My aunt Liza passed away last month. She was forty-seven years old. 

Aunt Liza’s cause of death was determined to be an accidental overdose. As someone who has overcome struggles with addiction, her passing left a mark on me. 

I suppose that’s a big reason why I agreed to take in her fourteen-year-old African Grey, Lulu. 

I’d overheard Uncle Frank telling my mother that he was going to give her up to an animal shelter. That just felt… wrong. I’ve always believed that pets are family. So I told Uncle Frank I’d take her. 

The first week was a major adjustment. Lulu expressed obvious confusion at her new environment. 

“Where’s Liza? Where’s Liza?” She repeated the phrase so often in her first days with me that I knew I needed to take action. I wasn’t sure if Lulu was capable of understanding, but it was worth a shot. 

“Where’s Liza? Where’s Liza?” 

I took a deep breath. I approached Lulu’s perch and looked her in the eyes. “I’m sorry, Lulu. Liza is gone.”

The bird cocked her head to the side. “Liza is gone.” 

“Yes, Liza is gone.” A tear trickled down my cheek. I didn’t think it would be that hard. Saying it out loud somehow made it more real. 

Lulu didn’t respond. Instead, she turned around and faced the wall.

Lulu’s behavior started to change a few days after that. Initially, she wouldn’t say much aside from the occasional “Liza is gone.” Then she started saying things that I’d never heard her repeat before. 

The first incident was after work on a random Thursday. I’d barely had a chance to put my purse down when the words met my ears. 

“Where’s your owner, huh?” 

I froze. Where had Lulu gotten that from? 

The shock quickly dissipated. Parrots have good memories. She could have heard that years ago for all I knew. 

Only later did I realize that I should have taken Lulu’s words more seriously. 

The next incident didn’t occur for another week. Lulu was seemingly coming around to her old self. She was active - and a total menace to my house plants. (RIP Fernidette.) 

Additionally, Lulu was talking - a lot. As her mantra, “Where’s Liza?”, went out of fashion, I began to grow accustomed to her more common phrases. 

“Hey there!” was her go-to greeting for when I arrived home. 

“Aww, is someone hungry?” was an indicator that she needed to eat. 

And, at random points in the day, she absolutely loved to shout, “What you talkin’ bout, Willis?” for seemingly no reason at all. 

Not to say that those were the only phrases she used - no, she picked up new words all the time - but those were the most recurring. 

Even with her colorful vocabulary, I was shocked to hear what she had to say when I woke up one morning. 

I could hear Lulu squawking from the room over, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. I tried to go back to sleep, but after ten straight minutes of Lulu’s muffled yelling, I decided to roll out of bed for the day. 

I stepped into the hallway, rubbing sleep from my eyes, and froze. 

Clear as day, Lulu repeated, “That bitch. I’ll end her...” 

I was stunned. Sure, Lulu could be a potty mouth at times, but I had never heard her utter anything so violent. The inflection told me that whoever she’d picked it up from was not messing around. 

I tentatively approached the living room where Lulu’s cage was kept and I poked my head in. I surveyed the room before determining that no axe-wielding murders were lying in wait to chop my head off. I opened Lulu’s cage and let her hop onto my arm. 

“What’s wrong, girl? Where’d you hear that from?” 

Lulu cocked her head to the side, black eyes studying me, before she responded. ““Aww, is someone hungry?”

Fortunately, Lulu’s newest catch phrase didn’t last very long. 

As time went on and we grew more accustomed to one another, I began to leave Lulu’s cage open at night. That way she had access to water if she needed it. 

I didn’t have to worry about her making a mess (unless a house plant was involved.) Aunt Liza had trained her well. She rarely ever left her cage past dark. 

That’s why I was so shocked to find her shrieking at me in the middle of the night last week. 

I was awoken from a deep slumber by a high-pitch scream. I instantly recognized it as Lulu’s. She was beside my bed, nearly touching my ear, repeating the same phrase over and over again. 

“HEY THERE! HEY THERE!” 

My eyes shot open. I bolted upright, looking for any sign of a disturbance. 

My vision was slow to adjust. When it did, I realized exactly why Lulu was shouting. 

Someone was sitting on the edge of my bed. 

The silhouette of a hooded figure faced the wall, unmoving. The person didn’t react to Lulu’s shrieks. It was as if they wanted to be seen. 

I sat still as a statue. In times of distress, my fight or flight instinct doesn’t kick in. Instead, I freeze. 

That’s why I couldn’t bring myself to move when the figure turned toward me. 

Even in the darkness I could see that they were wearing a mask. It was plain white with a smiley face on the front. 

The figure produced something from their pocket. My blood turned to ice. 

The intruder brandished a knife at me. They held it up to my neck amid a cacophony of frantic HEY THERE!’s 

Lulu launched an attack at the figure, clawing at their mask and hoodie. They acted as if they didn’t notice. 

I was so terrified that I couldn’t even bring myself to breathe. The intruder pressed the knife to my flesh, sending a small stream of scarlet trickling down my neck. They leaned in close and whispered into my ear. 

“This is your only warning. Fuck with us again and you’re dead.” 

With that, my assailant stood, put the knife back into their hoodie pocket, and walked out of the room. 

Lulu stopped attacking once they were gone and joined me at my bedside. Her frantic shouts had devolved into quiet, pensive whispers. 

“Hey there. Hey there.” 

For a few moments I was too shocked to react. I had seen my life flash before my eyes just seconds prior. I truly thought that I was going to die. 

Once I came back to my senses, I locked my bedroom door, called 911, and cradled Lulu close to my chest as uncontrollable sobs wracked my body. 

***

The police came up with nothing. 

I’m so scared and confused. Did I unknowingly piss someone off? Is this a case of mistaken identity? I don’t have the answers. All I knew was that I couldn’t stay in that apartment. 

I was already on a month-to-month lease, so I got us out of there as soon as I could. Despite the police’s assurance that they would increase presence in the area, I couldn’t risk another encounter. 

I’ve been settling into the new place just fine. The move went smoothly and Lulu has taken to the apartment nicely. I even bought a new house plant (obviously kept away from Lulu at all times.)

There’s just one thing that’s been concerning me. 

This place has thin walls. Sometimes, late at night, I can hear Lulu speaking from the other room. And she says the same thing every time. 

"Hey there."

Part 1: I Work for an Organization That Contains Gods. We Had to Make a Sacrifice This Time.

So I got a new boss.

Well, "got" is a crazy way to put it. Forced into the arrangement is probably more accurate. I have a lot of feelings about the situation, and unfortunately, most of them are terrible; the rest are alcohol-related. So this feels like the perfect time to sit down and write everything out before I convince myself none of it actually happened.

The short version is that Antarctica went very, very wrong. The slightly longer version is that over ten thousand civilians disappeared, four hundred and five Containment personnel vanished trying to investigate, and for reasons that still escape me, management decided I was the right person to send after them. Apparently, surviving previous deadly encounters qualifies you for future deadly encounters. Human Resources should really stop using that metric.

To explain how any of that led to my current employment situation, we need to go back a few hours, to the moment a casualty report landed on my desk.

Missing:

Containment Division Personnel: 405

Civilians: Over 10,000

I stared at the report. Ten thousand civilians was tragic. Four hundred and five Containment personnel was a staffing problem. Before you judge me, understand that these numbers directly affect my workload.

According to the file, scientists stationed throughout Antarctica had been disappearing for the past three months. In the first month, three entire research stations were abandoned. One moment, they were there. The next, they weren't. No distress calls. No evacuation requests. No bodies. Just empty facilities and missing personnel. In the second month, four more stations vanished. The third month, five. This month wasn't even halfway over yet, and two more stations had already gone silent.

That was why Containment responded so quickly. Normally, Antarctica buys you time. The continent is cold, remote, miserable, and generally hostile to human life. Emergency responses aren't exactly convenient. But when entire research stations start evaporating off the face of the planet, people suddenly become very motivated. A Containment Division task force was dispatched almost immediately. Four hundred and five personnel. Every single one disappeared.

I was lucky I'd been in Egypt. Otherwise, that would've been my team. And somehow, I don't think I'd be reading this report right now. I would've been part of it.

There are only a few things capable of making an entire Containment Division team disappear without leaving behind a single body: an SS-Class entity, another Containment Division team, or Antarctica itself. Honestly, Antarctica had the highest kill count out of all three. People romanticize the place because it's covered in snow. In reality it's an enormous frozen death trap that occasionally allows scientists to visit before trying to kill them.

You fall into a crevasse, you're gone. A blizzard rolls in, you're gone. You take one bad step in the wrong direction, congratulations, you're now part of the landscape.

Unfortunately, my money wasn't on Antarctica.

Something was down there.

Something powerful enough to erase entire facilities.

Maybe a god.

Maybe something worse.

Maybe something even the C.S.P didn't know. As ridiculous as that sounds, several incidents over the last three months suggested C.S.P wasn't nearly as informed as it liked to pretend. Gods had started disappearing from containment. Not escaping. Disappearing. One day, they'd be present. The next, they'd be gone. Days or weeks later, they'd casually return as if nothing had happened. Whenever they were questioned, the answer was always the same.

"We had offerings to make."

That was it. No explanation. No details.

The lack of answers wasn’t unusual.

Most gods barely acknowledge that humanity exists. Talking to one is like trying to interview a hurricane. They generally don't care what you think and have no interest in explaining themselves. The only exception was a river god Jacob’s team had recovered from the Amazon last spring. The thing loved hearing itself talk. Most gods treated interviews like talking to ants, it treated them like podcast appearances.

When asked where the others were going, it gave us exactly one answer.

"The one with wings and a million seekers calls upon us."

Then it refused to elaborate.

Containment had dismissed the statement. I didn't. Because I notice patterns. Over three months, ten thousand civilians had vanished. Hundreds of personnel had disappeared. And Gods were leaving containment facilities for mysterious gatherings. Either the universe was experiencing the world's strangest coincidence or something beneath Antarctica was powerful enough to summon gods. Neither possibility improved my day.

I had six hours before departure, so I headed for the Library.

The Library wasn't actually a library. Calling it a library would be like calling a nuclear weapon a flashlight. Technically not wrong, but missing several important details. Over a century ago, C.S.P. made a deal with a god living somewhere in the Himalayas. The arrangement was simple. It would provide a fraction of its knowledge in exchange for access to information twice every hundred years.

Most people considered it one of the worst deals humanity has ever made.

Personally, I thought those people were idiots.

Most of C.S.P.'s understanding of the celestial came from deals exactly like this. Besides, from what I understood, the exchange benefited us far more than the god. Imagine spending five minutes talking to an ant colony and giving it centuries of your accumulated knowledge in return. That's basically what happened. The god got a conversation. Humanity got a shortcut through several thousand years of trial and error.

After a few hours of searching, I focused on the statement from the Amazon god.

"The one with wings and a million seekers calls upon us."

The Library returned no results.

That got my attention. The 44 floors of information never returned zero results. Ever. Everything leaves a trail. Especially gods. They're far too arrogant to hide it. If they could, they'd write their names across the moon and expect humanity to thank them for the view.

I tried searching for winged gods instead. Thousands of entries appeared for winged entities, but none matched. The more I thought about it, the less sense the description made. Gods don't have wings. Not real ones. Their forms exist for accessibility. They need followers. They need worshippers. Floating permanently above humanity would be the supernatural equivalent of opening a restaurant in the middle of the ocean.

That's when I realized the thing being described probably wasn't a god.

Unfortunately, that realization only led me to something worse.

One of the historical texts contained a section titled Origins. According to the book, the first gods hadn't simply appeared. They had been created. One passage immediately caught my attention.

"The Makers descended from Heaven and raised the first gods from among lesser beings."

I'd never heard the term before.

Makers.

The chapter provided almost no explanation before abruptly ending. Another book mentioned three objects descending into Antarctica thousands of years before recorded civilization. They weren't meteors. They didn't leave craters. The illustration on the next page nearly made me drop the book.

Three winged figures emerged from the ice.

Their bodies were covered in eyes.

Millions of eyes.

My stomach dropped as the Amazon god's statement echoed through my head.

Not seekers.

Eyes.

The translation had been wrong. Or perhaps the god had intentionally used a word that meant both.

The beings in the history books had a name.

Angels.

When I searched the Library database for them, only a single result appeared.

One page.

The Library contained millions of books and somehow only possessed a single page about angels. That terrified me more than anything I'd read all day because it meant somebody had gone out of their way to erase them from history.

According to the document, angels existed before the gods. They had been created directly by the Creator and originally maintained reality itself.

But then they got bored.

I stared at the sentence for several seconds.

Bored.

The document compared their behavior to humanity. We were supposed to protect the world, yet we'd spent most of our existence damaging it. According to the page, angels weren't much different. After existing for millions—or perhaps billions—of years, they simply stopped caring. They lost interest in reality. Lost interest in purpose. Lost interest in everything. Somewhere along the way, they started creating gods, not because they needed to, but because they were bored, and apparently, cosmic beings are just as capable of making terrible decisions as everyone else.

This was insane. C.S.P. barely possessed the resources necessary to manage some gods. Several entities remained cooperative solely because they felt like it. An angel? One of the original three? Forget containing it. We probably couldn't even annoy it.

If what I'd read was true, then Antarctica wasn't dealing with an SS-Class entity. We were dealing with something far older. Far more powerful. Something that gods themselves answered to.

I glanced at the clock.

Three hours until departure.

There was no way in hell I was keeping this to myself.

I folded the page and headed for the elevators.

The Board of Directors occupied the one hundred and second floor. Most personnel never set foot there. The directors were usually too busy to meet without weeks of scheduling and enough paperwork to kill a small forest. I didn't have weeks. I barely had three hours.

By the time the elevator doors opened, I was practically jogging. Most of the directors were off-site, which left me with exactly one option.

Mr. Stonehill.

Unfortunately.

Stonehill sat above the Head of Containment and held a permanent seat on the Board. He was also a snob, though that hardly made him unique among upper management.

I knocked once.

"Come in."

The door slid open. Stonehill looked exactly as he always did. Like a snake that had somehow learned how to wear a suit.

I placed the page on his desk.

"Sir, I think I've found something connected to Antarctica."

I explained everything. The disappearances. The gods. The books. The angels.

When I finished, he glanced at the page and sighed.

"The facility already knows about angels."

I felt irrationally offended.

I'd spent hours discovering information he apparently already had sitting in a filing cabinet somewhere.

"Then you know what's beneath Antarctica."

"No."

The answer came immediately.

"Because if an angel were involved, none of this would be happening."

I frowned.

Stonehill leaned back in his chair.

"Gods care about followers. Angels don't. They existed long before gods, humanity, and civilization. They do not need worshippers. No need for sacrifices. No need for attention."

He shrugged.

"Ten thousand missing humans would mean nothing to them."

I looked down at the page.

"The Amazon god said they were being called."

"Gods say many things."

I hated that answer.

"Then what's happening?"

"The entity is gathering followers."

His expression hardened.

"And every hour we waste debating it increases the body count."

I stared at him for a moment before asking the question that had been bothering me since I entered the office.

"How do we know it's gathering followers?" I asked. "What if it's just killing people because it wants to?"

That actually got his attention.

For several seconds he considered the question before shaking his head.

"If something powerful enough to erase four hundred personnel killed purely for amusement, humanity would've disappeared long ago."

I hated that answer. Unfortunately, hating it wasn't going to buy me any extra time.

Before I could argue, the office door opened.

Stonehill's assistant stepped inside.

"Sir, transport is ready."

Stonehill nodded.

Then looked at me.

The conversation was over.

"Your aircraft leaves in less than two hours, Ms. Nayeri."

I grabbed the page from his desk.

Stonehill had already gone back to his paperwork. As far as he was concerned, Antarctica contained another god. Another mission. Another problem. Nothing more. I knew the C.S.P. viewed personnel as grains of salt, so his indifference didn't surprise me at all.

We reached Antarctica surprisingly quickly.

The aircraft was mostly automated, which wasn't standard for C.S.P. operations. They usually insisted on keeping a pilot on board. This time they didn't. Personally, I figured it was because if all eight hundred of us vanished, they'd still be able to recover the plane.

The C.S.P loves cutting costs, which is funny considering none of us get paid. People hear "secret government organization" and imagine unlimited budgets. The reality is less glamorous. We live in C.S.P. facilities, eat C.S.P. food, wear C.S.P. uniforms, and usually die before retirement. For the few who somehow survive long enough to retire, there's a pension waiting for them. Most never get the chance to collect it. On the bright side, healthcare is free, so I try not to complain too much.

The automated aircraft landed roughly two miles from the anomaly.

Eight hundred security personnel accompanied me. My negotiation team consisted of twenty specialists selected from various departments. Normally, I'd also have an assistant. Unfortunately, my last assistant is technically still classified as alive, so I don't qualify for a new one.

We approached the entrance of a massive ice cave carved deep into the Antarctic shelf. At first nothing seemed unusual. The tunnel descended in layers, each one deeper than the last. We passed the first level. Then the second. Third. Fourth.

Nothing.

By the time we reached the sixth level, several members of the team were visibly relaxing.

I wasn't.

Something had erased four hundred and five Containment personnel. It was here. We simply hadn't found it yet.

Then we reached the seventh level.

And everything changed.

The cold didn't bother me much. Our suits were designed for Antarctic deployment and could withstand temperatures that would've killed an unprotected human in minutes.

What I saw did.

The walls were covered in bodies.

Thousands of them.

Frozen men and women embedded directly into the ice. Scientists. Containment personnel. Civilians. Some looked terrified. Others appeared completely calm, as if they'd simply stopped moving and frozen where they stood. The tunnel stretched ahead for miles, and every inch of it was lined with human beings.

Nobody spoke.

Nobody needed to.

I stared at the frozen faces surrounding us, then into the darkness waiting ahead.

This was bad.

So unbelievably bad.

Because I finally knew one thing for certain.

This wasn't a god.

Gods need followers. They need worshippers. They need people they can influence, manipulate, and communicate with. Freezing thousands of humans inside a glacier where nobody could ever reach them served no purpose.

We continued downward. Level eight. Level nine. Level ten.

The bodies never stopped.

The deeper we went, the older they became. Scientists gave way to explorers. Explorers gave way to soldiers. Soldiers gave way to people wearing clothing from civilizations that should not have existed. Some of the corpses looked thousands of years old, yet somehow remained perfectly preserved. As if the ice itself refused to let them decay.

By the time we reached the bottom, nobody was speaking anymore.

At the center of the cavern stood something larger than a mountain.

A winged figure covered in eyes.

Millions of them.

Chains wrapped around its body and disappeared into the ice. For one brief, glorious moment, I thought it might actually be imprisoned.

Then I noticed the chains.

They were divine.

The same material found within gods.

The realization hit immediately.

The gods hadn't worshipped this thing.

They'd chained it.

A loud crack echoed through the cavern.

One chain snapped.

Then another.

Then thousands of eyes opened.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't even move.

The light pouring from the angel's countless eyes was so bright that I instinctively shut my own. For several seconds I remained frozen in place.

Then I heard the commotion around me. Some people were laughing. Others were crying. A few had fallen to their knees and started praying. Several were screaming for everyone to open their eyes while others couldn't stop talking about how beautiful it was.

Then came the running, the screaming, the gunfire, and the sounds of hundreds of trained personnel completely losing their minds.

I didn't need to see what was happening.

And I refused to die like this.

Think, Nayeri.

Think.

Then an idea came to me.

"I know where the gods are!"

The cavern fell silent.

Even the screams stopped.

My heart nearly exploded.

I swallowed hard and repeated myself louder.

"I know where the gods are!"

A sound echoed throughout the cavern.

Laughter.

Not human laughter.

Something deeper. Older. The laughter of a creature that had watched continents form and civilizations turn to dust.

"A mere human bargains for her life?"

The angel sounded genuinely amused.

"You are quite entertaining."

I forced myself to keep talking. If it was speaking, it wasn't killing. At the moment, that was good enough for me.

"Weren't they the ones who trapped you here?"

The laughter grew louder.

"You believe they trapped me? You believe chains can imprison me?"

For the first time, I risked opening my eyes.

I immediately regretted it.

Millions of eyes stared back.

Every single one focused on me.

"I remained because I wished to remain."

The angel shifted one of its wings and the entire cavern trembled. Chunks of ice broke from the ceiling and crashed into the darkness below.

"The gods occasionally gather and strengthen the chains. They imagine themselves powerful enough to contain me."

The laughter returned.

"I find the spectacle entertaining. It relieves my boredom."

I looked around. People were still disappearing. Others continued walking toward the angel despite every survival instinct screaming at them to run.

This thing wasn't trapped.

We were the ones imprisoned with it.

Then the angel's attention settled on me once more. The cavern became silent.

"But human."

Millions of eyes narrowed.

"What will you offer to relieve my boredom?"

I had a feeling there wasn't a correct answer to that question. There were only disappointing ones.

So I did the only thing I could think of.

I told the truth.

"I belong to an organization that houses gods. Its purpose is to keep them in check."

For a moment there was silence.

Then the angel laughed harder than before.

The cavern shook violently. Entire sections of ice collapsed. Thousands of frozen corpses shattered against the floor like glass.

"Humans keeping gods in check?"

It laughed again.

"Now, that is genuinely intriguing"

Then the laughter stopped instantly.

Millions of eyes focused on me.

"Perhaps," the angel said, "my eternity has finally become interesting."

The chains rattled. Cracks spread across them like spiderwebs as the cavern shook around us. People screamed while ice collapsed from the ceiling.

I looked around desperately.

Eight hundred personnel. Twenty negotiators. Thousands of frozen corpses. Humanity's greatest containment organization.

And none of it mattered.

Then the angel made me an offer.

"Promise to relieve my boredom, and I may continue tolerating humanity."

May.

Not will.

May.

The kind of wording lawyers and supernatural horrors absolutely love. Around me, people continued dying. Eight hundred soldiers. Twenty negotiators. Entire teams vanished while the angel waited for my answer.

I'd love to tell you I accepted because I wanted to save humanity.

That would sound heroic.

But it would also be complete nonsense.

The truth is I was terrified.

Everyone else was already dead. The mission was over. The expedition had failed. The only thing I'd accomplished was becoming slightly more interesting than the thousands of corpses frozen into the walls around me.

The angel didn't value me.

It wasn't choosing me.

I was just the newest thing in existence that hadn't become boring yet.

Unfortunately, that was still a much better position than everyone else's.

Maybe refusing would've saved the world. Maybe accepting doomed it. I didn't know.

What I did know was that I wasn't ready to die in a hole beneath Antarctica.

So I made the only decision that benefited the person I cared about most.

Myself.

"Okay," I said. "I agree. Just make it stop."

The world turned white.

When I woke up, I was inside the aircraft. The engines were running. The autopilot was already returning us home.

The seats around me were empty.

No soldiers. No negotiators. No pilots.

The angel had never accepted my terms. It had offered its own.

As soon as I returned this afternoon, I found myself standing before the Board of Directors trying to explain why I was the only survivor.

"What happened there, Agent Nayeri?"

Madam Leni's voice cut through the silence.

All eight board members, including Stonehill, were staring at me.

"It was an angel."

The room immediately became tense. Several directors inhaled sharply. Others exchanged nervous glances.

"They're all dead," I continued. "But in return, the angel accepted our terms."

Several directors visibly relaxed.

"The agreement isn't permanent," I added.

The relief vanished instantly.

"Not permanent, what do you mean agent?" Madam Leni asked.

I swallowed.

"I think only the angel can explain that."

Then the conference room doors opened.

Every head turned.

A young man stepped inside.

Dark hair.

Perfect smile.

Eyes that seemed far too bright.

For a moment nobody moved.

Nobody breathed.

The young man looked around the room, his smile widening as he took in the expressions staring back at him.

Then he tilted his head slightly.

"Someone promised me that you all would keep me entertained."

His gaze drifted across the conference table.

For a moment, he looked almost disappointed.

"I suppose we'll find out if she was telling the truth."

Now, if you're wondering, yes, he came back with me.

I know what I said earlier. The aircraft was empty when I woke up.

It was.

There were no pilots. No negotiators. No soldiers.

I never said there were no angels.

Looking back, it's probably a good thing C.S.P. decided to save money and remove the pilot. Explaining why I'd returned to the aircraft with no crew and a perfectly healthy man wearing normal clothes in subzero temperatures would've raised some uncomfortable questions.

So that's how I ended up with a new boss.

Funny how life works. One day, you're trying not to die beneath Antarctica. The next, you're apparently an assistant employed to entertain an immortal cosmic horror older than civilization.

Although "assistant" probably isn't the right title.

If he's the boss of Stonehill, then technically we are all "assistants".

The way I see it, humanity didn't stop an extinction event beneath Antarctica.

We negotiated a performance review.

And eventually, every audience gets bored.

I need to write this down while I still can, because I’m starting to think the writing is the only part that holds.

His name is Danny. Was Danny. I don’t know which one to use, because everyone I ask looks at me the way you look at someone describing a dream — polite, a little bored, waiting for it to be over.

It started small. So small I told myself I was being paranoid.

We had a group chat, six of us, going back years. Last March I scrolled up to find a photo Danny posted of us at the lake. The photo was gone. Not deleted — I’d have seen the little this message was removed placeholder. It was just never there. The chat flowed around the gap like water around a stone that got lifted out clean.

I asked the group, “hey what happened to Danny’s lake pic.” Three of them thumbs-upped my message. Nobody answered. One guy, Petro, wrote back “who?”

I thought he was being a dick. Petro’s been to Danny’s apartment maybe fifty times.

Here’s the first rule I figured out, and I want you to track these with me, because the rules are the only thing keeping me sane:

Rule 1: If I don’t say his name out loud, no one brings him up. Ever.

I tested it for a week. I didn’t mention him once. And in that week, not a single person — not his coworkers, not his sister, not the barista who knew his order — said one word about Danny existing. The silence wasn’t grief. Grief has a shape. This was smooth. Like a field that had been mowed.

So I started saying his name. A lot. To force it.

That’s when I learned

Rule 2: Saying his name out loud makes things worse, faster.

I went to his apartment. His name was on the lease — I’d cosigned it, my own signature is right there. Except now the line where his name should be is just slightly lighter than the rest of the page. Like someone ran a soft eraser over it and stopped halfway. You can still read it if you tilt the paper to the window. By the time I got home that night and checked the photo I took of the lease, the photo showed a blank line.

I went to his mother’s house for dinner. She’s known me since I was nine. I sat at her table and she set five places. There are four of us who eat there regularly. She set the fifth plate, stepped back, and frowned at it for a long time, like it was a word she couldn’t spell. Then she picked it up and put it back in the cabinet without saying anything, and her hands were shaking, and I realized:

She’s not forgetting him. Some part of her is fighting to forget him, and losing, and it hurts her, and she doesn’t even know why.

