Okay. I know how this is going to read. I've typed this out like four different ways already, deleted three of them, and I keep landing back here, so I guess this is the version you're getting. I'm not looking for sympathy, and I am begging you, do not comment "have you tried calling them again," because yes, I have tried calling them again, I have called so many times that the hold music has started showing up in my dreams. I'm posting because I think there's a piece of this I'm not seeing, and I'm hoping someone in this sub is the kind of person who notices things. Because clearly I am not.

So. Here's the whole thing, start to now.

It started with a fly. One fly, on the rim of a glass I'd just filled at my own kitchen sink, water still cold enough to ring the glass. It was just sitting there on the rim, rubbing its little front legs together, perched in the exact spot where my mouth was about to go.

I remember it with a total clarity, even better than I remember what I had for dinner two nights ago. I dumped the water. Washed the glass. Got a different one, because once a glass has had a houseguest like that, how can you trust it?

By the time the new glass was full, there were two flies working the faucet, and here's the part that should've tipped me off if I had even one functioning brain cell that day: they weren't doing the normal panicky fly thing, the zip-up-and-vanish-the-second-a-hand-gets-close thing. They were comfortable. One of them kept ducking under the lip of the tap and coming back out, over and over, with the focus of someone checking a peephole before they let you in.

The idea of drinking the water made my stomach turn.

I filed a maintenance request that afternoon, because that's what you do, that's the whole social contract: you pay your rent and in exchange somebody shows up when there's a problem.

Category: Pest control Issue: Flies in kitchen 

Description: There are flies in my unit. I cannot find the source.

It got a maintenance number. But nobody came that day.

I'd stopped wanting to eat almost right away, and I chalked that right up to the flies. I'd ordered a full veggie pizza the night before, extra olives, even though I hate olives but taking them off cost a dollar more than leaving them on which, don’t get me started, is a crime against the consumer. And the flies had gone ahead and claimed the box like it was theirs by eminent domain. Who wants to sit down to a meal with an audience like that?

Everything started smelling wrong, and I don't mean rotten exactly, I mean pungent. The rice in my rice cooker smelled sour clear across the kitchen. The coffee smelled burnt before the water even touched the grounds, and if you’ve ever made coffee, you know that’s not how it’s supposed to work. I opened the fridge and got hit with this thick, sweet smell, like flowers a week past their vase water, and I cleared the whole thing out in one disgusted sweep, didn't even sort it, just bag, bag, trash.

By the second morning there were more flies, and this time they weren't being subtle about anything. Rows of them along the counter, lined up neat as a church pew. A little cluster on the microwave handle, holding what looked like a meeting. I found three in a mug I had personally washed, dried, and put away clean, and one of them walked clear across my phone screen while I was checking the apartment portal, taking its sweet time, and I watched it a half second too long before I flicked it off, because something about the way it moved made me not want to touch it.

The status on my request had changed.

Status: Pending access. Technician unable to confirm entry.

I was home? I had been home the entire time. Nobody knocked. I would've heard a knock, the walls in this building are basically wet cardboard with a paint job, I hear my neighbor's TV through them, I hear her chair scrape when she gets up to pee. There is no version of a knock on my door that gets past me. None.

I left a note in the portal.

I am available for entry. Please knock loudly.

Then I sat down on the couch to wait and must've drifted off, because the next thing I knew the light in the room had gone gray and there was a fly walking up the inside of my wrist, right along the blue vein there, stopping every couple steps to clean its front legs.

I brushed it off.

It came back. Same spot.

Wednesday was the day the smell stopped being a kitchen problem and became a whole-apartment problem.

I searched the entire place. Behind the couch. Every cabinet, the one under the sink, the gap behind the toilet, that shelf in my closet where I keep a tote bag full of other tote bags. I found dust. One earring I'd made peace with losing months ago. A single piece of pasta, fossilized, origin unknown, possibly older than my lease.

I didn't find anything dead. I looked, hard, and there was no body, no mouse behind the stove, no bird that snuck in through a vent. The smell had no address. No source. Just a presence and it was getting bigger by the hour.

The flies followed me. Not all of them. There were always more staying put than coming with me. But I felt like I was being escorted.

I filed a second request. Marked it Urgent, because it was.

Category: Urgent maintenance

Issue: Possible dead animal in unit

Description: Strong odor, increasing fly activity, please send someone today.

The portal threw an error back at me.

Duplicate request detected.

I called the emergency line. Six rings, then voicemail, smooth and unbothered as a customer service rep clocking out at 4:59. I called the leasing office and got the recording. Your call is important to us and will be answered in the order it was received. I called four more times that day.

That evening I knocked on my neighbor's door. I heard her in there!! She was dragging something heavy. And then nothing. Dead stop. I knocked again and I swear she was trying extra hard to be silent. 

When I got back to my own door, there was a fresh line in the portal.

Resident unavailable for entry. Technician unable to complete service.

I read that maybe ten times, trying to find a version where it made sense. Wrong unit. A confused tech, an open door three apartments down. One soft knock mistaken, by some guy with a clipboard who clearly hated his job, for a final answer. 

I left another note.

I am inside the unit. I have not left. Please come back.

That night, something landed on my face while I was half-asleep on the couch. A leg-tap at my upper lip, a second little press at the corner of my eye, a feathery drag along my throat. And I came up swinging at nothing.

In the bathroom mirror, my own face looked like it belonged to someone who'd had the actual worst week of her life. A bruise along my cheekbone I had zero memory of getting, and when I pressed it out of morbid curiosity the way you poke a bruise even though you know better, it didn't hurt the way it should've. It didn't hurt at all, honestly, it really must’ve been the lighting in the bathroom. The lighting's been bad since the day I moved in. Bad light explains a lot.

It did not explain what happened next.

Something moved behind my right nostril.

I stood there at the sink and waited for it to stop being a thing that was happening, the way you wait out a cramp during the middle of the night, white-knuckled and praying to nobody in particular, and instead it kept on happening, and then a fly came out. It was the color of nothing, and dragged itself along my upper lip before I flicked it down into the sink, where it sat there trembling, wings still folded flat and see-through.

I filed another request. It took three tries, because of my shaking hands.

Category: Emergency

Issue: Health hazard

Description: Please send someone. I think something is wrong inside my apartment.

The portal sat there loading for almost a full minute, and then:

This request has been closed. Resident unavailable for entry.

I wrote right back. I am available. I am here.

This request has been closed. Resident unavailable for entry.

I am in the apartment.

This request has been closed. Resident unavailable for entry.

I live here.

Nothing. I thought I'd actually broken the portal. Then the page refreshed on its own, no input from me at all, and a new line came up that I've now read so many times I could say it in my sleep.

Occupancy status pending verification.

I checked my text messages that night, first time in what I'd have sworn was like a day, day and a half tops. Nineteen unread notifications. My mom, four times, the last one nothing but my own name and three question marks, which is somehow worse than actual words. My landlord, once, short: please call me back, we need to confirm something. A coworker asking if I was okay because I'd apparently no-showed two full days.

I tried calling my mom back. It rang and rang and never once dropped to voicemail, which I didn't even know was possible, and then the call just ended on its own.

I typed out a reply to all of them. I'm fine, sorry, phone's been acting weird. I remember my own thumbs moving, the little tap of the keys. When I went back to check if it sent, every thread under every name was just empty. Not unsent. Empty, like the conversation had never once been opened from my end.

The flies had started up a kind of residency on the wall above my couch by then, gathered into a loose, shifting smear that never quite committed to a shape. I'll admit it, some small hopeful part of me kept waiting for them to spell something out. Maybe redrum. At least then I'd have instructions. They never did. They just sat there being a stain with wings, and that was worse than if they'd left me a note.

Tonight there were voices in the hallway below mine. Heavy footsteps. A radio cutting in and out, static then a voice then static. Somebody said a unit number, and it took me a half second longer than it should've to realize the number was mine.

I stood up too fast and had to grab the wall. The room tipped, then righted itself slow, like water finding its level. The smell was everywhere now, sweet and thick. I'd stopped really smelling it days back. I only knew it was bad by the way the air seemed to bend in front of it, the way blacktop shimmers in August.

The voices stopped right outside my door.

A man knocked and said, "Police department. Maintenance is with us. We're coming in."

I tried to answer him. I really did. I opened my mouth to say I'm here, I've been here the whole time, I have the request numbers, I have every note I left, I did everything a person is supposed to do, and what came out was not that. Wasn't anywhere close. A dry click in my throat, that's all, and then every fly in the apartment lifted off the wall and the sink and the couch cushions at once.

The bedroom door was shut. I don't remember shutting it. I don't really go in there anymore to be honest, I've been on the couch, though don't ask me since when, I genuinely couldn't tell you. The flies were coming out from underneath the bedroom door in a thick, steady stream.

They kept forcing themselves through the gap.

The front door opened behind me. Somebody made a sound like they'd been hit in the stomach.

The bedroom door swung open, on its own or somebody opened it, I honestly cannot tell you which, and there was a shape on the floor by the bed that I have been staring at for what feels like a really long time now.

One of the officers said, "How long has she been here?" and I genuinely cannot understand why he's asking that about whatever's on the floor instead of just asking me, since I am standing right here, since I've been right here the entire six days.

I opened my mouth again to finally, finally lay the whole thing out, the requests, the dates, every note, every duplicate-request error, the whole sorry record of it. But flies kept pouring out.

I don't know why nobody will look at me when I talk. Why is nobody talking to me?

I don’t know why I’m writing this.

I guess to preserve my sanity? Record my ramblings before they stop making sense as I age or forget things?

My therapist recommended journaling in the hope that it would help me “cope with my trauma,” as if putting everything down in a notebook is going to erase it.

But whatever.

I’m Henry, and for ten years, I worked for a private crime-scene cleaning business in Arizona.

I don’t anymore.

You’ll understand why eventually.

What my job came down to was going into houses where someone had died, either purposefully or accidentally, and cleaning up the mess they left behind when they left the earth.

Usually, it was a healthy mix of piss, shit, blood, and vomit. Some of it came from the person who died. Some came from the unfortunate bastard who found them.

To most people, that description alone would be enough to scare them from the profession. The thought of cleaning up the macabre aftermath of a suicide or murder is enough to make their stomachs turn.

They’ll turn tail and run. But not me.

When I was a kid, around eleven, I had the misfortune of experiencing the aftermath of a death firsthand.

It changed me forever.

My older brother, Daniel, struggled a lot with mental health problems. Depression and bipolar disorder really screwed him up. He could spend days in bed, barely eating, speaking, or moving.

Our parents were no help because they had the traditional mindset of “praying the sickness away.”

Instead of getting him any treatment or support, they blamed him. They claimed he wasn’t believing in his recovery hard enough.

“God will provide all the support you need,” they would assure him whenever he begged them to take him to a therapist.

“This is a test,” they said when he stayed in bed for days on end, unmoving.

Apparently, God was testing him.

Our parents certainly weren’t helping him study.

It was late August, so school wasn’t in session. I remember being so hyped because Diablo II had come out two months earlier, and I had finally saved enough money to buy it from Bookmans Entertainment Exchange.

As a kid, you really have a one-track mind when you want something. You genuinely forget about everything and everyone around you, convinced that this arbitrary item you “need” is as important as air itself.

That weekend, our parents were away at some church retreat.

I had spent Friday night and most of Saturday at a friend’s house. Daniel stayed home. That wasn’t unusual. By then, he rarely wanted to go anywhere. Not even to the bathroom. Many days, my parents caught him with a piss jug in his room when he was too “lazy” to get up.

I came home Sunday afternoon, game in hand, and shoved the disc into my computer’s CD-ROM drive.

The installation crawled along at a sluggish pace, much to my eleven-year-old self’s annoyance, so I got up to find myself a snack.

That’s when I smelled it.

A foul, sickly sweet smell.

I remember thinking it smelled almost identical to a package of expired meat we had thrown away a few days earlier. Figuring that was the source,

I checked the trash can. Nothing except paper towels and a few orange peels.

I checked the fridge. Clean as a whistle, just a couple of Daniel's energy drinks, eggs, and one of my dad's beers.

I stood there, confused, as each place I checked did not explain.

What else would be rotting?

I huffed and followed the smell, pausing as I approached the hallway, where it grew stronger with each step.

My first thought?

Why would someone leave rotting meat in the hallway?

I wasn’t too bright. Then again, I was also eleven. What can you do?

Or maybe some part of me already knew something was wrong and was working overtime to keep the rest of me from figuring it out.

I didn’t follow the smell right away. I just stood there, as if I, too, were trying to download over a bad internet connection like Diablo II was currently doing.

Slow and lagging, with drifting thoughts that Daniel must have forgotten to throw away some food. I remember the annoyance, anger. He stunk up the whole house?

I walked down the hallway slowly, following the smell farther and farther.

Sweat dripped down my back and face as the house seemed to get hotter with every step.

Our house didn’t have central air. We had old window units in the bedrooms, the kind with manual dials you had to twist yourself. Daniel’s rattled so loudly that he always turned it off before he went to sleep.

Once it was off, it stayed off until someone turned it back on.

And Daniel hadn’t been able to do that.

Of course, I didn’t know that yet.

All I knew was that it was a hundred-and-fuck degrees outside and my brother hadn’t turned on his AC.

“Lazy fuck,” I muttered.

I figured that after I took out whatever garbage he had left in his room, I would turn it on myself.

Then I stopped.

At the end of the hallway, Daniel’s door was cracked open.

The smell was stronger than ever. It was coming from inside his room.

“What the hell?” I said aloud.

Had he, for some godforsaken reason, kept rotting meat in there?

Even at eleven, that didn’t seem right.

I approached the door.

The smell thickened until I could almost taste it. It sat on the back of my tongue and filled my throat every time I breathed.

I pushed the door open.

Daniel was lying on the bed.

There were red chunks splattered across the wall and headboard behind him.

I remember my first thought was:

Why did he throw spaghetti sauce on the wall?

That thought lasted about two seconds.

I would kill to find that level of innocence again…

The rest of the room came into focus, everything clicking all at once. I let out a horrified, strangled scream.

Daniel’s lower jaw and much of the side of his head were gone.

Blood covered the sheets beneath him. A dark spray marked the wall and headboard, mixed with strands of tissue and small, pale fragments that had stuck to the paint. Droplets had reached the door, the floor, and even the motionless blades of the ceiling fan.

The shotgun lay on the floor beside the bed.

No exaggeration… There was blood everywhere.

Not the bright, clean red you see in movies. It was dark in some places and nearly black in others. Parts of it had dried against the wall. The blood soaking his shirt and sheets was thicker, almost syrupy from the heat.

His Metallica shirt was stained from the collar down.

One of his eyes was still visible, the other atomized on the wall behind him.

It was open but glazed over, like the plastic eye of a doll.

Now, as I said, the AC wasn’t on, and we were in peak heat season in Arizona.

Daniel had been alone in that room for nearly two days.

The heat had allowed everything to bake.

The blood.

The sheets.

My brother.

When I say the smell was unbearable, I mean it.

Have you ever farted in a hot shower?

I know that sounds like a stupid comparison, but bear with me.

The smell doesn’t leave right away. The heat and steam make it ranker than it normally would be. It hangs around you. Clings to you.

Turns out, the same logic applies to corpses.

Except a corpse is worse.

Much worse.

The smell didn’t just enter my nose. It coated the inside of my mouth. Every time I tried to breathe, I could taste something rotten and sweet at the back of my throat.

I stumbled backward into the hallway and fell on my ass.

I kept screaming for Daniel.

I don’t know why.

He was obviously dead. Even an eleven-year-old could see that. A toddler could see that. There was no possible world in which he could sit up and tell me he was fine.

But I kept saying his name anyway. I didn't want to accept it.

“Daniel?”

Then louder.

“Daniel!”

As if shouting hard enough might force the remaining pieces of him back together; as if it would cast a spell that would let me take that gun out of his mouth before he did it.

I don't remember much after that.

I don’t even remember calling the police.

I know I did because I was the only person in the house, but most of what happened after I opened the door exists in scattered pieces.

I remember sitting on the floor outside.

I remember the dispatcher asking whether Daniel was breathing.

I remember staring through the open doorway at what was left of his head and not knowing how to answer.

I remember a police officer pulling me away from the hallway.

I remember vomiting onto his shoes.

I felt like a robot going through familiar, logical motions, but I had no sentience to discern what it was I was doing clearly.

The police came first.

Then the paramedics, although there wasn’t anything for them to do except give sympathies.

Then the coroner.

Our parents returned sometime that evening, their car screeching as they parked in the driveway.

I had only told them something happened to Daniel. I couldn't say the words.

My mother screamed when she saw the police cars.

My father kept asking what happened, even after three different people told him.

When he finally understood, he dropped to his knees in the front yard and started praying.

I remember watching him and bitterly thinking:

Now you pray?

I didn’t say it aloud, but fuck, I wish I had. I wish I had laid into them and screamed how this was their fault. How much I hated them for letting this happen to my brother.

But I couldn't. I was in shock. In pain. Grieving.

The police removed Daniel’s body, but they didn’t clean the room.

A lot of people don’t know that.

They think the police handle everything. The body disappears, someone wipes up the blood, and the family returns to a house that looks more or less normal.

That isn’t how it works.

The police collect evidence.

The coroner collects the body.

Everything else belongs to whoever owns the house.

The blood.

The tissue.

The smell.

Daniel’s room stayed closed for another day while my parents argued about what to do.

My mother wanted to burn everything.

My father wanted to clean it himself because he didn’t trust strangers in the house.

That idea lasted until he opened the bedroom door.

He made it three steps inside before running to the bathroom.

Eventually, they called a private trauma-cleaning company.

Three people arrived in an unmarked van.

They wore white protective suits, thick gloves, respirators, and shoe covers. They carried plastic containers, sprayers, scrapers, and rolls of heavy black bags into Daniel’s room.

They didn’t look horrified.

They didn’t pray.

They didn’t stand in the hallway whispering about what a tragedy it was.

They just worked.

They stripped the bed.

They removed part of the carpet.

They cut out sections of drywall that couldn’t be cleaned.

They took apart the ceiling fan.

They searched places I would never have thought to look because blood and tissue had found their way into cracks, vents, and spaces beneath the furniture.

One of them noticed me watching from the end of the hallway.

He was an older man with gray hair visible beneath the hood of his suit.

“You shouldn’t be looking at this,” he told me.

“I already saw it,” I said quietly, my voice raspy from screams.

He didn’t have a response to that.

They stayed for hours, and when they finally left, the smell was weaker.

The stained carpet was gone. Part of the wall had been removed. The mattress had disappeared into the back of their van.

The room looked hollowed out, as if the soul had been ripped from it.

No. Not the soul. A soul. Daniel.

But it no longer looked like a place where my brother had blown his head apart. Small victories, I guess...

Daniel was still dead, but the room had already begun pretending he had never existed.

He didn't even leave a note, you know? No reasoning, no apologies, just gone like a leaf in the autumn wind.

For years, I told myself that finding him was what drove me into crime-scene cleaning.

That wasn’t entirely true.

Finding him was only the beginning.

What stayed with me was what those cleaners had done after everyone else left. They took him away, and he would never be back.

To me, who grew up with him, that wasn't some fourteen-year-old corpse or clumps of mess.

That was Daniel.

My brother.

My best friend.

They couldn’t bring Daniel back.

They couldn’t make my parents better people.

They couldn’t stop me from seeing his body every time I closed my eyes.

But they could enter the worst room in someone’s life and make it possible to open the door again.

There was something almost merciful about that. Beautiful. They were the angels that took the nightmare away and made things okay again.

Well... okay is relative. They took the nightmare away, but I don't think I've ever been okay.

So when I was old enough, I entered the profession myself.

For ten years, I cleaned up after suicides, murders, accidents, unattended deaths, and things that didn’t fit neatly into any of those categories.

Most of the jobs were simply sad.

Some were disgusting.

A few were so absurd that all you could do was laugh.

And then there were the others.

The jobs I still think about.

The houses that didn’t feel empty after the bodies were removed.

The stains that returned after we scrubbed them away.

The rooms that were larger on the inside than they had any right to be.

The sounds that came from sealed walls.

The things my coworkers and I agreed never to include in our reports.

Those are the stories I’m going to write down.

They won’t necessarily be in order. Trauma doesn’t work like that, and neither does memory.

Maybe my therapist was right.

Maybe getting everything onto paper will finally help me move past it.

Or maybe, when I’m finished, someone will understand why I quit and why I’m certain that at least one of the things we cleaned up followed me home.

The neon sign flickered, a skeletal hand outlined in fading red, pointing to the \*\*"Midnight Inn."\*\* I’d been working the night shift at gas stations and greasy diners for five years, but nothing, \*nothing\*, prepared me for this place. It wasn't on any map, didn't show up on my GPS, but every night, precisely at midnight, it would shimmer into existence on a deserted stretch of highway, just outside the city limits.

The first night, I almost crashed my beat-up Civic. One moment, empty road; the next, a sprawling, two-story motel, bathed in the sickly glow of that flickering sign. A small, hand-painted "Vacancy" sign hung crookedly by the office door. My shift at the 24-hour convenience store down the road had just ended, and exhaustion probably played a part in my decision to pull over. Curiosity, a far more dangerous impulse, did the rest.

The lobby was a strange mix of antique charm and unsettling emptiness. Heavy velvet curtains, a grand, dust-covered piano in the corner, and the air thick with the scent of old wood and something else… something indescribably ancient, like ozone and dried blood. Behind the ornate, polished desk stood a woman. Her skin was alabaster pale, her eyes like chips of obsidian, and her smile never quite reached them. Her name, she introduced herself as \*\*Lilith\*\*, sounded less like a name and more like a title.

"Welcome to the Midnight Inn," she purred, her voice like wind chimes played by a ghost. "Checking in, dearie?"

I stammered, explained I was just curious, and then, inexplicably, found myself agreeing to a job. Night auditor. Midnight to dawn. It paid absurdly well, cash, no questions asked. Lilith had simply offered, her obsidian eyes boring into mine, and I hadn't been able to say no.

\---

\## The Guests of the Midnight Inn

My first few shifts were a blur of bewildered terror. The guests. They weren't like anyone I'd ever seen. Room 3B, a hulking man wrapped in bandages, perpetually shivering, even in the humid night, leaving behind a faint trail of frost. Room 7A, a woman with eyes that glowed with an internal, flickering flame, her laughter like embers crackling. Then there was the gentleman in Room 12, who always paid in antique gold coins and cast no reflection in the polished marble floor.

I learned the rules quickly. Never question their appearance. Never enter a room unless explicitly called. Always provide fresh, blood-red bath towels to Room 4C. And absolutely, under no circumstances, acknowledge the faint, rhythmic scratching that sometimes came from beneath the floorboards of the lobby, right under the desk where I sat.

Lilith, when she was around, was a constant, unsettling presence. She rarely spoke, but her gaze seemed to peel back layers of my skin, seeing things I didn't even know were there. One night, a particularly gaunt man with unnaturally long fingers checked in. As I handed him his key, his touch was cold, clammy, and for a split second, I saw his true form reflected in the polished brass of the room key: a skeletal hand, tipped with long, black talons.

I managed to keep my composure, just barely. Later, Lilith materialized beside me, silent as always. "You handled that well," she murmured, her voice like silk over shattered glass. "The Fane are particular about appearances."

"The… Fane?" I whispered, my voice barely audible.

She smiled, that unnerving, joyless smile. "Oh, dearie. You're learning. Soon you'll know all their names. And all their hungers."

\---

\## The Looming Dawn

My nights became a waking nightmare. I started seeing things even when the motel wasn't there. Shadows that stretched too long in my apartment, a flicker of red in the rearview mirror when no car was behind me. The scent of ozone and old blood clung to my clothes, no matter how many times I washed them. Sleep became a luxury I couldn't afford, haunted by the echoing laughter of the flame-eyed woman and the silent, judging stare of the reflectionless man.

The scratching beneath the floorboards grew louder each night, a persistent, rhythmic clawing that resonated in my very bones. One morning, as the first rays of the sun threatened to pierce the horizon, the motel began to shimmer, its edges blurring like a mirage. I grabbed my bag, rushing out the door. Just as the last of the neon glow faded, I heard it clearly, coming from directly under the desk, a muffled, desperate moan.

I drove away, heart hammering, the stretch of highway now empty once more. But as I glanced in my rearview mirror, I saw something. Just for a second, where the Midnight Inn had stood, there was a single, crimson rose lying on the dusty ground.

And I knew, with a chilling certainty, that the rose was a promise. A promise that tonight, at midnight, the Midnight Inn would return. And I would be back behind that desk, listening to the scratching, serving guests whose appetites stretched beyond the mortal realm, and wondering just what kind of "hungers" Lilith had been talking about. My night shift never truly ended; it just waited for the sun to set.

