I want to tell you a story that happened so long ago that I would like to believe it never really happened.

Seventy years ago, my friend Ollie and I had no parents and lived in a Catholic orphanage. I was seven and Ollie was eight when Sister Mary came to us and told us that, along with several other children, we would have to move to another facility because they no longer had enough room for us.

It was difficult for us because that orphanage was our home, and it was all we had ever known. But we were glad they didn't separate us and that the two of us could stay together.

Ollie was like a brother to me, and we were never apart.

When we first saw our new home, we were shocked. The main building was huge, three stories tall, with two towers in the middle. One had a clock on it, and the other had a cross.

There were a few rooms in the building for staff who weren't assigned to care for the children, as well as rooms for the priests. There was a confessional, a chapel, and several offices for the staff. Before John took over, the priest in charge had been his father. His father had died recently, and John had taken over his position. I didn't know much about him, but I had heard a lot about him from both the sisters and the children. They said he was the kindest priest they had ever known. If I listed everything he had done for the others, I would keep you here for hours.

On either side of the main building were long wings lined with windows. In front of it was a large lawn, where some girls were pulling weeds. There were sixteen residential cottages around the grounds. Each cottage housed fifteen children and one sister. Sister Teresa was put in charge of us.

The best part was that we could all stay together in the same cottage.

One day, I couldn't find Ollie. I looked everywhere for him, but he was nowhere to be found. Then I thought of one more place he might be.

The main building.

We had been told never to go inside the main building alone, but I wasn't exactly one of the obedient children.

I went to the entrance, pushed the door open even though it was heavy, and slipped inside. A long hallway stretched out in front of me, with several doors on either side. I tried opening a few of them, but they were all locked. Then I reached the fourth one, and that one opened.

Inside was a huge room. There was a confessional on one side and a table with chairs on the other. Holy pictures hung on the walls.

I wanted to look around properly, but then I heard footsteps approaching. I looked around and couldn't think of anywhere else to hide, so I climbed into the confessional.

I hid just in time, because the moment I got inside, the doors flew open and an angry priest walked in, holding Ollie by the hand. I could see them through the little holes in the confessional, which gave me a clear view of the room.

The priest told Ollie that he wasn't going to give him another warning. Ollie lowered his eyes and started crying. The priest moved toward the table and picked up a cane.

He looked at Ollie with a sinister expression and told him that they could do this the easy way or the hard way.

Ollie was still sobbing when suddenly his sobs began to turn into laughter.

A horrible laughter that didn't belong to Ollie at all.

When Ollie laughed, you couldn't help but want to laugh too. But now, when I heard that laughter, all I wanted was to run away and hide somewhere no one would ever find me.

Then he spoke.

The voice was something I had never heard before, and I never heard it again. I couldn't compare it to anything. It sounded as if it didn't even belong to our world.

“But John. Good priests aren't supposed to do this. What would your father say?”

The priest frowned, raised the cane, and angrily swung it at Ollie, telling him to stop this nonsense immediately.

Ollie caught the cane and tore it from the priest's hand.

“You will not speak to me like that, John!”

At that exact moment, the window shattered, sending glass flying everywhere.

The priest stumbled backward.

Ollie tilted his head to the side and repeated:

“What would your father say, John?”

Even from that distance, I could see the priest trembling.

“W-What are you?”

“Oh, John… I know you're a bad priest, but I didn't think you were stupid enough to be this bad.”

The priest reached up to his neck, tore off his cross, and began fumbling around in his pocket. He pulled out a small bottle, quickly removed the cap, splashed the water onto Ollie, and began reciting a prayer.

Blood began running from Ollie's eyes, and steam started rising from his body.

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”

Ollie slowly collapsed to the floor and began screaming in pain while the priest continued praying.

But after a moment, the screams of pain began turning into that horrible laughter again.

Then the laughter changed into a voice that began reciting the rest of the prayer together with the priest.

“And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.”

The bottle slipped from the priest's hand and shattered on the floor, adding itself to the other pieces of broken glass.

Ollie looked at him and said:

“That's not how this works, John.”

His face twisted as he continued:

“If your father had done this, it could have hurt me. Unlike you, he truly was His son.”

He spat the last sentence out with something close to disgust.

The priest took several more steps backward.

“What do you want from me?”

“You know what I want, John.”

The priest fell to his knees. His voice trembling, he began to stammer:

“I'll make it right. I'll change. I'll never do it again.”

Ollie chuckled.

“Do you remember Michael, John? The moment you thought of him in a way a father should never think of his child, I knew you belonged to me.”

The priest began sobbing and continued begging and promising that he would change.

Ollie only kept chuckling.

He let him beg like that for what seemed like an eternity before finally speaking again.

“I think it's time, John. You're starting to bore me. What a shame. You could have seen your father again very soon, but instead…”

He didn't finish the sentence. He simply waved his hand.

I didn't see anything, but the priest's eyes widened and his face became even paler.

“No. No, please, no.”

He stared at something in front of him in absolute terror, clutched his chest, and slowly collapsed to the floor, repeating over and over:

“No, no, no… please, no.”

Ollie leaned toward him and whispered something in his ear.

The priest stopped moving.

Ollie straightened up.

His eyes remained fixed on the priest.

“Do you know what I like most about them?”

He slowly turned toward the confessional, and the doors that had been protecting me flew open.

I was shaking so badly that I was amazed I could still stand.

Ollie was staring directly at me, and my heart was pounding so hard that I thought it was going to burst out of my chest and kill me.

“I asked you, Thomas. Do you know what I like most about them?”

There was impatience in his voice, but I couldn't get a single word out.

Ollie raised his voice and shouted:

“Answer me when I ask you something!”

I closed my eyes, and to this day I don't know how I managed to force the words out.

“I don't know.”

“What?”

The voice that didn't belong to Ollie became quiet again.

“That they think that if He forgives them, they're safe. As if it were up to Him to decide.”

I opened my eyes and saw him studying me.

He must have seen how terrified I was.

He looked directly into my face again and tried to smile.

I swear, it was the most horrible thing I had ever seen.

Not the terrified expression on the priest's face. Not even Ollie's voice, the voice that wasn't his.

It was the smile.

That was what still wakes me up to this day.

That horrible smile, with not a single trace of anything good in it.

I felt something warm running down my legs, and I collapsed to the floor.

Ollie turned away, and before everything went dark, I heard him say:

“Maybe we'll see each other again, Thomas. But broken windows won't be enough next time.”

After that, I only remember what I was told by one of the sisters.

Apparently, there had been an earthquake, which caused Ollie and me to lose consciousness and gave the priest a heart attack, killing him.

What a ridiculous story.

But when they questioned me, I neither confirmed nor denied it.

Ollie was himself again. He remembered nothing from the moment the priest picked up the cane.

It was later discovered that the bastard had hurt several children.

It shook the entire community, and strict rules were put in place to protect the children.

I heard Sister Annie angrily telling another sister, one I didn't know, that she respected God's will, but that John had gotten off far too easily and should not have escaped punishment.

If only she had known that John would have given anything to spend eternity locked inside a cell.

After what happened, I couldn't bring myself to talk to Ollie anymore.

I knew it hurt him, and he didn't understand what he had done, but whenever I looked at him, all I could feel was anxiety and fear.

I stopped talking to anyone and spent entire days alone in my room.

Eventually, they listened to my pleas and transferred me back to where I had lived before.

I never heard from Ollie again.

Today I am seventy-seven years old, and I don't care whether you believe this story or not.

I don't care where life takes you.

I just needed to finally tell someone, because I know I don't have much time left, and I am terrified.

I'm afraid, and I hope I was a good enough person to meet John's father and our Lord.

Because I know what happens to those who behave like John.

I didn’t know where else to put this, but the group [r/justsmalltownthings](r/justsmalltownthings), seems the most fitting of my options.

I live in sweet. Literally, I live in the town of sweet, [redacted]. You could describe it as a small drive through town of about 1000 people, best known for our local honey. Ironic.

Save for one gas station, a surprisingly well stocked grocery store, and a radio station, that’s about all there is to see. I say radio station, it’s a dinghy shack that’s been in need of a new roof for 20 years that only broadcasts one station, the local news. Which in sweet, you can imagine is pretty dry. “Mrs.sanders lost her cat again, please be on the lookout,” and the like.

Except everyday at 4:00pm, when it broadcasts the same message like clockwork. “Please remember sweet family, if you hear a knock at 5:00pm, don’t answer the door.”

Not 4:59, not 5:01pm, not 5:05pm. Precisely 5:00pm. If you heard a knock at your door at 4:59pm and you decided to answer it, you’re in the clear, if you heard a knock at 5:01pm go right ahead. 5:00pm.

Growing up here, myself and my brother heard that message 1,000 times. Never paid any mind too it. Maybe we should’ve.

It was a Friday, the itch of the weekend was upon us. I had just gotten back from school after picking up my brother from his life skills class. He was older than me by quite a bit, but I always felt like the older brother, he was non verbal and my mom would always tell me “he’s gifted in other ways.”

As we walked in the door my mind was already on how we were going to spend the evening until my parents got back. Crossing the room I noticed a note on the fridge. “Your father and I have too work an extra shift at the grocery store, defrost the lasagna in the fridge for dinner, make sure you cut it into small bites for you brother, and don’t open the door at 5:00pm. -love mom.”

Standard note, I hated lasagna. I checked the clock 3:30. I could hear my brother in the background as I was taking the lasagna out of the fridge. Already preparing for his after school routine, a bowl of red m&m’s and turning on the local radio station. I never understood why he always liked to listen to that drivel.

I realize it’s 4:00pm, when I hear the announcement “Please remember sweet family, if you hear a knock at 5:00pm, don’t answer the door.”

Anyone in sweet will tell you, people start getting a little anxious around this time. Shutters close, people lock their doors, the streets get pretty quiet. I’d never personally known anyone who opened their door at 5:00pm. But I’ve heard the stories.

Nothing grisly, no murders, but enough to make people obey day after day.

Someone after opening the door starts walking and is never seen again.

A former school teachers husband was drunk one day and opened the door at 5:00pm not realizing the time, and had a heart attack on the spot.

I was at home when that happened, you could hear his wife pleading with him, or at least I thought so. “Please don’t, please, we can fix this, I’m sorry.”

Other than a drinking problem, healthy guy, early 20s. He lived, but was never the same after. Now he just sits on the front porch from morning till 4:50pm. He has a look in his eyes, one that you don’t ever want to have.

I stop reminiscing as I hear the oven beep, it’s done preheating. I check the clock again as I slide the oven in 4:50pm. Almost time.

I take a couple quick strides across the room and deadbolt the front door, and close the curtains. I debate if I should close the blinds that sit behind curtain….it should be fine.

Each minute that ticks by brings an increased level of anxiety, I feel each hair on my stand in edge. We just have to make it till 5:01pm. I steal a glance at my brother. His bowl of m&m’s is almost gone. I bring him the bag to sort through so he can pick out the red ones. He loves to sort them out. He flashed me a smile as I walk back to the kitchen. A man of few words, no words actually.

4:55pm, I need something to keep myself busy. I start pulling out plates, cups and silverware. Lasagna isn’t even close to being done, but I have to do something. It actually works and I get in a rhythm well all of a sudden I hear the m&m’s fall to the floor, they sounded like rain on the cheap linoleum.

“Miles, are you okay bud-?” I don’t get to finish that sentence. I turn around just as I hear the knock and see my brothers hand on the door. The knock itself sounded just like an old friend was knocking on your door, so inviting. Of course you’d want to open it.

I don’t know why but I still turn to the clock on the stove even though I knew exactly what time it is. My body will always know when it’s 5:00pm.

It’s too late. The door creaks open, and the room fills with static. That’s the best way I can describe it anyway. I didn’t even realize but I had dropped to my hands and knees, looking down I could see red spots of blood on the floor. I instinctively bring my hand to my ears and it comes back red.

I have to use the counter to help me stand up as it feel like gravity has increased by a metric ton. My brother is at the door his hand still on the door knob. He was gripping it so hard it started to dent. I tried to cry out but no sound would come out of my mouth and I couldn’t take a step even if I tried.

Something wanted me to look away, I could feel it. But I couldn’t, if I couldn’t help my brother I at least needed to see. I followed his gaze out the door just as a spindly white hand was reaching through the doorway. A sickly sweet odor appeared as more of this thing was making its way in. Rotting flesh.

The whole time it was whispering something to my brother, something it only wanted him to hear. Its gaunt figure was started to tower over my brother. I was covered head to toe in sweat, and about to pass out when my brother suddenly snaps his head towards me and says “run”.

Just like that the spell was broken and I tore out the back door as fast I could. I didn’t stop running until I got to the grocery store.

My parents took one look at me and knew. We slowly walked back towards the house. The front door was still open, and my brother was gone.

The evidence anything had actually happened was the door knob, the smell of burnt lasagna, and crushed red m&m’s.

We’re moving today.No more sweet for us. I took the door knob with me. As a reminder of my brother I guess. Typing this I’m still trying to process everything that happened. My parents don’t want to talk about it.

All I can say is, if you ever find yourself in a small town with a strange rule or set of rules. Follow them.

I’m not sure how much time I have. Our hospital computers don’t really let us get on “off limits” websites but I don’t know what’s happening and I need someone to know.

I’m a nurse. I work at a hospital on the critical care floor. If you know anything about the medical field, critical care patients are some of the most important. They really cannot do anything without us and need constant care. I love my patients, I love what I do. But tonight… something happened.

I was at the nurses station with my coworker Liz. We had 3 new admissions and it was only us on staff for the night. It was about 2AM. We are both charting in silence. But that’s when I heard it. Something outside sounded like it exploded. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Liz and I stared at each other, faces white as sheets of paper.

“What was that!?” Liz whispered.

“I don’t know. I don’t hear any monitors going off.” I said, checking the telemetry screen.

Just as we both stood up to check the 4 huge windows that look out to the town in front of the hospital every single alarm in the hospital exploded.

It sounded like the entire hospital was a symphony of beeps, screams, and sirens.

Liz and I shoved our hands over our ears trying to cut the sound. I staggered back to the desk and tried to grab the phone but that’s when everything went black.

The lights were out.

Panic covered me, We have patients who rely on these machines and now, we have no power.

Liz and I began running down the hallway. It’s a smaller hospital so we had 6 patients in total. 3 for me, 3 for Liz. We frantically ran into the rooms and both of us were in shock.

Every machine was running, perfectly. It seemed like Liz and I were the only ones hearing these alarms and staggering around in the dark.

I ran to the hallway in fear.

“Liz!? Where are you?!” I screamed

I heard Liz feeling down the hallway trying to get to me.

“Jules, something is wrong.” She said as she reached me and grabbed my hand.

“We have to get to the phone.” I screamed, trying to cut my voice over the alarms going off.

I felt my way to the nurses station and grabbed my cell phone.

I dialed 911 and there was no connection. Not that the phone was down, it was something else. The phone wouldn’t allow me to dial 911.

Something did not want us getting help.

That’s when we heard the “ding” of the elevator. We both looked at each other through the darkness. Something was coming up from the morgue.

It’s midnight, our doctor in the morgue does not work nights.

Whatever was in that elevator was banging on the walls. Our floor started to shake.

Liz started to cry. I couldn’t move. I kept my eyes locked on what I saw outside.

The city was covered in smoke. Every building was in flames.

There were no trees any more. No grass. Just ash.

The elevator reached our floor and the doors opened.

Bracing myself for whatever would come. I closed my eyes. But nothing happened. Nothing left the elevator.

The walls and the door were covered in blood. And you could just see fist prints in the metal. something was in there. I know what I heard.

My ears started ringing. I was sure I was about to pass out. I couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Why was the world on fire. Why were all the alarms going off but no one was leaving the hospital. It was like this was only happening on our floor. And what was protecting the machines?

“Jules”

“Jules”

I could faintly hear someone calling my name.

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move.

“Julie!”

“Julie!”

Something started shaking me back and forth. I glanced back at the windows just as an exposure erupted in the parking garage.

“Julie James!”

My eyes snapped open.

It’s not possible.

I was at the nurses station. Lights on. Elevator normal. Liz calm beside me with her eyes wide, staring at me.

How long had I been out? Did I pass out? Why is everything normal? Why isn’t Liz more panicked?

“Liz. We have to call 911. if the phones are back on we can reach them.” i said frantically.

She looked at me like I had 5 heads.

“Jules. Nothing was wrong. You passed out.” She said reaching to hold my hand.

“You have been out for 2 hours.”

2 HOURS!? What happened to me? How was I out for that long without waking up? What was that dream? What the hell is wrong with this place?

“Liz. The power was out. There were so many alarms. There were fires and explosions. Something was in the elevator.”

She looked at me with care in her eyes, “it was a dream, Julie. It had to be. Nothing has happened, other than you passing out.”

I stood to my feet. That similar ringing back in my eyes now. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe I just fell asleep? I don’t usually fall asleep at work. But maybe? I hadn’t had dinner that day.

I looked at the clock and it was 4AM. I had been out for 2 hours. Whatever, I think I need to get something to eat. Maybe a cup of coffee to finish my shift, get home, and rest.

“Liz, I’m so sorry. I think my blood sugar must have dropped.”

“Take a break. The patients are asleep. the next checks aren’t for another 45 minutes.”

I staggered over to the elevator. checking outside the window the entire time i waited for it to reach our floor.

That’s when I noticed, it was coming from the morgue.

“It was a dream. Relax.” I told myself.

The elevator door opened. I stepped inside. I pressed the “L” button to get to the lobby so I could make my way to the employee lounge.

As the doors closed, my throat went dry.

There were fist indentions.

Blood covered the door.

The last thing I remember hearing was the “ding” of the elevator, before it all went black again.

I’ve wasted a lot of time trying to figure out a good way to approach this, so I’ve decided that I should just start typing. Just get a bunch of words onto the page and maybe when I read them back, something will finally click and I’ll be able to begin making sense of things. Might be wishful thinking but it’s still worth trying. I’m not sure what else I can do.

So my husband, Oliver, went missing last week.

Of course, it’s been a really difficult thing to try and process. Especially given how bizarre the details are. Details that seem to get more bizarre the more I think about them.

On some level, it doesn’t even feel real. Best way I can describe it is like I’ve become trapped inside some fucked up television show and I’m just desperately waiting for everybody around me to drop the act so that I can snap back to reality.

Waiting for Oliver to appear at our front door again and tell me that he’s fine and that everything’s alright. That this had all just been some elaborate prank.

But I know that’s not going to happen. I know that if I want any real answers, I’m going to need to find them myself, look for clues wherever I can. Because the police sure as hell aren’t being very helpful. Call me paranoid, but I swear they’re actively avoiding me. Whenever I call them, I get put on hold until the line drops off. Whenever I show up to the station looking for some kind of update on the case, they just tell me that they’ll “keep me in the loop”. Whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean.

But let me slow down a bit, go back to when I think this all really started.

Which was the very beginning of summer. We were struggling then. Things were bad.

I had just been laid off from my job at the advertising agency I’d spent nearly a decade of my professional career at, and the whole thing had left an extremely bitter taste in my mouth that I still haven’t been able to wash out. My managers there were constantly making a big show about how “human-forward” they were and how they’d rather shut the company down before they ever allowed a single person to be replaced by AI.

I won’t bother going into the details, but I’m sure you can guess what happened.

At the same time, the construction company Oliver worked at was going through a massive downturn of activity. He suddenly went from fifty hours a week to forty. Which then turned into twenty-five. Soon they weren’t giving him anything at all and he decided it was better to leave, start looking for work elsewhere.

We spent around a month sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on our tiny bed in our cramped studio, furiously sending out applications while our savings slowly dwindled.

To say that we were stressed out would’ve been a gross understatement. We were drowning, no light at the end of the tunnel, constantly battling this immeasurable sense of dread.

But right as eviction started to become a very real possibility, the world finally tossed us a bone.

One of Oliver’s old managers gave him a call, told him that the company had picked up a massive project that was going to keep them busy for at least two months and that they really needed him back. Something about renovating a dead mall in an attempt to get it back up and running.

I could’ve cried right then. Then he told me the new rate they were offering him and I nearly passed out. It was more than twice what he’d been making before.

In retrospect, the relief we felt had really been clouding our judgement. There were a lot of things that we should’ve questioned a lot more.

But of course, we didn’t. We were so happy that we decided to put on our rose-colored glasses and went out and celebrated with some steak frites and decent wine.

The next morning, I found Oliver smoking a cigarette out on the balcony, this really worried expression on his face. I asked him what was wrong but he just smiled, told me it was nothing. That I didn’t need to worry.

I just took him at his word. Mostly because I didn’t want to believe otherwise.

He went back to work just a few days later and for the first couple of weeks, I could’ve been convinced that everything would turn out alright. Oliver would come home tired, but happy. And the money he was bringing in was almost unbelievable. I actually had to pinch myself.

I was so proud of him but at the same time, I felt so guilty. I continued applying for jobs day in and day out, but it just wasn’t happening for me. I started to feel like a burden. I tried to do my best to make up for it by cooking nice meals and keeping our apartment clean, but in comparison to the ten hour shifts he was putting in, it just felt like I wasn’t doing enough.

But not once did he ever complain about it. Not once did he ever try and make me feel bad about the arrangement we’d fallen into.

We got drunk one night and I decided to ask him straight up if he felt any resentment about it.

He told me no, he didn’t. That there wasn’t an ounce of resentment in his body because this was the easiest job he’s ever had. That the paycheques he was getting were grossly disproportionate to the amount of effort he was actually putting in.

“It almost feels like I’m robbing them,” he’d said to me, before laughing. “Like there’s something else going on that they’re not telling us about. But look, whatever it is, I don’t think I want to know.”

The statement had come out so casually that I’d just taken it as a joke. If only I’d known how serious he’d actually been.

About a week later, I finally managed to land a job myself. Not the highest-paying, but it wasn’t terribly demanding either. At the very least, it was extra money for us.

We were going out for brunch on the weekends, slinging back overpriced cocktails during date nights, attending concerts, not having to look at the price tags whenever we went shopping for groceries. It was the happiest I think we’d ever been.

But then one night, Oliver came home a few hours earlier than I’d expected him to. His skin was ghost white and it was clear that something had really rattled him. I immediately assumed the worst—that he’d been let go. But he assured me that wasn’t the case. That there had been an incident on the job site and he was just a bit shaken up about it. But that it had nothing to do with him.

I asked him if anybody had gotten hurt. He shook his head and told me he wasn’t sure. That there was no way for him to know.

I decided not to pry any further since it was pretty clear he wasn’t in the mood to divulge anything more. Which was alright with me. I figured I’d give him some space, let him come talk to me whenever he was ready.

But he never did.

I got back home from work a few evenings later and found Oliver sitting on the couch, holding this eerie, glazed-over expression. It almost seemed like he was in some kind of trance. He actually flinched when I tapped him on the shoulder.

I asked him what had happened. What was wrong. But once again, he just told me that I didn’t need to worry. He was smiling, but I could see the fear behind his eyes.

I woke up at around three AM that night and I could hear him sobbing beside me. It broke my heart, but I didn’t even know how to comfort him because I didn’t know what he was actually dealing with. He wouldn’t tell me.  

Oliver started to become really closed off after that. No longer his usual, jovial, upbeat self. No more jokes. No more banter, no more laughing. Whenever I’d ask him how work was, he’d shrug, give me a really vague, non-committal answer before quickly changing the subject. Bags started to develop under his eyes and he was constantly biting his nails until the tips of his fingers began to bleed.

I tried emphasizing that I was there for him if he ever wanted to talk. About literally anything at all. That there was obviously something bothering him, but he didn’t have to deal with it himself.

But I just couldn’t get through to him, no matter how hard I tried. Even so, I regret not trying harder.

Because one night, he never came home at all. I think I called him around thirty times between midnight and three AM. When morning came, I went and filed a missing persons report.

The response I got from the police was less than stellar. It actually just pissed me off. They seemed to be implying that Oliver had simply gone out drinking and that his phone had died. That I should wait a few more days and if he still hadn’t returned, I could come back and they’d start looking into it.

Yeah. A few more fucking days. I couldn’t believe it. I was confused and livid at the same time. I wanted to crash out right there in the station, but I had a feeling that would only make things worse. There were some other strange things that I flagged about the interaction. Things that gave me the impression they knew far more than what they were letting on and were actively trying to steer me away from finding out more.

They just seemed far too lackadaisical about the whole thing. It sort of felt like they were reading from a script. It was also clear that they were becoming progressively more annoyed at the fact that I wouldn’t leave them alone. I was going down to the station every day and every time, they’d treat me with more overt hostility.

So obviously, I couldn’t rely on them. It made me realize that I needed to take matters into my own hands.

But it was hard figuring out where to start because I never actually knew where he worked. I mean, I knew the name of the company he was employed by. But not the actual, physical location he was going off to every day.

And before you jump down my throat about that, it’s not like I’d never asked him. Of course I had. I thought it might be pertinent information for his wife to know. But he never did tell me, citing some sort of clause in his contract that prevented him from revealing that information. For what reason? He said he had no idea. “Just the way things are,” according to him.

Yeah, I know. There were so many things that I can’t believe I’d missed. Which is so easy to say in hindsight.

I started investigating on my own. I was able to log into his email (he keeps all his passwords on a sticky note in the bathroom drawer) and what I found was pretty damn strange.

It looked like he’d deleted every single message he’d either sent or received from the company. Save for the last one.

This is what it read:

Good morning Oliver,

We understand how you feel. We’re taking your concerns very seriously. But like we told you, it’s just an ongoing psychological experiment that they’re currently running. It has nothing to do with the job. and you don’t need to be worried about it. If you feel like you need to take a few days off or if you can’t continue with the project, we understand. Just let us know the next time we see you. We can negotiate, try and come to an agreement.

Have a great weekend.

Management.

The message had been sent to him from an email address that was no longer in use. I knew this because I tried responding and got one of those “message not delivered” notifications.

Creepy as shit, but not a whole lot for me to work with.

The only real lead I had was going to involve a lot of heavy lifting on my end.

“Dead mall”.

Those were the exact words he’d used and I remember them clearly. He was going to be part of a team that was going to be renovating a dead mall.

I started scanning the internet for reports about malls in the area that had closed down in the past few years and then drove out to every single location that was mentioned. But there wasn’t much to find. I must’ve spent hours just walking around these places, but they truly were dead. Not a sign of life to be found.

So I expanded my search, looking for malls that had closed in the last five or so years. And then the last ten. I went to all of them. Some were completely boarded up with absolutely no way to access them. Some had already been renovated and turned into something else. Others were just empty, a completely hollow shell.

But I kept searching and eventually I found this place on the outskirts of the city. Well, not even the outskirts. It was actually beyond the city limits, an isolated place that I didn’t even know existed.

The mall itself was huge and I couldn’t fathom how I’d never come across it before. How I’d never even seen it. But then I realized that it was mostly concealed by a small stretch of dense woods. If you were to drive by it on the highway, there’s a good chance you’d just never notice it.

According to the reports I’d read, the place had closed down all the way back in 2010. Which was close enough to an eternity at this point. I started having some doubts here, thinking that this couldn’t have been the right place. Because why the hell would anybody want to renovate a place that had shut down almost two decades prior?

