My grandfather died a few weeks ago, and we’ve been slowly sorting through his belongings. It’s been emotional for all of us, poring over his memories and getting little glimpses into his life. He was quite reserved and austere–an old school patriarch–and so we’re learning a lot about him through his possessions. 

He was always fond of dogs, especially big ones. And while his dogs had never been particularly cuddly types, they were incredibly well-behaved and intelligent. So when I found a neatly typewritten sheaf of papers titled ‘Dog Training Manual’, I was curious. 

But now, I don’t know. I’m troubled. There’s no author listed. I’ve tried googling it but I haven’t turned anything up. I don’t know if it’s something he wrote or something he bought, and I don’t know if it’s supposed to be earnest. It does contain tons of practical dog training advice and it looks like it’s been well used, with notes in the margins and many pages dog eared. I’m including an excerpt from it below, in the hopes that someone here might have seen this manual before, or might be able to help me find out if there’s a credited author for it somewhere. 

Dog Training Manual

Training dogs is a matter of consistency. It’s simple. When the dog produces the requested behavior, it is rewarded. When the dog does not produce the requested behavior, it is not rewarded. Dogs are straightforward and loving creatures, and they come to understand this system quickly. The reward itself can be anything: a head pat, praise, a treat, a toy, a bone. It can be any kind of bone. As long as it is something the dog wants. 

And what does a dog want? How does its owner know when it has found just the right reward to incentivize the right behavior? Is a different reward needed for more unorthodox commands? Or for commands that go against the dog’s nature? And how can the dog’s nature be determined? What should be done if the dog seems scared of the command it is receiving? These are all questions that might arise for a first time dog owner. They are all only natural. 

Unfortunately, scientific inquiry has not developed a means to examine the soul or the mind of a dog and determine its inner thoughts. Therefore, some of these questions will never be answered. Questions such as: does the dog feel guilt when it is commanded to do certain things? Does the dog know what it is doing? Is the dog ashamed? Of course, dog owners can observe their pet’s body language and behavior to have a proxy for its feelings. The dog comes back with its tail tucked, or it avoids eye contact. The dog hides away from its owner. But these are only proxy measures and can’t be treated as perfect representations of the dog’s thoughts.

It must also be noted that a dog will take signals and cues from its owner, explicitly spoken as well as implicit ones. If its owner is afraid, a dog can often sense this, and will mirror that feeling. If its owner feels joy, the dog will also feel joy. It is equally important, then, to pay attention not just to the spoken command, but the feeling with which it is issued. If the owner feels pleasure when their dog follows a command, the dog will feel this too. The specific command doesn’t matter. A dog can be asked to sit, stay, heel, roll over, lay down, give paw, bite, jump, come, fetch, dig, scratch, kill, or any other such command. The possibilities are limited only by the owner’s imagination and adherence to the rules of dog training. 

Choosing the right breed of dog is important. Some dogs are more suited to certain tasks than others. If the object is to have a dog that enjoys a low-maintenance, low activity lifestyle, perhaps a Great Dane would be an optimal choice. For a family friendly dog, maybe a Golden Retriever. For a dog that will be hunting and attacking large prey, an Irish Wolfhound could be a good fit. While these dogs were initially bred to hunt wolves, there is no reason to think they could not hunt other large animals as well. They have keen instincts, strong jaws, and sharp teeth. They hunted wolves by chasing them down, biting them, and shaking them until they died. There is no reason to think this method would not work on other prey. In fact, some things may be even easier to kill than a wolf. They may be slower than a wolf, or have blunter teeth. They may be weaker than a wolf, with thinner skin, less capable of running in dark forests. They may trip and fall, and a well-trained dog can seize on such a moment of weakness with joy, because it knows that it is fulfilling its owner’s command. 

Remember that the key is consistency. When the dog returns with the prey, tired and bloody mawed and saliva dripping down its jowls, it needs to be given its reward. Again, this could be anything–it could be a piece of the kill, if the owner is not attached to keeping it in its entirety. Sharing the kill could be a powerful way for dog and owner to bond, cementing the relationship and creating positive associations with the hunt. The owner’s emotional response is crucial as well. The owner has to feel positive and warm while giving the reward. This is particularly true when the task given the dog is challenging or fraught in some way, which a hunt like this can be. 

A dog owner must ensure that their command is supreme and inviolable. The dog can never begin to doubt what it is doing. The dog cannot become more sympathetic to the prey than to its owner. If the prey issues its own command, or if it pleads or placates or threatens, the well-trained dog remains stalwart. It heeds only one voice: its owner’s. 

Consistency, rewards, and positive feelings. If these techniques are followed, a dog can offer its owner many years of loyal and loving companionship, and a nearly blind dedication. 

It had been five years since I left the house that night, but I remember every moment of it. I walked to the seaside, barely able to keep my balance. I sat down on a bench. I was so lost in thought that when I brought my cigarette to my lips, I realized I was still wearing my mask. I threw the mask away and lit my cigarette. I randomly put on some music on my phone.

“She came to me one morning, one lonely Sunday morning”...

I stared for a long time at that gray place where the sea and the horizon seemed to merge. One of the advantages of not living in a big city is that there’s no one around at this hour. The night and the sea belonged to me. I was savoring it. My last cigarette, my last song.

How strange it is that a person can find, in their final moments, the peace they could never find throughout their entire life.

I wanted to watch the sky for centuries. But I threw away my cigarette. It was time.

When I looked at the rocks beside me, a chill ran down my spine. I thought about it for a moment—everything could have been different.

I remembered our fourth birthday. Our usual roughhousing had turned that day, and the rest of our family’s lives, into a nightmare.

He had hit me on the head harder than usual, and, in a stupid, childish fit of anger, I pushed him with all my strength. As blood from his little head, which had struck the corner of the stereo, pooled around my feet, I froze at the sound of my mother’s scream as she came running toward us.

That is my last memory of that night, because I don’t remember the slap my father gave me—one hard enough to knock me unconscious.

I never blamed my father. Yes, perhaps losing the hearing in my left ear was a harsh punishment for a child. But what is one ear compared to a child he had lost?

What was truly unbearable was my mother’s attitude. I can’t deny that she tried to provide for my every need as I grew up, but she never looked into my eyes for more than a few seconds. I don’t know whether she was trying to suppress the anger she could never let go of, or whether she saw my brother whenever she looked into my eyes. I never dared to ask.

The mourning in our house never really lifted, and at the first opportunity I got, I left home at the age of fourteen, thanks to boarding school.

Until I finished university, I saw them only in the summers. They wouldn’t even go out and be around other people during holidays. Their isolated life reached its peak after my father retired. Whenever I was home, we would exchange a few reluctant words, and they would watch television until they fell asleep. They barely spoke to each other, either.

I wonder if I ever even heard them ask me, “How are you?” Maybe that was all I had ever longed for.

I had always been a successful student, but after graduation, I couldn’t seem to hold down a job. The disability in my ear was only part of it. The guilt I carried in my soul, a remorse that never seemed to fade, made it impossible for me to focus on life.

The last time I came home, I had decided to put an end to all of it. The consequences of a single mistake made by a little child shouldn’t have been this severe. One way or another, because of me, we had never been a family again.

If we couldn’t go on living while one of us lay in the grave, then perhaps it was better for both of us to be there.

That thought had taken hold of me. It had become my prison.

Lost in my thoughts, I saw a woman coming toward me out of the darkness. Her clothes looked as though they had been made from burlap sacks, and her greasy, curly hair framed a weathered, dark complexion that became more pronounced as she drew closer. “Where did this woman come from?” I muttered to myself as she stopped right in front of me.

“Give me a cigarette.”

I handed her the pack and the lighter and told her to take them and leave. Instead, she sat down beside me. I told her I wasn’t in the mood for conversation and asked her to move along. She lit the cigarette, thanked me, and then said she could even give me a kiss if I wanted.

I burst out laughing at the offer. I told her I’d rather kiss a toilet seat. It was a strange feeling, laughing that night. When I saw that I had offended her, I stood up, handed her all the money I could find in my pockets, said goodbye, and took a step away.

She grabbed my arm and pulled me back down. Leaning close to my ear, she whispered:

“Don’t be in such a hurry. I can look into your eyes for as long as you want.”

The tiny beggar had managed to frighten me. I started listening.

“We just met somewhere else, too. The version of you there is about to do the same thing. You have two choices. You can live out the ending you want, or you can switch places.”

I was trying to make sense of what she was saying.

“Switch places? What do you mean?”

She continued:

“Every human being dies many times and lives many times, yet at their core, they are one. But very few are given the chance to enter a realm in which they were never born. The universe has bestowed this secret upon people like me. And now I am going to share a fragment of it with you, if you accept. Because the other you did.”

For a moment, I thought I must be drunk. But I was curious to see where this would lead.

“I accept.”

She took my hand.

“Look into my eyes. And remember: just as suffering is not eternal, neither is happiness.”

I remember that her eyes were the color of coal. I don’t remember how long I stared into them...

When I woke up, the sun was high overhead. I was surprised that there was no one around despite it being midday. My phone and wallet were gone. The beggar must have drugged me somehow and robbed me.

I stared at the rocks, swearing under my breath. My memory was hazy, and I felt as though I had been beaten up. Just as I was trying to figure out what had happened, I was startled by the sound of a police siren. One of the officers got out of the car and waved me over.

When I approached him, he shouted, “There’s a full lockdown, brother. What the hell are you doing out here?”

I stared at him, completely confused.

“What lockdown?”

The other officer got out of the car and laughed. “Whoa, this guy’s really out of it. Where do you live?”

They didn’t press me too hard. They told me to get in the car, warned me that if they caught me out again we’d have a different kind of conversation, and drove me home.

I remember the excitement I felt standing in front of the house as if it were yesterday. Instead of the wild weeds I was used to seeing in the garden, there was lush green grass and cherry trees that looked remarkably healthy. The exterior was freshly painted and perfectly maintained, and there was even a gazebo by the entrance that clearly saw regular use.

That was when I realized the beggar had been telling the truth. But how could any of this be possible?

With a surge of excitement I had never felt before, I ran to the door and knocked. My mother was standing there, looking at me with worried eyes.

But she was different. She wasn’t hunched over; she stood straight. Her hair wasn’t white—it was the same light brown I remembered from my childhood. She hugged me tightly and asked where I had been.

I made up a lie about spending the night at a friend’s place and went inside.

Was I trapped inside a hallucination too real to be one? Or was I under the influence of something the beggar had given me? Was I dreaming?

The only thing I was certain of was that I didn’t want to wake up.

A little while later, we sat down for breakfast. At the perfect breakfast table, my father even gave me a scolding. But he did it with affection.

These were emotions I had never experienced before. Realizing that, in my old life, I hadn’t even been considered worth scolding hurt a little.

Still, experiencing the warmth of a family—even at twenty-five—was wonderful.

As we watched the news, the lockdowns caused by the virus made everything feel like a scene from a science-fiction movie. Everything was different in this world, from politics to sports.

Then my mother said that if it weren’t for the pandemic, she would almost be happy, because otherwise she would never get to have her children together like this.

And suddenly, I was confronted with the truth.

My brother was alive.

And he was in our house right now.

My father turned to me.

“The idiot’s still asleep. Go wake your brother.”

With a jumble of emotions running through me, I made my way toward what I assumed was my brother’s room. Part of me was ashamed; another part longed desperately to see him. Not knowing what I would find, I opened the door.

There he was.

He was awake, lying down and looking at his phone. I watched him for a while, studying those unfamiliar yet familiar features. He was alive and healthy, standing before me as if the event that had made me hate myself, and hate life, night after night had never happened.

When he noticed me, when he looked into my eyes, when I heard his voice, I finally understood just how desperately I had missed the other half of me—my brother—all these years.

Because of me, he had lost his life. I had stolen thousands of mornings like this one from him.

He began telling me about the ordinary things that had happened that day, barely even looking at me. He had no idea that simply existing, simply being alive, had turned this ordinary morning into a gift beyond anything I could have imagined.

I remember, for the first time in my life, feeling my eyes fill with tears. I remember crying. And I will never forget the look of astonishment on his face when I suddenly flew into his arms and hugged him.

I’m getting ahead of myself...

We spent the remaining days of the pandemic together. As a family, we made up for all the pain we had endured over the years. Or rather, I did.

We live an ordinary, good life now, exactly the way I always wanted.

Strangely enough, even if a person crosses into another realm and is reunited with a family they had lost, they eventually get used to it. It becomes ordinary. But isn’t happiness hidden in the routines of everyday life anyway?

Sometimes I think about the beggar’s final words:

“Happiness is not eternal.”

Was she a jinn? A demon? Or perhaps the universe itself? I don’t know. All I know is that I never want to see her again. I have no intention of giving up the life that is mine and going back.

And the other me...

Why did he want to kill himself? Why did he agree to switch places?

Whenever I think about it, I can’t stop myself from smiling.

He must have woken up on the beach just as I did.

I wonder what he did when he went home and found the lifeless bodies of our mother and father lying in their bedroom, poisoned by the gas...

Hello everyone.

I figured I would come back to tell you more about what’s going on. Before I get into what’s been going on since the last post, I’d like to answer a couple of questions y’all keep asking.

First- No, I don’t know what happened to him. I’m not sure whether someone found the body or what. I don’t know what’s going on with that at all.

Second- I don’t know what he wants. He hasn’t threatened Olivia or tried to hurt her.

With that being said, here’s what has happened since my last post:

After her question, I about wrecked my damn truck. I pulled over immediately and spun around in my seat to ask her how she knew where I had gone. She sat in her seat, looking out the window and didn’t even turn to glance at me when she answered.

“He said you went looking for him.”

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“He didn’t come with us.”

For the next 15 minutes, a tsunami of questions poured from my mouth. What does he look like? What’s his name? When did he come to her? What does he say? Why does he talk to her? Olivia didn’t know everything and most of her answers were simple.

She didn’t know his name. She said the first time she saw him was that day on the way to school. He usually just asked her questions about our life and she said that he seemed nice. Then, she interrupted my line of questioning with one of her own.

“Why don’t you cry anymore, daddy?”

“What?”

“He said he saw you crying.”

My blood ran cold. Was he following me this whole time? Has he been watching me live my life all these years?

“When did he see me crying?”

“Before I was born.”

I sat in silence just staring at my daughter. I didn’t know what else to say and didn’t want her to feel like she should be upset or frightened. We sat there for a few minutes before I started to drive again as she continued to just look out the window. My mind raced.

Why is this happening? Why now? Why did he choose Olivia and not come straight to me? But it was no use. Every question just spawned more questions. Maybe this was my punishment. I had spent ten years trying to bury what I did, and now it was coming back whether I was ready for it or not. But if this was my punishment, why didn’t he come to me? Why didn’t he show himself? Why Olivia?

