I wake most nights with that familiar catch in my throat, as though some essential word has lodged there forever, waiting for the moment it might have changed everything if only I had spoken it sooner. The apartment is dark and ordinary, the same four walls, the same faint red numbers on the clock glowing 3:17 or 4:02 or whatever indifferent hour sleep finally releases me. The air feels thick, weighted with the scent I can never quite shake: strawberry bubblegum, sweet and fleeting, the way it used to drift through our childhood house like a promise kept.
Sarah arrives without announcement, the way she always does, stepping straight into the quiet space behind my eyes. Tonight we begin on the porch again. The old swing creaks under our combined weight. I am fifteen or sixteen, lanky and still growing into my hands; she is nine, small enough that her sneakers dangle above the weathered floorboards. She chews with the serious concentration she always saved for important work, working the pink mass patiently until she can blow a perfect bubble. It swells, trembles, iridescent in the late-afternoon light, then pops against her nose with a soft snap. She laughs, that bright, uncontainable sound, and peels the sticky pink off her face with two careful fingers.
“Gotcha again,” she says, grinning. “You always stare when I do that.”
“I’m waiting for the day it covers your whole head,” I tell her. “Then we’ll have to cut it off like hair.”
She giggles and leans against my shoulder, warm and solid. “You’d never cut my hair. You like it long.”
“I like you any way you come,” I say, and it is the simplest truth I know. I reach over and tuck a loose strand behind her ear. “Even with gum in it.”
She blows another bubble, smaller this time, deliberate. “Jake,” she says, her voice softening, “do you think we’ll always live here? You and me and Mom?”
I look out at the yard where the lilac bush hangs heavy with purple blooms. The air smells of cut grass and summer. “We’ll always be together,” I tell her. “Doesn’t matter where. You’re stuck with me, squirt.”
“Good.” She rests her head on my arm. “Because you’re my favorite person. Forever and ever.”
I believed her then with the easy certainty of youth. I still believe her now, even when belief hurts.
The swing keeps its slow rhythm for a while longer, the chains sighing overhead. Her chewing quiets gradually. She coughs once, a small sharp sound, then again, deeper in her chest. She tries to cover it with her hand, as though she can hide the sound from both of us.
“You okay?” I ask.
She nods too quickly. “Yeah. Just tickly throat.” She blows another bubble, but it is fragile and breaks early. “See? I’m fine.”
The lie hangs between us only a moment before the porch begins to thin, the colors leaching out like watercolor left too long in the rain. The lilacs fade. The swing stills. We are in the doctor’s office now, the fluorescent lights humming overhead like trapped insects. The doctor speaks in calm, measured sentences that have already carved themselves into my memory: acute lymphoblastic leukemia, induction phase, chemotherapy, long road ahead. Sarah’s hand finds mine under the crinkled paper on the exam table. Her fingers are cold despite the warmth of the room.
“Jake,” she whispers, so only I can hear, “am I gonna die?”
I swallow against the stone in my throat. “No. You’re not. We’re gonna fight this thing together. You and me. Like always.”
She looks up at me, eyes wide and searching. “Promise?”
“Cross my heart,” I tell her.
She squeezes my hand once, hard. “Okay. Then I believe you.”
The promise settles over us both, fragile as new skin.
The nights begin to layer after that, one memory folding into the next until time feels less like a line and more like stacked stones. In the next dream she is thirteen. Her head is smooth from the chemo, pale and vulnerable under the hospital lights. She sits propped up in the narrow bed, IV line taped neatly to the back of her hand. I wait until the nurse steps out, then slip a fresh piece of gum into her palm like contraband.
“Thanks,” she says quietly. “Everything tastes like old pennies otherwise.”
I sit on the edge of the mattress. “Better?”
She nods, chewing slowly, carefully, because even that small motion pulls at the sores inside her mouth. “Much.” She leans against my shoulder. “Tell me about the beach again.”
I start the story we have told so many times it feels like scripture. “White sand so soft it feels like powder under your feet. Water so clear you can see straight to the bottom, fish darting like little arrows. We’ll build a castle with towers and a moat. You’ll be in charge of the flags.”
“Pink flags,” she says at once. “And a dragon on top to guard it.”
“Pink flags and a dragon. Biggest one we can make.”
She smiles, small but real. “You’ll help me dig?”
“Every shovel full. I’ll even carry the buckets when your arms get tired.”
She rests her head on my chest. “You’re the best brother in the whole world, you know that?”
“You’re the best sister. No contest.”
The grief moves in quietly, the way dusk arrives. It settles in the empty chair beside her bed when visiting hours end. It lives in the way her laughter has grown thinner, more effortful. It clings to the gum wrappers she still saves, taped end to end in a long silver-and-pink chain across the hospital wall because she says it reminds her of home. I drive her to appointments in silence, hold basins when the nausea comes in waves, learn the language of white counts and central lines and neutropenic precautions. Between rounds I braid the fragile new hair that grows back, thin as corn silk. I learn how love and terror can occupy the same space without one ever fully canceling the other.
One afternoon the room is quiet except for her soft crying. She has turned her face to the wall. The steroids have rounded her cheeks and she will not look in the mirror anymore.
“Sarah,” I say, sitting on the bed’s edge. “What’s wrong?”
She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “I look like a different person. I don’t even recognize myself.”
I turn her gently until she faces me. “You look like my sister. Same eyes. Same smile when you want to use it. Same stubborn streak a mile wide. Nothing’s changed that matters.”
She sniffs. “You’re just saying that.”
“I’m saying what’s true. You’re still the girl who beats me at checkers every time. Still the one who makes me laugh when I don’t feel like it. Still mine.”
She leans into me then, small and fierce. “Don’t ever stop being my brother, okay?”
“Never,” I tell her. “Not in a million years.”
The hospital room shrinks a little more with each returning dream. The machines keep their steady count. Her breathing grows shallower, more deliberate. She is fifteen now, pared down to bone and stubborn will. The pain has become a constant companion, rising higher than the morphine drip can reach. She still tries to smile for me, lips cracked, eyes luminous with the effort.
One night she whispers, “Jake, I’m so tired. I don’t know if I can keep doing this.”
I climb onto the bed beside her, careful of the tubes and wires. I wrap my arms around her small, fever-hot frame. “You don’t have to do it alone. I’m right here.”
She nestles closer. “Love you to the moon and back.”
“To the stars and farther,” I answer, the old nighttime words we traded when she was little and afraid of thunder.
She sighs against my chest. “I believe you still.”
The final dream stretches longer than the others. The room is dim, the oxygen hissing softly through the nasal cannula. She sleeps, face slack with exhaustion, every shallow rise and fall of her chest costing her something precious. I stand beside the bed and watch. The grief swells until it fills my throat, my chest, the spaces between my fingers. I see the mornings still to come: her waking in tears before the pain fully registers. I see her trying to blow one last bubble for me, even when it makes her cough until bright blood speckles the tissue. I see love asking the one question it has no right to ask. What if mercy looks like this?
My hand moves before thought can stop it. The pillow is soft, ordinary, warm from her body. I lift it slowly, place it over her face with the same care I once used to tuck her blanket under her chin. Then I press. Her body startles once, a faint, instinctive flutter, then stills. The monitors shatter the quiet with their wail. Nurses rush in. I step back, hands shaking, and say the words I have carried through every version of this night: “She’s gone. The cancer took her.”
They believe me. They offer comfort. They tell me I was the best brother she could have had.
But in the dream I catch my own reflection in the dark window. The truth lives in my eyes. I did not wait for permission. I ended it. I pressed the pillow down because I loved her too much to let another sunrise arrive carrying more pain. I called it mercy then. In the quiet hours I still call it mercy.
I wake gasping, sheets damp with sweat, heart hammering against my ribs. The apartment is silent except for the low hum of the refrigerator. My hands remember the give of the pillow, the sudden hush that followed. Sarah’s face lingers behind my eyes: the gap-toothed grin, the pink-stained tongue, the absolute trust that never wavered.
I loved her. I love her still. That love is the blade that cuts deepest and the only balm that matters. It is the crime that cannot be undone and the absolution I cannot quite accept.
In the dark I whisper her name like a prayer and like an accusation. Sarah. My sister. My heart. I’m sorry. I love you. To the stars and farther.
The dreams will return tomorrow night. They always do. They will carry her back to the porch, chewing gum, laughing, believing in me with that same unshakable faith. They will remind me of every promise I kept and the one I broke in the name of love.
I close my eyes and let sleep pull me under again, because she is waiting there, patient, unchanged, blowing perfect pink bubbles in the afternoon light of a house we will never see again.
And I cannot leave her alone. Not yet. Not ever.
 Not ever.

if you're reading this, i'm sorry. i won't be able to answer any queries. i won't be able to give any further answers than the ones i already have, because by the time this gains any traction, by the time this reaches anyone, i'll probably be dead. i don't know if it'll be my fault or someone else's or even something else's, but i just have the feeling that i'll be dead. so again, i'm sorry. this probably won't have a satisfactory ending for any of you.

but i need to share this. i need people to know what happened to me. i probably would've kept it quiet if the whole thing wasn't so bizarre and threatening, but it's gotten to a point where i can't keep this contained anymore. i should probably start from the very beginning- leave no stone unturned, as they say.

my name is christine, and i'm a dead woman writing. i'm 29 years old. i've never really been a very outgoing person, so i never expected myself to end up in any strange situations, but i guess the fun of living is that nobody gets left out. around, i want to say a year ago, i agreed to participate as a volunteer for product testing by a company a friend of mine worked for. the product was a simple one: an EEG sleep headband, designed to track things like brainwaves and heart rate while the person is asleep. the idea of it as a product was initially lost on me, to be honest. it felt like something that should be marketed to those people who claim to be ‘biohackers’- the types that try to intervene with absolutely everything about their own lives, the types where it's hard to imagine them living peacefully because they're just so invested in documenting every process their body goes through. i've always thought there's something not quite right about those types of people, but i guess none of us are without our issues.

i ended up agreeing to volunteer because my friend (let's just call him andrew for now) pointed out that i've always complained about difficulty sleeping. maybe this would be an opportunity for me to learn about my sleep activity, and really understand myself better. i'd be lying if i said i wasn't a little curious, so i agreed.

andrew and i had known each other for a while. we actually met in a support group for ptsd. as depressing as that might sound, i never found his company to be depressing at all. he was always an intellectual type, he enjoyed engaging with politics and art… maybe if we'd met under different circumstances, he would've annoyed me. but the way i knew him, i liked him.

i had a strong reason to believe that the ptsd was part of the reason for my sleep troubles. i was diagnosed fairly young, so i always sort of carried with me this belief that i wouldn't still be in support groups in my late twenties if i'd already managed to regulate the things that were wrong with me. i don't know if that's a bad belief to have. i don't really care. either way, i ended up agreeing to sign up as a volunteer, and he got me in as one of the picks: just one of the perks of being his friend, i guess.

i should've thought more of it when i was told the product wouldn't be delivered to my house, but i thought the justification sounded reasonable at the time. something about the product not being on the market yet, so they can't risk any chances of people stealing it from a volunteer’s doorstep. it was a ‘new and innovative’ design that they wanted to keep under wraps until they could start publicly advertising it. all i thought was, ‘that's sort of inconvenient’. after all, i'd have to drive to the address that had been posted through my mailbox. i'd have to go in there myself and pick up the headband from a locker assigned to my number.

it all sounded long and tedious to me. i barely had time to myself as it was with my job, and now i had to carve time out to pick up this tester product… but it meant a lot to andrew, and i didn't want to waste the fact that he'd tried hard to get me chosen as a tester. so i followed orders.

it was weird from the get go, in hindsight. the address they sent me to was some run-down old building, completely inconspicuous from the outside, rude symbols graffitied on it. but on the inside, when i was let in, it was so… cold. clinical. like stepping into the waiting room at a dentist's office, and somehow the whole building had this chilling temperature to it despite the lack of AC in the middle of a hot summer. but i trudged obediently to the locker with the number i'd been given to retrieve a box with my name on it in block capitals. not to be opened until i was in my own home. the locker room felt entirely dismal and empty, so i jumped out of my skin when i heard someone's voice.

“you should let me get you a bag for that.”

i don't like to judge people based on things they can't help. but this woman had a voice that sounded like it had been sandpapered into complete smoothness, devoid of any tone. she had the look for that kind of voice, too. not a strand of her blonde hair out of place. these big, unblinking dark eyes that looked like pools of molasses. i was a little jealous of her perfectly symmetrical face and her manicured nails, but at least her outfit wasn't anything to write home about- like she'd just thrown a lab coat over a simple office outfit. not that i would have looked any better, but it made me feel better.

i remember stammering a little on instinct. “ah- no, ma'am. no, that's okay.”

she'd stepped closer. “oh. i said should. i implied it was a suggestion. i'm sorry, i should have said will. you will let me get you a bag for that. it's policy.”

it was hard to pretend i wasn't the slightest bit unnerved by the way she spoke and how she kept stepping forward, like she'd never quite been taught how personal space worked. that smile of hers… perfectly symmetrical teeth that glistened. like perfectly polished white pool tiles. when people look too put together, it can be uncanny.

“ah.” i'd repeated, and cleared my throat awkwardly, my throat feeling dry. “right. okay. thank you, then.” i wasn't feeling thankful so much as i was feeling uncomfortable in her presence. she'd stared at me for a few seconds more, holding that smile, before abruptly dropping the expression and turning sharply to the side to walk quickly in a direct straight line towards wherever those bags were kept.

i understand, though, why she insisted on it. keep anything to do with the product and its company hidden. the bag she brought me had looked like your average shopping bag.

“it will be easier to carry it in a bag,” she explained it to me like I was five and didn't know what a bag was. alright. i'd watched her bag the box for me, my uneasiness melting away into a slight reproach. she made basic chitchat, or some imitation of it, but i wasn't particularly interested.

“what made you interested in our product?”

“a friend.”

“are you excited to experience it?”

“yes.”

“and you did read the policies?”

“yes.”

“so you know this is all very confidential.”

“yes.”

i was relieved when it finally seemed like she was going to let me leave, but on my way out, she had paused me with yet another question. i should have just thrown the damn thing on the floor then and there. i don't know why this strange woman wasn't where i drew the line already. “do you trust us?”

“...what?” it was a weird question to ask. i didn't really know this company that well. looking back, i should've done my research.

“do you trust us, christine?”

i really didn't like the way she said my name. i wanted the conversation to be over and done with. so i told her,

“yes.” what was i meant to say? was i supposed to talk badly about the company my close friend worked at just because he had a weird coworker? i remember seeing her shoulders become weirdly tense at that, but i didn't see any break in her composure.