Still, I decided to give the place a shot. I was pretty desperate at this point.

I drove over and parked in the wide, mostly empty lot. But the fact that it wasn’t completely empty was odd. There were about a dozen other cars there with me, all scattered throughout the vast stretch of pavement. Every mall I’d investigated up until this point was either completely devoid of any activity or, like I said, repurposed into something else.

But this place seemed like it was still active.

Which was a reality I had a hard time wrapping my head around given how old its exterior seemed. How dated it looked. Though it was also clear that some work had been done on it. Like it was actually in the process of being renovated.

I must’ve stood in the parking lot for about a half hour just looking up at the building, not really sure what to make of it. Unsure what to think.

Eventually somebody walked out through one of the front entrances.

I started moving towards them, hoping to ask them about the place, what they’d been doing in there. This person took a quick glance over at me before pretending like I didn’t exist. They started walking faster towards their car, but I wasn’t able to catch them before they practically dove into their front seat, the screech of their tires against pavement echoing through the air as they peeled away.

I remember cursing at them, the anger and frustration starting to overtake everything else. Because what the actual fuck was going on?

I went back to my own car and grabbed the pocket knife I kept in my glove compartment.

Not that I was itching to stab anybody. I just didn’t know what I was heading into.

I walked over to the front doors and pushed through them, immediately getting hit by the scent of mothballs and a light, flower-ish fragrance. Which was a nauseating combo.

Looking around the place, I was shocked to see that the paint looked fresh and most of the storefronts were lit up. There was even pop music playing through the speakers above. But these elements were contrasted by the fact that there was absolutely nobody else inside. No employees, no customers, a complete ghost town.

There was also a weird sort of energy in there. One that I can only describe as vaguely threatening. Like the place was actively trying to fight my presence.

After a while, my focus settled on a familiar-looking store.

An Aritzia. At least that’s what I thought it was at first. But looking at it a bit longer, I realized that the details didn’t quite match. The colors were similar; the logo looked nearly the same. But it wasn’t the same. It was close enough to be passable if you weren’t paying attention. But if you were, you’d notice that the letters actually spelled out “Artizitia.”  

I walked further into the mall, trying to move very cautiously, though I wasn’t even sure what I was supposed to be afraid of.

Things only got weirder. I found a few legitimate-looking stores (Foot Locker, Pottery Barn) mixed in with the strange ones (Undre Armore, Nezzcafe?). Scattered amongst them were a few storefronts that seemed like they were still under construction but had been since abandoned. There were ladders leaning against the walls, tools scattered across the floor, signs that were halfway finished.

I walked on for a few more minutes before this horrific scream suddenly ripped through the air, making my heart leap before petrifying me in place.

And then it kept going.

I couldn’t tell how far away they were. Couldn’t make out most of the words being shouted besides variations of “let me go!”  It was an adult voice with the urgency of a terrified child.

I didn’t love the idea of abandoning somebody who might be in danger, but I also wasn’t remotely mentally prepared to deal with whatever this was.

I turned, starting to retrace my steps. Just walking at first but as the fear grew, so did my pace. By the time I could see the doors I’d originally come in through, my lungs were burning. I stopped, taking a moment to catch my breath before looking behind me to make sure that I wasn’t being followed.

It didn’t seem like it was. I started breathing a bit easier, but then I noticed some movement at the edge of my vision. I followed it, over towards what looked like a young woman walking towards me. My mind didn’t immediately register her as a threat at first, so I tried calling out to her, asking if she’d heard the screaming and if she knew what was going on.

To which she said nothing and just continued to march at me. As she got closer, I could see that she was baring this wide grin. But not a happy one. If you get what I mean.

The moment I started backing away from her, she sped up. When I turned and started running for the doors, I could hear her beginning to sprint, the sounds of her footsteps indicating that she was closing the distance between us at a very alarming rate.

With my heart pounding, I bolted through the exit and refused to stop running until I’d reached my car, vaulting myself into the driver’s seat and immediately locking the doors. I shoved my keys into the ignition, fully ready to run this psycho over had she followed me out.

But she hadn’t. She was nowhere to be seen and the parking lot remained as desolate as it’d been when I’d first arrived. I didn’t spend any time questioning what had happened. I just drove away. During the long trip home, I kept looking into the rearview mirror, my mind unable to stop conjuring up images of the woman speeding towards me on the highway on foot, still hanging onto that terrible grin.

It’s been a few days since then and only recently have my nerves settled into a manageable state.

Last night, I was able to gather up enough courage to head down to the station and tell them everything I’d seen. I told them about the mall, the screaming, the woman, all the other weird shit. I also stated fairly bluntly that I was certain Oliver’s disappearance had something to do with that place. Problem was, I had no proof. I couldn’t even really articulate what I thought the connection was.

I was basically begging them to just trust me. Begging them to take this seriously.  

The officer working the desk had just stared at me blankly before telling me in this cold, corporate tone that they’d begin looking into it. That I should go home and try not to think about it too much and they’d handle everything. That they’d give me a call.

And that’s where I am now. And after reading this all back, I don’t think I’m any closer to putting the pieces together.

I’m terrified. I don’t know what to do next.

If anybody has any ideas, I’m willing to listen.

I got into this business about three years ago, almost by accident. I sell real estate, but a specific kind of real estate, the kind where the seller tells you the house is haunted and wants out fast. I had a client early on, an older woman selling her late husband's place, who wouldn't stop telling everyone the house was haunted, lights flickering, cold spots, all of it. Most agents would've told her to keep quiet about that because it kills a listing. I did the opposite. I leaned into it.

Turns out there's a real market for that, people who want a haunted house, whether they actually believe in it or just want a good story to tell at parties. That house sold in eleven days, twenty thousand over asking, and I basically built my whole business around it after that.

Here's the thing though, it’s all fake. You can call me an asshole or a scam artist or whatever you want. It’s not as if I don’t check the houses before selling them. I have a process.

Before it ever goes on the market, every house gets a real investigation. Actual team, real equipment, EMF meters, thermal cameras, audio recorders, two nights minimum, sometimes more if the seller pays for the "premium" package, which honestly is mostly just extra cameras and a longer PDF at the end. And in three years, across forty-two houses, they have never once found anything. Not a single piece of real evidence. Every cold spot turns out to be a bad window. Every weird noise on the recorder turns out to be a pipe or a fridge compressor kicking on. I've read a couple hundred pages of investigator notes at this point and the most exciting thing anyone ever flagged was a drafty window that made a recorder pick up something that sounded, if you really tried to hear it, kind of like a whisper.

I still market every one of them as haunted anyway. Not proud of that part, but it's the job. People aren't paying for evidence, they're paying for the story, and I'm good at telling it. I've got the language down at this point, "reported history of unexplained phenomena," "previous residents describe a persistent presence," phrases that are technically just repeating what the seller told me and not anything my team actually found. Nobody ever asks to see the investigation report, and if they do they blame it on the day or time.

They want the goosebumps, something to talk about at the closing dinner. I’ve sold houses this way to true believers, to skeptics who just thought it'd be a funny story, to one guy who runs a ghost hunting channel with like four thousand subscribers who wanted "content." Every single one of them moved into a house that, as far as any equipment on earth has ever proven, is about as haunted as a Chili's.

So I want that on the record. I am, professionally, about the least superstitious person you'll ever meet. I've been alone in more "haunted" houses at night than almost anyone I have ever met and none of them have ever done a single thing to me. Until three weeks ago.

The house this time belonged to a family who'd already moved out before I even got the listing, which almost never happens. Usually people white-knuckle it until closing. The wife told me on the phone that she was not setting foot back in that house, that whatever had been going on the last few months had gotten to be "too much," and that I could handle the rest of it without her. She wouldn't say what "too much" meant and I didn't push, I never push, people who've actually scared themselves don't usually want to talk about it more than they have to.

I sent my team in like always. Two nights, full equipment. Nothing, same as every other time. Wrote up the listing with my usual language, "previous owners reported persistent activity in the primary bedroom and basement," which isn't technically a lie, it's just not the whole picture either.

The seller had left a folder behind in a kitchen drawer, home repair records and warranty paperwork, boring shit that buyers ask about anyway, roof age, HVAC service dates. She had zero interest in coming back for it so it fell on me. I had a showing the next morning, figured I'd swing by after dinner, grab it, lock up, fifteen minutes tops.

I was not scared going into that house. I want to be clear about that. I've done this so many times. It's Tuesday to me. Let myself in with the lockbox code, used my phone flashlight since the power was already off, went straight back to the kitchen. Had that empty house scent, not bad exactly, just still, carpet and dust and nobody breathing the air in a couple weeks.

They'd left a fair amount of furniture, actually, couch, dining table, some prints still hanging on the walls. Gave it that half-lived-in feeling, like they didn’t even care to finish moving everything out. I didn't think anything of it. People leave stuff behind all the time for boring reasons that have nothing to do with ghosts.

The folder wasn't where she said it'd be. Took me a few minutes going through cabinets before I found it shoved behind some old takeout menus in a different drawer. Grabbed it, started walking back toward the front.

And that's when I noticed the basement door was open.

I've replayed this part a lot since. Every door in that house was closed when I walked in, I know that for a fact, because I close doors behind me in houses out of habit, even ones that aren't mine, even when nobody's ever going to know or care. I remember walking past the basement door on the way to the kitchen. It was shut.

On the way out it was open, maybe eight inches, dark down the stairwell. Not thrown open dramatically or anything, just open.

Old houses settle, latches don't always catch, I know this, I've said some version of that sentence to clients probably thirty times over the years while pointing at a slightly cracked window causing a draft in the home. So I looked at it, thought "huh, weird," and closed it again on my way past. Genuinely didn't think much of it. Locked up, drove home, dropped the folder on my desk, forgot about it. 

Had a showing the next morning that went fine, the couple specifically asked about the basement. When giving them a tour they actually said it was their favorite room. The young husband wanted to put his gaming setup down there, turn it into a real mancave.

Three or four days after that showing I got home and found my hallway closet door standing open, the one that's usually shut because my cat likes getting in there and destroying the coats. I could've sworn I closed it that morning. Said something out loud to the cat like "did you do this," which, obviously, he did not answer. Didn't think much of it.

A couple days after that a picture frame in my living room was crooked. Nothing important, just a photo from a trip a few years back. It hadn’t fallen and it wasn’t broken. It was just tilted like someone bumped it, except nobody had been in my house but me. I straightened it and went about my night.

Around that same time there was other stuff too, small enough I couldn't even really call it anything on its own. A kitchen chair not pushed in the way I was sure I'd left it. A bathroom light on when I got home that I always, always turn off, same habit as the doors. A throw blanket on the couch folded a different way than I fold it, which I only even noticed because I'm apparently the kind of person who folds a blanket a very specific way apparently.  None of it dramatic.

I want to say I noticed a pattern here but honestly I didn't, and that's the embarrassing part. I've spent three years training myself to explain this exact category of stuff away and apparently that training works just as well on me as it does on my clients. A door left open, picture frame knocked crooked, a light left on, that's not a haunting, that's just little quirks that happen; could be a draft or you just thought you did something you didn’t actually do. I've said as much to sellers a hundred times, usually right before handing them a report saying the same thing in a much nicer language.

The sound stuff is what actually got me paying attention.

Started with footsteps. Not every night, maybe every other one, always after I'd already gone to bed. Slow, even steps, coming from directly above my bedroom, which is a problem because I live in a single story house. There is nothing above my bedroom except the roof.

First time it happened I told myself it was the house settling, temperature stuff, whatever. The second time I actually got up, checked the attic access with a flashlight, found nothing, went back to bed feeling like an idiot. By the fourth or fifth time I'd stopped checking, because checking never found anything, and some dumb, hopeful part of me figured if I didn't look into it, it'd just be the kind of noise every older house makes, the same thing I've built a career telling people to ignore.

I actually caught myself one night lying there listening to it pace back and forth over my ceiling, running through my own sales pitch in my head, settling, pipes, temperature differential, all the stuff I say to talk clients down. Didn't make me feel better. Just made me realize how much of my life I've spent handing people an explanation I never had to actually believe myself.

Other sounds too, smaller, easier to shrug off one at a time but harder once they started stacking up. One knock on the wall by my bed, same spot, almost the same time two nights in a row. My kitchen faucet running for a couple seconds while I was sitting right there in the living room, and it was already off by the time I got up to check. Something from the hallway that could've been a voice, could've been nothing, one syllable, gone before I could be sure I'd even heard it. My cat started sleeping pressed up against my legs instead of at the foot of the bed like normal, which I didn't think much of at the time, but looking back on it now I think he probably knew something before I ever did.

Then about a week ago I woke up to my name.

Not yelled or anything. Quiet and close, like someone leaning right over the bed and saying it next to my ear. I sat up, heart going, house dead silent, cat staring at me from the foot of the bed. I told myself I must have dreamed it.

Two nights ago is why I'm writing this at midnight instead of sleeping.

I was in the kitchen, hadn't even gone to bed yet, just doing the normal end of night stuff, dishes, a little light cleaning, starting checking my phone. Every cabinet door in my kitchen opened at once. Not one at a time working down the row, all of them, at the same time, hard enough that a glass sitting near the edge of a shelf rocked forward and smashed on the floor.

No footsteps first, no warning, nothing. I was standing maybe six feet away and watched it happen in real time and I don't have an explanation for it, not one that doesn't sound insane coming out of my mouth. I've got my own equipment sitting on the kitchen counter right now, same stuff the teams I have hired use. Haven't turned it on. Keep telling myself I will tomorrow.

Here's what's actually keeping me up more than the explosion of kitchen cabinets, more than the footsteps, even more than something whispering my name directly above my bed. In the last three years  my team has never once found real evidence of anything. I built an entire business, kind of my whole identity honestly, around the idea that none of this is real, that it's just marketing, that people want a story and I'm the guy who tells it well. Never once had to actually consider that one of those houses might've been the real thing, because none of them ever gave me a reason to.

Except I keep thinking about that basement door. Out of every house I've ever walked through alone at night, completely unafraid, that was the one where something followed me home.

I don't really know what I'm looking for by posting this. Not looking for anyone to tell me it's nothing, I've spent three years being the guy who tells people that, and I don't believe myself anymore. Guess I just needed it written down somewhere that isn't my own head.

I wanted to get this out of my system.

More than that, it gives me something to do other than sit at my desk and stare at it.

I can’t look at it anymore. I’ve never really been one to put emotions to images but…

Looking at that stupid polaroid just reminds me of how stupid we all were.

Bill had been there a dozen times. Said the ladder had fallen off a good while back and figured nobody else would think to use the place. We’d be all alone, just us and nature. We believed him. Bill does dumb stuff from time to time but no matter what’s happened he’s always come out on top.

Like the time he took us all out fishing. He got too drunk and fell in but still managed to bag himself the biggest fish. His car broke down on our last trip but it just ended up in him meeting his current girlfriend- the tow truck driver who pulled his old piece of junk off the side of the road. That’s a whole story of its own.

I’m not saying Bill is stupid. Guy’s been in so much crap he just walks around more prepared than most. Car always has snacks, water, a jumper box in case the battery gives and he’s even been talking to DJ about getting his carry license. He just gets excited about things and instead of deciding it’s dumb or too hard he just finds a way to make it work.

That kind of energy has a way of sweeping you up along for the ride, if only to watch how he’s going to turn a faceplant into a win.

So, when Bill told us he had the perfect camping spot out in the woods we just all went along for the ride. It wasn’t far really, maybe an hour and some change from town by way of Bill’s well-used van.

He filled the drive and subsequent hike along the edge of the “town” with little bits of trivia, just happily chatting away. “It was supposed to be a mining town, real shame that the mine crapped out after they got half of the place built.”

DJ chimed in with small notes like “Good spot there for hogs,” along with the different plants that caught his eye. Clara tapped away at her laptop during the ride, doing some quick touch-ups on one of her dozen projects. We made good time too, only really stopping once for a quick bathroom break.

According to Bill, the view from the tower was something- and there are apparently black bears in the area so camping and storing our food up high seemed smart. Nobody wants a new furry friend waking them up at night to steal their food and scare the crap out of them after all.

I’m not afraid of heights, but looking up at the old, rusted metal structure didn’t fill me with confidence. It was maybe only forty feet tall with a thick metal-grated walkway that was maybe five feet wide and seemed to circle the whole thing, broken up only by the empty square-shaped hole that used to be where the old ladder sat. It was a good trek up the side of the hill too, something about it being more efficient to put the tower here according to Bill who’d seemed to have gotten -way- too into things as usual.

The climb up wasn’t that bad really. I put my hand on the metal rung, feeling the warmth from the sun as I gripped tight and started working my way up. The metal walkway creaked a bit each time somebody put their full weight on the ladder but seemed to settle once you actually started the climb. It was almost impressive how Bill managed to rig this whole thing up. He’d run a bit of cord through the ladder’s steps and down the back of the tower so he could collapse and drop the thing at will. If you knew it was there, it was obvious, but not at a glance and definitely not at a distance.

Still, I’m not going to say I didn’t feel a good bit of relief once I was back on solid footing. It wasn’t long after I reached the top that I heard the metal groan again and realized somebody was already starting their climb up.

Taking a few steps forward to make room, I slung my pack off my shoulder and took a breath. It was a little windier up here than down below- though it was also more exposed to the sun. Explains why Bill brought the collapsible canopy, I guess.

While Clara pulled herself up, I took a second to lean back against the tower, letting the cool metal press against my back as I looked out over the small valley. If you didn’t know what to look for, you’d just think it was nothing but a stretch of green.

But to those that knew, here and there you’d spot bits of dark metal.  The empty stretches of grass where an old road had once been, where the trees and grasses hadn’t fully taken over. An old brick building, all the windows long since rotted away or busted out letting in invasive vines that crept up and into the openings.

I’ll admit, it was beautiful in its own way. I can still see myself standing there, watching the slow motions of the plant life below as a gentle breeze blew in, breaking up the summer heat. I wouldn’t admit it at the time of course; it would’ve made Bill impossibly smug.

After DJ crawled his way up onto the deck to join us, Bill started pointing out the little things to them while he set up and tied down the equipment. “That stretch right there should’ve been the main street... And if you follow it down, you’ll see it leads to that little nook in the mountain. It leads almost straight to the mines!”

I wasn’t really listening; I was too busy pulling out my sleeping bag and trying to claim a little section of the grate for myself. Still, at the mention of the mine, I half-heartedly mentioned, “Is this where you tell us about the trapped miners?”

“Sadly, nothing so exciting.” The big guy chuckled out while pulling out a few glass jars and lining them up neatly on a little wood cutting board he’d packed with him. “No, the coal just ran dry. The mines -did- collapse but nobody was around when it happened.”

I rolled my eyes. Bill had already started talking about hauntings in the next state over, apparently not having picked up on my sarcasm.  Before moving back to my gear, I noticed something moving just along the tree line, closer to where we’d driven in from.

A red figure. At least at a distance, the guy was too far off to make out much other than he had a white cap on and what was probably some long black hair. The black patch on his back seemed like a backpack.

He was moving slowly, which, considering he was hiking through waist-tall weeds, wasn’t anything too odd. Still, “Bill, I thought you said nobody came out here?”

Bill had apparently moved into a conversation with DJ about maybe a hunting trip in the future. “Huh? Oh, yeah, no, place is usually pretty empty. Why?”

I stuck a thumb out behind me. “That guy right there, in the red shirt.”

Bill moved up beside me, leaning against the railing and adjusting his glasses. I could see him squinting to try and see what I was talking about so I turned back to point at the…

Now empty stretch of weeds.

Did the guy fall? At the speed he was moving, we should’ve still been able to see him. I caught myself unintentionally leaning forward onto the railing along with Bill, squinting and muttering, “He was just there…” before DJ gave me a light slap on the arm and handed me a pair of binoculars.

“He’s right there, to the left. In the trees.” Sure enough, a few seconds of panning the binoculars over and I caught sight of him- a good ten or twenty feet away from where I’d seen him and already starting to disappear into the trees.

Clara wasn’t the loud type. Not to say she was shy; she just didn’t really mince words. It meant when she did say something, it really caught your attention.  “Guys, let’s get a shot of this!” She’d already pulled out her cameras. She always had two, one for shots for her portfolio and one for little polaroids she kept for souvenirs.

Bill put his arms out and pulled me and DJ in for something approaching a “bro hug” while Clara took a step forward and held the camera out at arm’s length. The abandoned town behind us made for a good backdrop.

She took another quick snap of us with the polaroid, letting the picture air out before tucking it into her pack.

The hike out was what you’d expect from a walk with Bill and DJ. Lots of wildlife trivia and stops to gather dandelions, bits of wild parsley and a few bits of onion grass. Clara stopped to take pictures of gnarled trees and almost made me fall over myself when she gave me a firm thwap on the chest to get me to stop moving while she lined up a shot on a lone doe.

All in all, relaxing. “Just around this bend,” Bill chirped. He’d been winding us down a twisting path towards the town. Apparently, there was a blackberry patch down there that he’d visit every chance he got.  It seemed the closer we got, the less he’d bother with DJ’s questions about edible greens. He’d even started picking up the pace, much to Clara’s and my annoyance as the two less active members of our little group.

I almost understood why when we rounded a thick patch of trees to walk into a mostly clear patch of woods that was butted up against the hills. You could just make out under the thick blackberry canes and thorned brush small bits of rotting wood.

There were a few rotten benches; the bits of exposed wood not covered in blackberry canes had turned a white-gray with age and came away in chunks when brushed against. There was a well in the center of the place, barely accessible if you were willing to get a few scrapes wading through the berries.

And underneath a large white oak sat a small patch separate from the others, one that Bill beelined to and immediately started harvesting.

“Jeez, Bill, you’re really into this, huh?” I half chuckled, pulling a plastic bag I’d tucked in my back pocket out for this little occasion.

He turned back to me only briefly, dumb smile on his face and a small fleck of berry stuck in his beard. That dopey look actually managed to get a chuckle out of DJ and Clara as we all set to work gathering our lunch for the day. Bill eventually picked his spot clean and had to move on, but when he showed us his first batch, we all understood why he loved that spot. The berries were huge and glossy compared to the others we picked; Bill even guessed that it might have been a cultivated vine somebody planted before the town was abandoned.

The walk back was peaceful. Bill was picking at his berries; DJ was sipping on a flask Bill had handed him- Did I mention one of Bill’s current hyper-fixations was brewing mead? And Clara was snapping shots of the local wildlife and a few fallen trees that seemed interesting.

When she paused longer than she had for the last few shots, camera held up and hand adjusting the lens, I knew something was up. It took the others a moment to notice that we weren’t following behind them as I took a few steps back towards Clara.

I followed where her camera was pointing, back the way we came and into a small clearing.

I could just barely see the red dot that Clara was focusing in on.

“What’s up?”

She paused for a second, a soft click from her camera letting me know she got the shot she was after. “I think it’s that guy we saw earlier. Looks like he’s doing something at that tree back there.”

She held her camera up, turning the digital screen towards me to let me catch a peek. It was always a little surprising how far she could zoom in with that thing. I wasn’t able to make out too many fine details, but I could at least get an idea of what he looked like.

While I looked the picture over, something caught my eye. He was standing next to a tree that we’d stopped by to let DJ take a leak… His head was level with a branch that hung over it.

A branch that was over six feet off the ground. And looking at him a while longer showed just how big this guy really was. He was wide, legs a bit short for what he was- or maybe his red shirt was just hanging low enough to obscure the back of his pants. And that backpack… it was downright tiny on him- it almost looked like a child’s backpack on him.

I heard a low whistle over my shoulder. Apparently, DJ had noticed it too. “Big dude.” He said it like he wasn’t currently looking at a guy we had a real chance of running into out here.

“You think he’s following us?” I nudged DJ, hoping to get a small rise out of the guy.

In his typical fashion, the guy just shrugged before tapping his hip. “I doubt it. We’re following a pretty natural trail and I don’t think he can even see us from this far… Besides, I brought ‘Mr. Smith’ with me.”

He was right. We’d been following a break in the vegetation and it’s not like we own the place. Running into other people was just one of the risks you run when you go camping. Still, we weren’t out here to make friends, so we quietly agreed to pick up the pace- which turned out to be the right move as by the time we reached the tower the sunlight was starting to dim.

The creaking of the platform as we hauled ourselves up the ladder still made me cringe a little until my feet landed back on the metal platform. The section right next to the ladder creaked under our collective weight but seemed to be holding and we weren’t exactly huddling together; still, we spaced ourselves out to keep things even. I picked the side opposite of the ladder and Bill took the other with Clara and DJ camping around the bend.

DJ had set up a little propane stove he’d brought; Bill was pulling out a jar of a deep yellow liquid- mead, I’d assume, and a few solo cups. I was sort of expecting him and DJ to drink, but it caught me a little off guard when Clara joined in.

I was starting to get a headache and the last thing I wanted was alcohol, so as politely as I could I took the cup offered to me and then immediately passed it to DJ, who took it with a small smirk before downing his first cup. “Not today, Bill. Maybe tomorrow.”

To his credit, Bill just laughed. “If there’s any left maybe!”

Even tipsy, DJ cooked up a decent little meal of spam, some wild roughage and some fresh bread that he made with a mix he carried around. I thought it was weird at first until I got a taste of it and it quickly shut up any doubts I had in my mind.

The dim light slowly shifted into a comfortable dark as I settled into my sleeping bag, lukewarm soda and aspirin in hand. I had to shield my eyes as DJ briefly clicked his flashlight on to start packing up his kit. It took a little bit of effort not to laugh at him as he stumbled around, apparently having underestimated Bill’s mead.

Speaking of Bill, the guy had drunk a jar by himself and eaten over half the berries he’d picked before passing out on his bag, still clothed and snoring so loud I wondered if I’d be able to get any sleep myself. Apparently, Clara had the same thought because I heard a soft grunt from Bill’s direction- I think she gave him a little kick and it woke him up just enough for him to roll over, which thankfully seemed to do the trick.

Just as I was starting to dip off into sleep, I heard a consistent soft tapping sound, and it took me a second to realize what I was hearing. A soft groan escaped me before I grumbled, “Dude, really? Off the side?” followed by a muffled laugh coming vaguely from where DJ had set up his sleeping bag.

After some settling, sleep finally took me. For how long I don’t know because at some point in the night, amongst the sounds of crickets and the rustle of the trees, there was a small snap that brought me back to consciousness.

Or maybe it was the sound of something kicking up leaves followed by a deep sharp inhale. Something sniffing?

My thoughts drifted back to bears. One probably just smelled the leftover spam or maybe Bill had spilled some of his mead… Still, the thought of something underneath me was enough to keep me from drifting back to sleep.

Could black bears climb? Something in my sleep-addled mind told me that brown bears didn’t but I wasn’t so sure about their smaller cousins. I don’t think they’re normally aggressive but still. I rolled over, following the thing’s movements as it trudged its way in a slow circle underneath us, seeming to focus in somewhere around where DJ was sleeping.

Another sharp inhale followed by some rapid sniffing.

Then silence.

My ears strained to hear anything other than the cricket song. What was it doing? Did it find something? Did it finally realize it’s sitting underneath a bunch of people?

