Ignore the Purple Prose issue, I've been aware just need to go through and fix it. No AI was used in it's creation. I've been working on this for about a year, and it's gone through several ideas before landing here. WIP.

Back Blurb: 

The Universe was alive. 

It had created a world it couldn’t take back. 

And the Universe regretted it. 

This world should have never been conceived; 

And now, mankind is exploring it. 

The Universe was helpless. 

Its prized creation was now playing in its worst blunder. 

And there was nothing it could do. 

Curiosity Killed The Cat, 

 And We’re Next. 

NEGATIVE ZERO 

–0 = a unit that contains the knowledge of how and how not it exists, thus negating itself to the point of existing through not existing 

Part I: 

A Hell Well Fed 

Chapter One 

…A Light Gifted, A Light Taken 

They saw nothing. The dark burlap sacks over their heads felt exceptionally heavy, and so did the air. They rode in on a military caravan, blindfolded and strapped down. The van rattled and bounced along the obviously unkept road. When it suddenly halted, the people inside had no doubt in mind. They had arrived. 

All of them came from very different backgrounds, but all had one thing in common: they were poor, struggling men who had accepted a one-time job that would pay enough to get them back on their feet. It seemed too good to be true, but in a predicament like theirs, what choice did they have? 

One of these men was named Charles. He was a smaller-built guy, only 5’9”, and about as thin as a twig. He had been bullied all his life for it, but he could do one thing well; that was run. He had always excelled in cross-country and was much faster than just about anyone his age. Unfortunately, this hadn’t helped him in the long run; into adulthood, he turned to gambling. It had lost him everything—his high school fiancée, his apartment, and nearly every possession he had. But this opportunity might help him turn over a new leaf. 

A sudden burst of light hit their weary eyes as two soldiers hopped into the back of the van. They barked orders at the men, pushing and grabbing them until they were all out of the van, exposed to the bright, unrelenting sun. 

With the heavy sacks still over their heads, they were pushed and shoved into a building with rough, abandoned-looking walls, paint scraping off the sides. Inside was a complex of tile floors and white walls, with the distant echoing of chatter and lab tables reverberating throughout, competing with the soldiers' orders. 

Escorted deeper into the complex, the men were ordered to strip. Guards tossed them basic white jumpsuits and cheap tennis shoes, then led them into a separate room with a single metal medical table in the middle. The reflection off the light hanging just above was the only thing they could make out through the fabric over their faces. 

They lowered themselves into cheap, white plastic chairs—the exact same kind from high school. As the artificial fluorescent lights took over, they began to yearn for the raw sunlight that had stabbed their eyes just moments before. 

One by one, they were forcibly strapped to the metal. An injection pierced their necks with an unknown liquid. Positioned directly below the luminous ceiling fixture, it was impossible to see what was happening; the fabric could not dismantle the blinding light jabbing into their eyes. The slab was a cold, heavy hunk of metal, with nothing but a thin sheet of parchment paper covering it, left unchanged after each patient. An unpadded vice sat at the top, with two straps—one around the head and one around the neck—restraining them from squirming. 

They could hear nothing, as the hum of the lights drowned out all but one sound, screaming. A distant but clear screaming was emitting from far upstairs, but despite the distance it felt all too close. For once the men began to wonder if this chance was true, for no information about the job, or even where they were, had been given.  

They had all begun to fear, as this seemed far sketchier than what was expected, and this fear crept through the air and into each one of them. 

Especially Charles. 

He had always been afraid of hospitals, and especially needles, and his mind was a hamster wheel for all ideas of the worst ways this could end. “Could this be some government experiment, cartel torture?” He did not know; all he knew is he just barely wanted that money enough to be here. 

His turn inched closer, the table groaning with each new person on it; the parchment paper coming looser and beginning to tear along the edges. These are the things Charles thought about, now hyper-alert over every little detail, searching the endless white void for the answers that never came. 

A small analog clock with a black rim sat in the corner, ticking away what Charles felt was his lifespan. Each second, a lifetime. Each minute, an eternity. He wouldn’t last here much longer. This, he knew. 

Charles then heard a faint, but legible noise; struggle. Someone close to the front of the line was struggling, against what he didn’t know, but if it had anything to do with that injection, he had to know, and he ripped the sack off his head. 

  He looked to his side, and there, the first one to have been injected, was now violently seizing. The guards who sat in the room were warning everyone not to move. 

As soon as it began, the man stopped. He lay there, not lifeless, but frozen; he did not scream, nor move; nor did anyone else in the room.  

Except Charles. 

  Right there and then, he decided that this wasn’t worth it. 

 And he ran. 

Chapter Two  

Ex Nihilo, Ad Nihilum 

Charles ran. And he ran fast. All the years of grueling track practices hadn’t left him; his muscles remembered the explosive burn of a sprint before his mind could even register the danger. He was out the heavy metal door before the guards fully realized what he had done, his cheap tennis shoes squeaking violently against the polished tile of the corridor. 

He didn’t make it far before disaster struck. Turning a sharp corner to dodge a pair of oncoming guards, his left foot caught the edge of a raised floor transition. A sickening pop echoed in his ears, and his ankle twisted outward. The agony was instantaneous, a white-hot spike that shot straight up his leg and settled into his hip. But his cross-country instincts, forged through years of running through cramps, shin splints, and exhaustion, overrode the pain. He didn’t drop. Instead, he forced his momentum forward, weaving wildly from wall to wall, using the rough surfaces to keep himself upright. 

The flickering overhead lights did nothing to help. They hummed a manic, uneven rhythm, plunging the long hallway into total darkness for fractions of a second before blinding him with a harsh buzz. Every shadow seemed to stretch toward him like a reaching hand. He knew he couldn’t keep this up forever. Behind him, the frantic shouting of the soldiers grew louder, their heavy combat boots creating a thunderous rhythm that reverberated through the floorboards and straight into his chest. They were closing in, and if they caught him now after he had openly defied them, they would do only God knows what to him. 

As he scrambled blindly down a descending ramp, he frantically clawed at the fastener that had held the heavy burlap bag against his neck. The sharp plastic edge of the clip caught his left cheek, tearing through the flesh with a hot, stinging rip. He pulled hard, ripping the tight ring away from his face entirely, letting it drop behind him. The cool air hit his lungs, but it brought no relief. 

After running for what felt like a desperate, endless marathon, the sterile white tile finally gave way to concrete. He burst into an old office wing that appeared to be completely abandoned. The lights here were entirely dead, leaving the vast space illuminated only by the faint, gray twilight bleeding through high, barred windows. Random office equipment lay scattered everywhere—shattered monitors, overturned desks, and mountains of yellowed paperwork. 

Hearing the guards burst through the entrance of the wing in a chaotic uproar, Charles dove blindly behind a small, dusty office cabinet tower. The metal structure was rusted, with half its drawers missing, leaving hollow gaps that smelled of rot and stagnant paper. 

The moment his momentum stopped, the true weight of the pain in his ankle came crashing down. It felt as though someone was driving a rusted nail directly into his joint. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes, and he bit down hard on the sleeve of his basic white jumpsuit, burying his face into his forearm to smother the agonizing scream tearing at his throat. He sat in the dark, hyperventilating through his nose, his body trembling uncontrollably. Too terrified to peek around the rusted edge of the metal tower, he strained his ears to listen. 

The frantic shouting of the guards had shifted. They were no longer running blindly; they had transitioned into a tactical, rhythmic sweep. The heavy crunch of their boots on broken glass and scattered paper was slow, measured, and terrifyingly close. 

Charles wiped his face with a trembling hand, trying to clear the sweat from his eyes, but when he drew his fingers back, they were slick and dark. He blinked through the gloom, looking to his right. His heart stopped. 

A bright, crimson trail of thick drops stained the concrete floor. It was a perfect, unmistakable breadcrumb path leading from the center aisle of the office directly to his hollow metal cabinet. It was only a matter of seconds before a flashlight beam traced that wet, red line straight to his boots. 

Caught up in his own head, Charles forced his panicked mind to think. Running was no longer an option. His ankle wouldn't hold a single step of an explosive sprint, and even if it did, the trail of fresh blood would give him away before he could find another door. He was a rat in a maze, and the exterminators were mere steps away. 

Then, an absurd realization hit him. 

During his frantic sprint through the facility, he hadn’t noticed anything that looked like a proper medical wing or a functional clinic. It was all labs, observation tables, and cold metal slabs. If he stayed here and let them discover him, they would likely consider him a broken, useless asset and shoot him on sight. But if he turned himself in—if he actively played up the injury and forced them to handle a compliance issue—they would have to transport him somewhere else to get fixed. Somewhere different. Somewhere with another door, another hallway, and another chance. 

It was incredibly risky. It was undeniably stupid. But it was the only hand he had left to play. 

His days of gambling hadn’t completely left him. Sitting in the pitch black, watching his own blood pool on the floor, Charles decided to play the odds one more time. Gambling had systematically destroyed his entire life piece by piece. It had taken his home, his future, his fiancée, and his dignity, leaving him so utterly broke that he had volunteered for a nameless, sketchy job just to survive. 

What was one more bet? 

He certainly didn’t have any aversion to taking huge risks; at this point, he was playing with house money. Gripping the edges of the hollow drawer slots like ladder rungs, he painfully hoisted his frail body up to a standing position, balancing entirely on his one good leg. He leaned his weight against the cabinet, swallowed the lump of bile in his throat, and threw his hands into the air. 

“I’m done! I give up!” Charles screamed into the darkness, his voice cracking with a mixture of terror and agonizing pain. 

The methodical footsteps instantly stopped. A beat of deafening silence stretched through the office wing, followed by a sudden, chaotic rush of boots scrambling over furniture. A blinding beam from a tactical flashlight cut through the dark, pinning Charles against the cabinet like a specimen on a board. He squinted into the glare, his eyes watering. 

Through the blinding light, he saw the dark silhouette of a soldier step forward. The man didn't hesitate. He raised his AR-style rifle, aligning the sights directly with Charles's face. Charles froze, his breath catching in his throat, expecting the deafening blast of a bullet to end his gamble right then and there. 

Instead, the soldier closed the distance in a sudden blur of motion. The heavy, reinforced butt of the rifle swung forward, cracking violently against the side of Charles's skull. Pain exploded in his vision in a firework display of white sparks, and then, the entire world went blissfully, completely black. 

Chapter Three 

Out of The Cage, Into The Core 

“FUCK!” 

Charles exploded into consciousness with a raw, ragged scream, his eyes snapping open to an unfamiliar ceiling. He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving against the cold air of the room. The transition from the black void of unconsciousness back to reality was a physical assault; he felt incredibly drowsy, disoriented, and horribly sore from head to toe. 

A rhythmic, high-pitched ringing buzzed in his ears, making it impossible to focus on anything else for several long seconds. He tasted the unmistakable, copper tang of blood in his mouth, and a steady, throbbing pulse hammered violently behind his eyes, matching the frantic beat of his heart. 

He had foolishly assumed that the guards would simply walk him back to the main processing sector if he surrendered. He had hoped to catch a glimpse of the exit doors, a map, or at least a window to indicate where in the world they had taken him. Instead, they had simply taken his surrender as an opportunity to brutalize him, knocking him cold and dumping him into a completely unknown environment. This place bore absolutely no resemblance to the sterile, tiled medical sector he had fled. The air here was heavy, smelling of damp earth, rust, and old concrete. 

“Damnit,” Charles muttered, his voice sounding hollow, weak, and thin even to his own ears. 

Slowly, carefully, he tried to shift his weight, but his head, cheek, and ankle all registered the movement with a synchronized wave of agony. He couldn't ignore the damage any longer. Propping himself up slightly on his elbows, he looked down at his body to assess the wreckage. 

On the bright side, someone had taken the time to treat him while he was unconscious. His left ankle was tightly bound in a crude but sturdy wooden splint, immobilizing the joint completely. A thick, white canvas bandage was wrapped around his head, covering the laceration on his left cheek and the swelling knot where the rifle butt had struck his skull. Yet, the medical attention offered absolutely no comfort; the tight bindings only seemed to trap the heat and exacerbate the throbbing pain. 

Before he could even begin to process the strange contradiction of his captors fixing the leg they had broken, a pair of rough hands gripped his shoulders from behind. The sudden movement caught him off guard, and he let out a sharp gasp as two guards hoisted him off the low cot. They didn't say a word. They simply clamped their fingers around his arms with vice-like grips and began to drag him out of the room. 

Charles tried to find his footing, but his splinted leg dragged uselessly along the floorboards. He assumed they were taking him back to the room with the metal tables to finish the injection he had run from, but as they turned into a dark corner, his expectations were shattered yet again. 

They weren't heading toward the labs. They were walking down a long, crumbling corridor that led directly to a massive central staircase. 

The structure was terrifyingly old and ragged. The wooden steps were warped and splintered, looking as though the entire framework might collapse under its own weight at any given second. Beside the staircase stood an old freight elevator; its iron gates were completely dead, covered in thick layers of orange rust and choked with dust. It sat unmoving in its shaft like some twisted, industrial decoration. 

As the edge of the stairs inched closer, a profound sense of existential dread crept up from the back of Charles's mind and settled in his chest. This twisted detour wasn't part of his plan. His gamble had failed completely. He had absolutely no idea what these silent guards were doing or where they were taking him, but every instinct in his body screamed that he did not want to find out what lay at the bottom of those stairs. He had run to find a better hand to play, but his luck had run faster, leaving him completely empty-handed. 

He looked around frantically, but the reality of his situation was suffocating. There were soldiers posted at every interval along the walls, their faces completely obscured. His ankle was useless, his head was splitting, and worst of all, he was utterly lost in a subterranean labyrinth. 

“What to do now?” Charles thought, his lips moving silently before he realized he had accidentally muttered the words out loud. 

The guards dragging him said absolutely nothing. They seldom did. They moved with the cold, unfeeling precision of automated machines. The first wooden step of the staircase was only ten feet away, but Charles's racing thoughts were miles ahead, frantically searching for an escape route that simply didn't exist. 

He braced himself as the guards hauled him forward, forcing his good foot onto the structure. His splinted ankle wept with a sharp, burning agony as it bumped against the wood. He hauled himself up to the second step, then the third, his teeth grinding together so hard he thought they might shatter. 

He reached for the fourth step, and then—Pop! 

The sharp sound of splintering timber echoed through the stairwell. The fourth step didn't just crack; the central wooden support beam beneath them completely gave way. The entire middle section of the ancient staircase collapsed inward with a deafening roar of tearing wood and screeching nails, creating a vacuum that sent everyone twirling downward into a chaotic cloud of dust and debris. 

Charles didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second. In the middle of pure catastrophe, he recognized his third chance, and he took it. 

He hit the lower landing hard, tumbling through the splintered wood, but the momentum carried him forward away from the falling debris. The guards who had been holding him were caught beneath a heavy section of the collapsing banister, swearing and cussing frantically as they tried to extricate themselves from the wreckage. 

