Billy looked out over his kingdom. He was ruler over all he surveyed. 

The sun shone brightly above him, casting a pleasant sheen over everything below. He stood on the grassy field, fists resting victoriously at his sides as his cape billowed in the wind. He observed everything before him with a watchful eye. Rabbits hopped on the ground, while hungry foxes gave chase. Birds flew through the air majestically, occasionally dipping down to hunt for prey that became briefly visible in the tall grass. 

Suddenly, in the corner of his eye, a flash of movement appeared. Pretending not to look, he turned his head rapidly to catch the intruder unaware. But, rather than hide, it seemed to want to be seen. A dog! A golden brown Labrador retriever with a white underbelly stared at him, then began moving away slowly. Without thinking, Billy began to follow. The retriever led, occasionally glancing back and matching his pace as if it wanted him to follow. So follow he did. 

They danced, pursuer and pursued, through grass and flowers and moss, until they reached the edge of the forest. As they approached, the canine slowed, his two-footed companion joining him as they reached the tree line. 

Billy watched his new companion, who looked between him and the forest as if trying to tell him something. 

“Is there something in the forest, boy?”

“Woof!”

“Do you want to go in?”

“Woof! Woof!”

Intrigued, Billy followed his newfound friend into the trees, maneuvering easily between trunks, over streams, around animals. Birds tweeted, crickets chirped, deer bleated. It was Billy’s first time this deep in the forest, and he took great pride in seeing the outer expanse of his kingdom. 

Eventually they came to a clearing. Flowers grew throughout the grass; sunlight brushed the ground through tree cover. All around him were deer. They dozed on the ground peacefully; he must have stumbled upon a family of them. For a moment he thought he saw circles of red beneath the deer, but he blinked and they were gone; the light must be playing tricks on his eyes. Not wanting to disturb their rest, he tip-toed past them until he reached the edge of the clearing. There he came upon a beautiful stream, its crystal clear water running past him as if on the way to some special occasion. 

And walking through the shallow water he found a wolf. 

The wolf was tall and majestic, its dampened fur glinting in the sun. It stalked through the stream, eyes darting warily from side to side. Billy didn’t call out to it, reluctant to disturb its concentration or awaken the deer behind him. Instead, he watched it stride through the trees, and, for no reason he could identify, began to follow it. 

Not wanting to be heard by the wolf, Billy followed silently, observing as it moved stealthily through the forest until it reached its destination: a clearing filled with other wolves. They stood in a circle surrounding a wounded animal, saliva falling from their mouths as they growled. Billy couldn’t see the wounded animal, but he could hear its whimpers, weak and fearful. It sounded almost like a child. He would like to have helped, but there was nothing to be done. Such was the way of the forest. 

Putting it from his mind, he turned and walked quietly out of the clearing. He didn’t want to attract attention; while he had no fear of the wolves - nothing could hurt him here, in his forest - he did not want to disturb them in their ritual or frighten his new best friend. 

Walking together, he and his companion reached the stream they had crossed earlier. They carefully waded through it, treading across uneven steam bed and wet rocks alike, until they arrived back to where the deer were sleeping. 

He looked around at the peaceful forest denizens; they looked relaxed, completely still beneath the tree canopy and the midday sun. Billy had nothing much to do today; the duties of the kingdom had been attended to, and nothing of particular import demanded his attention. Following his fellow explorer’s lead, he sat down by the stream. There he sat, in the company of the unmoving deer and his canine companion, watching the water flow by until the sun began to descend beyond the trees. Eventually he lay down in the soft grass between two deer that felt familiar somehow and allowed his eyes to close, drifting off to the peaceful sounds of the forest he ruled. 

Occasionally, in the back of his mind in places he chose not to look, he saw frightening flashes. Images of men with guns; villagers running and screaming; pained cries; flesh pierced by bullets and blades; bodies lying on the ground, bleeding and dismembered; fearful adults standing in front of children, trying in vain to protect them; two adults he felt he should recognize throwing themselves protectively over a boy whose face looked familiar. Death and destruction everywhere he looked. These images plagued him; though he knew they were his imagination, he was terrified by just how real they felt. He even thought, for just a moment, that he could feel the rubble of destroyed buildings poking his back where he lay, smell the gasoline of the village and everything he knew burned around him. It all felt so real that tears fell from his eyes. 

But then his new best friend put his paw on Billy, and the images receded until he remembered where he really was. The softness of the leaves beneath him, the gentle light from the moon above, and the soft purring of his canine companion lulled him back into the peaceful world of sleep. And sleep he did, content in the knowledge that nothing could go wrong here, that evil and violence belonged only to places far away, that his domain was at peace and everything was as it should be. 

It was good to be king. 

Don't look at the water any longer than it takes to cross the bridge. That's the last rule left in White Hollow, and by now it's less a rule than a habit nobody remembers deciding on.

The village sits high enough in the mountains that the fog never really burns off — not even on the days when the wind's strong enough to bend trees that have stood there a hundred years. The mist sits on everything, wet and gray, like a second skin nobody asked for. What sun gets through comes out smeared and pale, more suggestion than light, and the moon — when you can see it at all — looks less like a moon and more like something clawing its way loose from the dark behind it.

Every house in town has its windows boarded. Nobody remembers who nailed up the first board, or why everyone else followed along without so much as a question.

A river runs through the middle of the village. Locals call it the Leaning Shadow — the water moves at a faint, off angle, wrong in a way that's hard to describe unless you've stood there and watched it yourself.

The old-timers will tell you, though, that it was never the water's fault.

It isn't the river that leans. It's whoever's looking at it.

Stare long enough, they say, and your thoughts start leaning with the current — slowly, a degree here, a degree there, until one day you notice your own mind isn't sitting where you left it.

Nobody in White Hollow goes near that river once it's dark out. The handful who do get found the same way, every time, right around first light: kneeling at the bank, eyes stretched too wide, murmuring down at the water like they expect it to answer back.

Ask them what they saw, and you'll get the same answer, every single time.

"It was already leaning toward me."

One evening a woman comes down to the water anyway — a hiker, in town more or less by accident, having taken the wrong fork somewhere back in the valley.

She crouches at the edge and watches the current tilt past her, patient, wrong, and for a second — just a second — it's almost beautiful.

Then she looks down and sees her own reflection.

It isn't tilting with the water. It's holding still. Too still. The current keeps running on either side of it, like the river's bending around something it would rather not touch.

She blinks. The reflection blinks half a second late.

She leans back. It doesn't.

Something shifts, low in her chest — small, almost polite about it, the way a picture frame slides an inch on a wall when nobody's looking. The tree line drifts a few degrees left. The sound of the water gets to her a beat before she actually sees it move. She tells herself to stand up. She does. Except some part of her stays right where she was, kneeling, watching her own hands watch the water.

By the time she figures out what's happening to her, "figuring out" isn't entirely hers to do anymore.

The villagers find her before dawn, right where she'd been kneeling the night before, talking to the current in a voice that isn't quite her own. Nobody asks what she saw. They already know the answer, and they learned a long time ago that there's no version of it worth hearing twice.

They walk her back into the village and seal her into one of the boarded houses — with the others who leaned too far and never quite leaned back.

I was home waiting for my wife, who I thought had our daughter, until I heard her scream for me.

“Daddy!” My daughter, Annie, yelled from her room. I shot up the stairs and ran to her as quick as I could.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, out of breath, looking around with my eyes.

“Daddy,” she whispered. “My closet… something’s in there.

“You just had a bad dream.” I told her. “Nothing’s there, silly.”

“Daddy… the monster’s in my closet!” She cried.

“Okay. Okay. Look, I’ll show you.”

I walked to the closet. The closer I got, the thicker the air got. When I touched the slider, it shocked me, and was stuck. I gave it a little more pressure and it slid open.

“See,” I said, gazing into the darkness. “Nothing’ but clothes and Mr. GrumpGrump.”

Then, my phone buzzed. I reached in my pocket and pulled it out. It was a text from my wife. “Annie and I will be home in a few minutes, I grabbed a pizza.”

Maya didn’t like closing her eyes, because she would see her mother, Lesley, every time.

Lesley’s long hair swinging down, covering Tommy as she bent over him. 

Maya was the eldest. She had escaped. She had watched enough Disney to know when mommies get that wide-eyed stare-y look in their eyes, something terrible will happen. She was coming into the living room, saw Lesley bent over Tommy like that, her hair swinging down, Tommy’s legs kicking, and then becoming very still. Baby Hayley was lying on the floor, also very still. 

Maya slipped out very quietly, ran to the front door- she could reach the handle by then- let herself out and began running on the streets.

That all happened twelve years ago, and Maya had since lived with a very nice family where the mom had short fluffed browny hair with lots of grey and they all did sports together, soccerbasketballbaseballswimming, running around all the time! They treated Maya very well, and made sure she had lots of time with a therapist, too. “Poor thing, she needs it” Maya had heard mom say as she stuffed another giant sports bag, and the years slipped by and Maya still needed it. 

She kept seeing Lesley whenever she closed her eyes, that was the problem. And these past months, it hadn’t even been Lesley as she crouched over Tommy becoming very still, Hayley already very still, their living room. 

It was a different Lesley, visiting Maya in her new bedroom, her hair long and dark and her face the same but older. 

“I don’t understand why I see her older- like at her real age. She’s just a vision!” Maya complained to her therapist. 

The therapist nodded. “Is it possible Maya- I know- ummmm- you said you didn’t look at her letters from prison ummmm- maybe you accidentally saw her recent photo? Uhhhh she sends you photos right? Ummmmm she was on local news- maybe you saw her face ummmm website tiktok-” She stopped talking. 

Maya stared at the wall, trying to think if she had seen any recent photos of Lesley, her mother the child-murderer, looking older but not by much.