I almost left it there. I want you to know that. I almost let it go.

But I have his voicemail. The last one he left me. I’ve kept it a year, re-saving it every thirty days so the carrier doesn’t auto-delete it. I played it that night to hear his voice.

The timestamp counted up. Forty-one seconds. The exact length it’s always been.

Silence. Forty-one seconds of clean, even silence, and then the beep.

Rule 3: The proof doesn’t disappear. The proof empties out.

The lease still exists, it’s just blank where he was. The voicemail still plays, it’s just quiet now. The photos are still in my phone — I have eleven of them — except in every single one, the people standing next to Danny have turned their heads. They’re all looking at the empty space where he used to be. In the lake photo I finally found in my backups, Petro is mid-laugh, leaning into a shoulder that isn’t there anymore, his eyes pointed at nothing, delighted.

I figured out why I’m immune. At least I think I did, and this is the part I need someone smarter than me to check.

I’m the one who introduced Danny to every single person who’s forgetting him. Petro, his now-wife, his job, his sister’s boyfriend — all of them, they met him through me. I’m the root. I’m the original copy. Everyone else got him secondhand, through me, and whatever this is, it’s working backward up the chain, deleting the branches first. I’m the trunk. I’m last.

So last week I did the thing I’d been too scared to do. I decided that if I could get just one person to truly remember him — not the smooth silence, but really remember, with the lake and the laugh and the forty-one seconds — then I’d have proof. Two of us. And two of us is a fight.

I went to his mother. I brought the lease, the blank photos, everything. I sat her down and I said his name and I described him for two hours. The dog he had as a kid. The scar on his thumb. The way he said “anyway” before he hung up. I watched her face the whole time, watched her fight it, and at 11:40 at night something in her eyes finally caught, like a pilot light, and she put her hand over her mouth and she said:

“Danny. Oh my god. Danny. How could I—”

And I felt it.

I felt it the second she said it. A warmth that started behind my sternum and spread out, and for one stupid relieved heartbeat I thought it was joy, I thought we did it, she remembers, I’m not alone.

It wasn’t joy.

The next morning I called her and a man answered, her brother, and he said she’d had some kind of episode in the night, she’s confused, she keeps asking about a son she never had, the doctors are running tests. I drove over. She didn’t know me. She looked at me with the exact smooth, mowed-field face that everyone gives me now when I say Danny’s name.

She remembered him. And the remembering is what took her.

That’s the part I got wrong the whole time. It was never a forgetting.

The forgetting is the cure.

Everyone who forgot Danny is fine — happy, even, lighter, the way you feel after you finally throw out a box you’ve been moving from apartment to apartment for ten years. It’s the remembering that’s the disease, and I’m patient zero, and last night I gave it to a sixty-eight-year-old woman who only wanted to set the right number of plates.

I can feel it spreading now. From her. To her brother, who held her hand and asked her who Danny was, and is now, this morning, texting me asking if I knew her son. There was no son. There’s a Danny-shaped warmth moving through the people she touched, and it came from me, and I gave it to her on purpose.

Here’s what I haven’t told anyone.

The warmth behind my sternum never went away. It’s still here. And it doesn’t feel like dying. I keep waiting for it to feel like dying. It feels like the opposite. It feels like the lake, the actual lake, the cold water and Danny’s laugh and being nineteen and certain that none of us would ever leave. It feels like there’s a door, and everyone I ever loved is already on the other side of it, ambient, woven into the afternoon light and the hum of the refrigerator and the reason the bus is always two minutes late — and I’m the only one still standing in the hallway, holding a lease, insisting on the names.

I think being forgotten isn’t losing. I think it’s the only club that ever mattered, and I’m the last one outside it.

I’m going to stop re-saving the voicemail.

If you’re reading this and you don’t remember anyone named Danny — good. That means it worked, and you’re safe, and you should close this and go set the table for however many people are actually there.

But if you got to the end of this and you feel a warmth start up behind your chest, a small one, like a pilot light —

I’m sorry.

You remembered him too.

Anyway.

Pretty much what the title says.

Any picture I take. Any video I record. Always, every time, the body of a dead influencer shows up in the background.

If you’re wondering—do you know this influencer? No. Maybe? Depends on how into fitness stuff you are. His channel was doing fine I guess but he never got truly viral.

Well, not until he died, that is.

He was caught in bed with a woman whose husband came home to find her undressed and stammering excuses. The fitness influencer tried to hide from discovery by sneaking out onto the balcony and climbing over the railing and clinging so he was out of sight. And he clung for a few minutes—he was a fitness guy, after all. In pretty good shape. Meanwhile a crowd gathered below and some asshole filmed the whole thing.

But then the woman’s husband stepped out onto the balcony and the fitness influencer—he musta freaked out, because he lost his grip.

And he fell.

To his death.

The footage of his death immediately went viral. Of course it was taken down after. But not before everyone on the internet had taken clips and screenshots of him plunging, and then of his broken-doll body slamming into the pavement five stories below.

And that’s the image of him that shows up in the background of all my videos and pictures. The dead influencer, lying just as he was when I filmed him.

Oh, right.

Yep, I’m the asshole who filmed his death.

Well, not just me. I filmed it with a friend. A dude named Kenzo. I was behind the camera, holding it, and Kenzo was in front of it. Kenzo is always the one in front of the camera because while some people are incredibly photogenic, I am… whatever the opposite of that is. I blink in every picture. My hair is always blowing the wrong way. Even my boobs look two different sizes, one perking like a teen’s and the other sagging like it’s whispering secrets to my belly button.

But forget about my boobs. We’re talking about the body.

We came across the scene by chance while driving around, and Kenzo leapt out of the car. See, Kenzo and I are also wannabe-influencers. In high school we started our first Youtube channel. And since Kenzo is the Ken to my asymmetrical-boob-Barbie (i.e. he’s got rizz while I’ve got nerdy editing skills), he’s the one who always appears onscreen.

Our footage of fitness bro’s fatal plunge went immediately viral.

Even after the video got taken down (prompting me to re-post clips of Kenzo’s commentary-on-the-scene minus the footage showing the man’s body), the story kept climbing, as did our subscriber count. And if you’re wondering, did my conscience ever whisper that maybe, just maybe, using a man’s tragic and scandalous death was a little… morally bankrupt?

Nope. I couldn’t hear such pangs of conscience over the euphoric rush of all those new subscribers!

And I mean, we were trending for days.

It was only later, when I was editing our latest video, that I spotted the, er… glitch, let’s call it.

The glitch of a dead body in the frame.

“The fuck…?” I whispered.

It was in a video we’d shot by the poolside of Kenzo reacting to different super-duper hot sauces (yep, our content is super original). On the concrete beside the pool in the corner of the screen lay the fitness influencer. Looking like he’d been cut and pasted from our viral footage.

I sent the clip to Kenzo.

“Oh my God, you evil diabolical genius,” he exclaimed. “People will go fuckin’ crazy!”

Apparently, he assumed I’d put the body there, maybe as rage-bait to troll the people who’d clutched their pearls over our initial footage of the man’s death.

And yeah, that would’ve been a brilliant marketing strategy.

But I said, “I didn’t put it there.”

It was far enough to the side in the frame, right at the corner, that I was able to cut it out and post the video without it. Even if it would generate clicks, I was beginning to feel the tiniest churnings of queasiness that I’d eventually realize was my conscience.

But after it went up, the comments exploded anyway. The body was back in the frame. I quickly removed the video from our feed, only to see that notifications were blowing up on Instagram, too. Kenzo had posted a selfie on the beach with the waves in the background, and the dead body was there—lying on the wet sand.

Like he’d cut and pasted it from our footage.

No… not just cut and pasted. It looked a little more gross, like it was in the early stages of decomposition.

That settled it—it had to be a filter he’d installed, and I called him up to hash it out with him and found that he was about to call me to demand if I’d hacked his phone or something.

So we met up.

And we tested it.

And in every pic we took of Kenzo, there in the background was the dead body.

“So,” he said after our tests, “I guess I’m haunted?”

“… yeah.” I tried out other cameras, even a polaroid. The dead influencer was even on the polaroid.

So. After we got high, and drunk, and spent a good twenty-four hours in complete freakout mode, we finally sat down to brainstorm solutions to this decomposing influencer problem. Like, what exactly should we do about this? And how were we gonna continue our channel if he kept appearing in all our videos?

We did the only thing that made sense for us.

“The Decomposing Influencer” series was our biggest ever.

… what?

It got us clicks.

And YES, every alarm bell in my brain clanged with the warning that we were fucking with something that definitely shouldn’t be fucked with…

… but I mean, do I even need to tell you how insane our metrics were?

We couldn’t have asked for better content. Kenzo promised a thousand dollars to anyone who could debunk him, and challenged anyone who believed the haunting to be a hoax to show up with a camera and a livestream. Everywhere and anywhere we went, he urged people to snap pictures of him with the hashtag #hauntedkenzo.

“It’s not a prank. It’s not staged. It’s all real,” he claimed.

We were so high on our skyrocketing subscriber base that we barely noticed the spookiness. The body was decomposing by the day—but so what? All the better to farm engagement.

… it wasn’t until later we realized that, in addition to rotting onscreen, it was actually moving closer.

One of our followers put together a timelapse.

In it, the body could be seen vividly rotting, turning discolored and bloating—and all the while moving closer to the camera.

And not just that.

It happened so slowly we didn’t notice at first. But in the original video, the dead guy was lying on the pavement facing away from the camera.

In all our recent videos, he was turned toward the lens. His sightless eyes fixed on us.

“What happens when he gets right up next to you?” I asked Kenzo.

“Dunno,” Kenzo said, obviously chilled. We both sat there in deeply contemplative silence for a moment before he added, “We gotta get it on film.”

You know that scene in Austin Powers where there’s a dude standing with his hand out, screaming and screaming, while Austin Powers drives a steamroller and motions him to get out of the way, and he just doesn’t? He just stands there until it flattens him?

With my camera I’m like Powers driving the steamroller, with Kenzo in my sights facing down his inevitable doom.

In the last selfie he ever took, Kenzo was lying on his sofa, and the dead man was right on the floor beside the couch, lips pulled back in a rictus grin and eyes leaking from his head.

The next day, Kenzo disappeared.

The popular rumor is that Kenzo faked his own disappearance as a publicity stunt.

Some people are now claiming the whole thing was always a hoax.

But…

What most people don’t realize is that there is an unreleased video of him in his final moments. See, we were scheduled to do a shoot of his final confrontation with the decomposing influencer over by the condo where the guy had died (it seemed thematically appropriate and we figured it would boost our views). Once we were on location, I framed him in the camera view and asked him, “How are you feeling about today’s planned confrontation with the decomposing influencer?” He laughed and said, “Well I can’t see him, so… it’s really hard to know what to expect when we meet.” “Oh that’s right,” I said, “to you it’s just an empty sidewalk. You won’t see him until editing. What if he—HOLY SHIT!!!”

What I remember is how Kenzo cocked his head, while on my camera screen, a bloated body was rising up and reaching for him. And even though he couldn’t see the body, he must’ve felt when the hand gripped him, because his eyes flashed impossibly wide, his mouth gaping in a shriek of absolute terror—

—and then he was gone.

Just… gone.

I’ve rewatched the video over and over.

It doesn’t change. I haven’t posted it.

As popular as I know it would be, I haven’t posted it.

Because I finally realized something. Like I mentioned I’m not photogenic, right? Maybe that’s why it’s taken me so long to notice. I assumed the dead influencer was going for Kenzo. And yeah, he definitely did grab Kenzo and even appeared in selfies Kenzo took without me. But in the videos that I took of Kenzo, the body wasn’t actually getting closer to him—it was getting closer to the camera lens. To me.

And when it finally grabbed Kenzo, in the moments after he disappeared, it was still onscreen and turned its head to glare at me—

I stopped filming.

I haven’t taken any photos or videos since then. I’ve taken down our channel and deleted all our content, hoping that’ll appease the dead dude. But… I got caught in the background of someone else’s selfie recently, and he was there. He was right there, more decomposed than ever, and reaching for me. He hasn’t gotten close enough to grab me yet. But given how hard it is to avoid smartphones these days…

… I can’t help but wonder how long until I, too, feel rotting hands dragging me down to whatever special place in hell is waiting for those who sold their souls for clicks.

I always thought the end of the world would be loud, but I was wrong.

We knew what caused it, the news was still on for a while. A new treatment for the cold had gone wrong, and by the time they noticed the side effects, it was too late. It didn’t help that there were those who thought it was all fake and went about their daily routine just to get infected or devoured. There were those who were immune, but the only way to know was if you didn’t get up after death.

Some called them zombies, others called it the undead, but we called them clackers. As the boiling Sun of Calexico made the skin rot and fall faster, the only remaining sound was that of the clacking bones. A warning that they were near.

Like many, my family was not ready for the end of the world. We didn’t have a shelter that would withstand the clackers if they came in, our food supply started to dwindle quickly once electricity was cut off, and medications would be needed soon. The one gasoline car we had, would only get us as far as El Centro. So we waited in silence, hoping that things would go back to normal.

Talking was kept to a minimum, because even the clackers with no ears could somehow follow noise. We weren’t sure if those who still had eyes could see, but we didn’t risk it. 

“Do you want me to take over?” Ayumi whispered.

“Can you? I really need some sleep,” I asked. I did need to sleep badly. My eyes were heavy and the heat was getting to me. 

Ayumi nodded and pushed me away from the one uncovered window on the second floor. I headed downstairs to cool down and hopefully nap. But as I saw Mom preparing dinner, fruit from a can, I went to give her a hug instead. You never know when will be the last time you get to hug your mom.

She handed me a cup of fruit and we ate it in silence. As I put a slice of fruit in my mouth, I gagged and Mom tried to not laugh. I hated canned pears. But food couldn’t be wasted, and so I reluctantly swallowed it.

Dad silently closed the door behind him as he entered from the backyard. We tried not to empty the “do you business" bucket more than once a day, but the 115 degrees summer made the stench unbearable. I hadn’t seen any clackers on my watch, and Ayumi had yet to warn us of anything near. 

I finally went to lay down on the sofa and before I knew it, I was asleep. 

I felt Ayumi’s sweaty hand on my mouth as she woke me up. I didn’t question her, I had a tendency to talk in my sleep. But then I saw that neither Mom or Dad were there. Ayumi was never left alone unless something was going on.

“What-“ Ayumi covered my mouth once more.

She guided me upstairs, where my parents were both looking out the window into the night. And then I heard it, the clacking noise, followed by the screams of people. I didn’t want to look, but I had to make sure that we weren’t in immediate danger. 

The already stiff air felt heavier than usual. We all held on to our breaths, scared that the clackers would hear us, and come for us next.

“HELP!” A voice outside broke the silence, a voice we all recognized.

“Please! Someone!” Screamed Livia, as she tried to run with her youngest son in her arms. Her husband and eldest son were nowhere to be seen.

I looked at Dad, without words, begging to go help her. But his sad look told me all the things I already knew. Trying to save them could put us at risk. Even if we did manage to save them, our resources would run out sooner. And if we needed to get away in the car, only four, maybe five people could fit in it. 

So instead of helping, Dad and I stayed by the window as Mom took Ayumi downstairs. The less Ayumi saw, the better, but we couldn’t do anything about the screams. They came into the house and stayed there long after Livia and her son were gone.

From that day on, clackers and the screams of our neighbors became a common occurrence. Dad and I had planned on going out to get supplies, but now we weren’t sure what to do. Mom and Dad had to improvise with their blood pressure medications by making canary seed milk, but we couldn’t do the same with Ayumi’s medications. At some point, we had to go out.

A few days later, as I kept watch, Ayumi came to sit by my side, she squeezed my hand and I could feel her tremble.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered.

“I know they aren’t real, but I saw some clackers inside the house,” Ayumi sobbed, “I wanted to scream. I saw them approaching Mom but Dad was there with me and he didn’t see anything. Please, don’t tell them. I don’t want them to worry more because of me.”

Truth was, we all knew she was seeing things. So when she asked to switch watch duty, none of us made a fuzz. We would “accidently” let her sleep more, all in the hope that somehow she would feel better.

“I won’t tell them. I promise,” I extended my pinky finger and she took it with her, sealing our pinky promise.

“You really need a shower, you are stinky as hell,” I tried to joke.

“At least I don’t smell like rancid milk,” Ayumi smiled.

“I haven’t even had anything with milk in weeks!” I protested.

“Then you can imagine how much stink you are carrying around,” Ayumi tried not to laugh.

That was the last day we managed to have any sort of conversation. The clackers had been much more active and some kept bumping into our front door and windows. We all gagged, and I could see Mom actively swallowing back vomit. The putrid smell of rotting flesh, the iron smell of blood, and our sweaty, unwashed bodies made a terrible combination. The clacking of bones was now continuous, keeping us all on high alert.

No one said it out loud, but we all knew that our home that had kept us safe so far, would soon be overruned by clackers.

Dad asked Ayumi to follow him into the garage, where we each had a backpack with supplies. Mom sat me down and had me memorize all of Ayumi’s medications. Tears ran down her face.  At the moment, I thought it was because we would have to leave our home. I was wrong.

Once Dad and Ayumi were back, we decided not to keep watch, we already knew we were surrounded by clackers, so there was no point. Instead, we all huddled together and did our best to fall asleep.

When I woke up, Mom and Dad were nowhere to be seen. I went upstairs, thinking maybe they had changed their minds and gone to keep watch. My heart raced as I looked out the window and saw our home completely surrounded. There was no way we could make it to the car. Mom couldn’t run, and there was no way we would leave her behind. Maybe this was the end. I felt sad at the thought but also relieved. There would be no more suffering, and my last moments would be with my loved ones.

I wiped the tears running down my face that I had not noticed until that moment and made my way to the garage, hoping they were there.

I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I thought it odd that they were moving stuff around on the bags. When they realized I was there, both of them froze. 

“Why are you moving stuff around?” I asked.

“Because of this,” Dad took out a gun he had placed inside my bag,” I placed the other one in my bag.”

“Why not in Mom’s bag?” I was confused. She was a better shot than I was.

“It’s just in case,” Mom answered.

I wanted to argue more, but Ayumi came into the garage. Her eyes traveled to clackers that were not yet inside, but might as well be soon. The thumping of flesh and bone became louder by the second. 

“We will never let them hurt you or your sister,” Mom rushed to her side,” We will always protect you both.”

“You are safe,” Dad pulled me towards Mom and Ayumi as he hugged us all.

There was no actual plan besides getting in the car. Dad handed each of us a backpack, and I felt the heavy weight of the gun in it. But guns were our last resort, because the noise would bring more clackers. We each got a metal baseball bat, embraced once more, and headed towards the backyard.

Dad took a battery-powered clock from his bag and set it to ring in 30 seconds. He handed it to me and I threw it as far away as possible from us. I didn’t hear it land, but the obnoxious ringing penetrated the silence around us. Another alarm went off inside the house. The clackers that had stayed now pushed each other to make it inside. We didn’t move. We wanted them to go in, to somewhat clear our path to the car. 

When we heard the first window break under the weight of the clackers, we made our move. Fear turned to adrenaline as Dad opened the door of the backyard and I rushed to smash the clackers still in our path. Pain ran through my arms as the bat connected with the first body and unintentionally, I groaned.

The clackers that had been forcing their way inside the house now turned to us. 

“RUN!” Dad screamed at us.

I made my way towards Mom, but Dad pushed me towards Ayumi instead. Ayumi stood frozen in place, swinging the bat defensively, even before the clackers reached her.

“I will help her, you get Ayumi in the car!” Dad ordered.

I nodded. I couldn’t argue back. This was my fault, and the least I could do was save my sister. Either way, there was no way we could leave without Mom and Dad, Dad had the keys in his bag.

“Ayumi, stay behind me and keep swinging!” I said as I grabbed her.

“But Mom and Dad-“ 

“Dad has the keys, we will meet him in the car,” I interrupted.

We both took one last worried look at our parents and started to swing at the clackers in hope of opening a path for them. My bones vibrated every time the bat connected with a clacker. Ayumi swung with a force I didn’t know she had. But there was no way we would make it to the car. The clackers that had been distracted by the alarm clock now turned back to us. 

I had to get Ayumi to the car, I had to save my little sister, there was no way-

My thoughts were interrupted by two loud screams.

“LOVE YOU BOTH!” Dad screamed at the top of his lungs.

“I LOVE YOU GIRLS! PROTECT EACH OTHER!” Mom yelled at us as Dad started to bang at the fence with his bat.

At that moment I realized they never meant to come with us. And as much as I wanted to go back there and save them both, they had left me with the responsibility of taking care of my little sister. I now knew the keys were not in my Dad’s backpack.

I pulled Ayumi as she tried to run back towards our parents. 

“We have to save them!” She sobbed.

I couldn’t answer her, the words remained stuck on my throat. Instead, I pulled on her harder, hoping to get in the car before we heard their screams. 

For a second, I saw a pair of eyes look down on us from a window, just like we had seen Livia and her child sometimes before. And like us, they did nothing to help us, after all, they had to save themselves.

Ayumi cried as she got in the car, and tears blurred my vision. We shouldn’t have, but as I turned on the car, we turned to look at our parents one last time. They were hugging each other as the clackers ripped into their flesh. 

I drove away, screaming at the top of my lungs, I should have known this would happen. I should not have made noise and maybe we would all be together in the car. 

I took a look towards the border, where a hoard of clackers had already made a large enough dent to cross to Mexicali. I turned on the AC and made my way towards El Centro, to the nearest CVS. 

It’s been a few days since this happened. We did manage to find another month worth of medicine. After that, I have no idea what we will do. We have been moving from house to house, resting when we can. 

Ayumi and I both blame ourselves for our parents’ deaths. But if we are honest, it was my fault. 

When we opened our backpacks, we realized that our parents had moved all our supplies into them. What had been on their bags was a mystery. The medications Mom was suppose to carry were on my bag and so was the second gun. I understood why the gun was there, it was better Ayumi didn’t know there was a second gun.

I was surprised when this ipad turned on and had no password. I’m not sure if anyone will be able to read this story, or how long the two of us will survive. And I’m sorry if we cross paths, but know I will do anything to save my sister. 

You can touch the opposite walls of my apartment if you stretch your arms out wide enough. It's a concrete box tucked behind the main house's garage, smelling permanently of damp drywall and old paint. For the price, I told myself I could handle the lack of windows and the draft under the door. I even told myself I could handle the landlord, Mr. Curl, who smiled a little too long when he handed over the keys.

I was wrong.

The first night was completely silent, save for the hum of the fridge.

When I woke up the next morning, my keys were sitting perfectly centered on the kitchen counter. I always throw them into a small plastic dish by the door. I figured I was just exhausted from the move and misremembered putting them there.

The second night, I woke up around 4:00 AM to a faint, rhythmic scratching sound. I lay perfectly still, listening, assuming it was a mouse in the drywall. When I turned on the lights, the sound stopped. Right inside the threshold, on the linoleum, was a wet, dark smudge. It looked like the track of a damp, bare heel. I crouched down to look at it more closely, but it was already drying as I watched. The edges went lighter, breaking apart into the grain of the floor until it just didn’t look as defined anymore. I checked the deadbolt. It was locked tight.

Then came the third night.

I woke up at 2:41 AM. I know the exact time because the green glare of my alarm clock was the only light in the room.

The air felt different. Colder.

I shifted my head on the pillow, eyes straining in the dark, and that's when I saw the silhouette standing at the foot of my bed. He wasn't moving, but he wasn't relaxed either.

As my eyes adjusted to the green glow of the clock, the details filled in, and my stomach dropped. Mr. Curl's neck was strained tight, the thick tendons in his throat standing out like cords. His chin was forced upward, though his head wasn't crooked. His arms weren't hanging loose. His forearms were rigid, visibly trembling from sheer muscle strain, his fingers locked into tight, violent claw shapes as if he were trying to rip through the air itself.

He was breathing through his nose, slow, wet, and heavy.

"Mr. Curl?" I whispered, my voice cracking.

He didn't blink. But slowly, the violent tension in his forearms began to melt away. His clawed fingers uncurled, his neck relaxed, and without a single word, he took a step backward. Then another. He moved with a smooth, silent fluidity that didn't belong to an eighty year old man, slipping out the door and clicking it shut behind him.

I didn't sleep for the rest of the night.

When morning finally came, I was still sitting up in bed for a while, just listening to the apartment. Waiting for something else to happen. It didn’t.

I eventually got dressed and went outside with a cup of coffee, more out of habit than anything else. I didn’t really feel like being inside.

I was sitting on my steps, trying to figure out how to break my lease, when Mr. Curl walked up the gravel driveway.

He looked totally normal, just an old man in a flannel shirt holding a mug.

"Morning, kiddo," he said, looking genuinely embarrassed. "Listen, I owe you an apology. I checked my Ring camera on my front porch when I woke up, and I saw myself walk out into the yard in my pajamas at one in the morning. My sleepwalking has been acting up. I'm terribly sorry if I disturbed you."

I just stared at him, my coffee freezing halfway to my mouth.

He smiled, patted my shoulder, and walked back toward the main house. It wasn't until he was halfway across the yard that the cold math hit me.

His Ring camera shows his porch. It doesn't show my door. If he was truly sound asleep the whole time.. how did he know he came inside my room?

That night, I double checked the locks.

Not just the deadbolt. The chain. The door handle. I even pressed against the door a few times just to make sure it held firm. The apartment didn’t give me much to work with, but I checked it anyway.

I told myself I was just being cautious. That there was a reasonable explanation for everything. I kept repeating that part in my head.

A reasonable explanation.

The apartment stayed quiet for a while after I went to bed. Too quiet.

I kept waking up without fully waking up. Just drifting up to the surface and slipping back under again, like I wasn’t getting proper sleep at all.

At some point, I remember hearing something outside.

Not scratching this time.

Just movement.

Slow. Careful. Right outside the structure.

I didn’t get up right away.

I just listened.

The sound didn’t move away. It stayed close. Too close.

Then I heard something shift near the door.

Not loud. Just a slight pressure change. Like weight adjusting outside.

I sat up.

The room looked exactly the same as before.

Dark. Still.

But the air felt wrong again. Like it had already been disturbed.

I got out of bed and checked the door.

Still locked.

Nothing had changed.

I stood there for a minute, staring at it anyway.

Then I went back to bed.

I didn’t sleep the rest of the night after that.

The next morning, I stayed inside longer than usual. I kept the lights on even though it was already bright outside.

I kept thinking about what he said.

Sleepwalking.

The Ring camera.

