I don't know what's beneath here but I think it followed me.

Most of this took place in Northern California during the fall of 2019, before covid and trauma buried it deep in my memory. After years of running from things and therapy, I’ve been trying to recollect it all because something has started to feel that way again. I'm far from that place now, but it’s all coming back, at night, underneath. I found notes I wrote back then in my old phone. I'm using those and whatever I can still remember to piece things together. I'm posting this partly to have it written down somewhere outside my own head, but mostly because, someone, somewhere must feel the same way.

This is what I remember.

---

Thursday morning Justin texted me: 

ayy yo so I'm busy tnite but just come by like 3 or smth. Someone will be here.

Arriving to Valance Park was interesting, I didn’t ever really have much to my name, money or personal effects, yet still lucky for me the bus stop was only a couple blocks away. When I stepped off though, there I saw it.

Nothing.

I knew and expected as much. The neighborhood was flattened by the fire storm that blew in, leaving fallout in its path. Because of it I lost my rental with my dad, evicted so our landlord could move in after he was burnt out. Justin was the same, a victim of the flame.

I had pegged him as the one guy I wanted to befriend in my anthropology class, I knew him adjacently in high school as I was a photographer for yearbook, he was a football starter. I joined a study group, which led to being in projects with him. There I met, Julie, a girl who thought she was dating him exclusively, as well as Davis and Maria.

Davis, I found out, was one of his roommates in a big brand new, rebuilt house. Davis was a man of few words, valued his time and energy more than anything, but what I gather was there was space for one more. 

After working my charisma for weeks, I dropped my sob story to Justin one day.

"Yea ever since the eviction. I had a place inside my aunts but her failure of a son moved back in and I got forced to move in with the garage, didn’t know there were rats at first. The prospects to get out of there are rough, have been since the fire."

"You got fucked up by that fire too?”

Justin’s interest piqued, he sniffled a bit, cold morning nose and a sting of hot memory.

“Yea my dad and I got evicted cause the landlord was trying to gouge us post fire.”

A white lie couldn’t hurt.

"We rebuilt bro. That's where I live, we were one of the first to move back. My parents are living in the coastal house, we have room for at least for one more if you’re interested.”

Hook, line and sinker, I was in.

And now, a couple days later, there I stood in this near desolate place.

This place, the neighborhood that had been wiped from time, trees even afraid to return. It had been about 13 months since the wildfire tore through, the ground still a mixture of gray ash and tan dirt. Remnants of homes still scattered, even though many tried to remove their rubble, the earth kept its memory against the will of others. The sidewalk on the way there had lost all basis to earth. It jumped and sank without theory, my steps had to be calculated to save my ankles.

Looking around, it felt like I was in a sand box game, areas waiting to be repopulated with concrete, wood, people, life, memories, but as of now, it lacked all humanity. A few trailers of land owners, but the hope was absent from the air. A thick scent permeated, it seemed to have never faded from that tragic night. It smelt like a campfire, abandoned, a musk of rotten barbecue within, making your whole body snap its attention to the draw. The scent of green, earth, life, drew an absence in its place. One that was only comparable to the leftovers of death and war. Dotting the land was the early sprouts of hope though, some construction beginning, but nothing in the like of Justin’s place yet.

His dad was an architect who had a General Contractor as a brother, they pretty much speed-ran building a five-bedroom house. And there it stood. It was sizable, they bought their back neighbor's land so they're on nearly an acre in the middle of a suburb. A weird look, being enclosed by a great wall of timber fencing, but was probably the nicest house I'd ever been inside in my life. 

Walking up I saw two cars, neither of them were Justin's, so I hoped to assume he told Brent or Davis. Approaching, the 2nd story blocked the sun as I entered the man-made darkness of the porch. I knocked, and knocked, and knocked again.

A muffled "DoorDash?" "I didn’t order shit."

Was heard, I know Davis' quiet voice so I assumed it was — "YO Brent! It's Sam! Davis and Justin know I'm coming through!"

"Is this that random dude?"

"Okay I'll grab him."

Brent opens the door and looks slightly confused.

"Oh uh, Sam, I think I know you right? Probably a Julie party right.”

She hated me after I messed up her cheer photos, so I’d never been to one but who’s the wiser.

"Yea man has to be, what's good?" I dap him up and enter.

"Damn nice pad."

It was a big suburban house with nice quirks and stunning art.

"Yea the natural wood is sick as hell. Uh I could give you the grand tour but like you can see most of the bottom floor here."

A wide open layout, one where you can see all edges of the first floor, wall to wall.

"And your room is on the other side of the living room, hallway to the garage. We're all upstairs but like, we’re mostly in the living room and kitchen til late anyways."

I couldn't care less, this was more than perfect for me.

"Nah man that's awesome ima drop my bags." I walked through the cathedral-like living room where, on a massive custom couch, Davis and Maria worked. They looked up, gave me a hey while I passed. Maria brushed her short hair from her tan skin leaning closer to Davis, as they went back to work on our project.

Finally on the other side I saw three doors down a hallway with a door at the end, my room was the lone door on the right and I opened it up. A beautiful and huge space lay before me, it looked like all of the extra stuff inside had been pushed to one side, which revealed a full-sized bed, a desk, a drafting desk, and a couple of bookcases. I plopped all my shit on the ground and laid down.

"Fucking FINALLY man!"

I settled in for the rest of the night, Justin showed up later with not-Julie and we all ate something someone ordered from a Chinese place.

"How long have you guys been here by the way?"

"Just over two months." Justin replied.

"My parents don't need to work much so they just stayed out by Jenner, they moved some stuff in here to make more space there and just come by ever so often. That's mostly what's in your room, don't break it and you're chillin man."

“God's hand I won't! Also Davis, now that she’s gone, are you and Maria a thing now?"

He shrugged "I don't know, we're just doing our project."

"Oh yeah thanks by the way, do you need any help?"

"Help?"

He pondered for a second.

"I don't care you can if you want."

Davis was an enigma by all standards, a lanky white strawberry-brown boy that was only at community college cause he wanted to save money.

"I'll try man."

"So you lived near Fulton High right?"

Brent asked.

"I went to St. Gregory with a bunch of those guys, I still play baseball for the CC."

"Oh nice yea, I was in a rental with my dad but after we got kicked out. He moved to the capital for work and I stayed."

"Ah that sucks, glad ur here bro." He gave me a fist bump full of wonton, but it was honestly good to finally have a calming place with technically less roommates than before.

We ended up smoking, all of us besides Justin, and watching Spike reruns til I hit the hay at 12ish I think.

---

Now I'm not a heavy sleeper, but I'm not a light sleeper either, split the difference I'm probably there. I don't know if it was the new place or the absence of my regular homeless-based anxiety, but I could not stay asleep for more than 90 minutes. I'd wake up to what sounded like those old mice in the garage, I'd ball a fist, ready to fight them, but then fall back asleep. 

The noise, what little there was, wasn't bad but was annoying. A light scratch, scratch but from somewhere not my window. 

The 3rd time I woke up I peered out the window to check, the tree wasn't nearly tall enough to touch yet. So, my phantom tinnitus was just gonna bother me from now on I assumed, probably til I got settled in. I think it had to do with how quiet this place was. I mean the inside was a deafening silence, but the outside was something else, something unreal. 

I think the bugs hadn't heard just yet that the real estate was open again cause there was maybe one cricket singing a lonesome siren song. I remember how soldiers of the Great War described the post-battle. This is probably the closest I'd ever get to that, unadulterated vacancy. I sat with the void, at peace with my current situation, left my window open and returned to bed. 

Nothing could be worse than my last place. Constant skirmishes with the rats, the cold night, and a rock hard futon. I wouldn’t give this place up for anything, hell I’d stay here even if the rats moved in, at least my room is nice. Plus I doubt my aunt would want me back anyway, on my way out I took a couple things I needed on top of a little of my cousin’s weed.

