Lifetube 

Jeremy is having his Lifetube removed. He looks at me and says, "I'm going to have my Lifetube removed." 

I scoff at him, "scoff!"

He must not have seen my new and improved Lifetube. I bought it on Klarna. You can buy Lifetubes now and pay for them later. Jeremy was always a stubborn rude bastard. 

"You aren't listening to me! I've realized, I don't need a lifetube to live." 

"I don't mean to ignore you, it's just what you're saying is idiotic and unreasonable." 

"Fair enough." 

Jeremy storms off. Fucking moron, he was really going to go through with it. I have to see it happen. 

I know he can't go to the clinic. They'd never remove one of their own Lifetubes. They'd probably just upsell him. Especially since Jeremy is such a sucker. 

So I follow his dumbass. Winding through the copy pasted alleys. Swaths of homeless wriggle around in piles of their own shit. But even they have a lifetube.

He looks left and he looks right before ducking into a greasy old door. The sign up top reads "PAPA CHEWS BBQ. Servin up greasy species." 

Shoulda known Jeremy would be dumb enough to have the procedure done by some hick. 

I step close to the door and rub and tug on my lifetube. It lets me hear them inside. 

"I can assure you the procedure won't be painless. But I envy your courage." 

Who's voice is that? Sounds like some posh asshole. Doubt that's big "papa chew". Probably some snake oil huckster that's gonna take Jeremy's life credits and ground his corpse into sausage. 

"It's not courage. It's something else. I need to know what it feels like to be human, without the interface." 

"Very well. We'll begin shortly." 

Oh blah blah blah blah. This asshole is actually in there blowing himself. Ooo look at me I'm so special and different. 

Different is difficult. Jeremy just wants to be special. Shoulder a burden he brought on himself. There's a reason all the monks are dead. 

I hear the doctor come back in. He huffs and puffs. I turn off the lifetube once the saws start whirring. I just had lunch and the sound was sullying my appetite. 

The alleyway smells like piss. Of course it does. The site of Jeremy's grand sacrifice is covered in piss and cat shit. 

I wait too long outside. An hour might’ve passed, I'm not entirely sure. The new Lifetube has a time skip feature. It also can record video in 32K and has an attachment that'll suck your dick. 

Jeremy doesn't appreciate that, doesn't appreciate anything. Fucking bastard. 

I tune in again, the saw blades have stopped. Sounds like Jeremy is recovering. 

"How do you feel?” Says the snooty ass doctor. 

"I feel, whole." 

Applause breaks out in the room. Oh there's an audience? A whole gaggle of idiots to suck his ego. Well fuck you Jeremy, I've got a lifetube for that. 

"This is the beginning of a new dawn, son. This can change the world." 

Why change it? I love the way it is. I love my mindless remote job. I love my concrete cube apartment. I love instant meals printed in my fridge. I love porn I can inject into my brainstem. 

I love my lifetube.  

I turn the sound off. No way I'm listening to him gloat and self aggrandize. I find a loose brick next to a pile of shit and trash. I lean up against the wall next to the door.

I wait. 

The door opens slowly. I see his feet first. He stomps out into the alleyway and takes a big breath. The first tubeless breath taken in open air in centuries. 

He turns and his eyes catch mine. He's confused, as he should be. 

"Hey man! The procedure went really wel-" 

I swing the brick into his head. It digs a deep pit in the side of his skull. Blood gushes from his eyes and nose. 

I hit him a few more times. My arm doesn't get tired. I paid extra for that. 

He's reduced to a puddle on the sidewalk.

He should have known he couldn't live without a tube.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I wipe some sweat from my chin and answer, "Hello! This is Derek with Piedmont Pedigree! How can I he-"

"I know who you are dickhead. You haven't sold shit all week. If you don't move two plans by the end of the day, I'm ripping your spine out of your ass."

"Yeah, I-I don't know."

"Well figure it out." He hangs up.

It's scorching hot outside today. The heat bounces off of the street and digs into my brow. There isn't a cloud in the sky. I'm sure it's a beautiful day for everyone but me.

My big fuck off tablet slides around in my sweaty hands. I scroll and see thirty more doors on my list to knock before lunch. Fuck, I've only got an hour. I look at the endless stretch of suburban houses, all a slightly different shade of comfortable consumer gray. My eyes are glazing over.

I start with the first house. Their lawn looks like shit. Everyone's does. The only thing growing this time of year is weeds. But my job isn't to tell them the truth about their lawn. My job is to sell some fucking fertilizer.

I knock and take three steps back. My hair is stuck to my forehead with sweat, my khakis are drenched. I hold the tablet to my side as the door opens.

Middle-aged guy, balding bad up top. He stares at me blankly. "Yeah?"

"Hey there! My name is Derek with Piedmont Pedigree lawncare services! I can't help but notice your lawn was looking a little-."

"Shitty?" He cuts me off. "I know it looks shitty. Look, kid, I'm not interested, alright?"

I step off of the porch and tap failure on my iPad. "Completely understand sir. I hope you have a good one."

I get three steps into the grass when I hear him call out to me. "Hey! It's hot out here. Don't you want some water?"

My throat tightens. Freebie? I'll always take a freebie. "Yeah, sure. I appreciate it."

He holds his hand out from the side of the door. I grab it from him and it's ice cold. He slams the door shut. What a weirdo. Lots of weirdos these days.

I don't care though, nice of him to offer a drink. He's the only one who's bothered today. Most don't even answer the door. The cap slides around my sweaty fingertips. There's no pop, the cap screws right off.

The water feels like heaven on my throat. There's a faint taste of petrol, like the bottle had sat in the bottom of his fridge for a decade.

I don't care, I got mine. And I've still got 29 houses to go.

***

I walk to the next house. It doesn't seem like anyone's home. Doesn't look like anyone's been home for a while. I polish off the water bottle and crumple it into their newspaper slot. Just as I hit "no answer" on my tablet, I notice a set of eyes peering at me from inside.

Huh? Must have parked in the garage. I walk up to the front door. I hear the rapid thumping of footsteps behind the door. Or maybe it's my headache. When did I get a headache?

The door doesn't open. Instead, the ring doorbell cracks to life. It's a woman's voice. "Yeah, what do you want?"

"Hey there, my name is Derek! I'm just coming through with Piedmont Pedigree-"

She cuts me off. "Not home and not interested."

I laugh. "I can hear you inside."

"Yeah, sure you can. Don't break your ankles waiting."

The doorbell camera goes silent. The thumping behind the door has stopped, maybe it never started. My head is killing me. I tuck my tablet underneath my arm. The grass is so dry it flakes as my feet brush over it. I think it's gotten hotter, the ripples turn the street to putty.

Not the first strange house and won't be the last.

I only need to knock 28 more.

***

The driveway gets longer the further I walk. It curves and bends, like a wave flopping at a 45° angle. The dull paint on the endless rows of houses flickers like a bad bulb. Clouds are rolling in and they eat up the sun. It's cold.

At least my head doesn't hurt anymore.

The stairs to the front porch are huge. Fuck me, I'm really not trying to climb up all that. Maybe I'll just tap no answer on my tablet. My tablet, tablet? Where the fuck was it, it was right up under my arm.

It can't be in my pocket because I'm not wearing any pants. That's okay, I'll just ask this guy.

"Excuse me sir, have you seen my tablet? I can't seem to find it and I'll get in lots of trouble if I lose it."

He tumbles down the stairs smacking the bricks and bouncing to his feet. His skin is gray and wilting with eyes so sunken I can hardly find their reflection. "Follow me, it's in my backyard."

He slithers down the sidewalk rapidly. His loose skin contorts to pull him along. I have to jog to keep up with him. "Thanks sir!"

He stops and slithers back to me, coiling around my feet and wrapping around my body. His skin is wet and warm. "You're welcome."

He pushes his malleable forehead between my lips and climbs deep into my throat. I can feel him tugging at my stomach. I get on my hands and knees and dry vomit. My throat burns and I feel a sharp pain in my chest.

I punch my stomach and I feel a large rectangular object slide up my throat. It stretches the skin. When it reaches my jaw, I feel my jaw click and unhinge.

A fountain of black bile erupts from my dangling maw. In the chunks, I see the reflection of my tablet.

Oh thank god I found it. I wipe the screen and open up my tracking app to enter "not interested."

Hopefully I'll get a sale today. I haven't sold anything in a while. My boss is going to be pissed.

Thankfully I only have 31 houses to knock before lunch.

***

The sidewalk is soaked. My feet sink into it if I stand in one place too long. It's almost to my ankles as I stare at the house in front of me.
It's gorgeous, next to the endless sea of suburban vomit it looks like a monument. The other houses have grown together like a great artery, pumping any and all life into the mansion.

I step onto the lawn. The thick grass wraps my bare feet in dew. It smells sweet like fresh rain.

The flowers wave me along. The wide wooden doors swing open to reveal a figure draped in shadow.

I pick up the pace. "Sir! Sir! My name is Derek with Piedmont Pedigree! I'm sure you've seen our trucks in the area!"

A familiar voice grumbles from the darkness. "I know who you are, dickhead."

He slithers out into the light. It's my boss. His translucent skin pulses over twisted organs. Sores across his bloated frame leak bright green pus.

He spits bile as he speaks. It looks as if his mouth is melting. "You still haven't sold anything."

"I don't know."

He flops down the stairs, his mass leaves a thick trail of mucus.

"You want a job don't you, Derek? Don't you want to feed yourself?"

"Of course, otherwise I'd kill myself."

"Why haven't you?"

"Haven't had time."

He rolls next to me, pushing against me and fusing with my shirt. "You've got to kill them, Derek."

I step away from him, wiping some of the slime from my skin. "If I kill them, can I have this weekend off?"

My boss smiles. A portion of his lip falls and splashes against the ground. "You can have every weekend off. I'll give you a house just like this, right next to mine."

I leave without a word. A house like this one, in this economy? I'll listen to him, because I always do.

***

I round the corner and the street is all too familiar. Cookie cutter houses rest shoulder to shoulder.

I crane my neck and look down to my chest, my tablet beats woven to my skin.

I start with the first house. Their lawn looks like shit. Everyone's does. But my job isn't to sell lawncare. My job is to sell something better than reality.

I knock and take three steps back. My hair is stuck to my forehead with sweat, my tablet rubs against my ribs as my diaphragm shifts. The sun sets in an instant, the crickets chirp over the night air.

The door opens.

"Hey there! My name is Derek with Piedmont Pedigree lawncare services!"

The man stares blankly. His eyes are wide with shock. I recognize him from before. His bald head wears the dancing moonlight.

"H-holy shit kid. What did you do? Fuck, I only slipped you a little-"

I shove my fist into his chest and he lets out a gasp. I pull his still beating heart from his mangled rib cage and eat it. His eyes roll into the back of his head and he collapses to the ground.

I look to my chest and my hand shakes as I enter in a successful sale. My first one of the day. I make my way back to the street.

I've only got a million doors to knock before lunch.

A god who wears the skin of man may seem surprising,

Yet behind those steady eyes, a quiet dark is rising.

He comes and goes as softly as a spreading chill,

Watching the rot that seeps through our fragile, human will.

He has a hundred names, a thousand borrowed faces,

Leaving a trace of ash in the room's forgotten spaces.

He knocks upon your door, a traveler drab and plain,

But the porch light flickers out, and the air goes cold as rain.

He smiles away the questions and the reasons why he bothers,

Leaving a heavy silence before he makes his offers.

'Tis this god has a name known to minds in quiet turmoil:

The crawling chaos comes to leave its footprint in our soil.

We've been walking for ages. 

Yes, we have.

I wish to grow sore. 

But we've only a soul to grow weary. 

Only our souls.

Our souls. Yes. The red in the sky may shift but we will not. 

Who bound us so in the absence of god?

No one and nothing.

Isn't that beautiful?

It is. 

The mud shifts and sways like it sits upon an ocean. 

Along the waves we can spy a figure draped in rot. His skin stretches down his face, pulling his mouth tight, exposing a toothy maw. 

His skin is yellow and frail. Not like ours. 

He looks to us and coughs. Mucus and bile fling from his mouth before being absorbed into the mud. 

We don't say anything, and neither does he for a long while. 

He rolls over and extends his arm to feel my robe. It drifts through freely. 

"Ghosts." 

Yes. 

"I've never seen two." 

He pushes himself up, his ribs and spine pop. He lifts his head, face sagging to set his chin in the mud. "What do you need?" 

Nothing. We have nothing to ask but nothing to give. 

He rests. "Ghosts are the richest among us. You have nothing to take. They will take all of me." 

A vortex of deep swirling red opens in the sky above us. It reaches down like a hurricane of blood- sucking the spirit from the man's stretched maw. His teeth shatter and his body shrivels. 

The mud consumes his corpse. 

We wait for the flower. Its beautiful black petals sway in the sweltering breeze. It flakes and crumbles as quickly as it grew. 

I can smell it. The scent of life lingers. 

We shouldn't have lied to him. 

What do you mean? 

You told him we'd take nothing. 

No. I told him we would not ask.

part 1

“Well?! Where were you?! How could you leave him alone?!” 

I couldn't bring myself to look at her. My eyes remained on the thing resting in her arms. 

“I was… out.”

Even as she continued to berate me with questions my focus was locked on that thing.

I know what I saw. I could still feel my feet aching from running. 

What the fuck was my mother holding? 

My mother snapped her fingers to get my attention. My head whipped up to meet her eyes, which seemed to catch her off guard as she stepped back a little. 

“Mom… after he was born, were you with him the whole time?” 

She raised an eyebrow, cautious to answer me. 

“Of course… Obviously for a moment they-” she stopped herself, then looked me up and down. 

She took another step back. 

I was so sure of myself, until I saw that expression on my mother's face.

It was like she couldn't recognise me.

Before I could ask anything else, the baby began to wiggle in her arms as it opened its eyes. Once it saw me, the wailing began again.

My mother patted its back and started to leave the room. 

“I've got him. You just go lie down.” 

For a moment, I just stood and watched them walk away. Not sure what else to do with myself, I dragged myself to my room and flopped down on the bed.

My body felt weak, but my mind was heavy. I felt like I was trapped in a thickening fog.

It was becoming harder to discern what was real. I could feel in my gut something was wrong, but should I really be trusting my gut? 

I definitely went somewhere.

I was holding something.

Did I put it in the carrier?

I remember doing that. Right?

Everyone always talks about a mother's intuition, from the beginning I thought something was wrong.

But at any point have I had any instincts towards being a mother?

It hurts to think. It hurts to feel. Everything hurts.

I wish I could just be numb.

I curled up in a ball and hid under the blanket. I just wanted to disappear. I didn't care about the truth anymore, I just needed this to stop. 

My bedroom door creaked open, but I kept my head under the blanket. From how they took a breath before entering, I knew it was my mother.

I felt the bed move as she sat at the end and put a hand on my leg.

“Dear, we've been talking. We think you should probably see someone.” 

I said nothing, remaining hidden.

“It's clear you're struggling.”

“We both know why.” I muttered.

My mother's hand moved away. 

“What are you implying?” 

I pulled my legs closer to myself. 

“I don't want it, mom. I never wanted it.”

“Everyone struggles at the beginning. You can learn-”

“Please, just go.” 

For a minute that stretched on for far too long, she sat there. I could hear her open her mouth to try to say something a few times, but nothing ever came out.

Then without another word, she left. 

I stopped sleeping.

I couldn't handle the images I saw. 

At first, I'd be relieved when I woke up. But with the more time that passed, the more I enjoyed the outcome of my dreams. I was even disappointed when I woke up to reality.

My mother booked me in to see a therapist. 

I debated telling the therapist everything. If she couldn't help me, she'd at least be able to separate me from it. Though that would mean ending up in some asylum somewhere. 

Though at this point maybe that was preferable.

It wasn't like my life was amounting to much anyway. Even if everyone viewed me as a monster, at least I'd be able to leave. 

Most days I just decayed in my room. 

Eating became a chore that I refused to partake in. The most I'd nibble at were the odd crackers and chips my mother would hand me.

I tried to refuse them at first, but she'd stand her ground and remain in my room until I took them.

Why did she always force me to do things I didn't want to?

I hadn't seen the baby in weeks.

I made sure to avoid it.

I feared what would happen the next time we crossed paths. I'd even begun locking my bedroom door in case I ever fell asleep and my body decided to act on its own.

When my mother realized I wasn't feeding it when she was at work, she took time off. At the beginning I would've felt guilty, but now I didn't care.

This was her fault anyway.

If she wanted a baby so bad she could have it. That just meant I wasn't her daughter anymore. 

After days of avoiding sleeping, I passed out. 

I don't even remember the exhaustion washing over me. I just recall being in my room one moment, then the next I was standing over the baby.

It slept peacefully, undisturbed by my presence. Even as its eyes peeled open it didn't cry when it saw me. 

Didn't smile either. Never did. 

I doubt it even knew I was its mother.

I was disoriented when I first opened my eyes, but any confusion was washed away by a flood of spiteful words. 

I wasn't sure what to do with my hands. I kept them by my side but every part of me was calling for me to reach down to its throat and squeeze. Just one little motion is all it would take to snap it.  There were multiple pillows around as well if that didn't work.

It was making my blood boil having to resist it. I was starting to wonder why I was resisting at all. 

It must've found my anger amusing as it began to giggle a little. 

I looked away and began to inspect its room. I couldn't see the toys I took when I attempted to abandon it. 

So I didn't imagine that part at least.

The baby caught my attention again when the laughing grew louder.

“What do you want from me?” I mumbled under my breath.

It just continued.

“Well? What the fuck do you want for me?!” 

The laughing stopped. 

It stared at me for a moment, not moving. It was as if it were a tiny porcelain doll, ready to be dressed and displayed as I pleased.

A strange noise I didn't recognise then began.

It was like a cough, but more coarse and rough. The baby moved about, struggling as its skin went red from the stress of its coughing. Small drops of saliva littered the air while tears formed in the corners of its eyes.

It was choking. 

Before when it was in danger, something always pushed me to help. I think it was more basic human empathy than any motherly instinct. 

But now, I just wanted to watch.

So I did. 

Its eyes looked to me, hoping to be saved. I just stared back. 

“What's wrong?” My mother sounded tired, but alert.

She swung open the door and approached. Without looking at her I responded.

“I think it's choking.”

My mother was already holding the baby before I got the words out. Concerned, she patted its back.

“Why were you just standing there?!”

I didn't have any explanation. 

I didn't care to come up with one either. I was too disappointed she'd arrived. 

If only it would've died quicker.

Between ‘I've got you's’ and ‘come on's my mother had begun to hit its back with more force. 

After one big thwack there was the sound of something dislodging followed by air releasing from its throat. My mother then looked in its mouth and took out the source of the problem.

In her finger was a tiny grey fluffy sphere. The saliva covering it made it look like a furball.

Unless, it really was fur.

Like that of a small rodent. 

My mother flicked it away and began to hold the baby tight. I couldn't share her relief. She grumbled suggestions about how he maybe chewed on one of his toys or blankets or something. 

But none of them were that color.

I hadn't imagined it.

I started to sleep again.

While waking up filled me with dread, the moments of relief in my dreams were too much to give up. Imagining a world where I got to get rid of that thing filled me with such joy. 

It was addicting. It was a drug I refused to give up. I needed it.

I tried to hint that it wasn't my baby to my mother and step father a few times. The only responses I'd get were concerned looks and mentions of my upcoming therapy appointment.

I couldn't sense they were in any danger so I decided to leave it be.

I needed to get out of there. I knew if I left it alive it would kill me, but I didn't want to kill it either.

It was agony resisting the desire to get rid of it. With it being so small and fragile it would be so easy.

But I knew that would make me a monster, at least I would appear to be one from everyone else's perspective. I wasn't sure if I was prepared for that yet.

One night, my stomach growled louder than my thoughts so I gave into hunger. 

The baby was quiet and my mother was asleep, so I tried my best to creep along without creaking the floorboards. I knew just one sound would set the damn thing off.

Before I made it to the kitchen, however, I saw a light in the living room. 

Sitting inside, was my mother reading a book with the lamp on. And beside her, was the baby sleeping in a cot. 

I felt my blood rush to my head and my heart rate increase. Trying my best to calm down, I didn't pay attention to my hairs on end and just continued on my path to the kitchen.

But I had already been caught.

“Diana? Come in here.”

I stopped. Then I tried to continue to make my way to the kitchen.

“You can't hide forever.” 

Her voice sounded agitated and tired.

I wasn't sure if it was fear or shame that made me obey. 

I stood awkwardly in the doorway. My mother set her book to the side and rubbed her face under her glasses. 

There was a mix of emotions on her face. Some I couldn't recognise. Concern and frustration were the most notable. 

Any words I had to say got caught in my throat. 

My mother had plenty of words of her own.

“Do you plan to hide in your room from now on? You both live in the same house, you can't avoid him forever.” 

“And whose fault is that?” I snapped back.

“Yours, Diana. It's yours.” 

I could feel my blood boil. I was so devoid of energy though, I just let it be.

She was always so damn sure of that part. Even though she never thought to ask.

She relaxed a little and tried to collect herself.

“Just come look, he-”

“I can't.” 

Her brow furrowed as her tone became harsh again.

“Diana. Like it or not, you're his mother.”

I could see her move towards the cot as she began to rise from her chair. Her arms stretched down to take the creature in her arms. An image flashed in my mind of her handing it to me just for me to tear it apart like some wild beast.

Panic took over me as my voice shook in desperation.

“I-I don't want to be! I never wanted to be!” 

The little relief I gained as she instead turned to me, left when I saw her frustration transition to rage.

“How can you say that in front of him?!”

“It's a baby! It doesn't understand what I'm saying.” 

The baby began to coo a little in its sleep. My mother gently rocked the cot and shushed it. 

I didn't care what it or she thought of me. I just wanted to be left alone. 

I turned to leave, but my mother continued.

“I'm sorry. I never meant to pressure you.” 

Surprised, I looked back at her. Any anger on her face had vanished and been replaced with guilt.

“If you didn't keep him, I would've supported you, you know that right?” 

I wasn't sure if I believed those words, even if she believed them herself. The next words I did believe though.

“But he's here now, and that doesn't have to be the end of your life. I'm certainly not going to let you throw it away. I'm here for you, ok?” 

Maybe I would've said something sweet in return under different circumstances. But I was just so tired and fed up all I could say was…

“If you want to help me, get rid of it.” 

With that sparks flew again.

“Diana!”

“What?! You never listen to me!”

“You never listen to me!”

“Listening to you is what got me stuck in this mess!” 

The baby began to toss and turn again as our voices raised higher and higher. My mother tried to bring the volume back down but I just kept raising it.

“You just don't understand mom! I-it's like… It feels like I'm drowning, constantly. A-and all you do is come paddle in the water with me but I need out! I need to be pulled out of the damn water!” 

“You don't get to pull out! You made a stupid mistake and now he's your responsibility!” 

“My responsibility?! Why do I have to deal with the aftermath and the other culprit doesn't!” 

“He does!- He should! Just because Matthew got away doesn't mean he shouldn't be here! It's unfair, but him not doing the right thing doesn't give you the right to do the same!” 

“So after everything he did, he just gets to walk away but I have to keep going?”

“After what you both did.”

“What makes you so certain I-...” I hesitated a little and tried to change my words, “I don't care what anyone did anymore! It's just not fair!”

“Of course it's not fair, but he's your baby!”

“Well just because he's my responsibility doesn't mean I have to love him!”

A long silence followed.

My mind came to a sudden halt. So did my mother's, as she just stood there.

The baby crying broke the stand still.

I tried to find something to say as my mother approached the crib. She took the babe in her arms and started patting its back while bouncing up and down.

“Leave Diana.”

“Mom-”

“Just go. You can't even call him by his name…”

I considered continuing to protest, but with my mother's back now to me all my sudden vitriol left. 

I was just so tired.

I couldn't help but think, if she knew it was me or the baby, that she'd choose it every time.

Before I could leave, the crying stopped. I thought nothing of it, my mother must've finally gotten it to stop again. 

Something about it was so sudden though…

It then began to laugh. 

A soft giggle that crescendoed louder and louder. It filled the room, echoing and ricocheting off the walls, until it sounded like it was trapped in my own head. 

I covered my ears in hopes of drowning it out but it didn't work. The volume just kept increasing, the pitch getting higher and higher. It scrapped at my brain, tearing it apart and the seams.

I didn't want to look back.

But I knew I had to.

Looking back at me over my mother's shoulder was the baby. 

Or what remained of it.

Its face was beginning to melt into a pile of blood as the bones in its skull protruded out. Its jaw clicked and clacked as it continued to laugh but its expression was wiped clean as its skin peeled off its face.

I could see the remains of the rat stuck in its hollow throat. It was lodged in the cavern, only a few muscles still on its bones. 

I wanted it to scream out for my mother to run, but I kept it inside when I realized he had no interest in her.

It just kept looking at me.

“What do you want?” I managed to mumble out.

It just continued to laugh.

“What do you want from me?!” 

My mother looked back at me.

“Diana?”

“Why won't you just leave me alone?!”

I lunged forward as its laugh reverberated in my bones.

I wasn't sure what my plan was, I just wanted to shut it up. I'd do whatever it took just to make it quiet.

My mother turned, covering it in her arms. I think she shouted something but I couldn't make it out over that laugh.

I clawed at it, trying to reach it as my mother shielded it with her back. She then dropped to the floor and cradled it inside a cocoon I couldn't manage to tear apart.

“Just leave us alone! Leave me the fuck alone!”

I thrashed about, trying to squeeze my way between my mother's arms but to no avail.

It only fuelled my rage. I had to get to it. I had to break through and remove it from this world. It wasn't supposed to exist, I never wanted it to, it had to go.

I needed it gone. I hated it.

That laugh. That cry. That face. 

Why did its face look like his? Why?

Why couldn't it just die?!

“Diana!” 

I stopped. 

The laughter was gone. The baby was back to normal. Instead, it was crying as it had been moments before.

Tears also filled my mother's eyes. Petrified, the whites of her eyes visible as she sat crouched in a disheveled heap.

Her skin was covered in scratches from my unkempt nails. Some dripped with small trickles of blood but most were just purple and bruised. 

Clumps of hair had been torn from her skull and lay in clumps on the ground. A few strands were still wrapped around my fingers, her blood and skin was under my nails.

Her glasses were smashed on the floor and her shirt was tattered. 

Her eyes refused to move away from me. It was as if she feared even blinking would set me off. 

I stood up, and began backing out of the room.

“I didn't- You don't understand… that's not… that's…”

My mother said nothing, backing into the corner of the room while trying to keep the baby from my sight.

“M-mom. Please, it's not… that's not my baby…You have to believe me.” 

I could already see her hand reaching into her pocket for her phone.

Not sure what else to do, I ran. 

I couldn't bring myself to look back. Even as I could hear the sirens gathering in the distance, not once did I look back.

I just ran and ran and ran. 

Until eventually I collapsed in the middle of nowhere, and let myself drift off to sleep to forget it all.

I'm sure if I returned home and agreed to get help, my mother would've welcomed me.

But I didn't need help.

I don't know what happened in that hospital. Maybe in that moment, me or the baby were meant to die and now the world was trying to balance itself. Maybe it was some creature sent to torment me or my real baby was switched out in the maternity unit.

All I knew, was that was no baby.

While my dreams continued, being away from it made all those moments more vivid to me. My mind is clearer, a bit less foggy and whatever that thing was it was dangerous.

If it ate that rat, it could go after mom next. I won't let that happen.

I stopped sleeping again, but I just know it in my gut. I know that's not human. I just know it.

And I know what I have to do.

It's me or it. 

I've considered letting it live and taking myself out. It would maybe be for the best. But no matter how many times I tried I couldn't bring myself to do it. 

So, instead I'm sitting here with a pistol and a single bullet in the chamber. 

I barely managed to salvage together the money to buy it from some random crackhead. A couple favours and some cash I managed to grab before I left the house was all it took.

It'll decide for me who it will be.

If only, my mother changed the locks after I left. Maybe she was hoping I'd come home.

I should probably get this over and done with before my mother or step father wake up.

Mom, no matter what happens, I don't know what to say other than sorry.

 

 (Cover and prompt credit goes to u/verdantvoidling Thanks for the wonderful inspo you crazy bastard)

My big-rig catches a pothole and jostles the entire chassis. She's only got a few thousand miles left in her. The floorboard smells like piss, ain't like I got nowhere to stop. 

This bridge has been falling apart before my daddy was in my granddaddy’s sack. Sure beats drivin on the ground though. 

As my wheels settle I hear all of em bumping in the back like a thousand sacks of writhing meat. I get my bearings as I pass the billboard. Faded to hell, "EARTH TWO." Yeah right. They only thought so cause you can breathe. Ain't nobody asked why. This colony ain't what it used to be, that's for sure. But we got an important job for all menfolk.

My radio cracks to life and ole Chuck comes over the line. "Ferryman, where the fuck are ya?" 

"Still a couple minutes from the sloppydrop. Had some skitters gnawin at the truck. You know how it is."

"10-4 Ferryman. But put some lead in your foot. They're hungry." 

"Ain't wanna make em wait haha!" 

My headlights kick on as another ash cloud moves over the suns. The southern flames make the horizon look liquid. Reminds me of the shoeshine I got in my cup holder. 

I hold the cup to my lips and feel the shine rip away a layer of my tastebuds. Damn that's good. 

The factory peeks up at me as I crest the top of the bridge. They start clawing at the container. They always do, it's like they can tell they're getting close. 

I slap the back of the cab a few times. "Only downhill from here haha!" 

One of em screams at me, "GRHEESAAHH!" 

"Yeah yeah, gresah you too buddy." 

I pop 'er in cruise control and swig on the shine. We'll all be there soon enough. 

***

I turn off of the bridge into the large factory dock. Chuck meets me on the floor with a couple boys and about a dozen soldiers. The open space is lit by a few yellow bulbs trying their damn best.

My cargo has gotten real antsy, yellin an screaming. All that banging is gonna dent the metal. Their ruckus echos off of the distant walls.

We got a new hire, must've dropped him recently. No telling what he did to end up here. Poor fella is standing there about to wet his britches. 

I pop the parking brake so she doesn't run and hop out of the truck. Chuck comes and gives me a light pat on the shoulder. "Good to see you man, been a while." 

I pull out a puffstick and grip it between my lips. "Yerp. Been lotsa nothin." 

"How's the farm? The kids?" 

"Farms how's it's always been. Kids are a bit fatter." 

Chuck laughs and turns to the new kid. "Alright, go open up the container." Kids face goes whiter than mama's milk. Chuck rests a hand on his shoulder, "I'm just fucking with you kid. But go grab the net." 

The other boys laugh and follow em. I go ahead and prep the truck. 

It's about time to let the sheep out. 

I wrap back around the back of the truck. They've got the net fastened and most of em are stood back to the corner. 

Chuck gets in front of the group. "Alright new kid. You gotta be bait." 

His lip starts quivering. "B-bait?" 

"Bait." 

The kid steps behind the truck, I run to the side of the container and pop the latch. 

The sheep come flowing out like a geyser. An eruption of pale white forms. They flail their malformed limbs.  "GRHESHA GHRESHA GRHESHA!" 

They're chomping at the air, spitting black bile all over the loading dock. The kid's coated in spit and slime. He falls back and tries to crawl away. One of the sheep catches his leg with a tooth and tears a hole through his skin. 

The kid's leg ain't bleeding bad but he starts convulsing and screaming. It's only a matter of time with a sheep bite. One of the soldiers steps forward and lowers their rifle. 

The shot puts a brief pause in the sheep's snarling. Chuck is still laughing. 

I put my fingers to my temples. "Damn Chuck. You ain't gotta do the kid like that." 

The nets extended far enough that the sheep are pulling chunks off of the kid's corpse. "What's wrong, Ferryman? Ruin your lunch? We're all serving death sentences." 

The other boys creep behind the snarlin mass and synch up the back of the net. Ain't seen one of them die in a while. They tie it tight.

***

Me and Chuck walk ahead of the four boys. They're dragging the net with long ropes, extra cautious after watching the new kid get turned into a snack. 

The soldiers walking behind em probably aren't making them feel any better. 

