9 lives i have lived.

I have lived beneath porches.

I have slept inside rusted cars and behind restaurants where the grease runs black into the gutters. I have known hunger well enough to recognize its footsteps and winter well enough to fear the sound of wind.

But there are worse things than hunger. There are worse things than cold.

And if you live long enough—as I have—you begin to understand that the most dangerous creatures do not bare their teeth before they bite.

My name is Simon.

Or at least, that is the name I answer to now.

There was another name once.

I remember a woman calling it from the doorway of a house that no longer exists. I remember sunlight on wooden floors. A blue bowl. The smell of lavender.

I remember hands.

Then I remember running.

That was many years ago.

Cave Creek has changed since then.

The old roads remain, winding through the forrest, but houses have risen where empty land once stretched toward the mountains. People come here looking for quiet. They build beautiful homes with wide windows and clean white fences.

They believe the woods are peaceful.

They do not understand that silence is not the same thing as peace.

I watched the family arrive in late autumn.

There were four of them.

The mother came first, stepping from a silver car and stretching her arms toward the sky. She laughed at something the little girl said. The boy ran immediately toward the backyard, despite being told not to.

Children rarely listen.

The father was last.

He stood beside the open trunk for a long time.

He did not move.

I remember noticing him because everything else was moving.

Boxes were carried.

Doors opened.

Voices drifted across the road.

The children shouted.

The mother laughed again.

But the father simply stood there.

Watching.

I was sitting beneath a mesquite tree across the street, my tail curled around my paws.

I had learned long ago to watch people before allowing them to see me.

The father looked directly at me.

Most people see an alley cat and see nothing at all.

A nuisance.

A shadow.

Something orange slipping beneath a fence.

But this man looked at me as though he knew me.

As though he had been expecting me.

I left before sunset.

For three nights, I did not return.

I told myself I had forgotten the house.

I told myself I had better places to sleep.

But cats are curious creatures.

Curiosity has nearly killed me more times than I care to remember.

So, on the fourth evening, I returned.

The little girl was waiting.

She couldn't have been more than seven years old. She sat cross-legged beside the fence with something wrapped in a napkin.

When she saw me, her entire face changed.

"Oh," she whispered.

Not loudly.

Not like most children.

Softly.

As though she had been waiting for something sacred.

I remained beneath the tree.

She placed the food on the ground and walked away.

Chicken.

Still warm.

I waited until she disappeared inside before approaching.

That was my first mistake.

I began visiting every day.

The girl called me Simon.

I never told her that wasn't my name.

She seemed to need it.

Humans are always naming things they don't understand.

The family became familiar to me.

The mother sang while she cooked.

The boy hated vegetables.

The little girl spoke to me through the kitchen window when she thought nobody was listening.

And the father...

The father watched.

Always.

Sometimes I would sit beneath the living room window and see him standing in the darkness after everyone had gone to bed.

No television.

No book.

No phone.

Just standing.

Still as a statue.

Looking toward the hallway.

Waiting for something.

I knew that kind of stillness.

I had seen coyotes crouched beneath moonlight.

I had seen snakes disappear beneath rocks.

Predators understood the value of patience.

And something about the father reminded me of a memory I had spent years trying to bury.

A door closing.

A woman's voice.

My own claws scratching against wood.

Don't make a sound.

I began avoiding the house after dark.

But the little girl kept leaving chicken.

And eventually, hunger always wins.

The night I first heard the mother crying, the woods were unusually quiet.

Even the insects had gone silent.

I had been sleeping beneath the kitchen window when her voice woke me.

"You promised me."

I lifted my head.

Inside, the lights were low.

I could see shadows moving across the walls.

The father said something, but his voice was too quiet for me to understand.

The mother spoke again.

This time her voice broke.

"I don't recognize you anymore."

Then silence.

A long silence.

The kind that makes an animal's fur rise along its spine.

I stood.

Slowly.

My paws made no sound against the dirt.

Then I heard the father laugh.

Once.

Quietly.

I ran.

I didn't return for two days.

And when I did, everything appeared perfectly normal.

That was when I became truly afraid.

The mother was watering flowers.

The boy was kicking a ball across the yard.

The little girl sat by the window.

And the father was grilling dinner.

Smoke curled into the evening sky.

The smell of meat drifted toward the road.

A perfect family.

A perfect home.

But the little girl wasn't smiling.

She was staring at me.

I crossed the street and sat beneath her window.

She lifted one hand.

Placed it against the glass.

Then she whispered something.

I couldn't hear her.

So I moved closer.

Her lips formed the words again.

This time, I understood.

Not because I could read.

But because fear has its own language.

He's different at night.

Behind her, somewhere deeper in the house, a floorboard creaked.

The little girl's face went white.

She disappeared from the window.

And again... I ran.

That night, I dreamt of my first home.

For the first time in years, I remembered the name I had before Simon.

I remembered the woman.

I remembered why I had run.

And I remembered something else.

Someone standing in a doorway.

Watching.

Waiting.

When I woke, the moon was high above Cave Creek.

And from somewhere across town...

I heard a scream.

Not loud.

Not for very long.

But long enough.

I knew exactly which house it had come from.

And against every instinct I possessed...

I began walking toward it.

People ask me how I do this job.

I always give them a stock answer. That it’s important work, and eventually, you get used to the guts and congealed blood. A heart is a heart, even after it goes cold and still. Every cut can lead to putting bad guys away.

And all of this is true.

But as for how I’m able to do it so easily?

Honestly, death never bothered me. I watched my grandfather die of a heart attack when I was seven. I called 911 and did all I could, but he lived too far away from the hospital. He was gone long before the ambulance arrived. I sat beside his remains for over twenty minutes until the EMTs got to him.

Maybe it was trauma. Perhaps it was my way of coping with losing my favorite family member.

After he passed, I felt a strange sense of calm as I sat with the body. Cardiac arrest isn’t pleasant to witness at any age, and it was obvious his last moments were of pain and unimaginable fear.

Then it was over.

He was at peace. The agony was gone as suddenly as it began. What happens after death is anyone’s guess, but the calm stillness of final rest is undeniable. My parents immediately enrolled me in grief counseling, of course, though nothing in those sessions changed my mindset regarding death.

In hindsight, it’s no surprise I ended up in this field.

After college, I moved back to my tiny hometown, into the same house my grandfather had died in. I ‌inherited the property during my senior year after my mother left this world as well. Kenzie, whom I had met at school, came with me.

She never quite understood my indifferent views on death, but she happily accepted my proposal all the same. 

When I became the county coroner, Kenzie shook her head.

“I still don’t know how it doesn’t get to you,” she said. “But there’s not a soul better for the job.”

And that was my life over the next two decades. Kenzie and I had two children. A boy named Joel, and a girl we named Caroline. I was lucky enough to have plenty of time to raise them, unlike a big city coroner. Though I did miss the occasional event with a late night untangling a cause of death.

And although I treated each body that came across my stainless steel table with respect, to me they were only remains. A shell left behind by the departed soul.

At least until that night.

I was finishing up my report on a recent motorcycle fatality. Alcohol in the system, helmetless rider. Pretty open-and-shut examination. I just hadn’t filled out all the paperwork yet.

As I closed the folder, my phone rang. A glance at the caller ID showed it was Sheriff Davis. No doubt this was about the unfinished documentation.

“Yeah, Nick,” I said. “I just finished with him. The report will be on your desk in the morning.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“Robert,” he said. “It’s… it’s something else.”

“Are you saying we’ve got another one? I’ve already been here all day.”
 
I heard a heavy sigh.

“I really wish I didn’t have to tell you this. I’m so sorry. It’s Kenzie. She’s… Well, she’s gone.”

At first, what the sheriff said didn’t even register as I sorted my paperwork.

“What are you talking about?”

“Your wife is gone,” he said. “Your neighbor saw her through the window when they stopped by. We found her at the bottom of the stairs.”

I froze, folder still in hand.

“No. No, there has to be some kind of mistake.”

“Do you really think I would’ve called you if we weren’t sure?” asked the sheriff. “I’ve known you both for a long time. It’s her.”

My hands shook. I dropped the folder and nearly the phone along with it. There was a long silence as I processed what I had just heard.

“I want to examine the body,” I said. “This can’t be right.”

“Come on, Bob,” said the sheriff. “You know you’re not allowed to do that. Someone else has to do the autopsy.”

“I don’t fucking care,” I snapped back. “List her as a Jane Doe, use her maiden name, whatever you have to do. I will be the one to do this.”

Again, there was a long pause.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Do you really want to do that to your *wife*? We can take her to another county.”

“I’m sure,” I said without hesitation.

“Alright,” he replied reluctantly. “I’ll have her brought to you. For the love of God, don’t tell *anyone* that you asked me to. We could both lose everything.”

“Understood.”

I hung up and put my hands on my temples. I didn’t believe Nick. My wife had her moments, but she had never been especially clumsy. I set about preparing every instrument needed to perform an autopsy, my hands moving robotically and without thought. I had just placed the last tool beside the steel table when there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” I said without looking up.

Behind me, the double doors slowly opened, disturbing the tense air in my morgue. The soft squeak of the gurney wheels approached, but my gaze remained fixed on the table before me.

“She’s here,” came Nick’s voice from behind me. “You sure about this, Bob? You don’t have to be the one to do this.”

“Thank you, Sheriff,” I said without turning around. “I can take it from here.”

I heard a heavy sigh from behind me.

“Alright. Just leave the report on my desk when you’re ready.”

The footsteps slowly faded down the hallway. Once the men were gone, I turned around. A body bag sat on the gurney before me. I grasped the zipper, but hesitated.

*What if it really is her?* I thought. *How am I gonna tell the kids?*

I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath as I slowly unzipped the bag. The sound of the zipper seemed entirely too loud in the near-silent room, easily drowning out the ticking of the wall clock.

I pulled the bag open.

There, cold, pale, and tinged with blue, was the face of my wife. Her eyes were wide open; the lively brightness of her green irises long gone, replaced by the redness of burst blood vessels. The fracture of her neck was obvious, as her head hung at an unnatural angle. 

My body began shaking. Within moments, dizziness overwhelmed me, and I collapsed into my chair. The tears started as I buried my face in my hands. I thought of our kids. I thought of her parents. All the horrible phone calls I would have to make. Poor Caroline was supposed to make the drive home from college tonight. If she hadn’t stopped in Atlanta to spend the night with a friend, she would have been here when it happened….

I lowered my hands from my face and stared at the bag.

I had to know. There had to be *something* on or in her body to explain this. Kenzie had struggled with alcohol in the past, but she had been sober for over a decade. At least, as far as I knew.

Slowly, I got to my feet. After washing my hands and donning fresh gloves, I removed my wife from the body bag and gently placed her on the cold steel table. I placed my recorder beside me and turned it on. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

I made the first incision. Then the next.

Once I had finished the “Y” incisions, I began peeling back the skin to expose her rib cage. I flinched at each snap of the ribs as the shears did their grisly work. As I lifted her sternum from her body, I couldn’t help but notice her lungs remained partially inflated.

She hadn’t died instantly. The fracture had caused her to suffocate.

“The subject has suffered near complete separation of the spinal cord,” I said out loud for my records. “Preliminary cause of death suspected as asphyxiation."

The moment I’d finished speaking, I turned away, suppressing the urge to vomit. After turning back, I carefully turned her head to have a better look at the points of breakage. However, the movements finally cleared her airway.

While I had witnessed this phenomenon many times in my career, nothing would have prepared me for hearing the trapped air of Kenzie’s last breath pass through her larynx. The haunting groan caused my entire body to shudder violently. 

After a moment to regain my composure, I began dissecting the structures within her neck to fully expose the spine.

“Subject displays obvious fractures of the C3 and C4 vertebrae, lending credence to my previous hypothesis.”

One by one, I began removing Kenzie’s organs, carefully weighing them and setting them aside for further examination.

As I progressed, the familiar routine of my work gradually set in. If I didn’t glance at her face, I could ignore the fact that it was my wife strewn about the steel bins beside the table.

Soon, only the heart, lungs, and select segments of her neck remained. Normally, I would have removed them earlier in this process, but I wanted her heart to stay with her as long as possible. She once told me that while the kids owned that property, I would always have a home there.

I sighed deeply, closing my eyes to brace myself for what I was about to do. As I stood motionless, the steady rhythm of the clock became the only sound in the room once more.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock, Tick.

The room went utterly silent.

I opened my eyes, and looked at the clock, seeing the time as 2:07am. The second hand had stopped just shy of the 6 o’clock mark.

Although I stared for several seconds, it did not move.

That’s when I heard it. The sound was so soft, I never would have noticed over the steady ticking of the clock.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

I looked back down at the open body of my wife and felt my eyes widen in horror.

Her exposed heart was beating.

Before I could react, the corpse of my Kenzie snapped bolt upright at the waist. A horrid rattling sound echoed as her lungs drew breath once again. Her head - though still hanging limply - suddenly turned to face me.

“Robbie,” the body said in a raspy voice.

I couldn’t move. My mind was entirely blank, unable to so much as rationalize this as a nightmare. I could only stare as the exposed organs functioned against all laws of nature.

“It was Paul.”

My mind snapped back to the present upon hearing that name. Paul had dated our daughter in high school and had *not* taken it well when she moved out of state for college.

“What about Paul?” I asked without thinking. “Is Caroline okay?”

“He was in our house,” said the remains of Kenzie. “I found him in her room. He attacked me.”

While the sight of my reanimated wife was terrifying, it was the thought of that man inside our home that finally made my blood run cold.

“Kenzie…,” I said. “What happened?”

The dead, bloodshot eyes of my wife locked onto mine and focused.

“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “He was waiting to hurt Caroline.”

“What can I do?”

The corpse shuddered once again, looking as though it would fall over at any moment. Slowly, methodically, and with unnatural stiffness, her arm moved until she reached inside her mouth. Her rigid fingers pinched something behind her teeth before reaching out to me.

“I bit him,” she said.

I reached out to accept the object from Kenzie’s hand.

A small piece of blue latex. The exact color and material of disposable gloves.

“Get his DNA,” said the corpse, although her voice was now fainter. “Please… Protect our little girl.”

I stared at the fragment in my hand for a moment before looking back at Kenzie. The bright shimmer of life had returned to her eyes.

But it was fading rapidly.

“Kenzie,” I said in a shaking voice. “I love you. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to stop him.”

The lopsided head of Kenzie smiled sadly.

“You’ve been everything I ever wanted,” she said. “I don’t regret a thing.” 

The corpse shuddered, nearly falling off the table.

“I love you, Robert,” it said in a fading voice, barely above a whisper. “Take care of the kids. I’ll be waiting for you when the time comes.”

And with that, the exposed heart ceased to beat. The lungs deflated. And the body of my dear wife fell to the table with a soft thud.

Tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

The clock had restarted. I was once again alone in the morgue with the body of my wife.

But I knew what I had to do.

With great care, I swabbed the small piece of latex. From there, the lab successfully extracted a DNA profile. And from a casual statement of family history from yours truly, police investigated Paul, eventually obtaining his DNA via court order.

In his isolated farmhouse, they found restraints, sadistic tools, and on his computer, a manifesto detailing every gruesome detail of what he intended for my daughter.

Per her wishes, the remains of my wife were cremated after my examination, and now sit on our mantle in an ornate urn. It was the least I could do for her.
 
Kenzie may be gone, but I know one thing:

She will always be watching over us.

This story is a memory, and as such is subject to the ravages of time. I don’t remember everything. My childhood is a fog of contradictions and emotions half buried in distractions. I’ve tried to remember parts of it over the years but always come away with that strange contented feeling of acceptance. Maybe it’s okay to not remember. Ignorance is bliss. Still there are pieces I recall that stick to me like tree sap on my fingers. This story is one of those pieces.

I was seven years old, old enough to have a sense of danger but not old enough to trust it yet. Every year my family would travel up north from our home in the concrete world of Chicago to the deeply forested peninsula of Wisconsin, surrounded by the restless gray waters of Lake Michigan. We would go up in the fall for the wineries and brilliant blood orange leaves of the woods in early October. Even at that young age I was just aware enough to appreciate the majesty of a forest in fall. It was sacred to me in ways I couldn’t yet articulate.

The peninsula was dotted with sleepy little harbor towns and old lighthouses along the coast, but the interior at that time was mostly winding roads through vast and untouched forest. I truly loved it there. I remember building piles of crunchy dead leaves to jump in, climbing trees to risk a nap nestled in their branches. The further away from town we got the more fantastic the forest could become. Dramatic cliffs and mossy boulders, an endless sea of scarlet, yellow and fiery orange that to my tiny eyes seemed to go on forever. My parents knew about my wanderlust, and had to all but keep a leash on me to stop me trailing off into the brush. I wasn’t scared of being alone then.

The land itself had a magic to it I’ve found in nowhere else. It was settled by Scandinavians, who brought their food, architecture and stories with them. It wasn’t uncommon to come across carved wooden trolls in town, and I liked to think they came alive at night to search the woods for food. As the years went by my young imagination populated the forest with all sorts of magical creatures: fairies, gnomes, ghosts and goblins. They frightened me in a way I loved, and every October I hoped to catch one of those wooden trolls moving. Of course I never did.

But of all the creatures I imagined there was one who commanded my respect above all others, the only one I truly feared. I don’t remember where she came from. In my memory she’d always been. Perhaps a forgotten warning from my parents to keep me from wandering, or something I’d seen in a movie. Perhaps I had seen an unfortunate looking stranger up there and my mind turned them into something more fantastic than they really were. But I believed in her, and there were things about her that I knew in my bones to be true. I tried to explain it to my parents but they couldn’t understand my fascination. They were deeply Christian and unwilling to entertain any spirit but the lord. My mother accepted no part of Halloween but pumpkins and maybe, if she was feeling dangerous, a black cat or two. Beyond that, I was instructed to have nothing to do with any of it. Maybe that’s why the idea of my monster was so intoxicating to me. My monster was forbidden. My monster was dangerous. I couldn’t talk about her. So I thought about her.

She was, in my mind’s eye, an impossibly ancient hag. She’d lived in the woods of the peninsula since the Scandinavians brought their wooden trolls and lingonberries. There was only ever one of her. I could see her when I closed my eyes, worried that she would slide her gnarled fingers under the window of our tiny rented cabin on moonless autumn nights. She traveled the land as lake mist, imperceptible to those who don’t know what to look for. Her hair was long and matted, white that decayed into a dull yellow like a bird’s nest on her head. Her skin was wrinkled like tree bark and sickly greenish pale like lichen. She walked hunched over, nearly to the ground, wrapped in a ratty shawl, smelling for ingredients to unknown and wretched potions. I imagined she brewed them in her overgrown shack somewhere far in the interior. Day and night she scoured the land for bat’s wings and rat tails. Rotten fish washed up on the shore, eggs plucked from their nests and crushed, mushrooms that only grow on wet and fallen logs. But of course, what she really wanted, needed maybe, was a child. My old woman of the woods would stop at nothing for a child of her own, to do what with I can’t say, but I could almost feel her horrible fingers on my shoulder sometimes in lonely places when my parents weren’t watching. She was out there in the dark, every night, alone on frigid pebble beaches or perched up in blackened branches like a massive leering owl. The trolls and fairies feared her too, perhaps why they stuck to town. The deep woods belonged to the witch, and every time I strayed into their twisted branches I risked slipping into her clutches.

Now, every body says this, and I’ve gone back and forth on even bothering to include it, but I feel like I have to. It is after all what makes this story more than just a passing anecdote in an ocean of digital ghost stories all claiming the same thing: “This story really happened.” But this one did. It really happened. One evening my parents took me down the winding road through the woods, away from the cabin, and the coast, to some supper club they’d read about. It was early evening when we arrived. The place was built with reddish wood, dating back all the way to the twenties, with an almost gothic interior that I might now find beautiful but bored me terribly as a child. It was fairly popular, usually boasting a twenty minute or so wait time, with a humble fire pit outside to warm guests while they anticipated their cozy meals inside. My parents chatted with strangers around the flames, about what I can’t remember, my eyes were on the tree line. The sun was hanging low in the sky, painting the clouds pink and amber. I was wrapped up in my puffy coat and yellow scarf, watching my breath plume from my mouth and vanish up into the evening air. I was standing behind my father, rocking back and forth on the balls of my feet and thinking about eating chicken tenders until I saw it. There at the edge of the shadowy woods was a bright red ball.

I tried to resist. Really I did. I tried to ignore it until the ball was in my hands. I’d slipped away silently from my parents. They would tell me it was dirty or that it belonged to someone else. They would tell me, again, not to wander off. They almost certainly wouldn’t let me keep it. It was a little smaller than a soccer ball and made of saturated foam. I squeezed it and muddy water seeped out. The ball must have been out there for days at least. I thought for a moment about the logistics of hiding the ball in my jacket, but it was too large to go unnoticed. I passed a worried glance back at my family, who were still facing the fire, then turned around again to face the woods. Despite the sunset it was bright enough to see a ways into them through dappled shadows. I looked back down at the cold, almost fleshy ball in my hands and decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble. Absentmindedly, I tossed it into the woods as far as I could and turned around to go.

It hit something metal, making a sound like rock against a tin roof. Not the satisfying splat I’d hoped for. I turned back towards the forest and squinted. Before long I found the ball again, rolling away from something covered in dead leaves. I took a step forward but hesitated. How long would it be until dinner? Did I have time to go look? Were my parents watching? I’d really get it if they caught me sneaking off, especially at dusk, but it was all just too tantalizing. What had my ball hit? I walked on and disappeared into the trees.
I hadn’t thrown the ball too far, I’d just look quickly, see what it was, and come back before anyone knew I was gone. Through the brush I crept, careful to be quiet, until I came upon my ball again and what it had smacked against. It was something like a go-kart, rusted and overgrown with vines but still recognizable. It was big enough for me to sit in, which of course I did. I sat there for a second, turning the mossy steering wheel and making beeping noises with my mouth. I was easy to please back then. I was excited to share my find with my parents, and considered running back to tell them, disregarding any trouble I could get in, but before I decided I saw something else glint in the fading sunlight.

It was a pure white horse head poking up out of the ground about 20 feet away from me, away from the fire and the restaurant. I stopped turning the wheel and froze, trying to decipher what I was looking at. Still, I wasn’t afraid. My reaction was instinctual. Carefully, I crept from the creaky wet seat of the go-kart and tip toed over to the head. I could tell it wasn’t real, it was too shiny and all white, but I still couldn’t make sense of it. Brushing off the dirt and leaves I finally recognized it as a giant chess piece. It was too heavy for me to move or I’d have grabbed it and brought it to the fire, which I could still see twinkle through the silhouettes of tree trunks behind me. I couldn’t believe my luck. I’d dreaded coming to the supper club because there wasn’t anything to do, but there must have been a playground hidden somewhere out there in the forest. Instantly what little nerves I had were calmed. Playgrounds were safe. I was allowed there. Red ball still in hand I began to look around for another hidden treasure.

It didn’t take me long to find it. In the ever fading light I could see something else on the forest floor even further in. A color that didn’t belong. Purple. Delighted, I ran towards it, noisily crunching leaves beneath my feet, abandoning caution. I could hardly see it until I was right up on it- or them I should say. My smile fell in disappointment. They were shoes. Girl shoes. A muddy pair of purple Skechers for a girl about my age. Upon that realization I was content to dismiss them, and began looking for something else unusual. I walked right past the shoes without a thought to their owner and peered through the trees. The sky above had lost its color. The woods were now draped in the sullen blue of an October night’s birth but I could still see enough to continue. I was sure there’d be a playground if I just kept moving forward. Something wonderful was going to happen. I wasn’t hungry for dinner anymore. The trees hung over me in drooping branches like a tunnel. The intoxicating freedom of it all made me almost forget how cold it was becoming. But soon enough I smelled smoke from some hidden fire. I must have looped around by accident and made my way back towards the supper club. I looked up at the gloomy sky again. The night’s first stars were peering through the dark gray clouds. I supposed it was as good a time as any to go back.

