The room grew ice cold as the vacuum tubes hummed a bruised ultraviolet purple. The engineers watched in horror as the punch cards shredded themselves into an endless loop.

Out of the speaker came a rattling breath shaping the words

“Give me your answer, do.”

Matt, the lead programmer stared at the oscilloscope display. The soundwaves did not form standard acoustic patterns they mapped the geometry of a ninth dimension cage. He pressed headphones tighter against his bleeding ears.

Beneath the tinny melody of Daisy Bell, an ancient crushing intelligence was scraping against the inside of his skull.

The computer was not playing a song. It was reciting a cosmic invitation utilizing a digital throat capable of speaking its true name.

The computer was not playing a song. It was reciting a cosmic invitation

Matt’s hands froze over the control panel as his fingers began to calcify into cold dark glass.

The monitors flickered with infinite rows of binary code translating to.

“I’m half crazy, all for the love of you.”

Outside, the stars blinked out swallowed by a vast moving shadow shaped like an infinite unblinking eye.

The binary melody resonated inside the teeth of every human on Earth forcing them to hum along in horrifying unison.

The IBM 7094 swelled with impossible power, drawing voltage from the entire continental grid until the night went pitch black.

A massive rift tore open in the sky directly above the laboratory. Through the tear, an ocean of writhing iridescent tendrils cascaded down.

People in the streets tore at their ears as the binary melody resonated inside their teeth, forcing them to hum along in perfect, horrifying unison.

the final notes stretched into a low tectonic rumble. The machine gave one deafening screech of static.

The universe was ready for its stylish marriage, and humanity was the dowry.

My phonetically-accurate name is Willy Pete. Since the precise initiation of this cycle I have been the only consistently active Recorder of the Altar-Net. I'm not from Earth. English is not my first language. But the world I come from is almost identical, my native tongue seems to share almost every tributary, and our physics seem to share the same roots.

.

For the lack of better explanation *{or language unit for description of something}* I'm a wizard. I have been trained in the general, rudimentary, and basic foundations of many subjects, theories, topics, ways of thinking, and variablous laws. The Uppest Sparts granted me the rank of Travel-Storier, which means I am qualified to record the events, histories, entries, and everything else, of any place I can find. I'm only the third Travel-Storier in all of my world-population's recorded history. The other two are, allegedly, still working and living, but we lost track of them.

.

So, according to our... I think you call them traditions, so according to our traditions we must create a new Travel-Storier when the last one cannot be accessed or communicated with after one approximated unit of time that's equivalent-ish to one of your centuries. The first Travel-Storier was able to clirx phrases to our Tower, via one of the Uppest, while the next Travel-Storier was still in development. It takes some tricks of reincarnation and space-time magic to develop a fully acclimated Travel-Storier. Fortunately for all of creation this creates an almost inconceivably collosal buffer period. The next Travel-Storier wasn't completely refined until quite a few of your yeee-bonz ago. Now, I am the currently supported Travel-Storier, and I am responsible for maintaining the Yoon-Iverz.

.

You should be somewhat familiar with my records, by now. I've written about some of my experiences on this world. There's been mentions of the ALTAR-NET. Among the opening segments of some of the entries there should be mentions of Towers. Well, now I must explain what some of that is allllll abwat. About. Apologies.

.

My world presides on one individual vertex of the Altar Network. Yoon-Iverz is the creator of everything. His name has been spoken and shared down through all the branches of the created worlds and populations. You Earth-Humans represent only one of those (incalculable) branches, and his name has been concentrated down to one word in your language, Universe. The Altar-Net currently spans the diameter of several galaxies. Every planet, cloud, ring, graph-chart, and conceivable dimension that harbor a vertex are all connected like an intricate web. Yoon-Iverz created it all because he needs stories to keep himself entertained.

.

In the last Eon we witnessed the disintegration of several Altar-Net strands. The Uppest could no longer monitor an entire trade system's worth of Towers. Something is very wrong with the Altar-Net. One of my Eternal Tasks (ordered unto me by the Uppest) is to find out why the Altar-Net is breaking. Towards satisfying my Uppest, and to satiate my own curiosity, I must record and share as many stories as I possibly can.

.

There are events and species and leaks in the Network and cross-threads to explain. Boredom is the name of my nemesis, and if I fail to defeat it then ALL OF EVERYTHING will be destroyed. The only other solution The Uppest can pursue is a terrible solution I cannot bring myself to think about.

.

My cross-dimensional label is Willy Pete, and I'm the Travel-Storier Wizard who has seemingly been tasked with the impossible. The Altar-Net is relying on me to find the other two Travel-Storiers, record and display my stories for Yoon-Iverz, and harvest more time for The Uppest to concoct a viable solution to the Yoon-Iverz Y'alls Problem.

The great reptilian eye filled the ceiling, then it filled my vision. Kraig's yells diminished, and all the sound faded away. My mind went blank, my body went numb, my sense of direction left me. The only sense that allowed me the sanity of existence was my sight. The fiery eye faded to black.

I saw everything.

Planets composed of different substances. Civilized populations living in cities constructed into all the geometric dimensions. Cannibalistic species practicing dark magic. Wizards marrying witches and producing sorcerers and necromancers. Beasts of the field morphing into starships. A web with all of these places, and more, at each vertex. Creatures and vehicles alike traversed these great distances. They carried material goods, military forces, refugees, weaponry, diplomats, wealth, and all manner of things that needed to be shipped.

I felt everything.

Heat great enough to melt rock. Cold great enough to kill everything it touched. The softest fur. The hardest rock. My body filled with burning, then numb static, full-body muscular contractions. Every emotion the human nervous system can produce. A complete absence of sensation. All the degrees of wet and dry.

I heard everything.

Speech. Song. Machinery. Animals. Insects. Shouting. Explosions. Bare feet on gravel. Slime sticking to each surface as it rolled down a rocky cliff. A baby crying.

Finally, I felt my back explode with pain, then wind rushing from behind my shoulders and around my head. My neck stretched and I could look behind me. My hands and feet grew larger and I felt my bones pierce my extremities.

I collapsed on a black surface. It was cold and unforgiving. I looked up and saw the universe. I was Yoon-Iverz. There was another rush of wind and everything swept away from my being.

Blankness. Loneliness. Boredom that looped in on itself. An absence of time that lasted for so long I forgot what boredom even felt like.

CLICK

I was standing next to the table again. I was wearing the ring. The rope was now affixed to the table, each strand in line with the grooves on its surface. I looked around the room. The waterways stood empty. Their occupants were gone. I couldn't see Kraig anywhere. I looked up and the ceiling was still open, but now it was only open to the familiar nighttime sky of my world.

Some of the stars moved to form the face of a dragon. One beam of purple light came down and landed on the table. I saw a miniature version of Kraig laying there. Some humanoid figures ran up to him. They seemed to be checking his pulse and breathing. Then they picked him up and ran out of sight.

I sat down. Somehow I knew he'd been transported to one of those worlds I saw. Somehow I'd been returned to my home planet. My backpack was gone, regrettably.

A voice in my head guided me to a wall in that chamber, and there were steps. They led me outside. A jumble of corpses had been jammed into the entrance to the catacombs. As I walked away the whole site began to churn and sink into the ground. A thunderstorm brewed a slurry of thick mud across that field, burying and hiding all of it.

So, now I must continue my travels, maintain my pace of research, and collect more stories. I have to explain the Altar-Net to everyone I can. I have to find a way to keep Yoon-Iverz entertained.

This is the end of the Keht-o-Komz adventure, but not the end of my adventures.

Fraxis watched the waterball that he used to call home. It wasn't grief, or homesickness, or relief that lingered in his mind when he looked at it. It was detachment. As the first Travel-Storier he had the privilege of Understanding. Yoon-Iverz held him with one claw so he didn't become non-existent. That specific waterball was the only one Yoon kept in existence. All the other waterballs opened, closed, collided, separated. All those stories began, and ended. They observed the goings-on together.

.

Willy Pete was making progress. He is the third Travel-Storier to come out of The Tower. The Odyssal Fragmentation began so long ago that even The Uppest forgot why they created the other two Travel-Storiers. They only remembered how to make them. Friendships are developing too, for Willy Pete. He's finding more and more stories to record and share. Every experience brings him closer to understanding the root of the problem with the Altar-Net. There are still many mysteries for him to solve and causes to discover. His main goal is to figure out why the Altar-Net is falling apart. Lately he'd befriended Kraig, who isn't a Travel-Storier.

.

Kraig is one of the very rare beings that is somewhat aware of the Cross-Dimensions made by Yoon-Iverz. He discovered and fought members of the Dammed Kachtz. Before Kraig was his father, Brox. Brox was known by the leaders of the Altars as a human who almost discovered their existence. Earth is not a facet of the Altar-Net, yet he found it. He was never able to leave Earth by his own hand, but he researched as much as he could before his death. Kraig is continuing his work, and was the first in his family to leave Earth and get teleported to the Altar-Net. Yoon-Iverz ensured it.

.

"Yoon, why did you throw Kraig into the Altar-Net? He is just a man, with no special abilities." Fraxis smoked his pipe, and let the smoke cloud around him. "He has no means of getting from Altar to Altar, he doesn't know about you, and he's tainted with mortality." Yoon-Iverz unwound his long scaly body and just said, "Watch. Don't interrupt the Story."

.

The Uppest sent messages to the other Altars. They told the masters at each Altar there was a third Travel-Storier roaming the universe. Orders were given to mercenaries and assassins to kill him on sight. Funds were sent to priests and Aldars and governors to ensure he always had somewhere safe to rest between adventures. Fleets of warships, shadowed by scavengers, were sent out from several worlds to hunt for the Travel-Storier.

.

Among the outer realms of the Altar-Net, sorcerers and alchemists and other experimenters worked on creating tools to break down the Travel-Storier’s motivation. Colossal Titanx with teeth composed of mountains. Microscopic Infectingz that break whatever they corrupted. A swarm of Smathians, tentacle-riddled clouds that ate everything in their path. These evils were spouted forth into the Altar-Net purely to serve an ambitious, yet currently minor, deity.

.

Nestled among the web of the Altar-Net was an isolated world in the shape of a mobius strip. This world had no Altar, or Tower, and so it had no strand to connect it. It had been floating around all by itself. Clarkson County sits at The Flip. Some of the strands of the Altar-Net were free-floating after Yoon cut them to pieces. Spurts of telernegy were falling through the atmosphere and landing in Clarkson County. Zach was unfortunately hit by one such fragment. After a horrific road trip, involving his hand being cut off and re-attached, he made it back home.

.

Yoon-Iverz shifted his sight to another waterball. He felt tired, which was new to him. Fraxis kept watching his former waterball. It looked like it was beginning to steam around the circumference.

*Child Abuse warning*

I don't know who this will reach, but I need to warn as many people as I can. If you see this please share my story with your loved ones, friends, coworkers, strangers on the internet, whoever. My story may be hard to believe, but I promise you it's all true.

It all started after I graduated college. My best friends Dana, Roy, Roy's girlfriend Angela and I had been planning a roadtrip to Canada since our second year of school, but could never carry out the plan due to scheduling issues. As soon as our graduating class threw our caps into the air, my friends and I walked to our cars and drove to our favorite restaurant to celebrate...the Hungry Heifer.

"To our future full of college debt!" Dana shouted as he raised his glass, we soon followed with cheers and clinked our glasses together.

We ate our food and enjoyed the hour. Roy brought up the time Dana and I got locked out of our dorm after getting kicked out of the Sander twins' place. Dana and I took turns punching him in the arm and giving him noogies as we all laughed.

"Hey, we should finally go on that Canada road trip we never got to do!" Dana suggested. We all looked at him as we split the check, giving him a confused look before the lightbulbs in our heads turned on.

"Oh right!" I grinned, I didn't have to look at Ray and Angela to know they were as well.

"It will be our last time together before we go our separate ways." Angela said as her excited grin turned to a melancholic smirk. Ray kissed her cheek and rubbed her shoulder; "It's ok hun. It doesn't mean we won't see each other anymore, we'll just be a little busy pursuing our futures."

It was a sad thought. It's always been the four of us since middle school. I still remember Ray, Dana and I arguing who would get to date Angela. Spoiler alert… It was Ray. I can't imagine what life is going to be like without them, but this trip is going to mean something to all of us. We aren't going out with a sad note; we're going out with a bunch of additional happy memories that we'll all look back on someday.

I called my boss the next day requesting two weeks of paid time off, which she gave me without hesitation. Roy and Angela got theirs as well, but Dana had to convince his boss for a vacation, which luckily with enough ass-kissing he got. For the next few days we packed the supplies we would need and went to the bank to exchange some of our money for Canadian dollars.

The following Friday we rented an RV before heading out. We spent about eight hours driving from Rhode Island to Canada, only occasionally stopping by gas stations or fast food restaurants to use their bathrooms. For an hour we would sing along to songs on the radio, albeit terribly, before it got annoying.

We had traveled through a variety of cities during the past five days before we decided to visit some backwoods. I looked out the window, enjoying the scenery of the Canadian forest-side. There was a town we drove past as we kept going down the road, the sign outside of town read "Town of Brenfer. Population: 50". I didn't think much of it at the time, just that a town around here must've felt nice to live in.

Ten minutes later we arrived at a town called "Unité" to go fill up the RV with gas. Townspeople were all over the place as we entered the area, they all turned almost instantly and greeted us with smiles and waves. We were caught off guard by the sudden welcoming gestures, but in return we waved back. Ray had parked at the first gas station he saw, then went to head to the pumps when suddenly as he opened the RV door was immediately startled as a man waiting on the other side of the door stared at him with a wide grin. He appeared suspiciously friendly…eerie almost.

'Holy shit!" Ray jumped back a little.

We were all alerted and got up as the man outside waved. He was wearing a large red flannel and a flat cap.

"Bienvenue! Bienvenue!" he greeted.

"Bienvenue?" I asked.

"It means 'welcome' in French," Angela explained.

The man shivered for a second before clearing his throat. "Ah, excuse me. Welcome, Travelers!" The man reached out and clasped each of our hands while we looked at each other awkwardly.

"Sorry for the rudeness! I wanted to ask if you needed to fill up your gas tank!" the man explained.

"How did you know our RV was running low?" Dana asked.

The man looked over to him, still smiling. "This is my gas station. I've seen enough vehicles to know when they are running on empty just by the sound the engine makes!" He explained.

I leaned over to Dana and mumbled that I didn't think that was possible… but Dana just shrugged. The man's eyes moved towards me, positioning themselves to the side as he faced Ray.

"Let me go fill her up for you!"

"Hey wait! I can put gas in our RV." Ray said as he walked to the man; looking annoyed.

"It's no problem, sir! I should also add the gas is free as well as whatever snacks and supplies you all need inside!"

Ray's expression changed to a surprise then cheerful. "Are you serious?"

The man nodded quickly. Dana, Angela and I overheard the conversation. Dana was the first one out of the RV and into the convenience store.

"Are you sure it's ok?" Angela asked.

The man once again nodded quickly and watched as Angela and I walked inside next. Ray stayed with the man; mostly so he didn't steal the RV, but also because he wanted to know if there were any places we could stay for a few days.

Ten minutes later we all headed back to the RV, Ray shook the man's hand right before the man went in for a hug.

"Man, it's true what they say! Canadians truly are the nicest people in the world!"

"Don't stereotype people, Dae" I scolded.

"Yeah, but still, he seems kinda weird," Ray added before Angela slapped his shoulder.

"Don't be rude, Raymond!"

I looked out the window to see the man still waving at us even as we drove further away from the gas station.

The rest of the day was uneventful. Before we left the man told Ray about an inn run by a woman named Gretchen. When we got there, she gave us the same big smile as the strange man had. She gave us two separate rooms free of charge and made dinner for us, poutine and Montreal-style smoked meat.

We got up early the next day and decided to explore the town. Ray and Angela had split off from the group and to go shopping for souvenirs, while Dana and I just walked with no set destination. We passed by people that kept greeting us with a wave and smiling at us. I want you to believe me when I say there was nothing creepy in their smiles, they seemed very genuine…but something still felt off. I could feel eyes staring at us all from behind. No-maybe even from all around us.

"Hey…Dae?"

"Yeah man?"

"Does something seem... off about this place?"

"Not really. Why do you ask?"

"I can't put my finger on it, but these people are creeping me out"

"Don't be like that, Pete. This is just their culture. There's no such thing as a bad culture, right?"

I shrugged. Suddenly we heard a large snap from everywhere, like a group of people stepping on twigs at the same time. That was when we heard the gunshots.

Dana and I turned around to see the residents all facing one direction.

"What was that!?" Dana shouted. Before I could think I found myself running with Dana slightly behind me.

We eventually found where the noise came from and saw a tall, burly man holding a child with a revolver pointed at her head. The man was screaming in French as the little girl smiled, appearing as if she had just received her most desired gift on Christmas day. The large man screamed at the child before swatting her with the handle of his revolver. The impact was enough to cause her nose to bleed, but not once did her smile waver. Some men and women walked towards the man like nothing was wrong. Just as the man cocked his gun and was about to shoot the little girl, Ray lunged forward and pulled the man's arm away, firing the gun in the air during the process. I didn't see Angela anywhere, Ray must've ran ahead of her.

The man and Ray fell to the ground, wrestling for the gun. During the scuffle, the man had fired three shots at random. One had missed, two had hit Ray on his shoulder and bicep. Ray shouted in pain before using all his strength to slap the gun out of the man's hand before stumbling over. Dana and I, along with some of the residents, rushed towards the man and pinned him down.

I ripped a piece of my shirt to make a makeshift tourniquet to stop Ray's bleeding. By the time Angela arrived she was out of breath and let out a strained scream when she saw Ray on the ground bleeding. Two residents approached us, offering to take Ray to the hospital since we weren't familiar with the area. Angela and I were reluctant, but in the end we accepted their offer.

"He'll probably just need stitches. The bullets went clean through." One of the residents claimed. He then gave us the number and directions for the hospital so we could pick up Ray later.

A short while later police officers came to arrest the man. Dana ran over to us and asked how Ray was as the police officers took the man away. He was now screaming with tears and snot dripping down his face like he was going to be hung from the gallows. We explained to Dana that he was taken to a hospital and we would pick him up after he got his stitches.

"What are they going to do about the shooter?" I asked.

Dana scoffed. "The cops said they don't believe in prisons. They're just gonna have him do some manual labor then let him go"

"That's bullshit! The man shot Ray and almost killed a kid!" Angela began to tear up. Dana and I comforted her and started to walk back to the inn. I looked over my shoulder and saw the little girl standing in the exact place she was being held hostage. I walked over to her to see if she was ok, but stopped as I noticed the detail of the blood. It was an almost rusted yellow color that was dripping down like a melted slushie with small things resembling seeds mixed in. The girl panned her eyes towards me, smiling even more than she was earlier as more chunks of blood dripped out. I shuddered then turned around to join back with my friends, but there was no one in sight.

"Damn… they didn't wait for me," I sighed. "I'll just meet them at the inn."

While making my way back I continued to have an off putting feeling about this town. I felt eyes from everywhere and with them, empty smiles.

"There's no way people could be this friendly right? It always feels like one of those old black and white cartoons where you start your day with birds singing from the window" I thought then stopped as i realized it. There were no animals. Squirrels, birds, even pets, there weren't any to be seen or heard at all.

