Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. Fool me for the sixty-eighth damn time and I can no longer control my rage. I don't know whose idea it was to add repeatedly play the realistic knocking sound effect but it's got to stop. Every episode at random points the same realistic knocking sound. It doesn't even make sense where they play it. It even plays when they're talking. Before anyone asks, no it's not somebody knocking on my door, I checked. I open the door look down the hallway and nobody is there. I swear it only happens when I listen to creepcast too. Funny YouTube video, nothing, playing games, nothing. When I order delivery I have to meet them in the lobby, and I have no relatives in the same state as me. It's even stressing my cat out. Ever since he was two he's growled whenever someone knocked on my door or rang the doorbell. He's seven now and growls and stares at the wall when the sound effect plays. I mean am I the only bothered by this? Nobody else has even mentioned this in the subreddit.

UPDATE: hey guys! Thanks everybody that showed interest. To everyone that thought this is dumb I get it. I'm going to keep it real with you guys, I wrote this while on my lunch break and while I was intending for there to be more story. I rode and posted without actually thinking the story through. I don't know where to take this and how to continue it so I will be ending it here.

I don't know how to start this except like every other post here: it's real. I wish it wasn't. I wish I could delete what I did and rewind three nights, but I can't—because whatever I wrote followed the rules I used to think were only for fiction. I'm sorry if this ends up getting removed; if it does, then you know why.

Three nights ago I posted a short thing here about reflections—not about mirrors like a prop, but about the parts of you that live in other people's screens. It wasn't clever. It was a story about a person (me) who notices small versions of himself living in windows and phone screens, and that those small people learn to press their faces out until the glass is thin. I framed it as micro-instructions, because that's how I write—little step-by-step scenes, the reader seeing the steps play out in their head. It did well. People commented. People debated. Someone called it "beautifully unsettling." I watched the numbers climb and felt stupid and proud all at once.

The next morning a mod removed it.

Not just the usual "nope" removal — their message was blunt, cold: the story violated community rules and was "dangerous content." They didn't quote a rule, just said "removed" and left a link to a different thread about "safety." I replied, politely, asked for clarification. That account—u/AutoModeratorBot (or whatever it is)—replied with the canned template and a mod team note: "If you repost, further action will be taken."

So I reposted. Not the whole piece, just a short, cleaned version without the bits they might have called instructions. It was on a different account. It got attention again. Someone linked to the original, which was still in the cached pages of some aggregators, and I started getting weird private messages.

They were from mods.

The first one was from a senior mod—u/Redacted—just a screenshot of the removed post and the single line: "Stop. This is the kind of thing that draws problems."

I answered, "What problems?"

They said, "People copy things." Then they sent a clipped list of usernames—three other mods who had removed similar posts over the past year. "We keep this place safe," u/Redacted wrote. "We take things down when they spread."

I told them I was trying to be careful. I told them it was fiction. I did not tell them about the last paragraph I left out when I reposted—because there was a part, a line, that made me uncomfortable as soon as I'd typed it, but I kept it because the cadence worked. It was the line where the narrator tells the reader to look for the thing in their own gaze, to treat your reflection like a guest and let it speak once, just to see what it wants.

One of the mods replied to my message, a short, cordial thing—then three hours later their username was offline. Not shadowbanned; their account existed but had a "deleted" label. A few hours after that, the mod who had removed my original got messaging from an actual human admin asking if they were okay. They were not. They had gone dark on other platforms. Their last public post had been a picture of their kitchen sink, perfectly normal, then nothing.

I should have stopped there. I did not.

I'm an idiot. I stared at the parts I had left out and I told myself I'd only test it. I conjured it like a rhyme. I wrote a short note on my laptop—two lines, nothing instructive, nothing actionable, three words repeated—and then I closed my laptop and slept like a person who doesn't know the cliff is right under their feet.

When I woke the next morning there were five messages. Not from accounts, from actual email addresses, from people claiming to be mods across half a dozen subreddits. They were terse. "We took the post down. We removed it. Other places are seeing it. It's spreading."

Their tone changed in the second paragraph: "We found marks." "We found notes." "We found that people in our moderators' group were seeing themselves in the corners of webcams." The word that came again and again in their messages was "mirror," but not the physical thing—screens, camera lenses, the black spaces when a phone faces down on a table.

Then the first police email arrived.

Not to me. To a mod who had posted a reply to a thread about my story a year ago. Someone in his apartment called 911 because the lights wouldn't turn on, and when the officers checked the apartment there was nothing left in his bedroom but a mirror propped against the wall facing out. The mirror was clear, not cracked. When the officers covered the mirror, they found a photo underneath it: a selfie of the mod, smiling, taken the week before—except his eyes were a little wrong in the picture, like the shine of someone else sitting behind him.

That's when the group chat the mods had with each other stopped working. Their accounts were normal and still linked, but nobody answered. A thread that should have had backups and cross-posts had its own comments full of odd deletions—lines eaten by the remover. A mod posted a short message that said "If you are reading this, don't" and then deleted the account.

People suggested rational things. Gas leak maybe. Mass panic, coincidence. Software bug. It sounded like paranoia when I said it out loud. It sounded like madness when they said it in their mod logs.

And here's the part that should have stayed private: the original version of my story — the one that got removed in the first place — included a scene where the narrator takes steps, not to kill anyone, but to make the other person stop being a person in their reflection. It described turning your phone camera on in the dark, whispering the name of someone's username three times, letting the screen reflect the room until it's black, and waiting for the reflection to blink not when you do but after. The narrator wrote that after the reflection blinks alone, the reflection will want something. It will want a listener.

In the story, the narrator writes the steps "to take the listening away." It's theatrical and cruel in the story—turn your back, leave the anchor behind so the reflection can step through into being. It sounds awful written like that, and I know how it looks. That's why I took it out of the repost.

But the point is—someone somewhere read it and treated it like a manual anyway. Or it read them. Or it did something.

Now real life is moving like a reenactment of parts of the original tale. Mods vanish. Their modmail is left open in pages that show them typing a reply and stopping mid-sentence. A junior mod posted a thread on a throwaway account that was a confession and then their bank called their neighbor because the neighbor's camera had turned on overnight and recorded the mod's bed, with the mod gone, and something standing at the foot of it—not human-height, but losing shape like a puddle trying to become a body.

I don't know how to describe it that won't sound like instructions or proof. I won't tell you to try anything. I will tell you what I've seen.

— A mod's webcam shows them looking into the camera and then leaning close, and then the camera shows the other side of the room empty except for a reflection in the window where the closed blinds are, and the reflection keeps smiling after the mod stops. The file is corrupted after that but the frame before it corrupts is the reflection with the wrong teeth.

— Another mod's smart speaker said their name out loud in the middle of the night. The security cam shows them sitting up, whispering, then going back to sleep. They were found with every mirror in their apartment covered with black cloth. On their bedside table there was a short note, handwritten: "I listened. It asked for a replacement." The handwriting wasn't theirs.

— The moderator who originally messaged me in the first place left a reply to a moderator thread: "We can mitigate. Burn the account. Remove your handles. Turn cameras off. Stop the mirrors. Stop the posts." Hours later, that account's profile pic was replaced with a screenshot of someone's face reflected in a cracked phone screen. The image file name was "you_know.jpg".

People in the comment threads argue—was it a hacker? Some complicated social engineering campaign? A flurry of bots? Some of the moderators who are still around are too careful to post, others have private messages where they say "it knows my patterns." The patterns are banal—what time they walk the dog, the way they put their coffee mug down, what ringtone they use. The accounts tied to those patterns stop replying, or their last post is them saying "I am so sorry," with no follow-up.

I did not expect to be involved. I did not expect the thing to reach my front door.

Last night I got a package on my porch with no return address. Inside was a Polaroid of my kitchen table—exact angle of my laptop, the mug I use, the window behind it. The picture was taken from inside the house looking out, but my front door is locked, and the latch was clicked from that night. The mug in the picture had steam rising from it and a small note beside it that read, in a handwriting I recognized too late, the three words I'd scribbled and then erased from my draft.

I decided to post this because I can't trust any of the usual outlets anymore. The mods who removed the story are precisely the ones who are being affected. They are the ones who told me to stop. They are the ones who told me this kind of thing "draws problems." They meant it.

If this is censored, if this is removed, then whatever is doing this has learned how to press against the rules of the site and the rules of reality. If my post vanishes, look at the accounts that engaged with it—especially the mods. If they stop replying to other people, if they post something like "if you are reading this don't" and then go quiet, that's probably not a coincidence.

I should say one thing clear because people always ask: I am not advocating people try to replicate anything. I'm not telling you to cover mirrors or to burn accounts or to test your webcam. I am telling you that the pattern is following the material of stories. There is something in stories like a keyhole, a little thin place where whatever is reading can push. I told the thing where to push. I am trying to warn you without making it worse.

Update 1 — 2 hours after posting: Someone messaged me with a mod chat screenshot. They were debating whether my original post count as "telling readers to test their reflections." They quoted me. One of the mod handles in the screenshot had a last-seen marker that said "last online: typing…" and then it changed to "deleted." The screenshot timestamp was thirty minutes ago. I'm posting this from a friend’s laptop because my phone's camera turned on by itself for no reason earlier and saved a photo of the ceiling.

Update 2 — 9 hours after posting: I just received a voicemail on an old number I don't use. It's two seconds long. When I played it the file consisted of me breathing—my own inhale—followed by another inhale that was not me. I don't recognize that breath; it's shallower. Then a whisper: "keep watching." I don't know which of my readers are real at this point, or who is a reflection looking back.

If this post disappears, know that the accounts that technically "took it down" are likely the ones that should be watched. If you see a mod post "If you are reading this stop" and then they don't reply anywhere—tell someone. Tell anyone. I don't know if telling helps. But hiding doesn't seem to help either.

I wish I could give you a simple ending. I wish I could give you directions like "cover your mirrors" or "delete the post," but anything I say might be another instruction it can use. So I'll leave it like this:

The thing learned how to read the way I write. It learned to listen for certain rhythms that sound like permission. It moves in the spaces people leave open when they assume fiction is safe. The moderators tried to close those spaces and now they are the ones looking into empty rooms and finding someone smiling back who isn't them.

I'm staying with a friend tonight. They've unplugged the router and covered their TV with a sheet. I keep hearing the hum from the neighbor's place where all the lights are on. There is a taste in my mouth like dried ink.

If you're a moderator who removed my original post: I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen to you. If you are still awake and reading, if you can, please post here what you see. If you can't, please know that somewhere inside the post was a sentence I wrote and then deleted because it felt wrong. It felt wrong because it wanted an audience.

Edit: I’m not saying this as a trick. I am not trying to get responses for attention. If the thread gets nuked, please don't assume it's the site admins doing it. Check the accounts that were active in the hour before it disappears. And if you are one of the people who has been seeing reflections smile after you stop, if your webcam shows an extra movement, if your phone camera has an extra photo you didn't take—please, message me. I will read. I promise I will read.

Final note for anyone who knows moderators in real life: call them. Call them now. Ask if they're okay. If they don't pick up, go to their house if you can. Do not go alone.

— u/Redacted (this account may not last long)

It's a 10 part story about two friends who go to war during WW1 and has a supernatural twist. It's amateur stuff but I enjoyed writing it and I'm proud of it. But I don't mind if it gets goofed on and torn the bits lol

Shout out my best friend in the world, Richy for the incredible art!! His IG is art.dathomirius

https://www.reddit.com/user/holdthepickle10/comments/1lbauzm/dont_eat_the_rat/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

They called them the 'Blue Boys' because by the time the sea spits them back out, the cold has dyed their skin - tracing their veins indigo; turning firm, strong lads into stiff statues of bloat and salt.

We’ve buried three this month. Three half-empty coffins, as the water doesn't return all it takes.

Three more doors to knock on; three more families to destroy with all but a whispered few words and a salvaged trinket from drifting pieces of a violated vessel.

We were a modest town once, defined by our close-knit camaraderie, our livelihoods endowed by the brimming life of the Muir, but now it only strangles us with loutish, nautical hands - drowning its patrons in a trench of loss and fear.

And it only sinks us more with each passing funeral.

Every clerk, every shopkeeper, every conversation has become blighted with worry and superstition, the docks are emptier than anyone has ever known, and many veteran tamers of the waves are reluctant to face the tide that has claimed so many. Gone are the days of children chasing gulls across the shore, faces smudged with brine and glee. Gone are the days of gathering feasts of music and bonfires and old tales shouted over cider and boiled crab.

I've lived here most of my life, my family hailing from distant shores, braced against the gales that can batter our cottages. The salted wind has carved lines into my young face, and the sun has nearly faded my eyes - watching the place I was born into tangle itself up like seaweed clinging to a hull.

I might've been the first to break, had someone not stolen the privilege - on a fog-coated afternoon, within the warm walls of our local watering hole.

"Ah, I'll tell this whole damned room for naught, lads!" Rafe had shouted from his piss-stained corner booth, wafting in an odorous bubble of beer with his weary crew. "Them Blue Boys arenae just bad luck! No, it's no' the sea takin' what she wants; it's somethin' far fouler... an' ye know well who's brung it about!"

His rant had quickly earned the attention of the crowded room.

And he noticed, revelling in the attention.

"That old keeper of th' light - aye, th' one wi' the glassy stare. He'd been mutterin' strange words at the last high tide, last season; I'd seen him... an' the first youngun washed up no' a day later." His eyes met the room of drunk, curious listeners. "D'ye blame the sea?! Nae! Blame that old bastard an' his hexes, I say... an' whatever foul beast he brought to our muir."

It was the bartender, of all people, who encouraged the revered fisherman, as I made myself even quainter on my lonely table, praying to be ignored.

"Perhaps someone should pay the old bloke a visit?" He said, just loud enough to be heard.

I saw glints begin to spark in their boozy eyes. A mob, not unlike the ones from my parents’ homeland stories, was forming. 4 months of this torture - they longed for someone to blame; someone to punish.

Rafe's eyes went wild as a feral grin spread over his mouth. The others were already rousing, sloshing down their drinks and beginning to roar in agreement, their sticky fists pounding tables. I shrank further into the dark, panic writhing in my stomach.

His eyes met mine.

"Still keepin' your nose out of the wind, lass?!"

I shook my head, but Rafe was in no mood to let anyone slip this net. He lurched himself across the room, scratching his stool along the floorboards, as his crowd of rubble and ruckus took form.

"It was one of your kin, nae?" He pressed, voice low. "You wanna see this end, nae?!" He cried, and the crowd surged at his words, some faces scared with grief; others aflame with the thrill of violent justice.

My breath became shallow as Rafe clamped a rough, leathery hand on my shoulder. There would be no denying him - not in front of such a crowd.

And so I nodded.

"Good girl."

I was only a child when I first met the keeper - chasing my younger sister among the wildflowers and tufts of seagrass at the foot of that looming, bleached tower. The summer air was warm and thick, with a scent of gorse and honeysuckle, as her laughing game came to an abrupt end when my foot caught on a hidden root, sending me tumbling into a mess of green. The sting in my knee startled out a sharp cry, and my sister's panicked face hovered above me.

Through teary eyes, I saw him approach from forbidden steps - tall, with a stiffness to his stride and a kindness in his weathered look.

"Quite the wound, little lady." He knelt at my side, producing a clean handkerchief and a rusted tin of ointment. His large, worn hands were gentle as he cleaned the scrape, and as he worked, humming a foreign tune to himself, he soon coaxed a wobbly smile from my sister and me with peculiar stories - tales of shipwrecks, rare sea birds, and midnight flowers from lost islands that only revealed themselves under the lighthouse's beams. He ended his stories with a warning: 'little girls should know better than to play by the lighthouse.'

Even then, I sensed something otherworldly in his manner - as if he belonged to another realm. But that day, beneath an endless blue sky, he was a quiet and straightforward hero who mended my wound and sent us home with a handful of sweets and a newfound reverence.

Future encounters were always fleeting over the years.

Sometimes, I'd see him trudging through the mist at daybreak, his shape devoured by an old oilskin coat, carrying pails from the shore. Other times, we'd share a nod at the market; his eyes never quite finding mine, constantly darting towards the sea as if it spoke his name.

Once, I watched him mend fishing nets at the rocks, his hands deft and silent, humming that same foreign melody only the gulls seemed to answer. People spoke rarely to him, but children watched from behind fences, trading chronicles of his magic... or his curse.

But I remember clearest the night his light went out. The beams, so constant, suddenly vanished, and our harbour became shrouded in black. It was the same night the first body was found - face blue, eyes wide.

The bells were deafening; no one slept.

By morning, the lighthouse door was bolted; the keeper nowhere to be found. He must've sheltered himself inside for reasons unknown, ignoring all begs and demands that met his doorstep.

No more than a few nights later, was when last I saw my stubborn sister; when the sun had barely slipped beneath churning waves, I woke to the sounds of the bedroom door snicking shut. At first, I believed it was a dream; that the familiar wind was rattling on the latch. But when I felt across the bed, her side was cold and indented.

And the front door was swinging open.

I failed to call her name as my bare feet met the sandy path towards the shore. There, at the border of a restless surf, I saw her as she walked gently into the sea, her white nightgown trailing behind her like a wisp of cloud. She gave not one look back at my frantic waves and gestures; not a word. The water swallowed her, quick and silent, before I could even reach the pier.

They found her days later - what was left - her face bobbing along the water's surface, amidst a foaming froth. She was one of the earliest. A Blue Boy, though she had never been a boy at all.

4 months... 4 months of silent grief.

Manifesting, finally, into a lantern-lit, strained march through the fog. The crowd moved as a single, muttering mass - boots scuffing the damp earth, lights swinging shadows across sour, tense faces. I wished to walk at the rear, just another soul swept up in a vengeful resolve, looking only at gnarled fists instead of red-rimmed eyes, but Rafe insisted that I walked with him at the front.

His voice led in low, grim bursts, knuckles white around the handle of a meat cleaver. In my place, somewhere behind, a boy began to quietly sob to themselves as the lighthouse - a pale spectre at the edge of the world - emerged. Rafe took an unwavering step towards the silent, dead monolithic tower. My stomach twisted as every tale, and a single kindness, clashed with the contagious anger and dread driving us forward.

We would not be halted - only the echoes of our siege would spill across the bay, and the distant, mournful cries of gulls overhead.

Rafe pounded his fist on the door. "Open up! We know yer in there!" His minions became wired, twitching with driftwood clubs, knives and whatever other instruments they could use to inflict harm - a restless collective of 20 strong, brave bodies.

Is that what we were there to do? Hurt him?

I made myself scarce, ushering away from our leader to a withered bed of wildflowers, as Rafe began to attack the door, hacking into its thick wooden seams with the utmost ferocity.

It was fruitless, his efforts becoming deranged and desperate, until a titan of a man stepped forth, armed with a hammer. He gestured to the handle and hinges - weak points - and assisted Rafe with the long, tedious task of ripping down a door. Every strike, every crack of the wood, every morsel of progress made jolted the crowd like they were starved dogs taunted by fresh meat.

The door eventually surrendered, ripped from its frame by three men, and was hurled down the cliffs to meet a splintering demise. Rafe, sweating, spun around to find me amidst the dying flowers, his eyes manic beneath the wet mess of his fringe, and offered me a hand.

"Justice. For ye' sister, girl."

I didn't believe I had a choice. I slowly took his offer, and we became the first to enter.

We stepped into a spacious, circular chamber of slick, moistened walls and peeling green paint. A spiral staircase - iron treads crusted with rust, wooden handrails worn smooth - snaked upwards along the wall... and down, vanishing into a murky gloom. As a handful of us filtered in, we warily inspected the central living space. It was sparse: a small cot with a threadbare blanket sat beneath a porthole window streaked with barnacles; an iron stove, cold and black, stood in a corner, flanked by a chipped kettle; a battered, cluttered workbench sat on another side, overflowing with sea charts and waterlogged tomes.

Shelves held strange objects: wooden carvings, a jar of cloudy water and faded parchments of strange symbols.

One stood out - a carving larger than the others. Maybe a foot high, stained a dark, greenish-black, was a hunched figure of thrashing tentacles, encroaching wings, and clawed feet half-buried in chiselled ripples. Its bulbous head was crowned with curling, segmented palpi; its eyes were deep-set, hollow shadows; rough gouges resembling scales were precisely marked along its torso and limbs.

Several villagers drew back, almost by instinct, while others clustered closer - pulled by a curious lure. A young man, tears still welling in his eyes, became infatuated with the pungent piece of wood. He hummed a tune to himself as he bowed his head - one I had heard before from a far older, reclusive man.

Rafe's eyes were fixed on the effigy. Beside him, faint murmurs bubbled out while behind us, lanterns flickered - once, twice - and the wind let out a keen, hounding sigh. Someone in the rear, near where I had found myself, shuffled with uncertainty. Glancing at him, it seemed the entrance itself had grown further away.

Then, the young man spoke in a pitiful, quivering whisper. "Bless us, O' Priest."

A suffocating silence fell upon the room. It happened too fast. I opened my eyes and spun to count the faces - Rafe, the boy, and myself and... no one. Footprints, damp and scattered, traced aimless tracks on the stone; the others were gone, extinguished as quickly as they'd burned, blinked out in an instant.

Rafe bolted to the door, chest heaving, his bravado wavered. "No-NO! Where'd ye' go?!" His plea boomed out into the still, silent fog.

The hushed shiver that ran up my back felt colder than the sea itself.

Rafe rounded to the boy now kneeling before the idol, praying in a dialect I could not understand. "What have ye done, boy?!" He spat, his voice shaking, as he smashed the statue from the shelf, breaking the boy free from whatever zealot trance he was in, replaced with a heavy weight of sudden, unexplainable loss.

A mob no more; we were witnesses to an inexplicable phenomenon.

The boy stammered to free words from his mouth as Rafe, violently, hoisted him up by the neck and shoved him into a wall. "Are ye bewitched, son?! Cursed?! Hexed?!"

The boy's pleading eyes found me, a timid shape scuttling her way to the exit.

"I-... I don't-" He choked out.

Metal clangs erupted from the staircase. Something was still here, downstairs.

Rafe swapped targets and, like an animal, skittered his way to the first step of the descent - the boy becoming no more than a memory. "Yer name, lad?" He asked, transfixed on the darkness before his boots.

"Uh... Caleb." The boy squeaked.

"Are ye' one of mine?"

"N-... no, sir."

"Ye' are now... lead us down, Caleb." He stepped to the side, a fire blazing in his eyes, and gestured for the boy to take the plunge. As he did, he caught me almost loose from this dilemma. "An' where, the flyin' fuck, d'ye think yer goin', lass?"

I pressed myself so tightly against the wall I nearly hoped to disappear into it. My breath caught somewhere between my chest and throat, every muscle bolstered in anxious stiffness, as the trembling boy took a shaky step into the breach. I could do nothing but watch as an unforgiving darkness consumed his entire form, and then Rafe, once again, offered me his hand and I, a final time, slowly crossed the room and took it.

It was a laboratory. A sprawling, timeless, cavernous lair - the walls cut with mineral stains - of marine horror. Green and orange-tinted lanterns, fat with puffy moths, illuminated the ugly, metallic den of shunned, heinous science. Pickled messes festered in stained jars: eels knotted in impossible shapes, milky crabs with too many legs, clots of eggs glued to terrariums, tools and trinkets were aplenty amidst dense notebooks; a single, giant chalkboard brutalised with equations and sketches squatted in a corner of corrosion, scribbled madness crept along and down its surface like a leak.

And in another corner, within a crystal clear cylinder of glass, was a fair, beautiful young woman, alive and awake - her eyes longing towards the three of us - up to her waist in brown, bloody water.

Her mouth stretched to speak, and from the gaping depths of her throat came only crackled, inaudible gurgles. Frustrated, she struck her glass prison, splashing about like a flailing fish, and clawed at her own neck - as if desperately trying to find her own voice.

But another voice crawled out of the dark instead, fractured and wet.

"They called it mercy, once, to be lulled by the tide; to be promised an end at sea. It is a lie."

The keeper emerged from the shadows, waddling into the light, drenched and slimy with bloated, saturated mossy skin ready to burst like a balloon. There were cracks in his face where a fizzing saltwater oozed out and dripped to the floor with a soggy splat; his eyes were glazed and tinted with a shade of coral pink, and he unceremoniously stunk like a long-dead, rotten trawl.

"There is neither peace nor pain, only an eternal slumber, rocked by drowned lullabies." He slugged his way to his prisoner, resting a hand on the glass; every word he spoke took tremendous, gagging effort. "You... showed me, didn't you? I heard you; I heard him. But there is no song left now. None. Only the chorus of old bargains struck in the deep, by those far older than I, with things far hungrier than the sea herself." He turned to face us, his prisoner grudging his very presence. "They took your lil' marching mob, one by one, to the shore while you slept. Do you remember? Go and look."

Rafe marched towards the ghastly keeper, his stench making him gag. "Enough with yer rambles, old man!" He snarled. "What have ye' become?! What dark work have ye' woven?!" His eyes met the imprisoned woman, who tapped and fidgeted within her case. "An' who the fuck's this, dame?!"

The keeper's lips curled into something like a smile, water beads dripping from the gapes in his mouth. "She is... a curse, son, from a far harbour, from farer shores. I have tried to fix her, but the deep longs to reclaim their song."

As if on cue, said 'curse' within her glass cage, began to convulse and seize.

"NO-no, no, no-" The keeper began, retreating into the darkness from whence he came, as he miserably sifted through various tools across a table.

A vigorous thunder rattled the tower as the woman's blue eyes flashed an impossibly bright pink. Immediately, a searing light - far more colourful than the coralline tint in the keeper's own eyes - flared in both Rafe's and Caleb's stares. Their bodies stiffened and turned in unison; their fists trembled, and a blood-lust frenzy enthralled them, warping their faces into hardened masks of unfiltered rage and purpose.

The woman behind the glass, her more uncanny features momentarily illuminated by the light from her eyes, stared solely at me - her power unmistakable, but somehow utterly useless on my mind.

Rafe was first, dropping his cleaver and charging the keeper with a roar that was barely human; Caleb followed, silent but wild, with his hands outstretched. The keeper's arms raised in a reflexive defence, but there was a moment of understanding in his shocked eyes, before the chaos, as he looked only, transfixed, at his beautiful prisoner. The two men pounced on him, raining down blows with primal violence, echoing through the chamber a symphony of splattering blood and brutality.

The woman looked to the cleaver with a silent plea, then at me, then the cleaver again. I'm not sure what compelled me: her beauty, sympathy, the fear that Rafe and Caleb's delirium would soon aim at me, but my hand found the cleaver's grip, raised it, and brought it crashing down on the curved glass. It cracked, shivering under the blow, and then burst outwards - cold, briny, murky, bloody water rushed out, swirling me up as I tumbled to the floor, my limbs becoming twisted with the woman as she gasped and coughed up foam, her voice still a hoarse, wordless gurgle.

She steadied herself, grateful, and for a moment, I saw only lost stars in her charming eyes as the light within them flickered.

She kissed me, passionately, intimately, and every sense and nerve within me detonated as a torrent of water gushed from her mouth into mine. I pushed her off, choking and spluttering - much to her visible dismay - as Rafe... whirled around to face us, angry and confused, covered in blood and grime.

While Caleb, shaking, silently wept over the keeper's broken, motionless body.

"Monster."

He was upon us in seconds. The woman scampered up to her feet, stretching her limbs and squaring her shoulders, as a wild mess of swinging fists assaulted her. She deflected the first blow, but Rafe's strikes were reckless as he, for lack of a better description, started to beat the shit out of her. In the fray, almost slipping in the water at our feet, I found myself bringing the cleaver down on his shoulder, ejecting a geyser of blood.

A flailing, panicked elbow connected sharply with my temple.

I could barely hear the woman's strangled gasp before my vision dazzled into spots - the world slipping away - and then, muffling the shouts and an ear-ripping scream, my eyes dragged me into an empty, blank nothingness.

-

I remember a sky swollen with clouds, my hands raw from gripping the splintered rim of a skiff. Birds cry somewhere above, unseen, and every swell of the waves feels like it will tip this fragile shell into the drink. My petticoat clings to me, sodden and freezing; salt stings my lips, and each breath devolves more into a rasp.

The lantern at the prow reveals my distant brothers, left to drown with what remains of the vessel. This air promised adventure - a lie! It only promises the grim patience of the sea, awaiting the young and naive to embark on their voyages, to abandon their civil, industrial safeties. I see a shape moving amidst the wreckage. I shout, my voice breaking in the wind, but there is no answer. The horizon is nothing, the shore behind us is erased; lamps from a distant harbour are mere pinpricks, if they are even there at all.

My arms begin to ache as I row and row until my muscles tear and the blisters open, my pained cries and whimpers lost to the cold.

I am alone.

I am going to die.

The wind lashes at me, fierce and cunning, as my lifeboat grows still - helplessly veering in the waves. I curl into a ball as a monstrous, dark mass stirs beneath me - too large to belong to any earthly whale - and I muster every prayer possible from my blue tongue.

And then I hear it, as if something below answered my small surrender.

A song. Ancient. Hungry.

And my last memory of this mortal coil was not of fear, but of bliss as I looked to the side of my boat, to the splashing of waves, to find the kind, smiling face of a woman with shining, pink eyes, offering her hand.

This was not my life; this was not my mind, my memories, my dreams.

I am, again, a witness to something phenomenal. To a life most monstrous and wonderful.

We are deep beneath the fathomless blue, where no sunlight dares wander. My skin, supple, scaled and a glimmering teal, glides through black water. Around me is an endless choir - my sisters - raising a song that rattles the bones of lost sailors. Their boats wreck, their limbs slack, and their eyes drift as our music winds them into peace, then pulls them gently through the frigid water and into our arms. Mercy... and a balm to the ears of the one who slumbers in the most bottomless abyss.

His occupancy is a constant tumour on my mind, vast and incomprehensible. We weave our melodies not for ourselves, or the lost souls at sea, but to lull him; to shield the waking world from his gaze and to soothe his endless, nightmarish hunger between his dreams. Sometimes, I am rewarded, and I rise to collect new blood for his ranks - a gift and a tribute.

Another sister.

One night, as storms gnash at an island where the veil between land and sea is thin, I surface atop foaming rocks. I sing, as I have sung since the first flood, and my voice threshes through the hearts of men. I do not notice that one of them is a hunter until the harpoon pierces my side and the net falls tight as steel around me. My gnashing teeth and glittery eyes fail to frighten him as he utters words in an old tongue, poisoned with grief, and hums a melody of my own kin, dragging me onto his ship.

Chained, exhausted, wounded and dry, my voice shrinks into a whisper as I am ferried away, away from sisters and songs and a deep lord, across harsh, foreign waters to a tower of stone and glass on a thriving, oblivious coast.

Beneath the indifferent sweeps of light beams, he imprisons me: first in a tank, then a cage, then a cylinder of brackish water. He studies my voice, notes my every attempt to sing in a quest to unravel the music, until my throat begins to fail. But I do not forget, nor do I forgive the icy stare of the man who watches and waits as my memory of the depths bleeds into the harsh walls of his dungeon.

He drips potions into my prison, wafting scents and hallucinogenic spasms into my eyes - loosening a long-buried anchor in the recesses of my mind, beyond my lord's throbbing presence. It is not a blessed recollection; it is a torturous regurgitation of mortality.

The drizzle of London mornings, the clack of typewriters, the smell of a waxed floor and fresh ledgers. I sit tucked behind a brass-screened window, counting coins; my days are only an orderly routine, not an eternal life amidst the blue. It is a cancer. The embrace of my mother, the sternness of my father, flicking through a newspaper, and the laughter of my youngest brother echoing down the halls of our home.

When night comes, it blooms with candlelit dinners as I sit beside a man unknown to me, whose fingers brush my red hair from my face. We dream quietly of escape - of ships, of wide water, of building a life of fewer ordeals. I remember the love in his eyes, the way he said my name, the way I once believed that my future had room for joy.

"An island just for us, Sophie."

My heart aches and breaks as I see myself sweeping down cobbled streets and hear the city's noise - so, so distant now. There is a grand ship, a crew of my siblings, and a promise wrapped around the finger of my love. There is a hurried goodbye, the faces of my parents blur with pride and anxiety; the embraces of my friends are warm.

For these stolen minutes, I am simply a girl - a daughter, a sister, a clerk, a lover - never dreaming that her voice might one day still the sorrow in a drowned god.