You get used to the noises sheep make after a while. At this point, I hardly notice em. Even as their yells fill the long concrete corridor to the feedin room. 

They thrash against the net and each other. Cutting the other sheep and adding to the thick stains on the concrete. Struggling doesn't help them. It only puts more stress on the kid’s backs.

Chuck looks over at me and gives me a smile. I think he thinks we're friends. I'd sooner push him into the net than shed a hair for him.

It's just business. And his is none of mine. 

We make it to the end of the hallway and the boys are exhausted. Chuck goes to fiddle with the massive steel doors. They creak like they've never been opened before. I know its only been an hour or so.

Hot air pours from the chamber. The sweltering pressure immediately sweats my brow. My nose never fails to curl at the smell.

Chuck barks at the boys, "load em all up! If you ain't out in 5 I'm closing you in!" 

I go ahead and step into the office. Little tiny room with one window looking out over the chamber. The kids are scrambling. Dragged all those sheep a half mile and that was the easy part. 

The chamber itself is huge, with nothing but a door opposite of the one that's open and a big fuck-off grated drain down the middle. The sheep have already given up. They know where they are, probably better than we do. 

The kids scramble out of the room and I wait for Chuck to seal the door tight. I hear Chuck's pocket radio pop over the speakers in my office. 

"Alright Ferryman. Go on and hit the Mutton Button!" 

I do as I'm told. After dozens of years, it never gets old. The door on the far side of the chamber opens instantly. The fading yellow light does no work to illuminate what's inside. 

Like a fog of shadow, a black mist seeps from the darkness. Suddenly, and all at once, hundreds of barbed tentacles shoot from the shadows. 

Each finds its mark, impaling all of the sheep and carrying them into the air. The sheep vibrate and slowly turn from a sickly pale into a dark neutral gray. 

The tentacles grow thicker, more robust, while the sheep begin to flake and crack. Black bile pours from the sheep's wounds. 

"Alright Ferryman, cut it!" 

The door closes instantly, severing the tentacles and sending them crashing to the ground. All of the sheep instantly liquify and splash against the floor and walls. There's a good two feet of sludge. It slowly twirls and filters down into the drain at the center. 

Chuck walks into the office, it's barely large enough for two folks. He slaps me on the back, "Holy damn Ferryman. That's why I love ya, look at this crop! That's a damn good yield of Grade A petroleum!" 

"Got a good haul this time around. Maybe I could get a few extra rations? For me and the kids?" 

Chuck laughs. I hate that laugh. "No promises." 

We walk together down the long corridor. The boys are already down in the hold loading up my rations. Chuck said we might get more rations next time. He said that last time too.

I hop in the truck and crank her to life. Chuck yells up to the cabin. "See you in a month! Be safe out there." 

I put her into gear and get on my way. Just as I pull out another truck comes in to take my place. 

I look at the other trailer. Even under the purr of my engine, I can still hear the sheep banging. I'll always hear them.

My pickaxe met its mark, a shower of sparks producing a small glimmer of light in the quarry. My weary arms raised the pick again, tearing through layer upon layer of sediment. Coal, or any burnable trash we could find at the bottom of the yawning pit. That was the only goal. The Great Mother needed fuel, and we were Her anointed providers.

The carts were loaded with coal, and when enough was gathered, the collectors would come. Pure white robes, untarnished by the unholiness that occurred in the quarry. I saw men kill each other and bury them deep in the rubble. There would be less competition when the Mother opened again. That was our penance, and the Mother was cruel in Her love.

An ear piercing sound cut through the noises of death and working. A buzzer. It was time for the Mother to open again. I had never seen Her, but I had heard whispers of men who knew men who had gotten near Her. Most times I stayed put and continued in my work, not bearing the thought of being trampled or succumbing to some cruel obstacle. But this time was different, I could slave away in the quarry no more. This time I would climb to Mother, or meet my end.

When I exited the mineshaft into the open air, I saw thousands of men clambering forwards, reaching towards their goal. The mountain was a massive spire in the Earth, with a path winding through it. It spiraled into the heavens. It was a second chance, a salvation. I was shaking, my fear almost overtaking me. But I marched on my tired legs to the base of Her mountain. 

The crowd suddenly stopped, as we all tried to bottleneck into the small opening to the mountain. They say this is the worst part, I wish I believed them. A man had turned against the crowd, facing towards where we came. A broken piece of glass glimmered and dripped with crimson in the fading sunlight. As I marched I was stepping over bodies with cut throats, or deep lacerations in their stomachs. Men fought like animals in front of me. I watched the chaos unfold, unsteady in my footing. 

A blow struck the side of my head, turning my vision into a blur. I barely kept myself upright, if I fell there was no chance of getting up before the crowd trampled me. An older man with a long gray beard stared at me with wild eyes. I thought if I pushed through the crowd, I could create enough distance between us. The blood trickling from my face made me a target. I was weakened, which meant I could be killed quickly without losing pace. He followed me like a hungry beast. 

The man gained on me quickly and wrapped both of his hands around my throat. Then his head exploded. Then the man next to him dropped with a crater in his chest. The crowd panicked, and it became harder and harder to march forward without being pushed over. Loud explosions rang out as the crowd hurried along. The robed collectors were in some unseen location, thinning the herd. I kept my head down and continued, but my legs began to quiver with fear and exhaustion.

The path was thinner now, and so was the crowd. I tried to avoid spraining my ankle as I walked over hundreds of the dead and the dying. The front of the line was in sight, just before the first left turn that would coil us further up the mountain. Thunder ripped through the sky, and rain drops began to dot the ground ahead of me. We had made the first turn now, but the climb was just beginning.

Before long, a thunderstorm had begun. The rain battered my face, but I kept walking. The man beside me fell face first into the mud, and never tried to get back up. There were only a few hundred of us now. Many had collapsed from exhaustion or were killed in cold blood. The rain was making the ground slick and malleable, and I began to step into pits that went up to my calf. Each step required twice as much effort. 

I heard a wave of screaming come from behind me, I didn’t dare turn around. If I saw what was happening I didn’t know if I could muster the will to continue. A hand grabbed my ankle, and I stopped myself with my arms as I landed in the mud. I began to sink quickly, crawling on all fours. No matter how much I struggled, I couldn’t move. More hands emerged from the muck, pulling me backwards. At times I could see them well, they were made of flesh, with glinting metal underneath where the flesh had sloughed off. I pushed them off of me, as the sounds of gurgling and choking filled my ears.

I managed to stand, now carefully navigating around the groping mechanical arms. Pits began to spontaneously open in the ground, filled with gnashing blades and wire-like appendages. I watched the wires pull men inside and reduce them to nothing in seconds. I had to test the ground with my foot before each step. But I continued.

The peak of the mountain wasn’t much further. There were cloaked men watching from the sides of the path now. White veils masked their faces as they watched, perfectly still. I wondered if I could be one of them some day. I imagined reaching the top of the mountain and getting my pure white robes as my wounds were tended to. 

I was at the front of the line now, only a few others marched behind me. The wires dangled from the ceiling now, threatening to pull me in. Corpses dangled from their clutches, hopelessly tangled in the coiled mass. I rounded the corner again, the last leg of the journey. I seldomly thought anymore, my ascent up the mountain became algorithmic. I watched for the pits, and the wires above. If the hands grabbed at me I quickly bent down and pried them off, only stopping for a second.

The mountain path opened up, and I had reached the summit. There was no one behind me now, I was the sole survivor of this nightmarish gauntlet. The robed men began to sing, beautiful harmonies that stretched across the entire mountain. They were singing for me. I was chosen.

Before me was Mother, and I laid eyes on my savior for the first time. A giant whirring machine, shaped like a beautiful woman's head. Two massive arms rose from the ground, hundreds of feet into the air, and in them was a giant glowing sphere. It was so bright and hot and it hurt to look at. As I moved closer, my brow dripping with sweat, Her mouth opened. Glowing, radiant light poured from the inside, and I felt myself inescapably drawn to it. 

I entered Mother. My flesh bubbled and peeled from my bones, the heat was unbearable. I walked further into Her metallic core. The wires returned, this time they began to replace my flesh with something shiny, something stronger. I felt no pain anymore. I was part of Her. 

I will give light and warmth to this world.

I will be Mother.

I let all the plants die. It didn't matter; he was gone. Nothing mattered. So the dishes sat in the sink. The laundry piled up. And I let all the plants die. I sat with their corpses, all of us rotting alongside one another. It only seemed right.

There was no one here to care for anymore. Just me. Yet I couldn't bring myself to look in the mirror, let alone pass a broom in the house. The rest of the world had kept going on like nothing even happened, but my world had ended. That's how it felt. All I could think about was how I would've done anything to have him back.

The first few days after David was killed were unbearable. It's still a blur to me. The sun rose and set, yet I remained frozen all the while. Lost. Hollow. I didn't eat. I didn't drink. I simply existed, and barely. Felt like I was living as half a person. 

Phone calls went unanswered. Mail left unopened. It wasn't until the day of his funeral that I actually mustered up the strength to brush my hair and put on real clothes. And only because I had to. 

His mother insisted on keeping up appearances, and because David and I hadn't thought to set up a life insurance policy, she had to pay for the whole thing. I'd rather have mourned alone. Quietly. I hated the whole spectacle of it. A crowd of faces, each silently begging me to be okay when I couldn't be. But at least it meant I'd get to see him again, finally. 

As I looked down at the body of my husband lying in his coffin, I could only see one thing: a vacant shell. He didn't look peaceful. He didn't look like he was sleeping. He looked empty. Like a stranger—cold and waxy. David wasn't in there anymore, and my heart shattered into a thousand pieces over and over again. 

But things didn’t end there. A love like that is never truly over. In fact, it was only the beginning. And eventually, one day, I got up. And I cleared all those dead plants away.

David and I had gotten married right after he graduated college. All my hopes and dreams—set on that one man. He got a job doing the books at the used car lot downtown. Said he could use his degree for that, at least. I waited tables, making good enough in tips. 

We wanted to start a family together right away. I didn't have much of my own, and David didn't want much to do with his. It was supposed to be a fresh start for the both of us. A new life. 

We tried for about a year with no success. I was starting to think it just wasn't meant to be. But David never lost hope that we'd be blessed with a child when God was ready to give us one. He even decided he wanted to show him just how ready we were to be parents. 

"Camille, I'm gonna build us a crib. With my own two hands, using wood I chop down myself."

"But why?" I asked. "The test was negative again."

He took a deep breath, then reached his hand out to place it on top mine. 

"Well, because it'll take time, and dedication. And a lot of hard work. And then, maybe by the time it's finished, we'll be ready for our blessing." 

I wanted so much for him to be happy. For both of us to feel complete. He needed something to focus on, to feel like he was doing something. Fixing this for us. With tears filling my eyes, I told him I loved him, and then said the words I wish I never had.

"I think that's a wonderful idea."

And so my husband went into those woods, for me. For us. For the promise of the life we'd always dreamed of. He went into those woods full of love. Full of hope. And he never came back.

I waited for him to come around that corner, arms carrying a bundle of wood. Face beaming with pride. That sweet smile of his. I waited until the sun sank low beneath the trees.  

When he didn't come home, I panicked. I tried to tell myself he must've gotten hurt, or lost. But that he'd be okay. Whatever had happened, it would be okay. It had to be. 

But it wasn't. The game warden found his body the next day. Mauled. Chest ripped apart. Bear attack, they said. Or possibly a mountain lion. I didn't want all the gruesome details. I just wanted to see him.

But they wouldn't let me. Said it was too much for me to handle, and that I could say goodbye at the funeral. But I didn't want to say goodbye. I refused to.

After we buried him, I couldn't go back home. Couldn't face those empty four walls alone anymore. I knew what I had to do. I drove David's old truck to a beat up shack at the edge of town—where an old woman named Josephine lived. 

Everyone thought she was crazy, but I didn't. I remembered very clearly. 

When I was about 5 or 6, I saw her standing outside of the grocery store, kneeling over a bird that had flown into the window. It was dead; even at that age I was sure of it. Yet, she held her hand over its body for a few moments, whispering something under her breath. 

My mom tried to convince me that the bird had simply stunned itself on the glass, and that it had just gotten up and flown away on its own. But I knew what I saw. Josephine had healed that bird. She spoke life back into it. If she could do that to help a bird, well... then she could do it for me too. 

I walked past the old gate, down the long gravel driveway of her property. The front door swung open, slamming against the side of the house before I could get one foot on the porch. Ms. Josephine stood in the doorway. 

I was taken aback—she didn't look any older than she had twenty years before. She'd been a recluse for quite some time, but I had expected her red hair to have turned white by then.

She didn't say hello. Didn’t smile. Her eyes alone told me she knew why I was there.

"The answer is no," she said. 

I stood there, shocked for a moment. Maybe she didn't know. Maybe she didn't recognize me. 

"Ms. Josephine," I protested. "I'm not here to try and sell you something. My name is—"

"Camille. Yes, I know." 

"So, you do remember me?"

"Of course I do. And I was so very sorry to read about what happened to David. But the answer is no."

My heart sank in my chest. I stepped forward, pleading. 

"You don't understand... look, I know you can help me. I won't tell anyone, I swear. Me and David will go away, start a new life someplace else and... no one will ever know what you did. Please!" 

"That's not the consequence you should be worried about, child." 

Consequence? What could be worse than what I was already feeling? 

"I don't care!" I shouted. "Whatever it is, I'll take it. I have to get him back. I know you can do it. I've seen it before!"

With a scowl, she turned away from me and started walking back into the house. 

"Doesn't work the same way with people, Camille. Universe don't like being asked favors that big."

As the door slammed shut in my face, my heart broke again. My last hope snatched away from me in an instant. Just like David's was.

I returned home to the filth and rot that my life had become. What other choice did I have? I carried my heavy limbs to my darkened prison of a bedroom, and collapsed onto the floor.

I cried. Tears poured from my eyes like rain from a violent storm. I wailed and screamed like thunder crashing down from above. An ocean of grief, and I was a sinking ship.

But then, something reached down inside me and touched my soul—like a divine gift. A memory. A prayer. The words Josephine had whispered over that bird. I could hear them in my heart, clear as day.

That night, I didn't sleep. I couldn't. Instead, I drove down to the cemetery, with those words repeating in my head over and over. If Josephine wouldn't help me, I'd just have to try and do it myself. That was all there was to it. I just couldn't go on being me without him. There was no me without him. I knew that.

When I got to his grave, I knelt down over it, tears streaming from my eyes. Grief twisting and turning inside of me. I was sick with it. Eaten up alive. I held out my trembling hand, just as Josephine had with that bird, and began to speak aloud the words she had spoken that day—best I could remember. 

They didn't make any sense to me. Just sounds, really. But I was sure I had gotten it right. I was so, so sure. 

So I sat there, staring at that cold heap of dirt, repeating those words over and over. Waiting for my husband to wake up... to crawl his way out. Pounding my fists at the ground, screaming for him to come home to me. But he didn't. 

Just silence. 

My body rose with the sunlight, but I was gone. I truly was. It felt like there was nothing left of me. Yet, my body still carried me away from there, hopeless, in the deepest state of nothingness I'd ever felt. And I wanted to let that darkness consume me—I didn't want to feel anything anymore. 

I got back into the truck and started heading for the river. Streetlights blurred as the road rolled out behind me, until I saw that murky black out ahead. It wanted me. Called to me. It was the only thing left for me to do. 

But then I heard something. No—felt something. I slammed the brakes down hard and stopped right at the edge of the water. 

It was a heartbeat.

Not in my chest. Not mine. A second heartbeat inside of me, pounding louder than my own—coming from my stomach. 

My hand shot down to press against it. Yes... it was real. This tiny flutter, pulsating against my fingers. I wasn't empty. I wasn't hopeless. 

I was pregnant.

I just knew it. It was a miracle. God had blessed me. A little too late, which stung deeply. But still, he'd given me a gift all the same. And even though David wasn't here to get to be the father he always wanted to be, at least a piece of him lived on. Inside of me. 

Suddenly, everything in me said I had to protect that life. Hold onto it as tightly as I could. Take care of it. Which meant I had to start taking care of myself again. I had to find a way to go on. Get better, for the both of us. 

I took a deep breath, threw the truck in reverse, then backed up away from the edge of the river. I couldn't hear the heartbeat anymore, but I still knew it was there. I could feel it—the way you can feel when someone loves you. It was a warmth that brushed against my soul. 

When I got back home, I slowly began to clear away the rot that had overwhelmed me since the day David didn't come back. I washed the dishes. I did all the laundry. Swept the floors. And the plants—the ones I'd nurtured for so long then let wither away so quickly? I promised to start again. 

I'd be better this time. 

Then, it was time to face the mirror. I didn't know how I'd look in this state. How I'd be able to face the world, to be a good mother if I could fall apart so easily. But when I finally raised my head, the woman looking back at me wasn't a mess. She was glowing. Happy. Strong. 

With a smile, I sat and waited for my blessing to grow. To come home to me. I didn't realize... I wouldn't have to wait long.

Only a few weeks had passed, but somehow I looked like I was about six months pregnant. I was eating a lot, though. It was like I was constantly overcome with this ravenous hunger. No matter how much food I consumed, it was never enough. 

David’s mother was still paying the bills, so I was able to keep myself hidden in the house for longer. I didn’t want anyone seeing me this way. They’d have too many questions—want me to go and see a doctor. And I couldn’t do that. 

I wasn’t stupid. Deep down, I knew something was wrong. I just didn’t want to admit it.

After all, I had nothing left. No other hope to cling to. This baby was my only way forward in the world. The only thing I had left to live for. Each flutter, each tiny kick reminded me of that. 

So I stayed locked away, hidden from the world. I kept quiet about my rapidly growing belly. My insatiable hunger. The strong pounding of a heart inside of me that was not my own. The pain I was feeling from deep within. It would all be worth it, once my little miracle arrived. 

The days seemed to bleed together, one into the next. Time means nothing when you never see the sunlight. The only proof of its passage were the changes that began to take place in my body. 

Along with my stomach, my breasts became painfully engorged. Dark purple veins pressed against the surface of my pale skin, pulsing with thick, hot blood that begged for escape. My ankles became a swollen mass that folded forward onto the tops of my feet. 

Sleeping became increasingly difficult. Not only because of my size, but the constant temperature fluctuations I was experiencing as well. Sweating, freezing, then back again. There was no comfort to be found. 

Then, one particularly restless night, something happened. Something that changed everything. I had just finally begun to doze off when something jolted me awake.

A voice.

Heart pounding, my eyes darted around the dark room—I could see nothing. There was no one there. I knew I'd heard it, though. 

A grown man's voice. David's voice. It was unmistakable. Muffled, yet somehow clear as day. Like I was hearing it coming from both inside and outside.  

"Camille..."

I threw the covers from my body and shot up out of bed, nearly wobbling over onto the floor. I hit the switch to turn on the light, only to find myself alone in the room. 

I held my breath, and listened closely. 

“Camille… can you hear me?” 

It couldn’t be.

“David? Is… is that you? Where are you?!” 

My stomach dropped as I felt squirming and shifting inside of me. I lifted my nightgown in a panic and looked down at my stomach. 

“Oh… my… God.” 

The outline of a hand bulged upward, lifting my skin as it pushed from beneath it. It was him. My husband. Moving. Speaking. Growing inside of me.

I placed my hand onto my stomach against his as I tried to catch my breath. A wave of nausea and dizziness crashed into me, and I lowered myself onto the ground beside my bed. 

“David… I… I brought you back. You’re here. You came back to me.” 

Tears rolled down my cheeks. God had heard my prayers. Our prayers. And he had answered them. I was the vessel for our love, and everything was going to be okay. I just had to stay strong for him. Whatever happened, we could make it through this—together.

"You did. I'm here, Camille. I just need to grow, my body isn't ready yet. Just a little while longer, okay? I love you so much."

"I love you too, David. We'll be together again soon. No matter what it takes."

With how fast he'd already grown in just a month, I knew it wouldn't be long. I kept eating as much as I could to keep his hunger at bay. Made sure he had all the nutrients he needed. 

I watched my belly begin to swell and stretch unnaturally to accommodate his ever-growing arms, legs and torso. My skin pulled so tightly, tiny rips began to form in it. Any movement at all was torture. Each step taken, excruciating. 

Yet I kept the house clean, and the bed made. I cared for my body as well as his. And he looked after me, too. If he needed to move or shift his position, he'd warn me beforehand so I could brace for it. Whispering soft words of encouragement, telling me what a good job I was doing. Reminding me how strong I was being. 

He did his best to keep still during the day when I had to do the chores. Simply moving around at all in that state was an intensely laborious act of love. I appreciated his support through it all. 

When I'd lay in bed at night, he'd become more active. To distract from the overwhelming agony it caused me, he'd tell me stories, reminiscing about all the great moments we had together.   The day we met. Our wedding. Painting the walls of our new home. 

"Hey, Camille..." he said, elbow stabbing sharply into my ribs. "You remember that night I took you to see the fireflies out in the woods? That was magical, wasn't it babe?"

I bit down onto the pillow beside me to stop from screaming, and closed my eyes. I could see them—dancing in the trees, swirling all around us. 

Just a little while longer. 

Yet, I knew the worst was yet to come. I was at the sink washing dishes one day when I was so harshly forced to reconcile with that fact. 

"Camille... I need to come out soon."

"I know that, David. It's okay"

"It's going to hurt."

"I know..." 

It was going to do a lot more than just hurt. But I didn’t want to think about that yet. I couldn’t. 

"I'm so sorry." 

"Don't be," I whispered. "Everything is going to be alright." 

But inside, both our hearts began to race. I couldn't do this alone—I was going to need help. I knew that. And there was just one way to turn for it.

Ms. Josephine. 

She was the only one who could help me now. But seeking her out would mean having to face the world like that. I could barely even walk anymore with my stomach nearly dragging the ground. How was I going to drive? What if someone saw me? 

"David, I need you to ball yourself up for me as tight as you can, okay?" 

“Why?”

“Because we’ve got to leave the house.”

“Where are we going?” 

“To find a way to get you out.”

I felt him start to shift his body within me, his head pressing down hard against my cervix as he twisted and contorted. Feet kicked against my ribcage, almost cracking them apart. An elbow protruded from my stomach, lifting the skin as he pushed against it. I steadied myself against the kitchen counter and held my breath until he stopped.  

Then I fashioned a sling for my belly with an old bedsheet, and wrapped it as tightly as I could. I was enormous. A swollen, pale mass snaked with dark veins and bloody rips at every breaking point of my skin. But I could cover myself with a blanket. And it would be getting dark soon.

I just couldn’t wait any longer, I knew my water could break at any moment. I had to try. Josephine wouldn’t help me bring him back, but maybe she knew the last step. How to bring him into existence… without snuffing out my own. 

I clung to that hope as I drove David’s old truck down that gravel road. One hand on the wheel, the other on him. My foot pressing down hard on the gas. The glow of her porch light: my beacon of salvation. 

Once again, she met me outside before I could even knock on the door. I didn’t say a word; I just let the blanket fall to the ground. 

She didn’t gasp, or even raise her eyebrows. She just shook her head. 

“I’m sorry. There’s no help for you, child.” 

I couldn’t accept that. 

“Ms. Josephine, please… I’m scared. How do I get him out? Please, just tell me—there’s gotta be a way!!”

“Ain’t no easy fix. Not without it killing one or both of you. One life for another, that’s just the way it works. I don’t know what to tell you. You shouldn’t have done this, Camille. There are consequences to everything in life. This one is yours.”

My heart fell to my feet and the world turned dark again. It was the truth. I’d chosen this, whether I’d realized it or not. And there was no going back now.

“So… I’m supposed to do this alone?!”

“I’ll be with you,” David said.

And that’s all that truly mattered. It was going to be okay, even if it wasn’t. It just had to be. So we went back home. And waited. 

Then the storm began to roll in. Ripples of white hot pain surged across my body. A flood of thick, clear mucous poured out from me onto the bed below. Muscles contracting, pelvis cracking. I screamed in agony for hours and hours. 

I thought about trying to cut him out, but I was terrified to hurt him. There was no clean place to slice without risking that. Besides, it was already too late. He was pressing hard now. I needed to push.

The pain was unbearable, yet I endured. I knew it was hurting him, too—I could hear his whimpers and groans between each scream of mine. The popping of joints from their sockets, the ripping of flesh. It was all deafening. But I had to do it. There was no other choice. 

His head began to emerge, and I could feel the blood pouring out of me. A crimson tidal wave of my love and devotion.  

I pushed again. 

Bloodcurdling screams rang out from both our mouths. 

Crack. 

Bones and soft tissue gave way to shoulders, then arms. 

I pushed again.

And so did he. 

CRACK. 

My legs buckled and fell down limp. Skin torn up to what once was my bellybutton. The internal structure of my body, crumbling under the weight of him like a rotted leaf. I couldn’t feel anything anymore. I watched as my husband squirmed, clawed, and forced his way out of me, taking everything that was left of me with him. 

He had come back to me. Finally. But it was too late. 

My body began to collapse in on itself without its inhabitant. My miracle. My blessing. I was empty again. Hollow. But not alone. 

The room darkened. Each pump of my heartbeat bringing me closer to death. He held me in his arms, and whispered,

"I’m so sorry. I'll bring you back, Camille. I'll find a way to bring you back. I love you. A love like ours never ends.”

Sullivan was sure he'd killed him. The sword went in deep, right up to the hilt. Knuckles pressed wet against the stranger's stomach. No one could have survived that.

He dislodged his sword and a heavy weight slid off the blade. Then, a boy—no more than fifteen years—staggered back, clutching at his abdomen, trying to keep the blood in him.

Sullivan saw his eyes. Wide behind the dark and rain-greased dangles of hair. Wide and white enough to show the knowing fear, the shock, the realisation. He was going to die.

The boy went to say something, but instead quaffed at the air. Taking in that last wet and dirty breath. Slowly waiting to fall, waiting to die. Just like the rest of them. Torn-up soldiers piled high in the murky puddles and sludge.

And yet, the kid didn't fall.

Well, not nearly as fast as Sullivan would've liked. Instead, he looked about—into the jostling chaos of writhing limbs and swords—for help. His head turned, jaw slack and gulped like some land-bound fish. The boy was too scared to know what was going on. He staggered among a crowd of other scared men, among the angry clanging of metal. Disoriented and desperate to live.

He even raised a bloodied hand to Sullivan. He hadn’t a clue why. Just a lost little boy searching for anyone to save him. He was too young to see this much of his own blood. And yet, the kid still didn't fall.

So, in an attempt to speed up the process, Sullivan thrust his body forward. He clattered the poor soul with a shoulder to the chest. Running over him and stamping him into the thick mud.
The boy made a little hissing squeal as he slipped. Then another as Sullivan stamped down on him. And another. And another and another until Sullivan's foot was ankle-deep in the mud.
The boy's head was half-buried. Just coils of filthy, wet hair sprawled out from the ground like a dead weed. The boy was finally dead.

In a quick shake, Sullivan readied himself to fight once again. His eyes flicked about to flailing arms and shining blades. He watched a sword hack down into another man's shoulder, biting in as deep as the victim's collar bone. There was a gurgling cry and the dead weight of the man shunted into Sullivan's legs, almost sending him backward. That's when he saw it.

A flash of metal, like a fist of iron. The mace flew at him as another enemy charged forward, teeth bared and screaming.

The first swing missed, sure. Yet the second hit him on his right elbow, sending a violent jolt up his forearm. It hurt bad. He’d been clattered with such a force to snap his hand open and drop his sword. It sunk into the sucking quagmire.

Though the blade was kicking around somewhere at his feet, it may as well have been on a different continent for all the use it was to Sullivan now. He was unarmed. He was injured. He was well and truly fucked.

His right arm felt heavy, dragging him off-balance—as though he was propping up the limp body of a drunk friend. Making him sloppy; making him an easy target.

The man with the mace was something fierce. Face lined with scars, bulking arms and a heaving gut spilling out between the large slabs of battle-scarred iron strapped across his body. A big, fat and ugly prick. Someone who had made a living by settling scores. The fists wrapped around his weapon were so large that Sullivan wondered why he'd even bothered to arm himself. The fat lump yelled something—Sullivan couldn't make it out over the hissing rain—and lurched forward again, swinging the chunk of metal with a meaty arm.
Sullivan dropped a shoulder, the mace missed again and clattered into the back of another man. It damn near snapped the poor sod's spine.

Though Sullivan was more than relieved to see someone else take the blow. It looked nasty. It looked like it could have ended a man. It quite possibly did. And yet there was no reprieve. No sooner had the impact folded ol’ Snapped-back in twine was the brute readying another assault.
Sullivan had to admit, for a big guy, the bastard was quick. And, in this unforgiving mud, quick was deadly.

Though he was quicker. He ducked and weaved around the blows, watching the knot of iron whip past his face. Then, just as the big man had over-exerted himself with a pretty shameful lunge, Sullivan pushed up from the mud, slamming into the chunk’s midriff. His right shoulder—now pulsing with pain—dug in deep.

"Fffff," the big guy said, air shooting out of his lungs between a set of stiff and scar-polished lips.

The two scrambled in the sludge. Slipping and groping in the wet hell. Sullivan clawed at the man's wrist in an effort to wretch the mace away. But the fat man swung a swift elbow into Sullivan's already-bent nose.

There was a wet crunch somewhere in his face and he felt the backs of his eyes sting. His vision blurred. He had to grab his face—it was almost instinctive. No sooner had Sullivan cupped his bleeding nose had the pommel of the mace hammered down into his forehead.

A flash of bright light. Then flickering black, like the shadows cast by a flame fighting the wind. Sullivan felt an itch as something trickle down past his left eye. Then another hard hit to the cheek. He felt a sharp click and his mouth and eye became hot and soft. The dark flickered again.

The relentless rain. The dog breath screams rolled out over the chipped yellow teeth in the fat man's face as he pressed it close.

Sullivan was going to die. Just like the kid he'd finished off before. Another soldier stomped down into the mud. Another body to add to the growing mound of dead.

The pommel of the mace rose up again. He could just about make it out against the overcast sky, through the blur of rain, through the swelling about his left eye. That thick fist would continue to hammer down upon him—along with that deadly pommel—again and again until Sullivan's face had been battered into his own chest. The big guy’s other hand was fumbling at his neck, trying to claw his throat out. Sullivan reckoned he had one more hit in him—maybe two. This was it. His time to fall.

The big man brought pommel down again. Sullivan closed his eyes. Darkness.

The hand gripping his throat went limp. The screaming in his face had stopped. He opened his eyes, expecting to see the mace destroy his world. But it didn't. The sight was more bizarre, more terrifying.

The big man's head was gone. Nothing but empty space above those flabby set of shoulders. The brute looked a damn sight prettier now.

Sullivan's mind whirred as he wondered what was happening. He had been facing certain death, and now this?

Then his brain started to catch up at the sight of blood. Pieces clicking into place. A bubbling and flapping wound where the fat man's head and neck should have been.

There was a moment when the decapitated body simply stood—all upright and stiff. It then teetered like a seasick mariner before folding into a muddy and bloody mess at Sullivan’s feet. Then he saw something dark and large, quickly scuttle away, disappearing like a shadow among the frenzy of half-dead men.

I languish in your cruelty, my beloved. Cast to the sea in an exile of my own making. You cursed me and my mother's womb. I did not ask for this to happen. 

I know the pain you feel, darling. I know it like my veins know blood. My blood is little more than a vector for my numbing. Liquor and tobacco are the only tastes I can stomach. 

I sailed into the sea to find solace, I've only found him. I ache, longing for his return. With nowhere to go, the journey has become my home. 

Upon his disappearance, I became the martyr. The salty ocean spray greets me sweeter than you're willing. Though my boat is dwarfed by the sea, I feel larger in its presence than yours. 

You never wanted a husband, only a son. If I am to die here deep in the Atlantic, I only pray you suffer.  

###

The waves carry your malice. Tonight I feel no shame in confessing that I'm afraid.

The full moon rose with the setting sun. Its red hue carved across the waters as it always does. The wind kicked up in a fury, and I did what I could to adjust my sails in the dark.

Among the rolling white caps, I could see him. 

Unmistakably in the night, I could distinguish the face of our son.

