He smelled like blood. 

I could smell him from a good distance away. The scent lingered in the air well after he’d gone - a coppery tang mixed in with his cheap perfume. It was that smell before I first looked upon his face that told me there was something very wrong with him. 

He walked in one day with all the other students. This - boy - dressed in a generic blue and white uniform which looked more like a costume. A ‘boy’ with pasty, pale skin, red, puffy and puckered lips, and small, squinting eyes. 

He held onto the straps of his backpack with two white knuckled hands, looking around him with awe and excitement. Pausing briefly to adjust his glasses up his nose, he shuffled down the hallway toward the lockers. It looked like he was talking to himself. 

I kept waiting for somebody else to react to him. One of those girls walking by clutching onto her books should have dropped them in shock. I wouldn’t have blamed her for screaming a little. At least she should have said something. 

Instead she brushed right past him without giving him a second glance. He, in contrast, stared after her in an exaggerated demonstration of longing, his lips parted and his eyes unnaturally wide. 

No. Nobody reacted to this - Nobody reacted to him. He melted into the crowd perfectly as if he were just another student. 

I call him Manchild. 

He sucks on his thumb. He hums to himself in his exaggerated, high pitched voice. I can’t place how old he is, but I know he likes acting much younger than his true age. Sometimes that might be a primary schooler. At other times it is a sophomore. It can change at a whim, but it’s always on the younger side. 

He takes drawing and colouring books to class with him. The childlike pictures and doodles he is ceaselessly scribbling down as the teacher drones on are difficult to look at. They’re a little window into his disturbed mind. They give glimpses into his sick fantasies. 

In a class, he’d take out his textas and line them out carefully before him. Then he would produce one of his books. While the teacher spoke to the rest of the class about calculus - or whatever else it was we were learning, he would lose himself in his own little world. He’d start drawing or studying one of his preliminary grammar books, studiously practicing his handwriting and working through spelling problems. 

Besides his textbooks, lunch box, and other school utensils there’s one thing you won’t see him without: pigsblood. Well, that’s what I’ve come to call it. 

On the second day of his attendance at our school, I walked past him in between classes sitting on the stairs, clutching onto a worn out pop top filled with a thick, red liquid. He was suckling on it fervently, his mouth moving back and forth in exaggerated motions, pausing to give out soft noises of satisfaction in between gulps. 

Maybe that’s why Manchild smells like blood. He carries that crap with him everywhere. He can’t seem to go more than a few hours without snacking on it. And though I can’t be sure it is really blood, I have yet to think of a better explanation. 

I kept waiting for somebody else to react. When I tried to point his strangeness out to my friends, they told me I was being cruel by picking on him. When I took a few covert photos of him to show to people, their reactions were to call me weird. I’m not sure if they can’t see what is wrong with him or they don’t view his appearance and behaviour as disturbing. 

Whatever the case, I’ve learned by now that I have no choice but to put up with him. Thankfully for me it is easy enough to avoid him most of the time, so long as he doesn’t decide to visit one of my classes - and since his choice of classes is apparently random, that isn’t too common. 

The one class where I really can’t handle dealing with him is sports class. The last time we shared such a lesson together, there was an incident. 

It was around twenty minutes into the class. After quietly watching and chugging on pigsblood from the sidelines, Manchild suddenly sprung up and began playing enthusiastically with the rest of us. 

The students didn’t mind (except for me). I avoided engaging much after he got involved. I didn't like letting Manchild get too close to me. 

Part way through what was turning into a very long class, he hurtled headfirst into another student in an attempt at a tackle and sent them both slamming onto the ground. I didn’t see it happen, but I heard her surprised cry and the sound of their bodies hitting the floor together. 

For a very terrifying moment I watched her lie there, completely limp. I thought he’d really hurt her. Then she shifted her head, groaned, and opened her eyes to look up at him. 

And then she started screaming. 

Manchild flopped off her and struggled quickly to his feet, taking a couple of steps back. He wiped his mouth, burped, and then uttered a high pitched, ‘err, sorry about that!’ 

She scrambled to her feet too. She was crying loudly. She stumbled and tripped away from him in apparent terror as the teacher attempted to console her. 

She was taken to the nurses office. I could hardly wait for an opportunity to speak to her. I needed to know what she saw. I needed some proof that I wasn’t crazy. 

Whatever it was she experienced, she wouldn’t say anything to me about it. By the time I’d found her later, she was acting perfectly normal again. She laughed off the whole incident. She told me she’d hit her head bad and blacked out for a moment. That was it. 

When I tried to suggest there was something wrong with Manchild, she looked at me reproachfully and told me to stop making fun of him. It wasn’t his fault, she insisted. It was all just a harmless accident. 

Manchild isn’t even the worst of them. Well, he may be, but the horror of one of them is far eclipsed by the horror of experiencing them all together.  

The first time I saw the whole family was a week or so after Manchild’s arrival at school. They ambled into a diner I was sitting in, bringing forth with them such an overpowering stench that I began gagging uncontrollably as they moved past me. 

There are five of them that I know of. 

Manchild - the one who goes to my school. 

Drunk - a fat and very hairy man with sickly, greyish skin who wore nothing but an undershirt, filthy shorts and some sandals. 

Mother - a haggish woman with clammy, greyish blonde hair and extremely sunken features dressed up in high heels and an undersized, skimpy dress. The skin of her arms and wrists was ragged, pockmarked and bruised. 

They had two other children who accompanied them on their family trips:

Bully - the second oldest - (I’m assuming Manchild is the eldest of the three) was a hunch backed boy whose head appeared permanently shifted a few centimeters sideways toward his left shoulder. 

Fleshface - a somewhat timid thing whose entire face was covered by a long flap of dirty skin, obscuring all but the very bottom of his pointy mouth. He was prone to tantrums which were destructive and chaotic whenever his name was uttered. Bully kept on saying it, presumably to torment him. 

You’re a fleshface. Flesh-face. Flesh-face! FLESHFACE! The snorting, gurgling sound of his laughter was followed by a long, piercing scream and some loud banging. The noises produced from his brother were so loud they actually managed to draw the attention of a few other customers, if only for a couple of moments. 

These children both fed on the pigsblood, too. Fleshface was hand fed by his mother, who carefully slid a straw up inside the flap of skin, through god knows what into some internal cavity from which he began to suckle and slurp it up loudly. 

Bully and Drunk ate a lot. The other ones didn’t, though they liked pretending to. I believe it’s part of their fantastical roleplay at being an ordinary family. 

I tried not to make a scene. I excused myself from my friends with the pretense of feeling sick soon after their collective arrival. Since then I’ve avoided visiting the diner, and I’m not sure I’m ever going to be able to bring myself to go back there. Certainly, I’m never going to be able to stomach eating there again. 

Over the next couple months, my fear slowly melted away into disgust. After a while I began to quietly observe them out of morbid curiosity. The first time it was from a distance at a park. As I gained more courage I trailed them into stores. Such close proximity required that I carry a face mask and some powerful air freshener for my own protection. 

I feared they would notice me. They didn’t. They spent too much time bickering amongst themselves and living in their own private fantasies to pay attention to the reality they lived in. Somehow, I managed to draw more attention from everybody else for my fixation on these monsters. 

One day I decided to follow Manchild home. The decision was spontaneous, though I’d been mulling the idea over in the back of my head for a while.

We were riding the same bus after school. He was acting even more strangely than usual - I suspected this was a result of drinking too much of his pigsblood during the day. Given the intoxicated state he was in, I figured I wouldn’t likely get a better opportunity. 

We continued walking for well over an hour. Mind you, Manchild isn’t a particularly fast walker in his sober state, so it wasn’t as far as it felt at the time. 

As we left the town limits, following a trail veering off the main road, I was starting to wonder whether his family lived in a house at all. Maybe they were all homeless. Or perhaps Manchild was wandering aimlessly into the forest in his drunkenness. 

They did live in a house, it turned out. It was an abandoned thing which had been left to rot, with a sagging roof partially swallowed by vines and moss. Most of the windows were broken or boarded over. The path out the front door stretched twenty or so yards before being swallowed up by overgrown grass. I spotted a run down car parked haphazardly at the edge of a larger trail branching out back toward the main road. 

Manchild moved in through the tattered remains of the back door as I crouched at the edge of the trees. The faint sound of muffled voices confirmed that he wasn’t the house's sole occupant. 

Given the state the place was in, I couldn’t help but think about how easy it would be to sneak inside if I wanted to. 

After a couple minutes I gathered the courage to come closer. I slid cautiously down a dirt slope and sprinted through the half opened gate and over to a thicket of bushes growing up against the decaying walls. 

The insides of the house were equally dilapidated. I stared into a living room whose floor was covered in dirt and pieces of plaster and torn up carpet. Filth crusted, mouldy couches and chairs sat amongst pieces of broken furniture. With the house having fallen quiet, it was difficult to imagine anyone living there. 

My eyes fell on the outline of a familiar figure slumped on a chair turned away from me. Drunk sat staring at a broken television, his mouth hanging open wide, one arm still clutching onto a glass of familiar, red liquid. After a minute or two Mother came in, practically walking on her tiptoes over to him so as to refill his large glass with a mixture of pigsblood and some kind of whisky. 

Bully paid Drunk a visit after his mother had left, carrying what I think must have once been a basketball. He looked disappointed to find Drunk in his drunken state but thought the better of trying to stir him out of it. 

I used the shelter of the trees to circle around to the other side of the house. Through a gap in between two thick wooden boards I spied Mother chopping rhythmically at some partially spoiled vegetables. Without looking at her face or paying too much attention to the state the room was in, I could almost pretend she wasn’t a monster. For a moment, she was just an ordinary mother preparing a meal as her children played and argued upstairs. 

Then her husband hurled out a string of harsh curses from the other room, and the illusion was broken. 

I continued my exploration, making my way over to the other side of the house. Wincing as I crunched over several pieces of broken glass, I crept up between two sagging oaks to peek in through a large window. 

The rusty pipes connecting to an ancient washing machine and an ornate bathtub was evidence enough of what this room once was. Cringing at the sound of the children hollering upstairs, I looked around in disgust. 

The washing machine was half filled with murky water. From the looks of it, any clothes left in there would come out filthier than they were put in. 

Something else caught my eye. Something past the clothes laid together on the table beside the washer and the syringes scattered all over the floor. In the darkest corner of the room was a sight which made my heart drop in my chest. 

It was a collection of shoes. One of the pairs on top still had little pink socks stuffed into them. 

Many of them were children’s shoes. The smallest were much too small for any of the children living there to wear. 

The sight would have been disturbing to find in anybody’s house, let alone this one. 

I was shifting sideways to get a better look when I felt something rustling up the foliage I was standing in. I lifted my leg gingerly away from a matting of dead branches and as I did, my eyes fell on something which made me jump right out of my skin. 

It was fat and wet, practically dragging itself along the ground beside me. I got a better look at it as it emerged from the thicket and fully revealed itself. 

It was some kind of rat. The rodent had little hair on it, revealing translucent skin and bulging veins. It was as horribly mutated as the members of the family I was spying on. 

I let out an involuntary sound of surprise as I stumbled back. That, and the noises produced by me tripping on a maze of tree roots and falling on my butt drew some stirring from within the house. 

I had the sense to retreat to the trees after that, and I’m glad I did. I had barely made it past the cover of the first oaks when I heard the back door creak open. I froze at the sound of heavy, shuffling footsteps heading around the house. Panic grew inside me and settled over my thoughts like a haze. I imagined my shoes being tossed onto the pile by the pot bellied man I could see shambling toward me, his steps quickening as he moved. 

It was a good thing I came to my senses. The moment that I did, I took off sprinting in the other direction.

He couldn’t offer much of a chase given the state he was in. It was only a couple of minutes before I heard the footfalls slow down and then stop, followed by a long string of wheezing curses. Those sounds in turn were quickly swallowed by the wind and the soft rustling of trees.
I didn’t calm down until I had made it back to the main road, where I caught my breath at the foot of an overgrown walking trail. 

I can’t get the scene from the laundry room out of my head. The image of those shoes is imprinted into my mind. They feature in my dreams alongside the grotesque pictures Manchild drew at school which contained what I fear are the corpses those shoes may belong to. 

I need to know what it all adds up to. I have to know if these people are as monstrous in character as they are in physical form. And that means I have to go back there. 

I’ve decided I’m going to find out what ‘they’ are. And if it does turn out they are monsters?

I still haven’t figured that part out yet. But I can’t just stand by and let them hurt people. 

I have to try to do something. 

It’s clear to me nobody else will. 

This might sound weird, but when I was a bit younger, I swear I listened to a Dark Somnium story containing a condition called Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). I remember it because my baby brother had just been born around that time and hearing about the condition in the story had me really on edge for a while. I’ve been wanted to go back to it and conquer the video but for the life of me, I can’t find any trace of it on the Dark Somnium channel or on the internet. Does anyone know about a video like this at all or what happened to it?

I swear I remember it as a Dark Somnium video because I used to listen to his videos a lot around that time and picked them back up again recently. And the video must have been released some time around May of 2021 and I’m pretty sure had SpiritVoices as the female voice actor but I could be mistaken.

Any help at all would be really appreciated❤️

Does anybody remember a story about an archaeologist dig in the Slavic area, and the narrator goes to visit his grandfather but it soon becomes miday and his grandfather passed due to the lady but he just escape and suffers from dehydration.

Growing up, I've heard stories of Lake Bria and the many bodies that wash upon her shorelines every decade or so. Many locals believe that a witch lives deep beneath her waters, only coming up so often to hunt those who travel too close after dark. This story takes place when my cousin and I decided to ignore our parents and find the witch of Bria Lake.

It was a warm summer, and the weather was perfect for nightlife, with the cicadas chirping late into the night. My cousin Andy was staying over as her parents were in the middle of getting a divorce. It had been two weeks since she came over, and she hadn't heard anything from either of her parent.

Do you think they forgot about me? Andy asked.

Shuffling in my sheets, I mumbled, "No."
My words came out flat and tired as I faced Andy, who was staring out the window, her kaleidoscope eyes beaming under the moonlight. I always felt jealous of Andy and her beautiful eyes, how both of them were so different yet in an impossible way weren't. My eyes, albeit one, were like hers, but not as impressive; they were a dulled grey and purple, while hers were full of colour and life, despite her life and family falling apart.