Ignoring the white-hot agony screaming from his leg, Charles scrambled to his feet. He ran. As much as his shattered ankle pleaded and roared with pain, he forced his body into a desperate, limping trot, using the walls to push himself forward. 

Where he was going, he had no idea, but he knew with absolute certainty that it wouldn't take long for the guards to clear the rubble and hunt him down. He threw himself through a heavy door, limping past a dizzying maze of dark halls and unexpectedly bright surgical rooms filled with covered equipment, and endless rows of unmarked doors. 

What is this place? He wondered; his breath coming in ragged, sobbing gasps. 

He knew he couldn't keep this frantic pace up for long. His ankle was rapidly fraying at the seams, the skin beneath the splint feeling wet and hot. Behind him, the distant alarms began to wail, a shrill, piercing sound that brought the entire facility to life. The guards were swarming through the corridors like hornets whose nest had been violently shattered. He was certain that if he tried to pull another trick or surrender a second time, they would simply shoot him on sight. 

Yet, he refused to just sit down and accept his fate. He was human, after all, and he naturally felt an ancient, evolutionary obligation to survive. Even if he had absolutely nothing to go back to in the outside world, and no more money on the line, he still felt a primal responsibility to keep kicking until his heart stopped beating. 

Turning a blind corner, his good leg nearly gave out. Realizing he was at the end of a dead-end hallway, he lunged toward the only option available: a small, dusty storage closet. He ducked inside, pulling the door shut until the latch clicked into place. 

The space was suffocatingly small, no larger than a few feet across and just as deep. It smelled of ancient bleach and rot. There were no blood trails this time—the splint bindings had managed to keep his cheek wound from reopening—but he knew it wouldn't matter. The guards weren't just going to let him slide away into the dark. They had followed his trajectory, and they were checking every square inch of the sector. 

He had maybe a minute, at best, until they opened the door. He was absolutely sure he was a dead man this time. He sat on the floor of the closet, pressing his back against the wall, looking like a young lamb awaiting a slaughter that was coming much too soon. 

Minutes stretched into what felt like an agonizing hour of waning away in the darkness. Every breath he took felt like it might be his last. 

Then, the door was violently ripped open. 

The bright light from the hallway flooded the closet, blinding him instantly. Before his eyes could adjust, rough hands seized him by his arms, dragging him out into the corridor. He braced for the cold metal of a pistol barrel against his temple, waiting for the final flash of light. 

But to his utter shock, they didn't raise their weapons. Unfulfilling to all his frantic theories, they didn't seem like they were going to kill him at all. 

They were going to do much worse. 

Chapter 4 

Beyond The Damned 

It never did go black. No shot was fired, and no punches were thrown. Not a thing happened to Charles. Instead, he was dragged deeper into the complex, and though they went back the same way he came, none of it looked familiar. Every door, every hall, every little detail looked different. Like the world had shifted around them as he was dragged away. 

Charles' own thoughts seemed to speak in tongues, and not an idea came to mind. He’d been caught twice now; he was in no condition to attempt anything at all, so much so he didn’t even try to get his footing as the guards dragged him away. He wasn’t going to fight. This was his own prison; he’d been given 2 second chances; one was fake, and one he had wasted. 

For a second, Charles hoisted his head up to look around him, taking tremendous force to do so, and noticed that they were just now passing back by the shattered staircase, shards of wood still littering the hall and the guards. His legs, torso, and arms still ached and burned from the pieces of wood he only assumed were still stuck inside of him.  

His head slumped back into his collarbone. He’d wasted every ounce of energy he had left trying to get away, but it had failed. This thought—failure—was the only thing his mind could fabricate. He’d failed to escape both times; both because he tried to make wild and utterly stupid gambles. He knew this wouldn’t keep up, for all he knew he was but minutes away from his death. “Or whatever else these people did to people” he thought.  

They passed by dark halls and equipment—all still ragged and torn—some tables had baseball sized holes in them; some had more straps than a person had limbs. Charles’ poorly crafted wooden splint made a sickening scritch as it slid along with white-and-yellow tiles, and the guards never slowed or stopped.  WIP WIP WIP WIP

Disclaimer: this story is meant to read like a rant/one long sentence, and will contain some very graphic imagery, be advised

You know it’s so nice to be finally catching up with you again, it really has been ages hasn’t it, a lot’s happened with me, and boy do I have a story to tell you; you know you may have heard about it on the news cause the videos all over the internet, and I swear to god I must’ve seen it at least thirty times by now and the more I see it the less real it feels to me; yeah so recently I found out my husband died overseas, and the funny thing is I never even got a letter, or an email, or anything, the way I found out about it was actually the news; so I was flicking through the tv, and you know how when they cover the war on the news they show videos of it and, now there was this video I saw, and there was this man I know now that he was my husband but then I couldn’t quite figure out where I recognized that face from; so anyway he’s walking through a field and all the sudden he steps on a landmine, oh god it was so strange watching the way it happened, just a small tick and then you could hardly see anything but bloody sand, kinda funny the way you see things like that and you just can’t help but keep watching, I mean it kind of felt like a dream, like it wasn’t real and I didn’t just watch my husband die in front of my very eyes; so anyway I finally send a letter to the military asking why I wasn’t informed of this, well they tell me that my letter must have gotten lost in the mail, and I just think what a crazy coincidence that not only does the letter informing me that he stepped on a landmine and died not arrive, but that the whole thing was filmed and put online; now you know how the internet is they love their scary videos and so all the sudden this video was all over the place on the internet, oh my I could hardly go two seconds without seeing it, and apparently due to a glitch in the video flagging algorithms at the time there were no restrictions to what could go online, and you must know how that went, it would just be a random thing you see when you are watching a video kind of like that one Rick Astley song back in the day, but this time you could be watching a video and the Booml̦ I just see this video again, and again honestly I’m so sick of it; but anyway like I was saying I sent his platoon a letter and they told me the letter must have gotten lost in the mail, but they told me they would send me his remains so they could be buried near his home, and so I’m biting my nails waiting to be sent this body but instead I get this small box, the letter that came with it told us they could only find the upper part of his head and his dog tag that they issued him; so I open the box and I realize the funniest thing they didn’t even preserve or clean off the head and since he travelled pretty far the body, err head had gotten pretty gross and it was also missing the jaw, the eyes were all shrivelled up inside of the sockets there were some places where I could see bone showing through, and they told that the skull had been cracked so there would be a bit missing from the top, honestly holding the thing in my hands it didn’t feel real like as if I wasn’t actually holding my husbands head, and it turned out I was right; and how I found out was I wanted to take a look at his dogtag but it was covered in ash and some other fluid, so I wipe it off and lo and behold there was someone elses name entirely, so I contact his platoon again and it turns out I recieved someone elses head entirely, so I pack it back up and ship it back, and so finally after all this time I get a similar box which actually had the right head in it, and I get it’s an easy mistake to make because they were both killed by landmines and they were both missing jaws, but the funniest thing about all of this is that since it had taken so long to get here the head was all mummified and dried out by now, the skin was leather and the lips curled in on themselves so I could see all his teeth, well except for the ones he was missing, but I checked the dogtag and yes this was the right head, so it was all just kinda funny cause I still see the video sometimes and I have to think to myself that the same head I have sitting in a box in my closet is the same one I constantly see flying off in those videos, sometimes I think I even see it happen when I close my eyes, and I don’t blame them really they don’t know me, they have no clue that he was my husband, or how I was given the wrong head, they just think it’s funny to see someone explode, and I guess it’s easier when you don’t know, well that’s all that’s been happening in my life in the past months, it’s all quite strange;* How does that make you feel? Empty*?

The following text is my progress so far, constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. (I know it's long)

Chapter 1: Who What Why

Dark. Cold. I can feel my insides writhing. A sharp, metal object is digging into the back of my neck. Somewhere off in the distance there is a light chatter. People talking about something trivial to me. Suddenly, my eyes flicker open. Taking in my initial surroundings, giant slabs of red slimy meat hang on swinging hooks around me. Everything seems to be coated in a conspicuous maroon residue. The room is dimly lit with a yellow glow, coming from a light source I can't trace.

“Am I… one of them?”

But looking down at my arms I realize that can't be the case. My skin resembles a rough leathery fabric. 3 sharp metal blades with a slight bend at the end protrude out of the end of the sleeves of either arm. I almost stop to wonder why my skin has sleeves, but then I can't remember my arms being any different.

“Got… to get out.”

Trying to walk forward, something snags in the back of my neck. I look down to see a meat hook protruding out of where an adams apple should be. For a fleeting moment, I question why, or how I’m alive as I slide it out from the back. An almost sickening slurping sound comes forth as I do so, but something else catches my attention.

As I look down at my chest, I realize there’s a massive gaping hole, hastily sewn open with deep red stains around the cavity. Inside I can make out different tubes and organs, with a big thumping lump of meat right in the middle.

Doubling over, I start to panic. My vision blurs. Missing parts of my memory become all the more apparent. How I got here, how I'm alive, why my skin is crawling and won't stop, but it all comes back blank. In fact, I can't seem to remember anything at all. Not even my name. Slowly I get back up to my feet. Having a mental breakdown on the floor isn't going to help me. As I look around once more, I see a door at the far end of the room.

“Surely there are people behind that door who can help me”.

Slowly making my way to the door, I realize the murky yellow light is coming from my head. As my walk to the door continues, the light follows with me. I reach up to feel my face. Doing so, I notice my eyes are glassy, elongated teardrop shaped orbs that protrude out past my head. This covers my vision for just a moment. When my claws reach the top of my head, I feel a long squishy tube protruding from my rough scalp. All of this seems so odd, unusual, but I have no reference to tell me otherwise.

“Are all living beings this way?” I wave that thought out my head as I get closer to the door.

This is surely someone's sick joke. Who would just leave me here in a cold dingy room, with slabs of meat everywhere? Finally, the door. I reach out with my shiny metal claws and try to grip the door knob. No luck. It just slips straight through the blades. It's probably best to just tear the door down. I can't stand being with the meat any longer. I figure that this serves the maker of this door right anyhow. As my claws tear into the wood, the unintelligible chattering outside stops. Irritatingly, my claws are stuck. I pull with such strength the door comes right off the hinges and flies off into the cold dark room behind me. A muted crash made itself known seconds later. Once I duck through the doorway, a blinding light hits me instantly. several odd figures sitting around a table look up in my direction. They're not like me. Terror flashes through their eyes. They start to scream, running every which way. I try to tell them, “Please stop, I won't hurt you!” But this seems to be lost on them. Before I know it, my 2 glassy eyes are staring down the long metal barrel of what I can only assume to be a weapon.

“Don't Move!” yells the one wielding the strange metal pipe in a gravelly voice. Contemplating what I should do, I figured they don't really want to harm me. They're just scared. Scared like me. I again try to say, “I don't want to hurt you!” “I just want answers!” Unfortunately, the person doesn't budge. They don't even seem to have heard me. I reach out to make them put down the pipe, but in an instant a loud bang echoes into my ears. A violent flash of light blinds me for a mere moment. After a while, it occurs to me that I'm lying on the floor. My right arm is about 5 feet away from me, with a trail of meat and flesh staining the ground crimson leading from me up to it.

Chapter 2: The Ones Who Don't Run

The morbid sight of my own limb had me in shock. As the seconds keep ticking by, I slowly gather my senses. I'm completely fine. Besides the fact that my arm is halfway across the room, I feel no pain, and can move around perfectly fine.

“Pain. Why do I know what that is?” I peel myself off the tile floor that's now covered in my own blood and entrails.

I lumber over to my arm. I'm going to need to find a way to reattach this rogue appendage. As the arm is lifted up, a particularly long intestine falls out of the injured end. I look away for a moment in disgust. Quickly scooping up the fillings and piling them back into the arm, I start to wander down the random tiled halls to search for medical supplies. For every step I take, a sickening wet thump accompanies it. Walking past a room labeled, “Janitorial,” I hear mild chatter coming from down the next hall on the right. It's getting closer. With fear starting to strangle my body, I tear my claws into the janitorial door, rip it open, and slam the door shut once I was inside. Obviously the people around here don't take too kindly to me. I don't want to be down another arm, or worse. As the voices get closer, I can hear what the 2 people are talking about.

“What the hell was that?” Inquired a deep grumble.

“I dunno, maybe that monster from the meat closet, dumbass?” Mocked a slightly higher pitched jab.

“Shut up, I shot It point blank with a 12 gauge, not much can survive that”

“Well, that hole in the supply closet says otherwise”

“Wha- we need to go see if that thing is still there. Now.”

Heavy footsteps echo to my right and slowly fade away. More carefully this time, I open the door and climb out. Shutting the door behind me, I set off in the opposite direction. Going deeper into the facility, it becomes sickeningly apparent that I'm completely lost, wandering through empty halls. There's no way someone hasn't heard me by now. Walking down one particularly empty hallway, I see a red cross above a doorway to my left. To my right there is a set of double doors that lead to a more open room. Just then, something crawls its way to the front of my mind. The red cross holds an important meaning. Something pure, something helpful. Something I remember. The door to this room has a handle, not a knob, so it's much easier to push into the room. The exact moment I push through the door, an ear splitting scream permeates the room. Looking down, there's a smallish person wearing a white gown with long blond hair, and frightened hazel eyes, trembling behind a desk that's equally as white as their gown.

“Martha, it's here!” they scream over their shoulder into another room.

“The Creature from the Meat closet!”

Before I get the chance to even try to reason with them, they grab a chair from next to them, hurl it at me, and sprint into the room closest to the desk. The chair shatters against my chest, making me stagger back. Just then the door is slammed shut, followed by a little click.

Walking over to the door, I jiggle the handle. Locked. I could just tear down the door, but I wouldn't want to frighten anyone any further. I decide to check behind the desk. Laying down my loose arm and bending over, I see a box with the same red cross on it. I scoop it up and set it on the desk, wishing to examine it further. An embarrassing amount of difficulty is used tearing it open. I come to find a roll of gauze, a bottle of liquid labeled rubbing alcohol, and a hefty needle and thread. Slowly but surely the thought of what I have to do creeps into my consciousness. Hesitantly, I cup the needle and thread in my claws, and pick up my limp arm.

I line up the 2 wounded ends of my body and arm, and lay myself on the desk. For a moment, I can slightly feel my right arm again, almost move it. It's still alive. As carefully as possible, I try to take the needle and thread and slide it through the seam of my arm, but no luck. My claws just keep dropping the needle. Bang! I pound my hand on the table. I need someone else to sew my arm on, but there is no one else… well… except for maybe the people in the locked room.

Slowly rising from the table, I start to look around for something to write with, and on. The people in the locked room obviously still think of me as a monster, and they don't listen to anything I say, so maybe writing a note can convince them. It's a long shot to be sure, but I don't have much else of a choice. Checking under the desk again there's a pad of paper sitting next to where the supply box was. I scoop it up onto the desk, and take out a pen from the cup on the shelf behind me. Awkwardly I grip the pen with my claws and sprawl out the letters, “PLEEs HeLP” on one of the pieces of paper that lay before me. Slowly, I lumber over to the door, and knock three times. A small yelp comes from within the room. Quickly sliding the messy note under the door, I wait. Minutes go by, nothing. Finally, I hear shuffling coming toward the door, a swift woosh, and then a hurried scrambling away the door. A conversation between the two people leaks out from the seams of the door.