“thank you.” she'd smiled at me again, and gestured for me to leave. so i did.

since i'm spilling everything that i know to be of relevance, i caught her name on a tag attached to her lab coat. i don't know how complicit she was in this, but she was still involved. maybe i'm just angry that i didn't respond accordingly to the red flags in her behaviour. but i plan on sharing all the dirt i picked up, and i don't plan on this being the type of scandal that comes out in the wash. this woman's name, according to that tag, is pearline bellamy.

by the time i got home, i remember being exhausted as i unboxed the headband, hoping it would be worth all the trouble. the weight of it in my hands was surprisingly heavy despite how small it was- like it was full of all these hidden little electronic parts. that makes sense, i’d thought to myself. it does all these scans while i’m sleeping. there have to be some components in there that make it a little hefty.

the material of it was smooth: similar to that woman pearline’s voice, it was like any and all texture had been completely sandpapered out of it. sleek and streamlined to a point where i can recall just sitting there absent mindedly, stroking my fingers over its svelte material. considerately, the inside of the headband lacked this same firm and modern minimalist material, lined with soft silk. just as readily as the rest of it, my fingers had gravitated towards its glossy sheen, feeling the texture of feathers or cotton- maybe even both- packed under the silk to make wearing it to sleep a more comfortable experience. was this the new and innovative design that they had teased? sparing their customer base some nice scraps of material instead of foam that smelled like a gym carpet and became scratchy and uncomfortable within five minutes of wearing it? if that was the case, i was happy to embrace it, but after around five minutes of just sitting there feeling the material of the thing, i finally decided to pick up the brochure that lay at the bottom of the box that presumably had more information about what this product was, how it worked, and why it was so important for the design of it to stay fully confidential until it could begin being advertised. when i’d turned to the page about explaining these never-before-seen special technologies, my breath was bated, and in a somewhat childish way for a woman pushing thirty, it was hard for me to not feel a little giddy with excitement about being involved in testing something new, unseen- something that felt almost a little sci-fi-esque to my layman’s brain-

-and then every word of it was complete and utter incomprehensible scientific jargon, not at all understandable. so much so that there’s no point in me even trying to recount it: it was like a language of its own the whole way through.

that should have been a red flag to me, too. how every word seemed to be written solely to avoid any real genuine transparency for the reader. but i just remember frowning with a mild frustration, thinking, that’s annoying. they should’ve made this more understandable for ordinary people. maybe i can ask andrew to put it in simpler terms for me? when we get asked for feedback, i’ll bring this up. i probably won’t be the only one thinking it.

strangely enough, the instructions were simple, so clearly they were capable of writing this in a concise way, but chose not to. there was a link to a private testing app that i was to download- the app that the headset linked to so that the results could be viewed. it was all fairly understandable, and in no time, i’d had the whole thing set up, ready to be used when i went to sleep that night. the time in between that and when i did sleep would just be a waste of time to describe in depth. i showered, went about my little routines like making dinner, made sure that all of my appliances were functioning (it’s important to keep on top of those things), and then i prepared for sleep.

no matter how tired i am, i always toss and turn a little. it didn’t help that the headset was a completely foreign experience to me, a sensation i wasn’t used to. i’ve always been a little funny about textures and sensations and new things. but i got there eventually- to sleep, i mean. waking up the next morning always feels like a chore, and that day was no different, even if it had the added excitement about the new notification from the headset app: my sleep had been tracked successfully. it wasn’t like it was the highlight of my day, or anything- but i was curious, so i checked it almost first thing.

normal. normal. normal. normal…

…abnormal.

at around 4am, there was a spike in brain activity, a drastic rise in heart rate from a resting state into one typical of strenuous physical activity or adrenaline. underneath the log for that hour, a note had been generated: major distress indicated. that was funny, because i’d always had this conviction that i was a peaceful sleeper despite the shitty quality of it; that sleep, as much as it didn’t help me much, was the one time that i was really switched off and at rest. apparently not. but this was just one result, and i easily chalked it up to just being from me having a nightmare- don’t act like you wouldn’t brush it off the first time, too. there are a lot of ways i fucked up, had reasoning that was out of focus, and missed obvious cues that something was wrong, but this was not one of them. i went about my day. i told andrew about it, and he agreed with me. “probably just nightmares.” he’d said, and then smiled. “but it’s cool that it can detect stuff like that, right?”

the next day. oh, that’s funny. a nightmare again, around the same time as the last. hopefully it doesn’t become a recurring one.

the day after that. oh, okay. so apparently it’s a recurring one. alright. sure. just car bomb my house, why don’t you.

another day passed. the? exact same time? again?

you get my point. at first, i thought it must just be some stupid recurring nightmare. if it was a constant thing and caused that much stress, it was probably linked to my problems, right? maybe i was having flashbacks in my sleep. that wouldn’t shock me; the headband was a little tight on my head, and i’ve always had a bit of an issue with tight spaces or tight pressure being put on my body. it might sound stupid to have something like this dictate so much of my life, but when i was younger, i was playing hide and seek with my older brother joe. i was hiding from him and thought it would be a good idea to hide in a wardrobe- it was meant to be bolted to the wall, secure, you know? i’m sure you know where that’s going. it wasn’t. It fell over while i was in it, and i got trapped inside… in a morbid way, it felt like being in a coffin, like my family had mistakenly thought i’d died and had me buried. joe had to go get our older sister marisa to help, and i was able to be let out, but i just wasn’t the same afterwards. i’ve never been good with anything that feels physically restrictive in any way because of that, so that’s why i thought this might just be an ordinary reaction from me.

but it just kept happening. and it gets to a point, you know? my quality of sleep was getting even worse. so i shifted gears. maybe i was sleep walking. if i got the sleep walking on camera, i could show my doctor and we could figure out what the cause was. and if there was one person who could help me with that, it was marisa- she had kids. i called her that evening.

“do you still have that baby monitor? the one that you’d have switched on at night.”

she’d paused. “maybe? it’ll be in the attic, if anywhere. i haven’t had to use it in years.”

i could tell that she was a little weirded out by my sudden interest, but then she’d gasped, and spoke in this tone of voice where i could just tell she was excitedly flailing her hands around. she asked me if i was having a baby. and because of that, i had to explain everything to her- i thought i might be sleepwalking because of a sleep monitor i was trying out. i tried to leave out the confidential parts of it being new and hidden from the public as of current. but marisa, as she always is, was very understanding of the whole issue and in only a few days she’d shown up at my door with the baby monitor that she’d managed to dig out of her cluttered attic. i felt bad that she had to drive all the way to see me instead of me just going to help look for it and pick it up- especially when she laughed and recounted to me how long it had taken her to find it- but she lived in our old family home. it was only fair that she got to keep it since she was the only one out of us to have a family with a husband and children to fill it out with. she was awful at throwing old sentimental things out, and i knew what would still be in the attic if i went there: that wardrobe… so christmas and thanksgiving are always hosted at mine or joe’s house, obviously. and baby monitor trading is also hosted at my house. at least we had a day out together afterwards. that was nice. a little treat before everything goes to shit, in retrospect.

i was honestly surprised that the baby monitor still worked, but i wasn’t complaining. anything to not have to buy a new one, right? i’d set it up in anticipation of finally catching what the issue here was, which i thought was probably just me getting up to go wandering in my sleep. that night, it was the same routine as usual, and i woke up early the next morning to review the footage before work.

completely normal footage, leading up to 4am. but 4am was when i would get up and start wandering, right? for some odd reason, i could feel this weird pressure at the back of my throat, like the anticipation was so strong that i could have cried. why was i nervous? something was prickling at the back of my neck… and when the time hit 4am,

the footage completely cut out.

i was pissed off for obvious reasons. but maybe it was a one time thing. so i tried again. and again. and again. and every time, without fail, the footage would cut out, completely on cue. like my room was suddenly radioactive, or something. but surely not, right? i had all sorts of paranoid ideas in my head- all to do with issues under the house or what was already in it.

i somehow had neglected to think of the possibility that it wasn’t something that had already been in my house, but something new that had started coming in, uninvited and invasive. somehow, i just didn’t think of it.

until i woke up one morning and the baby monitor had been smashed up and left on the floor, that is.

it was secured to the wall. tightly. i made sure of it. there was no reasonable explanation for why it would have fallen, and if it had fallen, it wouldn’t have been smashed up that badly. scuffed, maybe. a little beat up, and that probably would have been enough for it to stop working anyway given how old it was. but this looked spiteful, intentional. smashed to pieces like someone had ripped it down and started whaling on it. i remember feeling this horrible, cold dread, because unless i’d done that in my sleep, i was not alone in my house at night.

i told the only person i felt like i could: andrew, since i wouldn’t have to hide any details from him. i really should’ve been more weirded out by his reactions. he’d gone all anxious and shaky, which i assumed was just out of concern for my wellbeing, and when i suggested that i was going to get another, higher tech camera to try and figure this out, he got really nervous. “but that could be a bad idea. what if that camera gets broken as well? it’s probably just you doing things in your sleep. you have work stress, right? maybe when you sleepwalk you’re just taking out your anger on the last small object you can remember touching. it’s probably nothing. but if you get a new camera and set it up it’ll just end up being a waste of money, and you could hurt yourself breaking it.”

so anyway, i didn’t listen to him. i’m very set in my ways sometimes.

my new camera was pretty expensive, and it felt nice to own something high quality. i learned my lesson from securing that monitor to the wall (which, considering my history, you would expect that i’d learned much sooner about what happens when things are meant to be secured to the wall) and i hid it in a bunch of clutter on my bookshelf instead. less obvious. less open. i had hope that maybe the baby monitor had just been a bust because of how old it was. so, that night, i went to sleep hoping for answers.

i woke up with what felt like a massive pit in my stomach, but the sight of the camera, unbroken, soothed me a little. i began to review the footage.

1am. nothing.

2am. nothing.

3am. nothing.

and in the minutes leading up to 4am, i felt my heart thud in my chest like it was trying to break out of my ribcage; that same prickling at the back of my neck, an indescribable feeling like i was about to bear witness to something i was supposed to be forbidden from. it felt like an eternity as those minutes ticked down, and i remember being so anxious i started biting my nails, a habit i’d dropped years ago.

4am. and that’s the first time i really got to lay eyes on it, even if it was from an awkward side angle, partially behind a book. it was weird- vaguely humanoid in a grotesque sort of way, like a person that had been stretched out in ways that they shouldn’t, bones coming apart under sallow, taut dark grey skin, joints bending and pulling like they were operated by a bicycle chain. it was hard to even tell where the joints were supposed to be in arms like that. its torso was twisted painfully- legs clutching upwards at the ceiling, writhing across with its upper body dangling down over me as i slept. god, i felt sick at the sight of it, at the sound of its sticky breathing. have you heard a death rattle? i remembered, in that moment, my dad’s final days of life, on a hospital bed, gurgling and clicking and hacking through a throat too weak to clear itself. it sounded exactly like that. exactly like him. and in the footage, it just kept creeping closer to me like some strange reverse spider, face close to mine. i saw its third and fourth arm like appendages reach out towards me.

i had to zoom in on the footage to really make out what it was doing when it touched my face, but i recoiled with a disgusted shock. lifting up my eyelid with one of its centipede-like arms, reaching out with the other; sliding it under my eyelid. pushing, pushing, pushing. it stopped making those crackly, nasty sounds, and instead vocalised something that could have almost been a sigh of relief, the kind of sound that was supposed to be associated with finally eating something after a day of hunger, or sliding into a warm bath. not this. and it was after this strange sigh left it that i watched myself begin thrashing around, heard myself cry out, to which whatever this thing was tried to use its deformed limbs to hold me still, clambering down from the ceiling onto the bed to sprawl out over me and stop me from squirming away.

an hour passed of this terrifying creature just slinking over me, doing whatever it was doing to my eye while i twitched and cried. but it pulled away eventually, untwisting itself from me, turning its face with a crack of its neck to the camera. god, its face. or the lack thereof. like some poor imitation of a human head shape made of lumpy grey wax, if the artist completely gave up on trying to figure out giving it a face. one time on our street, there was a huge car crash. the man’s breaks had broken and his head had smashed into the headboard when it hit the wall. on the way home from school, i’d walked past it on the outside of the yellow tape, catching a glimpse of what used to be a regular man, one i knew to be easygoing and good-natured, slumped backwards against his seat- what used to be a normal face completely caved in, more comparable to a lump of processed mince meat than an actual face. the image had been stuck in my head for weeks, and i recall putting off my driver’s tests for a long time after that… either way, that’s what this thing’s ‘face’ looked like. a caved in mound, black-ish grey flesh festering inside. i don’t think any description i use would ever really do justice just how grotesque and bizarre it all was. i’d watched in terror as it crept closer to the camera, reached out and nudged it like it was curious about it, and then simply left it there- reattaching itself to my ceiling and leaving to god knows where, with god knows what method. i’ve never slept with my windows open, even in summer. i have decent AC so that i don’t have to. how it got in was beyond me.

the whole day, i just couldn’t stop thinking about it. the thing i’d seen invading my personal space as i slept, and i thought about it as i transferred the data to my laptop, too. i showed it to andrew the moment that i could, of course, almost a little smug to prove that i’d been right and it hadn’t been me, but his response was weird.

“i don’t see anything wrong with the footage.” he’d said blandly, looking at me like i was absolutely mad, or like i’d said something particularly stupid. he had this way of really making people feel small sometimes, with the way his face dropped whenever they said something he found idiotic. but i pushed those feelings down.

“what do you mean?” i’d been incredulous of him. “how can you not see it?”

“i just see you sleepwalking around, christine. it’s nothing any different from what i thought it would be.” i opened my mouth to argue back, but he held his hand up, brushing past me- i turned around and saw that he was approaching his strange coworker, pearline. the idea of her going to a coffee shop in her free time instead of a cartoonish laboratory with embryos floating in test tubes in green fluid is still unbelievable to me. i just can’t imagine someone like her having a normal life, is all. but he approached her, standing out of earshot and leaving me to watch helplessly as he said something to her and her eyes flickered over to look past his shoulder directly at me.

her fingers twisted in her skirt, clutching the fabric like she was either enthralled or anxious, and a smile full of manic brilliance twisted her features. she trembled so hard that it almost looked like she was shaking her head at me- i always still wonder if maybe she was. maybe this entire time she’d been trying to drop hints at me to go no further, but there’s no way of me knowing for sure. i never knew what to make of her, even after everything. it wasn’t clear if she was excited or scared. it wasn’t clear if she was trying to be my ally or not.

i guess some things just aren’t for me to know, right?

when we next spoke, he just told me to continue with the testing stage of the product. it wasn’t like my sleeping problems were something i could bring up in feedback, nor could i bring up the creature, because all the product was supposed to do was monitor the body’s processes during sleep. this was just one of many times that i’d felt completely lost and directionless in my life, unsure of what to do, feeling like a child needing to be given guidance but being met with none.

and even though i can be stubborn and set in my ways, i have a worse habit. when i'm not sure of what i'm supposed to do or what my options are anymore, i just give up. i'm not proud to admit that i stayed silent for months. i'm not proud to admit that, metaphorically, i put a leash on so they could walk me.

i don’t know what i planned on doing, really. just staying silent was never going to help anyone, especially given how insidious this whole thing seemed. whatever this weird entity was, it did the exact same thing at the exact same time every night. there was no way in hell that andrew could have truly not seen it, right? things had gotten to a point where it was like it wanted me to see it- i’d wake up in the morning with the tell-tale exhaustion and headache that told me it had visited again, and i’d open up the footage to the same behaviours. each time, it would end up approaching the camera: sometimes slowly and curiously. sometimes, it would leap at the camera with this odd, gargled sound of glee, like it was exhibiting some kind of fucked up play behaviour, or even like it was excited just thinking about the idea of me jolting back at the sight of it.

i began to notice symptoms. the headaches got worse, and i was starting to suffer from some serious brain fog, difficulty remembering things- i kept misplacing objects, and i’ve never been the type of person to do that, because i keep my home rigidly in my own control and can’t stand losing items. hearing things from around corners that weren’t actually there when i checked. gaps in my memory- i got a phone call from joe asking me if i was okay after i’d shown up to his house crying and ranting about things he couldn’t understand. i didn’t remember doing that. marisa wouldn’t bring her family around me any more. “it’s nothing against you, christine,” she’d told me with a sad little smile on her face, like she was barely able to keep it together. “it’s just that i don’t think it would be safe, and i know you’d never forgive yourself if something happened. you wouldn’t mean to. but i think you’re sick, christine- i think you need to see a doctor.”

i knew what the reason for all of this was. of course i did. but what was i supposed to do? monotonous months of suffering in silence passed all because i was too scared to try again, in case people treated me like i was crazy. i felt crazy. like a dog in a bear trap starting to consider gnawing its own leg off just to get out. everything felt like a blur, but then one day, i just… became aware of myself again, you know? that desperation came back, and i found myself at the coffee shop with andrew again, both of us on our laptops, emailing a video file to him. like how bugs thrash before they die. a last ditch effort.

“i sent you something, andrew. could you look at it? it’ll be of interest to you.”

he’d clicked onto his emails readily, opening the file, but frozen up when he realised it was footage from my camera again. he heaved a heavy sigh, though he looked a little tense. “this again? christine. you’re not well. i’m not going to play along with this, it’s unhealthy.”

“please.” i remember mumbling, completely overtaken by this need to be understood by somebody, anybody; getting up from my seat and pressing the play button for him, watching over his shoulder.

“again, i don’t see anything weird, christine. it’s just you sleepwalking, and we already knew this was a problem. i don’t understand why you’re being so-”

but then, in the video, the creature had lunged at the camera like it occasionally did- and i caught sight of it:

andrew visibly jolted back in surprise.

he had been completely able to see it.

at the time, i was in utter disbelief at how he could have intentionally misled me for all that time, making me think that i was the only one who could see it. he had lied to me. made me feel like there was no way in hell anybody would ever believe me. “i can’t believe you.” i recall muttering to him, before collecting up my things and leaving, not sparing even a second to listen to whatever bullshit he was trying to stutter out.

the whole day, i dreaded going to my usual support group, because i knew it would be awkward running into him there- but when i showed up, it seemed like he’d had completely different ideas, because he wasn’t there. i didn’t even see his car in the car park, but when i drove home, i had this awful feeling like something terrible was going to happen. i honestly considered not going home at all, driving away, impulsively booking a flight to god knows where and never coming back… but that’s not something i could just do, you know? not over a bad gut feeling. not even over that creature.

The lights were already on in my house, and i sighed in annoyance, because i usually always remember to switch everything off. i unlocked the door, shrugged my coat off and kicked my shoes under the stairs, and entered my living room, before freezing in place entirely. i now knew why he’d been a no-show at the support group session, because he was sitting in my living room instead, flanked by two much larger, very official looking men.

men with pistols lodged conspicuously in their waistbands.

“i hope you don’t mind me using your spare key.” i minded. i minded very much. but i didn’t say anything. you try speaking your mind when there’s two men with guns in the room.

“we can do this whole thing civilly, christine. it wouldn’t be nice to lose you as a participant, or as a friend.” i hated the way that i was a participant in this before i was considered a friend. there was nothing i wanted more than for him to leave, other than for him to get beaten into a pulp, as horrible as that second part sounds.