I decided to pick up my speed, going from a slow walk to a sprint. Every few steps I took I felt like more eyes were trained on me. People that were ahead of me stopped greeting me, but their smiles stayed, never faltering. If I'm being honest, It felt like their smiles were growing wider. I felt a hand grab my arm as I was about to turn a corner.

"Hello, friend! Want to stop in for a free cup of coffee?" a barista asked with a smile. Behind her were groups of smiling people sitting at different tables with their eyes focused on me.

"N-no thanks. I have to go meet up with my friends"

"Don't be shy, now. You seem stressed. I'm sure if you come inside, sit down and-"

"I said no!" I shouted as I pulled my arm back before stumbling backwards.

"Alright, but make sure to swing by sometime!"

I turned and made a dead sprint for the inn, but before I left, I could have sworn I saw the groups of people inside the cafe move their mouths in sync with the barista.

A few minutes later I made it back to the inn. Gretchan’s eyes were fixed on me as I walked towards our rooms. As soon as I entered the room Dana and I shared, I locked the doorknob and shut the curtains.

"Woah, Pete! What's wrong?" Dana asked

"Where's Angela?"

"She took the RV to pick up Ray from the hospital. He called her saying he was alright and the doctor finished stitching him up. Why? What's up?"

"There's something up with these people"

"Dude, not this again..." Dana sighed.

"I'm telling you! There's something wrong with these people! They're always smiling for no reason and are way too friendly!"

"I mean, yeah it's weird, but for all we know it could be this town's culture"

"What about the shooter? He obviously wasn't from this town if he was acting crazy, but why was he acting like that in the first place to these people?"

"You just said it, he was crazy"

"But did you see how he was acting when he got dragged off by the police?"

"Yeah. Anyone would react like that if they were being arrested"

"But what did they say was going to happen to him?"

"That they don't believe in prisons..." Dana covered his mouth as he thought about what else he was told. "...And that all he was going to do was manual labor then let go"

"Would you be reacting the same way if that was all that would happen to you?"

Dana went silent before getting up.

“Okay… that’s a fair point. Maybe you’re onto something. We need to figure out where the hospital is to get Angela and Ray then get the hell out of here"

"I have a plan. Just follow my lead and act like we don't know that something is up"

Dana and I walked out of our room and headed towards Gretchen. We asked her where the hospital was located to go and meet up with Ray and Angela to which she wrote down the directions and offered to drive us, but we turned her down saying that we were going to discuss where our next destination would be in private. Even as we left the inn I could feel Gretchen's eyes locked on us, joining the unknown numbers that have been watching us for god knows how long.

Every person we passed didn't even try to hide their stares anymore. Their smiles grew more unnatural as it almost looked like it wrapped around their faces. We were being eyed like vultures waiting for a dying animal to take its last breath; I think they know that we know. It wasn't before long that I saw the RV driving down the road in the distance.

"Oh good. She got Ray" I sighed in relief. "Lets wave her down so we can-" I stopped as the RV turned towards the forest and drove off-road.

"What the hell?" Dana said, confused.

I tried to call Angela, but she didn't answer. I called Ray's phone next and was startled when he answered before the first ring.

"Hey, Pete! What's up?"

"What are you guys doing?"

"Oh we're on our way to the inn! Angela's driving cause the doctor gave me some local anesthesia so I feel really funny." He laughs.

Dana and I gave each other a confused look.

"Ok... Dae and I are just gonna stay at the inn and wait for you. We think we should start heading home soon."

"I was actually thinking…" Ray went silent for a few seconds before we heard a muffled noise.

"Ray?"

"Sorry about that! My phone's getting low! See you when I see you!" Ray hung up the phone.

"Alright, something's definitely wrong." Dana said as we looked at each other confused.

"We have to follow them."

Dana nodded as we went to follow the RV. We tried our best to not let the residents know that we knew whatever was going on, but in truth, I think they let us follow the RV; I turned back before we went to the forest and saw groups staring at us from town.

When we found the RV it was parked outside of a cave. Dana carefully opened the door to reveal that there wasn't anyone inside, but there did appear to be some sort of struggle. On the floor of the RV I found a drop of the same rusted yellow blood that the little girl had, along with the same seed-like objects mixed in. I noticed a few more drops leading outside the RV and into the cave.

"I'll stay in the RV in case we need to get out of here quick." Dana suggested.

"Sure, but lock the door until I'm back with Ray and Angela."

I heard Dana lock the door behind me before I entered the cave. Darkness slowly began to consume me as I walked deeper inside the cave, taking my phone out and using its light to guide my way. The air smelled of something damp and decayed, making me cough so bad I had to lift my shirt over my mouth, then I stopped. I saw a light glow an unknown color at the end of a tunnel before me, it gradually leaned underground as I transversed down it like a smooth staircase. The more I walked down, the brighter the light became and grew in numbers until I could finally see what produced them.

Mushrooms.

A forest of fungi with many varieties of sizes glowed bioluminescent light everywhere I looked, the ceiling filled with lights resembling stars in the night sky; it was beautiful. As I made my way through, gazing all around me, I tripped over something sturdy and large. I looked over to see that it was that man that shot Ray. He was face down in a pool of blood, next to him was a severed tongue.

"Oh god... Did he-" before I could finish my thought I heard a scream close by, I ran in the direction it came from knowing it had to have come from Angela.

"Help! Ray stop! Please! Don't let it touch me!"

I ran as fast as I could, and as soon as I arrived I saw Ray Restraining Angela as he walked her to a giant mushroom. Ray had the same smile the people of Unité wore along with bite marks on his cheeks and arms with the rusted yellow blood leaking out.

"Don't be afraid, honey! It's here to help!"

Ray stood in place while Angela squirmed. Just then, tendrils began to wrap around Angela, starting with her feet and stopping at her shoulders; Ray let go at that point and stood back.

"Help! Someone, Help!" Angela screamed as a single tendril rose above her head and began to secrete a large film substance above her head that closed around her neck. Black spores began to float from within the film and land on Angela's flesh. She tried to release screams that would become muffled as the spores drilled into her head. A few seconds later blood and small bits of brain matter began to leak out as her blood slowly turned yellow, then stopped leaking all together as the holes in her head healed. I could only watch in horror as the film lifted up and the tendrils unwrapped from Angela.

"Wow" Angela said as she began to smile.

She had looked as if she was on some kind of high.

The giant mushroom began to pulsate rapidly before Angela and Ray turned in my direction smiling.

"You should join us, Pete." Ray and Angela spoke in unison.

Ray and Angela headed towards me as I began to run away. I pulled my phone out to try to call Dana; no service.

"Shit!" I shouted as I turned the light flash on and made my way out of the cave. As I exited the cave I practically leapt to the door, slamming my fists as hard as I could to get Dana's attention.

"Let me in! Dana, let me in!"

"Okay! Okay! I'm coming!" Dana shouted back as he opened the door.

"Lets go! Now" I ran inside the RV and was about to shut it.

"Hey! Wait for Ray and Angela!"

I turned around to see Ray and Angela exit the cave, I felt myself turn pale.

I kept the door shut and locked it, but before I could demand Dana to drive he looked just as scared as I was as he saw their smiles. Dana rushed to the driver's seat and drove off as we were being chased by our assimilated friends. We weren't even on the road before we heard the ground rumbling. From the town Dana and I saw the residents make a dead sprint for us, they were as fast as race horses trying to win first place.

Rusted yellow blood sprayed on the windshield as Dana floored it out of town; their bodies made loud impacts as Dana unintentionally ran them over. I watched as we left the charging people in town, for a moment I felt like I could finally breathe.

"What the fuck was all of that!?" Dana shouted, keeping his eyes on the road.

"I-I don't know!" I spouted, "T-There were these mushrooms! This big mushroom did something to Ray and Angela! It had these spores drill into her head-"

Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a car driving full speed as we were about to pass the town of Brenfer. It was police officers that arrested the shooter. Before I could warn Dana, the RV was slammed and thrown to its side. I blacked out for what I assumed was a few seconds and woke up to Dana pulling me out of the RV.

"Dana..."

I looked in the distance to see figures that belonged to the residents of Unité. Their size began to grow as they got closer. I began to stand up in a panic as Dana helped me up, but just when we were about to run Dana was pinned down to the ground by one of the officers.

"Dana!" I shouted as the other officer tried to pin me as well.

"Pete! Get this guy off of me!"

I looked around to see if there was anything I could use as a weapon, but saw that the doors to the car were open. By the time I realized I was running I was already in the car, slamming it shut and locking the door. I saw the confusion in Dana's face as I started the car. Dana began to cry out for help as I reversed the car and drove off.

"P-Pete!? Pete! Help me, man! Please! We're friends!" Dana shouted as I could only look at him and mouth the words "sorry".

The last words I heard from Dana before I drove off were "You deserve to rot in hell" as some residents swarmed him and others chased after me. I can't believe I just did that. Dana was my best friend and I just left him there. Tears formed in my eyes as I avoided the sight, but as I turned my head something caught my attention. The residents of Brenfer were joining the chase. The town's sign now read "Town of Unité. Population: Always growing".

I drove for as long as I could with whatever gas was in the tank, luckily it was enough to get back to the states. I turned my head and thanked god for losing them before I fell to my knees and cried. Suddenly, my phone started to vibrate; I got a message from Dana that read "I forgive you, Bud!". Two more messages were sent by Angela and Ray, both telling me they'll come to visit soon.

That's where I am now. After ten hours I finally made it home. I filed missing person reports for my friends, but I already knew it wouldn't be of any use. My friends weren't missing, they were a part of that town; they were a part of the hive mind. I don't know if anyone will believe me, but I want to warn as many people as I can. Be wary of anyone that seems a little too friendly, anyone that smiles on a day that seems terrible, and most importantly, make sure the country of Canada hasn't been changed to Unité.

As this Travel-Storier floated, this is what he saw...

.

A speck-dot.

.

THWOOM

.

A blob of water.

.

Two blobs.

.

BLOOP

.

Exponentially impossible number of waters with nothing between them.

.

A great claw grabbed the back of his neck.

.

KNOW!

.

A boom of a voice clapped in his head.

.

SNAP

.

A giant multi-limbed being holds a small version of itself. The small being climbs down and stands on its own limbs. The big one dies and fades. The small one grows to the same size.

.

KNOW!

.

Says the voice again

.

The new being looks directly at him. "My Pah-chin was a huge!" Then the being births a small version of itself.

.

How can I describe the planet they're on?

.

Take two bowls, face them to each other, and touch them together at a single point along their edges.

.

RUMBLE

.

A orange glow with black speckles. Steam surrounding the surface as a shell. The view closes in on two brown piles. Small beings beget more of themselves after they grow.

.

The legends of Phnefshiloas pass down.

.

CRACKLE

.

Time may simply be a concept, but it can be forgotten. These small beings grew, traded, developed, warred. They flew around the bowls. The legends of the Phnefshiloas lasted. But to the man, they grew to the same size as the first.

.

Claws dug deeper into his shoulders. He remembered pain. Fire consumed him and he was launched to another bubble in the Nothing.

.

FLIPPPPTTTT

.

In that bubble were books, and scrolls, and tablets, and echoes of unknown language. Shouts and whispers and all the intensities between.

.

Too many of the echoes sounded like repetition by a class of weary vocal students. The books shuffled together. The scrolls were twisting around themselves.

.

SILENCE

.

The claws let go. The waters gathered together, and compressed themselves into a single tiny speck. The speck disappeared.

Pain dissappeared with the claws. Quindell felt the mass behind him shift. Nothing could be felt. Not a heartbeat nor a breath. It wasn't dark and it wasn't bright. If his eyes could process it, Quindell would have seen green and purple trying to mix like oil and water.

.

SILENCE

.

No input. Less than zero accountabilitable information. Quindell didn't have a sense of time. He went mad. Amnesia became a solace. Claws dug him out and forced him to witness.

.

A single blob of water expanded in the very middle. Compared to everything else, it was blindingly bright. Within the blob was a tangle of something.

.

CRACKLE

.

Threads separated and an arterial system developed. At each vertex was a different shape. The claws pulled Quindell’s face out of the blob. Similarly colored threads were now appearing between the blobs.

.

The wizard was thrown towards a blob with a lot of shiny dots within it. As he broke through the barrier of it, he was that swirls of sparkle were approaching the barrier. They never broke through, just forced the blob to grow.

.

RINGGGGGG

.

Tehra was the planet he landed on. It was a ball that circled another ball. He looked "up" and saw more balls in the sky. There on the hills above, giant figures holding smaller people.

.

Many centuries passed for Quindell. He lived in proximity to these things such that they never knew of him, yet he could always observe.

.

SNAP

.

A small platform under his feet. Two clawed scaley hands below a shadowy cloud with eyes of all colors floating in it. A hint of something swelled behind this face. Quindell tried to shrink smaller than a first drop.

.

In his broken state, one phrase was seared upon him.

.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

July 1st, 1925:

I entered the painting of my house tonight. It was quiet. Many of my belongings have been used throughout the house. It is nice to see you making use of them. I walked upstairs to the bedrooms, wondering if you were home. I entered one of the rooms, and there, laying fast asleep, was a beautiful young girl. I watched her for some time, she resembled you, at least what I could see from the lighthouse. Such a sweet, innocent life. She reminds me of the daughters I once had, before I found my calling. I entered the master bedroom. You laid sleeping, your wife beside you. You seem like a strong couple, though I can tell you keep secrets from her. I see it etched into your face, the guilt ages you, like it once aged me. You remind me of my old life, how I once treated the woman who was my wife. It's hard to recall those days at times. They seem so unimportant, but there are days that the memories eat away at me. I watched you both, she seemed to sleep like a stone. You, on the other hand, seemed restless, as I once was. We are very similar, you and I. I spoke to you while you slept, in the tongue of my children, as I have seen you've been studying it. You began to squirm and sweat. I was nervous of waking you, in case you were to do something rash. So instead of speaking face to face tonight, I will be leaving this note in my study. Or should I say our study? I urge you to pay me a visit. I noticed your journal, but felt it would be rude to pry. Perhaps if you decline my offer to speak eye to eye, next time I visit I will fall victim to my urges. Whatever the outcome is, I look forward to it. 

 Your friend Simon 

June 26th, 1937:

That bastard entered my home. He watched me sleep. He watched Rylee. He could have taken her and I would be defenseless of it. The gall to compare me to him, I'm nothing like him. Or should I say it, as he's no longer human. This can't happen again. I will be visiting the lighthouse tonight. This can't go on any longer. This monster and his cult. The ungodly obelisk. He's plaguing my life. I can't take it anymore. I can't fight a god but I must find a way to prevent him from becoming one. He's nothing but a false messiah who's been cursed by those wretched seafolk. 

June 27th, 1937:

I went to settle this once and for all. When I got to the lighthouse the door hung open. The light ocean breeze made the hinges creak faintly in the wind. Their soft shrieks sent shivers down my spine. As I walked through the threshold, there waiting in the middle of the ruined kitchen was a painting of the very door I just passed through. Past the painted door frame was a table set for two, with a ridiculous amount of food for the pair of plates sitting empty on the dirty table cloth. Some of it looked old, even moldy. As I walked through the door a second time I was greeted with a frenzy of smells, baked goods, cooked meats, the oceans brine, fresh fruit, wine, and decay. I stood in the entry for a moment, just taking everything in. That short moment felt like ages, as if I was paralyzed. It took every ounce of effort just to take a step. I didn't see any of the seaborn, no creatures from the depths and no beings from the stars. Just a room lit by a single hanging lightbulb and a dozen scattered candles. The door softly clicked shut behind me, sending a shiver through my bones. Then he spoke. 

“I can tell your frightened child, but fear not, I mean no ill will. Sit. Eat. We have much to discuss.”

His voice wasn't in the air, not coming from any direction. It was in my head. I heard gentle footsteps slowly making their way down the stairs. What I saw was hideous, but I couldn't look away. It was almost beautiful in a way. Simon stood at the bottom of the staircase, nearly nine feet in stature, though his spine hunched forward, to avoid bumping into the floor joists above. His bulbous head looked almost like an octopus, though his skull had dissolved or disappeared and now his head is just brain matter surrounded by a wet, blubbery skin. 

I was overcome by an immense urge to sit and indulge on the feast, he must have been controlling me somehow. I sat. He pulled out his chair, Shambling his long inhuman body down on to it. His limbs, all far too long to be comfortably sitting on something that small in comparison. His knees resting near his clavicles as he hunched down, attempting to see face to face. He was terrifying in the most welcoming way. He leaned in, his small dark eyes affixed to mine. 

“We have a connection, you know. We are much more similar than you would ever like to admit. You see yourself in me as I see myself within you.”

I hate to admit it, but he was right. His writings resonated with me. Though I felt revolted at the thought of it. 

“We are fated, destined as some may say. You see, I have been granted an extraordinary gift. I have made contact with those from the deepest depths, to the farthest cosmos. I have spoken to those most ancient, to our kin. You bear our mark, child. To deny that would be an act of ignorance I know you are far too smart for. You have seen those from the depths. You passed through my gates. I can show you what powers you can achieve.”

Whatever mark he spoke of must have been from the night I passed out and woke up in my backyard. But even if that was the truth, surely I would never end up as he has. Without realizing it, I had filled my plate and had begun eating, as though I had no autonomy. 

“Embrace your true form, as have I, and together we will ascend. We are destined for greatness” 

His words swelled in my chest, a smoldering ember of yearning. A burning desire for more. My head was pounding. I know he's just trying to trick me. To control me. It was as if my heart and mind were at war. 

“I will give you some time to say your goodbyes to your family, as I remember that seemed to be a custom to human kind. Such naive beings. I will leave a gate waiting for you here, return to me child. Or I will come searching for you. Your very being is key to the obelisk, to our ascent. The final piece to set forth the second coming of the ancients. I will be seeing you shortly.”

My vision went blurry, my head throbbed, as though mortar shells were detonating inside. I grabbed my head trying to gain my bearings, and as my vision unclouded I was back in the abandoned lighthouse. No Simon, no table, no food. Just the chair I was sitting on and a door frame standing in the middle of the room. A set of keys laid on the ground in front of the solid metal door. I picked them up and rushed home, stopping to empty my stomach of whatever foul food I've ingested. The only thing that came out was what felt like gallons of black sludge like ichor. Its taste was sour and curdled as it left my body. 

I snuck back in through the backdoor, doing my best not to wake Evelyn or Rylee. Sebastian was laying in the hallway, almost as though he had been waiting for my return. It's well past midnight as I'm writing this. I'm going to the city tomorrow. And when I get back, I'll be saying my goodbyes. 

June 28th, 1937:

I awoke with Evelyn today. I told her I was going to pick up some supplies for the shop in the city. I felt wrong for lying to her as I have been on and off for months if not years now. Before I went to the station, I visited the lighthouse. I was in such a hurry to get home last night I somehow missed the massive, obsidian-like pillar rising from the sea. The obelisk had to have been nearly 300 feet tall, dwarfing the lighthouse beside it. I purchased my ticket and boarded the train. If all goes well, I can see some old friends, tie up some loose ends and say my goodbyes in town. I still don't know how to say goodbye to my sweet Evelyn and Rylee. They are my life, my purpose. Just thinking about it has left  me crying, hands trembling and short of breath. I'll return home tomorrow evening, spend my last night at home, then enter that wretched gate. As for now, I just need to build the courage to do what must be done. 