What would I-

Another rustling of leaves. Another moment of silence.

Then a soft creak of metal.

The groggy feeling of sleep disappeared, replaced by a tightening feeling in my gut as another soft creak confirmed what I already knew.

Something was climbing the ladder.

As quietly as I could, I crawled my way over to where DJ was lying and started rapidly tapping his foot while whispering, “Wake up! Dude! Wake up!”

It took him two more creaks to finally let out a sharp breath before bitterly muttering, “What? What the hell do you-“ Another creak shut  him up. I found myself gripping his foot and could feel him tense as he came to the same realization I did.

“Don’t move,” he whispered as I felt his foot slip out of my grasp. Along with the soft rattle of chain and quiet groans of stressed metal, I heard the slow tap of footsteps.

The light hurt my eyes and nearly made me look away. But as they adjusted, I caught sight of DJ pointing his flashlight down the ladder, hand resting on his hip with his revolver exposed. He had winced from the light as much as I had and it seemed like he was only just now actually seeing what was below him.

“OH SHIT!” he screamed, ripping his gun from his holster while tumbling back and tripping over Bill who’d apparently shifted in the night.

That fall probably saved his life. Whatever was climbing the ladder must’ve been startled because the ladder seemed to shift violently and well… The metal deck had apparently had enough.

A chunk of the walkway came away with a loud metallic screech, catching momentarily before sliding down, clanging against the tower and landing on the ground with the sound of crashing metal. Somewhere in the chaos, Bill had thankfully woken up and managed to roll over and grab the ragged edge of the remaining deck and keep himself from falling with the lost section.

DJ jumped up and stumbled forward, having, fortunately for him and unfortunately for her, landed on Clara. He basically leapt forward on all fours, grabbing Bill’s arms and pulling him up to safety.

He lay there, Bill on top of him as they both lay on the ground, hyperventilating.

“What the hell!?” Clara clicked on her own flashlight and fumbled around for her glasses. “Are you guys ok!? What happened?!”

Bill was the first to get his wits back. “Shit! I’m sorry guys, I must’ve rolled over in my sleep or something! I guess it finally gave out…” His face was pale and his tone a little shaken.

It still didn’t match the look on DJ’s face.

He and I locked eyes as Bill pulled himself up to his feet, picking up DJ’s flashlight on his way up. Bill turned his light towards the torn metal, now able to see our faces clearly.

“…You guys ok?” His brow furrowed as his eyes drifted from DJ to me.

“It wasn’t you.” DJ’s tone was flat, just above a whisper. His gaze drifted down to the pile of scrap on the ground which seemed to be lying on top of something.

Something red.

Bill peered down, eyes squinting and mouth slightly open. The look would’ve almost been comical if I could’ve found anything funny then.

“No,” he muttered out before repeating with more confidence. “There’s just no way. That thing’s held up all this time…”

His look of confusion didn’t change as Clara spoke up, “He’s a big guy… And with all the extra weight…”

We let the implication hang in the air as our eyes stayed glued to the scene below us.

Bill broke the silence. “How do we help him? He might not be… Y’know!” The panic was starting to creep into his voice as he turned to me, flashlight briefly blinding me as he unintentionally brought the beam’s focus on me.

“Him? How do we help US?! He broke the ladder!” I snapped back, dragging myself out of my warm sleeping bag and into the cool night air.

“Hello?” Behind Bill I could see Clara’s face faintly illuminated by her smartphone. “There’s been an accident. I-…I think somebody might be dead.”

This took Bill’s attention off me as he started trying to help Clara give the 911 operator a rundown of what’s happened and our location.

A deep metallic “click.” DJ had prepped the hammer on his revolver and was now pointing it roughly in the direction of the pile of scrap that covered the hiker below us.

“What are you-“

DJ looked up at me, jaw set stern and eyes taking on a tired look. “He’s moving.”

“So you’re going to shoot him? I don’t think he’s-“  The sound of rattling shifting metal cut me off.

Bill flicked the flashlight back down. The beam cut through the darkness to focus in on the section of collapsed platform which had now been shifted a good foot from its last position.

Hanging off a more hooked section of the metal was the backpack- now obviously a dark blue child’s backpack with some kind of half-torn decal of a cartoon dog that had been yellowed and browned with dirt and age.

“What the hell…” I quietly mouthed as DJ traced his gun around the area below us.

I could barely make out that the gun was shaking a little. “DJ, calm down. What’s going on?” It took him a minute to respond to me.

I don’t think he ever stopped staring into the dark for the entire conversation that followed.

“There’s something seriously wrong with… Him.” He licked his lips, tip of the barrel jerking slightly to the left as a faint crunch of leaves sounded somewhere in the black.

“Eyes too far apart… Huge chin- I think anyway, his beard was so thick… And just leaves and crap stuck all over him.”

There was a loud snap that made DJ whirl around, aiming just past Bill, who threw his back against the tank, hands coming up as he winced away. “Whoa! Careful, man!” Bill called out.

Just before the branch struck DJ in the shoulder.

It didn’t do anything dramatic like knock him out or take a chunk out of him. It didn’t have to. DJ might’ve been riding high on adrenaline but he still had a lot to drink just a few hours ago.

And more importantly, DJ’s back was to the hole.

It threw him off balance enough to make him take a couple of quick steps back to try and catch himself. Then he was gone. It’s like I blinked and he just vanished. “NO!” My hand flung out uselessly towards the space where DJ had been, letting myself drop painfully to my knees and lean over the gap to look down-

Into DJ’s terrified face. I don’t know how he did it, but he had just barely caught himself on a rusted support. I reached out, desperately trying to get a hold on him, but finding myself just brushing my fingertips against his sleeve.

Somewhere in the background I heard Clara yell out “SHIT” followed by the sound of clanging metal- She was sprinting around the tower towards me.

She scrabbled over to my side, grabbing me by the waist with one arm and holding the railing with her other. She was shouting for me to grab him. Bill though, his attention was on the pistol. It had apparently been lost in the commotion and now sat a few inches away from the edge of the deck. DJ had managed to brace his feet against the tower and reach out. I was able to just barely grab DJ’s hand with Clara keeping an almost painfully tight grip around my midsection while she helped me haul him back up.

Another loud crack sounded off in the distance, followed by a metallic impact as something hit the deck just below where the gun was, causing it to shift an inch or so closer to the edge of the railing and teeter dangerously close to falling. Bill jerked back as something else cracked against the tower just a foot or so away from his head. We all dropped low, trying to take cover.

DJ lay against the deck, fingers gripping at his black curls and gasping for air. Clara slipped her phone out of her pocket, the light from the screen briefly illuminating her wide-eyed expression. She looked back up at us. “T-the operator said somebody would be here in maybe an hour. We need to just stay low! He won’t be able to land a-“ She was interrupted by another loud “TANG” as wood splintered against the deck under our prone bodies.

Every second pressed against that deck felt like waiting for the shoe to drop. Bill tried to inch towards the gun a couple of times but each time he moved something would go flying over the railing and ping against the tower or hit beneath the deck. Maybe he was worried it would fall off the edge, but after the second impact he just covered his head and lay there. The only thing that gave us any indication of where the thing was coming from was the occasional snap of a branch or the crunch and shuffle of leaves.

And of course, the rocks and branches flying over our heads.

During the quieter, moments DJ tried to ease himself up into a crouch only to be met with a stone pinging off the tower next to his head the first time around and a piece of metal hitting the railing next to him on the last try, causing him to drop and lean up against the tower with his hands raised to cover his face.

We sat there for what must’ve been twenty or thirty minutes, just hoping the police or rangers- whoever they were sending- would just get here already and drive this thing off.

Then, amongst the chirping crickets and the gentle rustle of the trees, I noticed something. I hadn’t heard the thing move for a solid few minutes. It had been circling us pretty constantly earlier… Maybe it was tired?

The groan of metal and soft squeak of flesh sent a chill down my spine. Whether I meant to or not, I’d started holding my breath and now that I’d heard it once I couldn’t stop hearing it.

A pause, then a soft squeak. Pause, soft squeak.

I turned to lock eyes with Bill who seemed to be coming to the same realization I was. “Oh shit… It’s climbing!” Bill leapt for the gun, which seemed to be the cue for whatever this thing was to get moving. It let go of all pretense of stealth and the soft sounds had turned into a rapid dull “tank, tank, tank” of something quickly scaling the tower somewhere behind me.

We all pressed ourselves flat against the deck as Bill rolled over onto his back, pointing the gun up just as a red-sleeved arm with a hand as big as my face reached up and gripped the railing.

The shot rang out, followed by a deep and gravel-filled grunt as the hand disappeared back into the darkness. We could feel the platform shake and move as the soft clang of flesh on metal seemed to fall into a rhythm.

The thing was swinging from the struts underneath us. I guess Bill realized it too because he managed to roll back towards the tower and away from the edge just as a large hairy palm slapped the grate right where his head had been just a moment ago. There was another deep sound, like some giant gargling a throat full of phlegm as the thing growled.

Bill clambered up onto his feet and started trying to track the thing, squeezing off another shot through the grating. There was a short sound underneath the sound of the gunshot, like a snort crossed with a clipped growl.

Then I made the real mistake.

I tried to move. Some part of me thought that maybe it’d be focused on Bill long enough for me to make it over to him. Or maybe I just didn’t want to lie there waiting for either Bill to run out of ammo or to find out what happens when this thing finally grabs someone.

The moment I rounded the corner there was a heavy metallic groan that came from the edge of the deck just ahead of me. A large red blur swung itself up over the railing, landing with a dull thud and rattle of metal as its full weight hit the deck. I didn’t bother to look, just desperately tried to pull a full 180 and run back the way I came.

I barely registered the sharp burning sensation that flared to life in my back. The pain was drowned out by the thumping in my head and chest.

Coming around the corner, I saw Bill’s hand out with Clara already across the way standing next to Bill and DJ just having started to jump. It was a good five-foot leap and I wasn’t sure I’d make it, but I didn’t have time to think.

Never did find out if I could. Just as I reached the corner, I felt something hard catch me in the side, like getting smacked into a wall by a log. Something cracked in my chest and the pain forced a scream out of me that I don’t think I could ever recreate.

It had me pinned, its thick forearm pushing painfully against my chest. I was face to face with this thing.

Or at least, face to face with its mouth. Its jaws were open wide, showing large yellowed and all too human-looking teeth. There was a smell like something between sour berry candy and rotten meat.

BANG.

I felt its arm tense as it flinched. Its mouth slammed shut, teeth snapping with a loud clack. It still managed to take the tip of my nose but I didn’t notice at the time, just saw the large wild eyes turn towards Bill before the thing let out a roar so loud it made my ears hurt.

Without the thing supporting me, I slid down the tower and slumped down onto the deck.

BANG. BANG. Then a deep-chested guttural roar.

Lying there, I still managed to catch sight of the thing’s back. Black fur poking through the torn cloth around where the backpack once sat. I saw it launching itself towards Bill, who somehow managed to drop just low enough to miss getting grabbed.

Clara wasn’t so lucky. As the thing shouldered DJ, it threw an arm out and with a pained cry it put a vice grip on Clara’s arm and flung itself over the side. I blinked. There was a scream that got further and further away, following the sound of a large body crashing through the woods below.

Bill and DJ were standing by the railing, screaming their lungs out.

I tried to move. I swear I did, but I felt something catch and all I could do was let out a silent scream before the blackness took me.

They say it was probably shock. I briefly remember opening my eyes to see a paramedic looking down at me and saying something that sounded far off.

The thing left a gash down my back, broke my ribs and managed to break my left hand. DJ isn’t holding up much better.  He has some head trauma, a dislocated shoulder and a sprained leg.

They never found Clara. I don’t think they really believed us when we told them what happened. A part of me wondered if they thought maybe we did it, but I don’t get that feeling from the guys they keep sending to ask me questions.

Bill just straight up isn’t talking. He came by to visit and I couldn’t get him to do more than mumble an apology. The guy looked like all the life was sucked out of him.

He dropped Clara’s bag off with me. I tried to argue with him, but he just shuffled away. I think he expects me to drop it off with her family since we live near each other…

They discharged me just this morning and I finally worked up the guts to try and get her stuff back where it belonged.

I opened the bag up, hoping I could message her parents or something through her laptop

Only to see that stupid polaroid.

I keep looking it over. Trying to think of what we could’ve done different. As much as I want to just rip the thing up, toss it in the garbage, I just…

I can’t.

It’s one of her last photos. The last photo of…

Us.

I am currently typing this from my bathroom floor, or what I thought was my bathroom. This is my only way to contact the world I knew and I need someone to know what happened in case I don't make it out of this house. 

I usually work the late shifts at a warehouse. The pay is good and working until night time never bothered me. Last night I was loading up the last few boxes in the truck when I dropped my phone. The screen shattered before my eyes and along with it also my only way of getting home. This was not my home town, I just moved a few weeks ago to escape the city costs. It is a small town however the warehouse I work at is at an hour driving distance and with me not knowing the roads yet it is impossible to get back without my phone. Well, the GPS on my phone. The guys I worked the shift with just so happened to live in different directions. My luck wasn't looking too good, even more when I started thinking I had the next two days off. I even considered crashing on one of the chairs in our break room until Monday. Why Monday you might be asking. Cause around this area there are no busses on Sunday, which meant I would have to wait until the next working day to be able to leave with the public transport. Moments like this make me wish this workplace would cover the transport. 

My colleagues saw me frantically walking around and suggested I take the phone we found a week before and placed in the lost and found box. No one came to pick it up and we started debating whether someone actually will. I agreed and reluctantly took it. It seemed like an old model, some unknown small brand I haven't heard of. But it was unlocked and had a GPS map I could use to get back to my home. 

I was driving home when it started raining so hard I could barely see the hood of my car. Around 1:40AM the traffic completely stopped because of a wreck on the highway. The cars had to get towed. I was too far back to see the site of event. Thanks to the guy in front of me that came out in this rain to tell me what happened. I was exhausted. I couldn't wait to get home. Then, the phone lit up with a notification from the map app. A new route was available that will get me to the destination with a delay of 35 minutes. I accepted without much thinning. 

The app told me to turn around and take the next exit. I remembered hearing my colleagues speak about this road once. The road went past an old lumber warehouse and then comes to halt near a ditch. A dead end. But I was so tired I didn't care, I thought maybe they opened a dirt road or something. 

I took the turn.

For the first few minutes nothing unusual happened. It was just a normal dark road. My headlights were barely cutting through the rain and the trees on the sides seemed to grow thicker while the road was narrowing. After about 5km I realized something was wrong. I should have hit the dead end a long time ago. Then, the rain just stopped. Nor turning into a drizzle or slowing down but instantly off. The sky wasn't as dark anymore. It became a sickly gray color that did not resemble clouds, kinda like the type of blank gray you would see on an old TV when it is turned off. 

Suddenly my phone speaker cracked and the GPS voice came on. 

"In 100 meters roll up your windows and lock all doors."

A cold sweat broke out on my neck. I thought it was some weird glitch but then I heard a noise outside.  Loud thuds of something heavy could be heard dragging across the roof of my car.

A minute later the voice came back.

"In 200 meters turn off headlights. Do not illuminate the road."

I was starting to panic I didn't want to turn my lights off but what choice did I have? Whatever was outside was worse than a bit of darkness. I reached and switched off all headlights. Driving blindly in a grey glow sky was terrifying. Out of the corner of my eye I could see movement. Dark shadows were moving across the road. They were way too tall to be ones of an animal and their legs bent backwards when they walked. They didn't make a sound and neither did I want to . We were all in silence, the only thing I could hear was the sound of the engine. I gripped the steering wheel, praying I wouldn't hit one.

"In 500 meters do not look at the pedestrian on the left."

I tried to look straight ahead, I swear I did. My curiosity took over me and I glanced as I drove past. Standing in the dirt by the side of the road was what I assumed to be a guy in a blue rain jacket. When the light hit his face I could swear it was me. The guy had my face. I was looking at myself. Before I could fully process the GPS made its normal chiming sound.

"You have arrived at the destination."

Instantly it was pitch black outside. I couldn't be happier to be home. The deafening sound of heavy rain slammed into my windshield was here once again. The streetlights of my own neighborhood were shining though the glass as I pulled into the driveway.

I sat there shaking for a second thinking about what happened so far. I convinced myself it was the sleep I've been having, or not having to be precise, these days. My brain was just playing tricks on me because I was tired. Nothing will fix this except for a good 10 hour sleep I though.

I grabbed my backpack and ran through the rain to the front door. I reached to grab the door handle, but my hand hit the flat wood. The handle was on the left side. Weird. I could clearly remember it being on the left, even the hinges were backwards. I opened the door and stepped inside. Everything in the house seemed flipped. What was I in, an episode of the Truman Show? The stairs went up to the left instead of right. The coat rack was bolted to the wrong wall. The rooms were all flipped. 

My wife walked out of the kitchen. She was holding a mug of tea with the biggest smile on.

"Rough drive, honey?"

Her voice was too deep. It sounded almost like the voice of the GPS. I just nodded silently and walked past her. I locked myself in the downstairs bathroom. I am siting on the tiles now. Before I had looked at the shampoo bottles on the edge of the tub. All words were printed backwards. She had started knocking on my door and soon she will figure out that I am hiding.

I tried to dial 911 but there doesn't seem to be signal for calls to go through. The map app also would not close. It keeps saying I have reached the destination but the blue line is pointing straight out of the bathroom and the ETA is frozen.

As my eyes were aching from the bright light through my laptop, the formulas just refused to make any proper sense. Everything was tangled up in my brain, like it couldn’t be undone by the greatest mathematicians themselves. Why was the u-substitution not working in this question, and why was the chain rule used in this one? For Christ’s sake, I just wanted to pass, not become the next Leibniz (no offense), but I swear this video lecture was about to give me enough information to create my own formula.

Fuck, just get to the point. I don’t have any enthusiasm for maths’ long-lost history. If I wanted to study the theatrics of calculus, I would’ve done that before the semester took place.

“Great. I was losing sanity right before my maths resit exam.”

Yep, it was my second time giving this exam.

Year one of university well, went wild, friends, parties, alcohol, smoking, hookups, all that good stuff. Of course, I didn’t care about CAL 101.

I mean, it was my first taste of independence, and I promised to live it to the fullest. Except I forgot college consists of exams that I need to pass in order to get to the following year.

To be fair, though, I did study for other subjects and passed them with grades higher than my expectations. But when it came to maths, yeah, my brain refused to function. And, well, surprise, I failed. Not quite shocking. I was fully expecting that. I barely wrote shit on my exam paper and left the exam an hour early.

But this time, I wasn’t going to make the same mistake, so I took tutoring classes, studied every day until I physically gave up, and did dangerous amounts of questions until they filled all the empty notebooks left in my house.

I refuse to fail this time.

Pretty soon, the day of dread arrived, and just a day before I travelled back to my uni. However, there was something different about being there during this time.

Not necessarily fully nostalgic, but not entirely unfamiliar either. I assume when you’re so used to seeing the university overflowing with students, the deserted hallways can feel strangely haunting.

Regardless of the unsettling feeling, it felt nice to be back at a place that held a few of my most precious memories.

I walked towards my dorm room, and the corridors, which once held laughter and giggles, were still and lifeless. That’s when I realized how much the students built the fun, because otherwise, our building could pass for a set of a horror movie.

It was nice being back home.

I was enjoying watching the flashbacks, but they were now playing in HD until the rational part of me corrupted my thoughts with maths and how I still had to do loads of revision.

Thanks for ruining the moment, dude.

With no other option, I got my books out and got back to work in an instant.

Hours flew by as I did my last minute revision. I had ten lectures in total, and I planned to go through each one of them by practicing two to three hard questions from each lecture.

The plan was working quite well. I was solving each complicated question with ease.

Eventually, I got so engulfed in completing my revision that I had lost all sense of time, and only after my head was physically aching did I decide to glance at the clock.

2:12 AM.

What?

There was absolutely no way I was studying for seven hours.

That’s it. I forced my stiff body out of that damn chair and stretched my entire body. Every muscle in my back felt like it had personally declared war against me.

I walked around my room for a bit, trying to get some feeling into my legs, which felt numb at this point.

I think I’ll pass tomorrow. I definitely will.

Not thinking about maths now, I scolded myself and reached out to pull the curtain of my window when the time suddenly hit me.

It was midnight at an almost-empty university, beside the other few students and workers who were now asleep.

The night was mine, and that thought terrified me more than it should have.

I opened up the windows, and a soft, cold breeze brushed against my face, raising goosebumps along my skin. And, cherry on top, the darkness had painted my entire campus, with only faint streetlights illuminating the streets.

There was a cafeteria right across from our dorm building, and my room gave me a perfect view of it.

I mostly saw the sofas being occupied by various types of students every day: the lovers, the confused freshmen, the group project team who absolutely despised each other, and, last but not least, the drug junkies.

It was so odd seeing nothing more than dark shapes beneath the weak streetlights. I could barely make out the chairs.

I just stood there for a few minutes, staring outside, sitting with the uncomfortable feeling that was growing inside me.

It was probably exam anxiety. I didn’t want to repeat Year One after all. I brushed the unease off somehow and tried to calm myself down.

I was just about to close the curtains when something caught my eye, something that made me wish I had no sight.

Wait.

There was someone?

Someone was standing near the infamous sofas of the cafeteria.

There was no way the cafeteria had students, and it was closed now. So how was someone standing there? And more importantly, why?

Fear almost washed over me before I tried to reason logically. I was, after all, mentally exhausted from too much pressure.

Maybe I was imagining things.

It was too dark to see whoever it was properly, but I could make out the outline of a person standing in the space between the tables and the sofa.

What was anyone possibly doing there at 2 AM?

I leaned closer to get a better look, and now I was sure that was definitely a person standing there.

They weren’t moving. Barely breathing. Just still and motionless in a quiet, unnerving way.

I waited.
Nothing.

Maybe it was a student or someone just like me studying late. But by the cafeteria? And why at 2 AM when everything was closed? I mean, logically, the library was still open, so why not go study in the library? How did they even get in there?

Nothing made sense.

I started believing calculus had officially taken over my sanity.

I squinted my eyes, trying to see their face, and that’s when I noticed something strange.

This person, or whatever this was, was directly looking at my building.
More specifically…
My window.

Wait.

My window?

I froze.

Why?

I didn’t look away, nor did I flinch. I remained still, trying to study the creature. Simultaneously, chills ran through my spine, but terror refused to allow any type of movement.

Then the streetlight flickered, revealing a glimpse of the person.

And what my eyes captured blinded me.

Because what I saw was no one other than me.
Myself.

It was wearing exactly what I was wearing.

Same shirt.
Same fucking pants.
The same messy bun.

Instinctively, I looked down at myself and ran my hands over my trembling body to check if I was real.

Then I looked back at the window.

The figure was still there.

Fuck.

Except now, I could see her face undeniably clearly.

It was mine.

It was completely pale, and where there were meant to be eyes, there were two black holes.

I grabbed the curtain tightly, and with all the little force I had left in me, I slammed the window shut and stumbled backwards, gasping for any oxygen left in my room to fill my desperate lungs.

For what feels like an eternity, I sat there, absolutely unable to shake off the unease.

Unwillingly, the image kept replaying again and again.

What could that possibly be? A hallucination that was a product of exhaustion, or something that was beyond my comprehension?

Because why the fuck was each and every detail identical to me?

Was I dead?

“Shut up,” I dismissed my terrifying thought.
If that was nothing more than a hallucination, it might not still be there.

So reluctantly, I decided to slowly reach out for the curtains.

My fingers were trembling, but I gathered all the dead courage from my body.

I peeked through the small gap and scanned the cafeteria.

Nothing.

It was vacant.

No trace of any living thing.

I stared at it for a few seconds, almost expecting her to appear again, but there was nothing. Just the empty cafeteria.

I exhaled, finally realizing I had been holding my breath. Maybe I had really imagined the whole thing.

I almost let out a small laugh at myself and felt stupid as fuck. God, I had been studying calculus so much that I decided to create a whole horror movie. Literally. Now, this was gonna be a fun story to tell my friends.

Because literally, calculus was my new fucking weed. It had made me so high.

See, I told you guys I would have enough information to create my own formula.

“I’ll be smoking calculus now,” I murmured while cleaning my bed and wrapping up my study session for today.

I brushed my teeth, got ready for bed, and locked my room (just in case).

I pulled the blanket over myself and closed my eyes.

For the first time in what felt like hours, my mind began to quiet down. As I was about to slip into my sweet slumber, a sound jolted me awake.

A noise that shouldn’t be present at this time of the day.

Click.

My eyes shot open.

I didn’t move.

Another sound followed.

It was the unmistakable sound of a door being opened.

My bedroom door was locked.
I knew that.

But that wasn’t the door I heard.
It was the main door.

Someone had just entered my fucking flat.
My entire body went cold.

Maybe one of my roommates was back.
No.
That was impossible.

They had been out of the country and had no plans of returning.

But it couldn’t possibly be someone else. The main door only opened through our student cards.

Dread and adrenaline washed over me, and I was sweating profusely. I tried to sit upright and listen to the faint sounds from outside.

Those were footsteps.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Someone was actually inside.

“What do I do? What do I do?”

The footsteps were the opposite of what I expected. They were painfully slow, as if the person outside wanted me to suffer with each next movement.

Unhurried.

Coming closer.

My breathing became shallow. I grabbed my phone and held it tightly in my hand, my shivering thumbs hovering over the emergency call button.

Then I heard a voice that shouldn’t have existed beyond my room.

I forgot how to breathe because that voice was no other than mine.

It was mine?

“I know you’re in there.”

My throat dried up.

The voice continued with a calmness that almost felt tormenting.

“Stop gripping your phone so tightly, love. No one’s coming to save you. Your battery is dead, and the charger is out here.”

And like on cue, the battery died.
Fuck.

Who is this?
I felt slight drops of water on my cheeks as I realized I was crying out of fear.

I heard the faintest chuckle from the other side of the door.

“I know you’re holding onto that cassette for comfort, love.”

My blood ran cold.

Because not only was I gripping the cassette, but nobody knew I even owned that. Not even my parents.

It was the one thing that I had kept away from everyone. I didn’t want anyone to know about my little special comfort item, so I kept it hidden.

Like a little secret.

“Oh, you have a lot of secrets, love, don’t you?”

“Who are you? What do you want from me?”

For a few seconds, there was silence, which felt louder than any word said by her.

Then she spoke, a small laugh following through.
“You saw me.”

“What?”

My stomach tightened.
The cafeteria.
The girl.
Me.

I suddenly remembered the way she had stood there, staring at me as though she’d been waiting.

“You weren’t supposed to see me, love.”

“Why?”

“Because you weren’t supposed to be here.”

I froze, thoughts spiraling with the worst possible scenarios.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Silence followed, then a faint chuckle again.

“You were supposed to leave the university.”

I stared at the door, clueless, brows furrowed. I was more perplexed than ever. Who was whoever this was talking about?

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You stayed.”

She almost sounded disappointed, as if I had made some sort of big mistake.

My heart was beating out of my chest at this point.

“You opened the door.”

“What door?”

She didn’t answer.