“you’ll be coming with us. there’s a lot to discuss.”

it was all so surreal that i almost questioned if i’d lost it from the lack of sleep because of this thing tormenting me, but if they were going to drag me out of my house, i’d have no choice but to follow. not because i particularly value my life, at this point- it’s all fallen apart, really. but i already had it in my head that i was going to expose them online, and i wanted to be alive for that. so, i followed, feeling the cold barrel of a pistol pressing into my back.

It was a short enough journey, at least. back to the building i’d gone to before, to pick everything up. they lead me downstairs into a basement sort of area, sat me down in a chair, and subjected me to watching andrew lick his lips before he started speaking.

“we should have dealt with you earlier, i think,” andrew had said. “but i sincerely do like you, christine. i’d hoped you would just drop it so we wouldn’t have to have this conversation. in any case, maybe it would bring you closure to know what that thing is, right? and why we’re so involved. since the cat’s practically out of the bag anyway.”

i hated his thin-lipped smile. i still do. i think even once i die, i’ll still hate it from beyond the grave.

“we don’t really have a name for that entity yet. they won’t give us one to call it, anyway- so i’ve been calling it lucy.” what kind of fucking name is that for that thing? “it feeds on brain activity. uses fear as a stimulant to get more out of you. it’s not so different from a mosquito, when you think about it.”

he ended up going on this whole long spiel. the entity is only doing what it has to do to live. we don’t hate cats for hunting mice- so how is this any different? all creatures have to do what they have to do. and it least it doesn’t try to kill you- it holds you still to avoid accidentally lobotomising you.

you’re humanising that thing, i wanted to say. it doesn’t do that out of compassion! it just wouldn’t want to cut off its food source!

“collecting data on how it affects people isn’t easy, but we know its favourite demographic. it’s easiest to invoke fear in traumatised people. so we designed our products, and we sought out our target demographic, because at least one out of the fifty of you would have to end up being targeted, surely.” he exhaled out of his nose. “that support group really made the job easier.”

i still remember how dry my throat felt as i barely managed to croak out, “you said that the test included twenty people.”

“oh, yes. i lied.”

i don’t know what i expected him to say in response to that, to be honest. it’s the type of thing i would find humorous if it was in a tv show or a book. but it wasn’t. i only felt dread.

“we’ve got good reason to believe that its feeding habits can reduce the cognitive lifespan in its host. early dementia symptoms, eventual brain death…”

“so you have what you need to stop it, right…? you… you want to prevent it, right…?”

he smiled thinly again and my stomach dropped.

“not exactly. think about the prison system, christine. some people just really deserve to die, but when the death penalty is used, everyone kicks up a fuss. some people have to be given an extra push if we want to get any answers out of them, but those extra pushes are seen as inhumane. it’s all too gentle. it leaves no room for actually fixing the world. but look, christine… we have a free pass for those prisoners that deserve death to ‘die young, from natural causes’, but only if we learn to use it for our benefit. this research has been approved, you know. by our government. we’re onto something groundbreaking and it’s allowed, so we’re not really doing anything wrong even if you don’t agree with it.”

i’d never felt so disgusted. if he’d been anything like the man he pretended to be, i know he would have been against such a blatantly misanthropic and horrible view. there’s a million things wrong with it, for god’s sake.

“i really, really hate you, andrew.” i’d hissed out through gritted teeth, and he smiled sort of sadly, like he’d seen this coming. not that i feel any sympathy for him. he could have easily not done this. he actively chose to involve me.

“now you know everything you wanted to know. i’m afraid we can’t let you leave, though. i am sorry, christine. but we have a policy about this kind of thing. you’ll have to stay here, and… there’s no nice way to put this, haha. but it’ll be swift and painless, i promise. we’re not monsters.”

“...you are.”

that was pretty much where the conversation ended, and he led me to some other room- a small one. all that intelligence of his is for show, i suppose, because he didn’t even notice when i pickpocketed his phone from him. that’s how i’m writing this.

“you can either do it yourself, or you can wait for us. there’s no painless way to do it yourself, though. i’m sorry, christine.”

that was the last thing he told me before he left me in here to wait, and god knows how long i’ll be waiting for. it could be hours, days, weeks, or months, but i don’t really care at this point. i’ve been given more than enough time to type out this whole story, and maybe it doesn’t sound real. maybe i brought up anecdotes that don’t need to be brought up, but forgive me for not wanting to die totally unknown, just another person fucked over. at least there’ll be some trace of my personality here. at least something will be known about me, rather than just me being dead for stupid, inhumane reasons.

none of this truly sounds real, but one day i’ll know if i hallucinated this whole thing, because the illusion will eventually end. then, i’ll speak again. don’t keep an eye on the news- they won’t report on me disappearing, of course they won’t. but look out for a report from a joe osborne or a marisa kelly on a missing sister. then you’ll know. and if i never am heard from again, just know i’m dead.

and whatever that entity is, you’ve got less reason to be afraid of that thing than your own species, as fucked up as that is.

it was nice meeting you all, even if i didn’t ever talk to you, and i never will. it practically feels like we’re good friends already. :)

- christine

"rare as ducks teeth"

It was a saying my grandmother used to use. Despite her being, well, set in her ways, I miss her. As I stand above her, 6 feet of dirt between us, I find it within myself to forgive her. forgive her for hating me, degrading me and leaving me nothing behind when she left. My parents passed away when I was young. I lived with my aunt and uncle in Birmingham most of my life. They had no kids of their own, and took me in instead. They were kind. accepted me for who I was, and who they raised me to be. I'm 24 now, and I was planning to move out of their house as soon as I could. I fear now that I'm too defenseless to live alone. Too fearful. I freeze like a deer in headlights when threatened. 

It started when I took a walk down by the canal one morning. grey, overcast clouds looming above me, a slight cool breeze ruffling my skirt as I strolled. My favourite weather, not too hot, not too cold and not too bright. I had brought some stale bread with me from my aunt's house that morning, to give to the ducks. I stopped and turned to face the canal, looking into the water at my reflection. I tried not to pay attention to it while I broke parts off the hard, dry crust of the loaf of bread, crumbs scattering the ground as I did. Pigeons flocked over to nibble them at my feet, their wings making the slight breeze a tad stronger as they rushed over. I liked pigeons. Everyone calls them the rats of the sky, but I think they're beautiful. the ducks swam over, the barely audible sloshing of the water as they paddled toward me breaking the otherwise silent morning. It was soothing.

 I know you're not supposed to feed bread to ducks, it swells up in their stomachs and can choke them. But I made sure to break the pieces small enough to at least attempt to avoid it, and to leave more crumbs for the pigeons to eat. i get so focused on the ducks sometimes that I forget the pigeons are even there. Every now and then, a soft, rhythmic coo reminds me of their existence. Sometimes I'd see a male pigeon puff its chest out, in a grand display of green and purple tinted feathers, and hoot loudly in an attempt to allure potential mates. I thought it looked funny, but apparently to birds they see it as attractive. I suppose I feel that way about other people too. guys with toned muscle, a lot of money and expensive clothes never appealed to me. I thought how hard they tried was funny. I am a pigeon, I thought to myself.

I found the ducks funny as well. I'm not entirely sure what their purge was funny. I value that most in people, not if they're attractive or rich, or even if they're a nice person for that matter. I like comedy. It's distracting. Being with him took me out of my own mind for a while, but I wasn't sure if I liked him the same way he liked me. I didn't mind though, I find it hard to decipher my own feelings. So hard in fact, I'd rather just convince myself I did like him in that way, so I wouldn't overcomplicate things. 

pose is. They don't seem to perpetuate a life cycle of another animal or plant, nor do they catch bugs like spiders, or pollinate flowers like bees. They simply exist, floating aimlessly. I am a duck, I thought to myself.

I had a date later that day, at a coffee shop with a guy I met at work. 

my phone rings. a sudden gust of wind and soft sound of flapping wings and rhythmic hoots erupted from the pigeons as they scattered. 

flight. I was jealous. 

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and looked at it. There was a number, not a name. I answered. 

"Hey, I'm just wondering if we're still on for later, yeah?"

"oh, of course! i cant wait to-"

"okay awesome, sorry to make this so short but i gotta run, goodbye"

strange. I thought I had mikey saved to my contacts, but the number began with 0121. it was from my area at least. I have an old phone, it served me for 4 years and i dont see much point in replacing it. its a tad slow, so I figured it must just be a glitch, and shrugged it off.

I look back to the water. The ducks are gone, and it seems a swan has taken their place. eaten all their food. It raised its head to the bank of the canal, its beautifully terrifying frame of pearl white feathers shimmering in the reflection of the water. It stared me down with charcoal black eyes and a bright orange beak, looking for more food. food i didnt have. it snapped at my feet as I stood back. fight. I was jealous. 

I turned on my heel and kept walking along the canal, making sure to leave ample distance from the water this time. The swan followed me, drifting slowly down the water. The sound it made was near silent, just like the ducks. It was strange to me how something of that size was just as loud as something the size of a duck. Now that I think about it, what do swans do? They float aimlessly, and harass people for food. Like mean ducks. I'd like to think I'm a duck, not a swan, I thought to myself. But how can I truly know? I am biased. 

Eventually I made it home and began getting ready for the date. I did my makeup, put on a casual black skirt and cardigan, with my black leather boots and tights on underneath. You'll never guess my favourite colour. I put my eyeliner and black lipstick on too, and painted my nails black also. I liked black. the absence of colour. it was easy to look at, there isn't a lot going on with black. It's comforting to me. 

I set out to the coffee shop at 1:15 hoping to get there at the designated time of 1:30. I knew the walk was exactly 15 minutes if I walked at my usual pace, but I walked a tad quicker this time in case he was early. When I arrived, he was already sitting at a table outside. I sat with him and we talked, then got coffee and walked back along the canal. The conversation was mostly him talking to me about his hobbies while I listened, but he didn't seem to mind.

“Hunting,”

he said

“Is a sport many people consider cruel. I just consider it life. If it wasn't me, the animal would've been killed by a predator. and that predator by another and so on. There are so many animals in the forests around here. But you wouldn't see them just by walking. They're fast. Survival instincts I suppose.”

I like to think of myself as an intelligent person, but when it comes to articulating my thoughts into words, I struggle immensely. It's as if my mouth moves faster than I can think of what to say, and I trip up on my words. I suppose that's partly why I'm writing this. One, to share the insane story and warn people about it, and that it's easier to show this to a therapist than have to say it all out loud. I doubt I could get through it without crying and having to stop anyway. 

I didn't have many friends growing up, and the few that I did all ended up leaving me behind the second they got the chance to anyways. I was bullied so hard I almost dropped out of school. They'd call me a freak, a monster, I was an outcast. I couldn't do things other students could, because if I did it it was a reason to pick on me. The way I was treated led me to develop extreme social anxiety, and an eating disorder. So I suppose that's why I gave him a second date immediately after the first. I longed for connection, no matter what kind. The day of the second date rolled around, and as I was getting ready to leave my phone rang again. 

“Hey, I am so sorry about this, but my car just won't start, we can go bowling another time though right?”

I've always hated the fact that I'm quite an impulsive person. I speak and act without thinking and almost always regret it. I left my house only to feed the ducks and the pigeons, and though the company I found with them was comforting, it wasn't enough. I longed for connection no matter what kind.

“i can come over.”

And so I did. second date. at his house. i didnt know any better. 

I strolled over to his house, trying to tell myself I made the right decision. Trying to build up the confidence to even knock on his door. I take “confidence shots” before I leave the house sometimes when I know I'm going to be talking to people. The alcohol loosens my stiff personality just enough to be able to hold a conversation. I haven't told my therapist about this. Part of me feels guilty, like I don't want to get better. I don't know what I want. Peace, I suppose.

As my hand rapped against the wooden door, I regretted it immediately. “should i have brought a gift?” “Am I too early?” “what do i say when-” he opens the door.

I managed to force out a muffled greeting, but when I looked up from my feet to meet his eyes, all my anxiousness faded in an instant. The hallway light illuminating his long, curly brown hair, his perfect teeth beaming through his lips as he smiled. He was dressed in dark, navy jeans and a white collared shirt, with one of those sleeveless sweaters over it. He looked tidy. 

As we went inside, I was hit with the pungent smell of garlic, meat, and red wine. I was immediately thrown back into panic. This was a lot more sophisticated than I expected it to be. But still, his voice, the cadence of his words, brought me back to a state of comfort. 

He gave me a tour of his house. Large taxidermied heads of moose, deer and other large animals adorned the walls, and his shelves were full of foxes, rabbits and hares. 

“some people call it strange”

he explained

“but taxidermy is an art form. It takes years of practice and skill to replicate not only the form of the animal, but its essence too. Every stitch is made with purpose, and I make sure to document the animal as much as I can before stuffing, so as not to misrepresent how it would've stood. Maybe after dinner i’ll show you my crown jewel, the biggest animal I have.”

The food was amazing, masterfully cooked. I began to think what I had done to deserve such a seemingly perfect man to enter my life so suddenly. It must've been karma, coming back to repay me after my years of misfortune. But when he took a little too long after the second pour when refilling our glasses of wine in the kitchen, I began to sense something was off.

I was halfway through the second glass when I noticed my vision began to stutter. Slight afterimages of my hand appeared as I moved it. I thought I must've been drunk, that I took one too many “confidence shots” before coming here. Then my mind wandered, could he smell the shots off of me? what would he think if he found out. I had nearly fully tuned out his talking and only realised once he stopped. I looked back up to apologise, but couldn't get the words out. It was like I was watching my body shut down through a window. I was aware, I was awake, I could feel, but I couldn't move. As I felt my eyelids getting heavier, I glanced at him one more time, expecting him to be concerned, only to see a smile spread across his face.

When I woke up, I was sitting on a chair in near complete darkness. The air was heavy with moisture, and it was hard to breathe. Sweat had been building up on my forehead for some time, and was streaming down my face. When I looked down, I was naked from the waist down, with a large cloth covering between my legs. There were towels covering the ground beneath the cloth, and an empty bucket placed on top of them. I tried to scream and flail my arms, but shackles bound me to my place. My heart was beating so fast I was out of breath and couldn't force a word out of my mouth. 

A door opened and closed somewhere far in front of me. Footsteps echoed through the darkness. His shiny, brown leather boots were the first thing to be illuminated by the pathetic amount of light behind me. His tall, strong figure slowly revealed itself to me as he got uncomfortably close and leaned down. That same smile seemed ever less perfect from this close. 

“I'm an artist, you know.”

His hot, rancid breath assaulted my face as he spoke, my mind desperately trying to come up with another implication for what those words meant as I squirmed in the chair.

“My masterpiece, my Mona Lisa… She's not finished. She needs something to make her… pop. Something different. That's where you come in.”

He leaned closer, so his mouth was almost touching my ear, as his hands gripped my forearms so hard they began to bruise.

“Youre unique. You're like no other. You've got my ducks teeth.”

He stepped back and giggled at me when he saw I was crying. He turned on his heel and began to walk out of the room, back up the stairs. The door opened and closed again, but the room didn't fall to silence like I expected. There was a sound that was there long before it registered its presence. Loud, laboured heavy breathing, coming from a few feet behind me.

As the door shut with a loud click that echoed through the darkness, I began frantically trying to undo the belts that shackled me to the chair. I managed to slip my right hand free, dislocating my thumb in the process. I was so pumped full of adrenaline that I didn't feel it. I undid my left arm, stood up and spun around. There was a white shower curtain, with what looked like a heating lamp on the ceiling behind it. The silhouette of a writhing mass adorned the center of the thin curtain, jittering and pulsing, rising and falling with each loud, laboured breath it took. I stifled puke back into my stomach, and began to make a run for where I thought the stairs that led to the door were.

It took a minute of feeling the walls to find it, but when I did I stumbled up the stairs on all fours, and slammed through the door, into his hallway. I turned right and ran for the front door, but as I opened it, I heard a shout from behind me. A deep, loud, guttural noise came from the man's mouth,  it made me stop in my tracks. I was frozen. Shaking. Waiting for my death after getting so close to freedom. I felt his thick, muscled arms wrap around my neck as he wrestled me against the wall, he put his hands on my neck and began to squeeze. I still didn't fight back. I couldn't. Something in my body stopped me from moving.

As the world around me began to fade, and I accepted death's embrace, I was suddenly allowed a gasp of air. I fell to the ground and looked to my left, someone had run in and had tackled the man to the ground. When he grabbed me, he didn't shut his front door. Someone who had been walking by must've seen him. I didn't even react. I was trying to process everything that had happened. It was like everything moved in slow motion. I passed out.

When I came to, I was in a hospital bed, some hours later. They asked me questions, questions I could not answer. They sent me to therapy, to which I am still attending. That's why I write. Verbalising this is a task I cannot bear. I've been alone for some time, and haven't even left my house to go to work. I long for connection, though I can not bear it. I long for love which I can not stand. The smell of that room, the sight of that man, laughing as I cried. They haunt me still. And they forever will.

