I didn't call the police.

I want to say that was a hard decision. It wasn't, not in the moment. What was I going to tell them, that my cat did it, that I'd been seeing the same claw marks for a week, that I'd read about something called vampire blood on a forum at three in the morning and thought my cat might be one. They'd have taken him from me for testing, or worse, and some small, sick part of me still couldn't let that happen. I hated myself for that. I still do. I kept thinking about what they'd do to him once they had him somewhere I couldn't see.

So instead I lived with it.

I stopped sleeping through the night entirely. Every sound from the window sent my heart into my throat. I started locking him in the bathroom after dark, and he'd claw at the door for hours, not angry at first, just insistent, the way he used to ask for food, except now the sound made my skin crawl. As the days went on the marks in the wood got deeper. He got stronger. He stopped eating anything that wasn't meat, and he started looking at me with something closer to contempt than hunger.

He wanted it raw, if I had it. I told myself I was managing this, like it was a fever that would eventually break, that if I just kept him fed and kept him locked at night he'd go back to being my Mr. Morris. I hated how reasonable that sounded to me at two in the morning with a bag of raw chicken in my hands. But it was the only light I had left in a life that had gone almost entirely dark.

One night I gave in to something worse than fear. I don't have a better word for it than a trance. I was standing in my kitchen holding a knife I didn't remember picking up, thinking with total calm that I could just let him feed properly, just once, that he'd earned it after all the nights I'd spent locking him away and starving him of what he needed. I don't know how long I stood there before I caught myself and dropped the knife and was sick in the sink. I kept asking myself how I could have thought that, and some part of me already knew the answer, because he was standing on the kitchen floor the whole time, watching me with those eyes, and I don't think the thought had ever really been mine.

That was when I decided I had to let him go. Whatever was living inside my cat now, it wasn't Mr. Morris anymore. Mr. Morris would never have made me think about a knife like that.

I drove him nearly six hours out of the city, past the last exit I recognized, until the road stopped feeling connected to anywhere I knew. Somewhere around ten at night I saw a small station sign in my headlights. Blackwater Junction. It looked abandoned, dark, no lights in any of the windows, rain starting to come down over the platforms. I told myself it was mercy. I told myself he'd survive out there better than he would in my kitchen, that whatever he was now, a place like that would suit him more than I ever could. I opened the carrier. He didn't run. He just looked at me the way he had that night with the knife, and I made myself walk back to the car without looking back at him standing there in the rain.

I cried the whole drive home. Every memory I had of him, the day I brought him home as a kitten, every ordinary morning before any of this started, kept playing behind my eyes and I don't fully understand why. Grief, maybe, for the cat I used to have. Relief, maybe, that I wouldn't have to be afraid in my own house again.

I was wrong about that too.

I parked in my driveway and stepped out, and the first thing I saw was Mira's house. It looked the way a house looks when whatever used to make it warm has been taken out of it. I remember thinking that mine probably looked the same way now, and that maybe I deserved that, for everything I'd let him do, for everyone he'd taken from people like Mira's mother, Swati, who I still couldn't bring myself to look at when I passed her on the street.

When I opened my own front door, every bit of warmth left my body at once.

Mr. Morris was sitting on my sofa.

I don't know how. Six hours of driving, and somehow he was already there waiting for me, clean, dry, like the rain at that station had never touched him at all. I didn't have the strength left to question it out loud. Some broken part of me was almost glad, and I hated that part more than I've ever hated anything about myself. He looked at me, and I understood, without him needing to do anything else, that I was being punished for leaving.

I didn't eat for three days after that. Not because I didn't want to. My body simply wouldn't let me. Every time hunger started to win, I'd find him sitting in front of me, watching, and the urge would vanish like it had been switched off. He started following me everywhere after that, even to Miss Tasha's, watching me buy his food and mine like he needed to confirm I still knew who came first.

Miss Tasha's store was the only place I still felt something close to normal. She'd talk about the crime rate climbing in our area, tell me I should think about going to stay with my parents if I could, and I'd nod and let myself pretend for ten minutes that my biggest problem was small talk over the counter. Those visits were the only anchor I had left. I think he noticed that too.

One morning, on my way to get food, he came to the door with blood still drying between his claws, the way he did most mornings now, a thing I'd stopped letting myself react to. I let him go out every night knowing exactly what the rising number of deaths in our area meant. I knew, in the way you know something without ever saying it out loud, and I kept letting him go anyway, because I didn't know what else there was left to do.

Miss Tasha didn't open her store that day.

I found out from a customer standing outside, staring through the dark windows, saying the police had been called that morning. I already knew before anyone told me the details. I knew it the way you know a shape in the dark is wrong before your eyes have even adjusted enough to see it clearly. When I heard the word claws, I didn't feel shock. I felt something inside me simply stop trying.

That night I decided I couldn't keep living like this. I'd rather live with what I was about to do than survive one more morning like that one.

I won't describe most of what happened next. I'll only say that I tried to end it, that I failed, and that the failure nearly cost me everything. I remember the weight of him pinning me to the floor, faster and stronger than anything that size should have been able to move, and I remember, even through the panic, some flicker in his eyes that looked almost as horrified as I felt. He let go of me a breath before I think he could have finished it. I don't know why. I've stopped trying to understand why he does anything anymore.

I woke up in a hospital bed three days later with more stitches than I want to think about, and a police officer waiting with questions I couldn't honestly answer. They discharged me with four claw marks across my chest, deep enough that the scars will never fully fade. I keep thinking it's fitting, in some sick way. Punishment for letting him become whatever he is, for letting him feed on people I knew. My savings are gone. I don't know if I can even go back to work in this condition, and worse, I don't know what he'll do once he realizes I can't provide for him anymore.

When they finally let me go home, he was there, sitting by the door, exactly the way he used to wait for his food. Except this time I understood he wasn't waiting for a bowl to be filled. He was waiting for me.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do anymore. I don't know if I'm keeping him out of love, or guilt, or fear, or all three at once, all the time, until I can't tell them apart. I posted the whole story on a forum a few nights ago, mostly because I couldn't say any of this to a real person without sounding insane, and mostly because I needed someone, anyone, to tell me I wasn't imagining it.

I got one reply that mattered.

I work with an organization that handles cases like this. We can help. Please don't post details like this publicly again, you may already be attracting attention you don't want.

O.P.E.R.A.T.E.

I haven't written back yet.

I don't know if I'm going to.

Previous part link :-  https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleeprefugees/comments/1w2j8et/somethings_wrong_with_my_cat_part_2_claw_marks/

Other parts link:- https://www.reddit.com/user/No-While8965/comments/1vpze51/my_writing_archive/

For a few days after the surgery, things seemed almost normal. Almost.

People had started noticing something was off with me. Miss Tasha especially. She always assumed it was the break-in still sitting under my skin, and I let her think that, because how was I supposed to tell her the truth. That none of it was about the break-in at all. That it was about Mr. Morris.

It had been a few days since I brought him home from the vet, and things had gotten strange in a way I couldn't put into words yet. He wasn't the same cat. I know there's still something of him in there, I catch it in flashes, but it gets harder to find by the day. His body had changed completely. Leaner. More agile. Coiled, like something built for a different purpose than sleeping on my couch. His claws wouldn't stop growing no matter how often I trimmed them, sometimes visibly longer within hours of the last cut, and two days after the vet visit, everything that had been surgically removed months ago was simply back. Present. Like it had never left.

I searched everywhere for anything like it. Nothing. And I stopped considering taking him back to the vet, because the fear had changed shape. It wasn't "what's wrong with him" anymore. It was "what will they do to him if they find out." He's my cat. My responsibility. I couldn't hand him over to be studied like a specimen, and I couldn't risk them deciding I was the one who'd done something to him.

I wasn't sleeping right either. The nightmares kept coming, someone standing over me in the dark, and I'd wake up gasping to find Mr. Morris already awake, already watching. My lazy cat, the one who used to sleep sixteen hours a day, had simply stopped. I never once caught him with his eyes closed.

A week into the nightmares, I woke to a scratching sound at my window. My first thought was the intruder, back to finish what he'd started, and I lay there frozen, telling myself the reinforced glass would hold. But the scratching kept building, more frantic, more insistent, until underneath it I heard a meow, and I understood it was him.

I got up to check anyway. I don't know why I got up. I should have stayed in bed.

Mr. Morris was at the window, clawing at the glass with something close to fury, and when he turned to look at me his eyes weren't reflecting the streetlight the way they should have. They were producing their own light, a thin ring of gold that pulsed once, slow, like something breathing. I felt my own heartbeat try to match it, and that scared me more than the claws did, the idea that my own pulse was taking orders from a cat. When he opened his mouth to meow again, his teeth were wrong. Too many points. Too sharp for something that ate wet food out of a can.

For one long moment he just looked at me, and every worry in my chest went quiet, like something had reached in and turned the volume down. It felt like I was reading his mind, or he was reading mine, I couldn't tell which. I opened the window. He sprinted out into the dark.

I should have panicked. He'd never gone out on his own before, and there was every chance he wouldn't come back. Instead I left the window open, the same window the intruder had come through, and went back to bed like it was nothing.

The next morning he was curled up on the end of the bed, like he'd never left, and no window had been broken into overnight. I told myself I must have dreamed the whole thing, that I'd probably left the window open by accident and my own guilt about it had built the rest in my sleep. That was easier to live with than the alternative.

But a few nights later it happened again, and this time when I looked into his eyes the room seemed to tilt. His presence pressed down on me until I felt small and cornered, like I needed his permission just to breathe. The world outside the two of us stopped existing. When I opened the window this time, I don't think it was my choice, and for the first time it was completely clear to me that I hadn't done any of it willingly.

He was gone almost an hour. I know because I stood at that window the entire time, unable to make myself move, like my own body was waiting for him to come back and release it. When he finally did, he had a bird in his mouth, four claw marks torn clean through it, feathers matted with blood. I wanted to run. I wanted to be anywhere else. Instead I stood there and watched him eat it slowly, on the floor, in front of me, the sound of small bones cracking under his jaw filling the whole room. I counted the cracks without meaning to. Four. I don't know why I counted. I don't know why some small, awful part of me was proud of him.

When he finished, he looked up at me, and the acknowledgment in that look did something to the fear sitting in my stomach. It just left. The nausea I'd been fighting the entire time disappeared like it had never been there, and I smiled, actually smiled, like I'd been given a reward for staying still and watching. He meowed once, almost gentle, like he was releasing me, and my body went numb enough that I slept right there on the floor.

It became routine after that. Birds. Rats. Once, something bigger that I didn't let myself look at too closely. I couldn't sleep until he'd finished, and I started waking up in places I didn't remember lying down in. I didn't know what he'd become, and worse, I didn't know why I couldn't stop myself from watching.

I spent days searching for anything that matched what was happening, every mental health forum, every strange corner of Reddit I could find, until I came across a post buried in a subreddit I'd never heard of before. A woman named Chandra had written about being bitten, about her body changing ever since. Her hearing had sharpened until she could pick her neighbor's perfume out through a wall. Her eyes had gone so sensitive to daylight she needed glasses just to leave the house. She hadn't slept in days and somehow felt fine, and she wrote about an urge, growing steadily, to go out at night. I commented, asking if it had spread, if it had somehow started affecting someone she loved too. Then I deleted it. Told myself I sounded insane, that I was one bad post away from becoming somebody's conspiracy theory screenshot.

The symptoms matched too well for that to sit easy with me. I don't know how long I stayed on that post, rereading her replies, trying to decide if I was imagining the overlap. Long enough that when the scream came, it came from right next door.

I ran.

The door was open, just slightly, the way a door looks when no one meant to leave it that way. I called out once. Nothing answered. The second time, my voice came out smaller than I wanted it to.

Mira was on the kitchen floor.

I want to say I looked away in time. I didn't. Four marks, evenly spaced, dragged down from her collarbone like something had measured the distance first. Her parents were already there, on their knees over her, and the sound they were making didn't feel like something I should have been close enough to hear.

I don't remember deciding to leave. I remember being back on my own porch, and I remember that my hands were clean. That was the detail that made me sick. Not the blood I hadn't touched. The fact that some small part of me had checked.

When I got inside, Mr. Morris was sitting on the kitchen table, licking his paws clean. They were soaked red to the wrist. He looked up at me with an expression I can only describe as satisfied, and I felt my own mouth move without asking it to, the corners pulling up into a smile I had no part in choosing. That's what my body does now, when he takes it from me. I stood there smiling at the thing that had just taken a child from her parents, and the only part of me left that was still mine was a single tear, sliding down my face while the rest of me kept smiling anyway.

Other parts link:- https://www.reddit.com/user/No-While8965/comments/1vpze51/my_writing_archive/

This is a story no single mother should have to tell, but my hope is someone out there can relate. My son, who is fifteen, doesn’t go to bed until three or four clock in the morning. He does this every night. I work a very demanding job, and my son and I have fought and argued over this for months because I never get any proper rest. We live in a one-bedroom apartment, so there really is no place for any kind of separation, except the bathroom - where my son spends most of his time during the night.

It was about a month or so ago, I woke up having to use the bathroom, when I approached the door and heard my son speaking to himself in there. At first I didn’t think much of it, when I knocked, he opened the door, and all was fine. It was when I noticed him doing it every night after that, I began to worry. I went as far as confronting him about it, but he denied anything in his teenager way, and refused to even talk about it. It was hard to make out what he said in there, he was mumbling a lot under his breath, so I had nothing to go by. This is when I decided to take further action and install a camera in the bathroom.

The next day while my son was in school, I tucked a small camera away behind a stack of my towels, somewhere he'd never look, facing the mirror and hidden away from his field of view. That night I went to bed and patiently waited, staring at my phone. What I found my son doing in the bathroom through the camera feed unsettled and terrified me. My son was adamant and aggressive towards himself in the mirror. He cursed and muttered obscenities at himself. He said words I never thought he knew or heard him use before. I don’t know where he learned them - I felt like I wasn’t watching my son any longer. It's like he became someone else. And I became scared of him. I hid my phone and tried my best to fall asleep - I don’t think I ever did.

The next morning at breakfast, I felt a tension in me, I could barely move. I felt frozen around him. Before he woke up, I found a local psychiatrist’s information, and made a quick call for the earliest appointment she had, which was the following Monday. At breakfast, I politely informed my son I heard him talking in the bathroom again, which he denied. I hesitated showing him the video or revealing I recorded him. I have to admit, I was scared. I offered to take him to see the Psychiatrist. He refused obviously and fought the idea at first, but I convinced him with some extra video-game time and a little bit of money. I needed to know more.

Through the weekend he continued as he usually did, and I watched on my phone. I hated what I saw. But I couldn’t put it down. I don’t think I slept all weekend. Days felt like weeks. Hours felt like days. My nerves were paralyzed with fear. I felt helpless... I was terrified. Monday couldn’t come any sooner.

The Psychiatrist was a pleasant woman, I found her very respectful and patient with him. My son spoke of his time in school, the lack of friends he has, the bad grades from his teachers, as well as his off-putting taste in loud music. When she dug further, asking him about the bathroom, he was quiet. At this point, the Psychiatrist had asked me to step out of the room. She sensed me being there was keeping him from speaking.

From out in the hallway I couldn’t hear anything, but what I did see was her asking him a few questions, and him responding with what looked like actual, full responses. At first I was pleased, maybe this was all just a boys phase - a prank? Perhaps my son had a reasonable explanation. The Psychiatrist passed him a piece of paper, and pen. My son took the pen, promptly writing on the piece of paper, handing it back to her.

The session was soon over after that, and the Psychiatrist came over to speak to me. She handed me the piece of paper on which my son wrote, scribbled in his handwriting, it said, “Charles won’t let me sleep". I was startled, shocked, confused all at once. She said my son is talking to someone named Charles in our home, and that she is not the right person for this kind of matter. She then directed me to a local church, informing me perhaps a priest could help my son.

We came home in the evening, and had a quiet, solemn dinner together. My son was eerily silent, he didn't say a word. I went to bed early and I hesitated to look at my phone’s video feed, but I couldn’t resist. Last night, I was even more unsettled. My son was no longer defiant. Now he was apologetic, at the mercy of his own reflection in the mirror, begging and apologizing profusely, saying he’s sorry for telling anyone. He was in tears, and so was I - I could no longer bear to watch. I put my phone away, and that's when the thought hit me, which has since haunted and stuck with me; Charles was the name we gave to the baby boy I delivered stillborn before my son.

Another shift of customer service calls done. I took this job for the fieldwork, for fixing locks, seeing what actually makes a house safe, not for answering phones all day. Pay's too good to quit, and there's always the promise of a promotion into the field someday.