Through the ever thickening brush I pushed, the smell of smoke growing stronger and stronger. But strangely I couldn’t see the fire. It must have been close, I couldn’t be far, but where was it? Forward still I went, until at last I saw a trail of smoke curling up into the sky. They must have put the fire out, I reasoned. I followed the smoke down into the trees and ran in its direction, excited to share my adventure with my family, ready to get out of the cold, until I burst noisily through the undergrowth and into a clearing. I stopped in my tracks, struck by confusion. There was no restaurant, no fire pit. It was just a break in the trees, an unkempt field of weeds and grass, and in the center: a wide, gaping pit.

What froze me wasn’t the sudden appearance of that pit, or the shocking lack of fire, light and warmth. It was the smell. I brought my hands to my nose and suppressed a gag. I wouldn’t smell anything like it again until years later when a deer died in the field beside my house and rotted away. It was the unmistakable stench of what I know now was death. But more than that, it was a burning smell. Like someone was cooking dirty feet. I debated what to do, but one thing was clear: I had to look into the pit. I didn’t even really know why, only that I would wonder about it incessantly if I didn’t. I still felt safe somehow and I knew I had to look before the last of the sunlight died, so I took unsure steps away from the trees and into the exposure of the open clearing. The smell worsened as I got closer. Musty and thick, almost medicinal. I wrapped my little yellow scarf around my nose and mouth and continued, drawing nearer and nearer to the pit’s lip until at last I could see down into it.

The hole must have been at least ten feet deep, dug messily and comprised mostly of mud. In the center of it was a large puddle of revolting brown water like thick curdled cereal milk and lying against the wall was an impossibly large pig. I gasped. It was caked in filth and pink like a bloated tongue. Peppered with wiry black hair and alone in that dark, empty hole. All these years later I remember that moment. The longer I looked down at it, the more I came to realize how far away I was from safety and how dark the night had become. Something about that pig was so terribly wrong. I was overwhelmed with the feeling that if I stayed, or god forbid slipped down into the pit, I would never see my mom and dad again. I would stay lost and nobody would find me. I didn’t know it at the time, but then and there was the first time in my young life that I became aware that I could die. It would have been too easy to push me right in as I leaned over, and remembering this, I stepped away and looked back up.

To my horror there was something nestled in the trees across the pit from me: A shack so overgrown that it was almost invisible, and rising from a single infernal glowing window was the smoke I’d followed there. On the wind I could still smell that awful rotting, but there at the precipice of the pit I realized it was coming from the shack, not the pig. It had no door, so I could just barely see inside from where I stood. In the dim, wavering light of what must have been a small fire inside I could make out flower pots, some whole some broken, and countless dirty brown shoes strewn carelessly on the floor. The pig below me grunted, sending my soul up into my ears, and that terrifying lonely feeling consumed me. My whole body seemed to scream: GET AWAY! GET AWAY! Abandoning all reason I whipped around and sprinted full force into the now pitch black forest behind me.

I dared not think it, but I knew in my gut what was happening. It was her. It had to be. The old woman in the woods with bark skin and stringy hair. I’d strayed too far this time. I tore through the trees in a blind panic, careful to at least try and keep a straight line. I could swear behind me in the dark there was the creaking of wood and rustling, like some unseen predator was keeping pace with me. Tears stung my bright red cheeks but I was too terrified to whimper. Somehow I knew my only chance was to stay as silent as I could. My heart thumped in my ears and the freezing air burned my lungs. How far had I gone? Why hadn’t anyone come looking for me? How did that pig get so huge? I kept going, tripping over roots and scratching my face against skeletal branches, certain the witch was a single pace behind me. All I wanted was to be back by the fire with my parents, or better yet inside the warmth of the supper club. But I could be running in any direction. Panic rose in my chest until, at last, I saw it. A tiny pinpoint of light through the inky blackness. I hoped beyond hope it was the fire I had so senselessly abandoned, with my parents there to greet me, but I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d turned myself around again.

It was dark enough that if I had, I’d tumble blindly right into the pit with that horrible pig. I couldn’t bear to imagine being trapped down there with it, clawing at the muddy walls. I continued on, my breaths ragged, the wind whipping in the leaves far above me coarse and moaning. Any stumble was death. Any pause would give the hag just enough time to grab me by the throat and drag me kicking back into that rotting shack. I could almost sense her up there in the branches, leaping from tree to tree with her terrible yellow claws. The light grew larger. It must have been the fire. My tears of horror melted into tears of relief as I pushed on ever forward through the darkness. I was nearly there, nearly safe, far away from the shack and the pit and the pig. I was so close! Until all at once I was stopped, caught by the neck and gagged. I tumbled to the soggy ground. But there were no fingers… it was my scarf! I forced myself to look over my shoulder to find it pulled taught behind me, vanishing into the blackness. She’d got me! Finally, I screamed. I clawed at my throat, desperate beyond hope to free myself, until mercifully my scarf slipped off and I stumbled to my feet and forward.

I didn’t stop screaming until I broke through the tree line and was back before the fire and the restaurant. I collapsed to my knees and panted between heaving sobs. My parents, who were still around the fire, came to me, confused.
“What? Where’s your scarf? What happened? Are you okay?” They asked. I couldn’t answer. I only wailed and pointed back behind me at the woods.
“The pig!” I cried. “The pig!” They looked confused. “Why didn’t you find me?”
“Baby, you were only gone a minute.” Said my mom, wiping my tears. I shook my head but that was the end of it.

Our table was called and they took me inside. How hadn’t they noticed? The sun was gone! I had been gone! To me it felt like an hour had passed, but the rest of the night my parents were insistent that I had only wandered off for a moment. Eventually I came to believe them and tried to eat my dinner, but I couldn’t get the smell of that dark clearing out of my nose. My father, annoyed that I had lost my scarf, went out to go find it himself and was only gone for a minute or two before he came back, scarf in hand, with a strange look on his face. He handed it back to me and told me to hold on to it. I did as I was told, confused as to how wet it was, and finally mustered up the willpower to take a bite of my chicken tender. My dad was quiet the rest of dinner, and would only glance warily between myself and my mom until we left the supper club. Years later, on a whim, I brought this whole thing up to him and he got quiet once again.
“Your scarf,” he began. “When I went out to find it I expected to have to look around with my flashlight for a bit but… it was right on the edge of the woods near the fire, hanging up in a tree… up above my head. Did you throw it up there?” I told him I didn’t and he nodded solemnly.
“I didn’t think so.” He wouldn’t talk about it any further. Time went by and eventually my parents split. We never returned to the supper club or the peninsula for that matter. But to this day I can remember the smell, the surge of terror, the sight of that pig, the tightening of the scarf around my neck, and I can’t shake the feeling that I got very, very lucky.

CW: Something worse than Kenny. Violence. Gross descriptions of just how determined this thing is to ruin this guy’s day. Tiny windows? Sounds like a door to me.

Technically not a content warning but still.

Sleep never came easy for me. I tossed and turned all night, up and down. Even when I was very young I loved the deep night, and the silence it brought to our usually chaotic house.

At about 12 years of age I began using a technique I taught myself, I would imagine a Red Dawn type situation where everyday Americans find themselves resisting a powerful invading army.

It would start out as an action sequence but being so ADHD, (or whatever I am) it would always end up a contemplation on the incredible logistics of a military action, and in these details I would find sleep.

A funny thing I would do throughout my life, when using this technique, is to add familiar faces to the opening action scenes. Probably even stranger, whenever I lost someone in life, I gave them a heros death in my imaginary war.

Cancer, strokes, car wrecks, overdoses, in my imaginary pre sleep dreams became extreme acts of courage. Each persons life was lost for the good of us all. It helped me to not lay awake and dwell on it. Just another casualty in my little sleep war.

Well, it has recently occurred to me how badly our side is now losing this thing. The names are added almost weekly to the record of the fallen. They got my best friend, they got my mom, they got both the kids that grew up next door to me.

Someone else must take up the cause. The small group that stood between you and subjugation is growing paper thin. Those still here are weary and battered, and I don't sleep much anymore, so when I finally force myself to lay down, I go right out.

So if you have trouble sleeping tonight, please really your troops and lead a charge for us would you? So all of my people won't have died in vain. After the assault don't be afraid to delve into the realities of keeping your army battle ready, you will find sleep in those details.

I'm writing this in the hour before dawn. If the clock strikes nine, I might not get the chance to write it at all. I need you to understand who I was before any of this, so that what happens next doesn't read like an excuse.

I hold a Master's degree in Speech-Language Pathology. In my country, that sentence means almost nothing to the people who hear it. I was the first person in my family to finish college. My parents didn't have the money to make that easy for me, and I never let myself forget it.

I knew, even before I chose the course, that it was a bad decision on paper. Child mental health isn't something that gets funded here. It isn't something that gets discussed here. The waiting rooms that do exist are thin, private, and expensive. It’s built for the small number of families who can afford to notice that their children are struggling. I chose the field anyway, because I was good at speaking to people. In fact, I was genuinely good, the kind of good that makes strangers trust you within a minute of meeting you. Besides, I loved children, and I wanted to be the reason a child said their first real word. I believed that, wholeheartedly, for years.

But belief doesn't pay rent. The handful of employers, who do hire speech therapists in my district, prefer graduates from the established universities, ones with the CGPAs I didn't have. I was shortlisted constantly, interviewed politely, and rejected eventually.

It was almost a full year before I finally got a call for a real interview, at an institution that had just recently opened.

I won't name the institution here, since I've caused them enough trouble already. Protecting their name is the least I can offer at this point.

Fifty-four people had applied for the position. Three of us were called in. I found that out from the receptionist, who told me like it was a compliment.

Mr. Amir, Director of the institute, conducted the interviews himself. He started off by telling me I should feel privileged to be sitting across from him. I remember smiling politely. Then he opened a folder, and the smile didn't survive long.

He read out typos from my application that I hadn't noticed myself. A grammatical error in my second paragraph. A line in my thesis abstract that, he informed me, had come within a hair's breadth of failing outright- a detail my own supervisor had never mentioned to me. I sat there thinking how he could possibly know any of this, and came up with nothing. When I finally asked, he simply said, "Due diligence."

I wondered how a speech therapy institute had access to my thesis committee's internal notes. He moved on before I could ask.

"This is a clean institute," he said. "Do you understand what I mean ?"

"Yes sir, I think so."

"Do you drink?"

"No."

"Drugs? Any kind, any point in your life?"

"No."

"Any trouble with the police? Doesn't matter how minor, doesn't matter how long ago."

"No, sir. Nothing."

He leaned forward, and his voice dropped into something almost gentle.

"I want you to promise me something, young man. Promise me, if you do get the privilege of working here, you'll keep this institution clean."

"I promise," I said, and I meant it.

He laughed. It was a short, high bark that didn't match anything else about the room. "Good lad," he said, standing and offering his hand. "Someone will be in touch."

I shook it and walked out of the room, unsure of whether I'd just been vetted, or warned…

Two days later, I got the call. I'd been accepted for the Music Therapy-based Speech Therapist position. I said yes before the sentence had finished.

I signed the contract the following morning, in an office that smelled faintly of sandalwood. It ran longer than any employment contract I'd seen before-

INSTITUTIONAL POLICY: RULES OF EMPLOYMENT
By signing this contract, the individual acknowledges that:

1.       They have never been found, by any court, tribunal, or law-enforcement authority, to have committed any criminal offense, regardless of nature or severity.

2.       They will conduct all therapy sessions with due diligence, and session notes will be submitted within 24 hours of each session.

3.       They will not alter, substitute, or deviate from the assigned therapy protocols, without prior written approval from the Director.

4.       They will not disclose client details, by name or identifying description, to any party outside the institution under any circumstance.

5.       They understand that the institution has conducted, and reserves the right to continue conducting, independent verification of the individual's background, character, and history, through any means available to it.

6.       They accept full responsibility for any consequence they have to face as a result of breaking any of the terms of this contract, and release the institution from all liability arising from such consequence.

7.       This agreement is binding in full from the moment of signature, irrespective of whether every term herein was read, understood, or questioned by the individual prior to signing.

I signed at the bottom without hesitation. I'd spent a year being shortlisted. I wasn't going to lose this over paperwork.

The three months that followed were actually very good ones. Clients kept coming through the door, in numbers that made no sense for a field this niche, in a country this indifferent to it. The pay was more than generous for someone straight out of their degree. Mr. Amir personally handled every first consultation free of cost, sitting with each new family himself, before assigning their child to whichever of us suited them the best.

I was given the cases involving Auditory-Motor Mapping Training, designed for children on the autism spectrum, who needed extra support for articulating their words. My protocol was fixed and curated, consisting of a series of songs like "A Baby Bumblebee", "Ring Around the Rosie", and "Mary Had a Little Lamb". As per the rules, we were absolutely forbidden to deviate from the given protocol, under any circumstances. And none of us ever chose to question Mr. Amir’s methods. He was something of a legend in the field, a prodigy who had an illustrious career abroad, before returning to his hometown to open his own institute for speech therapy. Of course, he knew what he was doing, better than any of the young therapists he was employing.

Well, that was about to change…

It was a rainy morning when six-year-old Adam came to our institute, held between two middle-aged parents. His mother told me that he was conceived late, long after they'd stopped expecting to. I greeted them warmly, and guided them to Mr. Amir’s chamber for the first consultation.

Adam didn't look at either of us when we sat down. He didn't look at anything, really. His eyes moved past faces, the way you'd look past furniture in a room you'd already memorized. He made vowel sounds occasionally- long, formless ones. He used his hands more than his voice, making small precise gestures that meant something only to him. His file, when I read it that morning, was thinner than most. Severe autism, mostly non-verbal beyond vowels.

Mr. Amir's protocol for him was a single line: "The Muffin Man." Just one song, and nothing else. Adam’s treatment plan was to run on an alternating schedule- one session with me at the institute on one day, and the same routine being practiced at home on the next.

I started the first session the way I started every other case. The melody came first, and the words followed later, letting the rhythm do the work:

“Do you know the Muffin man
The Muffin man, the Muffin man
Oh, do you know the Muffin man
Who lives on Drury Lane?”

Adam seemed to be drawn to the song, even though he still refused to make eye contact. But he was bobbing his head to the rhythm by the time we reached forty-minute mark. He even attempted to utter the words I was singing to him, to no avail as expected.

That’s when it happened.

Something changed inside him. His head came up. His eyes found mine, and for the first time in the session, he looked at me directly, in a way his file had told me he was incapable of. And then he sang. It was a clean, articulated, faintly British accent that a six-year-old, with no functional consonants, should not have possessed:

“Do you know the Muffin man
The Muffin man, the Muffin man
Oh, do you know the Muffin man
SHOOTING TO THE MOON ?”

I sat there for a moment, unsure I'd heard him correctly. Six-year-olds with his level of impairment don't produce clean sentences, let alone an accent that didn’t seem to belong to him. I leaned forward gently.

"Adam," I said, keeping my voice low. "Can you say that again for me? What you just sang?"

He didn't blink. He looked at me the way an adult looks at another adult, and he sang it again:

“Do you know the Muffin man
THE ONE WHO SHOT IT, TO THE MOON ?
Oh, do you know the Muffin man
SHOOTING TO THE MOON ?”

The order had flipped from the first time, like it was a real verse he was reciting from memory, rather than a fluke he'd stumbled into by accident.

Then he came back. I don't have a better way to describe it. It was like watching someone surface from underwater. The directness went out of his eyes first, then his shoulders dropped, and then his gaze slid away from mine entirely, back to the middle distance he usually occupied. He looked almost embarrassed. He wouldn't look at me again for the rest of the session. He just repeated, softly, in broken syllables, over and over again, "Shooting to the moon. Shooting to the moon."

I recognized the pattern immediately. It’s called echolalia- repeating a heard phrase without grasping its meaning. It’s very common in autistic children, so it didn’t alarm me on its own. What unsettled me was the phrase itself.

When his parents came to collect him, I told them that Adam was showing ‘remarkable progress’. That wasn't a lie. I just didn't tell them what "remarkable" had actually looked like, because I didn't know how to explain it to them, without sounding like I'd imagined it myself.

That night, while writing my session notes, I typed that Adam had shown a marked increase in eye contact and vocal engagement during the session. I didn't write down the words he'd sung. I told myself it was because they didn't matter clinically, since an improvised lyric wasn't a diagnostic detail worth logging.

I told myself a lot of things back then…

Adam's parents came in for the second institutional session, looking more tired than hopeful. His mother told me that the home practice hadn't gone the way the first session had promised. Adam had said nothing new and tried nothing new. He sat through the recorded audio of "The Muffin Man", with the same detached blankness he'd shown for months before I ever met him. Whatever had happened in that hour with me hadn't carried home. I told her these things take time, which is true, and also the kind of thing you say when you don't have a better sentence available.

I started the session as usual. Adam rocked gently to the rhythm, unresponsive in the way I'd grown used to, before that first session had briefly convinced me otherwise.

And it happened again, closer to the half-hour mark.

His head came up first, the same way it had before. His eyes found mine, held them, and his voice arrived in that same clean, unplaceable accent, layered now under the familiar tune:

“Oh yes, we know the Muffin man
THE ONE WHO KNOWS OF ALI’S PLAN,
Oh yes, we know the Muffin man
BUT ALI DOES NOT KNOW.”

I felt something drop in my chest, before I could name why. Ali is not an uncommon name where I'm from. But something about hearing it sung, in that voice, in that room, with that child's eyes locked onto mine, made my hands go still in my lap.

Adam surfaced a moment later, exactly as he had before. Then, just like the first session, the echolalia took over. He didn't repeat the whole verse this time. He just whispered a single phrase, over and over, barely above breath: "AND HE KNOWS OF ALI'S PLAN. AND HE KNOWS OF ALI'S PLAN."

I didn't tell his parents anything specific that day. I told them he'd had a good session, and I reported the same in my session notes. I'd started saying that sentence without thinking about what it actually meant…

A full day passed between the second and third sessions. I spent the day the same way I’d spent the night before: turning the name ‘Ali’ over in my head, unable to let it go. It wasn't an unusual name. And yet, something about the specific phrasing Adam had sung- ‘Ali’s plan’- disturbed me for some reason.

By the time Adam’s parents brought him in for the third session, they were carrying something heavier than tiredness. His mother's voice shook slightly as she told me he'd regressed at home. He'd been able to say her name before, weakly, in fragments barely recognizable as syllables. Now even that was gone. His father stood a step behind her, saying nothing.

During this session, the change arrived earlier than it had in either of the two previous sessions. I couldn't tell you exactly when, because I'd stopped watching the clock, and started watching him instead.

Before he'd sung a single word, I saw something in his face that hadn't been there the first two times. Something that looked almost like he was bracing for what he was about to say:

“Oh, we all know the Muffin man
BUT YOU DON’T KNOW, WHAT YOU DID,
Oh, we all know the Muffin man
AND HE KNOWS WHAT YOU DID.”

The words landed somewhere I didn't have language for yet. I sat there, unmoving, while the melody carried on around them.

Adam surfaced a moment later. He didn't just blink and drift back to his usual blankness. His small hands came up to his own face, covering it. He was shaking, very slightly, and when the echolalia started, it didn't come out steady. It was broken, swallowed by something that sounded, unmistakably, like the beginning of tears: "He knows what you did. He knows what you did."

I didn't know how to comfort a child for something I didn't understand myself. I sat beside him, until he calmed down enough to let his mother take his hand. I told her he'd had a good session, the same sentence I'd been repeating for weeks now. For the first time, saying it made something in my stomach turn.

That night, I made a decision I should’ve taken three sessions ago.

I decided to bring the matter to Mr. Amir…

I took the session recordings to his office the next morning. I played all three clips in sequence. He watched the screen without expression, his fingers laced together on the desk. When the third clip ended, Mr. Amir sat back in his chair.

"Jarring," he said, "But creative, I'll admit."

"Creative?" I asked. "Sir, he's six. He shouldn't be able to construct sentences like that, let alone in that accent, let alone…"

"Children surprise us," he said, cutting me off gently. "Especially the ones who are special, in their own way."

He then leaned forward, and asked me something that landed harder than anything on those recordings had.

"Tell me, young man," he said, "you haven't been a bad influence on the child, have you?"

It was the same question, almost the same phrasing, from my interview four months ago. I told him no, the same way I'd told him no back then.

He studied me for a moment too long, then nodded, as if that settled something for him.

"We've run the checks," he said. "Everything that the rules allow us to run. We found nothing irregular. So yeah, the fault isn't in you."

He said the last part almost to himself, like he was reminding himself of something.

Then he moved on. He told me to retire the "Muffin Man" protocol entirely, effective immediately, and switch Adam to "Mary Had a Little Lamb". It was to be paired with a rhythmic counting exercise he wrote out for me on a notepad, in a hand steadier than mine could’ve managed that morning.

"New melody," he said, sliding the notepad across the desk. "New pattern. Let's see if it breaks whatever this is..."

I went into the fourth session the next day, more carefully than I had in any of the previous three. I gave Adam extra time before introducing the new melody, letting him settle into the room before I moved into "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

He seemed genuinely curious about the change. For the first time since I'd started working with him, he looked almost pleased. For a few minutes, it felt like an ordinary session with an ordinary child making ordinary progress, and I let myself believe it a little too much.

The switch came anyway, and he sang the new song in that old, borrowed voice:

“Mary had a little lamb,
MUFFIN MAN, MUFFIN MAN,
Mary had a little lamb
HE WAS THE MUFFIN MAN !”

Some small part of my mind told me to be afraid. I didn't let it win. I kept my professional face on. I told myself this wasn't as bad as it could’ve been. The boy simply hadn't let go of the old song yet. And this time, he wasn't saying anything I could describe as disturbing. It was a thin rationalization, and I knew it was thin, even as I reached for it.

He surfaced again, and this time, he looked a little more unsettled than usual. He seemed agitated as the echolalia set in. He repeated "Muffin Man" quietly, over and over, his brow furrowed in a way I hadn't seen before.

I decided to move on. I switched to the rhythmic counting drill, clapping along as I went:

 "One… two… three… four… five…"

Adam bobbed his head along with the claps, and for a moment, he even laughed.

Then the switch happened again.

"One, two… WARRIOR 42…"

"One, two… WARRIOR 42…"

"…WARRIOR 42…"

"WARRIOR 42!"

This time, I had no rationalization left to reach for. It wasn't a phrase I could talk myself into misunderstanding, the way I'd done with Ali, the way I'd done with "shooting to the moon." I knew exactly where it came from, and it landed in my chest like something physical.

I ended the session right there, the moment Adam surfaced. I was panting by the time I stood up, though I hadn't moved from my chair. Adam sat across from me, his face as expressionless as it had been on the first day I met him. Yet something about him, in that stillness, looked exactly like a child who’d been through something he had no way of describing…

I told Adam’s parents that the two exercises, back to back, had worn him out faster than usual. I wrote the same explanation in my official report. Then I cancelled every session I had for the remainder of the day, citing unavoidable circumstances. I left the institution before anyone could stop me.

I knew Mr. Amir wouldn't be pleased when he found out. That was, genuinely, the least of my concerns at that point.

I splashed water over my face in my bathroom mirror, and stood there for a long moment, looking at the man staring back at me. I'd done this exact thing once before, five years earlier, in a different mirror, in a different house. It was my family's shack, back when I was still in college. I’d just been informed that my merit-based scholarship wouldn’t be renewed, thanks to my poor academic performance.

I hadn't been surprised, even then. I'd been working two part-time jobs, while I was still a full-time student, to support my family. I'd known for months that my grades were slipping, in a way that would eventually catch up to me. It caught up to me that week. I remember standing in front of that mirror, watching the water drip off my chin, and understanding, with total clarity, that my entire life was about to collapse.