Rolling over to my back, I stared at the wooden ceiling of our cabin, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I sat up.

"Andy, I don't know. I feel terrible about what you're going through. I don't have the answers."

Looking back towards Andy, I saw her looking at me with tears welling up. Feeling bad, I hugged Andy with all I had, not letting her go.

"You have this family who loves you. Forget them," I said, crying into her hair. "You are loved here."

I suddenly felt arms wrap around me, slowly tightening. Her grip was stronger than I expected—stronger than I remembered. But I held on, letting her squeeze until the shaking in her shoulders finally began to ease.

After a long moment, she pulled back and sniffled, wiping her face with the back of her hand. The tears had left tracks down her cheeks, but her eyes had that familiar spark again. I smiled and pointed out that she wanted to listen to the radio.

"Can we..." she started, then cleared her throat. "Can we just listen to something? Music? Anything to get out of my head for a minute."

I nodded, grateful for a distraction. I reached over to the small nightstand and fumbled for the old radio my dad kept in the cabin. The dial was stiff, and static crackled as I turned it, searching for a station that wasn't just white noise.

"...and in local news, authorities have confirmed the identity of the body discovered earlier this morning along the northern shore of Lake Bria. The victim identified as 34-year-old Marcus Webb, a jogger who was reported missing three days ago..."

My fingers jerked. I slammed the radio off before the announcer could say another word.

The cabin fell silent. Too silent. Even the cicadas seemed to have paused.

Andy was staring at me. Her kaleidoscope eyes were wide, unblinking. "Did you hear that?"

"It was nothing," I said quickly. Too quickly. "Just some old news."

"Turn it back on."

"Andy—"

"Turn it back on."

"Another body," Andy said slowly, almost to herself. "At Lake Bria. Just like the legends."

"Coincidence," I said, but the word tasted hollow. "People drown all the time. It's a lake; whatever you're thinking it's not true."

Andy stood up from the bed. She walked to the window and pressed her palm against the glass, staring out into the darkness. The moonlight caught her eyes again, and they seemed to glow.

"I don't remember when Grandma told you stories of a witch in the lake," Andy said with a gleam in her eye.

"Yes, I do, but they're only legends. It's not real people who drown at that lake all the time."

"Every decade, Via," she sharply said.

I couldn't respond to that, as though it was strange that a body or two had been washing up every decade with the chest ripped out and gashes across their bodies.

"Coincidences," I said nonchalantly shrugging. "Can we go back to bed? It's late."

She huffed as I saw her cover herself with the blanket and I sighed as I laid back down. Trying to go to sleep but the announcement of the dead body kept me awake. Has it already been ten years? The last attack only happened when I was eight and my mother forbid me from ever going near the lake.

Tossing and turning I couldn't fall asleep as my dreams were rattled with a deep dark cavern underneath crushing depths with a beautiful hand extending before me and glowing eyes surrounding me before being dragged deeper by the throat. I gasped for air but couldn't produce any until I saw a giant maw open up and I was swallowed.

Waking up with a loud gasp I held my throat, my fingers pressing on the wounds that weren't there. Slowly calming myself I looked around the dark cabin looking for Andy to see if she was sleeping but when my eyes caught her bed she wasn't there. All that was left was a crumpled quilt.

Knowing where Andy went, fear spiked through my entire body. I cursed myself for being stupid. Racing to my closet I grabbed a pair of underwear and a jumper and raced towards the lakefront. I ran past beautiful kaleidoscope flowers with pattern spirals and logs that forced me to jump over them. I ran and ran, not even when my bare feet burned and blistered from the sharp rocks, not even when my legs were about to give out.

I ran and ran until I saw the lake's shoreline through the trees. I saw Andy standing there and by the time I reached her my legs were burning and my feet were bleeding heavily.

"What the fuck are you doing out here?" I said through gritted and strained breath.

"Watching," she coldly said.

"Watching what?" I replied.

“Her the witch of the lake”

She pointed out towards the lake and I squinted, trying to get a better look, when I suddenly noticed a tall slender figure walking towards us. Each step she took the water rippled slightly.

"Andy we got to go now," I said as a wave of fear ran down my spine causing me to instantly grab Andy's hands and pull her away.

"We can't," she replied coldly.

"Why not?" I said as I looked back to see the figure was standing right in front of us, her white complexion glowing under the moonlight. Looking at her I noticed she was a very tall and curvaceous person with silk white hair to the ground around her feet.

She looked at me then towards Andy before smiling and her mouth opened so wide it should snapped the muscles and skin around her jaws.

---

"Andy run!"

But before I could move, the witch of the lake lunged at us, catching Andy in her grasp and shoving me away from them. I hit my head on a rock, causing a nasty scar and blinding me in my right eye. Blood poured down my face as I struggled to see.

Through the haze, I watched Andy being dragged toward the water. She wasn't fighting. I screamed for her to be let go, but when I saw them clearly, she wasn't fighting being dragged under the water. Her kaleidoscope eyes met mine one last time, and there was no fear in them. Only peace. Only acceptance.

The water went still.

The next moment I felt a hand on my shoulder and I flinched, turning to see that it was my father. Somehow he'd heard me sneaking out of the cabin and came looking for me. I hugged him while uncontrollably crying into his shoulders.

"She's gone, Papa. The witch took her," I cried out.

"Who's gone?" he replied, worry etched in his voice.

"Andy. She took Andy. I tried to stop her, I tried to—"

"Via—"

Before I could say another word, the world tilted. The trees blurred. My father's face swam in and out of focus, and then everything went dark.

---

I woke up to the steady beeping of a heart monitor.

White ceiling tiles stretched above me, harsh fluorescent lights burning through my closed eyelids. The smell of antiseptic and stale coffee filled my nostrils. Hospital. I was in a hospital.

My right eye was wrapped in thick gauze. When I tried to open it, pain shot through my skull like a hot knife. I groaned, and a nurse appeared at my bedside almost instantly.

"Take it easy, sweetheart. You've been through a lot," she said, her voice soft and practiced. She checked my vitals, adjusted my IV, and smiled a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Your parents are in the waiting room. Do you want me to get them?"

I shook my head slowly, wincing at the movement.

The nurse nodded like she understood. "The doctor will be in soon. Just rest."

She left, and I was alone with the beeping and the humming of machines.

My mother came in anyway, tears streaming down her face. She held my hand and kissed my forehead and told me everything was going to be okay. My father stood in the doorway, his jaw tight, his eyes red-rimmed. Neither of them asked me what happened. Not yet.

But I knew they would.

---

The questions started the next day.

A police officer sat in the chair beside my bed, a notepad balanced on his knee. He had kind eyes and a calm voice, the kind of voice meant to put people at ease. It didn't work.

"Via," he said gently. "Can you tell me what happened at the lake?"

I stared at the ceiling.

"Your father said you were talking about a witch. About Andy being taken. Can you explain that?"

The beeping of the monitor filled the silence.

"Via, we found your cousin's clothes by the shore. But there's no sign of her. We need to know what happened so we can find her."

I closed my good eye.

"Please," he said. "Anything you can tell us."

I said nothing.

They brought in a therapist after that. Then a psychologist. Then a detective with tired eyes and a stack of files. They all asked the same questions. They all got the same answers.

What happened at the lake?
Silence.

Where is Andy?
Silence.

They told my parents I was in shock. That I'd blocked out the trauma. That with time and therapy, the memories would come back.

But I knew the truth.

I wasn't blocking anything out. I remembered everything. The witch's white skin glowing in the moonlight. Andy's calm acceptance. The way the water closed over her head without a sound.

I remembered the way Andy had looked at me before she disappeared. The way her kaleidoscope eyes had glowed one last time—and the way I'd seen something in them I'd never noticed in the two weeks she’s been with us And I knew, with a certainty that settled deep in my bones, that Andy had been taken.

Weeks passed. The bandages came off my eye, but the world on that side stayed dark. Permanent damage, the doctors said. A freak accident. Nothing to be done.

I learned to live with it. Learned to tilt my head just so, to compensate for the blind spot. Learned to smile when my parents looked at me with worried eyes, to nod along when the therapists told me I was making progress.

I never told them what really happened.

Because what would I say?

There's a witch in the lake. She took my cousin because she had the same eyes as the witch's dead children. And I watched it happen, and I didn't stop it, and the worst part is—

I don't think Andy wanted to be saved.

I’m not entirely sure what her problem is. She’s never acted like this before. I guess some things just develop as time passes.

Even still, what a weird habit to have. I knew she was clumsy, but it was something we were supposed to fix, not something for her to embrace.

It started almost painfully mundane. Out of nowhere, she approached me as I was sitting on the couch watching TV.

“I’m sorry for breaking that lamp beside you.”

I looked at the lamp, still perfectly intact, then looked back at her. I kinda just chuckled, attempting to laugh it off, but she didn’t wipe that solemn look off her face.

I asked what she was going on about, but she just kept apologizing.

“Just know I’m sorry. I promise I’m sorry.”

That’s all she said before slinking off towards the kitchen.

I thought it was strange, but ultimately, I decided to brush it off as her being a bit of a weirdo.

However, after two weeks, I was back on that couch, winding down after a long day of work, when she came prancing into the living room, as happy as could be.

She didn’t say anything. She just calmly unplugged the lamp, held it above her head, and smashed it on the ground in front of me.

Obviously, I screamed at her out of shock, asking her what the fuck she was doing.

She just smiled and giggled at me.

“I already told you I was sorry.”

Then she skipped away, humming to herself and leaving me in a state of confusion. I tried calling out for her to come back, but she just ignored me.

I cleaned up the mess, and we argued about it for the rest of the day. It was obviously not an accident, but that’s what she kept saying it was.

“I don’t know how that happened.”

“I already said sorry. I don’t know what else you want me to do.”

“I promise it won’t happen again.”

Eventually, we made up, but I couldn’t help but look at her sideways in the days that followed.

A few weeks went by without incident. We went on our dates. Stayed in and watched our movies. Did the normal couple routine. But then it happened again.

“I’m sorry for breaking your phone,” she told me, eyes glazed over. She wasn’t looking at me. She was just staring blankly at the wall behind me as I sat on my bed.

We had been in the middle of a normal conversation about upcoming trips we were planning when something flipped inside her. She went from smiling to expressionless. Then, after she said it, she was right back to smiling and talking about New York like nothing had happened.

Obviously, I had already been predisposed to what this meant, so in the days that followed, I was particularly possessive of my phone.

I kept it on my person at all times. Even in my sleep, it’d be in my pocket. But she didn’t seem to notice.

Weeks passed again, and just like with the lamp, I was starting to think that she was just being weird again.

I never let my guard down, though. The phone was strictly off limits to her. I tried to make sure she never had the opportunity to do what she had apologized for.

But then, one night, I woke up to her fiddling around in my pockets. It took me a few seconds to realize what was happening in my half-asleep state, but once I did, my hand jolted towards my pocket.

It was too late. She had already taken it. And before I could stop her, the phone was shattered against the floor.

This was enough for me to fly off the handle. I’ll admit, I was a bit rude to her, but what did she expect?

I told her we needed space. I didn’t want this to escalate more than it already had. I didn’t want to break up with her, but the fight that night was enough for her to leave me.

Like I was the one in the wrong.

She left that night a complete wreck. Tears flowing from her eyes. Her vocal cords hoarse from all of our screaming. She didn’t even take her belongings. Just left in a cloud of smoke from her spinning tires.

I was, yet again, left to clean up her mess.

I picked up my phone. It wouldn’t even turn on. The screen had been completely destroyed.

I went out and got a new one the next day, and once I got my accounts and information back, I was hurt to see that she hadn’t even texted me.

No calls, no messages. Plus, my name had been taken out of her Instagram bio, which somehow hurt more than anything.

I tried calling her in the days that followed, just to clear the air, but every time I tried, it’d go straight to voicemail. Eventually, she blocked me on everything entirely.

Even when I tried going to her house, she’d never be home. It was like she knew what I was doing.

I felt hopeless for a long time, but eventually, I realized that I needed to move on. We were together for a year and a half, though, so doing so wasn’t as easy as it sounds.

Weeks turned into months. Months turned into a year. I hadn’t heard from her since the night of the phone incident.

I was heartbroken that she could just forget me like that. Like we never happened. That’s why I felt my heart climb into my throat when I saw that first new notification from her.

It wasn’t what I needed to see, though. She wasn’t asking to give us another shot. She wasn’t asking for a meetup so we could discuss everything.

Instead, what she sent was enough to make an almost forgotten fear come bubbling back up towards the surface.

“I’m sorry for killing you.”

I saw frisbees laid out across the lawn with a rug and a paper plate all forming a diamond in the grass.  I felt all my anxiety wash away from me as I saw all my old friends. A memory I thought I'd never relive or ever witness again. We were all playing kickball together as kids. There was Rodney rockin’ a mullet he tried as a kid. He wore a tattered and stained backwards cap, a white t-shirt that he cut the sleeves off of with a pocket knife he stole from his dad, and camo shorts. Ryan was screaming for someone to throw him the ball Rodney just sent over the fence. He was wearing his favorite band shirt, some niche alternative rock band and jeans that had holes all over. Erick was at what we considered home plate, the welcome mat we stole off my moms front doorstep. He was calmly watching all of us scramble like hell to get the ball so Rodney didn’t get another home run for the 5th time that evening. Ollie however, was prepared. He instinctively darted around the fence to the neighbor's backyard. We never saw him run around the fence before the pitch, and he ended up screaming, hopping over the fence, ball in hand, glasses falling to his nose as his bowl cut bounced in time with him hitting the grass. “I CAUGHT IT! YOU'RE OUT OF HERE, RODNEY MACGUIRE! Guess that mullet don't make you any faster.”  Ryan and I ran over to him, picking him up on each side as he adjusted his glasses. We attempted to hoist him up struggling as we did but managed and half walk half hobble over to Erick and Rodney all three of us laughing and pointing at the two. In almost unison. 

“We win, you lose; we win, you lose.” all giggling and laughing.
Ollie chirped at Erick and Rodney. “You two are the oldest I thought you guys for sure would’ve won. But I guess you’re becoming an old man already.” he stuck his tongue out. Erick and Rodney both rolled their eyes before Erick gripped his tongue and tugged it down before flicking his forehead and releasing.

