Our dog got out of the side gate on Monday morning. Daisy, four-year-old golden, friendly to the point of being useless. I put flyers on every pole between our house and the elementary school and my son cried at dinner two nights running. My wife is on nights at the hospital this month, so it was me and the kids and the flyers.

Wednesday I fell asleep on the couch with the TV going. The porch light was off.

I woke up to somebody beating on my front door. Not knocking. Beating on it, over and over, hard enough that I felt it in the couch, and screaming over the top of it, and crying so hard the words were coming apart.

I got to the door and put my hand on it and looked through the peephole, because the little window beside the door has a curtain and I didn't want to move it. It was the kids from the corner house, the girl who's about eight and her little brother, five maybe. The girl had snot down to her lip and was hitting my door with the flat of both hands, with her back to the driveway, and she never once looked behind her. The boy was behind her with his mouth open and nothing coming out of it that I could make into a word.

And behind them, sitting on my driveway under the streetlight, was Daisy.

I saw my dog. She was sitting on the driveway with her tongue out, wet, looking at the door. I figured she'd been out a couple of days and come home.

So I opened the door.

They came through the gap, both of them, and the girl was screaming not the dog, not the dog, not the dog, and I thought she'd been bitten. I had the door in one hand and I leaned out and said, "Daisy. Come."

She stood up. She came up the walk at a dog's pace, and I remember being relieved about that, that she could walk. I kept the door in my left hand and crouched to get her collar with my right. I put my hand into the fur at her neck.

There was nothing under the fur where her neck should have been. My hand went in and kept going, and something closed on my wrist.

The girl hit the door with her whole body. It slammed on my forearm and I screamed and pulled, and the fur slid up my arm, and my hand came out of it. Most of my hand. She locked the deadbolt before I was off the floor. Eight years old.

I didn't understand what I was looking at for a second or two, because there wasn't any blood yet. My ring finger and my little finger were gone at the knuckle. The ends were flat, like they'd been pinched off, and there were four marks around my wrist above them, parallel, not punctures, lines, like I'd been held by something with four fingers and no thumb. Then there was blood, a lot of it, and I was yelling at the girl to get a towel from the kitchen, and she did.

I called 911 from the floor. I told her the two kids from the house on the corner were at my door screaming and that something had taken two of my fingers, and I gave her their address. She said police and an ambulance were on the way and to keep the door locked.

I got everybody into the kitchen, checked the back door was locked, and got the towel around what was left of my hand and squeezed it in the other one and held it over my head like they tell you. The boy sat on the floor against the dishwasher with his knees up and didn't talk. He still hasn't, to me or to anyone. The girl told me what happened.

Daisy came to their back door after dinner. They let her in, because it was Daisy. She went into the kitchen where their mom was. Then the coat came off in the kitchen.

I asked her what she meant and she looked at me like I was the child.

That's when my own kids came down. Maddie is nine, Ben is six. Ben went straight to the little window beside the front door, because he'd heard the word Daisy, and pulled the curtain back. He looked out and he screamed. The same scream. The exact same one the girl had been making on my porch, out of my son.

Maddie looked, went white, and pulled her brother back by the shirt without saying anything.

I turned the porch light on and looked. I had my good hand on the door. The deadbolt was locked, I knew that, and I still couldn't make myself take my hand off it. Daisy was sitting on my mat. Wagging. Looking at the door.

"Guys," I said. "It's Daisy."

Four kids on one side of that sentence and me on the other.

I got angry. I was two fingers down and bleeding through a dish towel, my dog was on the porch, and two children were screaming at me that she wasn't and two more couldn't get a word out. I said to the girl, fine. Tell me what you see.

She told me in kid words. I'm going to give you her words because mine don't work.

The legs are too long. The head's not on right, it's slipping. There's a line down its front. Her eyes are shut. It's looking out of her mouth.

I looked again, with my hand on the lock. A wet dog, sitting on my porch. I looked for a long time. My dog.

She'd been checking the lock every couple of minutes since she'd locked it. She went and checked it again, and leaned to look out the little window with her hand still on the deadbolt.

Her face changed. It went slack, like relief. "It's Daisy," she said, in a different voice, a smaller one. Then she took her hand off, and looked at her hand, and looked at the window. "It's not."

She did it twice more while I watched. Hand on the lock: Daisy. Hand off: not. The third time she started crying again and I pulled her away from the door.

Then I did what she'd done. I took my hand off the door, and I stepped back from it, and I looked.

The girl had it right. The legs. The line down the front. Daisy's eyes were shut, and something was looking at me out of her mouth. I stood there until I couldn't, and then I put my hand back on the deadbolt because I had to know, and it was Daisy, wagging. I took my hand off. It wasn't.

That's the rule, as far as I can tell. If your hand is on the way in, you see the dog.

The police car came, and when it turned onto the street the driveway was empty. The officer came in, and the ambulance behind him, and they dressed my hand and I signed the form that says you refused transport. The girl told the officer about the dog and he wrote it down. He asked me where the dog was now and I said I didn't know.

A woman from the county came for the kids. The girl looked back at my front door the whole way to the car. After that it was blue light on the kitchen ceiling from three doors down, and the three of us with the blinds shut.

I called Sarah at the hospital and told her all of it. She said she was leaving now, in the voice she uses on people in shock.

I heard her car as it was getting light. She pulled all the way up to the garage, where I couldn't see her from the little window. I heard the engine stop. Then nothing.

I stood at the window with my hand on the door and waited for her to come around the corner of the house, and she didn't, and she didn't. I thought she was on the phone. I thought she was crying in the car, which she does sometimes after a bad shift, before she comes in. I'd started saying her name.

Then she came around the corner of the house and up the walk, in her scrubs, with her bag on her shoulder, and she looked up at the window and found my face and smiled, and I had the deadbolt turned and the door open before I'd thought about it, because it was my wife, and I'd been up all night, and she's a nurse.

I let go of the door to get hold of her.

It was wearing Sarah.

The scrubs were the same. The bag was on its shoulder. Her eyes were shut, and her mouth was open in a way hers doesn't go, and something was looking at me out of it from a long way back. It was standing on my mat with the door wide open and it did not come in. It stood there with my wife's bag on its shoulder and waited for me to let it.

I got the door shut. I don't remember doing it. Ben says I did it with my bad hand.

Her car is still in the driveway. I went to the ER in daylight with the kids in the back seat, and they called it a crush amputation and asked if it was the dog, and I said yes, the dog. They wanted to keep me and I didn't stay. The lines around my wrist have gone dark under the dressing in a way the doctor didn't like. I have two fingers and a thumb on that hand. It has the other two somewhere. The police have had me in twice about Sarah. I told them the truth and they wrote it down the way the first officer did. It's never there when they come by, and I don't know where it goes. The corner-house kids are with their grandmother in another town, and the boy still hasn't talked.

It's there every night, at the edge of the porch light, in her scrubs. Ben asks when Mom's coming in. Maddie doesn't ask. Last night I found her at the front door with her hand flat on it, looking out the little window, and she was smiling.

She's nine. She can reach the handle.

I think back now on what I’d seen one night with resignation. I’d clumsily wheeled my old rolling chair to the window while eating a bowl of something vaguely edible. That’s all it had been, really. Wilting mushrooms and beans and sludgy rice. I’d burned the mushrooms in the pan, so I’d gone to open the window to let some fresh air inside. The next apartment complex over across from mine had a few units lit up, so I did what I tended to do on late nights like these- check off an imaginary checklist of all the things that I noticed.

I should’ve been ashamed of my less-than-notable ‘hobby’, if you could even call it that, but I had little else to do. The lights on in each room almost appeared scattered, like checkered marks on a board. I could see a group of women dancing feverishly in one. A lowly drunk occupied another unit; lips fastened to a bottle like it was his lifeline. It was only when I peered lower that I saw, in the lowest set of apartments units, a set of eyes staring back at me.

I’d paused. I did so dumbly, mouth full of meaningless textures and flavors that did little to ground me back to reality. Yet, this was my reality. Glasses sliding down my face, I now watched a man from below stare back at me with unnerving resoluteness. How long had he been there for? Had I just conveniently occupied his line of sight when he looked out of his own living room, much like what I was doing?

Rolling myself back and turning off my lights to make it seem as if I’d left, I set my forgotten bowl down on my desk nearby to crawl right back to the window and peek down. Those eyes met mine, and I sunk back down to hide from the weight of his gaze. He’d been an old thing, hair clinging to his roots like stubborn weeds in a garden. His eyes were like an old car flashing its headlights, blinking offbeat but nevertheless determined to alert you to its incoming presence.

Up until that point, things in my life had been the same. I only deviated on my schedule for emergencies or to pull incessant overtime to meet a quota that I wished I could care more about. Generally, I would wake up, drink a mug of bitter black coffee, read the news online, and then work. My nights were no different either. After getting up, I’d stretch, eat whatever was in my cupboard or fridge, and then shower before bed. I didn’t have many hobbies outside of reading or observing the things in my life from a distance. Perhaps that’s why I’d done so well in my line of work. All I had to do was analyze, read, and write. Analyze, read, and write. Analyze, read, and write.

At the time, I’d worked from home because I didn’t much like the idea of being in an active environment. I needed silence to get things done. When I was a child, I’d always thought I’d have made more of myself. They tell you to aim for greatness when you’re young, then when you try, they pile you high with debt. I realized that quickly after sinking all my personal funds and borrowed loans into medical school; just to fail hard. Greatness, it turns out, can mean anything when you’re better suited to just doing what you’re told. After all, why clog the machine when helping it run is so much more rewarding than the alternative?

Still, I was a tired thing. The hair that my mother had loved so much was now flat and slick with so much grease that it nearly stained my pillow each time that I woke up. My body, which had once been fit and healthy, now sat hollow in my chair, back hunched forward ever so slightly as I leaned forward to write on my too-old desktop computer. It was cracked in the corner, much like my glasses, and buzzed like a thousand angry bees each time that I needed to run a program larger than my emails or documents. I wondered, briefly, if they would calm down with a cigarette. Nicotine seemed to do wonders for curing anger, or so I’d seen with my father.

Thinking on it now, it’d been a rough couple of years after my mom had died. My father, strong man that he was, had started to decline in health. He couldn’t deal with the heartache, at least, not in a way that was healthy for him. Every time that I’d visited, he was lighting up a cigarette. Every hour on the hour, almost. Mom used to tell me how he’d chain-smoked an entire pack after having to put the family dog down when I was a child. How he couldn’t deal with coming home to see my tear-streaked face, knowing he’d been the cause of it. It was easier, she told me, to numb down your feelings until you barely felt a thing at all.

The night that I’d seen the man watching me, I remember shutting my curtains and throwing away my food before heading straight to bed. Paranoia set in and clung to my body like plastic wrap, making me practically suffocate in my tangled sheets. He’d be gone in the morning, I was sure. At least I was attempting to be sure of it in the moment. I’d woken up the next morning and gotten out of bed, ceramic mug soon in hand. Computer buzzing as I slid the bitter brew down my throat, I soon settled back into my routine. Analyze, read, and write. I analyzed, read, then sipped on my coffee. I analyzed, read, then stared at the window.

I couldn’t help myself. Was that man there? Was he staring at me like he had been last night? I’d abandoned typing to get up and go check. My feet thudded something dull and hurried as I scrambled to go see. I could hear my curtain rod scraping and screeching from the force that I pulled the blacked-out fabric apart, separating it to look below. When I ran my eyes down each unit, numbly checking off each unit of busybodies and loners, I saw him. He was dressed differently, no doubt, but he was staring at me just like he had before.

I’m not proud of the fact that I neglected to get any work done that day. Or the day after that. Any meaningful work, at least. But if you count staring back at a set of eyes, and not moving until the sun went down as being meaningful work, then I did plenty. He’d only left my line of vision when I’d felt my legs try to give out. I’d never stood in one place for that long before in years. My stiff joints ached from use as I hobbled over to my chair, sitting the moment that I was able. I didn’t move for minutes. I hadn’t needed to. I knew that if I went back, he’d be staring at me. My hunch was correct when I checked the next morning.

My routine began to change after that. I’d wake up, drink a mug of bitter black coffee, watch the man outside, and then work before checking on him every hour on the top of the hour. My nights changed, too. When I no longer had any obligation to work and my documents were all sent in, I’d sit at the window and watch those eyes until mine grew nearly too exhausted to remain open. On rougher days, I’d forego sleep in favor of keeping an eye on him. Sometimes he’d be eating. Other times he’d be drinking from a mug. Clusters of my own mugs cluttered my desk, as if mocking me. Regardless, no matter what he’d be doing, I’d always be there observing.

I knew that it likely wasn’t the most productive thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself. I’d always been one to cling to things that didn’t suit me. I wore old shirts with tears in them because the fabric still felt nice. I hadn’t changed the shoes that I’d wore for years despite them falling apart, simply because I liked how the laces looked. I could always buy a new pair, but why? I liked things how they needed to be.

That doesn’t mean I liked the things as they were, or that I didn’t suffer the consequences of my choices. People watched me on the street or stepped farther away on the sidewalk when I came by. To them, I looked unwell. To myself, I looked like the embodiment of my routine. I looked right, under my standards. I wore my shirts, I wore my shoes, and I wore them despite knowing how I looked. Despite knowing the judgment I’d receive.

My mother had suspected my affinity of disliking change early on when I couldn’t go to school without bringing my stuffed animal. I’d been bullied relentlessly back then, and that was just fuel for the fire. Things only changed when my father stepped in and put my old teddy bear up higher than I could reach. He’d told me to ‘grow up,’ and that only then could I have Mr. Brown back. Sleepless nights were what followed, not that they’d even stopped when I had my stuffed bear. I’d sleep with the blankets over my head, even when I couldn’t breathe because of the overwhelming warmth during summer. I’d sleep, back to the wall, to ensure that I couldn’t be grabbed by what I couldn’t see. I’d sleep, eyes on the door or my too-cracked open closet until I couldn’t keep them open anymore. I suppose watching things has always been a habit of mine. Never for the better.

My workflow had begun to slow down, as did the quality of everything that I turned in. It had to at some point. With the way that things were going, spending hours on mindless work was no longer something that I could do. It had been a gradual descent comprised of less documents being sent in a day before my first warning came. I straightened up briefly, intimidated, before falling back to my newfound habit. The second warning happened not even a month after the first. They’d been patient with me because, despite being a cog in their machine, I knew that their machine was old and rusted behind the scenes.

I knew that they were struggling to remain afloat, to keep their operation well lubricated and free of blemishes. Deadlines were what they stood firm by, not that I cared anymore. My third and final warning came after I’d gotten sloppy with my work, words typed in an incomprehensible rush when I’d tried to multitask for the first time, only scanning what I was meant to be analyzing before writing a half-assed report just to get my boss off my back.

 I was then fired within six months of my new, full-time occupation. Without any interruptions however, that only fueled my desire to keep an eye on him. I did so shamelessly from the comfort of my home. I did so, shamelessly, without the regard of how I was being affected by this. At the time, I’d thought that this was all I needed to do. Keep an eye on the man watching me. Bills could wait. I didn’t need lights to see. I didn’t need heat or air conditioning to sit in my chair and stay there.

I’d never realized how busy the streets below were until all I did was spend my hours watching them. It was the digital age- I had no need to go grocery shopping anymore. I had no need to step out for fresh air, not when I could sit by my window and breathe in smog and car exhaust. At least this way, I’d told myself, I wouldn’t be looked at anymore. Not strangely by normal folks, anyway. The man below looked at me with indifference.

On a good day, I’d eat it up like the meals I should’ve been consuming. On a bad day, I’d choke on it. He’d set a new standard, one that I had to adhere to. He’d told me I was good enough to be seen bare, as is, without expectation for well-maintained hair and clothes. Or perhaps, he just enjoyed seeing how he affected me, for better or for worse.

However, in the narrow line of my obsession, I had neglected one thing. Without sleep, I’d grow tired. My eyes would shut without my permission, and I’d enter fits of micro-sleep, fueled by exhaustion. And so, I’d done the only thing I could think of. Numb the urge to sleep and keep my body going. Coffee wasn’t doing it anymore. But cigarettes surely would. I made my way through a few, much faster than I’d like to admit.

My window had been cracked open at that point almost permanently due to the summer’s heat making my apartment feel like Hell rather than a home. Although maybe, that wasn’t too far off. Stale food caked the dishes in my sink while the stale odor of stained clothing sat heavily in my room’s basket.

A few more months passed by like that. I’d sit there, I’d smoke, and I’d watch. I’d sit there, I’d hold my stomach as it starved, I’d fill it with some coffee and then watch. I’d catch myself sleeping, I’d wake up, I’d smoke, then I’d watch. Sometimes now, looking back, I don’t even think I watched as much as I did sit there and stare at nothing. He wasn’t even always there anymore. He was gone often. But I stayed. I always did. After all this, I had to.

I think I should’ve used this time to self-reflect. It was what all the well-adjusted adults and online therapists were pushing out: reflecting on yourself and self-care. But what was there to reflect on? What I did with my life? What didn’t I do? My days were so simple that the only thing I could reflect on was the slowly disappearing man from my purview. And even then, I just wanted to reach out. I wanted to tell him to stay when I saw him. I wanted to hold him by his frail shoulders and squeeze desperately until he’d just look at me once more. I’d poured so much of myself into this, into him, so why should he get to stop what he’d started? It didn’t work like that. Bad things would happen if they did, I was sure.

But I was alone. At this point, I think I knew that deep down. It was rare that I’d see the man come to his window to look outside. I wasn’t even his priority anymore. He’d become hunched, staring down at the sidewalk below instead, probably more concerned with what little presents the birds above left behind as opposed to whatever I could do for him. I saw him holding a cane on the days he hobbled outside, and even that was getting rarer. I sat- no, I lingered. I managed to overstay my welcome in another man’s consciousness. I was done.

It wasn’t until the moving trucks came that I truly woke up from my trance. Furniture was pulled out of the apartment complex one at a time. Wooden wardrobes, old coatracks, bags of clothes. There was more taken out than I’d like to think was ever even inside for an old man. A new family moved in, some well-adjusted adults and their kids. Their dogs, their cats, and probably even other pets. I wouldn’t know after losing interest with the man was gone. But I had no need to worry. When I sat back and looked at my window, I saw a pair of eyes staring back at me, and I knew it hadn’t been for nothing.

I went to the asylum for a really stupid reason. It wasn’t just to take pictures like I told Tyler, and it definitely wasn’t for a research project like I told my Mom. If I had been going exclusively for either one of those reasons, I would have gone in the crisp, pale light of the October dawn. 

But I didn’t do that. I went at night. 

I’ve been to the asylum plenty of times. It’s kind of what you do when you’re a kid living in my town. You do your PE runs there. You take your senior photos there. If you’re my aunt’s age, you probably went to a haunted house or two before they shut that all down. I don’t really know why they shut it down. They probably though it was dangerous or disrespectful or something.

Part of the draw is that the asylum grounds are kind of beautiful—serene on the surface. The property is composed of acres and acres of meadows and miles of trails lined with briars that hang heavy with blackberries every summer.

In the spring and summer, and in the light of day, and when the circumstances of life are ideal, and all the stars align and you’re caught up in that moment between your graduation and the first day of college, the asylum feels welcoming and peaceful and soothing. But that isn’t the real asylum. It’s not what I experienced on the night that I went.

Let me start by saying it wasn’t my idea to go on Halloween night. That felt really cliche to me. “You’re way too contrarian for that,” Tyler said on the night he dropped me off at the asylum. “Go during Thanksgiving week or something.”

And yeah, I should have listened to Tyler.

But the fact is, my contrarian streak is exactly the thing that brought me there on the most cliche night of the year.

It started with a conversation with my sister. We were talking about plans for Halloween. She’s three years older than me. She’s a social butterfly, she owns a house, and she has a baby, who I think is super cute (yeah—I’m well aware that I only think she’s cute because I’m related to her. Sue me.)

She’s also married to Scott, who objectively is great but for some reason has always gotten under my skin. It might be because he proposed to Mallory at the exact same time the series finale of Young Sheldon was airing. Who does that?

The three of us were standing in the kitchen. Mallory was pulling scones out of the oven, and Scott was rifling around in the fridge.

“I think it’s gonna be pretty low-key,” she told me. “We’re going to do a family costume—maybe the Incredibles or something.”

I glanced over at Scott, who was elbow deep in the top shelf of the refrigerator, and tried to picture him wearing a Mr. Incredible costume. My nose wrinkled involuntarily. 

“And we’ll hand out candy, and then Mable is coming over to do a photo shoot with us and Sly, and then we’ll leave Sly with Scott’s mom, and then we’ll hit a bar for a couple beers or if they do a fancy Halloween cocktail or something.”

Halfway through her monologue, I realized something annoying. She was going to have a better Halloween than me. I didn’t even have solid plans yet. A few of my friends had talked about a movie night, but nobody had mentioned it since last week, and I wasn’t sure if anyone was serious or not.

She put a plate of fresh scones on the counter. She must have interpreted my silence as pity, because she said, “Oh come on. We can’t all be young and crazy.”

That wasn’t what I was thinking at all. I was thinking that my twenty-four-year-old sister who was constantly awake with a six-month-old was somehow the cool one in this scenario.

What exactly was my excuse? All I had was school and crippling social anxiety.

Scott set a jar of lemon curd next to the scones. It was almost annoying that he had been digging around the fridge for lemon curd. Like, how smug can you get? Lemon curd and family costumes and bespoke Halloween cocktails—come on.

“What about you?” Mallory asked. “You and Tyler up to something? C'mon. Let me live vicariously through your Halloween plans.”

I didn’t want to tell her my plan was to watch a movie in my apartment, half-listening for trick-or-treaters. And so I answered with the first semi-plausible thing that my brain could conjure. “Ghost hunting,” I say. “Up at the asylum.”

Scott looked up like I’d just shone a giant flashlight in his eyes.

Mallory scowled. She’d never liked my interest in the paranormal. “Kimmy…”

“That sounds legit,” Scott said.

Mallory glared at him, and if I’m being honest, I kind of enjoyed the tiny wrench I threw into their scone-and-lemon curd life. 

Then she turned to me. “You aren’t allowed there after dark.”

Obviously I knew that. I grew up here. But I can’t stand the thought of Mallory in her dumb superhero costume, feeling bad for me. That’s just too sad.

So I kept digging myself deeper, “I want to try to talk to the girl who disappeared there.”

She looked at me. She opened her mouth. Then she shut it again.

Scott was a different story. A wide grin spread across his face. “I dare you to take the picture,” he said. 

Mallory slapped his arm with the back of her hand so hard that I could have sworn I felt it, too.

***

"The photo" in question is a selfie taken in 2013 by a local high school student named Mina. The photo, taken at the asylum’s cemetery, shows Mina in the dull morning sun, smiling widely at the camera. She’s wearing a red and gold letterman’s jacket from her school, and a bracelet with a turtle pendant. In recent years there’s been a rumor that the turtle was made of real emeralds, but nobody actually knows if that’s true or not.

If that was the whole story, the picture never would have gone viral like it did. A high school girl going missing in a small town is a tragic news story for sure, but as is so often the case, it would have blown over after a couple of months.

But the photo shows something else. It shows something massive and smoky creeping up the edge. It’s as if something huge hunches over Mina, mostly out of focus and obscured by the blanket of morning fog. Just enough of the shape shines through the mist to make you wonder what happened to her in the seconds after Mina snapped the photo.

The story goes Mina was at the asylum for senior photos. Her mom wanted her the pictures taken at the nursery just off of the highway, but Mina was just punk enough to want something edgy. Mina’s love of the macabre and her mother’s pumpkin spice sensibilities clashed, and then combined in such a way that the two of them ended up choosing an utterly gorgeous, only vaguely gothic asylum.

Apparently their photographer friend didn’t show up at first. When Mina called to check in, the photographer was adamant that she wasn’t coming.

No one knows why. That photographer had taken thousands of photos at the asylum over the years. But that day she didn’t want to be anywhere near the campus.

The photographer was adamant, but Mina was worse. Mina told her she wasn’t going anywhere.

Nobody knows exactly what happened from there.

We know that Mina never went home that night. We know that Mina made national news. We know Mina took some selfies on her crappy flip phone. We know that because one of them became internet-famous. 

That picture was the last one on her phone. The phone itself was found near the cemetery with bloody fingerprints smudged across the screen.

***

When Scott dared me to take “the picture” I knew exactly what he meant. Every kid around here knows.

The rules are simple:

1. Go to the asylum after dark.
2. Walk across the campus to the old cemetery. Stand beside the tallest gravestone.
3. Take a selfie with your phone. Pay close attention to any shadows and or shapes in the frame.
4. If there’s nothing extra in you’re photo, you’re safe for another. If there is…let’s just say you might want to sleep with the lights on for a while.

***

On Halloween night, I set my alarm for one in the morning, took a big swig of bourbon straight from the bottle, and walked down my creaky stairs to the parking lot to meet Tyler. 

Even though the hour was ungodly, I didn’t want to risk leaving my car on the road outside the park gates, so Tyler picked me up. It’s pretty easy to sneak onto the campus, but our town has a lot of cops that patrol even at night, and if one of them sees a car anywhere near the asylum, there’s a good chance they’re going to check it out.

When I got in Tyler’s car, the heater was off and it was so cold I could see my breath. He wore a deeply serious gray sweater and otherwise seemed completely oblivious to the cold. 

“You ready for this?” He asked.

“For sure!” I said with far more certainty than I felt.

“As long as you don’t let Mina get you.” 

I laughed, but our smiles faded quickly. Neither one of us had the bravado to fully commit to the bit. We drove the rest of the way in silence. It felt kind of like a reverse Christmas morning—like we were excited for something but in a bad way.

Eventually Tyler eased the car over to the shoulder. He turned off the headlights. We stayed in that silence for a moment. This should have felt fun, but I somehow couldn’t bring myself to reach for the car door latch.

“You sure don’t want me to come with you?” Tyler said. 

Warm relief rushed over me before I could catch it. Of course I wanted him to come with me. Now that I was here, sitting in the safety of the car, looking out there into the night, I felt every one of my senses prickling—coming alive—telling me I shouldn’t be alone out here.

I could see the edge of the trail up ahead. Something looked off. The shadows were far too long.

As I sat there shivering in the passenger seat, I would have done anything to have Tyler with me. 

Well, I would have done anything except actually ask.

“I’m good,” I said. It took the last bit of resolve I had to send him on his way. “I’ll text you in the morning.”

And as I climbed out of the car, I got the strangest feeling. It felt like I won’t be coming back. It felt like I was about to cross a line I wouldn’t be able to uncross. A movie night suddenly sounded great. All I really wanted was to go home and sit in my living room and eat the popcorn and Reese’s and Oreos and all the others stuff that sounded so lame a few hours ago. I knew that if I asked, Tyler would come with me. I wanted to sit with my best friend and let the night melt around us.

Instead I was stupid. 

I took my extra heavy coat, my bag of halloween candy, and a full bottle of bourbon and headed for the place where the fence broke. Bourbon felt like the right call for this night. I had a feeling Mina would have been a bourbon girl, and I knew that I was.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” I closed the door as quietly as I could and started walking through the moonlight toward the edge of the property.

For a beautiful moment, I felt myself relax. I thought I was going to be okay after all. Maybe this could just be a perfect walk in the moonlight, bathed in the luxurious silver. I could feel the warmth of that earlier drink sneaking up on me.

I was fine until I heard Tyler pull away. I turned to look over my shoulder as his tail lights disappeared, and I felt the cramping return to the pit of my stomach—the flash of lightning through my chest—the sense that something wasn’t right.

Still, I forced myself to continue. There was no way I was going to call him back now that he was gone. I would never live it down.

As I walked along the path with my backpack over my shoulder, I caught sight of something in the distance. It was a booth of some sort, edges sharp in the moonlight, roof hanging over a small enclosure, creating deep, angry shadows.

I felt myself tense up, wondering what could be hiding in the shadows. As I drew closer, though, I realized what it was. It was just a phone booth.

I didn’t remember that being out here, but I also didn’t come this way often. I veered off of my path to check it out.

The roof overhung the phone, creating a strange spot of darkness and shadow. Here, in the middle of the night, with the moon frowning down, it felt especially terrifying.

A sign swinging from two chains read “Spirit Phone.”

 

I’d seen things like this online. It was a thing for sad people. They could pick up a phone, whisper their goodbyes to lost loved ones, and walk away feeling like they got something off their chest. 

But while I wanted to write it off as a quaint memorial to people who had passed on, it’s sudden appearance in my path felt like something more. It felt targeted to me. After all, hadn’t I come here to try to communicate with Mina? If there was any truth to ghosts—if there was any chance I could communicate with her—why not use a tool meant just for that?

Stepping into the square of shadow felt like breaking some covenant I had made with this place. It felt like inviting something evil into my sphere.

And like an idiot, I did it anyway.

I stepped up to the phone and lifted it from it’s cradle. I didn’t know what I expected. Of course there wouldn’t be a ring tone out here. Of course it would be dead. But the silence somehow felt invasive. It hammered against my brain like it was its own person. I was silent for several moments. Then I gulped. And then I whispered, “Is anyone there?” 

For a moment, dead silence.

And then, somewhere far away, a tiny click, followed by the wail of the wind in the receiver. No voice, no breathing—just a sound telling me that someone somewhere else had picked up a second phone.

I slammed the receiver down.

That wasn’t supposed to happen. Not really. I realize as I stood there, staring at the phone, that I wasn’t at all prepared to meet something real out here tonight. Sure, I felt scared as soon as I stepped out of the car, but I thought it was just nerves. I never really believed it. Not until then.

Not until I stood in the moonlight.

All of the worst case scenarios slammed into me at the same time. 

What if my phone died before morning? 

What if I hurt myself? What if the alcohol I had already consumed—the alcohol I could feel fuzzing up the corners of my thinking—came on more strongly than I anticipated? 

What if the moon went behind a cloud? 

What if there really was someone on the other side of that phone?

I made myself let those thoughts go. More realistically, I forced them out of my mind in the same way you corral stray cats away from your front door. 

This was what I wanted. This was what I came for. I was not going to let fear ruin the night for me. I wasn’t going to back down. I was going to walk out of this night with a selfie from the cemetery and a fantastic story to tell my smug sister.

I hiked my backpack higher, and as I did, I realized that my hand was wet. I looked down. There was a thick liquid smeared across my palm. I turned on my phone light. Something gray, the consistency of honey, covered my hand. I looked up at the phone booth. The same substance dribbled from the handle of the receiver. 

I shone my flashlight higher. The same gray muck covered half of the plaque above the receiver so that the only visible words were:

…ones missed,

…where bonds persist.

I shivered and turned away. The substance oozed and squelched between my fingers, and as I started up the trail that led to the barns, I wiped my hand on my pants.

I thought about calling Tyler. I wanted to hear his voice on the other end of the line. I wanted the comfort. I didn’t have to admit that I was scared. I could just tell him about the phone I found or something. 

Still, he would be in bed by now, and I had the feeling that if I called him—if I heard his voice—I would lose the rest of my nerve and I would ask him to come back.

No. I would keep going. I couldn’t exactly tell him that I came out here to talk to Mina’s ghost and gave in the moment it got creepy. 

Blackberry bushes lined the path, shooting out spindly briars like arms ready to tangle me up and hold me forever. Out there in the middle of the night, wasn’t even sure that was walking the right path. Things looked different at night. Familiar shapes lurked and hulked like demons in the distance, and roads that I should have known felt like they were leading me somewhere I didn’t want to go. 

Eventually, I crested the hill and stepped up into view of the barns.

The silo loomed over me, along with several other structures. With the moonlight creating such a crisp view, I could see the graffiti on the buildings. I stepped closer.

Someone had painted two angry eyes on the face of one of the  barns, accompanied by eyebrows. Words scrawled beneath read, “He is watching” read the graphic. An arrow pointed upward.

It was silly nonsense—the kind of thing me and my friends would have done in high school—and yet something about it pulled me in. Something about it made my heart drop.

I took another step forward. And then another. Looking up into the rafters, I don’t know what I expected to see. Maybe I thought I would see some sort of gargoyle, or a demon bound by the graffiti artist’s words. Maybe I thought there would be a camera or a face peering back at me.

But there was nothing. Maybe a few sticks from a bird’s nest if I squinted hard enough.

But up higher—up higher there was a window, empty and yawning. If there ever had been glass up there, it was long gone. The window was a starless night now—like a portal to somewhere else.

Was this where Mina died? Did one of these old barns crumble around her, entombing her for eternity? Did something watch her from that window? Was something watching me?

With a shiver, I left the barns and kept walking. Shuffling through the grass, my backpack suddenly felt heavy. I paused and looked up at the sky. A pair of clouds hovered close to the moon.

Behind me, a gust of wind whistles through one of the open-air barns, kicking up crunchy leaves and scattering them across the field. I looked back.

A shadow moved behind the entrance to one of the barns. 

It was quick enough—subtle enough—that I couldn’t be sure it was anything at all. Normally I would have laughed it off, but tonight, all I could think about was the last photo Mina took—that image of the shadow.

I knew that if I started running, I would never be able to stop. So instead, I forced myself to go toward it. The shadow had to be nothing. Maybe just an animal. I took another step. 

Now I could see the shadow hovering in the doorway. Long columns of darkness clenched and curled and unclenched, like the shadows of tree branches, only fluid and curving. The shapes, wrong and unnatural, slipped toward the edge of the door.

My heart pounded, and I stumbled backward.

Beside me I heard a rustling, and then something grabbed my leg. I twisted hard, pulling away, only to feel a tearing. Still, whatever had me didn’t let go. 

I jerked my leg away. This time the tearing sensation reached the bare skin between my sock and the cuff of my jeans. I inhaled sharply at the pain.

When I looked down at my foot, I immediately felt stupid. A blackberry branch had snagged my ankle. My skin was pulled tight—stretched out by one of the barbs that had hooked me—but it was just a thorn. It wasn’t a monster. It wasn’t a ghost.

It was just a stupid blackberry briar.

I looked back up at the barn. The shadow was still there, but now that I had survived the blackberry bush, I realized what I was looking at. An old roll of loosely coiled wire swayed in the breeze, casting shadows on the ground. That was it. No reason to be scared.

Turning my back on the barns, I pushed onward down the trail. 

The blackberry bushes kept reaching for me as I made my way toward the cemetery, and from then on I was more careful about where I stepped. 

The little terrors of the night were taking a toll, but I remained stubborn in my purpose. I was going to get this photo. I was going to show Scott and all the rest of them that I wasn’t scared. And when I looked in the mirror tomorrow, I would be able to face myself, knowing that I hadn’t run away from an irrational fear.