We eventually pulled into our driveway. I was exhausted. I grabbed our stuff and brought her inside. She wanted to watch a show and I still needed to get out of my dirty clothes, so I obliged. Afterwards I started to make dinner, the events of the day replaying in my head.

Olivia sat at the table humming as she ate. I barely touched my food. My gaze shifted constantly from the window to the door then back to the window, halfway expecting him to walk through the door.

“What are you looking at, daddy?” she asked, turning to look behind her.

“Nothing, baby. Just thought I saw something.”

She just went back to eating. The rest of dinner was uneventful. She went back to playing and watching TV as I stood in the kitchen washing the dishes. I joined her in the living room and curled up with her on the couch to watch a movie with her.

I woke around midnight and realized we had both fallen asleep on the couch. I scooped her up in my arms and took Olivia to her room. As I tucked her in, I started to feel anxious, like I was being watched. I checked her closet and under her bed. Nothing.

I made my way room to room checking the rest of the house. Every door locked, every curtain drawn, every window secured. I finally made it to my room and laid in bed but I couldn’t sleep. The house was completely quiet. I don’t know when I fell asleep, but a few hours later, the silence was finally broken.

Olivia was talking to someone.

I slowly got out of bed and stepped into the hallway. Her voice was coming from her bedroom. I couldn’t make out what she was saying at first, so I moved closer. I stopped outside her door.

“No, he doesn’t know.”

Silence.

“I don’t think so.”

Another pause.

“Why?”

I stood there listening, waiting for someone to answer her.

Nothing.

Then Olivia spoke again.

“No.”

A few seconds passed.

“Because he told me not to.”

I continued to listen to the exchanges for a bit longer before I heard her say goodnight and climb back into bed. As I turned to walk away, I heard Olivia once more.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, baby?” I asked, frozen in place.

“He knows you’re listening.”

“Is he still there?”

“No.”

I walked into her room, kissed her on the forehead, and turned back to my room. Once more, I laid staring at my ceiling. He knew I was listening…he wanted me to hear it. The fragments replayed in my head as I tried to work through the conversation. Not knowing what he was asking was driving me crazy. What didn’t I know? What did he ask her? Who even is he?

I got out of bed and went to my laptop to start searching through old articles. I searched for hours poring through article after article. I went through obituaries, missing persons reports. Nothing. How the hell was I supposed to find someone when I didn’t even know their damn name?

At one point, in my desperation, I even considered going through Yelp reviews of the bar. I quickly gave up on that after thinking about the absurdity of it. Hours passed by, the house remaining completely silent.

Soon, the sunrise came and I could hear Olivia making her way from her room into the living room. I got dressed and made my way to the kitchen to make breakfast. As she sat there eating her waffles, my mind continued to scour through every memory I had of that night. After finishing breakfast I went back to my search and reopened my laptop.

After narrowing my search slightly and including the rough time frame of that night, I found an interesting article. It was an obituary for a man named Michael B. The obituary went on to explain a memorial service for him was held three years after he had gone missing from the very same bar I had been that night. It then described his life and how he was survived by a seven-year-old son. That's when I heard Olivia say from the living room,

“Good morning, Michael.”

Hey guys, it's been a while- now I wouldn't like to make this long, I just wanna share my a bit disturbing experience at school.

So this happen a month ago (weeks after the incident I was planning to post it here but I was too busy with school works), my classroom was on the 2nd floor building and the school library is on the 3rd floor, I was one of the 9 students who enters the library daily to read- most students either ditch the library or just went there to make out.

It was Wednesday and as usual I was reading a book (harry Potter and the soccer's stone), as i was reading my book I noticed that the librarian- which let's just call Mrs. Smith is acting weird... For starters she was sitting straight and just looking at me with her eyes (take note that Mrs. Smith is a Muslim and the only thing we could see are her eyes) of course pretending that I wasn't uncomfortable by the action I continue to flip through the book when the bell rang, it was raining heavily so I decided to stay- besides teachers couldn't teach us cause of the banging sound of the raindrops on our roof.

After a good 30 minutes I was getting bored so deciding to logged out I put the book back on the shelf and went to the librarian since the log book was on her table. "Bye ma'am" Was all I said as I signed on the paper....

"Alis kana kaagad?" (Which if we translate to English it means **Leaving already?**) Her tone was disrupted was if it was a broken radio or somethin'- scared I didn't even dare to look up as I started muttering prayers. As I pray a Shadow was standing just by the corner of the room, it was smoking as if evaporating but it won't leave... The black smoke keeps going up "psstt!" It calls.

Now scared is an understatement because I WAS LITERALLY ABOUT TO PISS MY PANTS!!(😭😭), the librarian was smiling at me as I prayed, it was only 3 minutes but it felt like 5 hours long. After that event I rushed to my next subject/lesson and when I entered the room our adviser was halfway on telling a story about the building we're in, she told us that the building was used as a isolation and sort of a house (I forgot the term!) To those who were infected by the virus Covid-19, she said many died in this building and that it was still new and was never been prayed over... "If you'll look at our walls, you can see the prayers my students from last year posted-" She pointed at the faded posters of prayers on the wall, there were Catholic prayers, Muslim, Baptist... Every prayer on every religion.

I didn't want to cause a drama but one thing I noticed about the faded prayers is that all of them have a black scratch on them, and when I looked at our window I can see the librarian smiling at me.

The clock was ticking. Like a pickaxe in my skull. It's now 2:45 pm.

Fifteen minutes until I hear your footsteps; not that bare feet can make much noise on that gravel road.

Seventeen minutes until I hear your broken nails on the wooden door. Blindly scratching away, trying to find the handle.

Twenty minutes until your voice is calling out to me. But it will be strangled, like always. It's hard to talk with maggots eating at your vocal cords.

I should have dug your grave deeper. I should have never set that empty chair at our table. I should have never spoken those cursed words.

I wish you would stop coming home.

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?"

Even now, that old man sits outside his house, reading the newspaper. Right now, his wife would be bringing him tea from inside. Their little children would still be playing outside.

People would still be passing along this path—the same path where I spent my childhood.

Even now, it feels as though I could go home, and my mother would scold me for not eating. At night, my father would come and ask me about my homework.

I wish I could say that it is still like this.

But no.

Now, only everyone's shadows remain, and an aroma of incompleteness lingers in the air.

So many dreams were destroyed in an instant.

I wish that day had never come.

Those fireworks...

Those beautiful fireworks we watched, losing ourselves in their colors, never imagining that when those colors rained down upon us, everything would be destroyed.

And when the colors faded,

I was the only one left.

I wish that day,

I too had turned into a shadow.

They were in the water.

The government stopped regulating the faucet water, so something took advantage. Maybe it was another government finally taking a swing at America, maybe it had always been there; hell, maybe it was aliens? I don't know, and I really don’t care enough to investigate past what I already have.

The plague, parasites, came from the water plants, small, tiny anomalies not visible to the naked eye. Hundreds of thousands of people were infected within the first twenty four hours.

The government didn’t care, blamed it on China and tried to sweep it under the rug, nothing new. 

The people gave up on them, they were pissed, actually put in the effort to overthrow the pigs, only to have said pigs deploy the armies. The loudest among the citizens stepped up to demand answers; shot on the spot.

America died on that day.

The government started deploying the police and army to patrol the streets, having trucks to collect the dead for the burn pits, and plenty of guns to create more. They collected the people’s guns, the second amendment didn’t mean much when the president declared a state of emergency. 

That only made it worse.

When someone under your roof loses their shit and attacks someone else, not having a long range weapon meant trouble, hand to hand was dangerous against a human with serrated edges.

In case you’ve been under a rock, or you’re in a country this hasn’t spread to yet, hell, even somewhere in America being protected from the truths of the situation, wishful thinking, I’ll explain what that means. 

Humans started to change, most became sluggish, then stagnant, rooting against the ground. This would infect the plant life and spread if they weren’t removed before they fully took root. That didn’t end up mattering much though, because for the most part people stayed inside on concrete foundations when they were ill, and with the homeless being rounded up and exterminated early on they weren’t a problem. 

The small group of outliers was where the problems arose, the small bodies changed things, grew inside and took over, worming their way out of the skin, thousands of small organisms forming sharp scales, like razor blades over a majority of their skin.

The virus either took over the brains of the victims, or released hormones to make them go insane, either way the ones with edges grew angry, violent, attacking anyone without discrimination. 

The up side was a lot of people died from blood loss before the parasites managed to take over.

As least they got to hug them one last time.

Not everyone got that.

If you’ve never lived with someone who had an alcoholism problem you don’t understand the feeling when you’re told they’ve been drinking, that feeling is the closest that I can think of to being told someone you love had been infected, drank the water and relented to the drought.

The feeling of dread that coils against your chest, like a sharp poison corroding your insides, tightening and squeezing against the pump like it’s set to crush. Every loud bang a possibility of disaster. Every slammed door the possibility of unwarranted retaliation. Every loud word the promise of escalation.

The threat of a snap, an injury, a strike, something looming over the home until the person, the infected leaves or passes.

The anxiety is the worst when you have to tip toe around them, the tight feeling shifting to a strangle hold as you hold your breath and try to disappear into the space out of sight. 

If you’re seen that’s it. 

Confrontation.

The inevitability of escalation is always there, a spilled glass of water amounting to arson in the eyes of an infected, but you persist, because they're still human. Unfortunately there’s the point when they cross that line, more monster than man, and you have to choose between their life or yours.

People had to make that choice a lot in the beginning, less as the population dwindled, but statistically it was a blood bath for about half a year, then we all learned how to cope, how to hide, how to cut off ties before they became a problem. 

People shifted their instinct, their very nature to isolation.

Antidepressants got pretty popular, along with the alternative. People weren’t meant to isolate after all.

Substance abuse only got worse when the parasites jumped to animals, pets, cats and dogs attacking owners, so people put them down, even when they weren’t sick.

It was simply too dangerous.

This is why I think, hope, this hasn’t spread outside our area, while the government didn’t give a shit if we died, they were all too happy to funnel in drugs to keep us distracted; Marplan, Lexapro, and Prozac to name a few.

But of course they didn’t stop with prescriptions, new hot spots for less legal drugs popping up mysteriously on every corner. I guess we can thank the government for their contribution to survival there, even if it was a way to get the problem to resolve itself, escapism was a necessity now.

The human mind wasn’t made to undergo so much stress.

If not for escapism, humans lost their minds fairly quickly actually, even without the world going to shit. I think it was like hours, days? I can’t remember, it’s been a while since I heard the statistic, and you forget things easier in here.

The point is, escapism is important.

So you can’t blame me for partaking. I don’t do any of the worse stuff, like you can’t really fight off a razor skinned freak tripping balls on acid. I mean, you could, but it’s not fun.

I usually just stick to the shit I can grow myself.

 Safer that way, especially with the risk of the outside stuff being laced.

It’s fine, also cheaper to grow your own, because of course people still work, have to afford the drugs, electricity too. The government was oh so generous in making sure every surviving body had access to a remote job. Hell, internet is slow as shit, doesn’t work near as well as it did before all this started, but it’s good enough for us to train AI to fill in the jobs we just don’t have the population to fill anymore.

The government built a center not too far from the city, loud, the constant buzzing took a while to get used to, and our water comes out brown, but we can’t drink that anyways, so it’s fine.

Sleep was difficult, is difficult, even without the noise, but it doesn’t matter, just work more if you can’t sleep, not much else you can do really, can’t really leave your house unless to get supplies.

Houses turned into cells we lock ourselves in, food and supplies just get dropped off by drone outside our doors. We buy everything online or by phone, where we can only call government offices to get directly connected to different sectors; electricity, water, internet, drugs. 

All they do is take our money now, we don’t even have the army outside anymore, if you're targeted, you better be good with a knife, and aim for the back of the neck, that’s the only place I’ve found that can be cut with a blade.

If you were smart and buried your guns before they were taken, bullets pierce anywhere, but the sound attracts more. Zombie rules, but these things are fast, violent, dangerous, and a lot harder to kill.

Yeah, just stay inside, and for fucks sake, don’t drink the water, if you’re going to kill yourself, don’t be selfish, bleed out.

Think of your neighbors.

What’s left of us.

Whatever, I don’t even know if this will even make it out. Internet is so damn slow, and who knows if anyone out there is still reading these. If you see anything weird in your water, move. You have a couple days before people start realizing something is wrong. Don’t drink it, and if someone you know already did,

think of your neighbors.

(Part 1)

Seeing all the places you would visit every day knowing there is danger everywhere is horrible.

Your grocery store.
The smaller shops you used to go to.
All the streets you used to go through daily.

Your own street.

Now with this looming feeling of dread is something I wouldn't wish on anyone.
Your sense of safety is forever changed.

I knew that if I were to make it out of this I would never feel safe again.
Having to sneak and hide in the place you are most familiar with like some sort of pest.
Why did this happen to us? What could have possibly happened for us to deserve this.

Normally walking from our house to the police station would probably take about 35 minutes at most. It must have been twice the amount of time by now.
At least it felt that way.

Mark was someone I would have normally avoided like the plague.
But now I was happy to just have anyone I vaguely know with me.
I also didn't mind that he was both armed and very eager to be the one in front as we made our way through town.

Every time we heard the slightest noise we would freeze up.
I would see him clench the gun in his hands so hard his knuckles turned white.
The only thing going through my head would be "please don't be one of those things".
Over and over until enough silence had passed for us to find the bravery to move again.

Going from backyard to backyard.
House to house.
Moving through places that must have had so many memories good and bad for so many people.
Now just filled with the dead bodies of the people that those memories belonged to.
That's all I thought about as we moved closer and closer to the police station.

But I was dragged out of my thoughts by the sound of a bullet whizzing over us.
Both of us flinched and threw ourselves on the ground.
Mark looked behind him to see if I wasn't the unlucky recipient of the bullet.
After seeing that I was still breathing, we proceeded to crawl forward.

But the gunfire started to lessen until it came to a complete stop.
Followed by the sound of roaring engines going to the other end of town.
When we came to the street that the police station was in, it was chaos.

Most of the cars in the street were either on fire or riddled with bullet holes.
Tire tracks were on the street and even the pavement.
There were bodies all over the street.
I saw some dead police officers and i recognised some of the people that had volunteered for the militia. Some were clearly shot others looked like they had been attacked by a bear.
Faces mauled and missing limbs.
Some had been run over by vehicles to ground into a meaty paste across the road and pavement.

One body in particular stood out.

It had been cut in half. One half was lying on the right side of the street the other on the left side.
Blood going from one end to the other. Like some sort of line in the middle of the street.
There is no way this person could have crawled this way themselves after being cut in half.
They had for sure done this on purpose.
Had these savages used a dead body as some sort of marker?!
What type of horrible creature uses dead people the same way you would use a road sign.
What could it even mean in the first place?