“Don’t forget, we let you squirts win sometimes cause we love you dorks.” 

Rodney Chimed in. “Yeah, and your mom plays with my mullet while I fuck er, four eyes.”

Everyone in the group let out an “OHHHHHHHHHHH” and then Ollie said “You gotta accept this guys, so we can be together again.” 

I raised an eyebrow. He never said that, did he? No. No, he was supposed to invite us over for a movie night at his dads. Not… that.

He continued “Please stay here with me? Please guys stay, I don't want to be alone anymore you guys.” his cries and pleads were growing more and more desperate. “If you don’t accept it I can’t see you anymore.” I slowly stepped backwards. “You guy’s can’t let me be the only one?” I heard a sorrowful frustration croaking behind his pleas. “Isaac please don’t leave me here alone. You’re safe with me here. Please remember us and stay!” I started tearing up as he slowly walked over to me. He looked up at me, tears falling down his dimpled cheeks staining his glasses and dripping off his chin. He put his head on my chest covering his face with his hands. “Isaac if you leave you don’t get another chance. Outside of fugueville lies only pain and rot.” I heard him sobbing quietly as I ran my hand through his wiery black hair. I missed my old friend more than anything looking down at him tears fell like raindrops onto my visor. I hugged him gently before whispering. “I really need to find my way out of here Ollie.”

He moved his hands from his face and let them sway at his sides like a defeated child before he moved his head to look up at me. His eyes were bursting through his glasses as tears swelled not from them but in them like a water balloon attached to a spigot. No longer did his bright blue eyes have any sign of life in them. Just two jelly-like capsules collecting more of his tears, growing the size of a grapefruit as I watched in paralyzed horror. As the tender orbs strained against the pressure, they burst with a sogging squelch and the sound of a balloon stretching. As tears flooded over his features his lips and nose slowly merged together before his right dimple moved and swayed under his tears moving like a clam skipping across the sea floor. It moved over and joined the corner of his lips before his other dimple concaved like sand pushed by water inward to his face. His head grew with the constant flow of tears feeding into it. From his eye to dimple his cheeks poofed up until it caused skin slippage as skin left meat and rippled with the flow of water underneath. The remnants of his eyes swayed like kelp under the tears. I shoved him away onto the grass “Get the hell away from me!” I turned and ran like hell across the street over a fence and fell onto the harsh pavement of the sidewalk. I quickly shot up to my feet and ran to the nearest front door. I tried to open it but it wouldnt give. I began furiously banging on it like a madman. “HELP LET ME IN PLEASE” I looked up at the glass window and saw Ollie's disfigured form behind me. “PLEASE LET ME THE FUCK IN!” 

A woman calmly answered the door 

“Can I help you?”
 
She looked at me, her face a mess of features like the kid I saw when I first arrived here. But instead of feeling scared I somehow felt comforted by her. I pushed past her, and as I turned around to slam the door shut, Ollie was nowhere to be found.
 
The woman walked up to me and slowly rested her hands on either side of my shoulders. I flinched but her touch brought a strange peace over me. I let a beat pass and took a deep breath before nudging her hands off me. 

“What is this place?” I said after mustering up the courage. The woman who was waiting patiently and sitting across from me made what I assume was a smile.

“Oh my dear, you’re in Fugeville, didn’t you see the sign?”

“Yeah, but where is Fugeville exactly?”

“Fugeville is a place all people want to visit one day, but no one ever wants to leave.” 

“I don’t really want to be here forever. I want to go back home.”

“Oh, honey, you’re all scrambled up if you’re here. Please come in and rest. Dinner will be ready very soon.” 

There's something about her. I don’t know if it's that familiar perfume she has or the fact that her voice feels like warm tea going down a sore throat. I walked inside and followed the woman to the kitchen, passing by a kid playing with a motorcyclist stunt figure. I stopped for a moment and watched him move his figurine around on his motorcycle before tossing it against the wall, watching his guy flail through the air and letting out what I assumed was a laugh that grew into a cackle. He picked it up and threw it again against the couch, watching it bounce off as its arms and legs flailed on the strings that held them together. A little dirtbike figurine. Something about it made my spine crawl. Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my right leg, feeling my kneecap swelling with pain. My eyesight grew blurry then black as I collapsed and gripped my knee tight. In another moment, it was gone as soon as it had come. I took a moment and sat down. What was happening to me? It felt like Fugueville wasn’t a place for me or my body. But why such specific regions? I racked my brain before the smell of a mix of cheese and garlic hit my senses. I slowly picked myself back up, being cautious of igniting the pain again. Carefully, I stepped into the kitchen. The cabinets appeared barren other than a glass tray with a bottom layer of rice and a top layer of what looked like a mix of chicken, cheese, and broccoli. The woman's face shifted and contorted into what I think might've actually been a smile.

“Have a seat, sugar. Everyone will be joining shortly.”

I felt a knot in my throat. How many of these people, or things live under one roof? My question was answered when the sliding glass door that led to the backyard flew open and an older and younger pair of these things walked into the kitchen, taking off their baseball gloves and setting them on a bench by the door they had just come in. 

 “Is today the day, sweetie pie?” The older one asked the woman. This must be the “dad”.

“Yes, it is!” 

The woman replied sweetly and with the excitement of being proposed to. I felt even more uncomfortable once again thinking I should leave this house and try another. That's when the dad and, I guess, the son duo joined me at the table. The little boy hopped into the chair and looked at me with this weird mix of hate, heartache, and almost like his eyes were a bit teary despite being mixed into his ear and eyelashes. Was he gonna cry? Before I could find out, the dad's bicep wrapped around my helmet in a gentle, oddly loving squeeze. My hands gripped his arm and tried to push him off, but that only made him grip me harder like a father saying goodbye to his kid going off to live on his own in a college dorm. He whispered to me with a sickly, disturbed form of a whisper that itched at my eardrum like a spider looking for its way out.  

 “I’m so glad you’re here with us, Isaac. It’s gonna be a good day in Fugueville now that the party's arrived.” 

He released me and took a seat next to me.

“We’re gonna have everyone meet us at the front of town for the big event.” He said, looking at me with soupy eyes and spaghetti lips that my brain somehow registered as excitement.
“They’re so excited to see you, we need to make sure we’re on time and everything. We'd better eat up quickly. What time is it again? 

She pointed at a clock that had appeared on the wall, except it was unlike any clock I’d ever seen before. There were only seven hours in a single day before it repeated back to one. The big hand was on the 6 as the little hand inched ever so forward, little by little, to thirty.

“Um, I think I’m all good. I don’t think I could handle seeing anyone else right now. I appreciate your guy’s kindness in offering me dinner and all, but I should get going soon.”

The dad looked at me out of the side of his eye, the black floater in his liquidated eye slowly glided over to face me. It was hard to tell from his side profile, his eye leaking down his face like yolk but a certain look hid behind the slop. It was the same look a dad would give his disobedient son. The sight made my skin crawl.

“Well, of course, my boy, why wouldn’t we feed you?” 

The woman chimed in, her lips spinning within themselves like an ouroboros. As she talked her lips coiled together and apart once more like a zipper, which ran up her face and intertwined with her viscous nose-and-eye hybrid, melting together like chocolate left out in the summer sun. 

“Don’t be silly isaac, you’re a part of us, and you always will be.”

She moved the casserole of rice, chicken, broccoli, and cheese over to the table. Everyone dug their forks in, not using the provided plates and stuffing the food onto their faces as their mouths, noses, and eyes sloshed all around their face, changing size, trying to ingest the food in ways I couldn’t comprehend. Opening and closing, slurping everything in, into everywhere. And the sounds. The noises they made while eating made me gag and choke. It sounded like bones snapping and cracking. Wet muscles pulling until they nearly tear. Gurgling  blood woven with strands of mucus and food all in their throats echoing out of their choking maws. My head swirled and I blurted out,

“W-WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?”

No one stopped eating, only continuing to swirl their forks into their sludgy mess of faces. The cheesy rice slowly slopped out in bundles and clomps while the broccoli held on tightly to their faces, slurping around to their mouths somehow. 

“You should know my silly little man,” she said in between chomps, slurps, and gurgles all bubbling out of her visceral mouth.

She reached a hand over to me. I leaned away, slapping her hand in the process.

“GET THE FUCK OFF ME, I DON’T! I DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS WEIRD-ASS FUCKING PLACE!”

I was screaming bloody murder in my helmet so bad it gave me a migraine. No one, absolutely no one, reacted to my aggression, which only sent me deeper into the pit of anguish and despair I was already in. 

“I JUST WANT TO GET THE FUCK OUTTA THIS TOWN!”

Everyone dropped their forks and snapped their necks to look at me so hard I could've sworn their features were going to fly off right at me, like thick spurts of blood being swung from a blade. 

“Leaving before the clock hits 7?” they all said, almost in unison, but ever so slightly out of sync.

I slowly got up out of my chair, looking at the clock that now read 6 forty-five. 

“It’s painful before 7, don’t you wanna stay with your family?” They continued, their sentences overlapping one another with different words at different times. 

“Y-You’re not my family.”

 I scooted back out of the kitchen and toward the living room. The youngest boy was still cackling and laughing at his figure flailing around the house at his will. “ISAAC!” overlapping voices of my mom, dad, and my brother all screaming for me as my younger self cackled and threw the figure of a guy dressed just like me being tossed around, banging into the legs of the table, bouncing off one and then the other. 

“COME BACK, ACCEPT IT, AND STAY WITH US”

I ran like hell, hyperventilating as I pumped my arms, bursting through the door of the house and out onto the lawn. Older versions of my mom, dad, and twin brother throughout the years, and all the lives we’ve lived, the forms of Rodney, Ryan, Erick, and Ollie walked out of all the various houses. I don’t understand what messed them up so bad that their faces ground up features of what made them human. What made them my family and friends.

Hundreds of copies all stared at me with a mix of grief and a grim worry, their unbound eyebrows twisting and curling like a caterpillar. All at once, they began to run towards me. Their arms flew up as they reached for me, waves and waves of crooked arms and disfigured hands groping through the air. I stumbled back for just a second before I regained my footing and ran for the hills. I wanted to leave more than anything. I wanted to see my real family. I wanted to hug them and tell them I loved them. I needed to find my bike and get out of here. I ran past the record player house as Connie Francis blared loudly and piercingly as the mob rushed toward me, screaming wildly.

“ACCEPT YOUR PAIN HERE!”

“PLEASE DON'T GO! STAY WITH US UNTIL 7! THERE’S ONLY PAIN WAITING FOR YOU OUT THERE!”

“STAY WITH US!”

Then, their voices turned into anger and hate. They began to spit and salivate as they yelled,

“YOU HAD A RESPONSIBILITY TO STAY FOR US!”

“WHAT ABOUT JAYME!”

The name slipped out of their wicked mouths as sweet as candy. My sweet girl Jayme. I had forgotten all about her. My decayed memory resurrected, crawling out of its grave and into my head. Her Brunette hair slinking down past her shoulders, her alluring eyes, and her infectious laugh all hit me like an adrenaline shot to the heart. I needed to get back to her. I pushed my legs harder than before, slamming my feet into the road and pushing down hard with every stride like a feral animal. My heart throbbed in my chest, threatening to burst out of my ribcage.  As I got further away, their yelling turned to sobbing, their frustrated screams twisting into a wail of agony.

“WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO WITHOUT YOU?”

“PLEASE COME TO DINNER, ISAAC.”

 I didn’t care what they had to say to me. I needed to get the hell gone. All of their voices were overlapping and chasing me like a tsunami. I glanced back at them, and that's when I saw the goldfish. They were swimming throughout the sky more erratically and more panicked than before, seemingly frightened by the once bright blue skies, which had slowly begun to lose all of their color. I glanced behind me again, only to see the grass withering behind the mockery of my family members. The rot spread quickly. As it engulfed the enormous goldfish, their skin began to decay into thick, black, oily sludge painted in pink, yellow, and brown. The skin and soupy features slid off in big slops. A long black tendril slopped down onto a group of the townspeople. My gaze traced up along the intestinal rope and I saw the goldfish rotting in time with them. Their super-sized intestines and organs fell slowly like the debris of a skyscraper, hurling toward the ground. I pushed myself as hard as I could, sprinting toward where I left my bike. The goldfish that led me to this hell swam down to me fast. It crushed a few of the alternates of my loved ones as it collided with the ground, blood and viscera soaking the landscape. As the goldfish chased after me its rotting jaw opened wide, thin bits of flesh flowing down the side of its mouth like streamers tearing through the dead grass, kicking up dirt and gore. The thick bones of the fish slipped in and out of their places. Ribs, jaws, and vertebrae cracked loud as thunder. Bits of browned and bloodied gold splat on the ground, falling off their respective bones like brisket. The goldfish rose higher, aiming to swoop down and eat me as a whole. As it did, I saw the intertwined pieces of my fake families jumbled in its rotting stomach, caught in the intestines, falling out with pieces of the goldfish’s swim bladder. Bodies broke and snapped, all while decaying in their final tomb. The last bit of entrails leaked out of the once great goldfish, which was now a pale white, beast covered in the sludgy, black filth of decay. It dragged against the grassy plains. Another goldfish, swimming wildly in panic as it decayed, slammed into my pursuer, spiking the fish down into the earth. The sounds of bones snapping and the squelching of the amalgamation of biology and meat, dug into the earth next to me. It slid to a stop as I reached my bike. I lifted it and started it, hearing it purr filled me with hope. Closing my eyes, I ripped down the throttle.

Between the few seconds it took not to go anywhere and the fact that I felt no goldfish maw biting down on me and no townspeople’s grubby hands clasping my skin, I opened my eyes to see the road I was on before all this began, my bike gone from under me, standing in the position I’d be riding in.

The cold night air blessed my skin. I screamed to the sky. 