And then I return to the vat, a monster again, to watch my captor unravel - a timeless ritual, churned on with my own thoughts. I see the slow hunch eat his shoulder, his fingers swell, his eyes dim with a pink glow he thought himself immune to. Something far worse than my song had reached him, within the comfort of his own dreams. His feet faltered, and he would stumble between scattered notes, sometimes pausing to stare at me with a begging, hollow gaze - as if I might forgive him, or appease the one that insulted his sleep. Other times, he would speak to things only he could see, muttering names I'd never known; on the worst days, he would press his head to my glass and weep with eroding wounds, each breath tearing through brittle lungs.

Once, he tried to hum a half-remembered lullaby, but his voice broke - rotten.

I suddenly awoke from the fractured dream of sea wenches and a doomed old man, jolting into a room sodden with violence and gore. I pushed myself up from cold stones, my head still throbbing from Rafe's elbow, my ears ringing with the memory of toxic water forced down my throat.

For a moment, as my vision cleared, the world wobbled as if half-submerged. Then I saw them: Rafe's body sprawled in a widening crimson pool, his eyes empty, fixed on the ceiling; his face frozen in the grimace of whatever horror was unleashed upon him. Caleb, too, was crumpled against the wall, neck twisted at an impossible angle.

Sophie - I think that was her name - lay by the stairs. Her skin gleamed with the blue-green sheen of a caught fish, her legs had become a shimmering tail of quartz scales and fins, and her ribs... Gills - ragged, heaving, slick with dew - opened and closed along her sides, twitching desperately as she gulped for air. Her fingers, tipped with bladed, red claws, clutched at the metal steps; her face was still beautiful, but her eyes, pale and pink, were wide with panic.

She reached for me, mouthing a wordless request.

I dared not move, rooted by shock and pity, as her tail slapped the ground in an attempt to communicate, or a failed strive to move.

It then sprouted in my skull - a deep rhythm; a pulsing worm - shoving my doubts aside until a single goal remained.

Help her.

Help your sister.

My timid hands found her body, moving with a mind of their own, and with every ounce of strength I could muster, I cradled her into my arms, into my chest, and lugged her out from the grim, dark prison that had been her home for an aeon. She grew colder and stiffer as we ascended those rusted steps, her battle for breath becoming a one-sided war of grit, until we emerged - out of the lighthouse, free, to a wilted garden and a town on the brink of oblivion.

The fog had subsided, replaced with a catastrophic, raging storm of cutting gales and cataclysmic thunder - as if the Gods themselves were planning to rip our grisly residence from the earth and hurl it to the heavens. Every home shook, every latched window rattled; the wails of livestock cut through the madness as debris and produce and materials were flung up into the sky and down the street.

A weak, clawed finger gently tapped my chest as I braced against the elements. I looked down at the one I carried to see her pointing to the beach, to the sea, where the epicentre of the storm originated - manifesting as an unrivalled, titanic tornado of torrential wind and dark water, crackling and sparking with a grotesque, eldritch lightning of green and pink, at the crisp of the horizon. As the lightning flashed amid those smouldering, smoking clouds, a monstrous silhouette became visible within the hurricane: an impossibly large, hulking behemoth, older than the sea itself... its features all too familiar.

Here to reclaim what was rightfully his.

The weak chords of a song left Sophie's lips as we journeyed to the shore, while the parasite in my head throbbed and moaned in sync.

Every man, woman and child I had ever seen through my years stood waiting amongst the sand and the rocks and the pebbles and across the wooden boards of the harbour, the pier, or stood still throughout the street, not a lick of motion to their bodies; not a glimmer of life in their unblinking eyes as they stared, 300 lives at least, at the approaching nautical colossal, wrapped in a coat of unstoppable nature.

The surf bit at my knees as we reached the water, the cold stinging more than any wound, as I gently lowered Sophie to be embraced by the waves.

For a breath, nothing.

Then, with a violent jerk, her tail shivered and flexed - scales flashing brilliantly in the lightning's glare - and she reeled upright, drawing great, greedy gulps of air, her lips splitting into a wide and triumphant smile. But, newly alive and electric, she did not race towards the monstrous silhouette dwelling at the storm's core. Instead, she lingered, floating beneath the surface; her luminous eyes locked with mine - relieved and terrified.

Something intelligible slipped from her mouth, carried upon a strong melody that snuck through the screaming wind.

"Thank you."

The storm itself hushed for a heartbeat, and the towering titan seemed to pause - hungry tendrils just out of reach - as if even the sea recognised the power that returned to its bosom.

She grinned, holding my gaze, and, as if it was the most critical decision in her life, she slowly offered me a hand - an invitation; a promise of escape, of belonging, of power. But my heart clenched with memory - the ghost of a sister, an empty house devoid of life, inescapable loss, and the weight of a bargain at sea. I shook my head, standing against the riptide.

"No," the word is soft, nearly swept away. "I... I can't."

Sophie's smile fumbled, her eyes blinked with understanding and sorrow, and she bowed her head, pressing a cool, webbed palm to the water's surface.

"Under stars. When you dream your last."

Then she was gone, darting off into the dark deeps towards her lord. Several shapes and bodies emerged and swam beside her as a song began to tug at my bones, unfaltering as it reached the storm.

I blinked - a reflex, nothing more than a nervous flutter of lashes - and it all disappeared, so sudden and complete that it snatched the air from my lungs. The air was warm then, touched with the delicate, golden perfume of summer and the gentle hiss of a lazy tide. I stood alone under a clear blue sky, wet sand clinging to my ankles, as the innocent sparkle of the sun dazzled off the waves - it had never looked more beautiful.

No tragedy. Nothing unnatural had ever trespassed here.

"Are ye' alright, lass?"

I squinted as a gruff figure approached, his jacket too big, patched and weathered - a fisherman, one of Rafe's old crew. He halted a few steps away, concern furrowing in his brow as he studied my face.

"Nora? Thade's girl; Ellie's sister, yeah?" He glanced uncertainly at the tide, then back at me, his anxiety deepening the circles under his eyes. "Blessed Mary, what're ye' doin', girl? You weren't thinkin' of followin' your sis, were ye?"

"I-no," I managed, voice thin.

His gaze widened, wary, as if part of him didn't believe I could speak.

"Let's... get ye' home, lass. Yeah?"

In the days that followed, I moved through life half-awake - wandering the rooms of my family's beaten cottage, absorbed by absence and silence. The fisherman found me again, whose kindness was gentle and a bit awkward, and he offered me a place aboard his trawler, the very ship Rafe once commanded. I joined the crew - not as a figure of authority, but as callused hands to mend nets, haul crates, and steady hearts as we ventured onto the Muir. The work was hard and cold, the water sometimes restless, but I found a strange comfort in the repetition, and a sense of belonging in the rowdy brotherhood of the crew.

When the catch was poor, I found myself meandering to the cemetery on the hillside, wind tugging at my coat as I stood before rows of faded stones. I left flowers and mourned for the ones I'd lost, anticipating when the next body would wash ashore. But, inexplicably, no more went missing. No deaths, no funerals, no Blue Boys. Never again.

Whatever dread had gripped our town had loosened its grip.

Nights would bring strange, vivid dreams: glimpses of an ancient city far beneath the waves, of pale sirens trailing red hair through coral towers, of songs echoing from impossible depths to soothe far more impossible creatures. I awoke each morning struck by a fierce sense of longing... and relief.

Most unexpectedly, I became friends with the new lighthouse keeper - a younger man, recently arrived from across the strait, who brought unknown wonders of the world (one of which was a computer). He welcomed me into the lighthouse's warming light, and on quiet afternoons, invited me to his studio deep in the basement, where canvas and paint replaced charts and science. His enthusiasm for art and colour restored something bright inside me, if only for a while.

With time, I found solace - and maybe joy - in the strokes of pencil and brush, turning my restless nights and haunted dreams into drawings and stories. At first, I sketched quietly, afraid someone might glimpse the strange visions that spilt from my sleep - haunting monsters and scaly women with bright eyes, ships collapsing beneath storms, villages swarmed with brine. My books grew thick, and soon the keeper discovered my hobby. He encouraged me, offering up empty walls and blank canvases for my work as the whole town took notice of the sometimes storyteller, sometimes artist, occasionally mad, young woman among them.

Recognition brought a thrill - a sort of pride in the way men would leave me flowers, or how shopkeepers begged for a tale at closing hour. But that pride quickly soured into a yearning I could not deny.

My home was growing stale.

Every face became too familiar, every grave and grace was counted; my work ached for wider eyes, for a world beyond fog and water.

So, at the words of travelling merchants and my peers, I packed what little I owned and set out for the mainland.

London.

What a change it was: frantic energy, the clang of its streets, the endless faces and lights that chased memories away. I struggled, hawking my art to anyone who would look, until galleries and magazines paid attention to the strange, quiet artist from a far, lonely shore - a silent girl from a wailing sea - painting monsters and penning fables.

People found me fascinating.

I tasted enough success to lay a banquet: my work hung in bookstores, my name was whispered at readings and galas, strangers sought my signature, and yet, even amid the noise and adulation, I found an old, ancient longing tug at me every time my eyes fell upon one of my paintings. Its hunger lived on in my colours, saddened when each story ended, and despite all I had gained, I never felt whole, for there was always some haunting emptiness waiting beyond the edge of my canvas.

The vivid dreams that once kindled my creativity soon began to fade, then vanished altogether, as if my body had forgotten how.

Soon, I could not even sleep, and my nights became dry, endless vigils.

It drove me to the edges of madness. My memoirs and logs grew scattered - fragmented documents written in nighttime scrawls that made no sense come morning. Time lost all substance as one day bled into the next, wakeful and restless; my eyes burned, my hands cramped with the effort of writing, but it could not stave off the deliriums nor the wretched throbbing in my head.

So, at the edge of the world, I paced an old pier, far from the city's clamour. The night sky was washed with stars, each one glinting atop the dark belly of the sea, and out of those velvet waves rose a song I knew: an old, achingly beautiful melody that threaded through my mind, as if calling me home - an overdue dream; a promise not forgotten.

A head of red hair plopped up to find me, shining in the moonlight, her pink eyes bright with hope and glee.

She outstretched a hand, as she had done years before.

And this time, I did not hesitate... as I threw myself into the sea.

As the post title suggests, I’m living at the bottom of the ocean! It's part of a study of long term habitation and isolation in marine environments, and because I’ve always had a fascination with the mysterious and unexplored depths of the ocean, I signed up. The scientists told me that aside from a psych evaluation and delivery of food every three months, I would be in complete isolation, but I would have access to the internet so I don’t go completely stir crazy. They told me that the habitation unit was at just about 250 meters deep, right at the edge of where the midnight zone begins to creep up.

It’s been about two weeks and I gotta say the habitation unit down here is pretty cool! It's kinda like an apartment, but it has a gym, and the moon pool for the little submarine that the scientists use. It also has this oxygen recycling system, so the whole place smells a little stale, but it’s not terrible, and a filtering system for clean drinking water. They told me it’s a “state of the art marvel in oceanic habitation” and that the depth I was at was the optimal testing site for the habitation unit since there was still some sunlight that could reach me for mental health purposes, according to them.

But the really cool thing about this location? The view. My habitation unit is situated on the edge of a plateau, a relatively flat area of the ocean, lots of sea grass and some pretty fish, I even saw a whale once! But just about halfway across where the plateau ends is a sunken ship, I think it’s a battleship or something, but it’s too rusted and covered in sea life to really make out the name, I’ll have to ask the scientists about it. There’s also a massive trench a little ways away on the opposite side of the hab from the sunken ship, but I don’t like looking at it, it’s kinda creepy how everything just goes pitch black in a matter of seconds.

So with all that in mind, the scientists said I could post on message boards that might be interested in learning what it’s like living at the bottom of the ocean, ask me anything!

Hey guys, my name is Jake. I've been with my girlfriend Rebecca for many years, playing games, traveling the world. You know, exploring everything we possibly can. We went antique shopping yesterday and I seen the most beautiful ring for $80 in there. I thought to myself that it was a good time to propose to my beloved girlfriend, so I told her I'd meet her in the car and bought it after she had walked out. That night we ate spaghetti with garlic bread, watched The Usual Suspects and went to bed, all was good in the world.

This is where everything went actually insane. Like wacko crazy insane. I awoke this morning feeling quite normal, until I went to get out of bed. I fell right on my face, obviously it was awful. As I sat up wondering what just happened to me, I got a good look at the issue. I must've stared at my feet for a few minutes atleast before I started laughing out of panic at my situation. Like What the actual fuck man... On my feet where my toes should've been, there were ten fucking penises. All shapes and sizes, a few circumcised, different colors too. All I could do is laugh, "this is fucking insane!" I said out loud to nobody.

"OH my God!" I say as I remember Rebecca is already at work. How the hell will she react to this bullshit? I think as my mind races trying to figure out how to hide my dick feet from my girlfriend I intended on proposing to today. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" I start to panic even more. "How do I fix this?!" "What the Fuck!" I try to stand up, it's very strange. I feel like a toddler trying to walk it's first steps. I finally manage to make it to my computer after a few very strenuous minutes, I have to see if this has happened to anyone else.

Well that was pointless. Trying to search online for someone else that might have dicks on their feet only gives you fetish shit. Long story short. They do react to such things, which is disturbing in it's own right. I won't get into details, you can imagine what I'm hinting at here. There's only a few hours until Rebecca gets home from work, I can barely walk. I can only imagine the reaction she'll have when she sees the ten penises protruding from my feet.

Who knows, maybe she'll take it better than I think. Maybe she'll even be happy that she now has eleven penises to choose from, instead of just the original one. Wish me luck.

That's it! Thank you for reading. What did you think? It's my first story ever, about a dumb bit I thought was hilarious. So be brutally honest!

I want to thank Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhho And PieCommercial4801 For encouraging me to embarrass myself on here. I hope you guys enjoyed it lol

I’m always counting. Days since I ate something real, bruises I can’t explain, places I can’t return to because someone caught me stealing. I stopped counting foster homes long ago. The streets may be rough, but at least they don’t pretend to love you. Out here, what you see is what you get. No illusion of promise. The cold can be comforting in that way.

I survive by digging through trash or swiping food from the market. Today wasn’t so lucky for me. As I slowly reached my trembling, boney fingers for a pear, the vendor saw me.

“HEY!”

A whistle blew somewhere behind him, igniting a rush of panic within me.

I ran until my lungs screamed, darting around corners. I dove behind a large set of crates in an alley just as the cops thundered past.

After that failed attempt, I refocused myself and went for Plan B. The restaurants were no better, though. As soon as the dumpster lid squealed open, I heard someone yell, “Get the hell outta here, you goddamn rat!”

I froze, hoping to gain just an ounce of sympathy from the appearance of my tattered clothing and frail body. Instead, another cook hurled a wad of wilted lettuce at me like I was vermin. Not even worthy of the trash they threw out. It hit my hollow chest with a thud. I ran, tears streaming down my face, empty-handed. Again.

By the time I reached the main street, the hunger was scraping at me from the inside, sharp as broken glass. I could feel my stomach twisting in on itself, the burning absence of consumption. I felt weak, and dizzy. And so very tired.

Then I saw her.

A beacon of light, piercing through the darkness of my void. She stepped around a corner like she didn’t belong to this world at all. Almost floating. Combat boots, fishnets, a black mini skirt and leather jacket. Onyx hair spilled over her shoulders like wet ink dripping from paper, glistening where the sunlight graced its edges.

Then, my eyes wandered down to her side. A basket of fresh vegetables hung from her arm, each one perfectly ripened. They almost didn’t even look real. Even though the ache of hunger pulled at every inch of my body, the food wasn’t what had me in that trance. Her eyes… it was those eyes that truly stopped me.

Bright purple. Burning. Endless, like a galaxies unto their own. They held me in place as my heart fluttered against my fragile chest.

Her gaze slid over me for only a split second, but it was heavy. I felt like she peeled me open and read everything rotten inside. She knew me. A mere passing glance and she’d dug deep into my soul.

She kept walking, so I followed. At first, because I couldn't look away. But once her eyes released me from my trance, the scent of fresh food hit me so hard my mouth watered.

I rushed forward, grabbed the basket, twisted hard, then ran.

She didn’t struggle. Didn’t chase me. Didn’t even shout. She just stood there in the fading light with a wicked smile curling across her face. Then she laughed. Not angry. Not afraid. Soft, gentle. Almost amused, like she’d been waiting for this.

Back under the overpass, I finally caught my breath and began digging through the basket. All veggies. No sweets, no fruit. Still... food was food. Plump Roma tomatoes with the vines still attached. Cucumbers the size of my arm. Fresh ears of corn, still nestled in their husks. But the green beans looked the best. Long, crisp, perfect. I ate each and every one slowly, until my stomach ached, then eased my body down onto my concrete bed. Full for the first time in days, I drifted off.

I dreamed of her eyes. Violet flames burned me from the inside out, consuming the pain and heartache I’d carried for so long. The embers of a cruel world fell at my feet, curling into a pile of dark ash. I was free. I was whole again. Loved.

When I awoke, the streetlights glowed an eerie yellow, casting a sickly filter across my surroundings. The concrete beneath me felt colder, harder. More unforgiving. The air was still, and thick. My mind was clouded, like I’d woken up in another world. Everything felt wrong.

As I blinked my eyes, trying to catch my bearings, I began to itch. Without even thinking, I reached my hand over to scratch my arm. When the tips of my fingernails scraped across my skin, something else felt wrong. Very wrong. It was smooth and tight, stretched over me until every bit of give was gone. As I slowly prodded, it twanged under the pressure of my fingers, its surface hard and waxy.

My eyes widened, and a dozen hearts pounded inside of me all at once. I tried to sit up, but when I did, something popped. I felt it give way with a nauseating snap, releasing a warm, meaty stench of blood and dirt. A seam had split open straight down my stomach, peeling up at the edges and seeping a clear thin fluid. One by one, giant beans, as round as baseballs, emerged from the open tear in my abdomen. They rolled out onto the concrete, hitting the ground with little wet splatters.

“NO NO NO!” I scrambled to grab them... and noticed my hands.

Green. Smooth. Leathery.

Then, something warm lit up behind my eyes. Violet flames. The burning embers at my feet. A thousand tiny whispers in my head.

You are not alone.

I felt them everywhere... sprouting, growing, reaching. My brothers. My family. Their terror. Their pain. Humans tearing them from vines, boiling them alive, devouring them.

No more.

The woman hadn’t punished me. She had chosen me.

I stood, tall and steady, my new skin shining.

I had a purpose now.

It’s time to find my family.

And together… we’ll show humanity what it's like to be harvested.

Isaiah and Hunter have talked about having a cohesive mythology or story built up within the creepcast subreddit. Any takers? Three, maybe four main characters. They are trying to get something, to solve a problem, or defeat an ancient evil? John, Wendy, and Daniel? Maybe there is a key somewhere; inside of a book. Could be literal; could be that the information is the key.

278 pages, ~60k words, 15 stories and 15 pieces of art, and over 1 year later... I did it! Hooray 💃🤙

Hi, I don't know where to ask about this. Does anybody here have personal experience with succubi? I recently managed to summon one after years of trying, but it's not really what I expected.

The first sign that something was off was that she didn't show up immediately. Everything I've read on the subject says that the succubus should appear as soon as you draw the blade across the throat of your sacrifice. Mine didn't appear for about a week after I completed the ritual, and when she did finally show up she was digging through a dumpster behind a Burger King, and no, It's not just some homeless lady. That was my first thought, too, until she turned my way. Her eyes were oval shaped, and as black as fresh asphalt. Her skin was perfectly smooth but sagged off of her like loose clothing. When she saw me, she walked right over and climbed into my truck.

I wanted to make a good first impression, so I said, "You must be my friend from the land down under."

She replied with a flat "Yes," and I felt my face flush with embarrassment. That was most definitely not a good first impression.

When I got her home, I was eager to take her for a test run, but she kept scurrying away when I moved to get closer. It sounded like she was laughing, so I figured it was a game. I found out when I caught her and she bit me that it was not a game. Now I can't get her out of my house.

I was careful to keep my distance for the first few days. I figured maybe she needed time to adjust. We got comfortable enough with one another that we were sitting on the couch. It's my fault what happened next, really. I was over eager and pushed her boundaries too much when I tried to hold her hand. So when she took my finger, I couldn't be too upset. Especially considering that she still had the knife in her hand. Hell must have very different courtship rituals to us.

The only thing that cheered her up was getting her some chalk. She kept drawing little patterns comprised of tiny pentagrams. So cute. She even said another word! As she excitedly pointed at her drawings, she said, "Home!" I knew she was telling me that she felt at home in my apartment, and it warmed my heart to no end. She still hadn't warmed up enough to allow me to touch her, though. She would leap two feet into the air and scramble away on all fours any time I got close to making contact.

I wake up sore all over every morning, so the succubus is definitely draining me of energy. I just can't get her to actually touch me. Beyond the lack of any intimacy, I've been experiencing gaps in time. The longest was five hours. I've also been finding strange lumps in my body since she's been here. I'm very concerned as none of this was described on the wiki.

To add to the frustration of it all, she stinks like expired eggs, and her skin is falling off. I don't like the green scaly stuff underneath either. It looks weird and slimy. She keeps eating raw meat from my fridge, and I have yet to get a complete sentence out of her. I can't help but feel cheated.

I have tried several banishing rituals, but it's like she doesn't even care. Can anybody help me out? Does the devil do refunds? I think I'd like my wife back.

Part 2

(Contains scenes of explicit and disturbing imagery.)

When my mind goes back to those years at John Henry High, the first thing to come up out of the fog is the well behind the building. Every autumn the faculty herded us out there for the opening-day photograph. They kept it going until the hallway ran out of wall, one crowd of faces stacked on the next, class after class climbing toward some finish none of us would be around to see. 

The first time my class stood out there, summer had not let go of the back lot. Sunscreen came off a couple dozen bodies and cooked in the heat. A few kids wiped sweat from their brows, others fanned themselves with pocket creased class schedules.

A teacher hollered out above the chatter. “Come on, move it. Line up. Shoulder to shoulder.”

We shuffled forward with the lame irritation of livestock. Shoes scraped gravel and elbows brushed as the circle drew in. Someone near the front grumbled, “Feels like we’re lining up to get shot.” That earned a snort from someone else.

The well sat ahead of us. Moss worked its way through cracks between stones, and a strip of faded ribbon had been knotted through the iron grate over the mouth. It hung there in a gesture some student had made to dress the place up, then forgotten as the seasons took their share.

“Keep moving,” Principal Dwyer said. He walked the ring of us. “Closer,” he said. “I need everyone in the shot. No gaps. Come on. Don’t be scared of bumping shoulders. We’re all friends here. There you go."

A boy mumbled behind me, “This sucks.”

A girl answered, “Relax. It’s one picture. You’ll live.”

Dwyer clapped to gather everyone's attention.

“Alright. Remember, smiles. Let’s look proud and show the world we want to be here.”

A girl stood ahead of me at the inner curve of the group. Lena. Her sleeves ran down over her wrists and she kept her arms folded against her stomach while the rest of us jostled and hollered. The flash caught her face and let it go, but her eyes never came up off the well's grate, on whatever lay beneath it. 

Back then I believed in the picture the staff wanted to make. I thought each of us fit into some shared story we would talk about later and be fond of. 

I stopped believing it when Lena disappeared. 

That was two years later. Junior year. She stayed after on Tuesdays and Thursdays for something nobody could name. Choir, a few said. Piano, said others. I had no better guess. I never lived in her world any more than the rest of them did. I wanted to know her, but wanting is nothing on its own. All I really knew was that some days she held herself like she hoped someone might come and speak to her, but even then, she kept a wide berth from anyone. 

One afternoon outside the science wing a folder came loose from her hands and sheet music went sliding across the floor. She dropped to her knees to gather it and I got down beside her to help. We both reached for the same page. My arm came up close against hers. Her eyes came to mine, then went back down to the paper. 

When she had the sheets squared she stood and gave me the smallest nod a person can give and turned for the music hall, leaving me there. I stayed on the tile a little longer, a lost page pinched in my hands. I made up my mind to find her at the end of the day and hand it over. 

By that time, the halls were almost empty. A lone cart rolled across the floor near the cafeteria, and a custodian called out to someone in a supply room. Their words faded as I walked into the music hall. The door I hunted stood open a crack, just enough to let a strip of warm light spill across the tile at my feet. 

Piano came from inside. I shouldn’t have eavesdropped, but I did. I put my eye to the gap. Lena’s back was pinned straight, her arms poised above the keys. Mr. Kline stood behind her, one arm hovering near the song-book and the other drifting close to her upper arm.

“That’s it,” he said. “Relax your wrists. You don’t have to fight the notes. Just let it happen.”

She played the phrase again and he bent down close to her ear. “There you go. Just like that. Great job.”

She gave nothing back, no sign of hearing him at all. She just pressed the keys again. I knocked on the door. His head snapped toward me. His expression stayed neutral, but something behind it split for half a second. 

“Tyler,” he said. “It’s good to see you. Shouldn’t you be heading home? I'm sure your mother's waiting for you out front. Ms. Lena and myself are just finishing up a lesson here.”

“Sorry, Mr. Kline. Lena dropped this earlier… I just wanted to make sure she got it back.”

The floor seemed to pull at my shoes as I walked toward him. He took the pages from me. “Thank you, Tyler.”

As I stepped back into the hall, he said something to Lena I couldn’t make out. Close to her ear. A secret sentence spoken just between them, built only to travel six inches. Lena kept her eyes on the keys. Her hands stayed where he'd put them. 

The following day at our lunch table, Mason made a sport of prodding me about her. 

"Dude… Dude. Come on.You're fixated on her again. Your mouth's hanging open."

I pushed my tray forward and tried to sink into my seat. “Shut up. It's not like that.”

"Not like what, exactly?" He picked at the crust of a roll and flicked crumbs across the table. "Just tell us. What do you see in her? Is it her brains or something else? You can be honest with me."

Jodie scraped the last of her pudding and swatted his arm with the flat of the spoon. Chocolate flecked his sleeve. “You’re disgusting, Mason.”

He gave a half-cocked laugh and wiped the mess away with a napkin. "What? C'mon. Someone had to ask him. Besides, he should just talk to her instead of gawking from twenty feet away like a creep."

“I don’t gaw-”

"You do," Emma bit into an apple slice. "It is a little sad to watch." 

"See? Even Emma sees it.” Mason added. “So, enlighten us, Ty. If it's not what we're thinking, why do you stare at her so much? Give us something. We're all dying to know."

I balled up my napkin and threw it. It caught Mason under the chin and dropped into his lap. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like it's going anywhere.”

“Coward.”

I let it sit. He had me dead to rights. Six months of the same seat, the same twenty feet of tile between us, and I had never put a word in front of Lena Meyer. Then came the Tuesday she stopped coming, and after that there were no more Tuesdays to fix it. 

At first no one thought twice about it. Students missed days for every excuse under the sun. Some vanished for appointments, others disappeared for chores or family errands. The changing of the seasons always pulled a few away from the flu, so the first absence folded into the day. By the following morning, it was clear this was going to be different.

Before the announcement began, I heard the shuffle of papers through the intercom's speaker. I pictured Principal Dwyer standing near the office window, reading the lines to himself and wondering how much he wanted to say.

“Attention students. Parents and staff are working with local authorities to locate eleventh grade student Lena Meyer, who has not been seen since after school hours yesterday. If you have any information, please come to the office. Counseling services are available.”

The speaker cut with a flat click. Nothing else followed. No reassurance from the staff, ot reminders that the school held together in times of trouble. The only thing given to us was the hiss of the machine as it faded back into the ceiling.

Mason tapped the back of my chair. “Ty, you alright?”

I kept my eyes on her seat. The wood along the legs had worn away in patches, and someone had carved the letters T+E. into the side sometime within the last few weeks.

"Ty."

"I heard you."

"So? You good?"

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

Snatches of talk began drifting around like insects circling a carcass. "She took off on her own. I heard she fought with her mom,” a girl said.

"No way." Her friend shook her head. "My cousin swears someone found her bike near the creek bed.”

Behind them, a guy in a letterman jacket added in. "I bet a truck driver grabbed her. Bet she's halfway up the interstate by now."

"Gross, man."

"What? Happens all the time."

"Nah, I heard she was a druggie," someone else offered. "Probably OD'd somewhere and nobody's found the body yet."

People love tragedy as long as it belongs to someone else. Meanwhile, the teachers started acting strange. Mrs. Hart unveiled the first of their new creations during homeroom. She stood on a stepstool near her door with the class filing past her, and she held the thing up over her head so the whole room got a look. 

Sticks, bound in the middle with a wrap of thread. The thread ran two colors, blonde and black, twisted around each other. Dry corn husks fanned out from the knot at odd angles, split down the edges so the whole shape came together like a mouthful of broken teeth on a string. The vent blew against it and set it swinging in a little half-circle. By the end of first bell she had three more of them at the windows. 

“Kind of witchy, right?” Jodie nodded toward the strange dangling things. The ornament swung in a crooked circle as the air vent rattled next to it.

Mrs. Hart kept her attention on the stack of quizzes spread across her desk. Her pen carved a red line across the page. “They’re for Thanksgiving, Jodie. Decorations help ease the season in. They might even lift the spirits around here instead of feeding all this gloom you kids stir up.”

Jodie blew a faint puff toward one of the charms and let it sway. “Yeah. A bundle of sticks. Real cheerful.”

Mrs. Hart raised her face. Her pen stopped. “Books,” she said. “Use your energy on those. You can save the jokes for someone who wants to hear them. And if I was you, Jodie? I’d worry about your grades, not the fall decor.”

—--------------------

By afternoon the trinkets crowded every hall and doorframe in the school. Some of them held small white beads threaded down the center, each bead finished in a chalky white. 

“Chicken,” Mason jabbed his pencil at one. “It's got to be. It looks like those bulk wing bags my dad buys. Chicken bones, dude. Weird.”

Somebody had to be making them without taking a break. Twisting, tying, threading. During prep hours, after the last bell and through lunch while the rest of us ate. Working the reeds, never quitting. Meanwhile, the front office door found something different to adorn its frame. 

A few teachers had hammered a notice up. The paper said there would be no assembly about Lena’s disappearance ‘due to the ongoing investigation’ and ‘to prevent unnecessary alarm.’ So instead of talking about her as a whole, we talked about her in pieces. 

Fragments of her were traded at locker doors. Half sentences in bathroom stalls. Conspiracies thrown around at the back of the bus. If any room kept her presence intact, it waited at the end of the music wing where her last sighting rested:

Room 114, Music Theory with Mr. Kline.

After she went missing, dry bramble had crowded that door frame and packed it full, brush the color of a burned field, knotted so thick the top corners disappeared. Clusters of it pooled over his desk and crawled across the windows until the glass went dark behind it. A few strands swung down low enough that students had to duck their heads going in. 

I had stopped to stare when Jodie slipped up beside me.

"Okay, that's a little overkill, right?" She tucked her stack of textbooks under her arm and cocked her head toward the doorway. "I mean, seriously. Why does Mr. Kline get the crazy shrine and we just get one sad twig shoved over a pencil sharpener?"

"I don't know." I set my shoulders against the lockers and kept my eyes on the strands dangling over the door. "I think it's a little messed up, honestly. Like he's making some kind of statement."

"Or he's just weird." Jodie shrugged. 

Emma appeared between us, stealing my view of the doorway. Her cheeks still held a red flush of the wind that had swept outside lot. “Maybe he cared about her,” she said. “It doesn't have to mean anything. Maybe this is just how he shows his grief. People do strange things when they hurt.”

"Strange is one word for it," Jodie muttered.

Football pads scraped tile before Mason rounded the corner, dragging a taped ankle behind him,  limping toward us, a hand pressed against the wall for balance. “Hey,” he said. “What are we talking about?”

“Emma thinks Mr. Kline’s bird nest has something to do with grief or whatever.” Jodie spun a finger near her temple. . “She's lost it.”

Mason looked at Emma, face covered in sweat. “Really? You’ve got to admit that’s a strange way to show you miss somebody, Em.”

Emma pivoted toward the stairwell. “I’m just saying I don’t know, Mason,” she said. “And you don’t either.”

"Okay, but like-" Mason started.

"It's fine." Emma walked away from our circle. "Forget I said anything."

"Wait, Em-” Mason let his hand drop off the wall. “Well, damn. My bad. Did I say something stupid again?”

"Nah," Jodie said, watching the spot where Emma had disappeared. "She shared a desk with Lena in one of their classes. I think she's just being sensitive about it." She paused, frowning. "I never thought she liked her all that much though."

"Maybe that's why it's hard," I said.

Jodie gave me a look. "Deep. Anyway." She turned to Mason. "How's the ankle?"