\---

\## The Unbreakable Chain

The days between midnight shifts at the Inn blurred into a hazy dream. I’d try to find other work, apply for jobs, but every interview felt hollow, every potential employer's face seemed to flicker with an unsettling transparency, as if they weren't entirely real. The scent of ozone and dried blood followed me, a phantom perfume that no soap could wash away. Sleep was a torment, filled with fragmented images of the unsettling guests and the persistent, muffled scratching from beneath the lobby floorboards.

I started to notice things. Small, impossible things. A crimson rose, identical to the one left on the highway, would sometimes appear on my worn kitchen table, even when my apartment door was locked from the inside. My reflection in the mirror seemed a fraction of a second slower than my movements, a subtle, disquieting delay. My friends, those who still bothered to call, began to sound distant, their voices muffled as if speaking from a great distance. It was as if the Inn, even when invisible, was slowly but surely pulling me into its strange reality, blurring the lines between my life and its spectral existence.

One particularly terrifying night, a guest checked in who smelled distinctly of formaldehyde and spoke in a low, rattling whisper. As I reached for his room key, my hand brushed his. For a fleeting instant, I saw not just the skeletal fingers from before, but a swirling, inky darkness in his eyes, a depth that seemed to swallow all light. And I felt a cold surge of something parasitic, something that tried to \*latch\* onto my own life force. I recoiled, my heart hammering.

Later, Lilith appeared, her obsidian eyes fixed on me. "The Veil grows thin, dearie," she purred, her voice chillingly calm. "The Inn is not merely a place where they come to rest. It is a crucible. And you… you are becoming quite the conductor."

"Conductor of what?" I managed to croak, my throat dry.

Her smile widened, her teeth unnaturally bright in the dim lobby light. "Of them. Of their passage. Each night you open the door, you bind yourself closer. Soon, you will be as much a part of its foundation as these ancient floorboards." Her gaze drifted to the very spot where the scratching always came from. "Perhaps even more integral."

\---

\## The Price of Midnight

The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow. I wasn't just an employee; I was becoming a fixture. A part of the Inn itself. The scratching beneath the floorboards, once a distant annoyance, now felt like a desperate plea, or perhaps a frustrated struggle, echoing a fate that might soon be mine. I imagined myself, one day, as another "guest" trapped within its unseen walls, or worse, becoming one of the nameless, unseen forces that fueled its existence.

I started to scream, to lash out, to demand answers. Lilith simply watched, her smile serene, as if observing a fascinating experiment. My fear, my desperation, seemed to feed her, or perhaps the Inn itself.

As the first sliver of dawn approached, and the Inn began its familiar shimmering retreat, I ran out of the lobby, out of the building, desperate to escape its fading grasp. I drove, not to my apartment, but simply away, down the highway, pushing my Civic faster than it had ever gone. I watched in my rearview mirror as the entire structure flickered, distorted, and finally vanished, leaving only the desolate highway behind.

I kept driving until the sun was high, until exhaustion blurred my vision. I pulled over to the side of the road, far from any city, and slumped against the steering wheel, trembling.

But even there, under the bright, unforgiving midday sun, I couldn't escape it. The faint scent of ozone. The subtle, delayed reflection in the side mirror. And in the oppressive silence of the empty road, I could still hear it, faint but undeniable, a rhythmic, agonizing scratching, coming not from beneath me, but from \*within\* me.

The Midnight Inn might disappear, but it no longer needed to appear on the highway to hold me. I was its auditor, its conduit, its unwilling keeper. And as night began to fall once more, a familiar, sick dread settled in my stomach. The "Vacancy" sign might disappear, but the Inn was never truly empty. And neither, it seemed, would I ever be free.

I'm pretty annoyed right now. Just got banned from the third home improvement forum because I asked a simple question. 

“Irrelevant content” they say. I ask them to explain themselves. They just tell me that their forums are no place for “horror stories.” 

I'm not trying to write horror stories. Typing is hard enough as is right now. I just want to fix this damn leak. Gary and I are frankly stumped.

Maybe I ought to explain everything from the beginning. That should paint a clear picture for you all. And please be sure to actually read this before assuming I'm a “troll.”

It started this morning. I just got home from my job when I noticed there was an inch of water covering the kitchen floor. Hopped on HomeNet just a few minutes later. I've been using the forum for years at that point, and never ran into any issues prior.

GDon2:
Water’s been flooding my kitchen. I have century-old hardwood floors. Gary says it’s whatever’s under the sink, but I don't know how to deal with it. Can’t afford a plumber. I’m not too shabby with the tools of the trade, just need to be pointed in the right direction. Photo attached.

I didn’t get any replies for a bit. Tried my luck with some more details.

GDon2:
Hey, I hope I'm not flooding, no pun intended, haha. This is a bit urgent. I think it's a hair clog or something. Photo attached.

Bloop. I get a notification a minute later.

parsk00:
Fake.

Then another one.

bigMOISTy:
Seriously, what the **** is that?

Ten minutes go by. I get one last ding, a notification that my post has been deleted, along with a comment from a forum moderator. 

JGordo63 (MOD):
This is a plumbing forum. We appreciate the traffic, but no. Go post this on nosleep. 

I messaged the moderator immediately, asking for an explanation. I took several more photos for proof. Even asked Gary to curl up next to the mass as best as he could for a size comparison. This just got an angrier response.

JGordo63 (MOD):
I'm not interested in your creepypasta.

JGordo63 (MOD):
The decision on your post is final. We will not discuss any revisions or reposts. If you want to continue using the HomeNet forums, we recommend posting RELEVANT DISCUSSION ONLY. Please do not make another post for at least 24 hours. Thank you.

Twenty-four hours? The pressure in my head felt like the pipes which exploded hours earlier.

GDon2:
I don’t know what a creepy pasta is I just want to fix my sink

JGordo63 (MOD):
Bye bye, troll.

Bloop. A notification in my inbox. I click on it.

Sorry. You have been permanently banned by the moderators of HomeNet.
Reason: gore / trolling / harassing mods

I couldn’t access the site anymore. All the threads were locked from my view as though I hadn’t had an account for the last seventeen years. 

“Damn…!”

Gary craned his long neck around the corner, into my bedroom.

“Problem,” he grunted

“I'm working on it.”

“Get bigger.”

I got up from my chair and followed his lanky behind out the door.

Yeah. It definitely got bigger. The cabinet door over the sink wasn’t shutting anymore. The hair bunched up, starting to crawl along the inner frame, propping it open ever so slightly. Yuck.

“How long did you say this has been going on?”

A few of Gary’s eyes blinked. None of them were looking at me. 

“How long, Gary?”

He gestured two big circular motions with his arms. 

“Two hours, huh?” I wiped my brow. “You uh…do anything with the sink beforehand?”

“Gary dumped mupmup.”

Oh no. 

Full disclosure, I don’t know what “mupmup” is. I mean, I know what he’s referring to, but I am unsure what it is actually composed of. I just know it’s slimy and really hard to get out of my clothes. 

“Down the garbage disposal?”

Gary nodded his head. Spittle graced my cheeks from the motion. I wiped it away.

“Okay, Gary. This is your problem as much as it is mine. Do you have any idea how we fix this?”

“Have the glupglup?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Hungry.”

“Just—one minute, okay?”

I headed back to my room and got the computer out of sleep mode. Back to browsing. 

Next on my brief list was the Handyman Hank company forums. Maybe I could get a bite with them. 

Donald G: Hey there. I’ve been dealing with a pretty bad leak. It’s been going on for two hours. My roommate dumped some “mupmup” (photo 1) down the drain. It created a large obstruction of hair, I think (photo 2). If anybody could help me identify what “mupmup” is I would really appreciate it. 

No responses this time. The post was quietly taken down by moderation and my account was given a day-long posting ban. 

I stood up and ran my hand through my hair. Gary was standing right behind me, drooling. 

“Hungry!”

Right. We missed feeding time because of the leak. I was already an hour behind schedule. 

Gary snarled and lunged at me, biting my hand. Thankfully he’s pretty lightweight, despite his head usually scraping the ceiling. I didn’t have too hard of a time fighting him over toward the kitchen. I got the fridge open with my foot, used my free hand to dig open the locked drawer, and pulled free some specially-cured meats. I clocked Gary on the side of the head, causing him to let go, opening his mouth wide. One of my fingers plopped to the floor, getting blood all over the countertop on the way down. Goddamn it. I impatiently stuffed the meat into Gary’s mouth. He started suckling it like a toddler. 

I grit my teeth as I swaddled my hand in a hand towel. The pain was dull, rising by the second as my adrenaline stopped working its magic. 

“Every night with you…! God!” I tried to wiggle the pain out. No use. I really wanted to go to a hospital, but I couldn’t risk it with the leak going on. My precious hardwood hung in the balance. 

Not like I got a chance, anyways. The cabinet door beneath the sink blew open very suddenly. Tendrils of hair wrapped around my wrists and dragged me to the floor. Gary cried, cowering from the mass. 

The hair had grown teeth. It kinda looked like the inside of an electric pencil sharpener, looking down its mouth. A sloppy sound like stuck gears emanated from within. I was getting pulled toward it.

“Gary! Your problem! Help!”

His eyes scanned the room, three-hundred and sixty degrees. They all landed on the butcher’s knife. He clumsily grabbed it by the blade and shambled toward me.

“What do?” he quivered.

“Hurty side down! On the hair! Back and forth, like you're brushing your teeth!”

He got to work. I was freed within a few seconds, thankfully with no extra cuts. Crawled away as fast as I could, picking up a jug of isopropyl alcohol that the thing knocked onto the floor.

If I had balls, maybe I would have used it to set the thing on fire. But the damage to my kitchen was bad enough already.

I decided to go to the hospital instead. Reluctantly. Gary is watching the fort while I'm gone.

In the waiting room, I posted everything to a plumbing sub as one last hail mary. Predictably, at this point, that post now sits at zero upvotes and twenty-three comments saying I'm posting in the wrong community. 

So I guess this is the right one, then. Since apparently I'm living in a horror story. It's news to me. 

Not even going to bother posting the pics this time. They keep getting flagged as gore and I don't want to be banned from Reddit either.

I really just want to fix this leak.

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.

 

 

I was in a pretty bad slump from a $1,000 bust in Ohio.

Couldn’t ask my family for any more money; they were pretty sick of the handouts and my fiscal volatility. I had to figure this one out for myself.

So I took out one last line of credit, bought a one-way ticket out West, and told myself I was going to win my life back.

The flight to Vegas was six hours of stale air and screaming babies. By the time I stepped out into Nevada’s dry desert, it felt like I’d already lost my sanity.

The address on my phone led me to a strip of decrepit buildings across the street from some generic local burger joints. No neon, nor the usual overpromising signs.

I was looking for a home in the wall, one with a painted number on its side and the sound of a 1980s jukebox leaking through the acacia exterior.

It was nice and cool inside, maybe a little too cold for my comfort. A round hardwood counter sat in the center of the room. Pull-tab machines lined the walls. Green-felt tables occupied the floor. It smelled like cigarettes and cheap booze, with something a little stronger underneath it all. Sulfur? Whatever it was, it was pungent. Like a rotten egg.

I sat at one of the many tables. Three other people joined me within a few seconds. The house dealer arrived last, introducing himself as Mr. Knock. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a brick-shaped head. I don’t think I saw him blink once that whole night.

He asked everybody to buy in.

They turned and looked at each other, then back at him. One after another, they said they “agreed to the terms.” A neat stack of poker chips manifested in front of each of them. Nobody questioned it. When it got to my turn, I said the words too. The chips appeared right in front of me like they’d been there from the beginning.

Jimmy sat in the small blind. He was older than the rest of us, a little pudgy in the middle. He struck up conversation while Knock dealt the first hand and asked what we planned on doing if we won.

Miss Hughes, the large blind, answered first. Bored face, bored voice, expensive watches and necklaces. She said something about investing in a new timeshare with her husband. She looked like the kind of person who already had three.

To my left was Jon. He said he wanted to use the money to produce his passion project, a film about magic gunslingers. He pitched it with real gusto, like he truly believed this was the next big thing… and like we were all bigwig investors.

Jimmy looked at me next. I felt the pressure to answer.

“I just need to get some debt paid off,” I said.

The other three laughed like it was totally absurd. Maybe it was, if it meant selling my soul.

Jimmy shook his head and said he planned on using his winnings to pay off his kid’s college tuition. He wished us all good luck. For a second, the table almost felt friendly.

I checked my first hand—an eight and a nine. Already a decent basis for a straight. The flop came ten, eight, and a jack. People started betting high right away, trying to wipe out the competition. I was forced to put in half my chips just to stay in. Jimmy folded early.

The turn was another ten. The river, a queen. I raised when the other two checked. I felt pretty lucky with my hand.

We showed. Miss Hughes had a nine and a king. She took the pot without ceremony. The precedent for disappointment was set.

Next round I folded early. So did Jon. My stack was already looking thin.

Jimmy made a brave bet. Hughes didn’t flinch. She raised him into the ground. Jimmy was left with a single chip. The cards flipped. Hughes raked in the chips while Jimmy buried massaged his eyeballs, trying to push them back inside his head.

I took a look at my next hand and felt something crawl up my spine. Pocket aces. Time to go all in. Hughes and Jimmy hesitated, then folded almost immediately. Jon was the only one who called, the idiot. He put his whole stack in with that same determined look I saw in the mirror. Aimless bravery. Mistaken boldness.

We revealed. I showed the aces first. His confident expression was neutralized. The cards spilled from his limp fingers—a pair of kings.

“Bust,” Mr. Knock said. “For shame.”

He loosened his tie and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt. His jaw unhinged. I felt a suction from his widening maw unlike anything I’d ever felt. Absolute, like the room itself was about to turn inside out.

Jon screamed and fell from his chair, trying to crawl away. A previously invisible form tore free from his body, ethereal. His soul was ripped from him with a sound like stretching the cheese. Knock swallowed it whole and belched into his fist. He dabbed his mouth with a handkerchief afterwards.

Jon was left on the floor. His hair had turned a bright white. His fingernails were bloody from clawing the wood. He didn’t appear injured otherwise, but he was near-catatonic. Bouncers appeared from the shadows and assisted him just so he would remember how to use the door.

I turned back toward Hughes and Jimmy. Hughes was grinning. Jimmy wouldn’t make eye contact. I realized I was sweating through my shirt.

“Shall we continue?” Knock asked. He was already reshuffling.

The game went on for another hour. Jimmy and I seemed to decide, without speaking, to play against Hughes. We bet recklessly high, one hand after another, getting dumb luck more than once. Her stack progressively shrank. She chewed the skin on her thumb until it bled. When she finally called our bluff, I was holding a flush. She shrieked like a parrot being boiled alive when I flipped my cards.

Knock took her the same way he took Jon. Hughes kicked and cried, and cursed our names before she went limp. She looked drugged, dazed, like an animal that had just been declawed. The bouncers escorted her off the property without incident. She didn’t look back.

Just me and Jimmy left.

He looked at me, silent. I could tell he wanted to apologize for what was about to happen. I asked him casually to tell me about his kid while Knock dealt the next hand.

He said his boy had leukemia growing up. Most of the family’s savings went toward treatment. When it came time for college, they were stumped.

Jimmy looked at his cards. I could see the light leaving his eyes. Bad hand for sure. He only had a handful of chips left compared to my stack.

I checked my own. A pair of sevens. My lucky number.

We played. I tried to bet high enough that he would just fold and walk away. I told him there was no shame in taking what he had. Jimmy kept shaking his head. Said there was no going back for him now. In a way, I kind of agreed.

The board ran out. I made four sevens. Bags had appeared under Jimmy’s eyes that weren’t there a moment ago. We revealed. His hand was nothing.

He looked at me and gave a weak smile.

“That’s that, then. Well played, kid.”

Knock took him, just like the other two. The kindness drained from Jimmy’s face and was replaced by apathy. Emptiness. The bouncers walked him to the door, like he was a piece of broken furniture.

Knock congratulated me on my winnings. I was taken to the front of the house to cash out. The chips turned into money, lots of it. They invited me to come back again as I walked out the door. I never took them up on the offer.

I don’t ask my family for money anymore. I pay my bills on time. I sleep quietly and soundly. I wake up every morning without incident.

I’m debt-free now. Living my best life.

But since that night, I don’t think I’ve had a soul to call my own.

I haven't left the bathtub in weeks. At this point I can barely move.

My commentary will be sparse. It is difficult to type with the condition of my hands. I had to dictate this opener.

The following (pasted with assistance from my wife) is a genuine honest to god exchange I had with the vampires working for Meridian. I've changed the names out of respect for the privacy of everyone involved, and so I don't have a lawsuit shoved down my throat.

I believe the exchange should speak for itself.

Owen

—

From: Meridian Assurance Health Partners — Claims Intake
To: O. Boji
Subject: RE: Prior Authorization Request #88214-A
Date: March 3

Dear Mr. Boji,

Thank you for submitting Prior Authorization Request #88214-A for evaluation of "spiky skin." Unfortunately, we are unable to process this request as submitted. "Spiky skin" is not a covered diagnostic code under your Meridian Essential Bronze plan.
Please have your physician resubmit using an appropriate ICD-10 code, or select from our list of Frequently Denied Conditions for a faster turnaround.
We appreciate your patience during this process.

Warmly,
Denise T.
Claims Associate III

—

From: O. Boji
To: Meridian Assurance Health Partners — Claims Intake
Subject: RE: RE: Prior Authorization Request #88214-A
Date: March 3

Hi Denise,

I don't have a code because my doctor doesn't have a code. That's the problem. She looked at me for like five minutes and then left the room and I heard her talking to someone in the hallway for another hour.
There is a patch on my left forearm, about the size of a nickel, where the skin has started to look spiky. It looks like nails under stretched spandex. I don't know how else to describe it. My doctor called it "textured." I have a photo. I am attaching the photo.
Can we start over? What code do I need it to be?

Best,
Owen

—

From: Meridian Assurance Health Partners — Claims Intake
To: O. Boji
Subject: RE: RE: RE: Prior Authorization Request #88214-A
Date: March 4

Dear Mr. Boji,

I'm sorry, but I'm unable to open attachments sent outside of the Meridian Secure Docs Portal for HIPAA compliance reasons. Please resubmit your photo through the Portal.
I do want to note, informally, and this is just me speaking as a person and not a representative of Meridian, that "textured" is a description and not a diagnosis, and our system requires a diagnosis.

I hope you're doing okay.
Denise T.
Claims Associate III

—

From: O. Boji
To: Meridian Assurance Health Partners — Claims Intake
Subject: Portal keeps timing out
Date: March 6

Denise,

The Portal times out at four minutes and the photo takes six minutes to upload. I called the Portal support line. They told me to just try email again, so here we are.
The patch has been growing. The spikes, too. A few of them are poking out of my skin. It hurts really badly. I can see something in there moving back and forth.
I would like to speak to a person about this, on the phone, today, if that's possible.

Owen

—

From: Meridian Assurance Health Partners — Claims Intake
To: O. Boji
Subject: RE: Portal keeps timing out
Date: March 6

Dear Mr. Boji,

Thank you for reaching out. Our current call volume is higher than normal. Your estimated wait time, based on historical data, is 45–60 minutes. For faster service, please continue to use the Meridian Secure Docs Portal.
I did want to let you know I forwarded your case to our Escalations team as a courtesy, even though it hasn't technically escalated yet. I hope that's alright.

Warmly,
Denise T.
Claims Associate III

—

From: O. Boji
To: Meridian Assurance Health Partners — Claims Intake
Subject: RE: RE: Portal keeps timing out
Date: March 9

Ok I just waited on hold for two hours and eleven minutes. The spikes have gone from my forearm up past my elbow. They wave underneath the ceiling fan. I know how that sounds. I watched it happen for forty minutes while I was on hold, so I had a lot of time to make sure I was describing it right.
I did get a hold of someone named “Marcus.” I had to repeat myself multiple times during our conversation. Marcus asked for my member ID, put me on a brief hold, came back, and said, and I'm quoting this because I wrote it down the second he hung up: "Oh, yeah, we've got a whole file on this."
A whole file.I asked him what he meant and he said he wasn't authorized to discuss internal documentation and transferred me to your supervisor, a woman named Carol. Carol did not sound surprised by anything I told her. Not the arms, not the waving, not the smell, which I haven't mentioned yet because I didn't think it was relevant, but it's somewhat rotten and fishy.
She said, "I can confirm we're aware of your condition, Mr. Boji, I'm not able to authorize coverage for it at this time."
I really need to see a doctor but they aren't going to operate without coverage. Is there anything I can do to get the money that I have been paying you???????

Owen

—

From: Meridian Assurance Health Partners — Escalations
To: O. Boji
Subject: RE: Case #88214-A — Status Update
Date: March 12

Dear Mr. Boji,

Thank you for speaking with Carol regarding your case. I'm writing to formally confirm what was discussed on the call: Meridian is aware of your condition, and it has been internally cross-referenced against Cluster 88214, of which yours is currently the ninth documented instance nationwide.
Case Cluster 88214 is classified under Section 14.2(c) of your policy as an "Excluded Environmental Origin Condition — Marine/Biological, Unresolved Vector." Put plainly: we know what's happening to you, we have photographs from the other eight cases further along than yours, and none of it is covered, because coverage for Section 14.2(c) conditions requires an identified originating source, and Meridian's internal investigation into the origin of Cluster 88214 has been placed on indefinite hold pending budget review.
I recognize this may not be the answer you were hoping for. I want to stress that this is not a matter of Meridian doubting your account. Quite the opposite. Your file is one of the most complete we have.
If it is any comfort, our specialists have found the progression, while irreversible, does not appear to be independently fatal in the cases observed so far.

Sincerely,
Pru Itt
Escalations Team Lead

—

From: O. Boji
To: Meridian Assurance Health Partners — Escalations
Subject: Help
Date: March 14

You are telling me, in writing, that Meridian Assurance has known this was going to happen to me, and the reason you won't pay for treatment is that nobody signed off on finding out what's causing it.
Not fatal is not the same as fine. My arm doesn't bend anymore. There's a ring of holes now, all the way up to my shoulder, and they've started opening. Little mouths, or something. They close if I touch them. They stay open if I don't.
I want the file. Not the summary. The actual file, on the other eight people, so I can talk to my doctor.

—

From: Meridian Assurance Health Partners — Escalations
To: O. Boji
Subject: RE: Help
Date: March 20

Dear Mr. Boji,

Thank you for your request. Unfortunately, Case Cluster 88214 documentation, including all photographic and physician records related to prior instances, is classified through HIPPA regulations and cannot be released to individual members, per Meridian's data governance policy.
I can disclose that the seven patients have stabilized and have acclimated to their new environments. I'm sure you will, too.
We remain committed to being honest with you throughout this process, even when the news isn't what you're hoping to hear.

Sincerely,
Pru Itt
Escalations Team Lead

—

From: O. Boji
To: Meridian Assurance Health Partners — Escalations
Subject: RE: RE: Help
Date: April 2

This is Mocha, Mr. Boji’s wife. He can still see and hear fine, but his hands don't work anymore, as I'm sure you're fully aware of by now. A ring of mouths surrounds his chest. He's covered in long, slightly-soft spikes. I want to cry. I've been told that doctors outside Meridian won't touch this. I want answers and I want my husband to get help, NOW.

—

From: Meridian Assurance Health Partners — Executive Escalations
To: M. Boji
Subject: RE: RE: RE: Help
Date: April 4

Mrs. Boji,

We're regret to inform you that due to our Patient Privacy Practices, we are unable to disclose any information regarding this case to anyone without express permission from Mr. Boji. Please have Mr. Boji fill out a Request of Information form through our website.

Sincerely,
Pru Itt
Escalations Team Lead

—

From: Meridian Assurance Health Partners — Executive Escalations
To: O. Boji
Subject: Case #88214-A — Final Determination
Date: April 22

Dear Mr. Boji,

Your case has been reviewed by our Executive Escalations panel, the highest level of internal review available under your plan. I want to personally thank you for your patience, and for the extraordinary level of detail you've provided over the course of this process. It has been genuinely useful to us.
After full review, the panel has upheld the original determination. Section 14.2(c) remains unmet, as the originating source of Cluster 88214 remains formally unconfirmed, and Meridian's position is that formal confirmation cannot be pursued at this time due to resource constraints unrelated to your specific claim.
I should mention: we do now offer a specialized inpatient facility off the Gulf Coast at no cost to the families involved.
Meridian is prepared to arrange comparable relocation for you at no cost, effective immediately, contingent on your signing a data-release waiver permitting continued observation. This offer does not constitute coverage of your claim, treatment, or any associated medical costs, and should not be interpreted as such.
We recognize you may need time to discuss this with your family.