After walking eastward for several minutes, the cemetery fence came into view. I approached the fence, thinking about the photo of Mina in the cemetery, with that strange shadow-shape over her shoulder. 

My aunt told me the secrets about this graveyard once. She told me that it’s not exactly what it looks like on the surface. This place is actually a wetland—a bog. Mina’s body—if this is in fact where her body ended up—has joined with hundred of other burials throughout the years and sunk into the depths. 

I hopped the fence and walked toward the tallest gravestone. It was obvious which one I was looking for—it was the only stone jutting out of the grass. The rest of them were invisible, forgotten at ground-level, or sunken even deeper.

My heart hammered as my shoes squashed across the lawn. Each time my feet sunk into the grass, it felt like squeezing a sponge out over an empty bowl. Water pooled around my shoes and the earth sucked at my feet with every step.

You should go. 

Not until I get the damn photo.

Because at the end of the day, it wasn’t just about impressing Scott, or even Mallory. I just wanted to win. For once I wanted to do the thing I had set out to do without giving up or chickening out. 

I could call Tyler as soon as I was done with the picture. He would be sleeping with his ringer on tonight, just in case I needed something. 

But I wasn’t leaving without the photo.

So I marched all the way up to that gravestone. I turned and looked out at the blackberry brambles and skinny white birch trunks beyond the chain link fence, searching for any sign of a menacing shadow. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. If anything, the darkness beyond the tree trunks felt a little too heavy—a little too close. But if that was the only thing I had to worry about, I was pretty sure I could manage.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. After flipping the screen, I raised my phone above my head, careful to get as much of the backdrop in focus as possible. I snapped the photo. My whole screen turned white for a moment, then, like a callback to a Polaroid developing in real time, the photo faded into view. 

I zoomed in immediately, checking every inch of the photo. My own eyes stared back at me, wide and bloodshot. I looked terrible, but I ignored my face and moved on. 

Something in the background caught my attention—something white in the expanse of darkness. I zoomed in close, only to see that a large moth had landed on the fence as I took the picture.

A sigh of relief escaped my lungs as I realized there was nothing strange in the photo at all.

I had been playing with the idea of calling Tyler as soon as I took the picture. Now that I had taken the photo, though, and it had come back empty, I felt an unexpected rush of confidence. It felt like nothing could touch me—like I could face anything tonight might throw at me.

Riding high on that sensation, I started walking deeper into the cemetery.

The ground grew soggier with every step. By the time I reached the middle of the lawn, I could see the standing water sparkling in the moonlight, and I was sinking up to my ankles every time I shifted my weight.

It was gross. The cold water had the effect of overcoming both my fear and my stubborn streak, and suddenly I was overcome with the practical need to get away from this muddy, squelching hellscape.

I was just about to turn back—just about to head for the barns—when something in the distance caught my eye. A rectangle shape rested near the fence.

I should have turned back. I should have let the freezing water serve as a warning. I should have called Tyler. 

But curiosity got me. Now that I had the photo on my phone, I felt like I could do anything at all. So I took a few more steps forward. Icy water seeped into my socks and stung the puncture from the blackberry thorns. I pushed on.

I couldn’t identify the shape in the distance yet, but I knew it didn’t belong here. The rolling grass and standing water covered the cemetery, and with the exception of the occasional corner of a sunken gravestone visible in my flashlight, the expanse was entirely flat.

The box on the others side of the lawn didn’t belong here at all.

As I walked—as I stared at that strange shape pushed up against the fence—I felt that strange sense of dread beginning to take hold again. I didn’t have to come here. I could have called Tyler at any time. I could be ay home in my bed right now, sinking into my memory foam mattress topper instead of sinking into three inches of cemetery sewage.

But I was pretty sure it was too late.

I shone my flashlight at the box again. This time the realization punched me in right in the gut.

Resting beside the fence, tilted to one side, poking halfway out of the mud lay a sad little pine box casket.

The lid was ajar. Gray mud oozed down the sides, and a half circle of rocks surrounded it.

At first I tried to rationalize it. Maybe it wasn’t a casket. Maybe someone had put some other kind of box out here for some other reason.

Okay, no, it was definitely a casket.

So maybe they were starting to bury people out here again.

Maybe I was really drunk, even though I didn’t feel it, and I was imagining all of this this.

But as I drew closer, I knew exactly what I was seeing. I knew that it was real.

And while it terrified me, it felt familiar, too.

Because there were other stories people told about this cemetery. Stories about caskets rising to the surface of the graveyard. Stories about placing rocks inside or on top of the caskets to weigh them down and keep them from floating up on muck and water.

There have always been stories about this place.

So many stories.

Maybe I should have believed some of them.

And then, the worst case scenario became real.

The lid began to slip from the casket. 

At first I didn’t want to believe it. Maybe it was just a trick of the shadows.

Only it wasn’t.

A sting of panic lit up my chest as I stared down.

Gray muck oozed out of the casket, and something eased over the side of the box. It was ragged and sinewy and gray like driftwood, and it hung limply, brushing the grass below. A green light glinted off of it.

A turtle pendant. Maybe was made of real emeralds. Maybe not. It didn’t matter.

What did matter was that it meant something I wasn’t ready to admit out there in that field. In fact, I’m still not sure I can admit it.

It meant that the driftwood wasn’t driftwood at all. That brittle gray thing was Mina’s arm, flesh and blood picked clean by the devastation of time. The turtle bracelet drooped down from the grimy bone and proved it.

It was then that I did what I should have done far earlier. Maybe if I had done it earlier, I would have stood a chance.

I turned and ran back toward the barns. I hurdled over the fence and ran for the light, the parking lot, and the safety of the highway.

Once, I thought I heard a low moan echoing from somewhere behind me, but I didn’t stop to check, and the sound dissolved into the sound of leaves crunching under my feet.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket.

“Tyler?” I cried when he finally picked up. “I need you to come get me!”

***

I didn’t tell Tyler anything that happened. I let him think that I got scared by leaves blowing and branches creaking. It was easier to accept the blow to my pride than to admit everything I saw.  

But when I glanced over at him, he was watching me and not the road. I think he knew that something happened. I think he knew that there was something different about me. Maybe I had been cursed. Marked. Maybe that radiated off of me like heatwaves over concrete.

As we drove home, I thought about it all. I played it over in my head.

I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

Now, hours later, I’m sitting in my apartment, just waiting. It’s almost dawn and when the sun comes up, odds are that someone is going to find that coffin.

When they do, it’ll only be a matter of time before we learn an identity, and if it really ends up being Mina, that changes everything. It means that there is something far more terrifying about her disappearance than any of us could have imagined. She didn’t simply run away. Something killed her. Something entombed her. Something has held her there for over a decade.

And it means something else—something far more personal to me.

It means that I’m not imagining the things that have been happening to me.

Because things have been happening ever since I got home. 

That gray muck is oozing out of my bathroom faucet now, and out of the crack in my living room ceiling.

I can hear a phone sometimes—not my phone—the ringing fades in and out of earshot like it’s taunting me. When I go to look for it, the sound vanishes like a coastal mist.

And when I look at the selfie I took at the cemetery, there still isn’t a shadow figure in it. 

There’s something worse.

On the very edge of the photo, so blurry I didn’t notice it at first, a hand grips the outside of the fence. A hand with a glimmering green pendant.

Part One

The chat popped up as I sat at my desk.

Tatiana is typing…

“Oh my god! Why haven’t you been answering?! I responded.

Tatiana is typing…

“I can’t wait to hear this because I hope you have a really good explanation, like, you were in jail or something.”

Tatiana is typing…

“Seriously? Spit. It. Out.”

I stared at the screen for what felt like an eternity.

Ether

“What?” I responded.

The chat went silent.

“What is she talking about?!” I yelled.

I was panicking now. My eyes began to tear up, and then I opened them.

It was a nightmare. I curled into a ball in my bed and sobbed.

Tat was gone.

I had called her a thousand times that Thursday, and her best friend finally answered.

The paramedics found her on the floor of the laundry room.

She had called 911 herself at 2:30 pm. which means she had been ignoring me for nine hours.

She suffered a tear in her intestine and went septic.

She told her brother she didn’t want to go through multiple surgeries and stay hooked up to machines.

They let her go.

The scream that left my body when I found out physically hurt. The room was spinning. I had to find the floor before it found me.

“I have no idea what happens after this life, but I need you to let me know you’re okay, Tat!” I cried.

Tat asked her brother to get Damien to the pet resort because they love him, and that they would help find him a good home. I wasn’t breaking a promise, that was what she wanted. So, I let My Godson go, too.

I crawled into bed, screaming into my pillow. Overcome with grief and guilt.

“I should have called 911.” I sobbed.

The worst feeling was that she ignored me. I told her I was freaking out, I told her I knew something was wrong. I’ll never understand why she decided to suffer like that, alone, instead of waiting until it killed her.

She knew that I would have called for an ambulance if she’d told me that it was happening again.

She didn’t want to hear me nagging that she needed to go to the hospital?

Do you know how this makes me feel?

What if she was waiting for me to make the call she was too afraid to make herself, and I didn’t. Maybe she would still be here.

---

“Ether? Isn’t that a void? WHAT WAS THAT DREAM?”

Sure, I’d heard about Ether, (or Aether), in passing. Probably watching some kooky alien show or something. I picked up my phone.

I browsed through internet forums, new-age websites and blogs, and watched a few videos.

“Okay, everyone’s got a different opinion, and no one actually knows because no one knows what happens after this life. Maybe nothing at all.”

I hated the idea that she was lost in some cold, dark void.

“Essence of life, bridge to the spiritual world, a void, a chakra… which is it?” I rolled my eyes.

Something clattered in the kitchen. I froze and listened. It sounds cliché, but yes, my heart was pounding in my throat.

“Maybe something shifted in the dish rack?” I wondered.

It was too loud for that, though.

I eventually got up the courage to tip-toe in there with my only weapon in hand: my cell phone.

I peeked in to find the bottom cupboard doors open. The roll-out shelf where I keep pots, pans, and their lids was pulled out. The were several different lids on the floor; large, small, glass, steel. They were sitting too neatly to have fallen, as if they’d been placed there. 

I ran back to the bedroom and locked the door, then called the police.

“I think there’s someone in my house.” I whispered to the operator.

They arrived quickly, thankfully, and did a walk through; upstairs and downstairs, the backyard. They checked the windows and doors. Everything was locked. There was no one.

It was embarrassing. I needed a shower and hadn’t slept well in days. My eyes were swollen from crying. I looked like a goblin.

I retreated to my bed, locked the bedroom door, and basically collapsed.

I dreamt of “swimming” through the air, high above the coastal towns below; in the ocean, exploring seagrass beds; in the forest, back-stroking gently among the trees, looking up at the canopy.

I’ve never experienced anything so beautiful.

I’ve been having some equally horrifying dreams as well, like experiencing stomach pains that linger long after I wake up; or standing over my own body as it lies in bed in my small bedroom.

I feel a sense of foreboding… but I’m not exactly afraid. It’s so hard to explain. I feel like she’s trying to warn me. She’s nagging me! I hope she’s not angry that I never made that call…

I was being followed.

Walking through the woods for a few hours longer than I had hoped, not quite lost but not quite sure of my exact position either, one idea kept coming back to me.

I was being followed.

The human brain is a wonderful thing. It is always working, always taking information in, whether you realize it or not. Modern life makes most of its functions useless. Many of the primordial tasks that were essential to survival and that made up the majority of our cognitive workload are now totally redundant.

But we have longer memories than we think, and given the right circumstances, and a little pressure, it’ll slip right back into gear. The same gear that was of the utmost importance for millennia.

I was getting the message loud and clear. I was being followed.

Calling it a gut feeling is giving my gut a little too much credit. We all have gut feelings, which way to drive to work to avoid traffic, what to order at a restaurant, what to wear. You might feel a little urge, or a small pull one way or the other. That’s the normal sensation of your gut telling you what to do.

This was not a gut feeling. This was a jumbotron inside my head, with bright red lettering telling me, in no uncertain terms, that I was being followed.

My only problem was I had no idea why.

I entered Warner State Park at just after two in the afternoon, hoping to enjoy a nice walk through some of the trails. It’s an area I had been to many times before, and earlier today as I looked at the large wooden trail map, I decided I should do the full park loop. This clocked in at just around eight miles, which given my usual speed meant I should be done no later than six in the evening. The day was pleasant, and I was looking forward to a relaxing time in the outdoors.

By six thirty I realized I had a problem. The mile markers all lined up, and I should have been about ready to finish the loop, as I had passed the final mile marker over a half hour ago. In just a minute or so I should see that big map board again, and the parking lot behind it. Maybe I took a little too much time enjoying the sights or the air and my pace slackened, or maybe I’m just not in as great shape as I thought I was.

The problem arose when I saw a marker for mile number nine. How could there be a ninth mile on this trail? It was only supposed to be eight. Not even. The original map had to be wrong, I figured, and I assumed that maybe it was just a bit over nine miles with all the curves taken into account. Like how a 5K race is really 3.1 miles. Sure it’s a three mile race, but even at the three mile point you had to go just a little bit farther. Maybe I just had to deal with the decimal place now.

I picked up my pace and fifteen minutes later I saw a marker for mile ten, and it was getting dark.

Stopping for a moment to think, I pulled out a flashlight and a snack from my backpack. I always carried a few essentials with me, band-aids, some painkillers, just in case something bad ever happened. I wasn’t sure what was happening to me yet, but I knew it wasn’t good.

The trail can’t go on forever, and I must have stumbled onto one of the longer trails by accident. The park itself wasn’t too big, so for a worst-case scenario in which I accidentally went on the longest trail in the park, which was a dozen miles, I would only have to keep going for another hour.

The trees made the darkness seem much greater than it really was. The sky was still decently bright, but the trail was dim, and growing dimmer by the minute. Soon I had to turn on my flashlight to see the trail, even though the sky was still a deep purple.

My thoughts changed too. It felt like my vision became a little more focused and my ears a little sharper.

Awareness, that’s a nice way of putting it.

Everyone is aware, at least to a certain extent, but all of a sudden I was aware on a deeper level.

I noticed my head naturally starting to scan the tree line to my sides, following noises I heard in the brush. Occasionally I felt the urge to look behind me, though I don’t know why.

That was the most unnerving thing about it. As far as I could tell everything was the same as it ever was, just a bit darker now. I was walking down a path I did not know, and suddenly I was taking account of everything. Within all that, I kept feeling the need to check behind me.

But for what?

I would be walking, and naturally my eyes would drift to one side or the other, and my flashlight along with it. Looking into the trees and brush, I would see… nothing. Trees, bushes, grass. It was always the same. At the same time I’d hear something, something very quiet. A small rustle of grass or a bush or a tree branch. I’d turn and look in the direction and see… nothing again. Probably just the wind. Or maybe a squirrel. A small animal, or a bird, or the wind. Except I never saw any of them. Or heard them, except for the sounds of things moving through the woods, and that could all just be the wind. It seemed like it was starting to pick up now, and I could feel it on my back.

And every few minutes I’d look behind me.

My mind had gone through a complete shift. I didn’t think anymore about things I did just a few hours ago when I was enjoying my walk. I didn’t think about my friends or family, or the news, or that time this week I accidentally said “you too” to the barista at the coffee shop telling me to enjoy my drink.

The truth is, I wasn’t thinking about anything at all. I was just aware. Aware of everything.

That’s when I got the message.

I was being followed.

If you put a gun to my head I couldn’t give you a single reason, or fact, or shred of evidence for this. At first it felt like a joke. Except within a few moments of thinking about that message, it wasn’t funny at all.

I kept hearing noises from the woods, but that was almost definitely just the wind. I didn’t even really know what the difference between the wind moving grass and something else would make. The wind was at my back and it felt like something was always right there because of it.

Paranoia is a term that seemed to jump out of the ether to me, and it brought me some relief.

I’m just being paranoid, I thought to myself. You’re a little lost and it’s getting a little dark so you’re paranoid. Totally normal reaction. And I felt better. A lot better actually. I kept walking and felt a renewed stride in my pace, and my brain returned to its normal state of being. I thought again about movies and television shows I wanted to watch, or how my favorite hockey team was doing, and about music and my-

Then I heard another rustling in the woods that sounded like it was within six feet of me, and within a split second my brain shut down completely. Thoughts, ideas, all of these things were thrown out the window in the blink of an eye, and suddenly I was alone, lost, and dark in an unfamiliar woods. And I was pretty sure something was following me.

You can’t think yourself out of a wet paper bag, but mindless action is a death sentence. My mind began working in overdrive. I sped up and all of the tiredness I had felt from a long day of hiking went away. It felt like I was walking on a cloud, and to be honest I couldn’t even feel the lower half of my body. Or the top half.

Adrenaline. Must be.

I could only form thoughts in short phrases or single words. Trying to break through the computations with anything more complex than that was impossible. All focus was on my surroundings.

All of a sudden I was moving at a much quicker pace, and taking everything into account as I moved. Every time the wind blew I could hear how it moved all the trees and bushes around me, what the correct level of sound should be made by it given how strong the gust was. My eyes moved around, and with the help of my flashlight, I had an understanding that was far more primitive and sophisticated than I had ever had before.

Then as the trail turned my flashlight lit something large and unnatural and I almost jumped when I saw it.

It was the map board.

For a split second I felt relief wash over me, but then the thought came back.

I am being followed.

I sprinted to my car. Got inside still wearing my backpack. Didn’t bother to buckle the seatbelt, started the engine, shifted into drive immediately and floored it.

About a minute later as I got back onto a paved road I let out a sigh. All of a sudden my normal sensations rushed back to me like taking a dip in a warm bath. I could feel my legs and arms again. I could think again. I put my seatbelt on, got my backpack off, and threw it in the passenger seat. I turned on my radio to the usual sports talk station. I realized how tired I was. I drove home without a hitch.

But every once in a while, I felt the urge to look in my rearview mirror.

Huh.

I'm sixteen years old, and three days ago, my younger brother disappeared from our house. I know that sounds like the kind of thing you'd expect to see on the news, but the weirdest part isn't that he's missing. It's that nobody else seems to remember him. Not my parents, not our neighbors, not even the people who supposedly watched us grow up together. I've spent the last seventy-two hours trying to find someone who can confirm that my brother existed, and every time I think I'm getting somewhere, I find something that makes me question whether I actually know anything about my own life.

My brother's name is Eli. He's fourteen, about five feet six, and has a small scar above his left eyebrow from when he fell off his bike when we were kids. He's the kind of person who leaves empty cereal bowls in his bedroom and borrows your things without asking, then acts offended when you want them back. We argued constantly over stupid things, mostly about the bathroom, the television, and whose turn it was to take out the trash. A couple of weeks ago, he stole twenty dollars from my desk and spent it on snacks at the convenience store down the street. I remember being furious with him. I remember telling him that if he touched my money again, I'd tell Mom. He laughed and called me a snitch before running upstairs.

I remember all of this so clearly that it physically hurts when I try to explain it to someone and watch them look at me like I'm making everything up.

On Monday morning, I woke up around seven because I had school, and the first thing I noticed was how quiet the house was. Normally, Eli would already be awake, playing videos on his phone at a volume that made it impossible to ignore him. Sometimes he'd knock on my bedroom wall just to annoy me, even though I had told him at least a hundred times to stop doing that. That morning, there was nothing. I figured he had overslept, so I went into the hallway and walked toward his room to wake him up.

Except his bedroom wasn't there.

I stood in front of the wall for several seconds before I understood what I was looking at. The door that had been there for as long as I could remember was gone, along with the light switch and the little dent in the wood near the handle where Eli had accidentally slammed his skateboard into it. There was just a plain, freshly painted wall, the same color as the rest of the hallway. I even ran my hands across it, looking for some kind of seam or hidden panel, because my half-asleep brain had decided that was a more reasonable explanation than an entire bedroom disappearing overnight.

I went downstairs and asked my mother where Eli was. She was standing at the kitchen counter, making coffee, and she didn't even turn around when she answered.

"Who's Eli?"

At first, I thought she was messing with me. My mom has a pretty dry sense of humor, and Eli and I had been getting on each other's nerves all weekend, so I assumed he had done something to get himself grounded. I laughed and asked her to stop being annoying because I was going to be late for school. She turned around then, looked at me for a moment, and asked if I had slept well. When I told her I was talking about my brother, she put her coffee down and said, very calmly, that I was an only child.

I remember feeling embarrassed before I felt scared. I thought maybe my parents had planned some elaborate joke, and I was the only person who hadn't gotten the message. I checked the living room, the garage, and the backyard, calling Eli's name as I went. I even checked behind the shower curtain because he had hidden there once when we were younger and scared me so badly that I nearly threw a shampoo bottle at his head. I found nothing, obviously, and when I came back downstairs, my father was sitting at the kitchen table reading the news on his phone.

I asked him where my brother was.

He gave me the same answer.

That was when I started getting angry. I told them both that this wasn't funny anymore and that I needed to know where Eli had gone. My father looked genuinely confused, while my mother kept asking me to sit down and eat something. I refused and grabbed my phone to show them pictures of us together. I knew I had hundreds of them because I was always taking pictures whenever Eli did something embarrassing. There were pictures of us at the beach, at birthday parties, in the back seat of our aunt's car, and in our living room during Christmas. I opened my gallery and searched through years of photos.

Every picture was still there, but Eli wasn't.

In one photo, I was sitting on the couch holding a controller, laughing at something just outside the frame. In another, I was standing beside our Christmas tree with my arm raised as if I were taking a selfie with someone who wasn't visible. There was even a picture from my birthday where I was leaning toward the empty space beside me, smiling so widely that my cheeks looked painful. I remembered that photograph. Eli had been making a ridiculous face behind the cake, and I'd been trying not to laugh while our mother took the picture.

I checked the date and then checked it again. It was the correct day. I searched my messages, my contacts, my social media accounts, and every old conversation I could remember having with him. There was nothing. No contact, no messages, no photographs with his face, and no evidence that anyone named Eli had ever been part of my life.

I didn't go to school that day. Instead, I called the police and told them my fourteen-year-old brother was missing. They arrived a little after lunch, asked me for his full name, birthday, school, and a description, and then spoke privately with my parents. When they came back, one of the officers asked whether I had been experiencing stress or trouble sleeping. I told him I wanted to know why he was asking me that instead of looking for my brother. He exchanged a glance with his partner before explaining that my parents had reported no missing child and that their records listed me as an only child.

I could barely hear him over the sound of my own heartbeat.

Before leaving, the older officer gave me a card and told me to contact a trusted adult if I continued feeling distressed. My mother thanked him at the front door, then watched the police car disappear down the street. When she turned back toward me, she had an expression I couldn't quite understand. She looked tired, but there was something else underneath it, something almost like relief.

That night, I stayed awake until nearly two in the morning. I couldn't stop thinking about the wall where Eli's bedroom should have been. I knew that if I went downstairs and looked at it again, it would still be there, but I couldn't convince myself to stop checking. Eventually, I left my room to get a glass of water, and as I passed the hallway, I heard three soft knocks coming from behind the wall.

I stopped walking.

A few seconds later, I heard them again.

Then a voice whispered my name.

It was Eli.

I recognized his voice immediately, down to the slightly scratchy sound he made when he was tired. I put my glass on the floor because my hands had started shaking so badly that I was afraid I'd drop it. I pressed my ear against the wall and whispered his name, barely expecting an answer.

"Ellie?"

I started crying before I could stop myself. I asked him where he was, whether he was hurt, and why I couldn't find his room. He answered in a whisper, telling me that he was still inside and that I needed to be quiet because Mom might hear us. I asked him what he meant, and he went silent for so long that I thought he'd disappeared again.

Then I heard something scraping against the other side of the wall.

It sounded like fingernails dragging slowly across wood.

"Eli, what's happening?" I whispered.

He took a shaky breath.

"I think Mom's trying to make everyone forget me."

I wanted to ask him what he meant, but I heard a bedroom door open upstairs. The scraping stopped immediately, and Eli's voice became so quiet that I had to press my ear harder against the wall to hear him.

"Don't let her find out you remember."

My mother's footsteps moved across the upstairs hallway. I backed away from the wall and hurried into my bedroom, locking the door behind me. I sat on the floor until morning, listening for footsteps outside, but nothing happened. When I finally went downstairs, my mother was making breakfast as if the previous night had never occurred. I asked her whether she'd heard anything strange, and she smiled at me and told me I looked exhausted.

I decided then that I needed proof that didn't depend on photographs or messages. If Eli had been real, somebody had to remember him. Our neighbors had known us since we were little, and the woman across the street used to babysit us when our parents worked late. I went over to her house that afternoon and asked whether she remembered my brother.

She frowned and said she didn't know what I was talking about.

I described him in detail, including his scar and the bike accident, and she listened patiently before telling me that she'd only ever seen me playing outside alone. She even laughed a little and said I had always been a quiet child who preferred drawing to playing with other kids. I left before she could ask any more questions.

On the way home, I passed the little convenience store where Eli had supposedly spent my twenty dollars. I went inside and asked the cashier whether he remembered a boy who came in almost every afternoon to buy snacks. The cashier said he saw hundreds of kids every week. When I described Eli, he shook his head and told me he couldn't help.

I was beginning to wonder whether I was losing my mind when I remembered the box of childhood belongings in our attic. If there was anywhere my parents might have missed something, it would be there. I waited until they went grocery shopping and climbed upstairs, digging through old clothes, school projects, and toys I hadn't touched in years. Most of it was ordinary stuff, but near the bottom of the box, I found a folded piece of paper covered in crayon drawings.

It showed two children standing in front of a house. One was a girl with messy hair and a yellow shirt. The other was a boy with black hair and a small mark above his left eyebrow.

Underneath them, written in my childhood handwriting, were the words, Me and Eli. Best friends forever.

I sat on the attic floor and stared at it for a long time. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It wasn't a photograph, but it was something. I had drawn him. I had written his name. I hadn't invented every memory of him, had I?

I turned the paper over.

There was another sentence written on the back in pencil, so faint that I almost missed it.

If you forget him, find the little door.

I read it several times before I noticed the date in the bottom corner. It was from eleven years ago, when I would have been five years old.

I didn't remember writing it.

I looked around the attic, trying to work out what the little door could mean. The only door in the room was the one leading back to the stairs, and the old wardrobe in the corner was too small to hide anything larger than a few coats. Still, I walked over to it and opened both doors. The inside smelled like dust and damp wood. I pushed the coats aside, expecting to find nothing, but there was a narrow wooden panel at the back that I was certain hadn't been there before.

It was about the size of a cupboard door, with a small brass handle near the bottom.

I pulled it open.

Beyond it was a dark space that looked much bigger than the wardrobe should have allowed. I couldn't see the walls or the floor, only a narrow strip of darkness stretching away from me. The air coming through the opening was cold enough to make my fingers ache.

Then I heard someone breathing.

"Ellie?"

I knew that voice.

I dropped the drawing.

"Eli?"

"You're late," he whispered.

I grabbed the handle and pulled the door a little wider. I couldn't see his face clearly, but I could make out a small figure sitting somewhere in the darkness. I asked him how long he'd been there, and he told me he didn't know. I asked him why nobody remembered him, and he didn't answer.

Instead, he asked me whether Mom was still outside.

I told him she was at the grocery store.

He began to cry.

"She told me you'd forget me eventually," he said. "She said it would be easier if nobody remembered either of us."

I didn't understand what he meant. I asked him to come out, but he shook his head. He said there was something behind him, something that had been following him through the dark for as long as he could remember. He said it looked like a person when it stood far away, but whenever it got close, its face was wrong.

Then I heard footsteps on the stairs.

My mother had come home.

She appeared in the attic doorway carrying a grocery bag, and when she saw me standing in front of the little door, the bag slipped from her hand. An orange rolled across the floor. Neither of us moved to pick it up.

For several seconds, she just stared at me.

Then she whispered, "You weren't supposed to find that."

I asked her what had happened to Eli. I demanded to know why she kept pretending he had never existed, why our pictures had changed, and why I could hear him inside the wall. My mother began crying, but she didn't look at the little door. She looked directly at me.

"Sweetheart," she said, "you have to understand something."

I waited.

"You were never supposed to come back."

I felt a strange coldness spread through my arms. I looked down at my hands and noticed that I could see the floor through the tips of my fingers. At first, I thought the light was playing tricks on me, but when I raised my hand toward my face, the skin looked thin and transparent, like an image that hadn't loaded properly.

My mother reached for me, screaming my name, but her hand passed straight through my shoulder.

I stumbled backward toward the open door.

Inside the darkness, I could see more clearly now. There were children sitting along the walls, dozens of them, all silent and motionless. Some were very young. Others looked close to my age. A few wore clothes that seemed old-fashioned, and one little boy was holding a stuffed rabbit that looked exactly like the one I'd had when I was five.

At the very back of the room sat a little girl with messy hair and a yellow shirt.

She looked exactly like me.

She was staring at the doorway with the patient expression of someone who had been waiting a very long time.

Then she smiled.

"You're finally home," she said.

I woke up in my bed the following morning.

My mother told me I'd had another nightmare. She said I'd gone into the attic, fallen asleep, and frightened myself with something I'd found in an old box. She seemed so normal that I almost believed her. Almost. But when I climbed upstairs to check, the wardrobe was gone. There was no little wooden door, no drawing, and no box of childhood belongings. The attic looked as though nobody had ever stored anything there.

I went to school anyway, hoping that being around other people might make me feel less alone. My teacher asked why I hadn't been in class for two days, and when I told her I had been looking for my brother, she gave me the same concerned expression the police officer had given me. During lunch, I approached my best friend and asked her whether she remembered Eli. She looked confused and said she'd never heard that name before.

By the time I got home, I was beginning to accept that something was seriously wrong with my memory. Maybe I'd imagined him. Maybe the drawing had been part of some childhood game I'd forgotten about. Maybe there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of it.

Then I looked at the family photographs on the living room wall.

There was a picture of my parents holding me as a baby. Another showed me on my first day of school. A third was from my sixteenth birthday, taken just last month.

I wasn't in any of them.

My parents were smiling at the camera, standing beside empty spaces where I knew I had been. In the birthday photograph, my mother was holding a cake with sixteen candles, and my father had his arm stretched around somebody who wasn't there.

I checked my phone.

My contacts were gone. My messages were gone. My social media accounts didn't exist anymore. When I searched my own name, the only results I could find belonged to other people.

I ran outside and knocked on the neighbors' doors, begging somebody to tell me they knew who I was. Nobody recognized me. One woman threatened to call the police because she thought I was trespassing.

I went back to my house and tried the front door, but it wouldn't open. Through the window, I could see my parents sitting at the kitchen table with a little girl between them. She was wearing a yellow shirt and drawing on a piece of paper.

My mother kissed the top of her head.

My father laughed at something she said.

They looked happy.

They looked like a family.

And the little girl looked exactly like me.

I'm writing this from the sidewalk outside my house. I don't know what I am anymore, and I don't know whether anyone will believe this story. I just needed to tell someone before I disappear completely.

A few minutes ago, I heard three knocks coming from inside the house.

Then I heard Eli's voice.

He was calling my name from somewhere upstairs, telling me he'd finally found a way out.

I wanted to run inside. I wanted to see him, to grab his hand, and to make sure we could never be separated again.

But then I heard another voice.

It sounded like mine when I was little.

It came from the other side of the front door.

And it whispered, very clearly, "Don't let them remember you. That's how it starts."

I don't know which voice is telling the truth.

I don't know whether my brother was ever real.

But I just looked through the window again, and the little girl at the kitchen table has stopped drawing.

She's looking directly at me.

And she's holding up a piece of paper.

On it, in my own handwriting, are four words.

THERE WAS NEVER AN ELI.

I spent over a decade working as a solo backcountry ranger in an isolated district of an unnamed national park. Most people picture park rangers wrestling rogue grizzlies or rappelling down sheer canyon walls to save stranded hikers. In reality, about ninety percent of my career consisted of picking up discarded energy drink cans, explaining to grown adults why feeding Flamin’ Hot Cheetos to raccoons is a terrible idea, and sitting alone at my outpost desk writing terrible novels while waiting for the single bar of emergency Wi-Fi to load a weather forecast.

I was twenty-one when I took the post. I had spent my teens grooming myself for college basketball until a blown rebound in a sophomore scrimmage shattered three lumbar vertebrae and ended my athletic career in a single afternoon. Dropping out with a metal rod in my spine and no backup plan, I took the loneliest job the Department of the Interior had to offer. By the time I turned thirty-two, I had turned isolation into an art form. My district was hundreds of square miles of dense hemlock, bog, and granite ridges. My station was a cedar cabin five miles past the nearest gravel service road, equipped with a wood stove, a VHF radio, and enough quiet to drive an extrovert insane.

The hardest part of the job was usually dealing with the occasional tourist who thought "primitive wilderness" meant "lawless frat house."

Early last June, I got a report about smoke rising near the old logging spur two miles below my cabin. I drove down in the park truck, fully prepared to write a hefty citation for an illegal campfire during high-risk season.

Instead, I found four teenagers huddled around an inflatable pink flamingo.

They had dragged two folding lawn chairs into the dirt, had an acoustic guitar with three missing strings, and were attempting to roast gas-station corn dogs over what they passionately defended as a "fully compliant containment unit" which turned out to be a hollowed-out watermelon lined with aluminum foil.

"Officer Smokey, hear me out," the ringleader said, a skinny kid in a tie-dye bucket hat who introduced himself as Toby. "The watermelon is eighty percent water. Mathematically speaking, it is physically impossible for this fire to escape."

"That’s not how thermodynamics works, Toby," I said, leaning against my truck door and trying desperately not to laugh. "Put it out before I cite you for reckless endangerment of fruit."

They were loud, completely unbothered, and surprisingly polite about packing up their mess. As they piled back into their battered station wagon, one of the girls rolled down her window and called out, "Hey Ranger, who’s your buddy by the tree line? Is he supposed to be making that clicking sound?"

I glanced toward the dense wall of hemlocks twenty yards back. There was nothing there just swaying branches and shadows.

"Probably just a deer," I told her. "Or my spine settling. Get out of here before the sun drops."

They waved, honked a comedic tune on their horn, and drove off down the mountain. That was the last normal encounter I had all summer.

Two days later, dispatch patched a call through to my cabin radio. A pair of experienced backpackers at an established campsite four miles north had packed up at 3:00 AM and hiked out in the dark to reach cell service. They reported that someone had spent three continuous hours pacing the perimeter of their tent, rhythmically striking two stones together and occasionally whispering short, garbled syllables that sounded like a radio broadcast playing at quarter speed.