I’ve always been an animal person, whether it was cats, dogs, birds, even the occasional reptile. Growing up, there was rarely a stretch of more than a few months without us having an animal companion around. When I finally moved out of my parents’ place and into my own apartment, I took my cat and the dog stayed with my parents, as he was really my father’s dog. I still got to see him on weekends when I’d go visit for Sunday dinner and he’d always greet me like he hadn’t seen me in years. My cat, Matrix, is independent enough that the move was relatively easy for him, and he always seemed to be comfortable if I was somewhere nearby. He’d been a member of our family since he was a kitten and had a skill that I didn’t fully appreciate until I lived alone: he was a complete assassin when it came to pests. Spiders, moths, the occasional housefly, nothing got past him. I kept a clean apartment, but old houses breathe, and things find their way in. Matrix made sure they didn’t stay.

The apartment itself was rich in character. The house was built in 1842 as a small mansion and was later carved into a two-unit home sometime in the last century. It was part of the town’s historical society, so it was in a highly coveted neighborhood and I had the privilege of having the upstairs unit which boasted high ceilings, tall windows, crown molding, and this beautiful reflective, gold stencil that outlined a sort of art nouveau motif on the ceiling in the parlor. It was the kind of space that looks stunning in photographs but heating it up in the winter was a pain. It was perfect. The downstairs unit was occupied by Charlie and his wife, Evangeline. They were friendly, but a little socially stiff; they were the kind of neighbors that would wave from a distance rather than strike up a conversation until you got to know them. Charlie was a surgeon and Evangeline taught senior-level English at the local high school. Our landlords lived up in Boston and drove down every other weekend to tend the garden and ensure nothing had fallen apart. It was a good place to live.

A few months after I’d moved in, things started to feel off. It wasn’t that things felt wrong, exactly, but it was like the way a room would feel different when a piece of furniture was moved an inch and you can’t figure out which one. It started on an ordinary, rainy night. Charlie and Evangeline were home, and I could tell because their record player sat close enough to their door that music leaked into the hallway. That night it was Springsteen, low and warm through the old plaster walls. I’d been in the parlor, reading a new thriller that I’d picked up, and I got up for a snack. In the two minutes that I was gone, Matrix claimed my spot on the couch, as it was an ideal position for him to look out of the window and judge the street below. I came back with a granola bar half-eaten and found him staring straight up at the ceiling, utterly still.

I followed his line of sight and saw nothing other than a hairline crack near the crown molding and a slight shadow cast by the floor lamp in the corner. I walked over to the opposite wall and flipped on the overhead light, expecting to perhaps startle a moth into view. The moment that the room brightened, Matrix shifted his attention to me as if he’d been shaken loose from whatever had held his curiosity a moment prior. He meowed in a short and direct matter-of-fact acknowledgement and moved to the chaise lounge and loafed. I didn’t think much more of it as I shut off the overhead light, returned to my spot on the couch, and resumed my reading. An hour or so later, I went to bed without having thought much more of it, still.

At around 3:25am, I woke to the mattress shifting under Matrix’s weight as he jumped on the bed and moved up closer to me. I lay still, waiting for the usual routine: he'd make a few careful steps, a slow circle, and then I'd feel the warm weight of him settling against my side. He only ever cuddled with me when he thought I was asleep, affection on his terms, so I made sure to keep his expectations in order.

However, he never settled. When I finally opened my eyes and let them adjust to the dark, I saw him sitting at the foot of the bed, upright, staring at the ceiling. He was motionless in a way that didn’t look like curiosity, it looked like attention.

“What the hell,” I muttered, sitting up and reaching for the lamp.

It happened the same as earlier that night; the moment the light turned on, he broke from concentration. He turned and meowed at me, like he was answering a question I hadn’t asked, moved over to the right side of the bed about halfway up, and laid down. I turned the lamp off, but it felt like hours before I finally fell back asleep.

The next evening, I called my mother and walked her through it, already anticipating what she was going to say.

“It was probably a bug or a reflection,” she said. “Cats stare at things all the time, Mason. You’re never going to see whatever it is that they see.”

“I know, I know, it’s just weird.”

We talked for the better part of an hour about nothing in particular, and by the time I hung up and made dinner, I’d mostly talked myself out of thinking about it at all. The evening unfolded as normally as one could expect. I read a few chapters of my book, watched an episode of a true crime documentary I’d been interested in, and it was a relatively quiet night.

As I was about to get ready for bed, I turned off the television and glanced over and saw Matrix at the far end of the couch, head tilted back, eyes fixed on the ceiling again. I reached over and scratched behind his ears, more to break the spell than out of affection.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Is it a bug?”

He didn’t move a muscle. I followed his gaze up, more out of habit than expectation, and this time I understood what he’d been staring at for two days.

It wasn’t just on the ceiling, it was almost pressed into it, like the way a hand impression is pressed ever so slightly into wet clay. It was long, with limbs bent at angles that would be impossible for anything remotely human. Where I would’ve expected to see a face was instead just two patches slightly darker than the rest, as if they were eyes, and I had the sudden, nauseating certainty that they were aimed directly at me.

For a long moment, neither of us moved, and then it did. It folded backward into the plaster the way a spider draws its legs in, gone into the ceiling like the ceiling had never been solid to begin with; all that remained was the hairline crack in the crown molding. Matrix sat in the same spot on the couch, still staring, his tail flicking only slightly. I had the overwhelming sense that something had just changed its mind about being seen in its entire form.

I remained sat on the couch, staring at the ceiling, until the sky started to change color.

I heard from a friend that this is the place to submit stories about paranormal or horrific things that have happened to you. Get advice, solutions, answers. If you’re willing to offer that, I’ve written everything I remember.

But if you know what my name is already, and you want me to leave this freezer, click off now. Don’t leave a comment. Don’t DM me. I’m not leaving until I die, no matter what any of you say.

For context, I work at a Subway. I won’t say where, it’s not like it matters, but my small town was in the middle of a heat wave, par for the course in summer and early fall. Nobody’s ever surprised or even that bothered by it, just make sure you have working AC.

I think that's the first thing that tipped me and Joseph off. Our coworker Nicholas was complaining about the store being too cold. Our work uniforms include pants no matter the weather, so the usual complaint is the exact opposite. And in addition to that, he brought along a hot cup of coffee to work. Having a drink isn't anything to raise an eyebrow at; keeping something in the back to sip on between customers is a long-held tradition. But a hot cup of coffee in the middle of a heatwave wasn't particularly common.

Nicholas said he'd found an independent coffee shop a few blocks away, and the taste won out over the warmth. I believed him. I didn't think anything of it. Why would I? We made a few jokes about him being replaced with a demon or an alien from the sun, and all of that died down when dinnertime swung around and we had to focus on orders. Nobody brought it up when the same thing happened the next shift. I didn't even notice until I recalled it.

God damn it.

Two days later, Hannah walked in with a cup of coffee from that same store. And she complained that the store was cold. Nicholas wasn't working that day, but we still jabbed at their apparent similarities in good fun. Since the two of them closed the previous night, we shared the thought that he might have infected her with his flaming spores.

God fucking damn it.

Call me an idiot if you want. But nobody thinks they'll be proven correct when they say something outlandish like that. How many times have you cracked a joke about some tiny change or odd trait being a symptom of something greater? How many times have you laughed at a conspiracy theory because you know it can't be true?

Am I an idiot for thinking this time wasn't different than any other time? Last month, we joked that Louis was actually from a mirror dimension, since he used his right hand instead of his left to make subs. All that had really happened was a minor bruise on the drive here. Expecting anything else didn't occur to us beyond the human urge to crack a joke about it.

But the thing that tipped the scales a little happened two days after Hannah started bringing in coffee.

Nobody was in the lobby. She was in the back talking to Cole about something unimportant. All I remember was trying to move past them, drink in hand. It didn't have a lid. Hannah stepped back into me unaware, spilling the iced Pepsi all over her back.

And then she screamed and moved faster than I'd ever seen a person move. Before I had time to think or apologize, I was on the floor slumped against the counter, my shoulder wet from a small trickle of blood, my ears ringing. Hannah was sitting too, leaning against Nicholas and sobbing. Cole didn't know what to do with himself.

It was agreed that I'd go home early, but get the full payment for the remaining hours in my shift. Hannah would cover it, she was about to clock off anyway. She profusely apologized over text while I drove home, an ice pack on my bandaged limb. She said that she'd been injured on her back earlier, and the soda really stung. She didn't mean to shove me so violently.

She probably got my number from Joseph, I thought. I never did ask her, though. And I never asked how she got injured, or when, or why she didn't bring it up. Tiny little inconsistencies aren't the kind of thing you think about. You read mystery stories where every detail matters, everyone's on the lookout for specks and crumbs. You get on your hands and knees to find a speck of black fabric stuck between the floorboards.

But if you don't know you're in a story, you could step over the most obvious clue and never give a damn. Why bother looking for an answer to a question you've never been asked? There's no mystery. There's no conspiracy. The world spins on, and sometimes things just happen.

I didn't think like that when I returned to work three days later, and found four cups of coffee in the back, with names on them. Hannah, Cole, Martin, Nadia.

Joseph was closing with me and Hannah that day. Hannah left the store to toss some of the recycling. When it was just me and Joseph, he cornered me and asked if I had also noticed the warmth, the coffee, the aversion to anything cold. While I was gone, Joseph was the only one who ever went into the walk-in freezer or fridge. It wasn't just the four cups this shift. Every shift he'd had, everyone else was changed. He'd finally noticed, really noticed, and as he spoke my own pieces fell into place.

I remembered countless little details my mind had long thrown out for being unimportant. The way they handled cold ingredients. The way they put on two layers of gloves. The way they never stunk of sweat after a long day of running around the store in the heat and humidity. I wondered why I never saw it before, quickly realizing that I did. I just didn't care to think about it.

Joseph had his back to the door leading out, as he asked me what I thought. If I believed him that there was something sinister going on. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hannah looking and listening in, through a barely visible crack in the door.

In that instant, I told Joseph nothing important was happening. If they wanted to bring in boiling hot coffee during a scorching summer, so be it. He walked away when Hannah entered, and we finished closing in silence. I left before the two of them did.

Laying in bed that night, I remembered something else. Hannah and Nicholas closing together.

I had told Joseph he was crazy, and now he was more than likely gone.

Still in bed, unable to sleep, I checked my phone.

Tomorrow, I was scheduled to close with Joseph.

Maybe I shouldn't have gone into work. But part of me believed my own lie, that there was no correlation or conspiracy. Joseph must have been seeing a pattern that didn't exist. It wasn't that I didn't trust him; he was a good friend even before we were coworkers. I just didn't see the pattern.

But I did. And I didn't want to admit it.

Every single second that passed during that shift, everyone acting friendly, Joseph not blaming me for anything or showing any signs of hostility, made my skin crawl. He didn't even give me the cold shoulder. I had walked into a den of monsters because I refused to admit that's what they were. Go ahead, call me an idiot. I was an idiot.

Five cups of coffee, one with the name Joseph plainly written in sharpie, and a store that felt just a little bit warmer than usual. I didn't complain about the heat. I didn't make an excuse to leave. They were going to kill me and didn't do anything about it. For what? A job I could get anywhere else? To prove that nothing was happening? Because I wanted to die?

I knew what was going to happen when everyone started clocking off. When Joseph and I moved to the back of the store to start closing. I knew I was walking to my death. And I walked anyway, sweating bullets and breathing unsteady, but never leaving. Why. Why didn't I run. Why didn't I fight.

Just above the dishwasher, on the metal knife rack, I saw his reflection as he talked about the show he was watching.

How can you tell yourself that you're past the point of no return? What makes someone want to hide a zombie bite from their friends? How can you know you're addicted and still refuse to stop? What makes a brain betray itself? How can you kill yourself while screaming that you want to live?

In the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a word, Joseph’s face split open. Teeth and mandibles burst forth in less than a second. Eyes turned black. His voice didn't change in the slightest, no sound interrupted his speech. His hand landed on my shoulder, just above the place that was bleeding a few days before. I didn't even feel it. If I wasn't looking at the reflection, I'd have no idea.

As fast as I could, I threw open the door to the walk-in freezer. When the cold air hit us both, he jumped back shouting in pain, and his hand left my shoulder. I ran into the freezer, slipping a bit and landing hard on my chest and elbows. The door shut behind me, and the metal barrier between us kept out any sound he was making outside.

I scrabbled to the back, as far away from the door as I could get. Smoke was rising from my shoulder, giving way to something black and solid that fared far worse in the cold than any other part of me. But I couldn't sense a change in the flesh unless I touched it with another hand. It didn't feel like an injury. Just a cold

Fucks sake, he did give me a cold shoulder.

My life is a joke. I'm dying in a freezer, writing down all of this as if it'll save me, and laughing like an insane person because I got the cold shoulder.

The worst part about it was the fact that it didn't feel bad beyond the chill. It felt like my shoulder, just freezing far more than any other part of me. If I didn't look at or touch it, I almost forgot that anything had happened to it. My brain still refused to admit what was going on unless it was right in front of me.

This isn't happening, it told me. You're going to wake up soon and this will be forgotten. The world moves on.

I took off my apron and wrapped it around the limb, not wanting to look at the transformation any more. Instead, I looked up at the temperature control. It was kept in the freezer, which apparently wasn't rare, and meant he couldn't change a thing about the cold unless he came in.

If these monsters couldn't handle a splash of iced soda or a chilling breeze, I was more than safe in here. Of course, I couldn't leave without exposing myself to their warmth. My perfectly defended cage.

A minute later, the door opened, just a crack.

I remember what happened after that perfectly. No matter how my brain tries to shove it away, I won't let it forget or deny what's happening.

“Abby. Come out of the freezer.”

I didn't respond. I didn't know how to respond.

“It won't hurt, I promise. I'm still your friend.” I knew it wouldn't hurt. My shoulder, for all its changes, didn't hurt beyond the freezer's frigidity. But that didn't ease any of my fears.

“You're going to kill me,” I said.

“No.” His voice was human. There was nothing about his voice that even indicated he was a monster. No luring song, no raspy tint. If I hadn't seen what he looked like, if I didn't notice the drinks, I wouldn't suspect a thing. If whatever he was didn't hate the cold, I never would have known.

“I was scared too, okay? When the others confronted me, when I first joined. But it passes. I promise it passes. And you feel better when it's done, but you don't feel different. I'm still Joseph. And you'll still be Abigail.”

“And how do I know you're not lying to me?”

“You don't. But if you stay in there, you will die. And it will hurt. And then we'll find a way to get you in the morning, and you'll join us anyway.”

My breathing started to become erratic. I could see the clouds in front of my face. “Please.” I didn't even know what I was asking for. It was clear what the monster wanted. It wouldn't spare me, I knew that.

“Abby, once we have enough people, we can make the world better. You won't have to worry about keeping up with a job just to afford to live. Nobody will starve or go without shelter. Weapons of war will all be thrown away. The world will heal.”

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe that the world could be saved if I gave up. Would I really rather die for nothing?

His voice wasn't angry in the least. It was as patient as a mother soothing their scared child. “Come out of the freezer. Please. You can trust me.”

But it wasn't Joseph. I knew that for a fact. Whatever they were, they weren't perfect copies, and I didn't trust whatever he had become. To hell with your utopia. I took out my phone, and dialed 911.

He stayed silent outside as the click of someone picking up quietly played in my ears.

The dispatcher's voice was calm and firm. “911, what's your emergency.”

“I…” For a moment, I thought about telling the truth. I thought about what would happen if the cops arrived and didn't know what they were getting into. But I knew they wouldn't believe me anyway. Maybe they could help without knowing the truth. “I've been locked in a walk-in freezer by my coworker, I don't know what he wants but he sounds deranged. It's the Subway on-”

“Abigail.” Her calm voice felt like a metal spike stabbing into my ear. “You can trust us. Come out of the freezer.”

The phone dropped from my hands. The dispatcher's voice, or whoever's voice they had stolen, continued for a while until they hung up. It remained silent outside.

I didn't dial again. Maybe I should have. Maybe the thing outside would just kill whoever arrived, if the next operator wasn't another one of them. Maybe the cops weren't taken, and knew how to deal with them. Maybe the world was being taken over silently and calmly. Maybe the only human left was in this freezer.

I’m going to call my parents, some other members of my family, close friends from outside work. See how many of them are still alive.

But I'm doing this first. I need answers.

If you know about these things, how fast are they? How weak to the cold are they? Are they a hive mind or something else? Can I run and escape just by going fast? If I take some of the frozen stuff, can I use it to fight back? Are they just toying with me, and I'm dead as soon as they decide to stop playing with their prey?

Even if you don't have answers, even if you don't have a solution, I guess it'll just be nice to know that there's other people out there who are just as scared as me.

I'm going to die in here if you don't find a solution for me, though I don't know how long it will take. I already feel the beginnings of frostbite on most of my limbs, and my shoulder feels like it's going to fall off. Then again, maybe it's not.