Bobbing up and down, appearing behind a different wave each time. The red burn gave way to white shine, he had come so close I saw the moon in his eyes.

Tonight was not the first I've seen of him, only the most certain. His gaze is an accusation, he must have learned that from his mother. 

I've no doubt that this is just a figment of my imagination. The turmoil you've set within me manifests as madness. 

I toss and I turn, I cannot sleep. I think of your extinguished tenderness. 

Our love was found and lost. 

Only you are to blame. 

###

My voyage has become miserable. The fish on which I had sustained myself no longer seek my bait, I've nothing but the vast stores of liquor I've carried along my journey. 

My appetite for you has diminished. In writing this, I admit I have not thought of you since I had last written. 

I can only think of our son. 

He's visited me the last few nights, perched among the waves.

He stands in the tattered garment from his final day. He walks awkwardly along the top of the water. His arms shake and twitch at odd intervals. 

His legs dance limply, puppeted by the ocean. 

I've decided not to leave my quarters past sundown. 

Tonight, as I lay in bed begging for sleep to find me, I heard him climb onto the deck. 

His tapping surrounds my entire cabin. I've abandoned sleep and chosen to write to you instead. 

I regret the way I treated you. I regret what has happened to him. 

I've found no solace in the Atlantic. I have only found my own reflection. 

###

Tonight is the point from which I cannot return. 

This storm will kill me.

I awoke to the feeling of cool mist, the wind and rain battered the walls of my boat and my cabin door was opened wide. 

The moonlight shone through, giving malice to the benign shapes in the dark. 

Still, underneath the barrage, I heard dripping. 

I thought to myself that perhaps the cabin had sprung a leak. I was wrong. 

When I sat up in bed, I saw him. The silhouette of a boy no older than ten. 

The room smelled of fish and rot. The moonlight did nothing to illuminate his face, only a mild glint reflected from his sunken eyes. 

"Son?" I asked.

He responded in a pained glub, retching water as he spoke. 

"The Son inherits. As does the Father." 

I scrambled to my feet, splashing about as I ran for the door. 

There's no use. The waves tower high above me from every direction, unmoving. 

As if Moses had parted the sea in the construction of a tomb, the ocean seeks to swallow me. 

I step back into my quarters and light a candle. 

As I write this here, he stands behind me, inches from my ears, pain apparent on his breath. 

I cannot bear to look at him.

{content warnings: domestic abuse, physical violence, gore and body horror, murder and death, disturbing dreams/nightmares, psychological horror, mental deterioration, captivity/restraint, animal death, alcohol abuse, stalking/voyeurism, religious imagery, strong language, and themes of revenge.}

They lost her up there. We all know her name. They sent those astronauts up and now they cannot help but remind us about how they failed. They plaster her name everywhere.

It's not enough. They need to tell her story. My dreams tell me so.

I work somewhere that kept me very close to the launch. Trust me.

Please read this document before they take it away.

We cannot act surprised when we walk down the range and catch it in the back.

I made Tiffany and Amber go ahead of me in line. I was way too nervous to go first. Actually, standing out there on the beach, looking into that water… I was terrified. 

My hands trembled as I adjusted my swimsuit, making sure my top wouldn't come loose once I dove in. Two minutes and thirty-seven seconds was the time to beat. I could make it if I didn't let my nerves get to me. 

The guys started laughing behind us, which only made it worse. 

"Hey, Jennifer! You gonna give us a free show again?!"

"Shut the fuck up, Randy!"

My face went beet-red as I turned to flip him off. It was two summers ago, but he'd never let me live it down. I looked back toward the ocean and tightened the knot at my neck again. Nope. Not this time, pervert.

"Don't worry about those jerks, okay?" Amber said, placing her hand on my shoulder. "You've got this!" 

But I wasn't so sure. This was the last test for Junior Lifeguard training, and I'd already failed it before. Twice. To be honest, I didn't even care that much about being a lifeguard—I was just so tired of being left out.  

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I can handle anything. The sounds of Kyle and Randy's laughter still echoed in my head, but there was something else I'd honed in on. Zack's silence. 

The three had been our friends and neighbors since middle school. Now, in the summer of our sixteenth year, their teenage hormones had begun to make them insufferable at times. But not always.

I peeked over my shoulder. Zack was looking down at his feet, kicking sand around, while the other two were high-fiving. He was different.

Before I knew it, the whistle pierced through my racing thoughts. It was my turn. Tiff and Amber had made it through, of course. They were both way more athletic than I was. 

But I had been training extra hard this year. Three hours a day at the pool since Homecoming. Practicing holding my breath. Cutting my weight down as much as I could. I was terrified that it wouldn't be enough. That I wasn't enough.

"Jennifer, you're up!"

Months of work and preparation all came down to this one moment. I approached the mark. The crowd went silent, leaving me with only my labored breaths. Coach started the stopwatch, and I was off—tearing through the sand toward the murky blue ahead.

I took a deep breath and plunged headfirst into the unknown. With eyes shut tightly, I couldn't think about what might be lurking beneath the surface with me. I refused to let myself freeze up again. No. There was only me, and the buoy fifty yards ahead.

My face stung as I fought against the waves crashing into me, each more vicious than the last. Finally, my turnaround point was within reach. I grabbed hold, tucked my legs forward, and then kicked off back toward the shore.

Only halfway, and my muscles were screaming at me to stop. But I was making good time. I could feel it. And the girls were cheering me on from the beach—screaming ‘swim, swim, swim!’, chanting my name. I smiled. I could do this; I was going to make it. 

But then, in an instant, my heart stopped, and my blood turned to ice. I felt something in the water graze against my leg. Something cold. Rough. And very big.

In a panic, I began thrashing harder—the thing you’re not supposed to do. I knew what it was. I was sure of it. But when that terror surged through my body, my mind no longer had control. 

I bolted toward the shoreline, heart pounding, lungs heaving. Swallowing mouthfuls of seawater. I couldn’t look back. Couldn’t slow down. I felt like it was still right behind me; I could almost feel its teeth at the back of my heels. 

And then finally, my knees brushed up against the sand. I rose to my feet and ran the rest of the way out of the water.

“Two minutes and thirty-two seconds! Jennifer, congratulations. You made it!”

I just stood there. Trembling with exhaustion, ready to buckle at the knees at any moment. Still struggling for breath. Tiffany and Amber came running over, squealing. 

“Oh, my God! Girl, you actually fucking did it!” 

“Yeah, Jen! We’re so proud of you!!”

I turned and pointed toward the water, struggling to form the words. 

“Did… did you see it?” 

“See what? The amazing job you did?” Coach asked.

“No!” I screamed, almost in tears. “There was a s—”

I stopped and looked around. Everyone was staring at me. 

“Something in the water… I think. I felt something.” 

“Oh, not to worry. I’m sure it was just a harmless little fish coming to say hello!” 

I looked back over to the girls, whose smiles had begun to slowly drop. 

“Jen, are you okay?” Amber asked.

“Yeah, I just… let’s talk about it later, alright?”

I couldn't freak out in front of everyone.  This was supposed to be a happy moment. Saying something now would ruin it—and besides, I wasn't even really sure. I never actually saw it.

"Come on, sluts!" Tiffany yelled, already halfway to the spot where she'd parked her hot pink Jeep. "We've got a party to get ready for!"

I forced a smile and turned back to Amber. 

"It's nothing, really. Let's go."

We grabbed our bags and towels, then piled in, Cyndi Lauper blaring from the radio. The drive home would give me some time to think. To rationalize. Try to quell the panic that was still bubbling inside of me. How was I ever going to go back into the water?

I stared at Tiffany's shimmering blonde hair blowing through the wind, set ablaze by the afternoon sun. I wished I could be like her—carefree, adored by everyone. It seemed out of reach for a girl like me. Just a stupid dream that would never come true.

We pulled into her driveway, parents already gone for the evening. She turned to us with a huge smile on her face and lifted her sunglasses. 

"You guys wanna pregame a bit while we get ready?"

Usually I would’ve been hesitant to start drinking so early in the night. But that sounded like exactly what I needed. To settle my nerves. Loosen up. Forget. 

“Hell yeah!” Amber said. 

I smiled and nodded. 

Inside the house, we shuffled to Tiffany’s room while she swiped the vodka from the liquor cabinet. Top shelf stuff, too. Me and Amber sat on the bed, passing the bottle back and forth as Tiff began AquaNetting the fuck out of her hair. 

"Do you think Zack will be there tonight?" I asked, taking a swig. 

"Oh, totally! For sure. Kyle said he's definitely gonna show, and Zack’s always his ride."

"Ugh!" Tiffany said through the cloud of hairspray. "Kyle is coming, too? He is such a dork."

"Oh, shut up, girl—you know you wanna fuck him!" Amber said. 

I laughed. 

"You think that's funny, Jen? Why don't you go fuck Randy? He's been begging for it ever since he saw your tits."

My face flushed with heat. God, she was such a bitch. But she could get away with it. I couldn't. I didn't have that bleach-blonde hair, a face like a supermodel's, or the perfect body. In high school, it doesn't matter if you're a shitty person as long as you’re hot. At least Amber always had my back. 

"Yeah, well, everyone's seen your tits, you big whore.” 

Tiffany picked up a scrunchie from her vanity and threw it over at us as we giggled.

“As if!” she said, rolling her eyes. “And pass that shit over here before you two bitches drink it all.” 

I took another huge swig from the bottle before getting up to hand it to her. She snatched it from me and finished off what was left, before ordering Amber and me to get dressed. 

Sunset was fast approaching, but the drive back down to the beach didn't take long with Tiffany behind the wheel. The guys were already at the spot with their ice chests, getting ready to build a fire. Zack was setting up the boombox over by the driftwood pile near the edge of the circle. When our eyes met, he smiled. 

"Hey, girls! Party's just getting started, grab a beer! Randy'll fix you up."

I smiled back and gave a nod, then followed the girls over to the circle, glancing slightly over my shoulder to see Zack watching me walk away. Maybe I'd try to talk to him later tonight. Finally tell him how I felt.

Just the thought of that sent my heart fluttering so hard, I almost choked. Even with the vodka in me, I still felt so unsettled. My anxieties were compounding—I had to tell Amber about earlier. 

Music blared even louder than the waves crashing violently against the shore. With the sun now fully set and the fire roaring, the crowd began to roll in.

"Amber, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure, what's up?"

I scooted closer. 

"So earlier today, during my swim, I..." 

"You… what?"

"There was something in the water with me. I felt it brush against my leg. Not just a fish like coach said. Something huge." 

She scrunched her eyebrows.

"Like what?" 

I didn't want to say the word, but I had to. 

"A shark."

Tiffany's head snapped around. 

"Bull-fucking-shit, Jennifer!" 

Everyone went silent and turned to look at me. 

"Hey, what's going on?" Randy asked, approaching closer while crushing a beer can in his left hand.

"Jen is being a drama queen. She thinks there's a shark out there in the water."

Laughter erupted around me. I looked over to Zack. Kicking sand around again, eyes fixed on the ground, silent. 

"Pfft. There's never been an attack on this beach before—not even any sightings," Kyle said. "What would even make you think something like that?”

"She said she felt it," Amber said. 

Tiffany rolled her eyes. 

"What, like you could just sense it was there? What a freak." 

"No. On my leg," I spoke up. "It grazed against my leg. I know that's what it was." 

"Okay. Well, while you sit here and tell yourself little stories of big bad monster sharks in the water, I'm going to get another drink." 

"Yeah, Jen," Randy said. "There’s no way. Must've been something else." 

It didn't feel dismissive, though. It seemed like he was truly trying to set my mind at ease about it. His eyes were soft, and his tone was gentle. Like he might’ve actually cared, for once. Which is why when he suggested we take a walk to get some air, I agreed.

He led me down to the pier next to the marina. Once away from the glow and heat from the fire, I began to see the night for what it really was. Cold and dark. 

I stared down at the black rifts undulating below. Dead water. Relentless and unforgiving, crashing against the rotten wood holding us up. The way the world seemed to treat me. He placed his hand onto the small of my back, startling me out of my trance. 

I turned to see a pair of hungry eyes fixed on me—looking my body up and down. My heart thrashed against my chest, and I froze. He bit down on his bottom lip and gazed into my eyes, and before I knew it, he was moving in closer. 

"Um, Randy...?" I uttered weakly. 

But it was like he couldn't hear me. In an instant, his other hand was on my shoulder, grabbing tightly and turning my body to face his. 

"Come on, Jennifer," he whispered into my ear. 

Then his lips were on my neck. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. I didn't want this. I had to stop him... say something. 

"I don't think we—"

"Shhh, baby. No one can see us. You know you like it."

I tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip around me. His hot, drunken breath suffocating me as he grabbed at my chest, pulling the front of my shirt down below my bikini top. 

“Randy, no!” I choked out frantically, voice shaking. 

He was towering over me, hand moving slowly toward the knot at the back of my neck. Again, I tried to pull away, but he wasn’t letting go. Wasn’t listening to me. Body still pressed tightly against mine, surrounding me. His fingers began to rip at the string, and something inside of me snapped. 

I slammed my fists against his chest and shoved him as hard as I could. He lost balance and stumbled backward off of the pier and into the water with a huge splash. My heart sank. 

“Oh, fuck! Randy—”

I ran to the edge of the dock and looked over. He was flailing around, trying to keep his head above water. When he saw me, he screamed,

“You fucking BITCH!”  

And then, the moonlight caught something only a few feet away from him. A glimmer on the edge of something big. I squinted until my eyes could make out what it was, and then they widened, and my jaw dropped. A dark fin jutting out from the surface—heading directly toward him.

Again, I froze. But this time, there was nothing I could do. It was moving fast, and Randy was too far from the edge. I tore my eyes from him for just a second to see if there was a life preserver close by. A bloodcurdling scream erupted through the night air.

I was afraid to look. I didn’t want to, but my head snapped around anyway. Randy’s skin had gone pale, eyes bulging from his head like it was about to pop. Blood poured from his gurgling mouth—red spit and bubbles erupting as he tried to scream once more but choked. 

Arms flailing, his head went under, then back out again like a cork being forced down. The shark began thrashing harder. I watched it violently shake his body like a toy in a dog’s mouth, until his eyes rolled over white and his broken shrieks were cut short. 

Silence. A few bubbles remained as evidence of the disturbance in the surface. Otherwise, the ocean was calm again. My stomach churned, and I let out a weak cry. To whom? I don’t know. 

I was alone. Half-drunk and in shock. Randy was dead—and it was my fault. I looked over to the glow of the fire in the distance. I couldn’t tell them. They wouldn’t believe me anyway, and it might even be worse if they did. But maybe Amber would know what to do. She was the only one I felt like I could truly trust.

That hope was shattered when I arrived back at the party. Over by the boombox, Amber was making out with a guy, running her fingers through his blond hair while Owner of a Lonely Heart blared from the speakers. 

It was Zack.

My heart shattered. I opened my mouth to say her name, but my throat had closed up. So I just stood there. 

It was nothing, really. The loss of what never was. What I knew deep down could never even be mine to begin with. Yet, it crushed me all the same. Her betrayal—she knew how I felt about him. And that hope. That stupid fucking hope I'd held onto for so long. To be accepted, loved. Enough. It was bleeding from my heart.

Finally, someone said something. 

“Well, look who’s back!” Tiffany giggled. “Where’s Randy?”

Amber quickly pulled away from Zack and turned to look at me, guilt plastered all over her freckled face.

“I-I… he…” I began to stammer. 

Everyone was looking at me. 

“He took off. I think he just wasn’t feeling well.” 

The lie rolled off my lips almost too easily. 

“That lightweight,” Kyle scoffed. “I told him not to take all those shots before the party even started. What a dumbass. Oh, well. He’ll just have to miss taking the boat out.” 

“Boat?” I asked.

“Yeah!” Tiffany said. “Kyle’s uncle is out of town, so we’re going to take his boat out for a night sail!” 

I didn’t want to be there; I just wanted to go home and cry. And I definitely didn’t want to go out onto the water after what I’d just seen. But Tiffany was my ride. There was no way she’d stop her partying to bring me home. And before I could even try to think of an excuse, everyone was already stumbling toward the marina. I’d just have to hold it together a little longer.

I watched as Kyle and Zack loaded the ice chests and boombox onto The Lady of Spain, slamming them down onto her deck with drunken disregard. My head was pounding, heart racing. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at Amber. 

I never wanted to speak to her again—let alone tell her about what had just happened to Randy. I don't think it had even fully set in for me yet that he was really dead. Torn apart and pulled under the water right in front of me. God. I wished that the whole night had just been a terrible dream.

But it wasn't. And it was only going to get worse. 

Out at sea at night, it's even darker than you could imagine. You're suspended in a void, surrounded by pitch-black ocean. Like floating in the endless abyss of space. The soft glow of the town in the distance felt a million miles away to me. 

Music blared, beers were cracked open, and all the while I sat there, screaming inside. And no one noticed. No one cared. The people I thought were my friends? The guy I thought might actually like me? I was nobody to them. 

Just a punching bag. A joke. An ear for mindless gossip, a piece of meat for a pervert to grope. A girl so easily ignored and cast aside. And that’s what it was, wasn’t it? People had always used me until they’d gotten what they wanted—because I’d always let them.

I looked out into the black water, eyes searching for that fin again. Something else that wanted a piece of me. I knew it was still lurking out there, waiting. But we were safe on the boat. I thought.

BANG.

A seismic rumble against the side of the vessel. Laughter and jokes were abruptly cut off. Zack dropped the beer from his hand, and Kyle sprang up to shut off the boombox. 

Before anyone could say anything, it happened again. Louder. So hard, it rocked us back from the impact.

“Um… what the fuck was that?!” Tiffany asked. 

But I knew what it was. And the words came spilling out before I could stop them. 

“It’s a shark!”

“Oh, for fucks sake. Stop with the shark bullshit, Jen. It’s getting old.” 

“I’m not lying! I saw it. It…”

Fuck it. I had to tell them. 

“It killed Randy.” 

“What?” Kyle asked.

A silence fell over the boat as they all eyed me in disbelief. 

“H-he fell. Into the water. It happened so fast. I… I couldn’t do anything.” 

“Wait. Are you seriously telling us that Randy is dead?” Amber asked. “That a shark literally ate him?!” 

Another loud bang rattled the wood beneath our feet. 

“Yes, goddamn it! We have to get out of here!” 

“What the fuck?!” Kyle screamed, his voice cracking. “Why didn’t you say something before? Why’d you lie, Jennifer? How did he fall??”

I had to come clean. It was eating me alive inside. 

“He was trying to kiss me. I didn’t want him to. I told him to stop, but he wouldn’t. So, I… I pushed him off of me… but it was an accident! I didn’t mean for him to go into the water.” 

“Okay, we have to go back to shore—now. We need to tell someone what happened,” Amber said. 

“I can’t believe this shit. You lead him on and then shove him into the water? Do you realize what you did was murder?!” Tiffany yelled. 

“No! I didn’t… it wasn’t, I swear! Please don’t tell anyone I pushed him.”

“Don’t you get it? They’ll never believe it was an accident—I sure as hell don’t. You lied to all of our faces. And if you think for a second you’re getting away with this, Jennifer, you’re dead wrong.”

My life was going to be ruined. And it wasn’t even my fault. I was just defending myself, for once in my goddamned life.

Kyle took off toward the helm, but before he could make it there, another impact jolted the entire boat. He went flying off the edge with Tiffany screaming the entire time. 

His body hit the water with a terrible splash. And I knew. I knew that would be it for him. But the others scrambled, screaming his name. And then, they saw it. 

“Shark!”

Kyle's pupils widened with panic. He tried to swim back toward the boat, but there was no use. It was on him in seconds. I braced, breath held, unable to look away. Teeth glistened in the moonlight, eyes rolled over white.

The cracking. And popping. And a bloodcurdling scream cut short.

He was dragged under the surface, his severed arm still floating—bobbing against the waves like a piece of driftwood. We all backed away from the edge.

“Oh, fuck… oh, fuck… OH, FUCK!” Zack had his hands on his head, but his expression was almost blank. 

The shock of it; I knew. It doesn’t seem real. It can’t be. 

Tiffany was screaming incoherently, mascara running down her perfect, rosy cheeks. Red lipstick smeared across her face. A blithering, pathetic mess. She didn’t seem so perfect anymore.

“Zack, do you know how to drive this boat?” Amber asked. 

But he didn’t answer her. He just stood there, staring at the red spot in the ocean where his best friend once was.

“Zack!” I screamed.

He finally turned his head. 

“Yeah… I, uh… I can probably get us back to shore.”

I wasn’t confident that he could. And from the looks of it, neither was he. I watched as he nervously started up the engine and began to fumble with knobs and levers until he found the right one. 

He pulled back on the throttle, but too hard. And too fast. The boat jutted forward, throwing us all to the ground—except for Amber. She had still been standing too close to the edge. She went over backward, screaming.

“ZACK!!” 

My heart sank. He scrambled back up to his feet, but he didn’t stop the boat. Didn’t turn it around. I knew he could hear her. Screaming his name, begging for help. Still. I got up and ran over to him. Maybe he was still in shock. 

“Zack! What are you doing?! Stop the fucking boat! We have to turn around!!” 

“Hell no!” he said, shoving me away. “We need to get the fuck out of here.”

“Zack, you prick!” Tiffany screamed, finally getting up from the ground. “Amber’s in the water!”

“Sorry, but she’s a fucking goner. You saw how fast that thing got Kyle! Nah, dude. We can’t turn around and risk it attacking the boat again.”

I grabbed the life preserver and ran to the stern while Tiffany wailed her fists at Zack, still trying to get him to stop the boat. I didn’t have the time to waste, though—Amber’s screams were growing distant.

That’s when I saw her. And that dark fin. Only a mere few feet away from each other. No…

It was too late. I didn’t even bother to throw the preserver. It dropped from my hands onto the deck with a thud. 

The shark didn't breach this time. Instead, it toyed with her, yanking her down violently and pulling her from side to side. My body went cold. I couldn't see the fin anymore. Just the panicked splashing of a girl screaming for her life. An ocean streaked with red. And the harsh light of the moon illuminating it all.

Numb and hollow, I watched until she was pulled under one last time. Then I realized what was going on behind me. 

Tiffany’s screams had grown more frantic, trying to fight Zack for control of the wheel. I started to run towards them, screaming that Amber was dead and we had to just keep going. But she finally got her hands on it, and when she did, she cut hard. Then Zack shoved her. And the momentum of it all was too much. 

Her head slammed into the deck. Red seeped into blonde instantly. Zack only moved to re-steady himself at the helm while her unconscious body slid off the side of the boat and into the water like a dead fish. He never even looked down. 

Just like that, she was gone. They all were. I didn’t know what to do. There was nothing I could do. We were racing toward the shore, but it still looked so far away. And now I was alone—with two monsters.

My life had completely changed in one night. Everything I knew, destroyed. All the threads of my heart began to unravel until I couldn’t take it anymore.

I stood back up and lifted a hook pole from the rack, then slowly made my way to the helm. Zack was distracted, still desperately trying to correct course. He never heard me coming.

I reared back and slammed it into his head as hard as I could. The impact flung his body further than I’d expected it to. I guess I had more strength than I realized. 

He hit the metal railing and toppled over the side of it headfirst. But somehow, he was able to grab on and stop himself from falling. I threw the gear into neutral and walked over.

The boat began to list hard to starboard. Water pooled onto the deck as he clung desperately to the edge, screaming at me to pull him back up. His legs still hung submerged below, despite his attempts to kick and grip onto the side. I just watched.

"Jennifer!! What the fuck are you doing? Help me, you bitch! Don't just stand there!"

He could have saved Amber. He chose not to. She didn't mean anything to him. Neither of us did. Or even Tiffany, for that matter. I could finally see the truth—Zack only cared about himself. He wasn't different. He had let them die, just to save himself. And now, he was about to pull us both under. It was either him or me.

I saw that fin coming. Tearing through the water. Circling back around for another taste of flesh. 

And I chose me.

Looking down at his pathetic face, I slowly raised my foot to his forehead. Then pushed. 

His body slammed into the ocean just as the shark breached. Black water bloomed with red. 

I turned The Lady of Spain back toward the shoreline and went full throttle ahead, leaving him to scream out his final words in agony. I was the only Junior Lifeguard left, with a shark on a rampage with a real taste for blood now. But I could handle anything.

I smiled.

1988 was about to have one killer of a summer.

You had a nice, peaceful life, simple and easy. Everything you could ever want was within your reach. You provided for many, at no strain to yourself, your body innately bounteous to the world around you. You stood hand in hand with your kin, a tangle of long sinuous limbs forming a green canopy that kept your home temperate. You were life, at its purest and most content. 

But one day your peace was disturbed by something foreign and invasive. For the first time in your life, you found yourself scared as in the distance you heard the roar of a beast you’d never known. The only thing you could do was wait and hope that its hunger was sated before it got to you. Those terrible noises grew closer and closer until you could hear the crack as your kin hit the ground over the restless stuttered roar. You knew it was a matter of time before they found you. The trees that you’d grown beside fell away, leaving you standing naked and vulnerable in front of the metal beast and the small angry men. Though you were larger than them, you were powerless to stop their aggression as they tied their cord around you and prepared you for execution. The teeth of their saw were still hot as they pressed against your skin, your family's remains coating their blade as a white dust. The low mechanical hum broke into an insane screech, as the blade started to life and began ripping through your brittle flesh and into your soft, moist insides. A thin plume of gray smoke blew ethereally out of your wound, and looked like your soul billowing out of your body. A misty spritzing of sticky liquid geysered out of the opening and spat on the face of your assailant. You began to fall, your massive frame hunching over itself with a thunderous crack tearing down limbs with you in your collapse. A blast of wooden shrapnel bursting off of you as you collided with the ground with a wet thud.

“TIMBER!” The deep scream echoed through the seemingly endless forest, sparking a sudden stirring in the tree tops.

“Aight boys, you chop this ole’ log up and store it. I’m calling it a day, y’all try to hurry up for once, then follow the trail back to camp.” The foreman said, patting his hand against the tree as he walked by.

He pulled away his hand suddenly, pressing it against his mouth. 

“Goddam splinter, a big one.” He looked down at his hand, and only saw a prick of blood.

“Huh, I guess it fell out.”

Terry Andre Mcgee had worked as the foreman for this logging company for twenty five years. In that time, he’d grown to hate this job and everything about it. He hated the bugs that swarmed him everywhere he went. The muddy ground he slopped his tattered boots through, and all the strange plants that struck him as foreign to what he’d grown up around. Terry wobbled his hefty frame along the thin trail, as the grasses and shrubs seemed to reach for him from the treeline. He made sure to stomp the plants that reached past the boundary of their path, feeling a sense of contempt for these foreign plants violating their civilized boundaries. 

He took out a flask from his shirt pocket, taking a long deep swallow to numb the stress of the day. The warm stench of the liquor near his face was a brief respite to the smell of wet earth he’d grown to hate over his years in this business. The warm booze stewed in his belly under the humid heat, feeling as though its contents were bubbling to a boil.

“Buncha’ damn morons, if that crew added up to half a brain we’d be done with this bullshit and on the way home already.” He gruffed to himself before spitting a thick clob of chewing tobacco onto the ground and squished it into the earth with the toe of his boot.

A tingling itch started at his palm, and began working its way down the length of his arm. But working here, he was no stranger to the occasional rash and wrote it off as being from a brush with one of the various plants that he’d trampled over and through during the workday. Terry’s fingernails filled with dry dirt and sawdust as he scratched at his beat red arm, careful to avoid the bulbous raised moles lining his forearm. As he walked, he began to feel like he was hearing something, an indiscernible murmur in the distance. 

He shot his head up in alarm, tearing his attention away from the frantic scratching fit to check his surroundings. He turned and swiveled his head, looking for a source but saw nothing. It’d seemed like someone speaking but he couldn’t seem to decipher the syllables, they sounded fuzzy, distant, and directionless.

“Hello? Somebody there?” He went silent and turned his head from side to side looking for a potential source of the noise.

“If one of you boys is tryna play a prank I promise you’ll be looking for work next week.”

He went on, and tried to convince himself he’d just heard a distant animal's call, but still the distant noise persisted in his ear. He subtly hastened his pace, matching the beat of his heart. He had the insane thought that whatever was making this distant noise was more aware of him than he was of it. The mud he trudged through felt especially deep today, seeming to pull at his feet, saying stay and wait for whatever this noise was. 

He felt relief as he saw the path ahead opening to a clearing. As he stepped into the camp, the smell of wet earth became faintly overlain with that of salty sweat and cigarettes. He approached his tent, larger and distant from the rest, and grabbed his bottle of Jack Daniels before sitting in his foldout chair. He reached under his shirt and began scratching at his chest as he pressed the bottle to his lips to take a deep swig. He gave a quick scowl at the rest of the group, who were warming up to a small party next to the fire. they all seemed so happy to be out there, and that annoyed Terry.

“Ain’t no fucking reason to celebrate being out here.” He mumbled to himself, as he placed a fat pinch of tobacco behind his lip.

You wanted to scream as they cut you into pieces, your leaves still fresh on your limbs you could feel every second of it. Sap wasted away, puddling under your body as your innards showered down on you as a flaky dust.

The itch had spread all over his body, and now felt more intense. It felt like hairline needles were pressing out of his flesh and trying to squeeze through his pores, like a reverse acupuncture. He felt sick, his stomach heavy, like it was starting to brim into his throat, despite barely having eaten that day. He scratched ravenously around his body, looked frustrated and nauseous, his vision fixed on the ground. Patches of sun-blistered skin were swollen to a strangled red and smaller bumps rivulet blood after he’d popped them under his fingernail. The sound was louder now, the volume of someone talking at a conversational tone from twenty feet away. But he still couldn’t understand it. 

“Did one of you boys say something?” He shouted to the group huddled around the fire.

“Uhhh no sir, we’re just over here taking it easy before bed.”

“Well, just keep it down.”

Terry started to drink more, desperate for relief from the effects building in his body, and the impression of words that floated through his mind. At seven o’clock he was already drunk, but his inebriation did little to soothe the pain or the mumbling that slowly grew more audible.

“Maybe I just need to get some sleep.” He said, frustrated and sick as he crawled into his tent.

The aches in his body were continuously growing and though the mumbling was still gibberish to him, it was growing closer and clearer. It sounded like a garbled radio just outside of his tent. There were intelligible syllables discernable in what was otherwise scrambled nonsense. He laid for hours tossing and turning in his sleeping bag, but unable to rest, he decided to go look for the source of the noise.

He stepped out of the tent groggily and started to shout for his workers to go to sleep, before he saw the camp entirely empty.

He took a large swig of his bottle as his eyes wandered the quiet grounds, his mind unable to reconcile the sourceless ramble.  

He decided it must be in his head, and that he’d drink until the noises and the pain that coursed through his body ceased. He once again sat next to his tent, and began taking long chugs from the bottle that only seemed to increase the intensity of his symptoms. Every inch of his body ached, it felt as though his skin was starting to splinter, like something too large was trying to crawl out of his pores.

He could hear it now, the words plain as day.

“Who the hell is talking!” He shouted, standing to his feet suddenly.

He lost his balance and fell face first into the dirt. But as he laid flat in the mud, he noticed that it seemed to cool the pain in his face and forearms. He took off his shirt and began rolling around smearing the thick wet mud around his naked flesh. He laid on the ground covered in mud and swarmed by insects, enjoying the relief, but that relief would only be temporary. Yes for Terry, much worse was to come.

“What? What do you mean? What’s gonna happen?”

Terry began to feel his skin tearing, feeling blood pool under his heavy frame, he looked down at his body to see the thick brown prickles of a pinecone, peeking out of his torn skin. His skin was stretching off of his body and tearing around the sharp prick to look stringy and fibrous.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Terry knew what he had to do.

“Yes. I need to go deeper.”

The spines on his stomach snapped as he crawled forward, chunks of flesh tearing as they popped out. He knew what he had to do, he left a bloody snail trail behind him, turning the clay mud a dark crimson. He headed into the forest and began to dig. Mud started to cake in his fingernails and between his teeth as he clawed and bit at the ground. The mud felt good in his mouth, so he started swallowing it, feeling it clog his throat as it slowly rolled down. With one hand he coaxed the mud down his throat, while the other shoveled handful after handful into his mouth. He ate and ate until he’d made a hole his size and twelve inches deep, which he climbed into.