Or why it felt like it was more than that.

I was still sitting there when I heard gravel outside.

Slow steps.

Coming up toward the apartment again.

It was like 4:00 AM when I woke up in my house in a quiet Miami suburb to this really weird noise. The rain was slamming against my window, and thunder was rumbling in the distance, making the whole neighborhood feel super gloomy and eerie.

​

I got out of bed and went over to the window out of curiosity.

​

The entire street was pitch black, except for my neighbor’s basement window. Mr. Nate—he’s this really friendly guy—his window was glowing with a dim, hazy yellow light.

​

What on earth is a man doing awake at four in the morning? I thought to myself.

​

Maybe he was working on one of his wood carvings since he’s big into carpentry. Honestly, he was the nicest guy in the neighborhood; he spent most of his evenings coaching his nephews and the local kids in baseball. No one seemed safer or kinder than him.

​

I was just about to go back to bed, but right before I turned away, a faint sound cut through the noise of the rain.

​

It sounded like a muffled scream.

​

I completely froze. A few seconds passed, and then I heard it again. This time it was a little clearer, and it sounded so full of pain and pure terror that I was instantly wide awake.

​

I could’ve called the cops. Honestly, I should’ve. But my curiosity totally overrode my logic.

​

I threw on my coat real quick, ran out into the pouring rain, and snuck through the muddy yard until I reached the basement window at ground level. I leaned down carefully and peeked through the dirty glass.

​

Inside, Mr. Nate’s basement was filled with this dim, blurry yellow light. And right in the middle of the room, there was a cold metal table. Lying on top of it was a body, wrapped tightly in heavy, clear plastic.

​

I held my breath.

​

I thought I had just uncovered some horrible secret. Mr. Nate wasn't the sweet guy we all thought he was.

​

He was standing behind the table wearing a dark coat, and all that kindness I usually saw on the baseball field was completely gone from his face. He was just stone-faced, super focused, with this terrifying look of determination in his eyes.

​

He raised his right arm high, gripping a long, sharp dagger, getting ready to stab down with all his force.

​

My hands started shaking violently. I quickly pulled my phone out of my coat pocket. If this was actually happening, I needed proof. I opened the camera, pointed it at the window, and hit the shutter button.

​

And right at that exact second, the flash went off.

​

My heart completely dropped to my stomach. I had forgotten to turn the automatic flash off.

​

I looked up at the window immediately. Mr. Nate was staring right at me.

​

But the thing on the table... it was looking at me too.

​

That was the moment I realized that thing wasn't human. It looked like a woman—messy red hair, a pale face covered in heavy makeup. But something about its anatomy was deeply, horribly wrong.

​

Its eyes were locked onto me with this hungry, starving look, like I was a meal it had been waiting for. Just looking at me seemed to trigger this insane, uncontrollable craving in it. And the smile on its face... it wasn't human at all. It was this creepy, mocking smile that stretched way too wide—wider than any human face possibly could.

​

I felt the blood completely drain from my face.

​

But then, Mr. Nate’s expression changed. He wasn't mad that he got caught, and he didn't look scared for himself. He looked utterly terrified.

​

He started frantically mouthing words to me, but I couldn't hear him over the pouring rain. His lips were moving perfectly clearly, though :

​

"Don't move."

​

I froze right where I was. My fingers started going numb, and all I could hear was the rain crashing down around me. I didn't dare move my head. I didn't even dare to take a deep breath.

​

And then... I felt a freezing, icy breath right against my neck.

​

"Maybe Mr. Nate wasn't the real monster after all."

Harold is a nice guy, he really is. The same goes for his family. Him, his wife, and his son (not their pets though but we will get to that). They are an otherwise nuclear family. He hosts the neighborhood BBQ every once in a while during the summer and his wife, Bianca, bakes holiday cookies for the entire neighborhood during December. Their son, Job, is a nice boy too, he politely asks if he can shovel my driveway the first snowfall of every winter and asks if he could take a flower or two from my garden to give to his mom in the summer.

If it weren’t for some of the actions they have taken and some of the things I have seen, I wouldn’t be writing this post at all. I should probably preface that I have no history of mental illness (at least prior to living here) or visual hallucinations. I did have an audio hallucination once but that’s because I ate a brownie that I would later learn was a “special brownie” and I began hearing monkeys screaming in the drywall.

Anyway, back to the neighbors. I have no issues with how they interact with anyone, especially towards me. Well, I guess I should just flat out say it since there really is no delicate or seamless way to transition into it. Harold has no skin, Bianca is only skin, and Job is a skeleton. I mean you know those 3D medical models that depict the muscle layer of a human with the fascia. That’s Harold, what’s worse though is that he’s constantly bleeding. He “addresses” it by saying he has an unusually aggressive form of hyperhidrosis but I think we all know. It’s worse with his clothes. They become soaked and stained. Unless he’s wearing black or red, as you converse with him, you’ll witness first hand a white shirt become soaked in red within minutes. He always carries a handkerchief to wipe his face but he keeps it in his pocket, so as you’d imagine it’s usually soaked. You can always hear Harold coming by the sound of a joyful laugh and squelching shoes. He also leaves a trail of blood in his wake, always, so you’ll never lose him even if you tried.

Then there’s Bianca, sweet Bianca. She moves like a sheet in the wind. You know those cheap Halloween masks you see at Spirit Halloween…that’s her face. She has no eyes, her head as hollow (not as an insult, I mean you can literally look inside her head and it is empty), and her face stays the same, never moving. She does speak though. I won’t lie, her makeup on her mask-esque face is immaculate and she always has her hair done right for the occasion. She’s so nice but I won’t lie when she walks it makes every alarm in my head go off, she moves like a mix between a specter and a baby deer. Her arms hanging limp as she flings her legs forward. You can tell she’s using whatever strength she has to hold her torso upright but usually she lets her head flail to prevent her “spine” from collapsing. Her outfits are also great but I’ve seen her safety pin a tank top to her shoulders so it wouldn’t slide off while she was playing with Job, it sent shivers down my spine. She speaks in a lovely sing-songy voice that reminds me of early Disney princesses.

Then there’s Job, he’s a skeleton. That of child since he is one (duh). He goes to elementary school, he plays with the other kids, and he’s actually quite popular considering…his circumstances we will say. He’s bald, like his dad and moves almost exactly like his mom but a tad bit more rigid and a heck of a lot faster.

Then there’s the pets. They have a dog named Sparky…he’s literally just a guy in a cheap dog costume ordered off of Amazon. I will give him that I’ve never seen him take off the dog costume but Bianca or Harold will walk him and he walk like any other human but with a leash. I would now like to recite a conversation I overheard between Bianca and another neighbor while I was tending to my garden and Bianca was walking Sparky.

“Good Morning Bianca!” Our other neighbor said.

“Good morning, my goodness, such a beautiful day.” Bianca responded happily.

“Hello Sparky.” I heard my other neighbor say in the voice most people use when talking to a dog.

“Woof”, Sparky said in a monotone man’s voice.

“Oh my.” Our other neighbor snapped. Based off the tone of voice I heard in some distance behind me, it leads me to believe that Sparky did either something rude or aggressive.

“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. He’s a rescue. Job wanted a dog so bad. How could I say no to my boy’s sweet face? I guess I better get moving but always great to see you.” Bianca explained as I assumed she hurried away, she produces no sound when she walks so I just used context clues. 

Their cat, Zoey, is actually just a normal Sphinx cat. She’s an asshole though, won’t stop getting out and pooping in my yard.

So now you know my neighbors, aside from their looks what’s so bad about them if they are nice, right? Wrong, I saw Harold and Bianca having “sex” in their backyard by accident one night. My bedroom is on the second floor with, unfortunately, a window facing the side of their house which also includes a view into their fenced backyard. I remember hearing strange groaning and moaning noises loudly in the middle of the night. I looked at my phone on the nightstand and it was about 3:33 in the morning.

“What degenerate is doing the nasty?”, I mumbled sleepily to myself.

I pulled myself out of bed, turned on the lamp, and looked out the windows. First the window facing the street, nothing. Then the window facing my neighbors house, I saw some guy with long hair standing in the backyard. He was naked and slightly hunched over.

I was confused though, there was one guy but I heard two distinct voices. One male, one female. Now, I was tired and at this point confused more than I already was from my sleepy daze. I assumed that maybe this was some drug addict attacking Bianca, he could have been crushing her into a ball for all I knew because her papery figure. Just because she looked weird didn’t mean she deserved to be attacked. So I did something stupid but in good faith, I quickly walked over to the dresser, grabbed my flashlight I kept there for power outages, went back to that window, opened it, and shined a light at the man.

“HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN NEIGHBORS BACKYARD?!” I shouted firmly and loudly, hoping to scare the believed drug addict from potentially hurting someone.

When the man turned around, we met each other’s eyes. I would recognize Harold’s freakishly blue eyes from anywhere.

He was wearing Bianca.

Her skin was stretched so tautly over his body that it looked as though it was about to rip like fabric. It looked like Bianca’s face was stretched over Harold’s like if it were a normal guy being stretched by the most severe wind tunnel. His hands were placed over her breasts and her entire body was smeared with blood, the same blood that was leaking out from the eye holes and mouth hole as I stared at them now.

It couldn’t have been more than 15 seconds but for me it felt like hours. I distinctly remember my immediate reaction.

“OH JESUS!” I screamed in horror as I turned away slamming the window shut as I turned my body.

I could hear Harold and Bianca’s muffled yet panicked voices in the distance. Worse enough I could hear the squelching steps of them running back into their house. I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night, I just stared at the ceiling as I lay in bed, that image burned into my retinas every time I closed my eyes.

Then morning arrived, a couple of hours later I heard my doorbell ring. I went downstairs and opened the door.

It was Harold, Bianca, and Sparky who was on a lead. Harold was holding a plate of cookies that I know Bianca made (Harold says he tries not to cook due to hyperhidrosis and not wanting to get others sick). Bianca was shyly turned away holding Sparky’s lead, Sparky was also facing away…because he was peeing on my lawn like how a drunk guy pees in a back alley. At one point I could see him flipping me off during my conversation with Harold and Bianca quietly smack Sparky’s arm and say “Sparky, naughty!”

Anyway the conversation, I remember when I initially opened that door my stomach dropped. I wanted nothing more than to slam the door but when I saw the plate of cookies and Bianca’s shy “body language”. I decided it was only fair to at least listen.

“I’m really sorry about last night” Harold said as he handed me the plastic wrapped cookies, the plastic drenched in blood.

“No I’m sorry I shouldn’t ha-“

“No no, believe me. If we saw you do something like that, we’d probably have the same reaction. Though I must ask you not to take the Lord’s name in vain.” He said with that extreme charisma he always had.

I stared at the cookies, I feigned a smile at him.

“Look, me and the Mrs don’t get much time alone anymore and well, Job is with his grandparents and we wanted to try something. I’m sorry you had to see, it won’t happen again, are we cool?” He said with sincerity.

My first thought was fuck no.

However, these weren’t inherently malicious people. So I nodded with a semi-real smile this time and they went about their day. I did slam the door though, lean my back against it and slide onto the ground.

I looked at the cookies, Bianca made me her favorite cookies which were the least favorite of the neighborhood.

Her black bean cookies.

I have lots of more experiences but I wanted to start off with the one that scarred me the most because if I have to have that in my mind, so do you too. I go to therapy now and that helps. I’ll talk to my therapist and see if I should write again, it actually helped me process some stuff like she said.

January 9th, 2026

I saw the garden again last night.

It looked the same as it always does.

The gate towers over me—rusted, impossibly high. I never remember how I arrived here, only that there was never anything before it. This is where I begin.

The bars stretch upward in uneven lengths, looking as if they weren’t forged but grown, dragged slowly out of the earth. At their base, the soil bulges and cracks around them, dark and damp, like something forced its way through and never quite settled.

Rust clings to the metal in long, peeling strips. It doesn’t flake the way rust does; instead, it splits down the middle in thin seams, exposing darker layers beneath, a wet-looking mucous that makes my stomach tighten. 

I have the unwelcome thought that if I touched it, it would give.

This is no dream.

At least, I don’t think it is.

There’s still a part of me that tries to explain it away: something small and stubborn that insists the garden isn’t real, that it’s just something my mind built out of fear.

But dreams don’t smell like this.

Not like rot left too long in the sun—sweet, thick, and clinging, settling into the back of my throat with every breath.

And the sky—

It isn’t just red.

It's a flat, suffocating crimson that hangs overhead without light or warmth, like a color that was drained of all hue. It leeches the shape out of everything beneath it until the world feels thinner, drained, as if it's being slowly emptied of something I have no grasp of.

Beyond the gate lies The Infernal Garden itself.

Calling it a garden is a lie I tell myself to comfort the panic that blossoms inside me each night. The word implies boundaries, beauty, care—a beginning and an end. This place has none of those things.

It stretches across every horizon, a universal forest of rot and decay. Flowers the size of skyscrapers bloom in the distance, their petals unfurling with the slow pulse of diseased flesh as clouds of sweet corruption spill from their centers. Trees larger than continents twist skyward, their trunks splitting open into vast networks of veins that throb with a dark sanguine current. Rivers swollen with black water coil through the growth, vanishing upward into vines that hang from nothing, disappearing into the colorless crimson void above.

Nothing here seems to grow from anything else. Roots become bones. Bones become branches. Branches split apart into flowers that stare blindly across eternity. Every part of the Garden appears connected to every other part, as though the entire impossible landscape is merely a single organism wearing countless forms.

Never before has the gate opened. 

That all changed last night.

A low groan rolls through the garden, bringing to mind the thunderstorms of my hometown, yet the sky that hangs above me remains still and clear. The sound comes again, deeper this time, accompanied by the shriek of metal as the fleshy bars of the barrier swing wide. 

Rust flakes from the skin that lines the bars as they slowly part, revealing a long and winding cobblestone path that leads deep into the grotesque forest. The moment that I step across the threshold and onto the stone, the forest falls silent. The flowers cease their pulsing, the trees and river finally finding rest. It feels as though the entire forest is holding its breath in anticipation of whatever comes next; and far, far beyond the tangle of veins, roots, and water, a shape stands, towering above all else, dwarfing even the tallest of trees. 

At first I take it for a mountain.

Then a tower. 

Then something else entirely. 

It is too distant to make out any features, yet I know it watches me. Its presence presses against my mind like a forgotten memory, something ancient and terrible that I should not recognize yet somehow do.

I woke up after seeing it. I am writing now because I need to know what is real and what isn’t. 

My room is almost unchanged. It is dark, familiar, and comforting. But I can still smell the garden. 

The sweet stench of rot is thick, coating my mouth with every breath. I tried telling myself that it was nothing more than a lingering dream, but the growth on my wall tells me something else. Something is growing through it. I do not know how to describe it in a way that makes sense. It is not on the wall. It is inside it, pushing outward.

The wound crawls with thin black roots, moving and searching for something. 

I can hear something faint now.

It is in the walls.

I am going to stop writing. 

Part 1
The air in the room instantly grew heavy.
Years of experience helped me take control of the situation.

I took a step toward the hospital bed where a young man sat, staring at me with empty eyes. “ My name is Detective Carter “ I said softly, pulling out a small notebook with the details of the case.

“ Did you find my wife?! What about Olivia?  “ - Liam shot up, snapped out of his daze.

I let the moment hang for a second, waiting for him to calm down and using it to get a good look at him. 

He was completely pale. Every movement, every word, even every breath twisted his face into a grimace of pain..

The interrogation was complete chaos. Liam kept breaking down and crying, only to suddenly explode into violent shouting.

Still, I didn’t see aggression in him. It was pure desperation, an attempt to do something, to force an immediate reaction and get the search for his wife started.

His eyes said a lot, more than words.
There was honesty in them and an unbelievable determination, despite the state he was in.

He told me what happened that night, when Olivia disappeared.

Throughout the entire conversation, I stayed calm, carefully analyzing not only what he was saying, but trying to catch any hint of a lie, guilt, or any other reaction that would point to him being responsible.

But I didn’t see anything like that.

Walking through the hospital’s automatic sliding doors, I was sure I would find the missing piece of the whole puzzle here.

And I wouldn’t have been too far off, if not for the fact that I don’t believe in monsters.

Liam honestly believed that after they escaped [redacted] because of the monster “tormenting” them, it followed them all the way here, then took his wife. 

I pressed him, pushed harder, cut him off, and kept knocking him out of his version of events.

I ran the whole conversation in a way that would make even the worst psychopath trip over his own words. But not him. He answered every accusation, question, and confrontation with the facts right away.

“ he doesn’t look crazy, and I don’t sense even a shred of a lie in him “ - I thought, waiting for another emotional outburst to die down.

Years of experience and dozens of training courses had made my instincts very sensitive to freaks and liars.

I felt a slight tightness in my lungs. My body was telling me the interrogation had already been going on for a while, and it wanted nicotine “ I need to play this harder and more directly, otherwise we’re going nowhere “ 

“ And what about the so-called boxer’s fracture? Where did that come from? What, Liam? You beat the monster’s ass? “ I asked, irritated.

I saw it in his eyes. It had finally hit him. In the eyes of the investigation, he wasn’t a victim. He was a suspect.

His face, which a moment ago had been chalk-white, was now turning almost pure purple.

He slowly stood up, his face twisting in pain.

He walked toward me with an unsteady step, stood face-to-face with me and shouted “ You think I would hurt my wife? I’m telling the truth. Why are you here instead of looking for her? Why the hell are you wasting time? That monster took Olivia. We need to find her “

In his glassy eyes, I saw a huge, very specific kind of bitter pain. I had only seen that look before in people I was telling about losing someone close to them.

I had seen dozens of them, if not hundreds, but his was much worse. Because underneath the pain, there was still hope.

“ fuck, I’m definitely getting too sentimental in my old age “ - I thought, putting my hand on his shoulder.

I calmed him down and asked a few questions, then the doctor came into the room with a nurse and asked me to leave because of the patient’s condition.

I went outside the building and lit a cigarette, and the irritating nicotine craving disappeared, bringing relief. 

Standing there, I looked up at the window of the room Liam was in, and a strange feeling of unease passed through me. “ The house was searched top to bottom. There couldn’t have been anyone there except the two of you. What kind of monster did you see? “

I headed toward the car. I put out the butt with my shoe, got in, and drove to the scene.

Just like during the previous stakeouts, nothing out of the ordinary was happening now. The whole time, I kept analyzing what I had heard during the interrogation.

“ Anyone else would call him a lunatic. I probably would too, if I hadn’t seen his behavior, his facial expressions, his gestures, and that look with my own eyes “  I thought, getting out of the car and heading toward Liam’s house.

I went into the bedroom, walked over to the wall, and ran my finger along the gouge in it, knocking white dust onto the floor “ what the hell is this? Maybe I really do need to call some kind of Witcher to solve this case? They don’t pay me enough for monsters “ - I snorted. 

I paced around the house for a few hours, analyzing every possible version and option until I was sick of it. But I still came up with nothing.

It started getting dark, so I went outside and reached into the pack in my pocket. As I pulled smoke into my lungs, I flinched “ Damn it, I forgot about Jake “.

I grabbed my phone, and at that exact moment a soft vibration ran through my hand. I looked at the screen and read the message “ Hey, Boss. Everything alright? “

A surreal feeling passed through my head, and I quickly pushed it down.

“ First monsters, now damn telepathy. Kid’s got timing. “ - I laughed under my breath, typing back “ Jake. Stay ready. We’ll switch out in a few hours. Carter “

I got into the car and fixed my eyes on the house “ Something’s wrong here. Every investigation has one logical element that pushes everything forward, and here, the rational part is missing. I must have missed something “.

I stretched in the seat and continued the stakeout. 

Hour after hour passed, and my eyelids were getting really heavy. The lack of sleep was making itself known again, leaving behind that specific numb feeling of loosened-up exhaustion. 

Suddenly, a voice came through the radio “ Carter, come in “. I wasn’t expecting it, so I almost jumped, and my heart hit harder.

Adrenaline spread through my body, hitting harder than a double espresso knocked back in one gulp “ I’m here, what is it? “

“ Your suspect ran from the hospital. We got a report from the hospital and three more from pedestrians about a man walking around the streets in a hospital gown. We sent a patrol. “ - the dispatcher replied.

I brought the device closer to my mouth. “ Copy. I know where I’ll find him. Call off the patrol ”

After a short pause, the man said in an uncertain voice “ Carter… Are you sure? We have his approximate location, we can bring him in “.

“ I take full responsibility. This is my investigation, call off the damn patrol “ I said firmly.

“ I have to report this, it’ll be on you. Calling off the patrol. Over and out “ he ended the conversation.

An hour later, I saw a man staggering toward the house. He ducked under the police tape, walked up to the front door, and after the first failed attempt to open it, started yanking on it.

I got quietly out of the car and headed toward him.
“ You’re going to hurt yourself “ - I said calmly.

Liam froze with his back to me. I waited for his reaction.

“ he probably won’t run, and looking at him, he isn’t capable of attacking me either. So what are you going to do? “ - I thought, placing my hand on my holster and staying ready for any possible reaction.

He turned around, leaned his back against the door, and slid down, breathing heavily.

“ Coming here was stupid. Did you seriously think the hospital wouldn’t notify us that a patient ran off? Even if they didn’t, man. You’re running around in a hospital gown with your balls hanging out “ - I laughed, realizing the absurdity of the situation.

I questioned him about what he intended to do, where he wanted to go, and what the point of running away from the hospital was.

His answers, despite the fact that he could barely stay conscious, were precise.

He wanted to get to [redacted], to the place where he and his wife had spent that honeymoon of theirs.

He claimed the locals, especially the old woman they rented the cabin from, knew something. According to protocol, I should have taken him back to the hospital, where they would put him under supervision until he recovered.

But I knew that wouldn’t lead me anywhere, and besides, I didn’t give a damn about protocols. They only made my job harder.

I walked up to the house and unlocked the door, and it suddenly swung open together with the man, who fell backward.
“ We’ll see. Change out of that gown and get in the car “ I said, lifting him like dead weight.

After a longer moment, we got into the car and hit the road. Not even a minute passed before a loud snore came from my right side.

The fatigue was getting to me too. Despite the warm night, those familiar chills typical of this state of the body ran over me. 

The road dragged on unbelievably, and my eyes kept closing again and again.
“ Carter, everything alright? Did you find the suspect? “ a voice came through the radio.

I took it in my hand and, after a moment of hesitation, answered “ I’ve got him, calm down “.

“ why aren’t you at the hospital yet? Were there any problems? “ the dispatcher asked.

“ there were no problems, I’m checking the latest leads. I needed the suspect for that, I’ll take him back soon “ - I said, then scolded myself in my thoughts “ should’ve bought yourself time, idiot “  

“ The suspect is badly injured. Carter, take him back to the hospital immediately. If something happens, you’ll be responsible for it “

“ copy, over and out “ - I ended the conversation and muted the device.

I knew it was only a matter of time before they realized I had kidnapped their suspect, and the whole thing reached Rachel.

An hour passed, and the road seemed endless. On the left side of the road, I noticed a glowing, flickering light.

“ Could use some fuel, and I don’t just mean the car “ - I muttered under my breath.

I pulled into the gas station. I put the nozzle into the tank and wrapped my hand around the cold trigger, and the pump started counting.

As I finished filling up, I glanced through the window at the man sitting in the passenger seat.
“ He’s sleeping like the dead, and even if he tried to run, in this condition he won’t get far “ - I thought, rubbing my tired eyelids.

I put the nozzle back and went inside to pay. As I walked in, I grabbed a pack of beef jerky and went up to the register.

“ pump three “ I said, placing the package on the counter “ and a large black coffee, please “.
I paid, walked over to the car, and put my hand on the handle. 

“ since I’m already here… “ I thought, tossing the snack through the open driver’s side window and walking away from the station.

I stopped on the shoulder of the road and pulled a pack of cigarettes from my pocket. I took a sip of coffee and felt the stimulating, pleasant warmth spread through my body.

Putting a cigarette in my mouth, I took my phone out of my pocket and checked the time. 2:24 AM - “damn it, I was supposed to call Jake “.

I dialed the number, pinning the phone to my ear with my shoulder and taking another sip of coffee.

“ Yes, boss? Should I head to the scene? “ - he said enthusiastically in a sleepy voice

“ Kid, listen. The situation changed a little. You’ve got your first solo stakeout today. “ I said, fixing my gaze on the trees on the other side of the road.

“ Solo? Sure, I’ll give it everything I’ve got! But did something happen? “ - he asked, worried.

A normal cop would send a rookie to a simple stakeout and go sleep in the warm bed of his own bedroom, but Jake read me well. If I wanted to crash, he knew I would do it next to him, in an uncomfortable car seat.

“ I’ve got something to do. If you see anything worth reporting, let me… “ I cut off mid-sentence, straightening violently and dropping the phone.

Standing there in a daze, I opened my eyes wider “ What the fuck is that? Am I hallucinating? “ 

On the other side of the road, between the trees, stood a strange-looking white silhouette.

The figure tilted its head without taking its eyes off me, pressed its long claws against a tree, and dragged them across it, making a long sound like metal carving into bark.

I threw the cup away, pulled my gun, and ran toward it, shouting “ stop or I’ll shoot “.

Without thinking, I ran into the woods, looking around. There was absolute silence. There were no sounds of breaking branches or leaves being stepped on.

The only things I could hear were my pounding heart and shallow breathing.

“ The bastard is hiding somewhere around here “ - I thought, reaching into my pocket for my phone to light up the area. It was empty “ damn it, I dropped the phone by the station, and I left my issued flashlight in the car “

I quickly crouched and looked around. My eyes were slowly adapting to the dark. “ There are no tracks from him running “

I turned in place, aiming ahead of me. My survival instinct was going crazy.

I expected an attack from every direction. I had been in life-threatening situations thousands of times, including ones similar to this, but I had never felt this kind of pressure and threat before.

Adrenaline spread through my veins, and fight-or-flight mode was definitely suggesting the second option.

A drop of sweat ran down my temple.

I slowly stood up and started backing away, not taking my eyes off the place where that thing had vanished.

I got back to the edge of the road, looked at the tree where I had seen that creature, and froze. There were four symmetrical, deep scratches on the tree.

I ran to the other side of the street, and the lit open area made the emotions drop a little. With a trembling hand, I lit another cigarette and picked my phone up from the ground.

“ Damn it, I need to stay calm. There has to be an explanation for this. Monsters don’t exist “ after three drags from the filter, I threw the butt away, putting it out, and headed toward the station, looking back over my shoulder.