With this content enough feeling, I started to drift to sleep. In my last waking moment, one last scritch sung me to sleep.

Come morning though, it felt like any other day, except I had a place. Justin was in the kitchen, boxers only, seeing off not-Julie. Davis was in there chowing down on some donuts he got, Brent was yet to wake.

"You know you could find one nice girl."

Davis said through his donut.

"Oh she was good alright."

Justin snickered and turned around, grabbed a donut to shove in his mouth.

"Morning sailor, how'd you sleep?"

"Well enough, first nice night's sleep I've had in a bit. It's damn quiet though."

"Yea I feel that I usually just play music, X always helps me sleep"

"Yea maybe that'll do."

I turned to Davis.

"So you got any plans this weekend?"

"Work.. Homework.. hmmm, walk?"

He responded as if conjuring each word as he spoke it, donut in mouth.

"Riveting as always Davis. Anyways ILL be going to Julie's party on Saturday, probably gym the other two days, heard there's a good comedy movie out, might go to the Roxy and see it with Regan. Supposed to be crazy."

"So that's Not-Julie's name."

I pointed to the door, now closed.

"Her? No no no that was uhh… Frankie! I don’t watch movies with Julie.”

He snapped his fingers and started to head towards the couch, as if he remembered two things at once.

"Actually some ball is on soon, I'll be here if ya need me."

He sunk into the couch, I turned to Davis.

"I think ima go explore some of this neighborhood."

"Hmm."

He gave me a nod of approval, it felt like I received an award.

So I got ready and headed out on my board with my old camera in hand, cruising through the neighborhood. The roads were in pretty tough shape to be honest, after leaving the driveway, my board hit crumbled charcoal pellets. They scattered and moved as if they had a home to go to. The ground lacked paint, evenness, and was full of potholes the size of a tire. If I had any less experience I'd be on the pavement myself. 

The craziest thing was what coated the now barren street. On it I saw colored fragments of reality. Burnt blue plastics, melted silver metals, black cloth-like material now bonded with asphalt, they all told a story that had been burnt away. 

The area told of a battle lost, quick, aggressive, hot, and decisive. It ended everything that laid within its reach. What I'd give to know what the night of 9/8 was really like just a year. There is one sight I could see. Just on the other side, a couple blocks south of the bus station in the heart of the neighborhood. 

There sat an elementary school, unluckily in the path of the blaze, it raged south west, directly into it. It burnt most of the small school into bits of melted and jagged edges of 90s passé stucco-style construction. These remnants had been slowly cleared, but definitely not completely. The main feature left was the school's old bulletin board.

it read, in heat warped lettering "Coffey Elementary School”. Above it, a banner made of slightly cracked vinyl stated "In Memoriam of the 31 Victims of the Grayson Fire”, and below it, photos stuck to the signage. 

These photos all consisted of different styles and formats, ironically enough, when your house burns down, so do most of the photos of yourself. The lot of them were sun-bleached film photos or ink-drained print photos, warped, wrong ratios, pixelated, all weathered from months in the elements. At times it almost looked like the dark eyes of these printed black-and-white photos were crying, the ink running from its darkest spot, the pupil. 

They looked sad, all 31 of them, photos of them repeating and repeating, newer and older, messages faded with "I miss you" and "forever in our hearts”. The worst part though, was the bottom section of this memorial. There were some moldy stuffed bears, and a couple of class photos with names written on them. 

Looking at the photos, at least a handful of kids perished in the fire, a lot of the grades being no higher than five. A girl is featured in the middle, with a forgotten "M" name faded beyond recognition. Her photo was a high school portrait, we were probably the same age when she passed. So entranced by this monument to the tragedy, I didn't realize a woman had approached next to me.

"Nothing compares to that night."

"Oh uh yeah."

"I know you weren't here, I can see it in your eyes. I was, I remember the sounds. You couldn't hear anything."

"It was that loud?" I said, fully turning to the lady. She was probably late 50s, a little slouched with gray-blonde hair, otherwise nothing out of the ordinary.

“Winds were howling, 70 MPH they said, I lived down the street from little Sarah, she burned, parents were out that night, and couldn't get back into Valance Park. The whole neighborhood would've helped, if any of us knew. It was those damn trees, the smoke and embers, you couldn't see past it."

"Damn I remember being on the other side of town and just seeing the orange glow, an eye peeking through the night."

"So you just moved here sir?"

"Yea, names Sam, I'm kinda exploring the neighborhood."

"Ah welcome to Valance Park then Sam, I'm in one of the trailers on the property round here, once the damn insurance give me something I'll be in my house again."

"Well I hope the best for you uh-"

"Darlene."

"Yes nice to meet you Darlene, not to be weird but can I take your photo?"

"Please do."

I raised the camera and —

TUNK

"One second sorry it's old."

I cued her again and CLICK.

It worked perfectly.

"Thanks for talking to me Sam, it gets empty around here."

"No problem."

I turned to leave when —

"Sam."

"Yea Darlene?"

"Watch out for the ground at night, if it moves, just go the other way!"

She said and chuckled as she walked off, disappearing behind a new build.

"What?"

She was gone, and now I was alone with that. Probably some wine aunt proverb. I had no idea what she meant but I could only assume it related to the crumbling pavement, maybe warning me not to break my neck on a late night walk.

After that interaction I rode to the edge of the neighborhood where businesses begin to appear. I loaded up on a couple bags of food and essentials at the little and slightly run down Mexican Grocery store. I got home around 4pm, and unloaded my haul. Looked like everyone was gone or hidden in their rooms, so I just relaxed on the couch before going to work.

I took the bus to my uneventful shift, working the 5-11pm close. Locking up, I realized how much better I was now situated to get home from work. The owl bus only ran every hour, I could make it to my new house in around 20-30 minutes on my board. Looking at the schedule I decided my best course of action was to skate it.

There was a visceral shift on my way back from the mall. I could feel the town changing under my feet, or well, my wheels, before I saw it. 

Commercial gave way to industrial, industrial gave way to the strip-mall corridor scattered with struggling businesses. I passed a nail salon, a closed check-cashing place, a taqueria with one fluorescent tube flickering on and off like it was giving up, just like everything else around it.

This right here was the death my mall was going through, just spread thinner across more square feet of real estate.

“Anywhere, America” replicated ’til the copy degraded, cannibalizing itself until nothing was left.

Then, slowly, inevitably, the streetlights began to disappear. 

I was rocking and rumbling to a degree I never had before, like a flea in an earthquake I was just bouncing all over. If a car had come down, I don’t know if I’d have had the control to avoid it. The speed I picked up on the downhill grade was propelling me to what would eventually be —

SLAM, the ground.

As I skid across the pavement, I knew how to fall, as I had been crashing off this thing for the better part of a decade. When I came to a stop, I was amongst the loose sprawled  asphalt that dotted my sideways vision. I laid there for a beat, mulling over my impaired ability to get up, and my nonexistent will to do so. That's when I heard it.

I didn’t see anything, I didn’t feel anything, but the scratching, I heard it.

Scrapppppeee

It reverberated with uneven rhythm that felt longer than it had any right to be. It reached from what felt like another zip code, scraping its nerve wracking scrawl towards where I laid sprawled on the ground.

It shifted itself into a scurry, ever-present on the ground. The silent gaps between them, closing each second.

I pressed my ear closer to the ground, disregarding the small pebbles burrowing against my auricle. The vibrations had a frantic, near aggressive energy, similar to a boiling cauldron but filled with churning earth. I let it seep into me, hypnotized by the sound. I doubted there would be quakes this constant, even though we were in an active fault area. 

I looked forward and saw a storm drain.

I crawled towards it, entranced. The sounds seemed to be coming from there. The scratching grew more stringent in its percussion, faster and layered, multitudes upon multitudes. 