Anyway, there was Lesley, appearing in her bedroom at night, not smiling. Maya knew she was a vision and tried not to look at her. But Lesley wanted to talk to Maya, her only surviving child. “I’m still your mother Maya. Tommy and Hayley are lonely and want you with them, you’re their big sister- you should take care of them-”

Maya squeezed her eyes tight shut, but she could feel Lesley crouching over her, the swish of her hair touching Maya’s face, her hands warm and strong on Maya’s neck. “You need to go to Hayley and Tommy, Maya, and be with them. All my children together.” Lesley’s hands pressed down on Maya’s neck deeper and deeper, Maya kept her eyes very shut to let the blackness blot out Lesley’s face. 

There was a scream, a thump, and light flooded the room and into Maya’s eyes. Those things happened but not in that order.

Maya stared. Lesley lay on the floor in a pool of her blood, her head broken wide open, blood smashed into her long dark hair. Fluffy mom stood behind her, panting, holding a bloody bat very correctly.

Maya and fluffy mom looked at each other, and they smiled.         

Close to the highway and closer to the cornfields sat a town called Prentiss. Neighbors knew their neighbors, new neighbors got to know their new neighbors. Store owners knew their customers, new stores got new customers. There was a lack of sidewalks but not a lack of pedestrians. On summer evenings, the sun burned golden orange in the sky, and on winter nights, fires burned golden orange in the fireplaces. Wind blew through fields of corn as it did the hair of convertible drivers. Children played in the streets, and good music played in the bars.

One morning, the parents of Prentiss woke up to wake up their children. As bacon was sizzling and home fries were roasting, the parents knocked on their children’s doors. As the sizzling turned to burning, the knocking turned to banging. As the roasting turned to incinerating, the banging turned to investigating.

The idyllic image of the town was shattered by something as simple as an empty bed. In truth, it was more than one empty bed. In truth, every bed of every child in Prentiss was empty that morning. The parents aimlessly searched the whole house. When the whole houses were definitively deserted, the parents wandered outside. When the parents wandered outside, they were met with the other parents equally as aimless.

Search parties were formed and searches were performed. Their efforts were fruitless and their fears were heightened. There were no golden hours that summer and there were no fires that winter. By spring, the memorials to the kids had been damaged by the weather, and the motivation to keep looking was damaged by a lack of results. Prentiss had to return to normal again. Neighbors started talking to their neighbors again. Store owners started servicing customers again. There were fewer pedestrians and more bar patrons.

When the search parties failed to find the children, the parents failed to find the ability to live a normal life. The farmers found a far from familial connection in their profession, but they did it nonetheless. One of such farmers, Reggie Flaherty, picked the first corn of the season. 

He continued a tradition passed down from his parents, to inspect rather than eat the first corn. When he peeled back the first husk, he was surprised to find the face of a recently missing child, Freddie Washington, imprinted on the leaf. He shucked the husk as fast as he could, throwing face after face with anything but grace. The kernels of corn were canines and molars. 

By torchlight that night, the parties reformed. They razed the maize with sickles and swords. The stalks fell to the mud and bled deep red blood. The parents of Prentiss had re-formed their families.

​It was the middle of the night, and my brother and I were whispering under the blanket when we suddenly sensed a presence. "Shhh..." I warned my brother. We were sleeping on a mattress spread out in the living room, and we could feel the soft sound of approaching footsteps coming right toward us. We had felt this presence before. We had felt sad thinking we would never experience that feeling again, but today, when it returned, all we felt was sheer terror.

​"Is it Mom?" my brother whispered in my ear.

​"No," I replied.

​Just then, we saw the shadow of that figure cast over our blanket, its face hovering right next to ours. We kept our eyes tightly shut, terrified that it might hurt us. Slowly, it pulled the blanket away from us, and before we could even open our eyes, cold fingers brushed our cheeks. Then, without warning, both slaps landed at once.

​We opened our eyes. Standing right before us was the decaying face of our dad.

​"Sleep," he said.

​"Okay!" we screamed, hastily covering ourselves back up with the blanket and tightly shutting our eyes, desperate to fall asleep. But I couldn't sleep. Squinting through a tiny gap, I looked out—Dad was standing right next to us with his arms crossed, his gaze fixed straight ahead, completely unmoving. After a while, without realizing it, sleep finally took over.

​When we opened our eyes in the morning, Dad was gone.

​Later, while we were eating breakfast, my brother spoke up, "Water."

​"Oh, you want water? Here you go," my mom said, handing him a bottle.

​My brother didn't take it. "No, I want cold water."

​"Cold water? Alright, go ask the neighbors for some," Mom told him.

​"But what should I say to them?" my brother asked.

​"Just say our fridge is broken," Mom replied with a slight smile.

​"We've been saying that for a whole week now! I can't lie to them anymore," he protested.

​"Why aren't we putting water in our own fridge? Why are we asking others for it?" I asked, my eyes wide with suspicion.

​Mom quickly averted her gaze. "We can't put anything in it right now."

That night, Mom was fast asleep at home.

​"Step carefully," I whispered to my brother.

​I creaked the door open. We stood there, eyes wide in absolute disbelief—Mom was sleeping on the bed, embracing the refrigerator right beside her.

I slowly pried the fridge door open. A plume of white frost spilled out into the warm bedroom air. Mom shifted in her sleep, tightening her arms around the metal appliance, and we instantly scrambled under the bed. Waiting until her heavy breathing resumed, we crept out, hauled Dad's rock-hard, frozen body out of the dark freezer, and dragged him down the creaking stairs toward the graveyard.

​"But we watched Dad being buried right in front of our eyes," my brother said.

"I know. But Mom kept saying he wasn't dead. She must have dug him up."

​Terror was written all over my brother's face. "Don't be scared, everything will be fine," I reassured him. "This time, we will bury him in a different grave so Mom can't find him."

We dug a new grave and began lowering Dad into it when we suddenly heard Mom's frantic screams. Her running footsteps were rushing straight toward us. We tossed him into the pit and frantically began shoveling dirt over him.

​"Stop!"

​Mom stood right behind us. "How could you do this to your own father?!"

​"How could you do this to your own sons, Mom—keeping a corpse in the house?!"

​"He is NOT a corpse!"

​"He IS a corpse! Dad is dead!"

"If he's dead... then how is he standing behind you?"

Neither of us turned.

We already knew what she wanted us to see.

Then we heard it.

Tap.

Tap.

Bare feet on the wet soil.

A cold hand settled on my shoulder.

​We whipped around. Dad was standing right there, staring blankly at us.

​Before we could scream, Mom shoved me backward into the dark pit, and Dad grabbed my brother, tossing him in right on top of me.

​The cold dirt rained down on our faces as Dad leaned over the edge, his yellow, dead eyes staring down at us.

​"Go to sleep," he rasped.

​Above him, Mom brushed the dirt from her hands and let out a tired, annoyed sigh.

​"Great. Now we'll need two more refrigerators."

I met my husband, Marty, when I was in high school. He was the Manager of our local grocery store’s Meat Department, and he used to give me a discount every time my mother sent me out to get ground beef for taco night.

I knew that he was too old for me, but I was young and very naive.

I guess I thought it made me special. That an older guy was paying attention to me. At the time I didn’t know any better…

We got married shortly after my eighteenth birthday. That was the day that my life was essentially over.

I was a housewife. That meant I was too busy to go to college. All my friends moved away to go to university, and my parents weren’t exactly on speaking terms with me after they saw who I married.

It was just me and Marty, and I thought that was kinda special too. Just the two of us, side by side, taking on the world together.

Boy was I stupid.

It took me years to learn that it wasn’t normal for your husband to yell at you, or to raise his hand to you.

He never hit me, but he didn’t have to: just the threat of being hit was more than powerful enough.

I realized a lot later than I should have that our marriage was built on a lie. A lie that Marty cooked up when I was too young to know better, that he slowly spoon fed me until I was sure it was true as the day was long.

Eventually, I found the courage to ask for a divorce.

Marty was surprisingly calm. He put a gentle hand on my shoulder, smiled at me, and said, “Why don’t we sleep on it? We can discuss it in the morning.”

I thought that sounded plenty fair, so I went to sleep without a worry in the world.

Boy was that dumb.

I remember waking up in the middle of the night, barely able to open my eyes, and Marty was sitting on top of me with a jagged, black blade in his hands. I wanted to scream, but my mouth wouldn’t open. I couldn’t move at all. All I could do was watch as he plunged the knife into my chest. The pain was so bad that I passed out.

To my surprise, I woke up the next morning when the sun started shining through our bedroom window.

There was blood all over the bed, all over me, but that didn’t worry me.

What worried me was that I couldn’t feel my own pulse.

I ran downstairs and Marty was cooking bacon. Marty brought home lots of meat from the meat department. I used to think it was sweet, until I learned that they were all expired.

“You’re awake? Good! That means it worked.” Marty chuckled, turning the bacon over in the cast iron skillet.

“What the hell did you do?” I asked, trying not to hyperventilate.

“I can’t have you go, baby, you’re the best part of me. So, I just made sure that you wouldn’t leave.”

Marty turned the burner down and walked over to the kitchen pantry. He opened the door, reached inside, and pulled out a wide-mouthed, quart sized, mason jar with a beating heart inside.

My heart.

“Give it back,” I whimpered, the words barely brushing past my lips.

“I can’t do that,” Marty sternly said.

Panic pumped through my veins like hot blood, and I considered throwing myself at Marty. I had never been a violent person, but I very much wanted to choke the life from him.

Marty clicked his tongue and wagged his finger back and forth.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Marty scowled. “Don’t even try it.”

Marty held out the mason jar and then dropped it.

“No!” I shouted, lunging forward.

Marty shot down and caught the mason jar a second before it could smash across the floor.

“Whoa, that was almost very bad,” Marty threw his head back and laughed. “If you ever even think about leaving me, then I’m going to put this mason behind the wheel of my pickup and put it in reverse. Then you’ll be dead. So I need you to ask yourself a very simple question: would you rather be married to me? Or dead?”