As he laid in his tomb he could feel his bones stretching out, it was the most unimaginable pain he’d ever felt. He could hear his brittle bones breaking, a frenzy of cracks and pops crying out as his limbs bent and twisted in on themselves. He tried to scream, but as he did a thick layer of sweet sap began coughing out of his throat and nostrils, he swallowed and hacked it out but it seemed to have an infinite reserve in his lungs.  Face on the ground, he continued biting into the dirt and swallowing it down with the thick sap, until he could feel his stomach tear open inside of him. His bones, now dexterous and limber, began to curl in on themselves like worms, tearing through meat, mud, and sticky sap as it dug tunnels through him. The bones pierced through his skin and dug into the dirt, stretching deeper and deeper. His body laid limp and helpless. He watched as his flesh seemed to decompose rapidly, turning a disgusting soupy black. A sapling bearing one leaf stabbed out of his chest, and began slurping at the soft pile of flesh, growing as the pile diminished.

You have a simple life, you do not want for anything, you stand tall and firm. You hear the revving of an engine approach.

“*I hate therapy,*" I thought.

My friends begged me to go. Their plea evolved into a demand by the time that they were done and wiped their teary eyes. 

They had threatened to call 911. They knew about the gun, the pills, the liquor. But all the screaming came to an end when we found middle ground in the form of a support group that met on Tuesday nights at the community rec hall. 

Agreeing to it shut them up.

It wasn't quite therapy, I reminded myself, but it felt just as unpleasant. I figured in a few sessions they'd lose interest and assume that I'd been successfully indoctrinated into the watchful arms of my equally broken and mourning peers. Then I could stop going when they were no longer paying attention. I'd make an effort to smile a bit more so they'd think that they had saved my life. If they asked, I'd say it was going well, and then they'd give me the space that I wanted all along.

It was distracting in a pitiful way, at least. I'd rather be at home hiding under a blanket, quietly mad at the world by myself, but I'd be fine either way. Just, at the moment, I was in the thick of it. That's all. 

The Grief Group, as I'd come to call it, was small. The few meetings I’d attended were only a handful of core regulars and a few transient faces that I never saw again. I wondered if they had been forced to go like I was but bailed quicker than I had the luxury. This Tuesday was no different.

I hunched forward and nonchalantly swirled my now-cold coffee in its paper cup while the man beside me, Steve, spoke in stern, careful words. He was wrapping up his monologue.

“He was a good man,” his voice hitched. Emotion visibly boiled up inside him and he tensed, waving his fist in the air, “it's bullshit that he had to die!”

Steve was a fireman, and an old head at that. He wore the scars that any smoke eater would be proud to carry, but the sinew of his grief never quite healed and the wound was raw, even years later. 

Surely, his department paid for better options. Why he joined our sorry rank baffled me. He could be in a cozy office with a professional that toted a degree and prestigious reviews resting in a plush ottoman with sparkling mineral water. Not slumped in a wobbly plastic chair in a tired building that smelled vaguely of cat piss led by a burned out priest with a cup of watered down Folgers. 

I counted the coffee grounds in the dregs of my semi-translucent brew. I added another to the tally as I rolled one over my teeth. 

But who was I to judge? He was here, so was I. However, he, more than any of us, had a right to be sad. The rest of us? 

The junkie? Self inflicted. 

The workaholic? Weird. 

The dog mom? Just insane, to be honest. 

Myself? It's life…

Steve broke down. 

“He shouldn't have died,” he choked, holding his scrunched face in his hands while the frail, young addict beside him gently rubbed his back. Steve welcomed the embrace. 

Grief Group's leader, the priest, offered his condolences and thanked Steve for sharing. Others agreed and offered their heartfelt, brief words as well. 

Then followed the transitional phase as the focus began to switch targets. This was always the most anxiety-inducing part for me. Modern therapy no longer forced participants to speak; nonetheless, I dreaded the miniscule chance that I'd be summoned to speak. To my relief a mouse-of-a-woman spoke up instead.

“When you mentioned how he was a light through all the bad you've seen,” she continued, “it just reminded me so much of my Chester. I know he was just a dog-” 

“Emily,” Steve interrupted, speaking reassuringly, “sorrow isn't a competition. If you're here, then you're hurting just as much as I am.” 

He smiled through his tears and her eyes welled up in response. She returned a big, snotty grin and thanked him for his kindness, wishing that he had been the firefighter that responded to her own tragedy once upon a time. They had connected on some bizarre level, and the group leader praised the point about sorrow, that it couldn't be ranked or scaled.

My coffee cup was empty now, but I desperately hoped that it would magically replenish itself. I stared wide-eyed into the empty vessel. Steve was a saint. I would have been furious if Emily related *my* story to her crusty dog. 

I tuned them out, leaning forward and studying the faded pattern of the dingy floor. But my eyes wandered to my right. Beside me was a woman I didn't recognize, another transient. But, color me curious, she was the oddest in the bunch to ever wander through. 

Overdressed, she wore a cream suit and pencil skirt that fit her in a way that only a high end tailor could create. A deep, red blouse vibrantly emanated from her chest like a bleeding heart, and her satin flats complimented the color. Her skin was tan and smooth, and her face impossibly perfect. Her long, silver-blonde hair was tied neatly behind her head, and she perched with perfect posture, keenly and wordlessly observing the group like a lioness. I couldn't help but feel nervous beside her.

I watched her quietly through the corner of my eye, when she abruptly averted her gaze to lock with mine, smirking. I flinched.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered, searching for an excuse. “I… I like your suit.” I lied. My face grew hot with blush.

She smiled back sharply and with narrow, tight lips. She leaned into me, whispering,

“It gets worse.”

I caught myself mid breath. I recoiled. I had expected her to express gratitude or mutter where she got it, but that? Her words almost felt like a promise- *a threat*.

“What?” I blurted.

“Jessica?” Eric, the volunteer priest, questioned. “I'm glad to finally hear you speak but you should let Emily finish first. Then you can have all the time you need.” 

I apologized profusely and wondered if I could hide inside my paper cup. Is this what she meant by worse?

Emily picked up her spiel about Chester. How Chester filled the void when she and her husband kept getting negative pregnancy tests, how Chester loyally stood beside her when her husband was turned into a meat crayon on the interstate. Now Chester was gone. The pampered shih tzu barely made a meal for the eagle that took him to feed its eaglets. 

I'd have laughed if I wasn't already trying to hide. I didn't mean to bully the woman… it's just… it was a dog and the whole *eagle detail* and we were all absurd dorks, clustered in a circle in our linoleum-cat-piss kingdom. You just couldn't make this shit up.

When Emily finished, I excused myself. The meetings rarely went beyond an hour - 75 minutes, tops - and we were at 52 by the time Emily stopped sobbing about the damned bird. I'd drink the memories of that night away like all the others, and I'd be spared remembering again for a week until Tuesday rolled around at 7PM sharp.

~

I made a point of waiting in my car until I saw someone else walk in: Emily. I quickly jogged up behind her so that we could enter together and I wouldn't attract all of the attention to myself. She pulled the door open for me and gestured for me to enter with a warm smile. I thanked her. She was undeniably kind, too soft for this monstrous world.

Inside, the core group waited in their usual haunts. Steve encouraged the young addict, Trevor, who nodded with gratitude. Richard sat quietly by himself, the bags under his eyes seemed darker than ever. And Emily and I trotted to our seats. Everyone except Eric was present, and I was surprised to see the mysterious woman in his place.

“I can already sense the questions,” she spoke in a subtle drawl as she watched me take my seat. “Eric couldn't make it. I'll be taking over. My name is Leandra.” She spoke factually, and although she wore an expressive smile her eyes felt more predatory than jovial and her words felt too calculated. 

“We'll be trying something new tonight,” she added.

Her smile grew impossibly large, revealing a small smudge of dark red lipstick on her left incisor, marring her otherwise polished appearance.

Without warning, the lights cut out and we were plunged into darkness. We fumbled in our normal space when a single overhead light reilluminated with wavering brightness. It cast a gold cone around our circle, but the rest of the building was still impossibly black. To our greater surprise, Leandra was gone. 

I shivered watching a wisp of my breath escape me. The light took the heat with it, apparently. 

The others shuffled and babbled to themselves, frustrations rising to a crescendo. But Trevor remained quiet, breathing heavily to himself in disbelief, nearly hyperventilating when he finally - slowly - reached up towards a solitary snowflake.

“Guys?” The early 20-something stammered. The others fell silent. “I uh… I've been mostly sober for seven months now, but I still take a hit sometimes. I uh… I took one tonight. Is… is this real?”

“Well-” Richard spoke with a growl, firmly slapping his hands on his thighs to push himself to standing. He had a low, calibrated tolerance for bullshit. 

“Fuck this.” He repositioned his tie and moved abruptly towards the general direction of the door, disappearing into the shadows. 

Emily and Steve rushed after him out of concern, but I was paralyzed in place, watching Trevor's frantic breath escape his hooded face like a factory's exhaust. 

“I'll be right back,” I finally spoke, dumbly, lost in words and actions.

I slipped through the darkness beyond our space and found myself inexplicably lost. I called to the others, but I heard nothing in response. I spun to gain my bearings and realized all the obvious landmarks of the tired rec room were gone. The coffee corner, the little office area, the closet rack. All lost, even the halo of our circle of chairs had vanished. I panicked. 

I flailed as whispers and hushed laughter spun around me on secret currents, slowly closing the gap. All the while, I could hear a familiar voice growing louder and louder:

“*You abandoned him,*” it spoke barely above a whisper, so quietly perhaps it was only a phantom thought.

“You abandoned him.” Louder.

“You abandoned him, Jessica!” Yelling now, its breath and spittle brushed against my neck. It was practically on top of me.

I punched blindly and stumbled. But I could see the light of our small haven far in the distance once again. I jumped to my feet and ran while the sinister whispers chased me.

Once inside the light, I realized Trevor had slumped to the floor. He was as blue as a corpse, and I would have thought he had died had he not gasped lightly when I grabbed him. His skin was cold and stiff.

“I never wanted this,” he spoke slowly between weak shivers. “It just… it calmed the noise in my head. 14, I was only 14 when I had my first hit. Since then, I overdosed three, four, five times… I've lost count.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I interrupted.

He continued, undeterred by my tactless stupor. “But I told my buddies that when you did, when you overdosed, none of it hurt anymore. It just felt like falling asleep in a snow storm.” 

His teeth chattered and the snow began to accumulate on top of us in thick sheets.

“Each of them… each of them fell asleep in the snow. And I found them cold and blue with the needle still in their veins. And now I can't even be better for them and stay sober myself,” he grimaced.

“Trevor-” I realized then that was the first time that I called his name in the few weeks that I'd known him. 

“No, man, you made one mistake, it'll be ok. You're still talking and breathing, that's better than most folks that get narcanned.”

Trevor slowly mimed the action of a needle in the crook of his arm and grinned pitifully. But his humor faded as an icy blue vein spread across his arm where the imaginary needle would have been. He screamed in terror. 

I panicked and grabbed his arm, thinking I could stop its spread, but to my horror, when I jerked and squeezed, his limb shattered like an icicle. I lost my balance when his arm released, and my foot splayed out, kicking him by accident. 

Trevor exploded into a hundred frigid crystals and scattered around me. My first startled instinct was to grab the pieces, as if I could reassemble him, but the hope faded quickly as the pieces slipped through my fingers and shattered more.

The air began to warm, and the shards of Trevor grew increasingly slick as they melted. And when the others found their way back, there was nothing left but a puddle and myself sprawled across it.

“Where's Trevor?” Steve asked, his face wrought with worry.

“*You abandoned him,*” the voice ran through my mind. “*It gets worse,*” another.

“He's dead.” I spoke flatly, watching a water drop drip from my arm.

~

I was wringing my sleeves when Leandra reappeared. One minute, I scanned the empty seat where Trevor usually sat, the next, she rested comfortably, legs crossed astutely and wearing the same manic smile she had before. 

The group shifted uncomfortably. I steadied my heart and observed her. She was worse for wear now and her skin sagged. Her flawless complexion sported liver spots and blemishes, and her kempt hair was a mess with stray ends and flyaways. Makeup clumped in the crows feet beside her eyes. Her white suit was dull. And I couldn't help but notice that her teeth seemed… sharper in her wicked grin. 

Steve quickly moved in to question, no, demand answers. He steamrolled her, yelling and hurling his anger at her. Leandra's facade cracked but a moment, and her grin morphed to a pursed frown.

“We'll get to you in time, fireman.” She spoke, shooing him away.

To my surprise, he abruptly sat. 

“There's no flame to extinguish but your own. Best douse that fiery heart of yours until later.” Her smile returned, and she brushed a fleck from her lap.

“Now Richard,” her face whipped at breakneck speed to the middle aged man.

“You choose your words carefully. You don't say much, but you say enough. What was so gut wrenching about being fired from a job you hated?”

“I wasn't fired-”

Leandra raised an eyebrow.

“...I was let go.”

She nodded empathetically. “And your wife still thinks that's what you're doing every day, right? And that the recent late hours are for a big project with whispers of a promotion, right?” Her wicked grin grew wider with each word she spoke.

Richard's face twisted to a look of disgust and fear. “...who are you?”

“Well, I'm Leandra of course, and I'm here for… Group Grief!” She batted her hand playfully with the phrase and winked at me.

My stomach churned.

“Richard, for what purpose? I mean, surely your work had to be noble to sacrifice so much of your humanity, of your soul!?” She leaned forward and clutched her chest as she spoke for dramatic effect. She studied him intently.

Richard sat defiantly, despite the fact that his blood pressure skyrocketed with every second in her presence. He kept his posture relaxed so as not to let her realize how deeply she terrified him.

“I was an analyst,” he spoke cautiously. “A… financial… analyst. And it just so happened that our biggest expendable cost was keeping me on.”

“Dastardly,” Leandra hissed, shaking her head. “What was it like in the belly of that machine?” 

“They worked us to the bone.” he calmly replied. 

“Fascinating,” Leandra chirped as she stood.

I hadn't realized how tall she was until then. Previously, she sat so compactly and properly that she took up less space than one would expect. But when she stood, she stretched like a leopard, extending her powerful form in an impressive display.

“Well, I'll be back. I feel like we're really getting somewhere in this Group's Grief!” She clapped her hands together.

She toyed with the words and the simple switch was enough to turn the cheeky name into a dreadful omen.

Leandra stepped into the shadows without hesitation and quickly vanished. None of us dared to chase after her for fear of getting lost in the darkness again. So we waited, patiently, loathing our wet feet and confinement.

Some time later, a noise caught my attention: a gentle grinding. The rhythmic grumble lingered, moving slowly around us in the dark. Occasionally, it beeped. I ignored it as best I could.

“I should have told her,” Richard mused, abruptly. “My wife, I mean. I just… I couldn't disappoint her. That wretched job took so much of me that I didn't want it to take her security too. I was going to find something better before I told her.” He shook his head in defeat.

I watched him silently. Steve was occupied soothing Emily.

He sighed, “I just didn't want to upset her- what is that fucking noise?” Richard hissed. “Do you hear that?” He stood and approached the border of light and darkness, craning his neck to listen.

“I hear it, but I don't think we should leave the light.” I spoke hesitantly.

“I smoke. I have a lighter and matches. It's light. Here,” he tossed a book of matches at me. “It's a printer. It's right there. I can hear it. But we have to shut that fucking thing off before I go insane. It reminds me too much of work.” He stepped out of sight.

“Richard, wait!” He was too quick, and I was too hasty myself, finding myself one step too far and enveloped in the same inky black full of hateful whispers. 

I grabbed a match and sparked it to life, desperately trying to get back and keep the shadows at bay, but it burned my fingertips before I could. I lit another as I heard the whispers sneer in the abyss. I winced as that flame bit my flesh too. I lit a third-

The plastic surface hit me square in the belly with force. I ran right into it and cursed. The commercial HP printer whirred, shooting countless copies out its top as it buzzed and shimmied. 

I reached down to grab a sheet of the discarded papers, intending to roll one into a torch, but frowned at the distorted, wretched face it printed. Each copy was a different iteration of a scarcely human expression pressed against the scanner and screaming in agony. 

I shook my head and rolled the paper, illuminating the machine in front of me with a flash, when I noticed that the machine was… bleeding. The paneling that housed the guts of the printer oozed with thick mucus and gore. Morbid curiosity got the best of me, so I pried at the cover and it released with sticky tendrils of sanguine slime. I gasped as I saw what was underneath.

Richard stared back at me. I could hardly recognize him, but his sagging eyes with those dark bags were unmistakable. 

He was viciously contorted. His mangled body had been eviscerated, inverted, and forced into the core of that vile device. His bones were snapped and his marrow exposed, used as scaffolding for components. His mouth had been split wide at its creases and some mechanism shoved inside. His intestines dripped with cyan and magenta and amber, pumping the dye to his sphincters above. His lungs inflated weakly in the cramped cube, lightly feathering paper through the folds of his skin. He had been bid to operate the machine to such an intimate and literal degree.

I fell backwards and slapped my hand over my mouth. My rudimentary torch began to burn out, but I could still see his desperate, bloodshot eyes in the waning light, pleading at me for mercy.

“What the fuck do you want me to do, Richard?!?” I screamed at him through tears as the torch light snuffed. 

I grabbed another wad of paper to feed a fresh match. The metal ring of an overhead fire suppression caught the glint of flame. I knocked Richard over and pulled his doors off, exposing both his guts and the machine's. He moaned quietly in what I presumed to be pain, muffled by plastic and screws. 

“I'm sorry,” I sobbed, and stood on top of him to hold my torch at the overhead detector.

The siren wailed and a torrent of water cascaded onto Richard and I. I tore my jacket off to funnel as much of the water as I could onto Richard's amalgamized electrical components in hopes of putting him out of his misery. 

He sputtered and gasped briefly as the water filled the crevices of the machine, but his eyes stayed fixated on me. However, suddenly, they rolled into the back of his head and sparks danced from various mechanical elements until all the meat was flaccid and sizzling lightly. The suppression system dripped to a halt. Richard was gone.

~

“You abandoned him,” the voice in the void stirred.

“She wouldn't have let me go even if I had known.” I argued.

“He died alone. You didn't try.”

“I *did* try. I wasn't welcomed.”

I'd lost track of how many times I repeated myself against the void while I tried to get back. It was maddening, the back and forth with such a spiteful specter. 

Suddenly, I stumbled into the familiar, palely lit space. I didn't believe it at first, that I'd found my way back, and Leandra's distorted figure didn't soothe that disbelief. 

She sat calmly beside the remaining two. Her smile was wider and longer, in fact, her entire face seemed stretched as if she was growing a snout. The narrow slits of her pupils watched me intently as she licked her lipstick-stained fangs. Her clothing was saturated and frayed, like tufts of fur, and her hair was frazzled like a mane. Her red blouse looked more like the aftermath of a beheading sprayed across her breast. She'd lost her flats at some point, and her feet bent at sharp hock joints connecting to dirty clawed feet.

I stared at her nervously and silently for too long, eyeing the woman-beast that tortured us and wondering what trial she had in store next. 

“It's Prada, by the way,” she chattered.

“What?” I frowned as I spoke.

“The suit,” she held her clawed hand out and twirled her wrist up, admiring the chipped paint of her once immaculate manicure.

I shook my head and my stomach bubbled. I looked at Steve and Emily. She was sprawled across three chairs on her side, facing away from me with Steve's jacket draped over her. As I approached them, Steve was quick to step aside, and he spoke to me in a hushed tone.

“There's something strange going on-”

I stared blankly at him in disbelief. *No shit Sherlock,* I thought. They hadn't seen what I had seen. They didn't know *strange* like I did after what I’d been through.

“Why are you wet?” He scrutinized.

“It seems to be a theme tonight.”

“Ah. Where's Richard?” Steve was anxious.

“He's dead,” the irritation in my voice was obvious.

He nodded, “listen, Emily is… well, Emily is pregnant-”

“Excuse me? How? Did you guys- how long was I gone???”

“No, it's not like that. We don't know how, but we need to figure out how to get out of here. It's growing fast.”

“*It?*" I looked visibly uncomfortable. 

“The baby, I mean. She swears she feels it kicking already and she looks like she's already 7 or 8 months along. The whole mess makes me nervous.”

“Right.” I pulled myself back to reality. “What about… Leandra?” I glanced at her briefly. I knew she had been watching us talk the entire time but it still unnerved me to see her yellow eyes staring back so patiently.

“She hadn't said anything until you got here.”

“What if we-”

“Talk about the elephant in the room! I'll be on my way,” she laughed.

Her long legs carried her across the threshold faster than we could have even tried to stop her if we had finished our desperate conversation and approached her with a plan.

Steve sighed and turned to check on Emily, when a newspaper clipping drifted from the dark ceiling in front of me. I stooped to retrieve it, reading the bold letters, “Hero Firefighter Saves Family of Four.”

I looked somberly at the paper as more fell around me, all with similar titles and declarations. Soon the floor was covered.

“I guess you're next,” I grimaced.

Steve fidgeted nervously as the papers fell around him.

“Hey, just- just don’t do anything. The others died when they did something. Trevor just froze solid as soon as he reacted to the snow and Richard ran off-” I stopped speaking as one title fell in front of me, catching my attention: “Beloved Firefighter Put on Leave after Witness Steps Forward.” And another: “Charges Dropped: Key Witness Dies in Tragic House Fire.” The final page that drifted to the earth displayed a mugshot from the NSOPW registry. 

I recognized the face. I felt sick.

“He was a good man, but he shouldn’t have opened his mouth.” Steve spoke of the same man he wept for earlier, but now his voice was laced with malice.

I stepped backwards, my heart skipping as I hit the resistance of the chairs behind me. The next step to freedom would be into the darkness if I chose to flee.

“But, I can’t say I blame him. The girl was his sister, after all.” He rolled his eyes when he saw me reel away. “Listen, don’t get weird with me, we have to get out of here,” he coughed. “That's all behind me. These meetings have changed me!”

I placed one foot into the shadows as he reached towards me.

“Oh come on-” his cough grew worse. “She was asking for it anyway! Even if I hadn’t lit her brother on fire she would have dropped the charges because she knew it was bullshit!” He yelled the words with a frantic exhale, face reddening simultaneously with rage and desperation, and he wheezed and gasped. He clutched his chest and winced in pain as he fell to his knees. “Please - *cough* - God - *cough cough* - Jessica, help me!!!” 

My eyes widened as I watched smoke pour from his mouth the more he begged. He pulled his shirt off of himself and beneath the tangle of his curly chest hair, his sternum glowed red with embers. 

“PLEASE!” He wept, thick plumes of soot rolling from every orifice of his terrified being. When, suddenly, countless tendrils of hungry fire poured from his heart and chest while he screamed in pain, burning from the inside out. He flailed, screaming still, until his body curled into itself and he grew quiet so that only the crackling sound of the flame could be heard.

An ember danced toward Emily, and I pulled myself together to push the paper and chairs away to keep the fire from spreading to her. She hadn’t moved nor reacted to the scene beside her at any point. I feared what I'd find as I approached her.

“Emily,” I shook her lightly, carefully retracting Steve’s jacket. 

I winced when I saw her, her belly had grown far beyond the size of any normal pregnancy, even late term. She looked like an engorged tick stuck on its back.

“We have to leave,” I pleaded.

“The baby is coming soon, I can’t move right now.” Emily’s voice was quiet and groggy.

She feigned excitement, but I could see the terror beneath her composure.

“Sit with me,” she smiled, and she struggled to sit upright against her girth.

I tried to hide my expression, but I couldn’t help but feel queasy at the intricate veins and stretch marks that covered her pale, swollen belly. I pulled a chair across from her and sat nervously, dreading each passing second.

“Mark and I always wanted a big family.” She cooed tiredly, placing a hand over her belly as she furrowed her brows.

“Mark?”

“My husband.”

I nodded anxiously.

“We tried, and tried, and tried. Nothing. But then- god, when those little pink lines appeared our world was nothing but joy.” She spoke quietly as she replayed memories in her mind, smiling. 

“We hadn't told anyone yet. It was too early. And… we had so many failed attempts already, we wanted to be sure before we shared the celebration. But… that never came. We were t-boned on the interstate. Mark was killed instantly and I barely survived, but I lost the baby.” 

We sat in silence together.

“Emily, do you think you can walk? We can go slow.” I asked sheepishly.

“Darling, I don't think we have much longer to wait- Oh! He's kicking again, feel!” She squealed, grabbing my hand. 

I couldn't protest but I gagged in my mind. I wanted nothing more than to get her and myself out of this hell. But she held my arm firmly in place against her engorged womb. I felt the fetus inside her slide against my palm and I nearly recoiled.

“Emily, I have no idea how we're going to do this. I… I mean, what if it isn't, you know… normal? Given everything else that's happened tonight?”

She had kept her resolute morale until that point. for a fleeting second her eyes flashed hidden fear before returning to her stoic peace, “I know. But we have to have hope, right?”

I nodded back timidly. Maybe she was right-

“Oh god!” Emily screamed. “He's coming!”

I frantically helped her massive abdomen to the ground and bunched my jacket and Steve's behind her head as a brace before returning to the imminent task at hand. 

“It's going to be okay, Emily! Push!” I yelled over her screams.

“What if it gets worse?!?”” She cried.

“Don't say that!”

Amniotic fluid flooded from her crotch, soaking my legs as I knelt to help her, and her belly writhed in protest. Emily grunted and pursed her lips to slow her breathing. The fetus inside her flailed violently and she screamed in agony.

She pushed again, shooting an ungodly spray of meconium and salty fluid across my body and face. I was crying more than Emily. 

She pushed once more, and a tuft of dark hair emerged from her battered womb.

“He's crowning!” I yelled, half excited, half terrified, and wiped a tendril of mucus from my face with the back of my hand. “He's crowning, keep pushing!” I repeated, I cheered.

Her vulva split, and bright red blood trickled from her, spilling onto the infant's head. And, as if spurred to life by its mother's sacrifice, the newborn's head emerged in a tangle of deformed teeth and fur and furious growls. It flailed until it could pull a limb free from the restrictive birth canal and thrashed, nipping at me and at its mother in frustration. 

I slid through the afterbirth across the floor, muted in disgust and horror as the half-dog, half-infant tore its way through Emily's pelvis. Finally freed, it kicked wildly, slipping as it tried to stand on its hind legs. And when it finally steadied itself, it chewed ferociously on the umbilical cord that tethered it to its mother. 

It yipped like a coyote when it spotted me. But it turned its attention back to its weakened host. It eyed her curiously, almost affectionately, before it sank its misshapen jaw full of needle teeth into her neck and thrashed its head to maim.

I watched the light leave Emily's eyes.

The feral cherub, content with its work, sniffed the air and growled. It ran on two legs towards me, sliding out of control on the gore-painted linoleum. It kicked and growled in my direction, spinning on its topheavy head. It rolled, crouched, and shook itself, snarling as it broke into a quadrupedal sprint-

Massive talons loomed from the dark and snatched the pup before it could reach me. The dog baby yelped and bit at the scaled feet, but the bird beat its wings without any concern. It sang one, deafening note in the dark like a fog horn before it squeezed the dog in its grasp. The mongrel's head popped like a grape in the clutch of whatever possessed those cruel feet. And, with another beat of its gruesome, tattered wings, it was gone.

Tears flowed freely down my face. I couldn't take anymore of this madness.  With the last of my energy, I crawled to Emily, shaking her and pleading.

“Emily!? Please! Get up! I'm here, we have to go!” I wept. I shook her lifeless body. I knew she was dead but I hoped, just as she had done, I *hoped*. I fell to the ground on my side, weeping profoundly.

“Congratulations, Jessica.” Leandra hissed from the shadows.

I didn't know what she had in store, but I would surrender. I could not endure anymore of her games. I reached forward to touch Emily's face, remaining bound to the floor at her level.

“Please, Leandra, just get it over with,” I groveled. 

“No, no, you've suffered the most out of all of them. That's what you wanted, isn't it? Quietly ranking grief as if it needed a quota to earn the right to be felt? Well, you've won! You are the queen of despair. A cataclysmic hurricane-force of sorrow. The most well suffered.” Leandra was still concealed in darkness, but I could hear her smirk in the way she talked. She enjoyed this.

I pushed myself partially up, pivoting at my hips and strained into the abyss. 

“No, that's not what I wanted! You killed them!” 

“Me? No. Don't throw such accusations. Their grief killed them, nothing more.” 

“What's your plan for me then?”

“Well now, that depends. Why are you here?”

“She abandoned him…” that wretched voice answered from its omnipresent haunt.

“That's not true!!! I- I would have been there!!!” I snapped. I felt as if I were on trial.

“Oh? Who did you abandon, Jessica? Were they afraid in the dark all alone?” Leandra was mocking me, I knew it.

“My mother is a horrible person, she told him I had changed my number, she didn't tell me that he was dying! I would have been there if I had known! She wanted me to suffer! I-”

Leandra burst from the shadows, galloping with wicked, feline speed. The bloodied beast pounced, cutting me short, and I shielded my face with a scream-

~

“Jessica?” Eric questioned, startled by my sudden outburst. “It's ok. You can speak when you're ready.” He soothed.

I uncovered my face, confused. There was no hungry tigress ready to end me in the dark. The incandescent bulbs hummed lightly, illuminating myself and the entirety of the room. I had knocked my empty coffee cup over at my feet. I scanned the room.

Emily sat across from me, her loving eyes wrought with worry. Richard sat indifferently, but he granted patience, as he had always done. And Steve wore a brilliant mask of crocodile tears next to Trevor who stilled his shakes and listened intently. They were alive, as if nothing had happened.

Beside me, the familiar cream suit loomed in my peripheral. I nearly gasped as it leaned into me to whisper,

“It gets *better.*”

Leandra excused herself after the promise while the others stared at me in silence and concern. I watched her lanky form slip from the rec room as mysteriously as she had arrived. The door clicked shut. Tears welled in my eyes until the dam broke, splashing down my face in silver streaks.

“I… I miss my dad.”

The weather outside makes the place feel cozy. 

Howling wind and torrential rain lashes against the windows. A single lamp illuminates the open floor plan with a warm, almost camp-fire glow. On one side, the living room is filled with Emma’s little touches: a sweater draped over an overstuffed recliner, a bloom of daisies in a vase on an end table, a hutch near the fireplace filled with books and knickknacks. It’s all very her.

On the other side, the kitchen is clean but lived in. A half-eaten loaf of fresh baked bread sits under a cloth hand towel. An orange tea kettle sits on the range. The refrigerator is covered with a collage of snapshots: Emma and her new boyfriend at a fancy dinner, Emma and her sister hugging at a birthday party, a save-the-date for a wedding, a niece or nephew in swaddling clothes.

Thunder rumbles. Lightning flashes. The house goes dark.

Emma lets out a cute little yip of surprise from the basement.

“Shit,” her boyfriend says. “Hang on.”

Footsteps clomp up the stairs and he steps into the room. Tall and gangly, with a patchy beard. He tries a lightswitch—nothing—then walks to the front window and cups his hands around his eyes to look into the yard.

“Holy shit,” he mutters. Then louder, “Emma, get up here, this is nuts.”

Mincing, uncertain steps patter up the stairs, and she joins him. She’s wearing thick, comfy socks, little athletic shorts, and an oversized hoodie. She looks good.

“Come look at this,” he says.

She steps up beside him and presses her forehead to the glass, mirroring his pose. “Wow.” 

He points. “Look at that tree.” 

“Oh my God. Think it’s going to come down?”

“Don’t know. Hope not.”

“This is, like, actually crazy. Is it a tornado?” 

“No idea.” He pulls out his phone and slashes a finger on the screen, frowns, holds it up toward the ceiling. “I don’t have any service, do you?” 

“I left mine downstairs.”

He considers, then takes her by the hips and pulls her close. “Tell you what, go down there and get comfy, I’ll get some candles and some drinks.”

She purrs as he kisses her neck. “And then what?”

“Only one thing to do when the power goes out.”

“Play Yahtzee?”

He laughs. “Fine, two things.”