I hiked up to the site at first light. I spent four hours combing the clearing and the surrounding brush. I found the hikers' abandoned tent stakes, but not a single footprint in the damp loam. No crushed ferns, no broken twigs, no scat, no food wrappers. The ground was untouched.

Over the next two weeks, the calls escalated.

A solo fly fisherman on the river reported hearing someone repeatedly shouting his own brother's name from across the water, but when he crossed the shallows to look, the bank was completely undisturbed. A family at the southern boundary called dispatch claiming a woman was crying for help fifty feet up a sheer cliff face; when the local volunteer rescue team arrived with spotlights and ropes, the cliff was barren stone, with nowhere a human being could possibly stand.

Every single time, I was the one sent out to investigate. And every single time, I found nothing.

By mid-July, the park service closed the northern sector due to early storm warnings, and the tourists cleared out entirely. I was alone in the district. That was when the noises stopped happening to other people and started happening around my cabin.

It began with the radio. At 2:14 AM on a Tuesday, the VHF base station on my desk clicked open. The speaker hissed with white noise, followed by a faint, metallic scrape. Then a voice came through the static.

It was my voice.

"That’s not how thermodynamics works, Toby."

The recording was perfectly clear, but the delivery was wrong. The cadence was flat and mechanical, the pitch stuttering up and down like an audio file being dragged slowly across an editing track. It repeated three times, exactly the same way, before cutting out into dead silence.

My blood ran cold. I grabbed my flashlight and service shotgun, unbolted the heavy door, and stepped onto the porch.

The air was dead still. Fog had rolled in off the bogs, pooling around the cabin's foundation in thick, gray banks. I swept the 1,000-lumen beam across the gravel turnaround, into the woodpile, and deep into the hemlocks.

Nothing. No tracks in the soft gravel, no disturbed dirt, no eye-shine reflecting back from the dark.

The next night, the knocking started.

It wasn't a frantic pounding; it was three slow, deliberate raps on the north-facing outer wall. Thump. Thump. Thump.

I gripped my shotgun and crossed the room. Before I could reach the door, the exact same three raps sounded against the south wall forty feet away on the opposite side of the cabin.

To cover that distance outside, someone would have had to sprint across fifteen yards of loose, noisy river rock in under two seconds. But I hadn't heard a single stone shift.

I threw open the door and illuminated the yard. Empty. The river rock was smooth and undisturbed.

By the fourth night without sleep, I was completely unraveling. Isolation does strange things to the human mind; after weeks of absolute quiet, your brain begins manufacturing patterns out of ambient noise. I tried to convince myself I had developed auditory hallucinations from stress, or that carbon monoxide from my wood stove was leaking into the bedroom. I replaced the detector batteries. Zero parts per million. I checked the perimeter for motion-triggered trail cameras, thinking maybe an elaborate prank was being pulled by locals. I found nothing.

The final night happened three weeks ago.

A driving rainstorm had knocked out my solar repeater, killing what little Wi-Fi I had. Around 3:30 AM, amidst the pounding of rain on the tin roof, I heard a wet, suffocated sound directly beneath the floorboards.

It was rhythmic, breathless weeping, accompanied by a voice frantically whispering the park's standard emergency evacuation codes phrases only I, dispatch, and the official handbook ever used.

I lost my temper. Terror had finally turned into raw, exhausted adrenaline. I grabbed a crowbar, ripped up the hatch to the crawlspace near the pantry, and dropped into the cold dirt beneath the foundation with my flashlight drawn, screaming for whoever was down there to show their hands.

The beam swept across the concrete footings, the bare dry earth, and the support joists. Cobwebs hung intact across every corner, undisturbed by human movement. The dust hadn't been touched in years. There was nobody there.

I stood there in the crawlspace, shivering in the freezing draft, staring at the empty dirt.

Then, from inside the locked cabin directly above my head, I heard a polite, clear throat-clearing.

I scrambled up the ladder, threw myself onto the kitchen linoleum, and raised my weapon.

The cabin was dead silent. The deadbolt was still thrown on the front door. The rain was drumming steadily on the glass.

Sitting in the exact center of my kitchen table, resting squarely on top of my open logbook, was an old, rusted brass key. It was the spare key to my patrol truck the one I had dropped in a deep ravine three miles up the trail nearly six years ago and had never been able to find. It was bone dry.

I didn't pack. I didn't shut down the radio or secure the station. I unlocked the front door, ran to my truck in the pouring rain, and drove down the mountain as fast as the bald tires would carry me, refusing to look into the rearview mirror even once.

I submitted my resignation from a diner forty miles south the next morning. I moved across the country into a crowded, noisy city apartment surrounded by sirens, streetlights, and concrete. I need the noise now. I can’t handle quiet rooms anymore.

The official report chalked my departure up to isolation fatigue and recurring chronic back pain. But I haven’t been able to sleep with the lights off since I left.

For months, I thought something was hunting me. I thought whatever was in those woods was trying to scare me out of my skin. But the more I sit here in the noise of the city, thinking about that key on the table and the voices repeating over the radio, the sicker I feel.

Every report was the same. A voice calling a name. A sound outside a tent. A whisper under the floor. It was never violent. It was just trying, over and over, to get someone anyone to answer.

I'm sorry. If someone was stuck out there in something I couldn't see, or if whatever was in those trees was just trying to figure out how to speak to me, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have treated it like a nuisance. I should have listened closer before I ran.

I wish I were not in this gravel driveway staring at the blue-paneled house, but when our services are requested, it’s up to us, the ones who drive through all hours of the day and night, to close the deal. As I stared at the front door, the deeply stained entry to the house on the wide porch with the wooden swing, I could feel the pain coming on. I reached inside the glove box and retrieved the only thing that could dull it.

Pills, and a flask filled with tequila this time. I had grown burnt out on bourbon and whiskey; it was time to switch it up. I twisted the pill bottle open. Three should do, I thought to myself as I poured the pills into my hand. Who was I to question fate when four of them fell out? A little extra oomph before I put my salesman face on.

I had also found that chewing them up, feeling that nasty, chalky taste spread across my gums and teeth, made them work faster. Or maybe I just told myself that, hoping to psych myself up enough to dull the ache.

Unscrewing the top of the flask, I could smell the tequila as I took a long gulp, washing the crunched-up pills down. “That’s the good stuff right there,” I said to myself.

As I stepped out of the car, I could feel the wind push my hair ever so slightly. They knew I was here, too. I tucked the flask into my suit pocket, walked behind my car, and popped the trunk. A painfully plain briefcase lay inside next to several empty bottles of tequila, which reminded me I needed to actually clean my car. I grabbed the handle, pulled out the case, and slammed the trunk before slowly shuffling toward the small staircase, my feet crunching the gravel lightly with each step.

The dark wooden door with three windows at the top creaked open as a woman in her mid-thirties stepped out. She had deep dark circles under her eyes, distracting from almond-shaped irises with a pretty shade of hazel. “You’re Mr. Relinski, right?”

“That would be me,” I replied. “You requested some of our services. Were you a referral, by chance?”

“No, I found you online.”

Referrals were becoming fewer and fewer these days; instead, somebody would stumble upon our website on some advice forum. Once they went to the link, they filled out a little form with their information, did a brief phone call with one of our reps, and then someone like me was sent out to make the sale.

She continued to stand in the doorway, looking over my drab blue suit and my crumpled tie. Let’s just say I had given up on the whole idea of dressing to impress these days. “Can I come in?” I asked, finally.

She nodded as she left the door cracked and walked back inside. I reached for another drink, prepping myself to close the deal as I followed her in.

Walls of a sky-blue shade were lined with pictures of the woman and a man in all sorts of different locations: beaches, restaurants, even one of them in front of the Eiffel Tower kissing. It was almost too cliché for a cynic like me, but judging by the heaviness in her eyes, those times had long since passed.

“I’m in the living room, Mr. Relinski,” she called out from the doorway at the end of the hallway. I made my way across the light hardwood floor and entered a room to see her sitting on a cream-colored couch in front of a glass table with a mug of hot coffee, steam billowing above the rim.

“So, as you may have read on our website, for any services rendered today, my company and I are not to be held liable,” I said, placing my briefcase on the table. “My company offers many services, such as referrals to lawyers, counseling, and even shell companies to hide your money in case such things should arise.”

She took a long sip of coffee, her fingernails bitten down to the nub against the ceramic, before placing the mug back on the table with a clink. “I am not interested in those services. I am interested in a particular one.”

“I see.”

I popped open the briefcase. It was always the same. I was never called if someone wanted the other services we provided. To be truthful, I wasn’t even sure how those other services worked, because no one ever picked them. They wanted the goddamn mirror.

“So how does it work?” she asked as I pulled out an old bag, the stitches fraying from age and from how long I’d kept it. Too long, I told myself weekly. I pulled out the mirror by its brass handle, which was carved with small words from places I had never been and in languages whose meanings I didn’t actually know.

I looked at the small hand mirror, catching my own reflection, a tired face with red, bloated cheeks from too much drinking and eyes glazed over from too many pain pills.

I handed it over to her, and she grasped the handle. “You just look into it for a moment, think about what you want, but I also want to tell you to think very hard before...”

“What the hell? That hurts!” she screamed at me as the mirror fell onto the glass table. But it didn’t break, crack, or even seem affected by the fall.

It was already too late. The small nails housed inside the handle had pierced her skin. The blood slowly started to work its way across the glass of the mirror, forming a pool in the center of it.

“What is happening?” she asked, a hint of panic now in her voice. Her blood from the nails continued to seep up and collect on the mirror. I pulled out a cigarette, lighting it without permission. She didn’t notice, as her mind was probably spinning, trying to figure out a way to rationalize what was happening.

I took a long drag, waiting for the next part. The mirror went dark, as though it were looking somewhere else that wasn’t the ceiling of the room, and the blood slowly started to drain while her eyes could do nothing more than watch.

“It’s going to want to see you,” I said, sliding the mirror toward her with a small scratch. She looked at me, and I knew what she saw: eyes already dim with a quiet despair, the kind that comes from watching something like this too frequently.

“What do you mean, ‘it,’ Mr. Relinski?” she asked as she grasped the brass handle of the mirror. I made my way to the couch, sitting beside her and grabbing her arm, adjusting it so she was looking right into the mirror.

On the other side was a dark room, dimly lit, almost like a pit. “It will be here any second,” I said as I felt her arms tremble against my hand.

She screamed as she saw its sunken wide eyes with the abyss-black pupils looking back at her, its wrinkly, discolored face splitting into a crooked-toothed grin that would chill the blood of anyone who had never witnessed such a thing.

Before she knew it, it had disappeared. The pit where it stayed slowly faded into something else as she tore her eyes from the mirror and threw it back onto the glass table. Once again, not so much as a crack or scratch on it.

“Tell me what the hell is going on!” she shouted, standing up and crossing her arms, still trying to make sense of what she had just seen.

“You are the one that asked for the service,” I replied. “The rep should have...”

“The person on the phone only said that once it starts I can’t take it back!”

I stubbed out my cigarette on the table and looked at the mirror, at the dim glow where the pit had been, before turning my gaze back to her. “And they would be correct on that,” I muttered.

“Then you should tell me what the hell it is!” she yelled at me, her arms crossed tighter now, her voice more scared than angry.

“I don’t know what it is, but I’ve been carrying that mirror with me for a very long time.”

“Where did you get it?”

“A very long time ago a man came to me offering a job,” I replied. “I was desperate at the time. Actually, everyone was back then. But I was just the unlucky son of a bitch who took him up on the offer.”

“And you just took the damn thing?”

“Yep, I’ve had it since nineteen-thir...” I tried to reply, before a sharp pain hit my ribs, like someone kicking me with a hard worker’s boot over and over again. It was listening. It didn’t like the finer details being spoken in front of clients.

I started to have a coughing fit, blood trickling from my nose. A punishment I had felt before, any time the booze had made my lips too loose for its liking.

Then I heard a man’s voice from the table, and her head snapped toward it. She grabbed the mirror, and I pushed myself up from the couch, gripping my side, and lumbered over to see the man from the pictures staring back at us.

“Debra, is that you?” he screamed.

She shouted into the mirror. “Yes, Stephen, it is me!”

“You can’t communicate with him,” I said. “You can only witness what is about to happen.”

“Then why did he call out my name?”

I started to reach for my flask. The worst part was about to come. “Because the creature looks just like you.”

“You mean it’s going to kill him looking like me?” she cried out.

I nodded, then unscrewed the flask and took a long gulp. “That’s how it works. The hurt lover gets to see all the mess without having to do it themselves.”

She stood frozen holding the mirror, her entire body shaking as she watched the creature get closer to the man. “Debra, what are you doing?” he asked.

The creature wrapped its hands around his face. Hands with a familiar skin tone, the same as the woman standing beside me. They even had the same nails, bitten down to the nub, and an identical wedding band.

“Make it stop! Stop it now,” she wailed. “I don’t want this, I just thought he was cheating on me!”

“I can’t stop it,” I replied, as the thumbs pressed into his eyes, blood erupting from the sockets.

“Debra, please don’t do this. I love you,” he pleaded. But the thing pressing its thumbs through his skull didn’t know the meaning of love. Before too long the man could no longer form words, only painful screams and groans, before finally becoming quiet.

The mirror dropped to the floor, fading to a deep black before revealing the room’s ceiling again. “What happens now?” she asked, her voice flat.

“One day you will look in a mirror, any mirror, and you will see it again,” I replied, picking the mirror up from the floor and walking back to the table to place it in the old frayed bag.

“What will it do?”

“Not a clue, I am never here for it,” I said. “Could just leave a body behind or drag you away.”

She watched as I lumbered slowly over to the briefcase, placing the mirror inside before latching the case closed. “Mr. Relinski, can I ask you one more thing before you go?”

“I can’t help you,” I replied.

My joints started to ache as I straightened up. The thing they don’t tell you about living this long is that yes, I may look like a thirty-eight-year-old on the outside, but my bones and organs feel every bit like someone born in 1894.

“What do I do now?” she sobbed, as I lifted the briefcase.

I didn’t say anything. I only walked away down the same sky-blue hallway, past all the pictures of the couple, and out the door. The sharp daily pains started to rise from my legs as I reached my car, and I pulled the door open and nearly fell inside. I opened the glove box, pulled out the bottle of pain pills, and dumped more in my mouth. I didn’t bother counting this time. I just crunched them up.

How could I answer such a question truthfully? It was the same thing I had been asked hundreds of times since this cursed mirror came into my life, and the answer never changed. You live with it. They all lived with the same aching feeling that I carried with me.

Regret.

When I was a kid, there was nothing I looked forward to more than making short movies with my friends. My friend Mark would do most of the writing and directing, Jeremy would film and edit, I was the prop guy, and Kevin was the best actor, so he’d usually just play the main role. Out of all of my friends, Kevin was probably my closest. Sometimes he’d help me with fixing up props since he restored all sorts of old things to resell and make money in his free time. I was 15 when we made a movie about a police case taking place in the 1910s, can’t recall the name of it though. It was the last movie we’d ever make, and it was my fault. No one knows that, not even my friends; they wouldn’t believe me. But it was my fault. I just need to tell the truth somewhere.

It was always my job to read the script and find what props were needed by myself. For the interrogation scene, I imagined the criminal sitting in an old antique looking chair, and when I couldn’t find anything like it in my house, I went to the thrift store down the street where I got most of my other props. As soon as I bought the chair, I walked it to Mark’s house to drop it off and show him what I got. The chair was composed of thick pieces of dark wood that weren’t too beaten up for how old it seemed to be. There was a leather cushion with a few pieces torn here and there, revealing the cotton stuffing underneath. It had armrests, but the right one appeared to be a replacement, since the wood didn’t have as much detail and was lighter in color. At the time I thought the chair was a good deal. 

Mark told me that he already had a chair for the scene. He walked me to his garage and proudly presented me with a modern-looking kitchen chair. I told him that it wouldn’t make sense to include in our movie since that style of kitchen chair probably wasn’t around in the 1910’s, but he told me it didn’t matter that much and that the kitchen chair fit better. I was pretty mad that I bought the antique chair for nothing, and upset that Mark didn’t care about how real the movie felt. After all, I was the prop guy! I should have been making those decisions! I just stashed the antique chair in the prop room in my basement in hopes that we could use it for another movie.

That night, I woke up to grab a sip of water from downstairs. I was already uncomfortable enough being downstairs by myself in the dark, when I heard a door creaking in the basement. I pressed my ear against the basement door and heard a steady rustling. I darted upstairs and told my dad that someone was in the basement, my heart beating so heavily I could hear it. He quickly got out of bed and carried his gun down there with me following closely behind. 

The first thing I noticed when I got to the bottom of the basement stairs was the chair, facing us, in the middle of the room. The prop room door was wide open. When I told my dad that the chair wasn’t there before, he made sure to check the basement and downstairs thoroughly, and when we found nothing, he said that I probably just didn’t remember leaving the chair there. But when I reminded him of the noise I heard, he paused. Then he said it could’ve just been the pipes. I just agreed and said maybe, but honestly my dad didn’t seem to be fully sure. By now my mom and younger brother were wide awake too, and they seemed mad at me for waking them up.

One day later I was eating breakfast when I noticed that the chair was in the living room facing the TV. I wanted to tell my dad, but I was worried he’d think I just didn’t remember moving it again. By now I was fairly freaked out by the chair and didn’t really want it in my house anymore, even if I was being pranked or misplacing it or something, so I took it back to the thrift store to see if I could get a refund. But when they checked their records, they said that they never had the chair in their store, meaning they couldn’t refund it. I was pretty upset that their system was messed up at the time and convinced someone forgot to document my purchase, but now I’m not so sure that’s the reason behind it not being recognized. 

I complained about it to my mom, but she seemed more focused on doing the dishes than listening to me. She was always doing some sort of work around the house such as cleaning or organizing, almost as if she enjoyed it. She said that it was only $10 I lost, which was barely anything. But my mom just didn’t understand that I wanted it gone because it was creeping me out. Not that I was going to say that outright, though.

That night, I put the chair in the garage, making sure it was still there right before going to bed. I woke up sweating. I don’t know if it was hot or what, but I was sweating. I sat up to cool down, and almost passed out when I saw the chair right at the foot of my bed, facing me. I froze in fear and didn’t want to get up while at the same time wishing desperately that I was somewhere else. It was at this point that I started questioning if I was even being rational. It was just a chair. How stupid to be afraid of a chair! Someone had to be moving it, I thought. I walked down to the basement and put it in the center of the room. I was just going to have to wait for the following night.

The following night came. I waited until everyone was in bed. Then I snuck downstairs into the basement and sat in the chair, right in the center of the room where I put it the previous night. My plan was to wait there until whoever it was, probably my brother, came down to move the chair. I tried to slow my breathing and remind myself that the only threat down there was my mind. Eventually, I drifted off to sleep. 

Feet dragged across the short stiff carpet. Footsteps. I opened my eyes and glanced around the room as if I could see through the dark. It was finally time to find out who was moving the chair.

I waited. Nothing. 

I was sure I heard footsteps! I listened more closely, waiting for whoever it was to step closer. Did they know I was there? I kept my eyes open and paid attention to anything I could hear. 

A vent kicked on. A clock was ticking. The vent turned off. More ticking. 

I was so tired, it was hard to keep my eyes open. But why did I need my eyes open if it was dark? I closed my eyes and listened. 

Tick. Tick. Tick. 

I focused on the sound of the clock, my anchor for staying awake. 

Tick. Tick. Tick. 

I thought I felt the hair on the back of my neck tingle. 

Tick. Tick. Tick. A hissing noise. No, a whisper. A drawn out whisper, in my right ear: “Get out of my chair.”

I opened my eyes and ran forward, tripping on something in the dark. I crawled on the ground, feeling for the stairs. There were the stairs. I ran up, opened the door, ran to my room, and sat there. I sat there until the sun rose. I hadn’t even noticed the vibrant purple bruise on my foot until I finally stood up for the day. 

I never told anyone about this. They’d think I’d lost my mind. All I knew is I had to get rid of the chair. And I have no excuse for what happened next. I didn’t want that chair in my yard. I didn’t have time to wait until garbage day. So I gave it to Kevin, knowing he’d want it to fix it up. I should never have been so selfish as to give it to him, but I really didn’t understand how dangerous the chair was. So it still came as a shock to me when Kevin went missing 3 days later. I regret everything. After all these years, he’s still gone. His family put up signs for him all over town, using the most recent photo they had of him. In the photo, he was smiling at the camera, so oblivious to what he was doing, disassembling the antique chair I had given him.

I will say one thing about the Alaskan Alpiner’s Club—they think of everything, even if it may not be immediately useful. Three days ago I thought that whoever lugged a typewriter up the side of a mountain was an idiot. Now, after three days of losing my mind with boredom I think that person is a fucking genius. 

I was never too big on writing but I have mastered the two finger typing method so this has been a killer way of passing the time, what with each paragraph taking minutes on end to write in full. 

It’s maybe eight..? In the evening, but it’s hard to tell, being so far north where the sun never rises, I think I’m actually closer to Russia than I am to my home town of Anchorage. 

That’s the main reason I don’t exactly know what time it is. The other is that my watch froze to death two days ago.

So did my dog. 

That’s been hard. 

A little bit after losing him, I hiked up a ridge, planning to take off my jacket, midlayer, baselayer and whatever the fuck else and just lay down or find a nice cliff to throw myself off of rather than freeze to death, but just as I hiked up that ridge I saw that it wasn’t the cliff that I thought it would be. Instead, it was the crest of a long slope down the mountain. Halfway down the slope, on a stable, oddly level slab of rock was a small alpinist’s survival cabin, one of the ones built by the aforementioned Alaskan Alpiner’s Club. 

I pulled my map out, worried that I would have ruined it with tears, realized they were frozen to my cheeks and beard, and realized I was very fucking lost. This was the wrong mountain, the wrong trail (as in there wasn’t one, which is why the snow was so fucking deep,) and the wrong cabin. I should not be here. 

Nice little cabin though, kind of reminds me of the Unabomber’s. There’s a main floor with a picnic table type dining area, small kitchenette, a kerosene heater, and a large bay window that faces the crest that I climbed over a few days ago. Under that window is the rickety desk I sit at, a desk that houses the vintage Remington that I type at. Above me there’s a loft that houses my gear—sleeping mat, sleeping bag, jackets, backpack, cooking supplies that I don’t need in this cabin, and more food than I thought I would need for this little camping trip. There’s other odds and ends that I won’t waste the time to type out. 

Shit to build a shelter in the wild, I don’t know, watch a fucking youtube video. 

I definitely have enough food to ride out this storm, I packed enough food for a trip twice as long as this one was supposed to be and I raided the cabinets of the kitchenette as soon as I got here and found a massive store of dried beans and loads of other canned stuff. Donations from other alpinists that stayed here over the years, helping hands from across the years. A really fucking tasty can of peaches keeps me company now. 

It tastes like how I imagined Sploosh tasted in that movie Holes. 

Fuck, that is a good movie. 

The storm started a little while after I got into this cabin and has held strong since and has been a full white-out since it reached its full potency. Which was pretty annoying, I planned on getting my dog from his spot in the snow in the morning, but I’ve been shuttered here since, going crazy with boredom. 

I was going to bring a book with me, one I was thinking of reading but I left it, thinking that I would have no spare time on this trip to read and decided that it wasn’t worth the weight in my bag. 

Boy was I wrong. 

It’s this book called The Terror about a polar expedition. I think there’s a TV show about it too but it might be different, I haven’t watched it but it seems like a cool book to read while in the cold like this. Pun intended. 

Wow, I am running out of things to write about. 

I miss my dog. 

I miss my Jed a lot. 

---

It has been a few hours, ‘morning’ now, or deep in the night, I don’t know but I’m bored and feel well rested so I’m back at this. I don’t even know why I’m at this, maybe in case I die trying to get my dog back. Like I said before I am really running out of things to write about. 

I always thought reading about someone describing their surroundings was boring as fuck but I have nothing better to do and it’ll be good practice for when I write this into a proper book about the tragedy and triumph of me surviving this artic ascent. 

There’s a thermometer outside on the window that reads -40. I always like -40 as a temperature because it’s the same across celsius and fahrenheit. No matter where you are it is FUCKING COLD AS SHIT.

Past that thermometer, there’s the ridge I came down, past that there’s the corpse of a husky that loved the cold and snow. Maybe I’ll leave him and let him rest with what he loves. On the face of the ridge I see a few striations in the rock, darker than the rest of it. Could be a different type of rock, or a coal vein or I don’t know. Looks cool though. Five kind of stalactite shaped patterns in the rock. 

I’m going to bed again. Or I’m just gonna lay in my sleeping bag and play with my dick. I don’t know. 

---

I don’t know what the fuck happened. Its so fucked up i dont know what to do and i odnt know what the fuck is going on so i figured id type it out so i can keep a record.

I heard a thud after falling asleep and thought there was someone else knocking at the door after seeing my hiking pole outside but it came from the rear wall of the cabin, kind of by the typewriter desk and window. I went to look, shining the cabin’s lantern that I found in one of the cabinets and shone it around. 

On that big window I saw a shape out of the corner of my eye, I turned the light towards it and almost puked. 

Attached to the window, frozen to it with blood was the head of my dog. Veins and neck bone dangling out of the stump. His tongue frozen in an odd position, a bite taken out of it. 

The darkness on the slope is gone. I’m not sure anymore that it was a pattern in the rock. I think it looked too much like a hand reaching over the side of the mountain to be anything but. 

I’m going to pack up and get out of here, even though it’s still snowing. Sure, it’s a death sentence in a storm like this but after seeing Jed torn up like that…I think I’m alright with it. I’ll leave this here in the typewriter so it survives if I don’t. If you find it, let people know that I didn’t do that to my dog. 

---

The alpinist's writings were found amongst the wreckage of Cabin 802. They were one of the few surviving things in the cabin, amongst the wreckage of the cabin was a body dressed in full alpining gear. 

The body was too mutilated for identification.  

The group that encountered the incident site states that the area looked like somebody dropped a wrecking ball on the cabin. 

The alpinist’s writings, this incident report, as well as on-site photography from witnesses and our own investigation will be turned over to police, search and rescue, and National Park Services for further investigation. 

Alaskan Alpiner’s Club Incident Report 27/09/26 

link to part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/s/BzqpgBHijM

link to part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/s/nrGuOdRxba

hey guys. I've been driving for about an hour now and still am. Some of you pointed out something which I have replied to but will also sort out now.

old-dragonfruit2219. I think that’s your user. a bit confused on where you are getting hex dug structure bit now on feast from as I don’t see anything that could've pointed you to that. if you could explain I would be grateful.

auraoftiger, I think that the binary could be to the rot, or maybe the obelisk drawing thing? the rot consumes houses, cars and things, and if we are to believe the drawing, we could assume that the obelisk is the big bad of all this, maybe the original light.

candigirl16 I have checked and yes, 1000km isn’t valid. I’m more-less at Shetland isles. so will need a boat soon. I’m around 600 miles away, not 1000km.

alright. Now let’s just go over some things and I can recount.

a new signal on the radio. same voice. this time in what I think is latin.

Prope sunt nolite eos introducere. nolite eos introducere, nolite eos introducere. nolite.

sorry for all this, but things like google arent accessible. I just arrived at the cabin and I’m going to go there now.

alright. Found a Generator. it has some fuel in it. I’ll get it running and hopefully i can light the place up.

right. I’ve just settled in for the night but I can’t sleep. I’m studying the picture and I’ve noticed that there are words in the circles. really small. well, more accurately letters. one on each side. in the three circles. on the left side one, it is l e p a. on the middle circle, it is u o r y. on the right side one, it is i e f l. some code? plea your life? maybe some language? I don’t know, but I guess I don’t know much about anything anymore.

can you believe this started in two days? Me neither. Insane. Anyway, I’ll look around the cabin for a weapon or anything better than a baseball bat, and possibly a map.

found an axe. nice. and a map. I’m in the Shetland isles. the weather is nice. and as long as I keep the generator going, I can live here. try to establish communication. see if there’s anyone else. could. or keep going. we’ll see. I’ll stay here a bit longer until i have decided proper.

alright: I just went to a lake. fishing equipment was nearby. I’m guessing whomever owned the cabin also owned the lake. it’s sizeable. there is a medium-sized boat nearby. good for fishing. some bait. a fishing rod and bucket. I think I’ll go fishing soon.

i just went swimming in the lake. imagined there were people nearby, or here with me. I think I’m going crazy. better than dealing with those things again.

i‘m just listening to the radio in the cabin. There’s a new voice. human, I think. Sounds scared. Still just numbers: 01100100 01101111 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01101000 01101001 01100100 01100101 00101100 00100000 01100010 01110010 01100001 01101110 01100100 01101111 01101110 00101110 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01110011 01100011 01100001 01110010 01100101 01100100 00101110 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100001 01100110 01110010 01100001 01101001 01100100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110101 01110011 00101110 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00101110 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00101110 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00101110 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00101110 00100000 01100100 01101111 00101110

Maybe I’m imagining the voice this time. Maybe it’s still the fucking mechanical one, and I’m just coping. fucking coping.

they're scoping the cabin. bitches. I’m gonna go deal with them tomorrow.

trying to sleep. couldn’t so I decided to write a bit more. HEART radio is still up. that one with Amanda Holden. I think. she isn’t there anymore. just the music. I think it’s dream sweet in C major. don’t know why they’d put that on. i fucking can’t dream sweet.

alright. I’m gonna go and kill those things later today. or see if I can. fuck. maybe we’re all dead? all of us? and those things are what happened then. maybe I’ll see them all again.

see us.

see us.

see us.

see us.

fuck. I’m back. they can’t die. the fuckers can’t even be hurt. what am I meant to fucking do?

just went fishing. sturdy boat. I’m not built for this. Fuck, I’m built for engineering not post-apocalypse. i should be home right now. I should’ve been kissing my wife and having dinner with her. Should’ve been discussing renovations or intimacy or some fucking thing. Not this. Not this.

6f7572206d696e64732061726520696e2073796e632e206f7574207769746820746865207061696e2e206769766520696e20616e6420796f75206d6179206265207361666520616761696e2e20667261676d656e7473206f66207361666574792c206f66206c6966652c20616e64206c6f76652e206a6f696e2075732c20616e6420796f75206d61792062652070757265206173206120646f76652e

alright. I’m gonna hit the hay for now. maybe I can dream sweet. I can’t be bothered to remove whatever that weird text is. I think it’s a code but I’m not gonna fucking translate it.

The best way I can describe this room is bleak.

Featureless concrete walls, a dirty tile floor, and a small circular table.

Fluorescent lighting overhead.

Feels like I’m in the backrooms. What I wouldn’t give to be there right now.

Instead, I’m in the interrogation room at the county jail. Likely about to join the list of people who’ve come in here knowing their lives outside the bars and the barbed wire have come to an end.

I’ve lost most everything over the last few months. No one vouching for me outside now.

But the police said I might be able to get off easier if I write everything down, so here goes.

____________

My mom liked her coffee black.

Nothing else in it. Just add the paper filter, throw in the grinds, pour in the water, and voila.

Hot, black coffee.

My mom was rigid like that. Grew up an army brat. Strict rules and routines. She didn’t join the military herself, but she did inherit the very black-and-white views of her parents.

Nothing was grey with her. It was either you did, or you didn’t. It was right, or it was wrong.

Don’t get me wrong. She was a great mom.

Never missed a single game, school event, or a day without a note tucked into my lunchbox.

Then came the milestones.

I went to college, got a job, and moved in with and got engaged to my high school sweetheart.

In my mom’s eyes, that was all right.

Then I got into sports betting.

____________

It started when I turned a grand into 75 on my buddy’s bachelor trip at a casino in Vegas. Had me convinced I’d found some sort of cheat code to give Krista the dream wedding she’d always wanted.

Instead, it turned our lives into a nightmare.

Betting apps turned into me connecting with this guy Rick, who was a bookie in his spare time.

Things spiraled from there, until I accidentally used my work card to try and drop a parlay on a work trip and was unceremoniously shown the door by my boss, who had been watching the entire time.

Then, I arrived home to find out I had been shown the door by Krista as well,

Two suitcases and a garbage bag of my stuff, placed outside our apartment door.

____________

My parents had differing views on me moving back home to rebuild. My dad was all for it, just as long as I helped out around the house.

My mom…less so.

She accepted it. But by no means was she pleased about it. And she made it abundantly clear.

I don’t know if it was tough love or some weird attempt at trying to motivate me, but it had the complete opposite effect.

I remember going to a Kentucky Derby party, maybe a few months after I moved back home.

They were doing one of those Derby hat draws, where you pay $5 to take the name of a horse out of a hat and whoever’s horse wins gets all the money.

Super low stakes. Could hardly even be considered gambling.

And yet my mom felt the need to pipe up in the middle of a crowded room with probably 30 people in it.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Eddie. You’ve already lost your job and your fiancé. What’s next?”

Total silence. Someone coughed. The sliding back door was open while my neighbor grilled, and it was one of those unseasonably cold and rainy late spring days, so the room was actually a little chilly.

But my face burned with humiliation. And I didn’t want to call her out right then and there.

So I just smiled, and laughed it off, like it had been a little jab and not the worst moment of the year for me.

Which was saying something.

____________

This whole thing got started late one night. I had just gotten home from my job at the time - waiting tables at a local sports bar.

I’d walked in around midnight and been greeted by the smell of freshly brewed coffee, a sign that my mom was up.

You see, my mom had insomnia. It wasn’t uncommon for her to wake up in the middle of the night, make a pot of coffee, and just…stay up, puttering around the house and doing this or that. More than once, I’d woken up to find the house had been deep cleaned overnight.

On this particular night, I entered the house and walked into the kitchen to find her sitting at the table, poring over some papers with a fresh cup next to her.

She’d read a page, then sip. Read a page, then sip.

It went on like clockwork for probably 10 pages before she looked up, gasped, and shrank back.

“Eddie! … you scared me.” She took a deep breath, hand on her chest. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Uhh… maybe 10 minutes? I just got home from work.”

“….oh. You had work tonight?”

…

“…yeah. What’re you looking at there?”

“Oh, nothing. Just some insurance papers. In case I die.”

“Oh - how much?”

The look she gave me told me exactly what she was thinking, and it took considerable effort not to roll my eyes in response.

“That’s something you’ll find out down the road.” she said, with a wink. “This isn’t for you to use on your betting.”

I nodded, clenching my teeth to avoid saying something I’d regret. Something along the lines of telling her to go fuck herself.