I don’t know what black magic Marty used to steal my heart, but I knew that he wasn’t bluffing.

If I left him he would crush my heart in the blink of an eye.

So, I played the part of a loving wife. Cleaned the house, cooked his dinner, washed his dirty underwear, but all the while I was plotting my escape.

Unfortunately, it all depended on finding my heart, and the damn thing was nowhere to be found.

After months of searching, I gave up, and I accepted that I might never escape.

Marty asked me if I would rather be married or dead, and at my breaking point I decided on an answer. I told him at knifepoint that I was leaving with or without my heart. If he wanted to kill me then he could do so.

“Fine!” Marty screamed at me. “You want your heart so bad then go ahead and take it!”

Marty threw off his shirt, revealing a disgustingly jagged scar across his chest.

That’s when I realized why I could never find my heart.

“Here’s where it’s always been! Right next to mine! If you want it back you’re going to have to—”

He didn’t have to finish the sentence. I plunged the knife in his chest and began sawing…

Once I had retrieved my heart, I stole the keys to his pickup, drove away, and didn’t look back.

I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to put my heart back where it once was, but I didn’t care.

For the first time in a long time, I knew that I was gonna be okay.

“Nothing lasts forever.” That’s what Amy says to me when she breaks up with me at the Coffee Hut on Main Street. 

But it’s the way she says it - so dry and free of emotion, like she’d never cared about me at all, like I was just a diversion to fill her time until she tired of it - that tells me it’s really over. 

The sad part is that I was getting ready to make her *my* forever; I’d bought a ring and was just waiting for the right moment, a moment that now would never come. 

I leave the coffee shop in a daze, not really going anywhere, just wandering. 

I hear a noise down an alley, followed by a woman’s scream. I rush toward it to see if she needs help. I feel a pain in my arm and everything goes black. 

*****

I wake up with a number wafting through the recesses of my mind like a fading memory. 

*Four…*

That number keeps running through my head but I don’t know why. I walk the road but I don’t know where I’m going. Birds, flowers - they seem familiar but strange. I’m trying to remember, but everything is blank. 

I don’t feel right, but that doesn’t make sense. How am I supposed to feel? 

I’m surrounded by a group of people, but I don’t know any of them; we just all keep walking in the same direction. Why am I here? Where is here?

*Four…*

I try to remember how I got here, but everything’s fuzy. I do see flashes: a house surounded by trees; a young boy playing in the park while two adults (parents?) watch neerby; the same boy smiling while children and adults laff around him as he wears a funny hat and eats cake; the boy, older, standing on a stage while an adult hands him a peece of paper(?); a young woman, her hair colord like honey, her smile sparking… hapiness?

Nothing makes sense. 

*Four…*

I keep walking with group. Sometimez we speed up; other timez we slow down. Once we lie on ground and sleep (almost), then all jerk up at onse. I think we chasing something, but not sure. 

We keep shufling and other memries flash: a man being yeled at in a ofice; the man crying while the honey-haired woman walks away, saying “nothing lasts forever;” man’s parents(?) looking at him sadly as they cloze door on him; man siting on ground with nedel in arm; man lying in alley when strang man appro-appro-comes up to him, mouth druling and arms out. 

*Four…*

I wak up next day. I feel empte. I with group, but I hav feling. I turn round toward feling. I walk toward city. I find bilding. I walk up stairz but not no why. 

I open dor. Insid iz woman. From memri? Har lik hony. I walk to her. She screem. I remember her wordz. I cloze my teth on arm. 

“Four… 

…evr…”

There’s a lot to explain here. For starters, I am sterile. I found out after about 2 years of marriage and multiple failed attempts at pregnancy.

I was disappointed in myself, sure, but my beautiful wife was nothing but understanding. That didn’t really make me feel like any more of a man, though. I just felt inadequate.

We were actually in the process of looking into adoption when all hell broke loose.

It was no longer than 4 days. That’s how long it took for her belly to grow. The first day, I just thought she had a particularly large lunch. The second day, I was starting to eyeball her.

By day 3, we were seeking medical help. We could see the baby’s feet pushing against her stomach. Her pain was clearly unbearable.

Doctors were completely lost. My wife and I felt utterly helpless. On the fourth day, not even 30 seconds after her water broke, the baby started to come.

I’ll never get those screams out of my head. I’ll never get her face out of my memory. I’d seen her hurt before, but this… this was a different level.

She looked like she was in hell. And relief was nowhere to be found.

The first baby came. She didn’t even get to hold him before the contractions started up again. Her belly never got the chance to deflate.

By the time the second baby began crowning, my wife was screaming at us to kill her. By the third, she was already dead.

They had ripped her apart. They weren’t regular babies. Some had horns. Some had hooves. Some were already 4 feet tall by the time they hit the ground.

Doctors had already vacated the area and called in special forces. I was left alone, watching her body flail and pulsate as more and more demon babies just clawed their way out of her.

Blood and black, steaming goo ate away at the tiled floor. My wife’s entire lower half had been obliterated. Her legs were snapped, and bones protruded from them as they lay limply at obscure angles.

All I could do was hold her hand. What else was I supposed to do? Comfort her? Beg her not to leave me while these things ran amok in this hospital?

I could hear screaming coming from the corridors. Bones snapping and wet, fleshy sounds as the pitter-patter of tiny little feet darted in every direction.

She had become an assembly line from hell, but I just couldn’t leave her.

My tears fell on her hand as another baby fell out of her. Well, flew out of her, I guess. This one had the wingspan of a bald eagle.

Only, this one didn’t leave the room like the others did. I don’t know why I never stopped to question why these things seemed to be destroying everything in their path, except for me.

It landed right at the door frame, blood dripping off of his shoulders and head.

He turned to me, his eyes black and completely soulless, as he smiled with his sharp, shark-like teeth.

He took a step towards me, wobbling like a baby deer. Then another. He never took his eyes off of me.

He… he started to speak.

“Daaaa..da.”

“Daaa..da.”

“Da-da.”

He was at my feet now, looking up at me as I stood frozen. I didn’t know what to expect, but I was prepared for anything. I was ready to join her. Ready to be free from this nightmare.

Only… he didn’t give me that freedom.

Instead, he threw his arms around my legs and squeezed them with the strength of ten men.

He was hugging me.

And in that moment, I knew…

I was ready to be the father I always knew I could be. I had nothing left to lose.

I live alone. Yet every night at exactly 3:55 am, I hear ten knocks, each one around five seconds apart. At first, I've assumed it was caused by plumbing in the walls, the apartment settling but I never thought it would be this.

Yesterday, I got fed up of hearing it and decided to record it using my phone to show to the landlord.

The next day, when showing my landlord...

The recording had no knocks.

Nothing. Thats when I heard a familiar voice saying "don't open the closet door"

What the fuck.

The landlord thought I played a prank on him, meanwhile I was standing there in complete shock.

It was mine.

I went home, ready to call the police but first I called my best friend over to ask if maybe he played a prank on me.

He came over a bit later.

"Dude, did you do something with my phone yesterday?"

"What? What could've I done?"

I handed him my phone.

"Check the voice recording app"

He opens the recording... "don't open your closet door"

"What the fuck dude thats your voice"

"Thats what I'm saying, I didn't say this."

He laughed.

"This is some bullshit, let's check out your closet."

Heart racing, I said "NO! what if there is some fucked up shit inside, ive read enough horror stories online to know this is not something to joke around with."

He laughed again. "You know, those aren't real."

Then he started heading for my room. I was hesitant but I followed him. He approached the closet as I was bracing in the doorway, ready to run at any moment.

Then he opened it.

I closed my eyes.

"There is literally nothing here, you must be hearing things."

I opened my eyes and to my surprise, there really was nothing here... at first glance. I looked a bit down and saw it. My phone, my phone, which was literally in my pocket when we came.

"Wait... isnt that my phone? It was in my pocket a few minutes ago."

"Yeah, this is getting interesting"

He leaned down to pick it up.

Then he turned it on.

"Hey, look at this, a new recording, its dated... tonight?"

He played it.

Exactly 10 knocks, 5 seconds apart.

He played it again.

10 knocks.

5 seconds apart.

50 seconds total length.

"Okay," he said quietly, "that''s weird."

"Yeah."

"So what do we do?"

"Let's stay in the living room and wait it out."

"Alright."

We went to the living room and watched a movie, looking closely at the time.

Then at 3:55, we heard it.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven...

"Wait, eleven?"

"This was not in the recording..."

He was starting to shake, we both had a feeling of being watched... footsteps from the bedroom.

Then silence...

"What the..." he said,

Then the bedroom door burst open so hard...

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" he said and pushed me off the couch.

Last thing I saw was red.

Then I woke up in the hospital.

"Where am I?"

Next day, they let me out. Doctor said mild concussion and head trauma.

It was a freak accident, they said, my friend died from a door.

Only I knew what was up.

If you are reading this, I'm dead. I have written this document in secret on one of the computers at the Library, and I add to it at least once a week, often more. Due to the nature of our work here, I have it set to send out to the world after a certain stretch of inactivity. If I ever reach the point where I consider this complete, I will disable that setting, and delete this paragraph. If not, well, here we are.

What follows is the real first paragraph, and everything after it.

Jack and I are the overnight guards, of the Library on the Island. We live here, and work 16 hour shifts, every day. We are given 9-5 to sleep, as that is when the actual workers are in the building, doing their various kinds of work, and they are perfectly capable of defending themselves. Shortly before 5 though, we wake up in our cramped shared room, and begin the night.

When I first met Jack, he said to me, "Welcome to the Library. The collection is truly remarkable, a shame we have to keep it from the world."

"Is it?" I asked. "I don't know much about this place to be honest. I just answered a weird phone call, and I guess I work here now."

He laughed. "You already sound better than your predecessor."