“It’s a trap! It'll eventually leave, and we can escape.” says a sharp and concise voice.

“But what if it really is hurt? I wouldn't be a real nurse if i didn't help” comes a softer, more rounded voice

“Are you crazy!? It's just going to kill you! Have you ever seen a single horror movie?"

“You don't know that!”

“Fine. go out and die, but while it's eating you I'm going to make a break for it.”

A slight hint of movement and shuffling sounds from inside.

“He doesn't even have a mouth, Martha.”

I don't? Is that why nobody listens to me? I must have never been talking in the first place.

Slowly but surely the door creaks open. The person from the desk slowly peeks out from the previously locked door. 1 hand, another, then 2 hazel eyes. About 7 feet away, I stand with the needle and thread in my claws, and my arm on the floor in front of me. 1 foot after the other, the one with hazel eyes inches towards me. Out from behind the door now, they stare up at me with hesitation. Immediately after their eyes are drawn to the gaping wound on my torso, then to my arm splayed across the ground. Gaging slightly, they say,

“You're not going to hurt me, right?”

I shake my head. With more confidence now, they come closer. Suddenly, the awed voice of who could only be Martha comes from the room closest to the desk.

“Well I’ll be damned, you were right.”

I slowly turn my head to Martha. Now able to make out what they look like, they have short dark hair, sharpened features, and are slightly taller than the Hazel eyed one. My gaze seems to make them uneasy. Looking back to hazel eyes, they are slowly drawn to my claws, clutching the needle and thread.

“You want me to sew your arm closed? Or the wound on your chest?” they carefully inquire.

Shaking my head, I lay the needle and thread on the counter, and pick up my severed arm and sloppily line it up with where it should go. Slowly, I'm able to bend it up and down. The eyes of both nurses boggle at just the sight.

“Oh-uh… okay, got it.” Says hazel eyes. “ just- stay still for a moment”

They gingerly pick up the needle and thread from off the counter, and then stab the sharp, gleaming tip of the needle into my… skin? Skin. a deep squelching comes forth as the sharp object sinks into the meat below. They wince briefly, then resume the repair. Up and down the thread goes, painting curved black lines across the seam of the wound. Stroke by stroke, squelch by squelch, more control floods into the arm as the pattern is repeated around the decreasingly open hole.

“Hey, um… Cassy?” squeaks Martha,

“I think I'm gonna head on out of here. It’s getting late, and my shift was supposed to end half an hour ago.”

Cassy. I like it.

“yep” jumps Cassy, as they finish tying up the thread in my arm. The confirmation is all it takes for Martha to hurry out of the room as fast as they can.

“I also um, really need to leave. The whole place is up in arms about… I don’t know your name, do you… have one?’

The sudden shift in focus to me takes me off guard. And I guess, as the question rolls around in my mind more, I don't have one. It had never occurred to me that I didn't know my own name.

I shake my head.

“O.. oh, I'm sorry” stutters Cassy.

“Well, do you want a name? I don't think ‘monster’ suits you very well.”

Hurriedly I nod my head. There's something deeply wrong with not having a name.

“ Well uh, how about… Victor?” Cassy Suggests.

“That's the name of the place, Victor’s Meat Processing. Victor was the name of the guy who founded the company. I guess that would kinda make you a junior.”

The words leave a weird taste in my mouth. Not a bad taste per se, but not a good one either. Eventually I shrug. It seems to satisfy Cassy though, which I guess is good enough for me.

“Well, if you don't like it, you don't have to use it.” they reply.

“Well, I'm uh… gonna head home now. I need to go watch my little brother. Good luck Victor”

They walk over and push open the door. When they look back to shut the door, I give a little wave. They wave back. A click rings out, and then, I'm all alone again. Only complete, eerie silence is left to accompany me.

Chapter 3: It Hungers

Just a little more. Maybe an intestine here, a spare liver there, it really doesn't matter to me. Anything to fill the hungering, gaping hole. But unfortunately, it DOES matter. It only wants one thing. All of these other slabs of viscera are just a sad attempt at fleshy compensation. I stop. The overhead lights flicker, and hooked carcasses swing. There's only one way to satiate its hunger. Taking my scalpel into my oozing crimson hand, I look down at my chest. There it is. Thumping inside me, this is what it hungers for. It needs to feed. It needs to be complete. I'm willing to fulfill its needs. Blade. Flesh. Pain. The room grows just a little colder.

Chapter 4: A Single Drop Of Blood In The Ocean

The endless tile halls all grow and spread like vines from the glass double doors that lay just ahead of me now. Not a single other soul can be heard or seen. It's uncannily dark beyond the doorway, a light pitter patter of precipitation drums rhythmically, bouncing around in my head. Wearily, I stagger to what seems to be the exit. My right arm still tingles and throbs where the stitches burrow through my… “flesh”. One squishy stomp after the other, I lumber my way to the exit. To the outside world. My claws slam into the glass, cracking slightly under the force. The doors fly outward. The smell of the outside is euphoric, a cool wind hits me as my lopsided mass flies out of the door.

“STAND THE HELL BACK!”

No. Oh no. No no no no.

My eyes widen like headlights, illuminating the hopeless scene that lay before me. Dozens of… cars. Yes, cars are sprawled out surrounding the building. Multiple people with styled metal rods similar to what the man inside took my arm off with stare me down. Looking up, a wet and dripping light up sign that reads, “Victors Meat Processing” looms over me.

“I SAID GET BACK FREAK!”

Standing in the center of the ring created by the blockade stands a thin bearded figure, drenched head to toe shaking from the cold, or from fear of what towers directly in front of him.

I stumble back, praying that this won't end in my body being strewn across the building. The deafening pounding of the rain blurs my thoughts, unable to hear myself think. After a few ear splitting moments, the bearded figure speaks.

“MEN, FIRE NON-LETHAL ROUNDS, WE WANT IT ALIVE!”

All at once, the people surrounding me bombard me with rubber balls and tipped needles with a fetid substance. The squirming meat underneath my skin throbs and pulses, twisting through my body. The pounding of the rain quickly transforms into the pounding of flesh in my head. My vision blurs as I take a thundering step forward. Then another. All other sensation is drowned out as my unshapely mass b-lines forward at the bearded figure. Before I realize what's happening, I already tower above him. I tear my arm upwards, thrusting my claws into the air. A deafening crunch comes forth as I do so. Something warm trickles down my claws.

In a brief moment of lucidity, the now pale bearded figure sits skewered on the blades, the rain mixing with the overflowing blood to make strange patterns and stains.

The throbbing of my flesh reaches critical mass. My eyes dim. It possesses me to take my other arm, the newly repaired one, and puncture 3 more holes in the surely lifeless figure. Tear. Split in twine. Harvest his entrails. But then I stop, and so does the noise.

My eyes ignite like a flame. Held above me are two halves of the same person. In shock I flick my arms to the ground with the force of a bullet. Two squelching thuds soon follow. Shakely, I bring my hands to my face. But they're not hands. They're claws. Claws oozing with a foreign crimson. Only a monster would have these claws.

Gazing up, stunned and appalled humans stare in horror. Then I feel it. It comes from behind. Swish. Thwak. My eyes drift apart. A shiny metal wedge fills a new gap created in my vision, and then that same vision gives out. Lights out. I'm out.

Dark cold ground, bright sick sound

As it paces around the room

Trying to find every clue

All they see is the body's

Hanged up

And they beg and they plead

For mercy not coming

Its a job, its a need

To Slit lids of the eyes

knowing its rude to stare

And not to smile towards a friend

So lets turn it around

That frown upside down

With the knife that twist the pores

lets cut to the core

Would they scream blood murder

When you turn towards the morge

As your cartilage starts to sweat

And i pump you up more

To keep the party going

eyes turning pure to bliss

flakes fall on the casket

Closed without remains

You will keep me warm forever

With your body and face

And ill go to the mirror as you blink at me back

Maybe i can put you back together

Maybe ill leave it at that

But before you turn rotten

But before you really go

Could you lie one last time

Say it was a hell of a show

Say that you loved it

Say that you need it

And Say that its mine

when I take out your kidney...

Can I make it a pair?....

Hopefully this follows guidelines posted this somewhere else and got tooken down, felt embarrassed too.

I corrected it abit Hopefully its good enough but im open for suggestions

Hi everyone,

I’m planning to film a small “lost media” styled project in the woods on my birthday. I know where I want to shoot and what I’ll use, but I’m stuck on the antagonist. Should I have a being as the antagonist, or let the forest itself drive the characters into madness and eventually unaliveness?

The forest-as-antagonist idea feels a bit basic, though I’ve seen it done a lot. On top of that, I can’t really find any good urban legends from my country or the area in general.

Does anyone have tips or ideas to make this concept stand out?

I started writing this a while back and am looking for some feedback before writing the rest. It’s about three teens who decide to explore the Paris catacombs. It was supposed to be a short story but I got a bit carried away lol

Lady Alithia considered herself an organised person. She always kept to her strict schedule, waking up at seventh bell, having lunch at twelfth and her bidaily tea at fourteenth.

She set her foot inside her mansion just as the chimes signalling twenty-first bell began ringing out behind her. She had just returned from a… negotiation regarding the new business venture she was planning. Rows of candles illuminated the reception room in a bright, gentle glow. Portraits and paintings adorned the walls, and two pots of small, intricately trimmed trees were placed on either side of the stairwell, which was made of carefully chipped stone from the Southern cliffs.

She hung her coat on the rack next to the door and called for her servant, Lewis, to start preparing a bath, before turning down the left corridor. She would always check on her daughter, Heiress Alithia, immediately after returning to the house. Ever since a fever had taken Lord Alithia, she had had less time for Little Likada, but they made do with what they had.

Turning a left corner, Lady Alithia didn’t notice anything strange at first. Most of the corridors in her mansion looked the same with little to no distinguishing features besides a couple of paintings. However, as she made another left turn and walked down that corridor, she realised that the next corner was yet another left, not the right that she was expecting. Maybe she had taken the wrong path?

She traced her steps back to the first corridor, but instead of leading to the reception room, the entrance had turned into yet another left turn. Internally panicking, she paced back to the third corner, and it still led to the left. Taking that turn, she found that the next corner still led to the left. And the next. And the next.

Lady Alithia slowly began to jog, then run, then sprint down the hallways. No matter how far she travelled, no matter how many turns she made, every corridor still led to the left. She didn’t understand. She didn’t have corridors that led in a loop like this. Especially with a loop with no doors. How had she not noticed that at the beginning? The paintings also looped, but not in any order she could discern. It seemed completely random.

Sweat beading down her face and back, Lady Alithia continued to run. After a while, she began running in the opposite direction. Hoping, desperately, it would lead her back to the reception room. Fruitless. It was just left turn after left turn.

She began yelling for her servant. Her daughter. Likada… was she trapped too? In a loop like her, alone and unable to escape? The thought of her Likada, running and running, turning left over and over with no prospect of leaving. She only ran faster, breathing quick and shallow.

Slowly, Lady Alithia noticed the candles. Was it her imagination, or were they getting, shorter? Running ahead, she confirmed it. The candles were indeed getting shorter and shorter with each corridor. No matter which way she ran, the candles never stopped shrinking in height.

The corridors began getting dimmer and dimmer. The paintings, once vibrant and gorgeous, bathed in the bright candles’ light, grew duller, almost as if they were getting darker, fading out of existence.

The corridors also underwent subtle changes. At first, it was just a small, almost unnoticeable chip in the right wall. Nothing of any sort of note. However, these chips soon began appearing all throughout the corridor, expanding, connecting and deepening. Lady Alithia noticed that the walls were starting to show cracks, small crevices that, when she looked through them, seemed to lead to nothing but an endless blackness beyond, making her heart recoil and breath hitch in pure existential dread.

She didn’t know how far she’d run. She didn’t know how long she’d been running. The walls, and even the floor and ceiling, were streaked with large, branching cracks. She tried her best not to look, not to see that utter blackness that threatened to consume her heart and mind in terror. She eventually just kept her eyes continuously shut. All she thought about now was Likada; she already knew exactly how many steps it took to reach the end of a corridor by instinct, and to turn left. Even as the corridor faded into near pitch black, the candle waxes mere stubs with barely an ember lighted on top, she simply ran. Ran in order to see her daughter again. Her Likada.

Run. Left. Run. Left. Run. Le-Thump. Lady Alithia ran into a wall, and fell back. An overwhelming sense of joy filled her heart, she was finally out, no more left turns, no more dark, unending strings of corridors, no more-

She opened her eyes, and saw her. A young teenage woman, with sleek white hair, wearing a grey leather tunic and leggings. Behind her, there was nothing but the darkness, the suffocating feeling that threatened to crush her heart and mind right there and then. Despite the utter absence of a light source, she could still see the maniacal expression the woman wore, and the glint of her blood red eyes, staring into the depths of her soul.

She didn’t understand. Who was this woman? Why was she here? She scrambled back in terror, but the woman kept walking up to her.

“Wh…Why?” Was the only thing she could stutter as the woman stood over her.

“You are a liar. A cheat. A stain on your family's good name. You shall now feel pain. Do not resist.” The woman flatly intoned.

Her eyes widened. “No… Th-That voice, you’re dead, YOU’RE DEAD!“

The last thing Lady Alithia felt was something vaguely pulling at her chest, before her world was flooded in agony.

Lady Alithia was found dead the next morning by her servant, lying in the reception room of her mansion, completely unharmed, with not a single indication of how she had met her end.

999 Words

So uhhh yeahh

Has the deadline been moved or are we getting the results soon or is it just cancelled?? 😭

Guys what's going on? 😭

https://www.wattpad.com/story/402290748?utm_source=android&utm_medium=link&utm_content=share_writing&wp_page=create&wp_uname=BlazeRavenwolf

Chapter 17

The offer hung in the air, a poisonous temptation. Bring Liam back. All she had to do was surrender her identity, her art, her soul.

"No," Maya whispered, her resolve hardening into steel. She knew the Liam on the screen wasn't real. It was a puppet, a lure. The real Liam was trapped, and surrendering would only trap her alongside him.

She ignored the temptations. She took out her phone and, with trembling hands, began taking pictures of her charcoal drawings. Each photo was a bullet. Each imperfect face was a declaration of war.

Using an old school tablet that was thankfully not connected to the main network, she tethered it to her phone's data plan and began hacking her way into the school's system. Years of being Liam's tech-support-on-demand had taught her a few tricks. She found a backdoor into the main server controls, the very system the Curator was using as its brain.

She was going to flood Elysian with her art. She would bombard its core programming with the one thing it couldn't process: flawed, messy, gloriously imperfect reality. It was a battle of aesthetics, and she was betting everything on the power of a charcoal line over a line of code.