Instead, I simply sighed. Feigned sudden exhaustion and said I was going to bed.

But I decided to take the “long” way upstairs, walking right past my mom at the table.

As I passed her, I turned my head just enough to glance at the papers in front of her. She had returned to her reading and was so engrossed she didn’t even notice.

There was a dollar value printed. Three digits, then a comma, followed by three zeroes.

Maybe it was the jab she had made towards me a second before, and everything preceding that. All the guilt trips.

But dammit if I didn’t see that number that I knew was at least six figures, and think to myself.

This would solve all my problems. Instantly.

____________

I waited three weeks before doing it.

Two to make sure this was something I wanted to go through with, then a week to actually plan it out.

Obviously, I’m here now. I’ve confessed. So I’m not going to bore you with the details of it.

A magician never reveals his secrets, you know?

All I’ll say is, it involved something in her coffee. That’s it.

____________

I lay awake for hours, waiting for her to go downstairs.

Then, after she did, I waited even longer, unsure as to whether I would need to go down myself and put on the performance of a lifetime.

The creak of my parents’ door answered my question. I heard the heavy footsteps as my dad walked down the stairs.

And I knew it worked minutes later when I heard the sound of my father’s agonized screaming.

____________

He had gotten up to use the bathroom. Smelled coffee downstairs and decided to see what she was up to.

Found her slumped on the couch in the family room, the cup next to her.  

I never found out what the toxicology reports said. Didn’t matter much to me.

She was dead. No suspicion of foul play. That was enough for me.

But standing there, trying to comfort him as he wept over her, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel something.

____________

I cried about it for the first time the day of the funeral, but not for the reasons you might think.

The funeral, through some cruel stroke of luck, took place on what was supposed to be my wedding day.

My dad and I were standing there, next to the open casket, when she walked in.

There was something about seeing her walking toward me - in a simple black dress and a cardigan instead of a beautiful white gown, with her hair in a half ponytail instead of flowing underneath a veil, and with a somber expression of sympathy on her face instead of a radiant smile - that finally brought forth tears that I didn’t have to force as she took me into her arms.

“Eddie…I’m so sorry.”

Her voice cracked a little at the end, and I could feel a hint of dampness on my shoulder as she shed a tear of her own.

“It’s…it’s okay. It was just really, really sudden.”

She pulled back, wiping her face with her hand before lightly placing a hand on my arm.

The look on her face was so tender, so…kind, that it made me wonder briefly if there was still something there between us.

Or if she was also thinking about what should have been happening that day.

“Have you been…doing okay?”

Whether she meant my mom, my recovery (if you could even call it that), or both, I wasn’t sure. I forced a rather weak nod.

“Yeah…I guess. Kind of just…hanging in there, you know?”

She smiled, and I felt a new wave of regret washing forward. Over us, and how I’d ruined it.

“I’m…going to find a place to sit. Please don’t hesitate to come talk if you need anything…okay?”

“Right.”

She smiled. Walked away.

I realized I felt rather numb.

____________

The service went…fine, as far as funerals tended to go. My dad had to ask multiple people to repeat themselves due to his hearing issues, but that was about it.

Everyone went to a local Italian place after, one of my mom’s favorites. My dad had catered a small buffet.

Krista and I made eye contact, several times. She would smile. I would smile back, and then kick myself on the inside for being unable to just go up and talk to her.

About what, I don’t know. I obviously couldn’t go up and be like “hey, so I actually murdered my mom. Please don’t tell anyone. Okay? Thanks!”

I mostly sat with my dad and kept him company. Could tell he was still as absolutely wrecked as he was the moment he had found her on the couch. I think his eyes had been perpetually red and swollen since that moment a week ago.

I still couldn’t bring myself to feel bad about what I had done to her. But seeing how my actions had affected him?

That shit damn near tore me open.

____________

Krista stayed after for a bit to help clean up. She had always been fit, but she lost her cardigan at some point due to the exertion of folding tables and whatnot, and I could see she had been working out since the breakup.

Her dress, in the absence of the sweater, had revealed itself to be sleeveless, and her arms to be, well… very toned.

I hadn’t let myself go by any means, but she was clearly working on herself in a way that I was not.

It didn’t do me much good in the events that followed.

____________

I was holding a large tray of lasagna, trying to open my trunk, when there was a voice behind me.

“Hey! You Eddie?”

A man was leaning against the hood of a beat-up black sedan across from me. He wore jeans, a wife beater, and boots.

He clearly hadn’t been at either the funeral or the reception. Lord knows how long he had been sitting in that car, waiting for me to come out.

It wasn’t until later that I began to wonder just how he’d known I would be there.

“Yeah. You?”

“Doesn’t matter who I am. You got Rick’s money?”

Fuck.

“Hey, man. Now’s not really a great time. I just buried my mom."

“Sorry to hear that. Doesn’t matter, though. Rick wants his money.”

“I hear you. Just… tell him I’ll get it to him in a few days. I have some cash coming in. Just need to get a-“

Crunch.

Blinding pain coursed through my skull as the thick, meaty fist connected with the side of my face.

My ass hit the ground, and the tray did a somersault then landed facedown on my chest, lasagna flying everywhere.

I squinted up at him through a half-closed, swollen eye as blood poured out of my nose and mouth, the taste of copper assaulting my taste buds.

“What the fuck, man?”

He looked down at me unsympathetically. I couldn’t see his eyes through his tinted sunglasses, but I assumed his expression was rather vacant.

“Rick wants his money. Consider that-"

Click-clack. The sound of heels on pavement.

Shit.

We both looked over as Krista stopped, then almost dropped her bag, clearly in shock at what she was witnessing.

And then we made eye contact.

And it was immediately clear from the hurt evident on her face, and the hot, angry tears that she had to blink back, what she was thinking.

That I was not, in fact, better.

And that I was back to all the old habits that had gotten me in trouble and driven us apart in the first place.

Wife Beater looked at her and waved her off like she was nothing more than a curious puppy.

“Get lost. Scram. You didn’t see anything.”

She looked at him. Looked at me, as the first of probably many tears cracked out and ran down her face.

Turned, and ran before I could say anything myself.

I sensed that that was the last I’d be seeing or hearing of her.

Three months after she’d left, and on the day we should have been exchanging vows before 120 people, we were almost certainly done this time.

For good.

____________

My dad came out a few minutes later to me still sitting on the ground.

I told him I’d tripped over a shoelace I hadn’t been able to see was undone due to the large to-go box.

I knew he knew I was full of shit, but he didn’t say anything.

He took me to the ER, where I was released after about an hour with nothing worse than a bruised tailbone and a nasty shiner.

Oh, and some lost dignity. Not to mention a broken heart.

____________

I was lying in bed late that night.

My dad had gone to bed almost immediately after getting home. I’d showered, then grabbed an old baseball bat out of storage and stashed it in the corner.

Just in case.

I had a baseball game on. Had been enjoying something resembling a mild high due to the painkillers.

I was beginning to drift off, when I heard a noise from downstairs.

The slow, steady drip-drip-drip as fresh coffee began to drip into the pot.

I smiled as sleep began to overtake me.

My mom, making some coffee late at night, as she did many late nights.

Something I had fallen asleep to my entire life.

And then I remembered my mother was dead.

 

“Be kind to one another this All Hallows’ Eve, lest you wanna suffer at the hands of The Hangman!” Daniels said with all the enthusiasm of a circus’ ringmaster. “What does that mean, Ackland?”

“Well, Daniels…” Ackland answered his co-host. “Some 200 years ago, The Hangman was the warden of the town of Badger’s Hollow. If there was ever a criminal in Badger’s Hollow, The Hangman would sniff them out. It didn’t matter it was for theft, murder, or assault; the punishment was always the same. They would be hung from the sycamore up on Hangman’s Hill, just outside of the town. Story goes that The Hangman would put the noose around the criminals’ necks, throw the other end of the rope over the thickest branch of the sycamore tree, and, by sheer muscle force, pull the criminals up and not let go of the rope till the bodies went limp and their skin became purple. Now, on every Halloween, when the veil between worlds grows thin enough, it’s said that The Hangman returns to his hill, watching over the town once again, eager to deliver punishment wherever he can!”

“That’s a curious story, ain’t it? We’ll return to this story, and many others, after this short message from our spons…” Daniels’ voice was cut off as Brandon paused the podcast and closed his laptop.

“It’s just the same fucking story as always.” Brandon said.

“Calm down.” I said. “It’s the 31^st of October; they’re gonna tell a story related to Halloween.”

Brandon sat down on his bed, crossing his arms and looking away from me. He was already crashing from all the sugar he’d consumed that evening.

“Can’t we just go out and trick-or-treat?” He pouted. “It’s not like it’s a crime.”

“C’mon, man.” I answered him. “We can just buy candy; we don’t need to beg for it.”

We were 18 years old. It was embarrassing enough trick-or-treating the year before, AND the year before that. This year, I’d finally managed to convince Brandon to stay home for Halloween. It’d taken a ton of convincing and a mound of candy, soon to be empty; even still, I could tell that it was going to be a rough night regardless.

“Hmph…” He turned his head away. “It’s not the same if you buy it.”

He grabbed the last mars bar from the box and stuffed it into his mouth.

“Dude!” I said. “Couldn’t you have saved me just ONE of those?”

“Christ, Mike… I’m having a tough fucking evening.” He answered. “Can’t you spare a bit of sympathy? Is it so bad that I want a mars bar when I’m down?”

I sighed. Brandon. Brandon. Brandon. It was always about what he wanted to do, and I always had to be the pleaser and follow along to keep the peace. He was the kind of friend who possessed the remarkable ability to make you feel like a side character in your own life; the kind of friend that you’re only around because it feels familiar, not because you particularly like them.

“Hey, let’s go down to the 7-eleven and get something more.” He said. “I’m still craving.”

“Sure… Why not.”

He opened his drawer and pulled out the pair of zombie masks we’d worn the year prior. I put on one of them and Brandon took the other. I didn’t mind. It would make him happier, and it would hide my embarrassment when we walked outside. We got out onto the street and began making our way towards the 7-eleven. There was no shortage of kids out on the street. We passed several vampires, scary clowns, and small devils, and, although he was wearing a mask, I could tell how jealous Brandon was. Then, up ahead of us, there was a bedsheet-ghost coming our way. They were swinging a pillowcase, obviously filled to the brim with candy. As we came closer, Brandon suddenly grabbed me around my wrist.

“Are you ready?” He whispered in my ear when he was within an arm’s length from the bedsheet-ghost.

Before I could even process what he was talking about, he grabbed the rim of the pillowcase, ripped it out of the hands of the bedsheet-ghost so hard that they fell backwards and tumbled onto the asphalt. Then Brandon ran, pulling me along by my wrist.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” I yelled as we ran away.

“Relax,” He yelled back at me. “Live a little!”

Then something happened which neither of us had foreseen.

“HEY, stop right where you are!” A deep voice shouted from behind us.

We came to a halt and turned around. Further down the street a police car was parked, blinking red and blue. One officer was comforting the bedsheet-ghost on the sidewalk, and another officer was slowly approaching us.

Without any further hesitation, Brandon began running again, and I was pulled along with him. Not even five seconds had passed before we could hear the police sirens pursuing us. It was madness. We couldn’t outrun a police car; I knew that much. Then Brandon suddenly took a sharp turn into an alleyway between two houses on the street, slim enough that the police car couldn’t drive through it. The alleyway was lined with fences leading into backyards. The police sirens were nearing the entrance to the alleyway as we ran through it. Brandon sprinted towards one of the short fences, saw no one in the backyard, and then we jumped over it. Once inside, we pressed our backs up against the fence, holding our breath. Soon enough, we heard the steps of the policeman as he ran through the alleyway, continuing past the fence that we had just jumped. Brandon let out a sigh of relief, overjoyed that he was safe. He pulled off his mask and opened the pillowcase to see what he’d gathered.

“Why the fuck did you do that?” I asked him as I pulled off my own mask, soaked in spit and sweat.

“Come on.” He said, pulling out a handful of gummy bears and showing them in his mouth. “It’s called trick-or-treat, right? It was just a trick.”

“Stealing from a kid isn’t much of a trick!”

“Pfft. Whatever, Mike.” He said, filling his mouth with another handful of gummy bears.

Then something dawned on me.

“Brandon, we can’t go home now. The police are probably looking for us. If we just walk back to the house, someone’s probably gonna recognize us.”

“Then I guess we gotta hide.” Brandon eyes shifted away from the candy and up towards Hangman’s Hill. “Somewhere no one’s gonna look.”

“No way.” I said. “Can’t we just give the candy back to that kid and apologize?”

“C’mon, man. We can’t just give it back like that.” He dug into the pillowcase. “Here! There’s something for both of us in here?” He pulled out a mars bar and slid it into one of the pockets of my jacket. “Anyways, you don’t wanna snitch on your best friend, right?” He said with all the complacency of a rotten politician.

“For fuck’s sake.” I answered as a smile formed on Brandon’s face.

We pulled our masks back on, Brandon stuffed the candy into his pockets, and then we began making our way towards Hangman’s Hill, crouching behind bushes, jumping over fences, and running through backyards, managing to stay out of sight of everyone.

We finally made it out of the town and didn’t stop running till we reached the top of the hill. Brandon grabbed onto the branches of the sycamore tree and pulled himself up. I followed along and we climbed up into the tree crown. From there, we could see all of Badger’s Hollow.

“This is perfect!” Brandon exclaimed. “We’ll just sit up here until midnight, and then there won’t be anyone on the streets to recognize us.”

I remained silent, still trying to catch my breath from climbing.

“…You’re welcome by the way!” Brandon said before leaning back and closing his eyes.

I was about to answer, but kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t even worth answering him. I just followed his lead and leaned back on the branches of the tree, closing my eyes.

“Mike, wake up! Something’s wrong!”

I almost fell from the branch with how much Brandon shook me.

“Relax, man.” I answered. “What’s the matter?”

Brandon just pointed down towards the town, and I instantly understood.

A great mist had swallowed up the entirety of Badger’s Hollow; a mist so thick that we couldn’t make out anything within the town: no buildings, streetlamps, people, or any source of light.

“God damn. What time is it?” I asked.

“I don’t fucking know man… My phone won’t turn on.”

I pulled out my own phone and faced the same problem.

“Maybe we should just head back home.” I said.

Brandon nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t feeling confident. I couldn’t blame him; I didn’t feel particularly secure myself. We climbed down and started walking towards the town. With every step we took on the way, I was filled with more and more dread; this only worsened when we arrived at the border of the town. Even though the mist was thick as a pea soup and we couldn’t see further than ten feet in front of us, it was obvious that the town was in a blackout. We walked further into town and regardless of the direction we looked there was no light, not in any of the houses nor any of the streetlamps. Though we had lived in Badger’s Hollow all our life, the town was unrecognizably lifeless on that misty night.

“HELLO?” Brandon yelled at the top of his lungs, careless that we should be keeping a low profile. “Is anybody there?”

The silence of the streets prevailed until, suddenly, there was the sound of thundering steps, slowly approaching us.

“Hey, over here!” Brandon was ecstatic.

The steps kept approaching, but no one exited from the mist. Instead, we began walking towards the source of the sound. Then the steps suddenly halted. We stopped dead in our tracks.

“Hello?” I said cautiously.

Silence fell once again, until the sound of the steps suddenly returned, this time coming from behind us. Still, there was no one coming out of the mist. I was stricken with the feeling that whoever it was, it wasn’t someone coming to help us. I grabbed Brandon by the wrist and began pulling him with me in the opposite direction of the sound.

But the sound followed us. I could feel my heart pounding in my throat. Brandon and I picked up the pace trying to get away, but it didn’t matter; the sound was still tailing us. It was then we started sprinting. Even so, the sound was still right behind us. Even worse, it was getting harder to breathe. It felt as if something was constricting my throat, not letting me take in a full breath of air. I tried to keep the pace, but my legs were burning, and my lungs were screaming for all the air I couldn’t provide them. I was slowing down and Brandon was struggling to pull me along. Suddenly, without any warning, he ripped his arm free from my grip and ran away screaming for help at the top of his lungs. The last thing running through my mind as he disappeared into the mist was the mere thought that Brandon really was a waste of a friend. I fell to my knees and slumped down onto the pavement, wheezing for air. As I lay, I could hear the steps steadily approaching. I looked behind. As I finally saw something take shape inside the mist, I felt the mars bar in my jacket. I dug into my pocket, pulled out the candy bar, and threw it in front of me with all the force I could gather.

“I didn’t want to be a part of this …” The lack of air was getting to my head. “Please… I’m sorry…” The last thing I remember was seeing the silhouette of something big emerging from the mist before I passed out.

“Hey, wake up!”

I could feel something poking my chest. I opened my eyes and sat up. I was sitting on the sidewalk. A policeman was standing over me, holding a baton, looking at me inquiringly.

“So, it’s you who’s stealing candy from little kids, huh?” The policeman said, grabbing my shoulder and pulling me up, looking at me with a satisfied grin. “We’re just gonna ask you a few questions down at the station, understood?”

I just nodded and got into the car. Sitting down, I pulled off my mask and looked out of the window. The streets of Badger’s Hollow were once again alive with kids trick-or-treating. I leaned back in my seat, letting out a great sigh of relief. Down at the police station, I was asked about the incident with the bedsheet-ghost and where my “partner in crime” was. I told it like it was.

“My friend, Brandon, was the one who stole the candy and knocked the kid backwards. He just pulled me along, but he ran away from me at some point. I don’t know where he is!”

There was no point in telling them about my experience. At best, they’d think I was trying to foist a story upon them to get out of trouble, and, quite frankly, I found myself not really caring much about whatever happened to Brandon, wherever he was.

Brandon’s parents were of course very concerned when he never made it home that Halloween. The authorities could never figure out where he’d run off to. For all they knew, he’d vanished into thin air. The only trace anyone ever found was a zombie-mask soaked in his spit, lying beneath the sycamore tree up on Hangman’s Hill.

I thought I was built for distance. That suffering was just a mental block, and pushing myself mile after mile was proof of an unbreakable will. Walking through that forest I didn't feel so unbreakable anymore.

My calves were whipped into bleeding stripes by the thorny vines in the underbrush. My shirt stuck to me with sweat, pus, and blood. As much as I tried, I just couldn't stop scratching that rash.

We didn't exactly mark where that church was, but somehow I knew. 

When I got to it, I couldn't stop myself. I screamed and sobbed. I kicked over fallen tree branches and stomped on flowers. My body was a whirlwind, spinning and spinning until I was out of breath.

At some point, I must have found a rock. When I noticed its jagged edges cutting into my hand, I hurled it as hard as I could at that shitty lopsided cross.

I must have hit it harder than I thought because the cross fell into the dust in front of that open church door. I sat down on a broken stump and put my head in my hands to cry. 

It felt like I could finally let it all out without anyone around. It was a relief so strong I felt it in my skin. The itching was gone. So was that feeling of something scratching at the inside of my skull. For the first time in weeks, nothing hurt.

I sat there until I caught my breath, then a little bit longer. I'll be honest, I was scared to move from where I was sitting. I had come all this way and, just like the first time, I was almost too scared to go in. Almost.

I wiped the sweat and tears from my face and made myself stand. I walked toward that rundown church, squinting into the dark.

I climbed the rotting steps and hurried through the doorway.

It was a church. A real church. Not some shitty rundown church, but a ready-for-Sunday church.

Inside, light filtered in rainbows through unbroken stained glass. The carpets weren't covered in mud and muck. Every pew was shiny and wooden, and occupied.

I saw the glasses first. A pair of broken glasses on the right, three pews from the front. Next to them a deflated football. On the other side a steak knife. Next to it crushed flowers laid over a broken piece of stone.

As I looked forward towards the front, I could see more random junk. There was no pattern to any of it. Playing cards, car keys, an ice pick, a locket. A shovel and an axe sitting where people should have been. 
At the very front, lying on top of the pulpit, were two things that I instantly recognized. The stupid green and orange running shoes Jeff always wore.

And the blue cast from my arm. The one with Sam’s name written across it. 

I remember falling to my knees then. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see what was there. Praying that when I opened them, I would just be in some church in the woods. 

The gnawing inside me was back. I balled my fist and punched the floor. When I looked up, nothing had changed.

They were still there. I could see the mud on Jeff’s shoes from running. I could see all the things on my cast. The dick Arch drew. The hearts Mom put on it. Anthony’s name. Sam’s.

I moved to grab it. I felt like I needed to hold that last piece of my normal life, of me. As I reached for it, I touched Jeff’s shoes.

Suddenly, I was out of breath. My legs were burning. Runner’s high setting in. I was smiling. There was laughter in my chest and coming from in front of me. I was running and pouring on speed, feeling so close to my goal.

Then I was in a clearing. It was warm and there was laughter. I recognized voices. Arch’s, Anthony’s, Sam’s. My own. I tried to laugh but couldn’t.

“If you wanna go so bad, do it. You want to run with us anyway, prove it.” I could hear a cruelty in my voice I didn’t know I had. My heart sank. I walked beneath the dangling cross, wishing I could turn around. Then nothing.

I faded back to myself. Jeff’s green and orange shoes sitting on the ground coming into focus. They must have tumbled out of my hands. I felt sick.

A headache tore through me harder than I could have ever imagined. I tried to hold steady but found myself falling to my knees. I put my hands out to catch myself. All I could think about was Jeff. Before my hands hit his shoes. 

I closed my eyes and found myself in warmth. Arms wrapped around me. Muffled voices saying they loved me. That feeling carried me as my chest swelled with pride and I felt a familiar burn in my legs. I was running faster than before.

Then I was back in pain. The burning itch inside me screaming as water scalded the raw flesh I couldn't stop scratching. 

I was crying with steam rising around me. I tried to get away from the pain. When I finally got relief, people were staring at me, laughing at me. My cheeks burned and I tried to shrink into myself to hide. I tried to speak up, but everyone turned their backs to me.

Anger curled inside me. Warm and comforting. Then there was screaming. Something was breaking in my hands. I looked down to see bones jutting out of skin at unnatural angles. An arm turned the wrong way towards me.

All around I could hear whispers. “Freak.” “Monster.” “Loser.”

I was alone in crushing blackness. The whispers repeating over and over. I felt someone shove me. Hot anger. A hammer in my hand.

Fear choked me until I was back in the church. Jeff's shoes flew from my hands and slammed into the wall across from me. I heard myself screaming before I ever realized I was.

I didn't want to touch Jeff's shoes. I didn't want to touch anything in that church, or even be there at all. I wanted to go back to the life I had before I ever found this damned place.

Tears ran with snot as hitching sobs broke out of me. I put my head down against the ground and stayed there for a while. Bowing before that altar.

I stayed there until the tears stopped and I felt lightheaded. Time moved somewhere far away from me. When I lifted my head, there were only Jeff's shoes sitting in a crumpled heap on the floor.

I kept my focus on them as I sat up. I knew what sat on the pulpit next to me. I could feel it calling out to me. 

I couldn't even look at that blue cast.

When the feelings of nothingness started to fade, they were replaced by anger. It grew in me like a wildfire. That painful rash grew with it as I tore gouges out of my chest and neck from my scratching. 

My foot crashed into the front pew. An assortment of junk flew off of it. I went to kick another and my foot crashed through a vase. Glass and broken flowers flew around. 

Each petal that touched me left scars on my heart. I felt safe in a man's arms. I felt warmth. I felt jealous. Rage. Blood on my hands. I screamed.

I turned and threw a baseball that had fallen on the floor through the stained glass window behind the altar. When it left my hand, so did the feeling of pride. That warm sensation of a father's hand on my shoulder. 

The glass shattered and grounded me. I stood panting and bleeding, staring at the sunray that came in through the hole and landed on that fucking cast. My heart sank as I stepped towards it.

The tears started before I even reached my hands out. As I touched it, I felt safe.

I was at Sam's house. I recognized Sam's house. I didn't recognize the woman who was holding me, but I recognized she was singing Sam's favorite song softly. 

Then my heart slammed in my chest. The sound of breathing next to me. I recognized Arch’s room, the outline of my face. I watched my lips as I lay there breathing. I watched my hand, Sam's hand, reach out towards my sleeping form, only to draw back. I felt like crying.

In the church, my breathing slowed. Itching a vague memory as that warm summer night came back to me as a memory. I remember the pizza. I remember I was wearing borrowed pants because I got jump scared so hard I peed myself. 

I closed my eyes, and that burn I'd known forever was back. I was running. A fear I vaguely recognized was burning up my chest. Sam's voice screamed from my lips, “Austin broke his arm!” 

My memory blurred with what I saw next. I remember Sam signing my cast, laughing about how big he wrote it, about how he shoved Anthony out of the way to be first. Then I felt it, the pen in my hand, the hammering of my chest. A warmth when I finished. Joy.

I put the cast back on the altar then. Finally realizing what was happening to me. This church was showing me pieces of the lives it had destroyed. 

I swallowed hard, wondering how much of Sam's life was mine to learn about. To feel. To try and understand. My fingers touched the cast, and I wasn't in the church.

I was in a dark hallway. There was someone screaming and throwing things. I turned the corner into a kitchen, the light revealing Sam's dad. Pain shot up my leg as I stepped on a broken beer bottle. The noise made Mr. Villa turn.

I put Sam's hands up to protect myself. A Polaroid of the humming woman was in my left hand. Then it wasn't. It was being ripped up by Sam's dad. Then he was hitting me. Sam was crying, and I was too.

I knew Sam was strong. He had always been the one who kept us all together when fights broke out. He bridged the gap whenever any of us refused to talk to each other. To know he did all that while living in that hell. I couldn't imagine it. 

Light faded into my vision and I found myself outside the church. Panting, my hands on my knees, and there they were. Arch and Anthony standing just to my left with their hands on their heads. 

I went to call out to them, to tell them how happy I was that everything went back to normal, to see them again. That's when I broke through the thicket, Jeff right behind me, and my heart dropped. I was back in Sam.

I watched the same scene play out. Arch's joke about Kathy McGuire. I wrestled with Anthony to bring down Arch. Jeff leaving our group to go into the church. Then I was alone with myself, as Sam. I felt that warmth. I told Sam's version of me that I was worried about Jeff. 

“I probably shouldn't have made him go in like that.” I heard the words but hadn't even remembered saying them. “It's whatever though, his fault for trying to be with us.”

I was shocked. I was disappointed in myself. I was sad. Or maybe Sam was? Maybe it was both of us again. 

Then Jeff was back. He was normal. And I felt what we all felt, relief.

I blinked and I was alone with Jeff. We were sitting waiting for the bus. I didn't know Sam and Jeff rode the same bus, but here they were, we were. 

Jeff was telling me about how much better he'd felt. How catching up to us was changing his life. How he'd even started another growth spurt. How he'd been stretching so much his sides are itched from stretch marks.

I felt disgusted. “I” felt disgusted because when Jeff showed us his side, I recognized that rash. My own starting to flare up inside the church, outside these memories. I turned away.

The next feeling that bubbled up in me was fear. It rushed over me like water as I realized what I was seeing. The locker room.

Sam reacted as soon as Jeff pushed Arch. His body was moving. Our hands were on Jeff, pulling him back. I tasted blood as Jeff pushed me away and my teeth bit into my tongue. My heart was so loud as I saw Jeff with the hammer.

I was holding him, begging him to stop. Feeling terrified, relieved, and ashamed. I was sure my thoughts must have been my own again until all I could think was “at least it's not Austin.”

I dropped the cast again before I heard the impact of the hammer. I didn't need a memory to replay what I can hear every time I close my eyes.

My hands shook, and for a moment I could still feel Jeff's body heat against my chest, his body spray in my nose. I couldn't break away from everything Sam experienced, from his feelings. 

I felt ashamed. Maybe it started from Sam's memory, but deep down I knew it was because, while everything was happening, Sam was worried about me. I was only ever worried about me.

I stared down at my hands, wondering when I had started crying again. Wondering how many times Sam had cried. How many times I should have asked him if he was really okay. 

I knew what was next in Sam's memories. I didn't want to, but I needed to see it. Maybe for him, maybe for me. I needed to see the last time I was actually there for him. 

I went back to the cast. Back inside Sam, inside my bedroom, inside my own arms. I was crying. Sam was crying. There was so much warmth there. For just a second, Sam felt so safe with my arms around him, like everything could be okay. 

But then I was the only one crying. Sam's tears stopped, and he hesitated before slowly shaking his head. Bittersweet sadness mingled with the love I had felt. I wondered why Sam felt like he was pulling away from me. I wondered why I didn't notice. I wondered if my hug wasn't enough.

Then I heard it in Sam's voice, and I believed it, like I had the first time I heard it. “I'll see you soon, Austin.”

I set the cast down then. No need to know what happened next. No tears. Nothing. 

I sat on those altar steps, my back leaning against that pulpit, looking out at the pews full of memories. Of lifetimes that no one could possibly know. 

I watched the sun begin to set through the stained glass windows before I stood up. I took my time setting the pews back up. I used my shirt to pick up every item that had fallen. I swept up the broken glass with my hands.

I placed Jeff's shoes on the front row, offering an apology when I set them down.

I placed the cast back on top of the pulpit so the moonlight shone on it like a spotlight. 

Just before I crossed the doorway to the outside, I turned around. I saw nothing but a rundown old church. I walked home.

The burning and itching inside me started fading into the night air.

I inherited my grandfather's house in upstate New York last autumn. It is a beautiful, isolated property surrounded by dense pine forests. Along with the house came all of his old furniture, including a massive, ancient grandfather clock that stood in the corner of the living room. It was made of dark oak, and the pendulum swung with a deep, echoing tick that could be heard throughout the entire house.

My grandfather was a quiet, meticulous man, but he was incredibly superstitious about this clock. In his will, he left me the house under one strict condition: "Keep the clock wound, and never, under any circumstances, open the back panel."

For the first few weeks, I respected his wishes. The ticking was soothing, a rhythmic reminder of his presence. But as the winter nights grew longer and colder, the house felt increasingly silent, save for that clock. One evening, around 2 AM, the clock abruptly stopped ticking. The silence in the room was sudden and heavy, almost suffocating.

I grabbed the winding key, opened the glass door, and wound the mechanism. Nothing happened. The pendulum remained still. I gave it a gentle push, but it swung a few times and stopped again. Frustrated, I remembered the back panel. I knew his rule, but I figured it was just an old mechanic's quirk. I shined my phone flashlight behind the clock.

The back panel was secured by a small brass latch, covered in dust. I hesitated, my grandfather's warning echoing in my mind. But curiosity won. I flicked the latch and pulled the wooden panel open.

Inside, there were no gears. No brass wheels, no springs, no clockwork mechanisms.

There was only a hollow space, lined with rotting black velvet. Resting inside the hollow was a human skull, wrapped in silver wire, with two polished pieces of obsidian placed in the eye sockets. Written in dried, dark ink along the jawbone were symbols I couldn't comprehend.

I stumbled back, dropping my phone. As the light hit the floor, the clock suddenly shivered. The pendulum began to swing on its own. *Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.*

But the sound was different now. It wasn't the metallic click of oak and brass. It sounded like a wet, heavy heartbeat.

Terrified, I slammed the back panel shut, locked the latch, and pushed the clock back against the wall. I barely slept that night. Every tick felt like it was echoing inside my chest, matching the rhythm of my own heart.

The next morning, I decided I was going to get rid of the clock. I called a local antique dealer, but when he arrived and inspected it, he looked confused. "Son," he said, "this clock doesn't have a back panel. It's solid oak. Look."

He shined his light behind it. The back of the clock was a single, seamless sheet of wood. There was no latch, no seam, no panel.

Since that day, the clock has not stopped. But the heartbeat is getting louder. And last night, when the clock struck midnight, I didn't hear the usual chime. I heard a raspy, gasping breath come from inside the wood, whispering my name. I am sitting in my living room right now, staring at the solid wood back of the clock. I can hear the heartbeat. And I think whatever was locked inside that panel is clawing its way out from the inside.

I'm a Disney fanatic; if you were to ask me something, I'd know it. But sometimes you don't know EVERYTHING Disney does..

I've gone to a few places before to research as much as possible on Disney's secrets. But I couldn't find everything; they're too good at hiding it. One specific forum was the Urban Disney forum; it showcased hidden things and places that people didn't know Disney had. I was a big fan of the forum and its community; obviously, it gave me information on things I wanted to know. But recently, there was this one post in particular that was weirdly unsettling; it showed an image of an old Mickey Mural, black-and-white style, in an abandoned mall with the only words being "Find it." There were only a few upvotes on the post itself, and only one comment saying, "I am NOT going to an abandoned mall." But I dared to find it myself, so I commented "I'll try to find it."

I tracked down the location of the mall through coordinate metadata, and I had my gear on just in case there was a frogger. When I got to the mall itself, it was purely abandoned: no people, no lights, just darkness, the falling-apart mall, and the mural.

The inside of the mall had a strong odor, as if someone had died there. I just believed it was the old food. I could hear the broken wires, bugs, the electricity, and the wind. It was very windy; the trees were swaying back and forth at high speeds. It was cold and midnight, so OF COURSE no one would go here and help me if things went wrong. I went deep into the mall, and behind the escalators, there sat the mural I was looking for.

I flashed the beam of the light to look at the mural carefully; it was 1930s rubber hose-style Mickey. It made sense. The mall seemed to have been abandoned for years, but the mural was still in such good shape.

I took a step closer to touch the paint; it was off; it had a weird texture. It was getting a bit eerie. I was about to document what I found with a picture before I heard something: a heavy, wet splat of ink hitting the ground. I walked away from the painting to see what it was.

When I flashed my beam at the splash of ink, it melted into the floor. I was concerned: where did the ink come from, and why was it acting like that? I went back to the mural to check it. But it had moved slightly to the left. I didn't notice it at first, but I would later on.

I didn't think it moved, so I went to look for more of that ink stuff. After minutes of searching, I eventually came back to the mural once more, except it was at the top of the escalators now. And the whole mall smelled of ink; the air got thicker. The wind blew faster; I was extremely worried now. The mural shouldn't have been able to move. This was getting paranormal.

I started sprinting for the exit, but as I turned around, I heard ink dropping to the ground again, then I looked up and saw it, a tall, lanky, 1930s Mickey, reaching up to the ceiling, pulling itself out of the mural with its long arms and gloves grabbing onto the wall behind it. It was dripping ink like it was MADE of ink, ink in places it shouldn't have been. It eventually made its way out of the mural, twisting its head to look at me; it had its 1930s Mickey eyes and face, and as I looked behind the entity, I noticed that the Mickey mural was gone, only replaced by an outline of what should have been. That's when I realized all of the things happening before were because of IT, and IT was the mural. It started walking towards me unnaturally. I turned back around and continued sprinting for the exit. I couldn't document it now; it would've gotten me killed.