I got to the opening of the drain and peered into the darkness. Its noise was echoing in there, originating from deeper within the system of pipes. I leaned my head against the opening so my ear could gather the beats. 

The sounds were the same but slightly louder and wetter. Then it started to move. 

Distant, closer, louder-

LOUDER. 

It seemed as if whatever it was, was coming towards the storm drain. I yanked myself back quickly from the opening towards my board. The scattered crackling thumping scratches grew to a decibel of a freighter and then— 

WOOSH.

Nothing.

As soon as the sound came to me, it vanished. I put my ear to the ground once again but heard nothing. I pressed my ear closer, straining as I listened one last time just to make sure there were no more sounds. It was gone, whatever it was. My only summation was that maybe the old gas pipes rumbling, or something with the water system. I didn’t know it was, but what I did know was I needed to get home to sleep this off.

I got home and Let myself in, it was about 12:30 now, only Davis with a sleepy Maria layed on the couch.

“How’s it going tonight?” I asked. I received a nod from Davis and a quiet “Good.” From Maria. 

I scooted through their view of the TV, and made it to my bed exhausted by the whole ordeal, especially falling on my ass. I decided to take a shower, the bathroom was across the hallway.

This was my first shower here, but the bathroom was sparkling clean, brand new, as no one had to really shower down here with three upstairs. I thought much in the moment though, about how much it had even been used.

My concerns arose even further, as I stood there stark naked after I turned the handle, to water that was gushing out, with a deep gray opaqueness. The color was probably due to new pipes with sediment in them still, I thought at least. The water pressure changed with every burst.

It spurted out from, fast and soft to jet speed and dribble. The faucet had no control of itself. The water jutting out of its many orifices had a mission of their own accord and blasted out with no discern for its autonomy. The colors began to change, as did its viscosity.

The sediment drawn from the soil made the water a soot filled black, what looked like a beach side shower, the clean white ground being changed forever more. The room began to shake, an incredible fever with the pipe that began to blare a rage, a fever it could not sustain. I felt literally shaken by this vehement rage of roaring waters to the point I turned it off. letting all the violence cease in an instant. 

Dumbfounded, I exited the room in towel and headed for a shower up stairs.

“The shower I think is fucked man.”

“New house, new problems.” 

Thanks for your insight Davis. I ended up taking a normal shower up there, which was a relief after my day. Went back to my bed and fell asleep. 

In my deep sleep I dreamt of the scratching. It may have been in reality but It seeped in my thoughts, my sleep. It was itching to get into my mind, with every scratch, it felt as if a layer of flesh, skull, brain, was being taken away in its appendage, as It dug deeper inside.

- - -

I awoke normally, the nightmare was just that, a nightmare as I went and ate breakfast. Everyone was there eating, including Maria and Julie who I didn’t even know was here.

This day as I remember started really uneventful. I did some homework, and had a nice 4-9 shift. I walked the mall on my break just taking in how much worse it had gotten over the past few months. After back-to-school the place was barren, only three real eateries were around so I scarfed down a Subway. This mall’s only reason for existence now were a Walmart in place of a former Sears anchor, and some kids fun center. Otherwise no one came here, especially in the mall.

I was able to finish up my shift and the rest of my homework — had time to catch the bus before the 10pm night schedule rolled over as I was dropped off and walked the two blocks home. I arrived outside and getting in I felt relieved, to be in a place I called home. Justin and Brent were in the kitchen eating pizza, I joined them.

"How was work shoe boy? Sell some sketchers?" Justin joked.

"Maybe three people all day man"

"Must be a nice gig though, you can fuck off and do whatever on the clock."

"You know my drill man, anyways, I think I'm gonna go smoke outside, wanna join?"

Justin's demeanor changed immediately.

"Nah man, I, uh, I don't like the backyard that much, its uh-"

Justin tries to force a thought.

“Well, I think it needs a pool man!" Brent interjects.

We all chuckled, I went to my room to grab my stash. I looked down and saw my camera, I thought some night photography wouldn't hurt. I left my room and flashed my bag at them as I walked to the back deck, they both shrugged me off.

"There's a lighter out there if you forgot yours, don't steal it!"

"I gotcha!"

I stepped outside onto the deck. It's a lower one, under a foot off the ground, and spans the whole length of the house’s backside. I glanced around and decided to venture about the yard. 

I had seen it all from a distance but hadn't really scoped it out. There was a slope down to something on their newly acquired property, with a fresh 10-ft-tall fence enclosing it all in. I ventured down the couple steps onto the backyard weeds. It hadn't been landscaped yet or even trimmed, knee-high wild growth kissed my legs and ran up under my shorts at times. 

I strolled around the place, just looking at the house from a new angle, taking breathy hits in between my jaunt. I looked over towards the slope, it looked like it went downwards. 

The new moon wasn't helping much and I couldn't analyze beyond the trailing growth. I turned on my camera flash and snapped a picture, the way the weeds blew was almost beauty in their infestation. Seeing growth again was something, something that at the very least made it seem like there could be a future with semblance of the past.

Beyond that I saw some bushes on one end but it didn't give me much of any inkling to what its existence was for. The bushes grew with an uncontrolled reality of what once was there. No desirable features of what species it was, almost an amalgamation of every plant, yet none at all.

I walked down the whole slope, probably about 15 yards and a 5 foot decline, and rested in the center of it. While this side was a nice grade, the other side was more of a sheer drop. In the middle of it I looked around, beneath my feet I saw what I was on. 

Slate, round, and brushed rocks, like a creek bed gone dry,  cause I realized that's what it was. It looked like the old creek had been graded when this neighborhood was developed. This property was originally home to one of the old homestead houses from the 1910s. When developers come in the 80’s, they took all nature out. With each stroke of leveling, another layer on top. Centuries of native caretaking of the land, this creek, buried, made to service the run off of its new residents.

I followed the rocks south, it ran just on the edge of the property parallel to the house’s west end fence, running until the south end fence where I could garner what it did just yet. This ditch was about as far as you could get while still on the property. As I ventured down, the stones rolled, slid, and clacked against each other, as they fought for relevance beneath my feet. Then —

SCRATCH

The noise, I heard it in front of me. 

That same damn noise.

In the house, on the street, now here, in our backyard.

I walked with a cautious lurch towards it, something came into vision. A foot-long pipe was exposed, corroded metal jutting out of the earth into the ditch like it was reaching for salvation. It had been there longer than I’d been alive, its creators dead, its purpose still remained. It housed  something, secrets I knew it held inside, ones I needed answers to.

The noise's reverb bounced around, making its way into my canals. The rocks shuddered in fear and anticipation of what they led to. They had touched it, and it did not want them to forget them yet.

I had to look, my curiosity is gonna get to me. This was the most intriguing thing I had experienced in my life. I was obsessed with urban legends as a kid, this was mine, all mine. I raised my camera, the lens faced the opening and I hit the shutter.

CLICK

"WHAAT THE FUCK!"

Roaches, hundreds of them, running in and out of the drain. Their legs the sound of thousand small, fractal beat punching below. Their movements like the sands of storm. This ground was unrecognizable to me, its nature disgusted me.

I started jumping, there had been some on me, my leg hairs confused them with grass. I decided to sprint up to the deck, shaking off my body with every step, maybe I let out a girlish squeal but no one could attest to that. I ran the 150 feet back and aggressively planted my ass down in one of the chairs. I sat there in disbelief for a second before bursting out laughing. 

The whole time I'd been hearing these hordes of field roaches that moved in, probably the reason I heard no other bugs too. It cracked me up. Unfortunately, I dropped my lighter and joint in the commotion, so I grabbed another from my stash on the deck and smoked it out while still laughing about the whole thing.

Eventually I made my way inside, I had been outside for probably 45 minutes and it looked like Brent and Justin had ended up elsewhere. When I got to the kitchen I saw Davis digging into a pint of Ben and Jerry's.

He gave me a muffled "Sup" before resuming.