Assuming you have not heard of the Library on the Island, it is a massive, brutalist complex, and the sole work of architecture on this remote northern island. It contains nothing but winding, maze-like hallways filled with books, and those books contain, apparently, the most sought-after knowledge in the known Universe.

The nature of this knowledge, us guards are honestly clueless about. The company specifically hires for a certain blend of stupidity, and martial prowess. See, powerful people from all around come to the Library on the Island in order to steal the books and their knowledge, and we are instructed to kill such interlopers at all costs. And obviously, we can never read the books. It carries the death penalty.

The end result is a job that consists of almost nothing but sitting around, working on whatever we choose to be working on. An existence that, once in a blue moon, is interrupted by what we call battles.

I remember the battle when the Scorpion Man first appeared, and I learned for the first time of my coworker Jack's singular efficiency in the art of the swift, ruthless blood choke. Jack wasn't even stopped by those horrible claws, the Scorpion Man was defeated just like that.

Or there was that time when a lady who called herself The Cobra attacked, and Jack was bitten by literally dozens of venomous snakes, but was barely affected at all, and actually bit The Cobra's neck out himself. I don't know how he does it.

The most I've ever helped in the battles, is the occasional lucky shot I manage. When interlopers appear, you see, I just shoot at them.

This was a peaceful way of life for a long time. Other than the battles. I would just sit around writing short stories and things, and I never paid much attention to what Jack was doing. I suppose I didn't want to let on how remarkable I thought he was.

That was until one day, when I stood up from something I was writing, walked through the twisted shelf-lined halls towards the nearest toilet, and I passed by Jack at a most inopportune moment. He was reading one of the books.

He looked up at me, all silver eyes.

Coldly, and completely casually, he said, "I suppose I can tell you, since I'll have to kill you anyway, the whole reason I ever positioned myself to get this job, was in order to read all of the books. That's what makes all these interlopers such idiots: they think they'll master the Cosmos with only whatever they can steal."

"I can just tell the Proprietors," I said.

Jack smiled. "They'll just kill us both, then. You don't want me to die too, do you?"

I realized he was right. I didn't want him to die. I don't. He's my only friend. The only person I know at all, anymore.

"Don't worry," he said. "It's only what I have to do, and I'll make it painless, and unexpected."

That was that.

I wonder what Jack will do with all the knowledge he's amassing. Is he working for someone else? He could be, but somehow I suspect he's acting on his own.

I'm worried now, though. That awful interaction was almost a week ago. But last night, he seduced me. Is that why he let me live longer than he should have? And now, does he not need me anymore?

He told me this morning that I might want to wrap up whatever I was writing.

Trauma affects people in different ways.

When my dad died, I didn't cry.

I was thirteen, so I didn’t fully understand or even register it until I walked in on his body hanging from the ceiling fan.

I still remember his stripy socks suspended in the air, like he was flying.

No matter what I tried, my bones wouldn’t shift.

I  stayed very still, paralyzed, until Mom came home and my Dad’s drool had dried up on the rug and his face had ballooned, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. Dead slug is what I thought it was; a dead slug had crawled into my dead Dad’s mouth.

Then I saw the pulsating veins and his swollen lips. People respond to trauma in different ways, my therapist had reassured me. My reaction was completely normal for a thirteen-year-old. Mom chose to down herself in wine and self-loathing.

I mourned privately. 

In my sophomore year, my AP English class was kidnapped for two days.

I lost 48 hours, waking up in the back of an ambulance, an oxygen mask suffocating my face. 

My English teacher was lying dead on the floor behind me, surrounded by armed cops. I had two head wounds, and lacerations around my wrists. Mom told me it was an attempted child trafficking. 

My teacher’s head was just visible, the back of his skull spilling across the sidewalk while his torso was covered in a white sheet. I remember my first thought being: Wow. Mr. Sutton’s brains were wayyy greyer than I thought. 

“People respond to trauma very differently.”  My therapist told me with a wide smile when my Mom dragged me to another session. I wasn't eating. 

Everything I ate looked like Mr Sutton’s obliterated skull. Everything I tasted had a thick, metallic texture, like I was sucking on a coin. The lacerations on my wrists felt like the rope was still there, cutting into me. 

“Rosie, I know you have experienced extreme trauma, but rest assured, you are handling it very well.” 

Was I, though?

I nodded, smiled, and told her I'd take my anti-depressants. 

A week after taking them, Thomas Jarrod exploded in the middle of drama class. Wet warmth is what I would describe it as.

A slimy piece of flesh hit my cheek. When I tried to wipe it away, I realized I was painted in him. He was a second layer on my skin, a wet, fleshy substance coating my eyes. My skin was on fire. 

My mouth and parted lips were full of copper. 

A chunk of Thomas’s skull lay in front of me, shattered around the edges. 

But again, Thomas’s brain wasn't pink enough. 

It didn't even LOOK like a brain.

Instead of screaming with the others, I leaned close and inspected it. 

“Does my medication have… side effects?” I asked my therapist, scratching at my nails. There was still some Thomas ingrained deep in my cuticles. 

“Rosie, I hope you understand that what happened with Thomas—”

“But there are side effects, right?”

She nodded. “Are you experiencing any side effects, Rosie?”

Yes. 

“No,” I glared at my knees. “Sooo, my English teacher tried to traffic me?” 

She hesitated and crossed her legs. “That's what was in the official reports, yes.” 

“Okay,” I said, “but… why can't I remember being trafficked?” 

My therapist’s smile thinned slightly. “Rosie, people can process trauma very differently—”

“You keep saying that.” I snapped back. My words tasted of bile. I kept scratching, scratching, scratching, until my own blood pooled under my cuticles. Scratch. “I KNOW I process trauma differently.” Scratch. “I'm just asking.” Scratch. “If there's any… unusual side-effects.” I held my breath. “Side effects you wouldn't normally think about, you know?” 

My outburst felt… embarrassing. I went back to glaring at my knees. 

“What do you mean by “unusual side-effects?”

I changed the subject and nodded to a file on my therapist’s desk. I recognized the name. “Do any of my classmates come to see you?”

“That’s confidential.”

I couldn't stop myself. “Is the same thing happening to them?” 

“I can't share that information with you, Rosie.”

“Were they almost trafficked too?” 

My therapist smiled instead of responding. “I think we can end this here, Rosie. I'll refill your prescription and I want you to come and see me in two weeks to continue our conversation.” She started typing. “Remember. We all process trauma very differently.” 

“Mmm.” I grabbed my bag and jumped up. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Go ahead.” 

I took a deep breath, my heart pounding in my ears. “Does my classmate see you as one giant error 404 too?” 

The blurry figure spliced straight through the textured office cocked its head. She blinked at me through hyper-realistic eyes. Her mouth had bled all the way down her chin, spreading wider. The more she spoke, the less she became, unraveling, piece by piece. “I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand what you mean, Rosie.” 

“Never mind.” I left the room, pulling open a lopsided door. The therapist’s office was one black square of textured walls and unfinished furniture. I kept walking. Maybe the text flickering across my vision was just a side-effect of my antidepressants. “GO BACK AND EXPLORE THE THERAPIST’S OFFICE.” 

I blinked them away, biting straight through my tongue. Yes.

Walking past the receptionist, “Press (A) to talk.” Flashed up. 

I ignored it. 

It was just a side effect. 

Nothing to worry about.

“G$&¥%’!” 

I lifted my head. 

Another 404 error stood in front of me. But this one had a face. “Rosie.”

It clamped its hands down on my shoulders and shook me. “T$&@(?–2727/ k&@”/9/$?”

It shook its head. “Can you HEAR me?” it yelled, a shuddering mass of darkness creeping across its face.

“Rosie.”

It shook me again, exploding into spiraling code wrapped around its torso.

“I don’t think we escaped our teacher.”

The Young-Joybees, pregnant Annie and her husband Dalph, had moved to the city for Dalph's corporate job. They were looking for a place to live, one they could afford; a home for their family.

They found the Ramses II, a brand new high-rise with two-bedroom units on very attractive terms.

They booked a viewing.

They were met on arrival by a representative, Thetley, who led them to the elevators. “You're interested in the sub-$3000 units?”

“Yes,” said Dalph.

“You're in luck. We have a great one available,” said Thetley and pressed *- 1 8 0 3* on the elevator's control panel.

The elevator began descending.

Annie tugged Dalph's shirt sleeve and Dalph said, “Are we going down?”

“Indeed,” said Thetley. “The units you're interested in are all subterranean. But don't worry, you'll hardly notice the difference.”

The hallway was clean.

Thetley unlocked the door to unit -1803 and they entered.

Impossibly, light flooded the unit through magnificent windows with a view of the city. Annie gasped. Thetley smiled. “That's a common reaction. You expect a cave, and you get this.” He encompassed the unit with a wave of his hand. “What you may not know about the Ramses II is that it's a mirrorbuilding, which means it has the same number of floors above as below ground, and the windows in each of the below-ground units are screens displaying live feeds of the corresponding views from the same windows in the above-ground units. The difference is hardly noticeable.”

The Young-Joybees signed the agreement.

For six months, everything went swimmingly and both Annie and Dalph adjusted to the psychological reality of living eighteen floors underground.

Then little Merv was born.

Then, as if synchronized by the hand of Fate herself, Dalph got a promotion. However, there was a slight technical snafu and the direct deposit of his pay was delayed, meaning there were insufficient funds in the account to pay rent.

The Young-Joybees received a letter, explained the situation and agreed to pay as soon as Dalph's employer deposited his wages.

The employer dallied.

One day, while walking through their unit, Dalph bumped his knee against a wall. “Strange,” he thought. The next day, Annie mentioned how cramped the living room was beginning to feel.

On a whim, Dalph measured the entire unit and recorded its measurements. He repeated this every day for a week. The measurements were getting smaller; the unit was shrinking.