As I ran, I noticed that it was getting faster and faster, to the point it caught up with me and grabbed me, its ink dripping onto me and my clothes. Its eyes started falling off its face like ink, revealing black hollow eyes with white pinprick pupils and black holes in the pupils underneath. Its smile started stretching unnaturally wide, stretching its face to the point it shouldn't have been able to. Then suddenly I heard a loud, distorted voice mimicking Mickey Mouse say, "Hope ya enjoyed the show, pal!" I later realized it was the entity. I pulled out my flashlight and slammed it right into the center of the entity's face; it landed, made a hole in its face, but only for a few seconds as the ink pulled itself back together. Those few seconds, though, let me escape its tightening grip and kick the mall doors open. I dragged myself back to my car and drove off; the mall was completely silent, like a reaper waiting for its prey.

It's been three weeks, and I've been traumatized; I still can't get my mind off that incident. I completely deleted all my posts and comments on that Urban Disney Forum, leaving it behind so I can start a new chapter in my life without thinking about that same moment over and over. I even just painted my walls with a fresh coat of paint to stop myself from thinking of it. But something weird has happened: ink suddenly appeared on my walls, spelling out the sentence "You can't paint over the past." in cursive. I think whatever I found at that mall has followed me home. Because now, from the darkness inside my closet, I can hear it. A slow, rhythmic, wet sound echoing in the dark.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

I was raised Catholic. Every Saturday my mom used to drag me to church to confess my sins to our priest, Father Miller. At first, I hated it. As I got older, though, I began to love the feeling of being forgiven.

Growing up, I’d always wanted to be a doctor like my dad, but my grades were never great. After I finished my bachelor’s degree, I went to Haiti with a few other members of my church to volunteer at a hospital. I hoped volunteering would help convince God I was meant to be a doctor.

My last night in Haiti, I knelt next to my bed, and I prayed I’d be accepted into medical school. I didn’t care which one. I’d give anything, I said.

By the end of the year, I had my acceptance letter. I’d never felt happier.

After residency, I took a job at a hospital in Florida. I got married and started a family. I had the life I’d always dreamed of. After I turned fifty, though, everything began to fall apart.

First, both my parents died the same year. At my mom’s funeral in Boston, I talked to Father Miller, who, despite being eighty-one, was still leading the parish. He gave me his email and told me we should talk on Zoom sometime. He’d just learned how to make video calls.   

Later that year, I took him up on his offer. We began talking every Sunday night on Zoom. I asked him if I could confess my sins. It had been decades since I’d gone to confession. He said we weren’t supposed to do confessions online, but he agreed that Zoom was better than nothing. He was the first person I told about my affair with the nurse.

“You’re married, Charles,” he told me. “You made a vow to your wife. A promise.”

“I know.”

“You need to stop seeing this woman. You need to tell your wife what you’ve done, too, and beg for her forgiveness.”

“You’re right, Father. I will.”

That was the first time I’d ever lied to Father Miller.

I kept seeing the nurse. I didn’t tell my wife anything. But she found out about the affair on her own eventually, and she filed for divorce.

I lost everything. My house, my daughter, my life.

That’s when Father Miller suggested I go volunteer at a hospital in Haiti again.

“There’s been a bad outbreak of cholera,” he told me. “They could really use your help right now.”

I took a week to think about it, and I decided to go.

Father Miller gave me the email address of a friend of his in Haiti, Père Toussaint. I emailed him, and he helped arrange a driver to pick me up from the airport and give me a ride to the house I’d be staying at in the mission compound in Cap-Haïtien.

As soon as we reached the city, I saw people sick with cholera lying on the street in front of the pastel yellow and pink houses, still and listless, buckets full of vomit beside them.

Père Toussaint was waiting for me at the compound’s front gate. He wore a white button-down shirt and a clerical collar.

“Thank you so much for coming, Doctor Charles,” he said.

“When Father Miller told me about the cholera outbreak, I wanted to help.”

“I used to be good friends with a Father Miller in Boston.”

I thought it was strange that he’d said “used to be,” but I didn’t ask him about it. A slip of the tongue, I thought.

He brought me to the house where I’d be staying. A twelve-foot-tall concrete wall surrounded the yard. The wall was topped with barbed wire.

Père Toussaint gave me the keys and then wished me good night.

***

I arrived at the hospital bright and early the next morning. One of the nurses, Guerline, introduced herself. She was young. Pretty. She wore her hair in a long braid. She’d worked at the hospital for the last two years, she said.

“Come. I’ll show you where everything is,” she said.

I followed her past the reception desk.

The hallways were filled with people lying on cots. The inpatient rooms were even more crowded, with the cots pressed together so tightly there was barely room to walk between them.

Guerline showed me the supply room at the very back of the hospital. “We keep all of our supplies locked up in these cabinets,” she told me. “I’ll try to get you a copy of the key. For now, though, if you need anything, let me know.”

Then she opened the door to the left of the cabinets and took me into a larger refrigerated room filled with corpses.

“We’re keeping the bodies here for now,” she said. “Just until the morgues have space again.”

A nurse ran into the supply room, shouting my name. “Doctor Charles!”

“What is it?” I asked.

“A mother just brought in her son. He’s very sick.”

I followed the nurse toward the reception desk.

The boy was young. Eight years old. Barely conscious. Badly dehydrated.

“How long has he been like this?” I asked his mother.

“He was very sick last night,” she said. “He had vomiting and diarrhea, but he was moving around fine. This morning, though, he couldn’t get out of bed. I had to drag him here.” 

The boy’s name was Fabrice. I found him an empty cot in one of the inpatient rooms, and then I found a vein in his arm and connected him to a bag of Ringer’s lactate. I monitored him closely for the next hour, watching the bag of fluid. When it began running out, I asked Guerline for more.

“We don’t have any more,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“All that’s left are two cases of oral rehydration solution.”

“Then get me a bottle of the rehydration solution.”

She got me one. I tried to get Fabrice to drink it, but as soon as the liquid hit his stomach, he threw up into the plastic bucket under his cot.

His mother got on her knees, unrolled a cigarette, and sprinkled the tobacco on the floor. She started speaking in Creole, repeating the words, “Papa Legba, Ago-e.”

I asked Guerline what she was doing.

“She’s praying to Papa Legba,” Guerline told me. “A Vodou spirit. The keeper of the door between this world and the next one.”

Fabrice’s mother finished her prayer and then she took her son’s hand. She kissed him on the forehead.

“Is he going to be all right, Doctor?” she asked me.

“He needs to be strong,” I said.

I was exhausted. Guerline was leaving for the night, and she offered to give me a ride home.

I told Fabrice's mother to keep trying to get him to drink, and that I'd check on him first thing in the morning.

When I got back to the hospital the next morning, though, I learned that Fabrice was dead. A bottle of rehydration solution was next to his cot, still almost full.

***

Father Miller’s face appeared on my laptop screen. His gray beard had grown longer. His eyes were tinted red.

“There’s nothing else I could have done,” I said. “If I’d had a few more bags of Ringer's lactate, though, maybe he'd still be alive.”

“You tried your best. That’s all anybody can ask of you.”

“I just don’t understand how God can allow suffering like this. That poor boy. His poor mother, too. She must be devastated.”

Father Miller started to say something, but then the video froze.

“Can you still hear me?” I asked.

The call dropped. I took my headphones off.

I heard a noise. Something scratching at my bedroom window. I went to see what it was.

Fabrice stood outside the window, pressing his face against the glass. His skin looked gray and waxy. His eyes had turned solid white.

I stepped backward, but then my legs gave out, and I fell to the floor.

“I’m very thirsty, Doctor Charles,” Fabrice said. “Can I come inside and have a glass of water?”

He walked to the front of my house. The door handle jiggled. Thankfully, I’d remembered to lock it.

“Please,” Fabrice said. “My mouth is so dry.”

I finally managed to stand. I got my phone and called security. A guard arrived, but by then the yard was empty.

Fabrice had disappeared.

***

At the hospital the next day, I ran into Guerline in the staff room. As we drank our coffee, I told her what had happened.

“Lots of Haitians believe a person’s spirit has two parts,” she said. “The Gwo Bon Anj and the Ti Bon Anj. Sometimes when people die, the Ti Bon Anj stays behind, and it goes looking for the people it remembers.”

Guerline and I didn’t even have time to finish our coffees. A husband brought his wife into the hospital, shouting for help.

The rest of the day was a blur of chaos. Of patients and death and dwindling supplies. The next three days were no different. Then I had Sunday off to rest.

Sunday night, I called Father Miller, and I told him about my first week. The stress, the chaos, the suffering, and the friends I’d made.

“You seem to like Guerline a lot,” he said.

“I really do.”

“Just remember, you’re in Haiti to help people. You’re not there for yourself.”

“I know, but I’m being very professional. I might ask her out for dinner one night, though.”

I heard that same scratching on my window. I looked over my shoulder.

“Is everything all right?” Father Miller asked.

“I think I hear someone outside.”

I took my headphones off and walked into my bedroom. Just like before, Fabrice stood outside the window, staring at me with his white eyes.

I remembered what Guerline had told me about the Ti Bon Anj.

“I can’t help you,” I told Fabrice. “I wish I could, but I can’t. You need to leave.”

He dragged his nails across the window. “I don’t want your help, Charles,” he said. His voice didn’t sound like it had before. It had become harsher. Grittier. “Are you trying to fuck Guerline like you fucked that other nurse?”

“Were you listening to my conversation with Father Miller?”

“I’ve been listening to your confessions for a long time, Charles.”

He walked around to the front of my house and tried opening the door.

“You’re a liar,” he told me. “A cheater. Your poor wife. Your poor daughter. You destroyed your family for what? Because you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants? Then you come here to Haiti to play the role of the savior. To pretend to be a good Christian doctor and redeem yourself.” He laughed. “You’ve fooled a lot of people, but you haven’t fooled me. I know exactly who you are.”

I went to the door and looked through the peephole. Fabrice looked back at me with his egg-white eyes.

“You’re not Fabrice, are you?” I asked. “You’re a devil. A demon.”

He laughed again.

I sat on the couch in my living room. I covered my ears and closed my eyes.

“Just leave me alone,” I said. “Please go away.”

He laughed a while longer, but then he left.

I tried calling Father Miller back, but he didn’t answer.

I closed my blinds, and then I moved my mattress into the hallway, where I slept far away from the windows.

***

On Monday, I found Guerline in the staff room.

“He came back again last night,” I told her. “But this time, he wasn’t Fabrice. He looked like Fabrice, but he was someone else. He knew things about me, too. Things that only me and my priest could know.”

Guerline put her hand on my arm. “Are you okay? I know the last few days must have been hard.”

“I’m fine. I’m not going crazy or anything. I just…”

Before I could finish my sentence, another nurse walked into the staff room and asked for help.

The next few hours, I ran from one patient to the next. It wasn’t until two pm that I finally had a chance to sit down and eat something.

“Père Toussaint is here,” a nurse told me. “If you have time, he’d like to talk to you.”

I found him in the waiting room. He wore the same white button-down shirt.

“I heard you’ve been doing a great job,” he said. “Everyone here says they don’t know what they’re going to do when you go back home to Florida. Are you sure you can’t stay a while longer?”

“I wish I could, but I don’t think my hospital in Florida will let me take any more time off.”

“Florida is nice, isn’t it? I’d love to visit sometime. I haven’t been to the United States since Father Miller’s funeral two years ago.”

“His funeral? What do you mean?”

“He was diagnosed with stomach cancer. The hospital caught it late, and it progressed quickly.”

I felt nauseous. I stopped listening to what Père Toussaint was saying. “I’m sorry. I need to go.”

I stumbled to the bathroom and knelt in front of one of the toilets.

At my mother’s funeral, Father Miller had looked pale, but he hadn’t said anything about cancer. Had he really died shortly afterward? And if he had, who had I been talking to on Zoom this whole time? Who had suggested I volunteer in Haiti?

“Are you in there, Doctor Charles?” Guerline asked.

“I am. Just a minute please.”

“We need your help. There’s a young girl barely breathing.”

You’re fine, I told myself. Father Miller isn’t dead. Père Toussaint is probably just misremembering, confusing Father Miller with another priest he knows. We’ll both laugh about this later.

I left the bathroom and then went with Guerline to the reception desk.

I did what I could for the girl and then checked in on the other patients. I lost track of time. It was nearly nine pm when I noticed that a man in Room 3 had died.

I found Guerline and asked her for help moving the body. We wheeled the cot to the refrigerated room and then lowered it to the ground. Guerline lifted the man’s legs, I took his shoulders, and then we moved him onto the floor and covered his body with a blanket.

The door to the room slammed shut behind us.

“What was that?” I asked.

“There’s a draft,” Guerline said. “It must have blown the door shut.”

As she walked toward the door, one of the corpses near the back wall stood up. The blanket covering him fell to the ground.

“Guerline!” I yelled.

I looked back at her, but she was gone.

The corpse walked toward me.

It was Fabrice.

I stepped backward, nearly tripping over one of the bodies on the floor.

“What do you want from me?” I asked.

“I’ve come for your soul.”

I backed up against the wall and inched my way toward the door. I tried to pull it open, but it was locked.

“Do you remember the promise you made the last time you were in Haiti?” Fabrice asked. “‘I’d give anything,’ you said. And I gave you what you wanted. I made all your dreams come true. Without me, you wouldn’t’ve had a chance.”

The prayer. So he was the one who’d answered it. Not God.

“Is Father Miller dead? It’s you I’ve been talking to?”

“You’re not supposed to do confessions on Zoom. It’s too easy for other things to listen. Didn’t anyone ever warn you?”

A man walked up behind Fabrice. He was tall and thin. He wore a long, dark coat and held a cane.

He reached toward me. “Come with me now, Charles,” he said.

I sank to the floor. “God, please help me. I’m sorry for all my sins. I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever done wrong.”

The man stood over me. He placed his hand on my chest and then dug his fingers into my ribs, snapping them in half.

I screamed in pain. Blood poured from my chest.

He shoved his hand inside me and started feeling my organs. My heart, my lungs, my liver. When he finally took his hand out, he held a glowing spark of light.

He placed the spark in a clay jar. Then he put the jar in his coat pocket, opened the locked door, and left.

I stood and felt my chest. The blood was gone, but the hole was still there, my heart beating inside it.

I left the refrigerated room and walked back toward the reception desk. I heard Guerline shouting my name.

“Where did you go?” she asked. “You just disappeared.”

“I’ve been in the refrigerated room this whole time.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I saw a man with a coat and a cane. He reached into my chest and took out a spark.”

I unbuttoned my shirt and showed her my heart. Her face turned pale. “Kalfou.”

“I don’t feel well.”

The walls spun around me. Guerline helped me walk to the staff room. I sat on one of the chairs, but then suddenly, the staff room disappeared. I was in the dark. A complete, never-ending blackness.

“Where did you go, Guerline?” I yelled.

There was a flash of light, and I was back in the staff room again.

“I need to take you to a priest,” Guerline told me.

“Père Toussaint?”

“Not a Catholic priest.”

She helped me to my feet and brought me to her car outside. We left Cap-Haïtien and drove down the highway.

My eyes flashed with light again. For a moment, I was back in the darkness, but then I heard Guerline shouting my name.

We parked next to a wooden hut and a few wire cages filled with chickens.

The priest ran outside. He wore a red robe and dozens of necklaces.

“He’s a doctor at my hospital,” Guerline said. “I think Kalfou has taken his Ti Bon Anj. Last week, a boy named Fabrice died at the hospital. His mother called to Papa Legba before he died. Since then, the boy has been coming to the doctor's window.”

Light flashed in my eyes again. The next thing I knew, I was inside the hut, sitting on the floor across from the priest.

“Kalfou has been waiting for you for a long time,” he told me. “When the boy’s mother called to Papa Legba, she gave Kalfou a way through to this world. Legba is not the only one who stands at the crossroads.”

Kalfou stood behind the priest, his eyes burning red.

“How do I get my soul back?” I asked the priest.

“You need to make a trade with him.”

“What does he want?”

“You’ll need to ask him yourself.”

The priest stood and left the hut. Kalfou sat where the priest had been sitting.

I made the sign of the cross.

“I know who you are, Satan,” I said. “I never offered you anything. You’re lying to me.”

“I have no reason to lie to you. You asked to make a trade, and I took you up on it. If you want your soul back, you’ll need to give me another soul to replace yours. Do you agree?”

He held out his hand.

I shook it.

When I looked down at my chest, the hole had closed. All that remained were five thick scars. A scar for each place Kalfou's fingers had torn through my ribs.

***

Two weeks later, another mother brought her son into the hospital. Like Fabrice, the boy was gaunt and sunken-eyed, deathly sick with cholera. He looked around the same age as Fabrice, too. Maybe a little older. Unlike Fabrice, though, he recovered quickly. A few days after he was brought into the hospital, he was talking again. Smiling even. But then Kalfou called me, wearing Father Miller’s face. He wanted the boy. That was the trade.

A soul for a soul, he said. 

The next night, right before dawn, when only a few nurses were left making their rounds, I wheeled the boy’s cot into the supply room. He didn’t wake up. I found a heavy blanket and held it over his face. He struggled for a moment, kicking and clawing at my hands, but then he went still.

I called for Guerline.

“I noticed he’d died while I was making my rounds,” I said.

She looked at me strangely, but she’d seen so much death already that she didn’t question it.

We brought the boy into the refrigerated room and moved his body onto the floor.

“You never told me what happened when you were alone in that hut,” Guerline said.

“Kalfou and I made a deal,” I told her. “But if I tell you what it is, it doesn’t count anymore.”

I took a week to think about it, and I decided to go back home to Florida. I lied to everyone at the hospital. I said something had come up at home, and I left a month early. But really, I just needed to get away from there.

Three years passed. The dull ache in my chest finally went away. So did the nightmares of that cold, empty darkness. The guilt stayed with me, though, eating away at me. The guilt and the scars.

At the hospital, every time I see a dead body, I still stop what I'm doing, reach under my shirt, and press my fingers into the scars on my chest. Then I remember everything again.

Kalfou reaching into my chest and pulling out that beautiful spark.  

I know I'm not supposed to confess online. I know anything could be listening to me. But I don't have anyone else to tell, and I need someone to forgive me.

You can forgive anything, can’t you? So long as I’m sorry? Because I am sorry. I’m on my knees swearing to you that I’m very, very sorry for what I’ve done.

It is not strange for cats to go missing in our village. With almost no natural predators, everyone's cats are outdoor cats. They sometimes wander off or get run over, but when the fifth cat disappeared, people started asking more questions and keeping their cats inside. Even I started letting my precious orange cat Gingy out less. She didn't mind much; she already spent most of her time purring on my lap inside.

Some suspected wolves when a deep, unnatural animal growl began echoing through the village at night. People stopped letting their cats out at night, and barely let them out during the day.

I stopped letting out Gingy too. She loved running through our yard at night, chasing fireflies and meowing at other cats. I could see her bright green eyes staring at me each time the sun set, but I knew it was for the best. 

After a while, Gingy got used to staying home at night watching TV with me, but when the growls came, her whole behaviour changed. She'd perk up her ears, run to the door, and meow at it. It would always take at least 10 minutes of pets and a treat to calm her down.

Some time later, after the growls appeared, the first death came. Mr. Harlow was an older man who had a few chicken coops and a nice garden. He always waved when you passed and stopped to talk about your day.

One morning, his neighbour came to visit. Mr. Harlow's fence was broken down, the chicken coops were empty, and his body was full of scratches and bite marks. Not even a feather was left behind. 

People stopped going out alone even during the day. More and more cats disappeared. The growls came more frequently. Gingy now meowed at the door all night, and even treats couldn't quiet her.

Around this time, another attack came. While patrolling his yard, Mr. Harlow's neighbour saw a few of the missing cats on the roof, watching him with their glowing eyes. Then the growl came, closer than ever. All the cats stopped and turned their eyes to him. He stood frozen. Something jumped at him and scratched him. He tried to turn, but a few other animals jumped on him. He fired his gun into the ether. The animals were gone before he got off the ground, and the cats disappeared too.

One night Gingy sat on my lap, purring, when the growl came again. Gingy perked up her ears, shot her eyes to the door, and ran to it.

"Gingy, not again."

The meows. She scratched at the door with her paw.

"Gingy, please!"

She let out the most bloodcurdling meow and got up on her hind legs.

"Jesus."

I got up and went to the kitchen for a treat, even though it probably wouldn't work. I opened the package. She went silent. Then, through the silence, a door creaked. I looked back. Gingy hung from the door handle with her front paws as the door slowly opened.

"Gingy!"

She jumped down and slipped into the night. The treat dropped to the floor. I opened the door and rushed out after her. The outside air was cold. The growls were so loud outside. The streets were empty; only the lamps shone down. Gingy ran in the middle of the street toward the forest. 

"Gingy!" 

She got off the road and ran into the tall spruce trees. I took a deep breath and ran after her. The trees swallowed the light. I couldn't see Gingy, but I could still hear the growls nearby, and I was sure she was heading there. 

The deep growl echoed to my left. I crouched down by a tree and slowly looked there. All the village cats sat around a strange creature; its large silhouette towered over them, its huge glowing eyes stared at them, and it let out another deep growl. The cats turned and began walking toward the village in unison. 

My heart beat against my ribs. So many cats, and the thing was so huge, but my Gingy was among them. I swallowed and let out a silent pst pst, the one she'd always listened to. Gingy stopped and looked my way. I gripped the tree bark and pst pst again. She let out a silent meow and walked toward me. I was scared the other cats would turn, but they kept heading toward the village, their leader at the back.

"Gingy, come."

I reached for her soft, ginger fur. Her eyes looked into mine, but no recognition passed through them; they looked empty.

"Gingy?"

She let out a loud hiss and jumped at my hand. Sharp pain shot through it. She scratched and bit it aggressively.

"Gingy, stop!"

But she kept biting. I hated it, but I had to punch her to make her let go. Warm blood trickled down my hand. Gingy ran back to the cats, and they all stopped and looked my way. Panic ran through me, but the large thing let out another growl, and they turned back toward the village. I turned and bolted through the empty forest. The twigs hit my face. My feet slipped in the dewed grass. I kept expecting the big cat to jump on my back at any moment, but before I knew it, I was out in the village next to ours.

They bandaged my hand and called the police. When the policeman arrived, the whole village was quiet. The doors hung open. Everyone from my village lay in their houses in a pool of blood, with scratch and bite marks all over their bodies. The police found nothing but a few whiskers and soft, orange fur on the floor.

They let me go the next afternoon once the houses were clear. I was barely able to function. Out of habit, I reached for Gingy's bowl. Then I saw my bandaged hand.

I suppose the end of my world began as many grandiose events do, with a seemingly innocuous, insignificant decision. A butterfly, whose wings flapped at just the right time in the right place to bring about the beginnings of a hurricane. That was how the end of my world began. With a simple yes.

Lightkeeper needed, 45,000-dollar sign on bonus, one month tenure, live in position.

That was just about the sum of the ad I saw, and the position seemed like a perfect way to cobble my life back together.

In my twenties, I worked as a park ranger and fire lookout. In that time, I quenched my thirst for adventure, experienced the majesty of the outdoors, and saw and heard a few strange and unexplainable things.

But this was not the most fulfilling course for my life. My degree was in marine biology, and frankly, it felt wasted in the park services. Once more, when I came home after my last stint as a fire lookout, I found that my house was no longer mine and neither was my fiancé.

To say I felt lost would be an understatement. My life had crumbled apart before me, and I was left to try and assemble pieces that would no longer fit.

That was when I saw the advert, and I had felt a renewed feeling of adventure, of mystery. It was sketchy to be sure, but what was an adventure without a little danger.

The interview was the first sign that I would be making a most terrible mistake. In terms of the content of the interview, it was pretty mundane and run of the mill. We made nice and he explained my role in the position. But when I looked at him, all I could see in his eyes were crazy. Wide, unblinking eyes shot me up and down as he methodically laid out every detail and fine point of the time I would spend on the lighthouse known as Crescent Rock.

He told me that my role as lightkeeper ought to be relatively easy. My main responsibility was to make sure to keep the automated systems in the lighthouse running. If anything was to go awry, it'd fall to me to "unfuck" the situation, although he assured me that there would be maintenance manuals on sight. Apart from that, I would also be responsible for keeping the overall island in good condition, going outside to record or note any erosions of the rocky shore, and to generally note down any oddities or points of concern I may come across in a logbook situated within the lightkeepers house.

Still, I figured he was the same as me. Just a guy who fell on hard times trying to get back on his feet. I didn't want to mess this up for me or him.

Boy, how wrong I was.

I got a call the very next day saying I had gotten the position, my second red flag. I would take off for the lighthouse from a sleepy New England township up in Maine.

At the time, I was staying with my parents in New Hampshire, so the trip out to the sleepy hollow wasn't very far.

In no more than three hours, I found myself in this sleepy hollow that felt as though it was taken straight from the mind of Lovecraft. small farms on rolling hills gave way to a quaint seaside town adorned with a modestly robust main street along the pier, with maze-like streets, alleys, and avenues jutting and crossing from this main thoroughfare. 

I sat on the pier, staring out into the foggy haze that served to guard us landlubbers from what lay beyond the shore. But as I stared, it was as though something took shape within the cold fog. Something large, imposing a terrifying yet awe inspiring visage. But when the shape broke through, I sighed in relief as it turned out to be just a boat. And not just any boat, but the Apostle. The boat that would take me to my new home, my new adventure, and the end of my world.

The ship rocked onto the pier and docked, with the captain waving me over. I grabbed my luggage and ran to the boat, tossing my bags onto the small wooden boat and hauling myself aboard.

The boat churned on choppy waters as we sailed to the island, and as we made our way, I looked up out of the fog out towards the lighthouse. It looked like an anglerfish in the deep. Its bright light beckoned me further, but its looming figure, the jagged rocks that encircled the island made clear I was not welcome. Its bright light paled in wake of its ominous, almost malicious figure as it stood in solitary within the fog.

A chill down ran down my spine as we docked, and I set about to acclimate and familiarize myself with the island. I spent the day reading the maintenance manual, scouting the cliffs, and unpacking my things.

I would spend the next week cementing myself in the idle routines of my job, from the well-being of this ancient, dusty lighthouse to the catalog of odd, coal black seabirds' I'd never seen. Birds who spent their time simply staring at me with wide, knowing eyes.

It was around the end of my first week that they came. One day as I stared out to the unending foggy blue, I felt as though someone was looking at me. That's when I looked to my left. Maybe 80 yards away, stood a hooded figure. I could not see their face, but I knew they were staring me down with a hatred and vitriol that brought tears to my eyes.

From then on, I would constantly see them standing as the lighthouse stood. In solitude, exuding malice from them. They would be tall as oaks or as small as any man. They terrified me, but more than that, they drove me mad.

I could not know if they were real, I did not know if the danger on this island rested outside these old walls or within my fragile mind. So I turned to the logbook. Admittedly, I never looked at the logbook. There was nothing for miles, so I surely thought there was no use for such a thing. But I truly regret not looking when I had the chance.

Hundreds of pages filled with the ramblings of madmen, of the damned. The birds, the hooded figures, whispers, sounds, so many things filled the confines of the pages. My stomach turned and my bile ran acrid. And that night I dreamt it. As did all the others.

The altar.

Under this accursed island I knew there lay an altar. I dreamt it, and the vile things done upon it. And then I awoke to find them standing in a ring, the hooded figures stood in a circle around my lighthouse, my sanctuary. Whether by madness or courage, I grabbed a rusty axe and ran out of the lighthouse and into the cold and ever foggy island.

But there was no one.

No figures. No waves. No sounds. Just fog and obfuscation. The understanding that nothing was ever as it seemed.

Then my body began to move of its own accord.

I marched, axe in tow, towards an end I had no desire to meet. Tears welled in my eyes. I began to hyperventilate as I climbed down steps I knew did not belong. I reached the bottom of stairs leading to a path I knew was never there in my time on the island. A path that led to a cave.

Within the confines of this cave stood the terrible altar, bordered by seawater. The smell of rotten fish and iron filled my nostrils as this invisible force put me upon this altar. Against my will I raised the axe to my neck, and with tears now streaming uncontrollably, my hands made a cut into my neck. Just enough to draw blood.

My blood flowed through grooves within the altar, spilling into the seawater below. It was if that blood was grabbed, taken by some thing as it glided into the deep rather than dance statically in the water.

Then the call came. A hellish whale call vibrating my very soul, shaking the very island, the very fabric of my known reality. It was only then that I came back to my senses, and I ran right back to the lighthouse, only stopping to vomit on my way back.

It's been more than a month now. My relief boat hasn't come and I doubt they will, the hooded figures encroach more and more upon my shelter, and every night that horrid whale call rends my very being apart, shaking the walls and earth in that terrible song. It's as if the very souls I know now trapped within this lighthouse are calling to me. Begging me to join them in their hellish choir.

I will die here, I know this, but as I see the wicked figures romp within the fog, I feel it is my duty to warn the world.

No one should step foot on Crescent Rock. Not if they don't have a death wish.

I never believed in the old Icelandic stories my grandmother told me. To me, Grýla was just a regional boogeyman—a giantess used by parents to scare kids into eating their vegetables and finishing their chores.

I was twenty-four, a pragmatic American grad student spending the winter in a remote cabin in the Westfjords to finish my thesis. I didn’t have time for fairy tales.

I should have listened.

It was December 23rd—Þorláksmessa. A brutal blizzard had knocked out the power three hours prior, plunging the cabin into pitch blackness save for the dying orange glow of the fireplace. The wind outside didn't just blow; it screamed, violently rattling the thick glass panes.

That was when I heard the sound that made my chest tighten.

It wasn't the wind. It was a rhythmic, heavy scrape-thud, scrape-thud echoing from the roof directly above my head. It sounded like something incredibly heavy dragging a blunt tool—or a massive, overgrown claw—across the corrugated tin.

I froze in my armchair, my breath catching in my throat. An animal, I reasoned, desperately trying to quiet the instinctual panic flooding my veins. Just a stray sheep or a disoriented reindeer.

Then, the smell hit me.

It drifted down through the chimney and the floor vents. It was a suffocating, sickening stench of wet dog, sulfur, and rotting, unwashed meat. It was the smell of a predator’s den.

A massive, wet sniff rattled the window frames.

Whatever was on the roof had migrated to the side of the cabin. I slid out of my chair and dropped to my hands and knees, ignoring the freezing chill of the hardwood floor. I crawled toward the kitchen counter, desperate to get out of the line of sight of the large living room windows.

“Ekki hljóð,” a voice rasped from just outside the kitchen wall.

The sound didn't feel like it came from a throat. It sounded like two massive tectonic plates grinding together, muffled by ice and dirt. My blood turned to ice. Translated from Icelandic, it meant “Not a sound.”

I pressed my back against the kitchen cabinets, pulling my knees to my chest. In the dark, my eyes darted around the room. They landed on the sink. A tower of unwashed dishes from the past four days stared back at me. My laptop lay open on the dining table, surrounded by empty coffee mugs and crumpled food wrappers. I hadn't cleaned. I hadn't been productive. I had succumbed to a deep, lazy winter lethargy.

“Lazy,” a wet, bubbling voice whispered. It didn't come from the window this time. It came from the wood stove.

Suddenly, a heavy, deafening thud shook the entire cabin. The roof groaned, the support beams crying out under an immense, sudden weight. Dust and old insulation rained down on my head. Whatever it was, it was directly on top of the kitchen skylight now.

Before I could even process the movement, a low, bass-heavy purr vibrated through the floorboards. It was so deep it rattled my teeth.

A massive shadow blocked out what little moonlight filtered through the frosted skylight. Two glowing yellow eyes—each easily the size of a dinner plate—peered down into the kitchen. Its pupils dilated as they locked onto me. It was a cat, but its face was distorted, its mouth lined with rows of needle-thin, translucent teeth. The Yule Cat.

I looked down at my clothes, my heart hammering like a trapped bird. Brand new wool socks. A sturdy flannel shirt I’d just bought in Reykjavik. The old superstition flashed through my mind: The Yule Cat eats anyone who hasn't received new clothes before Christmas Eve. It sniffed the glass, leaving a thick smear of gray slime, but its eyes drifted away from me. I wasn’t its target.

I was it's master's.

A gnarled, massive hand—with skin resembling rotting black pine bark and fingernails like rusted shovels—shattered the skylight.

Shards of glass exploded into the kitchen, slicing across my face and arms. I clamped my hand over my mouth to stifle a scream. The giant hand reached down, groping blindly in the dark. Its fingers, thick as tree branches, brushed against the dining table, effortlessly snapping the wood in half and crushing my laptop into plastic shards.

From the hole in the roof, a face leaned into the cabin.

She was a towering monstrosity. Her skin was a bruised, mottled gray, hanging in loose, filthy folds around a hooked, broken nose that dripped with frozen slime. Her hair was a tangled, matted nest of frozen moss and dried blood. But it was her eyes that paralyzed me. They were milk-white, entirely devoid of pupils, rolling erratically in their sockets until they snapped forward, pointing straight down at the corner where I cowered.

She smelled me.

Her jaw unhinged with a sickening crack, opening impossibly wide to reveal rows of jagged, yellowed teeth coated in a thick, black sludge.

“Krakkar,” she croaked, her voice vibrating the air in my lungs. Children.

She knew I wasn’t a child, but to a creature that had hunted these mountains for a thousand years, it didn't matter. I was weak. I was idle. I was prey.

She began to force her massive, distorted torso through the shattered skylight. The heavy wooden ceiling beams began to splinter and snap like toothpicks under her weight. A massive, burlap sack, stained with old, dark patches, spilled through the opening, smelling heavily of copper and decay.

Instinct overrode terror. I scrambled to my feet, grabbed the iron fire poker from the hearth, and sprinted for the back door.

I threw it open and burst out into the blinding, sub-zero blizzard. I didn't have a jacket. I didn't have boots. The wind immediately stole the breath from my lungs, and the snow swallowed my legs up to my thighs.

Behind me, a horrific, unnatural shriek tore through the storm. It was a sound of pure, ravenous frustration. I heard the entire back wall of the cabin explode outward as she burst through the frame to pursue me.

I ran blindly toward the distant, faint lights of Route 61, my bare skin freezing in seconds. Every time I took a step, I could hear the rhythmic, heavy thuds in the snow behind me, closing the gap. I knew if I looked back, I would lose my footing, and she would shove me into that foul-smelling sack.