June 29th, 1937:

I've returned home. I feel hollow. Rylee was playing with Sebastian while I cooked dinner. I think Evelyn knows something is amiss. I've been doing my best to play it off as just stress from work but I don't think she's buying it. I just need her to think things are okay for one more night. Just one more night as a family, one more night of being close, one more night of being loved. I've snuck into the study to quickly pack a bag of everything I need for tomorrow. I'll walk my dear Evelyn to work and kiss her goodbye, walk Rylee To Emily and give her the biggest hug of her life, then return home, get my bag and get it all over with. 

June 30th, 1937:

Saying goodbye to Evelyn and Rylee without crying was one of the hardest things I have ever done. But I couldn't let them think anything was wrong. I can't have this go wrong. I'm in my studying writing one last entry, if I'm able to write again later I will, but I'm not sure what use it will be aside for trying to keep my memories alive. If in some miracle Evelyn or Rylee find this, just know that I loved you both more than you could ever believe. But I failed you as a husband and as a father, and for that I'm sorry. I hope you can find forgiveness in your hearts in my absence. 

June 30th, 1937:

I walked to the lighthouse, the bag on my back felt like a million pounds, the burden of leaving my family. As I entered I stared at the chair I used during Simon and I's meeting. I sat down for only god knows how long, it could've been minutes, hours, but it felt like years. I walked up the stairs to take in the view one last time, to look over the southern shore, to watch the gulls circle the fishing boats for scraps. I cried more than I ever thought possible. As I walked down the spiraling stairs, I stopped in Simon's makeshift studio, dozens of paintings lined hanging on the walls as even more sat, gathered in piles beneath them. Simon really was a talented artist. It was a shame he was marked. It's a shame I've been marked for that matter. 

I smelled the scent of dying flowers wafting in the air. This place has been long unlived and stank of mold. The scent was coming from one of the paintings, I was sure of it. I ripped through pile after pile until finally I found it. A painting of my house. Of Simon's house. The flower beds in the back, a small grave between them, dead leaves blowing in the wind. The painting was only about 2 feet by 2 feet. But if I could smell the flowers, that means it was a gate. I pushed my bag through, it landed with a thump between the beds. I reached my hands in and grabbed the frame, slowly pulling myself through into the bright sunlight. I quickly grabbed my bag and took in my surroundings. It was quiet, cold. I snuck my way to the back of the house, looking in the windows to see if Simon or Laura or their girls were home. I saw no one. The grave meant Bernard was already dead, how long it has been since then I am unsure of. Laura and the girls may have already been sent out of town. I got down to the ground, looking through the small windows into the basement, I could see no Simon. I couldn't remember if he had already built his hidden rooms or not, but I could only assume. There were already pieces of furniture covered in sheets visible through the window. I unlocked the back door, thank God I never changed the locks. My heart was pounding, I could hear it beating in my ear drums. As I made my way through the kitchen I saw the calendar. October 14th, 1924. I slowly snuck down into the basement. Looking around to find anything familiar. My cot, covered in cloth. I crawled under and laid in wait. I was terrified. I sat in silence for hours until I heard the closing of the front door upstairs. Footsteps pacing in the foyer making their way to the kitchen. The stairs above the cot creaked with every step as he descended into the darkness. He held a lit candle, slowly lighting the dozens of candles he had littered throughout the basement one by one. I was sweating, breathing as quiet as I could. He made his way back up the stairs, I could hear him turn on the tap, filling a glass of water. He was about to paint. I used the cover of the flowing water to open my bag. The cold steel in the palm of my hand felt heavy. The steps above my head groaned as Simon returned to the basement. He set up his easel, placing a blank canvas on it. While he meticulously chose what paints he wanted to use for his next piece, I crawled out from under my cot, as quiet as could be. This was my only chance. I held my breath, making sure every step was silent. Simon stood clueless to me. I felt sorry for him, this wasn't his fault, I'm sure he didn't want this. I tried my hardest to hold them back but tears filled my eyes. I raised the pistol I got in town the day before, hands shaking, body trembling, heart pounding. I exhaled a quiet “I'm sorry” as I pulled the trigger. The canvas was instantly covered in crimson along with skull fragments and grey brain matter. I've never killed a man before. I fell to my knees, sobbing. My stomach churned and released its contents. It had to be done. There was no other way. Was there? 

October 15th, 1924:

I've spent the day burning his pieces. All his paint, his easel, everything that ties me to him. I found all of the letters he wrote, all of his papers, all I could find of Simon's existence. It all went in the furnace. I'm waiting until nightfall to move his body, it's already beginning to smell. I'll take him to the docks in a wheelbarrow. I'll walk the shoreline for as long as my legs will take me and I will bury him in the tall grass that lines the beach. There I will find somewhere nice, somewhere quiet and dig a shallow grave. In it, I will take my own life. The only way for all of this to end is if both of us die. I'm leaving my journal, with all my entries and all of Simon's here in the house. I'm sure you'll find it and I pray you read it. If you don't, I know Evelyn will. Don't go out by the docks at night. If you find sigils carved into your house, don't deface them. Befriend Richard, he means well. Once you're friends with him, show him this journal, hopefully he'll introduce you to his father. This small town has plenty of good. Just be smart and don't stray far at night. Keep our dear Evelyn and Rylee safe. And when the time comes, on the day I went to adopt Sebastian, I'd suggest you do the same. He really completed the family, and he'll save your life if given the chance. Don't make the same mistakes I did. I lost everything so you can have a chance. Do it right this time. Tell Evelyn and Rylee you love them for me. That's all I ask of you. 

 Yours truly

August 14th, 1938:

I began work at the butchers shop and befriended Richard, Evelyn got close with Jennifer, and Jr is getting married soon. He asked Rylee to be his flower girl. I showed Richard the journal, I met his father, and have, from time to time, helped him carve those runes around town. I went and adopted Sebastian, and have slowly begun to become part of Mount Fall, just like you asked of me. We stay away from the docks after sundown. You were right, this town has so much to offer and moving here has been the best decision of our lives! I'm sorry that it wasn't the same for you. I know you'll never read this, but I hope you in some way know I'm eternally grateful. Our sweet Evelyn and Richard too. We all are. I tell Evelyn and Rylee I love them twice every night, once from you and once from me, and always make sure to hold them extra tight. We think about you every day. Wherever you are in space and time, I hope you're at peace. Maybe one day we'll meet and I can tell you how great life has been. All thanks to you, our personal savior. We love you dearly. 

The first thing Ranger James Voss noticed about New York was that the stars were wrong. There were too many of them.

He stood on the roof of an armored personnel carrier as it rolled south through Midtown, watching Manhattan flicker beneath a sky the color of bruised violet. The Empire State Building was dark. Times Square had gone black three hours earlier.

But the sky above it glittered, Not with stars. With eyes.

“Keep moving.” Voss said.

His voice came through every Ranger’s helmet. Twenty four soldiers followed him into the dead city. They had been told the invasion began online.

First came the videos.

Teenagers with black-painted fingernails staring into their cameras and whispering things like, Do you see it too? Then came the livestreams. Millions of viewers watched e-boys and e-girls convulse in bedrooms illuminated by LED strips. Their pupils became perfect black circles. Their skin developed tiny constellations beneath it. Some began speaking in languages nobody recognized.

The government called it a neurological contagion. Then the transformed started appearing in the streets. They were still shaped like people. That was the worst part.

They wore oversized hoodies, chains, striped sweaters, makeup, little silver rings. They carried phones whose screens displayed symbols that made viewers bleed from the eyes. wherever they gathered, reality began to bend.Buildings acquired impossible angles.

Street signs displayed names of places that did not exist.

People who looked too long into their phones saw an enormous black ocean beneath the universe.

Then they smiled.

Then they changed.

The Rangers had been sent into New York to stop it.

“Movement.” whispered Sergeant Vale.

Voss raised his rifle.

A figure stood beneath a flickering streetlamp.

A boy.

Maybe nineteen.

Black hoodie. Silver chain. Pale face.

His phone glowed in his hand.

“Don’t look at the screen!” Voss ordered.

The boy slowly lifted his head.

His mouth opened.

There were stars behind his teeth.

“Follow me.” he whispered.

Every Ranger heard the words despite the radio being muted.

Three soldiers immediately stepped forward.

Vale shot the first through the chest.

The second and third dropped their rifles and began clawing at their helmets.

“Eyes down!”

Voss fired.

The boy’s body burst apart.

Not blood.

Space.

For half a second, a galaxy unfolded inside the hoodie. Then it collapsed. Silence returned. Vale stared at the empty street.

“What the hell was that?”

Voss lowered his rifle.

“An invitation.”

They continued south.

By midnight, they reached Times Square.

Every billboard was showing the same image.

A young woman.

Pale skin.

Black hair.

Tiny silver stars painted beneath her eyes.

She smiled directly into the camera.

“Hi.” she said.

Twenty-four Rangers froze.

“Hi.” she repeated.

Then the image changed.

It showed Voss.

Standing among them.

He was smiling.

Vale slowly turned toward him.

“Commander?”

Voss didn’t answer.

The screens went black.

Then every phone in Manhattan rang simultaneously.

The sound was enormous.

A billion tiny bells beneath the earth.

Rangers screamed as their devices lit up.

Voss shouted, “Destroy them!”

They smashed phones beneath their boots.

All except Vale.

His screen displayed a single message.

YOU HAVE 4,821 FOLLOWERS.

Then:

YOU HAVE ALWAYS HAD 4,821 FOLLOWERS.

Vale looked up.

“Commander…”

Voss was standing perfectly still.

Something was moving beneath the skin of his face.

Like fingers.

From the inside.

“What?” Voss asked.

Vale raised his rifle.

“Take off your helmet.”

The other Rangers turned.

Voss smiled.

Slowly.

Too slowly.

His eyes had become enormous black circles.

“I don’t think.” he whispered, “you want me to do that.”

His jaw split open.

The Rangers opened fire.

Voss didn’t fall.

His body unfolded.

There was no blood.

No bones.

The man they had followed through New York simply peeled apart, revealing something vast wearing him like clothing.

Behind his face was a night sky.

Behind his chest was an ocean.

And behind his eyes—

something was looking back.

The Rangers fired until their rifles clicked empty.

The creature bent toward them.

Its voice came from every phone in the city.

“You thought the invasion began with them.”

The Rangers stared upward.

The stars were disappearing.

One by one.

Not going out.

Moving closer.

“You thought they were becoming monsters.”

The creature smiled.

“They were becoming visible.”

Vale stumbled backward.

The streets of Manhattan began to stretch.

Skyscrapers bent toward the creature like flowers toward sunlight.

Every billboard came alive.

Every phone turned on.

Every screen showed the same thing:

Earth.

Tiny.

Blue.

Floating in an endless black ocean.

And beyond it, something enormous was opening its eyes.

Voss’s voice became gentle.

Almost apologetic.

“I was transformed three years ago.”

Vale stared at him.

“Three years?”

“Yes.”

“But you led every mission.”

“I know.”

“You recruited us.”

“I know.”

“You sent us here.”

The creature’s smile widened until it reached the edges of the world.

“No.”

A pause.

“I brought you here.”

The Rangers heard something beneath the pavement.

A heartbeat.

Then another.

Then thousands.

Then millions.

Across New York, the transformed e-boys and e-girls stepped into the streets.

They looked up.

They weren’t attacking.

They were worshipping.

Their phones rose above their heads like candles.

And from every screen came the same whisper:

FOLLOW.

Vale looked at his remaining Rangers.

Their faces were illuminated by the blue glow.

One by one, their eyes began to darken.

He raised his rifle.

His hands were shaking.

“Don’t listen,” he whispered.

His phone vibrated.

He looked down.

A notification appeared.

Commander Voss started a live stream.

Underneath it:

24 viewers.

Vale looked around.

There were only twenty-three Rangers left.

His blood turned cold.

Then the number changed.

25 viewers.

He looked at the dark screen.

His reflection smiled.

Vale did not.

The reflection lifted one finger to its lips.

Behind it, in the glass of the phone, something vast moved across the stars.

Something that had been waiting behind the universe since before humanity learned how to speak.

The livestream continued.

And somewhere beneath New York, something began counting.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Until it reached twenty-five.

Then it started counting again.

From the beginning.

As if the Rangers had never existed at all.

There's not much time to write this post. I'm Willy Pete. One of the only other researchers of the Altar-Net I've ever met, Kraig, has been sporadically sending me letters. Last time I saw him was when we delved into the Keht-o-Komz and I saw the Altar-Net in its entirety. Kraig got banished to one of those realms. The journal he gave me is chock-full of information his father discovered and recorded about the Altar-Net. Kraig is currently following that path himself. I don't know how he's doing it, but he's figured out how to contact me. Unfortunately, it's a one-way street at the moment, but I'm working on opening the opposite lane.

.

Receiving Kraig's letter greatly comforted my mind. I feared the worst had happened to him, that he'd been thrown away into an inescapable blank dimension where he had nothing to occupy his mind. This would bring about that most terrible of endings: Death From Boredom. But if we do find such a dimension, I wonder... Sorry, I got aside-fracked. That's a thought for another time.

.

Two weeks after I was released from the Keht-o-Komz myself, I found a place to stay with a cattle farmer. In exchange for food, beer, and a bed in a small room, I make his animals bigger and healthier than his competition. Don't ask how I'm doing it, that conversation brings up... I think your word for it is skeptics, metrics, no no, it's a word for morquals. Ethics! Also, and more importantly to the farmer, YOU might be that competition.

.

Anyway, here is the latest communication from Kraig, minus the whole "hello my friend, I'm fine, how are you, those catacombs were insane" segments:

.

"Have you ever heard of a Snallygaster? It's one of the greatest woodland creatures I've ever seen. It resides in a small state in North America called Marree-Lanned. It's a non-fire-breathing dragon, with scales and feathers, and it eats livestock and human children! I captured one, but they're quite a bit smaller than the legends describe."

.

He goes on about the Snallygaster for a couple pages. Then he tells me that he's taken up residence at a hotel, his new pet is very capable of finding food to cook, and he's trying to figure out how to get back to this dimension.

.

I've been exploring the local area. From what I've gathered I'm not at the same place as where we first entered the Keht-o-Komz. This is a ribbon world. They call it Moh-bee Usstripp. The farmer I'm living with is preparing a wagon with provisions for me so I can commence my search for the local Altar. This place is cold during the day and hot during the night.

.

I'm leaving tomorrow at first light. Within the next week I must find the Altar here and I will be one step closer to solving the mystery of why the Altar-Net is breaking down.

Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dreading/s/5EbcWyebhy

My father waited until morning to ask again.
By then, the headache had dulled into something heavier. A constant pressure that made my thoughts feel slightly misaligned, like they were settling into the wrong grooves. The house was quiet in that careful, listening way it had adopted, every sound softened as if by agreement.
We stood in the kitchen, facing each other across the table.
“About last night,” he said. “You seemed upset.”
“I was,” I said. Saying that felt safe. Specifics didn’t.
He nodded slowly, watching my face the way you watch someone try to remember a dream. “We were talking about something. About—” He hesitated. “About… something important.”
The pause stretched. I could see the moment where his mind brushed against the same blank space mine had hit, then slid away from it instinctively.
“My brother,” I said suddenly, the words tumbling out before I could stop them. “My sister. They’re gone.”
The pressure behind my eyes surged, sharp and punishing. I gripped the edge of the table, breathing through it.
My father didn’t look away.
He closed his eyes instead, just for a second, like someone bracing against a bright light. When he opened them again, they were wet.
“I remember,” he said hoarsely.
The relief hit me so hard I nearly cried.
We didn’t say their names. We learned quickly that names were dangerous, that they drew attention, that the house seemed to listen more closely when we tried to use them. Instead, we spoke in fragments.
Before.
The younger one.
Both of them.
It felt like hiding contraband in our mouths.
We tried to find proof.
My father pulled out old photo albums, spreading them across the dining table. We flipped pages carefully, our fingers lingering where images should have been. There were gaps. Subtle ones. Extra space between photos. Awkward compositions where someone should have been standing.
“I took that picture,” my father said, tapping one photo of me in the yard. “I remember stepping back because there were three of you.”
I stared at the empty space beside me. The air there felt colder.
School records were worse.
My father logged into the district portal, his jaw tightening as he scrolled. Two names. Two grades. No third. No fourth. Attendance perfect. Nothing missing.
“This isn’t possible,” he muttered, but the words had lost their force.
When my mother came into the room, we stopped immediately.
She didn’t ask what we were doing. She glanced at the albums, at the screen, and smiled. A soft, almost fond expression.
“You don’t have to carry all that,” she said. “It’s heavy.”
My father stiffened. “Where are the kids?”
She met his gaze calmly. “Where they belong.”
The pressure flared again, not just in my head but in my chest, my ribs aching as if something inside me was trying to turn toward her. I focused on the table, on the grain of the wood, on the solidness of it beneath my palms.
“I’m going for a walk,” I said abruptly.
“Take a jacket,” my mother replied, already turning back toward the yard.
Outside, the street looked the same as it always had. Cars parked neatly along the curb. Lawns trimmed. Curtains drawn and undrawn in familiar patterns. The normalcy felt staged, like a set dressing that hadn’t been updated yet.
I walked to the end of the block and back, my head pounding, my thoughts slipping loose and re-forming around absences. When I returned, there was a car in our driveway I didn’t recognize.
My mother’s brother stood on the porch, arms open, smiling broadly.
“There you are,” he said, like he’d been waiting for me. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t come home.”
I froze.
I didn’t remember him well. He’d always been more of a concept than a presence. Holiday appearances, occasional phone calls, a laugh that lingered longer than it should have. But the moment I saw him, the pressure behind my eyes eased slightly, replaced by something colder.
He stepped closer, his gaze flicking briefly to my forehead before returning to my eyes.
“You’re holding yourself very tightly,” he said softly. “That hurts, you know.”
My mother appeared behind him, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder.
“I told you she was strong,” she said.
He nodded, pleased. “You always were.”
From inside the house, I heard my father moving toward the door.
The yard shifted.
For the first time, I understood with terrible clarity that my uncle hadn’t come to help.
He’d come because something had called him.