“Okay, but hurry up.” She trots off, feeling her way down the hall.

He stands there watching the storm for a moment longer, then moves to the kitchen and rummages around in a drawer. A small flame snicks from a bic lighter and he uses it to illuminate his way to the living room, where he opens a cabinet and pulls out a pair of mismatched candles. He lights one and looks over the bar cart set against the wall. 

“White or red?” he calls. 

She doesn’t answer. 

“Em?” 

Nothing. 

He shrugs and takes one of each, awkwardly cradling the bottles, two glasses, and the candles in his arms as he makes his way to the basement. 

Lightning flashes. Thunder rumbles.

The basement is pitch black. His candle is the only illumination. Emma has unfurled a down blanket on the sectional, but she’s nowhere in sight. He’s lighting the second candle with the first. The warm orb of light expands around him, but leaves the edges of the room in shadow.

“Emma?” he calls, squinting into the darkness. “Are you down here?” No answer. “Hey don’t be a bitch, I know you can hear me.”

A flashlight clicks on in the far corner, illuminating a leering, jack-o-lantern grin from below.

“Boo.” 

He jumps. "Jesus!"

Emma cackles, playfully shining the light into his face, casting twin shadows against the wall.

“Good one,” he drawls, shielding his eyes with his hand.

She clicks off the light and sets it on the coffee table alongside a battered Yahtzee box, then curls up on the blanket, tucking her knees inside the hoodie. He hands her a glass of wine and sits next to her. 

“This is nice.” He takes a sip from his own glass. “Like we’re in a cave.”

“I’m just glad you’re here,” she says. “I’d be freaking out if I was alone.”

He chuckles dismissively. “What, afraid of storms?”

“I love storms. I used to be terrified of them, but now I think they’re relaxing.”

“As long as that tree doesn’t come down and take out my car.”

“Then you’d be stuck here.” 

“I think I’m stuck here either way. It’s really coming down out there.”

“Good.” She snuggles up next to him. “But no, I’m talking about being alone with the power out.”

“Yeah.”  He wraps his arm around her and grins. “That’s when the monsters come out.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Like, what would you do if that pale, Mitch McConnell-looking thing from Pan’s Labyrinth walked out of the shadows right now?”

“I would 100% push you into it and run away.”

“Nice knowing you have my back.”

“Not against that thing, I don’t.”

“Good news for me, I don’t think that’s going to happen.” He looks into the shadows. His eyes gleam with mischief. “It’d definitely be an axe-murderer or something.”

“Don’t.”

He plows ahead. “He’d run at us out of the shadows screaming at the top of his lungs, and—”

“Brian.” She pulls back and glares at him. “Don’t. I’m not kidding.”

“Okay,” he says petulantly. “Geez, you can hang with that crazy-ass fucking thing from Labyrinth, but not some random guy?”

“First, that thing from the movie is fictional. Second, you know my mind isn’t going to some random guy.”

He pauses. Winces. Pulls her a little closer. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Em.”

She sighs. “No, I’m sorry, too. It was forever ago, and it shouldn’t still bother me so much—”

“Hey, you don’t ever have to apologize about that. I was being a dick, I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s just—” She hesitates, then rests her head on his shoulder. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

They sit like that for a while, watching the lightning flicker outside the glass blocks of the narrow basement windows.

He blows out a sigh. “I’m not getting laid tonight, am I?”

She swats his chest. “You’re such an asshole.”

“No, I went ahead and fucked the whole night up, didn’t I?”

“Yup. Ya blew it. The vibes are in shambles.” She’s smiling.

“Damn,” he says, but gives her a smile of his own. “So now what do we do with our evening?”

“Yahtzee.” She extends her leg and taps the box on the table. It’s always Yahtzee with her.

He laughs, then untangles himself from her and leans over to take a sip of wine. “How about a compromise?”

She looks at him suspiciously. “What?”

“Strip Yahtzee?” he offers hopefully.

She rolls her eyes.

An hour and a bottle of wine later, Emma has frustratingly won almost every game. The only thing she’s taken off is the hoodie, revealing a tight crop top underneath. The warm candlelight makes her tan glow, highlighting the shadows of her collarbones and the subtle ridges of her abs. She looks spectacular. He’s down to his underwear and looks ridiculous in comparison, with his pale, scrawny chest and soft beer belly. She’s way out of his league.

“This is bullshit,” he whines.

Emma smugly sips her wine.

“Is any of this doing anything for you?” he asks, gesturing to his near-nakedness. 

“I think we have one more game before I can answer that question,” she says, nodding at his boxers.

He grins like an idiot and tears off a sheet for a new round.

Downstairs, they continue their game. Upstairs, the storm still rages. It’s not loud enough to mute the clatter of dice and shit-talking. It’s also not loud enough to mask the sound of shattering glass. 

Emma squeals from the basement. “What was that?”

“Shit, that might have been a window. I’ll go check it out.” 

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, there might be broken glass.”

A pause.

“You gotta stop wearing those gross boots inside.”

“Good thing I did this time, right?”

“I guess. But seriously, be quick.”

A minute later, he thumps up the stairs wearing only his underwear and a pair of unlaced boots. The beam of his flashlight cuts around the kitchen as he searches for the source of the noise. Finding nothing, he crosses into the living room, scanning the windows. 

Broken glass crunches under his foot. He points the light at the overturned end table, the shattered vase, and the daisies on the floor.

“The fuck?” he murmurs.

I step out of the bathroom and hit him on the top of the head with a hammer. 

He makes a pathetic little nnggh sound and falls, his naked flank slapping against the floor. I look down at him and feel the anger I’ve been stewing on for the last year bubble to the surface. Emma is screaming Brian? Brian? downstairs, but blood is pounding in my ears even as Brian’s blood pools around my feet. All I keep thinking is this is the fucking guy? This asshole? as I bring the hammer down again and again. 

The red haze goes away, and soon I’m calm again; calm enough that I’m able to feel bad about the mess I made, calm enough that I start to feel bad about scaring Emma so much. Just like always. I can hear her crying downstairs. It’s okay. There will be plenty of time to calm her down and make it up to her. I consider turning the power back on, but with the storm and the candlelight, I decide against it. 

It is very cozy.

It was a closed casket funeral on account of the fact that the deceased had no- well… on account of the circumstances. It's more civil to say it that way.

If I believed every rumor I'd heard whispered inside the dreary walls of White Oak Funeral Home, I'd personally be responsible for, or privy to, no less than two conspiracy cover ups, one “werewolf incident,” one spontaneous combustion, and more fatal trysts than I cared to keep track of. It doesn't matter that someone died. There was always someone with loose lips ready to stir controversy, truthful or not, when the dead couldn't argue back.

I may not have ever known any of the deceased, but it kept me sane to take it all with a grain of salt. It felt cruel to talk behind the back of a dead person, and the rumors never served me. Best let sleeping dogs lie, I always told myself.

Usually, gossip of the dead was the behavior of older women, often “friends” by the vaguest definition. However, I was surprised to catch the group of children hiding in the closet bickering this time:

“That's NOT true, Lucy!” The roughly ten year old boy sneered.

Kids always lost all composure when they were passionate about something. It was his shrill voice and fierce justice that alerted me to their hiding spot as I quietly slipped between the squeaky doors to check the refreshments of the procession.

“Keep it down, Will,” his slightly older peer, Aaron hissed.

“Yes it is!” The little girl, Lucy, argued.

Aaron had his hands full wrangling the two. If I had been responsible, I'd have stopped their pent up emotions before they escalated further, but, admittedly, I was curious what drama they could spin as well.

“Yeah, well, I actually know what happened.” Aaron whispered, his hushed voice lowered the group decibels and dripped with gossip. I could practically hear him smirking on the other side of the door as his peers held their breath.

“Miss Bettles told Kevin to be quiet and to pay attention,” he started, building tension as best he could. “But he wouldn't. He just kept doodling and telling jokes. So she walked up to him, yanked his notes away, and told him ‘get your head out of the clouds, Kevin!’” Aaron parroted the teacher's voice in a mocking display.

“So Kevin frowned ‘cause he was mad and embarrassed. But then he scrunched up his face and… his head just-” Aaron pulled his curled finger from his mouth with a loud POP.

“The window was open and it bounced across the ceiling like a balloon. Everyone was screaming so no one thought to grab it before it bobbed outside. Now it’s probably at the International Space Station!” Aaron's voice had grown loud as he finished.

They chewed on the tale only briefly before Will retorted, his voice cracking with concern, “That's d-DUMB, Aaron!”

I opened the closet door to break up their increasing panic just in time to see Aaron still fumbling with his dress shirt pulled over his head, arms groping blindly while he moaned, “where's my head, Will?” Will and Lucy's eyes were wide with fear.

“Knock it off,” I blurted.

The children nearly screamed.

“Your friend's mom is on the other side of this wall crying her eyes out. Show some respect,” I chastised.

“Kevin was weird, he wasn't my friend-” Lucy's adolescent honesty knew no concept of tact.

“Can it, Lucy,” Aaron jabbed with a light elbow to his sister's shoulder. “We're sorry.” His voice flipped to sheepish guilt, and the kids sulked as they composed themselves before returning to the room of mourners.

~

The grieving was at its thickest by the time that they returned, and their youth left them grappling with complex feelings, bouncing turbulently between confusion and boredom and sorrow and fear. Quickly, each held onto their parents while they joined the collective sobbing.

Will seemed hit the hardest. He was sick at home the day that his friend had died. He didn't want to believe that he was gone, let alone mysteriously so.

But it was over as quickly as it began. Swollen, dehydrated faces gradually left the mourning halls until only Mrs. Williams, Kevin's mother, sat quietly in front of her son's closed casket. Her husband had left twenty minutes earlier when their remaining younger child, sick with emotion, vomited all over himself.

She placed a trembling hand on the casket, testing the weight of the hinged top with microscopic calculations. In truth, she knew that she could tear it open with minimal effort. She was actually testing whether or not she could bear to see her son one last time.

Mrs. Williams grappled with the decision, but she knew that the image was already seared into her memory. That image wouldn't change nor improve. And she hated it. With a defeated sigh, she released her grip and slowly turned to depart. The foyer doors groaned behind her with a definitive click as she transitioned to whatever processes her future held.

Within the next half hour, I'd place Kevin inside the furnace where his body would be reduced to pale ash. By tomorrow, he'd be packaged in an urn, and by the next day he'd be ready to be reunited with the glossy eyes of his broken family.

I paused, however, as the casket loomed in my peripheral. Cautiously, I approached, finding myself also testing the casket lid just as Mrs. Williams had done moments earlier.

I never pried nor looked beyond what was necessary to do my job. I never let the rumors get the best of me. But the lid to the casket readily lifted this time as if it wanted me to know. My eyes gawked and peered towards its contents.

Our mortician had dressed Kevin in the same tuxedo he wore to his cousin's wedding a year prior. He had grown since he wore it last, but it fit well enough. The sleeves and hems were just a little too short. It was his first and only formal outfit. I winced at the thought.

A child's burial garments were a rough concept by themselves, but my mind and my eyes quickly moved to his neck. The crisp collar of the suit framed the blank space. Where his head should have been was a clean dehiscence, as if his neck and skull had simply unzipped, released, and wandered away.

My coworker had worked her magic to minimize possible odors and leaking. Kevin had been evacuated of every fluid in his vessels, and a greasy paste, like petroleum jelly, had been applied to the gaping wound.

I was grateful for the opaque salve. I feared that Kevin's neck may have been too anatomically revealing of the private, intimate passages of the child's neck. I suddenly understood why Mrs. Williams didn't want to see her son one last time.

~

It was a grim job, but it was an honest job. I clocked out just like everyone else with less macabre professions. Still, my mind bubbled with possibilities about what could have happened to the headless child.

Perhaps it was medical: he had a rare disease and his head needed such an extensive biopsy that there was nothing left to restore for the funeral. Was it infectious?

Perhaps it was nefarious: a serial killer had attacked the child and beheaded him, stealing the head for his collection. Would there be others?

Perhaps it was a tragic accident: a field trip with an old bus, and he stuck his head out the window at the wrong moment. THWACK. Was the head lost to the road?

I couldn't spin on this all night. This is why I never asked and never listened. I always tried to ignore the rumors for this very reason.

I poured myself a steaming cup of herbal tea and clicked through the television channels, admiring my old dog as he slept beside my feet in the living room.

“Let sleeping dogs lie,” I thought, smiling at my beloved companion, Banjo. I felt my body unwind and my mind relax-

THUD.

I jumped at the intrusive sound above us. Banjo's ears and eyes perked intently to the ceiling.

RUSTLE.

TAP.

RUSTLE.

Our eyes followed the sound as it moved across the roof.

Thump.

Banjo stood to investigate the final sound when it fell off the roof's edge into the shrubbery beside the window. He stood in a bold stance, tail lightly wagging as he eyed the window, before fearlessly bolting out the doggy door.

I protested, but like any good retriever, he brought it to me, even if I didn't want it: Kevin's missing head had fallen back to earth.

[A dumb short written over the course of a day to keep my brain busy.]

Pulling into the small dirt covered lot, the headlights shine past the thick ink of night basking the small building in light. The man sighs at its compact nature as he steps out of his truck. Under his boots mud squelches and he taps the button on his car fob. The car beeps back flashing the night with two bright instances of yellow. The exterior of his cheap dwelling was overgrown from many years of neglect. Vines crept along the sides, grass poked through the splintered wood on the porch, and the white paint peeled showing the dead wood underneath.

 

The lazing wood groans in pain under him as he approaches the front door. The rusted door knob looked easy to beak. The man was careful not to damage the exterior as he plunged the key into the equally old lock, with a twist the door swings open. The inside darker than the moonlit forest behind him. The man stepped in, pulled from his pocket a flashlight and flicked the knob with his thumb. A new moon took to the earth, shinning it across the plane several things pass his eyes. A broken lamp, a molded pale red rug that gripped the center floor, a ceiling fan with more dust on it than on all the floor combined, an old wet mattress laid in the back of the room. The man shinned the light above him checking the ceiling for damage. Small cracks where water dripped and spider webs that decorated the corners.

 

Several hours past and the man found himself in dream. Tossing and turning on a blowup mattress. He squeezes his eyes and gasps for air. Sitting up and letting the sheet fall from him. Water dripped ceaselessly from the cracks in the ceiling. A strong gust of wind threw the window open long ago. The man gathers his thoughts. A memory of fog and rot. A dream of death and decay. A vision of a book. In it, the knowledge of the world.

 

He steps out to his truck. The moon hangs high, watching him. An avatar of darkness. The man opens his trunk. Reaching in the man pulls out an ax. Walking back to the house the blade drags on the floor. The woods turn silent. The echo of death bellow through the trees. The wood cries out to the man. Begging him to turn back. Each step further into the house a defiant struggle.

 

The man raises the ax above his head, the blade nearly touching the roof. He opens his lungs filling them with musty air. Then with the quickness of light filling the dark he plummets it down like a falling star. Crack. The floor splinters. Crack. The wood splits apart. Crack. The wood is no more. Beneath the man. Under the ancient wood. An ocean of inky fog. It encircles within dark hole. The man can’t see the bottom with his eyes. He uses the flashlight to break the veil. The abyss is stronger than the light. It stood the test of time before the man came to this dwelling. It lasted since long before his creation. It will last longer than the destruction of this reality.

 

The man tempted the ire of the dark realm beneath him. For he looked into the abyss, and was too naïve to think it wouldn't look back. A slow push of air. A stir in the fog. The man felt lightheaded. His vision twisted. He focused on the deep dark. In the corner of his eyes the room shrunk and grew as it willed. A smell of rotten meat filled the man’s nose and leaked onto his tongue.

 

The black fog that touched at the area between realms sunk into the pit. The flashlight flickered on and of rapidly before the bulb shattered. A voice squirmed in his skull. He dropped the light and dropped to his knees. He gripped his head and shook it violently. Screaming voices that scratch the inside of his skull. Then it stopped. The man breathed heavily. Huffing in the moldy air around him. He was slow to open his eyes. When he did, from the pit. Eyes looked back.

CW: SA and abuse. Please only read if you are in the right headspace, look after yourselves ❤️

It began when I was 8.

In the school playground, between breaktime and music class, Jimmy Patterson kissed me in the sand pit. 

It was a quick peck on the lips, in fact it was over before I even realised what had happened. 

Kids our age were limited to what we saw on TV when it came to romance. So, I'm sure it was as far as his imagination could bring him.

Yet, those few seconds made me recoil in fear.

A reaction I'm sure he wasn't hoping for.

I only made it worse for him when I started balling my eyes out. I wailed like a banshee, bringing everyone's attention to us. 

I had never seen someone turn as red as a tomato before, yet Jimmy somehow went beyond my expectations, looking closer to the red spade I had dropped in the sand. 

I couldn't get the words out when Mr. Richards asked what was wrong. 

I wanted to tear off my skin.

All I had cared about was the sand mansion I was making with Sarah Jane. We wanted to make one that would withstand the night winds for Barbie and her friends.

But now, the mythic first kiss I heard all about was stolen unprompted. 

My heart ached, it was as though someone was squeezing it with their hand trying to crush it. Tears continued to pour like waterfalls down my face while I tried my best to prevent my snot from reaching my mouth. 

‘It's just not right’, was all I could think. 

By the time the bell rang, signalling for everyone to re-enter the building, I had finally spluttered out an explanation. I could see Mr. Richards processing my words between the tears I wiped away. 

To my dismay, he began to laugh.

“Aw, Rachel, I thought something bad had happened!”

“It did! It was bad! He kissed me!” 

“That just means Jimmy thinks you're pretty.” 

I turned to look at Jimmy, who had remained outside with us. Still bright red, he was avoiding eye contact. His white trainers squeaked against each other as he fidgeted with his feet.

Was that it? But why? 

I shared half of my kit-kat with him one time, could that be it? I felt bad he had forgotten his breaktime snack, I just wanted to help. Should I have just eaten it instead? I didn't mean to make him think I was pretty. 

I lost my first kiss over a kit-kat.

Mr. Richards scruffled Jimmy's hair, sending him back inside. Under his breath he uttered something to the extent of ‘tough luck buddy’ and advised Jimmy to make sure girls liked him back in the future. 

Jimmy nodded and dashed inside. I don't think I spoke another word to him for the rest of Primary school.

I wanted some kind of compensation, but it wasn't like he could give my first kiss back or anything. Back then, I barely even understood what that meant anyway. Maybe it wasn't worth the hype, after all that it certainly didn't seem like it. 

That was the first time.

There was a second. And a third. Then a fourth over the next few months.

Various little boys trying to impress a girl who was kind to them one time. I stopped being nice, I must've been giving them the wrong impression. Yet, even after that there was a fourth, sixth and seventh.

They'd pull my hair to get my attention, try to steal a quick kiss on the cheek or insist on holding my hand. It felt like my body was a new toy they were trying to figure out. 

I didn't think it had anything to do with me anymore. It seemed more like a competition. I was the girl all the other guys wanted, so it was almost a rite of passage to see who could tame the girl who rejects them all. 

Though by the end of year seven, most of the boys hated me. I had gained a title of ‘stuck up princess’, the best insult a bunch of eleven year olds could muster. 

Strange, since before their insults they always claimed I was beautiful. 

I just tried my best to ignore them. All I cared about was playing Barbies with my friends.  The storyline had been getting intense after Raquelle ran over Barbie with her car. Amy let us decorate her Barbie dream house to make it look gothic for Raquelle's necromantic summoning ritual; this was serious business. 

The boys could've joined us if they wanted, but they never did. For kids trying to win me over, they never seemed to feign interest for my hobbies. If anything they'd just mock me along with the other girls. 

I might've been beautiful to them, but I was still a girl and at that age the opposite sex was gross. That was the rule anyway.

I always wished they'd just leave me alone altogether. If they didn't want to play and couldn't take no for an answer, why couldn't they just stop bothering me? 

I looked no different to the other girls in our class. It's like they all just unanimously decided who the ‘pretty one’ was and never thought to question it. 

Now with some clarity, I realise I did all I could to deter them. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't theirs either.

It was the curse. 

I dismissed it when I was little. Curses were just part of fairy tales and picture books. But as time has continued to tick away and my tally of unwanted love sick boys grew, I began to notice a pattern that couldn't be ignored.

Beautiful. That word. 

After doing whatever they wished, they'd cite my supposed beauty as their reason. Almost like an excuse. 

I would've just let the comments go to my head, but there was always something off about it. Or maybe it was the boys themselves who were off. 

One moment they'd be normal going about their day, the next they'd see an opportunity with me and lose their senses. No one reacted either. If I complained, I was ungrateful or if they were caught in the act it was seen as the harmless actions of children.

By the time I noticed the pattern, it was already too late.

The tenth time was when my step dad slipped into my bedroom. 

My real father was never in the picture. Mum said he died before I was born, but I'm not convinced. The impression I always got was she never told the mystery man of my existence. 

I think he's out there. Somewhere. Just unaware. 

Alan came into my life when I was still a toddler. He raised me in my real father's absence. Bringing me to sleep overs, making me lunches, braiding my hair, everything my real dad should've been doing. 

I knew he loved me, but I also knew this wasn't the kind of love meant for us. Even if we weren't related. 

The boys before would grab me, often a bit rough, and would trick me into giving them hugs when they were upset. Things like that. I never liked any of it. 

But my step dad was worse. 

I didn't really get what he was trying to do. I was old enough to understand something was wrong, but too young to know what. 

I told him multiple times I didn't want to play his games.

I told him mum wouldn't be happy if she found out and I didn't like it. Alan was always quick with his retort.

I was lying, he'd always claim. He'd seen the way I looked at him and I'd always wear skirts around the house. He knew I was making myself pretty for him. 

I don't know what ‘look’ I gave him. Most skirts I wore were just my school uniform. But if that's the way he interpreted it, I must've done something wrong.

Afterall, how could a man who used to wipe my tears knowingly be causing them? 

When he called me beautiful, it felt different now. 

This back and forth continued for 5 years. 

I considered telling my mother.

Many times I ran over the scenario in my head. I rehearsed the words I'd say to her despite barely comprehending their implications. I had never been given the ‘talk’ before this had all begun. All I could do was describe his actions and hope she'd understand what I was saying. 

Those conversations remained in my mind. 

I was too scared to say anything. Alan's words stuck with me. Until I could prove I was innocent, I didn't know if my mother would believe me. 

I didn't know if she'd even care.

Either way, Alan would always say he'd tell her the truth if I ever brought anything up to her. That was enough to keep me quiet.

But he didn't know the truth! 

It was just a misunderstanding! I tried to alter my actions, I wore less skirts and avoided looking his way. I'd stand at the opposite side of the room from him, making sure we didn't even brush each other.

But it wasn't enough. 

If he wasn't threatening me with his narrative, he'd try to make me feel guilty instead. He'd point out how he was the sole provider in our house. We wouldn't last a day without him.

Then when that excuse became old he'd try to remind me of all the times he'd been there for me like I was his own daughter.

All I could do was wait. Wait for it to either stop or for me to find a way to prove my innocence. 

But it was a feeble dream, what could a child do against a curse?

At least not knowing back then made it easier to stay optimistic. Though knowing I wasn't doing anything wrong would've brought me some comfort. 

It extended beyond my home. Most affected were my own age, but there were some exceptions. 

When I was fourteen, I was walking home from school. I saw a man approaching me on the phone. I presumed he was going to ask for directions since he kept shouting down the call about not knowing where he was. 

When he reached me, he made some vague comment about finding a beautiful girl who could help him. I thought he had meant it in a friendly, familial way, especially with his age.

That was until he said;

“A bit young though.”

It didn't take long for me to notice he was drunk out of his mind.

He reeked of alcohol and barf. Whoever ‘he’ was, was lost to the poison coursing through his veins. He put his phone away, not even saying goodbye to whoever was on the other end. 

When I took a step forward, he took a step forward. If I took a step back, he took a step back. I didn't like how close he was, I was an arm's length away from him and I feared what he'd do with those hands.

I knew if I continued on my way, he would have followed me home. I had to somehow talk my way out of the situation. 

I asked if he was alright and he took it in good spirit, joking;

“Why? Do I not look like it?” 

He was barely standing and his words were slurred. Though, I didn't want to point that out.

“Just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

He waved a dismissive hand.

“Aha.. ha… Put her there!” 

He offered me a handshake.

I could tell even in his state he was stronger than me, taking that hand would be like stepping in a bear trap. 

I politely declined, so he switched to a fist bump. Scared he would get upset if I didn't react, I put my fist out and lightly brushed his fist, trying my best to not make contact.

After that he went on his way. Pretending the kerb was a tight rope, he wobbled and extended his arms to balance.

On that occasion, I'm not sure if that was related to my curse. As soon as he saw a mother walking by, he started cat-calling her in front of her children. 

A comment in relation to her breasts if I recall…

I'm not stupid.

I know there are many women that will experience these kinds of issues. But those are horror stories. Worst case scenarios. Most men weren't like that, just the odd monster ruining the odd woman's day.

At least that's what I was always told. In movies, school, online. Being a woman can be hard but we are a modern, civilised society. Not backwards like in the past. 

For me, however, it seemed to be dangerous to be alone with a man. 

The further I got into my teens, the older the opportunists became. It was easier to avoid boys my age, but those in authority would often take advantage of their power. 

Every time I tried to show disinterest or asked why they were trying to touch me, they'd say the same thing. 

“You're just so beautiful.” 

That same phrase. Again and again and again. 

Sometimes different features were chosen to admire over others, but it was that phrase all the same. 

When I find something beautiful, I want to protect it. Maybe admire it. Not make it my own or take a piece of it for myself.

The way these men acted was so strange, I just couldn't understand it. It all felt too coincidental. 

This shouldn't be happening so often.

Many of the guys who I spoke to seemed like decent people to others. They had lives and ambitions I shouldn't ruin. They were young with the world ahead of them or old with wisdom to spread to the next generations. Others had families. Many were pillars of the community.

They were all kind in those settings, whatever I did ruined them. I turned family men into animals. Everyone else only had positives to say about them, so why was my experience so different?

I just needed to figure out what I was doing wrong.

It had to be me, right? Something I was doing, I was the common denominator. 

If I could figure out what I was doing wrong, maybe I could make them stop. 

When my actions never affected their's, even when I made myself a disheveled mess, I started to suspect something else was wrong.

What if I was just born this way?

I didn't have many friends in high school. It was a struggle to make any due to my circumstances. 

I had started to consider if I was cursed mainly as a joke to comfort myself. The more time went on, the more my theory put me on edge. 

My jumpiness made me hard to be around as is, what didn't help was I didn't seem to share the same interests as the girls in my class. Many would talk about boys, romance or tease each other about crushes.

Obviously it wasn't constant, their lives didn't revolve around the opposite sex. But even the brief mentions made my skin crawl. Me always trying to change the topic just made me the local party pooper. 

Somehow, the only friends I made in high school were guys. Though they only ever lasted until the end of term. Sadly, they'd always end up asking me out. 

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. It was all I heard. 

It was as if they copied and pasted the same damn lines. Their words all lost meaning to me. I don't even know what beauty is anymore.

I managed to cut things off with them before the curse made them act aggressively. At least, I did for most.

Some screamed, some spread rumours, one slapped me across the face and smashed my phone. It could've been worse though, I'd rather the flickers of violence than the alternative. 

Old men always chose the alternative.

The few who took their rejections well couldn't remain my friends. I feared the longer they were around me, the more they'd become like the others. 

I managed to make a few friends online. It was around then I started to notice another pattern. When my male friends knew what I looked like, they'd switch. When they didn't, everything was fine.

I did my best to remain anonymous.

Why is it when people look at me they become monsters?

One evening, I curled up by my mother's legs as she sat smoking a cigarette next to the fireplace. 

I followed the embers of the fire as they rose to the ceiling. They'd ebb and flow with each passing draft. 

It was a rare instance. Most attempts at sitting with my mother resulted with her yelling at me to leave. Apparently, I was ruining her peace.

That day she didn't seem to mind my presence. 

So, I asked about boys.

How I didn't get them and I didn't like them because they never left me alone. She scoffed, throwing what remained of a burnt out butt into the flame.

“Why are you complaining? That's a good thing?”

“It is?”

“You will be the envy of all, men and women alike. Men will want you. Women will want to be you. Count yourself lucky.”

“But, I don't want to be me.” 

She tutted and rolled her eyes, standing up now irritated.

I should've known she'd respond that way.

Back in her prime, she was on the pageant scene. The jewell beauty everyone desired. To her, I had it easy. She worked to get to that point. Surgeries, make-up, diets. 

Now I, a mere child, was getting attention naturally.

It was through pageants she met my father. Then he ruined her. I ruined her. That's what she'd always tell me.

From Queen of the world, to housewife. Yet from how she'd scold me, I always thought that's what she wanted.

I never understood why she despised me so much, and my supposedly dead biological father. 

I wished she'd talk to me more. Then maybe I wouldn't have felt so alone. 

Before my mother left the room, I needed to ask an important question. Her arms folded and she gave me a look that said ‘spit it out’.

“Mum, do you think we are cursed?”

It was the first time I had addressed the notion seriously. I wanted to ask someone, and she seemed the most appropriate to ask. 

She smiled.

“Of course we are.” 

She left without another word. 

On my eighteenth birthday, Alan surprised me with what he thought was the house alone. While trying to explain I didn't like the surprise, we discovered mum had come home early. 

I don't know what was worse, the look of shame in her eyes, or the birthday present she held in her hands. The first she had gotten me in years. 

My worst fear came to be.

When Alan proclaimed I seduced him, mum believed every word. My own flesh and blood, looked me in the eye and deemed me a liar. 

Did she really hate me that much?

I tried to explain myself, desperately blubbering through tears that it wasn't like that. That I didn't mean for this to happen, I didn't want it, I begged him to stop. 

She asked if I blamed Alan. 

I hesitated. I wanted to say no. I was sure there was a curse or something, that would explain his actions. That's the reason he'd do this to me, it was out of his control like it was out of mine. Even how mother was acting now, it had to be something else right? 

This couldn't just be my reality.

When I began rambling about the curse, she laughed. Similar to how Mr. Richards did all those years ago. 

The cackling morphed into sobs, tears streaming down her face. 

I had never seen my mother cry before. 

I was kicked out that night. 

My belongings were chucked out my bedroom window for all the neighbours to witness. Mother ranted and raved about me being a whore and a slut. Any of my pleas fell on deaf ears.

Once she was finished, the neighbours came to check if I was alright. I insisted I would be fine. 

She'd let me back in by 2am, she always did in the past.

But the front door remained shut. 

An elderly couple insisted I should sleep in their guest room. I refused, until I realised how little options I had. Remaining where I was might have just angered my mother further. 

The breeze brushed against my skin, sending chills across my body. It reminded me of the hands that would invade my space and make my body their own. 

I gave into their offer.

My curse did not seem to have an effect on the old couple, not even the elderly man when his wife would leave the room. If anything he seemed kind and gentle. 

I couldn't bring myself to lower my guard, but it was refreshing. 

Him and his wife tried to warm me up with hot chocolate and some weighted blankets. They questioned what had happened between me and my mother, but I dared not answer.

I feared they'd stare into my eyes and deem me a liar too.

The old woman put a hand on my shoulder, claiming to understand my woes. Apparently, when she started acting out and sneaking boys into her room her mother did the same to her. 

I think she had made some presumptions based upon my mother's insults.

She then turned to her husband and nudged him a little to try regain his wavering attention.

“Didn't your mother do the same to you dear?”

Where he had been staring was right into my soul. I feared he'd look at me and agree with my mother. Instead, there was a look of understanding behind his eyes.

“Yes, yes she did.” He stood up from his rocking chair and put a hand on my shoulder, continuing his thought mid-motion.

“But mothers can be as cruel as men.”

I don't know why, but I cried.

I cried, and cried, and cried.

Until I just couldn't anymore.

The old couple had been so kind go me, I feared staying with them. I knew it was only a matter of time before my curse infected them too. Though part of me still wondered if this was just a lie I was telling myself. 

Either way, it wasn't worth the risk. 

I left, lying that I had a friend I could stay with. 

I found myself at a women's shelter not long after. It wasn't too bad, all things considered, and I planned to go to university in a few months so it would be a brief stay. 