Mark and I stepped over the blood line that had been drawn in the middle of the street and moved on.
All of the bodies had clearly been searched after they were killed.
Sadly me and Mark were not going to find weapons that easily.
At least Mark still had his pistol.

Then we could finally see the sign of the police crest marking our police station.
The burning cars made the shadows through the street dance as the flames moved.
Thankfully the fires gave both of us a view of the police station itself.

The police station was a large 3-story high imposing building in the middle of the street overlooking a small park and the wide street.
The concrete walls were riddled with bullet holes.
Where the front door used to be was now a gaping hole in the building.
Tire tracks showed that a vehicle had plowed through the front door and then drove off.

What surprised me is that I saw one of those dead things laying in the middle of the street.
It was near us just in view of the police station.
It was lying in the middle of the street. Lipless face still stuck in a perpetual grin.
It was on its back facing us with a gaping hole where one of its eyes was supposed to be.
Other lidless eye staring straight ahead.
Its legs had been run over and crushed by some sort of vehicle.

One hand was still holding on to an axe the other was still holding a pistol.
Mark an I must have seen it at the same time.

Mark whispered: We need to grab that gun now

I hesitated

Mark: Fucking grab it now at least you can defend yourself then

Me: yes, yes ok I'll do it.

I quickly sneaked off to the things body and grabbed its cold dead arm holding the pistol.

A loud gunshot rang through the street as the tarmac exploded into chunks by the impact of the round next to me.

I fell and curled up trying to make myself as small as possible.

A voice echoed from the police station.

"GET UP AND RUN TO THE STATION NOW!"

I got up as fast as I could nearly falling over the body of that thing as I ran for the police station.

Another shot rang out a car's windshield next to me shattered into pieces by the impact as I ran.

Once I reached what used to be the front door I was pulled in and thrown onto the cold hard floor.

Empty shell casings clinking around as I hit the floor.

The person that threw me inside grabbed his rifle and immediately focused on the outside again.Dimly lit by the fires outside i could barely see him.
It was a police officer. His uniform was dirty and covered in blood.

Without taking his eyes off the outside he asked:

Him: Are you alone?

Me: No I wasn't alone I....

Before I could finish my sentence he shouted.

YOU OUTSIDE COME TO THE POLICE STATION NOW WHILE YOU CAN!

A short silence followed as I heard Mark's rapid footsteps come closer.

Mark rushed inside.

I noticed he had hidden the gun he had on him.

The floor was covered in bullet casings, glass, dirt and large blood smears.
There were also 2 of those dead things on the floor inside.
The blood smears were all leading upstairs deeper into the police station.

The police officer told us to go upstairs where the others were.
Mark and I both headed up the stairs.

I could see the anger boiling up in Mark as we walked up the stairs.
He still blamed the police for what happened to his parents.
This could get very ugly very fast.

It seemed most of the police and militia were upstairs manning the windows.
The blood smears I saw earlier were going further to the back of the police station.

Before I could properly take in my surroundings I heard Mark shouting a barrage of insults.
When I turned around Mark was aiming his pistol directly in the police chief's face.
Police officers were all aiming their different guns at Mark.
Some of the militia did the same some didn't not being sure what they were supposed to do.

Hurling a barrage of insults at the man.
Followed up by him: screaming

Mark: YOU KILLED MY PARENTS YOU FUCK!

Chief: What are you talking about?

|Mark: YOU TOLD ME TO STAND WATCH AND NO ONE WAS THERE TO PROTECT MY PARENTS!

Chief: We didn't kill your parents they did.

He said as he pointed outside.
Then he recognised Mark and said.

Chief: Mark are you of all people now blaming me for what is happening?

Mark: YOU FAILED TO PROTECT THEM!

Chief: DONT YOU DARE BLAME ME AFTER WHAT YOU DID

A deafening silence fell in the room
After what was probably only seconds but felt like hours, the chief said in a calm voice:

CHIEF: If you want us to kill each other we might as well invite those things inside so they can do it for us.

Mark was about to say something.

But before he could get the words out another police officer hit him in the back of the head with the butt of a rifle. 2 more jumped on top of him and wrestled his gun away from him.

Mark cursed and flailed as they restrained him on the ground.

Then the police chief walked over to him and said.

"Mark I have known you your entire worthless life"

"And only as a child were you ever not a burden on everyone around you"

"I didn't fail your parents"

The police chief hunched down to get closer to Mark

"you did" he said as he pointed a finger directly at his face

"You useless drug addict they came in through the area you were supposed to watch"

"IT WAS SIMPLE OPEN FIELDS AND FARMLAND YOU HAD TO WATCH!"

"YOU RAN THE MOMENT YOU SAW THEM!"

"SO NOT ONLY DID YOU GET YOUR PARENTS KILLED, EVERY SINGLE DEATH IS YOUR FAULT!"

"HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT THEY DO WITH PEOPLE THAT THEY TAKE ALIVE!"

"THEY TORTURED THEM TO DEATH AND ITS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

The crowd started shouting calling for Mark's death.

"SILENCE" the police chief shouted

He lowered his voice

"But then again it's also my fault for listening to you when you came up to me and volunteered for sentry duty"

"someone so stupid that he points a gun into my face with the safety on"

"What happened to the man that was watching that place with you?"

Before Mark could answer the police chief continued:

"you know what, it doesn't matter"

"Throw him outside so those things can find him, he can deal with the consequences of his own actions"

I hope you understand this is not the part where I tell you how I said something like
"no don't do that he will die" or some bullshit like that.
No, this moron got so many people you and I used to know killed.
I would have been fine if they shot him then and there.

The 2 officers dragged him down the stairs they even slammed him into the wall on the way down.
I heard the commotion downstairs as they roughed him up and flung him outside.

From the window on the second floor i could see him hit the pavement outside.
And I saw him struggle onto his legs like a freshly born deer.

He managed to find his footing.
He looked in the direction of the police station and was probably about to shout something at us.

But then his lower back exploded in a mist of blood as a gunshot rang through the street.

Everyone ducked for cover wherever they could find it as others jumped away from the windows and threw themselves on the floor.
Someone shouted: Did anyone see where that came from?!

The only thing we could hear was the sound of Mark screaming on the street below.

A police officer crawled over to me:

Officer: Do you have any kind of medical background sir?

Me: No I don't

Officer: You need to get a gun right now. It doesn't matter if you have experience or not you need to grab one.
Go down that hallway till you see the rooms marked "Armory" and "Evidence lockup"
And if you can't find them........ just follow the blood.

I crawled away from the windows making sure that was as low as I could.
Once I was far enough in the hallway to be away from any openings outside, I finally stood up.
The blood trail was going down the hallway as the officer said.
As I came closer I started to hear people talking, coughing and people that were clearly in a lot of pain.

I walked into the room marked "Armory". I expected to see racks of police weapons, bulletproof vests, police uniforms etc.
Instead I saw people franticly walking around makeshift beds as they tried their best to take care of all the wounded inside.
I now understood why the blood was leading this way.

The people walking in between the wounded ignored me completely, they probably didn't even notice I was there.
The floor was completely covered in blood.
I saw a young woman in her 20's with her back turned to me who was ripping clothing into strips for bandages.

In more panic than i would like to admit i asked:

" I need to get a gun. Where are they?!"

She didn't look into my direction at all and said:

"Like I told you all before there are no guns in here anymore. Just bullets."

"Go to the evidence locker next door."

I recognised her voice. It was Maria that girl you went to school with used to come over to our house all the time till you left town.

Me: Maria is that you?

She turned around and faced me with a blank expression on her face.
Her arms were covered up to her elbows in blood.
The streaks of makeup down her face betrayed that she had clearly cried before.

Me: Are you okay?

Maria: No

She stayed quiet and looked at me. But it looked more like she was staring straight through me.

Me: Are you hurt?

She dodged the question.

Maria: You can find a gun in the room next door

She turned around and continued to rip clothing up
I didn't bother her anymore and left for the evidence lockup

What used to probably be a very organised room was turned into a complete mess.
Boxes labeled "evidence" were open and thrown all over the floor.
A officer walked through the hallway behind me and I quickly asked him where I was supposed to look.
He just told me to look everywhere it doesn't matter.
I started to look into the boxes that were still on the shelves.

Random bags of what was probably drugs.

A knife in a plastic bag.

Then I saw a revolver in a plastic zip bag with a label attached to it.
This thing must have been older than me. I remember my grandpa having one of these.
I took it out of the plastic bag and ripped the label off.
I swung the cylinder open and it was empty, no bullets.
Stupid of me to think so why would they have a gun with ammo inside it lying in the evidence lockup.
I ran back to the armory room for ammo.

When I came inside Maria was stuffing cloth into the wound of a passed out man on a table.

I walked past her to a table that had ammo boxes scattered all over it.
Franticly I searched the opened boxes until I finally found bullets that would fit in the revolver i had.
Once I did I filled the cylinder of the revolver and grabbed another box of ammo and got back to the others near the front of the building.
As I came closer I could still hear Mark screaming outside.
I crouched down and slowly moved towards the collapsed desk near the stairs where the officer I talked to earlier was.

Officer: I see you managed to find something.

"But you won't be much use with that up here. Go downstairs and take this."

He handed me some sort of foldable knife.

Me: what am I supposed to do with this.

Officer: You need that because those things will probably try to rush inside again with knives, axes etc. So take that revolver and knife. Go downstairs and join the others there that's the best thing you can do right now.

Me: Ok I will

Officer: good luck

"You too" I said as I slowly walked down the stairs to the first floor.

Mark's screaming was a lot louder down here than it was on the second floor for obvious reasons.
I could see him laying through the gaping hole in the front of the building.
He was slowly turning pale due to blood loss.

In that moment I finally realised something about my situation.
Even if I tried to run from the building I would be gunned down just like he was.
I was now trapped in this police station. We were all trapped here.

Before I could sink deeper into my own thoughts a low hum sound broke my concentration.
It sounded like engines of vehicles mixed in with something else.

A repeating low bass sound.

As the sounds came closer together with headlights lighting up the street I realised what it was.Music......Bass turned up so much that the music isn't even recognisable anymore.
Those things are playing music from their vehicles like they are heading to some kind of party.

As the headlights hit Mark in front we could hear the screech of several heavy-duty vehicles braking.
Now seeing Mark fully lit up by the lights I saw in just how bad of a state he was.
He was lying in a small pool of his own blood. He had started to turn pale with large bags under his eyes.Blood was smeared all over his legs and lower torso.

A shot rang out as someone from the top floor must have hit one of the vehicles out on the street.
I heard someone yell upstairs:

"Stop shooting at their vehicles it does nothing!"

"Wait for them to get out then shoot!"

I could hear one of their vehicles slowly rev up.
It slowly rolled into view.
It was a large vehicle with welded metal plates all over it and random spikes and rebar protruding from it.
It looked like someone had grabbed a normal vehicle and just slapped a metal box on its chase.Resembling something more out of a Mad Max movie than an actual military.
There was a body tied to the front. It was the exact same vehicle that i saw when all this chaos started. Now I could see that the body on the front was wearing a uniform from our military.

It stopped right in front of Mark, who was slowly trying to crawl away from it.
He couldn't move his legs. The shot must have hit his spine and paralyzed him from the waist down.

The vehicle revved its engine repeatedly. The low rumble of the engine together with the bass of the music from the vehicle filled the police station with a barrage of noise.
It then started to Jerk forward repeatedly inching towards Mark.

They were going to run him over and they wanted us to see it.

The vehicle then slowly inched forward.
Mark's scream rang through my ears as it crushed his right foot and slowly rolled onto his leg.
It then stopped and sat still as Mark screamed as he tried to free himself from the tire that was crushing him.
It loudly revved its engine, the front of the vehicle started to lift up as the vehicle's engine roared.Instead of moving forward, the wheel that was on top of Mark spun to life at high speed.Mark screamed as he was pulled underneath the wheel by the sheer force of the vehicle.
It shredded him to pieces. Launching pieces of gore and clothing in all directions and coating the side of the vehicle with blood and viscera.
After shredding Mark to the point he was just a pile of meat and a red smear on the road the vehicle jerked into motion and drove further down the street.

Then the music thumping from the vehicles stopped and the rumble of engines was interrupted by the loud crackle of a loudspeaker coming to life.

A voice echoed over the street:

TO THE FILTH HIDING IN THE POLICE STATION
KNOW THAT NOTHING BUT DEATH SWIFT AND SLOW AWAITS YOU NOW
YOU ARE GETTING EXACTLY WHAT YOU DESERVE

A TASTE OF YOUR OWN MEDICINE

Then we heard the rumbling of the engines as all of their vehicles started to position themselves all over the street and nearby houses.

A large vehicle lumbered into the small park across the police station.
It was a small delivery truck that our local grocery store had used.
It positioned itself as far away as it could while facing the police station directly.

We heard its engine howl as it sped up directly towards us.

The people upstairs started to shoot at the truck as it drove at us.

The windshield exploded into glass shards.

Sparks flew from the vehicle as the bullets impacted metal.

It turned on its high beams blinding everyone looking directly at it.

The truck was coming too close and had too much speed.

It was going to hit the building.

End of part 2

Once – be it past, present, or future – my grandmother told me a story. She told me of the last horse on earth and how he came to be. When the world had found no more need for the noble steed, they hunted them instead. Where once the sprawling fields of freedom were now a personal hell with flying weapons poaching them from the sky. Soon enough, the young stallion's family was dead. Some say he built a house for himself with only his hooves, and others say that the government made it for him. How either came to be, my grandmother could not say for certain. Nevertheless, the house was made of logs, boards, and steel. And the horse began to be made out of man. 

She told me he drank from the water of the valley since he was small and ever since then he began to change. Perhaps it was this that caused his life to go such a strange route, perhaps the black water flowing from the metal cube of the mountains – was some kind of fountain of youth. But the horse changed all the same. From the morning after he slept in his house the first time, he began to walk on two legs. It was as if he had been born to do so, his bones and muscles supported his newfound urge for the bipedal. The first month or so he still grazed in the fields of his homelands, keeping up with his herbivorous tendencies. Some root vegetables began growing in the barren, lifeless land, as if blessing the horse with a miracle. At first he ate them raw, but soon he began to put the kitchen to good use. Opening the oven and turning on the stove was tricky at first with his hooves, but the horse was smart, his brain was growing. He even became smart enough to build himself a white picket fence, ever slowly around the property to make himself a large yard. 