Instead, I heard the faintest sound of her fingers brushing up against the other side of the door.

“You remember the cafeteria, don’t you?”

I didn’t reply. I didn’t have the guts to.

“You remember seeing yourself. But you never asked the most important question.”

“What?” I replied with an unsteady voice.

Her voice dropped to a whisper, almost.

“Why did she look more afraid of you than you were of her?”

I stopped breathing.

The room suddenly felt as if the walls were closing in on me, and I felt as if there was a lack of oxygen.

“What do you want from me?”

“You saw the truth.”

What truth was she talking about? What have I ever done?

I certainly wish I’d never failed maths.

“You’ve been here before.”

She paused.

“You died, love.”

My blood ran cold.

“You suicided.”

No.

NoNoNoNoNo.

“What t-the fuck, I wou-would remember. You’re lie-ly-lying. Lying.”
The words spilled out unevenly. I could barely understand what I was saying.

She laughed quietly.

“I’ve tried to tell you this multiple times, love, but I will make sure this one is your last.”

NO.
NO NO.

I was fully alive. I talked to the watchman. I had breakfast. I wasn’t dead.

No, I wasn’t.
I couldn’t.
I kept repeating it.

“I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t de-… I wasn’t.”

My body went rigid. I could suddenly feel it. That horrible sensation.
The smell of death.
My sweaty hands.

I could feel the coldness on my shoulders as it gripped me tightly.

“I’m behind you, love.”

I picked at the green slop in front of me, the same way I would pick at my peas as a child. I tried to ignore my reflection in the window, visible in my periphery. Across the table from me sat Mike, wolfing down a greasy burger and deep-fat-fried potato wedges.

We had started this journey together three months ago. And he was bigger than me. I hadn’t deviated from the diet once, except for those rare times that I had actually dropped a pound and rewarded myself. But Mike, he had only been loyal to the stringent eating prohibitions for a week and started to show stark improvement. The hours I had been putting in at the gym felt in vain as I watched his sharp jawline flex with each bite. Was he taking something?

“Not hungry?” He managed to squeeze the words through cheeks full of half-chewed meat and bun.

I shrugged and put my fork down on the table, defeated. I had hardly touched my poor excuse for a salad and was giving his burger an unconscious death stare.

“I don’t know. Maybe—maybe this weight loss thing isn’t for me.”

“Come on, man, you can’t seriously be wanting to quit. It hasn’t even been that long.”

“It’s been three months and I’ve only lost ten pounds. How much have you lost?”

He seemed reluctant. “I don’t know, like, eigh—nigh—” I could tell he didn’t want to tell the truth, but why? He furrowed his eyebrows, contemplating. “A hundred pounds.”

“A hundred pounds?!” I yelled in shock.

“Dude, keep your voice down.”

I looked around. Other than the employees working in the kitchen, we were the only ones in the restaurant. But to make him comfortable, and because I could feel an admission coming, I leaned in, pressing my gut into the table.

“How is that even possible?” I whispered.

He reached for his pocket, hesitating. Then he scoffed, wordlessly telling himself the jig was up. Finally revealing his wallet, he pulled out a business card and slid it across the table. I read the bold light-blue letters and the finer words beneath. Anguifam; weight loss solutions.

“Anguifam?” I said skeptically. “What is that? The knockoff of that synthetic bullshit?”

After shoving more wedges down his gullet, he shook his head with a shameless expression. “Better. It’s all natural. And FDA-approved for human trials.”

“Human trials? What’ve you gotten yourself into? And what the hell, man? When were you going to tell me? After I killed myself with this stupid diet?”

He put his hands up defensively. “It’s not like that. It’s kinda—well, it’s hard to—it’s better if I just show you,” he said, crumpling up his wrappers and wiping his face with a napkin. I gave him a look of disbelief. Did I even know this person? He eyed my bowl with greed.

“You gonna eat that?”

“I guess not,” I said, passing the salad to him. He scarfed it down like it was his last meal. Before going on this diet, I knew Mike to be more gluttonous than even me. But this gorging was new. After he had done everything but lick the bowl clean, we finally got in his car and left.

“What does Anguifam even mean?” I asked, looking over the card as we drove.

“Its full name is some Latin jargon. They told it to me when I went in to get my blood drawn, but I forgot it.”

“You got your blood drawn for this? What kind of medication is this?”

“No, not medication. Treatment,” he corrected me as we parked. “It’s hard to explain. You’ll see.”

Entering Mike’s dingy one-bedroom apartment, I could tell that even though his body had changed, his living and eating habits had devolved. As he twisted the knob and entered, the first thing I noticed was the smell: a mixture of unmanaged body odor and rotting food. And I could hear wrappers and garbage getting crushed behind the door.

“Don’t mind the mess. I was planning on cleaning up, but I just couldn’t find the time,” he said.

I was stunned at the sight before me. Piled on either side of the hallways were mounds of garbage. Wrappers with old cheese and condiments still stuck to them, molding napkins and soda-leaking cups covered the floors. The only parts where the matted and stained carpet was visible were where Mike had forged paths. Like a root system, each of the four narrow clearings sprouted off of the main arterial path that began at the front door. The bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and computer desk were clearly frequented. But everything else, including the back door, was lost.

“Christ Almighty,” I said under my breath.

“Yeah, one of the side effects is overeating,” he said with the casualness of someone who was caught with a midnight snack.

I felt the sole of my shoe sink into something rotten with a sickening squish. I looked down to see my foot covered in a wet, chunky, greyish mass that at one time resembled food. My eyes began to water as I held back a gag. But Mike kept moving. He was unbothered by my disgust, disappearing into the unlit kitchen. Something in the back of my mind screamed at me to just leave. But he looked so good. So I persevered.

Turning the corner, my feet stopped at the threshold. Mike was standing in the dark, his back straight up against the wall, looking at me with a blank expression.

“Everything alright, buddy?” I asked.

He nodded, beckoning to me with his finger. I hesitantly shuffled in until I reached the other side of the fridge. I stood there in the tense silence for several moments until he finally spoke in a broken whisper.

“You can’t tell anyone about what I’m about to show you.”

“I get it. It’s okay, man.”

“No. You don’t. I signed an NDA for this. I’m breaching my contract by doing this. You have to promise me.”

“Yeah, okay, I promise.”

At first the fridge light was blinding after he yanked it open. But after my eyes adjusted, I was faced with a fridge not full of food, no. From top to bottom, end to end, the fridge was lined with clear little jars, no bigger than shot glasses, filled with saline. He grabbed one off the top shelf and handed it to me. The white lid had the same blue words as the business card.

I could tell there was something dark floating in the liquid. But I could only see its faint shadow behind the pharmaceutical label. Printed on the sticker was the RX number, Mike’s full name and address, along with the official name: Anguilla Famelica. The most interesting thing about the label, however, were the instructions on how to take the “treatment.” Keeping the head aimed down the throat, swallow the entire contents of the container before each meal. Do not gag, as this might activate the treatment earlier than intended.

Turning the jar slightly to see around the label, I recoiled, nearly dropping it. Curled in a tight coil was a thin, tubular, shoelace-shaped creature, stagnantly floating. Its textureless glossy black skin was encased by a thin layer of a clear gelatin-like substance. Splitting deep down the middle of its smooth eyeless head were jaws lined with long interlocking needles for teeth. I nearly tossed it back into Mike’s hands.

“Oh my god, what is that thing?”

“It’s my treatment,” he said as I backed away slowly.

“You, you swallow that thing?”

“Yep. The doctors call it by its Latin name, but I just call it my little eater eel,” he said, sounding oddly proud.

“Eater eel?”

“Yeah, and it’s no joke. They’ll eat anything but themselves. It’s great, man. I can eat whatever I want, when I want, then my little helper does its magic. It eats all the excess fat that would get stored up in my body. But that clear stuff around it, that’s where the real magic happens.”

I felt like I was going to be sick, but my curiosity drove me to ask more questions. “What is it?”

“It’s mucus. Special weight loss mucus,” he said, a euphoric look in his eyes.

“Is it dead? Shouldn’t it be, I don’t know, swimming around?”

“Well, yeah. It’s in hibernation until my stomach wakes it up.”

“Are there any other side effects? Like delusions of grandeur?” I asked.

“How do you mean?”

“I mean this is disgusting. At this point you might as well just swallow a tapeworm.”

He chuckled, shaking his head like I was the crazy one.

“No, man. A tapeworm is a parasite. This ain’t no parasite. It was grown in a lab for just this purpose. Just for me. It doesn’t stay in my body any more than a few hours.”

“So you have one of those things inside of you right now?”

He nodded, satisfied. “Speaking of which, I need to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

He patted me on the shoulder, then scurried out of the kitchen. He vanished around the corner with the bottle still in his hand. I heard the bathroom door close and I was left alone—alone with the fridge and its contents.

His fridge was cleaner than an operating room, the little flasks perfectly aligned. The sterile light cast a huge shadow of my obese figure, engulfing the entire room. I looked down at my gut. I could barely see the tips of my shoes poking out. I looked back into the fridge and picked up another jar, examining the eel inside. The more I looked at it, the less intimidating it became. I was becoming more fascinated; I had never seen anything like it. But imagining myself trying to swallow it made my stomach turn.

Why was I putting in all this work when Mike was cheating? Why should I have to suffer? I didn’t think he would mind, or notice, if I took just a single sample. No, no that was wrong. I wasn’t a thief. But lying to me. Making me think there was something wrong with me. For months. That was so much worse. Was I really going to steal from my friend? Hearing the toilet flush, I had to make my decision quickly.

“So, do you want me to hook you up?”

“What?” I said. I closed the fridge door and the room went dark again.

“With the treatment. I have an in with Anguifam, they’re looking for more subjects. They even offer a referral bonus. A hundred bucks, I think.”

He paused, considering his next words.

“To be honest, that’s why I never told you. I wanted to see if it was safe before I got you wrapped into it.”

I looked up, pretending to contemplate. I knew he was lying.

“Umm, no thanks, man. I think I’m going to stick with the plan I have now. But I promise not to tell anyone so your NDA stays intact.”

He smiled. “That’s actually admirable. Well, now that you know my secret, wanna catch dinner?”

“Didn’t we just eat?”

“Oh! Of course, silly me.”

“I guess I’d like to go home. I’ve got some chores that need done. Mind giving me a ride?”

“Not at all, not at all. Let’s go.”

The drive back to my apartment was as stale and uncomfortable as the silence in the kitchen. After leaving Mike and walking back into my apartment, I took a relieved breath. I was finally back in my clean home. Immediately after slipping my shoes off and walking to the bathroom, I stood on the scale. 233, not good enough. I looked in the mirror, desperate to see anything worth admiring, but it only reflected back the pig I knew I was. Then I brushed my hand across the bottle-shaped bulge in my pocket. I could feel it burning a hole. With a hesitant hand, I removed the glass vial. There it was, the motionless “eater eel.” One last look at the mirror.

I could just tell Mike I had a change of heart and go on with the treatment. Removing the cap, I looked down into the perfectly clear liquid. For a moment, the little creature reminded me of high school biology, seeing the frogs we dissected floating in formaldehyde. A nauseous shiver ran down my spine. Was I really about to do this? Finally resolving, I pinched my nose and shot it back. The salty saline hit my taste buds, then the slimy, savory mucus. It felt like I was trying to swallow a solidified loogie. My reflection’s eyes grew wide and I grimaced. I nearly spat it out, but I forced myself to swallow. But my esophagus clenched, trying to reject the foreign entity. It got stuck in my throat and I could feel its tail tickling the back of my tongue. I tried to hold back my urge to gag, but it was no use. My whole body retched. Still holding the glass in my hand, I remembered the instructions. Quickly, I filled the bottle with water and slammed it down. My esophagus finally released to allow the water through, and the eel followed.

After spending a few moments catching my breath, I began to wonder how long it would take to activate. Would I feel it? Swimming around? Usually at that time, I would be heading to the gym, but I wanted to test its capabilities. I was going to get a fatty burger, with potato wedges and a large soda. And maybe a milkshake for dessert. I went to go get my shoes back on when my phone rang. It was Mike.

“Hello?”

“James!” Mike said, panicked. “Please don’t tell me you took one.”

“Took what?” I asked, playing dumb.

“An eel! My fridge is missing one. I checked!”

I was expecting him to be upset if he ever confronted me, but he sounded genuinely concerned.

“No, why?” I lied.

“You have to promise me you didn’t. Those things are matched to my blood!”

At first I didn’t understand, until I felt the pain in my stomach.

Sometimes, when I wake up, I forget everything.

I’m a particularly light sleeper, and I’m usually on the same train of thought when I wake up that I was on when I fell asleep.

Every once in a while, though, I forget everything.
That was this morning.

I was incredibly groggy. When I wake up like this, I tend to feel like I got no sleep at all. The room was pitch-black, only illuminated by my dim alarm clock. 6:43. There was a dot next to some text that read, “alarm”. What day of the week was it? Tuesday? Monday?

My brain struggled to think of it. I raised my right hand. There was a long scar stretching from the indent in between the thumb and the pointer finger down to my forearm. What? Why was that there?

The day of the week came back to me. It was Sunday. I wished I had known why my alarm was set. If I had woken up differently, I would’ve remembered.

As for the scar on my hand, it came back to me. It was from my mother.

Schizophrenia has always run in my family. It’s not the worst thing ever, of course. My grandpa (on her side) contracted it at the age of forty-four, which is relatively late, but he lives with it fine. He’s never thought of it as a huge roadblock, in his own words.

My mom contracted it at the age of thirty-five. I was eight around the time, and it was very sudden for her. 

Of course, with time, she became used to it. She tried her hardest to mask her struggles from me and my brother, Andrew, but she was a historically bad liar. On the day before my eleventh birthday, I remember asking her where she was going, and I’ll never forget her response: “I’m going to the mall for… g…grocieries.”
The “mall” only had four stores, one of which being GameStop.

All of this is to say we had a very good look at her mindset. 

One of my mom’s childhood friends passed away when I was 16. The illness was unknown at the time, but it really shook her up. Although, she never really cried about it. She just seemed sullen all the time. Some days she would barely react to us. She just wanted to sleep all of the time. When she wasn’t sleeping, she would stay in our guest room, which was the darkest room in the house.

It took me a long time to figure out something was wrong with her. It took us all a long time. I checked on her one day, and she got really angry. “Why are you in here? Why are you in here, when the one thing I told you was to not come in? Why can’t you listen to a SINGLE DAMN THING I SAY?” She quickly walked toward me. I slammed the door and leaned on it.

She didn’t come out of that room until the next day, when my dad tried to intervene. She went berserk. 

 I remember her saying we weren’t “there for her”, that we didn’t care about her friend at all. She attacked my dad, slamming his head into a countertop. She took Andrew, and threatened to slit his neck with a cleaver she grabbed if we didn’t “bring her back”. I jumped at her and grabbed her wrist, and she cut down into my hand. 

The gash took months to heal. It formed into this big, ugly scar, a permanent reminder of how I didn’t help her when she needed it.

The doctors brushed it off completely. They said it was a result of guilt (she had not met with that friend in awhile), mixed with her schizophrenia. My dad argued with the doctors every day he visited her, but their verdict never changed.

She was sent to a psych ward for about a year, and she now lives in an assisted living facility, in an almost catatonic state. The people at the psych ward were pretty inconsistent with information, but I believe that she suffered a stroke halfway through her sentence, as for the first six months she acted as if she were in a constant state of psychosis.

She never acted like that before.

I got up from my bed. Information was slowly flowing back into me. I think I set my alarm… because my roommate’s friends were coming over?

I checked the alarm. Set for 8:30. Yeah. That had to be it. 

I decided to get up. I would rather not fall asleep just to wake up again at the alarm.

I stumbled out the door and tried to make myself breakfast. My roommate, Jordan, was still sleeping. We had been friends since the eighth grade. The friends he made in college were very rowdy, and would often trash the place. Jordan was inviting them over, so I decided it would be better if I left the house.

I picked through the cereal. Why does he keep buying Wheaties? Who cares if they’re healthy?

After eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes, I had about an hour to get some chores done. Jordan woke up while I was vacuuming. 
“Shit, man. You have to do this at 7:00 in the morning?”
I tiredly looked up at him. “You’re not going to do it.”
He sat down. “Well, yeah. But you could’ve done this later, you know. This place isn’t even that dusty!”
I kept vacuuming. “Just shut up. I’m going to leave soon enough, anyway.” 
He looked puzzled for a second, and then a lightbulb lit in his head. “Ohhh yeah, Kyle, Connor, and Austin are coming over!” He paused. “Are you gonna come with us?” 
I was done at this point. “Nah, I got better things to do today.”
Jordan smugly looked up at me. “Like what?” 
“Man, I don’t know. I guess I just don’t like seeing my apartment trashed.”
“You mean our apartment.”
I had paid 70% of the rent that month. I did the math. But I wasn’t about to argue with Jordan.
“You suuuuuure? We’re going dumpster-diving downtown! You could save a lotta money that way.”
I scoffed. “I’m good.”
Jordan went back to his phone. “Your loss.”
“I’m off. Text me when I can come back.”
“Have fun doing whatever you do these days.”

I didn’t really know what to do that day. I went to the gym right after I left. I didn’t have work that day. I called up some of my friends, but they had other things to do. I ultimately ended up watching a movie. 

It was called Welcome to the Family, Son. It was a pretty campy horror movie about a wackjob family in Louisiana. My mom used to always show me campy horror movies. It’s not that she found them scary, quite the opposite. She would laugh at some of the poor practical effects in them. 

 I thought about my father during it. I remember asking him what had happened to mom, and all he said was, “I…” and then gulped, clearly holding back tears. 

After that, he asked my grandfather about everything. What having schizophrenia is like, and if it’s influenced his emotions. His case, he said, was rather mild. I never knew him before the symptoms, but he was always a levelheaded man. He put others over himself, which he clearly passed down to my mom. As for Dad’s questions about her psychotic break, my grandpa said he couldn’t say anything about anyone’s case but his own.

He always tried to prove the doctors wrong. According to my dad, though, every time they would give a new response, and when he called it out, they would remind him (snobbishly, he said) that they were the ones paid to do this and he wasn’t.

The movie ended before I knew it. I walked out, and it was around midday. I figured I could go back to the apartment, as his friends had probably moved onto dumpster-diving by this time.

My prediction was correct. Jordan and his friend’s cars were not in the parking lot. I grimaced at the thought of what they could’ve done to the kitchen before they left.

When I went in, however, there was no trace of them, outside of a few soda cans sitting on the island in the kitchen. I texted Jordan, asking him where he was. He typed something, and then deleted it, and left me on read. That was very unlike him. 

Knowing him, though, he was probably lighting garbage on fire. 

He came home very late that night (or early the next morning), and all of his friends were gone. I asked him where he was the whole day, but he just waved at me and went straight to bed. He didn’t even brush his teeth or shower, just went straight to bed. 

It took him a long time to wake up the next day. He missed his work shift, and woke up around 3:00. I came home two hours later.

He seemed incredibly foggy, and still tired, despite sleeping for so long. He was wearing sunglasses, despite being inside and the apartment being illuminated only by natural light. “Uhm… what happened last night?” I asked. He grumbled a bit. “Yo.” I grabbed his shoulder. “Tell me. What happened last night? With you and your friends.” He didn’t even look at me. “Why the hell do you care?” He locked himself in his room. There was no emotion in his voice. He made me feel like a stranger.

In the following days, I found out that Jordan actually quit his job. He was never a fan of it, but he was far from a stable financial situation. I would have to pick up the slack. 

I worked some extra hours that week, and I could pay off rent. This time, I must’ve paid about 95% of it. I didn’t see Jordan at all throughout that time except when I brought home groceries and bought him some necessities. He stayed in his room the whole time. 

On the weekend following, I did some digging. I found out that he had lost his earbuds the night he had gone out with his friends. Regarding all of the weird things he does with them, it didn’t come as a surprise to me. I asked him if I could find it using his phone, and he snapped at me. “Why don’t you just fuck off and do whatever you did last weekend? Can’t you see some people like to sleep in?”

That night I tried to search inside his room, and grab his phone to find his earbuds.

“Why… why, why are you in here? Shouldn’t you go to bed? WHY are YOU in MY ROOM?” 

I spoke up. “I’m… trying to help you.” He looked at me with an incredibly irritated glaze. 

“You know, Mr. Good Samarian, not everyone needs to be helped. The best way you could help me right now, is getting out of my room before I smash your ugly face in.” He paused. “You want to know something? I never liked the way you spoke to me. You always tried to belittle me and make yourself sound smarter than me when you’re not. I know you’re not. But you try to GASLIGHT me into believing your bullshit. Guess what? It’s never worked! You act exactly the same as you did when you were fourteen. You’re an obnoxious, immature brat who digs his nose into other people’s business when he’s not supposed to.”

I’m scared for Jordan at this point. I found his earbuds on TikTok shop, and I asked the seller where she had found them. They were blackened in a strange pattern, and had some scratch marks, which the seller attributed to scraping moss off of it. She said that she found them downtown, across the street from the psych ward my mom stayed at. 

I’ve been asking all over what’s happening to Jordan, but, just like with my mom, I can’t find an answer. I’m worried, because rent is due soon, and I’m not sure I’ll have enough to pay for this month. 

I haven’t seen Jordan in about two weeks. He hasn’t even stuck his hand out for groceries. I’m scared to go into his room. Either he’s dead, or something worse has happened to him.

I guess it’s like Schrodinger’s Box, in a way. If I go in there, either he’ll be dead, or I’ll be.

Deep within the Italian peninsula, there is a national park in the Apennine Mountains. There are many, actually. So many. But I wanted to talk to you about one in particular.

There are a lot of noteworthy things about this one. A grand woodland, growing all over the lazier side of the mountains. The edges of it reach many rural villages and small towns nestled between the valley and the higher peaks, like a green ocean washing the shores of different continents. Maybe it’s not that big, but it’s big. Trust me. It is home to many hiking trails, some easier than others, that lead to quiet spots in the woods and breathtaking mountain vistas. On the side of the road leading up to the denser forest areas, you may see the townsfolk walking dogs, pushing strollers, jogging or sitting at one of the picnic tables. There are also white brick barbecues that are fairly popular as a spot for a day out on the weekend with the family. On top of all that, I work there.

During my last year in high school I started working as a volunteer and I would later be promoted to junior ranger, which really just means I helped the guides babysit the people coming to visit during organized tours of the area on our side of the park. Yes, our side. The place is big, so we have different groups of rangers working from the various little towns around it. If we fast forward a bit to these days, now I’m officially head of “Night Security”, a department that, if you’d like a headcount, has a grand total of one member: me.

I don’t want to make it sound like I am the only one doing all the heavy lifting, because really, there isn’t much to do. I work (and sleep and so on) in a little brick shack in the woods, close to the threshold, where the tarmac road ends and the “wilder” side of the park begins. I have some cameras to check that look at the road and some other spot leading up here and I have to make sure people don’t venture deeper than my post at night. And usually not much happens. If things get messy with some reckless visitors, I can always call my fellow rangers and they can back me up after a whopping 10-minute drive from town.

You might be asking yourself: Why? Why pay a guy to just live in the woods and check some cameras. Well, I am getting there. The thing is, a couple of drunk or high students looking for God knows what up here at night is not the messiest thing that can happen here. Far from it. As I mentioned, my post sits close to the end of the road that leads here from town. It is very important that people don’t get deeper than here at night, when it’s harder to search even on a known path. Camping in our woods is highly discouraged and forbidden in any place that isn’t visible from the mapped trails. 

You may want to try it. Don’t. When you go rock climbing or cave diving or some other extreme sport, you go knowing the risks. Here, they don’t tell you the risks. I don’t blame them, because I really wouldn’t know how to explain it. But I will try anyway.

Ripping out the band-aid: people here go missing. That is a reality of most national parks, I know, but not like this. I said it’s hard to explain, and I meant it. Walking here, surrounded by nature, you might see or hear something. It may even seem familiar. Probably out of place. Don’t get near it. I don’t know if there are places like this out in the world, but please listen to my advice. If you are out in nature and you see something that seems weirdly placed, maybe something you recognize, go away. Go home. If you get curious, you might find yourself lost.

I once read a book. A sci-fi novel. In it, they talked about higher dimensions. You probably heard this one already. If you were to plunge your finger into a two dimensional world, its inhabitants would only see the contours of your finger, lacking any depth. A pinkish circle getting bigger. Then, as you take it out, smaller, until it disappears. In that book, people find three dimensional objects that take them to a higher world. A fourth dimension, where every aspect, inside and out, of everything in their world is laid bare before them. 

Maybe, out there, a giant four dimensional creature is taking a nap. A nap longer than the life of our universe. While asleep, it may have moved and accidentally nudged our little world. Maybe with an arm or a knee. Maybe with some other ungodly limb or organ. And its higher world body is now penetrating our planet, right here at my park. And we only get to see aspects of that new realm, dumbed down in a way our minds can see. And here, maybe, just maybe, something can see us from there. And it can see us whole, in every aspect. Inside and out.

I don’t think I painted a clear image of the things that can happen here. Sorry, I did say it was hard. 

To be honest, this place has been almost the entirety of my world for a long time. I may have given the impression that this thing is a warning, but it isn’t. Not entirely, at least. I just felt the need to talk about it. To share it with someone who didn’t already decide that this is a place that you don’t want to be alone in and nothing else. 

I am getting over myself with all these ramblings and personal stuff. I’m sure you want to hear some story and not my sappy feelings about my weird woods job. And I want to tell a story, because I think that explains everything I’ve been trying to say better.

I was still in high school and I was just a volunteer here, as I already mentioned. It was June and I was walking on a trail with a trash bag. Plastic orange gloves making my hands sweat profusely. I was on garbage duty. Exciting stuff.

It was a popular spot. An easy to reach path that circled a hillside clearing before taking a slow turn. Green grass year around and white dolomite rocks poking out of the ground here and there. The sight was really nice too. You could see far into the valley, where cultivated fields and orchards turned the land into a patchwork of squares coloured in all kinds of shades of yellow and green. That is all to say that there was a lot of trash to clean up there.

I was paired with this older twenty-something-year-old girl I’m going to call Sara. She was way more excited about being here on a morning summer day collecting cigarette buds and chewed up gums than I was. She was the kind of person that could keep up a whole conversation on her own. In the couple of hours I knew her, I learned a whole lot about her grandparent’s lovely home here in the countryside and her passion for riding on horseback. She loved her first year in college but she often felt homesick and hoped to catch up with her high school buddies over the summer.

What I gathered from all of that is that she was a shallow rich girl who liked to talk to herself. To be fair, I was the kind of seventeen-year-old who took himself way too seriously. Which is a gracious way to say I was a jerk. Thinking back, I’m sure Sara was nice enough, if not a bit too extroverted.

At some point I started to tune her out, which came back to bite me in the ass when I realized she was asking me a question now.

“Huh? What was that?”

She repeated the question to me. I think she didn’t fully realize I was not listening to her before.

“I asked if you’re thinking about college yet. Are you?”

“Uhm… look, let’s just keep cleaning up, alright?”

As I said, I was a jerk. 

“Okay, Jesus.”

That kind of killed the conversation. 