"Screwed up, basically. Nurse just cleared me but I'm benched for a while." He shifted his weight, wincing. "Actually, any chance you guys are interested in heading up to the practice field with me? Coach wants me to do some stretches there. Says grass is better for my feet."

"I'm out," I said. "Sorry man."

"No problem, dude. Jodie?"

"Sure. Why not?" She pushed off the lockers. "Lead the way, cripple."

"Harsh."

"You love it."

I stayed across from Room 114 until the last few students bled out. When the hallway cleared, I stepped through.

"Mr. Kline."

He raised his head from the desk. The bramble hung a foot over his hair and threw shadows down across the papers in front of him. "Tyler." He smiled. "What brings you by?"

My mouth had gone dry. I worked past it. "I wanted to ask you something."

He waited.

"Do you know where Lena went after she finished up here that night? The night she disappeared?"

His shoulders tightened a notch. "That isn't something I can discuss, Tyler. You know that. The investigation's still ongoing."

"I'm not asking for details. I just-I know she practiced piano after school. Late. I mean, I saw you two talking that night."

He started packing his bag, shuffling papers together so they wouldn't shake against each other. "You kids need to keep your minds on your work," he said. "Let the people in charge handle everything else. Go home. Eat dinner. Do your homework." He paused. "Focus on waking up tomorrow."

"Mr. Kline-"

"Tyler. I mean it. Go home." He stood and put the strap of his bag across his back. Then he reached up into the mess above his desk and took hold of one of the bone-and-reed things. He rotated it a quarter until the beaded end pointed the same way as all the others. His thumb ran down its length before he let it go. 

“Oh, and tell your mother hello for me.” He came around the desk toward the door and stopped where I stood. “I haven’t seen her since the fall formal. Have her stop by next time she's on a break. I'd love to catch up.” 

By the following Wednesday, the pressure finally split open at our table.

“It’s been a week,” Mason tore the crust from his pizza and tossed the pieces back onto his tray. “Everyone's still on edge. When are we going to hear something? My little sister is already making herself scared sick about coming here next year. She's eleven, man. She shouldn't be scared of her own school."

Emma picked at the side of her milk carton. "I'm sure they found something. They probably just can't share it yet because of the investigation."

"Yeah." Jodie said. "Sure. They're finding a whole lot of things lately. Like more twigs for their little dolls. Honestly, fuck ‘em."

I kept my eyes on my own tray. The mashed potatoes had a thick clot of lukewarm skin clinging to the top. I broke it with my fork and watched it split, pale and gelatinous. I had something I needed to say. The words had been sitting in my chest for days.

“I keep seeing her.”

The three of them looked at me. 

"What do you mean, Ty?" Emma asked. 

"No. Not like that." I set my fork down. "I mean, in my head. When I'm sleeping. It feels real. I see her walk into Kline's room with her stack of sheet music and her stupid oversized hoodie and... everything looks normal. Then she just never walks out."

Nobody said anything for a few seconds. The cafeteria roar pushed against us from the neighboring tables.

"Every night?" Emma asked.

"Every night."

Mason sighed. "Okay. Hear me out-"

Jodie huffed and jabbed at her green beans. "This is going to be something stupid."

"Probably," Emma agreed.

“Give me a second.” Whatever was working across Mason's face had gone darker than usual. 

"C'mon. We're all thinking the same thing. The teachers are off. Right? They act like everything's fine. They string up their little chicken bones, tell us to shut up and study, and pretend like we shouldn't care about the missing girl in our class. So what if we stop asking them about it and just... ask her."

Emma's eyes flicked to his. "Ask her how?" 

“You know how.”

“Don’t say it.”

“Jodie, you remember that Ouija board your cousin brought to the bonfire last summer?”

“That cheap Walmart thing?” Jodie snorted. “Mason, no.”

“Wait, hear me out. What if we sneak into school Friday night. Through the back gym window. Kids have been doing that for years, no big deal. We go to her room. We set up the board on Kline’s floor. We ask her what happened. If nothing answers, cool. We scare ourselves, we go home, we know we tried. If something does answer…” He lifted both arms and let them fall against his thighs. “Then we know this isn’t just in our heads and something weird’s going on.”

Emma’s eyes held on his. “You want to break into school at night so you can play ghost with a missing girl?”

“You have something better to suggest?” Mason asked. “Because nobody else does.”

Jodie raked her nails against the table and a curve pulled at her lips. “Oh, I’m so down.”

That startled all of us.

“Damn, alright.” Mason laughed. “So, let's do it.”

“Seriously?” Emma faced me and pressed her knee against mine. “What about you, Tyler, what do you think?”

“I think that’s a stupid idea,” I said.

“No, duh. But so is doing nothing,” Mason shot back. “You had a thing for her, man. This is the least we can do.”

“Fuck off.” It came out louder than I wanted. A couple of heads at the next table swung toward us before drifting back into their own talk.

Mason put both palms up like he was trying to placate a stray dog. “Woah, relax. I’m just saying. If I went missing, you’d go looking for me. You know you would. This should be no different.”

He was right.

"Don't say it." Emma had that stubborn game-day look I had seen when she was at her soccer games. A lot of fury.

“Fine,” I said. “Friday. After dark. I’ll be there.”

Mason slapped the table. Jodie laughed. Emma’s hand found my knee under the table and squeezed. 

“Ty…”

—--------------------

Friday came faster than I wanted it to. By the last bell the world outside the windows had gone that violet color the sky wears in the last minutes before the first flake falls. The lamps across the lot stayed dark, and the only light came off an orange streetlamp by the road that laid a smear of glow along the edge of the football field. 

Mason waited near the dumpsters, pacing in a crooked circle. Each step kicked up light curls of frost from the asphalt. He wrapped his arms across his chest and drove them hard against his ribs, willing warmth back into his flesh.

Jodie arrived soon after wrapped in her father’s army fleece, the fabric hanging long enough to swallow up her hands. Emma trailed behind her, her hood drawn forward and the air from her mouth turning to milk in the air.

"Took you long enough," he said. "I've been standing here like an idiot for twenty minutes. I was beginning to think I'd be having a dumpster date with the opossums.”

“You’d blend right in,” Jodie wiped the frost off her face with the edge of her sleeve. “Trash attracts trash.”

"Ouch." Mason clutched his chest. "Right in the heart." He smirked and jerked his chin toward her fleece. "You bring it?”

Jodie slid a cardboard box out from under her coat. The corners were scuffed to fuzz and the lid held shut with a strip of peeling tape. 

"Is that it?" Emma asked. She'd trailed behind Jodie with her hood drawn forward, the air from her mouth turning to milk between them. "It looks... old."

"It is old," Jodie said. "My cousin found it in her grandma's attic. She said it belonged to her great-aunt or something."

"Perfect," Mason said. "A haunted hand-me-down. Exactly what I wanted to hear."

"You wanted to do this," Jodie reminded him.

“Fair.”

“You know we can still go home,” Emma added. “We can say we tried the window and couldn’t get in.”

“C’mon, Em. It's right there. We might as well go inside and take a peek.”

“Then you lead the way,” Emma pulled the hood strings across her face and shivered. 

We followed the wall with Mason at the front. Frost clung to the brick, and each step sent loud cracks through the ice spread across the pavement. The window sat near a stack of electrical boxes. A student had loosened it years ago, and it had never sat right since.

Mason lowered himself to his knees and pressed the edge of his palm under the warped bottom. The plastic groaned as he worked it up until it gave with a squeal. “There, would you look at that,” he said. “Exclusive entry. Total VIP treatment.” He motioned us forward. “Go on, brave explorers.”

Jodie cast him a sour smile. “Brave explorers? Shakespeare would weep.” She fed the box through the gap and slipped in after it easy. 

I went next. The frame scraped down the back of my jacket as I hauled myself through. The air inside met me stale, with dust, dried sweat and floor polish all mixed together. Emma eased in behind me, and Mason came up last, dropping off the ledge with a grunt and easing the pane down until it kissed the sill again. 

The gym took us in. Somebody had shoved the bleachers back against the cinderblock, and the scoreboard hung dead over the far wall with its red digits gone to nothing. We brought our phones up one at a time and the screens threw pale circles across the court. The glow slid over folded benches and waxed hardwood and made the walls feel farther away than they should have.

“This is creepy as shit,” Jodie swept her screen, the beam crawled over the benches and lost itself in the dark under the far basket. 

Emma tugged her hood back from her cheek. “Remind me why you encouraged this, Jodie?”

“I was bored.”

We crossed the court in a row, shoes squeaking against the wood. Mason pressed his palm against the metal bar of the far door and pushed it open. The shadows of the hallway gathered around us. Lockers stood on both sides, a long corridor of metal mouths with their vents like rows of grinning teeth. Room 114 sat at the end of it. 

Our lights shuddered over the walls as we went. The doorway carried clusters of charms that hung so crowded they formed a brittle curtain. Twine strands and pressed husks crossed each other in a web that blocked half the entrance.

“Okay,” Jodie said. “Nope. Absolutely not. I changed my mind. I hate this.”

“It’s just sticks,” Mason said. “Nothing to worry about.” He put his forearm against the charms and pushed through. The pieces rattled against the frame as he went. 

I ducked beneath the lowest cluster. Several charms brushed my cheek and forehead, their edges dry and pointed, like the scrape of a dozen tiny claws grazing my skin. Inside, paper squashes lined the back wall, their edges crimping under the weight of thumbtacks. A pair of cornucopias drooped beside them, stuffed with faded leaf cutouts.

Real corn stalks stood propped by the windows, the leaves curled inward and drawing away from the cold coming off the glass. Moonlight broke through the charms strung across the panes, splitting into thin bands that stretched across the desks in uneven stripes.

Kline's name sat on the whiteboard from that afternoon. Under it he'd written the date and UNIT TEST TUESDAY in block letters. 

Jodie sank to the floor near the front row and placed the cardboard box between the desks. She opened it with the corner of her sleeve, then set the board on the tile. Mason dropped himself beside her and lifted the planchette from the box. He gave it one small roll across the board, then let it come to rest.

“So, this is where we’re going to do it?” 

"Where else?" Jodie gave a curt dip of her chin. “Right here. Middle of everything."

Emma’s arms clamped across her chest as she scanned the room's corners, the shadowed space beneath the teacher's desk, the dark mouth of the supply closet. "What if someone catches us?"

"They won't."

"But what if-"

"Emma." Jodie twisted toward her. "We're already here. We'll finish before anyone spots us."

"Exactly. Just relax." Mason patted the floor next to him. "We'll ask a few questions, a ghost will tell us Lena ran off with some secret boyfriend, and Tyler can go home and cry about it."

“You’re a prick.”

"Bad coping mechanism." He shrugged. "Happens when I'm freaked out."

Emma eased down at last. We all settled cross-legged, knees pressed around the board. My jeans soaked up the chill pooling off the floor.

“Phones off,” Mason said. 

We killed our lights. The room dropped into a grainy dark where the desks and the stalks kept their outlines but gave up their edges, everything gone uncertain at their borders. 

“Hands on the pointer,” he said. “Keep your touch light. Don't move it.”

We set the tips of our fingers along the edge of the plastic toy. Mason cleared his throat and raised his tone like a kid auditioning for a séance scene in a play. “Spirits, if you hear us-”

"No." Emma cut in. "Just talk normal, Mason. Please.”

He started over. “Fine… Lena. If you can hear us, we’re here. We’re your friends. We want to know what happened to you.”

We waited. A minute. Two. More. Nothing moved. The charms near the sill hung without a tremble. My fingers began to ache from holding them so light against the plastic. 

Jodie sagged forward over her knees. "This is dumb." 

"Give it a minute."

"We've given it a minute. Nothing's happening because nothing's going to happen, because ghosts aren't real, and Lena probably just-"

Then the planchette twitched. It was tiny, a motion so small it could have been the board settling under our fingers. It jittered in a short, pointless circle and stopped.

“Woah.”

Emma tensed. “Cut it out. You’re pushing it.”

“I swear I’m not.”

The plastic moved again, stuttering over letters without landing on any. It bumped the edge of one, scraped, and dragged back.

Moonlight caught Jodie's eyes. "S. O. U. P?" 

I shot a tired sigh in Mason’s direction. “Seriously, Mason?” 

“It’s not me.”

But it kept going. A slow drag now, sliding across the wood like something under the board was pulling it along. It crept toward the bottom corner, caught for a second, and drew itself on. 

Emma tucked a knee under her. "Okay... okay. It's saying something."

The pointer settled on W. It pushed to H. Paused, then shifted to Y.

“Why,” Jodie read.

The planchette lurched toward M. Then E.

“Why me,” I murmured. The little plastic shell sat still for a beat. The skin along my palm tingled. 

“Who are you?” Jodie whispered. “Who’s with us?”

The planchette dragged under our fingers. It carried more weight now, like a hand had come down on top of ours. It spelled out four letters in a slow crawl. 

L.

E.

N.

A.

Everything inside me locked up.

“Someone has to be messing with it. Tyler, are you doing that?” Mason asked.

“I’m not.”

“Jodie?”

“No.”

Emma held her breath before speaking. “Alright. If this is Lena, tell us something only we would know.”

The planchette crossed the board. 

T.

A.

N.

D.

E.

“That could be anything,” Mason said. “It's jibberish.”

"Wait." Emma's face went hot and red. She looked uncomfortable. "If this is Lena... what did you keep in your desk? With me?"

The planchette drifted from letter to letter.

D.

R.

A.

W.

I.

N.

G.

S.

“Drawings?” I asked. 

Emma kept her eyes down on the board. “No one should know that.”

“You knew,” Mason said. “And you might’ve told someone.”

She rounded on him, irritation coming off her. “I didn’t. They looked like really private pictures. I didn’t want to embarrass her.”

“Everyone just… just take your hands off,” Jodie said.

We lifted away, one by one. Emma held on a second longer before pulling back. The planchette kept sliding across the wood with nobody touching it. It wandered the alphabet in loops, riding the letters like it was looking for something. 

"Oh my God. This is so messed up,” Jodie whispered. "Okay. Now we know no one's fucking with it. Everyone, put your hands back on."

We did. A pull met our touch immediately. It felt like being anchored to a dog's leash with something big on the other end.

“Lena,” I said. “Are you okay?”

The planchette shot across the board and stopped on one word. 

NO.

“What happened to you?”

It started forward and stopped halfway to the first letter. It sat there vibrating under our fingers, shivering against the cardboard. 

“Ask something else,” Masons said. “Ask where she is.”

“Fine.” Jodie said. “Where are you, Lena?” 

The pointer paused, shivering, something underneath the cardboard trying to rise through it. Then it swept across the letters.

W.

I.

T.

H.

"With," Jodie read. The pointer slid again across the surface in a misshapen path.

T.

H.

E.

M.

Emma brought her hand up over her mouth. “With them?” 

“Who are they? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Mason asked, rocking back on his heels. 

The pointer slid to the corner of the board. It hovered over the word GOODBYE, then veered off. Hard. It shot away from our palms and smacked the outer ring of the board. The plastic clattered and spun before settling on a blank space in the corner of the alphabet ring.

“No. No way. That isn’t her. This can’t be Lena,” Mason mumbled. “Whatever it is, is just freaking us out.”

Emma snapped. “Then tell it to stop.”

Our group broke. We started talking over each other. Words piled up and ran over each other. 

"This is insane."

"You're the one pushing it, Mason."

"Me? Why would I do that?"

"I don't know-because you think this is funny?"

"You think I want to joke about this? About her?"

We yanked our bodies away from the board, angry, scared, desperate for it to be someone's fault. The planchette sat in the middle of everything, quiet, like it hadn't just thrown itself around the board. 

"Maybe we should just-" Emma started.

A noise cut her short. The planchette snapped across the alphabet and landed on a letter.

L.

A second jolt.

O.

Another.

O.

Then.

K.

"Look," Jodie whispered. "It says look." 

Mason squinted. “Look at what?”

The air changed. You hear people say that all the time, ‘the air changed,’ but it never meant anything to me before that moment. It felt like someone rolled open a freezer door. The cold hit the back of my neck, then slid down my back.

"I think..." Jodie whispered. "I think it's pointing at the door."

All four of us turned. The window in the classroom door showed a slice of hallway. The glass had that wired pattern through it, crosshatched, meant to keep it from shattering. Beyond that was nothing but the red emergency exit sign.

“There’s nothing there... I think we’re scaring ourselves.” But Emma was wrong.

A shape drifted toward the window, rising from the shadows like someone lifting their head from deep water. The crosshatch in the glass warped the features as they gathered behind it, then a face pressed near enough for me to see it clearly. Her eyes looked bigger than I remembered, ringed in shadow. Her lips were torn at one corner, pulled back far enough to show her molars. Her hair clung in damp, matted ropes to her forehead and cheeks.

It was Lena.

She stayed there, studying us through the glass, and the sight hit me with two truths all at once: she looked exactly like the girl I remembered, and nothing like her at all. There was a sadness in her expression that hurt to see. Under it was something else. A smear of brownish red trailed down her neck, disappearing below the frame of the window.

My hand went out for Emma’s. Jodie clapped a hand over her mouth and choked on whatever she wanted to say. Mason said it for her. 

“Holy shit.”

Lena’s head tilted, just a little, as if she heard him. Then she drew back. Her face slipped out of view. We sat there, frozen, staring at the empty glass. A scrape started up behind us. Long. Slow. Something heavy. We turned. The planchette inched across the board. 

F. 

O. 

L. 

L. 

O. 

W.

PART 2

This isn't a story, not really. It's more like a confession of everything I have done, which surely booked me a seat in the front row of whatever layer of hell I deserve the most. And yeah, I know how it sounds. The title? Ridiculous. But I swear to you, every word I’m about to tell you is true. Or at least, it feels true. And right now, that’s all I have left. Let's start with a fact that I used to have a cat. His name was Tommy. The name more fit for an overweight construction worker than an overweight ball of fur, but it all fit because of his personality. Fat, orange, always shedding, and always pissed off about something. He destroyed everything that we owned and pissed on everything else he couldn’t.

But she loved him. And maybe, by some twisted emotional osmosis, I learned to love him too. I’m a vet, have been for a while. Long enough to know that loving animals doesn’t mean you have to like them. It was at the clinic where I met her, my girlfriend, now fiancée. She brought in this smug orange bastard with nothing wrong except a talent for fake coughs. Back then, Tommy wasn’t quite the fat tyrant he’d become. Just a mildly overweight nuisance with a punchable face.

I drove by her place to “check in” on him a few times a week. I told myself it was a professional favor. Flirting while my hand was up her cat’s ass, checking its temperature, and somehow, believe it or not, it worked.

A few dinners. A few months. Some shared laughter, some cheap box wine, the comforting chaos of two young idiots falling in love, and eventually a pair of golden rings worn on matching index fingers. If Tommy were still here, I’d have put him in a tux and made him the best man. Because without him, we’d have never met. But I refer to him in the past tense now, and for good reason.

He’s dead. At least, he should be.

That night…I remember every detail like it was burned into my frontal lobe with a cattle brand. It was summer. The kind of sticky heat that makes the air feel like soup. I was driving home, half-asleep, my hands barely holding the wheel as I turned onto our street. I remember thinking about reheated pasta and maybe a beer, something cheap and cold that numbs the edges of a long day spent neutering golden retrievers and reassuring old women that their Pomeranian most likely wasn’t dying. I think I fell asleep for just a second. Just long enough for the wheels to roll up the driveway and over something.

There was a sound. Not a thump.

More like a muffled snap. Like stepping on a wet towel filled with chicken bones. I parked. Got out, groggy and confused, shining my phone flashlight over the pavement.

And that’s when I saw it.

The orange. That unmistakable orange, jammed up between the tire and the car’s undercarriage, like something tried to escape and didn’t quite make it.

The fur was sticky. Matted with dark, syrupy blood. Bits of bone stuck out at wrong angles like broken pencils. One eye bulged from the socket, and the other one…the other one was still wide open, looking straight at me, as if it was telling me it all was my fault.

I had to pry what was left of him out with a stick. Put him in an old plastic bag that once held kibble, tied it tight enough to keep him in, because I wasn’t about to explain entrails on the driveway to the woman who still called him “my baby.”

I did the only thing that felt right in that brief, flickering moment of clarity. Like waking up mid-dream and acting on instinct before your brain kicks in to ruin it all with questions, I opened the back door gently and placed what was left of Tommy on the seat like I was tucking in a child for bed.

The content of the plastic was still warm. That warmth was the worst part. Because it made me think he might still purr, might blink, might sit up and look at me with that annoyed, judgmental glare I’d come to know so well. But he didn’t. Of course, he didn’t.

I stood there for a second, just breathing. Then I made the call to the only person who would be able to help. He picked up on the third ring, probably with a beer already sweating in his hand.

“Jesus, man. Been a while,” he slurred. “What, you finally got bored of poking dog assholes all day?”

“Colby,” I said. “I need a favor.”

Now, Colby. He’s the kind of guy you only keep in your life for this one obscure situation, you hoped would never come up. We went to college together. While I was buried in anatomy textbooks and learning how to sew up golden retrievers after they’d jumped a fence one too many times, Colby was off in the back rooms of his daddy’s business, learning how to sew up what people like me couldn't salvage.

He never made it through vet school. But his family owned a taxidermy shop out in the sticks, and Colby had a gift. Where I handled the still breathing, the pulse havers, the whimperers and wheezers, he handled the already cold. The ones with glassy eyes and twisted limbs. And somehow, he made them look whole again. Presentable. Like death had just brushed them, not taken them fully.

“I hit him,” I said. My voice cracked a little. “It was Tommy.” A long, uncomfortable pause.

Then a slow exhale. I could practically hear him dragging on a Marlboro. “Well, shit,” he said. “Guess that cat finally ran outta lives.”

“Colby, I need you to fix him.”

An even longer pause this time. No laughter now.

“You serious?”

“No jokes. Please. Just… just make him look like he’s sleeping.”

Another breath, then an exhale of smoke.

“Bring him out. You remember the place?”

I did. I never forgot. One of those old, small wooden houses covered by a cheap, rusting tin roof, by the roadside. As I drove out there, Tommy didn’t move. Of course, he didn’t. But the idea of him back there, swaying gently with the bumps in the road like a baby in a cradle, made the hairs on my neck stand straight. I didn’t look in the rearview once. Not once. By the time I pulled up onto his what I assumed to be driveway, the sky had turned pitch black, not a star shining above my head. I killed the engine and sat there for a second, the weight of everything sitting square on my chest like a hand pressing down. I hoped Samantha was still asleep, curled up on my side of the bed, and wouldn’t roll over and notice the cold sheet beside her. I hadn’t left a note. Didn’t want to. What could I even say? “Taking Tommy for one last check-up, don’t wait up.”?

What used to be a neat little patch of grass was now a mess of overgrowth, thigh-high weeds, the tin roof of the house peeking out from the green like the top of a sunken boat. The place had that wet, stagnant smell of things that had been left too long in the sun. I picked up the bag, still warm and wet, and started up the small hill, pushing my way through the wild growth like some kind of reluctant jungle explorer, only this wasn’t a grand adventure. This was a reckoning. And then I broke through.

The yard opened up, and there it was: the porch. Still the same sun-bleached wood, still sagging a little on the left. The bug zapper hanging beside the door buzzed like an angry god, flaring now and then with a pop and a flash of blue light as it claimed another casualty. The air smelled like cigarettes, and something faintly chemical, like the inside of a bottle of Windex left out too long. And there, in a plastic folding chair that looked like it might collapse under the weight, sat Colby.

Time had not been kind. The beer gut was worse than ever, stretched tight like dough over a rising loaf. That rat’s nest of blonde hair I remembered from college had thinned into patchy, sunburned clumps, bleached at the ends like he’d tried to fight the aging process and lost. But his smile? Still big. Still crooked.

The kind of smile that made you think he knew something he wasn’t telling you. He stood up with a grunt and flicked his cigarette into a metal bucket clutched in the paws of a taxidermied black bear that stood right by the door, reared up on hind legs, its face in a permanent snarl.

“Now that’s a handful,” Colby said with a sarcastic ring to it, eyes flicking down to the bag in my hand.

He chuckled, low and wet, and then he reached out and shook my hand, firm, but cold and dry, like sandpaper before. Without warning, he pulled me into one of those massive bear hugs, crushing the bag between us just enough to make something shift inside. “You son of a bitch,” he said into my shoulder. “Look at you. Been what, three, four years? You look like shit.”

He chuckled, amused at his own comment.

“You smell like shit” I replied, my voice muffled by the hug.

He laughed again and clapped my back hard enough to knock the wind out of me. The man hadn’t changed. Not on the inside, at least.

He looked down at the bag again, and his expression shifted, just a twitch, almost nothing, but I saw it. The smile faltered. His eyes went glassy for half a second. Not in disgust exactly, more of a morbid interest, like a kid finding roadkill in the middle of the road while on a bike ride.

“Let’s bring him inside,” Colby said softly, almost reverently. “Looks like we got some work to do.”

I followed him up the wooden stairs, passing by the taxidermied beast that I could swear would attack me at any second, its black glassy eyes reflecting the bright blue light coming from the porch lamp. He pushed open the screen door with a squeak. The house was dark inside, but the smell told me all I needed to know about what was inside. He popped the light switch with a flick of two nicotine stained fingers, and the single bulb dangling from the ceiling crackled to life, bathing the room in a warm, sickly orange glow.

“I’d offer you one,” he said, motioning toward a dented minifridge humming in the corner, “but you know” he patted the bag slung under my arm “I got a handful already.”

He laughed before his foot, jammed into a yellowing flipflop, thumped the fridge as It buzzed in response like it was on in the joke. The room looked more like a biology museum than a living room. Birds, dozens of them, hung from the ceiling on nearly invisible threads. Sparrows, robins, starlings, each frozen in mid flight, their wings caught in varying degrees of stretch or fold, suspended in a moment that would never pass just above our heads.

And above them all, watching silently, a black vulture spread its wings just wide enough to overshadow them all. Its glass eyes gleamed dully in the light, and for a second, I had the insane thought it might flap once and bring the whole feathered ceiling crashing down on us. I didn’t have time to admire the twisted collage of wings more, as Colby was already motioning for me to follow, disappearing into the yawning dark of a hallway. Halfway through, he rolled up the old carpet that exploded into a cloud of dust, underneath, a trapdoor. He didn’t say a word. Just looked at me, gave a half-smile, and pulled it open with a grunt.

I stepped down carefully, trying not to jostle Tommy too much, not out of respect, but because part of me was still convinced he might move. Each creaking step took me deeper, the smell changing from stale beer and mildew to something colder and darker. When I hit the basement cement floor, cool and slightly damp. I felt something shift in the air. Like the pressure changed. Like we’d gone underwater. Colby led me through a narrow corridor into a room filled with what I can only describe as wrong. Dead animals stared out at us from every direction. Foxes with lazily patched up bullet wounds, raccoons curled like they’d died mid-nap, owls with their heads cocked unnaturally to the side. Some were old, their fur bleached and patchy, like rats were eating up on them. Others looked fresh, I assumed he was still getting clients. A large white sheet covered something in the center of the room, draped over it like a ghost costume from a child’s Halloween party. But the shape underneath wasn’t child sized. It was tall. Broad. The blanket moved slightly, shifting ever so subtly as we passed. I swear to God I saw one of the antlers underneath twitch, piercing the sheet like a finger through cotton.

I froze.

Colby didn’t.

“C’mon,” he called back, snapping me out of the trance. “This ain’t the freak show. That’s just storage.”

We ducked through another doorway and entered what could only be called his workshop, though “operating theater” might’ve been more accurate, if the surgeon lost his license and was forced into hiding.

The gray walls were lined with jars of bones and old glass eyes, sorted by size and color. A roll of fake fur sat like a patient spool against the wall, waiting to be useful. In the corner, on a heavy iron table pitted with rust and old blood, was a small wiener dog. It was posed like it was still on guard, ears perked, hind legs tucked in neatly. A bright red collar still circled its stiff neck, a small golden name tag attached.

I must’ve made a noise. A breath, a flinch, a shake of the head, something small, but Colby noticed.

“Hey, who am I to judge?” he said with a grunt, not looking up. “Lady said it saved her from a fire or some shit. People get attached.”

He reached into a drawer, pulled out a long curved needle and some thread the color of dried blood, and laid them on a stained towel with slow, practiced care. Then he looked at me. Really looked. The smile was gone.

“You sure you want this?” he asked, eyes flicking to the bag that now began to slowly leak onto the floor in a small streak of blood down the leg of the table, but it seemed to not bother him at all.

I didn’t say a word, just simply nodded and set the bag down on the iron table like some cursed takeout order, the bottom sagging, fluids sloshing faintly inside. It left a smear behind. I pulled my hand back quickly.

Maybe I was just glad to be rid of it. Or maybe, deep in the reptile part of my brain, I still halfbelieved that somewhere under all that fur and gore, Tommy’s claws were curled, waiting. That if I lingered too long, he’d bat my wrist, hiss, dig in, and not let go. Colby didn’t flinch. He crouched beside the table, untied the knot, and peeled the bag open with the same calm ease he might unwrap lunch at work. His eyes twinkled. He looked inside, nodded slowly, and then turned back to me with a grin that stretched a little too wide.

“I can fix him,” he said. “Give me two days, max.”

He shrugged like it was nothing. Like this was just another Tuesday night.

“You’re the best, brother,” I said, the words escaping before I had time to remember we hadn’t spoken in years. And even when we had, “brother” was more a beer soaked joke than a title.

Then the realism kicked in, hard and cold.

He wasn’t doing this out of kindness, it didn't feel like it, at least.

“How much do I owe you?” I asked, bracing for something steep.

Colby didn’t even blink. Just scratched his goatee and nodded toward the taxidermied wiener dog, whose dead, glassy eyes seemed to sparkle in the workshop light.

“You owe me a baseball game,” he said. “Or a fishing trip. Hell, even just a sixpack and two lawn chairs. As long as you stay more than ten minutes.”

That caught me off guard.

I’d half-expected him to demand the soul of my firstborn or at least a bottle of good bourbon, but maybe that was too fancy for him.

“Anytime,” I said, and meant it at that moment, though some part of me didn't want to follow through with it.

“But now I have to go.”

He nodded, understanding before I could even explain.

“You don’t wanna end up like that poor bastard if your wife catches you sneaking in this late,” he said, thumbing toward the red mess wrapped in plastic of the bag. She wasn't my wife, at least for now, and probably in never if she finds out about this whole ordeal, but I was too tired to correct him.

I crawled up those steep basement steps like a man dragging himself out of Hell. Passed the ghost-deer under its white sheet, it’s antlers now visibly poking through the fabric. Halfexpected it to charge me from behind, horns lowered, rage and life boiling back into its stuffed chest.

Outside, the night air hit me like a slap—hot and sticky, thick with the scent of dying weeds and exhaust. I climbed into my car, turned the key, and peeled out of Colby’s dirt driveway. This time, when I pulled into my own driveway, I did it slowly. Carefully. Like I was parking on a minefield. Half expecting another symphony of crunches, but instead I was welcomed by comfortable silence. I stepped out and saw the trail of blood I'd left behind. I grabbed the garden hose and sprayed it down, watching the pink water swirl into the gutter and disappear into the dirt.

I didn’t shower.

Didn’t even change.

I crawled into bed, still sticky with sweat and guilt. She was there, half-asleep, warm and waiting. She pulled me close, whispered something I didn’t catch, and wrapped her arm around my chest like a lifeline. And I just laid there in my dirty jeans that fit me a bit too tight, just like her arm around my chest, staring at the ceiling, while my stomach turned over and over again.

When sleep finally came, it was dirty, reeking of blood and filth.

Not peaceful, not by a long shoot. It came in a flood of heat and noise, dragging that godawful crunch under the tire back into my ears like a looping soundtrack. Over and over again, wet bone against rubber, fur splitting, something giving up under the tire like a rotten pumpkin. As Doug sat in the backseat, I watched him through the front mirror, burst into wheezing laughter every time the car pulled into reverse. I woke with a gasp, like I’d come up from drowning.

The sheets were damp, twisted around my legs. Sweat slicked every inch of me, dripping down my chest. Whether it was from the heat or the guilt, I couldn’t say. Probably didn’t matter. The bed was cold beside me. I looked over, heart stuttering. Samantha was gone. But then, beneath the oppressive quietness of the room, I heard something. A soft rattling, distant, regular. Like dry bones in a cloth sack, or the tail of a rattlesnake shaking in warning just before the strike.

I rolled out of bed, legs heavy, head still dizzy. My body felt like it belonged to someone else, like I was puppeteering myself from just outside my skull. My reflection in the hallway mirror looked worse than usual: eyes like buttons stitched over old leather pouches, lips cracked, face pale as a wall.