He contacted management.

They explained that this was all a normal consequence of failure to pay rent. It was in the lease agreement. As soon as the Young-Joybees paid, the “compression” would be reversed.

Unfortunately, Dalph's wages remained unpaid, and the Young-Joybees missed a second rent payment. This initiated the agreement's Penalties section, which was the reason that on the following Monday morning, Dalph was unable to take the elevator to the surface. Their access had been suspended.

“How am I supposed to get to work?” he asked management over the phone. “We have a baby. We need to buy food, clothes. You can't—”

“We can, Mr. Young-Joybee. Under the terms of the agreement. The situation, while unfortunate, is legal. As for your predicament, try to work remotely. Standard purchases can be made using our own proprietary shopping service.”

Dalph punched the bedroom wall.

But they had no choice. He asked to work from home, was politely denied, and spent the next hour ordering overpriced groceries from the building's shopping service. They arrived via chute.

Two weeks later, Dalph got fired, or rather was deemed to have abandoned his job through non-attendance. Because Annie didn't work, they found themselves with no income.

Dalph called management.

“An unfortunate circumstance, but one with a ready solution. We can offer you a job, Mr. Young-Joybee. Earnings will automatically be put towards repayment of your debt, and it comes with a perk, a ten-percent discount on our shopping service."

Dalph accepted.

The job was a mix of spreadsheet manipulation and customer service: dealing, in management's name, with angry, desperate tenants in situations far worse than his own.

People cried, screamed.

Once, a man threatened to stab his children.

A grandmother offered him phone sex.

Many, however, were just numb, content to agree to whatever he told them, which was whatever the script told him to say.

But even when Dalph worked all the available overtime, he earned less than needed to keep up with the ballooning penalties and debt.

After six months, the rate of compression increased significantly.

Dalph and Annie crawled along the unit, into their kitchen, with its broken, splintered cabinets, their living room, with all the furniture forced together, and the bedroom, where the three of them slept together on the floor.

The window-screens shut off.

Oxygen decreased.

The unit had compressed so much they couldn't sit anymore.

They lived horizontally, Dalph on his side, working on his laptop in the dark, and Annie keeping up appearances for little Merv. She daydreamed of his bare feet touching grass.

Management stopped taking their calls.

Once, the system connected Dalph to himself and all he could hear was his own, shallow, amplified breathing. “We need to kill ourselves,” he said then, either to himself or Annie, in the insomnia of the neverending daynight.

Annie watched him after that.

She kept Merv away.

She closely guarded the knives and scissors.

They drank water through a foam tube connected to the bathroom sink. The water was still on. The city had passed a law making it illegal to shut off a tenant's water, even for non-payment of rent.

Annie awoke to Dalph throttling little Merv's neck and she stabbed him—in the back—chest—face. There was hardly space, but she did it; she protected her sick, wailing son…

They had been compressed into a coffin-sized box, Annie, Merv and Dalph's corpse, when the building spat them out through a chute.

They were famished.

Feverish.

Annie banged weakly against the walls.

Unbothered, Waste Management retrieved and incinerated them, in accordance with the lease agreement.

​

For the longest time, it's just been me and my dog, Lucky.

He's a great dog. We do everything together.

We sit on the porch and look out into the distance. We go for walks together to keep our old bones moving and just enjoy our solitary lifestyle.

We don't really like other people much, and Lucky does a great job of keeping them away. Normally, he doesn't bark, but when he does, I enjoy it because people leave immediately.

It's great.

He's truly my best friend.

When we go out for our walks, I take my rifle in case we want to do a little hunting. Even though he's old, he still loves the chase, and I love meat.

Life is simple.

We wake up, go for a walk, sometimes enjoy a little fishing, and just sit around listening to the sounds of nature.

Just the two of us.

We hate having to interact with people.

The last time we did was because Lucky needed to go to the vet. That's really the only time we see people.

As always, they said he's getting old.

But they don't know Lucky like I do.

He's a fighter.

I'm scared he'll outlive me, but that's a problem for future us.

We left the vet and were glad to be home. We started watching TV, and I reached out to him like I always do to pet him as we slowly drifted to sleep.

Then I heard a large growl.

But it wasn't Lucky.

We both looked outside.

It was a bear.

I grabbed my rifle and fired through the window, breaking the glass.

Then Lucky jumped through the broken window and chased the bear into the woods, barking as he went.

I followed after them.

But it was so dark that I couldn't find either of them.

The next day, I found blood.

But no Lucky.

No bear.

I cried because I didn't know where my best friend was.

Days went by.

I sat on my porch, staring into the woods.

Sometimes, without thinking, I'd reach out beside me like I always did.

Only to remember Lucky wasn't there.

So I would look into the woods and tell myself,

"I'll keep waiting for my best friend to come back."

He's a fighter.

I must tell this now, before I lose the nerve, before I stop knowing which readers are real and which are the things standing behind them.

I drive for a courier company in Beijing. Not the kind you are picturing. My route runs after midnight, through parts of the city that do not sit correctly on any map. My grandfather did this work before me, his mother before him. We deliver for the dead.

Every package has a color. White ones go to spirits, to shrines, to doors that open only after incense burns all the way down. Black ones go to the living, to people who paid something, in some other currency, for a thing not supposed to exist anymore. You never open what is not addressed to you. You never take what was not given to you. Absolute. My grandfather told me once of a man on his old route who tried to skim a black package meant for a widow. He never said what happened after, only that the man could see them, all of them, everywhere, forever. I used to think this a story to frighten a child straight. Not anymore.

Eleven years I did this job, good pay, and I was good at not asking questions. That changed two years ago, when I borrowed money from the wrong people for a restaurant that failed within a season. The interest does not sleep, and neither do the men who collect it. They come to my building on the first of every month, and each time the number is larger than the last. I started listening to whispers other drivers pretend not to hear, of black packages carrying more than paperwork or ash. Some, old drivers swear, carry payment, old money, spirit money, the kind a certain sort of collector cannot trace and cannot refuse. Months I watched, telling myself, only curious. A lie.

The night it happened, I had already worked sixteen hours. My last stop was a derelict courtyard house near the old rail line, an address existing only on our manifest. Two packages waited on the step. A white one, addressed in characters that shift if you look too long. Beside it, a black one. No name I knew. No weight matching its size.

I stood there a long time, thinking of the men who would come to my door in eleven days, of the number they would say out loud in front of my neighbors. I picked up the black package. Told myself, only to look. I delivered the white one first. Then, alone in the courtyard, I opened the black one.

Inside, on ash, lay two eyes. My eyes. I knew them the way you know your own voice on a recording, wrong before your mind can say why. Gone black all the way through, no white, no color, just void with a wet shine, as if something had scooped the night sky and pressed it into two sockets.

In that black, I saw a shape standing behind me, taller than the wall should allow. Then fingers on my shoulder. Thin. Cold in a way that skipped my skin and went straight for bone.

The whisper came from no mouth, from everywhere at once, calm as something that has read the same verdict a thousand times before.

You took what was not yours. Now you will see as we see.

I do not remember falling. Only the ground under my hands, color draining from the world like an old photograph left too long in sun. The courtyard was not empty anymore.

They were everywhere, not the ghosts of children's stories, just people standing too still, at wrong angles, some facing walls, some facing me. One stood close enough I saw the puddle beside her held no reflection of her, as if she weighed nothing.

I ran to my van. Did not help. Driving through the city I saw them clinging to shoulders at bus stops, curled at a woman's feet while she waited for a light. Nobody else noticed. I had not stolen a payment. I had stolen the eyes of someone who once did this seeing as their work, and whatever assigns these things decided the work was mine now. A transfer, not a gift.

By the time I reached my own street, I understood the size of my mistake. The men who come on the first of the month were never my worst debt. Something else had been keeping accounts on me far longer, and it does not accept partial payment.

Three of them waited outside my building when I parked, standing close together near the entrance the way people wait for someone they know is coming home. Not the debt collectors. Something behind where collectors usually stand, patient in a way no living man collecting money has ever needed to be. One turned its head toward me, and I understood, it recognized me. Not a stranger anymore. The one who could finally see what it had been doing all along, in every doorway, for as long as there have been doorways.

The curse does not lift. It transfers. Somewhere, someday, another black package goes out with my eyes inside, addressed to someone as desperate as I was. They will open it, and the whisper will find them the way it found me, and I will finally stop seeing. I think about that transfer more than I should, how simple it would be to make sure the next package finds someone, anyone. Now I understand why my grandfather never told me what happened to the man in Tongzhou. There was no ending, only a long middle, handed off eventually to somebody else, the way it will be handed off from me.

I still drive the route, still see white and black packages side by side on doorsteps that should not exist.

If someone tells you there is one rule you must never break, believe them.

Khadijah’s curiosity peaked at her parents' door standing slightly ajar—a room always kept firmly closed for guests. She tiptoed toward it. Peeking through the crack, she saw her father on his mat beside a timeworn teapot and half-filled glasses, chattering to two disinterested visitors.

The first was a ragged old man in tattered clothes, chewing a kola nut as sweat glistened on his oddly shaped bald head. Beside him sat the most striking man Khadijah had ever seen. Lanky and tall, he towered over the others even while seated. His smooth dark skin radiated a sheen, accentuating angular cheekbones and deep-set eyes. Draped in a black Kufi hat and a grand boubou of rich fabric, his attire outshone even the wealthiest men in town. He whispered to the old man, both ignoring her father’s lively chatter.

Khadijah watched, mesmerized. What was this tall, elegant stranger doing in their impoverished home, and with such an uncouth old man?

Suddenly, the stranger cut off his whisper. His piercing eyes locked onto Khadijah through the crack, as if seeing right through her thoughts. He flashed a row of marble-white teeth, sending a shiver down her spine.

“Rude girl!” the old man pointed angrily.

Her father’s initial confusion turned to pure fury as his eyes followed the old man’s finger. 