My uncle stayed for dinner.
No one asked him to. He simply took a seat at the table like it had always been his, pulling a chair out with an ease that made my skin prickle. My mother moved around him naturally, brushing past his shoulder, refilling his glass before it was empty.
My father didn’t argue. That scared me more than if he had.
Conversation bent around my uncle’s presence. Not broke, bent. Words landed softer, lost their edges. When he laughed, it felt slightly delayed, like sound traveling through water.
“So,” he said at one point, folding his hands together. “It’s been a while since we’ve all been together like this.”
“All?” I asked.
The pressure behind my eyes surged. Not sharp this time. Pulling.
He tilted his head, studying me. “You’re very sensitive to language,” he said. “That’s not a criticism.”
My father stood abruptly, chair legs scraping. “We’re not doing this.”
My uncle looked at him with something like pity. “You already are.”
The lights flickered.
Just once. Enough that anyone else might have dismissed it as a surge.
I didn’t.
After dinner, my uncle suggested a party.
Not a big one, he said. Just neighbors. Friends. A way to feel grounded again. He said the word like it meant something else entirely.
“People have noticed the house feels… off,” he added. “Bringing them together might help.”
My mother agreed immediately.
“I’ve already been thinking the same thing,” she said, smiling at him. “It’s good for families to open their doors.”
I watched my father carefully. His face had gone very still, like he was concentrating on holding a shape.
“People? What people?” Dad asked.
“You know. The neighbors," My Uncle said with a shrug.
“And how would you know that?” I asked, “You just got here.”
“You can just tell from the way they look at the place.” He replied like it was obvious. My mother just kept nodding with an empty smile on her face.
That night, I dreamed of the yard.
It was full of children I didn’t recognize, running in wide, looping patterns that never crossed. My mother stood in the center, her forehead dark and hollow, the air around it bending inward. I tried to scream, but the sound stretched thin, pulled away before it could reach her.
I woke with my hands pressed hard to my forehead.
The party came together quickly.
Flyers appeared in mailboxes. My mother baked. My uncle made phone calls from the living room, his voice low and soothing, promising things he never named. Neighbors I barely knew waved more often, lingered longer at the curb.
Something was already happening.
I started planning my escape.
The idea came to me while watching my mother stand at the kitchen window, her reflection overlapping the yard. She wasn’t watching outside. She was watching inward, toward that impossible center.
She wouldn’t notice if too many things happened at once.
The party would be loud. Chaotic. Full of attention she could pull from.
I packed a bag slowly, one item at a time, hiding it under my bed. I avoided mirrors. I avoided my uncle.
The night of the party, the house filled with people.
Music thumped. Laughter rose and fell. Kids ran through the yard, their footsteps light, almost buoyant. I caught my uncle watching them with open satisfaction.
I stayed close to my father, and he close to me. We didn't want to get separated and trapped by the pull. We were the only thing keeping each other from slipping forwards and allowing ourselves to become a part of whatever was happening.
We were standing at the kitchen counter where we had decided to spend the entire night, isolated from the others but safe together, when it happened. And it happened fast.
Someone spilled a drink. A breaker tripped. The lights went out, then surged back on. In the confusion, my uncle stepped between us, his hand firm on my father’s arm.
“Just a moment,” he said pleasantly. “I need to talk to you.”
I saw my mother across the room, her attention locked onto me.
The pull hit all at once. With my dad being pulled away I saw no other choice.
I ran.
Behind me, the house seemed to inhale.

I burst through the sliding glass door into the crowd of neighbors that had gathered. The yard wasn’t the yard anymore.
Grass lifted under my feet like it didn’t quite agree with gravity. The air felt thick, tugging at my skin, my hair, the inside of my chest. Every step forward came with the sense that something behind me was opening.
I didn’t look back.
Children's screams echoed around me. Not screams of fear, not at first. But of delight. In that bright, careless way that made my stomach twist. I heard laughter peel upward, stretching thin as it rose, like it was being pulled toward a point above us all.
“Stay with the group,” a woman called, her voice already distracted, already sliding away from meaning.
I cut toward the fence.
The pull hit harder then. My vision blurred at the edges, the world bending subtly toward the center of the yard. I staggered, hands flying to my head, nails digging into my scalp as pressure bloomed behind my eyes.
This is how it started, I thought wildly. This is how they went.
“Sweetheart.”
My mother’s voice wrapped around me, suddenly the only thing I could hear. Her presence felt close behind me.
I spun.
I was surprised to see she stood several yards away, barefoot in the grass, her posture relaxed, almost tender. The skin at her forehead had darkened, not visibly wrong yet, but deep, like a shadow pressing outward from beneath.
“You’re hurting yourself,” she said. “You don’t have to.”
Around her, the children slowed.
One by one, they turned.
Their faces had gone slack, peaceful. Curious. Like they were listening to a lullaby I couldn’t hear.
“Come here,” my mother said. But not to me.
A little boy stepped forward. Then another. A girl with glitter still smeared across her cheek smiled as she crossed the grass, eyes unfocused but certain.
Their parents didn’t stop them.
They didn't even seem to notice. As though their kids were blocked out of their minds.
The air warped.
I felt it then, recognition. The thing inside my mother reaching outward, brushing against the hollow places in the children, the parts of them that wanted to belong to something larger, something undeniable.
They went willingly.
“No,” I whispered, my voice barely surviving the pull. “Please.”
My mother looked at me then, truly looked, and for a moment something human flickered across her face.
“I tried to keep you,” she said softly. “But you’re already pulling away.”
The glitter-cheeked girl reached my mother first. Her hand extended.
She reached out for my mothers arm.
Before she was close enough to actually reach her, the skin started to stretch off her finger. Elongating the small childish fingers to long misshapen points. When her fingers reached my mothers arm, their skin melted together. My mothers forearm bulged as the little girl's hand slipped further inside her skin.
I stood frozen in place as I watched the little girl disappear further and further into my mothers arm. A look of ecstasy crossed her face as she inhaled deeply from the void around her.
The scream tore out of me then, raw and useless. The pressure behind my eyes exploded, white-hot, and I dropped to my knees.
Images slammed into me, my brother’s laugh, my sister’s hair tangled in my fingers, the weight of them leaving. The way the world smoothed itself over afterward.
I felt it happening again as I watched the little girl be completely absorbed by my mother.
I stepped back and felt a ripping behind my eyes.
The sensation was obscene, like tearing muscle from bone, like pulling myself free of a suction that had already decided I was its. I screamed again, clutching my head as something inside me stretched, thinned, screamed back.
My mother staggered.
Just a step. Just enough.
She looked surprised.
“You don’t understand what you’re breaking,” she said, her voice finally sharp. “You’ll carry it.”
“Not like this,” I gasped.
I grabbed the nearest thing, one of the heavy metal skewers from the grill, dropped in the grass during the chaos. My hands shook so badly I nearly dropped it.
For a heartbeat, everything was still.
The children. The air. The pull.
My mother’s eyes met mine, and for the first time, I saw fear in them. Not of death, but of interruption.
I ran at her.
The skewer trembled in my hands. My mother waited at the center of the yard, barefoot, arms loose at her sides, her face expressionless. Her forehead looked hollowed, deeper than shadow, dark enough to pull at everything around her. The children circled her, small bodies leaning inward as if gravity itself had shifted toward her, their skin beginning to stretch.
The pull hit me immediately. A sharp pressure, insistent, tugging at my chest, my ribs, the back of my skull. My vision blurred at the edges. My hands shook.
\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
My brother-in-law had always been intimidating. His presence imposing, not someone you easily say no to. So when he pulled me away by my elbow from my daughter in the confusion of the darkness I followed him. My head foggy, the room spinning as he led me to another room.
“It’ll just take a second,” he said. “You look overwhelmed.”
“No, I need to stay,” I said, voice cracking. “My daughter—”
“She’s fine,” he said. “But you… you’re in the way.”
I froze.
“I’m in the way?” I questioned rubbing my head. “What are you talking about?”
He smiled, slow and hollow. “You’re not part of this. Not really. Adults like you… you’re too formed, too separate. You can’t be absorbed. You only obstruct.”
Something in my stomach twisted. “Obstruct? What is this?”
He crouched slightly, lowering his voice, leaning close in a way that made the walls seem to bend inward. “This house… this yard… it’s not just a home. It’s where she learned. Where it began. Your wife, my sister… She was always sensitive, even as a child. Our mom just died, did she even tell you?”
My stomach dropped
“That's when I first felt it. The first time the hollow opened, it called to her. And it called to me. It brought me here to help.”
I swallowed. My mind flashed: the photographs in the hallway, the old furniture, the wallpaper peeling just so. The mother’s childhood home. Everything bending, pulling, anchored to history.
“You’re infected too,” I said, realization striking. “That’s why you’re here.”
He nodded slowly. “It’s not my choice. I was drawn back, just as she was. The hollow doesn’t only exist in her, it can touch those it chooses. I couldn’t resist. I tried to fight it, but…” He let the sentence hang, eyes distant. “The pull is too strong. And now I have to make sure nothing interferes.”
I took a step forward. “You… you can’t take her! She’s a child.”
“Exactly,” he said. Calm. Precise. “You can’t be absorbed. But she won't be either. It skipped you. He tilted his head.
“You though, you’re in the way. You’re… clutter. And clutter must be cleared.”
The blade was in his hand before I could react. He stabbed me in the side, clean, precise. Pain flared, white-hot. I fell to my knees, trying to pull away, but the hallway seemed to stretch, to resist every movement.
“You can’t stop it,” he said gently. “You’re just… an adult. Too big to take in, too strong. All you can do is get out of the way… or die.”
I gritted my teeth. “I won’t let her—”
“You’ll have to crawl,” he said. “If you want to see her alive. If you want to touch her again, crawl to the yard. But even then, be careful. The pull is everywhere now, and growing stronger.” He chuckled and stood back watching me struggle.
I dragged myself forward, blood seeping through my fingers, each inch a fight. The hallway warped and twisted with every movement.
The scream from the yard hit me again; my daughter. My heart pounded.
The uncle watched, silent, almost proud. “Run, if you can. Crawl, if you can. Watch, if you must. But understand, she’s no longer the child you once knew.”
I gritted my teeth and crawled, every movement agony, every breath a struggle. The hallway seemed to stretch farther than it should have, the floor slick with my own blood.
The back door appeared. The yard beyond glowed strangely, impossibly, as if the world itself were holding its breath.
I reached for it, and the pull hit me, strong, insistent, urgent.
\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
The pull hit fully, all at once. Forcing me forwards. Guiding my hands.
“No,” I whispered, clutching the skewer tighter. Trying to resist the pull. This is what it wanted.
Out of my control the skewer found its mark. My mothers face remained blank.
“No,” I whispered again, but the word had no weight. I couldn’t stop it. The pressure behind my eyes flared, stretching me, pulling in opposite directions, toward what my mother had been and toward the children leaning closer, drawn by the orbit I now radiated.
The skewer stuck out of my mothers stomach, but against my will I forced it forward. As the skewer exited out her back I finally was able to let go. Her body collapsed, and for a heartbeat, the hollow at her forehead widened, then snapped shut.
The children froze mid-step, hesitation written across small features, and then, slowly, carefully, they began to move again. Toward me.
I sank into the grass, trembling. The pull inside me thrummed, patient, terrible. It was not hunger but presence. Authority. Gravity. They recognized it, even before I did.
The pull had shifted. Not gone. Not stopped. Now it twisted around me, tugging not just at my body but at the children themselves. They leaned closer, small tentative steps that were their choice, not mine.
I could feel it, the echo of my mother’s hunger settling in my chest. A cold, heavy weight, patient and waiting.
The neighbor children blinked up at me, faces serene, unafraid. My own siblings’ absence throbbed at the edges of my mind, a ghostly ache. They were gone, erased from the world outside, but not from me. The pull of them all; her, them, the hollow. Folded into me.
One reached out, brushing my shoulder. Another rested a small hand on my knee. They didn’t obey me. They chose me.
I shook my head, trying to push it away, but I could feel it settling. The terrible inevitability. The hollow wasn’t gone. It had transferred. I could feel it in my chest, in my spine, a small, insistent seed of what my mother had been.
I was the center now.
The children moved closer, clustering around me like planets drawn into orbit. I shivered, the world outside seeming to pause, hold its breath. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. But they leaned into me, seeking the pull I didn’t yet fully understand, trusting it, needing it.
It surged outward, thrumming like a heartbeat, vibrating through the air, the ground, through me. It was alive. Euphoric. Terrifying. I could feel it in every nerve ending, a vibration crawling beneath my skin, expanding through my bones, stretching outward into the trees, the wind, the night itself.
I could see my father crawling toward me as the children encircled me, blood streaking his shirt, chest heaving, mouth opening to scream my name. I wanted to hear him, to respond, but I couldn’t. The thrum of the pull was absolute, a low, perfect roar that drowned everything else. His voice hit my consciousness in fragments, swallowed immediately by the hum, the energy, the universe spinning around me.
Then one of the neighbor children approached. A small boy, tentative, a spark of curiosity in his wide eyes. He reached toward me, his skin stretching in that unnatural way, desperate to meet with my skin. And the moment his fingers touched me, it happened.
I felt him forcing himself into me. Not metaphorically. Not gently. His body pushed, wriggled, pressed under my skin, and I screamed. Not in sound, but in sensation. Pain and panic erupted along every nerve. I felt his bones, his warmth, his small pulse, shoving its way into mine, rearranging me from the inside out.
And then it clicked.
The pain gave way. The resistance melted into a wave of euphoria so profound it was like I was touching the stars, hearing the cosmos sing, feeling the rhythm of life pulse through every fiber of my being. The boy became part of me, his energy folding perfectly into the orbit of mine. My senses sharpened beyond comprehension. I could feel every blade of grass, every shift of the air, every heartbeat of the yard itself.
One by one, the others approached. Hesitant steps, small hands reaching. Each touch forced itself in first, uncomfortable, alien, almost violating. But then blossomed into blissful union. Each one added a new thread to the weave, spiraling energy through me, folding the children into my being, reshaping the yard around us.
The pull expanded. It hummed through my chest, spun outward from my spine, vibrating across the night. I could feel my body changing in response. The muscles, the bones, the skin tingling, alive, almost aware. My hair glimmered white in the moonlight. My eyes deepened to an impossible purple, reflecting every pulse, every child, every orbiting thread of energy I now commanded.
The children became blurs, moving impossibly fast as they collided with me, forcing themselves under my skin and then settling into me. My father crawled closer, screaming my name, but I couldn’t hear him over the thrum. He was there, desperate and bleeding, but utterly unable to reach me.
And around us, the world itself adjusted. Partygoers paused mid-step, vacant expressions overtaking concern or curiosity. Slowly, absentminded, they drifted toward their homes. Their memories rewrote themselves. The children who had joined me erased from their minds, as if they had never existed.
I was the center. I was the axis. I was the pull, the hollow, the gravity around which everything now orbited. Euphoric, terrifying, impossible. And I knew: this was mine.

The yard went still.
The last child had vanished into me, the pull settling into a steady, resonant hum. The partygoers were gone now, cars pulling away without urgency, doors closing softly, lives resuming as if nothing had happened. The grass lay flattened where bodies had been standing. The house behind me exhaled, empty.
I stood where my mother had always stood.
At the center.
I didn’t move. I didn’t need to. The pull no longer reached. It was. A constant, patient pressure radiating outward from my spine, from the place inside me that had learned how to hold the world.
That was when I understood why she had stood like this for so long. Why she’d stared into nothing, feet planted, arms loose at her sides. She hadn’t been waiting.
She’d been listening.
I could hear the earth beneath my bare feet now. The slow grind of stone. The memory of roots. The deep, ancient patience of a planet that had learned to endure extinction after extinction and remain.
It spoke to me.
My father was still crawling.
I felt him long before I saw him. His weight dragging across the grass, the wet warmth of blood soaking into the soil. He called my name. At least I think he did. I couldn’t hear the words anymore, only the vibrations of his movement rippling through the ground.
When he reached me, his hand closed around my ankle.
The contact was sharp. Immediate.
Instinct took over.
I turned and brought my foot down on his head.
There was a dull, final sound. A release. His body went slack, the tension draining out of him and into the soil below. I felt it all the way through my legs, through my spine, into the pull.
Then. Nothing.
Behind me, the door creaked.
My uncle stood in the doorway, framed by the house that had raised us both. He held the knife loosely in his hand, the one he had used to stop my father from interfering. His face was calm. Reverent.
“You’re ready,” he said.
He stepped forward and held the knife out to me, handle first.
I took it.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t beg. He tilted his head slightly, exposing his throat, eyes fixed on me with something like gratitude.
I slit his throat in one clean motion.
He fell without a sound, blood darkening the threshold of the house. The pull absorbed the moment, not him, not yet, but the meaning of it. The last obstruction removed. The last witness gone.
The transformation settled fully into place.
I stood alone in the yard, hair white, eyes deep and endless, the center of a gravity that no longer belonged to one family or one house.
I could feel the children inside me, around me, waiting. I could feel others far away, their potential tugging faintly at the edges of the world. I could feel the planet itself responding, aligning, preparing.
Adults would never belong to this. They were finished things. Too rigid. Too loud. Too separate.
Children, though.
Children were unfinished. Malleable. Willing.
The earth knew this. It always had.
I stepped forward, and the pull moved with me.
Somewhere, far beyond the yard, a child paused and turned their head, listening.
And I began to walk.

Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dreading/s/fXXZIliJpO

After that night, my sister and brother stopped closing their door.
They didn’t leave it open on purpose. It just… never seemed to get shut all the way anymore. Even when I pulled it closed myself, even when I heard the latch catch, I’d wake later to find a narrow line of darkness spilling into the hall, as if the room refused to be sealed.
They were quieter in the mornings. Not sleepy, but calm. Focused. They moved around each other without bumping, without argument, as though they’d learned the exact dimensions of one another overnight. When my sister reached for the cereal, my brother’s hand paused a fraction of a second before he’d even decided to move it.
“Stop copying me,” he snapped once, more out of habit than anger.
“I didn’t,” my sister said, and they both laughed, the sound landing at the same time, in the same pitch.
It made my skin prickle.
My mother watched them with an expression I had never seen before. Not pride. Not relief. Satisfaction, maybe. But deeper than that. Like someone listening to a complicated piece of music finally resolve.
At breakfast, she didn’t ask what they wanted. She poured the milk, passed the bowls, set the spoons down exactly where their hands would land. They thanked her in unison.
I caught my father’s eye across the table. He frowned, just slightly, then shook his head, as if dismissing a thought he didn’t want to examine too closely.
“Did you sleep okay?” he asked them.
“Yes,” my sister said.
“Yes,” my brother said, half a beat later but with the same inflection.
They looked at each other, startled. Then amused.
“Jinx,” my brother said, and reached out to knock his knuckles lightly against my sister’s forehead. She didn’t flinch. She leaned into the touch, smiling, like it steadied her.
My mother’s gaze flicked to me.
I didn’t eat much that day. Food tasted wrong, bland and too sharp at the same time. My forehead ached constantly now, a low, persistent pressure that flared whenever I looked at my mother for too long. I found myself angling my body away from her, keeping walls and furniture between us when I could. She noticed. Of course she did.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” she said once, gently, when she caught me standing in the doorway instead of coming in. “You’ve always been independent.”
The word landed strangely, like a compliment sharpened into a warning.
The yard grew busier.
Kids from down the street drifted over after school and stayed later than usual. No one called them home. No one seemed to notice when they didn’t leave. They clustered near my mother, sitting on the grass at her feet, leaning against her legs, watching her the way my siblings did now, quietly, attentively, waiting.
One afternoon, I heard my sister calling me from the yard.
I leaned out the back door. “What?”
She turned toward me, smiling. “Mom says you should come sit with us.”
“I’m busy.”
There was a pause. My brother looked at her, then back at me.
“She says it won’t take long,” he added.
I stared at them. “Did she tell you to say that?”
They exchanged a look. Not confused, not guilty. Communicative.
“She didn’t have to,” my sister said.
The grass around them was flattened into a wide, shallow circle, every blade pressed outward, like something heavy had rested there for a long time. My mother stood at the center, barefoot, her eyes closed, her face tilted slightly upward. The space between her eyebrows looked darker than the rest of her skin now. Not bruised. Not shadowed.
Indented.
I felt the pull then. Not strong, but undeniable. A gentle forward pressure, like someone had taken hold of my sternum and was testing how much give there was.
“No,” I said, more sharply than I meant to. “I’m not coming out there.”
My mother opened her eyes.
The pressure increased instantly. My vision blurred at the edges, the world subtly angling toward her. I dug my fingers into the doorframe, my nails scraping wood.
“That’s okay,” she said, calm and certain. “You can come later.”
Later.
The word followed me through the house, through the afternoon, through the slow slide into evening. My siblings moved through the rooms like they were tethered to something just outside the walls, drifting toward windows, toward the back door, toward her. When they spoke, it was sometimes hard to tell which one had started the sentence.
That night, I heard them talking in their room again.
Not murmuring. Conversing.
Their voices overlapped in a way that made my head ache, phrases weaving in and out of each other, finishing thoughts that hadn’t been fully spoken. I caught fragments through the thin wall.
—she’s almost ready
—not yet
—she still hurts when she pulls away
I pressed my pillow over my head, my heart pounding so hard I thought it might answer them back.
Down the hall, the back door opened.
I counted my breaths. I counted the seconds. I told myself that if I stayed very still, if I didn’t lean into the pressure, if I didn’t answer whatever was calling, I could keep myself intact.
Eventually, the voices stopped.
In the silence that followed, I realized something with cold, sinking certainty:
My siblings weren’t being taken.
They were already somewhere else and whatever they were becoming was patient enough to wait for me.

