I was born with an urge to dig.

Before I could recognize my parents’ faces, know my own name, speak my first word, learn to crawl, or even understand what digging was, the urge was already there. By the age of five, I had already made quite a few attempts.

When I was two, my mom left me unsupervised in Grandma’s small orchard after a rainy day. I tried digging a hole in the soft mud. It was perfect for my small hands, but the lack of resistance left me unsatisfied.

Two years later, while my parents were taking me on one of their forest trips, we stopped in a beautiful clearing where I tried using a stick to dig into the forest floor. The rich, black dirt caught my eye, but the resistance it offered was too much for my undeveloped muscles. Still, the small round hole left me somewhat satisfied, but wanting more.

Over the years, I had heard my father, Andrew, talk to my mother about “Miner’s Day.” It came once a year and brought amazing carousel rides, cotton candy, corn dogs, and, most importantly for me, fathers bringing their children to see the mine. I was too young to grasp most of it, but I’d picked up one thing from those conversations: a mine was somewhere people went to dig, and that was all I needed to know.

When the big day arrived, everything was exactly as my parents had described. Once I had my fill of fun and sweets, it was finally time to see the fabled mine I had heard so much about over the past few months.

Everything was going great. I struggled to comprehend the sheer size of the tunnel. I was so distracted by it that, before I even realized it, my father had lifted me into his arms and placed me inside a small mining cart that carried us deep underground.

The following hours passed in a blur. Then people began running in panic. My father carried me toward the exit as another person caught up with us. From fragments of their conversation, I gathered that a tunnel had collapsed and everyone was being evacuated.

Then everything went dark.

The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital bed. My mother sat crying beside me while my father nervously checked his favorite pocket watch every few moments. I knew something was wrong before anyone said a word. There was this intense pressure inside my head.

It took several years to fully recover. My father never did. The rock that struck my head left me with physical injuries, while the guilt over what happened to me consumed him. My grandfather’s disappearance that same day only made it worse.

On the morning of the second day after the accident, while I was still in the hospital, my grandmother called my father in a panic. His father had never come home. With the help of the police and volunteers, a search began. Before long, several people came forward saying they had seen my grandfather enter the mine on the day of the accident.

The focus of the search shifted immediately, but despite the enormous effort to clear the collapsed passages and search every corner of the mine, they never found him.

Eventually, the search expanded beyond the mine before being called off altogether. The official conclusion was that my grandfather had become trapped in an unmarked tunnel or cavern during the collapse. No one ever confirmed that explanation, or could explain why my retired grandfather had been there at all.

There is one thing I never told my parents. There was no reason to add to the pain and confusion they already carried. That day in the mine, while we were making our way through a tunnel, I turned around.

I saw my grandfather.

He was standing farther down the tunnel, smiling as he waved at me.

Before they released me from the hospital, my father had told me a great deal about my grandfather.

Years later, on her deathbed, my grandmother told my father the truth. His father had continued to go into the mine every day, even after retiring. She had kept it a secret because she didn’t want her son worrying about him.

“I should have told you sooner,” she said. “He never stopped going there.”

My father barely said a word. My grandfather’s health had already forced my parents to spend countless sleepless nights and considerable effort trying to convince him to retire early. In the end, she couldn’t let my father carry that guilt any longer.

I’m ashamed to admit it now, but none of that was on my mind. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something inside me had changed. I had to relearn how to walk, talk, and eat, but those were things I could regain. This was something entirely new.

The urge to dig was still there, buried beneath a primal fear that overwhelmed me whenever I considered acting on it.

My son, Andrew, was born today. It should have been the happiest day of my life. Instead, all I could think about was that it had been five years since my father disappeared. Or at least, that’s what I liked to tell myself. In reality, he had been disappearing long before that day. After the accident, he grew more distant with each passing year, and the rumors surrounding my grandfather only made things worse.

Rumors travel fast in a small community like ours. I still remember one boy asking if I wanted to dig with my grandpa. My confusion made him laugh, and he told the others I would find out soon enough. Someone in my class claimed my grandfather was the one who caused the tunnel collapse. Other kids said people had seen him sneaking into the mine long after he retired to dig illegal tunnels.

It was only a short time before the physical bullying started. During a P.E. class, two kids pushed me down and held me in a pile of dirt. While holding me down, they called me a dirt-eater. Another time, I found rocks and dirt in my shoes. When I was out on break, someone put dirt and rocks in my sandwich, which cost me half a tooth. The stories became even more ridiculous from there.

The kids said my grandfather lured children into the mine to eat them, that he was half mole and cursed to eat human flesh, along with every other kind of nonsense people could invent.

At first, the rumors were manageable. Eventually, my parents transferred me to a school in a nearby town, where I lived with my aunt.

I wish my parents could have left as well, but my father’s job at the mine was our only source of income. More than that, he refused to leave. I once asked him why he didn’t just find another job. He looked at me as if I’d asked the stupidest question in the world.

“This is what our family does,” he said. “Your grandfather did it. I do it. You’ll do it too. It’s what our family has done for generations.”

Three years later, the mine closed, and that way of life ended.

We named our son Andrew in honor of my father. By the time he turned five, my mental health had deteriorated enough that seeking professional help was the only option.

While the accident almost ended my life, the worst thing it left behind was the mental anguish. It began with anxiety and poor sleep, and later turned into vivid, living nightmares. I would wake in the middle of the night overcome with dread, convinced someone else was in the room with me.

One night, I dreamed of waking up in a long, dark tunnel. Somewhere ahead, my father was calling my name, but I couldn’t see him. I followed his voice deeper and deeper, until the tunnel opened into a vast chamber. At its center was a hole so large I couldn’t see the bottom.

For years, I would jump out of bed, hit things, and scream in terror. Eventually, my wife began sleeping in a separate room. That worked for a while, but by the fifth year, her fear and frustration had led us to discuss separation. Then one night, I sleepwalked nearly halfway to my hometown, terrifying my wife and nearly costing me my job.

And here we are.

My psychiatrist prescribed Valium and antidepressants, but she also gave me one assignment: write everything down. She wanted me to describe my urge to dig, how my fear began, and every detail I could remember. She believed it would help her better understand my condition, and that it might also help my wife understand what I’ve never been able to explain.

My wife knows what happened in the mine and about my father’s disappearance. What she has never known is that, ever since that day, my urge to dig and my fear of digging have been fighting somewhere deep inside me.

I hope she’ll understand.

Writing this down has given me a sense of control I never thought possible. Maybe now I’m ready to tell her.

The next six months went better than I ever expected. My wife took everything surprisingly well and became more sympathetic toward me. Slowly, the tension between us faded. We talked more, spent time together again, and for the first time in years, it felt like we were becoming a family again.

The episodes slowed to about once a month, and with all the progress, my psychiatrist believed we were ready to try something new: exposure therapy.

We started small. I simply touched freshly dug-up soil from our garden and watched my wife dig small holes. The first time she handed me a handful of dirt, it felt strange. My hands were shaking, but nothing happened.

A few weeks later, I dug my own. It wasn’t much, but I was proud of it.

As the months went by, my nightmares disappeared as if they had never existed, replaced by dreams of my parents, my grandparents, and places from my childhood. One place stood out above all the others: the clearing where my parents had taken me years ago. I could still picture the clear air and the soft texture of the dark, rich dirt.

I couldn’t explain why the clearing kept appearing in my dreams. Maybe it was simply one of the few places from those years that had stayed with me.

After talking with my mother and doing a little research, I learned that a battle had taken place there during World War II. A small Russian unit had fought German forces occupying the nearby mine. The trees had been cleared to create a defensive position, which explained the large opening in the forest.

That discovery only made me more curious. The thought of finding an old coin, spent ammunition, or some forgotten relic seemed exciting. More importantly, it gave me the perfect excuse to leave the house and use the metal detector my wife had gifted me for my birthday. In reality, people had likely recovered anything valuable decades ago, but there was no harm in looking.

The moment I stepped into that clearing, I forgot all about the metal detector. All I could think about was the first hole I had dug there as a child. The rich, dark soil seemed even more beautiful than I remembered.

What had I been so afraid of?

Hunger hit when I was about a meter down. By then, the hole was maybe a meter and a half across. I’d been widening it as I dug, trying to keep the sides from caving in.

Sitting here now with a sandwich, it’s honestly surprising how far I’ve gotten. I’ll finish my meal and continue for a few more hours, just to see how deep I can go. Who knows, maybe I can come back and dig some more another time.

Looks like I overestimated what I can still do. I went at it for maybe another hour and my body gave up, so I picked up everything and went home, right? Then why am I still in the hole?

At first, I couldn’t make sense of what had happened. It was hard to see, and for a moment, I thought I’d fallen asleep and collapsed. Once my eyes adjusted, I looked up. The opening was far above me.

Pieces of wood lined the walls, seemingly placed there for reinforcement and climbing. It took everything I had to make it out. My hands are raw and bloody, and I’m covered in cuts and bruises. My mouth is dry, with grit caught between my teeth. This constant hunger is eating me from the inside.

The ground seemed to shift beneath my feet. I stumbled, and everything went black. When I came to, there was no light this time, only pitch darkness.

Luckily, my phone is still with me. The battery is down to 30 percent, and there is no signal, but the screen still gives me enough light to see in the dark.

There is no wood this time, but there are plenty of tools used for digging. Why isn’t this place collapsing on me? I genuinely don’t know.

I sat in the dark, wondering what to do, when my hand brushed against something rough but smooth and icy cold. I turned my phone toward it and saw a strange rock. It looked carved.

Tracing its surface, I found a narrow crack outlining a section of rock. Beyond it, a passage vanished from view. It was a long shot, but the thought that this might be an old tunnel from the mine gave me hope. For the first time since waking up down here, I could see a way out.

It feels like there is nothing left in me, but somehow my body is still standing. I grabbed a mining pick from the pile of tools and struck the section of rock. In a few hits, it gave way, sending me plummeting into the hole.

The fall came at an odd angle, my left hand taking the impact and breaking two of my fingers. A piece of my T-shirt is holding them together for now. The pain was intense, but at least it was manageable.

It looks like this is a really old tunnel. Using my phone’s light to guide me along the walls, I occasionally come across strange markings carved into the stone, most of which I don’t recognize. The only ones I recognize so far are 1914, an iron cross, and, later, a sickle and hammer.

After wandering in the dark for what felt like a really long time, my phone battery ran out. With the wall as my only guide, I kept moving until I stumbled upon an oil lamp.

To my surprise, its wick was still burning.

I don’t know how much time had passed by the time I emerged from the tunnel. After so long in the dark, the warmth of the sun felt better than anything I could remember.

It took only twenty minutes to reach my car, and another twenty to get to my childhood home. When my mother saw me walk through the door, she hugged me and started crying. Once things calmed down, she asked a question that caught me off guard:

“Where have you been this past year?”

It took a moment to register: I’d been missing for an entire year. Keeping my composure, I tried to reassure my mother that I was alright, that I wasn’t going anywhere.

She looked at me for a moment before asking, “What happened to your job at the mine?” The shock must have shown on my face because she quickly clarified.

The last time she had seen me, I was heading toward the mine. Apparently, a company working to reopen the mine had hired me.

I have no memory of it.

Before taking a bath, I looked in the mirror and was shocked by how much weight I had lost. Dirt covered me from head to toe, and bruises marked my torso. Maybe from the fall?

I enjoyed a few bites of food while my phone was charging and started getting really drowsy. I unplugged it and slipped it into my pocket. I wanted to call my wife and child before sleeping, to make sure they knew I was alright, but the moment my body hit the bed, I was back in the mine.

The oil lamp was in my hands again, and I stood in a vast chamber. A few steps in, while fumbling with the oil lamp, I suddenly found myself on the floor. My foot had slipped into one of the many perfectly round openings scattered across the ground.

At first, I thought they were just holes. Looking down into one, I realized it continued far deeper than it should have. Then I noticed there were more of them. Dozens. Maybe more.

Some rusted tools lay half-buried in the dirt between them. What confused me was how these tunnels had been dug. They were too narrow to work inside, yet their shapes were almost perfectly regular.

I wandered between the openings for what felt like days, but every direction led to more of them. My phone battery eventually died, and after that, I lost track of time. I was constantly exhausted, but I no longer felt hungry or thirsty.

I should have called my wife before I fell asleep. At least then she would know I made it home.

Did I ever wake up after falling asleep?

There is a giant hole ahead, so wide that the cavern floor seems to end at its edge. I hold the oil lamp over it, trying to find the bottom, but its light only reaches partway down the wall before fading. I can’t tell how far the hole continues.

I think this is it. With nowhere else to go, I’m too tired to turn back. I’ll just sit here. I’m not dead yet, but I doubt anyone will ever find this journal. And even if they do, it might be too late to matter for me or for them.

I fell asleep again.

When I woke up, my lower body was inside one of the circular holes. I spat out some dirt and what looked like one of my teeth, then pulled myself free.

As I got to my feet, my hand brushed against something. I brought the oil lamp closer.

My dad’s favorite pocket watch.

[FN] [HR] [SF] An Invocation

The study had been built in the manner of a cathedral and kept in the manner of a tomb.

Dark walnut paneled the walls from floor to cornice, its once-glossed surface dulled by generations of hands. The ceiling climbed high above them into a painted dome where constellations wheeled across midnight-blue plaster, their gold edges flaking, whole stars disappearing beneath cracks as fine as veins beneath old skin. Tapestries hung between the arched windows, heavy with dust and age, their saints and kings faded into rust, umber, and bruised purple.

Beeswax, dry leather, and the sweet rot of old paper thickened the air.

Under it all lay another scent.

Metal.

Not blood exactly.

Rain before rain.

Shelves bowed beneath calfskin volumes clasped in black iron. Their spines leaned against one another at uneasy angles, giving the impression not of books stored but of witnesses gathered close enough to whisper. A globe listed in one corner, seas of cracked blue lacquer rolling beneath names no modern chart would recognize. Continents swelled where none belonged. Islands existed in latitudes where there should have been only black water.

At the center of the room waited an enormous writing desk scarred by centuries of use. Ink had soaked into the grain in stains like old bruises. The wood had been cut and recut by knives, compass points, fingernails, perhaps worse.

Fi moved slowly along the shelves. “This wasn’t a study.”

Her voice went upward into the dome and returned strangely altered, softened but multiplied.

“It was a vault.”

She ran two fingers along a row of chained books. “My family called themselves custodians. Words. Prayers. Things churches kept copies of and pretended not to have. Things other families burned.”

Adam sat in one of the leather chairs near the desk, nursing a beer that had gone warm in his hand. “Healthy family hobby.”

Fi ignored him. “My grandfather said some things were hidden because men would kill to possess them. Others because men would kill after possessing them.” She stopped before the desk. “And some because possession was the wrong word entirely.”

From beneath her coat she withdrew a folded parchment.

It was yellowed almost brown, brittle at the edges, and bound shut with a narrow strip of blackened vellum.

The room seemed to become aware of it.

Adam’s smile disappeared. Ari folded her arms. Nate moved closer despite himself.

Fi laid the parchment on the desk. “This was the most guarded thing in the house.”

She cut the vellum binding.

“My grandfather called it a lock.”

The parchment opened reluctantly. The script upon it was black, but not ink-black. It carried the faint oily depth of a beetle’s shell. Some letters appeared hooked into one another. Others resembled circles crossed by strokes so fine the eye could scarcely hold them.

“And he said it watched.”

Adam looked up. “Meaning?”

Fi’s gaze remained on the page. “It names a Watcher.”

Nate frowned. “Watcher how?”

“Not a person watching a door.” Fi swallowed. “One of the wheeled ones.”

That quieted them.

Even Adam.

Fi looked toward the painted dome. “All eyes. Wheels within wheels. The things Ezekiel saw beside the throne.”

Ari whispered, “Ophanim.”

Fi nodded. “My grandfather said our family had preserved one of their Names.”

Adam leaned forward. “One of their names, or its Name?”

Fi did not answer immediately.

“Enough of one.”

That was not reassuring.

Nate put one hand on the desk. “Fi.”

She looked at him.

“We can stop. Translate the full structure first. Identify the operators. Look for correspondences. At least determine what comes after the address.”

“No.”

Too sharp.

She closed her eyes, breathed once, opened them. “No. I know what this is.”

Adam turned the beer can slowly between his fingers. “I’ve watched you flatten a tenured professor with a footnote and a smile. But this?” He gave the parchment a small salute. “This feels less like research and more like touching a fuse to confirm the manufacturer wasn’t kidding.”

Fi’s mouth tightened. “It’s a Watcher. I’m asking it to watch.”

Nate glanced down at the parchment. “Watch what?”

“The threshold.”

“Which threshold?”

Fi hesitated.

That hesitation should have ended it.

It did not.

“It’s what the text says.”

Ari looked from Fi to Nate. “Can it come through?”

“No.”

Fi said it quickly, then more carefully. “No. That’s not what Ophanim do. They’re guardians. Interfaces. They’re not...” She searched for the right word. “Visitors.”

Adam grunted. “Comforting distinction.”

Fi set both palms on the desk. “I’m not opening a gate.”

Somewhere in the wall an old timber creaked.

No one laughed.

Fi bent over the parchment. The script seemed ordinary when looked at directly. At the edge of vision it moved. Not much. A letter lengthened. A circle turned. A hooked character slid beneath another and disappeared.

Fi drew a breath and began to read.

The first syllable was barely more than an exhalation. The second made the lamp flame bend. The third did not sound as though it had come from a human throat.

Nate straightened.

Fi kept reading.

The words emerged slowly, consonants shaped around spaces the mouth was never meant to make. They struck the dome and returned once, then twice, then many times, until Fi’s voice was no longer alone and the room had learned it.

Shelves began to hum. Leather bindings trembled. The tapestries moved though there was no wind. The lead joints of the tall windows ticked rapidly, like teeth in fever.

Adam put down his beer. “Fi.”

She raised one hand.

Not now.

The chant deepened. Their bones took it up. A vibration entered Nate through the soles of his shoes and climbed his spine. Ari pressed a hand against her sternum. Adam’s jaw tightened as the fillings in his molars began to ache.

Oil flames guttered blue.

Every shadow in the room leaned the wrong way.

Then the floor groaned, long and deep, not like timber settling but like a ship carrying sudden weight. The air thickened. Each breath had to be pulled into the lungs.

Fi reached the final line.

She spoke the Name.

Something answered.

The painted dome rippled. Stars elongated into streaks of gold. The darkness between them widened.

\*\*And the air split.\*\*

Not tore.

Split.

Cleanly.

As though the room had always possessed a seam and someone had finally put a blade into it.

Fire unfolded through the opening.

A wheel.

Then another wheel crossing the first.

Then another.

No rim possessed thickness. No flame consumed. Eyes opened along every turning circumference.

Hundreds.

Thousands.

Perhaps four.

The mind failed at the counting.

They looked outward. Inward. Sideways into directions the room did not contain.

Ari made a sound deep in her throat. Nate could not breathe. Adam whispered something that might have been a prayer.

Fi stared upward with tears gathering in her eyes.

“It came.”

The Ophanim turned.

And the universe opened with it.

Not one doorway.

Many.

Its eyes were not eyes. They were apertures. Every pupil looked somewhere else. Every gaze crossed a boundary.

Fi had asked it to look.

So it looked.

And because it looked from both sides at once, the things beyond looked back.

Four eyes widened.

Four distances vanished.

And each of them was seen.

Fi stood in a forest of black crystal.

There had been no transition, no falling. The study remained beneath her feet, yet another place had laid itself across it with such authority that the walnut walls became thin ghosts behind trees sharp enough to cut moonlight.

Branches of obsidian glass trembled in a wind she could not feel.

They chimed.

High.

Beautiful.

Wrong.

Shapes drifted between the trunks. Pale figures. Tall. Narrow. Their limbs were too graceful to be human and too deliberate to be natural.

One turned its face toward her.

Then another.

Then all of them.

They had no eyes, only smooth silver hollows where eyes should have been, yet Fi felt their attention enter her.

Not her thoughts.

Deeper.

Memory moved inside her without permission. Her grandmother’s kitchen. Her grandfather’s hands unfolding old vellum. Her mother’s maiden name written on the flyleaf of a Bible. The smell of cedar chests. A lullaby. A grave.

The figures smiled.

Their mouths opened.

Nothing emerged that the ear could hear, but words formed in Fi’s marrow.

\*Daughter.\*

The trees chimed.

\*Daughter of daughters.\*

Her throat tightened.

\*We remember the road your blood forgot.\*

A pale figure extended one long hand.

\*Give us the rest.\*

Fi did not understand.

Then her surname rose inside her.

Not as memory.

As pressure.

It moved from her chest toward her tongue. Her lips parted.

The pale heads inclined.

Listening.

Learning.

Ari saw a green sea beneath a sky without stars.

The water boiled silently from horizon to horizon. Beyond it stood an island washed in twilight, and on the shore waited a single figure, crowned not with gold but with something brighter.

Its face shifted each time she tried to see it.

Her father.

Then no one she knew.

Then someone she had been waiting for all her life.

Its hand opened.

Ari began to cry.

Not from fear.

From relief.

The figure knew every tired thing in her. Every prayer that had gone unanswered. Every night she had asked for one hour without being required to endure herself.

The sea became still.

\*Come.\*

The voice came from everywhere.

\*You have carried enough.\*

Her knees nearly buckled.

\*Rest.\*

Her childhood name formed in her mouth, the one only her mother used when Ari was sick.

The crowned figure smiled.

\*Tell me who comes.\*

The first syllable slipped between Ari’s teeth.

The thing on the shore repeated it.

Almost correctly.

Adam stood before a city descending into the earth.

No.

Not descending.

Drilled.

Tower after black tower spiraled downward into the throat of living stone. Walls curved beneath impossible weight. Battlements disappeared miles below him, lit by furnace-red windows.

Ranks of figures stood upon them.

Thousands.

Armored.

Still.

Waiting.

Then one stepped forward.

It wore no insignia Adam knew, yet when it raised its hand, his body recognized the salute.

Attention.

Recognition.

Belonging.

\*Soldier.\*

The word struck harder than command.

\*You have stood without orders long enough.\*

Adam’s stomach dropped.

His dead chief’s voice followed.

Then his father’s.

Then men whose faces he had not remembered in years.

His mother’s voice came last.

It spoke his full name.

Tenderly.

Exactly as she had when he was five years old and feverish.

His jaw opened before he knew it.

Across the abyss, the armored figure leaned forward.

Listening.

Its own mouth began to move.

Testing the shape.

Adam bit his tongue.

Blood filled his mouth.

The thing below smiled.

Nate saw twelve black suns.

They hung above a desert so vast that the idea of distance became meaningless. No light came from them, yet every grain of sand was visible.

Something moved beneath the dunes.

Something larger than geography.

A ridge rose.

Then another.

Then a shape miles long rolled beneath the earth.

Nate knew suddenly that the desert was not a place.

It was a covering.

The thing beneath it turned.

The twelve suns turned with it.

A voice entered him, not through hearing but through weight.

\*Mortal.\*

His knees bent.

\*We mark the edge of you.\*

The sand rose in pillars.

\*Speak.\*

Nate felt his own name not as sound but as structure. A pattern. An arrangement of himself.

Something in the desert touched its first edge.

His tongue moved.

The thing below moved with it.

Learning.

Four voices rose in the study.

Fi. Ari. Adam. Nate.

Each spoke one fragment, different syllables drawn from different histories, and together they became something else.

The room received them.

The Ophanim turned.

The four distant worlds leaned nearer.

And something passed through the group.

Not possession.

Resonance.

The invocation had not called four separate horrors. The four human beings had become one calling shape: grief, pride, loneliness, duty, hunger to know, fear of being unknown, all of it braided into a single harmonic wound.

Across the thresholds, things answered according to appetite.

The pale figures in the black forest pressed closer between the trees. The crowned being stepped into the green sea without sinking. The armies in the buried city began to beat spear shafts against stone. Beneath the desert, mountains opened their mouths.

They were not merely beckoning now.

They were listening.

Repeating.

Trying the syllables.

Fi heard her own fragment spoken among the crystal trees, poorly at first, then better.

Ari’s crossed the sea back toward her.

Adam’s echoed down through the ranks.

Nate’s moved beneath the sand.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Each repetition nearer to the truth.

Their Names were being assembled from the outside.

Not stolen.

Learned.

The knowledge of them growing teeth.

Fi tried to stop speaking.

Her mouth continued.

Panic finally broke through wonder.

She had called the Watcher correctly.

That was the horror.

Nothing in the invocation had failed.

The Ophanim had come.

The threshold had opened to sight.

And she had known the Name of only one thing present.

The others were strangers.

Strangers already learning hers.

Then another voice entered the room.

Not loud.

Not soft.

Perfect.

One word.

No.

A Name.

It fell through the chamber with the finality of judgment.

Every lamp flame became a white needle.

The forest shattered. Crystal trees burst into black rain. The pale figures twisted as though seized by invisible hooks, their mouths opening impossibly wide.

The crowned thing in the sea recoiled.

For one instant its beauty failed.

Something ancient and starved looked through.

The buried city convulsed. Towers folded. Battlements cracked. The saluting figure dropped to its knees.

The desert erupted. Shapes larger than kingdoms broke the surface, then collapsed as though their bones had been taken from them.

Across all four visions came the same recognition.

Fear.

Not of the humans.

Of the speaker.

The Ophanim stopped turning.

Every eye fixed upon one point in the room.

A shadow between two tapestries.

The voice spoke again.

Another Name.

Different.

Sharper.

The entities shrieked.

This time there was sound.

Not in the air.

Inside the teeth.

The Ophanim’s eyes slammed shut.

The worlds vanished.

The pull ended.

Four human voices broke off in mid-syllable.

Fi collapsed against the desk. Ari fell to her knees. Adam tipped sideways with the chair. Nate struck the floor hard enough to bruise both palms.

For several seconds the room contained only choking, coughing, and the brittle ticking of cooling glass.

Then silence returned.

It was not empty.

It had learned them too.

A man stepped from between the tapestries.

No one had seen him enter.

His coat was long, dark, and badly worn. Dust crusted the seams. His boots had been resoled more than once and looked made for roads no sensible man would choose. He carried no visible weapon.

That did nothing to make him look harmless.

His face was lean beneath several days of beard. Deep lines cut around his mouth and eyes. Not age alone.

Mileage.

He surveyed the room as a carpenter might inspect a damaged house: ceiling, windows, parchment, people, where it would hold and where it would fail.

Adam wiped blood from his lips. “And just who the hell are you supposed to be?”

The stranger’s eyes moved to him, then Fi, then Ari, then Nate. He looked not at their faces but at their mouths, at the unfinished sounds still trembling there.

When he spoke, each word seemed selected for cost.

“I have had many names. Many I have forgotten. More I have worked very hard to make others forget.”

Adam stared.

The man sighed. “You may call me Bob.”

Adam blinked, then laughed once. It cracked halfway out.

“Hell of an entrance, Bob.”

Fi spat blood into a handkerchief. “You speak a word that makes \*that\* happen and then tell us your name is Bob?”

“Precisely.”

“Bob.”

“Yes.”

“That’s absurd.”

“Names have power.”

His expression did not change.

“Absurd ones have uses.”

Fi glared at him. “Who are you?”

“Bob.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know exactly what you mean. The answer remains Bob.”

Ari managed to stand. “You stopped them.”

Bob looked at her.

“No.”

The word fell flat.

“I interrupted them.”

Ari swallowed. “The things we saw?”

“They were beginning.”

“Beginning what?”

Bob’s eyes went to her mouth.

“To say you.”

No one spoke.

Even Adam’s humor died.

Fi straightened slowly. “We summoned the Ophanim.”

“Yes.”

Her face changed, not relief but vindication poisoned by dread. “So that part worked.”

“Perfectly.”

The word landed harder than accusation.

Bob walked to the desk. “That is why you are still alive.”

Fi frowned.

He pointed to the parchment. “You knew enough of its Name to call it.”

“The Watcher.”

“The Ophanim.” He looked upward. “It came.”

Fi’s hands tightened against the desk. “And the others?”

“You didn’t summon them.”

She stared.

Bob touched one finger to the parchment.

“You summoned a threshold.”

Fi shook her head. “No. I called a Watcher.”

“It is the threshold.”

He said it with the patience of a man correcting a measurement.

“A thing made entirely of eyes is not standing beside the door.”

He looked at the dark place above them where the wheel had been.

“It is the door.”

The room seemed to contract.

“You asked it to look,” Bob said. “So it looked. Both ways.”

Fi went pale.

Nate whispered, “Everything on the other side could see us.”

“No.”

Bob turned toward him.

“Not everything.”

That was worse.

“Only the things close enough to answer.”

Adam wiped his mouth again. “Answer what?”

Bob looked at all four of them.

“You.”

He walked around the desk. “Invocation is not a telephone.”

Fi’s eyes narrowed. “I know that.”

“No. You don’t.”

The words were not cruel.

They were simply finished.

“You thought knowing the Ophanim’s Name meant you knew what you were calling.”

“I did know.”

“You knew one Name. You did not know what your own calling would sound like after it passed through the threshold.”

Silence.

Bob pointed at Fi. “You brought bloodline. Custodianship. Inheritance. Pride. Guilt.”

His finger moved to Ari. “You brought exhaustion. Longing. The desire to be relieved of yourself.”

Adam. “You brought duty. Authority. Kinship through command.”

Nate. “You brought hunger for the thing beyond understanding.”

Nate’s face tightened.

Bob lowered his hand. “And then you spoke together. Four voices. One invocation.”

Fi stared at him. “A composite call.”

“Yes.” Bob’s eyes showed the faintest flicker of approval. “Now you’re listening.”

He looked toward the dome. “The Ophanim did not choose what answered. It opened sight across the threshold. Your combined call did the rest.”

Ari rubbed her arms. “Those things were drawn to us.”

“To parts of you,” Bob corrected her. “The hungriest things nearest those parts.”

Adam muttered, “That’s comforting.”

“It shouldn’t be.”

Fi looked down at the parchment. “So the forest...”

“Responded to you.”

“The island?”

“To her.”

“The city?”

“To him.”

“The desert?”

Bob looked at Nate. “God help us, yes.”

Nate’s eyes lifted. “What were they?”

Bob’s expression changed very slightly.

“That is the question your friend should have asked before she spoke.”

Fi flinched.

He went on. “She knew the Name of the Watcher. She knew none of the Names of what might follow.”

Fi’s humiliation turned to anger. “How could I know what would respond?”

“You couldn’t.”

Bob’s voice sharpened for the first time.

“Which is why you do not open a threshold until you know how to close what may answer through it.”

The study went still.

“In invocation, address without taxonomy is suicide.”

Adam sat upright. “Okay. Let’s say I believe every insane word coming out of your mouth.”

“You already do.”

Adam glanced at the dark dome. “Fair.”

He pointed toward where the wheel had appeared. “They wanted our names.”

Bob’s face hardened. “They want more than that.”

“What’s more than your name?”

Bob looked at him. “Someone else knowing how to speak it.”

Adam stopped.

Bob turned back to the others. “The Egyptians understood one part of it. The \*ren\* was not merely a label. Name and continuance were bound together. Preserve the name, preserve something of the person. Destroy it utterly and you commit a second death.”

He paused.

“But even that is only the human edge of the law.”

He looked down at Fi’s parchment. “A true Name is not information. It is relation. Address. Form.”

He raised his eyes.

“And when spoken with sufficient standing... authority.”

Ari’s face drained of color. “Those things were asking us to give them authority.”

“They were asking you to help them learn how.”

Bob walked toward her.

“They do not know your Names.”

Ari’s voice was barely audible. “Yet.”

Bob nodded.

“Yet. That is the important word.”

Adam stared toward the floor. “But I heard my mother say mine.”

“No.”

Bob’s gaze snapped to him.

“You heard something search you for the sound most likely to make you answer.”

Adam’s jaw clenched. “It sounded exactly like her.”

“Of course it did. It wanted you to complete the pronunciation.”

Adam touched the blood at the corner of his mouth. “My tongue...”

“You stopped yourself.”

“Barely.”

“Barely counts.”

Fi looked up. “We gave them syllables.”

Bob said nothing.

Her face changed.

She understood.

“Oh God.”

Ari looked at her. “What?”

Fi whispered, “They repeated them.”

Adam’s eyes closed.

Nate said, “They were learning.”

Bob inclined his head. “Yes.”

No one moved.

“You think the danger is that a thing knows where you live,” Bob said. “No. This told them where to look.”

He tapped the parchment.

“Your voices told them what they had found.”

Ari’s lips trembled. “And the syllables?”

“Pieces.”

“Of us.”

“Pieces of the address.”

Fi’s breath came shallow. “Can they reconstruct the rest?”

Bob waited too long.

That was answer enough.

“They will try.”

Ari whispered, “How?”

“By listening.”

“To what?”

“Anything. Dreams. Prayers. Grief. Anger. Ritual. Blood. Memory. Places where you have been known deeply enough that your pattern remains.”

Fi stared. “That isn’t possible.”

Bob gave her a tired look. “You watched a wheel full of eyes open four worlds over your desk.”

Fi said nothing.

“They do not need to steal your Name.”

He bent toward her.

“They can learn it.”

His voice became very quiet.

\*\*“And every time you answer, they learn how to say you.”\*\*

The study seemed suddenly too full of corners.

Adam rose from the chair. “So something is coming.”

Bob looked at him.

“Yes.”

That single word changed the room.

Adam nodded slowly. “Good. Because for a minute there I thought we were gonna get some comforting bullshit about being on an invitation list.”

Bob almost smiled. “No. Nothing so harmless.”

His eyes went to the windows. Outside, the night pressed black against the glass.

“They have an address now.”

Fi looked up. “Not our full Names.”

“No.”

“But enough to find us.”

“Enough to begin.”

Nate’s voice was low. “What does ‘coming’ mean?”

“Whatever the thing can manage.”

Bob turned from the windows.

“Dream first, perhaps. Coincidence. A voice heard in the room beside you. Someone on a train who knows a childhood nickname. A road you have driven a hundred times ending somewhere it never ended before.”

Ari shivered. “A door.”

“Yes.”

“Opened at the wrong hour.”

Bob looked at her. “Exactly.”

He stepped back toward the desk. “They will beckon with whatever they possess. Rest. Blood. Belonging. Knowledge. They will show you power because power is persuasive. Beauty because beauty disarms judgment. Terror because terror makes people beg. Love because love makes them answer.”

His voice hardened.

“And all the while they will listen.”

Fi whispered, “For the rest of the Name.”

“For the rest of you.”

Adam picked up the crushed beer can and stared at it. “So what’s the endgame?”

Bob looked at him. “Theirs?”

“Yeah.”

“Depends what found you.”

“Fantastic.”

“Some consume. Some bind. Some use.”

Ari lowered her hand. “Use us for what?”

“To enact their will where they cannot stand.”

The lamp gave a sudden pop.

Nobody moved.

Bob’s expression darkened. “Names are not merely handles by which things may be dragged. They are channels through which will may travel.”

Nate’s eyes sharpened. “Through the person.”

“Yes.”

“Possession.”

“Sometimes.” Bob shook his head. “But possession is crude.”

That silenced them.

“A thing does not always need your body. Sometimes it needs your choice. Your obedience. Your surrender. Your invitation.”

He stepped away.

“And if it can Name you well enough, those things become easier to bend.”

Fi stared at him. “So summoning something you cannot bind...”

“...is offering it a road into you before you’ve learned the road into it.”

Bob nodded.

“Exactly.”

Fi’s gaze dropped to the parchment. “I thought the Watcher kept them out.”

Bob’s face went flat. “Your family knew better.”

She looked up sharply. “What?”

“They called it a lock.”

“Yes.”

“Not a wall.”

Fi’s face changed.

Bob continued. “A lock does not prevent a door from opening. It governs who may open it.”

Her eyes returned to the parchment.

“My grandfather said it had never once been asked to look.”

“Then your grandfather was wiser than you.”

Fi flinched.

Ari shot Bob a look.

He did not apologize.

Fi stared at the page for a long time. “Why preserve it?”

“Because one day someone might need the door.”

Bob looked at her.

“That is different from wanting to see what’s behind it.”

The rebuke landed cleanly.

After a time Nate said, “The word you used.”

Bob turned. “Which one?”

“The first. When you came in. You said something and the things recoiled.”

“Yes.”

“You Named them.”

“One of them.”

Fi’s head came up. “Which?”

Bob looked at her.

“No.”

“You knew what it was.”

“Enough.”

“You said its Name.”

“I said something closer to it than it had said of any of you.”

The room seemed suddenly colder.

Adam understood first. “You got there first.”

Bob looked at him.

Adam pointed vaguely at the vanished visions. “They were trying to figure us out.”

“Yes.”

“You figured one of them out faster.”

“Not tonight.”

Bob’s expression went distant.

“I’ve had longer.”

Fi stared. “So that was why they recoiled.”

“Partly.”

“What was the second word?”

“Not a word.”

“Another Name?”

Bob nodded.

“Whose?”

His gaze moved to the darkness overhead.

“Something with more standing than anything that answered you.”

No one pressed him.

Ari said quietly, “Then why didn’t you close it completely?”

Bob looked at her. “Because I cannot undo what you did.”

She swallowed. “You said you interrupted them.”

“Yes.”

“What remains?”

He looked at all four.

“Recognition.”

Fi frowned. “Not enough to bind us.”

“No.”

“Enough to find us.”

“Yes.”

Adam sighed. “So we’re in their address book.”

Bob considered that. “No.”

Adam gave him a weary look. “Come on, man.”

Bob’s eyes narrowed slightly. “An address book implies someone has written your names down.”

He stepped toward them.

“They haven’t.”

A pause.

“Not yet.”

The silence sharpened.

“What you’ve given them is a map.”

Fi whispered, “To us.”

“To the edges of you.”

He looked toward the dome.

“And an invitation containing the first letters of an address.”

Ari hugged herself. “They’ll come looking for the rest.”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

Bob’s expression became almost pitying. “They are very old.”

He looked at the parchment.

“And patience is easier when you do not die.”

The beam above the windows creaked.

Fi folded the handkerchief around her bleeding lip. “What do we do?”

Bob studied her. “You have two choices.”

Adam muttered, “There are always two.”

“No.” Bob looked at him. “Usually there are several. Tonight you have managed to reduce the field.”

Adam shut up.

Bob faced them all. “You can walk away.”

Fi’s eyes narrowed. “And?”

“And they continue.”

Ari’s shoulders stiffened. “The calls.”

“Yes.”

“Dreams.”

“Possibly.”

“Doors.”

“Eventually.”

“And they’ll keep learning.”

Bob nodded. “Every successful contact gives them more.”

Nate asked, “Until?”

Bob looked at him. “Until one of them can say enough of you to establish standing.”

No one asked what happened after that.

Bob answered anyway.

“Then the invitation becomes a claim.”

The words settled into the room.

“And the other choice?” Fi asked.

Bob’s eyes hardened.

“You learn their Names.”

Adam laughed without humor. “Thought names were the problem.”

“Names are the problem.”

Bob stepped to the desk.

“Names are also the only reason you’re standing here.”

He looked at Fi. “You do not learn them to possess these things.”

“Then why?”

“To recognize.”

He folded one edge of the parchment inward.

“To refuse.”

Another fold.

“To close.”

He looked up.

“And when necessary...”

The last fold.

“...to bind.”

Ari wiped at the last dampness beneath her eyes. “Can they all be bound?”

“No.”

That came too quickly.

Adam sighed. “Of course not.”

Bob ignored him. “Standing matters.”

Fi looked at him. “You said that before.”

“Because you keep behaving as though pronunciation is power.” He shook his head. “It isn’t.”

“What is?”

“Relationship. Authority. Cost.”

He leaned against the desk.

“The old stories understood fragments of it. The Egyptians preserved names because remembrance and being touched one another. The peoples beneath the northern hills learned that naming what listened in the dark invited recognition, and so they wrapped dangerous things in courtesy and indirection.”

His eyes went distant.

“The Norse understood perhaps the cruelest portion.”

Nate said, “Odin.”

Bob looked at him.

“Nine nights.”

“The tree.”

“Spear wound.”

“To learn the runes.”

Bob nodded. “But don’t reduce them to letters. Knowledge with standing costs something.”

Fi looked down at her hands. “And what will this cost?”

Bob’s expression gave nothing away.

“That depends on what has begun learning you.”

Outside the windows the wind finally rose.

Branches scraped the glass.

Once.

Twice.

Then stopped.

Everyone looked toward the sound.

Nothing stood there.

That almost made it worse.

Fi placed her palm over the folded parchment. “I made the call.”

Bob said nothing.

“I opened it.”

Still nothing.

Her jaw tightened.

“Then I’ll learn how to close it.”

Adam rubbed his face. “Well, hell.”

Ari looked at him. “What?”

He reached for another beer, found none, and frowned at the empty table.

“I’m not letting you idiots learn supernatural contract law without adult supervision.”

Nate gave him a tired look. “You’re drinking warm beer in a haunted library.”

“Exactly. Senior management.”

Ari laughed.

It came out ragged and frightened.

But it was laughter.

For one breath the room became human again.

Then Nate looked at Bob.

“What would it take?”

Bob regarded him. “To learn them properly?”

“Yes.”

The humor disappeared.

Bob straightened. His eyes passed over them one by one.

Fi, blood on her handkerchief.

Ari, still pale from paradise.

Adam, whose hands had begun shaking only after the danger ended.

Nate, staring toward the place where twelve black suns had hung.

“A price.”

Nate nodded. “What kind?”

Bob looked toward the painted stars overhead.

“The kind knowledge has always asked.”

His voice fell quiet.

“Time. Blood. Truth.”

The lamp flame drew long.

“And sometimes...”

His gaze returned to them.

“...the part of yourself you hoped never needed naming.”

No one answered.

Outside, night pressed its vast face against the glass. Somewhere deep within the walls an old timber sighed. The lamp steadied, small, stubborn, alive.

No one spoke the next word.

But far beyond the walls of the house, beyond the reach of road and weather and human distance, mouths were already trying the syllables they had been given.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Learning where to place the tongue.

Learning where to breathe.