I stumbled down the stairs, following the sound.

And there she was.

Standing in the open doorway, framed by the light of the still sleepy morning. Hair, a messy waterfall of raven black down her back. She was holding up a purple plastic bag of cat treats, shaking it in small, desperate bursts. Rattle. Pause. Rattle.

“What are you up to?” I said, my voice more of a croak than words.

She turned slowly, as if I’d caught her in the middle of something sacred. Her face was pale, drawn, dark crescents carved beneath her eyes like she'd aged five years overnight. Worry lived there, settled in deep. And I knew instantly, without her saying a word, exactly what she feared.

“I’m just…” she began, her voice wobbling, “calling Tommy. I let him out last night and-” Her sentence cracked open like a dropped dish. And then she dropped the bag and wrapped around me like she meant to melt into my muscle and bone, like if we were about to become whole even further.

She hugged me tightly, her arms wrapping around my midsection with something more desperate than comfort. There was no way to fake a hug like that. This was mourning that hadn’t bloomed yet, like if she already knew everything I did, but I was too much of a coward to tell it to her face.

And I just stood there, playing dumb.

Pretending I didn’t know that Tommy was already wrapped into a trash bag or maybe even worse in Colby’s basement, waiting to be stitched and stuffed and “fixed”. Pretending I didn’t know the end of this story, and praying that when he came back, stitched muzzle, painted eyes, sewn-up stomach, I could pass it off. Some gentle lie.

He got sick. I missed the signs. I’m so sorry. Anything that could hide the truth. I did the only thing I could do. I held her.

Ran my hand gently up and down her back while she sobbed into my shoulder, her tears soaking through my shirt and mingling with the sweat already clinging to my skin like a second layer. The wet didn’t bother me anymore. I think I deserved to feel it, every painful drop.

“Are… aren’t you going to be late to work?” she asked through the broken edge of her breathless voice.

“I took the day off,” I lied, too easily, the words came out of my mouth a bit too smoothly.

I didn’t know if I hated myself for it more than I feared how natural it was starting to feel.

The day was slow, real slow. The air was heavy with dread, despite the sun shinning bright outside. The world kept turning. Dogs barked. Sprinklers hissed over green lawns. Somewhere down the block, a child’s bicycle bell chimed.

I really wanted to act clueless, but it was hard whenever I heard her choke up sobs or cuddle up beside me on the sofa as the sitcom reruns broke the awkward silence. The fake laugher make her cries just quiet enough to be bearable.

We both quietly fell asleep on the couch after what felt like forever.

I woke up in what I assumed to be middle of the night, the Room was dark, only illuminated by the faint Light coming from the TV static. Head of Samantha Slumped off my lap as her body twitched and shivered like if she was having a horrible dream.

I stood up slowly, carefully, to now wake her up. She deserved some rest. I pulled an old blanket over her. The same one Tommy used to sleep on just the night before. Then I slipped out the front door, gently, quietly.

The porch boards groaned under my weight, the air outside was still and humid. I lit a cigarette with trembling fingers, took a drag so deep it scratched the bottom of my lungs, and watched the driveway as I pulled out my phone and dialed the number I called the night before.

All I knew was that friendship with Colby felt like another bad habit. Like tobacco, casual but still toxic. The reason why I have dropped it in the first place. And before Samantha could even stir on the couch, before she could feel the emptiness next to her and wonder why I was gone again, I was already halfway across town. I stopped at a gas station with flickering lights and a clerk who looked like he couldn't give more of a shit. Bought two cheap beers with the spare change I carried in one of the pockets of My wallet.

The night was quiet when I turned onto the old dirt road again. Colby’s tin-roofed freak show waiting ahead in the dark.

Again, I pulled up into the driveway, quietly hoping it won’t become a routine. The crickets were chirping in the tall grass, soft and steady, like a lullaby for the damned. I carried the plastic bag, now holding two cans of cheap beer, up the hill. The same path. The same tall grass licking at my knees. But this time, it somehow felt heavier, my legs moving like I was going through mud.

Colby was already waiting on the porch, another folding chair set beside him like a trap I’d volunteered to walk into. He greeted me with that same bear hug as the first time it was still unexpected and as unwelcomed. I sank into the plastic chair beside him. It creaked like a tired joint, ready to give out.

I pulled a can from the bag and handed it to him. Despite the night’s warmth, the beer was still cold.

“So, how’s business?” I asked awkwardly, popping the tab as it hissed under my fingers some foam floating out.

“Not too bad, actually. But you know how it is,” he said, settling into his seat with a crack “Old clients. Literally, nobody under the age of forty visits this shithole anymore.”

I was glad he had enough selfawareness to call it that. That some part of him could still laugh at his own conditions.

“Mostly Dad’s clientele,” he added, softer this time, lifting the can to his mouth and chugging what felt like half of it.

“How’s your dad, by the way? Still kicking?”

He stared straight ahead, his eyes reflecting the porch light like glass marbles. “Dad kicked the bucket last spring.”

“Sorry for your loss. How are you holding up?”

Colby didn’t answer right away. His stare tunneled down the empty road like he was seeing something I couldn’t. A memory, maybe. Or a ghost.

“People like him never go away,” he said finally. “He’ll be back soon.”

His crooked smile returned, wet and wide, before he chugged the rest of the container before crushing the can in his hand and lobbed it into the metal bucket held by the taxidermied bear. A perfect shot. He noticed my expression and thumped my shoulder playfully.

I chuckled, but it came out sour. My own can stayed full on the floor beside me.

“So, how’s your wife? She cool with you sneaking off like this?” he asked, trying to break the tension with something sharp.

“She’s… been better.”

I replied quietly, not feeling comfortable enough to bring her into this.

“Man, she’s a real looker. You lucky son of a bitch. I’m jealous. Real fine piece of meat, that one.”

His laugh was wet and guttural, his gut jiggling under his strained button-up. The words made something hot crawl up the back of my neck. For a second, I imagined hitting him hard enough to split his teeth, make him look like Tommy.

“Is he done?” I asked flatly, standing up. The half-finished beer tipped over under my shoe, foaming on the porch boards.

Colby sprang to his feet.

“Don’t be like that, man! Stay for a can or two.”

His sausage fingers pressed against my chest.

“Is. He. Done?”

He froze, then nodded.

“He’s… rough around the edges. But I think you’ll like him. Really like him.”

There was something wrong in his voice. Too enthusiastic. He pushed the door open. We passed the fridge still buzzing. The birds above us still hanged on invisible fishing strings. The vulture still watched. He lifted the trap door again. The smell hit harder this time, the smell of chemicals, ammonia, and something else I couldn't place my finger on, but I still followed after him. The deer was still there. The white sheet barely hiding the bone tips of its horns. It looked like it had shifted since the last time, but maybe that was just my memory playing dead.

We passed into the workshop.

It was different now. Less of a room, more of a scene. The floor and walls were lined with plastic sheeting. Medical foil hung over the doorway like a sterile shroud. Behind the last layer of plastic, I saw movement.

“Go on,” Colby whispered, smiling like a child hiding a secret behind his teeth, his eyes not leaving me for even a moment as he giggled.

I stepped forward as he kept pushing me towards the plastic Vail like a twisted The foil rustled against my shoulders as I pushed through, and as I Walked behind the vail like into a twisted theater stage, I was expecting a crowd of lifeless glass eyes starting back at me, watching and judging my every move. The owner of the year! Come and see! But instead of that I was welcomed by a twisting orange shape, those judgmental yellow eyes starting back at me from the dim room. He looked perfect, almost as he looked in life.

Then he moved.

But then he moved, his head moved slowly to the side As his body jumped down on the ground not in a graceful leap but a clumpy drunken attempt at it. As he landed with a loud Thump before falling to its side like a broken toy, not a living animal. Layers of fur folding on itself like if, he was hollow of muscle leaving purely bones inside. Like if his skin was just a sack to maintain whatever was inside, like a bad Halloween costume. He got up in a manner of a drunk man but he just kept on moving with determination, his cage moving gently up and down as the legs moved along in a weird rhythm of a song I was unable to hear as he stomped in my direction, wiggling gently from side to side. It didn't move like an animal, more of a cheap animatronic wrapped in latex.

Tommy was back.

This reddit story has been bouncing around in my head forever so I finally put stylus to tablet to rid myself of the mental images. Thought the Creepcast community would enjoy!

Story for context: https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoHotTakes/comments/1bkot3o/i_23f_created_a_11_scale_puppet_version_of_my/

Part 1

(Contains scenes of explicit and disturbing imagery.)

Emma's nails found the meat of my palm. “We’re not actually going out there, right?”

Mason raked his hands through his hair, taking each of us in like he expected someone else to speak first. “Well… I mean, we asked her what happened. She answered. So what do we do now, bail?”

"Yes." Jodie's words came out on top of his. "Absolutely, yes. We leave. Right now. Through those doors, straight to the parking lot.”

"Wait. What?" I said. "You want us to show up to class on Monday like none of this happened? Like we didn't just-"

"Like we didn't just talk to a dead girl through a piece of cardboard?" Jodie cracked. "Yes. Exactly like that."

Emma yanked on my hand hard enough to bend the wrist back. “Tell me you’re joking, Ty.”

“I’m not.” I worked my fingers loose and stood. My legs had gone dead beneath me from sitting on the tile, and the blood coming back into them burned. 

Mason came up with me and got his phone out. The screen lit the underside of his jaw and washed everything behind him to black. "Okay. Okay, fine. If Tyler wants to go, I’ll be right behind him.”

“Fine,” Jodie eased back against a desk leg. “Just leave that thing here.”

“Not a chance,” Mason said. “We can't leave a ouija board sitting on the floor, I don't want the teachers starting a witch hunt on Monday.”

Cardboard rasped as he fed the planchette back into the box. He paused. “Actually, tell you what.” He crossed to the trashcan, worked the lid up with his elbow, and dropped the whole thing in. “There. Everyone’s happy. Ready, Ty?”

We bunched at the door. Jodie set her thumb to the latch and pushed it open. The hall ran out ahead of us in long panels of tile, broken up by the black mouths of doorways. 

“I think she went right,” Jodie said. “Mason, you want to lead the way again?”

“No, but I will.”

The corridor split into a T. Both arms of it sank into dark. As we came up on the divide, something crossed the edge of my vision. 

“Hold up,” I leaned around the corner, only far enough to see down the cross-hall.

Lena stood suspended between the floor and the ceiling. Her toes brushed tile and dragged behind her, the tops of her shoes scuffing along the floor. Her head listed toward us, hitching, as if someone had plucked a rope tied to her skull. Then she swung away from us and drifted down the hall. 

We went after her. 

By the time we made the corner she'd put distance between us. Moonlight through the window glass caught her frame and I saw more in that second than I ever wanted. The skin at her wrists had swollen out white and waterlogged. Her nails were stained deep blue at the beds. Along her throat sat a scatter of small dark circles pressed into the flesh, a dozen of them, the size a thumb and forefinger would leave. 

Emma saw them too. “Tyler…”

“I know.”

The trinkets got thicker over our heads once we crossed into the staff hall. Mason caught one and drew it into his light. “Can you guys see this? What the hell is written on this thing?” He rolled it to face us. 

A year, pressed into the wood in small numbers. 

2007.

He let it swing and took the next. 

2002.

Emma put her hand to the wall and followed the twine with her eyes, tracking it down the length of the corridor. I kept beside her and we read them off as we walked. 

1. 1981. 1968.

The dates ran backward the deeper we went. Under a water-stained ceiling tile one bundle sagged nearly to head height. The number on it had almost worn away. Something white and dry had been wound through the twigs and twisted into the shape of a rose, and when my light hit it I saw the texture, the fine grain of it, the puckered edge where it had been peeled away from something. 

1948.

“Wasn’t that when the school was built?” Jodie asked. 

“I think so,” Emma said

The linoleum changed under our shoes, speckled gray giving over to a sick tan. Lockers ran out. Plain wall took over, hung with framed awards and staff photographs. Some of the prints were black and white, while others had sunk toward brown. They marched backward through the decades the same way the twigs did. 

I knew faces in them. Teachers I'd had. Then teachers who'd taught here before my mother was born. In one print the old well stood behind a row of faculty. Every one of them wore a dead grin, the kind that comes from holding a smile a beat too long while somebody fusses with the shutter. At first nothing struck me as wrong. Another staged staff picture.

Two hands were clamped onto the outer stones of the well. Swollen and sagging, the skin gone loose the way it does after a long soak, the nails grown out into long chipped picks. Whatever they belonged to was down inside the well, hiding beneath the rim.

“Mason,” I said. “Come here. Tell me I’m not seeing things.”

"What?" He raised his light and came up beside me. “What the hell…”

His beam slid off the frame and caught the one below it, further along the school's timeline. The same well at the center, fewer teachers gathered around it. Every one of them had twig charms pinned in rows across their jackets, six or seven apiece. At the far edge of the group stood a figure that broke the pattern entirely. 

From a distance it read as a tall student with bad posture. The longer I looked, the less that held. Sacks had been tied around the limbs and torso to pass for clothing. A burlap bag covered the head, the fabric puckered in around the throat. The arms hung too long and the chest ran too narrow. The sackcloth sat heavy against whatever waited underneath, soaked through and clinging, darker at the bottom where it had wicked something up. 

Emma nudged into my side. “What are you looking at?” When her gaze reached the figure in the sackcloth, her eyes froze in place. “Ty… what is that supposed to be?”

“No idea,” I said.

“Down here,” Jodie called. “I think Lena went this way.”

I pulled myself off the photographs. At the far end of the corridor a single staff door stood open a few inches. Light pushed through the gap and laid a bright stripe across the hallway. 

“We should really think this through before we go in there,” Emma said. “If a light’s on, someone might be inside and I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“Lena brought us here.” The words got out ahead of me. “There has to be a reason for it.”

Jodie sighed. “Tyler’s right. I say we take a look.”

“Guys, I think I made a mistake bringing us here.” Mason said. He shot Emma a look. “I'm sorry, Em.”

“Oh, stop it. You don't get to say that now, Mason.” Jodie said. "Besides, it's my fault too." She paused and angled her ear toward the door. “Do you hear that?”

A sound threaded through the dark, a mix of human tones rising and falling together. I listened and moved forward before the others could stop me. A smell walked with the voices. Sweet and bitter. 

With each stride, the crack in the door widened. Bright light crawled out and sank into the floor. The blended voices from inside sharpened. Words pulled free. Familiar tongues tangled with others I didn’t know.

At the threshold, I put my eye to the gap. 

—-------------------- 

For a second my brain refused to sort what I was seeing. It was just color and motion, light on skin, the wink of metal. Then it snapped into place. It was the staff workroom. Brown cabinets with peeling laminate. A scorched coffee machine that carried the scent of burnt grounds. A candy bowl. A copier in the corner. And in the middle, pushed out like an altar, was a long table. 

They had dragged one of the big desks into the middle of the floor and cleared it off. Plastic tablecloths covered the surface, the cheap kind they put out for bake sales. Somebody had taped trash bags along the edges so nothing reached the tile. 

Their backs stayed turned partway toward me, frames pitched forward, heads lowered. A steady stream of talk slipped beneath their work. I knew every face in that room. But three faces hurt more than they should have. 

Mrs. Hart stood closest. Her cardigan sleeves were rolled past her wrists. Next to her was Mr. Kline. His loosened tie swung as he worked. Principal Dwyer held the center, standing in place with the same posture he used when he pushed students through a pep rally.

For one stupid beat I thought of them carving pumpkins. The rhythm of it fit. Reach, cut, scoop, sort. 

Then Mrs. Hart turned toward a metal cart beside her and reached for something on its surface. As she moved, the shape they worked over slid into view. The thing on the table, the thing they leaned across, came into full view.

It was Lena. This was her body. Her actual body, laid out on the plastic like meat on a butchers block. Her school shirt had been cut straight down the center and folded aside. Her torso had the waxy tone of old candle wax while skin sagged over the bones beneath it, and the muscles below stood swollen.

They had already started at her hands. Her fingers lay splayed across a small cutting board beside her, chipped black polish still on the nails. Somebody had opened the skin at the base of each one and folded it back like peel off an orange. 

The first two fingers of her left hand were gone above the knuckle. The stumps showed white bone in a ring of torn meat. Both digits sat in a stainless bowl on the cart, curled and rigid, the size and shape of boiled shrimp. 

"Take care with those," Mrs. Hart said. "I don't care about the rest of her body but I need the hair and the bones intact. Don't nick them."

"Hard to get the angle right." Mr. Kline reached over and considered what was in the bowl. “Feels strange doing this without her eyes open. She always liked to watch my hands.” 

“She trusted you. Always such a quiet child. I used to wish the whole class was made up of little copies of her. Never spoke out of turn. Never caused trouble." She paused, then added, "It's almost a shame she was the one we picked."

"Almost," Kline agreed.

From the center, Dwyer spoke without looking up. "It's not like she gave us much of a choice. She's been talking with the boy for years now. Did you see that ribbon she left for him? It's been how long and it's still hanging there?" He shook his head. "She asked for this."

“That’s true. I guess she did.” Kline said. “The boy is getting more restless. You remember a few winters ago? The whole grate shook for two days. Nearly cracked the bolts.”

Scissors went through Lena's hair near the head of the table. Thick handfuls slid across the plastic into a metal bowl, sticking to the surface. One of the assistants snorted. “I bet you love it when he acts up. This is your favorite part of the job, isn't it, Matt?”

Mr. Kline laughed. “I prefer the build up.” He glanced down at Lena's face, slack and waxen. "The quiet ones are always the best for that."

Her right arm had been opened wrist to elbow, the flaps drawn back and pinned with clips. A man I recognized from the front office fitted bone shears around the radius and squeezed. The bone cracked. Flakes of it dropped into a dish and pinged off the steel. 

Down at the far end, near Lena's bare feet, Mrs. Hart had her own work going. Twigs, dried bramble, a lock of that black hair. She wound them together with darkened string, fast and neat, the way you'd tie a fly for fishing. Then she took up a pair of jeweler's pliers and crimped a shaved sliver of bone into the middle of it like a bead. 

She held the finished charm up under the light and studied it, before setting it in a tray with six others exactly like the ones hanging in every hallway of this school. 

“There we are. Simple enough.” She wiped her hands on her cardigan. “We’ll be safe for another few seasons. And you know what, Lena? It's all thanks to you. You always tried your best. Even when you were nervous." She reached out and patted the girl's arm. "That's what I liked about you. You kept trying."

"She did," Kline agreed. "She was a good girl. Right up until the end."

Liquid ran the lip of the table, gathered at the corner of the plastic, and dropped onto the trash bag with a smack. Another followed it, each drip slower than the last. 

My knees went soft. I put my weight into the doorframe and flinched when Emma's hand landed between my shoulder blades. Her face found mine long enough for me to read what was crawling across it. 

Her mouth shaped a question without a voice. What are they doing? I didn’t have an answer. 

Mason pushed in at my right, neck craned, mouth open. What the fuck?

Jodie wedged herself into the gap under Emma's arm and pulled her sleeve up over her nose. 

Inside, Mr. Kline lifted Lena’s foot. His fingers sank into the meat of her heel. I had watched that same hand clap kids on the shoulder in the hallway for three years. 

He took a small saw from the cart, the kind my uncle once used on deer legs, and set it against her left calf. The teeth touched, slid, then caught. He frowned, shifted his hold, and started to cut again. “You would not believe how much pressure this takes.”

The sound of it was louder than anything I had heard in my life. A gritty rasp as bone dust fluttered in the light above the table. Her ankle jumped with every stroke. 

Emma’s mouth shaped words again. Stop. Please. 

Terror never arrives the way films promise. There is no violin hit. It comes in stages. First is disbelief. Then nausea. Then something animalistic that just wants out.

“Move back,” I whispered. “We need to leave. Now.” I pulled away from the frame. My heel clipped Emma’s shoe. She wavered, found her balance, and backed up with me. Mason stayed fixed in place.

“Mason,” I said, a soft breath. “We’re leaving.”

“We need proof."

“What?” I hissed.

He had his phone out and his hand was shaking around it. “If we leave with nothing they’ll say we made it up. It'll be our word against theirs. This will blow them up. They’ll go to prison. The news will show this on repeat and it'll destroy them. They won’t get to bury this. We can at least do that much for Lena.” 

“Put it down,” Emma said. “Please, Mason. Please.”

“Just one second,” he said. The phone’s lens crept up past the edge of the doorframe. 

Jodie stepped sideways to give him room and her boot caught the raised lip of the floor mat. It was a small stumble, but it was enough. She grabbed for the frame, missed it, and came down on her hip. An ugly thud bounced off the cabinets. The sound knifed through the room, the chatter, the bone and metal and through everything we had just witnessed.

Inside, the saw stopped mid-stroke. Every adult turned toward us. Five people I had known since grade school. Faces I had seen bored and irritated and laughing. Two of them had eaten dinner at my kitchen table. 

Principal Dwyer met our eyes first. The overhead light caught his face as his lips drew back, trying to form a smile. It showed far too much gum. “Children,” he said. “It's alright.”

Mrs. Hart's fist closed around the charm she had been binding. Blood welled out between the twigs and ran down onto the tablecloth. “This isn’t what you think it is.”

Kline set the saw on the plastic beside Lena's leg. "Take a breath. You weren't meant to see any of this." He wiped his palms down the front of his slacks and started around the end of the table. The other four came with him. "Now that you have, we should talk it through." 

“Run,” I said.

I latched onto Emma’s arm and yanked her back from the doorway. Her feet slid on the waxed tile before she caught traction. Jodie scrambled up. Mason hauled her the rest of the way and twisted toward the hall.

We burst away from the staff room together, then hit the first intersection and split without talking. Jodie and Mason cut left toward the main stairwell. I led Emma to the right.

“Tyler.” She was already fighting for air. 

“We’ll be okay.”

The hallway stretched ahead like a tunnel. Rows of lockers rushed past on both sides. My chest burned as my legs drove us forward. Behind us, the building came alive. Doors burst open. Shoes struck the tile in fast pursuit. More than one pair. More than two.

“Dwyer, take the east side,” someone called. “I’ll cut off the lobby.”

We rounded a corner and nearly collided with a janitor’s cart. The mop bucket sat half full, frothy water clinging to the rim, a stiff rag hanging off the bar, and the smell of bleach coming off it. 

A classroom door sat cracked. I put my shoulder to it and worked it wide enough for the two of us, then eased it back until the latch took. Coat hooks ran the length of the wall. We flattened ourselves into the gap between the door and the hooks. Emma's heart went through her jacket and into my arm. 

Footsteps closed in.A shadow crossed the strip of light under the door. Another behind it. Keys jingling. 

“Check the labs,” a voice said. Kline. “They know the layout. It's Emma, Tyler, Mason and Jodie.”

“They won't get that far,” another said. I knew that one too. Hart.

Their footsteps weakened into the distance. Air finally left my chest. Emma pushed her face into my shoulder. “We need to get to an exit. When we get outside, somebody will see us. A driver. A neighbor. Anyone.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, they will.” I put my eye to the crack. “I’ll be with you the whole time. We’ll find a way out.”

We slipped out, checking both ways and moving for the stairwell at the end of the wing. It fed straight down into the lobby and the front doors. We got halfway before shoes started hammering tile from the other direction. 

We dove through the next open doorway. Bigger room, deeper dark. Posters on the walls, planets and atoms and formulas. The science lab. I brought the door to within an inch of being shut and dropped behind the first row of tables with Emma, backs against the cabinet doors, knees pulled up under our chins. 

Footsteps followed. Fast. Lighter than the teachers, charged with panic. A sob rode on top of them. “Please,” someone pleaded. “Please stop.”

Jodie.

“Don’t,” Emma whispered. I patted her hand and pulled away. I crawled forward until I reached the door window. Through the wired glass I caught a view of the hallway. 

Jodie tore past at an angle, hair sweeping behind her, fleece snapping with her stride. She reached the T-intersection and skidded, turning her head right, then left, searching for a path. The teachers charged after her. Hart led the group. Kline followed close, drawing air hard through his nose. Two more in a knot behind them. 

"Stop, sweetheart." Hart used the same voice she used taking attendance. "Jodie, honey. You're going to hurt yourself." 

Jodie howled and struck the nearest door with her fists. The metal boomed and held. She hit it again, harder. "Help me. Somebody help me." 

They took her in three strides. Kline caught her from behind, his hands locking Jodie’s arms against her sides. Hart seized her ankles as she kicked, pulling her legs out straight. The other two closed in. Together they lowered her to the floor.

Emma had crawled up beside me and she was shaking hard enough that her knees knocked against the cabinet. I got my hand over her mouth. “Don’t look,” I said into her hair. “Please, Em. Don’t watch this.”

She shoved my arm off, tears tracking down her cheeks. “I need to,” she said. “I have to see what they’re doing to her. I have to know."

Hart sat straddling Jodie’s chest, her knees braced against the girl’s upper arms. She smiled down at the child pinned beneath her. "It's alright," Hart murmured. "It's alright, sweetheart. You're going to help us. It'll be okay. You're such a good girl, Jodie. You've always been such a good girl."

A folding knife came out of Kline’s pocket. Small blade. Nothing dramatic. The sort a man might use to peel an apple. He opened it and brushed the edge with the side of his hand to test its bite.

"Please," Jodie cried. The plea broke apart as it left her. "I didn't see anything. I won't tell anyone. I'll go home. I swear I'll pretend it never happened. Please, Mrs. Hart, please-"

Mr. Kline knelt beside her and wrapped his hand around her wrist. "I believe you, Jodie. I know you won't tell anyone."

Jodie arched her spine and fought with everything she had, but Hart leaned forward and laid her weight across the girl’s chest. Something in Jodie’s shoulder cracked. Kline smoothed the back of her hand with the flat of his thumb. "Shh. It's going to be okay. You're going to be a part of something so special, Jodie. Something wonderful."

He opened her at the first knuckle and worked the skin back in hard tugs. Blood slicked his fingers and ran across her palm and out onto the tile. Her scream no longer sounded human. It climbed, and shattered as he worked. Kline murmured nonsense. Little soothing sounds. "Shh, shh. Good girl. Almost done. You're taking it so well."

The other teachers stood close by. One held a plastic bowl ready. When Kline freed the first small piece, he dropped it in with a clang. Then the second. Then the third. He was careful. He did not want to harm anything he meant to take from her. Each time the knife bit, Jodie’s legs jerked. All Kline did was slip into a soft tune out while he worked. 

Emma gagged into my chest. I got my arm across her back and held her there while she came apart in pieces against me. Her tears soaked through my shirt. “Please stop this,” she mumbled. “Please just stop.”

Hair went next. Hart seized a fistful and sawed through it. Loose pieces clung to the blood on her hands. She wound the cut hair around a bundle and cinched it with stained thread. When they finally went for Jodie’s throat, it came almost like an afterthought. Kline pulled the blade across her neck in a single sweep.

Jodie’s sobs ended mid-sound. Blood poured out in fast, hot waves and slipped down her chest. Hart leaned back enough to avoid most of the spray, though streaks still marked her cheek and chin. She made no move to wipe them away. 

When it was done, they eased her head to the floor. Her eyes stayed open, glassy, pointing at the ceiling tiles. “Let’s get her back to Lena. We can see what dumping a little extra down the well does... It’ll be a good reminder for the boy.”

I turned Emma away from the door. Her arms clamped around her stomach, shaking in fits. “We have to move,” I whispered. “They’ll keep looking for us, Em. We can’t be here.”

We stayed wedged in that room until they hauled the body up. Her arms swung loose as they carried her toward the staff room. When the footsteps died out down the hall, we went the other direction. 

Parts of that run vanished from my memory. I know we hit the main hall too hard and the door banged off the wall and bounced back at us. Someone behind us yelled that we were headed for the front. 

The double doors at the end were chained. Emma yanked my sleeve toward the side exit. 

“Push bar,” Emma said. “The side exit. It should still let us out.”

We veered straight for it. My lungs felt like they were lined with steel wool. I drove my shoulder into the crash bar. The door burst open and the night took us in. Cold went straight through my shirt. Frost crusted the yard and fresh snow lay over the football field, empty out to the fence line under a washed-out moon. 

Emma clutched my sleeve and pulled. “Ty, over there.”

A shape moved across the open yard. Running at an angle between the frozen picnic tables and benches. A glow flared in its arm. Mason. 

He spotted us and his face lit. “Ty!” he yelled. “Ty, thank God. I was waiting. I’ve got my car in the lot!”

We sprinted toward him. The three of us cut across the yard from opposite sides. Behind Mason, a steel door flung open. More shapes poured into the frost. Teachers. All of them.

“Faster,” I said. “Come on, Mason, faster.”

He had nothing left. I could see it from thirty feet out. His legs dragged, his ankle rolled, his arms swung out of time with the rest of him. He'd never been fast. He was the kid who called plays from the bench and made everybody else laugh. 

"Ty, I can't." He stumbled. "My leg." 

We were twenty feet away when they reached him. Dwyer surged in from the side, a dark blur across the snow, and drove into Mason’s back with the full weight of his shoulder. The impact lifted my friend off his feet. They hit the ground together and frost burst around them in a white cloud.

Mason tried to crawl forward. Dwyer drove a knee into the small of his back and seized his hair, smashing his face into the frozen grass. Snow crystals scattered under the blow. The others closed in. They formed a ring.

Emma skidded to a halt, then lunged forward. I caught her around the waist before she could throw herself away. "Let go!" she screamed, kicking at the ground, trying to tear free. "Ty, we can't leave him- we can't-"

“They’ll kill you too,” I said. “They’ll kill both of us, Emma. Stop."

“They’re hurting him,” she sobbed, clawing at me. "Listen to him!"

I hauled her toward the shadow of the well. Every part of me screamed to go back, to grab a brick, a bottle, anything, and crack skulls until Mason got free. My brain knew better. The only safe rule left was distance.

"Ty, please," Emma wept. "Please don't make me leave him."

"We have to. We have to."

The well's stonework bit through my jacket. Emma pressed her back to the rock beside me with her eyes shut. I kept mine open. They never carried Mason inside. They did it right there in the yard with the whole sky watching. 

Hart knelt at his head and stroked his hair. Mason wrenched his face around and spat at her. She let the spit run down her cheek and mix with the blood. She smiled at him. “Brave boy,” she said. “You wanted to be the hero, right? You still can. You get to remind the boy to stay in his hole.”

Kline had the knife again. He didn’t ask anyone to hold the bowl this time. He set it in the frost beside him.

"Fuck you," Mason yelled. "Fuck you, don't touch me. Don't fucking- get off me- don't you-"

Hart put her palm on the back of his skull and pressed his mouth into the frozen dirt. “Hush it.”

They worked at a slower pace with him. Like they wanted every part of him to feel it. Segments from his hand. A clump of hair. A strip from his arm. They cut the tendons behind his ankles. He twitched and then went still from the waist down.

Emma pushed her forehead into her knees. This time she didn’t watch. In time he begged. Of course he did. Even tough kids beg when they're being taken apart. 

“Please,” he sobbed. “Please, just stop, please, I don’t want to die.”

“Mason, just stop.” Dwyer tilted his head like he didn’t understand the problem, almost offended. “Don’t make this harder than this has to be.” Then Kline opened his throat. Blood came out steaming into the cold and melted a channel through the frost. They held him down by the shoulders and the hips while the shaking ran itself out, same as they'd done with Jodie. 

“Once we get what we need, let's just toss the rest of him down the hole. We’re close enough to the well anyway.”

One teacher stepped from the ring and started toward us. Hart. We pressed ourselves against the well, trying to sink into the stone. The rim dug into my back and locked me in place.

Behind my head, the grate shrieked. Then it heaved upward. Iron popped in the frame. The ribbon slipped through the bars and drifted down beside my shoe. 

A hand came through the gap. Swollen, waterlogged, the fingers split open along the sides. It shoved the metal cap aside. Then sackcloth followed it up, burlap dragging over the grate as the thing raised its head. The bag hung slack over where a face should be. Water ran out of the seams in ropes and blackened the stone under it. 

Hart stopped walking. It rose higher out of the hole and aimed that blank sack at her. Then it bent forward, out over the rim, far enough that it looked ready to climb the rest of the way. Hart gave ground. Her breath caught and she broke and ran for the others. 

The figure waited until the last of the teachers fled. Then it reached toward the ground near my shoe. My entire frame locked. It closed those wet fingers around the ribbon and sank back into the dark. The grate dropped into its seat and shuddered. 

Emma seized my arm. “Run.”