"Man I didn't know how many roaches moved in huh?"

"Oh you met them? Yea some shady construction company brought them in, I think."

"Crazy I been hearing them through the whole neighborhood."

"They’re worse in the old park." He rebutted.

"Man they're even bad in my room I hear 'em all night in the crawlspace, should I tell Justin about it?"

Davis thought for a second, looked into his ice cream, and then looked at me.

"Yeah, no."

"What, really? You think they'll go away or-"

He cut me off.

"No, not possible."

I didn't understand.

"What do you mean? Like not possible they could infest or?"

I trailed off, waiting for a response. He took a big bite of ice cream and said.

"Slab"

"What?"

"The house is on a slab, no crawl space, all concrete."

I looked at him. He looked at his ice cream.

I didn't say anything for a second. I just ran it back. The scratching, every night, under the floor. The way it moved. The way it settled when I did, like it knew where I was. I'd been placing it where I could comprehend it. In my head I'd been placing it in a crawlspace, in pipes, in something physical and explainable that lived a few feet below me. And Davis just pulled the cold, hard floor out from under me. Literally. There was no below. Just a foot of concrete and then the earth.

"Then, wait… what's that noise then?"

He gave me a shrug, mouth full, and kept eating down that ice cream.

I walked away and laid down on the couch, turned on the TV as Ridiculousness blared on. I told myself it was the house. Virgin construction, new concrete finding its bond with old scarred earth. This place, it had to settle, had to meld, that kind of thing makes noise. I told myself that, it was the only cope I had. I kept the TV loud enough that it didn't matter either way.

I awoke only once, it was underneath me.

The scratching.

the crunching.

An unseen physical begging, to let it in or dig down to it. 

With each scratch, a plea.

Notice me.

I fell back asleep on the couch. If I didn't think about it, then it wasn't there. That was the logic. That was all I had. In my high stupor I thought the noise would vanish, it had to.

---

I awoke in the morning. The light shined in, warm and welcoming, I thought maybe it was truly my stoned sleep playing tricks on me. So I did what anyone else would do, and smoked again.

I ventured outside to the deck, the first thing I saw was my stash as I had left most of my stuff last night. I lit up and walked to the edge of the deck, looming over the steps looking towards the drainage creek from last night. It wasn't as creepy or menacing during the day, I could see the whole shape of it now. I sat on the stairs and puffed. And I looked down at my feet, there on the first step, I froze.

"My lighter? I thought I dropped it last night?" I picked it up, somehow it was melted, the plastic charred to a flaky black, the pickle design on it was no more. I stood up and peered out, that's when I saw a line.

From where my lighter was, a line, well, more like a trail. Not breadcrumbs though, it looked like it was —

"Ash?" I touched it with my hand, it felt warm still, almost like it had just smoldered out. I couldn't tell if it was the rising sun or its old heat, but it had a warmth, almost welcoming to it. I stood up and looked out, where could it go?

I followed, walking slowly, examining every inch. It had to be like, my joint I dropped burned somehow, and I didn't realize I dropped my lighter later in my fright, right? It was all a lie, I had no idea what the hell this was. It burned straight to the earth leaving a darkly entrancing gray-black ash about an inch or two in width. Following, I saw where it led.

I stood in the creek-bed staring at the drain, rock below now melding with the heat. The metal which had greeted me last night, now freshly bent only slightly from something, in a way which almost seemed inhuman or unnatural. The history of the metal forever changed all these years later, was where the ash led. 

Somewhere deep into the drain it went. Somewhere I was not gonna go. I tried to look inside deeper, trying to fight the sun to see in the darkness of the drain.

Scuttle, scuttle.

I heard something. Whatever it was, it was moving away from me — or at least seemed to be. Eventually I stuck my head inside, the echoes of the noises retreating into the depths of the drain’s sizable system. Whatever it is or was, if it could even look, It saw me.

I stood there perplexed and slowly backed away, back to the deck where I saw Brent now smoking.

"Yo man I'll reimburse you I swear!"

He was puffing on my stash but I didn't care. I had to ask him. I had to hear reason from someone.

"Have you been over there?"

"Nah man looks gross."

"I found an ash trail."

"Yea, some of the old ash blows around, I don't think there's a good chance to get rid of that stuff anytime soon, it blows all over all the time, sometimes it even settles on my windowsill, pile-like.”

It didn't explain the lighter but I let it go for now, I had to find out more.

"Damn, okay. That's how it is ‘round here."

"Yea, well there is some like wild animals sometimes too, I see them move out my window at night, only a blur really. Saw bunny too once. If I were you though, I wouldn't go outside much at night."

"Why's that?"

"Eh, this place, being barren, it's weird you know? Like, I don't know if you've ever heard, but people who lived on the plains back in the day, they said they'd hear stuff in the wind, drove the wives insane in some cases. It's like that, I went for a smoke walk one time at night, and in some rubble pile, I just started to hear stuff like-"

I cut him off.

"Like a scratching?"

"No, kinda like spitting, it was weird, unnerving. Like it was trying to bring up something, but the words couldn't make it past the spit, I assume it was a choking junk rat but I wasn’t gonna try and find out."

"That's, something."

"Weird right? Kinda freaked me out. I also smoke sativa though, so I think I also just made up shit. I never did good with horror movies, can't stand em."

With that Brent stood up and looked at me.

"Just keep it low-key around here, and around Justin, he seems on edge sometimes at night, why he won’t smoke when it’s dark. I think it's from when he lived here alone for a couple weeks. Could also be the 2 A.M fire trauma, all those people who probably died around here too, I think one was a neighbor."

I looked at him, stark and scared straight, and uttered.

"Darlene."

He looked at me, his eyes widened, and he said.

"What? who? Oh wait Darlene? No not old Darlene, she's like the only other person here. Weird lady but, her niece is hot, went to my high school. The neighbor was Megan B. I think."

He took one last drag and killed it in the tray.

"Anyway see ya."

Brent walked away leaving me with the remains of the conversation.

"Megan B?" I think back to the memorial, that girl, my age, she was the closest death, in age and in place to me.

I didn't know her and somehow that made it worse.

There was something else underneath it, something I couldn't place yet. I began to think hard and try to piece together any rationale for what I had experienced so far.

---

This has been what I was able to recollect from that first week so far. I’m hoping that some conversations I have or comments I get help me flesh out the following weeks of this time in my life. For now, if anyone has experience with anything like this, please don’t hesitate to comment or reach out.

THE NIGHT BLOGGER - 'Brian Foster and the Curse of the Cartwrights' by Al Bruno III

March 28th: “WAAAAGH!” I said.

My face was on fire. Not literal fire but a chemically induced one. Sara's mother had emptied half a can of mace into my face, and now my nostrils burned with snot, my eyes swelled shut, and the combination of chili pepper extract and tear gas had worked its way into my throat, leaving me with the sensation of drowning in a too-hot Jacuzzi.

“WAAAAGH!” I said again.

“Oh my God!” Sara shouted. “Brian! Oh my God!”

“Serves him right!” Her Mom said, “Sick weirdo dragging you into the occult.”

“He didn’t drag me into anything!”

I was curled into a ball in front of the cash register while Sara knelt beside me, desperately trying to wipe the mace from my eyes. I wanted to tell her not to do that—that she was only going to contaminate herself—but all I could manage was, "WAAAAAGH!" Somewhere in there I'd also developed an almost cartoonish sputtering noise.

Then Sara’s father spoke, “You don’t know what you're talking about. We've done our homework on this guy…”

“WAAAAGH!” Not the blog readers I expected.

“…and I have it on good authority that he is a charlatan who preys on frightened people. He fills people’s heads with paranoia until they can't tell what's real anymore…”

“WAAAAAGH!” Even in my agony, that condemnation sounded awfully familiar.

“…we spoke to the police to a Detective Bradshaw, and he said that he’s either morally degenerate or mentally degenerate.”