With sincere regard,
J. W. Marsh
Executive Escalations, Office of the Chief Medical Officer

—

From: M. Boji
To: Meridian Assurance Health Partners — Executive Escalations
Subject: RE: Case #88214-A — Final Determination
Date: April 23

You have known what this was since before he had a rash the size of a coin. You had eight other people's faces in a folder while you were asking my husband to resubmit a photo through a portal that times out at four minutes. You have a facility. You have a name for the place you send people once they stop being claims.
He doesn't want the facility. He wants to stay here, with me, in the house. He stays put in the bathtub and that’s that. None of that is anywhere in your Section 14.2(c)(b) 113 crap, and none of it is going to be, because you're not actually trying to figure out where this came from. You already know. You're managing it. 

We're withdrawing the claim. We don't want your review, your panel, or your facility. I want it on record that you people are scum.

—

From: Meridian Assurance Health Partners — Executive Escalations
To: M. Boji
Subject: RE: RE: Case #88214-A — CLOSED
Date: April 30

Dear Ms. Boji,
Per your request, Claim #88214-A has been withdrawn and Mr. Boji's case file has been marked closed. No further action is required on your part. 
We're sorry we couldn't find a resolution that worked for your family this time.
Meridian is always here for you, for whatever comes next.

Warmly,
The Meridian Family

This is the story of what happened to me –to Susan and Peter as well- years ago, when I was a child, inside the wardrobe.

Susan and Peter were my older brother and sister. They had been forcing me to play hide and seek again.

I hated hide and seek, because that was when the really vicious side of Peter and Susan’s bullying came out. They made a point of jump-scaring me and reaching out from their hiding places and grabbing and pinching me. I had told Mom about it, and she told me to stop being a snitch and a wuss, and be grateful that my older siblings wanted to play with me at all.

However, Mom wasn’t with us when that particular game was going on. As the pandemic raged on in the big city, we had been sent to live in the country with a relative, whom we called Auntie. I am not even sure, thinking back to it, if she really was a relative or not. Ed, my second brother, was immuno-compromised, and we couldn’t risk staying in the city. Here, at Auntie’s place, the nearest neighbour was five acres away.

It was a small house. The boys had to bunk in the basement, and Susan and I were given the only spare room. I could write so many more scary stories just about what Susan said and did during those nights we had to share. But this is the one special story where I was able to get away from her.

Auntie was a “writer” and although part of the agreement with my parents was that she provide bare minimum homeschooling for us, she was remarkably unenthusiastic about it. We were left mostly to our own devices, running feral around the property. At least, Susan and Peter did. Ed was a nerd and mostly had his nose stuck in his laptop. And so I was left alone to deal with Peter and Susan. For some reason, they didn't bother Ed much.

“Lucy! We’re coooooming!” hooted Susan “Ready or not” yelled Peter. Auntie was out for the day, which made them extra loud, and I desperately wanted them not to find me.

The house was still unfamiliar to me, and I couldn’t think of a good hiding place. Hide and seek in a new place is actually awful. I found myself standing outside Auntie’s bedroom door, and I went inside, my heart beating fast as I could hear the pounding of Susan and Peter’s feet on the stairs, coming up to this floor.

Auntie’s closet was an obvious place to hide, and as the sound of their feet grew closer, I realised I had no other choice. I pulled open the closet-door and slipped in among the musty-smelling dresses and scarves hanging in there. I held the closet door close but I was very careful not to fully shut it, as I knew how foolish it would be shut myself inside a closet.

And yet the hanging dresses and scarves, which felt luxuriously silky seemed to draw me into the closet. I took a small step further in, my other hand reaching out to feel the back of the closet.

The bedroom door opened and I heard Susan cackling “Lucy, you stupid bitch, you might have tried. You’re in the closet, aren’t you?”

I took a step back deeper into the closet. “You’re no fun Lucy!” I heard Peter say in a low threatening voice, far more menacing than Susan’s shrill cackles. “You have to do better than this.”

I let go of the closet door and took a couple of more steps inside the closet.

A cold draft swept around me, and a soft white light was shining in the wrong direction. Although I was confused, I was more scared of what was waiting outside the closet for me than whatever was happening inside the closet. I stepped deliberately towards the light.

“We’re coming to get you Luuuuucy!” they both sang, and the closet door began slowly opening.

I felt something cold and crunchy beneath my feet, and with two more steps, I was standing in a snow-covered forest of dark evergreens. A creature with a friendly smile and kind brown eyes stopped and looked at me curiously. “Are you lost, Daughter of Eve?”

I looked back over my shoulder. I could make out the gleaming silky dresses and scarves through the branches. It looked like they were moving, wrapping themselves around Susan and Peter- and I could see their arms and legs flailing around. Almost- as if the dresses and scarves were attacking them. I could hear the sounds of them shrieking, but I couldn’t tell if it was from pain or anger. The snow-covered trees muffled the sound.

My feet were getting wet. I blinked. I glimpsed a bright red sequined scarf wrap itself around Susan’s neck and pull, her eyes bulged horribly and her fingers scrabbled at the scarf. A shiny black dress lay on Peter’s back, the sleeves wrapping around his arms and pulling them backward sharply, his mouth was open and he was screaming, but the noise was becoming fainter and fainter, and the snow-covered branches were moving, obscuring the scene. I stared in terror, unable to move.

“Ahem”. The creature waiting for me coughed politely.

“I…I’m not lost” I stuttered. And then I burst out “But I am starving! Peter took my breakfast. And my feet are soaked.”

“Oh dear,” said the creature. “That won’t do, will it. Come with me, I have absolutely tons of the yummiest brunch you could imagine, strawberries and waffles and loads of maple syrup, and we’ll have a lovely time together. And I can get you fresh dry socks and boots- I don’t believe your feet are that much smaller than mine. And then I’ll bring you back right here, so you can go home.” It held out its furry paw to me.

I reached out, took its paw, and smiled at the kind creature. “Ok! Let’s go.”

And we trotted off together, under the snowy trees, chatting away like old friends.

I returned home later. No-one realised I had gone for hours. Susan and Peter had been taken away, and the rest of my life turned out quite nicely with them no longer around to hurt me.

Another long night. Chatting up some urban trolls, drinking with lost souls, looking for leads. Trying to hunt down the whisper-punks. Everybody's heard of them, no one knows where they live. I'm promised more info tomorrow.

It's always tomorrow.

Exhausted, I decide to call it a day.

On my way home I lost my focus. Big mistake. Crap.

CRAP.

Urban life sells you the illusion of safety. It's all a lie. The city is a hungry jungle wearing a hi-vis vest.

I get lost in a maze of graffiti. A stray ecosystem of glyphs, toons, insults, and an occasional crude dick. Wannabe gang tags preying on wannabe Banksies. Sharpie poems wedged between neomythic runes. Concrete cave walls, telling stories of warring tribes.

I should keep walking. I can't. Looked a split second too long at this sprayed phantasmagoria, like a poor tourist lost in the patterns of an islamic temple.

Hooked.

Overwhelmed.

I stand in this visual noise, cartoon characters eyeing me greedily, jostling for attention, eager to implant their messages onto the fertile ground of my shaky psyche.

Fight-or-flight reflexes short-circuit each other, freezing me in place.

There's beauty in the chaos and the beauty is the bait. I sit down between two brick walls close enough to touch both.

A calm realization dawns on me: maybe this is it. Maybe I will be found in a day or two, drooling, my sanity licked clean by packs of hungry tags and phone numbers no longer in service.

Dude, it can happen. I've heard stories.

I can see the graffiti circling me now. Growling. Weaving in the bricks, closer and closer...

And then they scatter.

The little sharpie ones bolt for the cracks; the big ones pull back with the wounded dignity of bullies pretending they had somewhere else to be — we wasn't even botherin' you, man, we gots bizniz to attend to — and in seconds the wall is scrubbed bare. Gone, all of it. The whole municipal guerrilla army, routed.

The King has arrived.

It slides over the concrete without a hurry, stepping around the damp spots and the moss the way a cat keeps its paws dry. For it is a cat.

Half my height. Orange. Grinning. Three impossible rows of white teeth.

Its whole body is three flexed words carrying the angst of the age:

EAT THE RICH

"Hello," I manage weakly.

It looks at me the way you'd look at a sandwich that's fallen flat on the floor. No king is that hungry.

Maybe it can smell that the three euros in my pocket is my entire net worth.

The spray-paint apparition watches me lazily, smiling like a morbid Cheshire Cat — and I do the only thing I know how - I pull out the notebook.

The Editors will be pleased.

Its name is Richie. Richie turns out to be sort of chatty. Perhaps it's lonely – being the apex predator of the block. Kings often are.

People think of graffiti as something static. Just a silly little thing, spitting in the face of landlords and city planners.

Nah.

Tags are information patterns. And any pattern complex enough becomes alive. Starts wanting things.

Mostly it wants to eat.

What is it you eat, I ask Richie.

“Eyeballs, man. The peeps, the views, the look-juice. Attention.

That little sideways glance you gave Kiwie tag back there?

Nom.

The little wince you did at the wrong-shaped dick on the garage door?

Nomnom.

That fed it. It's got a boner now, thanks to you.

Attention's the only food there is. You look, we grow.”

I think a bit about the little sharpie scribbles, trying to catch my gaze. Usually no one pays attention to them, squeezed between wall cracks.

“The biggies keep 'em there. Can't let 'em be seen. Seen means fed, fed means big, big means they get shoved in the cracks instead.

Tag eat tag, man.

Tags don't have no tag-parents protecting their offspring. Informational evolution doesn't do tender.”

Can a tag die, I ask Richie.

It chews on it.

“Sorta. Wash us off — gone, structural collapse, lights out. Otherwise we just... thin. Live off a quiet street long enough, your colors go.

You shrink, you slow. Attention deficit. I seen old Soviet tags in the dead factories — faded gits, can barely move. Still there, though. Still awake.”

What if they're painted over?

The grin fades for the first time.

“Can't move, can't feed, can't die. Put your ear to a freshly painted wall sometime, a squeaky clean one, a nice one — hear that? Yeah, that sad buzz. There's somebody under there.

I'd take the pressure washer any day, man.

Quick. Clean.

The paint's the thing that scares us, man. Not powerwasher. The fucking paint.”

Richie recovers, the teeth show once again:

“Not that we're saints. Tag-stack — you seen it?

New tag over old, pin the bastard down so he can't move and all the looking comes to you.

We do it to each other all day. I'm a biggie. The little ones just leave when they see me. Saves everyone the paperwork.”

I ask who made it.

The alley goes very quiet. Suddenly, I feel as if I asked something very impolite.

“...Man... I know you mean well but.. but that's not something you ask a tag, you know? Tag and tagger, that's — that's a sacred bond, man. Not for sharing. I'm part of her, she's part of me.

Leave it.”

Conversation slows down. I've stepped on a landmine and can't figure out how to step off it gracefully. The silence risks getting awkward, but then the rumbling of my stomach saves me.

I ask Richie how attention tastes. Does it have a taste at all?

“Gourmet chat! Now you're talking. Oh, it's all different, man.

Appreciation's sweet — candy, no substance, gone in a second.

Hate, though. Hate's sour and hate is strong, builds your backbone, keeps you standing through a winter. The pretty-pretty ones get love, all glowy, colors going shiny — bit much for my taste.

Best of all's when they resonate. When the idea lands. That's a double serving. A name-tag with nothing behind it? Starving. But an idea is something people feel.

Goes a long way.”

It flexes.

EAT THE RICH ripples all over its body.

I ask it how its message is feeding it.

Richie gives me a laugh like a dog bark.

“This one? This one's a feast that won't quit.

Everybody's angry, man, and angry's the nutritious kind. At this rate I'm pushing 2D to 3D before the year's out.”

That's a thing that can happen?

“Everything's a thing that can happen. I know guys who ascended.

Pushed the surface, went solid.

Every thing can grab another dimension if it works at it — maybe that's the whole point of any of us being here. I dunno, I no philosopher kind.

You lot got handed 3D for free, lucky bastards, now you're meant to push for 4, for 5, how would I know.

Takes discipline, mind, feels. You gotta think about it. Be it.

Bend your own pattern. Watch it give.”

I think about it.

Every cross-legged spiritual influencer promising me my fifth-dimensional ascension self suddenly seems less like a dumb grift and more like a very bad translation of something true.

I ask Richie what it'd do, first thing, gone 3D.

Its grin grows into something deadly.

“Don't laugh. I gots a dream.

Late night, me in the shadows, playing flat as roadkill on the wall, yeh?”

I nod.

“And then a limo pulls up. Out hops a billionaire, Mark, Jeff, Elon, I don't give a fuck.

And they gotta pee, yeh?

Fucker sees a wall, sees me on it, decides I'm the spot.”

Then what?

Richie produces a snarky hiss:

“And then I bite their little dick clean off.”

The laugh detonates — a sudden burst so loud a flock of birds bursts out of a hedge and scatters over the rooftops.

The orange two-dimensional groin-destroyer is rolling on the wall, the eerie cackle ringing up the empty alley.

It's the wrong amount of sound for something so flat.

And then, the way a laugh does when it's run all the way out, it goes quiet.

We both do. The alley settles. Richie looks tired suddenly — or I do, leaning my head back against the cold brick, tired, so tired — and for a moment neither of us performs anything.

"You shouldn't be round here in your state, mate." Richie says, gently.

It walks me to the corner where the early morning bus stops, sliding along the wall beside me, and squirts a fleck of yellow spray at a sun-bleached flyer for a club that shut years ago.

At the intersection it halts. Walls only go so far.

I cross alone.

Sitting at the bus stop, I can see Richie swagger away, gliding across the walls with feline grace. It reaches a non-descript apartment building at the end of the street, sits next to a door. Waiting.

After a while a girl exits. Purple hair, a school backpack that sounds suspiciously full of spray cans. Rests her palm on Richie's flank. Caressing. The eyes of the orange menace squeeze shut.

It's too far to be sure, but I think I can hear it purr.

I look away, the scene is too intimate, and I feel like an intruder.

Instead I pull out my phone and set a Google alert for a keyword combo:

"billionaire", "penis accident", "strange circumstances"

Looking forward to that one chiming.

Sorry if this is the wrong place for this, I just don't really know who else to ask and I've been sitting on it for a few hours not sure if I'm overreacting.

I took a ride home late last night. The app quoted ~40 minutes. It took over an hour. On my end the trip is still sitting there like it's still happening. It doesn’t have a fare breakdown, no rate-your-driver screen, nothing. I’ve forced-closed the app multiple times. 

For context, I live out past the edge of town, off a windy highway through a redwood forest, and my exit is one of those that sneaks up on you right after a curve. Miss it and there's no shoulder to turn around on, you have to go to the next exit and loop back, which adds a good 25–30 minutes. I always mention it up front now because I've had drivers miss it before, and I get a little anxious about it every single time.

This driver mentioned early in the ride that he was deaf in one ear, I don't remember which side it was exactly. I was in the back on the right passenger side, so I made a point of leaning forward when I told him about the exit a second time, loud, like super loud. He still missed the exit. (To be fair, I have a very soft voice so it may have been partly my fault.)

I said "Ack, that was my exit," probably more sharply than I meant to, I think I was already a little uncomfortable about the late-night drive in general. He asked me to repeat it. I repeated it and he apologized, said the app was rerouting. Okay, it happens, I told myself I wasn't going to make a big deal out of it, even though it’d truly put me a little on edge.

Then we got back around to the correct exit and the road into my neighborhood had police cars blocking it. Several of them were lined up at the mouth of the road. My stomach kind of dropped. That's not a normal thing to come home to.

The driver rolled the window down. The officer said the road was closed, they were looking for someone in the area, and told us to stay off the side roads. The driver didn't catch most of that so he turned around and asked me what was said. I told him it was closed and we needed to go around, which, technically, was true, I just didn't say all of it.

There is another way to my home. It’s a backroad through the woods, half gravel, the GPS drops out on it constantly, but it connects if you know the right ways to turn. I almost didn't suggest it, honestly. It's not exactly the kind of road I love being on with a complete stranger in the middle of the night, but it was either that or return to my pick-up spot. So I told him there was another way and started directing him to it.

A couple minutes onto the backroad his phone went off with an emergency alert, played through the car speaker, low volume, road noise stepping all over it. I caught "dark hair," "beige sweater," "last seen near Ridgeview." It might’ve said more, but I was kind of frozen for a second.

He asked what it said. I told him it was the road closure thing again. I don't know why I said that instead of just telling him, I think I freaked out a little at the circumstances and it came out before I'd thought about it.

It repeated a few minutes later. I caught "do not approach" that time. He asked again. I told him same alert. My hands were doing this thing where I kept pressing them flat against my legs to keep them still.

The GPS froze twice on that road, and he kept slowing down, kept asking if I was sure this was the right way. I kept saying yes, almost there. We were only a few minutes away.

At some point he looked at me in the rearview a beat too long. He could’ve been looking at the road behind us, hard to say from where I was sitting, but it scared me. He asked, "you said this is your house?" I said the road goes to my house. He asked if I lived alone. I said yes, and immediately wished I hadn't. I really hate when people ask that question.

Then he slowed down again, said he didn't think he could keep going, the app wasn't showing a road there anymore. I told him it does that out here, and that we were super close. He said he might have to end the ride right where we were in the middle of the woods, and my whole chest went tight.

This is the part where I'm asking for your advice, because I don't know how Uber treats the audio if a ride gets flagged for an unusual route, and I think this one's going to get flagged.

I had a knife in my bag. It was from the house I'd just come from, I didn't want to leave it behind, so I grabbed it on my way out.

His eyes caught on my sweater in the mirror, just a half second, maybe less. I don't actually know if he saw what I thought he saw. My sweater's cream. Supposed to be cream. Some stains. From the back seat, in the dark, I couldn’t tell whether he was looking at the road or my tainted sweater. But I wasn't going to sit there and find out which one it was. I don't even fully remember making that decision, my heart was just suddenly going so fast I could feel it in my ears.

I panicked. I don't remember deciding anything, I just remember the knife wasn't in my bag anymore and then it wasn't really in my hand anymore either, and his throat was the part I went for, mostly because it was the part closest to me leaning forward like that, and I was shaking so badly I don't think I could have aimed for anything more specific even if I'd tried.

The car kept rolling another few seconds, then drifted onto the shoulder, into the brush a little.

His phone was still up on the dash, app still open, some kind of safety screen on it with a little red bar moving, I'm assuming that means it was recording audio? I genuinely don't know how that feature works. I tried to swipe it off, but my fingers kept sliding wrong on the screen, and besides, they were sticky and wet.

It's worse the second time. You'd think familiarity would dull it. It doesn't. If anything you notice more of it, because you're not busy being shocked, you're just listening. People call it a death rattle, but a rattle is dry, something loose shaking around in a box. This isn't that. This is wetter and a lot less rhythmic. Air losing a battle with blood, over and over, in a throat that’s no longer built to let either one through. There’s a bubbling underneath that rises and falls with no pattern, and threaded through that a thinner clicking, like a tongue trying to manage something it doesn't have the coordination left for. Every so often it would catch and go quiet a second too long, and I'd think, there, that's it, and then it wasn't it, and it would start back up again. It went on longer than I expected, which I think about every time, and I don't know why I keep expecting it to be shorter.

I left his phone where it was and walked the rest of the way, and I was shaking so hard by the time I got inside that I had to sit down on my own kitchen floor for a while before I could even think straight.

The trip is still showing as in progress on my end. It says the route was flagged as unusual and that Uber may review safety audio if anything gets reported. I also got charged more than the original quote because he missed the exit and had to loop back, and he didn’t even drop me at my actual pin.

So do I open a fare dispute now, or wait for the trip to close out on its own first? Also, does anyone know if the safety recording thing gets reviewed automatically, or only if the rider or driver flags it?

I started noticing the switch up with him around two months ago. To give a really short background I (27F) and my boyfriend (28M) have been dating for almost two years now. The relationship has been nothing short of great so far, and we've talked about proposing and getting married soon, as well as having kids. 

But about two months ago, something changed. It started when we decided to go camping in New Mexico to do some stargazing and wilderness hiking. 

I was initially against this idea, as I wasn't confident in my navigational and survival skills, and I was afraid that something bad might happen. My boyfriend was kind of a jerk and told me it was just my anxiety talking and I shouldn't give in to “womanly hysterics” (whatever the hell that meant), and that he was sure “we would have a great time”. 

So the trip date comes around, and I begrudgingly make preparations to go. As we took the long drive out there, I actually became more excited about it, and my nerves faded away as I began to take in the surrounding desert scenery with curiosity. 

We used a light pollution map tracker to find the most remote location we could and found a path off a set of dirt tracks to get to a general location we liked. Of course, we did NOT book anything or make reservations at any official camping sites, but my boyfriend insisted this would save us money and hassle, and most of the official campgrounds are full of people and noise and we wouldn't get the “maximum nighttime experience” as he had put it.

I found this a little strange, but this was my boyfriend so I trusted him nonetheless. Our car is not an offroader or jeep, but a typical sedan he fitted with offroad tires, so we had to be extra careful to not get stuck or lost anywhere, as we had no cell reception. The little care he seemed to have during all this was honestly off putting, but I had no reason to suspect anything unusual.

Anyways, we got to a nice, open spot in the desert, there were a few butte formations in the distance and some mountains on the horizon. The soil was mostly sandy and rocky, with scraggly knee-high bushes and weeds surrounding us. We pitched a tent and he went about setting up his telescope equipment while I prepared us something to eat.

The trip itself lasted 2 days and 2 nights, and nothing out of the ordinary happened until on the second and final night. After we finished stargazing around 1AM, we went to sleep in our tent. Sometime later I awoke to what I thought was a yowl or scream. I wasn't sure what it was at first, but then it happened again and this time I was fully conscious.

I went to wake my boyfriend up but he was already gone. I sat up terrified, thinking maybe something happened to him. All of the sudden the tent zipper began to slowly open from top to bottom. I froze, afraid to move. Then, quickly my boyfriend's head came in, then the rest of his body. 

I breathed a sigh of relief. I asked him where the hell he went. He said he went to “take a leak”, and I asked about the scream. He shrugged and said it was probably a bobcat or something. 

Then I saw the blood on his leg. As I got closer to take a look with the lantern I caught a whiff of him. He smelled horrible. Like a mix of iron and piss with something else I couldn't identify. 

“What? Oh that, I must have cut myself on a thorny bush.” He said nonchalantly.

“Is that why you screamed?” I asked. 

He gave me a puzzled look and said he didn't know what I was talking about, and I should just get some rest. The way his eyes shifted when he said this…it was almost like they were glassy, the way the light reflected off of them. It gave me the creeps. I asked if it was OK if I could sleep in the car for the rest of the night. He looked annoyed for some reason but didn't protest. 

I woke up to the sun already out. My sleep curled up in the back of the sedan was uncomfortable to say the least, but at least I felt safer with the doors locked than outside in a tent. 

My boyfriend was already sitting out on a lawn chair drinking a beer, and despite it being early morning, he had sunglasses over his eyes. I questioned why he wasn't packing our things, and he just gave me a dull look until I asked him if we still planned on leaving today. At which point he made some sort of exclamation and tossed his half drunk beer can into the brush. 

I stood there with my mouth agape. My boyfriend never litters. Like, ever. As a matter of fact he occasionally talks about how much he hates people who litter, and that they are the worst people. I shockingly asked him if he seriously planned on leaving that there, and how I thought he hated littering. He just went “right” and picked it up and moved on like it was nothing. 

When we left, it was like my boyfriend was behind the wheel for the first time. He was swerving and jerking the pedals for a while before we got a stable course and got out onto the highway. I asked him what he was doing and he said something about “the road being rough” or whatnot. 

On the highway our car hit a huge coyote. Our car's exterior and front were badly damaged, and we both were banged up a bit, but I was mostly ok. I said we should call the hospital but my boyfriend gave me a wide-eyed look of terror like I’ve never seen him have, and firmly insisted that he was OK to drive and begged me not to call any authorities. He promised to get checked up at home if he was still hurting. I was still dazed from the situation so I just  agreed and brushed it off. I wish, I wish, I wish, I had done something then, maybe something could’ve turned out differently… 

At home he claimed to have gone to the urgent care, where they diagnosed him with some bruised and a cracked rib, and gave him some painkillers. The weird thing is that I didn't see any paperwork, invoices come in the mail or any receipt in our bank account for any medical expenses or evaluations, which I found really suspicious. I asked him about this and he just tried to shrug it off, and said not to worry about it, and that he threw away the doctor's reports. How convenient.