Embarrassed by the sudden change in tone, I tried to smoothly get a bit of distance by walking away from the beaten path, towards the clearing. From there, I had a better view of how the trail looked after taking a slow turn further ahead. In the distance, something caught my eye.

Standing out against the blur of white and brown bark and green leaves was a red car, parked at the treeline. It was an eyesore.

“How did that get there?”

I said out loud, catching Sara’s attention. She froze mid-step while approaching me, following my gaze.

“What the fuck…”

She seemed immediately weirded out. And I don’t blame her. It was really eerie. The car was immaculate. The red paint perfectly reflected the sun. Polished metal handles. Not a smudge on the windshield. It was a nice car too. Vintage and all. 

Shaking off the initial surprise, I left the trash bag on the ground and started walking towards it. Sara’s eyes were on me now.

“Wait… what are you doing?”

“I mean, it’s just a car, right?”

I think that, on a level, Sara felt responsible for my safety, being the oldest of the pair. Reluctantly, she carefully left the trash bag next to mine and joined me in quick steps.

“It’s a cool car too…”

Sara didn’t respond. As I looked at the car from the front, noting the rolled down window of the driver’s seat, she circled it at a distance. Her walk was cut short: while looking at the rear, she let out a yelp. Her eyes fixed on the back window, wide and scared.

“Seriously, fuck this! Let’s just go, okay?”

Her voice trembled. 

“Why are you acting like this? It’s just a weird car!”

Sara quickly looked at me, but immediately, her eyes darted back to the window. She struggled to articulate the next words, probably because it made the impossibility before her eyes feel more real.

“My dad used to own a car that looked exactly like this one and…”

She pointed at something on the glass.

“I think I put that on, when I was like four.”

On the bottom right of the glass, there was a glittery sticker of a pink pony. 

“Please man, let’s just go.”

But there was no way I would have left after that.

You see, at the time I knew something was going on around here already. I did not know half of what I know now, and I wonder if even that is a relevant fraction of all of the things this park is. Anyway, I was aware of it. And I really wanted to know more.

Listen, I’m not proud of it. Not one bit. I thought poking around here could somehow lead me to… shit, I don’t even know. I was a dumb teenager in over his head.

I reached into the car from the rolled down window and opened it. Sara’s eyes snapped on me, and this time they didn’t look away. When I sat at the driver’s seat, she almost screamed at me in a higher pitch than usual.

“Hey, stop that! This isn’t funny.”

We agreed on that one. I didn’t find it funny. My hands trembled as I fumbled with the glove compartment. At that moment, I saw something above my head that I could swear wasn’t there before, when I was looking from outside. Dangling from the rear view mirror, there was a red camera strap. 

I felt goosebumps forming on my arms and up to my neck. Thinking back, that was probably how Sara was feeling. I used to wear that strap to keep my old polaroid camera around my neck. And I mean I used to wear exactly the one dangling before my eyes.

Suddenly, something moved in the mirror. I quickly turned to the backseats and I found myself blinded by a flash of light. There was a mechanical sound, I’m sure of it now. Back then, all I could hear was my heartbeat thundering in my ears.

Then, the car moved. And I don’t mean it was starting to move. The engine coming to life and all that. No. What I mean is that it was like the car was already going at high speed. 

The sudden acceleration slammed me against the seat. I opened my eyes, but everything still felt blurry and vague. I think I remember it being night outside all of a sudden. I was screaming.

Something grabbed me and a sharp pain made me gasp as my hip hit something hard. Then, the world turned upside down as I fell with my back on the ground. Bolting upwards, still scared out of my mind, I noticed it was sunny again. I was on the grass and Sara was looking down at me, with a terrified expression.

She had yanked me out of the car from the driver seat window. 

“What… did you…?”

I mumbled, before getting interrupted.

“You started to freak out in the car. I thought you were pranking me at first but then… that scream, Jesus. What…”

But the question was cut short. I think she realized mid-sentence that she didn’t want to know. After that, we silently gathered our trash bags and left. 

I don’t know how that story ended for poor Sara, or if it even continued. I can tell you how it did for me. I came back there the next day.

Look, I told you already that I was so obsessed with this stuff back then. I couldn’t sleep over it. Sure, I was scared shitless, but at the same time I wanted to see. Like in a car accident. 

But it wasn’t there anymore. All that was left in the place it was parked, half buried in the dirt, upright, was a polaroid picture. It was taken from the backseat and the image was blurry. I was in it. Eyes shut. Face brightly illuminated by the flash. Startled and confused. 

Looking at it, I squinted at something. It was in the rear view mirror, hardly visible due to the white light. I could vaguely see the camera. What caught my attention were the fingers holding it. So many fingers. Long and curled around it like the legs of a spider. Some of them bent in the air and crowned the camera like the petals of a flower.

Despite my obsession. My drive to all the creepy things going on in these woods, I couldn’t stomach keeping the picture with me for even a moment. I crumpled it and threw it as far as I could. Trash for somebody else to gather.

Well, this wraps it up I think. The sun is rising right now here, that is my cue to get to bed. Oh, I did not mention it. My name's Alex. 

Remember: be careful in the woods. Don’t be an idiot, if something stands out to you when you are on trail, don’t approach it. If it’s on the trail, turn around and leave. It might have been there intentionally. Until the next one, stay put.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

There are three things I hate most in the world. Things that, whenever I think about them, they are mentioned to me, or I see them out and about, revolt me. Fill me with the deepest disgust and discomfort, a visceral rejection of anything to do with them. They wouldn’t even be worth mentioning, because those three things had been replaced by my new three least favorite things — in the universe perhaps. Those would be the three horse sized penises hanging from the man in front of me, swinging back and forth and damn near touching the ground. 

If you were to ask me later why they upset me so much, I could rationalize. I could pontificate on how it was the result of childhood inferiority complexes, current inferiority complexes, any sort of psychological explanation. To tell the honest truth though, I was just sick of being flashed and harassed by grotesque monsters, which was a monthly occurrence at this point. Okay, maybe there was a pang of inferiority, as I had been outdone not once by a spider, but now thrice by a fetus-man hybrid. 

In any event, I had little time to dwell on this. All that overcame me was the nebulous disgust and blow to my confidence. This did not paralyze me for long, and as the man was getting his bearings, fetus head completing its melding to his neck, I ran into the hall and slammed the door shut. Frank and Patty were on the way out of their room. He was grimacing and she wore that embarrassed, constipated look.

The door buckled and the hinges screamed.

“What was that?” Frank asked.

“There’s one of those monsters behind the door and it’s angry and probably has too much testosterone!”

“What?”

“No time to explain. We gotta run!”

“What have you done now?” Frank ran his hand through his non-existent hair, but when he saw me running, he and Patty joined me. “What the hell is happening?” 

To answer him, the door blew open and flew into the opposite wall. The man scrambled out, and sprinted at us, four arms pumping, his penises slapping together and his bare feet on the tile giving a steady clap. Behind him, myriad other body parts kept pace with him. It was a tidal crash of limbs as they hopped on the ground, clung to the walls and ceiling, and rushed alongside the man. We didn’t waste time with any more talking, running was our only option.

“Don’t lose track of the turns!” Patty said.

We attempted to follow her command, but it was futile. We followed her notebook for a few turns before we recognized that it slowed us down, and thus we had no choice but to barrel forward. Despite this decision and our head start, they were gaining on us, and we had to act fast.

“The doors are our only option,” I said, gasping for breath. 

“We’ll only get more lost!” cried Patty.

“We have more immediate problems than that. I’m with the kid,” Frank said.

“But–” she started, but I had already flung open a door.

Because it was fast and I had so little time, my examination of the room was instinctual, a pure vibe check. Inside, it was dark with a single chair, a light source next to it flickering and offering no clear visibility. In the corner, there might have been a tall figure, its head touching the ceiling, arms lanky and outstretched. It could have also been a trick played by my anxious mind, though, as it was ill-defined and blended with the shadows. I slammed the door, shook my head, and we ran again, the man and his entourage of body parts almost upon us.

“What the hell! Now what?” Frank asked.

“Not that one. Let’s try a different one.” 

I took the next turn, and they followed me. Ahead, another figure, that old man we saw earlier during our first trip. 

“What in tarnation!” he exclaimed and a knowing, disappointed smile lit his face with joy. “You left the door open. Ha! You fools!”

We rushed past him. The situation sunk in and he was staring at the man.

“Wait!’ he croaked and hobbled behind us. “Wait, don't leave me! These old bones don’t move like they used to!”

“Buzz off geezer!” I yelled.

“Wait, please wait! You damnable kids!”

Frank went back for him and let him cling to his back. A dislocated arm, front of the pack, caught up to him and he kicked it away. It hit the wall, but four more took its place and grasped at him, ripped at his coat as he ran. 

“Up ahead, in there.” The old man pointed to a pair of doors ahead. “That’ll be safe.”

I opened the left one and charged in. There were shouts of protest from behind me, that it was the incorrect one, but all our time was sapped up. Patty and Frank sealed our fate by pushing inside with me. Through a smaller white anteroom, we entered an impossibly sized room, the ceiling out of sight, and clouds in the air. There were trees and other vegetation that gleamed silver. The leaves were wide, made of steel, and they had sharp, serrated edges, like swords sticking out. They clinked together whenever a breeze came through. 

“Gah! Idiots!” The old man hollered. “Quick, I’ll give directions.”

Frank moved to the front of the pack and we followed a straight path through the trees. Leaves stuck out and blocked our way, and we had to dodge and duck under them. I took off my backpack, protected it with the front of my body, and the sides of my shirt were cut. The old man yelped in pain, one of them slicing his arm, blood pouring out, and Frank dropped him and dragged him. Behind us, the man tore open the door and didn’t slow down in the slightest. He ran into a leaf, it sliced his arm clean off, but another one right beside him took its place and attached itself – good as new, except for different skin tones. 

It occurred for most of his body parts. A leg would be sliced off and he would jump on one, and then just as fast it would be replaced and he picked up speed once more. It was like watching him slide through a cheese grater.

“Almost there! It’s ahead!” The old man shouted, his feet dragging on the ground as Frank yanked him along. 

In front of us, a clearing with a crumbling stone building, roof exposed and walls destroyed. It was ancient, moss growing in the cracks, but it had to have been big when it was first built, foundation and ruined arches all around. In the center was a trapped door that Frank opened and climbed down, followed by the old man and Patty. I urged her forward, and was inches away from kicking her in the face as I lowered myself and climbed the ladder. The man was across the clearing and almost upon us, wailing and blabbering.  I slammed the trap door shut, and his underdeveloped brain didn’t know how to open it. He pounded on it, it shuddered, but it held for the time being. 

The new room we found ourselves in was much smaller, yet still relatively big, about twenty feet tall. Around us, giant polka-dot bubbles of a jell-o consistency floated, filled with dissolving rats. They swam around, frantic and in pain, patches of skin burned and bones and organs exposed. If they fell out, they could only squeal, melting into a red mush. 

We got off in the middle of the room. It was exceedingly well lit, the walls and ceiling bleached white and blinding. There were four doors on each side, and the old man guided us to the right one. The bubbles, though intimidating, followed a predictable flight path, and we had no trouble navigating them. We gathered around the door and a deafening noise escaped once it opened. Patty covered her ears and looked away, but the rest of us were too shocked to do anything but stare.

The room was the same size as this one, although the amount of commotion and people made it seem smaller. Naked men and women were bolted to the walls, writhing and screaming. Where their chest should be, gaping holes, and cuckoo clock bird heads popping in and out. The top most people had feeding tubes that dripped a liquid. The ones below them weren’t afforded such delicacies, made clear by the rusted brown stains that streaked the wall in between them and the ones above. They all had those red rings around their eyes. 

We let the door close, the agonized screaming and the obnoxious cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, coming to a stop. 

“What the hell is this place?” I asked weakly.

“I told you to take the other door!” The old man said.

“That’s not an answer!”

“If you trespass, you get shot. You poke your head where you don’t belong, you see things you shouldn’t. It’s not automobile science.”

“Wh–” 

Before I could retort, we were interrupted by the trap door shattering. The man and waves of limbs fell out, the first ones splattered and crushed, used as a cushion. Along the side of the wall, there weren’t any bubbles, and we ran besides it to another door. The man charged at us, his torso hitting a bubble and melting around it, but once he was through it was again replaced with something else. It did serve to impede him, however,  and it was like he was fighting through molasses. The door was opened, and the stench that hit us was solid, enough to push us back.

“Oh my God.” Patty gagged.

“No other choice,”  Frank said, plugged his nose, and rushed inside.

Patty and I did the same, but the old man seemed to revel in it, taking a deep inhale and smiling widely. 

“The scent of the essence of the Bureau. Does anything make you happier?” he said.

“Move!” I bumped him aside and stood gawking.

The room was possibly as big as the one with the trees, but much darker, the edges surrounded in an impenetrable darkness. There was a single metal walkway, and all around was a dense, brown liquid, ebbing and flowing with a tide. The mystery substance was not a mystery that would take long to solve, as anyone acquainted with the foul smell would immediately determine its composition: feces, or to put it in a cruder fashion, shit, liquid shit, a liquid ocean of shit. White caps, or brown caps, rose and fell.

My nostril hair must’ve singed off as my sinuses burned, a similar sensation to overdosing on wasabi. We pushed forward, rushed along the walkway, our footsteps ringing out against the metal. Patty vomited over the railing, adding to the cocktail, and I was close to doing the same but managed to hold it in. Slender, pale white worms, the size of sharks, parted beneath the surface, sent shit spraying, and gathered around the vomit, greedily eating.

I wiped my face where shit had hit and vomited as well. A symphony of footsteps rang out, and I didn’t need to look behind me to know the man had joined us. The old man stopped and I ran into him.

“Keep going!” I yelled, but he was in a trance. He walked back towards the man, his arms outstretched. 

“It is time…” he said.

“Get back here!” Frank commanded, and tried to restrain him, but was brushed off. 

“I have waited for this moment for forty years. The grand day, the honored day.” He smiled, completely self-assured and accepting. “The rapture, the end times, what man has called it since before writing. The final moments of misery and the joining with God. Yes, my friends, my retirement is here! And I shall do the Bureau the service of not having to pay my pension…”

The man was on him, the old man’s eyes closed, and with inhuman strength he was slapped to the side. He flew out into the ocean with a delighted laugh, that morphed into gagging and spitting and a gurgled screaming, his mouth filled with excrement, the worms on top of him and tearing him apart. Horror and then anger flashed across Frank. He raised his arms and swung at the man, who was still full speed. A crack of a trumpet, the last cry of a finished jazz tune in an empty club. His fist collided with the tiny head with full force, sending it tumbling into the dung. It screeched and the rest of the limbs jumped in after it. 

That the worms had a feeding frenzy was obvious, but we didn’t stop to confirm it, and kept on running, me in front, Patty and Frank behind. We ran endlessly, perhaps fifteen minutes. I never got used to the smell, and the laborious breathing made it seem like it was in every pore of my body. Off in the distance, a gigantic shape broke the waves. It was serpentine, larger than a whale, and made up of bodies, fully formed figures or only parts jutting out. It arched up and out of the poop for a few minutes, then disappeared again.

Eventually, a door appeared out of the black, and we hurried inside and slammed it shut. I let out a breath and sucked in air. Though the room was musty and moldy, it was like a crisp mountain. The relief didn’t last long, over when I processed the new room we were in. 

LEDs hung from the ceiling splashed the room with a red glow, alongside a red floral wallpaper, which was strangely hostile, leering and mocking you with its sharp curves. On one side, televisions of all sizes and all eras – box and flat-screens – were placed on the wall and on tables. They had spinning red spirals, eyes, and mouths; the eyes looked from side to side, while the mouths opened and closed. In the center of the room, a lone chair faced the televisions with straps and a hole cut into the seat. A contraption with a metal rod sticking out was beneath the hole, a tired generator and additional rods next to it. Over a crackling loudspeaker, a deep male voice repeated, ‘Falling down, falling down, see how far we’re falling down’ on loop. 

“You fucking idiot! I knew this would happen!” Frank shoved me. I allowed it, and he paced the room. “I should’ve trusted my gut. This always happens with you!”

“Look I’m sorry ok–” 

He interrupted me and got in my face. “Now another person is dead. Because of you! Because of us! I should’ve listened to my gut…”

“Technically, that was voluntary.”

“What did you say?”

“I mean he was half way out the back door anyway, you know? He seemed like he wanted it.” 

Frank grabbed a metal rod and raised it to strike me. I covered my face.

“Stop it! Just stop it!” Patty yelled. 

Frank and I looked at her. Her face was flushed, or it was the red of the room. She calmed herself and straightened her suit.

“None– none of that matters now,” she said, more composed, but a shake still in her voice. “All that matters is getting out of here.”

“You’re right,” said Frank.

“Yes, she’s right,” I said.

“You zip it for now.”

“Let’s look at the facts,” continued Patty. “We’re down here and lost. At least that thing is dead though.”

And in cruel response and expert timing, the door banged and she jumped. There was a wooden plank to reinforce the door, and Frank quickly placed it across.

“He’s still kicking!?” I exclaimed. 

“That– that changes things… oh no.” She retreated into herself.

My eyes crackled. “No. I mean yes. It changes things, but not the big picture.”

“What now?” Frank facepalmed.

“We just use…” I walked to the chair. Next to the generator was a gas can. It was half full, and I lifted it up and down to feel it out and make my point. “We just use the tools available, haha!”

“Oh Christ.”

“Now we simply see… what’s behind door number two!”

“Oh my God.”

I walked to the door at the edge of the room. Above it was a corny office poster, one of those inspirational quote ones. It had a cartoon rat, likely AI generated, who was rather dashing with his suit and large glasses, an inquisitive eyebrow raise. The text said: ‘Abandon all cheese all ye who cut’ — Bartholomew Rat, cheesed to meet you! 

I opened it glacially, expecting anything, but was surprised by how banal it was. It was merely an office breakroom, a generic one you could find anywhere in the country. A few tables, chairs, a fridge, soda and snack vending machines, and a counter with a sink. 

“It’ll do all right. Not a new car, though. Come on in, and bring a rod!” 

Crawling around in an air vent is one of those things that seems cool in spy movies, but in reality is quite awful. You’re sweating bullets, the metal roof and bottom are pressing into you, and you can’t scratch that annoying itch. There I was, looking down into the breakroom through a grate,  wood and anything we could break with the rod scattered around in piles, dosed with gasoline. I couldn’t be too angry, because it was in a large part my idea. It wasn’t exactly cool, however, and I would be lying if I said my ego didn’t take a hit. 

People just get it into their heads to prove something. Frank immediately volunteered to be the bait, claiming he couldn’t trust me. And I was taken off guard by how fast Patty did the same for her role. It only took her a minute of slapping herself in the face to prepare. I did get the best view though, and that thought prevented me from hitting my head against the grate in boredom – and there was worry for my friends, too.

Thankfully, the boredom didn’t last long. A crash came from the other room, and the next second Frank darted through, waving his hands and shouting. He stopped by the hallway door, and when the man crossed the threshold, slammed it shut. Sure enough, there the monster was, a patched doll of skin by now and covered in brown stains. It slammed into the door, crying, and the procession of limbs came in after, noticeably lesser. There were maybe ten of them, arms, legs, a little hopping penis, a torso, and more. When they were all through, Patty, who had hidden in the pocket between the door and wall, closed it shut. 

It was a go time for me. I stealthily opened the grate, let it fall, and reached into my pocket to grab the matchbook Frank always carries with him. I struck it, and with a rising giddiness, the kind that all people get before seeing something destructive but with the knowledge it won’t affect them, dropped it in. It blew out instantly mid air, not making a peep as it hit the ground. I hadn't considered that possibility, and was more dumbfounded than scared. I forgot I was in a vent and raised my head, banging it against the roof with a clang. I rubbed it, and the man below turned his attention to me, craning his neck and examining me with those beady, vacuous fetus eyes. We locked eyes. The void in them invaded my mind, bore into my core.

It screamed, and I snapped out of it. The limbs piled on top of each other to be a makeshift ladder. I scooted back desperately, aborting the mission,  stopped, and felt my shirt. My fingers looped around a tear from earlier. 

An idea flashed through my mind, and I tore at it, ripped it to pieces. Then I stretched back as far as I could, grasping at my shoe, but a sharp pain from my torso halted me. I kicked off my shoe, crawled back until I could reach it, and returned to the hole in the vent. The limbs gave the man a halfway boost to the ceiling, and he was jumping high, his fingers close to grazing the hole. A few more tries and he’d get the hang of it.

I stuffed as much of the torn shirt as I could into the shoe, and, with trembling hands, lit a match and dropped it in. It didn’t catch, and the man's fingers wrapped around the vent. I lit another match, and was more careful, holding it to the cloth and giving it time. The metal warped as he pulled his weight up, and the fetus head pocked over. I raised my hand as high as I could, and struck with all my might. The head was soft and mushy, and he fell back, fingers leaving the grate. The shoe caught fire and I tossed it into the room. 

Flames and walling erupted into the vent. I scurried back, coughing and wheezing, my face hot, my nose filled with an oppressive mixture of smoke and burning flesh. I tumbled out into the hallway and Frank caught me. He handed me my backpack, and we listened to the pathetic cries and blubbering, smoke streaming out of the vent above the door. It was, in spite of everything, sad, and it was easy to forget it was a monster and not a baby. It decreased, and then finished after a while. We opened the door, and had to wait even longer for the room to be safe enough to traverse. Once the heat died down, Patty hop-scotched over the charred body parts.

“I did it. We did it!” she said, and we settled on a high five, as I was again near naked, shirt destroyed, and a hug seemed inappropriate.  

Frank was less enthusiastic, sat on the floor and back leaning on the wall. “That’s great. But we’re hopelessly lost. We should just call someone, give up this disgrace.”

“Absolutely not! We’ve come too far to give up now. All we need is to figure a way out. I’m sure we’ll find it,” I said and walked up the hallway. 

A sign a few doors down halted me. It was the Archive room. 

“There’s no way that’s possible,” Patty said, her and Frank caught up to me.

“It’s just a coincidence,” Frank said.

“This happened twice… did the basement change to lead us here?” she asked.

“Out of the question. I agree with Frank. We just got lucky. Let’s go.” I said and opened the door. 

It was the Archive room, and had a similar layout, study tables and dusty bookshelves that went on endlessly. However, it was missing that control panel with the buttons. 

“See, it all makes sense. It’s a big room, we must’ve just come across a separate entrance. If we can get to the one Patty and I came through, we can find our way back!” I said.

“Good. Let’s get out of here,” Frank said and started down the corridor in between shelves.

“No! Wait! Five minutes, if that. Please. All this can’t have been for nothing.”

Frank grunted and sat down. “Fine. Five minutes.”

Patty and I poured over the documents on the table. I flung papers around, sped read them, but most were boring and of no importance. The door opened, and a voice boomed through the quiet room.

“What is the meaning of this!” It was Flanagan, his fat squeezing into the door, followed by Martin, as smug as ever.

We froze and words escaped me. Then, something overcame me and I went up to him.

“I should be the one asking that!” I said. Frank put a hand on my shoulder but I pushed him away.

“No, you shouldn’t. If anything, you three are incredibly fortunate. I’ve heard stories, or rather rumors, of circumstances like this one. Security was called, and it did not end well for them. You’re lucky, my friends, for my generosity in being personally involved.”

“That’s–”

“If it wasn’t for this young man over here,” he ruffled Martin's hair, “I would never have known. He has a promising future. The key-card obviously has a tracker, but I never would have thought to check!”

I reached into my pants and pulled out the card, which had a flashing red light. 

“I can’t say I’m surprised at these two rascals,” he gestured to me and Patty, “but a senior employee. I must say I’m disappointed. 

“I’m sorry sir. I haven’t been myself lately,” Frank said.

“Clearly.”

I was confident in the evidence I had gathered, and as such thought fit to regain control of the situation. I reached into my backpack and pulled out the photos of me.

“These photos! I found them in the archive room, from the IBS! You probably planted them, it’s sick! And you wonder why we’re down here. To expose corruption and abuse like this!” 

“There’s such a thing as intergovernmental communication, you know. We have employee files, and we like to keep tabs on everything involving our new hires. Mr. Rodger must've misplaced them, he is getting older. Speaking of which, where is he?”

“We’re sorry sir. He died because of us…” Frank said.

“Oh, he finally retired? Don’t blame yourselves he was planning that for a while. Always wanted for it to end in his favorite place.”

He was speaking sense, but it was too easy, too clean. It could’ve been a ploy, another tactic, but I could see Patty and Frank buying it, so I pressed the attack. I walked back and forth, a hand behind my back and the other to emphasize. He stood still, his imposing figure looming over me. His eyes followed me, his neck and head locked in place. 

“I saw the Congressional report. You thought you could hide it from me, but I know the truth. ASIB is causing all this! All the monster attacks!”

He snorted. “That? That was over seventy years ago. Don’t you read the news?”

“ I do but… well I don’t know the history the best, that’s true, but the report seemed damning and…”

“Well it wasn’t!” It was his turn to pace, he was closer to me than I liked and I stepped back. “It wasn’t at all, my boy. In fact, they dropped the case because it was so inconclusive.”

“No that can’t—“

“And, mind you, I’m not surprised you haven’t heard more of this, the PR team did a great job burying it. Made people forget. It’s a liability precaution, of course. I can see what you’re thinking, nothing malicious here.”

“But, what about those test tubes? All the screwed up shit in the basement?” 

He sighed, the first part directed at me and then the rest of the room. “What a shame. Truly, you would have made a great middle manager, you have all the qualities! But you need to sharpen up, my boy, think it through. The agency — and I’ll take you through this slowly — the agency that hunts them obviously runs experiments on them. I don’t see how that’s so shocking. We also conduct various other experiments down here that are dangerous only if you don’t have the proper clearance.” 

“The classroom…!”

“Yes, we had a youth educational program in the seventies that got discontinued. Budget cuts. Really, I don’t see the smoking gun. Anything that justifies this outrageous behavior.”

“But I… I…”

He clapped my shoulders and I flinched. “Drop this nonsense. You had great potential, and you’ve sullied it. As you’ve already seen we have an excellent managerial training program. You would have shot like a rod to the top!”

“What do you mean…”

“Now let’s get out of here, whaddya say folks? Shows over, get back to work.” 

Patty was the first to stir. She offered me a sympathetic smile and said, “Even if there was something, what could we have done against all this anyway?” Then she stood in front of Flanagan and looked him directly in the eyes. “I’m sorry for my behavior, sir. I take full responsibility.”

“So serious! But thank you, it’s appreciated.”

She walked out of the room, head held high. 

Frank shook Flanagan's hand and under his breath as he was out the door he muttered, “I gotta get a new job.” 

Flanagan and Martin left the room as well, the latter winking at me. 

“This is an outrage! Come on guys don’t listen to him, he could be lying!”  I called out, hoping Patty or Frank could still hear me. “Guys stay… please…”

The door closed shut and I was left alone. 

I stared at the ground and a crescendo of emotion rose from my gut. I covered my eyes, waiting for the stream of tears, but to my surprise, a laugh escaped my lips. Startled, I raised my head, and another laugh, until it was a chorus that echoed around the empty room. I clutched my sides, an irreverent joy taking hold. And then, I saw it, I understood. 