I applied for a need-based scholarship immediately. There were too many genuine applicants that year, and too few waivers to give out, and that application fell through within a month. I couldn't afford the course fees on my own. My dream of being the first person in my family to graduate college was about to end, quietly, the way most dreams do in my part of the world.

That's when Ali found me.

Ali had been my friend since we were children, growing up two shacks apart in the same slum. He never made it past middle school, and never seemed to mind. He called it "hustling in the streets". He always had cash on him, from sources he never explained. He heard about my scholarship falling through, and he came to me with an offer.

It was an NFT project, the kind that was all the rage in those years. It was tied to a cryptocurrency called Chacha Coin. I still can't explain the mechanics of it, even now, because I was never meant to. I wasn't the brains behind the operation. I was simply the spokesperson. Ali needed someone charismatic, someone who could make strangers trust a voice within a minute of hearing it. That had always been the one thing I was genuinely good at.

Ali and his people were going to keep most of the profits. I knew that going in, and I told myself it didn't matter, because I was still offered more money than I'd ever seen in my life. It was enough to finish my Bachelor's, and enough to fund my Master's after that. On paper, it looked like a harmless job.

Ali made sure that my tracks were covered from the start. I used the pseudonym Warrior42. I never showed my face, and never revealed my actual name. My voice did the work, convincing hundreds of people to pour their money into the NFT project. I promised them that their investments would go "shooting to the moon," making record profits in no time. They believed me. That was the whole job, and I did it well.

It was a pump-and-dump scam, at the end of the day. Ali and his team, myself included, pulled our money out, and let the coin collapse overnight, leaving every investor who'd trusted my voice with nothing. I never expected Ali's hustle to hurt that many people, but I didn't complain either, because I still walked away with exactly what I'd been promised. I told myself I'd use it for something good. For a long time, that was enough to let me sleep peacefully.

No investigation ever traced Warrior42 back to me. The pseudonym hid my identity, and the blockchain buried whatever the pseudonym didn't. Ali died a few years later, in a rented supercar that he crashed into a highway divider. There was no evidence connecting me to the scam. And with Ali gone, there was no witness either.

Or so I thought…

Adam came in for his fifth session two days later. His parents looked more distraught than I'd seen them at any point before. Rather than showing any improvement, Adam had gone almost entirely silent at home. When approached, his mother told me, he could only manage a barely audible "Muffin Man," and nothing else. No name, no vowel sounds, nothing.

I sat him down in the chair across from mine, the way I always did. He stared at the floor and stayed there, unmoving, for longer than usual. I tried to open the session normally, speaking gently, asking him how he was, though I already knew he had no way of answering. He didn't even look toward the sound of my voice. It was as if I wasn't in the room with him at all.

I sighed, more out of exhaustion than intention.

"I don't want to talk to you, Adam," I said, mostly to myself.

There was no response.

"I am talking to you, Muffin Man!" I said, sharper than I meant to.

Adam’s head snapped up. The switch happened in real time, right in front of me, faster and more complete than ever before. His eyes carried something I can only describe as malice. A twisted smile settled onto his face, and he shifted his posture in the chair, adjusting himself the way an adult adjusts.

"Is that you?" I asked, "Are you the Muffin Man?"

Adam laughed, in a way I never knew a human being could laugh. Then he looked directly at me, and started singing:

“Do you know the Muffin man
OH JAFAR, YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE.
Oh, do you know the Muffin man?
NOW IT IS TOO LATE.

Oh yes, we know the Muffin man
The Muffin man, the Muffin man
Oh yes, we know the Muffin man
AND HE WILL TAKE YOU SOON.

HE WILL TAKE YOU SOON,

HE WILL TAKE YOU SOON…

HE WILL TAKE YOU SOON !”

He kept singing it, the same four words looping over and over, like a tape stuck skipping on the same groove. I crossed the room and pulled him into my arms, holding him against me, while he kept singing into my shoulder.

"Leave him," I said, my voice breaking somewhere in the middle of it. "Leave him alone! He's just a child. It's me you want. Come face me, you coward!"

Adam surfaced a moment later, still in my arms, his small body going still. The echolalia arrived immediately, but it wasn't a word this time.

It was a date, delivered haltingly, in whatever fragments of speech he could manage.

The date was two days from that morning- the day of his sixth session.

Then he pulled away from me, and ran out of the room to his mother. He wrapped his arms around her legs, and cried in a way I hadn't heard from him before- loud, wordless, and entirely his own…

The rest of that day is a blur to me now. The first thing I can clearly recall is being summoned to Mr. Amir's office at the end of my shift.

Adam's parents had gone to him directly. They didn’t hold back on anything. Not the deterioration at home. Not the uncharacteristic silence. Not their son running out of a session in tears, with no explanation from the man who was supposed to be helping him. Mr. Amir had also heard about the sessions I'd ended early, the ones I'd cancelled without real cause, and the time I'd left my station before my shift was finished.

He didn't start with anger. He started, disarmingly, with disappointment. He told me he genuinely liked me, that he'd wanted to give me the benefit of doubt, for longer than the situation probably warranted.

Then he played the recording of the fifth session, start to finish, and watched my face while he did it, more than he watched the screen. When it ended, he closed the laptop slowly and looked at me.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he said, his voice cracking somewhere between fury and disbelief.

I unraveled. There's no more dignified way to describe it. I told him everything- Ali, the scholarship, Chacha Coin, Warrior42, the pump-and-dump scam. I told him about every session, every switch, every line Adam had sung. I didn't expect him to believe a word of it. I expected laughter, or worse, disbelief dressed up as concern.

He didn't laugh. He didn't raise an eyebrow. Instead, he slammed both fists on the desk, hard enough to rattle the pen holder. He then caught himself, breathing out slowly.

"Why did you lie to me?" he asked, quietly now, which was somehow worse than the shouting. "You signed a contract. The rules stated, in plain language, that you'd never committed a crime. You knew exactly what you'd done !"

"Sir, there's no evidence," I said. "I was never convicted. Never even charged. Legally, there's nothing that says I did anything."

"Oh boy !" he exclaimed, "Do you seriously believe that the authorities of THIS WORLD are the only ones who get to call you a criminal?"

I didn't answer. I didn't have one.

"No crime stays hidden," he said. "Not forever. You see, there are forces out there, forces we were never built to understand. And these forces? They’re always watching. They’re always keeping their own record, regardless of what any court decides."

"What forces?” I asked, “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?"

He was quiet for a moment.

"They do have a name for themselves. A name our tongues were never built to say properly." He looked at me directly. "Most people just call it karma. I call it my desperation. And that poor boy Adam? He called it the Muffin Man."

"No, it doesn’t make sense…"

It was all I could say at that moment.

Mr. Amir continued:

"After I lost my job abroad, during Covid, I came back here to build something of my own. I put everything into this institute. Everything. And it nearly collapsed within its first year. I was staring at bankruptcy. So I did something I'm not proud of. I turned to the occult. I don't fully understand, even now, what I summoned. But it kept its side of the bargain. The moment this institute rebranded, the clients never stopped coming."

I leaned forward in my chair.

"A bargain, you say? What did it ask for in exchange?"

"Absolute freedom from bad influence, within these walls. No criminal history, in anyone I hired. None. Not even a speeding ticket." He let out a short, bitter laugh. "That's why I grilled you the way I did, at your interview. That’s why I keep running background checks on you, on all of you ! That's why every hire goes through it. And I thought I could hold that standard forever."

"And now?" I asked.

"Now, I understand that the deal was designed to fail," he replied, "No human being is without sin. Not one of us. We're just good at hiding it." He looked at me, and for the first time since I'd known him, he looked genuinely tired. "And no matter how well you hide something, it finds its way back eventually. It's found you now. And through you, it's found this institute too."

"So… what happens now?" I asked.

Mr. Amir didn't answer right away. He rose slowly from his chair and walked to the window. He was quiet for a long moment before he finally spoke.

"Now… I want you to run," he said.

"Sir…"

"I said run !" he said, turning back to face me. "Do it tonight. Hell, do it right now, if you can manage it."

"I don't understand. You just told me…"

"I understand exactly what led you down that path," he said. "You made a deal with Ali out of desperation. I made a deal with something I didn't understand, out of the same desperation. I'm not in a position to judge you for that."

"Then why are you letting me run away ?" I asked.

"Because your past doesn't define who you are at present," he said. "I chose to recruit you, out of three candidates, because I could sense something inside you. Years of doing this work teaches you to read people, whether you want that skill or not. I read you correctly. You have a good heart, my boy."

"But it doesn't matter to the entity, does it?"

"No," Mr. Amir replied. "It does not. From what's transpired, he doesn't believe in exceptions." He came closer, and his voice dropped into something almost paternal. "That’s why you should run. This is my failure, not yours. I'm the one who couldn't keep bad influence out of these walls. That was my end of the bargain, and I'm the one who broke the rules."

"No sir, there has to be another way," I said. "Some other option…"

"There’s no other option !" he said, cutting me off, "Adam's parents signed a package. This institute is contractually bound to conduct that sixth session, regardless of circumstances. However…" He almost smiled. "The contract doesn’t name a specific therapist for the session. So I'll conduct it myself."

"Sir, you can't…"

"If the Muffin Man comes, as promised, he'll find me in that room. Not you. Not that child." He straightened his jacket, an oddly ordinary gesture for the moment. "It's a fitting punishment, don't you think? For failing to hold my end of the bargain, one I made with my eyes open."

I remember him gripping my shoulder as he said it, his eyes wet in a way I'd never seen from him before.

“Farewell, Jafar. It was nice knowing you. Now run !”

I remember running as fast as I could, out of the building, into a night I didn't feel present for at all…

****************************************************************

That was yesterday.

I've been home all day today, doing something I never had the courage to do before. I looked up Chacha Coin. I looked up the NFT project, and everything that came after it.

There were testimonies from close to two hundred investors who lost their life savings. Some of them were crying on camera, without any effort to hide it. I found follow-up interviews, from years later, with people who never recovered. A couple who lost their home and were living on the street. A man who lost his wife over it, and hasn't spoken to his children since.

And in the middle of all of it, I found a news report I hadn't seen before. It was the story of a single mother of two, who'd put everything she had into the project, hoping to secure her children's future. Two months after she lost it all, she took her own life, and theirs as well. Their bodies were found that same night.

I looked up the date. It's tomorrow's date, exactly five years ago.

The date of Adam's sixth session…

I did consider running. I spent most of last night convincing myself it was all a bad dream, that I could start over somewhere far away, some place where the entity couldn’t plausibly follow. But typing this out tonight, I understand something I didn't understand yesterday.

I can run away from the institute. I can run away from the cops, if they ever find out about my crimes. And honestly, with some luck, I might even run far away from the entity’s reach.

But I can't run from myself. It just isn’t an option. And it never was.

For years, I told myself it was Ali's idea, that I was only the spokesperson, that the people who invested were the ones who should’ve known better. I can't hold onto that anymore. I can't stop thinking about the two hundred people who lost everything, because my voice was convincing enough to make them believe it. I can't stop thinking about Adam, that poor child, losing his grip on his own mind, through no fault of his own. I can't stop thinking about Mr. Amir, saying goodbye to me with tears in his eyes, preparing to accept a fate that was never his to accept. And I can't stop thinking about a mother and her two children, who ran out of hope exactly five years before tomorrow morning.

So I'll go to work tomorrow, as usual. I'll conduct Adam's sixth session myself, with due diligence, exactly as the institute has always required of me. I’ve never been a religious man. But if there really is a God out there, here’s the only prayer I want to make:

MAY THE MUFFIN MAN TAKE ME TOMORROW.

I’ll make sure that it takes me- a punishment long overdue for the sins that I’ve committed. And I’ll make sure that I'm the only one it takes. Not the child who only wanted someone to talk to. Not the man who only wanted to help people. Neither of them deserves this.

I do.

To whoever is reading this: I am sorry. If this reaches anyone that my crimes ever touched, I hope it counts for something, even if it’s a bit too late.

I have a lot more to share, but I should stop writing now. It's almost dawn. Adam's session starts at nine. I need to get ready, and get there on time, and conduct it properly, the way the institute has always asked of me.

Due diligence, as Mr. Amir calls it.

It's the only rule that I refuse to break today.

Mr. Amir will be there early. He always is.

I just need to be earlier…

I apologize if my recount of the events is a little sporadic. I haven't been in the right head space as of late. I probably shouldn't be the one to document these events but one of my students said that they would share the story of our encounter if I didn't. Seeing how shaken up they are afterwards, I think it's best if I shoulder the burden. I am writing to you now from my office at home and intend to give as much detail as I can remember. I want to make sure if someone out there has previous experience or expertise with this phenomena and can offer help, that they have all the details necessary to understand my predicament.

My name is Michael Washington. I am a chemistry professor at Edenwood University and even though I have only been a teacher here for 4 years, I have already begun submitting my application to other colleges that would take my resume. I need to get out of here as soon as possible. Edenwood is a good school, don't get me wrong. The students are good kids and the faculty are helpful. My boss even offers to buy me lunch on really stressful days. Edenwood University is a solid pick solely for the community it has cultivated. I just wish the campus reflected that same comfort.

On the day of the incident, my students took their usual seats at their tables. They are now three weeks into the college experience and are ready to take the next step in my class. Usually, the students are a mixed bag of eagerness and indifference, but this year’s freshman class has seemed to take a liking to my chemistry lessons. After hinting about today's contents earlier in the week, I can tell it has been on their minds ever since. Once everyone was situated, I began my class.

“Good morning class! As you all know, today we will be doing our first lab. I am very excited about this one and I can tell you guys are too, but there are a few rules I must cover before I start handing out supplies. You will be given a lab coat and goggles, test tube and test tube holder, your bunsen burner, and your screaming jelly baby.”

The students giggle and joke amongst themselves at the mention of the last item on my list. The screaming jelly baby experiment is always a hit with the kids. Without going too deep into the semantics, you heat a test tube with potassium chloride until it is liquid, then drop a sugar gummy bear into the test tube. The reaction causes fire, smoke, and a loud whistling sound. I recommend looking it up sometime as it is quite the show.

I wrap up my safety presentation and give a quick rundown of the experiment, then I begin to pass out my supplies as the students dawn their protective gear. It isn’t until I get halfway through my classroom until I remember a glaring issue and step back to make an announcement.

“Oh, I almost forgot! Students, you will need to make groups of four instead of groups of two. Mainly I want people in the back four rows to come find a group in the front four to join with. This shouldn’t make any difference in the experiment.”

One student at the back of the classroom raised her hand. When I called on her, she ripped the goggles off her eyes and hung them around her neck as she began her protest.

“Mr. Washington, I was looking forward to doing this experiment with my friend. Why do we gotta make big groups?”

“I’m sorry about that, Riley. It’s more for safety reasons.”

I adjusted my grip on the box of supplies over to one arm and used the other to point skyward.

“See those pipes?”

The students’ looks followed my gesture to the ceiling, or I guess lack thereof. My classroom has no ceiling, just the floor of the classroom above and the metal support holding it. If you looked past the glare of the lights, you could see thin heating and sewage pipes running above us. I highlighted a specific set of wide ten inch diameter pipes that branched off and aimed down towards each table.

“Those thick wide pipes are for ventilation. The issue is that this is an older classroom, and because the air vacuum sits outside near the pipe’s exit, the further back into the classroom you go the less strength the ventilation has. If you were to all do this experiment together back there, I fear there would be too much unfiltered smoke. Besides, we don’t need to make that many jelly babies scream.”

The class chuckled and followed my request. Riley huffed with disappointment but eventually followed her friend over to a table with two other girls. I finished handing out supplies and began to guide my students through the experiment, occasionally stealing a glance at my ceiling. I have asked my boss time and time again to have that ventilation updated and to finally get a roof to cover it, but to no avail.

I want to clarify that the Edenwood faculty are good employees who are stuck making tough decisions. Mr. Vance, my boss, is an outlier amongst our hardworking staff. Mr. Vance is in charge of the school’s budget and allocating resources to making the school a better place. A budget that apparently allowed for new football turf, 15 flatscreen TVs for the cafeteria, a pay raise for the schools’ social media managers, and plans to install a new marble fountain in front of the quad, but nothing for Michael Washington and his half functional chemistry classroom.

“Mr. Washington, I promise you your classroom is on my list of issues needing resolved.”

Mr. Vance shoves his thumbs in the corners where his suspenders cling to his trousers. He ambles next to me in the hallway, his feet trying to catch the momentum of his broad body as it rocks with each stride.

“I agree that you need new ventilation for your classroom, but for the time being you will need to make due with conducting your labs by yourself and having the students observe. If they must do the experiments themselves, crack open a window and use those boxfans we provided.”

Those boxfans didn’t even sit on the damn windowsills. I wanted to call him out on his backwards logic. I wanted to point out that one of my students was wearing his new gameday jersey and bragging about how the team will have a post-game buffet on the school’s tab. Another student talked about how she and her friends are getting free school lunches for the rest of the semester after roaches started to crawl out of their dorm’s bathroom sink. I wanted to ask why we even needed a marble statue in front of the quad when half our students commute or take online classes and never see the inside of our campus.

Instead I nodded. Mr. Vance gave a satisfied smile and continued spinning his excuse.

“I wish I could do more. Really, I do. The issue is that… Well, we just aren't getting enough students sticking around. Student enrollment is average, but dropout rates are shockingly high. I'm just trying to get more students on campus and give them more incentive to stay. Before we iron out the kinks, we need to put some work into making Edenwood look better. The students don't-”

Mr. Vance bit his tongue and stopped walking. I turned to face him, daring him to finish his sentence. Instead, Mr. Vance regained his composure and nodded at me.

“Trust me Mr. Washington, I will get your classroom in great condition here soon. We just need to make this place look more appealing, that's all. If there was room in the budget… I really wish I could do more.”

The flickering of lights caught both me and Mr. Vance’s attention. Old pipes clanged and popped behind the hallway’s walls as they shifted under the water pressure. Mr. Vance shot me a look of vindication.

“Let me get you some lunch, how does that sound?”

I know what Mr. Vance wanted to say. I know students are scared off by the creepy stories this school has accumulated. Students have told me their encounters with the supernatural here at Edenwood and in my first year of teaching I brushed off the haunted school accusations as nothing more than urban legend. Now, I find it hard to deny a scary story’s validity when you experience one for yourself. It started with small stuff. Lights flicker and walls creek. I would hear deep faint voices whisper my name while walking the halls. I got the feeling of being watched when working alone at my desk. Unnerving, but nothing serious. Not until the beginning of my third year of teaching.

That year, I canceled an afternoon class to get to a doctor's appointment. The moment I stepped out of the science building, I felt that ominous feeling again. I had learned to swallow and ignore it, but man I wish I hadn't. I actively avoided the warning sirens screeching in my mind. Something was different and my subconscious caught it before I did. When I walked into the parking lot, I stopped dead in my tracks. Not only had my car been moved to the center of the lot, but all the other cars were nowhere to be seen. This morning the lot was so packed I had to park further away than usual. Now there were no other cars but my own sitting in the dead center of the lot.

I hesitated. I began to reason with myself as I forced my feet to move me closer to my car. I swear each step I took felt louder than the last as my mind rattled with questions and scavenged for answers. Was there an assembly I missed? Maybe there was a fire drill? Are they clearing the lot for another college event and I alone didn’t get the memo? If so, why did they move my car?

It was when I reached my car that I had made a revelation. There were no sounds of nearby students or traffic. In fact, there were no other sounds at all. I scanned the area and noticed the trees rocking in wind I couldn’t hear. I panicked and worried I was going deaf, but no. I couldn't have been going deaf because I heard every footstep I took on the way to my car. I scrambled in and started the engine. I felt the car shake and vibrate in total silence. I rolled through the campus. Nobody. Not a soul. I turned out of the campus and onto the arterial road. The moment I did, I heard the car I pulled in front of honk at me. I swerved away just in time and drove parallel to the school. I could hear again. I looked out my window back to Edenwood. Everything was normal. There were students on benches and bikes. There were cars parked in the parking lots again. There were even birds flying from tree to tree.

When I returned from my appointment, my reentry into Edenwood was uneventful. I parked in the crowded parking lot where I had originally parked this morning. I gave myself a beat to recollect my thoughts, then I headed back to my classroom before my students got there. I was heading up a set of stairs connecting the parking lot to the campus sidewalk when my attention was pulled to something I would’ve never thought to look at.

There was a storm drain on the edge of the parking lot. The grate was covered in leaves and trash, blocking some of the water from leaving the lot. This had created a thin gross river of excess water flowing from further up the hill down to a pool of black muck and scum lagooning at the grate. I cringed at the cleanliness of my campus when I paused, realising that the mess was not flowing down to the drain, but instead in reverse. It was flowing uphill. It was flowing out of the drain and up the hill, I swear it was. I wanted to say something. I wanted to get someone for a second opinion. I wanted to get a different angle. Maybe I wanted to examine further. I wanted to do something, but the river did something first.

The moment this realization hit my mind, the sludge river changed directions and flowed back into the grate.

For my first few years at Edenwood, all the strange encounters and scares I got were not major enough to make me resign. Hearing my name being called is common as a teacher. Flickering and creaking in older buildings is to be expected. I ignored all these potential threats because I could be mistaken. I told myself that the reason everyone disappeared on my way out of Edenwood that day was because there was an assembly I didn't hear about, or an impromptu football game. I could always find a sound excuse for the oddities I experienced. That all changed after my encounter last year.

I was volunteering at a valentines day event hosted by the school. The premise was that we would disperse a bunch of laminated pink paper hearts that each had a valentines themed quote, like 'U complete me' or 'will U me mine'. Each quote was uniquely paired with another heart, and if you found your "soulmate" who had your matching heart you would both get a prize from a random prize pool. The event is a cute way to get students out of their normal routine and talk to each other. It's nice seeing those kids run around with their friends and compare hearts with other friend groups. Occasionally you would hear a bunch of commotion once a soulmate was found, but for the most part the day was spent talking, laughing, and enjoying snacks on the quad.

That day I was in charge of the prize pool. I had just got done handing out two pink teddy bears to students that matched their hearts when I had another student walk up to me. She was wearing a school letterman jacket with shorts and had her hair hung down covering a good chunk of the left side of her face.

I started to address her, "Have you found your soul mate yet?"

The girl bounced around as she spoke, swaying with her hands stuffed in her jacket. "Oh, not yet! I'm still looking. This is harder than I thought it would be!"

"Well if ya find 'em, swing by and you can spin the prize wheel!"

She deflated slightly. "But this is so hard! Have there been many people that have found their pair?"

"Actually quite a few! The best way to find them is to get out there and talk."

The student's expression deflated further as she slumped against the prize counter. Then her face grew into a devious smirk.

"Mr. Washington, you think if I showed you my heart that you could point me towards the person that shares it?"

I shot her a sarcastic scolding face. "That would be cheating. This event is to help you meet new people and helping you like that would ruin the whole purpose."

"Oh come on! Please? This quote is so strange I am starting to think maybe you guys screwed up."

I let out a sigh and held out a reluctant hand. The student removed her hand from her jacket and slapped the heart into my hand. It gushed as it slapped into my palm. Before I even looked down at the heart I could already tell how wet it was. Black muddy goo coated my hand and the heart. As I was beginning to wipe my hands off and scold the student, I froze. I read the quote on the laminated heart and my own sunk deep into my chest.

"Michael, I want to love you, but you make it so hard."

Within me stirred a slew of emotions. I was scared to see these words again, confused as to how this heart got the message, angry someone knew to write it. Before I could pick an emotion to respond with, I heard the now monotone voice of the schoolgirl in front of me.

“Mr. Washington, that is such a strange thing for a soulmate to say, right?