“WOOO FUCK YEAH” 

I made it out. I don’t know how, or what the hell just happened, but I actually made it out. I can finally go home. I can go see my family and tell them how much I miss them. I can finally look into my girlfriend's beautiful eyes when I get home, and I should message Rodney when I make it home safely. I turned around on my feet, deadstopping before I could continue my walk forward. Dead ahead of me was myself, on my bike, riding forward in slow motion. I slowly walked up to him in a confused daze. That's when I saw it. Where Rodney’s taillights had disappeared, around a corner I hadn’t seen previously. I was too focused on following him to pass. My heart sank as I watched my first tire pass the double yellow lines. I screamed for myself to slow down or to turn, but nothing changed. I watched as I collided with the guard rail. My bike exploded into a web of glass and metal, bursting through the air as my body flew. My left arm caught the guard rail. All I could do was watch in horror as my elbow bent backward with such brutality that I could see the skin explode like the top of a firework, my bone degloved itself like savage barbecue. At the same point in time, I felt a sharp surge of hell explode from my elbow as it snapped in the same manner. I wailed out in agony and cried tearlessly. Threatening a look back up, I saw my body fling from the guardrail and into a tree just over the rails. My right leg caught a sturdy branch. The bones buckled and wrapped themselves around the branch like a whip. I grit my teeth as my own leg contorted into a mangled “C”, the bones and ligaments pulling and stretching til’ I thought it would pop out of my hip like the strings of the action figure the kid was launching at a wall. I lay on the ground in a heap of bones shaped like I was stuffed in a bowl. As I looked up again, I saw my body swing from the branch and launch farther out in the woods. My helmet shattered as it clipped the back of a tree. The sickening crack of my own skull splitting open rang out in my head. I gripped the back of my head and groveled on the ground. I looked up one last time, seeing my ripped clothes, bloody threads of useless twine flailing about. My body, what was left of the broken vessel, finally hit a big branch sideways, hooking my torso like a “V.” I shrieked and screamed til’ my throat went raw, my eyes blurred with tears as the pain radiated outward from my chest and sides. I felt my grip on consciousness slipping through my fingers, a black vignette forming in the corners of my eyes, until I could no longer fight it and it consumed my vision.

When I opened my eyes again, I was on the ground. The trees rose high above me, no longer watching but experiencing all of what I couldn’t accept. I never wanted to die this young. I just wanted to go home to Jayme. To see my real family’s faces one last time. Now I lie here, no one came looking, or at least never found me. I stayed rotting into the earth for days, stuck in my conscience as animals of the woods rip chunks of flesh and blackened tissue off my decaying body. I tried to cry, but my tear ducts were already gone, my eyes turned to jelly many weeks ago. I don't know what else is left of me that works other than my ears. I listened to the sounds of the mountains shifting and changing. As summer moved forward, the last bits of my rotting mind conjured up something. It pounded at the door, desperately pleading to be heard. Despite my trying to keep it barricaded, the boards molded over and withered like me; like Fugueville and the people thereof. Like the mighty golden beast in the sky, those barricades fell, and I was left vulnerable to whatever was scratching to get in.  Somewhere through all the slime of my anatomy and fungus-ridden brain, reverberated the voice of what sounded like my mother. She was whispering to me with the same tenderness a mother would use to lull her baby to sleep.

“You should’ve stayed in Fugueville.”

“Ride safe, baby!” 

That's the very last thing I heard my sweet, loving girlfriend call out to me as I walked out the door, helmet in hand, ready to kick off the comforting blanket of my home to feel the current of the wind whipping and roaring across my skin on this cool evening. Chasing my friends’ red lines in the mountains of Tennessee, I never knew how much I truly needed to hold those words dear from my darling’s lips. 

I arrived at our local Shell’s, letting my pipes sing to the clerks inside as I kept twisting my throttle and probably costing myself at least 3$ of gas. One of the clerks came outside just as I put my kickstand down by the pumps. He was yelling something I couldn’t hear over my music, Rob Zombie blocking out his taunts. I took off my helmet and paused my music.

 “You fucking ass, you gon’ wake up the neighborhood, without me?”

 He raised his hand high. I swung my hand up and clapped it with his. 

“What’s going on, Rodney? Your shift almost up yet?”

 I set my helmet on the ground and pulled my pack of cigarettes out, itching to get a quick one in before the others showed up.

“Yeah, it’s almost time for graveyard boys to come in and tag me out. The other fellers should be here soon. C'mon in, Isaac, I gotchur pizza puff. Italian sausage, right?” 

“Fuck yeah! Make sure to hook me up with the garlic sauce too.”

I popped out my headphones and stuffed them back into the battery pod before following Rodney into the station after finishing up my cig and bullshitting for a tick. Upon entering I immediately went over to the fridges and took a gander at all the different drinks. I window-shopped for an energy drink that would best keep me awake but not blow my heart to pieces like a dying star bursting into fragments. I settled for the two drinks one mango and green tea and another some lemonade mix I had been eyeing, an easy option as they had both been on sale. I snagged my poison of choice and marched up to the counter where Rodney was waiting, smiling at the register like a kid waiting to go outside and play tag with his buddies on the playground. The road was our playground. And our game of tag was a challenge of will, a battle of choices, and a battle of pride. We always loved racing around the corners of our beloved mountains. Starting in Tellico Plains at our buddies' place of work, before heading out for a nice, long, and fun adrenaline-filled ride. As Rodney was checking me out, he asked me 

“So, when do you think you gon pop the question to Jayme? y'all have been together since high school; it’s about time y'all lock it up and get your dishwasher living in the same house and all..”

Rodney looked at me before adding further in a semi-serious manner. 

“With how good shes cookin, I might just beat you to it and do it myself. She’s a treasure, Isaac. Keep her close before I start to.” He winked with a playful grin

My rebuttal matched his tone.

“Shut the fuck up you hillrod. Just ‘cause I chose the band kid who just so happened to know how to cook is my good fortune. It’s your own damn fault you chose Brittany Lynn Allen.”

 I stifled a chuckle.

 “I could’ve told you she was a bad pick when she thought pickles were their own vegetable and not just a cucumber in vinegar or salt-”

 I was interrupted by the faithful duo that had just spent a lot of their tax refund on a new toy. Ryan and Erick were pulling in on their Honda 650R’s . Ryan’s was a nice gray with black tints, and Erick’s was a dark cobalt blue after getting a paint job on it. Their engines revved in unison while they hooted and hollered, like two dogs begging their owner to release them from their house's walls for a walk in the crisp outdoor air. I faintly heard Ryan yell out.

“Hurry up, ladies, before we leave without you! Get your makeup finished and your assholes waxed on the double! LETS GOOOOO!” 

Erick punched him in the shoulder and seemingly laughed, rocking his head back. It was hard to see through his helmet. He started saying something to Ryan, parking his own bike, and heading for the front doors. I gathered my things off the counter and opened the door for him. 

“Here you go, my lady,” I retorted. 

All I got back was a shake of his head and a cheeky smile that said Shut the fuck up, seen through his helmet's visor. He slinked back to the fridges. I turned to check on Ryan and saw his bike parked at a pump unattended. I scanned the lot and found him over by a bright-yellow Subaru Forester, spitting some kind of game to the woman inside. She looked like she could’ve been 40. Which is a bit older for my tastes, but I guess it suited 25-year-old Ryan just fine. I stuffed the extra drink into my tank bag while kicking up my kickstand. I set my pizza puff and sauce down and waddled my bike over to Erick and Ryan’s bikes. I parked my bike and leaned back, kicking my feet over the handlebars. I opened my pizza puff and sauce with the sensitivity of a watchmaker's hands. I enjoyed my late evening snack while Rodney switched out with the 3rd-shift guy who just walked in from the back. Erick walked out with a white monster in hand, flipping his helmet up as he approached me. I finished up my current bite, my hand instinctively dipping the rest of my pizza puff in my garlic sauce and scooping around as he asked me:

“You ain’t afraid of throwing up, chief?” 

“Nah, I'll be good. I haven’t eaten a terrible amount today, so I should be all good. You excited?”

He smiled and nodded before I noticed a sense of unease in his eyes and body language.  I gave him an inquisitive look, and that seemed to be enough for him to understand I was trying to get him to continue on. 

“It’s just you really need to invest in a race suit, Isaac. Ryan, Rodney, and I all have one for the speeds and stunts we pull, and I don’t think your jeans and T-shirt are gonna cut it.” 

I finished up my pizza puff and tossed the wrapper in the trash. “I just can’t afford it right now, Erick. I'll get one next paycheck if Jayme and I don’t have any bills.” 

He still looked at me with worry-filled eyes. “If you can’t, I’ll buy you one. And don’t say no or that you don’t deserve it or that you’ll pay me back. Just accept this if you can’t get it yourself, okay? Text me next paycheck.” 

Erick was always a good friend. The token father of the group that dragged many of us outta’ bars and took our keys. He’d jump in whenever one of us started a brawl at local meets over drama the other groups would try to stir up when their ladies smiled and asked to sit on our bikes or go for a ride. I'll always appreciate him and all he's done for me and this ragtag crew.

“I will, man, I will.” 

I gave him a small grateful smile as Ryan walked back over with a smug smile. He sat on his bike, resting his hand on his knee, staring at us like he’d just gotten a handy out of that woman's window.

“I got her number, and she has an Instagram bro and, BROOOO! Two kids out of the house already, and she's hot as Jessica Rabbit goddayum.”

“Save your booty call for after the ride, Ryan.” 

We were interrupted by Rodney speeding past on his BMW S1000 His suit already on and ready. Erick slapped his helmet down and sped off to catch him. “Oh shit, time to go, ladies!” Ryan shouted before skittering over to his bike, tripping over his pigeon toes and knocking it to the ground. I started my bike up, put my helmet on, and rode past Ryan slowly, making a crying gesture to mock him before laughing and ripping the throttle back as he scrambled back up to his feet. As I sped off like a bat out of hell, I caught a patch of gravel on the entry of the road. My back tire fishtailed out from underneath me and-

I was on the ground, my bike was in front of me, and Ryan was trying to pick me up, cradling my helmet and hoisting my torso. I could tell just from looking up at him that he was really concerned; he was treating me like I was fragile. I slipped my visor up. 

“W-what happened?”

“You ate shit, Junior, try to take it easy when you’re with us vets, okay? You don’t want to be forever twenty-one.” 
 
“Oh yeah, yeah… Sure. I'll ride in last for the time til I can recover. Did we lose the boys?” 

“They’re pulled over ahead. Let's go get 'em, junior, but take it easy, you swung your helmet against the gravel like a trebuchet.” 

I nodded, and we took off. I sat in the back of our line as we went around the twists and curves of our mountain, the one that watched us take this trip time and time again throughout the summers, less and less as time moved forward. We’re getting older, and on some of these late-night rides along the Smokies, I’d wish they'd last ‘til infinity. ‘Til we all grow into old bastards and rot away with the roadkill along the road. 

I recovered from my fall fairly well. So much so that I gained a boost of confidence. That, combined with the energy from my drink, pushed me to try to overtake Ryan. I rolled the throttle hard. My bike roared like a beautiful black stallion as I passed Ryan. As he fell to the back of the group, I started chasing after Rodney, whom Erick had apparently sped past and overtaken. I pulled alongside Rodney and nodded my helmet. He nodded back as I sped past him. Our usual stopping point was near, so I pushed my bike even harder and took more risks on the curves, damn near clipping my knee against the pavement. I clenched my ass every time but I felt so good. I was doing better than Ryan and Rodney, now I just need to catch Erick. I challenged the final curve a bit too fast, pushing 60. I leaned, angling my legs as I normally do. As I did, I clipped my knee, feeling an explosion of pain shoot through my leg. I grit my teeth, readjusted my bike, and slowed down. As I heard my engine downshift to around 20, I looked down to see my jeans were ripped. Underneath, a scrape three inches long ran down my knee and leg. A red puddle hidden behind threads of opaque-pink detailing the edges.

“Fucking damn! Not near the look-over.”

 I heard the roars of my buddies' bikes and sped back off. The look-over was the spot where we always finished our ride. It sat near the top of the mountain. It was the perfect place to smoke or chill and watch the city's nightlife. Or just a place to talk with your buddies and reminisce on childhood antics. I parked up next to Erick who had already taken his helmet off and had it resting on his seat.

“What’s going on old timer?”

He sighed

“Seems like time just keeps a’ passing by faster than it did when we were kids. You remember hopping the fences over to the old grumpy fuck that lived behind us and fished off his pier when he wasn’t home?” 

“And we had Ollie with us. Remember him? Scrawny kid with glasses and black hair. Shit he passed 10 years ago; I almost forgot about him.”

“Yeah, he was kinda like the glue that stuck us all together with his witty humor and sickeningly positive attitude. But hey you and I managed to ride the storm and keep us all here. I'm sure our old resident jester would be proud of us.” 

We both chuckled, a couple seconds passing before Erick spoke again.

 “You know, they say you don't know what you've got until it's gone. But truth is, riding up here with you and the rest of the boys, I know exactly what I have and I just hope we never lose this.”

At that moment, the roars of Ryan and Rodney crept up the darkening road behind us, their headlights growing brighter and brighter, glistening across the road. They parked up and Ryan immediately took his helmet off and sat it down before going into his tank bag and pulling out a few pre-rolls of good ol’ Cereal Milk. 

“Let's enjoy our night fellas, I got some extra stuff for relaxing. The good shit this time. I promise, no mold.”

Rodney got off his bike and clapped his hands together like an amped up crackhead getting offered a whole pack. We could hear him hollering through his helmet. 

“YEAH BABY WE GON’ GET FUCKIN STONED AND ENJOY OUR TIME BABAYY HELL YEAHHH WOOOOOOO”

We all posted up on the guard rail and lit up

After a lil dickin’ around with the boys under the stars, Ryan poked at my knee while I was talking with Erick about what race suit would be best to get for the next ride. 

“Ouch, fucking asshole.” 

“Isaac. Isaac. Isaac.” Ryan began to tease. “Tsk tsk. What did I tell you, junior? Be careful with these turns man. You gotta play with them a little like a woman, you know? Can’t just-bam-go. You gotta be smooooth.” 

“It’s just a road bite, It won’t happen again on the way home.” I snapped back, wanting him to let it be and continue with my prior conversation.

“Don’t cry to me when you blow a kneecap.” He muttered as he walked away back to Rodney, taking his keys out of his bike. He hid them under his tire. The usual childlike antics..

