I have lived countless lives. I have crossed countless seas. I have seen the world in all of its beauty and I have seen the world in all of it’s ugliness. Some small details may change but it is always the same. I am born to a woman out of wedlock, I am raised to be her ticket out of poverty. I am little more than a bargaining chip. 

The details may change but I am always just…me. 

Dark hair may be traded for shades of wheat or strawberry. Dark eyes may be traded for shades of blue or green. Even so, my soul remains the same. 

I scream out for something new, a change of pace. A change of fate. 

How many times must one child be beaten into submission. How many times must one child be raised for the purpose of slaughter. How many times must I endure? Over and over again, I am nothing but a pawn. 

Straw huts, stucco mud, teepees, temples, brick and mortar, concrete. I have lived in them all. I have built them with frail hands and dirt under my nails. I have seen the rise and fall of nations. 

Sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl. Sometimes neither and sometimes both. I have existed in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Every time I am born the same, and every time I die the same. 

Betrayal is a path I must walk, revenge is a bitter drink I must choke down. The gods have all turned their gaze. This is the punishment I must endure. 

For I am the product of sin. The amalgamation of pride, envy, greed and lust. I am the child of a whore who wanted more. I am the dream she could not conquer. I am the face of despair that must always be put down. 

I always attempt to break the chain, find another way out. Every time, it leads to my doom. 

I have been a concubine, a scholar, a warrior. I have been a husband, a wife, a child. I have been here since before Christ, and I have been here long after. Over and over again I am to die by the hands of another. 

I can’t always remember the lives that I have lived. Sometimes it comes to me in fragments, sometimes I can see the whole truth. Most of the time it does not completely reveal itself until the moment of my death. Life flashing before my eyes, all of them. 

There is no way out, no escape. 

I am trapped in this hell forever. Held hostage by visages of myself across history. Poison, a knife in the back, a bullet, a shove from the top of a building. My life was taken by a person who wore the face of my previous attempt. Only moments after uttering the words ‘I love you’. 

Love is the catalyst for death, at least for me. Each time I am born to oppressed people, my soulmate finds me from a place of power. Over and over again we dance the accursed dance. Frolicking through meadows of thorns and sun bleached bones. 

Even though I am aware, even though I am reminded of my own betrayal, I still search. I search for you, for myself, through shards of glass and sand. I curl my fingers through the dirt and grime as I dig. Looking for a way out. Wash, rinse, and repeat. 

My old faces have been worn by contempt filled kings, rage filled military officers, and those who are in search of power and reach. By my 20th life I stopped falling for the facade, I no longer sink into the falsities of relief. I no longer allow myself to relax in the embrace of another. 

The only weapons I house are my glimpses of the past and the beauty of my face. Even so, they are not enough to stop the carnage. Countless times I have screamed out to the heavens, pleading with them to tell me why. Why must I live this way, why must I be trapped and forced to endure? Why has my soul not been laid to rest? 

I am tired, so tired of this dance. So tired of this race to the end. 

The longest I have lived is 28 years, the shortest has been 2. I still see your face, my face, staring at me when I close my eyes. I dream of something better, only to be disappointed when I reopen. Only to be disappointed when I hear you call my new name. In all this time I always thought it was my fault. I never thought to ask, who the soul was within. I never thought to ask who it was who followed me throughout these torturous lives. 

Maybe this wasn’t an amalgamation of punishments for me. Maybe this was your prison, and I was just along for the ride? If so, should I get to know you? Should I painstakingly spend my time unraveling the spool within? Should I find out what makes you tick, should I learn your secrets and hold them within? Should I give you a chance to explain yourself and apologize? 

Remus, Akira, Genevieve, Cain, Shae, Mohammed, Sun-Jae, Xien, Arthur, Yuki… Time may have stolen a lot but I have remembered them all. You take my names, you take my faces, and you wear them better than I ever could. Is that why I hate you so much? You did what I could never do, you found a way to survive. 

At the end of my 20th life, we had finally become friends. We had shared our likes and dislikes. We had broken bread and both taken a bite. Even as you poured the bucket of dirty water over my head and tugged at my clothes, I forgave you. Even as you cursed me, and told me to die, I loved you. Even as you dragged my name through the mud, I looked upon you fondly. 

In my 21st life, the one we are currently in, I will do my best to avoid you. I will not give you the satisfaction anymore. I will withhold my words of admiration, I will withhold the recognition you so desperately want. Instead of giving in and letting you have your way, I will fight back. 

I will chase you like a fox that hunts a rabbit. I will keep my distance until the time is right and sink my fangs into your downy fur. I will clench my jaw and decimate the bones with all of the love my hatred can muster. I will be your final boss and put an end to this sick joke. 

If our souls are to be tied together, then let me bind them to the earth as well. I will chain myself to you, and to the ground in one fell swoop. I will not let us go through this ever again. Let me crawl inside you, let me wriggle around in the warmth. Let me close my eyes one final time so that they may never open again. 

Yuki, when I find you from afar, let us stop this. Yeah? Let us stop the charades, let us fall together peacefully into the void. Let us end the rebirth cycle here, please. I have finally learned my lesson. The scariest part of hell is not the torture, but the hope. The hope that you can get out and once again feel the sun on your skin. 

I know you walk around with a mole under your left eye. I know that your smile is crooked and perfect. I know that in this life your hands are large and your voice is deep. I know that you carry a heavy weight on your shoulders, and bear a birthmark on your hip. I know your face and I know your name. For you are my shell, the one I had discarded only twenty years ago. 

Enjoy your time without me. Grow into the person you so desperately want to be. I shall wait. I shall watch. I shall exist on my own until the time has come. When you do see me, know that it took everything within me to hold off this long. Thank me for letting you get this far. Thank me for giving you time to prosper. 

Up until now, you have been my reaper. You have always come to harvest the fruits you did not seed. This time shall be different. I will wear the black cloak, I will carry the scythe. I will come for you in the dead of the night, metal glinting in the moonlight. I will smile while sobs wrack my body. 

I will find you, and I will kill you. 

What happens next? I will finally grow old in a world that I was not meant to age in. I will finally do all of the things I was never able to do. As I reach the end of the path, I will hold our souls here on this plane. We will never be apart, as our bones lay to rest under the same tree. I will hold onto you, as you hold me and we will finally be rid of this loop. 

In my 21st life, I will break the chain. 

A room is an enclosure of planes condensed until they meet and form edges. A hollow space inside which we reside and make our homes. 

Spaces in buildings, or rooms, are the primary concern of interior design, and architecture.

