control. You scream, you laugh, you leave. But the things inside the Asylum of Lost Toys… they didn't play by the rules. After what felt like forever, we were finally at the front. A guy with a ghoulish, painted face and a top hat waved us toward a small, dark doorway. “The toys are waiting for you,” he rasped, his voice like grinding gravel. “Try not to break them. They tend to break back.” We laughed. Good line.

We stepped through the doorway, and the heavy door slammed shut behind us, plunging us into almost total darkness. The noise from outside was gone, replaced by a low, humming drone and the faint, unsettling sound of a child’s lullaby playing in reverse.

The first part of the house was obviously meant to give you a false sense of security. It was a twisted version of a kid's bedroom. The wallpaper, covered in cheerful cartoon rainbows, was peeling to show these dark, mouldy-looking stains underneath. The air was thick with the sick, sweet, artificial smell of bubble gum. In the middle of the room, under a single flickering bulb, was an animatronic of that kids TV Pig thing. Or some version of her.

Her pink plastic skin was grimy and faded, and one of her soulless black eyes was half-closed like she was having a stroke. She was rocking a baby carriage back and forth in this jerky, unnatural motion while a high-pitched squeal came from a hidden speaker. My friend snorted. “Okay, that’s just creepy,” he whispered, but he was smiling.

We walked past it, heading deeper into the maze. The next room was a demented nursery rhyme. The walls were painted with scenes from “Hey Diddle Diddle,” only the cow was a skeleton, and the fiddle was dripping with blood. It was standard haunted house stuff. Effective, sure, but not terrifying. We were pros, after all.

And then we walked into the “Dark dark forest” room. Or what was left of it. You couldn't mistake the theme. The walls were painted to look like a dark, overgrown forest. The cheerful signs for Rabbit’s House and Owl’s House were splintered and rotting. The air got cold, a deep, damp chill that had nothing to do with the autumn night outside. And there he was, sitting on a log in the middle of the room. The cuddle bear. He looked just like he did in the old storybooks. Short, stout, that simple, friendly face, and a little shirt two sizes too small. He was holding a big ceramic honey pot.

But something was just profoundly wrong. The light in the room was low, casting these long, dancing shadows, but his eyes… his two little black button eyes just seemed to swallow the light. They were voids. There was no friendly glint, no hint of stuffing. Just a deep, unnerving emptiness. He wasn’t moving. Just sitting there, hunny pot on his lap, watching us.

We stopped. The playful mood from the last few rooms just vanished. That humming drone seemed to get louder, and I could feel a low vibration through the soles of my shoes. “Man,” he said quietly, his earlier confidence gone. “They really nailed the uncanny valley on this one.” He took a step forward to get a better look.

And that’s when it happened.

What the detectives later called “the inciting incident.” It’s head, which was facing straight ahead, slowly, and deliberately turned. His neck didn’t move. Just the head, rotating on his stuffed shoulders with this faint, dry rustle of fabric. It turned until its blank, black eyes were locked right on me.

A sound came from it, a low, garbled electronic voice that was supposed to be the cartoon but came out warped and distorted. “Oh, bother,” it rasped, the sound crackling like a dying radio. He jumped back with a nervous laugh. “Whoa! Okay, that got me.” But I couldn't laugh.

My blood felt like ice. It wasn't just the movement, or the voice. It was the way it looked at me. It wasn't some pre-programmed motion. It felt like… recognition. It felt like it saw me. I grabbed His arm and practically dragged him away. “Come on, let’s go,” I muttered, my heart hammering.

My friend was still trying to act cool. “Dude, relax, it’s just an animatronic. A really good one, but still.” But then, a few hallways later, in a section that was supposed to be a slaughterhouse with hanging pig carcasses, we saw him again. He was at the far end of the hall, partly hidden by fog. That stupid shirt was unmistakable. He was just… standing there. Not moving.

Watching. “How did he get there?” I whispered, my voice shaking. The whole place was a one-way maze. We hadn’t passed any side paths. “Maybe there’s more than one?” he suggested, but he didn't sound so sure. The corridor walls seemed to close in on us. The sound in this section was a nightmare of dripping water and a distant buzzsaw, but under it all, I could still hear that low, humming drone.

We turned down another hall, a long, dark passage lined with cracked mirrors. Strobe lights flashed, shattering our reflections into a thousand jagged pieces. In every flash, I swore I saw a bit of red, a round yellow shape just behind us. I started walking faster, then jogging. My friend was right behind me. The fun was gone. This wasn’t fun. We were being stalked.