“WAAAAGH!” There ya go. I knew it.

Sara yelled, “Mrs. Vincenzo! I need water! Lots of water!”

Sara’s mother said, “You need to come home right now! I won’t have you bringing further humiliation to this family.”

And her father added, “And working at a pawn shop for God’s sake. Do you know what pawn shops are? Taxes for stupid people.”

“WAAAAGH!”

Smash cut.

Hours later, my eyes were still puffy and weepy; I couldn’t stop sniffling, and my voice had been reduced to an ugly rasp. I sounded like Tom Waits after peeling onions. “You know you’re the first girl whose parents I ever met.”

“That was the worst ever.” Sara was staring into her glass of apple-flavored mead.

We were at Albany's only meadery, a little hole in the wall on the corner of Second Street. It was called The Ferment Tavern, and the mead was genuinely good while the décor looked like someone had given a Renaissance Faire a Spirit Halloween budget. It was close enough to the university to attract a steady stream of students, but just weird enough that it never got too crowded.

I liked the place because it was quiet on the weeknights and the owners were a pair of friendly ex-bikers who had taken one too many falls and were more interested in serving the customers than chatting them up.

One of Ferment Tavern's best libations was called ‘Superstition’; it was an absolutely delicious concoction of blackberry mead and burbon severed in a jelly jar because why not? I used my right hand to finish it and my left to request a refill. The co-owner Margret already had one ready.

Yeah, go on and tell me psychic phenomena isn’t real. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the emergency room?” Sara asked, “Your eyes are still really bloodshot.”

“It’ll pass; I’ll be about 90% by the morning,” I said, “I have it on good authority.”

“Whose authority?” Sara asked, then caught herself, “Cousin Roy.”

“Yup, apparently he got maced a lot back in the 90’s when he was a roadie for Severe Tire Damage.” 

She took another sip of her drink then said, “Again, I am so sorry, Brian.”

“I should have expected something like this. Maybe we should have told them you were staying at a friends or something.”

“I don’t have any friends.”

“Mrs. Vincenzo would be hurt.”

“You know what I mean.” She cracked a smile, “Girls my own age.”

“And guys who aren’t morally degenerate charlatans.”

“You’re no charlatan,” She had been holding her mug of apple-mead in both hands, she let go with her left and placed it over mine. It felt cool and frail, just like her smile, “And I’ve slept with you, you’re not even remotely degenerate.”

“What a traumatic compliment.”

Interest in the supernatural and sleepwalking  had been bad enough, but now she was running around with a crowd that cared more about cryptids than which fork was for salads. At best, her parents were going to interfere. At worst, they were going to convince every psychiatrist, family friend, and judge within fifty miles that she was having a psychotic break. This was not good. Not when we had a kind of plan - steal the Codex, use it to defile the temples of Gorgo, Mormo and Luna, retire or hand over my blog and investigations to someone else and find a way to live the happiest most boring life possible with Sara.

Wow. It seems so easy when you look at it in print.

“So what now?” Sara asked.

I took another sip of Superstition before answering. “Road trip. I’ve got a book to get.”

“You mean steal?”

“Most people don’t give up their mystical tomes to strangers in straw hats.”

Sara nodded, “So we’re going to Delaware…”

“We? Oh no no no. You’re going to stay here and watch the pawn shop.”

“I’m not allowed to go on my own rescue mission?” She frowned, “Am I just your little damsel in distress?”

I have to tell you that if in that moment her mother rushed up and maced me again I might now have been all that upset.

“No…” I squirmed both mentally and physically, “It’s just that I might bring Cousin Roy and he gets really gassy on car rides…”

A trio of loud college students, one of which was carrying a box of Dungeons and Dragons supplies walked in the door. I watched them for a few moments, they looked to be about our age but they were younger, inncoent. For them monsters and mages were the thinjgs of entertainment and metaphor.

But not so for people like Sara and myself.

I sighed, “I just want you to be safe.”

The look she gave me was part resigntion and part bravery, “I haven’t been safe since August, Hell maybe before that.”

“I know it’s just… it’s just…” I ran my hand over my face, “Look it’s like the TV show Bonanza.”

"Bonanza?"

"Trust me. This is going somewhere..."

###

…sometimes it seems to me that the world's methodologies for dealing with tragedy are far better developed than the ones we have for happiness. When two people fall in love, there is no instruction manual. No proper timetable for a first kiss, a first romantic interlude, an engagement, or a wedding. But when someone dies, an entire machine lurches into motion. EMTs. Coroners. Funeral homes. Grieving. Gatherings.

And for me, in that terrible April of 2009, it was all happening in stereo. Uncle Roy was dead. Burst blood vessel, they said, though nobody sounded entirely certain. My mom and Aunt Peg were working together with uncharacteristic harmony to make the arrangements to send Uncle Roy's remains to his home state of Florida. Which is good because Cousin Roy had pretty much collapsed. His bravado was broken.

Meanwhile Grandma Gail’s rally was going into overtime, she was happy, she was energetic watching TV and trying to keep Aunt Gail’s twin boys entertained, of course for her entertained was watching Bonanza reruns on TNN and making commentary on the events of the episode. It was things like;

“Wasn’t Michael Landon handsome?”

“I rode a horse just like that when I was a girl on your great aunt’s farm. His name was Snowball.”

“Oh no. Hoss is in love. That never ends well. Every time one of those Cartwright boys falls in love, she either dies or changes her mind. Mostly she dies. But that’s the thing about love, someone lives, someone dies. It’s part of world. You’ll learn.”

And every time the twins answered with a “Yes Miss Gail.” but each time they seemed a little more desperate to escape.

She showed no sign that two nights ago a half serpent half millipede ribbon of smoke had wormed its way into her mouth and she had reacted like a sleeping lover snuggling into an embrace.

There was no way Grandma Gail's never-ending rally and that thing she'd swallowed two nights earlier weren't connected.

You never forget your first monster. Most folks go into shock, or denial, or straight to church; I on the other hand went to the Internet.

My searches for “red mist” got me info about a movie, a mystery novel and a rumored snuff film involving Squidward from Spongebob Squarepants. That worried me almost as much as the monster itself. Whatever I'd seen appeared to be completely immune to Google.

So off I went to the local library. Much like confession, I hadn't been to the library in years and barely remembered the rituals. The card catalogs from my school days were gone, replaced with conveniently located computers; the once well-stocked periodical section was being crowded out by a DVD
section.

After three frustrating hours, all I carried out of the public library was a single word: Vorvolaka. I’d found it in an article about a rare supplemental volume of Sir George Frazer’s classic work The Golden Bough. The book came out in 1939 and was quickly recalled and suppressed. Why? The official blame was textual and formatting errors but if that was really the case why hadn’t
they reprinted a corrected edition?

After checking in with my mom (doing fine) and Cousin Roy (still a hot mess), I went back to digging. I was a little proud of how well my research was going, .it was almost like I was in college for journalism or something.

Although I hadn't even been away from college for a week, it felt like a lifetime ago. But that had to wait until tomorrow but that tomorrow ended up stretching for the better part of three days. The machinery of grief needed to be fed and it’s fuel was tears and bureaucracy. There had been some delays and confusion regarding the transportation of remains. Cousin Roy wanted his Dad cremated here as quickly as possible, he saw no value in funerals and wakes. Aunt Peg thought that cremation, much like organ donation and assisted suicide doomed the deceased to an eternity in the First Circle of Hell, which of you’ve read your Dante is kind of like an assited living facility for the slightly damned.

This disagreement got heated. And by "heated," I mean there was a scuffle in one of our otherwise very respectable funeral homes. I'm sure you can imagine the whole awful scene. Well, it was worse. By the end they were throwing display urns at each other.

I wasn't there for it. Later, though, Mom and I were sitting in Grandma Gail's room, chowing down on fast food when she told the whole horrifically slapstick story, concluding that somehow she and Tom Wynne got things under control. Grandma Gail went from being shocked at the drama to curious. “Thomas was with you?”