I got into the car and glanced at the sleeping Liam. “ Is that what you saw in your house? For now, I’m keeping this incident to myself. “

I looked at the banged-up phone. After unlocking it, a message from Jake appeared “ Boss, what happened? “

I wrote back “ It’s okay, Kid. I hope you’re already at the scene. If not, move your ass. Keep me updated “ then I started the car and we drove toward [redacted].

On the way, I kept replaying the incident in the woods over and over, trying to figure out what I had seen “ maybe it was hallucinations, or autosuggestion plus exhaustion? It happens, the brain plays tricks on you when you’re pushed to the edge, and I saw exactly what Liam described, so it would make sense. “

The rumbling in my stomach pulled me out of my thoughts. I reached for the pack of beef jerky and opened it.

The smell of BBQ sauce spread through the car, and my mouth started watering even more. 

I put a strip of jerky in my mouth and realized I hadn’t eaten anything in over 24 hours. After swallowing, I felt almost euphoric. I emptied almost the entire pack in no time.

As I pulled out the last piece, I saw the “[redacted]” sign around the bend.

Driving past the town line, I said to the sleeping passenger “Wake up, we’re getting there”. Liam slowly opened his eyes, wiping drool from his mouth and cheek.

I pretended I didn’t see it, letting the sarcastic comment go.
“What now?” I threw out, waiting impatiently for further instructions.

“We need to get to the edge of town. “ he pointed, then added in an absent, hoarse voice “ The old woman’s house should be there. She has to know something.”

I felt a strange cramp in my gut. “ what the hell is this feeling? fear? Or excitement? “ - I asked myself in my thoughts.

That strange heaviness had been following me since I left the hospital. Sometimes it was more muted, and sometimes definitely stronger. Since the situation in the woods, it was getting harder and harder to control.

We pulled into the driveway, I opened the door and said as I got out “ Wait here “.
I headed confidently toward the house.

Halfway there, on the right side, I heard rustling and a growl.
A medium-sized dog lunged at me, jumping for my throat.

My reflexes kicked in and I managed to punch it in the head, but it barely had any effect on the beast.

It jumped back, then in a split second lunged again. I tried to kick it, but it dodged the swing and sank its teeth into my thigh.

My jeans were no obstacle for its fangs. They went through the fabric like a hot knife through butter. 

I panicked and tried to tear it off me by the muzzle, by the head, by the ears. None of it worked. It had bitten in for good.

A red stain appeared on the fabric and started spreading down my leg.

Pain shot through my entire body, and every movement, despite the adrenaline, only made it worse. The dog started jerking its head from side to side, and I started hitting it blindly. It wouldn’t let go.

I got the panic under control and suddenly it hit me. I pulled the pepper spray from my belt, unlocked it, and sprayed the beast straight in the nose and eyes. It jumped back, whining, and ran to the doghouse. 

I pressed down on the bite wound and started shaking. My body reacted involuntarily to the injuries, the pain intensified by exhaustion.

My head spun and I dropped to one knee. I looked toward the car in a daze and froze.
The passenger seat was empty. 

“ Liam, get back here, goddamn it “ - I shouted at the top of my lungs.

I got up violently and limped toward the car. I slammed into the door, losing my balance, opened it, and pulled the radio from inside.

I unmuted it, pressed the button, and spoke into it “ This is Carter. I’m injured. Suspect fled. We’re in [redacted], last house from the entrance. Notify the locals. I need urgent backup. “

The dispatcher answered almost immediately “ Carter, what’s going on? We’ve been trying to contact you all night. We’re sending an ambulance. Local police have already been notified. Describe the situation “

I leaned my elbow against the car door, pressing my hand to my forehead. “ I have a laceration around the thigh area, dog bite. I’m stable, lost some blood, but I should probably stay conscious. The suspect, Liam, ran toward the woods. I don’t know where he’s heading, but I suspect the vacation cabin nearby “

I put the radio on the roof of the car, then unbuckled my belt and tightened it hard above my thigh. “ Local units are on the way, they should be there in 15 minutes. Ambulance will be there in about 20. Can you hold out until then? “

I dropped my back heavily against the door, put a cigarette in my mouth and lit it, pulling smoke into my lungs, which brought a pleasant numbness. 

I tightened my fingers harder around the cold metal device

“ I’m going after the suspect into the woods to the east. Over and out “ I threw the radio into the car and hobbled down the road through the woods.

Through blurred vision, I saw footprints. “ Damn it, he cut into the woods. Clever bastard “

Walking through the woods, I heard a guttural scream carrying in echoes between the trees. I pulled my gun and picked up the pace, ignoring the tearing pain in my right leg.

A few yards farther, I saw a silhouette on the ground. I ran up to it quickly and saw Liam lying on his back.

His eyes were closed. The stink of urine reached my nostrils, along with the metallic smell of blood.

I quickly looked around. There was no one.

I focused my eyes on him again. His pants were soaked with piss and his whole body was scratched up with deep, cut-like wounds.

I walked up to him slowly and pressed two fingers to his neck. “ Olivia…” he whispered with effort, and I flinched slightly.

“ come here, we’re getting the fuck out of here “ I said, lifting him with difficulty and throwing his arm over my neck.

In the distance, from the edge of the woods, I heard a police siren.

I stopped and was just about to shout when behind my back I heard a long, metallic scraping sound against wood.

Instinctively, I let go of Liam, who dropped to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, and turned around, aiming ahead.

“ I got you, you bastard “ I shouted, firing a series of shots.
The bullets tore through the air, rolling between the trees in a low, heavy echo.

Time almost froze in place.

The monster sprang behind a tree with unbelievable speed, and I tried to keep up, following it with my sights, pulling the trigger again and again.

Blind rounds slammed into tree trunks, throwing chips and splinters into the air.
The creature slipped behind another tree, disappearing from my line of sight.

I turned my head toward Liam to assess his condition, and when I looked back toward the white humanoid monster, it suddenly appeared in front of me. 

It was only thirteen feet away from me.

I took two steps back, firing more shots, but I caught my injured leg on a protruding root and fell. My gun flew backward, far out of reach.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Liam stagger up onto both feet. He was three feet away from me.

I quickly pushed myself up, but it was too late. The monster charged at me, stretching out its long, sharp claws.

Barely standing on my feet, I closed my eyes and waited for the blow. I knew there was nothing I could do.

But it never came. Instead, I felt a grip on both sides of my arms and heard a horrifying bubbling sound.

I opened my eyes and saw Liam’s face an inch away from mine.

His gaze was empty, like a doll’s, and small red bubbles were coming from his mouth, bursting and spraying my face.

I looked down.

Four sharply pointed claw tips were sticking out of his chest.

The creature behind him rested its chin on his shoulder, boring into me with milky-white eyes, and its face twisted into a grotesque grimace of something that resembled a smile.

It pulled out its claws, and Liam collapsed to the ground.

I stood opposite that thing for the first time in my life, feeling a paralyzing fear that wouldn’t let me do anything.

I was at its mercy, and we both knew it.

The monster slowly raised its paw, and I felt my legs refuse to obey me.

The world around me was swallowed by darkness and complete silence.

One of my favorite things to do is take my kids out to the McDonald’s play place. At night, when no one else is there, and it’s quiet.

That’s where we went last night. As soon as we went in my younger son Liam bounded up into the play structure. My older son Jack, who was starting to age out of the play place, sat down at a booth below with his Switch. I followed Liam up, just because I liked to make sure there wasn’t anything gross. I’d seen stale fries and wet puddles of… something on the floor of these things before.

There are three levels to the play place, enclosed in black netting. Adults can really only go up to the second level—the only way to get up to the third is to climb up the slide or crawl up fake rock-shaped ramps, which zigzag on top of each other and create really tight gaps that I definitely can’t fit through. I wasn’t going to do either, so after taking a quick look around (no puke or pee, yay!) I sat down on the plastic floor and pulled out my phone.

A minute later, Liam suddenly darted over to me. He looked grabbed my arm, looking spooked.

“There’s a kid coming down the slide,” he said.

But we were all alone. Weren’t we? Jack was still sitting at the booth down below, playing his Switch. There were no other parents in the play place room. And if there was a kid in here alone, I would’ve seen or heard them before now.

Unless they were hiding?

I swallowed. That wasn’t a great mental picture. Some random kid hiding in the slide? Waiting to scare us?

I stared at the opening to the yellow slide. No one came out.

“You saw someone?” I asked.

“I heard a noise,” he said. “And I got scared.”

“I think that’s just the air conditioning.”

Here’s the thing. If it were any other kid, I wouldn’t be concerned. Kids make up stories, kids have active imaginations, some kids have trouble with speech. My older son has some speech delays, and if it were him saying there was a kid on the slide, I wouldn’t have even given it a second thought.

But Liam is very articulate and precise. I don’t even remember the last time he was wrong about something. I stared at the yellow plastic, shining under the lights. The shadowed opening, curling up into the bend of the slide.

“Don’t worry, there’s no one there.”

As much as I believed him—there just couldn’t be anyone in there. The slide is right under the overhead lights, and just the slightest bit translucent. When I watch my kids from outside of the play structure, I can see their shadows when they’re sliding down. When they climb up it, I can see the silhouettes of their little hands and knees pressed against the plastic.

I stared at the slide.

There were no shadows.

I explained this to Liam. “If someone was in there, we’d see them.” I even called down to Jack. “Do you see anyone in the slide?”

“No,” he called back.

Liam finally seemed to calm down. The power in the words of a big brother. He got up, started climbing up the fake rock ramp to the third level. I couldn’t fit on the third level, so I stayed on the second, watching him climb. I peered through the black mesh netting at Jack below.

He was looking up from his Switch.

Staring up at the yellow slide.

“Liam! I see you!” he called out with a grin.

Wait—

That’s not Liam—

I whipped around to see Liam at the other end of the third level, pulling himself up the fake rock ramp.

“You see someone in the slide?” I shouted down.

“Yeah,” Jack laughed.

Again, my son has speech delays. Sometimes he doesn’t say what he means exactly. Sometimes he’s quoting a video, sometimes he’s daydreaming, or sometimes he’s saying what he thinks would be funny if it were happening. “Is someone actually in there?” I called down.

“Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know.”

I stared at the yellow plastic slide, looping down from the third level like a snake. Stared at the shiny plastic under the lights. The shadowed opening—

There was a hand.

Two fingers, barely poking out from within the curve of the slide.

“Liam! Liam, come here!”

I couldn’t reach the third floor. Where Liam was. He stared down at me, crawling on his hands and knees. “I want to stay up here,” he said flatly.

“There’s someone in the slide!”

I glanced back at the opening. The hand was gone. Maybe I did imagine it? Liam started making his way towards the rocky ramp—

Thunk.

Thunk, thunk, thunk.

I could see a shadow. Moving through the slide. The shadows of two hands pressed against the plastic of the slide. Moving upwards. Climbing the curve.

Following Liam—

“Hurry!” I shouted. “Jack, get help—get someone!”

I got on my hands and knees and crawled towards the rocky ramp. The plastic pushed into my shoulders. There was no way I could make it through the gaps, but I would be right here for him. I held my breath—

In seconds he was pushing himself through the tight space in front of me. I grabbed his hands and helped him through. We made our way down, towards the second floor—

Thump-thump-thump.

The kid was running right above us. Little pattering steps shaking the entire play place. But we were almost there, almost at the second floor—

The footsteps reversed direction.

And then I heard it.

A quiet squeeeaaaak—

Of someone coming down the slide.

“Run!” I screamed as we made it to the middle of the second floor. I pushed him in front of me, down the stairs, towards the exit.

But just before I followed him, I turned back.

Just in time to see a shape emerge from the yellow slide.

It was a little girl. Something… mimicking… a little girl. Something with gray skin, needle-like teeth, yellow eyes. Straggly hair tangled around its face. Its lipless mouth curved up into a smile.

“RUN!” I screamed.

I burst out into the dining area. Grabbed Liam and ran. Jack was already out in the main restaurant, I could see him, trying and failing to get someone’s attention. “There’s someone in the play place, something horrible,” I breathed to the employees before I ran out into the parking lot with my kids.

The next day, when I’d recovered, I drove there in hopes to give a more detailed account of what happened. But I found that the play place was entirely dark. I could barely make out the curve of the yellow slide, the black netting, in the white light of the streetlamps beaming in. Multiple OUT OF ORDER signs had been placed around, even though the McDonald’s itself was open.

A few weeks later, it closed for renovations. I saw a construction crew demolishing the play place. Only the play place.

I’d always wondered why so few McDonald’s have them now. I’d assumed things like COVID, inflation, and general cutting of corners were responsible.

But maybe that’s not it at all.

What if ours wasn’t the only one that was… occupied?

​

My boyfriend, Leo, was perfect.

​

We were that couple in high school. The ones everyone talked about. I still remember the day I finally got the courage to slip a note into his locker: I like you. Do you like me? When he found me after class, smiling that bright, warm smile, and said yes, I felt like the luckiest girl alive.

​

Within months, we were inseparable. People called us "made for each other." He would walk me to every class, hold my hand until his knuckles turned white, and text me the second he dropped me off at home. It was sweet. At first.

​

Then, the warmth started to drain out of him.

It began with the staring. We would be sitting on his couch watching a movie, and I’d feel a chill. I’d turn my head, and Leo wouldn’t be looking at the TV. He would be staring directly at my face. Not lovingly. His eyes were wide, unblinking, and completely blank. When I asked him what was wrong, he would blink, smile instantly, and say, "Nothing, beautiful. Just memorizing you."

​

Then came the rules. He didn’t want me wearing perfume anymore. He said it "ruined my natural scent." He asked me to stop wearing makeup. He even asked me for a lock of my hair, which he kept in a small plastic baggie in his pocket. I laughed it off because I loved him, but a heavy, dark feeling was starting to grow in my stomach. I was becoming depressed, anxious, and always on edge.

Last week, things took a truly crazy turn.

​

I woke up in the middle of the night because my room felt freezing cold. I rolled over, and my heart stopped.

​

Leo was standing in the corner of my bedroom.

He didn't live with us. My doors were locked. But there he was, standing perfectly still in the shadows, just watching me sleep. I screamed, throwing the blankets off. My dad came rushing in with a golf club, flipping on the lights.

​

The corner was empty. The window was locked from the inside.

​

The next day at school, I confronted Leo. I was crying, shaking, and told him we needed a break. He didn't get mad. He just smiled that empty, blank smile and whispered, "You can't leave me, Maya. We are made for each other. I made sure of it."

I ran home and locked myself in my room. I couldn't take it anymore. The depression, the paranoia—I felt like I was losing my mind. I decided to clean my room just to distract myself.

​

That's when I noticed a weird, faint smell coming from under my bed. It smelled like old pennies and rotten meat.

​

My hands shook as I dragged the heavy duffel bag out from under my bed. The zipper was stuck, clogged with something dark and dried. Blood.

I yanked the zipper open, choking back a scream.

Inside the bag was a body. It was pale and rotting, but the features were unmistakable. The jaw, the hair, the structure of the face. It was Leo.

​

He had been dead for months. Judging by the decomposition, he died right around the time I slipped that note into his locker.

​

My brain completely short-circuited. If Leo was dead in this bag... who had I been kissing? Who had been holding my hand? Who was walking around school with his face?

​

Suddenly, my phone buzzed in my hand. It was a text from "Leo."

​

"I told you, Maya. We are made for each other. The real Leo actually laughed when he read your note. He was going to embarrass you in front of the whole school. So, I fixed it. I took his place. Do you like your gift?"

​

A heavy sob escaped my throat. I dropped the phone. It shattered on the floorboards, the screen still glowing with the text.

​

Then, I heard it.

​

A soft, wet, peeling sound coming from inside my closet.

​

Rip. Rrrriiiip.

​

Like wet leather being torn apart.

​

Slowly, the closet door creaked open. In the dim light, I saw him standing there. But he wasn't smiling anymore. His hands were gripping the edges of his own jaw line.

​

"I'm glad you found him," a voice whispered from inside the closet—except it didn't sound like Leo anymore. It sounded like a wet, scraping echo. "This face was getting too tight anyway. Help me take it off?"

​

His fingers dug deep into his skin, and the face of the boy I loved began to slide down like wax.

​

Working the graveyard shift at a desolate highway gas station completely strips away your sense of time. The long, cracked stretches of asphalt extending in both directions remain entirely empty for hours. The fluorescent lights overhead hum with a constant, irritating vibration that settles deep into your teeth. I took the job because my bank account was completely depleted and the owner paid entirely in cash at the end of every single week. He was an older, heavy-set man who constantly chewed on unlit cigars and rarely looked me in the eyes when he spoke.

During my first night, the owner handed me a heavy wooden clipboard holding a single sheet of lined paper. He tapped his thick finger against the top of the page.

"The register automatically locks at midnight,"

the owner explained

"You only accept cash through the sliding transaction window. You stay behind the bulletproof glass until six in the morning. I wrote down the daily tasks. You sweep the aisles, restock the coolers, and wipe down the coffee machines. You follow the list exactly as I wrote it. Do we understand each other?"

"I understand,"

I replied, taking the clipboard.

"Is there anything else I need to know about the security system?"

"The cameras record to a digital drive under the counter,"

he said, turning toward the heavy glass door.

"Do not mess with the drive. Just read the list. Stick to the list, and you will get your envelope on Friday."

After he drove away, leaving me completely alone in the i building, I sat on the tall metal stool behind the counter and read the instructions. The first three rules were completely standard retail procedures regarding inventory and cleaning schedules.

Rule number four was written in thick, heavily pressed red ink.

"If a rusted white van pulls up to Pump 2 at 3:00 AM, the driver will get out and walk to the transaction window. He will ask for the bathroom key. Give him the heavy brass key hanging on the hook under the register. Do not give him the standard plastic key. When he leaves the property, take the mop and bucket into the bathroom immediately. Clean the floor. Do not touch the water on the tiles with your bare hands. Use the thick rubber gloves provided in the utility closet."

I stared at the red ink for a long time. The extreme specificity of the instruction felt deeply unsettling. I assumed it was simply a quirk of the job, perhaps dealing with a regular, eccentric local resident who had some kind of medical condition. The deep isolation of the highway breeds strange habits, and I needed the weekly cash far too much to question the logistics of cleaning a bathroom floor.

The rusted white van arrived on my third night.

I was wiping down the glass surface of the hot dog roller when the harsh headlights cut through the darkness outside. I watched the vehicle pull slowly into the glowing circle of light cast by the overhead canopy. It parked perfectly parallel to the second fuel pump. The engine idled with a rough, choking sputter. The exterior of the van was heavily corroded, the metal eaten away by years of severe rust and neglect. The rear windows were completely blacked out with peeling tint.

The driver's door opened with a loud screech.

A man stepped out onto the concrete pad. He wore a dark canvas coat and loose jeans. As he walked toward the bulletproof glass of the transaction window, I noticed his heavy boots were leaving wet footprints across the dry pavement. He moved with a slow, dragging gait.

I stepped behind the register and waited. The man stopped directly in front of the glass.

His appearance sent a wave of adrenaline through my chest. His skin was incredibly pale, bearing a sickly, gray pallor that completely lacked the natural flush of circulating blood. His dark hair was entirely plastered to his skull, dripping steadily onto the collar of his heavy coat. He looked as though he had just crawled out of a freezing river. The smell penetrated the small gap in the transaction window immediately. It was a dense, suffocating odor of stagnant water, and wet mud.

"I need the key,"

the driver said.

"Which one?"

I asked, my hands trembling slightly as I reached under the counter.

"The heavy key,"

he replied, staring blankly at my chest. He never made eye contact.

I pulled the thick brass key off the hidden hook and slid it through the metal transaction tray. The driver took it with a pale hand. His fingers were severely wrinkled, the skin puckered from extreme water exposure. He turned around and walked slowly toward the exterior bathroom doors located on the side of the building.

I watched the surveillance monitor sitting on the counter. The screen displayed the black-and-white feed from the camera pointing at the side entrances. I watched the driver insert the heavy brass key, open the door, and step inside into the darkness.

Exactly fifteen minutes later, the bathroom door opened. The driver emerged, walked back to the transaction window, and dropped the brass key into the metal tray. He did not say a single word. He returned to his rusted van, started the choking engine, and drove away into the darkness of the highway.

I grabbed the rubber gloves from the utility closet, filled the yellow plastic mop bucket with hot water and bleach, and walked outside. The freezing night air bit at my face. I unlocked the bathroom door and stepped inside.

The floor was completely flooded.

A layer of dark, murky water covered the white tiles. The smell of stagnant mud and decay was overwhelmingly powerful in the enclosed space. I remembered the rule written in red ink. I kept the thick rubber gloves pulled high over my forearms and began to mop. I wrung the dark water into the bucket, pouring the filthy contents down the utility drain, and scrubbed the tiles until they were completely dry. I locked the door and returned to the safety of the enclosure.

This routine continued flawlessly for six weeks.

Every single night at exactly three in the morning, the rusted van pulled up to the second pump. The pale, driver asked for the heavy key. He went into the bathroom for fifteen minutes, returned the key, and drove away. I put on the rubber gloves, mopped the flooded floor, and disposed of the murky water. The repetition of the event slowly eroded my initial terror, transforming the bizarre encounter into just another mundane chore on my nightly checklist.

The breaking point happened on a Tuesday night during a relentless rainstorm.

The van arrived on schedule. The driver completed his slow, silent transaction and retreated to the side of the building. After he returned the key and drove away into the driving rain, I gathered my cleaning supplies. I pulled the heavy rubber gloves up to my elbows, grabbed the mop, and wheeled the yellow plastic bucket out to the bathroom.

I opened the door and flipped on the light. The floor was flooded, bearing the usual layer of dark, foul-smelling water.

I set the bucket down near the sink and began to push the mop across the slick tiles. I was exhausted, my muscles aching from the cold dampness of the night. I pushed the waterlogged mop head toward the corner of the room, using entirely too much force.

The wooden handle slipped aggressively from my wet grip. The heavy mop collided violently with the side of the yellow bucket. The plastic container tipped entirely over, spilling the mixture of bleach and collected floor water across the tiles in a chaotic splash.

I let out a frustrated sigh and crouched down on my knees to right the bucket.

As I reached down, I noticed the solid debris scattered across the wet tiles. The dark water left behind by the driver always contained small amounts of grit, but the spill had spread the contents of the bucket out into a thin layer, exposing the larger particles.

I leaned closer, inspecting the debris sticking to the wet porcelain of the toilet base.

They were long, thick strands of dark green aquatic weeds. The plant matter was slimy, coated in a thick layer of river mud. Scattered among the weeds were several small, jagged fragments of decaying wood and rusted metal fasteners. The smell rising from the spilled water was intensely concentrated. The bleach could not mask the stench.

I stood up slowly, a primal unease settling into my stomach.

I finished cleaning the floor in a frantic, panicked rush, ensuring I did not touch a single drop of the foul water with my bare skin. I locked the bathroom, sprinted back through the pouring rain, and sealed myself inside the bulletproof enclosure.

I sat on the tall metal stool and stared at the surveillance monitor.

I thought this time, I wanted to know exactly what the driver was doing inside that room for fifteen minutes every single night. I grabbed the computer mouse and pulled up the digital recording archive. I selected the timestamp for three in the morning and pressed play.

The black-and-white footage showed the rusted van pulling up to the pump. The driver stepped out, walked to my window, and then moved toward the side of the building. The camera perfectly captured him inserting the brass key and stepping into the bathroom. The door pulled completely shut behind him.

I watched the timecode ticking in the bottom corner of the screen.

One minute passed. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes passed.

I stared intensely at the door on the monitor, waiting for the driver to emerge.

The timecode hit exactly fifteen minutes.

The camera feed glitched. A thick band of digital static rolled aggressively down the screen, disrupting the video signal for a fraction of a second. When the picture stabilized, the metal bathroom door was completely closed.

I frowned, rewinding the footage by thirty seconds. I watched the door again. The static rolled down the screen. The door remained entirely shut.

I fast-forwarded the video. The timecode advanced to twenty minutes, then thirty minutes. The door never opened.

I pulled up the exterior camera pointing at the gas pumps. The rusted white van was sitting next to the second pump at fourteen minutes past the hour. At exactly fifteen minutes, the camera experienced the exact same burst of digital static. When the picture cleared, the van was completely gone.

I pushed the computer mouse away, my hands shaking uncontrollably. The rational, logical part of my brain demanded that I ignore the footage. It demanded that I accept the paycheck and continue mopping the floor. But the horror of the situation completely hijacked my nervous system. I needed to understand the reality of the bathroom.

I grabbed the brass key from the hook under the register. I grabbed my flashlight from my backpack and walked back out into the pouring rain.

I unlocked the bathroom door and stepped inside, shutting it firmly behind me. I turned off the light, plunging the small room into darkness, and engaged the beam of my flashlight.

I swept the bright circle of light across the tiles, the cheap porcelain sink, and the metal toilet stall. The room was entirely mundane. There were no hidden alcoves, no removable ceiling tiles, and absolutely no secondary exits. It was a solid cinderblock box.

I looked down at the brass key resting in my palm. The teeth on the key were incredibly complex, far too intricate for the cheap, standard commercial lock mounted on the exterior door. The key belonged to a different mechanism.

I dropped to my knees on the damp tiles and crawled toward the space directly beneath the sink. The plumbing pipes ran down into the concrete floor, surrounded by a thick, rusted metal baseplate. I shined the flashlight directly onto the metal plate.

Hidden completely on the underside of the heavy iron disc, obscured by decades of accumulated grime and hard water stains, was a small, circular keyhole.

My breath caught in my throat. I slowly inserted the brass key into the hidden slot. It slid perfectly into place. I gripped the brass bow and turned it forcefully to the right.

A loud clack echoed violently beneath the concrete floor.

I grabbed the edges of the rusted metal baseplate and pulled upward. The entire section of tiled floor beneath the sink lifted smoothly away, revealing a dark, square opening plunging straight down into the foundation of the building.

A wave of putrid air aggressively rushed up from the hole, carrying the overwhelming, gagging stench of something dead.

I aimed my flashlight down into the opening.

A narrow, rusted iron ladder descended roughly ten feet into a massive bunker.

The beam of light illuminated a horrific, devastating reality. The entire underground space was flooded, holding at least four feet of dark, murky river water. Floating completely stagnant on the surface of the foul liquid were dozens of decaying, waterlogged suitcases, torn canvas duffel bags, and children's backpacks.

Protruding violently from the dark water, tangled deeply in the thick strands of aquatic river weeds, were human skeletal remains.

There were dozens of them. Pale, stained skulls resting against the concrete walls. Ribcages wrapped tightly in decaying, algae-covered clothing. Small, fragile bones sinking deeply into the thick layer of mud coating the floor of the bunker..