I somehow survived. The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital. A snowplow driver found me collapsed on the shoulder of the highway, suffering from severe frostbite and hypothermia. The local authorities assumed a freak avalanche had crushed the cabin.

I'm writing this from a hospital bed in Reykjavik. The doctors say I might lose two toes on my left foot. But that's not why I can't sleep.

An hour ago, the nurse left the room, leaving the window slightly cracked to let some fresh air in. As I lay here in the dark, I heard a wet, heavy sniff from the third-floor ledge outside.

And then, a low, rumbling purr.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/s/oRK6tBImyG

I had already ended the call when Marisol's question came back to me. What did he say? I'd given her the part I could stand to repeat, that Sam had asked about her and the girls. There was a second part, and I'd left it underneath the building with him. I was still holding the phone against my ear when a paramedic put a paper cup of water in my free hand. He waited while I drank, probably because my fingers were shaking enough to spill it, then asked how long it had been since I'd eaten. I said I wasn't hungry. He pointed at a chair without arguing, and for a few minutes I sat in the open back of an ambulance while people in helmets carried equipment past me toward the plant.

The sun was coming up behind Coldwater's loading sheds. A county truck was parked beside the fence, and two more rescue trailers had arrived. None of them knew where Sam was. The last image we had showed attendants pushing his bed toward the lower transfer corridor, his feet moving beneath the sheet as he tried to sit up. At least they'd left his legs alone. I'd repeated that fact so often it had begun to sound like an accomplishment.

Detective Vale found me in the ambulance and handed me a packet of crackers. 'Eat those before you talk to Captain Reese,' she said. There was blood on one cuff of her jacket she hadn't noticed. State police had arrived, federal investigators had been notified, and more specialists were coming. She said none of that changed the weakened floors or the people still trapped beneath them. I broke a cracker in half and couldn't make myself swallow it.

"Did you tell his wife what he said?" she asked. I'd forgotten Vale was standing beside me when Sam spoke through the hatch. She watched me break a cracker in half, then reached into her pocket for a tissue and wiped the dried blood from her cuff. "Cal, you don't have to answer me. I'm asking because she may need to hear it from you before she hears a recording."

I dialed Marisol again. She answered on the third ring, and I could hear the television before she turned it down. I told her there was something I'd left out of our conversation. She didn't say anything for a moment, and then she asked whether Sam had been hurt worse than I'd told her. I said I didn't know that. I told her we'd been close enough for him to hear my voice, that he'd tried to get to us, and that when the way out collapsed he'd said, "Cal, tell Mari I tried."

"Tried what?" she asked. The question caught me completely unprepared. I began telling her about the opening in the wall and the officers who'd reached through, but she interrupted. "I don't mean the rescue. Was he trying to get home? Did he do something he thought we'd blame him for?" I could hear one of the girls asking for a clean spoon in the kitchen, and Marisol held her hand over the phone while she answered. When she came back, she told me Sam had once said the worst thing about getting old would be having to ask someone else to help him into his own house. It was a joke he'd made when he injured his back a few years ago. She'd been angry at him then for making light of an injury. Now she wanted to know whether he could still walk.

"He could move his legs," I said. "They hadn't done the operation." I started to apologize for hiding Sam's words, but Marisol stopped me. "Next time he tells you something for me, Cal, give it to me. Even if you think I won't want to hear it." Lily was speaking in the next room. "And when you find him, tell him he doesn't have to try anymore. Just come home."

Reese was waiting with a structural engineer named Park. We walked through the west loading shed while she tested a cracked wall with a mallet. The old conveyor ran beneath it toward the room where Sam had vanished. Reese wanted to block that passage without bringing the slab down on anyone. Park wouldn't approve an entry until she'd checked the supports, and this time I kept my mouth shut. I'd been awake long enough to confuse impatience with good judgment.

An officer called us back. A woman had appeared behind the thick window of the old livestock receiving office, beyond a passage the teams had searched twice. I thought he meant a human captive until he said she'd reached the glass without using either door. She'd asked for the man who spoke to her boy. Reese looked at me, and I knew who was waiting. I'd listened to Seventeen call for Mother for days, but hadn't thought much about what it would mean to hear her asking for someone too.

The receiving office was fortified now, with two armed officers at the door and a fire shutter between the office and the corridor. Reese marked a line on the floor I was not to cross. He also told me not to promise her Seventeen would be returned. I agreed because from inside the room I could hear a low voice asking where her boy had gone.

The window was almost eight feet high. She was crouched on the other side, one arm laid against the wall for balance, her shoulder rising above the top of the glass when she shifted. I'd seen photographs and distorted camera images, but none of them had prepared me for the way she moved. Her joints didn't seem to occupy the places mine told me they should, and her weight came forward before the rest of her body followed. There was a loose fold of grayish skin along the side of her throat, marked by a narrow scar. A few short hairs had been brushed flat against the crown of her head. She'd made an effort to tidy herself. I noticed that before I could see her whole face, and for reasons I still can't explain it made approaching the glass harder.

She turned when Reese opened the office door. Her eyes moved over his uniform and the officers behind him, then settled on me. I recognized her voice before she spoke more than a word. It was the voice that had come through Sam's phone after he disappeared, slow and gentle, telling him he was a good boy. Her mouth worked differently from ours, and some syllables seemed to require her to reposition her jaw. But she had no trouble recognizing me. She lifted one hand toward the glass, stopping just short of it, and waited.

"You," she said. "You sat with my boy."

She could have heard my voice on recordings or through the building's speakers. I didn't know. I told her Seventeen was alive and receiving care. The smallest of her six fingers curled inward as she listened. She waited until I finished before asking about his food.

"He eats?" she asked. I told her the hospital was feeding him and that a doctor was looking after his legs. She moved closer, and Reese shifted his stance beside me. "He won't eat when he's frightened. Put the bowl where he can see it. Don't put your hand behind his head." She demonstrated by resting her own hand against the side of her face, then became agitated when I didn't answer quickly enough. "He bites when you reach behind. Not hard. He doesn't mean it. Tell the doctor."

She asked whether his bed had a rail, whether the lights stayed on, and whether anyone knew to put a cloth beneath his cheek when he was frightened. They were questions no photograph could have taught her, and I answered as carefully as I could. An officer behind me shifted his rifle when she pressed her face closer to the glass.

"Does he still play the game?" she asked. She put the tip of her longest finger against her temple, tapped twice, and moved it to the bridge of her nose. "He used to hide his face. I would find him here." She touched the glass beside her nose with an awkward tenderness. "He'd laugh until he couldn't breathe properly. He'd ask again before I finished. Even when he was big. Sometimes he would only do it for me."

I remembered Seventeen pushing his forehead into my palm at the hospital. Mother demonstrated the last movement of the game, reaching toward where a child's face would be and slowly opening her fingers. I pictured him small enough to sit in the crook of that arm and realized why her touch still comforted him.

"He asks for you," I said. Mother made a sharp sound and drew both hands to her chest. Her eyelids closed for a second, and the skin along her throat moved as she swallowed. I had just enough time to feel that I'd given her something she badly needed before she opened her eyes again. "Bring him back," she said. It was spoken with the assurance of a person arranging the return of something she had loaned. Reese told her Seventeen was under medical protection and would not be brought into Coldwater. She turned away from him as though the conversation had ended.

"Then I can give you the new one," she told me. "The large one who calls for his old people. He didn't settle. I tried." She sounded embarrassed by her failure and moved her hand along the glass in a gesture that might have been an apology. "You bring mine, and you can have him. He'll be glad. He cried for the little girls. I know he doesn't belong in my room."

My voice came out louder than I'd intended. "You know he has children. You know they need him." She nodded patiently. I asked how she could have strapped him to a bed when she knew he wanted to go home. She glanced toward Reese, then back at me, trying to follow the reason for my anger. "He was frightened," she said. "He kept getting up. I told them not to hurt him more than they had to." Her expression didn't change when I asked whether she knew what happened after he was sent to general stock. She said she hadn't asked. He was no longer in her household.

Reese moved me away from the window. I wanted to argue, but I was struggling to keep my hands still, and he didn't need me shouting at a creature he was trying to understand. Before I reached the door, Mother spoke again. "You haven't told me his name," she said. When I looked back, her hand was raised toward me. "My boy. The people who took him. What do they call him?"

I told her we'd been calling him Seventeen because of the number on his band. Her eyes narrowed, and for the first time she looked angry. "That's where he lives," she said. "It isn't what I call him." She made a sound I couldn't reproduce, three syllables with a low trill at the end. When I tried to repeat it, she corrected me gently, as a parent might correct a child's pronunciation. Then she smiled and began to hum the three notes he'd been calling out in the hospital. The officer beside Reese looked at me, waiting for an explanation I couldn't give. It was the first time I'd heard Mother use a name for Seventeen that had nothing to do with the records.

Reese ended the interview when she started asking how soon we would return him. She didn't resist. She remained crouched beside the glass while two officers photographed the passage behind her, and as we moved into the corridor I could hear her speaking softly to the attendant who'd appeared at her elbow. She asked him to find the little wooden horses and the green blanket from Seventeen's room. She was concerned that the people keeping him wouldn't know which end of the blanket he preferred against his face. The attendant said he'd look. He sounded about thirty, and his answer had the careful warmth of a man speaking to someone who might become upset if he forgot anything.

Vale recorded the conversation and called the hospital to reinforce Seventeen's security. 'She can negotiate,' she said, rewinding the place where Mother offered Sam in exchange for him. 'That means she knows we're holding the person she wants.' No one had to finish the thought. I watched an officer put another lock on the door to the receiving office.

Elliot had been moved to a separate building. Two officers brought us into the interview room, where he was eating dry toast with his bound wrists resting beside the tray. I told him Mother had offered Sam to us. 'She can't return an animal from general stock,' he said, sounding surprised. 'The lists are already approved.' When Vale asked who could alter them, Elliot said the humans called the older creature the Housekeeper. He seemed relieved we'd heard her voice. 'Then it will be decided properly.'

I asked what 'subject to replacement' meant on Seventeen's record. Elliot ran his thumb along the torn edge of his toast. "He was too old for the nursery when that order came down. He should have been reassigned years earlier, but she kept asking for an extension. A household is only allowed to retain so much. If you keep one that should be transferred, you have to give up another when the Housekeeper calls for it." He looked at me, trying to judge whether I understood. "She'd rather lose the others than him. Everyone knows that. It's why the staff don't let her choose when she's upset."

Elliot remembered a boy who had sewn small woolen animals for Seventeen. He'd been permitted to remain in Mother's household because the younger boy wouldn't sleep without his toys. When he grew older, he was sent to work in the clothing room but still came back for birthdays. 'She knows all her animals,' Elliot said. 'You keep acting as if she doesn't.'

The man's name was Daniel, though Elliot called him 14-C when he wasn't thinking. He had made Seventeen's green blanket and sometimes returned to repair it. Elliot glanced at me when I asked whether Daniel had a transfer date. 'You're asking about the wrong one,' he said. 'I thought you wanted the new man.'

We left Elliot with the officers. Then the hospital called: Seventeen had begun refusing food and was distraught despite his medical condition being stable. Vale wanted to speak with Dr. Nwosu about protecting him if Mother tried to reach him, and I offered to go along. Reese agreed. Park and the rescue specialists could do more for the damaged building now than I could, and I needed to see Seventeen with my own eyes.

Seventeen was in a room at the end of a bright hospital corridor, with an officer sitting outside. Dr. Nwosu was trying to get him to eat. He'd drawn his knees up, tangled the sheets around his feet and hidden his face in the pillow. I said hello, and he reached toward my sleeve before stopping to study my hand. I sat where he could see me and waited while he decided whether to touch it.

"He's been like this since a little after six," Nwosu told me. He didn't ask me to coax Seventeen into eating or pretend that my being there was a medical treatment. He just stepped aside and let Seventeen see who'd come in. When I said hello, Seventeen lifted his head. There were dry tracks on his cheeks. He reached for my sleeve with two fingers, then hesitated, studying my hand before he touched it. I sat down beside him and gave him enough time to decide whether he wanted me close. The nurse handed me a damp cloth because I'd put my palm against a counter without noticing it was dirty.

He made the three-note sound again, more question than song. I told him Mother knew he was alive. His face changed so quickly that Nwosu turned to look at me, and I regretted speaking before we'd talked about how he might react. Seventeen tried to push himself upright, his hands sliding on the mattress. I helped support his shoulder while the doctor adjusted a pillow behind him. "Muh-duh?" he asked. I said she was still at Coldwater. He searched my face for a longer answer, and when I couldn't give him one, he began making a strained sound deep in his throat. Nwosu told me quietly that we didn't need to keep talking about her if it was upsetting him.

I remembered the game she'd demonstrated against the glass. I put a finger against my own temple and tapped twice, then touched the bridge of my nose. Seventeen stopped moving. He watched me do it again, his breath catching between little sounds. On the third try, he reached out and pressed his finger against my nose, then touched his forehead with a small, uncertain smile. He hadn't smiled like that before. Nwosu looked away so he could have the moment without a stranger staring at him. I kept my hand where Seventeen could reach it, and he made me repeat the game six or seven times until his arm got tired.

The nurse brought the tray back, and this time Seventeen let her help him eat. Before I left, he caught my wrist and tapped his temple twice, wanting another turn of the game. I did it, and he laughed loudly enough for the officer outside to glance through the door. Nwosu said they were arranging specialist care, though no one could promise how much independence he would ever regain.

A social worker met Vale outside his room. Nell had asked if the man who helped her escape was still nearby, and they needed to tell her about Inez. The social worker wasn't asking me to deliver the news. She wanted someone Nell recognized to be present if that would help. I said I'd come.

Tess was sitting beside Nell's hospital bed, struggling with a carton of juice. Nell's handmade book lay open on the blanket, and she'd been recording the names of nurses in the margin. The social worker suggested Tess wait outside; Tess refused, and Nell asked her to stay. Nobody pressed the issue.

The social worker explained that the investigators had identified Inez among the people who'd died at Coldwater. She didn't describe what the officers had found. Nell stared at the woman for a long time, her thumb holding a place in the notebook. "Was she sick?" she asked. The social worker told her she was very sorry, that Inez had died inside the facility, and that there was no indication she had returned to their pen. Nell nodded as if she were being given an instruction about a change of bedding. Then she opened the notebook and asked which line she should mark. The social worker moved her chair closer and said Nell didn't have to cross out her friend's name.

Nell closed the book. She asked whether Inez had done anything to upset the Mothers, and when the social worker said no, Nell's face went red. "Then why wasn't she brought back?" she asked. She wasn't shouting at the woman; she was asking the question she'd probably wanted answered since Inez disappeared. When nobody spoke quickly enough, she turned to me. I had seen the slip-on shoes in the bag at the foot of her bed. One was lying on its side, the blue thread she described visible against the worn canvas. Nell followed my gaze, pulled the bag closer, and began straightening the laces with her good hand. She kept working at the same knot until the nurse offered to help and she said, very politely, that she could manage it herself.

Tess climbed from the chair and put both arms around Nell's shoulders. Nell held her, but her eyes stayed on the shoes. "I told her I'd have those ready," she said. The social worker remained beside her, offering to stay as long as Nell wanted. I stood near the door with my hands at my sides, unable to find a thing worth saying. Once, Nell looked up and asked whether there'd be a place to put Inez's name where people outside could see it. I told her there would. Vale met my eyes, and I understood that I'd made another promise somebody would have to help me keep. Before we left, she asked the social worker to contact the county about identifying and memorializing the dead.

We were driving back when Reese called. The attendant from Mother's household was heading toward the old sorting gallery with a box and a folded blanket. Officers had secured the west gallery, but steel gates still divided it from the livestock lanes. Vale asked Reese not to admit the attendant until he'd been searched, then said to me, 'If it's Daniel, let's find out why she sent him.'

The gallery smelled of wet cardboard and machine grease. High windows overlooked two loading lanes, and a pair of officers guarded a steel grille at the far end. On the other side stood a man with a limp, a wooden box balanced against his hip and a blanket folded over his arms. He had a wide, worried face. Seeing us, he straightened and asked whether we were the people taking Mother's boy upstairs.

"We're looking after him," Vale said. "Are you Daniel?" He nodded. She asked whether he would come through the gate to speak with her, and he looked back down the corridor before answering. "I was told to give you these. I'm not supposed to leave them where anybody could dirty them." He set the box on a narrow ledge beneath the grille and opened it. Inside were two wooden horses, a carved fish with one eye painted green, and a scrap of cloth that had once been stitched into a little pouch. The objects were polished in places from handling. Daniel pointed to the smaller horse. "He always took that one with him when he went to sleep. Mother said he'd remember it even if he didn't remember the room."

I asked if Daniel had made them. He looked pleased. "The horses, yes. He wanted the fish to have a mouth that opened, but I couldn't make the hinge hold." His fingers were thickened around the joints, though he handled the little toys with care. He showed me where he'd tried to fit a tiny peg into the fish's jaw. Then he noticed I was wearing a demolition-company jacket and asked if we could repair the broken latch on a linen cupboard in the household section. He'd been told the outside men were good with old hinges. It was such a normal request that I almost answered him out of habit.

Daniel had sewn clothes for Seventeen since he was small enough to ride in Mother's arms. He remembered making a coat with two rows of buttons because she disliked fastening things behind the boy's back. He smiled as he told us this. It mattered to him that someone wanted to hear about his work.

"Did she raise you too?" I asked. Daniel stopped smiling, though not because he was offended. He seemed to be trying to decide what the question meant. "For a while," he said. "There were a few of us then. I was good with needles, so I moved to the workrooms when the babies needed more space." He glanced toward the corridor again. "She still asks for me when there's a birthday. She likes me to make the clothes fit properly, not just sew them all the same size. It's a special thing to be asked back." His hands were resting on the grille. He moved them away when he noticed an officer looking at the little metal number on his wristband.

The band on Daniel's wrist read 14-C. He asked us to take the box before morning inventory, then looked down the corridor toward the bell. Vale said the police could bring him to safety. Daniel glanced at the sunlight on our floor and shook his head. 'The big ones don't like when the buttons are wrong,' he said. 'And Mother will wonder where I've gone.'

Reese arrived with news that stock was moving into the lower transfer lanes. Daniel recognized the machinery and stepped back from the grille. "They're bringing the morning animals," he said, gathering his blanket. I told him he didn't have to go. "If I miss the bell, someone has to fetch me," he answered. "Then there'll be trouble."

Before leaving, Daniel showed me the frayed corner of Seventeen's blanket, the part he liked against his cheek. He handed me the wooden box through the cleared inspection wicket but kept the blanket, gathering it against his chest. He thanked us for caring for Seventeen, then limped away. The bell sounded, and he hurried painfully toward it.

The loading-bay windows overlooked two lines of people moving toward a bright doorway. Each stopped on a yellow square while an attendant checked their band. An officer counted them for Reese. The layout was familiar: an old receiving system feeding two lanes toward a single dispatch point. Now I knew what they were receiving. A team moved toward the service gate at the north end while I watched the people being sorted.

Sam came through with the third group. He'd lost the thin hospital shirt and was wearing gray trousers and a shapeless jacket that didn't meet at his chest. One hand hung stiffly at his side. I caught sight of the crooked finger when he pushed the sleeve back to rub his wrist. He was walking, but slowly, with a hand braced against the shoulder of an older woman ahead of him. She had a bandage around her forehead and kept looking toward the bright door. Sam bent his head to speak to her, and she shook it. When an attendant pulled him away from her, he turned and said something that made the man strike him across the mouth. The older woman flinched harder than Sam did.

I called Sam's name, forgetting the glass would swallow my voice. Reese stopped me with a hand against my chest. Officers were already approaching the service gate, and they didn't need me shouting through the speaker. Sam bent to speak to the injured woman again. When an attendant threatened him with a baton, he held up his good hand and stepped away, still watching to make sure she stayed standing.

Daniel entered from the household corridor carrying the empty box. He looked startled by the people lined up for morning sorting. An attendant checked his band and ordered him to wait near the bright door. Daniel protested that he had shirts to finish. The deeper voice from Sam's failed rescue answered from an adjoining passage. The attendants stood straighter, and Daniel smoothed his clothes, relieved that someone had come to settle the interruption.

Mother came in first. She had the green blanket draped over one arm and the little wooden horse tucked awkwardly between two fingers. She looked at the line of waiting humans, searching with an attention that made them draw closer together. When she saw Daniel, she made a pleased sound and touched his cheek. He raised his face into her hand without hesitating. She asked whether his leg still bothered him when it rained and whether the shirts he'd been making had enough room in the shoulders. Daniel said they did and asked whether Seventeen was coming home. Mother told him the boy was well, that the men upstairs had been kind to him, and Daniel smiled so openly that I had to look away for a moment.

The larger creature came through behind Mother. Her shoulder filled the doorway beneath a dark wrap, and scars crossed one long forearm. She paused until everyone stopped shifting their weight. Mother lowered her head slightly; Daniel did the same. I could hear the Housekeeper breathing through the speaker above the scale.

The larger creature spoke to Mother in the language we didn't understand. Their exchange lasted less than a minute. Mother held up the little horse as she answered, and once she pointed toward the west side of the building, where we were standing. The other creature listened without moving. When she finally spoke English, her voice filled the gallery through the open speaker above the scale. "You keep yours," she said. "One goes. Choose."

Mother turned to the row of humans beside the bright door. I watched her look across their faces, pausing on a young man with his eyes closed and a woman who was breathing in quick, shallow bursts. Daniel was smiling uncertainly, as though he expected her to tell him what job she wanted done. She reached past the others, touched the top button of his shirt and carefully pushed it through the correct hole. Then she gave his shoulder a small pat. "Danny," she said. "You did very well."

The human attendant marked Daniel's band with a blue strip. He glanced at it, then at Mother, and I saw him begin to understand. His fingers moved toward hers, not quite taking hold. "I'm still doing the nursery shirts," he said. "You asked me yesterday." She nodded and told him he'd finished everything she'd needed. When he asked whether he would come back afterward, she didn't look confused or offended. She kept her hand on his shoulder and said, "No, darling. Not this time." The attendant took Daniel by the elbow. Daniel began explaining that he could work faster if he was allowed to stay. He was still talking about the shirts when the man guided him toward the light.

I struck the glass with my palm. Vale caught my arm and pointed toward the officers collecting at the service gate. Reese was already working on an extraction, but Mother stood between the gate and the human line. The Housekeeper was checking a chart. Unless we moved soon, Daniel would be taken through the bright doorway before the officers could reach him.

'The original fire door should open outward,' I told Reese, pointing to the housing above the north gate. 'There's a counterweight above that panel. If you lift it, the leaf can't swing shut on the people coming through.' Park thought her team could reach the lever from our side. Reese asked what we'd expose by opening it. I told him the creatures would have access to our gallery too. He ordered me behind the reinforced partition and assigned officers to protect the opening.

An officer cut away the panel while Park found the old lever. The counterweight wouldn't settle, so she held it under pressure while Reese positioned the team. An attendant below spotted the movement and reached for the alarm. Sam stepped into his path and shoved him against the railing. Both men fell hard, the baton skidding between them. Sam got to his knees and threw it out of reach before the attendant could recover it.

The gate opened just enough for an officer to slip through. He shouted for the captives to come to him. Most stood frozen, looking toward the Mothers. The older woman Sam had been helping took a step and stopped. Sam climbed to his knees, picked up the fallen baton by its middle and flung it away from the attendant. Then he caught the woman's arm and urged her toward the officers. Seeing him move, two others followed. Their bare feet skidded on the painted floor, and an officer caught the first man before he fell. I watched them come through, counted five, and kept searching the line for Sam.

Daniel was still beside the bright doorway. He had the blue strip on his band and was holding his arms close to his body while an attendant tried to lead him inside. Mother stood a few feet away, watching the escape as though it were a disturbance somebody ought to correct. Daniel called to her once. When she turned, he asked whether he'd been bad. He wasn't pleading to be rescued. He wanted her to tell him he'd misunderstood the instruction. Mother came close enough to straighten his collar again. "You've been a very good boy," she said. "Don't make this harder."

Sam reached Daniel before the attendant could pull him through the door. He grabbed the man's sleeve and pointed toward the open gate. Daniel resisted, turning back toward Mother with an expression I can still see when I close my eyes. He was frightened of disobeying her more than he was frightened of the bright room. Sam caught him around the shoulders and hauled him backward. The attendant struck Sam once across the ribs, and Sam drove his shoulder into the man's chest, making them both stumble. Daniel lost his balance. Sam held him up, called toward the officers, and dragged him into the flow of people moving toward the gallery.

The Housekeeper brought one arm down on the railing, bending it out of line. Officers fired toward the masonry beside her, and she swung the broken section away as if clearing a blocked path. Reese ordered the team back. Mother remained beside the bright door, watching Daniel and Sam. She spoke quietly to the Housekeeper in their own language. The older creature looked from Daniel to the open gate and answered with a single word.

Daniel was the next person through. An officer caught him beneath the arms and pulled him clear as Sam pushed from behind. I saw Sam reach out, his good hand open, and for one second I believed he would follow. Then the Housekeeper spoke a single word. The human attendants who'd been waiting near the bright door rushed forward with a hooked restraint pole and caught Sam around the waist. He twisted, catching the grille with his fingers. The officer on our side grabbed for his wrist but couldn't get a secure hold before the attendants dragged him backward. A rifle cracked beside the doorway, and Reese shouted for the officers to stop firing toward the captives. Sam managed to stay on his feet, though his face had gone gray. He was close enough for me to hear him swearing at the men holding him.

Mother approached the Housekeeper. She said something soft, and this time I heard Sam's name among the words. The older creature looked at Daniel, who was lying on our side of the gate with an officer protecting him, then gestured toward the bright room. Mother hesitated. Her fingers tightened around the wooden horse until its head snapped off with a small sound that carried through the speaker. She studied the broken pieces, turned back to the Housekeeper, and pointed at Sam. "That one," she said in English. "He's the same size. He'll do."

Reese yelled for the gate to close. Park released the counterweight, and the heavy leaf began moving while the officers pulled the remaining captives out of its path. I was still at the partition when Sam looked toward the gallery. He'd been trying to get his arms free, but at Mother's words he stopped. He had heard her, and he'd understood. One of the attendants fastened a blue strip around his general-stock band. The Housekeeper watched until it was secured, then touched Sam's chin with a finger, turning his face first one way and then the other. He jerked away from her. She didn't strike him. She gave the smallest impatient shake of her head and told the attendants to take him through the clean door.

I tried to get past Reese. He caught me by the jacket and pushed me against the partition before I reached the gate. I yelled that Sam was still there, as though he hadn't seen him. Reese's face was covered in white dust from the old door housing. He said they'd extracted seven people and two of his officers were injured. He would not send the team back into a lane where the creatures had already reached them. He didn't let go of my jacket until I stopped trying to wrench myself free. By then the gate had closed, and Sam had disappeared through the bright doorway with the attendants walking on either side of him.

They brought Daniel into the next room on a stretcher because his injured leg had buckled during the run. He kept asking what had happened to the shirts and whether Mother was angry. I knelt beside the stretcher while a medic checked his breathing and the abrasions along his arms. Daniel looked at my face and seemed to recognize me. "She sent me there," he said. "I didn't do anything wrong." I told him I knew. He tried to say something else, but his mouth was trembling so badly that he couldn't get the words out. The medic asked me to give him room, and I stood back against the wall while they carried him outside.

The older woman Sam had helped was sitting on the floor under a blanket, refusing to move until she saw him. When I told her he hadn't come through, she put her hand over her mouth and began crying soundlessly. I stayed with her until a medic arrived. She kept watching the gate, and I couldn't bring myself to look away from it either.

Back in the gallery, two attendants were repairing the yellow squares. One used a brush and the other directed him to straighten the lines where footprints had smeared them. They worked around the space where Daniel had stood. No one looked toward the broken railing or the gate the officers had just closed.

Later, an attendant brought the green blanket to the receiving window for Seventeen. The frayed corner Daniel had shown me was visible through its evidence bag. I asked Vale to keep it with the little toys and to record Daniel's name. Seventeen would recognize the cloth immediately; he had slept with it for years. Mother had sent it because she worried he wouldn't rest without it. Earlier that morning she had selected the man who made it for the clean room, then offered Sam instead.

The radio operator recovered a partial inventory from the transfer terminal. Vale read it and passed it to Reese. Under TABLE, the newest entry bore the number from Sam's new wristband. Beside it someone had written APPROVED. I kept my hands on the edge of the table while Reese explained that rescue specialists were trying to reach the lower preparation rooms from outside.

I took out my phone to call Marisol and found Nora's photograph open instead. She stood beside her exhibition picture, smiling awkwardly with her ribbon in one hand. The picture showed an overturned wooden boat beside a lake we'd visited years ago. I texted her asking if she'd show me the rest of the photographs when I got home. She replied with a question mark, then, "You mean it?" I wrote, "Yes. All of them." Afterward I sat looking at Marisol's number. I knew what I'd promised her about passing on Sam's words, and I had no idea how to tell her he'd been taken again.

The last thing I saw from the gallery that morning was a worker repairing the panel beside the clean door. He wore an identification band like Seventeen's and carried an ordinary toolbox. As he stepped inside, a voice asked where the blue-marked arrivals should wait. Someone answered that the Housekeeper wanted them kept together until the afternoon. I could see folded cloths on a white counter behind him before the door shut. Sam had been standing there not long ago, holding Daniel up while the others escaped. I watched the door until Reese called me away, and even then I could hear Sam telling me what to say to his wife.

I’m sure some of the people reading this know the struggles of auditions. Just getting in the door for one is a hassle in and of itself. Then you have to prepare material, make yourself look nice, and prepare to potentially humiliate yourself in a room full of strangers. It’s not always the best experience. This last one, though, was really, really weird, for lack of a better word. At least, I think it was. I kind of spaced out half way through. I remember everything leading up to it,
 but once I was in the room, my memory gets kind of hazy.

My agent contacted me last week, telling me one of the local theatres was hiring actors for an upcoming production. She said it was a massive deal for them, that they got some investor raising their budget, and how it was a big opportunity. All I had to do was prepare a classical monologue. I hadn’t done Shakespeare since college, but dusting off Timon of Athens didn’t take too long. 

It was pissing rain when I got there. The weatherman said clear skies, so I had to use my binder as a makeshift umbrella in an attempt to keep my hair dry. The lobby was dim and cramped, a dozen actors lining the wall making it feel even smaller. Headshots of the leads in their current show lined the eggshell paint, peeling some from the plaster. I couldn’t believe this was the place that scored a “massive investment”, but I’ve been in worse waiting rooms for dumber jobs.

“Here to audition?” asked the man in front.

He hunched over a plastic folding table, a stack of headshots and resumes at his side. His forehead gained a few wrinkles as he looked up at me, and endeavored a pleasant smile as I stumbled in. 

“Yes sir.” I affirmed. I gave him my name and added my picture to the pile.

“Have a seat at the end. They’ll call you when you’re up. Break a leg.”

I sat at the end of the dusty bench. I had my lines down, but I kept mumbling them under my breath.

“Timon of Athens, huh?” The girl next to me chimed.

“Excuse me?” I was too focused to hear.

“I like that show! I wasn’t sure what exactly to prepare so I just went with Romeo and Juliet!” Her voice practically bubbled out of her.

“That’s always a good choice, I feel like it can read for anything.” I wasn’t prepared for conversation, but tried to match her energy.

The man at the front of the line was called in.

“That’s what I was thinking! It’s weird they didn’t say what the show is. Do you think it’s an original?” Her blue eyes were so intense it almost hurt.

“It wouldn’t surprise me. Apparently they got some miracle investor, so it could be their own work or something.”

“Maybe it’s about you!” She stated.

“What?” It caught me off guard.

“It could be about wanting to end it. Your pitiful existence!” She had stopped blinking.

I sat there, speechless, staring back at this woman. The fluorescent bulbs hummed louder with each second her eyes bore into me. The paint peeled further, and the rain outside began to pour.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” but then it’s like everything snapped back. I know for a fact she said that to me, but it was like I had imagined it. Like that conversation happened in a dream, but when I said that, I woke up. The lights resumed their normal volume, and the rain softened in an instant.

“I…said I hope it’s a musical?” The girl said, cocking an eyebrow and leaning away from me. She looked down at her script, intently pretending I had vanished.

I looked to the end of the line, and found we had moved up four spaces. I spun my head and found more people had replaced our spot in line. I shook my head and rubbed my face. I still don’t have an explanation for what that was, but at the time I guessed it was nerves, repeating my monologue in my head.

The stage door opened, another name was called. The man at the front stood up and followed the proctor, but as he entered, I swear I could hear something. Faint echoes of a raucous audience, laughing and clinking glasses. It sounded like an intermission on Broadway, rather than the run down theatre I found myself in. 

At the time I didn’t think about that. I was excited! It had been so long since I performed for a crowd this size. Even if it was just an audition, getting to perform in front of that many people is why any of us get in the business. My elation was halted, however, when I noticed the guy next to me. At first, I thought he was mulling over his lines like the rest of us, but then he seemed to get stuck.

“He who the sword of heaven will bear,
Should be as holy as severe,
Pattern in himself to know,
Grace to stand, and Virtue to go,
Grace to stand and Virtue to go,
Virtue to go, go,
Virtue to virtue,
Stand stand,
Virtue to go,
Grace to virtue to stand,
Virtue go, go, go, GO, GO, GO, GO, GO!”

I can still hear him screaming when I imagine it. It was like every utterance was a knife in his throat. He began clawing at his chest, ripping the buttons from his once-pressed shirt to find the bare skin beneath. Blood and flesh caked his nails as his chest gave way like wax. As he dug deeper into himself, something began to wiggle and writhe within his chest. Thunder clapped so loud it felt like the lightning had struck at my feet. The mass rotated to stillness, and split open to reveal a brilliant blue eye, staring at me with the intensity of the woman in front of me. The man removed his hands from his chest and grabbed my head. 

“GO!”

He screamed me back into reality. I flinched and hit my head against the wall. I had dozed off? I must have, but I was also next in line to audition. Hair had matted to my forehead and I felt like I had just ran a marathon. The air tasted heavy as I sucked it down, trying to steady my breathing. I looked back down the line, every head pointed to their pages. My gaze fell on the blue-eyed woman behind me. She was ahead of me before right? 

“I’m sorry did I take your spot?” I asked.

“Timon of Athens, huh?” She responded, her head staying low.

“You…what?”