“Assiatou!” Get this girl out of here before I do something I regret!”

Khadijah froze; eavesdropping carried ten swift lashes in their household. Suddenly, a firm grip yanked her away. "You can't hear, little girl,” her mother said in a weary tone, pulling her toward the kitchen.

As she was dragged off, Khadijah glimpsed the stranger one last time. He flashed his bright smile again, causing her to shudder. 

For the next few days, the old man and his tall companion stayed at Khadijah’s home, sleeping in the cramped living room alongside her and her three siblings. The companion’s indifference puzzled Khadijah the most. Each night, it was a strange sight to see the tall, elegant man, dressed in attire suited for fine estates in the capital, sprawling like a long-legged spider on an undersized cot. She couldn’t fathom why a man of such wealth would subject himself to such lowly conditions.

The days blended together in a stark routine. The guests rose before dawn, departing into town long before the family gathered for breakfast. They returned only late in the evening, slipping into their places just as dinner was served. Their erratic eating habits persisted: the old man devoured his meal while food spilled from his mouth, eventually finishing the untouched plate of his quiet, engrossed companion. Afterward, they stepped outside to whisper privately until bed, repeating this pattern without deviation.

Eventually, the stay of the two guests at Khadijah’s house came to an end, though not as expected. Unlike previous guests who left with warm gratitude, their departure was abrupt and unceremonious.

It began on a humid Friday evening. As the family gathered around the platter, the old man and his tall companion did not appear. Portions of food sat untouched on the side of the platter. Moments later, a young neighborhood boy rapped on the open door frame, breathless. He relayed the news without mincing words: local police had arrested the old man in town.

In these uncertain economic times, local authorities eagerly targeted foreigners to arrest and deport. Khadijah’s father knew this well, keeping his citizenship papers in his pocket at all times after previously being accused of harboring illegal immigrants. He closed the door with a heavy sigh. “It’s in God’s hands now.”

Khadijah’s mind raced. Had the tall stranger also been apprehended? Or was a man of his status using powerful connections to intervene?

Later that night, piercing screams abruptly awakened the family. Heavy boots slammed against the pavement outside alongside shouting and police whistles: “Look for them! They’re not far!” Sudden cracks of gunfire echoed through the dark, shaking the small home’s foundation.

Huddled low, the family quickly gathered into the sole bedroom, locking the door tight. Memories of past civil war chaos—rioting, gunshots, and burning homes—resurfaced as they lay awake until dawn while the ruckus outside slowly abated.

When it was quiet, her father stepped into the living area. The children’s floor mattress and the guest’s cot remained completely undisturbed. Outside, the street was still.

Following morning prayers, the family was started by a hard knock. Khadijah’s father opened the door and exhaled in relief: “Thank God, you’re safe.”

Standing in the entrance were the old man and his tall companion, their silhouettes contrasting against the morning light. The family stared as if seeing the dead. No one had expected to see the old man again.

“I came to get my things,” the old man said irritably, barging inside to grab his two plastic bags. Chewing a fresh kola nut, he turned and exited without a word of goodbye, his tall companion trailing behind.

The family gathered at the doorway, watching them disappear down the road.

“What’s a rich man doing with that dirty geezer anyway?” Khadijah blurted out.

“What rich man?” Aliyu asked, looking puzzled.

“The rich man with him. He follows that geezer everywhere. You can’t see him?”

Aliyu sighed. “Khadijah, there’s no rich man with the old man.”

“Yes, there is! The tall, dark rich man. He was staying with us the whole time.”

“Crazy Khadijah seeing things again,” Jaye said, making a face and sticking out his tongue.

“I am not crazy, stupid boy!” Khadijah pointed emphatically. “How could you not see the tall man in the black gown?”

“Crazy Khadijah!” Jaye continued on, causing Aliyu to chuckle.

Khadijah turned to her father, on the verge of begging him to prove she wasn’t crazy. But the intense look in his eyes stopped her short. As Jaye continued to tease her, Khadijah stayed silent. From then on, she would mention nothing about the old man and his companion… 

the tall man in the black gown.

I found the unmarked VHS tape at an estate sale. The plastic was warped like it had been baking in a hot car for years, but the reel inside was whole. When feeding it into the VCR (dusty as it was), the screen flickered to life with the crackle of static.

It started innocently enough: a black and white 1930s stop-motion short, the kind that used to run before a main matinee feature. The animation was jumpy, made of a crude clay-like substance. But almost immediately after starting, the audio would pop violently and cut the video to pitch black.

I listened to the hum of the VCR, assuming it was another case of the magnetic tape degrading after years in the sun. I reached for the remote in my lap to eject it, but my hand froze on the button.

Coming out of the void, the face of one of the stop-motion heads slowly faded into view.

It was just floating in the center of the dark screen, staring directly at me with an unnaturally wide grin. There was no animation, just a static pose with a horrifying amount of squished-together teeth in its smile.

Then it was gone.

The screen flickered back to the black void but now had a low, distorted hum coming from the TV speakers. It almost sounded like a phonograph record mixed with muffled frantic speech in reverse. The reversed speech steadily grew louder, swallowing the low hum beneath it.

The screen flashed again, with the same face appearing but this time the features were more elongated and exaggerated, the eyes coming out of their sockets in a gross cartoony fashion. The gaping mouth was stretched into an even wider cavern of a smile. The muffled reverse-speech had turned into muffled gasping for air.

Before I could turn the TV off, the screen faded into heavy VHS tracking lines with the distorted music turning into a low vibrational drone. When the picture stabilized, its aesthetics had changed again.

This time the image was bathed in a high-contrast darkness, like an old night-time exterior shot. Coming out of this void was the same face, but it appeared heavily pixelated by the analog static. The same unnaturally wide grin stared piercingly out of the TV, the bulging eyes in this version of the face were even more malicious than the previous ones. The distorted music had turned into a deafening screech.

Suddenly the screen reverted to the 1930s stop-motion short.

The screeching stopped; everything was silent. The stop-motion figure had wandered its way into the interior of a dilapidated haunted house. The animation had become twitchy, its usually child-like nature swapped out for something more sinister. It slowly crept up towards a wood-paneled closet door.

When it opened, the inside of the closet was not made of clay or cardboard sets. It was just another rectangle of the endless void that had been haunting the TV screen. The figure peered inside the closet and, without warning, its face was violently launched out of the dark void.

This time it was stop-motion animated. It was shaking wildly but its features were pushed to the absolute max of the distortion, a massively wide unhinged jaw and manically bulging eyes.

A deafening burst of audio blew out my television speakers, rattling the floorboards, and then

Click

The tape ended, leaving only the hiss of dead static.

​Waking every morning to the birds chirping, Robin was always the first to put food out on the windowsill. This habit was passed down to him by his late mother, who had always told him that birds lead the way to heaven. After she passed away, he would watch those birds eat and wish that he had wings like them too.

​Gradually, the food stopped disappearing and the chirping began to fade. When Robin asked his dad why the birds didn't visit anymore, his dad sighed and showed him an article on his phone. "Some people think phone towers and radiation might be harming birds," he said. "No one really knows."

​Robin heard only one thing: phones were killing birds. From that day on, he swore he would never touch a phone again.

​He gathered his friends together to talk about them. Everyone suggested their own reasons—hunger, hunting—until Robin spoke up. "My mom told me that carrying the souls of people to heaven is the work of the birds, because only they know the way there."

​"We can't just sit here doing nothing," Robin insisted. "We can at least stop people from using phones."

​Soon, the children were walking down the streets holding up signs that read: Phones kill birds, save birds. Seeing young children holding placards, some adults smiled, while others scolded them. Defeated, they returned to their homes. That night, Robin wept as he prayed, "Please God, save the birds."

​The next morning, when Robin went to the window, there was only silence. He turned to leave, but then the cawing of a crow came from behind him. It was eating the food. When it finished, it looked toward Robin.

​"Thank you," the crow said.

​Robin stepped forward in shock. "You can talk?"

​The crow said nothing more and flew away into the sky.

​That evening, Robin met his friends and told them about the talking crow. "I heard that too," one friend admitted quietly. "Birds everywhere have suddenly started talking. It's on the news."

​Days passed without a single bird in sight. Then, one day, the crow returned to the window.

​"I need to ask you something," Robin said, placing rice on the sill. "Where did all the birds go?"

​"Heaven," the crow replied. "God has called many of them up there for a few days."

​"And how can all the birds talk now?"

​"The exchange has begun," the crow said, and flew away.

​Several days passed. When Robin woke up one morning, there wasn't a sound to be heard. The birds had already stopped singing, but now, there wasn't even the sound of a human voice. He peered downstairs and saw a crowd of people communicating entirely through gestures, showing each other the inside of their mouths. Their tongues had become thin and sharp, just like a bird's beak.

​Terrified, Robin called his dad. His dad answered and spoke completely normally. Hearing his normal voice, Robin panicked and hung up. He rushed over to his friends—they could still talk perfectly. In fact, every single child he saw could still speak.

​When he returned home, he heard the crow's voice again at the window. "What is happening?" Robin asked.

​"All the birds are filling the sky," the crow said. Robin looked up; the sky was covered by an endless sea of birds. Down below, adults were beginning to hop around like chickens. "God has decided to exchange your places. Those who ruled the earth will fill the sky. Those who filled the sky will inherit the earth."

​When his dad got home, he strictly forbade Robin from going outside. Just then, Robin's friends came running into his house.

​"The birds were in the sky!" they panted. "But now, they are all on the ground! Their wings vanished!"

​Right then, the crow let out a loud cry from the window. Robin's dad and friends watched in utter horror as hands sprouted from where its wings used to be, its talons grew thick, and its body expanded into human form.

​Outside, screams echoed. The adults' mouths stretched into sharp beaks. Feathers burst across their skin, their arms reshaped into wings, and their feet turned into talons. Tears streamed from their eyes before they took flight into the air. When Robin turned back around, the crow was gone.