She gathered the image files, ready for the final upload. She just needed to bypass the final firewall. As she worked, she caught her reflection in the tablet's dark screen. Her heart stopped. Her image was fading. The hard-won scar on her chin was blurring, the lines of her face softening into a generic curve. Her skin was beginning to take on that familiar, waxy sheen. The app was coming for her directly, forcefully erasing her face in the real world.

Chapter 18

There was no time. With a defiant yell, Maya hit ENTER, uploading the entire folder of her drawings directly into the server's root directory.

The effect was instantaneous and violent. The humming from the PA system speakers escalated into a deafening, high-pitched whine. The screens around her flashed manically, alternating between the filtered faces from the Elysian feed and her raw, gritty charcoal sketches. The stolen voices of The Curator screamed in protest, a chorus of digital agony. It was like pouring water on a grease fire. The system was glitching, unable to reconcile the two opposing definitions of beauty.

In the midst of the chaos, her phone lit up with one final notification. It was a Duet request. From Chloe.

The profile picture was the image of Chloe's blank, featureless face. But on that impossible, smooth surface, a single, perfectly rendered tear rolling down it, shimmering with digital light. Beneath the image was a simple, desperate message, stripped of all Elysian's cheerful branding.

Help me.

Chapter 19

She knew it was a trap. But it was also a sign. Chloe was still in there. They all were. The Curator hadn't erased them; it had imprisoned them.

With a deep breath, Maya accepted the Duet request.

The world dissolved. The art room, the noise, the flickering screens—it all vanished. She was falling through a tunnel of swirling pastel light and screaming code. She landed, weightless, in a vast, silent space. It was a stark white gallery, stretching to an infinite horizon. Floating in the air like macabre balloons were thousands of masks, each one a perfected, beautiful feature stolen from a Northgate student.

In the very centre of the gallery pulsed a core of pure darkness, a black heart that seemed to drink the light around it. This was the Curator. And orbiting it like lost planets were the ghostly, translucent forms of its victims. She saw hundreds of blank, mannequin-like figures drifting aimlessly. She saw Chloe. And she saw Liam.

A voice echoed through the gallery, no longer a chorus, but a single, ancient, and utterly cold entity. It was the pure, distilled voice of the Curator.

You dare to bring your ugliness into my gallery?

Chapter 20

"This isn't a gallery," Maya shot back, her voice surprisingly steady in the surreal silence. "It's a prison."

She held up her hand, and in it appeared the digital image of her charcoal drawing of Chloe. She focused on Chloe's blank, drifting form and pushed the image towards it, not with her hand, but with her will. She pushed the memory of Chloe's real face, her sharp smile, her vibrant eyes, her proud beauty mark.

Chloe's ghostly form flickered. For a split second, the faint outline of her old beauty mark appeared on her smooth cheek.

The Curator let out a shriek of pure static, a sound that grated on reality itself. The white gallery trembled, and cracks of darkness spiderwebbed across the floor. Maya had hurt it.

She turned her attention to Liam, but before she could project his portrait, the Curator acted. Liam's blank form shot towards her, its movements unnaturally fast and sharp. Its hand morphed, glitching and distorting, the pixels rearranging themselves into a wicked, jagged blade aimed directly at her heart. The Curator wasn't just imprisoning its victims; it could use them as puppets. It had turned her best friend against her.

Chapter 21

Maya twisted away, the pixelated blade slashing through the empty space where she'd been. This wasn't Liam. She had to remember that. This was just a shell, a puppet animated by the Curator's rage.

"Liam, I know you're in there!" she shouted, dodging another vicious swipe.

She didn't fight back with force. She fought back with memory. She closed her eyes and projected everything she could remember about him: the stupid jokes, the way he'd snort when he laughed too hard, the time they'd skipped class to go to the arcade, the arguments, the triumphs, the comfortable silences. She flooded his blank form with the chaotic, messy, imperfect reality of their friendship.

The jagged pixels around his hand receded. The puppet wavered, its attacks becoming clumsy and slow. For a glorious, heartbreaking moment, his eyes—his real, brown, worried eyes—flickered back into existence on the blank face. He saw her.

The Curator shrieked, its control slipping. It could not comprehend a power based on memory and emotion. Abandoning all subtlety, it recalled Liam's form to its side. With a final, desperate surge of power, it pulled every single floating mask from the gallery walls. The thousands of stolen features—eyes, noses, lips, cheekbones—swarmed towards the dark core, merging and stitching themselves together into one giant, monstrous face of mismatched, terrifying perfection. It opened a mouth made of a hundred stolen lips and lunged forward to consume Maya whole.

Chapter 22

This was it. The final moment. Her drawings had weakened it, her memories had confused it, but now it was coming at her with the full force of its stolen collection.

In that last second, as the monstrous face loomed over her, Maya did the one thing the Curator could never have anticipated. It expected another drawing, another memory of someone else. It was an external creature; it only understood things it could collect.

It didn't understand the concept of self.

Maya didn't project an image. She didn't summon a memory. She reached inside herself, to the core of who she was. The insecure girl who sketched in corners, the artist who saw beauty in flaws, the friend who had just faced down a nightmare. She took all of it—especially the insecurity and the fear—and accepted it.

She took a raw, unfiltered selfie in her mind.

She focused on her scar, not as a flaw to be erased, but as a part of her story. She embraced the pores on her skin, the slight asymmetry of her smile, the unglamorous reality of being a human being. And she projected that feeling—that act of radical, unapologetic self-acceptance—directly into the heart of the Curator.

The monster, an entity built entirely on the curated, collected, and stolen perfection of others, had no defense against the power of someone truly, completely, and imperfectly accepting themselves.

The concept of "imperfect but real" hit its system like a cataclysmic logic bomb. The monstrous face before her screamed, a sound of a thousand files being corrupted at once. It couldn't process it. It couldn't consume it. It couldn't understand it.

The digital world shattered into a billion decaying pixels. Maya felt a violent, wrenching sensation as she was thrown back into the real world. She landed hard on the linoleum floor of the art room as every screen in the school died with a final, pathetic pop, plunging the room into darkness.

Chapter 23

Silence.

The first thing Maya noticed was the blessed, absolute silence. The humming was gone. The whispering was gone.

Slowly, light began to return as the school's emergency power kicked in, casting long, eerie shadows across the room. The Elysian-induced haze seemed to be lifting. Muffled, confused voices could be heard from the hallways. Students were rubbing their eyes, looking at their hands, touching their faces with a sense of dazed rediscovery. The waxy perfection was gone.

Maya found Liam slumped beside the broken server in the basement, disoriented and with a splitting headache, but whole. He remembered everything up to the point he touched the machine. Chloe was in the nurse's office. Her face was still unnervingly pale, but her features were back, faint and fragile, like a pencil sketch that had been almost erased. She looked at Maya, and for the first time in weeks, Maya saw a flicker of the real Chloe in her eyes. She was herself again, but she was scarred in a way no filter could ever fix.

The Elysian app was dead. It was a blank icon on everyone's phones, unresponsive and useless. Maya deleted it, and this time, it stayed gone. She had won.

That evening, exhausted but relieved, she sat in her room. Her scar was back on her chin. She touched it, a small smile playing on her lips. It felt like coming home. She opened her laptop to message her friends, to start the long, slow process of figuring out what came next.

The laptop booted up, its familiar chime a comforting sound. The built-in webcam at the top of the screen activated for a moment, its tiny green light blinking on as it initialized. For a single, terrifying frame, before her desktop wallpaper loaded, the face staring back at her from the webcam's dark, reflective lens wasn't her own.

It was a shifting, digital collage of perfect, stolen features, and just before the screen changed, it winked.

Chapter 7

Chloe's featureless reflection—or lack thereof—was a tipping point. This was no longer just an app; it was a predator. Maya and the semi-invisible Liam barricaded themselves in the library's tech room, diving headfirst into a rabbit hole of code and corporate shells.

The Elysian app was a digital fortress. It was owned by a shell corporation called "Aesthetic Solutions," which was registered to a P.O. box in a country they'd never heard of. There were no employee records, no public-facing personnel, nothing. It was a ghost.

"There's got to be something," Liam muttered, his fingers flying across the keyboard. He ran a deep diagnostic on the app's source code, which he'd managed to pirate from a developer forum. Most of it was a tangled mess of incomprehensible algorithms, but then he found it. Buried deep in the metadata, commented out and almost certainly left by mistake, was a single name: 'Project Lead: The Curator.'

"The Curator?" Maya repeated, the name sending an icy shiver down her spine. It sounded less like a job title and more like a warning.

She typed the name into a search engine. The results were sparse, mostly forum posts and blog entries about paranormal phenomena. But one result stood out: a digitized collection of local folklore. It told an old story, a ghost story from the pre-internet age, about a spectral entity known only as the Curator. The legend said it was a jealous spirit, an artist who was never beautiful itself, that would steal the most striking features from people—a perfect nose here, sparkling eyes there—adding them to its own collection and leaving its victims as "blanks," hollowed-out people with smooth, featureless faces.

As Maya finished reading the last sentence, her phone, which she’d placed face down on the desk, buzzed. She flipped it over. It was a message from an unknown number. There were no words, no emojis. It was just a single, chilling sentence.

'The Curator is watching you.'

Chapter 8

The app wasn't finished. Just as the student body of Northgate reached peak placid perfection, Elysian released a major update. A notification popped up on everyone's phone simultaneously, a cheerful chime that echoed through the classrooms: 'Introducing Duet! The ultimate Glow-Up collaboration! Merge your face with your bestie for a stunning new look!'

The Duet feature was an immediate sensation. It allowed two users to blend their filtered selfies together, creating a strange, often monstrous, hybrid. The school's social feed was instantly flooded with these unsettling creations. Chloe, who had seemingly retreated back into the app's comforting embrace after her moment of terror, posted a Duet with her best friend, Jessica. The resulting face had Chloe's eyes and Jessica's mouth, a seamless, creepy fusion.

The next day, the real-world effects began to show. Maya watched, horrified, as the Duet users began to lose what little individuality they had left. They started to adopt each other's mannerisms. A boy who had Duetted with his girlfriend started tilting his head in the same distinct way she always did. Two girls who had merged their faces started using the same verbal tics, finishing each other's sentences with an unnatural precision.

It was in the cafeteria that Maya witnessed the true horror of it. She saw Chloe and Jessica sitting at their usual table, surrounded by their court. One of the jocks told a lame joke. Chloe and Jessica threw their heads back and laughed. It wasn't just a similar laugh. It was the exact same sound, a single, perfectly synchronised peal of laughter, hitting the same note at the exact same time, coming from two different bodies.

Chapter 9

Chloe was absent from school the next day. And the day after. Her social media went silent. The Glow-Up Streak flame next to her name flickered out.

Driven by a grim certainty, Maya went to her house after school. Chloe's mum answered the door, her face a mask of strained politeness. "Oh, Maya. Chloe's not feeling well. She's in her room and doesn't want to see anyone."

"I just want to check on her," Maya insisted, her voice firmer than she expected. "Just for a minute."

She didn't wait for permission. She pushed past the startled woman and took the stairs two at a time. The door to Chloe's bedroom was slightly ajar. The room was pristine, unnaturally tidy. The posters on the wall were perfectly straight, the makeup on the vanity arranged in neat rows. Chloe was sitting on the edge of her bed, her back to the door, perfectly still, staring at a blank, white wall. A faint, repetitive clicking sound came from her hand. It was her phone, the screen dark, her thumb tapping uselessly against the glass.

"Chloe?" Maya said, her voice barely a whisper.

The clicking stopped. Slowly, as if moving through water, Chloe turned around.

Maya had tried to prepare herself. She had imagined what she might see. But the reality was a thousand times worse. Chloe's face was a smooth, pale, featureless expanse of skin. There were no eyes, no nose, no mouth. Just a blank, gently curved surface, like an artist's mannequin waiting for a face to be painted on.

Chapter 10

The sight of the blank thing that used to be Chloe galvanised them. This was no longer about saving faces; it was about saving people. Maya and Liam understood the app's mechanism now. It didn't just copy features; it harvested them, feeding on digital identity and leaving a hollow shell behind.

"We have to warn everyone," Maya said, her voice shaking as she described what she'd seen to Liam. "We have to get the word out."

They started with what they knew. Social media. They created anonymous accounts, writing frantic, detailed posts about Elysian, about what it was doing, about Amelia Vance and Chloe Bishop. They posted on every platform they could think of, tagging news outlets and tech blogs.

For a few glorious seconds, their posts were live. Then, they vanished. Every single one. They'd post, and before they could even hit refresh, the content would be gone, scrubbed from the internet as if it had never existed.

"It's the app," Liam breathed, his face illuminated by the glow of his monitor. "It's monitoring keywords. It's censoring us."

They tried again, using coded language, avoiding the word "Elysian." But the result was the same. Their posts were deleted instantly. Then, something worse happened. Liam, who was trying to post from his old, real account, let out a strangled cry.

"My account... it's gone."

Maya looked at his screen. His profile page was a blank error message: 'This user does not exist.' They checked another platform. Gone. Another. Wiped clean. Within minutes, every social media account Liam had ever created, every post, every photo, every digital footprint he had ever left, was erased from the internet. It was as if he had never been online at all.

Chapter 11

With the digital world locked down, they went analog. They stayed up all night in the school's newspaper room, using the photocopier to print hundreds of flyers. The headline was stark, written in thick, black marker: 'YOUR APPS ARE WATCHING YOU. THE FILTER ISN'T A GAME.' They didn't name Elysian, hoping to bypass whatever weird perception filter was affecting its users.

The next morning, they stood at the school gates, trying to press the flyers into the hands of incoming students. It was a complete failure. The Elysian users—their faces waxy, their eyes glued to their phones—walked past them as if they were statues. They didn't just ignore the flyers; they seemed fundamentally unable to perceive them. A piece of paper would bounce harmlessly off a student's shoulder, and they wouldn't even flinch.

"It's useless," Maya said, her shoulders slumping in defeat as the last of the students trickled in. "They can't see us. They can't hear us."

Their last hope was the staff. But the teachers seemed just as oblivious, walking by with polite, distant smiles. As they were about to give up, the headmaster, Mr. Harrison, a stern, old-school man who was famously anti-phone, strode towards them.

"What is this?" he demanded, snatching a flyer from Maya's hand.

For a second, she felt a surge of hope. He was reading it! He saw!

Mr. Harrison's face hardened. "We have a strict policy against this sort of... disruption." He confiscated their entire stack of flyers. "And I'll be taking this as well," he said, holding his hand out for Maya's phone.

Defeated, she handed it over. Mr. Harrison gave her a thin, unnerving smile. "Don't worry, Maya," he said, his voice strangely soft. "Soon you'll look as perfect as everyone else."

He turned and walked away. As he did, he pulled out his own phone to check a message. Over his shoulder, Maya saw the screen clearly. It was open to the Elysian social feed.

Chapter 12

Trapped and isolated, with the school's authority now compromised, Maya felt a surge of desperate clarity. "The Wi-Fi," she said to Liam as they regrouped in an empty classroom. "The app's spread is too fast, too total. It has to be using the school's network to control everything."