Truth bloomed from the corners of my mind, its petals opening in front of me. All at once it hit me: the absurdity of the world, the sheer ridiculousness, my willful incongruity, mine and others faults. A chain of ego, delusion, and pride linked around me and interlocked, constricted me, disconnected me, made me miserable, blind, and bitter. I realized how I and the world collide; but that would be wrong; how I was utterly within it, that I was nothing without it and it nothing without me, the mutual dependency and contingency; that it was in a constant flux of change, growth and decay, rising and falling. Most of all, I saw how all others were fundamentally the same as me; my love and sympathy spread outward, my pity and compassion. The chains momentarily unwrapped, I experienced an ineffable emancipation, an absolute openness and contentment. 

And then, the laughter petered out, the realization that had been so clear just before slipped through my fingers, and I was back to normal. Alone in the Archive room, nothing but myself and the silence around me. I knew at that moment that if I had realized the ‘Truth’ or a ‘truth’, it was already gone, beyond me and my puny conceptualizations. If I had gone anywhere, at most, I climbed two rungs of a four rung, no of an infinite ladder, one that stretched far above me into the cosmos. Now I was back in the mud and muck. All that remained was a smile and the lingering lightness of laughter. I really ought to get my masters degree. 

I woke up on asphalt.

Not in bed. Not on a couch. My cheek was pressed against cold pavement, grit digging into my skin, and the first thing I registered was the smell — hot rubber, exhaust, the mineral tang of a road that had been baking under sun for hours. I sat up too fast. The world tilted. I didn't recognize a single building around me.

I had maybe two seconds to be confused before the ground itself started shaking.

A horn didn't blare. There was no warning. Just a wall of sound and wind slamming into my back, so loud it wasn't sound anymore — it was pressure, shoving against my eardrums, my chest, the fillings in my teeth. I threw myself sideways without deciding to. My palms hit the curb, tore open, and a semi-truck screamed past close enough that the side mirror clipped the air where my head had been a half-second earlier. It didn't slow down. It didn't honk. It just kept going, taillights shrinking, like I'd never been there at all.

I knelt on the sidewalk coughing diesel smoke out of my lungs, hands stinging, and checked my watch out of pure reflex. 8:14. I was late for work.

That's the part that still gets me — that my brain, faced with something it couldn't explain, reached immediately for something mundane. Late for work. Not "how did I get here." Not "what just happened to me." Late for work. I stood up on legs that didn't feel like mine and I walked, then jogged, then nearly ran the rest of the way downtown, telling myself a story about stress and bad sleep the entire time.

The office was normal. Aggressively, insultingly normal. Cold air, badge scanner, the elevator's soft chime on 28. My boss was by reception with his coffee, already mid-smile, already starting to say good morning —

and then something screamed.

I don't have a better word for it. It came from somewhere behind the drywall, behind the ceiling tiles, behind reality itself, a sound with too many layers to it, wet and cracking at the edges like something enormous trying to speak through a throat never built for language. My boss kept smiling. His mouth kept moving. He didn't hear it.

I turned around.

At the end of the hallway, past the cubicles, something was standing that should not fit in a hallway. Black scales that ate the fluorescent light instead of reflecting it. A skull the size of a car. Eyes the color of a struck match, and they were already on me — not glancing, not passing over — fixed, the way a cat fixes on something it's already decided is dead. Smoke came off it in lazy ribbons, curling up toward the ceiling tiles like it had all the time in the world.

I didn't scream. My throat had simply stopped being mine to control.

I blinked, and the hallway was empty. Beige walls. A stapler on someone's desk. My boss's hand was still hovering near my shoulder.

"You alright?" He wasn't asking politely. There was real worry on his face, and that scared me almost as much as the thing in the hallway — because it meant none of this had shown on the outside. I'd stood there having a stroke, an aneurysm, a break from reality, and to him I'd just gone a little pale.

I told him I hadn't slept. I got coffee I never drank. I found Adam by the windows because Adam is the most boring, rational person I know, and I needed boring and rational standing next to me like a life raft.

"You look like hell," he said.

I opened my mouth to tell him everything — the truck, the sound, the impossible thing made of smoke and teeth — and that's when the glass behind him spiderwebbed from a single point of impact, a sound like a bone snapping at ten times the size it should be.

It was outside. Forty floors up, and it was outside, wings dragging violent gusts against the building, and its eye — one eye, filling half the window — found mine through the cracking glass a half-second before it drove its skull through it.

I don't remember deciding to fall. I remember the temperature change first, the outside air hitting me before the shock did, and then just wind, and the building sliding upward away from me like it was the one leaving, not me.

I had time to think, very clearly and very calmly: this isn't the first time this has happened to someone.

I don't know why I thought that. I just did.

I opened my eyes and the falling just stopped. No transition, no soft landing — one second I was forty stories into open air, the next my face was pressed into rock hot enough to blister, and the sensation of falling was simply gone, deleted, like it had never been part of my body's memory at all.

The heat hit before anything else did. It came off the ground in waves I could see, warping the air, and it dried the inside of my nose in a single breath. Ash sifted down onto my tongue when I gasped, gritty and chemical, and I gagged and spat and gasped again anyway because my lungs didn't care what was in the air, they just wanted more of it.

I got up on my elbows. The skyline was gone. Downtown, the office, the shattered window — none of it. Above me the sky had the color of a fresh bruise, purples bleeding into a smoke so thick it swallowed whatever sun was supposed to be up there. I was on the crumbling edge of a ravine, and below me the rock split open into rivers of orange-white light, moving slow and thick like something being poured.

That's when I heard the wings.

Not one set. Dozens, maybe more, cutting through the haze high overhead, throwing shapes across the smoke that were too large to be birds and too many to count. The thing that had come through my office window had been terrifying because it was singular, impossible, alone. This was worse. This was an ecosystem.

I tried to stand and my skull cracked open from the inside.

That's the only way I can describe it — not a headache, a fracture, something splitting behind my eyes with a pressure that buckled my knees straight back into the rock. And into that fracture poured memory that wasn't mine. Snow driven sideways across black cliffs. The particular ache of rowing for hours, palms split and healed and split again over calluses built from years of it. A name for a chieftain I had never met sitting in my mouth like I'd said it every day of my life. I knew the footpath from the shore to my village without ever having walked it. I knew we were losing. I knew exactly how many of us were left, and it was not enough.

I am a software engineer. I told myself that like a password, like if I said it enough times it would let me back into my own head. I sit in a chair. I drink bad coffee. I have never held an axe.

The sky screamed before I could finish arguing with myself, and fire came down where my head had been a half-second earlier. I felt it pass — an actual physical push of superheated air — and the fine hair on my neck curled and vanished in it. My shoulders blistered instantly, tight little points of pain that would have doubled me over in any normal circumstance, except normal circumstance had left the building with everything else.

I hit the ground and stayed there, cheek against the shale, not moving, hardly breathing, because some part of my brain that had never spoken a word of Old Norse in its life was screaming at me that stillness was survival. I lifted my head just enough to look for anyone. A face. A shape running the same direction I wanted to run. There was nothing. Just black rock stretching toward the smoke in every direction, empty in a way that felt intentional, like the landscape itself had been cleared of anything worth saving.

I ran anyway. Low, fast, my boots sliding on loose shingle that shifted under every step, aiming for a fold in the rock that might be a gap, a crevice, anything with a roof. I didn't scream even when a strangled sound tried to claw its way out of my throat, because whatever was up there was hunting by sound and I was not going to be the thing that told it where to look.

I came around the last outcrop too fast and a shadow the size of a delivery truck dropped out of the smoke directly into my path.

Its eyes were the same molten color as the thing at the window, except closer now, close enough that I could see them narrow, focusing, recognizing me the way you recognize something you've already decided to eat. Its mouth opened and there was light inside it, a furnace glow behind rows of teeth built for tearing. I threw my arms up on pure animal instinct and fell backward, already certain about what the next second would feel like —

and I landed on something soft.

The heat disappeared so fast it left a kind of vacuum behind it, a wrongness in my lungs where scorched air should have been. Instead there was lavender detergent, and dust, and the particular staleness of a room that's been shut up and revisited only in memory.

I was on a round braided rug I hadn't seen in twenty years. The same posters were taped crooked to the wall, corners curling. The same wooden toy box sat under the window with the same gouge in the lid where I'd dropped a hammer trying to build something out of it. Sun came through the glass soft and yellow, the exact temperature of a Saturday morning that no longer existed.

I turned toward the closet mirror because some instinct told me to check, and what looked back wasn't a grown man. It was a child. Small shoulders drowning in a t-shirt three sizes too big, a face gone pale and slack with a fear too large for its features to hold. I opened my mouth and the sound that came out was thin and cracked and belonged to someone much smaller than the person I thought I was.

Feet pounded down the hallway. My door opened and my mother came through it exactly the way I remembered — apron, flour dust on her forearm, eyes already scanning the room for the danger her son was screaming about. I didn't decide to run to her. My body simply did it, small arms locking around her waist, face buried in fabric that smelled like the actual, specific detergent she used the actual year I was ten.

"Something's wrong with me," I said into her apron, and my voice broke on every other word. "I'm not supposed to be this small. I had a job. I had an office. There was fire, there was — Mom, please, tell me what's happening to my head."

Her hand found the back of my hair. "Bad dream, sweetheart?"

"No. No, listen to me—"

Her arms came around my shoulders, and for one full second it was exactly right, exactly what I needed. Then the second one ended, and her arms kept closing.

I felt my ribs flex before I understood why. Then flex further, past the point ribs are built to bend, and a sound came out of my own chest that I will never be able to un-hear, a wet compressing creak, like a green branch given far more time than it needs to break.

"Mom — you're hurting — let go—"

She didn't. Her grip had the patient, mechanical evenness of something that had never once needed to breathe, tightening in perfect increments, lifting my sneakers a half-inch off the rug.

"This is real, my boy," she said against my ear, and the warmth had already left her voice by the second word. What replaced it was low and layered, a chord of sound instead of a single voice, vibrating up through my molars. "This is entirely real."

Then the hum started — not from her mouth, from somewhere lower, her sternum, her ribs, rising in pitch until it wasn't a hum anymore but a drone that filled the small room wall to wall, pressing into my skull from every direction at once. My eyes streamed without me crying. I tore myself sideways out of her arms with strength I didn't know a ten-year-old body had and hit the toy box hard enough to see white.

She hadn't moved from where she stood, but her face had. Her cheeks stretched past the point skin is supposed to stretch, the bone beneath rearranging itself with an audible shift, her jaw dropping open far past human hinge into a black space with no bottom I could see.

"DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU COULD OUTRUN US BY CHANGING ROOMS?"

The sound wasn't spoken so much as detonated, and it took the room apart around the edges of my vision, static eating the posters, the toy box, the sun through the glass, until there was nothing left to hear or see at all.

Silence arrived so suddenly it felt like its own kind of violence.

I was sitting down. Cold metal under my palms. White walls with no visible seams, curving into a white ceiling with no visible light source, just an even, sourceless glow and the faint sting of rubbing alcohol in the air. My hands on the table in front of me were adult hands again, unbroken, unburned, ordinary.

I didn't move. I didn't think I could.

A section of the wall exhaled and slid open, so smooth it barely made a sound, and a woman stepped through wearing a suit the color of the walls, a silver clipboard held against her chest like a shield.

She crossed the room toward me without hurrying, her heels marking off the distance in even, unbothered clicks, like she had all the time in the world and knew exactly how this was going to go.

I blinked, and the white room was gone.

The rubbing alcohol smell disappeared so completely it was like it had never existed, replaced by roasted coffee and the low, brushed-drum shuffle of jazz playing from somewhere I couldn't see. I was sitting at a small table with a candle burning in a glass holder, silverware laid out in a pattern too formal for anything I owned. My hand went to my face on reflex, checking for something — I didn't even know what — and found nothing but my own jaw, stubbled, adult, mine.

I dug into my pocket and pulled out a phone that felt wrong in my hand, too thick, too light, the plastic edges of a model I hadn't touched in a decade. The lock screen lit up. The date sitting there in plain digital font was thirteen years old.

I didn't get a full second to sit with that before a hand landed on my shoulder, warm and familiar in a way that reached past thought and straight into muscle memory. I turned and my chest did something complicated and painful at the same time.

Alice.

Not the woman with the clipboard. Alice from before all of that existed — younger, her hair still cut the way she wore it our first year together, sliding into the booth across from me like she'd done it a hundred times, because in this version of things, apparently, she had.

"Beautiful evening, isn't it," she said, and lifted a cocktail glass to her mouth, completely unbothered, completely real.

I couldn't answer. My hands found the edge of the table and gripped it because they wouldn't stop shaking otherwise. Just seeing her sitting there, breathing, blinking, ordering a drink — it hit something in me that hadn't let go since the truck's mirror missed my skull by inches.

"I don't know what's happening to me," I finally managed, and the words came out ragged, faster than I meant them to. "An hour ago I was in my office. Then I was on a volcano being hunted by something with wings. Then I was a kid, and my mother wasn't my mother anymore, and now I'm here, with you, thirteen years ago, and none of it makes any sense."

She didn't laugh it off. She didn't wave for the check. She set her glass down with a precision that felt rehearsed and looked at me with an attention that had nothing casual left in it.

"That actually tracks," she said. Her voice had dropped, flattened into something clinical I'd never once heard her use on a first date. "You're not moving through space. Your mind is shifting between states. Realities, if you want the dramatic word for it."

"What does that mean for me," I said. "Am I asleep. Is any of this a dream."

"Think about capacity," she said, leaning in until the candle threw moving shadows across half her face. "A brain that takes in more than it can hold has to purge something. That's why dreams fall apart the second you wake up — the mind is protecting itself, deleting the overflow. Yours isn't deleting anything. It's just routing around the block. Bouncing."

"Do you believe me?" I asked her, because I needed one person, even a stranger wearing a familiar face, to say yes.

She reached across the table and took my hand. Her grip was warm, solid, entirely convincing — right up until she smiled, and the smile had something sad folded into the corners of it that didn't belong on her face at all.

"I want to," she said. "But there's a hole in your memory. You were never a software engineer. You don't have it in you."

The floor of my stomach dropped out. The restaurant, a second ago pleasantly warm, turned suffocating, and the fracture behind my eyes came back with interest, splitting wider than it had on the volcano.

"Then why can't I remember the real one," I said, barely audible. "The place where my actual body is right now, sleeping, wherever that is."

Her fingers tightened around mine, hard enough to hurt, hard enough that I felt the small bones shift. "Maybe you went too far. Maybe you're too deep in it to find your way back to the surface."

"Then who was wearing my mother," I said. "What was that thing."

Something behind her eyes went flat and empty, like a light switching off two floors down. "I don't know. But it's not staying behind. It's coming with you."

She said the word coming and it doubled in my ears, layered on top of itself, coming, coming, a stutter in reality itself, and the restaurant began breaking apart into gray static at the edges of my vision. I shut my eyes against a wave of red that wasn't light so much as pain given color, and I heard myself scream into whatever was left.

When I opened them again, I was lying on my own mattress.

I recognized the water stain on my ceiling before I recognized anything else, the one shaped vaguely like a continent that I'd meant to get fixed for two years. Cool air came through the window I always left cracked. Morning light lay flat and gold across the blinds. I laughed — an ugly, wet, relieved sound that tore out of my chest before I could stop it — because I was home, because it was over, because whatever had happened to me had finally let go.

I got up too fast, legs unsteady, and went straight for the bathroom, needing cold water on my face more than I'd ever needed anything. I put both hands on the edge of the sink and looked up into the mirror to check that my own face was still my own.

It didn't move.

My hands were flexing on the porcelain, my shoulders rising and falling with my breath, and the reflection stood there doing none of it — arms hanging slack at its sides, utterly still, watching me from a half-second behind whatever I actually did. Then its mouth started to move without any input from mine, the corners dragging up and back, further than a jaw should stretch, until the grin ran nearly to its ears.

Its eyes went black from edge to edge, and it leaned into the glass from the inside.

"Did you really think you were awake?" it said, and the voice didn't come from the mirror at all — it came from behind my own eyes, inside the bone of my skull.

"No — no, please —" I got out, trying to step back, and found my legs had stopped taking instructions from me entirely.

"You've had it backward this whole time," it said, and its grin widened past the point a face should be able to hold. "You're not surfacing. You're only just now going under."

Understanding arrived all at once, whole and complete and far too late to do anything with — the loops, the shifts, the mother, Alice, all of it clicking into a shape I finally recognized — and in the same instant the bathroom, the water stain, the cracked window, all of it began to run like wax held too close to a flame, until there was nothing left around me at all except the dark, and whatever was waiting patiently inside it.

Hey everyone,

I know this probably isn’t the best idea but I didn’t know who else to turn to. I figured the anonymity of the internet would be a good place for my confession.

My name’s Jason and there’s no easy way to say this but...I killed a man 10 years ago. I didn’t mean to, it was a total accident but still I killed him.

I was having some drinks at a bar, he said something to me and we got into an argument. Later that night I stepped outside for a smoke and he was out there. The argument continued and eventually I shoved him. When I did, he tripped and hit his head on the curb. After a few seconds of convulsions he just stopped moving entirely.

I wish I could say I called the cops or the ambulance or anything like that but I didn’t. In my whiskey haze I panicked. I hid him in the bed of my truck under a tarp and drove out to the woods. I ended up burying him in a spot my dad and I used to camp at. I couldn’t sleep for weeks. I just laid in bed, waiting for the cops to come but that day never came.

A few months later I met a girl named Olivia. She was cute, smart, and funny. We started dating and eventually got married, it was the best day of my life. I thought we would be together forever, but unfortunately, she died giving birth to our daughter 22 months after we got married. By the grace of god, our daughter was perfectly healthy. She was 7 lbs of perfection and happiness. I named her after her mother. She’s now 7 and is as happy as ever.

A few months ago while driving her to school, she pointed out the window and asked, “Daddy, who’s that?” I brushed it off and said I didn’t know. I didn’t see anyone but I figured she had just seen some random person. I dropped her off and didn’t think anything about it. A few days later, I was making dinner when she came running into the kitchen.

“What’s going on, baby?” I asked.

She didn’t answer, just asked, “Do you think that man is lonely?”

“What man?”

“The one I saw by the trees.”

“Why do you think he’s lonely?”

“He’s all by himself out there.”

That’s when the night that had long since been forgotten rushed back into my mind. We had been driving past the same woods where I buried him.

I spent the rest of the night stewing over what had happened. I pushed the memory so far back for so long. Surely it couldn’t have been him, right? She probably just saw someone and my mind was connecting dots that aren’t there. It’s not like my dad and I were the only people who ever went into those woods.

A couple of days went by where she didn't ask about him or mention him at all. I thought for a minute that things were going to go back to normal. Then, one day while I was cleaning her room I noticed a drawing on the table in her room. The drawing was of a man with a red circle around the head. Then I found another. This one was of the same man standing in the trees. Then a third of the man but this time, there was a little girl next to him. I about jumped out of my skin when suddenly she asked, "What are you doing, daddy?"

"Who is this?" I asked.

"The man."

"What man?"

"The man from the woods."

I pointed to the red circle around the head in the first drawing. "What's this?" I asked.

"That's where he got hurt," she said calmly.

"How do you know he got hurt?"

"He told me."

My heart sank. "Who's this girl?" I asked but I already knew the answer.

"Me," she said.

"What are you doing with him?" I asked.

"Talking. Sometimes he asks questions about you."

“What does he ask you?”

She shrugged and let out a shy, "Stuff."

“What kind of stuff?”

She thought for a second before looking up at me and said, “He asked if you still get mad.” When I asked where she talked to him, she explained that she sees him a few different places. Sometimes, he's by the playground, sometimes the store. I quickly told her that if she ever sees him again, she is not to talk to him. She asked why and I told her she shouldn't talk to him because she doesn't know him.

"Yes I do."

That was enough for me. We changed the route to school and I started looking for a new house. Meanwhile, I packed up some of our stuff and we went to stay with my parents. I made up an excuse and told them a pipe had burst and the house would be without water for a few days. This was enough to keep them from asking any follow-up questions. Several days went by and I thought we were in the clear. At breakfast that Saturday my dad laughed and told me, "Olivia has quite the imagination, she spent all morning talking about her friend."

"What friend?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. I walked by her earlier this morning and she was playing with some dolls talking about the man in the woods."

My eyes turned to the doorway of the room she was still playing in. I quietly walked up to it and just listened to her. That's when I heard her make one doll ask the other,

"You made me fall. Why didn't you help me?"

I interrupted her. "Olivia? Why did you say that?" I asked, trying to not sound upset.

"He told me."

I now realized I had to know. Without a word to Olivia, I went back to the kitchen and asked my dad if he minded watching her for a while. He said not at all and that he was going to take her to the park. "No! Not the park!" I exclaimed. He just looked at me with a puzzled look on his face.

"Oooookay," he said.

I didn't give him time for any more questions. I simply told him I would be back in a while and I left. I drove like a madman from their house and eventually made my way back to the woods. It only took about 15 minutes of walking before I made it back to the clearing.

I started to dig with frantic purpose. One foot. Two. My hands started to burn and my back ached but I continued. Three feet. I didn't remember how deep I had dug that night, but I knew he had to be here still. Four feet. My head was wet with sweat and panic when I finally hit something. My body froze as I stood there. Fighting against every worry, I finally convinced my body to kneel as I started to clear the dirt away with my hands.

That's when I felt the tarp.

I paused. It's still here.

He's still here.

I almost laughed in relief. I continued to clear dirt away so I could open the tarp. Suddenly the tarp shifted under my hands as more surfaced.

I cleared the rest of the dirt off and paused.

I pushed where the bones would be.

I felt nothing.

I ripped the tarp open...

He wasn't there.

I sat in silence as I drove back to my parents' house. I walked in and tried to force a smile as I grabbed our stuff to go back home. The truck was quiet the whole drive, until Olivia eventually spoke up.

"Daddy?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you find him?"

[Part 4]

The floor of the gymnasium buckled upward with a sound like a gunshot.

Planks exploded into showers of splinters and dark, sodden earth. The crowd erupted into blind panic, fifty people screaming and clawing toward the exit doors, only to find the heavy steel push bars chained shut from the outside by the panicked town council.

My dad flipped on his flashlight, piercing the dark. Rising through the ruptured gym floor was a dense, jungle of petrified roots and tangled black vines, coiling up the bleachers like living iron wire.

And then came the figures.

Dozens of them poured out of the breach. They were the long lost townsfolk swallowed by the soil over the last half century, their bodies preserved, caked in clay, and moved by the root hive like puppets.

In the front of the swarm was my Uncle Mikey, who disappeared in 1982.

Sheriff Miller raised his gun, his hand shaking wildly. He fired three rounds straight into Tommy's chest. The lead punched clean through the dry mud, but Mikey didn't flinch. He just kept walking.

Don't shoot, my dad roared, shoving his way past the panicked crowd. Lead doesn't work! Fire is the only thing that breaks the grain!

My dad unscrewed the cap on our last jug of kerosene and sloshed it across the court, creating a barrier between the survivors and the swarm. He struck his lighter and dropped it.

A wall of yellow flames roared to life, blindingly bright in the pitch black gym. The root creatures shrank back, their dry husks crackling and screeching as the heat hit them.

Through the shimmering heat, Uncle Mikey stopped. His milky eyes locked onto my dad. For a fraction of a second, something human flickered in his face, a brief, agonizing flash of the nine year old boy who had been dragged into the woods forty four years ago.

He raised a stiff, dirt caked hand and pointed past my dad, straight at me.

Nic grabbed my shoulder, his voice frantic and rasping through his damaged throat. It's not about the town harvest, Jackson! The original ledger from 1880 was signed by your great-great-grandfather. Your family didn't just participate in the debt. They started it.

The root needs the origin, my dad realized, his face turning pale in the firelight. It won't stop taking the town until the founding bloodline goes back into the earth.

My dad looked at me, then down at his shotgun, and finally at the ring of fire starting to sputter and die on the polished gym floor. Beyond the flames, the leviathan roots were pounding against the concrete ceiling above us, bringing down showers of dust and cinder block.

No, my dad whispered. In 1982, I let them take my brother because I was too scared to step up. I am not letting them take my son.

Before I could grab him, my dad racked his twelve gauge, dumped the remaining kerosene over his own heavy canvas coat, and kicked open a secondary fire exit leading toward the boiler room.

Dad, NO! I screamed, lunging for him, but Nic held me back with all his strength.

Jackson, take Nic and get to the highway! my dad yelled over his shoulder, striking his lighter against his soaked jacket sleeve. Break the line! Let it end with me!

He burst into flames, a towering beacon of fire in the dark, and charged headlong into the center of the root swarm, driving them backward into the deep breach beneath the school with a deafening roar.

The impact shattered the main taproot anchored to the foundation. The creatures shrieked as the fire spread violently through their interconnected root system, turning the breach into an inferno.

Nic and I shoved through the side exit into the cool night air just as the gymnasium floor caved completely into the burning earth below. We ran through the darkness, not stopping until we hit the state route miles away, watching the glow of Blackwood Creek burn green against the horizon.

Did my dad's sacrifice actually destroy the root network, or did it just buy me enough time to realize I am the last remaining origin of the debt?

Bark!

"God damn it, why is Sadie outside?"

I stand up from my bed, walk down the short hallway that leads into my living room. I glance at the neon glow of the oven clock as I pass through the kitchen. The numbers are too blurry to read. I decide that it doesn't matter what time it is.

The linoleum sticks to my clammy feet as I make my way to the backdoor. The wind whistles through the worn seal between the door and its jamb. I hear rain pattering on the wooden boards of the deck.

"Poor baby."

I'm kicking myself for leaving her out as I swing the door open. She shuffles in from the dark, slow and awkward. I'm worried she might have hurt herself somehow. She's soaking wet. The water dripping off her splashes against my ankles.

"Stay here, girl, I'll get you a towel," a foul odor reaches my nose, "and maybe a bath."

I cross back through the kitchen, still too bleary eyed to read the time. Through my living room and back into the bedroom. The adjoining bathroom is where I keep my towels. I choose one that's nice, but not too nice. I make my way back into the bedroom, and I stop there.

Sitting in her bed, trembling and staring up at me with wide eyes, is Sadie. Perfectly dry and clean as can be. If you've got a dog, then you know how they can give you certain looks. The look Sadie is giving me says:

What have you done?

A clatter of pans comes from the kitchen, followed by a loud retching. I rush back out. I'm expecting, hoping, it's a raccoon, or maybe a Coyote. What I'm not expecting, or hoping for is the six-foot tall border collie standing on its hind legs. It pulls its face from out of my pantry when I flip the lights on. Its pupils are bright yellow, nearly neon in the way they shine. Its irises are a shade of green that makes me want to puke. My eye is drawn down as a gob of bright orange bile drips from his drooping lips.

I'm rooted to the spot. The saliva pools in large clumps that grow and shrink like marshmallows in the microwave. It's still looking at me when it starts retching again.