“I said I hope it’s a musical!”

I jumped as the door opened. A wave of white noise from the crowd washed over me. The old proctor stepped out, but didn’t call my name.

“Are you ready?” She tilted her head.

“For sure.” I said, standing uncertainly.

“Are you sure?” She stood motionless.

I looked to the lobby. Every face in line stared at me, their expressions ranging from elated to furious. All sound halted. The lights didn’t hum, the mumbling of practiced speeches, even the raging storm outside fell mute, save the man at the table’s pencil, scribbling away.

“N-no…” I stated. “No. This is wrong, I can’t-” I was interrupted by a deafening snap. The pencil broke, and though he didn’t look toward me, I could see a vague imprint of the man’s expression through clouded glass. I only glanced at it. I couldn’t bring myself to look for more than a second.

“Come now, they’re waiting.” The proctor ushered behind me.

I looked through the door. A layer of black curtains withheld the unmistakable shine of a spotlight. The noise of the audience returned, promising me hundreds, no, thousands of eyes. So many voices, all here to see me. I didn’t waste time looking back to the lobby. I made my way to the stage.

“Break a leg.” The proctor’s voice whispered into my head.

As I parted the curtain, the crowd was revealed to me. Three people. In a tiny black box theatre that could hold maybe forty. I paused, unsure of what I was seeing. A beautiful woman sat in the center, beaming with anticipation. The two men on either side of her could have been twins. They looked as alike as they did ancient, neither of them displaying a hint of emotion.

The center of the stage was taped off, forming a triangle with a music stand in the center. Without telling them to, my legs took steps to the stand, my hands outstretched. They found placement on a stapled-together script.

“The King”

I flipped the page and I read. I think I read. No, I know I read. I read the first line, then the second, followed by the fifth and continuing onto the eleventh. The noises I made were words. I read the words. As I read them, the crowd roared. They loved it. They loved me! The woman ahead of me in line cheered from the mezzanine. The eye in the man’s chest wept with joy. The proctor kissed the twin on the right. The man at the desk clapped until the bones in his hand turned to dust. The twin on the left tore his tongue from his mouth. My mother waved at me from the aisle. She was so proud. I read line four, then thirty, then ninety. I uttered emotions I’ve never felt, thoughts left unthought, and wore them across my being. I laughed while drowning and cried while lost. I coughed out soliloquies through the ashes of my father. My mouth, a vessel for the rich among the high seats. My words, a temple for the groundlings. The woman in the center, once merely beautiful, now all-encompassing, raised her hands and body to the sky. “YOUR KING” she proclaimed. Icy, unseen tendrils gripped my fingers, propelling my speech towards what would have been the ceiling, had it not been replaced by everything else. My eyes, once closed, now open to all that would be mine.

And then I found myself almost home. I felt faint and a bit queasy. The ground was completely dry, so I guess it hadn’t been raining for a while. I know it’s not the best story, it’s like I blacked out right after I signed in, but I need to know is this a condition that anyone knows of? I have to know soon, because I apparently got the part! I got an email yesterday saying I’m going to be playing “The King”. Of what, I’m not really sure, but I guess I nailed it. I’m just hoping whatever state I was in sticks around for the role. If you’re in town you should see me! Bring a couple of friends, I’m sure it’s going to be great!

[Part 1]

[Part 2]

[Part 3]

[Part 4]

[Part 5]

[Part 6]

[Part 7]

Sorry this update took so long. A lot has happened over the last few days, and I wanted to get it in the right order before posting. Some of what CATALOGUE showed me finally explains where the furniture came from.

On Saturday night, I ended up on Alicia's living room floor with my work boots still on and my spine jammed against the base of the couch where Toby was sleeping. I hadn't planned on it. Next thing I knew, daylight was coming through the blinds, and Rebecca was standing over me holding a mug.

CATALOGUE had removed the toy horse. The chest remained in Toby's bedroom, watched by two technicians inside Alicia's house and two more outside. Another two monitored the wardrobe, dresser, and tank in my garage, with Mercer overseeing the operation. Saturday's recovery had failed, so for now they were observing rather than moving anything. Priest coordinated from CATALOGUE's temporary office, where Dr. Marshall was reviewing the findings.

Rebecca made scrambled eggs. Toby came to the table in his pajamas with his rabbit under one arm and asked about his mother before he asked about breakfast.

“When's Mom coming back?”

“Not long to go, buddy,” I said. “She's got a cast to get used to first. The nurses are making her practice with it.”

“Is it blue?”

“White, I think.”

“Blue's her favorite color. I could draw on it for her.”

“I bet she'd like that.”

He ate half an egg and pushed the rest around his plate.

“Where's the horse?”

I'd been expecting the question. “The people took it to look at it. They'll look after it for you.”

“He was fixing it.” Toby's voice was completely level. “I never got to show him how the leg bends. That's why it's wrong.”

Toby demonstrated with his own arm, bending his elbow. Apparently, his friend sometimes needed the same lesson three or four times before he understood. 

I set my fork down.

“Toby, we can't play that game for a while. Not the swapping. I need you to understand that.”

“Is he in trouble?”

“Nobody's punishing him. But the things he's making are hurting people. They hurt your mom. You saw her arm.”

“He didn't mean to do it.”

“I know. But it doesn't fix her arm, does it?”

“I know,” he said, looking down. “But he never hurt me. It wasn't scary in there, Dad. It was just a massive place with lots of stuff, and he was nice.”

“Do you miss playing with him?”

The pause was long enough that I wished I hadn't asked.

“Yeah.”

He went back to his eggs. He wasn't trying to frighten me or hide anything. As far as he was concerned, an adult had taken away something his friend had made, and he didn't understand why we couldn't let the friend try again.

When he returned to the couch, Rebecca sat opposite me with a dish towel over her shoulder.

“How much of that was true?” she asked quietly.

“All of it, I think.”

She looked toward the stairs. “Is the chest going or not?”

“Not until they know how to move it safely. They've got people watching, but the horse appeared downstairs while the chest was shut.”

“Why don't we take him somewhere else?” Rebecca asked. “Somewhere that doesn't have one of those things sitting upstairs?”

“We keep him here for now. CATALOGUE's watching the house, and nobody knows whether moving Toby would help.”

Rebecca glanced toward the living room, where Toby was watching cartoons. She folded the towel once, carefully. “You've been more present,” she said. “I'll give you that. No bullshit or fake reassurances. And you haven't left Toby's side.” She looked at me properly. “You never used to be this attentive.”

Then she took the dishes into the kitchen. It was hardly a compliment, but coming from Rebecca, it was more than I'd expected.

Priest called at ten with Nolan's medical report. His foot kept going numb, and sometimes the muscles contracted without warning. He described a hand gripping his ankle from inside. The scans showed nothing.

“And there's something else,” she said. “His intake photographs show an old ladder scar above the ankle. It's completely gone.”

Outside, the neighbor was running a leaf blower. I looked at Toby's outgrown plastic slide in the yard and felt my stomach tighten.

“Just like Toby's knee.”

“There are similarities. Mercer has suspended any further attempt to move the tank until we've reassessed the exposure risk. The remaining furniture stays where it is, under observation.”

“That's all?”

“For now. Nolan's being monitored, and we aren't putting another person near that fluid without a better containment plan.”

My phone rang again twenty minutes later. It was Henry.

“Thought you'd forgotten about me,” I said.

“That's a lovely way to greet a cripple, Ian. Really makes a guy feel appreciated.”

He'd spent the morning trying to pick up a rubber ball with his injured hand. He still couldn't make a fist, and Rachael was preparing to take him home once he could manage the stairs.

“Give it three days, and she'll be driving me straight back here,” he said.

A television played behind him. I heard him wrestling with a wrapper, too stubborn to ask for help.

“So how'd the big operation go yesterday? Did they get anything out of your garage?”

“The portrait. That's about all they've got to show for it.”

Henry laughed incredulously. “We got the whole lot home with one dolly and a plank, and the professionals can't shift it off your driveway?”

I told him about Nolan, the fluid and the missing scar. He listened without interrupting.

“Same as Toby?” he asked.

“Looks that way. CATALOGUE won't say what it means.”

“No, I wouldn't expect them to. Did they ever work out where the stuff came from?”

“Nothing. The auction paperwork's worthless, and the storage company's records aren't helping.”

“That's what I figured. I've been doing a bit of digging myself.”

He'd spent the last couple of days going through photographs we'd taken at the unit. He had little else to occupy him in the hospital, and after I'd told him CATALOGUE was tracing the furniture, he'd wanted to make himself useful.

“You remember the seven-drawer dresser? There was an old stencil on the back in green paint, under the yellow auction sticker. I peeled a corner of the sticker when we loaded it.”

“Can you read it?”

“Not properly. Something like HOM. And a number beginning with H. Funny sevens, too, with lines across them.”

I sat forward.

“Henry, that sounds like a job number. There could be records of where they collected it. Did you get a picture?”

“I did, but it’s blurry as hell.”

“CATALOGUE's got better photographs.” For the first time in days, I felt something approaching excitement. “Henry, this could actually lead somewhere.”

“Easy there. It's a bit of green paint. Don't start planning a parade.”

“You know, you could've just said you missed working with me.”

“Oh, absolutely. Nothing gets me through the day like remembering you complaining about your back while I do the heavy lifting.”

We laughed, and for a moment it was like being back in the truck. He asked about Toby; I told him my son still missed his friend. Henry went quiet and told me not to take unnecessary risks chasing answers.

Before hanging up, he said that if his information proved useful, he expected a finder's fee. Preferably not the supermarket wine I'd given him for Christmas.

I called Priest at CATALOGUE's temporary office. Their photographs showed the sticker and a sliver of green paint beneath it, but nobody had removed the sticker.

Once I explained what Henry remembered, she had the garage team remove it using tools. They photographed the exposed stencil and enhanced the faded lettering until they recovered enough of the contractor's name and inventory number to trace it.

Priest called back that afternoon with Dr. Marshall on the line. The stencil belonged to Homeward Property Services, a clearance contractor whose records matched the inventory number to an apartment on the east side.

“We've seen that address before,” Priest said.

“What do you mean?”

“Apartment 2B, Cedar Heights. The tenant was a retired handyman named Leonard.”

Marshall cut in. “Good God. We investigated that place.”

“You what?”

“Six years ago. It came to our attention during a routine case review. Two disappearances and belongings changing overnight. We didn't get involved until years afterward.”

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. They'd already investigated the apartment where our furniture had come from. All this time, we'd been trying to figure out its origins, and CATALOGUE had been there years before Henry and I ever opened that storage unit.

“And you never made the connection? What happened to the furniture?”

“We knew a clearance company had removed most of it,” Marshall said. “Tried tracking it down, too, but the records were a mess. We never established where most of it ended up. And what you brought us barely resembles the furniture in our photographs. We thought we were dealing with an entirely new collection of Returns.”

“Until Henry found the stencil.”

“Exactly.” He sounded almost embarrassed. “There were missing people, contradictory witnesses, and a workshop we couldn't safely examine. Eventually the reports stopped, and the investigation went cold. Apparently, we weren't looking at the end of it.”

“We're considering another inspection to note down any potential changes,” Priest said.

“After six years? Why now?”

“Because now,” Marshall said, “we know exactly what some of the things that left it have become. That's rather more useful than a collection of contradictory witness statements.”

Priest told me they still needed the owner's consent and a revised safety plan before anyone went back in. I spent Sunday with Toby, watching him draw while I waited for news. We had an address instead of another dead end, and up until now I hadn't realized how badly I'd needed that win.

At nine that night, Priest called again. “We’ll be heading to Cedar Heights around 10 a.m. tomorrow for a limited inspection of Apartment 2B.”

“I'm coming with you.”

“Ian, I've agreed to keep you informed, not to take you into another hazardous property.”

I reminded her I'd handled the furniture myself. She reminded me I had Toby to think about.

“That's exactly why I'm going. Rebecca's with him, and you've got people watching the house. If this apartment can tell us what happened to him, I want to help.”

“You'll follow our procedures, then. No independent investigating.”

I called Alicia before treating it as settled. She was in the hospital awaiting another X-ray and guessed what I wanted almost as soon as I mentioned the apartment.

“What about Toby?”

“Rebecca's staying. CATALOGUE's keeping somebody inside and a surveillance team outside. I wanted to ask you first.”

“You've spent the last two days telling me you don't want him out of your sight.”

“I know. But I can't keep him safe just by watching him sleep. We might finally learn what happened to him.”

There was a silence. Then she asked, “Are you leaving him because something more interesting came up?”

“No. If I thought staying would make him safer, I'd stay. I'm going because we might find something useful.”

“Talk to Rebecca properly, then. Make sure she's comfortable. Call me when you get there, and don't argue if CATALOGUE says it's too dangerous. Whatever you find, Toby still needs his father.”

I promised. She made me check Toby had brushed his teeth, then complained about the physiotherapist. I told her she'd get along with Henry, and she even laughed a little.

Rebecca didn't like the idea, but she agreed once we'd checked the phone numbers, staff positions, and what to do if Toby mentioned his friend.

The next morning, Toby was on the living room floor with his crayons when I told him I had to head out for a few hours.

“Are you going to find him?” he asked.

“I'm going to see if I can find out where all that furniture came from.”

“Can you tell him I'm not mad?”

I didn't know what to say to that. I promised Toby I'd call when I could, then gave him a hug.

Rebecca was waiting by the door.

“I'll keep my phone on,” I told her.

“You'd better.” She glanced at Toby. “And don't make me explain to your ex-wife why you've gone missing too.”

“Wouldn't dream of it.”

She shook her head, but there was the beginning of a smile.

We were on the highway when I asked Marshall something that had been bothering me recently. Priest was driving, Marshall sat beside her with his thermos, and Foster, one of CATALOGUE's technicians, occupied the seat next to me. Another vehicle was following us with three more technicians and the equipment they'd need to examine the apartment. The rest of CATALOGUE's people remained at my garage and Alicia's house. 

“Does anybody at CATALOGUE actually have a theory about what these things are? Or is your whole job giving fancy labels to things you can't explain?”

Marshall smiled faintly. “I asked pretty much the same thing when I first joined.”

He mentioned tsukumogami, a Japanese tradition involving household objects acquiring spirits, and old accounts of possessions disappearing or people returning from places that shouldn't exist. Some stories were centuries old, but he admitted there was little reliable evidence connecting them.

“That’s just an interpretation of the phenomenon,” I said. “Surely governments know?”

“Individual incidents become missing-person reports, accidents, or unreliable witness statements. I can't tell you if anybody else has assembled them into a larger picture.”

“So after decades of studying these things, you've got stories and patterns to show for it.”

Marshall grew serious. “Knowing how something behaves can still keep somebody alive, even if we don't know why it behaves that way. Every so often we find something that changes what we thought we knew. That's why we're here.”

“And if we don't find anything?”

“Add it to the list. I’m used to it by now.” 

Before we arrived, I asked Priest to let me into the accessible rooms. I'd moved the furniture, I argued, and photographs couldn't replace recognizing a familiar repair or scratch in person.  Marshall agreed that my experience might be useful. Priest finally permitted it, provided I stayed with Foster, touched nothing, and left immediately if ordered.

I'd pictured Cedar Heights as a ruin, but it was an ordinary four-story brick block with bicycles outside and someone's muddy shoes beside the entrance. 

“Most of it's occupied,” Priest said. “The tenants know there was a structural problem in the rear apartment and that it's been condemned.”

“I thought these Returns usually turned up in neglected places.”

“They do,” Marshall said. “But there are exceptions. We don't know whether neglect causes anything or simply lets it go unnoticed. Leonard was living here when the first complaints began.”

A few months earlier, the property manager had reported changes to the corridor's measurements. With the connection to Unit 114 now established, CATALOGUE had returned. 

“So it might have started again?” I asked.

“Possibly,” Priest said. “Let's find out what changed before we decide why.”

Before we went inside, Priest checked in with the teams monitoring both houses. I'd become familiar with their radio procedure over the last few days. They used callsigns on the radio. Kestrel was Priest, Harbor was the garage, and Dune was Alicia’s house. Anything outside the scheduled check-ins needed a pair of authentication words. Harbor and Dune both reported nothing unusual. Priest confirmed that the existing precautions were still in place, then put the radio back on her belt and told us to get started.

We met the property manager in the lobby. She seemed like somebody more accustomed to dealing with plumbing complaints and late rent than the people now carrying instruments through her hallway.

The second-floor corridor smelled of someone else's dinner. Apartment 2B stood at the far end, its original door replaced with a heavy steel fire door. A laminated notice taped to it warned against entry. 

Nine years ago, Leonard had been opening that door to his neighbors. Now a technician was checking its temperature. Priest spoke briefly to the technician, then took a key from the property manager.

“Everyone ready?”

She unlocked 2B.

Beyond it was the apartment itself. The rear workshop had been sealed separately, farther inside.

I asked Priest why the building hadn't been demolished. She said they couldn't be certain what destroying an Interface would do to anyone trapped on the other side. Nobody had found a reliable way to close one permanently.

The accessible rooms were small, clean, and sad. A galley kitchen, a bare mattress, and pale rectangles on walls where photographs had hung. They smelled of plaster and dust. Everything looked half-packed, as though someone had left in a hurry. 

Nearby, a kitchen cupboard met its cabinet along a join so smooth it scarcely looked constructed. Six years ago, the cupboard had been ordinary. I might have walked past it myself.

Leonard was sixty-eight when he disappeared. One photograph showed him helping a little girl repair a wooden truck. Neighbors brought him broken furniture and toys, which he generally fixed for free. The early reports barely sounded suspicious: a rocking chair returned without its scratches, a radio without visible screws, and a toy train with an unfamiliar engine. Most had been recorded years later, after the apartment already had a reputation. Foster treated them as recollections, not facts.

Dr. Marshall explained that visitors recalled losing hours in Leonard's workshop. He began locking it; eventually he vanished, leaving his furniture behind.

Homeward was subsequently brought in to clear the apartment. Most of the furniture had already been removed when Alvarez, one of the building's maintenance workers, entered the workshop to inspect a radiator. He never came back. The clearance was abandoned, leaving everything inside the workshop where it stood. Police searched the room but found no trace of him. With the circumstances unresolved and the workshop considered unsafe, authorities restricted access.

CATALOGUE investigated three years later, but found no evidence that the disturbances were spreading beyond the sealed room. Reopening it carried risks they couldn't assess, so they recommended leaving it closed. The property remained flagged for further reports, but none suggested an immediate danger until the recent changes to the building's measurements.

Foster brought up a clearance photograph on her tablet. Four movers stood in the corridor with a dolly. Against the bedroom wall was an ordinary wardrobe with two doors. 

“That's the same wardrobe,” I said. “See the chip in the molding? It's there in my garage; only it doesn't look chipped anymore. Somebody's rounded it over.”

Another photograph showed the dresser. Seven ordinary drawers, with real seams and handles. A dark knot in the second drawer was round; in my garage it had five sides.

“Third drawer from the top,” I said. “That corner's been repaired, and the pull on the left doesn't match. It's the same dresser.”

“The furniture wasn't always like this,” Marshall explained. “At least two pieces were ordinary household objects when Homeward collected them. Whatever altered them happened afterward.”

“Here?”

“Possibly. Or at one of the places they were stored before Unit 114. We still don't know where they spent those nine years.”

While Foster compared the photographs against the Unit 114 inventory, I read the witness reports. A man called Dale claimed he'd reconciled with his estranged brother after visiting the apartment. He remembered where they'd sat and everything they'd said.

His brother hadn't seen him in years.

“Toby told Alicia I'd apologized to him,” I said.

Marshall read the paragraph again. He noted the similarity and asked Foster to flag it in the case comparison.

What if Toby really remembers me apologizing? What if, wherever he went, I actually did? 

Dale had later begged his family to take him back, claiming someone was waiting for him. Another witness described the workshop as somewhere they hadn't wanted to leave. I thought of Toby at breakfast, insisting that his friend was nice.

Early complaints centered on the workshop, but later reports mentioned the hallway and kitchen. The new measurements suggested the alterations were spreading. 

“Like the horse,” I muttered.

Marshall was still holding the photograph of Leonard helping the little girl repair her truck. “Most people in these reports were frightened,” he said. “Toby treated it as a friend.”

“That's why it listens to him.”

“Perhaps. But that doesn't mean it understands what it's doing to him.”

“What about the workshop? Has anybody checked whether it's changed?”

Priest and Foster were comparing the latest measurements. Both the doorway and kitchen cupboard had changed since the previous survey.

“Whatever happened here didn't necessarily stop when the workshop was closed,” Foster said.

Priest considered the figures, then checked with Marshall.

“Can we examine it from the doorway without entering?”

“We can try,” he said. “But I'd rather leave the room intact than have somebody go exploring.”

“We'll inspect it from the doorway. Nobody goes beyond the survey markers.” Priest looked at me. “If I tell you to leave, you leave.” 

We reached the workshop shortly after one.

It was located at the end of a short hallway behind the kitchen. Unlike the reinforced entrance to 2B, its door was an ordinary white hollow-core model, almost completely hidden behind a steel plate bolted across the frame.

Someone had written a date on the original door in pencil, just above the handle. I couldn't make out the numbers from where I stood.

Foster checked the cameras and temperature readings. Priest confirmed the retreat route, then ordered the crew to remove the bolts. I stood behind the tape, my hands in my pockets. Nobody said much while the driver worked. The screws came away one by one, with a thin metallic chatter that seemed much too loud in that quiet building. With the plate removed, Priest opened the door slowly.

At first that was all it was, a workshop smelling of sawdust and varnish, crowded with furniture, cabinets, frames, and benches stacked to the ceiling. Afternoon light came through the window at the far end, illuminating the workbench and the dust-covered furniture. 

Then I looked properly.

The cabinets had doors that opened onto more doors; shelves were bent into the walls, and drawer fronts were missing their drawers. Picture frames and mirror frames had fused, climbing the plaster. A bookcase poured into what looked like a sofa, the upholstery beginning halfway up a shelf and running down it like melted wax. The room was bigger than the apartment. I could feel that from the threshold. The walls were too far apart, and the far window seemed no nearer when I looked directly at it. Everything had the familiar sheen. Warm, faintly damp, and completely seamless.

“It's the same,” I said. “All of it. It's the same as what we hauled.”

“There's more of it,” Foster said quietly.

Looking down the room made me feel strangely exposed. Every piece of furniture reminded me of something we'd handled in the unit. Things we'd carried against our chests, leaned over, and put our hands underneath without thinking.

“Was it like this when the police searched it?” I asked.

Marshall shook his head. “No. Their photographs show an ordinary workshop. Cluttered, certainly, but nothing resembling this. It was already sealed when we investigated, and there was no evidence of anything spreading beyond it.”

I looked toward the far window. The room extended farther than the building should have allowed.

“But the wardrobe was already gone. I thought that was the Interface.”

“It is,” Marshall said. “That doesn't mean it's the only one.”

I turned to him. “You think this whole room could be another?”

“I think we're standing in a room that no longer fits inside the building. Whether it's an Interface or something connected to one, I don't know.”

“And you left it sealed for six years?”

“We believed it was contained. Nothing in the earlier photographs suggested anything like this.”

Foster crossed only as far as the survey markers allowed. The team used probes and cameras to examine the nearest structures. Nobody touched the furniture. Marshall stood just inside the door studying the workbench, while Priest photographed the room from the threshold.

I was looking at the largest structure against the left wall, a leaning mass of dark polished wood. It rose to the ceiling, with ribs like a shipwreck. Partway up it, something stuck out.

For a long moment I took it for the handle of a drawer.

It was a hand.

Not a whole hand. Just a forearm from the elbow down, the wood grown around it like bark. The skin was brown and shining, almost the color of the wood. I could see the fine hairs on it, and the fingers had curled into a loose fist. There was a steel watch on the wrist, half sunk into the grain.

My first thought was that somebody had put it there. Some kind of horrible decoration. It was easier to believe that than what I was actually looking at.

I took a step back without meaning to. My heel caught on the edge of the tape.

“Everybody out of that corner,” Priest said. “Slowly. Don't touch anything.”

Nobody argued. One technician backed into another, and the second caught his sleeve before he could stumble against the nearest cabinet.

Priest raised her camera, then lowered it again. It took her a moment to bring it back up.

Once I'd seen the arm, I couldn't unsee it. A strip of pale, creased skin ran through the polished grain. In a hollow between two beams were small yellowed teeth, set into the wood like pegs. There was an impression of fingers flattened into a panel and a tuft of hair growing from the join of a drawer.

It wasn't an exposed body. It was furniture, and in the furniture there was a person. Real teeth, real skin, real fingers. Someone had been taken apart and put back together.

I made it as far as the corridor before I was sick.

I remember Foster giving me a tissue and keeping one hand between my shoulders until I could breathe normally. Her own face had gone pale, but she was watching the doorway while I recovered.

“Easy,” she said. “You're doing fine.”

I looked back through the door and saw the watch again. The bent metal band. Something about it had been bothering me, and then I remembered.

“Priest. The clearance photographs. The ones with the movers in the corridor.”

“What about them?”

“There was a maintenance man. He had grey coveralls and was holding a clipboard. He had a watch like that, with a dent in the band.”

She brought up the photographs on her tablet. I could hear myself talking too fast as I told her which image to find.

There he was, standing behind the removal crew with one arm resting on his clipboard. Priest enlarged the photograph. The watch was the same general shape, and I pointed out the dent in the metal band.

Foster leaned closer.

“Wait. Look at his wrist.”

There was a small dark marking beneath the watch, partly obscured by the sleeve. She enlarged it again, revealing what looked like a crescent-shaped tattoo.

I kept looking between the two photographs. The man in the corridor had been alive when they took that picture. He'd stood there while the movers loaded the furniture, probably thinking about getting home at the end of his shift.

Nine years later, I was looking at what might have been his arm.

Marshall stepped toward the doorway and directed his penlight onto the exposed forearm. He didn't touch it. Beneath the wrist, half buried in the polished wood, was a similar curved mark.

Priest pulled up Alvarez's missing-person report and compared it with the photographs. Marshall remained by the doorway, his penlight trained on the forearm. “Document it. Every detail we can get without going any closer.”

“Could that actually be him?” I asked.

“We don't know,” Marshall said. His voice was quieter than before. Priest ordered the technicians to withdraw their equipment from that corner.

Foster paused, studying her thermal monitor.

“Doctor, there's a reading.”

“What sort?”

“Above ambient, localized around the arm. And it isn't steady.”

On Foster's screen, a patch around the wrist brightened and faded. When she moved the probe away, it disappeared. When she returned it, the rhythm came back, moving beneath the skin like a pulse. 

Under the smooth dark wood, something contracted.

The fingers tightened a fraction of an inch, then eased.

I made a noise before I could stop myself, a sudden catch in my throat.

“Out,” Priest said, a faint tremor in her voice. “Everyone out of the room. Now.”

We backed through the doorway one at a time. By then the inspection was over. Priest ordered the workshop sealed again, but this time she stationed two technicians outside Apartment 2B and instructed them to keep the adjoining corridor under observation. Nobody was to enter without her authorization. 

Marshall sat against the wall, holding his glasses in both hands. I sat opposite him, pressing my shaking hands between my knees. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the wrist and the little crescent tattoo. I kept looking toward the sealed door, half expecting a knock from the other side. 

“You’ve seen people come back changed before,” I said. “You told me that yourself. Back when CATALOGUE first started investigating these things.”

Marshall nodded.

“We have. Some of our earliest cases were considerably worse than anything we've documented recently. We lost people during those investigations, too.”

“So how is this different?”

“Because the people who came back were still people. We've never found recognizable human anatomy incorporated into a Return before.” 

“Do you think that's what happened to Alvarez?”

“I think the evidence suggests a connection. But we don't even know whether that's his actual arm or something made to resemble it.”

I thought of the watch, the crescent tattoo, and the fingers tightening under the wood.

“Both Toby and Nolan’s scars disappeared,” I said. “And that man's—what if it's the beginning of something? What if Toby comes home looking perfectly normal, and six months from now there's something wrong inside him nobody knows how to find? You've been studying these things for decades. Surely you've got some idea what's happening.”

Marshall exhaled, eyes closed.

“Ian, I wish I did. We've encountered things we couldn't explain before,” Marshall said. “But usually they were isolated. A single object, perhaps a room. Here, we've got what may be another Interface, and now what appears to be human tissue incorporated into a Return.”

He glanced toward the sealed workshop.

“I'm beginning to suspect we've only been seeing pieces of something much larger. And I'm afraid we understand no more of the whole picture than you do.”

I wanted to press him. Ask what he meant by "larger," whether there were other places like this, and what any of it meant for Toby.

But Marshall was sitting with his glasses in his hands, staring at the floor. The lines around his eyes seemed deeper than they had that morning. For the first time since I'd met him, he looked every bit his age.

We'd gone there looking for answers, and I suppose we'd found some. We knew where at least part of the furniture had come from and that it hadn't always looked the way it did now.

We'd learned more in a few hours than I had in weeks. But none of it told me whether Toby was going to be okay.

I kept thinking about the arm in the wood.

If that was its idea of fixing something, what did it think was wrong with my son?

Priest was speaking with her team at the stairwell, reviewing the footage and confirming that nobody had touched the structures. She looked up as I finally stood.

“I want every precaution you've got,” I said. “I've got a six-year-old boy in a house with an open Interface. I can't keep waiting for someone to tell me what you've learned after the next person gets hurt.”

“We've already suspended communication attempts after Saturday,” she said. “And the chest is under continuous observation. What else are you asking us to change?”

“More people at the house, and cameras where the chest isn't.”

“He's right,” Mercer said over the radio. He'd been listening to the discussion. “We need to treat the boy's exposure as an escalating risk. Additional surveillance should've been arranged already.”

“More observation, certainly,” Marshall added. “But I'd caution against another attempt to move or interfere with the chest. We don't know whether disturbing it would make matters worse.”

Priest ordered additional cameras and another technician for the overnight watch. The two inside Alicia's house would remain with Toby and Rebecca and continue monitoring the chest.

“We can reinforce surveillance without disturbing anything,” she said.

She was about to confirm the arrangements when another transmission interrupted her.

A burst of static, a click, then Mercer’s urgent voice from the speaker.

“Kestrel, Kestrel, this is Harbor. Do you copy? Over.”

“Harbor, this is Kestrel. Go ahead,” Priest said.

“We've got activity at the wardrobe. The doors are moving. There's noise inside, with furniture shifting. We need assistance now. I don't think we can hold it.”

Priest's hand went still. She asked for the authentication words. 

“Lamplight,” Harbor said.

“Response?”

“Gravel. Priest, please. It's getting worse.”

Priest acknowledged the emergency and ordered Harbor to stay clear of the wardrobe. Then she began arranging reinforcements.

The nearest available personnel were the two technicians in the surveillance van outside Alicia's house. Priest ordered them to assist at my garage, leaving the other two technicians inside with Rebecca and Toby. 

“That leaves nobody outside,” I said.

“Both people inside will stay where they are. One with Toby and Rebecca, the other observing the chest and the cameras.”

I called Rebecca myself. She answered on the second ring, annoyed more than frightened. Toby was drawing beside her, and she assured me they were fine.

“Call me if anything changes,” I told her.

I heard Toby ask who it was. Rebecca told him it was his dad and that I'd be home later.

That was the last time I spoke to her.

We headed downstairs to the van and stayed parked outside the building while Priest monitored the response. The two technicians from Alicia's house reached my garage about twenty minutes later.

“Kestrel, this is Dune's outside team. We're on site. Harbor says there's no emergency.”  

Priest straightened.

“What do you mean?”

She contacted Harbor directly. Mercer answered. Neither he nor the other technician had reported any activity at the wardrobe or requested assistance. 

“But you gave us the correct authentication words,” Priest said.

“Priest, I never made that call.”

Foster reviewed the dispatch recording. The false call was there, complete with the correct authentication words.

“The radio,” I said to Marshall. “The one from Unit 114. It copied my voice and Alicia's. Played back things nobody ever recorded.”

Marshall smacked his forehead in frustration. “Oh, for God's sake. The radio. Of course. We never considered it might work through other equipment. And we've spent twenty minutes treating that call as genuine.”

“But if it can do that through your radios—”

A second channel crackled before I could finish.

“Kestrel, this is Dune. Are you there?”

Priest didn't answer immediately. She looked at the radio, then reached for her phone.

“Dune, go ahead.”

“There's a problem at the house. Rebecca's gone.”

“Stay on this channel,” Priest said. “I'm calling the house directly.”

She put the call on speaker. One of the technicians answered, sounding out of breath.

“Tell me where you are,” Priest said.

“In the living room. Toby's right beside me.”

“And Rebecca?”

“That's what I'm trying to tell you. She said she could hear Alicia calling her from the hallway. I told her it couldn't be Alicia and asked her to stay with Toby.”

“Then what happened?”

“I checked the hallway. I was standing in the living room doorway where I could still see the couch. I turned toward the hall because I thought I heard something moving. When I looked back, Rebecca wasn't there.”

“And the other technician?”

“Still upstairs, monitoring the chest. We checked the feeds. Nothing shows anyone leaving, and the chest hasn't opened.”

“Call the other technician,” Priest told Foster. “Use a separate phone.”

Foster made the call.

“Same report.”

“I don't know where she went,” the technician said. “She was here. I was talking to her, and now she's gone.”

Priest ordered both technicians to remain with Toby, lock the doors, and ignore any voices. She recalled the two personnel diverted to my garage immediately.

I was already pulling my seatbelt across my chest when Priest started the engine. Nobody tried to tell me Rebecca had probably stepped outside. They'd heard the report, and they knew the doors were locked.

As we pulled away from the apartment block, I called Rebecca. It went straight to voicemail. I called again.

I couldn't stop thinking about the workshop, about the watch still fastened around that arm.

I pictured Rebecca trapped in something like that, her face pressed into the wood, one hand reaching out. Every time I tried to put the image away, it came back a little less human. 

Something pale caught my eye beneath the passenger seat. For a second, I thought I could see fingers curling around the edge, reaching toward my ankle.

“Ian.”

I jerked my feet back.

“Ian, look at me.”

Marshall was watching me from the front seat. I looked down again. It was just a loose strap hanging beneath the seat.

“She's missing,” he said. “That's all we know.”

I nodded, though I could barely make myself believe it.

I'd imagined Toby at the breakfast table, patiently explaining how to play with his friend and showing him things three or four times until he understood. I'd spent days wondering whether it was lonely, whether it wanted somebody to play with, whether it even understood it was hurting people.

Maybe all of that was true.