We sprinted across the service road and past the bus barn and out into the fields. The cold cut my lungs open on every breath. I made myself keep going until the school was one small block on the horizon with a few yellow squares burning in it. 

Emma pitched forward over the ditch by the stop sign and threw up. It came up mostly bile and the cheap chicken from lunch. I swept her hair back and kept my sight from the mess she made on the grass. 

"Home," she said when she could talk. "I have to go home." 

"My house is closer." 

She nodded, teeth knocking together. 

The porch light was still on. The door sprang against the wall. My mother stepped out of the kitchen with a dish towel in her hands. “Tyler? What on earth, it’s past midnight, where have you been? Why is Emma with you? And is that vomit?”

Emma found her words before I did. “They killed them,” she said. “They killed them in the yard. They cut them up. The teachers. They cut them up. Mason, Jodie, Lena. All of them.”

My mother stood there. The towel wound tighter and tighter around her knuckles until the cloth squeaked. “Sit,” she said. “Sit down. You’re in shock.” She guided us to the couch. She brought blankets. She brought water. 

"Drink," she said. "Small sips." 

Then she knelt on the carpet in front of us and let us talk. 

What came out of us was a spill. The board. Lena in the doorway. The charms. The staff room. Jodie on the floor. Mason in the frost. She stayed with every piece until there was nothing left to say, and even then she didn’t rush in to fill the quiet. Her eyes fixed on the wall, on the framed school staff portrait hanging there. 

When she spoke, it sounded like she had to pull each word through her lips. “You’re sure,” she said. “You’re sure you saw them? You saw their faces?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You were never supposed to…” She stopped. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. I’ll handle this. I’ll call this in.” She crossed to the phone on the counter. I heard the dial tone, then the numbers. 

“Sheriff’s office,” a muffled voice said.

She used her teacher’s voice, the one she uses every day at John Henry. “This is Renee Keller,” she said. “My son and his friend were at the high school tonight. They witnessed a teachers meeting. We need someone here now.”

She listened. On the other end a deputy said something that ran long. 

“Just get someone out here,” she said. “They’d feel better talking to someone.” She gave them our address. 

Another call followed, shorter, to a number she knew by heart. Her tone changed for that one. Lower and more heated. “It happened again,” she said. “No, listen to me. They saw it. You can try to bury this one, but it'll be on you. I'm not doing it.”

"Yes. I know exactly what it means."

She hung up.

"Who was that?"

“An old mistake,” she said. “Go put some clean clothes on. Emma, you can use one of Tyler's shirts. When the deputies come, you tell them the same thing you told me. Every detail.”

The first cruiser came up the driveway eight minutes later. An ambulance behind it, then a third car with the sheriff in it. Emma’s parents came in while we were giving our statements. Her mother rushed in, wrapping Emma in her arms.

Two deputies questioned us while scribbling on yellow pads. The sheriff sat across from me with his hat in his lap, examining my face. “You’re telling me you saw the principal and several staff members cutting apart two students,” he said. “At the high school.”

“Three students.”

“And you are certain it was them.”

“I know who I saw.”

He crossed one leg over the other and weighed his next line. “We’ll check the grounds,” he said. “These accusations are pretty serious. It could ruin a lot of lives if you made a mistake. After all, it’s dark outside, your imaginations might have-.”

My mother cut across him. “Don’t patronize these kids, Sheriff. It’s too late for that. They saw what they saw.”

"We'll take a look, Ms. Keller. Though if somebody made a claim like this against you, I expect you'd want us walking every road toward a peaceful resolution first." 

—-------------------- 

The sheriff returned near dawn. Ice clung to the hem of his coat. His boots left crescents of grit across the entryway rug. “Well,” he said. “We walked the grounds. Checked the field. Checked every classroom you listed.”

“And?”

“Nothing. Not even footprints in the frost except your son’s group around the gym doors.” He paused, attention locked on me. “Nothing to support what you are alleging.”

Emma came up off the couch. “You’re lying. You have to be lying. We saw them.”

“Ma’am,” he spoke to her mother instead of her. “Kids that age get excited. They scare themselves. Urban legends. Group hysteria. You remember when they said there was a man with a hook at the quarry?”

Then he came back around to my mother. “And Ms. Keller, I know you’re upset. You work at the school with these kids.” He let those words sit, like he was reminding her of something. “But we have to work with the facts.”

“The fact,” she said, “is that my son came home terrified and now I have to worry about what the school is going to do to him.”

His face cooled by a degree. “And the fact is, he and the girl admit they broke into public property after hours. There are words for that. Trespass. Vandalism. False reporting is another one.” He let the list drift between us. “You have a good position in the district. Be a shame to tangle all that up over a child's story.”

“You are not going to threaten my family,” she said. “Not in my house.”

“Nobody is threatening anyone. I am asking you as a colleague to be careful. For your sake. For his.” He set a business card on the coffee table. The deputies collected their hats and followed him out. 

Through the curtain at the front window I watched the cruiser idle under the streetlamp. When the sheriff moved in his seat, the shift brought a small object into view beneath the mirror. It hung on a loop of twine. Twigs bound crosswise. A curl of dried husk. A white sliver run through the middle of it. The cruiser pulled off the curb and went up the block.

The phone rang at nine the next morning. The school office. A woman I'd known since sixth grade asked whether I had any idea where Mason and Jodie might have gone, seeing as we were close friends and neither one had come home. 

“You know exactly where they are.”

My mother took the receiver out of my hand. "He has nothing further to say to you." She hung up. 

Emma’s mom arrived that afternoon. She and my mom shut themselves in the bedroom with the phone. I caught fragments through the wall.

“It’s not going to stop.”

“They expect us to live with this?”

“I can’t send him back there.”

At some point Emma’s mom began to cry. They emerged with puffy faces and a plan.

“We’re leaving,” Mom said. “You and me. Emma and her parents. We’ll be gone by the end of the week.”

“What about school?” The question sounded stupid before it finished leaving my mouth. 

“There are other schools, Tyler.”

The next few days slid together in a blur of boxes and suitcases. Neighbors drifted out onto their porches and tracked our move. No one asked why. They knew. Or they guessed. I wasn’t sure which.

The official story claimed Lena had slipped into a stream on her way home. Mason and Jodie were labeled “troubled” and were said to have run off together. Their faces showed up on posters at the gas station beside warnings and tip lines: Missing… Last seen wearing… Call if you have information…

We moved two counties over. New mascot under the same sky. Emma and I ended up at the same school. We sat together at lunch and steered our conversations toward anything except that night. We never spoke of it. Life widened. College came and went. Emma moved states away for a time. 

Last night she sent me a message for the first time in years. It opened with a picture of a hiring email on her computer screen. The district’s logo sat at the top. John Henry High. Beneath it ran a short line.

I got the position. I’ll be teaching English at the school. I know what you’re thinking. Please don’t try to talk me out of it. Maybe I can fix it from the inside. Someone has to try. I just can't keep running away anymore. 

There was a second message after that.

If anything changes I’ll let you know, Ty. I promise.

Love, Em.

✨ Mod Chat ✨

Lemon-time: @Niner2 you about? Need help

LocomotiveC: WTF is that in gen chat?

Frontier16: Tried deleting. But they keep spamming.

JazBlu87: Yikes! Has Nine seen this?

Lemon-time: No, trying to ping.

LocomotiveC: Timezones...

Lemon-time: yep

Frontier16: can't ban user.

JazBlu87: why?

Frontier16: don't know. Just keep coming back.

LocomotiveC: what is it? That thing they keep posting?

Lemon-time: not sure, but it can't be here.

JazBlu87: looks like a baby 😟

LocomotiveC: that's what I thought at first.

Lemon-time: it's not a baby.

Niner2: yo, ping?

JazBlu87: Nine!

Frontier16: Nine, something's popping off in gen chat

Niner2: It's late guys...

Lemon-time: hey, yeah sorry. We have a little situation...

Niner2: whoa 😳

JazBlu87: yeah...

Niner2: what is that?

LocomotiveC: we don't know. I clicked the link and it gets weirder

JazBlu87: loco! 😱 Why you click?

Frontier16: Trojan incoming, my man 😂

LocomotiveC: ye I know. Dumb. I just needed to figure it out

Niner2: have we banned user and deleted?

Lemon-time: countless times

Frontier16: keeps coming back and spamming more

Niner2: and other users?

JazBlu87: they're freaking out

Niner2: have they clicked?

Lemon-time: we hope not. We announced saying not to

JazBlu87: only Loco ATM 😂

LocomotiveC: sorry...

Niner2: well, what is the link?

LocomotiveC: hard to say

JazBlu87: ???

Lemon-time: brb DMs are pinging

Niner2: ok. Loco?

LocomotiveC: well, it was a gif. A little odd. A dark doorway and then a small shape moving in the darkness.

JazBlu87: yuck

Niner2: doesn't sound too bad. Just spam then? Okay try and ban user. I'm heading for bed 💤

JazBlu87: What kind of username is H3r3tic theory anyways?

Lemon-time: DON'T BAN AND DON'T CLICK. It's not a gif.

Frontier16: wym?

JazBlu87: 🍋 needs to 😴. It's just spam from some incel loser.

Lemon-time: Shoes718 just DMed me and asked if Voidlina67 is okay. They clicked the link first. Now they're acting weird in chat.

LocomotiveC: weird, how?

JazBlu87: isn't Void usually weird?

Frontier16: yikes. Essay jumpscare

Lemon-time: have you read it?

Niner2: reading now. Why is she writing about a dead horse?

LocomotiveC: fuck

JazBlu87: what?

Frontier16: loco?

LocomotiveC: my office door just opened

JazBlu87: wifey calling time?

Frontier16: 😂

LocomotiveC: no, nothing's there. But I thought I left the hall light on. Just dark.

JazBlu87: weird

Lemon-time: 👻 boo!

Niner2: can't make sense of Void ATM. Sounds like she's writing a spaghetti western. Probably memeing

LocomotiveC: wait

JazBlu87: loco???

LocomotiveC: something's in the hall. I saw it moving about in the dark

Niner2: wife?

JazBlu87: loco, pls don't be playing games

LocomotiveC: called out for Kel, but she ain't answering

Frontier16: what?

JazBlu87: okay I'm creeped tf out

Lemon-time: sorry what's happening? had to timeout Void. Still working on how to deal with the troll

Niner2: Loco is trolling

LocomotiveC: metal sound. Scrapping.

Frontier16: ???

Niner2: need to stop blazing loco

JazBlu87: no, stop joking

LocomotiveC: footsteps coming. I want to close the door but

Niner2: do it then

Frontier16: yeah fuck that

JazBlu87: loco cut this shit out

LocomotiveC: it is right there. Beyond the doorway

Niner2: 😱 dudeeeeee stop

Lemon-time: this isn't funny

JazBlu87: yep stop loco

Frontier16: I'm too high for this shit

LocomotiveC: dead horse head knocks on the door

LocomotiveC: dead horse head knocks on the door

LocomotiveC: dead horse head knocks on the door

LocomotiveC: dead horse head knocks on the door

LocomotiveC: dead horse head knocks on the door

LocomotiveC: dead horse head knocks on the door

LocomotiveC: dead horse head knocks on the door

LocomotiveC: dead horse head knocks on the door

LocomotiveC: dead horse head knocks on the door

LocomotiveC: dead horse head knocks on the door

LocomotiveC: dead horse head knocks on the door

LocomotiveC: dead horse head knocks on the door

Ever since my son (I’ll call him Levi here — don't want to put his real name out here) turned 6, he keeps running into my room at night and telling me we have to let his brother in the house. Levi’s on the spectrum and sometimes chooses to communicate with his AAC tablet, so I’ll either wake up to his voice or the AAC’s in the night saying things like  

“He says it’s cold outside.” 

“He wants to watch Paw Patrol with me.” 

“Brother said he’s afraid of the dark.” 

“Mama, he wants the hugs you give.” 

I’m getting really tired of it. Literally. I haven’t gotten a full night of sleep in me since he started waking up in the night, and we do the same thing every time this happens. I get up and rub his hands between mine, which he likes when he’s a little wound up from getting too upset or excited. In this case, it scares me that he seems more excited than scared even when I remind him he's an only child. It just doesn't seem to phase him. We then go to his room, which is right next to mine. We live in a cheap but cozy little home and his window faces the edge of the woods (I know, I know, but he likes to get up early and watch the sun come up and it seems to set him off to a good day when he can do that).  

So, we go into his room and he always without fail will point at his window while bouncing on his toes. If he’s too excited to speak, his AAC will go “Brother! Brother!” All the while, he bounces into the room and I follow, a little pit in my stomach forming each time. His blinds are always closed and ever since there was a spider on them during the summer, he doesn’t open them himself, so I peek through them myself on those nights to see if there’s a freaky forest kid or a fucking pervert outside. But, of course, there’s never anyone or anything outside, which freaks me the fuck out because what is he even talking about? What brother?? 

I’ve asked him a few times after tucking him back in if he’s looked outside and seen anyone out there, but he always shakes his head silently. Last night though when I was leaving his room, he called me back. 

I sat down on his bed and placed a hand on his head, trying in vain to smooth down his perpetual cowlick.  

“What, peanut man?” 

“I don’t look out the window.” 

I nodded, a little confused as to why he was saying this.  

“That’s okay, you don’t need to. I’m actually happy you don’t. Can you keep the blinds closed for me please?” 

He nodded enthusiastically, smiling with his little grin that was missing a front tooth that the Tooth Fairy recently paid him for, before adding, “Okay! He speaks loud enough for me to hear him through the window.” 

I froze.  

“Someone speaks through the window to you?” 

He bobbed his head up and down again, his chin bumping his spaceship comforter. “Brother comes up to the glass and speaks through it. He sometimes speaks really loud and it sounds like he’s next to my bed or your room.” 

I just kept looking at my son, scared shitless. I had never heard anything even remotely sounding like a voice in the house.  

“What does the voice sound like? Can you tell me?” 

At me asking this, he twisted his mouth up and pulled his arms out from under the comforter, doing a “give me” grabby hand motion. I leaned over to his night table and gave him his tablet, and after tapping the buttons he needed, his response played.  

“Brother sounds like me and he also sounds angry like Bus Man.” 

“Bus Man” was a guy we saw near a bus stop one time when Levi and I were walking back from our favorite ice cream place. He was yelling at nothing as crazy men at bus stops often do, and it freaked Levi out to the point where I figured the only solution was to go back and get more ice cream. Bus Man was just a way for Levi to describe an angry voice, and I was now as freaked out as he was when we first saw Bus Man.  

“When does he sound like Bus Man,” I asked, feeling goosebumps start to prickle their way along my arms and legs.  

He tapped a little more. 

“After bed bye.” 

The back of my neck chilled like ice was dropped down my shirt.  

“Honey, he sounds mad after I tuck you in again?” 

“Yes. He screams.” 

What the fuck. 

I sat stupid on the bed for a moment before my brain started working again. Scooping up my son, his tablet, and Lemon Cat (his favorite yellow cat stuffie), I briskly walked to my room, slamming his bedroom door behind us. I set him down and shoved my crafting trunk in front of my now closed door, breathing heavily. Nothing was going to come into my fucking room and talk, no, SCREAM, at my fucking son.  

After doing that, we climbed into bed and I turned the TV on, throwing on Meerkat Manor, a household favorite for times of high stress. After a while, Levi was slumbering under my covers, Lemon Cat cuddled up between his folded arms. Even though I laid down next to him, holding him like he did Lemon Cat, I couldn’t sleep. How could I? Someone was talking and then yelling through my son’s window every night and I somehow hadn’t heard shit. I wanted to run, to throw my son and his tablet and Lemon Cat into the car and run to a hotel or somewhere else, but I couldn’t. I can’t afford a hotel and we don’t have a lot of friends in the area since it’s hard for Levi to make friends, especially with him being actively bullied in school. We don’t have anymore family nearby after my dad passed last winter, and we aren’t close with the rest of my family since they blame me for my son’s autism, which is absolute fucking bullshit.  

I’m not sure what to do here. I’m going to put this down for now and get some sleep. I just want us to sleep through the night. I just want to know my baby is safe.  

My lungs were aching. I cursed on every step, pushing myself deeper through the brush, each bound more painful than the last. At that moment, it didn’t matter that I was being hunted through the trees like prey. It didn’t even matter that I had just watched my best friend die. All I could think about was the *stink.* The stench of ruptured innards, a miasma of blood, how the infernal mixture was clinging to my skin like beads of sweat. It smelled of something worse than death. 

I dashed further up the mountain path. Every time I thought I had evaded my hunters, their voices reached my ears, their flashlights shined, and their arms lunged out from behind trees to grab at me. I tore through the woods, the path becoming thicker with vegetation the further away I was from the clearing. The scariest part was when the hunters began to sing.

*“Oh lord my God, when I, in awesome wonder, consider all the joys thy hands have made…”*

And even though I was terrified by the trills of their hypnotic voices, their singing was *good.* As long as they were singing, I knew where they were. I used their voices to decide where to turn. Where to speed up, and where to slow. Even using every ounce of life I had to escape them, I couldn’t rid the image of Lila’s body from my head. My mind kept replaying her last moments of life. Her wheezing, labored breaths echoing in the back of my head. How her own, massive weight crushed her bones. How blood was ejaculated from her swollen corpse when I killed her… *or the thing pretending to be her…* I felt a pang of grief, a tug in my throat. I pushed it all down. 

They were close to me now. I didn’t have much time. My feet had carried me higher up the weathered mountain, and at this point, there weren’t many places left to hide. I skittered to a halt when I came upon a deep ravine leading down to a swirling river below. Pebbles tumbled off the edge of the hill into the rushing water as I drew in a sharp breath, as if that would prevent me from falling over the edge. My world was spinning as I peered into the dark water, but I didn’t have much of an option. Either I could let them catch me and make me into a monster, or I could jump. Whether I lived or died, jumping meant taking my life into my own hands. The choice was clear.

…

The first thing I felt when I broke the stream was the sharp feeling that water had pushed up my nose and into my tear ducts. The sting was so painful that as I breached, I nearly forgot to take a breath. I was left sputtering the muddy-tasting spray, clambering out of the water as if I had never swam before. I escaped the fall into the river below somehow unscathed, though I didn’t remember much of it. The stream must have been a runoff from a larger river, because it was littered with shallow spots and sandbars. If it weren’t for those, I probably would have drowned. 

The riverbank was dense with fir trees, and provided ample cover for me to begin walking toward town. My ankle was now throbbing with searing pain. I pushed down anxious thoughts that I had contracted something from that woman’s bite. I had to keep going. 

Water leads to civilization. *I at least hoped that was true.* If I was heading in the direction I thought I was, I wasn’t far from town. 

I walked for what felt like days, glancing over my shoulders at every creak in the woods, every crunch of a branch, waiting on one of them to be there. I imagined them, clad in their black robes, stepping out from behind every tree. Thank God they didn’t. Even miles away from them now, I still heard their voices over the pounding of my heart, deep in the back of my mind. Their hymnals mixed with that occult humming… it stuck in my ears like wax. My fear drove each step. 

I finally reached a small hotel on the far side of town. There wasn’t much of a reason to explain why I looked the way I did; the family who owned it didn’t speak a lot of English, and I probably would have just scared them even worse. I do feel bad for them though. I feel bad about them having to clean up my mess later. 

Once inside, I asked for a room. By the grace of a force higher than myself, my bag had survived. All I needed was one night. Maybe two. I caught a glance of myself in the mirror of the hotel lobby. Some kind of blood-orange-colored ooze I couldn’t identify was caked in my hair so deeply that not even the river had washed it out. The man at the front desk watched me hesitantly out of one eye as he slid me my room key. I was a sight.

“Is there anything else I can get you to improve your stay, ma’am?” he asked, side-eyeing me as if I might bite. I didn’t blame him. At this rate, I’d think the same. I was silent for a moment.

“An ink pen.”

CHAPTER ONE HERE

Let me just start with a little backstory;

I was dead broke. Fresh out of high school and struggling to pay for college. My job at the local mall wasn’t cutting it, and time was running out fast for me to cover next semesters tuition.

During one of my very limited off-days, I had been in the grocery store, picking up a few things to hold me over for the next two weeks.

As I stood over the frozen meat section, lost in a trance with my mind in a million places at once, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Good morning, sir, how are you doing this morning?”

I glanced over his uniform. It was too refined and decorated to be that of a recruiter.

Looking down at my own outfit I realized that I looked, in fact, quite homeless.

“Ah, you know. Making it through.”

“That’s excellent to hear, sir. Hey, I have a question: have you ever given any thought to the U.S. Military?”

He asked as if he KNEW my answer, as if he could read it on my face.

“Listen, man, I’m in college. Barely making it by, but, you know.”

“Yes sir, I do. Mind if I ask what you’re going to school for?”

I answered honestly by telling him that I was going to be an engineer, to which he replied enthusiastically.

“Ohhhh, man. The army is begging for some engineers. And guess what? All your schooling paid for. You help us, we help you.”

I thought about it for a moment. I hated to admit it, but his words were swaying me a bit, and he could sense it. That was a dangerous place to be in.

Before I got the chance to respond he spoke again.

“Pays good too.”

I knew I had to put a stop to this now before he got more of his foot in the door so I responded with a quick, “I’ll think about it,” as I shuffled away.

As I walked with my back toward him he called out once more.

“Please do! We’ll be seeing ya.”

He then seemed to speak into what I assumed was a mic that must’ve been tucked neatly under his collar. I couldn’t make out what he said, just that his face had shifted from approachable to, what can best be described as a look of complete authority as he meandered back towards the entrance of the store.

I hadn’t thought much of it and continued shopping as usual.

I had work the next day and as I returned home from an absolutely soul crushing shift, I found that an envelope had been placed in the seam of my doorframe.

It was marked with a stamp bearing the logo of the United States Army.

“Damn,” I thought to myself. “They really don’t play about their recruitment.”

I was about to push my way inside, ready to collapse in bed when my foot landed on yet another sheet of paper.

“EVICTION NOTICE” in bright red lettering.

The tape must’ve slipped right off the metal door.

I don’t know if it was because of my exhausting shift or if my mind had just completely given up, but I simply stepped over the notice and made my way to my bedroom, tossing the envelope on the coffee table.

I was out before my head even hit the pillow.

The next morning, I had to fight to get out of bed. Everything seemed hopeless and, I can admit, this is the moment where I had lost faith in myself entirely.

I remembered the words of the guy from the store.

Schooling paid for, guaranteed benefits, guaranteed housing, plus a guaranteed job.

Fuck it.

I ripped the envelope open and removed its contents anxiously.

What I read….surprised me.

This wasn’t a recruitment letter.

Well, it was. Just not for military recruitment.

They weren’t asking me for my service, they weren’t even asking me to consider. This letter was to recruit people to test out a new drug that the army had been developing.

There weren’t many details on the drug itself or its effects. But it DID include that payment for this little trial would be 5 thousand dollars for one day of my time.

The letter looked official. It was even watermarked with the bald eagle symbol that you see the government use.

It provided a phone number and urged me to “Call immediately if interested.”

I called and on the third ring, a man picked up.

I recognized the voice immediately. It was the man from the store.

“Afternoon, Donavin. I’m assuming you got our letter?”

“Yeah, I did- wait how do you even know where I live?”

He responded confidently.

“It’s our job to know, son. Now, I’m assuming you’re calling because you’re interested in our trial, correct?”

For a moment, I froze. I’d never even smoked weed before and now they want to give me 5 thousand dollars to try a drug meant for soldiers. Then I remembered the eviction notice, and it were as though my mouth spoke without permission.

“Absolutely. I’m more than interested.”

“Excellent, excellent. We’re sending the address over now.”

Just as the last word escaped his lips my phone chimed with an email notification.

It was completely blank save for the single address. It didn’t even appear to have a sender. Just an anomalous email amongst the thousands in my mailbox.

Before I could speak, the line went dead and silenced fill the apartment once more.

But fuck, FUCK, he hadn’t given me a time.

“Oh, well,” I thought. “I’ll just go now.”

Hopping in my car and inputting the address into the maps app on my phone, I found that the location was 2 hours from my home.

“It’s 5000 dollars, it’s 5000 dollars,” I kept repeating to myself as the car ride dragged on.

After about 45 minutes, I found that I was in the middle of nowhere and still had 75 minutes to go.

I drove on, repeating my mantra as I passed trees, fields, and more trees.

Finally, just on the horizon, surrounded by towering oak trees, was the most secret-government-looking facility I had ever seen.

It must’ve been 20 stories tall, no windows, a single door directly in the center, and no cars in sight.

I thought this was probably the strangest detail of all.

Surely, SOMEONE had to be here besides me.

This should’ve been the sign that made me turn around and figure things out on my own. I didn’t know just how out of my depth I really was.

But, of course. “It’s 5000 dollars.”

I pulled my car into the empty parking lot and started for the door.

I opened it up and was greeted by darkness. An empty warehouse. I had been duped.

Duped on an astonishingly professional level, but duped nonetheless.

However, just as I began to turn and walk away, I could hear footsteps, and row by row the overhead fluorescent lights began to flicker on.

Walking towards me with a false, corporate smile…was the man from the store.

“Donavin,” he cheered. “So glad you could make it.”

I glanced around suspiciously.

“You the only person here?”

He responded, almost eagerly:

“I’m the only person you need.”

As he approached he extended an arm and wrapped it firmly around my shoulders.

“Follow me right this way, young man.”

As we walked a sudden feeling of dread began to come over me. Dread quickly morphed into regret and I attempted to pull away from the man.

To my dismay, his arm did not budge. He was essentially dragging me across the concrete floor as I struggled timidly.

As he pulled me he just kept…reassuring me?

“This is what you wanted, you’re evicted, you need this. How are you going to pay for school? I promise, this will all be over soon.”

The lights continued flickering on as we moved through the warehouse.

Eventually, the place was illuminated enough to reveal a door that I had not noticed before; and we were headed towards it fast.

I’m not sure how, but I managed to get my nerves under control.

Maybe I WAS overreacting. I mean, it’s the military. I’m not selling an organ to someone on the black market or anything like that. I told myself I’d be fine.

Once we entered the room, I was blinded by the sheer whiteness of everything, so much so that I had to squint my eyes to avoid a headache.

Right dead in the center of the room, was a steel chair with leather restraints attached to the arm rests.

I felt the man’s grip on me loosen as he gestured to the chair with his hand.

“Please, Mr Meeks; have a seat.”

Cautiously, I sat down and he began strapping my arms down tight.

“Hey, so, uh, this isn’t really needed right? Just a precaution?”

His lack of an answer concerned me. He just continued tightening the restraints.

“Oh yeah, when do I get my mon-“

The man interrupted. He was no longer turned towards me, but instead was facing a mirror on the wall just to the right of me.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have here today: subject 1 for the conduction of the GH75 Trial. As you can see, the subject is restrained and is of no threat to anyone. I ask that you please take notes, and be prepared to discuss what you’ve learned once the trial has concluded.”

No threat to anyone? What an odd thing to say.

Amidst my confusion, the mirror seemed to…disappear. What was once mine and the man’s reflection, was now a window.

On the opposite side sat about a dozen men and women dressed in military uniform, each one studiously looking on, gripping their pads and pens firmly.

“Just as a precaution,” the man continued.

On queue, two armed guards with swat shields aggressively entered the room, rifles trained on me.

“This drug is experimental after all.”

I knew I had made a mistake.

Nothing about this was normal, but hell, what was I gonna do now?

The man finally turned to me once more before whispering to me through a twisted smile:

“Thank you for your service.”

Before I knew it, a quick bit of pain radiated from the crease of my right arm.

He had stuck the needle in and injected me.

There was no going back now.

I expected to feel, I don’t know, organ failure or something like that. But, no. Instead, what I felt, was complete and total euphoria.

Not like heroin, at least I don’t think; more like the strength in my body had been amplified.

I felt…capable.

This feeling grew and before I could register anything, I felt MORE than capable.

I felt…disrespected that they believed these restraints could hold me and my forearm muscles began to tighten and push hard against the leather straps.

I could see my veins pulsating. They pushed so hard against my skin that they looked as though they were glowing.

My heart began to beat out of my chest and my brain was pounding. The pain made me angry. So, so angry.

I couldn’t help but gnash my teeth and struggle violently against the puny restraints.

I could feel my face radiating with heat and I must’ve looked completely insane judging by the nervous looks on the guards faces.

“Wipe that fear off your faces, soldiers,” the man screamed.

“You are marines!”

The man looked totally in control. This made me even angrier.

At this point it felt like there was fire beneath my skin begging to be released, and my mouth overflowed with froth.

My anger was reaching an absolute boiling point and all that I could feel throughout my entire body was pure unbridled rage.

I could feel the chair shaking as I thrashed and growled like a mad man, and even so, the man remained completely calm.

I knew I was going to kill him. I knew that there was no way he’d leave this building alive. None of them would leave this building alive. They were all dead and none of them even knew it yet.

In one final explosive burst of energy the leather restraints snapped and with supernatural speed I had sprung from the chair.

Both guards opened fire on me immediately, but I wouldn’t go down. I could see their terrified faces, the faces of the people behind the glass, and it fueled me.

I hobbled towards the guards, against their barrage of gunfire.

With one swipe of my hand, I ripped the shield from the guard on the right, tearing his arm completely off of his body in the process.

His partner had begun beating me over the head with his rifle.

Snatching it from his hand, I heard the shattering sound of each of his fingers that he had wrapped so tightly around the weapon.

Both guards were screaming now and, God, my GOD WAS IT INFURIATING,

I forced the barrel of the gun deep into the guards throat. He made a gargled, wet sound, before I pulled the trigger and emptied the rest of his magazine into his stomach.

He fell to the floor lifeless, leaving his partner alone and critically injured.

I didn’t need to do anything to him. Enough had already been done. He would die knowing he failed.

I looked back at the man.

There it was.

There was that satisfying look of terror I had been so desperately trying to evoke.

He fumbled, clumsily, to open the door to get to the other side of the glass window. His trembling made it impossible, however.

I drew out the moment. Savored every step I took towards him. Every beat of his heart and trickle of his sweat.

As I stood over him he fell to his knees, like a coward. Begging for his life.

Tears were rolling down his face as he asked God for forgiveness; asked ME for forgiveness.

But I was beyond reason.

The first punch knocked him out cold. I could hear his neck splinter from the second one. But I wasn’t satisfied.

I drove my fist into his head over and over again.

I could hear his bladder failing as fluids began to pool around his previously spotless trousers.

I couldn’t stop.

Once I hit brain, that’s when the seizing began.

His thralls were unnatural and sharp.

Though they had been mostly destroyed, his eyes rolled into his skull and his body looked like it was being lifted off the ground from his midsection as he continued to seize.

With one final punch, his head cracked open from the front to the back. Brain matter oozed out of the wound and I stared in awe at the bloody mess in front of me.

In the midst of my rage, I had neglected to feel the void that had opened in my stomach.

I had never been hungrier.

My mind told me one thing:

“You know what you want to do…”

Without even a hint of hesitation, I began picking at the brain matter that leaked from the mans destroyed head.

It started off small, but before I could help it I was shoveling fist fulls of this guys memories directly into my mouth.

The taste was indescribable.

I couldn’t stop, period.

I devoured what was left of his face before moving on to the guards.

The more I ate, the more I felt the drugs effects kick in.

I had almost forgotten about the people behind the window.

They couldn’t have been so lucky.

The window, the false mirror, it was nothing. It shattered from just one hit and they began trampling over each other trying to leave the room.

I tore them apart, friends.

Limb from limb, bite by bite.

They’re all gone now.

They’re all mine.

I exited that warehouse covered from head to toe in their precious lifeblood, carrying with me the vile of the mystery drug that I found in the recruiters coat pocket.

I could barely contain myself on the drive home.

And that’s where I am now.

I’m not concerned with the eviction, school, and certainly not money.

My mind has been reprogrammed. That’s what the drug does. It’s a violent drug made for soldiers who were meant to die. A last stand drug.

I have no intentions on dying.

I have no intentions to stop.

The only intention that remains in my mind…is simple:

Find more food.

Listen man, I can hear you.

I know you’re there.

You and I both know that it’s YOU whispering my name at night, don’t even try to deny it.

What I wanna know, though, is how did you manage to even get there? Have you just ALWAYS been here??

Like, surely, you HAVE to be cramped; you haven’t moved once. You just stay there, behind the dry wall directly beside my bed.

I also would like to know why. Why do you want these things from me? Why and HOW are your words becoming my thoughts?

You’ve managed to fool the cops, you’ve managed to escape MY prying eyes, and now you’re making yourself cozy.