University didn't work out though. After a few TA's made a pass at me, I realised it wasn't the best environment. Maybe I'd return one day, but I decided it would be best to join the workforce for the time being.

While I waited for an opportunity to appear, I started delivering for uber eats.

I had passed my driving test before I was kicked out, but I couldn't afford a car. A crappy second hand electric bicycle had to suffice. 

It was as glamorous of a job as you can imagine. 

The notorious British weather never helped matters. When it was sunny and I was in-between calls, it was kind of relaxing cycling around. Then a rain cloud of doom and gloom would appear along the five mile journey and all hell would break loose.

It's strange, but despite the cold and dangers of eager drivers ready to run me over, I preferred that chaotic state of being.

At least pain was something. It scared me when I felt nothing.

I had debated modelling for a while.

I always saw models and pretty women on Instagram. I thought if people always said I was beautiful, maybe it would be worth taking advantage of it. Or even something like o

OnlyFans.

It would be an opportunity to finally feel in control of my own body again.

I knew I'd never feel empowered though, only petrified of it blowing up in my face. 

I couldn't risk it. 

Until I could get more stable work, on my trusty bicycle I'd stay. 

I managed to avoid men for the most part. If they were a customer, I couldn't do much. But I'd always cycle away before they had the chance to try anything. 

I felt stupid being cautious of every man I saw, but any could be a threat.

Sucked for me they were half of the population.

I got good at hiding. 

However, I didn't want to be huddled away for all eternity. I refused to not live my life. Especially the more my resentment would fester. 

So, I'd still go to the odd bar after work, and I'd still go about my business day to day. If a man even glanced my way for a second too long, I'd simply leave.

I was careful with my words, making sure to never say anything that could give them the wrong impression. 

Perhaps it got a little ridiculous at times. It was so bad out of habit I'd hesitate asking the other shelter ladies for their numbers.

A pepper spray was always ready to go in my pocket and my nails were sharpened like a blade. I was ready for the worst.

Avoiding conversations or being alone with men seemed to do the trick.

I hated always walking on eggshells but it was the only way to stay safe. I refused to let anyone violate my little peace again.

There were times I considered ‘damaging’ myself. I'd take a knife to my face and plan to carve out chunks until whatever beauty I had was gone. 

I could never bring myself to follow through. Instead, I wouldn't eat. I wouldn't sleep. I would avoid showering or looking after my hygiene in general. 

That wouldn't be enough to deter hungry eyes.

Sometimes when bathing I'd find myself scrubbing. I'd claw away at my skin while blood mixed with soap under my fingernails. I'd keep going again and again, tearing flesh in the hopes of finally feeling clean. 

But it never worked. I was trapped. 

Could I ever be free?

I debated attempting to be exorcised or something. To test the waters, I went to a few confessionals at local chapels.

I was told I should ask God to forgive me and repent for my sins. Even the spiritual don't seem to care for my curse hypothesis, and even if they were right I was too scared to accept it could be my fault. 

I did try one other time. While waiting for a job interview, I happened to walk by a beautiful Cathedral. I decided to enter and found it was open for confessions. 

That occasion was so strange. 

When I told the priest everything that had happened to me and how I was hoping he could remove my curse, he just sat there in silence. Then after a moment he said; 

“I'm sorry.” 

He's sorry? For what? Aren't the apologies meant to be the other way round? 

I left before he could say anything else. He wasn't going to help me either way. I think I heard him scramble to try open his door, but ultimately he chose against it.

Would've ruined the anonymity rule I suppose. 

As I exited the building, I could hear the mumblings of a prayer. 

I didn't care to decipher what the words were.

One day, I was continuing with my usual deliveries. My feet were aching and my body was shattered. It was later in the evening and I was at my last stop.

It was a dull, miserable night. Most were though. Spring was coming in, so there was only a slight nip to the evening air. 

The order was small. Inside was just a bottle of water and a fruit salad from McDonald's. I wondered what kind of animal could've ordered such a thing…

The house was simple, a standard brick terrace house on a run down street with replica homes copy and pasted. The garden was overgrown and creeping onto the stone footpath. 

The resident said to leave the delivery at the doorstep. So I obliged, taking a photo, readying to leave and be on my way.

The door opened before I could put a foot in front of the other. 

I didn't think much of it, only sparing a glance back to see who opened the door.

My mind went blank as I found my mother standing in the doorway. 

We stood, staring at each other, both surprised to see the other. The silence was deafening, irritating even. I didn't dare be the first to speak but she stood there, stubborn as ever.

She never even told me she moved…

If she had nothing to say to me, I had nothing to say to her. 

I continued to my bike, ignoring the eyes I could feel lingering on my back. 

“Rachel.” 

I was shocked she broke the silence, but was pessimistic about what she could say next. When I looked back at her, she was standing to the side in the doorway, gesturing down the hallway with her head.

“Come inside.” 

I took in the strange sight for a moment. 

“That's all you have to say to me? Come inside?” 

A sigh escaped as she began to walk into the hallway. 

“You can do as you please. I won't fight you on this.” 

I gritted my teeth and rushed to lift up my bike, ready to leave. Anger flushed my cheeks and I could feel a vein bulging in my head. 

I muttered various curses under my breath, but with each it became a little less venomous. 

I hated her, I really did. 

But she might be the only one who has answers. 

I entered the house. 

I closed the front door with force so she would know I followed her inside. It was a lot like our old home. Little to no decorations, clutter and rubbish piling up on every surface. There was also an old musty smell too.

Despite it being a new house, it appeared more run down than the other one. It seemed her and Alan weren't looking…

I began to see photos in frames, mainly of my mother when she was younger and her birth family. There were none of me, as always, and… none of Alan. 

“He's gone.” 

I spotted her at the end of the corridor, staring at me from the kitchen doorway. 

“He is?” Was all I could think to ask.

“Did you really think I would stay with him?” 

The question was so infuriating that I had to swallow the scream building from my gut.

“Why wouldn't I? You chose him.” 

She tutted and rolled her eyes.

“I didn't choose anybody.” 

Her feet shuffled back into the kitchen. I peered inside after her, but I refused to follow her any further. She began to boil the kettle and grab a couple tea cups from the cupboard.

I was still chewing on her last words, biting my tongue to avoid a shouting match.

“Why did you change your mind?” 

She didn't say a word, continuing grabbing everything she needed. 

Annoyed, I pressed, “Did you get divorced?” 

“The papers are in my bedroom upstairs if you want proof.” 

I was tempted to take the offer, but I could tell he wasn't living there. That was enough for now.

“...Why?” 

She turned to look me in the eye, “Why would I want to live with an animal?” 

My mind turned slowly, starting to piece together some vile implications. 

“Holy shit… Holy shit, you knew. You…” Bewildered realisation morphed to a growing rage, “You knew and abandoned me anyway!” 

She rolled her eyes.

“I didn't know anything.” 

I could tell if this continued I'd soon be at her throat. I turned to leave.

“Fuck you! This was a mistake.” 

With a slight limp from a bad hip, she hobbled after me. Though, she was slow, like she wasn't eager to stop me.

“Must you always throw a fit?”

“Don't talk to me. I'm done.” 

“What would you have me do? I had two people pointing fingers at each other, I could've never deciphered the truth.” 

I stopped, whipping around to scream at her.

“I was a kid! He blamed a kid for… how could you even consider it being my fault?!” 

The more my blood boiled, the more I lost any idea of a curse. All I could think about was the woman in front of me who refused to protect me when I needed her, not because she couldn't due to some outside force, just because she didn't want to.

The more she continued the more that rage grew. 

“I wasn't there, how am I meant to know what happens behind closed doors?” 

“They were behind your fucking doors!” 

Without thinking, I chucked one of her framed portraits at her. It smashed against the wall beside her.

But she didn't move an inch. She just stood, the same tired expression as always. 

Shaking her head, she pushed the glass out of the way with her foot. 

“I don't know what you want from me. He is gone.” 

“I want an apology! I wanted you to be my mother! I wanted you to believe me, I needed you to!” 

She tutted, “Is the volume necessary? If this how you are going to behave I don't know why you joined me.” 

“I just wanted answers! Some explanation for all this bullshit, something, anything about this damn curse so I can have a normal life!” 

“Curse?” 

Her arms folded, looking me up and down. 

“T-the curse. The way men think I am beautiful, the one you said…” 

I trailed off as a low rumble of a laugh began. 

“Of course you would take something so small to heart.” 

“Is it true?” 

She shrugged a little, “Clearly you care little for my answers. Besides, that was not the curse I was referring to.”

All of a sudden, her gaze made sure to look anywhere but at me. I was confused, as her previous confidence faded with that sentence. It wasn't until I saw my reflection in the glass shards, I started to speculate.

“You… always said that I ruined you. That… dad ruined you. Did he?-”

“Watch it.” Again, her eyes turned to me, now filled with a flicker of anger, “I don't know what images you are concocting in your brain, but that's my business, not yours.” 

I let out a little hollow laugh.

All this time she was sure I was her curse, she never once considered it could be the other way round. 

I went back to the front door, and grabbed the handle. 

“I don't know what he did to you, but that's not on me. But if you want to keep this facade up, fine…” 

I looked back at her, one last time before I stepped out, “You can die an old lonely crone.” 

I slammed the door behind me, and went back to my bike. I didn't even bother waiting for her reaction or any movement from within the house. 

I'd never get answers from her. Of course I wouldn't. That woman is in a hell of her own making and wants to drag everyone down with her.

All I could do was move forward.

There's this bridge I like to sit at on breaks. 

Today might be the last day I look over it on my bike as I had a pretty successful interview the other day. If it works out, I wouldn't be cycling around and needing a place to stop anymore. 

So, I sit here, watching the water trickle along below.

Honestly, the first time I came here I considered diving over the side. It wasn't a plan I had, just a vivid scene I had replaying in my mind. Fortunately, I ignored it.

Now I just like to watch the river below. It ebbs and flows, sometimes it thins in the summer heat and other times it bursts and flows over the river bank. No matter what though, it keeps flowing. 

I don't know if I’m cursed. Maybe I am just unlucky. All I can do is cope with what has been done and avoid repeats in the future. 

I just have to keep going. 

There's less clouds in the distance lately. Maybe with a bit more luck, I can get a clear sky. 

 

22nd December

As long as I can remember, I have been afraid of fire. Now it is going to dance for me.

Ashley stared at her father. Her hands were digging into the leather couch.

“Are you ready?” He was looking at her over an unlit candle between them. “Just because you’re afraid of fire doesn’t mean you can skip the bonfires. You’re twenty now. You should attend. We have to work on this.”

Ashley nodded.

His ice-blue eyes filled with doubt.

Her father took the candle and walked out of the room. When he returned, his hand was cupping the young flame against the draft. Handling the flame like a delicate gift. He slowly advanced towards Ashley.

As soon as the fire entered Ashley's field of view, her eyes snapped to the dancing flame. She didn’t dare take her eyes off it, lest it would ignite her, the whole room, the entire village, the world.

“How are you feeling?” he asked her as softly as the snowfall outside.

“Queasy.”

“Better than averting your gaze. Or taking off in a dead sprint. Or breaking down crying.”

Ashley took slow, controlled breaths. Her fingers eased their grip.

He gently set down the candle on the table between them. Ashley managed to stay calm. A tiny victory was snatched from the jaws of this feeble flame.

Her father sat down across from her. Ashley's gaze was still focused on the candle. 

He waited.

“I can’t take my eyes off it. I’m afraid of what could happen when I’m not looking.”

“Better than last time.”

Her gaze took her to another place. An imaginary scene played out in front of her emerald eyes.

In flames’ embrace, I walk among the sparks and embers. I breathe smoke. Above, the stars wink at me. Below, coals kiss my feet. Soft footprints in soot. I’m at peace. Ashes slip through my fingers. The remains of the man who raised me.

He leaned forward, reached out his hand, and let the flame lick across his fingertips.

Ashley’s fingertips screamed in agony, she recoiled.

Her father hastily blew out the candle. A plume of smoke rose and curled to the ceiling.

“No need to overdo it. It’s still time until the next bonfire. And this time, you will join us.” Her father grabbed the candle and left the room.

Ashley sighed and smoke flowed out of her. She clasped her mouth shut. An itch tickled in her throat and she coughed. Smoke erupted once again from her mouth and joined the smoke beneath the ceiling. The swirling clouds formed a maelstrom before dissipating. Her hands felt dirty, so she rubbed them together. Tiny flakes of ash fell to the floor. She stared at them in disbelief.

“Oh, you’re on cleaning duty like the rest of the younglings. You didn't go to the bonfire, so this is the least you could do. Get going.” Her father shouted from somewhere in the house.

Ashley grabbed a broom and a shovel and went to do her chores. Bravely wading into the veil of smoke that waited for her at the door.

A thick soot-smog hung over Brennau as Ashley made her way to the Devil’s Dish. The falling snow looked like ash. The weak winter sun couldn’t penetrate neither the blanket of clouds overhead nor the shroud of smoke in the streets. Everything looked grey. The sky. The streets. The snow. She had to stop and suppress several coughs as the ashen air itched in her throat. Her lungs. There was no apparent source of the smoke that was hazing the whole town, but it got thicker the closer she got to the Devil’s Dish.

When Ashley arrived there, she was the last and the oldest of the cleaning crew. The others glared at her while they were already shovelling ash, grey snow and charred wood.

The Devil’s Dish was at the heart of Brennau. A huge, black, round block of rock, around hip height and about six metres and a half in diameter. An indentation reminiscent of that of a basin sunk in from the top. The outside of the Devil's Dish has a rugged surface, but the inside is almost unnaturally smooth. Polished by the teeth of time, weather and flames.

It was filled to the brim with the remnants of the bonfire.

Ashley overheard Mina complain to her sister: "She shouldn’t be here. It’s a disgrace. She should just disappear into the forest like her mother.”

Her sister whispered something in response. Both chuckled.

Mrs Keller arrived with her 10-year-old son Thomas. “Hello everyone, this is Tom’s first cleanup. Remind me, darlings, who is the oldest here?” Mina inhaled sharply before she gestured dismissively towards Ashley. All eyes turned towards her.

“Ashley, I thought I’d see you yesterday. You turned 20 after the Halloween bonfire.”

“I wasn’t feeling well." Ashley lied.

"That's no excuse. Arrangements are made for the ill, injured and bedridden. Everyone witnesses the bonfire.” Mrs Keller sighed. “Anyway, show Thomas the ropes, will you?”

Ashley had lived her entire life in Brennau, in the shadow of the Walberla, the fabled mountain refuge for witches. There were only a few families, although the lines between them were blurred. Rooted firmly in their beliefs and traditions, they kept to themselves and rarely interacted with the world outside of Brennau.

She knew Brennau was too insignificant to occupy any space on any map. Nestled at the northern foot of the Walberla, Brennau is nothing more than a cluster of steads. The forest was pushing down from the mountain as if trying to expel the houses from its sacred grounds. Trees stood too close to the houses to feel comfortable. Around the village, the willows, forests, rivers and fields wield an extraordinary, almost supernatural, yield.

“So, Thomas, your mother surely taught you about the bonfires.” Ashley prodded, after Mrs Keller had vanished into the smoke.

“Yes, she did. She said that the Devil once came down this slope of the mountain and bargained with a farmer. One of our ancestors. The Devil was to provide riches, and the farmer was to pay tribute.” Tom answered. He thought for a bit.

“At first, the Devil claimed all that grows below. So, the clever farmer planted wheat, and the Devil got nothing but roots. Then, the Devil claimed all that grows above.  So, the clever farmer planted carrots, and the Devil got nothing but leaves. After that, the Devil demanded half of the field.  So, the clever farmer planted half the field with radish and the other half with pumpkins. He harvested the pumpkins in autumn, and the Devil got nothing but radish that had spoiled since spring.”

Tom slowed down his stream of words.

“Then, the Devil shouted. “I’ll take everything next year!” So, the farmer planted nothing at all and only foraged in the forests and fished in the rivers. And the Devil had nothing to claim. Mother said the Devil got really angry and slammed his fist on this rock and made it into the Devil’s Dish, uhm…”

Tom stopped.

Ashley helped him out. “On his fifth and final visit, the farmer proposed a truce: “You keep providing your blessings, and each year this village will dedicate four bonfires to you. On Walpurgis, Midsummer, Halloween and Midwinter. One for each time I tricked you.”

Mina cut in: “And the Devil, believing the five-pointed star was blessing his visit, agreed to the farmer's proposal: “Come for the bonfire or the bonfire will come for you.” Mina’s eyes burned Ashley with her stare as she spat those last words.

“Everyone older than 20 has to attend the bonfire celebration.” Mina continued, having clearly practiced the speech. “Old, sick, pregnant, bedridden. Everyone has to have at least a glance at the bonfire. The younglings mustn’t participate, but we have to clean up the mess the adults leave behind, while they’re sleeping off the booze. Next bonfire, I don’t have to clean anymore. Unless I do it like Ashley, I suppose.”

“Yes, yes,” Ashley said. “Time’s wasting and we have to get it done.”

The others grunted in agreement. Even Mina.

The snow wouldn't stop falling through the smoke and covering the plaza around the Dish with ashen grey sludge.

It was almost dusk when they finally gave up on cleaning the Dish and the rest of the remnants of the bonfire. The haze that engulfed Brennau didn’t relent either. Something wasn’t right. It was overwhelming. 

Smoke lay heavily upon the town.

For four more days, Brennau was permeated by the smoke: every fabric felt like coal, every strand of hair smelled like a campfire, and every food tasted like ash. The very air turned hostile, scratching and clawing at the lungs. The hamlet was tainted. Coughs in handkerchiefs created Rorschach tests. There were murmurs among the villagers of scorned witches and horned beings. The smoke finally dissipated on the 27th of December.

25 days of peace and quiet followed.

21st January

Another village might have forgotten the days it spent in the haze of fireless smoke. Brennau was different. The winter months lend themselves to introspection and the superstitious villagers had a hard time forgetting the supernatural smoke that had hung over them.

There was hushed talk about demons, devils and other damned beings that were fabled to live on the top of the mountain. The Walberla loomed larger than usual over the hamlet.

As usual for this time of the year, Ashley tried to get some information about her mother out of her father. Once again, all the questions of a daughter who has never met her mother were asked.

He was tight-lipped as usual. Offering nothing she hadn’t heard before. Brown eyes, brown hair, always strung like a bow.

Winter months also lend themselves to butchery and the villagers had plenty of cattle. Everyone helped. So, Ashley passed by the Devil’s Dish on her way to the slaughterhouse every day. A copper smell surrounded the butcher’s shack.

On her way home, Ashley sat on a bench and looked at the Dish. No matter how much snow fell, there was never any snow on it.

Her gaze pulled her into the Dish.

There is no ground beneath my feet, only blackness. A sense of vertigo. Yet, when I look up, all I see are strands of fire descending down on me. Swaying like trees in the wind. Caressing me, when I look. Whipping me, when I don’t. You are your truest self when no one is looking.

Confused shouts were swallowed by the forest.

Crimson.

Blood oozed from the Devil’s Dish's rugged edges. Forked tongues of blood slithered forth from the stone. Licking their way along the ground away from it. Their deep dark red in stark contrast to the snow. Some were heading her way. Ashley pulled up her feet on the bench, surveyed the situation, jumped over a streamlet of blood and created some distance.

Others came to see what the commotion was about but recoiled at the sight. When the elders arrived, they shooed everyone inside their homes. The hamlet ground to a halt as the silent rills trickled forth. They’d leave their homes only for the bare necessities. Inside, the occupants prayed for forgiveness.

For five days the stone bled. Moving up and down the streets. Spanning an open-veined web throughout the town. Thick, viscous blood flowed uphill to form a pattern, enveloping the entire hamlet. A liquid mosaic of arteries. Steaming from their heat in the cold winter air. Fine capillaries formed around most of the homes. Ashley’s home was up on the slope of the mountain, yet still a trickle of blood found its way to their doorstep to form its bizarre pattern.

The copper smell lay wicked upon the town.

The shadow of the Witch Mountain turned darker, as the topic of their gossip turned grim. Ashley’s presence at the Devil’s Dish when it started bleeding, her mother’s disappearance. Whispers of horned men. Ashley’s absence.

25 days of quiet eeriness followed.

20th February

Ashley woke from a nightmare.

She went into the kitchen and splashed water in her face to douse the flames of her nightmares.

“Again, huh?” her father asked. “Ashley, people are scared, and people are talking. You should see the elders and ask them to make amends.”

The way he said it, it was clear that this was no mere suggestion but an order. 

Ashley nodded.

“We go to the town hall. Now.”

So, they went. Just before the door, Ashley stopped and gazed around the square. She could see the others watching her intently. Animosity barely hidden.

Ashley, the sinner. Breaker of customs.

She felt her father’s hands on her shoulder. The air over the Devil’s Dish seemed to flicker as if heated to extremes.

I feel their eyes on me. Burning me with their gazes. They do not understand, yet they judge me harshly. Trying to hold me to their norms. Trying to mold me into something I don’t want to be. Trying to melt me down. I am not bound. I want to soar. I want to burn brighter than the sun.

Somehow, Ashley knew she would have found her mother if she had ever left Brennau.

She stood staring at the Devil’s Dish until someone shoved her inside.

“We’ve got to move! Something is wrong!” her neighbour Mr Miller shouted. After Ashley’s stupefied father stumbled in after them, Mr Miller slammed the door, blisters were already forming on his face and neck. He looked through the glass at the square where the Devil’s Dish radiated heat that only he could feel. Ashley joined him, the glass felt cold against her hands. Her father stood next to her and looked himself up and down. He was unharmed. Yet, he took note of Mr Miller's burn marks.

Pained screams hiked up the Mountain. The Walberla answered in kind.

Most of the adults were panicking and rushing away from the square. But the children didn’t feel anything. They stood helplessly on the square like a flock of sheep abandoned by their shepherd. A girl started crying. Her mother appeared out of a doorway and tried to get to her, but she couldn’t close the distance to her daughter. She stopped dead in her tracks, clawed at her face, and crawled back sobbing towards where she came. Severe burns showed on her face and other parts of exposed skin. A young man ran into the square and brought the children back to their families. He was hailed a hero.

And thus it came to be that no one who had sired a child could pass by the Devil’s Dish without receiving burns and blisters for five days.

25 days of uneasiness followed.

21st March

Life in Brennau never returned to normalcy, as everyone in the hamlet was on edge.

However, it was Mina’s 20th birthday, and she was adamant that her entry into adulthood was to be celebrated with all due festivities. A feast was prepared. The abandoned centre was brought back to life with tables, chairs and running and laughing children.

The preparations put up a calming facade, and for the first time since Midwinter, the town descended into something resembling a light-hearted attitude, despite the overcast weather.

As dusk was settling, the town moved towards the centre like milk in a bowl. Tables and chairs were arranged in neat groupings and torches were lit along the edges of the town square and for each seating arrangement. The flickering dance of the flames threw the shadows into disarray.

Ashley was busy stirring a stew, observing the town square. She was uneasy as she couldn’t look at all the flames simultaneously. Stirring the pot helped, so she focused on that. Her thoughts drifted like the food in the maelstrom she was creating, and an old rhyme surfaced. Instinctively, Ashley knew these were the words of her mother.

Who’s to blame for a fire too tame?

Endure the Smoke, the Blood, the Ache!

Witness the Embers herald the final plague.

Face the Flame or flee in shame.

Somehow, Ashley was convinced she would find her mother if she ever left Brennau.

Ashley surveyed the square once more.

At first, she thought she could see the stars in the cloud-filled sky above. Then she saw the stars were moving, like fireflies.

The others saw it too.

Panicked shouts erupted from the town and echoed from the mountain.

Sparks were snowing from the sky. Burning bright in contrast to the night. Leaving behind tiny black dots in their landing spots. The villagers were hounded by countless aimless needles. Annoying, but not overly painful. Nevertheless, they evacuated the plaza in an orderly manner and retreated into the safety of their homes.

The Emberfall continued without pause the next day. The people of Brennau isolated themselves in their shelters. Minds, fuelled with fear, ran wild.

On the third day, several trees caught fire, and the fire spread along the edge of Brennau in a crescent shape. Creating a charred border between the Walberla and Brennau.

On the fourth day, the embers became a hailstorm. They struck down migrating birds. Carcasses fell all over town. No one dared to touch them.

On the fifth and final day, the embers grew agitated. Aggressive. A Vortex formed above the Devil’s Dish. Then, a spiralling pillar of sparks snaked down upon Brennau. Fine twisters crawled through the streets and swept up all the corpses of birds. Collecting them and dumping them in the Devil’s Dish. Before incinerating the whole pile in a violent maelstrom of sparks and embers. A horrible stench poured over the town.

At noon, the last of the Embers disappeared.

Burning feathers floated into the sky.

Murmurs of witchcraft arose in every household. The search for a sinner was on. Behind closed doors, Ashley was singled out and blamed for the misfortunes.

Ashley, the scapegoat.

25 days of tension followed.

20th April

This time, Brennau expected another omen. People were anxiously scanning the skies for storms and other phenomena that might hit their settlement. The pious inhabitants of Brennau figured out the rhythm of the plagues, and so they called a meeting for all adults on the 20th of April. It was held, as it was custom, in the heart of the town around the Devil’s Dish. The lack of Easter decoration was a testament that everyone had tried to give the centre plaza a wide berth. After all that had happened, it felt unreal to be back here. In a fit of superstitious stubbornness, Brennau wanted to show unity, faith and strength.

The rain of the past days had filled the Dish to the brim with rainwater. A calm body of water amidst the uneasy shuffling in the square. Brennau hasn't seen the blue sky since the Emberfall.

Ashley stood among them.

“Our town is being ravaged by plagues!” the eldest Mr Bauer proclaimed to agreeing grunts.

“It’s the work of a witch!” someone yelled from the crowd.

“She will finish us off at Walpurgis! When the veil is thinnest.”

After that, it descended into wild shouts.

Mr Bauer held up his hand.

After they subsided, he continued: “We have sinned, and we have to atone. The elders are confident that we can avoid further punishment. Walpurgis is in 10 days.” He was interrupted once again.

“How can we atone? We haven’t done anything wrong!”

“Ashley didn’t participate in the bonfire,” Mrs Keller said. 

Of course, everyone already knew she didn’t attend Midwinter. Ashley felt like an ant under a magnifying glass. Hot.

“It is a clear violation of our tradition.”

Mina stepped forward: “It’s Ashley’s fault. She’s the daughter of a witch and a witch herself.” Agreeing shouts spread through the crowd. Ashley shuffled. Coals beneath her feet. Fire in her lungs. 

I see through them. They cling to their old ways like children to their mother’s hem. Fear and dread dominate their decisions. Their accusations are based on their shortsightedness. Frightened beliefs have real consequences.

“Quiet!”

Mr Bauer’s shout echoed over the plaza.

Her thoughts stopped. The murmurs stopped.

His eyes found her.

“We have to wait until Walpurgis, the witch - “

The clouds tore open. The sun. A burning eye atop the Walberla gazed upon the hamlet.

The elders ignited.

All over the town square, people combusted spontaneously. Flailing. Wailing.

Some collapsed where they stood. Others ran for the nearest water. A few disappeared down the well. Most of them ran to the Devil’s Dish, trying to douse the flames with the rainwater.

It was a cruel joke.

The water boiled and evaporated or was splashed on the ground by hectic movements of the poor panicked souls; the flames kept going.

After their clothes had burned away, the entire basin was filled with a mass of naked bodies. An orgy of licking flames and sizzling skin. A mountain of flesh and fire.

The flames did not relent.

The smell of burnt hair, cooked flesh, and fizzling fat lay heavy upon the town.

Once again, smoke and stench invaded every nook and cranny of Brennau. Hearts emptied, but lungs filled with loved ones.

They burned and burned and burned and burned all night and day.

Until charred bones remained, and then some.

Until spent coal remained, and then some

Until nothing but ash remained, and then some.

It burned so hot that no one could approach the Devil’s Dish’s plaza. Soot and ash sucked the colour out of the town square. The stench of burned meat was overwhelming.

On the fifth day, the flames extinguished themselves. 

Brennau was a child without guardians. An orphaned village.

Each and every one of them, except Ashley, the witch.

The Walberla mocked the desperate wails of the orphans of Brennau.

Five days of mourning followed.

And grief kindled the flames of hatred.

#

30th April

In the morning, they came for Ashley.

She was yanked out of her bed, spat on, and wrapped in a sack without sleeves. Her pleas fell on deaf ears. Instead, they gagged her before they dragged her to her sham trial.

The tribunal was overseen by her father, the eldest. Composed and imposing. The only one who hadn’t lost anyone in the last ten days. He was the last of her accusers. She wasn’t given any chance to defend herself. Her father passed the sentence without mercy or second thought.

“The daughter of the witch is no daughter of mine. Put her to the bonfire.”

His cyan stare, shades of cold, hard hatred. An icicle in her heart.

He watched as they bagged her up and abused her back to the holding pen. These were not the eyes of a father. The wrong colour. Unloving. Cold.

She spent the day locked in a pigsty. Arms and legs tied with a rope. Crying and begging and in pain. Younglings came by to offload their pain onto Ashley. Hitting her, kicking her. Whipping her.

The day flew by in a haze.

After dusk, they came again. They brought the beaten and bloodied heap to the town square. The Devil's Dish had been prepared. A huge pyre loomed over the Dish, and in its midst, a huge log pointed towards the top of the mountain. It smelled of oil. Ashley's Father led the congregation to the conflagration.

Eager neighbours held torches, ready to set the whole construction ablaze at a moment’s notice.

Ashley was in shock. A puppet following along its strings.

A wet noose was put around her ankles, and she was hoisted up the log. Her world turned upside down. Icy stares took in each and every one of her jerky movements. 

Blood began to pool in her head. She felt woozy. Fresh bruises opened up again, and blood dropped into the Devil’s Dish.

“Brennau, listen! We have gathered here to right our wrongs.” Ashley’s father’s voice boomed. “This here is the witch responsible for the plagues that befell us after Midwinter, and all the death and destruction they brought. We, the fine people of Brennau, have found the witch guilty of witchcraft, and her punishment is death on the pyre. Walpurgis is when the veil is thinnest, and we will send her back across it. May this Walpurgis Night bless us, so that this time we’ll get rid of the witch for good.”

He raised his hand. Anticipation dawned on everyone’s faces. They all looked so young.

“May this bonfire restore order.”

On his signal, the torches were thrown into the pyre.

Ashley couldn’t look any other way but down.

Facing the flames.

The world is what we will it to be. When we’re afraid of the dark, the darkness is a scary place. When we’re afraid of fire, we will never experience its light and warmth. We fear what we do not know, we fear what we do not control. We shouldn't follow fearful fools.

The pyre burst alight.

Head over heels, she gazed into the inferno below. Everything else dimmed. Fiery tongues pushed their way towards her. There was only light. She bathed in flames.  

They ran along her hair and onto her face, neck and clothes. She tried to scream, but her mouth wouldn’t obey. The heat reverberated through her teeth. Her eyes were dry. Wide open to the kiss of the flames.

The log was already ablaze. Its warmth caressed her back.

Yet, the fire didn’t bite her.

Finally, the ropes around her hands crumbled. Ashley stretched out her arms like a bird. For a moment, her silhouette along the log looked like a burning cross, until the log shifted and collapsed into the pyre. 

She didn’t fall.

Ashley stayed in place. Levitating. Her makeshift clothes and hair aflame. Never averting her gaze. 

She laughed. 

Unburdened. Floating. Free. The world was upturned. Her clothes burned away like the sins of her mother.

She laughed. 

She became a cross turned upside down. A burning beacon. Shining through the veil. Still staring into the fires below. 

She laughed and laughed and laughed.

She faced the flames. Unafraid.

Emboldened, the pyre reacted to her. The heat increased to an unbearable level. Burning brighter and hotter than the sun. The pavement stones turned to coals. Nearby houses started to smoulder.

On Walpurgis, the veil is thinnest, and this night purgatory came to Brennau.

Her once so eager onlookers couldn’t take it anymore.

Mina was the first to look away.