Or maybe none of it was.

The smell of old worn out and dusty books filled the air as I entered the old thrift store by the corner of my house it had recently open not too long ago I’d say about two months ago? Perhaps later I couldn’t remember when it opened that much I don’t recall it but I think it has to be two months no later than that?

I grabbed an old worn out book as I flipped through the thick leather cover, I’d grabbed off the bargaining shelf. Half way through as I opened the book the pages resisted quite a bit I was afraid that I would rip it but I pulled a little harder it opened at last, it was held apart by something stiff tucked in the corner of the book it looked as if it was a.

Polaroid the glossy chemical finishes had turned slightly golden around the edges as they were also folded quite a bit I didn’t think that much about it. The image still looked to be about sharp my eyes tracked the image slowly and carefully as I observed every small detail, the dark oak desk against the far wall the old chair the rug near a bed.

The iron bed frame that was rusted a little bit in the corner, the low window by the side of the wall sill I couldn’t quite put my mind into it I focused as I tried to remember this place had been familiar? I put my mind really hard into than I realized what it was my own room, every notch in baseboards but my thumb brushed the bottom border of the Polaroid picture.

The date was printed in a deep violet color as it caught the light of the sun, October 78?. My building that I live in wasn’t even built until the mid-nineties, I slowly but surely flipped over. Written in light shaky pencil was single straight line “Room 4B. He still thinks he’s alone.” I was afraid but deeply curious at what it was?

I bought it took it home as I slowly walked up to my apartment I softly opened my door closed it I didn’t even bother to change clothes as my curiosity grew further I went to my own room that I had seen in the Polaroid picture. I sat down on my desk I opened the leather book and I took out the picture again.

The ticking of my clock on my desk suddenly sounded quite off beat not enough to notice if you weren’t paying attention but I listened closely, it sounded like it was doubled, like two pendulum’s swinging out of sync. The overhead bulb flickered slowly once twice and then it died plunging the whole room into a dark room.

When the lights flickered softly slowly again back on a second later, it was low, a warm amber that it had never been. The air smelled thick with old kind of cigarette smoke. On my desk in front of me, right next to my notebook sat a heavy iron cast iron typewriter with a yellowed sheet of paper rolled into the carriage.

Typed in a rush faded black ink were five words “DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR!” From the hallway outside of my bedroom, three slow soft heavy knocks echoed throughout the deep brown oak door. Than I realized what it was it was a cycle that had never been broken the thing outside the door was non other than myself my past self trying to get back in.

To break the cycle I point downwards at the floorboards surrounding my desk. The flash illuminates dozens of faint, glowing chalk outlines or tally’s scratched into the wood marks that only show up in the cameras film, and proving that I have lived through and have died and suffered in the exact room 100 times before.

I write on the back “iteration #101. Stop trying to leave through the front door use the fire escape” I put the picture back into the heavy leather book.

As I smile and drop a soft tear knowing that I myself won’t get to experience the breaking of the loop but my other self will as I look through the window one last time as. The clock hits midnight all I think about is how my other self will know how to escape as everything finally goes dark.

[PART 1]

[PART 2]

[PART 3]

Thank you to everyone who has continued reading my story up until this point. Your belief and support have given me a renewed sense of purpose. I never imagined so many people would be open-minded about my story, especially after so many people had scoffed at it in the past.
This will be my last entry about the events.
———————————————————————————————————

I woke up in a haze. My head was pounding, and I needed water badly. Rolling over onto my side, I saw a half-drunk plastic bottle of water sitting on the coffee table, which I opened and downed without a second thought. My eyes slowly adjusted as I looked around the room. I realized it wasn’t mine.

Like my room, it was dimly lit with windows covered by blackout curtains. Unlike my room, it REEKED of weed and had a couch instead of a bed.

I am in a stranger’s living room.

The TV was on showing the same looping screens of the local news channel. I watched it flick past the scene of the human pile in the park back to the farmers market as the memories of my last conscious moment came back to me.

Hudson is dead. I watched them pull him apart. I watched them drag him under the pile. I went completely numb as the shock and sorrow of losing my friend washed over me once more. I stared blankly at the ground.

How did I get here?

I had spent the last 24 hours being more frightened, sad, and exhausted than I had ever been in my life. I wanted so badly to lay back down and fall asleep again so I could forget the sound of my best friend’s screams and the sight of the smiles on my family's faces as they sat in their prison of sunrays.

My family is still sitting in the backyard.

The thought sent a jolt of energy through my body.

How long have I been asleep? My family can’t last much longer, it may already be too late.

I had to know. Did I still have time at least to save them? If not I would simply walk out into the sunlight and suffer the same fate as they did, no point in living if they too are gone. No point in living alone.

I looked around the room again, there was a bong on the table, a dimly lit kitchen attached to my left and a hallway to my right. I got off the couch and headed to the hallway. On the ground next to the couch were my shoes, helmet, balaclava, my dad’s winter jacket and my backpack.

Someone undressed me, I realized.

I rummaged through my backpack looking for my water bottle but it wasn’t there.

I tiptoed up the hallway where I saw an open door to a dimly lit bedroom. Peeking past the lip of the doorway I saw the silhouette of a heavy figure hunched over a computer. The man pushed away from his desk, readjusted himself, bent down over it and snorted what I now know to be cocaine before promptly scooting back up to the computer and typing away again. “No, no, NO” he slammed down both fists on his desk, “fucking idiot, how could this be CGI, I am a person not fucking Lucas Films.” He aggressively began typing away again. I didn’t know what to do to get his attention, do I knock? Do I clear my throat?

“Excuse me,” is what I went with. He stopped typing and pushed away from his desk. The chair squeaked under the strain of the weight as he turned to me. He wiped his nose and said,

“Oh, hey.” He turned to wipe the desk away too and looked back at me, “uhhhh how are you? Did you drink the water I left you?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Normally this whole weird social situation would have been a nightmare for me but I had no more mental energy to give to anxiety. He looked like a mix of every guy I had ever seen at the card shops I bought Pokemon from.

“How long was I out for?”

The man turned around and checked the time on his computer.

“Uhhh, it’s been about 3 hours since I picked you up from the park. I came as soon as I saw you on the news but you were already passed out when I got there.”

Oh thank god.

I let out a heavy breath. Every hour mattered if I were to save my family. I had feared that I had slept way longer but that was probably just because of the heat exhaustion. Only three hours lost was not really a problem, I still had plenty of time before they were in serious danger.

I sized up my saviour. He was a big guy, he would definitely be strong enough to help hold back my parents until I dragged my sister into the house. Shit, between the two of us we could probably save all three of them given how weak they are bound to be at this point. I needed to play it cool, this stranger was my best and probably only shot at saving them with what little time they had left.

“Do you have any more water?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, for sure.” He pushed himself out of the chair with a grunt, he squeezed his way past me through the hallway and I saw that he was fairly tall too.

Perfect.

“Sorry about the bong,” he said, motioning over to the coffee table, “it's my roommates, I don’t ya know, do that stuff.” He sniffed and rubbed his nose before opening the fridge and rummaging around for a fresh water bottle. “Ah shit, is tap okay?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

He grabbed a cup out of the cabinet and moved some of the piled up sink dishes out of the way and onto the counter just so he could fill up my glass.

“I gave you some of that water earlier after I got you out of that park, but uh,” he handed me the cup, pointing at where my half-drunk water bottle previously was on the coffee table. “But I couldn’t pour too much at a time because you started to choke.”

I gulped down the entire thing in one go. He was staring intently at me, drumming his fingers on the countertop. I could tell he was as eager to talk to me about this whole situation as I was to ask for his help.

Unable to restrain his excitement anymore, he leaned in and in a quiet but excited tone said,
“This shit is fuckin crazy, right??” His pupils were huge, and his breath reeked. I could tell he hadn’t showered in at least a few days. I was more than a little uncomfortable with being here alone with him but here we were. Before I could even answer he started rambling.

“I was watching them on the news and through my window all day yesterday I barely got any sleep! I checked all over the internet, NO one is talking about it. Its like it is only happening here, it makes no fucking sense.” He looked at my uncomfortable expression and said , “Sorry dude, I will try not to curse so much, not used to kids really. How old are you anyways? 9? 14? Nevermind doesn’t matter, I have been dying to talk to someone who isn’t completely lobotomized by the sun. I have been sending videos and emails, making blog posts, fuckin everything! No one believes me, can you believe that shit?” He held out his arms like it was the most obviously ridiculous thing ever.

“Yeah, it… it doesn’t make any sense,” I offered. I was thinking of how I could smoothly transition the conversation into convincing him to help me when he continued,

“No man, no it doesn’t. I have been video taping everything, the news, the people outside, I filmed the whole drive to the park and that freaky pile of people. I have been writing countless notes documenting how their behavior has changed with exact timestamps that match the videos and these fucking idiots still don’t believe me!” He pointed to his computer through the open door down the hallway.

“How much more proof do they need?” I tried to fake sympathize with his frustrations in an effort to butter him up.

“I was thinking about that actually and uh.” He drummed his fingers on the countertop a little quicker, “Another witness might be just what I need to convince them.” He raised his eyebrows at me waiting for my response.

“Yeah, no, totally.” The path forward was becoming clear in my head, “I could do that for you.”
He slapped the countertop smiling hard like he couldn’t believe all he had to do was ask, “God, I knew you were going to be fuckin cool the moment I saw the Master Chief helmet!” He held out a fistbump which I reciprocated. “Listen kid, we are going to make SO much money. I was thinking we could split it basically straight down the middle, 60-40 since, you know, I did all the documentation but trust me kid, you deserve that 40, hard.” He started putting on his oversized leather jacket and winter gloves. “No point in wasting time I say, let's head out ASAP. I was thinking we could go straight to Ely and find the police or local news or whatever and get this story moving up. This is national shit, global shit even. You and me, we are going to be fuckin heroes were gonna-”

“Sorry, I meant to ask, but what is your name again?” I interrupted knowing full and well he never gave it.

“Oh dude,” he laughed, “Greg, sorry bro I completely forgot to introduce myself, I haven’t been this excited in a while if you couldn’t tell. What's your name my man?”

“I’m Andrew—”

“Andrewwwww,” he said, holding out a fistbump, which I reciprocated once more, “nice to meet you bro, we are about to be the goddamn legends of Goldfield. Greg and Andrew, sick-”

“-Uh so I was thinking, instead of splitting 60-40,” he immediately stopped what he was doing and stared at me full attention for the first time since he started rambling, “Well, the thing is I don’t need any money honestly, so you can have all the money, uh like 100-0. But I could really use your help with one small thing before we go to Ely. Uhm,” I tried to think of the best way to make the request,
“My Mom, Dad and Sister have been in my backyard since yesterday morning. I tried to get them in the house but I wasn’t uhm,” I felt my voice shake a little as I thought back to my father kicking me in the head as my sister was dragged away.

“I uh- I wasn’t really strong enough to get them in the house, ya know. But I figured you could help me just get them in the shade real quick on our way out and then we can go to Ely. We have money we can give you also, and uhm I have some pretty good Pokemon cards and an Xbox if you want. We will give you whatever you want really, I just need some help cause I am getting pretty worried about them.” I was starting to break again,

“Whoa kid, slow down, no problem no problem I am being dumb, of course you have a family here.”

I looked down wiping away the tears, “Save your pokemon cards, I’ll help you with your family, of course, it's the least I could do, you're doing me a huge solid coming with me kid, really, you’re a superstar.” I thanked him through my bit lip as I worked to regain my composure. “Um,” he continued as he patted me awkwardly on the back. “I will take some cash though if you guys have some, for, you know, gas and stuff, if that’s cool.”

“Yeah, that’s cool,” I said wiping away the last tear, “I was also thinking we could maybe wait a little for them to recover so we can get them dressed up and take them to a hospital in Ely.”

Greg didn’t respond immediately, “Uhh I don’t know kid we really will need to move quick in case someone else gets there first, you know.”

“But they could be witnesses too! Think about how good that would be for your argument! Think about it, they would be really good evidence of what the sun is doing to people because they would still be super sunburnt. Plus my Dad’s a cop, he would vouch for you.” That last part was a lie but I was desperate and throwing whatever incentives I could at him to convince him to help save my family.

He was drumming the countertop again before he rubbed his nose and sniffed, “Probably met him before then,” he chuckled before looking to the side in deep thought, “......and they won’t want to split the money right? Still 100-0 right?”

I had no earthly clue as to what money he was talking about but I didn’t care either, “100-0 just like I said, this is our best chance. Honestly we need my family if you think about it. I mean, if the people out there already don’t believe you, why would they believe a dumb 12 year old like me?”
“Alright, alright, fuck it, you’re a good negotiator, let’s do it. Just,” he sighed in frustration, “if you don’t mind, try to follow my lead, we may make a stop to take a quick video or two on the way out for more evidence, you get it.” He said as he walked over to the couch and sat down, lighting up the bong.

I may have recruited a junkie to save my family.

“Of course! You are the leader, no problem.” I was starting to regain a semblance of hope. I had thought for sure I wouldn’t find anyone to help me let alone a grown man strong enough to drag them inside.

Greg and I got geared up as we prepared to leave. I filled up some empty plastic bottles with water and he shoved all his notes, his computer's hard drive, a metal Altoids tin, and his camera into his backpack. He geared up in baggy brown cargo pants, snow boots, his jacket and gloves and, I shit you not, a full metal knight’s great helm. He had broken the earpieces off multiple pairs of sunglasses and taped the lenses over the helmet's eye slits.

“Pretty fuckin sick, right?” he said through the muffled helm.

“Yeah, fuckin’… awesome.” I replied, attempting and failing to match his enthusiasm.

“One more thing,” Greg said, opening his closet and rummaging through it. He pulled out a replica of Frodo’s sword from Lord of the Rings and handed it to me.

“Can’t be too safe, you know?” he went back to rummaging through the closet.

“Does it glow blue when orcs are close?” I asked sarcastically as I looked at it.

“No, but that would be sick if it did.” he said as he pulled out a full replica of Gandalf's staff.

“No way,” I said in involuntary disbelief. This guy was literally and figuratively the biggest nerd I had ever met.

“Oh yeah,” he said through the helm, raising it up to the ceiling and admiring it. He had mistaken my disbelief for admiration which I didn’t correct. “Now we are ready.”

We made our way out of the apartment to the black Dodge Caravan in the parking lot. There were a couple people spread around the property. I looked at the little playground nearby, one woman was laying on the picnic table while another slowly spun around on the small merry-go-round. I couldn’t look too long at the kids.

“Fucked, right?” Greg said through his muffled helmet.

Obviously.

“Cool ride.” I said ignoring the question. I was thankful for his help but I was getting a little angry thinking about the fact that he sat up in his apartment filming from the window instead of coming out to help at least the children.

“Thanks, yeah, it’s actually Dan’s, my roommate.” he said pointing out my window. Dan was standing arms out in the middle of the parking lot in just his underwear.

“Did you not try and bring anyone back into the shade?” I couldn’t restrain myself.

“Well, I wanted to. I thought about covering up from the sun and going out there but I was too afraid to try it until I saw you on the TV.” he chuckled, “You are an absolute madman going out there, what were you doing in the park anyways?”

Hudson is dead. He’s under the pile.

I didn’t respond.

Stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it.

“My friend was there.” I managed to say.

“Ah, shit, sorry kid.”

We sat there in awkward silence for a second silently breathing in our helmets. He started up the car.

“Uhm… where do you live?”

“5 minutes from the park, just take a left on Jackson St. and I will show you from there.”

“Shit, that’s on the entire other side of town.” he said, reversing out of the spot, “we are going to have to cut through the city. I’m going to go ahead and warn you I saw some pretty fucked up shit going through there earlier so uh, you might want to keep your eyes down once we get in there.”
“I’ll be fine, thanks.”

“If you say so.” he reached into his bag and pulled out his camera and clicked it on, “Mind filming for me then?”

I took the camera and held it up to the windshield as we drove. We were just outside downtown Goldfield so we got there in no time. I wondered if we were going to cut through the town square with all the squabbling people. I thought about the old lady laying face down in the road that I saw on TV earlier., She was the first person I saw die. I really hoped we didn’t have to drive past her.

Despite my clear reluctance to talk, Greg continued to pepper me with questions as we drove.

“So when you first saw your parents, how did you know to cover up before going out?”

“I didn’t. I went out there with them. I was stuck with them like that for a few minutes.”

“WHAT?!” he threw a quick look at me, “You went out in the sun? What did it feel like? How did you get out?”

I thought about all five of us sitting in the backyard together. “It felt amazing…”
I still had the thought bloom in my head occasionally. How easy it would be to just take off all my gear and walk into the sun, letting it melt my pain, sorrow, and stress away again.

“Can you give more detail? And please speak up. I am struggling to hear in this thing.” He tapped his helmet.

I looked at him. This motherfucker was interviewing me and his camera was recording the audio. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. I will tell you all about it after we bring my family inside the house.”

“Well… okay. But what works to get them to stop being like that?” he pointed to a shirtless guy leaning against a brick wall rubbing his back against it like a bear scratching against a tree.
“You just need to take them out of the sunlight, I think.” I thought back to Hudson when I pulled him under the shade of the tree. How I managed to get him to return to himself.

I only saved him for 2 minutes.

“So what, could you have just like, thrown a tarp over them or something?”

“What? No. I don’t know. I doubt it. My own Dad beat me up when I tried to bring my sister inside so I doubt a tarp would have worked.”

“Yeesh.” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, “good thing I brought the staff.”

We didn’t talk much for the rest of the ride, I filmed the scenes of the streets as we drove by. Animals and people alike spread out across the sunny streets avoiding the shadows cast by the surrounding buildings like the plague. A mother stood arms out smiling at the sun, stroller left forgotten behind her. A businesswoman and a homeless man lay holding hands side by side on the sidewalk in utter bliss. A kid not much older than myself stood arms spread on top of a bigger man who had succumbed to the heat. I saw dozens of people, old and young, black and white, male and female in different states of undress slowly sunbathing their lives away.

“What the fuck is that?” I said pointing to the side of a building. Greg slowed the car to a stop as we looked up. There were a few construction workers sunbathing on top of the building but what I was pointing at was on the side of it. The sunlight was hitting the full face of the building and one of the construction workers, evidently in an effort to get as many rays as possible had fastened two ropes to the roof, undressed, tied the ropes to his wrists and lowered himself off the side of the building. The man would nod off, and then shoot his head up and stare at the sun smiling before nodding off again. Greg took the camera from me and pointed up at the man zooming in on him.

“Still think this shit’s CGI? HUH? This is the shit I am talking about! This whole town has lost its fucking mind and it’s the sun’s fault!” He was yelling into the camera, evidently at the non-believers from whatever blog post he had failed to convince earlier.

“Can we go?”

I was tired of the horrors. I felt like people were constantly trying to one up ways to get the sun's attention. They acted like addicts pushing themselves to extreme measures to get their fix. I just wanted to save my family, leave Goldfield and never return.

We hopped back in the car and continued driving until it was Greg’s turn to say, “What the fuck?”
All the way down the street we saw someone else walking. I thought for sure we were alone but sure enough they were lumbering across our view. We looked at each other to make sure we were both seeing the same thing. He drove over to them honking his horn a few times but they paid us no mind. As we got close we saw the man, he was a bald guy, his head extremely red, lips blistered and he just continued to walk down the street.

We stepped out of the car and called out to him but he ignored us. He wasn’t covered up, he was fully under the sunlight but he wasn’t facing the sun either. Then out of an alleyway to our left a woman stepped out, following the bald man. She too ignored us and the sun but continued to walk down the road. We hopped back in the car and slowly followed them.

“This is new,” Greg said, driving the car slowly alongside them. Dozens of people walked out from side streets, peeled themselves off the ground, got off the top of cars and all began walking like a horde of zombies to the center of town.

When we made it to the center square of the city, it was so packed with bodies that we couldn’t drive through if we wanted to. The people stood shoulder to shoulder filling in the space, no longer squabbling over the sunlight but forming neat rows. They no longer outstretched their arms, but once they made it to the center and squeezed in the crowd, they looked back up at the sun, opened their mouths and eyes as wide as they could and waited. It looked like a sea of baby birds waiting for the sun to come down and feed them. It was terrifying. I didn’t know what was happening but I didn’t want to find out.

“Greg, please let’s just go to my house, I don’t like this, it can't be safe.”

“Listen kid,” he said, turning to me, “I understand your urgency, I get it. But all this is bigger than your family, the world will want to know what happened to these people and I will be the one to document the extent of it, whatever they do next, I will be the one to record it, understand? So just chill.”

“We had a deal-”

“The deal was I would help your family right? I am still going to save your goddamn family just how I saved you, they have been out there for over a day. Another hour won’t hurt. Now, you can either get out with me and help see this once in a lifetime shit or you can stay in the car.”

I thought about it, I would stay in the car and if any crazy shit started to happen I would take the keys and drive off, I would leave him if I had to. I would do whatever I had to in order to save my family, even if it meant breaking their legs and dragging them inside by myself, I would do it.

“I will stay,” I said folding my arms and sitting back.

“Fine.” he said, fishing the tin of altoids out of his bag and opening it up. The tin was filled with coke, he turned the car off and took the key (damnit), scooping a bump out of the tin and pulling up his helmet slightly to lift it to his nose. He took a few bumps in a row before putting it all up and stepping out of the car with the camera already rolling. I hated this man, I decided then and there. I wasn’t sure that even his involvement in saving my family would fix that. In my head any normal adult in these circumstances would help a child save his family without stipulations but this coke fueled goblin knight was by no means a normal adult.

I reluctantly stepped out of the car, following him holding the little sword he gave me at my side. Worst-case scenario I would stab him in his fat stupid ass and take the keys for myself. Best-case scenario he could finish filming this freak show and make good on his promise.

God please don’t let this day get any worse.

I trailed a few feet behind him as he swept the camera across the field of people. He was talking a million miles per hour trying to fill in and reinforce the details of what the camera was seeing.

“They are just standing here all in a row now. Before this if any single one of them cast a shadow on the other they would push them away. This is some hive mind shit. I mean look at these motherfuckers.”

He began walking up to the crowd, poking and prodding the hypnotized onlookers with his staff. I yelled at him to stop fearing they would start attacking like my parents did but he ignored me and they ignored him. I could tell he was reeling from the excitement of the situation and began to act increasingly erratically when he realized they were ignoring him entirely. He began to touch the people with his gloved free hand, forcibly closing one woman's mouth over and over and watching as it just fell back open again as if the jaw was no longer attached to the skull.

“Who could possibly think up some shit like this huh? CGI my ass I am about to get PAID, this is fucking ridiculous.” The crazy bastard started pushing his way into the crowd so I ran over to him and grabbed his arm pulling him backwards with all my strength.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU FUCKING NUT?”

By no means should this have worked to prevent a man as big as him from going into that crowd but me grabbing him so suddenly startled him just enough for him to spin around and trip over a dead body hidden beneath the cover of the crowd and topple backwards out of the group onto the concrete. As he fell back his arm flung out and he smashed his camera on the concrete. He rolled over pushing himself up as he began screaming obscenities at me.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just not safe. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry, I’ll get you a new camera, I promise.” I said backing up from him. He was aggressively moving towards me not hearing a word of it.

“WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GRABBING ME AND BREAKING MY FUCKING CAMERA. STOP BEING A DUMB FUCKING KID THIS IS BEYOND YOU.” He grabbed me by my father’s oversized jacket and pulled my helmet close to his. His other fist was balled and I could tell he was one more wrong away from laying me out. I had a white knuckle grip on the sword he gave me but I felt the situation completely slipping out of my hands.

This man won’t save my family.

“ALL OF THIS MATTERS MORE THAN YOUR DUMB FAMILY, YOU THINK I NEED YOU AS A WITNESS, I DON'T NEED ANYONE.” He threw me back on my butt on the concrete. He walked over to his broken camera and was working to try and salvage what he could.

“FUCKKKK.” he screamed, spiking it on the ground in a fresh rage. He picked up the staff and pointed it at me, “YOU OWE ME A WHOLE LOT MORE THAN A NEW FUCKING CAMERA, YOU HEAR ME YOU-”

Behind him, the crowd of people, all at once began to let out a single note symphony from their open mouths. It started off as the sound of one hushed exhale that crescendoed into a single continuous harmonic note. The sound alone gave me extreme anxiety as it built, getting louder and louder. We both looked around expecting something to change, some sense of movement in the crowd, a change of color, anything to signal change but nothing seemed to be happening. The sound they made seemed entirely for the purpose of building up anxiety for any onlookers. But then I looked up. I looked at the sun.

Through my visor I could see the outline of a man in the center of the sun. His arms spread-eagle and his outline was getting bigger, and bigger and bigger as he got closer and closer. Very slowly, he descended from the sky down to the crowd of onlookers below. He floated to a point just above the crowd and stayed there for a second. They all surrounded him, staring wide-eyed with mouths open, nearly screaming in harmony before, all at once, they went silent.

Their mouths continued to hang open but a hush had gone over the entire city square. Now that he was here, floating just above the crowd, I could see that the man wasn’t a man at all. He stood nearly nine feet tall, with deep red skin and long, thin limbs corded with wiry muscles. His arms, hands, and fingers were impossibly long. He was naked except for a ragged loincloth, with a small pouch tied at his waist.

But the most shocking thing about this creature was his head. His neck was grotesquely long and bent forward like the stem of a sunflower, supporting a massive golden sun mask with only two narrow slits for eyes. His head and neck drooped beneath the weight of the golden mask, as if even he struggled to wear it.

He looked right at us, the only two people in this town square who weren’t submitting and descended into the crowd. As his feet touched down the crowd parted, forming a straight open path to us. He towered over those he walked past, his head bouncing from the weight as he walked. Greg pointed his staff outwards at the creature shouting hopeless demands of explanations as it approached.

“WHAT ARE YOU?”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

“WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM US?”

He got louder the closer it got working himself up in yet another coke fueled frenzy. He started shouting “YOU SHALL NOT PASS” when the creature grabbed the staff and threw it to the side before grabbing Greg by his head. I fell to my knees when this happened. I saw the keys to the car jingle on his beltloop as he tried to wriggle out of the creature's grasp. My one chance of saving my family was about to have his head ripped off in front of my eyes, I felt all hope fading.

Instead of ripping his head off, the creature took the great helm off his head and dropped it by his feet before letting go of Greg. Greg stumbled backwards, staring at the creature before he too fell on his knees and began weeping, laughing and moaning in pleasure all at once. He began bowing and looking up at the glittering golden mask and bowing again, worshipping this creature of the sun as if it were the only thing that mattered in the world. I watched his feverish reverence in horror as I pushed myself up to my feet and began backing away.

I will run back to my family if I have to.

The creature turned his head to me, I was sure he would remove my helmet next. This was it. This was the end.

…

…

“Walk with me,” it demanded, turning around and walking back into the parted crowd leaving Greg on the ground writhing in ecstatic delirium. The open mouths turned to him wherever he walked. Their necks slouched forward mimicking their master.

I am in a field of sunflowers. I thought as I stepped into the crowd.

I followed sheepishly behind him. I am not sure what I expected when he approached us. I am not sure what I expected to happen next. But despite not being under the divine influence of whatever power his sun held I still felt the power of his command. The weight and wisdom behind his every movement was so clear to me. He had a draw to him, like every paternal figure in my life rolled up into one.

He said nothing as he removed the small sack from his hip and opened it up, taking a single seed out of it pinched between his long pointer finger and thumb and pressing it down onto the tongue of one of the onlookers. They closed their mouths and swallowed the seed before sitting down and closing their eyes. He repeated the same process, moving from one to the next, as if he were planting seeds in a field silently working while I just watched.

“How did you escape my sunlight?” he asked without looking at me.

I shuffled uneasily as he continued silently working his way through the crowd. “Uhm… I have a condition.” I cleared my throat and tried to speak up fearing he couldn’t hear me through my muffled helmet.

“I have a condition called Xeroderma Pigmentosum, so uh, I can’t be in the sun…” he didn’t respond, he just pulled another seed out and planted it on another tongue. I continued,  “Well, I can go in the sun but I am not supposed to be. My Mom was always very strict on me about staying out of the sun because one time when I was little I went outside when my parents weren’t looking and wandered around the yard for a few hours and got so badly burned that I had to go to the hospital.” I gulped, staring at him in anticipation for his response.

He planted two more seeds but still said nothing. I thought about the question again:

‘How did you escape my sun?’

“When I was outside with my family I saw my skin turning red and got scared. I got scared of getting burnt and scared of getting in trouble for being outside without my UV protection. So I ran inside where it was safe.”

He planted another seed and said, “I see.”

He continued working, silently hunched over each person, looking them in their eyes as he pressed the seed on their tongue. I turned around and looked back at Greg between the rows of people. He was undressing now, staring past me at this creature. I looked at the pile of clothes behind him and saw the keys shining on the side of his belt. I took a step towards them.

“Where are you going?” the creature asked with its back still turned.

I didn’t move a muscle, even though this creature showed me no malice, I feared him. I feared him not because of what he would do to me but what would happen to my family if I lost my mind, if I became part of this field of people.

I told him the truth, suspecting he knew the answer anyway, “I need to save my family.”

“But I am already here.”

The shock of the response sent a wave of grief over me. Though they were just words, I knew the finality of them to be true. He spoke the exact thought that entered my mind the moment his feet touched the ground.

“What are you?” I asked, tears forming in my eyes once more.

He turned to look at me and raised a long, pointed finger to the sun. I looked up at it. It was not as bright as it was before, it was developing a faint orange glow to it as he worked, the rays glittered a little less, and the world seemed to start to dim for the first time since the last sundown. He went back to working, making his way down the line.

I felt an anger and a helplessness bubble up once more, I had tried and tried and tried to save my family and my friend. I had gone through hell these past two days, I had been beaten, and traumatized. I had been so alone in this horrific experience and this creature who was, what, claiming to be the fucking sun was the cause of my anguish. I lashed out as any cornered wounded animal would. I forgot all respect and reservation, and I yelled at this thing, “WHY DON’T YOU JUST KILL ME ALREADY AND GET IT OVER WITH? WHY ARE YOU TORTURING ME?”

He stopped what he was doing, closed the sack and reattached it to his belt before walking over to me. He got down on one knee and craned his impossibly long neck down to look me in the eyes. Through the slits of his golden mask I could make out the outlines of his ancient, human-looking eyes. But I couldn’t see too well through my visor.

“I don’t want to kill you… It is time to take your helm off.” He reached down grabbing my helmet but I swung my short sword up, slashing his hand and retreating a few steps back. From the wound dripped liquid gold. He held his hand up to the sunlight and the gold sizzled and hardened before he wiped it off. The wound had closed in an instant.

“I WILL NEVER TAKE THIS MASK OFF, I WILL NEVER BECOME ONE OF YOUR FREAK SLAVES. I WILL NEVER BE LIKE HIM!” I pointed back at Greg who had now already joined the others, mouth and eyes wide open, standing in his row of the field.

The creature stood full height and looked down on me as if I were some bug in his garden.

“Would you rather stay or leave?” His words came out slowly and deliberately as if it were the only two options in the world.

“I don’t understand.” I felt myself begin to panic as the presence of the ultimatum began to weigh on me.

“You can stay, and live with your family, you would all live happily together under my sun. Or you can leave, I will take you to the river and the current will take you out of this place back to your world.”

“But this is MY world!” I cried out in defiance.

“No. It never was.”

I was seething with rage, and trembling with fear. He was taking my family from me, he was taking away our lives and our futures. I raised my sword up to him, “I won’t let you do this.”
He grabbed my sword before I could even begin to strike. He observed it before tossing it to the side. Then in one quick motion he grabbed me by the back of my jacket and picked me up. I screamed and thrashed and yelled a number of obscenities. But under the intense heat, in my full gear I tired myself out quickly. He walked me out of the town square and out of the city. I rebelled the whole way but he paid me no mind. Suddenly we began walking up to a river I had never seen before. To this day, I am sure that this river did not exist in our town. As the river came into eyesight, my insults and threats turned into pleading.

I begged for him to spare my family, I begged for him to make just this one exception for them, I begged for him to just spare my sister at least, to take me instead. The closer we got the smaller my pleads became, by the end we were standing on the edge of the river bank.

“I am sorry…” I sobbed, “I changed my mind… Please let me stay with my family… please…”

But it didn’t matter, he lifted me up, and tossed me in the river like a fish that wasn’t big enough to keep. The water was impossibly cold. I felt the current sweep me under and away, and watched the sunlight on the surface fade as I went with it. That was the last time I ever was in Goldfield.

I woke up about 8 miles outside of Ely. I had washed up on the bank of the river. It was incredibly cold, and dark and my clothes were soaked through. I stood up and stumbled to the nearest road, and marched for about a mile before I came across a gas station. The clerk called 911 and they sent two park rangers out to get me. They gave me fresh clothes and interviewed me extensively. They asked me where I came from, why I was wearing a Halloween costume helmet, where my parents were and how to reach them. They assumed I was some kid who got carried away playing in the forest and chalked it up to that in the end despite my frantic insistence that my story was true. I got aggressive when they told me there was no town called Goldfield, when they denied its existence and refused to even bother sending help out there. They simply didn’t believe me.

I was eventually put in the foster care system. They couldn’t find my parents or any relatives (I had none that I knew of), they couldn’t prove they ever even existed despite me having an abundant amount of information about them.

I was a real challenge for the psychiatrists. My mind was stable despite my outburst. From all the tests they did, they determined I wasn’t lying or simply acting out but on the other hand nothing I said had evidence to back it. The official report said that I had suffered PTSD and delusional disorder from being lost in the woods and falling into the freezing river.

Because they found no relatives, I ended up being stuck in the foster care system until I turned 18. I got a job and moved into my own place, continued to go to therapy and really tried to move on with my life in the small ways that I could. It has been hard to make and keep friends and girlfriends. I often find that I simply live in another reality from others. I will be honest with you all, I have thought about killing myself plenty of times since then. However, the thought of all of Goldfield dying with me has made me change my mind every time.

This story is the only true written record of Goldfield. I couldn’t find any, so I wrote this in the meantime. I really hope you all never forget this story. Somehow that creature of the sun had erased all of those people from history. It erased my family, it may have erased someone from yours. Check your photo albums, check your family tree, check your file cabinets. Maybe there is someone you forgot, someone you don’t quite recognize, they may have lived and died in Goldfield. Try and learn their name, and if you can, don’t forget it. There are no graves for them or loved ones to pay their respects. They just exist somewhere else now, and in my memory.

Please reach out if you find any more proof of their existence. Thank you.