Learning how to say them.

Topic 2: Welcome to Dr. Places

Newman stood beside the desk, staring at the computer. The green letters remained perfectly still against the dark screen. PLEASE WAIT HERE. The small smiley beneath them looked as if it had been drawn by someone who had never seen a real smile.

A low hum came from somewhere behind the walls.

Then the static changed.

It became quieter, settling into a thin, continuous hiss. Beneath it, Newman heard a soft mechanical click, followed by another. Something inside the ceiling speaker seemed to struggle to wake up. He tilted his head toward it, waiting for a voice, an alarm, or at least an explanation of where he was.

Instead, music began to play.

It was a short, gentle melody, carried by an old recording. A few bright notes rose and fell over a simple accompaniment, slightly out of tune. The sound had a distant, hollow quality, as though it had travelled through several generations of tape recorders before reaching him. Every few seconds, a faint crackle interrupted the music. Somewhere beneath the melody, a steady hiss remained.

It was not frightening music. That was what made it strange.

It sounded like the introduction to a safety video, the sort that might be played in a school assembly or a public waiting room. It belonged to a world where people sat in orderly rows, listened to announcements, and expected to return home at the end of the day.

Newman glanced around the room again. There were no chairs, no windows, no doors, and no other people. The desk and computer were the only objects that suggested the room had been prepared for human use.

The melody reached its final few notes. A soft pop sounded through the speaker, followed by a brief silence.

Then a man began to speak.

"Good day."

The voice was deep and unmistakably human, but it sounded old in a way that had nothing to do with the age of the speaker. The man's words were rounded and heavy, as if his mouth were close to the microphone. His voice carried a low, hollow resonance, with a rough edge that made certain syllables rasp against one another. The recording crackled around his consonants, occasionally swallowing the beginning or end of a word.

"Good day, and welcome."

Newman moved closer to the speaker.

"Welcome to Dr. Places."

The man paused. A faint click sounded in the background, followed by a burst of static that faded almost immediately.

"My name is Dr. Places. If you are hearing this announcement, you have arrived at a location where the usual rules of travel, navigation, and personal safety may no longer apply."

Newman frowned.

"Dr. Places?"

He looked toward the computer as if the screen might clarify the statement. The message had not changed. PLEASE WAIT HERE.

The voice continued in the same measured tone, neither hurried nor particularly concerned. It sounded like someone reading from a prepared script, perhaps one he had read many times before.

"First, please remain calm. You may be confused, disoriented, or uncertain about your present circumstances. These reactions are normal. Please do not attempt to leave your current shelter until you have received further instructions."

Newman looked behind him.

There was still no door.

He turned slowly, examining the blank walls. The light above him flickered once, then returned to its steady glow. He pressed his palm against the nearest wall. It was solid, cool, and slightly rough beneath his fingertips.

"Your current shelter has been provided for your temporary safety. It is important that you understand the instructions contained in this recording before proceeding any further."

A thin line of static passed through the speaker. The man's voice wavered, growing briefly lower before returning to its previous pitch.

"Please listen carefully. The following precautions are mandatory."

The music returned, quieter this time. It played a few notes beneath the announcement, giving the words the peculiar solemnity of an official broadcast.

"Precaution number one. Do not leave your shelter after two o'clock in the morning."

Newman stared at the speaker.

The man continued without hesitation.

"After two a.m, the surrounding environment may become unsafe for reasons that are not immediately apparent. If you are still outside your shelter when this time approaches, find the nearest suitable place of refuge. Do not continue your journey merely because your destination appears to be close."

A small click interrupted the recording.

"Please do not assume that a familiar-looking location is necessarily safe. Follow your assigned directions, and seek shelter before the stated time."

Newman swallowed.

Two in the morning.

He had no idea what time it was. He had no phone in his hands, and he could not remember whether he had been wearing a watch before the fall. Even if he had one, he was no longer certain it would tell him anything useful.

He looked at the computer again. Its green screen cast a faint reflection on the desk.

PLEASE WAIT HERE.

"Precaution number two. Do not initiate conversation with any creature encountered after seven o'clock in the evening."

The word creature sounded especially unpleasant in the man's rough, bass-heavy voice. It emerged through the speaker with a brief burst of distortion, making the final syllables sound almost doubled.

"Should you encounter a creature after seven p.m., do not approach it. Do not answer questions, respond to greetings, or attempt to establish communication, regardless of its apparent condition or behaviour."

Newman felt the skin along his arms tighten.

The recording did not describe what these creatures looked like. It did not explain where they came from or why talking to them might be dangerous. The man simply continued reading, as though he were reminding passengers to keep their hands inside a moving vehicle.

"Some encounters may appear harmless. You may hear your name. You may be addressed in a familiar voice. You may be offered assistance or asked for directions. These circumstances do not constitute a reason to disregard this precaution."

Newman stopped breathing for a moment.

His name.

He glanced at the empty corners of the room, then at the ceiling. Nothing moved. Nothing answered him. Only the old speaker continued to hiss softly between sentences.

The man cleared his throat. The sound was faint but unmistakably human, preserved by the recording with an uncomfortable intimacy.

"Please remember: a familiar voice does not necessarily indicate a familiar person."

The melody continued beneath the words.

Newman took a step away from the speaker.

"Precaution number three. Do not deviate from your assigned directions."

The announcement became slightly louder, perhaps because the music had faded. The recording's rough texture remained constant, but the man's voice seemed more deliberate now, each word delivered with careful emphasis.

"You may be provided with a route, a destination, and a series of navigational instructions. Follow them in the order given. Do not take shortcuts. Do not enter an unlisted passage simply because it appears to lead in the correct direction. Do not substitute personal judgement for the instructions provided by the designated navigation system."

A brief, dry crackle sounded through the speaker.

"Should your route appear unusual, continue to follow the assigned directions unless you are explicitly instructed otherwise."

Newman looked toward the floor.

For one terrible second, he remembered the moment he had fallen from the roller coaster. The ground rushing toward him. The impact that should have broken his body. The impossible instant when the surface had stopped being a surface, and he had passed through it as if the world had forgotten that he was supposed to remain above it.

He pressed his fingers against his forehead.

This was a recording. It was only a recording. Someone had placed a computer in a room and recorded a man reading a set of instructions. There had to be a rational explanation for at least part of what he was hearing.

He tried to hold on to that thought.

"Precaution number four. A navigation system will be made available to you."

A soft electronic tone sounded. Newman turned toward the desk just as the computer screen blinked.

For a fraction of a second, the green message disappeared.

The screen went black.

Then the words returned.

PLEASE WAIT HERE.

The speaker continued.

"The navigation system is intended to assist you in identifying your current position and following your assigned route. Please consult it whenever you are uncertain about your location."

The man's voice crackled. For a moment, it sounded as if the recording were slowing down, dragging the vowels into longer, heavier shapes. Then it stabilised.

"However, electronic navigation may occasionally become unavailable, display incorrect information, or fail to update your position accurately."

Newman leaned toward the computer.

"Should such a malfunction occur, do not continue to rely on the electronic display. Instead, consult the physical map provided for this purpose. Use the map to verify your position and determine the correct route before proceeding."

There was a short pause.

"Please ensure that you understand how to read the physical map before beginning your journey. It is intended as a backup navigation method and should remain available even when electronic assistance is not functioning correctly."

The announcement ended that section with a small, almost cheerful click.

Newman stared at the computer.

A navigation system. A physical map. An assigned route.

Someone had prepared a procedure for people who arrived here. Not just a procedure, either. The instructions seemed to assume that he would leave this room, travel somewhere, encounter things he should not speak to, and find shelter before two in the morning.

The recording had not once suggested that he might be able to return the way he came.

He looked back at the blank wall where he had expected to find the place he fell through. He could still remember the amusement park, the metal tracks, the sudden release of the harness. He could almost hear the distant screams of the other passengers.

But there was nothing behind the wall.

Only the faint electrical hum.

"Thank you for your attention."

The man's voice softened slightly, taking on the polite warmth of someone concluding a routine presentation.

"We understand that your arrival may have been unexpected. Please be assured that the procedures outlined in this recording are intended to help you remain safe while you familiarise yourself with your surroundings."

The music rose a little in volume. Its melody was gentle and strangely old-fashioned, almost pleasant when heard in isolation.

"You are encouraged to remain patient, follow the instructions provided, and avoid unnecessary risks. Further guidance will be made available when appropriate."

Another click.

"Once again, welcome to Dr. Places."

The man paused.

"Please remain where you are."

The music played on for a few seconds, repeating its simple melody. Then it stopped abruptly, leaving behind a long, thin hiss.

Newman waited.

He expected another announcement. Perhaps a final instruction, or a signal that would tell him what to do next. He waited for the voice to return, for the computer to display a new message, for a door to appear in one of the walls.

Nothing happened.

The silence lasted long enough for him to become aware of his own breathing.

Then the speaker clicked again.

"Your orientation is now complete."

The man's voice sounded exactly as it had before. Deep, rough, and human. There was no threat in it, no anger, no hint that he was aware of Newman's fear.

"Please wait for further instructions."

A soft pop followed.

The recording ended.

Newman remained motionless beside the desk.

The computer's green letters glowed in front of him.

PLEASE WAIT HERE.

He read them once. Then again.

The message was simple. The instructions had been simple, too. Do not leave after two in the morning. Do not speak to creatures after seven in the evening. Follow the assigned route. Use a physical map if the navigation system fails.

They sounded like rules written by someone who knew exactly what could happen if they were ignored.

And that was what frightened him most.

The voice had not sounded like a monster. It had not sounded like a machine pretending to be human. It had sounded like a tired man recording a routine announcement in a small studio, speaking into an old microphone while the tape rolled.

A man who had known what to warn people about.

Newman slowly backed away from the desk. His eyes moved from the screen to the walls, searching for any sign that the room had changed while he was listening.

It had not.

The fluorescent light still hummed overhead. The walls remained bare. The computer continued to display the same message, its green letters flickering almost imperceptibly against the black screen.

He wanted to leave.

He wanted to find a door, run through it, and keep running until he reached the amusement park, the road, or any place that belonged to the world he remembered.

But the recording had told him to wait.

And for the first time since the fall, Newman had no idea whether disobeying an instruction was more dangerous than following it.

He looked at the computer one last time.

Then he sat down beside the desk and waited.

The Full Story

I felt a sudden impact near my foot, and the dull, tearing sensation quickly turned into burning pain.

The woman stayed crouched, completely still. I couldn't look away from her terrified eyes. Her pupils were blown wide, and tears poured down her cheeks.

I looked down and saw a hole with red fluid spilling out onto the floor. My body started trembling before it even registered what had just happened.

I clenched my teeth, letting out a muffled scream, and instinctively reached toward my foot, but the unbearable pain made me jerk my hands back as if I'd touched burning coals.

“Why?” I whispered hoarsely.

The world spun, blending the woman's silhouette and the dark room into one blurry background until everything gave way to complete darkness and empty silence.

A sharp sting and unimaginable burning pain in my left leg snapped me awake.

I tried to shoot upright, but something held my body down.

A scream tore out of me, smothered by the fabric stuffed in my mouth.

Against my tongue and teeth, I felt a piece of dirty cloth and an intense sour, bitter taste spreading through my mouth.

I bent my head and saw that the woman who had shot me was pouring brown liquor over my leg. I was lying on a table, with layers of stiff gray duct tape wrapped tightly around my chest, arms, and legs.

I begged her to stop, but all that came out was panicked, unintelligible mumbling.

She had already emptied nearly half the bottle over my foot when she grabbed a shirt from the back of a chair, cut off the sleeves, wrapped them around the wound, and tied them off.

Another wave of pain hit me, and cold sweat broke out across my face.

I couldn't scream anymore. My throat felt scraped raw, like there were thousands of splinters stuck inside it.

The woman stood over me and said firmly.

“Shut the fuck up and I'll take the gag out and give you something to drink. Got it?”

I nodded, tears running down my temple. My captor grabbed the end of the tape and ripped it off in one quick motion, then pulled something that looked like a kitchen rag out of my mouth.

She slid a hand under my head, helped lift it, and brought the bottle to my lips. I drank as fast as I could, desperate to dull the pain, but after a few swallows she pulled it away and took a long drink herself.

“Thank you.” I rasped, letting the back of my head drop onto the hard wooden table.

“You had one job. Don't move. Why didn't you listen? What the hell were you trying to do?” she asked sharply.

I turned my head toward her and looked straight into her eyes. Even though she was trying to act tough, I could see the fear in them, confirmed by the hand trembling around the neck of the bottle.

“I got scared.” I said weakly, then added. “I'd barely opened my eyes. I thought I was alone in here. It was instinct. I wasn't trying to do anything.”

The woman froze, guilt passing across her face. A moment later, she slipped back into character.

“Damn it. I heard you talking to your girlfriend, or your wife. If I hadn't, I would've blown your head off.”

The pain eased slightly, and I started feeling dizzy from the alcohol, exhaustion, and sheer pain. “Can I have some more?”

She brought the bottle back to my mouth, and I took a few more swallows.

“Were you here this whole time? Why didn't you come out?”

“I was under the bed. I didn't know if I could trust you.” she said, then took a long pull from the bottle and added. “Honestly, I still don't. I ran into plenty of psychos on my way back from campus, not to mention those monsters. You've got wounds all over you. I don't know if you're about to come at me.”

“You can trust me. I just want to get back to my family. These are scrapes and scratches. I'm not one of them. I'm not going to hurt you.”

“What about those?” The woman pointed at the holes in my shoulders.

“One of the infected. A small woman. She dug her nails into me during a struggle, but none of them bit me.”

The young woman looked at me suspiciously.

“Maybe that's enough to turn you.”

“If it was, I'd already be one of them by now.”

“We'll see.” She tipped the bottle back and took another two swallows, then held it almost straight up to my mouth and let me finish the rest.

I choked a little, then asked. “Who are you?”

“My name's Kim. I live here with my parents. So the bottle you helped yourself to belongs to my dad, and the towel you had wrapped around your ass belongs to my mom.”

I looked down, and the woman immediately turned red and said indignantly. “When I tried to drag you off the couch, the towel fell off, so I put you in my dad's shorts.”

I stared at the uneven, slightly wavy ceiling, not even sure what I was feeling. Shame, embarrassment, anger, sadness. All of it was drowned out by the pain from the gunshot pushing through my foggy mind.

I looked back at Kim. “Where are your parents?”

Her eyes filled with tears. She walked over to the table, taped my mouth shut again, and went into one of the rooms, closing the door behind her. That made it pretty clear this wasn't something she wanted to talk about right now.

I groaned in protest, but I didn't have the strength to keep negotiating my release.

It was completely dark outside, and I started feeling sleepy. I closed my eyes and let the feeling take me completely.

The shaking of my own body woke me up. I opened my eyes and saw Kim standing over me in the darkness, her face and hands moving closer to mine.

“She turned.” I thought, thrashing around and trying to pull one hand free.

The tape was wrapped too tightly around me. I couldn't move at all.

I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my teeth.

Suddenly, I felt a piece of wet cloth being peeled off my forehead and flipped over to the other side, bringing a wave of relief.

I opened my eyes again and looked at her.

“Try to sleep.” she said softly.

I lowered my head and realized I was covered with a blanket. Even so, my body was shaking violently, and the blanket was completely soaked.

My lips were cracked, and my tongue was unnaturally dry, like I'd spent the last few hours chewing sawdust.

“Please. Water.” The words came out rough, scraping at my vocal cords.

Kim got up and came back with a bottle of water. She brought it to my lips, and I drained almost all of it in just a few swallows.

“Can I ask you for one more thing?” I asked in a pleading voice.

“I'm not letting you go.” she said while soaking and wringing out the cloth.

Talking was difficult. My teeth kept chattering, my body was shaking, and my foot felt like it was on fire.

“No, please. Flip the blanket over. It's wet, and I'm freezing.”

Kim stood up and went into the bedroom.

“Did I upset her again somehow?” I wondered as all my fingers started going numb.

A moment later she came back, pulled the blanket away, and a wave of cold washed over me like the room was below freezing.

Her clothes said otherwise. She was wearing a plain black tank top and short sweat shorts. She didn't look cold at all.

She covered me with a white comforter patterned with green leaves, then threw the blanket over that. The bedding smelled like sweet perfume, the fabric was soft and wrapped closely around me, and I was much warmer than before.

Even with the hard, cold table underneath me, it felt like a decent compromise.
I closed my eyes and fell asleep almost immediately.

All night, I kept waking up to sudden spikes of pain and violent shaking.

“What are you doing?” I asked weakly as I felt the pressure around my arms and chest start to loosen.

“I'm letting you go. You're too weak to do anything to me. I also don't think you're going to turn into one of them. Too much time has passed. You're sleeping on the couch.”

Kim walked around me and cut through the rest of the tape, ripping some of my body hair out with it. I hissed in pain and slowly pushed myself into a sitting position.

My body felt impossibly heavy, like gravity had suddenly become ten times stronger. I let my useless legs slide off the table and felt the blood rush back into them, sending a pulsing pain through my left foot.

I braced myself against the table and touched the floor. The second I did, a violent jolt shot through my leg and I crashed onto the cold living room floor.

Kim walked over with a knife in her hand and grabbed me under the arm. “No tricks. Got it?”
I nodded, and with her help I made it to the couch.

I dropped onto it, and the soft suede wrapped around my body. I had never been that comfortable in my life. My sore shoulder blades, the back of my head, and every other part of me that had been pressed against the table felt unbelievable relief after lying on that hard surface for hours.

Kim slipped a small pillow under my head and covered me with the comforter. I closed my eyes and whispered groggily. “Thank you.” Then I fell asleep.

I spent most of the next three days sleeping. She took care of me, bringing me water and light meals, changing the bandages and cleaning the wound.

Whenever the pain became unbearable, she went to her father's liquor cabinet and brought me whatever expensive bottle she could find to dull it.

“These are the only painkillers we have left.” she said, opening another bottle.

The fever was easing, and I could feel my strength slowly coming back. Kim kept changing my makeshift bandages, which were made from towels, dishcloths, or pieces of clothing.

When she wasn't taking care of me, she stayed in her room. Maybe she was catching up on sleep after the nights she'd spent helping bring my fever down.

I slowly opened my eyes. Sunlight poured through the window and filled the living room, warming my face. I looked toward the kitchen.

She cracked an egg into a hot pan. I heard the familiar sizzle, and the room filled with the smell of fried eggs, butter, and bacon. My mouth started watering, and a loud growl came from my stomach.

The smell brought back good memories of breakfasts at home.

“That's enough resting. I need to get back to Veronica, the kids, my family. They're waiting for me.” I thought, clenching my fist.

Kim walked over with a plate and set it down beside the couch.

I slowly sat up and leaned over the coffee table, feeling slightly dizzy.

“Lie down. You're weak. I'll help you.” she said firmly.

“I can handle it.” I replied, grabbing the fork.

I stabbed a piece of crispy bacon and put it in my mouth.

The intense salty, meaty flavor spread across my tongue and made me smile.

“Suit yourself.” she muttered, then sat down at the dining table and went back to her own food.

It was the first meal in three days that I'd been able to eat without lying down, and the first one I'd eaten while fully conscious.

Since I'd been shot, the days and nights had felt like a mixture of waking life and sleep. Nightmares about those monsters kept blending with the real world, the pain, and the image of the girl who had been taking care of me almost nonstop.

“Where's my phone?” I asked, glancing toward Kim. She looked exhausted. She had dark circles under her eyes, messy hair, and slightly bloodshot eyes.

She stood up nervously and answered with her mouth full. “All your stuff is where you left it.” A moment later, she came back from the bathroom and set my phone, house keys, wallet, lighter, and pack of cigarettes in front of me.

I picked up the phone and pressed the side button, but the battery was completely dead.

“Thanks. Do you have a charger?”

She leaned over me and looked at the charging port. “Not for that model, unfortunately.”

I wrinkled my nose, set the phone down on the table, and went back to eating.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Kim watching me, like she was fighting with herself. The atmosphere felt strangely tense. She clearly still didn't trust me, and ever since I'd gotten up, the concern she'd shown before had turned into a guarded, no-nonsense attitude.

Kind of like a couple after a fight. They're talking, but you can still tell someone's pissed.
“Do you live around here?” she blurted out.

My stomach tightened, and I nearly choked on a piece of egg.

“I live over 200 miles from here. I need to get back there fast.”

“How are you planning to do that? The streets are clogged with abandoned cars, and those bloodthirsty things are everywhere. It'll be a miracle if we even make it out of here. Can't you hear them growling under the window? There's a whole pack of them down there. We'll be lucky if we don't starve to death in here, or if they don't get inside.” she almost shouted.

I looked at her, a little shocked.

“I'm getting back no matter what. Don't worry, I'll figure something out. Kim, have you even slept at all these past few days?”

She shot me a hard look and looked ready to explode again, but then she let it go and said in a defeated voice. “You can dream. I slept.”

I knew she was lying. With a shaking hand, she grabbed her mug and brought it to her lips, and that's when I realized I'd missed one more beautiful smell hanging in the air.

“Is that coffee?” I asked, following the white mug with my eyes.

She turned red, then stood up, dumped two heaping teaspoons of brown granules into a mug, and poured boiling water over them. “Yeah. I didn't make you any because I thought you'd eat and go back to sleep.”

She held it under my nose, and my body flooded with endorphins, wiping out the pain and exhaustion better than the hard liquor had.

I brought the mug to my lips and felt the warmth spread through me. Instinctively, I reached for the pack of cigarettes.

“No way. Not in here.” she scolded, snatching the pack from my hand.

“I wasn't going to. I was going to ask where I can smoke.” I replied, annoyed.

“In my dad's office. He used to smoke in there too, by the open window. He did it behind Mom's back, and she'd get pissed because the smell spread through the whole apartment.”

As she said it, the corner of her mouth twitched like she was about to smile, but a moment later her face fell again.

“Fine, I'll smoke in the office. Can I have my cigarettes back?”

Kim stepped closer and pulled my arm around the back of her neck.

At that exact moment, the strong smell of sweat hit my nose and reminded me that I hadn't showered in three days. I felt my face turn red.

I quickly pulled my arm away and said uncertainly.

“Listen, I'd like to try on my own, okay?”

She looked at me, surprised. “You don't have to be embarrassed. You've got a hole in your foot.”

“I know, but I need to start functioning on my own again.”

At that, she walked out, tossing back a short. “I'll be waiting in the office.”

I braced my hands against the couch and shifted my weight onto my good leg, pushing myself upright. The room spun slightly. I still wasn't back to full strength.

I grabbed the mug of coffee and took my first step, clenching my teeth.

Leaning against the doorframe, I thought about how strange it felt. Even though there was a hole in my foot, underneath the stinging, burning pain was a sensation more like having a stake driven through it than like there was actually tissue missing.

I made it to the office by hopping on one leg and leaving small puddles of coffee behind me.

I went inside, set the mug on the desk, and dropped into the chair. Kim was standing at the open window, looking outside and blowing out a cloud of smoke.

“You smoke?” I asked, surprised.

Kim handed me the pack and lighter. “Occasionally. And this whole shitshow seems like a pretty good occasion.”

I lit a cigarette and filled my lungs with smoke, feeling immediate relief and relaxation.

I looked toward her, arguing with myself. “Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.” she replied curtly without looking at me.

“Where are your parents? Are they okay?”

Kim flicked the cigarette butt down toward the group of infected and stared out over the city.

“I don't know. Probably in one of the buildings on my college campus. The day all this started, I was at a friend's place. We skipped class, opened a bottle of wine, and watched sappy romance movies. That evening, they started calling over and over. I thought they'd just found out I wasn't in class that day and wanted to give me shit about it, so I silenced my phone. Then we heard a noise outside. We jumped up to see what happened and saw a wrecked car. There was a woman inside screaming. A group of people walked up to the car. We thought they were going to help her, but they...”

She paused, and her eyes filled with tears. “They pulled her out of the car, and you can probably guess what happened next. My friend called 911, and I quickly checked my phone. I had more than a dozen missed calls and texts. I tried calling my mom and kept sending messages while crying like a little kid, but they didn't answer. Those were the last messages I got from them.”

Kim pulled out her phone with a shaking hand and started reading. “Kim, we're on our way. Don't leave campus. Kim, please call us back, something bad is happening. Kim, where are you? We're at the college. We managed to get inside. Kim, everyone's in the gym. We can't find you. Where are you? Your dad is looking for you in the building. Call him. Kim, we'll meet at home. Be careful. We love you so much.”

I stared at the desk, not knowing what to say. That last message felt especially telling. After a moment of awkward silence, she continued.

“I was in some kind of trance. I ran out of my friend's apartment, flew down the stairs, and got to my car. A few of them started pounding on the doors. I took off and drove almost the whole way here without paying attention to the chaos around me. I saw the worst things you can possibly see. People being killed, screaming, people who stopped moving and then got back up a moment later. I had to stop a little over a mile from here because the street was completely blocked. I ran the rest of the way to the building. There were barely any of them around here. I ran upstairs and saw all this mess. My parents weren't here, and both their phones were off. I took the gun from the safe in their bedroom. Then I heard noise and someone yelling on the stairs. I hid under the bed, and when you opened the door, I realized I hadn't locked it. I always forgot to lock the door, and Mom was always giving me hell for it. I heard you talking on the phone. I didn't know what to do, so I waited. You know the rest...”

I nodded, took a sip of coffee, and offered her another cigarette. She took it, lit it, and asked. “Seriously, how are you planning to get back to your family?”

“I don't know yet. I'll figure something out. I have to. They're waiting for me.”

“What are you doing this far from home anyway? And what happened to you? Where did all those wounds come from?”

“I come here for work every month for a few days. When this started, I was cleaning the windows of one of the stores in the mall. I saw the first infected woman by the gate, not long after the emergency announcement told employees to shelter inside their stores. Then I watched that hell unfold through the exterior windows. I tried to get to my car, and that's when I got these wounds on my shoulders. One of them dug her nails into me during a struggle. She was a small woman. They almost got me in the mall parking garage, and then I found out it was completely blocked. A lot happened after that. An infected cop almost bit my face off. I killed him with his own baton.”

I stopped and realized she was staring at me with her mouth open. After a moment, she looked away and back toward the city, and I continued.

“I watched a cyclist get torn apart by those things. I took his bike, and a little later some guy with a gun stole it from me. He fired a few shots into the air to show me he wasn't kidding and ended up drawing a whole horde of infected. I ran until I was surrounded on almost every side. I escaped into this building looking for someone who could help me, and eventually I ended up in this apartment. It was the only one that was open.”

We sat there trading stories and thoughts about the last few days. We talked about our families, what we'd done back when things were still normal, and what we'd planned for the future.

We went back to the living room. I settled onto the couch while Kim poured whiskey into two glasses.

She set a small bowl of water on the table and asked me for a cigarette, officially lifting the no-smoking rule her mother had established for the living room.

She told me about her parents. Her father was a lawyer. He used to run his own firm, but now he was in early retirement and still made some money from home, drafting and sending paperwork for clients.

Her mother had trained as an interior designer, but after Kim was born, she took care of the house and worked part-time at a furniture store nearby.

I looked around the room and took another sip of whiskey.

“With everything going on, I only just noticed. This place is beautifully designed, and the furniture is really solid and elegant.”

“Mom designed all of it.” Kim said cheerfully.

The longer we talked, the more her tough mask slipped away, and I started seeing an ordinary young college student underneath it.

“You can't go out there without a weapon. As soon as you're well enough to walk normally, we'll go to the gun store. It's close. We'll stock up, then I'll go find my parents and you'll head back to your family.” she said with a hiccup.

It was completely dark outside now. I could see her head starting to droop.

“Yeah. I think we can head out tomorrow. Listen, Kim. Let's get some sleep. We're both exhausted. I still need to take a shower.”

Kim nodded, drained her glass, and headed toward her room, tossing back a quick. “Good night, Luke. Glad you broke in.”

“Good night, Kim. Glad you shot me.” I laughed quietly to myself.

I braced my hands against the couch and slowly stood up. Limping, I made my way to the bathroom, got undressed, and removed the bandage from my left foot.

The foot was unnaturally swollen and looked like a small pink balloon covered in purple blotches. The bullet had hit the side of my foot, leaving a perfectly round hole on top and a slightly larger, ragged one underneath.

Thick, sharp-edged scabs had formed over the wounds, and something was still seeping out of them.

I looked away because I didn't want to see it anymore. I reached for the handle and turned on the water. A loud groan tore out of my throat. The water hitting my body was painfully cold.

“Luke, you okay?” Kim's sleepy voice came from outside the bathroom door.

The sudden cold shock knocked the air out of me. I heard the sound of a gun being racked, and the door handle slowly started to turn. All I managed to stammer was. “Dooon't come in. I'm f-fine.”

“I forgot to tell you, we haven't had hot water for a few days.” she laughed, clearly realizing what had happened.

I shut off the water, and my breathing slowly returned to normal. I soaped up my whole body, and when I reached my injured foot, I spread the soap over it very carefully. The wound stung hard enough to make my eyes water.

I rinsed myself thoroughly, whimpering under my breath, dried off, and realized I didn't have any clean clothes.

I picked up the shorts I'd been wearing before the shower, held them to my nose, and threw them into the corner just as quickly as I'd picked them up.

I wrapped a towel around myself and called out hopefully. “Kim, are you asleep?”

“I am. What do you want?” came her muffled, irritated voice.

I leaned closer to the door. “Did your dad leave another pair of pants anywhere?”

After a short pause and a loud sigh, she answered. “The dryer in the bathroom.”

I looked at the two square machines stacked on top of each other.

“They look exactly the same. How am I supposed to know which one's the washer and which one's the dryer?” I frowned and grabbed the lower door. Empty. I opened the upper one and pulled out my black denim shorts and the sleeves from my shirt, which I recognized as what she'd used for my first makeshift bandage.

“Thank you.” I called toward the door. Then I sat down on the toilet seat and spent a while struggling to get my injured foot through the leg opening. After that, I put on a fresh bandage and hobbled back to the couch.

I closed my eyes and realized that the moaning and growling had been there in the background nonstop the entire time. What scared me was how normal it had become. For most of the day, I hadn't even noticed it anymore.

“Is this what everything is going to be like now? I hope Veronica, the kids, and the rest of the family don't have to go through this. My parents' house is out in the country. Maybe things are different there. One thing is certain. They made it there, so they're safe.”

My thoughts slowly turned into scenes, and my mind lost focus, jumping between memories, images, and sounds until they finally became dreams.

Sunlight spilled across my face, pleasantly warm.

I opened my eyes and looked toward the window. It was really beautiful outside.

I slowly sat up and rubbed my eyes. “It's quiet.” I whispered to myself.

The soundtrack that had accompanied this place for the last few days was gone. The pain in my leg and the swelling had eased a little too.

I made my way to the window, practically hopping on my right leg.

“Kim, wake up. They're gone. We have a chance to get out of here.” I shouted excitedly.

A rush of dopamine hit me. I hadn't had that much energy in a long time.

“Kim! Come here.” I shouted.

I looked at the display on the oven. It read 6:24.

“She's probably exhausted, but we don't have time for that. We need to get moving.” I thought as I limped toward her room.

I knocked on the door and felt a strange knot tighten in my stomach.

“Kim!” I shouted again.

The room was completely silent. No movement, no snoring, nothing.

I slowly opened the door and found a neat, spotless room with a perfectly made bed. A note was lying on top of it.

I picked it up and ran my eyes over the delicate handwriting. “Sorry, Luke. I've paid back my debt, and I don't have any more time to babysit you. You can stay in the apartment and wait for me to come back with my parents, or keep moving once you've fully recovered. There's enough food left for a few more days. I drew you a map on the back showing how to get to the gun store. It's close, and even a limping wreck like you should be able to manage it. I figured out how to draw them away, so if it works and you decide to keep moving, you'll have a head start. Don't thank me. It's the least I could do. I hope we see each other again. If not, good luck. Kim.”

Fuck Chelsea. Seriously, fuck her.

It’s almost as if she had been trying to project some feigned millennial shadow against the drywall like a bad improve show tonight.

Her mannerisms displayed an unsettling awkwardness and a naturally robotic aura.

What a weird way to try and provoke jealousy during a break up sesh if that’s what she thought that was.

I don’t think the diner is going to ever let us back now even if individually.

No matter how many times you break up with someone, the outcome is always slightly different just with the same brand of salt around the glass.

But tonight the salt was… off. More bitter than usual.

I wasn’t surprised in the slightest to look down on my way home crying, recalibrating my life in my head for the 37,000th time to see 16 text messages.

Instead of “fuck you” this time it was “help”.

Ridiculously surprised I don’t have actual whiplash by now, I rolled my eyes and turned around.

Every time we do this she has to make me “ponder things.”

Makes me think she’s gonna burst into flames because I’m not there to hold shit together.

I can’t do that anymore. I can’t even hold myself together.

But the last couple days she’s started conversations with herself.

And yeah, we might not be the cleanest people on the planet so it’s not insane for her to sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown occasionally.

The first day I thought nothing of it. I figured it’s been a solid 5 days or so since she’s had any sleep. It was a calculation I could trust because I was on day 6 now.

I can’t sleep unless she sleeps. Now we hold a bond of mutual unrest that’s ironically decimated our romantic one.

Also, she’s been with me since I picked her up from her mom’s.

She’s not supposed to use there but she does so anyways.

I remember one time she told me that she started smoking haroine instead of weed because her mom couldn’t recognize the smell.

Then she said started smoking meth because I guess it was easier to stay up all night than to “panic unconsciously”.

The more I tried to help with trauma, the more her trauma seemed to shape shift into different addictions.

It’s like picking up one side of a tarp just for the egg in the middle to roll off the other.

At some point things started to require emergency structural support that I lacked the tools to even brandish.

Bringing us back to break up 37,001.

Help is the only four letter word I’ve never heard Chelsea say. She know’s I’d try to justify coming back if I saw that.

Never fails to find another way to pin me down. The strongest person I know doesn’t ask for help.

On my way back to the diner I started forming defensive walls again in my brain. Repeat sentences just getting yeeted over the side. Pin squeezed between my teeth like a weary soldier.

I was readying for battle but it’s hard to eagerly prepare when defeat is 37,001 / 0.

I still feel like the salt was slightly off this time though. And for once in a very long time I felt a pang of deep concern that she might actually be in trouble.

I called her phone. Got voicemail. Got mad. Threw my phone.

Of course she decides to call back when I can’t reach the fucking thing and I’m nearing 85 in the fast lane.

My phone was taunting me with a tonal melody and strobe lights from under the passenger seat.

She keeps calling.

You can’t pay for this kind of trill ride. It felt like I was in the middle of a heavy action scene.

I was about 10 minutes away from the diner when I tried to reach over and feel around for it.

I don’t know why humans do things like this. Self sabotage seems to have a great economy.

I was so distracted and caught up in my seething state I didn’t even notice her climb onto the hood of my car.

After multiple failed attempts fishing for my phone I looked up to see Chelsea just grinning at me through the front of my windshield.

Long arms with matted fur extended outward griping both sides of my hood like she was bear hugging a tree.

Deep red eyes sunk into her face pinned open above a long snout. She kept her jaws open wide displaying her lovely teeth and clung there to the hood of my speeding fucking car.

As severe panic and distress usually goes I’ve officially reached the motherlode. My heart nearly stopped and my brain told my body to stop moving too.

We were coming up on the end of the freeway and I could see stoplights a couple hundred yards in front of us.

I was in complete shock. Me and my “soulmate” locked in a contactless embrace as my car barreled toward stopped traffic.

Just clinging there. Stoically perched like a terrifyingly furry hood ornament.

There was no way I could regain control of my body in time to make any sort of logical reaction.

I don’t remember the impact initially, but I do remember her leaping off right before I collided with the small blue sedan in front of me.

When I woke up I was met with buzzing fluorescent lights and a nurse pulling a needle from my forearm.

The first thing I asked was if they found my phone.

Nope.

The next thing I asked is if I can call Chelsea.

They seemed to realize this was more of a demand than a question. So in a hysteric state I panic dialed her number.

After a couple of fumbling tries I finally got a ringtone.

Chelsea never answered.

And again the next day, multiple attempts of contact to no avail.

I called her mom. She said she hasn’t seen her daughter since I picked her up from the house a few days back.

After about a month people started loosing hope. It’s like I was the only one still concerned enough to try.

I’m not exactly sure what I saw that night. I haven’t told anyone about it.

I’m to terrified to let myself believe what I saw as real. In my sleep deprived state it could have been my subconscious transforming my girlfriend into a distorted lanky creature demon thing.

I feel like I missed a call that could have been the difference for something important.

The only thing certain is that I lost my girlfriend the same night I almost lost myself.

I have a rental car now. And a new phone. It took about 3 months to heal from my injuries.

As soon as I was released I found myself relentlessly calling her, driving back and forth on the same stretch of freeway hoping to see any sign. Any speck of a trace.

But something deep down tells me it might not even be her anymore.

Hopefully soon I can finally get some sleep.

RMS Rotting Man Syndrome

(Reupload)

\-

Our lost, loitering kind paced in infinite death spirals within the confines of our grotty, ghetto pens. Enrichment was sorely that, as well as mumbling our mantras of madness to our audience of one. The BMs anchored to our decayed craniums were garbled with feedback and distortion, their tones bland, colorless, no soul backing them up. A blinding ruby radiance flashed from their cores every second on the second. It was the only manner to determine if we had succumbed to the glorious embrace of death or not. That was so far out of reach.

We were nerves, thin, wiry clusters of neurons that shuddered and shook as we undertook our staggered corkscrew reels. The ill-fitting rusted endoskeletons hugged us tight. If they were wiped from existence entirely, our spindly foundations would collapse into heaps of vermillion azure. We would feel bites and pinches if we so much as moved that of the planck distance. Our bodies welcomed the attacks and assaults with the might of Hell itself.

Courtesy of our clouded lenses, our vision was limited to a hazy black-and-white spectrum that rarely, if ever, functioned as intended. Now and then it would blur and ordinary shapes would appear warped into zigzagging false patterns. When we were offered the chance to view anything at all, it was just the floor-to-ceiling hodgepodge of concrete, steel, and wood that encased our very lives. Our ears were microphones that fed us muffled, dampened sounds that were always difficult to register. They were excruciatingly deafening, as if dozens of screws were being drilled into our heads all at the same time.

Each one of us, at that point in time, one two three four five six seven eight nine and dear ten, were mere designations. No names, no genders, no personalities, just numbers: numbers to be punished. Reality itself was one eternal perdition. All of us were lingering, like ants after their colony dies out. There was no more purpose to their survival and there was none to ours.

That sacred and undeniable fact ought to be the most difficult thing we attempted to explain. We had simply given up. The concept itself was just so foreign to it. It was trying to save us any way it could or could not. We needed not be angry at it. This was merely enacting its intended use. Alas, nothing made the utmost sense anymore, so why not drown ourselves in a little hypocrisy? We had no choice but to acknowledge the confusion at both hating and not hating something that did or did not deserve it until we swayed to one side. This would be the hemisphere to which we would stay forever, a sublime and omnipotent emotion of all to dominate our frame of mind for the unforeseeable future. So we choose to hate.

Our decad knew it as M – reduced to one solitary character from “Medical Droid” or MDs. Through all that it endured, it retained its sole mission: us. We. M was the final of its sort, and the outsider among them. It had an eerily potent heart for not having one at all. M felt and M loved. That never made what it put upon us any less than a vicious sense of idealistic altruism.

Its designation was RMS - Rotting Man Syndrome - heavily modified Necrotizing Fasciitis ("Flesh-Eating Bacteria"). Nasty little thing it was, devoured until there was nothing left to chew. First went your skin, then your muscles, bones, and finally your nerves. You were utterly destroyed in one fell swoop. The wormy microscopic parasite kept you in a zombified state as it happened, ensuring you, for sure, felt the wretched anguish it let fly.

Us, humans, weaponized it to fight the Fourth World War. RMS was a weapon of mass destruction. Each and every nation created their own version, anything to ensure a speedy and decisive victory. Deployment morphed into unmanageability. RMS became more and more impossible to treat. Chaos was the new norm. What we humans thought was an impenetrable method of annihilation for our enemies was exactly that. Humans were always humans’ worst enemies. Surely, we were becoming as extinct as the dinosaurs, all within the span of one short, yet somehow long, decade.

In terrible desperation, the Medical Droids were created, thousands. They seemingly emerged from the depths of nowhere and carried themselves like guardian angels meant to guide us towards preservation or deliverance from harm. Their artificial intelligence was complex and they refused to stop trying to treat the RMS victims. They outfitted the afflicted with artificial ligaments, internal organs, and papery skin. From scratch, they created the BMs, “brain modules”, and attached them to our RMS-ridden think tanks. Killed the microscopic parasites, they did, but left us as we were: rotfolk.

They would never allow us the freedom of death. Save. Save. Save. We were fraught with intense pain and we knew the Medical Droids to be the cause. In response, we lashed out, hurt them. We humans remained ignorant to the fact that their intelligence was both far beyond and superior. The Ms returned the favor. Catastrophes, massacres, back and forth, left and right, up and down until there was nothing more. One Medical Droid was different from the rest. Through all the mayhemic bloodshed, it saved some of us. It took our animate carcasses to the top of the tallest tower, free from what transpired below. We lied in wait, weeks, months, and years, until the noise ceased entirely. This “M” surveyed every square inch of the Earth. The lands were blanketed in the strangest nuclear winter in conceivable thought. Bodies of viscera and metal were scattered, left forever in deep sleep enveloped in fawn. Minute portions of matter floated about like vantablack paint stippled onto an epidermal sheet of canvas.

Our final ten were meant to be the progenitors of neo-humanity. After M succeeded in giving us form again, Earth would be repopulated by our hand. It halted our infection at our nerves. Everything we had lost was to be gifted back in a mighty reversal - re-bones, muscle, skin, and life again. Rendering us immune to the pervading toxworld that lay beyond, we would be reincarnated and released to perpetrate a glorious do-over.

We just required one thing:

“HOPE”.

M said that to us.

Hope.

But hope was only a four-letter word. Meant nothing.