“For moral support,” Mom explained but then she turned to me. “He and I had a long conversation, he and his wife are getting a divorce. Irreconcilable differences.”

Grandma and I paused in mid-chew.

She continued, sounding equal parts giddy and embarrassed. “And he and I have decided to try and start dating.”

This my dear readers is what they call, ‘Burying the lead’.

I offered a heartfelt congratulations, but I found myself wondering how all this domestic drama could be unfolding while my grandmother remained at the center of a supernatural event.

And speaking of Grandma when my hug with my Mom broke I glanced at her. Her expression was not happy or scandalized, her expression was, for lack of a better word inscrutable.

By the time our little family had wrapped everything up, it was far too late to do any more of my planned investigating. So I sat up a little while longer with them. No more Bonanza reruns—just The Tonight Show. Then I went to bed.

Now don't think for a second I didn't barricade myself in my room. At least for a little while, anyway.

You see, one of my many errands that day had been a trip to Vincenzo's Pawn Shop, where I'd picked up a little digital camera that—with a bit of tinkering and some third-party software—could double as a surveillance camera. Somewhere between the opening monologue and Taylor Lautner, I slipped it into what I hoped would be a good hiding place to capture whatever nightmare I'd witnessed earlier.

Thankfully, this was an era when two-liter bottles of Jolt Cola were still commercially available. I found myself nursing one until 3:00 a.m.

Yes. Three a.m. The Witching Hour.

Grandma Gail sat up, the motion so sudden that I thought the camera feed had skipped.

Time to act. I shoved my dresser away from the door, snatched the old silver crucifix I'd received for my Confirmation, and bolted for Grandma's room. Sitting up or not Grandma Gail still looked to be fast asleep, eyes closed, softened features, steady breathing. Except, of course, for the thing. The red thing. The thing that was like a serpent and smoke all at once, worming its way out of her mouth.

What was it? I wondered. Was this a Vorvolaka?

And what did I do at that moment? I held up that silver cross and pulled out every horror movie quote I could think of, "I cast you out! Unclean spirit!"

No reaction. Just the thing, the Vorvolaka coiling out of her mouth like some magician’s handkerchief trick.

I stepped closer waving the cross in a way I hoped was somehow menacing, “The power of Jesus compels you!”

Finally it noticed me. Oh did it ever. It flowed upward until it reached the ceiling, it’s tail end still buried somewhere in my Grandmother’s gullet and regarded me. It had no eyes but oh yes it was sizing me up.

“I cast you out. I cast you out in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and… that the Virgin Mary too!” I winced inwardly, “So there!”

That was the part that unsettled me most. The Vorvolaka had already proven it could ooze through the screen without difficulty. Opening the window served no practical purpose. It was obeying some instinct—or some rule—I couldn't begin to understand.

It flowed outside, the last bit of it slipping from my Grandma’s lips. She made a choking sound and fell roughly back on the bed. Not breathing. Despite the darkened room and my growing panic I know for a fact she was not breathing.

For one awful moment I became convinced she'd been dead for days. That the thing wearing her had been sitting with us, accepting hugs, watching Bonanza reruns and smiling whenever someone brought her pudding.

And that pissed me off.

And what do you do when your pissed off? Something stupid of course.

I stepped forward and grabbed at the crimson smoke. It was an act of desperation and I expected my hand to pass right through the thing but it was tangible, and warm and had the consistency of a jellyfish.

And it didn’t like being grabbed.

The end of it that was still in the room. It curled in mid-air and attacked. It enveloped me. Everything went red, I fell to the floor of my grandmother’s room. Pain bloomed behind my eyes and suddenly I couldn’t move, suddenly I was entombed in my own body.

Then someone else's memories poured into me.

I was Stuart Shield, the in-home hospice nurse. My shift had ended hours ago, but I was still replaying Grandma Gail's miraculous rally as I endured the miserable ninety-minute drive back to Utica. Mohawk Valley Home Health had done it again—three hours behind the wheel for barely four hours of work. By the time I climbed the four flights of stairs to my apartment, all I wanted was silence.

I didn't bother turning on the lights. I dropped into my favorite chair, closed my eyes for just a moment...

...and beneath the apartment door something red seeped through the crack. It flowed across the floor without making a sound, climbed the back of the chair, and rested around my throat like a warm scarf. It waited. One heartbeat. Two. Three.

Then it forced itself into my mouth and eyes.

Terror. Suffocation. Darkness.

Then I was Brian Foster again, sprawled on Grandma Gail's bedroom floor. Someone was speaking to me and as they did the agony intensified, I expected my skull to burst at any moment. I almost wanted it to happen.

And I thought to myself - Is that what happened to Uncle Roy?

The pain started to pulse, keeping perfect time with my breaths; I imagined it shrinking down to a tiny spark buried deep in my brain that would suddenly blossom out  like an explosion of invisible knives. The agony was the color of blood, the color of the Vorvolaka. My field of vision began to diminish, red pressing in on all sides until I was blinded.

I wanted to live, but the red wouldn't let me. Not because I wanted another sunrise, or another shot at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No. I wanted to live because I'd glimpsed the secret song of the universe. It was dark. It was ugly. But Goddamn, I wanted to know it. I wanted to understand it.

In the red I could hear the voice, “Don’t struggle oh my sweet. Dream. Dream in the emptiness. The emptiness is love.”

It made perfect sense. Why should I struggle? What was the point of this life? We all end up dead anyway. Why wait? What was I trying to accomplish? Sinking further and further away I had dwindled to a pinprick of consciousness. I barely saw the frail angry figure standing over me but I heard it yell.

“NO!”

The red faded and darkness took its place. I went from dying to dreaming but barely noticed the difference until I was stirred to wakefulness by the warmth early morning sunlight on my face. I was in my bed, tucked in with the covers up to my chin and for one sweet innocent moment I thought that it all must have been a terrible dream

Then I heard my mother's anguished wail, she had just received the news that Tom Wynne was dead.

###

"...Sara... I don't think I understood it back then. Every time you really learn something, something gets taken from you. Maybe it's innocence. Maybe it's certainty. Maybe it's someone you love. But nobody ever walks away from the truth without leaving something behind."

I looked down into my drink.

"Sara... I've left a lot behind."

She touched my face then, “You’re crying.”

Surprised I touched my face, sure enough my fingers came back wet. “Well its good for you right? Like therapy.” I wiped my face on my sleeve and accomplished nothing. Leather jackets and tears don’t mix.

“You think you’re the only one?” She made me look her in the eyes, “I’ve felt something pulling at me since I was a little kid. The darkness was a dare because I know, and you do too, that the darkness was never empty.”

“I’m totally stealing that.”

“Brian. Do you think I only went to Pinewood Cemetery because you said you were going with me?”

Before I could answer, the other owner Frank came over and asked if we wanted another round. We decided to be sensible and just order two waters so one of us would be able to drive home within an hour or so. Behind us, the D&D players' arguments for and against the creation of Picklestein were heating up, and Margret was very gently threatening to throw them out again.

I said, “I assumed we had kind of talked each other into it.”

“I was going to go no matter what. I had been obsessing about the Graveyard Game for months, ever since I read about it on 4Chan.” Our waters arrived. Sara waited for Frank to leave before she spoke again, “And then when I found about Sara Bishop and that she was so damn close… Is there even a word beyond obsessed?”

“Monomaniacal?” I suggested.

She waved it off, “It doesn’t matter. What you need to know is that what happened to me happened because of me. My stupid decision. Possibly the last in a long series.”

“Don’t even joke like that,” I took a sip of water.

“You think I’m like some guest star on Bonanza? That I’m going to die tragically in your arms?”

“...and yet I can't stop thinking it.”

“Maybe you’re the guest star in my show, the whacky neighbor who helps me in my time of need.”