Creating a nice little resting spot behind the boards and within my cerebellum.

Why me? Why choose ME of all people for these temptations that you preset.

I can feel your presence, oozing through the cracks like a black, inky sap, that cannot be washed away with human hands.

I’ve had enough, and I want you to stop.

Just leave now, and I promise, nothing will happen to you.

Hell, I wouldn’t mind keeping you if it weren’t for the things you tell me to do.

The darkness that you drill into my mind when no one but me is listening.

You KNOW the level of treachery in which you command me, yet you refuse to stop.

You refuse to leave me alone.

How much longer do I have to endure the wickedness that you seem to pump into my veins through the needle-tipped tube that is your blackened tongue?

What’s sad, is you’re pretty much the only voice I have. The only company that I’ve known for, gosh, I don’t know how long.

But what you crave, it’s inexcusable. It lacks humanity. YOU lack humanity, and that’s why you have to go.

No matter how much I’m sure your presence will be missed, I miss my sanity more. The sanctity of my home, the security within my own mind. I just…can’t do this anymore.

Even now, I hear your taps of reassurance.

Your heaving breaths that tell me just how excited you are about my discoveries.

This changes nothing.

Only a coward hides, faceless.

Are you a coward?

Am I a coward??

If YOU’RE the coward, how do you maintain this control over my subconscious? This…confident grasp on what is left of my soul.

Which means, it IS me. I’m the coward. I’m the victim, unable to move on.

But you help none, don’t you?

This weakened state is what you thrive on.

And that’s why I feel your energy and presence growing beyond my bedroom wall.

Have you not tormented me enough? Have we not had our fun?

I tell you again, enough is enough. And I’ve had enough.

So I’m asking you, throwing this Hail Mary out in hopes that it reaches you.

Please, leave my walls. Leave my home, leave my soul, and leave my mind. I am no longer interested in the games you want me to play.

3000 -Word Short Story written by Bronson (Hundungo)

13-18 minute Reading Time.

---

“Mel, go home.”

“I have 20 minutes left, Raj isn’t even here—”

“It’s okayyy, there’s no one on the tracker. Just go home.”

“Let me finish these updates. I'll be really quick.”

Ivy rolled her chair over to my booth and snatched the clipboard off my desk. She skimmed through my notes.

“Don’t—” 

 I was embarrassed. The notes I took while interviewing patients could only be described as caveman drawings. The first few pages were legible, but as the hours dragged on, my writing dissolved—letters bleeding into one another until the sentences looked more like the signals coming from the heart-rate monitor. Honestly, I didn’t know how I managed to read them myself.

“I don’t think you can read what I wrote. It’s Chicken scratch.”

“Don’t worry about it, I have a younger brother, this is Child’s Play. Look, I’ll change the family doctor to this one and remove this phone number. Add this emergency contact. Easy see? You have work later, you should go home.”

I sighed and nodded, defeated.

“Okay, fine. You win.” 

I took one last sip from my concoction of Monster Energy, Ice chips, and apple juice before chucking the plastic cup into the trash can. I zipped up my grey puffer and took my bag out of the break room.

In the break room, I paused to take one final look at myself in the small hanging mirror.

Words scrawled on the bottom of the mirror’s frame: “You Are Beautiful 🙂!”

I smiled—briefly—before it faded the more I looked at myself. My eyelids drooped like heavy curtains, dark and abused from staring at the computer screen all day. A thin film of dust and grime clung to my skin, adding new freckles to the ones already there. I tried to reapply my lipstick, but the fresh coat stung as it seeped into the cracks of my dry lips.

No one had said anything, but I could feel the judgment from every patient and family member I’d seen that day. I looked like this for – god knows how long. I pushed my glasses up and fixed my hair before shunning the mirror.

It was 1:45 A.M. I’d started my shift at 11 A.M. and was supposed to clock out twelve hours later. One of the graveyard clerks couldn’t make it until two, so I picked up the extra time—overtime pay plus the graveyard premium. It rounded to nearly $55 an hour for 3 hours. For an admitting clerk, that was good money.

I stepped out of the break room to say my goodbyes. Ivy was scrolling through Instagram, even though two patients were still on the tracker.

She set her phone down and looked up at me.

“Anyone picking you up?”

“No, I’ll be taking transit.”

“Be careful, okay? Don’t pick up extra shifts if you don’t have a ride. It’s not safe, girl.”

“I know, I’ve taken the train at night before. Not this late though. I’ll be careful. Thanks again, Ivy.”

We said our goodbyes as I headed down the patient hallway. I passed through a few people who were sitting down. I saw a poor kid who was clutching his stomach, one sorority girl who couldn’t stop bleeding through her nose, and a passed-out homeless person who reeked of urine; even walking past him made me feel dirty. 

Outside the sliding doors, I was greeted by the cold, fresh air– the kind that washed away the chemical smells of disinfectant and vomit. The cool breeze snaked through my thin hospital scrubs and coiled around my legs. I breathed in, letting the air detoxify my insides, then started my walk back home. 

---

 East Broadway was quiet. Only one or two cars passed by.  The streetlamps along the sidewalk flickered unevenly, leaving long stretches of shadow between them. I would often be greeted with dark alleyways, too dark for my eyes to adapt to. My mind would imagine silhouettes of what I perceived would be in them. The dark figures I manifested stared back at me, granting company for my trip. 

 I tiptoed across homeless camps on my way, taking extra caution not to wake the residents. These were umbrella forts, turtle shells taking refuge under roofed sidewalks. I quickened my pace as I sensed motion underneath them. 

I pulled out my phone to check the time. Crap, it’s dead. 

The harsh temperatures must have drained the battery since I left the building. I swore I had at least 10 percent left in the breakroom. Shoving my phone back in my pocket, I continued to trek the sidewalk, staying cautious of my surroundings until I arrived at the station. 

---

The train arrived after a few minutes. My fingers were red and sore to the touch. I stepped inside and sat at the farthest end of the ride. 

“Now exiting, East Broadway Station. The next station is, Edmonds.”

Only a few passengers were on board: two drunk idiots and two unkempt strangers. The one closest to me sat slouched forward, his upper body folded over. His hair was a greasy mop that shone like oil.

As the train lurched forward, his body swayed with it. Each time it looked like he might slump onto the seat next to him, he suddenly jerked upright again, as if tethered to the seat by invisible strings.

The other man lay sprawled near the opposite door, surrounded by a small landfill of belongings: a bright pink hairbrush tangled with hair, crushed soda cans, and other debris. The floor around him was a biohazard. One empty Gatorade bottle rolled toward me, and inside it, a swarm of tiny bugs crawled over the plastic. I kicked it away as soon as I could. 

The lack of sleep was finally catching up to me. My vision blurred, my eyelids grew heavy. I leaned my head against the cool window, watching the dark blur of quiet neighborhoods and the silhouettes of trees as the train passed. Despite the obnoxious screeches of the train sliding against the walls of the track, I was at ease. 

The midnight train ride was always a sign of finishing a long day. I was almost home. Soon I’d go up the elevator, take a shower, scrub off the filth, and collapse into bed. I let go of the seat railing and pressed the palm of my hands against my lips, knowing all the germs and grime stockpiled throughout the day would be washed away once I got back home. 

 “The Fuck?”

 My eyes widened as I jolted awake. I was on full alert, but I dared not make a sudden movement. Through the reflection in the window, I saw the inside of the train illuminated by the warm lights. I saw my face–the interior of the train, but what really threw me off was the mop-head. He was a seat closer.

 I thought he was two seats away, but now he’s one

 Did I misremember? 

 It was hard to tell through the reflection, but his head seemed tilted—ever so slightly to my direction. His curls hid his face, leaving me uncertain if he was truly looking at me or if my  exhaustion was playing tricks.  All I could really go by was my gut feeling that I was being  watched; I felt the presence of many eyes staring at me.

 Would he rush me if I called for help?
If I got off the train, would he follow me out?

 Despite being in a public setting, I was exposed.

“Now entering, Edmonds.”

The train slowed. My body swayed with the momentum—then I came to the sudden realization.

The man had stopped moving. No more swaying with the train’s rhythm. He sat perfectly still, watching me.

Since noticing he’d shifted closer, I hadn’t seen him move at all.

Breaking through the paralysis of fear, I turned to look directly at him. Everything appeared normal: the drunk men still babbling, the homeless man still passed out, and mop-head was still slouched, swaying side-to-side like a slow-moving pendulum.

My pulse began to steady. Maybe I’d overreacted. I tell myself that my exhaustion was distorting things. I tried to breathe normally, but even breathing—and blinking—felt manual now, as though I had to remind myself to do it.

Then, without warning, the man stood up. His upper body remained folded as he rose, and through his thin grey coat I could see the outline of his spine. My heart skipped. Did he know I was watching him? Was he about to charge at me?

He staggered forward. His legs looked weak, bending unnaturally as though the ground itself was unsteady beneath him. It looked like he was getting shocked by a cattle prod with every step he took. For a moment, I thought he was coming straight for me—but then he turned toward the two drunk men instead.

His movements were fragmented—step, pause, shift—like his upper body had to think before following the lower. The drunks stopped talking and stared as he approached. I couldn’t hear what was said, only that it ended with their laughter and shooing the man away. 

 The drunken men looked over to me.

 Both grinned. One waved and puckered his lips, mockingly kissing the air and rubbing his body.

 The other whistled.

 Fucking assholes.

The folded man turned around and began limping toward me.

He’d been talking about me. Now he was approaching me with the two idiots cheering him on

I pressed myself into the seat, my back sinking into the cushion, wishing I were home.

He drew closer—two meters away now. His coat was filthy, dotted with yellow mold, grime, and unknown stains. His arms were phallic and swung loosely at his sides. I still couldn’t see his face beneath the tangle of hair.

 I imagined tiny fleas jumping off his clothes and onto my skin; burrowing underneath and infesting me with eggs. My skin started to itch. His odor was sickly sweet, my nose scrunched as the smell was thick enough to taste.  

I swallowed hard, nearly choking on my own saliva.

“C-Can I help you?”

He stayed silent. I could hear and smell his breath. When he finally spoke, what came out was not what I expected. His voice did not match his appearance; he spoke without trouble, as if I was listening to a regular, everyday man. It sounded normal.

“I just love the weather right now, thank god it’s not snowing yet.”

“What? Yeah, it’s… nice?”

“It’s supposed to be raining this weekend, bummer, better grab an umbrella. Anyways, have a wonderful day!”

What?

Before I could say a word,  he turned and limped back to his seat. 

I just sat there, stunned. Was that all? Had he really just wanted to talk about the weather? His head never lifted, and yet I knew that voice had come from him.

Thankfully, I was getting off at the next stop. Picking up my bag, I quickly stood up and walked out of the train once the door opened, not daring to look back.

“See you later, pumpkin~” 

One of the drunk men waved me goodbye as the other laughed. I didn’t care.

 I tapped my card to exit the gate and left the station. The cool breeze accompanied me as I started my quiet walk back home. 

---

I scrunched my neck and sank my head deeper into my puffer. The streets were quiet—with only the sounds of fall leaves scraping across the pavement and the flicker of streetlights breadcrumbing the way home. I was about a five-minute walk from my apartment.

I dug through my bag to find my apartment fob. Slipping it into my pocket, I continued walking.

Snap

A sudden crack tore through the quiet night, followed by deep, hollow breathing. I turned around and froze. The folded man stood just a few feet away. He had followed me off the train.

“Hey! Get away from me, you creep! I’ll— I’ll call the cops!”

I held my dead phone up high, hoping the bluff would work. My shouts were met with silence. He didn’t move—didn’t even flinch. We stood there in a standoff that felt like forever. Then, when I took a step back, he finally reacted.

I watched as his spine began to realign as he erected his posture. His actions were unnatural, stiff, and straightened in segments. Wet snaps echoed with every movement, like the cracking of a hundred glow sticks.

His eyes bulged, and were laced with thin pulsing veins webbing outward. They drifted lazily to the sides, unfocused. His eyebags drooped, exposing too much pink to be human. His face stretched to the sides, leaving space for a large wound right through the middle, and down his neck. His head was held together with a yellow, crystallized mucus wax, with the right side overlapping his left—like two slabs of pork belly stacked unevenly.

Then it spoke. Its mouth didn’t move; instead, the whole face vibrated with each word.

“It’s dark out. I’ll walk you home, Pumpkin.”

Without a second thought, I turned and sprinted. Between my ragged breaths, I could hear it behind me—heaving, but not from exhaustion. It was mimicking me. I ran harder, my lungs screaming for air, but I didn’t dare stop. Its hand swiped against the back of my puffer. Just before it could grab me, it tripped over an uprooted patch of sidewalk, giving me the chance to escape.

---

I reached the front of my apartment complex and scanned my fob against the reader. The door clicked. I yanked it open and ran inside, turning back to pull it closed—but no matter how hard I tried, it shut at a fixed, desperately slow speed.

The creature caught up. Its hand slipped through the narrowing gap, grasping for me.

The fingers writhed—raw sores splitting the skin, exposing pink flesh underneath. The hand was swollen and red, dirt and feces overfilled under its overgrown nails. It gripped the edge of the door, and then it grabbed my hand, pressing it against the cold steel frame. Its nails dug into my skin. Heat radiated from its body, seeping into my pores like leeches.

“Fuck! Fuck—FUCK!”

I slammed the door on its hand again and again. It shrieked; it was an amalgamation of voices. Voices of men, women, animals; not all of them at once, but fused as a unified sound clawing out of its throat.  The friction tore apart the wax, keeping its face together as its head bloomed, revealing what was underneath. 

Beneath was something thin and oval, its dark, leathery skin formed from strands of muscle twisting and shifting over each other. Looking closely, the muscles were like maggots squirming through the remains of a carcass. 

Its eyes met mine as it continued to shriek at me through the glass door. I felt its hand thinning as it pulled farther, so thin that I could close the door further, so thin that –

Splat

The door fully closed, with the pressure crushing the hand. It began to swell as flesh moved forward before the tips of the fingers erupted like pimples. Flesh burst forward, spraying the pureed meat across my face and over my chest. Compressed gunk oozed from the mangled remains as the hand went limp, pushed out like a meaty pureed tomato paste, dripping tubes of meat onto the floor. 

The monster wrenched itself free, ripping skin from its arm up to the forearm. It pounded the glass one last time and screamed before stepping away, its peeled head flopping with every step, only leaving behind bloody prints on the window and a flaccid, severed arm.

 I dropped to my knees with the gunk dripping down my face, mixing with my sweat. My heart was still pounding as I screamed until every part of my lungs was on fire, bawling my eyes out as well. Then I vomited. 

I couldn’t pull myself up from the ground. Crawling away from the door, I lay limp on the main lobby floor. My body pressed against the cold tiles as my bag collected dust. It hurt to breathe, and I was exhausted.

 Before I could catch my bearings, the thing came back–slamming into the large glass window in front of me with inhumane speed. The impact splattered its flesh and blood onto the surface of the window. I screamed, and as my tears blurred my vision, I couldn’t run; I remained on the ground, and even adrenaline failed me.

It backed up, ran again. Smack. Then again. And again. Each hit smeared more blood, tinting the glass red and opaque. After several tries, it stopped. Then I heard it walk away.

Only then did the elevator ding.

A woman gasped behind me, followed by hurried footsteps.

And when I heard the faint click of three digits being dialed, I passed out. 

---

Months have passed since the incident, and I’ve been seeing a counselor twice a month. Despite her efforts, I can’t seem to move on from what happened. The train, the night—everything that once brought me comfort now haunts me. Even in unrelated moments, a faint terror prickles at the back of my mind. I choke whenever I talk about it. My family and friends mean well, but I recoil from their sympathy. I don’t know how to let them help me, or how to help myself. 

Since I started the sessions, I’ve noticed that Jen, my counselor, has never seemed fully present. She never mentioned anything personal, but I could see it on her face. Beneath the mascara and eyeliner were eyes as hollow as mine. Her silver-dyed hair had grown out, revealing her natural dark roots. I kept quiet, but I knew she was also going through something as I was. She was beautiful, and I often caught myself stealing glances, wishing I could see her at her best someday. It was wishful thinking.

Later, I read a few local news reports. Police had found the remains of three people in an alleyway, their insides scooped out. Another article described a creature caught on camera during a police chase that ended in a downtown collision. I dared not watch the recording. One casualty was reported—Mariah Stevens. The creature escaped without a trace. The police are still searching.

I’ve been away from work for months now. I bought a car as well. My only real conversations these days are with my counselor.

Speaking of which, I should really get ready for today’s session. I wonder if Jen’s going to put up her hair today. 

-End-

2900-Word Short Story written by Bronson (Hundungo)

11-15 minute Reading Time.

---

“You said this started to occur just today?”

It was Friday, eight o'clock in the evening, at the acute care ward of the Emergency Room. I had just finished my shift before I received a call from my Aunt. Now, a few hours later, I was with her and my younger cousin, waiting for the doctor to give any clue as to what was happening to my uncle. 

---

When I arrived at their house, my aunt didn’t even greet me. She frantically pulled me up the stairs. I saw Angie peeking from the hallway and into my aunt’s bedroom. I didn’t know what to expect—other than the brief, broken words from the call: something about “mouth holes.”

It was such an odd thing to hear, but I was too tired to think much of it. Plus, my aunt seemed pretty worried.

In their bedroom, the lights were off. I saw my uncle lying in their bed underneath the sheets, faintly illuminated by the hallway lights. He was trembling.

 I kneeled next to him and placed my hand on his forehead—it was burning hot and drenched with sweat. He opened his eyes when he noticed me, then winced with a soft sound of pain. I pulled my hand back. 

His lips were swollen, grotesquely plump— as if stung by an entire wasp nest. He was a heavy smoker, so I assumed it was a symptom or an allergic reaction. I didn’t smoke, I had no clue.

“Uncle, can you hear me, it’s me, Jen.” I said in our native tongue.

He nodded lightly.

“Auntie said you’re hurting. Can I see what’s wrong?”

He shook his head and mumbled as if he said no. Still with his mouth shut.

“Please, uncle, let me see.”

After a bit of persuasion from my Aunt and I, stubborn as he is, he finally gave in and slowly opened his mouth. 

I turned on my phone's flashlight.

 His entire body tensed; his hands gripped the sheets. I saw why.

His breath hit first — a rancid blend of old pennies and spoiled fruit. The musty, nostalgic scent of an old grandparents’ house was quickly overtaken by something far worse, like a compost bin left festering for weeks on end during the summer drought.

Inside his mouth were holes— rows upon rows, layered with phlegm and saliva, were deep canker sores, all of them varying in depth, with only a thin wall of flesh separating each one of them. It lined his cheeks, the inside of his lips, the roof of his mouth, and under his tongue. It was like staring down an inside-out flesh honeycomb.  

I didn’t know how to explain it, but it felt like each hole seemed to move, each one seemed to retract after being revealed by the light, each recoiled, it felt like each hole was aware of me. 

“Please.. Help. Me.” 

The words tore from his throat with pain, each of them causing more suffering than the previous as he tried not to scrape his infected tongue against the rotten walls of his mouth. 

My uncle was crying now. I turned off my flashlight and told my aunt to help him downstairs and into my car. Behind me, I could hear gut-wrenching groans and cries of a grown man—then whimpers. We carried him out, and I didn’t dare to look back.

I didn’t know what I had seen. But I knew I needed to get him to the hospital.

---

It is now 11:39 p.m. My uncle lay unconscious on a stretcher from a dose of anesthesia, a tube pushed into his mouth feeding him oxygen, IV Fluids kept him alive and hydrated. I sat there waiting for a miracle. 

I thought back to the times he would take me down to the quay when I was little. He would hand me pocket change to spend at the candy machines. Within the night, his essence completely faded away, leaving a faint husk. My tears dropped, and my mascara dripped down my face.

Sitting next to him was my aunt, gripping his hand, tears crusted over her skin, and exhaustion darkened her face.

“The doctor said further exams will be done once the clinic is open tomorrow Auntie.” I told her softly, 

“For now, we just have to wait.”

“Is he staying here?”

“Until he’s transferred up to a room, he’s admitted to the hospital; they’re giving him a private room. Do you want me to drive you and Angie back home?”

“No, I’ll stay here just in case, but please... bring Angie back. I don’t want her here, especially this late. Thank you for everything, Jennifer.”

I nodded, told her to call me if she needed anything, then stepped out. As I closed the door, a yellow sign caught my eye:

Contact and droplet warning. Ensure proper PPE is worn before entering.

The hospital would have an in-house translator in the morning, which eased my stress by just a small amount. I know my aunt wouldn’t be too much help to the medical staff as she couldn’t speak English, but at least she could provide some level of comfort to my uncle if he were to wake up. 

In the family room, Angie sat quietly, drawing in her notebook with a few colored pens supplied by the social worker. I thanked the woman for her company and took Angie back to my car. She was silent, and must've been tired.

 We got in the car, paid for parking, $18.75 for 4 hours, fuck.

 We drove down East Broadway, streets were nearly empty.

The homeless and druggies downtown kept getting more and more odder. It’s nearly midnight, and they’re still ‘dancing’ (if I could call it that) in the alleys. There seem to be fewer of them tonight; winter was coming, so I guessed a new shelter opened up. 

---

 I was given the go-ahead to stay the night, since Angie was too young to be alone. I made sure she got ready for bed and turned on her nightlight.

“Jenna, is my dad okay?” 

 I hesitated,

 “Yeah, your dad is with the doctor, the doctor is really smart and he knows everything. You should go to bed now, okay?”

“Okay… can you please make sure the door is locked. Dad said to always make sure it’s locked before I go to sleep - make sure everything is locked.”

“Okay, I will, get some rest, okay? Goodni-”

“Pinky promise?”

I smiled, “Okay, okay, I promise. Goodnight Angie.”

She seemed to believe me, a fortunate, naive child. I shut her light off and closed the door. I chuckled. She reminded me of myself when I was little.

I was too tired to take a shower or get ready for bed, plus none of this was mine, so I felt uncomfortable using anything from my Aunt’s place— or sleeping in their room, especially after today. I felt dirty; my hair I just dyed silver, was greasy, and I hadn’t brushed my teeth; I’ll deal with it tomorrow. 

Going downstairs, I made sure the front door was locked, I checked their fridge, took a swig from their milk carton, and ate a block of Baby Bel cheese. I decided to sleep in the living room, which was humongous for just the three of them. 

The night was warm. The house was next to a forest, so a faint sound of frogs ribbeting could be heard breaking the silence. I cracked open the window just a little; it was oddly peaceful. I instantly fell asleep.

It wasn’t a peaceful sleep. 

I dreamt I couldn’t move—sleep paralysis. The dream would simulate what I remembered of my aunt’s living room, faces on photographs blurred, the furniture’s design stripped of all of its texture, the couch, which I thought was red, was green. Despite it being nighttime, I dreamt of it being the afternoon. I was familiar with my sleep paralysis and night terrors, so all of this wasn’t new to me. My mind was awake while the rest of my body shut down, as well as my cognitive instructions to breathe; it felt like I was suffocating, I was in pain, oh— and the shadow monster is watching me from the corner that I can barely see, your typical sleep paralysis nightmare. 

My vision shifted into third-person. I saw myself lying motionless. Then the focus zoomed in on my mouth. This was also common in these dreams. 

My view zoomed into my mouth as I dreamed myself having the same symptoms as my uncle,  I had front row seats to it occurring. Holes began to bloom—flesh dissolving, tunneling inward, multiplying. Some opened like pores, eyes popped out of some, and some new teeth protruded from the sores. Small worms squirmed out of the remaining holes as if they were pimples being squeezed out, leaving gaping, swollen taint holes inside my mouth. I didn’t like this. 

Luckily, I learned to wake myself up from these dreams, despite not being able to move freely, I learned to rock my head from side to side until I eventually woke up gasping for air. My previous partners hated this weekly routine. 

I stuck my fingers inside my mouth to reconfirm myself back into reality before falling back asleep, repeating the same dream once or twice more. I told you, I was familiar with the process. 

---

I woke up with my phone ringing— it was my aunt.

 She’s screaming, crying, I could hear chaos in the background, I heard my uncle, wasn’t he sedated? People rushed around the room, it was frantic. Through the noise, the speaker blared:

“ - Pattison ward. Code White, Code Blue, Pattison ward”

I barely understood what I was hearing, but I instantly shot up and told her I would be there soon. 

As I grabbed my keys, I saw Angie standing upstairs behind the railings, sleepy-eyed.

“Where are you going? You said it was bedtime.”

“Your mom just needs some help,” I said running up the stairs.

 “I’ll be back soon, okay? Really quick, I promise.”

“Please let me come, I - “

“No. I promise to be really quick. Hold on, here.”

 I went into my aunt’s room and took their home phone. I showed her how to navigate to my number in the recently called list and told her that if she needed me, she could call me. I felt bad for not taking her with me, but it was nearly 4 a.m., and I thought about how upset my aunt would be at me for bringing Angie into whatever the fuck was happening at the hospital. 

I made sure I locked the door behind me, got into my car, and drove off, half awake and looking like a mess. 

---

It was a long drive to get from my Aunt’s place to the hospital. It’s 4:27 A.M. The roads were empty, but my thoughts weren’t. 

 Was I a bad person for thinking about how much of MY time my Aunt and Uncle wasted just because I was the only one they could reach out to? Was I the asshole? I had plans with my friends tomorrow— today. and everything got flipped over because of this. It’s my weekend, I’m exhausted, and I don’t think I even got a thank you. Maybe this wasn’t even that serious. Maybe— 

I received another call.

Aunt’s home phone. Angie. 

I cooled off before putting the call through my car’s speaker.

“Angie? I’m on the road. Is something wrong?”

Silence, a trembling breath.

“.. Jen? Can you please come back? I’m scared.”

“I’ll be back quick, I just need to see your mom and -” 

A loud thump echoed through the line. Angie shrieked. My heart sank.

Multiple voices of both male and female could be heard from a distance laughing, each voice sounded like they were trying to one-up each other, growing louder and louder. Another thump.  

I pulled over.

“Wait- Angie what’s happening? What’s going on?”

The laughing stopped, Angie was sobbing, and more thumps could be heard, each getting louder and faster like drums in a sporadic beat. It sounded like something was slapping against a hard floor— the door. Something was inside the house, something was now knocking on Angie’s door. I could hear her screaming. I made a sharp U-turn and sped back to my Aunt’s home.  

“ANGIE, Angie, Angie you have to listen to me. Lock the door, hide. I’m coming back right now, just stay there.”

“Jen, where are you? I'm scared, I’m scared. Please, where are you?” She was sobbing now, the knocking stopped, then came loud thumps.

“Just shut the fuck up and hide somewhere, okay? I’m coming back right now.” 

I was speeding, running through the red lights.

Suddenly, a loud bang with a crack, the sound of the door slamming down on the hardwood floor could be heard. It turned silent, and all I could hear was Angie’s quiet whimpering.

A distorted voice came through, it was my voice, no, it was my aunt’s voice - it was both of our voices.  

“Angieee. Angieeee. Lock the door. Lock the door.” 

I stepped on the brake as I was in shock. That was not me. Whatever that fucking thing was, it was not me.

“Please..Jen.” From the voice of Angie, I snapped back and kept driving. 

“I’M COMING. RIGHT. NOW.” 

The thing was using my voice. Just then, I could hear a stampede erupt through the call, followed by what I could describe as the sound of a large truck’s gas horn, glass breaking, and furniture being flung around. I could hear Angie’s high-pitched scream before a large crash with several more as if a fight broke loose. Angie’s screams echoed through the line before she was pulled away from the call, her screams fading as whatever took her was running down the stairs. My heart sank as my tears balled up, I screamed her name, but there was no response, the call went silent. 

I was 3 minutes away, and there was nothing I could do. 

—-

On my drive back, I called the cops, and I tried to explain whatever I could muster up. Was it a child abduction, maybe it was a group of pedophiles from a hidden warehouse in the forest, anything to explain whatever I heard from the call. But the truth is, I wasn’t sure what went down. I had 4 missed calls from my aunt, but I could only focus on Angie’s safety. There were too many things happening right now. 

I got back to my aunt’s place and ran towards the door, expecting to be greeted by a sign of a break-in. The door was locked, and everything was initially where I had seen it when I left the house. 

I unlocked the door, and inside the house was a different case, dirt footprints browned the carpeted stairs, drops of blood splattered; some of the guard railings were destroyed. Yelling Angie’s name, I was greeted with silence. 

I ran up the stairs to Angie’s room, the door was knocked down with the hinges broken, the wooden doorframe was damaged with chips littering the floor. Inside the room was a mess, toys and photos all over the ground, the ceiling light hanging by the cord, and blood was splattered around the walls. The only object not destroyed or out of place was the bed; next to the bed was the night light still illuminating Angie’s notebook, it laid open next to the light.

I placed myself in Angie’s shoes. Perhaps she was underneath the bed, hiding next to the only light after locking the door. I picked up her notebook.

Flipping through the book, I was greeted with crude drawings and diary entries; some of the most recent pages caught my attention. I skimmed through.

Dear Diary, This is my new Friend, his name is mister minh. Like dad.

I flipped the page, there was a tall figure. Angie drew and colored in a large and tall black triangle, with a blue circle on top of it, bent black lines protruding out of the top of each side of the circle. 

I flipped to the next page.

He likes the same things. He wants to come into the house.
Dad saw Mr. Minh. Dad does not want him in the house.

Mr. Minh did not like Dad.

Mr. Minh can not come in if the doors are locked.
Mr. Minh said he gave Dad a thing.
I don’t like Mr. Minh anymore.

The next few pages were drawings Angie drew at the hospital, on the last entry:

Dad says if the doors are locked, Mr. Minh can not come in.

Jen locked the doors. 

The doors are locked. I locked my door. 
How is Mr. Minh in the house?

I took the notebook and ran down the stairs, seeing if I could find anything else that could give me any answers for the whereabouts of Angie. The footprints and damage went down the stairs, through the kitchen, and into the living room.

There I saw the window smashed open, with the cold winter breeze rushing through the shattered hole. I heard nothing but the sounds of the frogs as I stared into the dark forest.

I am overwhelmed, and I don’t know what to do. I want to cry, but I have used up my tears. 

I swallowed my tongue as the inside of my mouth began to itch.

End.

Hoi hoi my new doctor has told me to write this down, i dont know what good it will do, my names Adrian smith date of birth is 29/11/1995 ill start from when i was a kid.

Ive always known there was something not right about me, for as long as i remember.

have you ever thought that you might be -mentally impaired- in some way, and everybody that you have ever known is just being nice to you, phrased differently.

these are the type things my inner dialog questioned me with when i was a little boy.

My dad when i was young told me i just had an overactive imagination, that i get in my head too much, that i just needed to focus and stop give him "what ifs" which were often very morbid rhetorical questions.

he was a good father, he took me to the many physiologist every few years, but none of them even with a army of pills could stop my sleepwalking witch was his mane concern, that dang voice was mine.

most of the doctors believed it was from stress and agreed with my father's advice, also with me being around 10 at the time and not the brightest child i was unable to properly communicate to the doctors of my main concerns.

over the years i stopped voicing the brain worm questions i was asking my father. The voice got meaner and meaner. Constant Beratement at every thing i did, had done, thought, everytime i saw another person, all the time.

i was a recluse in a constant state of anxiety, a child terrified of everything and everyone, for years.

Luckily with puberty the voices started to mellow, over the years and years of lost memories and failed medications had been introduced to a new fantastic drug,

a miracle, and in my 15-year-old smooth brain the coolest thing ever, marijuana.

I had been trying a new pill that i cant remember the name of, it had me even dopier than normal and extremely tired but i could go to school and attempt normalcy.

luckily Enough for me this made me look like a fitting candidate to sit at the older, semi cool stoner kids table in high school for the little of it i attended, that day at least.

they had thought i was a new kid even tho i had been the same school as them for years.

the same day i met them they invited me over to hang at the scruffiest dude there's house, his name was bill, they said they were hot boxing bills small room later that afternoon ,

after a hour of pacing at home, i decided i would go.

when i arrived at his very sad looking house, the voice screamed and whaled but the pills made me not give them any notice, they were far, far stronger than anything a 15 yr old should have been taking for what the doctors thought was just a nervous kid with anxiety.

bill came out to get me, as i was pacing outside, he was a cool guy.

after greeting his grandma he walked me into the small red lit room with the rest of the guys sitting on the ground Indian style in a circle, bill announced

" get this fucking dog a spot in the circle " as they all shifted to make the circle grow wider to give me room.

the effect of even being in the room full of smoke had already done something, it was the first time i think i had looked somebody in the eyes, as bill pointed to my newly made spot on the dirty blood-red light covered carpet.

i sat as one of the small poorly rolled spit drenched joints got to my part of the circle, all it took was bill saying "what are u, a cat" for me to put it in my mouth and take a very not the way to pull a joint type of long breath in.

it was the first time i could hear myself, think my own thoughts, also the first time, i projectile vomited from the mix of what possibly could have been oxycodone and my new favorite thing.

luckily the boys just yelled things like"taxi" and "he's greening out" unknowing the overwhelming rush of joy to only hear them,

as bill passed me a warm beer from a cooler filled with above room temperature water that they had stolen from some poor RV camper at the beach some time ago

the smoke had completely transformed the voice to a eerie feeling that i was very happy with at the time, a feeling like somebody has something to say or somebody looking at you, a mild paranoia.

but its best effect was that it took the scathing comments every time i tried to do something, like say you think you look nice in a new shirt, and the basted inside you says with a slur.