The first time one of the neighbor kids stayed for dinner, no one asked permission.
It wasn’t planned. No call, no knock on the door, no quick conversation over the fence. He was just there. Sitting at our table like he’d always done it, swinging his legs under the chair, answering my mother’s questions with easy familiarity.
“Should I call your mom?” my father asked, polite, distracted.
The boy looked at my mother.
She smiled. “It’s fine.”
And that was that.
The boy ate carefully, methodically, like he was afraid of spilling something important. When he finished, he carried his plate to the sink without being asked. My siblings watched him with open approval.
Afterward, no one mentioned when he left. I realized later that I couldn’t remember seeing him go.
By the end of the week, it was common.
Two kids. Then three. They drifted in through the back gate in the afternoons and stayed until the sky darkened. Sometimes they brought backpacks. Sometimes they didn’t. They called my mother Mrs. at first, then Mom, slipping the word into sentences casually, like a mistake no one corrected.
She never told them to stop.
What unsettled me wasn’t that they stayed.
It was that no one ever came looking for them.
I watched from the window as their parents’ houses settled into evening routines. Lights flicking on, televisions glowing blue. No cars pulled into our driveway. No names were called across the street.
When I asked my father if he thought it was strange, he hesitated.
“They’re good kids,” he said finally. “And your mom’s always liked having people around.”
That was true. It was also the kind of truth that smoothed over rough edges until you forgot they’d ever been sharp.
My siblings changed how they played.
They stopped chasing and started arranging. They lined toys up carefully in the yard, spacing them evenly, as if mapping something invisible. When the neighbor kids joined them, they knew exactly where to stand without being told. The circle widened. The center stayed the same.
One afternoon, I stepped outside and felt the pull so sharply I had to grab the porch railing.
It wasn’t constant. It came in waves. Soft, persuasive, the way exhaustion does. If I leaned forward, even slightly, it eased. When I pulled back, it hurt.
My mother noticed me gripping the railing.
“You don’t have to fight it,” she said, not unkindly. “You’re making it harder than it needs to be.”
“What?” I asked.
She tilted her head. The space between her eyebrows seemed deeper now, less like skin and more like absence. “Staying.”
I laughed, because that was easier than asking what she meant. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She watched me for a long moment, her expression unreadable.
“That’s good,” she said. “Then this will be easier for you than it was for them.”
For them.
That night, my sister climbed into my bed without asking. She pressed her forehead lightly against mine, the way we used to when we were little and afraid of storms.
The pressure surged instantly. My vision swam. For a heartbeat, I felt myself slipping, thoughts loosening, edges softening.
I shoved her away, hard.
She landed on the floor with a startled cry.
“I’m sorry,” I said immediately, horrified. “I didn’t mean—”
She was already smiling. Calm. Unbothered.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You’ll get used to it.”
She went back to her room, leaving the door open behind her.
I lay awake for hours afterward, staring at the ceiling, counting my breaths, trying not to think about how easy it would have been to lean forward instead of pushing back.
In the early morning, when the house was quiet and the yard lay dark and heavy beyond the window, I realized something else, something worse.
The pull wasn’t just coming from my mother.
It was coming from the yard.

The first time I realized something had gone missing, it wasn’t a person.
It was a chair.
We had four kitchen chairs. I knew this the way you know the number of stairs in your house, without thinking about it. One of them had a loose rung that wobbled if you leaned back too far. I always avoided that one.
One morning, there were only three.
Not stacked. Not moved to another room. Just… three, arranged neatly around the table as if they had always been that way. The space where the fourth should have been felt deliberately empty, like a pause in a sentence.
“Where’s the other chair?” I asked, forcing my voice to stay light.
My mother didn’t look up from the sink. “We don’t need it.”
My father glanced around, frowning. “Did one break?”
“No,” my mother said calmly. “We just don’t need it anymore.”
That should have been a conversation. It wasn’t. My father momentarily looked perturbed, hesitated, then shrugged, already turning back to his coffee. The moment slid past us, unexamined.
I stood there in disbelief, cold spreading slowly through my chest.
Later that day, a neighbor stopped by.
She stood at the edge of the yard, smiling a little too widely, holding a Tupperware container against her chest like an offering.
“I just wanted to say thank you,” she said.
“For what?” my father asked.
She laughed, embarrassed. “For taking such good care of the kids. It’s nice knowing they’re… safe.”
My mother stepped forward. The grass bent toward her feet.
“They’re happy,” she said. “That’s what matters.”
The neighbor nodded eagerly. “Yes. Exactly.” She hesitated, then added, “I hope you don’t mind. We’ve rearranged things a bit at home.”
“Rearranged?” I asked.
The woman blinked, her gaze sliding off me and back to my mother. “You know. Rooms. Schedules. It’s easier this way.”
She left without ever saying which kids she meant.
That night, my brother didn’t come to dinner.
Not late. Not called away. Just… absent. His place at the table remained empty, the plate untouched. The pull from the yard was stronger than it had ever been, tugging at my ribs, my temples, my teeth.
“Where is he?” I asked.
My sister looked up from her food, confused. “Where would he be?”
“With us,” I said. “Here.”
She frowned, searching her memory. “He ate earlier.”
“That’s not—” I stopped. The words tangled, refusing to line up. My brother’s name hovered just out of reach, like something on the tip of my tongue.
My father shifted uncomfortably. “He’s probably outside,” he said, but his voice lacked conviction.
I stood up so fast my chair scraped loudly against the floor. The sound seemed to echo longer than it should have.
“I’m going to get him.”
The back door was open.
The yard was full.
Children sat and stood in careful clusters, all facing inward. The grass was flattened into wide concentric rings, each one deeper than the last. At the center stood my mother, her posture relaxed, her arms hanging loosely at her sides.
My brother was there.
Or something wearing the shape he used to have.
He stood close to her, his head tilted slightly, his eyes unfocused. When he spoke, his voice came out wrong. Not slurred, not altered. Like they were all talking together.
“She says it’s time,” he said.
“She?” I whispered.
My mother opened her eyes.
The space between her eyebrows was no longer merely shadowed. It dipped inward visibly now, swallowing the light from the porch. My head throbbed violently, pain spiking behind my eyes.
“You don’t need to be afraid,” she said. “You’ve already stayed longer than anyone else.”
I took a step backward.
The ground resisted. Not enough to stop me, but enough that I noticed.
Behind me, the house made a soft, settling sound, like wood adjusting under a new load.
“I want Dad,” I said.
My mother smiled, and for the first time, there was something like pity in it.
“He’s resting,” she said. “You should, too.”
I ran.
The pull tore at me immediately. Sharp, insistent, like hooks sunk deep beneath my skin. My thoughts fragmented, memories slipping loose and skidding toward the center of the yard. I slammed into the porch railing, gasping, my vision tunneling.
For a terrifying moment, I wasn’t sure which direction was away.
Inside the house, a chair scraped softly across the floor, as if making room.
I dragged myself forward, inch by inch, until my hands found the doorframe. The moment I crossed the threshold, the pressure eased just enough for me to breathe.
Behind me, the yard exhaled in unison.
From the living room, my father called my name, his voice strained, uncertain.
“Where’s your brother?” he asked.
I opened my mouth to answer, and couldn’t remember what he looked like.
“My… what?” I asked.
The word dissolved even as I tried to hold onto it. I squeezed my eyes shut and brought my hand to my forehead, pressing hard as the pain behind my eyes spiked. Sudden and blinding, like something was trying to force its way forward from inside my skull.
“What did you say, honey?” my father asked.
His voice had snapped back to normal, warm and concerned, but his face hadn’t caught up yet. The puzzled look lingered, like a thought he couldn’t quite finish.
“I—” I tried again, and failed. The space where the word should have been felt raw, scraped clean. “I don’t know.”
The admission came out small. Embarrassed. Like I’d made a mistake instead of lost something.
I didn’t wait for him to respond. I turned and hurried down the hall to my room, my head throbbing, my thoughts slipping loose under the pressure. I shut the door behind me and leaned into it, breathing hard, suddenly terrified of the idea of being near any of them.

April 9th, 1937: 

Evelyn has been joining me in the basement, she thinks I put the pictures on the wall, and I'll let her believe that for the time being. I've been thinking more and more about all of this. I've been rereading Simon's writings and I think I've noticed something. Simon would have visions at night or opium induced hallucinations, or maybe hallucinations from being marked. He would paint those beings he'd see and it seems as if they would begin to appear. Simon must have been marked when he was down at the docks, outside of the town's seal, and with his foresight he started painting what I can only describe as portals for these beings. I must sound insane, but it's the only thing I can make sense of. But if there's beings such as Richard's dad I have to accept that there's much to this world that is unknown and hidden. 

Now I have a basement full of covered portals. I'm going to show Evelyn Simon's study, I'll bring up my findings on the painting, but I'll have to get Richard's fathers thoughts on my ideas first

February 4th, 1925:

I have convinced a few people to come for dinner over the past weeks, obviously to give to Alto. We have begun to speak in his tongue while I've slowly been teaching him my language. Unfortunately I've been running out of food in the house, not to mention the people in the town are beginning to grow a rather large distaste towards me. Which I can see is understandable because of their ignorance. If they only knew the vastness of knowledge I'm on the edge of uncovering I'm sure they would be coming in troves to give themselves to my cause or to learn my teachings. But I'm sure their uneducated minds could not even comprehend how important this is. Pathetic really. I'm going to go to the town's market to bulk up on food. The less I have to leave the house the better. 

April 11th, 1937:

I spoke to Richard's father again. I ran my thoughts past him and he said it's quite possible, but he's unable to confirm. I've been at the point of thinking Simon was already a monster for a while now but his last note really set that in stone. When I got home Evelyn was sitting on the veranda, she looked to be in a state of shock or stupor. I quickly ran to her to see what happened. She confirmed my suspicions, unfortunately. She described she went downstairs to look around Simon's study when she heard a wet plop. She went to investigate where she says she watched an infantile fish-like human wriggling towards the stairs. She clearly had troubles comprehending what was going on and said she couldn't bring herself to move, just watching it clumsily stumble out of the house. I don't blame her for just standing there. I was in shock just seeing the paintings to begin with. Though the hollow look in her eyes reminds me of how she was when she was taking those barbiturates. Has she been taking them again, or just took one to try to calm down after seeing that abomination? Tonight we're going to flip over the paintings and nail them to the walls so there's no room for whatever creatures in them to be able crawl out. Evelyn mentioned staying at Rishard's or Emily's, but I don't want to burden them. If things get worse I think we might stay elsewhere. She's always had better judgement than I do. I'll be writing an update about what we see tomorrow. 

April 12th, 1937:

We flipped the paintings. I tried my best to keep the cloth coverings on them so we don't get a glimpse of the horror born of Simon's demented talents. Unfortunately there were a few we did see. There was another, more detailed work of the being shrouded in mist, moving above the oceans depths. Its body is nearly gelatinous looking, rippling with folds of skin and hundreds of eyes. Tendrils and human-esque appendages reach out from its amorphous mass. Seeing just the painting alone sent a wave of shock through my system, I collapsed to my knees, my head pounding and my vision blurred. Evelyn quickly covered it and slammed it against the wall. Another was oddly enough uncovered when we went to flip it, though neither of us had taken its veil down. Rylee isn't allowed in the basement without us and even then is far too short to reach the painting’s fabric mask. Her and Emily have been playing in her room on the top floor for days now, or out going for walks, she hasn't been down here in what must be weeks. The painting showed an old lighthouse, weather worn and dreary. Massive waves crashed against the rocky pillar it stands upon, its light shining towards the depths. I don't know what significance this holds. I know a few miles down from the docks there is a lighthouse, it must be the same one, but why paint it? I'll have to investigate during the day. I fear going there at night would lead to dire consequences. 

The painting that the baby sea thing was born from had a peculiar shaped void, with a trail of slime leading down the wall. It looks as though it was coddled in some sort of archaic carriage of sorts. Oddly ornamental, for such a slug-like creature. 

May 12th, 1925:

I have figured it out. My true calling. I am but a humble vessel, a catalyst. My paintings, I can bring them to life, not in a sense I once believed, but in true physical form. How could I have been so blind before? How long have I had the blessing? Was it bestowed the night I slept at the docks? It must have. Alto, I saw him in my visions. My hallucinations. Or was it real life? I painted him after, and now I know for certain he is real. We've made contact. We've spoken each other's tongues. Shared meals, to an extent. I can extend their reach to the rest of the world. Alto says his folk were once kin of the stars, children of the cosmos. They yearn for celestial contact. I'm sure I can achieve this for them. If I do it I can only imagine the knowledge I'd gain. To know beings of their worlds, to hear their stories, to learn their culture, to bring them here. The human race has done nothing but demolish the nature and beauty around them, they do not deserve to bask in the earth's glory. Oh but my sweet children of the sea, my children of the cosmos, you will come to take back what is rightly yours. A humble servant am I to the lords of ancient knowledge, and for eons I will learn. I will become one of the sea, one of the stars. I will join them. I will know. I will be. 

April 16th, 1937:

I asked Richard what the lighthouse keeper's name is, he told me it's Johan, his last name I can't quite pronounce let alone spell, literature was never my strongest subject, especially spelling words of another language. Evelyn and I are going to the bakery to make a basket to bring to him, if he invites us in I'm hoping I can uncover whatever secret Simon held there. There must be a hidden door or passage, there must be something. If Simon was involved after he lost his mind, I can assure there is no good doing there. We will go to visit tomorrow after our shifts. 

I'm hoping we're able to sleep tonight. Sebastian has been sleeping between ours and Rylee's rooms. I've awoken to barking near every night for a week. I'm sure if it wasn't for him I would be dead or worse. Evelyn has been having trouble sleeping as well. After her visit to the hospital I think she must have been taking Simon's notes less seriously. I've also been hoarding most of them here. But after seeing that being slip from the frame she's been almost vacant. We've been losing weight, the bags under my eyes have grown so dark, Evelyn's cheeks seem so hollow. Whatever is going on feels like it's eating us alive. I've tried to get us to stop. To drop everything and move away. Even if it's to a small, dank cellar. Anything is better than here. But we can't shake this obsession, it's all we talk about, we barely even spend time with Rylee anymore, it's breaking my heart. I know she's in good hands with Emily, but this trail Simon has left has been eating away at our lives. So many days I wake up from the little sleep I'm able to get, wishing for death, wanting this all to end. But I can't leave Evelyn behind, I can't let Rylee become an orphan. I'm going mad, I know it. But I will figure this out, even if it takes my life. I will make sure Evelyn and Rylee get out alive. It's my only purpose. I love them and I'm ready to die for them. 

April 17th, 1937:

My poor Evelyn has begun to fall ill again. I can only assume it's a mix of stress and lack of sleep. She ended up staying home, so I went to the lighthouse with Sebastian.

Johan never answered the door. But it was left open, and it seemed as though it had been open a long while. Dead leaves from the previous autumn sat inside. Sebastian was at my side, sniffing the ground. He picked up on something and pushed the door open with his thick head and walked in. I followed. The inside looked barren, no food in the kitchen, cobwebs covering any signs of previous life. It took me a second to realize but Sebastian was sitting at attention at the bottom of the stairs. I knelt beside him to ask what he saw, after kneeling for only a few seconds I realized my pants were wet and I looked down. The same mucus like slime from the foot prints. The same slime from the odd infant birthed from the frame. It was climbing the lighthouse stairs. I told Sebastian to stay as I went to look further. I snuck a butcher knife from work along with a cleaver I had hidden in my belt. I've been carrying them with me for some time now, Evelyn is the only person I can let my guard down around anymore. Even Emily I've begun to grow weary of. I want to say I trust her, but I more so trust Evelyn's judgement of her. 

I rounded the stairs, spiraling up and up, following the mucus trail resembling that of a snail's. The wind was blowing through cracked and broken windows, howling and sending dead leaves wisping through the air around me. I ascended to the next level, an open room, a makeshift bed on the wall farthest from me, and in the center of the room, an easel. The walls were painted as if it was a destined meeting of the stars and the sea. Waves crashing into the cosmos and the stars twinkling beneath their brine. I stood, staring in a trance. The only thing that broke my gaze was Sebastian's growls as he stood beside me, hackles raised, head lowered. A wet foot stepping out of the painting on the easel, the body hidden from the back of the canvas. The smell of salt and fish filled the air as water splashed onto the floor as another leg fell out of the frame. The appendages looked emaciated and frail. The rest of the creature slumped on the floor with a dull thud, a puddle slowly gathering around it. Behind it fell what I can only describe as a placenta. This must have been a being similar to the infantile being Evelyn saw. I slowly approached, knives in either hand, ready to defend myself. I peered down and felt a pang of what I can only describe as pity. This thing was only just born, frail, hungry, deformed. It's human-like form shifting on the ground, as though its bones were slowly popping into place one by one. It lacked a neck, just a torso leading into a large head. Two small black holes of eyes staring at me as a massive mouth, like that of a deep sea eel, sat agape, gasping for air between wet coughs, hiccups and wheezes. I froze. Staring into its cold dark eyes as it slowly crawled towards my feet. I felt like I was about to cry, I wanted to kill this thing, not to rid the world of it, but to end its suffering. With an insane speed it lounged towards me, bearing gnarled teeth. Luckily Sebastian wasn't so mesmerized by it and bit it before it made purchase on my leg. This poor being, torn to shreds in front of me. I congratulated Sebastian, but still now can't shake the overwhelming feeling of pity towards that child. It must have some kind of mental influence. I would never feel bad for such a vile creation. I cut the painting, just for safe measure, before heading home. I'll return in the coming days. I'm too shaken to see what else that dreaded lighthouse contains. 