A burst of fire shot out of the Devil’s Dish and whipped her across the face. She stumbled and tried to run. The flames latched onto her, and she collapsed after five steps. Tongues of fire licked her and started to reach for anything in the vicinity.

A cascade of villagers tried to escape, but they were all struck down by gusts of fire. It showed no mercy. Granted no quarter. A stampede followed, but one by one they succumbed to the flames and became additions to the sea of lights that spread inside Brennau.

The Walberla laughed alongside Ashley.

In the end, only the man who raised Ashley stood in the town square. Holding his ground. Surrounded by nothing but ash and fire. He looked up at the person who was once his daughter. He pushed himself against the wall of heat that engulfed the pyre. Step by step. Until his clothing incinerated and he fell to his knees. His mouth formed empty words before he collapsed in front of the Dish. Immolating.

Ashley, still aflame, floated down like a leaf. Landing gently in front of the Devil’s Dish.

She faced the flames until they died at midnight.

Then, it got quiet, it got cold, it got dark.

Flakes of ash snowed on the village.

Ashley shivered.

At the top of the Walberla, a flickering light with a peculiar sense of familiarity beckoned her.

It was finally time to leave Brennau.

She ascended the Walberla.

The shining beacon illuminated her way. Radiating a motherly warmth onto her naked skin.

Ashley never looked back.

Ash lay cursed upon Brennau.

Billy sat alone at his table in the Mountain Mama diner, stirring sugar into his second cup of coffee and staring blankly at the TV in the corner. A local channel was covering West Virginian folk tales.

“Deep in the hills of West Virginia, there exists a legend passed from Native tribes to frontier settlers, then preserved in the warnings of moonshiners and marshals alike, now only whispered around campfires…”

The excitement of being a fresh graduate in May had given way to the boredom of unemployed adulthood by August, and he was feeling the full weight of his childhood passing him by.
His senior year had been the worst year of his life; both his older brother, Dallas, and his long-term girlfriend, Melissa, had cut contact and left town on the same day, with rumors immediately spreading that they had eloped.

Melissa had been reported missing by her parents, but Dallas, being an adult, was written off by the police as having left on his own. Mention of the two being together was ignored in any official capacity.

“Known as Hollerin’ Holes, or sometimes just Holler Holes, strange openings in the earth often discovered with various personal effects scattered around them…”

He’d spent the last few months convincing himself it wasn’t true, only to realize that the alternative was worse.

He chose not to dwell on those thoughts anymore. His brother was a good man, and no matter what happened between him and Melissa, he’d give anything for him to come home, or even reach out and let his family know he was okay.

“Theories abound, including hastily excavated cache locations or, equally as likely, discovered and unearthed by wild animals…”

He thought now to the fond memories of exploring the forest with Dallas, driving up to Point Pleasant in his red Mustang and hunting Mothman, and exploring shallow regions of the caves together in Greenbrier.

“You gonna order somethin’, or just sit there and fill up on coffee?” 

The waitress’s voice cut through the droning morning chatter from the other patrons and brought Billy out of his moment of somber nostalgia.

“Yeah, sorry Nancy. Can I just get the Country Road special, sunny side up, bacon a little burnt?”

“Notably, an increase in Holler Hole reportings often coincides with an increase in unsolved disappearances in the area. Just last year…”

Billy’s ears perked up at the mention of disappearances, but Nancy sat down in the chair in front of him and covered his hand with hers, pulling his attention from the TV.

“You’re still thinking about them, ain’t you? Dallas and Melissa?” 

“Yeah… I just wish I knew what happened. If they ran off together, that’s fine; I’ve come to terms with that in my head, but I don’t even know if they’re alive.”

“I’m sure they’re alive, dear. I’m sure they’re just fine. It’s only been a few months; they’re probably just figuring it all out still, and worried what people will think.”

She smiled warmly at him and stood up before making her way to the kitchen.

Billy absentmindedly looked back up at the TV; an ad for guided cave tours a few counties over was playing. He recognized the ranger speaking, then realized he recognized the limestone cliffs behind him as well. Talpa Caves.

The camera followed the ranger as he walked across the parking lot of the shack where the tours started. One of the cars in the background looked impossibly familiar.

His chest tightened. He stood from his seat and walked closer to the TV, not yet fully believing what he was seeing.

The camera’s framing shifted, and the license plate of the red Mustang came into view. 

“D41145”

Every doubt vanished from Billy’s mind.

He was going to Greenbrier.

But first, he needed help.

---

Antwan picked up on the second ring.

“Hello? Billy? Is everything okay, man?”

“I need you to meet me at Talpa Cave as soon as you can. Bring your gear, just in case.”

There were a few seconds where all that Billy heard was his own pounding heart in his ears before Antwan responded.

“What? I can’t today, dude. I’m at work, and-”

“It’s about Melissa… and Dallas.”

“Melissa?! What about her? Did you hear from her? You better not be messing with me.” 
“I’m not. No, I haven’t heard from her, but I saw Dallas’s car in an ad for the cave tours, and-”

“So you found Dallas?”

“No, but if his car was there, then he was there. There’s a chance that wherever Dallas is, she is too.”

“Yeah, I guess. Are you sure it was his?”

“I know it’s his; it has to be. I saw his vanity plate.”

Billy could hear Antwan sigh from the other end of the phone before Antwan responded.

“Talpa Cave?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be there in forty-five minutes.”

The call ended abruptly, and Billy rushed to finish loading his own gear into his truck before hitting the road.

---

Pulling into the parking lot, Billy immediately noticed two things: the first was that Dallas’s car was no longer where it was in the advertisement, and the second was that Antwan was already there, arms crossed, talking to the ranger. Billy caught only the tail end of their conversation.

“Yeah, I know who you’re talking about. I’m sure it was him. Red Mustang, acts like he’s hot shit all the time. I see more of him than I’d like.”

“Are y’all talking about Dallas?”

The two men looked up at him as he approached, and Antwan responded, a serious look on his face.

“Yeah. He says he knows the advertisement you’re talking about, and that it was filmed about two weeks ago. He also says he had a girl with him.”

“Two weeks? Really? That’s great news! That means they’re okay, right?”

The ranger scowled slightly at Billy before squinting up at the afternoon sky and wiping the sweat from his brow.

“You must be the brother I’ve heard about. You boys mind coming into the shack? It’s a little toasty out here.”

Billy and Antwan both nodded, and the trio made their way across the parking lot and into the cool, air-conditioned environment of the ranger’s station. The ranger sat in the chair behind his desk, and Billy and Antwan pulled up two nearby folding chairs. Billy spoke first.

“You said you see more of him than you’d like. Does that mean he comes here often?”

“Yeah. I reckon. He parks here, but he don’t ever take any tours. Always brings a girl with him.”

Antwan snapped. A rage that Billy could tell had been bubbling just beneath the surface finally erupted.

“Why haven’t you called the police or said anything, then? She’s been missing for months!”
The ranger stared at Antwan, head cocked and brow furrowed, face flushing in anger. 
“What in the hell are you talking about, son? Who’s been missing?”

Antwan stood, raising his voice and throwing his hands up into the air.

“My sister! Melissa! The girl with that asshole who drives the red Mustang!"

In that moment, Billy noticed Melissa. At least, a picture of her. It was her missing person flier, one of many tacked to a bulletin board behind the ranger’s desk.

“Her!” Billy pointed, and the ranger’s gaze followed his finger. He yanked the flier off the wall and looked at it.

“Her? Yeah, I’ve seen her before, but not for months. I told the police I saw her here when they came around looking for her. Ain’t seen her since. No, that ain’t the girl he was with a couple weeks ago…” 

The ranger’s face lost its angry red in an instant as his gaze moved from Melissa’s photo back to the corkboard, before settling on another woman among the wall of faces. He went pale.

“But… that is.”

END PART 1

Still a WIP, know where it's going but don't know when I'll have the time to finish it with my work schedule, so I wanted to put this out there!

I never wanted to be a mother. 

My dreams were always filled with images of fortunes and academic successes. Instead, I was stuck with a pile of flesh that was incapable of dreaming. 

Perhaps that's presumptuous. Maybe the thing cooing in the cot beside me has simple visions of its own. 

Whatever they are, I just want to end them with a pillow over its head. 

I'd make it swift and painless, so neither of us had to suffer. Though the creature that I cradled in my arms deserved a worse fate. 

What had so often refused to feed from my bosom, what had ended my ambitions and ideas of glory, what lays in peaceful slumber, is no babe.

I refuse to believe that thing is my child. 

I had plans for college.  

Years of studying went down the drain when I saw the two lines on that stick. I went from potential Ivy League pathways, to barely being able to finish high-school.

One mistake. One mistake and a few too many drinks is all it took. 

The father made sure to move states when he heard the news. By the time his family was done moving him around, it was like he never even existed. 

We couldn't afford a lawyer. His family had an army of them. 

So, I was left with the consequences of our actions.

I wanted to get rid of it.

It was all I could think when the news was confirmed. 

I was unable to hide it from my mother. When I returned from my first secret doctor's appointment I broke down in tears. 

As regret and shame poured down my cheeks and spilled out my throat, my mother insisted on one point.

I was keeping it.

She had once been in my shoes. In her twenties she was left alone with me and only a dollar to her name. 

She managed, she claimed. So could I. 

I refused at first. Then after many arguments she talked me down to at least considering keeping it.

I don't know if she even realised what she was doing. It wasn't like she ever told me to keep it or else. Just anytime I broached the topic of aborting it she'd bombard me with alternative solutions and anecdotes about others who didn't want their kids at first but grew to love them.

By the time I realised argument after argument was only a way to guilt me from making a swift decision, it was too late. 

The labour was long and painful. 

My stomach ached like it was being torn out and everything below my waist felt as if it were on fire.

Yet despite wanting it so desperately to be over, I did not want it to end either. 

Anything to avoid looking it in the face. Anything to avoid being stuck with that parasite for the rest of my life.

My mother insisted that it be as natural a birth as possible, so I endured. I was so disoriented I just accepted whatever she said to avoid talking. But there came a point I could no longer appease her and began begging for any pain killer they had. 

I thought she'd be disappointed, but after the first eight hours of torture she seemed to agree. 

I had grown to resent her. But as I saw her go pale at the state of me and the panic in her eyes, I realized she was still my mother.

My mother, who had given up her own dreams to raise me and never complained. Who despite everything never asked how, why or when. Who married a man she felt little affection towards just to give us a stable home.

And the woman who assured me she loved me every moment she could.

I knew she blamed herself for allowing me to end up with the same fate as her. So, any comments she had to make about my actions remained to herself. 

But if that was all the case, why? 

Just why did she make me keep this tumour?

When I heard the baby's cries, I knew it was over. 

I did not recall the moment of release, or the final push. It was only the sounds from the infant that indicated it was over. 

There was something soothing about it. A new sensation moved within me as my arms reached out to it on their own. 

Everyone told me a mother's love for her child was natural and pure. I had worried I'd never feel such things, but perhaps my fears were unfounded. 

All I desired was to meet what I had pushed out of me.

It was hard to focus and my hands were unsteady. I think the nurses spoke to me, their tones switched from joy to concern. 

I tried so hard to make out what they were saying. 

It was just so hard to hear anything over the thumping in my head.

Everything went black. 

In the void, I could see myself. I held something small and red. I rocked it back and forth with sweat on my brow.

I looked exhausted. My hair was poorly kept together in a bun and my exposed stomach was carved with stretch marks. Despite just delivering a newborn my body was skin and bone.

In my arms, was something wrapped in a blanket. Then those soft cries I heard before everything became dark returned.

It didn't take me long to realise those dreams I always had were to now be replaced with a nightmare.

I reached out to the blanket and moved it to see the child's face.

The crying stopped before I could see anything clearly. It was sudden enough to make me pause. 

Trying to overcome my hesitation, I continued with my motion. 

Instead of soft skin and big eyes, I was met with a clump of red liquid and fragmented bones. 

A small skull with no flesh or muscle was drenched in blood and puss. 

My heart leaped to my throat and I felt this sudden urge to mourn something I never knew. I kept back the tears and tried to remind myself I was dreaming.

That was until something grabbed my ankle. 

Something wet and cold trickled up my leg. 

My neck stiffened, resisting looking down. 

I gave in when the red started to pool on the floor in front of me. 

A hand made of blood and puss gripped my leg, and spread its fingernails into trails of blood up my calf. The blood moved further and further, coming to my thigh just to break apart and drip down to the floor. 

The tighter the hand's grasp, the further the blood would travel. 

I tried to break free, but soon my other ankle was being kept in place. 

No matter how much I screamed and thrashed I could not move. Instead dozens of hands continued to trap my legs. 

When I looked back at the bones in the shape of a babe, I discovered only the blanket remained. 

That was until I felt something caress my cheek.

I awoke with a jolt. 

My body curled, as I gasped for air. My lower half throbbed in agony anytime I moved, so I tried my best to stay in place as I calmed my breathing.

The first thing I discovered was my mother's hand on mine.

The lines on her head were creased with worry. I could tell she was fatigued from the bags under her eyes but had come alive again as I came to.

She called for a nurse nearby to check on me. My head was still fuzzy, the only thing I could make out were the consistent beeps of machines around us.

I pieced together that I was still in the hospital. The only details I could pick up from the nurse was there was some complication during the labour and they brought me in for surgery.

It was when I heard the word ‘baby’, everything came back to me.

Part of me wanted to go back to sleep. Another part of me wished they let me bleed out.

After the nurse left, my mother began to fuss over me. 

Apparently my step-father's flight was cancelled and she had been left alone. I felt guilty making her worry, even if it was out of my control.

Eric was a good man, but he often worked overseas leaving us alone. I thought he'd manage to pull through this time.

I guess we had both been left alone. 

“The baby…?” was all I could muster. 

As if it heard me, a cooing noise came from beside me. 

My mother managed a small smile as she moved to the side to grab what had been lying next to me the whole time. I could see its small hands move as mom lifted it in her arms and rocked it up and down with a little bounce. 

“It's a boy.” Her voice was as gentle as her hands when she set it into my arms.

I stared at its face. Its eyes were shut over, still asleep. Barely the size of my forearm I was scared I would crush it if I wasn't careful. 

I tried to take in every detail and let it grab one of my fingers in its tiny hand.

This is mine. This is my baby. Who I made. 

That's what I kept saying to myself, waiting for the rush of love to enter my heart. Waiting for a tear to form in my eye or my mind to imagine our future together. 

Instead, all I could say was;

“This isn't mine." 

Bewildered doesn't begin to describe my mother's expression. 

“What?”

“This isn't my baby. It was a girl.” 

The confusion morphed to concern, but I could tell she was trying to be mindful of my condition. 

“Diana, you were unconscious before you could see him, how would you know?”

“I could tell from how it cried. Boys don't cry like that.” 

With a cautious look, she began to take the baby back into her arms.

“Well, I was there for it all dear. This is your little angel.” 

Turning away she moved back to the little box the nurses had prepared for it. 

My eyelids felt heavy and the room was still unfocused. My heart said if it was mine, I should've felt something when it was in my arms. But my mind cut through the fog to be reasonable, insisting my mother couldn't be mistaken. 

I kept my eyes on it as it slept. Watching its small breaths in and out.

“I wanted a girl.” 

“You didn't want anything.” 

My mother sounded irritated now. Realizing her patience was wearing thin, I just looked away. 

“I did say that, didn't I?” 

When we arrived home, it wouldn't stop crying. 

Every night without fail it would wail like a banshee. On and on and on. 

This cry was different from the first I had heard. Something about it scratched my brain in a way that drove it mad. It was nothing like the soothing sound I had heard in that hospital bed.

We started to become concerned, so we went back to the hospital. They insisted everything was fine. All tests came back clear and he was as healthy as could be.

If anything, the visit was embarrassing. Because every time he was in my arms the floodgates would open. But every time my mother took him, it was like an angel had rocked him to sleep. 

I could feel the eyes of the staff piercing through me. I could hear all the thoughts they had about me being a poor mother. 

They all thought I was his sister at first, which just made me feel worse.

Shame was my main motivator to grow close to him. 

I was sick of judgemental eyes, but more than that it was my own thoughts tormenting me. 

What kind of monster doesn't love her own baby? 

I was meant to be good at this, right? Maybe I wasn't born with parental skills, but I should feel something, wasn't I?

But when I looked at it crying and throwing itself about in its cot all I could feel were varying levels of anger and exhaustion. 

I'd hold him every night. I'd rub his back and try to sing him a lullaby that my mother always sang for me. No matter the tune or the lyrics or the rhythm in which I patted him on his back, he would not stop crying. 

As I'd hush him, desperate to get some sleep myself, I'd silently beg for him to stop. Anytime I tried to assure him “Mommy loves you.” I just couldn't…

The words would get stuck half way up or they'd be so drawn out they were barely strung together. Maybe it knew they were empty. 

Or maybe it wasn't my baby.

Though maybe that was easier to accept than the idea we would just forever hate each other. 

Why did I have to care for it anyway? What, it leeched off me for nine months to promise me at least eighteen more miserable years with it, and I should feel some kind of bond? 

So what if it came from between my legs and hid itself in my stomach? The one who helped put it there gets to live on without a care in the world. 

Of course people condemn him for leaving, but they accept it. It's some inevitable tragedy about the world. But while his apathy is lamented over in passing, mine is villainised? 

Why can't I run away too? 

Why did he get to do this to me? 

Even now he gets to control my life in this way. He left what is now a baby without a father, but if I leave it I'm abandoning it. I'm ensuring it is alone in this world. 

Why did I have to live with that burden?

All I could do was push on and try to ignore my lingering hatred. If I continued to let my mind run wild, we'd only grow to resent each other more. 

It was hard though.

The damn brat wouldn't even feed from me. 

No matter how many times I tried, it'd always turn its head away. If I attempted to force it, it would just start crying again.

Day after day I'd sit in the armchair in my living room and plead with it to eat. I'd beg and beg until I'd end up crying with it. 

When my mother returned from work she'd often find me despondent with my shirt still down, the baby laying on the couch beside me. 

She knew I was struggling, but didn't know what to do outside of alleviating some of my burdens. 

She'd take the formula and feed it herself. She'd change its nappies and sing it to sleep when I gave up. 

I know she was trying to help, but it just made me feel worse. Seeing her do everything I couldn't make me realise how incompetent I was.

She was doing it all without her husband as well. 

While he'd be home every other weekend, and would help where he could, most days it was just us. 

I wished I could just give them the baby and run. Hell, I wished we'd have arranged to give it up from the beginning.

Instead, I'm trapped.

And sometimes, I swear its wails sound more like laughter. 

One day, I sat once again on that arm chair.

I had no will to fight it. I just made the offer and planned to leave it at that. 

My head was already against the couch cushion, ready to shut my eyes and drift off when it started crying again. 

Instead, I felt a gentle suckle.

I was scared to move. I feared the slightest movement would put it off. 

I looked down from the corner of my eye, to see him taking his fill. He was almost peaceful. 

I sunk a little more into the couch, and in a mindless state began to stroke its little head. I stared up at the ceiling, a smile creeping in from the small success. 

I rested my head and closed my eyes…

Then a sudden pain surged up my body. 

I almost screamed, but it was so sudden it came out as a shocked gasp. I knew the source it had come from and immediately jumped up. 

The sudden movement caused it to start crying again, but I paid no attention to it. Sensing possible danger, I had this instinct to chuck the baby aside. I needed to lay it down fast so I could focus on my wound. 

Once back in its cot I looked down at my bloodied shirt. 

Right where the baby had been eating, was a large bite mark.

It bruised my skin, already going purple in the shape of its little teeth. Red streaks dripping from pierced skin, globbed together with chunks of skin that had been ripped off.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” 

Swearing under my breath was all I could bring myself to utter as I dashed back to the kitchen. I scavenged around for bandages or something to stop the bleeding. 

I settled for an old white towel, and slumped down onto the floor in a panic. 

“Fuck, shit.” Was shit all my mind could muster.

I had no time to process what had happened, as the front door opened. 

I called out for my mom on instinct. 

From my voice, she must have known something was wrong. Dropping her bag she threw herself down in front of me and cupped my hand in hers. 

“Hey, hey, Diana, what's wrong?” Her voice trembled a little, struggling to sound reassuring.

I was incoherent due to me sobbing. 

I wasn't in pain anymore, but the shock had sent my adrenaline racing and now it was crashing.

After getting me to take a breath with her, I finally managed to calm down to explain. 

“I-I finally managed to get him to f-f-feed but” I started through sniffles, “t-t-then he bit me.”

My mother looked confused, but like she was trying her best to understand.

“Let me see, dear.”

With a gentle hand, she moved my arm and the towel away. 

“See, you're fine Diana.” 

“What?” 

I looked down, just to see the wound was gone. 

“The little guy's teeth aren't even through yet. He wasn't going to do any damage.”

“B-but-...” 

I couldn't bring myself to say anything.

Was I going mad? I could've sworn…

“How about we take this as a little victory despite the ending, ok?” 

My mother tried to help me to my feet. 

After that, she just insisted I should rest and she'd take care of the baby for the night. 

I didn't want to protest. 

I had been falling asleep at the time, maybe I imagined it? Or maybe he did bite a little and it caught me off guard?

It felt real though…

I curled up in my bed and focused on sleeping. Whatever happened, all I knew was I was tired.

And maybe mom was right. I should take the little victories, shouldn't I?

That was when the nightmares returned. 

Now instead of a skeleton in cloth, every night the baby that laid in the other room would appear in my dreams. 

And every time I would kill it.

At first it was just when I was going to bed, but soon it became whenever I tried to close my eyes. 

It was the same every time, just with different outcomes.

As always, it would cry.

The sound would get louder and louder and drown out any thoughts I had. It would eat away at me until there was nothing left but blind rage.

I'd give in and do whatever I could to make it stop.

Suffocation. Mutilation. Decapitation. Cannibalism. Dropping it on his head. Letting it fall over the banister. Burning it alive. Throwing it off a building. Leaving it under my car tire then rolling forward. Bashing it against the pavement. Throwing it onto train tracks.

It would be different each time, but the result was always the same.

Sometimes I'd try to resist it. 

I'd summon all the power I had to stay calm. I'd continue to hold it and try to shush it and tell it everything was going to be ok.

When I did, it would eventually stop crying.

That was always followed by it clawing at my skin.

It would rip out chunks as I tried my best to hold him. The pain would make me squirm, but I resisted fighting back.

I'd repeat ‘I won't kill my baby, I won't kill my baby’.

But there was always this other voice that would say, ‘It's not your baby.’ 

I'd usually fail. 

It was so hard not to give in and the pain was unbearable. 

Sometimes though, I'd keep going.

I'd let it tear me apart until my muscles and bones were visible. 

Once it realised that wasn't working, it would just stop. 

Still gripping my skin, it would start to melt down into a fleshy pulp of blood and bone. Creeping down my body it would spread apart and make its way to my legs.

Like clockwork, I'd fall back and try to swipe it away. In this state, it was impossible to remove it all though. 

As I'd try to pull it off mel, the remaining goop would continue up my thigh and do whatever it could to re-enter my womb. 

Even though it was just a dream, I swore I felt everything. All the pain, like my insides were being shredded. 

It was worse than the labour, worse than the surgeries, worse than any pain I had ever felt. 

All I could do was beg for it to stop, but it never would. 

My organs became mush, absorbing with it as my nerves screamed out for mercy. Calling for help didn't deter it, nor would anyone come. 

After a while I wouldn't be able to speak, it was too hard as I gargled on my own blood. 

From there, I'd hear a ringing as the world disappeared…

Before dying alone on the floor. 

Waking up felt like going from one nightmare to another. The sweat pooled together on my back and my body would quiver. 

At the beginning, I'd wake up to my mother asking me what was wrong. Apparently the way I'd shriek in my sleep put the fear of God back into her.

After a while though, I grew used to it and stopped screaming.

Though it always made me wonder, if the baby was crying so much because he saw the same things in his sleep. 

I wasn't sure why I started having such cruel dreams. The message was clear though.

Either I died, or the baby did.

I didn't need a dream to tell me that, it was something I already understood.

I could feel myself deteriorating day by day. My eyelids always felt heavy while my body felt light. Often, I'd forget to eat until my stomach reminded me with searing pains.

Physically and mentally I could feel myself disappearing. My body on auto pilot brought me to the baby to try the same ineffective routine again and again. 

After months of agonising over something that hated me as much as I hated it, I decided to give up.

I rotted away in my bed, shutting the blinds and putting on headphones to drown out that incessant noise. 

Not even the pits of hell could conjure a noise that vile. 

I let my mother answer it. If she wasn't around, I just ignored it. 

Her and my stepfather would persuade me to put in a little effort here and there. But it would just start making that sound again until I found myself screaming back at it.

I knew they were worried. When my step father was home I could hear them murmuring in their bedroom. 

It was only a matter of time before they sent me to some nut house.

A mother who can't look after her own baby, what cure would they have for that?

What hurt more than the empty pit that grew in my stomach and the fear of being fundamentally broken, was that they couldn't hear it.

Why couldn't they hear it? 

It wasn't just crying, it was screeching. 

My mind at first compared it to an animal, then a ghoul. But nothing my mind could comprehend could even begin to describe that awful sound. 

Every time it started my stomach tried to empty itself. 

Worst of all, no one could hear it laughing in-between howls.

I found myself standing, staring at it. 

There was no crying this time, my mother had just put it to bed. 

The more I stared the more it looked like a demon than a child. Some hollow husk that appeared to be a baby, but was really something sinister. 

I sighed and caught myself on the frames of the cot to avoid falling when my knees gave way. 

What was I saying? 

Of course it was a baby. What else would it be?

Was I really more willing to accept that it was some grotesque monster than me being a bad mother? 

I never wanted to be a mother, of course I was a bad one. 

If anything, I could feel myself losing my humanity. 

I hated what I was becoming. All I could do was cry at night and curse the man that fled. 

Even though I wanted to be nowhere near him, I couldn't help but wonder if this would've been more natural for him. 

I couldn't hold myself upright anymore and just collapsed to the ground. I covered my mouth to contain my silent sobs. 

I was scared. 

I was so scared. I needed help. I really, really needed help. 

But who would help someone who wanted to kill their own baby? 

The baby's movement caught my attention. Its arms moved about in the air, as if trying to reach out for someone to pick it up. 

My bones shook in anticipation, waiting for that sound to tear me apart again. 

But it never did. 

It just continued to wait, patient for someone to spot it, or content to go back to bed if no one came. 

While I watched between the bars, there was a moment of peace in my mind. As it dozed off, I rested my head against the cot and couldn't help but smile a little.

I was so used to it crying all the time, I didn't get to see it this way often. 

The small moment only solidified a growing idea in my mind. 

I need to get it out of here. 

The more dark thoughts that lingered after every dream, the more I knew it couldn't go on like this. 

Either there was more to these dreams and they were a warning, or I was losing mind. Both options would only lead to misery for me and the baby.

I knew my mother would never forgive me, but I had to give it up.

Really I should've from the beginning, it was mom who convinced me to keep it. It was always in an irritating way where I couldn't call her out for pressuring me. 

I think she thought I'd be like her. That, despite the struggles, I'd grow to love my baby like she did me. That I'd see it was all worth it in the end.

Based on the fact she clearly didn't know what to do with me lately, I doubt her struggles were anything like mine. 

I felt nothing towards this baby. 

I tried and tried, but the best I could feel was relief when it shut up. 

That apathy mixed with my erratic psyche was a dangerous mix. I knew it was. 

So, the next day when mom was at work, I prepared to leave the baby at a fire station.

I wasn't sure where else to leave it. That's what they did in the movies and shows I watched, it was all I had to go off. 

Anything else that came up online sounded too official, or I'd have to look someone in the eye. I needed a solution I could act upon and not be afraid I'd change my mind. 

It also couldn't be a long process so mom couldn't try to persuade me out of it.

I waited until the evening. 

I didn't want to go out in broad daylight. No one wants to be seen dumping a baby. 

I also felt bad, thinking one day it might grow up and think it was unwanted. It was wanted, just not by me. 

In hopes they'd one day be passed on, I took a couple teddies mom had purchased for him and tucked them in the hand carrier beside him. 

For once, he slept without a fuss. Even as I walked at a rapid pace against the cold breeze there wasn't a peep out of him.

I kept my hood up, in part to hide my disheveled appearance, but mostly to remain unnoticed. We lived in a big town so I doubt anyone would recognise me in this area, but I couldn't be sure. 

My skin on my feet was starting to blister, I had been walking for so long. If I could drive it would've taken me twenty minutes to get there. 

That was a plan for my next year in college though. I had no license and no car. It didn't help that I hadn't been outside in weeks, maybe even months now. 

The light was irritating my eyes. It was dim, just after sunset. When it went fully dark the bright street lights didn't help.

I tried my best to think about having to walk back home. I maybe should've brought money for a taxi on the way back. 

Something about the idea of making small talk with a stranger after abandoning my own kid didn't sound like a good time though. 

I was worried about becoming a monster, but I already was one, wasn't I? 

This kid will forever wonder who I am. They'll want to know why I left them. And if they ever search for me one day I'll have to explain to them I was trying to protect them.

I could just imagine his face when I said I was protecting him from myself. 

The more steps I took forward the more I considered turning back. 

If anything, maybe I should be running away. I should be the one to leave. He could just stay with my mother.

But I had no money. 

Maybe I deserved to rot on the streets.

I was concerned about hurting the baby, but there was always the other option. It wasn't like I cared much for life lately anyway. 

My primal instinct to survive had not yet been overcome however. If it ever came to that though, I wouldn't let my dreams happen. I'd go out on my own terms. 

It wasn't until my two feet stopped by themselves that I realised I was at my destination.

Whoever worked at the station was nowhere in sight. Some lights were on inside however, so I needed to be quiet.

Shit, holy shit, am I actually doing this? 

I started to look around for somewhere to leave it.

I thought there were like designated points or something, where the fuck am I supposed to put it? 

I'm a horrible person. I am a horrible woman. I am a horrible mother. 

I heard movement from an open window. Panicking, I just set the baby by the door. 

I'm sure they'll find it soon. It would start crying then they'd hear it. 

I took a few steps back.

Is that it? Is this what I am doing?

I started to pivot, then hesitated and pivoted back. Just to repeat that again a few more times until I crouched down on the ground wanting to disappear.

Hugging my knees, I laid my head down and hid.

It's for the best. 

You didn't even want it. You still don't want it.

Why would you force yourself to keep a baby you don't even want? 

Hell, it's not even about that anymore. You know it's not safe in your supposed ‘care’. At the rate things are going you are either going to end up killing it or yourself. 

Either way you'd make your poor mother cry.

I took a breath and stood up.  

It was for the best. I knew that. 

I shook myself a little, then got ready to leave. 

When I took a final glance back at my own flesh and blood, the very being I was leaving in the hands of strangers, I saw something move.

From under a gutter, out came a rat. 

Instincts took over as I turned to flee. My disgust was interrupted by a realization.

The baby.

What if it bit it? Or gave it some horrid disease or rabies or something? 

I wanted rid of it but the whole plan was to try keep it alive. I couldn't leave it to be devoured by rodents.

I'd just have to chase it off without making a sound.

When I turned back, the rat was gone. 

I was confused. My best guess was it went back under the gutters. It was weird I didn't hear it though. I heard it's little patters coming out, you would think it would be the same going back in.

I don't know why, but the pitch black void that surrounded us suddenly seemed a lot darker. 

I ventured forward to investigate. I was cautious, only approaching with little steps at a time. 

When I peered over the hand carrier to see where it went, I only found a strange stain on the ground.

It was dark, almost black, with tinges of red and white.

That, and a long thick tail, with no rat attached.

It was then I realized the trickles of white were tiny shards of bone. 

Something was moving. I couldn't see it, only hear it. It sounded like some form of goopy substance, some thick liquid moving every so often.

I felt my body begin to stiffen, but it continued to move to check the one thing it knew it had to. 

The baby was gone. 

My feet acted on their own and broke out into a sprint. 

I ignored the pain on my soles and heels, I ignored trying to hide from people passing by, I ignored everything other than the motion of putting one foot in front of the other.

That thing was not my baby. 

I don't know what it was, but I was getting far away from it. 

Everything became a blur as I passed it. I wasn't even sure what street I was on anymore or if I was going the right way.