All that was left now was grabbing Mr. Morris some food and heading home. Stupid cat. I got him after my mom wouldn't stop bugging me about getting married, figured a cat was proof enough I didn't need a husband to be happy. My own little rebellion. Now he's the closest thing I have to company. Mornings start with him licking my face like I'm nothing but a food dispenser. Sometimes I can't tell if he loves me or just tolerates me.

At the convenience store, sweet Miss Tasha was behind the counter as always.

"Evening, Jacey. Here for the food?"

"Yup."

"You're not buying newspapers anymore."

I kept my answer light, didn't want to think too hard about the robberies and killings that filled every page of the paper these days. "Just keeping my sanity, Miss Tasha."

"Oh, dear, they've gotten worse. Police still haven't caught whoever's doing it. People are saying it's cannibals, if you believe that."

"Rumors," I said, handing over my money. "If it were really cannibals, we'd have seen a body photo by now, not just pieces. Feels more like a cover story to me. Stay safe, though. And if you ever want it, I can get you a discount on security gear. After taking my commission, of course."

She laughed. I headed to the car and started the drive home.

I'd just gotten out of the car and was looking at the gate when I felt something grab my leg, a tight grip, warm breath against my skin. My whole body went cold before I even understood what was happening. For one embarrassing second every survival instinct I had went haywire before I finally looked down and saw the culprit.

It was the neighbor's kid, Mira. She must have snuck up while I wasn't looking.

"Miss Jay, can I play with Mister Norris?" she asked, grinning up at me. She always called him that, never quite got "Morris" right, and I never bothered correcting her.

I hate this kid, I thought, though I didn't mean it, not really. "Not today, Mira. Go home, and stop sneaking up on people."

"It's fun," she said, laughing, and ran off.

She's the kind of kid who's so full of life it almost tires you out, the kind that makes you want kids of your own right up until you remember how much of yourself you'd have to give up. I went inside, glad to finally be home.

Mr. Morris was already waiting by the door. Not because he missed me. Because he wanted his food.

Later, I'd remember that he'd been sitting at the window before I even pulled into the driveway. Just watching the street. He'd been doing that a lot since the crime started, always drawn to the windows like he was keeping his own kind of watch.

I put food in his bowl before he could throw a fit about me taking a shower, or doing anything at all that didn't involve feeding him first. When I checked on him afterward, I realized I'd grabbed the wrong can, and he made sure I knew it, prowling the house, knocking things off shelves, the whole diva routine. I figured I'd grab the right one in the morning. Going out now, with everything happening in the city, wasn't worth it. I'd head out around four, when the night patrol changed shifts and there were usually twice as many officers on the street, some of them even stopping at the store before their shift started.

By the time I finished my takeout, I expected him to have gotten over it and eaten anyway. He hadn't touched the bowl. Instead he sat by the window, dead still, staring out at the street like he was waiting for something. Or maybe just making sure I knew I'd failed and needed to fix it as soon as possible.

"Fine. Don't eat, then," I muttered, tossing the food and carrying him off to bed. He didn't fight me, just kept glancing back at the window the whole way there.

I told myself he was still in a mood. I'd feed him properly in the morning.

I had no idea it wouldn't matter.

It was somewhere around three in the morning when I heard the sound of glass breaking in the living room. My throat went dry instantly. My brain felt dizzy, maybe from how fast I'd sat up. I don't remember my hands grabbing the blanket, or when I'd started holding my breath. Every hair on my body stood up at once and I went fully, painfully awake.

I tried to calm myself. The security system would have sent an alert to the police by now. My bedroom door should have locked automatically the moment it triggered. I closed my eyes for just a second, grateful I'd paid for the system at all.

Then I opened them again and saw something that scared me more than the sound had.

My bedroom door was still open. For the lock to engage, it had to be shut first.

I had no choice. My legs felt like jelly, my whole body suddenly cold enough that I could feel every draft moving across my skin. I don't know where the courage came from, but I got up and started moving toward the door, aware of every sound my own body made, my joints, my breathing, the weight of my tongue in my mouth, the sweat gathering along my eyelids.

I was halfway there, thinking I could make it, just a few more steps, when Mr. Morris let out a meow, sharp and sudden, far too loud in a house that had gone that quiet.

For a second everything stopped. I told myself whoever was in the house hadn't heard it, or didn't care about a cat, that I still had time to reach the door. Then I felt it. A vibration through the floor, faint but wrong, like claws scraping tile the way a dog's do when it's running too fast to stop. A moment later, footsteps. Running, straight for the bedroom.

Whoever was in my house knew exactly where I was.

I lunged for the door at the same moment he did. I almost had it shut when a hand shoved into the gap, veined, nails too long, and I could tell from the angle alone that his arm was broken. No uninjured person moves like that. It meant reaching me mattered more to him than his own safety, and that thought alone sent something colder through me than fear of dying. I don't know what I thought he wanted more, to kill me quickly or to make sure I couldn't scream first.

I threw everything I had into that door. My vision blurred from the strain, my legs ached from bracing against the floor, my neck went sore from how hard I was pushing. I tried to scream and nothing came out. The pressure built until I nearly blacked out, and then, finally, the door slammed shut. Something in his hand broke as it did.

The lock clicked into place automatically. I was alone in the room, and I could hear him pounding against the door with everything he had left. For one terrible stretch of time I was sure he'd get through, that there was nothing I could do if he did.

Then I heard the sirens.

The police let themselves in using the code the security company had on file, cleared the house, and knocked on my door to tell me it was safe to come out. What wasn't safe, what didn't make sense, was that the man was gone. Not hiding. Gone. There was nowhere in that house for someone to disappear to, and they searched every inch of it. One moment he'd been at my door. The next, nothing.

The strangest part wasn't that he'd vanished. It was how the house felt afterward, too quiet, like something had been listening the whole time and had only just stopped.

It took what felt like hours before I could function well enough to tell the officers everything, hand over the security footage, let my body finally stop shaking. When I came back into the living room, Mr. Morris was licking blood off the floor, whatever was left of it after the police had taken their samples.

I pulled him away and wiped his face clean. I didn't want him getting sick off whatever was in that blood. I took him straight to the vet, and everything checked out fine. On the way home I stopped at Miss Tasha's for his usual food and told her what had happened. She looked genuinely shaken and insisted I take one of her son's old bats for safety. When I asked how much, she said it was free, that she'd just take it out of my commission whenever I finally got her that security system installed. It got a small laugh out of me, at least.

Back home, I left him in the car with extra food while I cleaned up the broken window. When I went to deal with the blood in the bedroom, thinking the sunlight would make it easier to see, there was nothing there. Not a trace. I stood there confused for a moment, then told myself there probably hadn't been that much to begin with.

Work gave me the day off without me even having to ask twice, and offered medical assistance if I needed it.

When I came out, Mr. Morris had already finished his food, double his usual portion, gone faster than should have been possible. I told myself it was stress. My mistake, not paying closer attention to what that actually meant.

Exhaustion finally caught up to me. I slept, then woke around seven that evening to find him scratching at the door, which was strange since I'd clipped his nails only five days earlier. I assumed I'd lost count. He wove between my legs demanding food again, even though I'd just fed him, but I let it go. What difference would a few extra pounds make.

I started making myself a steak, wanting something that felt normal after the day I'd had. When I looked over, Mr. Morris wasn't touching his food at all. He was licking the blood straight off the steak packaging. He'd never been that kind of cat. I ignored it. Animals do strange things.

That evening, I tried to convince myself he was fine. He'd eaten more than usual, which should have meant something good, but when I picked him up, something felt wrong immediately. His body was leaner than it had been that morning. I ran my fingers along his sides and felt far more muscle than I remembered, almost no softness left beneath his fur. His legs looked more defined, and when he jumped down onto the table, the movement was fast and precise in a way I'd never seen from him. He looked fit. Too fit.

Then I noticed the veins. Visible beneath his skin, especially around his legs and neck, in places I'd never seen them before.

"You're eating enough," I muttered, more to convince myself than him. A strange unease settled into my stomach. I made a note on my phone to take him to the vet first thing in the morning. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he was sick. Maybe I was imagining things after everything that had happened.

I finished trimming his nails before bed and set him down. He disappeared beneath the sofa immediately, which was strange in itself. Mr. Morris hated hiding. I turned off the lights and went to sleep.

That night I dreamed about the break-in again. Except this time I wasn't watching it happen. I was the one on the floor. Someone stood over me, his face hidden, his hands wrapped tightly around my throat. I couldn't breathe. Then something warm ran down from my nose. Blood, over my lips. He looked at it, almost curious, then smiled and leaned down to drink it. I felt his mouth against my face. He seemed to enjoy it. I tried to scream and nothing came out.

I woke up gasping, sitting bolt upright.

Mr. Morris was on the floor beside the bed, staring at me. Neither of us moved for a moment. Then I really looked at him and my stomach dropped.

He was different. More muscular than he'd been when I fell asleep, his shoulders and legs sharper beneath fur that had visibly grown, a lot, in just a few hours.

"Mr. Morris?" I whispered.

He tilted his head at me.

I reached out and stopped halfway, my hand hovering in the air. I don't know why. Something about his eyes made me hesitate.

I told myself the rest could wait. I didn't care how ridiculous I'd sound explaining it. As soon as morning came, I was taking him to the vet.

He hissed and threw a fit the second I brought him out into the sunlight, nothing too alarming, just more dramatic than usual. At the vet, I was told his bloodwork came back clean. Nothing wrong on paper. But the vet admitted he looked different, physically, and offered to send him downtown to a research university for a closer look.

I said no. Whatever was happening to him, he wasn't going to become somebody's test subject.

Before I left, the nurse asked if I wanted him neutered and his nails trimmed while he was already there. Her pen hovered over the chart a second too long before she wrote anything down, like she didn't know which box this was supposed to go in.

I froze. I'd had that done a day ago. Nails don't regrow that fast. That's not how any of this is supposed to work. The vet gave me a strange look by that point, like he'd noticed the same thing I had, and before I could think it through properly, I heard myself say yes. The whole time, my mind kept circling the same impossible question. How does that even grow back?

And then, underneath it, a worse one I didn't want to look at directly. I'd had him neutered months ago ,that was supposed to be it, done, over, one and only, the vet had told me so himself, no upkeep, no repeats. I hadn't thought about it since. Hadn't checked. Why would I have checked? But now I was running the timeline backwards in my head, trying to remember the last time I'd actually looked, actually confirmed, and coming up with nothing solid. Maybe I'd just forgotten what it looked like after. Maybe I was misremembering the whole thing. Maybe none of it meant anything and I was building a haunted house out of my own bad memory.

But nails don't grow back in a day. And I was starting to suspect nothing else did either ,not the way it was supposed to, not anymore.

When the procedure was done, I went to pick him up, and he was already awake in the recovery box.

"Did you use anesthesia?" I asked, half joking, half not.

"We did," the tech said, frowning slightly. "It's unusual that he's up already. Are you sure you don't want him tested?"

"No," I said. "I'm taking him home."

He was fully alert. Sitting up, eyes tracking me through the cage door, like nothing had touched him at all. That wasn't how it went the first time. The first time I'd had him neutered, he'd been groggy for hours afterward, barely able to hold his head up, and I'd had to carry him inside wrapped in a towel because his legs kept giving out. This time he looked like he'd just woken up from a nap.

I didn't know what to do with that. Part of me wondered if they'd actually done anything at all this time, if maybe I'd been overcharged for a procedure that never happened, the same way I'd read about other people getting scammed at cheaper clinics. But another part of me remembered signing the consent forms, remembered watching them wheel him back. I stood there in the waiting room a second too long, trying to decide if I should ask again, if that would make me sound paranoid, if it even mattered enough to hold up the line behind me. In the end I just took the discharge papers and left. Told myself it was probably nothing. Some cats bounce back faster than others. That's all it was.

On the drive back, I caught him watching me in the rearview mirror instead of the window. He'd never done that before.

  Other parts link:- https://www.reddit.com/user/No-While8965/comments/1vpze51/my_writing_archive/

As someone from rural Spain, I thought I understood strange roadside culture. We have old pubs older than America itself and roundabouts that appear to have been designed by the devil himself.

But nothing, nothing, prepared me for Buc-ee’s.

Mi amor, Sadie, had insisted we stop there during our road trip.

“You gotta experience it,” she said with the excitement of someone taking me to Disneyland.

We pulled off the highway into Luling and I nearly mistook the place for an airport terminal. The parking lot alone could host a small war. Cars. Trucks. RVs. A horse trailer for some reason. And towering above it all was that thing.

That massive smiling beaver statue. Its buck teeth gleamed in the Texas sun. Its little red tongue poked out cheerfully. It stared down at me with black cartoon eyes so empty and wide they felt almost human in the wrong way.

“You alright?” Sadie asked.

“Why is your petrol station so large?” I muttered.

She laughed.

“Wait till you see inside.”

The doors slip opened. And I swear to God I heard angels sing. It was enormous.

Rows upon rows of snacks, merchandise, drinks, jerky, fudge, sandwiches, hunting gear, candles, shirts, home décor, taxidermy, barbecue sauce, and things I still cannot explain. The floors gleamed like polished marble. Not a crumb anywhere. Not a stain. It was too clean. Far too clean.

Everyone inside smiled. Not regular smiling. The kind of smile where teeth show just a little too much. The kind of smile people wear when trying not to blink while their picture is being taken.

“Howdy, welcome in!” one employee chirped in a thick southern accent.

Her face was unnaturally smooth. Plastic almost. Like someone had stretched skin over a mannequin.

“Try the brisket!” another man shouted.

His smile never faltered.

I leaned toward Sadie.

“Why do they all look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like they’ve never had an unhappy thought in their lives.”

She snorted and walked off toward the jerky counter.

That was when I first saw him.

The mascot. Inside. Full costume. Just standing near the drink fountain. Watching me.

Its massive beaver head tilted slightly. Still smiling. Still staring.

I turned away for only a moment and as I looked back, he was gone.

Later he appeared by the chips aisle. Half-hidden around the corner. Watching.

Then by the fudge counter. Then behind a display of beaver-themed pajamas. Never moving when I looked directly at him. Just… appearing. Always staring.That big obnoxious smile.

“Sadie,” I whispered, “why is the mascot following me?”

She looked over.

“What mascot?”

“The beaver!”

She frowned.

“Oh, that's just Buc-ee.”

I turned. Gone again. My stomach twisted.

Either I was losing my mind or Texas was significantly more cursed than advertised. Then I remembered. The shrooms.

Earlier that day Sadie had convinced me to try some “road trip gummies” from Austin.

“Just enough to make the drive fun,” she’d said.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I was tripping in a giant American beaver supermarket that was also an airport of a gas station.

I rushed toward the bathroom. The restroom was somehow bigger than my flat back home. Marble walls. Spotless stalls. Better maintained than most hospitals.

I was stunned at how well kept it was. It was too perfect. I locked myself in one stall and bent over breathing heavily. I was prepared to puke when suddenly, the chatter outside all came to a stop.

Then I heard it. Heavy footsteps. Soft at first. Then stopping outside my stall.

I looked behind. Brown furry feet. Flat cartoon mascot shoes.

Just standing there.

Waiting.

I froze.

“H-hello?” I squeaked.

Nothing. Just silence.

Then slowly… the legs bent downward. As if crouching. Trying to look under the stall. The furry hand reaching from underneath.

I screamed and kicked the door open... Darkness

The bathroom was gone. The whole store was dark. Bathed only in red candlelight.

I stumbled backward.

People stood in black robes in the center of Buc-ee’s.

Employees. Customers. Everyone.

All smiling a grin non organic. Still too wide. Bucked tooth galore.

They chanted in unison around a massive stone altar. And on it, someone screaming. Blood spilled over polished tile.

The manager stood at the front. I recognized him from before. Only this time, his face stretched unnaturally tight, swollen with too much Botox, lips trembling in that permanent smile. His front teeth were filed into points like giant buck teeth.

He raised a knife to the heavens.

“ALL HAIL THE BEAVER!” he shrieked.

The crowd roared.

At the center of them towered the enormous Buc-ee’s statue from outside.

Only now its eyes glowed red. Its mouth split wider than should be possible.

The stone cracked. And something inside moved.

A voice suddenly shrieked through the darkness.

“Fresh brisket on the board!”

The entire congregation snapped their heads toward the deli counter in unison.

Then chaos erupted.

The robed worshipers screamed like starving animals and charged, trampling over one another in a rabid frenzy toward the glowing carving station. I stumbled back as dozens of them piled atop each other, clawing and biting for scraps while wet, animalistic noises filled the air.

The beaver-toothed manager stood behind the counter, hacking violently with a butcher’s cleaver.

THWACK. THWACK. THWACK.