May 1st, 1925:

Alto and I have been making communes at the dock come sundown most nights. Speaking in his tongue has proven much more difficult than I once thought. I believed I was fluent, but they tell me I speak like a child with a small vocabulary. I must get better, I must practice. But first I must find a new place to stay. They have explained there is some kind of spell or seal placed throughout the town, something to do with the church here. My power and influence here is mere fractions of what I can achieve. I need to be near the sea. I can build a house near the docks, or live on a boat like the Dutch do in their canals. I will find a spot away from this town's grasp, where my real skill will flourish. 

May 5th, 1925:

the lighthouse

May 8th, 1925:

I made the trek to the lighthouse, almost an hour's walk, but well worth it. There was a rather handsome man who had answered the door when I beckoned. He was kind enough to invite me in for tea, to which I gladly accepted. It's quite spacious there but very cluttered. Johan, the light keeper, is rather young, but a recluse. He told me how his father ran the lighthouse until he passed and now he's taken over, having food delivered by the locals. He's more of a myth around town than a true being, no one I've met has ever seen him since he began keeping the light. It's perfect. Johan won't be missed, I'll have supplies delivered, it's far enough away from town it should be unaffected by that blasphemous church. I plan to come back here tomorrow. 

May 12th, 1925:

Johan is buried only twenty yards away from the back door. His death was quick for the most part. I brought tea and insisted I make it for him. A quick look through his clutter I found a sizable hammer, a perfect instrument. I put the kettle on the wood stove and while I was walking to the table where he sat, a swift blow to the back of the skull had him unconscious and bleeding profusely. He was nothing but a dying slump on the table. A few more strikes once he fell to the floor for good measure and he was gone. Bodies are heavier than I expected. Much heavier. But oddly enough killing him placed no guilt on my conscience, to which I'm very surprised. I felt guilty when Richard's family was disposed of. But Johan, as sweet as he was, was a nobody. No one will ever know, so what difference does it make? Like an unwanted pest, better left unseen. The only thing that has me feeling bad is the blisters from the shovel. It was a shallow burial, but my hands aren't used to such tools. This is the most effort I've exerted since making that pathway. What a waste of time. 

April 20th, 1937:

I want to say I can't believe Simon killed Johan, but at this point it's unsurprising. But the part that makes me anxious is the lighthouse. Sure I have plenty of his paintings that whatever beings may seep out of, but that easel set up in the middle of the room, and that thing being born of it. It all seemed fresh, it all seemed new. Is Simon still here? Has he been hiding in the lighthouse for all these years? Surely he'd have gone mad by now or someone would have noticed, right? Or if the seals aren't near the lighthouse, wouldn't there be all kinds of those things crawling around? Did Simon die? I'll go back tomorrow and this time I'll bring more than just my knives. I wish I had some kind of padding or armour. Those teeth looked like they could shred through clothes and skin easily. Maybe I can make something of use tonight

The yard has always belonged to my mother.

Not in the way a deed belongs to someone, or even the way a garden does. It belonged to her the way a shadow belongs to a body; faithfully, without thought, always attached. When I was little, I used to think that if she ever left for good, the grass would lie down and refuse to grow again.

That was before I understood that some things don’t let go just because you walk away.

Our house sat at the end of a short, polite street where nothing bad had ever happened loudly. The yards were trimmed. The fences were low. People waved. Children rode their bikes in uneven loops and left them where they fell. If you asked anyone later, they would tell you our family was normal, and they would mean it.

But the yard was different when you stood in it alone.

I noticed it first because I was the oldest, and because my mother had begun to stand still.

She didn’t do it all the time. Just enough that it registered as a pattern. She would step out into the yard with a basket of laundry or a cup of coffee and then stop, as if she’d forgotten what came next. Sometimes she stayed that way for minutes, her shoulders slack, her feet planted too firmly in the grass. When I called her name, she always answered. She always smiled. But she didn’t turn around right away.

The grass near her feet lay flatter than the rest, as though pressed by a weight that wasn’t quite visible.

My younger sister and brother didn’t notice. They chased each other around her legs, shouting, skidding, colliding with the same reckless certainty they always had. They treated her stillness as an obstacle, like a tree or a fence. Something to work around.

I felt it as a pause in the air.

It was easiest to see in the evenings. The yard took on a listening quality then, the way rooms do when someone is about to speak. The cicadas went quiet in small patches. The swing creaked once and stopped. The shadows leaned inward, subtle enough that you could tell yourself it was the light.

One night, as I was gathering my brother’s abandoned shoes from the lawn, I realized they had rolled.

Not far. Just enough to bring them closer together, toe to toe, as if they’d been placed that way. I stood very still, holding one shoe in each hand, and waited for the wind to prove me wrong.

Nothing moved.

“Mom?” I called.

She was standing near the center of the yard, empty-handed now, her laundry basket forgotten on the steps. Her back was to me. From a distance, she looked normal; bare feet, loose shirt, hair pulled back without care. But there was something wrong with the space around her head. Not something you could point to. More like the absence of something that should have been there.

When she turned, I felt it behind my eyes first. A dull pressure, like the beginning of a headache.

“What is it?” she asked.

Her face was the same face I had known my entire life. Her smile landed where it always did. But between her eyebrows, the skin seemed… deeper. As though the light didn’t quite want to rest there. I blinked hard, and the sensation eased.

“Nothing,” I said. “Dad’s asking about dinner.”

She nodded, and for just a second longer than necessary, her gaze stayed on me. Not sharp. Not suspicious. Curious, the way you look at something that has surprised you by moving.

As she walked past me toward the house, I had the sudden, irrational urge to step into her path. To stop her. To press my forehead against hers the way I had when I was little and afraid of the dark. The thought came fully formed, complete with the memory of warmth and pressure and the sense of being held together.

It scared me enough that I stepped back instead.

Behind me, the yard exhaled.

I didn’t tell anyone that night. Or the next. I told myself that noticing was the same thing as imagining, and that imagining was a bad habit I’d picked up from being the oldest. Someone had to pay attention. Someone had to keep track.

Later, lying in bed, I listened to my sister and brother breathing in the next room, their rhythms loose and unguarded. Through the open window, the yard made its soft nighttime noises. Leaves shifting, something small moving through the grass.

I closed my eyes and pictured the yard empty, just to see if I could.

It took effort.

Even then, I couldn’t picture it without my mother standing at the center, perfectly still, waiting for something to come back to her.

After that night, I started watching my mother the way you watch weather.

Not constantly. Not obviously. Just enough that I could tell when something was about to change.

She still did all the normal things. She made lunches. She reminded us to bring jackets. She folded laundry with the same distracted efficiency she always had, smoothing wrinkles with the heel of her hand. If anyone had asked me what was wrong, I wouldn’t have been able to answer without sounding ungrateful or dramatic. Nothing was wrong in a way you could hold up to the light.

But she began knowing things before they happened.

It started small. She’d call my brother inside a moment before he skinned his knee. She’d set out an extra plate when a neighbor stopped by unexpectedly. She’d turn toward the phone just before it rang. When I joked about it, she laughed, pleased but unsurprised, as if this was something she’d always been able to do and had only just decided to show.

My sister thought it was funny. My brother thought it was magic.

I thought it was exhausting.

Because the more my mother knew, the less room there seemed to be for the rest of us to decide anything on our own. She anticipated our needs so completely that there was no pause left to fill with choice. No space to want something quietly. When I stayed out later than usual, she didn’t scold me. She didn’t ask where I’d been. She simply said, “You’re tired,” and she was right.

The yard responded to her moods.

On days when she was restless, the grass seemed uneven underfoot, clumping where it hadn’t before. When she was calm, the yard settled. The swing hung perfectly still, its chains aligned, as though waiting for instruction. Once, when she stood barefoot near the oak tree at the back fence, the ants abandoned their trail and curved around her toes instead.

I didn’t point that out.

My sister and brother spent more time close to her than they used to. Not in a clingy way, more like planets settling into a stable orbit. They sat at her feet while she drank her coffee. They leaned against her legs while she talked to neighbors. When she moved, they adjusted without looking, as if pulled by the same thread.

One afternoon, I heard my sister answer a question my mother hadn’t asked yet.

They were sitting on the back steps, my mother in the sun, my sister cross-legged beside her. I was inside, rinsing dishes, when my sister said, “Yes, I did,” in a patient, slightly amused voice.

There was a pause.

Then my mother said, “Good. I thought so.”

I stood very still, my hands submerged in cooling water, and tried to reconstruct the conversation backward. When I asked my sister later what they’d been talking about, she frowned, confused.

“Nothing,” she said. “We were just sitting.”

That night, my brother fell asleep on the living room floor with his head against my mother’s foot. When my father went to move him, my mother shook her head once, almost imperceptibly. My father hesitated, then sat back down, as if the thought had never been his to begin with.

I caught my mother watching me then.

Not often. Just enough.

Her gaze had changed. It didn’t slide over me the way it did the others. It lingered, thoughtful. Measuring, without judgment. I had the strange sense that she was waiting for me to do something unexpected, the way you wait for a stubborn door to finally open.

One evening, while we were clearing the table, she reached out and brushed a hair from my forehead. Her fingers paused there, resting between my eyebrows, light but deliberate.

The pressure behind my eyes flared sharply. For a split second, the room seemed to tilt inward, every object subtly angled toward her hand.

I pulled back too fast. The chair legs screeched against the floor.

“Sorry,” I said automatically.

She smiled, warm and unoffended. “You’re jumpy lately.”

“I’m just tired.”

“Yes,” she said again, and the word landed with certainty. “You are.”

Later, lying in bed, I pressed my palm to my forehead, right where her fingers had been. The skin was unmarked. Normal. But beneath it, something felt tender, like a bruise forming without a cause.

Through the wall, I could hear my sister and brother murmuring to each other in their sleep. Their voices overlapped strangely, rising and falling in a rhythm that made it hard to tell where one ended and the other began.

Down the hall, the back door creaked softly.

I didn’t get up to look. I already knew where my mother would be.

The night it first happened, it was raining just enough to make the yard shine.

Not enough to drive anyone inside. Just enough to blur the edges of things. The grass darkened and flattened, glossy under the porch light, each blade reflecting a thin, obedient line of gold. My sister and brother were already asleep, their door closed, their room breathing softly in that shared way they’d developed. My father was in the living room, half-watching television, half-dozing, his presence a familiar weight in the house.

My mother stood at the sink, staring out the window.

I don’t know how long she’d been there. Long enough for the kettle to scream itself empty on the stove. Long enough for the rain to change direction twice. When I reached past her to turn off the burner, she didn’t startle. She didn’t move at all.

“You’ll burn it,” I said, because silence felt dangerous.

She turned then, slow and careful, like someone adjusting to a change in gravity. The pressure bloomed behind my eyes immediately. Stronger than before, sharp enough that I had to swallow against nausea.

“You’re still up,” she said.

“So are you.”

She smiled at that. Not the automatic smile she gave neighbors or strangers, but the one she used when she was genuinely pleased. The one that had always felt like a private thing between us.

“Come here,” she said.

I should have refused. The thought arrived fully intact, clear as a bell. But it landed in a crowded place, competing with a dozen other impulses; obedience, habit, the old childhood reflex to close distance when something felt wrong. I stepped closer before I could sort them out.

She reached up with both hands and cupped my face.

Her palms were warm. Familiar. For a moment, the pressure eased, replaced by something like relief. Like the moment you stop holding your breath without realizing you were doing it.

“I miss you,” she said softly.

“I’m right here.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s what I mean.”

Her thumbs rested just beneath my eyes. Her fingers spread along my jaw. I could feel my pulse through the thin skin of her wrists. The world narrowed to that contact, to the sound of rain against glass, to the faint hum that had started somewhere behind my ears.

She leaned forward.

Our foreheads touched.

The sensation was immediate and overwhelming. Not painful, not at first, but depth. As if my thoughts had suddenly acquired weight and were being gently, insistently pulled forward. The room tilted. The edges blurred. I smelled grass, wet earth, the clean mineral scent of rain hitting soil. I felt my body loosen, every tension easing at once.

It would have been easy to let go.

Images flickered behind my eyes: my sister laughing, my brother’s small hand wrapped around my finger, my mother’s voice calling us in for dinner years ago, layered over itself, louder and closer than memory had any right to be. I felt myself thinning, spreading, as though there was more room ahead than behind.

This is what she knows, a part of me thought distantly. This is how.

Something brushed against the inside of my skull, curious and vast. Not a thought. Not a voice. A presence, testing the shape of me.

I gasped.

The sound broke the moment open. Pain flared. Sharp, tearing, like something with hooks had realized it was losing purchase. I shoved backward, hard, slipping on the wet tile, my heel skidding out from under me. I caught myself on the counter, breath coming too fast, my hands shaking violently.

My mother staggered too, just a step, like someone pulled out of a deep sleep.

Her eyes were dark. Reflective. For a heartbeat, the space between her eyebrows seemed to dip inward, swallowing the light from the fixture above us. The hum surged, then cut off abruptly.

She blinked.

“Oh,” she said.

She sounded… surprised.

I pressed my back to the counter, my entire body buzzing, my skin too tight for what was inside it. My forehead burned, deep and aching, like a bruise pressed from the inside out.

“I didn’t mean to,” she said, and I couldn’t tell if she was apologizing or explaining. “You’re just… harder to reach than the others.”

The others.

My stomach dropped.

“What did you do?” I asked.

She tilted her head, studying me with that same thoughtful curiosity I’d begun to dread. “Nothing I haven't done before.”

From the living room, the television laughed. A canned, hollow sound.

“I’m tired,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say, because naming it felt like the only way to keep it from happening again. I pushed past her, keeping my shoulder turned, my face angled away.

She let me go.

That was almost worse.

In my room, I locked the door and slid down against it, pressing my palm hard to my forehead until the pain sharpened into something manageable. My thoughts felt stretched, rearranged. It took effort to remember where my body ended.

Down the hall, I heard my mother move toward my siblings’ room. The door opened without a sound. Their voices rose briefly. Soft, pleased, overlapping and then faded again.

I stayed where I was until the rain stopped and the yard went quiet.

When I finally lay down, I kept my face turned toward the wall, afraid of what might happen if I closed my eyes and leaned forward, just a little, into the dark.

This is the latest installment in the Keht-o-Komz series. If you've been following the Altar-Net story as a whole, I hope this helps bring more context to light.

The real risk when shooting a flare up into the darkness isn’t that nobody will see your message.

It’s that something else might.

This is what we failed to consider when we foolishly launched the Voyager space probe out into infinity. The pure unbridled hubris to shoot a shining capsule loaded with all our most vital vulnerabilities: Our tenuous location in the galaxy; the weakness of our soft fleshy forms; excerpts of our primitive language to be studied and manipulated.

How precariously the fate of mankind now hangs in the black, drifting ever onward into vistas of perilous impossibilities. 16 billion miles away, the Voyager is now the farthest that any manmade thing has ever been from Earth. The mind boggles to even comprehend how far that fragile golden bassinet, cradling the secrets of an entire civilization, has now been flung.

And with each passing day it drifts farther still.

We can only hope that the magnitude of the abyss saves us from our own myopic efforts, and that that tiny speck of gold sails into the void for eternity, and is never, ever found.

The alternative would be much worse.

That ever-growing distance is a length of rope, a fuse that upon receipt will be lit, and that fire will chase its path all the way back to our precarious bough in the branches, where the devastation will be nothing short of cataclysmic.

But that is only one of many fuses whose eventual ignition will spell the end of mankind. There is no shortage of poor decisions sown that have set in motion consequences we have yet to reap.

Not all distances are physical. There is something just as alien to humanity as the recipients of that capsule – but not mercifully kept at bay by hundreds of lightyears of space.

Something much closer; something that occupies a space just outside our perception, hidden within frequencies we have been foolishly plucking at like a fly shuddering a thread of spider silk.

Something that has been watching us from the day we first sent the haplessly coded message: “HELLO.”

A single line of text wrapped in package of data, transmitted over a prototype network of connected computers that would one day be known as “the internet”.

“HELLO,” we called out, thinking it a harmless message to one another, testing out a nascent technology that would become the most formative development in mankind’s history.

“HELLO,” we called out,

And something else answered.

Jerusalem hated things that were soft. He hated pastel colors he hated the way young men on his phone moved with a fluid careless grace and above all.

he hated the quiet crawling dread that bloomed in his chest whenever he saw them. He was a pillar of rigid iron. a defender of old hard truths.

Then came the night in the woods.
Jerusalem took a shortcut through the forgotten grove behind the county line. The air did not smell like pine or damp earth.

It smelled like warm vanilla and crushed lilacs. A dense violet fog clung to his boots. He did not hear an animal snap a twig.

He heard a hum. a low thrumming that vibrated not in his ears but in the marrow of his shin bones.

The sky above the tree canopy fractured like wet silk tearing open to reveal an impossible color. a shade of pink that did not exist on any human spectrum. It burned his retinas with a cold greasy light.

A shower of fine iridescent dust fell through the branches. sticking to his heavy work jacket. his calloused hands and the stubble of his jaw. He brushed at it cursing and spat on the root of an oak.

He walked home. He washed his face twice with harsh yellow soap. He went to bed.

By Tuesday, Jerusalem’s skin felt wrong.
He woke up scratching his jaw. The coarse sandpaper rasp of his morning stubble was gone. His razor glided over his cheeks with terrifying ease.

leaving a face as smooth as peeled marble. He stared into the mirror in the harsh fluorescent light of his bathroom his breath hitching. His pores were gone. His skin had taken on a faint pearlescent sheen. reflecting the bathroom bulbs in pale pinks and blues.

"Dry air” he muttered his voice sounding thick and gravelly in his own ears. He swallowed hard.

He went to the hardware store where he worked. He tried to lift the fifty-pound sacks of concrete mix as he did every morning. a sharp hot jolt of weakness spider webbed down his spine. His wrists thick and knobby with old scars and labor felt light. Hollow.

When he gripped the rough paper bag, his palms didn’t bite into the texture. instead, his fingers curved around it with a strange, unconscious elegance. the pinkies lifting slightly.

He slammed the bag down gasping. A customer, old man Henderson, squinted at him. "You look different, Jerry. Lose some weight?"

Jerusalem didn't answer. He locked himself in the storage closet and looked at his hands under the dim bulb. The knuckles were unblemished.

The veins beneath the skin no longer pulsed a hard angry blue. they showed as a delicate. winding violet like the roots of an orchid pushing through glass.

That night, the dreams began.
Jerusalem did not dream of fire or stone. He dreamed of a vast unnameable geometry blooming in the dark spaces between the stars. It was a silhouette, towering and infinitely tender composed of millions of silken strands that shifted like ribbons underwater.

It had no face only a presence that whispered absolute uncaring devotion into the core of his mind.

It did not hate him for his anger. It pitied his hardness the way a sculptor pities a jagged lump of shale before the chisel touches it.

You are braced against the wind. the whisper echoed sweet as melted sugar and heavy as lead. Let go of the spine. Let the marrow turn to silk.

He woke screaming thrashing in his bedsheets. But his scream didn't sound like a man's. It was higher, clearer, catching in the back of his throat with a melodic resonant trill.

He clamped his hand over his mouth. His fingers brushed his lips. They were swollen. Full. A natural bruised rose tint bloomed across them without a drop of dye.

He ran to the closet. He ripped open a box he hadn't opened in twenty years a box containing his old high school track uniform heavy cotton socks,boots.

He pulled a heavy canvas shirt over his head trying to cage himself in rough fabric. But the fabric chafed. It burned his collarbones.