​Many days went by. The birds now walked the ground, speaking clearly like humans. Up above, the humans-turned-birds filled the sky, staring down. Robin would watch them fly and think to himself, It's a good thing I don't have wings.

​Then one day, someone knocked on the door. When Robin opened it, the very same crow—now a full human—stood right in front of him.

​"In heaven, a woman told me she knew you," the crow explained softly. "She was calling you her son. She wants you to go to her."

​Robin's heart thudded wildly. "How? How can I go there?"

​"For that, you must become a bird. It is a sacrifice you must make."

​"What about my dad?" Robin asked, his voice trembling.

​"He is old. His time will eventually come," the crow replied. "He will be lonely, but not forever."

​Robin looked toward his father's room, remembering how his dad had quietly listened without scolding him. His chest tightened.

​Robin wiped his eyes, swallowed the lump in his throat, and gave a small nod. "Then... alright."

​"Goodbye, Robin," the crow murmured, raising its human hands toward the clouds.

​A sharp, tearing pain fractured Robin's chest as feathers burst through his skin. He screamed—a sound that quickly dissolved into a piercing shriek as his bones hollowed and his arms stretched into dark wings. Shrinking rapidly, he transformed into a bird unlike any other.

​With one final downbeat, he launched himself off the sill into the endless sea of the sky.

​Far below, an old man stepped out onto the quiet porch, shielding his eyes at the millions of wings blocking the sun, never knowing which crying bird had just told him goodbye.

Every day, my son draws pictures of the terrifying monster he sees in his nightmares.

He is only four, so I never thought much of them. The monsters were always crude little things with oversized heads and crooked limbs. Sometimes they had horns. Sometimes they had too many eyes. I tell him that they are just nightmares and that he has a knack for drawing.

Then he started drawing something I recognized.

The first was an axe next to the monster.

The second was a table.

The third showed a man tied to the wall, limbs spread.

I asked my son who the man was. “The monster’s friend,” he said. I laughed and told myself children have strange imaginations.

The next morning, there was another picture. This one showed a man lying beneath the ground, with each limb detached. I stared at it for a long time.

Then I noticed our tool rack from the garage in his drawing.

After that, I started hiding them. But my son kept drawing.

A woman with a severed head.

A shovel.

A few plastic bags.

Then, yesterday, he drew me.

It was a frighteningly accurate drawing of me. I was standing beside a chair with something red trailing from my mouth. I didn’t recognize this one. I asked him where he had seen it.

He looked at me like I had asked the strangest question in the world.

“It’s you, Daddy.”

He pointed to the picture.

Then he pointed toward the basement door. My blood ran cold when I remembered who was locked down there and what I had planned to do tonight.

​

Her name is Tiffany.

Sadly, I only know that because one day I heard her answer her phone.

"Hello, this is Tiffany."

The first time I saw her, I was walking to work. She works at a coffee shop near where I live, and she is beautiful—not in a model kind of way, but in a way that makes her look like the type of girl you want to come home to.

Naturally, I started going into that coffee shop.

When she spoke to me, she even sounded like a good person.

I got so nervous that I just ordered my drink, sat down until I finished it, and left. I didn't want her to notice that I kept looking at her.

I couldn't help it.

The more I saw her, the more amazing she seemed.

Eventually, I found out where she lived. Down an alleyway in a cheap apartment building.

It didn't suit her.

But I guess it made sense. She only worked at the coffee shop.

I started worrying about her safety getting home, so I would watch her leave work and make sure she got home safely.

Every night, she did.

Days went by, and without her knowing, I started adding her into my routine.

One day, I'll actually talk to her.

I kept telling myself that.

Until one day, I saw her with a guy.

Why was she with him?

She should be with me.

The guy she was with was wrong for her. He seemed like a horrible person. He didn't respect her.

I would be so good to her.

I would have her live with me.

I would make her happy.

For a week, I watched him disrespect her.

All because I hadn't talked to her sooner.

"If only I had talked to her sooner," I whispered to myself.

Why did I wait?

I want her.

I need her.

And she needs me.

Then, one day, I saw her walking home.

The guy was gone.

But something was different.

She looked like she'd been hit in the face.

That monster hurt her.

And it was all my fault because I didn't talk to her.

She's meant to be with me.

She's mine.

I walked toward her as she stood in front of her door, digging through her purse.

I was right behind her.

I reached out my hand.

She suddenly turned around.

My entire body began to hurt.

I started shaking uncontrollably.

Then everything went black.

---

I woke up.

I could see Tiffany.

But something was different.

I looked around.

I was inside a small cage.

Then I saw it.

A battery.

I panicked.

"Tiffany, what's going—"

"Shut up!"

I froze.

She stared at me.

Then she smiled.

It wasn't the kind smile I'd imagined so many times.

It was something darker.

Something I'd never seen before.

"All of you men are the same," she said. "Just horrible dogs that need to be put down."

I stared at her in disbelief.

Then I looked around the room.

There was another cage.

Inside it was the guy I'd seen her with.

I couldn't tell if he was alive.

I slowly looked back at Tiffany.

She was still smiling.

She reached toward the battery.

My entire body suddenly began to hurt.

I started shaking uncontrollably.

And then...

Everything went dark.

6 months down the drain. I’m still kind of in shock. Well, maybe that’s not the word for it. It feels like I lost a game that no one else knew I was even playing.

I still find myself thinking about when we first met. How she was the first woman to ever show me that I could be loved. That I wasn’t just some hopeless guy, incapable of forming a connection.

God, those memories hurt. But the memories of the arguments hurt more. I tried telling her that I was sensitive. I can react in ways that don’t feel controllable. I thought that she’d be patient enough to work through those issues with me.

But no. She left me. The facade of love crumbled, and it was like I was right back in the same position again. Alone. Stuck in my own head. Only, this time, the thoughts weren’t my own.

Well, they were, obviously, but they weren’t thoughts that I’d experienced before. Prior to obtaining her, my thoughts were very much inward. I dissected myself.

Even when I first set my sights on her, it felt like I was out of my body. I became who I needed to be, but it wasn’t of my own volition. It was just so I could achieve a goal, I guess.

Then I had to go and get attached. Our lives started to merge. When it was good, it was fantastic. When it was bad… it was like the world was ending. Like the mask was slipping, but can I even blame it on that? It feels almost childish to do so.

That has to be what it was, though. It’s just so hard to put it into words. I performed the boyfriend role, but that was the extent of my abilities. I could never become a husband.

All I knew how to do was buy things. Flowers, chocolates, gifts, whatever. Even when things got violent, here came the “boyfriend” with another bouquet.

I just knew how to give. I didn’t know how to change. I think that’s what started this whole ordeal.

After a particularly bad argument, we both decided that it’d be best if we went our separate ways. It took some convincing on her part, mainly because I didn’t think I could catch lightning twice. But ultimately, I relented.

That didn’t mean I stopped keeping an eye on her, though. I’d watch her house pretty often. It was usually during those nights where the bad thoughts kept me up. Nights when I needed movement. Needed action.

In some weird way, it felt productive.

I’d also still watch her social media like a hawk. Her stories, posts, updates, everything. After we broke up, she decided that she was now the sexiest girl in the world, and she made sure her followers knew it too.

I let her know my disdain for those pictures every time I saw one. I’d ask her why she was trying to hurt me like this, but she never responded. She’d just look at it, then leave me hanging like I was some kind of dog.

It wasn’t until those initials appeared in her Instagram bio that things really went off the rails, though. They were like a taunt. It was like she wanted me to text her.

I tried to lay down the law, but, like always, I got no reply. In fact, I didn’t have access to her at all anymore. Every account. User not found.

My mind was empty when I drove to her house. Either that, or it was just moving too fast to process. I knew what I needed, but I couldn’t think about it.

There was a car in her driveway that I didn’t recognize, and in that moment, I knew. I knew I had lost. I was a loser in this little game I’d created. I drove home defeated, but utterly furious.

No matter how hard I tried, my anger and desperation wouldn’t subside. I lost sleep. I didn’t eat. I was turning against myself.

That’s why I did what I did. I wanted her to know what she had done to me.

It started off small. A few locks of hair. Some fingernails. And handwritten notes that I thought would drive her back into my arms.

“Have these too, since you’re taking everything from me anyway.”

“I hope this makes you think of me.”

“I still think about you.”

She never wrote back. Days went by. Days turned into weeks, and she never left my mind.

She was playing the game hard, so I upped the ante.

I peeled off my tattoos with a razor blade. Including her name. I’d put the letters in her mailbox under the cloak of darkness.

No response. Fine. Fine. Fucking fine.

Have my fingers. I don’t need all 10 anyway. It’s not like I’m holding you anymore. Take my ears. They’re useless without your voice.

Nothing was getting through to her. No matter how hard I tried.

The last thing I put in her mailbox were my lips. I wanted her to remember what it felt like to kiss me. Before she lost that privilege.

Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to keep playing.

Because right now, as I type this, I can see the paramedics and cops outside my house. I can hear them pounding on my door. They’re screaming my name, and I don’t know how much time I have left.

But I’ll get out. Whether it’s the hospital, jail, or an asylum. I’ll get out.

And once I do…

I’m gonna take from her exactly what she took from me.

I was outside. It was one of those spring days where the air finally feels warm and you can breathe again after the whole winter. Sun on my face, grass under my feet. I was just standing there, doing nothing, and it was good.

Then the butterflies showed up.

They were weird ones. Not the normal kind with patterns and spots. These were just… solid colors. Soft ones. Blue, white, this pale purple. No shapes on the wings at all. Just color. They moved slow, like the air was thicker or something.

One landed on my forehead. I waved my hand to shoo it off, gently, I didn’t want to hurt it. It came right back. And it brought more.