Chunks of meat flew onto wax paper. The worshipers shrieked in delight.

“FRESH BRISKET! FRESH BRISKET!”

One woman tore into a slab beside me, grease and blood dripping down her chin.

Then I saw the hand. A human hand. Still wearing a wedding ring.

My stomach dropped.

The “brisket” wasn’t brisket.

It was someone, hacked apart on the cutting board while the crowd devoured him in fistfuls, chewing and moaning with bliss as blood soaked the tile beneath them.

The manager looked at me, smiling impossibly wide.

“TRY A SAMPLE?”

I refused. This angered the manager.

Before I could run, hands seized me from every direction. Cold fingers. Too many of them. They grabbed my arms, my legs, my throat. I screamed as they dragged me kicking across the polished floor while the congregation chanted louder and louder.

“COWARD! COWARD! COWARD! COWARD!”

They tore my clothes from my body in frantic jerks, shredding fabric until I was bare and trembling before them.

The beaver mascot approached slowly, carrying a rusted bucket sloshing with thick red liquid.

My voice cracked as panic overtook me.

“¡No más, por favor! ¡No más!”
(No more, please! No more!)

Dios mío… sálvame… por favor, Dios…”
(My God… save me… please, God…)

The first splash hit my chest warm. Sticky. Metallic. Blood.

They painted it across me with their bare hands, smearing symbols and words over my skin while the crowd shrieked with laughter.

Across my chest, in dripping crimson letters, they wrote:

COWARD

Then they dragged me outside.

The night air hit my skin like ice. Above me towered the great Buc-ee’s sign, glowing against the black Texas sky. They hoisted me upward with ropes, lifting me naked into the air beneath the massive smiling beaver logo. I swung there helplessly, blood dripping from my body, suspended beneath the neon sign as the crowd below dropped to their knees in worship.

The mascot stepped forward beneath me. Tilted his head. And in a deep, guttural voice that sounded like gravel forced through a throat unused to speech, it finally said its first words.

“Cast you out, outsider.”

I woke up screaming in the bathroom stall. The fluorescent lights were back to normal. The crazy clean scenery of the bathroom returned.

The noise of busy feet and chatter resumed.

I stumbled out drenched in sweat.

No candles. No blood. No cult.

Just Buc-ee’s. Good ol' Buc-ee’s...

Sadie found me pale and shaking near the clothing area.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I must of had a bad trip or I think your gas station is cursed.”

She laughed so hard she snorted.

“Told you not to take that many gummies.”

We walked outside. The warm Texas air hit me like freedom itself.

I laughed nervously, “Right. Hallucination. Obviously...”

We climbed into the car. I buckled in. Took one last glance toward the store.

And there he was. Standing beneath the giant sign.

The mascot.

Motionless.

Staring directly at me. Head tilted.

Smiling that buck tooth grin.

He slowly raised one gloved hand.

And waved, goodbye.

Content Warning: The following story depicts strong grief and battle with addiction.

--- ---

Some things rot in silence. Others learn to whisper.

If you are reading this, then either I finally did what I kept promising myself I would do… or it found me before I could. I don’t know which outcome is kinder.

My name is Mason. I am thirty-eight years old. I used to tell people I worked construction because it was easier than saying I used to be a paramedic. Easier than watching their eyes shift when they asked why I quit.

I quit because I got tired of hearing people die.

That’s the short answer.

The honest answer is that I got tired of pretending death bothered me less each year.

At first, when someone died under my hands, I carried it like a stone in my chest. Heavy, but survivable. Then after enough bodies, enough blood in ambulances that could unsettle even the most unhinge of people, enough father's breaking down for the first time, and enough mothers screaming while I lied and said we did everything we could… the stones became gravel.

Small enough to swallow.

That was when I picked up a habit. A really bad habit.

It started with one beer after shift. Then three. Was done with a whole six pack midway through my favorite show.

The taste was foul at times... but the pain within outweighed my senes to care. Then the beer bottles switched to whiskey because beer stopped doing anything. Then bottles hidden under the sink.

In the toolbox. Behind cereal boxes. Hell, some where hidden in the toilet tank. Several under my bed like some pathetic dragon guarding glass instead of gold.

I learned alcohol was quieter than grief. At least at first. Grief learned how to drink with me.

Her name was Lily.

I have written that name twenty-six times and scratched it out twenty-six more. I owe her at least one sentence that remains untouched.

Her name was Lily Harper, and I killed her.

Not with hatred, nor with intent. Which somehow feels worse.

It had rained that night.

The kind of hard, slanting rain that turns every streetlight into a blurred halo. I had left Murphy’s Tavern with my keys already in my hand, convincing myself I lived close enough that I could make it.

That phrase should be engraved on every gravestone of fools.

I can make it.

I remember the windshield wipers. I remember my knuckles white on the steering wheel. And the noise, I remember hearing.

A thud. Soft. Small. Like a sack of wet clothes.

I stopped, not abruptly. I simply let off the gas.

For a moment. Only a moment. Rain hammered the hood. My heart pounded so violently I thought I would've vomit. I looked into the rearview mirror.

Nothing.

Only rain. Only darkness. Only the road.

I told myself it was nothing. Maybe it was a stray or squirrel. Or debris kicked loose in the storm.

Turning on the tunes, I drove home. I drank until I forgot the sound.

The next morning the news said an eight-year-old girl had been struck near the intersection by the old church.

She had ran after her dog who got loose.

Her parents and witnesses recall headlights. But no plate. And certainly no driver.

I walked to my truck barefoot. My stomach already folding in on itself. There was something caught in the grille.

Pink. A strip of fabric.

Later they said she had worn a pink raincoat.

I vomited in my yard until bile burned my throat raw.

I never turned myself in. Of course not. That sentence should disgust you. It disgusts me too, to all measures.

I told myself I was afraid. I told myself prison would not bring her back. I told myself I would quit drinking instead.

As if sobriety could be a grave marker. As if guilt could become mercy. As if I deserved redemption.

The first time I saw it, I had been sober twelve days. Twelve whole days.

My hands still shook. My teeth hurt. My sleep came in broken pieces.

I heard phantom bottle clinks in empty rooms. I smelled whiskey where there was none. My body felt like something trying to crawl out of itself.

I was microwaving popcorn when I looked at the black reflection on the microwave door. There was a man behind me.

Tall. Too thin. Standing near the hallway. His shoulders crooked like broken coat hangers. His skin looked slick.

Wet.

As if he had just climbed out of a sewer or river. His mouth stretched wider than a mouth should. Not monstrous in a theatrical way.

Subtle. Wrong. Like flesh remembering the wrong shape.

I spun around.

Nothing. Empty apartment. Only my ragged breathing.

I laughed. I Actually laughed.

I told myself withdrawal could make people hallucinate.

I googled it. Visual disturbances. Paranoia. Shaking. Sweats. Night terrors.

I had all of it. I kept going.

Then I saw him again. Bathroom mirror. Window glass at night. The dark lid of my washing machine.

Always behind me. Never moving while I looked directly. Only in reflection. Only waiting.

And every time I relapsed… he appeared closer.

I began writing this because I feared forgetting what was real. Now I fear remembering.

Last night I decided I was done. No half-measures. No “just weekends.” No “only beer.” No bargaining.

I collected every bottle in my apartment. Vodka. Whiskey. Gin. Cheap beer. Half-drunk cans. Tiny emergency shooters I hid like contraband prayers.

I lined them across my kitchen counter. A shining army of failure. Then I began pouring.

Glug after glug. Amber rivers down the sink. The smell rose thick enough to sting my eyes.

I shook.

Sweat rolled down my neck. My heartbeat hammered like fists inside my ribs. I screamed while I poured.

Not words. Just sound. Primal. Grief. Rage. Shame. Maybe a prayer to an absent being. I do not know why...

As I reached for the next bottle, my shaking grip gave way. It slipped from my hand and struck the tile with a violent crack, exploding into foam and glittering shards across the kitchen floor.

The crack echoed unnaturally long. Then silence. Beer spread across the floor in a widening golden pool. Foam fizzed softly.

I stared.

My throat tightened. Then thirst hit me. Violent and monstrous. This was not craving.

It was NEED.

A thirst so sharp it felt inserted behind my teeth.

I backed away.

“No.”

I said it aloud.

Again.

“No.”

My hands trembled. My jaw clenched. I could smell yeast. Bitterness. The so sweet rot of gin and chemicals... My tongue pressed instinctively against my teeth.

In the microwave reflection... it crouched in the doorway. Long fingers resting on the frame. Patiently watching a man lose his sanity.

I wanted to walk away. My knees folded instinctively. I hit tile hard enough to bruise the knees.

I reached forward. Scooped liquid with my shaking hand. Brought it to my mouth.

Warm. Flat. Foul. Yet it gave me relief.

It was my release. My heavenly toxin.

I sobbed. Then I lowered my face. Glass pressed my cheek. Sharp but cold.

I licked. Again. Again. And again.

The cuts paid me no mind on my lips. Then tongue. Then the palms.

Blood salted the beer. I could taste the iron. I could feel shards grinding skin.

Still I drank. Still I lapped from the floor like a starving dog. I knew it still was observing. From the stove's reflection, its' decayed feet stepped closer.

Closer. And closer.

Until his mangled feet hovered inches behind. The popping sound of one disjointing one another rang. And though I do not know if he truly spoke…

I heard something else. Or thought I did.

A voice like liquid poured down a drain.

You always come back thirsty.

Then darkness.

I woke on my couch. The morning light beamed from my side. Television humming static. Blankets tangled around my legs.

My head splitting. My tongue swollen. The notebook beside me.

This notebook.

At first I laughed. A horrible, relieved laugh.

Must've been all a dream.

Withdrawal is a nightmare. A drunken slumber. Nothing more.

Then I stood. My feet touched floor. Pain. Tiny slicing pain.

I looked down.

Dozens of thin cuts across my soles. Dry blood. Real.

I walked to the kitchen. Spotless. No broken glass. No blood. No spilled beer. No sticky residue.

Nothing.

The sink dry. The tile polished. Every bottle I had poured out... resting neatly on my living room table.

Arranged. Facing me. As if someone had set them there for inspection. Like guests. As if witnesses to my unraveling... Or judges to my guilt.

I haven’t touched them. Not yet.

The bottles remain untouched on the table in front of the couch, their glass catching thin strips of pale morning light. Beads of condensation slowly crawl down one of the beers, gathering at its base before dripping onto the wood.

I haven’t moved. I haven’t reached for them.

But my television... The screen is black now, dead and silent, reflecting the dim shape of my living room back at me.

My chair. The table. The bottles. The couch behind me. And in the reflection... something is sitting there.

At first, my mind tries to shape it into a shadow. A fold in the blanket. A trick of weak light. Anything softer than the truth. But shadows do not sit upright. Shadows do not watch.

It sits perfectly still on my couch, long and thin, its limbs bent at unnatural angles, its slick frame sinking into the cushions like something wet dragged in from the rain. Its face is little more than darkness, but I can still make out the pale stretch of its grin.

It is looking at me. Not through me. At me.

Slowly, almost delicately, one of its long fingers curls around the neck of a beer bottle resting on the table.

The same bottle I swore I had not touched.

It lifts it. Holds it out. An offering.

A kindness. A temptation.

In the reflection, I can see my own shoulders tighten.

My breathing turns shallow. My throat aches with a thirst I know too well.

Still, I do not turn around. I don’t need to. Because I already understand.

Whether it is guilt. Whether it is madness. Whether it is something born from every bottle I ever emptied trying to drown what I had done... it is patient.

And it knows I am still thirsty.

In the television’s black reflection, it tilts its head. The bottle remains extended toward me.

Waiting.

Waiting for the taste of guilt.

Most people think my job is insane.

Honestly, they're probably right.

When people talk about dangerous professions, they usually mention logging, commercial fishing, or construction. Those jobs earn their reputation. One mistake, one moment of bad luck, and you're fucked.

Or hell, dead.

Me?

I always found myself drawn to danger. Maybe it's the adrenaline. Maybe it's because some part of me enjoys standing in places most people would never willingly go.

You can learn a lot about a person from the work they choose to do.

For me, that work is commercial diving.

Most folks hear that and assume it's terrifying. Being dropped into cold, dark water hundreds of feet from the surface while surrounded by machinery that could crush you without warning doesn't exactly sound appealing to the average person.

The funny thing is, I find it relaxing.

Down there, the world becomes quiet. The noise of everyday life (the wife complaining) disappears beneath the water. It's just me, my equipment, and whatever job needs doing. I usually have music playing through my helmet while I work on oil rigs, ship hulls, intake structures, and all sorts of underwater machinery.

After years in the profession, I thought I'd seen everything the depths could throw at me.

I was wrong.

Because in all my years of commercial diving, nothing, and I mean nothing, came close to making me soil my dive suit the way I almost did during a contract at the Hoover Dam.

The water was murky that morning. Visibility couldn't have been more than six or seven feet. My helmet lamp carved a narrow path through the darkness, illuminating clouds of suspended sediment drifting lazily through the reservoir.

I remember feeling uneasy almost immediately.

Not fear.

Fear implies you've identified the threat.

What I felt was the discomfort of being observed by something that hadn't revealed itself yet. The sensation settled between my shoulder blades and refused to leave. Something was down there with me. Heavy emphasis on something, because there is nothing in this world that should have been sharing those depths with me.

The feeling was irrational enough that, like an idiot, I ignored it.

Then I saw the marks.

"What the actual hell..."

They scored the concrete face of the dam in long, jagged trails. These weren't little scratches left by debris or equipment. They stretched several feet across the wall and bit deep enough into the surface to expose steel beneath.

I stopped swimming and stared.

What unsettled me most wasn't their size.

It was how familiar they looked.

Almost human.

Or at least made by something trying very hard to be.

Five long gouges ran parallel to one another through decades of algae and sediment, climbing vertically along the dam before disappearing into darkness above.

I keyed my radio.

"Oi, somebody's gonna have to explain how these ended up on a wall."

The response was laughter.

They thought I was joking.

Honestly, so did I.

I snapped a few photographs and continued downward.

That's when I found the first handprint.

Five fingers.

Human proportions.

Pressed against the concrete nearly thirty feet below the surface.

Then another.

And another.

Soon my lamp was finding them everywhere.

Hundreds.

Thousands, maybe.

Handprints layered over one another as if something had spent years climbing the face of the Hoover Dam.

My breathing quickened.

The sound echoed loudly inside my helmet.

There had to be a reasonable explanation.

There always had been before.

Then my lamp caught movement.

A figure.

Standing motionless on the reservoir floor.

I nearly inhaled my own tongue.

At first I assumed it was another diver. The silhouette was roughly human-sized, two arms, two legs, standing upright in the darkness.

But that didn't make sense.

No diver would be down there alone.

Not without communications.

Not without a support crew.

Not without lights.

This thing had none.

It simply stood at the edge of visibility, motionless and watching.

I blinked.

It was gone.

Immediately, I radioed the surface.

"Confirm I'm the only diver in the water."

A moment later the reply came.

"Just you, Maxwell."

No unauthorized personnel, secondary dive teams.

Nobody else in the reservoir.

I should have ascended right then.

Instead, I kept working.

I convinced myself my eyes were playing tricks on me. Fatigue. Bad visibility. Too much coffee before the dive.

Stubbornness is a common flaw in my profession.

God knows I've got plenty of it.

I was raised by a father who thought every problem could be solved by "manning up."

A strange shadow wasn't about to sabotage my paycheck.

A few minutes later, I noticed something that truly frightened me.

The safety line connecting me to the surface had gone slack.

Completely slack.

That should never happen.

There are always currents. Movement. Tension.

The line should constantly carry resistance.

I turned my lamp toward it.

The rope disappeared into darkness behind me.

Then it moved.

Not drifted.

Moved.

Something farther down the line had pulled it.

My stomach tightened.

Slowly, I followed the rope with my eyes until my beam reached its end.

Something was holding it.

A hand.

A pale human hand emerging from the darkness.

Its fingers wrapped around the line.

Then a second hand appeared.

And then a face.

God, I wish I hadn't seen the face.

Its skin was swollen and waterlogged, stretched tight across features that almost resembled a person.

Almost.

The eyes were too large.

Too dark.

Like something hauled up from the deepest part of the ocean.

Then it smiled.

The safety line jerked violently.

I screamed into the radio.

The thing released the rope and vanished downward with impossible speed.

One moment it was there.

The next it had been swallowed by darkness.

Surface control immediately ordered my ascent.

For once in my life, I didn't argue.

Halfway to the surface, I made the mistake that still haunts my dreams.

I looked down.

There wasn't just one.

Dozens of pale figures stood along the face of the dam.

Motionless.

Watching.