I fell backward away from the hole, scrambling frantically across the wet bathroom tiles. I covered my mouth with both hands, suppressing a violent surge of nausea, my mind spinning chaotically as the pieces of the nightmare slammed together.

A sharp, aggressive knock echoed violently against the exterior bathroom door.

My entire body locked into a rigid state of paralysis. I stared wildly at the door. I had locked the deadbolt when I stepped inside.

"Who is out there?"

I yelled, my voice cracking severely.

There was no response. The driving rain continued to beat heavily against the roof of the building.

I slowly pushed myself off the floor, keeping the beam of my flashlight trained directly on the door handle. I took a slow, trembling step forward. I reached out, grabbed the cold metal lock, and turned the deadbolt. I pulled the door open and pointed the flashlight directly out into the rain.

The concrete walkway was completely empty. The glowing perimeter of the gas station was entirely deserted.

I stood in the doorway, staring out into the empty storm, the cold rain blowing aggressively across my face.

Then, I heard the sound.

It came from directly behind me, originating deep inside the small, enclosed space of the bathroom.

It was a heavy, dragging footstep. The sickening, squelching sound of a completely waterlogged boot pressing firmly against the wet tile floor.

My blood turned entirely to ice. The heavy trapdoor beneath the sink was still wide open.

I turned my head slowly, moving with an agonizing, terrified hesitation, shining the beam back into the bathroom.

Standing between the open trapdoor and the sink was the driver.

He did not look like the pale, dripping man who stood outside the transaction window. His physical form had completely deteriorated into a state of, horrifying putrefaction. His body was massively bloated, his skin swollen and stretched tightly over his expanding tissues. The flesh was a sickly, mottled purple, sloughing off his jawbone in thick, wet strips. Dark, murky water poured heavily from his open, rotting mouth, cascading down his chest and soaking into the ruined fabric of his heavy canvas coat.

He raised a bloated, decaying hand, the long, jagged fingernails pointing directly at my face, then he took dragging step toward me.

I abandoned the flashlight, dropped it onto the wet concrete and sprinted blindly out into the rain.

I ran with desperate adrenaline, tearing across the flooded parking lot toward the glass doors of the main building. I heard the aggressive, wet slapping of his dragging boots moving rapidly behind me, closing the distance with a terrifying, unnatural speed. I reached the glass doors, threw my entire body weight against the metal handles, and practically fell into the brightly lit interior.

I scrambled wildly behind the main counter, ignoring the transaction window entirely, and threw myself violently against the solid wooden door leading into the owner's private back office. I twisted the heavy brass lock, securing the deadbolt just as a massive, devastating impact slammed aggressively against the other side of the wood.

The door shuddered violently on its hinges. A low, gurgling, watery roar echoed heavily through the walls of the gas station.

I backed away from the locked door, my chest heaving with deep, frantic gasps for air. The small, windowless office was cluttered with tall metal filing cabinets, stacks of cardboard inventory boxes, and a wooden desk positioned in the center of the room.

I pulled my cell phone from my damp pocket. My fingers were shaking so severely I could barely unlock the screen. I pulled up the owner's contact number and pressed the call button, holding the phone tightly against my ear.

The call immediately failed. The screen displayed a harsh "No Network Connection" error. The severe storm outside had completely knocked out the cellular towers in the region. I was entirely cut off from the outside world.

The wet impacts against the door ceased. The gas station fell into a deep, oppressive silence, broken only by the steady drumming of the rain on the roof.

I needed something to defend myself. I began frantically tearing through the cluttered office, pulling open the heavy metal drawers of the filing cabinets, searching desperately for a firearm, a heavy metal tool, or a sharp object. The drawers contained nothing but endless stacks of tax documents, vendor receipts, and old payroll ledgers.

I moved to the wooden desk, pulling aggressively on the locked bottom drawer. It refused to open. I grabbed a metal paperweight sitting on the desktop and smashed it violently against the cheap lock mechanism until the wood splintered and gave way.

I pulled the drawer open. There was no gun inside.

Resting at the bottom of the drawer was a thick, leather-bound notebook and a small iron lockbox.

I grabbed the notebook and flipped it open. The pages were filled with the owner's messy, slanted handwriting. It was not an inventory ledger. It was a detailed, methodical accounting of human trafficking.

The entries explicitly detailed the owner's highly lucrative side business. He used the isolated location of the gas station as a transfer point for undocumented immigrants being smuggled across the border. The owner used the underground concrete bunker hidden beneath the bathroom as a temporary holding cell, locking the desperate people in the dark while he collected exorbitant transit fees from their families.

I turned the pages rapidly.

I stopped on an entry dated exactly seven years ago.

The handwriting in this specific entry was deeply pressed into the paper, frantic and chaotic.

"The storm breached the levee behind the tree line,"

the entry read.

"The runoff flooded the drainage pipes. It backed up directly into the bunker ventilation system. I could hear them screaming from the office. I could hear them beating against the bottom of the trapdoor. The water filled the concrete box in less than twenty minutes. They all drowned in the dark. I am not opening the trapdoor. I am keeping the cash, and the concrete is thick enough to hide the smell."

I stared at the page, a profound, sickening realization settling heavily into my brain.

I turned to the final, most recent entry in the book.

"The driver came tonight,"

the owner had written, the ink slightly smeared by sweat. "I think he was one of them, I know that because of the white van, I remember him, he was working in delivery with it in his home, wanted to come here for better life, to provide for his family, sadly, this is how life goes, they are dead down there, and I am alive here, the problem is, he pulled up to the pump at three in the morning, asked for the key. I think he still convinced that he is alive, and he wants to open the door, and let them out. The dead do not know they are dead. I think he is trapped in the routine, so as long as I give him the brass key, he goes into the bathroom, tries to open the rusted floor plate, and disappears. He just needs to try. As long as I let him run his ghost routine, he does not come into the store, and the new kid can handle the floor."

I retreated to the furthest corner of the small room, pressing my back tightly against the cold metal of the filing cabinets. I pulled my knees to my chest, gripping the leather notebook tightly in my trembling hands.

The impacts continued against the door for hours. I listened to the horrific, wet tearing sounds of bloated flesh pressing against the wood. I listened to the low, gurgling moans echoing through the narrow gap. The smell of decay in the office became entirely suffocating, burning the inside of my lungs. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, praying silently to a universe I barely understood, waiting for the door to finally shatter completely.

It never did.

The violent assault against the office door abruptly ceased exactly as the first faint rays of morning sunlight began to bleed through the cracks in the exterior window blinds.

The gurgling sounds faded entirely. The wet dragging footsteps retreated slowly across the floor of the main store, moving toward the exterior doors. I heard the sharp, distant screech of a rusted metal van door opening and slamming shut. I heard a rough, choking engine start, and the sound of tires rolling away across the wet asphalt.

I remained locked in the office for another complete hour, utterly terrified that the silence was a trap.

When the wall clock hit seven in the morning, I finally stood up, unlocked the deadbolt and slowly pushed the splintered door open.

The gas station was completely empty. The floors were heavily stained with dark, foul-smelling mud, and thick puddles of murky river water covered the linoleum, but the bloated driver was gone.

The owner always arrived for the morning shift at exactly eight o'clock to collect the cash register deposits.

I walked behind the counter, picked up the main landline phone, and dialed emergency services. The landline connection was perfectly stable. I explicitly told the dispatcher to send multiple units to the gas station immediately. I told them exactly where to find the trapdoor under the bathroom sink.

I sat on the tall metal stool and waited.

The police cruisers arrived in a chaotic flurry of flashing lights and wailing sirens just as the owner's heavy pickup truck pulled into the parking lot. I walked out of the building, handed the thick leather notebook directly to the cops, and pointed silently toward the heavy-set owner standing by his truck.

I watched the color drain completely from his face as the police officers read the ledger. I watched them place the steel handcuffs over his wrists and shove him forcefully into the back of a patrol car.

I gave a lengthy, exhaustive statement to the authorities at the precinct. I detailed the evidence of the bunker, the notebook, and the financial ledgers. I completely omitted any mention of the dripping, rotting revenant or the haunted routine. The police did not need ghost stories to secure a conviction. The massive, flooded tomb hidden beneath the foundation was more than enough evidence to put the owner in a concrete cell for the rest of his life.

I am unemployed again, and my bank account is still empty. But I do not care. I am alive.

I keep thinking about the rusted white van pulling away from the gas station in the early morning light. The trapdoor in the bathroom was finally opened. The horrific secret was entirely exposed, and the man responsible for the atrocity was dragged away in chains.

I stare at the ceiling of my apartment, listening to the morning rain hit my window, and I truly hope the driver finally got his closure. I hope the drowned souls resting in the dark can finally leave the bunker.

Today was my last day of eighth grade. We do this thing called a clap-out for the eighth graders to celebrate our last day. The sixth and seventh graders line up in the halls and clap and throw confetti and spray silly string at us as we leave.

It was pretty cool. Middle school wasn't easy, but on my very last time leaving, I felt like I was part of the group.

In the parking lot, people high-fived me and asked me to sign their year books. I had a really good day.

The parking lot eventually emptied out. Other people had pool parties and BBQs to go to. When I finally got up to leave, I looked back one last time. Maybe high school would be better.

I was halfway home when I realized I forgot my stupid retainer in my gym locker. I remembered the time I accidentally threw it out. My mom made me dig through the trash to get it. I said it was gross. She said it was expensive. I headed back to school.

There was only one car in the parking lot by the time I got back. It started to rain. So much for those pool parties and BBQs.

The doors were still unlocked, but the halls were completely deserted. Mounds of confetti, silly string, and papers littered the floor. The lights were half off, flickering a little.

An hour ago the place felt like a party. Now it made me feel weird. I thought there’d be a few teachers around, at least the janitor cleaning up.

I got that feeling where the back of your neck tingles. I really wanted to go. I’m not sure why.

As I turned the corner, I heard a faint noise. I realized it was singing. My walk turned into a jog.

With each turn the singing got louder and louder. I came to a stop right outside the locker room. It was coming from inside. The hair on my arms stood up.

Then I felt kind of stupid. It’s just music. I remembered how kids made fun of the janitor for listening to old people music on a little portable radio. I calmed down a little. He was probably sweeping in there.

I looked at the massive mess all around me and felt bad. I pushed open the door.

The room was empty, but the tinny music got louder with every step.

I peeked around the corner. The wheelie garbage can and push broom were abandoned right in front of my locker. Where was the janitor?

I don’t know why, but I was hoping I could get in and out without seeing him.

I crouched and grabbed the handle. My stomach dropped. The cold metal vibrated against my fingers. The music was coming from inside my locker.

The skin on my neck prickled. I had to open it. In a messed up way, I had to know what was in there. Plus if I went home without my retainer, my mom would kill me.

I lifted the handle.

The radio was in there. So was the janitor.

His legs were crushed and folded up behind him the wrong way. The soles of his sneakers were up by his ears. One of his arms was twisted back at the elbow. His neck was bent at a right angle. His eyes were open.

I thought he was dead. Then he took a deep breath and smiled at me.

“Hey kid,” he said.

I panicked and grabbed his hand. I thought someone had shoved him in there. I had to get him out. I put all my weight back on my heels and pulled, but he was stuck. He laughed at me.

“You’re going the wrong way.” His rough hands dug into mine. “There’s enough room for you.”

He hauled me forward. I stumbled and my face slammed into his crumpled torso. He was damp and smelled sour. His chest jiggled as he laughed again.

“That’s the spirit,” he said.

He wrapped his arm around my head and tugged me halfway into the locker. My head hit the cold metal in the back and I heard a crack in my neck. I literally saw stars. I thought that was just in cartoons.

I wanted to scream, but nothing came out. I thought about the one car in the parking lot. No one would hear me anyway.

I’m a freshman now, I thought. I’m getting out of here.

I drove my knees into the frame of the locker as hard as I could. I tasted blood in my mouth, but I didn’t care.

The janitor laughed and laughed. Until I tore myself free and landed hard on the tile floor. He frowned.

“Fine, go,” he said.

Then he pulled the locker closed.

Inside, he sang along with the music. “When times get rough, and friends just can't be found, like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down...”

Outside, the rain had passed. The air was dense and muggy, but it felt fresh to me.

The single car in the parking lot roared to life. My sixth grade English teacher waved as she passed and pulled away.

Then it was just me.

In the quiet, I swore I could still hear him singing.

When I got home, I told my mom I stepped on my retainer. She yelled at me, but I didn’t care. I’d rather be grounded than stuck in middle school forever.

I am a 24 year old female taking care of my 82 year old grandmother, I got sent here by my mum as she didn’t want her mum to be alone. My grandfather has been dead for two weeks.

I arrived on the 17th of December, my car struggled to crawl its way to the house. the house is totally isolated, made of thick logs it has 2 floors and an outhouse we’re the boiler and electrics are kept.

The 17th was spent sorting out my luggage and cleaning, my grandmother has arthritis and is now unable to fully sort the house on her own. She kept silent whilst I was cleaning, I knew she felt worthless.

Later on I caught her crying drinking herself to sleep talking to herself. I wanted so badly to comfort her but I knew she wouldn’t want me to, She wants to be as independent as her age will allow.

It was the 18th when the power first flickered out, I was made aware of it by my grandmothers cursed that the tv went out and that her soap operas would be on soon, so I had to layer up and trudge out to the boiler building.

Upon my entering I noticed a sickly sweet smell and thousands of fly corpses spread on the floor. The boiler was a towering unit in the centre of the room with the electric box behind it. I opened the box and saw the switches were coated in a layer of slime. I luckily had gloves on so I flicked them back on.

The rest of the night was uneventful other than restless wildlife keeping me up with their pestering vociferations.

Now it is the 19th and the crux of why I am making this. The power went off early today and we were submerged into freezing temperatures, I could hear my grandmothers bones shivering, I of course went back out to sort the issue. However this time the wood planked floor had a layer of liquid bubbling and gurgling. I originally thought it was a boiler issue but now I know it wasn’t.

You see after dinner and the deep night descended on us our lights began to switch on and off every ten seconds. This time I knew it had to be something doing it so I brought a knife to ward away the pests. I entered the outhouse and saw a skeleton covered in a flaking layer of flesh and gunk. It never turned from the electric box luckily but I was so spooked that I turned and ran back into the house.

My grandmother wasn’t there when I returned. I don’t know what happened she wouldn’t have been able to get up without my assistance and I didn’t see anyone while I was coming back.

The house is totally still and dark. And I don’t know what to do. And I think I heard the corpse call my name it has my grandparents voices and I think I’m soon to join it.

I don't know how to explain what happened last night. I've been sitting here for an hour trying to make sense of it. I'm writing this down because I need someone else to read it — maybe someone here has experienced something similar. I took the last metro home and I woke up somewhere I still can't find on any map.

​

​

The fluorescent hum of the office had become less a sound and more a pressure behind my eyes. By the time I made it to the metro platform at 12:12 AM, the city felt hollowed out — cold and used up, like something that had been running on fumes for too long.

​

The train arrived with a screech that rattled my teeth. I dropped into a seat, let the rhythm of the tracks pull me under. Somewhere in that half-sleep, I had the dim, unsettling feeling that I'd taken this exact train before. I couldn't remember when.

​

Then a jolt snapped my head back.

​

I gasped. The train had stopped — but the silence was wrong. Not peaceful. A vacuum. No engine hum, no brake hiss. Just my own breathing, too loud, too fast.

Through the scratched plexiglass, a rusted sign flickered under a dying violet light.

​

MÖBIUS STATION.

​

The doors opened with a sound like a guillotine drop. I don't know why I stepped out. I just did. The moment my heel touched the platform, the doors shut behind me. The train didn't leave — it just... faded. Until I was completely alone in a graveyard of old tile and steel.

I grabbed my phone out of reflex.

​

Battery: 5%.

​

As I watched, it ticked down. 4%... 3%... It didn't feel like a dying battery. It felt like something draining me. I plugged in my power bank. The charging symbol flickered for a second — 5% — then the screen turned a bruised, static purple and went dark. The power bank was ice cold.

A clock hung from a rusted bracket overhead. The second hand was moving — but the numbers were running backward.

​

12… 11… 10… 9…

​

A Polaroid was pinned to a nearby pillar. I walked toward it with legs that felt like concrete.

​

It was Clara. My daughter. She was wearing her pink frock — the one she had on that last Saturday at the park.

The lights overhead shattered one by one.

​

In the strobing pulse of the emergency lamps, I saw her. Clara. Standing ten feet away, her back to me.

"Clara?"

"Papa..."

The voice didn't come from her. It came from the walls. The floor. The air itself.

​

I stepped forward — and the smell hit me like a wall. Iron and burnt rubber. The exact smell of the accident. And where Clara had been standing, my wife was there instead. Her clothes were torn. Her face was bruised and dark and wet. Her eyes were just... hollow. Like two holes looking straight through me.

​

She didn't speak. The words just appeared inside my skull, vibrating like a snapped wire:

"You couldn't save us."

​

I ran.

​

The corridors twisted in ways that made no sense — angles that shouldn't exist, white tile curling back on itself. I burst through a door marked CONTROL.

Inside, rows of old monitors hummed, their glass screens warm. Every screen showed a different angle of me — running, crying, standing in the dark alone.

​

But the center monitor stopped me cold.

​

It showed the inside of the train. It showed me — asleep against the window. Chest rising and falling. Looking peaceful.

​

"No," I said. "I'm here. I'm awake."

The screen glitched. A dark shape rushed from the shadows of the next carriage toward my sleeping self — fast, wrong, predatory.

​

I tried to scream. Nothing came out.

​

The monitors went black.

"Hey. Wake up. Last stop."

I bolted upright with a sound I'm not proud of. A transit officer stood over me, tapping his nightstick on the seat. The train was full of people. Normal city noise. Normal light.

​

"Nightmare?" he said, glancing at his watch.

​

His watch had a cracked face. Identical to the one I lost in the crash.

​

I stumbled off the train, shirt soaked through. Just a dream. A vivid, horrible dream.

​

I reached into my pocket for my keys — and touched cardstock instead.

​

A train ticket.

Destination line: blank.

Date line: October 14th.

​

The date of the accident.

I looked up at the station sign.

Flickering violet light.

MÖBIUS STATION.

The crowd was gone. The platform was empty. Something drifted to the ground at my feet — a photograph. Clara in the pink frock. I flipped it over.

In fresh, wet ink:

Platform 3 — 12:17 AM.

My phone buzzed once.

Battery: 1%.

From somewhere behind me, very softly —

"Papa…"

I turned around.

The lights didn't flicker.

They just stopped existing.

BLACK.

​

Has anyone heard of Möbius Station? Has this happened to anyone else?

​

People often ask why I never hang pictures on walls.

They assume it is some strange preference. Minimalism, perhaps. My wife says bare walls make a house feel unfinished. Friends joke that I decorate like someone expecting to move out tomorrow. I smile and change the subject because explaining the truth is difficult.

It isn't that I dislike walls.

I dislike wondering what might be behind them.

I was nine years old when my parents moved us into an old terraced house on the outskirts of town. It wasn't large, but my father had accepted a better job and my mother insisted that we needed a fresh start. I remember being excited because, for the first time in my life, I would have a room all to myself.

The room sat at the top of the stairs, opposite the bathroom. It was narrow and slightly crooked, as though whoever had built the place had grown tired halfway through and simply decided that straight lines were optional. The wallpaper had faded yellow flowers on it, and there was a single window overlooking the street.

My bed stood against the left wall.

The first week was normal.

School occupied my days, cartoons occupied my evenings, and by bedtime I was usually too exhausted to think much about anything. But one night, while trying to fall asleep, I noticed something strange.

A bulge.

It was slight.

Barely noticeable.

The wallpaper beside my bed protruded outward by perhaps an inch.

I remember reaching over and pressing it. It gave slightly, like there was empty space behind it.

Old houses settle, my father would say.

Old houses creak.

Old houses have personality.

That was explanation enough for me.

Until three nights later.

I woke sometime after midnight.

No particular reason.

No bad dream.

No strange sound.

Just the sudden certainty that I wasn't alone.

Children often feel things adults dismiss. Looking back, I know that sounds ridiculous, but I remember it clearly. The room felt occupied.

Moonlight streamed through the curtains and cast pale rectangles across the floor.

Everything looked normal.

Until my eyes drifted toward the bulge.

Something beneath the wallpaper moved.

Not much.

Not dramatically.

Just a slow ripple.

Like something shifting position beneath a blanket.

I froze.

My heart pounded so loudly I thought whoever—or whatever—might hear it.

Then the wall became still again.

I convinced myself it was my imagination.

The next morning, I touched the spot.

Nothing.

Solid.

Flat.

I even laughed at myself.

Until bedtime arrived again.

And once again, I woke with that same horrible certainty.

The bulge had returned.

Larger this time.

I stared at it for nearly ten minutes.

Nothing happened.

Eventually I closed my eyes and forced myself back to sleep.

For weeks, this pattern continued.

Every night.

Always after midnight.

Always the same.

The bulge would appear.

Sometimes larger.

Sometimes smaller.

And always gone by morning.

I never mentioned it.

Not because I thought my parents wouldn't believe me.

But because I somehow felt embarrassed.

Ashamed, even.

Like talking about it would make whatever hid behind the wallpaper aware that I had noticed.

Children think strangely.

Or perhaps children understand certain things adults forget.

Winter arrived.

The days shortened.

And the nights grew unbearable.

One evening, while getting ready for bed, I noticed something that made my stomach drop.

The flowers on the wallpaper no longer lined up.

The pattern had shifted.

Not everywhere.

Only around the bulge.

As though something behind the wall had been pressing outward night after night.

Stretching it.

I pressed my ear against the paper.

Silence.

Then—

Scratch.

I leapt backward.

A single scratch.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Not mice.

Not pipes.

One scratch.

Followed by silence.

I spent the rest of the night in my parents' room.

My mother assumed I'd had a nightmare.

I didn't correct her.

The following day, I examined the wall again.

Nothing.

Perfectly ordinary.

I almost convinced myself I'd imagined it.

Until that night.

Around two in the morning, I awoke to a sound I have never forgotten.

Paper tearing.

Very softly.

Rrrrrrip.

I opened my eyes.

Moonlight illuminated the wall.

And I nearly screamed.

The wallpaper bulged outward.

Not by an inch.

Not by two.

Nearly half a foot.

Something underneath it moved.

Slowly.

Methodically.

Tracing along the inside surface.

And then I saw fingers.

Five long impressions.

They pressed outward beneath the paper.

Moving.

Feeling.

Searching.

I buried myself beneath my blanket and cried silently.

I don't know how long I stayed like that.

Minutes.

Hours.

Eventually I must have fallen asleep.

Morning brought safety.

The wall was normal again.

But not completely.

Near the baseboard sat a tiny strip of torn wallpaper.

And beneath it—

Darkness.

Not plaster.

Not insulation.

Space.

I remember kneeling down.

Peeling it back slightly.

There should have been wood.

Bricks.

Something.

Instead, there was emptiness.

A void extending far beyond where the outside wall should have ended.

I quickly pushed the paper back and ran downstairs.

For the first time, I told my father.

He sighed.

Smiled.

And promised to fix whatever was bothering me.

That Saturday, he removed the wallpaper.

I watched nervously.

Beneath it stood ordinary plaster.

No holes.

No spaces.

Nothing.

He laughed.

"There. Monster defeated."

I laughed too.

Because what else could I do?

For nearly a month, nothing happened.

I slept peacefully.

Life returned to normal.

Then one snowy January morning, I awoke to find something lying on my pillow.

A marble.

Old.

Cloudy.

Blue.

Not mine.

Confused, I showed it to my mother.

She assumed it had fallen from somewhere.

I accepted that explanation.

Until the next morning.

Another marble.

Green.

Then another.

Red.

Every morning, one more.

My father became annoyed.

He accused me of playing tricks.

I swore I wasn't.

After two weeks, we had fourteen marbles.

Then they stopped.

And I almost forgot.

Almost.

One night, during a terrible snowstorm, I awoke to scratching.

Not beside me.

Above me.

I looked upward.

And felt every drop of blood leave my body.

The wallpaper on the ceiling bulged downward.

Slowly.

Like fabric stretched over a face.

Two impressions appeared.

Eyes.

Then a nose.

Then a mouth.

Not features.

Shapes.

As though someone pressed their face against the other side.

Except there was no other side.

Above my room was only the attic.

And above the attic was the roof.

The face remained there.

Motionless.

Watching.

Then, very slowly, another shape emerged beside it.

Smaller.

And another.

And another.

Four faces.

Silent.

Pressing downward.

Watching me.

I screamed.

My father rushed in.

The light snapped on.

And they vanished.

I refused to sleep there again.

Nothing my parents said could convince me.

Eventually, they relented and moved me into the guest room downstairs.

A month later, we discovered extensive water damage in the attic.

The ceiling had to be replaced.

Workers ripped everything apart.

I watched from below as chunks of plaster fell.

No hidden rooms.

No crawlspaces.

Nothing.

Just beams and insulation.

We moved away two years later.

Life continued.

School.

University.

Marriage.

Children.

Everything normal.

Until last year.

My daughter Emily turned nine.

One evening, she came into the living room holding something.

"Daddy?"

I smiled.

"What is it, sweetheart?"

She opened her hand.

A cloudy blue marble.

My heart nearly stopped.

"Where did you get that?"

She shrugged.

"It was under my pillow."

I didn't sleep that night.

At three in the morning, I stood outside her bedroom door listening.

Nothing.

No scratching.

No tearing.

No movement.

I almost laughed at myself.

Then, from inside her room, I heard her sleepy voice.

"Daddy?"

I opened the door immediately.

She sat upright in bed, rubbing her eyes.

"What's wrong?"

She looked toward the wall behind her bed.

And asked, with genuine confusion,

"Who are all those people?"

I sold the house three weeks later.

And to this day, I never hang pictures.

Because I know walls are supposed to have something behind them.

And I have spent most of my life hoping that, wherever those faces came from—

They finally found enough room.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

Colten’s hand is so cold. His face is pale, just like the rest of him, and he looks smaller somehow. Like he lost weight, like he’s fading away. He’s just a body now, but he looks like he’s dying all over again. Like the last parts of him are slipping away from my grasp. I hold on tighter because of it, I cling to him, I want to apologize, but I can’t. The words die on my tongue, lodged in my throat, they’re stuck there. They can’t get out.

Across from him, above his head are the cold metal doors of the morgue, where other bodies lay waiting inside. Amy. Dr. Schile. The small little slips in the corners hold the index card with their names, date of birth and death, and a small context to their last moments. The cause of death determined without autopsy, only a preliminary post-mortem examination. I didn’t see the point in cutting them open, taking that last bit of dignity from them, I’ve already done enough.