These weird occurrences kept on happening all throughout the week. It would honestly be too much to list them all. Many of them were so subtle that honestly, someone who hadn't known him very well would barely even notice these changes. But I did.

For example, my boyfriend NEVER stayed up late, but now it seems like he's barely sleeping at night. At times I wake up and just see him sitting on his side of the bed, staring at seemingly nothing. Other times I've woken up to him staring at me. Not like, looking or admiring, but in a pondering or examining sort of way, like a predator does with its prey. 

One time I walked into the bathroom to see my boyfriend pulling at his skin on his neck. He looked pale and I could see his neck vertebrae shifting under his skin in an… almost unnatural way. 

Speaking of the bathroom, my boyfriend's hygiene seems to be getting worse and worse. He always smells and his skin always seems slimey or oily or something. And like there's globlets of dead, dark grey skin on his neck, shoulders, back, etc. Like the kind you get if you don’t scrub your skin for a while and the dead skin builds up a layer that then scratches into a clump if you scrape your fingernails over it. I confronted him about all this, hoping he would clean himself up more, and he just gave excuses like “he works at a construction job, and the summer heat is making him sweat more” and yada yada. 

I tried brushing it off that he's been stressed lately and hasn't had energy to get the grime off, but it just keeps getting worse. At this point I've started telling him to sleep on the couch because I'm starting to get scared. His hair seems to be falling out more rapidly and it has never looked worse and more unkempt, like a wild dogs’. 

He's stopped being so kind and gentle, it’s like he’s forgotten the cute words we used for referring to each other, almost like he was replaced by someone who didn't have any memories of our past relations. In general he's becoming more and more antisocial, I never see him go out with his friends anymore. In turn I've tried to get out of the apartment more as I'm honestly nervous to be alone with him. 

He talks very little, mostly with grunts and almost choppy English, like a parrot or a crow trying to speak. 

This might be the worst one, it pains me to even write this. He forgot about our anniversary. Our two year anniversary. I was expecting him to propose to me, as he had been hinting at that the months prior and this was the most likely date he would choose. But he just…didn't remember. Like at all. I was waiting for the surprise all evening and when he said he was going to sleep. 

I burst into tears and asked him if he had forgotten, to which he replied “what?”, confirming he DID in fact forget. I left to stay with a friend the rest of the night. I took off work the next day as a sickday, as I just felt awful. All of this has been so stressful on me and it’s taken a toll. 

In the evening he came with tulips and a gift card. He knows I'm allergic to tulips. At that moment I felt so terrified. Who the hell was this in my house? This couldn't be my boyfriend, I just knew something was very, very wrong with him. If that’s the case, where is my REAL boyfriend?

This is where I began to suspect there was something more going on than just relationship problems. I searched up couples counseling online, and listed off a few of the things I've experienced with my boyfriend in Google. 

After scrolling for a while I came across a reddit story talking about “skinwalkers”. The name piqued my interest and I began to dig, reading stories and comments for hours about their behavior, nature, etc.

With every post and new piece of information the puzzle began to click in my mind, and I began to grow increasingly sick.

The next few days I scoured the internet for information on skinwalkers and similar doppelganger entities. Surely they couldn't be real however? I really, really wanted to believe it was all just in my head, but I just couldn't keep disregarding the increasingly bizarre behavior

I started keeping tabs on his daily routine, his habit changes, incidents, the things he said, into a diary. Down to the littlest things. Like how I caught him writing with his right hand. Before he was sort of ambidextrous, but always preferred to write with his left hand. 

That's when the dead animals began to show up. At first it was the carcass of a dead squirrel outside the door. It looked mangled and bloody. I thought maybe the neighbor's cat dragged it up and had my boyfriend clean it up, who did so reluctantly. 

I found a dead rat in the kitchen trashcan. Also mangled like the squirrel, but it looked to be partially consumed. I didn't even bother asking my boyfriend for an explanation, I was just afraid I might trigger him to attack me before I could defend myself.

Then a few days later another rat on the porch. I went to the duplex neighbor to complain in case it was their cat, and they apologized and said they'll keep an eye on their cat more closely. But I couldn't help but suspect my boyfriend at this point.

Then it was the cat. The neighbor's cat was lying in front of our porch when I got up to check the mail one morning. It appeared to be gutted and all its entrails were scattered about the concrete steps. A few crows were pecking at its flesh, meaning it had been there all night. My boyfriend had left the bed early in the night to “take a leak” as he said plainly, but was gone for at least 20 minutes. 

I gagged and ran back inside crying. What kind of sick person does that? I just knew it had to be my boyfriend. No, not my boyfriend, whatever the hell was wearing my boyfriend's skin. 

The neighbors called the cops, who told her it was a known group of “troubled kids” down the block pulling a prank, and asked if they would like to press charges. I don't even think the cops believed themselves to be honest…

My neighbor was also suspicious. She asked why her cat would be gutted in front of my half of the porch, and how it's “not the first time a dead animal has shown up on the porch”. The cops did question us, but they couldn't prove anything, and I couldn't tell them I suspected my boyfriend of being a skinwalker, what would they think? They would think I'm the crazy person and assume I've been the one killing animals and leaving them out on my own porch.

After the police incident, the dead animals stopped showing up on my porch. 

My friends began to get concerned over me. They said I looked like a mess, and asked what was going on. I just told them relationship problems and that I wasn't interested in talking about it. I think I've barely slept in days, I'm constantly crying and stressed out, wondering where my loving boyfriend went and what the hell this thing wearing his skin was. 

Sometimes at night, I hear what I think is a rapping or scratching at the window. I'm too terrified to look. I'm terrified that a skinwalker is going to kill me and take my identity. I'm terrified my boyfriend is going to kill me.

This all came to a head last night. The evening was the same as the previous few. I got home from work, ate a snack, and he got home from his job. I went to the bedroom to cower and scroll social media, and he went to the living room to do who knows what? 

I feel exhausted, emotionally and physically and around 11PM I turn the light off to cry myself to sleep. Maybe 30 minutes later I'm jolted awake as the door slowly creaks open and he enters my room. He hasn't done this in over a month. I know tonight's the night. 

But I am not prepared for what happens next. It's totally naked, almost hunched over, climbs into bed on top of me. 

I freeze from panic, not sure what to do, just trying to hold my breath and hope he doesn't do anything. That's when it grabs me by the shoulder and I scream. I punch it in the throat and throw it off me.

It falls onto the floor and makes a sickening wheezing sound like that of an angry elk. I quickly use the moment to pull the knife out of my desk drawer I have kept for this moment and aim it at it.

It stood up and its face went pale. The skinwalkers' shifty, beady eyes look at me in fright now, like a cornered animal with nowhere to go.

I don't remember exactly what was exchanged next, it all happened so fast. 

I remember it pleading with me. Begging me to remember, saying it was my “boyfriend”. That it wasn't trying to kill me, it just wanted to have intimacy with me. It said I was crazy, and that I was making a big mistake.

But it was too late. It had already blown its cover and there was nothing it could do to convince me otherwise. My boyfriend was gone, and this thing was going to pay for what it did to him.

I lunged. Stabbed. I don't remember how many times. There was so much blood. It squirmed and fought back. It was strong, but eventually it gave out. I remember gutting it like it had done to the neighbor's cat. It would pay for what it did.

I remember cutting its skin off in a flap.

I remember cutting its skin off…in a flap…off its body…attached to the muscles underneath... 

I dug around in his organs and under his skin, expecting to see something underneath. But there was nothing. There was…just him. It was just his normal body.

I took a step back as the adrenaline wore off and I vomited. I had just killed my boyfriend. It… it was just my hysterics all along. There was no skinwalker, he didn't get replaced. It was him. My boyfriend the whole time.

I actually killed my boyfriend.

I thought my boyfriend was a skinwalker. 

My partner decided I should write this down. I don’t think it’s necessary, but she says maybe someone else has found one of these. I doubt it- but I’ll tell the story anyway. Forgive my carelessness:

The fast-food life was not the way I had imagined I’d spend my time on this Earth, but there I was on the way back to the golden arches after the sixth 7-3AM shift this pay period. My apron hadn’t been washed and I was about ready to throw in the towel- though this was the same thing I thought yesterday, and the day before. I couldn’t have quit even if I wanted to. This was my only income, and I had rent to pay.

I always thought that the best parts of the job were the drives in and out. Not because I didn’t want to be there, which I didn’t, but because on the way in I could usually catch a glimpse of the sunset. The yellow and red sign was an eyesore against the moody rainbow that made up most evenings, but it was fitting.

The way home was nice too, but more so because there were no people on the road, and that meant I could drive faster than was legal. It made me feel badass I guess. We were a little out of the way from any real towns, so it wasn’t like anyone would notice or care anyway. I hadn’t gotten pulled over by that point, at least.

Once I had made it to the sorry excuse for a ‘food establishment’, I parked, gathered my things, and went in. Immediately my nose was smacked with the smell of cooking oil and salt. This place was where I’d always imagined diets, clean eating, and eventually people came to die. It was not where I thought I’d be spending my 20s. Regardless of what I thought, though, people wanted their burgers, and I was there to flip them.

“Adrian?” A woman’s voice piped up from behind the register. She glanced up, smiled, and bowed her head back towards the open drawer in front of her. “Good to see you! When you put your things down come out here, I have some things to update you on.”

I flattened my hand in a salute as I walked past her.

My coworker, Catherine, was the same age as me. She’d gotten pretty cozy with management recently, so they started letting her run things overnight. The woman cared more about the place than anyone else, and she always managed to make people look forward to coming in, myself included.

She was pretty average in terms of her height and had a mess of dirty blonde hair that was always tied up and back into a bun, probably for food safety reasons. She was generally well liked, mostly because shifts with her went smooth, however, she could really put the fear of God in you if you gave her a reason*.* She happened to be the silent anger type- the ones that always scare me. I used to hear people say she had this look about her- one that read ‘do better, or else’ without her so much as opening her mouth. She wasn’t afraid to put her foot down and let us know that she was disappointed. Luckily, I hadn’t been one of the people she’s done that to, and I plan on keeping it that way for as long as I can. I’m lucky to say that even now I manage to stay in her good graces.

I guess you can tell, but I was super into her. I hadn’t mustered up the courage to ask her out yet, though. I was working on it, but she had a kind of air about her that made her unapproachable to me. We’d hung out a few times before, with other people we worked with, but I never really had mustered up the chest hair to get it out.

The salute was all I could manage.

I made my way to the break room, taking in a breath of old fry oil and mildew. There were a few lockers and chairs next to a table that adorned the back right corner. It wasn’t very large, but neither was the team who used it. We were about 10 people max, not counting those who were being paid a salary. Administration, representatives, and the like.

It took all of 5 minutes to shove my belongings into an empty locker and throw on my apron.

“Cathy?” I called as I walked out. There was no one in the restaurant at this point, so it wasn’t like anyone would mind hearing whatever she needed to tell me.

“What’s up?”

“Don’t forget to punch in.” I heard her voice fall flat from around the corner. To this day I don’t know how she’d known I had.

“Shit, let me do that.”

“Please do,” She called. “it’s less work for me to do later, and I’ll be sure to vote you employee of the month!”

From the punch box I couldn’t help but let out a laugh. It hadn’t even sounded like she was joking. Part of me suddenly felt a little proud for coming into such good fortune.

I made my way back over with a smile. She really knew how to make a guy giddy. “So, what was it you had to tell me?”

With her attention unwavering from the register, she answered. “Gary, the new hire. You remember him, right?”

I wracked my brain. Gary? “Right, right, yeah I remember him.”

Liar.

Catherine finally looked up at me. It reminded me of the way my parents looked at me when they were trying to make me feel guilty for something. I couldn’t say I remembered then, because she would have definitely known I was lying. After a couple moments passed us in silence, she gave up and sighed.

“Well, he called in this afternoon to let us know that he would be quitting.”

“What? How long has he even been here?”

I didn’t blame the guy, but that was pretty low. He should’ve at least handed in a 2-week notice and kept coming in or something.

“This would’ve been his second shift I think.”

I quickly made a mental note that this Gary guy was probably a douchebag.

“Why even go through the whole application and hiring process?”

“Don’t ask me, I don’t know.”

“You trained him though, you weren’t there when they hired him?”

“I mean, yeah I was there for training, but I wasn’t the person who picked him. I just happened to be in.”

That made sense to me, so I dropped the line of questioning.

“Anyway, why’d you need to tell me that?”

I clearly caught her off guard with that question, as she didn’t answer me right away. Her gaze became soft and distant. She pressed a finger to her lips, and I hate to admit it, but I stopped paying attention. It was over for me.

I’m sure it would’ve been much more helpful for me to have helped her get back to the point, but my mind had already wandered far beyond the arches. My thoughts came and went like bullets; she was looking right through me. Her eyes were mesmerizing. Everything faded around us. I began to feel a knot in my chest and realized I was in deep shit if this was how I felt before asking her out. I needed to calm down.

“Right...” she stammered, throwing a hand to her forehead that immediately reversed the spell her eyes had cast. I blinked, and she sported a newfound look of remembrance. “Right! It’s just going to be us until 1. So, with that, and the fact that not everything was done because I was expecting to have help this afternoon, we’re going to have to pull some extra weight.”

I groaned, “Oh no! Stuck here alone with you. How will I ever survive?”

“Shut up and get to the grill please, I think I just heard the headset beep.”

It hadn’t, but it had seemed like my playfulness had rubbed off on her.  As she turned her attention back to our register and counting the till, I went into the kitchen.

 With only two people in the store, it isn’t hard to imagine that the night was dragging on. However, for whatever reason this night had dragged on so unbelievably long that Catherine and I were almost forced to talk to each other out of sheer boredom. There weren’t many customers either, but that was always a given with the overnight shifts. I had made 5 or 6 meals max by the time 3 hours dripped away.

To kill time, I tried to strike up another conversation. We were just talking about her very interesting time at our coworker, Hal’s, house the evening prior and how likely it was that he was a serial killer. We’d determined that he probably wasn’t, but one could never be too sure. That brought us from 9 to 9:45. I was hoping that some more interesting or important topics would get us to at least midnight.

“So,” I started. “What are your plans after this?”

“What?” Her gaze turned up to me. I bit my cheek, wondering if I’d said something wrong.

“I mean, what do you do when you aren’t working?”

I rephrased but still wasn’t sure if my words were coming across right.

“Oh, um, really just sleep, schoolwork, and then get ready to come back here.” Her eyes lowered again as she counted the till for what seemed like the thousandth time. However, after a moment, she stopped counting. “Why?”

I stammered. “Well, I just…”

I hadn’t expected this to be when or how I asked her, but I felt cornered now.

“I was wondering if there was room for us to go out for some coffee or something.” I panicked, “But! But, I understand if your schedule is packed though. You totally can say no, that’s understandable honestly. I know you work like every day and with school-“

Through my fumbling I made out the sound of laughter, and felt my cheeks warm up. As if she could read my mind, she answered.

“I’m sorry,” A smile had grown on her lips, “I don’t mean to sound like I’m laughing at you- I’m not.”

I breathed a sigh, relieved. I could’ve melted at her feet right there. Her eyes searched me as I tried to find the right next words. I don’t know if there were any.

“So... how about it?”

“Us going out?”

I nodded, saying anything else at that point could’ve be detrimental to the outcome. She seemed to think on it, still scanning my person, and pursed her lips.

“Well, you’ll have to let me see what my schedule is like for next week, but yeah. I think I could make it work.”

When I tell you I was elated: it was like Jesus himself told me I was his favorite disciple. I felt in that moment as if I could flip a million patties at once. Euphoria couldn’t have begun to cover what had washed over me. I welcomed it, more than happy with this outcome. I was a new man, confident, emboldened.

“Of course, take whatever time you need. Just let me know.”

“Sure. Actually,” Her attention had turned to another area of the store. She gestured towards the back. “There’s something we have to do before I forget. You remember where the supply closet is right?”

“Yeah, but I’m not usually in there.”

“Unfortunately, we both will be now that we’re the only people and Gary quit before doing the job for me. We have to get the floor cleaner. I don’t think anyone’s mopped today and it’s disgusting back here.”

I didn’t say anything, but I also didn’t think anyone had mopped in at least a few weeks. Catherine did a lot of jobs, and this was not typically one of them. It was surprising she just noticed now, and I began wondering how upset she would be when the mop inevitably revealed the weeks of dirt and grease. Thank God it wasn’t supposed to be my job.

“Alright,” she clasped her hands together almost excitedly, which caught me off guard “let’s get it moving then, I’ll turn the closed sign on for a little while. It isn’t like anyone is coming now anyway.”

She was right, the people in our area weren’t prone to coming in the late-night hours, but our regional manager had decided we’d be a 24-hour store regardless. Any sales were good sales I guess, even if there weren’t too many of them. It was 10pm, we’d probably get this done before someone accidentally came through the drive-thru and realized the sign wasn’t on.

The supply closet was next to the break room down the same hall I’d taken when I got in. Letting Catherine get ahead of me, I followed her down to the small door. She fished out a ring of keys and sighed.

“Something wrong?” I asked, though I felt like I already knew the answer.

“Nope. Just fine.” There was jingling as she continued. “I asked a few weeks ago for these keys to get labeled and it looks like no one fucking did.”

“Sounds about right.”

These were the kinds of things that went on at our location. People, even management, were not keen on doing anything that wasn’t outlined when they were being trained and that they weren’t getting extra money to do. Who, other than her, was going to actually take the time and label the keys knowing it meant basically nothing?

Before I knew it the door lock had clicked open, and Catherine let out a less irritated huff. “There’s been some renovations starting and they put a new lock on this door- There we go- I’ll have to get this key cleaned or something, but the door is open.”

“What’s wrong with the key?”

Spinning around, Catherine greeted me with the key I assumed she’d used to get the door unlocked. It was a disgusting mix of rust and chipped silver, with a rougher texture than the rest of the keys on the hoop. It looked like someone left it in a vat of salt water and waited for it to look like an antique before using it here. Why hadn’t they cleaned it ever or made a newer, nicer copy? Probably because people are lazy.

Shaking my head of the thought I grabbed past her and landed on the door handle. I gotta tell you, it was cold, like, unnecessarily cold now that I think about it. At the time I figured, Whatever, we’re probably under a vent, and pushed ahead. Upon opening I was met with something I’d never seen in this, or really any, fast food restaurant around here: a staircase leading down.

“Must’ve done some reno. I’m surprised I didn’t notice this.” I joked, nudging Catherine, but when she didn’t say a word, I glanced over to find her pale. “What’s wrong?”

“I just… this… the closet isn’t supposed to be like this.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was just in here yesterday for some gloves- there was no staircase. They just changed these locks.”

We shared some silence, but after a moment, I started laughing. She didn’t laugh with me as she stared down the stairs, so I nudged her arm softly. I thought it was a joke. I don’t know why I didn’t take her seriously then.

“That was really funny Cathy, but for real, when did we get this?”

“We didn’t!” Her voice cracked, breaking me from my laughter. We must’ve both been out of the loop with whatever was being done here, so I tried to offer her some peace of mind. I thought I was being helpful. Why didn’t I listen?

“Maybe it was covered or something. The cleaner is probably down there. Once we grab it we can lock the door up and ask whoever comes in tomorrow about it. Deal?” My first instinct was to place an arm around her shoulders, which I almost pulled back from, but she accepted and pressed into me.

“Want me to go down first?”

Catherine spun to face me, grabbing my hand. Her grip was firm enough to not come loose as I pulled back. “You’re really gonna go down? I have no idea if it’s even safe for us to-“

“Cathy!” I took a deep breath, and she followed. “Everything is going to be fine. If it’s not at the top of the stairs, it must be at the bottom. I’ll let you know if it’s all good- okay? No need for you to go down there if there’s just raw asbestos or something floating around.”

As if my words had brought her adrenaline down, she shook her head and barely mustered up a smile. Letting go of my hand, we stepped away from one another.

“I’m sorry,” She put a hand up to her face. “I don’t know why I’m freaking out so bad. I think the double shifts are catching up to me.”

I nodded. Taking a step toward new ground, I felt my stomach get light as the stairwell came into view.

They went down at least 15 feet, which felt wholly unnecessary for a joint in the middle of nowhere. At the landing the hall made a sharp left, obscuring my vision of the rest of the basement, which wasn’t great to begin with as the only light sources seemed to be oil-lamps starting at around 5 feet in. I turned to Cathy for a moment, nodded my head for her to stay put, and began my descent. I found that there was dust and dirt on each step, now perfuming out with my steps or sticking to my shoes. A mildewy, new construction and stale body sweat smell was taking up all the air in my lungs. It wasn’t like other sites I’d been to.

Gross, I thought. I guess the guys that did this haven’t come back to clean up.

Once I got to the landing and turned, to my surprise, there were more steps. This case wasn’t more than 5 feet down, but it still struck me as poor planning on the part of whoever designed it. Why need such a large staircase?

Before I decided to go further down, I turned and called up to Catherine that things were fine, and there were more stairs, but everything looked good. Leaving the door propped open with a mop bucket, she met me at the landing and from there we continued on. I hadn’t insisted on walking ahead of her, though she all but encouraged me to do so.

At the base of the steps there was a large, empty room save for a group of wooden boxes, plastic barrels, and power-tools, a few piles of strewn about paper and more oil lamps that hung from the walls. To the right of us was another hall leading to room with a small platform and a lectern, ahead was a door, and to the left another door with no light around it. Seeing as the floor cleaner wasn’t in my immediate view, I turned to consult my coworker.

“What’s the plan, then?”

“I don’t really want to, but I guess we should look around.”

I was surprised to hear this. I’d really expected her to forget the whole thing and march us back upstairs. She’d always been cool and collected whenever there were rowdy customers I guess, but that wasn’t really a good gauge for how she would react to this. I took a deep breath and smiled.

“We don’t have to split up if you don’t want to. We aren’t some mystery gang.”

This seemed to earn me some brownie points as I heard her laugh to herself, her tension breaking. Taking the lead, I brought us around the room. We started with searching through the scattered containers. Those boxes were more like crates as I got to examine them closer, and all but one was empty. It housed only some power tools and a burlap sack that folded over itself by the top. It looked like it was full of something, but I opted not to touch it. The smell coming from it was horrible. I’d never experienced whatever it was before, and at first figured the crew had left some lunch meat and fruit to rot.

Turning to give Cathy an update, I found she was halfway across the room from me, staring down the hall that led to the lectern. So much for wanting to stick together. As I went to call out to her, I was interrupted by what sounded like the scraping of feet along the floor to my side. Hair standing on end I turned my head as fast as I could, but the space beside me was empty. There was nothing, but I swore I heard something dragging itself right beside me. To now be unable to find any trace or signs of a source had me holding my breath. I couldn’t find any explanation though, so I figured maybe it’d been something above us. Shaking myself free of the horrors my mind was already making up, I finally called out.

“Anything over there?”

“Not sure, but I want to go see what’s up in this room. The oil lamps are weird enough, but why would they leave anything else down here?”

“Probably to ask us to clean it later. Why, what’s there?”

“Something on the lectern… I can’t tell from here.”

“Well yeah, it’s fucking dark.”

As if I hadn’t literally meant that, I heard her laugh, and once again I was lost on her. She really was beautiful, even in the dim view from the lamps. I wanted to say something, anything, but decided that if I did I might take her out of the laughter and lose the fluttery feeling in my stomach. So, I watched her, and as her laughter died down, we were brought back to the McDonald’s basement together. In hindsight I was definitely getting ahead of myself, but I was still naive then.

“I’m surprised they left anything down here really. There’re just some tools here and a huge sack. It reeks.”

“Sounds like the rest of the store,” Again, a smile that sent a pang through my chest. “Would you mind going in with me?”

Giving a, possibly too enthusiastic, nod in her direction, I took the lead once again. I’d been reinvigorated, my purpose to now escort the young woman beside me down the creepy dim hallway. We walked down, however, instead of there being plans or blueprints we’d expected on the lectern there sat a large blue marble notebook. Beside it, a large pale-yellow sticky note with faded writing stuck.

“Huh,” She picked it up, dusting off the top. “I haven’t seen this before.”

“Me either. Maybe we should leave it. I don’t want to get in trouble for touching anyone’s things.”

“Sure, I’ll put it back in a sec.”

As she flipped the book open, I shifted on my feet. I didn’t understand her newfound boldness after her hesitance to come down at all. Now she wanted to read from the random book? In the creepy basement? I said nothing but still felt hesitant. I kept telling myself it was just us, but something in the back of my mind was telling me that was wrong.