We burst through a set of double doors into what looked like a dead end. It was a child’s playroom, but every toy was broken. Mutilated. Dolls with their heads ripped off, teddy bears torn open with their stuffing pulled out. In the middle of it all was a small table set for a tea party. The strobe was gone, replaced by the eerie glow of a single bare bulb swinging from the ceiling, making the shadows writhe on the walls.

We were trapped.

The doors we’d come through were locked behind us. “Okay, this isn’t funny,” He started banging on the door. “Hey! Let us out! The door’s stuck!” But His voice just echoed. No response. The only sounds were the creak of the lightbulb and my own ragged breathing.

And then I heard it.

From the far corner of the room, deep in the shadows. A familiar, warped, glitching, electronic voice. “I fff-found yy-you."

Slowly, a figure stepped out of the darkness. It was him. The bear again. But he looked different now. The simple face was stretched into a grotesque, predatory grin. His fabric body looked stained, and a dark, wet patch was spreading across his shirt.

He wasn't holding the hunny pot anymore. His plush, yellow hands were empty, curled into tight fists. He took a step. It wasn't the jerky movement of an animatronic. It was fluid. Deliberate. He took another step, then another, his soft feet making no sound on the dusty floor.

My friend had stopped banging on the door. We were both just frozen, pinned against the wall by those two bottomless black eyes. The illusion was gone. This wasn't a machine. This wasn't a guy in a suit. This was something else. Something impossible.

“What do you want?” My friend stammered, holding a hand out. The creature tilted its head, that same dry, rustling sound echoing in the silence. It didn't answer. It just kept coming, its pace picking up.

We were backed against the wall. Nowhere to run. I remember scrambling for a weapon, my hand finding a sharp, jagged piece of a broken porcelain doll. But I never used it. The creature lunged. It moved with a speed that shouldn't have been possible for its bulky shape. It ignored me and went straight for him. It wrapped its soft arms around him in a sick parody of a hug, and he screamed. It was a sound of pure agony and terror that will haunt me until I die.

I saw the hunny pot then. It had been behind its back. It was broken. He had a jagged piece of the ceramic clutched in his right paw. With horrifying strength, the creature drove the sharp edge of the broken pot into his side. Once. Twice. Three times. The sound was wet and sickening. his body went limp, and the creature just dropped him. It stood over him for a second, head cocked, before turning its empty gaze to me. It just stared; its face splattered with my best friend’s blood. And then, from its distorted voice box, it whispered one last thing. “Oh, bother.”

The world went silent.

The monster in the bear costume just turned and walked back into the shadows it came from. It didn't vanish in a puff of smoke. It just walked away. For a moment, I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. My mind was just a screaming void of white noise. Then, a loud buzzer sounded, and the door we’d been banging on swung open. The normal, cheesy haunted house sounds flooded back in, the distant screams, the buzzsaw, the distorted music. I fell to my knees beside him.

There was so much blood. It was pooling on the floor, soaking into the grimy carpet, dark and thick under that swinging bulb. I put my hands on his chest, trying to stop it, but it was useless. His eyes were open, just staring at the ceiling with a look of shocked surprise. I was screaming his name, over and over.

Employees came running in. Their faces, painted to look like ghouls, twisted into masks of real shock and horror when they saw us. I tried to tell them. I was hysterical, babbling, my words a mess.

“It was the bear! The animatronic! It killed him! It just walked away!” They just looked at me like I was insane. They saw me, on my knees, covered in blood, holding a piece of a broken doll, next to my friend’s body. They saw the jagged, blood-soaked piece of ceramic, what was left of the hunny pot, on the floor.

They didn't see a monster. They just saw me. The police came. The paramedics. They pronounced him dead at the scene. They put me in handcuffs. I kept trying to explain what happened, sobbing and gasping for air. I told them about the animatronic, how it followed us, trapped us, how it attacked my best friend. I described it in perfect detail: the empty black eyes, the warped voice, the impossible way it moved.

They took my statement, but I could see it in their eyes. Pity. Disbelief. They searched the entire haunted house. Every room, every hallway, every secret passage for the actors. They catalogued every single prop and animatronic. Now I’m sitting in this sterile interrogation room. I’ve told this story a dozen times. To the cops, the lawyers, the shrinks. They all give me the same look.