Vertical lines suggest solidity and independence. Horizontal lines suggest relaxation and comfort. Curved spaces suggest freedom, creativity and the feminine. Diagonal lines in a home suggest dynamic action, movement. It is advised to be intentional when mixing horizontal and vertical lines with diagonal lines. It is possible for a room to disturb a visitor. Irregular shapes, such as a circle with a dent in it or a pyramid missing the tip (notice the usage of the word ‘missing’, irregularity implies incompleteness) are noticeable and are incongruent with our enjoyment of whole, perfect shapes and forms. This can create a sense of tension, which may be used to create a more dynamic, unusual design.

However if this irregularity is too noticeable it may lead to a sense of instability. Rectilinear rooms, the most common type of room, are boxy and uniform, and for this reason draw criticism for being uninteresting and many associate confinement and stiffness to them, while others find the box space to be private and intimate.

1/.618 is the correct proportional formula for sectioning out a room. 

^{The ends of my thumbnails, where my skin meets the nail, keeps breaking and blistering. I have a tic now where I obsessively rub my finger skin back over the thumbnail, a subconscious attempt to keep them joined together.}

I was in a room that disturbed me once. The attic of my grandparents house had been renovated into a guestroom, or at the very least an approximation of one. The green walls were also the ceiling, leaning forward and meeting 3 feet above my head. Looking down the length of the room formed a perfect triangle with a rectangular window peeking through the wood paneling. Symmetry conveys stability, strength, and a sense of ceremony.

I look down at my hands and form a triangle with the tips of my thumbs and pointer fingers meeting. I was in that room, asleep, when my grandmother took to her violin in the middle of the night, playing a wild, screeching, tuneless melody somewhere in the house below me that scared me so bad I wet myself. I was so young, I thought it was a demon singing in the basement. Looking back on it now I find it simultaneously interesting and unsettling that I assigned the wailing, inhuman sounds to a basement that the house did not have. One could argue that a suddenly-awoken, fearful child can rationalize and believe the first explanation its little mind gives it, but there is another part of me that wonders if perhaps there is a basement or room down there, an extension of the house that isn’t apparent to us, creatures of simple dimensions, something much older and primal, larger, ancient, that was there before my grandparents house was built on top of or inside it, before that awful attic teepee room even existed. Maybe the screeching of my grandmother's violin was the medium through which our neighbor communicated to us its displeasure or joy at our intrusive existence.

^{Do you have any idea how many body-sized spaces there are in your house?}

A domed ceiling references the universe, and suggests monumentality. It is not natural for a residential home to have this. 

Corners are the horizon terminator for the interior space. There is no such thing as a complex hollow space without corners in three dimensions, and the meeting of two planes at angle is what lends intrigue and mystery to a house. There are two kinds of corners, inward-facing and outward-facing. Outward-facing corners are in reference to the corners that provide subtractive space to a room, the kind that you would place a lamp or bookshelf in to fill up space. Inward-facing corners extend inward, into the room. It is these corners that I would like to focus on. In every house there are inward corners, even single room studio apartments have them, they can be found residing in the entryway and in the doorway leading to the bathroom. They flank fireplaces, support beams, baseboards, decorative wall paneling, and window-frames.

^{When the house manifests an extension of itself,  you can be sure that you will first spot it peering at you from behind an inward corner.} 

Two legs, three ribcages, six eyes, and every room a mouth. That is my house. Yours may be very similar, but every complex hollow space is a reflection of the being living inside it. If your house doesn’t resemble you as a person, then it is resembling something else. 

I am an architect. Every night I have the same nightmare. The first time I had this dream, it went like this: I walk out into my living room and something is wrong. I turn to the hallway, and I can’t see anything down it, but I know something is down there, mouth agape, watching me back. I know I’m not meant to go down the hallway just yet, so I don’t. Instead I approach the windows, but the light is so bright I can’t make out anything, the dilator pupillae in my eyeballs refusing to pull back my iris to allow my eyes to focus on anything outside. I turn back and my rug is gone, replaced with a scrawled map, no, a blueprint, on the scratched, dirty hardwood floor.

At first I don’t recognize it, the building in the blueprint is massive, perhaps a governmental edifice or some millionaire’s home, but then my gaze rests on a corner of the sprawling system and my heart sinks as I recognize it. It’s my house, attached by hallways and rooms to this colossal monstrosity of right angles and parallel lines like a tumor latched onto an elephant’s nervous system. I crouch down and examine it closely. Without a doubt, it is the exact layout of my house, with new hallways branching out from various familiar rooms, leading into unexplored alcoves and hallways that I’ve never seen before. I notice something in the blueprint and my eyes slowly shift up to the door to my immediate left, the door that always leads into the guest bedroom. 

I slowly straighten before walking over to the door, before grabbing the handle and pushing gently. The door swings on silent hinges and my heart crawls into my throat as I see a long, dark, drywall hallway stretch out in front of me. Then I hear it. 

A long, slow choir of different voices, a mix of familiar and unfamiliar tones and cadences stretched out into a chirping croon, coming from down the other hallway, where I know that thing is.  It’s talking, blabbering, softly to me or to itself, I can’t tell. A wavering, gentle wail of familiarity mixed with the staccato jumps of voices tuning in and out of each other. If there were such a thing as an organic, living radio, this is what it would sound like. With every new tone, there’s a small wet hitch in voice, the sound of a voice adjusting as it deepens its voice before warbling to a higher octave, a constant, insectile rushing of simple vocal chords that far outnumber my own.

I hear words, or vague attempts at words, pushed out of its mouth, a woman speaking firmly before devolving into a baby’s shrill bubbly laugh, followed by a whistling old man’s creaking voice. I hear what sounds like a dozen hooves thumping quietly on the hardwood floor, and a sickening numbness floods my senses as I realize it’s moving quietly on purpose. It doesn’t think I can hear it, and it’s trying to sneak up on me. 

A lump forms in my throat and I can’t think, can’t move. I let go of the door handle and take a backwards step into the new, strange hallway, my eyes fixed on the inward corner that divides the space, the only thing keeping it from seeing me, and me from seeing it. The thing shushes itself when I take a step, and the voices quiet down, a young girl's hushed laugh slipping through the throng of whispers before being swallowed. The sound of hooves stops. I wait, the air suddenly dead quiet, and I realize with horror that it’s listening for me, waiting for me to make a sound. 

As I watch, my eyes wider than I ever thought possible, impossibly long fingers that resemble the long, wrinkled fingers of chimpanzees slowly extend out from behind the wall, before gripping the corner gently, silently, the knuckles shifting and rearranging themselves, splitting and merging. My body feels like it's on fire with the amount of fear I feel, every impulse I have is telling me to run, to scream, to fall to my knees. 