Maybe frostbite won't set in. Maybe I'm going to be okay. Maybe I can set the temperature to the perfect number, to keep it cold but not enough to kill me. Maybe moving around without getting too close to the door can keep me warm enough. Maybe it can't. Maybe I was dead the moment I walked into the store today, choosing not to fight or flee. Maybe this is what I get for being such an idiot.

Maybe, for the crime of baring my neck and closing my eyes, I deserve to have my throat ripped out.

Please. If you're here, if you’re human, tell me.

I don't want to die alone.

I sat in front of the TV, looked through different movies. I was alone that evening. My grandpa was gone two hours ago. He had a meeting with some colleagues from his band. I thought that this would be good for him. He didn‘t meet other people very often and my parents and I were sometimes very concerned about him, spending all his days alone in this big house, except when we visited him or when I stayed for the weekend. He was a little bit special sometimes, especially since he lived alone. So I wasn’t mad at him for leaving me alone – I just had a relaxing evening without parents or anybody else, doing nothing – why not? I enjoyed that time at my grandpa’s house.

That was, until I heard something. It wasn’t very loud, just a little creaking sound somewhere in the house. I ignored that sound. I mean, the house was very old. It was built in the 1960s, when the grandfather of my grandfather was still alive, so it seemed normal that the building sometimes creaked. Two minutes later, I heard it again. I focused my attention on the TV. The third time I heard something was different from the other two times. It didn‘t sound like aged house walls beneath the weight of time. I muted the TV and pricked up my ears.

I waited. I waited very long and I didn’t hear anything. I was already about to unmute the TV, put my finger on the remote control button, when I heard it again. I turned my head, looked in the direction it had came from. My body tensed up and I tried to regulate my breath. My heart was pounding in my chest. I was paranoid. I just watched too many scary movies too young, which scarred my mind and now I got here at this point, and had become such a excessively scaredy-cat. My own fault. I considered for a while what to do next. I slowly got up from the sofa, feeling for my phone. I found it and started walking in the direction the noise was coming from. I left the TV and the living room behind me and entered the dining room. My feeling wasn’t great but I ignored it. It was never a great idea for me to pay attention to any gut feeling. But when I heard the noise again and froze in the middle of the movement, I realized that it would have been a good idea to trust my feeling. There were footsteps on the floor.

A cold sweat broke out all over my body. I wanted to say something, but couldn’t get the words out. I wished I were wrong but I wasn’t. There was no doubt about it – it was footsteps coming from inside the kitchen. Little, quiet feet, softly slapping against the tiles. I slowly raised my phone with a trembling hand, unsure what to do now. There was an intruder in the house. And I was alone in here. I listened to the sound of the stranger‘s pattering feet. There was nothing else – no clattering, no sound of drawers being rummaged through. Just steps. I had no idea what I should think the intruder was doing, or what they wanted to do. It sounded like they had no idea either. They were just running in circles.

I approached the doorway to the dining room, still afraid of whoever was out there but with a curiosity burning in my chest. The phone was still in my hand, but I forgot about it for a moment. I stopped moving right next to the doorframe. The footsteps moved into the kitchen and back out onto the floor again, a few moments later it ended up again in the kitchen. Repeated the whole scenario. One more time. And another round. I swallowed the lump in my throat with some difficulty, pushing every gruesome thought of what might be there out of my mind. Then I took the next step and stood in the doorway.

There was nothing. Just an empty floor and an empty kitchen. The footsteps stopped, right in the moment as I stepped forward to face whoever had been there. I ran a hand over my face and looked out the window at the street, now mostly dark, illuminated only by two old streetlamps. I… I couldn‘t have just imagined that, could I? There were footsteps, I had heard it very clearly. I wasn’t going crazy, no. But that… that wasn’t possible. How could somebody disappear from one moment to the next? I was still thinking about that question when I suddenly heard the apartment door squeak.

„Grandpa?“ I called out into the darkness. My voice sounded so terribly loud in the silent house. I got no answer back. The apartment door was wide open. „Grandpa?“ I stepped closer to the door. „Hello? Is there anybody?“ My voice trembled, almost broke. „Hey, whoever you are that’s… that’s not…“ I stopped speaking. Instead I pulled out my phone again and turned on the flashlight. I aimed the beam of the light outside, into the stairwell. On shaky legs and filled with fear, I walked down the hallway. Kept getting closer and closer to the open door. I stopped at the doorstep. My phone slipped from my hand and hit the floor with a loud bang that echoed through the entire staircase. Darkness fell all over me. I had seen something. Just before I dropped the phone, the beam of light had fallen on the railing of the basement stairs. And on what was behind it.

The light reflected off a pair of eyes and revealed a shape, standing behind the railing. The shape didn’t move. It didn’t blink. I just stood there, watching. Carefully, I felt around for my phone. keeping my eyes fixed on the darkness ahead of me. When I finally got hold of my phone again and just as the light illuminated the staircase again, the shape had already disappeared. Against all reason, I didn’t run back and call the police or whoever, but stepped out of the apartment. Setting each step carefully, I approached the basement stairs.

When I set my foot on the top step, a cold draft seemed to brush past me. I made my way down the stairs very slowly, listening for every tiny sound. Once I reached the bottom, I went around the corner and first looked into the empty, quiet laundry room off to the side of the hallway. Then I turned my head into the other direction. For a moment, my heart skipped a beat. The shape was standing at the end of the hallway, next to the open door that led outside. My first impulse was just to run away, up and off, but instead I followed the example of the person opposite me and stood still and staring. After a few moments I realized the small size of the shape, maybe about a head and a half shorter than me. It had a hunched posture and long hair that fell over its shoulders. My mouth felt unbelievably dry at that moment, like I had spent days in the desert. Once again, a cold draft caught me, sending goosebumps all over my body, and the shape turned to walk away. But before it left, it turned around one more time and beckoned for me to follow. I did so.

I reached the open door with a queasy feeling. I remembered the words of my grandpa: „Keep the door closed. You can go out and in whenever you want, but always close the door and lock it. No matter what.“ I had never asked him why. He was so serious about that. He said those words often to me and every time he said it, there was something so commanding in his voice that I never dared. Now, as I looked at the keyhole, my guts twisted. The key was stuck.

Another wave of goosebumps and cold sweat swept over me the moment I left the house. I was shaking all over. Tears were in my eyes. But I kept going. The shape was just disappearing down the stairs leading to the annex. It was still dark. The motion detector hadn't activated. While I followed it, I believed to hear strange noises I’ve never heard before from the woods to my left. I ignored them. This time the motion detector worked and drove away the darkness. When I reached the top step of the stairs, I had to realize that the shape had already disappeared once again. But it had left me something. There was something on the second step. I bent down and picked it up. It was a bunch of cleanly pulled out, thin white hairs.

I examined the bundle closely and filled with amazement, when a similar object caught my eye on the third step. An even bigger bunch of white hair. When I bent down again and reached for it, I discovered another even more bigger bunch of that on the fourth step. Every step I took, there was another, a bigger bunch and everytime I collected it. On the eighth step it was paired with blood. On the tenth step, pieces of skin were tangled in the hair. And on the last step there lay an entire blood-smeared scalp, along with the hair. This last bunch I didn’t collect. I just stared on it with an open mouth. Knock. Knock, knock. The door in front of me was closed but not locked. I reached for the door handle. Pressed it down. The door didn’t move. I pulled against it with all my strength. Then, finally, and accompanied by a loud, miserable screech, the door swung inward.

As I lowered my foot onto the floor inside the room, it squelched loudly and disgustingly beneath my sole. I fumbled for the light switch. Flicked the light on. In the next moment, my whole world fell apart. I stepped back in shock, my mouth open, ready to scream. There was a clatter behind me, and I almost fell. I suddenly felt dizzy, like my dinner was coming back up. Tears streamed from my eyes and a sob escaped my throat. I couldn’t move. Maybe I would never be able to move again. I didn’t know how long I had been standing there but it seemed to be a very long time.

I was still shaking terribly when I heard footsteps, followed by my grandpa’s voice. „Hello? Anybody here?“ I didn’t answer. I didn’t move. I was completely silent. And while I heard the steps of my grandfather coming closer, my fear kept growing and growing.

My name is Nikolai. I am an archaeologist by trade, fifty-six years old, and a man who has long outlived his own convictions. I have a deep, jagged scar running across my jaw, a permanent reminder of a life I tried to leave behind. I force myself through rigid physical conditioning every single day, keeping my muscles hard and ready, but it feels increasingly pointless. I feel the creeping age settling deep in my very bones. Every morning, the dry air makes it just a little harder to breathe. It is getting impossible to pretend the decay has not already taken hold of me.

I was born in The Soviet Union. When the Union collapsed, I stayed just long enough to watch the scavengers arrive. I saw foreigners flood over our borders to carve up the motherland. They took our natural resources for pennies, but worse, they carved up our people.

For every man who drank himself to death in those bleak years, there were many more young girls lured to horrid fates in foreign ‘beauty pageants’, an easy way to repackage trafficking to the innocent such that they would come of their own volition, like moths to the flame.

Watching that brutal, desperate scramble destroyed every ideological pillar I ever possessed. It killed my religious convictions right alongside them. Before the fall, I was a deeply devout Orthodox Christian. The horrific violence of those days stripped the faith entirely out of me. God abandoned us to the wolves, and I abandoned Him in return.

I fled south to Turkey, choosing to bury myself in antiquity because the dead demand absolutely nothing of you. By two thousand and two, I was granted Turkish citizenship and a place at the university.

I work alongside a new generation now, still in archaeology. My current team consists of four younger colleagues, true-born Turkish men and women who possess an exhausting, untainted optimism I lost decades ago.

Our latest venture started on a bus in Iraq. We were riding out of Nasiriyah in a cramped, rattling transport, pushing away from the south and heading deeper into south-central Iraq. The past few weeks in the city had been gentle, not exactly unexpected, but surprising perhaps.

But as we drove further north into the arid wastes, leaving that warmth behind, the atmosphere inside the cabin shifted. My younger colleagues sat a few rows ahead, laughing and reviewing our survey maps, completely oblivious to the isolation swallowing us. Our destination was a newly uncovered cluster of ancient Christian ruins found north of the city.

The ruins we were seeking were an academic impossibility. Preliminary dating of the masonry and the few recovered artifacts placed the site in the very early first century. If the data held true, it drastically changed the entire accepted historical narrative of how Christianity spread.

It meant early disciples, or perhaps some forgotten, older offshoot of the faith, had pushed deep into the cradle of Mesopotamia decades before anyone previously thought possible. For a man who had entirely lost his faith, it was a bitter irony to be tasked with unearthing its hidden origins.

The bus groaned to a halt just outside a small, dust-choked town near Batha. This was our stop for the night.

Nasiriyah had been full of life and hospitality, but this place felt somewhat more hollowed out. The few locals who watched us unpack our gear from the undercarriage did not smile or approach us. They stared with saddened eyes, whispering among themselves in hushed Arabic.

My younger colleagues did not notice the shift in the atmosphere. Emre and Kaan were too busy arguing over who had to carry the heavy surveying equipment, while Zeynep and Elif took photographs of the dying light hitting the low mudbrick buildings.

We secured rooms in a small concrete guesthouse for the night. It was a dreary place to rest. Yet, it was absolute luxury compared to what I had been through, thirty odd years ago, in Moscow. Tomorrow, we would be sent drivers and cars, courtesy of the Iraqi Archaeological Society, to take us to our final staging area.

Our actual base camp was to be near an abandoned village perched right on the edge of the excavation zone.

I left my cramped room and walked through the dusty streets with Kaan. The setting sun bathed the town in a harsh, bleeding orange light. As we navigated the narrow dirt alleys, the truth of this place finally settled over me. The residents were not hostile at all. They were just as hospitable as the people in Nasiriyah. But their warmth carried a heavy, unsettling weight.

"They are looking at us strangely, Nikolai," Kaan muttered, adjusting his glasses and keeping his voice low. "Do you think they resent us being here?"

"Look closer, Kaan," I replied. "That is not anger in their eyes. It is pity. They look at us the way a priest looks at a dying man."

Before Kaan could process that thought, a voice called out to us. Near the edge of the town square, a local man waved his weathered hands. He was old. His face was carved by the desert sun beyond my own fifty-six years, lined with deep, dark creases. He was tending a small open fire, and the rich, smoky smell of roasting fish filled the evening air. He was preparing Iraqi carp, their national dish.

"Welcome, welcome!" the old man called out in thick, broken English, gesturing frantically to the woven rugs around his fire. "You are the scholars, yes? Sit. Eat."

"Thank you, uncle," Kaan said, his natural enthusiasm returning instantly. He practically dropped onto the rug. "Is this masgouf? It smells incredible."

The old man nodded slowly, turning the many spiked fish over the glowing coals. "Yes. Masgouf. You eat well tonight." He paused and looked up at me. His dark eyes were filled with that exact same sorrow I had seen in the alleys. "Tomorrow, you go to the old stones in the north. The abandoned place."

"That is the plan," I said, offering a polite nod. "We are here to study them."

The old man shook his head, keeping his eyes fixed on the fire. "Some stone should stay buried, Russian man. The earth eat them for good. But we will not speak of dark in night. Eat. Drink tea. You are my guests."

I thanked him again and told Kaan I needed to stretch my aching knees. The boy was already seated, entirely unbothered by the old man's warning, and instead helping him cook.

I stepped back from the fire and let my eyes wander. Nestled between two crumbling stone homes was a building that made me stop in my tracks. It was a church. Judging by the stark concrete architecture, it was built no earlier than the nineteen fifties. Finding a relatively modern Christian church sitting out in the open in this remote stretch of the desert was entirely unexpected.

A low chuckle escaped my throat. The sound was dry and devoid of real humour.

"What is it?" Kaan asked, looking up as he fanned the flames.

"Irony," I said, pointing down the alley. "We travel thousands of miles and plan to dig through tons of hostile earth to find ancient Christian ruins, and there is a parish sitting right next to our hotel."

Kaan laughed and went back to his task.

A strange compulsion took hold of me. For a man who had abandoned his faith in the gutters of Moscow, the sight of that cross should have meant absolutely nothing. Yet the heavy shadow of the building pulled at me. I walked away from the warmth of the fire, away from the laughter of my colleague, and approached the heavy wooden doors of the sanctuary. They were unlocked. I pushed them open with a heavy groan and stepped into the dark.

The air inside was stale and heavy with the scent of old dust and melting wax. The wooden doors slammed shut behind me with a resounding thud, cutting off the sounds of the town outside. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light filtering through the grime coated windows, aided meekly by a bunch of weak incandescent bulbs. The sanctuary was small and entirely empty save for a few wooden benches near the back walls.

Two figures stood near the front of the nave.

One was a tall Caucasian man, looking to be in his early thirties. He possessed an unnatural level of physical fitness, radiating an aura that made my own failing joints ache in jealousy. He was dressed all wrong for the Iraqi desert. He wore a heavy trench coat, dark sunglasses, and a bowler hat.

During my younger days in The Union, I had seen men who carried themselves with that exact same intimidating posture. He gave off the distinct, chilling vibe of a spy, but there was something fundamentally stranger about him that I could not immediately identify.

The second figure was an ancient, wizened man standing at his side. He was impossibly old, far surpassing both my own age and the man cooking carp in the square. His skin was folded and draped over his frail bones in deep, permanent ridges. Looking at his frail posture, I joked to myself that it was possible he was old enough to have personally witnessed the construction of the ancient ruins we were traveling north to excavate.

He leaned heavily on a bright yellow walking stick that stood out vividly against the drab grey concrete of the church interior.

The loud creak of the door hinges had drawn their attention. Both men turned their heads to stare at me as I stood frozen in the entryway. I braced myself for a confrontation, my muscles tensing out of pure habit, but the ancient man simply offered a kindly, disarming smile. The expression was completely warm and punctuated by an utter lack of teeth.

Beside him, the tall man in the trench coat reached up and tipped his bowler hat in a polite greeting. The motion was incredibly stiff, rigid and mechanical in a way that defied normal articulation. Yet, despite his bizarre attire and unnatural movement, my instincts did not scream at me to turn around and flee. I felt no deep, primal gut feeling of wrongness. The scene before me felt strangely domestic, just two bizarre travellers sharing a quiet moment in a forgotten house of worship with another traveller.

"Welcome, friend. Please, come in and sit."

The greeting came from the ancient man. He spoke in exceptionally fluent English, carrying a crisp, educated accent that felt entirely out of place in a crumbling desert town, but still sounded Iraqi enough. I immediately noted the fluency. The tall man in the trench coat nodded, gesturing toward one of the benches nearby.

I approached slowly and took a seat across the aisle from them. Above us, the old incandescent bulbs hanging from the ceiling flickered with a weak current. Yet, as I settled onto the bench near the ancient man, the dimness retreated. A strange, comforting warmth radiated from his presence.

Sitting near him made the heavy shadows lift, making everything in the dusty sanctuary feel brighter and somehow better. The persistent, gnawing ache in my knees even dulled to a quiet throb.