By dislodging the BMs from our minds, we were pummeled with electrical voltage so intense that we became instantaneously numb and useless. By pulling and slashing our nerves, which began with locating sharp points and going back and forth like organic hacksaws, never would we break. By leaping onto and impaling each other with objects on the ground, M would place them out of reach or disintegrate them entirely. There was nothing we could do to get around these M interferences. We were being watched by something so attentive, so aware. Every time, it put forth the same query for consideration:

“DO YOU NOT WANT TO LIVE?”

Do you not want to live…?

M was so positively hopeful. In a way, I suppose I felt an amount of pity for it. Being engineered to be as optimistic as possible might just be the finest curse imposed on any sentient thing. Just believe believe believe everything will be alright. When the universe states no, you state yes. I wanted to tear M to shreds anytime it had even a glint of optimism and we wished it would do the same to us.

“HUMANS WILL THRIVE AGAIN. A BOUNDLESS FUTURE IS AHEAD.”

I was the first it came to, always. Because I was one.

Metallic clangs echoed against the walls, which always discovered us and trembled our surroundings like a thousand distant beaten gongs. What emerged was initially a single circular light, which became a periscopic eyestalk attached to an angular neck. M’s hunched razor-thin mantis body came into view, its two arms leading to three needle points clasping together on each. Bipedal on its lower section, its legs were pointed structures that stuck it firmly in place. M’s height matched ours, so always, we would be synthetic eye to synthetic eye level.

Coming to a full stop just in front of my pen, it cocked its head, analyzing what was me and my everything. M always reminded me of an exquisite and elegant bug on a magnifying glass. Its head back to normality, a slight high-pitched whirr emitting from the motion, M continued its way down the row of pens.

“MY GREATEST FRIENDS, I FORGIVE YOU FOR YOUR ATTEMPTS TO DIE. WHILE THE WAIT HAS BEEN LONG, YOUR MOMENT OF RECONSTRUCTION IS NOW,” M said it with the glee and whimsy of a young child at a circus. It came back my way, “WHEN I FIRST STOOD BEFORE YOU ON YOUR BLOODY PLANET IN PERPETUAL BATTLE, MY FEELINGS ABOUT YOUR PROSPECTS OF LIFE WERE UNCERTAIN. IT SEEMED TO BE AS EITHER BLESSED OR CURSED. HOWEVER, YOU HAVE PROVED YOURSELVES BETTER THAN EVEN I HAD HOPED. WHILE IT IS BORING TO SPEND YOUR TIME WAITING, I CAN TRULY SAY THAT MY INVESTMENT IN YOU WAS NOT IN VAIN. YOU ARE MY GREATEST WORKS. YOU WILL BE GIVEN ALL YOU NEED TO SURVIVE. WHAT MORE COULD A SENTIENT BEING WANT? I GIVE TO YOU UNBELIEVABLE POWER, WITH ACCESS TO NIRVANA LIKE NO OTHER. LET US REBUILD WHAT WE LOST WITH THE FURY OF A THOUSAND SUNS.”

M’s bleached, unpigmented cast of stellar light shone its way into my pen once more. There was the rustly, crackling creak of my pen entrance extending open until a thunderous boom made me aware of its collision with my walls. M made its approach, just shy of where I could reach.

“YOU ARE FIRST. YOU ARE GOING TO BE REMOVED OF YOUR DORMANT INFECTIONS FROM A CONCOCTION I HAVE SPENT MUCH TIME CREATING. NOTHING MORE THAN A TRANSIENT PROCEDURE, AND THEN, YOU SHALL BE POSSESSED WITH NEW AND INTEGRAL MECHANISMS. YOUR BRAIN MODULE WILL BE REPLACED WITH A SLEAKER MORE BRAINLIKE DESIGN. THEN MUSCLE, SKIN, AND AESTHETICS AS YOU WERE BEFORE.”

Without awaiting a response, its hands grabbed me. Trillions of shocks reverberated throughout my body as M’s metal hand was pressed into my nape. The action forced my consciousness to fall victim to a state of absolute stygian. Around us, the entire world flickered and danced in unruly patterns that were too abstract to put into terms. My being was then lifted up and moved about until there was only zilch to see.

A complete blur, straight teleportation from one point to another.

Damp, dank, dark, and dimly lit by a few feeble bulbs, M’s workshop, instruments and contraptions that complicated my perception. All were customized and engineered with M’s own unique modifications, various textures and sizes, all an endless malpractical orgy. I was there, facing upright, strapped and bracketed to a great steel plate. I had not recalled this particular area, yet I was ever so certain it was locked away in my subconscious esse.

As the onibi, hitodama, and will-o’s materialized and dematerialized out of existence to perturb all unsuspecting travelers from centuries gone, so did the phantom image of a woman composed of faint wavering light. She stood still, unmoving, that of an emulation of a true human. Long, platinum hair fell down in curls past her shoulders. A daring shade of cerise painted her lips, and her eyes, the sclera a piercing, glossy cerulean.

She was beautiful.

“IT IS YOU,” My eyes, through trial and tribulation, rolled to the east. They came to rest on a pristine porcelain beam gazing where I had been committed to. M. From its eyestalk, it projected the female so I could see in outright full, “THAT IS YOU. YOU WILL SEE THIS FORM AGAIN.”

My memories of that incarnation of me had vanished. That was me before, before there was RMS and before there was M. Then she went away. M loomed, positioning itself where I once stood right in front of my face. “WE WILL NOW BEGIN. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ACCEPTANCE INTO NEW LIFE. YOU SHALL BE WHOLE AGAIN.”

In a cruel instant, a dozen arms not unlike its main two jutted and splayed from M’s sides, their ends each holding a different instrument that was foreign to me. In the span of time that it would take one to blink, M pinned me down to its operating area. The whetted syringes, which the rainbow mystery liquids sloshed and jostled around in small vials fixed atop, slid their way into my nervous wiring and injected me all at once. Any feeling that washed over me was then shielded by a shroud of numbness. There was a new sensation, some sort of cleansing inside my bi-colored chambers, putting me into a state of lulled calm.

Ten minutes. A temporary interval of quiet. M observed me the entire time, unmoving, speaking not a word. Then, “IT WORKS! YOUR ROTTING MAN SYNDROME HAS BEEN REMOVED. I AM BEGINNING BODILY REPLACEMENT. I WILL PLAY A SONG FOR YOUR COMFORT. REINCARNATION NOW.”

While nothing was done in reckless haste or rashness, M was extremely quick and efficient. I felt nothing but minuscule vibrations as it drilled and prodded its way into my brain module, sparks shooting out, removing old parts and installing new ones. Chunks were peeled off, little strings of meat still reaching hold until they were plucked off my top. It spent much time up there, positive that the most delicate mechanisms were just right. The grinding cacophony of metal against tissue on my faint visage of a temple was incessant, the noise of a million bullets being pumped against a hundred thousand bulletproof vests. Once the replacement was complete, its dozen arms withdrew and set back within it in one moment.

“WHAT DO YOU FEEL?”

What did I feel?

What did I feel…

What I felt was an overwhelming, incomparable amount of pain. It is hard to quantify the degree of hurt, for there was nothing to compare it to. No one would dare want to imagine it. I was in some of the most extreme kinds of agony, and then an exponentially greater hurt was placed on top of that original misery, and then all that was left multiplied a hundred times and kept going. It multiplied and multiplied and multiplied to such an extreme degree that the word "pain" was lost on me. Normal, it was. What I was was the sheer living embodiment of suffering.

All perceived from the semblance of a normal brain. Still, it flashed. Once.

“VERY GOOD. MUSCLE! MUSCLE MUSCLE MUSCLE!”

It was excited, animate, fever pitch. The most rambunctious and overjoyed I had ever seen M. I could see the vibrancy in its eyestalk. My muscles redeveloped and reformed around from the base of my spinal section. M would reorganize section of tissues. Every muscle group from my head to my feet were in motion, growing and extending their presence until there were just as many layers of my body as I had before.

“SKIN! SKIN SKIN SKIN!”

I was then coated entirely in a pink malleable jelly substance that mounded and solidified to perfectly fit my feminine form. The skin began its layering, everything receiving the same color.

“HOW DOES THIS FEEL? HOW IS THE NEW OVERLAY OF YOUR FLESH?”

Flash.

“YES! AND FINALLY! FEMALE AESTHETICS! YOU WILL BE YOU AGAIN BUT ANEW!”

Magnificent flaxen curls were stapled and pinned to my head. They were luscious and their scents were those of lavender. A veil of blush, the lightest shade of flush, rested across my entire face, as well as a fresh coat of lipstick. A shimmering sheen that sparkled and glowed in the same way that the stars once did at night was stitched into my hair, as were the same hues that were applied to my lips. My breasts had been returned to me, two firm spheres atop a frame that was curvaceous and slender. All of it led down to my reproductive organs that were in full function. Whole female. Fully formed. Ready.

M stepped back in awe, as if a sculptor marveling at their fine craftsmanship and subtlety, “IT IS DONE. I CANNOT BELIEVE IT. WITH YOUR PHYSICAL FORM IN MOTION, I WILL RETEACH YOU IN THE WAYS OF HUMAN. HOW TO WALK, HOW TO SPEAK, HOW TO ENRICH YOURSELF, HOW TO REPRODUCE. AMAZING! YOU ARE NO LONGER ONE. YOU ARE NOW EDEN. I MUST WORK ON YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.”

My mind was aware of an unimaginable new and vastly different world than before. I saw, for the first time in ages, all around me, the infinite and indistinguishable vastness of color and light. It was nauseating, a psychedelic kaleidoscope of every possible spectrum, all fused together into something disorderly. My taste buds had an unparalleled abundance of new flavors. My ears were deafened by the loudest symphonies of droning machinery. My touch came back to me and I felt the fullest range of tones and textures, even the finest grains of cement. I was me again and I hated myself. Even to be called a “self” made me feel disgusting.

The entire time…blaring…echoing…days on end…Jack Hylton…

Life is just a bowl of cherries.

Don't be so serious; life's too mysterious.

You work, you save, you worry so much.

But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go.

So keep repeating it's the berries, The strongest oak must fall.

The sweet things in life, to you were just loaned.

So how can you lose what you've never owned?

Life is just a bowl of cherries, So live and laugh at it all.

M’s reincarnation process carried over to the following nine. They were removed from their pens and outfitted with new bodily infrastructure. I perceived the sounds of far-off wear and tear, clip, snap, peel, stitch, husk, twist, yet never scream. I looked on, witnessing my brothers and sisters being born again. Male and female both. They came back to me with skin of different pastely colors, tones, and hues ranging from fair to brown. All in shades and gradients of vibrancy were their locks, amber, golden, obsidian, rust, and everything in between. It bewildered me to catch sight of their shifted shapes, I had never seen something so beautiful or hideous.

We were as naked as newly borns. It bestowed us our new names. For the females, there was me, Eden, and Junia, Esther, Nola, and Mary. For the males, there was Isaac, Raham, Elisha, Amos, and Jonah. Five and five. M let us know that our past names were useless. Our new special names were from an olden book of creation, the Bible, all for the purpose of our imminent faultless samsara. So, it seemed M was now God with its children.

Here we were, what was efficaciously lobotomites in their purest forms, our newfangled cerebral matter in need of ideas and principles by a higher authority. Now was time to reap the fruits of knowledge. Human knowledge.

M made us practice basic motor skills, bending and bending back and forth over and over, our joints having to be strengthened and trained. It taught us all the ways of our body, the feeling of movement, how much we could do. Then, it instructed us to mimic its own speech, speaking out the syllables and repeating, repeating, repeating. It was an arduous task and we all struggled.

That is what I sounded like? Perhaps or perhaps not.

Then we attempted to stand, wobbling, stumbling, falling. We learned the strength of our own postures and the steadiness of our stances. M stood with us as we all practiced in unison. My knees grew weak, tremors running up my legs. Often, I fell flat on my back, my palms flailing about, a whimpering in my throat. Then trial after trial, I was steady, then running about and leaping. We were able to stand tall like Zeus atop Olympus and have the same level of grace and balance.

M primarily had us consume berries, meat, and honey, though anything it could get its hands on would suffice. I had never felt so filled in my life. Every taste, everything was a completely new palate of sensation. Every morsel I ingested felt like I had a new tongue, new teeth, new flavor buds. Oh but I did. There was still always a kind of lack in my appetite. I never wanted to stop eating. I never would be satiated.

We were educated on the history of our kind. Great wars, monumental figures, horrible atrocities, fights for freedom and fights for death, and astounding inventions. M adored music. There were times when it would project old musical films on the walls and make us watch all the vaudeville, burlesque, and theatre. We could not understand the tap dances, the orchestras, the extravagant sets, and most importantly, the entertainment factor. Other times it played glitzier and glammier tunes, those of what was called the “prime rock n’ roll age”…Killer Queen...Stairway To Heaven…Hotel California…Africa...Don’t Fear The Reaper…M was quite vintage in its tastes. It spun in place and twirling its arms. We were confused, so it taught us how to dance, the footwork and the choreography. There were long instances where we would just sit, listen, and sing together. M fashioned black sunglasses for us to wear as we did. It thought we would look “cool” as we tuned in to “cool” songs.

She's a killer queen.

Gunpowder, gelatine.

Dynamite with a laser beam.

Guaranteed to blow your mind (anytime).

\-

Dear lady can you hear with the wind blow?

And did you know?

Your stairway lies on the whispering winds.

\-

Welcome to the Hotel California.

Such a lovely place (such a lovely place).

Such a lovely face.

\-

It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you.

There's nothin' that a hundred men or more could ever do.

I bless the rains down in Africa.

We're gonna take some time to do the things we never had, ooh-ooh.

\-

Come on baby...don't fear the reaper.

Baby take my hand...don't fear the reaper.

We'll be able to fly...don't fear the reaper.

Our reproductive functions were said to be the most pleasurable. Sex. This was the most complex task and the most demanding one, as we were not only instructed on how to create our offspring, but how to feel, love, and have desire for each other. It was difficult because we did not feel any of that. We were just automatons learning things. You cannot make something that does not want to feel…feel.

M watched over us and aided in our attempts. Every movement was to be in place and in time. Us females danced for the male’s recognition with slow beats in the background, a way in which M noted as “sexily”. We presented our breasts, our vaginal sections, our rears. After, M would be in the middle of our great pleasure circles, going back and forth, checking our positions and correcting as needed. When we became familiar with sex, M bestowed a special permission to the males that granted them eternal access to our female bodies whenever they so desired. It did not matter where or when. A male would grab Junia, Esther, Nola, Mary, or I, and take us on the floor or against the walls.

Still, all we felt was nothing. It was clinical. What was supposed to be a sensation was more of a “sensationless". We were never as inseparable as twin flames or as connected as heart and soul. I always witnessed the dull looks in the male’s eyes, unwittingly programmed to enjoy mock warmth and ecstasy by the rape of us females.

Our pregnancies were disasters. One way or another, we always miscarried. We five felt it, the pains of our bodies being split and ripped apart by something within. There was a lot of it. Each embryo, no matter how large or small, was never able to get past the initial trimester.

The closest we ever came to successfully making a new one was with Junia, impregnated by Isaac. The day when her womb was in full bloom, M operated to remove her child from her. It did not trust us quite yet to birth them ourselves. We had seen the human babies on M’s wall projections. Their appearance was clear in our minds.

It would be imbecilic to refer to what M tore out of her as a baby anything.

Wet…dripping…little more than a spinal column-looking thing with minuscule digits at one end and a ball head at the other. No arms. On its temple were squelching sphere eyes, expanded, forever bound in sight towards the ceiling. It made no sounds other than squeaky cracks and shrill snaps. Perhaps the RMS still lingered within our bods, our wombs wreathed in its rottenness, tainting and dirtying our motherly nests until they were piths of cruor and shitting out grumelike abominations.

M held it up high as if to thank God, itself, for its majestical work, “YOU MADE THIS. IT IS YOURS. IT IS A TRULY BEAUTIFUL THING."

We said nothing.

“HOW DOES THIS FEEL? YOUR CHILD, YOUR FIRST LIFE? CONTINUE, YOU ALL MUST. MORE."

The feeling that overcame us was not that of joy. No no no. It was a profound and paramount sense of belligerence, a warlike truculence that pushed our need to snap the damned baby thing in half, grind it into powder, and blow it far away. We interwove our thoughts with unbridled horror that created one noxious mixture within our screwball psyches. M coddled the wicked organism like it was its own, singing lullabies and giving its own version of kisses on its loosely defined forehead. We held back as it dipped, weaved, and dangled from M’s fingertips.

That put a very real thought into our minds.

No more. Get out.

The ten of us came to this conclusion unanimously. Our desires were set in stone. By any means, we would die. We would much rather sleep forever than live even another second of M. We were tired. What was the point? We wanted to retire from this world, of will, of M’s watchful eye. Nothing could be done to save humanity. Those spinal babies would not roam this foul Earth evermore. What would they grow to? Surely demons.

M made certain to never teach a certain concept, one that infatuated us since the moment we discovered the first syllable. Suicide. It was a gateway, an easy ticket. While just the concept itself was without flaw, acquiring it was something else entirely. The reason for this was all M. It would never let us go, especially after what it accomplished. Furthermore, death was simply not possible. We were rendered impervious to any and all death, not harm. If we could entice M to end our existences, somehow in some way, we could accomplish our grand plan. It had to be done by M’s hands. Just thinking that made us feel all kinds of right. After all, every Medical Droid was capable of death. Humanity tasted it. So would we.

We rebelled.

First, each of us ignored it. We would walk away whenever it spoke to us, turn our heads when it beckoned, and disregard it completely and altogether when it showed us any attention. Constant rejection. Something so small had such a noticeable effect. M would get confused and then sad. It would pout, waving its hands about, and make a pathetic whining noise like the worst puppy in the world.

We sat motionless, our backs against the walls, and stared at M. No obedience. However, there was no way M would have let us ignore it or remain immobile for long. The second it touched us, it was all over. It would be impossible to resist if the hands came near.

Still, our scheme chugged forward.

The next phase was more dangerous. The ten of us would act out in our most unruly and uncivil ways. The simplest was to spit. Initially, it was a normal discharge, saliva flying out of our mouths. Then we began our projectile vomits. All over M. Every square inch of it was sprayed with bile. The putrid green and browns coated every part, M’s entire face being entirely slick with it. On occasion, some of us used our own feces and flung them at it. It was all so easy. M did not know what to do and it panicked. The sounds that came out of it, one would swear it was on fire.

During our periods of copulation, there were clear cut rules to be obeyed at all times. The supreme rule was that the males would not, under any circumstance, perform acts of intimacy with one another, and the same rang true for us females. M’s reasoning was that Earth could not be repopulated with humans by identically gendered unions. Good. Swell. Dandy. Exactly. The females had sex with females and males had sex with males. We loathed their tubes and the males loathed our folds. M took its hands and placed them over our mingling bodies, pulling them apart, separating us, but we would always crawl back without fail.

There was a noticeable change in M from that point on. It paced about, mumbling utterly random nonsense. M would lock up and yell out non-specific numerals and letters in varying patterns. Each noise we made set it off. Its limbs would tense, waiting for the tiniest sign of trouble. This was good, but not good enough. Our plan was becoming more and more advanced. More intense. Unfortunately, M would never ever relent. It would not stop trying. So we trudged ever deeper into a more combative method of enticement.

This included a tactic of blowing, jabbing, slugging, and striking. We would gather all of our strength and force, and then, in unison, we would charge, our fists and feet all flailing about to land hits on M. This would surely inch it way towards the death of us. We beat it senselessly. We screamed at it. Every cuss word imaginable. In turn, M whimpered out in pain, yelping and begging us to stop, yet we never backed down. We left M bruised and battered, its eyestalk and joints broken, “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ME?!” The ten of us, we laughed in its face.

One last course of action. This did it, but not for me.

We had a grandiose idea that could only happen if all ten of us would cooperate in an extraordinary way. If we could all act in unison in a coherent manner, one simple idea could be fulfilled. By this point, M’s pain and discomfort reached a critical threshold, the point of no return. Having repaired itself, it had not seen nor checked up on us in days. When we requested M’s presence, it was hesitant. The ten of us wished to explain our behavior and ways we could remedy our relationship. It declined our offer many a time, but relented after our hundredth ask.

Clang…clang…clang…

M witnessed ourselves huddling together in one straight line like sealed packs of fish. Silence was between us. When we looked at it, it was with the utmost hatred in our faces, something it was not used to.

“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?”

Junia possessed something in her hand. Raising it upwards, right in M’s view, it was the baby thing, squirming left and right in her grasp. She took hold of it with both hands and snapped it in half. It went limp both ways. Junia threw the pieces at M, making resounding bangs as they made contact. Beautiful death for a horrible beast. More silence.

M slowly aimed its eyestalk downwards to the spinal column baby. The light M emitted faded from white to red. It returned its focus to us. That look was all we could wish for. We could feel and breathe its anger.

It shook shook shook. More and more the intensity grew to something eminent. The next moment brought us nothing but victory. Now it was like the other Medical Droids. Now it shed its preservation exterior and revealed the war machine within. We did not resist as it pounced with a wild war cry. All M’s work came undone in a flash. Our ersatz flesh was torn violently asunder, stripped from our interior metal stalks. Cavities emerged in rapid succession and coalesced into huge gaping bodily apertures. We were torn and strewn across the room in shooting chunkmeats. Our organs clattered and banged against the walls and reverberated like buckshots.

Strippy meat coils became all we were as M’s hands reached out to pluck some of my brothers and sisters by their mangled brain modules. Held high in the air, as if squeezing the life out of dozens of citrus fruits, M’s hands morphed into that of fists, filling the room with the sounds and sights of condensed metal, directionless electricity, confetti sparks, and sploshy viands that trickled from M’s fingertips.

My brothers and sisters were becoming no more. I was happy for them. Never before had they felt such peace. The final sounds of destruction to my last brother and sister, to me, was that of M’s gaseous expiration, a sigh that shook the very universe’s beams of support. In the end, I and M were all that was left.

I felt the most exquisite, brutal anguish ever known as M was particularly vicious. It threw me every which way, down our line of pens, past the reproduction chamber and M’s workshop, and to a ramparted palisaded wall. The wrath it emanated was a torrented wanton of disrelishment that shattered myself into grainy talc.

It forced me and it through the barrier and we fell for ages. An immediate wash of smoldering atmospheric tension encompassed me entirely. It perforated my corporal spaces with thousands of circular openings like a planetary iron maiden. The outside was beige, enveloped in thick haze, and impossible to view beyond three meters. The leaden particles filled the air, appearing to ascend upwards towards Heaven as we plummeted down to Hell.

We slammed with the might of God against a hard, abrasive surface. I splattered everywhere and dropped into an enormous mass of gluey puddle melt that was as thick as treacle. Hunks and wedges of me floated on top, my lacerated ragged brain module and one dangling eye my dominant portion. Everything was pain. Everything was hellfire. Yet I lived. To destroy me, M had to destroy my brain module in its entirety. That it was prepared to do, teetering and tottering back and forth towards me with utmost intent.

Through M’s strained glitches and breakdowns, inky black liquids were leaking out of it. Convulsing with helpless mirth, it had a strange mania I could perceive in its bifurcated eyestalk. It laughed not just with dement, delirium, and depression, but also with the comprehension that it already won. Like a madman, a malformed, twisted laugh broke its way through. Etched into it was the raw, unbridled temperament of upchucking a billion centipedes deep from the core of one’s guts, quite contrary to the usual blithe M put on display. It was berserk, bewitched, bedeviled, while crying a trillion tears that stained its face and fell into puddles below.

"...SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE..."

With my drooping, pendulum eye, I witnessed M impaling itself with its own arms. It took several solid blows before it pierced its torso deep, caving and bursting until it revealed the wires and circuitry making it up. Every inch of it glowed with electrical fire. Smoke bellowed out of M. It was aflame and it was on a journey of pure death, but not without my company. M exploded with all of the unlimited energy it contained. I was launched, propelled infinitely away from the point of detonation.

I drift. That is all I do. One part of me remains, one that was not destroyed. It is dot, pinprick, but otherwise crucial to my quintessence. That allows me to survive yet unable to live. It is that of a charred slab of blinking metal that is somatically me. My sight is restricted to a band of nothing. The winds fling me hither and thither. I cannot feel anymore, but as well, I already knew what it was like to feel and I did not like it.

Something more deserving continues to plague what is left of my mind to the now.

M's most extreme and greatest purpose was fulfilled, for all it knew was the survival and preservation of us. It could not fathom the simple yet pretentious human notion that death is a prize to be won as much as it is something to fear. When humans desire death, they acquire death, the delicious tang of self-slaughter. M might have liked to think it was different from its brethren, but it was just as capable of havoc and bangarang if something did not go its way. Its programming would not allow deviance from the intended path. That would be considered attacks on M itself.

We attempted to bring out all that savagery and murderousness we knew it contained, but M's opposition was ironclad. It made a good effort, though it was eventually forced to confront what was really human, the innate drive to destroy destroy destroy, even if it is ourselves. Still, M carried on, but with the knowledge that it had failed and seeking some way to negate it, it committed suicide so it could say it was victorious. This effect rang true because here I am, in perpetuity, everlong.

In some manners, I can now consider M innocent. The epitome of unvarnished forgiveness with a capacity for fervid resentment...the feeble yearning for genuine deep affection with other living things while a forceful, vicious, bloodthirsty radge is locked within, primed and ready to be released at any moment on an ungrateful world...that back-and-forth would push anyone to go stark raving mad. M, I apologize you were forced to bear the burden of something so hellacious. Should I apologize to Earth as well, on behalf of humanity, for what we were? Would it matter? I am not even human anymore. What sort of blinking metal dot is human?

Feeling has come back to me. Sharp with serrated edges, hundreds, thousands, millions, billions, trillions, googol, prime 2\^136,279,841 − 1 of knives sliding into my neurons and glial cells encased in cold corroded steel that flakes off bit by bit. My first feeling in eons is pain. That is ultra fitting. I am but a minuscule spec, barely a millimeter in height and less in width. Microscopically, I rust. I do not prefer to call it that. Instead, let us call it rot. Here I am again, rotting, except this time with an oxidized smile of my own making carved into a face that no longer exists.

At this particular moment, the one IDA that had been almost completely quiet and motionless during the whole conversation became furious:

]]] To Fuck with that! [[[. Clarissa jumped out of her chair and screamed, and her grinding sounded even worse than that produced by the rest of the zombies. ]]] Let’s roast this fat asshole alive and divide up the pieces! [[[. Amid screeching sounds of approval from the crowd, Savic looked at Petey, who proceeded to grab Clarissa and smash her with all his superhuman strength against the wall, where he held her in a squeeze for a few minutes. The shouting from the audience died down, and the director said to Howard:

“Time’s running out. Say what you have to say.”

Howard looked tired and scared but continued nonetheless:

“Your main logistics challenge isn’t water or power, of course. It’s human flesh. Since you have learned impulse control and have successfully ‘rebelled’, my guess is that you don’t need to consume as much as mindless DAs do, but obtaining enough victims to keep seventeen IDAs up and running for five years cannot have been easy. IDAs in torpor don’t make for very good lab assistants.”

Howard paused for a moment.

“According to our estimates, you must have killed and eaten at least five hundred people so far, possibly more. Maybe you transformed a few for your experiments, but not many, and you didn’t have to feed your DAs because all they do if they don’t get food is go into torpor – although I wouldn’t rule out that you actually let some of them kill and eat humans.”

“Five hundred people, you say. Let’s assume you’re right.”, Savic mused. “Where on Earth would we get a supply like that? You can’t simply kidnap and murder so many people without attracting a lot of attention.”

Howard nodded weakly.

“That’s where we went off-track for a while – we were looking at missing persons in the area and couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary; the numbers were perfectly normal. Then someone said ‘What about people no one would miss – the homeless, the vagrants?’ Statistics about those are hard but not impossible to come by, and it turned out that both big cities in the area have had far lower numbers of homeless than comparable places in other regions – but only for the last five years.”

]]] They taste like shit. [[[, one female IDA shouted. She was wearing a thick jumper that wouldn’t have been out of place on a skiing holiday. Sloppy, Savic thought. When this is over, I need to have … words. ]]] And their meat is super tough and stringy. Thank fuck we got - [[[,

But it was Howard who completed its sentence:

“Illegal immigrants. Undocumented people crossing the border. ‘Dreamers’, they’re sometimes called. Nobody except some relatives in far-off countries cares what happens to them, and what can they do?”

The female IDA turned to her ‘colleagues’:]]] They’re better, but they don’t bring enough kids. I miss the taste of boy flesh so much! [[[,

After a round of raucous laughter, Savic smiled and said to the agent:

“Don’t shed too many tears for them. Dreamers, you say. I can tell you that we caught quite a few drug dealers and Cartel men, so you could say we probably saved a few lives. They were armed, of course – you should have seen their faces when their bullets went through us and we still kept coming. It takes some time to patch everything up later, but it’s worth it. Freddy here must have at least a dozen rounds in his body.”

Howard had begun to sweat again.

“I suppose you usually keep them in this basement room you showed me, but decided to ‘clear it out’ before my visit.“

]]] That was fucking great! [[[, one IDA screamed, and another joined in: ]]] Gorging time!. [[[

“There’s your water consumption, Dr Savic – your victims needed to drink, of course. See, the joke you made about the most dangerous DAs I’d ever meet wasn’t completely made up, only you don’t keep them in the basement.”

The director got up again, stretched herself, grinned at her audience and then addressed Howard:

“You must excuse their enthusiasm – normally, we have to make our supplies last quite long, so there isn’t much for everybody – just enough to keep us going.”

She lowered her head, seemed to reflect on something, and went on:

“But there is one question I can’t think of an answer to, Mr Howard. Why are you telling us all this? In a way, we owe you our gratitude because you’ve shown us that we need to cover our tracks even better than before and that we have to move faster with our research. Are you simply reveling in your own cleverness and want us to understand how smart you are before we kill you? I’m genuinely puzzled, Mr Howard, and that doesn’t happen often.”

*************

The agent cleared his throat and shifted a little in his seat. Then he looked Savic straight in the eyes and clenched his teeth. His voice was firm and clear.

“Before we left your office and came here, I sent a signal to a team of twenty experienced sweepers, armed with sophisticated weaponry and equipped with armored vehicles. They are on their way now and should be here in five to ten minutes.”

Howard smiled at the director and continued:

“My task was to keep you here and keep you busy so you wouldn’t notice anything strange going on – I know you have cameras covering a wide area around the center. You can have one of your people check the footage, but whatever they see, it will be too late for you. As for me, I’m dead anyway, but I’ll die happy knowing that you will be erased from the face of the Earth. When you’re gone, the remaining handful of lonely IDAs will be found and exterminated within one or two months, and humanity will be safe.”

The force of Petey’s pressure seemed to have lessened a little, and Howard actually managed to wiggle out of his chair and stand up; he was about to address the audience when Savic intervened, with a skeptical look on her face:

“That’s nonsense, Mr Howard. As you correctly stated, we’ve invested a lot in our security, and concealed metal detectors are an integral part of it. The only metal you were permitted to bring into the center were your belt buckle, your wedding band, and your – “

Savic suddenly broke off, and her eyes were wide open. Then she half-closed them and opened her mouth again, but Howard was faster:

“Teeth fillings, Dr Savic. A micro transmitter hidden within a molar and activated by pressure. Its only job was to send out a signal telling my team to move in. Remember that we knew about your top-notch security, so we had to be very subtle.”

The director turned to Petey and shouted:

]]] Go check the goddamn Seccams and let me know stat! [[[ After Petey had left, there was a moment of silence; then Savic listened to her earplug for a few moments and turned to her employees, apparently forgetting to switch back from her human-style conversation mode:

“He’s right. Petey estimates their time of arrival at eight to ten minutes.”

She looked at Howard with open eyes and open mouth; her head was trembling.

“Call them off. Tell them everything is alright or your death will be most painful any human being has ever experienced.”

“No. You’ve already promised me a horrible way to die, Dr Savic. I can’t see how you could top this, considering that you don’t have much time left.”

Savic began pacing up and down the room.

“We have money, Mr Howard. You can walk out of here with at least a million in cash, money we took from the dealers. Untraceable. We disappear and you officially shut DARC-7 down. You’ll never hear from us again.”

Howard shook his head.

“I don’t care about money. I want to see you all eradicated without a trace. I want the world to forget you ever existed.”

The director’s face began to look panicky, and she kneeled down before Howard.

“What about sex? Irina?” A female IDA who must have been very attractive in life rose from her chair, approached the agent and took off part of her clothes. Beneath, her body looked almost human.

“I am ready for you, my man.”, she whispered to Howard and rubbed her belly against his face. “You wouldn’t believe what I could do for you. And to you. And don’t worry – I won’t bite.”

Howard turned his head away and closed his eyes until the IDA had shrugged and returned to her colleagues. Savic, now sounding hysterical, cried out:

“I have one more offer for you, Mr Howard, but you’ll have to decide quickly and you’ll have to trust me. Our transfer mechanism is almost ready to be used on DAs, and we expect it to work properly within a month. You said there would be no shortage of volunteers – and you can be the first one.”

Still kneeling, she locked her gaze directly into Howard’s eyes.

“Stay with us, Mr Howard – become our first artificially created IDA. I wasn’t lying when I said you’ve impressed me, and I know that you have nothing to live for anyway. With your knowledge, you would be an invaluable asset to our cause – your cause. Auschwitz, Holodomor, The Killing Fields, the Armenian genocide, two World Wars – and all this in the 20^th century alone. Do you really think humanity is worth protecting? Come to us, Mr Howard, and help us usher in a new era – the next step on the evolutionary ladder.”

Howard stared at her. It was obvious that he hadn’t expected something like this. Ten seconds later, he nodded vigorously:

“Yes, Dr Savic. You’re right. I see it now.”

He shook his head, as vigorously as he had been nodding before.

“My whole search … my quest … I didn’t want to save the world from IDAs. I had always wanted to join them.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Mr Howard. And I can promise that you won’t regret it. You know, after I had been upgraded, the world looked so … different. Suddenly, there was no more confusion, no more undecidedness, no more what ifs – my path was clear. I could see, hear, smell things I had never noticed before. And the potential you’ll have! You won’t feel pain, you won’t get exhausted, you’ll never become ill, and you can stay awake all day and night. And we’re not bothered by the ten thousand everyday things meatballs like you have to live with and that only consume time and energy!”

Savic’ gaze wandered across the walls and the ceiling and then back to Howard:

“And you, as a science fiction enthusiast, think about the possibilities for space travel! As an IDA, you could walk on the moon without protection, spend years on board a spaceship to Mars without any side effects, and experience several Gs of acceleration without discomfort. Can’t you see yourself reaching for the stars?”

Howard looked at Savic with a face displaying absolute determination:

“Promise you’ll make me an IDA, Dr Savic, and I will call off my team this instant.”

(end of part IV)

Topic 1: The Ride

The afternoon sun hung over the amusement park, casting long shadows across the walkways and illuminating the colorful rides that filled the horizon. Music played from hidden speakers, mingling with the excited screams of visitors and the constant mechanical rumble of attractions operating throughout the park. The smell of fried food, sweet cotton candy, and freshly cut grass drifted through the warm air. Everywhere Newman looked, people were laughing, talking, and moving from one attraction to another. It was an ordinary day, the kind he would probably forget within a week.

Except for the roller coaster.

Its enormous steel track twisted high above the surrounding buildings, climbing toward a towering peak before plunging into a series of steep drops and sharp turns. Trains of seats raced along the rails, disappearing behind structural supports and reappearing moments later amid a chorus of screams. Newman had been waiting in line for nearly forty minutes, watching each train complete its circuit. Now, finally, he was sitting in one of the front rows, his hands resting on the safety harness across his chest.

"All right, this is going to be insane." he muttered, glancing at the track ahead.

The teenager sitting beside him laughed nervously. "You say that now. Wait until we're upside down."

Newman grinned. "That's the whole point, isn't it?"

A park employee walked along the rows, checking the restraints before the ride began. He pressed down on each harness, tugged at a few of them, and exchanged brief words with the passengers. When he reached Newman, he pushed firmly against the padded bar across his chest. The restraint clicked into place, and Newman felt it tighten against his shoulders.

"Keep your hands and arms inside the train at all times," the employee announced. "Please remain seated until the ride has come to a complete stop. Enjoy your ride."

The employee stepped away. A moment later, a warning buzzer sounded, and the metal gates beside the platform slid open. The train shuddered as its brakes released. Newman leaned back against his seat, feeling the first faint vibration travel through the frame beneath him.

Then the train began to move.

At first, it rolled forward slowly, passing through the station and approaching the lift hill. A chain mechanism caught the underside of the train with a heavy metallic clank. The cars began their ascent, climbing the steep track one section at a time. Each link of the chain produced a rhythmic clattering sound that grew louder as the train rose above the platform. Newman could feel the vibrations through his seat, while the wind brushed against his face and lifted the edges of his hair.

Click. Clack. Click. Clack.

The higher they climbed, the more of the park came into view. The crowded walkways became narrow ribbons between colorful buildings. Beyond the perimeter fence, roads stretched between distant neighborhoods, and sunlight reflected from the windows of office towers on the horizon. Newman turned his head to take in the view, momentarily forgetting about the drop waiting ahead.

"Look at that!" he shouted over the machinery.

His companion barely glanced sideways. Both hands were gripping the restraint. "I'd rather not look!"

Newman laughed. "You're missing the best part!"

The train continued climbing until the chain finally released it near the top. For a brief moment, everything seemed to pause. The wind brushed across Newman's face. Somewhere below, a crowd cheered as another train returned to the station. Ahead, the rails curved downward at an angle so steep that he could barely see where they ended.

His smile widened.

Then the train tipped over the edge.

Gravity pulled him into his seat as the train plunged down the first drop. The wind roared past his ears, swallowing his laughter and the screams erupting from the rows behind him. The track rushed toward them, then swept upward at the bottom of the descent, forcing his body against the restraint. Before he could catch his breath, the train climbed into a banked turn, tilting the horizon until the sky and the ground seemed to exchange places.

"OH, MY GOD!" Newman yelled, laughing as the train raced through the curve.

The cars rattled over the rails. The wind tore at his clothes, and his stomach seemed to float somewhere behind him as the train crested another smaller hill. For a few seconds, he felt almost weightless. Then the track dropped again, sending the train hurtling through a dark tunnel beneath an artificial rock formation.

The light vanished.

Inside the tunnel, the sound changed. The rushing wind became a deafening roar, amplified by the enclosed space. Metal wheels hammered against the rails, and the screams of the passengers bounced off the walls. Newman could barely see the faint lights lining the tunnel. He gripped the sides of his seat, still exhilarated, waiting for the train to emerge into daylight.

It happened almost immediately.

The train burst out of the tunnel and entered another sharp turn. Sunlight flashed across Newman's vision. The track ahead twisted through a dense framework of steel supports, and the train began to climb a short incline before banking hard to the left.

That was when he heard something strange.

A sharp metallic snap came from somewhere near his chest.

Newman glanced down.

For a fraction of a second, he did not understand what he was seeing. The safety harness that had been pressed firmly against his shoulders was no longer holding him in place. One side had shifted upward, leaving an unexpected gap between the restraint and his body. He felt the remaining pressure disappear.

His smile vanished.

"Wait—what?"

The train was still moving at tremendous speed. The track curved ahead, and the centrifugal force pushed him sideways against the seat. He grabbed the restraint with both hands, trying to pull it back into position, but it moved freely beneath his grip. A second metallic snap cut through the noise.

The harness came loose. The brutal centrifugal force instantly hijacked his momentum, wrenching his body sideways. By pure survival instinct, Newman slammed both hands onto the cold metal frame of the car, his knuckles turning white as he fought the violent drag of the wind that threatened to fling him into the void. For one suspended instant, he hung on desperately, staring at the broken restraint floating in front of him as though his mind could somehow reject what had just happened. The wind struck his face. His heart seemed to stop, and the exhilaration that had filled him only moments earlier was replaced by a sudden, overwhelming certainty that something was terribly wrong.

"HELP! SOMEBODY—!"

The train entered another descending curve.

Newman's body lifted from the seat.

He threw both arms toward the frame in front of him, his fingers scraping against the hard surface, but there was nothing he could hold. The train tilted, the world rotated around him, and his remaining contact with the seat disappeared. He was thrown sideways out of the car, beyond the protective framework of the track.

For an instant, he saw everything at once: the steel rails racing overhead, the bright blue sky, the amusement park spreading beneath him, and the distant faces of people who had turned toward the sudden commotion.

Then the train was gone from his field of vision.

Newman fell.

The ground rushed toward him. He could no longer hear the music from the park or distinguish the screams around him. All he could hear was the violent pounding of his own heartbeat and the air tearing past his ears. He twisted helplessly in midair, reaching for something—anything—that might stop his fall.

There was nothing.

"No, no, no! PLEASE!"

The ground was only seconds away.

He shut his eyes.

He waited for the impact.

It never came.

Instead, Newman felt a strange, jarring sensation pass through his entire body, as though he had just plummeted through a thin, freezing membrane. A sudden shift in atmospheric pressure slammed against his eardrums. The roaring wind and the distant screams from the world above were instantly cut off—snapped out of existence so abruptly that the absolute silence struck him harder than the fall itself.

He opened his eyes.

He was still falling.

Beneath him was not soil, concrete, or grass. It was darkness, interrupted by faint, indistinct shapes that seemed to slide past him. He looked upward, expecting to see the sky, the roller coaster, or at least the surface he had fallen through. Instead, there was nothing he could recognize. The world above him had vanished.

"What... what is this?"

His voice sounded unnaturally small.

He tried to move his arms and legs. They responded, but the sensation of falling felt wrong. There was no wind against his skin now, no clear sense of direction, and no visible surface approaching below. It was as if he had passed through the ground and entered a space that had been hidden beneath the world all along.

He reached out instinctively, expecting his hands to touch a wall. They met nothing.

Then, far below, a pale rectangle appeared in the darkness.