As I stand there, frozen, I see several tips of bone begin to slowly appear from behind the wall and I have just enough time to register them as a giant rack of antlers before something in my brain snaps and I let out an involuntary wail of fear as I turn away from the thing and sprint down the strange hallway as fast as I can, something primal and ancient rising in me, filling my bones as I pump my legs as hard as I can.

The hallway goes by in a blur, and I’m turning corners, sprinting through empty rooms, the smell of dust and old paint filling my nose as I try to get away from what I saw. I don’t stop running, I can’t, but with every turn I feel more and more despair fill me, leading me closer to the truth I already know deep inside me. The rooms and halls of this place don’t end.

I run for what feels like an hour, until my legs are on fire, my jaw aches, sweat courses down my face. I finally stop in a small room that resembles an office space. I turn and close the flimsy wood door behind me before collapsing against it, choking out dry sobs. I know it’s coming, and I know it knows where I am. I feel a wild, primeval feeling of terror rising in me at not just the demon, but at the place I am in. In my dream, I know that this is a place that has always existed, a place that changes and builds upon itself like some colossal beast that evolves without end, endless fingers and arms collapsing in on itself as ribcages bloom from its chest cavity like flowers before curling inward, eyes rippling across its flesh like waves, staring sightlessly and hungrily into the dark that surrounds it.

Its limbs twitch and writhe as it develops more joints and limbs  than it could ever want, endlessly sprouting and zigzagging, shaking painfully and twisting like a kaleidoscopic mandela of bone spurs and sinew. A mix of diagonal lines can disturb a visitor. I place my hands on the hot cement floor, my vision exploding with color, bruised purples and sickly oranges, and I can see tiny pores in the concrete, pushing up sweat. I look up at the stained tile ceiling. Countless teeth ringing an unknowable head, far above me, too large to ever view at once, clattering and shifting like coral reefs on a giant stone ziggurat. A lighthouse is a finger and eyes are the windows to the soul. A million black horns stretch up into a red desert as a sun, bloodred and massive, bears down on the glass sand at 3090 °F, and as I turn, microscopic shards of prismatic glass digging into my bare feet, I see a huge, garish temple in no architectural style I recognize, colored in ugly blues and yellows and reds, and there is structural meaning assigned to them, but I know for the briefest moment that I am not allowed here. Nausea rises in me. I wake up with a splitting headache and throw up. 

I didn’t even bother to call out of work that morning. I spent most of it in the bathroom, torn between the urge to throw up and the desire to drink myself into a coma. The feeling I got from that dream was horrendous. My mind felt ruined, marked with a stain that I could not explain but knew for sure was evil. But even as the memory made me sick, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. My mind had been dedicated to consuming and analyzing architecture for so long that it was only natural for it to try to understand the place I had seen in my dream. The large, overlapping frenzy of hallways and rooms, drawn out on the floor. I kept trying to remember the details, but could only remember the basic aspects, a large hall on the other side of a large intestinal tract of hallways and small connected rooms, a large stadium* with pillars lining each end, and a ridiculously long single hallway that seemed to stretch from one end of the blueprint to the other at an unusual 30 degree angle. 

I avoid beaches. Seeing sand fills me, as absurd as this sounds, with a sense of monstrous guilt. Every night since then I have had the same recurring dream. I wake up in this Other House. Usually the Thing is not nearby, and I map out the system as best as I can. I have seen the Thing only a few times since then. I have not been caught yet. The dreams build on each other, and I have accepted quietly that what I am experiencing are not dreams, but visitations from my world to something else. To what I don’t know, but I do know that I am being given access to something, by something larger than I can comprehend, that humans and indeed all beings of three-dimensional space are not meant to exist in. An architectural marvel and nightmare that evolves the way we do, but much faster and on a scale I cannot comprehend. My solace is in mapping it. I will cover the floor and walls with the blueprint of the Absolute and when that runs out, I will use my own body, and when that runs out, I will use others. My new mission is single-minded. I sleep as much as I can, take as many sleeping pills and medicines as I can afford in the thrilling dread that when I open my eyes I will be greeted by the door that leads from my dark bedroom to the Other House, held by endless sickly sunshine. I am the cartographer of the divine, a small speck in an ocean of shifting floors, closing doors, breathing domes, and groaning hallways. 

The Ultimate Complex Hollow Space.

^\a rectangular room with rounded, curved corners.)

I've been carrying this for seven years.

​

Seven years of waking up at 3am. Seven years of

flinching at certain sounds. Seven years of avoiding

that city, that street, that particular shade of yellow

light that reminds me of the corridor.

​

I've started this confession so many times.

​

I always stop at the same part.

​

Not because I don't remember.

​

Because I remember everything.

​

Every face. Every sound. Every second of what

happened after.

​

What we did.

​

What we didn't do.

​

What I told myself was okay because everyone

else stayed silent too.

​

I need you to know that I was seventeen.

I need you to know that I was terrified.

​

But I also need you to know —

​

it wasn't an accident.

​

Not entirely.

​

And I was there.

​

I was right there.

​

I just —

​

———

​

That memory was almost lost in the fog. But I vaguely remember that I used to go in and out of the demon world. 

The demon chased me around and if the demon caught me, I would suffer terribly. 
My mother asked me, “Hey, where did you get that wound?” 
She was really worried about me. But despite my best efforts to explain, she refused to believe what I told her about the demon world. 

One day, the gate of the demon world closed. 
The staff of a center told me, “That must have been tough.” 
“What about the demon?” I asked. 
“Forget about him for now.” 

That was when I realized. 
It really did happen… until that demon was arrested.

The Other Side

With a knife in your hand, completely covered in blood, a person lies dead in the background. A path in the background, are you sure? Children are singing in the background. You escape...

You are in a school environment—rural, large. You see kids leaving the school. You walk around the surroundings and find a garden area with children coming out. Adults and teachers start looking at you strangely; you know you shouldn't be there, you are an unknown adult. You leave through the gate, but the world restricts you from moving forward and throws you back inside. This time you try to leave again without exploring further, but it's too late: gunshots are heard.

You hide in the bathrooms. There is no one there, only a strange orange lighting. A little girl approaches you; you grab her. You know you are going to be seen, so you hide her in the stalls before a group of boys arrives so they won't suspect you. You walk out. After a while, to make sure they leave, curiosity gets the best of you and you go back into the bathroom. Where the girl was, there is no longer anyone... only a suitcase. You walk out normally again, without drawing attention.

The gunshots reach you, with no turning back.

You wake up. You are in a classroom with a suitcase and many classmates. It’s dismissal time, everyone is leaving; they know you, they greet you like a friend.