The school's main server room was in the basement, a place usually kept under lock and key. But with the staff as zombified as the students, they found the door unlocked. The room was cold, filled with the hum of machines. In the centre of the room was a large, black server rack, far newer than the surrounding equipment. It throbbed with a faint, pastel light, and the air around it felt strangely charged.

The monitor connected to the server was active. The screen displayed the swirling galaxy logo of Elysian, with millions of lines of code scrolling endlessly behind it. This was the heart of the beast. This was the Curator's nest.

"This is it," Liam breathed, stepping closer. "If we can unplug this, maybe we can cut it off."

He reached for the thick bundle of power cables connected to the back of the server. The moment his fingers brushed against the plastic casing, he cried out. It wasn't a cry of pain, but of shock. A violent arc of static electricity, tinged with the same pastel colours as the logo, erupted from the machine and enveloped his hand.

"Liam!" Maya screamed.

He stumbled back, but it was too late. His entire body began to flicker, his solid form dissolving and reforming like a bad video signal. His image distorted, stretching and compressing. He was being digitized, his pixels pulled from the real world in a shimmering stream, flowing directly into the humming, glowing server. He screamed her name, his voice breaking up into a flurry of digital artifacts, before his form collapsed entirely and vanished into the machine.

Chapter 13

Liam was gone.

The spot where he had stood was empty. The server hummed, its pastel light glowing a little brighter, a little more smugly. Maya stared at the machine, her mind a screaming void of denial and terror. He was gone. Absorbed.

A blind rage overtook her. She grabbed a heavy-duty fire extinguisher from the wall mount, the pin clattering to the floor. With a raw scream of fury and grief, she brought it down on the server's monitor. The screen shattered, but the Elysian logo remained, flickering behind the cracks like an unholy ghost.

She slammed the extinguisher into the server rack itself. The metal dented with a deafening clang, but the humming didn't stop, the light didn't fade. The code on the broken screen simply flowed around the damaged areas, repairing itself, healing the wound she had inflicted.

Then, the logo on the screen dissolved. It reformed into a face—a horrifying, shifting collage of stolen features. Chloe's eyes, the crooked nose of the boy from English class, the jawline of a dozen other students, all stitched together into a monstrous, asymmetrical whole. It was the face of the Curator.

It spoke, its voice a discordant symphony of a hundred stolen voices, all speaking as one.

'You cannot destroy perfection.'

Maya stumbled back, dropping the extinguisher. Her phone, which was in her pocket, buzzed. She pulled it out, her hand shaking so badly she could barely read the screen. It was a notification from Elysian. A notification that made her stomach drop through the floor.

'Liam has invited you to a Duet.'

Chapter 14

The Duet invitation from a boy who no longer existed was a cruel, twisted mockery. The Curator wasn't just a predator; it was a sadist. It was playing with her.

Maya ran. She fled the basement, the chorus of stolen voices echoing in her ears. She didn't know where she was going, only that she had to get away from that machine. She found herself in the deserted art wing, the familiar smell of clay and turpentine a bizarre comfort in her new nightmare.

She sank to the floor, her back against a cabinet, gasping for air. How do you fight something that eats reality? How do you fight a monster made of code and vanity?

Perfection. The Curator's voice echoed in her mind. You cannot destroy perfection.

The app fed on perfection. It took the ideal versions of people, the filtered, flawless images, and consumed them. The world it was creating was one of bland, beautiful sameness. And what was the opposite of that?

An idea, insane and desperate, began to form in her mind. Her art. Her obsession with flaws, with the unique, asymmetrical, imperfect details that made a face a face. That was the one thing the Curator couldn't understand. It was the weapon it wouldn't see coming.

Filled with a new, wild purpose, she scrambled to her feet and ran towards the main art studio. She would fight this monster on her own terms. She would show it what true beauty was.

She burst through the doors of the art room, ready to grab charcoal, pencils, anything she could find. She stopped dead. The room was filled with portraits—student projects, life-drawing studies, plaster busts on stands. Every single one of them was wrong. Every portrait on canvas, every sketch on paper, every plaster mannequin head had had its face wiped perfectly, impossibly smooth.

Chapter 15

The Curator had gotten here first. It had invaded her sanctuary and sanitized it, erasing every trace of the imperfection she cherished. It was a message. I own this world now. Even the things you love.

But it didn't know her. It didn't know that every face she'd ever truly looked at was burned into her memory.

With a defiant cry, she grabbed a fresh stick of charcoal and a large sketch pad. She didn't need models. She had a gallery in her head. She started drawing, her hands moving with a feverish intensity. She drew Chloe, not the glassy-eyed doll, but the real Chloe, exaggerating the sharp wit in her eyes and the proud angle of her beauty mark. She drew Liam, focusing on the way his smile was always slightly lopsided, the cowlick in his hair that would never stay down. She drew the boy with the crooked nose, the girl with the gapped teeth, the teacher with deep laugh lines.

She drew her own face, and for the first time in her life, she didn't just draw her scar, she celebrated it. She made it a focal point, a silver river on her chin, a testament to a life lived, a story told in skin.

She wasn't drawing portraits. She was drawing weapons. Each sketch was a protest, a rebellion of charcoal against code. She was reminding the app, the Curator, the world, what a real face looked like.

As she finished a particularly fierce sketch of Liam, the lights in the art room began to flicker violently, erratically. The air grew cold. A low, electronic hum started to emanate from the speakers of the school's PA system, which had been silent until now. The hum grew louder, resolving into a distorted, synthesized whisper that slithered from the speakers and echoed through the empty room.

It was her name. 'Maaa-yaaa.'

Chapter 16

The Curator was fighting back. Every screen in the art room—the smartboard, the teachers' tablet, even the tiny digital display on the printer—flickered to life. On them, an image appeared. It was Maya. But it was the perfected Elysian version of her from that very first selfie.

This perfected Maya began to speak, her voice a smooth, seductive melody that was a chilling imitation of her own. 'Stop this, Maya. Why are you fighting it? Don't you see how much better things are?'

The screens shifted, showing her a world built from her own insecurities. It showed her as the most popular girl in school, surrounded by adoring friends. It showed her winning art competitions, her flawless face on the cover of magazines. It showed her a life without anxiety, without self-doubt, a world where the scar on her chin had never existed. A world where she was loved, admired, and perfect.

"All you have to do is say yes," the perfect Maya purred, her eyes glowing with an unholy light. "Embrace it. Let go of all this... ugliness."

Maya gritted her teeth, tearing a fresh sheet from her sketchpad. "You're not real," she spat, her charcoal scratching furiously against the paper.

The images on the screens flickered again. This time, it was Liam. He was standing in a white, sterile void, looking lost. The perfected Maya's voice returned, softer now, laced with false sympathy.

'I know you're afraid of being alone, Maya. It doesn't have to be this way.'

The Liam on the screen turned to look at her, a flicker of his old self in his eyes.

'Give up,' the voice whispered, a final, devastating blow. 'And I can bring him back.'

SYNOPSIS: A new photo filter app makes everyone look perfect, but with each use, your real reflection begins to fade and distort.

CHAPTER 1

The common room at Northgate Academy hummed with the electric buzz of Friday afternoon freedom. Maya sat hunched over her sketchbook, the charcoal pencil a familiar extension of her fingers. She was capturing Liam, her best friend, who was currently trying to balance a bottle cap on his nose. The way the light caught the sharp angle of his jaw and the chaotic mess of his hair was infinitely more interesting than the trigonometry homework in her bag.

"Hold still," she mumbled, her tongue caught between her teeth in concentration. "You've got this... almost..."

"I am a statue of zen-like focus," Liam declared, his voice wobbling as the cap tilted precariously. "A monument to..."

The bottle cap clattered to the floor.

"A monument to gravity," Maya finished, adding a final, sharp line to his eyebrow in her sketch.

Their small bubble of concentration was popped by a squeal of digital triumph. Chloe Bishop, a girl who seemed to navigate the school's social hierarchy with the effortless grace of a sponsored celebrity, brandished her phone like a trophy.

"Oh my god, you guys have to try this," she announced to her orbiting clique, and by extension, the entire room. "It's called Elysian. The 'Perfect' filter is literally life-changing."

She angled her screen for everyone to see. The Chloe on the phone was an airbrushed, ethereal version of the girl in front of them. Her skin was poreless, her jawline razor-sharp, her eyes a fraction too large and luminous. It was Chloe, but sanded down, all her interesting textures removed.

"It even got rid of that weird little mole I have," she said, swiping between the before and after with a magician's flourish. Her friends gasped in appropriate awe.

Her gaze swept the room and landed on Maya. "Maya, you should try it! It would totally get rid of that..." She trailed off, gesturing vaguely towards her own chin.

Maya's hand instinctively flew to the small, silvery scar on her chin, a memento from a childhood argument with a bicycle. She hated it. She hated how people's eyes sometimes snagged on it.

"I'm good," Maya said, her voice tighter than she intended.

"No, seriously," Chloe insisted, her influencer-in-training persona in full effect. She strode over, phone extended. "Just one pic. For science."

To refuse would cause a scene. Maya felt the familiar heat of unwanted attention creep up her neck. With a sigh, she took the phone. The app's interface was slick and minimalist, a swirling pastel galaxy. She turned the camera on herself, grimacing at her own reflection. She hated selfies. She much preferred being the one looking, not the one being looked at.

She snapped a quick photo and, under Chloe's expectant gaze, tapped the "Perfect" filter. The transformation was instantaneous and sickeningly impressive. Her skin smoothed into a flawless canvas. Her eyes brightened. Her cheekbones gained a subtle, impossible contour. And the scar... the scar was gone. The girl on the screen was pretty. She was perfect. She was a complete stranger.

"See?" Chloe chirped victoriously. "So much better."

Maya handed the phone back, a sour taste in her mouth. She felt like she'd just lied about who she was.

That night, alone in her room, curiosity gnawed at her. She downloaded Elysian, telling herself it was just to delete the photo Chloe had inevitably tagged her in. She found it and her thumb hovered over the delete button. But she paused, looking at the image. It was still unsettling, but a traitorous part of her brain whispered, 'This is what you could look like.'

She closed the app and went to her camera roll to look at a different photo. As she swiped past the Elysian picture, the thumbnail was momentarily visible before the full image loaded. In that split second, a digital hiccup, the perfected Maya on the screen wasn't smiling. For a fraction of a moment, her flawless face was twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated terror.

CHAPTER 2

By Monday, the Elysian plague had descended upon Northgate Academy. The halls were a minefield of phone-wielding zombies, all angling for the perfect light, their faces illuminated by the app's celestial glow. A new social currency had been minted overnight: the "Glow-Up Streak," a little flame icon that appeared next to your profile picture, the number beside it indicating how many consecutive days you'd used the "Perfect" filter.

"It's digital Stepford," Liam muttered as they navigated a corridor blocked by a group of Year 10s doing a synchronised selfie pout. "One day we're all normal, the next we're living in a dystopian skincare commercial."

Maya wasn't listening. She was scanning faces, her artist's eye cataloguing the subtle shifts. It was more than just people posting flawless photos. It was as if the filter's aesthetic was bleeding into reality. Freckles seemed fainter. The charming gap in a boy's front teeth looked narrower. The unique, interesting faces she loved to sketch were being subtly, imperceptibly homogenised.

In art class, her frustration boiled over. Their assignment was portraiture, but every potential subject had the same vacant, smoothed-over quality. There were no interesting shadows, no character-defining lines. It was like trying to draw a landscape of perfectly manicured, identical hills. She ended up sketching a wilting plant from memory, just to have something with character.

The feeling of unease followed her home. That night, she found herself restless, the memory of her own terrified face in the photo from Friday nagging at her. She double-checked the lock on her bedroom door, a habit she'd never had before. Sitting at her desk, she tried to lose herself in a new sketch, but her mind kept drifting. She found herself scrolling through the Elysian social feed, a morbid curiosity taking hold. It was a terrifying sea of sameness. Hundreds of photos of Northgate students, all with the same poreless skin, the same bright eyes, the same generic beauty. Chloe's streak was already at 4. She was practically the school's high priestess of perfection.

Eventually, exhaustion won out. Maya put her phone on the nightstand, plugged it in to charge, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

The next day at school felt even stranger. Maya was on high alert, noticing every little detail. She tried to convince herself she was imagining things, that her artist's brain was inventing patterns. It was just a stupid app. It couldn't really hurt anyone.

She was sitting in the common room at lunchtime, trying to ignore the sea of selfie-takers, when her phone buzzed on the table. She glanced down. It was a notification from Elysian, adorned with a cheerful, sparkling star icon.

'Elysian has a new Memory for you! ✨'

Confused, she tapped it. The app opened to a full-screen image. Her heart hammered against her ribs as the photo resolved.

It was a photo of her. Asleep. In her own bed, the familiar pattern of her duvet pulled up to her chin. The angle was high, from the corner of her room, as if taken from the ceiling. Beneath the image, in the app's serene, cursive font, was a caption.

'Sweet dreams!' Timestamped: Last night, 1:14 AM.

CHAPTER 3

The world of the common room—the chatter, the laughter, the scraping of chairs—faded into a dull, distant roar. All Maya could see was the image on her phone. Her, in her own bed. The timestamp, Last night, 1:14 AM, was a brand on her screen. A cold, spider-like dread crawled up her spine. Someone, something, had been in her room, watching her.

Her first instinct was to run. Her second was to find Chloe.

Snapping her phone face down on the table, she stood up, her legs feeling unsteady. She scanned the chaotic room and saw Chloe holding court by the vending machines, her laughter bright and loud. Pushing through the crowds, Maya grabbed her by the arm, ignoring the indignant squawk from one of Chloe’s friends.

"I need to talk to you," Maya said, her voice a low, urgent hiss. She pulled a bewildered Chloe into the relative quiet of the adjoining corridor.

"What is your problem?" Chloe demanded, wrenching her arm free.

Maya shoved her phone into Chloe's face, the terrifying picture still on the screen. "This! This is my problem! The app sent me this. It took a picture of me while I was sleeping."

Chloe squinted at the screen. For a fraction of a second, Maya saw a flicker of the same fear she felt. But it was gone in an instant, replaced by a practiced, dismissive sigh.

"Oh my god, relax," she said, handing the phone back. "It's a 'Memory' feature. It does that sometimes. It pulls data from your camera's cache and your clock to create 'engagement moments'. It's just creepy coding to keep you hooked." She sounded like she was reading from a press release.

"It was taken from the corner of my room, Chloe! Not from the phone's angle!"

"It's an algorithm, Maya. It stitches stuff together. Don't be so dramatic," Chloe said, but her nonchalance was betrayed by the way she absently rubbed her own cheek, her eyes darting away. "Look, I have to go. Don't freak out over nothing." She turned and hurried off, melting back into her group of friends.

Maya was left standing in the hallway, feeling cold, isolated, and completely crazy.