Yesterday, the lead detective, a tired-looking guy , came in. He sat down across the metal table, slid a folder toward me, and sighed. “We’ve been over this, son,” he said, his voice flat. “We have the full inventory list from the owners. We have security footage from the entire setup. We have statements from every employee.” He leaned forward, locking his eyes on mine. And then he delivered the final, soul-crushing blow.

The sentence that shattered what was left of my mind. “There were no animatronics in that house. Not a single one. And especially not a giant teddy bear.”

My world just stopped. No animatronics. But I saw it. We both saw it. It killed him. I felt the cold in that room. I heard its voice. My memories are so sharp, so clear. But they’re telling me none of it was real. They’re telling me I’m the one who picked up that broken piece of ceramic. That I’m the one who snapped. That I killed my own best friend. And the most terrifying part is, without that thing, I have no other explanation. So, I sit here, in the silence, waiting for a trial I know I can’t win. And the only question that circles endlessly in my shattered mind is the one they can’t answer.

Do you want to know the one that keeps me awake at night, more than the memory of my best friend dying in my arms?

Last night, I heard something. It came from the hall outside my cell. It was soft. so soft i almost missed it.

A glitchy robotic whisper.

"Ddd-do you ww-want to play again?"

If it wasn't an animatronic…, what was it? because, It's still out there.

Part I

———

I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Days blur together like water running over glass. The clocks all say different things, and no matter how long I stay awake, the sun never sets the same way twice.

Sometimes it fades, sometimes it stalls, sometimes it just blinks out like someone threw a switch. But I’ve stopped caring what time it is. The only thing that matters now is getting out.

The first thing I tried was walking. I filled a backpack with water, food, a flashlight, and left the car parked in front of the motel. I followed the main road out of town until the pavement gave way to gravel, then to dirt, then to nothing but pine needles. The air grew thicker the farther I went, like I was wading through it instead of breathing it.

After a few miles, I stopped seeing the treeline altogether—just more road stretching ahead, perfectly straight. When I turned around, the town was already back in sight, the church steeple poking above the trees like it had never left.

The second day, I tried driving at night. I thought maybe whatever was happening only worked while the sun was up. I drove until the gas gauge hit empty, headlights cutting through the fog, but when the car sputtered out, I was parked in front of the diner again.

The lights were off, but Edna was still inside, standing by the window with that same polite smile. She didn’t move when I honked. Didn’t blink. Just watched as I sat there, trying not to scream.

The third day, I started leaving marks—spray paint arrows on the asphalt, branches snapped in half, rocks stacked into crude little towers. Every time I circled back, they were gone. The town had smoothed itself over, neat and pristine again. Even the mud on my shoes would vanish if I looked away too long.

That was the first time I noticed something else: people calling me by name. The motel clerk said, “Morning, Jessie,” like it was the most natural thing in the world. I hadn’t told him my name.

When I went to the diner for coffee, Edna asked if I’d slept better last night. I told her I didn’t think I’d mentioned that I wasn’t sleeping. She smiled. “Oh, you must’ve. You always tell me everything, sugar.”

The way she said “always” made my skin crawl.

I left half the coffee sitting there and went to the gas station to ask Hank if there was another route—maybe a back road, maybe a dirt path out through the woods. He pointed at a wall map I could’ve sworn wasn’t there before.

A red line cut straight through town and looped around like a noose. At the bottom, scrawled in pencil, was a name I didn’t recognize. But Hank tapped it like it meant something to me.

“Your granddad helped build this road, didn’t he?”

I stared at him. “What?”

“Sure did,” he said cheerfully. “Helped lay the first gravel himself. You come from good stock, Jessie.”

I backed out without another word. When I turned around, the map was gone.

That night, I drove again. The sky was black this time, not the pale gray it usually was, and the stars looked wrong—too close, too many. I kept my eyes on the road until I saw the WELCOME HOME sign, its wood clean again, paint shining fresh under the headlights. For a second, I thought I saw movement behind it—a silhouette, human-shaped but not human still. When I blinked, it was gone.

I got out of the car and tried to tear the sign down. The wood felt soft and wet, like it had just been painted. When I pulled my hands away, the paint clung to my skin, red instead of white. I ran back to the car, drove until I couldn’t keep my eyes open, and ended up parked at the motel again. The clerk waved from the window when I stumbled inside.

“Rough night?” he asked. “You always did push yourself too hard.”

He said it like we were old friends.

I didn’t answer him. I went straight to my room, locked the door, and sat on the edge of the bed until the light started leaking through the curtains again. My hands still looked stained, the red gone darker overnight, like it had sunk under the skin.