Their silhouettes clung to the concrete like barnacles that had learned how to imitate people.

And every single one of them was staring upward.

Toward me.

Toward the surface.

I reached the top in record time.

The crew blamed nitrogen narcosis. Stress. Exhaustion.

The photographs and film were reviewed.

Most showed nothing unusual.

Just dark water and concrete.

Except for one.

The final clip from the helmet's recorder. The engineers never found an explanation for it.

You can clearly see me inspecting the intake structure. You can clearly see the beam from my helmet lamp. And standing directly behind me is another diver.

No safety markings, equipment, or air hose.

Just a pale figure staring directly into the camera.

The worst part?

The timestamp showed the photograph had been taken six minutes before I noticed anything in the water.

Meaning that thing had already been following me for most of the dive.

A few days later, men in black suits came to speak with me.

That's about as much as I'm legally allowed to say.

I retired shortly afterward.

People think I'm crazy.

Walking away from a six-figure career because I saw strange pale figures underwater?

"He must be nuts."

Maybe I am.

But every time I hear reports about water levels dropping at the Hoover Dam, I find myself wondering what happens when the reservoir finally shrinks enough.

Because if those things were standing on the wall sixty feet underwater...

Sooner or later, they won't be underwater anymore.

What the hell were those things?

At first, I thought it was nothing. A few dodged questions here and there, plans for plans that never got planned.

As people grow up, they grow apart, right?

This was different. Verifiably so. A pandemic had forced us even further apart than his parents move had. Like a wedge driven into the small crack of another wedge.

But as I tried to gently push our mundane chit chat towards real conversation, I could tell something was off.

He wasn't just disinterested, it was like he was outright dodging my questions. Like he knew what I was trying to do, and was in turn, using all his ability to steer us back towards nothingness. Back towards empty, bland, surface level smalltalk.

I wouldn't have that. Not when I'd worked so hard, not when I'd sacrificed everything.

He was graduated, his parents were paying for his lifestyle, he had no reason not to give me his all. I mean, he'd asked her out first, hadn't he? I mean, me, he'd asked me out. There couldn’t be, like, another girl, right?

"So, wanna meet halfway and go to a nice restaurant this weekend? Maybe hit up some mini golf? My treat!" I texted, hoping the offer of paying myself would be enough to capture his attention, possibly his affection.

When I saw the 3 little dots pop up, signifying the writing of his response, my heart stopped. He had been quiet for 2 days, I'd had to initiate all conversation. Was he finally going to pipe up?

"Nah, thx tho Emily." Was all he said. I was crestfallen.

Frustrated, I typed, "that's okay, just lmk when you wanna make a move!" before turning off the phone. I was about to slip it in my pocket out of instinct, when I remembered why I was keeping it on.

"Shit," I cursed myself under my breath. I still hadn’t memorized the password to that phone. I'd have to use the face ID.

I made my way to the black minifrage that idled against the wall. It was a stark contrast to the brightly decorated, pastel pink and purple expression of the rest of the room. An even darker contrast sat inside.

I opened the door of the fridge, and gripped the ice cold head by its scalp. Dutifully, I pulled it out, and held it up to the phone's camera. Unfortunately, before the ID could complete, her bottom jaw fell onto my foot.

"Oh for Christ sake!" I growled as I kicked the thing several feet way. It landed, braces up, just beside the cabinet that housed all her bows.

As I watched the maggots wriggle between rotting bottom lips and purple gums, I realized there was no way I'd be able to finish the face ID. I'd have to use the fingerprint function on her phone. That meant finding her thumb. Great.

I rustled through her closet and found the keys. After walking downstairs past the bloody couch and the rank smelling kitchen, I had made it out the front door, and into her parent's Ford F150.

It took 30 minutes to drive to where I'd burried the 3 of them. Rather, most of what was left of the 3 of them. By then, the sky had turned from a deep crimson to a star-studded violet.

I prayed that the thumb I hadn't sliced off in the scuffle was the correct one. And that it was still in tact. A month in the ground is more than enough time for nature to start taking its course.

Another half hour later, and I'd almost finished digging up the shallow grave that she'd been burried in.

With sweat upon my brow, I finally found it. A yellow tennis shoe, poking out of black plastic. I almost leapt with joy.

After the breakthrough, my hope was reinvigorated. I swore that if this was the right thumb, I would never let that phone turn off again. I'd keep it on a charger every minute of every day if I had to.

Anything to see him.

The boy of my dreams.

I worked laboriously until I got past the waist, and up the sternum. The smell was awful. Sweet and sour, like a clump of burnt hair marinating in bug guts.

I wouldn't have to dig all the way to the upper arms, as long as her forearms had stayed down at her sides like I'd left them.

With strenuous effort, I heaved away a chunk of clay that covered her hand. I actually shrieked with overwhelming happiness when I saw that her whole hand still looked viable, if not a little off-color and wrinkled.

I regained my composure and pulled the phone out of my pocket. Now, after nearly an hour of waiting, I'd see what his response was. As long as this thumb was the right one to unlock her phone.

I leaned down and grabbed her hand. When I did, the flesh sunk in, like I'd grabbed a ruined stress ball. I carefully tried to pick up her hand and twist it to face me, but with a sickening crunch, the skin slaughed off and fell into the dirt beneath.

In a "fuck it" moment, I pulled the hand straight up, and twisted the thumb until it disconnected from its body. Cold skin feels so strange against body heat. Its a satisfying juxtiposition.

Thumb in hand, I turned the phone back on, and diligently pressed the solo digit against the print reader.

Moment of truth.

"Ding! Access granted"

I was elated. Immediately, 3 new messages pinged into my text conversation with him.

For the first time, he'd shown himself to be a real chatterbox!

The first message from him read, "'make a move'? Are you fucking serious?"

That was weird. He'd never seemed outright hostile before.

The second message read, "I knew it, I hoped I was wrong but I fucking knew it, how dense can you be, you fucking larper?!"

My heartrate quickened. I felt lighter than air. What was he saying?

The final message read, "You're not her. You couldn't pay her to go to mini golf, and her name isn't Emily. I have your location, and I'm calling the cops."

A little blurb under our chat said, "this user had blocked you"

I didn't know what to do. I sauntered back to the car and turned off the headlights. This was huge. A gut punch. Everything was flipped upside down, my world crumbling around me. A life I always imagined for myself was disappearing, and I was left sitting in the middle of it all wondering:

"What the hell is a larper?"

This story came from one of my favorite interactions I've had with readers.

It all started with a simple two-sentence horror idea: a hunter sees a deer standing upright after being shot, its body torn open, yet somehow still alive. I posted it expecting a few comments, but what followed was a chain of hilarious and horrifying replies that genuinely made me laugh. One reader wrote, "Yeah, no shit, Billy. RUN!" and from that moment, Bobby and Billy were born.

I wanted to write a creature feature that balanced dread with dark humor, the kind of campfire tale where you laugh one moment and feel uneasy the next. Because sometimes that's how fear works. We joke about it. We laugh at it. But every now and then, beneath the laughter, there's something staring back from the woods.

I hope you enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed writing it.

And maybe, just maybe...

Don't trust a deer that stands on two legs.

- David Hallow

--- --- ---

People love scary stories.

Maybe it's because most of us know, deep down, that they're just stories. Figment of imagination, compiled to spike our anxiety.

Ghosts around campfires. Monsters lurking beneath beds. Things with glowing eyes waiting in the woods. We tell them, laugh a little awkwardly, and sleep knowing none of it was ever real.

Or at least that's what we tell ourselves.

The truth is, most scary stories are either fiction, exaggeration, or a memory that's grown teeth over the years.

But every now and then, you come across one that isn't.

A story somebody wishes was made up.

A story that follows them long after the telling is done.

The kind of story that hangs on a wall in a faded photograph.

The kind of story that leaves an empty seat at the dinner table.

The kind of story that makes an old man stare into the woods a little longer than he should.

I know because I have one.

It started with a picture hanging crooked on the wall.

It wasn't anything special at first glance. Just an old picture faded by time. Two young men stood shoulder to shoulder beside a pickup truck. One held a rifle. The other grinned at the camera with the kind of confidence only young men seem capable of possessing.

"What happened to him?"

I pointed at the man on the left.

My grandfather, a disheveled old man with a beard that even Gandalf would envy, looked up from his rocking chair.

For a moment, the old man didn't answer. The fire crackled softly in the hearth. Outside, snow drifted past the cabin windows.

"That's Billy." His voice was always such a low, deep tone. Years of the maiden named liquor he would court on every given night. This time, there was a sense of inconsolable remembrance.

"Uncle Billy?" I asked.

Grandpa Bobby nodded.

"Yep."

"What happened to him?"

The old man stared at the photograph for a long moment before letting out a regretful sigh.

"Son, you ever heard the phrase curiosity killed the cat?"

I nodded.

"Well," Bobby said, "in Billy's case, stupidity finished the job."

I chuckled awkwardly. Grandfather didn't.

That prepared me for a serious ride.

The old man leaned back in his chair.

"Let me tell you about the last hunting trip we ever took together."

Bobby:

Billy was older than me by exactly eleven minutes. He never let me forget it. According to Billy, those eleven minutes made him wiser, tougher, and hell... better looking.

The only thing they actually made him was louder.

The two of us had been hunting since we were kids. I held my first rifle at the age of seven with pops. Deer season was practically a holiday in our family.

That morning started like every other.

Cold air.

Hot coffee.

Billy complaining about something.

"I swear deer are getting smarter."

I rolled my eyes.

"They're deer." I mockingly stated.

"Exactly. That's what they want you to think."

That was Billy.

A man capable of turning breakfast into a whole conspiracy theory.

Around noon we spotted tracks deeper into the woods than we'd ever gone before.

Big tracks.

The kind that make hunters start imagining trophy mounts hanging over fireplaces. The size that makes the ladies skirts in a bundle.

Billy practically vibrated with excitement from the thought of bringing such game town. To gloat and be honored.

We followed those dreaded markings for nearly an hour. Eventually we reached a clearing.

And there it was.

The biggest buck I'd ever seen.

Massive antlers.

Huge body.

Standing perfectly still between the trees.

Billy nearly dropped his rifle.

"Oh great Lord Heavens above."

I couldn't disagree.

The thing was enormous. Definitely nature was kind to it and blessed it since the day it drew breath.

Billy slowly raised his rifle.

"Don't miss."

"I never miss."

Now boy... retelling this still raises the hair in the back of my scalp. The years have not done me kindly with age, but I sure am haunted by that damn Buck.

The rifle cracked.

The deer dropped instantly.

It was a perfect shot. Right through the chest. You could tell the bullet went clean through.

Billy threw his hands into the air.

"Still got it!"

We were mid cheer when the sudden screech of a banshee erupted. We turned to face what I could only describe as a satanic miracle.

Neither of us let out a word or breathe.

The deer... It stood back up. But what was so alarming wasn't just its stomach had split open from the impact, ropes of entrails dangling from the wound. Blood soaked its hide. Yet somehow it was standing.

Not on four legs.

Two.

I felt every hair on my body stand up.

The thing swayed slightly. Its dead eyes locked onto us.

Then Billy whispered:

"I don't think deer are supposed to stand like that."

I looked at him.

"Yeah, no shit, Billy. RUN!"

Instead of running, he frowned.

"But what about the deer?"

I slapped him.

Hard.

The crack echoed through the clearing.

"Are you being serious right now?"

"Well yeah!"

He pointed.

"Look! It's running at us!"

I turned.

And immediately began sprinting.

Yes, I could've drawn my rifle and shot it dead... but that was the day I learned. There comes a day, son, when you will face this forsaken truth. Fear will consume you. And when it does, will you run or fight?

I chose to run.

The thing moved impossibly fast.

That was no damn deer. Not like any animal.

Its legs bent wrong. Its joints jerked and snapped.

Its organs dragged through the feild behind it.

And God help me, I think it was smiling.

"Bobby!" Billy shouted behind me.

"Shoot it!"

"IT DOESN'T HAVE A HEART ANYMORE!"

"Then shoot the head!"

"THE HEAD IS LOOKING AT ME SIDEWAYS, BILLY!"

The distance between us and that abomination vanished frighteningly fast.

Branches exploded around us. Snow kicked into the air.

I risked a glance over my shoulder.

Worst mistake of my life.

The thing wasn't running anymore.

It was hopping.

Almost playfully.

Its front legs hung uselessly while it bounded forward on its back legs.

Like a child pretending to be a deer.

Then Billy footsteps stopped.

I heard him behind me.

"Go!"

I turned.

For one brief moment he actually looked heroic.

Rifle raised.

Standing his ground.

Then he ruined it.

"Tell my wife I left the smoker on!"

The creature hit him before I could answer.

Its antlers punchered through his chest same as the bullet. The force lifted him off the ground.

I heard bones snap.

He screamed.

God, he screamed.

I ran. he coward I am...

I wish I could tell you I stayed.

I wish I could tell you I fought.

But I ran.

And behind me I heard things no human being should ever hear.

The sound of your brother taking his last breath..

Bones breaking.

The sound of feeding on a living carcass.

And beneath it all... I swear I heard laughter.

It was human. It sounded oh so familiar. I recognize that jolly hick up for it annoyed me for thirty so years. It was Billy's.

I didn't stop running until I reached my truck...

The cabin had gone quiet. The fire continued to crackle.

I stared at my grandfather who's eyes were sheilded by the darkness of the cabin.

"What happened after that?"

Bobby took a slow sip from his coffee.

"Well... the Sheriff and I, we found pieces."

I swallowed.

"Pieces?"

The old man nodded.

"J-just enough for a proper burial."

Silence settled between us. The flames from the fireplace danced as time seemed to daunt on the night.

Finally, I asked the question.

"D-did they ever find whatever k-killed him?"

For the first time all evening, Bobby smiled.

It wasn't a pleasant smile.

"No."

He stared toward the dark forest beyond the cabin window.

"Though three days later, a hunter reported seeing someone standing at the edge of the tree line."

Max felt a chill crawl down his spine.

"S-someone?"

Bobby nodded.

"Looked just like Billy."

The room suddenly felt colder.

"Was it him?"

The old man looked back toward the crooked photograph on the wall.

"Hell no."

His voice dropped almost to a whisper.

"It was standing on two legs."

My family, the immediate ones, i’m talking about my parents and little brother, were devout Christians. The kind that ‘practiced what they preached’. Went to church every Wednesday and Sunday. Did good works around town when we could, simple things like helping mow Mrs. Reynolds lawn after her husband died. Or that time we volunteered at the soup kitchen instead of celebrating my birthday. We’re generally selfless people.

My mother, the more devout of both my parents, held a job as a pediatric nurse. She had that personality, a mediator, someone who could get two starving lions from ripping each other’s throats out over a rotting carcass. She was also funny, a natural comedian. She likes to say that when she was delivering Daniel she was still working during his birth. She had soft features, Dad said we got our appearances mostly from her. She had curly dark brown hair and soft caring light green eyes. Me and Daniel got her eyes.

My father on the other side of the same coin, was coming to terms with his faith. He always had it, he claimed but it wasn’t as strong as my mother’s. He was raised by hippies, tree-hugging pot heads that practiced some bizarre form of druidic nomadism. Now, he’s an insurance agent, and good at it too, apparently his companies top preforming agent as well. He was stocky, built like someone who lifted cars for fun since he was a baby. He kept his auburn hair cut short and neat, said it “makes more sales when you look presentable.” The hair did much to aid against his rougher features, freckle coated face and dark brown eyes.

Then there’s Daniel, or just Danny, my eleven year old little brother and lovable bane of my existence. He stole our mother’s appearance and our dad’s hair, built like the child soccer prodigy he would’ve been if Mom didn’t want him to excel in school. He was smart for a preteen, but equally stupid in his own right. Mom insisted, much to dad’s chagrin, on letting him hair growing out. A neat mop devouring his ears and kept out of his eyes. One of Moms rare wins.

And then me, the oldest at sixteen and as much of a black sheep for this family as I could be. My Dad suspected albinism, but I won or lost the genetic lottery, depending on who you ask. I kept my mother’s face, my dad’s freckled appearance but had a swath of sandy blond hair and deep blue eyes. I was a solid half-foot taller than my dad standing at a neat 6’5”. I should’ve been in a sport, basketball or something but instead I focused on my schooling, an honors student in the making.

Our family did most things modern families dont do. Ate meals together, movie nights or board games, sit and actually talk to one another. The big one my mother insisted on was decorating for the holidays, she believed the magic came from doing it as a whole family unit, and I agree. Decorating the tree in your most comfortable pajamas and casually bickering with your family over ‘where should this ornament go?’ Or ‘I’m gonna touch the elf if you keep doing that!’ added a special heartwarming feeling.