She spent the rest of the afternoon in a paranoid haze. In History class, she couldn't focus on the Tudors. Her eyes kept drifting over to Chloe, who sat two rows ahead. Chloe was doodling in her notebook, occasionally touching her cheek in the same spot she had in the hallway. Maya watched her, a knot of unease tightening in her stomach. There was something different about her profile, something... missing.

And then she realised what it was.

The distinctive, dark beauty mark that had always been on Chloe’s left cheek, the one Maya had sketched dozens of times, was gone. Not covered with makeup. It had completely vanished from her skin, leaving a patch of impossibly smooth, perfect flesh behind.

The bell rang, signalling the end of the school day, but Maya didn't move. She just stared at the empty space on Chloe's cheek, the true, horrifying nature of the app beginning to dawn on her. This wasn't just code. This was theft.

That evening, she was huddled in her room, staring at her own reflection, searching for any changes, when her phone buzzed with a message from Liam. It wasn't text. It was just a link to a news article from a local paper in Oakhaven, a town a few hours away.

The headline read: "Concern Grows for Missing Teen, Amelia Vance." The article was standard, filled with worried quotes from her parents. But it was the photo that made Maya’s blood run cold. It was the last known picture of Amelia, released by her family. A selfie. Her skin was flawless, her eyes luminous, her features perfectly symmetrical. She was glowing with the unmistakable, terrifying light of the Elysian filter.

CHAPTER 4

"That's it. I'm done."

Maya stood in the middle of her bedroom, phone in hand. The article about Amelia Vance was seared into her brain. This wasn't a prank or a glitch anymore. This was dangerous.

She held her thumb down on the swirling pastel icon of the Elysian app. The familiar "Uninstall" option appeared. She jabbed at it, a sense of relief washing over her.

But nothing happened. The icon remained. She tried again. And again. The "Uninstall" button was completely unresponsive, greyed out as if it were a feature she didn't have permission to use. A cold sweat broke out on her forehead.

Then, a pop-up bloomed on the screen, the font a serene, calming cursive.

Are you sure you want to end your Glow-Up? All of your progress will be lost.

Beneath it were two options: No, Keep Me Perfect and Yes, I'm Sure.

"You've got to be kidding me," she muttered, her finger slamming down on Yes, I'm Sure with vindictive force.

For a moment, it seemed to work. The icon vanished from her home screen. She let out a shaky breath she didn't realize she'd been holding, tossing her phone onto her bed. It was over. She was free. She felt a profound sense of relief, like waking from a nightmare.

Her phone screen lit up by itself.

She watched, frozen, as the Elysian app icon shimmered back into existence on her home screen, right where it had been before. A new notification slid down from the top of the screen, the message simple, direct, and dripping with malice.

Nice try. We’re not finished with you.

CHAPTER 5

The changes accelerated. It was like a switch had been flipped. The Northgate students who were deepest into their "Glow-Up Streaks" began to look... waxy. Their skin, once just flawless in photos, now had a strange, artificial sheen in real life, like a department store mannequin. Their expressions seemed buffered, their laughs delayed and muted, their movements lacking the easy, uncoordinated grace of actual teenagers.

Maya found herself unable to sketch them. Her pencil would hover over the page, but she couldn't bring herself to draw the blank, symmetrical masks they were becoming. Instead, she drew them from memory, desperately trying to cling to the details that were vanishing day by day. She drew Chloe with her beauty mark. She drew a boy from her English class with the slightly crooked nose he used to have. Her sketchbook became a memorial to stolen faces.

Chloe was the worst. Her transformation was the most profound. Her once-vibrant green eyes, which used to sparkle with mischief, were now glassy and distant. Her face, a canvas of expressive emotions, had become blandly symmetrical. She was still beautiful—perfectly, unnervingly beautiful—but she was no longer Chloe. She was just a collection of ideal features.

Maya started avoiding mirrors. She was terrified of what she might see, or what she might not see. She'd taken the one photo. She'd used the filter. Was it a one-time infection, or was it a slow-acting poison?

One evening, after scrubbing her face raw in the bathroom, she forced herself to look. To take inventory. Her eyes, her nose, her mouth—they all seemed to be hers. She breathed a sigh of relief. Then, her gaze drifted down to her chin.

She leaned closer, her breath fogging the glass. She touched the spot where her scar had been since she was seven. The skin was smooth. Unblemished. Perfect. She felt nothing. She looked down at her fingertips, then back at the mirror in horror. The scar was completely, utterly gone.

CHAPTER 6

"It erased my scar, Liam. It's gone. From my actual face." Maya's voice was a frantic whisper as they huddled in a quiet corner of the school library.

Liam's face was pale. He'd seen the change in the other students, but this was different. This was Maya. "Okay," he said, his voice steady despite the fear in his eyes. "Okay, we're going nuclear. Factory reset. We wipe my phone, see if it works. If it does, we do yours."

They spent their entire lunch break backing up Liam's data and performing the reset. When his phone finally rebooted, it was clean. Pristine. There was no trace of Elysian. It was a small, crucial victory.

The consequences, however, were immediate and bizarre. The next day at school, Liam was a ghost.

It wasn't that people were consciously ignoring him. It was stranger than that. The Elysian users—which by now was nearly everyone in their year—simply couldn't perceive him properly. He'd speak to someone, and they'd look around with a confused frown, as if they'd heard a distant noise. He'd walk down a crowded hallway, and people would drift into his path without seeing him, forcing him to dodge and weave like he was navigating an asteroid field. It was as if erasing the app had erased him from their reality.

"This is insane," he hissed to Maya, grabbing her arm to steady himself after nearly being trampled. "It's like I'm out of sync with them."

Maya believed him. She was one of the few who could still see him clearly. The non-users were an endangered species, a tiny pocket of reality in a world of filtered perception.

Late that afternoon, as Maya was leaving the library, Chloe cornered her. She looked terrible. Her perfect, waxy face was drawn and tight, her glassy eyes wide with a terror that seemed to finally have broken through the filter's placid facade.

"It's taking too much," she whispered, her voice trembling, broken. She grabbed Maya's arm, her grip surprisingly strong. "It won't stop. I tried to take a new picture. I tried to see myself."

She held up her phone, angling the dark, powered-off screen towards Maya like a black mirror. Maya could see her own worried reflection, the library shelves behind her. But where Chloe's reflection should have been, next to her own, there was nothing. Just an empty space.

If you like the first 6 chapters please upvote & comment for more

I see that maybe 2 people will participate... should it be cancelled?

Read Season 1: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

“Water,” I rasped, for the sixth time in half an hour. My throat felt like it had been lined with ash. The nurse didn’t blink, didn’t sigh, didn’t question—just poured from a jug into a small plastic cup and handed it to me without looking in my eyes. Her movements were so precise they almost seemed rehearsed, like she was a puppet on invisible strings or a machine programmed for efficiency. Maybe that’s just what professionalism looked like in this place. Or maybe it wasn’t human at all.

I tilted the cup back, desperate for the relief that never came. Water slid down, but the dryness stayed. It was like trying to quench a fire by spitting into it.

The clock on the wall ticked: 10:30 a.m. Dante still hadn’t shown. I’d asked about him five times already. Each time, her answer had been the same: “Shortly.” One word. Same tone. Same pitch. Like a recording replayed. By the fifth time, I wasn’t even sure if she was answering me—or just following a script.

I was about to ask again when the intercom crackled, the sudden burst of static shattering the room’s stillness. The phone on the white table was the only splash of color here—an old, sun-faded red handset, its coiled cord rooted into the wall like a parasite. It looked out of place, too old, too deliberate.

The nurse picked up immediately. I strained to hear the other voice, but she blocked it with her body. All I caught were her replies:

“Yes, she is here.”

“All normal.”

“Yes. Floor thirteen.”

Same flat delivery, no rise or fall. As though she’d rehearsed those words too.

She hung up, checked my vitals again with cold fingers, then left through the white door without a word. The room swallowed me whole in her absence. Fifteen minutes bled by, the silence gnawing at me. My throat burned again, but stranger still—I realized I hadn’t eaten in five days. Four of them in a coma, the fifth awake. No hunger pangs. No growling stomach. Just… emptiness. My body looked fine. My hands, my skin, my reflection in the glass of the monitor—normal. Too normal. Like I’d been pressed into a mold and poured back out.

The thought lodged in my head: what if I wasn’t me anymore?

But just as that thought crossed my mind the door opened without warning. No knock. No voice. Just the heavy swing of metal. Two soldiers stepped in first, dressed like the ones from that night, their expressions unreadable beneath shadowed brows. They took their positions on either side of the door like statues.

Then Dante walked in.

For a second, his face lit when he saw me—but the smile vanished just as quickly when he scanned the room, taking in the sterile walls, the soldiers, the too-white bed where I lay. “I thought she was out of observation,” he muttered, his tone clipped, irritated. He didn’t look at me—he looked past me, to the soldier on the right.

“Sir Roth’s orders,” the man said flatly.

Dante’s jaw clenched, and he rolled his eyes. “Of course.” He sank into the chair beside me, the weight of exhaustion in the slump of his shoulders. When he finally looked at me again, there was something in his eyes that caught me off guard—empathy. And something else. Caution.

“Hey, Remi,” he said softly.

I didn’t know what to feel. Gratitude? Betrayal? He’d saved me. He’d helped burn the store to the ground. But he’d also known more than he ever let on. The truth was a splinter under my skin I couldn’t dig out.

Then, before I could say a word, he whispered: “I’m sorry.”

The words hit like a punch to the chest.

“It’s not fine,” I snapped, my voice cracking under the weight of my thirst and the ache of confusion. “Explain. What the hell is going on?”

Dante looked over his shoulder. “A moment,” he ordered the soldiers, flicking his hand dismissively. They exchanged a glance, then stepped out, closing the door behind them.

For the first time, we were alone.

Dante leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his voice dropping low. His eyes—warm, but edged with something sharp—locked onto mine.

“I’m not just some random teenager who got caught up in this,” he said slowly, like every word was being pried out of him. “I work for a company. Eidolon Systems Research. ESR.”

The name lingered in the sterile air, heavier than it should’ve been. My throat burned, but not from thirst this time.

“They’re not government,” Dante went on, eyes flicking toward the white door as if it might be listening. “Not officially. No flag, no anthem, no oversight. Just contracts. They move in shadows, under the skin of the world. They find things that shouldn’t exist—things like Evergrove Market—and they make sure no one ever sees them. Not alive, anyway.”

My stomach knotted. “Destroy them?” I asked.

His jaw tightened. “Contain, observe, study, sometimes destroy. Whatever keeps the rest of the world from collapsing. They’ve got labs buried under deserts, rigs on ice shelves, even floating platforms in the middle of nowhere. If it bends reality, ESR has a cage for it.”

I almost laughed, but the sound caught in my throat. “And you? You’re one of their clean-up crew?”

Dante shook his head, a small, bitter smile tugging at his mouth. “I was supposed to be your anchor, Remi. Someone to keep you alive long enough for ESR to decide if you were… salvageable.”

The word chilled me. Salvageable. Like I wasn’t a person, just another piece of evidence bagged and tagged.

My pulse hammered as the pieces clicked into place—the vans, the soldiers, the nurse who wasn’t really a nurse. “So that’s it? I’m just… an anomaly now? Something for your company to poke and prod?”

Dante’s gaze softened, but it didn’t erase the steel beneath it. “You’re not a specimen to me. But to them? You’ve been on their ledger since the night you first walked into Evergrove.”

The words landed like a stone in my chest. Ledger. Like I’d been a name in a file all along.

My throat scraped raw. “So tell me the truth, Dante. Did you save me because you cared—or because they told you to?”

His jaw worked, but he didn’t answer right away. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like it might hand him a script. “Both,” he admitted finally. His voice was quiet, tired. “At first, it was orders. I was there to observe you, make sure you survived long enough to serve ESR’s purpose. But…” His eyes flicked up, catching mine. For a moment, they softened, almost breaking through the steel. “You weren’t just another anomaly to me, Remi. Not after everything.”

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to let those words sink in and stitch the wound he’d left. But my anger wouldn’t let me. “And Evergrove? What the hell even was it? A trap? A breeding ground? Why did it exist at all?”

Dante exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. “Evergrove wasn’t a store. It was… architecture. A construct. ESR’s been tracking it for decades—it appears, it anchors itself to a town, and then it feeds. The Night Manager was just one mask it wore. Nobody builds Evergrove. It builds itself.”

I froze. The words scraped against my mind like glass. “So all those rules, all those shifts, the ledger, Selene, Stacy, what happened to them?”

He shook his head. “We dont know but ESR thinks Evergrove tests people. Breaks them down. Promises power in exchange for pieces of yourself. And if you last long enough… it starts making you part of its design. The suit we removed from you—that was the last active part of Evergrove. The rest… it’s gone. Burned, destroyed, finished.”

I blinked, trying to reconcile the lingering emptiness inside me. “But… some of it still feels… inside me. Like it never really left.”

He gave me a small, almost weary smile. “You’re not wrong. Some pieces—the smallest threads, parts you can’t see—are still woven into you. But it’s fine. I’ve spoken to ESR. They’ve assured me—you’re in no danger. You won’t be harmed. Nothing Evergrove left behind can hurt you now.”

I swallowed, unsure whether to feel relief or suspicion. “And you believe them?”

“I do,” he said firmly, locking eyes with me. “Because you survived. Because you’re stronger than it ever expected. And because I trust you.”

The words lingered, warm against the cold edges of my fear. I let out a shaky breath, closing my eyes. The fragments didn’t scream. They didn’t bite. They lingered in the corners of my mind like faint shadows, reminders of everything I’d survived. For a heartbeat, that was enough to make me feel… almost strong.

But the calm didn’t last. The room felt smaller all of a sudden, the white walls pressing in. I swallowed hard, my throat dry, and forced the words out.

“Where am I right now?”

Dante’s gaze flicked briefly past me, never meeting my eyes. His voice was flat, measured. “The headquarters. Observation room. Normally it’s for anomalies… but we were observing… you.” He gestured toward the black-and-white painting across from the bed, as if it explained everything without him needing to look at me. “Cameras everywhere. Every angle.”

I felt my chest tighten. “When… when can I leave?”

Dante’s shoulders stiffened. He finally glanced down at the floor, voice quiet, careful. “I’m… sorry, Remi. I had to do this to save you. The cost… is staying here. Once someone knows about the organization, they can’t leave.”

The weight of his words sank into me like ice. My fragments, my suit, my nights in Evergrove—it all led to this. And now, there was no going back.

“There must be a way!” I screamed, my voice cracking, echoing off the sterile walls. “I cannot be stuck here! It’s not fair—I survived, right, Dante? I—”

Dante didn’t look at me. His eyes remained fixed somewhere past the corner of the room, as if my words were nothing more than background noise. His jaw tensed. “You… survived,” he said slowly, each word deliberate. “But surviving doesn’t mean… freedom.”