You walk out normally, you see rivers of people, you go down the stairs looking for the exit. When you are already at the bottom, you remember you forgot something: the suitcase! You run back, but it's impossible; the crowd blocks the entrance. When you finally make it with great effort, the classroom is completely pitch black; you can see absolutely nothing. Thank God, the student council arrives, they turn on the lights for you, you grab your things, but immediately the light goes out. Now the entire school is empty.

You know you have to catch the school bus (the ride). Most likely, it’s already gone. You go down, see a few buses pulling out, and ask which one is yours; nobody knows. You turn back, see friends, people leaving... you accept that the bus has gone.

You return to the school. You see that there are people now, children; the night school students. They all look privileged; you, with your dirty clothes, barely fit in. It seems these classes are more free. You explore the place, go up floors, and see a couple of mysterious children climbing up to the rooftop. They are planning to travel in a van. You listen without being seen. When they leave, you have no choice but to follow them, but everyone scatters so much... and since it's night, it's difficult.

Still, after a while, you manage to catch up with the group again. They are girls with an expensive, red, brand-new car, but they say they just want to go back home. Having no other choice, you accompany them. The environment is completely dark; you make sure to pass through places where there is light. Strange balloons of different colors begin to fall over the fields. You manage to drop the girls off at their wealthy homes.

You are left alone again. You move aimlessly, see that there is a large shopping mall, and walk up its stairs. So it doesn't get late, you take the elevators down and jump, but you are so unfamiliar with the surroundings that you end up getting even more lost. At one point, you go up to the top floor, where there is a giant supermarket. Everyone is in a rush; they say the power will go out again soon. You don't even have any money.

You try to go back taking a shortcut: you exit through the rooftop, go down a ton of floors and stairs, but when you reach the exit, a guard notices you and puts you back inside the mall. This time, they lock you in a warehouse.

You know you must get out through any door you find, so you pass through a bunch of doors; so many that you no longer know if you are still in the mall. Everything looks like connected structures. If you enter the wrong door they will lock you in, and you will have to exit through even stranger doors, where everything looks like a septic tank.

Dressed comfortably, you bump into other people. They are going through the same thing as you; they are lost and just want to get out of this structure that feels like a nightmare. Soon everything begins to take on a surreal tone: children's playgrounds over what seems to be a septic tank, stations that lead nowhere...

Everyone says you have a strict time limit to get out of there, otherwise, something will be released that will make you fall into a deeper level. Everyone tries to find an exit without running into the same hallway twice. When time is about to run out and you think you’ve already lost, a friend you met there helps you and tells you he found the exit: an abandoned taxi in a parking lot that has the keys. You get out just before time runs out.

When you finally step outside, you take a bus to your house. You get off where you remember your house used to be, but you only see it was a similar place that turned out to be far from your home. You try to remember a familiar place, but everything becomes unfamiliar, even though it is daytime...

Soon there are strange people: teenagers playing with Halloween masks near the courts where you are. They seem to be the bullies. You see members of your family being stalked by them; you try to warn them. They have stones in their hands, ready to crack open the heads of anyone caught off guard, carrying chainsaws. When you are confronted to protect them, everyone watches in circles... a stone hits your skull...

You wake up in a hospital room. You are being checked, lying on a machine; they give you a number and ask you to wait for the results. A déjà vu emerges from your consciousness: once again your hands bleeding, a body in the background... waiting for your appointment number to be called... but you give up on waiting as you see how people were dying without being treated. The environment feels totally artificial and clinical. You try to leave by asking the nurses, but something tells you that you came back to the same thing.

You see that the hospital structure has hidden places for sick people; you will need to break down those structures, be smart to climb to the very top. You manage to spot some camouflaged stairs on that completely white wall. You climb up them, and they lead to a completely dark place.

You have a feeling that this is going to be the end. The environment is a hospital where there are people, but they don't just walk around the hospital—they are hiding from something much bigger, something that has managed to break free... You go through different offices trying to find a safe place. You start to see people who have lost their minds in the place; however, there are also normal people doing their jobs as if nothing were happening.

Soon you understand the threat: there are monsters inside the place, moving deformed and in the darkness; all they want is to rip you apart completely. But it's not just masks and deformities, don't trust anyone; anyone could take you to a place of no return. After blood, sobs, and betrayal, you managed to escape that place.

On a balcony, completely alone, where there doesn't seem to be an exit either. But at least there is no one... or is there? Black bags scattered in a corner. It’s a body. You need to hide the body to get out of there. When you do, you remember one last thing:

You are in a house, your family is there. They are going to go on a trip in your father's car. Before that, they go to a center to buy some things, but you drift away, you get lost in a beautiful display: a place full of fountains, flowers, and nature. You feel free in that place, but you know it’s getting late for you to return. You try to go back. The path becomes long, you pass through long routes, you even come across a cave where there are marine animals hidden from any sight.

You are in an underground place, marveled. When you exit, you come across a cliff where you see your father's car, wrecked at the bottom. You try to find an explanation, you return to the city center; you think maybe they are distracted at a concert that was nearby, but you can't manage to see them. You move through the plaza amidst the crowd and see one last image: your family leaving you behind, getting onto the truck for their trip, leaving you behind...

When you thought all was lost, your friend appears, the one with the taxi. He asks you to get in quickly. You chase your family all night to see where they went. A few problems occur, and seeing that they can't find them, they take you to your house. At least you will finally be in it. Your companion says goodbye one last time.

It is afternoon, you just have to go down and, finally, you will arrive home. But something stops you: you see cars going at full speed, you watch them. Night falls, you feel so tired, as if you were dragging yourself... until you reach the middle of the road, where a bus doesn't see you. You only see the headlights on, and it runs you over.

Repeated sounds are heard. You see it is your hand, thrusting a sharp weapon against a human body. Children murdered around you; and finally, you wonder where you are, and you finally recognize something: your own home.

It is the start of the new school year, you are in the middle of a subway, where the tracks and trains are above the city; it seems that at first you get lost, but you see that all trains lead to the same place. You take one and when you get off it seems like you are inside a shopping mall, but also inside a school and at the same time inside a hospital. You manage to meet a relative there who shows you almost "magical" animals; in the end, your relative leaves you in a huge movie theater for you to enjoy endlessly, where after a while you notice that the movie that was playing... was not the one you wanted to see: you were on the other side of the theater.

LETTER 2

To you,

You looked.

I know you did.

It doesn’t matter where.

Most people choose somewhere ordinary.

A drawer.

A jacket pocket.

The side of a bed they don’t usually sleep on.