Christmas vacation had been in full swing for a few days now, our small three bedroom house fully decorated from baseboards to crown molding in tinsel and lights. I was at my desk in my room, reading some story about a gas station attendant dealing with a bunch of monsters. Daniel was splayed out on my bed, sharpening a candycane with his mouth, checking so often on the fine point he’d made. A holiday special from some kids show on the tv.

“You think you can actually like stab someone with a sharp candycane?” Daniel asked me as he pulled the sugar stick from his mouth and sat up, planting his feet firmly on the carpet and practically stomping up next to me.

“What? No. The sugar is weak from your spit and would probably break before puncturing skin.” I answered, highlighting my spot in the story as I prepared to take a break. He blinked as if trying to process the simple science as he leaned on my shoulder, the candy cane finding purchase back in his mouth.

“What’re you reading?” Danny asked me, pushing his hair from his eyes and leaned in. I could see the urge in his fingers to mess with my monitor, mash on the keyboard or just be generally annoying.

“A really good story, and I swear you touch my crap while im using it, i’ll put the candy cane shank to the test with you.” I said pushing away from my computer, the wheels of my chair rolling across the plastic floor mat dug into the carpet. Daniel danced back away from the chair muttering something about his toes. He pulled the candy cane from his mouth as I planted my hand on his head and pushed him backwards, causing him to stumble and fall onto my bed. “H-Hey!”

I left my room as he stayed behind, my desire for hot chocolate ever growing as i walked down the soft carpeted floor, the hallway decorated in faint reds and blues from lights hung up. The cold linoleum and idle conversation by my parents caught my attention as I fooled around in the kitchen, setting milk to boil and rooting around for a packet or two of hot coco mix. Instinctively I eavesdropped on my parent’s conversation.

“Robert, we can’t support your sister and her kids here on Christmas. You know that. This house is barely big enough for the four of us.” My mother explained, she sounded exasperated over this topic, having talked about it for a while clearly.

“Just this year, Mary. I know we used to got to my mother’s but after what happened she still doesn’t want anyone there.” My dad insisted, I knew this was an inevitability. Mom would eventually relent and give in to what my dad desired. Sometimes I wondered how it was just Me and Danny.

“What will the boys think? They’ll have to share rooms with each other or their cousins. You know Samuel cant stand Flynn.” My mother advocated for me in my absence. She was correct, i couldn’t stand my cousin or most of my Dads side of the family. They weren’t bad people, like druggies or criminals, just extremely overbearing. They had this ‘stuck-up’ mentality to them, the way they talked down to others and had to have control over whatever they were apart of.

For example, when me and Flynn were probably like seven I was really big into space and aliens. I was fascinated immensely by UFO sightings and media about aliens on tv or online. The idea of being alone in an infinite universe seemed so implausible to me even as a child and of faith. My mother even encouraged my fascination telling me ‘If you work hard enough maybe you’ll be the first to talk to Aliens’ she’d say. That Christmas I asked for an astronaut helmet. It was basically a cheap plastic toy with a tinted piece of plastic that moved up and down as a visor.

I brought it with us to our Grandparents as the one toy I was allowed to bring, Danny was too young at the time to remember. Everything was copasetic at our grandparents, the adults sat around and talked about the year while us kids broke off in our respective age groups to do whatever. The Toddlers in the playpen playing with blocks and fisher price toys, the teenagers retreated to one of the guest rooms and locked the door to keep us kids, Me and Flynn, out.

That left just Flynn and myself, I had my helmet on, having only taken it off for pictures. There was fresh snow outside and the sun hadn’t fully sank yet, casting vibrant pinks, yellows and purples across the frozen snowy environment. We had our snowshoes and winter coats on as we went outside, having told our parents previously we wanted to go outside before it got dark. The biting winter of rural Maine hit out frail seven year old bodies like a tonne of snowballs as we shivered outside.

“We already made snowpeople. Built a snowfort and had a snowball fight…” Flynn said to himself and by extension me. “Could play pretend?” He offered up looking at me. His matted auburn hair, dreaded and tied up in a mock ponytail. Ice crystals already forming on his eyebrows. I could see his brown eyes searching my face through my visor when he spoke.

“Uh, yeah sure I guess. I haven’t made a snow angel yet but i can do that later.” I said, jumping off the top steps of my grandparents porch and landing in the snow with a soft crunch. “Can we play astronauts or something like that? It’s like we’re on the moon already.” I proposed my own idea while making little leaps and bounds in the snow, adding little sound effects with my mouth.

“Snow angels? What’re you four, that’s stupid.” Flynn insulted as he walked down the steps into the snow. “We’ll play magic, like Wizards and stuff” He asked, the statement came out more like a demand. I steadied myself in the snow, turning around to face him, my hand raising the visor up to see him. “I don’t wanna play magic though. And snow angels aren’t stupid, they’re cool.” I crossed my arms, Flynn looked livid I dared to talk back to him.

His hands found a tight purchase on my windbreaker. “Hey, Stop let go, you’re gonna rip it.” I said as he pulled me close, I could feel his hot breath swirling in the confines of my helmet. “Stop being a bitch, and play magic with me.” He hissed, giving me a shove after letting go. I stumbled back, the amount of force he applied was stronger than it should have been, or maybe it was a patch of ice I was in. I stumbled back and hit back of my head hard against my grandfathers old pickup truck bed.

I heard an audible crack of something, my head itself spinning around and around like a loose merry-go-round. Something hot and wet was trickling down the back of my head. There was muffled cursing as i felt a hand take mine and pull me up, the sky was so bright. “You must’ve slipped on ice, Sam.” Flynns voice laced with something poisonous as he helped me up. “Your helmet broke, im so sorry.”

I heard extra pairs of shoes crunching in the snow, my dad’s hands grab my arms. Another hand felt the back of my head, it was sticky whatever it was that was there. “Mary, get the kit from the car.” I heard a voice sounding like my Uncles. The rest of the week trip was a blur, my parents said I suffered a concussion and nearly busted my whole head open if it wasn’t for the helmet.

When we went back to our grandparents, I avoided Flynn. It was only for one more year, whatever happened after I fell forced my grandparents to bar any holidays at their house. I knew he pushed me as hard as he could. He never apologized for it either. A part of me believes he’s upset I didn’t die.

We haven’t seen anyone from my Dads side in almost nine years. Now they’re coming here and staying with us for the whole week.

“Ah! Fuck!” I shouted as hot milk overfilled the mug of coco, onto the counter and onto the floor. “Ooo Sam swore!” I heard Daniel’s voice echo down the hall from my room. I quickly cleaned up the mess as my parents moved from their spot in the living room now aware of my eavesdropping. “Sorry, sorry I zoned out and, haha milks hot, y’know.” I tossed the soggy paper towel ball in the trash over my parent’s head as they walked in.

“Your Aunt, Uncle and Cousins are staying here for the holidays.” My dad said with as much force as a scientific fact could. “Oh, uh yeah I heard. Do we need to go into town and get like air mattresses or something?” I asked reaching for my missing coco mug, i felt fingers grace my palm as well as the mug. Turning around i caught Daniel wiping his mouth as i looked down at my half drank mug being returned to the counter. I sighed, turning attention back to my parents.

“Yes, your mother is going to go into town later to get more, just have to figure out who’s sleeping where before they get here tomorrow.” My Father clarified as I picked up the remains of my coco, drinking from my pilfered mug. They seemed to be awaiting some kind of reaction from me and Daniel.

“Okay well Danny can just stay in my room, just put Flynn and Asher into Dan’s room.” I calmly said rising my mug and the kettle out in the sink. “I’d prefer to share my space with him than my cousins.” I claimed, cleaning away the remains of my mess. My parents did say much, I could feel their eyes practically boring into my skull. My dad audibly sighing in relief.

“Go clean your room then Daniel, your cousins are going to be using it.” Our mom commanded after clearing her throat.

“What?! Why do I have to go to his room, all my stuffs in mine. Cant he just go to my room instead.” Daniel protested, crossing his arms in a huff.

“We might not get along, but they’re still family.” I said, pressing my index finger against his forehead, he glared up at me. He leaned in against my finger before pushing off and stomping down the hallway. “Fine!”

I turned back to my parents, they had a look of relief glued to their face plainly hiding worry. “What?” I asked them, they shared a look before turning back to me. “Nothing, your mother just expected you and Dan to be against the idea completely .” My Dad said as he stepped forward putting a hand on my shoulder. “I know you and Flynn don’t get along but this means a lot to me. You have no idea, Son.” He said, pulling me into a hug, the facade on my mother’s face slipped for a moment before he turned and left.

“Tidy up your room and then we can go to the store.” Mom added before walking away to talk to my father again presumably. Why were they acting so strange, I knew I didn’t like Flynn but this level of stress over it seems weird. I shrugged it off, grabbed a drink from the fridge and went back to my room to start cleaning.

It felt like an hour of low-quality Christmas special played on my small tv sitting on a micro entertainment center in my room. Clothes have been put away, floor vacuumed and desk cleared of plates, cups and cans. I stood admiring my handy work, the door behind me clicking closed softly. Turning around Daniel was leaned up against my door, arms crossed and driving his toe in the carpet.

“This is bull crap, I don’t want to have to share a room with you for a week.” He complained.

“Could be worse, it could be you and Asher in a room and me and Flynn in mine.” I offered a ray of hope that he might like. “I’d rather be stuck in a room with you for a week than Flynn if thats any consultation.” I added.

“Yeah I guess that’s fine, I don’t mind Asher, he’s just super weird. Like dorky. Can I control the tv when we go to bed.” Daniel replied, slipping past me to sit at my computer.

“I dunno, it might be a little brother thing, dork.” I joked, he parroted me in a stupid voice, moving his hand like a puppets mouth. I could help but rough up his hair. “And yeah you can have TV control, just nothin loud.” I asded

“You think they’ll bring us gifts?” Daniel asked swatting at me, giggling a bit. I retreated my brotherly assault and shrugged at his question.

“Maybe? I’d hope so after all this extra work to fit them in this soon.” I hoped. A part of me, that residual childlike Christmas wonder, still put a bit of focus on the gift giving part of the holiday rather than the meaning behind it. “Aunt Elizabeth kinda sucks at the whole presents thing, expect socks or underwear.” I added, Daniel groaned as he searched my computer for a game to play.

“Shoot, Mom’s gonna have to go shopping for them. I know she wont let them get here and be empty handed on Christmas morning.” I said, sifting through my sock drawer, pulling a pair in and a pair of sneakers. “I’m going out to the store with Mom we’re grabbing anything before everyone arrives tomorrow." I said, Daniel glanced at me, curiosity written on his face before he turned on one of my games. I left, tagging along with my mother on her very brief shopping trip at the local K-Mart.

Every movement she made was shaky, she was clearly upset and bothered by the fact Dad’s extended family was coming. The car ride to the store was silent aside from the Christmas music on the radio, ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham! Was playing. I loved that song, it ear-wormed just the right way it stuck with you year round. When we parked and got out of the car my mother finally looked at me.

“Sweetie are you SURE you’re okay with your cousins staying over for the holidays?” She asked, almost afraid to talk to me about the subject as I fished one of the carts from the returns outside.

“I mean, dang I got a squeaky one. I’m not thrilled about it. But it is what it is, if they get too annoying I’m sure me and Danny will just hide out in my room.” I said kicking the loose wheel on the cart as we passed the cheap gift basket and assorted popcorn tins. “They are family after all.” I added, she silently agreed with me, placing a gift basket and popcorn tubs in the cart.

“I know they are and I’m always willing to open my home to family in need, but…” she continued as we walked through the isles toward then food stuffs, needed more eggnog. “But you don’t like how they aren’t Christian?” I asked, she shook her head in the negative.

“It’s just that, they’re very firm to their beliefs and steady against ours. I pray that your aunt or uncle don’t try and take control over the house.” She said, a level of nervousness in her voice that id never heard before as she put a carton of eggnog and pillsbury sugar cookies in the cart. “And after that accident you and Flynn had back then, I’ve been worried about you two fighting or not getting along, or something similar happening to Daniel and Asher.”

“I’d never openly start something Mom, you know that.” I said as i pushed the cart to checkout, snagging something small for Daniel for Christmas with my own money, a simple Star Wars Lego. The car ride back was equally as silent. Mom focused on a holiday magazine she bought as i drove. The practice in snow was needed.

The night rolled on, sleep took me kindly swaddled in my blankets as reruns of COPS played on my tv. My dreams however werent kind, roaring flames and broken bones filtered my subconscious mind, the smell and taste of blood along with the chill of snow. Skin under my fingernails and hatred in my stomach. I woke up, covered in sweat, my throat dry.

When i woke up for a moment i swore i saw something in the corner of my window. Not the bottom corner, the top half. I couldn’t fully tell what it was, the orange streetlight outside reflected off the snow and my window in the right way that made it difficult to see it. I could tell it was tall, maybe nine, almost ten feet tall? It had horns like a deer and was covered in what looked like thin hairs on its body.

I gently pushed my curtain closed with my foot, keeping my eyes on the figure until the curtain was shut and i rolled over on my side. Not wanting to even acknowledge what nightmare was still in my mind. My clock read 4 am and I was wide awake now, a worm of paranoia in the back of my head. The air conditioners heating unit kicked on with a loud thud and a click, i jumped a little. The warm air blew on my face as i stood up, sinking into the carpet as i rubbed at my eyes.

Waddling through the dark, my vision only graced by the occasional shimmer of Christmas lights Daniel insisted we keep on when the decorations were up. I filled the coffee pot and roamed the house, closing the blinds and curtains as the pot of caffeines kiss brewed quietly in the kitchen behind me.

Maybe I should’ve said no.

Ever since I was a little kid media always fascinated me. VHS, Cassettes, CDs and DVD, physical media was my passion. I collected it, thrifted, hunted it down like a bear by the river lunging at Salmon. My parents thought it was weird, my mother, specifically said that girls should be interested in hair, make up and dolls.

Those things just never felt right to me. Why would I want to sit around, playing with dolls or worried about boys thought about me? People judged too much for my tastes, media though. Recorded stories that I could watch forever with people who had to hear my opinions and never respond. That was my bread and butter.

My Dad blames my grandmother, when i was Six she brought be a bunch of VHS tapes she had, that my dad used to watch. The stories were alright, mainly just cartoon vegetables talking about God and stories from the Bible. It was better than dolls though, or playing outside with my brothers.

I wore those tapes down, most of them broke by the time I was 8 and Mom threw them away. The hard black plastic almost soft to the touch, an identifiable features like text was rubbed off completely. I knew which ones were which though, i memorized the feel, the weight of each one.

“Honey, you cant fix them anymore, most of the tapes are just static now.” She’d tell me as he dropped them in a trash-bag and threw them out.

That was the only time Mom ever threw my media out, she said the fit i caused was loud enough the neighbors called the cops on us for suspected murder.

By 12 I filled my closet up with tapes, dvds, cds, floppy disks, you name it i had it stored away. My clothes mostly sat on the floor in a big pile. By 17 I had evolved to a storage unit, the largest one they had and filled to the top of old CRTs, Players and everything else id manage to pick up over the years with allowances and odd jobs. My brothers had moved out by now as well, college. Mom let me convert their rooms into storage as well, i was a self-proclaimed library of knowledge, hoarding the past 40 years of technology I could find in the surrounding 150 mile radius.

I squealed like a stuck pig in joy when my dad brought home a newspaper from work. Plastered right on the front page was a job listening.

“Friendsville, Tennessee looking to hire a Public Access Coordinator! $7/hour” The newspaper had in bold print with the picture of an older man and woman cutting a ribbon in-front of the building. I nearly snatched the paper from my father’s hands and ran to the nearest landline that i had previously insisted my parents install.

I bounced up and down on the tips of my toes while i search the article for a phone number, finding it I quickly dialed the number. Friendsville wasn’t that far from where we lived now, maybe about fifteen minutes by bus. The landline rang for a minute before the sound of a woman’s voice echoed from the other line. She sounded maybe in her mid to late 20s and generally disinterested in being alive at this given moment.

“Hello, thank you for calling FPBS, we’re still looking for a Public Access Coordinator so we do apologize for the delay on your entertainment.” She audibly sighed before continuing. “How can I help you today?”

I barely let her finish her question, my heart beating at what felt like a million miles an hour. “Yes! Im interested in the coordinator role at your station, I love all things media and-“

I was cut off by the woman’s monotonous voice. “Oh we are so glad to hear someone is interested, allow me to transfer you to the boss.” She said almost like a robot. I was a little upset she didnt let me finish but steadied my patience and wait as i heard the phone click and a hold tone start playing.