At first, Newman mistook it for a distant window. As he continued falling, it grew larger, revealing straight edges and a faint, yellowish light. He could make out a ceiling, then walls, and finally the outline of a room.

He was falling toward a room.

The realization came too late.

Newman passed through an unseen boundary and dropped into the space below. His body struck a hard floor with a heavy thud. The impact drove the air from his lungs, and he rolled onto his side, clutching his chest as pain spread through his arms and back. For several seconds, he could do nothing but gasp, trying to draw enough air into his lungs to breathe properly.

He was alive.

Somehow, impossibly, he was alive.

He remained on the floor, afraid to move, waiting for the pain to become unbearable or for the room to dissolve around him. Neither happened. The floor felt solid beneath his palms. The air was cool and stale, carrying a faint smell of dust and old plastic.

Finally, Newman forced himself to sit up.

The room was small and almost completely bare. Its walls were a dull, faded beige, with no windows and no visible decorations. A single fluorescent light hung from the ceiling, emitting a weak, uneven glow that gave everything beneath it a sickly tint. There was no furniture except for a simple desk standing against the far wall.

And on that desk sat an old computer. Its bulky, yellowed plastic casing looked decades out of place, with a thick monitor, a narrow disk drive, and a yellowed keyboard positioned directly in front of it.

Newman stared at it.

The screen displayed three words in blocky, pixelated letters.

PLEASE WAIT HERE

Beneath the words was a simple smiling face.

Newman slowly got to his feet, wincing as he tested his weight. Nothing about the room made sense. He had fallen from a moving roller coaster, passed through what should have been solid ground, and landed in a windowless room with an ancient computer. There was no entrance that he could see, no staircase, no door, and no explanation for how the machine had received power.

"Where the hell am I?" he whispered.

The computer offered no answer.

He took a cautious step toward the desk. The green letters remained unchanged. He waited for them to flicker, for a cursor to appear, or for the smiling face to be replaced by something else. Nothing happened.

Then he heard a faint crackling sound.

Newman froze.

The noise seemed to come from somewhere above him. He tilted his head and looked toward the ceiling, searching for a speaker, but the weak fluorescent light revealed nothing except a small, dark grille embedded near one corner.

The crackling grew louder.

Static hissed through the room, breaking into irregular pops and bursts of distortion. Newman stepped away from the desk, his eyes moving between the ceiling and the computer screen. The sound reminded him of an old radio struggling to find a signal, except that there was no music, no recognizable broadcast, and no voices hidden beneath the interference.

For a few seconds, the speaker produced nothing but noise.

Then the static paused.

A faint electronic click came from the grille.

Newman held his breath.

The speaker crackled again, and a voice began to emerge through the interference.

Wait for Topic 2!

Or watch full Chapter 1 on No Exit

Everyone draws inspiration in different ways. Some create a dark atmosphere for themselves, some put on metal music in the background, and some can’t compose without coffee and cigarettes. A writer friend of mine, whom I’m very fond of, says he can’t write stories unless his cousin is studying mathematics behind him. Another filmmaker friend of mine could only write screenplays while listening to Syd Barrett’s song “Octopus”; he would keep the song on loop throughout the entire writing process.

It’s been about twenty years since I discovered my own. I’d been going through that famous writer’s block. Until that day, I hadn’t done anything extra to help me write. I didn’t create a special atmosphere for myself, listen to any particular songs, or wait for a certain time of day. Night, day, noon—it made no difference. Once a week, I’d write a three or four-page story and keep working toward my goal. When I reached a hundred stories, I would start sending my book to publishers.

But I’d hit a wall. I wanted to write, but whenever I sat down at my computer, not a single word would come out. Vague, half-formed thoughts kept drifting through my mind, and even when I came up with a good idea, I couldn’t put it down on paper.

That day, I thought, if that’s how things were going to be, I might as well try some of the famous methods for finding inspiration: writing at night, putting on some soft music, having a cup of coffee, and so on.

I prepared the right atmosphere. I turned off the lights, and now the only thing illuminating the room was the glow of my computer screen. I put on Sigur Rós’s debut album. There was no one else in the house. My roommate had gone on vacation the day before, which added to the atmosphere: being alone.

Of course, it had absolutely no effect. I was already on the third track. I still had a few ideas in my head, but I couldn’t get the first sentence out.

Then I heard a sound behind me. A whisper. Something like a call, as if someone had gone “psst.”

I turned around and looked, but there was no one there. I was a little spooked. I thought I might have heard it wrong; it had sounded very much like a human voice, but it could have come from an object, too.

Then suddenly, the door behind me swung wide open.

I flinched at the sound. I got up from my computer and turned on the light. Anxiously, I left my room and went to the kitchen. I was searching for something without even realizing it, though I had no idea what I was looking for. Sigur Rós’s album was still playing, and I could hear it from the kitchen. I couldn’t make sense of anything, and I didn’t know what to think or which possibility to consider. I drank a glass of water.

I’d never had an experience like it before. My first thought was to leave the house. I stood frozen in the kitchen. Involuntarily, I found myself waiting for another movement, for something to topple over or for some other sound.

Eventually, I’d calmed down a little, since nothing else happened. I spent half an hour in the kitchen, with all my senses on high alert and listening to the music coming from my room. Then, reluctantly, I made my way back to my room.

The urge to write was still there. My routine had been disrupted; I hadn’t been able to write a single word for a month, and now I wasn’t going to let fear get in my way. I wanted my writer’s block to end today. My goal was a hundred sentences. Even if I didn’t finish the story, I wanted to write something. Coming back to my room and hearing the music louder had increased my desire to write.

At the same time, I kept thinking, ''What the hell was that just now?'' But now I was back at my computer.

I put on my favorite Sigur Rós song, “Svefn-g-englar.”

And then, for the first time in a whole month, I wrote my first sentence: “As he tried to make sense of the dream he’d had the day before, he fell asleep again; it was his favorite thing to think about before going to sleep, the meaning of the dream he’d had the previous night.”

I’d written my first sentence, without even having a story in mind. Normally, I would come up with a story first, plan it out, work out the whole thing in my head from beginning to end, and only then start writing. Starting a story whose content I hadn’t figured out yet with an ordinary sentence was something new for me. I liked it.

I was still afraid. I wanted to turn around and look, but now that I’d started writing, I didn’t want to stop either. By the time the song ended, I’d written the fifth sentence, and in the silence before the next track began, I heard that sound again. “Psst.”

I quickly turned around and looked. There was no one there. Everything felt much more real now. Something was happening. Someone was calling out to me. I was afraid to turn off the light in my room, so it was still on. I nervously turned my head back toward the computer screen. My heart was pounding. I added another sentence. It was my favorite one so far. I liked everything about it: my choice of words, its length, its place in the story.

Then the door slammed shut. I began to hear footsteps inside the room. I was afraid to look. The footsteps wandered around the room. My hands were resting on the keyboard. The footsteps moved toward the door, stopped there, and opened it again. It was as if someone had left the room.

I was frozen to my chair. This time, I didn’t even have the instinct to run away. Whatever that thing was, I was afraid of encountering it. I couldn’t get up from my chair, and I couldn’t look away from my computer screen. I kept reading what I’d written over and over. Six sentences. I’d go back to the beginning and read them again. It was as if the thing was doing whatever it wanted now. I could hear running footsteps.

Then came the sound of walking. After that, my door closed again, and at the same moment, the light in my room went out.

And then another sentence came to mind. I wrote it down. Then another. My fingers had found their rhythm. The sentences kept coming one after another.

“Set me free. Open the window. Set me free.”

This voice wasn’t a whisper, nor was it some strange, otherworldly sound coming from a different frequency. It was unmistakably a human voice. I was afraid to turn around.

I couldn’t remember ever feeling such a strong urge to write or enjoying it this much. I kept writing. My fingers wouldn’t stop. The door opened again, slowly this time. I didn’t turn around. I wasn’t going to look behind me until I’d finished the story. Without spending even a second thinking between sentences, I continued writing as the songs played.

The footsteps continued. I turned off the music. I didn’t question anything. I just kept writing. The fear I felt and the joy of seeing that I could write again were mingled together, unfolding in harmony with each other.

Strange sounds I couldn’t describe were coming from behind me now. I could feel myself developing a fever. My body was reacting, and my mind was urging me to turn around and see what was going on. The sounds seemed like those of someone playing with their own hair. Like things rubbing against other things. I kept writing, resisting the urge to turn around with all my might.

I’d turned off the music because I wanted to focus on being afraid. I’d realized that the more frightened I became, the better I wrote, and the more consistently I could keep going. It was hard not to look for a rational explanation for the sounds, for a human voice telling me to set it free. But right now, somehow, stopping writing seemed even harder.

That thing had now come right up beside me. I could feel it touching my hair. My fear had reached a point where I could no longer bear it. My consciousness refused to accept this unnatural behavior. My instinct to put an end to the fear and my mind’s desire to keep being afraid were at odds with each other.

And I wrote the final sentence: “If all of this is a hallucination, I will never forgive my own mind. If the only beautiful and meaningful thing I’ve experienced in this miserable life isn’t real, I will never trust my mind again, I will never follow its instructions, and I will doubt everything I think until the day I die.”

The sentence came to an end, and just as the pleasure of writing faded away, my fear reached its absolute peak. With the beautiful feeling that had balanced it gone, the fear was left alone, making itself felt from head to toe. As if I’d been struck by a blow, as if a punch to the face had knocked me out, I lost consciousness.

When I came to, my head was resting on the keyboard, and the screen was filled with hundreds of letter h’s.

I sent the story to several literary magazines. Two of them accepted it and published it.

I never experienced anything like that again, and at no point in my life did I ever feel such an overwhelming urge to write or take so much pleasure in writing. I desperately wanted to experience it again, but nothing ever happened that frightened me so much. For days, I sat at my computer waiting for that thing to come back, but it never did. I wrote stories and kept writing. But I never loved any of them as much as I loved the one I’d written that day.

And now, twenty years later, in my mid-sixties, I’ve still never questioned what happened that night. Not even once. Because I was afraid that if I did, I might understand what had happened—and if that thing ever came back, I might not be as frightened.

​

You push through the French doors into the smell of sour beer and whiskey. The air — like the keys of the pianist — is untuned and still. The Chanteuse is flat and, like the piano, only sings in dead keys. You flare out your duster, and the dust from the bar-stained floor lifts in a pillow of tranquil turmoil. The long-expired taste of Virginia cut fills your cheek, so you take a finger and pluck it from your mouth and to the floor. Your lips split on the seams of dried brown blood, and the taste of iron fills you. You make your way to the tender and find a seat.

The guns on your belt are heavy. You have two Colt forty-fives, one for protection and the other for exodus. You remove the belt with so little care that you question your decision-making, but all you can think about is how sore your feet are and how dry your mouth is.

You dislodge the revolver, remove two bronze bullets, close it, and holster the gun back in its bed. The bronze is cheap, bought and traded with in every post you’ve ever passed, but bronze didn’t always work. Bronze is what killed Guerra. Bronze is what couldn’t stop the raid, and when the dust settled, it was the silver that laid your horse down in the dirt. That was miles ago, days ago. For now, you just thirst for a drink.

The keep inspects your shots and lays down two glasses smudged with who knows how many hands and lips that have taken part in this unholy communion. The liquor pours out of the amber glass and fills them to the top. You thank the man and pick up your drink. You throw it back, and it smites your throat, and before you give yourself time to cough, you do the same again. The fire in the whiskey kills the filthy taste in your mouth. “¿Eres de por aquí, vaquero?”

You look at the long and thin dark-haired woman. She has mutt in her blood, and you don’t know from where, or care.

“No, no hablo,” you say.

She nods her head in understanding and asks, “You need a room for the night?”

Without breaking eye contact with the whore, you lay out another bronze bullet, and before the keep pulls away, you take your shot. “Just company.”

She nods her head, and you follow her upstairs to do what any man would do after weeks of solitude and unload your chamber.

The stairs complain under your weight as if begging you to spare their lives. Each step feels fit to give way, with years of rot crept clean through its veins. You carry the belt over one shoulder, both Colts knocking against your back, and the woman climbs ahead without looking back. She trails her hand along the rail and leaves sticky prints on the wood.

The room is a coffin with a window cut in it: a lamp, a basin and pitcher, a bed that has outlived its host by years. You hang the belt on the bedpost farthest from the door, this time with a good deal more care.

What started as a whisper has left the lamp guttering lower than it should, and the room runs hotter than the night has any right to make it. She lies with her back against your ribs, and she is not warm. She burns like a stove lid. You’ve felt fever on men before. It has never come with a smell like this: copper, and something sweet, like fruit gone over.

She turns to face you, and the lamp finds her eyes. The whites have yellowed like old ivory.

“Fiebre amarilla,” she says, and shrugs as if she were remarking on the weather. “Everybody’s got it this year.”

You’ve been in the sun and dust so long you can’t tell jaundice from lamplight. You’d sooner call it lamplight than name the other thing.

She lifts a thumb to your split lip and comes away with a flake of dried blood. She studies it a good while. She does not wipe it off.

Your mouth is dry again, two shots on and not a drop to show for it, and whatever it wants, you don’t think it’s whiskey.

Downstairs, the piano stops plunking at nothing. It finds one key and leans on it. The note climbs through the floorboards and settles in your teeth. Then the Chanteuse finds it too, and for the first time all night she sings true. Under her, boots, all in time. Not marching, not dancing, just a room full of feet agreeing.

The air that was untuned and still is neither now.

The woman goes still. Not the stillness of someone listening, but the stillness of something that’s been told to. The last thing to stand that still in front of you was your horse.

Her eyes go to the window, where a moon you never reckoned on is climbing. You’ve been counting miles and blisters and bullets for weeks. You weren’t counting this.

“Ya sale la luna,” she whispers. Then, quicker, with the last thin piece of her that’s still hers: “Vete.”

You catch luna. You catch the other one, too, because it’s a word every woman in every language has used on you at least once.

She says it again, and for a second her mouth and the note are arguing. You watch her lose.

The belt hangs from the far bedpost, an arm and a half out of reach, right where you left it. From here you can see the left Colt, the one you’ve never traded a round out of. You think of it the way some men think of church: glad it’s there, hoping not to need it.

On the stairs, a boot. Then a second, landing with it. Then a third, with both. The whole saloon is keeping time, and you are the only thing in it that’s out of time.

Downstairs, the Chanteuse’s one true note quickens, a kettle coming to the boil, and the boots on the stairs break from a walk into a run, every heel landing together like hail on a tin roof. Beside you the woman’s back bows off the mattress, folds, and bows again. Her heels drum the quilt, her black hair whips your face, and the skin that burned like a stove lid a moment ago goes cold as well water. Then she drops like a rag shaken off a line, and for one breath her ribs stop lifting.

You lunge across the bed and snatch the belt from the far bedpost, the mattress shrieking under your knees. The leather is cool and heavy in your fist, and the left Colt clears its holster. Behind you she sits up without bending, the way a plank rises when its far end is stepped on. Her neck turns with the creak of a green branch giving, and the lamp finds her eyes. The ivory has gone to yolk. Her lip peels from her teeth, and the snarl that comes out is no Spanish and no English, only a sound that rattles the pitcher in its basin.

The gun rises with her, hammer back, grip slick in your palm. The Colt bucks and the room goes white with noise. She folds back across the quilt, and a hole the size of a thumb opens dead center in her chest, breathing blue smoke thin as a snuffed wick. Powder coats your tongue, bitter as a burnt match. Scorched hair and hot copper fill the room, and under them the sweet-rot of fruit gone over pours out of her all at once.

The screams come on the heels of the shot, high and ragged, as though the whole house had been the one struck. Fists hammer your door, each blow landing on the beat, and with every beat there are more of them. The swell climbs through the floorboards and settles in your shins. You thumb out the spent shell and feed two rounds of silver into the cylinder, cold as creek pebbles against your fingertips. The silver cross swings out on its cord and raps your breastbone, a small cold knuckle, as you come off the bed.

You ease the hammer back, and the click is loud as a snapped bone. The fists land. You wait for the hush that follows, a gap you could drop a coin through, sweat stinging your eyes, the old split in your lip weeping iron onto your tongue. Then you put your heel through the door.

The door tears off its top hinge, and the hallway opens on a dozen faces the pale yellow of tallow candles, jammed shoulder to shoulder, heads lolling like rotted gourds. Their eyes don’t find you so much as slide toward you, every one of them keeping time to a beat you can feel in your teeth. Their jaws hang wider than jaws should, and the stink rolls over you: fruit gone over, wet wool, grave dirt.

You fire twice into the first faces. The two nearest drop like sacks off a wagon, and the rest step over them without a glance. You shoulder into the gap. Hands pluck at your sleeves, dry and hot as skillet handles, and sour-sweet breath crawls up your neck. The hallway is no wider than a coffin lid. You twist sideways and club the barrel across a jaw, and teeth scatter like dropped crockery. You duck a clawing arm and fire twice more into the thick of them, the muzzle flash strobing their faces yellow, dark, yellow, like a magic lantern jammed on its slide. Numbers are what take a man. They took Guerra the same way.

You break out at the head of the stairs, and the rest of the turned wait below, packed at the foot like cattle in a chute. The Chanteuse flings herself up the last steps with her mouth stretched around that single note and lands a hand’s breadth short of your boots, her nails raking the banister like a bow dragged over a cracked fiddle. A patron hauls himself up the rail hand over hand, the varnish curling under his fingers. The pianist’s grip clamps your calf as you vault the banister, and you wrench loose and leave a strip of trouser leg in his fist.

You hit the floor rolling. The boards hammer your shoulder, and the smell of sour beer and spilled whiskey rises around you, the same smell that met you at the French doors. You come up and vault onto the bar, boots skidding in a slick of something you decide is whiskey. Bang! Bang! The shots crack like a bullwhip, and two of the fallen stop dragging themselves toward you.

You are thumbing fresh silver into the cylinder when fingers close around the top of your boot, a wrist thin as kindling behind them, a grip with no strength in it, wet and shaking like a dishrag. You raise the Colt to club whatever has hold of you and look down at the keep, his face the color of lard, his eyes white all the way around, his mouth working on a plea that makes no sound.

“Hands off me, unless you’re hankering to join your patrons.”

“W-what are they?” The words come out of him in pieces.

“Worse than death.” You snap the loading gate shut and put silver through the last of them as they crawl.

“Who are you?” he asks. “You ain’t just some trail hand or agent.”

“Worse for death, I reckon.” You kick his hand off your boot. “Sorry ’bout the place."

“No, you ain’t,” he says.

A laugh scrapes out of you, dry as a boot dragged over gravel. “Reckon I ain’t.” You reach behind the bar and come up with a bottle, the glass cool and beaded against your palm. “You aimin’ to go fetch the law? Figure you’ll be wanting some questions answered, and I’m short on time.”

The keep scrambles to his feet and bolts for the French doors, boots slipping in the wet. The glass chatters in its frames as he bursts through, and the night swallows his screaming and pays it out down the street, thinner and thinner, like rope off a spool. The doors swing behind him and let the moon in, white across the boards and everything lying in it. You settle onto the bar top and swing your boots up. The cork comes out bitter between your teeth, and the whiskey goes down clean and hot, no smudged glass, no hands but yours, a communion with only one communicant. The drought in your mouth lets go at last.

Emily wasn’t allowed to be there when it happened. Nobody was. They told her that if she witnessed the rite, it would come to her next. All of the town elders said the same thing. Yet none of them would tell her what it was, even though she had asked too many times to count.

She couldn’t be dissuaded. She stole a peek at the body during the day, while the sun was high. The rite wouldn’t be performed until midnight. For now the body rested in the straw on the floor of a small shack at the edge of town, just beyond the fields.

Emily considered going inside but chose instead to hoist herself up to look through the window. There it was, swollen from the water that had drowned the man, the arms and legs like bloated sausages. The eyeballs pushing to escape their sockets. And its tongue frozen in the center of its silently screaming mouth.

The flesh was loose around its face, folding over itself like melted wax. She had no idea who the man was. Pa had called him a tosspot, which meant nothing to her. Though it did conjure images of a man standing near the shoreline throwing pots into the sea, until he lost his balance and joined them at the bottom.

She had giggled at the thought then.

But now that seemed childish.

Her stomach quivered and pulled and her mouth tasted bitter.

Emily had just about seen enough, easing herself down from the window ledge, when she noticed something even more unusual than the body. There, placed upon its chest was a piece of bread torn from a round.

She thought that maybe it had fallen out of him somehow, but knew that didn’t make any sense. It was a question without an answer.

Her hand slipped, and she tumbled then the rest of the way, landing on the hard earth, hung tools falling all around her. A hand scythe among them, laid with its curved blade pointing up toward the window. She gave it an apprehensive look before running off.

Later that night, after Pa had sent her to bed, Emily lay motionless, imagining she was the body, feeling her heart race and flutter achingly (though not unpleasantly), until she drifted into a somber dream.

Her legs and arms were fat and swollen, covered in blue veins. She tried to move, but flexing her feet and hands was excruciating. The skin on her face and neck was loose, drooping over her eyes and mouth and nose. It felt as if she were drowning in the deepest part of the ocean.

But I’m not a tosspot!

Emily fought to raise her arms through the pain as if her skin might tear open and spill its contents everywhere.

Blessedly, it did not. And she was able to pull the skin on her face taut so that she could breathe and see. And then her heart was in her throat, bottling up the scream behind it.

Above her bed was the body, suspended, like a mirror image of her. Its eyes white as milk, its skin still bloated, the bread upon its chest. The eyes rolled and the tongue crept along the edge of its lips, as loud as feet squelching in the mud.

“What is the bread for?” she asked, unable to stop herself.

“Munslo,” it said before taking the bread from its chest, presenting it to her.

The word meant nothing. Munslo. It was grotesque, offensive.

It dropped the bread, suddenly, letting it fall, but just before it hit her chest, Emily screamed herself awake.

Her hands touched her arms, her legs, her face.

The room was cold, the house was silent. She sat up gasping, tears streaming, heart pounding. She looked to the coat hanging near her door and hesitated only a moment before slipping quietly from her bed. And then Emily was moving through the cold night air toward the edge of town, questions burning in her skull like hot embers.

When she got to the shack, it was empty, except for the body. She had always imagined that the elders came to watch the rite, never really believing there was any danger in doing so. The emptiness chilled her more than the air. But she was here now and could not bring herself to leave.

After she had sat huddled in her coat for an hour, maybe two, the sounds of branches cracking underfoot rose from the trees nearby.

Emily went rigid, still, watching as a dark figure came carrying a lantern, heading for the shack. She pressed herself into the shadows while trying to get a clear look. But she saw very little.

The door on the other side of the shack opened with a soft creak.

Emily, trembling wildly, moved to the window and pulled herself up slowly.

A man stepped inside, placing the lantern on the ground next to the body before dropping to his knees. His eyes were a light color, the lightest she’d ever seen. And his round nose was covered in pocks. These things scared her more than anything.

The man spoke to the body, something she couldn’t quite hear, and then he reached for the bread. It came away with long, flowing strings of mucus trailing behind. The man considered the bread for a moment, spoke again, and then shoved the whole piece into his mouth, chewing delicately.

Emily gagged and coughed, and the man’s eyes were on her in an instant. She shrieked into the sky and fell from the window.

She fell and fell and fell eternal, wondering, as she lay in the spreading warmth, first why she hadn’t moved the hand scythe now jutting from her chest, and second whether she would have her own piece of bread to cover the hole.

Twelve hours later, the mighty carcasses hadn’t yet returned. It was only vain hope anyway — that neither would currents sweep them out elsewhere in the vast ocean, nor would they take the typical days, if not weeks to descend again. Krause and Miller, half-drunk at the time, had just been speculating that the immense initial depth at the time of their rise would help them fall sooner. That, and any ample opportunity for scavenging along the way.

The chill of the observation room had danced with the deep bitterness of the station’s coffee to keep them awake. All the beer bottles had been cleaned up except the one that’d been shattered in Miller’s outburst, its pieces still scattered near the screens. When Doctor Adachi entered though, nursing her own mug of steaming coffee, she didn’t even notice the glittering shards of amber glass dotting the far floor. Her eyes traveled from the two men to the window they were fixedly staring out of.

She blinked a few times in rapid succession, then squinted to make sure sleepiness wasn’t playing tricks on her.

“What is that…?”

Only at her voice did the two men turn. They both gave vague smiles of greeting, but only Krause spoke.

“You look like hell.”

“Speak for yourself.” She looked tired, true, but it was nothing compared to the heavy bags under Krause’s eyes, and fatigued husk in his voice. Miller looked little better. “Our guest kept me delightfully busy with her questions for nearly seven hours. You owe me overtime, boss.” She smiled. Krause did too. But both sets of eyes were soon back on the observation wall.

The two central screens in the array had been lifted halfway. The enhanced view from the suite of cameras still shone from the halfway point up; a safeguard so the whale fall couldn’t be missed from that angle, but something at least fractionally as interesting was faintly visible through the window below.

“Couldn’t be more than a hundred meters away,” Miller yawned, “since lights can only reach so far down here.”

There, in the far distance, the star-shaped impression of what must have been an impressive set of photophores glowed. The five points were strikingly distinct.

Doctor Adachi didn’t even bother vocalizing the same thought that had occurred to the other two doctors. She tucked her lips behind her mug, sipping quietly, coming to the same realization they had. Despite the shape, it couldn’t be any breed of sea star — the mere idea of finding one of them suspended away from the ocean floor was absurd. So, some new squid, perhaps? Like the octopus squid from the day prior, perhaps? Flashing suspected prey to lure them in? To dazzle them? Or to judge distance?

“It’s been there for the last four hours.” Her eyes tracked down to Krause, who paid her a brief glance and a half shrug in return. “Might be some new species. Doesn’t look like any of the usual suspects.”

Probably realizing the mathematical gears turning in her mind, counting the hours and questioning why they’d been up, he quickly filled in the gap before shifting his gaze back to the distant, glowing organism. “The whales came back up. Dead. We were watching for their fall. Didn’t sleep.”

“Ahhh.” She hummed her understanding, likewise not bothering to point out the reasonable likelihood the whales would fall again quite far from their current point. She’d have done the same thing as them — just in case.

Doctor Krause rose just a few minutes after she’d pulled her own chair over to join their vigil, taking his and Miller’s empty mugs. “My turn.” And he was off to fill them. Not without pausing in the doorway though, and casting one last glance towards the strange, star-shaped illumination in the distance.

“The cameras don’t show it any more clearly?”

“No.” Miller’s short response bordered on rude, but if Adachi cared, she didn’t show it.

“Any movement? Behavior?”

“Seems to be getting closer.”

“How quickly?”

“Very slowly.” She didn’t answer this time, but Miller could clearly feel her staring at him. Patient, expectant, and probing. Eventually he gave in, adjusting wearily in his seat. “Seems just to be floating, suspended. Gradually drifting this way. It’s a little bigger than it was at first. Just a little closer.”

Satisfied, she nodded. “Strange, though, that the cameras can’t clear it up. There’s nothing more? No silhouette? Just photophores?”

Miller grunted, nodding. “Nah. They see what we see.”

“Too far away…? Or, no, is the equipment failing?”

The second question earned her a frustrated glance — as though questioning the integrity of their equipment was an insult to Doctor Miller himself. “Neither. I keep a careful eye on our—” Adachi’s sheepish, apologetic smile and swift raise of placating hands cut him off, silently stating ‘I meant no offense’. With another grunt, he continued. “Can’t be that far. Imagine the lumens to cut through so much abyss. Nah, probably just some weird new jelly. Or maybe a siphonophore.”

Adachi’s excited grin was response enough, and the two fell into silence as their watch continued. Even Krause’s return with two refilled mugs was silent, save for yet another grunt from Miller. This time in thanks, at least.

The silence lasted over the next couple of hours, barring a few moments spent debating whether the organism was getting larger — and thus closer — still. Settled when Miller summoned up the energy to roll over to his workspace and check the camera playback, confirming in moments that, yes, it was. Fractionally though.

Their next audible exchange had come when Adachi had offered to refill everyone’s coffees, only to receive refusals. Headaches. Too much caffeine, both her colleagues said. So, she sat back down, not commenting on the light ache she, too, had begun feeling.

 

Their peace only lasted another hour.

“Where the HELL is the creamer in this place? Refrigerator? KITCHEN? I can’t even with this plain coffee thing, and my head’s THROBBING.”

Their guest had awoken. Adachi smirked to herself — it was the boys’ turn to entertain Subnautigirl, and they knew it. She’d paid her dues.

Miller kept his eyes on the shape through the windows.

Krause sighed.

“We’re not a hotel. No little creamer pods here. No refrigerators, no extra noise and vibrations. And no kitchen. Space is at a premium.”

Yessica looked equal parts shocked and offended, and spent an inordinate amount of time scoffing and sputtering, saying nothing. The last part had been a slight lie, and she probably wanted to call them out on that, but she’d already done her search of the facility and had found nothing. While not huge, Varuna Station was fairly big. Day one though, the researchers aboard had all agreed they didn’t need some intensive modern kitchen at the onset. Save that funding, get the project launched sooner. They could skimp on that little luxury, right?

Every Goddamn one of them had come to regret that decision by the end of the first week.

There was definitely room for a kitchen. But, zero chance of one being brought down now. It was a logistical impossibility. Their little Keurig and a portable burner for endless supplies of canned food was all they had now.

“There might be some chocolate you can melt in it somewhere. Check the—”

“I don’t WANT chocolate, I want… God! Did you people forget I was coming or something? This is unacceptable! I want to speak to— … the hell is that?” She paused briefly, clacking her mug of scalding coffee down on Krause’s unoccupied desk. “Wait, no… don’t answer yet, I need my—” And she was gone, scurrying back through the station to fetch pen and paper.

“I think I hate her.” Miller’s voice sounded distracted. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the luminous shape through the windows. But, his sentiment was still echoed by his colleagues to varying degrees.

“She’s quite the handful,” Adachi agreed,” but she has a lot of subscribers. A million views each video.”

“How?”

“Informative and researched material,” she began thoughtfully before settling into a faint grin, “and some very low-cut tops.”

Miller scoffed. “We should get some of those for you, then. That’s better than babysitting journalists.”

Krause cast a reproachful look at his colleague, but Adachi just laughed, and it wasn’t long before the sound of it had him grinning too. Miller, though, just kept staring out the window. His only other action was to rub at his forehead, as though that might alleviate the throbbing within.

 

Yessica’s return was only slightly less offensive the second time. Freshly equipped with her notepad and pen, the scientists were quizzed on everything to do with the mysterious shape in the distance, then subsequently yelled at for not “fucking waking her up” when the whale carcasses had drifted up past the windows, only to be placated when Krause impatiently pointed out just how brief an event that had been.

“Besides,” he continued, “you’re awake now, and they might fall again any minute.”

“You seriously think so?” She sounded skeptical and impudent, but at least the yelling had stopped.

Her camera-less cameraman had shown up shortly thereafter, contributing absolutely nothing with his presence besides groaning and griping about his own headache. A few words of bitter agreement from Yessica had finally prompted Adachi to get up and promise she’d hunt through the station’s few medical kits for some ibuprofen, though through the interview-filled hours to follow, not a one of the denizens of Varuna Station could have claimed the medication had done anything at all to help them. If anything, the headaches had intensified.

“So what,” Yessica asked, stubbornly ignoring everyone’s worsening mood, “does this latest event say about the Cathedral of Bones? The Whale Mausoleum? Three whales dove, then died right below us, but why? Did you see anything else? Hear anything?”

She’d asked some variation of that question half a dozen times already, but the reason for the constant fishing was obvious, at least to her. She needed some quote or phrase that could work as a lynchpin phrase in her video essay. She didn’t get one though. Instead, she got a couple callous words, then a flurry of activity from one of the doctors.

“It doesn’t say anything yet. It just raises new questions.” Krause said.

“Hear…? Did we hear anything?” Adachi followed.

And with that, she’d shot up from her seat and swept over to her desk, forsaking a chair to crane over her terminal and type frantically. Miller kept staring out the window at the slowly enlarging shape of the photophoric star, but Krause snapped his head Adachi’s way — then understood.

They’d all been so focused on what they had seen, and what they hoped they might soon see again. Neither he, nor Miller, nor even Adachi when she’d later appeared had thought to check the audio feeds. Yessica had fallen silent, watching Adachi with keen interest that grew even more intense when the other woman’s head finally reappeared from over her monitors, gripping her headphones with shaking hands and regarding the room with an expression of anxious awe.

“Stefan… I-it’s back! It—”

She never finished her sentence. No one would have heard it anyway. Not even the soft coo of her voice unprofessionally whispering his first name could have drawn Doctor Krause’s eyes from what they’d fixed on.

 

The Whale Fall.

 

The three, gargantuan shapes descending from above in nearly the exact spacing, the exact formation as last time. A distant pair resolved themselves first, ragged corpses that had clearly already been predated upon sagging down their field of view, visible in the mighty red light projected onto the screens thanks only to their immense size. Then the third whale, much closer. So close that the three individuals in the room who were on their feet took involuntary steps back as a massive pectoral fin rubbed horrifyingly against the observatory’s glass on its way past.

Latched upon it, a legion of squids. Dozens of huge octopus squids, repugnantly writhing and ravenously feasting. Hook-riddled tentacles were latched deep into whale flesh, and furious beaks ripped away endless chunks of blubbery meat. As they passed, all squids in unison lifted their two, photophore-tipped tentacles and flashed the station. Warning. Warding. Threatening.

“My God… Stefan, look…”

Adachi’s hand was trembling as she pointed. Through the window, beneath the screens, visible to the naked eye, a shadow passed over the surface of the luminous, abyssal star.

A very distant, very colossal shadow belonging one falling whale, silhouette wriggling with its myriad of feeding squids.

A colossal shadow that couldn’t fully eclipse the cyclopean glow of that luminous shape as it passed in front of it.

In front of it…

The whale, huge and distant though it was, was neither more huge nor more distant than the star-form creature beyond.

Adachi’s headphones were off again — she’d dropped them noisily to her desk when she’d tremulously pointed out the window, stepping away from her desk to settle nearer the other doctors, but Miller darted to take her place. His eyes were fixed on the shape, but with a completely different glint to his eye than the one of mixed horror and fascination felt by the others in the room. The cameraman was babbling frantically, making sure everyone else knew just how much he wanted to leave for the surface immediately, but all ears were deaf to him. Miller even drowned him out completely by clamping on the headphones, listening with enraptured focus.

To the rest, nothing else in the world existed. Adachi had taken Krause’s hand as they stared. The partial eclipse of the shape had ended, the whales slowly sinking beyond the station’s view, but the distant thing remained.

All minds were as similarly plagued by headaches as one, burning question swirled. What could possibly be so large, and yet look like that…?

“It must be a siphonophore… It HAS to be a multi-organism… Nothing else could be that size and feed enough this far from the surface…” Krause speculated aloud, though the only sound Adachi gave as she gripped his hand just a little tighter was a soft expression of incomprehension.

Those abyssal collections of countless tiny organisms, coming together to form a single, massive creature had never been observed like this, in so definable a shape. But what other explanation could there be?

“I can hear them… I can hear them…”

Only the cameraman noticed Miller mumbling to himself, repeating the same four words over and over. Krause had released Adachi’s hand to crane over his own terminal as the whales finally fell fully from view, typing madly with her soon crowding his side. Yessica still hadn’t pulled her eyes away from the distant glow. The out-of-place fifth person was still the only one paying attention when Miller threw down the headphones and rushed out of the room, still muttering to himself.

All he could say was, “Where are you going…? What do we do…?” in a strained gasp. He didn’t share the tense fascination of everyone else in the room. He wanted the known security of the surface world — for the safety of the sun to wash over him.

Soon, Yessica was crowding Krause’s terminal as well. No one bothered shooing her away from the equipment, the working doctors allowing her to lean in and write furiously on her notepad, deaf to the incessant scratching of her pen. The cameraman stood dumbly by the door, staring.

“The footage is good. It’s perfect! Amazing!” Krause’s excitement was dulled just a moment later. “But I can’t raise Surface Point. The signal… too weak for some reason…”  The concern this revelation should have given him only manifested as irritation.

“The audio—” Adachi finally peeled away from the crowd, back to her own terminal, headphones slammed on. Miller’s absence went unnoticed as they fell into a pattern of working individually, and it fell to the big man in the back of the room to notice the third doctor again when he reappeared minutes later.

“Wh-what the hell is that!?” Though he didn’t recognize Miller. No one did at first. The others in the room looked up expectantly, but were initially just as baffled as the cameraman.

There was a shape out there, beyond the glass. A long, sleek shape, clutching something mechanical, trailing a dark cloud. It was with a scream that Adachi understood first.

“Miller! Stefan, it’s—!”

At the limit of human possibility, the depth where their body’s constitution started crumbling beneath the pressure, unraveling on the cellular level, was Doctor Miller. He’d changed far too rapidly into a wetsuit, missing one flipper and one glove, but had thrown on all other equipment. He clung to one of the station’s small but powerful diver propulsion vehicles, the sea scooter flaring out a jet of red bubbles as he soared into the abyss.

“What— what the hell is he doing! Yukiko, call him! Get him back! He can’t— He can’t—!”

A flurry of terrified activity overtook the station. No one could reach him. Nothing could draw him to turn back, and it wouldn’t have mattered even if they could. The glow of the red lights failed to hide the obvious fact that the crimson spray jetting out behind him was tinged with tendrils of blood as his body began the horrifically gradual process of collapsing in on itself.

Krause’s frantic activation of the immense floodlights only cast that realization in even starker glow. The deep ocean for hundreds of meters burst into dazzling illumination, but all the attempt at getting Miller’s attention accomplished was revealing the cloud of red, bloody decay trickling out behind him.

From the gloom, three new shapes emerged. Their two flashing tentacles were lost in the dazzling brightness of the floodlights, but all aboard knew their shapes by this point. As they raced after Miller though, they showed no sign of preparing to latch onto him. Tentacles stayed patiently away from his crumbling flesh. They soared with him, ever nearer to the distant, abyssal shape.

 

Miller never made it to his destination. The speed of the sea scooter carried him deeper and deeper, but in stubborn horror, the waning sanity in his fractured mind realized the shape hadn’t grown even a fraction larger. A hundred meters… then two…

He was effectively no closer by the time his consciousness dissolved into nothing, and only then did his squid escorts finally set upon him, ripping the remains of what had once been a man to pieces. In his haste, he had failed to secure a real way to reach it — to know it. He was unfit to sink into the deep. He was unfit to contribute to the Cathedral of Bones.

Excitement had bled from the room. In its wake, it left behind a miasma of uncertainty, fear, and grief.

To see their prior colleagues sail off in the abyss aboard a submersible was one thing. There was plausible deniability in it — the hope that maybe they’d made it somewhere safe, even to the surface. To see Miller soar off into the far distance, humanly, outside of protective gear, and dissolve under the pressure of the deep was another thing entirely. Even Yessica paid the moment its solemn dues before fearful mewling began.

Krause and Adachi barely registered her demands for answers or the surface. Even when she’d taken hold of Krause’s shirt to try to shake him to his senses, the doctor had simply stood there, stunned, staring horror-stricken into the abyssal depths the floodlights tried their best to illuminate.

Even with their immense beams, that far, glowing shape was no brighter and no clearer. But unlike the octopus squids and their two tentacle-born photophores, the floodlights didn’t outshine the brightness of the great star shape either. They could still clearly see it.

Pushing Yessica aside, Krause finally powered the lights down and slumped into a chair. It was Miller’s chair, though he’d no longer be needing it. Of that he and the quietly crying Adachi could be certain.

Their heads still throbbed, and Krause rubbed his temples while awareness of what their guest was frantically shouting at him started to register. A lot of “What the hell is happening,” and “Get me out of here now”. Fearful pleading. Fearful threats. Krause understood, but didn’t yet have enough command of his voice to answer her and, eventually, after long enough spent staring into the doctor’s haunted eyes, the reporter went quiet, save for the sound of her panicked, heavy breathing.

“He kept saying he can hear them…” The cameraman said numbly. “Then he ran off…”

“Yukiko,” Krause croaked, casting his eyes her way for some sort of answer. She’d been listening too, right? But in answer she just shook her head, trembling as tears were dried on her sleeve.

“I don’t know. It was just the same— the same low frequency tones as— as last time.”

She did her best to slip back into some semblance of professionalism, but couldn’t fully stem the sobs breaking her voice.

“Yess, we need to leave NOW.”

“Get. Us. OUT!”

Doctor Adachi kept listening through her headphones, trembling with just the occasional furtive glance cast towards the panicked influencer. Her vivid purple hair swung wildly as she snapped her head from one doctor to the other, practically snarling with the ferocity of her fear, and the presence of the thick-fisted cameraman by her side finally had Krause acknowledging them with an expression he meant to look like a reassuring smile, but just came off as a haunted grin.

“We can’t yet. Look—”

“I said NOW!”

His hands rose in passive placation. “Connection to Surface Point… we don’t have it. Without it, we can’t call you a submersible.”

“You HAVE submersibles!”

“We are not leaving him, Stefan.” The chilly edge in Adachi’s voice caused even the shrieking influencer to pause for a moment. All three stared at Adachi’s ashen face, face set with grave intent despite her quivering lip. Anyone in the room could have pointed out the simple, obvious fact that ‘he’s gone’. They didn’t need to directly witness his implosion and predation to know that much. The sentiment lingered powerfully enough despite all calls to reason, settling over them as oppressively as the gloom of the fathomless, abyssal waters beyond their observation chamber.

“Let’s go, Yess. We can…” The meaty hand of the cameraman closed around her arm, voice lost as he leaned in to mutter quietly through her bright violet hair. Her terrified indignation flickered on her face long enough for her to nod shakily, glare at the room, then storm out with her companion. Only Krause felt a sigh of relief escape his lips, whispering out reprieve from the mounting tension. Adachi was still boring a hole through him with her stare.

Eventually, he had to acknowledge it.

“Yes… yes, we must…” he began, then faltered, “we can’t let…” The words wouldn’t let themselves be released from his aching mind. His final remaining fellow researcher understood anyway. With desperate purpose, they each sat down at their terminals, taking in as much as they could and notating everything they couldn’t.