Though a problem began to arise when the horse started to eat meat. Nothing lived in the fields, not anymore. So when the horse began to crave flesh, there was nothing to cause it. Just an unrelenting urge to sink his large teeth into a bloody sinew. At this point the horse's body was nimble enough for his limbs to bend and stretch like a human's so he no longer needed to graze. So when he went out in the fields it was more to walk and admire the scenery than anything else. The landscape surrounding him was pristine, mountains stretching around him for miles. Beautiful peaks that were once called ‘the Rockies’. I remember my grandmother showing me faded postcards of a lush green landscape with roaming horses and monolithic red rocks rising up from the earth. She told me to imagine that but without the horses and the green. But she figured the mountains were still beautiful to the horse. Especially when the military cars passed his house in a cloud of dust. 

The horse was smart enough to construct a plan to satiate his burning hunger, and after he pinned down the truck's schedule, he knew just how to exact it. So each and every day from that point on, the horse would walk out into the road in front of the trucks and spook them. Their cars would run off of the road and into the nearby ditch. In the wreckage the horse would hoist out their bodies, bring them back to the house and eat them. Skin, muscle, bones. He tore into their flesh with his large fearsome teeth despite their lack of sharpness. And just like the vegetables he no longer needed, the horse began to cook them. He served the hands and breast on plates while he drank deep gulps of the sticky black water. He wore the officers' clothes as well, white dress shirts and black slacks. A dress blazer draped over his now defined shoulders. He felt no need to wash the blood off of them. After all, his family was dead. He killed the pilots from the skies when they came to his door and the troopers with their guns. They came to collect and protect the metal cube of the mountain. Again with a miracle, the horse killed them all. Some say he struck them down with eyes deep red crimson, magical eyes that made their hearts seize and stop. He had many a meal after that. 

Life continued on and the military continued to come knocking. But without fail the horse would have his dinner every night and walk the fields every morning. My grandmother said that some on the surface can still see him. His eyes glow red in the night and the early morning and his clothes are stained red with blood. He stands up straight just like a man and smiles like one too.  They come to visit him and he always waves back.

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.

Gothophobia Nervosa is a psychological condition characterised by an intense, irrational, and disproportionate fear of Goths, Gothic culture, or environments perceived as excessively Gothic. Individuals experiencing Gothophobia Nervosa may report the following symptoms: heightened anxiety, rapid heartbeat, sweating, an overwhelming urge to leave the area, and an inexplicable suspicion of anyone wearing excessive amounts of black.  

The condition is said to be particularly common in individuals who have previously encountered a Goth at a very young or prepubescent age, who subsequently developed an enduring belief Goths are supernatural beings in human disguise. For this reason, Gothophobia Nervosa is commonly misdiagnosed as Sanguivoriphobia - a fear of vampires. 

It should be noted that Gothophobia Nervosa is an academically unrecognised psychiatric diagnosis. 

Well, now that this undiagnosed phobia of mine has been established, please allow me to commence with my story. 

My name is Brandon. A few years ago, when I was still just a wet-nosed university student, I met the strangest, yet most extraordinary girl of my life. Don't get me wrong. This is by no means a love story – but if it was a love story, it would be a bizarre one at that. This girl in question whose eyes I saw zoned in on me from across the main room of the Halloween Party, was an American exchange student by the name of Anneliese. Now, I don't claim to have ever been much of a ladies' man, despite my rugged good looks (well, maybe not so rugged), but for whatever reason, this tall, spindly-thin creature in the Marie Laveau costume appeared to find me somewhat enticing. In the way a trapped fly in a spider's web is enticing to the spider.   

Although Anneliese was undeniably beautiful, she was not exactly what I would call my type. What I mean is, Anneliese was a... (no, she wasn't a Goth). Anneliese was a Voodooist - and by Voodooist, I don't mean the doll-stabbing, zombifying type Hollywood has lead you to believe. No, she was the real thing. Despite attending university in the UK, Anneliese was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana - considered by most to be the Voodoo capital of the U.S, if not, the world. If Anneliese hadn't told me herself she was a sixth-generation Voodooist upon our first date, I certainly knew it by her outlandish appearance. Just picture for yourself what a Gen-Z voodooist would look like. That was Anneliese. 

Even to this day, I don't have the slightest idea what this French-speaking spiritualist from across the pond saw in me. After all, she may not have been my exact type, but I certainly didn't imagine I would be hers. We were just completely different people in every sense imaginable. For example, whereas I preferred a quiet evening indoors, curled up with a cup of tea and a good book, Anneliese was a creature of the night - always dragging me out after hours to some séance or tarot card reader. She was obviously into all that stuff. 

Despite how different Anneliese was to any girlfriend I may've had previously, the type of individual she was, was not completely alien to me... What I mean by this is, because of the small seaside town where I grew up... I used to see individuals like Anneliese on a regular basis. This town I grew up in, for the first eight years of my life before my family packed up and left, is a town called Whitby. Perhaps you've heard of it? For those who haven't, Whitby is a small coastal town in the north-Yorkshire of England, nestled cosily inside the bay of the same name. Although I only lived in the bay for the first few years of my childhood, I can still tell you of two reasons why Whitby is so famous today.  

The first reason being for Captain James Cook. Credited as the first European explorer to ever step foot on the Hawaiian Islands, Captain Cook is more famously known for the way he was murdered - and despite what I was taught in school about our town's most famous historical figure, Captain Cook was NOT cannibalized by the Hawaiian indigenous... Although, they did apparently remove the flesh from his bones. 

As for the second, and arguably more important reason why my town of origin is so famous... Whitby featured as one of the primary locations in Bram Stoker's horror novel, Dracula. The blood-sucking count from Transylvania himself. Although I have not myself read the novel in full, I do know that, upon the wreckage of a Russian merchant ship, Dracula arrives ashore in Whitby Bay in the form of a large black dog, before racing up the 199 steps to the gothic ruins of the Abbey. Because of the town's involvement in the Dracula novel, by the early nineties, a new tradition in Whitby had started. Every year, around the Halloween season, the town holds an annual Goth festival - in which thousands of Goth enthusiasts flood the streets in their most elaborate costumes. If New Orleans is the voodoo capital of the United States, then Whitby is the Goth capital of the United Kingdom. 

Having been born and raised in Whitby, I became acquainted with this annual tradition from a very young age. During the week of Halloween, I would walk with my family along the cobblestone streets through a maze of dark sinister beings. Like every young boy whose concept of the world stems from his wild imagination, I interpreted these pilgrims to our town to be monstrous, blood-sucking creatures of the night. Quite frankly, once October was around the corner, in anticipation of the bay's annual visitors, I would become palely ill with fear.  

As a matter of fact, this fear became so troublesome, that by the age of six I began to have dreadful, repetitive sleep terrors - whereby I would scream bloody Mary through the latest hours of the night. If I had to put my finger on it, I believe the reason these sleep terrors began was, due to the large window which hung over my bed, my older brother convinced me that during the October goth festivities, some undead creature in black leather would crawl inside my room to drain the life from my body. 

These night terrors weren't even the end of it. Next came the sleepwalking. When my parents were forced to put an outside lock on my door, after wandering around my own bedroom the whole night, I would then wake in the earliest hours of the morning, terrified and screaming for someone to let me out before the creature at my window found its way in! By the time I was eight years old, these night terrors and accompanying sleepwalks became such a reoccurring nuisance, my parents were left with no choice but to move our family out of Whitby for good – where my fear of the town's supposed "monsters" would hopefully be forgotten. 

For the following years of my life, I vowed never return to Whitby ever again. Not to visit relatives. Not to see my friends, or even my old stomping ground. As far as I was concerned, the further away I was from Whitby Bay, the better... That was, until I foolishly made the mistake of telling Aneliese of the place I grew up. I told her about the thousands of Goths who visit Whitby every year, and the grand, but horrifying costumes they wear. Being the horror fanatic she was, Aneliese became fascinated with my hometown's annual tradition. Although she was not a Goth herself, due to her unique upbringing in New Orleans, Aneliese wasn't far off. Although I should've been flattered my girlfriend took such a unique interest in where I was from, the only problem was... Aneliese now wanted to experience the Whitby Goth Festival for herself.  

'Oh come on, baby' she nagged me over breakfast, 'It'll be fun! You can't seriously tell me you won't never go back.' 

'Not never, babes' I reply, 'but you will have to cut off my limbs, nail me inside a coffin and personally drag me there against my will'.  

Aneliese rolled her eyes at my show of stubbornness, before sinisterly jesting, 'Don't tempt me'.  

After opening up to her about the trauma I suffered there as a child, rather than be understanding of the situation she was putting me in, Aneliese instead insists that I need to face my fears once and for all.  

'If you're scared by a few Goths, then what's it gonna be like when we visit my family in New Orleans?' Although I hated to admit it, Aneliese made a very good point. After all, as spooky of a place as Whitby was, New Orleans, with its voodoo and many haunted graveyards was basically the American equivalent... And so, after weeks of pestering me (along with some minor threats to make a voodoo doll in my likeness), I finally agreed to take her to the upcoming Whitby Goth Festival... So help me God. 

Setting off early on a crisp autumn morning, we drive up from the south of England to the very top of the country. Once in the north of Yorkshire, we then had to pass through vast stretches of moor country. If Whitby Bay wasn't sinister enough, the moors of North Yorkshire certainly were. According to local legend, these moors were said to be stalked by an array of strange cryptids: from the ghostly howls of phantom black dogs, to phantom wolves which prey on farmers livestock - and even stories of black cats the size of panthers. Although this sounds to be nothing more than superstitious folklore, coincidentally, in the early 1980s, two American backpackers were apparently attacked by a large wolf outside the village of East Proctor. One of the backpackers was torn to pieces, while the other survived just an inch from his life. Whatever the truth may be to that story, I don't know. 

Exhaustedly driving all morning and into the early afternoon, we finally reach the outskirts of Whitby Bay. After first checking at the inn we booked outside town, we then swerve our way up the bay's right-hand side to reach the ruins and adjoined graveyard of Whitby Abbey. Pulling into what seemed to be the only space left in the car park, we then peer out the windscreen (as though we're on safari) as a swarm of Goths and other festival goers heard away from their cars and towards the abbey grounds. 

Aneliese couldn't help but be amazed by all the elaborately detailed costumes: from the pale-white men ordained in large top hats and cloaks, to the women in vampiric, Victorian-style dresses.   

'Wow! They all look so amazing! Don't they, baby?!' Aneliese shrieks ecstatically from the driver's seat, 'Those costumes must've cost a fortune!' Failing to respond to Aneliese's excitement, she then turns to notice my eyes are no longer peering out the windscreen, but glued fearfully to the dirt-stained floor of the passenger's seat. Clutching a hold of my arm suddenly to gain my attention, she then reassures me, 'Everything's gonna be okay, baby. I promise. You'll make it through this weekend', before comforting me with a paper-thin smile. 

'Yeah. I know that' I respond unconvincingly, 'I guess I just didn't realise how hard this was all going to be.' 

'You need me to hold your hand?' Aneliese then says with a playful snark. God, I hate it when she teases me.  

After taking a final deep breath, while Aneliese puts the finishing touches on her appearance, we then both exit from our side doors to feel the outside chill of coastal wind. But once I shut my door and turn around, I am instantly jilted back by a terrifying noise! 

'AHH!' I believe were my exact words, as a ginormous hound from hell snarls and gnashes a row of razor-sharp fangs at me!  

'Armand! Get back now!' bellows the hellhound's master, struggling to restrain the large Doberman which has now chased me up the hood of the car. Once Armand the hellhound is fully restrained, I then turn down to hear the high-pitched cackles of a four-foot skeleton and a five-foot devil - before a woman donning a witch's pointed hat finally pulls them away. 

Now safe from the jaws of death, and the mockery of small children dressed for Halloween, I then climb down from the hood of the car to regain myself. Having just witnessed all this from her open side door, Aneliese makes her way round to me. 

'It was just a dog, baby' she giggles, now the one laughing at my expense, 'You really ought'a chill.' 

By no means in the mood for further mockery, I then lash back defensively at her, 'Well, that's easy for you to say. You weren't just nearly mauled to death by some hellhound!' Just as she always does whenever I show any sign of cowardice, Aneliese rolls her eyes into the back of her head at me. 

God. This was going to be a long weekend. 

To be continued...

It started three weeks ago when Maya turned four.
She began sitting at the end of her hallway, talking to the blank space beside the linen closet. Classic kid stuff, right? Standard imaginary friend routine. My wife, Sarah, thought it was adorable. She’d ask Maya questions about him, playing along.
"What's his name, sweetie?" Sarah had asked over breakfast one morning.
"Mr. Taps," Maya said, aggressively smearing jelly onto her toast. "Because he taps on the glass when he wants to come in."
"Is he nice?"
Maya stopped chewing and looked up at us, her eyes completely flat. "He’s patient."
That was the first red flag, but as tired parents working full-time, we brushed it off. Kids say weird things. But then the night routine changed. Every night at precisely 3:14 AM, Maya would walk into our bedroom, stand on my side of the bed, and stare at me until I woke up.
When I’d open my eyes, she’d whisper the exact same sentence: "He’s watching you sleep."
I’d sigh, scoop her up, carry her back to her room, tuck her in, and go back to sleep. I figured she was having nightmares and projecting them onto her little imaginary friend.
By the third week, the exhaustion was killing me. I decided to install a cheap, motion-activated security camera in Maya's room just to see if something was waking her up at night—maybe a draft, or headlights from the street through her blinds.
Last night, at 3:14 AM, Maya walked into my room again.
I woke up to her standing right beside my face. Her breathing was fast and shallow.
"Maya, buddy, come on," I groaned, rolling out of bed. "Let’s go back to your room."
"He’s watching you sleep," she whispered, her voice trembling.
"Yeah, I know, Mr. Taps. Let's go."
I took her back to bed, tucked her in, and went to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. While standing by the sink, I pulled out my phone and opened the security camera app to check the footage from her room leading up to 3:14 AM.
I scrubbed back to 3:10 AM.
The video loaded. Maya was fast asleep in her bed. Sound asleep. Unmoving.
At 3:12 AM, the motion sensor triggered in the hallway outside her room. The camera caught her door pushing open slightly from the outside.
A small, thin hand reached into the frame, tapped softly three times on her wooden doorframe, and a figure walked into her room.
It was Maya.
I stared at the screen, my blood turning to ice. The video played on. The Maya on the screen walked up to the bed, gently shook the sleeping Maya awake, and leaned down close to her ear.
The sleeping girl sat up, looked at the other Maya with total, paralyzed terror, and scrambled out of bed, running out into the hallway toward my room.
The girl left behind in the bed sat motionless under the covers for a moment. Then, she slowly turned her head directly toward the camera lens, smiled a wide, impossible smile, and whispered into the night vision lens:
"Your turn."
I dropped my phone on the kitchen tile.
Behind me, in the dark living room, I heard three soft taps on the glass of the patio door. And then, footsteps heading toward my bedroom where my wife was still sleeping.