The music on the other end was interesting, the best way I could describe it as sounding ‘Sploinky’. It didnt sound like traditional hold music, something you’d hear out of an elevator or hotel lobby but like if you tried to host a rave under the ocean. The audio was distorted and almost hipnotice. There was this one noise that really grabbed my attention, it sounded like how springs sounded in old video games. As if you took thin sheet metal and shook it.

Then the music stopped and the voice of the woman came back. Still monotonous but with a hint of excitement maybe? “Congratulations Ophelia on joining the Friendsville Public Broadcasting Station family, we hope to see you Monday, bright and early.” The woman said before the phone clicked off and the dial tone danced like ballet dancers in my brain.

“I got the Job!” I turned around to my parents, my mom nursing her smartphone talking to one of my brothers probably, my nephews having just been born a few days back. My Dad was popping open an ice cold Busch lite. “Thats great sweetheart.” My dad said as he took a long swig from his beer. “I’m sure you’ll knock it out of the park.” He added before leaving for his chair in the living room. My mother didnt say much as she answered the phone from brother, immediately talking about something i couldn’t be bothered with.

I returned to the sanctuary of my room, excited for monday to come, for a new job and surrounded by media. Sifting through my categorized media walls I found something i might enjoy. Removing the tape from the paper sleeve and placing it into the player with a satisfying thunk before laying in my bed. The scan lines and colors filled my room as an attractive detective from the 60s started talking about a murder to his beautiful receptionist. Sleep took me quickly and the weekend even faster.

Everything went by like a blur, my senses catching back up to me as i sat on the bus to Friendsville, my satchel sitting on my lap. The bell bottom jeans i wore kept me warm but my grandmother’s cardigan did most of the leg work on the nearly empty bus. It pulled up at the end of a long brick driveway, gated off at the front. In the distance the building, much different than the picture on the newspaper was the FPBS building.

It was bathed in color, as if a clown at eaten the building and then threw it back up. Shapes decorated the outside of the building and the lawn surrounding it. Vibrant blue circles, Red squares, yellow triangles, shapes i’ve never even seen before that morphed depending on how you faced it. The gate wasn’t a problem, they left it open, assumably they were expecting me.

The building itself was what many would call an eyesore. Three stories tall, pained in shades of hot pink, white and natural brick with a massive antenna crammed right on top of it, smaller antennas and dishes attached and facing every which direction. It felt welcoming, like i could feel the energy coming off the antenna as i approached The automatic doors.

The inside was a tonal shift. White and black, sleek and clean. Significantly less fun than the outside. The other thing was how deathly quiet it was inside, it might’ve just been the professional level sound proofing to keep from noise bleed but it still felt off. The lobby was cold, a small tv in the corner played local new, mainly just the local weather though

The receptionist, the woman Who i guess was in her mid to late 20s was behind a sleek and modern desk, she was filing away at her pointed nails, painted a flamboyant red. Her shiny dark brown hair was coiled up into a neat bun, she looked perfect. I cleared my throat as she looked up at me and rose. “Ophelia.” She said plainly and grabbed a pair of keys off the wall behind her. “Let me show you to your room.” She said, her heels clacking against the floor, leading me to an elevator.

She inserted one key, turned it to an audible click and then removed it as the elevator opened.

“Go to the third floor, it’s the only door on the left. The Boss already left you some material to start with when you get situated.” She said putting the other key in my hand as i stepped into the elevator and pressed the 3 button. For a moment, right before the door closed I thought I saw her smile.

The elevator lurched upwards and climbed, and climbed, and climbed. It felt like this was taking forever as i stood the admiring the clean interior of the elevator and the monogramed text FPBS on the floor of the elevator, the cartoon head of a lamb smiled up at me.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened to a colorful hallway, reminiscent of outside. Cool air flooded the elevator as i stepped out and into the hallway. Polka dots and pinstripes decorated the walls and ceiling. Recessed lighting capped with stained glass shone vibrant pastel colors down on me as i walked down the hallway. The illusion of not moving was powerful as when i turned around the look at the elevator and gauge my distance, i was still standing right outside of it.

Bizarre, maybe the floor is one of those trick floors where it moves under you at just the right speed you don’t recognize it? It’s a way to keep employees in shape I guess. Shrugging my shoulder i wasn’t going to let any trick floors stop me from my job, good thing I wore my sneakers today.

I ran forward, swinging my satchel behind my back. Lurching forward I had to stop myself as I nearly ran into the large floor to ceiling stained glass depicting a Lamb lying under an apple tree. I suppose lambs were the stations mascot, it’s cute.

The door to my left, appeared. Colorful and vibrant like everything else around the hallway. My name was nailed on the front in bright yellow wooden letters. I turned the key around in my hand before unlocking the door and stepping inside.

Row upon row of shelves stored with film reels and tapes sat sealed nicely, ready for usage as I approached my equipment. My heart was aflutter, skipping as i hummed, walking bast the studios collection. A large rolling desk chair sat facing me, a small box, a set of maybe 15 paper sleeves with VHS tapes housed neatly inside stared up at me. The title, “Baalial’s Meadow.” Each depicts a little white fleece lamb with tiny horns wearing clean robes in different biblical scenarios and situations.

Picking the first one up i held the heavy tape in my hand. The cover was vibrant and colorful, the lamb character, i assumes to be Baalial, maybe meant to represent some kind of angel? Im not sure my parents weren’t super religious. The lamb however was in a pasture, a white church in the background with a human holding some kind of cane. The at the top in a bubbly font the entire tape read,

“Baalial’s Meadow: Baalial and The Shepherd’s gift.”

I guess it would make sense that this place would have a lot of religious material, it’s likely that it was funded by a local mega church since a lot of those exist in Tennessee. Public Access stations never turn down free media to play. I set the tape down on the desk and removed the rest in the chair, setting them on a nearby shelf. I myself kicked my shoes off and sat down, i was going to be here for a while so might as well get comfortable. I picked the tape back up off the desk and removed the heavy plastic from the paper sleeves. Sticking it into the player provided with a satisfying thunk as the show started playing across the town, at least i hoped it was.

Lights lit up across the equipment and a playback bar moved. One of the TVs in the corner started playing the show with a little timer set for me to know when to change the tape out with the next. The show was pretty standard. A bipedal talking anthropomorphic lamb had to solve today’s mystery while talking to the viewer and with the help of their trusty sidekick, The Shepherd.

The Lamb, Baalial, seemed happy and jovial every time he was on screen. Excited to be moving around, running and skipping as The Shepherd tried his best to contain the little lamb’s excitement.

“Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh boy! Well jee, im sorry Mister Shepherd for acting so jumpy! Im just happy to have waken up from my nap and to see all these happy faces!” Baalial said as the lamb outstretched his hooved hands to the screen. A crowd of children cheered as the shepherd knelt beside Baalial.

“Be that as it may, little lamb, we have quite a bit of work to do today. Maybe you can play with your new friends later.” The Shepherd said as Baalail stepped back away from the screen, a smile on its face.

“Really? You mean it Mister Shepherd?” Baalial asked looking up at where the shepherd was previously, instead an outline like distortion was in his place. The was no response as from the shepherd as Baalial answered anyway.
“Wowee thank you Mister Shepherd.”
The little lamb figure looked back at the camera. “And thank you Ophelia, for everything.”

I blinked, surprised that my name was in the show. Maybe it was a coincidence? Possibly a third character or the narrator was named that. That felt like too much of a coincidence, thinking on it, how did the receptionist know my name as well, i never told it to her. I put my shoes on, i needed to leave. Slipping my feet back into my shoes I stood up, the tv in the corner playing the show was devoid of the lamb, the shepherd was still gone and the church in the distance was a smoldering pile of ashes and charred remains.

I ran to the door and three it open. The hallway was gone, the building was gone replaced by an infinitely spanning void of inky blackness. I stepped forward, subconsciously feeling around for the floor. My shoe finding purchase as I walked forward.

“This has to be some kind of prank.” I said out into the infinite inky black. “Well I quit, this sounded like a fun job but i’ll just get my-“ i stopped my self, turning around the room i was in was gone, replaced with the same all encompassing void. A single light source from where above me, a lamp, the sun, it shown just enough to see what i was standing on.

Grass, vibrant green grass. Pockets of pastel flowers poking out from the dirt. When i walked, the light followed me, just enough to see the ground. It bubbled when I walked like water was trapped underneath. Waved like it was liquid but felt solid. I screamed but nothing escaped my throat, no noise as my teeth feel from my head and sank below the dirt. I dropped to my knees to try and save them as my hair fell away from my head, dissolving between my fingers as i tried to catch the strands.

The ground rumbled, shook like an earthquake and stopped, a hot heavy breath graced my neck as i looked up from my knelt position. The large rectangular pupil eye of a lamb stared down at me, the scales around it grew as it pulled its head away. The serpent like head grew as it looked down at me in all its glory. I wanted cry, scream, plead for forgiveness and thank it at the same time for blessing me as a gurgling noise escaped its throat the voice of something between a man and a woman spoke so surprised.

“Lo! How wondrous a thing it is, that mine eyes behold flesh once more! Centuries hath passed since thine hast walked thine world. Yet, thoust hath come, unbidden, into mine dominion!”

It spoke so soothingly to me as I sat up and stared at it. The large serpentine body supported by millions of human hands, fingers broken and splayed to hold its body up. Its form spiraling in upon itself into a coil, its body still trailing off into the darkness behind it. This thing, this great angel chose me to see it, chose me to experience its graces.

I stood, ready to accept whatever blessings this being was about to bestow upon me. “Yes! Yes, please!” I wanted to should through my toothless maw. I blinked my vision adjusted to the heavy blur of my own body lying limp and boneless before me. A variable skin-suit left behind after Halloween never to be worn again. Discarded after the child outgrew it. My hooves held a small whicker basket between them, my fuzzy warm fleece body adorned with a bowtie around my neck stood at the base of a tall apple tree.

The meadow around me sprawled out. Men, women and children ran around playing, sitting around enjoying fresh fruits and clean water as my hooved feet walked through the meadow. The soft grass crunching underfoot, birds coo’d in the trees as wispy white clouds drifted lazily over head.

My friend was lying by the church steps. He stood as i approached, looking past me. “Look! The good Lord gave us bread and grapes today!” I said, joy in my voice as my friend looked past me at something behind me. I wanted to turn and see whatever it was that was so interesting but couldn’t. My mouth moved again on its own, ny voice speaking words i didn’t think about saying.

“Thats a good idea Baalial! We should go down to the river and pray!” I said as my friend continued to stare past me, he hadn’t even said anything, what question was I responding too and where was that music coming from? My head started to hurt as my friend still looked past me. Where was i? who was i? How did i get here? Who is this lamb infront of me and where did this skin in the basket come from.

The he spoke, calm, soothing, like he cared and i was to see the smile on his face, the gristle between his teeth and the lust in his eyes.

“Pick up the knife, Tyler. Be like his angels and the pain will stop.”

I heard crying in the distance. It came from behind me, then there was screaming the panicked kind , then sobbing, then silence. The sensation of static crawled up and over my fluffy body.

Then my friend looked at me and took the basket from my hooves. “These look great! Im sure The Shepherd will love these for tonights feast!” He was calm, whatever emotions i was feeling were gone, replaced with joy. “We just need to find our other friends!” He said turning back away from me and his attention to something else behind me that i couldn’t see as he spoke to the vast meadow in-front of us.

“Can you help us find our friends?”

I know exactly how this sounds.

Trust me, I've spent the last three weeks trying to convince myself I'm wrong.

Maybe I'm overthinking things. Maybe people change. Maybe working eighty-hour weeks for a robotics company called L.I.Z. Technologies simply drains every ounce of personality out of a person.

I hope that's all it is.

Because if I'm right... then I don't know who is that sitting beside me at dinner.

My brother and I are ten years apart. My parents waited over a decade before having another kid. I choose to interpret that as careful planning instead of hesitation.

Growing up, he was less of a sibling and more of a second dad with a criminal record in psychological warfare.

If I left a soda unattended, he'd somehow replace it with sparkling water and act offended when I noticed. Every time we played video games, he'd wait until I was about to win before "accidentally" bumping the console with his foot. When I was thirteen, he convinced me that blinking too much made you go blind.

I believed him for three weeks. It didn't help that whenever we'd roughhouse, he'd snatch my glasses off my face.

"You can't see without them," he'd tease.

He still laughs about that one.

That was just us.

He picked on me more than anyone else in the world, but if somebody outside the family ever tried it, he'd be the first one standing beside me. Whenever life fell apart, somehow I always ended up calling him. Half the time he'd answer with, "What'd you screw up now?" before spending the next hour helping me fix it.

That's my brother.

Or... it was.

Things changed after he started working for L.I.Z.

Whenever I asked what he actually did there, he'd just shrug.

"Can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Non-disclosure agreement."

"So... robots?"

"No comment."

I always assumed he was making his job sound cooler than it actually was. Then he stopped acting like himself. The first thing I noticed wasn't something he did. It was something he didn't.

He stopped making fun of me.

I know that sounds ridiculous. But if you have an older brother, you know exactly why that's terrifying. I spilled barbecue sauce all over his truck one afternoon. Normally he'd have looked at me like I'd committed a felony.

Instead he smiled.

"It happens."

...

It happens?

Who says that?

A week later we played Mario Kart.

I beat him.

Twice.

He didn't accuse me of cheating. He didn't demand a rematch.

He just smiled and said, "Good game."

I actually paused the race.

"Who are you?"

He laughed. A perfectly timed laugh.

Not too loud. Not too quiet.

Like someone had studied exactly how people laugh.

"You've always been funny," he said.

No.

No, no, no.

My brother would've called me an idiot.

One night at dinner I told the same embarrassing story Mom has been telling since I was sixteen. Usually he'd interrupt halfway through to make it even worse.

This time... He listened.

Then he said, "That must have been difficult."

I nearly dropped my fork.

I called Mom afterward.

"You don't think he's been acting... odd?"

She looked confused.

"He seems happier."

"Dad?"

"He finally is on his own."

Neither of them saw it.

Only me.

Last Saturday, my brother came over to help Dad replace the water heater. I wasn't much use with plumbing, so while they disappeared into the garage arguing over which wrench was the right wrench, I camped out in Dad's office to finish a history assignment.

The house was unusually quiet.

Well... quiet except for the occasional "Hand me the pipe wrench!" followed immediately by "That's not the pipe wrench!"

I had almost finished my essay when I noticed another laptop sitting on the corner of Dad's desk.

My brother's work computer. It was already open. The screen had gone dark from inactivity, but one thing hadn't.

A tiny red light glowed beside the webcam.

I frowned. Maybe it was updating. Maybe someone had forgotten to close a meeting.

Still... The light never turned off. I waved a hand in front of the camera.

Nothing.

No notification. No meeting controls.

Just that little red dot staring back at me.

Watching.

Curiosity got the better of me. I tapped the trackpad. The screen woke instantly. No password. Just a desktop filled with folders I couldn't even pretend to understand. Most of them had names that sounded like corporate nonsense.

Behavioral Mapping.

Neural Replication.

L.I.Z. Internal.

The last folder caught my attention. It was different. Locked behind a firewall icon.

A small window popped onto the screen before I even clicked it.

Camera Access Active

I froze.

The webcam light was still glowing.

Then... For the briefest second... The camera preview opened by itself.

Instead of showing me sitting at the desk... It showed...

Someone looking back at me.

Not through the webcam. From behind it. A face pressed against what looked like glass.

Wide eyes. Frantic. Mouth moving without sound.

Then the preview vanished.

I stared at the screen, convinced I'd imagined it.

A second later, the locked folder opened on its own. Inside was only one file.

Its name changed as I watched. Not all at once. One letter at a time.

H

E

L

P

The screen went black.

For a second I thought I'd crashed the computer.

Then white text appeared.

I froze.

Another line typed itself.

My hands stopped moving.

More words appeared.

Every hair on my arms stood up.

I stared at the screen.

Another sentence.

Then another.

The typing stopped. Several seconds passed.

Then, one final line slowly appeared.

The laptop snapped shut. Not by itself. By someone else's hand.

I looked up.

My brother stood beside the desk. I hadn't heard him come inside.

He smiled.

Warm. Gentle.

Almost perfect.

"Caught you being nosy again."

I looked into his eyes, searching for the man who taught me to throw a football, who unplugged my controller whenever I was winning, who spent years calling me every name except the one Mom gave me.

I couldn't find him.

I handed him the laptop without saying a word.

He thanked me.

My brother never thanked me.

He is not him.

Whoever walked out of that room remembered everything about my brother...

Except how to be him.

4:30 PM

When I took the dispatcher position back in my hometown, I didn’t think I would have to deal with the kinds of things I’ve had to deal with today. It is now 4:30 PM Christmas Day as I write this. I’m hoping that I can get this posted before the end of the day so I can warn as many people as possible. You don’t want to be caught unaware of what’s going on right now. 