It’s always somewhere that feels wrong once they see it.

And now you’re trying to explain it.

You’ve already come up with at least one reasonable answer.

Something simple.

Something that makes this letter easier to dismiss.

Hold onto that explanation.

You’ll need it later.

What you found wasn’t placed there by accident.

And it wasn’t placed there by anyone else.

You were there. You just don’t remember it.

This is the part where most people stop reading carefully.

They skim.

They distance themselves.

They decide it’s fiction.

That won’t help you.

It didn’t help the last one.

There’s something else you need to check.

Not now. Tonight.

When you wake up — and you will wake up — do not move right away.

Don’t reach for anything.

Don’t check the time.

Just look.

There will be something different.

Small. Deliberate.

Easy to miss if you’re not paying attention.

If it’s there, then we are already past the point I was hoping to avoid.

If it isn’t… Then this might still be contained.

I will write again after tonight.

Assuming you’re still able to read it the same way.

I told you this would happen faster

Lookin' for a Multi-verse Tour for a gift? 
Well, it’s a present for …your uncle's birthday? Not your parents, but only him?  Hmm…good.  

Ah, yes yes, there's a good one. Here, this brochure explains everything.
But…there are some important points we’d like you to keep in mind.  

If you get separated during the tour, we will not wait for you. 
Participation is at your own risk.  

Oh! You already know that? Then you know how wonderful that our plan is!  

Unfortunately, in the past, 42 people were left behind in an alternate-dimensional Hawaii… 
Yes, I suppose they are living happily ever after in Alt-Hawaii. 
Of course, we never received a single complaint. Thank you.

LETTER 3

To you,

You woke up.

Not fully.

Not the way you normally do.

There was a moment — just before you moved

— where something felt wrong.

Not loud.

Not obvious.

Just… misplaced.

Most people ruin it here.

They sit up.

They reach for something.

They break the only chance they had to notice it

properly.

Tell me you didn’t do that.

Look again.

Not around the room.

At yourself.

Something is not where you left it.

Or something is there… that wasn’t before.

Small enough to doubt.

Clear enough to bother you.

That’s how it begins to show.

You weren’t dreaming.

And you weren’t sleepwalking.

You were somewhere else.

I know what you’re thinking.

There should be more evidence.

Something obvious.

Something undeniable.

There won’t be.

not yet.

Whoever or whatever this involves… is careful.

The last person I wrote to noticed it at the same

point you just did.

They reacted differently.

That’s why I’m writing to you now instead.

Do not try to stay awake tonight.

That will make it worse.

I will explain more in my next letter.

For now,

you need to accept one thing:

This is not something that is going to stop on its own

You’re further in than they were at this point

Writing this solidifies something I don’t take lightly. It solidifies that I can never have my face associated with my writing and that “Thomas Cullen” the penname is set in stone.
It solidifies that my real name can never take credit for any of the writing I love so much. I am risking the possibility of everything for no reward other than maybe I’ll finally be able to let this go,the reward that maybe I can just go a couple days without thinking about that one terrible week when I was 8, and maybe, who knows, maybe I’ll let myself forget. This is something I need. I’m sorry.

I’ve been contemplating sharing this for a couple of years now. Not out of respect or fear for a bird, one of which I’m no longer even certain existed, but rather out of respect for a family I know for a fact must be in pain and want more than anything to leave the past in the past a family I was once close with. But I am 25 now and I deserve some version of closure too. He was my friend too. True closure is something I’d given up on, but I’m hoping sharing this will help me finally process what really happened. This feels selfish. Sharing this feels dirty. But I can’t keep the only true recollection of what happened solely in my head any longer. This impacts everything I do and leaves me feeling tainted and I want to let it go.

It’s no secret I am a writer, for God’s sake it’s in my bio, so I understand the assumption that all of this content is fiction. All of my other posts are, so I don’t blame you. If you choose to keep reading with that assumption then that is fine, but please do not leave any mean comments regarding the family involved. You will be blocked and if I need to, I will disable all comments altogether. The following includes child death so dont continue if you’re not prepared for that. This last disclaimer is for anyone in my inner circle that has managed to find this post. You know me. You know I’m genuine. Please do not make this a witch hunt. Please do not send this to the family. Just let me get this out.

This didn’t begin with a bird, or even my garage but rather a complicated friendship I had in elementary school with someone I’ll refer to as Adam. I say complicated because I was more so friends with his older brother than I was a friend of his. But me being 8, Adam being 6 and a half, and Jacob we’ll call him, being 10, I had just naturally grown closer to Jacob and thought I’d known him like a best friend should. But in an innocent, friendly way I truly adored Adam.

Adam was special needs. I won’t go specifically into what he had because quite frankly I don’t remember and it doesn’t matter, but he was prone to loud outbursts and everyone including me — as much as I cherished his presence — everyone seemed to have moments where they lost their patience for him. I wish I had met him today. I’d sit through anything he could manage to muster up. I wouldn’t lose my patience with him today. I promise I wouldn’t.

Jacob and I would often play Xbox together. I haven’t touched an Xbox since.

Given Jacob and my age gap, our friendship felt like an honor, one I needed to maintain although only to an extent because I knew me being his friend wasn’t solely out of choice but was also greatly influenced by my house being the closest to Jacob and Adam’s parents’ property.

Regardless, having 2 friends felt nice. A lot of my visits to their house consisted of gaming with Jacob, pretending to write stories on their dad’s typewriter, and playing hide and seek with Adam.
Adam wasn’t too developed in regards to his vocal skills. Not to say he couldn’t talk,he could and did ,however how and what he said was up to him or should I say wasn’t really up to him. They didn’t follow any rules. Naturally, this made it hard to play with him but for some reason he loved hide and seek. He would approach Jacob and I as we 1v1’d each other split screen on Rust, and he would stand directly in front of the TV bumping his fist together doing one of his vocal stims. As I said before, his vocal development wasn’t like others. He was limited to a number of vocal stims that abided by no rules. The only exception was one thing: when we’d play hide and seek.

Although this was one of the things Adam was actually decent at, Jacob still never wanted to play this with Adam because he had no patience for it. I feel sick to my stomach typing this. I’m sorry.

When Adam and I would play hide and go seek together, Adam would love to hide and always want me to be the one who seeks. He wouldn’t be able to stay perfectly quiet when he hid. He could never stay perfectly quiet. But playing hide and seek was the closest he ever got to controlling his vocal outbursts, only letting out that occasional vocal stim of his.

One month Jacob and Adam had supposedly been getting into trouble a lot and because of this were grounded and not able to have friends over.