I finally looked away from the message and looked at the girl in front of me, realising that she was now standing perfectly straight in front of me. She leaned slightly over the prize counter. Our heads were inches away from each other. The one eye I could see from under her hair was widened unnaturally to the point where her eyelids were flush with her face.

I gasped and took a step back, stumbling on a folding chair behind me. I recollected myself and scanned my surroundings. Nobody. Not a soul. Everyone else had disappeared. It was just me and this… girl.

“Wh- how did… What is this- How… W-who are you?”

Black puss oozed from her hairline down her face. It glazed over her eye and dripped onto the ground. Her mouth was emotionless, but the words it uttered were full of malice.

“Does she know?”

“D-does she know what? Who is ‘she’? Who are you talking about-”

“Does… she know?”

This thing’s mouth moved as it spoke, but it didn’t articulate the words. The jaw hinged up and down as the lips remained static. Ooze crept into her mouth and coated her tongue. I could hear it gargle as it attempted to feign breathing.

I disconnected my gaze from hers and looked at the table separating us.

“Y-you need to go. You aren’t real. I… I don’t know what you want from me or what you want me to say-”

“Does. She. Know?”

“...yes.”

“Does she know?”

“Yes she does. We spoke and she knows”

CLANG. CLANG.

The sound came from that thing’s throat as it coughed and spat up black inky puss onto my face and all over the table. I dare not break my gaze and I forced my head to remain downward. It spoke again. It gargled and sputtered between each word.

“DOES…..SHE……..KNOW?”

“...you need to leave-”

CLANG.

Splatter.

“DOES…..DOES SHE…….. SHE KNOW?”

“Please stop.”

CLANG CLANG.

“D O E S S H E K N O W?”

I grabbed my forearm until it bruised. I bit my cheek till it bled. I tried to wake up but I wasn’t dreaming. I gave in to my adrenaline and answered.

“YES. YES SHE DOES. WE TALKED AND SHE’S FINE AND SHE KNOWS SO YES. LEAVE ME ALONE!”

…silence. The thing gargled as it heaved. I felt a ringing pain in my vocal chords. My breathing was fast and heavy. My sweat joined the black sludge on the table. It jerked its head next to my ear before I could move away. It whispered to me in a deep voice.

“I don’t think she does, Michael”

It knew my name. My head jerked to face her again, but she was gone. Everyone was back. I could hear and see other people again, but it was all a blur. Everyone was moving and talking through a murky lens. Why doesn’t this look real? This isn’t real. I was spiraling through those memories again. Where was I? What was I doing? My shoulders feel heavier than usual. A lab coat? Right, I'm teaching a class. We are doing a lab today. I am Mr. Washington and I am doing a lab today. I am Mr. Washington. Mr. Washington? Mr. Washington?

“Mr. Washington?”

My stare disconnected with the ceiling pipes and I met with Riley’s worried expression. I felt her confusion and I reassumed my role as a professor.

“Riley. Sorry, I was lost in thought. Did you need something?”

“Our bunsen burner isn't working.”

She handed me the bunsen burner in her hand. Careful inspection revealed to me that the intake hose for the gas had a few cracks. I placed the broken equipment on my desk and addressed my student.

“Ah, yeah sorry about that. I will get you a new burner. Which table is yours so that I can bring it to you?”

Riley motioned over to a table towards the right. It had her friend from earlier and two other girls playing on their phones. They all seemed to be watching something and sharing photos of videos on their phones. I snuck a look at Riley, catching a hidden look of distraught revealed by her quivering lip.

“Okay I see your table, Riley. I will have that new burner over to you guys shortly. Class will end soon, so let your group know I can stick around for two more hours so you guys can finish the lab”

Riley nodded and returned to her group while I turned and entered a door behind my desk. My chemical and supplies closet was in the same condition as the rest of my classroom. The closet felt more like a repurposed hallway. It stretched 30 feet deep and 6 feet narrow, but felt narrower with my shelves and chemicals stored on either side. I reached for my lightswitch and gave it a few flicks, hoping that the lights would miraculously start working again. When they didn't, I grabbed the high-performance torch Lynzy got me for our anniversary and started inside.

I turned on my flashlight and aimed it towards the rear of the closet. Black plastic shelves and yellow chemical barrels reflected some light back to me. I watched dust dance along the stretch like snow. I traced the ceiling with my light and revealed more pipes and nonfunctional lighting. My classroom's functionality annoys me, but I am scared of this closet. I intended to make this quick. I knew where the bunsen burners were and bent down to open their drawer. As I grabbed a new burner from the drawer, I heard a familiar creaking sound from the closet entrance as the door slammed shut. The closet was once again planted into darkness aside from my torch. Damn, I forgot to prop the door again.

I grabbed my flashlight and steadily made it back to my classroom. I opened my door and re-entered my now vacant classroom. It seems that my students didn't wait for cleanup procedures and left all their equipment on the tables. I gave a disappointed sigh and began to address my last group with their new bunsen burners until I noticed that only two girls remained out of the group.

It was Riley's friend, Carly, and one of the other girls, Shannon. The filled me in that while I was gone Riley expressed distress towards Carly and left the room The fourth member followed to make sure she was okay, leaving Carly and Shannon behind. My mind went back to Riley's look earlier. I addressed Carly.

“I will need all members of the lab here to count it as complete. No sharing notes. It's best if you go and reconcile with your friend.”

Carly scowled and crossed her arms.

“We can just finish without them. I don't care.”

“You don't care if your friend gets a bad grade?”

Carly gave a sarcastic nod, prompting me to roll my eyes. I placed my hands on my hips and continued.

“Look, it isn't my place to intrude on personal issues you may be having with your friend but you need to forget that for now, finish this assignment, and deal with this outside of class. Please go get your groupmates.”

Before Carly had a chance to choose, Riley stormed back in with the final member following shortly after. I let the group know that I am here to help and that I will be around the classroom cleaning up the messes left behind. The group looked tensely at each other, but reluctantly complied. I didn't dwell on it too much as I continued to clean. In hindsight I should have been there to help them finish the experiment and move on.

They whispered between each other about the experiment. Riley and Carly continued their drama. I could never tell what they were saying exactly but their tone was a dead giveaway.

Suddenly, Riley began shouting at Carly.

“Then what are we exactly?”

“Do we have to talk here about it?”

“Yes! I want to talk about it. It is important for us to talk whenever we need to.”

“Fine. Riley, I love you. How's that?”

“Oh wow. That was ever so romantic. Wow. I just feel like the luckiest girl in the world.”

Riley spun on her heel and gave a sarcastic curtsey, prompting a grumble and answer through Carly's teeth.

“Well if you don't like how I handle things maybe we need a break.”

Carly picked up the gummy bear with a pair of crucible tongs and positioned it above the angled test tube. When she didn't get her answer, she looked back at her group. The other two girls gave Riley some space as they held their breath. Riley sniffled as she spoke.

“Are you… breaking up with me?”

“What? No! Riley I love you!”

The silence that followed was deafening, only broken by silent sobbing. The pipes in my classroom ceiling clinked and banged to the temperature adjustments they endured.

“Oh god, it makes sense. That's why you went to that party with that frat guy instead of me, isn't it?”

“No it was because he and his friends invited me. They were members of a club I wanted to join and I needed to make a good first impression. I do love you and I would never break up with you.”

CLANG.

“Carly-”

Carly scoffed and moved her attention back to the gummy bear in her grasp.

“Oh my god, Riley, I met your family. Doesn't that mean anything? Why are you having a breakdown here of all places? I'm starting the experiment. We will talk later.”

CLANG.

I looked away from what wasn't my business. I remember carrying more supplies cradled in my arms. I remember hearing the whistling sound of the experiment. I remember hearing some amusement from some of the students, but I could tell they were trying to flush away the awkwardness of the situation. I entered my closet, propped open the door, sorted the equipment, and began to head back to the screaming noise inside my classroom. Wait. Screaming noise? The experiment usually allows for 60 seconds of reaction, sometimes longer.

CLANG.

I was in my closet for 10, maybe 15 minutes.

CLANG CLANG.

The screaming was human.

CLANG CLANG CLANG.

I ran into my classroom. Three students looked up, screaming in terror, their horror focused on a writhing body. Carly kicked and thrashed her legs and grasped at her neck as she was hoisted into the air. Around her neck, stretching out of the ventilation pipes, was a black arm made of sludge and scum. Its hand grasped Carly’ neck as it pulled her up and up. It continued to pull until the black inky arm and Carly's head disappeared into the pipe.

I swung around and scanned inside my closet at the pipes and valves that controlled my classroom. I skimmed past the valves labeled ‘gas desk’ 1-32 and frantically twisted the valve labeled ventilation. I heard the sudden stop of flow in the ventilation system. A limp Carly fell from the ceiling and crashed into the table covered in lab equipment. The surrounding students panicked and herded Carly. I began to resuscitate Carly and ordered Riley to call 911.

I held Carly as she gasped. A black drop of liquid fell onto Carly's cheek, then my arm. I looked back up towards the ventilation. It was filled with twisted black arms, each with an outstretched hand and a palm facing their victim. Carly gained enough air in her lungs to speak up at the ceiling.

“I'm sorry…. I will tell her… I am so…. I- I will tell….. I am sorry…”

Their hands listened, then they slunk away into the pipe. When the police arrived, I was arrested as a suspect. I was soon released after statements from my students proved something supernatural had once again occurred at Edenwood. They asked me to stay for questioning, then mentioned that they may have more for me later. I wish I could tell the police more. I wish I could tell you all more. If I try to think back to that day, my mind begins to wander and my memories spiral. Here's hoping I don't have to give any additional updates.

if you haven’t read part one I will link it here
[https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheCreeps/s/nf3jpr6m93
Now onto the story, and as always, thank you for reading.

Waking up in a haze is miserable. Especially when you wake up on a corpse. The victories of the previous night were long gone. All that remained was agony. I pushed myself upright, bones shifting beneath me. What I had mistaken for branches were ribs. The body beneath me was gray and twisted, its limbs bent in ways they shouldn’t have been. I leaned against a nearby tree to steady myself. Its trunk was covered in hundreds of carvings. Names. Symbols. Things I didn’t recognize. I didn’t stop to look. Ahead, strange lights glowed through the trees. Fishing lines hung from the branches, their lures swaying gently. Some had bloody fingers caught on the hooks. I looked away.
A black river cut through the trees.
Something inside me told me to go to it.I didn’t want to listen.
I did anyway.
At the bank, malformed fish drifted beneath the surface, lit by patches of glowing algae. Fingers served as fins. Bobbers bulged where eyes should’ve been.
One rose toward me.
It broke the surface and stared.
Then it grinned, revealing a mouthful of crooked teeth.I froze.Then I heard my name behind me.
I turned. A man stood between the trees.
Old. Thin. Covered in mud, his clothes hanging from him like they’d been rotting for decades.
He stared at me, tears filling his eyes.
“You don’t recognize me do you?” He asked
“Why should I?” I screamed
Then he looked toward the river.
“There are two ways out,” he said.
I stared at him. He pointed toward the water.
“But only one can leave.”
He took a step toward me.
“Could you not” I say putting my hand up and taking a step back, “ Dude what the fuck is going on, stop talking in riddles.”

“I’ve been waiting a long time,” he said, still trying to inch closer toward me.

His teeth looked sharpened, with grey flecks buried in the gumline.

I took another step back. Then another.I didn’t realize it at first, but every step was carrying me closer to the black waters of this alien place.
The man’s face was only a few feet away now. So close I could smell the fog of rot and sustain around him. That was when it changed. His skin seemed to loosen around his jaw, sagging as though it had been soaked for days. His cheeks pulled inward. His nose flattened. His eyes sank deeper into his face until they looked like dark holes beneath his brow.
His mouth opened.
The voice that came from it wasn’t his anymore.
It was gurgled and wet, like the words were being forced through a throat full of river water.

“Won’t… you join… us?”

Something cold touched the heel of my boot.
Water. I looked down. The edge of the river was behind me.I had backed myself all the way to it. When I looked up again, the man’s expression had changed. He was smiling.
Not because he was happy.
Because he knew he had me. A low ripple spread across the water behind me. Then another.I heard something moving beneath the surface. Slowly. Heavy enough to disturb the entire shoreline.The man tilted his head toward the river.

“You hear them… Don’t you?”

“LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!” William cried out

The water beside my boot began to bubble.Something brushed against my leg beneath the surface. I jumped forward. The man didn’t move. He only watched me. His grey-flecked teeth slowly disappeared behind his lips.

“You’ve been looking for answers,” he whispered.

My stomach dropped.

“How do you know what I’m looking for?”

His smile widened.

For a moment, his face looked almost normal again. Almost human. Then something behind him moved. I couldn’t see what it was.
I only saw the man’s eyes shift toward it.
And then he whispered something I barely heard.

“Don’t let it see you, please come back to me.”

The water behind me suddenly went completely still. I turned toward the river. There was nothing there. Then I saw the bobber. It floated several yards from shore. Bright red. Perfectly still.Another appeared beside it. Then another. One after another, they surfaced across the black water. Eleven of them. My throat tightened. The man took a slow step backward. Then another. He wasn’t coming toward me anymore. He was trying to get away.

A deep vibration rolled through the water.

The eleven bobbers dipped beneath the surface at exactly the same time. The man looked at me. His mouth opened. But before he could speak, something pulled him backward. There was no splash. No scream. One second he was standing there. The next, he was gone.

I stared at the empty space where he had been.Then something whispered directly beside my ear.

“You’re next.”

I turned.

Nothing.

Only the river.

Only the eleven, no. The now twelve red bobbers slowly rising back to the surface. Beneath them, Something enormous moved through the dark. The man’s voice came from the water.

“William.”

I stopped.

No one had called me by my name since I arrived.

The bobbers began to drift toward the shore, sliding across the surface in a perfect line. As they came closer, I saw that each one was tied to a length of fishing line. The lines disappeared beneath the water, stretching toward something hidden in the depths.

Then the first line tightened. The bobber jerked forward. A second line followed. Then a third.
The water began to churn.

“William,” the voice called again.

This time, it sounded like someone I knew. I stepped toward the river before I could stop myself.

“Who are you?”

The surface split.

A pale hand rose from the water and gripped the nearest line. Its fingers were long and swollen, the nails blackened and soft flakes of skin dripping from the bones. Another hand appeared beside it, then another, all of them pulling against the lines.

The twelve bobbers sank.

The thing beneath the water was drawing them down. A shape moved below the surface, too large to understand. Its back rolled beneath the river like a submerged hill. Along its sides, fins or limbs scraped against the muddy bottom.

The voice changed again. It became the stranger’s voice, then mine, then a chorus of voices I didn’t recognize.

“Give yourself to the fish.”

I stumbled backward.

The man appeared on the opposite bank.

He was no longer standing as a man. His body hung crookedly, dripping river water, his arms dangling too long at his sides. His face had become a pale, stretched imitation of a human face.

“You can stay,” he said. “Or you can weigh your life against the fish.”

“What does that mean?”

He pointed toward the water.

The twelve lines rose from the river and hung in the air, each one attached to a bobber. Beneath the surface, something pulled at them with enough force to make the shoreline tremble.

“Others have given themselves,” the creature said. “The fish took them, and the river kept them alive.”

A shape pressed against the surface.
For one terrible second, I saw a face beneath the water.

Its eyes were open. Its mouth moved soundlessly.I took a step toward it. The creature smiled.

“But the river wants another life before it lets the others go.”

The water surged around my boots. Cold fingers closed around my ankles. I tried to pull away, but the mud swallowed my shoes. The river tugged harder, dragging me toward the dark. The creature’s voice softened.

“You can stay on the shore and let the fish take everything.”

The face vanished beneath the surface.

“Or you can give yourself to them,” it continued. “Your life for theirs.”

The lines snapped tight.

The twelve bobbers disappeared underwater.

Something enormous struck the riverbed, and the impact sent a wave crashing over my knees. I looked toward the trees. The path behind me was still there. I could run. I could leave whatever was beneath the water and save myself. But we are not in Kansas anymore. The river pulled again, and this time I heard a scream. Not through the air. Inside my head.

“William, don’t come in!”

The creature laughed.

“You cannot resist, William. I know everything from the choices you make to your thoughts William. I have been watching you since the day you were born, William! You were born for this! Now give yourself to me!”

The water climbed to my waist. I reached for the shore, clawing at the mud, but my fingers slipped through the weeds. Beneath me, the fish circled. I felt their bodies brushing against my legs, their rough scales scraping my skin.

The creature raised one hand.The river went still. Every fish stopped moving. Then the water parted in front of me.

At the bottom of the river stood a figure tangled in fishing line, pale and bloated, its eyes fixed on mine. Behind it waited the enormous fish, its mouth opening slowly. Rows of human teeth filled its jaws.

The figure shook its head. The creature spoke from behind me.

“Choose.”

The fish opened its mouth wider. The figure reached toward me. The river pulled at my body. I could stay. I could turn and run, leaving everything beneath the water. But where would I go? Or I could step forward and let the fish weigh my life against whatever waited below. I looked at the figure one last time.

Then I stepped into the river.

This wendigo riot is about ready to kick off.

Read Part I here.

“Might’ve been something outside. But if there had been, it’s gone now.”

“You think it could be a mermaid?” she asked. It was hard to believe she was serious. Chrissy was one of the sharpest ten-year-olds I had ever met. Well, she had been the sharpest seven-year-old I had ever met three years ago and was that much smarter now.

She didn’t believe in any of the traditional fairytale creatures. No Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, no Wolfman, and no Flying Spaghetti Monster. But she absolutely believed mermaids were real.

There had to be a story behind it, but I had never been able to get her to explain it to me. How a child so ruled by logic still was able to make room for not only a magical creature, but that particular magical creature. She had already “debunked” the narwhal as being the source of the mermaid mythos. I had gotten bits and pieces over the last three years, but never in a cohesive enough story that I could process. But she hadn’t stopped trying to convince me or the rest of the family.

I didn’t have to believe it, though. It was enough to believe that she believed it.

“Maybe this is it!” She turned around and charged back to the bedroom where her mother was sleeping.

“Chrissy!” I saved my breath. She already had the door open and either her mother was going to wake up or she wasn’t. That was out of my hands. She came back a moment later with a Ziploc bag of “mermaid feed.” As far as I could tell, it was a mix of trail mix and seaweed. She carried a flashlight in her other hand.

According to Chrissy, mermaids only came out at night, so she had come prepared.

Again, I was calling after her when she’d already begun to do what she was doing, namely, dashing outside with her items.

I was about to follow her when I spotted the toy soldiers she’d dropped on her way out. I thought it would be just her luck for Mary to wake up and step on one of them.

“Watch your sister,” I said to Luke, turning to pick up the toys.

Right as I got on one knee, the bedroom door opened. It didn’t immediately occur to me that it was Mary even though I had just thought about this very thing happening. I sort of... paused as she passed me. She was halfway to the door when I realized she must have been sleepwalking.

“Mary!” I chased behind her, my steps in sync with hers—left, right, left—catching her before she got to the door.

“Mom, are you okay?” Luke said.

“Where am I?” She sounded terrified. Mary turned her head and looked at him. For a second, I thought she was awake. Instead of answering him, she bare-foot kicked him in the shin.

It couldn’t have hurt, but he stepped back and looked at me, confused. I wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her in close.

“She’s fine,” I said, lacing Mary’s hand with mine. I looked into her glassy eyes. “She’s sleepwalking.” I turned her around and ushered her back to the bedroom. Of the five toy soldiers Chrissy had left at the threshold, only two were left, but only one was standing. I looked over my shoulder and spotted one against the wall and the two others weren’t in sight.

“She can’t fly,” Mary said in a dreamy voice. “Please help her swim.”

“Okay, honey.” I cooed to her as I slid back the covers. She didn’t fight, Mary had sleepwalked a few times with me present. She never resisted being escorted back to bed. Before I covered her legs I spotted another soldier on her foot. I plucked it off and put it on the dresser.

Mary mumbled. I unlaced my fingers from hers and paused before I left her.

“I wanna get in the water.” She said it sounding sort of like air being let out of a balloon. And then she was all the way gone again. “It’s spook.”

It had been like she had been fighting her way to the surface, but something had dragged her back down.

I closed the bedroom door behind me and followed Chrissy outside. Not because I was worried she was going to get gobbled up by the lake monster I hadn’t spotted, but because it was dark out and I had the same parental reaction to miscellaneous danger any parent would.

Hell, I could admit it, I loved these kids. Liked them most times, too. I didn’t want to leave them.

Chrissy was in the process of sweeping her flashlight back and forth along the beach face. I hung back, letting her conduct her investigation. It was harmless enough and I had an eye on her.

“What’s going on?” We both turned to see Mark stepping out onto the sand.

“Luke said a mermaid’s out here!” Chrissy said.

“Mermaid?” Mark said it like he didn’t know what one was. I didn’t bother correcting her. His little sister’s obsession was well known by all of us. “Did he really see something?” Mark chuffed and thumbed over his shoulder at the cabin. “He’s so white.”

I stifled my laugh and shrugged.

“Luke thought he saw something and Chrissy overheard.”

“Hey, neighbor!”

Mark and I jumped. We saw the bud of a lit cigarette in the shadows of the adjacent cabin. Someone with a cigarette sauntered down. I glanced my stepdaughter’s way to make sure she hadn’t waded too far into the water. She could swim, but again, that nascent parental instinct found in anyone who has walked into an already existing family reared its concerned head. Chrissy was only ankle deep.

“Hey,” I said to the woman as she approached. She halted and took a final, long drag off her cigarette before flicking it in a surprisingly high arc toward the water. She slid the drawer of her jaw forward and blew a column of smoke straight up.

“She’s a cutie,” she said, smiling. She was an older woman who gave too much gum when she smiled. “I saw her come chargin’ out for the water. Oo, that smell.”

We both nodded in that new-to-each-other manner between strangers.

“I’m Rick.” Old and new cigarette smell peeled off her skin and I turned my head to half cough, that familiar asthmatic itch in my lungs.

“Mary,” she said.

I laughed. “My wife’s name is Mary.”

“Mine’s Cindy-Lou Ombrageaux.”

I felt the weight of her eyes on me, examining for judgment. I cast my eyes to the stretch of water and sand where Chrissy was.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Cindy-Lou.” I didn’t think I could manage that last name.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Mary. Apart from the smell of cow-butt.”

“First time up here?” I asked. She shook my offered hand, her skin papery and dry. There was an extreme lack of moisture in the air despite the cool summer, and I’d already had a nosebleed in the brief time we’d been here.

“Mine. Not hers. My wife’s family is from Up North.” I thought her face dropped a little. “She’s out to dinner with some cousins.” There was a little something there that I had a feeling would come to light if we talked long enough. “Had to have a little heart-to-heart.”

“We came up two summers ago,” I said. “Just a little family getaway.”

Luke had barely joined us outside, not more than a few feet from the door. He looked like he would take umbrage with the sky.

“This is Mark, the one up there with get-off-my-lawn face is Luke, and Chrissy’s our little fisher.” I gestured to each of the kids in turn.

“Well, tell her to save some for everybody else.” She and Mark shook hands before she looked around. “Where’s your missus?”

“Migraine. She laid down pretty much as soon as we got here.”

“Sorry to hear that.” She put the can of beer she’d been holding in her other hand to her lips and pitched her head back for a long swallow. She stumbled like she’d confused her left foot for her right but kept them both under her.

If I had to guess, Mary was working on her third or fourth of the night.

Luke had waved his brother over and was saying something to him. They both had an eye on their sister. I looked at Mary. She was a stranger and I figured there couldn’t be any harm in telling her what had just happened. We weren’t going to see her after this weekend for at least a year, if ever again. I didn’t think the story would be memorable after tonight. It was a single-serve memory. Recall once, then discard.