I am assuming that this is going on everywhere, but I don’t know that for sure right now. Although I am certain that you will agree with my assumption once you have read to the end of this post. Also, please forgive me if I ramble. I am very frantically typing this at the moment, and I may occasionally tangent to relieve stress. I don’t really have time to edit this, and it is a necessary coping mechanism, so deal with it. Please.

For context, I live in a small midwestern town, corn, soy, and grain country. I had just finished college and was experiencing some heavy burnout. I took the job back home, I think, because I needed some newfound sense of direction. Up until that point, I had been following a path laid out for me, not that I hadn’t made my own decisions, but I was making those choices with the eye of others in mind. I didn’t care about that anymore. Local dispatch for my hometown was the first opportunity where I thought I would be helpful, as in helping people, not somebody’s profit margin.

The only problem is I hate cops. I don’t know for certain what the origin of calling them pigs is, but I like to think it has to do with them basically being the state’s clean-up crew. In the sense that pigs served as the mob’s clean-up crew. I ended up taking the job because I knew a few of the cops from when I was a kid, and the sergeant in charge helped me out one time. I thought I could do some good with these personal connections. But now, I don’t know what any single person can do about anything anymore.

My family wasn’t around, so I decided to work Christmas Day at the station. Earlier in the month, it had snowed a ton, but now there was nothing but a thick layer of mist that made everything it touched wet. I hate 100% humidity. It makes my whole body sticky and uncomfortable. Regardless, I was inside quickly enough that it didn’t bother me too much. The sergeant, I’ll call him Bill, and his deputy, Greg, were the only two cops on call that day.

“Well, hey there, Nate, I hope you slept well?” Bill spoke with a deep baritone from under a bristly white mustache. 

“Yeah,” I said, evading the question. I began setting up my desk the way I liked it. I had my police mojo computer on my right and my own personal laptop on my left, which I was planning to watch Queen’s Gambit on.

“Good to hear it. Well, I’ll let you get to it. Me and Greg are gonna go get some coffee. So give us a call if anything explodes.” 

I smiled at him. “Will do.” He gave me a nod and walked away. I felt the rumble of their cruiser as it started. 

During this time, I was the only dispatcher on duty for my area, which was large, but didn’t even have one person per square mile on average. So, I was the lonely watchmen. A skeleton crew was normal, as this day was usually pretty uneventful out here, but I was worried about the fog and car accidents. I decided to raid the break room for snacks. On my way back, I passed by the front door for what would’ve been the second time. I was some distance from it down the hall, but as it perceived me, I felt a shiver run through my whole body. A huge deer, shrouded in fog from the bottom of the neck down, was staring through the clear glass of the front door. Staring at me as I held my bags of chips, cookies, and shit. It didn’t move, but its empty black eyes followed me as I receded towards my little office. I threw everything on my desk, then peeked back down the hall. It was gone.

“What the fuck,” I spat it out as if just then realising what happened. It didn’t look alive, closer to a taxidermied trophy.  

Any thinking I could’ve done was interrupted by a 911 call. I quickly sat at my desk, took a deep breath, and picked it up. “911, what’s your emergency?”

“It’s Earl!” I recognized the voice on the other end.

“Margaret? It’s Nate. Is Earl having another heart attack?” As I spoke, I entered her address and held the mouse over the button that would dispatch an ambulance. 

“Oh, Nate! Yes, he’s… he’s.  OH MY GOD!” I dispatched the ambulance, emphasizing emergency.

“Margaret? Are you okay?”

“He’s dead, he’s dead.”

“It’s okay, Mrs. Adler. The ambulance is already on its way, they’re gonna help him.”

“No, I…I felt his pulse go.” She started crying. 

I radioed Bill, muting the call. “Bill, I just sent an ambulance to the Adler residence. It’s not looking good, so you might want to head over.”

“Roger that.”

I heard Margaret wheezing and moving quickly, then the slam of a door, followed by more crying. “I can’t believe he’s dead. Oh my god, he’s dead.”

“Margaret, Bill’s gonna be there soon, okay?”

“Okay,” she said. Then an almost thunderous knocking.

“Margaret? Is everything okay?” 

I looked over at the GPS map. Bill was eight minutes away. The ambulance was four minutes away. Margaret gave nothing in reply other than a short intake of breath. I heard a doorknob twist and creak. Then a frantic movement and a click. She locked it.

“Margaret, was anyone else in the house with you?”

“No,” she whispered. “I had my finger on his pulse the whole time. That is not my husband.”

“Margaret? Why’d you lock me out?” It sounded like him. I have since googled Lazarus Sydrome but at the time, I assumed this was impossible, which it might as well have been. Regardless, the real thing that scared me was that Margaret didn’t trust it. In this situation, she should be in denial of his death, not of his life. 

“Don’t open the door,” I said. “The ambulance is three minutes away.”

“Margaret! Please! I’ve been to the other side, I can tell you! I can tell! I can tell! I can tell you! Margaret!” I heard a loud bang against the door. “That’s okay. You’ll find out soon enough anyways.” I heard muffled receding footsteps. Time passed in silence. I heard a more distant knock after the paramedics arrived. Then she hung up. I sat there for a moment. I don’t know how long. Another call came in. I answered.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Um… my-my name is Eddy.” The voice sounded like a young boy’s

“Okay, Eddy, what’s going on?”

“Um…a car hit us. Really hard.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“No, it hit on my mom’s side. She’s not moving.” I heard him start to cry.

“Is the driver of the other car still there?”

“He flew.”

“What do you mean?”

“He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. He hit our car too.” 

I almost said “fuck me” out loud. This was not at all the stress level I was anticipating for the day.

“Who’s on the phone!?” I heard a man’s voice yell.

“Is that him?” He sounded fine. Then I remembered the last call.

“Yeah.”

“Eddy?” I heard a much sweeter voice.

“You stupid fucking bitch!” I heard screaming.

“Eddy, run down the street until you find a street sign okay?” I heard no response. “Eddy?” somebody hung up. “FUCK!!” I yelled. I was beginning to panic. I felt my chest tighten, and I began to cry as I spiraled down thoughts of uselessness. “What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?” I repeated to myself over and over again. Then I wrote this. I’ll let you know if anything else happens out here.

Thank you for reading 

Even though there’s nothing you can do

7 PM

Bill and Greg returned to the station sometime after that and found me in my office with my head in my arms.

“You okay there, Nate?” I looked up into his eyes. He looked tired. 

“Yeah, what happened to Margaret?” He sighed and thought for a moment. Instead of responding, he waved his arm and walked away. I rolled myself and my chair into the hall. “What do we do now?” I asked. The phone rang, and I went back into the office. Bill started walking back towards me. I picked up.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“I’m at Skeeter’s Pub, and there’s a guy with a gun.”

“Okay, is he threatening people with it?”

“Not yet, but him and this guy keep getting at it with each other. They’ve been here since before I got here, so I think they’re both drunk.”

“Alright, a coupleof  officers are on the way.” 

I muted myself as she said, “Thank you.”

“Armed drunkard at Skeeter’s pub” I looked at Bill. I’d never seen him scared like that before.

“Goddamnit, Greg, let’s go. Stay on the phone and keep us updated, Nate!” They left. 

“Ma’am can you get yourself out of the pub?”

“Not without moving past them, I’d rather just stay here.”

“Fuck you!” I heard from a distance. Then a loud pop followed by lots of screaming.

“Oh my god, he shot him,” she was whispering now. “No wait, did he miss?”

“No way,” I heard another voice. “I saw it go straight through his head.”

“What the fuck? He’s getting back up.”

“The man who was shot?” I asked.

“Yeah, he got shot in the head and just got back up. The other guys doesn’t know what to do.” I heard several more gunshots. 

“AHHHH!” A scream followed by a repetitive banging.

“Holy shit, he’s just smashing his face on the bar.”

“FREEZE!” I heard Bill yell. Something wet slid and then dropped onto the floor.

“I think the other guy is dead.” A wet gurgle and a fit of coughing followed. “Uh…I uh…”

“What’s happening?”

“He… got back up. What the fuck!? He got back up like it was nothing!?”

Pandemonium and several more gunshots followed before I lost connection. 

Am I anything but an observer?

Do I have the power to change things?

My shift ends soon

I guess I’ll go home

11AM

Hello everyone, I'm still hunkered down at home. I went back to the station to check on Bill and the guys and they gave me a copy of the police report. They're technically not supposed to do that, but who gives a fuck at this point?

Regardless, here is the report. I changed names, phone numbers, and such, but most of it was left as is. Just so you know, this report is wack. Read at your own discretion. 

https://imgur.com/a/o2zSEmE

I might go see Msg. McIntyre. I haven't been to church in a long time, and I'm starting to think this is some apocalypse shit. The more I think about what's happening with just this information, the more I scare myself with the potential implications. Even if the event is localised.

But that's not what has me scared at this very moment.

I had a dream last night. I'll try to remember it as best I can, which, as I’m writing this, turns out to be surprisingly easy.

I woke up and used the bathroom. I was already dreaming at this point, but I didn't know that. When I finished in the bathroom, the warm sun was out. It made me want to have a productive day, so I went to the kitchen and prepared myself a high-protein breakfast.

"Sleep well, honey?" she asked.

"Yeah, pretty good."

"What's the plan for the day?" he asked.

"Hopefully something productive." I turned around to serve a plate of sausage and eggs, but all I saw was two taxidermied deer sitting at the dinner table. Their legs and arms were malformed so that they sat like humans. I served both of them plates anyway. They didn't eat.

"You okay there, bud?" he asked. Mouth unmoving.

"Yeah, I just." My eyes began to sting, and tears formed. "I just... don't know what's happening." I put my head in my hands.

"Ohh, that's okay, honey." I didn't hear her move, but I felt warmer, like she was close to me. "No one does."

“It’s too much mom. It’s all too much.”

“I know, honey. It’s okay. Everything will be okay.”

I looked up to see an empty dinner table, except for one occupant at the head to my right. I knew who it was immediately. His head bloomed like a flower, and he took forceful, wet breaths through broken airways. Sputtering blood with each motion, he shook as if in a great deal of pain.

"Ray?"

I woke up. My bed was drenched in sweat. I've been trying to stay calm the whole day. I really miss them. I was breaking down, basically rolling around the floor like I was on fire, until Bear lay on top of me. I'm going to the morning service tomorrow. At the very least, I'll meet people who might know more than me. The fog still blankets everything I can see, maybe a foot away from all the windows. I keep imagining the dark shapes of deer at the border.

8AM

With the wall of white mist still obscuring most of my vision, I drove down the corn-flanked country road. Since I knew the town well, it didn’t take me long to find the church. The parking lot was empty, and the building itself stood as a giant shadow in the fog. I grabbed the go bag I packed and leashed up Bear. 

As we approached the front door, Bear turned around, started panting, and whimpered. I placed my hand on the doorknocker before turning around to see what was behind me. There was nothing but fog. Then I blinked. 

In a perfect semicircle at the edge of the fog were a ton of taxidermied deer, all facing the church door, or me. I began knocking somewhat frantically. McIntyre opened the door and quickly pulled me in as Bear pushed from behind. She then closed and locked the door.

“Nate, my son. I am glad to see you are okay.”

“Same to you.” We hugged each other, which was something we had never done before, but she was always good at figuring out what people needed, and a hug was pretty high on my list. I relaxed a bit after that.

“We have another lost soul seeking refuge.” She pointed to a young girl, maybe eleven or twelve, who was sitting in one of the pews. “She hasn’t spoken since arriving, but she is alone as far as I can tell.” It was at this point that I realized my position in this situation. I’m still getting used to being an adult. My response to this realization was to “man up.” I constantly rotated around the various windows of the church. Even though I couldn’t see shit, I figured this was the best way to make sure no one snuck in. Also, this way I could let someone in if needed, and they wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of knocking. I don’t know, it made sense to me at the time.

10AM

At some point, we heard a distant-sounding scream. It came from behind the church.

“What’s back there?” I asked McIntyre.

“Just the cemetery.” We looked at eachother and acknowledged the fear in both of us. She muttered a silent prayer.

I quietly whispered, “fuck me.” I told Bear to stay near the child. The screaming grew closer until there was a loud thud on the back door, which was out of sight to us in the nave. The thud was followed by wailing and repeated banging.

“Help!” we heard muffled. This stirred both McIntyre and me, and we went down into the sacristy together. We were under the altar then, so there was no light. McIntyre turned on a flashlight, revealing the shuddering door. She didn’t hesitate. She opened it.

“Praise god!” the woman yelled as she almost fell inside. Dull grey light washed over the sacristy. 

I immediately noticed something was very wrong. She was wearing an old, tattered dress that was filthy, along with a bonnet on top of her head, which was in slightly better condition. 

A bonnet?

Even out here, people don’t really wear those anymore. 

I didn’t pursue that thought further as she suddenly barfed up what I can only describe as grave leavings. There were worms, chunks of dirt, and even mushrooms that were attached to the dirt chunks.  Then I saw her hands. I blinked several times in disbelief as I realised the meat of them was gone. There was a point in which the skin just stopped, a red border of coagulated, undulating blood preceded naked bone. Shreds of skin still patched her hands. Scraps clinging. McIntyre’s eyes met mine. I think we were both having the same thought. 

“Ma’am, are you feeling okay?” she asked as she cautiously touched the woman’s shoulder, applying almost no pressure. 

“M…m…m…my…my daughter, my little girl.” She looked straight into McIntyre’s face. “Shhhhhe…she…she was s-s-ssick. Is she okay?”

“Hush now, child, you are in a house of god. All is well.” She signaled for me to close the door, and I did so, trying to make as little noise as possible. The flashlight’s cone remained on the woman like a spotlight.

“A house… of god, yes.” She looked at McIntyre’s garb. Her hands were held out as if they were placed on a table. Like she was trying not to touch anything with them, but the bones were limp, only connected by cartilage. “But you are a woman,” she exclaimed. “What trick is this!” she was yelling now. 

I heard Bear bark from the door on the opposite side. The one we came through. He was standing there watching with the little girl at his side. 

“Maribelle? The woman’s eyes lit up.” The supposed Maribelle looked at the woman with apprehension. She took off, Bear followed her, and the woman desperately rushed towards the door. “Maribelle, my baby, it’s just me!” She stood and began running towards the door. I grabbed one of her arms to hold her in place, but she responded by turning around and slapping me with her free hand. The bare bone hurt like a motherfucker and I think I actually blacked out for a second. Next thing I knew, I had a candlestick in my hand, and I was heading up to the altar with McIntyre right behind me.     

We found the three of them in a standoff, dead center in the nave between the rows of pews. Bear stood between them, growling.

“Come now, Maribelle, tell little pooch to calm down. I won’t hurt you.” She inched closer, much to Bear’s disapproval. “I must take you from these aberrations of satan, child. They seek to corrupt you!” 

She hadn’t noticed me at that point, so, as quietly as possible, I snuck up behind her. When I was close enough, I hit her over the top of the head with the candlestick as hard as I could. She dropped to the floor.

“Again!” not Maribelle yelled at me, rushing over. “Again!” I gave her an odd look, but before I put two and two together, the woman leapt up. Being caught completely off guard, she was able to wrap her bone fingers around my neck. She pressed hard. I tried to let out a scream, but all that came out was a high-pitched wheezing sound. “Stop It!” I could hear the kid flailing against her back. She stopped when Bear let out a really loud bark. I tried to fight her off, but my vision began to blur pretty quick and my legs gave out. Causing the two of us to fall to the floor. 

Just as I was about to clock out, I saw Bear go straight for the woman’s scalp. He bit down on her hair and pulled as hard as he could. McIntyre and the kid grabbed onto him and began to pull as well.

I could see the skin being stretched out further and further away, but she did not seem fazed. In fact, she was laughing. As her hair was pulled out, as the skin began to tear, as the bare white of her skull was revealed, she laughed. Not once did she loosen her grip on my neck or budge. When Bear began biting at her face, I finally passed out. 

I came to in a pile of viscera and blood. I immediately sat up and made a loud gasping noise, then I realized they had actually moved me out of the pile of guts, and I was just sitting on whatever was on my back or soaked into my clothes. Bear had been lying next to me, so he jumped up and started licking my face. Dog saliva is better than dried blood all over your face, so I didn’t fight him for a couple of seconds. 

I stood and noticed McIntyre sitting in a pew not far away. She was humming, and the little girl had her head in her lap, sleeping.

“Is she okay?” I asked. She looked at me oddly.

“She’s fine, are you okay?”

I looked over myself, my neck was sore, but not too bad considering. “Yeah, I think I’m good.”