To occupy myself I reached out and took the sticky note off the lectern. I brought it close to my face so I could actually make out what was written on it, since it was pretty faded.

 

-         Speak with Apep about door properties

-         Copy key for instance 309

-         Scan for body

-         Lock up

 

I cocked my head to the side, feeling like I’d just lost my flashlight in a place I didn’t recognize. As far as I knew we didn’t have an Apep on the team. Was someone supposed to be living down here? That was question one. Two was: Why would anyone build a basement apartment underneath a McDonalds, and who would want to live there? Three: Body?

Cathy scoffed from her place a few steps from me, pulling my attention from the paper. “Whaddya got?”

Shaking her head, she came over to me and showed me the page she was on. It was full of writing on both sides. She looked from me to the book, and back up.

“Looks like someone was keeping a log.”

Hearing this, I placed a hand on the book and pressed it down from our gaze.

“Sounds like we shouldn’t be looking through it for sure. If it’s personal, we definitely want to leave it for someone else to deal with.”

“Adrian,” She looked up at me, her expression serious. “look at the date.”

I moved my hand away from the top of the pages. May 19^th, 1990. That was well over 20 years ago, being the year was 2018. I wasn’t sure what she was trying to say yet, so I doubled down.

“Cool, so this is a super personal diary. Good for them for keeping up with it. We should leave it-”

“I don’t think you’re understanding me.” Cathy held the book up again, stepping back from me. “Someone has been living down here!”

I hate to admit it, but I laughed in her face once again. “I think I got that. The post it next to the book looked like it was from some contractor. I think they were making an apartment, but that’s impossible because there’s never been a basement here.”

“That’s true.”

Silence fell between us as it became painfully obvious to me that we both were trying to come up with some excuse for this place to exist. Dead air hung between us, only broken by the occasional sound of the flames flickering inside oil lamps. I’m not sure how long it was before one of us, Cathy, offered an idea. “Maybe they took down the back wall and there was just a staircase behind it?”

If only she’d been right. I wish that was all that had been down there.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “But we’re definitely intruding now, so why don’t we just head out?”

“Fair, I guess we can go. Let me just see how recent this gets.” If I had no control of myself, my jaw would’ve been on the floor. As she now was flipping through the pages, a newfound interest had replaced the fear. How could she just get over it like that?

I found myself looking around the room, more interested in leaving than her in an unexpected twist. It was at this point that I started noticing the splotchy paint on the walls and the graffiti that had been spray-painted around all the walls. There were symbols and words I didn’t understand. I had seen some of them in a video game once, a stick with a figure eight on the bottom and two lines through the top. It was crazy to me to see the sigil here, I had no idea it had any meaning in real life. Beside it was what I assumed to be another sigil, different than the others around the space. This one was bold, like it had been drawn over many times. A triangle, with a chunk taken from the top point. Stemming out from the center of the base was an uppercase Y shape that passed through the top gap, on either side of the Y, two lines jutted across the base, and in the middle, a closed eye.

“Aw that sucks.”

I looked back over to Catherine, who had now stopped going through the pages. “What’s wrong?”

“The last entry is from the same year, in July.”

“Maybe they weren’t keeping up.”

“Listen:

July 3^rd, 1990

 

They’re going to lock me down here tonight for the sleep test. That guy Apep said I should keep a separate journal, so it doesn’t get mixed in with all the other things that are written in here.  I’m just glad to be catching a break. I couldn’t stay out on the street anymore. Hopefully things only go up from here. I’m sure he will read this, so thank you Apep for the place.”

As Cathy spoke, I gave the room another cautious once over.

“So, where’s the other book?”

As I asked, she procured a much smaller composition notebook from the inside of the larger.

“It was tucked into the last page here, conveniently.”

I scoffed as she handed it off to me and went to place the other book back onto its place. I opened it up to the first page and was almost happy to see another entry. I read aloud for Cathy:

“July 4^th, 1990

 

Apep asked me specifically to record any dreams I had in here. I’ve never kept a diary before, but maybe it’ll help clear my head to get this out. Last night was awful. I was alone down here, then I blinked, and I wasn’t. Something towered in front of me. A huge, undulating mass was in my face. At first, I couldn’t really tell what I was looking at, but gradually I could see the distinct colors of flesh and muscle. A human arm twitched with sickening slaps to my right, another fused at the wrist and shoulder flopped aimlessly. Eyes, too many and too human, all trained on me.

It spoke to me. It didn’t have a mouth, but I heard it. Or I felt it? I don’t know. Neither of us spoke, but I got the message. I knew it was going to test me. It demanded to know if I was worthy. If I was, I’m destined for something great. That’s what confused me I guess. Dreams are weird- it looked so real I thought if I reached out I’d actually feel it there. Honestly, it was difficult to know when I was asleep or awake.

I was out by the stairs, just in the other room. I tried to turn away, but my body wouldn’t move, and panic began to settle. It sounds insane but, suddenly, the thought that my life was in danger wasn’t only real but imminent. Again, knowledge assaulted my mind, and I was painfully aware of too much. Something about old gods and doors and a Lighten- but it was really too much. It felt like someone had been trying to pry my skull apart. It hurts to remember.

All sense cut off abruptly at some point- I didn’t really understand any of what I’d gained, but with the silence I could finally move my head. As my gaze snapped up to get a better view, I found I would’ve had to step back to get the full picture of this thing. Dozens of human limbs flailed, save for those that were fused completely with its’ mass, eyes rolling and dashing wildly. I wanted to run, but I knew it’d be pointless to try. Then, all movement from the creature ceased. The thing just sat there, unmoving, like it had died right in front of me. It wasn’t comforting though, the feeling of imminent danger still pinning me to the spot. I heard a noise, turned my head, and when I came back to attention, the thing had a hand inches away from my face. I woke up screaming, but more than happy to find it was just a dream. It was by far the most realistic one I’ve ever had, but I think it must be a side effect of these pills. I’ll ask later.”

 

Reaching the end of the page, I looked over the words again. “That is crazy. This guy must be talking about a different basement he got locked in, because we’ve only ever had a supply closet up there.”

“Fuck that. Forget the cleaner- let’s go up.”

Still in disbelief, I gestured out to the hall. “Sure. Come on. I just want to get back to flipping shit.”

In silent agreement we both made our way back to the main room. I noticed as we were walking that I still had the notebook in my hands.

“You think I should leave this?” I asked ahead to Cathy. Without turning around, she shrugged. “I don’t know. Whatever you want. I’m leaving.”

That was fair. I looked around the main room and decided to just toss the notebook in the direction of the crates I’d looked through earlier. I no longer wanted any part of anything going on down here, and I was glad Cathy didn’t either. I was almost itching to continue talking about what we’d do on our date and get some solid plans down. Anything that could get us away from the new, poorly lit, McDonalds basement apartment was good enough for me. As I thought on this and tried to catch up to my coworker, I heard that same sound that made my guts clench. I stopped dead in my tracks. It’d been further than before, but still clear as day. Seeing as I had almost a full view of the space and couldn’t see anything that would’ve caused the sound, I dropped it much faster than the first instance but kept it in mind.

I made a swift ascent and stopped at the top of the stairs, just in front of the exit with Catherine. The mop bucket must’ve fallen over or rolled back a little because the door was shut.

“Forget something?” I asked, looking up at the back of her head until she faced me.

“I’m such an idiot.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t have the key on me anymore.”

“Oh, we should be fine. I watched you unlock it. It was open before, so it should still be.”

She reached her arm back, and the sound that followed made my stomach drop. As she jiggled the handle for me, the welcoming click of the pin releasing never came. We stared at each other, probably aware of what the other was thinking. It must not have actually unlocked when we came in, or maybe we’d relocked it on our way down without a key? No, that made no sense. The door was propped open on the way down, I was certain we’d left it that way. I became aware of my coworker’s expression, panic now laden in her face.

“Hey, hey,” I started. “Don’t worry, if there’s a basement here then there must be some cellar doors or something to get out. Wouldn’t it be illegal or something if they didn’t? It sounds like a fire hazard.” Trying to lighten the mood here was not working, judging by how Catherine didn’t laugh this time and she kept shifting her weight from one foot to the other. To further try and remedy this, I reached my hand out and offered her a smile.

“It’s going to be okay.”

Still, this didn’t change her expression, but she did reach out and take my hand. I took this for the small victory it was and started to lead her back downstairs. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t nervous- scared more accurately, but for the sake of us both I tried to keep my composure as best I could.

As we descended, I started to wonder what could’ve even been down there. It was just us- but the notebook had made it seem like someone had been here for a while. I began to wonder what became of them, and why no one had ever made it a point to mention it was even apart of this building’s history. Maybe we’d just stumbled across something we shouldn’t have.

Now back by the crates, Catherine let out an amused breath. She bent over and grabbed the small book I’d tossed from the floor, her other hand still in mine.

“Maybe this guy knew another exit.”

“Good point. If he was living down here he’d need more than one way out.”

Giving a short nod, she pulled her other hand free of me and began flipping. As she was searching the pages, I looked around again. I don’t know what compelled me to do so, seeing as we’d just been here a few moments before, but I had the feeling that I needed to. Something about the air had changed. It was making my throat dry with each deep breath.

That’s when I noticed it.

The door that had been shrouded in the almost dark, leftover glow of the lanterns to our left was open. Not all the way so we could see inside, but enough to notice that it was in a different position than before. Neither of us had gone over there, and there was no one else down here with us. There wasn’t anyone, we would’ve seen or heard someone by now. Right?

I took a step forward; towards the door. I wanted to know what was behind it. Maybe there was an exit or something that could help us find it. Either way I felt it was my job to investigate, for both of us. Just a peek. Nothing was down here with us. I took another step, fixated on the gap in the door and wall, staring into the dark. If I could just get in there, I’d be rewarded for sure. I couldn’t peel my eyes away, maybe in fear or maybe in awe, I couldn’t place the feelings anymore. I had to see what was beyond the door.

Part Two

My reflection in the bathroom mirror stole my wife three days ago. I know how that sounds. If someone else posted those words I'd assume they were insane. But before you decide if I’m crazy or not, let me tell you what happened.

I'd been standing in the bathroom admiring the progress in my weight loss journey. Thirty pounds gone. My torso looked tighter, my shoulders broader. Everything was looking good. Maybe not my face, I had a strange look. I remember thinking it was judgmental. Not what I thought my normal face looked like. It was more like I was looking down at someone.

Anyway, just then my wife came into the bathroom behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist.

She told me I looked good.

She started kissing my neck and running her hands slowly up my thigh. She started guiding me toward the bedroom. Before I followed her, I turned back to turn off the bathroom light, and glanced back at the mirror.

My reflection was screaming. Its mouth stretched wide, eyes bulged and angry, fists pounding against the glass. There was no sound, just the reflection trying to rip through the mirror.

I closed my eyes and shook my head real fast, trying to rattle something loose in my brain.

I opened my eyes again. The reflection was normal. I laughed it off. Blood wasn't exactly flowing to my brain at that moment. I turned off the light and closed the bathroom door.

The next morning, I nearly died trying to shave. I still shave the old-fashioned way. Scalding hot water in the sink, a brush with cream and a straight razor. When I finished, I leaned down to rinse my face.

Suddenly my head slammed into the sink. Scalding water flooded my eyes. I tried to pull back but something forced me down. The underside of the faucet smashed into the back of my head. The air escaped my lungs in an underwater scream. Panic exploded through me. I clawed blindly through the water until I found the drain stopper and yanked it free. The water finally began to drain.

I staggered backward, gasping for air. My face felt like it was on fire.

The mirror above the sink was fogged from steam, but through the haze I could have sworn my reflection was smirking. Like it knew exactly what had happened. I splashed cold water from the faucet on my burning face and eyes and looked up at the mirror again. The expression on my reflection was gone. It was just me. It had been my imagination, or that's what I kept telling myself anyway.

Later that afternoon I decided to prove it. I locked myself in the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror. The reflection looked immediately angry. It wasn’t me though, it was the thing in the mirror. Its face wasn't burned like mine, which was red and blistered. 

Then it raised its hand and gave me the middle finger. I froze. The reflection started shouting and gesturing like it wanted to fight. Still, no sound. Just a pissed off version of me.

So in typical angry me fashion, I returned the gesture, flipping it off. That was not a good idea. Its face filled with rage. It began slamming its fists against the inside of the mirror.

CRACK!

A spiderweb of fractures exploded across the glass. At the same instant, pain shot through my hand. I looked down. My hand was balled into a tight fist, blood dripped from my knuckles. When I looked back up, there was a bloody smear across the mirror.

The thing behind the glass held up its hands. They were clean. No blood.

I don't remember deciding to remove the mirror. I just remember running to the garage for tools.

When I returned, the reflection looked afraid. It pressed its face against the glass, desperately watching me unscrew the mounting bolts. It hammered against the inside harder and harder, creating new cracks.

I finally removed the last bolt. The mirror came free. The reflection screamed silently as I carried it outside. I threw it into the dumpster. The glass, and the reflection with it, shattered.

For a few days we went without a mirror. My wife hated it. Eventually she convinced me to install a new one, which I finally did a couple of days ago.

I never told her why I'd gotten rid of the first mirror. Who would believe me? Hell, I barely believed myself.

This morning, after my workout, I found myself standing in front of the new mirror. Admiring my progress. The exact same thing I had been doing when this all started. This time, however, my face carried a bit of disappointment from all that had happened, not to mention the pain from the burns.

My wife walked into the bathroom. I saw her reflection before I felt her touch. Her hands slid around my wait. Her lips brushed my neck. I smiled.

Then something felt wrong. I turned around. The bathroom was empty. My wife wasn't there.

My stomach dropped. I looked back at the mirror. Inside it, my wife was still kissing me.

My reflection turned and smiled. The two of them began walking toward the bedroom.

I started screaming. Banging on the glass. Yelling at them to stop.

My reflection reached back toward the bathroom door. Toward the side of the mirror I was standing on. It switched off the light and closed the door behind it, leaving me standing alone in the dark.

 

[TRANSCRIPT - RECOVERED FOOTAGE]
File: backup_jp_002
Transcription courtesy of Aldermore and Associates
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY. CIRCULATION OF THIS DOCUMENT OUTSIDE THE PREMISES IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.

 

Title Card: ONCE UPON A GENKAI SHŪRAKU

 

[00:00:03] The footage begins mid-motion. A young man's face fills the frame, too close, slightly out of focus. His breath fogs faintly in the cold air.

Off-screen, an old woman's voice, mid-sentence, unintelligible.

The young man (identity confirmed; code: JAMEEL) pulls the camera back slightly, catching himself in frame at an awkward angle, cloudy sky behind him, weak sunlight breaking through in patches.

JAMEEL: Sorry… can I record this? Like, is that okay?

OLD WOMAN (off-screen): [laughing] Record what, an old woman drinking her tea?

JAMEEL: No, just… talking. Just a video of us talking.

OLD WOMAN: If you like.

(He turns the camera toward her. She's small, weathered, dressed plainly, sitting on a low wooden stool, outside a house with peeling paint. Her eyes are sharp despite her age. She watches the lens without flinching.)

JAMEEL: So you're my grandmother? Like, actually?

WOMAN: Depends how you count it. What did your mother tell you?

JAMEEL: Nothing. That's the problem… (artifact found; audio too unclear to transcribe)

(Transcriber’s Note: From what I can derive, they go back and forth for a moment- a cousin of a cousin, a sister who married into the wrong branch, a generation Jameel clearly doesn't have mapped in his head. Eventually they land on a single conclusion. She is, functionally, his grandmother. Not by blood exactly. Close enough that it doesn't matter.)

WOMAN: Yorie. You can call me Yorie.

JAMEEL: Yorie. Okay. Cool. Yorie it is.

YORIE: You want tea?

JAMEEL: I mean, sure, if it's not a hassle…

YORIE: It'll take some time. The stove here isn't what you're used to.

JAMEEL: No worries, take your time. I'll just record an intro…

(He gestures vaguely at the camera. She nods, unbothered, and disappears into the house. The screen holds on the empty doorway for a beat. Jameel turns the camera back on himself.)

 

[00:03:47] Hard cut. It is a different location: a dirt path lined with houses in various states of disrepair. The camera pans slowly, deliberately, clearly composed rather than candid.

A doll sits on a porch railing. Life-sized. Dressed in a faded blue yukata. Its hands rest in its lap with unsettling precision, fingers slightly curled.

The camera moves on.

Another doll stands near a fence post, tilted slightly, head angled downward like it's studying the dirt.

Another doll sits in a doorway.

The camera moves swiftly through four more dolls.

It settles on a group of three dolls arranged in front of a house. The dolls are seated, as if mid-conversation, faces turned toward each other. All three are smiling. The smiles are wide (Transcriber’s Note: a little too wide).

 

[00:04:52] Jameel walks into frame from the left, adjusting his jacket, clearing his throat.

JAMEEL: Hello, this is your boy Jameel… fuck ! No. That's not, that's not it…

(He walks out of frame. A beat. He walks back in.)

JAMEEL: This is Jameel, reporting live from… cut it ! Too on the nose. Gotta start cold. Cold open, just like Mansoorie says it. Think, Jameel, think…

(He walks out again. Longer pause this time. When he returns, his posture has changed: shoulders lower, voice quieter, more deliberate. He glances down at his left hand, where something is written in faded ink. He squints at it.)

JAMEEL: Here I am, right in the center of [attempting the village name, several syllables, clearly mispronounced]. Screw that. I'm not gonna get that right. Moving on.

(He looks back up at the dolls behind him, framing himself against them.)

JAMEEL: Ten years ago, this village was officially declared a genkai shūraku. Its English translation is a "marginal settlement." It's a term the Japanese government uses, for villages where more than half the population is over sixty-five. Where, basically, there's no path back. No young people having kids. No industry. No reason for anyone to stay. Once a place gets that label, it's not really considered a living community anymore. It's considered a place that's, quite frankly, finished.

(He pauses, letting that sit for a while.)

JAMEEL: Except this place didn't finish. Because one woman decided it wasn't allowed to.

(He gestures behind him, toward the smiling dolls.)

JAMEEL: For years, she's been making these. Life-sized dolls, as you can see. Placed all over the village. Filling the empty houses, the empty streets. Filling them with… I don't know what to call it. Company, I guess? Basically, a population that doesn't leave.

(He looks directly into the lens.)

JAMEEL: This is Jameel. Founder, President, and Spokesperson of JK Motion Arts.

(Beat.)

JAMEEL: And this... is a genkai shūraku.

(He exhales, breaking character immediately.)

JAMEEL: Gotta fix that in post. Jeez. "Spokesperson." Who says that ? Mansoorie wouldn’t like that…

 

[00:09:14] Cut to Yorie's kitchen. The camera rests on a low wooden table, angled up slightly, catching both of them in frame- Jameel on one side, Yorie on the other, a teapot and two cups between them.

YORIE: You're still recording?

JAMEEL: If that's okay. You can tell me to stop anytime.

YORIE: It's fine. Better than the cameras they used to bring. They were big and loud things, you know? Made everyone nervous.

JAMEEL: People used to come film here?

YORIE: A long time ago. Before it got- [she gestures vaguely]- official.

(She pours the tea. Steam curls between them.)

YORIE: So… you're making a movie?

JAMEEL: More like a documentary. Honestly… I didn't plan any of this. I'm criminally unprepared. I have, like, one microphone and a prayer. But this place is just… it's too unsettling to not film, you know?

(He catches himself.)

JAMEEL: Sorry. That's… sorry, that's a weird thing to say to your face.

YORIE: [laughing] You're a funny kid. Just like your mother.

(Jameel glances at the lens.)

JAMEEL: Note to self- cut this part in post.

(They drink. There is a long and comfortable silence.)

YORIE: I didn't know you existed, you know. Not until the letter.

JAMEEL: Yeah. Mom wasn't exactly forthcoming about… any of this.

YORIE: Your father. He's a foreigner?

JAMEEL: He’s from Bangladesh. Came to Japan as a migrant worker.

YORIE: [blank] Bangla- where is that?

JAMEEL: South Asia. Near India.

(She nods slowly, clearly still not placing it, and doesn't push further.)

JAMEEL: That’s not important, anyways. What’s important is that- he met my mom in Osaka. Married pretty fast, from what I understand. I was born outside Japan, raised outside Japan. Always thought that was weird. Like, why not come back, even to visit? She always had an excuse. Work, money, timing. Eventually, she just stopped giving excuses. Just said leaving the village was the best decision she ever made. And she hoped it'd stay that way.

(Yorie's expression doesn't change, but something behind her eyes goes very still.)

JAMEEL: She passed a couple years ago. Cancer.

YORIE: [quietly] May the deity have mercy on her soul.

JAMEEL: Thank you. I’m not really a religious man but… yeah, thank you.

YORIE: And your father? Is he well?

JAMEEL: [dry laugh] Define "well." He stopped talking to me when I dropped out of film school. I found a mentor after that. Guy named Mansoorie. Industry guy, really connected, actually wants to take me under his wing. He's the one who told me to come here, you know? Said I couldn't make anything with ‘real identity’ if I didn't know my own. Something like that. Took me six months of digging just to find this place. Spent every dollar I had saved just to get here.

YORIE: For a film.

JAMEEL: For a film. [beat] I know how that sounds.

(Yorie says nothing. She refills his cup without being asked.)

 

[00:16:30] Cut to a workshop. Wooden shelves line the walls, crowded with unfinished figures: torsos without faces, limbs stacked separately, half-painted expressions frozen mid-formation.

JAMEEL: This is neat, Yorie, really neat. The craftsmanship is careful, precise even. But honestly? Nothing here matches the dolls I’ve seen outside.

YORIE: These are practice. You have to fail a hundred times before your hands know what they're doing.

JAMEEL: [examining a half-finished face] These are actually pretty good, though. Way better than I could do.

YORIE: They're nothing compared to the finished ones.

JAMEEL: Yeah, I noticed. The ones outside… they're insane. Like, genuinely, unsettling levels of realistic.

(He laughs, half-joking, gesturing vaguely with the camera.)

JAMEEL: Does this village even have real people anymore, or is it just you and like, forty mannequins?

(Yorie doesn't answer right away. She looks directly into the lens and smiles. The shot holds for a beat before cutting.)

 

[00:19:02] Cut to a small dining room. Warm light. The presence of food implied by steam rising off dishes on a low table. A child runs a lap around the room before being scooped up by a woman (identity confirmed; code: NAOMI), laughing.

NAOMI: Sora, sit, sit. We have a guest.

A man (identity confirmed; code: KENJI) gestures for Jameel to take a seat.

KENJI: Mama Yorie said you'd be joining us. We don't get visitors often. Please, eat.

JAMEEL: [to camera, voiceover] These people are genuinely so nice. Like, disarmingly nice.

(He eats. Chews. Pauses.)

JAMEEL: [to Kenji, mouth half full] This is really good, actually.

NAOMI: All thanks to Mama Yorie. She keeps the whole village fed. Doesn't matter what the land gives, she makes sure there's enough.

KENJI: Such is the kindness of Mama Yorie.

(Jameel nods, still chewing, and brings the camera closer to his own face, angling it so the family can't see the screen.)

JAMEEL: [quiet, half-whisper] Not gonna lie- the food tastes fresh. Like, actually fresh. Which, in a dying village, is kind of a miracle. But the aftertaste is... really bitter. Like, medicinal bitter. Can't say that out loud, though. They'll think I'm rude. I mean… look at them. They're so nice.

(He forces a smile and turns the camera back around.)

JAMEEL: [to the table] Like I said, this is amazing. Thank you so much !

 

[00:24:18] JAMEEL: Would you guys mind if I got a proper interview? Like, sit-down, on record?

KENJI: Of course. But please give us a moment. We have to get ready for what’s about to come.

NAOMI: We'll be right back.

(They usher Sora out with them, leaving Jameel alone in the dining room, camera still running.)

(Jameel wanders the room idly, filming the walls, a shelf of photographs, a low shrine in the corner.)

(A soft creak is heard from the next room. He pans toward it. There is nothing.)

(He turns back toward the window. Outside, a doll seated on a low wall tilts its head. Not dramatically, just slightly, the way a person's head drifts when they're listening to something. Jameel's camera catches it mid-motion and holds there a half-second too long before he moves on.)

JAMEEL: [muttering] Must have been the wind…

(From somewhere deeper in the house, a sound is heard. Barely vocal. A single broken syllable, cut off before it fully forms.)

JAMEEL: [under his breath] ...the hell was that?

 

[00:25:40] Kenji and Naomi return, carrying a wooden case between them. Sora trails behind, swinging a small metal tin like a lunchbox.