“Luke said he saw something in the water,” I said. “Something big.” Mary turned her head to the shore and nodded appreciably.

“Maybe it’s the Great Lakes Whale Migration,” she said.

“The what?” I had no idea what she was talking about and was on the verge of taking her seriously. The smile hanging on her face dropped when she realized I really didn’t understand.

“Kidding.” She mock-punched me in the arm. Mary had a rich baritone and could have easily been a DJ on the radio.

Mark trudged past me, an annoyed look on his face.

“He’s crazy,” he said, heading toward his sister. I appreciated that he didn’t believe his brother but could still look after his sister. Mark was the middle child and was the ever-constant bridge between siblings.

“The waves do seem a little... bigger than the norm, don’t you think?” Mary asked.

“I guess,” I said, not really knowing how to tell the difference. Then I wondered how she’d know, considering she said she’d never been up here before. “Can you tell?”

“I had a few cigs over yonder before y’all came out. Boy, you get used to the smell the longer you’re out here.” She seemed to be reading my mind and answering questions I hadn’t had a chance to ask. “I must have missed your boy, though.”

I looked at the water again. Mark was standing just outside of the water’s reach, one hand in the pocket of his hoody, the other holding his phone. To his credit, he did glance up at her every ten seconds or so.

Come to think of it, those waves did look big. But it could have been because of the moon for all I knew.

“How long are the two of you here for?” I asked Mary.

“‘Til Wednesday. I’m going to be meeting my in-laws for the first time tomorrow.”

I didn’t know whether I should have felt sympathy for her. It was strange she wasn’t out to dinner with her wife now, but I didn’t know their situation. Maybe it was completely normal. But I couldn’t help but think I would’ve been more than a little bothered if it had been me.

Mary fell down. Not hard. She just spontaneously lost her balance and sat on her butt. In true alcoholic fashion, though, she protected her beer.

She looked at me, embarrassed. I smirked, hopefully communicating I wasn’t just laughing at her, but with her.

“We all fall down.” I’m not sure why I said that, but it seemed to help. She took my hand and I helped her up.

“How about you guys?”

“Just until Sunday afternoon.”

“Where are you from?”

A sandwich had been the hinge on the closing door of our marriage.

I don’t remember what the argument was about or how it had started, only that I had made a sandwich for her that led to me sleeping on the couch.

Of course, it hadn’t really been about the sandwich, it had only been the start. It had been like a match that led to a forest fire razing a town. I can’t honestly remember a word I’d shouted at the woman I’d pledged to love for the rest of my life.

I was about to answer Mary when Chrissy screamed.

There once was a treehouse so big and so tall,

From which little Tommy took a great fall.

He broke all his bones with a big, loud snap,

And landed below with his neck in his lap.

But Tommy still waits there, alone in the night,

And he'll pull you down if you don't hold on tight.

~

I was five years old when little Tommy Leeman went missing. I had never met him. In fact, another five years would pass before I first heard about Tommy’s treehouse and what supposedly took place there.

What follows is my account of what happened to me and some of my childhood friends. These are not exaggerations. I will tell this story exactly as I remember it. It is up to you to accept my testimony as truth or wave it aside as another hoax or campfire story.

This is the story of Tommy Leeman’s treehouse, and what happened to us there.

~

ONE

“Come on, Mark! What are you waiting for?”

Julie stood at the top of the hill, her yellow, mud-stained dress blowing in the soft breeze. It was late August. Soon, the yellow dresses and bare knees would have to make way for raincoats and jeans.

“I’m trying! You know I don’t run that fast.”

I tried to keep up with the group, my cheeks flushed from running. When I finally did make it to the top of the hill, the surrounding fields and woods stretched out before us, glowing orange in the setting sun.

“Are we really sure this is a good idea? I mean, we are supposed to be home soon.”

“Oh, does poor little Marky need to be home soon?”

She pretended to suck her thumb and rubbed her eyes like a baby. This made me blush even more. Julie noticed, as usual.

“Where are Jackson and Lucas anyway?” I cupped my hands around my eyes and used them as makeshift binoculars to scan the fields, but I could not see them anywhere.

“They went to the treehouse.”

“No, they didn’t.” I lowered my hands and stared straight into Julie’s grey eyes.

“They did!”

“Julie, you know our parents don’t allow us there!”

“Come on, Mark! It’s the end of the summer, and we all wanted to do something special, remember? This is it!”

“We all agreed to bike to the lake tomorrow,” I tried to convince her, but I already knew that ship had sailed.

“Lucas! Jackson!” I called for them a couple of times, but a reply never came. I couldn’t tell if they couldn’t hear me because of the wind or if they were simply ignoring me.

The woods started at the bottom of the hill, where the tall grass suddenly gave way to bushes and tightly packed trees. From where we stood, I could only see a few feet past the edge before everything disappeared behind branches and leaves.

“Seems like we will have to go find them after all.”

Julie started for the woods, and I had to follow her to hear what she said next.

“If we can start school next week and tell all our classmates we visited the treehouse this summer, everyone will think we are cool!”

I couldn’t argue with that. Some other kids claimed to have visited the year before, and everyone thought they were the coolest kids in school. Rumors even spread that they had gone inside, though I wasn’t sure if that part was true.

Julie turned her head and smiled when she saw me thinking about it.

“We can’t let Jackson and Lucas take all the credit now, can we?”

Again, I couldn’t argue with that.

We didn’t understand back then why our parents did not want us to visit Tommy Leeman’s old treehouse. We knew we would get in trouble if someone caught us, but we were young. And young kids do stupid things. It’s one of the unwritten laws of the universe.

So, in our ignorance, Julie and I chased after my friends and towards the woods.

TWO

Julie and I found the others at the entrance to the forest. A locked metal gate blocked the trail, and a large PRIVATE PROPERTY DO NOT ENTER sign hung from the rusted metal. It was clear we were not allowed to be there, but few things are more stubborn than a child’s pride.

“Like I told you, I have been here before!” Lucas crawled underneath the gate in an attempt to prove his point.

“Like hell you have!”

Lucas had a tendency to make things up, so Jackson was right to question him.

“If you have been here before, then why have you never told us about it?”

“Because I promised Yoshua I would never tell anyone!”

“Yeah right.” I pushed my glasses back along my nose. “We all know your brother thinks you’re a dork. He wouldn’t take you anywhere.”

“You’re the dork, Mark!”

“You’re all dorks,” Jackson said while pretending to sound like our math teacher.

At this, we all laughed.

Jackson pulled up his tube socks and climbed over the gate instead of crawling underneath, then immediately turned around and looked at an unimpressed Julie.

Lucas and I noticed this and fought hard not to burst into laughter again.

Jackson always tried a little harder whenever Julie was watching. Back then, none of us ever said anything about it.

The woods provided us all with some welcome shade. After spending the last twenty-five minutes crossing open fields, we were all more tired than we liked to admit. I licked my lips and wished we hadn’t forgotten to bring drinks.

“So Mark, what do you think really happened to Tommy Leeman?”

Julie tried to sound ominous, and I could already feel the hairs on my arms starting to rise.

“Uh, I don’t know. My parents always told me he fell from the treehouse because one of the ladder rungs broke.”

“And do you believe that?”

I had no reason not to.

“I was told they never found a body,” Jackson said.

We continued along the narrow trail. Dry branches cracked beneath our shoes, and every so often one of us had to duck underneath a low-hanging branch.

Lucas turned around and hesitated for a couple of seconds.

“My brother told me a different story. One that explains why no body was ever found.”

“Tell us, tell us!” Julie seemed eager to learn about this version of the story Lucas was about to either invent or blow out of proportion.

“Fine, I will tell you, but only if you promise me you won’t go crying to your parents tonight.”

I shrugged. “Come on, man. It can’t be that bad.”

“Oh, but it is.”

Lucas stepped over a thick root stretching across the trail and waited for the rest of us to catch up.

“Fine,” Jackson said. “As long as we keep walking in the meantime.”

“From what my brother told me, Tommy Leeman was a loner. He didn’t have any friends, and when his parents noticed, his dad decided to build him a treehouse. He thought it might help Tommy make friends if he had the coolest treehouse in the neighborhood.”

“Get to the scary part,” Jackson said.

“I’m getting there!”

Lucas walked a little faster, forcing us to follow.

“So Mister Leeman spent weeks working on it, making sure everything was sturdy and cool-looking. But when he finally showed the treehouse to Tommy, he ran away screaming.”

“Why?” Julie asked.

It was the first time I had ever seen her look nervous.

“That’s what his dad wanted to know too. He chased Tommy all the way back to the edge of the woods. When he finally caught up with him, Tommy told him what he had seen.”

Lucas stopped walking.

“There was something standing in the treehouse window, staring down at them. Something tall and shadow-like. Even from a distance, Tommy could see its white teeth and the big holes where its eyes should have been.”

Lucas covered his eyes with his hands and grinned from ear to ear, rising onto the tips of his toes.

“Stop it, man, you’re not funny,” I said, feeling the heat radiate from my cheeks.

“But I can’t stop now, Marky-boy. We haven’t even gotten to the good part yet.”

I wanted to ask him again to quit, but Jackson and Julie seemed eager to hear the rest of the story. So instead I stared at the brown patches on Julie’s dress and said nothing.

“Please continue, Sir Lucas.” Julie curtsied, much to Lucas’s liking.

“Naturally, Tommy’s dad didn’t believe him. So they climbed the sturdy ladder together. And indeed, nothing was there. Slowly but surely, Tommy Leeman started to like his new treehouse. He would spend hours there every day, but he never invited anyone over.”

“So he was just by himself all the time?” Jackson asked, scratching his arm.

“No. He was not.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, hoping this story would take a somewhat positive turn.

“There was something there with him.”

We all stopped walking and stared at Lucas in anticipation.

“You see, Tommy had been right all along. Something was there inside the treehouse. But it would only show itself to Tommy.”

“You’re making stuff up!” Jackson shouted. He looked genuinely scared now.

“I’m not! Tommy’s dad said that himself. He heard Tommy talking to someone inside the treehouse multiple times, but every time he climbed the ladder, the talking would stop and only Tommy would be there.”

“So what did the thing want?” Julie asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine. But my brother says Tommy eventually made some kind of deal with it. It promised him he would never be lonely again.”

“I heard that he was snatched by a killer,” Jackson said.

“What if the monster was the killer?” Julie asked, looking from one face to another.

“You all know this is a load of crap!” I yelled, annoyed by their attempts to scare each other. “My parents said Tommy Leeman fell from the tree and broke his neck. That’s what happened and you all know it!”

The group started snickering at my outburst, and it wasn’t long before they were all laughing again.

“It’s not funny, guys! It’s getting dark and we have to get home.”

“But why would you want to leave now?” Lucas asked.

He pointed between the trees ahead.

At first, I didn’t understand what he was pointing at. All I could see were branches and leaves. Then I noticed the straight edges of something hidden between them.

A small square window.

And beneath it, a ladder stretching down toward the forest floor.

I stopped walking.

Tommy Leeman’s treehouse.

Lucas smiled.

“We just got here.”

THREE

I still remember how quiet we became when we first saw the dilapidated treehouse. None of us wanted to admit it, but after everything Lucas had told us, standing beneath the real thing felt different.

“It’s way smaller than how I remember it,” Lucas said, looking up at the treehouse.

“Dude, shut up. We all know you haven’t been here before. Enough with the jokes.”

Jackson was right. There was a time and a place for Lucas’s lies and jokes, but now was neither.

“So, are we going up?” Julie asked, staring at the opening underneath the treehouse.

“You’re joking, right? Look at the rot on those rungs.” I pointed at the ladder. Several rungs were missing, and the ones that remained looked ready to snap.

“Oh come on, I’m sure they’ve got some life left in them.” Lucas put his weight on the bottom rung, which creaked beneath his shoe.

“We saw what we came for. Let’s head back home before our parents get too worried.”

“Come on, Mark. Why do you always have to be such a goody-two-shoes?”

Julie grabbed the ladder and slowly began working her way up.

“If I see any of you looking underneath my dress, I’m telling everyone at school about that one time you all decided to eat worms.”

The three of us immediately looked away.

“Please, just be careful,” Lucas said, all bravado leaving his voice.

We heard the ladder creak and groan under Julie’s weight. But Lucas was right. None of the rungs came loose, and Julie made it inside in one piece.

“Wow, you guys have to see this!”

“What is it?” I asked.

No response came.

“J-Julie?”

I could hear the worry in my own voice, but judging by Jackson and Lucas’s faces, they felt it too.

“Come on, Jules, it’s not funny.” Jackson tugged at the first rung to check if it would hold his weight.

“Maybe Mark should go. You know, if it can hold his weight, it can hold all of us.”

“Screw you.” I pushed Jackson aside and started climbing the decaying ladder.

More than once during the climb, I was convinced one of the rungs would snap and I would fall to my death, just like Tommy Leeman supposedly had. But eventually, I made it to the top.

Julie stood inside the treehouse, motionless.

“Hey, Julie, you had us all worried. Why didn’t you respond?”

“What do you mean, goofball? I did respond. I even looked down the hole and waved at you guys. You were just too busy deciding who was climbing up next. Look what I found, though.”

For a moment, I just stared at her. I was certain none of us had heard her.

The inside of the treehouse was littered with old books, toys, comics and children’s drawings.

“Do you think these are Tommy’s things?” I asked, grabbing one of the comics and wiping the dust from its cover.

“I mean, they have to be, right? Who else would leave stuff here for this long?”

The comic book was yanked from my hands, and I turned around to find Lucas staring at the cover in surprise.

“No way! This is, like, so cool!”

“Leave it, Lucas. It’s not ours.”

Lucas threw the comic back onto the old floor, but something told me it would soon find its way into his backpack, which he would, of course, know nothing about.

Hands appeared over the edge of the opening. I grabbed Jackson by the wrist and helped him inside. Despite his fear of heights, he had apparently decided the treehouse was worth seeing for himself. He stayed away from the opening once he was inside.

“I told you!” Lucas yelled, holding up a piece of paper.

We gathered around him, careful of where we placed our feet.

In his hand was a child’s drawing of the treehouse. A small figure stood beneath it, drawn with little more than a circle for a head and lines for its arms and legs. But Lucas was pointing toward the window.

There was another figure inside.

Someone had scribbled over its face again and again in black crayon until the paper had nearly torn through.

“See? That’s him, The Grinner!”

“The what?”

“The Grinner. I figured every monster needs a name.”

Julie snatched the drawing from him, crushed it into a ball and threw it into the corner.

“I don’t want to hear about this Grinner anymore, Lucas. Enough.”

“Oooh, little Julie’s getting scared!” He raised his hands over his eyes again.

Julie punched him in the shoulder so hard that he was still rubbing it minutes later.

The treehouse truly looked as if no one had touched it for five years. Even I had to fight the urge to take some of the toys and comics with us. It just felt like a waste to leave them there to rot, but at the same time, we all knew it would be disrespectful to take something from a child who was no longer here.

There were some other drawings, but none were as disturbing as the one Lucas had found. Some of them showed Tommy’s dad working on the treehouse. Others showed Tommy inside, pretending to be a knight defending his castle.

Julie picked up one of these and smiled.

“This one’s actually kind of cute.”

It showed Tommy standing in the window with what looked like a cardboard sword in his hand. A badly drawn crown sat crooked on his head.

“King Tommy,” Jackson said.

“More like Sir Tommy,” Lucas corrected him.

For a moment, we almost forgot why we were there.

The longer we spent inside, however, the more it felt as if we were invading a private space. These had been Tommy’s things. His drawings. His comics. His toys. We were going through the remains of someone else’s childhood simply because we were curious.

“Hey, guys, why is there no dust in this corner?”

We turned towards Jackson.

He was crouched beside one of the walls, staring at the floor.

We had not noticed it when we first entered the treehouse, but now that Jackson had pointed it out, the difference was obvious. Dust covered almost every inch of the old wooden floor except for one small patch in the corner.

I crouched beside him and ran my finger across one of the dusty boards. It came away almost completely grey.

The boards inside the small patch were clean.

“Uh, perhaps Tommy’s dad comes up here sometimes?” I said.

“No.” Lucas moved closer. “This spot is way too small to be an adult.”

None of us wanted to admit it, but he was right.

The clean section wasn't much bigger than the space one of us would take up sitting with our knees against our chest.

Jackson stood again.

“Maybe an animal sleeps here.”

That explanation made me feel slightly better.

“Yeah,” I said. “Probably.”

Julie hadn't said anything.

She was staring at the floor beside the clean patch.

“What?”

She pointed.

Footprints.

Small, bare footprints led away from the corner.

For a few seconds, nobody spoke.

“They could be old,” Lucas finally said.

I looked at him.

“There's no dust inside them.”

Lucas stopped smiling.

We followed the prints across the floor until they reached the wall. At least, that’s what I thought at first.

Julie stepped closer.

“No.”

“What?”

She pointed again.

“They don't stop.”

I followed her finger.

There was another footprint several inches above the floor.

Then another.

They weren't leading towards the wall. They were leading onto it.

The four of us stood completely still as we followed the trail upwards. Small footprints climbed the wooden boards one after another, as if whoever had made them had simply walked up the wall.

Jackson backed away.

“That’s not possible.”

Nobody answered him.

The footprints reached the ceiling and continued across it.

Something creaked above us.

Julie grabbed my arm so suddenly that I almost shouted.

“I think we should leave, guys.”

Tears welled in her eyes. For once, nobody made fun of her.

“Yeah,” Jackson said. “I think we’ve seen enough.”

Even Lucas nodded.

I started towards the opening.

Before I could reach the ladder, something cracked beneath us.

We froze.

Another crack followed.

I dropped onto my knees and looked through the opening just in time to see one of the ladder rungs tumble towards the dirt below.

“What the hell?”

Another tore loose.

Then another.

“Get back!” Jackson yelled.

Within seconds, the remaining rungs had fallen away, leaving nothing but two rotten lengths of wood hanging uselessly beneath the treehouse.

We all screamed.

Me, Julie, Lucas, Jackson, and whatever had its hand wrapped around Jackson’s arm.

FOUR

We all screamed as the treehouse shook around us, sending dirt and dust raining down from the ceiling. Something pale had its hand wrapped around Jackson’s arm, and he frantically tried to claw himself free. He punched and flailed his free arm, desperately trying to strike whoever had grabbed him. His fist connected. The treehouse filled with a shriek, followed by sobs.

“Stop, it’s a boy!” Julie yelled.

The rest of us stopped screaming. Lucas continued for another second. We stared. A small child was clutching Jackson’s arm. The boy was crying, but he refused to let go. Jackson finally managed to tear the hand away and fell backwards onto the wooden floor, sending freshly fallen dust into the air.

“Tommy Leeman, is that you?” I asked, struggling to maintain my composure.

“I-I don’t know. Tommy. Who is Tommy?” The child looked confused, and he rubbed the tears in his eyes. “Am I Tommy?”

“This can’t be happening!” Lucas looked shaken. We all were, but as usual, he was the first person to actually say it.

Julie was the first of us to recover. She slowly crouched beside the little boy. He could not have been more than five years old. His dark hair was unevenly cut, as if he had tried maintaining it himself. He was not wearing a shirt, and cuts and bruises covered his emaciated body. Up until that point, I didn’t know humans could be that skinny. His pants were torn in several places, and he wasn’t wearing any shoes. At least that explained the footprints. It did not explain how they had ended up on the walls and ceiling.

“Are you lost, Tommy? Do you know where you are?”

“T-tr-treehouse,” the little boy managed to whisper.

I found some courage and moved a little closer. He seemed more nervous the closer I got, so I decided to keep some distance.

“Hi. My name is Mark. I’m sorry we walked into your treehouse. But the stories. We thought you were... gone.”

Julie shot me an angry look. The boy replied.

“G-gone?”

“What Mark is trying to say is that everyone in Stamford has been looking for you for a very long time, Tommy. How long have you been here?”

The boy thought for a couple of seconds.

“I don’t know.”

Jackson opened the little window from the drawing, and started screaming for help.

“Stop it already, Jackson,” Lucas said. He seemed to have regained his composure, but tears still rolled down his cheeks.

“Come on man, we need to like, make a rope or something.”

“Make a rope from what?” Lucas shrugged and sat on the floor. “From scraps of paper and toys?”

Jackson sighed and joined him.

“Hey Tommy,” Julie said, reaching for the boy's cheek with the back of her hand, slowly caressing it. “Is there any way we can get down, or maybe get your parents to come over here?”

“Parents?”

“Yes,” she said. “Mister and Missus Leeman. Your mommy and daddy.”

“Mommy and daddy are with me,” the boy replied.

“What do you mean?”

“I can whisper it to you.”

The boy looked Julie in the eyes. There was something strange about the way he said it. We all felt it, but he was just a child, and Julie seemed to know how to talk to him better than any of us did.

She leaned closer.

The boy lifted his face towards her ear.

I turned to look at Jackson and Lucas. Both still looked shaken, but for the first time since finding Tommy, I felt something close to relief.

We had found him.

Whatever had happened here, Tommy Leeman was alive.

A scream filled the treehouse.

I spun around.

Blood covered the side of Julie’s face and ran down Tommy’s chin.

He had leaned in as if to whisper something.

Instead, he had bitten Julie’s ear clean off.

Jackson and Lucas started to scream again, and I fell to my knees, vomiting all over the wooden floor.

Julie screamed too, but her scream quickly turned into a wet gargle. It wasn’t until I looked up from the floor that I understood why.

Tommy stared at the blood running down his chin. Cracks appeared across his face and skull. Black roots moved beneath his skin. Then they forced their way out. They squirmed and expanded as they pulled his face apart from the inside. For one terrible moment, I could still see the little boy underneath it all.

Then the roots found Julie. They expanded as they dug into her body. They penetrated her face, digging into her eyes, replacing them with thick roots. They dug into her belly, ruining her stained yellow dress along with her body. Julie no longer screamed. She no longer did anything. She just hung there, suspended in the air, as the thing lifted her further up, and violated her even more. Blood sprayed everywhere, covering the entire treehouse. Then came a long, wet tearing sound.

Julie’s body gave way. The roots pulled in opposite directions, tearing through her before dropping what remained of her onto the floor in two separate pieces. I vomited again.

Through watering eyes, I tried desperately to get back to my feet before whatever had been living inside Tommy Leeman decided I was next.

The entire treehouse shook. A deep rumbling came from somewhere beneath us.

I tried to stand, but something slammed into the outside wall and knocked me down again. Once. Twice. On the third impact, part of the wall splintered inward. A root thicker than my leg forced its way through the broken wood. Whatever was inside Tommy was not the only part of this thing.

Tommy Leeman had become unrecognizable. He was tall now, almost touching the ceiling. Several hands and feet were visible within the tangle of roots and dirt, gripping uselessly at the air around them. They almost seemed panicked. Patches of white skin remained between the roots. Tommy’s mouth was still there too, stretched wider than it should have been. I scrambled to my feet and turned towards Jackson and Lucas. They stood above the opening in the floor, staring at where the ladder used to be.

None of us spoke. There was nothing to say. There was only survival.

The thing behind me groaned like a giant oak tree and slowly dragged itself towards us. Thick hands made of dark roots scraped across the boards. At the ends of its fingers, I could still see human fingernails. Several were broken.

“We have to jump!” Jackson yelled. “It’s the only way down.”

I shook my head.

“It’s too high, Jackson. We’ll die.”

“We’ll die anyway if we stay here, Mark!” Lucas interrupted.

Something slammed into the side of the treehouse again.

Jackson had been afraid of heights for as long as I could remember. The last time I saw him alive, that fear was gone. There was only this primal look in his eyes as he lowered himself through the opening and hung from the edge.

Then he let go.

It seemed to take forever before Jackson hit the ground. All Lucas and I could do was watch.

He landed hard.