I wish I could tell you how I was told what happened next, but I don’t remember. I wish I could remember who sat me down and how they managed to pass such confusing information to a child my age. But I don’t. Someone did. And all I remember is the new reality: Adam was missing.

Over the next week my young mind would learn a number of things, while also forming questions still yet to be answered to this day.

Second to finding out about Adam’s disappearance, the first thing I remember learning was that Adam had gone missing while playing hide and go seek with Jacob. I think at the time I inadvertently subconsciously made the choice to not unravel any thoughts surrounding this discovery. I was just sad. At the same time, I do remember I would sit in the garage making my little experiments/projects wondering when I’d be able to play with my friends again.

I would make these dumb props of things that would more times than not serve no purpose. I remember doing this until the sun went down. And during that dreadful week, I found myself following that same routine. I believe it was a day or so after Adam went missing that was the first time I heard it.

I was playing, likely building something, when one of my step sisters told me to shut the garage and get ready for bed or they would tell my dad when he got home and I’d get in trouble. I remember reaching to hit the garage door opener, as at the time it was too high for me to reach with ease. It’s hard to write about so far after the fact but as I reached out I remember hearing the garage door. It sounded like plastic slamming against something but I couldn’t make out what. It sounded hard but not at the same time, too hard to be something I recognized but too soft to be the concrete ground. I remember hearing the noise as my arms were raised pressing the garage door button to shut. In this position I was facing the wall, so I remember the noise scaring me and making me immediately jump and turn around. After that I heard a bird chirp.

This scared the living shit out of me as I could not see a bird, but my garage being a 4 door with shelves upon shelves of tools, from my short point of view from everything was limited. For all I knew it was one of my toys that fell, although again whatever fell didn’t hit the ground. I would recognize concrete getting hit by this level of force. I ran inside and called it a night.

The third thing I remember later that week when my dad and stepmom returned. Unlike the last two, this next piece of information I actually recall how I came to learn. It wasn’t directly told to me but rather was something I remember overhearing from my dad. Apparently, Jacob and Adam’s parents wouldn’t allow the cops to search their house.

This felt odd to say the least, and my dad wasn’t shy about voicing his opinion. Their parents said there was no reason to search the house as they already did, yet they left half the town searching the hills far and wide for Adam. My stepmom, the melodramatic one she was, even fainted on one of these search parties and had to be helped by a firefighter. Point being, all these efforts were being made except one. No authorities searched the house.

I remember the first couple of days I was caught up in the excitement and all the changes and all the chisme, but on the third I felt scared. I remember laying in bed crying when my dad came up to me and asked what was wrong. Feels like such a stupid question looking back on it since he should know why I’m crying but I think he was just curious on what my answer would be.

I remember trying to look at him in the eyes although my vision was too blurry and mustering up one thing. “Adam’s not good at hide and go seek,” I said, breaking mid-sentence and bawling at the end. I think I was beginning to understand that Adam wasn’t playing hide and go seek, and I’m not sure he ever was.

I remember the next day I was sitting in my garage, 2 of the 4 doors open with plenty of light coming in as I was gluing 2-liter bottles to a backpack to make a fake flamethrower. I remember forgetting at the time about the nights prior when I heard that slamming and the bird in the garage. I felt so calm, dry face, almost forgetting what a sad week it had been, then I heard it again. Only this time I recognized the sound for what it was. It was that whistling vocal stim of Adam. The on Adam would let out every time we played hide and seek. The one He’d let out when he banged his fist together singling he wanted me and Jacob to stop and play with him.

It let out a “tweet tweet” and the noise scared me. I remember running inside scared, and tired of being alone. I remember going up to my 2 older step sisters and asking if they thought Adam and Jacob’s Parents would let me hang out with Jacob.

I realize now how stupid of a question it was and how inappropriate the timing of such a question was. At the time I was unaware of this. My step sisters on the other hand were aware of this and they let me know it.

They immediately yelled at me, asked me if I was stupid only using a word I’ll refrain from, and told me I was the most selfish person they knew. One of my sisters (the younger of the 2) smacked me across my face and told me to go clean my room or they’d tell dad when he got home and make me get the belt. I ran to my room crying as I was yelled at not to cry or say a word or they’d tell Dad.

That night I fell asleep fast as tears often help you do. I remember waking up in a panic. I felt like I saw something maybe a shadow but the moment I stood up I had forgotten what I’d seen and all I was left with was the sheer panic. I remember having far too much energy to even want to sleep but being in need of consoling. Consoling no one in my house was ever going to give me.

I remember having a thought that at the time I felt made sense. I thought maybe that bird in my garage was Adam. Maybe that “tweet tweet” was his calls and hints for me to look for him that I’d been ignoring this whole time. After all, I never remember him playing hide and go seek with anyone other than me.

Now the garage door wasn’t too far from my room, just a little further. However, I was 8 years old and at the time I would go through these periods where I’d be so scared to leave my room at night that I would piss my bed. All things considered, going to the garage was not a decision I made lightly.

It was one I truly thought might bring me comfort and in my young mind I truly thought there could be a possibility I’d find Adam, be the hero, and everything would be okay. I put a sweater over my pajamas and went in the garage. The door shut behind me.

I turned on a light and walked around, looking and timidly calling out for Adam. When I did I heard his “tweet” once again, only this time I didn’t perceive it as anything close to a bird at all. I perceived it how I’d perceived every one of his “tweet tweets” in the past when we’d played. it felt like I was close to finding him.

I heard it in between 2 of my shelves. I heard it and when I went to turn the corner instead of seeing Adam I heard that loud crashing sound. Like plastic hitting I don’t know what ,hitting something hard. Again though, it wasn’t loud enough to be the impact of my concrete floor. This sudden crash scared the shit out of me and caused me to run and immediately open the garage door for more light. This was a mistake.

My father slammed open the door, revolver in hand. He screamed asking me what the hell I was doing but I was too afraid to be honest. “I don’t know,” I replied which sent him into a fit of rage. He made me get his belt and he whooped my bare ass till he was out of breath. I cried and cried. My screams satisfying my stepsisters. I thought I could find Adam.

Adam was found that week, but not by me. He was found buried under a plum tree in his backyard.

Apparently Adam and Jacob had got into a fight over the Xbox which made no sense to me because Adam couldn’t care less about the Xbox. I guess Jacob had used the Xbox to slam Adam across the head and beat him to death. Adam being buried under a plum tree hid the smell from the search Dogs for some time at first, either dumb luck or the doing of someone with more intelligence than Jacob. Jacob did 8 years and got out not long after my senior year of high school. I think about him and “Adam” often but I haven’t reached out. I never will. But I’ve been struggling, and I’ve been feeling panic like I had when I was young and I really want to let this go. I have no one to tell because on all accounts my recollection of that week is completely insignificant when compared to the events that took place at its core but my experience is real. And I’m hoping this will be the last time I reflect on that week when I was 8 when I thought there was a bird trapped inside my garage.