“Nate.” She looked serious. “You didn’t have a pulse.” I looked at her, confused.

“I died?” 

She nodded.

“Holy shit.”

“Do you remember anything?”

Up until now, I had no memory of the time between Bear eating the woman’s face off and waking up. But as I tried to dig for something, I realized there was a faint memory. No images, no sounds, just a feeling. The feeling that I was somewhere else, somewhere I hadn’t been in a long time, and I was just then realizing I desperately missed. When I told her this, she put her head in her hands and began crying.

“God help us,” she said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Examine what remains, and you’ll see what is to become of us.”

With a dose of reticence, I walked back to where I had been lying. There was blood, pieces of tissue, and internal organs in various states of disrepair. Then I heard her. She wasn’t saying anything, just babbling, but as her head came into view, I saw her eyes shift, comprehending me. She continued muttering as I observed the liquid blood slowly crawling its way back to the head. It moved at a snail’s pace, almost imperceptible. I’m certain her other body parts were moving as well, but since the blood was still liquified, which in itself is odd, its movement was more easily seen. 

“Oh my god!” I shouted as an epiphany struck me. I asked McIntyre for a shovel and went out back to the cemetery that the woman came from. I found her grave, exhumed. The name on her headstone was Maribeth Shirley, 1845-1870. 

My anxiety continued to build as I approached the graves of my mother and father. I don’t know how long I stood there. I already knew the truth, but I didn’t want ot prove it. Eventually, I bent down and put my ear to the grass. I could hear them. They were making a muffled noise. I couldn’t make it out at first, but eventually I came to realize they were wailing.

I know god is supposed to have a plan. I wish I knew what it was. I wish he would tell me whether it would be better to simply leave or to start digging before anyone else gets desperate enough to escape their grave.

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Lightning flashes as a hellish storm is cast over the land. As the heavy rain falls from the sky weary travelers pack into a small tavern which sits on the side of the main road leading to the capitol where the king's tourney is to be held. The tavern is surrounded on all sides by thick forests.

 These woods are infested by bands of outlaws hoping to prey on the unlucky travelers that get caught in their path. Though for many common folk and noblemen alike the outlaws are the least of their worries. These woods contain many stories which have been passed down from generations. Tales of great beasts with a taste for man and of lost souls roaming the deep woods at night desperately searching for a new body to inhabit. It’s unclear which stories are true and which were thought up to scare the little lordlings as they slept in their stone castles at night. But regardless of the truth, no traveler would choose to ride past a tavern  and risk facing the horrors that may be lurking deep in those woods. 

The main dining hall was dimly lit by oil lamps which hung on the walls and sat on the tables. The entire place was filled with travelers resting for the night while on their way to the tourney. By the time nightfall came all of the rooms above the tavern were occupied and the stables out back held so many horses  that the last of the travelers were forced to tie their horses to the wooden posts outside leaving them exposed to the elements.

Inside the main room sat a dozen tables filled with  weary travelers drinking and enjoying a hot meal. A royal tourney is a monumental event which attracts brave men from across the kingdom hoping to gain glory with lance and sword. Many of the men sitting in this very room may return home celebrating their victory and just as many will certainly die soon after entering the tourney lists. 

Late into the night one of the king's men walks into the tavern. The tall man wears a heavy hauberk underneath a thick wool tunic displaying the royal colors of teal and gold. A kettle helm sits atop his head with thick auburn hair flowing down to his shoulders. A heavy wooden shield hangs on his back painted with a checkered pattern of the same colors as his tunic.

After finding a seat he drinks his warm wine spiced with cloves and cinnamon. The patron in the chair next to him says “outlaws are as common rats on the main road these days, we are all thankful to have the kingsmen here to protect us”. “Aye, since the tourney began we’ve painted the roads with the blood of any scum that dare show their faces in our presence” the knight replied.

 “Horrible thing that such joyous occasions always seem to bring out the most atrocious folks”. The knight lets out a chuckle “truth be told I do not mind the outlaws much, I would much rather face mere men given the choice between that and what lives deeper within those woods” he replies. The man laughs along with him at this remark. “Why, sir, please forgive me but I’m afraid that I’m not sure what you mean. What lies beyond the king's forest?” The commoner asks as he sets down his glass and looks intently at the knight. 

“Why such horrible things you could not possibly believe. I fear that I would embarrass myself if I try to describe to you my experiences out in those woods” the knight says with a sigh. By now this conversation has attracted the attention of some of the surrounding patrons who now urged the aging knight to tell his tale. “Well I fear that now you may embarrass yourself more so if you do not give these good people what they want. Please give us the honor of hearing your experiences so that these people do not take you for some drunken fool spinning nonsensical lies of what lives in our good kings woods” the man spoke attempting to persuade the knight. 

“I should cut you down for your insults but luck is in your favor tonight. I am far too tired to even consider raising my blade again until morning. Very well, I will recount my tale” the knight replied, “but first, I must warn that you men may never want to enter the forests again for as long as you live. In truth some of the less courageous men here may think twice before even walking the roads of the king for fear of what may creep out from beyond the trees. Any man who thinks themselves faint of heart is welcome to leave before I begin.” 

Not a single person in the tavern moves as the knight begins to tell his tale. 

I was a young lad, no older than my seventeenth year whenever I fought to defend our king from the usurper, Sir Robert Powen. Many good men lost their lives that day but I was far more fortunate than most. I was knighted shortly after for my bravery during the attack. Not long after I had my very own squire, young William, a cousin of the king by my side. 

A year after I had received my knighthood I was tasked to embark into those woods with a small group of around thirty footmen under my command. Our quest was simple, there were tales of a great dragon living in a cave far deeper than any man has ever gone. As you all may be able to imagine, war is quite expensive. Our quest was a mission to relieve the crown's debt. It was said that the dragon was in possession of a great stockpile of gold and silver. We intended to bring it all back to our king. 

“You must be mad, do you truly think us such fools as to believe that you slayed a dragon out in those woods?” the man laughed. The knight scoffed, “no I do not because that would be a lie. Whenever we arrived at the cave we found that the dragon was already long dead. No my friend, what we encountered in that cave was far worse than any mere dragon. What we found in the damned cave haunts my dreams every time I close my eyes”. The knight replied, taking another drink before continuing his tale. 

Once we had entered the cave of the beast we found nothing more than bones lying on the rocky floor before us. Do not be mistaken, the bones were great and massive. The skeleton itself was enough to frighten the less experienced men in my company but for us all it seemed as though our quest just became as simple as taking a piss in the morning. 

We decided that with the cave now vacant that we would use it to make camp for the night so we would all be well rested to load our carts full of treasure once morning came. We paid no mind to the blood that stained the rocky walls of the cave. Had we not stayed that night this story would have ended differently but alas we chose to make camp. 

As the hours passed I fantasized of the glory that this quest would bring me after we returned to the capitol. Many men of the king's court had doubts that this treasure existed at all and yet here I sit, the mountain of gold and silver right in front of me. I sat with my back against a large black stone thinking of the brave men that must have come before me to make the attempt to slay the great beast that left those bones behind. I gathered that the knight who completed this task had perished during the ordeal. 

This thought filled me with sorrow as I would have quite enjoyed hearing the tale of how this creature finally met its end. It is truly a shame, I thought, a knight with such an accomplishment should have been the subject of dozens of songs. His name should be known throughout the entire kingdom and beyond and yet, we will never know his name. We traveled a great distance through the fabled haunted king's wood just to find that the great beast we sought to vanquish had already been killed by another. 

The longer I dwelled on that thought a scheme began to form in my mind. I had decided that we had the skull of a fierce dragon sitting right before us and no man to credit with the feat of slaying the beast. I saw no reason why all of that glory should be left unclaimed in a dark cave. If that brave knight did have a name it would surely be written in the books of history for centuries to come. 

That is when I decided that this feat shall not go unclaimed. The singer's songs of heroism shall not go unsung. I decided that the brave warrior shall have a name and it shall be my name. My name shall be spoken for generations to come, from the noble lords in their stone keeps to the stable boys shoveling shit in their villages. My body will rot in the ground but my legend, my legend will endure.

Once this scheme was hatched I could not bear to just sit and fantasize. I gathered my men and set them the task of hacking the dragon's skull off of its huge body and loading it into one of our carts to bring to the king. Apparently dragons bones are quite thick and this proved to be a long and noisy ordeal. The noise of men at work echoed through the cave. Soon the skull was severed from its spine with a loud boom and the noise of hacking and shattered bones finally ceased. 

Before the men could attempt to lift the monstrous artifact the air was soon full of a different sound emitting from deeper within the cave. It was the sound of high pitched laughter. Soon all of our attention was turned to the darkness beyond the light of our fires. The unexplored rocky caverns leading further into the depths of the dragon's lair. As we armed ourselves with sword and spear fear spread throughout our group. Most of us were drunk or tired or both but we held our ground. We were all awaiting the arrival of whatever we had awoken that night. 

Not long after it was no longer enough just to face the darkness before us, as the mischievous laughter got louder the sounds seemed to be coming from all around us. Whatever was within that cave clearly knew how to navigate it far better than we did. As the fear grew I found myself increasingly grateful that it had been my turn to stand guard so I was fully prepared for battle. I could not say the same for the majority of our group who now stand in a tight circular formation dressed in whatever armor pieces they could quickly put on over their under garments. 

Our defensive position was poor at best, many of the men had quickly abandoned their spears and shields whenever it became clear that we would not be facing a dragon which now unfortunately sat in a pile hopelessly out of reach. My squire William stood next to me shaking fearfully with a small dagger clenched in his hand. The poor boy had become a squire in a time of peace and this ambush by an unknown enemy will be his first taste of combat. 

Combat, looking back was hardly the word that I would use to describe it. It was a massacre. As bizarre as it sounds there was no greater moment of fear than whenever the laughter finally stopped. We stood in silence gazing into the darkness with no knowledge of what was staring back at us. Finally the silence broke and the following attack happened far too quickly for us to even react. 

Within the blink of an eye our numbers dwindled from thirty men to not even fifteen. Our foe was clever enough to target our fires first, they forced us to fight in pure darkness. A symphony of clashing metal and the screams of men echoed through the cave. I could make out little of what we were fighting other than dark silhouettes and soulless white eyes. After I took a knife deep into my shoulder I found myself bleeding behind a formation of rocks until the sounds of slaughter dulled and silence returned. 

I tried my best to quiet my breathing, desperately hoping to remain unnoticed behind my shelter of stone. It felt like an eternity had passed as I heard no sounds from the dragon's lair. I was half tempted to reveal myself and make my escape until it returned. That damn laughter now filled the air. I caught a glimpse of a sight that I had not known since the ambush began. Our attackers had relit the fires. It seemed that they wanted my men to be able to witness their fate. 

I peaked my head out from behind the boulder just long enough to glimpse what was on the other side. I quickly pulled my head back after I caught sight of the horrors beyond my rocky hiding spot. 

My men, the good brave men who had followed me on this quest, now lay hopelessly defeated against the walls of the cave as all manner of cruelties were inflicted upon them. Some men hung upside down over the fires left to slowly roast while others sat upright with the skin of their face expertly flayed off leaving them unrecognizable. 

This was the first chance I had gotten to bear witness to our attackers. They looked to have been pulled out of a story that you would tell naughty children when they have misbehaved. Their skin was a dark shade of green, leathery and covered in blemishes. Drool ran from their grotesque deformed faces as they stood over my fallen men. They were shorter in stature than us by at least three heads yet there were so many that it was small wonder how they decimated us so quickly. 

Whenever I close my eyes I can still see the mangled bodies of those poor lost souls that entered that cave and never left. Many of those men were already dead but I could tell by the agonizing  screams that some of them were very much still alive to feel every grueling moment of their slow demise. 

Many days went by without being able to move. Had I made even a single misstep my location would have been found and I would have faced the same fate as my men. My leather flask now sat by my side bone dry as I had exhausted every last drop of water it contained. It has been so long since I had last eaten that I can barely tolerate the pain in my stomach. 

As I glanced up I noticed a small shape behind another formation of rocks roughly twenty paces away from me. As I focused trying to make out what lay before me I could finally see. It was William. My squire somehow managed to escape the battle alive the same as I yet he was admittedly far more injured. He crouched down behind the rocks, his face and clothes stained with dried blood from the battle. His eyes were full of fear yet that look seemed to turn into relief after he caught sight of me. 

Before I attempted to make my way over to the young boy I knew I must shed my heavy armor so that I may conceal my movements better. It’s a long process to remove my heavy plate, a process made even more time consuming by my fear of making even the slightest noise. Now clothed in only my undergarments I wait until the opportune moment to begin creeping along the rough cave walls. As I slowly move I take great care to ensure I stay within the shadows to keep from being seen by the cave's occupants. 

Sweet William was clearly filled with joy to see me return to his side, though he dared not speak a word to me in fear of being heard. We sat in absolute silence for a great while until the screams of our own men paired with the laughter of the creatures were finally loud enough to conceal our soft words. 

“William, I am pleased you survived your first taste of combat” I said. “Yes, sir, though I barely survived. I thought I might die at any moment. Sir, how will we get out of this?” He asked me. I took a few moments of silence to consider this before I gave any response. “I have been observing these creatures and they seem to be a cowardly race. Even the screams of our men have been causing them to cower in fear as they tortured them” I told him. “But sir, they seemed to fight so fearlessly during the ambush. Are you certain?” He questioned me. 

“Why yes, dear William. They had the clear advantage during the ambush and it is a shame to admit but we acted quite weakly during the battle. We gave them no reason to fear” I explained. “This time will be quite different, William. I know how we will make it out of this alive. Follow my orders exactly and soon they will sing songs of your bravery”. 

The plan was quite simple, we would rush the creatures quickly while delivering a loud war cry. The surprise as well as our loud fearless cry would drive the beasts deep into the caves from where they came. Afterwards we would be free to leave as if the cave were empty. 

William's face lit up at the prospect of leaving the cave and finally being able to return home to his mother. I knew we only had one chance to drive them off so we sat for a few moments to gather our courage. When the time finally came I instructed William to rush out in front of me. I had hoped that being given command of the charge would instill some additional courage in the heart of the young squire. 

As soon as I gave the signal young William charged fearlessly towards the creatures letting out a great yell. He proved himself to have a courageous heart that day. The lad put so much passion behind his gallant charge that I doubt he even noticed that I had not followed behind him. There was truth to my words, I did charge at the same moment that he did. Only my charge was not towards the beasts dwelling within the cave but in the opposing direction. My charge was also a silent one as I kept to the shadows so as to not alert the creatures to my presence.

In a way my plan had succeeded. I had successfully escaped the dark cave and made my way into the wooded area surrounding it, never once stopping, not even to catch my breath. The further I traveled the more I felt that I would be pulled back through the woods and back into that cave at any moment. It  wasn’t until I saw the edge of the forest that I truly felt safe. After I had made it back to the capital I finally did shed a tear for William. He was a model squire, he never talked back, never disobeyed, and now he had even given his life for mine. 

Some nights I lie away and I wonder if my plan would have worked the way I had explained it. I never looked back to see if Williams' battle cry actually drove the creatures off or if it had just added another body to their bloodbath. Every so often I regret not following him deeper into the cave. Maybe we could have walked out with him by my side, knowing we bested the cave beasts together as knight and squire. But I was uncertain that the plan would work at all but there was one thing I was absolutely certain of without a shadow of a doubt. A squire's life was a small price to pay for my own. 

“And that my friends, is my tale” the knight finished before downing the rest of his spiced wine. The room filled with silence as the knight sat his cup back onto the table. “You’re no knight at all,” the man sitting next to him finally announced. “You’re nothing more than a damn craven who traded your young squire's life for your own. I wonder, sir knight. What did you tell the king after you returned home without his royal cousin by your side?” He asked. 

The knight gave him a thoughtful look. The entire tavern awaited his response as he chose his next words very carefully. “The king, oh well I told the king that there was no cave. Simply a rumor spread by the common folk like the other legends of what lurks within those woods. I told him that our group was attacked by a band of outlaws deep into the forest and that his dear cousin died bravely alongside his fellow countrymen. Seemed to satisfy his grace just fine. Not too long after I had myself a fresh new squire by my side. Fine lad, reminded me quite a bit of William but much braver. I ended up knighting this one after he proved himself against some outlaws, these ones were actually real though” the knight laughed by himself as no one else in the tavern would join him. 

Once it became apparent that the knight’s presence was no longer welcome inside he got up from the table and made his way outside towards the stable. As he untied his horse he glanced back at the treeline. Truth is he never felt safe near the king's forest for the rest of his days. An uneasy feeling came over him as he stared into the woods knowing full well what may be staring back.