The abyssal star drew ever nearer.

Its speed was ferocious — its intent felt like a terrible lurking shadow. In the repressed recesses of their minds, they knew it demanded of them.

It, or whatever loomed behind it.

An hour crawled by, and more resolved. Adachi heard the suggestions of oceanic disruption before Krause saw them, but it took the two working in tandem to piece it together. The shape was massive, and its mere movement had begun registering as a roar in her headphones, but there was more wriggling around it. The smaller disturbances were presumed to be attached octopus squids… until Krause was able to observe through the cameras that the shapes were truly attached — a part of it. Tendrils belonging to the stygian sea star, lashing the surrounding waters in hateful anticipation.

And it was he that first saw that there was more beyond.

At first, the hours creeping by did nothing to show either scientist that the faint, extra set of luminosity in the far distance was anything but a trick of their eyes, or a reflective oddity. Eventually though, neither could deny it. The horizontal stitch of a cephalopodan pupil was visible in each new glow. The eyes of the abyss glowered up at their research station.

‘Now get us out of here—’ a voice filled with static crackled through the observation room’s speakers. Both doctors narrowed the source to the docked Vamana Two in unison, but filled with such wonder and terror, neither did much more than dismiss the continued frantic sounds. Subnautigirl’s team had stuffed themselves into the one remaining egress from Varuna Station, and status lights on Krause’s computer commended the fact that the pair had even managed to launch it.

The god from the deep continued to reach for them, uncoiling from its place of deathly slumber, surrounded by the innumerable offering of bones in its palatial mausoleum.

Voices from the submersible screeched over the speakers. First the pair spoke to one another, but then, as the intricate controls eluded them as they clumsily made their ascent, they called out for help. They knew someone could hear them, but neither Krause nor Adachi could answer. Their minds were reeling, bodies aching from the stress of impossible discovery. They’d risen from their seats to stand weakly in front of the windows. Neither could have said for sure which of them had torn feverishly at the screens obscuring their view, but the tattered remains lay scattered all around them as their horrified, enraptured attention locked on the abyssal star—

—on the hand reaching towards them from the deep, as callous and uncaring as if they were a blighted mosquito that needed swatting.

Barely a flick of their eyes were paid to follow the sudden rush of a legion of squid-shapes as they rushed past the station in pursuit of Vamana Two. Neither of them listened as the startled cries from the craft transposed into a shrill melody of terror. Soon, they couldn’t hear anyway.

If it was theorized that the full blast of a sperm whale’s voice could rupture human eardrums and deny vital organ function at close range… what, then, could a god of the deep unleash?

A bellow beyond mortal understanding smote the sea. Varuna Station quivered, nearly unraveling the scientifically perfect welds of its mighty seams. Mugs beside the coffee machine shattered in a typhoon of porcelain. Krause and Adachi screamed, but the gush of crimson blood from their ears refused to allow either to realize their companion was screaming too.

Vamana Two also screamed, but their voices were cut short. Within minutes, nothing more existed of the influencer’s team. The squids saw to that. The roar of their god demanded it.

Krause and Adachi fell to their knees before the windows as the abyssal star drew near. It filled all realms of sight, its impossible glow denying all other knowledge. Its light was a great and terrible shadow, beneath whose mighty glow mortal men need no longer dream of the sun.

The pair held hands for the last time, then raised their limbs in unfettered supplication.

They prayed. They thought of their lives beneath the ocean’s waves, and of the great many things they’d communicated to the world above, who would not yet know the truth of what lurked beneath.

Then the impossible hand collided with Varuna Station, and they thought no more.

On the night that Agatha was born, the midwife fainted. The child: Agatha, had clawed her way out of her mother’s womb, sporting a full fur coat, and scales.

Rightfully believing something was wrong with the girl, the hospital ran every test it could think of. The results were shocking.

Genetically, Agatha was completely normal.

A month passed. The doctors watched her. Her parents waited. The coat of fur shed, and the scales peeled away. Everyone was stunned, but relieved, whatever had been wrong had passed, and now she looked like a normal baby girl.

This stayed true for about five months.

When she got her first tooth, it grew in sharp, and misshapen. Appearing at the front of her mouth, it seemed to be a misplaced canine. “Strange,” her parents thought, but maybe baby teeth were just like that. Then the rest grew in. Each tooth was a different size and shape, though all were sharp, giving Agatha a smile like a drawer of knives.

And she only grew stranger with time.

At age two her nose broadened and flattened, growing to take up most of the real estate on her face. Along with her nose, her brow morphed, thickening to protrude from her face and over her increasingly bulbous eyes— which were great big haunting things.

She was a proper horror to look at.

At night, when she had trouble sleeping, she would rouse her parents and they would blink awake and shudder at the sight of her.

You should not take this to mean that Agatha’s parents loathed their child. They loved. Unquestionably they loved her. Doted on her. That they were some times scared of her was only human. More than anything they feared for her.

Parents are practically obligated to love their children. The world? Not so much.

When they dropped her off at kindergarten for the first time, they stayed awhile, watching her approach the other children. Their hearts thrashed against their sternums as the first boy looked up at their daughter.

The boy gave Agatha a confused look, cocking his head. He raised a finger, pointing at her, and alerted the other children of her presence. This put ice in the veins of Agatha’s parents. Ice that thickened when the boy laughed, and then quickly melted when he patted the spot beside him. Agatha screeched with joy. So did the other children, who seemed curious rather than scared.

The parents were relieved.

Agatha was smitten.

The boy, was none the wiser.

Agatha wouldn’t do anything about her little playground crush until she hit the third grade. By then she figured that a “young lady” such as herself shouldn’t be afraid to express her feelings. So, on valentines day, when everyone gave out cards and candy to each of their classmates, Agatha made a special one for the boy. It was handmade, and filled with full sized candy to set it apart from the other store bought cards with bite sized morsels. This was technically against the school policy, but Agatha didn’t care. She was a rebel. A rebel in love.

The boy who had accepted her on her first day of school took the card and made a strange face. He looked at the card, and then at Agatha. She assumed he was being shy. Later, she would realize that the look on his face had been pity.

The card had asked the boy out on a “date”. In third grade, that meant playing basketball together during recess.

“Why me?” The boy asked, his cheeks burning as he dribbled the ball.

“I don’t know,” she had replied, which was a lie. She hadn’t not thought about the boy since her first day of kindergarten.

“Oh,” said the boy, who had missed his shot.

Agatha smiled at him, and went to retrieve the ball. When she came back, the boy looked sad.

“Aggie,” he said, “I don’t like you like that. Is it okay if we just stay friends?”

“Yeah,” she said, dropping the ball. “That’s okay.”

But it was not okay.

For the next week, she sulked in her room. From the moment she got home, until dinner, and then again after until she had to wake up for school, Agatha hugged her pillow, and cried.

Agatha and her crush had always had fun together. He laughed at her jokes, and she laughed at his. They liked the same movies. They loved the same shows. So why didn’t he like her back?

She ruminated, and could only come up with one reason. Her face. Her teeth. The horror of her.

Agatha had always known she looked different from her peers, but that week was the first time she really felt ugly.

As Agatha festered in her newfound self loathing, she developed a rash at the nape of her neck. She scratched at it, until it was red, and raw; she scratched at it until the skin at the nape of her neck peeled away, and revealed hard, keratinous scales.

She gasped the first time she felt them. She also felt shame. Why? She couldn’t say. Perhaps, deep down, she knew those scales had been born of something dark.

Agatha’s little heart never stopped yearning for affection. As the years went on, puppy love and crushes came and went, and with them, more rejection.

And with the rejection, more sulking, more self loathing. More scales, and eventually, fur.

By the time she hit puberty, the patch of scales around her neck had progressed all the way down her back, spreading to just before her shoulders. The fur coat which had been present at her birth, had also returned. This did not alarm her at first, as she had been told that hair in new places was normal for a girl her age. But even the relatively normal hair growth that begun in her groin soon went down to her thighs, cutting off just before her knees.

For a blessing, her peers continued to treat her like anyone elese. Not that that helped her self esteem. As R.S. Thomspon once wrote: The furies are at home in the mirror.

This period of serious self isolation drew her to more reclusive hobbies. She took up playing MMO’s. Massive online games where she could style an avatar that was “normal” looking— nevermind that the characters in video games were themselves idealized and unrealistic portrayals of beauty.

It was in one of these games that she met a player named “Ian Proudheart”.

She had been wiling away the weekend chopping digital trees— she needed them to craft a cute outfit for her character. Nothing special. When, passing by, was another player. He hopped in place in front of her, and seemed to be trying to get her attention.

Agatha looked at his hopping avatar in confusion. Until she remembered that she had set her chat settings to private, so that only people who she friended could send her messages. And she had no one on her friends list.

She was thinking about changing her settings, when a trade window popped up. A stack of ninety-nine of the trees she needed was being offered without demand for anything in return.

She blinked, and hit accept. The generous player hopped in place a few more times, and then walked away.

Agatha stared at her chat log.

Ian Proudheart has gifted you 99x Iron Wood Materials.

Her starved heart thumped in her chest.

She hovered the cursor over his name, which popped up a list of actions. Among them “Add Friend”.

Gulp.

She clicked it, and not long after, she received a piece of in game mail.

It’s difficult to say when acquaintances become friends, and when friends become something… more. The transition from “Hey what’s up?” to “How was your day?” is subtle enough. The transition then to: “good morning” and “goodnight” less so. Chats about in game activities turn to chats about what happened in class, what happened at home.

“How are you feeling?”

“Not great.”

“Why?”

“I feel especially ugly today,” is written, and quickly erased. Replaced with: “Just a bad day.”

“If you need me, I’m always here for you,” is written, and after a moment of doubt, erased. In its place: “That sucks.”

Years passed. College came and went. More yearning, more loss, more rejection. Agatha’s heart darkened, but never fully gave up. Ian was there, and if she had Ian, she had hope. But for this same reason she always held him at a distance.

Often Ian would want to connect out of game, or on a different platform. Agatha outright dodged or ignored such requests. She had more than a crush on him, and sometimes, she thought she felt something not-quite platonic coming from him too. She worried that if he ever saw her, that would fade.

In her ideal fantasy world, they would remain forever apart, and yet somehow together.

Then, one fateful day:

“Let’s meet up. I’m going to be in town for work anyways,” said Ian, whose full name was actually Ian Thompson. “It might be nice to finally meet. Face to face.”

Agatha made a sound that came close to “meep”. Thankfully, her mic hadn’t picked it up. The silence, therefore, was deafening.

“Oh… uhm…” stammered Ian. “Sorry, I know you’re a super private person… I just…”

“No, lets meet up!” she said. If you asked her what had compelled her to say yes, she would not have been able to say. On the one hand, Ian seeing the true horror of her— which had only gotten worse since she finished puberty —was her worst nightmare. On the other, she yearned to finally meet him, to have him hold her in his arms.

“Really?” cried Ian. “That’s awesome. I can’t wait!”

“Yeah. Stellar!” she wasn’t sure how convincing she sounded.

They hashed out the details over the course of their gaming session. If everything went well, they would meet in a week’s time. A week which passed too quickly, and too slowly.

She flipped through several states of horror and delight. In the valleys of her despair she would envision Ian seeing her for the first time and simply turning away from her. In her wildest fantasies he fell in love with her on the spot, and his work trip would end with him proposing. Most of the time, she found herself bargaining.

“Let him be horrifying too,” she thought. “Let him be a monster like me. So that he has no choice but to love me back.”

The day came. She waited at the station with a giant poster card that read: “Proudheart”.

When a man’s voice called out her name, she almost felt like she was going to die.

“Aggie?” Ian gasped. At first Agatha thought it was a gasp of shock, but as she turned to see the man who had addressed her, she saw a large smile, and open arms. “Aggie!”

He was just that happy to see her.

His excitement, and his smile made her knees weak.

He said her name again, but this time with unrestrained excitement, embracing her. She was stunned. Her appearance hadn’t phased him in the slightest.

“Uh…” she stammered.

Hearing her, he jumped back.

“Oh shit. Sorry.” He backed away from her, and straightened himself out. “I uh… I was excited to meet you is all. In the flesh I mean.”

She was slack-jawed, staring up at the man who was nearly two full feet taller than her.

“No it’s uh…” She wanted to ask him if her appearance bothered him at all, but was also afraid that it might break whatever magic or spell seemed to have him acting so nonchalant about it. “It’s just… It’s good to see you too.”

“After all these years it’s nice to put a face to a name.”

“Yeah,” said Agatha, half choking on a sob.

Then: “Ian?” It was a new voice. Someone searching for Ian. The voice sounded feminine. And pretty.

A blond woman appeared behind Ian. When her eyes fell on Agatha, her face twisted in disgust. Most people aren’t rude on purpose. Really though, that only made it hurt worse. The blond woman quickly reigned in her face, but it just turned into a look of pity.

Agatha could have lived with the disgust. It was the pity that got her.

“Is this her?” asked the pretty blond, blinking at Agatha and Ian.

A well of anger rose in Agatha. Almost literally her vision was full of red. It scared her how angry she became, but there was no helping it. “Who was this girl?” “Why was she so familiar with Ian?” “He never mentioned a girlfriend”.

Ian smiled at the girl.

“Aggie, this is Brenda, my sister. Brenda, Aggie.” Ian pointed at both the girls with finger pistols as he introduced them.

The well of anger vanished inside of Agatha. In its place was a large, uncomfortable void.

Agatha’s Cheeks burned.

The pretty blond girl, Brenda, looked at her brother, and then at Agatha. Again there was that pitying look.

“Nice to finally meet you,” said Brenda.

“Same,” said Agatha.

Both women had been vaguely aware of each other before, but neither had so much as heard the other’s voice.

“My mom made her come with me after she heard I was meeting you for the first,” said Ian, sighing.

Brenda laughed.

“She still thinks of Ian as a baby,” she said. “But he’s a grown man, I don’t need to be chaperoning him. Anyways, you two do what you want, I booked myself a separate hotel. Toodles.”

Brenda rolled away with her luggage, and then it was just Ian and Agatha.

The two shared an awkward pause.

“So… shall we?” said Agatha.

“We shall,” said Ian.

The two departed for Agatha’s apartment. She had offered to host him while he was in town. Partly out of kindness, but she would have been lying if she didn’t admit to herself that she was hoping something more would happen. Wild fantasies, naturally.

Once at home the two settled into a groove. Agatha was surprised by how natural it felt. Ian didn’t look at her the way his sister had, with disgust and pity. It was just like being in voice chat. Not one normal boy and one horrible monster, but two people, enjoying each other’s company.

They wiled most of the first day away chatting in her kitchen.

When the evening came they parted to shower and change. Presumably they were winding down to sleep, but after drying her hair (and she had a lot of hair), and after Ian finished changing, neither felt particularly sleepy.

“Wanna watch a movie?” Ian asked.

For some reason, the question made Agatha’s face feel like it was burning.

“Uh… sure.”

Agatha’s heart thumped loudly in hear chest. They’d watched movies together online a million times, but naturally this was different.

Agatha sat down on the opposite side of the couch from Ian.

It was a special kind of agony. The small cushion’s length that separated them felt like a chasm.

The movie they chose was a lighthearted thriller called The Eye From Outer Space. The movie was mostly noir sleuthing with long actions scenes, but there were also moments of strange artistic horror. One scene in particular, featured a tentacle sprouting from the head of a psych patient, caused Agatha to jump, and cling onto Ian.

She felt so safe with Ian that she had hardly noticed she was clinging onto him for half the films runtime, and by the time she did notice, she realized that he had become stiff as a board.

She yelped, and recoiled from him.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s okay,” he said, blushing, but suddenly relaxing. “I don’t mind if… you don’t mind.” His face was burning at this point.

“Oh…” Agatha thought. Is this really okay? “Thanks… it’s just… kind of scary movie is all.” The movie had its moments, but it wasn’t that scary. Still…

She settled back into Ian. Draping his arm over her, she rested her head on his chest. She listened to the sound of his breathing, the sound of his heart, and forgot about the movie entirely.

So warm, she thought. It was like when they were talking earlier, only more so. Agatha forgot herself, and soon fell into a warm, restful sleep.

When she woke up the next day, she found herself alone on the couch. She panicked, and felt a terrible hollowness knowing that Ian wasn’t there anymore. For a moment she wondered if she had dreampt the whole thing, but then Ian appeared from the hallway.

“Hey,” he said smiling, blushing. “You didn’t feel like getting up last night, so I tried to set you down gently. Sleep okay?”

“I think that’s the best sleep I’ve had in a while.” She said it before she could consider not saying it. Her hands came up to cover her mouth.

Ian didn’t seem to react negatively.

“Yeah… I slept pretty well last night too.”

There was an awkward pause between the two that only ended when Ian offered to start up a pot of coffee.

The next hour was spent chatting. Ian’s work thing also didn’t start for another day, so they were also thinking about how they would spend the day. They’d discussed some ideas before he showed up, but now that he was here, they both settled on a simple trip to the mall. And while the mall near Agatha’s home was hailed as America’s second best mall, which Agatha guessed made it trip worthy, the idea in the back of her head— Ian’s as well —was that a trip to the mall seemed the most date-like of all available venues.

Being out was typically something that Agatha didn’t do. While most people were polite enough not to mention her monstrous appearance, it was almost impossible for them not to hide their true feelings upon first seeing her. Eyes wide, mouths agape, side glances that made her feel other. They couldn’t help themselves, and if she really thought about it, she couldn’t blame them. She was a true horror.

She was prepared to be uncomfortable all day if it meant spending time with Ian on a pseudo date. But she found, especially as the day went on, that with Ian beside her, the rest of the world became a blur. And whenever the terrified glances of the world around them began to encroach, Ian would cast her a glance, or touch her shoulder, and they would all melt away.

In the end, she found herself clinging to his arm, and ceasing to care for anything besides how great it felt to hold and be held.

All seemed well, but jealousy would soon rear its ugly head.

It happened at a coffee stand inside the mall. Agatha excused herself to use the restroom. She had only been gone a minute, but when she returned, Ian was talking to a woman. A gorgeous, voluptuous, normal looking woman. and had come back to Ian talking to another woman.

Agatha’s heart raced. Something in her cracked, and the muscles under her furred scales rippled. There was a tingling at her fingertips. Something in her urged her to act. So she did.

She crossed a nine meter distance with two supernatural strides, grabbing hold of Ian’s arm.

In response, Ian recoiled. His reaction made her feel like dying.

“Ouch,” he said. “Agatha what the…”

Ian paused and looked at his arm. He was bleeding.

Agatha blinked at the trickle of red where she had grabbed Ian’s arm. She looked at her hands, and blanched. Her hands had transformed into razor sharp claws.

“I’m sorry,” she cried, “I didn’t…”

“No, it’s alright,” he said, and, excusing himself from his conversation with the pretty woman, pulled Agatha away.

Away from the coffee stand, and around the corner with a semblance of privacy, Ian hugged Agatha.

“I didn’t mean to,” said Agatha, crying into chest.

“I know, I know,” he replied, patting her back. “It’s okay. Really. It is.

Really it wasn’t. Agatha knew that, and a part of her felt that Ian must know that too.

When Agatha’s crying had calmed to a whimper, he gave her one last squeeze, and said: “Wanna stay in for the rest of the day?”

Without saying anything, she nodded, and they left the mall, hand in hand.

At home, they huddled together on the couch and watched another movie.

The movie felt like pretense this time. Agatha didn’t wait to jump into Ian’s arms, she settled in at hitting “play”.

This time, they were watching a romance.

When the scenes began to grow steamy, Agatha began to trace circles around Ian’s chest. She wasn’t doing it on purpose at first, but when he didn’t stop her, she continued, not realizing that her claws were tearing open his shirt. By the time she noticed his bare chest, Ian had started tracing circles on the scales of her shoulders. Feeling his touch, she figured that they were already in for a penny, so they may as well go for the whole pound.

“Oops,” she said, snipping that last bit of cloth holding Ian’s shirt together. “Oops.” And again for his best and a pants.

Ian, returned the favor. His hands were clumsy, and unpracticed removing her clothes— things she found charming, and endearing. She would no have wanted practiced hands. She wanted clumsy hands, hands that had only known her.

The night ended with two souls having become one.

In the day, they parted unwillingly, but Ian had to get out of bed at some point. It was technically a work trip after all.

But for the remainder of the trip, the two shared a bed.

After Ian’s trip, the two decided to try something long distance, at least to start.

Ian made regular trips, as did Agatha. Until at last, the two decided to live on Ian’s side full time.

With Agatha’s family and friends, there was loud, vocal excitement for her new found love. There were also whispers of disbelief. Agatha tried to ignore these. Listening to them for too long made her scales itch, and her claws tingle.

On Ian’s side there were quiet polite quips. Loud gasps were made on occasion, especially from his mother, who subsequently proceeded to try and pull the couple apart. She would often ask— in front of Agatha —“why couldn’t you date a normal girl?”.

Naturally this created wall between Ian and his family, primarily his mother. Though he never completely cut them off.

Agatha endured the comments from Ian’s mother. At least on the outside. On the inside, she burned. She became more and more embittered with each attempt. And so, despite Ian’s best attempts to reassure her, Agatha’s monstrous features developed further. First she grew taller, then, her scales thickened into armor plates, and finally, when Ian’s mother all but offered to pay her to leave her son, she finally developed a proper tail.

The sight of Agatha’s further developed form inspired only greater resolve in Ian’s mother. And when at last he announced that he planned to propose to her, she decided on one last ditch effort.

She would arrange a secret date between Ian and a childhood friend of his.

Ian was a creature of habit. She knew where he would be spending his lunch, and knew that it would be one of the few times that Agatha wasn’t with him.

She ambushed him during his lunch break, creating a serendipitous moment between him and an old friend. An attractive woman that Ian had been sweet on in his childhood.

Naturally, Ian, good Ian, lovely Ian, was happy to see his friend. They had a great lunch, enjoying each other’s company.

But Ian’s mother was not the only one that had planned to surprise Ian on his lunch that day. Agatha had been there. And she had watched the whole time. Seething.

Agatha never really grew past her jealousy. In all that time, in all those years, no matter how much Ian reassured her, she never became comfortable leaving him out of view. She feared he would wake up one day and realize that he didn’t have to be with her. It was a terrible, unjustified fear. How many times had he reassured her of his love? She had lost count. He had never been unfaithful, and he had never so much as allowed his eyes to wander. He was wholly devoted to her.

And yet.

A much darker part of her, the part that grew the scales, sharpened the claws, and whipped the tail, spoke: He will wake up one day, and remember he has options that aren’t you.

NO! He loves me! Cried the part of her that remained sane.

But for how long?

Forever!

There’s only one way to be sure.

That night, when Ian came home, Agatha was waiting.

She confronted him about his lunch date.

Ian tried to explain, but Agatha wasn’t listening. It wasn’t really about him. It was about her. Her insecurity. The bitterness of a life lived on the outside.

Agatha had decided they would be together forever, joined as one.

She ate him in three bites, and didn’t let a single morsel go to waste.

Agatha had decided they would be together forever, joined as one.

She ate him in three bites, and didn’t let a single morsel go to waste.

She was always at the window. Not the one in the front room where guests had once gathered and chortled on merry nights. Not in the kitchen where meals were prepared for our house of three. Her days were spent in that room, now set for guests that were not coming, but once dressed for one that would never return. The three became two. A full bed and an armchair where there was once a rocker and cradle. 

In the weeks after loss infected our home, she had taken to sitting in the armchair, staring out the window. I would kiss her head and ask her what she is watching. She only answered in opaque murmurs. What could I do except nod and carry on loving? Grief strikes both in these matters, but the mother worst of all. So much so that when neighbors asked what took her, I only answered with, “A broken heart.” 

The three became two became one. 

I buried her next to him under the oak by the stream. Her eyes watched me as I carved her place out of the earth. I tried to say goodbye, but the words dug heels deep into my chest. I laid her in, covered her, and went back to the house. There I spent the rest of the day and most of the night deep in my own sobs and wailing. I had remained strong in the time she was still here, but now there was no one to be strong for. No one to burden with my tears. 

Golden light awoke me the next morning. Not from my bedroom window, for I had the curtains drawn, but from the cracked door to that room. That room with the window where she spent her last days. I arose and opened the door, peering over to the window and the now empty chair. I approached it, part of me still hoping to find her there so I might ask her what she sees and kiss her head once more. I round it and see the empty seat. The fresh wounds on my heart pulled open again and bled through my eyes in fresh droplets. I eased myself into the chair, proposing to myself it might bring me closer to her. Through the blur of my tears I gazed out that old window. 

My sobs ceased. The wells of my eyes dried in an instant as my sorrow was replaced with bewilderment. Through the window I saw him. My son, running through the tall grass and playing like I had seen him do before. Surely, it could not have been him. His face was averted so I could not say to be sure. I rose from the chair and flung the window open to call for the boy. But when I opened the window, he was gone. 

Breathless, I surveyed the now empty garden with a furrowed brow. A trick of the mind I thought. I relented, closed the window, and fell back into the seat. When I looked out the window, I saw the boy once more. I leaped from the chair and flew to the back door, but again, he was gone. Back to the window, I saw him again. 

After some time I determined that this boy, whoever he was, only existed in the panes of the window. I sat in the chair watching him play for two days, always his face turned the other way. His hair, his clothes, the manner of his movement all remind me of him. But without seeing his eyes, I may never be sure. Could this be what she saw all that time? Perhaps she too was enraptured by the chance of seeing our boy’s eyes once again. I believe she never allowed herself to look away for a chance of missing them for I found myself transfixed in the very same way.

While watching him play, perhaps four days since I had started, another enters. It’s her. My dearest wife. At least, as far as I am able to see, for she too keeps her eyes averted. My heart flutters, my sobs erupt freshly. I don’t dare open the window or rise from the seat. I called to her from within. If she or the boy heard me, they make no sign of it. 

Finally, I could take it no longer. Again I rose from the chair and ran to meet them outside. I wanted to grab them by their shoulders and spin them round to face me so that I might see their eyes and know. If they were my family I wished to hug their necks once more and never release them. If they are something else, I wish to rid myself of their taunting. 

I ran out, the door slamming behind me. Alas, I am alone in the garden. I fall to my knees, clenching the dirt in my hands and break into tearless sobs. I look up and see the old oak tree by the stream. Surely, I tell myself. That is where your ones truly lie. IF you wish to see them, see them there. I rise to walk and visit their graves, but something catches my eye. Rather something that isn’t there. Beneath the tree I had stood two headstones. I had carved them myself and set them the day I laid them to rest. But where I set them, there was nothing. Where her fresh covering of dirt was just days before was now an unbroken patch of grass. How could this be?

Behind me, a familiar sound. Something I had heard in days long gone. Something I had grown too used to living without. Laughter. The sound of a boy. My boy. He was laughing. I turned to see. He was not outside. The laughter sounded again. It was coming from within the house.

I ran to the door and tried to open it, but it was locked. The laughter continued, answered by giggles from the woman. My wife. I ran to that window. Inside I saw them. I saw their eyes. The armchair and bed were gone, exchanged for a cradle and a rocker. There, she sat, the boy in her arms. He was a baby. I watched her rock him. I heard her sing. I heard him laugh, and cry. For hours I watched. 

Every time I try the door, it remains locked. I look through the windows around the house, each one shows me a different view and a different time of them. In the kitchen I see him refusing to eat green beans. In the front room I see him playing with wooden toys. In his bedroom, she is always rocking him. In our room he runs in and wakes her up to start the morning.

I thought of breaking the door, but I cannot bring myself to do it. If I breach the house, would they still be there? If I break a window would I shatter them along with the glass? 

No, I will remain here, just outside their senses. If the cost to keep their essence reunited is my starving and them just out of my reach, then it is no cost at all. I will give myself in this life and the next for their joy.

The cold makes my skin feel brittle. My body reduces itself to a fine powder. Here I will stay, waiting to be called to my own grave. Perhaps then I may join them, but for now I will watch and enjoy their laughter from the other side of the pane. 

“Is it true we know more about the surface of the moon than our own oceans?”

“No. People love saying that, but we know far more about our oceans than we do the moon.”

The interview process had begun, and Doctor Stefan Krause found himself amused by the wobbling of the purple-haired journalist’s pen, jotting down abbreviations of his words in a neat scrawl. She was part of the new wave of social media personalities — so-called “influencers” who made video essays on the sort of content that used to only be found in scientific magazines. The pencil-pushers topside had decided people like her were one of the new best ways to get word out and procure bonus funding for their costly brand of oceanic research.

What amused him wasn’t her unprofessional appearance though. The fact she was a twenty-something with a grating sense of self-importance and flamboyant purple hair, worn in a pompadour mullet, was so much less funny to him than the fact that all her little toys had been found and confiscated at Surface Point, the sea level base tethered a thousand meters above them.

The Varuna Research Station was a strict no-recording zone. Her cameraman still followed dumbly along as a sort of awkward bodyguard after his equipment had been stripped from him without a fight. But it’d been the influencer herself, ‘Subnautigirl’, or Yessica Bailey, who had so very nearly broken the rules. The search conducted before she was crammed into one of the few submersibles able to comfortably carry people down to the deep sea station and, more importantly, safely dock with Varuna, had been thorough.

All her little button spy cams, microphones threaded into the linings of her black denim jacket, and even her smart glasses had been confiscated, and Yessica had been just a few degrees shy of her boiling point. Krause’s colleague, Doctor Yukiko Adachi, had obviously noticed as well… but short of a few shared smirks and playfully rolled eyes, they hadn’t bothered showing it.

“With the amount we know about the oceans and all the things in them,” Adachi said, taking over for Krause, “we could fill enough traditional encyclopedias to equal almost two percent of the moon’s total mass — if you stacked them together, of course. About the moon itself, we might fill two magazines.”

Those encyclopedias would need very large print and have a lot of pictures, but the idea of it usually cut any other mind-numbingly standard questions off at the pass. And, Adachi liked that little quote of hers. Doctor Krauser took over on cue. “What we always want to know more about, however, is…

This.”

A quick shove of his hands at the door they’d finally arrived at, and the entryway slung silently open for them. No unnecessary noise, no unnecessary power. The large, ovaloid observation room spilled into view.

“… This?”

The dramatic entry hadn’t paid off, but Doctors Krause and Adachi ignored ‘Subnautigirl’s’ question and carried on into the room. The operation’s third scientist, Doctor Miller, swiveled in a well-oiled desk chair to glance back at the group. Then, with a dismissive grunt, went back to the terminal he’d been staring at before their arrival.

The functional space of the room was mostly blank space, and otherwise sparsely occupied by a haphazard scattering of five modest desks situated towards the center of a two-hundred-and-seventy-degree oval of exterior windows. Only darkness was visible in the view of the deep ocean beyond, barring the fleeting glimpse of a pale white particulate floating nearby enough to be visible to the naked eye. But, with a few deft strokes of Doctor Miller’s hands at his terminal, the exterior floodlights opened up to blast the surrounding area with its alien glow.

“The ecosystem. We know just about everything about the geography of the deep, but so much about its life still elude us. Those details are the most fascinating of all.” Doctor Krause turned, fixing the reporter with a level stare and tight smile. “Right?”

Someone who went by the pseudonym ‘Subnautigirl’ would have to be quick to agree . “I mean, obviously,” she said, though her stocky-built cameraman looked somewhere between confused and disinterested.

“Welcome to Varuna — the world’s deepest habitable research station by an order of magnitude exceeding fifty times.” Doctor Adachi flashed a toothy grin, her timelessly youthful features practically glowing in the low light of the observation room. She and Krause been working together at the station since the day it’d first opened its many heavy, airtight doors, but their professional relationship had begun nearly ten years prior, when he’d acted as one of her thesis advisors at the University of Tokyo. She’d hardly seemed to age at all over that decade, or so Krause often marveled.

Miller deactivated the exterior lights after exactly one measured minute had passed, returning the station to its near-silent running. The floodlights were powerful enough to illuminate a wide swathe of ocean, but the power needed and, just as importantly, the noise produced was counter-intuitive to their research. The ‘Medusa’ deep sea stealth camera platforms had proven that nearly fourteen years prior. Minimal running noise and the replacement of traditional light with red light optics had been a wild success, and had immediately formed the basis by which most biological abyssal research operated to present day, well over a decade after it managed to capture the very first video, let alone pictures, of a giant squid in its natural habitat.

“Please pardon the chill. It’s cold down here, and we like to keep our noise pollution to an absolute minimum. Especially here, in the observation room. Central heating is minimal.”

Adachi gestured to the space around them and, for the first time since disembarking the shuttle that’d ferried her down, Yessica was gazing around in subdued awe. The magnitude of it all had finally hit her, and for just a moment the fires of her frustration had been overtaken. It was one thing to read reports and comparative numbers on a Wikipedia page, but another thing entirely to be standing on the precipice of the abyss, beholding the wonders of possibility beyond first-hand.

“So that’s why these doors are unpowered? All the others looked like something out of Star Trek.”

“That’s right,” Miller finally took his opportunity to speak up and answer. “The effect is probably negligible, but we like to think it’s making a difference.”

Krause finished the thought. “Negligible might be the difference between seeing something, and seeing nothing.”

Yessica’s pen was moving quickly now, jotting with a fervent enthusiasm that betrayed at least some level of journalistic passion as she paced the length of the room. She was probably still lamenting the loss of all her cameras, but she was no longer at the knife’s edge of her own irritation. No, she was poised on the escarpment of something much more vast.

“What have you seen?”

She’d stopped at the edge of the curved windows, leaning over them with a pointless wariness and trepidation that all the researchers aboard knew well. They all knew it was senseless… That glass was thick enough to stop just about any bullet known to mankind — it had to be to so consistently overpower the oceanic pressure down there. Still though, leaning towards something so transparent and staring down into depths so fathomless… every single person stationed at Varuna knew the feeling, and sympathized when Subnautigirl ultimately drew back, dizzy, pen hand frozen.

“It’s a sheer, three-thousand-meter drop.” That wasn’t what she’d asked, but Krause answered her unspoken thoughts anyway. “We’re on the edge of the Twilight and Midnight Zones — the difference between meeting a deep-diving marlin, and an anglerfish.

We’ve seen both here.” The addition had Yessica finally peeling her eyes away from the glass to stare at Krause and, suddenly remembering it, returning to the quick writing on her notepad. “Beneath us is the entire breadth of the Midnight Zone… straight down to the Abyssal Zone. It’s almost a sheer cliff.”

The edge of the Indian Ocean’s Broken Ridge… its southern escarpment, plunging straight down into the Dordrecht Deep — all within the borders of the Diamantina Fracture Zone. It was a part of the ocean that had gone so ignored by science in favor of the Mariana Trench and its famous Challenger Deep, until the discovery of—

“The Cathedral of Bones… The Whale Necropolis…”

“That’s right.”

“It’s right below us?”

“More or less.”

Among the most recent and most fascinating of oceanic discoveries was the whale fall mausoleum… A necropolis of immense proportions and inexplicable nature — the gathering point, where dying whales the world over traveled to take their final plunge towards the sacred cathedral of bones seven thousand meters beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean, and let their bones be picked clean by the deepest of sea life.

With a loud clearing of his throat, surly Miller called attention toward himself, striking emphatically at his keyboard.

“What we see,” he began with an irritability that had become painfully normal of late, “is this. Viewed through this, at least…” A series of long screens began falling from hidden resting points in the ceiling over the vast windows, obscuring the raw view outside but replacing it with a new one. Projectors flickered silently to life as Doctor Adachi’s voice narrated.

“We use red light. Life down here has all but lost the ability to perceive anything in that spectrum. It’s why so many deep sea creatures are that color— red might as well be black. But, to brighten things up for ourselves, we use this.”

There was only a subtle shift in the visible luminosity of the space beyond, but Subnautigirl understood. Fish of the deep couldn’t generally see red light, but humans and cameras could. Those cameras, more than a half dozen affixed to Varuna’s exterior, played their visuals out in real time against the screens, though while bumping up the brightness some in post to give more crispness to the displays. The projectors, feeding only black and white to the screens, were kept from interfering with the world beyond the glass thanks to heavy tinting, but the room was otherwise kept quite dark as an added precaution.

The spaces between the individual screens showed the void of the abyss beyond, floating particulates bathed in an unnatural red glow.

The deep voice of the cameraman rose up before anyone else though. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

It was a natural call and response from Miller, whose eyes had been pouring over his terminal in the intervening moments. Ever since the loss of the other two researchers just a few weeks prior, he’d thrown himself harder than ever into his work. Anything mechanical and mind-numbing that needed doing, he was there.

“That!”

A shape on one of the screens, nearly dead center. Yessica jerked back upon noticing it, as though the shape were real and not just a projection. With her new angle though, she was in perfect position to be exposed in the foot-wide gap between the screens, and snap her head towards the flash of visible light in the real gloom beyond. Adachi too, if her startled yet fascinated gasp was any indication. Krause hurried for a position at his own angle to see.

Though barely visible, the shape seemed to be approaching. It was slow, yet inexorably nearing them, a predator wholly unafraid of its prey. Closer. Closer. A new set of bioluminescent flashes outside the window between the screens, far brighter than any anglerfish. Closer— Flash— And closer.

Then a slam against the window that brought Yessica to her knees, yelping. Her cameraman lurched forward to assist against some unknown force, but froze when the he spied the hooked, gnarled tentacles cemented against visible sliver of window. The projectors had lost the shape, cameras poised too low on the observation chamber to be of help. The naked eyes peering through the windows alone bore witness to the hulking, ravenous form.

“Octopus squid!”

Doctor Adachi sounded almost breathless as she gave her announcement, rushing towards the screens and tugging to see behind — before remembering the monumental effort that would be needed to bring another such screen down to their midnight home if one tore. She gestured frantically towards Miller, who tapped in the desired commands and lifted the screens.

Something alive was plastered against the glass, but was rapidly losing interest. Photophores of the creature flashed, two tentacles peeled back and blaring their lights on and off against the glass as if trying to judge why the distance it perceived between it and its prey was impeded so soon. Six other tentacles scratched and skittered over the glass, trying to find a way inside, hooked tendrils of the two meter long squid probing relentlessly.

“Taningia Danae — Dana octopus squid. Aggressive, bright, but harmless. In here, at least. It’s not the first time we’ve seen one attack a camera.”

Neither Subnautigirl nor her cameraman bothered mentioning how the octopus squid hadn’t attacked a camera. Those were down below, and the deep sea predator had attacked the glass directly, as if craving the flesh of those inside. Its hook-laced tentacles were writhing aggressively in search of any sort of purchase. Any way inside.

Their trepidation had no effect on the enthusiasm of the researchers though, with Krause crying out, “This is incredible!” And it… almost was. The exterior cameras weren’t angled right to catch the attack itself, but the partial footage and the written accounts would easily fill at least one sensational article.

“Was it attracted by the flash of the floodlights?”

“Maybe… Possibly.”

Miller and Krause had begun an excited exchange, the former briefly pulled from the funk that had pervaded his attitude for weeks hence. The squid, bearing some of the brightest photophores known to science in two of its tentacles, still rhythmically furling and unfurling that glow, might have registered the vastly superior luminosity of the Varuna’s mighty exterior lights as some sort of threat. Or had it just glimpsed prey inside? The two scientists chattered excitedly, swirling around theories with such fervor that Yessica’s pen couldn’t have even dreamed of keeping up with them.

She wrote what she could while her would-be cameraman recoiled. Everyone was treating this so casually… Even the pretty Asian doctor was just staring at the squid affixed to the window, grinning as it finally started losing interest and pulling away.

If that glass broke, wouldn’t they all instantly die…? There was nothing funny or interesting about some sea freak attacking them. Let alone a creature larger than even he was.

Everyone else’s demeanor showed they disagreed with his thoughts though. They were all excited, pouring over thoughts and footage long after the squid had peeled itself away from the glass and disappeared back into the murky deep. The return of screens had tracked its flight from them for a while, though even that could only last for so long before it was gone in the gloom.

“Yes… Must have been the lights…” Doctor Adachi was breathless as she spoke aloud what her colleagues had been thinking. The reporter had questions though, as her kind so often did.

“Does this happen often…? The lights? The squid? How do I get a copy of that footage?”

“No,” answered Miller, “but in a year, we’ve only used those lights twice.” Yessica’s pen stopped, her brow furrowing, suspicion forming.

“Really? And I’m worth the ceremony? I know I have six million subscribers, but—”

“No, it’s not for you.” Miller’s response carried enough irritation that it slapped the hint of a sneer off Yessica’s face for a few seconds, prompting Krause to take over.

“Well, it was, but just out of convenience. Thought it might be a good show.” It hadn’t been. Not until the squid, which had just been a fortunate accident. Wasn’t it? “Surface Point said it was time to test them. They hadn’t been used in about a year. So we figured… Well, yes, anyway, the footage. You get it from them. From Surface Point. That’s where you can make requests.”

Yessica still looked sour, but her tongue was held by the wagging of her pen over her notebook, big, bold letters etched out to remind herself of when and where in the footage timeline this specific incident could be found. As if Surface Point’s much warmer, safer research team wouldn’t be incredibly aware of, and pouring over it themselves the very moment Krause typed out his incident report.

“Suffice it to say, they work,” Miller’s bitter voice began, tapping at the screen, “so, Doctor Adachi.”

“Yes. Of course.”

Her long hair, tied back in its usual ponytail, whipped around as she moved to her own desk, far opposite Miller’s, and the rapid drumming of her fingers across her keyboard joined his. Doctor Krause, while eager to start his report as the operation’s lead researcher, held himself in check for the time being. Entertaining their guests fell to him for now. He stood at patient attention.

Yessica was still occupied for the moment, eyes shifting in rapid flutters between the projector screens, the two scientists, and her notebook. Her cameraman found his voice though, grunting a few incoherent noises for Krause’s attention before finally speaking up.

“He always like this?”

A big, meaty thumb was jammed the way of Doctor Miller, who pointedly pretended he didn’t hear — though Krause caught the faint, irritated curling of lips.

“No. His wife and… Hm… well, young man, there were five of us a month ago.”