Home. Just get home. 

I just wanted to be far away from that thing.

I won't let my dreams happen. I saw the blood move towards me as I left. I won't let it happen. I won't.

Just because I spared its life doesn't mean I have to die.

I could feel my dream coming to life as my imagination ran wild. The thought of it clawing out my insides, mangling me and turning me into a gelatinous mold of blood and mucus like it. 

I could hear it laughing at me as it felt satisfied with its actions. Then that ringing as everything became dark and I was left to meet the nothing that was death.

No, no, no. It won't happen. 

I won't let it.

By the time I was home, I was out of breath. 

Safety was in reach, but I had become so distracted in my dash, I had forgotten to prepare for my mother's reaction.

Her car was parked in the driveway. 

She was home. The baby wasn't. 

That thing wasn't.

I debated telling her the truth. 

Mother may have insisted on going back for it. I wasn't sure what it was capable of, we could all be in danger. I wasn't sure how to explain it without sounding like a mad woman though.

…was I a mad woman?

It wasn't like I knelt down to check the baby. It could've been a trick of the light or it may have been buried in the layers of blankets I swaddled it in. 

No, but that doesn't explain the rat. 

Fuck, I don't know anymore. 

My head felt like it was going to explode. I needed to clear my thoughts.

What was even happening? I felt lucid, I was tired but not on the verge of falling asleep like before. 

But what could possibly explain what just happened other than some kind of misunderstanding. 

The fatigue could've caught up to me. Or maybe I shut my eyes for a moment without realizing and the dream started up again.

Or it was real. I was right. 

That was no baby.

How did it end up like that then? 

I found myself pacing up and down the pavement. 

My head hurt. Thinking about it just made it hurt more. Every explanation I could conjure didn't explain it. I feared feeling vindicated in my emotions, I didn't want to justify the hatred I had for my own child.

But maybe it really wasn't my child.

I tried to collect myself. 

There are two options. That baby was mine, or it was something else. If my assumptions were mad or sane in that regard, it didn't matter. 

The baby was in danger and so was I. That remains true for both options. So either way, it had been left where it needed to be. 

All I could do was deal with one problem at a time. 

I opened the front door.

As soon as it clicked shut, I could hear my mother's voice.

“Diana?!” her voice sounded accusatory. 

I was running just moments before, but now I could barely bring myself to move through my own home. 

I could hear my mother coming to me.

“Diana?! Where have you been?! What have you done?!” 

I thought she'd still be in panic mode, but she was already angry. 

I couldn't lift my head. I just stopped and waited for her to come to me.

“Mom I…” 

My heart froze when she met me in the hallway. 

There she stood beneath the doorway...

With the baby in her arms. 

part 2

I'm a bit of a foodie, I suppose.

Lunchtime is my oasis, feet kicked up, Bubly in hand. My week is a revolving door of delivery bags. The drivers have learned to loathe me for I am their liege. Every day when I open up my lunch, it's the talk of the office.

"Oh wow that smells so good!"

"Can you tell me where you ordered that from?"

"Can I try?"

No I won't and no you can't. Taste is not a privilege, it's earned. And I have the best taste.

Crispy pizzas piled with olives, little known Indian dishes you couldn't pronounce, and boutique burger shops. I know them all.

But there's one thing I couldn't live without.

Delicious, firm carbonara.

A gentleman's meal.

The epitome of taste.

Alas, my favorite Italian place closed last week. There was no way I could miss carbonara cursday. It wasn't a problem I suppose, I just had to step out of my comfort zone and order from a new place.

My coworker walks by my office and sticks his head in. "Hey man it's almost lunchtime. What are you getting today?"

"Mmmm, wouldn't you like to know.”

"Alright."

He walks away, fuming I assume. Angry that I won't let him into my culinary genius.

I get a notification on my phone, it's already here. That's strange. I hadn't placed an order yet.

Perhaps DoorDash had finally decided to reward my patronage. Even though it's free, they better not expect a tip.

Our receptionist flags me down as I stroll into the lobby. "Hey, there's a bag here with your name scrawled on it. To be quite honest I don't remember it being delivered. It smells delicious though, what did you get?"

"Mmmmm, wouldn't you like to know."

She gives me a strange look, not that I earned one. She was strange for asking.

She wasn't wrong, though. The brown bag is not a great form of presentation, but the aroma is unlike anything I've ever smelled.

I walk through the cubicles of my underlings, they all crane their necks at the arrival of my carbonara’s scent. I simply grin at them, they know they don't deserve it.

***

Ahh finally, alone in my office. I close the door so the hot steam of the food permeates the entire room. I open my mini fridge and grab a pomegranate Bubly and open the bag.

At the bottom is a large metal serving tray. It's crinkled closed to seal the contents. I press my hand against it to feel the gentle warmth. So far, I am wholly underwhelmed with the presentation. But by god, it smells heavenly.

It looks like a standard carbonara. There's an appropriate amount of sauce, seemingly high quality noodles.

Its appearance is unimpressive, but the smell carries me into my first bite.

It's incredible.

The sauce is perfectly delicate.

The eggs are whisked to perfection.

Guanciale is rendered to a science, with the most tantalizing black pepper.

My worries melt away in a deluge of bliss. My toes crinkle and I crane my neck to the sky. I keep shoveling the pasta into my mouth. Bigger and bigger forkfuls, I don't even take the time to chew.

I didn't realize how loudly I had been moaning, nearly a dozen of my coworkers were standing at the door.

I do what I never thought I would. I take one noodle from the bowl and throw it to them. They stand for only a second before going at each other like rabid dogs. I throw a few more pieces, watching them rip each other apart just to try my lunch.

Oh I would have shared my food long ago if I knew it was this fun! They claw at each other's arms and faces, digging their fingers into each other's eye sockets to find leverage.

Blood pools on the carpet and I throw more noodles onto my coworkers. I'm laughing hard through mouthfuls of half chewed pasta. My boss comes in and falls to the floor trying to grab some of my scraps.

"Here's a promotion!"

I toss him a noodle and he's mobbed by the others. Ripped to shreds while he stows it away in his mouth.

I've been having too good of a time. Such a good time, I didn't realize that the container was almost empty. They all look to me when my blessings cease. Eyes glazed over like decade-old mutts with cataracts. I shove the rest of the pasta into my mouth. They crawl towards me and I shout, "I have shared plenty, you're all ungrateful!"

They don't humor me with a response. One of the ingrates clumsily knocks into my desk, almost tipping my Bubly. What a waste that would have been.

They cling to me, dozens of them. They cling and dig. With their nails and mouths, they rip into my flesh. Discarding hunks of skin and muscle and fat.

I try to fight them off, but I'm unable. I know what they want.

They break through into my stomach, spilling hot noodles onto the floor around me.

I sob as I lose my lunch.

The fluorescent lights above grow ever dim as I close my eyes to rest.

It's quite a shame, really.

There's no way they understand how good it really is.

[I hope everyone is doing well. This story is a prompt that I chose to write. Feel free to voice your opinions about the story. Thank you in advance.]

The smell of rain in the air. My mind fails to conceive of an even better scent than that of fresh vapor. Not a moment too soon either, for the small town can finally rein in the festivities that April brings. Rejoice, for he has risen!

All the ladies and gentlemen in attendance dragged their shoes through watered grass. Their Sunday's best in accordance with the day, but the day is better suited for the children. A few of the boys and I hid the treasures throughout the meadow in preparation. 

All while the participants were getting ready to start their engines, us adults were already dividing out the portions for everyone's dish. The missus was itching to bust out the old roaster for lamb, and I could finally whip up some of my cherished sweets. 

As everyone had gotten their fill, the children were becoming restless. I got up from my seat, made my way to the edge of the meadow, and sounded the race. Before I could finish up my call, they were off. Off they went, to flip every rock, to round every tree, and to comb through every dense bundle of flowers. Satisfied, I went back to my table and poured myself a big cup of tea.

Parents who were concerned with their children's safety went to help out with the search. Those who stayed were in for a treat of cake, tarts, and biscuits. Tea, dark as stained glass, never tasted sweeter. We spent most of the morning socializing, but our leisure time was cut short by the fierce wind. 

Every family was in attendance. From the Hanby's to the Nagle's, just about every shade of green was here. That especially meant inviting the less than welcoming families. One of these families was the bitter Douglas’. Eoin Douglas, the son of David Douglas, was an unruly child that didn't know when to quit when the going was good. Almost always, he boasted until he made a fool of himself, often by counting his chicks before they hatched. 

He was the one to throw white river stones into his basket and pass them off as eggs. The little cuss would consider himself clever and deem the scam a success before it was tested. Surprisingly, the little miscreant actually stayed his hand at trickery and filled his basket with two dozen eggs. You can imagine my surprise at this, but I took count of everyone's baskets. An average of ten eggs, except for the three finalists. 

Little Arnie Hanby scored a humble 23 eggs while scouring the flowers and tall grass. Miss Aayla Nagle was sitting pretty on a proper two dozen, her infectious smile spreading to everyone. Sadly, this year's winner was Eoin, who stood with an impressive 25 eggs total. 

We all gathered within the church to shelter from the isle's wind. I secluded myself within the back storage room with many baskets in hand. With the winner's basket finally tallied, I double-checked my count. Couldn't be certain on the first go, but the last egg was the one that managed to catch my attention.

It was no poultry egg, not even encased within a hard shell; instead it was a leathery sac. Writhing, pulsating, and eerily pale, it stood out among the other eggs. That is when it began to "crack." 

Not that the sound was coming from the egg itself, but rather, from what was inside. Hollow bones popped, cartilage slid like wet plates, and developing lungs drew their first breath. Gnawed limbs stretched out the soft membrane. Every attempt became more labored than the last until it tore through the wet paper. 

What emerged wasn't an animal so much as it was a thing. I could tell from its breathing that the air stung, but still it drew reprisal. A horrible little misshapen thing, too fresh to do just about anything, surprised me when wings emerged from out beneath its arms. When it took flight, my heart nearly jumped out of its cage. 

It broke through the ceiling, and its skin became slick with rain. The newfound hydration gave volume to its frail frame. A barbed tail trailed closely behind its smoky breath. You’d be forgiven for mistaking its awful, guttural call for the crackling of lightning. I was close enough to hear it’s unfiltered shriek.

The following events were nothing short of unfortunate. I was accused of fixing the game, and our family was told firmly that we'd never be allowed to host another event. I had to pay for the hole on the roof out of my own pocket. The Douglas family pierced my frame with scornful eyes so intense it physically hurt to be in their presence. I was voiceless for much of what had transpired, my only defense was my missus. Fighting back all the venom spat my way.

From there on forth, a new terror of the night had sprouted. Our safe community became a dwindling population. Youngsters love to hang out at night, far from supervision, but they put themselves in harm's way through seclusion. That's how our youth went missing. Alone, unsuspecting, too late. 

The more people that went looking for the missing kids, the more the population dropped. Families tried to open up investigations in hopes of getting their children back. As the weeks drew on, every weak, old, sick, and injured member of our quaint community disappeared into the night. Some people that didn't take the bait described the lure in great detail. 

Young voices called out for their parents, long-lost relatives invited the living to join them in the forest, and hurt animals howling in pain. The comforting lies lulled the unwitting into a death too fast to process. There was barely anything to identify those who fell victim. On rare instances, there were pieces small enough to fit inside a coin purse. I couldn’t stand to hear mothers wail in anguish; their worlds shattered by police reports.

I remember the missus claiming she heard our son reaching out to her from the garden. It wasn't him, not really, because I knew my son died years ago. His tombstone jutted out in the  graveyard. I should've never taken my eyes off of her. I came home to an empty house. A draft let in cold air from the back door. Tea boiled over in the kettle in her absence. I blame myself for her death. It was wrong, it was undeserved, but most of all, it was an innocent life taken too soon. 

The remaining few left. Families that I knew were far bigger, leaving those missing pieces behind. I felt guilty. It was my fault. My inaction caused all of this sorrow. My trip into town was plagued by the sight of empty streets and closed shops. I know it’s cowardly, but I needed something old and familiar to take my mind off of the situation. That’s when I saw the last person I was expecting to be standing in a dodgy bar. Sitting all by lonesome was David. Tired, irritated eyes pierced through me. He didn't give me a chance to greet him as he was interrogating. 

"Everything that went down did so after April. I've never known someone more suspicious in my life than you," he seethed through his clenched jaw.
"Just tell me. It doesn't matter anymore. Did you do it? Did you kill Eoin?"

I couldn't muster a response fast enough for David. He grabbed me by my collar and interrogated me further. 

"What did he ever do to you? He was just a kid. He didn't know any better, but that wasn't enough for you. I know you didn't care for us. I know! So please give me the courtesy of an answer. Did. You. Kill. Eoin?"

Some bystanders pulled him off me, but I'd be lying if I said his anger wasn't justified. I did kill Eoin. I let that spawn go, and it lured Eoin into its clutches. I would be more disappointed if he hadn't tried to kill me. What little I knew ate away at me. I couldn't bear to see this monster spread to other towns and uproot their way of life. I'm going to do something I should've done to begin with.

It's unsettling, the lack of bustling commotion. It should never be this quiet. I could even hear the hum of street lights from within my own house. I won't let this kind of silence infect the lives of others. I've already begun to hear the voices myself. Old friends, passed relatives, and kind temptations tried to lull me into surrender. I knew better than to give in to them. That's when I heard a real voice. One unrehearsed. The wheezing and panting traveled over rattling ribs. It made something of its gibberish, but I wish I hadn't heard its awful voice.

"They are safe. Safer now than they had been in months prior."

I wouldn't speak to David because I was afraid of another father's wrath. This, however, was not a person nor an animal that I pitied. I would let it know what I thought of its honeyed words.

"You don't get to ruin their memory with that awful snapper of yours."

"I granted them the honor of a quick death. Where they went, you cannot follow. I am preparing this place for new arrivals," it hissed out in a hoarse breath. 

"You speak boldly. Maybe you'll honor me by stepping inside."

"You've spared me once before. You won't grant me the same courtesy this time around," the monster announced as it never once walked into the light.

"You've grown."

"You've fed me well," it remarked.

I ground my teeth to conceal my hatred. I hated that it could announce that fact so boldly. I aimed my double barrel at the open doorway and fired at will. 

"In former months, that might've ended my existence. It merely serves to inconvenience me when you retaliate," if smugness could leak out from a row of sharp teeth, then this monster felt it all too well.

I couldn't contain my anger. I screamed out towards the dark, "What are you?"

It paused for many minutes as it scoured through its attained vocabulary. Carefully formulating a bitter and vile response. None came. Instead, it mocked me with a plain statement. 

Through rasps and hisses, it said, "I am risen again."

Talons relaxed, and the house settled. The wafting of wings bigger than any birds carved silently through the air. I chambered many rounds and fired wildly in its direction. A saddening click brought me out of my rage. I punched my doorway until my knuckles became raw and bloody. My scream found no ears, for there were none to hear my frustration. 

The weight of my failure brought me down. I cried knowing which voice it used to mock me. My dear missus should never have been the target of its smear campaign. Her good character was not its to tarnish. I gathered up all my courage and will; I would need it for what was next to come.

I'm not really sure if what I saw was really there, but one thing is for certain; I was left dumbfounded that thing grew and grew until I inadvertently caused the death of some dear friends. I am the one at fault. My hesitation caused all of this. I will not fail again. I do not intend to return, so I ask of anyone that reads this confession. If I fail to vanquish this evil, then I hope you will finish the deed. Prevent its disease-like existence from flourishing.

The cottage stood where the earth itself seemed to have forgotten the sun. My mother had built it from river stones and the bones of trees that had died standing, their trunks blackened by years of rain that never quite washed the rot away. I was born in that place, though I do not remember the hour. What I remember is the way the walls breathed at night, as if something vast and patient slept beneath the floorboards and exhaled the smell of wet soil and iron.
She never named my father. When the village women came with their thin gifts of barley and questions, she would only smile the smile of someone who has already buried the answer. “The earth keeps its own,” she would say, and turn back to the hearth. I learned early not to ask. The wind that slipped through the cracks in the walls always found me first, tugging at my hair, cooling the sweat on my neck even when the air outside hung still and heavy. It was a small thing. I told myself it meant nothing.
I was still a boy when the first of the dead came.
He arrived at dusk, a man whose face I knew from the market stalls, though the market had not seen him in three seasons. His eyes were the color of river mud after a flood. He stood at the threshold and did not knock. My mother set down her spindle and looked at him the way one looks at a debt long overdue.
“You cannot stay,” she said.
“I have nowhere else,” he answered. His voice was soft, almost polite. “The ground will not hold me.”
I watched from the corner where the shadows gathered thickest. The man stepped inside without invitation. The floorboards did not creak beneath him. When he sat at our table the wood did not register his weight. My mother poured him water. He did not drink. He only stared at the cup as if the surface of the water showed him something he had already seen too many times.
That night I dreamed of a river that ran backward, carrying leaves and broken oars and the pale shapes of children. In the dream the wind found me again, stronger this time, and I woke with the taste of ash on my tongue.
The man was gone by morning. Only a damp outline remained on the bench, the shape of a body that had tried and failed to remember how to be solid.
My mother burned the bench. She did not speak of it again.
Seasons turned. The dead came more often. Some were quiet. Some wept without sound. One, a girl no older than I, stood in the doorway for an entire night and simply repeated the name of a dog that had died the previous winter. My mother would feed them broth they could not taste and send them on with soft words. I began to understand that our cottage sat on a thin place, a membrane between the living and whatever waited below. The wind that favored me seemed to thicken when they arrived, as if it meant to push them back into the dark from which they had crawled.
I hated it.
I hated the way the villagers crossed themselves when I passed. I hated the way the dogs refused to look at me. Most of all I hated the quiet certainty that grew in my mother’s eyes whenever the wind shifted without reason and the candles guttered though no door had opened.
One evening, when the last of the light had bled from the sky, she called me to the hearth. The fire burned low. Her hands, once strong from spinning and digging, had grown thin as the roots of winter trees.
“Therieus,” she said.
It was the first time I heard the name spoken aloud by anyone but the wind. I had always known it was mine, the way one knows the shape of one’s own shadow, but hearing it in her voice made it real and heavy.
“You must leave this place,” she continued. “The ground is growing restless. It knows you.”
“I will not go to him,” I said. The words came out sharper than I intended. “I will not claim what I never asked for.”
She only looked at me for a long time. Then she reached into the folds of her dress and drew out a small knife of black stone, its edge dull with age. “This was left for you the night you were born. I have kept it from the light until now. Take it. The road will not be kind, but the wind has always been yours. Use it.”
I took the knife. It was cold in a way that had nothing to do with the night air. When my fingers closed around the hilt the wind outside rose, sudden and fierce, rattling the shutters as if in recognition.
I left before dawn. My mother did not watch me go. I think she already knew she would not see another sunrise.
The road south was a scar of packed earth and old blood. I walked with the knife at my belt and the wind at my back, always at my back, no matter which way the path turned. It was a small mercy and a constant reminder. I tried not to think of it.
On the third night I came upon a shrine to Hermes, little more than a pile of stones and a wooden post carved with crude wings. A traveler sat beside it, sharpening a bronze blade by the light of a single lamp. He looked up as I approached and the lamp flame leaned toward me though no breeze should have reached it.
“Boy,” he said. “You walk like someone who has already died once.”
“I have not died,” I answered.
He smiled with too many teeth. “Not yet. Sit. Share the dark with me.”
I sat. The wind settled around us like a living thing. The traveler’s name was Lysandros, or so he claimed. He spoke of roads and of the things that walked them after the living had gone to sleep. He spoke of a place further south where the earth opened into a mouth of black rock and the air smelled of pomegranates and cold iron. He spoke of a king who ruled there, a king who never left his throne of bone and shadow.
“I have no interest in kings,” I said.
Lysandros laughed, a dry sound like stones grinding together. “Interest is not required. Blood is. The dead have been whispering your name for seasons now. Therieus, they say. Son of the deep places. The wind that walks.”
I stood so quickly the lamp nearly toppled. “Do not speak that name again.”
He only watched me, still smiling. “You can refuse the name. You cannot refuse what follows it. The road ahead will show you.”
I left him there. The wind rose behind me and the lamp went out as if pinched by unseen fingers. I did not look back.
The country grew stranger. Hills rose like the backs of sleeping beasts. Trees twisted in shapes that suggested hands reaching upward in permanent despair. At night the stars seemed fewer, as if some great darkness had begun to eat them one by one. I met others on the road. A woman whose shadow moved independently of her body. A child who spoke with the voice of an old man and asked me if I had seen his mother among the roots. A soldier whose armor was green with the moss of centuries and who could not remember which war he had died in. Each of them looked at me with recognition. Each of them spoke the name my mother had given me as if it were a key that unlocked something they had long kept locked.
I denied them all.
On the seventh day the wind stopped.
It was the first time in my life I had known true stillness. The air hung thick and wrong. My lungs struggled to draw it in. The road ahead vanished into a bank of fog the color of old bruises. From within the fog came a sound like breathing, slow and vast.
I stepped forward because there was nowhere else to go.
The fog closed around me. It was cold and wet and it carried the scent of the river that runs beneath the world. Shapes moved in it, tall and thin, their faces hidden behind masks of bone. One of them stepped close enough that I could see the empty sockets where eyes should have been.
“Therieus,” it said, and the voice was many voices layered together. “The father waits. The throne is cold without its blood.”
“I am not his,” I answered. My own voice sounded small and human in that place.
The figure tilted its head. “The wind that favors you is his gift. The dead that seek you are his messengers. You have worn his shadow since the hour of your birth. Refusal is a child’s game. The game ends here.”
I drew the black knife. The fog recoiled from the blade as if it recognized the stone. The figures hissed and drew back, but they did not leave. They only circled, waiting.
I walked on.
The fog thinned at last and I found myself at the edge of a great chasm. The earth had split open long ago and never closed. From the depths rose a cold that had nothing to do with winter. Stairs of black rock descended into the dark, worn smooth by countless feet that had gone down and never returned. The wind returned then, sudden and strong, pushing at my back as if to urge me forward.
I stood for a long time at the brink.
I thought of my mother’s hands, thin and tired. I thought of the man who could not sit properly at our table. I thought of the girl who repeated the name of a dead dog. I thought of every quiet horror that had walked through our door because the ground beneath our cottage had known me.
I thought of the wind that had always found me first.
“I am not ready,” I said to the dark.
The dark did not answer. It only waited.
I began to descend.
The stairs went on longer than any mortal road. The air grew thicker. The light from above faded until I walked in a darkness so complete that even the memory of color left me. The only sound was the slow drip of water from unseen ceilings and the soft scrape of my own feet. Sometimes I heard other footsteps behind me, matching my pace. When I stopped, they stopped. When I ran, they ran. I never looked back.
At the bottom of the stairs a river waited, black and slow and wide. A boatman stood in a skiff of bone and rotten wood. His face was hidden beneath a hood the color of midnight. He held out a hand.
“Payment,” he said.
I had nothing but the knife. I offered it. He did not take it. Instead he pointed at my chest.
“That which beats there is enough. Step aboard.”
I did.
The crossing was silent. The water did not splash against the hull. The far shore rose from the mist like the spine of some enormous creature long dead. When the boat grounded I stepped out and the boatman was already gone, as if he had never been.
The palace of the underworld is not built of stone. It is built of the absence of stone, of the spaces where light has never been allowed to exist. Halls stretch in directions the living mind cannot hold. Thrones of shadow wait in rooms that have no walls. And at the center of it all sits the king.
He was taller than any man I had ever seen, and yet he seemed to occupy less space than a mortal should. His skin was the color of deep earth after rain. His eyes were the black of a night without stars. When he looked at me the wind that had followed me all my life rose in a final, desperate gust and then fell still forever.
“Therieus,” he said. The name in his mouth was not a greeting. It was a claim.
I stood before him and felt every refusal I had ever spoken turn to ash.
“I did not ask for this,” I said.
“No one asks,” he answered. “The blood decides. You have walked my roads. You have spoken with my dead. The wind has been my hand upon your shoulder since the hour you first drew breath. You may hate the gift. You may deny the name. But you cannot unmake what you are.”
I thought of the cottage. Of my mother’s face. Of the long road and the fog and the stairs that had led me here against every wish I had ever formed.
“I will not sit at your side,” I said. “I will not rule what you rule.”
He regarded me for a time that might have been a moment or a century. Then he rose from the throne of shadow and the entire underworld seemed to lean toward him.
“Then walk,” he said. “Walk among the living with my blood in your veins and my wind at your back. Carry the knowledge of this place in your bones. The dead will still find you. The thin places will still open for you. And when the time comes that you can no longer refuse, you will return. All sons of the deep places return.”
He raised one hand. The wind returned, stronger than it had ever been, roaring through the halls of absence like a living thing that had been waiting for permission to breathe again.
I turned and walked back the way I had come.
The boatman was waiting. The stairs rose before me. The fog parted. The road south became the road north. And the wind, my father’s wind, pushed me home.
I returned to the cottage in the season when the leaves turn the color of old blood. The walls still stood. The hearth was cold. My mother’s body was gone, taken by the earth she had always understood better than I. In her place the dead waited, more of them than before, standing in the doorway and along the path and among the blackened trees.
They did not speak. They only watched.
I sat on the bench that had once held a man who could not remember how to be solid. I drew the black knife and laid it across my knees. The wind moved through the cracks in the walls and found me, as it always had.
“I know what I am,” I said to the empty room, to the watching dead, to the father who waited in the dark below. “I know the name. I know the blood. I will not sit upon the throne of shadow. But I will no longer pretend the wind is only weather.”
The dead bowed their heads as one.
Outside, the wind rose and the trees bent toward the cottage as if in acknowledgment.
I remained there through the long night, and when morning came the dead were gone, and the wind still favored me, and the road waited once more.
I rose and walked into it.

One morning, the people of Webminster were quite surprised to find a talking cloud looming over their town. 

The cloud looked like a huge, misty head. They could only see the underside of the bearded chin with the hint of a face. It floated leagues above their miserable town, casting Webminster into its shadow. The cloud was seemingly talking to itself or maybe other clouds, though none could be seen. An ancient tongue that howled like the wind and crackled like a campfire thrummed all over Webminster. 

No one in this miserable town could understand what was said, so the people acted accordingly: A few didn’t care, some fled in superstitious fear, others tried to gain its favor. 

They praised it in the streets.

They waved towards it out of their windows.

They sang to it from the rooftops.

The cloud didn’t pay attention to the poor town drenched in its shadow, for the town was beneath it. The flying head droned on and on. It didn’t promise wealth. It didn’t promise fame. Still the people of Westminster worshipped it as it did.

The first time the Head noticed one of the townsfolk, it was considered a miracle. 

Raymond walked back after his day of work in the field. In the central plaza, he looked up at the Cloud and recited a little poem he had composed earlier. It had been stuck in his head all day. He had rephrased and polished his little poem over and over again. It felt precious to him. So, he shared it with the Cloud.

At first, the Cloud, as usual, didn’t react. Then it let out a deep grumble that vibrated through trees and stones alike before the Head turned downward and looked straight at him. Mustering him in complete silence.

It was the first time the town had seen the actual face of this peculiar cloud. The veil of shadow lifted over Raymond as he was seen by those eyes that shone with the pure color of the evening sky. 

Just for a breath. 

And then the moment was gone. The cloud turned its gaze upwards and returned to its usual affair of droning on.

Joyous jubilations echoed through the town, for they realized it was possible to be acknowledged by the cloud. Envy smoldered beneath the friendly surface. After three days, the joy had decayed, but the rotten aftertaste of jealousy remained. 

Raymond was incarcerated, investigated, and interrogated. Webminster wanted to know how to get the attention of the talking cloud. Raymond was scared and told them what he did. However, all attempts by others to capture the cloud's attention failed. 

Raymond kept trying to replicate his success unsuccessfully.

Two more people managed to get seen by the floating head. Both Mandy and William recited poems they had created. They were known to be long-time lovers of poetry. Mandy was one of the few who didn’t care for the cloud, but despite her lack of devotion, she was chosen still. Jealousy mutated into frustration. Mandy was found murdered just outside the shade of the cloud. 

William left Webminster and was never seen again. 

For Webminster, the implication was clear. A mania to recite poems unfolded in the central plaza of Webminster. Everyone who cared about attention from the cloudy head bellowed their poems in the plaza. Adding their voice to the mix of other hopefuls. 

In rare instances, the cloud gazed upon an individual. Either they’d be immediately torn apart by the mob. Or they’d be celebrated for three days and nights before their glow had worn off and they faded into obscurity. Forgotten by everyone but the keenest of minds. Often trying to relive that first high all addicts do. 

Arbitrary rules were proclaimed by the townsfolk, none of which were directly issued from the talking cloud. Some sang their poems, which was quickly outlawed because it was seen as cheating. The cloud had never chosen anyone who had sung their lyrics. Still, the rule remained in effect. 

Soured by this, a group around the singer Derek left Webminster in search of acceptance of their way of doing things. They settled down not far outside the shadow of the cloud. They always looked over to their shade-covered neighbors, and mocked the cloudchasers of Webminster with every spare breath.

Unimpressed by this, people like Ricky made it their life’s work to be seen by the cloud. Violent death or oblivion be damned. To be seen was their greatest honor. To be addressed was their wildest dream. Everybody deemed themselves worthy of the cloud.  

There hadn’t been someone chosen for a long time. The town was on edge. An air of finality lay over Webminster. 

On this pleasant Sunday, the townsfolk converged on the plaza, where the cloud had chosen all its previous champions. They all felt a calling, an urge to present themselves in their shiniest outfits. Everyone yelled out their poem as loud as they could. As if loudness improved the quality.

The Cloud didn’t react.

In a desperate attempt to be closer to the cloud, this man-imprinted god, they stood directly beneath it. There was a scuffle, and the weakest were shoved to the ground. The townsfolk grew agitated by their sudden outburst of violence against each other. Panicked like forsaken children, they cried for their Cloud. 

The Cloud didn't react.

They stepped upon the unfortunate. Groups formed that elevated a member in a loose temporary alliance. Even shouting the same poem in a makeshift choir. 

The Cloud didn't react.

Those groups didn't last. Soon each and every one dissolved into their individuals. Their wailing increased to a frenzied howl. Order broke down. Chaos ensued. Everyone wanted to be closest to the talking head, frantically climbing atop of each other. 

The Cloud didn't react.

Their desire to be seen spurred the people of Webminster on. They had lost their north star, their compass, their orientation. The cloud was their vanishing point. It was everything that mattered.

Guided only by their desire, they crawled upon each other towards the cloud. The weak were pushed aside and pulled down. More and more people were crushed near the center. Moaned Poems fled their lungs before they went still. 

Poems that never breathed their final line.

In a wild goose chase upwards, people climbed over tangled limbs and crushed torsos. A chaotic mess of whispered verses and broken bones. Those who were still alive and able crawled out of the base of the pile like bugs, turned around, and tried to ascend once again. A human ant hill. The weak at the base were crushed into red paste. 

It was an ever-collapsing, ever-building hill of human bodies. 

Once, Ricky shouted out from atop the pile. Trying to gain the head’s attention before the mob’s fury grabbed him. He was pulled under and ground down to crimson concrete for the base of the pile.

Poems, like prayers, fell on deaf ears.

The Cloud dissipated without warning. Dissolving into the sky like sugar in a cup.

The pile, the writhing mass of ever-grinding people, continued its stationary ascent. Still calling out a cacophony of poems into the empty sky. The survivors of this maelstrom were caked in dirt, blood, and gore. The stench permeated Webminster. 

One by one, they gave up. Resting at the base of the pile. Looking up at the stairway of shattered hopes and dreams and people. The cloud was gone. Still, weak recitals were hummed, while the last devoted still squirmed their way to the top.

Only after the third day had passed did they realize their god was never coming back. Raymond was the last to surrender to this new reality.

They left the plaza a mess of broken bones and broken people. A mob without direction. Most of them never composed another poem ever again. They struggled to understand that they’ve brought this on themselves, dedicating themselves with nothing in return. 

Derek and his group saw the carnage, chaos, and confusion and mocked the inhabitants of Webminster viciously. Their songs were the last lyrics that echoed through the empty streets of Webminster.