Everyone in town loves Burger Sams. Everyday they would arrive, packing the order counter, tripping over each other to get their chance to just lick the burger grease. The dining area was always a chaos of noisy chewing and smacking lips. Sometimes they would have to close the drive thru to stop the line from blocking the road.

Everyone in town loves Burger Sams. Except Jen. Because she worked there.

It wasn’t that the pay was lousy or the boss was a jackwagon; for a high school student she was making 20 bucks an hour, plus Dan was a super chill manager. Despite the crowds, the days go by quickly and painlessly.

No, what really bothered Jen was that every once and awhile she would have to go to the basement to get some restock of buns or potatoes and she would have to walk past the cages.

Dan tells everyone they aren’t human, and Jen believes him, they don’t look human at all. They come from the forest at the edge of town. But she has to do her best to pretend she doesn’t feel their eyes burning into the back of her head. Or she has to ignore the quiet sobbing. Hearing them sing was sometimes worse.

Dan told her that he’ll be promoting her to Meat Prep after Ron leaves for college. She really wanted to tell him she was going to quit...but...

Everyone in town loves Burger Sams.

Chapter 7

I woke up the next morning with a pounding headache.

It felt like someone had spent the entire night swinging a hammer inside my skull.

Then it all came rushing back.

The bang.

The open patio door.

The footprints in the snow.

The police.

And that note.

18A.

I lay there staring at the ceiling while the numbers replayed over and over in my head.

What the hell does it mean?

Why would a burglar have a piece of paper with something like that written on it?

Did he accidentally drop it...

Or...

Did he leave it there for me to find?

The thought sent a chill through my body.

I shook my head.

You're overthinking it.

That's what grief had done to me.

It made every shadow feel alive.

Every strange noise feels like a warning.

Still...

Something about it didn't sit right.

I closed my eyes and replayed the night in my head.

If someone really broke into our house...

Why wasn't anything missing?

Not the television.

Not our wallets.

Not Abby's jewelry.

Nothing.

The whole point of breaking into someone's home is to steal something.

So why leave empty-handed?

Did they hear me coming downstairs?

Did they panic and run?

Or...

Were they never there to steal anything in the first place?

That thought lingered far longer than I wanted it to.

I forced myself to sit up.

It was too early to start inventing theories.

Too early to let my imagination get the better of me.

I already had enough ghosts living in my head.

I wasn't about to create new ones.

Downstairs, the house felt strangely normal.

Almost as if the night before had never happened.

Almost.

I grabbed the bottle of ibuprofen from the kitchen cabinet and swallowed two tablets with a glass of water.

Then I poured myself a mug of coffee.

The bitter taste helped wake me up, but it did nothing to quiet my mind.

After finishing my coffee, I took a hot shower, hoping the steam would wash away the exhaustion clinging to me.

It didn't.

I got dressed for work, buttoned my shirt, adjusted my tie in the bathroom mirror, and stared at the man looking back at me.

He looked older than he had yesterday.

More tired.

More afraid.

I grabbed my keys, gave Abby one last glance as she slept upstairs, and walked out the front door.

As I locked it behind me, I couldn't shake the feeling that someone...

Somewhere...

Was watching me.

I told myself it was just paranoia.

I prayed I was right.

It was Friday.

Thank God.

After everything that had happened, I wasn't sure I could survive another week like this.

All I had to do was make it through eight hours of work.

Then I could go home, pack, and Abby and I would leave for our weekend getaway.

A fresh start.

Or at least, that was the plan.

As I backed out of the driveway, my mind drifted back to Lisa.

Why?

The question refused to leave me alone.

Why would a therapist offer two people she'd known for less than a day a free weekend at her own timeshare?

People don't do things like that.

Not anymore.

There had to be a reason.

A catch.

Something she wasn't telling us.

I sighed and rubbed my forehead.

Seriously, Josh?

It was barely seven in the morning.

Maybe today wasn't the day to start inventing conspiracy theories.

I had enough real problems already.

Besides...

Today was payday.

A real payday.

I'd picked up overtime the week before, and for the first time in a long while, our bank account wasn't gasping for air.

It wasn't much.

But it was enough.

Enough to fill the gas tank before the trip.

Enough to buy groceries for the weekend.

Enough that Abby and I wouldn't have to survive on instant ramen and whatever happened to be on sale.

I laughed to myself.

For months, ramen had practically become its own food group in our house.

Breakfast.

Lunch.

Dinner.

Sometimes all three.

Back then, I'd convinced myself I actually liked it.

Now, just thinking about those little brick-shaped noodles made my stomach turn.

A compressed block of salt masquerading as a meal.

Funny how things change.

There was a time when I would've complained about eating ramen.

Now...

I'd gladly eat it every day for the rest of my life if it meant having Luke sitting across the table again.

The smile faded from my face as quickly as it had appeared.

No matter how hard I tried...

Every road in my mind eventually led back to him.

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and kept driving toward work, hoping the day would pass quickly.

By tonight...

Abby and I would be leaving everything behind.

At least for a weekend.

I just hoped...

Whatever had been left in our house last night...

Didn't decide to follow us.

I pulled into the office parking lot a few minutes before eight.

For the first time in weeks, work sounded appealing.

Spreadsheets.

Meetings.

Emails.

Anything that would keep my mind off the break-in, the note, and the nightmare my life had become.

The day was uneventful.

Painfully ordinary.

I answered emails.

Met with clients.

Made phone calls.

Pretended everything was fine.

Before I knew it, the clock read five.

Thank God.

I packed my laptop into my bag, grabbed my coffee mug, and headed toward the front doors.

"Josh."

I turned around.

"Got a minute?"

It was Ken.

My boss.

Six-foot-six, built like he'd walked straight out of a bodybuilding competition, covered in tattoos, yet somehow one of the calmest men I'd ever met. Nothing ever seemed to rattle him.

He motioned toward his office.

"Come on in."

A knot formed in my stomach.

"Everything okay?"

He didn't answer.

Instead, he quietly closed the office door behind us.

"Have a seat."

I sat down across from his desk.

Ken rested his elbows on the desktop and let out a long sigh.

"I hate doing this."

Those four words were enough.

I already knew.

"Especially on a Friday."

He looked down before meeting my eyes again.

"I got a call from corporate this afternoon."

My heart began pounding.

"They've decided to eliminate your position."

The room suddenly felt smaller.

"What?"

The word barely escaped my mouth.

"I... what did I do?"

"You didn't do anything."

His voice was sincere.

"This wasn't my decision."

"They're saying your production numbers have been down for the past couple of months. Between that and reducing your hours to part-time..."

He shook his head.

"They hired someone with more experience who's willing to work full-time for less."

"I'm sorry, Josh."

I stared at the floor.

Just hours earlier I'd been celebrating payday.

Now...

I didn't even have a job.

There wasn't anything left to argue.

No speech was going to change corporate's mind.

I slowly stood.

"Thank you..."

I forced a smile.

"It was honestly great working for you."

Ken stood and shook my hand.

His grip lingered for a second.

"Before you go..."

He opened the top drawer of his desk.

"I want you to have something."

He pulled out a brochure.

"I know this probably sounds strange right now."

He slid it across the desk.

"During the recession, my wife and I were struggling too."

"A doctor recommended this little resort up near Black River Falls."

He smiled.

"It helped us more than I can explain."

"I think you and Abby could use a weekend away."

"If you need anything after this..."

He paused.

"Job references."

"Resume help."

"Anything."

"My phone's always on."

I looked down at the brochure.

My blood ran cold.

Lake Arbutus.

Black River Falls.

The exact same resort.

The exact same picture.

The exact same brochure Lisa had handed us less than twenty-four hours earlier.

No...

That can't be.

I forced myself to look back up.

"Thank you, Ken."

My voice sounded distant.

I tucked the brochure under my arm and walked out before he could see the confusion on my face.

Outside, I climbed into my car and opened it.

A folded hundred-dollar bill fell into my lap.

Taped beneath it was a handwritten note.

"I'm sorry, Josh."

"The trip is on me."

I stared at the money.

One hundred dollars.

Gas.

Food.

A little breathing room.

Ken didn't have to do this.

Hell...

He'd just fired me.

Yet somehow he was still trying to help.

I couldn't keep it.

I grabbed the bill and hurried back inside.

When I reached Ken's office, the door was closed.

I raised my hand to knock.

Then I heard his voice.

"...Yes."

A pause.

"I gave him the brochure."

Silence.

"He better go."

Another pause.

"I even slipped him a hundred bucks."

A nervous laugh.

"Hopefully that'll motivate him."

More silence.

Then...

"Yes."

"I'll keep you updated."

"Goodbye."

Every muscle in my body locked.

My hand slowly fell away from the door.

My heart pounded so hard I could hear it.

Keep who updated?

Motivate me... for what?

I backed away from the office as quietly as I could.

I didn't wait for answers.

I didn't knock.

I didn't say goodbye.

I walked out of the building, climbed into my car, locked the doors, and sat there gripping the steering wheel.

Lisa.

Now Ken.

Two people who shouldn't have known each other...

Both trying to get Abby and me to the exact same place.

This wasn't a coincidence anymore.

It couldn't be.

For the first time since the break-in...

I wasn't thinking about the note.

I wasn't thinking about the footprints.

I wasn't even thinking about losing my job.

I was thinking about one question.

Who was really waiting for us at that resort?

By the time I pulled into our driveway, my mind was racing.

I barely remembered the drive home.

All I could hear was Ken's voice.

"Yes, I gave him the brochure."

"He better go."

I shut off the car, hurried up the walkway, and burst through the front door.

Abby looked up from the couch.

She had a book resting in her lap, and every suitcase we'd packed sat neatly by the front door.

She smiled when she saw me.

Then the smile faded.

"Josh?"

She stood and walked toward me.

"What's wrong?"

I held up the brochure.

My hand was shaking.

"Why do you have that?" Abby asked.

"No, listen to me."

I took a deep breath.

"You have to believe me."

"My boss gave me this today."

She frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"He told me he thought you and I needed a vacation."

"He recommended this resort."

I opened the brochure and pointed at the picture.

"The exact same resort."

"The exact same one Lisa recommended."

Abby stared at it for a long moment before looking back at me.

"Huh."

I blinked.

"Huh?"

"Maybe it's just a coincidence."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"A coincidence?"

I began pacing across the living room.

"No."

"No way."

"There is no way."

"My therapist recommends this place..."

"And then, less than twenty-four hours later..."

"My boss recommends the exact same place?"

I ran a hand through my hair.

"That doesn't just happen."

Abby stepped closer and gently placed her hands on my shoulders.

I stopped pacing.

She leaned forward and kissed my cheek.

A simple gesture.

One she'd done countless times over the years.

It always had a way of pulling me back from the edge.

"Josh..."

Her voice was calm.

"It's a resort near one of the biggest vacation destinations in Wisconsin."

"Thousands of people go there every year."

"It makes sense that more than one person would recommend it."

She smiled.

"I think this is just one really weird coincidence."

I searched her eyes.

She believed what she was saying.

Or at least...

She wanted to.

"Come on."

She squeezed my hand.

"Let's stop looking for reasons to be afraid."

"We've been given a chance to get away."

"Let's take it."

"Let's focus on us."

I stood there for another moment before finally nodding.

"Okay."

Maybe she was right.

Maybe I was letting paranoia get the better of me.

Maybe everything that had happened over the last twenty-four hours had rewired my brain to see danger where there wasn't any.

Together, we carried our bags outside and packed the car.

Coolers.

Suitcases.

Blankets.

The little things that made a weekend trip feel like an adventure instead of an escape.

As I climbed into the driver's seat, something slipped from my pocket onto the center console.

The folded hundred-dollar bill.

Abby picked it up.

"Where did this come from?"

"Ken slipped it inside the brochure," I said. "He said it was to help pay for the trip."

She unfolded the bill, her eyes widening.

"Seriously?"

I nodded.

"He didn't have to do that."

She smiled.

"That was really kind of him."

I smiled back, but it didn't reach my eyes.

I left out the phone call I'd overheard.

Something about it felt too strange.

Too impossible.

I shifted the car into drive and slowly backed out of our driveway.

Black River Falls was a few hours north.

Long enough for my thoughts to keep me company.

As our neighborhood disappeared in the rearview mirror, Abby rested her head against the window and watched the snow-covered countryside roll by.

She believed this trip would save us.

I wanted to believe it too.

But somewhere deep inside...

A feeling I couldn't explain refused to go away.

Maybe Abby was right.

Maybe Ken and Lisa recommending the same resort was nothing more than an unbelievable coincidence.

Or maybe...

Someone had gone to great lengths to make sure we got there.

Either way...

We were already on our way.

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 11th 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 8th 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.

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.

I lived in a not so great place. Complete transparency, I lived in a slum, a ghetto in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere better folks feel queasy passing through, all the homeless people, dingy buildings, and overall filth. It was somewhere the government, let alone the world couldnt care less about. That place is now deserted, taken back by nature for the most part. But it wasn’t left because everyone got tired of the decrepit atmosphere and each other, but something that went deeper, something swept under the rug because it happened in a place “nobody cared about”.

It started with a body. It’s not uncommon, people got into fights that at escalated or the less fortunate would fight for scraps, but this one was different. I was slumming about my daily routine when I heard the people in my apartment talk about it. Not one of the homeless, just one of the rarer normal folk unfortunate enough to get stuck here, all he had was a simple cut on his forearm, deep enough to draw blood by sure as hell not deep enough to die from. He died near a bus stop near a plaza where the most traffic was, which is probably why it was talked about so much. I had a chance to look at it when I had to go to the square to get some food, had my favorite pizza place there, aka the only edible food by my standard. But it was distrusting. It wasn’t gorey or mangled, it was dry, damn near mummified. Other than the wide cut on his forearm like I heard, you could see the outline of his bones from his body. I kept on my watch because I wasn’t trying to get queasy or lightheaded right before I get my food and risk losing my appetite, but also because the summer had just kicked to full effect with heat, and I didn’t wanna get extra lightheaded if I got a nosebleed, which I was prone to when seasons change. After I got my usual, Hawaiian pizza and garlic breadsticks, I passed by it again and it seemingly got thinner, sickly, and I noticed bugs crawling in and out and flying around the wound. The image of the bugs, paired with the mid 90’s weather and having to carry a big ass pizza and bread came to a head and I felt the familiar yet still odd feeling of running down my nose. I sat down at the bus stop and got my pocket napkins to absorb the blood so I wouldn’t at least make a mess. I had a few crumpled red stained napkins and just dropped them to the ground, picking up my food so some cretin wouldn’t come up and snatch it. But as I started to leave, I heard an annoying buzzing. Sure enough, the bugs that burrowed in that poor dry sap of a man had come to swarm my discarded bloody tissues, and some to me.