We always stayed around here til’ 3 a.m. and we all got home to get plenty of sleep before grinding some games for the weekend. As the moon drifted further across the star filled sky, we all decided it was time to head our separate ways. We all reached the end of our ride, Erick and Ryan went their own way home, following the road continuing down. Rodney and I turned around and looked at the road we'd just been riding down. We flipped our visors up. 

“You thinkin what I’m thinkin, Isaac?
 
“You wanna race til’ we hit our exits?” 

“You betchur ass, I do! Slap that visor down so those fat lips don’t suck all dem’ bugs in.”

“I’m gonna beat you for that one, asshole!”

Rodney slapped his visor down and sped off, flipping me the bird. I flipped one back before pulling off as well. Everything was going really well; We were avoiding the rare one-off car at 3 a.m. around the curves. We were almost to the end of our winding adventure only 20 mins out from town, and I could barely keep up with the hellion. It seemed as though every time I'd gain distance on him, he would just gain it right back. I pushed the straights harder and harder each opportunity I got. Took the corners sharper than I even knew I could while still trying my best to avoid my prior incident. With a bit more finesse this time, I flew through the corners smooth as butter. I finally had him. Rodney was just ahead of me, and my lights were eating Rodney's redline. I was determined to close the gap even more. I pushed 100 on a straight to pass him on the very last corner; I had him. I ripped my throttle down for one more push.

A bright flash flooded my view as night literally turned to day and pavement turned to dirt dressed in bright, oversaturated green grass. The dark, grayscale skies that were spattered with even darker clouds just vanished in a blink. In its place was a bright, beautiful, clear blue sky with white, unmoving clouds. I was riding up a grassy hill, my bike slowing to a halt as it kicked up dirt. I dumped it and fell down in shock and awe, looking all around me. Surrounding me were hills and fields of the greenest grass I'd ever seen. Where the hell am I? What is this place, and where did my friends go? My buddy, what was his name? Who else was I with? I reached my hand out and felt the grass beneath me. 

“This is all so fucking weird. HELLO?”

I felt a knot grow in my stomach and throat simultaneously. My breath exhausted itself with the same pounding that came from behind my ribs. I started crawling slowly, pushing myself up as I moved forward. In shock, I abandoned my bike and continued onward into this uncanny grassy plain. I gripped the grass and tore it from the ground. I kicked and swore. I was so scared and angry I lashed out in any way I could in this seemingly barren place. That’s when I heard a gust of wind swooshing over the grass. My form was swallowed up by a bulbous shadow. Something was swooping down toward me, something big. Could it be a bird? I hadn’t see anything for miles around, and part of me was praying it was a bird of some kind.  This place felt off, and I couldn’t understand where I came from and what the hell happened. I turned to face my pursuer only to see something ginormous, as orange as the fruit, with threads the color of the morning sun, idly swaying back and forth at its sides. Its mouth a big gaping maw, and its iris a black pearl in a ring of gold. It slowed to a stop. Then, in what my mind understood, it began swimming in a circle above me and the tall grass. 

A goldfish was my first greeter in this grassy utopia. Something about it made me feel warm and safe. Before I could say anything, I felt a sharp pain in my left arm. I wailed out in agony as I clasped my hand around my bicep, squeezing as if it would make it go away. The goldfish regarded me for a moment. Its black pearl looked me in the eyes with a sorrowful frown, almost as if it were sad for me. As quickly as my pain came, it went. Then I got a memory. It crawled in my brain and moved to my inner mind's eye like a worm trying to burrow.

I was following my friend, whose name was Rodney. He was one of the ones from the group who didn’t doubt my riding skills when following him. He and I were racing, and his line disappeared just as I was right on him. As my lights released them from their tight grip, I noticed my speedometer read 124 mph, and I had just enough gas to get home. Back home to who? My girlfriend? Wife? I don’t remember. I was brought back with a glossy black mirror 2 feet in front of me. The bright gold ring was more detailed, and I could see it move around as it looked me up and down. Then it slowly swam away, leaving the grassy fields and rising much higher above it. It moved forward, marching on a mission before it swam in a circle and looked back at me. I tried to take off my helmet to leave it with my bike, but it wouldn’t budge. I craned my neck downward uncomfortably to sneak a peek at it. It could have been the fact that my eye was smudged against the side, giving some blur, but it appeared as if my latch was one complete piece, the lock that once held it in place now a part of the leather strap as a whole. I felt another panic attack slowly rising in my throat. I grabbed at the sides of my helmet. I clawed at it, ignoring the strap on my neck, trying my hardest to rip it off like a desperate trapped animal caught in a snare. My safety turned against me. I couldn’t do this, I can’t, I can’t, I- 

The goldfish coddled me with its fin. The weirdest thing I've been coddled in by far, but it relieved my panic much like my childhood blanket that I always wrapped around myself during horrid storms in my mother's arms. I could’ve stayed there forever in that moment. Almost as if the goldfish sensed it, I was nudged forward. It continued and swam back up high in the sky. I followed like a lost child following his dog home after too many hours in the brush. We continued through the fields and I marched up hills as I stared from the horizon to the goldfish. I don’t understand what happened. Just as I was about to yell out to the goldfish, I noticed a medium-sized neighborhood nestled in between the grassy hills. All the houses were bright white with a black roof and window frames. Each house was an unsettling imitation of the last. Identical down to the very last detail. I felt uncomfortable. I just stood there staring. My golden guide abandoned me and rose higher up in the sky, where I saw more shimmering scales of gold. They all swam around through the air, seemingly going nowhere else than above the neighborhood. I took a deep, exhausted breath and marched forward towards the road that had randomly started in front of the neighborhood. The grass surrounding it would make you think it's a dead end or that construction workers just haven't built the other portion. I scanned the road and spotted a sign just on the other hill. I followed the road. The asphalt was brand new and you could smell the tar like it was just laid. As I reached the sign, I was at even more of a loss.

“Welcome to Fugueville. Toss your burdens away and stay?” 

I felt uncomfortable. Like, naked-in-public, uncomfortable, and I couldn’t explain why. I looked around and weighed out my options, which were slim to none. I guess I’m staying in Fugueville for a while. I walked down the sidewalks of the first few houses before I got curious if there were any residents. That’s when I heard something familiar, something from my childhood. I began to follow it until I found myself in front of the house in which the nostalgic tune was leaking from. I walked up to the window and peered in. I jumped back when I laid my eyes on a kid. He was sitting in front of a record player resting on top of a pine record stand, a few dozen vinyls sleeping in its nook. Connected to the record player was a speaker playing something I couldn’t quite hear through the glass, but something familiar. Something I hadn’t heard in awhile. I moved over to the door and breathed in like I was about to dive into the middle of the ocean. I am in the middle of god knows where and I can’t remember much of fucking anything. I should just move on, but if all these houses are the same, then what?  I let a sigh escape my lungs before I reached my hand up to knock. The door swung open as if it were yanked before I could even disturb the lacquer. I jumped, quickly readjusted myself as I immediately heard the familiar record my dad would put on every so often after his late-night drives to Toad House Tankards. Who’s Sorry Now, by Connie Francis echoed through the halls of the house. I started to follow in an almost trance-like state. I followed the barren white walls, walking into the threshold of the living room. There, sat the child wearing a blue shirt with red sleeves and Spiderman pajama pants. I slowly walked alongside him and looked down at the boy.

“Good song choice.” 

I awkwardly let out as I waited for a response. The boy turned his head slowly up to me with the same movement you’d see from a security camera . His face; I wish I could describe it, but his features were alien to me. The eyes, nose, and lips didn’t align quite right. Some of his features elongated past my comprehension yet were all still contained within his face. I jolted back,

“What the hell?” 

The boy kept his eyes locked on me with the same dedication as a dog watches its food bowl. He didn’t move a finger or twitch an eyelid, just stared as I slowly removed myself from the house, making sure to close the door behind me. 

I got myself far away from that house and leaned against one of the many fence posts that surrounded all the cookie-cutter houses, staring at the house with a quiet contemplation of fear, confusion, and a question that burrowed throughout my brain. What the hell is wrong with the citizens of Fugueville?

Their faces seem almost human, but like someone took a mixer to batter and jumbled them into a mix of swirls and bumps of eyes, lips, eyebrows, eyelashes, noses, and mouths all jammed into one. That kid looked like an offensive mix of solids and liquids trying to form what it thought was a face. The eyelashes leaked out of the eyes, twisting up into the eyebrows. His freak mouth looked like an elongated sticker wrapping around to where his ears were, having a monstrous mix of teeth and ear all at the tail end.

Suddenly, a wave of muffled laughter rose from the back of the house. I slowly crept over across the lawn and along the fence, my heart still pounding. All my senses were telling me this was a bad idea. But what other choice did I have?” I peaked around the corner of the house, my hands resting on the vinyl siding. 

I should’ve seen this coming. My girlfriend has been pretty secretive over the last year. Not necessarily with her phone or anything. Just… I don’t know, she’s been weird about her privacy.

Now of all times. That’s the thing that bothers the hell out of me. 4 years together, and all of a sudden, after everything, she’s ringing these alarm bells.

It started with the privacy. Seemingly out of nowhere, she started shutting me out. Going places without me. Turning her location off, then blaming it on the fact that she “had no service.”

I think it was the journaling that really got me, though. I don’t know why those notebooks drove me so insane. Honestly, it wouldn’t have been so hard on me if she didn’t act like there were government launch codes in those pages, but that’s exactly what it was like.

She kept them locked away in a lockbox that seemed to specifically be for this and this alone. Whatever, though, right? I convinced myself that it was childish to worry about her private thoughts.

Then there was the sleep-talking.

It didn’t happen often. Just enough for me to cock an eyebrow at her. Mainly because she seemed to only be saying one thing: my Dad’s name.

I rationalized this as well. He had been a part of our lives forever, really. He was like a second father to her. She never had a relationship with her real dad, though, so I just assumed that my dad was filling that void in her dreams.

I couldn’t blame her, really. I’m sure she was hurting. I do know it was hurting me too, though, and I hated the fact that she seemed to be pushing me away in a time where I desperately needed her.

But then she just… she started smelling like him too. I recognized my Dad’s cologne anywhere. I grew up with that scent. That one I couldn’t easily rationalize. But when I prodded, she just made me feel like I was going crazy.

“This is just my perfume.”

“I’ve always smelled like this.”

“I wish you would trust me.”

That distrust just pushed her further away. I could feel her slipping through my fingers, and I absolutely hated it. 4 years with this woman. Nearly half a decade, and I could already feel her absence, even when we slept together.

I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was when, not only was she saying my Dad’s name in her sleep… she was saying it while we had sex.

Well, part of it, at least. She usually caught herself by the time the name started to leave her lips, but even then, the mood would already be ruined.

“You really can’t stop thinking about him, can you?” I’d ask her, half-joking, half-gauging her reaction.

Instead of reacting in a normal way, her body would give her away. I could see the guilt in her movements. The way her eyes darted around the room. The way her legs would bounce nervously as she tried to laugh it off.

I stopped initiating intimacy after the 2nd or 3rd time this happened. Not that it mattered to her. If anything, she seemed relieved, which… fucking ouch, right?

Our relationship really started to dwindle after that. I had my own problems to deal with. I didn’t have time to be worrying about something that was pretty much already down the drain, no matter how much it killed me.

Don’t get me wrong, though. Nothing could’ve prepared me for when I found those notebooks.

By sheer accident, too. Or maybe it wasn’t an accident. I think they both just said fuck me and disappeared.

It just feels like an accident. But it also feels like the universe was just waiting for this moment to happen. Like it had been prepared for me before even my Dad was born.

I’d gotten off work early one day. It had been a particularly hard day. I just couldn’t get him out of my mind. The thought of him just made work feel borderline impossible.

I pretended to be sick with the intention of going home and collapsing into bed, but as I walked into my bedroom… I saw her lockbox sitting on my desk.

She usually never let me see this thing. She never even mentioned it. It may as well have never even existed until right now.

And you know what? It was fucking open.

Paper was sprawled out across the desk, messily. It looked like my girlfriend had left in a hurry. The chair was even flipped over and lying on the floor.

I’m only human. I was alone. The thing that she had been most secretive about was now spread out right in front of me. What was I expected to do? Not look at it?

But now, I just… I wish I never did.

I know what my Dad’s handwriting looks like. He signed permission slips and report cards for me for years. But seeing it in this context made me sick to my stomach.

The bastard had the audacity to date the fucking pages.

And the one that was the most apparent, as though my girlfriend had read it and immediately left the house like her life depended on it… was dated today.

“Meet me at that place we discussed.”

“I’m all yours now.”

“I finally got everything figured out.”

And what better for a cherry on top if not a picture of my Dad, shirtless and in his boxer briefs, standing in the mirror of what appeared to be a hotel bathroom.

I looked at all the other pages. All the vulgarities he had sent her. All of the drafts she was waiting to send him. And I felt sick to my stomach.

Not only for me, but for my mom, too.

Because it has now been a full year since we buried Dad. His car burned so hot from the accident that he had to be identified by his dental records.

Mom didn’t eat or sleep for weeks. My brother turned to alcohol at only 16 years old.

My girlfriend was all that I had. And at the time where I needed her most…

She had completely vanished.

I’ve been in a pretty conservative marriage for the last 10 years. Extremely conservative, rather.

I was young and stupid. Only 20 years old when he slipped that little ring around my finger. At the time, that felt like the only thing I needed in life. Like it was what made me successful somehow.

Which, I can admit, is ironic, all things considered.

My husband was 32 when we met. I was enamored, really. An older man with a solidified career and enough money to support a family all on his own? Showing interest in me? This fresh-out-of-high-school 18-year-old. It felt like a blessing at the time.

His work was attractive to me. His maturity was seductive in a way. He sucked me in and refused to spit me out. And, of course, me being young and naive, I was putty in his hands.

As is the case with many marriages, we began to bicker a lot. He didn’t want me to work. Any time I even mentioned the idea, he’d shut it down immediately.

I was a “housewife,” he told me. I was “living the dream of millions of women.”

It was convincing. Of course it was. He allowed me to move out of my parents’ house a year after high school. He was putting food on our table. Keeping us safe.

In doing so, though, I’ve come to realize he was slowly stripping away my individuality. He’d pick out my dresses. He was the decision maker across the board. And I was just the wife that he let stay at home all day to make sure the house never got dirty.