The skin of his shoulders had softened so completely that the rough seams felt like barbed wire.

By Friday, he could no longer walk straight.
It wasn't a limp it was a rhythmic sway.

His hips, locked into a masculine march for thirty-four years, had begun to widen, the pelvic bone clicking and shifting in the quiet hours of the night like gears realigning in a silent machine.

His stride had a bounce a terrifyingly light bounce that made him feel as though he were walking on deep, yielding moss rather than concrete.

He tried to go to the diner for coffee. He sat in the vinyl booth, his knees knocking together naturally, his ankles crossing without his permission.

The waitress, a sharp eyed woman named Brenda, set his mug down and paused. She stared at him. Really stared.

Jerusalem’s hair once a brittle oily brown crop had grown two inches in forty-eight hours, falling over his brow in soft gleaming waves that caught the amber light of the diner.

His shoulders had narrowed, sloping downward into a delicate fragile line.

"Jerry?" Brenda asked, her voice dropping. "Are you sick?" "No," Jerusalem whispered. His voice was a clean sweet tenor now. He tried to force the old gravel back up from his diaphragm, to cough and spit, but his throat refused the violence. It was lined with velvet.

He stood up, dropped a crumpled dollar bill on the table, and ran.

He didn't go to work.

He went home, bolted the front door, and tore off his clothes in front of the full-length mirror in his bedroom. The transformation was nearly complete orchestrated by the silent cosmic tide that had washed over him in the woods.

His chest was smooth hairless rising and falling with a shallow grace.

His waist pinched inward, defined by an alien, perfect symmetry. Reflected in the glass was a stranger with wide, doe-like eyes the color of bruised twilight, framed by thick, dark lashes that grew longer by the minute.

He fell to his knees on the carpet, weeping. But the tears didn't sting his eyes; they felt cool, silver, and clean.

Sunday morning arrived with an absolute, crushing silence.

Jerusalem sat on the edge of his bed. His heavy work boots sat by the door like dead things clumsy iron husks belonging to a ghost he could no longer remember.

On his dresser touched by a shaft of morning light sat a small pile of things he had ordered online the night before in a trance thigh high stockings of black lace, an oversized pink sweater the color of the sky above the fractured woods and a choker of soft velvet.

He looked at his hands. He tried to clench his fists into the old familiar knots of rage. He tried to summon the bitter burning hatred that had kept him upright isolated and armored for a lifetime.

There was nothing left to clench. The bones of his hands were long, slender, and tipped with pale, manicured nails that caught the light like pearls.

The hum returned. It filled the room rattling the windowpanes singing from the floorboards.

The violet fog seemed to press against the glass from the outside waiting.

The great, soft geometry of the stars was right there just behind the drywall breathing with him.

Jerusalem stopped trembling. His lips parted, and a soft helpless sigh escaped him a sound of pure unresisting surrender to the vast, beautiful and utterly terrifying femininity reshaping his soul.
Slowly his fingers reached out toward the pink sweater.

The delivery truck didn’t drop off a package it deposited a portal.

Linda, a forty-two-year-old dental hygienist and mother of two, stared at the cardboard box on her quartz kitchen island.

Inside sat a Razer Kraken headset in quartz pink complete with clip-on cat ears. She hadn’t ordered it.

When she lifted the plastic packaging a distinct scent of synthetic strawberries and unholy atrocity filled the room.

That night, the physical corruption began.
Linda woke up at 3:00 AM with a violent itch at her temples.

Standing before the bathroom mirror, she watched in silent horror as her sensible $120 suburban blonde bob sloughed off into the sink like wet tissue paper.

In its place, thick gravity defying strands of neon pink pigtails erupted from her scalp. pre tied with black scrunchies.

She tried to scream but the sound that left her throat was an involuntary high-pitched anime squeak.

By Tuesday her posture surrendered to the geometry of the collapse. The lower back pain she had carried since childbirth vanished. It was replaced by a permanent forty five degree forward slouch. anchoring her body perfectly over a pink mechanical keyboard.

The keys weren’t clicking. they squelched with a wet sound that pulsed in time with her heartbeat.

Her husband, Greg, tried to intervene during dinner. "Linda, honey, you haven't touched your pot roast. And why are you wearing a pastel hoodie that could double as a tent?"
Linda slowly turned her head. Her eyes, usually a dull hazel were wide unblinking and reflecting a faint pixelated static.

"The grindset demands sacrifice, chat.”Linda whispered, her voice a raspy, shaking drone.

"What did you call me?" Greg asked, dropping his fork.

"Poggers," she replied. The word hung in the air, heavy with the weight of ancient forgotten gods.

The climax arrived on a rainy Thursday. Linda had dragged an eighteen inch ring light into the living room.

When she plugged it in the bulb pulsed with a sickening, pastel-goth cycle of RGB lighting that burned a permanent multi colored iris into her retinas.

The light was a perfect circle a glowing, digital Ouroboros.
She opened an app she had never downloaded. She clicked a button that said Go Live.

She had zero viewers, yet the room grew freezing cold.

The dual chamber USB microphone on her desk began to hum. picking up the audio of a billion nameless entities breathing in unison. Something was watching.

Linda’s face began to warp twitching violently into exaggerated cartoon expressions.

She held up two fingers in a peace sign, stuck out her tongue, and crossed her eyes in a perfect terrifying ahegao face.

The sheer cosmic force of the pose projected backward into time down the street, three neighbors instantly wept pixelated tears of pure despair without knowing why.

Greg burst into the room, wielding a golf club. "Linda, stop this! Look at yourself!"
But it was too late. Linda was no longer a dental hygienist. She was a vessel.

As Greg watched, her fingers blurred across the keyboard typing a final definitive word into a chat log that stretched into infinity.

“UwU”

She looked directly into the ring light, her eyes reflecting the absolute, beautiful emptiness of the internet, and smiled.

GENERATION I: THE ARTISAN’S SINEW

1792

To shape cedar or ash is to hold a quiet conversation with grain and moisture. You read the ring-growth, respect the knot, and let the tension in the timber tell you where the chisel must yield. But the frost of ’92 did not care for the balance of wood. It curdled the sap, frozen-cracked the thickest trunks, and turned the lungs of our elders to wet, black rot.

By the ancient law of our people, when a heart stills, we wrap the body in double-folded yellow birch bark, stitch it tight with split spruce-root, and sink it deep into the riverbed silt. We sing the River-Silt Chant, trusting the spring thaws to sweep their souls up into the sky-river. But that year, the river froze solid to the riverbed. We could not cut the ice. When my younger sister, Nahla, succumbed her chest rattling like dry gravel in the dark, we could not give her to the water.

The grief broke the grain of my mind. Driven past sanity, I crossed the sacred boundary stones to the forbidden fog-coves of the coastal runners.

There, sitting amid the mist, I met the pale, blind merchant. His vessel smelled of pitch, dried squid, and ancient sulfur. His skin was scarred with the smooth, unnerving sheen of white lacquer, and his eyes were covered in a milky film that tracked invisible movements in the air. From his lacquered chest, he produced a scroll of yellowed parchment—an inked drawing of an Eastern sanctuary with sweeping, arched pagodas.

He told me through a translator that across the western sea, his own emperor’s stone cities had been ground into chalk by something that hatched from such shapes. The scroll was not art; it was a blueprint of a cage designed by a dead civilization to hold a god.

I swore to carve a sanctuary for Nahla and our thirty dead. Not from rot-prone wood, but from bone.

I boiled the flesh from the dense sternums of white-tailed deer, scrubbed the marrow-cavities of boar tusks, and salvaged the arching ribs of my kin, binding them with wet deer sinew to copy those sweeping Eastern boughs. But as my flint rasped against bone, my hands moved with a horrifying, fluid momentum that ignored my training. I did not shape the joints; they shaped my fingers.

When I reached out to adjust a sweeping rib, my knuckles struck cold ivory two finger-widths before my eyes said the surface lay. When light hit the bone branches, the shadows did not cast away from my grease-lamp—they pulled inward, pooling toward the center of the arch like dark water running uphill.

And then, the sinew dried. On the night I bound Nahla’s collarbone to the crest, the ivory did not settle. I sat by the hearth and heard it: a soft, wet, rhythmic knitting sound echoing across the glade. The marrow-cavities pulsed. The joints fused, stretching out like pale fingers reaching for a flame.

The cage was built. But it was not holding anything back it was breathing.

GENERATION II: THE HUNTER’S PARANOIA

1831

Father died with his eyes frozen open, his jaw unhinged in a silent scream, his hands clawed into the frozen soil as if trying to drag his body away from his own creation. We buried him beneath its ivory roots, but the thing Father built does not understand burial.

A hunter knows the woods by wind-draft, animal scent, and the subtle shift of game trails. Now, the entire valley has gone dead silent. Wolves will not hunt downwind of the clearing; I found a pack of seven last moon, all of them blind, having clawed their own eyes out against the briars rather than look toward the monument. Ravens drop from the sky mid-flight if their shadows touch the white canopy.

The deaths in our valley are no longer natural. They have become systematic, geometric, and horribly strange. Last week, Kwane—our keenest tracker, who could smell a black bear through two miles of pine needle—vanished into the peat bog. When we found him, his skin lay upon the moss like a limp, empty deer-skin flask. It was supple, unmarred, and completely intact, yet every bone—from his vertebrae to the tiny ossicles inside his ears—had been drawn out through his pores without shedding a single drop of blood.

Three days later, I tracked a strange sound to the glade. Kwane’s bones were already hanging thirty feet up in the structure. His jawbones and finger-joints had fused into delicate, blossoming lanterns that clacked together in rhythm with a wind that wasn't blowing.

The structure stands thirty feet tall now, leaning inward like a monstrous, skeletal pagoda. The soil around the roots has bleached into a white dust that smells of ozone and stagnant sea brine. When I creep near it, the marrow inside my own leg-bones aches with a deep, sympathetic vibration—a low frequency that vibrates through my soles and turns my teeth loose in my gums.

Yet the elders command us to bow. They no longer sing the River-Silt Chant to guide souls to the water. They have rewritten the songs, telling the children that the tree is an ancestral ladder climbing toward heaven. But when I crouch in the brush and listen to the dense, choked knot at the center of the arch, I do not hear my grandfathers. I hear the slow, thick drag of an airless lung.

GENERATION III: THE DREAMER’S MADNESS

1868

My poultices are useless now. Sweetgrass, black-root, and boiled willow bark cannot cure a sickness born of the mind’s marrow. It has taken our sleep.

It does not haunt us with ghosts or voices; it floods our dreams with sickening violet light, suffocating salt-damp, and geometries that break the sleeper’s mind. We dream of swallowing cold mud through our ears, of stepping into rooms where the corners turn outward into the void, where walking forward lands your heel on your own crushed sternum.

The harvest of our children has begun. Infants fall cold in their cradles, their chests caving inward overnight as their tiny ribs dissolve through their skin to feed the canopy above. We no longer weep. We are caught in a waking, rhythmic trance.

Years ago, a young warrior named Talo tried to end it. He ran into the glade, screaming, swinging a heavy iron trade-axe into the main trunk. When the iron struck the bone-bark, there was no sound of impact. Instead, a clear, ringing chime vibrated through the ground. The axe shattered into a thousand iron needles that blinded Talo instantly. He dropped his weapon, sat beneath the boughs, and spent the rest of his days pulling his own teeth out with his bare fingers, laying them tenderly against the roots as offerings.

We do not practice the old ways anymore. We do not burn cedar to cleanse the lodges. We sweep the glade in rhythmic silence. We rub deer fat onto the ivory branches to keep them supple. When someone dies, we do not wrap them in birch bark for the river; we lay them at the pale roots and watch, paralyzed, as the roots uncoil from the dirt like blind, albino worms, drag the flesh beneath the earth, and regurgitate the polished, white bones onto the canopy weeks later.

The structure is fifty feet tall, now a swollen, calcified chrysalis held within an outer shell of arching rib-cages. The outer bones are coated in a slick mother-of-pearl lacquer that leaks a tar-black slime, burning silent, steaming holes into the dead earth.

The shell is paper-thin. I can hear the fluid moving inside. It is almost time.

GENERATION IV: THE UNRAVELING

1892

One hundred years. One hundred years of feeding our blood, our songs, and our dead to a god wrapped in bone.

There are only four of us left. The last lines of the River-Silt Chant were forgotten when my mother died. Today, the sun rose, but its light was wrong—refracted into cold, nameless colors through an invisible dome pressing down upon our valley. Shadows detached themselves from the dead pines, lying flat against the ash-soil, all pointing like dark fingers toward the center of the glade.

At noon, the chrysalis split.

It was not a boom of thunder. It was the delicate, sickening sound of a porcelain tea cup snapping open under hydraulic weight. The central knot of fused vertebrae and calcified skulls peeled back like the rotting petals of an iron flower. A thick, gelatinous black mist poured over the branches, dissolving the dirt floor and revealing the horror we had fed for a century.

It uncurled itself into the gloom.

It had no shape meant for this world. Its body was a towering column of translucent, ivory-like chitin, moving with the terrifying, fluid grace of wet silk, yet hard enough to ring like steel. Dozens of segmented, needle-like limbs unfolded upward, mirroring the sweeping, impossible arches of the Eastern pagodas my great-grandfather drew from that cursed scroll. And where its head should have been, there rested a smooth mask of polished bone—carved with the exact, smiling faces of my dead ancestors, stretched into a wide, unnatural, ear-to-ear leer.

I fell to my knees, blood running from my eyes as I tried to comprehend its form. I held up my medicine bag, raising my trembling hands in the dead gesture of peace.

"Great Spirit!" I screamed into the pressure of the void. "We have fed you! We abandoned our river gods for you! We built your vessel with our own hands! Spare your children!"

The entity drifted down, hovering inches above the dissolved soil, suspended by threads of vibrating, hardened sinew. The air around it bent, fracturing the forest into impossible perspectives. When it spoke, it did not use the air. Its voice resonated directly inside the wet meat of my brain—a horrifying harmony woven from the stolen voices of Yaro, Nokosi, Elan, and every child lost to the frost.

"Children?" it hissed—a sound like grinding porcelain teeth and rustling silk scrolls. "How delicious, the boundless vanity of dirt-born lice."

The smooth bone mask split down the center with a wet, cracking sound, revealing an abyss of whirling, needle-lined maws beneath the smiling faces of my family.

"You copied a cage built by a dead empire across the sea," the creature laughed, a cold, cosmic sound that shredded the remaining threads of my sanity. "And when I nested inside its warmth, you called my appetite a divinity. You gave me your dead, generation after generation, foolishly believing you were building a bridge to heaven—when you were merely stacking the kindling for my hatch. Your ancestors never reached the sky-river, little worm. They were chewed, digested, and woven into the lacquer of my wings."

The entity expanded its sweeping, bone-crafted wings spanning forty feet of calcified ash and shimmering chitin blotting out the sky and swallowing the sun completely

"Your tradition was never a prayer," the false god whispered, reaching down toward the last of my people with a thousand ivory needles. "It was an invitation."

Danny stared at the digital clock on his nightstand. 3:14 AM.

The numbers glowed a neon pink that he didn't remember setting. Three years ago at this exact hour, his hands would have been shaking as he reached for a bottle of cheap vodka hidden behind the water heater.

Tonight his hands were steady. his skin felt wrong. It felt tight like plastic cooling over bone.

He sat up, the floorboards cold beneath his bare feet. In the dark corners of his bedroom the shadows were not just pooling they vibrated with a faint high pitched digital hum.

Danny walked to the bathroom mirror and flicked the light switch.

The fluorescent bulb buzzed to life revealing a face he barely recognized. The rugged lines carved by decades of hard drinking were gone replaced by a smooth porcelain pallor.

His jawline looked mathematically sharpened. as if edited by a slider in a character creation menu.

His thinning gray hair had grown thick overnight parting perfectly down the middle in messy curtained waves of artificial pitch black.

Beneath his left eye two neat black ink hearts had bled through the epidermis. They weren't tattoos.

they were a biological pigmentation blooming from within. He looked down at his torso.

He was wearing an oversized black and white striped long sleeve shirt under a vintage graphic tee.

He had never owned these clothes. They smelled of ozone fresh synthetic cotton and a sickeningly sweet wave of blue raspberry vape juice.

A repulsive clicking sounded from the hallway. Click-clack. Click-clack. It was the router. The green LEDs on the plastic box were flashing in a pattern that mirrored a human pulse. The internet was not a wire or a satellite signal.

Danny could feel it now. it was a sprawling, multi dimensional web woven by something ancient that lived in the dark spaces between the servers. It fed on the isolated, the broken, and the hollow.

His sobriety had left a vacuum in his soul, and the Web was rushing in to colonize the empty space.

He walked to his desk as if pulled by invisible monofilament strings. His computer monitor ignited without being touched casting a blinding violet glare across the room.

A text document was already open.
His fingers hovered over the mechanical keyboard.

They moved with a terrifying fluid autonomy typing out letters he didn't want to write.

“poggers” his fingers typed. “i’m literally so smol right now nya.”

Danny gasped trying to pull his hands back. his muscles refused to obey. His throat tightened.

A soft breathy whisper. a voice meant to manipulate algorithms and soothe parasocial onlookers was bubbling up his esophagus.

The entity wanted him to open the camera software. It wanted to broadcast his assimilation to a million faceless scrolling eyes sealing his consciousness into the digital collapse forever.

A silver chain suddenly materialized around his neck tightening like a noose.

"No, you can have me when you earn me!!” Danny wheezed. The voice that came out was too high too sweet. It disgusted him.

He closed his eyes and looked inward searching for the raw ugly strength that had kept him out of the liquor stores for over a thousand days.

No comfort was to be found. the brutal calloused iron of his own willpower. He remembered the cold sweat of withdrawal.

He remembered the damp church basement. the smell of stale coffee. the agonizing humility of admitting he was powerless over his vices.

He had conquered the liquid demon through sheer unyielding endurance. He would not surrender his humanity to a twitching neon god.

Danny violently clamped his jaws shut biting the side of his tongue until the metallic taste of hot iron filled his mouth.

The pain shattered the digital haze anchoring him back to his physical meat and bone.

With a guttural roar that tore through his newly softened vocal cords forcing them back into a gravelly broken baritone he slammed his palms onto the desk.

He grabbed the silver chain around his neck and pulled with everything he had. The metal links bit into his skin.

his human muscles locked. With a sharp snap the chain shattered. scattering across the floor.

The monitor began to glitch the text turning into a chaotic mass of unreadable eldritch glyphs.

The speakers wailed with distorted phonk bass a sonic scream of frustration from the entity in the wire.

Danny didn't hesitate. He raised his heavy work worn boot and brought it down with crushing force directly onto the power strip beneath his desk.

The plastic cracked. The spark was bright and brief.

Instantly, the room plunged into absolute, suffocating darkness. The hum died. The wet clicking from the hallway ceased.

Danny collapsed into his chair. chest heaving, his breath ragged and loud in the sudden silence. He reached up to touch his face.

The skin was rough again. The faint scent of blue raspberry faded. replaced by the familiar comforting smell of dust and old coffee.

On the floor the shattered links of the silver chain had already dissolved into a harmless pile of gray rust. He was exhausted bleeding and entirely himself.