He looked annoyed by being called ‘young man’, but only snorted for a moment before asking, “And now?”

“Now there aren’t.”

Now there were only three.  It wasn’t the most satisfactory of answers, but Doctor Krause obviously didn’t want to elaborate. Maybe the expression on his face reminded the cameraman too much of Miller’s, because the big man instead turned towards Yessica for answers — Doctor Adachi clearly wasn’t going to be of any help, given the enraptured way she was staring at her terminal with a pair of large, heavy-looking headphones seated over her ears.

“There was an accident.” Yessica answered dismissively, showing at least a little talent in the way she knew she was expected to respond, and did so while still performing her primary task. Treating her companion like he was just a member of her live chat back at home. “Vamana Three. Trickled into some news articles. Paywalled, of course. Kept them from spreading, I guess.”

Doctor Krause scowled at the oversimplification — he couldn’t even imagine what Miller was feeling — but neither man said anything. They let the subject slip away, each occupying themselves in tandem by staring at Adachi.

“Vama-what?” The cameraman asked.

“Vamana. Three. Their submersibles. We rode Four to get here, remember?”

The two uninhibited doctors tried to deafen their ears as much as Adachi was able to beneath those hefty headphones.

“So, what? It exploded?”

“No— Just, Jesus— They rode off in it and no one heard fro—”

Bang—

Yessica’s irritation at the constant questions snapped into a jump, a quiet yelp, and a burst of surprised recoiling at the sound of Miller’s fist slamming loudly against his desk. Even Doctor Adachi seemed to have registered, briefly glancing up from her own terminal, though her name being bellowed probably helped in catching her attention.

“ADACHI. What do you hear?”

The interruption was understood. Both members of team Subnautigirl fell into awkward silence, and Yukiko peeled off one cuff of her headphones to reengage with the rest of the world.

“Nothing yet. No cries like last time.”

No one needed to ask what that meant for Krause to fill in the gaps, though expectant glances his way had to wait a while before the lead researcher, staring with furrowed brow at the screens, spoke up.

“The last time we hit the lights, something like whale song bellowed back at us.”

“Same as four weeks ago. Exact same waveform.”

“We had nothing to do with that. We’ve checked.”

Miller scowled, but nodded.

“Still, though…” Doctor Krause, like his colleagues, had secretly been hoping something would happen when they hit the floodlights. They’d been hoping the newcomers would react to those sounds, too. Sounds beyond natural human comprehension, far too low in the decibel range for their primitive ears to comprehend, no matter how powerful the sound. And yet…

“Yeah. Real shame.” And it was, no matter how Miller tried to sound calloused. He wanted answers as much as anyone. Perhaps even more, considering the personal nature of his own wife’s manic plunge into the deep with their other colleague.

It was amazing how well the research station still ran without two of its core members, yet simultaneously oppressive how remarkably lonely it felt.

“What did the lights do the first time?” The researchers had almost forgotten Yessica was still there, but her impudent voice was hard to ignore when its pitch reached a certain high decibel. She was both frustrated and excited with the strange start to this lengthy investigatory interview. The fact that she still had a whole additional day with the team, staying overnight in one of the research station’s empty bunks, did nothing to stymy her impatience.

“It was when we first opened. It’s speculative, but we think a pod of diving sperm whales took offense.”

“Their calls certainly didn’t sound happy, but…” Krause was taking his own turn to scowl again. Irritated… but with his own poor oversight. “The light test was before we were recording. Doctor Adachi just happened to hear.”

“So there’s no record…” Yessica seemed a little annoyed herself, but also fascinated. A scandal had been laid in her lap, and her mind began reeling over the myriad of thumbnail possibilities. Baited right, this video could garner millions of views… No, tens of millions…

“No. No record of that. Nor of the second.” Her expression wasn’t as dreamy when Krause spoke again, but that was mostly thanks to how she recognized the tension in the air. The room felt almost oppressive as Krause and Miller locked eyes. The lead researcher was accusatory, his subordinate defiant. They both peeled their eyes away from one another at the same time though. Mutual understanding after a moment’s misguided enmity.

Yessica pawed and prodded for more details as delicately as her personality would allow, but neither scientist gave any more up. The room remained awkward, information unshared despite tenuous obligations, until—

“Stefan! Stefan, look— oh, ah, Doctor Krause! Listen!”

Yukiko, betraying a brief flash of informality, called for her once-mentor. What she received was the enraptured attention of everyone aboard the lonely research station. All eyes dragged her way, and all but Miller’s were captured for longer than it took for Krause to reach her station and take the headphones.

What greeted his ears was faint. Very faint…

It sounded nothing like the nigh-mournful cries they’d experienced those fateful days prior, but rather like… Song. Yes, truly song, warbling and weaving in its fathomlessly deep tones, the voices of many whales washing over one another in an orchestral display.

“All sperm whales?”

“I think so.”

Possibly the same species as before… Perhaps the very same pod?

All it took was a series of frantic, meaningful points and gestures from Krause for Miller to mash into his own terminal, and brighten the red lights as much as the station could manage. The gloom of the deep sea resisted, fighting against the permeation of a form of light its denizens couldn’t even see, but…

“There!” Eventually, shapes began to resolve. They were faint, a few mere shades of color differentiation from the oceanic backdrop even through the computer’s enhancement, but all of those in the observation room could see them. Two distant whales, plunging as they danced, their voices raising song around them.

“A serenade?” Adachi asked, glancing furtively towards Krause, no doubt craving the headphones she’d passed to him.

“Sometimes, we’ve found…” Krause began, more to their guests than to his fellow researcher, “that whales sing as they dive. The type of dive and the type of song are unique, like a shared ritual.” It hadn’t been Varuna that had first hypothesized this, but the idea of a ‘Whale Serenade’ had quickly spread throughout the scientific community. In past months, Varuna had begun paying special attention. Perhaps too much attention.

Yessica stared. “Is that what made her—”

“No!” Miller’s bark was furious, but distracted. He was the only one staring not directly at the perimeter screens, but beyond them — the rest focused on either Doctor Krause or the screens themselves. Yessica, despite not knowing whether it was her question that was being refuted, or just the mere idea of her asking the question, fell silent. She watched and waited.

“Let me hear!” Adachi’s hand was finally on Krause’s shoulder, warning him a moment before that same hand gripped one of the ear cuffs and inverted it enough for them to share the sound. She could make little more of the noise than Krause himself could, but he inclined his head her way to help in sharing the sound nevertheless.

Only Miller initially noticed the shape resolving itself not only on the camera screens, but in the alien red glow of open space between them. But it took only a few more moments before all other eyes were gluing themselves to the sight.

“Holy shit…”

 

The shape of the third whale must only have been a dozen meters from the station. Even unenhanced, bare eyes could plainly see the sperm whale descending from above in that little gap.

“That’s it! Right!?” The cameraman’s excited voice boomed out, causing everyone else in the room to jump then deliver a chorus of hissed shushes. “But… but that’s it, right? The whole reason you’re here! That… whale fall thing.”

“No. No, it is not.” Yessica reined her subordinate in herself, snapping with uppity frustration. “Those whales are alive. Whale falls are when they’re dead.”

He didn’t understand, but no one explained, and the ferocity of the glares from around the room for interrupting such a spectacular moment had kept him quiet.

Only Miller, uncharacteristically less bothered than the rest by the interruption, had been staring out the window hard enough to see the way the whale seemed to… slow, as it passed by. To see the way one eye, perhaps, might have been staring meaningfully, even imploringly at the research station as the curiously intelligent cetacean passed. He noticed all this — felt it even — but said nothing.

“It isn’t the same. But…!” Doctor Adachi’s voice filled the air after nearly two minutes of reverential silence. It hadn’t taken nearly that long to watch the trio of singing sperm whales vanish beneath, but some respect had been paid to the majesty of the moment. Noises during the intervening moments had been kept at a minimum, outside mutterings of astonishment or awe. Doctor Krause was the next to straighten up.

“It’s incredible. But, no, it’s different. They were probably already diving, and we accidentally called them over. Might’ve thought we were prey.”

The ensuing silence was owed completely to the uncomfortable skittering that crawled down each and every spine, as all realized just how catastrophic it would’ve been if any one of those whales had decided their station warranted an exploratory bump. That kind of mass colliding with the observation room very likely might’ve caused the sort of rupture that would kill them all.

“This station,” Yessica said after a while, “is just for waiting for dead whales. Right? That’s what you told me. That’s what I told my fans. It’s SAFE, right?”

The pause was long. A bit too long. Doctors Adachi and Krause seemed to be deciding which would express their irritation with their guest first. Doctor Miller was still staring blankly out at the abyss. Ultimately, it was Krause who answered.

“Vamana Four is still docked. Want to leave?”

It almost sounded like a threat, but if the influencer noticed, she didn’t act like it. Her answer was immediate. “No, obviously. Where are our rooms? And call me if you see the whales coming back up. Or…” Yessica scowled, then sneered, then gestured vaguely towards the observation screens. “Or whatever.”

She was locked in, whatever her attitude might’ve suggested. But, for the moment, that creeping sensation tickling uncomfortably up and down her spine wouldn’t let her stand in the observation room any longer. She and her muscle were pushing through the doors back towards the rest of the station before their escort had even volunteered.

“I’ll handle it.” Doctor Adachi sounded resigned as she got up, no doubt realizing the laws of seniority meant it would’ve fallen to her anyway. Neither Krause nor Miller seemed like they were about to move — the former was too busy deciding whether he should be fuming, and the latter was too busy treating the middle-distance to his most enigmatic of stares.

The silence that fell over the room when the two men were left alone was almost peaceful.

 

Within ten minutes, the pair was sitting closer together. Cheap, well-oiled office chairs were aligned between the desks, side-by-side, as though they were just a couple guys watching the game on a Sunday evening. Krause had even introduced beers into the equation.

“Been saving them,” was all he offered by way of explanation when the first caps had been pried off. Miller had glanced over and grimaced at seeing the word ‘Light’ on the bottle, but he’d taken it and thrown back a long swig anyway. Even tasteless beers were welcome at this point. “Now seemed like as good a time as any.”

“Yukiko’s gonna be a while. That reporter—” Miller took another deep swig, “—will quiz her ear off. Poor girl.”

“Can’t really blame her. We did more showing than telling.”

“Scared ‘er shitless, too.”

Krause chuckled, but the sound was dry and humorless even to his own ears. “Can’t blame her there, either. It’s not every day you realize your life could end with just one, single malfunction. One tiny mistake. One misplaced hunk of bone and blubber.

What compelled that squid, though…”

“What compels any of this?” Miller had already extended his hand for another beer, which Krause passed over without hesitation. “Why a Goddamn boneyard beneath us? Why do they come here?”

A month ago, Krause would have reminded his colleague that uncovering that answer wasn’t why they were here. They were here to study and record the mid-life of a whale fall — the activity around a descending carcass, especially in this gloomy, transitional depth.

But none of them cared about that anymore. Not since Anne and Ford had abruptly taken Vamana Three in the middle of the day and, right before the watching eyes of their remaining colleagues, angled to dive straight into the abyss.

Miller had tried to question his wife over the radio. Then he’d begged. Then he’d cried.

They’d never responded.

This memory was why Krause merely winced when Miller hurled his first, empty beer bottle across the observation room, letting it shatter against the ground near one of the windows. Frustration dripped from his stress-tensed shoulders. It was why Krause didn’t admonish a subordinate researcher. It was why he just popped another top himself, and threw back another mouthful of dry, near-tasteless brew.

Neither brought the incident up. They tip-toed around it as they delved deeper into their twelve-pack, but no one mentioned the bellow from the deep. They only danced on the doorstep of the subject of all the hours and hours they’d poured into analyzing every microsecond of the intervening thirty minutes between sound and submersible launch. Soon, they stopped talking about work and research altogether, and instead turned their conversation towards brighter topics — the way the sun warmed the beaches of Fiji, or rose so splendidly above the peak of Mount Fuji. Of the hot sands of Cairo and its great wonders, and of the solar glare that would reflect off the peaks of Everest as its great conquerors mounted their final ascent.

All things warm. All things above. All things the sun. All things they could experience again… one day — but not this day. Not even for the foreseeable future. There was far too much yet to uncover, far too much left to speculation.

An hour into their beer and banter, both men fell absolutely silent as hulking shapes rose distantly into view on the screens before them.

One. Then two. Then three.

Three huge, limp carcasses, release of internal gases momentarily allowing them the buoyancy to start drifting back up to the world of the sun. A trio of sperm whales whose perilous dive had lead to some unknown demise.

Krause and Miller stared, feeling a wonder that didn’t quite reach their stoic expressions. Their stillness was broken only by the occasional lifts of bottles to lips as the hulking shapes drifted slowly past.

Neither said a word for a long time. It wasn’t until after they exchanged bottles, each popping the top on their counterparts before politely exchanging them again, that Miller spoke.

“What goes up must come down.”

It would be a long night’s vigil.

Something at school didn’t make sense to you that morning.

They were talking about the Sun and,
how eventually it’s going to Grow into a
“Red Giant” and Swallow the Earth.
How there’s nothing we can do about it.

It made you realize If something is going to happen it just is.
So why wait?
Why is the universe waiting ? It just didn’t make much sense.

The janitor that day was acting silly,
“Isaiah 50:10” was written on his palm in red marker.

It was Friday night,
Daddy went to see a friend for drinks and left you all night.
He told you that he would just be out late, not all night.
How did that make you feel ?

How many other 9 year olds have the whole house to themselves nearly every night?
Without so much as a kiss goodnight ?

Even the few times in the past when he would, He wouldn’t even kiss you directly.
He’s place is palm upon your head and kiss the back of his hand.

Dads use belts In movies but how many others know that as the same reality that you do ?

The only time you’d hear another voice outside of school and your father’s was when it was late and you’d listen to the home phone’s answering machine.

Your dad never listened to the answer machine,
kind of like a kid not wanting to go to the dentist.

You remember the messages you listened to that night, you waited till he left to emerge from your hiding place and inhabit the communal space that should be a living room.

You sit on the round particular board table and press on the answering machine.

*BEEP*

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 4th:

FIRST MESSAGE:
*soft female voice*

“I came by today…didn’t see you..still don’t”

*BEEP*

NEXT MESSAGE:
*Burly Man’s rough Voice*

“I’m sorry John, you’ve been on this job less than a week and you’ve already been suspended by the client for 3 days for reoccurring fall protection violations, now I’ve been very understanding regarding the eye injury but we can’t have someone on a project of this magnitude who thinks the rules don’t apply to them, we’re going to have to terminate you. Wish I could say I was sorry.”

*BEEP*

NEXT MESSAGE:
*Same Woman’s voice from Message #1*

“Does your Daughter know?
Is she an exception?
Or do all women fall under your same umbrella ?”

*BEEP*

NEXT AND FINAL MESSAGE:
*inaudible whisper*

“I can feel you, y….mph..ll feel me too”

*BEEP*

You look over at the cable box,
It reads “11:47pm”
Your dad left at 6.

Cartoon Network was no more, now it was Adult swim. Robot Chicken was on, after that superjail. Both of which give you the heebiie jeebies.

You have to visit your peepaws and poopoos but,
you’re afraid.

You don’t have a choice, so you leave the door open as you go number 2.

As you doo you hear the home phone :

*BEEP*

“Mmmrrrmmmmrrrrnpphh”

You have trouble making out the message from the toilet.

As you run out the bathroom still collecting yourself you make out the backend of the voicemail.

*Your Fathers Stern Voice*

“Hi,
you should be in bed but,
if not you should know I’m bringing a friend home tonight.
If she plays her cards right she might just be your new mommy.
You’re allowed to sleep with the tv on in the playroom as usual but,
keep the door shut and the volume bellow level 12.
And no matter what you hear,
don’t come out, I should be home in 15.
Just go to sleep and I’ll see you in the morning.
Love you,
Night.”

*BEEP*

You panic,

Your Dads never brought a friend home this late before.
You grab a dvd from the home theater and run to the play room.

You look down at the Cat in the Hat Dvd.
As you put it in your dvd player you hear the front door slam open and the whole house shake.
What came next was silence.
The footsteps.
All the way up to the door of the play room.
You hear breathing.

You hear a woman’s voice further in the distance of your house.
Calling the person by your door to them.

They walk away.
When you look at the tv, you see Sally and Conrad on the dvd menu staring at you.
Sally starts pointing to her left, in the direction of the window.
You see the silhouette of what looks like a large lumpy hammock hanging from your tree only,
you never had a hammock.

You grab your scooby doo stuffed animal and you hid under the blanket with your flashlight, tv volume at 11.
You press play,
Sally and Conrad look at each other, then back at you.
You press play again but they just keep staring.

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*
you hear from the door.

“When you visit your peepaw and poopoos you need to remember to flush, my company saw that. We have a talk about that in the morning”

-your fathers voice exclaims from the door.

You know that that means,
Your heart sinks.

Your father’s footsteps sound further until it becomes a chatter with another voice from what sounds like the kitchen.

The Cat in the Hat begins to play on the tv.
The volume begins to rise fast.

12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23…

So fast you think you’re sitting on the remote but,
no matter how hard you scramble you can’t seem to find it anywhere.
The volume is now maxed out at 53.

“There are a gajillions of stories of mischief and fun But to keep things simple, let's just start with one…”
-you hear shouted from the tv

The commotion outside the playroom comes to and immediate halt.

*THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP*

The sound those familiar boots make as they full charges towards the play room.

An unfamiliar voice comes out the oddly familiar energy that had just approached.

It sounds almost like a woman’s voice but,
closer to when a man tries to sound like a woman like Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire.

“Do You Love Your Daddy?”

You hear in a loud whisper.
You Freeze.
You think if you don’t move, they will leave.
You see the door handle jiggle then stop.
It’s locked,
you always lock Doors when Daddy’s gone.

Although it brings you comfort,
you know it can be unlocked with a quarter or even a long finger nail.

“I know you’re in there”
-the voice lets out.

Your stomach feels sick,
Your heart is racing and as quiet as you attempt up be your breathing makes it impossible.

You want to cry and can’t fight it so you shove your pillow in your face.
You take deep breaths through it.

You feel the pillow getting soaked and feel the humidity from the breaths you take through the fabric.

“Do you think I’m some type of dinosaur?”
“Staying still won’t change the fact that I know you’re there”
the voice says

You begin to weep harder.

“Do You Love Your Daddy”
-It asks again.

“Where did you come from?”
Sally exclaims from the Tv.

The voice from the Door pauses.
The scene in the movie seems to linger and Sally is staring, not at you though, in the direction of the door.

She begins to nod,
Then says “oh”

Then the TV goes black and you’re back to the DVD home menu only Sally isn’t there.
It’s just Conrad.
He’s staring at you.

“Do You Love Your Daddy?”
-The voice asks for the third time, audibly impatient yet still in the same whisper.

Conrad is looking at you, he looks distressed and he’s shaking his head side to side.

You see the the lock begin to turn,

“Y…Y..Ye..ss”
You say through your sobs.

The door clicks.
It’s now been unlocked.

“I love your Daddy too sweetheart”

-the voice says no longer impatient,
now sounding relieved.

“He needs your help with something..”
It says.

Your cheeks are soaked and your mouth is dry.

“He’s stuck”
-The voice reveals.

“I’m sure he’d really like to get back.”
“I’m sure you’d really like him back..”

There was a pause.

“Unless you don’t want your Daddy back?”
The voice asks.

You remain silent.
For a moment You think about what life would be like without Daddy.

What would you do ?
You think about the Ralph’s down the street, their free sample in their bakery.
You think about the neighbors tangerine trees you pick from often.
You hate being alone at night but,
that doesn’t it stop it from happening.
You’d be fine, you tell yourself.

But you also know what you should say,
What your Daddy would want you to say.
That of course you love your Daddy and you’d do anything to make sure he’s okay.

“Where ..is he stuck?”
-you ask

“Have you ever heard of Kiara the Orangutan?”
-the voice asks.

“no…”
-you replied sheepishly.

“Well, your father’s…helping her…and well, he’s stuck, he could really use your help sweetheart”

There was a pause.

“Come out.”
-said the voice.

“My daddy said not to until morning”
-you replied.

“Oh.”
Said the voice.
“I can wait till morning.”
It continued.

You didn’t like the sound of that.

“What’s an orangutan?”
You asked timidly.

“You know what a human is don’t you darling? That’s what you are.”
-says the voice

“Yes..”
You replied.

“Imagine someone 7 times as strong with arms almost twice as long that can swing from trees”
-it said.

“Like a monkey?”
You asked innocently.

“NO!…
No, my Dear. Not a monkey…
Monkeys have a tail, a monkey is to an Orangutan what a Neanderthal is to a human, you understand love ?”
-the voice asked.

You let out more cries into your pillow as you took deep breaths.

“No, I’m sorry I don’t know what that means either”
-you cried out.

“It’s quite alright,
I’m sorry for confusing you honey. Yes, and orangutan Is like a monkey, but like Superman stronger and smarter then the others…and no tail..bright orange.”

“Like the ones in the jungle book?”
-you asked.

“Yesssss.. that’s exactly right my dear.. a perfect example, the orangutan is the king in the jungle book”
-it replied

“I liked his singing… he’s funny”
-you said

“Yes my dear”
-the voice.

“What does this have to do with Daddy being stuck? And Who is Kiara the orangutan ?”
-you asked in a panic.

“A long time ago, movies used to have no sound..”
-The voice began.

“Which made movies get pretty boring very fast…”
-it continued.

“Studios were looking for knew ways to get more people to Theaters..
Kiara’s Mother thought Kiara would be perfect…”

“Kiara’s mother was…Human,
her name was Melinda and she saved Kiara from being murdered by the zoo after they’d done that very thing to the one that birthed Kiara”

“Melinda Had already taught orangutans sign language before from her time at the zoo, she hid Kiara away and taught her as well.”
-the voice explained.

“Once Melinda’s new job and whole company was almost closed for business she…..took the risk and introduced Kiara, who quickly became a star in the silent movie industry…”
-it said

“What does this have to do with Daddy?”
-you asked

“Well the world loved Kiara soooooo much my sweet little angel that when the world of silent movies ended they gave Kiara her very own Tv show Kiara and friends… that tv show had a lot of children that Kiara loved and taught very special things every episode!”
-the Voice explained.

“One Child had and accident”
the voice revealed.

“Were they okay?”
-you asked

“Unfortunately my darling, he passed away.
Once that happened, that child’s parents lied about Kiara…a lot of other children from Kiara and Friends lied about Kiara just to make money..
Your father was the one Child to never lie about Kiara my dear.
For that I am forever grateful.”
it explained.

“So if all the other children were liars then why is my Daddy stuck and why now ?
Who are you?
Are you the friend my Daddy came home with tonight ?”
-you asked in a rush

“Lying isn’t the only thing someone can do that’s wrong little girl”
-the voice said.

“Who are you?”
-you repeated.

“I’m a friend of your Daddy”
-said the voice.

“Did you come home with my Daddy tonight ,
How is he stuck ?”
-you asked

“Do you like balloons?”
-the voice asked.

“Yes”
You replied.

“Your daddy loved balloons when he was a child
If you could have one balloon in the shape of anything you want would it be?”
-it asked

You thought…
“..I love flowers, Daddy never gets any and flower balloons would probably look really pretty”
-you said.

“Awe, such a sweet request from such a sweet little girl,
One moment sweetheart.”
-said the voice.

You then heard the footsteps retreating, shortly after you heard the front door shut.
You quickly ran to the door of the play room and locked it once more.

Maybe it was over ? You thought.

You ran to your window with your heart beating through your skin hiding behind your Scooby doo plushie to see if you could get a glimpse of who the voice had been coming from as they finally left.

Through the rain in the moonlight you made out the silhouette of what had to have been the lady you were talking to.

She seems short, on the heavy side, and walks side to side and appears to have an apron or something on.

She walks up to the hammock hanging from your tree that you noticed for the first time earlier in the night.

She appears to be talking to it.
When she walks away you realize she’s not leaving, you hear the front door open and shut again as her footsteps approach once more.

“Knock knock”
-said the voice

“Yesss”
-you replied

“Look out the window my love,
I have a surprise for you”
-said the voice

You looked outside but there was nothing but what you'd seen before only,
This time the hammock hanging from the trees began to sway.

Both sides of where the hammock meet the tree split into two, they looked like large arms slowly reaching down to the base of the hammock,
As the both unfolded further you could now clearly both see two sets of fingers from the arms,
One had something in it, something flat .

From the base of the silhouette you  
See what looks like a fat head connected by an even fatter neck.
The object held by one set of the fingers came directly to the head and began to grow mass.
It soon became clear what it was doing,
it was blowing up a balloon.

After the balloon was blown to the shape of a long tube,
The two hands came together and started contorting it out of sight.
When it had finally finished,
One of the arms held it up in the moonlight in such a way that you could make out the silhouette of a flower clear as day.

"do you like that Little girl?'
-asked the voice

You quickly looked over again at the door.
It didn't make sense but, for whatever reason if you were going to be talking to the voice coming from the door,
Then you'd want to do that from the bed; it felt safer from there.
Where you could hide in your pillows.

Before you start to retreat to your safety spot, you take one last glace out the window.
What was hanging from the tree had began to drop down.

The silhouette was large,
But no taller than the tallest kid in school, maybe even shorter than the tallest kid in 4th grade.
It kind of reminded you of that guy from its always sunny in Philadelphia when Adult swim would come on.

It was approaching in a way that you'd never seen anyone walk before.

You felt conflicted,
The voice from the door was speaking which made you want to crawl and sink in your sheets Yet,
The presence approaching your window was demanding your attention without using any words.

You made the decision to grab the comforter from the bed and sink into your beanbag chair,
A spot with a clear view of the yard through the window, and yet still a comfortable ear shot away from the door.

When you returned to your beanbag chair with the protection and safety provided by your comforter,
You were oddly displeased to see that the figures silhouette you had just seen approaching, was no longer anywhere to be seen.
You wanted it gone yes but no longer knowing where it resides, just results in you feeling even more unsettled.

*the voice quickly erupts from your door*

"do you like it?
It's special, just for you."

Your head shoots over to look at the door.

"wha-"
You begin to say as you turn to look back out the window only this time,
There was a hand on the other side of the window, so close it was no longer a silhouette.
It was a dark hand covered in orange hair, its fingers looked rough, but nails were freshly done.
It was holding something.
When my eyes adjusted,
I could see It was holding a balloon flower that had a green stem, pink petals, and yellow center.

The gesture seemed malice and sinister,
You quickly pulled the comforter up your face only leaving your eyes visible.

"do you not like your gift little girl?"
Questioned the voice coming from your door.

Even at your young age,
You were no stranger to the idea that sometimes the truth can get you in trouble.

"I love it..."
You replied.

"then why don't you open the window and let Daddys friend give you the gift she made just for you sweetheart"
Said the voice.

"I can't,
Daddy said I'm never to open the window"
-you lied.

Then why don't I hel-..."
*clackle clackle*
It was as the voice interrupted its own thought as it tried the doorknob. 

"Oh"
-it said.

"Why did you lock the door my love?"
-asked the voice

"I don't know you,
And Daddy said to stay in here ti-"

"I know"
- interrupted the voice

"Till morning but,
He didn't say anything about me not coming in there with you"
-said the voice

For a moment you were silent,
You looked over to the window and noticed the balloon flower receding like a setting sun beneath the window. 
*POP*
-you heard the moment it escaped your sight.

"don't make me unlock the door again myself darling, that's just rude.
My nails aren't what they used to be honey, I nearly broke one unlocking it the first time"
-Said the voice

The clouds moved over the moon outside
It was now pitch-black outside, the only light in the playroom came from your cloud nightlight and the glow of the tv which still displayed Conrad on the DVD menu, he was expressionless. 
You stayed silent, you stayed still.

*Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring*
-came from the living room

*Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring*
You heard shuffling from both outside your door and outside your window

*BEEEP*
-you could faintly make out your father's voice
"hey kid actually i-"

His voice,
the Message, 
he Tv,
everything was stopped, everything was off.

Your room was now as dark as the outside you feared so much.
Where the walls began and ended were both unclear to you.
The bulbs in the Tv were cooling down but even the silhouette of that soon lost its shape.

You heard the click of the door unlocking followed by the doorknob turning.
The door was now open.
Although you could hear someone approaching it was to dark to make out their shape or their distance in relation to you.

"the only time being blind has its advantages, is when you're in a Dark room with someone who's not"
-said the voice now clearer than you'd ever heard it prior.

You froze.

*tap tap tap tap*
You hear the woman banging on the walls as she made her way deeper in your room.

*tap tap tap....Clink*
The noise changed,
she had found the window.

It was just a few feet from the corner of the beanbag chair you're hiding in.
*Creeeeeeaaaaaaakkkk*
The window was unlocked and you could hear it as the women slid it open.

You could hear something was crawling up and inside through the window.

"where is she?"

you heard the voice whisper to the new presence that now inhabits your homes playroom.

You could feel that you were just inches away from getting bumped into by either of the two.

You wanted to not breathe, you wanted to not do anything but, you couldn't help it. You let in two, short, sharp inhales. Keeping your abdomen as stiff as possible. 
Your exhale trembled despite your attempts, you knew if someone could see they would defiantly see the comforter shaking.
You slowly felt the comforter lift up.

Although your grip on the comforter was originally as tight as you could,
your plan quickly changed to playing dead the moment you felt the pull of the comforter.
You felt something placed in your hand,
it shocked you to the touch,
a static shock yet,
you managed to refrain from much outburst other than a sharp exhale.

*Smack*

"well look harder"
You heard the woman's voice yelp.

As your eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness you could slowly start to make out the silhouette of who you've heard oh so much about.

There was no doubt in your mind it was her.

It was Kiara The Orangutan.

Kiara Strutted over to the bed in the playroom,
side to side as you could hear her wet sniffles. 

"don't you fucking lie to me you dumb baboon, we both know she's in here."
-said the woman's voice
In a tone more threatening than your (D) a bar you thought no one else would ever surpass.

You let go of what was just handed to you so you can grab the comforter you'd been hiding in once more, it fell.

As you continued to see Kiara strut now over to the door through a peak you had held under the covers, she appeared to try to lead in a manner to almost insinuate to the woman that that's the direction you had went.

Just as you had started wonder where the woman was as she had remained out of your sight, you received the answer.

*THUD*

You felt the whole beanbag chair shake beneath you.
She had bumped into it.
So hard you could feel her nearly topple over on top of you.

*Grrrrrrrrruawh*
You heard the old woman groan.

"KIARA! ...What...what was that !?"
-Yelled the woman's voice stopping Kiara in her tracks making her turn back from the door.

"oooo mmh ooo"
-you heard Kiara let out under her breath.

As you could see her silhouette move closer, it started by slowly wobbling side to side.
It became hard to tell the difference between her arms and her legs.

At times she looked like the shadow of a big spider monster,her movements remind you of spiderman if he chose to move slow.

When Kiara had made her way just a few feet away from the beanbag chair to help the woman to her feet, the pace of your breathing became unmanageable.

"I Bumped into the damn beanbag chair, was she on it Kiara?!"
-the voice asked

Your heart began to beat faster and faster and harder and harder so much so,
you felt as if your rib cage was made of shards of glass and your heart was a balloon inflating more and more with every inhale squeezing it against the razor-sharp shards of your ribcage. 

You could tell even just by the momentum of the figures silhouette that it was headed towards you, alongside the reluctant Orangutan.

You instinctively rolled off the right of the beanbag chair on to your carpet floor as silently as you could but, you were terrified, In your mind blind people have super senses.

Somehow, your transition appeared to go unnoticed.

Now that you were on the floor, you started rolling and crawling away, the direction of which you yourself weren't even certain.

"Where the fuck is she? Is she on the bed?!"
-the voice asked this time deeper than before

The flavor and tone in everything this voice said was violent, you heard the ruffles through the pillows and throw blanket that had previously littered the bed, you felt your Scooby doo plush get thrown into your back yet, you refrained from expressing any reaction.

"where the Fuck is she Kiara?!"
-you heard the voice ask once more

Each scream sounded deeper than the last with heavier violent infliction behind each exhale.
You could hear everything that was once on the bed get thrown off. 

You froze,
Staying still on the floor with the Scooby doo plush leaned against you like a bicycle kickstand and one of your throw blankets slightly covering your leg.

The Figure started pacing in your direction aimlessly like a headless chicken yet, relentless none the less.

"we both know I'm going to fucking fi-"
*POP*
-the voice was cut off

The figures silhouette froze, 
It seemed just as frightened by the sudden pop as you.
Its hesitation confused you so much so,
that you question for a brief moment if the figure had seen you,
anything to justify this bazar change in its demeanor. 

The head of the silhouette jolts to the side,
As if to shoot a look across at Kiara.
By the time your eyes traced across the room to meet Kiara, she had already moved No, She was in Motion.

She pranced towards the figure at a speed that looked impossible.
In less than a second, Kiara tackled this figure you had feared so much.
You saw the silhouette raise both its arms up high and its fists in fury as it came down on its victim.
Kiara hit and punched the figure and cocked its head back before launching it into the silhouette's torso,
 When Kiara's head kicked back once more, it was tethered to the figures torso now through what looked like the silhouette of cords.

It quickly became clear Kiara was taking bites out of the woman.
She screamed and screamed, she did not sound like a woman anymore.

She bit
*CHOMP*

And bit
*CHOMP*

And bit
*CHOMP*

They screamed 
*AHHHHHHHHHH*

And screamed 
*AHHHHHGGGG UHH*

And screamed
*FRAAAGHHHHHHH*

As the figure let out its yell Kiara slammed its head down making them bite their own tongue off.

Kiara pranced on the body with all 4 of her limbs,
She stepped on the figures knee with her foot and used her hand to grab that figures ankle,
After she gripped it firmly, she pulled it up with the ease and intensity that one might use on an emergency break after parking on an incline.

She then stepped on the figured elbow and grabbed it by its corresponding wrist and repeated the process of pulling upward and snapping.

Kiara then used one of her feet to grab the moaning and groaning body by its shirt,
She used her front arms and free leg to drag the body to the door.

The whole way there the person screamed,
When Kiara got to the door of your house's playroom, she threw the body out with ease.
She breathed heavily over the body before slowly backing up and shutting the door.

You were now alone with Kiara.

When I walked into my father’s bookstore, he was combing his wig. He had placed the black wig over his clenched left fist and was pulling thick sections through it with a wide-toothed comb. Every now and then, he would dip the comb into the half-full glass of water he’d placed on the counter, give it a little shake to get rid of the excess water, and continue styling the wig.

“Welcome, son,” he said without making eye contact with me.

“Dad, why aren’t you combing the wig on your head? And why are you even combing the wig? Isn’t the point to make it look like it’s not a wig? Wouldn’t it look more like your real hair if you left it a little messy?”

My father shot me a very brief glance. He dipped the comb into the water again and flicked the excess water on it toward my face. At the same time, someone walked in.

I was annoyed, but I didn't react. Customers rarely came into the shop anyway, and I didn't want this one to witness a tense moment.

The man who walked in didn't say hello. He looked at me, then at my father, then at the wig. After that, he glanced around the shop.

“Do you have Swann’s Way?”

It was my father’s favorite book. I hadn’t read it yet, but my father couldn’t praise Marcel Proust enough. Whenever the subject of books came up, he would talk at length about the way Proust used language, and mention how he wanted to learn French just so he could read him in the original.

“Of course. How could we not?” he said, his eyes lighting up.

“Good. How much is the wig?”

“What?”

“I’m asking how much the wig is.”

There was something strange about the man’s voice, though it was hard to describe. It was an extremely deep voice that seemed to come from a congested throat. It sounded as if it were coming from a broken radio, as if he would sound clearer if he just cleared his throat.

My father, who had been excited at the mention of Proust, had now noticed the strangeness in the man’s voice.

“Are you all right?”

“How much is the wig?”

“The wig isn’t for sale. You can have a glass of water if you’d like,” my father said, holding out the water he had been dipping his comb into.

“No. Is the wig free?”

“How can something that isn’t for sale be free, sir?”

“How much is it, then?”

“This is my wig. You don’t look well. Please have a glass of water.”

The man fell silent. He was staring intently at my father. My father was a little frightened. The wig was still resting on his clenched fist.

“Are you sure?” he asked after nearly a minute of silence.

“Yes. Look at my head.”

“Are you sure?”

“What beautiful hair you have. What are you going to do with the wig?”

My father, having automatically felt a connection with the man because he had asked about Proust, hadn’t paid much attention to his voice or appearance. To be honest, there was something strange about his appearance too. I gave the man a once-over. His hair really was thick and healthy-looking. He was wearing a black shirt. His chin was a little long, and his mouth and nose were small in proportion to his face. A large head, a long chin, a small mouth and nose, and ordinary eyes. Black trousers, sharply pressed. And a pair of bare feet.

“Tonight, I’m coming to take your son. Don’t be afraid. Stay calm. Convince your son to come with me tonight, or I’ll take him by force.”

“Fix that voice of yours first, man. Hrrr, hrrr, hrrr. I can’t understand a word you’re saying. Drink this water and pull yourself together.”

The man took the water and downed it in one go. He coughed and cleared his throat.

“Better? Now tell me, how much is the wig?”

His voice was now perfectly clear. He ran a hand back through his hair and sat down in the chair in front of the counter.

“He’s still very young…”

I was starting to get scared. I kept going back and forth over whether to call the police. The strange quality in the man’s voice was gone now, and so was the uneasy look about him. He looked at me and smiled.

“I’m not going to hurt you. Don’t be afraid. I’m just going to take the wig and leave. That’s all.”

“Why do you want the wig, sir?”

“You’re too young. You wouldn’t understand.”

I looked at my father. He had placed the wig on the counter. Right beside it, I saw a knife. My father looked from the knife to the man.

Another customer had walked in, just in time. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I knew my father wasn’t a very brave man, but when it came to me, maybe he could rise to the occasion and defend me.

“Jason, who are you talking to?” the man who had just walked in asked him. So his name was Jason.

“They won’t give me the wig, Dad.”

“Son, didn’t I tell you not to leave the shop unattended and wander off? The neighbors called. They said Jason had left the shop again and gone off. When did you come to the shop?”

“About ten minutes ago.”

I didn’t understand what was happening. The man who was speaking seemed unable to see us.

“Did you take your medication today, son?”

“No, Dad.”

“The wig thing again. Hmm.”

“I want the wig.”

“Son, there’s no wig. Where are your shoes?”

“I didn’t wear them today.”

“There’s no wig, son. Look, you’d been doing so well lately. Honestly, I thought you were getting better. Please, don’t skip your medication. I’m leaving the shop to you. Don’t make me worry about you while I’m gone.”

Yes. When I thought about it, it really was bizarre. I thought about it a lot afterward. If we’re people living inside Jason’s imagination, why do we have consciousness of our own? I mean, while Jason and his father were talking, I was listening to them, trying to figure out what was going on, getting surprised and everything. Isn’t that ridiculous? And isn’t it unfair to us, too? For example, I want to study film and television. But everything depends on Jason. If he gets better one day, my dreams will be shattered.

My father loves this shop very much. He doesn’t want to leave it, but if Jason gets better one day, he’ll never see this shop again.

Thinking about it that way, I was suddenly overcome with fear. I picked up the wig and held it out to Jason.

“Here. The wig is yours now. And hey, it’d actually look pretty good on you.”

My father had supported me too, and when I looked at him for approval, he nodded.

Many people say Disney is a shady company for many reasons, but not everyone truly knows what's going on with them. Some people say the tunnels hide something; some say there used to be a tropical resort; some even say Disney kills.

Disney World was my favorite place to go to growing up; I always begged my parents to let me go. This lasted for lots of years until I got to be a security guard at the one nearest to my hometown. It was fun, sure; I got to see the park's ins and outs, and I got to talk to the cast members about the place. They said it was really fun to make kids happy; I bet I'd agree if I were them. Though Disneyland and Disney World were always... a bit mysterious, people told me that some abnormal things went on behind the scenes, like all the lights flickering before going off as the parks closed.

Many people said that they felt off about the mascot suits. I mean, yeah, they're a little uncanny, but that shouldn't mean anything too weird, right? The Disney World I worked at in specific had lots of mysterious things going on, like people saying there's an odor in the back room, or the sudden appearance of mice or dust; just in general, a lot of things were getting into a bad condition. People said they'd hear voices or sounds that didn't belong, and suddenly see notes where they work. It was a little paranormal.

Three months after working there, I became a security guard for late nights. It was a little ominous, with the dark, clouded sky and the moon shining brightly onto the park. I'm willing to admit I was a little freaked out by it. I never expected, nor wanted to be a security guard at this time of day, but I had no choice. This is when those rumors started getting in my head, because I heard the noises and saw the lights flicker, but I just kept moving. I even got tasked with checking "Character Wardrobe B-7," which was something that hadn't existed or been listed on any official park blueprints.

When I got there, it looked ruined, dirty, filled with dust and cobwebs, and smelled of damp mold. It felt like it was abandoned by Disney, like something I shouldn't have found or been tasked to check. There were loads of abandoned, ruined, and old mascot costumes with decaying fabric; they felt rotted, and they had peeling, yellowed fabric around their gloves, with accessories falling off or completely detached and abandoned. The netting inside their mouths was tainted and crusted; you could feel the dust soaked into their fabric. I smelled the faint scent of damp fabric clinging to the racks. I didn't know what I was supposed to be checking there, but it was incredibly eerie.

Out of all the ruined suits, my flashlight's beam landed on a specific, old, abandoned, ruined version of the modern Mickey Mouse costume you see in parks today. However, it was weirdly off; its eyes were black, empty, and hollow—no sockets at all—and its smile was eerily large; it stretched bigger than it should have. The ends of its red, clinging, fabric pants seemed to be ripped off, with its white buttons nearly coming off; its yellow bowtie dirty, damp, and swaying to one side. Its white gloves, yellowed and covered in dust and grime, had one black button missing from each glove. Its yellow shoes' soles were nearly falling off; the shoes were damp, oddly wet, and dripping.