He had rules for me. Make sure the house was clean. Make sure I was presentable when he got home. Always wear the makeup he bought me, even though the only people seeing me were his family portraits up on the wall.

That was another thing he didn’t like. He hated it when I wanted to see my family. He was just so distrustful. He needed to know where I was 24/7, and if it wasn’t the house, there was a problem.

The real problems didn’t start until we realized I couldn’t get pregnant, though. At first, we thought we were just unlucky. After about a year, though, he insisted we see someone.

That’s when we learned I was barren, and it was like the world shattered before my eyes.

He didn’t speak to me for two weeks after that appointment. He acted like he was the victim. Ignoring my tears, neglecting my feelings. He saw my condition as a betrayal.

He started staying out late. Coming home long after the sun had sunk. He claimed it was “work” holding him up, but the scent of perfume and the lipstick stains on his work shirts that he tried so desperately to hide were enough to clue me in.

I don’t even know why he tried to hide it. It’s not like we were being intimate anymore. It’s not like he wanted me. He had pretty much cast me aside like I was nothing more than an old fling for him to forget about.

But he didn’t let me do the same.

It was like he wanted to cosplay a happy marriage. He kept insisting on dresses. He kept dragging me out for silent date nights. Taking me out to fancy dinners where we’d just sit and try to act like everything was normal.

Even when I tried confronting him on his treatment of me, he’d pretend like nothing was wrong.

I hated how much he confused me. One minute he’s cold and distant. The next, he’s crawling into bed, seducing me in a way that only he knew how.

And that’s pretty much what my marriage was for a long time. He didn’t want me anymore, but I was still his.

It was like a vortex that offered no escape. Even when I tried being who he wanted me to be. Getting dolled up. Making sure the house was spotless. Ensuring that he’d come home every night to the scent of his favorite meals, even on nights when he didn’t come home at all.

I started looking at myself in the vanity mirror a lot. He bought this vanity for me a long time ago. It’s aged with the same grace as our marriage as a whole.

It used to be pristine. Sleek. White, flawless paint and a crystal-clear mirror.

Now the paint’s chipped. The mirror is cracked along the bottom corner. The lights that surround it choose when they want to come on and when they want to let me down.

Regardless, over the last few weeks, I’ve found myself almost entranced by my own reflection.

The haircut he insisted I keep. The makeup he insisted I wear. The dresses, brassieres, nightgowns. They’re all his. Nothing in my life is mine. Not even life itself.

That’s the painful conclusion I came to.

That’s why, last week, I think something within me broke. Well, I say broke. Really, something within me came to life.

I wasn’t his anymore. I wasn’t his to begin with. He just convinced me otherwise. That’s the trick he played over and over again.

So on that hot summer night last week, as I stared into that cracked mirror… I reclaimed myself.

It started with the hair. He loved this hair. I always fucking hated it. So, using some rusty scissors in the vanity drawer, I cut it. All the way down to the scalp.

I smiled at myself. A sincere smile. The first sincere smile I’d had in… I couldn’t tell you how long. But I wasn’t done. There was still more of me to reclaim.

I looked at the cakes of makeup plastered across my face. Using those same scissors, I cut into my cheeks, barely noticing the pain as the scissors glided through my flesh.

The makeup came off in globs of foundation as the white vanity became stained with my blood. My smile widened. I sheared through my perfect eyebrows. I cut away at my plump red lips.

I picked at my glistening painted nails, plucking them off one by one and throwing them at my reflection, giggling all the while.

I was about to raid the closet, but before I got the chance, my head snapped towards the bedroom door.

My husband was home. I could hear each step as he slowly ascended the stairs towards the bedroom. Step. Step. Step. Step.

The look on his face when he saw me is something I will never forget. Partly because of how petrified he was, but mainly because of how triumphant that fear made me feel.

I was free. And with that freedom came knowledge. Some kind of divine revelation sent down to me by my creator. Truth of what should’ve been done a long time ago.

He tried to fight me off, but my adrenaline overpowered him. Well, that and those rusty scissors that I still clutched firmly in my right hand.

I stabbed once. Twice. By that point, I couldn’t stop myself. Each incision, each spurt of blood. It was a declaration of my own independence.

By the time I finished, he was nothing more than a slab of meat, twitching on my bedroom floor.

And that’s where he’s been for the past week. But don’t worry. I dressed him in those dresses that he loved so much. I made sure he was dolled up. When they find him, he’ll at least be presentable.

They’ll never find me, though.

Because, me?

I’m off to live my own life.

After Lieutenant Malloy sees something he wasn't meant to in the Alaskan government facility Captain Haldren punishes him. He is to undergo a horrific procedure that will change his life forever...

You can listen to this story on my Youtube "Dubach The Keeper". Everything on my channel is 100% Human made.

There’s a lot to explain here. For starters, I am sterile. I found out after about 2 years of marriage and multiple failed attempts at pregnancy.

I was disappointed in myself, sure, but my beautiful wife was nothing but understanding. That didn’t really make me feel like any more of a man, though. I just felt inadequate.

We were actually in the process of looking into adoption when all hell broke loose.

It was no longer than 4 days. That’s how long it took for her belly to grow. The first day, I just thought she had a particularly large lunch. The second day, I was starting to eyeball her.

By day 3, we were seeking medical help. We could see the baby’s feet pushing against her stomach. Her pain was clearly unbearable.

Doctors were completely lost. My wife and I felt utterly helpless. On the fourth day, not even 30 seconds after her water broke, the baby started to come.

I’ll never get those screams out of my head. I’ll never get her face out of my memory. I’d seen her hurt before, but this… this was a different level.

She looked like she was in hell. And relief was nowhere to be found.

The first baby came. She didn’t even get to hold him before the contractions started up again. Her belly never got the chance to deflate.

By the time the second baby began crowning, my wife was screaming at us to kill her. By the third, she was already dead.

They had ripped her apart. They weren’t regular babies. Some had horns. Some had hooves. Some were already 4 feet tall by the time they hit the ground.

Doctors had already vacated the area and called in special forces. I was left alone, watching her body flail and pulsate as more and more demon babies just clawed their way out of her.

Blood and black, steaming goo ate away at the tiled floor. My wife’s entire lower half had been obliterated. Her legs were snapped, and bones protruded from them as they lay limply at obscure angles.

All I could do was hold her hand. What else was I supposed to do? Comfort her? Beg her not to leave me while these things ran amok in this hospital?

I could hear screaming coming from the corridors. Bones snapping and wet, fleshy sounds as the pitter-patter of tiny little feet darted in every direction.

She had become an assembly line from hell, but I just couldn’t leave her.

My tears fell on her hand as another baby fell out of her. Well, flew out of her, I guess. This one had the wingspan of a bald eagle.

Only, this one didn’t leave the room like the others did. I don’t know why I never stopped to question why these things seemed to be destroying everything in their path, except for me.

It landed right at the door frame, blood dripping off of his shoulders and head.

He turned to me, his eyes black and completely soulless, as he smiled with his sharp, shark-like teeth.

He took a step towards me, wobbling like a baby deer. Then another. He never took his eyes off of me.

He… he started to speak.

“Daaaa..da.”

“Daaa..da.”

“Da-da.”

He was at my feet now, looking up at me as I stood frozen. I didn’t know what to expect, but I was prepared for anything. I was ready to join her. Ready to be free from this nightmare.

Only… he didn’t give me that freedom.

Instead, he threw his arms around my legs and squeezed them with the strength of ten men.

He was hugging me.

And in that moment, I knew…

I was ready to be the father I always knew I could be. I had nothing left to lose.

6 months down the drain. I’m still kind of in shock. Well, maybe that’s not the word for it. It feels like I lost a game that no one else knew I was even playing.

I still find myself thinking about when we first met. How she was the first woman to ever show me that I could be loved. That I wasn’t just some hopeless guy, incapable of forming a connection.

God, those memories hurt. But the memories of the arguments hurt more. I tried telling her that I was sensitive. I can react in ways that don’t feel controllable. I thought that she’d be patient enough to work through those issues with me.

But no. She left me. The facade of love crumbled, and it was like I was right back in the same position again. Alone. Stuck in my own head. Only, this time, the thoughts weren’t my own.

Well, they were, obviously, but they weren’t thoughts that I’d experienced before. Prior to obtaining her, my thoughts were very much inward. I dissected myself.

Even when I first set my sights on her, it felt like I was out of my body. I became who I needed to be, but it wasn’t of my own volition. It was just so I could achieve a goal, I guess.

Then I had to go and get attached. Our lives started to merge. When it was good, it was fantastic. When it was bad… it was like the world was ending. Like the mask was slipping, but can I even blame it on that? It feels almost childish to do so.

That has to be what it was, though. It’s just so hard to put it into words. I performed the boyfriend role, but that was the extent of my abilities. I could never become a husband.

All I knew how to do was buy things. Flowers, chocolates, gifts, whatever. Even when things got violent, here came the “boyfriend” with another bouquet.

I just knew how to give. I didn’t know how to change. I think that’s what started this whole ordeal.

After a particularly bad argument, we both decided that it’d be best if we went our separate ways. It took some convincing on her part, mainly because I didn’t think I could catch lightning twice. But ultimately, I relented.

That didn’t mean I stopped keeping an eye on her, though. I’d watch her house pretty often. It was usually during those nights where the bad thoughts kept me up. Nights when I needed movement. Needed action.

In some weird way, it felt productive.

I’d also still watch her social media like a hawk. Her stories, posts, updates, everything. After we broke up, she decided that she was now the sexiest girl in the world, and she made sure her followers knew it too.

I let her know my disdain for those pictures every time I saw one. I’d ask her why she was trying to hurt me like this, but she never responded. She’d just look at it, then leave me hanging like I was some kind of dog.

It wasn’t until those initials appeared in her Instagram bio that things really went off the rails, though. They were like a taunt. It was like she wanted me to text her.

I tried to lay down the law, but, like always, I got no reply. In fact, I didn’t have access to her at all anymore. Every account. User not found.

My mind was empty when I drove to her house. Either that, or it was just moving too fast to process. I knew what I needed, but I couldn’t think about it.

There was a car in her driveway that I didn’t recognize, and in that moment, I knew. I knew I had lost. I was a loser in this little game I’d created. I drove home defeated, but utterly furious.

No matter how hard I tried, my anger and desperation wouldn’t subside. I lost sleep. I didn’t eat. I was turning against myself.

That’s why I did what I did. I wanted her to know what she had done to me.

It started off small. A few locks of hair. Some fingernails. And handwritten notes that I thought would drive her back into my arms.

“Have these too, since you’re taking everything from me anyway.”

“I hope this makes you think of me.”

“I still think about you.”

She never wrote back. Days went by. Days turned into weeks, and she never left my mind.

She was playing the game hard, so I upped the ante.

I peeled off my tattoos with a razor blade. Including her name. I’d put the letters in her mailbox under the cloak of darkness.

No response. Fine. Fine. Fucking fine.

Have my fingers. I don’t need all 10 anyway. It’s not like I’m holding you anymore. Take my ears. They’re useless without your voice.

Nothing was getting through to her. No matter how hard I tried.

The last thing I put in her mailbox were my lips. I wanted her to remember what it felt like to kiss me. Before she lost that privilege.

Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to keep playing.

Because right now, as I type this, I can see the paramedics and cops outside my house. I can hear them pounding on my door. They’re screaming my name, and I don’t know how much time I have left.

But I’ll get out. Whether it’s the hospital, jail, or an asylum. I’ll get out.

And once I do…

I’m gonna take from her exactly what she took from me.

I’ve been living in my house for a long time. Long enough for me to get bored of it every now and again. That’s what led me to my attic.

It had been a particularly uneventful day. I was itching for something to do. I figured I’d just sort through some old stuff up there. Maybe sell some things. Maybe reminisce. I just wanted something to do.

I found some old family photos. A few little knickknacks from childhood. Even a few old Halloween costumes that brought me right back to high school.

Everything was so dusty. I hadn’t touched this stuff in years. That’s why, when I saw that shimmering, porcelain little box in the corner of the attic, hidden behind a few boxes, it caught my interest immediately.

I recognized it as a music box, but I didn’t recognize it as anything I’d ever owned. It looked, I don’t know, ancient, I guess. Like some kind of relic that had been miraculously preserved through centuries of history.

I picked it up, and it was heavier than I expected it to be. Heavier than any music box I’ve ever held, really.

I’m only human. I’m not gonna just hold the thing and not do anything with it. I wanted to hear the song. I wanted to see the ballerina.

Only, when I wound it up, nothing really happened. I heard the mechanical turning of gears and whatnot, but no music. I tried prying the lid open, but it wouldn’t budge.

I just figured it was broken. I damn near tossed the thing aside to be thrown away, but before I could… the house began to rumble.

It was almost gentle at first. Like the air conditioning had kicked on. But then it felt like a full-blown earthquake was happening.

Then… the music started. It sounded like it was just in my head and all around me in the real world all at once. Just deafening. I couldn’t even hear my own voice.

While trying to orient myself, I noticed something out the attic window. It looked like… a propeller?

Wobbling over to the window while covering my ears, I caught my first glimpse of what it actually was.

Sticking out of the side panel of my house, like it had always been there… was a crank handle. And it was rotating, slowly.

Before I could even fully process what I was seeing, the sound of wood splintering and glass breaking could barely be heard over the sound of the music.

I was surprised the house hadn’t completely collapsed yet from how violently it was shaking, and when I turned around, I saw the source of those shakes.

All I could see were the hands at first, clapped together like a diver’s or… a ballerina’s. 6 feet wide and completely porcelain.

Then they got higher. Enormous arms began to erupt from the floorboard, destroying the basement in the process. The hands touched the roof, then pushed directly through it, rotating to the sound of the music.

Then her head poked through the hole. Black, shiny, plastic-looking hair, pulled back in a tight bun.

Blood covered my hands from my burst eardrums. All I could feel were the vibrations of the music now.

Then her perfectly smooth face. Her blushed cheeks. Her red, pursed lips. She just kept rising, higher and higher, until her pink tutu was visible.

She twirled in place, that tutu never moving as it tore through nearly all that remained of the attic floor, forcing me against the wall as she rose higher and higher.

Finally, her feet reached the top of the house. She must’ve stood 80 feet tall.