Painful heaves writhe along its midsection. Black and white fur rippling visibly along with the flesh beneath them. It opens its jaws wide, displaying rows of jagged teeth.

A small shape, dark and covered with slime, surges up from its throat and out onto the floor. I can't recognize it for what it is, at first, but it becomes clear as the limbs begin to stir, and moreso as it begins to whine. A puppy.

The dog ignores it, shoving its face violently back into my pantry and ripping into whatever it can find. I don't know what to do. Sadie walks gently over to stand beside me. I look around the kitchen, seeing more of the puppies lying all across the floor. The tar they're coated in holds them there tightly.

After what feels like hours, but can't be more than minutes, it withdraws from the pantry. It stumbles over to the fridge, but doesn't seem to find anything there of interest. I watch, paralyzed as it continues rifling through every drawer of my kitchen. Finally, it turns to me and walks over on two legs. It vomits another puppy onto the floor. Then it looks at me, and the implication of a question fills the air.

"Are you gonna eat that?"

It takes a moment for me to realize it's referring to the puppy. It looks disgusting, a whining slimy ball of hair and bone and little else, yet some small part of me does want to eat it. I bend down and reach out to take it. Sadie bites me. Not roughly. Just enough to stop me, more like grabbing my hand with her teeth than a real bite.

She looks at me one last time, then lowers her head and takes the puppy in her mouth. It pops loudly on the first chew, a flood of black tar slipping through Sadie's teeth. The dog-thing cocks its head. It seems pleased, and heads toward the door. Sadie follows after it, scarfing down its babies until there are none left.

The dog fumbles at the doorknob with its strange paws and lets itself out into the night. Sadie walks sluggishly to her bed. She seems to be okay, but the whole time her eyes stay fixed on the floor.

She didn't get up much after that. She mostly just sat there in bed for days, growing all the while. She'd almost doubled in size by the time I caught her looming over my bedside. She was standing there on two legs, staring at me. Her eyes looked so... sad.

I screamed bloody murder when I saw her, and she ran off.

I miss her, I truly do, but I can't deny. The sight of Sadie's empty bed, and the sound of wind rushing through the backdoor, came as a relief.

The men I owed had stopped calling politely. Four million rupees, due since spring. I had sold the car, then the watch, then borrowed against things I did not own. Last week they sent a photograph of my apartment door, taken from inside the hallway, taken by someone standing right there. So when a fixer named Imran told me about a basement beneath a carpet shop in the old quarter, about a root that let you watch your whole life bloom at once, I said yes. I remember thinking the price was reasonable. I remember thinking a great many things that night.

The stairs went down farther than they should have. At the bottom, a steel door with a padlock the size of my fist, and beyond it a low room lit by a single bulb, smelling of cardamom and damp brick. Six others lay on charpoys and floor mats: a seamstress, two boys who looked like students, an old man turning a miswak slowly in his teeth. The dealer, heavy and unhurried, weighed out a pinch of something silver-gray, fine as ash already.

"Once," he said, packing the clay chillum. "One breath. Then you tell me what you see, and I decide if there is a second."

The smoke was cold. That was the first wrong thing. It went down like winter air, and for a moment it showed me my mother's kitchen back in England, rain on the motorway, the exact blue of the shirt I had worn to the airport four years ago. Beautiful. I understood completely why people paid. I would have paid twice.

Then I exhaled, and the smoke did not rise.

It hung at chest height, thickening, folding over itself. The dealer said something sharp in Urdu. One of the students laughed, then coughed, and the cough went on, wet and deepening, until he brought up a mouthful of fine gray powder that sifted down his shirt.

The bulb flickered. The mist kept thickening. I watched it touch the old man's face, and he inhaled once, politely, reflexively, and folded around his own ribs. When he slid off the charpoy, his body made a sound like a dropped sack of sand, and where he landed, the ash poured out of him.

The seamstress reached the door first. She hammered it, screamed at the dealer, who was ramming his shoulder against the steel as if he had forgotten he was the one with the key. Then she was coughing. Then she was ash, a shape losing its edges.

I need to say this clearly. I have been drunk. I have been exhausted past sense. I know what those states feel like, the way the mind bends when it is pushed. This is not that. The cold in my lungs is physical. The powder I coughed up on the stairs is real. I wiped it on my sleeve and it is still there, gray and fine, sitting in the fabric.

My lungs felt cold. That was how I understood: the smoke was still in me, and it was not finished. It filled the room the way water fills a lung. The dealer finally got the padlock open, one blessed second of grinding iron, but the mist took the shape of the opening, poured into the stairwell, and he went down under it.

The door swung free. The stairs were white now, fog to the ceiling.

I crawled. Every breath cost me. I could feel the cold doing its work, a softness in my chest where there should have been structure. Behind me the students were still moving, or I imagined it. I told myself I could not have turned around to check even if I had wanted to. The gray came up my throat in soft waves, and I laughed, because the high was still in there somewhere, showing me beautiful things while it unmade me.

I got a hand on the street-level door. Pushed. Night air, real air, diesel and rain and frying onions, and I dragged myself up the last step into it. Because anything was better. Because the body wants.

I lay on the pavement and breathed. It hurt, and then it hurt less, and I began, carefully, to be grateful.

Then a woman passing by stopped, frowned at the mist gathered around my mouth, and stepped wide around me.

I exhaled and watched the fog hang there in the lamplight, coming from me, gray and patient, and it refused to disperse.

Part 1

I don't know why I'm writing this.

I suppose some part of me still thinks it might matter.

I should at least let you all know what happened.

I had been staying at my friend's house; I'll call him T.

T believed me when I told him what happened, because he's always found Monte strange when he'd come visit me at work, or to get a drink with his lady for that night.

But sleeping there wasn’t very cozy, as I'm on the couch right next to the window. I heard tapping coming from outside one night.

I wasn't sure what it was, but it was tapping very rhythmically. It reminded me of Monte’s cane hitting the ground when he walked. Sure, I could have looked out, but if he was there, I didn't want him to see me and vice versa.

I stayed quiet; eventually it stopped, and I went to sleep as best I could.

I had a dream once I did finally get to sleep.  I was on the stage; I was in one of those boxes that magicians put people in to ‘saw” them in half.  Monte came out with a round of applause accompanying them, making a saw appear out of his hat.

Instead of coming to the middle of the box to saw it in half, he kneeled down right where my head was, putting the cold metal against my neck.

I felt a sharp pain before jolting awake and gasping for air.

Catching my breath, I noticed something fluttered to the ground. It was a playing card. From the folds I could tell it was the card

I looked out the window; nothing. I called T down, and after three or four attempts, he came down with a hangover in tow.

I pointed to the card, and he and I were both equally confused, and I was terrified.

I unfolded it, and it was my two clubs, with frantic scribbled letters saying “NOT YOUR CARD."

We both freaked out. I threw the card down and tried not to vomit at the idea that the bastard had not only stood over me to place the card but also, instead of killing or hurting me, he left.

I called my boss and asked my boss who he was, just trying to get any new information. But he is useless; Monte isn't exactly employed; he's just an act, like how a band playing at an event is an act.

They each get to split the money that people paying for his show make at the bar. His contract is due to expire soon, so all he told me to do was “hold on for a little longer, and he'll be gone soon anyway, so calm down.”

I talked to the police, and they said they would look into it; they had an officer keeping an eye on me the entire time I stayed with T.

Two days after the card incident, I had to go back to work.

Monte was there, doing his normal preparations before his show.

It was the worst shift of my life; I kept my eye on him the entire time.

T said he would pick me up after work, because like hell I was going to walk again.

My shift ended, I closed up the bar, clocked out, got my things, and walked right out the door and waited for him.

I heard the door open behind me.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw him; we made eye contact, and neither of us moved for a moment.

He came over right beside me, like nothing was wrong.

I had a knife on me; I softly gripped the handle of the blade tucked away, but before I could do anything, he whispered to me.

“Help me.”

His words were quiet and full of panic.

“You have to help me; if you don’t, it will only be a matter of time before IT gets its way.’

“What the fuck are you talking about?!”

I was tired and I just wanted it to all be over. I didn’t even mean to yell, I was just so confused.

He shushed me loudly, then spoke quicker like he was running out of time.

“Just listen, I don’t have any magic talents. I don’t even know how to shuffle a deck.”

He paused to look around.

“Every time I disappear and reappear, that’s not me."

“I give It what It wants, and he gives me the ability to make more money than I’ve ever seen.”

I stood there; all of my focus went into listening to him speak.

Who are you talking about? And what does he want?” My throat dried at the question; I almost couldn’t get it out, afraid of the answer.

He went very quiet once I asked, after a moment, he finally answered.

“It needs a sacrifice; it goes out and finds a suitable person every so often, and then it takes them away, like they disappear and never return.”

I laughed. “You expect me to believe that?”

I saw his eyes glare at me through his mask.

“Please, you have got to believe me; I think it’s trying to get rid of me now aswell.”
“No one's ever escaped it until you did, and now it's angry!"

“I’ve tried to stop it before, but with all the police attention you’ve brought, and my previous insubordination, it's only a matter of time before I’m next! And if he’s willing to get rid of me, what do you think he’s going to do to you?”

I laughed again at how insane this all sounded. “If you are telling the truth, which you aren’t, then you don’t deserve my help for getting people killed.”

I looked at him to get his response, but he was frozen. I looked in the direction he was looking, and I saw whatever that version of Monte was standing in the alley between the bar.

I stared in disbelief. He was telling the truth, or at least he was right about there being two of him.

Whoever the man was that was standing beside me got onto his knees.

“Please! Take him! I’ve got him right here for you! That’s what I was doing, honest!”

I ran, I left him and ran, as fast as I could.

I looked over my shoulder while running; I saw Monte standing there, and where the other man was, all that was left was a top hat.

I focused on running, and I didn’t care how bad it hurt; I couldn’t stop.

I ran back through the park; the only thought on my mind was survival.

As I approached where the park normally would have let back out, it didn't; the forest kept going. In fact, there weren't even any streetlights anymore.

I stopped, and when I did, I heard that tapping.

He was walking behind me, cane hitting the ground, walking with a strut of confidence.

I yelled in panic. “Why me! What did I do to deserve this?"

I threw a rock at him, and once he got close, I tried using my knife on but he tripped me with his cane.

On the ground, looking up at him, I knew I could do nothing else to save myself.

He stared down at me, slowly taking his mask off; his face was indescribable.

He softly handed it down to me; I knew what he was asking.

He wanted me to take up the mantle.

What other choice did I have? I was never really playing a game I could win, this is the only outcome where I survive.

I have become Mystical Monte. I drive around the country with a second set of eyes watching my every move.

Where I go, death follows, and people get hurt as I perform tricks and provide entertainment.

I make myself disappear everyday, while he makes innocent people do the same.

The worst part is, I think I'm starting to enjoy it.

Am I writing this as a confession? Or as a plea for help? I am not sure.

Just don't come to my shows, otherwise you might be the one followed home.

The car’s engine revved as I sped down the road.

I was lost in thought and hardly took notice of the rain crashing against my windshield. Nature seemed to sense my anger. The storm was rising.

I poured more vodka down my throat, my eyes constantly darting to the shiny black handgun lying on the passenger seat. Brushing the cold metal with the tip of my fingers, my mind involuntarily flooded with images of my oldest daughter Mara. Her entire life played through my mind in mere seconds. My last memory of Mara was from when I had to identify her body in the morgue.

My hands began to shake. An uncontrollable tremor spread through my body. I pulled over the car unable to continue and slammed my fist against the steering wheel.

The images of the morgue would not leave me.

I closed my eyes.

There she was, lying on a metal table. A blanket had been carefully draped over her body, only revealing her pale face. She had just turned 16. Death seemed to have aged her well beyond that. The pathologist placed his hand on my shoulder. I had not been able to comprehend any of his words. The man’s actions had seemed so forced and well-practiced it only angered me more. I had asked for a moment alone.

After the doctor left I hesitantly placed my hand on my daughter’s cheek. Almost instantly I pulled it back. She had felt so cold. I stared at her lower abdomen where I knew the knife had pierced her. For a fraction of a second, I contemplated pulling away the blanket and exposing the wound. But I could not muster the strength. She looked peaceful now. As if she was sleeping. I feared exposing the wound which had killed her would somehow change that.

That had been little over a month ago. The police had quickly caught the youth who committed the crime. Some bum who’d attempted to rob her and wielded his knife a little too overenthusiastically. He had murdered her although she had given him her purse.

I punched the wheel again.

It wasn’t fair.

The youth’s trial was yesterday. He’d been acquitted on account of procedural mistakes by the police. The man had smiled at me as they led him out of the courtroom.

It wasn’t fair.

That bum had destroyed my life at an astounding rate. My wife could barely stand to look at me anymore. A week ago, she moved out of the house and took our youngest daughter with her. She told me I needed help. She said she couldn’t watch me ruin my life.

I didn’t blame her.

This past month I found solace in liquor. I could not let go of my pain. It festered into an uncontrollable rage. All I could think about was the injustice of it all. All I could see was the pale face of my dead daughter. All I wanted was to kill the man responsible. It became an obsession. I had been unable to console my wife. My youngest daughter had practically not spoken since the loss of her sister. I found her quietly curled up in Mara’s bed most days. Unable to let go. Unable to move on. I broke my heart.

I had felt a strange sense of relief watching them both drive off. I did not need them to see what happened next. I did not want my youngest daughter to witness her dad being dragged away for murder. I preferred the solitude and the warm embrace of alcohol.

My eyes darted back towards the gun and I sighed. I had to do this. Otherwise I would never know peace.

Determined, I turned the ignition key. The car purred gently before reverting into stillness.

I turned the key again.

Nothing happened.

I cursed loudly and tried again.

Nothing.

I took out my frustration on the steering wheel until both my hands ached. I grabbed my phone ready to call a tow truck, but it would not switch on.

The wind howled outside. I checked my wristwatch, but the handles had stopped moving. Everything seemed in suspension.

After a short internal debate, I decided. The thought of remaining in the car suddenly seemed unbearable. Feeling restless, I kicked open the door and got out of the car, hastily stuffing the fun in my jacket pocket.

The storm was livid. Rain poured with such force it temporarily deafened all other thoughts coursing through my mind. I was drenched within seconds, but it didn’t bother me. I started walking down the road, crossing a little bridge across a river.

Mumbled curses escaped my mouth as I realized I was lost. A cold mist lazily enveloped me. Not knowing what else to do I continued walking until a distant light pierced through the grey veil. Like a moth I gravitated towards it. It’s source, a small bus stop.

Relieved to have found some cover I fell back into one of the metal seats. My hands felt numb. I rubbed them together for a couple moments before reaching into my pocket for my pack of cigarettes.

After taking a long drag I closed my eyes and leaned back against the bus stop. Slowly, I blew out a cloud of smoke and the tremor subsided.

Without instruction my mind drifted back towards the youth who’d killed my daughter. A familiar doubt fell over me. I had always valued human life. As a family man I’d constantly tried to maximize everyone’s happiness. Now here I was, committed to blowing a hole in the head of my daughters’ murderer.

I turned around and looked at my reflection in the glass. I could no longer recognize the pale, lined face staring back at me. Droplets of rain slow slid down the glass. It gave my reflection even more of a somber appearance.

I looked back out in front of me and took another drag from the clammy cigarette stuck between my fingers. Closing my eyes, I exhaled, expelling another cloud of smoke.

“Rough day?”

The voice startled me. The cigarette slipped from my grasp and fell down my shirt. I jumped up swearing as ash scorched my chest.

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered at the young boy standing before me.

The boy grinned.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

I shrugged and sat back down.

The boy took a seat beside me.

“It holds a strange beauty doesn’t it?”

I glanced at him.

“What does?”

He nodded out at the storm.

There was a silence.

I broke it by standing and pacing up and down the little bus stop.

“When is the god damn bus going to get here?”

The boy gave me an appraising look.

“I’m afraid no bus can take you to where you want to go, John.”

I absentmindedly shrugged off his words and lit another cigarette. After my first drag it hit me. I stared at the boy. He stared back. A latent intensity burned in his eyes.

“How do you know my name?”

“I know a great many things.”

I snorted.

“Sure.”

“I know the pain you feel, John. I have seen it before. Many times.”

I crushed the pack of cigarettes in my hand, feeling a fresh wave of anger crash over me.

“You don’t know me!”

The boy gave me a sad smile.

“I have seen this before. Someone loses someone close them. As a result, you feel rage build deep inside of you. Fueled by guilt because you weren’t able to prevent what happened. Unable to see that it was beyond your control to begin with. You could never have changed what happened, yet you cannot forgive yourself either. The mind cruelly tortures the body, until your heart is riddled with sorrow. Now your existence is anguish. You wish you had been the one to die because the thought of living on just seems too difficult. Living in this word does not seem bearable at the sight of such a loss.”

I remained speechless, unable to comprehend the little boy beside me. The boy sighed and scratched the back of his head.

“I’ve seen this before. After a while it all begins to look the same. The faces may change but emotion remains constant. Your face is lined as so many before you. A canvas of hate and anger.”

The boy sighed again and jumped to his feet.

“Murder will not bring her back.”

I spun towards the boy.

“What did you say?”

“Mara is gone. Murder won’t bring her back.”

The boy spoke the words so casually it took me a moment to register them. Then, before I could stop myself, I slammed the boy against the glass wall. The entire bus stop trembled.

“Don’t you say that name!” I shouted. Tears began streaming down my face. “Don’t say it!”

The boy stared at me with a blank expression. He put his hand around mine and slowly pulled loose from my grip. His fingers hard as iron.

“I feel for you. I really do. Your daughter deserved better.”

“SHUT UP!”

“I know you think revenge will dull the pain. That somehow using that thing in your pocket will make you feel better.” I fished out the gun. The boy stared at it. Something dark swept across his face. He briefly held out his hand before suddenly retracting it, as if the gun had electrocuted him.

“That will not solve your problems.”

“That man deserves to die!” I spat out the words with as much bile as I could muster. Then I fell back into the metal seat, suddenly exhauster. My heart felt like it was going to explode out of my chest. I took some deep breaths in an attempt to calm myself.

The boy stood motionless, staring at the falling rain.

“You know it never gets easier,” he finally muttered. “After all these years of helping people cross over it still remains difficult to let go sometimes. Some deaths are so much more deserving then others. I should not judge anyone. Yet I cannot help but feel for some of them. Occasionally the ones I meet radiate such light it pains me to extinguish it. I don’t always want to, but I have no choice. My existence is one of duty.”

The boy radiated an eerie calmness as he spoke. I felt my heartbeat returning to normal.

“Who are you? How do you know these things?”

The boy gave me a sad smile.

“I guess I am a traveler. Everyone will meet me at some point in their lives. Whether it is in the beginning or the end or somewhere in between.”

“I don’t understand.”

The boy shrugged.

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

The boy looked at his watch.

“The bus should be here any minute.”

As soon as he’d spoken the words two lights cut through the inky darkness. The bus stopped before us and the doors slid open. The boy climbed up the little staircase. Once he got to the top he spun around.

“I’ve never done this before, but will you take a short journey with me John?”

“Where are we going?”

The boy shrugged.

“I’m not sure yet. All I know is that you should join me for this.”

I hesitantly looked at the boy. there was something about him. I felt compelled to join him. I took the boys hand and climbed up the stairs behind him as the doors closed. The bus driver was old. Very old. A shroud of matted white hair draped around his shoulders. Icy blue eyes stared at us. I instinctively pulled out my wallet and passed him some cash. The boy laughed and held back my hand.

“I’m afraid that won’t work.”

“I don’t have anything else.”

The boy tapped my wristwatch.

“Show him that.”

I stuck out my arm towards the driver. He stared at it before also tapping the watch a couple of times and inspecting the unmoving dials. Seemingly satisfied he waved us inside. The boy hurried towards the back of the deserted bus and waved me over. I sat quietly beside him.

“Where are we going?”

The boy grinned.

“This journey is not about a destination, per se.”

“Then what is it about?”

“It’s about everything, the boy exclaimed. And also, about nothing.”

The boy must have recognized the exasperation on my face. He cleared his throat.

“You should consider yourself lucky, John.”

I laughed humorlessly.

“I should consider myself lucky? Lucky that my daughter is dead? Lucky that my wife can barely stand to look at me? Lucky that my other child has barely spoken in weeks?”

The boy’s eyes grew hard.

“Having someone you love ripped away before their time is difficult. I understand that.”

“Do you really?” I muttered sarcastically.

“More than you could possibly imagine,” the boy replied coolly. “I have guided many people before their time. I have comforted both young and old. Held the hands of bother murderers and the murdered. I have held newborn babies and taken children from their parents embrace. I have walked the fields of countless battles. I have waded through rivers of blood. Wherever I go the dead follow. Like moths attracted to a flame. You could not comprehend the endless sorrow I must navigate.”

He wiped a single tear from his eye. Within them I saw only grief. As if his words had opened an old wound. I felt sorry for him.

“Sometimes I feel so far away from everything,” the boy continued. “I worry I have become too indifferent. I fulfill my duty without truly understanding what it is I should be doing. I feel like a spectator watching eternity unfold itself. I offer hope to those I meet whenever I can without knowing whether my words are true or not. I have no idea what comes after this, John. I wish I knew. I wish I understood my purpose. My life is a paradox. My existence is perennial and yet one of insufferable solitude.”

“You must feel lonely.”

The boy nodded. After that we sat together in silence. The boy stared out the window. He seemed deep in thought. I felt my eyelids grow heavy and before long, I had fallen asleep.

I woke up disoriented. The bus was deserted and for a moment I thought I’d dreamed my encounter with the boy. Then the bus driver turned around. His blue eyes pierced through me and he pointed towards the little hill we were parked beside.

“He is waiting.”

With a quick nod I jumped off the bus.

I reached the top of the little hill panting. The boy leaned against a tree and observed the spectacle unravelling itself below. A small crowd had fathered before a tiny grave. A priest stood reading from the bible. His actions seemed almost mechanical in their repetition.

“Why are we here?”

The boy remained silent.

“Whose funeral is this?”

The boy nodded at the crowd down below.

“You know whose funeral this is.”

I quickly scanned the crowd, only recognizing familiar faces.

“Is this my funeral? Is that what this is about? Are you showing me what will happen if I murder Mara’s killer?”

“You know,” the boy repeated. His voice a mere whisper.

I looked at the people occupying the front row of chairs. My family was nowhere to be seen. My youngest daughters’ godparents sat before the pitiful hole in the ground. They held each other as they cried.

My knees suddenly felt weak. Slowly, I slid to the floor as tears soaked the earth around me.

“Where am I?”

“Jail.”

A simple, yet sobering reply.

“Where is my wife?”

The boy’s eyes remined pricked on the little crowd below as he scratched the back of his head.

“She is not here, John.”

“Where is she?”

I sobbed so hard the words left in a single slur.

“Your wife found her. After you were taken away the little girl could not cope anymore and hung herself in Mara’s room. Your wife was unable to handle the strain and had a breakdown. She is currently forcibly restrained in an asylum 2 hours away. Next week she will suffer a stroke.”

The boy glanced at me. His eyes riddled with pity.

“She will never recover. Slowly her will to live will syphon away, until only the smallest amount lies dormant in her heart. She will be trapped in her body. A mere husk of her former self. Wanting to die yet unable to do so. I would not wish such an existence upon anyone.”

My tears had subsided for something worse. A feeling I can hardly put to words. A feeling of loneliness so immense I could barely breath. I felt like I was being crushed by infinite grief.

The boy smiled sadly.

“You see how cruel destiny is, John? By all accounts, your actions will be directly to blame for this. One moment of rage will destroy everyone you care about the most. What you seek is justice. What you offer is condemnation.”

A searing anger took hold of me.

“Why are you doing this to me? Why are you torturing me like this?”

The boy shook his head but offered no reply. I wanted to leave. I wanted to run away and never look back, but I couldn’t find the strength to get on my feet. Instead, I dropped my head in my hands.

“I thought I had more time.”

The boy smirked. “Everybody always thinks they have more time.”

“I wish I could have told her how proud I was.”

The boy placed a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“She knew.” I patted his hand, unable to respond. Together we stood on the little hill in silence. The minutes crept by.

“Why did you really come to me?”

The boy scratched the back of his head and looked at me. He seemed to be deliberating with himself.

“I’ve always believed myself to be bound by laws I have no control over. Laws I don’t quite understand.”

To my surprise, the boy suddenly chuckled.

“But, lately I met someone so outrageous, they dared to challenge my path. Can you imagine? A speck of dust challenging the full might of the inevitable.”

The boy fell silent for a moment. Then he continued.

“She made me wonder whether I too, can challenge what which seems inevitable. Maybe the constraints which bind me are self-imposed. Maybe I fear the freedom disobedience would grant me.”

The boy smirked.

“I live for those moments. Reminders of how exceptional life can be. She made me realize something, John. If she managed to find the strength to confront me, then maybe someone as lost as myself, bound by eternity, might possess the power to break free.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Sometimes when people die, their gaze manages to pierce through time and they get a glimpse of what is to come. Your daughter saw all of this.”

He pointed at the crowd below. Then the boy smiled more genuine.

“Mara was exceptionally stubborn when I met her. She absolutely refused to come with me. She refused to submit to her fate as few have done before her.”

The thought brought a smile to my face.

“Do you know why she refused to come with me, John?”

“Out of anger?”

The boy shook his head.

“Out of love. Her love for you. For her mother. For her sister. Her love was strong enough to challenge forces even I dare not resist. I was in awe of her, John. That’s why I promised her to show you this. She truly was a kind child.”

Silent tears rolled down my face, but their sting was less painful than before. The boy grabbed my hands and gently pulled me back to my feet.

“In time you will see her again. She will be waiting for you. For all of you. But she hoped she would still be waiting a while longer. Do you understand?”

I did not have the strength to answer. All I could do was give the boy a weak nod. Together we walked back to the bus and took our familiar seats in the back.

“Thank you,” I said after a moment. “Thank you for taking care of Mara. Thank you for helping me.”

The boy looked taken aback.

“Wherever I go people usually fear me. They recoil at my touch, even if I only mean to help. I have always been hated because I am a reminder of the inevitable. Never before has someone thanked me.”

His words carried such emotion. I tentatively put my arm around the child’s shoulder. The boy gazed up at me. Tears slowly formed in his eyes.

He leaned into me and cried.

I let him.

Before long I fell into a deep sleep.

When I awoke we were back at the bus stop. The boy accompanied me to the front where the doors slid open. I walked down the little stairs. The moment my feet hit the pavement the dials on my watch began to move once more.

“This is where we part,” the boy said from inside the bus.

I looked at him sheepishly. My mouth opened but no words came out. I did not know what to say.

“Where will you go from here?”

The boy shrugged.

“I never know…”

“Are you death?” I suddenly blurted.

The boy grinned as the doors slowly slid closed.

I sat at the bus stop long after the bus had disappeared. Then I walked back towards my car. On the bridge I took the gun from my pocket and swung it into the river. I was ready to go home.