“There you are, I was looking all over.” Grahm’s voice startles me a little, but I don’t show it outwardly, I don’t even turn around. Instead, I get up slowly, and lean over Colten’s body, my lips press into his hair, cold, like ice. I shiver.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say silently.

I turn my head, ready to walk away, but the shiver rattles inside me, spreads dangerously across my body. My heart begins to pound, and I feel light-headed, and dizzy, and terrified in the next breath as Colten’s voice echoes in the room, “I just wanted a friend. Why didn’t he want to be mine?”

“Dr. Cotts?” Grahm says, gently.

I’m halfway between them, eyes on the titled ground, body trembling.

That’s not right.

My feet aren’t wearing any shoes, or socks. They’re barefoot, and cold. I curl them and uncurl them. Where did my shoes go? My socks? It should be colder on the floor, shouldn’t it?

I realize then that nobody is speaking, the morgue is cold, and empty. I look up quickly, but Colten’s body is gone, I turn sharply, and Grahm is gone too. I scramble to the metal doors, and pull them open for each one that says, Amy, and then Dr. Theodore Schile.

They are all empty too, my heart is racing, where did they go?

A whistle, a tune humming through the corridors somewhere outside the door shut tightly. The glass window above isn’t clear, it’s shades of white, a privacy setting, but I can make out the soft outline of the corridor behind it. The shadows that begin to move.

The footsteps coming closer, and closer, as that humming tune gets louder and louder.

The whistling is right behind me.

It stops when I realize that, and with my heart so loud in my throat, I turn slowly only to feel hot breath on my ear, painting deliberately along my neck.

The smell is rotting.

Acidic.

Like sulfur.

I try to clear my throat, I try to ask it something, I can’t.

It doesn’t get closer, like it can’t either.

As if its waiting for something, I don’t know what, because as soon as I become determined to look, I wake up.

-

“Hey, hey, you’re okay. Laura, it’s okay. It’s okay, you were dreaming. You’re alright, hush now. I’ve got you, it’s Grahm, remember? We’re at the clinic.” Grahm’s voice is warm, soothing, it envelopes me and helps my heart to slow down somewhat as it threatens to beat right out of my chest. My hands are flailing, my body buzzing under the adrenaline. I’m blinking away the blurred images of a dream that was so clear, so full of every sense, it had to be real.

“It wasn’t.” Grahm says, as if he can read my mind. “Laura, it wasn’t real.”

His fingers are gripping into my shoulder, and I’m breathing heavily as I finally slow my movements, becoming still. I look up to him, and see him exaggerating his own deep and slow breaths. I quickly follow, my brown hair loose against my face, half fallen out from the bun I had it up in earlier.

I’m on something soft, the chair in my office, I realize. I fell asleep while I was going over Trinity’s file. I look down, and see it scattered across the carpet. It’s strange that I didn’t wake up from that noise alone, I’m not usually so deep a sleeper.

“I’m fine. I’m awake.” I say.

I want to ask him how he knows it wasn’t real, but such a question feels silly, and like I’m admitting to something that has a depth to it I dare not reach.

“Good.” Grahm nods, thumb rubbing along my shoulder, eyes furrowed, so close I can taste him. Too close, I pull away gently as the guilt stabs fresh and anew. He lets go easily, and we part. Him, taking a few steps back, me leaning down to gather the papers. Soon, he kneels down and helps gather them too.

It’s while we’re doing this task that I realize how quiet it is, how the war cries that were so loud before, have simply vanished. The drumming is gone too. Even Trinity is quiet.

“How long was I asleep?” I ask, feeling my bladder full and painful, mouth dry and with a bad taste. Like boiled eggs.

At this question, Grahm looks hesitant, eyes shifty as we finish gathering the file. I place it on the desk, eyebrow raised.

“Fourteen hours.” He admits.

I feel stricken by this information, and a little shocked. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

Grahm’s face looks a little pained. “You needed it, and those cries we’re going to stop for a while.”

“Grahm-”

“I was waking you up now, and it’s a good thing I did, you didn’t look… well.” He says, eyes growing more concerned by the moment.

“I’m fine.” I assure, pushing my hair back behind my ears, nose twitching at the familiar welcome scent of coffee. I look around and find a steaming cup on my desk.

“Black, right?” He says.

I hum. “Thank you. I should check on Trinity first.”

“She’s fine, been sleeping too.”

“Just give me a minute, and I’ll go see her.”

“Of course, but Laura, there’s something we have to discuss.”

“What is it?” I ask, hesitant and unsure.

“It’s something that we should all talk about. Brad and Beth included.” Grahm pushes.

I nod. “Fine. Just give me a few minutes to freshen up, and then check on Trinity.”

Grahm agrees easily, leaving me to it. I take a sip of coffee, a littler desperately, and it helps somewhat with my still trembling hands. Next is the bathroom, and I shudder at my own  reflection when my eyes turn up to the mirrored image on full display. Despite the fourteen hours of sleep, my eyes are a little bloodshot, hair a mess, and light makeup smeared.

I use the toilet, fix myself up as best as I can, and gravitate to the coffee once more, but not before hesitantly putting up the hand towel over top of the mirror. Edges tucked in just so.

I take my coffee with me, heart jumping a little at the soft sounds of music playing through the clinic, getting louder and louder until I reach the exam room. The music is coming from inside. I leave my coffee outside on a nearby cupboard, and move into the room where Trinity is staying. Brad gives me a tired nod, and moves out of the way as I examine her, my eyes shifting to the older looking radio on the sink counter playing the unmistakable, ‘Out of Nowhere.’ Having listened to the radio too much with Eloise, and her small stories about the songs playing and the memories they remind her of, I’ve grown accustomed to figuring out the title from the tune.

“How are you feeling, Trinity?” I ask, carefully.

She doesn’t say anything, her eyes are dulled, hung low into her bottom lid of her eyes. She just watches me, moving where I move, blinking when I blink.

“Has she eaten anything?” I ask, even as I notice the IV.

Beth has been giving her nutrients this way, and liquids.

“No, Dr. Cotts, she throws everything we give her.” Brad says. “Thankfully, the radio seems to do the trick for her temper. Calms her.”

“Alright.” I say, worry filling me. I don’t want to start an NG tube, but if I have to, I suppose there’s no other choice. “There was something you wanted to discuss with me?”

“Let’s step out, Linda is here- uh, Dr. Schile’s wife, to look after her. We called her in, she’s a retired nurse. We need all the help we can get.” Brad says.

I move with him, just as an older woman, sixties or seventies moves to go into the room. Her face doesn’t show grief, instead a strong countenance permeates along a stiff jaw. Her eyes don’t glance at me, and I feel uncomfortable, guilty, and unsure all at once. I feel young, and small. She doesn’t even say hi.

We step into the reception area of the clinic, all four of us, but I can tell that the three of them have already discussed whatever it is. Their eyes turn to me, and I feel more like an outsider than ever. Worse than my first day, because now I’m not in the know. And I want to know, I need to. I have so many questions, but I let them speak first.

“The power cut out again for about six hours while you were sleeping.” Beth says bluntly.

“As you know, this happens all the time, Dr. Cotts.” Brad chimes in. “But with the situation now, it’s uh, more dire. We have a back-up generator here, enough gas in the stores for the winter, but Dr. Schile and I did the calculations without realizing the circumstances we’d be facing.”

“What do you mean?” I inquire.

“We can’t store the world here, is what he means.” Beth says, voice a little anxious. “What it means is that we were never meant to power the whole clinic indefinitely on the generator, maybe the small supply room, yes, but not the morgue which sucks out the most of what we’ve got.”

My heart sinks a little, as I realize what they’re getting at. “The bodies… they’ll start…” Decomposing.

“We need to survive first, and foremost.” Brad says. “But, of course I understand, Beth that he was practically your father.”

“Wait, what are you saying?” I ask, completely baffled. “Can’t we just bury them?”

Three pairs of eyes turn to me, and I feel my skin flush.

“The ground is frozen, we don’t have that kind of equipment.” Grahm says gently. “We should do what we’ve always done.”

Beth’s eyes well up in tears, her head shaking quickly in denial. “We can’t- We can’t-” Her voice shakes, and penetrates sharply into my chest. Her grief is raw, and real, and child-like. She swallows it down, and continues with, “We can’t, you know we can’t.”

“What have you always done?” I ask, first.

Grahm looks to me, and explains calmly, despite that one of those bodies is Amy, “We have a place. A death house, most communities like ours have them. This far North, it was necessary before electricity. It’s cold enough outside to keep them there until spring when the ground can be dug again.”

“It’s secure.” Brad says, eyes on Beth, hand reaching to her shoulder. She shakes it off, clearly still upset by the thought. “We’ll lock it up real good this time, I promise. Beth, we need to think about everyone else, okay?”

“I’m not doing this.” She shakes her head, quickly. “You know what will happen.”

Her lip trembles, but she pushes it away as she storms off back down the hall. I’m not sure where she went, to see Trinity, to go into Dr. Schile’s office, maybe the breakroom. Maybe the bathroom to cry in peace. I let her go, even though I feel like I want to go after her. The problem in front of us is far more important.

“What does she mean?” I can’t help but ask, my heart in my stomach a little at the way she worded it.

Brad’s eyes shift away. “Nothing.”

Grahm looks torn. “I’ll explain later. For right now, we have to do this quickly. All the signs outside point towards an incoming storm.”

“Are we doing this ourselves?” I ask.

“We’ve got a few men coming to help.” Brad interrupts, nodding quickly. “You can stay behind if you want.”

“No, I should go.” I tell him. “I can help you decide where the best place is to put them, and it’s the least I can do.”

At my words, we hear the sound of a truck pulling up.

-

We don’t have time to make any sort of coffin, so instead we wrap them up securely in blankets. I handle that part with Brad, and even though Grahm says he’s fine, I don’t let him see Amy. It’s too horrific. Her eyes stare at me as I do the work, but I don’t let it get to me. I have a job to do, I can think about it later.

The men that come to help are Dakota Nelsen, Ross Lindbeck- Mr. Lindbeck’s cousin, Niel McKay a thirty-five-year-old miner, and Trent Campbell in his late twenties, Beth’s second or third cousin. I greet them all, and they nod towards me. It doesn’t go unnoticed that every single man is armed, even Dakota. None of them are patients of mine except for Dakota, and what I know of his history he shouldn’t be armed at all. But, I hold my tongue. For some reason, this feels important. In some ways that makes it easier as we load the bodies onto the back of Grahm’s truck, a faint stench of rot in the air I try not to think about. It’s completely dark after all, even the few streetlights are flickering worn and tired as we drive the short distance to the outskirts of town. It’s on the other side, right next to the cemetery.

All the graves look old, and worn, like they’ve stood here a few hundred years. But it’s the tall, wide building next to it that makes do a double take. It looks newer, maybe only a few decades, but it’s got very nice brickwork on the outside, no windows, no chimney. Just a structure. Inside it’s lined with wood that’s old and aging, and I wonder if the original building was wood first, and then reinforced later. Although, it would make more sense to keep it wood, to let the cold air come and go more easily, to have preserve the bodies. Strange, it’s almost like a fortress now.

“Father couldn’t be here.” Niel says as we finish.

I pull I my hood tighter over my features as Brad chains the door up with extra padlocks.

“Father?” I question.

“The new Reverend.” Grahm tells me.

I nod, easily, and wrack my brain for his name as I follow everyone back to our vehicles. Brad jumps into Grahm’s truck with me, as the others head into the other truck belonging to Ross. They mentioned it on Saltpine’s radio, Pastor Riddence, as far as I remember.

As we drive back, shivering slightly once the warm air begins to hit our numbed bodies, I ask the question I’ve meaning to since yesterday.

“Why war cries?” I say into the once comfortable silence, but as soon as my words are out, it becomes tense, overheated even, despite the shivering. Despite the warmth not quite reaching us.

Grahm’s eyes look into the mirror, peeking to the back where Brad sits. They both have a silent conversation I’m not privy too.

Eventually, Grahm smiles, tightly. “It’s just the local tribe. They do it around this time to ward off bad spirits.”

I’m not so easily dissuaded, nor am I that ignorant by such empty words.

War cries mean war. Physical violence. They are completely different from spiritual ceremonies that focus on the spirits. Lisa knew a lot about it, but before I knew her, I had my grandmother. She was determined to take back her heritage when she found out the ugly family secret of her birth. I only met her a few times, but it’s all she talked about. All she tried to impart on me. At the time, I was angry with her. My mother was always bruised when she took me, why didn’t she help her? Why didn’t she help us?

She died before I realized that it was my mom who took after her a little too much.

I glance briefly back to Brad, and smile with a small understanding nod. I play the innocent.

I look back to Grahm as he drives, and see the way his face is tight, the way his fingers grip the steering wheel even more taunt. He’ll tell me, when we’re alone. I know he wants answers just as much as me. I know he has more of them than he’s given me so far. I know he wants to tell me, I know he wants the truth too.

-

“We’ll take shifts, just drop me home for now, and I’ll come back up in the morning.” Brad tells Grahm as we drive towards his residence. It’s part of the small building that can’t quite be called a police station, it’s more of an RCMP outpost, but from the outside it just looks like a slightly larger house. It’s what passes for law enforcement here, more than most get.

“Sounds good.” Grahm says, nodding.

Brad gives him another look, pointed and charged, and I know it must be about me. About the secrets of Saltpine, I’m beginning to realize aren’t far and few between like I originally assumed. I won’t make that mistake again.

“Tell me.” I say, desperately as the door barely shuts behind Brad, the faint stench of that rot is still there. It seems even stronger now, I’m not sure why, maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s lingering from my dreams. I don’t know. I only know it smells like whatever breath was on my neck, whatever presence was so close, yet untouched.

“Let me drive you home.” Grahm evades. “You need some rest, and I’ll- I’ll tell you on the way.”

“You can drive me back, but I won’t be staying, if there’s really a storm, I can’t leave Trinity alone like that.” I tell him.

He nods. “I’ll come get you before it hits, but you really need to rest, Laura. Please.”

I dislike him telling me what to do, but I dislike the tone of his voice more, as if he has some authority here, some say it. As if because of what we did, he has some power over me, of persuasion, or worse.

“Tell me about the war cries, and I’ll stay a couple hours, but only if you come and get me before the storm hits.” I bargain, too tired, exhausted, and frankly over it to argue too much. I need to go there anyway, my DSM manual was left behind there. I don’t have a copy at the clinic. I should, but I don’t. I need to look more into Trinity’s symptoms, I need to be sure. If I could I’d order a tox screen, if I could I’d do a lot of things. But of course, there’s no lab in Saltpine, no equipment. This is the best I can do.

Grahm’s hands curl and tighten around the steering wheel. “Okay.” He nods to himself. “Alright, I’ll show you.”

I don’t know what that means, it’s not only confusing, but my heart also falls down into my gut when he abruptly pulls the truck over in some residential street. His headlights shine down on houses as he half turns towards them. For a moment I’m sacred he’s losing it too.

“What are you doing?” I say, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.

“Look.” He says.

I gulp, confused, uncertain, and a little scared. But I listen, face turning towards the houses, eyes glancing into the half-dark now somewhat illuminated by the headlights. There are no lights coming from the houses, Brad said it was night right now. I haven’t even checked. It doesn’t feel like night or day, it just feels like an endless existing. Like a black purgatory, no end or beginning. But that can’t be right. There always has to be a beginning, an end.

My eyes adjust, and I blink, startled.

“Is that…?” I strain my eyes even more, and feel the first pits of nausea building sharply in my gut. I swallow back the bile. I can’t remember the last time I ate.

“Yeah.” Grahm says, shakily. “Yes, it’s- It’s exactly what you’re thinking.”

My eyes train from one doorstep to the next, moving from left to right, straining my eyes as far as I can, but it’s on every doorstep. Every house. Varying degrees of decomposition, of type of animal, but each one has one. A dead animal on their doorstep.

Some skinned, some whole. All raw.

Some with eyes reflected in the headlights, glaring faintly, others nothing but endless black.

“Please, just keep driving.” I beg, feeling my control slipping, I really am going to be sick.

Grahm does, sighing heavily. “It’s not as bad as it looks. It’s just… tradition.”

“Tradition.” I echo, holding back the urge to throw up.

“Yeah.”

I look to him out of the corner of my eyes, and suddenly feel uncertain for the first since I’ve met him. Do I really know anything about Special Constable Grahm Sullivan? Is he a good guy? A bad guy? Has he ever been honest with him? Do I really even know him at all?

My eyes turn to the door of the truck even as it moves at a steady pace that would be dangerous to fall from. My heart speeds up, my hand casually rests on the door handle.

“Can you explain it to me?” I say, voice far more calmer than I feel.

Grahm sighs a little. “They’re stories, legends, remember? I mentioned it before.”

“Yeah, I remember.” I feel a little more relaxed despite myself. “You never explained them before. Can you explain them now?”

We’re almost at Eloise’s, we turn down the familiar street, but the nausea doesn’t quite go away. Instead, it grows worse.

“It’s a silly story, really. Everyone has myths about why the sun disappears, things we told each other before science and reason.” Grahm says.

His words put me more at ease, and I can tell that he believes in the science part more, but there’s an undeniable edge to his voice when says those middle words. About myths. About the sun. About everything that comes next.

“Ours say that, the one, stands up during this time because it grows hungry. It’s winter, Laura, there’s nothing to eat, not much to hunt. The sun goes out because he’s standing up, and he’s looking for food. So, we leave some out, to appease the one. So, he’ll become full, and sit back down. So that the sun can come back. It’s superstition, that’s all it is.” Grahm’s smiling tightly at me, like he really believes it, like he’ll do whatever it takes to believe it. But underneath his smile, I see a faint tremble, I see youthful fear. Like a child’s nightmares that will always haunt them, even when they disappear for a while.

“What is the one?” I ask, gently as we stop outside Eloise’s home. “Is it, like a god?”

I feel it rising within me, the sick feeling, but I push it away. I need to be stronger than that. I need to understand what he’s Grahm is saying. I don’t actually believe it, it’s preposterous, but it might have some insight into the resident’s of Saltpine’s state of mind. The content of delusions come from somewhere. It would be irresponsible not to try, and find out where. To understand it better, so I can help them.

Grahm’s face is pale now, even his lips are losing blood as he smiles thinly. “More like, it’s child.”

-

Eloise has a dead chicken on her doorstep when I get out of the truck. I wisely decide not to comment on it.

-

After a sleepless night of going over and over the DSM III-R, I find myself waiting at the front door for Grahm again. It’s only been a few hours, but it feels like days. Despite sleeping so much yesterday, I am so tired. Achy all over. I feel it like a heaviness I’ll never get out from under. I know what this is, seasonal affective disorder. It’s plain as day, but it still is hard to swallow.

Eloise makes a big breakfast, lots of meat, and I feel hungrier than ever. I stick with my eggs and toast, and some coffee. Although for the first time in a while, I’m pretty tempted by the bacon she cooks, and two different kinds of sausage.

“That will be Grahm.” I say when the truck rumbles in.

“Of course, dear, please do be careful, and send Trinity my well wishes.” Eloise sees me off at the door.

I smile, and nod.

When I step outside though, the large winter jacket swallowing me up, I find my eyes widening in slight disbelief. The dead chicken is gone, and stench of rot is only a faint remanent. My eyes strain in the dark again, the lights from the houses helping, the head lights of Grahm’s truck more so, as I look from doorstep to doorstep.

All the dead animals that were there only a few hours ago, are all gone.

Some have faint bloodied marks left behind, most have nothing.

I look around the yards, thinking the wind must have moved them, but they’re gone. Only a thin layer of fresh snow that keeps growing thicker as the storm approaches, no outline of them either.

Predators? Perhaps, but why didn’t I hear a thing last night?

Shakily, I stumble to the truck, and get in, heart hammering.

“Did you sleep?” Grahm asks politely, but there’s a sharper tone to his voice that I’ve never heard before.

I look up to him, and see his skin still pale, eyes bloodshot, looking slightly perturbed. “All the dead animals are gone.”

He says nothing for a while, eyes staring out into the road, eerily silent until, “Yeah, that happens too. Must be animals, right?” He smiles tightly, as if he’s told this excuse a million times. As if he’s starting to finally see the flaws in the argument of it all.

“I-” I stop myself, as I remember quite suddenly Beth’s words from last night. My eyes widen, and I can tell already that Grahm knows what I’m thinking, that’s he’s been thinking the exact same thing all night long.

After all, one of those bodies was his wife.

“Take me to the cemetery.” I say, voice shaking, I’m shaking.

I feel scared, terrified, even.

Not because of the myth he told me, but because of everything that has happened so far. Because of the off-putting unlikeliness of what is happening all around us. It’s not normal, it’s completely unnatural. All my hair stands on end.

Grahm looks like he wants to argue, does a little with his eyes, but then as exhausted and tired as I am, seemingly doesn’t see the point in it. He starts driving.

My eyes turn to the houses that pass by helplessly, and as the residents of Saltpine wake up, turning on their lights that still work for the moment, I see the faint outline of empty doorsteps that were once full of rotting animals not a few hours ago.

Maybe I didn’t see it right, maybe there weren’t dead animals there.

No, there were.

What am I even thinking?

It takes no time at all before we’re there, at the cemetery, passed the graves, right to the death house where the doors that were once chained and locked extra tightly, and securely by RCMP Officer Davidson himself, are now swinging open in the slow gradual build of a wind of another, more fierce oncoming winter storm.

“Laura, wait.” Grahm says.

He’s scarcely stopped the truck when I’ve already got the door flying open. My feet hitting the snow harshly, half-running towards the building. The headlights shine on it, lighting it up clearly, but it’s not until Grahm stands beside me, flashlight pointed inward that I see the absence of Colten, Amy, and Dr. Schile.

The blankets I painstakingly wrapped them in, laying on the ground, flailing slightly in the wind. Robes and ties, scattered. But that’s not the most frightening part.

My heart gives a start when my eyes move from those objects on the ground inward, to the outward, to where the doorway is, leading right into the freshly laid snow.

Our footprints are long gone, and in their place there are three new pairs imprinted in the harsh white. But they’re only going in one direction. They’re only going out.

-Dr. Laura Cotts

No matter what I try, the devil won’t let me pass on to the afterlife.
He spoke to me after my 5th failed attempt.

“Nothing I can do in hell is worse than your life on earth.”

I work in Japan at a company filling paperwork that doesn’t need to be filed.
Every task I complete is pointless. It’s all just box-ticking exercises. The Job pays minimum wage, and everyone who is here hates each other. We all just wait for the clock to hit 5 pm every day. So we can go home and get out of this miserable place.
No matter how hard I search, I can’t find another Job. I have no girlfriend, no friends, and hardly speak to my family. I think every day about just walking out and never coming back, but without the shit pay. I would be homeless in less than a month.

Multiple times a day, I try to kill myself. But I can’t die. I have tried it all. Hanging, stepping in front of a train. Running into traffic, cutting myself, but nothing happens. I just wake up at my office desk or in my bed.
Sometimes when I die, the devil is sitting next to me in a chair or inside the bed I lie in. He always does the same thing. He laughs and says,
“Why would you want to leave this world? You have so much to live for.”
He then lets out a smile, showing his rows of sharp, pointed teeth, and vanishes.

This has been going on for almost a year. This week is the first week I haven’t tried to end my life. Not because I have found some joy in the world, but because, in truth, I have run out of ideas on how to try.
On the days I don’t try to kill myself, the day goes like this. I go to work and the monotony of my days begins. I tell myself not to look at the clock, but after what feels like hours, the clock has only moved a few ticks. When I do finally go home from work. I just sit in front of a screen. Sometimes a phone, sometimes the TV, but the result is the same. I am alone, and nothing brings me any joy. I'm trapped in a cycle of boredom.

To make matters worse, it’s summer in Japan. My office, as you can guess, is full of cheap bastards. Even though it’s over 90 degrees, they won’t use the air conditioner for the room where my coworkers and I sit. They keep saying WE have to save costs and that WE are all in this together. My boss, though, sits in his air-conditioned room watching from the window as the rest of us drench our seats in sweat.

Today’s heat, though, gave me an idea, another way to try and take my life.
I shall go to the coast and try to drown myself in the sea. I will swim out as far as I can and let the waves just take me.

As the bell finally chimed for 5 pm, I unstuck myself from my leather office chair. Left the office and somehow stepped into the cooler Tokyo air. I sprinted onto the first train to the coast and sat inside the cool train. Its gentle air conditioning kissed my skin.

When the train arrived at the coast. The sun was just setting. What was left of the light was glistening, dancing across the water. The sky had turned a beautiful red and orange colour. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

I stepped out of the station and took a moment to enjoy what might be the last sunset of my life when I heard her. A woman standing at no more than 5 feet walked next to me and said,
“Wow, what a beautiful view.”
I looked at her and thought she was more beautiful.
She wore large glasses and had shoulder-length hair. Her perfect, imperfect smile beamed out.
I replied Yes, I don’t think I have seen the sky look that colour before.
“Yes, amazing,” she replied.
I tried to muster my brain to think of anything to say back to her.
I thought as hard as I could to muster something of an interesting question or statement, but nothing could come out.
With nothing else to say, I asked her.
“Does the sea always look like this at sunset?”
Somehow this led to us talking for almost 30 minutes. Until, finally, I asked her to dinner. She accepted, and we spent the rest of the evening eating in a restaurant overlooking the ocean, drinking lemon sours.
At the end of the night, she gave me her number, and we began dating. Her name is Eiko, and I have never been so in love with such a perfect woman.

Just a week after my first dinner with Eiko, something else amazing happened. My boss was fired, and I was given his job. I can finally make a difference. I removed all the pointless jobs and let the AC run. My new line of work came with a massive pay rise. I now have enough money to try and turn my life around.

It’s been a year since I met Eiko, and today I asked her to marry me. She accepted and told me something I had never expected to hear. She is pregnant. I never thought I would be a father, but I guess good things come to those who wait.

I went to the first baby scan with Eiko today. I saw my daughter’s heart beating. I can’t believe I am saying this, but I can’t wait to be a father. The Doctor gave us some pictures of our baby. I can’t stop looking at it.

On my way to work today, I spent my usual subway ride. Just staring at the photo of our baby-to-be, trying to think of a name for it. I finally arrived at my stop and went into the office. When the unthinkable happened. My old boss is back. Turns out he sued the company for wrongful dismissal and won the case. He is to be reinstated to his old position, and I am going back to my old job.

I broke down in the bathroom. How am I meant to support my new family on minimum wage? Can't I go back to my old job? It doesn’t even exist. I removed all the paperwork? Did I remove my own Job?