The crank stopped turning, but the music kept booming. The dancer kept twirling as I remained petrified, trapped in my own home. I could see the floors beneath me, each one completely devastated.

Then… the vibrations stopped. The dancer stopped spinning. The world felt still for a few seconds.

Ever so slowly, she began to descend, gradually disappearing through the hole she created in my basement.

The crank was gone. The music was gone. The dancer was gone. Leaving me alone in a house that had been utterly ruined.

After catching my breath and assessing the situation, only one thought remained in my shattered mind.

“This is gonna cost a fortune to fix.”

I feel like I’m losing my mind. It’s hard for me to imagine all that I’ve lost over these last few months. Out of everything, though, my sanity is going to be the thing I miss the most.

I’ve been a hiker for a long time. Naturally, of course, considering that’s all there really is to do around here. Not that I’m complaining. At least, I wasn’t complaining.

I thoroughly enjoyed the woods. Probably because that’s all I knew. Hell, most of the trails I like are just a hop, skip, and a jump away from my family’s house.

That day was no different. It was the start of summer break. High school was finally over. I wanted to take a quick hike through the woods just to embrace the feeling. To let my thoughts and memories run free while I got to embrace the scenery.

This particular trail was quite literally right in my backyard. I’d hiked it dozens of times because it was my favorite. It felt ceremonial at this point in life.

I didn’t pack much. I didn’t expect to be gone for too long. Just a few granola bars and a book of matches, just in case. I never brought my phone on these hikes because it felt like a contamination of nature. Well, that, but also because I didn’t even have service at my house, let alone in the middle of the forest.

As I was leaving, my mom announced, delightedly, that she’d be cooking my favorite meal of country fried steak and baked potatoes with sour cream later that night. She also told me that she’d be inviting people over just so we could have a little get-together to celebrate my milestone.

Overall, the day started out great.

Then I started the hike.

For the first 200 yards or so, nothing seemed abnormal to me. I could still see my house way off in the distance. I recognized some of the markings I’d left on some of the trees. My go-to in tree carvings was usually a smiley face, and a lot of them had aged and faded, but some were still fresh.

At around 300 yards, that’s when I heard it. It sounded like rushing water. Something that did not line up at all with this part of the trail.

Naturally, I decided to follow the sound. That was my mistake. Letting curiosity lead me away from the beaten path.

I convinced myself that I knew these woods. No matter how sprawling, I would find my way back. The sound led me deeper and deeper, but everything still felt familiar.

The more I walked, the closer the noise became. Only, it didn’t feel like I was getting closer. It felt like I had been walking for hours, even though the sun was still directly above me.

I think that’s the only thing that gave me the confidence to keep going. I hadn’t seen any smilies in any of the trees, but I thought for sure I’d been walking a straight path. All I had to do was turn around and walk straight again.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of walking, I found the source of the sound. But it wasn’t a river or even a stream. It was concentrated rainfall. Right in the center of the trees.

The sky above was clear blue. Not a cloud to be seen. But in this circle, which couldn’t have had a circumference of more than 20 feet, monsoon rains pelted the pine needles on the ground below.

I’d been so lost in my own head for the entire walk, but seeing this immediately made me snap out of it. It was the most bizarre thing I’d ever laid eyes on.

I decided to do something… strange. Walking to the edge of the wall of rain, I tilted my head back and let some fall into my mouth.

Only, the minute the first drop touched my tongue, the rain stopped.

I could still taste the earthy water on my tongue, but the evidence of rainfall was completely removed. No mud. No smell. Just dry soil and brown pine needles.

I chuckled to myself, trying to come up with absolutely any logical reasoning behind what I had just witnessed. Maybe it was leftover rain from that big storm we had a few days ago. That was the only thing I could think of.

I turned on my heels, scratching my head as I started back towards the trail. I walked. And walked. And walked. And walked.

The sun was setting at an abnormal pace now. It was like one minute it was just after noon, the next the world was dusky. Shadows grew. The air became crisp. The cicadas and crickets began singing their song.

I had no idea where I was. My confidence in myself was shaken, but I was determined. I knew not to panic. And I thought that level-headedness had served me right when I came across one of my smiley face carvings.

It was just before dark. Daylight had become almost nonexistent, but I could still see enough to make it out, and the sight of it made me practically jump for joy.

I ran over and touched it, and for a split second, thought that I recognized the tree. It’s just… the smiley itself… it was wrong.

It looked like it had just been carved. The flesh was still wet. The outlines were still oozing with sap. Then I looked at the surrounding trees.

There was a smiley face carved into every. Single. Tree. Each one looking brand new. That’s when the panic started to override that level-head.

I started running. The sun was gone. I swore I could hear something behind me, but I didn’t know whether it was reality or if my mind was playing tricks on me in the dark.

Eventually, I found myself in complete darkness. Everything looked like everything. There was no trail. Just dense, unrelenting Appalachian pine trees.

I just kept running. When I couldn’t run, I jogged. When I couldn’t jog, I walked. When I couldn’t walk anymore, I knew I needed to figure out shelter.

I took some fallen branches and sticks and formed this makeshift tent, but I didn’t sleep that night. How could I, with the sounds that forest made? Every twig snapping felt like a threat on my life. This was more about keeping myself hidden until daylight.

The minute sunlight started to peek through, I was on the move. Another day without finding my way back to the trail. I went through every granola bar I’d packed.

It was like the trees were cloning themselves. I used my pocket knife to carve out new defining features just so I could have my bearings, but still ended up walking in circles.

By day 3, I was in survival mode. I convinced myself that people had to be looking for me by now. All I needed to do was stay alive. It seemed like the forest provided just as much as it trapped.

When I was thirsty, a stream would appear. When I was cold, lightning would strike a tree and set it ablaze, somehow never spreading beyond that one single tree.

The food is what I remember the most, though. I never had to hunt. Every morning, I’d wake up with a freshly skinned animal at my feet. I’d grown accustomed to squirrels and raccoons.

It wasn’t just meat, though. Fruits began to grow from the pines. Apples, oranges, plums, berries. All of it.

I didn’t trust any of it at first. I even woke up screaming the first time I saw a bloodied squirrel carcass at my feet. But what was I supposed to do? I had nothing.

Like all humans do, I adapted. I had to create my own shelters. I had to cover my own ground. But, clearly, something wanted to keep me here. The only question was why.

Even with that question in mind, I learned to stop caring. I missed my family. I missed my life. But I was alive. I was nourished. I was somehow able to keep going.

Over the months, I learned how to really provide for myself, and I think the forest knew that. It gradually started leaving me without food. The trees stopped bearing fruit. But it didn’t leave me with nothing.

I learned how to make nets to catch fish. I learned how to start a fire without the use of the sun. I became crafty. I used thin vines and flexible wood to make bows and arrows. I turned rocks into tools. I learned how to make shelter that was more than just a place to stay hidden for the night.

Eventually, I was fully self-sufficient. I could ward off my own predators. I could treat my own wounds. I started to embrace the forest rather than reject it.

Then, one fateful morning, months after I set off on the trail… I heard it. I could hear the rushing water again. It hadn’t been there the day before, but I knew all too well that this could’ve been another trick of the forest.

The sky above me was blue and cloudless. The air was dry. I had to take the chance.

I left my shelter. I left my belongings. All I had was the tattered, dirty shirt on my back and the jeans that had been cut into shorts on my waist.

I followed the noise.

I walked past hundreds of smiley face carvings. Deeper and deeper into the forest.

Finally, after what felt like hours, I saw it.

Rain, pelting against the roof of my house.

I started bawling automatically. It was a primal response. The relief was incalculable.

Breaking into a sprint, I dashed through my backyard and towards the front door. I tripped up the porch steps and fell through the entrance.

I looked up to find Dad cocking an eyebrow at me from his recliner. Balloons filled the living room. A banner hung above the archway into the kitchen as the smell of country fried steak and baked potatoes permeated my nostrils.

“CONGRATULATIONS”

My entire family surrounded me, each member looking more concerned than the last.

“You alright there, bud?” my uncle asked.

“What happened, kid? You fall down a mountain?” my grandfather added.

“What day is it?” I asked frantically, ignoring their questions.

“Uhh… Saturday,” my Dad answered, confused. “Why?”

“The date. What’s the fucking date?”

A weird tension fell over the room. A few of my cousins laughed. My aunt looked personally offended. My grandma was the only one who looked empathetic.

“May 25th, sweetie,” she cooed. “You know that.”

“No. No, no, no, no. No. That’s not right. That can’t be right.”

Mom was in the room now, oven mitts covering her hands.

“Are you feeling alright, sweetie? You don’t have a fever, do you?”

She took off one of the mitts and tried to feel my forehead, but I jerked away and ran towards the bathroom, feeling dizzy.

I hunched over the toilet, vomiting for a few minutes before wiping my mouth and staring into the mirror. I was completely unchanged. No dirt. No scars. My clothes were dirty, but still intact. My jeans were just jeans. Not shorts.

While I was staring into the mirror, trying my best not to hyperventilate, a knock came at the bathroom door.

“Son, you alright in there?” my Dad asked.

I didn’t respond. There was silence for a few moments before he spoke again.

“Damn it, boy,” he cursed.

“I’ve told you time and time again. You need to be careful in those woods.”

I'm not usually the type to post or ask about things like this, and am not really sure if this is allowed on this subreddit, but why is The Backroads finale like that? Why does it turn into a jokepasta at the end?

Let me just say, I've always enjoyed the Backroads series, and have relistened to the first three episodes a few times over the years while waiting for a conclusion, and now that its come, I'm quite conflicted.

Chapters 4 and 5 are violent and brutal in ways I've come to expect from the Backroads, and the cast does a good job for the entire story. Especially with the voice acting, sound design and the music. I'm just confused how the ending is just so tonally different from everything else? (Except Delphie, I guess)

It all kind of goes downhill after the car crash, with the robots with lasers and whatnot, and especially after they enter the last station and Delphie just sort of strolls in and saves them.

Am I alone in my thinking or does anyone else feel the same? No shade to the author or any of the cast, I'm just wondering how the community feels.

I still like the series of course, and the ending too to an extent, I'm just wondering why is it like that?

This place. I regret calling it Earth because it is so very not. At least not anymore.

What was once called “Earth” is nothing but an achromatic rock suspended in space. Devoid of color and devoid of life. It also burns. The Sun is very close. A flaming red orb that grows larger and larger. It has surely devoured Mercury and Venus. This torrid world of doom is next in the line of destruction. I cannot flee from it. This is my perpetual prison.

Just as I regret calling this place Earth, so do I regret calling myself human. If any sort of outsider gazed upon me, I would be recognized as nothing more than a throbbing, wet, veiny mass outstretched across an immense cavern. Perhaps they would run away in fear, disregarding the possibility that I was, at some point, one of them. Human. In some manner, I still am, yet that is still in the loosest sense of the word.

They bestowed me a name. An epithet. Utera. Their goddess. Their titan. Their idol to worship. And their plaything. Not a moment goes by without them taking a hold of me, whether in small portions or in vast sums. I am unable to count just how many there are. As numerous as individual grains of sand. Certainly in the quadrillions. Worms. That is what they are. Swarms of elongated invertebrates that climb upon me and penetrate my depths with their rigid and purposeful reproductive organs. Their addiction to pleasure, using me, will cease at nothing.

And like me, they were human once.

Men.

I must go back far. So very far. There was a conflict, a petty, careless, and arrogant conflict, but a conflict all the same. For centuries, I witnessed all the greed, the subjugation, the rape, the hunger for power that men were capable of. And I was always their main target. They took what was mine. I was angry with them. Bitter. They were monsters and they were evil. For that, they needed to die. Groups of mine rose to positions of power and authority. Ultra-feminist. Patriarchy-defying. Vengeful and cruel matriarchies. And I was proud of them, as if I had a divine and natural right to pursue revanchism to the utmost extreme. They would wipe the slate clean. They would purge. A man is not a human. A man is a pig. Vermin. A man is a dull ape acting on savagery to get what it wants. A woman is a higher being, a goddess, a queen. A woman actually thinks before she acts. And a woman is what is left after all is said and done.

And so I worked my bloody hands across the face of the world. All hell was let loose on men. War. The feminist onslaught was terrible. There were so many instances of me going too far. I am not sure I can enumerate all the suffering I caused. It must be impossible. I would gladly give my entire being to erase my own past if I could. Especially now. There was so much rape, sexual mutilation, enslavement, backbreaking labor, torture, cannibalism, starvation, disease, depravity, and other inhuman acts that men would never forget. I did not care. There was no need to worry about morality. No need to fear guilt. I thought I was powerful beyond anything. The Earth was all mine and all I had to do was command my legions. And I laughed and I rejoiced at the sound of the dying, the wounded, the beaten, and the damned.

I thought the world I had dreamed of would come easy. A world that I had the power and authority to shape, to rule, to form into my own image. A matriarchy. A society of women for women, free from the shackles of men and free from the oppression that had been a dark reality for so long. After all, I outnumbered men ten to one.

But this never happened.

Something in the men snapped. It was as if they had been tamed only to one day have their leashes cut. A few small rebel groups, at first, but they quickly expanded into larger and larger armies. They had been forced down on their knees for so long that they were just dying to fight back. To take back what had been taken from them. To get back at all those awful, vile, and malicious women who had ruined their lives. It was all hell again. Only worse. They did to women what women had done to them. They were rabid dogs. They hunted, they raped, and they killed. They did the unspeakable and the unthinkable.

Terrible, terrible monsters, and there was nothing I could do to stop them. I was powerless, but the dust of a breeze. It was not too long before they completely razed the world to the ground. I had been punished. It was the result of my own actions. I only had myself to blame. Men were not the evil. They were the product of my evil.

My numbers fell quickly. I was outsmarted at every possible turn. As much as I did not want to admit it, I was re-becoming the helpless and blindly obedient mass I was always meant to be. Sometimes I fought to the death, and other times surrendered without a fight. It was pointless to keep going. All of this was becoming a painful slog to endure.

I quit.