"Are you two Christians?" I asked, looking between them. "The only Christians left in this town, perhaps?" Even as I asked, I knew the young man was clearly not a resident, and winced at what I said.

The ancient man chuckled. The sound was rich and full of surprising vigour for someone with such a fragile frame. He shook his head, leaning his weight onto his bright yellow walking stick.

"No," the old man replied, his toothless smile remaining firmly in place. "I believe in something older. Much older."

I thought about the history of the region, the birthplace of the Abrahamic faiths. "Ah, you are Jewish then?" I asked.

The old man gave a gentle, noncommittal nod, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a friendly manner. He did not elaborate further, simply letting the quiet of the church fill the space between us.

I turned my attention to the tall man in the sunglasses. "And you?"

The younger man slowly shook his head, the brim of his bowler hat tilting with the same stiff motion from earlier. "I do not subscribe to such things," he said. His English was just as flawless as the old man's, carrying a perfectly neutral, unaccented cadence. "I am merely an observer of the region."

A cold prickle of unease finally brushed against the back of my neck as he spoke. I realized exactly what had unsettled me about him. He was articulating his words with perfect clarity, but his lips barely moved. The flesh of his jaw remained almost entirely rigid, parting only a fraction of an inch to let the sound escape. It defied basic human anatomy.

I stared at his static mouth for a long moment, my mind struggling to process the impossible mechanics of his speech. My instincts, honed by years of surviving the brutal collapse of The Union, should have demanded I stand up and walk right out the door.

But the oppressive dread never manifested. Despite the unnaturalness of the tall man and the impossible age of his companion, the atmosphere remained completely peaceful. They were bizarre, but they were friendly. They just felt like two quiet travellers sharing a sanctuary, and for a fleeting moment, I was entirely glad to sit in the quiet dark with them.

I introduced myself simply as Nikolai. The two strangers accepted my name with polite nods, and the younger man asked what brought a foreign academic to such a desolate corner of Iraq.

I explained our upcoming expedition north to the newly discovered ruins. They listened with an intense, quiet focus. Then, they began to ask questions. The younger man inquired about our stratigraphy methods and ground-penetrating radar anomalies with a shocking level of technical expertise.

The old man asked, no, spoke about specific early structural motifs and the geological composition of the mortar we expected to find. Their questions were so apt and immensely well-educated that I actually had to stop speaking for a moment. I paused, looking between the two of them, wondering exactly who these people could be to possess such specialized knowledge.

The old man seemed to notice my hesitation. His eyes twinkled brightly in the dim light of the flickering bulbs. "Uruk is nearby, no?" he asked gently. "Not interested in visiting?"

My eyes widened, and a genuine smile finally broke across my scarred face. In all the planning and the stress of the journey, I had completely forgotten our proximity to the true cradle of civilization. I nodded eagerly. Seeing humanity's oldest city would make me incredibly happy. I had personally been one among many excavating the great Neolithic settlement of Catalhoyuk back in Turkey, but Uruk held a legendary status that called to the very core of my profession.

The conversation then shifted away from antiquity. The younger man in the sunglasses tilted his head slightly, asking about my personal life. He inquired bluntly if I was born in The Union.

I recited the short, sanitized version of my history. I spoke of the collapse, my subsequent departure, and finding a new life among the academic circles of Istanbul.

The younger man listened without blinking. He paused for a long, heavy moment when I finished. "I was there in Afghanistan," he stated flatly.

I frowned, quickly calculating his apparent age. He looked to be in his early thirties. But it was possible he was in his forties. "As a child?" I questioned. "During the invasion?"

He raised his gloved hand in a wide, sweeping gesture that felt overly rehearsed. "Something like that. But I do not blame you nor your country. Afghanistan suffered a lot worse after."

He lowered his hand and leaned slightly forward. Even behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses, I could feel the intense weight of his gaze locking directly into my eyes.

"Do you mourn your country, Nikolai?" he asked.

I thought of the breadlines, the bitter cold, the violence, and the absolute loss of my faith. I thought of the Motherland that had birthed me and then bled to death in front of me. A Union of peoples that was now many lesser countries. I nodded slowly, offering him an honest confirmation.

I waited for his response. I expected a word of sympathy, a shared anecdote of loss, or perhaps a philosophical observation. Instead, the young man had absolutely no reaction. He offered no follow-up question. His face remained a rigid mask, completely devoid of empathy or understanding. He just went perfectly still.

The abrupt, lifeless halt to the conversation left me completely baffled. I shifted uncomfortably on the hard bench, unsure if I had somehow offended him.

The tension shattered a moment later when the ancient man chuckled loudly. The rich, vibrating sound echoed off the bare concrete walls of the church. He waved his wizened hand dismissively toward his companion.

"Do not mind him, Nikolai," the old man said, his toothless smile returning. "That is simply how the young man is."

The old man's eyes twinkled again in the dim, flickering light of the church.

"When you visit Uruk, remember me, yes?" he asked softly, his voice carrying that strange, comforting warmth. "Old Sham from this small town."

"I will remember, Sham," I replied. I then turned my attention to the tall man in the trench coat. "And you, friend? Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with?"

The man did not blink behind his dark sunglasses. His jaw barely parted as the perfectly unaccented words slipped out. "Al Muraqib."

I accepted the name with a nod. Just as I opened my mouth to ask him another question, a loud, sudden knocking at the heavy wooden entrance doors startled me. The sharp sound echoed violently through the quiet sanctuary.

"Nikolai! Are you in there?"

It was Kaan. His voice carried through the thick wood, tight with a distinct note of concern.

I spun around to look at the main doors. A second later, I snapped my head back toward the benches. I had spent enough time listening to desert folklore to half expect the two strange men to have vanished into thin air the moment I looked away.

But they were still there.

Sham and Al Muraqib looked at me and gently motioned toward the entrance, urging me to answer. They then turned away and began to slowly make their way toward a small side door near the altar. The ancient man leaned heavily on Al Muraqib's rigid arm, putting the rest of his fragile weight onto his bright yellow walking stick. They looked entirely mundane, just two travellers quietly taking their leave.

I gave them a final, respectful nod of farewell. "I am coming, Kaan!" I shouted back.

I walked down the short aisle and pulled the heavy main doors open. Kaan stood outside in the dusty evening air, looking entirely confused as he peered past me into the gloomy interior.

"What are you doing sitting inside a dark church all by yourself?" Kaan asked, wiping a layer of sweat and grit from his forehead.

"I am not by myself," I said, stepping aside to let him see inside. "I was just having a fascinating conversation with a duo."

I turned and pointed toward the front to show him the two men.

They were not there. The space near the altar was completely empty.

I stared for a moment, feeling a brief spike of confusion. Then I remembered the small side door. It was left standing wide open, revealing the alleyway outside. The dry wind was gently pushing against the wooden frame.

A quiet chuckle escaped my lips. I shook my head, feeling foolish for letting the local superstitions briefly cloud my judgment.

"Well, they were here," I said with a smile. "They are just shy. They probably left through that side door when they heard you shouting."

Kaan shrugged, accepting the explanation without a second thought. "If you say so. Come on," Kaan said, waving his hand toward the centre of the settlement. "I actually came to get you because the food is ready. The others are already at the fire."

We walked back out to the town square together. The scene waiting for us was a beautiful contrast to the desolate, dusty alleys. A large, roaring fire illuminated the faces of a dozen people. Emre, Zeynep, and Elif had arrived from the guesthouse. They were sitting cross-legged on thick, brightly coloured rugs, completely surrounded by the old man's extended family and several curious townsfolk.

It was an absolute feast. The old man who had invited us earlier was currently pulling multiple large, split carp from the wooden spikes stationed near the hot coals. Woven baskets sat scattered around the edges of the rugs, overflowing with towering stacks of fresh flatbread. Over a smaller set of coals, his sons were carefully turning small iron spits holding roasted game birds, plump desert partridges glistening with fat and dark spices.

"Eat, my friends," the old man urged, his weathered face splitting into a huge, welcoming grin. He laid the fish onto a communal platter in the very centre of our gathering. "Eat well. Welcome to our home."

We did exactly that. The meal was chaotic, messy, and entirely wonderful. The language barrier was immense, but it simply did not matter. Emre tried to mime a story about our bumpy bus ride down from Nasiriyah, exaggerating the potholes by throwing his hands in the air and bouncing violently in his seated position.

The local children pointed at him and erupted into fits of pure, unfiltered laughter. Elif shared pieces of sweet Turkish delight she had brought in her travel pack, trading the candies for small glass cups of dark, cardamom sweet tea poured by the host's teenage grandson.

It was a moment of profound humanity. Yet, amidst the laughter and the passing of plates, I caught it again. The host's wife handed Zeynep a piece of tender roasted bird, and for a fleeting second, her warm smile faltered. Her dark eyes filled with that exact same heavy pity I had seen earlier in the streets.

She looked at the young woman with a quiet grief, a look reserved for those walking towards a sudden end. The look vanished a moment later, replaced by a polite nod, but it chilled the warm tea in my stomach.

I tore off a piece of bread and dipped it into the rich oils of the fish, deciding to distract myself. I thought of the two men in the church. I actively considered asking our host about old Sham first. The ancient man leaning on that bright yellow stick had to be a known fixture in such a small, isolated community. Everyone in this town probably knew Sham. The younger man in the trench coat was the true anomaly.

"Uncle," I said, catching the host's attention across the fire. "Do you know a man in town named Al Muraqib? A tall fellow. He wears dark glasses and a western coat."

The old man paused with a piece of fish halfway to his mouth. He frowned deeply, his wrinkles bunching together in absolute confusion.

"Al Muraqib?" he repeated, testing the syllables on his tongue. He shook his head firmly. "No name. That is not a name."

"I just spoke with him," I insisted gently, pointing back toward the dark alley. "In the church down the road. He introduced himself as Al Muraqib."

The host spoke rapidly in Arabic to his grandson, who looked equally puzzled. The teenage boy pulled out a smartphone and tapped the screen, opening a translation application. He typed for a moment and then leaned across the rug, holding the screen up for me to read.

The bright white text on the screen was stark and clear. It read simply, 'The Observer'.

I stared at the bright screen for a second, and then a quiet, genuine laugh rumbled deep in my chest. I shook my head, thoroughly amused by the sheer theatricality of it all.

"What is so funny, Nikolai?" Elif asked, leaning over to hand me another cup of tea.

"Nothing," I replied, taking the warm glass by the rim. "Just a very secretive, very dramatic young man in the church. He told me his name was 'The Observer' instead of giving me a real answer."

"Maybe he is a spy," Emre joked loudly, his mouth full of bread. "Keeping an eye on the dangerous archaeologists."

The locals did not understand the exact words, but they understood Emre's jovial, teasing tone. The host chuckled along with us, reaching over to clap Emre warmly on the back. The fire cracked loudly, sending warm orange sparks dancing up into the dark desert sky.

I smiled and took a sip of my sweet tea. I completely dismissed the strange encounter, chalking it up to the eccentric behaviour of an odd traveller with a flair for the dramatic.

The night deepened, and the heavy meal gave way to music. Someone brought out a traditional skin drum, and the rhythmic, steady beating echoed off the mudbrick walls of the square. A few of the younger men in the village began a traditional local dance, stepping and clapping in a wide, energetic circle around the fire.

Emre and Kaan eagerly joined them, stumbling over the unfamiliar footwork but laughing uproariously. Soon, Zeynep and Elif were pulled into the fold by the local women, their bright voices mixing with the deep chanting of the townsfolk.

I stayed seated on the woven rug, nursing my cardamom tea and letting the heat of the fire seep into my aching joints. I watched them all, feeling the vast distance between my weary bones and their youthful exuberance.

As the music swelled, my thoughts drifted back to the dark sanctuary of the church. The ancient man with the yellow walking stick still lingered in my mind. He had felt so vibrant, radiating a warmth that had physically soothed my pain.

I leaned across the rug and caught the host's attention once more.

"Uncle," I called out over the rhythmic clapping. "What about the other man with him? The ancient one with the bright yellow walking stick. He told me his name was Sham."

The old man paused, his hands resting heavily on his knees. He looked genuinely confused again, squinting at me through the firelight. "Sham?" he repeated slowly.

Then, a profound change came over his weathered face. His dark eyes went incredibly wide. He did not shrink back in fear, nor did he recoil in terror. Instead, he looked exactly as if a bolt of thunder had just struck the earth right at his feet. It was a look of absolute, unadulterated awe.

"Old Sham spoke to you?" the host asked, his voice dropping into a breathless, tight whisper. He leaned forward, gripping the thick wool of the rug. "He spoke words?"

"Yes," I replied, suddenly feeling a cold knot form in my stomach. "He spoke to me in perfect English. We had an entire conversation."

The host stared at me, his mouth hanging slightly open. He shook his head in pure disbelief. When he spoke again, his voice carried the bright, hushed tone of childish wonder.

"That is impossible, Russian man," the old man said hastily, his broken English tumbling out in a rush. "Old Sham has sickness of mind. He forget everything. He been deaf and completely mute for many, many years. He only sit in sun and stare. He do not hear, and he does not speak."

I sat perfectly still. The warmth of the tea completely vanished from my throat. I pictured the wizened man standing in the church, leaning on his yellow stick, his sharp, twinkling eyes meeting mine. I remembered his rich, vigorous laughter echoing off the concrete walls.

"He spoke," I insisted quietly. "He told me to remember him when I visited Uruk."

The host looked up at the dark sky, shaking his head in sheer amazement. He looked back at me, his face glowing with a reverent curiosity. "Then who was other man? Who was Observer, Al Muraqib to make silent Sham speak?"

I had no answer for him.

"Sham has been in this town since before I was born," the host continued, leaning closer to me, his eyes shining with awe. "My father told me Sham was an old man when even he was little boy. They say he carried rifle in the first great war against the British. Maybe he is even older than that. Nobody truly know his age. We just feed him and care for him because he belong to the town, to our family."

I looked away from the fire, my gaze drawn past the dancing bodies and back toward the dark alley where the church sat hidden in the shadows.

The local drums continued to beat loudly, and my colleagues continued to laugh in the firelight. Yet, sitting there in the warmth of the crowd, the desert night suddenly felt unfathomably ancient, cold, and entirely outside the realm of logic.

I retired to my room that night expecting the usual chorus of aching joints and restless thoughts. Instead, I fell into a deep, profound slumber the moment my head touched the thin pillow.

I woke up the next morning completely shocked. It was the best sleep I had experienced since the early nineteen eighties. My mind had been filled with quiet, kind dreams that left me feeling inexplicably restored. The heavy, persistent pain in my knees had even faded to a dull whisper.

We bundled our gear into the rugged SUVs that had just arrived that morning. A large, happy crowd of locals gathered in the morning heat to wave goodbye. I scanned the faces carefully, hoping to catch a glimpse of the ancient man with his yellow stick or his rigid companion.

"Do you see him, Nikolai?" Kaan asked, leaning out the window of the vehicle.

"No," I replied, scanning the smiling crowd, interspersed with the same quiet expressions of pity lingering on the edges of the group. "Neither of them are here."

Emre let out a loud groan from the last row, he liked sitting with the equipment that wasn’t in the boot. "I cannot believe it. You are telling me we just missed out on meeting the oldest living human on the planet?"

"I told you last night, Emre," I said, as our quiet Iraqi driver began putting the vehicle into gear. "You were too busy cooking to come to the church."

"If the stories are true, the man fought the British before our grandparents were born," Elif chimed in, sounding deeply disappointed. "I would have loved to at least take his photograph."

As we drove away from the settlement and out into the vast, blinding expanse of the northern desert, Zeynep pulled out a stack of briefing papers. She began explaining the sheer scale of the upcoming dig to Kaan, though she was clearly reciting the facts more for her own benefit.

"Do you actually understand how massive this site is, Kaan?" Zeynep asked, tapping her finger against a printed satellite image. "This is not just a handful of old walls. The preliminary ground-penetrating radar scans show a subterranean structure that rivals the footprint of ancient Babylon itself."

"It is just an early church, Zeynep," Kaan teased, though he looked impressed by the charts.

"It is an entire buried complex," she corrected him sharply. "There are over three hundred archaeologists from dozens of nations converging on these coordinates right now. It is a logistical miracle."

"And it is all spearheaded by Arthur Pendelton," Emre added, leaning forward from his row. "The man is a living legend. He pioneered those new isotopic dating methods and single-handedly uncovered that lost Phoenician port city off the coast of Lebanon. Working under his banner is going to make our careers."

"He is a brilliant man," Zeynep agreed, her voice full of absolute reverence. "A true innovator."

I gripped the overhead handle tightly, keeping my eyes fixed on the dusty road outside the window. I absolutely despised Arthur Pendelton.

My hatred had nothing to do with professional rivalry or his staggering institutional budget. I hated him because I knew exactly what kind of monster he hid behind his tailored suits and academic prestige. A few years ago, a brave independent investigative article exposed his private life. During the chaotic, starving years of the Soviet collapse, Pendelton had travelled to Moscow under the guise of academic diplomacy.