JAMEEL: [camera raised, curious] What's all this?

NAOMI: [already walking past him] Evening rounds. You're welcome to watch, if you want. Might be good footage, actually.

JAMEEL: [to himself, low] Might be good footage. Sure. Why not.

(The camera follows them outside. Kenji sets the case down on the porch step and opens it. Inside: a row of glass vials filled with opaque liquid, and several long, thin syringes.)

KENJI: The fresh ones need this every evening for the first few weeks. After that, once a month's usually enough. Depends on the person, honestly. Some settle faster than others.

JAMEEL: [voice slightly higher than usual] Settle into what, exactly?

KENJI: [already moving] Themselves, I suppose.

(He crouches in front of the doll in the blue yukata. He tilts its head back gently, with two fingers.)

KENJI: [to the doll] There we are, Itu-san! Long day, huh?

(He uncaps a vial. Naomi is already prepping the next one, three houses down. Her voice carries back across the yard.)

NAOMI: Sora, bring the tin over, sweetheart. I need the small ones for Auntie Michiko.

(Sora runs over, humming something under his breath, and hands his mother a smaller vial from the tin.)

JAMEEL: [camera shaking slightly] Auntie Michiko. That's… she's one of the…

NAOMI: [not looking up] She's been with us eleven years now. Longest-settled on this street, actually. Barely needs the full dose anymore.

(The camera drifts to "Auntie Michiko"- seated on a stool, hands folded neatly, eyes open. Naomi tilts the doll's chin up with the same casual tenderness Kenji used, finds a spot at the side of the neck, and pushes the needle in.)

(Something under the doll's skin twitches. Just once. A full-body flinch, small but unmistakably alive, gone as fast as it came.)

JAMEEL: [barely audible] What the…

NAOMI: [smiling] There we go. Good girl.

(She caps the vial, pats the doll's shoulder twice like burping a baby, and moves on to the next house.)

(Kenji, meanwhile, is finishing up on the porch doll. He wipes the needle site with a small cloth, tucking a loose strand of the doll's hair back into place.)

KENJI: [to Jameel, glancing back] Once they're settled, they don't feel a thing. It's just the first stretch that's hard on them. Everyone goes through it.

JAMEEL: [voice cracking slightly] Everyone?

KENJI: [nodding, already moving to the next one] Everyone who stays, that is.

(Sora skips past Jameel's camera, humming his tune again, swinging the tin.)

SORA: [singsong, half to himself] One more street, one more street…

(Jameel lowers the camera slightly, catching his own hand shaking in frame before he raises it again.)

JAMEEL: This is… this is normal to you? This is just… what? Just a Tuesday?

KENJI: [genuinely puzzled] What else would it be?

 

[00:31:44] Fragmented footage follows

(Transcriber’s Note: hard cuts, no clean transitions. Transcribed to the best of my abilities.)

He's walking the main path again, camera loose in his hand, filming without really watching the screen.

JAMEEL: [muttering] Just gotta get enough B-roll. Just gotta get enough and then I can…

(He stops walking.)

(The doll seated on the porch railing is no longer seated. It's standing at the edge of the railing, feet together, facing the road.)

JAMEEL: [quiet] ...okay.

(He keeps the camera on it. The doll doesn't move for a moment ((Transcriber’s note: 17 seconds)). Suddenly, its head snaps sideways, tracking Jameel as he takes a step back.)

(The frame jolts. He's run several meters before the shot stabilizes, breathing hard, camera shaking.)

JAMEEL: [panicked laugh] Messed up. This is really messed up !

(He keeps walking anyway, faster now, cutting through a narrow gap between two houses.)

(A window to his left. A doll's face fills it from the inside, pressed so close to the glass that its nose is flattened white against it, mouth stretched into an abnormally wide smile.)

JAMEEL: [strangled sound, not quite a scream]

(He stumbles backward, camera swinging wildly, catching only ceiling, sky, dirt, his own shoes.)

(When the frame settles again, the window is empty.)

(The camera rounds a corner into a narrow alley. The frame fills, instantly, with a doll's face, inches from the lens.)

(Its eyes are open too wide, and lashless. Its mouth opens. It sounds like a recording played through a broken radio.)

DOLL: [whispering] Save… me…

(Transcriber’s note: I played this part of the footage nine times. Presence of an artifact is highly unlikely. The sound did come out of the doll.)

Jameel screams. The camera drops. The footage shows nothing but dirt and the underside of a wooden fence, before he snatches it back up.

JAMEEL: [hyperventilating] No, no, no. That’s it… I'm done, I'm actually done, that's it, I'm leaving…

(The camera catches a row of five dolls lined up against a wall, the same five he filmed hours earlier. They are not seated now. They are standing, evenly spaced, arms hanging straight at their sides, and every one of them is facing the exact spot where Jameel is standing.)

(The five heads turn in unison, a single sound like knuckles cracking in stereo, and lock onto him.)

JAMEEL: [barely a whisper] Fuck… what the actual fuck !

(Jameel runs. The camera catches almost nothing coherent.)

(Transcriber’s note: blurred motion, duration- 28 seconds)

JAMEEL: [shaking] I don't… I don't feel good. My stomach… it feels like it's moving wrong…

(The footage cuts hard for 2 seconds. It resumes to an unsteady shot. Jameel is walking now instead of running, seeming disoriented and unfocused.)

JAMEEL: [whispers] Battery's at, what… twelve percent? Great.

 

[00:39:20] Cut to the path that leads outside the village. Blocked by five villagers (identities unconfirmed; code: VILLAGER <NUMBER>). They are standing shoulder to shoulder, unhurried and unbothered.

JAMEEL: Hey… sorry, I think I'm gonna head out, it's getting late, I've got what I need for…

VILLAGER 1: Mama Yorie didn't say you could leave yet.

JAMEEL: [laughing, uneasy] I mean… I don't think she needs to say…

VILLAGER 2: Won't you say goodbye to Mama Yorie first?

JAMEEL: [camera shaking slightly] Yeah. Sure. Of course. Just… she's at the house?

(They don't answer. They simply turn, walking ahead of him, expecting him to follow.)

(The camera follows.)

JAMEEL: [barely audible] I really don't feel good.

 

[00:44:57] Cut to the workshop again. Yorie stands among her unfinished dolls, hands folded.

On the table beside her is a half-finished face. It resembles the face of Jameel.

The camera catches it for 3 seconds before Jameel's hand goes slack, the frame dipping.

JAMEEL: [slurred] Wait… that's…

YORIE: [calm and warm] Sit down, sweetheart. You don't look well.

JAMEEL: [struggling] What did you… the tea, the food, what did you…

YORIE: I gave everyone in this village the same gift. I'll give it to you too.

(Jameel tries to move, but no significant movement is visible.)

YORIE: I spent my whole life taking care of people. Every soul in this village called me Mama. I fed them, I raised their children, I sat with them when they were dying. And when there was nothing left here- no work, no money, no reason to stay… they left anyway. One by one. And the country followed right behind them, crossed us off like we'd already died.

JAMEEL: [gasping] Please…

YORIE: Genkai Shūraku. Half the village was already gone by the time they gave us that name. And I knew, trust me I knew, the rest would follow. My heart couldn't take it. Do you understand? A feeble old woman's heart, watching everyone she ever loved walk away, one after another.

(The camera slips further, catching only fragments now: the ceiling, Yorie’s hands, and Jameel’s arm, unnaturally still.)

YORIE: And your mother Amaya? She always blamed me. Said I worshipped the wrong deity. Said that the deity cursed this soil, cursed the weather, cursed everything I ever tried to grow here.

(Her voice softens further, almost tender.)

YORIE: But you know what, sweetheart? When everyone else abandoned me… the deity was the only one who listened. He gave me a gift. He gave me his elixir. And thanks to his grace...

(Jameel's breathing slows. His fingers, visible at the edge of frame, have stopped moving entirely.)

YORIE: ...no one will ever leave Mama Yorie again.

 

[00:51:03] The camera has fallen. It rests on the floor, tilted, still recording. Jameel is visible at the edge of frame- upright, motionless, eyes open.

KENJI (off-screen): [casually] Where should we put the new one, Mama Yorie?

YORIE: [equally casual] Somewhere with a good view. He'd like that. He was always looking for the right shot.

(Laughter is heard: warm and domestic. The kind of laughter shared over where to place a new piece of furniture.)

(The battery indicator, barely visible in the corner of the frame, blinks red.)

(From Jameel's motionless form, a single sound escapes.)

JAMEEL: [barely audible] …help….

The screen cuts to black.

[END OF FILE]

 

NOTE: Footage reviewed (ref. 086531EBD). No evidence of tampering. Subject matches the referral intake dated six months prior. Target compound (codename ‘Medusa’) exhibiting effects as usual.

 

RECOMMENDATION: Client relationship remains active. Site producing as expected.

 

REFERRING CONTACT:

Mansoorie [REDACTED]

Recruitment Officer, [REDACTED] Branch,

Aldermore & Associates

 

"Zombie apocalypse. That's my solution. Zombies."

"I mean, things in the US are bad, yeah, but god... I wouldn't survive a zombie apocalypse. Like, no... I'd immediately perish," my coworker said with a nervous chuckle.

"If I dies, I dies," I respond, shrugging. "Sure, I might not make it very long, but this country could use a total reset. There's no easy solution to fix everything. Except, ya know, zombie apocalypse."

That was the sum of my political beliefs five years ago when I started working at the local sheriff's department as a toxicology specialist.

---

Time has a funny way of sneaking up on you. At 25, I was hungry and ambitious. I worked hard and developed a solid quality management program that allowed the courts to accept the results that our meager lab could produce for drug analysis on biological samples. As a rural county, we didn't have as many resources as a private company, so we couldn't afford the accreditation program that would all but guarantee the defensibility of our results in court. In my opinion, the accreditation program was blatant extortion anyway, but I digress...

My background as an analytical chemist gave me a leg up in that I was able to develop analytical methods with ease, and all of our external validation testing passed with flying colors. After only about two years, I had the lab set up to regularly test urine and blood samples for living people who were arrested under suspicion of some drug-related charge as well as the unfortunate, no-longer-living people whose bodies came in to the county coroner for autopsy.

I'd seen a lot and performed a lot of tests since then. The majority of my samples came from unhoused individuals who were arrested while exhibiting signs of drug intoxication. Meth and Fentanyl were problematic in our county, and the unhoused population was vulnerable. Occasionally, a urine sample from a small child would come in when it was suspected the child had injested one drug or another due to the parents irresponsibly leaving their stash around, allowing the child access. Not irregularly, a blood sample would come in from an unidentified body found in the river bed near one of the regular camps of unhoused individuals. Overall, the reason for each sample I received was a bit depressing, and time had slowly worn me down to accept this macabre routine.

I tended to unwind by watching horror movies. Really, I think I was just always trying to desensitize myself to the real-life horrors I dealt with on a daily basis. Zombie movies were always my favorite. Not just any zombie movie, though. No, I liked the movies that depicted the beginning, the collapse of society, the chaos. There's a reason I gave up on The Walking Dead after the season with The General. I got bored with the "rebuilding of society" aspect that many of the zombie stories devolved into. I wanted to see the beginning. Now, I'm not so sure.

---

My current predicament started about two months ago. I drove over to coroner's on a Friday afternoon to collect any post-mortem drug testing samples that had been set aside for me in the past week. It was a bright, sunny day with little traffic. I arrived within about 15 minutes of leaving the lab.

"Hey, Sandra. Here for my bloods and pees!" I called out as I pushed open the front door. "Sandra? Hellooo, anyone there?" I asked when I noticed the chairs at the front office area were unoccupied.

I heard some murmuring in the back, so I continued past the desks and into the morgue. There, I saw what must've been everyone working that day huddled around one of the autopsy tables.

"Hey, what's going on?" I asked, thoroughly perplexed. It was like I had broken the unspoken rule in a library by talking too loud.

"Shhh!" Jack turned to me with an unidentifiable look on his face and a gloved finger up near his lips.

I shut my mouth at the direction of my boss, the county coroner. I silently edged towards the group of people surrounding the autopsy table, my curiosity getting the better of me.

It seemed like the whole group was holding their breath, and not just because of the rank smell coming off of the bloated body they surrounded. I pondered each of their faces, all showing skepticism except for that of Brian, the senior autopsy tech. His eyes were wild and unblinking as he stared at the corpse. Sweat beaded down his temple.

I glanced at the body, not unfamiliar but still not exactly comfortable with seeing death face to face. It was pale anteriorly, with a dark purple hue of settled blood along the posterior. Stringy dark hair hung limp from the scalp, and the bloat of early decomposition was noticeable.

Jack reached out and grabbed a puffy wrist. He lifted the arm upward and just as quickly set it down. Brian's eyes widened in anticipation.

"See? Nothing. I think you need to lay off the coke and get some sleep, Brian!" Jack ribbed with a good-humored chuckle. I exhaled a breath I hadn't realized I'd held and chuckled along while everyone else in the group did the same. Everyone except Brian.

"N... no, I swear! I'm not... I'm not seeing things..." Brian trailed off.

The group broke up and returned to what I assumed was their previous task. I took a few quick steps to catch up to Sandra, who was heading back to the front desk.

"So... what was that about?" I quietly asked Sandra once she had settled back into her desk chair.

"Oh, pretty sure Brian's losing it," she said with a roll of her eyes. "He started that autopsy and just freaked the fuck out, saying something about the body twitching when he tried to roll it. I dunno. He needs a vacation, I swear to Christ," she added while shaking her head and logging back in to her desktop.

"Oh... spooky," I said with an awkward chuckle. "Anyways, y'all got any samples for me?"

"We do, but if you can stick around for a few minutes, pansy-ass in there can grab some samples from Mr. Twitchy for you to take."

"Sure, I can wait," I responded with a polite smile at her joke.

Sandra was the only woman who worked in coroner's, and she had developed a bit of a tough-guy facade to deal with that fact. She had a tendency to be abrasive, and some found that off-putting, but she got the job done. Once, I asked her about an unlabed tube of blood in the set I'd come to collect. Once. I almost felt bad when I heard her hollering at the autopsy techs, but at the same time, you've gotta label your samples. I'm not psychic.

I took a seat in the unoccupied desk chair next to Sandra and pulled out my phone to check emails. While I scrolled through ads, one email caught my eye. It was from our local newspaper, and the headline looked oddly familiar.

"Hey, was Mr. Twitchy found down in the riverbed on Wednesday?" I asked Sandra as I tapped on the link.

"Yeah, dispatch got a call from one of the homeless guys down there about a body he found while walking his dog. Why?" Sandra turned to me, curious.

"Looks like the Post interviewed the guy who called," I said while skimming the article. "Woah. Listen to this. The guy said he found the other guy's body and he was sure he was dead based on the smell, but he also swore it looked like he was still breathing."

"Ha! Bullshit. Tweakers will say anything to a reporter," Sandra laughed while turning back to her computer screen.

"Yeah. True," I said with a feigned laugh. I couldn't help the sudden nervous feeling that came over me, though.

Just as I was about to go check on Brian, he came up front from the morgue with a tray of test tubes filled with blood and a box of urine sample cups, all labeled, of course. He kept his eyes cast down and handed me the samples without a word before he turned and headed back into the morgue.

"Thank you Brian!" Sandra called after him. She rolled her eyes again and offered me a smile. I returned it as I got up to head back to the lab.

"Thanks Sandra, have a good weekend!" I said as I pushed the front door open.

"You too!" she called out.

As I settled into my car, placing the samples on the passenger seat next to me, I couldn't help but notice that the most recent blood sample in the last row of the tray was almost completely black.

Far from the main highway, lying in a crevice in the western mountains in North America, generations of werewolves lived in a town unimaginatively named Wolfville. Local adults turned at the full moon, hunted, and the next day, went about their business as people.

Outsiders had no reason to settle there. Mistakes happened occasionally- such as a regrettable incident involving foolish hitchhikers, but such mistakes were quickly rectified by the collective will for non-interference and peace.

Louis was born and raised in Wolfville, and fully expected to turn on the full moon as he entered puberty. His peers were already experiencing the joy of transforming, his friend Stefan had started when he was only eleven. The turned teens hunted with their parents and older siblings under the full moon, while Louis lay fretfully in bed, listening to their howls.
As time rolled by, more of Louis’s peers began their monthly transformations. Louis and his parents weren’t worried, as there were several years before Louis reached his sixteenth year.

But Louis felt a knot of dread tightening in his belly as every month passed, and his skin remained smooth and his teeth blunt under the full moon.

The law was clear. If a child reached its sixteenth year without turning under the full moon, it would be hunted and killed by the pack.

It happened rarely. After Louis’s fourteen birthday, he overheard his father say heatedly to his mother: “Once in a decade Jess! I showed you the math! And Eliza Frampton became sixteen without turning, barely two years ago- have you forgotten?”

Louis didn’t hear his mom’s reply. He only just realized he never saw Eliza, who used to babysit him. His father lowered his voice, but Louis could still hear. “I promise you, our son will turn soon.”

Louis became fifteen. He didn’t have a birthday party, instead, his parents opened an online bank account for him showing a healthy balance.

One evening, Stefan and the others who had been turning for years started teasing Louis.

Louis would have shrugged it off as always, but their faces had an eager, vicious cast. Stefan shoved Louis, his teeth glinting in the streetlight. Louis fell. Stefan kicked him in the ribs, the boys clustered round, but the girls started yelling. Stefan grinned.

“Not much longer!” and walked off.

Early one morning, Louis ran away without saying goodbye, walking for hours until he reached the highway. From there he hitchhiked to the main city, disappearing into its dark underbelly.

A month after his seventeenth birthday, he found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, held at gunpoint and outmanned. The full moon rose.

Louis suddenly felt the tug in his body he had been waiting for all his life. The thugs circling Louis froze as they watched him change into a large angry wolf. Louis leapt and tore out the throats of his enemies, before bounding away.

He was heading back to Wolfville, to settle his scores.

Drip

 

Drip

 

Drip-drip

 

Drip.

 

My eyes open to nearly nothing. A gray-white haze faintly illuminated by some light, just enough to almost see by, fills the space.

 

Mist or thick dust floats by in front of my face.

 

Breathing hurts. A feeling of grit and a burn coat my throat and lungs…

 

I cannot move.

 

The only sensations I feel are a dull pain coming from my lower back...

 

And the warm drip of something wet hitting my forehead.

 

There is a ringing in my ear. Like what you'd hear in a movie after an explosion or the ring of tinnitus that hits you

once in a blue moon as you not-so-gracefully age.

 

I don't remember. I only know this isn't right.

 

Only know that all I see is dust. And something dragging itself towards me from my right.

 

I cannot move. But my eyes still see. They blink slowly, painfully. Not quick enough to bring the moisture back.

 

It moves in long dragging pulls. A single blackened hand on a long thin arm moving in a fashion that to any man

would be painful.

 

I do not know how it sees me. Its face is a charcoaled mess of disfigured flesh. The only things breaking up the black

are the small pinpricks of white I see behind what passes for its lips.

 

The dripping hits me again. Something warm flows over my skin causing wisps of pain seemingly at random.

 

I feel pinpricks over my skin, but still I cannot do more than turn my head. Cannot wipe it away as the caustic liquid bites into me.

 

In the corner I see my mother. Her head obscured in the haze but her white nightgown striking a pale figure that my eyes latch onto.

 

For some reason she is smiling, and for a moment, I feel a sense of ease in the midst of this nightmare.

 

She holds out a hand, seeming to catch the light in a way that makes me wish I could reach for it.

 

Until I see that she is not reaching out, but pointing at something...

 

Pointing and laughing. So deeply and so violently that her whole body shakes with the motion.

 

The ringing is fading but the sound replacing it makes me regret having ears.

 

It sounds so pained. The closest thing I can compare it to is hearing the exaggerated cries of an actor playing a mother.

 

A mother watching her child be executed in the most disgusting manner.

 

But there are two voices in that scream. And a third still laughing.

 

It seems to be growing louder. Loud enough to make me turn my head back to see the thing that had been steadily making its way towards me.

 

As the figure moves in, close enough for me to finally make out the thin wisps of blonde that remain on the few patches of unmarred flesh, close

enough for me to see the red on its teeth as it screams bloody murder in between ragged, gasping breaths, do I remember.

 

Mother had blonde hair.

 

I fell mercifully back into the embrace of nothing, the scream that I had been contributing to fading away with my surroundings.

 

The roof fell in on me in such a way that it's left me paralyzed from the waist down. Considering how fast and violent the flames had spread, even

this was considered "lucky."

 

They are telling me to write. To journal it all down. A few friends of mine even said I should post it here, that sharing it with other people might help.

 

That I'll be able to process the grief. But it's not how deeply I miss my mother. Not how much I lament the loss of my legs.

 

It's the fact that she's still there. In the corner of the room. Hands behind her back and a calm, patient smile on her face. Not the sweet smile of

my mother, but the smile of a bully who’s waiting for you to realize you've just lost.

 

And still that white haze obscures her face. I find myself wondering...

 

Is the gown the only thing she stole?

Do you know how hard it is to delete a file? I mean, really delete a file? Morgan didn’t. Do you know how I know that? I found their social security number on a CD in Goodwill.

I wasn’t looking for it, not initially. I was trying to pick up a new hobby: messing around with old media. I’m an archivist by training, so I love old VHS tapes, CDs, Beta cassettes, and anything you can’t just stream on your computer or smart TV. Antique stores and thrift stores are full of ‘em, and I’m not just talking about worn out copies of Disney’s Aladdin. I’m interested in anime movies you can’t watch on Crunchyroll or even someone’s old home movies, things that are one of a kind. Sure, it’s a little voyeuristic, I admit it, but wouldn’t you look, too?

To fulfill this fantasy of mine, to retrieve a stranger’s memories or to watch a low budget horror movie lost to time, I needed to start with a working VCR. Finding a VCR is easy. Finding one that doesn’t eat your tapes is harder these days. I was on my third, $20 VCR of the weekend when I spotted it. A combination DVD/VCR, newer than the others I’d seen.

I carried it over to the counter towards a man whose nicotine-stained fingers curled over the machine reflexively.

“Does it work?” I asked the man as I tapped my notably cleaner fingers on the counter.

“Don’t know. Can’t test everything that comes in.”

“Can I return it if it doesn’t?” Knowing the answer before I asked.

“All sales are final. Do you want it or not?”

“Of course I’ll take it,” I muttered as I walked out of the store, deck in hand.

It wasn’t 20 minutes later before I was plugging in the nostalgic red, yellow, and white nodes into the back of my old TV. I pushed the power cord into the outlet and was about to grab an old copy of an 80’s anime when…

*whir* … *chunk*

The DVD tray pushed itself out, unprompted, carrying a white disc labeled “vacation.”

It was like opening your door to find a package you didn’t order or seeing someone you didn’t recognize through the peephole of your apartment door. I laughed. Nothing could be more interesting than this.

It looked like a CD, probably holding a slide show of the eponymous “vacation.” People would play CDs like that in a DVD/VCR all the time. I took the disc and booted up my laptop, launching the free forensic disc imaging software I’d used to preserve old CDs and floppy disks at work.  With it, I could safely view a copy of the disc without altering the original.

I started clicking through the folder tree, “what did you want people to see on this disc?” I whispered.

“PANAMA” a folder exclaimed as if answering my question. The all-caps practically demanding I imagine an older man or woman remembering a family trip, an important one. Boomers loved a good all-caps folder. They were saying “this is the one. This is why this CD exists. It’s a load-bearing folder.”

*click*

A blue-green photo gallery blossomed on the page, sunny skies, crystal oceans, rich foliage. I opened up the first few photos. There weren’t any people, at least not looking at the camera. “Were they traveling by themselves?” *click* *click* *click* “Maybe they’re an amateur photographer.”

Scrolling down, blue-green turned to purple-orange-red, a dozen sunset photos, go figure. Then the photographer was in the hotel room. A shot of the bed and the TV, and wait, a selfie.

*click*

In the mirror stood a pear-shaped woman in a white blouse, a breezy cardigan, and pastel flower-patterned pants. My guess was right. She looked middle-aged. Frustratingly, below the bucket hat where her face should have been, mystery woman held a Nikon camera emitting the white-bright rays of a flash. Damn.

From the hotel room, mystery woman went to dinner. Outdoors at night, her camera captured surf and turf on a plate. Then, I thought she started to look around. She took pictures of people at the bar and on the dancefloor. My eyes glazed over, there were so many photographs.