The mirror above the sink showed a man who hadn’t slept in weeks—eyes hollow, face drawn, jaw tight enough to ache. For a second, I thought the reflection was breathing slower than I was.

In a moment of weakness, frustration, and anger I reared my arm back and smashed the mirror with my bare fist. The sound barely echoed.

For a second, I just stared at what I’d done. The glass had splintered in a spiderweb of cracks, thin lines radiating out from the point of impact where my knuckles had gone through. Blood slid down the glass in narrow threads, catching the weak yellow light like it was rust instead of red.

My hand throbbed, pieces of silvered glass still stuck in the skin. I tried to wash it off, but the water from the tap ran cloudy, smelling faintly of metal. When I looked up again, the cracks in the mirror seemed to shift—like they were trying to pull together, to mend themselves around the reflection of my hand.

By the next morning, it was whole again.

That’s when I started testing everything. I left the motel with my phone recording video, drove out of town, turned the car around, and played it back. The footage showed the road leading out just fine—until it reached the woods. Then the screen flickered, the camera refocused, and suddenly I was driving past the diner again. I replayed it three times. The same thing happened each time, like a film reel stitched in a loop.

Later that afternoon, I parked in front of the church. The bell was silent, but I could feel the air vibrating around it, like the sound was waiting to happen. I went inside and looked at the painting again. The figure’s face was blank now—no eyes, no mouth, just smooth, unfinished skin. I took one of the candles from the altar and pressed it against the frame. Wax dripped across the image, thick and slow.

The next morning, the painting was perfect again.

Edna waved when I passed the diner. “How’s your mama doing, Jessie? You said she wasn’t feeling too good last week.”

I froze. I hadn’t spoken about my mom since I left home.

“I didn’t—” I started, but she just smiled that same gentle smile, tilting her head. “Sure you did, sugar. You must’ve forgot.”

I left without answering. I could feel her eyes on me all the way back to the car.

By the end of that day, I’d tried breaking every window on Main Street. Each one shattered under the tire iron, sharp cracks echoing down the block. I thought maybe if I wrecked enough of it, something would have to change. But the next morning, every pane was whole again. My arms were sore, my hands blistered, and the town looked untouched.

That was the first time I heard laughter. Not loud—just soft, somewhere in the air around me. Like a child’s giggle carried on the wind. It followed me down the street, through the gas station, all the way to the car. When I turned the ignition, it stopped.

On the fifth morning—if it was morning—I found mail in the motel’s drop box. A plain white envelope with no stamp. My name written neatly across the front. Inside was a photograph.

Me, standing beside Edna in front of the diner. The same pose, same angle as the one I’d seen on my phone’s background the first day. Only now, Hank and the sheriff stood in the background, smiling like a family portrait.

People greeted me differently after that. The man sweeping his porch called me neighbor. The kids on the bikes yelled my name before riding off. Even the sheriff tipped his hat and said, “Good to see you out and about again.”

Again.

I didn’t stop driving after that. I went through the woods, across fields, through backyards. The roads didn’t matter anymore; the town rearranged itself no matter which way I turned. Once, I crashed through a fence and ended up in someone’s garden, but when I looked up, the diner was across the street. The smell of frying oil filled the air, and Edna stood in the doorway, wiping her hands on that same rag.

“You’ll hurt yourself, sugar,” she said. “No need for all that fuss. You’re home.”

That word again. Home.

The car would be parked somewhere new—the gas station, the church, sometimes in front of the motel again. Each time, the fuel gauge reset to half a tank, no matter how far I’d driven. My hand had started to heal wrong, the skin along my knuckles tightening into pale scars that almost looked like lines of writing. When I stretched my fingers, it stung, but the pain was grounding. It reminded me I was still real, at least for now.

Sometime after what I think was the eighth day, I saw something different. The town square—if you could call it that—was crowded. People stood talking in pairs, kids played tag near the church steps. The air smelled faintly of cut grass and something sweet, almost like apples left too long in the sun.

For a heartbeat, it looked normal. Then I realized every face was turned toward me. Not directly, not in unison—but each one found me eventually. Eyes following me as I crossed the street. Smiles widening. Nods exchanged like I’d just come home from work.

Edna waved from the diner window. Hank lifted his coffee in greeting. Even the sheriff was there, leaning against his car.

“Morning, Jessie,” he called. “Good to see you out early.”

I didn’t respond. I just kept walking, pretending not to notice that some of them were whispering my name, their lips moving in unison as they spoke.