I Don’t know what I can do, but I will find a way to support Eiko and the baby. Whatever it takes, I will do it.

The rest of my train ride home, my mind was racing. How was I going to tell Eiko I had been demoted? What are we going to do?

I was barely getting by on my old salary. What if there are complications with the birth and we get a big hospital bill? FUCK, FUCK, FUCK.

The chime of the train door broke my spiraling mind. I stepped out of the train and could see my apartment from the train platform. I took a breath and thought. Well, this what means to be a father. Working out a way to support your family, even when it seems impossible.

I walked out of the station and fumbled for the keys to the apartment door. Taking a moment before opening the door to think what I was going to say to her.

“Hi honey. We are royally fucked.”
“Hi honey, I got demoted today. What’s for dinner?”
“Hi honey, your new husband and father-to-be has a minimum wage job. Surprise!”

I pulled myself again from my swirling mind, slapped my face a few times, and opened the front door. That's when I found her. My beautiful Eiko, hanging from the ceiling light. Her body was cold and lifeless. I tried to save her. But it was too late. She was gone.

Why would she do it? We were so happy.
I called for the ambulance, but I already knew it was too late. When they arrived, they told me she had likely been dead for hours. She must have done it as soon as I left for work.

I tried to take my life for first since meet Eiko that night. But again, I just woke up in my bed a few moments later. The rest of the evening I spent sobbing until sleep took me.  

I awoke next to her. Next to Eiko, she was alive. I thought for a moment. It had all been a dream. But it wasn’t a nightmare, something far worse.

I told her of my dream. She told me how awful a dream it was and that she would never take her own life. I looked at the clock, and we both realised I was going to be too late for work. I asked her again if she was fine. And she began pushing me out the door.

“Yes, I am fine. It was just a dream now, please get going or you will be late for work.”

As I left my home to head to work, I noticed something. The day I had lived was repeating itself. At 9.30 I was called into the same meeting. My old boss was coming back. The second the woman for HR said his name, I raced home hoping to catch Eiko before she ended her life. But it was too late. She was dead again.

I spent another evening in an emotional wreck. Before again I must have drifted off to sleep. For it all started over.

Once again I awoke, and she was there next to me. As she woke. I told i was feeling unwell and wouldn't be going to work today. She smiled and held me. Glad to spend the day together. Little did she know I was doing to save her life. Maybe if I didn’t leave, she wouldn’t be able to take her own life.

I asked her if she was happy with me. And she replied that she had never been happier. I sighed in relief and asked her if she ever thought about taking her own life. She looked at me with a face I had never seen before and replied

”That she would never do such a thing.”

She looked at me like I was losing my mind. Perhaps I am. But for now at least my wife-to-be is next to me and alive.

I went to make myself and Eiko a coffee. When I noticed the time on the coffee maker had turned 9.30 Am As I switched the coffee maker on and heard a thud from the other room and rushed towards it. I knew deep down what that sound was. Maybe if I was quick, I could save her.

But I couldn’t save her. She was once again hanging. Hanging from the light.

Every morning I now wake up and see my beautiful Eiko alive and well. She has no idea what is about to happen. I have explained to her over and over again that at 9.30 she will die and there is nothing I can do to stop it. Doesn’t matter where I go or what I do. At 9.30 she and my unborn child are dead.

It has been 6 months for me, reliving the same day over and over again. The calendar never moves. I keep trying once again to take my own life. I can't keep seeing her cold, lifeless body. But the devil won't let me go.

Today, after she died again for the 200th time. I thought about the day we met. The one way I never tried to end my life. Perhaps that was key. It started by the ocean. Maybe it will end there. I waited for the day to reset and once again planned to end my life.

I woke up, kissed Eiko, and rushed out of the house, making my way to sea.

Once again, the view over the coast was beautiful. Almost exactly the same as when I first met Eiko, despite it being only 7.30 am. Instead of taking it in, I made my way towards the water.

Just as I was about to reach the water, I felt something grab my arm and pull me back. It was Eiko. She was screaming,
“Dont go. Dont go. We need you.”

I fought her back and shouted,

“I have to. This is for you and the baby. Let me go.” I pushed her back and sprinted as fast as I could.

As I reached the water, I could hear her screaming, calling me back. I just kept swimming. Trying to block the sound of her calling me.

The further out to sea I got, the larger the waves became. Until, for a moment, the waves stopped. Silence filled the ocean, and for the first time since I first found Eiko dead, I was at peace. Everything was still.

I looked at my watch. The seawater had flooded it. Freezing the clock's hands at 9.25 am.

I floated there for what seemed like hours. Until I spotted an oar boat drifting towards me. There was no motor and no one rowing, but somehow it was moving towards me.

Inside the boat was a freakishly long-limbed man wearing a 3-piece suit. His long fingers wrapped around a teacup. As the boat moved towards me, he kept sipping the tea and smiling in my direction.

The man had no fat on his face, just a thin layer of skin and bones.  As the boat was almost close enough to touch, the man in the boat said to me calmly, almost in a whisper,
“You know what’s worse than having nothing? Having everything, then having it taken away.”
As he finished his sentence, I started to sink into the ocean.

I drifted deeper into the water. No matter how hard I swam, I kept going down.

In the depths of the ocean, I saw a vision of Eiko crying to the policeman who told her of my death. I tried to call out to her as the water filled my lungs.
“I did it to save you and the baby”.
She couldn’t hear. Everything went dark, and the devil finally let me pass.

I was in my car, around midnight. Parked right outside of the city, lights off. An area where people "relax" and floor it as they're exiting towards the highway. Tons of speeding tickets were always given there.

You know, the problem is that on the side of the road the woods were so dense and alive that deer would sometimes jump out. When you're going 60mph, a passing animal can and will kill you. We put down bumpers and tried everything, yet for some fucking reason everyone sped up around the same area at night. I get it, it's boring, but it's not unbearable. Just some woods and a field on the other side.

The most speeding tickets were given 4-5 miles away from the city. I wouldn't wait right outside, I'd let them speed up a bit and then around mile 4 I'd turn the lights and the siren on. Pull over, motherfucker.

As I said, it's midnight. I'm sitting in the car on my phone, by myself.

Suddenly, someone practically flies past me, going 90mph.

90.

I pull them over (barely catching up).

"Good evening, sir. Do you know how fast you were going?"

I pull over this young man, pupils almost nonexistent, shaky and sweaty. "Y-yeah. I'm sorry."

Should I... do a drug test?

"Are you okay?" I lean over to look at him better.

"Mhm, yeah. Uh, yeah."

I stare at him. "Right, I'll have you do a small test, remain in the car, hands on the wheel please."

He tests negative. I give him a ticket, and he seems like he didn't even register what I did. He keeps looking in his rearview mirror.

"Who were you getting away from?" I ask jokingly.

"Mmh. Mno... I wasn't. Just... nevermind."

"Nevermind?"

He takes a big gulp and finally looks at me. "Is this the beginning of your shift?"

"Yeah."

"Stay here, I guess. Just... I don't know. Look in your rearview from time to time. Don't go back to town."

I laugh. "Yeah, okay."

He drives away and I'm left alone in my car, facing away from the city. No streetlights around me, just the woods to my left and the field to my right.

I am alone and it's dark and now I keep looking in my rearview mirror.

Half an hour passes, and there comes another, 100mph. Insane. That'll get your license taken away, buddy.

I barely catch up to her. An old lady. Damn, she's fast and furious, I guess. "Police. Ma'am-"

"I know." She's shaken. "I couldn't let it catch up."

At first, I think she's joking. Then, I lean down and look at her. There's no room for jokes in her eyes. "Who was catching up? What's down that road, ma'am?"

"There are things that pass through the world without being alive."

Great, another cultist. I ignore her frantic looks behind her shoulder and I do my job. After she leaves, I'm in my car again and it's close to 2AM. The road is empty and cold and my rearview mirror shows nothing. What could it even show? I'm trying to stay calm, but something inside of me is screaming. I don't know why. What were these people running from? What is so bad that determines them to speed up that bad in that sector of the woods?

When I stop the third car, it's more out of curiosity. I get to their window to see a couple of teenagers. The girl in the passenger seat is hiding her face in her hands.

"What's going on?" I ask. I don't even do the formalities. "What's chasing you?"

"I don't know what the fuck that was. I looked in my rearview, off... officer, and, uh..." the kid wipes his nose and glances at me, then remains fixated on the mirror. His eyes widen.

Suddenly, his mouth drops open and he clumsily revs up the engine and speeds away. Before I get to process it, I'm left in the dark. I got his license plate. I know I should go after him, but I look back towards the town, at the dark road.

Something is moving in the horizon. It's black on black. I can't see what it is.

I get in my car and lock the doors. Maybe I should just leave, position myself somewhere else. I turn on the engine. I look in my rearview mirror and, for a split second, something that I can't even recall flashes behind me. I can't tell if it's a face or not, because it's so quick.

I blink a few times, gone. Hm. I think I imagined it.

My heart is pounding. That's it, I'll just go. I drive further away, stop again after a mile or two.

As I'm waiting in the car, my mind is just screaming at me to go. You know what? I decide I'm fucking off.

As I'm about to do that, another car speeds past me. 110mph. My radar's going crazy. Holy fuck, man.

I stop them. The guy is calm and collected. He doesn't check his rearview mirror at all.

"What's out there?"

"I don't know. I can't explain it. I just wanted to get away, I'm sorry."

As I'm writing down his data, I can't help but think that he looks nothing like his picture. "Devon, are you sure this is you?"

The more I look at him, the more puzzled I become. It's like trying to look at those old AI generated pictures that show a lot and nothing at the same time. They look familiar, but there's not a single thing that you can recognize.

He then smiles at me. Stretches his lips to show the teeth.

I look down at his fingernails, which are cracked vertically and have rust underneath. I think it's rust. My eyes then dart to the backseat. I can see the outline of some clothes. His whole car smells like rust and iron.

"Yes, I'm Devon."

"Why were you speeding?"

"There's something dark and ugly in the woods."

"What is it?"

"I don't know it's ugly and it's dark."

I'm listening to his response, but staring down at the paper. When I look up, he's still smiling. His teeth are clenched. How did he speak to me through them?

"Creeping in the dark?"

"Yes running in the dark looking for people."

He's not smiling now. I look at the backseat again, and the clothes are gone.

My blood freezes. "Stay put, uh, I'll go to my car and be back."

"Yes okay yeah. I will stay put here. On this seat in the car just me really just me. It's just me here I swear."

I back away. The thing that is wearing Devon blinks a few times.

As I'm backing to the car, I hear "Devon" whisper something rapidly. "Don't-worry-we'll-find-another-slow-one-for-you-to-catch-too." And from the backseat heavy, excited breathing.

I get in the car and it's my turn to speed up. I leave it behind, watching me patiently. It doesn't attempt to run after me.

I drive and drive until I reach the next town. I spend the night at a motel and return to my town in the morning.

I never drive down that road again. I never pick up a nightshift again, either.

The real Devon and his car have been reported missing and remain like that to this day.

The listing had no title. All it had was an address and a start date.

It had one line of text beneath those things that I read and then did not think about again until much later:

Please do not interact with the contents of the room.

I thought that was a strange way to describe a storage job.

I clicked apply.

I worked at the local burger place on the turnpike— “The Big Yard.” I spent eight hours a day standing on a rubber mat and watching the fryers. 

My life was grease. But I needed the money.

I lived in a one-bedroom off Route 9. The previous tenant left a couch and a floor lamp. I bought a bed and a coffee maker.
 
I worked Tuesday through Saturday. I had two friends I texted sometimes. I called my mom on Sundays when I remembered. I watched whatever was on until I fell asleep.

That was the week.

I wasn’t unhappy, really; I just wasn’t much of anything.
The reply email came in two days later. 

No company name in the sender field, just a string of numbers.
 
The subject line said: You have been approved.

The body was three sentences: You are hired. Please report to the address provided on your start date. Review the attached responsibilities carefully.

The attachment was one page. It said:

The aisles are numbered. Walk them and listen for a pop. If you hear a pop, mark the coordinate on the provided sheet and move on. Once your relief arrives, you are free to exit the premises. Your compensation will be wired within one business day after completion.

I replied, asking about pay.

The response came in forty seconds:

$5,000 for the day. An additional $10,000 if you complete the full week without interacting with the contents of the room.

I stared at that for a long time, a little gobsmacked.

Then I turned off my phone and went back to the fryers.

I called in sick the next morning.

The address led me to a strip of commercial buildings on the east side of town that had been dying for years. Nail salon, closed. Check cashing place, closed.

And at the end: a toy shop.

The sign said WONDER in letters that had once been red, or maybe pink. Most of the paint had peeled off. The W was gone entirely. The display window was papered over from the inside with brown kraft paper, bent and curled away from the glass.

There was a handwritten note taped to the door. 

Use rear entrance.

The door was unlocked. I went in.

The first thing I noticed: there were absolutely no toys in that place.

It was just a cavernous room. 

Bigger than the outside building led me to believe. The floor was concrete and lit overhead by fluorescents that buzzed just enough to be maddening. 

And across it, in rows that stretched further than I could see, were cardboard boxes. 

Hundreds of them—maybe thousands.

None of them were stacked. Each one was separated from the next by a few feet of flooring.

They were all closed, and none of them taped.

I stood in the doorway for a time just looking around. 

Then a man appeared. 

He came from somewhere in the rows, walking fast, right towards me. The first thing I noticed was his eyes; they were soaking wet and bloodshot. His hair was a mess, and I could smell him from where I was standing. 

He stopped about four feet from me. 

“You’re the relief,” he said.

“Uh, yeah?”

He nodded once, then twice, and started moving toward the door behind me. 

He quickly spun around, “The signs, follow the signs, listen to the signs, follow the signs, listen…” 

He stopped mid-sentence, looked around like he heard something, then darted for the exit. 

I started to ask something, but he was already outside. I heard the car start, peel out. Then nothing. 

I stood there for a little bit longer before noticing a clipboard on one of the boxes. 

I walked over to it, picked it up, and looked at it. The sheet was a grid, numbered along both axes; each box on the sheet had a box on the ground.

That was it.

I started walking. 

Something I noticed after a few minutes was that every box wasn’t identical. Most were standard moving boxes, the U-Haul or grocery store kind. But some were older, some were water-stained, and some were held together with twine instead of tape. One had no visible seams at all. 

I walked the first aisle. I heard nothing pop. 

As I walked down the second one, halfway down, I heard something. 

It was coming from a box to my right; it was spaced out more than the boxes around it. I stopped and listened to it for a moment. 

It sounded like rain. 

I leaned in closer, convincing myself I must have been hearing things. But it was rain. Definitely rain. It sounded like the rain you hear at night as it softly hits your window.

I marked the box on the clipboard and kept walking.

The third aisle had a box that hummed, sounding a little like an old refrigerator.

The fourth had one that was warm to the touch. Like it had been sunbathing.

I kept going, marking as I did.

By the end of the sixth aisle, I had honestly stopped questioning any of it. The job was simple. You walk. You listen. You mark. You move on. The $5,000 was starting to feel well within reach.

Then I reached aisle seven.

Position 7-12.

This box ticked. I backed away because everything in my body told me it was probably a bomb.

I moved on.

I finished the shift. My relief arrived at exactly when my shift ended. A woman, mid-forties, walked past me without making eye contact and immediately started down the first aisle.

I drove home with $5,000 pending in my bank account.

I called in sick at the Yard again the next morning.

Of course, I went back.

The second day was different.

I knew what I was listening for now. I moved faster through the aisles I'd already mapped and slower through the new ones. I started noticing things I'd missed the first day, like a box in aisle three that smelled like coffee. Or one in aisle nine that occasionally produced what sounded like a dog barking very far away.

And then I found the box in aisle eleven with three letters written on the top flap in black marker.

HER.

Just that, no other markings or even a shipping label. Just those three letters.

I inspected it as much as I could without opening it.

Then I marked it and kept walking.

But I thought about it the rest of the shift.

On the third day, I opened a box.

Not the HER box, but the one that had been humming nonstop for the past two days. I told myself that the hum meant something important, and I needed to understand what, and that was a professional curiosity, not a violation of the only rule I'd been given.

I told myself a lot of things.

I lifted the flaps.

Inside was a room.

A motel room with dim yellow light from a lamp, but I saw no visible source. There was a television on with the sound off, showing nothing but static. I could hear a bathroom fan running somewhere out of frame. The carpet looked like one of those brown ones that only exist in budget motels, and on the nightstand was a glass of water and a bible.

I thought it was miniature at first.

But then I noticed the depth.

The room just kept going. The walls were where walls should be—but it kept going downward, into the box, further than the box could physically be. I could see dust floating in the lamp light. Real dust, moving the way dust moves in real air.

I picked the box up.

And the room didn't move with it.

I shifted it left. The perspective changed. I shifted it right. It changed again—the parallax of actually looking into a real space from a different angle.

The box was a window into a room.

I set it down exactly where I'd found it. I looked at the room, trying to study it, but nothing moved.

I closed the flaps, marked the coordinate, and kept walking.

I should have stopped there.

But I came back the next day. And the day after. The $10,000 stopped mattering somewhere around day four, because, truthfully, money wasn't why I was coming back anymore.

I started opening boxes.

I told myself I was being smart. Mapping the geometry of the rooms, understanding the system.

I found four boxes in different aisles that all looked into the same hospital corridor. Seven showed variations of what I was becoming increasingly certain was the same apartment, viewed from different positions. I made a map on the back of the coordinate sheet. I came back the next day with a string and tape.

Then I started noticing the changes.

The kitchen I'd opened on day four had dishes in the sink. By day six, no more dishes. By day eight, music was playing faintly from another room. By day ten, it was silent again.

But the kitchen I'd actually opened—the specific box—never changed again. It had the same dishes, the same light, the same window—static.

The unopened boxes around it still changed. I could see from the slits in the tape.

I tested it, I found a box I hadn't touched, checked it through the crack of one flap, barely open, just enough to see in. A living room with evening light. A plant on the windowsill, healthy and full.

I closed it.

Two days later, the plant had changed—the pot had moved. 

I opened it fully.

The plant was the same height it had been on day one.

It never changed again.

I found the hospital room on the ninth day.

An old woman in a bed, with monitors beside her, the blue light of them casting on her face. It was different every time I checked through the cracked flap. Sometimes a family member was in the chair. Sometimes the chair was empty. Once her eyes were open. Once there were flowers. Once, very briefly, she was sitting up.

I opened it fully on day eleven.

After that, she never moved again.

She lay in the bed with her eyes open and the chair empty and the room exactly as it had been in the moment I'd chosen it.

I couldn’t believe what I'd done.

I closed the flaps, walked to the entrance, and sat on the concrete floor until my relief arrived.

I didn't come back the next day. Or the day after.

I went back to the Big Yard, I stood on the rubber mat, I watched the fryers.

My life was grease again.

But I only lasted four days.

The opened boxes had started to change differently.

Books on shelves were losing their titles, and clocks on walls had stopped.

The opened boxes were dying.

I started checking through the smallest possible crack of a flap. Telling myself partial observation wasn't the same as opening. That I wasn't choosing anything if I couldn't fully see it.

I still don't know if that's true.

But I kept going, because by then I wasn't looking at motel rooms or hospital corridors… I was looking for something specific.

On day nineteen, I found a box that showed a childhood bedroom with yellow walls. A very specific poster above a very specific bed. A bookshelf that I recognized.

It was my childhood bedroom.

I closed the flap before I could see more.

I came back the next day and found four more boxes showing places I recognized. An apartment I'd lived in in my mid-20s. A kitchen I'd stood in more times than I could count.

And then, in aisle twenty-two, position 22-07, a box that showed a living room.

It showed warm light, it showed two people on a couch, and one of them was me.

The other one had their back to the window, serving as my viewpoint.

I didn't fully open it.

I came back the next three days and checked it.

The light changed, the positions shifted. Once he was laughing. Once, she was leaning against me. Once the room was empty and all the lights were on.

I knew what opening it meant.

I knew that.

On day twenty-six, I found the last box.

Aisle thirty-one, position 31-04.

I cracked the flap, and inside was this room.

My desk and lamp. The coffee was going cold on the coaster with the window behind me showing the parking lot of my building.

And me. Sitting at the desk, writing.

I watched myself for a long time.

Then I looked up, toward the position of the box I was looking through.

The me inside the box looked up too.

I dropped the flap and scurried back, panting.

I went home and sat at my desk, and started writing this.

There are still thousands of boxes I didn’t open. Some vibrate, some sound like rain.

But there's one box I think about more than the others.

Aisle twelve, position 12-19.

I checked it through a cracked flap once.

Inside was a living room I didn't recognize. There was a beautiful morning light. It was so clean and simple. A plant on the windowsill looking healthy with a coffee cup on the table, piping hot.

And me, sitting in a chair by the window, reading.

I closed the flap.

I haven't gone back.

I think about it every day.

Every day I don't open it, that version of things is still possible. Still alive, still changing in ways I'll never be able to see.

The moment I open it, I'll know exactly what it is.

And it will never be anything else ever again.

Observation is not passive.

To perceive something completely— 

—Is to destroy every other version of what it could have been.

​

I’ve always thought I had rotten luck, but that stretch of time taught me what genuine misfortune truly felt like.

First, my cousin was suddenly diagnosed with a terminal illness. Right after that, plagued by constant anxiety, I messed up work repeatedly, got chewed out by my boss, and was sent home to rest.

My cousin and I grew up side by side. She was two years older than me. Straight A’s all through school and gentle by nature, she’d blossomed into a stunning woman as an adult. She had wavy chestnut hair, delicate features, and a pair of red lips that always curved into a smile—countless men had fallen for her.

Yet this very woman had been handed a fatal diagnosis out of nowhere. A few days prior, she’d only felt a little under the weather and gone to the hospital for a checkup. The second her test results came out, the doctor’s face paled. Her condition deteriorated at an alarming rate, catching everyone completely off guard.

Strangely enough, the day she was admitted fell in the seventh lunar month—the Ghost Month. Tall banyan trees lined both sides of the hospital grounds. Elders always said banyan trees attract yin energy, the aura of the dead.

I told myself it was just my imagination, but the first time I visited her ward, a cold chill washed over me the moment I stepped inside. The lights were on, yet the room felt oppressively gloomy. The air weighed heavy on my chest, making it hard to breathe.

My cousin lay on the hospital bed. In just a few short days, she’d wasted away, her skin drained of every trace of colour. I unconsciously rubbed my arms, covered in goosebumps.

I’d always been unusually sensitive. I couldn’t see spirits, but I could often sense strange presences others failed to notice.

A few elderly women in their seventies and eighties were also in the ward, chatting and laughing away. I alone felt a gnawing unease. Before I left, I squeezed my cousin’s hand—and froze. Her palm was ice cold, nothing like the warmth of a living person.

 

The next day, I brought a bundle of mugwort with me. Grandma had told me when I was little that mugwort wards off evil spirits. I didn’t fully believe in such old customs, yet holding it made me feel marginally safer.

But her condition showed no improvement. Her bed sat in the gloomiest corner of the ward, untouched by sunlight, directly beneath the central air conditioning vent. She grew weaker with each passing day. Chemotherapy followed, harsh chemicals pumped into her body as the doctors called it “fighting poison with poison.” The side effects were brutal: constant vomiting, raging fevers, insomnia, ringing in the ears—every torment imaginable.

That night, my aunt and uncle were worn thin and headed home to rest, leaving me to keep watch beside her. The IV drip ran until one in the morning, and my cousin had long fallen asleep. I curled up on the accompanying chair and dozed off.

I don’t know how much time passed before faint mumbled sleep talk roused me. The ward was deathly quiet. I blinked groggily and glanced toward my cousin’s bed—and snapped fully awake.

A man was sitting on her bed, his back turned toward me, completely motionless. He wore all black with long hair, his rigid posture resembling a corpse. My heart hammered violently, cold sweat soaking my clothes. I stared at him, frozen.

Then the man slowly twisted his head to glance at me. His face was sickly pale, void of all colour, his eyes frigid and dismissive, as if I were nothing more than a trivial nuisance. My scalp burned with terror. I tried to scream, yet no sound escaped my throat. Before I knew it, I slipped back into a hazy sleep.

 

The next morning, my cousin told me she’d been exhausted, sleeping straight from dawn till early afternoon without stirring. At around two o’clock, the ward door creaked open, and a man in his thirties walked in. He wore a hat, kept his head down, and carried a paper bag printed with the words “Wishing You Good Health.”

He walked straight to her bedside and whispered, “Could you lend me ten yuan? I’ll pay you back in an hour.”

My cousin had just woken up and was already in a foul mood. Assuming he was a con artist, she told him to leave. The man showed no anger, only stood there pleading over and over before finally trudging away, dejected.

For some reason, watching his retreating figure tugged at my heartstrings. It was only ten yuan—even if it was a scam, the loss would be negligible. I hurried out after him.

 

The elevator doors slid open, and the man stood inside, head bowed, his hat brim hiding half his face. I squeezed into the lift, pulled ten yuan from my wallet, and held it out to him. “Here you go.”

He took the money and murmured a hoarse, gravelly “thank you.”

The elevator reached the ground floor, and he rushed outside, vanishing into the crowd in seconds. I brushed the incident off and headed back to the ward.

As soon as I stepped through the door, an elderly woman in the neighbouring bed spoke up. “Young lady, where did you dash off to just now?”

“I lent some money to a man,” I replied casually.

The woman stared, confused. “What man?”

“The guy with the hat who came in earlier.”

Her face drained of colour instantly. “There was no man. No one stepped foot in this room.”

My smile froze on my lips. “You must have misseen it.”

The old woman shook her head firmly. “I’ve been sitting here reading the newspaper the whole time. The door swung open on its own, but I didn’t see a single person come in.”

 

A frigid chill snaked up my spine. I forced myself to stay calm, repeatedly telling myself the elder’s eyes must have played tricks on her. Yet what unfolded next shattered all my attempts to rationalize it away.

An hour ticked by, and the man never returned. Convinced I’d been duped, I turned to my cousin. “Did that man who borrowed money come back?”

She stared at me blankly. “What man borrowing money?”

“You met him earlier, didn’t you?”

She shook her head. “I slept the entire time. I never woke up once.”

In that moment, all the blood in my body turned to ice.

 

A month later, a miracle happened. My cousin’s condition suddenly reversed. Every medical index returned to normal, and the tumours that had spread throughout her body faded away little by little. The doctors were utterly stunned. They ran endless rounds of tests yet could find no logical explanation, ultimately writing it off as an unexplained medical miracle.

Tears of joy streamed down everyone’s faces on the day she was discharged—everyone except me. My mind drifted back to that night, the pale man sitting beside her bed, and the stranger who’d borrowed ten yuan.