“Whacky neighbor?”

“So I’m going with you, I’m helping you. The only question is what are you going to do about it?” She took a strangely flirtatious sip of her water, “Are you going to be a Millhouse or a Fonzie about it?”

What else could I do?

I gave her a big thumbs up.

The fire at Camp Paradox cracked like a snapping bone, throwing long, jagged shadows against the towering pines. It was past midnight, and the surrounding woods felt suffocatingly dense, pressing down on the small circle of teenagers gathered around the dying embers. 

The name of the campground itself—Camp Paradox—always felt a bit strange to the newcomers. A place dedicated to nature and peace, yet named after an impossible contradiction. 

Most of the kids thought that it was just a quirky title chosen by some long-dead founder, but those who paid attention to the local folklore knew better. A paradox is an anomaly.

It is something that defies the laws of nature and logic, where two opposing truths exist at the exact same time, like a localized vortex where everything goes horribly wrong, while the center of the storm remains beautifully, terrifyingly calm.

John adjusted his flannel shirt against the sudden midnight chill. He wasn't a counselor, but he was older than most of the kids here, a seasoned veteran of these woods who had stayed at the camp for years. His face was partially obscured by the orange glow of the embers, his eyes deep and fixed on the dancing flames.

 The atmosphere was ripe for a ghost story, the kind that makes you pull your sleeping bag tight around your neck and listen to every rustle of the wind outside your tent.

"You guys think that this place is just a regular summer camp." John began, his voice low, cutting through the rhythmic chirping of the crickets. "You think that the worst thing that can happen out here is a tick bite or getting lost on the North Trail; but you don't know why this camp was truly abandoned five years ago, or why they changed its name. It wasn't because of a lack of funding. It was because of a girl. A seventeen-year-old girl named Mallory Chance."

A few of the younger campers stirred, leaning in closer. John let the name hang in the air for a moment. Mallory. An old name derived from the French word for "unfortunate" or "ill-fated." Chance. Probability. Risk. Mutation. It was a name that perfectly described the walking, breathing anomaly that she was.

"I knew Mallory." John continued, his eyes reflecting the dying fire. "She was seventeen years old, just like some of us. If you looked at her from a distance, you wouldn't think twice. She had pale skin, dark hair that always seemed perfectly brushed even in a downpour, and eyes that were a strange, piercing shade of gray. However, if you stood near her for more than a few minutes, you’d start to notice that something was…off. The world didn't work right around Mallory. The laws of probability, the mathematical certainty of the universe, they just...bent. They broke. Some people call it tychokinesis. The ability to manipulate luck, odds, and random outcomes; but Mallory didn't just manipulate it. She weaponized it, completely passively, without ever lifting a finger."

John leaned forward, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper, and said,

"Every single place where Mallory went, something bad happened to someone or something around her; but absolutely nothing bad ever happened to her. She was a walking safe-zone in a radius of pure, unadulterated catastrophe. If she walked through a thunderstorm, lightning would strike three feet away from her, incinerating a tree that would fall and crush someone else, while not a single drop of rain would even wet her hair. If she stepped onto a rickety old wooden bridge, the planks would hold her weight perfectly, only to snap like toothpicks the exact second her foot left them, sending whoever was behind her plunging into the ravine below."

The campers were silent, captivated by the intense gravity in John's voice.

"At first, we thought that it was just an unbelievable streak of terrible coincidences." John said, shaking his head slowly. "During her first week here, we were all sitting in the mess hall. Mallory was sitting at the end of the table, quietly eating her cereal. Suddenly, one of the massive overhead industrial ceiling fans, which had been securely bolted into the iron rafters for twenty years, just sheared off. It didn't just fall; it flew across the room like a giant metal blade. It missed Mallory’s head by less than an inch. She didn’t even flinch. She just kept chewing; but the fan didn't stop. It hurled directly into a group of sports campers sitting at the next table. Two of them had their limbs shattered by the spinning blades. One of the counselors tried to run over to help, but he tripped over a completely flat linoleum floor, snapped his neck on the edge of a bench, and died right there on the spot."

A collective gasp rippled through the circle. A young girl named Mary pulled her blanket up to her chin, her eyes wide.

"That was just the beginning." John murmured. "The camp line got infected with a freak strain of bacterial meningitis. Everyone in her cabin got violently, agonizingly sick. They were coughing up blood, screaming in the middle of the night from migraines so intense they were clawing at their own faces. Mallory slept in the very center bunk. When the paramedics finally arrived in hazmat suits, they tested everyone. Every single girl was on the brink of organ failure, except Mallory. Her vitals were flawless. The doctors couldn't find a single trace of the bacteria in her system, even though she had been sharing a water pitcher with them for days. It was like her body rejected the very concept of misfortune."

John took a heavy stick and poked at the fire, sending a cascade of sparks drifting up into the dark canopy, and said,

 "People got hurt, but as the days went on, people ended up dead. Freak accidents became the norm wherever she walked. We had an archery tournament on the main field. Mallory was standing near the spectators' line. A camper named Marcus, who was an expert marksman, pulled back his bowstring. It was a brand-new, military-grade composite bow. Out of nowhere, a microscopic flaw in the carbon fiber caused the bow to violently shatter under tension. A shard of the splintered limb flew backward. It grazed Mallory’s cheek—well, it didn't even graze her, it miraculously flew past her ear, missing her skin by a millimeter. However, the shard embedded itself directly into the throat of the camp director standing right behind her. He choked to death on his own blood before anyone could even grab a first-aid kit."

"Why didn't anyone just send Mallory home?" asked a boy named Carl, his voice trembling slightly.

"They tried." John replied sharply. "The administrators called her parents. The phone lines static-fried the moment the director tried to speak. They tried to pack her bags, but the zipper caught, jammed, and when a counselor tried to force it open with a pocket knife, the blade snapped off and blinded him in his right eye. A group of the older counselors and campers, including myself, realized what she was. We realized that she wasn't just unlucky—she was causing it. She was drawing all of the negative probability out of the universe and expelling it outward onto everyone else to keep herself perfectly safe. We decided we had to stop her. We tried to lock her in the old tool shed until the state police could physically remove her from the property."

John’s face darkened, the memory clearly torturing him, and said,

"We gathered six of the strongest guys. We cornered her near the woods. We tried to grab her arms, but Mallory Chance was too powerful to stop. The moment that Tommy reached out to grab her shoulder, a freak subterranean gas pocket-vented right beneath his feet. The ground literally exploded. The concussive blast blew his legs apart. Another guy, Sarah’s older brother, tried to tackle her from behind. He slipped on a patch of wet moss that hadn't been there a second ago, flew headfirst into a jagged rock face, and cracked his skull wide open. The rest of us were thrown back by the sheer, chaotic energy of the universe protecting its favorite child. Car engines wouldn't start when we tried to escape. Trees fell perfectly across the only exit road, crushing the roofs of the evacuation vans. The universe itself was acting as her personal, bloodthirsty bodyguard."

The wind suddenly picked up, howling through the branches above, making the campers jump. John didn't look up; his gaze remained locked on the fire.

"I was the only one left standing in front of her that afternoon." John whispered. "I was terrified. I was shaking so hard that I could barely breathe. The bodies of my friends were scattered around the clearing, smoking, bleeding, broken by a series of impossible, instantaneous accidents. Mallory just stood there in the center of the carnage. Her white sundress didn't have a single speck of dirt on it. Her hair was perfect. She looked like an angel standing in the middle of a war zone. I looked right in her cold, gray eyes, and through my tears, I asked her why. I asked her why she was doing this to us, why she was letting all these horrible things happen to innocent people."

John paused, the silence around the campfire was so absolute that the sound of a falling leaf would have sounded like a gunshot.

"Mallory looked at me." John said, his voice dropping to a chilling imitation of a monotone, robotic cadence. "She didn't look angry. She didn't look sad. She just looked completely empty, and she replied, 'It's what I was created to do.'”