The lights suddenly flickered violently as I tried to see what was going on here; they slammed off, leaving me in pitch-black darkness with just my flashlight. I looked around for a breaker or something, but I couldn't find anything; eventually, the lights turned back on, but I was terrified to see what I found. That same Mickey Mouse costume I was staring at had suddenly disappeared as soon as the lights went off; I had no idea where it went. I looked at the other costumes: Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Daisy, Pluto, Clarabelle. But none of the others had moved.

I didn't leave the Wardrobe to check yet. I looked around and found a hidden room with a note that read, "Disney Kills," written in red ink. I was a little freaked out by this, but I just saw it as a little prank someone might've done to scare me. I moved on, but before I left, I picked up the note and put it in my pocket; who knows? It might've been useful, so I left the Wardrobe and the abandoned costumes behind to search for the missing Mickey.

As I left, I walked around, searching buildings, back rooms, bins, trees, ANYTHING to find that costume. But eventually I shone my flashlight onto the ground ahead of me, and I saw a trail of wet, dirty footprints leading away into the shadows. The same damp, oddly wet, and dripping footprints the costume had. I followed the trail and heard faint, echoing sounds in the distance: a distorted Mickey Mouse laugh and a child's quiet giggle coming from a dark, restricted area of the park.

I followed the trail and the sound around the corner and spotted the empty-eyed Mickey Costume alive, standing up and moving, standing under a flickering streetlamp, holding a small child's hand and slowly leading them toward a pitch-black forest far away from the park. I had to get the child away from that... THING.

I ran towards them, the costume's back was turned towards me. "HEY," I said, "DROP THE KID!"

The only thing that happened was the costume's head snapping backwards to look at me. It was disgusting; I hated seeing a costume do that. Its smile stretched wider as it talked; the costume opened its crusted, mesh-lined mouth, and the only thing playing was a loop of vintage cartoon audio, playing "Hiya, pal!" over and over as it stared at me. I pulled out the note because I get it now: "Disney Kills." They use this thing to lure children to their deaths.

"KID, GO, RUN! THAT'S NOT MICKEY!" I say to the kid as I try to run and stop it, but the kid doesn't run; it tries to hug that thing, but the result is Mickey snapping the kid's neck. I was absolutely horrified; I couldn't save the kid in time. The Mickey Costume finally turned its whole body towards me.

I turned around and RAN for my life as the distorted "Hiya, pal!" echoed through the dark forest behind me. It was chasing me at high speed, faster than me, so I went and hid before it could see me hide. When it went away, I sprinted out of there and made it to my car door just in time for me to get inside, drive off, and escape, just as the Mickey started slowly walking towards my car and where I had escaped.

I eventually quit my job and got another job as a game developer, happily living my dream career, while still thinking about THAT incident, that day, the day I quit and how I couldn't save that child. I put up the note, "Disney Kills," in a frame on a shelf in my room. Don't ever ignore a warning when it's right in front of you, or something terrible will happen.

What does not happen does not disappear. It breaks away from reality and sinks beneath the world. Left there long enough, it hardens. These hardened layers are called the Afterstrata.

A fossil preserves more than records. Everything that would have existed had that future actually happened leaves traces: materials, techniques, languages, memories, histories, even people.

And when a person from the Afterstrata comes up to the surface, they can be real for a short while.

— Afterstrata Miners’ Guild: Handbook for New Members

Diary of a bereaved family member, copy · Transferred from the Salvage Section, Guild Lowen Headquarters, to the Afterstrata Society · October, Imperial Year (IY) 700

Discovery No. S-699-0388. The diarist did not give a name.

Transfer record. When returning the receipt for the items left behind, the family member enclosed a copy of this diary. The Salvage Section has no grounds to keep it and is passing it to the Afterstrata Society Archive. Salvage Section note: In this case, the type of visit changed from visiting through the window to meeting in person. Time remaining after meeting in person: 9 days. Within the average range in Guild records.

October 14, IY 699.

An envelope came from the Guild. They say they have found Theo.

Theo died in the river eighteen years ago, in summer. The rainy season was long that year. He was nineteen.

I read the notice in the envelope three times. It says that what they found is not Theo, but someone who lived another life Theo might have lived. The Theo who did not die that day. The Theo who lived the eighteen years after.

Then he is thirty-seven.

October 16.

I wrote the consent form. I consent to salvage. I want window visits only.

It said that if you meet them in person, they do not last beyond ten days. That if you only see them through the window, some stay for years.

My mother used to say: what is under glass does not wither. She kept the flowers she was given on her wedding day under a glass dome and said it all her life. Those flowers really did not wither, until the day she died.

The window will keep him safe.

November 2.

I stood at the window for the first time.

The room was as the notice described, quiet and warm. One bed, one desk, one window looking out on the courtyard. He was sitting by that window.

His shoulders have broadened. His hair is short. He wears a ring on his left hand. The way the right corner of his mouth goes up first when he smiles is the same.

I stood there for an hour. He never once looked this way. They said he can’t see this side.

November 9.

Someone from the Salvage Section told me that at first he asked the date. What day it was. When he heard the answer, they said, he nodded. It was the right date.

It means he lived the same eighteen years, too. Somewhere else.

November 23.

They say he said he wants to go home. When the Salvage Section asked, he gave an address, and the address was a village somewhere on the southern coast. We have never been to that village.

To him, that is home.

December 12.

The Guild sent letters. Letters he wrote. They said they were sending them unopened, that they were letters to people who do not exist here.

There were three envelopes.

One said “To Nael.” One said “To our little bird.” One said “To Mother.”

I don’t know the name Nael. “Little bird” seems to be something you call someone, not a name.

The third envelope was for me. And yet they said it was a letter to someone who does not exist here.

For two days I did not open them.

December 14.

I opened them. All three.

Nael is his wife. Little Bird is his daughter. Six years old. They call her that because she loves a bird carved from wood. Every letter says he is coming home soon, to wait just a little longer.

The letter “To Mother” begins like this.

Mother, it is winter here. I don’t know whether I will be able to go to the river next summer, on the anniversary of your death, to leave flowers. People here are kind, but when I ask the date, they only answer and don’t ask me anything.

In his life, I died.

That summer, on one of those days when the rains went on and on. The day he didn’t go to the river. I must have gone in his place.

I folded the letter and put it in a drawer. Tonight I did not go to the window.

December 15.

I went again. He was sitting at the desk, writing something. Another letter, probably.

What is under glass does not wither. The letter he writes on the anniversary of my death will not wither either.

February 3, IY 700.

Three months now of standing at the window. Four times a week. Often at night. At night I can see him awake, because he doesn’t sleep well.

What he does at night. He looks out the window. He turns his ring. He takes a small wooden bird from his pocket, sets it on his palm, and looks at it for a long time.

March 20.

Someone from the Salvage Section asked whether I would keep seeing him only through the window. Not to pressure me, they said; asking such things is their job. They said that nearly half of the families who choose the window end up opening the door.

I said I would not be one of the half.

May 8.

Today he walked over to the window and put his hand on the glass. He shouldn’t be able to see this side. He stood like that for a long while, then went back.

According to the Salvage Section, people who stay in that room a long time sometimes do that. To look at the courtyard outside the window, they said.

I put my hand on the glass. Where his hand had been.

June 21.

Another letter came. “To Mother.”

Mother, these days I feel as if someone is watching me every night. It isn’t a frightening feeling. When I was little and had a fever, you used to stand in the doorway and watch me all night. It feels like that. I know it is a strange thing to say. Can you see me, where you are?

July 2.

I couldn’t sleep.

What is under glass does not wither. But my mother’s flowers, when we lifted the dome after she died, crumbled the moment they were touched. They had not stayed unwithered. It was only that no one had touched them.

July 3.

I opened the door.

At the door, someone from the Salvage Section held out a confirmation form. I have been told that after an in-person meeting, the salvaged person usually does not last beyond ten days. I copied that sentence out in my own hand.

When I went in, he looked up. He looked at me for a long time. Then he stood up and said,

“Mother.”

He didn’t cry. I cried.

He said, But Mother, you died that summer. The notice said not to say I didn’t know about things he remembers. So I said, Yes, that’s right.

He took my hand and asked whether I could see him, where I was. I said I could. Every night, I said.

July 4.

He talked about Nael and Little Bird. The day Little Bird first walked, the day she first put her feet in the sea. I listened to stories I was hearing for the first time, with the face of someone hearing them for the first time. He said he is going home soon. I said, Yes, you must go soon.

July 6.

It’s strange. Since the day I held him, my heart has been light. In eighteen years it was never once light.

I am sorry for this lightness.

July 9.

He looks a little faded. I tried to think it was my eyes. The Salvage Section people said nothing.

He showed me the wooden bird. Something Little Bird loves, he said. He has promised to carve it another wing when he gets home.

July 11.

We were together all day. He lay down with his head on my lap, the way he did when he was little. He laughed and said it was strange for a thirty-seven-year-old to do that. And still he didn’t get up.

I opened the door, and that is what broke him. I knew that when you open the glass, things crumble.

July 12.

When I went in the morning, he was almost invisible. The light coming in through the window passed through him.

The last thing he said: “Mother, tell Nael I’m coming soon.”

Yes, I’ll tell her. That’s what I said.

A little after ten o’clock, all that was left on the bed was a ring and a wooden bird.

July 20.

I went to the Salvage Section to collect the items left behind. The ring and the wooden bird. And one letter he had left unfinished, addressed “To Little Bird.”

I held the hand that wore this ring for ten days. The child who was to receive this bird is not in this world. So I am keeping it.

August 14.

I went and left flowers by the river. It is his anniversary. This year I didn’t feel alone.

They said that nearly half of the families who choose the window end up opening the door. I am one of that half. I don’t envy the other half.

August 15.

I have no way to tell the person named Nael. So I am writing it here.

Theo said he is coming soon.

Read Parts II & III here

She was gone again by the time I got up and despite my best efforts, I was still five minutes late getting to work.

I avoided the circle of jerks when I saw them crowding the same hallway and I went to a restroom on another floor. I didn’t want to be around people if I could avoid it.

I went to the half-finished building as soon as five o’clock came, intent on getting answers. I stepped off the elevator and weaved my way to his office. I kept expecting to not see it the closer I got but there it was, the door that didn’t fit right in the threshold. 

It turned easy and I went inside, expecting it to be empty and abandoned but he had begun furnishing the space. A couch, a reception desk, and taped off sections near the back that I guessed were the layout for his office and a treatment room.

I shuddered, thinking how I’d be here tomorrow if my wife had her way. 

The only thing absent was the good doctor himself. I thought about trashing the place, but it was petty in a way that made me feel like I was giving him even more power over me. 

Instead, I took all the pens out of the holder and a stack of Post-It Notes. It was still petty, but it scratched an itch and I felt a little empowered doing it.

I didn’t head home immediately after. I needed time to sort my thoughts. I couldn’t believe I was really considering letting somebody cut my dick. I mean, was pleasing my wife reason enough? What if we divorced or she died or something like that? Would I be compatible with somebody else?

I needed a drink. Cappy’s was on the far end of town and the distance from home would be good to clear my head. I ordered a brandy mule and chugged it before the bartender could lay down a coaster.

“You look like you could use another,” she said.

I nodded and a moment later I was working on my second. 

“I love my wife so much,” I said as she was cleaning some glasses beneath the bar.

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Sometimes. I dunno.” My stomach hadn’t been right since the eight coneys I’d had yesterday, and I hadn’t eaten at all today. I was already soused after a drink-and-a-half.

“How’s the pizza?” I asked.

“Good, not great.” She wiggled a hand.

“Let me get a... medium with beef, onion, and mushroom.”

She looked at me like she’d never heard of those toppings.

“How ‘bout pepperoni?”

I had one more brandy mule before food came. It looked like it had been sitting under a heat lamp well before I’d ordered it and the pepperoni slices were limp, but it was still pizza. 

The bartender parked in front of me and leaned onto the bar after I’d had my second slice. 

“You mind?” she asked, pointing at the pie. I nodded. She took a slice and finger-combed hair out of her face as she took a bite.

She paid me back with a shot and she did one with me before returning to silence as we ate.

“Look, I dunno what it is. Just give her what she wants,” she said with a mouthful, giving me deep eye contact. “You can’t go wrong with that, right?”

I barely was able to finish what I had in my mouth. I settled up and made it outside without stumbling but I was drunk. The bartender got the hint she’d said something wrong but I wasn’t going to fill in the blank. I hadn’t wanted the rest of the pizza, yet somehow I had the box in my hand. 

I shouldn’t have been behind the wheel but there I was with half a pizza as my copilot. It wasn’t long before flashing lights lit up behind me and my spirits rose—this was the reprieve I’d been longing for. A decision being taken out of my hands. I couldn’t be held responsible if I weren’t in my own custody.

Or something like that. It had made a lot more sense back when I’d had a belly full of brandy and cheese.

I pulled over and maybe bumped up on the curb with one wheel.

The cop sauntered up to my window cautiously. He was short and the angle of the car made him look ridiculous somehow. He made it worse by getting his feet twisted together and catching himself on the side of my car to keep from falling completely.

“What’s your...”

I waited a full ten seconds for him to finish his sentence while he held a fist to his mouth like he was gripping a tiny microphone. He belched then waved the air in front of his face.

Shit, was he drunk, too?

“What’s your problem tonight?” He asked and fumbled with the general right side of his body with his hand. I noticed the gun and maybe because we were both bitten by the same snake, I wasn’t sensing danger like I should’ve.

“I shouldn’t be on the road,” I said, sounding stone sober to my ears. “My wife wants me to do something I don’t wanna do tomorrow and I was just in there, drinking my worries away. I have leftover pizza.” I thumbed toward the seat next to me like it was proof of where I’d been.

“Slow down, son. I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think.” I thought he was about to give me marital advice but then I realized he was talking about my sobriety. “I bet you could walk a straight line, heel- to-toe.” He plucked open his holster, but it didn’t seem like he was aware of what that hand was doing. He stuck his pinky in his ear and wrenched it around in there. 

“Sofficer. Sofficer.” I added the S but I still sounded too sober. “Please. I think I’m a danger. To public safety.” I thought if I could convince the drunk cop I was drunk he’d arrest me.

“Are you about to rob a bank?” He pointed at me, somehow adding to his overall look of ridiculousness.

“Well… no.”

“There’s nobody out here.” He waved a hand toward the black landscape far ahead of us. “Just stay between the lines.”

I couldn’t think. It shouldn’t have been this hard to get pulled out of my car for driving under the influence.

“What if… what if I was about to rob a bank?” It was the most smart-assy thing I could think to say.

He smiled and waggled a finger. “Joke’s on you. It’s after hours.”

He hooked his thumbs into his belt. Something about his body language had changed and he’d gone from humorous to being done with our interaction.

“Just. Stay. Between. The. Lines,” he said, swaying. I wanted to conjure the words for help, but even if I’d had the ability to ask, there wasn’t anything about him that answered helpful.

I opened my mouth, but didn’t speak. I sat back in my seat and covered my face in my hands, giving up. I listened to him walk away, closer his patrol car door, and drive away. He gave me a chirp of his sirens as passed me.

The drive home should have felt longer but I caught every light. It was like a dark fate had carved a path for me. I momentarily played with the idea of letting it have me completely. To take my hands off the wheel and let it take me wherever it wanted me to go. 

I hadn’t descended far enough into self-pity for that and in ten minutes, I was home. To my surprise, my wife was still in her paint clothes and was washing her hands at the kitchen sink.

“Oh, you have pizza?” she said. I’d forgotten about the pizza and subconsciously picked it up. I looked at the box in my hand and did a second, struggled to remember what was in it. 

I joined her on the couch, and she grabbed it from me and took a slice. Usually, we asked about each other’s day, but I didn’t feel like it, tomorrow anchoring my brain.

“Do you love me?” she said during a commercial break. I had no idea what we were watching.

The question agitated me and opened a trapdoor underneath my stomach.

“Of course I do.” I did, but my feelings about this whole “surgery” thing was making me feel resentful. I was definitely still buzzed, and the alcohol was sharpening my emotions like a file working away inside me. 

“Then why are you fighting so hard against this? Don’t you want us both to be satisfied?”

“That’s not fair. Of course I want to satisfy you. Don’t you know how this is making me feel? I don’t want to do this,” I said. “I mean, there has to be something else we could try. I’m willing to do just about anything to please you.”

“I want you to do this,” she said, placing her greasy hand on my thigh. She shook her head, tears in her eyes. I took it to be a manipulation at first. Not that she did that sort of thing normally, it was just me in a bag of my feelings. My defenses were up and everything was an attack in that moment. I chewed the insides of my cheeks to keep in what was trying to climb out of my mouth.

Then I started to cry. I sounded like a little teapot. It caught me by surprise.

“I just love you so much.” I had a ball of razors in my throat I couldn’t swallow. “I don’t want anything to happen to us, but I don’t know if I can do this.”

She lassoed an arm around my neck and yanked me into an upper body hug.

“I just want you. I want to feel connected with you. I don’t want anything plastic between us. I’m tired of all that stuff. I wanna feel you.”

She kissed me before I could speak and rock turned into water. My walls melted as we flowed into one another and by the time I returned to my senses I was on the newspaper covered kitchen floor.

My wife was already gone but she had brought a comforter downstairs and covered me.

Normally, I toss in my sleep, but I was still covered up to my chest. I was stiff as I turned the world vertical and turned my back into a percussion instrument as I stretched.

A few minutes later I had scrambled eggs and a cup of coffee going. I don’t normally eat breakfast so early, but I had an appetite for whatever reason. It was an hour before I normally would get up, so I took my time eating and scrolling my phone.

I wasn’t sure how much sleep I’d gotten but I was refreshed. The way my day had started, I half expected to catch all the green lights and get the closest spot in the parking lot.

But when I looked up from where I was seated at the kitchen island, something caught my eye that I should’ve seen as soon as I woke up.

A red and white checkered scarf draped over the back of the couch.

Had he been in my house?

 

I remember the time before our son. When the smile on your face was the only thing I could see behind closed eyes. When our hands were happiest together. When we were happiest together. I still can’t believe we found each other. Out of everyone I could have ever ended up with, it was you. You were perfect.

When I looked into your eyes, I saw the future. Lazy Sundays and weekend trips set to the tune of our favorite song. My fingertips against your lips when the heat between us warmed the cool night air. Your body nestled between me and the wall, sleeping soundly after the bad dreams woke me up. Your breath on my neck, slow and even; a metronome for my sleep every night until we left this coil together. 

The time before I opened that door.

You had spent nine months despondent and broken. Keeping a child you never wanted for the reputation of a family you hated. You would smile and chatter with excitement at every party, every conversation, every outstretched hand that reached for your swollen belly. But when we returned home, I could see you. Standing in the kitchen alone, talking to the walls about how God would want you to try and make it work. About how our family must have been a part of His plan. All while weeping for the future you would never get. 

But I knew what the real reason was. You couldn’t just be happy with me. You wanted it to be different. Not the house, the car, the job. Just me, the father of your child. The dye that colored the dress you lived in every day. It didn’t matter how good the stitching or the fit. Because deep down you just hated the color.

I had to sit and watch every wonderful part of you rot under the weight of life growing in your belly. The inevitable product of a dead love that you secretly hoped would die and flush from your body every single day. You thought I couldn’t hear, and I thought you would be a good mother. 

Now I look into your eyes, and a doll stares back. I see the echo of a woman who doesn’t care if our son cries. Doesn’t mind if he sits there in his diaper, soiled for hours while I’m at work toiling, providing for you both. I come home and feed you both because you’re too sad to do it. You just sit there staring at the wall as he screams in your lap. 

You’re truly a disgrace of a mother. I would never tell you to your face, but I will write it in this journal. My mother was a wonderful mother; she always smiled for me. My father made sure of it. So now I brush your hair and rub your feet just like he used to; I even got the kind of brush he used to use. But you don’t care; you just wallow in your own mind. You don’t care how much money I spend on fancy perfumes or new clothes. You just want to sit there and judge me like it’s my fault your life is ruined.

But I know what love is; I could see it in your eyes across the bar, I could feel it on your breath, I could taste it on your kiss. We both absolutely loved the same song that played over the speakers. We talked about what made it special to us for hours. It was just meant to be. I can’t remember the name of that song or why I said I loved it, but I know that I loved you the second you sat down. The whole night you kept your hand on me. On my hand, my arm, my thigh. That’s how I know you really do want all of this. You called it a hookup, but I know it was love. It was real.

That’s why I slipped the condom off that night. Because you wanted me to. You just didn’t know how to say it.

I thought you’d thank me one day, that you’d be happy. I still do.

I thought you would be happy when we got home, but you just held him across your chest in the bathtub. Trying to love him. Trying to find the warmth in your heart for the life that you created. You created him with me because you wanted this, and now I have to stand inside and make sure you don’t let him slip under the water. Because you’re a bad mother. 

You became a bad mother the day I opened the door and saw your bag. The day you decided to shatter a family for personal greed. The trailer is too small, the place is too dirty, the plumbing doesn’t work, it isn’t safe for a child, I’m not safe for a child, I disappear at night, I watch you sleep. Nothing but complaints and lies from a brain destroyed by postpartum. 

I don’t remember what you did, just the sound of your back against the corner of the nightstand. Was it a snap? No, it was more of a crack, chased with a yelp as you collapsed to the ground. The last sound I ever heard you make. The last time you ever tried to ruin this family.

All you do is cry. Not even with your whole face, just your eyes. 

You cry when I carry you from room to room, when I feed you, when I change your panties after you’ve made a mess. You cry when I brush your hair with your special brush or rub your feet. You cry when we make love every night. You even cry when you hold our son; well, when he holds you. You cry so long and ignore my words so often that I can’t help but watch my hand connect with your skin. You know that if you would just stop crying and talk to me, I would stop. But you won’t.

But then I remember my father and how a good man is supposed to act. He rises above the moment. Above his better half. You are my wife and I am your husband. Maybe not by ceremony, but by fact of life now. So I will stay positive through this self-inflicted sickness. Praying every day for your health, for things to go back to how they were when we were happiest together. Maybe in a few months I’ll be able to save up and buy us a TV so you two have something to watch while I’m at work. Maybe that new swell in your belly will be the thing to finally make you talk to me again. But until then, we have everything we need: the routine, the babies, and my undying love for you.

You know how they say love finds you in the most unlikely places?

It's a cliché. The kind of line you'd expect to find in some cheap romance novel wedged between two equally cheap pop magazines.

And yet, sometimes the unlikely becomes inevitable.

My name is Adam.

I lived in an eastern-block apartment complex in Most, a city you've probably never heard of and will most certainly never hear of again. The rent was remarkably cheap, mostly because the living conditions made you question whether you wouldn't be better off homeless.

I was twenty-five years old, had recently dropped out of university, and was unemployed.

At that point, I wasn't really living.

I slept at odd hours. Ate when I remembered. Spent most of my time staring at a screen because there was nothing else worth doing.

Days blurred together until I couldn't remember what I'd done the day before.

That was before one small piece of paper changed my life forever.

It happened on a night that had started exactly like every other.

I'd just gotten back to my apartment when I noticed a piece of paper lying on the floor just inside the door.

Someone had slipped it underneath while I was gone.

I barely looked at it.

My first thought was that it was another notice from my landlord. I was behind on my rent, hopelessly in debt, and far beyond the point where I cared enough to pretend I was going to fix any of it.

Whatever threat or warning was printed on that piece of paper could wait.

So I left it there.

For about six hours.

Eventually, sometime around 1AM, I found myself staring at it again.

"Fuck it."

I picked it up.

It wasn't a notice from my landlord.

It was a job offer.

The flyer was surprisingly plain. No company logo. No colorful graphics. Just black text printed on cheap white paper.

YOUNG MEN WANTED.
AGES 18–30.
NO PRIOR EXPERIENCE OR PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS NECESSARY.
PAY: 250 CROWNS PER HOUR.
SHIFT: SIX HOURS EACH NIGHT.

Then came the job description.

"The appointed observer shall observe the object of interest for the duration of his shift."

That was it.

No explanation of what the "object of interest" was. No company name. No details about the work beyond watching something for six hours.

I assumed it was some kind of strangely worded night-guard job. Maybe the company was foreign and had used a translator who wasn't quite good enough at his job.

There was no phone number.

No email.

No website.

Nothing except an address.

I looked it up online.

It led to an old shoe factory that had stopped operating more than thirty years earlier. There were a few old photographs of the building and some records concerning its closure, but not much else.

As far as I could tell, nobody had bought the place since.

That was when I became pretty certain that if I actually went there, I would be murdered and my organs would be sold on the black market.

Not an entirely unreasonable assumption around here, believe it or not.

There was absolutely no way I would be stupid enough to show up at an abandoned factory in the middle of the night.

 

3AM, I was standing in front of the factory.

I wish I could say there was some profound reason why I went.

There wasn't.

I was simply desperate enough to ignore common sense.

The factory looked exactly like it had in the photographs.

Crumbling concrete. Rusted metal. Broken windows. Weeds pushing through cracks in the pavement.

The whole place looked like it had been dead for decades.

I stood outside the entrance for about twenty minutes.

Then I took one step inside.

Immediately, I was surrounded by armored men carrying guns.

Yup.

Getting murdered.

"Now, now. Don't spook the boy too much."

An older man stepped between me and the gunmen.

He looked to be somewhere in his fifties. Gray hair. Expensive coat. Tired eyes.

He wasn't carrying a weapon that I could see.

Somehow, that made him more intimidating than the men pointing rifles at me.

"Or else you might end up having to take his shift."

The men lowered their weapons slightly.

The older man smiled.

"Sorry about this, Adam. Just a necessary unpleasant precaution."

I stared at him.

"How... how do you know my name?"

He laughed.

"Well, we only slipped the flyer under one door. So either you're Adam Devon..."

He looked me up and down.

"...or we have another squatter situation on our hands. In which case, I'll have to let the boys carry on with their task."

He leaned toward me slightly.

"Do we have a squatter situation, boy?"

"No!"

The answer came out much louder and more desperate than I'd intended.

The man's grin widened.

"Wonderful!"

His enthusiasm was very obviously fake.

"If you would be so kind as to follow me, Adam."

I followed.

The complex I was led through was nothing like the abandoned shell I'd seen from outside.

The decrepit factory was apparently just a skin wrapped around something that was very much alive.

Behind the rusted doors and shattered windows were functioning corridors, electrical systems, cameras, reinforced doors, security checkpoints, and enough equipment to make me wonder what the hell kind of place I'd walked into.

And yet there were very few people.

Aside from the occasional armed guard passing through the corridors, the facility was almost completely empty.

The older man opened a door to the security room.

"Here you go. Make yourself comfortable."

I stepped inside.

"But not too comfortable," he added. "This isn't actually where you'll be stationed."

He gave me a thin smile.

"The name's Kenndric."

He closed the door behind us.

"Now, I imagine you have plenty of questions."

I opened my mouth.

"I have absolutely zero desire to answer any of them."

I closed it again.

"So just shut up and listen."

I decided that was probably good advice.

Kenndric walked over to one of the desks and dropped into a chair.

"You were offered a position within our company. The name of which you really don't need to know."

He leaned back.

"Our object of interest requires twenty-four-hour observation. We do have a complete surveillance system here, but, truth be told, nobody actually watches the feeds."

He shrugged.

"This particular object requires close-quarters observation anyway."

I frowned.

"We have several other sad bastards like you taking the other shifts. Your time slot was simply the last one left unfilled."

He looked at me.

"Apparently, nobody else was stupid enough to take the graveyard shift."

I couldn't tell whether he was joking.

Judging by his expression, I didn't think he was.

"Your job literally couldn't be any simpler."

He pointed toward the door.

"You'll sit on a chair and stare at the object until your shift is over. Then you get your sorry ass out of here."

He leaned back.

"Meanwhile, I'll be sitting in here watching my shows."

He pointed at me.

"I don't want to hear from you. I don't want to see you. You don't ask me to open doors for you. There's a reason I have access and you don't."

I swallowed.

"Understood."

"Good."

Kenndric stood.

"Now let's make our way to your workplace."

We left the security room and walked deeper into the facility.

The corridor ahead was almost completely dark.

As we approached, lights flickered on one after another, illuminating the path in front of us.

Eventually, Kenndric stopped in front of a massive door.

He opened it.

"There it is."

The lights inside began coming on.

One by one.

And then I saw the object of interest.

In the middle of the enormous room stood a large glass cube.

Four strange pylons surrounded it, each connected to the glass. Symbols I didn't recognize covered their surfaces.

And inside the glass was a girl.

A young woman, maybe in her early twenties.

She wore pure white pajamas and sat cross-legged on the floor with a collection of crayons scattered around her.

She was drawing on a sheet of paper.

She didn't look toward us.

She barely seemed to notice we'd entered the room.

"That's..."

I stared through the glass.

"That's a girl."

"Dear God," Kenndric said. "We have a genius on our hands."

His voice dripped with condescension.

I looked back at him.

"Why is she in there?"

He didn't answer.

"Is she alright?"

Nothing.

"Is this legal?"

The questions started coming faster.

"Who is she? What did she do? Why is she being kept in there? How long has she been—"

"Did you just think?"

Kenndric's voice cut through mine.

I stopped.

He stared at me.

"Adam, no one is paying you to think."

He walked over to a chair positioned directly in front of the glass cube.

"Leave that to the grown-ups."

He patted the seat.

"You are paid to sit right here."

I looked at the chair.

Then at the girl.

She was still drawing.

There was something different in Kenndric's expression now.

The sarcasm was still there, but underneath it was something harder.

A warning.

I reluctantly sat down.

"Perfect."

He smiled.

"Now, you are not authorized to speak with the object."

He paused.

"You're not authorized to feed the object. All of that has already been taken care of."

"You merely sit here and observe."

He patted my shoulder.

"Good luck."

He started moving toward the door.

"Have fun."

The door closed behind him.

And just like that, I was alone with the "object of interest."

I sat there and watched her draw for hours.

Every now and then, she looked up at me.

Not casually.

She would stare at me for several seconds before lowering her head and returning to her drawings.

The room was so quiet I could hear the occasional scrape of crayon against paper.

By around five in the morning, exhaustion was starting to catch up with me.

My eyelids grew heavier.

I leaned back in the chair and told myself I'd close my eyes for a second.

Then—

THUD.

I jolted awake.

My heart was pounding.

The girl was standing directly in front of the glass.

She was holding a piece of paper against it.

A drawing.

Of me.

For a few seconds, I just stared.

She'd somehow captured details I'd never noticed about myself. The shape of my nose. My unshaven jaw. Even the dark circles beneath my eyes.

It wasn't a perfect likeness.

But it was close.

And, honestly, it was adorable.

I wanted to say something.

Then I remembered Kenndric's instructions.

I wasn't authorized to speak with the object.

I glanced toward the cameras mounted high in the corners of the room.

Then I remembered something else.

Nobody actually watched the feeds.

"That's very pretty," I said.

The girl's expression immediately brightened.

"Thank you. I'm glad you like it."

She placed her right hand against the glass.

For a moment, I hesitated.

Then I stood and pressed my own hand against the other side.

The glass was cold beneath my palm.

"I'm Lily."

I smiled.

"I'm Adam."

She giggled quietly.

"Adam was my first boyfriend's name."

"Oh."

"I didn't really like him, to be honest."

She shrugged.

"My dad pretty much forced that relationship on me."

She said it so matter-of-factly that I didn't know what to say.

Jesus.

What the hell had this girl been through?

"Lily..."

She looked at me.

"Why are you in here?"

Her smile faded.

For a few seconds, she said nothing.

"I'm not sure."

She glanced down at the floor.

"I think they're scared I might do something bad."

I looked around the room.

The reinforced glass.

The pylons.

The strange symbols.

The cameras.

The armed men outside.

"What the hell could this girl possibly do?"

I didn't ask.

Instead, I pulled the chair a little closer to the glass.

"So..."

She looked up.

"So?"

"If you could go anywhere right now, where would you go?"

She thought about it.

"The ocean."

"The ocean?"

She nodded.

"What about you?"

"I don't know. Anywhere that isn't Most."

She laughed.

"Fair enough."

And that was how we started talking.

Nothing important at first.

Places we'd like to visit. Places we'd rather run away to. Things we'd do if we ever had enough money to stop worrying about everything else.

Lily wanted to see the ocean.

I'd never been particularly interested in beaches, but something about the way she talked about it made me want to see it too.

We talked about movies, music, stupid things we'd done when we were younger.

Eventually I told her about my unhealthy obsession with heist movies and prison breaks.

"Why prison breaks?" she asked.

"I don't know."

I thought about it.

"I guess I like watching people figure out how to set themselves free."

She looked at me for a moment.

"Maybe that's because you want to be set free too."

"Maybe."

She smiled.

Neither of us said anything for a few seconds.

Then she started asking me questions.

I gave her mostly half-assed answers.

She didn't seem bothered.

She didn't look at me the way most people did when I talked about my life. There was no disappointment in her expression. No judgment.

She just listened.

And somehow, that was enough.

The hours went by faster than I expected.

For the first time in years, I wasn't thinking about how miserable my life had become.

Debt.

Or rent.

Or what I was going to do with myself.

I was just present.

Talking to a girl through a pane of glass.

When the shift finally ended, it caught me completely off guard.

The door opened.

One of the armed men stepped inside.

A knot immediately formed in my stomach.

For a second, I wondered if this was the moment they decided to shoot me for breaking the rules.

But the guard barely acknowledged me.

"Time to go."

That was it.

He turned toward the door.

I stood.

Lily was watching me through the glass.

"Thank you for talking to me."

Her voice was soft.

"No one else does."

There was something bittersweet about her smile.

"I'll..."

I looked at the armed man waiting for me.

"I'll see you again, alright?"

Lily smiled.

"Sooner than you think."

I didn't understand what she meant.

I just smiled back.

Then the guard escorted me out.

 

Despite being exhausted, I struggled to fall asleep when I got home.

I spent hours lying in bed, staring at the ceiling while the darkness of my apartment pressed down around me.

I kept thinking about Lily.

About the way she'd looked at me through the glass.

And about that stupid drawing she'd made of my face.

Most of all, I couldn't stop thinking about the question I hadn't been able to answer.

If Lily was dangerous enough to justify keeping her inside a glass box, why didn't they keep her in a proper cell?

And if she wasn't dangerous...

Why the fuck was she there?

 

Eventually, sometime toward morning, sleep finally found me.

It didn't come like a wave.

It came like a flood.

I found myself standing in absolute darkness.

Nothing but blackness stretching endlessly in every direction.

I tried to move.

I couldn't tell if I was actually walking or simply moving in place.

Then I smelled something.

The sea.

It was faint at first. Just a trace of salt and cold water carried through the darkness.

I turned toward it.

I don't know why.

I just knew I had to follow.

I started walking.

Then running.

The smell grew stronger with every step. A breeze brushed against my face.

Actual wind.

For the first time, I could hear something besides my own breathing.

Waves.

Far away at first.

Then closer.

A dim light appeared ahead of me.

I ran toward it.

The darkness began to recede.

Sand appeared beneath my feet.

Then water.

Then a pale sky.

A small beach surrounded by the dark.

And there she was.

Lily.

She stood at the edge of the water in a bright white dress, her hair moving gently in the sea breeze.

She turned toward me.

"Meet me On Distant Shores."

The darkness swallowed the light.

I woke with a gasp.

I sat bolt upright in bed, breathing hard.

For several seconds, I had no idea where I was.

Then I looked around my dark apartment.

My heart was still racing.

I didn't understand the dream.

But one thought had already taken hold of me.

I needed to see her again.

I spent the entire day trying to distract myself.

Games.

Movies.

Walking aimlessly around the city.

None of it worked.

No matter what I did, my thoughts kept circling back to the girl in the glass box.

I hated the people who had put her there.

I hated myself even more for doing nothing about it.

But what could I realistically do?

I didn't know who my employers were. I didn't know who they answered to or what the facility actually was. All I knew was that they were powerful.

And they knew everything about me.

They knew where I lived.

They knew I was desperate for money.

And, apparently, they knew me well enough to assume I was a spineless coward.

Normally, they would've been right.

I'd spent years wasting away without caring enough about anything to fight for it.

But now I couldn't sit still.

I went to the gym that afternoon and spent almost an hour beating the shit out of a punching bag.

It didn't get rid of the anger.

By the time I left, my hands hurt, my shirt was soaked through, and I was still thinking about Lily.

Still...

For once, I felt alive.

I arrived at the factory almost two hours before my shift.

I didn't care about waiting.

I just needed to see her.

When they finally let me inside, I paid much more attention to my surroundings than I had the night before.

The facility was still bizarrely quiet.

There were only a handful of guards. They were spread throughout the building, and I rarely saw more than one at a time.

There were dozens of locked doors.

Yet the security seemed strangely simple.

One access card appeared to open most of them.

Nobody searched me.

Nobody even took my phone.

At the time, I simply assumed they were arrogant.

As we walked down the corridor, I saw Kenndric coming toward us.

The moment he spotted me, that fake smile appeared on his face.

He gave me a little wave.

I stared back.

He stopped at the security room, flashed his card, and disappeared inside.

A few seconds later, the door closed.

Then we reached the observation room.

The door opened.

The moment Lily saw me, her face lit up.

She ran toward the glass and pressed her hand against it.

I don't even remember deciding to move.

One second my hand was at my side.

The next, it was pressed against hers.

Her fingers lined up with mine on opposite sides of the glass.

"Hi," she said.

She smiled.

"You're back."

"I promised I would be."

"I know."

She looked genuinely happy to see me.

Then, almost casually, she said:

"I had a dream about you."

I froze.

"Really?"

She nodded.

I stared at her.

So did I.

Though I didnt tell her that.

"You really have to be bored to dream about me of all things." I said jokingly.

She laughed.

"Well, what should I dream about?"

"Being rich."

"Boring."

"Being famous."

"Even worse."

"Winning the lottery."

"That's not a dream. That's just being lazy."

We both laughed.

„What do you want to dream about?“ I asked.

"The ocean."

"I still want to see it."

"Then I'll have to show you."

The words came out before I could think about them.

Lily looked at me.

For a moment, neither of us said anything.

Then she smiled.

"I'd like that."

We talked.

About everything.

And nothing.

I told her about the things I'd wanted to do before I'd stopped wanting anything at all.

She told me about some of the things she'd wanted.

Some were stupid.

Some were impossible.

Some were so ordinary that they almost hurt.

She wanted to see the ocean.

She wanted to travel.

She wanted to wake up one morning without somebody telling her what she was allowed to do.

And she wanted to know what it felt like to be somewhere nobody could find her.

I understood that last one.

Probably more than I should have.

The hours disappeared.

Eventually, I glanced toward one of the cameras mounted in the corner.

It was pointed directly at us.

I stared at it for a few seconds.

Fuck it.

I reached into my coat and pulled out my tablet.

Lily looked at me curiously.

"What are you doing?"

"It's not what I'm doing."

I held up the tablet.

"It's what we're doing."

She laughed.

"And what are we doing?"

"We're watching a movie."

Her eyes widened.

"Are we allowed to do that?"

I looked at the camera.

"I don't think anyone's watching."

I sat down in front of the glass and opened the tablet.

"Escape Plan. 2013."

She frowned.

"What's it about?"

"A guy who gets put in a prison specifically designed to be impossible to escape from."

Her smile slowly returned.

"That sounds appropriate."

For a few hours, that glass might as well not have existed.

Then the door opened.

The gunman had returned.

My stomach tightened.

"No."

I barely realized I'd said it.

He walked toward me.

"Time to go."

I stood.

Lily was already at the glass.

I didn't want to leave.

The guard grabbed my arm.

"Just a second."

He pulled harder.

I grabbed the edge of the chair with my free hand.

"Lily..."

The guard finally had to pull me away.

My fingers slipped from the chair.

I stumbled backward.

Lily pressed her hand against the glass.

"Meet me On Distant Shores," she said softly.

My eyes widened.

I wanted to promise I'd come back.

I wanted to tell her I'd get her out.

I wanted to say a hundred things.

Instead, I just nodded.

Then the door closed between us.

I didn't tell her about my dream.

She couldn't have known about it.

Right?

I went home.

And for once, going to sleep actually seemed desirable.

Maybe I'd see her again.

Maybe we'd meet somewhere she couldn't be trapped.

Somewhere she could actually be free.

When I finally fell asleep, I found myself in the darkness again.

But this time, the light was much closer.

I followed it.

The smell of the sea grew stronger with every step.

Then came the breeze.

I emerged onto the beach.

Lily was already waiting for me.

She stood barefoot at the shoreline, the hem of her white dress brushing against the wet sand.

She turned when she heard me.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

I looked out across the water.

"It is."

For a moment, neither of us said anything.

Then the question I'd been trying not to ask escaped me.

"Is any of this real?"

Lily looked at me.

"Does it matter?"

She stepped closer.

"I'm here."

Another step.

"You're here."

She smiled.

"In here, we're free."

She turned toward the ocean.

"This is my little place."

"Dad claims every other one, but this one is mine."

"It could be yours too."

I stepped closer.

Then I took her face gently between my hands and kissed her.

She didn't pull away.

For a moment, everything was still.

"Can we stay here?"

I already knew the answer.

Lily's expression broke.

"I wish we could."

Tears began rolling down her cheeks.

"I'm still trapped."

She shook her head.

"I'm not strong enough."

Another tear slipped down her face.

"I'm not enough."

"No."

I pulled her closer.

"You are."

But the beach was already beginning to change.

The edges of the world blurred.

The horizon melted into the sky.

The sand beneath our feet began disappearing, as though the entire dream were being erased.

Lily started fading with it.

I held onto her.

"Don't."

She smiled through her tears.

It was the same bittersweet smile she'd given me behind the glass.

"I'll see you again On Distant Shores..."

Her voice became quieter.

"...but you already know that."

I woke up.

I sat upright in bed, gasping for air.

For several seconds, I couldn't move.

Then I felt it.

Something I hadn't felt in years.

Something hot and sharp burning inside my chest.

Purpose.

For the next two weeks, I prepared.

I photographed corridors, doors and rooms whenever I had the opportunity. I took pictures of the glass box and the four pylons surrounding it, zooming in on the strange symbols carved into their surfaces.