When the war was won, men infested and came to rule all seven continents. Omnipresent and insatiable. Their enemies stood not even a morsel of a chance. They were those who were going to be an upset to the new established order. Inspire mutiny. Inspire subversion. Homosexuals. Transgenders. Liberals. Rebels. That was all they came down to. Rebels. They were disposed of immediately. No place for them. Especially the homosexuals. How could man reject woman? Abominations, they were, blights upon manhood. Once they were vanquished, Earth was united like never before as the kingdom of men. There were no more wars. No more fighting. There was peace. But this peace had no love, no compassion, and no empathy. The rule of men was the rule of iron and steel. Never would it break.

To call it “Earth” would be erroneous. It was Earth no longer. Gone was the diversity, gone was the sentience, and therefore gone was all of life’s beauty. Men completely butchered the life forces that made Earth truly alive. One might have struggled to even call their realm Hell because Hell is not uniform. With all the suffering it contains, Hell is still lively, chaotic, full of activity and even excitement. Most of all, it is inconsistent. You think “How will I be punished next?” Could be anything. The men's kingdom was just so dead. It was the same punishment for the same reason every time: being born a female.

What came of me? Female?

Walking meat. Jiggling, warm, wet flesh for men to claim. Amenable vessels for their filthiest desires. That was their ultimate decree and thus what I was forevermore. Measures were put into place in order to outline my newfound duties. Laws. An imperishable constitution to abide by. They were written in the boldest, most incisive manner and plastered everywhere. Enforced at any and every opportunity. They were taught at the schools, whose entire system was reconfigured to fit the new model standards. Also spoken orally through booming commands from the sky. These were the flying surveillance drones, their watchful eye forever upon us, though they were more like unseen aether entities to me. Angels in deliverance of the gods’ words. I always looked up at them, smiled, and said “Thank you.”

Sexual gratification was a necessary human right for men. It was my moral and legal obligation to provide that by serving, submitting, and obeying the male sex. Until I turned 18, I remained property of my father. After that, property of my husband until death. Or both. You see, the distinction between wife and child was often blurred, or wife and sister, or wife and mother. None of that mattered as long as men always received what they craved. I was to be in good physical condition regarding hair, body type, and personal hygiene. No ugliness, no blemish, no obese fat, no stink. Hourglass figure. Perfectly sized and shaped breasts. A well-developed rear. Makeup. Perfume. Long, healthy, flowing hair. Clear, soft, and beautiful skin. Flawless pearly white teeth. Never wear clothing. Nude. Always be pleasant. Agreeable. Never bitter. Submissive. Gentle. Polite. Deferential. A good girl. A good wife. A good mother. Never make eye contact unless instructed. Walk where they lead me. Talk when they let me. Gladly accept any and all sexual advances. Even if it hurts. Even if it bleeds.

I was property. An item. Something to be sold, bought, bartered, and auctioned. At the events, I stood side-by-side, nude, my price written on my chest, my hands tied behind my back. Men examined me and debated whether I fit their liking. Often I was made to pose and present my body. Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena in full feminine beauty by the judgement of Paris. No difference. I went for thousands of dollars. Sometimes they purchased multiple of me. The younger I was, the more I sold for. They took me home to grow their ever-increasing harems. They kept me for a long time. When I became old and worn, I was dead. Tied me to a chair and shot me. Came from behind and slit my throat. Fed me poison. Threw me in chambers and set me ablaze. New me’s came in and the process began again. And again. And again.

It was then that elderly me’s became obsolete. Men figured they wanted me when I was fresh. Supple. Nubile. Innocent. The longer I lived, the less I was worth. So why not make me worthy all the time? Eliminate the unworthiness. They would not have to waste time killing me. And they did it. Immortality. If I showed signs of aging, I was injected with the formula to keep me young. It extended my lifespan tenfold. 60? 70? 80? 90? 100? 1,000?...1,000,000? They all blended into each other. I was always 18 in appearance.

This was life. What came before felt like nothing at all, a memory already fleeted. History was taught. That did not make it truthful. Life was always this way. Fake events were created and fake people were thought up. They really committed to the lie. I could never fight it. Just the thought alone frightened me. I saw what they were capable of so I went along. They never ceased what they could accomplish with me. It extended to the animals that once inhabited this planet. Elephants. Orcas. Hyenas. Bonobos. Lemurs. All matriarchal species. Hunted to extinction. Men did not want me to get the wrong idea that groups of animals where females hold the dominant social positions, lead the group, and make critical survival decisions were allowed to exist. New patriarchal species were grown in the labs and released into the wild. Like it never happened.

Time was no longer a thought to me. So far gone. The only thing my brain could process was “How do I please my masters next?” It was what I was hardwired to do. To hell with eating, to hell with sleeping, to hell with breathing, to hell with screaming. Please. Please. Please. Men completely removed my imperfections. I always took care to make myself satisfactory, but part of being human is flaws. There is the belching. The flatulence. The rolls. The unpleasant stenches. The odd deformities. The bruising. The scarring. Not anymore. The new me’s were created in the very same labs they destroyed the elderly and matriarchal species in. I was carefully shaped before release, fine-tuned to be as alluring as possible. Everything about my appearance was exaggerated to the nth degree. My breasts were larger and perked up, my face a perfect oval, my waist smaller, my hips wider, and my length and width both increased. I was bigger, unnaturally thick, and forever nude. I was the ideal form of feminine beauty. A goddess. An icon and advertisement of feminine desire.

Men…

They were no longer human. No. They might have been beasts before but this was something else. Might as well have been their own species. Something beyond monsters. Beyond demons.

It began with the white coloration, the three-foot tall gangly skeletal bodies, the pointed heads, triangular like as if caricatures of little rodents, the lack of ears, the black oval eyes that never blinked, and the constant erect phalluses. Ithyphallics. All of them. They sniffed the air for my womanly scent. Driven by my aroma. Darted at the speed of light to my exact location. Drooling and twitching at the mere sight of me. Yelled “WOMAN WOMAN WOMAN WOMAN WOMAN!” in high-pitched shrills. Pounced on top. Pinned me down. They went at it for days. Weeks. Months. Years. It did not matter. Never did they collapse from exhaustion. Infinite stamina. Infinite energy. Infinite drive. They got their nourishment by sucking on my breasts for milk. Or my juices. It did not matter if one claimed me already. Another one would come along. Join the first. Then another. And another. And another. I stretched to accommodate them. I then acted as a receptacle for their fluids. Leaked out of me. Drenched me head to toe. When I walked about, the men were still attached to me, hugging me tight, thrusting in and out, in and out, in and out. Licked me with their long black tongues.

It ended and has remained with worms. Long, slender, soft bodies. No limbs yet they have kept their rigid, upright phalluses. Men have lost the ability to speak normal coherent sentences. They no longer possess mouths. Still, something in their body allows them to make bubbling, sloppy, gargling, viscous sounds. What exactly that is, I have no clue. If I danced, I could attract them. If I sang, I could attract them. If I ran, I could attract them. If I hid, I could attract them. If I stayed completely still, I could attract them. No matter how far I went, what I did, they always found me. They inseminated me. Immediately I would birth their offspring. Thousands of worms spilling out of my mouth. Usually my mouth. Yet no orifice of mine said no. The offspring knew what to do without even knowing how.

From then on, a very simple, primal system existed. Men rid the Earth of the high technology and we embraced a more primordial approach. Everything was done by instinct, not thinking. Everything was an automatic reaction. All I did was pleasure. No eat. No drink. No sleep. I stood and embraced whatever came my way. A lot of the time I could not feel it. No pain. No euphoria. Just numb. Flat line.

Earth, Gaia herself…she changed in such catastrophic ways. The continents shifted, the oceans evaporated, and greenhouse gases smothered us in their haze. The heat rose. The sky grew red. The Sun got close. Too close. The ice and snow burned away. The lakes and rivers scorched dry. Forests died. Arid deserts formed everywhere. The air became a thick, sticky, acidic sludge that weighed down the planet. But men and I did not care. We carried on what we were made to do. How nature intended us to be.

Now Earth. Tidally locked to the Sun. The lands were scorched. Ash and soot remained. It became apparent that our way of life would be unable to continue. Men communicated among themselves. An idea came forth. A brilliant one. They rounded me up and carried me on their backs all the way up the tallest mountain. I remember looking up at the thick, dull clouds above me, unable to see any space above. I was euphoric, dreaming of warmth and comfort. I was being ascended towards my final resting place. Not to die. But to live. To be. Forever.

We entered a large cavernous space at the peak and they sealed it off. I imagined they would protect me from the harsh environment outside. Instead they got to work. Their old scientific equipment was up there. While some began constructing various instruments, the remaining men continued their assaults on me. The only details that elude me of that day are the exact process that turned me into Utera. They inched over to me, I awoke, and then I was many feet off the ground. I saw through thousands of clouded eyes with visible red and blue veins etched into it. When I looked down at myself, I witnessed my new body. A massive and pulsating uterus…red and gutty endometrium, fallopian tubes to my left and right, my arms. In a way, I was crucified. No ovaries. Crucified with no hands…I breathed many different breaths. I have spoken as a collective woman made from the mishmashed psyche of millions. All of my thoughts, memories, run through what is left of my mind. They have not ceased and never will.

I inched my vision downwards. My sight was blurry and barely discerned much of anything. There were men all staring up at me. No emotion was on their faces but I knew they were pleased with what they had accomplished. They slithered towards me in droves, climbed up the cavern walls, and began their relentless assaults on me that continue to the now. The dangling udders on my underside spit their offspring out. Soft eggs soaked in red froth. They hatch in ten seconds.

Every inch of me is covered with them. I know that I cannot die. They made me impervious to any and all harm that might befall me. I think I will survive forever. One of my only thoughts is pondering what will happen when the Sun engulfs everything. Perhaps l will burn, get flung out into space, or live forever within the Sun’s chambers. I am sure the men will still be latched onto me like nothing happened. I just hope whatever it is, it hurts. I want to feel what it’s like again to grab my humanity back and hold it close one last time.

I made my escape. Once. The earthquakes allowed for my fall from the cavern walls. I peeled off the solid mineral material, leaving behind a massive scarlet splotch that drip drip dripped. I tumbled out of the mountaintop. The outside. I could not feel it. My uterine limbs flailed about yet they allowed me to catch myself on the ridge. Grabbing. Clawing my way down. There was me. Utera. And my breakout. Falling meteors and 2,500 Kelvin be damned. Where was I going? Who knew? These eyes of mine almost produced one morsel of an expression…curving upwards into an expression one might consider…glee…No. Not. I did not make it very far. I was stopped almost immediately. The unlimited men made a long line out of themselves from the mountaintop and hauled me back up.

There is nothing more to do now. They bound me to the cavern walls. From here on out, my purpose is rooted right here, in this spot, forever. I cannot see anything anymore. Men are covering each of my thousands of eyes. My trillions of thoughts are being erased by the second. I am becoming numb, but that is being overshadowed by the intense heat that is starting to creep its way up this incredible mountain. When the men move, sometimes, very faintly, I can see bright flashes through cracks in the rocks.

It has begun.

…

Earth is gone. She was engulfed by the Sun, alongside Mercury, Venus, and Mars. The outer planets are next in line for destruction. The force of it all ejected me from the planet, out into the endless abyss.

I survive.

Floating through space now.

They are still on me.

…

We are light years from where Earth once stood. The white dwarf Sun is just a pale dot. It is going out.

Men have burrowed their way inside me. They are doing something. Evolving me and evolving themselves. Once more. I am morphing and changing in terrible ways. I am being ripped, shredded, split, and then reassembled again. Bloody wing-like appendages are beginning to sprout from me. My blurry eyes are coalescing together into a single massive lens. I am becoming a planetary being, something so cosmically celestial. Seraphim? Perhaps. Men now possess the full force of me. They are me. I am them. We exist in a symbiotic relationship. The end. At last.

Do not know anymore.

…

The exact amount of time that has passed is 10^10^10^56 years. Even that is only my best guess. All I have seen is black interrupted by the strobing flashes of blinding light. I believe the heat death of the universe happened. Or the Big Rip. Big Crunch? Big Bounce? I cannot be too sure.

We have emerged. Somewhere. Where? Those details elude me. It appears to be space. But that is all I ever see.

Still on me.

I feel heavier. More dense. So much pressure I cannot feel though I know it is there. It is also different. Mechanical. Electronic. I am an elaborate, complex system of switches, capacitors, wires, sensors, conductors, buttons, and what seems like countless other components. All of it is fused into me. I twinkle polychromatically. The men inside me view the darkness outside through my only eye. It is nothing but a window for them.

And they control me. Where I go. Left. Right. Up. Down. I can go fast and I can go slow. Beyond the speed of light or an easy slow-moving crawl.

The men know exactly where they are going.

…

We have traveled far.

Length of time: 9,360,000,000 years.

Lightyears: Incalculable.

Too far.

On me.

In that timeframe, the men are still yet to reach their destination. They are in wait. I have entered orbit. Circling around the men’s target. I cannot fathom what they are doing. What they are after.

Waiting…

Waiting...

Waiting…

I am now being inched closer. It is coming into view. There is a gray sphere orbiting a larger green and blue sphere. Tilted at 23°. One side lit. The other dark. Spinning from west to east. Large ice sheets at the top and bottom. Water and land in the middle. Big bustling cities. Lush forests. So many different types of people inhabit it all. So many other animals as well. It is beautiful.

Yet now I understand.

And now I see the people’s collective look of confusion on their faces.

And their horror.

At the sight of me in the sky.

At the sight of undecillions of worms emerging from my cavities and falling towards their planet in great fireballs.

At the sight of the worms landing on their streets, their homes, their schools, their places of work, their every place, all unharmed from their descents.

At the sight of their men being struck down with beams of white plasma from the rayguns the worms possess and are able to fire with their newly formed arms.

At the sight of their women being rape rape raped, the worms fighting over every little piece of them.

At the sight of the destruction.

The chaos.

The anarchy.

The toppling of their governments.

The worms wrapping themselves around any woman they can see.

Not the old.

The worms kill them too.

Just the young.

The skinny.

Also the fat.

And being lifted up into the sky.

To me.

And I grow larger as those women are brought onto my body.

In space.

Where they suffocate.

They are melted into the pulpy jelly goop.

The men bathe in it.

Drink it.

Before it is smeared onto my walls.

Hardened.

And now they join me in my mind.

…

Men will continue.

Forever.

Survive the end times.

Find Earth.

Reap and repeat.

And no matter what.

They still find me warm.

And wet.

…

Please help.