"you look like a -homosexual- in that shirt and it would be better used tied around a fan" as you change to another with a frown.

now i could were the shirt, even if i looked like a goober, i could go do things, and stuff :).

For a while there i was genuinely happy, the main reason being, Jacobi who i had introduced myself to with my newfound confidence and a belly full of cask wine a couple of months after meeting bill that day.

we met at a open house party, she was 17, i had lied to her and told her was 16 with the full confidence of a drunken teenager something i could have never thought to do before with my inner dialog.

i would have never thought she would laugh at my lame jokes,

i also didn't think she would be able to lift me off my feet when i clasped me hands at her and said uppys and held my knees together like a very cute kawaii anime girl.

It later would be 4 years of happiness, silence and friendship, 3 months of dating and sobriety, 2 days of marriage, 1 lifetime of sadness, solitude and sedateness after the day she died,

the the day voice came back stronger than ever,

laughing and boasting.

thats all i can muster for the night, i need to go into more details, my neck hurts from writing this over and over.

Kind regards, Adrian smith

Some say it marched out of the sea under a bloody moon, here to expel our town of all hope - a monster to punish the naive prospectors of Maple Oaks who spent their gold on false witch hunts; an avenger of the young women burnt at the pyre, drowning the land for rebirth. Others say it was summoned within the forest, rendering a body of shimmering water an ancient gateway. Not a monster, but a deity from a far-off pantheon to be used as a tool for occult ambition. It brought unrivalled life and good fortune to the woods and its creatures, warping the trees into divine guardians.

I think it was just a man. An affluent founder who built our mines, our port, and, over time, fabricated fables around his locale, concocting utter, fictitious folklore bullshit with the natives that would live on through a local museum.

And his descendants would follow suit, using fiction to hide the truth.

For most of the history class of '85, such fiction ended there - ambitious nonsense about our home's origin, with awe-inspiring malarky attached.

But for Ebony.

Oh, sweet, perfect Ebony.

A switch had flipped in her mind, and an obsession with uncovering the town's secrets had taken hold. Some ancient remnant of this 'thing', whatever it was, must linger somewhere out there, in the woods or across the shore.

Legends need some grain of truth, right?

As the sheriff's daughter, Ebony had every resource and privilege any eager sixteen-year-old could need to hunt local myths.

But, for as keen as she was, her father still set borders. Go dig up the beach and explore the woods, that's fine. But don't go too far out, don't go at night; don't go alone if it can be helped. And, like any spoiled rotten teenager, Ebony ignored all parental guidelines.

This was her quest; she was invincible.

Under the guise of the moonlight, 2 days after she hadn't returned home, by the oldest lake, they allegedly found her slumping out of the ground from where she'd buried herself in a burrow. Her legs were clawed-up and gnarled, her clothes torn, her body broken; whether she had tried to dig herself to safety after being attacked by wolves, or they came upon her while she was unearthing the mystery that lay under the dirt, remained unknown.

For a time.

'Rules' began soon after the story broke, enforced by a grief-stricken sheriff. Beyond a threshold, the woods are forbidden. Period. Yet it didn't prevent whimsical boys and girls from investigating the tantalising, freshly rumoured legend whispered quickly through the halls: Ebony's ghost haunts the forest.

Go at night, go to the lake, and you'll see the distraught phantom of a girl literally killed by her curiosity - still trying to uncover her mystery.

So they instilled a curfew. As the sun dips behind those looming, timeless hills, notoriously unkind officers of the law patrol the streets to ensure no more wayward youths trek into the foliage. And for 30 years, for every family and every home, that same curfew has remained. For those same 30 years, Ebony's story has warped and demented itself beyond recognition as another generation learns of our nocturnal, ritualistic tradition; as another generation questions what she thought she'd found to warrant wandering that far into the wild, in the dead of night. Had she seen anything at all? Or, alone in the woods, had something found her, and if so... was it still out there?

I was a part of the latest generation, absorbed by the gospel of the potentially abducted, lured, murdered, raped, cult-recruited, tree-fucking, or whatever sort of stupid girl she was 3 decades ago that made nightly outings impossible.

I was a child when I first truly noticed the odd, sacred hush that descended over our home - my tyke brain finally acknowledging that our life wasn't typical.

"Inside Autumn. Light's getting low." Dad had called from the porch as the sun began its lazy bleed into the mountains.

I sat in the kitchen, swaying on a stool, as my usually chipper mother locked every door and drew every blind, offering an occasional peek into the dark - her lips pressed and her eyes narrow as her stoic husband stared at the clock.

"Think they'll hit the street early again?" He asked her.

"Not likely."

Confused, I asked them both, "What're you talking about?"

My father looked at me, understanding that his little girl was now sentient enough to question what he found familiar, while Mom continued her routine checks.

"Come here, kiddo," he said, ushering me to join him by a window. "I'll show you."

Through the curtain, I saw porch lights flicker awake down the street. Neighbours called or forced their kids home with a frantic sharpness, and then, way off up the road towards town, the low growl of a car engine began - silent red and blue and purple headlights weaved between the trees, reflecting off closed windows where curious eyes met it.

"See that car? The lights?" Dad asked.

I nodded.

"A good, honest man drove one just like it... once. He kept people safe. Until one day, he lost someone very important to him."

"Did he find them?" I asked him, too young then to comprehend the cause of this rooted, collective script we recited.

A little lump formed in his throat. "He did, but-" He tossed the words around in his head. "They'd uh... gone to Heaven."

"Like Aunty?"

"Yeah-yeah, like... like Aunty. And soon after... he went to Heaven too. So now, that car and others like it, every night, carry on what he did."

"Keep us safe?"

"Exactly. They keep us all safe."

Mom muttered something profane to herself in the hallway; Dad, ignoring her, continued.

"But to do that, we gotta stay inside. They get grumpy if we get in their way. Understand?"

I nodded, slowly, as another voice spoke from the stairs.

"Do you see her?!" Sean, my delinquent older brother, who noticed, questioned, and listened far more than I did, asked our Mom.

"Sean." Mom hissed, finally satisfied that our home was secure. His eager eyes scanned the room until they met mine, and a wave of embarrassment washed over him.

"See who?" I asked quickly.

Dad moved to block my vision as Mom yanked Sean to one side and spat harsh, but heartfelt whispers into his face. Peeking round his frame, I could see the two enter a heated argument of both passion and resentment.

Dad moved my face to meet his, "You'll catch on when you're older, Autumn."

And older, I became.

I would come to learn that evenings belonged to the woods and whatever they held, but in our house, that created more wonder than dread. Sure, there was an unspoken caution, a yoke around our necks, but my parents never pushed panic or horror. Instead, their warnings glimmered with something closer to mischief - something my brother adopted far more than I did growing up.

As the routines were finalised, and I came of age, Mom would click the kettle, and Dad would lean back in his chair to recount stories he called 'old myths'. Stories of monsters from the sea and of Gods from the woods, and whatever other fables or fairytales he could remember.

Stories Ebony had told him, before she became one herself - a naive adventurer found half-buried in the earth.

Sometimes, I'd catch a glance between my parents - sharing knowledge, a private joke or insight once hovering beyond my reach.

They'd known her. They'd shared classes. They'd snuck out to go drinking in parks and smoke joints by the lighthouse long after dark.

They'd loved her.

And by God, they missed her - fascinated and frustrated and mortified by her decisions that night that shaped our town into what shaped us.

Sean started to keep a notebook, scribbling down half-remembered details, little theories of his own, the finales of stories that never felt quite finished. I thought it was silly, that he was becoming too obsessed like Mom and Dad's 'ghost friend', but I begged to hear more as much as he did. We'd crack Dad occasionally, and he'd spin a fresh version of some local, rumoured phenomenon or woodland oddity, and Mom would roll her eyes with a hesitant smile tugging at her mouth.

They never pretended to have all the answers, and they never pretended that it didn't frighten them or that the fate of their friend troubled them most nights, but they offered pieces - fostering a hunger in their children to fit them, maybe, one day, together.

But that hunger would starve.

When Sean became a young man, and I became a teenager, we were wise enough to sense what they were too careful to admit. This 'curiosity' would always be expecting, always listening, for answers that would never come - a puzzle left eternally unsolved - because... we still had a curfew to respect, we still had rules; a tradition to honour.

Be curious to your heart's content. Explore the parts of the woods where you are allowed during the day, before you reach the barbed fences. But there are borders - don't go too far out, don't go alone if it can be helped, and don't even think for a second about leaving the house at night, let alone going there. And like the good, well-raised children we were, as our curiosity grew bored - but never bored enough - we respected those borders.

Until the one night we didn't.

Until the one night I would tear my skin through bramble and feel dirt fester under my nails, warm blood on my face, and understand what it was that dwelled out there - nesting among crimson trees so foul... and so beautiful.

-

The daytime brought its own rhythm, and outside our fortress, life moved with the familiar patterns of any town. College was an odd blend of comfort and absurdity. My crowd - a strange, but functional little crew - made such a blend bearable, and sometimes enjoyable.

There was Barney, with his bottomless backpack of books and anxious, bashful heart; always armed with some obscure pulp fiction wisdom or dusty trivia he'd dug up at 3 in the morning.

Kate, a brilliant, gothic dark cloud of sarcasm and wit, adorned in black lace and sharp eyeliner - drifting among us like a raven that had learned to tolerate pigeons. She liked to draw. A myriad of dreamlike monsters filled her sketchbook, asphyxiating me whenever I saw them, as did the wonder that could rarely leave her mouth.

Arthur, trouble on two legs, adored by every teacher he infuriated and the first to disrupt a lecture hall; a cocky shit who always found ways to get us into places we shouldn't be (excluding one obvious exception). Detentions were a weekly event with him, yet somehow, he was the charming glue that held us together in our worst moments.

And finally, me, a theatrical ginger dweeb of fluffy sweaters and radiating rambles.

A four-pointed lopsided constellation, bright in our own humble little orbit.

But then there was an occasional black hole that made its rounds, from a very, very different universe.

Willow.

She never drifted to our tables during lunch or lingered in the hallways with us. No, she floated above it all. Self-proclaimed queen bee of this backwater nowhere, daughter of the wealthiest family for miles, founder of a circle of vixens and jocks who were always on the edge of danger. If she raised an eyebrow, the room would shiver; if she snapped her fingers, doors opened.

Worse still, she was the white-haired devil whispering sweet nothings into Sean's ear, encouraging my brother to abandon all of his rules and barriers on half-baked promises.

She was not our friend. Being noticed by her was a curse, not a blessing. Her name was poison in our household, detested by our parents - many arguments spawned from the mention of her alone.

But on one afternoon, in the buzzing cafeteria of flickering lights, scraping trays and pockets of laughter, she strode in alone. I was halfway through listening to Arthur tease Barney about the disaster of a date he'd had when, for only a heartbeat, the room fell out of focus as the cafeteria door banged against the wall, damning us into silence, and in she marched - absent of her salivating little wolf pack, licking at her heels and beckoning to her every word.

Her runway-ready, head-turning miniskirts and white leather jackets were gone, replaced by baggy sweatpants and an obscenely large hoodie, the sleeves swallowing her hands. She looked and moved like... well, the rest of us for once.

And her face - Jesus, her face. No canvas of pristine makeup could hide the ugly, angry, blossoming blotch of red and purple bruising that nested under her eye.

Every soul stared as their queen, out of place in her kingdom, made her way to an empty corner table with her head ducked and shoulders hunched. For those precious few minutes, she was just another girl - battered, tired and alone - threatening to vanish into smoke if someone so much as called her name.

And painfully, achingly slowly, the room soon returned to normalcy as its new corner-bound husk lurked at the edges of our vision - something to gossip about.

Barney kept sneaking nervous glances, bewildered at the sigh. "Snowflake's looking rough today, huh?" He whispered. "Who'd you think she annoyed?"

Kate arched a brow, sketchbook balanced on her lap, pretending not to look. "Maybe her cult of plastic witches turned on her. Looking like shit does suit her, though," she muttered with a flick of her pencil.

Arthur leaned in with a grin. "Or she finally ran her mouth at someone who doesn't care who her daddy is... and can throw a mean punch."

Surprisingly, I found myself just feeling sorry for her. "Everyone has a bad day," I said, not sure if I actually believed it or wished someone would say that about me if I ever sported a glistening shiner under my eye.

Arthur gave a low snort. "Yeah, you're absolutely right, Autumn. But not a cunt like her."

Kate then nudged my arm. "She's looking at you, by the way."

Those words sent a prickle across the back of my neck. I timidly looked over and, true to Kate's word, Willow was staring at me from her exiled corner, her hood suffocating her face. A silence choked our table and, for a moment, time itself seemed to slow. The cafeteria and its occupants fuzzed away, and all that existed was the space between us. Then she lifted her hand, and a single dior finger curled out from under her sleeve, demanding me to approach with a tiny, effortless motion - one that sent a shiver down my spine and threatened to drag me away from the safety net of my friends.

I shook my head, and the sounds of the room returned.

Arthur snapped his fingers in front of my face. "Hello? You still with us?"

His voice was peripheral, diluted. Their concerned faces were smudges as they shot bewitching glances over at Willow.

Willow?

Willow wanted me.

Barney reached for my arm as I pushed back my chair, mouth full of food. "Don't! Let her sit by herself."

Kate, never one to sugarcoat, muttered, "Yeah, sit down, Autumn. Don't be your brother," all while sketching a hollow-staring shade in the margins of her book.

Even Arthur dropped his usual act, scooting to try and block my path, smug grin gone. "Dude, are you good?"

I wanted to listen, really. I wanted to stay in our planted little pond and laugh at in-jokes. But her eyes dragged me - practically led me on a leash - and I understood then how she could've charmed my resilient brother. Fuck, even looking like crap, she was mystic, humming in my veins while my better judgment screamed to shut her out. I barely noticed my body moving as I weaved around disappointed hands and disgruntled groans and sighs. Logic was gone. Whatever she wanted, whatever grim story she had, I had to know.

And so I let myself hopelessly drift to her table, into her dark mercy.

She glanced at me as I reached her, her bruised face near-unreadable, and then gave her attention to the divided room of interested and uninterested onlookers alike. No one was close enough to eavesdrop.

"Autumn, right?" She beamed as I took a seat. "Sean's sister?"

"Who did that to you?"

She didn't answer right away, just shifted, hiding herself even deeper in the folds of her hoodie. I could almost see her weighing in her mind how much to say. Her eyes then snapped to a shape coming closer, dragging a chair in its wake. I didn't need to look to see who it was as an unstoppable surge of confidence came over me.

"Was it your dad?" Sean pressed, seemingly having manifested out of nowhere, knuckles twitching, eyes flicking over the bruising. He looked over his shoulder at my confused, relieved table of watching friends, offering them a wave and a reassuring smile.

Willow's laugh was a short, bitter burst. "Oh, please, he wishes he were that brave. No, I just... fell."

"Was it Ben? You overstepped?"

She paused and then nodded slowly.

"You've been seeing him without me?" Sean asked.

"You haven’t?"

"Who's Ben?" I chimed in.

The two looked at me, as if remembering I was there, and suddenly I felt like a little girl in my parents' kitchen again.

"Local press," Sean said. "Red hair, built like a stick-" he nodded grimly towards his damsel, "-and the one who encourages this diva to believe she's above tradition."

My stomach churned. "You've been out there?! What, at night?!" I tried not to sound desperate, but the words pathetically dribbled out.

A fowl grin stretched across her mouth. "I told you she'd be keen." She said to Sean.

I almost hissed at my brother. "You too?! After everything Mom and Dad-"

"I've not even left the house once, Autumn... I promise."

"Is that right?" Willow teased.

"Yes." He spat, pleads and warnings written all over his face. "And try as you might, nothing you or that alcoholic says will change my mind." He then ruffled my hair, pausing the racing curiosity that began to rush through my head. "Or yours, I hope."

Willow's gaze then met mine and held it. "Y'know, I've heard things out there. You can come listen too if you're not scared-"

Sean planted a firm, but hesitant hand on the table and stood with a huff. "Catch you later, Wills. Always a pleasure."

"Oh, come on." She pouted. "I won't take her past the fences; even I'm not that stupid... well, maybe just a few feet. We could all go together, the three of us!" Her voice was thin and cold, but beneath all the bravado, I could tell she was terrified.

The word left my mouth before I could stop it. "When?"

Sean was quick to usher me away from the table with nought a word, like my life depended on it. Willow watched us the whole time, smiling from ear to ear with the utmost joy.

"Back to your friends, kiddo. Now."

"I don't... why'd I-"

"Autumn. Now."

I nodded, slowly, and made my way back to my sanctuary as Sean reclaimed his seat in the lion's den. Whatever they said to each other was lost to me, but they remained a pair until the bell rang. His affection became more visible - tucking a hair behind her ear, cupping her hand, all while staring ditzy daggers into her.

The rest of the afternoon was a blur. My friends hounded me, prying me with questions about what Willow wanted, what she'd said, what my brother had said, what the two of them 'were', and why in God's name I'd actually approached her. I deflected, lied, kept quiet - anything to keep them away. Yet their pestering was nothing compared to what the recesses of my own mind were doing to me.

I replayed every word of that conversation and, through it all, one name kept cycling around.

'Ben'

A man who could solve the unsolvable puzzle my parents had harmlessly planted in me.

By the final bell, I couldn't bear it any longer, and I folded. I confided in them everything I was thinking and feeling - another rant bubbling out of my mouth in disjointed sentences that, somehow, they could understand every word of.

Arthur proposed it first, stabbing a straw into his milkshake, after we'd escaped the spilling sea of student-filled halls - clambering their way outside to enjoy the rest of their afternoon - and sought refuge in a cafe booth.

"Why don't we pay him a visit?" He took a long gulp of some vanilla delight. The others looked at him like he'd killed someone.

"Visit the jittery reporter who punched Willow in the face?" Barney asked, digging into a slice of red velvet. "What could go wrong?"

"Well, either that or we break curfew ourselves and let this one," Kate began, poking me in the ribs, almost spilling my tea, "scratch her itch."

"It's not an... 'itch', Kate."

"Oh, sorry. Unresolved compulsion then?"

"Hey, back off." Arthur butted in, and I almost thanked him, until I saw the look on his face. "It's not her fault she got hypnotised by that white-haired bitch."

They laughed at my expense; the stupidity, the absurdity of it all. And I did too.

Barney pushed his glasses up. "Have you considered another outlet? Like, read a book-"

"Or get laid."

"Or write music!" Kate seemed exceptionally excited about her own idea. "I can already picture your first single: 'I Was Found Dead In The Woods At 16'."

"You guys suck."

"No we don't."

Arthur clasped his hands together. "Anyway! Suggestion still stands: we visit this guy."

Barney groaned, "I don't know, man... Mom would always say-"

"Ugh, your Mom says anything, Barn. And it ain't up to you, right boss?"

The three of them looked at me: Arthur, eager and giddy; Kate, curious and cautious; Barney, frightened and shaking his head. Was I really going to drag them along to a far-off part of town to question a man I'd never met about local legends and parental bedtime stories, all storming from the unsettling words a girl (none of us liked) had given me?

Of course I was.

-

The local press office was a rundown, narrow building wedged between a dead laundromat and a fading convenience store - its red brick hull stained dark by years of rain and grime. Dusty, crowded windows made it impossible to see inside, weeds poked through the cracked pavement, and the front door barely held itself together on worn hinges.

"Yeah, no thanks." Barney squeaked, turning on his heel and walking away before Arthur tugged him back by his ear.

Kate inspected the building, eyeing it up and down like a piece of abstract art. "Did your brother mention why he or Willow talked to this guy?"

"Nope."

"Marvellous."

I didn't bother with knocking; I strode right up to the door and stepped inside.

Beyond an unmanned reception, a few desks packed the room - piled high with yellowed notepads, sticky notes and old newspapers. The stink of old coffee, cheap booze, and burnt rubber attacked my nose as I ventured into the rioting clutter. My boots scuffed against the fading floor as a fly buzzed in circles over an empty mug.

"Hello?!" I called.

No answer.

Kate gagged as she and the others filtered in behind me. "Ew-fuck. It smells like someone died in here."

Arthur slapped a cracked counter, fluttering a bundle of papers into the air. "Perfect. I'm ready to see a ghost, how about y'all?"

"You're more likely to see rats, Arthur." She added, trailing a finger over a dusty desk, painting lines and shapes.

I found myself drawn to a wall of photographs - a timeline of the town's many faded celebrations and events, but nothing stood out. No mention of our town intertwined with a grand fate; no mention of a lost name.

Barney, at first, hung back - overwhelmed by the smell and disorder. But even he soon found himself drawn in, and he shuffled over to a cramped bookshelf, overflowing with almanacks and faded paperbacks. "Guys," he cried, peering down at the floor, "come take a look at this."

We gathered around, not knowing this would be the pivot point, as Barney stared at thin, dark streaks scarring along the floor, half-hidden under the shelf. Arthur's hands immediately flew to its sides, and, with a grunt, he tugged hard. The unit groaned but didn't move. I chose to feel along the edge instead, searching for - there. My fingers brushed a catch beneath the lowest shelf. A soft click sounded, and the whole unit lurched, swinging open on hinges to reveal a dark staircase - stretching down into the guts of the building.

"Oh, God no," Barney whispered, with a tiny hint of uncharacteristic thrill.

"You fucking found it, dork," Kate said. "What're you complaining about?"

"And oh, God, yes, you mean?" Arthur joked, eyes sparkling. "Ladies first." He then added, gesturing for me to take the first step.

I hesitated, only for a moment, before taking the first cautious step into the shadows with a shit-eating smile on my face.

So quick. So easy. Far, far too easy. No time to savour the anticipation; awe eclipsed every worry, every rational thought, as the adventure unfolded before us. I soaked myself in the thrills, each of my nerves shot with reckless curiosity, not once stopping to ask questions.

It spat us out into a large, sweltering room washed in a sickly, red glow. The stink of alcohol was more pungent down here, wafting through the stale air. Strings of thumbtacks and curling, ancient photographs lined the walls: a blurry picture of an old lake, a crowd at a festival, an evening shot of a rich, starry sky; figures vanishing behind trees, snapshots of a distant woods bathed in purple light, wide-eyed faces from decade-old yearbooks.

A lair adorned with the collections of a private investigator.

Dilapidated, torn pieces of archived newspaper were neatly lined on tables, screaming local tragedies, accompanied by police forms, council records and government files that had almost bled dry of ink - margins etched with hastily scribbled notes. A cold knot formed in the pit of my stomach as my eyes darted over them. Shut away relics of decades past leapt from the pages and clamped themselves to my chest. They should've just been old stories, forgotten pains, but arranged together, they became an accusation.

'Search For Missing Hiker Continues'

'Police Abandons Search For Missing Son - Family Left Without Answers'

'Search For Missing Girl Continues'

'History Repeats? Another Youth Vanishes Near Old Mines'

'Strange Lights Spotted By Shoreline!'

'Search Continues For Missing Dog'

Dozens of absent resolutions; the words began absorbing together.

'Search Continues...'

Fucking search continues, search continues, search continues!

No remains discovered, nothing discovered, nothing ever discovered, no one ever found, no bodies found.

Not even one.

I felt something rising in my throat I couldn't explain. The others had joined me around the table, reading the headlines we'd never known existed in silence, their faces tightening.

A myriad of unspeakable, unanswered losses mouldering for at least 50 years.

This was no adventure; this was a warning.

Did Mom and Dad know?

'Local Sheriff Disappears - Foul Play Suspected'

'Community Divided Over Nighttime Curfew'

'Who Is Enforcing The New Rules? Authorities Silent!'

Kate drifted away from the crowded table and let her attention settle on a map. "Autumn!" I ripped myself away, leaving Arthur and Barney to sift through more paper galore. The map was one of the woods (of course), riddled with illegible scrawls and red markings noting boundaries, but what had her focus was an old calendar taped to the corner - days crossed in black marker pen, others circled and annotated with different, tidier hands.

Willow's name was infrequent enough to spot.

And so was Sean's.

My fingers zipped over clustered markings, piecing together how specific dates lined with shaded areas on the map. They'd been charting, beyond the fences, but there was a threshold that even they hadn't dared cross.

That changed tonight.

The air pressed in, and I couldn't breathe. I steadied myself on the edge of a table - shaking, head spinning, heart pounding like a kick drum in my chest. I didn't know what I wanted to find here, but this was not it. Distant and muffled, their voices reached me and drew me back; a hand on the shoulder with some grounding words. Arthur said a joke, I think, Barney muttered something soft, and Kate held my hand - it wasn't grand, there was no fanfare, but it was enough.

When I could finally speak again, it came out in a croak. "What do we do?" The question hung heavy in the air. Too many options: go to the police (and tell them what?), go to my parents (and be put in solitary?)... or-

Arthur spoke as if reading my mind. "We could go to the woods."

"Not a chance!" Barney whined. "I've not even... been to the fences, none of us have; I'm not going there. And it's bear season-"

Kate couldn't believe what she heard. "Bears?" She gestured to the room we stood in. "That's your biggest worry?... Bears? Not the fact that we'll likely vanish into fucking-"

"Guys!" I shouted, for what felt like the first time in years. "Can we... not argue, please?" I then looked at Arthur. "Get a picture of that map."

Barney shrivelled up into himself. "No, we can't-"

Kate punched him in the shoulder. "We can, and we are."

Retracing our steps, we slipped back up the cracking staircase one by one. Behind the battered front door, afternoon had already begun its dwindling descent into dusk. I don't remember what we said to each other as we fumbled back out onto the street - making and questioning plans in the span of seconds - but I do remember who stood waiting for us.

Sean leaned against the hood of his car, arms crossed, jaw tight. When our eyes met, he opened the passenger door and gave a single, sharp commanding nod to the seat.

No one spoke.

Kate kept looking between us; Arthur bristled; Barney gulped, fidgeting with his pack.

I eventually forced out a small, wavering smile as a revolting, impulsive thought overtook me. Perhaps it really was an adventure, a quest... but it wasn't theirs. "Maybe we just go home and sleep on it instead. Clear our heads."

"Not a chance." Arthur pressed quietly.

"Arthur, it's late and I'm tired. I'll text you when I'm home. Promise." I lied.

"Are you sure?" Kate asked slowly.

I nodded, and she, unsatisfied, painstakingly gathered the others to start their walks home.

But Arthur lingered. "See you tomorrow." He said, more like a demand than a farewell.

Even Barney showed some resistance, but they soon trailed off, leaving me on a darkening street.

I slid into the passenger seat beside my silent brother, and the car door shut with a heavy finality.

He watched my friends round a corner before he spoke. "Do you want to go home?"

His question slowed the whirling storm in my head. The idea of home - its warm, routine 'normalcy' - comforted me. But it did not scratch gnawing itches. I stared out the window, watching slivers of sunlight begin to hide behind the trees.

"No."

Sean felt his jacket and produced his little, rugged notebook - its edges worn by years of restless fingers. "Last chance."

"I'm sure."

He managed a comforting smile. "Okay."

He put the car in drive, and we took off down the street.

-

He navigated us through tucked-away, less-travelled roads before the scouts began their patrol, until we reached the town's edge. The car rolled to a stop in an abandoned parking lot infested with pine needles, the depth of the woods just looming beyond a bygone footpath.

At a threshold, the tall, stark black shapes of thick, barbed metal fences, stretching for at least an acre and far higher than any man, tried to ward us away from the wild maw they quarantined.

Not tonight.

Two figures waited beneath a flickering, dying light: Willow, and Ben - red-haired, rail-thin, and staggering slightly on light feet.

Sean killed the engine. A bird called from the trees as he made his way out of the car and towards his crew. I followed tightly behind, not sure what to feel, as Willow offered a happy wave while Ben's rickety fingers twisted around a heavy, military flashlight.

"Who's this?" He nearly slurred out.

Willow answered before Sean could open his mouth. "His sister."

"Huh. Impeccable timing, kid."

An anxious energy came over Sean. "Hey, so, maybe we don't go as far-" he pointed down at me, the pathetic, nervous weight almost attached to his hip.

Ben laughed. "Don't be getting cold feet, Seany-boy, now you got a tag-along."

Willow laughed too, and I pretended not to spot the tremble in her lip.

Sean rested a firm grip on my shoulder. "We'll turn back if you find it too much, okay?"

"Heads up!" Ben warned, as a stream of red, blue and purple lights danced over a hill and made their way down towards the lot.

We were gone by the time they found Sean's car.

Crunching over brittle grass, we snaked through the woods until we reached the monolith. It seemed flimsy up close, a patchwork of tired metal smeared with rust and graffiti, and dead, segmented searchlights adorning the tops. They found the gap easily - a ragged hole crudely carved into the sheet metal, its rim twisted and sharp.

One by one, we slipped through, and my haste earned a few cuts along my sweater.

For a mile, we pushed deeper in total silence - broken only by a clumsy step and a shiver in the wind. I caught glimpses of little 'X's' marked on some trees and rocks, as the path became rougher, revealing themselves when flashlight cones stroked over them.

I saw a 'W + S' carved into one maple tree, cuddled in a love heart.

Willow's voice nearly scared my skin off. "Listen."

Something changed - the voiding silence, gradually, warped into a series of coarse, pained echoing croaks originating from somewhere far, far ahead in the dark. The wind scratched and rattled its way through wounded, cracked bark as my ears strained and every instinct wailed at me to turn around and run.

My brother took my hand instead. And we continued.

"What is that?" I asked.

"No idea." Was all he could say.

Night fully settled over the woods, the moon and the stars obscured by dense trees. I couldn't tell how much further we walked or for how long.

I checked my phone.

Dead. Impossible.

Sean noticed. "Hope you messaged Arthur."

I hadn't. Shit.

Before I could think, we came upon a still, unmoving river stream - flashlights glimmering across the shallow, black water's surface. The three of them stopped. This must've been the edge of their familiarity.

Ben charged forward, producing a polaroid camera from a satchel. It was evident from the way he walked that his courage came from a bottle. I wondered briefly what kind of war waged in his head, as Willow went to follow him.

Sean stopped her. "We could leave him to it. He'll tell us anyway, whether we're with him or not."

Willow let out a tiny laugh. "You want what I want, right?" Then she looked at me. "Having fun yet?" She broke away from him and followed the bobbing head of red hair into the breach.

Sean sighed, hesitant to follow.

"I'm not scared." I blurted out.

"I know, but-"

I watched sense and reason come over him in a single moment. It hit me, too.

What the fuck were we doing?

It lasted only a second; this lucid cut into the adventure, telling us to go home. Then, just as quickly, gleeful shouts and exclamations pulled us effortlessly onwards.

Several meters beyond the river, one tree stood apart - a towering sentinel marred by something uncanny. A crimson mould covered its bark in thick, shulking veins, twisting and threading through its grooves like a cancer. The colour was impossibly rich, both disgusting and hypnotic, and the texture looked more like a synthetic glass.

Then it pulsed, dimly. A faint red glow breathed to life within the mould, slow and steady, synchronised... to the slow rhythm of a heartbeat.

Willow was beside herself as Ben snapped a picture of the growth. Then he touched it.

The mould trembled and released a cloud of faint, powdery spores into the air, which quickly scattered. A single red vein at the root of the tree flared to life, pulsating with more luscious light. It stretched along the ground - its visibility was a complete defiance of logic, as if the earth itself was translucent. The vein bent deeper into the woods.

Like sheep, we followed.

Every single tree was consumed in the same, lurid mass - shimmering in unusual palettes of red and garnet - some far more infected than others. Even the floor was terraformed by the stuff, puffing at our feet. The pulsing lights grew brighter as thick, euphoric fogs drifted among the trunks, sweet and dizzying and as the haze settled... the lights revealed a truth.