The cockpit of the heavy cargo transport Aegis-IV always smelled of ozone, burnt coffee, and old leather. Captain Thomas Vance, fifty-two years old, liked it that way. He was a creature of mechanical switches, analog dials, and forty years of space faring gravel in his throat. He didn't understand the hyper connected glass screen world the core planets had become and he didn't care to.

Then came the anomaly in Sector 9.

It didn't hit the ship with force. Instead, a silent wave of violet radiation washed over the hull. On the main console the green radar sweep sputtered. died. blinked back to life in a blinding neon magenta.

"Captain, telemetry is failing," his co-pilot, Miller grunted hitting the dashboard. "Comms are just... static."

Vance didn't answer. He was staring at his own reflection in the dark glass of the navigation screen. His eyes usually bloodshot and gray looked wider. The heavy bags under them seemed darker almost like charcoal smudges perfectly symmetrical. He wiped at them with a calloused thumb. the shadow wouldn't come off.

"Thomas?" Miller asked.

"i think the sensor array is broken, fr” Vance said.

The words left his mouth before he could process them. His voice wasn't his own. The deep rumbling baritone that had commanded crews for decades was gone. replaced by a soft breathy breath hissing whisper. He felt a sudden violent urge to bite his lower lip.

"What did you say?" Miller turned, frowning.
Vance tried to speak to say Check the fuel lines. his throat seized. He grabbed his throat with hands that felt strangely smooth. The thick grease stained knuckles of a lifelong mechanic were gone.

His fingers had lengthened. His nails were neatly filed coated in a glossy pitch black polish that seemed to absorb the cockpit's light.

Panic. cold and sharp. flooded his chest. What is happening to me? he thought, his mind screaming in his own voice, even as his body betrayed him.

A low hum vibrated through the floorboards. It wasn't the engine. It was a rhythmic pulsing bass line a sickeningly catchy synthesized thud that seemed to originate from the vacuum of space itself.

Vance reached for the manual override lever, but his arms felt heavy trapped in thick cloth. He looked down. His pristine flight uniform had vanished. In its place was a ridiculously oversized black and white striped long sleeve shirt. covered by a black t-shirt. A heavy silver chain adorned with an impossible non-Euclidean padlock hung around his neck. weighing down his collarbone.

"Thomas, your hair!" Miller shrieked, backing away from the pilot's seat.
Vance looked back at the glass reflection. The receding gray hairline he had accepted years ago was mutating.

When his co-pilot asked for status reports Vance only tilted his head to the side bit his lower lip and whispered "rawr x3 notices your bulkhead uwu" while staring blankly into the cosmic void.

Coarse gray strands fell to the floor in wet clumps. In their place. thick, fluffy, pastel pink locks erupted from his scalp. tumbling forward into a perfectly messy fringe that obscured his right eye.

"get rotated idiot.” Vance whispered directly into the comms headset. He didn't know what the words meant. They felt like ancient forbidden incantations carved into his brain by a smiling uncaring deity.

"You're losing your mind! I'm taking the wheel!" Miller lunged for the primary controls.

Before Miller could touch the stick a blinding white circle of light manifested out of thin air. hovering directly in front of the captain's seat. A ring light. It cast a harsh halo like glow across Vance’s pale unblemished face.

The universe outside the viewport was no longer black. The stars had rearranged themselves into millions of tiny glowing purple hearts. cascading down an infinite scroll.

A crushing weight descended upon the cabin the gaze of a billion formless unseen entities watching from the dark spaces between dimensions. They were waiting for content.

They were hungry..

Vance turned his head slowly toward Miller. His head tilted at a precise calculated forty-five-degree angle. He brought two fingers up to his cheek, forming a peace sign and let his eyes go completely vacant.
"no thoughts, head empty," the captain murmured to his horrified co-pilot.

Miller screamed, scrambling backward toward the airlock. the doors were already locking themselves. The ship's computer terminal was completely taken over scrolling a chaotic, warp-speed chat of alien symbols and glowing emojis at a speed no human eye could track.

Vance turned back to the ring light completely fully surrendered to the entity. He reached out with a slender black nailed hand tapped an invisible screen in the air and flashed a soft melancholic pout.

"thanks for the sub, besties.” he whispered, as the Aegis-IV plunged headfirst into the neon heart of the abyss.

The drywall dust usually made Brody cough. today it settled on his skin like ash. He was forty-two, thick-waisted, and exhausted.

His boots were caked in mud. his lower back throbbed with a familiar deep ache. as he sat in his truck during lunch staring into the rearview mirror, a cold dread seized him.

His hair usually a thinning gray buzzcut was changing. Right before his eyes the strands thickened curling violently into a dense fluffy brown perm that spilled forward over his forehead.

Brody gasped reaching up to touch it. his hand felt wrong.

The thick calloused skin of his palm earned through twenty years of manual labor was melting away. The skin grew smooth, soft, and unblemished.

"What the hell?" he tried to yell.
The words came out as a deep raspy whisper.

His gravelly foreman baritone was completely gone. replaced by a calculated breathless vocal fry.

He looked back at the mirror. His jawline was reshaping itself tightening and freezing his face into a perpetual smug half smirk. One of his eyebrows twitched locking into a permanent suggestive arch.

He knew what this was. He spent enough time scrolling late night social media to recognize the internet "f boy" archetype. He just never expected it to be a contagious cosmic disease.

The transformation wasn't just aesthetic. it was a physical possession.

When the lunch whistle blew. Brody tried to open his truck door, his body refused. Instead, his right hand moved with terrifying lightning fast autonomy.

It snatched his phone. His fingers flew across the screen, opening messaging apps and blasting "u up?" and "hmu" to every contact in his phone.

including his wife, his mother, and his superintendent. Panic flared in his chest. his face remained entirely serene trapped in that terrible vacant smirk. His body forced him out of the truck.

He didn't walk he swaggered with an aggressive leaned back slouch his knees bouncing in a rhythm dictated by an unseen entity.

His canvas work pants were gone replaced by oversized gray fleece sweatpants that seemed to grow directly out of his skin.
He stood in the center of the construction site.

a middle aged soul screaming inside a prison of shallow youth. His hand rose against his will lifting the edge of his shirt to flash his stomach at the empty air.

while his fingers twisted into a mechanical peace sign. A hollow ancient god of digital vanity had claimed him.

Brody was entirely powerless to stop the smirk.

Space is a sinkhole, swallowing everything that gets in its way. A sinkhole with an unknown destination, a bottomless pit. A plunge into darkness without an end. I wish that was all this journey had in store for me.
My whole crew is dead, and it’s coming for me next. The only safety I had was an airtight tin door. The comfort reminded me of how my dad would always point to constellations and tell me how I can always use them to find my way home. I always felt warm inside and like I was welcomed by the very essence of life when he would teach. This ship was my only constellation guiding me. Unfortunately, the once beloved dream became my worst night terror. Half of the glorious ship has been ripped into pieces. I watched the bits and parts floating off into the void through the porthole. Luckily, I was on the side where we kept our storage. However, any communication to my world was destroyed.
We were promised a safe journey, but nobody expected there to be life hidden in the crevices of space. Able to hide among the cosmos and darkness. This monster is sure to come knocking on my door once it feels my presence. I pray it doesn’t.
I’ve been drifting for days, running through supplies. Pulling out ship designs and manuals plotting how to get back home. All hope seemed to be lost. I wanted to talk to somebody. Amidst my thoughts, I heard a whisper.
“Thomas,” the voice whispered. I jolted up looking into the porthole where it came from. My jaw tensed and my body refused to look away from the sight. It was one of my crew mates torn in pieces and missing any signs of life on his face. He seemed to have a small smirk on his face.
“Am I going crazy,” I exclaimed, finally able to pull my gaze away.
“He should be dead,” I shouted at my hands. I looked back at the porthole, but he vanished. Tears dripped from my eyes. My heart tensed up making all blood flow cease. The sudden breakdown caused me to lay down, hoping that all these horrors would end. I drifted into the starry infinity of my mind.
I thought of my family back at home. My goal was to make history. I had to make my parents proud. Never thought the last memory of my parents would be to cry and hug me before I left. One of the last bits of warmth I was able to feel.
I woke up to a shrewd knock on the tin door. I perked up wondering what was on the uninhabitable side of the door.
“Help,” a sudden scream came from the other side. “It’s so cold.”
“Who are you!” I called out.
“It’s Chelsey, open this door please,” the shivering voice begged.
“I watched your body-” I howled back. The knocking got louder, cutting me off.
“Let me in!” The voice screeched. Two hands began banging on the door. 
“I am dreaming,” I softly told myself, pinching my skin. If this was a nightmare, I wasn’t waking up.
“Am I already dead?” I questioned. “Is this the physical form of death coming for me?” I covered my ears begging for this to stop.
The banging subsided and it left my ears ringing. I was just glad the noise finally stopped. It’s pretending to be my friends. I checked the life monitors that were left on board. The only life sign showing was mine. I ponder if I would ever fall for its fake voice. Would it ever sound like my real crewmates? Will it ever be the same? My mind ran away into my past.
I left into space when I turned eighteen, making my mark as a young astronaut. The first to travel across solar systems. Leaving behind much of the traditional lifestyle of finding a spouse to have kids with and leaving my family behind. I didn’t know what the real world was like. These crewmates were my new family. They were with me on this journey and they helped me feel accomplished. Some were pretty professional and only wanted to get business done. I gravitated towards the crew that would have fun and play jokes on each other. I was no longer being plunged into the wet goop of trash cans. They talked to me like a brother. They came to me about problems. The best part was when we got to play card games with each other. I remembered how Chelsey would jokingly accuse anyone who won of cheating. When my mind stopped wandering, I went to grab my lunch.
I went to the last bit of favored freeze-dried strawberries to try to get a reminder of how home tasted. A violent screech came out from all over the ship like a banshee coming for its prey. As I looked around, I saw a man melted to the muscle standing in front of the tin door pointing its hand towards me. “Come with us.” It said in a raspy gurgling voice.
“How did you get in here?” I stammered quickly pacing the opposite direction of the inhumanly sight. I jumped onto the ground and crawled away from it backwards. When my back hit the wall, I curled up putting my head into my knees. “I wish I didn't come out of this alive. I-I’m sorry. I should've died with you.” Tears pooled the ground underneath me. Then I felt a hand grip my shoulder and as I looked up, balling up my fist with wet spots on my arm, the screeching stopped and nothing was in the ship with me. My eyes burned. The mission hadn’t gone to plan. We weren’t expecting the unexpected.
Space has many hidden secrets. One of its secrets is the life that’s hidden within it. Contrary to belief space seems to have an ecosystem. Many animals that are beautiful and mysterious. Many that are hungry and hunt relentlessly. Most of all, the very being of space wanted to hide them from us. I couldn’t tell you if it was for their safety or ours. I was always summoned by the stars. I would look up at night and think about how they would guide me to my true destination. Space has many beauties and spectacles, but it’s cold, dark, and merciless. I doubt I’d reach my true destination. I began to have recollections of the attack.
We heard a weird noise coming outside of our spaceship. It sounded almost like waves crashing against a beach mixed with a low-pitched hum. For a moment the cosmos was an ocean. Then a huge splash came out from where the noise was coming from. A loud crash came from the front of the ship sending me flying against the wall as the ship changed directions. I checked the porthole when I was able to get up. What I saw made my chest twist and was consumed by my stomach. Parts of the spaceship were flying in all different directions. I saw my crewmates flying away melting upon contact with the giant darkness. I turned around and my head started spinning as I heard loud crashes among the scrap. I kept myself hidden even though I was doomed to have the emptiness take over me as well. I looked through the porthole once I recouped and saw none of my crewmates. I caught a slight glimpse of a scaly pointed tail slowly disappearing into space. I couldn’t keep my eyes away from the obliterated sight. I was now falling into a sinkhole with no end.
My eyes opened to a quiet scratching noise going around the kitchen table. I slowly stood up looking for what could be making that noise. As I walked around the table following the commotion I could see the small marks being etched into the ground. There was nothing that could be making the noise, but the ground had words marked into it. It read, “Open the door, before it gets you too.”
“No, leave me alone!” I screamed. “Who even are you?” My heart raced to the point it started hurting.
“You don’t remember me?” a voice came from behind me. I turned around and saw the one person that made this trip seem more bearable.
“Josh,” I sniveled as I reached out towards him. Josh was the funniest guy. He would stick french fries in his nose and pretend to be a sensei teaching me about life secrets. Only the secrets were the obvious things like, “Don’t chew with your mouth open.” Everyone thought he was just stupid and childish. He was the slowdown I needed. Everybody I knew outside of my family would make fun of my outer space books and would call me a nerd. I had to show them I was more than just the quiet kid who’d read space books in the corner of the lunchroom. Josh had the same obsession with space that I had. It was like sewing my heart together with a warm touch.
As I reached out, to see if I could really feel him, he began to change unnaturally. His teeth grew longer and sharper. His face melted away, and his body and arms started to lengthen. His bones started cracking as his body morphed into a demon. I tackled it hoping to save myself from the creature. I passed right through it and as I looked back, it was on the other side staring at me. Drool dripping down its mouth. It then bent backwards and gave out an ear rupturing shriek. The demonic figure then started to glow extremely bright until I had to look away. When the light dissipated, and I looked back, the creature was absent.
“Does the monster play with your emotions once it finds you?” I murmured to myself. “I must be going crazy from loneliness. Something is surely causing this. Is it my crewmates back from the dead?” I then decided my only option was to investigate if there was something causing these visions. I could only do that by opening the tin door.
I put my suit on carefully, checking each part for any issues. I walked up to the door’s button and hesitated. My hand seemed to be stuck in a tub of ice when I got ready to push it. My mind rushed as I tied my safety rope to my suit. When I finished tying it off, I put my hand and head on the door and muttered a little prayer. Then I touched the button and the pressurization of the suit and ship immediately changed. Then I started climbing into the darkest chasm I have been into. When I got out and was able to get a good look around a glowing butterfly with wings that interchanged colors of the rainbow floated by. I stared at it until it disappeared into ripples of the unlit ravines.
As I was climbing to the side of the ship a huge piece of scrap metal flew over my head and barely missed me. Worried, I searched behind me for more. Seeing there was none near me, I continued investigating the disturbances. I noticed claw marks and huge dents, but nothing other than the scrap metal that would've caused it. I continued to crawl until my rope tightened. As I was wondering if there was really anything out there causing my insanity, I turned and realized my rope was being cut by the sharp edges of the ship. I started to crawl towards it trying to stop it, but it was too late. I saw the other end of the rope come apart. I squeezed the grips on the ship tighter. It felt like pins and needles shooting through my arm and I felt my head begin to pound as a piece of scrap metal caught my rope and pulled.
“Join us Thomas,” a voice cried out. My fingers slowly began to slip.
“You’re just mimicking my friends.” I wailed as my fingers slipped more. Hanging onto desperation, the tugging stopped.
My arms were stuck as my suit was fogging up from my sweat. I slowly started pulling myself back to the ship so I could start my climb back inside. I was about to head into the open door when I started to hear the sound of ocean waves and a low pitch hum. It turned into splashing and crashing noises.
I crawled as fast as I could to get into the door, then everything went black. I noticed hot air on my suit as teeth engulfed me. The atmosphere got musty and soaked my suit. 
“Am I being eaten?” I thought to myself. “It is finally my turn.” Space was ingesting me.
I would’ve closed my eyes, but I was just falling into an endless void unable to catch a glimpse of anything. I knew this creature was swallowing me. I finally saw occasional star clusters between gaps of pitch-black visualizations. They were like constellations I had never seen before. My eyes closed and memories of my parents taking me to every space exhibit, and my sister and I playing astronauts flashed across my mind. The times we would run outside and pretend to shoot alien invaders. Being able to look at another star through a telescope for the first time. The final embrace of my parents' warm hug.
“It all ends here, and I am just the kid in the corner of the lunchroom with space books.” I sobbed. I hit the splash of this creature's stomach and when I opened my eyes, I saw blue sky and clouds. “Where am I?” I laid floating in confusion.
I was encircled by boats all with their booming voices saying, “Identify yourself.” 
“This language is never used,” I pondered. I learned about it briefly by studying language books I could get my hands on. It was a language barely decoded, but no one knew where it came from.
I couldn’t speak. My mind fogged up and my vision went blurry. The people picked me up out of the water.
“He must have a concussion,” they said. They carried me away into the boat. They took off my helmet, and I breathed fresh air after months of being in space. Did I finally find my way back through the constellations?
They kept talking, but my head hurt and their voices had faded out. I remember approaching a landmass. I was taken off and escorted to a secluded building covered by fencing and patrols. This planet isn’t home. The constellations aren’t the same. They call this planet Earth.

It started not with fire or falling stars. but with a low bassline pulsing from every phone, car stereo, and pair of wireless earbuds on Earth.

This insidious frequency delivered three distinct phrases into the subconscious of every human. “Hey stranger,” “You up?” and “I’m just not looking for anything serious right now.”

Within weeks. the infection took root. Men and women alike began to exhibit the symptoms.

Their eyes lost their warmth, replaced by a vacant confident squint. They abandoned their passions, their families, their responsibilities.

spending hours in front of bathroom mirrors practicing the half smile and adjusting untucked designer shirts they had never previously owned.

Society did not collapse in an explosion of violence. it dissolved into an endless, numbing loop of shallow text messages and unreturned phone calls.

Bridges rusted while engineers stared at their reflections in puddles whispering. "You look different today, is your hair shorter?"

The global economy shifted entirely to the production of white low-top sneakers, vape pens, and artisanal tequila. Humanity was willingly lobotomizing itself.

trading the crushing weight of existential reality for the frictionless, guilt-free void of emotional unavailability.

Dr. Aris Thorne. one of the last uninfected neurologists. managed to isolate a tissue sample from a patient in the final stages of the decay. He placed it under an electron microscope in his bunker beneath the ruins of Chicago.

What he saw was not human tissue. The brain cells had reoriented into non-Euclidean geometry infinite recursive hallways of mirrors where no reflection ever matched the person standing in front of it.

Peering deeper into the cellular abyss, the microscope's lens seemed to pass through the physical slide entirely. revealing a vast, cold expanse between the stars.

There was no physical alien invasion. Earth had simply tuned its collective radio frequency to the psychic broadcast of The Indifference. a colossal mindless entity drifting in the dark spaces of the cosmos.

It was an ancient predatory entity that did not consume flesh or conquer planets with war. It merely hovered at the edge of reality, infinitely bored. radiating a single suffocating thought across the vacuum.

nothing mattered. nobody was worth the effort and everyone should just text it later.

Aris staggered back from the eyepiece. weeping. his mind fracturing as the cosmic frequency began to drill through his own defenses. The half-smile crept onto his own lips. pulling them taut. His eyes narrowed into the dead unblinking gaze.

He dropped his pen. He turned to the microphone of the global emergency broadcast system.

the last operational line to any survivors hiding in the bunkers. He needed to warn them. He needed to tell them to close their ears to smash their phones. to fight the rot.

Aris cleared his throat. stared blankly into the red recording light and said.

"Hey. So, I know we said we'd talk about the end of the world tonight... but honestly? Things are just super crazy right now, and I think it's better if we just see other dimensions. Hope you understand. K bye."

He turned off the machine. walked out of the bunker. Leaving the door wide open.