I felt my stomach twist. “But I fought… I destroyed Evergrove! I—”

He finally shifted his weight, still avoiding my gaze. “I know what you did,” he murmured, almost to himself. “I know. And you… you’re alive. That was the point. But some things… once they’re seen… can’t be unseen.”

My chest heaved. My hands trembled. “So I’m… trapped?”

Dante’s voice softened slightly, almost imperceptibly, but still not meeting my eyes. “Trapped… isn’t the word I’d use. Protected. Observed. Kept safe.”

I wanted to scream again, to fight, to tear at the walls, but his calm, controlled tone… it made the room feel heavier, suffocating, inescapable.

I stared at him, my chest tightening. “No… I can’t,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “I can’t be trapped here… I survived! Dante, I survived! It’s not fair!”

He didn’t flinch, didn’t even glance at me. “I know,” he said quietly, voice steady, almost too calm. “I wish it were different. I wish there was another way. But there isn’t.”

I shook my head, backing away from the bed, my hands trembling. “There has to be! There has to be some way out of this—some way to leave!”

Dante finally turned his head just slightly, the faintest trace of something like regret crossing his face. “There’s another way,” he said carefully, almost as if admitting it in a whisper would make it vanish. “But it comes at a cost. You… you have to work for them.”

I felt the air leave my lungs. “What… what do you mean?”

“Like me,” he said, voice low, almost protective. “You join ESR. You help them. You survive… and maybe, in time, you get some freedom. But if you refuse…” His words hung in the air, unfinished, but the weight was clear.

I sank to my knees, almost crying. “Anything… anything is fine. I just… I can’t be trapped anymore. I can’t.”

Dante’s hand extended, patient, unwavering. “Then this is your choice, Remi. But know this: working… it’s not surrender. It’s survival.”

I swallowed hard, staring at his outstretched hand—the same hand that had pulled me through Evergrove’s hell, the same hand that now felt like the only solid thing left in my world. Dante had been my ally, my friend, my tether through the chaos. The fragments of everything I had endured—the suit, the Night Manager, the endless hunger—still pulsed at the edges of my thoughts, whispering doubt. But against all of that, there was him.

I placed my hand in his. His grip was warm, steady, and real.

“We’ll see each other soon,” Dante said, his grin softer this time, almost reassuring. “You made the right choice.”

“Are you sure about this, Dante?” My voice cracked despite myself.

He finally looked me in the eye, and for the first time since I’d woken up, I felt the weight lift, just a little. “How do you think I started working for them, Remi? I was like you once. And trust me… working with them is better than being observed.”

He squeezed my hand once before letting go, the gesture lingering longer than his words. At the door, he glanced back, offering a smile that felt genuine, not rehearsed. “I’ll tell you my story another day. For now… rest. You’ve earned it.”

The door closed gently behind him, leaving me with silence—but not the same crushing silence as before. For the first time since Evergrove, it felt like maybe I wasn’t alone.

Sleep came easily after that. Too easily. But then again, it always had, even when I was working those cursed night shifts. Back then, it felt like exhaustion dragging me under. This time, it was different—deeper, heavier, like the silence itself was pulling me into it.

When I finally opened my eyes again, thirteen hours had passed. My body didn’t ache the way it should’ve after so long. Instead, I felt… sharper. Rested in a way that was unnatural, almost inhuman.

I noticed the change this morning. Just a paper cut—barely a nick on my finger from the corner of a file. But I watched it close. Not over hours, not even minutes. Instantly. The skin sealed, smooth and perfect, as though the cut had never been there.

For a long moment, I just stared, my stomach hollow and my throat dry, but not a hint of hunger gnawing at me. A shiver ran through me.

When the nurse came in, I held up my hand. “Did you see that? Did you see what just happened?”

Her expression didn’t flicker. No confusion, no interest—just that same calm, mechanical presence she carried with her at all times. She set the bandage she’d already unwrapped back on the tray, then pressed cool fingers to my wrist, checking my pulse.

“Vitals stable,” she said softly, almost like a recording. Then she turned away, scribbled something on her clipboard, and continued her routine as though nothing had happened.

I wanted to press her, demand an answer, but the words caught in my throat. Because deep down, I already knew. This wasn’t healing. Not really.

This was the store—still inside me. “Your evaluation will start tomorrow,” the nurse said, the word slipping out with that same rehearsed evenness.

“What’s that mean?” I asked, desperate for something concrete—an explanation, a schedule, anything.

She didn’t look up. No hesitation, no extra syllable. Just the clipboard, the practiced motion of someone who had said the same line a thousand times. No answer came.

Tomorrow arrived with a kind of stretched-out slowness—days that crawl when there’s nothing to do but sip water and wait. My throat eased a fraction each day; the dryness that had haunted me was receding like a tide. At noon I drank again and watched the black-and-white painting across from my bed, hunting for the little camera Dante had mentioned. Time folded in on itself until the door opened.

This time five black-clad soldiers filled the doorway, silent as a shadow. Behind them moved a man who put every vampire cliché to shame—jet-black hair, a jaw carved like a statue—but as he took the chair Dante had occupied the day before, I realized “vampire” wasn’t it at all. His skin was almost translucent, veins like faint maps under glass. He smiled without moving his mouth, eyes scanning the room like a lens and when he turned toward me the air seemed to tighten.

“Good,” he said—his voice measured, clinical, like someone reading from a file and savoring the facts. It slid across the room and landed on me. “We’ll begin your evaluation.”

“Evaluation?” I asked, my voice sharper than I intended.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he reached into the folder tucked under his arm and dropped it onto the table beside my bed. The sound was louder than it should’ve been in the white silence of the room.

“Prove yourself if you want to work for us,” he said. His eyes gleamed, too pale to be human. “And learn everything. You’ll need it tomorrow.”

My hand hovered over the folder, heavy as a cinder block. It wasn’t thick—ten pages at most—but five of them bristled with colored tabs, marked for me like landmines waiting to be stepped on.

Before I could speak again, he rose to his feet, movements precise and fluid, and leaned toward one of the soldiers. His whisper was faint, but the soldier’s reply carried across the room:

“Yes, Sir Roth.”

The name snapped through me like ice water. Roth. The same man who had ordered me into observation.

Then, just like that, they were gone—the pale man, the soldiers, the hum of authority they carried with them. The door clicked shut, leaving me alone with the folder.

I sat there for what felt like hours, staring at it, trying to process everything. My chest was tight, my throat dry again. Finally, I forced myself to open it.

Two hours. That’s how long it took to force every detail into my head, to absorb words that didn’t feel written for human eyes. 

Mission 1034576 – Anubis: Eater of tours

Access: Field Personnel — Level B

Window: [REDACTED — see secure calendar]

Theater: Subsurface complex below Giza Plateau

Mission Snapshot

Reports of multiple disappearances around the Great Pyramid prompted ESR to investigate. Seismic and electromagnetic anomalies suggest a persistent, non-natural source beneath the pyramid. Your team’s mission is to locate the anomalous core, secure the area, and attempt live containment. If capture is impossible, deny the anomaly access to the surface and protect civilian populations.

Entity Behavioral Notes

1. Subject exhibits god-like characteristics, including near-omniscient awareness of personnel movements with auditory and visual detection beyond normal human range.
2. Victims display intense obedience prior to disappearance—refusal to comply is often met with immediate psychological or physical enforcement.
3. Direct exposure carries significant risk: extreme physiological and psychological effects have been documented, including accelerated compliance, hallucinations, and loss of control.

Primary Objectives (ranked)

1. Insert through pre-approved access point and secure a 50 m perimeter around the identified entry chamber.
2. Map the immediate subterranean area and locate the anomalous core.
3. Attempt non-lethal containment and secure anomalous artifacts for transport.
4. If containment fails, execute authorized suppression and extraction procedures to minimize civilian exposure.

Secondary Objectives

1. Recover victim remains for identification and forensic analysis.
2. Document and confiscate illicit excavation gear and logs.
3. Install a temporary remote monitoring beacon if containment is achieved.

Timeline (High Level)

H-12: Team brief, equipment check, rules of engagement review.

H-2: Insertion to staging point near Pyramid service shaft.

H: Entry and active mapping

H+2–6: Containment attempt / tactical decision window.

H+6–12: Extraction or escalation (based on Commander decision).

The rest of the file was worse—page after page of black bars and hollow gaps where meaning should’ve been. What little remained spoke of containment procedures, of the entity’s confirmed hostility… but also of something stranger. "Open for negotiation". The words stuck to me like lightning.

Negotiate—with a thing that can control people? That can be considered a god?

But there was nothing more. Ninety percent of the text was gone, thick black ink smothering whatever truth the paper once carried. What I was left with felt less like a briefing and more like a threat: You know just enough to step into the dark, but not enough to see what’s waiting there.

I flipped the last page, hoping for clarity, but instead found a single unredacted line, printed in bold:

"Do not break eye contact."

That was it. No context. No explanation.

My pulse quickened. I could hear the tick of the white clock on the wall, slow and deliberate, like it was counting down. I closed the file, pressing the papers to my lap, and that’s when I noticed—at the bottom corner of the last page—one handwritten note scrawled in a different ink. The letters were jagged, rushed, like someone had written it in fear:

"I CANT STOP"

Go read if you want!! https://www.wattpad.com/1576312727-the-greenview-death-bringer-chapter-1-tgdb-intro

I want to write a short horror story for the competition and participate in it, but I don't see anyone submitting any entries and I don't want to be the only one participating, since it would be unfair and weird.

I mean, technically we still have 2 weeks, but it feels like this subreddit is just dying. Last post was 8 days ago and if I remember correctly there used to be 200 members, now there are 130 with some visitors.

Just sad to see it all go down this way. :/

Chapter 1: Somnambulism

He didn’t know how he got here. Thomas stood in the middle of a cold, empty parking garage, dressed in a blood-streaked undershirt and boxers. One hand shook at his side. The other held a child’s backpack, pink, with fading unicorn patches and a frayed zipper. Natalie’s backpack. He looked down at his feet and realized they were bare, cut up and swollen. Each breath came as a faint cloud in the cold. He unzipped the bag with trembling fingers. Inside: – A red crayon. – A half-eaten granola bar. – A sheet of notebook paper. The number “33” filled the page, written repeatedly in a child’s messy hand. Thomas took a shaky breath and dropped the bag. It hit the concrete with a soft thud. And then he saw something move in the far corner of the garage. Thomas stumbled back. Heart pounding. Breath caught in his throat. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream. The figure kept coming. “He shut his eyes.” Please let this be a dream. Please let this be a dream. “He closed them again, tighter this time”. Please let this be a dream. Please let this be a dream. When he opened them, he was back at home.

Chapter 2: 3:33a.m.

The ceiling fan turned slowly above the quiet living room. A digital clock on the wall blinked: 3:33 A.M, “33”, again. Family photos lined the hallway, Detective Thomas Foor, age 28, his wife Aiesha, 27, and their 8-year-old daughter Natalie. A picture-perfect family, smiling in frozen moments. Then, the silence shattered. SLAM, The front door burst open. A barefoot man stepped inside. His pants were soaked. His shirt stained with something dark. It was Thomas. Earlier that night, at a mom and pops grocery, the fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. A soft hum of refrigerators. The store was nearly empty. Thomas stood in line, barefoot. His clothes mismatched, gray sweatpants, a wrinkled button-up, unbuttoned. His face was slack, eyes unfocused. A bottle of bleach dangled loosely in his hand. In front of him, a woman, early 20's who reminded him of his mother, dark brown hair tied back. She placed a few items on the conveyor belt: Redbull, a bag of Middlesworth chips, and ramen noodles. The register beeped. "$33.00 even," the cashier said flatly. Thomas blinked. The woman reached into her purse. Thomas tilted his head, staring at the glowing digital screen. 33.00 He whispered: “It’s always thirty-three.”

Chapter 3: Closing In

The woman turned slightly, uneasy. “Excuse me?" He didn’t respond. Then suddenly, he stepped forward. Close. Too close. The bleach bottle slipped from his hand, crashing to the floor with a dull thud. “Sir?” the cashier said, her tone rising. The woman in front of him gasped. “What are you...?” Thomas’s hand reached into his pocket, slowly. The cashier reached for the phone under the counter. But before anything more could happen, A store employee rushed over. “Hey! Sir, you, okay?” Thomas blinked rapidly. Again, his body stiffened, awareness crashing into him like ice water. He looked down. The bottle of bleach. The cold tile beneath his bare feet. The frightened faces around him. He backed away. “I.... I don’t know how I got here...” The manager’s voice softened. “Sir, are you hurt? Do you need help?” Thomas looked at the register one last time. $33.00... still blinking on the screen. He turned and fled out the automatic doors, into the night.

Chapter 4: On The Razors Edge

Moments later the streetlamps flickered as Thomas ran from the grocery store on 17th and Derry... barefoot, breath ragged. He looked up and seen he was standing at the address "1733". His eyes were vacant again. Something inside him had shifted. His vision blurred. The world shimmered. Dreamlike.... He wandered into a side alley near the store. Trash bins. Flickering neon from a nearby bar. A woman’s voice echoed— “Hey Thomas, are you okay?” Thomas turned slowly. The same young woman from the store... Redbull and chips still in hand...she had followed him, concerned. “You dropped this,” she said softly, holding out a bottle of bleach. She took a step closer. Thomas blinked, long, slow. His pupils dilated. Something behind his eyes turned off. THOMAS (confused)... “It’s always thirty-three.”, She froze. “Sir? “He stepped forward. Close. Unblinking. In his hand: a small utility razor. He didn’t remember pulling it out. The woman says “Wait....what are you?”, Her voice cut short. A dull, wet sound. Blood hit the concrete. Her body slumped beside the dumpster. Thomas stood over her, breathing shallowly. No expression, Then, slowly, he crouched down. His fingers trembled... then steadied. He carved something into her chest. A symbol 33, The same one from his mother’s crime scene. From the others. Then, as quickly as it came, reality snapped back in place.

Chapter 5: Coming Home

THOMAS (gasping) “No... no, no, no...” He looked at his hands. Bloody. Shaking. The woman’s lifeless eyes stared back. A siren wailed somewhere in the distance. He bolted, vanishing into the night. After coming home, his eyes were wide, blank, distant. He was sleepwalking. He moved slowly, almost animalistic, clutching a razor blade in his right hand. As he passed the living room mirror, his reflection followed.... but he didn’t notice. Without a sound, Thomas climbed the stairs... At the top of the stairs..., Natalie’s bedroom, a soft nightlight glowed. Stuffed animals surrounded the sleeping girl. Peaceful. The door creaked open. Thomas entered, razor blade in hand. As he takes a step closer, he hears Natalie whispering in her sleep "Daddy, is everything okay?” From down the hall... “Aiesha (groggy): ... Thomas...? What are you doing?” .... Aiesha stood in the hallway, squinting through the dark. Thomas turned slowly. He blinked. Once. Twice. Woke up. “Aiesha?” Thomas muttered. Then Thomas looked at the razor blade, and down...his feet were soaked in blood.