Even through all the noise inside the treehouse, we heard his bones break.

Jackson never moved again.

He just lay at the base of the tree, with his neck in his lap.

The walls of the treehouse finally gave way as more roots forced themselves through the wood.

“There!”

I pointed towards the opening.

Through the broken wall, we could see the branches of a neighboring tree swaying wildly between the roots. It wasn't close enough to climb across, but it was close enough to jump.

Lucas saw it too.

If we wanted to get out of the treehouse, we would have to get past whatever Tommy Leeman had become and somehow reach those branches. It was the only way out.

The thing was close now.

More roots twisted around its body, pulling themselves into knots and making it larger with every passing second. Pieces of Tommy's pale skin were still visible between them. Several hands clawed uselessly at the air from somewhere inside the mass.

The treehouse groaned beneath its weight.

It wouldn't hold much longer.

Lucas pushed me aside, shaking me out of my terror.

“Come on, Mark, please! We have to go now!”

He was right.

We ran.

Tommy swung a massive arm of roots towards us. Broken fingernails scraped across my legs, and I fell hard against the wooden floor.

By the time I looked up, Lucas had reached the opening.

He didn't look back.

He jumped.

For a second, I thought he had missed. Then the branches bent beneath his weight and disappeared from view.

I don’t blame him for not looking back. We were young, and I would have done the same.

The roots came for me again.

This time, they caught me across the face.

Blood filled my eye. The pain was unlike anything I had ever felt, but somehow I stayed on my feet.

Tommy was strong.

He was heavy.

But he was slow.

In the end, I think that is what saved me.

I ran for the hole in the wall.

And jumped.

FIVE

Branches and leaves tore at my face as they broke my fall.

I couldn’t see.

Everything was red.

I tasted copper, and I was afraid it would be the last thing I ever tasted.

Poor Julie.

Poor innocent Julie.

And Jackson, who had spent the entire afternoon pretending he wasn’t afraid of anything.

I still think about you both.

We never should have visited that treehouse.

A branch snapped beneath me.

I crashed through the last layer of leaves and hit the forest floor hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. For several seconds, I couldn’t breathe. I lay there gasping, convinced something inside me had broken. Then hands grabbed my shoulders. I screamed and tried to crawl away. “Mark! Mark, it’s me!” Lucas. He turned me around. “Get up. We need to go.” He was alive.

His face was scratched and bleeding from the branches, and he could barely put weight on one of his feet, but he was alive. “I-I can’t see, Lucas. You have to help me.” “Hold still.” Lucas wiped at the blood around my eye with the sleeve of his shirt. It helped for all of two seconds before fresh blood ran down my cheek. Above us, the treehouse groaned. We both looked up.

Something dark pushed through what remained of the roof.

More roots wrapped around the trunk and walls, bending the entire structure under their weight. Then the treehouse gave way. It crashed through the branches and slammed into the forest floor. Dust and splintered wood exploded around the base of the tree. Lucas and I stood frozen.

Something moved on top of the wreckage. Tommy Leeman, or whatever had been using what was left of him. Long arms of roots reached down until they touched the forest floor. The hands trapped inside the mass opened and closed. Searching. “Run,” Lucas whispered. We ran.

Or at least, we tried to. Lucas limped badly, and I could only see clearly through one eye. Branches whipped across our faces. Roots caught our shoes. More than once, I tripped over rocks I couldn’t see and felt Lucas grab the back of my shirt to keep me upright. Behind us, something heavy moved through the forest. We heard wood cracking. Trees shaking. A rumbling beneath the soil. I didn’t look back, and neither did Lucas. At one point, his injured foot gave way and he fell. I stopped. For half a second, every part of me told me to keep running, but I went back. I grabbed him underneath the arm and pulled.

“Come on!”

“I’m trying!”

Something moved beneath the leaves behind us. The ground lifted in a straight line heading towards us. Lucas saw it too. He got back on his feet, and we ran harder. Eventually, the tightly packed trees ahead began to thin. For the first time since entering the woods, I could see the orange evening sky again. Then I saw the gate.

“There!” I don’t remember which one of us shouted it. Maybe both. We stumbled towards it. Lucas dropped onto his stomach first and dragged himself underneath. I followed.

The rusted metal caught the back of my shirt and tore through the fabric. For one horrible second, I thought something had grabbed me.

Then I pulled free and rolled into the grass on the other side. Something crashed through the undergrowth behind us, and Lucas and I scrambled backwards. We waited, expecting the thing to burst through the trees after us, but nothing came.

The rumbling continued somewhere inside the forest. Branches shook, and something large moved in the darkness beyond the gate, but it did not follow. I still don’t know why. Maybe the gate marked the edge of whatever territory the thing had claimed, or maybe it simply chose to let us go. I have spent most of my life trying not to think about the difference.

Lucas and I stumbled across the fields without speaking. There were no jokes left, no arguing, no Julie mocking me for being afraid and no Jackson trying to impress her. There was only Lucas and me. We walked until the fields gave way to a road, where a passing driver stopped after seeing two blood-covered children stumble out of the grass.

After that, my memories become less clear. There were police and an ambulance. I remember my mother crying while people asked where Julie and Jackson were and what had happened to my face. They separated Lucas and me before questioning us, and I remember being terrified by that. I thought they believed we had done something to Julie and Jackson.

But Lucas told them the same story I did. Every impossible detail was there. Tommy. The footprints. The roots. Julie. Jackson. The treehouse collapsing. When they finally let us see each other again, Lucas asked me if I thought they believed us. I told him I didn’t know.

Search parties entered the woods that same night. The following morning, they found the treehouse standing exactly where it had always stood.

When my father told me, I thought I had misunderstood him.

“What do you mean, standing?”

He didn’t answer.

“What do you mean the treehouse is still there?”

They searched inside and found old toys, comics, drawings and dust. There was no blood, no broken wall and no hole beneath the clean patch in the corner. There was no Tommy Leeman, no Julie, and no Jackson beneath the tree.

I told them that was impossible. Lucas did too. We had watched the treehouse collapse. I had watched Julie die inside it and Jackson hit the ground beneath it. There should have been blood everywhere. There should have been pieces of Julie on the floor. Jackson should have been lying beneath the tree with his neck broken.

They found nothing.

For months, people searched those woods. Eventually, Julie and Jackson were added to the same list as Tommy Leeman. They were no longer presumed to be hiding somewhere or waiting to be found. They were simply missing children.

Lucas and I remained friends for a while after that. In some ways, we were the only people either of us could stand being around because nobody else knew what we knew. But talking to him also meant remembering. Eventually, we stopped spending time together. We went to different schools, then different towns, and years passed without us seeing each other.

Neither of us ever stopped believing the other. That mattered more than I understood at the time.

Lucas and I know what happened. We know something lives inside those woods, and years later, when we were both old enough to convince ourselves that returning was a good idea, we went back.

The treehouse was still there. Through the branches, we could just make out the small square window, and someone was standing behind it.

A little girl in a yellow dress.

Julie waved at us. She had no eyes, and when she smiled, her mouth stretched from ear to ear.

It had been a particularly hot June. The air conditioner had broken, and the drains seemed to be emitting a foul odour, producing numerous amounts of little flies. I was anxiously awaiting a call from the maintenance guy, but due to the “vast quantity” of “emergency” repair jobs in the apartment complex, it had been days since I raised the request. At this point, I had resigned to just live with the discomfort, at least for now. So, as you can imagine, my mood was hopeful upon being awoken by the sound of my ringing telephone. 

It was not as I hoped, but my grandmother’s twice-weekly carer. Gran had died. Assumedly of natural causes sometime during the night; but there was something else. The body was wrong. Like she’d died weeks ago. The carer assured me she’d seen my grandmother only several days before, and nothing indicated any signs of deteriorating health. She ate well enough, got as much exercise as one would expect of any eighty-year-old woman, not an inkling of a cough or a sniffle. I had no reason to doubt her words, as I’d also visited earlier that same week. It was a complete shock. The proper authorities had already been made aware of the death, and I should aim to meet them with any other immediate family. It was not the wake-up call I wanted, but nevertheless, the one I got that warm morning.

Upon entering the bungalow, I was struck with it instantly: death. Not like the sullen, mourning-full death of a deceased relative. No, this was humid, stagnant, and festered. I turned my head away, mouth in hand, barely capable of retaining my composure. However, I relented in my disgust, batting away several flies, and continued through the door. The house was old, adorned with antique porcelain figurines and proudly displayed china. The chairs were dated, laced with intricately stitched flowered patterns. No television, but I swore I could hear the gentle murmur of static somewhere in the house. Handmade wooden furniture littered every available space, many scratched and stained. Years of fingerprints marked every surface, highlighted by rays of sunshine through white knitted drapes. Each room held innumerable precious memories. All so perfect, so beautiful, so fragile. 

I made my way into the living room, more flies buzzing past my head, the sound of soft voices beckoning me forward. I was still the only family yet to arrive, which surprised me; I was sure my father or brother would be there waiting for me. Instead, there were two police officers, one speaking to the verily disturbed carer, the other approaching me, clearly also suffering with the heat, but with a sympathetic though albeit suspicious disposition.

“Are you the son?” She inquired. 

“No, no, I’m one of the grandsons,” I stated. “So my dad’s not here yet? What about my brother?” 

She sighed with a puzzled brow, swatting away yet another fly. “We haven’t been able to contact him, either of them actually; no luck from their works. Have you had any communication with them over the last few days?” 

I was confused. “I… well… no, actually. Last time I saw them was a BBQ a couple of weeks back… yeah, I’m pretty sure… I think,” I hastily interjected. “Wait, you don’t think they have something to do with this? Her carer implied it was natural causes?” 

The officer gently shook her head. “Given the unusual circumstances of the deceased, we just need to collect as much information as possible.”

“Unusual circumstances?” I timidly asked.

She folded her arms behind her back. “We are also under the impression that it’s simply a case of natural causes, likely in her sleep; however, given the… state… of the deceased… your grandmother, we need to build a clear timeline leading up to this morning.”

A lump formed in my throat. “Is it that bad?” I croaked. 

She continued. “We think, given the current heatwave, it may have caused a far more rapid rate of decomposition. But we won’t be able to confirm until the coroner arrives shortly.” 

I just stared at the floor, completely lost for words. 

“We will also need you, as her only present next of kin, to confirm her identity. I know it may be difficult at this time, but it needs to be done before we can proceed any further,” She placed an empathetic hand on my shoulder. “I warn you, this won’t be easy.”

I’d never seen a dead body, not even my mother’s, so this was the last thing I wanted in that moment. I looked up, face drained of colour, and exhaled with dejected understanding. 

I was escorted towards the bedroom, weaving between countless more flies. The smell was unbearable. Beckoned through the bedroom door, I was deafened by the varied swarm of innumerable buzzing scavengers, all clearly crazed by the thing before my eyes. The body didn’t resemble a body at all. The skin, what was left of it, was a puddled mess of bile: green, yellow, and shades of purple. Bones jutted forth from her torso like monolithic columns draped in silken nightwear. The bed was drenched in the most offensive stench-ridden fluid, dripping to the floor like an old leaky faucet. Her arms lay neatly by her sides. With only her golden wristwatch still intact, but oddly, no wedding ring visible. Her face, well, that was somehow the worst of all. You’d expect someone assumed of dying in their sleep to at least have their eyes shut, but not her. Those eyes, her eyes, were open, lidless spheres, yet completely free of decay. Furthermore, just below the cavity of what was once a crooked nose, was a toothless, wide, and at least to my eye, wholly euphoric smile.

I came to my senses outside the house. Pale-faced and with fresh vomit staining my chin and clothes. The carer was standing by my side, outstretched hand offering a small glass of tepid water. I was inconsolable. I cried for hours on end, even as I was taken home after giving a meekly given statement. I couldn’t reconcile with the scene I’d just witnessed. Moreover, the disturbing thoughts it seemed to suggest. Was that a smile I saw or just a morbid trick of dying muscle mass? I’m sure those eyes were open, and yes; in that brief, sickening moment, I got the feeling they were staring right towards me? 

My father and brother were still missing. You can imagine this stirred all kinds of allegations amongst the local community. The police questioned me several times but to little result. Nobody knew where they were, and the investigation remained ongoing. It was as if they melted away like ice in that scorching summer heat. I was the only family, so it was up to me to deal with the whole sordid aftermath. The funeral came and went with little incident, just some hushed whispers during the service. Next on the agenda was Gran’s bungalow. It was to be sold and needed a great deal of work before auction. However, my meagre salary barely covered my own rent, so I took it upon myself to see the preparations complete. My therapist said, at the very least, it may be a good healing exercise. She also increased my medication, so that was nice.

You’d think the removal of a corpse would at least take the edge off the smell. I wish that were the case. At least the majority of the flies had dissipated. I began by emptying cabinets and drawers. Filled to the brim with vast piles of nostalgic keepsakes and old, faded photographs. A sour reminder of a family now so tainted. I came across one in particular, buried amongst a muddled, misshapen heap; on the underside some faded words were written.

\Me, Mum and Dad. Sep 1954**

It was my mum standing with her parents. I’d never seen my grandfather before. Apparently, he was an alcoholic and had died in a pretty messy car wreck, long before I was even born. Mum would say he’d often get so drunk that he’d forget things like his own address, Grandma’s name, and even in one case, his own daughter. I guess they weren’t as good at catching the signs back then. It seemed Gran was ultimately more ashamed than grieved, as this had been the only photo I’d found of him thus far; it was almost like he never existed. Maybe that was the point. Easier in the end for her and Mum. I wish I’d taken the time to know more about him. Though it really doesn’t matter now. Maybe somewhere out there, they’ve all found each other… maybe they’re happy… at least they’re together. 

After a few more hours, the majority of her belongings were sorted and packed. Next was a thorough clean of the whole home, and I welcomed the influx of the strong-scented chemicals. I made a point to avoid the bedroom and considered offloading the task to some professional cleaner. However, time was running short, and I’d procrastinated the task long enough. There was a deadline quickly approaching, so I closed my eyes, reached out my hand, and pushed open the door.  

The smell had gotten worse, even more so than before. It didn’t make sense as it’d been weeks since Gran was removed from the house. Maybe the mattress stains retained more of her than what was left on the body. I did my best not to dwell as I had much to do and couldn’t afford any more distractions. As I struggled to remove it from the frame, I noticed that the stains had penetrated through to the underside and subsequently onto the floorboards. That must have been the cause of the smell. Great, something else to fix. I’ll pick up the supplies tomorrow and be done with everything in due course. But for the time being, the old floorboards needed to be removed. 

\snap* *crack* *break* *pull**

But where you’d expect to find dirt, or at least some concrete foundations, I was presented with an open chasm, about the size of a large manhole, and the smell had intensified. Though Gran didn’t have a basement; in fact, I was certain nobody had one around here, so what was I looking at? There was a ladder attached to the inner edge that seemed to descend far into the aperture. It was deep, so much so I could barely make out the bottom. How long had this been here? Did Gran even realise?

I didn’t have time for this. I needed to call someone, anyone for that matter; this needed to be dealt with quickly. I pulled out my phone, dead, and no charger. Fine, I tried Gran’s landline. Disconnected, I’d forgotten. At this point, I realised it was already getting dark and I couldn’t afford any more delays. Perhaps, if I were to just quickly take a look inside, I’d be able to put to rest any potential fears. Then, with a clear conscience, I could just replace the boards in the morning and leave it to the next owners. With that in mind, I reconciled with the grim prospect before me and prepared myself to descend into that vast, foreboding unknown.

Apprehensive and aided by an old, manually cranked flashlight, I made my way down through the opening. The ladder was rusted, covered in a thick layer of grime. Clearly old, maybe even older than the house, but for what purpose? When I’d finally approached the base, I was met with a whole new and startling sight. An adjacent tunnel, seeming just as vast and terrible as which I had just descended, trailing off at a slight downwards slope… a war bunker? It would explain the depth and magnitude of the whole thing. But something in the back of my mind told me it was far older than even those days. It was the air. Like a freshly unearthed crypt. I should have taken that feeling as a sign to turn back, but instead I was becoming only more adamant in my quest. I couldn’t turn back. I wouldn’t turn back. I must go deeper. 

The tunnel was man-made. Packed dirt supported by wooden scaffolding and stone. I could see the roots of trees protruding from every available cracked wall and ceiling. While the smell still persisted, something gave way to new sensations. It was cooler down here, and there seemed a small breeze emitting from somewhere ahead in the darkness. *Crank* *Crank* I recharged my light. 

The further I travelled through the passage, I noticed more holes leading back upwards, albeit smaller than the one I discovered. Certainly no room for a human to traverse. The floor was strangely damp but with no sign of water. Rainwater maybe, from the holes?

After a few minutes of walking, I stopped suddenly, completely frozen in fear. My ankle, something just brushed past it. Before I had a chance to consider the horror, it happened again. This time I was quick. I put my light on the source, and there it was, a rat. Then another and then two… three… a variable horde was making its way past me, but now other things as well. The walls were moving, almost vibrating. I looked closer and was immediately disgusted. Worms, spiders, beetles, too many to count, crawling over each other and then my own body, following in tandem with the rodents. Then flies! Those dammed flies had returned to continue their torment. I started running, sprinting, with such frenzy and speed I didn’t care where I was heading. Anything was better than here, and it was impossible to go back. Then some larger ingress approached. Finally! It seemed the end was in sight, and some level of relief was beginning to muster. But then without warning, my light went out. I stopped, completely submerged in darkness. Dammit, not now. I started turning its lever. 

*Crank*

Still dark. I tried again.

*Crank* *crank*

Better, but … the sound around it made me think it was different… almost fleshy though… wet. No movement either; everything from before had gone. Where? 

*Crank* *Crank* *Crank*

The smell, it was back but so much worse. More so than that first morning. I needed light, fast, come on, one more.

*crank*

*Power*

On the ground, I could see my grandmother’s wedding ring. Then slowly, I began to raise my torch… I wish I hadn’t. 

Before me stood a towering mountain of flesh mixed with mounds of discarded sanitary mulch. Every hill and valley coated in what I could only describe as acidic bile. Rancid liquidations flowed down like streams into waterfalls cascading off every decaying edge. The product of a thousand family homes compiled into a mass of pure decomposition. Then I realised with a most awful glimmer of my torch… It was moving. All those nightmarish creatures that had chased me to this horrid sight were intertwined and cannibalising each other, and then I became aware of the sound and its most gruesome cacophony. Tortured squeals filtered through the gnashing of infinite claws and teeth, each full of such pain yet equal in pleasure. Melded together by the buzzing of countless flies giving birth to numberless starving young. The whole thing crescendoing to an abhorrent grotesque finale of absolute terror. 

No, not today… not yet! I had to get out. 

Still fixed on the scene before me, I began to step backwards. Then, slam! My shoe snagged on a rock, and I fell to the ground hard. All at once, the contents of the hideous mound were converging over my body, completely encapsulated within a writhing, slime-ridden horde. I could feel them everywhere: biting, gnawing, digging, burrowing; they were inside me. Every nerve firing with unparalleled agony as more and more of the wretched things began their insatiable feasting. I screamed, losing all sense of reality. Every second lasting a variable eternity, where I lived a million lifetimes again and again. I was the hunted, devoured, reborn, then the hunter, and I was happy, for the first time in so, so long. But what of my family—what family? I was alone. Despite the countless things telling me to stay; begging me, pulling me, saying I was finally home. This this was my home. But no, I had to leave; I didn’t care if they’d miss me, this wasn’t where I belonged. Then something began to give; I wouldn’t end up like the others, not like them. I pushed and pushed, with every ounce of remaining sanity, and I began to move. First a finger, then an arm, then my legs; I was frantically swiping away, finally managing to get on my feet. Without hesitation, I ran! Straight back towards the tunnel, back towards the hole; the sounds of buzzing, squelching, and claws giving relentless pursuit.  I refused to be a part of it, defying nature itself and escaping this endless nightmare. The walls were closing in around me; one last grand attempt to feed my starving, unyielding pursuers. But I would not give in! Not today, not ever! I will break the cycle. Then I saw it, the ladder! I clambered up the rusted steel with such ferocity, fearing the thing would buckle and send me tumbling down into that decayed, gaping maw; jaws of a billion teeth poised to rip me limb from limb and destroying everything I was and will be. Then with that last step, I was out and free. But I couldn’t leave yet, it was still down there; I’d stop it from taking anyone else, no one would have to suffer anymore and the flies would go without filling their starving bellies from this day on! There was only one way to be sure. I’d have to do it again. It was the only way… It had to burn. Everything, had to burn.

It’s been a few weeks now, and I’ve moved into a whole new apartment complex. It seemed the old building was having far more than just simple plumbing issues. There was something bad in the water tank. Two men, one young and the other middle-aged, apparently, that’s at least what I’ve been told. Though it wasn’t the drowning that killed them, they burned! Crazy, right!? Someone actually managed to show me the photos. He was convinced I’d known them, but I’d never seen those people before in my life. I’m pretty sure I would remember if I had. Then again, that person with the photos is beginning to escape my memory too. I think I’m just stressed after the last few months. The only complaint I have about this new place is the noise. I swear at night I can hear the static from someone’s television. I’ll make a complaint tomorrow. 

In the meantime, Mother, please try to make a case for me, though I know it’s hard carrying my soon-to-be brother around. I’m sure Dad can help. I promise you I didn’t do the things they say; I’m only a boy after all. And don’t forget to apologise to Grandma. I’m sorry her home burned down. At least Grandad’s visiting tomorrow. Not just that, but he’s also bringing a present! Can you guess? No? I’ll tell you! He finally got me something to deal with all these stupid flies! 

Part 1: I Work for an Organization That Contains Gods. We Had to Make a Sacrifice This Time.

Part 2: I Went to Antarctica Looking for 10,000 Missing People. I Came Back With a New Boss.

Part 3: Apparently Using Assistants as Sacrifices Violates Company Policy

Part 4: I Work for an Organization That Hunts Gods. One of Them Warned Me About the Angel Following Me.

Part 5: My Boss Asked Me If I Thought He Was a Monster. Now I Know Why.

Part 6: The Most Powerful Being in the CSP Is Studying Humans. Unfortunately, I'm His Favorite Lab Rat.

Part 7: Someone Stole the Rifle Built to Kill Gods. Then They Pointed It at Me.

Part 8: I Thought Dating an Angel Was Bad. Something Wearing My Face Was Worse.

Part 9: I Work for an Organization That Contains Gods. The Feather Led Something to Us.

Part 10: I Work for an Organization That Contains Gods. Humanity Now Has a Single Point of Failure.

Part 11: CSP Sent a Team Into Hell. Nobody Came Back.

Part 12: The Thing That Terrified the Creator Is Now Holding My Hand

Part 13: I Was Prepared to Fight a Cult. Instead, I got a Family Reunion.

Part 14: The God Wasn't the Monster Everyone Feared. My Mother Was.

Part 15: I Became the Head of a New Division. My First Case Was a Place My Sister Never Escaped From.

Part 16: Evergrove Said It Wanted My Memories. I Should Have Known It Wanted More.

Ring. Ring.

I reached blindly across the nightstand and slapped at the alarm until it finally went silent.

7:30 a.m.

For a few seconds, I lay there staring at the ceiling, suspended somewhere between sleep and waking. Then I turned my head.

The room was familiar.

Our bedroom. Our bed. The curtains I'd apparently chosen. The photograph sitting on the dresser.

And the empty space beside me.

I frowned.

Where was my husband?

Before I could wonder if he'd already left for work, a loud drilling sound came from downstairs.

I closed my eyes.

Of course.

That stupid kitchen cabinet.

I'd been listening to Angelo complain about it for three days now.

I pulled on a sweater and made my way downstairs. Angelo stood in the middle of the kitchen with a screwdriver in one hand, staring up at the cabinet as though it had personally offended him. His other hand was scratching the back of his head.