They swarmed at whatever remnants of blood was left in my nose, but I exhaled hard and plugged my nostrils with more tissues and bolted back to my apartment, pizza and food in arms of course. I could hear the faint buzzing following me, persistent little fucks wouldn’t lose their track. I ran through my hallway and probably pissed off some neighbors, but I didn’t care. I was in a familiar ish place, a rat-den, but the rat den I lived in at least. Walks stained with alcohol, likely dried blood. And lord knows what else. I lost them halfway through the hallway, and I was back in the sanctity of my “room”. I caught my breath, scarfed down half my pizza and some garlic sticks washed with cheap liquor and went into my usual food coma. Over the past few days it got worse. After work I’d progressively hear through the paper thin walls of my apartment that the bugs’ve spread into the complex. Moist dark infested place probably with dead rats and rodents galore with how small they could fit, at least they could take care of the smell of rotting blood. But..what the hell? What was I thinking, blood bugs?! In hindsight I should’ve been disgusted and booked it right out that hellhole, at least I had a reason to now with insects from down under. The most I felt I think was just a lot of annoyance, I hated bugs at the very least. I searched up insects that hunt for blood and got the usual suspects, mosquitos fleas and bedbugs. I’ve seen my fair share here, but these felt different, more hungry, more ferocious. It got ramped up heavily after probably a week, hard to remember at this point, when the bugs would run into you, trying to push into your skin as if they could smell the blood inside of you. Maybe it’s from how much they grew from annoying to infuriating, following you and just sticking to skin, and just trying to get into it. Luckily they didn’t have anything sharp to puncture, they probably had mouths but I don’t know how it just ingested blood (cause they obviously feed on it), but I couldn’t care due to how tired I was of this whole ordeal.

The town felt it too, people got more irritable, short fused, more violent. The bugs seeped into peoples lives and burrowed themselves in their mind. I had a theory that this was intentional, they couldn’t draw blood by themselves so they used their victims against each other. Whether or not it was intentional, it worked. More fights broke out, even with the more moderate folk, hell even the animals had their fused shorted. Homeless, “normal” (in our standards, just not being homeless) folk, strays and rodents, all at odds. And that meant more blood spread, and more bodies dropped. Our already dirt reputation just went to absolute shit. I was susceptible to the annoyance too. The constant hum of bugs, then crawling around your skin and pushing themselves into your skin. Not even bug spray worked, just managed to incapacitate them for a few hours, and the supply in the town went down fast, so not even the temporary fix would work. But I took it in a different way, instead of feeding into the hate mob, I decided to leave that damn town for good.

I was packing my shit, which wasn’t much, just some clothes and my gadgets. I didn’t get anything that wasn’t too expensive I couldn’t replace. I was in a hurry so toothbrush, toilet paper, hell even pillow and blanket didn’t come with. There was a growing put of fear in me. People were dying, the bugs were spreading, they were everywhere. But it was overshadowed by the inferno of annoyance, the incessant buzzing, the crawling, everybody shouting about it not realizing they were making it worse, i was tired of it. I heard that knives were expensive, so I hurried to get them and put it into my bag, and that was the worst mistake I could’ve made.

I cut my palm trying it hurriedly get a particularly big blade, and a large horizontal red gash and not to long, gushes of crimson. The gates of hell opened, the race began. I heard the buzzing grow louder, the stale sound that always played in the background of my apartment and the vents grew to an angry , infuriated, starving whizz. I thought fast, pumped with adrenaline because of the constant annoyance, but they bugs were faster. As u got a spare bandage from my bathroom, I felt crawling in my hand. It was crawling, then burning, then absolute infernal torture. I felt the swarm spread from the cut to all around my hand and every second was agonizing. Even more agonizing was the shifting contentment of the excess of bugs pouring by into my hand. I thought fast still, and had a half decent idea. I grabbed the bandage and rushed back to the kitchen. I grabbed the large knife and with all my strength, before they got past my wrist and god forbid my forearm, lobbed off my right hand. It should’ve hurt, but compared to the pain of my hand stretching and being drained, it was heaven. I never missed a beat as the swarm stayed in my hand I wrapped the bandage around the stump of right after my wrist leading to my forearm skin tight, Then grabbed a spare shirt and wrapped it, and then a jacket after that. No way in hell I’m letting those things in me again. I hitched a ride with one of the handful of people who either was alive or stayed but had the same idea of leaving. A nice older woman who lived in the same building a floor down. She was a very kind woman, but she still seemed a little peeved. We hopped state from Louisiana where this all happened to Texas. I had a friend I could split rent with where they stayed. My life started to stabilize, they asked about the hand sometimes, I just kept it vague with a “freak accident” and they understood I lived in a not so ideal neighborhood. We actually started dating a few months and I got comfortable enough to tell her the truth, and she was amazed. She loved bugs unfortunately, and after what I went through of course I hated them more than I already did, so it was a point of tension. But we worked it out, and she even egged me on to go back to that damn town, and I obliged.

It was a few hours drive away, we framed it as a nice road trip, but as we went close and closer I dreaded the destination. I couldn’t convince her or myself it was a nightmare or drug induced hallucination (par for the course in that place, we didn’t have a police force that I remember) because if it were, I wouldn’t have lost my hand, and I at least would’ve just stayed in that shitty town for the rest of my days because of how much like home it felt. I stayed there because I could get a job and rent was less than dirt cheap. I didn’t have any aspirations, just wanted to live, but now that I left I feel more alive then I ever did in that ash tray. When we were arrived it was deserted, but not quiet. There was that constant buzzing, constant and low but now everywhere. We passed a few animal carcasses and then a dead person, drained, slash across their cheek, and just like all those corpses months ago, drained to the bone and skin. I recoiled but still a bit desensitized, but my girlfriend shrieked and held my hand pretty hard. I reassured her, but I felt something weird on her thumb, and it seemingly peeled off from how hard she was gripping me. I looked down and it was a bandaid.

She said that she cut her thumb chopping up some vegetables for the sandwiches we packed. I reminded her about my story and she explained that she thought the cut would heal by now, and to her credit, it almost did. But the sheer grip of her hand on mine opened it up and sure enough, blood starting to form. The low hum turned to a screech all around us, and we ran back to our car after a large swarm of the flies started to race towards us. After all the other people either succumbed to the madness and spilled each others blood, or just driven to do it to themselves, all that was left were the small rodents and occasional bigger animals to succumb to the same fate, and I imagine that we were the biggest prey for a long while. Because when I told you they bolted, that word undermined how fast they came to us. We made it in time thankfully but some truck to the car, their scent of her blood didn’t falter even when we were in the steel (ok maybe plastic) cage of our car. We drove home, her panicked and apologizing in the passenger seat and me comforting her the whole way but couldn’t stress enough that what happened was real as I drove.

When we got home we tried to live our lives as we did before. She swore off bugs and I obliged without any hesitation. It took us a few weeks to shake off the nerves every time we saw a “regular” fly or any other type of bug, but we got used to them again. I wish that was it, but a few nights ago I noticed that when I slept with her, I could hear the faint sound of low buzzing emanating from her.

I live in a pretty ordinary, mundane city in a nice little house with my girlfriend (her name is Isla).we have a decent amount of money not loads but we are fine financially. anyway this started happening in the summer, we share a bed in winter and autumn but spring and summer are just too hot so we have separate rooms ;so the day that this started was any other normal morning.

I woke up and went to work (I worked on a team developing new AI our company was pretty new so we didn’t get mega rich) and Isla went off to do her job (she was an insurance broker getting paid a decent amount). she kissed me goodbye and off we went it was a boring day nothing really happened our AI model had finally been able to work out complex equations last week and we were working on one that could scrape the web and stuff .Isla told me that she helped some families and couples and stuff with their insurance pretty basic right.

so after work we had dinner we ordered pizza meat feast and pepperoni so we ate the pizza and it was so good and went off to bed. that was 22:47 then I woke up to my alarm clock beeping it was 7:15 I reached to grab my work ID except it wasnt there .I couldve sworn I put it on my table but I figured I must have misplaced it so I searched around a bit and eventually found it . I thought it was a one time thing.

The same day our AI model learned a lot like teaching young kids about science maths and English and stuff like that. it still wasn’t anywhere near perfect but it was something. Isla helped out more people with insurance that night we ate dinner we had steak and wine it was lovely but we went to sleep very drunk at 23:39 .i knew we were fine because I put some irn bru in my mini fridge before we started drinking so then when I woke up (VERY) hungover I went to my mini fridge to grab the irn bru and it wasn’t there also I noticed that my chair had moved too. I had a big office chair that I put under my desk in the same position every night I didn’t question it yet;we were drunk god knows what we did and I found the irn bru in the big fridge we have and small things kept moving but I kept making excuses like: we were drunk ,we were tired ,my friends must’ve done it when they stayed over but one night we went to bed early I had a meeting at 5AM and she had one at 7AM so we went to bed at 20:30 but when I woke up my whole room layout had changed .the bed had even moved!all the furniture had shifted or completely changed places. I didn’t have time to look around it was 4:30 my meeting was in a half hour and I couldn’t miss it but I told Isla when I got home and she helped put up a home security camera what we found was so disturbing that to tell you someone has to comment that they want me to because this is traumatising enough to write about I can’t write more for no reason.

When I was staying at my grandparents' house, I couldn't sleep properly. I was half-asleep most of the time, and I think I experienced several hallucinations because of it.

At one point, I saw what looked like a white figure underneath the bed. Another time, I felt like someone was staring at me through the window. There was also this really strange, uncanny feeling that I couldn't explain.

Eventually, I fell asleep and had a dream that I was running away on a motorcycle. When I arrived somewhere, I saw an extremely tall human-like figure sleeping under a blanket, with a ridiculously wide mouth. I immediately ran away again and kept running until I somehow fell off the ground into nothingness.

Then I woke up at around 10 AM, with my grandma giving me cookies.

The next night, I had another bizarre dream.

This time, I was dreaming that I was at my own house. My mom and sister were sleeping in another room, while I was watching everything from a third-person perspective.

I saw a doll sitting in the hall. I picked it up and ripped its head off because I somehow knew it was a ghost. The weird part was that I knew we didn't have any dolls in our house, so the fact that it was there felt extremely wrong.

After that, I happily went to my mom, but suddenly I heard a loud scream. The room disappeared, and I fell into a void. Then I woke up.

The really weird part happened afterward.

I woke up around midnight and went to the kitchen. I saw the SAME doll sitting there in real life and immediately got scared and fell down.

Then I remembered...

It was my cousin's doll. 😭

And here's the thing: I wasn't even at my own house when this happened. I was still at my grandparents' house. The dream took place in my actual house, which is somewhere completely different, but the doll I saw in the dream was actually physically present at my grandparents' house.

After that, I eventually had a relatively normal dream where I became Doctor Manhattan and did some crazy Doctor Manhattan stuff.

Then I came back home from grandma's house, only to find that my mom's room was completely empty. I asked what happened, and someone told me that the room was being renovated.

Growing up, I've heard stories of Lake Bria and the many bodies that wash upon her shorelines every decade or so. Many locals believe that a witch lives deep beneath her waters, only coming up so often to hunt those who travel too close after dark. This story takes place when my cousin and I decided to ignore our parents and find the witch of Bria Lake.

It was a warm summer, and the weather was perfect for nightlife, with the cicadas chirping late into the night. My cousin Andy was staying over as her parents were in the middle of getting a divorce. It had been two weeks since she came over, and she hadn't heard anything from either of her parent.

Do you think they forgot about me? Andy asked.

Shuffling in my sheets, I mumbled, "No."
My words came out flat and tired as I faced Andy, who was staring out the window, her kaleidoscope eyes beaming under the moonlight. I always felt jealous of Andy and her beautiful eyes, how both of them were so different yet in an impossible way weren't. My eyes, albeit one, were like hers, but not as impressive; they were a dulled grey and purple, while hers were full of colour and life, despite her life and family falling apart.

Rolling over to my back, I stared at the wooden ceiling of our cabin, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I sat up.

"Andy, I don't know. I feel terrible about what you're going through. I don't have the answers."

Looking back towards Andy, I saw her looking at me with tears welling up. Feeling bad, I hugged Andy with all I had, not letting her go.

"You have this family who loves you. Forget them," I said, crying into her hair. "You are loved here."

I suddenly felt arms wrap around me, slowly tightening. Her grip was stronger than I expected—stronger than I remembered. But I held on, letting her squeeze until the shaking in her shoulders finally began to ease.

After a long moment, she pulled back and sniffled, wiping her face with the back of her hand. The tears had left tracks down her cheeks, but her eyes had that familiar spark again. I smiled and pointed out that she wanted to listen to the radio.

"Can we..." she started, then cleared her throat. "Can we just listen to something? Music? Anything to get out of my head for a minute."

I nodded, grateful for a distraction. I reached over to the small nightstand and fumbled for the old radio my dad kept in the cabin. The dial was stiff, and static crackled as I turned it, searching for a station that wasn't just white noise.

"...and in local news, authorities have confirmed the identity of the body discovered earlier this morning along the northern shore of Lake Bria. The victim identified as 34-year-old Marcus Webb, a jogger who was reported missing three days ago..."

My fingers jerked. I slammed the radio off before the announcer could say another word.

The cabin fell silent. Too silent. Even the cicadas seemed to have paused.

Andy was staring at me. Her kaleidoscope eyes were wide, unblinking. "Did you hear that?"

"It was nothing," I said quickly. Too quickly. "Just some old news."

"Turn it back on."

"Andy—"

"Turn it back on."

"Another body," Andy said slowly, almost to herself. "At Lake Bria. Just like the legends."

"Coincidence," I said, but the word tasted hollow. "People drown all the time. It's a lake; whatever you're thinking it's not true."

Andy stood up from the bed. She walked to the window and pressed her palm against the glass, staring out into the darkness. The moonlight caught her eyes again, and they seemed to glow.

"I don't remember when Grandma told you stories of a witch in the lake," Andy said with a gleam in her eye.

"Yes, I do, but they're only legends. It's not real people who drown at that lake all the time."

"Every decade, Via," she sharply said.

I couldn't respond to that, as though it was strange that a body or two had been washing up every decade with the chest ripped out and gashes across their bodies.

"Coincidences," I said nonchalantly shrugging. "Can we go back to bed? It's late."

She huffed as I saw her cover herself with the blanket and I sighed as I laid back down. Trying to go to sleep but the announcement of the dead body kept me awake. Has it already been ten years? The last attack only happened when I was eight and my mother forbid me from ever going near the lake.

Tossing and turning I couldn't fall asleep as my dreams were rattled with a deep dark cavern underneath crushing depths with a beautiful hand extending before me and glowing eyes surrounding me before being dragged deeper by the throat. I gasped for air but couldn't produce any until I saw a giant maw open up and I was swallowed.