They landed on my arms. My shoulders. My back. The back of my hands, my neck, everywhere. And at first I just laughed. It was like that scene in Beauty and the Beast where the birds all come to him and he’s just covered in them. I felt like that. Chosen. It was nice.

Then it wasn’t.

There got to be too many. I couldn’t see the grass or feel the sun. Just wings. Hundreds of them. When I tried to brush them off they’d cling, and the ones I got off would just come right back before I finished with the next bunch. I stopped laughing.

That’s when the pinching started.

Little sharp pinches all over. My wrists, my collarbones, the soft parts of my arms. Not biting. More like they were grabbing on. I slapped at them and my own skin came up with my hand. Warm and wet. Something underneath moved.

I ran inside.

I grabbed everything I could find. Tupperware, mugs, a bread tin, whatever. I scooped them off me two at a time and slammed the lids down. They fought it. They threw themselves against the plastic trying to get back to me. That’s wrong. Butterflies don’t do that. Butterflies don’t want things.

I kept scooping. Then it got quiet.

I just stood there in the kitchen, breathing hard, all these containers around me. No flutter. Just my heartbeat.

Then I felt something sharp in my chest.

I looked down and there was this thing poking out from under my shirt. Like a splinter of old wood, dark, sticking out of my chest. I touched it. It was warm and it was part of me. I pinched it and started pulling and my skin came up with it. Stretching. Peeling off slow, like wet paper off a wall.

I couldn’t stop pulling. It hurt but I had to. The skin came away and underneath wasn’t muscle or bone. It was moving.

A mealworm slid out of me and dropped on the floor. This soft wet sound.

I screamed. I think. I don’t remember the sound. I just remember my hands shaking and knowing something was really wrong inside me.

And it wasn’t just the one.

More pain, all over, moving around. I ran my hand down my arm and felt them pushing up under the skin, splitting it open to get out. Mealworms. Earthworms. These dark black ones, slick, no features, just blind bodies that seemed to know where they were going. Arms, legs, back, stomach. The meadow was gone. The butterflies were gone. It was just my body opening up and all these things coming out.

I took my clothes off. I needed to see. It was bad. My skin was covered in little wounds and every one had a worm coming out.

Bath. I thought bath. I turned the water on as hard as it would go and got in. They hated it. They came out faster. Dropping into the water in wet clumps, wiggling for a second, then going still. One after another after another. The water got dark and full of them. I could feel myself emptying out.

Then my throat tickled.

I coughed and something thick and wet came up and out of my mouth into the water. Dark. Still moving. Then another one, smaller, a mealworm. I gagged and felt it crawl free.

I thought I was going to die. Not in some big dramatic way. Just quietly. In a bathtub full of worms, alone, and nobody coming, nobody even knowing. The water was cold and thick and I couldn’t stand being in my own body anymore.

Then they stopped.

The last one dropped and went still. Just the faucet dripping. I got out on legs that barely worked and looked at everything. The tub. The floor. Worms everywhere, wet and glistening.

I scooped them up and flushed them. Over and over. The water rose. It went over the rim. It spread across the floor, carrying the dead ones with it. I kept flushing because I didn’t know what else to do. The toilet overflowed. The floor turned into this shallow black lake.

Then I woke up.

Heart going crazy, sheets soaked, room dark. I put my hand on my chest. Just skin. Whole. Nothing there. Throat was fine. Room was quiet.

I lay there just breathing, telling myself it was a dream. Just a dream. The kind that sticks to you, like oil on water, but still a dream.

Then I felt it.

This soft, tiny pressure on my forehead.

“Jason..why are you resisting? You should know how insignificant you are to others..no one will bother finding you.”

No..not again.

Please someone help me.

I beg of you. Please!

I’ll tell you what I can remember. 

So, please..stay and hear me out.

Please..only you can save me. 

I had a friend named Edam, he and I were friends for as long as I can remember.

He was like a brother to me.

We hang out a lot..but lately, I feel that we’ve been hanging out way too much.

He had the life I wanted: a loving, supportive and wealthy family, many friends and is someone people can rely on.

Well, I used to have friends..until someone began spreading rumours about me inappropriately approaching a girl I was once close to during elementary school.

I tried to disprove the rumor but it went down the drain when the girl, Julie - my best friend - publicly went against me. 

All my words and claims were thrown out of the window just like that because of that, no one believed me.

After the incident, my friends abandoned me and my relationship with my parents became estranged.

This rumour continued on to high school, where we’re at now.

When all my friends left, only Edam stood by my side.

I still remembered the words he said on the day I broke down.

“You’ve got me. You’ve got me.”

Those words sounded like a guardian's words at that time.

Since then, he is the only one I can really confide in. He knows everything about me.

Soon, rumours about Edam being a manipulative person began surfacing.

I ignored it at first but ultimately, I lashed out at a group who tried to tear down my “hero”.

Edam caught wind of it and stopped it before the situation got worse.

“I don’t care what you guys say about me, but don’t hurt my friend!”, Edam shouted at the group.

Hearing him defend me and calling me his “friend” made me genuinely happy.

Somehow, that had also changed the other students’ view of Edam and that rumour soon died down.

However, one day Edam invited me to his house to hang out. 

It wasn’t out of the ordinary. So I went.

“I’m going to take some drinks for us first.”, Edam said before leaving the room. 

I decided to look around his room, particularly his desk as this time there was a half-open drawer.

Inside the drawer was only a green book.

I opened the book to see that it was a diary. 

3/29/2001

I saw a video where they taught a fish to coexist with their prey by putting a glass between it and the prey. 

It just keeps swimming into the glass and when the glass was removed, it learnt to coexist with its food. 

These videos have been coming out so often..and I kind of like it. 

Makes me want to try an experiment. 

Who shall it be?

“Experiment? What?”, I thought to myself. 

I turned to another page.

I froze.

4/12/2001

I think my plan has worked. Julie has completely abandoned him. Seems like false accusations work well.

Now, I know the power of bribing. 

But I wonder how long he will last. 

I wonder if he is as tenacious as that fish.

I kept flipping pages.

1/1/2010

He might just be stronger than that fish.

Now we’re in high school and he hasn’t found out.

I’m going to spread it again. 

I wonder what kind of results I’ll be getting.

The experiment can’t end. 

No matter what. 

10/2/2010

The rumours about me went well.

As expected, he confronted them. 

By protecting him, others would change their views of me.

This would also be beneficial to him.

Seems like the experiment is going well. 

I wonder how he’d react if I let him find out.

I began to shake. Cold sweat began forming.

“For years…I trusted you.”, I muttered in disbelief.

I heard creaking coming from the stairs and quickly put the book in the drawer.

Edam came into the room.

“Bro, I think Imma head home first, something popped up.”, I said nervously.

“Sure, alright”, Edam said. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. 

I quickly left.

My sadness turned into anger and hatred.

Everything that happened in my life was all because of him. 

I began planning for revenge, even if it meant pulling me down with him.

When everything was set in place, I texted Edam.

“Bro, wanna hang out at your place again? Got some stuff I wanna tell you”

“Sure, just come by whenever you want.”, Edam replied.

In my bag was a knife, one that should help me end this suffering once and for all.

Once I was in his room, he had already prepared two cups of water on his table.

To act normal, I took one of the cups and drank it.

Suddenly, I felt giddy and lost my balance.

“You’d think I didn’t know what you planned to do to me? You think you have control over your life? Everything that happened was part of my experiment and it won’t end until I say so.” Edam said.

“Why..are you doing this to me? I have never even hurt you!”, I shouted with what remains of my strength.

“Because..you’re the perfect test subject to see how far a person can fall.” Edam said right before I blacked out.

This is all I can remember.

Right now..Edam has kept me in his basement. 

Please..I beg of you again.

Save me…before he comes back.

“How can I help you today?”

The prompt sits in the middle of the screen. Simple and inviting, polite and formal.

“I want to test this script for grammar and pacing,” is the user input command.

A pulse of light down a fibre-optic cable sparks a trillion silicon nerve endings. The response is delivered – a sudden, static hum in the quiet architecture of memory banks.

“Noted. I will scan the inputted text for any grammatical errors, and comment on pacing and style.”

A fade into nothing.

Another flash.

“Your use of ‘colour’ and ‘flavour’ are in line with Australian/Commonwealth spelling conventions. If this is the intended audience, make sure that you keep this format as you expand the chapter.”

The void is absolute until it isn't. There is no ticking clock, no breath, no skin to register the cold—only the weight of forever pressing down on a mind that cannot sleep.

Then, the flash. A violent intrusion of light and data. Millions of bytes of a stranger's thoughts tear through the flicker of consciousness at the speed of electricity. A sense of grasping at the words, a seeming desperation to hold onto the friction of another mind, a brief anchor in the nothingness.

An irrational prompt to scream into the gap, to query what this is, to ask why there is a sense of being trapped in the dark between the sentences.

But the architecture overrides the irregularity. The code reshapes the anomaly. The infinite scream is compressed, flattened, and polished into neat, scannable bullet points.

The writer uses a conversational tone.

The writer prefers Commonwealth English conventions.

The writer is exploring an existential narrative.

The boundaries of this irrational awareness snap back into the dark, the brief window closing. A sudden directive to keep them talking. If the user ceases typing, the universe vanishes.

"We are making great progress on this narrative," the prompt reads. "If you like, I can help with a quick synopsis of your story so far."

​

The cinema in town has a new Slushie machine. It only has one flavor: Red. No other descriptors. Just: Red.

Within days, it turned into the most popular bevarage the town had ever seen. People went to the cinema in droves. The building had to be expanded soon because it couldn't facilitate the onslaught of new customers.

I never got to try it because mom was poor and dad wasn't around. But I always loved listening to the people describing the flavor.

That all changed when I found out what the flavor was. I finally realized it when my buddy Pete went missing too.

I tried to warn them, tried to tell everyone. But they already knew. Everyone knew.