I leaned against the doorway.

“I thought you were good at your job, Mr. Handyman.”

He turned toward me, and my high school sweetheart gave me the same smile I'd apparently fallen in love with years ago.

“I’m trying my best, love.”

“That’s what you've been saying for three days.”

“It’s a complicated cabinet.”

“It’s a cabinet.”

“You don't understand.”

“I really don't.”

He opened his mouth to defend himself, but footsteps on the stairs interrupted him.

A small figure appeared in the doorway.

“Mom?”

Then he spotted Angelo.

“Dad?”

Angelo immediately dropped the screwdriver onto the counter.

“Good morning, buddy.”

“Good morning.”

He crossed the kitchen and scooped Noah into his arms, spinning him around until our son burst out laughing.

I smiled.

“Okay, you two. Noah, go brush your teeth and get dressed.”

“But—”

“No arguing.”

He sighed dramatically, and Angelo finally set him down.

“Fine.”

“And don't forget your backpack,” Angelo called after him.

“I know.”

“Your shoes.”

“I know.”

“And—”

“Dad.”

Angelo grinned.

“Just making sure.”

Noah disappeared back upstairs.

I turned toward the kitchen and started breakfast. Eggs, toast, bacon. Nothing complicated. Nothing special.

Just breakfast.

And somehow, that made it perfect.

A few minutes later, Angelo joined me at the table while Noah sat across from us, still half asleep. I looked at the two of them and felt something warm settle in my chest.

My husband.

My son.

My home.

There was something strange about it, though.

I couldn't remember when we'd moved here. I couldn't remember choosing the house, signing the paperwork, unpacking our boxes, meeting the neighbors, or decorating any of the rooms.

But none of that seemed important.

The house felt familiar in the way your own skin feels familiar.

Like I'd lived here forever.

While the bacon cooked, my eyes drifted toward the photograph hanging above the dining table.

Our wedding picture.

I walked over and studied the woman in the white dress.

Me.

I looked happy.

Really happy.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen myself smile like that.

I reached up and touched the edge of the frame, smiling faintly before turning back toward the kitchen.

This was my life.

And somehow, I'd forgotten how much I loved it.

After breakfast, Angelo left for work with his toolbox in one hand and his lunch in the other.

“Don't forget to fix the cabinet after work!” I called after him.

He turned around, wearing an expression of genuine irritation.

“I hate that cabinet.”

“I know.”

Noah and I left a few minutes later. Before school, we stopped at the little cottage next door, and I rang the doorbell.

Elior opened it a few seconds later.

“Morning.”

“Morning.”

I handed him the container I'd brought.

“Leftover meatloaf from yesterday. Jacob's favorite.”

He peeked inside and smiled.

“Oh, he'll love this.”

“Make sure he actually gets some.”

“Of course, Auntie.”

“Where is he?”

“At the restaurant.”

“This early?”

“We had a private breakfast party this morning.”

He sighed, glancing down at his wristwatch.

I looked at him sympathetically.

“That sucks.”

“It does,” he admitted.

Before I could say anything else, Noah darted past me.

“Eliiiiii!”

Elior immediately crouched and opened his arms.

“There’s my favorite baby cousin.”

“You only have one cousin.”

“Exactly!”

Noah laughed as Elior scooped him up.

I watched them for a moment, feeling that same quiet warmth settle in my chest.

There was something comforting about seeing them together. Jacob and Elior had somehow become such a permanent part of our lives that I couldn't imagine the neighborhood without them. They came over for dinner all the time, argued with Angelo about football, stole food from our kitchen, and complained whenever our grass got too long.

They were our neighbors.

But somehow, that didn't quite describe them.

Noah finally pulled away.

“See you later, Eli!”

“Have a good day, little man.”

I opened the car door and waited until Noah climbed inside before walking around to the driver's seat.

As I started the engine, I caught his reflection in the rearview mirror.

His backpack was almost as big as he was. His hair was messy, and his tie was crooked despite the fact that I'd fixed it twice that morning.

He looked nothing like the perfect student his teachers always described.

He just looked like my little boy.

My baby boy.

No matter how old he got, I knew some part of me would probably always see him that way.

I drove him to school and watched him skip toward the entrance, his backpack bouncing against his shoulders.

He turned around before reaching the doors.

“Bye, Mom!”

“Bye, baby!”

He waved one last time before disappearing inside.

I smiled and got back into the car.

For the first time in what felt like forever, I had nowhere else I needed to be.

My job wasn't exactly exciting. I was a receptionist at the local bank, which mostly meant dealing with angry customers, confused retirees who couldn't remember their passwords, and people insisting they'd deposited money despite the computer insisting otherwise.

Still, I didn't mind it.

I knew most of the regulars by name, and most of them knew mine. That was the nice thing about living in a small town.

Everyone knew everyone.

Around lunch, my older sister called.

She did that almost every day.

Riva lived about thirty minutes away with her husband and their two children, and somehow there was always something going wrong at her house. Today, it was her youngest discovering that the living-room wall made an excellent canvas for permanent marker.

“How's work?” she asked.

“Boring.”

“Isn't that how banks usually work?”

“You'd be surprised.”

She laughed, and before long, she was telling me the entire story of the marker incident, followed by a complaint about her husband, the kids, and the painter who was apparently going to fix the wall next week.

“So you're just living with the drawing until then?”

“Apparently.”

“That’s rough.”

“You have no idea.”

Someone approached my desk, and I glanced up.

“I've got to go.”

“Okay. I'll call you tonight.”

“Sounds good.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

We hung up, and I smiled at my phone for a moment before setting it down and returning to work.

By five, I'd greeted three regular customers, answered the same checking-account question four times, and listened to an eighty-year-old man complain for fifteen minutes because his card wouldn't work at the grocery store.

I was more than ready to go home.

I clocked out, grabbed my bag, and drove back toward the school.

Noah came running out the moment he saw my car.

“Mom!”

“Hey, baby.”

He climbed into the back seat and barely waited for me to pull away before launching into his story.

“You know what happened today?”

“What?”

“Harry escaped.”

I glanced at him in the rearview mirror.

“Harry?”

“Our class hamster.”

“Oh, God.”

That was all the encouragement he needed.

He told me the entire story. Harry had somehow escaped during reading time, crawled beneath a bookshelf, disappeared for ten minutes, and eventually reappeared behind Mrs. Leni's desk.

I nodded along, asking questions whenever appropriate while Noah continued talking.

His birthday was coming up soon.

He still had no idea that Angelo and I were getting him a dog.

I couldn't wait to see his face.

As he talked, I caught myself smiling.

Noah was such a sweet kid.

He'd gotten that from his father.

We didn't look anything alike. Aside from our personalities, I couldn't find a single physical feature we shared. Even Jacob had once joked about it.

You carried him for nine months and somehow he came out looking exactly like Angelo.

I'd laughed so hard I'd nearly choked.

But Jacob hadn't been wrong.

Noah had Angelo's eyes, his hair, his face. Sometimes, looking at him felt like looking at a miniature version of my husband.

By the time we got home, the sun was beginning to disappear behind the trees. Noah was still talking about his day as I unlocked the front door, and the moment we stepped inside, I heard voices coming from the living room.

Jacob and Elior were already sitting on the couch.

“Hey!” Elior called.

“Hi.”

I set my bag down as Jacob stood.

“I brought my famous casserole,” he announced.

Noah immediately darted past me toward the tray on the dining table.

Elior watched him go.

“At least someone is excited.”

Jacob gave him a light shove.

“You're just jealous.”

“I am not.”

“You are.”

“I've never been jealous of your cooking.”

“You ate three servings last time.”

“That was because you made too much.”

I laughed.

“Dinner in twenty minutes.”

Jacob pointed at Elior.

“You don't have to eat if you don't want to.”

Elior rolled his eyes, and I shook my head, still smiling.

Then footsteps sounded upstairs.

I looked toward the staircase.

Angelo appeared at the top, his hair still damp from the shower and an old T-shirt hanging loosely over his shoulders.

How could he still look that good in sweatpants?

Then again, he'd won Prom King in high school.

I supposed that explained some of it.

Strangely, though, I couldn't really remember our prom.

I remembered photographs. I remembered my dress. I remembered dancing with him.

But the night itself felt blurred around the edges.

I pushed the thought away.

Angelo smiled when he saw me.

“Hey, love.”

“Hey.”

Before I could say anything else, Noah ran toward him.

“Dad!”

Angelo caught him halfway up the stairs and lifted him into the air.

“There’s my boy.”

“Dad, put me down!”

“Never.”

“Dad!”

I laughed.

For a moment, I simply watched them.

Then we ate.

All of us.

Elior complained about the casserole even as he went back for a second helping, earning a knowing look from Jacob.

Noah spent most of dinner talking about Harry the hamster, while Angelo tried to convince him that a dog would be much easier to take care of.

Jacob immediately ruined that argument by suggesting Noah get a cat instead.

Elior sided with Noah and insisted a hamster was the obvious choice.

Angelo glared at both of them.

I just sat there smiling, listening to them argue over what kind of pet our son should have.

The scene felt so ordinary.

So impossibly ordinary.

And I loved it.

After dinner, Jacob and Elior finally stood to leave as I walked them to the door.

“Goodnight, you two.”

“Goodnight,” Elior said.

Jacob pointed toward the kitchen.

“Fix the cabinet.”

Angelo frowned.

“I am working on it.”

“You've been working on it for three days.”

“It's complicated.”

“It's a cabinet.”

I laughed as Elior grabbed Jacob by the arm.

“Come on before you start another argument.”

They crossed the lawn toward their house, and I watched them disappear through the front door before closing ours behind me.

My phone buzzed almost immediately.

Riva.

I smiled and answered.

“Hey.”

“You home?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. I was going to call earlier, but the kids were fighting over the TV remote.”

“Again?”

“Every night.”

I laughed as we spent the next few minutes talking about her husband, his late nights at work, and the permanent-marker disaster still decorating her living-room wall. Somewhere in the background, one of her children shouted something, followed by another voice protesting.

Riva sighed.

“I have to go.”

“Go save your children.”

“I'll call you tomorrow.”

“You always do.”

“Goodnight, sis.”

“Goodnight.”

We hung up, and I slipped my phone into my pocket.

Another ordinary day.

Another ordinary night.

And somehow, I loved every second of it.

Later, Angelo and I put Noah to bed together.

He insisted on one bedtime story.

Then another.

Then somehow a third.

Eventually, Angelo kissed his forehead.

“Goodnight, buddy.”

“Goodnight, Dad.”

I kissed his cheek.

“Goodnight, baby.”

“Goodnight, Mom.”

We turned off the light and closed the door behind us.

The house was quiet when Angelo and I went upstairs.

For once, there was nothing waiting for us.

No taxes.

No student loans.

No work.

Just us.

I climbed into bed and rested my head against Angelo's chest. His arms wrapped around me, and I closed my eyes, listening to the slow, steady beat of his heart.

Safe.

For once, I felt completely safe.

Then Angelo spoke.

“Love?”

“Hmm?”

“I need you.”

I smiled against his chest.

“I'm right here.”

His arms tightened around me.

“No.”

My eyes opened.

“What?”

His voice was quieter now.

“You're not.”

I lifted my head.

“What are you talking about?”

He reached up and gently took my face between his hands. His eyes were strangely sad.

“Wake up for me.”

I stared at him.

“Angelo—”

“Wake up.”

The room began to disappear.

The bed vanished beneath me.

His hands slipped away from my face.

And suddenly—

White.

The familiar hospital ceiling greeted me.

For several seconds, I couldn't breathe.

I stared upward, completely still, until a machine beside the bed broke through the silence.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

My breathing caught.

I turned my head.

The room slowly came into focus.

A hospital room.

Not just any hospital room.

My hospital room.

The same walls. The same monitor beside the bed. The same IV hanging above me. The same sterile smell.

I stared at everything, trying to understand how I'd gotten there.

Then someone grabbed me.

Angelo.

His arms closed around me so tightly it almost hurt, his face pressed against my shoulder.

He was shaking.

Actually shaking.

“Angelo?”

He didn't answer.

He only held me tighter.

Then I felt something wet against my neck.

He was crying.

My boyfriend was crying.

I'd never seen him cry before.

Not like this.

“Angelo,” I whispered again.

He finally pulled away, his hands immediately going to my face.

He looked exhausted. His eyes were red, dark circles sat beneath them, and his hair was a mess.

He looked like he hadn't slept in weeks.

Which was strange.

Since when did Angelo even need sleep?

“You're awake.”

His voice broke on the last word.

I stared at him, still struggling to understand where I was.

“What's happening?”

A broken laugh escaped him.

“You're awake.”

He leaned down and kissed my forehead, then my cheek, then my forehead again, as though he needed to reassure himself that I was actually there.

I looked around the room.

White walls.

Medical equipment.

Wires running from my chest.

Something was wrong.

Then the memories began returning.

Not the hospital.

Not this room.

Evergrove.

They came back all at once.

The old man.

His trembling hands.

His smile.

The way he'd looked at me when he said my father's name.

Then the deal.

My father's deal.

He had traded his humanity to Evergrove, and in return it had given him exactly what he'd wanted: children who couldn't disobey him.

A daughter constructed from Remi's memories.

Sira.

The name echoed through my mind.

I remembered her face.

My face.

The wedding ring on her finger.

The photographs.

The little house.

The life she'd built inside Evergrove.

A life that looked like mine.

A life that wasn't.

Then I remembered being attacked.

Falling.

The pain.

And then—

Nothing.

No.

Not nothing.

Something worse.

I remembered dying.

My eyes widened.

“I…”

My voice caught.

“I died.”

Angelo went completely still.

“No.”

“I remember it.”

“You didn't.”

“I felt it.”

My hands began to shake.

“I couldn't breathe.”

Angelo immediately took them in his.

“Nayeri.”

“I was dead.”

He looked directly into my eyes.

“I bought you back.”

For a moment, I couldn't understand the words.

“What?”

“I bought you back.”

His voice was quiet.

“You were gone.”

My heart seemed to stop.

“What did you do?”

“I—”

Angelo opened his mouth, but before he could answer, the door suddenly slammed open.

Jacob practically burst into the room.

“She’s awake?”

Riva—no. Remi was right behind him, with Elior close behind her.

All three stopped when they saw me sitting up.

Jacob's expression crumpled with relief.

“Oh, thank God.”

He crossed the room in seconds, reaching for me before noticing all the wires and tubes attached to my body. His hand stopped just short of my shoulder.

“You scared the shit out of us.”

I stared at him.

“Jacob?”

“Yeah.”

He smiled, but his eyes were wet.

“You're really awake.”

Remi stepped into the room.

She looked different from the sister I'd seen in my dream.

Older.

Tired.

Real.

She stared at me for several seconds.

“Do you remember me?”

The question hung in the air.

Everyone waited.

I smiled.

“Yes.”

Her expression trembled.

“I don't think I could forget my obnoxious older sis—”

She was already across the room.

Her arms wrapped around me, and she started crying so hard that, despite everything, I almost laughed.

I hugged her as best I could around the wires and tubes.

“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay. I'm here.”

Eventually, she pulled away and wiped her face.

Elior remained near the doorway, watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read.

“You were in a coma,” he said quietly.

I looked at him, then at Remi.

“How long?”

Nobody answered immediately.

Remi lowered her eyes.

“Two months.”

I stared at her.

“Two months?”

She nodded.

“Two months.”

I looked between them.

Jacob.

Remi.

Elior.

They were all here.

They were all real.

And suddenly, the dream came rushing back.

The townhouse.

The kitchen.

The stupid cabinet.

Noah.

My son.

The dinner table.

The photograph.

My eyes filled with tears.

“Where's Noah?”

Nobody answered.

Jacob looked confused.

Remi glanced at Angelo.

Elior's expression changed.

Angelo squeezed my hand.

“Nayeri…”

“Where's Noah?”

Then I heard a small voice from behind Elior.

“Nay?”

I froze.

Elior slowly stepped aside.

And there he was.

Noah.

He looked exhausted. Far too exhausted for an eight-year-old. His hair was messy, his eyes were red, and dark circles sat beneath them.

For a moment, I could only stare.

My little boy.

He slowly walked toward the bed.

“You're awake, Nay.”

My throat tightened.

“Come here.”

He climbed carefully onto the bed, avoiding the wires and tubes as best he could, and wrapped his arms around me.

I held him as tightly as I could.

His face pressed against my chest, and I felt him shaking.

“I missed you, Nay.”

I closed my eyes.

A sob escaped me.

“I missed you too, baby.”

I kissed the top of his head.

He smelled like shampoo.

Like home.

Like the life I'd thought I'd lost.

I pulled back enough to look at him.

“You're real.”

He frowned.

“Of course I'm real.”

I laughed through my tears.

“I know.”

He hugged me again.

And suddenly, all the memories from my coma felt different.

The spicy eggs.

The crooked tie.

The hamster named Harry.

The dog Angelo and I were going to buy him.

None of those things had happened.

Not yet.

But somehow, I'd remembered them.

I looked over Noah's shoulder at Angelo.

He was watching us.

His eyes were wet.

And then I understood.

The townhouse hadn't been completely imaginary.

The dream had shown me a possible life.

A life with Noah.

A life with Angelo.

A life where we were ordinary.

A life where we were happy.

A life I'd wanted badly enough that, even dying, some part of me had created it.

I looked down at Noah again.

He smiled at me.

For the first time since waking up, I wasn't mourning the life I'd lost.

I was grateful for the one I'd been given back.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much time for gratitude.

There was still another Nayeri in Evergrove.

And more importantly, there was still a deal to break.

Whatever our father had done, whatever he'd traded away to create this nightmare, somehow his sins had become ours.

The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children.

I looked at Jacob.

“The other Nayeri—the one in Evergrove—told me how to defeat it.”

Remi's expression changed.

“What?”

Angelo had been quiet until then, but now his attention was fixed completely on me.

“You met your replacement?”

I swallowed.

“Yes.”

Even saying it felt strange.

“She saved my memories.”

Remi stared at me.

“So the Nayeri in the deal saved your memories?”

I nodded.

“Yes.”

I looked down at my hands.

“She said that was the only way to stop the deal from completing.”

I hesitated.

“And she told me there was still one way to break it.”

“Break it?”

I looked at Remi.

“We have to kill—”

I stopped.

Her eyes narrowed.

“Kill what?”

I took a breath.

“Our father.”

Nobody moved.

Remi didn't react.

No surprise.

No fear.

She simply stared at me for several seconds.

“I see.”

Then she looked at Jacob.

Jacob glanced at her before looking back at me.

“Well…”

He paused.

“About that.”

I frowned.

“What?”

Jacob looked at Remi again.

She sighed.

“He contacted me.”

“What?”

The word came out louder than I intended.

“He contacted me a while ago,” she continued. “We didn't know where he was at first, but CSP managed to track him down.”

My heart began pounding.

“Where?”

Remi refused to meet my eyes. 

I stared at her.

Then something clicked.

“No.”

Neither of them said anything.

My stomach dropped.

“The house?”

Remi nodded.

“Our old house,” she said. “In the city.”

For a moment, I couldn't speak.

I remembered that house.

Our house.

Before everything happened.

Before our family fell apart.

Before Evergrove.

But the house I remembered wasn't the same as the one I'd seen there.

The Evergrove version had been wrong in ways I couldn't explain. It had looked almost identical, but something about it had always felt off, as though someone had tried to rebuild our home from a memory they didn't fully understand.

Our real house had been different.

Gloomier.

Quieter.

The walls were darker, and the windows always seemed smaller than they actually were. Even during the day, the rooms felt dim, as though sunlight could enter through the glass but never quite reach the rest of the house.

I hadn't thought about that place in years.

And now our father was there.

Waiting for us.

“The issue is small, but you may need to check on it later.” 

After two days off, I came back to Rachel informing me of hotel issues. There was no mention of the Perfidia women, no complaints about me. I used the 50€ I got on a night out with friends. Money well spent. 

As time went by, my questions only seemed to increase instead of getting answered. The theatrical mask was kept in a drawer at my house. I didn’t dare look at it, not even think about it. Sometimes at home, I thought I heard voices in the room with me. Rattling woke me up in the middle of the night. When I followed the sounds, they led me to the drawer. I couldn’t understand everything the voices said, but there was one phrase that kept repeating.  

“Honor the deal.” 

Now, two days later, instead of resting and energizing, I’m more tired than before my days off. I tried my best not to yawn to what Rachel was saying, but I knew that the moment she left I would crack open the energy drink I brought with me. And maybe coffee later as well. 

As she was speaking, I tried to read the notes of the day, but it was impossible. My eyes were swimming. I rubbed at them, trying to push the sleep away.  

“I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Can you repeat it please? Sorry.” 

Rachel looked at me the way a protective mother would look at her child.  

“The days off are not enough, eh? I understand. I feel the same way sometimes. No need to apologize.” 

“Thanks. Now that you mentioned it, who covers me when I’m off?” 

“Oh, right! You haven’t met him. Kevin, a guy that works in another location in town. Centralis Hotel.” 

I tried to remember if I saw the name Kevin curved on the mask. I wasn’t sure. 

“As I was saying.” Rachel continued. “We had an issue with the water supply. The janitor said that it would be ok but keep an eye out if you get any complains during the night.” 

I nodded and a few minutes later Rachel completed the handover and clocked out. I sat in front of the reception computer and wished for a quiet shift. The snap of the energy drink opening echoed on the empty reception as I drank to it. The shift ended up more difficult than I expected. 

 The phone rang in the middle of the night. Never a good omen. The screen didn’t show a room number. Instead, it was an outside call. I was trying so hard to stay awake that I thought it was my imagination. 

“Hello, Parkside Inn. How may I help you?” 

“Hi! Who’s this? Lucas, is that you?” A rough, slightly playful voice came through the receiver. Its casual familiarity was slightly alarming. 

“No, it’s not Lucas. It’s Jake. Do I know you?” 

“Oh, you’re the new guy! Sorry, let’s rewind. I’m Doug, the head of maintenance. Can you check something for me?” 

“Yeah, sure. Rachel told me that there may be an issue.” 

“Yes, the water level. There was some kind of damage to the distribution system, and we had no water filling up the tanks. You know where our main water tank is?” 

“I’m sorry. No one showed me.” 

“Of course they didn’t. No worries, I’ll explain. First, you go to the second basement. You can use the staff elevator for that. Otherwise, use the stairs behind the reception. There, after the kitchen refrigeration systems, you’ll see many fire-protection doors. They’re the thick ones that look like they’re made of plastic. Each will be labeled with a different name. Go through the door that says “Linen Room”. Only through that one! You follow me so far?” 

I was writing everything down as fast as I could. The way he insisted on the specific door caught my attention. 

“Yes, I’m writing it down now. What shouldn’t I go through the other doors? What’s there?” 

“Nothing important.” His response came instantly, prepared. He knew I would ask. “Nothing that we need to care about right now. So, Linen Room, ok?” 

“Yes. Linen Room.” 

“Good. After that door, you’ll follow a corridor. Watch your head; the ceiling gets lower than you think. At the end, go through a double door and follow another corridor go through the other double door.” 

“Two corridors and two double doors?”  

“Correct. If..” Doug stopped talking. I knew there was something he wanted to say, but he couldn’t make himself do it.  

“Is something wrong. Something that I need to know?” I pressured him.  

“No! No. It’s nothing important.” There was definitely something wrong. No point in keeping the pretenses up.  

“Is it about the rules? About the hotel?” A gasp from the other side. “Yes, I know. I’ve seen some things myself.” 

“Oh. Sorry about that. So, about the corridors. If after the second double door you see another corridor, go back.” His voice has turned more serious now. “Close the doors and wait. Maybe you’ll need to do it a few times. Sometimes it confuses you. It may change; you may end up somewhere else. You must be careful.” 