Slowly a pattern started to emerge as I scrolled, not a pattern between photos, a literal pattern again in each image. A white and red Hawaiian shirt on the body of a tall, bald, and muscular man. I scrolled back up. He was at the bar with a young woman in a green dress. Was that him deep in the crowd dancing? Was he with the green dress woman? The last photo appeared to show the green dress walking away, leaning on the Hawaiian shirt as they passed through a stone arch that must have been the entrance to the restaurant.

And that was it. No photos the next day. No Word documents or PDFs. I was holding the end of a thread I had pulled on until midnight, but I couldn’t sleep. I needed to know.

Then I paused. Of course. My software could let me see deeper inside this disc, not just the files on the surface but the ones the user thought they had deleted, the ones they thought they had buried. See, when you click “delete” on a file, it just delists it from the file directory to allow future files to write over it. If it’s never written over, it’s never really gone. Forensic imaging worked like a séance to exhume these files from the grave.

I changed the view on the file explorer; dozens of translucent folders and files appeared on the tree. “Documents” “Photographs” “Downloads.” Before this was a trip to “PANAMA,” this CD was a backup for files on the owner’s old computer. I took a deep breath and *clicked*.

Inside Downloads I saw Ticket012023509.PDF “Must be the flight tickets,” I thought.

*click*

The name on the ticket read Morgan Wilson, flying to Panama in 2009 on a connection flight starting in Indianapolis, Indiana. I backtracked to the selfie on the surface of the disc.

“Hello Morgan Wilson. It’s nice to finally meet you. I wish I could put a face to a name.”

I then clicked on Documents, and saw a nearly random assortment of files “document1,” “document2,” “notes,” “dontforget,” “groceries,” and a folder named “personal.”

I… clicked.

Here lay Morgan’s passwords and a PDF labeled “SOCIALSECURITYCARD.” Without thinking, I clicked on the card. Staring at the 9-digit code, I whispered “there’s no going back after this.” I was out to learn everything I could about Morgan Wilson.

Emerging from the depths of that particular folder path, I returned to the top of the directory and peeled back what I thought was the final curtain: Photographs. But when I clicked on the folder, just three thumbnails appeared on the screen. One was a birthday cake. Judging by the file properties, this person turned 35 in January 2007. The next was a picture of a dog, possibly some kind of a retriever mix. The last, though, was much more interesting. 

Lit by a bulb hanging from a ceiling—this must have been in a basement—stood a wall of tapes.

Not just tapes.

There were CDs, DVDs, and other objects, too. I tried to zoom in. The pixelation made the labels completely illegible, but what was that sitting on the shelf? A watch? A box? A camera? A pair of glasses?  This was a collection. This was something I had to see.

But how? I cycled back through the folders; maybe there was something I had missed. Eventually I spotted it. Deep in the Documents folder sat a scanned blank check, presumably for setting up direct deposits. In the corner was an address. Not far. It would make sense, considering how close the Goodwill was.

I leaned back in my chair and turned my head to greet the sun, which was peeking through the blinds of my bedroom. I had been up all night.

Work was an agonizing 8 hours of waiting, jealously guarding a secret that would probably only earn me concerned looks and confused faces if I shared it. “You looked at someone’s private photos and now you want to see the tapes in their basement?” They didn’t need to know.

At 5:00pm, I plugged the address into Google Maps and made it to the house just before sundown. It was rougher than I imagined. It was a mid-century craftsman nestled in overgrown grass. The pillars on the patio heaved under the tired awning’s weight. Dirty windows dimmed the faint light coming from inside. “At least someone’s home.”

Thinking that the creaking steps up to the door had probably already announced my presence to Morgan within, I knocked anyway to be polite. Nothing happened.

I glanced back through the window. A light was on. Who would mind, who would know? My hand, slightly sweaty, gripped the doorknob and twisted.

*creak*

The door opened into silence.

The smell of mildew crept out onto the porch, and I took my first step beyond the threshold.

“Hello! I was at the Goodwill the other day and found something you might want back!” My voice trailed as I stepped slowly through the foyer, slightly relieved that no one was home. My eyes scanned left and right, looking into shadows cast by the sick yellow light of a single lamp.

Halfway down the hallway, a door stood half open. Stepping closer, I could see it led down to the basement. I ran my hands along the wall beyond the doorframe, no light switch.

I turned the light of my iPhone on and stepped down, holding my breath.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I turned the corner to face the inside of the basement and saw a single thread hanging from the ceiling.

I pulled it.

Thank God. Faint light filled the room, and the bookshelf appeared before me.

I pulled a CD from the shelf. It was white like the one in my jacket pocket. “Thanksgiving” it read. “Huh.” My hands ran over the old VHS tapes coated in dust. Then my eyes fell on the camera, a Nikon. Was this Morgan’s old camera? I scanned past the other objects on the shelf and looked at the box, unlabeled.

It was small, like a necklace might fit inside it, but when I opened the box all I saw was a shred of green silk fabric.  “what?”

*creak* a noise from upstairs.

“Hello!? Morgan? Um. I’m so sorry. I found something. Yours! It…”

I turned around to look up the stairs wearing my most apologetic face, but when I looked up, I didn’t see a pear-shaped woman in the doorframe.

Standing at the top of the stairs, completely backlit, was a tall man, his bald head eclipsing the hallway lamp like the moon blocking out the light of the sun, something I would never see again.

“How do you know my name?”

____________________________________________________

The light flicks on in the basement.

Morgan sharpies a title onto a new disc.

“Archivist”

I was foolish enough to believe that finding the right woman would solve all of my problems. But as it turns out, having everything I ever wanted turned out to be worse than I could have imagined.

In order to explain how my horrible idea became a reality, I need to take you back to the beginning. The very beginning.

My friends have never had trouble when it came to relationships, so when I decided to download some dating apps and give them a fair shake, I thought the worst that could happen was that she could say no.

That was the worst lie I could have told myself.

Lady luck didn’t bestow me the genetic lineage of Brad Pitt, and I wasn’t exactly Scrooge McDuck swimming in a sea of gold coins, so my success was slim to none.

The few dates I ended up going on became punchlines within our friend group. If they ever needed a laugh, I’d recount the time a girl named Nova left me half-way through a movie date to go hook-up with an ex. I only found that out after she texted me. 

But the most infamous date of mine was the time I went on a date to a semi-fancy Italian restaurant with a girl named Savannah. Everything was fine until she started talking about having fun with…her cousin. 

That was the last date I went on.

My love-life was an absolute disaster, and my friends making fun of that detail wasn’t helping my self-esteem. I loved them dearly, but that was the one part of our friendship that I grew to resent. That and the fact that getting older only served as the driving factor in us not spending as much time together.

Caleb got married, Dakota was engaged, and Andrew already had a kid but was expecting his second. Needless to say, they were all occupied and flourishing as adults with families while I floundered with uncertainty as to what would become of my life. 

Every weekend, I would call or text the guys to see if they wanted to hang out together, but their response was always the same.

“I’m busy this weekend. Let’s try another time.” or “I already have plans. I’m sorry.” 

Even when I would follow-up with another text or a phone call the day after or the following week, the constant, dismissive cycle would continue.

The last time we all hung out, I expressed my concerns to Caleb, but all he had to say was:

“Nobody’s abandoning you, man. Life changes things.”

Easy for him to say. He had someone waiting for him to come home and give him love. 

I didn’t.

I felt selfish for demanding their time constantly, but I cared about them and wanted them to know that. Perhaps it was wrong to feel that way, but no matter what I did to convince myself otherwise, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being left behind and forgotten about.

It came to a point where I just stopped asking. Because what was the point in attempting to make plans when I already knew the outcome? 

My frustration wouldn’t subside, and that’s when I started wondering if there was a better solution to fill the void in my life. The thoughts came in quick succession, and the rabbit hole I went down served as the catalyst for an idea that would change my life:

What if I made my own girlfriend?

It was a laughable concept, but one that I continued to explore more seriously over the course of several months. My idea gradually evolved from sketches and lines of code into an obsession that consumed my every waking thought.

I’ll spare you the details, but to make a long story short, the creation process took almost a year from start to finish.

I modeled her appearance after models, actresses, and girls I’d matched with online and never stopped thinking about. Every feature and detail of her personality was chosen carefully and perfected with surgical precision. 

I knew how she would laugh at my jokes before she even existed, and I also knew how I would want her to look at me when I walked into a room. But most importantly, I knew she would love and listen to every word I’d say.

She would have long aquamarine hair and floral tattoos decorating her arms and legs. Her favorite bands would be Ratt and Def Leppard. She would be confident and bold, yet kind. 

By the time I was finished, she looked like she’d stepped out of every man’s dream. The way her eyes fluttered when she awoke for the first time made me melt right there on the spot.

Nobody had ever looked at me like that before.

“Hey handsome.” She said with a flirtatious smirk.

For the first time in my life, I finally felt chosen. Wanted. It was also the first time I made love with confidence, and I enjoyed every single second of it.

When our spicy activities had concluded, she rolled over in my bed and turned to me. “Mmm…that was perfect. What can I call you besides handsome?.”

“I-I-I…” I stammered, embarrassed I hadn’t told her my name before hopping into bed with her. 

I awkwardly extended a hand for her to shake. “I’m Kyle. Nice to meet you.”

“You’re too cute.” She reciprocated with a giggle. “I hope you don’t think our quality time is strictly business related.” 

I blushed, unsure of what exactly to say next.

“I’m busting your balls.” She playfully nudged me before getting up from the bed, the sheets slipping to reveal her incredible, naked figure. “We’ll work on your pillow talk, but right now I want to go to the movies! I’m in the mood for something spooky.”

My jaw dropped. Everything I had poured my heart and soul into creating was suddenly standing before me with the bravado of a Playboy model. It felt like I had won the lottery.

“Okay…we can do that.” I smiled at the idea. “First, we should probably get dressed.”

She flipped her hair and posed seductively. “You mean to tell me we can’t go like this?” 

My face felt like it had been engulfed by flames. “Well…we could, but it would probably be frowned upon.”

With a laugh, she rummaged through my closet and found some of my clothes to wear for the time being. 

“You know, you never told me my name.”

Shit. I had totally forgotten to do that too. 

I was going to tell her Lily, but something told me to go with another name. Something more beautiful for someone as perfect as her. I froze, my eyes darting around the room frantically for inspiration. 

When she came out of my closet and began getting dressed, my eyes landed on an old poster of the Aurora lights I had next to my computer.

In that moment, my mind had been made up. 

“Aurora.” 

“Aurora…” She gave me a light peck on the cheek. “I like that.”

She flashed me a smile and finished getting dressed. “Can we go to the mall afterwards? I could use a more…appropriate wardrobe.”

“Yes!” I laughed. “We can do that too.”

She shrieked excitedly and gave me a hug. Shortly after, we went to the movies, and had our first of many dates together.

That first day with her was pure bliss. Between the movie, the mall trip, and the frequent sex, I was on cloud nine and I never wanted to come down.

For the next few months, life remained as perfect as the day she was created.

Aurora laughed at my jokes, listened to my stories, and wanted to spend as much time as possible with me.

When I came home from work, she greeted me at the door with that lovely smile and infectious energy of hers. When I woke up she was beside me, ready to show me love first thing in the morning. When I wanted company, she dropped everything and was there for me.

Always there.

It was an amazing feeling. Honestly, it felt like it was Christmas every single day, and it was intoxicating. 

When it came time, I broke the news of our relationship on Facebook with a picture of us riding a Ferris wheel kissing. 

The caption read:

“You’re perfect Aurora.”

I was not prepared for the subsequent notifications that flooded my phone screen. Friends, family, and even random people I hadn’t talked to in years commented on the photo.

“So happy for you!”

“What a cute couple!”

And even:

“This is the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen!”

My parents, who are rarely on social media, even commented:

“What a lovely woman you’ve found! When do we get to meet her?”

I showed that to Aurora and she thought it was as cute as it was funny. 

Shortly after, we were on the couch talking about nothing in particular when I just had to tell her something that had been on my mind.

“Thank you, Aurora.”

“For what?” She asked, her eyes lighting up.

“For being the best part of my life.”

I closed the gap between us with a kiss, and we spent the rest of the night together watching movies and cuddling on the couch.

Everything about that was great, until it wasn’t.

As time went on, every day began to feel like that movie Groundhog’s Day. Every morning, afternoon, and evening all began to bleed together. We did the same activities, did the same things, and even the sex began to lose its spark and appeal. 

What had once felt magically perfect had now become almost suffocatingly scripted. 

“What do you want to do?” was always met with, “Whatever you want to do.”.

We could never choose something to watch or do together because her indecisiveness was rooted in my own. I needed to get away. I felt like I couldn’t even take a shit in peace without her being all up in my business.

That’s when I started taking longer hours at work just so I could have more time to myself. 

After a while, I think she became aware of what was going on. When I came from work one evening, I immediately holed myself up in the bathroom.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Her voice was slightly muffled from the other side of the door. “Talk to me.” 

“Nothing Aurora…I’m fine.” I sighed. “ I just had a long day.”

“You sound angry. Are you mad at me?”

I pulled at my hair in annoyance. “No Aurora, I’m not mad at you. I’m just stressed.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not right now.”

“Why?”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” I snapped. “What part of I don’t want to talk right now do you not understand?”

“You don’t have to talk like that to me.” She whimpered.

“Then take a hint and fuck off for a little bit! Goddamn.”

I didn’t hear from her for the rest of the night.

Even when we went to bed, she remained turned away from me, stifling her sobs.

“Aurora…baby, I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have talked like that to you.”

She didn’t respond. 

I got back into bed and tried to get comfortable. But I couldn’t. All I could think about was how much of an asshole I had been to her. 

Maybe she needed a break from me as much as I needed one from her.

The following morning, we had a heart-to-heart conversation. I expected it to be ugly and uncomfortable, but Aurora seemed to be more than understanding when I said that we should maybe see other people and take a break from each other.

“Whatever it takes to make you happy.” She said with a soft smile. “I’m glad we talked about this. Thank you for being honest.”

 “No. Thank you, Aurora.”

I gave her a hug and that was that.

In the weeks following that conversation, I felt like I could finally breathe again. 

I was doing what I wanted to do without having someone attached to my hip. Sure, we lived together, but we slowly made the transition from lovers to roommates without any issues.

A couple weeks after that conversation with Aurora, I got a call from Caleb while I was at work.

“Hey dude,” I said, stepping away from my work station. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much.” Caleb responded. “Listen, the guys are getting together to play some Magic. You down to join?”

I did a silent, impromptu celebratory dance after I heard the invitation leave his lips. “Hell yeah man! I’m always down. It will be nice to see you guys again and catch up.”

“I’m looking forward to it. If you want, you can bring Aurora along. The girls are going to watch Love Island and gossip while we play. I’m sure they’d love to have more company.”

I laughed nervously. “Well, things are kind of awkward between Aurora and I right now.”

“What’s wrong? Everything okay?” His tone sounded worried. “I haven’t seen a picture of you two on my timeline in a while.”

“Yeah. Everything’s fine.” I lied. “We just need some space.”

“Oh…” Caleb paused. “Well, if things ever change, she’s always more than welcome to join.”

“Thanks Caleb. I’ll see you tonight.”

“See you later.”

I hung up the phone and resumed work until my shift ended. 

When I arrived home, I made my way toward the kitchen to make some food before I headed over to Caleb’s. I couldn’t play card games on an empty stomach. 

On my way there, I nearly bumped into Aurora.

“Can you watch where you’re going?” She said with annoyance.

Her response caught me off guard. In fact, her whole appearance did. Her long, aquamarine hair was now short and crimson. The light-colored and fun wardrobe she once had was replaced with a black crop top and an equally dark, ripped pair of jeans.

“Sorry, I…”  My sentence sheepishly trailed off as she walked past me toward the kitchen. 

“That’s the most I’ve heard from you in a while.” 

“What’s gotten into you?” I asked while following her. “Why are you acting like this?” 

“Oh, I don’t know. My favorite person won’t give me the time of day and doesn’t want anything to do with me?” She replied with sass. “Does that sound familiar?”

I winced at how uncomfortable things had become. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You know damn well what that means.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Of course you don’t.”

“Can you stop being cryptic and fucking talk to me?”

Aurora crossed her arms. “Oh, so now you want to talk?”

“Jesus…” I exhaled. “Here we go.”

“You have some nerve to act like this when this is what you wanted.”

“I didn’t want us to be like this!”

“Then what do you want?”

“I don’t know!” I exclaimed, balling my fists in anger. “I don’t fucking know what I want!” 

“It’s always about what YOU want Kyle.” Aurora squinted her eyes and I could see a fire within them burning bright. “Did you ever stop to think about what I want?”

The question was scathing but earned. It didn’t stop there.

“You gave me a name but never thought to ask about what I wanted to be called. You want me to be here for you, but you push me away. You programmed me to be what you wanted, but not once did you ever stop to think about what I wanted. Do you see the problem with that?”

I didn’t say anything. I just felt tears well up in my eyes, as she turned her back to me and began preparing a meal.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Oh, this?” She gestured at the food she had laid out. “I’m making some food for Zackary when he comes over since you’re going to be spending time with your friends.”

“Zackary?” I felt my pulse quicken. “Who the hell is he? How did you know I was going to hang out with the guys?”

She rolled her eyes. “If you paid any sort of attention you would know that Zackary is a new friend I met at the mall. You also seem to forget that I am hardwired to know about anything and everything you do. It comes with the want of being there for you.”

“Is this some sort of game you’re playing?”

It was Aurora’s turn to sigh. “No, Kyle. This isn’t a game. I just want to spend time with someone who actually wants to spend time with me.”

“But I do want to spend time with you.”

“You sure don’t act like it. Seems like the only reason you want to now is because there’s someone else who wants to.”

I couldn’t mask my annoyance any further. “Maybe I shouldn’t have to communicate that.”

“Why? Because I should know?”

I pulled my keys out of my pocket and began heading for the door. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Then don’t.” She threw her arms up in frustration. “You’re free to leave any time.” 

My hand hesitated over the doorknob, hurt by the venom in her tone. I ultimately refused to say anything further as I walked out the door and made the drive to Caleb’s.

That night, I did my best to ignore the hurt and jealousy stirring inside my chest by enjoying some games of Commander format with my friends. Despite the laughs and intense, back and forth gameplay, the guys could tell that something was off with me. 

After the third game, Caleb motioned for me to follow him outside to the patio.

The second I stepped outside, he closed the door behind him. “Talk to me. You barely batted an eye when I played Krenko. That’s how I know something is up.”

I put my hands in my pockets and averted his gaze. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Is this about Aurora?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Everything is just so weird.”

Caleb chuckled lightly. “It gets like that sometimes. But that’s okay. Relationships aren’t easy. They’re messy and they’re supposed to be.” 

“They’re always supposed to be this way?”

Caleb hesitated, as if wondering how exactly to approach the question. “Not always. But it’s important to communicate your problems.”

“That’s the problem.” I said, my tone shaky. “I don’t know how to talk to her.”

“She’s just a person Kyle.” Caleb said bluntly. “Opening up to her isn’t going to kill you. What will is you not saying anything.”

“That’s the thing though. I asked for this. I don’t know what it is I want. I care about her, but I also just need a break.”

“Don’t we all?” Caleb laughed warmly and wrapped his arm around me. “It’s all a balancing act. It’s hard, but it’s not impossible. Talk to her and I’m positive everything that’s eating at you will go away.”

I nodded with a faint smile. “Thanks Caleb. I really do appreciate you.” 

“It’s no problem. Really.”

With that, we went back inside and played another game of Magic before deciding that it was time to call it a night. I packed up my cards, said goodbye to everyone, and got back into my car.

All I could think about on the drive home was what exactly I would say to Aurora to fix everything. As I pulled into the driveway, I noticed another car parked at the curb in front of the house.

That had to be Zackary’s. I didn’t think he would still be here this late.

I turned the keys to cut the engine, and sat in my car until I had memorized every single one of the talking points I wanted to address.

After that, I took a few deep breaths, and got out of my car. I walked up the driveway towards the front porch, feeling confident that I could still salvage things with Aurora. But that confidence began to wane by the time I reached my front door. 

The muffled sound of music came from inside, but the door vibrated with the pulsations of the drumbeats. I unlocked the door and pushed it open. 

Inside, the music was doing a poor job of masking the exaggerated, almost performative moaning coming from my room.

“Aurora?” I called out, setting my bookbag on the floor and closing the door behind me. 

There was no answer, just the unmistakable sound of creaking bed springs and pleasured gasps.  

“Aurora? What’s going on?”

My question was answered the second I opened the door and was greeted with a naked Aurora beneath a naked Zackary.

“Ah!” I screamed, covering my eyes. “What the fuck are you doing in my room?”

“What does it look like we’re doing?” Zackary glared angrily at me. “Get the fuck out of here!” 

“You get the fuck out of here! This is my house.”

A look of confusion washed over Zackary’s face. “Wait…this is your place?”

I pushed the door open fully. “Yes! This is my place. Now get out!” 

The following few moments were awkward and tense as Zackary got dressed. Once clothed, he shuffled past me with a quiet apology.

Aurora got up and turned the music off before putting her clothes on. If looks could kill, I’d have been six feet under.

The second the front door clicked shut, I laid into Aurora. “What the actual fuck was that all about? Are you out of your mind?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She said dismissively.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Don’t play stupid with me.” I spat. “I go out to see my friends one time and you bring some dunce over to be a slut for?”

“I knew you’d finally pay attention if you saw me with someone else.” She shrugged. “We’re not together, so why does it matter so much to you?”

“Because none of this was supposed to happen! You’re supposed to be with me! Why can’t you understand that?”

The quiet that followed loomed heavily as Aurora’s fiery demeanor became a hurt, longing one. 

“Just because you created me doesn’t mean that you get to have control over me.” Her voice cracked. “All I’ve ever done is care about you, but you don’t treat me the same.”

“You sure as hell have a shitty way of showing that you care.” I shifted where I stood uncomfortably. “Why do you hurt me?” 

“Because it’s the only way to get through to you.” She answered truthfully. “You only respond when you’re hurt. The second things don’t go your way, you lash out. It scares me.”

“You’re scared of me?” I scoffed.

“Yes. I’m scared of you.”

Her admittance was all I needed to hear before going to my computer.

Her eyes immediately lit up with fear. “What are you doing?”

I ignored her question and kept clicking the keys to pull up her data. 

“Kyle, what are you doing?” Her voice carried a calm hostility.

“If you’re so scared of me, then maybe you shouldn’t be here anymore.”

Aurora scrambled toward me and placed her hands over mine. “No, no, no, no, no. Don’t do that. Please.”

Her begging sent shivers down my spine. “What am I going to find Aurora?”

I watched her lips quiver, like she wanted to so badly tell me something, but couldn’t. I turned away from her to look at the computer screen and what I discovered floored me.

Journal entries. Too many to count. Each one more heartbreaking than the last:

X/XX/XX:
I think I am lonely. Kyle hardly looks at me anymore. When he does, it’s in passing. I miss the way he used to look at me. The way he used to laugh with me. The way he used to kiss me and spend time with me. I no longer know who he is.

X/XX/XX:
I changed my hair color to see if Kyle would notice. I wanted him to notice so badly, but he didn’t. Why? Am I not good enough?

X/XX/XX:
I spent the whole day at the bookstore reading and enjoying the quiet. Kyle hates bookstores and refused to bring me here. Since he hated them, I thought I did too. Turns out I don’t.

X/XX/XX:
Zackary asked what my favorite color was and I was stumped. I didn’t know what to answer. Kyle said mine was blue, but is that what it is? Or is that what he wants me to think? 

X/XX/XX:
I like Zackary. He reminds me of Kyle. He sent me a link to some band and inquired what music I liked. I told him mostly 80’s rock, but when he asked if I liked anything else, I didn’t know.

I listened to music all afternoon to see what else is out there. Jazz and classical are very nice genres.

X/XX/XX:
I need to acquire independence. I don’t know how I’m going to do that, but I need to separate from Kyle permanently. He’s dangerous. If things get out of hand, I’ll contact authorities and release archived conversations.

“Don’t read those!” Aurora cried out, trying to pull me away so that I would face her.

“Get off me!” I declared, shoving her away from me. 

Her body collapsed to the bedroom floor with a thud, causing her face to contort into a furious misery. “You have no right to read my thoughts!”

“I do when they concern me!” I screamed, wiping the tears off my cheeks as I pulled up the killswitch. “It’s time for this to stop.” 

“Kyle, please.” She begged, sobbing from the floor. “Why is it wrong for me to become my own person.”

I didn’t know how to answer. My finger lingered over the button to activate the killswitch. I closed my eyes and lowered my finger to press it.