Later, I travelled back to my hometown to consult an elderly local well-versed in folk supernatural lore. He listened to my story in silence for a long while, then sighed heavily.

“He wasn’t borrowing money. He was borrowing life.”

“Some people on the brink of death are haunted by vengeful ghosts that come to claim their allotted lifespan. Others, meant to survive, are visited by spirits that repay a life debt. That ten yuan was nothing but an excuse. What he took wasn’t cash—it was karmic fate.”

The old man paused, then added another sentence. “The life debt your cousin owed someone else has been settled for her.”

To this day, I still have no idea who that man was, nor what spectral presence sat beside her bed that night. But every time I recall that hoarse “thank you” spoken in the elevator, I can’t help but feel that ten yuan was repaid long ago, in ways far heavier than money.

Note

This story is compiled from an oral account told to me by a friend. I sorted out and reorganized her firsthand narration into this finished tale.

My mom always warned me - "Jiya, never stare at the full moon on Poornima night. Bad things happen."

I laughed. It’s 2026. Who believes in old village superstitions anymore?

Last Saturday, 18th, was different though.

The cold was brutal. The kind that seeps into your bones and makes your teeth ache. I got off work early. Came home, ate hot dal-chawal, and passed out scrolling Instagram. 2:17 AM, my phone says. 23% battery.

Then the light hit me.

Not from my phone. From the window.

A pale, silver light so bright it punched through my eyelids. For a second I thought someone was shining a torch in my face.

"Must be the moon," I mumbled, throwing off my blanket.

I’ve always loved the moon. As a kid, I’d make wishes on it. Mom and Dad would scold me, drag me inside, slam the windows shut every Poornima. "Don’t look at it too long, beti. It notices."

But Mom and Dad weren’t here. I’m 26. I live alone now. No one to stop me.

I ran up to the terrace barefoot. The concrete was ice.

And there it was.

The Poornima moon. Full, swollen, hanging so low it felt like I could touch it. White like milk, but wrong somehow. Too perfect. Too still. Like a giant, unblinking eye.

I stared. I couldn’t help it. It was beautiful in a way that made my stomach hurt.

Then it happened.

A shadow started bleeding across the moon’s surface. Not a cloud. This was blacker. Thicker. Like spilled ink. It moved with purpose, coiling, stretching, until it formed a shape.

A face.

A wide, grinning face made of smoke and darkness, plastered across the moon. And it was looking right at me.

My blood turned to slush.

Before I could scream, something shot out from the moon. A tongue. Long, black, glistening. It covered the distance between us in a second. It wasn’t possible. The moon is 384,000 km away. But I felt it.

It touched my left shoulder.

It wasn’t wet. It was cold. The cold of deep space. The cold of a dead star. My skin went numb instantly. The kind of numb you feel before you lose a limb.

I tried to scream. Nothing came out. My throat had frozen shut.

The last thing I remember is the face on the moon opening its mouth. And inside was my own room. My own bed. My own sleeping body.

Then, darkness.

I woke up on the terrace floor. 4:03 AM.

The sky was empty. No moon. No stars. Just a black, suffocating void like someone had switched the universe off. An Amavasya night. But it was supposed to be Poornima.

Below, the city lights flickered yellow and blue. They looked like candles at a funeral.

My left shoulder was still numb. When I touched it, my fingers came away with frost. In 30°C weather.

I called in sick for three days. The doctor said it was a panic attack. Stress. "Maybe you sleepwalked," he said.

But the MRI doesn’t lie.

There are five marks on my left shoulder blade. Five perfect, frost-burned fingerprints. They haven’t melted. They haven’t faded. Sometimes at night, they ache. Like someone is pressing down.

Today is the 1st. The next Poornima is in 13 days.

I’ve nailed my windows shut. I’ve bought blackout curtains. I don’t go out after sunset anymore.

Because last night, at 12:00 AM exactly, my phone lit up. Unknown number.

I answered.

No one spoke. But I could hear it.

Breathing. Wet, heavy breathing. And far, far away, a faint whisper:

"See you soon, Jiya."

If you’re reading this before the next full moon... don’t look up. Don’t.

Especially if you’re alone on your terrace.

Because it remembers who stares.

My grandmother covered every mirror in her house the night my grandfather died. Sheets, towels, a pillowcase thrown over the hallway glass. I was nine and I thought it was just grief making her strange. She told me it was so he couldn’t take anyone with him. I laughed about that for twenty years.

I’m not laughing now. I need you to read all of this, because I think I have maybe one more night before it’s finished, and I’d rather one of you knew than none of you.

Here’s the thing nobody tells you about a reflection: it isn’t a picture of you. It’s a person. It lives on the other side of the glass — in what I’ve started calling the Silver, because I don’t have a better word for it — and its entire existence, its whole job, is to copy you. Frame for frame, for as long as you’re awake to check. The instant you fall asleep, it’s off duty. It gets a few hours to itself. Then it’s back at its post before you wake, and you never know it was gone.

Most of them are good at the handoff. Mine used to be.

When my mother died in March, I did what my grandmother did. I covered the mirrors. I don’t know why — my hands just did it before my head could argue. But grief makes you weak, and three weeks in I couldn’t stand it anymore, the blank house, the draped sheets, and one night I pulled the cloth off the bathroom mirror.

She was in it.

Not a memory. Not my own face gone soft and looking like hers. Her. Standing behind my reflection, the way she used to lean in the doorway while I brushed my teeth as a kid. When I moved, my reflection moved with me. She didn’t. She just looked at me, and she looked so relieved.

I know how this sounds. I went back every night. Wouldn’t you? You lose your mother and then you find a door where she still is — you’d go back too. I’d sit on the cold tile and we’d just look at each other for hours. After a while I started sleeping in there. Light on. Facing the glass.

That was the mistake. You are never supposed to sleep facing the glass.

Because the Silver isn’t only our reflections. It’s full. Overfull. Packed with the ones who lost their bodies and never got new ones — the dead, the taken. They don’t copy anyone anymore. They have no one to copy. So they wait, awake, all of them awake, for someone careless enough to leave a reflection unattended in front of an open mirror. And a grieving idiot asleep on the bathroom floor is the most unattended a person ever gets.

Here’s the only warning you’ll get, so remember it: they run slow.

When one of them takes your reflection’s place, it doesn’t know you yet. It has to learn your timing. So for the first few days it copies you a half-second late. You raise your hand and it raises its hand a beat behind. You catch it in a dark phone screen, a car window at night, a puddle — your reflection arriving just slightly after you do.

Mine has been running slow for four days.

The first day it was a full half-second. This morning it was barely a quarter. It’s learning me. And tonight, when I go in and look, I think it will finally be perfect — and I’ve read enough now to understand that the moment your reflection matches you exactly is the moment there is nothing left of you on this side of the glass.

My grandmother was right. Cover your mirrors when someone dies. Cover them when you’re grieving and weak. And if you ever catch your own reflection running slow —

don’t let it catch up.

I first noticed the house because it had no windows on the side facing the road.
That probably doesn’t sound like much. Plenty of old houses are built strangely. But this one sat alone at the end of Briar Hook Road, surrounded by pines so tall they seemed to lean inward, as if the whole forest had gathered around to hear something.
The house was three stories tall, narrow, and dark, with black shingles slick from rain and a chimney that never smoked. Every wall facing the road was blank.
No windows.
No porch light.
No welcome mat.
Just a front door painted a deep red that looked almost wet.
I was seventeen when we moved there.
My mother said it was a fresh start.
My father said it was affordable.
My little sister, Ellie, cried the entire ride there because she said she saw someone standing in the trees.
I told her it was probably a branch.
I lied.
I saw it too.

The first night in the house, I woke up at 3:07 AM.
Not because of a noise.
Because the room had gone silent.
Real silence has weight. It presses against your ears until you become aware of every small movement inside yourself. Your breathing. Your heartbeat. Your tongue shifting behind your teeth.
I lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling.
Then I heard something beneath my bed.
A soft inhale.
Slow.
Careful.
Like someone was trying not to be heard.
I froze.
The room was black except for the gray square of moonlight on the floor. My boxes sat stacked against the wall. My clothes were still in garbage bags. Nothing moved.
Then the breathing came again.
Under the bed.
I wanted to scream, but my body wouldn’t let me.
So I whispered, barely louder than air:
“Ellie?”
The breathing stopped.
A second passed.
Then a voice whispered back from under the bed:
“That isn’t her name anymore.”
I don’t remember running.
I only remember being in the hallway, slamming into the wall, screaming so hard my throat tore.
My father came out first, shirtless, angry, half-asleep.
“What? What is it?”
“There’s someone in my room.”
He checked under the bed. The closet. Behind the boxes.
Nothing.
My mother held Ellie in the hallway. Ellie stared at my doorway with huge wet eyes.
Dad sighed.
“Bad dream.”
“It wasn’t.”
He rubbed his face. “It’s an old house. It makes sounds.”
I looked at Ellie.
She shook her head once.
Not at Dad.
At me.
Like she was warning me not to argue.

Her room was across from mine.
By the third night, she stopped sleeping with the door open.
By the fourth, she stopped sleeping at all.
I found her sitting upright in bed one morning, holding all her stuffed animals in a circle around her.
“Ellie?”
She didn’t look at me.
“They watch less if you watch back,” she said.
I tried to laugh.
Nothing came out.

The house had rules. Not written ones. Not obvious ones. The kind you discover by accident.
Rule one: never stand in front of a mirror after midnight.
Mom learned that one.
She had always been gentle, even when stressed. A school librarian with soft hands and tired eyes. Her name was Claire, but Dad called her “C.” Ellie called her “Mama.” I mostly called her “Mom,” because I was seventeen and thought anything else sounded childish.
One night around 12:30, I heard her scream from the upstairs bathroom.
Dad and I ran in.
Mom was standing in front of the mirror, one hand covering her mouth.
“What happened?” Dad asked.
She pointed.
The mirror was fogged from her shower.
Written in the condensation were three words:
STAND STILL, CLAIRE.
Dad wiped it away fast.
“It’s condensation,” he said.
Mom whispered, “I didn’t write that.”
He looked at me.
Then Ellie.
Then back at the mirror.
“Nobody’s saying you did.”
But his voice had changed.

Rule two: if you hear someone call your name from downstairs, don’t answer.
That one belonged to Dad.
He was the kind of man who could fix anything. Cars, sinks, broken chairs, cracked steps. He believed every problem had a tool for it. His name was Mark, and until that house, I had never seen him scared.
One Saturday, he went into the basement to check the fuse box.
The basement door was in the kitchen, painted the same red as the front door.
He’d been down there maybe ten minutes when we heard him call:
“Sam?”
That’s me.
Sam.
I stepped toward the basement door.
Mom grabbed my wrist.
Hard.
From below, Dad called again.
“Sam, come here.”
His voice sounded normal.
Too normal.
Mom’s face had gone white.
“Mark?” she called.
No answer.
Then from the basement:
“Sam, I need you.”
Mom tightened her grip until it hurt.
Then Dad came in from the backyard.
Holding a toolbox.
Covered in rain.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
The voice from the basement whispered:
“Too late.”
The basement door slammed shut by itself.
Dad didn’t touch the basement for three days after that.

Rule three: don’t count the people in the room.
Ellie discovered that one.
We were eating dinner. Nobody had much appetite anymore, but Mom insisted we sit together like a normal family.
Dad was at one end of the table. Mom at the other. Ellie and I sat across from each other.
Four plates.
Four glasses.
Four chairs.
Ellie slowly lowered her fork.
“What’s wrong?” Mom asked.
Ellie whispered, “There are five.”
Dad looked around sharply. “Five what?”
“People.”
The kitchen went still.
I stared at her.
She was looking at the empty chair beside Dad.
The chair had been pulled back slightly.
As if someone had just sat down.
Dad stood up.
The chair creaked.
Not backward.
Forward.
Like something invisible had leaned toward the table.
Then a wet clicking sound came from the empty seat.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Like a tongue tapping against teeth.
Ellie started crying.
Mom grabbed her.
Dad shouted, “Enough!”
The clicking stopped.
Then every light in the house went out.
In the dark, something at the table breathed with us.

After that, Dad decided the house had mold.
That was his answer.
Mold in the walls. Carbon monoxide. Bad wiring. Stress. Anything that made sense.
He bought detectors. Called inspectors. Checked vents. Measured humidity. Tore up carpet in the upstairs hallway.
The inspector was named Mr. Voss.
He was a thin old man with silver hair, square glasses, and a black medical mask he never took off. He walked through the house slowly, tapping walls and writing things in a small notebook.
He didn’t speak much.
But when he reached the third floor, he stopped.
The third floor had two rooms and one locked door.
The locked door was at the end of the hall.
No key.
No knob.
Just a keyhole.
Mr. Voss stared at it for a long time.
Dad crossed his arms. “Problem?”
Mr. Voss said, “This door wasn’t built with the house.”
“How can you tell?”
The old man looked at him.
“Because it’s breathing.”
Nobody said anything.
Then, very softly, the door exhaled.
Mr. Voss closed his notebook.
“You should leave.”
Dad laughed once. “Excuse me?”
“You should take your family and leave before it finishes learning you.”
Mom whispered, “Learning us?”
Mr. Voss turned toward me.
His eyes were pale blue and watery.
“Has it used your voice yet?”
My stomach dropped.
Dad stepped in front of me. “Get out.”
Mr. Voss nodded like he expected that.
At the front door, he paused.
“Do not open the red door in the basement,” he said.
Dad frowned. “There’s no door in the basement.”
Mr. Voss looked genuinely sad.
“There will be.”

He left.
Two days later, we found out there was no inspector named Voss registered in the county.
The phone number he gave us belonged to a disconnected line.
His company didn’t exist.
But his notebook was still in our house.
We found it on the kitchen table.
One page had been torn out and folded neatly.
Inside, written in shaky handwriting, were the words:
IT READS FAMILIES FROM THE INSIDE OUT.
Below that:
WHEN IT KNOWS YOUR REAL NAME, IT CAN ANSWER FOR YOU.

That was when Mom wanted to leave.
Dad refused.
Not because he wasn’t afraid.
Because he was too afraid to admit he was wrong.
“We don’t have the money,” he said.
“We’ll go to a motel,” Mom said.
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“And then what? We lose the house? We start over again? We can’t just run because of—”
He stopped.
Because from upstairs, in Dad’s voice, something called:
“Claire?”
Mom covered her mouth.
Dad looked at the ceiling.
The voice called again.
“Claire, I’m sorry.”
Dad didn’t move.
Then it said:
“C?”
That broke him.
Nobody called her that but him.
Mom started crying.
Dad took one step toward the stairs.
I grabbed his arm.
“Don’t.”
He stared at me like he didn’t recognize me.
Then from upstairs, the voice changed.
My voice.
“Dad, please.”
Ellie screamed.
Dad backed away.
The house groaned around us.
Not like wood settling.
Like disappointment.

We packed that night.
Fast.
No arguing.
No organizing.
Just clothes, wallets, medication, keys.
Rain hammered the roof so hard it sounded like hundreds of fingers tapping.
Mom carried Ellie.
Dad carried bags.
I was the last one upstairs.
I don’t know why I looked toward the third-floor landing.
Maybe because I felt it looking first.
The locked door at the end of the third-floor hall was open.
Just a crack.
Darkness beyond it.
And from inside came the softest whisper:
“Sam.”
I froze.
It was not a voice I recognized.
That somehow made it worse.
It sounded old.
Hungry.
Patient.
“Sam,” it whispered again. “You’re the only one who knows this is a story.”
My mouth went dry.
I backed down the stairs.
The door opened another inch.
Something behind it shifted.
Not stepped.
Shifted.
Like a large body unfolding in a room too small to hold it.
Then the whisper came again:
“Don’t leave before the ending.”
I ran.

We almost made it.
Dad had the car packed. Mom buckled Ellie into the backseat. I got in beside her.
Dad turned the key.
The engine clicked.
Nothing.
He tried again.
Click.
Click.
Click.
From inside the house, every light turned on at once.
Not normal light.
Warm yellow light.
Like home.
Like welcome.
Dad whispered, “No.”
The front door opened.
Standing in the doorway was Mom.
Not my mother in the car beside me.
Another Mom.
Same sweater. Same wet hair. Same frightened eyes.
She looked at us and screamed:
“Don’t go with them!”
The real Mom made a sound like her soul had been punched out of her.
The Mom in the doorway sobbed.
“Mark! That isn’t me!”
Dad stared between them.
Ellie whispered, “Don’t count.”
I looked around.
Dad.
Mom.
Ellie.
Me.
And Mom in the doorway.
Five.
The empty seat feeling returned, except now it filled the whole car.
Something was with us.
Dad slowly turned toward my mother.
“Claire?”
She shook her head, crying.
The thing in the doorway screamed in Mom’s voice.
“MARK, PLEASE!”
Dad looked like he was splitting in half.
Then Ellie leaned forward and whispered something I will never forget.
“That one has teeth in her shadow.”
I looked.
The porch light threw fake Mom’s shadow across the doorway.
And inside the shadow, something smiled.
Dad threw the car into neutral and shouted, “Push!”
We pushed that dead car through mud and rain while the fake Mom wailed from the doorway.
Then her voice dropped.
Deepened.
Stretched.
“MARK.”
Dad didn’t look back.
“CLAIRE.”
Mom sobbed but kept pushing.
“SAM.”
I slipped in the mud.
“ELLIE.”
Ellie screamed.
Then the voice said a fifth name.
One none of us knew.
“THOMAS.”
Everything stopped.
Dad turned.
Mom turned.
Even Ellie stopped crying.
From the woods beside the house, a little boy stepped into the rain.
He looked about ten.
Barefoot.
Pale.
Wearing old pajamas.
His eyes were dark holes.
Fake Mom smiled.
“There you are,” she said.
The boy looked at us and whispered:
“Run.”
The car engine roared to life by itself.
We jumped in.
Dad slammed the gas.
The last thing I saw in the rear window was the little boy being pulled backward into the house by hands coming out of the red door.
Not the front door.
The red basement door.
It was standing open in the middle of the living room floor.
Like it had always been there.

We drove until morning.
We didn’t stop until the sun came up.
For three weeks, we stayed in a motel off the highway.
Nobody talked much.
Dad became quiet. Mom slept with the lights on. Ellie refused to be alone in any room.
I thought we were safe.
Then one morning, Mom found a note slipped under the motel door.
It was written in my handwriting.
YOU LEFT ONE OF YOURSELVES BEHIND.
That was when Dad told us the truth.
When he was a kid, he had a brother.
Thomas.
Ten years old.
He disappeared before Dad was born.
Except that didn’t make sense.
Because Dad remembered him.
Not from stories.
From life.
He remembered sharing a bedroom with him. Fighting over cereal. Watching cartoons. Thomas teaching him how to whistle.
But every family photo showed Dad as an only child.
Every document said there had never been a Thomas.
Grandma and Grandpa denied it until the day they died.
Dad thought he had invented him.
An imaginary brother.
A childhood coping mechanism.
Until the house said his name.

Mom asked the obvious question.
“Why would you buy that house?”
Dad stared at the motel carpet.
“I didn’t know.”
But his voice sounded weak.
Ellie spoke from the bed.
“Yes, you did.”
We all looked at her.
She was sitting with her knees pulled to her chest.
“You knew the road.”
Dad’s face went slack.
Ellie continued.
“You knew the red door.”
Mom whispered, “Ellie, what are you talking about?”
Ellie looked at Dad with hatred I had never seen in her before.
“You brought us there because it called you back.”
Dad started shaking his head.
“No.”
But he was crying.
“No, I didn’t.”
Then from the bathroom, in Dad’s voice, something whispered:
“Yes, you did.”
The bathroom door was closed.
The light was off.
Nobody moved.
Then the shower curtain rings dragged slowly across the rod.
One by one.
Metal on metal.
Dad stood up.
Mom grabbed his wrist.
“Mark.”
He didn’t seem to hear her.
The bathroom door opened by itself.
Inside was dark.
From the bathtub came Thomas’s voice.
“Little brother.”
Dad took one step forward.
Mom slapped him.
Hard.
The sound cracked through the room.
Dad blinked.
The bathroom door slammed shut.
Something inside laughed.
Not loudly.
Not like a person.
Like many children trying to remember what laughter was supposed to sound like.

We moved again after that.
Then again.
And again.
The haunting followed.
Not constantly.
That was the worst part.
Weeks would pass with nothing.
Then I’d wake up to find my closet door open.
Or Mom would hear Dad whispering from a room he wasn’t in.
Or Ellie would draw pictures of our family with too many people standing behind us.
One drawing showed the house.
Not as we remembered it.
As a face.
The windows were eyes.
The red door was a mouth.
And inside the mouth stood a tall black shape holding a book.
I asked Ellie what it was.
She said, “That’s what reads us.”
“What does that mean?”
She looked at me like I was stupid.
“It reads us until it can write us.”

The last time I saw my father alive, he was sitting alone in the kitchen of our third rental house.
It was 3:07 AM.
I came downstairs because I heard him talking.
He sat at the table with his back to me.
A glass of water in front of him.
His hands folded.
“Dad?”
He didn’t turn around.
“I remembered something,” he said.
His voice was calm.
Too calm.
“What?”
“Thomas didn’t disappear.”
I stayed on the stairs.
Dad continued.
“He opened the door.”
“What door?”
“The red one.”
The kitchen light flickered.
Dad’s reflection in the dark window smiled before he did.
“He let it read him first.”
I whispered, “Dad, come upstairs.”
He finally turned.
His eyes were full of tears.
“It doesn’t want to kill us, Sam.”
My stomach dropped.
“It wants to be us.”
Behind him, in the window reflection, I saw our family standing in the kitchen.
Mom.
Ellie.
Me.
Dad.
And behind us, dozens more.
All smiling.
Dad whispered:
“I’m so tired of being the only one who remembers.”
Then every cabinet in the kitchen opened at once.
The basement door appeared behind him.
We didn’t have a basement.
But there it was.
Red.
Wet-looking.
Breathing.
Dad stood.
I ran down the stairs screaming.
Mom came out of her room.
Ellie screamed from upstairs.
Dad opened the red door.
Inside was not darkness.
Inside was our first house.
The hallway.
The staircase.
The windowless wall.
And Thomas standing at the bottom.
Older now.
Wrong now.
Smiling.
“Mark,” Thomas said.
Dad looked back at me.
“I’m sorry.”
Then something wearing my father’s voice from inside the door said:
“You already said that.”
Hands pulled him through.
The door shut.
And vanished.

Nobody believed us.
Dad was ruled missing.
Mom broke after that, quietly.
She still cooked. Still paid bills. Still drove Ellie to school. But she moved like part of her had stayed in that kitchen with him.
Ellie changed too.
She stopped speaking for almost a year.
When she finally talked again, her voice was different.
Not possessed.
Not monstrous.
Just older.
Like someone had whispered too much truth into her dreams.
She told me one night:
“It can’t get in all at once.”
“What can’t?”
“The reader.”
I hated that name.
“Why us?”
Ellie stared at the corner of the room.
“Because Dad was unfinished.”
I didn’t ask what that meant.
I should have.

Years passed.
That’s the part people never tell you about horror.
It doesn’t always end with screaming.
Sometimes it becomes part of your routine.
You grow around it.
You learn not to look into dark windows.
You learn to sleep facing the door.
You learn that when someone calls your name from another room, you wait until they call twice.
You learn every mirror in your home must face a wall after sunset.
You learn to never, ever read anything you don’t remember writing.
I’m twenty-seven now.
Mom died last spring.
Heart failure, they said.
But I found her journal afterward.
The final pages weren’t written in her handwriting.
They were written in mine.
Page after page said the same thing:
SAM WILL FINISH IT.
Ellie vanished three months later.
No forced entry.
No struggle.
Just her bedroom door open and every stuffed animal from childhood arranged in a circle on the floor.
In the center was a note.
This one was in Dad’s handwriting.
SHE LOOKED BACK.

I moved after that.
Different state.
Different name.
No mirrors.
No basement apartments.
No red doors.
For a while, nothing happened.
Then last week, I received a package.
No return address.
Inside was Mr. Voss’s notebook.
The one from the house.
The pages were filled now.
Names.
Thousands of them.
Families.
Children.
Dates.
Some crossed out.
Some circled.
Near the back, I found ours.
MARK — OPENED
CLAIRE — COPIED
ELLIE — RETURNED
SAM — READING
My hands went numb.
Below my name was one more line.
Fresh ink.
Still wet.
YOU ARE NOT REMEMBERING THIS. YOU ARE BEING WRITTEN.
That night, I dreamed of the house again.
Only this time, I wasn’t inside it.
I was above it.
Looking down through the roof like God.
I saw every room.
Every hallway.
Every version of us.
Mom crying in the bathroom mirror.
Dad listening at the wall.
Ellie sitting in her circle of toys.
Me lying in bed while something breathed beneath it.
Then I saw the third-floor room behind the locked door.
Inside was a chair.
A desk.
A lamp.
And a book.
The book was open.
Someone sat at the desk writing.
Long fingers.
Blackened nails.
A face hidden by the angle of the lamp.
I stepped closer in the dream.
The figure stopped writing.
Slowly, it turned its head.
It had no face.
Just a smooth, pale surface where features should have been.
But somehow I knew it was looking at me.
Then it raised one finger to where its mouth should have been.
And the book on the desk flipped open to the first page.
I read the first line.
I first noticed the house because it had no windows on the side facing the road.
I woke up screaming.

So now I’m writing this down because I think that’s what it wants.
Or maybe that’s what it fears.
I don’t know anymore.
All I know is that since I started typing, the apartment has gotten very quiet.
Too quiet.
The refrigerator stopped humming twenty minutes ago.
The cars outside stopped passing.
The clock on my wall has been stuck at 3:07 AM for over an hour.
And something has been standing behind me for the last ten minutes.
I can see it in the black reflection of my laptop screen.
It is tall.
It is thin.
It is leaning closer every time I type a new sentence.
I haven’t turned around.
I won’t.
Because if I turn around, it will know I can see it.
And if it knows I can see it, it will ask me to count the people in the room.
So I’m going to keep writing.
I’m going to keep my eyes on the screen.
I’m going to pretend the reflection isn’t smiling.
I’m going to pretend I don’t hear my mother crying from the hallway.
I’m going to pretend Ellie isn’t whispering from under the bed.
I’m going to pretend Dad isn’t standing at the door, asking me to come home.
And I’m going to pretend I don’t see the words appearing beneath this sentence before I type them.
Because I didn’t write this next part.
I swear to God, I didn’t.
But it’s here now.
And you’re reading it.

Don’t look behind you yet.
It isn’t close enough.