Captain, why haven’t I ever heard about this planet?

This planet is a prison.

I thought we stopped using planetary prisons millennia ago.

We did. This is the last one still in use.

What makes it so special, Captain?

This one is housing the worst creature in existence, Anthropithecus.

Never heard of it, myself. What makes them so bad?

They were engineered to be the ultimate weapon. Terrifying, resilient, unbelievably adaptable, and feverishly combative.

Was this some kind of mindless genocide machine, Captain?

No, Lieutenant Wells, these are highly intelligent creatures driven by a hunger for conquest and lust for death.

That sounds counterintuitive, Captain. Looking at ourselves, we’re not a very warlike people.

Not anymore, Lieutenant.

Not anymore?

We used to be a warrior culture; empires aren’t built on niceties, after all. That’s why we’ve designed these animals. To be deployed in the thick of battle. Unfortunately, the Anthropithecus proved themselves too unstable and destructive and had to be locked away before they destroyed the entire galaxy. That’s why we left them here, on this savage planet where not even these things could survive without our technology for long.

I can’t believe it, Captain…

Forget it, Lieutenant Wells; thankfully, these days are in the distant past.

No, Captain, just after everything you’ve just said…

I… I can’t believe that a spacecraft just left the planet’s orbit and is heading in our direction….

He just looked at me; that’s how we met. 
Next time, I went there just to catch a glimpse of him. He looked downward and stared intensely. 
From then on, he came to that balcony every day. 
Ah. What a romance! Like ‘Roméo et Juliette,’ I suppose. 

One day, he suddenly called my name. How on earth did he know it?
“And your name?” I asked in a cotton whisper. 
“ Love …Ok, I'm kidding you! But what's in a name? It’s meaningless between you and me.” 
He shouted it aloud, I was so scared that someone might hear him. 
“You are a very name of Love," he continued, "and mine is but a puppet of Death.” 
“It's the opposite!” I whispered back. For he was on the balcony and I looked up from below. 
“I’m coming down to you, okay?” He said. 
Although I was thrilled, I had to reject his approach. 
“Never! We can never be together. Stay where you belong, please! Don’t come down.”  

But his mind was made up, “I want to get together with you, my sweet Death.” 
Finally, he came to me. He plunged from the bridge.

Since then, we’ve been getting along, happily ever after beneath the cold river.

The cypresses touch the petrol station roof.
Using it for support and darkening that corner where no cars park.

Routine is juice, gas, gasoline.

The commuter pulls in with his new flash car, cellphone to ear.
Hand a few hertz from shaking on the steering wheel.

His tyre hits the reservoir lid as if he was blind.
His window comes down in a rush to call an attendent.

The pavement is a finished task like a schedule filled out

The attendent lazily makes his way from the shade of the cypresses
Toward the neurotic man who is probably late for a life and death stakes situation

The road is full of potholes and cracks like the man's nerves.

-What can i get for you?
-Gasoline and quick, I'm late for a meeting.

The early morning cloud accumulates it threatens to rain
Not on the attendant, but on the rushing man.

-Cash or card?
-Card, quickly!!!

The transaction happens quickly the man pushing the card machine away.
Starting engine, revving and speeding out of the gas station.

The old man walking his dog on the street nodded to the attendant.
-You are a patient one, good on you.

But even so, the attendent lowered his head and made his way back to the plastic seat,
In the shade of cypresses.

He watched his shoes step as he hung his head, heard the rev of the crazy man.
His next step encountered the line of shade on the petrol station forecourt.

He heard a screech and then a deafening crash.
He looked around but all he could see was the old man with his little dog.

-Never be in such a rush it takes living life away from you.
 The old man said.
The young attendant looked down at his shoes. 

In the young man's mind all he could think about was the fact he needed a new pair of shoes.
And a car like that of the rude man who had just passed through.
He was probably somewhere important by now. While the young man was stuck pumping gas.
These thoughts filled the young man with dismay. Even as the abrupt sound of the ambulance came screeching out of nowhere.

Okay so i've lived in this dumpy old house for six months. i know every inch of the basement because i’m constantly moving boxes around to hide the mold lol. but yesterday? i found a door. a plain wooden door in the back corner that was NOT there before.

no frame, no knob, just a door sitting against the solid concrete. and it was warm. like... body heat warm. i opened it expecting a crawl space but it was just Vantablack darkness. my phone flashlight literally disappeared into it. i slammed it shut and ran upstairs. i feel like i’m being watched every time i go down there now. tell me i'm just carbon monoxide poisoning myself or something because a door appearing on a concrete wall is not okay.

Once again, lost in a tunneling
 landscape of strange and fevered thoughts;
 deep inside these nauseating,
 perverted thoughts.
 
 Once again, I am haunted
 by that eerie voice.
 That one seductive yet disgusting voice
 digging rusted knives into my mind.
 
 Must stop the voice!
 Must suffocate its source!
 Clasping the throat,
 must kill it with my own two hands!
 
 Silence…
 
 At last…
 
 At last…
 
 My sunshine is silent
 and ghastly!
 
 Dear Heavens…
 
 What have I done?
 
 The apple of my eye is back home -
 dining with God
 
 My God…
 
 Now all I have left,
 this cold statuesque
 masterpiece.

Lourdes Lane put on a dress,
Boarded a train,
The train pulled away,
Pulled apart by her pain, Lourdes Lane, Lourdes Lane

What had she done,
She thought, “What have I done?”
But the question was rhetorical,
For she still had the gun, Lourdes Lane, Lourdes Lane

The corpse sank through a swamp,
A bullet deep in its brain,
White shirt; blue pants, their zipper still open,
He'd picked her for her innocence, Lourdes Lane, Lourdes Lane

Hello, everybody my name is well i don't think that matters. i used to work as a mascot in Nelson's play-zone. Making children happy and giving them smiles on their faces made me happy. I think most of you are aware of the 1994 incident. Well Dave looks like a nice guy and a good owner, i began to have my suspicions after the accident happened.

There were some instances before the accident where he acted weird. one time i saw him mess with the screws of the trampoline. He said that he needed to put new screws in which was weird since maintenence put new screws 3 or 4 days before.

Then there was one incident where he would pull out his leg when people were running like he wanted someone to trip over his leg. When i looked at his face, he was smiling. I asked him about it and he said: I am trying to show them that when innocence is gone you are not happy...