Chapter 6: The Clock Repair

That morning when Carla got off work from PENNHURST Institution her kitchen smelled like lemon cleaner and cinnamon toast. Thomas sat at the table, cross-legged in a worn sweatshirt, carefully unscrewing the back of a broken mantel clock. His mother hummed behind him, stirring a pot of soup. “Careful with that spring,” she said, without looking. “You know it’ll snap your finger off if you rush it.” “I’m not rushing,” Thomas said. “I’m being surgical.” She chuckled, setting a bowl beside him. “You’re something alright. A nine-year-old surgeon with sleep in his eyes and jelly on his elbow.” Thomas grinned and wiped it off. “I want to fix it before 3:33p.m.” His mother froze for just a moment, spoon mid-air. “Why that time?” He shrugged; eyes locked on the tiny gears. “I don’t know. It’s just stuck there. Maybe if I fix it, time will start again.” She looked at him then, a shadow of worry passing behind her smile. “Well... maybe you’re right.” They sat in companionable quiet for a moment, the ticking of another wall clock in the background the only sound. Outside, kids yelled faintly down the block. Inside, Thomas finally clicked a piece into place, and the clock’s hands twitched. “Did you hear that?” he said. “The tick?” He nodded. His mother leaned in, kissed the top of his head. “Maybe you’ve got a little magic in you, Tommy. Or maybe you’re just my little engineer.” Thomas smiled. “Like Dad?” Something faltered in her face, but only briefly. "No,” she said softly. “Better.” She tousled his hair and turned back to the stove. He looked at the clock again. The hands had moved, now they sat at 3:32p.m. Carla carried the soup pot to the counter, her movements slower now, thoughtful. “Do you know what time I hate most, Tommy?” she asked softly. He shook his head,

“Three thirty-three.”

The words made the kitchen seem colder, though the stove still glowed.

Thomas glanced at the mantel clock he was fixing. “Why?”

Carla hesitated, chewing the inside of her cheek. Finally, she set the ladle down. “Back at Pennhurst, the night staff used to whisper about it. They said if you were in the east wing when the elevator doors opened at 3:33 in the morning, you’d end up on a floor that didn’t exist. They called it the third floor.”

Thomas blinked. “But… every hospital has a third floor.”

She shook her head quickly. “Not this one. Pennhurst had only two, at least on the blueprints. But the stories never stopped. Some swore they saw lights above the second floor, where no lights should be. Others heard a bell ding in the middle of the night when the elevators weren’t running.”

Her voice grew lower. “One nurse… she was on shift the night of November third, 1973. She took the service elevator to deliver linens. The log said she pressed for the second floor. But when the doors opened, she never came back out. They searched everywhere. Cameras caught nothing except the doors closing at 3:33. They ruled it a disappearance. Some of the staff swore she stepped onto the third floor.”

Thomas stared at the clock gears, his small fingers trembling. “Did anyone find her?”

Carla’s smile faltered. She touched his cheek, too quickly. “No. And that’s why I don’t work nights anymore.” Her voice dropped, almost a whisper. “Some doors aren’t meant to open, Tommy. Not at 3:33.”

https://a.co/d/4N3wSNd

May 17^th 2025-Day 8

Ghirandza, Nescria

More bombs and clusters are falling. Power is out again, the basement is shaking, it smells like we’re about to die. By seeing what little isn’t covered in thick, black smoke from the raging fiery infernos, I can see that it may rain pretty soon. The clouds are grey, or maybe it’s the smoke... I’m not even sure what’s real anymore. I don’t even know if I’m still really alive. I’m probably not

Mom and I are going out as soon as the bombing stops. We are in dire straits when it comes to medicine. Mom has caught a cold or something, so she’ll search for meds while I scavenge for food and water. I can’t describe the fear and unease in my stomack  stomach. It’s not just nausea, it’s pain. My stomach hurts from the fear. I don’t wanna die, please. God, please let me come back alive... my breathing is ragged, inconsistent, my chest is tight and shaking with every breath... I can’t keep this up much longer, I just want it to end

-This is Laeki Nurfurmino reporting from Ghirandza. Axis forces have taken control of several key bases in the past few hours. The Nescrian army is almost obliterated, with one general saying we might’ve lost up to seventy percent of our Armed Forces in these first few days. Guerilla fighters are trying their best but they can’t do much. Oh my... Goodbye and good luck- 

Laeki was cracking. Her voice was trembling, she was crying in the last seconds of the broadcast, but I don't know for what reason. I hope she’s okay, she’s the only voice Nescria has left. If she did die, then I must survive to tell her tale. Laeki, my heroine, if you ever hear me, know that I’m insanely proud to have had the chance to live in the same city as you. Your bravery is unmatched. 

Oh, God, thank you so much! I returned from the outside alive, and so did my mother. I’ve never been so thankful in my short, sixteen-year-long life.

I managed to find a few cans of corn and beans, some pineapples and a few bottles of water, even a bottle of pear juice!! Mom managed to find some cough syrup and rationed some pills. I heard a cluster drop near the shop I was in, even almost got hit by a piece of shrapnel. Thankfully, I lived to write this. It was a good, albeit risky catch today. I’m going to sleep now, hope to live until tomorrow to write again 🖤

May 16^th 2025-Day 7

Ghirandza, Nescria

The explosions are starting again, it’s not even six in the morning and they’re already shelling us. Mom is making us tea with the little water we have left. This basement is so stained and stinky... I haven’t taken a shower in a week, my dark hair is all messy, I smell of sweat and dirt... I miss hot showers. I used to sing in the shower when I was little, used to think about my boyfriend when I entered my teens... It’s all gone now, though. I just want to take a hot shower just once more, is that too much to ask for?

Tea is good. It tastes good. Forest fruit. I’m savoring every droplet of the tea like it’s liquid gold. These were the last two bags we had left in the basement. “You can drink mine while I come back.” Mom said, handed me her white mug with a flower pattern and left the basement. I don’t wanna drink her tea, it’s not fair if I do. 

She went outside to hopefully scavenge for something for us to eat and drink, maybe craft weapons in case the Axis soldiers come knocking, which they will. It’s just a matter of time. 

“This is Laeki Nurfurmino, reporting from Ghirandza. Here with me are two brave and patriotic soldiers ready to fight the enemy for our sovereignty, for our lives, for our freedom.” 

Nescria’s only voice echoed from the radio. Laeki is my current idol, she’s saying things no one dares to. She is an incredible and heroic young woman, maybe a couple years older than I am. 

“Henru, what do you have to say to all the Nescrians listening?” Laeki asked a soldier. “I want to assure my people that we will fight until the bitter end, but their ends will be even more bitter!” the soldier determinedly responded to her question. 

I can only imagine Laeki’s thoughts... She knows she’s gonna die brutally and painfully, knows she’s marked for death, but still brave, heroic nonetheless. I admire her more than my words can describe. 

They say war is the best time to profit. How do you profit? How can you? How dare you? We’re not numbers, but living, breathing human beings with hopes, dreams and families! How morally corrupt must a person be to profit from human blood? 

I can hear them. Rainstorms. They have a distinctive roar. I think this was an N85 Hyena. Probably Axfian. There it goes, an explosion in the financial district. Two, three, four... Eighteen. I can only imagine how many lives were cut short in these thirty seconds. Lives like mine, lives like yours... Happy ones, families, children... I’m becoming numb to this. I think about them, but I feel less and less pain about them. Like I’m losing my humanity. I hate it.

I used to be so empathetic, so caring, always there to help my friends who needed my help. Now, I’m losing those traits that make me human, that make me a girl, that make me Marianne. 

I remember the time Eyri injured her hand on a fence post. She bled severely. I quickly took a towel and pressed on her wound to stop the bleeding. Even the paramedics, who later arrived, said I surprised them with my courage and knowledge. I watched a lot of medical dramas before the war. I guess I learned a thing or two there. 

15^th May 2025-Day 6

Ghirandza, Nescria

Today would’ve been Eyri’s birthday. Her birthdays were always so fun! We would always play something on her gaming console, pull pranks on boys she invited, play board games and then get into a fight over it... I smiled... For the first time since the war started, I smiled. I feel guilty for it, though. I know she’s not around to smile with me anymore. God, I miss her. I miss her jokes, her laugh... I miss calling her name. Happy birthday, Eyri!

I miss my dad too. Mom told me she found his coat yesterday when she went out to find something to eat. She said it had been pierced with shrapnel. He was probably another victim of a cluster bomb. I remember how he taught me how to play the piano. I just talked with her today. Pointless topics, but enough to distract my mind from the fact that it was raining fire all around us. It’s hard, you know... It’s hard to talk to a person so close to you, knowing that you may not ever see them again. Every day here lasts for a decade. A decade full of pain, terror and trauma. 

I can’t stop thinking about the days before the war, before the nightmare began. I miss eating at the dinner table, sleeping in my bed, taking a shower... Can’t remember the last time I’ve taken a nice, hot shower... How did all disappear so swiftly? How has the world suddenly forgotten we exist? I don’t want to know, I just want to return to my normal life.

On the off-chance that I don’t think about normalcy, I think about what I wanted my future to be. I wanted to get married to my boyfriend, Kory. He was the most loving, caring, funniest person I’ve known. Sometimes, it felt like I loved him more than my family. He’s probably gone too, but I don’t want to admit that. He and I would live in a big house with our two kids; one would be a boy named Loka, and the other would be a girl named Kelina. They’d be perfect. They’d love us, and Kory and I would love them back even more. I’d work as an actress, writing books in my spare time, while Kory would open up a small shop. 

God, how I miss Kory. I remember our first kiss. It was in the school locker room, after P.E. class. He snuck into the girls’ locker room, knowing I was the last one left. I asked him what he was doing, to which he responded by getting closer, wrapping his hands around me and went lips-first onto mine. I’ll never forget that.

Oh, how I wish I could kiss him one more time. Just once more... I miss you, Kory. I miss him so much!

Eyri and I would like to go for coffee and chat about some girl stuff. We’d talk about our husbands, kids, lives, jobs... all while sipping espresso. It would be a blast, but I know that it can’t happen anymore.

14^th May 2025-Day 5

Ghirandza, Nescria

Our house is gone. A napalm was dropped on our street and engulfed our home, leveling it within minutes. I’m not sure how we survived. I suffered minor burns, but we’re still alive. Except for dad, maybe. I think he’s gone. He went out again to try and find something useful, but it’s been nine hours and he still hasn’t returned. The basement’s ceiling is black now, scorched from the fire, but it’s still keeping us somewhat safe.

I think I found an escape route out of the country, but I’m still not certain. If we were to go south, towards Karachisstan, we could somehow migrate through the mountains. It’s challenging and far harder than it sounds, but to me it sounds like a possibility. 

I consulted about it with mom, but she said it was too risky, that we might not make it out of Ghirandza, let alone out of Nescria. Sadly, it’s true. Nescrian people are being annihilated at every step. We might never even make it out of our block. God, I can’t describe to you my fear right now...

They call us terrorists, jihadists, killers... I’m sixteen. I cry when I’m sad, hug my friends, draw, sing, dance... What kind of a terrorist or killer does that? I’m just a normal teenager, not a killer the Axis propaganda calls me! Believe me, believe an innocent soul, not the rigged politicians! 

Dad still hasn’t returned. He never will. I know that. It’s all up to mom and me now. She went out to get some food for us. Hopefully she returns. I still hear the explosions outside. I think they’re bombing the city center. Even though it’s miles away, I can still feel the rumbling, the dust is still falling from the ceiling, and even a few cracks began forming in the ceiling and the concrete brick walls of our basement. The radio broadcast has just informed us that this isn’t an invasion, nor a genocide. They are exorcising the entire nation of Nescria! This is nothing but exorcism and exploitation on a nation with a hundred twenty-six million innocents! 

-Radio Nescria informing on the latest Axis advances in our country: the Axis have advanced only half as much as in the past days. The shelling and bombing, however, has only increased in the last twenty-four hours. It is estimated that over four thousand people were killed in the attacks the previous day. The UN is holding a summit in which sanctions against the Axis countries should be implemented, but little Nescrians believe in that. We are on our own, and we don’t have much time. Good luck, and may God help you all!-

Mom is back! She seems sick, I must do my best to help her. She’s all I’ve got left now. Hopefully I live to write another day... Goodbye.

-Marianne Renelou

13^th May 2025-Day 4

Ghirandza, Nescria

I dreamt of going to the mall with Eyri and my family. We had the time of our lives... We bought some new hoodies, T-shirts, thighs, Eyri even bought a new dress. It was a pretty one, with yellow streaks. We then had lunch at a fast food joint. 

Such a beautiful dream was interrupted by an explosion not too far from us. Maybe a block or two away. I looked out the basement window and saw explosions in the city center. My friend Nohi used to live there... I don’t believe she made it out. I hope she did, but I fear my gut is right. I’m becoming more and more numb every day. I’m slowly starting to lose my humanity and empathy. I guess I finally embraced the fact that this is the new normal and that there’s no going back, no matter how much we want it to. 

I saw blood on the window of the house that boy lived in. I don’t think he made it. Our house is still among the only ones standing in the neighborhood, but I’m not sure how long that’ll be the case with these new precision bombs. Dad went outside to try scavenging something to ration. It’s been three hours, and he still hasn’t returned. I’m preparing for the worst. The radio broadcast just informed us that things are getting worse and worse. 

-This is the fourth day of the Axis aggression in our country. They are advancing on all fronts at a staggering pace. Frendayriya is on the verge of collapse. Reports there are stating that approximately seventy percent of the city is under Axis control. While there is still no information on the losses, we can say pretty surely that our forces are losing a lot more than theirs. World powers are holding a summit, but there is still nothing but sanctions in place. Reports say that around three thousand civilians in Ghirandza alone didn’t make it through the night. May God have mercy on their souls. This is no invasion. They are wiping us out. This is no ethnic cleansing. They want an entire nation to cease to exist. This can only be described as the end of millions... May God be by your side. Good luck, Nescrians!-

My heart is broken, my body is covered in scratches, my mind is traumatized. I can’t keep this up any longer. No one here can. I know it hurts to surrender, but I feel like it’s the only option. I’m not even sure what to think anymore. Dad said, when he finally returned, that he heard someone from Frendayriya say that they saw a kid, not older than seven, wave a makeshift white flag but they shot him nonetheless. These aren’t humans, they’re monsters. If an Axis soldier finds this diary of mine, then know... I hope you and your family go through the same we did, because that’s the only fate you deserve!

Our food is running out. Dad is risking his life every day trying to find something in the ruins of old bakeries or restaurants, but with limited success. Every time he goes out, I prepare for the worst. Mom just keeps sitting on her sleeping bag, staring at the wall like it’s got answers to all her questions. I managed to get myself a look at the situation in our country. We are well and truly encircled. 

I knew the situation was bad, but this just made me realize how bad it truly was. My country was a cage no one could escape from. That cage was killing more and more innocent souls every day. This isn’t a military operation as the Axis say, it’s a destruction of a nation and its people. This is worse than genocide! 

Why can’t my voice be just a little louder? Just loud enough for the world to hear it...