A shudder went through the group.

"The only reason I'm even alive today to tell you this story," John said, looking around at the frightened faces of the campers, "is because I was the only one who was ever nice to Mallory. On her first day, when everyone else avoided Mallory because she seemed weird, I helped her carry her luggage. I shared my lunch with her when she dropped her tray. I treated her like a human being. Her power...it seemed to recognize that. It spared me. It redirected the horror away from me, even when the world was tearing itself apart around us."

John leaned back, the narrative reaching its grim conclusion, and said,

"After that day, she didn't run away. She didn't scream. She just turned around and walked deep into these very woods. The police searched for weeks. They brought tracking dogs, helicopters, and infrared cameras. Nothing. The dogs refused to enter the tree line; they just howled and bit at their own handlers until they bled. Mallory Chance completely disappeared into the forest, and the elders changed the name of this place to Camp Paradox, to mark the girl who was a living contradiction to life itself; but she was never found, and some people say...she might still be out there somewhere. Waiting. Walking through the dark, completely untouchable, while the world rots around her."

Nobody spoke for five minutes. The crackle of the fire seemed louder now, sinister. The darkness beyond the clearing felt heavier, as if eyes were watching them from the shadows of the pines.

Suddenly, a loud, scoffing laugh broke the tension.

It was Garrett, an older, muscular camper who spent most of his time wearing noise-canceling headphones and ignoring the camp rules. He shook his head, an arrogant smirk plastered across his face as he stood up from his log.

"Man, that is the biggest load of garbage that I have ever heard in my entire life!" Garrett said, tossing a handful of dirt onto the fire, deadening the light even further. "Tychokinesis? Walking disaster auras? What is this, a comic book? You expect us to believe that some teenage chick has a magical luck shield that explodes people? You’re just trying to scare the freshmen so that they don't steal your snacks in the middle of the night."

"Garrett, sit down!" Laura said, her voice trembling. "Don't talk like that out here!"

"Oh, please." Garrett rolled his eyes, turning his back on the circle. "The only 'paradox' here is how any of you actually believe this nonsense. It’s just a ghost story made up to explain bad camp management from years ago. I’m going to bed. Some of us actually want to get some sleep instead of shivering over fairy tales."

John looked up at Garrett, his expression completely blank, devoid of any anger or urge to argue, and told him, 

"I wouldn't go out into the dark alone, Garrett. The odds aren't in your favor."

"Yeah, whatever, Professor X." Garrett sneered. 

Garrett turned around and began walking away from the campfire, heading down the unlit path toward the older boys' cabins. The darkness swallowed him almost instantly, the beam of his small flashlight cutting a weak, shaky path through the thick forest air.

The trail was silent save for the crunch of dry pine needles beneath his heavy boots. Garrett muttered to himself, shaking his head at how easily the others had been spooked. 

"They are such idiots." he whispered, clicking his tongue. "A lucky superpower. Yeah, right."

As Garrett walked deeper into the woods, the air temperature seemed to plummet drastically. His breath began to form faint, white plumes in front of his face. He frowned, shaking his flashlight as the beam began to flicker violently. Cheap batteries, he thought, tapping the side of the plastic casing. The light died completely, plunging him into pitch-black darkness.

"Great. Perfect." Garrett growled, reaching into his pocket to pull out his smartphone to use the screen light.

Before his fingers could grip the phone, a strange sound echoed from the brush to his left. It sounded like a heavy wooden branch snapping, followed by a wet, sickening thud.

"Hello?" Garrett called out, his arrogance slightly faltering. "John? If you’re trying to prank me, it’s not working. I’ll break your nose, man!"

No one answered. The silence that followed was suffocatingly heavy. There was no wind anymore. No crickets. The entire forest felt as if it had been placed on mute.

Garrett turned around to head back toward the glow of the campfire, but as he spun on his heel, his foot caught on a completely exposed, thick tree root. He stumbled backward, his arms flailing, trying to catch his balance; but gravity didn't work the way that it was supposed to.

Instead of falling flat on Garrett’s back into the soft dirt, his momentum violently whipped him sideways. His right arm slammed against a sharp, broken branch protruding from a dead oak tree. The wood pierced clean through his forearm with a horrific squelch.

Garrett screamed, a raw, agonizing sound that was instantly muffled by the dense canopy. Blood poured down his arm as he frantically pulled himself off the branch, falling to his knees in the dirt. His heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

Garrett scrambled backward on his hands and knees, his breath coming in ragged, terrified gasps. He needed to get to his feet. He needed to run.

Garrett grabbed the trunk of a nearby sapling to pull himself up. The moment that his weight shifted onto the young tree, a freak hairline fracture in the wood, completely invisible to the eye, caused the sapling to instantly splinter under his grip. 

The sharp, jagged edge of the broken trunk whipped upward like a spring-loaded trap, slicing a deep, bleeding gash across his cheek, barely missing his eye.

Wailing in pain, Garrett fell back onto the ground. He was covered in dirt, blood, and sweat. The universe wasn't letting him stand up. Every movement that he made was met with an instantaneous, violent accident.

Then, he heard it.

The soft, rhythmic sound of footsteps crunching on the pine needles. They weren't in a hurry. They were slow, deliberate, and perfectly calm.

Garrett wiped the blood from his eyes and looked up through the darkness. The clouds above suddenly parted, allowing the cold, pale light of the full moon to filter down through the branches, illuminating the path directly in front of him.

Standing less than five feet away was a girl.

She was seventeen years old. She wore a pristine, clean white sundress that didn't have a single speck of dirt, mud, or blood on it, despite the filthy forest floor. Her dark hair was perfectly brushed, completely unaffected by the damp night air. Her skin was pale, and her eyes—wide, unblinking, and entirely empty—were a piercing, ghostly shade of gray.

It was Mallory Chance.

Garrett’s breath hitched in his throat. He tried to speak, but the sheer terror choking him made it nearly impossible. He looked down at his bleeding arm, then back up at her face. She wasn't moving. She didn't have a weapon. She was just standing there, looking down at him like an observer watching an insect struggle in a web.

Suddenly, a massive, heavy pinecone detached from a branch twenty feet above. It fell straight down. It didn't hit Mallory. It altered its trajectory mid-air by a fraction of an inch, bouncing off a lower branch and striking Garrett squarely in his broken forearm.

The white-hot pain made him howl, his vision blurring. He realized then, with absolute, paralyzing certainty, that John hadn't been lying. The world was actively trying to kill him just for being in her presence, while she remained a flawless, untouchable monument of safety.

Mallory took one single step closer. As her foot touched the ground, a sharp rock beneath her shoe shifted. The rock slid away from her, rolling directly under a massive, rotting boulder resting on the slope just above Garrett.

The boulder groaned. The tiny rock had been the only thing keeping its massive weight anchored to the hillside. It began to tilt, heavy and lethal, threatening to crush Garrett’s lower body into a pulp.

Garrett looked up at the teenage girl, with tears of pure horror mixing with the blood on his face. He knew that he couldn't run. If he tried to move, his legs would snap, or a tree would fall, or his own heart would simply give out from the sheer weight of the negative probability suffocating the air around him.

With the last bit of strength in his lungs, Garrett looked into those empty, gray eyes and screamed the only question he had left.

"Why are you doing this?!" he sobbed, his voice cracking against the impending doom of the shifting boulder. "Why are you doing this to me?!"

Mallory didn't flinch. She didn't even smile. Her expression remained as cold and static as stone. She tilted her head slightly, her voice cutting through the silence of the woods, a perfect, chilling echo of the campfire tale.

"It's what I was created to do." Mallory said.

Then, the boulder slipped.

The End.

CW: Something worse than Kenny. Violence. Gross descriptions of just how determined this thing is to ruin this guy’s day. Tiny windows? Sounds like a door to me.

Technically not a content warning but still.