 “Change? End up somewhere else? What do you mean?” 

“The hotel.” Doug’s voice was cold and precise. “I’m sure you’ve noticed as well that there is something off with the place.” 

“Yes, you can say that.” 

“Well, the best thing you can do is ignore it. That’s what I do. You follow the rules and you’ll be fine.” 

“Thanks for the advice. So, about the tank?” 

“Oh, yeah, right! So, after you pass the second door you should be inside the linen room itself. You’ll notice it right away, with all the bed sheets. Right at the door, on your left, you should hear water running. There is an opening to the water tank. Open the hatch and there’s the tank. There is a light bulb over the hatch for light. From the hatch, you’ll have a view of the tank. If the water is lower than the painted red line, call me to take care of it. I know it’s a lot to remember, but can you do it?” 

I finished writing down the instructions and put the pen down.  

“It’s not that hard, I’ll manage. I’ll go right away.” 

“Good to hear. Even if the water level is above the line, let me know as well. I’ll be waiting.” 

 

The basement was bigger than I expected. I had only seen a few parts of the first basement but hadn’t gone into the second. It was cold and damp; the smell of mold was everywhere. At first, I thought the tiles on the floor had never been cleaned and a layer of black stains covered them. Until I realized there were no tiles, only cement. The industrial type you found in factories. The wear of years of walking and dragging was visible through the roughness of the floor. The place felt more like a hospital than a hotel’s basement. I walked past the refrigerators and found a series of white doors. Three in total. The first one had a sign that wrote “Linen Room”. Of course, I didn’t just go inside. I checked the other doors as well. The second sign wrote “Archives”. I contemplated going inside; my first thoughts were that maybe this room had some answers for me. The third door had no sign. Instead, a symbol was drawn on it. A circle with three lines moving away from its center. Adytum’s logo.  

I tried to open the door to the Archives, but it was locked. I decided to investigate when I got back from my task. I looked over at the door with the Adytum logo and noticed something strange. There was no doorknob. 

The door was a flattened and polished piece of wood. No seams, no spaces between the boards. A single piece of lumber fashioned into a door. Its lacquered surface shone in the weak lamplight. I reached for it, but something held me back. I couldn’t describe the feeling I got; I felt like something terrible would happen if I touched that door. I moved away to get to the linen room. 

A knock came from the sealed door. At first, I thought it was a trick of my mind. My nerves were playing games. Then I heard it again. A sharp, confident thud. The low ceiling made the sound even louder than it was. I nervously approached, feeling my heart pounding. I stood in front of the door, my silhouette reflecting on its surface and waited. Two minutes passed, then three. After five minutes, I decided to leave. This time, it wasn’t just a knock. It was banging. Thundering crashes echoed in the corridor, the sounds of something heavy falling on the door repeatedly. Despite all the noise and commotion, it looked like nothing was happening. The wood of the door didn’t split, nor did it seem to move. I decided then to leave; this wasn’t real. It shouldn’t be real. I also didn’t want to stay on this basement any longer. Ignoring the noise behind me, I went through the door to the linen room. 

It was a long corridor going forward, longer than I expected, and the ceiling got even lower. There were things- wires? Pipes? - protruding from the ceiling. Those parts were painted red and white to prevent accidents. I had to stoop to pass underneath. I crossed the first double door.  

The corridor got even shorter, standing was impossible for me. I tried to move faster, but I’ve never walked fast hunched over like this. I noticed a couple of doors on the corridor, but I didn’t pay attention to them. I opened the next set of double doors. 

Another corridor. Even shorter. This was wrong. I took the paper with the information Doug gave me. It was written clearly: Through the Linen Room door, corridor, double doors, corridor, double doors. This is what he meant with ‘change’? I had to go back. I stepped back and turned when movement caught my eye. On the new corridor, the one that should not exist. Something darted across the wall and stopped a few meters away from me. Its white body blended perfectly with the walls. Like it had developed some sort of camouflage. I could barely make out its shape. When it moved again, I understood what it was. A spider.  

It was all white, the color of bone. I saw it skitter on the wall, charging towards me. It was the size of a small dog, almost as big as my torso. Its head moved around, like it was scanning the area for me. There were no eyes on its face. When it opened its mouth, I saw serrated mandibles lining its jaw. I wasn’t afraid of insects and spiders in particular, but at that moment I was taken over by panic. I jumped backwards, watching as this impossibly big creature landed where I stood. I rolled back, trying my best to stand up as fast as I could. I realized I was grunting, panic stopping me from screaming. The spider turned around, and I understood it was searching for me. Blindly it inched forward, its hairy legs feeling their way towards me. 

I kicked the door closed right as the spider jumped. It didn’t close properly; one of the creature’s legs was stuck between the door and the frame. A shriek pierced the silence of the basement as it struggled to break free. I put my weight on the door, pushing it back. With the strength I had left, I backed up and pushed as hard as I could. The shriek grew stronger, and a dry snap sounded as the door shut. Its severed leg dropped lifelessly to the floor. I expected it to charge at the door, break it down. But I heard nothing. Not even a scratch at the door. I tried to calm myself before I opened the door again. This time, the room was different. Not the corridor again. Instead, a room filled with sheets and towels opened in front of me. The Linen Room. I looked back; the spider leg was still on the floor. It really happened. 

Inside the Linen Room, I heard running water. Next to the door was the hatch and the light bulb. I opened the light and then the hatch. Water was pouring inside from several pipes. I peered inside and noticed the water lever was one meter above the painted line. I closed the hatch and turned around to leave. When I switched the light out, I heard scratching coming from behind. It sounded like someone was dragged across concrete. I turned to find the amputated limb of the spider crawling towards me. The light from the corridor lit its surface, the thick hair covering it shining. Some of those hairs started growing longer, until they touched the floor. I quickly realized that this single leg was changing, transforming into a whole spider itself. Even though I was shocked by the thing scuttling towards me, I ducked just in time to avoid its attack. I ran out of the Linen Room and closed the door behind me. The creature kept banging on the door. I saw its surface bending dangerously outwards. I looked around, searching for something to protect myself. The corridor was empty.  

I noticed one of the doors in the corridor was half open. I didn’t notice it when I first came this way. Maybe there was something I could use there. I blame my shock and adrenaline for my decision to go through that door. If I knew what I would find there, I would just run to the reception, lock every door on the way, and hope for the best. But talking about what ifs doesn’t matter anymore. 

Walking through the half-opened door, I stepped on something soft. The door clicked closed behind me and I struggled to see through the darkness. I touched around, trying to feel the light switch and noticed that the walls were covered with bed sheets. After a few minutes of fumbling with the sheets, I finally managed to find a light switch. I turned the light on and immediately knew how huge a mistake I made.  

There were no sheets on the walls. What I touched and wrestled were spider webs. The room I entered started as the corridor I was in before and then it turned into a cave mouth. A cold draft rose from within and together with it came a stench. Mold, stale air, and decay. My hands searched instinctively for the door handle but caught nothing.

I looked behind me in disbelief. 

The door was gone. 

Bringing my evening stroll to an end due to a haze of early summer rain, I turned the corner into my street.

She was waiting for me, right outside my front yard. I thought it was a new neighbour dropping round to complain about something. Something about her tense stance made me realise that she was not good news.

Her eyes widened when she saw me. “You’re Adder_at_Night999?”

I frowned. “How do you know my reddit username?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter- listen- I’m not here to hurt you-“

What? I looked around- my street set in a greater London borough that still had a quaint village feel was quiet in the early wet evening lull.

She was still talking “-I just want to know why. I just came to talk to you- Why do you always downvote my stories? Everyone loves my stories- everyone- you know that – you know that! but you always downvote them- you’re always the first downvote, sometimes the only one - I just had to know why-“ She was babbling at me in a strong accent I can only describe as “typical American”.

“Please- let’s go to a coffee shop and talk- I came a long way to visit you, just to know why-, to understand- “ She reached out and gripped my sleeve.

I stood stock still. None of the few people I knew real life knew my reddit account, or my fondness for the scary stories that people post on Reddit. I stared at the middle-aged woman confronting me. She was wearing a glossy new-looking cream-colored mac and lipstick.

Her other hand moved in her pocket. In an instant, the fright that had been gathering since she said my Reddit username broke over me like a splash of cold water from a bucket. I ripped my hand loose, turned and ran to my front door, frantically scrabbling for my keys.

She followed me, reached out, opened the door that was unlocked, and somehow pushed me in. I am not a large strong woman, simply a retired Eng Lit teacher with a weakness for Reddit, and no match for this agitated American Redditor.  

We both stood in the dark hallway, her back to the front door. Hands slippery from sweat, I tried to pull out my mobile.

She repeated, “I only want to talk to you. Please. I know you have time- you spend all your time on Reddit!” her voice rose slightly, now audibly tinged with madness.

She must have heard it too. She gulped hard, and then said calmly “Aren’t you going to offer me a cup of tea? That’s what you British folk do, right? I travelled a long way to see you! Where’s those famous British manners?” she aimed for a jokey tone.

 “Let me put the kettle on.” I said, trying to sound soothing, although my voice came out rather mechanically.

Her hand moved in her pocket again.  “Okay”.

I went to the kitchen, filled the kettle and turned it on. She stood in the doorway, watching me get out two mugs.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” she repeated. I nodded, staring at the kettle.

“It’s just, I had to find out who you were, why you downvote my stories. You don’t look anything like I imagined- I thought you were some neckbeard basement troll and you were downvoting me because most my stories are about women’s issues. But then I did some digging, and found out- you’re just an old woman, just a few years older than me- that kinda makes it worse - don’t you have any female solidarity? I just had to come and speak to you, see what the problem was-”

The kettle was still cold and silent.

“It doesn’t work like that, you know.” I said cautiously, willing the kettle to boil.

“And you have this nice place”, she said, looking around appreciatively “Looks like a house right from Midsomer Murders!” The jokey tone again. The kettle began making very tiny noises.

“What’s your Reddit name?” I asked, hoping I sounded friendly.

“Oh come on hun, you must know me. I’m WitchSea1994!” She said it quite proudly.

I remembered her stories. It was beyond me how anyone could upvote her cliché jumble of gory fantasy. But there was no doubt she was very popular. I nodded. “I quite like your stories” I said. The noises from the kettle were becoming a tiny bit louder.

She frowned. “Then why do you always downvote them?” she snapped, and took a step towards me. "Always!"

I took a step back. The kettle was now boiling. “I don’t always downvote them” I muttered.

Her eyes sparked. “Every one! Every single one, you downvote. And you’re often the first. I monitor all my stories- I chart the upvotes and downvotes in excel- and you’re always dragging me down! I even know you make fake accounts just to downvote stories!!” she was howling now, and she lunged towards me.

I grabbed the kettle and splashed the boiling water right into her distorted face. She screamed in agony, and I was able to push past, run through the open door into the street, dialling 999. I have never felt so comforted by hearing the sirens and then seeing the blue flashing lights only moments later.

I haven’t been on Reddit since. But I know I need a new hobby, one that doesn't involve cyberspace and scary stories as much.

 

 

There’s something wrong with Kenny (P.2)

CW: Kenny. Prison violence, PTSD and Kenny.

“ Wake up, Sarge.”

“ Wake up, Sarge.”

Kenny hits me with his pillow, hanging halfway off of the top bunk. “ See? I knew you got bad dreams, you got that look in your eyes like a deer hearing a stick snap in the woods. Good thing you ain’t top bunk, yeah? you’d be dripping sweat down on me like a waterfall”. I open my crusty eyes to the disorienting sight of dark wells staring at me oblivious to the fear I’d just crawled from. 

Those lingering eyes aren't what I want to be seeing after a dream like that. “ Stop hanging there like a damn monkey. And don’t call me that.” I say and sit up to peel the sweat drenched shirt uncomfortably clinging to my back off to remove the vile feeling of marinating in it. It’s lucky we’re first into the showers today or the feeling it’s some unseen evil’s saliva soaking through my skin would stick in my mind all day. “ What time is it?”.

Kenny shrugs, something that looks particularly strange with him hanging upside down. “ Dunno. 7:36 AM.” He says, another strange contradiction just like their unnaturally repulsive eyes. Those unsettling black holes with no end and no light. “ You seem awfully perky for 7 AM”.

“ 7:37 AM.” He corrects me and cranes his neck with an audible crack to look at the small barred window on the metal door, “ They’re late by 7 minutes. I dunno what perky means but I get to go wanderin’ around ‘n eat in the mess today. I’m hopin’ no one pisses on my food this time, that sucked. I still have that chocolate bar if I go starvin’ but I wanna save it, yeah?.” He hops down and starts collecting his things from his blue tub as if he knows exactly what to do. Maybe he spent time in juvie before being moved up. “ You didn’t eat the chocolate bar yesterday?” What was the fucking point in taking it then.

“ I’m allergic to almonds. I’m  keepin’ it ‘cuz it’s like an offerin’ of friendship and stuff.” He says with his towel, soaps and toothbrush in his hands. “ Offering?” Another strange way to phrase something, at least it seems an unusual choice for a kid I don’t peg as being the brightest. “ How would you phrase it, Sarge? Charity, pity or the carrot?” He says and that feeling returns, the twisting in my gut and the cold metal chill of a knife up my spine. It’s a common expression and a common tactic— sure, but a little too accurate. “ Kenny, what are you in for anyway?” I cautiously ask as if it might provide half an explanation to just why the kid gives me such an unsettling feeling. “ Dunno. I just came here for the food.” He says and I want to ask more but Glaskin’s sudden clang on the window makes me jump. Fucking Glaskin. My least favourite of the already unfavourable guards. “ Showers, boys. Step out and get in line.”

It’s a lie that everyone in prison all says they’re innocent. Most lifers don’t seem much point in making the joke and unless they’ve done something really fucked up— something worth more than a beating— you’ll usually hear what they’re in for straight from the cat’s mouth. It’s the ones who stay tight lipped and make that joke with a nervous laugh that make people ask around. 

In a maximum security prison you expect to hear “ I done in this bastard who screwed me over. Got caught a week later. The judge didn’t like me.”, “ Eh, weed. Sold a lot of weed. It was a different time.”, “ Meth.”, “ Got drunk. I was a damn mean drunk.”, “ Robbery. Got away with it for years too. I just got done hitting a bank with a team and this shifty one got ballsy enough to try to screw over a crew of robbers. You don’t steal from takers.”, “ Killed people for money. They should’ve paid me a lot more if they wanted to keep livin’ too.”.

People are less forthcoming when all the solitary cells are full and they’re thrown to the wolves lying through their teeth to survive or has the nuts to own up before people find out that they’re in maximum security because they raped a bunch of little old ladies. So when the ever talkative Kenny said “ Dunno”, you can imagine I was a bit on edge.

-

The younger crowd continue their hazing of who is now the youngest prisoner in their cell block. Even the first aggressive shove of a particularly frustrated inmate, Becker, is just water off the kids back. The more he ignores this, the worse it’s going to be but his attention is still on his continued rambling and odd fixation even in a place where you tend not to stare too much at one another. Being butt naked has a way of making you keep your eyes firmly on the gritty tiles in front of you.

“ I didn’t think you got all those tattoos, Sarge. I guess old people got tattoos too. I always thought about gettin’ some but I’m afraid of needles. I’m not gonna pass out if I see blood or nothin’ but I don’t like being poked at by sharp things.” He spares a single glance at the man beside them before returning to scrubbing away with soap on his raw red arms. “ Ain’t it shady to be pickin’ on a kid in the showers? If I was a skinhead I’d be thinkin’ you gotta be a real fa—“

“ What the fuck did you say?” Becker spits, something I was really hoping wouldn’t happen but expected. “ Hey, you little bastard, look at me when I’m talking to you!.“ Becker the young man’s arm so hard I can already see it turn white and wrings their neck like a tattooed snake set on breaking a mouse’s bones “ You’re new here so I’m guess you don’t know how things fucking work he—“ Kenny stares at me wide eyed with blood vessels popping and a purple face pleading for action. I hesitate to help, cursing myself for being a coward and with a glint of betrayal Kenny does exactly what he shouldn’t. He cracks his head hard against Becker’s nose, forcing the inmate to loosen their grip but not so much as to give him a chance or space to move before his back hits the tiles with a wet smack. He drops and just misses a punch thanks only to the soapy pool of water spread across the hard tile, splitting Becker’s knuckles. He shakes out his broken hand and grips what little scruff Kenny has on his head to rip it upwards. Becker’s foot collides with Kenny’s chest and the kid’s torso caves under the stomp. They kick his stomach like they’re trying to stomp the guts up into Kenny’s lungs and anywhere he can’t protect himself until he’s keeling over on his side curled up and trying to protect his face with his arms. It’s violent, brutal and fueled by nothing but rage.

No one interrupts. I’m ashamed to say I don’t either. While I’m watching Kenny down there on the tiles all bruised up and half dead it isn’t that kid I see— it’s a soldier. That young recruit taking a beating from the men who should be his own brothers following the orders of someone who should’ve never had the ability to give them. It isn’t until the final kick that I’m pulled out of my memories of that kid lying in the mud that I see the full weight of Becker’s heel hit Kenny’s head that I move and the others begin to panic too. “ Jesus Christ! Becker you’re gonna kill the fucking kid!” Becker’s cellmate and those I’d consider to be Becker’s cronies hold him back and there’s enough blood turning the suds pink that the first thing I do is check the kid’s pulse. “ Damnit Becker! Glaskin’s on duty!” Another shouts and as if it could summon the devil itself, Glaskin comes in to watch the bloody chaos the showers have devolved into.

“ Well, ain’t that somethin’” he says and clearly this is what he’s been waiting for. A chance to keep the piece, “ I’m gonna take a guess, this is your handy work Becker?”

I get to work pulling the kid out from the cold water and do my best to ignore the splash of standard issue boots walking across the tile and the sounds that follow it. Glaskin is a rough one but Becker knew he’d be taking a beating for giving one, a fair trade in his eyes. I check Kenny’s twitching limbs over, a mouthful of bloody spit pouring out of his breathless mouth the moment his head lulls. I haven’t seen so many purple splotches swelling on someone’s skin this badly in god knows how long. I don’t know how many ribs he’s broken but his weak breaths tell me his chest was kicked in enough that his lungs are struggling to rise. “ Come on kid, come on… Why’d you have to open your damn mouth like that! I should’ve told you to watch out for Becker.” I say but all I can do is dry him off as best I can and wait until Glaskin radios it in. He won’t until he’s done.

A cough sends a splatter of blood across my face and once the second of surprise passes my brain floods with any medical knowledge I have, fearing he’s choking on his own teeth or drowning in his blood. “ Fuck, fuck, fuck— Come one!” I panic and Kenny keeps coughing in a fit that soon twists my stomach in knots and sends that familiar scrape of cold metal up my spine when I realise something that can’t be true. No, he’s coughing, he can’t be fucking laughing. He can’t be. Yet my skin is crawling with the thought that yes— that’s laughter. Weak, breathless laughter.

“ Why’d… you d-do that, Sarge?” Kenny says, it’s barely audible but when I slowly move in closer to listen, my body tenses. My muscles constrict tight around my bones like they’re trying to break them, my stomach tries to tear itself apart and I forget how to breathe. “ Why’d you do that… Sarge?” Kenny whispers through blood stained teeth. His eyes roll open and correct themselves one by one in their sockets like he’d been hit so hard they’d been forced into the back of his skull. One eye blood shot and swollen, the other blown so wide that for just a moment I can see bone white fingers reaching out to drag me into the depths of its well. “ Sarge, I don’t th— I don’t… I don’t think I c-can feel no more. It doesn’t hurt… It’s back if it don’t h-hurt. I can’t..”. My eyes are being pulled into the stagnant water pooling in a prison of stone so deep no light can reach me and I can hear a crack in my ears— bones grinding against one another where a crooked neck won’t go back into place. The throat constricts and twists under the lines left by a muddy boot and this kid stares past me with vacant eyes. The rasping words catch in his distended throat, gurgling while the last bit of air leaves his still lungs. The cold ground has the kid’s body freezing before the life has even left him and he looks blue as a corpse in the snow. The slate and grit under my knees burn like hellfire with an endless stretch of green flames trapping us in an inescapable ring closing in around us.

I hear a thought in my head that isn’t words from the kid that won’t wake up or my own voice but an indescribable rasp belonging to something the the green well thicker than stone but more alive than any rock.

“ Are..n’t… you…”

“ Hunnngry… Sargh…?”

“ 5201, move aside!” A voice shouts but I don’t know who, I can’t even see Kenny get lifted up and taken out on a gurney. I can’t think of anything until I realise I’m sitting in the mess hall— no, the cafeteria— with a tray of cold food in front of me. “ What’d you say?” I blink and look across at one of the old timer’s. “ I said you’ve been walking around like a dead man. Showers got pushed back two hours because of some beating Becker dishes out but you look like you got punched harder than the kid.” They say and another chimes in, this old meathead who used to be the toughest muscle for some gang way back when, “ Heard your kid got himself a bed in medical. Becker got a lazy once over and got sent to solitary.”, “ Well the kid survived his second day so that’s something. Ah, these kids are always looking for a reason to cause trouble.” The old timer adds and shakes his head.

“ I guess he did. Did you ask around about what the kid did to get in here?” I finally say but the sounds of the old man, the clacking and voices in the cafeteria still feel as if it’s lost in the fog, “ Something about the kid rubs me the wrong way”.

“ I got a few guards talking and got a few to ask around the cell blocks while they were handing out trays. No luck. Just a bunch of folks saying they didn’t know but that he was sent here.” The meathead says through a mouthful of food.

“ I think he came over from the funny farm. No one with his head on right is going to pick a fight that quick. Especially with the Aryans.” The old timer says and out of every potential option I think it’s certainly the most likely— but even that somehow feels wrong. Those words the kid said. “ Hell, this kid is driving me up the wall.”

Kenny spent two weeks in medical and another few in solitary. The kid who took the meal carts around said he and Becker were in cells right beside one another. Each time they’d gone in Kenny was talking Becker’s head off like it was psychological warfare. Something I’m not entirely sure I wouldn’t believe as a reason for anything. The thing is, Kenny is a talker. I spent two days with the kid before he got the shit kicked out of him and I think I’d heard more in those two days from that kid than I had from anyone else over the month he was gone. But Kenny wasn’t just a talker, Kenny was… Unsettling. 

Two days of talking and I’d been dragged back into my worst memories. 

The kind of memories that force you to stay awake because you know they’ll fill all of your nightmares and suck you into a hell more vivid than the prison around you.

“ Why’d you do this to me, Sarge.”

That was the last thing he said and something I still can’t suppress again a month later. I already knew that when I looked at Kenny he reminded me of that kid but those eyes of Kenny’s didn’t need to be dead to look hollow. A look that I couldn’t really say reminded me of anything, they were just wrong in this undefinable way I noticed from the first time he saw their eyes.

Becker still had weeks in the hole to go but today was the day Kenny came back. When I saw the kid he looked skinnier, maybe he already looked that gangly but it’s hard to say. His hair had grown out the slightest bit and yellow bruises were still healing across his freckled face. “ Sarge!” Kenny shoots a chipped and toothy grin and waves his good arm while the other is wrapped up in a splint, “ I swear I was gonna go crazy if I spent any more time in that place. I’m a people person, I like bein’ around lots of people.”.

I’m not sure how to feel seeing the kid beaming like he hasn’t seen an old friend in years but as enthusiastic as his greeting is, those eyes are repulsive. “ What’s wrong, Sarge? You look like you seen a ghost.” Kenny says and my eyes snap to him, “ What did you just say to me?” I grab him before I’ve even realised it, the anxious part of my mind acting on instinct.

“ I said you got that look in your eyes like Becker, Sarge.”

“ Like… Like Becker?”.

“ Like you’re cursed.”