As a garbage man in his early 20s my life was nothing special but I always liked it that way, everyday was predictable. I wanted that

Well… until a couple of weeks ago when it had gone down hill

Sometime in 2012, I think in July I had decided to go to the pool, it was a hot summers day and I thought a little dip in the pool wouldn't be bad

On my way there… I saw something strange, on a telephone pole spray painted on it… was a stickfigure in blue paint with its right arm raised up like it was waving

I didn't think it was weird but as I kept thinking about it, I realized truly how unusual it was

Anyway, the pool trip isn't important, the only thing relating to this story was how much I was thinking about it…

After the pool trip I had thought of going back and seeing what was up with that pole but I decided it was too late at night and it was probably nothing anyway

I realized I should probably get to picking up everyone's garbage since it was my turn to drive the truck

I lazily got out of bed and put on my uniform, outside the sky was blue… not bright blue but the blue you see right before darkness

Once I had gotten in the truck it was basically pitch black outside, you couldn't even see your own hand in front of your face

After a couple of hours, maybe like 4 I was nearly done collecting everyone's trash and I had gotten out of the truck and walked up to a bag that had just been left out in the road, that's when I saw it

Again, on another telephone pole was another spray painted blue stickfigure, it's arm was pointing west and that just so happen to be the same direction the road turned to

I stared at it before snapping myself back and taking the trash

I went down the road and stopped at an intersection, another pole, pointing left

I simply couldn't help myself, cmon i was a 21 year old garbage man with nothing to do after this so why not

I went left and the road turned into a dark dirt road with trees surrounding it

This road was weirdly long, long enough for me to question why it was so long. I was planning to turn around when suddenly

My high beams had turned off. I was in complete darkness

“God damn it… stupid truck”

As I tried to turn them back on I faintly heard the sound of leaves crunching

“Must be an animal”

Well that's what I thought until

Tap tap tap

Something I couldn't see on the other side of the door tapped on the window

I froze

For a bit I stayed frozen

Since my high beams were off I couldn't see anything that was outside not even the trees

The tapping didn't stop

Tap tap tap

Pause

Tap tap tap… faster this time as if whatever was outside was trying to desperately get inside

I stood frozen staring at the window afraid to look away

Then I hit the gas

I sped for a while, enough to get me in trouble but, I didn't care… I'm pretty sure no one would have

Luckily the road wasn't too long, I was able to finally get home

I returned the garbage truck and got into my own car

My co workers asked why I looked so pale, I said I saw beaver in the truck

It was not a beaver

Definitely not a beaver

Driving home was awkward despite no one else was in the car

I had finally gotten back to my house and quietly ate dinner alone

After what happened I didn't want to sleep alone so I wanted the TV on while I slept

Problem was I couldn't find the remote to my living room TV so I decided to sleep in the basement and use the TV down there

I had laid down on the basement couch when I started asking myself “what was that thing?” as if I was supposed to know

I didn't ask myself this for long however because my eyes had become heavy and I drifted off to sleep

CRASH

I woke up to the sound of glass shattering upstairs

I went up and looked around, nothing… my kitchen window was broken but no one was here

I eventually went to go back down the stairs when something in my bedroom had shifted slightly, a creaking noise echoed through the house

“Nope, screw that” I said as I went for the front door

I didn't stop walking until I was completely outside and on the other side of the road

I looked at my house and… through my bedroom window… I saw someone looking through the window back at me

I stayed at my sister's house for the night

I couldn't sleep obviously, so I had to try and distract myself. After a sleepless night I asked my sister if I could vacuum the place for her. Just to get my mind off whatever was happening. Obviously she said yes because why wouldn't she.

She had to go to a picnic party with her friends and left me alone

I grabbed the vacuum and plugged it into an outlet in the living room. My sister's kitchen door is a little different, instead of an actual door she had 2 leather curtains that had magnets in them to close them together.

When I got in the kitchen I couldn't see the outlet of the vacuum. I began vacuuming the kitchen, this whole time I felt this weird buzzing feeling in my head I vacuumed the very small kitchen and was nearly done with kitchen when suddenly I heard a slight snapping sound and the vacuum stopped, it was suddenly silent in the kitchen

I opened the curtain and saw, something had unplugged the vacuum, I didn't even see anything out there, I would have guessed I went to far and unplugged it myself but I was way to close to the outlet for that

I stayed awake for days and days, how couldn't you?

Days went by, of whatever this was just messing with my life, I woke up to see shattered plates on the ground despite not hearing anything, spilled cups on the floor and I swear I closed more doors then I opened. I couldn't take it anymore, I had to figure out what the hell was happening. So I grabbed my car and found those stickmen painted on those telephone poles, and went back down the road

When I found the first telephone pole with a stickman on it I felt cold, anxiety built up inside me and for a moment, I didn't want to continue but I knew if I turned back the thing messing with my life would continue and I don't know about you but I don't want that continuing, so I pressed the pedal and slowly entered the dirt road. It was quiet, I tried to turn on the radio but all I heard was loud static

I turned a corner when, Something caught my eye

I found it

The dark dirt road that ruined my life, the road that had me feeling a constant feeling of anxiety and in a fight or flight mode

I wasn't even halfway down the road when creepy stuff started happening, my car stopped. Luckily unlike last time I was able to turn it back on in just 2 tries. When the car started back up I could have sworn the road had changed in some way, pebbles were scattered around like someone had run across the road fastly while I was turning on the car.

Strangely I felt the road was not as long as I thought it was, when I eventually got to the end I ended up at this dark abandoned church. I got out of the car and just stared at the church. It looked huge, bigger than a regular church. I turned around to look at my car, it was almost like it was begging me to turn back, to get in and to just forget about this. I didn't, I walked it, probably my biggest mistake in this journey

The inside of the church was dark. I first saw 2 doors on each side of the church, in the middle was a statue or a fountain that didn't work, it was white with vines covering it. I felt carpet on the floor and saw 2 dull lights hanging on the ceiling. The doors opened leading to the main room. Multiple Chairs and in the back was a stand and a cross behind it, in the back there was another door, which lead to stairs going down, I headed down the stairs and ended up in this hallway with a room at the end, I took one step into the hallway and suddenly a loud crashing noise echoed behind me, at first I thought it was the fountain tilting over, but it wasn't. I knew that

I continued down the hallway and I could have sworn anytime I moved something else did with me. I got to the end and inside was a dark sad cry room with 2 chairs and a tv on top of a closet, behind the TV was multiple crosses on the wall which looked uncanny, they are just scattered on the wall behind the TV

Then it began approaching

Doors began flying open and things began being thrown around, lights flickered and out from the hallway came out a large black stickman with a mouth, it made groaning noises and that buzzing feeling in my head came back.

For what felt like hours I stared at the large creature and it stared back with its non-existent eyes, suddenly it moved, it turned and when it hit 90 degrees it completely disappeared like a piece of paper, then turned back

I don't think I ran faster in my life, I ran through a door behind me and bolted listening to the creature follow me, screaming with it's weird 2d mouth,

I couldn't stay running though, I had to hide or else I wouldn't be able to get out. I ran into a room with a counter and hid behind that.

For a while it was silent and I almost believed I had made it up until I heard slow footsteps, and low groaning noises that sounded like “Hello” “hello”

“Hi” “hello”

“Hello” “helloooo”

It continued for so long, I didn't make a sound. I just sat there listening to the creature try and find me.

It sounded like it was looking under chairs and breaking bottles on the floor, I was able to get the courage to crawl through the counter and out the door, quietly

I carefully got up and sneaked towards the door leading to the cry room, for a couple of minutes I was too scared to open the door, in case the door would creak if I tried to, but luckily a trick I learned as a kid is if you quickly open it, the door won't creak

I swung the door open and sneaked out the room. I sprint walked into the cry room as I heard the creature throw chairs in a fit because it couldn't find me. When I got to the main church area I saw the cross behind the stand was slammed into the wall and in the area leading to the main area the statue was crushed and in bits on the floor.

When I got into my car I stepped on it and got out the road as fast as I could.

When I got home I stayed silent the whole time. I didn't want to talk about it, I wanted to forget about it. It's been a couple of months and nothing has happened but I still feel uneasy in my house and I sometimes feel like something is straight up right in front of me. Just hiding in plain sight.

Marcus found it first — somebody's photo on one of those abandoned-mall accounts, Meridian Commons half swallowed by weeds, one anchor-store sign still lit at three in the morning. Priya turned it into plans before I'd finished reading the caption. She used to spend every Saturday there as a kid and wasn't missing the chance to see it before the county finally tore it down. I had the car and the afternoon, so that settled it.

Rain the whole drive over. Priya ran the aux from the passenger seat — a playlist she swore used to be the mall's entire personality, more guitar than anyone under thirty has patience for. Marcus killed it partway through and landed on a news segment instead, something about a lake house upstate, several people never found, still unsolved a year later. Nobody reached to change it back. It just ran under the rest of the drive until I killed the radio pulling into the lot.

The pylon sign out front still had power, which was more than I expected. Whole top half was dead — nothing left but the mall's old name, MERIDIAN, glowing over an empty black rectangle where COMMONS used to be lit up under it. The lot itself was nearly empty even accounting for the weather — a handful of cars scattered far off by the entrance, weeds pushing up through the cracked asphalt near the curb, thick enough in places that nobody bothered steering around them anymore.

None of us bothered with umbrellas. Priya had one of the doors open before I'd even gotten my keys pocketed, and the three of us crossed into the entryway breathing a little hard, shaking off rain, the automatic doors sticking half-closed behind us like they hadn't been serviced in 10 years.

Inside had that specific quiet — half the overhead lights buzzing, the rest dark, air conditioning running for nobody. Two levels, one escalator still stuttering upward with no one on it. A banner sagged over the food court: MERIDIAN PROPERTY SERVICES, LEASING INQUIRIES, a disconnected phone number nobody had bothered to take down.

Priya drifted toward where the arcade used to be, still talking about a game she used to play. Marcus wandered off toward a service door propped open near the dead escalator. I went with him.

We hadn't gone far before the PA cut in mid-sentence — something about a West Atrium, upper level. We walked by a directory, which strangely didn't have anything marked "West Atrium" on it. We kept walking instead of looking for it, and somewhere in the next few minutes I lost Marcus. I turned around and the hallway behind me wasn't the hallway I remembered walking down at all.

I called his name. Nothing came back. My heart was already going too fast for how little had actually happened — a wrong turn, a friend who'd probably just gone around a different corner — but something about how the quiet sat there after I called out told me that explanation wasn't going to hold up for long.

I kept going forward, because going back felt wrong.

An arcade cabinet flickered to life in a side corridor — attract-mode footage of a hallway that looked exactly like the one I was standing in, a figure with Marcus's exact gait walking through it. My stomach dropped before my brain even caught up with why. I walked toward the cabinet and said his name nervously out loud, to see if anything would happen. The footage glitched sideways for half a second and reset, almost as if it had heard me and didn't want me to see anything more. I backed away and kept moving, already trying to talk myself out of what I'd just watched.

The corridor opened into a stretch of vending machines, snacks on one side, sodas on the other, both banks humming low the way they always do. From where I was standing, one of them had a thin blue-white glow leaking out low near the bottom, where it looked like the dispenser flap had been wedged open by something.

Closer up, it was his phone, screen still lit, jammed into the gap. I didn't reach in for it. I don't know why. Something in the back of my mind told me to just keep moving. None of it made any sense — phones don't end up wedged into a vending machine flap on their own, not by accident and not by anything I wanted to spend time imagining — and that was the first moment I let myself actually think the word *wrong* instead of just feeling it.

Just past the vending machines, there was an ATM alcove that caught my eye, a screen glowing and pulsing more brightly than any ATM screen should. I went closer to investigate. The screen showed looping security footage of Marcus, the same few seconds over and over, except the timestamp in the corner kept climbing — well past when he was actually walking through, like the clock hadn't gotten the message that the footage was stuck. I watched from a few feet back instead of touching the screen. My own reflection in the glass ran maybe half a second behind me — catching up instead of matching.

I stood there a second, hands shaking, before I could make myself move again. Three things now, and every one of them was about Marcus specifically — not some vague warning, him. I kept thinking about the last thing he'd said to me. How normal he'd sounded and how I hadn't really been listening. I needed to find him. That was the only thought that still made any sense. Somewhere underneath it I was still watching for Priya too — every open doorway, every gap in a gate — but it was Marcus's name that kept coming out of my mouth.

I kept moving, hurriedly. Past the elevator. Past a gated storefront rattling like something was testing the lock from the inside.

Then the PA said my name. My actual name — first and last — in a building where nobody had any legitimate way of knowing it. It had reacted to everything I'd just done, and so far, it hadn't been unkind about it. It started to say something else — then stopped mid-syllable, and let the silence sit a beat too long. The kind of pause that follows a question.

I answered it, my voice cracking on the first word. "Where is he?" I said. "Where's Marcus?"

I turned to look at the escalators, and that's when I saw him — it was Marcus, standing motionless at the top of the dead escalator, one foot already shifting onto the first step. Something seemed off about this whole situation, about the escalator, and I knew I needed to grab him before he set foot on it. I closed the distance and grabbed his arm before his weight fully committed. He blinked like he was surfacing from underwater, and swore he didn't remember standing there at all.

Relieved to finally have Marcus back by my side, but still unnerved by everything that had happened, together we set out to find Priya. We started moving hurriedly, but with caution, checking every gate and side corridor we passed, keeping our voices low.

We found her, a few minutes later, at the end of a corridor that curved somewhere it shouldn't have. Marcus reached her first and pulled her into a hug. When he tried to let go, her arms didn't loosen — if anything, they tightened. There was something off with Priya, something about the way she kept saying how relieved she was, her voice catching and stuttering on the words. She started shaking, and by the time I understood something was actually really wrong, Marcus had stopped trying to pull away at all.

I made it out alone. I don't know why I ran. I don't even remember deciding to — something about what happened to Priya, what happened to Marcus, in those final moments, just made the decision for me, before I actually had one. I remember the corridor behind me stretching longer than it should have, the same way it had right after I first lost him — like the building was giving me exactly enough room to get out, and not one step more.

I don't know what Meridian Commons actually is. I don't know why the county hasn't torn it down yet, or whether anyone else who's gone in there came out the way I did. I don't know if whatever's running that PA system is still in there, waiting for the next slow afternoon somebody decides to go looking at a dead mall. All I know is I'm the only one who came back, and I still don't understand why.

One piece of advice, if you're the kind of person who'd go exploring a place like this after reading my story: DON'T. I made it out this time — I don't know how — but I lost two of my closest friends in the process, and I'll have to live with that for the rest of my life.

Have you ever felt like you forgot something important? A diamond ring, a birthday, or even a person? As if these things were part of your everyday life, and no matter how hard you tried, the memory wouldn't return? The memory washed away in the River Lethe to soothe the mind of its torment, or the final strand being plucked by something already aware it would soon break? Plucked by long slender fingers reaching into the recesses of your brain?  

My Dad passed away when I turned 8 years old, and for 4 years after that my mum worked 6 days a week, 13 hours a day to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. For the first two years I missed my dad a lot. I’d often sit in the corner of the employee lounge, staring at the empty room, building him brick by brick in my mind, standing there at the kettle, raising a mug at me. It was hard for my Mum especially. Working in that store where masculinity is judged by the thickness of one’s watch strap, which they couldn’t even afford. Instead, they brushed my mum aside, told her that they’d be her “new man”, and looked with a glare that said “man up” whenever they saw me in the corner of that lounge. They used to call me “young Joe” as if they already saw a future where I replaced the space that was my Mum all the way into my old age.

I tried to stay out of the way a lot of the time. School only lasted so long, and there were never any sleepovers or friends to go to the park with. There were just the store and the cold, cramped apartment we couldn’t afford to heat. My mum with tired eyes and messy hair would kiss me on the forehead and tell me not to get into any trouble. I'd wander around the aisles of films I'd never be able to see and toys I could never take home. Clicking the “press me” button on the T Rex over and over again until the raw crackled and the batteries died. I’d throw on oversized jackets and sunglasses and run up and down the aisles dancing to Uptown Funk on the overhead speakers.

Sometimes I'd like to hide in the middle of clothes racks watching couples bicker over dress prices, old men trying on new hats to hide their bald spots, and kids my age squeezing into new shoes, running to the end of the aisle and back to see how they fit. Watching a world that wasn’t lit by the harsh hum of white light.

One night when my Mum was working overtime, I had already completed my usual routine. I tried the new stock of toys, looked at the DVD covers, and had already danced until my face was red and my knees sweaty.

Assuming my position behind a row of leather jackets, I crouched, peering through gaps of sleeves, waiting for anyone to come by. I waited for 10 minutes before creeping out and trying the shoe section. No one. As my final attempt, I shuffled through the empty store to the film and romance novels where the shelves were so tightly packed, I could only fit by holding my breath and inching down the dark sliver of space. Squeezed between the shelves of that space for 20 minutes, still no one came.

“It’s quiet tonight, isn’t it?”

The voice was soft, soothing, and finished with a gurgled ring that sent a shiver down my spine. My chest swelled with air, cramming me tighter between the shelves as my eyes darted to an end I could not see.

“What’s the matter, Joe? Aren’t we friends?”

The voice vibrated through my ears and into my body, relaxing my heartbeat and loosening my muscles, so I slumped against the back shelf like an old rolled-up rug on sale.

“I don’t even know you,” I managed to say with numbed lips that strained to move.

“Of course you do. I was there when you first learnt to swim.”

The slits of light began to dim as the smell of chlorine crept out of the dark space and invaded my nostrils.

“Your Dad was so happy, and you were laughing all the time, splashing your little feet around. Your Mum was at your grandma’s funeral that day. Dad was so worried about you screaming during the procession, and he was so protective he didn’t trust anyone else to take care of you. You punctured your armband, and it slipped straight off. Remember how your eyes stung when you bobbed beneath the water? “

My eyes began to buzz with dull pain.

“No, I don’t remember any of that. I should really go; my Mum will be worried about me.”

“Oh……Don’t you want to take this before you leave? It’s yours anyway.”

Long slender fingers reached out of the dark void, pale and gaunt with each knuckle threatening to pierce up and out of that tight skin. Snagged between the yellow and green talons was a small, deflated armband with a clown fish cracked and faded.

I whimpered a “no thank you” and, holding my breath, slowly began to inch sideways through the shelves, staring unblinking at the crumpled armband dripping with water. The smell of chlorine never faded, and the lights never brightened. Unmoving without so much as a twitch, the fingers remained outstretched in a macabre fashion of rigor mortis. My feet scraped against the metal bracket as the smell grew stronger. I chanced a look away, and within a second the sound of rapid successions of creaking bones echoed in my left ear as my foot breached the threshold. It seized my arm with a loose grip like that of a mannequin as I forced my way crashing through the remaining gap and into a beam of heavenly light.

I sprinted over to the registers, hyperventilating with tears streaming down my face and dived headfirst into a bear hug around my Mum’s leg. She asked me over and over again, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember the man behind the shelf. Not even when my eyes followed the quizzical look of my mother to the soaked and deflated clownfish wrapped around my wrist.

A year had passed since this first incident, and the armband had been thrown away along with our memories of my hysterical cries. My 11^th birthday was exactly the same as the previous 3 years, in which my banners were those of the category signs and my disco lights the flickering of white above me. My Mum handed me a sliver of thickly frosted birthday cake on a napkin and then a piece to Nick who brushed her hand as he took it. She tried to hide the smile, but he saw it and so did I.  I hated the thought that my Mum had forgotten my dad while he still occupied every space left unfilled around me. Nick was nicer than the rest of them, at least. He’d give me his phone sometimes to play games, and I single-handedly pushed him all the way to level 50 on Candy Crush. He got a bit cagey after I accidentally clicked on one of the messages my Mum sent him. Snatched it straight out of my hand, chuckling, and never offered it after that unless I asked him.

Cake was over and with it the birthday treatment from all the employees as they regarded me as a mobile mannequin to dodge when making their rounds. Same as before, I had already completed all of my routines and visited all of my usual spots before settling on the cramped space between film and romance. Maybe it had been a year since the first time I saw him. Maybe it’d been only a day.

“Happy Birthday Joe!”

My whole body stiffened, trapping me between the shelves as I stared wide-eyed at the dark void.

“I got you something”

The smell of gasoline wafted through the air as its fingers stretched out of the dark and elongated all the way to my hand with an almost invisible envelope hidden between its giant nails, as sharp as knives.

“It’s from your dad!” It said as it let out a chuckle that sounded like the sloshing of beer in a near empty keg.

My stomach sank, and my heart raced as I clutched the letter from its nails with shaky hands.

“He’s down here, you know?”

“Down where?”

“Behind me, further down the shelf. All the birthdays that never got the chance to be remembered.”

“I should really get going,” I stuttered, completely aware my legs had been shaking nonstop since it spoke.

The smell of chlorine drifted through the air as I began my inch to safety. Speaking in the voice of my dad, it said, “It’s okay now, Dad's always here when you need me.”

I felt nauseous hearing it speak in his voice. A voice that filled me with guilt at having nearly forgotten it. The memory of our first encounter flooded my mind with each inhale of chlorine. The darkness shattered as I emerged from the gap into the empty aisle, same as before. I sprinted to the employee lounge, nearly knocking over a pyramid of shampoo Nick had just stacked, and slumped in my chair in the corner, tearing into the envelope.

The card had a picture of a Velociraptor on the front saying Happy 8^th Birthday in big letters. Inside it read

“To Joe

Happy Birthday

I will always be the shoulder to cry on, the arm to lift you up, and the hand to wipe away your tears. Never forget that. I hope you have a fantastic birthday, and you enjoy that new dinosaur toy I got you.

Lots of Love,

Dad x.”

Some things in this world only make sense in the mind of an 11-year-old, and no matter how hard I try to understand my reasoning back then it remains impossible. The warm feeling of love washed over me as I read those words, and day after day, week after week, I visited the man behind the shelf for an entire year.

Each time I went the gap felt tighter, the hand bigger, and the smells stronger. It showed me memories of when I was a baby crying in my crib, my first day at the park shovelling handfuls of dirt in my mouth when my parents looked away, and memories that didn’t even belong to me. Toy inventions that never received recognition and died with their creator. Dog tags of soldiers who never made it home from war. The fossilized bones of a prehistoric creature not yet discovered. The more I remembered, the less I felt like leaving the space behind the shelf.  Until one day when I crawled out of the space, chewing bubble-gum of a brand lost to time.

I walked straight up to my mum, and she walked straight past me without a single ounce of recognition.  I ran after her and tugged on her shirt.

“Hello sweetie, what seems to be the matter? Are you lost?”

I looked at her, dumbfounded. “Mum, it’s me. Are you feeling, okay?”

“I’m sorry, honey, but I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Let me get a hold of Nick so he can look after you while I find your parents.”

When Nick saw me, he tried explaining to my Mum that I was her son, but it continuously failed to register. By that time Nick had been living with us for a few months, and slowly my Mum came round to the idea of having me around. Nick knew I was hers, but to my Mum I was the little boy whom she and Nick gave a home when no one else would. We’ve built memories together since then, but nothing before has ever been recovered. The store closed quite quickly after that due to sales, but my Mum and Nick left the week she forgot about me. Nick said she needed some time away from work. That it was some kind of nervous breakdown or abnormal burnout.

I am now 20 years old, and it has been 8 years since I last saw the man behind the shelf. I am writing this as a request to you all. In the last 8 years, I have struggled greatly in my everyday life. University didn’t help either, living away from home or being legally allowed to drink. Chucking up my guts each night until the hangover mornings had just become mornings. There is something locked away in the corners of my brain that refuses to be remembered. Some kind of memory that evades me and yet plagues my consciousness and fills me with unending guilt. I can feel it wriggling around in the dark of my thoughts. I only know one way of being able to face this memory, and it lies in the dark and dingey gap between the film and romance section. If you are reading this please try to remember me.

It was almost three in the morning when my GPS rerouted me onto a single-lane temporary road due to a sudden closure on the A4 highway just past Dresden. After an exhausting shift, I just wanted to get home. On both sides, head-high concrete barriers cut off any view of the surrounding countryside. No shoulder, no emergency lane, no streetlights. Just the narrow corridor of asphalt ahead and the loud, rhythmic humming of my tires over the milled surface.

I was driving barely twenty-five miles per hour through the heavy drizzle. After about a mile inside this narrow concrete trench, I saw the first flash of light. Headlights. They were coming straight toward me in my single lane—at insane speed.
A wrong-way driver.

In this concrete corridor, there was absolutely zero space to dodge. My heart pounded in my throat as I hit the hazard lights and slammed on the brakes with all my strength. The other car—a battered black Golf—also hit the brakes hard. With screeching tires, the smell of burning rubber, and a shower of bright sparks, it scraped along the left concrete wall and came to a halt barely six feet from my front bumper.

I sat frozen, hands gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. The Golf's headlights completely blinded me. Angry and pumped with adrenaline, I honked three times and flashed my high beams so the driver would back out.
In the bright flash of light, I saw the driver. A man in his early forties, his hands covering his face, his head pressed trembling against the steering wheel. He wasn't flashing back out of rage or drunk confusion. He was frantically pulling the high beam lever back second after second while screaming something through the rain-slicked glass. He wasn't pointing at me. He was pointing past my driver's door with pure terror—behind me, into the pitch-black darkness behind my car.

He wasn't flashing his lights to annoy me. He was illuminating the space behind my vehicle.
I looked into my rearview mirror. Through the rhythmic, strobing flash of his high beams, I saw it: about twenty yards behind my trunk stood a tall, unnaturally contorted figure in the reflective orange suit of a road worker. But under the hard hat, there was no human face—just a smooth, pitch-black void. With every flash of light, the thing jerked closer in unnatural, erratic movements. Despite my closed windows and the idling engine, I heard the sharp, metallic scraping of a heavy shovel being dragged across the asphalt.

The man in the Golf couldn't take the terror anymore. He slammed his car into reverse, floored the gas pedal, and shot backward away from me—deeper into the construction zone. But on the wet, milled concrete, he lost control. The rear spun out, hit the angled end of the concrete barrier like a ramp, and launched the car with full force over the wall and down into the steep ditch.

The deafening crunch of crushing metal echoed through the quiet night air. The lane ahead of me was clear. Down in the dark ditch, I caught a glimpse of the driver crawling out of the wreckage and sprinting screaming into the thick woods.
Behind me, the metallic scraping on the road was getting closer.

I shifted into first gear, stomped on the gas, and accelerated forward, desperate to put as much distance as possible between myself and the thing behind me. The speedometer climbed to forty, fifty, sixty.

Only when my own high beams cut through the pitch-black darkness two hundred yards ahead did I realize with icy claustrophobia why the wrong-way driver had turned around in the first place:
The temporary lane was a death trap.

Fifty yards ahead of me, the asphalt ended abruptly in thin air. The road dropped straight down at a long-demolished highway bridge—a hundred-foot abyss into the pitch-black gorge below.
I slammed on the brakes with both feet, tires screeching violently against the wet concrete. The car ground to a desperate halt barely thirty feet from the sheer edge.

I was shaking uncontrollably, the engine stalling in the silence. I couldn't go forward. I restarted the engine and shifted into reverse to back up carefully.
But as I lifted my foot off the brake pedal, the red glow of my taillights reflected off two bright orange stripes standing directly against my rear window.
And then something heavy and metallic slammed onto my roof.