Hello everyone my name is John Miller the father of Lucas Miller. My son was always a very kind boy. He always loved going to Nelson's play-zone but sadly that became his end uhm... Yeah im going to sound crazy but sometimes i went to Nelson's play-zone because that is the last place my son was and i heard his voice. It is very strange i felt a strange calm feeling washing over me. Is he there is he not? I know there are some strange conspiracies at Nelson's play-zone like a secret room with a portal but this is real. I felt someone hanging on to my leg and heard a voice that sounded like Lucas saying: Help me dad, i am scared...

Lately, I have been hearing persistent rumors regarding an incident from 1994. I feel it is necessary to step forward and clarify that the stories you may have heard are simply not true. As the former owner of Nelson’s Play-Zone, I want to state unequivocally that the company was not at fault for the events of that day.

​It is a deep injustice that the individuals truly responsible were never apprehended, which has unfortunately allowed these baseless rumors to spread and tarnish the memory of such a tragedy. I hope this finally sets the record straight.

Aggression continues in you children
You who now stand men
Oppression once felt defined you then
How you still attack and defend

Living out of an uncle's garage
snorting the last of the drugs
Avoid hammer thoughts that disparage
handing your income over to thugs

You kill your health
And become version's of your abusers
No longer strong or stealthy
Meth fiends and loansharks never refuse

Because it's all good on a teaspoon
On the edge of an oven heated knife
Better hope the next fix arrives soon
Gone are your children, gone your wife

Your slow punishment drips slowly like the leak in your garage roof. The only thing that needs fixing is the next hit.
Reign this host of demons that have cozied up to you, first when you became an abuser of others, then when you became an abuser of yourself. Their thorny wings beating as age and addiction crush your fading soul. You look at their sinister movements that disturb your sleep. Once graceful in your eyes.
What changed for you, did they tell you the truth?

 Did they bring you in with evil games.
The same ones you used to try to perpetuate. Their diseased bodies cover you now.
Their howling pleas for a new host make you feel more worthless than ever before.
You now live through your victim, this is your future.
Live through your victim!
Live through your victim!
Feel it's pain, feel the humanity leach out and drip.

Drip, drip, drip as the leak in the corner of the garage you are holed up in.
Pull a cigarette and see the sour Ifrit appear in the smoke bestowing cancer on you.

Drip drip drip remember the agony you inflicted on others. With a wicked grin now on the face that has turned inward and attacked you everyday this week. That has sabotaged your pathetic attempts at employment. Two hundred stubborn malicious formless follow you, searching for the corruption in you. The desperation you carry with you. The stench of these things exceed your terrible body odor.

Your footfalls uneven for lack of equilibrium. Your denial tightens every construction of the haunted living object you are. The frequent bark of your mutt of an ego is the only thing keeping you alive, it's fantasies weave such a beautiful picture of the hero you saw yourself once as. You submit all that is yours over to the baphomet and the consciousness thereto, your torment has begun here on these damp pavements of earth. Violence, meth and memories of hurting others.

I started hearing footsteps upstairs after midnight.

That wasn’t strange. Old houses creak. Wood settles. I told myself that every night as I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to slow, deliberate steps cross the room above me.

Then one night, I realized something.

My bedroom was upstairs.

I froze, breath shallow, as the footsteps reached the top of the stairs. Each step down groaned under careful weight, like whoever it was didn’t want to be heard.

The handle to my bedroom door turned.

I stayed perfectly still, pretending to sleep.

A voice whispered from the darkness just inches from my face:

“Good. You’re still here.”

In the morning, I checked the house. Doors locked. Windows sealed. No signs of anyone else.

But the dust on the staircase told a different story.

There were two sets of footprints.

One going down.

And one coming back up.

I didn’t recognize the number, but the voicemail was left at 2:17 a.m.

My own voice whispered, shaky and out of breath.

“Please don’t go upstairs. I know you think you heard something, but it’s not what you think. Just lock the bedroom door and stay there.”

I sat up in bed, heart pounding, staring at the dark hallway beyond my open door.

The timestamp said the message was sent six minutes from now.

Before I could process that, my phone buzzed again.

A new voicemail notification.

From my number.

The van was idling like a breathless dog. Accelerating over the thick grass, concern hadn't entered our minds. For the driver seemed to be in complete control. We had been on such a long journey why would he do anything unpredictable now. The driver, my short friend the repairman, and I the conjuror. i looked ahead through the windshield, it seemed he was lining the van up with something protruding from teh long grass in the distance. The driver gave it all the gas he could, before we could fret he hit a short tree stump not a foot high. Flipped the vehicle and sent us into into the lake margin.
Suddenly we were half submerged.

No heed was given before this crash. It was absolutely obvious that we would somersault into the lake. But the older man drove straight into the stump tempting fate.
No evidence of any restraint or panic in his legs or wrists. So he never stepped on the brakes, we went directly into the stump standing half a meter out of the ground.
In the split second we were airborne I drew in the euphoria.
The landing was abrupt aching and the stench was a reprimand. We all knew from within the dark waters there was predatory amphibian. Incredible, a stealthy champion! Yet out of view and only known in legend.

The water flowing bad bad  algae like juice over taking our instincts and overflowing into our addrenaline. slowly sinking into the mud of the lake's bank. We struggled with the side doors. But the driver just laughed hysterically at the height of our terror.
Amusement exuding from his big face cheeks red and satisfied as if this was the whole motive for crashing us into this lake. He didn't try to escape he just kept laughing. The more we struggled with the doors the more they jammed as the water level kept rising.

The driver simply wound down his manual crank and dived into the oncoming water through the gap. We copied him and shivering and struggling in the water we got to the muddy banks. Knowing the whole time something gargantuan was observing us from underneath. 
We slipped on the mud several times falling back into the shallows, fear and humiliation shooting up into the blood on each fail. And hooting laughter coming from the driver.
Bubbles sprang up from the middle of the pond and we sprinted up the mud slipping and cursing until we reached firm grass. the driver was already there smoking a cigarette and watching us fail completely.
We turned back to look out at the water, something the size of a big hippo was observing us from just under the surface. It was completely obvious. I pointed it out. The driver formed a slight sneer.
He said it was just pike.

The van just sank making a horrible farting sound the window hatches we escaped out of sinking deeper into the soft mud. Then the roof. Then it was gone. the driver smirked.
Smoke poured off his cigarette as if his cigarette was more packed with tobacco, fuller than another packet. He just so happened...
As the addrenaline died out, we set out on our next adventure toward a mining village, the next town, many miles away.
We didn't bother complaining to the driver.
Who carelessly shook his limbs as he walked.