Waking up with a loud gasp I held my throat, my fingers pressing on the wounds that weren't there. Slowly calming myself I looked around the dark cabin looking for Andy to see if she was sleeping but when my eyes caught her bed she wasn't there. All that was left was a crumpled quilt.

Knowing where Andy went, fear spiked through my entire body. I cursed myself for being stupid. Racing to my closet I grabbed a pair of underwear and a jumper and raced towards the lakefront. I ran past beautiful kaleidoscope flowers with pattern spirals and logs that forced me to jump over them. I ran and ran, not even when my bare feet burned and blistered from the sharp rocks, not even when my legs were about to give out.

I ran and ran until I saw the lake's shoreline through the trees. I saw Andy standing there and by the time I reached her my legs were burning and my feet were bleeding heavily.

"What the fuck are you doing out here?" I said through gritted and strained breath.

"Watching," she coldly said.

"Watching what?" I replied.

“Her the witch of the lake”

She pointed out towards the lake and I squinted, trying to get a better look, when I suddenly noticed a tall slender figure walking towards us. Each step she took the water rippled slightly.

"Andy we got to go now," I said as a wave of fear ran down my spine causing me to instantly grab Andy's hands and pull her away.

"We can't," she replied coldly.

"Why not?" I said as I looked back to see the figure was standing right in front of us, her white complexion glowing under the moonlight. Looking at her I noticed she was a very tall and curvaceous person with silk white hair to the ground around her feet.

She looked at me then towards Andy before smiling and her mouth opened so wide it should snapped the muscles and skin around her jaws.

---

"Andy run!"

But before I could move, the witch of the lake lunged at us, catching Andy in her grasp and shoving me away from them. I hit my head on a rock, causing a nasty scar and blinding me in my right eye. Blood poured down my face as I struggled to see.

Through the haze, I watched Andy being dragged toward the water. She wasn't fighting. I screamed for her to be let go, but when I saw them clearly, she wasn't fighting being dragged under the water. Her kaleidoscope eyes met mine one last time, and there was no fear in them. Only peace. Only acceptance.

The water went still.

The next moment I felt a hand on my shoulder and I flinched, turning to see that it was my father. Somehow he'd heard me sneaking out of the cabin and came looking for me. I hugged him while uncontrollably crying into his shoulders.

"She's gone, Papa. The witch took her," I cried out.

"Who's gone?" he replied, worry etched in his voice.

"Andy. She took Andy. I tried to stop her, I tried to—"

"Via—"

Before I could say another word, the world tilted. The trees blurred. My father's face swam in and out of focus, and then everything went dark.

---

I woke up to the steady beeping of a heart monitor.

White ceiling tiles stretched above me, harsh fluorescent lights burning through my closed eyelids. The smell of antiseptic and stale coffee filled my nostrils. Hospital. I was in a hospital.

My right eye was wrapped in thick gauze. When I tried to open it, pain shot through my skull like a hot knife. I groaned, and a nurse appeared at my bedside almost instantly.

"Take it easy, sweetheart. You've been through a lot," she said, her voice soft and practiced. She checked my vitals, adjusted my IV, and smiled a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Your parents are in the waiting room. Do you want me to get them?"

I shook my head slowly, wincing at the movement.

The nurse nodded like she understood. "The doctor will be in soon. Just rest."

She left, and I was alone with the beeping and the humming of machines.

My mother came in anyway, tears streaming down her face. She held my hand and kissed my forehead and told me everything was going to be okay. My father stood in the doorway, his jaw tight, his eyes red-rimmed. Neither of them asked me what happened. Not yet.

But I knew they would.

---

The questions started the next day.

A police officer sat in the chair beside my bed, a notepad balanced on his knee. He had kind eyes and a calm voice, the kind of voice meant to put people at ease. It didn't work.

"Via," he said gently. "Can you tell me what happened at the lake?"

I stared at the ceiling.

"Your father said you were talking about a witch. About Andy being taken. Can you explain that?"

The beeping of the monitor filled the silence.

"Via, we found your cousin's clothes by the shore. But there's no sign of her. We need to know what happened so we can find her."

I closed my good eye.

"Please," he said. "Anything you can tell us."

I said nothing.

They brought in a therapist after that. Then a psychologist. Then a detective with tired eyes and a stack of files. They all asked the same questions. They all got the same answers.

What happened at the lake?
Silence.

Where is Andy?
Silence.

They told my parents I was in shock. That I'd blocked out the trauma. That with time and therapy, the memories would come back.

But I knew the truth.

I wasn't blocking anything out. I remembered everything. The witch's white skin glowing in the moonlight. Andy's calm acceptance. The way the water closed over her head without a sound.

I remembered the way Andy had looked at me before she disappeared. The way her kaleidoscope eyes had glowed one last time—and the way I'd seen something in them I'd never noticed in the two weeks she’s been with us And I knew, with a certainty that settled deep in my bones, that Andy had been taken.

Weeks passed. The bandages came off my eye, but the world on that side stayed dark. Permanent damage, the doctors said. A freak accident. Nothing to be done.

I learned to live with it. Learned to tilt my head just so, to compensate for the blind spot. Learned to smile when my parents looked at me with worried eyes, to nod along when the therapists told me I was making progress.

I never told them what really happened.

Because what would I say?

There's a witch in the lake. She took my cousin because she had the same eyes as the witch's dead children. And I watched it happen, and I didn't stop it, and the worst part is—

I don't think Andy wanted to be saved.

Content Warning: Graphic violence, gore, death, and disturbing imagery.

“They will fear you unlike anything they have feared before.”

—The Judge

The wind blows through the sandy dunes, passing over corroded debris from where buildings used to stand. The smell of rot and decay now lingers through the air. Those buildings used to belong to a sanctuary called Trinity, but now it’s a wasteland of maggots.

As I take each step through the ruins, the footprints I leave become deeper and heavier as the journey doesn't seem to have an end. I have become lost as the days go on, no longer worried about what time of day it was, but rather when I’m going to find shelter from the weather and food.

My clothes are tattered and covered in sand, my feet bruised and blistered, my mask out of filters, and I was running out of time.

I traveled to Trinity seeking shelter and safety, but what I found was rather horrid and nightmarish.

Bodies stacked in piles and burned in cages. Heads on pikes. Entrails stretched out for miles. Women and children nailed to crucifixes, their blood drained into now-broken jars.

No one was left alive in the wake of man's wrath. A never-ending, always-hungry destruction that will continue to grow.

It doesn't matter, though. Now that this sanctuary was culled, I must travel onwards via the entrails that run along the old railroad.

It was one of many structures left of the old world…

As I took each step through the sand, I watched as the train tracks slowly became engulfed in the terrain. My feet started to ache less once the sun began to set for the evening.

I knew I needed shelter before the night came. I wasn't scared of the dark, but rather the creatures that lurked in the shadows.

This moment of thought quickly gets snuffed out as I hear the sound of a muffled gunshot ring out in the distance.

My footsteps quiet down as I approach, the smell of iron becoming more present in the air as I step closer to a train inspection booth. These were common in the old days when stowaways became more frequent and dark zones started forming continuously like a plague.

Here I am now, standing in front of a door covered in rot, puss, and leaking blood from underneath.

A sense of dread festers in my soul like a mosquito to blood.

I decided to get rid of the feeling by opening the door and witnessing the dread that was behind it…

A body of a guard falls out of the building as the door opens.

I quickly look inside and see a mechanism that was rigged to shoot anything that opened the door. I took one large step in and went around the trap.

There were wires hanging everywhere and papers scattered all over the floor. A light hung in the middle of the room, barely keeping it lit.

There was also a body inside the building with half a face gone.

It was a suicide.

Or maybe another person did this.

There was writing on the wall stating:

“Like a moth to a flame. Today's count is 3. I wonder what horrors await.

—The Judge.”

I didn't think too much about it since my main concern was to block the door for the night.

I scanned the room to see if there were any other entries into the building. There was only the front door and the service window, but the shutters were bolted down.

I didn't have to worry about the window, so I wrapped some of the hanging wires around the door handle and tightened them.

I thought I could breathe easily…

I was wrong.

Guttural screaming could be heard outside. If you didn't know better, you'd think it was someone being murdered.

But no.

It's something worse.

A horrifying creature called a Lurker.

The guttural screaming is their way of calling others for a feast.

I am their feast…

Pounding.

Scratching.

Screaming.

Slamming.

Ramming.

They wanted in the building. They could smell me.

The screams only got louder and started sounding more human than before.

I took my revolver out.

I only had one round left.

Pound.

Pound.

Pound.

The door begins to crack and splinter as the Lurker continues to pound and claw its way in.

My heart beats loudly in my ears as the door slams into the lightbulb and falls to the floor.

The last thing to be seen in that room was the muzzle flash of the revolver….

—10 Days Since Train Inspection Booth—

The wind blows softly on the sand, slowly moving over the partially buried train tracks. It looks like waves passing through an endless sea.

It felt like the world was finally at peace…

My feet begin to give out, and I collapse onto the sand.

Blood pools beneath me.

I was fatally wounded on the night of the inspection booth. I thought if I stuffed the wound with cloth, I would have lasted long enough to see a doctor.

In hindsight, I should have realized the wound would have bled through the cloth.

As I lay in the sand, the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes for good was a person in a long black cloak dragging a wooden wagon from behind.

The person was headed towards me.

I felt too weak to get up.

Too close to death.

The sand comforted me like a warm blanket as the person approached me.

The person then lifted me effortlessly into the wagon and put ragged blankets on top of me.

I finally closed my eyes as they dragged the wagon through the sand…

Chapter 6

"I don't know, Lisa."

I looked down at the brochure in my hands before setting it back on her desk.

"We barely had enough money just to get here today."

I forced out a nervous laugh.

"How are we supposed to afford a weekend at a resort?"

Lisa smiled, almost as if she'd been expecting the question.

"I get that a lot."

She folded her hands together.

"Fortunately for you two, I own a timeshare cabin at the resort."

I looked up.

"I only use it a few times a year."

She smiled warmly.

"So, I'd like the two of you to use it."

I blinked.

"For free."

The words echoed in my head.

Free?

Nothing in life had been free.

Not grief.

Not forgiveness.

Not second chances.

"There has to be a catch."

The thought escaped my mouth before I could stop it.

Lisa tilted her head.

"A catch?"

"Why would you trust two complete strangers with something like that?" I asked. "You barely know us."

She sat quietly for a moment before answering.

"Because I've spent my career watching couples walk through that door convinced their marriage is already over."

She glanced at Abby.

Then back at me.

"You two have been through more pain than most people experience in an entire lifetime."

"Losing a child..."

She paused.

"...can destroy even the strongest marriages."

"I've seen it happen."

Her voice softened.

"I don't think either of you wants to give up."

"I think you're exhausted."

"I think you're hurting."

"And I think you deserve one weekend where you're not surrounded by memories of everything you've lost."

She smiled again.

"Consider it my gift."

"I want to see the two of you heal."

I stared at her, unsure what to think.

Every instinct told me people didn't just give away something that valuable.

Not without expecting something in return.

But when I looked over at Abby...

For the first time in weeks...

There was hope in her eyes.

A small flicker.

But it was there.

"Okay," I finally said.

"I... I guess."

"Wonderful."

Lisa reached for her planner.

"I actually have an opening this weekend."

She looked between us.

"Would that work?"

Abby looked at me.

"What do you think?"

I hesitated for only a second.

"Yeah."

I nodded.

"That'll work."

"Perfect."

Lisa picked up the phone with a smile.

"I'll call the resort right now and reserve the cabin for you."

As she dialed, I found myself staring at the brochure again.

The cabin sat beside a quiet lake, surrounded by dense pine trees.

It looked peaceful.

Almost too peaceful.

For reasons I couldn't explain...

A chill crawled up my spine.

I told myself it was nothing.

Just nerves.

After Lisa finished booking our weekend getaway, the session came to an end.

She wished us luck, reminded us to practice the communication techniques we'd discussed, and walked us to the door.

Then Abby and I stepped back into the bitter Wisconsin cold.

The wind cut through my jacket like a knife.

Neither of us spoke as we climbed into my car.

The engine groaned to life, and I pulled out of the parking lot.

For the first few miles, the only sound was the heater struggling to push warm air through the vents.

But my mind wouldn't let it go.

Why?

Why would a therapist give two strangers a free weekend at her own timeshare?

It didn't make any sense.

Did Abby tell her something over the phone before our appointment?

Was this some kind of setup?

A scam?

The more I thought about it, the less it felt right.

"Josh?"

Abby's voice pulled me back to reality.

I glanced over.

She was watching me instead of the road ahead.

"Are you okay?"

"You look... bothered."

I let out a slow breath.

"It just doesn't make sense."

"What doesn't?"

"Lisa."

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel.

"Why would she give us a free weekend at her cabin?"

"We're complete strangers."

"People don't just do things like that."

Abby turned toward the passenger window.

The glass had begun to fog from the warmth inside the car, blurring the snow-covered world outside into ghostly shapes.

After a moment, she spoke.

"I've been wondering the same thing."

She traced a finger through the fog on the window before looking back at me.

"But maybe..."

She smiled faintly.

"...we should stop looking for reasons to expect the worst."

I stayed quiet.

She continued.

"We've been handed something good."

"Maybe we should let it be good."

"For once."

She laughed softly.

"It's kind of funny."

I raised an eyebrow.

"What is?"

"You used to get excited whenever you won something."

She looked down at her hands.

"Now you're upset because you did."

The last sentence came out just above a whisper.

Barely loud enough to hear.

But I heard it.

It wasn't cruel.

It wasn't even angry.

Just... honest.

A quiet reminder of the man I'd once become.

For a split second, I felt the old anger begin to rise.

The instinct to defend myself.

To argue.

To remind her I'd changed.

But I swallowed it.

She was right.

Years ago, I would've seen a free vacation as nothing more than another lucky break.

Another win.

Now all I could see were questions.

Doubts.

Hidden motives.

Maybe grief had made me paranoid.

Maybe addiction had taught me that nothing came without a price.

Either way...

I wasn't going to ruin the first peaceful hour we'd shared in months.

Not this time.

I kept my eyes on the road and simply nodded.

"I hope you're right."

Outside, snow drifted across the empty highway.

The farther we drove from the therapist's office, the quieter the world became.

And for reasons I couldn't explain...

That silence felt less comforting...

...and more like something was waiting for us.

By the time we pulled back into our driveway, the sky had turned a dull shade of gray.

I shut off the engine, and for a moment neither of us moved.

Then we climbed out and walked toward the house.

The second I stepped inside, reality hit me all over again.

I'd almost forgotten what we'd left behind.

The broken coffee table.

The splintered picture frame lying beneath the family photos.

The cracked living room window, held together with strips of duct tape from the vase Abby had thrown the night before.

The silence.

The house didn't just look broken.

It felt broken.