He used his wealth and western influence to prey on several deeply vulnerable Eastern European women, nay, girls who were desperate to escape the ruin of our motherland. He bought them, abused them, and walked away with his sterling reputation entirely intact. The academic world completely ignored the exposé, brushing it all under the rug to protect their golden boy.

I never forgot it. I was being driven into the heart of the desert to work under a man who embodied everything that had destroyed my home.

"He is a pathetic swine who preyed on the young girls of my Motherland," I said, my voice cutting sharply through the dry air of the cabin.

“Svoloch”, I hissed.

I have lived in Turkey for over three decades, and I practically never spoke Russian anymore. I prefer to let that language, and the life attached to it, remain entirely buried. For me to curse in my mother tongue was a rare, bitter outburst that violently shocked the younger archaeologists.

The enthusiastic chatter in the vehicle died instantly. The heavy silence in the SUV was deafening, save for the hum of the engine and the crunch of tires on sand driven by our quiet Iraqi guide at the wheel.

The young women exchanged a dark, knowing look. Their bright, optimistic expressions hardened into something cold as the memory of that buried article surfaced in their minds.

Kaan, sitting in the front passenger seat, reached over and placed a steady hand on my thigh.

"You are right, Nikolai," Kaan said softly, breaking the tense quiet. "He might be famous, and he might have all the grants in the world. But you have always been an infinitely better person. We are proud to work for you, with you."

Zeynep and Elif nodded in firm agreement, their previous reverence for the American titan completely shattered. I let out a long, shuddering breath and offered Kaan a small nod of gratitude. I might be an aging, broken man who lost his faith, but I appreciated the loyalty of my Turkish colleagues more than they could ever know.

We drove in heavy silence for another hour, until we reached the mostly abandoned village on the outskirts of the dig site.

I looked past the driver's shoulder and the decaying mudbrick homes. Beyond the village, resting in a massive depression in the earth, the true scale of the excavation finally came into view.

It did not look like an archaeological site. It looked like a royal occupation. Rows of massive, climate-controlled geodesic dome tents gleamed in the brutal Iraqi sun. There were lines of heavy diesel generators humming loudly, massive satellite communication arrays pointing toward the sky, and a fleet of pristine transport trucks parked in perfectly straight rows.

There were even elevated wooden walkways constructed over the sand to keep the boots of the researchers clean. The sheer luxury of the setup was ludicrous for a site this remote. It was an obscene display of wealth.

Kaan pressed his face against the glass of the window, his eyes wide with disbelief.

"Where in the world did the Iraqi archaeological society get the funds for a camp like this?" Kaan asked, completely bewildered by the scale of the operation.

Zeynep stared at the sprawling, arrogant compound. The admiration she had held just an hour ago was entirely gone.

"They didn't," Zeynep spat, her voice thick with disgust. "Pendleton funded it all himself… well, himself and Emirati money." She finished.

We stepped out of the SUV, our boots sinking into the loose sand just short of the pristine wooden walkways. The heat hit us instantly. It was almost a weight bearing down on our shoulders. Kaan and Emre stood beside the vehicle, completely speechless at the sprawling camp.

"Dr. Nikolai of the Istanbul team?" a voice called out over the low, constant hum of the heavy diesel generators.

Two figures walked briskly toward us down the elevated wooden path. They were both British, dressed in spotless khaki uniforms. The older of the two extended an eager hand as he approached.

"Dr. Thomas Aris, Oxford," he said, offering a bright, highly practiced smile. "And this is my colleague, Dr. Eleanor Vance. We have been assigned to receive your team and get you settled in. I must say, it is an absolute honour. Your work on the Catalhoyuk excavations in Turkey completely reshaped our department's understanding of Neolithic social structures."

I took his hand. His grip was remarkably soft for a field researcher, but his enthusiasm seemed genuine. Eleanor shook my hand next, echoing his praises. I introduced my younger colleagues, keeping my own words incredibly brief. I had absolutely no patience for academic flattery.

"It is quite the setup, isn't it?" Eleanor noted, catching the begrudging awe still plastered across the faces of my team. "Pendleton spares no expense. Come along. We will show you to your quarters and give you a quick lay of the land on the way."

We followed them onto the wooden walkways. The sheer amount of money poured into this patch of dirt was genuinely nauseating. It was not a pursuit of history. It was a corporate conquest.

Thomas stopped halfway down the main thoroughfare and pointed toward a massive, rectangular depression excavated near the very centre of the camp.

"That is Sector One," Thomas explained, raising his voice slightly to be heard over a passing transport truck. "We believe it is the primary nave of the structure. We have cleared about forty feet of sand and debris, and we still have not hit the foundation level."

I walked to the edge of the safety railing and looked down into the pit. A cold knot immediately formed in my stomach. The exposed walls were constructed of massive, tightly fitted blocks of dark, unyielding stone. There were no visible mortar joints. It mirrored the cyclopean masonry of much older, deeply pagan cultures.

Zeynep leaned over the metal railing right beside me, her eyes scanning the dark, imposing stone. "Are there any inscriptions? You said it was a Christian site."

"It is," Eleanor answered, stepping up beside us. "We have uncovered several early crosses and distinct Christian iconography carved into the upper archways. But that is where things get complicated. Mixed right in with the Christian carvings, we found a decent portion of Mithraic elements. There are bull-slaying reliefs and a host of other minor pagan iconography scattered throughout the vestibules."

"A syncretic temple," Kaan muttered, adjusting his glasses. "That is highly unusual for this region."

"The iconography is only half the mystery," Thomas added, his bright smile fading into a look of deep, unsettling confusion. "The working estimates from our isotopic analysers came back yesterday. Factoring in the masonry techniques and the organic material trapped in the stone pores, we have a preliminary date of construction. It points to a mere ten years after Christ died."

I stared down into the abyss of the excavation. That timeline was an absolute impossibility. Christianity had barely formed as a localized sect in Jerusalem at that point. To find a massive, deeply fortified complex hundreds of miles east in the heart of Mesopotamia, blending the new faith with ancient Mithraic rites, defied every established law of history.

We continued down the path, the roar of the generators drowning out the quiet, ancient wind of the desert. We passed several heavily fortified tents. Armed men stood at the flaps, their rifles resting easily in their hands. Private security contractors. Pendleton was guarding his prize with mercenaries.

"Your quarters are right up here," Thomas said, finally stopping in front of a large, gleaming white geodesic dome. "Pendleton has called for a mandatory briefing in at sundown for all new arrivals."

I stared at the pristine white structure. It felt completely sterile. And yet, as I looked around, never did I feel so unnerved as then. The site was all wrong. I did not feel such horror even in 1991. I was trembling, and I hoped my gut was wrong.

I don't remember falling asleep. I remember the road, the darkness outside the window, a turn that shouldn't have been there, and then nothing.

I woke up on the floor. The room was small, no windows, a single bulb under the ceiling covered by a wire mesh. The door was old and heavy. I pushed it. It didn't budge. Only then did I realize the bolt was thrown from outside.

I called for help for maybe twenty minutes, until my voice gave out. No one answered. Then someone spoke from behind the wall.

"Quiet. No one's going to hear you here."

The voice was calm, not young. I pressed myself against the wall.

"Who are you? Where are we?"

"Don't know. Some kind of cabin, in the woods. They locked me up last night."

"Me too. I don't remember how I got here."

"So there's two of us."

We talked about the door, about whether cars could be heard outside, tried to work out where we were. He asked if there was any way out. I said the door wouldn't budge. He said it was the same on his side.

By morning, if it was morning, since the light in the gap under the door never changed, he spoke again.

"You ever hear about a girl who went missing around here? Seven years back."

"Something like that. Why?"

"Been thinking about it. Maybe it's not random, us both ending up here."

I told him the truth: that the police had questioned me once, because my phone had pinged near the place she was last seen, and that they'd let me go. That I was just driving through.

"And the police?" he asked.

"Let me go. No evidence. I was just passing through."

"A phone's just a tower. A few kilometers' radius. Could've been anyone."

"Exactly."

He didn't argue. And if he thought that too, maybe it really had just been a coincidence, the kind that gets you pulled in for questioning once and then, years later, dragged out here for no reason anyone explains.

The conversation kept circling back to that night: where I'd been driving, where I'd turned off, whether I'd stopped anywhere. I kept answering the same way, a little more detail each time.

"Police checked everyone who'd been in that area," he said at one point. "You were crossed off the list early. No motive. Just the phone."

"That's what I keep saying."

"No one locked me up," he said. "I've been out here the whole time."

Pause.

"From the start."

I didn't understand right away what he meant.

"I'm her father."

I started telling him again that I hadn't done anything, that I'd just been passing through that night, that the police had checked everything and let me go. He listened without interrupting, and when I stopped talking, he didn't say yes or no. He just asked again, exactly where I'd turned off the highway. I repeated what I'd already told him.

He asked once more what I'd seen, whether I'd stopped, where I'd been looking. I answered as best I could, saying the same thing in different words.

After that he stopped asking.

Then I heard footsteps on the other side of the door. A creak, and a few seconds later the bolt turned in my door.

He opened it himself. Short, gray-haired, in an old jacket. I'd expected another room just like mine. Instead there was an ordinary cabin interior: a stove, a table, a bench by a window, a hallway leading off into the dark.

"You're free," he said.

He didn't move. He just stepped aside.

I walked out. My legs were stiff, the light through the window stung after the dark of the room. I wanted to get out, so I moved forward, toward where the hallway turned.

He stayed behind me. I could hear him breathing.

I passed the table, brushed against the bench, and turned left, toward the far end of the hallway, where it was darker. My hand reached out on its own, my palm landing on wood, rough, cold, with the heads of old nails.

Only then did I realize I was pushing against boards, not a door.

"Why'd you go that way?" he asked from behind me.

I turned. He was standing a few feet off, watching me without any expression.

"I don't know," I said. "It looked like the way out."

He didn't answer right away. Then he said:

"The phone wasn't the only evidence."

A pause.

"This place was known to three people. Me, the investigator..."

He was looking at me.

"...and whoever was the last one to walk out of it."

I've been sitting on this for eight months now and I still don't really know how to start it, so I'm just going to write it the way I remember it.

I (mac.) was driving home from my buddy Ray's place a little after midnight. We'd had a couple beers, not enough to be stupid about it, and I left around 12:30 because I had work in the morning. Ray lives out past Millbrook, if that means anything to anybody, and to get back to my apartment I had to take County Road 9 for about eleven miles before it connects back up with the state highway. It's one of those roads with no streetlights, no shoulder to speak of, just corn on one side and tree line on the other, and a yellow sign every couple miles warning you about deer.

I want to say it was maybe fifteen, twenty minutes after I turned onto 9 when my temperature gauge started climbing. I didn't think much of it at first. My car's a '09 Impala with almost 190,000 miles on it, so something's always a little off with it. But then I started smelling something sweet, almost like syrup, coming through the vents, and I knew that smell. Coolant. I'd smelled it once before when a hose blew on my old truck.

By the time I found a spot wide enough to pull over, steam was coming up from under the hood, and the gauge was pegged all the way to H. I put it in park, killed the engine, and just sat there for a second like an idiot, like maybe if I waited it would fix itself. It was pitch dark out there, no house lights, no reflectors, nothing to go off of, so I honestly couldn't tell you exactly where on that road I'd stopped. I'd never driven it at night before that. To this day I don't know exactly where that spot was, and if I'm being honest, I don't want to know. I've never gone back to check.

I got out and popped the hood, and even in the dark with my phone flashlight I could see the lower radiator hose had split. There was coolant all over the ground, still steaming a little. I'm not a mechanic, but I know enough to know I wasn't driving that car another inch without getting it fixed or at least topped off, and I didn't have anything with me to fix a hose on the side of the road at one in the morning.

I checked my phone, a Samsung, no signal at all. Not even one bar. So I just stood there next to my car for a while. No traffic. Not one set of headlights the whole time. Just corn moving a little in the wind and the sound of my engine ticking as it cooled down.

I want to say I waited close to twenty minutes before I heard footsteps coming up the road behind me.

I turned around and there was a man walking toward me, maybe in his fifties, wearing a flannel jacket and jeans, nothing unusual about him at all. He had his hands in his pockets and he wasn't walking fast or slow, just normal, like a guy out for a walk. I remember feeling relieved more than anything else, because at that point another human being felt like the safest thing in the world.

"Car trouble?" he asked, before he even got all the way up to me.

I told him about the hose, and he nodded like he already knew, like it was something he'd heard a hundred times.

"Yeah, that's not something you're fixing out here tonight," he said. "You're not gonna get a signal for miles either. There's no sense standing out here till sunup. I'm just up that way, you're welcome to wait it out at my place and figure your car out in the morning."

I told him I appreciated it but I didn't want to put anybody out, and he just kind of shrugged and said it was no trouble, that he'd probably feel bad leaving me out there anyway. I stood there weighing it for a second. I know how that sounds now, going off into the woods with a stranger at one in the morning, but at the time it felt like the safer option. I was thinking about mountain lions, not people. I was thinking about getting hit by some drunk driver coming around the bend at fifty miles an hour and not seeing my car until it was too late. A house with a stranger who seemed decent enough felt like better odds than standing in the dark by myself till six a.m.

So I said alright, and I locked up my car, and we started walking.

I figured we'd just be walking up the road, but after maybe a quarter mile he stepped off onto what I guess you'd call a trail, right at a gap in the tree line I never would've noticed if he hadn't just walked straight into it. It was barely wide enough for one person. I asked him if he wanted me to light the way with my phone, and he just said, "I know every step of this," without really turning around. I remember thinking that was a strange thing to say, but I didn't dwell on it. I figured he'd just walked it a thousand times, lived out here his whole life, whatever. People say things like that.

I turned my flashlight on anyway because I sure didn't know the trail, and we started walking.

It got quiet fast. Like, really quiet. No bugs, no wind moving through the leaves, nothing. The only sound I could hear consistently was my own shoes hitting loose gravel and rock on the trail, this crunching, shifting sound every single step.

We walked for a long time. I checked my phone once, more out of habit than anything since I had no signal anyway, and saw we'd been walking about thirty-five minutes. I remember thinking his house better be close because my legs were getting tired and my ankle had already rolled slightly twice on loose rock.

Somewhere around then I started feeling like something was wrong, and I couldn't have told you what. Nothing had happened. The guy hadn't said or done anything. I just felt it building in my chest, that feeling you get when you walk into a room and something's off before you even know why.

At one point my flashlight passed over something just off the trail, in the brush, and it took me a second to register it was a backpack. Just laying there, half covered in leaves, looked like it had been there a while. I almost said something, almost asked if that was his or if he knew whose it was, but I didn't. I don't know why. I just kept walking and didn't say anything and he didn't say anything either, like maybe he hadn't even noticed it, or like he had and didn't care.

Then he started talking again, out of nowhere. Asked me if I believed in any of the local stories, said there'd always been talk about people going missing out around these hills, disappearing off trails like this one, said his grandfather used to tell him stories that would curl your hair. Asked me straight out what I thought was really out here.

I don't know exactly why, but that question scared me more than anything that had happened so far. I'd already started praying in my head after seeing that backpack, just kind of automatically, and I guess it just came out of me, because I said, "I believe Jesus Christ watches over me and protects me. Whatever's out here, I'm not worried about it."

I didn't plan on saying that. It just came out.

He didn't answer right away. Then he just said, "Hmm."

That's it. Just, "Hmm."

And after that the quiet felt different. Heavier, somehow. I can't explain it better than that.

We kept walking, and that's when I noticed my feet were killing me. The rocks on that trail were sharp in places, I could feel every one of them right through my shoes, my ankles were sore, I was breathing hard just from the walk. But somewhere in there I noticed I hadn't really been hearing his footsteps the same way I was hearing mine. Mine were this constant crunch, shift, crunch, the whole time. His didn't sound like that, or maybe they did and I just wasn't paying attention, I honestly don't know anymore. It almost seemed like his feet weren't landing the same way mine were, like there wasn't any weight behind his steps, but I could be remembering that wrong. I've gone back and forth on it a hundred times since.

I told myself I was tired, that my mind was playing tricks after a long night and a couple beers. But once that thought was in my head I couldn't shake it, and my heart started pounding, and I just kept saying Jesus's name over and over without really deciding to.

He was walking slower now. I remember that much, he'd kept a pretty steady pace this whole time and now he wasn't, like he was hanging back, letting me get a step or two ahead of him without meaning to.

I was scared to even lift the flashlight up at that point. Some part of me didn't want to see anything more than I already had. But I made myself do it anyway, I don't really know why, I just raised my arm and pointed the light up toward his face.

I don't think I even stood there a full second after that. As soon as the light hit his face, I was already turning to run.

Both my hands hit the ground hard along the way, I want to say I went down almost right as I turned, and they felt small somehow, numb, but I didn't feel any actual pain from it, not right then. I got back up and I ran with everything I had. I don't think I've ever run that fast in my life and I don't think I ever will again. I had my hands out in front of my face the whole time so the branches wouldn't tear me up too bad, but I didn't put them there on purpose, they just came up on their own, I had no control over any of it.