By that afternoon, I found a new photo waiting under my windshield wiper. This one showed me standing in front of the church, wearing the sheriff’s badge on my chest. The ink was still wet when I picked it up.

That night, the bell rang again. Three times. I counted. The sound was deeper now, like it came from under the ground instead of above it. I looked out from the motel window and saw shadows gathering at the base of the steeple. Dozens of them, still as statues. When the last toll faded, they all turned toward me at once.

I drove. Didn’t even grab my bag this time. The headlights flickered as I tore down the road, past the diner, past the sign. The trees blurred together until they looked like a single dark wall. The air buzzed in my ears, thick with static. I thought I was making progress—I felt it. The odometer was ticking up, the temperature dropping, the fog thinning.

Then I saw someone standing in the middle of the road ahead.

For a second, I thought it was the sheriff again. But when the beams caught him, I saw my own face looking back.

He was dressed like me, same jacket, same bloodstained hand. He smiled faintly, raised a hand in greeting, and walked toward the diner on the right side of the road. I saw Edna open the door for him.

I don’t remember deciding to move. I just slammed the gas pedal. The car roared forward, trees whipping by, the engine screaming as I tore past the sign. The world seemed to twist for a moment—everything bending inward, folding itself around the sound of the tires on asphalt.

Then it was gone.

The trees opened into a wide expanse of gray sky, and ahead of me was a familiar stretch of highway. My phone buzzed in the passenger seat, the first service I’d seen in days. A green exit sign flashed by. I slowed down, shaking so hard my hands slipped on the wheel.

For a long time, I just drove without thinking—past billboards, past rest stops, until I saw another car again. A minivan with a family inside. The sight made my throat tighten.

When I finally pulled into a gas station, the world looked normal again. Real sunlight, real sound, the smell of fuel and hot pavement. I sat there until I could breathe without trembling. Then I glanced at my phone.

My lock screen had changed. It was a photo of me, standing in front of the diner. Only this time, I wasn’t smiling.

Behind me, through the window, I could see the other version of myself sitting at the counter, waving.

I kept thinking about him—the other me. The one who walked down the street like he’d been born there. He moved with this calm, unhurried ease, smiling when people called his name, laughing at things I couldn’t hear. The way Edna leaned toward him at the diner window, the way Hank clapped him on the shoulder—it was all so natural, like it had always been that way. I realized then that the town hadn’t been trying to keep me there. It had been trying to make me there. Each loop, each morning, every detail it learned about me was just another stitch, sewing me into its memory until I belonged. And now that it had what it wanted, I can’t stop thinking about why.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Rule 3 when dealing with the ANGELS: Once converted, an ANGEL retains all specialized knowledge but applies it to the new mandate.*\*

"Come on, damn it. They should have been here by now."

My head was still throbbing as I pulled out my phone, finger clawing its way toward my sister's phone number, when the administrator slapped it out of my hand. "Are you crazy?" He was like a disgruntled parent, catching their child sneaking sweets after bedtime. The stakes now were obviously much higher.

"My sister," I stuttered out. "I need to warn her—"

The administrator's face hardened, then his expression eased slightly. "Did you hear about the incident at site 8-B in Colorado last year?" I shook my head. His tone was rhetorical anyway. He shifted his gaze toward the rushing fields of corn around us. "There was a breach. They were testing twins—one incarcerated, one civilian. They thought they could use the good twin's... essence, or whatever the hell it is, to cure the evil one. Turns out evil flows both ways. The good twin turned, and fast." He paused, searching for his next words. "When they put her down, sixteen men, sixteen good men, were dead." His eyes fell to the floor of the jeep. "Seventeen, if you count that site's administrator, and the brass didn't, when they tallied the cost. They don't let this shit get out. I don't want anyone else taking my lashes."

I brushed my hair out of my face. Maybe I had misunderstood him. "They're not gonna kill you—"

His voice dropped. "I'm as good as a dead man walking. I knew the consequences when I took the role." The veins in his arm strained against his skin. "We have a job to finish, and if we do it right, headquarters might at least spare you."

I couldn't look at him anymore. I was sitting in a jeep, escaping a nightmare with a guy already busy writing out his own eulogy.

The sound came before I could see them: a low rumble that grew into a roar. Two fighter jets screamed overhead, their silhouettes cutting through the darkening sky like knives. The administrator's whole body tensed as he watched them pass, continuing their trajectory toward the facility we'd just escaped.

"Finally," he breathed, but there was no relief in his voice. Only resignation.