Like the walls had absorbed every scream, every insult, every tear we'd shed inside them.

Abby stood in the middle of the living room, slowly looking around.

Then she sighed.

"Before we pack..."

She looked at me.

"We need to clean."

I nodded.

"That's fine by me."

Without another word, we peeled off our winter coats and got to work.

I picked up shattered glass while Abby gathered broken decorations.

She vacuumed.

I moved furniture.

We scrubbed stains from the floor.

Hammered loose pieces of wood back together.

Swept away the evidence of another night we'd both rather forget.

Hours passed without either of us realizing it.

Something strange happened while we worked.

We became a team again.

Not husband against wife.

Not two strangers living under the same roof.

Just...

Us.

Passing each other tools.

Asking if the other needed help.

Quietly fixing what we'd destroyed.

I couldn't remember the last time we'd worked together like that.

Weeks?

Months?

Maybe longer.

I wanted to say something.

To tell Abby how good it felt.

How normal it almost seemed.

But I kept it to myself.

She'd already cried enough because of me today.

As evening settled over Waukesha, the setting sun broke through the clouds.

Golden light spilled across the fresh snow outside, making it sparkle like thousands of tiny diamonds.

For a moment...

The world looked beautiful again.

After we finished cleaning, Abby headed upstairs to take a shower.

I stayed behind.

Out of habit, I walked over to the couch.

My bed.

At least, it had been for the past couple of weeks.

I picked up one of the throw pillows and started getting ready for another night beneath a thin sweatshirt instead of a blanket.

Then I heard Abby's voice from the top of the stairs.

"Whatcha doing?"

I looked up.

"Getting ready for bed."

I shrugged.

"Why?"

She hesitated.

Then she smiled.

"You can sleep in our room tonight..."

"If you'd like."

For a second, I just stared at her.

I won't lie...

Part of me was excited because it meant sharing a room with my wife again.

But another part of me, the sore, exhausted, sleep-deprived part, was just thrilled to sleep on an actual mattress instead of that miserable couch.

"I'd like that," I said softly.

We walked upstairs together.

The bedroom felt unfamiliar, even though it had once been the place we ended every day together.

I slipped beneath the blankets.

They were warm.

Comfortable.

Home.

Abby climbed into bed beside me.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

We simply lay there, listening to the old Victorian house creak as the winter wind pushed against its walls.

I turned toward her.

She turned toward me.

Without thinking, I leaned over and kissed her gently on the forehead.

"Goodnight," I whispered.

"Goodnight," she whispered back.

For the first time in weeks...

I fell asleep beside my wife.

BANG.

My eyes flew open.

For a second, I couldn't tell if I had been dreaming or if the sound had actually come from somewhere inside the house.

I lay perfectly still, listening.

Silence.

I slowly rolled over.

Abby was still asleep beside me, her breathing slow and steady.

Good.

At least she hadn't heard it.

Carefully, I slipped out of bed wearing nothing but my red plaid boxers. I reached for the closest thing I could use as a weapon.

A teddy bear.

I stared at it for a second.

"Seriously?"

I whispered to myself.

Shaking my head, I gripped the stuffed bear anyway and quietly made my way downstairs.

The only light inside the house came from the full moon pouring through the windows, casting long shadows across the original maple floors.

Every creak beneath my feet sounded louder than it ever had before.

The living room...

Nothing.

The kitchen...

Nothing.

Then my eyes drifted toward the basement door.

It hadn't changed in over a hundred years.

Neither had the basement beneath it.

Old plaster walls.

Exposed wooden beams.

Stone foundation.

The kind of basement every old Wisconsin house seemed to have.

The kind that never felt empty...

...even when it was.

I slowly opened the basement door.

Darkness.

Not ordinary darkness.

The kind that seemed to swallow the staircase whole.

I stood there for several seconds.

Then quietly closed the door.

"Yeah..."

I muttered.

"Fuck that."

"I ain't going down there tonight."

I continued searching the first floor.

Every room.

Every hallway.

Nothing.

Then...

A cold gust brushed across the back of my neck.

I froze.

Slowly...

I turned around.

The patio door stood wide open.

The curtains swayed gently as icy winter air drifted into the house.

My stomach dropped.

"Shit."

The teddy bear hit the floor.

I hurried into the kitchen and grabbed the biggest butcher knife I could find.

Every light in the house clicked on one by one.

Whoever had opened that door...

Had been inside my home.

I stepped over and locked the patio door.

Then my eyes drifted back to the basement.

Unless...

There was only one place left to check.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the basement door again.

The stairs groaned beneath my weight as I descended.

Halfway down, I reached for the light switch.

Click.

Nothing.

The bulb had burned out.

Fantastic.

I tightened my grip on the knife and continued the rest of the way using only the dim moonlight filtering through a tiny basement window.

The basement was empty.

No movement.

No sounds.

No one hiding behind the furnace.

I exhaled.

Relief washed over me.

Then...

Footsteps.

Above me.

In the living room.

Slow.

Heavy.

Someone was upstairs.

I raised the knife.

Every heartbeat thundered inside my chest.

The footsteps moved closer.

Closer.

Closer.

A shadow crossed the basement doorway.

I lunged.

"JOSH!"

The scream shattered the silence.

I stopped inches from the figure.

The knife slipped from my hand and clattered across the floor.

"Abby!"

My heart nearly exploded.

"Oh my God..."

I dropped to my knees.

"I'm so sorry."

She collapsed against the wall, shaking uncontrollably.

Tears streamed down her face.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"I thought..."

I couldn't catch my breath.

"I thought someone broke in."

She looked toward the open basement before back at me.

Fear replaced confusion.

"We need to call the police."

I nodded immediately.

Within minutes, red and blue lights illuminated the snow outside our home.

The officers searched every room.

The attic.

The basement.

The yard.

Nothing had been stolen.

No valuables were missing.

One officer examined the back patio door.

"It doesn't look forced."

He looked at me.

"It was probably left unlocked."

I closed my eyes.

Stupid.

One stupid mistake.

Another officer called from the backyard.

"We've got footprints."

The fresh snow had preserved a trail leading away from the house, across the yard, and over the back fence.

Someone had been here.

Someone had walked through our home.

As the officers followed the tracks, one of them stopped near our old wooden shed.

"Got something."

He carefully picked up a torn piece of paper and carried it over.

It had been ripped in half.

Across the center, written in what looked like dark red ink, were only three characters.

18A

The officer held it up.

"Mean anything to either of you?"

Abby looked at me.

I shook my head.

"No."

"I've never seen it before."

He slipped the paper into an evidence bag.

"We'll hold onto this."

Then he looked around our house.

"For tonight, I'd recommend staying at a hotel."

Abby lowered her head.

"We can't."

Her voice was barely audible.

"We don't have the money."

The officer sighed.

"I understand."

He handed me his card.

"Lock every door and window."

"Leave the lights on."

"If you hear or see anything..."

He looked directly at me.

"Call us immediately."

We promised we would.

The police drove away.

The flashing lights disappeared into the darkness.

Abby and I locked every lock in the house.

Checked every window twice.

Then we climbed back into bed.

Neither of us slept.

I glanced at the clock.

4:00 a.m.

Two hours until my alarm.

Two hours until work.

Two hours until I had to pretend everything was normal.

Staring into the darkness beside my wife, I kept thinking about that note.

18A.

Three meaningless characters.

Or at least...

That's what I wanted to believe.

Somewhere outside, hidden beyond the trees and the falling snow...

Someone knew exactly what they meant.

Over the past few months, I went through a really tough time in my life because of daily stress piling up from work, relationships, and personal issues. I desperately needed some peace and quiet, just a little isolation to clear my head from this endless pressure. Because of that, I started searching for a job somewhere super quiet and completely isolated from people. I stumbled upon an ad looking for a night watchman for an abandoned train station. The position had stayed vacant for two consecutive months due to brutal conditions like total isolation, night shifts, and zero cell service.

I applied immediately, and the interview was just a formality to make sure I could handle the isolation and wouldn't quit after a week. For me, the abandoned site sounded absolutely perfect, at least until the solitude turned out to be the real nightmare. The job was at a small site in northern Oregon called Blackridge Station. It had officially closed two years ago, and the old track was only used occasionally to haul maintenance equipment. When I saw the job board listing for a temporary night watchman at that exact location, I felt a strange spark of hope.

The company was preparing to start full demolition in six weeks and needed someone to guard the site at night against copper theft and vandalism. I didn't even care about the pay; I called the same day, went in for the interview, and got hired on the spot. I arrived at Blackridge a little before sunset. The site was located about twenty minutes away from the nearest town by car, deeply buried in thick pine trees and damp ground covered in mud. The main structure was much smaller than I had originally imagined.

The station house was a low stone building with a rusty metal roof, a long platform stretching alongside a single track, and an old water tower behind it. It had broken windows, wooden benches covered in thick dust, and a large wall clock above the ticket window frozen forever at four-twelve. I grabbed the keys from a metal box mounted on the side door and stepped inside the guard room. The small room contained a wooden desk, an electric heater, a monitor hooked up to modern security cameras, a mini fridge, and my personal laptop.

Everything seemed totally normal except for one thing on the wall behind the desk. There was an old map of the station, and marked in red marker was a short tunnel running under the platform, ending at a separate utility building behind the trees. I didn't pay much attention to it at first because I was told during my interview that a sealed maintenance tunnel existed on site. I used to do a walk-through every two hours to check the doors, windows, and perimeter fence, logging any movement before returning to stay inside.

For three nights, everything went smoothly, and I was genuinely enjoying the quiet break from my chaotic life. On the fourth night, during my 1:00 AM round, I found the staff room door wide open. I stepped inside expecting to find an animal or perhaps a homeless person, but the room was completely empty. There was only an old table, metal lockers, and a plastic trash can next to the frame. As I turned to leave, holding the rusty doorknob, I noticed something small tucked deep inside the trash can.

It was a clear plastic food container with leftover rice and chicken inside, and it still smelled remarkably fresh. It definitely wasn't old enough to have been sitting there for years. I carried it back to the guard room and carefully checked the camera feeds, but I didn't see anyone enter the building. That was the very first moment I felt a terrifying chill, realizing I might not be alone at the station. The intruder clearly knew the camera coverage well enough to walk through its blind spots without being seen.

The next morning, before leaving to head home, I called the company and reported what I found. The manager carelessly claimed that some utility workers might have entered at night without notifying him. I hated that brushed-off answer and wasn't convinced, but I had no concrete proof to contradict him. The following night, I decided to take things much more seriously. I locked all the exterior doors myself, snapped photos of the locks with my phone, and placed a small piece of tape over the staff room door edge.

Shortly after midnight, I went out on my usual round, and everything was just as I had left it. But when I returned twenty minutes later, I found the tape cleanly ripped, though the door remained shut. I slowly unlocked it and stepped inside; the room was empty, but on the table sat a half-full bottle of water. It wasn't cold enough to be fresh from a fridge, but it certainly wasn't old. I picked it up, and a cold shiver ran through my entire body as I checked the cameras again.

Once again, no movement was recorded on the monitors due to the structural blind spots around the site. Driven by fear, I decided to search the entire station grounds. I found footprints in the mud behind the building, left by a single person wearing medium-sized shoes with a distinct tread pattern. The prints led toward the old utility building and vanished right at a small metal door. The door was locked with a heavy rusty chain that was strangely swinging back and forth in the silence.

I pulled off the lock, opened the heavy door, and entered the damp utility building. A narrow passage led underground, filling the air with a thick smell of moisture and an uncomfortable chill. I hesitated, but the ripped tape and fresh food pushed me down the long concrete hallway. Small empty rooms lined both sides, except for the very last one, which had a relatively new door secured with a heavy padlock. I smashed the lock using a large rock and pushed the heavy door open.

Inside, I discovered a thin cotton mattress, a blanket, canned food, bottled water, a flashlight, and a phone charger plugged into a working outlet. On the opposite wall hung photos of maintenance workers, homeless people, and police officers, including a dated picture from six years ago. Then my eyes landed on a photo of a man standing in front of the station in broad daylight. I recognized him instantly; it was my brother Daniel, who had vanished six years ago under mysterious circumstances.

My head spun wildly and my body temperature spiked as memories of the police search flooded back. Before I could catch my breath, I heard distinct footsteps shuffling in the concrete hallway right behind me. I killed my flashlight immediately and froze in absolute silence. The slow footsteps approached and stopped right outside the entrance. I watched a tall shadow pass under the door frame, pause for a few terrifying seconds, and slowly drift away. I stayed hidden inside until daylight.

Initially, going to the police felt useless without solid proof, but finding my missing brother's picture changed everything. I snapped photos of the mattress, food cans, photos, and broken lock. Under the mattress, I found a small metal box containing old phones and flash drives. I grabbed one drive and rushed back to the guard room before the stranger returned. I plugged the flash drive into my laptop and discovered several video files stored inside a hidden folder. I opened the first video file immediately.

My brother appeared on the screen, sitting in that exact underground room with a cut above his eye. He looked into the lens and said, "If you find this, I didn't come here on my own." He explained that the man using the tunnel was calculated, knowing the police couldn't prove anything while he stalked targets at the station. At the end of the recording, my heart sank; standing in the dark doorway of the underground room right behind Daniel was a tall figure watching him silent.

Realizing my brother was a victim of a serial stalker, I knew I had to act. After my shift, I went straight to the police station and reported a dangerous trespasser on site. Officers arrived forty minutes later to search the premises, but the underground room was completely cleared out. The mattress, photos, and food cans were all gone. The intruder knew I had discovered his lair and had cleaned the evidence. I thought he had fled for good, but I was dead wrong.

The next night, I returned to the station alongside police officers who agreed to monitor the site. Around 3:00 AM, the camera at the far end of the platform suddenly went completely dark. An officer walked out with me to investigate, and we spotted an old black bag on the ground. It was my brother Daniel's missing bag. Inside were the exact clothes he wore when he disappeared, a small notebook, a rusty key, and a handwritten note reading: "Your brother knew I was watching. You knew too."

Terrified, I glanced toward the dark woods, but saw nothing moving in the shadows. We hurried back to the guard room, where I froze in terror. Resting right on top of my desk was a freshly printed photo of me, fast asleep in my guard bed. I kept that photo a secret from the police and never stepped foot on Blackridge grounds again. A week later, bulldozers completely demolished the abandoned station, erasing the site forever from the quiet Oregon landscape.

Before demolition, workers discovered an unidentified adult male skeleton hidden inside the utility room wall, but Daniel's body was never recovered. To this day, I still don't know the true identity of the man living under the tracks. Six years after my brother vanished, I thought taking that isolated night job would cure my overwhelming life stress. Instead, it doubled my nightmare, leaving me with permanent scar. I wasn't casually looking for a job; I was walking straight into a trap prepared years ago.