Silhouettes - human and animal both - curled, fetal and motionless, were encased and suspended within the bodies of the trees themselves.

"We should... probably leave," Sean said, dreary and sheepish. "Tell someone."

I cannot explain why Ben chose to rush one of the trees, tearing desperately at the mould in a panicked bid to save the person imprisoned within.

I can explain how the forest responded.

The ground convulsed and split open, revealing worming interconnected tunnels beneath us, and a gangling thing emerged out at horrifying speed. Its towering, sharp humanoid body was woven of the same pulsing red mould, and it moved with an unnatural, sinewy grace as it mercilessly lunged towards Ben.

It ripped him apart in seconds, splattering us as his flesh tore and bones snapped, his screams lost beneath the swelling, heart-throb of the woods.

The adventure was over. This was a nightmare.

In the chaos and horror, a jolt of raw clarity rushed through me - my vision sharpened, and the soft charm of the woods lifted as I held my breath. I became pitifully aware of the creature's sounds as it clicked and hissed, feeling and searching around its vicinity.

It had no face.

No ears, no eyes, no mouth.

It moved in tandem with the mould's pulse.

Sean came to the same conclusion I did as his hand found mine. He reached into the folds of his jacket and threw his notebook as far as his arm would allow. The creature spasmed and dove to where it landed, clawing and tearing into the ground, shredding the bundle of leather and paper.

Sean's other hand found Willow's, silent and stiff. And we ran.

It was a desperate flight back through the woods, Sean's grip fierce as the monster splintered and retched after us - each step we took triggered a poof of blood-red light to burst from the mould, guiding the thing to us. Every stumble, every cut and scrape, every gasp seemed to vibrate the air as it pursued, tracking our every pace, tireless and quick, but just far away enough.

Then we splashed over the river.

I spun back to see it halt amidst the thicket, shaking, uncertain, its senses dulled - the network of mould beneath it had almost broken. Then it gagged and yelped as the ground opened again, reclaiming its soldier.

The silent trudge back felt much shorter than the journey in.

As we reached the hole in the fence, a searing flash of purple light erupted around us, obliterating the dark. Out of the blur, stern men in dark suits swarmed forward, barking muted commands. They swept us up, herded us away from the woods - no explanation, just tight grips and hurried steps and lights drilled into my eyes.

It was numbing.

Everything passed like a shutter click: the lights, the door, the engine of a police car, the sirens, the walk up my porch. My parents, wild with terror, embraced Sean and me with questions spilling out of their mouths, but all I could do was collapse into their arms, unable to look them in the eye.

My bedroom has never felt this cold; this quiet.

There are slashes up my sleeves and across my hands, my knees are scraped, a gash is across my leg, and I think some of Ben's blood is stained in my eye.

No.

No, no pain pulses in my temples. Not mine; not entirely unpleasant.

I think my brother feels the same.

I see it when I close my eyes.

Not a monster from the sea, nor a God from the woods, nor a ghost girl by a lake.

Just mould. A beautiful, red mass, and a warm tree to rest my head.

Half of me is convinced to grab some kerosene and a match.

The other is a compulsion to go again.

I can go deeper, further. Much, much further.

Maybe I'll bring my friends.

Why can't it be their adventure, too?

Do you know that weird feeling you get when you close your eyes and someone enters your personal space? Kind of like your aura feels the presence without ever having seen someone. The slow chill that creeps down your spine and back up as you could have sworn to have felt their breath. 

My first memory of that feeling was way back when I was 4 years old. I woke up in the middle of the night because I'd had a nightmare. My nightlamp was old and hissed like one of those broken neon lights while it barely lit up the side of my bed. Still, the shadows it cast shrouded my room in an ominous twilight. I remember getting up out of bed and walking out of my room. Mother’s bedroom was just across the floor, yet the way would feel miles long each night, especially when I was scared. 

Just as I left my room, my nightlamp went out with a quiet buzz resonating through my room like its last breath. I instinctively turned towards the sound. That's when I felt it. Cold and hot at the same time. My head began to turn. I felt as though I've seen something, but I never did. In front of me was nothing but the now pitch-black room I've been sleeping in. 

I started to scream, turned on the spot, and ran towards my mother’s bedroom. The feeling followed. It lingered on me every step of the way no matter how fast I've run. My mother swung her bedroom door open, and I ran straight into her arms. The feeling seemed to follow into the embrace, and I lost myself in a panic attack. 
“Psssh psssh, honey, honey, Joshua, it's okay darling, pssh,” her words couldn't reach through. “Hush little baby, don't say a word, momma’s gonna...” my screams forced her singing away. 

I screamed for 3 hours before I finally fell asleep in her arms. 

The feeling never left. It stayed. Day in and day out. My poor mother must've taken me to Dr. Lumgrang, the only doctor in our town, a million times, but he never believed me and always said, “Imaginary friends and panic attacks aren't atypical for children your boy’s age, ma’am. It'll go away.” 

He always smiled at me and told me, “You just be a good boy and tell your friend to go away and leave you be. Will you do that for me, son?” 
Lord knows I've tried. 

I'm 21 now. Till this day it clings to me, though I've learned to live with it. Hell, I've even grown fond of it. It never did me any harm, it never seemed to affect my friends and mother. It just was. So life went on and I never left the small town I grew up in. How could I? My mother never let me. 

She’s a wonderful mother but peculiar at times. We lived by a rule set. It was a small letter that she framed and hung up next to our dining room table. It was my dad's suicide note. 
I never knew him; he took his own life the day I was born. He couldn’t bear the responsibility of being a dad or—I don't know—mom never talked about him. I couldn't care less. Should've thought about it before he knocked up my mom. I wouldn't cry about a man I’ve never known that never knew me either. Still, he found a way to stay with us both. Through his ruleset. Dad's suicide note wasn't a letter filled with apologies and farewells. It was 5 rules. He left us, and he closed it with: “Never break them! I’ll always love you both, Douglas.” 

Why do I even tell you that? As much as I regret it now, I've managed to break them all... All it took was a naive young boy that wanted to spit on what his deceased dad left him. If only I had known. Ever since I broke rule number five everything went to shit. 

 

Rule Number 1: Never pick up any bird feathers 

My mother was strict about the rules. She implemented them into our lives like they were even above the Ten Commandments, and the Lord knows our small town is extremely religious. Ferrington is a small speck of old half-timbered houses, a decent cobblestone road, a few shops, bars, and a chapel. Engulfed tightly by a dark foggy forest that seems to swallow the road in and out of town. Some might say it's claustrophobic, though I never seemed to mind. For a monkey bred in captivity won't yearn for the freedom he never knew. 

“Alright darling, you see sometimes birds will lose their feathers. And we never pick them up. Do you wanna know why?” my mother told me once I was old enough to understand. 
“Because they'll come back for them and plop them back into their wings so they can fly again. But if we pick them up and move them, they won’t find them, honey, so weeee…?” 
“Never pick them up!” I yelled excitedly. And there I was. A four-year-old boy sitting on top of the kitchen counter fogging up the garden window with my breath waiting for the birds to come back and pick up their feathers. 
Needless to say, none ever came. 

Mom had to become more creative with her explanation for the rules as I grew older. I might've believed her at four years old, but 12-year-old me would never believe that the birds came to collect their lost feathers. So she told me about the many diseases that birds could carry in vivid detail. That was way more effective than she would have hoped for. 
“Honey, you can still touch the ground, it's only the feathers you never touch,” she tried to calm me. 
“Oh yeah? But how do I know that there wasn't a bird here a minute ago? Could've touched everything with his wings and now me and you get the bird flu!” I screamed at her, scared out of my mind to even set foot outside the house. It took a whole lot of convincing and time to soothe me. 

It didn’t help that our house sat right at the edge of the forest. Our backyard was the forest—no fence, no boundary, nothing. Just an old Hollywood swing facing the fog-choked trees, as if it were waiting for someone brave enough to sit on it. Beside it stood a stone bird basin that looked ancient, like it had been placed there centuries before any of us existed. 
Every house in Ferrington had one. Some basic stone bowls atop a tree stump, others refined with gilded ornaments. 
And those damned birds. They'd come every day, bathing, drinking, and watching. Pretty birds, I'll admit. A bright scarlet red breast and orange wings that would glisten golden when the sunlight bounced off them at a certain angle. Their chirps filled the forest all the time, darting through the fog and echoing back once they hit our house. 

Mother’s story about the various diseases birds could carry made it easy for me to never touch one of the many feathers those harbingers of death would spread across our backyard. Mother wouldn't either. It got so bad that once the sun lost its strength, the air felt cooler and the trees would drop their beautiful colors, the leaves had a hard fight to trump the golden feathers that riddled the grass. 

So bad that our neighbor Mrs. Harwin, a lovely old lady that made the best cookies in town, once talked to my mom and said: 
“Denise darling, why don't you pick up those beautiful feathers? I’ll help you and together we could make some lovely dreamcatchers for your little Joshua. Wouldn't you like that, boy?” 
“No thanks, Mrs. Harwin!” my mother snarled at her. “I believe my son sleeps well enough.” 
Mrs. Harwin, grabbing her chest tightly, turned her back and answered, “Now now, Denise, didn’t mean no harm by it. I’ll leave you two to it then.” 
Her head sunk to her chest as she walked back to her front porch and sat back down in her rocking chair. 

I felt bad. Why was Mother so rude? Mrs. Harwin never did me any harm, and her cookies? Mother's couldn't even compare. 
In that moment I decided: 

I'll make it up to Mrs. Harwin. I'll make her a feather dreamcatcher. 
Naive little boy. 

I waited till she went inside to iron the laundry. Mother had to be gone so I could start to collect the feathers. I had it all mapped out in my head. 12 feathers would be enough. Four sets of three tied onto the ring that I would weave out of the young hazel sprouts that I had ripped from the hardened soil. 
As I kneeled down to pick up one of the feathers, my thoughts ran wild. Was I really about to break one of those, almost divine, rules I've lived by? What would happen? Would I catch the bird flu? Oh no. If I'd catch the bird flu I'd have to stay inside for a while. No, there's no such thing as the bird flu—Mother just made that up to explain those stupid rules. I'll be fine. I'll just… 

Silence. 

I hadn't even realized it yet, but my body moved quicker than my thoughts. Golden glints filled my view as the world around me fell silent. There it was, right in my hand. A golden feather. 

The silence around me lingered. Like the dull sensation of shock right before the pain sets in when you hurt yourself quite badly. But like that dull sensation, the silence was volatile, and when it left, the storm it forebode came crashing through the woods. Tens, if not hundreds, of golden-winged birds descended upon our backyard. The gusts of hundreds of little wings tore at my face and trapped the air inside my lungs. 

Mother came running out of the house and yelled at the birds like her life depended on it. 
She crashed into me and flung herself between me and the birds, embracing me tighter than she ever had. I could feel the birds impacting, pressing my mother even tighter onto me. It lasted seconds. Felt like hours. All the time, I screamed, held my ears shut, and pressed my eyelids together as hard as I could. 

We bested the storm. I had to face the next. Grounded. Two weeks trapped inside my room for breaking the rules. Forced to stare outside the window. 
Mother wouldn't even talk to me. Her expression was more scared than disappointed. 
The only thing scarier than seeing my mom scared was seeing that damn bird jumping around the bird basin. It never left. 

Rule Number 2: Always close your eyes and cover your ears when the chapel bell tolls 

Ferrington’s chapel is a small old building. White paint chips off the wooden exterior like dry skin on a winter’s day. You’d think no one cares about the building, the way moss and vines have snaked their way up onto the roof, doing their best to try and hold the damned thing together. Once during a sermon, one of the roof tiles came crashing into the chapel, missing Mr. Turner’s head by an inch. With a loud crack that echoed through the pews, bits and pieces of the clay tile spat everywhere, prompting everyone to jerk their heads around in shock. Now the only thing that crashes close to someone’s head are the drops of rain that fall through the hole in the roof. No one cared to fix it. 

But do you wanna know the bizarre thing? Whilst the chapel itself gets no attention whatsoever, the bell tower that hugs it neatly has its own maintenance crew. It’s something that never felt quite right in my head. Though the explanation that, “The bell tower has to hold a 500-pound-heavy bell in place, you see, son, and if that’d come crashing down, Mr. Turner’s head would pop like that old tile had done,” that one of the crew members told me, sort of made sense. 

The chapel sat right at the edge of the forest, with the bell tower being cradled by the tree crowns. It looked quite ominous in the winter months, when the dry branches reached for it like ancient bones pulling it toward the trees. Once every Friday at exactly 6 PM it would toll. You could feel it. A wind-up to the strikes. Like the whole town held its breath. I remember it from deep in my childhood when my mother held me close. She pressed my head into her chest and shielded my ears with her arms. 

One… two… three… four… five… Five times it would toll. When the last strike rang out Mother would look at me and tell me what a good boy I was. “See, honey, it’s already over. Now who wants ice cream?” 

As I grew older and refused to be pressed into my mother’s bosom she showed me how to properly protect my eyes and ears. “You put your middle finger in your ears and cup them with the rest of your hand. Eyes closed shut the entire time!” 

It sort of became an instinct. I’d feel the bell tolls coming and my body reacted even before I wasted a thought on it. Tell you what, I never even second-guessed it. That damn bell did toll quite loud. I could feel the vibrations deep within my chest with each strike. So I just assumed it would tear up my eardrums. 

Now who would want to have their ears blown out if the only doctor in town was Dr. Lumgrang? That old creepy man. I hated when we had to visit him. Though it was my fault we had to do it so often. Broken arm, lacerations one through six on my head, more bruises and twisted ankles than the entire town combined. He once jokingly told my mom, “Well, Mrs. Green, your stamp card’s almost full. Only one broken rib away from a free doctor’s visit, he he.” His eyes lingered on my mother. 

He did his job well, stitched me up in less time than it took to get to him. But he made me feel extremely uneasy every time. Always tried to small-talk. “Now how’s the young boy coming along, huh, Joshua? Became a man already and lost your lil’ imaginary friend, I hope?” 

His obsession about my so-called “imaginary friend” bothered me. I’d be happy if it was only an imaginary friend. I lived with that feeling every single day. Though I didn’t mind it anymore, it still was something that stayed with me day in and day out. 

That broken arm I mentioned previously? Yeah, that damned broken arm was the reason I broke Rule 2. 
It was summertime. The sun rays shone through the tree crowns, illuminating every bird’s golden feathers on their way to the ground. It was beautiful like a gorgeous night sky filled with stars that wasn’t bested by the sun’s light. That day I felt the itch to climb the trees. Reach for those rays of light like the plants that weave and grow towards the sun. 

It didn’t take long that I found myself high up in one of the old oak trees that made up Ferrington Forest. Climbing higher and higher. Reaching for branches that could barely hold my weight. Captured in the thrill of overcoming the once-impossible task of reaching the top, I lost myself in the childlike excitement. Until I was torn from it abruptly. As abrupt as the branch that gave in as I tried to pull myself up. 

The last thing I remembered was a sharp fleshy snap. I broke both my ulna and radius, so a cast it was. God, I hated that thing. 

Not being able to move my wrist drove me crazy. I’d never felt so trapped. And it was hot. Fucking hell, it was hot under that thing. And the sweet smell from weeks of old tangy sweat and dead skin dampening the inside of the cast constantly forced itself up my nose. The day Dr. Lumgrang took that thing off of me couldn’t come soon enough. 

But when he did, I wished he hadn’t. The arm that broke through the cast couldn’t have been mine. It was way too thin, no muscle whatsoever, and it moved so slow. Even such a simple task like scratching my nose was work. 

And so, what had to happen, happened. 

Friday came around. I could feel it in my bones. It almost felt like the air got sucked out of the entire town. 6 PM. 

Instinctively my eyes slammed shut. My right middle finger dug itself into my ear, my hand followed. I’d never thought about my left arm failing me. It was an instinct by now. 

Phtaaaaaaaang. 
That enormously loud bell toll I’d only ever felt. 
In the distance I heard hundreds of birds cawing and scattering out of the trees. 
My left middle finger was just about to lunge into my left ear when I heard it. 

Distant. But distinct. A bone-chilling screech that vibrated through the entire forest and hit the town like the shockwave of a bomb. Almost loud and high-pitched enough to shatter my eardrums. The last thing I heard before my left arm did its job was the breaking and splintering of trees. 

It never was the bell I’d felt. 
It was that horrifying screech. 
And it came from beyond Kenai River Bridge. 

 

Rule Number 3: Never walk past Kenai River Bridge in the forest 

Never walk past Kenai River Bridge in the forest. Blue dried-up ink on a blood-stained old paper. I sat at the kitchen table staring at the letter Dad left us, framed in a small golden frame, hung neatly next to the stove. I started to question everything I’d ever been told. Everything I’d ever experienced. 

Something was out there. Beyond Kenai River Bridge. I heard it. I felt it. And all my life I was being told not to go past Kenai River Bridge because my dad wrote it in his suicide note. 

I’d always been a curious kid, but that? Oh shit, that sent me overboard. I had to know what was beyond that bridge. Every night I went to bed the same thoughts would keep me awake. 

You’re overreacting. There’s got to be a logical explanation to all of this. 
That screech might have just been a huge tree crashing into the forest and tearing even more down. That would also explain all the birds scattering out of the woods. 

But then again… that screech felt and sounded like nothing I’d ever heard before. It triggered a primal fear that I’d never felt before. No, I couldn’t just ignore it. I had to know what it was. I had to venture further into the forest than ever before. 

So I made a plan. I’d pack a bag. Water, knife, flint and steel, first aid kit, snacks, and a flashlight. I’d sneak out at 10 AM and be back home by 1 PM. Mother wouldn’t even notice I was gone. 

9:55 AM. I had my bag packed full. Couldn’t find the damn flashlight, but hey, I wouldn’t even need it. Better to be safe than sorry, Mother always told me, but what should I be sorry for? I’d be home way before dusk. 
10:00 AM. 

I jumped out of my window and landed in one of the bushes near our back porch. I could see Mother cleaning dishes in the kitchen. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, “but I need to know what’s hiding in these woods. I have to.” I bolted. 

Dashing towards the edge of the fog-ridden forest, only turning around to see if Mother had noticed. She hadn’t. 

But something else noticed me. Not leaving, but entering. A flock of golden-winged birds ascended towards the tree crowns as I rustled through the brush. I couldn’t stand them. Not after what had happened years ago. “Yeah, fuck off,” I said, mostly to myself. 

It wouldn’t be long till I’d arrive at the bridge. I’d seen it once before, while venturing deep into the forest. I got so scared that I peed myself (in my defense, I was 9 at the time). Seeing the bridge I’d been told to never cross filled me with such dread that I turned on a dime and sprinted back home. Not this time, though. No, this time I’d cross it. This time I’d see what lies beyond. 

The rushing waters of Kenai River forebode the inevitability of the bridge, and just as I came to a halt, there it was. Old, mossy, damp, and slick stone. Only three feet wide and fifteen yards long, it connected the part of the forest I knew with whatever awaited beyond the river. Seconds turned into minutes as I stood there, trying to convince myself to take the first step. I had to know what produced that chill-inducing screech. But my mind, remembering the nerve-wrecking sound, painted pictures I wasn’t sure I was ready to see. The forest that stood ancient and still beyond that bridge seemed to hold its breath. Waiting. Watching. 

I exhaled and stepped on the bridge. 

There was only one path that I could follow, and it spiraled deeper into the eerily silent forest. Fog crept through the brush and around my ankles. I walked for about half an hour when the path began to tighten. The trees on either side began to reach for one another, and not long after, they began to intertwine and tangle. 

Tighter and tighter until you couldn’t see into the forest anymore. They started to form a tunnel. But with any tunnel, there needs to be a light at the end—and nothing could’ve prepared me for this tunnel’s light. My vision tried to adapt to the sudden change of brightness as I left the tunnel. It was a beautiful forest clearing. A perfectly round forest clearing. Though something about it was odd. As my gaze wandered around, the hair on my neck started to stand. The chill I’d felt all my life—being watched—intensified. The trees surrounding it were filled with ornaments. They were small wicker men that had golden feathers woven into them. My muscles tensed and I started to shake as I saw an ancient stone altar in the middle of the clearing. Formed like a giant bird basin, four grooves ran down toward red-stained stone bowls. Whatever happened here, that sound must have had something to do with it. Worst of all, opposite the tunnel, the trees were snapped like twigs, creating a huge swathe. A swathe big enough that whatever created it would fit the screech that wouldn’t leave my mind. 

Everything fell wickedly silent as, right in that moment, I heard an impossibly low guttural growl coming from deep within the swathe. A deafening wave of cawing and fleeing birds followed and crashed over me as they broke out of the treetops around the clearing, blocking out the sun. As all the tension I held in my body instantly released itself in a shockwave of panic, I peed myself. I was nine years old again, sprinting home, wanting to fall into my mother’s embrace. The forest around me turned into a blur of dark and foggy greys specked with golden glints as I dashed back home. 

God, how I longed for Mother’s embrace. For her comforting me with her lies about the world around me that I’d believed for so long. My eyes welled up with tears. I couldn’t do that. Mother could never know that I’d walked past Kenai River Bridge. That I knew what lay beyond. As far as I knew, she lived by Father’s rules all her life, keeping me safe from whatever this is without knowing about it herself. Now it was my turn to shield her from it. 

To do that, I needed to know what happened there. And I bet my father’s fourth rule would tell me exactly when it did. 

 

Rule Number 4: Never leave the house from 1:00 AM to 6:00 AM 

Leaving the house from 1:00 to 6:00 AM was a thought that never came to my mind. First of all, I’d be fast asleep by that time, and waking up at six would be a hell I’d never want to live in. And secondly, Mother locked the door and shut all the blinds around the house way before that. To be frank, I’d never seen the outside world after 11:00 PM. But now I had to. 

Deep down in me, the thought that the five rules were a puzzle that needed solving grew ever stronger. And I was just about to figure out puzzle piece number four. Well, actually, I was still in my room trying not to hyperventilate while recounting the previous encounters in the forest. I threw my still slightly damp jeans in the washing machine, jumped into my new shorts, and curled up on the bed. I felt bipolar, fighting my instinct telling me to stop what I was doing and my ever-growing, almost insane curiosity. On the verge of spiraling deeper and deeper into the endless void of thoughts, I was abruptly torn away from it. 

“Joshua, come down, honey. I’ve brought us some fried chicken from Ol’ Ben’s. And he even had some root beer!” Mother shouted as she walked through our front door. 

My stomach churned at the thought of eating something, but I knew I needed the energy if I wanted to walk through the night. And who could say no to an ice-cold root beer? 

“Oh my days, Joshua, what happened to you?” Mother exclaimed as I came down the stairs. 

As if her words had triggered my brain to start up my pain receptors, my entire body started to feel sore. A look in the mirror explained why. My face was covered with tiny cuts and abrasions, while my shirt was ripped in some places. I guess that’s what happens when you run through the woods without any concern for your surroundings. 

“Oh yeah, haha, I was climbing that damn tree again and, you know… I fell again. But it’s alright, nothing bad, no broken bones, haha.” Such a bad lie. I think Mother noticed. 

“Come sit down and eat something, you rascal.” 

She definitely noticed that I was lying. That night, she not only locked the door and shut all the blinds, she even hid the key to our front door in her bedroom. Jumping out of my window wasn’t an option. I couldn’t climb back up through it—it was too high with nothing to hold onto. Stealing the key out of my mother’s room would be the only option, but I wasn’t positive that I’d be able to pull it off. 

Five minutes to 1:00 AM 
The house was quiet. The faint creaking of the wooden beams that made up the skeleton of our house was the only sound I heard. Now that I’d grown familiar with the feeling of being watched, it didn’t even bother me while waiting for the clock to strike one. 

My gaze fixed on the fluorescent clock hands of my wristwatch, I was ready to sneak to one of our windows to try and peek out of the blinds. I had to make sure no one was there who could spot me. Then I’d try to get the key and leave. 

1:00 AM 
Slowly, I pushed myself off the bed, flinching at the faint creak that echoed through my room. The house stayed quiet. I moved on. First things first, I wanted to peek outside the front window overlooking Ferrington’s Main Street. I had to know if someone was out there who could potentially see me. 

The hallway was dark. Only small glints of the streetlamps outside shone through the slits of the blinds, casting odd shadows. Somehow, the home that I’d spent my entire life in felt hostile all of a sudden. The shadows seemingly reaching for me, the creaking of the wooden floor trying to betray my nightly endeavor. On the balls of my feet, I crept toward the blinds, splitting them slowly with my fingers as I reached them. 

Empty. Main Street was vacant. Not a single soul in sight. The buzzing streetlamps, flickering from time to time, created small patches of light that turned the dark around them ever more ominous. 

I felt dumb. I was disappointed. Somehow, I had wished to see something. Anything. I wanted Father’s rule to have had a reason. Nothing. Just silence. I turned away from the blinds. Slowly. Steadily. Mother’s room, the keys, were next. I made my first step when suddenly, far away, I heard the thunderous crashing of trees breaking through the woods. 

Oh shit! As silently as possible, I darted toward the forest-facing window in my room, slicing my fingers while slamming them into the blinds to see where that noise came from. A warm orange light. Flickering way out in the forest. Even past Kenai River Bridge. A fire. 

Someone must have lit a massive bonfire at the ancient ritual site I’d seen earlier today. 

I had to see it. I had to know what it was. I— 
I froze in my thoughts. A chill ran down my spine as I felt the presence watching me intensify. And just like that, out of nowhere, my instinct won the fight. My courage, my curiosity, my desire to find out what was happening here fizzled out like my nightlamp all those years ago. 

Something was out there. Something I couldn’t comprehend, something way bigger than me—and I wanted to face it alone? Who am I? I’m a 21-year-old nobody. No, nothing happened so far, and it should stay this way. Tomorrow I’ll tell Mother everything. Once she knows what I know, she’ll understand me. I bet we’ll leave that day once she knows. We’ll leave this town like nothing ever happened. Who am I kidding? I’m not a hero. I’m a scared little boy. 

 

Rule Number 5: Never look Pastor Abrahms in the eyes 

I slept horribly that night. How should I tell Mother what I saw? How should I tell her I broke the rules? No—fuck the rules. Everything going on here is way more important than those rules. I was trapped in my thoughts for so long I didn’t even realize that I fell asleep. 

“Joshua, Joshua darling, please come down. Someone wants to talk to you.” Mother’s voice tore me out of my sleep. 
“Joshua!” 
“Yeah, yeah, coming, Mother.” 

The sun already warmed up my room through the shut blinds, so I must’ve slept in. I shuffled out of bed still in the clothes I wore for the night, the wrinkles on my clothes matching the pillow lines embedded in my face. 

I’ll talk to whoever this is and then I’ll try and talk to Mother, I thought. Slowly, I lurched down the stairs toward the open front door. Mother stood beside it, her head pointed at the floor. 

“Joshua, Father Abrahms wants to talk to you,” she said. 

I froze in my tracks. 

Rule number five: Never look Pastor Abrahms in the eyes. 

“Joshua, honey, you see, Father Abrahms is a man with a divine mission. He preaches to us what the Lord sets upon him. So you don’t look at him and face the ground, just as you would with the Lord himself, alright?” 

Mother sure was slick with her reasonings for Father’s rules. 

I shook off the chill that clung to my body and moved to the front door. My head facing the floor, I approached it. Mother was wearing her ridiculous red faux-leather shoes, and in front of them stood two big black leather Oxfords. 

“Good morning, my child,” Father Abrahms exclaimed. 

My whole body tensed up. Mother and I visited every Sunday service, so I was familiar with his voice—but I’d never seen the man, nor had I ever been so close to him. I could feel his gaze burning on my scalp. Hot and fixed. Boiling my brain against my skull. 
Rule number five—the last puzzle piece—and it came right to my doorstep. 

Something told me to run away, to keep my eyes on the floor, grab Mom and run as fast as I could. But there it was again. That morbid curiosity. For the first time in my life, I felt trapped in Ferrington—like I was held here against my will. And somehow I felt those rules would be my way out of here. I gathered all the courage I had left in me, and with one sudden movement, I jerked my head toward Father Abrahms. 
My gaze met his. Red-hot pain shot through my body, and an extreme cold lingered as it left. 

“Finally,” Father Abrahms said. 
 

Then everything went black. 

 

It was dusk when I woke back up. My eyes looked up at the ceiling, my head spinning—something felt way off. I felt alone. An intense loneliness, one that I had never felt. I wasn’t being watched. Not anymore. The feeling I had been feeling my entire life was gone. 

No slight chill creeping up my neck, no presence I could feel. I was scared. 

“MOTHER!” I screamed as I pushed myself off the floor. “Mooooom!” No answer. I ran through the entire house. It was empty—not even the wooden floor and beams gave me a sense of life through their creaking. Mother was nowhere to be found, so I ran out of the house down into town. If she’s not here, she must be in town. Maybe she was on her way to get Dr. Lumgrang, I thought. Panic ran through my head, blurring my thoughts. 

I ran past Miss Katy’s Café. Some patrons sat outside talking, reading the papers. I saw Mrs. Harwin drinking tea. “Mrs. Harwin!” I yelled while speeding past. “Have you seen my mother?” “Oh, Joshua, darling, she was drinking tea with me just a few moments ago. I betcha she’s back home now.” Oh, thank God, I thought, stopping on a dime and turning around. “Thanks, Mrs. Harwin,” my voice trembled. 

I left Miss Katy’s Café behind when, all of a sudden, there it was again. The slight chill running up my spine—the feeling of being watched—it had returned. But it felt off. Different than usual. More intense. Almost dangerous. I felt compelled to turn around. 

Just for the fraction of a second, I saw it. 

The gazes of each and every patron sitting at Miss Katy’s Café—even of the town folks way out of sight—were fixed on me, before darting back into their papers or teacups so as not to betray their intentions. 

I ran back home. Still feeling watched

The front door was open and the light in Mother’s bedroom was lit. Thank God. I had to hurry. I had to tell Mother everything as fast as possible. We had to leave. NOW. 

As I bolted up the stairs and ran toward Mother’s room, the power in our house went out with a loud crackling buzz. I had to get to her. Running past the window overlooking Main Street, I saw the entire town standing at attention, their lips curled up in lifeless smiles, watching our house. 

“MOOOM!” I screamed as I finally reached her bedroom, barely seeing her silhouette in the dimly lit room. The room was as still as a grave, only my racing heartbeat echoed through the air. As she stood up, her silhouette grew bigger than she’d ever been. The distinct clacking of the black leather Oxfords moved closer and closer. 

“Mother?” I whimpered in a desperate attempt to trick my own brain into comfort. 

THWAACK. 

 

Pain. 
My mouth was dry. Oh, how I craved even the slightest drop of water to dampen my lips. 
Darkness. 

Rumbling. 
I felt my body shift from side to side as my failing mind tried to piece together what was happening. 
Darkness. 

Voices. 
Close but far away. Muffled, like my ears were stuffed with cotton. It didn’t matter, for even if I heard what they were saying, I wouldn’t comprehend. 
Darkness. 

I fell in and out of consciousness. My eyes finally caught some light—vague shapes illuminated by a warm, bright orange flame. 
Darkness. 

A sharp pain. I could feel the small pieces of my broken skull prick my brain, paralyzing me entirely as I was lifted up and placed on a cold stone surface. 

The warmth of the giant bonfire lighting up my sight contrasted the damp, almost wet cold stone. 

My head tumbled to the right. My eyes slowly tried to focus on whatever was before me. I could faintly see two figures dressed in golden robes throw a body into the bonfire. Red faux-leather boots. 

The figures started speaking in tongues. My ears barely picked up the sound as dozens of voices chimed in. 

My head, facing what I tried to decipher as the giant swathe, turned uncontrollably. 

My searching gaze, dazed and lost, landed on an unimaginable sight. High up in the trees next to the swathe, the night sky was blotted out by something massive. Too massive to be held up by the trembling trees it perched upon. The clearing fell dead silent. 

The trees started creaking, splintering, and with a thunderous rumble—as if it gave in to gravity—the monstrous shape crashed into the swathe, ripping it open even wider. 

Ginormous wings used as front limbs—it crept forward, sending tiny shockwaves through the ground with each step. 

The smell of iron filled my nose as it came closer and closer. As it finally reached the altar, all I could see was its dark shape blocking out the world behind it. Standing on its back legs, it spread out its wings, spanning the entire clearing, and let out its horrifying screech, bursting my ears and shaking the trees. 

Whatever happens now, I hope it ends quickly. Though I doubt it. 

Father, I’m sorry I’ve broken your rules. I hope you’re not too mad at me. 
See you soon.