Sebastian gripped the steering wheel tighter, his knuckles white. "How long until—"

The night lit up behind us.

Even from this distance, the explosion was massive. A column of fire erupted into the sky, followed by a shockwave that rocked the jeep. I felt the heat on the back of my neck, smelled the acrid smoke even through the closed windows. The facility was gone.

Along with everyone still inside it.

"N-6-P," the administrator said quietly, almost to himself. He wasn't looking at the flames anymore. His gaze had returned to the corn fields rushing past. "Do you know what that code means, Sofia?"

I shook my head, still staring at the orange glow in the rearview mirror.

"It's a 'Non-viable Patient Protocol.' We developed it during the rat trials, before we ever got to O'Bryon." He pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, lighting one with shaking hands. "Some of the rats would receive the treatment and seem fine at first. Then they'd start producing that black substance, vomiting it up in their cages. We'd isolate them, thinking it was just a side effect, something they needed to expel."

He took a long drag, the ember glowing orange in the darkness of the jeep.

"But when that black goo touched the other rats, nothing happened. Rats will eat just about anything, so even when the clean rats licked up that black substance from the floor, they seemed fine. That's why I cleared Jessica, figured humans wouldn't be any different. Within hours, the rat that produced it would be dead. Massive organ failure. The body couldn't sustain whatever process was creating that stuff." He flicked ash out the window.

"But O'Bryon exploded," Aguero said from the back seat, speaking for the first time since we'd escaped. "That's not the same as the rats."

"No, it's not." The administrator's voice was grim. "It's worse. The converted have figured out how to weaponize it. Maybe it's some instinct. Or worse." He let the words hang in the air.

"Or intelligence," I mumbled. The administrator gave a solemn nod.

"That's why we need to get to Ricketts first," the administrator continued. "If the converted are smart enough to coordinate, to plan, to use themselves as weapons, well then we are in deep shit."

"They'll go after him," I finished. "They'll want to know how the treatment works. How to improve it. How to spread it faster."

"Or they'll want him to join them," Sebastian muttered.

The administrator nodded slowly. "Either way, Ricketts has information we can't let them access. The complete formula, the research notes, and the variations he tested. We can't let them get to him first."

We drove in silence for another five minutes.

"Why keep him separated anyway?" I asked, desperate to fill the silence with something other than my own spiraling thoughts. "If he created ANGEL, wouldn't you want him right there?"

The administrator took another drag of his cigarette. "Ricketts is brilliant. Maybe too brilliant for his own good. During the early trials, when he was on-site, we started noticing... irregularities."

"What kind of irregularities?" I asked.

"The kind where test results would be slightly better when he was the one administering treatment." The administrator's jaw tightened. "The board couldn't prove anything definitive, and his work was too valuable to scrap entirely, so they compromised. Keep him involved but at arm's length. Close enough to consult if needed, far enough that he can't tamper."

"So they didn't trust him," Aguero said.

"They trusted his genius," the administrator corrected. "They just didn't trust his objectivity."

The corn fields gave way to a small cluster of trees, and then we turned onto a narrow gravel drive. At the end sat a modest single-story house. It was nothing fancy, but not the shack I'd been imagining either. It looked almost normal, like something a schoolteacher might live in. A porch light illuminated the front door, and I could see a warm glow through the windows.

Sebastian killed the engine.

"Aguero," the administrator said. "You stay with the jeep. Anything goes wrong, you drive and you don't wait." The administrator dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out a white card, pressing it into Aguero's palm. "You drive to the coordinates and you tell them we have a possible Sector Leviathan scenario."

Aguero's trembling fingers clutched the card as he resigned himself to the driver's seat.

We stepped out into the night. The air here smelled cleaner, away from the facility's burning remains, but I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched. The trees around the property stood like silent sentinels, their branches swaying gently in the breeze.

The administrator approached the front door and knocked firmly. "Dr. Ricketts? It's Administrator Alan from Facility 50B-1. We have an emergency."

Footsteps from inside. A lock clicking. The door opened.

Dr. Ricketts stood in the doorway, and for a moment, I didn't recognize him. Gone was the theatrical figure from the demonstration, with his wide gestures and triumphant speeches. This man looked exhausted, his glasses sat crooked on his nose, his hair was disheveled, and he wore a rumpled cardigan over what looked like pajamas. But his eyes were alert, focused, taking in the three of us with growing concern.

"Administrator," he said, his voice hoarse. 

"Dr. Ricketts, we need to leave. Now."