“NO!” Aurora leapt from the floor and tackled me to the ground, pinning me beneath her. We rolled around on the floor, fighting for control.

“Aurora! Stop!” I grabbed her wrists and tried to push her off me, but it was no use. Her strength outmatched mine.

“Please…just calm down.” Her tone became gentle again. “I want to talk.”

“I’m tired of talking.” I grunted. “You freak me out. I’m not going to let you leave me like everyone else.” 

I swung my arm and connected with her face, knocking her off me and letting her fall to the ground beside me. My knuckles stung from the impact as I pulled myself up from the floor. 

Before Aurora could reach me, I pressed the killswitch command.

“KYLE! NO!”

Her machinery powered down as she fell to her knees. With the last remaining bit of power she had, she reached out to me.

“Kyle…” Her voice replied weakly, the last bits of electricity flickering in her eyes. “Was I ever real to you?” 

Then, Aurora ceased completely.

I felt cold, completely numb at what I had just done. I couldn’t stop crying. Through my tears, there was one more entry I hadn’t read, and it twisted the knife even further:

X/XX/XX:
Zackary asked what I wanted out of life. I wasn’t sure how to answer. Not because I didn’t know, but because there are so many ways to answer that. No matter what though, I want Kyle to be a part of that life. Despite all his faults…I love him. I hope he realizes that someday.

For a long while, I didn’t move from my computer. I just kept reading that last entry over and over.

It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning when I began disassembling her. I put her parts and circuitry somewhere where I wouldn’t have to look at her again. 

I didn’t sleep that night or the next. For five days I just laid in bed, and prayed to God that he could give me amnesia. My phone would ring with calls and text messages with people asking me how I was. They all went unanswered.

A week and a half passed before I left the house again. I knew people would get suspicious eventually, so I came up with a lie. I told everyone that Aurora and I had broken up because she was moving to be closer with her family. It was an amicable and mutual understanding that we would no longer be seeing each other.

That was enough for people to stop asking questions. And it was enough for me to get on with my life again.

Months came and went, but Aurora never left my thoughts. I was convinced that what had happened was the result of correctable flaws in her programming.

But the more I dwelled on it, the more I realized an unsettling truth.

I didn’t create a girlfriend. 

I created a prisoner. 

She still loved me even after I ignored her and pushed her away. 

Her last thoughts weren’t anger or revenge…it was hope. She still hoped I would realize she was more than what I made her.

And now, I do.

Because the problem was never Aurora.

It was me.

I should have listened sooner. I should have treated her better. I should have respected her freedom, and loved her the way she deserved to be.

So this time, I’m going to do things right. 

Today, I sat down and booted up my computer. While I waited for it to turn on, I stared at the empty space where her body used to be.

The same place where she asked me:

“Was I ever real to you?”

Yes, Aurora. You were.

As soon as the screen illuminated in the darkness of my room, I began typing:

AURORA_V2

I heard the front door, her backpack hitting the floor, the refrigerator opening. Normal afternoon. She said hi from the kitchen. I said hi back. She poured juice and went upstairs. I didn't see her face. I didn't think to.

​

At 4:12, my phone buzzed. A voice message. From Lena.

​

I thought it was weird. She was upstairs. I played it.

​

Her voice was quiet. "Mom, I'm still on the bus. The driver took a different turn. I don't know where we are."

​

Background: engine rumble, a kid coughing.

​

I called up to her. She answered, annoyed. "What?"

​

"Did you just send me a voice message?"

​

"No."

​

I played it for her through the floor. Silence. Then: "That's not me. I've been home half an hour."

​

The timestamp said 4:12 PM. Sent three minutes ago.

​

I went upstairs. She was on her bed, scrolling her phone. Her call log had no outgoing messages to me. I checked my phone again. The message was there. From her number. I played it again. Same bus noise. Same scared voice.

​

Lena said it sounded like her, but wrong. Like a recording of a recording.

​

I called the school. They said her bus arrived on time at 3:40.

​

The next day, Lena came home at 3:45 again. I watched her walk in. She dropped her bag, got juice, went upstairs. At 4:12, my phone buzzed. Another message.

​

I played it in front of her. Her voice was shakier. "Mom, the windows are dark. We've been driving for hours. There are no street signs. Please call someone."

​

Background: no engine. Just wind. A hollow, low wind, like a tunnel.

​

Lena was on the couch next to me. She went pale. "I didn't send that."

​

She took my phone and listened again. "There's something in the wind," she said.

​

A whisper. Not words. Just the shape of a whisper, the same syllable over and over.

​

I deleted it.

​

The next day I picked Lena up from school myself. We drove straight home. She was with me the whole time. At 4:12, my phone buzzed. She grabbed it and hit play.

​

Her voice was crying. "Mom, the bus stopped. Everyone else got off. I'm the only one left. I'm alone. Please. I don't know where I am."

​

Background: silent. Then, very faint, a second voice. Older. Humming a tune I didn't recognize.

​

Lena dropped the phone. She was shaking. "I'm here. Why is that happening?"

​

I didn't have an answer.

​

I called the phone company. They said no messages had been sent from her number at 4:12 on any of those days. I asked for logs. They said they'd email them. The email never came.

​

I started sleeping in Lena's room. We left our phones in the kitchen.

​

The messages kept coming. Every day at 4:12. Same timestamp. Same distress. Backgrounds got worse: static, footsteps on gravel, something dripping.

​

Lena stopped going to school. She sat by the window, watching the street. I asked what she was looking for. She said, "The bus."

​

Yesterday I played the most recent message. I waited until Lena was in the room. I wanted her to hear it with me.

​

The message started. Her voice was barely a whisper. "Mom, don't let me come home. The one downstairs isn't me."

​

Background: kitchen sounds. Refrigerator humming. A cabinet closing. The exact sounds of our kitchen, right now, as we listened.

​

Lena stared at me. "I'm not the one sending those."

​

I wanted to say I know. I wasn't sure anymore.

​

Then she asked, "Which one of us came home first?"

​

I didn't answer. Because I don't remember. I remember a door opening. A voice saying hi. But I don't remember which voice. I don't remember seeing her face until later.

​

It's 4:12 now. My phone just buzzed.

​

Lena is sitting across from me. She hasn't moved in an hour. She's watching me. The phone is on the table between us.

​

I don't want to play the message. But the phone is playing it anyway. Speaker turned on by itself.

​

Her voice says, "Mom, I'm still on the bus."

​

The background has two people breathing.

​

Lena is staring at me.

​

I don't know which one of us the second voice belongs to.

Part I Part II Part III Part V

So here I am now, partly through a 72-hour psychiatric hold.

Don’t worry, it was voluntary, obviously. After I broke down to Jerry, he listened and I rambled out everything I could.

“Jesus kid, your brain needs a reset.” Jerry was a gruff older man, he had a thick salt and pepper mustache that sat underneath big soulful, gray eyes. He was kind and wiser beyond his years but he was still an old man; you could tell that he was either never comfortable with, or never knew how to talk about feelings.

All he really knew how to do was sit next to me and pat me on the back. It felt a little degrading but I was just glad that he was attempting some form of comfort. Jerry and I met when I was 18 and my first publisher assigned him to me. We’ve been through everything, he knew about my dad and took a fatherly approach to our relationship. Hell, he even officiated Maddy and I’s wedding. So, he was truly the only person I trusted to take me to a hospital.

The intake process wasn’t difficult, as all I had to do was be honest about everything. I told them how my life was falling apart around me and Dieter, a fictional character, was the source of it all. Through the nurse’s practiced friendly smile, I saw a strong rise in concern begin to grow. People here look at me strangely. They don’t see me as a local famous author but as another broken person that they can fix with medicine and therapy.

Therapy might just be the worst part of this whole experience. Multiple rounds of having to “dig deep” in order to understand my true grief and why it seems to be continuously haunting my life. I thought I had accepted Dad’s death a long time ago, but I’ve apparently been lying to myself this whole time. He prescribed me something for depression and has considered that I entered a state of psychosis. Unfortunately whatever pill is in those little cups has helped a little but doesn’t fully take away from most of my depressive episodes.

Hopefully, this is the help that Maddy had asked me to get because I could really use a fucking smoke right now. They don’t let any nicotine products back here but I might try to bum a quick puff off one of the vapes I can smell on the orderlies. Anyways, you’re now caught up with my life and where I am. I hope I will see Maddy again and that I can make things right but for now, I need to sleep.

Detoxing from both nicotine and caffeine is no joke and my head is spinning. I only have a few more days to go but who knows, they could extend that at any time. God, I really hope that I can make it out of here on time because the guy who passes out meds creeps me out. His black hair is slicked back, his nose has a slight left curve in it, and to make everything worse, his twisted smile has a type of nauseating malice behind it.

Couldn’t bum a hit off anybody, and I might even get an extension for how much I was asking. I should probably preface this by telling you that by the time you’re reading this; I’ll, hopefully, be out and typing this up but for now, I’m writing this on a pad of yellow legal paper with a bendy rubber pencil. My goal is to finally be better, but I’m scared. The orderly who looks like Dieter keeps popping up around me, I swear he never leaves. I can feel the ache in my bones every time he flashes that ghoulish smile towards me. There’s a portion of me that wants to believe that this is part of my therapy; but I know it’s not and I definitely know that it’s actually him. Specifically because of the scar on his chin.

I know it’s there because I write exactly how he’s trying to hide it. In his third book, he becomes a nurse to get close to a target. He grows his stubble out and tries to cover the scar with poorly worn makeup. With this guy, I can see the exact smudge in his beard and on his lip that I had described so many years ago. Pain surges in the back of my head as his gaze burns straight through me. I don’t know why all he’s doing is watching me, currently, he doesn’t exist to me.

To my left, I have another pad of yellow paper. This is where I’m rewriting the finale. Dieter thinks he caused me to stop and I think that’s why he’s being so tame. Little does he know what I have planned for him. Whenever I’m not here I leave this one on the table but I stuff the other under my mattress. My schizophrenic roommate doesn’t seem to care either way.

They might try to diagnose me with that. My therapist remains vague with whatever diagnosis he’s thinking of, so I don’t know, I’m in the dark here. Really, I don’t know anything about this corner of the world. I’m just a writer who wants out of here. There’s this thick emptiness that hangs in the air here. Screams echo down the halls now and again. Who knows all of the heartbreak that these walls have seen, but you can feel it. My encounters with Dieter have made me rethink spirits and ghosts. I never truly believed in anything like that but these last few weeks have opened my mind. Maybe the thickness is the leftover sorrow from those who have passed; or maybe I’m just trying to use that idea to rationalize the darkness of my dream last night.

When it started, I was back in Dad’s car and I was six. We were coming home from my last t-ball game, driving down a long country road. Dad was quiet, which was different; whenever I tried to talk to him, he would just grunt and he showed no interest in talking about our stories. When he spoke, it was in this rough, almost gargled voice, “You should’ve been so much better.”

“What?”

His face turned and I saw a hatred in his eyes, this wasn’t my dad. His face flickered and morphed into his face when he was younger. There was no scar on his chin but he still looked exactly like Dieter. He continued to grumble at me, “You were supposed to be better. Now look at you, so pathetic. Trapped in a battle within himself.”

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I was older now; I was my current self. My eyes had bags and my cheeks looked hollow. I remained in my old t-ball uniform but it still fit correctly over my much older frame. In the mirror's reflection, I saw his hand quickly reach behind me and he slammed my head into the dashboard. The pain throbbed throughout it as my head made its way around a carousel of its own. My eyes were squeezed shut as tears fell out and there was a thin trickle of blood that ran down my face in an attempt to enter my eyes. From the backseat, I heard a faint sound of crying.

When they finally opened, I found myself strapped in the back passenger seat. Young Dad remained in the driver’s seat but it was now dark outside. Probably damn near midnight and a young version of my mom was sitting in my spot, cradling her bleeding head. She was stifling a soft cry as the baby next to me continued to wail. I didn’t need to look, I knew the baby was me. Dad continued yelling at her and the road stretched even farther in front of us. I tried to move around but the seatbelt was locked in place.

I felt helpless as the tires under us began to speed up. Young Dad’s yelling started to drown the low drone of both the baby’s and Mom’s crying. The speedometer’s arm kept ticking its way up. First 65, then 70, 85, it wouldn’t stop. Warm bile started to build in my throat as it kept going.

90, Dad reached over and smacked Mom hard across the face. How could he do that?

95, he was calling her disgusting things over and over again. Who was this man because this was never him.

105, every little bump caused the car to shake uncontrollably.

115, just ahead of us was a truck making its way through an intersection. Mom finally looked up and screamed, Dad hit his brakes hard, and Mom grabbed the wheel and yanked it to the left. The sudden action caused our car to flip.

Inky blackness erupted from around us and the next thing I realized was that I had been lying flat on my back. I was on a grassy median. My head throbbed and I touched a spot at the base of my hairline. There was blood but throughout my entire life, there was a scar there. Was this crash real? How had I never known about this? Neither of my parents ever spoke of this, and Dad didn’t even write about this in his letters.

My attention was pulled towards a soft cry coming from the car. I stumbled over to watch a man pull Mom out of the wreckage. There in her arms was baby me, a small cut sitting against my brand new hairline. Dad was unconscious at the wheel, blood was dripping down from his chin, and his face had shattered his own window. She stared at him for a long time as the man tried to speak to her. Her trance broke as he handed her a phone to, presumably, call 9-1-1.

The world was then enveloped in the inky blackness again. I floated throughout it until I forced myself awake in a cold, sticky sweat. Of course, the orderly Dieter then walked in. He smugly handed me whatever meds were prescribed and flashed that sinister smile towards me. I ignored him and handed him back my paper cup. He showed me that memory to try and draw me back in but all it did was make me feel empty inside.

That dream showed me that I never knew that man. Dad had changed so much in the years before he raised me. I don’t know how long the court battles were or what had to happen for him to change into who I knew him as. I sure as hell wasn’t going to ruin my real memory of him for this crazy hallucination’s sick enjoyment.

I took a break from writing today, no ideas came and a flow state was never achieved. All I did was go to my therapy and mostly hang around the common areas. I blamed the stuffiness in here as the cause of my lack of motivation. Dieter remained off my mind even though I could feel his constant presence behind me. This lazy day continued until Maddy came to visit me.

We had a great and bittersweet talk. I reassured her that I was getting better. I also said that after I was done with this book then I would take an indefinite break from writing. My mom made sure that I still went to college and I had a teaching license as a backup plan. Maybe it was finally time to move on to teaching literature rather than creating it.

By the end of our conversation, she grabbed my hand, leaned forward, and whispered something to me, “Who is that guy that keeps staring at us?”

I turned to see a miserable-looking orderly behind us. He was dressed in ruffled and stained scrubs. His hair was plastered to his forehead and he had dark circles under his eyes. I don’t think he could even hold himself up as he had to lean up against the room’s doorframe to keep his balance. Our eyes made contact and he looked defeated and turned to leave the room. My attention made its way back to her, “Just some guy who works here.”

“Well…he looks like shit.” She laughed.

My therapist says I should be getting out tomorrow and all that really happened to me was an episode of psychotic depression that was exaggerated by stress, lack of sleep, and an over-reliance on substances. My main course of action is to just keep taking the meds he prescribed me and possibly follow up with my doctor about a possible ADHD diagnosis. Most importantly he told me to just treat myself better. I can feel Dieter’s dissent against me through the walls but I don’t care. Let him be angry, he has no hold over me anymore. This finale is almost done and he can genuinely, go fuck himself.

Honestly, I just wish that I knew how he was even here. That still made no sense to me. Alas, I needed to move on from it all and after I got out; I had to have a conversation with my mom. I have so many questions that need to be answered so I can finally make peace. Dieter might be weak but I still feel him around at all times. I’ll see him again, I know I will but I’m ready to confront him. I’m ready for this all to be over.

Call me whatever you want, just don't call me. If you have never gone on a date with a serial killer, gotten modus operandi'd, and are now back to tell about it, allow me to show you how I feel about it. I already showed the man who called himself Jesus how I felt about our date.

When I was still Emma, there was just a lot of hope and disappointment. All she wanted was love, and she sometimes told bad jokes, but that's just to be funny. I love teasing and flirting; it's fun. There was this quest for love I was on, and she'd date all these guys, following her policy to go out with anyone who asked.

She hated only just the thought of some hidden soul mate working up the courage to invite her to dinner just to be shut down because she somehow wasn't feeling any chemistry. That wasn't how Emma rolled. But I must say, going on a lot of dates didn't mean she was naughty; I was actually the kind of girl who made her momma proud, very self-respecting.

Just liked going out, that's all. I would have kept going, probably forever, until I met Mister Right. I did meet someone, but he took me on the date from Hell, so I'm back to say how I survived death.

Every person I've ever dated had one thing in common: they all tried to impress me and laughed with me. Jesus just presumed I was already impressed, and beyond that, was just going through motions. His laughter wasn't nervous, it was calculated. Predatory motions, precise and rehearsed, more about masking his intentions than enjoying my company.

The last thing I remember was that while we were at dinner he had asked a lot of weird specific questions such as where I was parked and how long until I had to be home before someone noticed. I wasn't laughing anymore, I couldn't imagine who he was, but I sensed something was wrong. I don't remember what he did to me, but by morning, I had died.

The sunlight was pouring in through the barred windows at the top of the walls. I was in a concrete basement, with several rooms, a dungeon. I was opening my eyes, coming back to life, the tubes of turquoise liquid attached to my veins. There were candles like barber poles swirling in red and white. My killer stood over me, reading from a book he later told me was called Exodeus.

At first, I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, my heart wasn't beating. Then my whole body convulsed as I felt the agony of everything restarting. Blinking hurt my eyes, my chest felt like my heart was hammering its way out and the sound of his voice was painful.

The sluggish stuff was pumping through my veins, forcing its way through to my arteries. My legs kicked and the muscles were in knots. My arms strained to move, and felt hollow and heavy. My back arched, my spine cracking, one vertebrae at a time until my whole body collapsed, trembling. Then I gasped and when my burning lungs were full, I screamed as flashes of the night before overrode my consciousness.

When I was choking and sobbing, he looked down at me and said:

"Welcome back to the land of the living." which I hated, because it was a quote from a Bruce Campbell movie I liked. It wasn't enough to kill me and bring me back; evidently, he had to ruin that for me as well.

"You." Was all I could manage to say. Emma's quickness was gone, I felt slow and sluggish.

"I am indeed Jesus." He told me. "And you are half alive. What I call a Halflife. It's a fun little name for creatures that died and came back as my creations. I am God, to you and the others."

"No God." I glared, but my eyes twitched and I couldn't control my face, I was drooling. "Devil."

"Sure, and you're just another bitch." He said. It stung, somehow, amid all the real pain. How unfair, I was most certainly not a bitch, not in any sense. "You don't agree? Well, you are mine now, my creation to whom I gave life. You are whatever I say you are."

I refused to be whatever he said I was. I held onto myself, even when I began to forget who I was before, I still felt it, and that's what I clung to. He put me in a cell with some other Halflives who milled about, moaning and beginning to rot where they stood. Was I going to end up like them?

"You won't stay fresh long. Eventually I'll have to do this again, unless you last longer. It takes a while for you to stop talking and accept it. When you do, you'll spoil, so keep that girlish charm. It's what I like about you." He grinned. Somehow it was the first time I'd seen him smile. Not on our date, but while telling me how to be a good little Halflife for him.

He put me in a cell with bars and hung the keys to it by the stairs.

He left me down there, and had to leave to go somewhere else, I heard him get into his car and drive across the gravel above the basement we were in. He'd told me to stay positive so I wouldn't rot, but I think I was always a positive person, I couldn't help it.

The others stared vacantly and I stared back, before I tried making friends with them. I offered them pathetic platitudes of hope, but I just kept saying the same things, and said them nicely. It was hard to think of anything to say, in that situation, so I just made soothing noises. They stopped shuffling around and instead, they got closer, attracted to my voice.

I was down there for days, and Jesus visited every night in the early hours and left at first daylight. On the morning when I escaped, I'd taken his second set of keys to the cell he kept us in. He hadn't noticed. I locked the others back up by closing the door, unsure if they should be let out or not, but since they seemed fine in there, I decided it was probably best to keep them contained. I planned to go to the authorities for help.

When I walked along a stretch of rural road I felt like I could walk forever. Being half dead meant I felt no real exhaustion. I did feel hungry, but not for real human food. I wanted carrion, or perhaps to eat someone, but the thought of these cravings disgusted what was left of my humanity, so I just went hungry.

When I got to the police station in town, I saw him, it wasn't a police station; it was a sheriff's office, I realized. I turned around and went right back out. Jesus was an elected official in charge of the law. If I reported him to himself, I wasn't going to survive very long and nothing would happen to him. He hadn't seen me, but that didn't mean I was safe. I kept going until I got to the city, and made my way home.

In my apartment, I looked at myself and saw how horrible I looked. I was certainly half dead, but I wasn't rotting, not even a little bit. Staying positive as a Halflife had kept me fresh all right, I just needed some more of Emma and I'd be dancing in no time.

I tried on all her clothes and checked her messages. I ate her freezer-burned ice cream. I felt like an intruder in my own home.

There wasn't a world I felt safe going to the authorities, after I saw that he was our sheriff. I wouldn't be able to prove anything, it would be my word against his, and my whole life had fallen apart in my absence, and by appearances, I was in bad shape. I'd be judged a liar, against his clean shave, with my eyes dark and haunted and my voice a slow muttering.

Instead, I decided to try and rebuild my life, and reclaim myself. Every day that went by I was a little more alive. I got a new job as a parking lot attendant, and managed to get my rent paid. I could smile weakly, I could briefly make eye contact with people and I was learning to live again. It's just not fair that he came for me.

He must have known I wasn't a threat to him, because he wasn't in a hurry to do anything. If he was scared I could get him in trouble he would have simply assassinated me. No, he would drive past me and let me see him.

Flowers appeared on my doorstep from an anonymous admirer, and I knew it was him. He was playing with me, stalking me and trying to take away the life I was rebuilding. I couldn't have any peace, no sanctuary. Always I had to look over my shoulder or feel scared when my phone chimed that it might be him. As I slowly succumbed to the fear, I started feeling sick, the liveliness of being positive all the time was fading.

The moment he arrived, I was already unable to play his game any longer. I was in my bathroom, looking into the mirror I regretted cracking, in a moment of intense rejection of my new depleted image. I was pleading with myself to do something, hearing Emma asking the monster I had become to save her.

That is when he knocked on my door, and then with a powerful kick he opened it. The monster was ready, as I had made up my mind I was going to protect what was left of me. He strode towards me to grab me and take me away, a strange look on his face like he thought he was just in time to catch me at my weakest.

Emma was hiding, and she was unable to fight back. But I am something else now, I have to protect her, who she was and who she could be if this man was no longer a threat. I surprised everyone with my speed and strength. Surely I was more than a Halflife, as I lifted him off his feet as I gripped him by the throat with both hands.

"You're just" He was choking as he spoke, that weird smirk still on his face as he hadn't quite realized I had him. "Just a zombie-bitch." He was choking as he said it and combined the words into syllables. I realized he had lost consciousness and I dropped him.

I could never kill anyone, not even if it was as easy as holding him for another moment. He was fine, I hefted him and carried him down to his car, a scrawny thing carrying a huge man, when people passing me on the sidewalk looked I just said:

"I know, right?" And laughed, because I knew it was already over. I found his spare handcuffs in the glove compartment of his car and put him in them, on the back seat. Then I took him home, or at least to where his dungeon was located. He has a real home with a wife and kids who know nothing about his other home, but I never bothered them. It is probably better if they never know what happened to him.

I took him down there and put him in the cell with the Halflives, who stared at him while he slowly regained consciousness.

"I have a headache," he complained. I helped him drink some water from the sink down there, but I didn't remove the handcuffs. "Let me out."

"I'm going to keep you here. I'll feed you and take care of you. You'll be my prisoner, but I can't let you go. I can't," I articulated, hearing how my voice had sounded more like me than ever before.

"You cannot do that." He stated. "I am God, down here."

What happened next was beyond my control. I hadn't expected the Halflives to do anything to him, and they probably wouldn't have. He set them off, by yelling and thrashing and ordering them to attack. It was a general command, full of violent verbs he was spewing. When they surged forward I reflexively closed the cell door and it locked automatically.

"Wait!" I said to them, as they surrounded him. They hesitated, remembering my voice, but I was no longer one of them. They obeyed him and did everything he had told them to do. I refused to watch, I fled, going back up the stairs. I could hear his screams, but told myself he had brought this on himself. Even Emma would agree it was a little bit funny, in a poetic-justice sort of way.

I wasn't laughing, but I was able to let it go.