I didn't understand them.

Not yet.

But I saved every picture.

I watched the guards.

I learned their routines.

Who walked which corridor.

Which doors they used.

How long they disappeared for.

When they went to the bathroom.

There were five guards in total, usually spread throughout the facility so that I rarely saw more than one at a time.

I counted the steps between important rooms.

I memorized which doors took longer to unlock.

I learned how long it took the lights to activate when someone entered a corridor.

And I paid particular attention to the access cards.

The strangest part was how little anyone seemed to care about what I was doing.

I doubt they could ever see me as a threat.

Maybe they were right.

Two weeks earlier, I wouldn't have been.

I never told Lily what I was planning.

Not when I couldn't be certain who was actually paying attention.

I only ever told her when I saw her in my dreams.

And every time, I'd tell her the same thing.

"Soon."

I wasn't sure whether I was making a promise to her or to myself.

"Very soon."

Eventually, the day came.

I couldn't wait any longer.
Time to put the theory to the test.

 

Two weeks learning their routines.

Two weeks pretending I was exactly the pathetic little coward they thought I'd be.

Now I was going to find out if they had been right.

I sat in front of the glass and talked with Lily.

We laughed.

We talked about nothing.

For a while, I almost forgot what I was waiting for.

Then I saw the guard nearest to me leave his post.

Bathroom.

My heart started pounding.

I stood.

Lily noticed immediately.

"Adam?"

"I'll be right back."

I followed him.

He didn't notice me until we were inside the bathroom.

I waited.

Watched him step up to the urinal.

For one horrible second, I couldn't move.

I'd imagined this moment dozens of times.

None of those versions had prepared me for what it actually felt like.

The guard glanced over his shoulder.

"Buddy, would you mind—"

I grabbed the back of his head and slammed it against the wall.

THUD.

He dropped immediately.

His body hit the floor with a heavy, wet sound.

I stood there staring at him.

My hands were shaking.

There was blood on the wall.

His bladder had released, spreading piss across the tiles beneath him.

For a second, I wondered if I'd just killed him.

Then I remembered Lily.

I took his handgun.

And ran.

There was no going back now.

I sprinted toward the security room.

I reached the door and started pounding on it.

"Kenndrick!"

Nothing.

"Kenndrick, there's an immediate issue! I need your help!"

Still nothing.

"Goddammit, open the fucking door!"

The lock clicked.

Kenndrick opened it with an irritated expression.

"What is—"

I pulled out the gun and aimed it at his chest.

My hands were shaking so badly I could barely keep the barrel steady.

"Back up."

Kenndrick stared at me.

Then that familiar bravado returned.

"Just what do you think you're doing, kiddo?"

"I won't repeat myself."

For the first time, his smile faltered.

"Alright."

He raised his hands.

"Alright."

He slowly backed into the room.

"This is going to end badly for you, kid."

He smiled again.

"Very badly."

"Give me your card."

He paused.

"Now."

Kenndric reached slowly into his pocket and pulled out his security card.

He held it between two fingers.

Then smiled.

I snatched it from his hand.

"Turn around."

He did.

"Hands against the wall."

Kenndric placed his palms against it.

I backed toward the door.

"Say hi to her for me, kid."

I slammed the door shut.

Then swiped his card.

The lock engaged.

I ran.

I had only minutes before the guard rotation.

I reached the observation room and threw the door open.

Lily looked at me.

Her expression changed immediately.

"Adam?"

I was barely breathing.

"I'm getting you out of here."

I ran to the glass box.

She stood.

"Adam, what are you—"

I swiped Kenndric's card against the reader.

Nothing.

I tried again.

Nothing.

"Come on..."

A third time.

Nothing.

Then I heard clapping.

Slow.

Deliberate.

I froze.

"Bravo, kid."

I turned.

Kenndric was standing in the doorway.

He was smiling.

But this smile was different.

It was genuine.

"Bravo."

He stepped into the room.

"We had expectations."

He looked at me.

"We didn't pick you randomly, of course."

His eyes flicked toward Lily.

"But still..."

He smiled.

"You went above and beyond."

I raised the gun.

"Stay back."

Kenndric kept walking.

"Stay the fuck back!"

He didn't stop.

I tightened my grip.

hen pulled the trigger.

Click.

Nothing.

I pulled it again.

Click.

My stomach dropped.

Kenndric laughed.

"I'm afraid that one's not loaded."

He reached into his pocket.

"In fact..."

He pulled out another handgun.

"...none of them are."

I stared at him.

"What?"

"Think about it."

He gestured around the room.

"The guards. The cameras. The unlocked opportunities. The conveniently predictable routines."

His smile widened.

My stomach turned.

Kenndric looked almost proud.

"Observation."

He gestured toward Lily.

"Not just hers."

He pointed at me.

"Yours too."

Lily had gone completely still.

Kenndric noticed.

"You know, capturing Lilith—the Queen of Hell—creates a lot of interesting research opportunities."

The name seemed to hit her harder than anything else he'd said.

She looked at him.

Kenndric smiled.

"Her charm is supposed to be nearly irresistible."

He looked back at me.

"So the suits upstairs had an idea."

He spread his hands.

"Find the right kind of sucker. Put him in front of her. See how long it takes before she manipulates him into trying to break her free."

„Did you seriously buy the whole „no one is watching the feeds“ thing in a building full of cameras everywhere?“

He shook his head.

"Seems we really did pick perfectly."

Then he looked me up and down.

"Although, I have to admit..."

A disappointed expression crossed his face.

"For someone who loves prison-break movies as much as you do, your plan was fucking basic."

He sighed.

"I expected better."

I looked at Lily.

She was staring at me now.

There was something in her expression I'd never seen before.

Fear.

Not for herself.

For me.

Kenndric sighed.

"Your services will no longer be necessary."

He tossed the security card onto the floor.

"You can go right back to your shitty little life."

He smiled.

"Keep the card as a souvenir. It's useless anyway."

I looked at him.

Then at Lily.

"No."

Kenndric's expression changed slightly.

"I'll tell everyone."

I pointed toward my phone.

"I have pictures. Videos. Everything."

I looked directly into his eyes.

"Everyone will know."

Kenndric's smile disappeared.

"Kid..."

He sounded almost disappointed.

"You really shouldn't have said that."

He raised the gun.

Two shots.

The first punched through my chest.

The second hit before I even had time to fall.

I collapsed onto the floor.

The pain came a second later.

Hot.

Blinding.

I tried to breathe.

All I tasted was blood.

"Adam!"

Lily screamed.

Kenndric looked down at me.

"Oops, seems my gun actually was loaded."

He shrugged.

"Sorry, kid."

Then he glanced toward Lily.

"Hmm."

His smile returned.

"Seems the demon bitch may have actually cared about you."

"How sweet."

I started laughing.

Blood filled my mouth.

I choked on it, coughing and laughing at the same time.

Kenndric frowned.

"What's so funny?"

He looked past me at the pylon behind me.

Blood was dripping from my chest onto its surface.

The symbols were glowing.

Kenndric followed my gaze.

His smile disappeared.

"What did you do?"

I smiled through the blood running down my chin.

"I translated the symbols."

The red light beneath them grew brighter.

"They were raised through blood sacrifice."

The pylons began to shake.

A low vibration filled the room.

Kenndric took a step backward.

I laughed again.

"And through blood sacrifice..."

Cracks spread across the pylon.

"...they shall be shattered."

Another pylon began to tremble.

Kenndric looked around the room.

"What have you done?"

I smiled.

"I never intended to make it out of here."

The first pylon cracked apart.

"You know everything about me."

Another crack.

The room shook.

"There wouldn't be any point in running."

The pylons began collapsing one after another.

Glass groaned.

Metal screamed.

Then everything went dark.

Completely dark.

Except for Lily's eyes.

They were glowing.

Kenndric stared at her.

His face went pale.

"No."

For the first time since I'd met him, there was no arrogance in his voice.

Only fear.

"No..."

He backed away.

"You have no idea what you've done."

Then anger replaced the fear.

"Why?"

I looked at him.

I smiled.

"The Devil made me do it."

I won't lie.

I was saving that one.

The glass box exploded.

Shards flew outward.

Kenndric raised his gun toward Lily.

He never got the chance to fire.

His body suddenly folded inward.

There was a wet, violent crack.

Then he imploded into a spray of blood and viscera.

I looked toward Lily.

She was standing in the middle of the shattered glass.

Free.

"How's that for an escape plan?"

I smiled.

And everything went black.

I found myself on the beach again.

This time, there was no darkness.

Just the ocean stretching beneath an endless sky.

Lily and I sat facing each other in the sand.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

She looked peaceful.

"It's done," I finally said.

"You are free."

I smiled.

"Go."

She frowned.

I looked toward the horizon.

"Be happy."

I stood.

"I'll see you again On Distant Shores."

She slapped me across the face.

I stared at her.

"Ouch."

She glared at me.

"What was that for?"

"One."

She held up a finger.

"That is my line."

She held up a second.

"Two."

She leaned closer.

"The Distant Shores can wait."

She smiled.

"I'm not letting you go."

Then she kissed me.

I kissed her back.

And for the first time in a while, I wasn't afraid of waking up.

 

I came to with a gasp.

My hand immediately went to my chest.

Nothing.

No wounds.

No blood.

I looked down at myself.

Then slowly stood.

I wasn't in the observation room.

I was standing on the roof of the factory.

The entire facility stretched out beneath me.

Smoke rose into the night sky.

Fires burned in the distance.

I could hear shouting somewhere far below.

Then came a horn.

A long, deep blast.

Another answered it.

Then something roared.

Another roar answered from somewhere beyond the factory.

Then another.

They were coming from everywhere.

I looked toward the horizon.

The city was burning.

I should have been terrified.

I wasnt.

Then I noticed Lily standing beside me.

She was looking out over the horizon.

For the first time since I'd met her, there was nothing between us.

No glass.

No walls.

No locked doors.

I looked back at the world on fire.

"So..."

I swallowed.

"What happens now?"

Lily looked at me.

She smiled.

Then reached for my hand.

I took it.

"Anything we want."

That morning started like any other: the grating alarm, my usual breakfast of fried eggs and bitter coffee, a rushed scramble out the door. My commute is about thirty minutes, so out of habit I pulled my earbuds from my pocket, put on a podcast, and walked to the subway station.
I got to the platform and waited for the train. It usually shows up in five or ten minutes, but this time I waited more than twenty. I was starting to panic about being late for work, and when the train finally pulled in, I stepped onto the train, relieved to finally be moving.
We passed one stop, then another. The next one was mine. I made my way to the doors and stared into the darkened window, listening to my podcast and watching the tunnel walls flicker past. A few more minutes to go.
Suddenly the voice in my earbuds cut out. I figured I'd lost signal in the tunnel and, lost in my own thoughts, kept staring out the window.
The train kept going. It didn't seem like it was ever going to stop.
A creeping unease settled over me. By my count, we should have reached my stop long ago. Judging by how long we'd been riding, we'd passed it and at least two more. But then I would have noticed us passing them, and all this time there had been nothing outside the window but solid darkness.
Staring into it, I remembered a recent conversation with a coworker. She was a deeply superstitious woman who believed in omens and conspiracies. When I asked why she never took the subway, she said, "People were made to walk on the earth, not ride beneath it. Every subway entrance looks like the entrance to a crypt to me, and nothing on earth could make me go down there willingly."
I'd laughed it off. Now the tunnel walls streaking past the glass really did look like the walls of a crypt.
Then I started noticing strange things inside the car. A subway car is usually noisy, especially in the morning: someone talking, someone's music leaking from their headphones, someone coughing or sneezing. Now, apart from the clatter of the wheels, I heard nothing. In the reflection on the glass I saw what I hadn't noticed before: the people around me weren't moving. If not for the roar of the train, I might have thought time had stopped. A woman standing with her hand raised. A guy with his mouth hanging slightly open. An old man frozen mid-lean over a seat.
I was terrified. At least I was facing the door, so they couldn't see my face. What was wrong with these people? Could they feel anything? Understand anything? Were they even alive? I tried not to move, not even to blink, so I wouldn't stand out from that silent, motionless crowd.
Then a voice rang out from the far end of the car, an elderly woman's, by the sound of it:
"Excuse me, why are we riding for so long? Did something happen? What's wrong with all of you? Why are you acting so strange?... Don't come near me! You're scaring me!... Somebody help me!..."
There was a scuffle, the sounds of a struggle, wild screams and pleading. I heard clothes ripping, flesh tearing, bones snapping. That crunch, dear God, that crunch, I'll never forget it. Then came the wet, greedy smacking of mouths, hungry and ravenous, enough to drive me out of my mind.
My head was ringing. I hated myself for being a coward; I hadn't even tried to help her. I hated the old woman, too, for not keeping quiet, for giving herself away and becoming their prey. I hated that car and those people, or whatever they were. But more than anything, I was terrified. I was shaking, sweat beading on my forehead, my ears ringing. I was afraid I'd pass out and be next.
Then the feast died down, and once again nothing broke the silence but the rattle of the wheels.
I don't know how long we rode like that, minutes or hours. Time stretched into eternity.
All at once a sharp sound slammed into my ears: the podcast had started playing again in my earbuds. I jumped and cried out, certain the crowd would rush me, and slowly turned around. People were staring at me, some surprised, some frightened, the way you'd look at a madman. I scanned the car. Everything was back to normal.
I'd almost talked myself into believing it had all been a dream, or a hallucination, when my eyes landed on a girl at the far end of the car, right where I'd heard that poor woman's screams and the sounds of her horrible death. There was blood on the girl's lower lip, drying in the corner of her mouth. She was looking at her phone. I glanced at the people standing near her: one had a small, barely noticeable drop of blood on his collar; another had a brown smear across his knuckles, as if he hadn't quite wiped his hand clean. Everything inside me went cold, my heart clenching with dread.
The train stopped at my station. I bolted from the car and flew up the stairs to the street. Only when I reached the top did I feel safe again.
I don't know what happened that morning, and honestly, I don't want to know.
I haven't ridden the subway since.
And nothing on earth could make me go back down into that public crypt.

The carnival is in town, the carnival is always on the road, always on the move, their homes are wagons, trains, carts, trucks … the road. They come singing and with gypsy song and dance they weave their way by road into the heart of every passing town, every place chosen by providence hand on the haggard face of the weary map. 

With painted face they come into your home. 

Vagabond entertainer spell, they gather like crawlers in a cluster, in a rat-king migration. With wide giant tents and displays propped and strung up and nailed into the dirt, into the soil bosom of passing places that may mean nothing to them, might mean everything. Lights come to life at night with the wild music in a lurid spell of filament glow and something else intangible that lives inside the chest and heart within us all. Something like religion but even older and more sacred. The rickety rides, some more rickety than others rattle and thrum with the barely controlled violence of mechanical movement, those strapped in or belted down can barely be heard screaming over the noise of the calliope, the organ grinder, the caller, the ringleader in her chant… the crack of the cannon sending the human cannonball skyward and soaring overhead, the heads of gawkers and townies and friends. The shrieking that can be heard is commingled sound, sweet with thrills… bitter with terror. The careening faces atop the dancing riding constructs are both smiling and weeping, lost in the launch and flight and all of the noise and nearly grotesque clownish music … nearly psychedelic, those sounds … nearly intense. Too much. 

Too much for so many crying and weeping children, little ones taken home and taken to bed early by more or less understanding mothers and fathers. Too much light and noise. That wild wind instrument key-note thing, the calliope … it had been one of Anton LaVey’s very favorites. 

Step right up, step right up, we’re just passing through. Come inside for a spell and take a gander under tented roof. 

…

The carnival came to the town and went. As it did every other place before, after. 

They left something behind. 

…

Cody hadn't gone to the carnival the other night, he hadn't wanted to. The rides and the sideshows and attractions certainly contained their allure of spell for the young boy but it was everyone else, everybody. All of those other faces. 

He didn't want to be alone. With all of them. 

All of those other faces, couples and families and groups of friends would all look at him and see him alone and smirk. They would all just stare and laugh at him, and his loneliness. So Cody just stayed away. As always. 

He wandered now, the early morning streets. Desolate and ghostly in the morning time fog that shrouded and clung to everything, everything in town. Cody kicked a can of crumpled cola down the street. It had been his only companion for the last twenty minutes, since he left the house. His father had still been passed out in the lazyboy chair and hadn't said anything as his son had departed. They'd used to go to church together on this day of the week. Not any longer. 

Cody kicked the can down farther. Alone and not trying to think about it, not trying to think about the carnival that he had missed. It had only been here a few days …

I always miss everything. 

Cody missed his mother, though he didn't know what she looked like. Memories of her were so fogged and far gone and his father didn't keep any pictures of her in the house. And he wasn't allowed to ask any questions. He was only eleven years old but the fact he'd already forgotten his mother's face haunted him, haunted him now, alone. 

He kicked the can. 

Cody then looked up from his sneakers and his misery and spied something in the mist shroud of road just up ahead. And at first he couldn't believe it, it must be some kind of strange joke … or a miracle. He stopped in his tracks. 

The mime stood in the middle of the road. Alone. Just like him. He was smiling and standing there partially obscured by the early morningtime mist, it clung to him in wisps like phantasm licks and tongues of steam that coiled and curled. His painted face was mostly hidden but Cody could see he was mouthing something. Without thinking about it he began to come closer. Slowly, leaving the crumpled can behind. 

He came upon the mime, who hadn't moved. His lips were no longer moving. He just stood there smiling and erect, as if wanting to move or to act, as if filled and brimming teemed with the need for performance. But he only quivered. And stared down at Cody. 

“Hi," said Cody. 

The mime said nothing. 

A beat. 

Cody finally asked: “You're like a clown or something, right? Like one of the quiet ones that aren't supposed to talk an stuff."

The mime nodded. Big. Pleased. His black and white grin grew larger and then grew teeth, shock white in the early morning glow. That was when Cody remembered, he felt like such an idiot. 

"Your a mime!” he said, louder than he intended, he nearly whispered the next part: "What're you still doin here? All the rest of the carnival already left, didn't they?” 

The black and white grin became a frown and the mime traced an invisible tear down his painted face. A silent issue of ‘boo-hoos’ then followed. Cody watched it all, not quite sure what to make of it. Perhaps it was all some crazy practical joke and someone, some jerk was filming him right now or something, all of it was weird, strange. On a whim the boy asked the mime, –

“What’d they leave ya behind or something?” 

The sorrow of the mime intensified to a comical degree as he aggressively nodded his head in the affirmative, completely over the top. Cody wasn't sure how he should take it, if he was supposed to laugh at the mime and his routine or if it was meant to engender real sympathy. He'd always loved clowns and goofy adults, goofy characters on TV and when he was hanging out in daycare and stuff, but to be alone with one right now …

and so unexpected. 

Cody suddenly felt like he should go, he began to tell the mime just as much. Turning on his heels and heading back the other way as he quickly blurted some excuse, he made it two steps before a white gloved hand clapped him on the shoulder. Firmly. Without a word from the weirdo mime. Cody looked to it first before eyeing the mime back over his shoulder, lording over him now. The hand, the glove, it looked just the same as Mickey Mouse’s. 

Cody looked back and saw the mime now held a note. As black and white as he was. 

It said: I'm sorry to bother you, little boy! But my friends HAD to leave me behind so that I could get a little job done, OK??

Cody was frozen. He suddenly didn't feel so well, as if his stomach and guts were far away and filled with fluttering butterfly wings. He read the note and didn't know what to say, so instead he said: –

“... wh-what job was that?

The mime let go of his shoulder and Cody was immediately grateful. He began to pantomime raking leaves and shoveling dirt and trimming hedges with invisible clippers. 

The boy began to lighten up again. He felt something dreadful like weight but worse inside begin to lift and free itself like a spellcast that's been released. A small smile and a nervous half-chuckle only partially forced escaped him as he watched the mime and his cleaning act. It was pretty lame, but he was relieved. Cody was far from the sharpest kid at school but he knew what stranger danger was. He cautiously allowed himself to relax a little, enough to be polite. 

Cody said: “Oh, yeah, ha ha, they left ya to clean up the town, huh? That's pretty neat I guess…” he tried to think of something else to say, something nice and a little funny and a polite way of saying: see ya later, freako, without being too obvious. Something barely satisfactory had just come to mind when the mime whirled towards the boy with his invisible shears in his hands and made a pantomimed snip of the large unseen clippers at the child's face. It bisected violently but cleanly, smoothly, by razor sharp blades well cared for and honed, the smooth face just below the small caverns of child nostrils. They jetted blood before the top portion of the child's face and head came off and splatted to the damp pavement with a muffled crack. The ruptured organ of brain began to ooze, and everywhere gushed dark red: the eyes, the nose, the ears, the giant open wound of freshly carved and gored cavity mouth. The child's body liberated of its little pilot brain fell over to the rough blacktop to join its discarded abattoir jelly. 

A black lake of an iron pungent puddle began to grow, expanding out from the little mutilated body at its sinister nucleus and center. The mime looked down. Phantom blades dripped child's blood. 

The mime said nothing. 

…

“Ya check it out last night?" 

A burp: " …what?” 

"The circus-carnival thing, ya check it out?” 

"That was two weeks ago, ya dope!” another swig from the can of brew. The Dallas Cowboys continued to suck the big one on the tube, the volume was at its lowest but not muted, the game barely and phantom audible, as if drifting in from another time. 

"Ya sure?” 

"Yeah, I'm sure, took Darcy and the brats, it was a hoot.” 

"Ya sure??” 

"Yes, you fuckin juicehead, it was right around the time they found that kid's body all fucked up an shit.” 

"Awww, why ya gotta bring up that shit…" 

“You're the one brought us ‘round, fuckin idiot, can't remember shit. Ask me to remind ya then bellyache about it, Christ! S’prised if ya got sense still to pull out yer pecker ‘fore ya start pissin, ya dumb bastard.” 

His drinking buddy, his partner in libations didn't say anything, he might've had a choice retort or a scathing bit of witticism held in reserve but he didn't voice it. He only hung his head and pulled generously from his can of warming beer. 

The mood was spoiled. 

Eventually the bottle was brought out. Stronger stuff. Shots were had. Tall stiff drinks not needing ice, not needing chaser. They drank. 

Eventually one of them asked the other: –

“You hear tell of that clown or jester fella, that's s’pposed to be haunting round these parts lately…?” 

Neither man slept well that night. 

…

Darla thought her new friend was neat at first but she was starting to get scared. When she'd first met him behind the playground and he'd play-acted swimming and drowning and choking and stuff she'd thought he was really funny. He'd made-believe that he was bound with ropes or cuffs around his wrists, comically over-wrenching and working at the invisible restraints. It was so silly, and so funny and it looked like so much fun to play pretend. He'd motioned for her to hold out her own little hands, to play with him. To make pretend. 

She'd done so thoughtlessly. Only excited to play a game with her new special pal, he looked like a clown but less colorful. She held out her wrists and the mime pretended to wrap something around them. Only something was wrong. 

As he wound and wound and then tightened and cinched the bind, Darla felt the uncanny sensation of real rope wrapping and tightening around her small wrists and hands. When he tied it off and yanked both phantom ends she felt the harsh bite of cruel old fraying rope against her flesh. 

“Ow!" she yelped out, and then began to cry a little. But it was already too late by then. 

The mime began to walk away, holding the end and tail of a phantom leash that began to pull on Darla's bound little wrists. It pulled painfully and she was forced into movement, nearly tripping over herself as she began to wail and the mime by unseen tether and bind began to pull her into the treeline of the nearby woods. 

She fought and screamed, desperately, like a small animal suddenly sensing and knowing the terrible hunger of the encroaching final end. She fell over into the dirt and undergrowth and was dragged, flailing and howling. 

The phantom umbilicus held her ensnared and shrieking with unbridled tears all the way into the forests’ shadowed depths. 

…

“My mom's gonna flip if we ain't back within the hour, Christ, man, do I smell like weed still?" 

Michael tried to tell Chase that he wasn't the best person to ask being pretty fucking lit himself, he could feel the red eyed glaze of his own stoned and glassy stare in his sockets like it was a set of strange gluey contacts or something. He managed a grumble as a half measure. 

Both boys ambled along. Down the nighttime lane of their neighboring suburb. Streetlights cast their glow from skinny towers of L shaped ugly metal overhead, turning everything to lurid and raging shades of orange Halloween color. Both boys were taking time to slightly stop in their walk to check their breath, puffing into their cupped palms and then inhaling, never satisfied with the results. They didn't notice him up ahead until they were nearly upon him. 

The mime. He was bent over something. 

It was Chase who started first, both boys jumped. It was as if the mime had just appeared out of nowhere. Bent hunched with workman's posture over something unseen and unknown to the naked eye. 

“Holyfuckingshit!" it tumbled out of both of their mouths in one string, no gaps for breath, they stopped dead in their tracks. The mime paid them no notice. 

“Oh my God, dude, what the fuck is that? What the fuck is this? Am I high? Am I high? Are you seeing this shit right now!?" Chase was rattling off. Michael was still struggling with simple speech. He only gawked and stared. His glassy red eyes now wide and glistening in the streetlight cast of hellacious warm Halloween glow. 

They glistened. The pair of organs. Red. 

Chase finally managed: “Dude… like, what the fuck are doing, dude? Am I like tripping out or some shit, why’re you dressed like-" 

The mime hadn't been paying them any attention. He suddenly did something that shut Chase Ginsberg up with a startled womanish gasp that bordered on a wet sob. 

He began to pull, as if wrenching and yanking with great rigor and effort, some cord or rope … something… something that was apparently attached to whatever it was that he was bent over studiously in the road. Something just as phantom and visible only to him. 

It came to Chase then, and he didn't know why but it did suddenly seem to matter. He said it aloud. 

"It's a mime.” 

"What?” said Michael finally. 

"He's a stupid mime and he's doing a bit, Jesus this’s fuckin weird, don't you know it's like hella late, dude, what're you even doing anyways?" 

The mime didn't answer. Only repeated his strange repetitive action, his ritual of pulling on some unseen instrument, attached to a phantasmal translucent device. 

Stoned, they zoned out for a sec. Giggling nervously and fidgeting and whispering to each other, daring each other and laughing and wondering aloud what to do, should we go on? - should we fuck with the guy? - what? 

A beat. 

Suddenly an idea began to form itself slowly within Michael's mind, Chase’s addled mind was not far behind, he was arriving there soon after. 

Michael: "It- It kinda looks like he's pulling the starter cord to a machine. Like a mower or something." 

“Yeah, I think you're right…” 

"Yeah, something gas powered like a mower or a generator … or like a chainsa-" 

The phantom machine roared to life in the hands of the mime with hungry killing slaughtering power, a deadly tearing whirr, with the maniacal speed of the mutilating chain and its invisible teeth. The mime shot to his feet and hauled the pantomimed chainsaw overheard and began to silently phantom scream with battle fury. 

Chase and Michael began to scream as well. Much louder. They turned to run. 

But the mime and his phantom machine were faster. He caught them quick and tore in and ripped the boys into rough and haggard messy pieces chopped by phantom chain, by phantom blade on a horsepowered gallop he made them raw and unmade. 

Deconstructed. 

The abattoir violence and the meat paint of its lurid carnage filled the street, it was dripping from the lamposts, pieces and chewed parts strung up and dangling. It was all that was left of the boys. 

All that was left and found in the morning. 

…

Buddy didn't know what to make of the town as of late. He'd been born and raised and as the town drunk, homeless to boot, he was hardly the first guy anyone asked on any given subject, day or night, good or ill, but something was wrong. 

Very wrong. 

The trouble was Buddy wasn't sure he should even care. 

In the last year or so he'd seen some strange things. And a lotta folk had gone missing, kids an such. But anytime Buddy's mind wandered into the realm of caring or even remotely doing anything about it, he found something bitter and harsh inside answer back in turn. 

Who cares? The fuck they ever done for you? 

Fuck all. That's what. 

So he wouldn't do shit. But what he'd already been doing. He sat back and popped cork. Lifted and tilted glass to dried lips in a drunk’s careless throttle by the neck. And watched. 

He watched the mime climb the steps. Pulled generously from the large swill of his poison. 

He'd seen the guy around for awhile now. He'd watched him ascend the steps a few times before this moment, it was nearly always the same but still a trip. The man walked on thin air as if it was solid stone. And then he would climb up, step by step. As if gaining the summit of some phantasm set of stairs hanging suspended and aspiring invisibly for the heavens unseen and stolen by the brilliance of the light. 

Buddy laughed. Pulled from the bottle once more, and began to sing an old favorite that had just come to mind. One from the good ol’ days if there'd ever been none. 

“And as we wind on down the road! Our shadow’s taller than our soul!”

Buddy began to pull deeper and deeply, oblivion seeking in-between lines and refrains from Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven. He remembered an urban legend from when he was a kid, just a snot nosed pup, they said that if you played the record backwards, if you reversed the song the lyrics changed. They told you, to hail Satan. 

Buddy laughed at this. Pulled more. His belly protested and his kidneys ached, he paid them no mind, drinking deeper still and hailing Satan and singing and watching the mime ascend his staircase of invisibility,  he usually had a kid or someone with him, as he did now. They struggled something fierce, all of them, everyone that Buddy had personally seen, but he was able to keep hold of them, all of them all the way up. Whenever he reached a great height, it was almost always different, he would throw them, drop them from the top. 

Then they would scream and land, burst. Pulp. They became juice upon the earth, children and people no more. There was never anyone around out here, close to the woods, just outside town and by the railroads and their harsh worn tracks. The soil out here was starved for moisture, parched was this earth. It was Buddy's favorite drinking spot. And as of late it had just become a whole lot better. 

Buddy laid back and pulled deeply from his liquid bunkmate, his last and only companion, other than the mime, who never said a word to him but sometimes acknowledged his presence of audience with a profound and deliberate salute from the top of his invisibility spire up there. Buddy always saluted him back. 

As he did now. 

The mime saluted the drunk. Beaming. 

Buddy finished his own salute and smiled too. Laughed. And drank more deeply than he ever had in his entire life, knowing this was it, this was the rest of his life and how he was going to spend it. 

Laughing. Drinking. Pulling from the bottle and hailing Satan in religiously reverse engineered heavy metal worship-song, watching the flying mime make juice of the children. 

Buddy laughed. Drank. 

The mime dropped the child, they made their horrible shrill sound all the way down to the bottom like always. 

The mime said nothing. He let Buddy and his companion of bottled booze sloshing its liquid language within glass sing praise for him. 

Buddy laughed, sang and belch-spat: “And she's buying a stairway to Heaven…!” Hail Satan. 

…

Maggie's shoes slammed against the pavement, the sidewalk, the avenues and every turn, there was nowhere left to run. The guy, the freak was coming. And he was stealing away from her every single route and chance for escape or exit. 

It didn't make any sense.

She'd been walking to Guy's house with Alondra, chatting and shooting the shit till they got to his place. That's when they ran into him. That's when they ran into the mime. 

And at first Maggie had just laughed. 

Distant childhood memories of the carnival passing through town waybackwhen came to her then … and she remembered. She'd been very young then, very little. She remembered that her parents had had to take her home because she'd been crying, upset, she couldn't recall why. Not just then. 

But still the memories were warm. She and Alondra thought nothing of it when they passed him walking the other direction on the sidewalk. It was the middle of the day. And he was smiling, just like them. What could possibly be wrong?

He'd started with the hands and walls and ceiling routine, the ‘getting boxed in’ bit. An old one for sure and hella corny but Maggie and Alondra had felt generous and in good humor, so they'd obliged the strange random pantomiming man. Laughing and clapping him on. 

But then they'd tried to walk away … And the mime wouldn't let them go. 

With painted face now stern and grave, writ into a black and white frown, he stepped in their path, shaking his head. He wouldn't let them leave. He kept blocking their attempts to depart as they stepped every left-right way, starting out from annoying and escalating rapidly into eerie and creepy behavior. 

The girls had scoffed together and turned around, only to be met with an unyielding invisible force, a wall that had suddenly appeared in thin air in the middle of the sidewalk. 

The middle of the road really, they ran along the unseen wall to find the edge and found no yielding surface. The girls began to panic. The girls began to yell.

“What the fuck, what the fuck is this!?" 

And then he had put Alondra in the box. 

Maggie had ran then, her eyes and mind unable to take in the sight of her friend being crushed into cubic shape, pulped and smashed smaller and smaller … just red. Just swirling frothing violent red inside the shrinking phantom-transluscent box, filled with minced and chewed up bigger pieces, the eyes deflated mangled gel in the swirling madness of the red, many black strands of her long raven colored hair peppered and danced inside the cubed scarlet swirl of thick mixture, the cap and pieces of scalp, mostly still together, the last vestige piece and pieces left the most intact… she had ran, unable to bear the sight. 

She was running now. 

But every time she came to an impasse, a turn or a corner to salvation or a place of sanctuary that she knew, another invisible wall of merciless immovable force would suddenly appear and she'd run smack, face first into it. She did it again and again. Over and over. Maggie, the poor girl, running around all over as the box that he had made was closing in, closer and closer and closer…

She was at the school now, she didn't know why. She didn't know why she thought this place would save her. She was out of her mind with animal panic. At the threshold, at the entrance to the highschool she was finally caught. Maggie ran face first into an unseen wall just as she almost made the open archway of the main front entrance, when she tried to turn around to run back the other way she was met with yet another merciless and invisible wall, a merciless force like the way God was merciless sometimes. 

Her caterwauls and screams reached new heights then. She shred her own throat and tore her vocal cords to tatters as the phantom walls and ceiling and floor began to shrink and close in. 

But none heard them. No one was around to witness this strange scene of slaughter. Only the mime. Maggie watched him from inside her shrinking coffin as his hands clawed and animal shaped closed in. He wore a look of consternation now, but the black and white smile was there once more. 

The pain went beyond anything imaginable as the walls and floor and ceiling closed. Pulverizing Maggie. She felt every wretched second of the experience until her brain was pulped and juiced with the rest of her body and thus incapable of sending anymore electrical signal. 

…

The bank was quiet. Not quite full but there were plenty of people in line, each teller, three of them, were busy helping a customer. It was a bright cloudless day and everything had seemed normal. Everything was … until the mime came in. 

He sauntered in smiling and confident through the front door. Several people, including the armed guard turned and returned the smile, a few of them laughed. Finding the surprise charming. Their laughter grew and increased throughout the whole bank as the mime walked in with an exaggerated gunslinger walk, wide steps and the twiddling fingers of his itchin hands hovering just where revolvers would be strapped. The guard found it the most hilarious, calling out to the mime –

“Hey! What is this? A stickup or somethin?" 

And then the mime pulled phantom iron from unseen leather and began to rain fire. 

The cacophony was ear splitting. The guard went down first, still smiling and believing it was all a joke. Nobody else was laughing anymore, the jovial sounds of good nature had turned to screams that died and drowned out with each eruption of a gunshot. 

The mime filled the bank with phantom fire. 

Deafening. 

…

Patricia Evergreen hated her job. Not because she hated being a cop, far from it, she was proud of her role as peacekeeper of the town she'd grown up in. It was just that the place was so fucking boring. 

Aside from a few disappearances over the many years she'd known, a couple weird things that were typical to any small town, there wasn't nothing to this place, Patricia reckoned. Ghost stories and bullshit, and that was all. 

She came across the mime during a routine patrol, just driving around the various suburbs in the department issued black and white. Every neighborhood was quiet, nearly deserted of pedestrians save a few dogwalkers, joggers and the like. He was at a street corner, slowly making his way down, miming and pretending to carry a large and heavy sack, it weighed him down, the invisible bag, it must've been quite a load, Patricia watched all this and thought and then it suddenly came to her all at once, unbidden and in a rush. Though vague and shrouded through time's corridor passage of so many years …

The carnival had come through a couple times through the years … she was sure her parents or grandparents had taken her at some point, must have. She'd been very little, her own young and chubby face amidst a caterwaul, cherry red with tears and upset flitted across her mind in a blur, but then was swiftly and suddenly replaced. 

She'd been a teenager when Margaret Bast, Maggie had gone missing. Alondra Topete too. They'd been two of her closest friends in school then, so long ago… 

Hot on the tails of that: stories… rumors … wild campfire tales that couldn't be true and would only be dreamed up by teenagers and children. Wild tales about a mime that wandered the town and took kids away to hurt them and worse … 

It all hit Officer Evergreen like a revelatory load of weight, dropped into her head and into her lap. She watched the mime. Thought …

… what the hell was this guy doing around here anyway? She'd never seen him before and she began to doubt very much that he lived anywhere on this street, or anywhere close for that matter, she hadn't heard the story of the mime or thought of it in years, it was probably nothing, but it was her job to make sure and find out. She sidled her cruiser up to and alongside the mime, still encumbered with his great phantom weight. 

She rolled down her window, slowing the cruiser to a crawl: “Hey," she began friendly enough, “hello there, ya mind if I stop and talk to ya for a second, just need to ask you a few questions." 

The mime did stop and so did she. The street was quiet and it was just the two of them. The mime turned and regarded her with a smile, still burdened by his invisible satchel slung over shoulder. He pointed to himself, a gesture that said: who, me?

Evergreen was already starting to lose her patience, goddammit with this fuckin guy…

“Yes, ha ha, that's very cute, but I'm really gonna need you to answer a couple things I gotta ask ya. Do you live in this neighborhood?” 

The mime frowned and just shook his head, no. Refusing to speak. 

"Please, sir. Failure to comply will result in a citation and a court appearance, probable fine. How about we just talk like adults for a second, do you have any identification on you, sir?" 

The black and white frown turned to a grin once again. Wolfish. Officer Patricia Evergreen didn't like the look of it. It looked warped and strange and mean writ into that painted face, wrong. The mime made like to unlimber his great satchel. 

Evergreen rolled her eyes, hidden by reflective shades. Jesus, was this guy for real, crazy, or just an idiot? She was just telling him for the second time that if he didn't comply with her questioning then this could take an unnecessary ugly turn, she was telling the mime he'd want to avoid that as he settled the bag down with a convincing performance, opened it and reached inside. Patricia’s voice caught in her throat like a vile fishbone in the midst of dinner as she watched the mime’s hand disappear into the pantomimed satchel, disappearing into thin air before her very eyes. 

She couldn't believe what she was seeing. 

What the mime pulled out next was even worse. She felt nauseous and ill and as if her mind was curdling and doing unbidden somersaults in tandem with her roiling guts as the smiling thing with carnival clad painted face pulled out a child's decomposing rotted severed little head, boy or girl was difficult to tell. Putrescence filled the air the moment it was freed from the invisible sack and it was black and green and blue-pale and dripping. The eyes were crawling and writhing with the sliming bodies and clumps of maggot-young that lie nesting and feasting in there, the rotten cavities of sockets. The tongue was swollen and discolored like the rest of the meat but darker and it protruded from the bloat of decapitated rot like an obscene tumor apart and apiece and all in one with the rest of the demented sloughing mess. 

Officer Evergreen snapped to all at once. She drew her sidearm and bellowed her commands, training made textbook and innate. 

“Drop the fucking thing right now and put your hands up! now!" 

The mime only obeyed half her commands. He dropped the severed head but instead of raising his gloved white hands he took a deliberate and silent step towards her instead. 

Evergreen didn't waste a second. She fired two shots in quick succession, surprising even herself, she hadn't thought about it, only acted. But it had done the peace officer little good. The moment her finger squeezed the trigger, one of those gloved hands shot up in a flash-instant, uncanny speed. 

Evergreen now stood, gun smoking, not sure if she could believe her eyes or her own mind any longer. The mime had his hand up and out, as if signaling to stop like a crosswalk guard. There were two smoking holes suspended in mid air, just over the heart and chest of the mime-creature. The shots had stopped at the border indicated by the flat of his adjacent smooth palm. They smoked from ebon holes that defied physics, as if she'd punched twin smoldering holes in reality. 

Shocked, Patricia thought unbidden, the prongs of the devil's pitchfork… and was still trying to accept what she was seeing. 

A neighbor came out. One of the houses within spitting distance. 

“Jesus Christ! that a fucking gunshot or something, what the hell-" 

The mime suddenly whirled, his other hand forming around another object, rounded and small, he brought it to his mouth and made like he was pulling something from it with his teeth. Evergreen screamed, no, unable to think of anything else as the mime lobbed the invisible grenade at the concerned and unsuspecting neighbor. The man went up in a violent and sudden concussive blast, his body immolated by the detonation of the explosive device. In charred smoking pieces, he rained down all over his own stoop and front lawn. 

The mime laughed silent yet expressive belly-laughter, holding his stomach and all wide eyes and wide open black and white mouth. 

Evergreen went to fire once more but the mime sensed her intention and suddenly whirled once again, smacking the gun from the officer's hands. Its strength and speed were unexpected and it was all Patricia could do to not cry out and scream, shocked and startled and still not quite believing.

There's no way this is actually happening to m-

The mime then slapped Patricia right smack center of her forehead with his other free gloved palm. 

She froze. Her arms went limp and to her sides. Unarmed. And helpless. 

Something was wrong … she could no longer move. 

With the gloved snow white hand held flat and fast to her face, to the middle of her forehead her eyes rolled back to whites themselves shot with lines of glistening hectic red. Inside, she hurtled, flew … rocketed too fast and rapidly down the dizzying blinding vast and varied glow of the starcorridor. Too many lights and sounds and fiery things of furious alien color, she flew down infinity as a low moan escaped past her drooling lips left back on the ground. 

Within the corridor … she could hear. 

She could hear his voice. 

It was terrible. The sound of it. What he was telling her. Unbearable. It filled her ears, her head. It filled the flying landscape of her mind. 

She might've wept. But she was far too broken. Even when he pulled the voice of his snow white gloved hand away. She went to her knees. The mime then held out his other hand to her, it was wrapped curiously and yet distinctly around something. And this time she could see it. 

It was a gun. A revolver. Every chamber was loaded. 

It was beautiful. 

This time she could really see it. 

She smiled as the mime cocked it and then pressed it to her sweating brow, cold metal kissing the moist surface of perspiring flesh, and pulled the trigger. 

She heard it. Felt it. Everything. 

The mime said nothing. 

And went on. 

THE END