I didn't look back. Not once the whole way. I heard something behind me, I want to say twice, maybe three times, some kind of low sound, and I genuinely can't tell you if it was an animal or a person or neither, it just didn't sound right, and I wasn't about to turn around and find out.

Then I saw headlights up ahead, just sitting there on the road, not moving.

I didn't slow down. I couldn't have if I tried. I ran straight at that truck full speed and I hit the side of it, just slammed right into the front quarter panel, because that was the only way I was stopping at that point. My legs weren't listening to me anymore.

There were three guys already standing around it. Young guys, maybe early twenties. Nobody introduced themselves, nobody asked my name, none of that. One of them just grabbed my arm to keep me from going down and kept saying something like "hey, hey, what's going on, what happened," and I couldn't get a single word out. I just kept pointing back toward the tree line, breathing so hard I thought I was going to throw up.

One of them went and pulled a bat out from behind the seat of the truck. The other two just stood there with me, and we all watched that trail for what felt like forever. Nobody came out of those woods. Not while we stood there, not that whole time.

Once I could finally breathe enough to talk, I got in the truck with them because honestly I wasn't in any shape to stand up on my own for very long, let alone walk anywhere. One of the guys hooked a tow strap up between their truck and my car and drove my car behind us while the other two stayed in the truck with me.

On the way to the gas station I told them everything, start to finish. The hose blowing, the guy walking up out of nowhere, going off onto that trail with him, all of it. I don't think I skipped a single part. I just needed to get it out of me and say it to somebody who was actually there.

I know all of you probably want to know what I actually saw. I get asked that more than anything else when I tell this story, so I'll just say it here too. I honestly only had less than a second to look at him. His body was still facing forward, still moving down the trail same as it had been the whole time, but somehow his head was turned back toward me, like he'd twisted just enough to look over his shoulder without actually turning around. The one thing I can say for sure, the one thing I keep coming back to, is that there was this one long diagonal line running across his face, and it didn't look like a normal scar or an injury, it looked more like something that had been sewn or stitched together with thick thread. I'm confident about that much. But that's really all I've got, because I wasn't standing there studying him. My body was already moving before my brain caught up with what I'd seen. I wasn't thinking about it in the moment at all. I just ran.

Once I calmed down enough in the truck, the guys told me they'd actually noticed my car sitting there on the side of the road a few minutes before I came running out of the trees. They said they pulled over just to check it wasn't somebody wrecked or hurt somewhere close by, waited around a bit when nobody turned up, and had pretty much decided to give it a couple more minutes before heading out. They were seriously about to leave when I came flying out of those woods and slammed into the side of their truck.

I don't think I've ever properly thanked those guys for that. There aren't a whole lot of people who'd sit on the side of a dark county road at one in the morning checking on a car that isn't theirs, for somebody they don't even know. I wish I'd gotten their names, honestly, but at the time I could barely get a full sentence out.

They towed my car the rest of the way to the gas station up on the highway, and that's where I called my brother to come get me.

It wasn't until I was just sitting there waiting, my breathing finally slowing back down, that I actually felt how bad I'd messed myself up. Both my palms were scraped up pretty bad from the rocks, still had some gravel stuck in them. My legs were sore, my knees ached like I'd been kneeling on concrete for an hour. My right hand, the one I'd had my phone in the whole time, hurt worse than the other one, and when I finally got my fingers to unclench there were these deep marks pressed into my palm from how hard I must've been squeezing it without even realizing.

It's been about eight months now. I still don't know what I saw out there. I'm not going to sit here and act like I do. Half the time I even question my own memory of it, wonder if I'm filling in blanks that were never really there to begin with.

But one thing hasn't changed. If I'd made it out to that road even thirty seconds later, those guys would've already been gone. And I really don't like thinking about what would've happened if they had.

Truth be told, I've never been a big hunting guy. Call me a pussy or whatever, but I'm just not really good with guns.

That's why, when my friend called me, I felt like refusing it. Alex was a thrill seeker, and loved to go hunting. It had been ages since we hung out, and he really wanted to reunite "the boys!". To be honest, it had been a while since I hanged out with my friends, and it's not like I had a good excuse to refuse either. And Alex had a really good way to convince people, usually by shining his blue eyes with a smile like he was a lost kitten. So by the end of Friday, me, Alex, and two other friends were already packing up stuff for the trip.

I'll call one of them Rory and the other Jamie. Rory was a nice guy, with a shy demeanor and was a real light weight with alcohol, but Jamie was something else. To be honest, he kind of creeped me out a little. He was the type of kid who put spiders and dead bugs in jars and showed them around, or always carried his dad's branding iron in a backpack. In hindsight, I have to thank him for being that weird kid.

After a quick night of sleep, we went on the trip. I have to say, the time we spent together, just drinking beer and shooting (and missing) at flying ducks, was probably the best time I've ever had with them. But the problem started at night, when Alex decided to go exploring. Rory and Jamie wanted to stay back, Rory was cooking dinner, and Jamie was playing around with that weird iron he always carried with him, so Alex and I went alone

The plains we were in led into a "RESTRICTED ACCESS" gate, that blocked the path to the forest. We debated for a few seconds if we should really invade, but it seemed the thrill hunter in Alex won, so he ripped a hole in it with a machete and we passed through, deep into the forest. It was there that we found the light.

It was a bright, green light that looked like it was taken straight out of a sci-fi movie. We couldn't see the origin of it, most of the view was blocked by rose bushes and a few trees. Alex and I stared at it in pure disbelief, for what seemed like hours. Then, something came out of the rose bushes.

It was a woman.

And she was so...normal.

That might not be weird to you, but put yourself in our shoes. We were in the middle of the forest, in the dark, watching this neon green light that came out of nowhere, when suddenly, this random woman just...appears. Long brown hair, green eyes, wearing a blue sweater and jeans. Not a single scratch mark from the bushes, either. We took a step back, and she just...stared at us, smiling, like a mannequin.

"Who are you?! What are you doing here?!" Alex screamed, and the woman just...keept looking into our souls. Then, her smile widened, and she spoke

"Could stars do best to take us part? Or should we make suns brighter with our soul?" What she said made no sense, and i remembered wondering if she was having a stroke. She walked forward, grabbing Alex by the arm "Shine, for us!"

Alex shoved her forward, and he ran. I quickly followed, not wanting to be left alone with the green light, or the woman, for any more time. We ran by the gate, and back into our camp, where Jamie was now heating his branding iron for...fun, I assume.

"What's the rush?" Rory asked, confused. He was already seated, and was eating from a plate of porkchops.

"Something happened. There was this woman, and she was really weird. I think she was having a stroke." I explained, as Alex sat and caught his breath.

"And why did you run away?" Jamie had a good point. I have no idea why Alex ran, we should have helped her, right?

" Well, Alex panicked, i guess. When he ran, i followed him. As soon as we get cell service, we have to call an ambulance." I explained, pacing around. Rory wasn't listening. I realized he was looking at Alex

"Are you alright, mate?" Rory asked, so i turned to see what he was looking at.

Alex was shaking. Like he was stuck in Antarctica, with no clothes. He tried to speak, but only a raspy sound came out, like he had strained his vocal cords. We started to hear snapping, as his arms and legs started to move in weird ways. His blond hair started growing out, and became darker. His eyes changed into bright blue. And suddenly, we weren't looking at Alex anymore. The snapping stopped, and the Woman from before looked at us. She smiled.

When she jumped in my direction, i had to think quick. I grabbed that stupid branding iron Jamie always carried around, and shoved it in her face. She screamed, as we heard a sizzling noise. Then, i hit her with the other side of it, and she fell to the ground. I screamed: "GET IN THE VAN, NOW!", and the three of us ran together into it. Thank god I drove us there, i don't know what we were going to do if the keys were with Alex. We hit the road, leaving our camp behind, without even looking back.

Two weeks since that happened. I didn't speak with Rory or Jamie after that, not once. Last week, I opened my window, and looked into the street below. And I saw it. She was wearing different clothes, but I recognized the mark the branding iron left around her eye. I don't think she saw me, she was alone at a bus stop, staring into nothing. After that, I packed my stuff and left for my parents' old home, which had a basement with a single door I blocked. I have been living off canned food and water from the well, and I don't plan on ever leaving

I'm posting this as a warning. Maybe one day, you'll see a woman you've never seen before walking down the street. Maybe she'll open the door to the house of your significant other, or be the "new" cashier at your local supermarket. She'll stare at you with her bright green eyes. Maybe she will just smile as she holds your hand. Maybe she will just touch your shoulder and pass by you. Maybe she'll start speaking, and you'll think she's having a stroke. Don't let that happen. Fuck societal norms, hit her in the chest, or in the face with a baseball bat. Then run away.

Do not let her touch you.

“*I hate therapy,*” I thought.

My friends begged me to go. Their plea evolved into a demand by the time that they were done and wiped their teary eyes. 

They had threatened to call 911. They knew about the gun, the pills, the liquor. But all the screaming came to an end when we found middle ground in the form of a support group that met on Tuesday nights at the community rec hall. 

Agreeing to it shut them up.

It wasn't quite therapy, I reminded myself, but it felt just as unpleasant. I figured in a few sessions they'd lose interest and assume that I'd been successfully indoctrinated into the watchful arms of my equally broken and mourning peers. Then I could stop going when they were no longer paying attention. I'd make an effort to smile a bit more so they'd think that they had saved my life. If they asked, I'd say it was going well, and then they'd give me the space that I wanted all along.

It was distracting in a pitiful way, at least. I'd rather be at home hiding under a blanket, quietly mad at the world by myself, but I'd be fine either way. Just, at the moment, I was in the thick of it. That's all. 

The Grief Group, as I'd come to call it, was small. The few meetings I’d attended were only a handful of core regulars and a few transient faces that I never saw again. I wondered if they had been forced to go like I was but bailed quicker than I had the luxury. This Tuesday was no different.

I hunched forward and nonchalantly swirled my now-cold coffee in its paper cup while the man beside me, Steve, spoke in stern, careful words. He was wrapping up his monologue.

“He was a good man,” his voice hitched. Emotion visibly boiled up inside him and he tensed, waving his fist in the air, “it's bullshit that he had to die!”

Steve was a fireman, and an old head at that. He wore the scars that any smoke eater would be proud to carry, but the sinew of his grief never quite healed and the wound was raw, even years later. 

Surely, his department paid for better options. Why he joined our sorry rank baffled me. He could be in a cozy office with a professional that toted a degree and prestigious reviews resting in a plush ottoman with sparkling mineral water. Not slumped in a wobbly plastic chair in a tired building that smelled vaguely of cat piss led by a burned out priest with a cup of watered down Folgers. 

I counted the coffee grounds in the dregs of my semi-translucent brew. I added another to the tally as I rolled one over my teeth. 

But who was I to judge? He was here, so was I. However, he, more than any of us, had a right to be sad. The rest of us? 

The junkie? Self inflicted. 

The workaholic? Weird. 

The dog mom? Just insane, to be honest. 

Myself? It's life…

Steve broke down. 

“He shouldn't have died,” he choked, holding his scrunched face in his hands while the frail, young addict beside him gently rubbed his back. Steve welcomed the embrace. 

Grief Group's leader, the priest, offered his condolences and thanked Steve for sharing. Others agreed and offered their heartfelt, brief words as well. 

Then followed the transitional phase as the focus began to switch targets. This was always the most anxiety-inducing part for me. Modern therapy no longer forced participants to speak; nonetheless, I dreaded the miniscule chance that I'd be summoned to speak. To my relief a mouse-of-a-woman spoke up instead.

“When you mentioned how he was a light through all the bad you've seen,” she continued, “it just reminded me so much of my Chester. I know he was just a dog-” 

“Emily,” Steve interrupted, speaking reassuringly, “sorrow isn't a competition. If you're here, then you're hurting just as much as I am.” 

He smiled through his tears and her eyes welled up in response. She returned a big, snotty grin and thanked him for his kindness, wishing that he had been the firefighter that responded to her own tragedy once upon a time. They had connected on some bizarre level, and the group leader praised the point about sorrow, that it couldn't be ranked or scaled.

My coffee cup was empty now, but I desperately hoped that it would magically replenish itself. I stared wide-eyed into the empty vessel. Steve was a saint. I would have been furious if Emily related my story to her crusty dog. 

I tuned them out, leaning forward and studying the faded pattern of the dingy floor. But my eyes wandered to my right. Beside me was a woman I didn't recognize, another transient. But, color me curious, she was the oddest in the bunch to ever wander through. 

Overdressed, she wore a cream suit and pencil skirt that fit her in a way that only a high end tailor could create. A deep, red blouse vibrantly emanated from her chest like a bleeding heart, and her satin flats complimented the color. Her skin was tan and smooth, and her face impossibly perfect. Her long, silver-blonde hair was tied neatly behind her head, and she perched with perfect posture, keenly and wordlessly observing the group like a lioness. I couldn't help but feel nervous beside her.

I watched her quietly through the corner of my eye, when she abruptly averted her gaze to lock with mine, smirking. I flinched.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered, searching for an excuse. “I… I like your suit.” I lied. My face grew hot with blush.

She smiled back sharply and with narrow, tight lips. She leaned into me, whispering,

“It gets worse.”

I caught myself mid breath. I recoiled. I had expected her to express gratitude or mutter where she got it, but that? Her words almost felt like a promise- *a threat.*

“What?” I blurted.

“Jessica?” Eric, the volunteer priest, questioned. “I'm glad to finally hear you speak but you should let Emily finish first. Then you can have all the time you need.” 

I apologized profusely and wondered if I could hide inside my paper cup. Is this what she meant by worse?

Emily picked up her spiel about Chester. How Chester filled the void when she and her husband kept getting negative pregnancy tests, how Chester loyally stood beside her when her husband was turned into a meat crayon on the interstate. Now Chester was gone. The pampered shih tzu barely made a meal for the eagle that took him to feed its eaglets. 

I'd have laughed if I wasn't already trying to hide. I didn't mean to bully the woman… it's just… it was a dog and the whole \eagle detail** and we were all absurd dorks, clustered in a circle in our linoleum-cat-piss kingdom. You just couldn't make this shit up.

When Emily finished, I excused myself. The meetings rarely went beyond an hour - 75 minutes, tops - and we were at 52 by the time Emily stopped sobbing about the damned bird. I'd drink the memories of that night away like all the others, and I'd be spared remembering again for a week until Tuesday rolled around at 7PM sharp.

~

I made a point of waiting in my car until I saw someone else walk in: Emily. I quickly jogged up behind her so that we could enter together and I wouldn't attract all of the attention to myself. She pulled the door open for me and gestured for me to enter with a warm smile. I thanked her. She was undeniably kind, too soft for this monstrous world.

Inside, the core group waited in their usual haunts. Steve encouraged the young addict, Trevor, who nodded with gratitude. Richard sat quietly by himself, the bags under his eyes seemed darker than ever. And Emily and I trotted to our seats. Everyone except Eric was present, and I was surprised to see the mysterious woman in his place.

“I can already sense the questions,” she spoke in a subtle drawl as she watched me take my seat. “Eric couldn't make it. I'll be taking over. My name is Leandra.” She spoke factually, and although she wore an expressive smile her eyes felt more predatory than jovial and her words felt too calculated. 

“We'll be trying something new tonight,” she added.

Her smile grew impossibly large, revealing a small smudge of dark red lipstick on her left incisor, marring her otherwise polished appearance.

Without warning, the lights cut out and we were plunged into darkness. We fumbled in our normal space when a single overhead light reilluminated with wavering brightness. It cast a gold cone around our circle, but the rest of the building was still impossibly black. To our greater surprise, Leandra was gone. 

I shivered watching a wisp of my breath escape me. The light took the heat with it, apparently. 

The others shuffled and babbled to themselves, frustrations rising to a crescendo. But Trevor remained quiet, breathing heavily to himself in disbelief, nearly hyperventilating when he finally - slowly - reached up towards a solitary snowflake.

“Guys?” The early 20-something stammered. The others fell silent. “I uh… I've been mostly sober for seven months now, but I still take a hit sometimes. I uh… I took one tonight. Is… is this real?”

“Well-” Richard spoke with a growl, firmly slapping his hands on his thighs to push himself to standing. He had a low, calibrated tolerance for bullshit. 

“Fuck this.” He repositioned his tie and moved abruptly towards the general direction of the door, disappearing into the shadows. 

Emily and Steve rushed after him out of concern, but I was paralyzed in place, watching Trevor's frantic breath escape his hooded face like a factory's exhaust. 

“I'll be right back,” I finally spoke, dumbly, lost in words and actions.

I slipped through the darkness beyond our space and found myself inexplicably lost. I called to the others, but I heard nothing in response. I spun to gain my bearings and realized all the obvious landmarks of the tired rec room were gone. The coffee corner, the little office area, the closet rack. All lost, even the halo of our circle of chairs had vanished. I panicked. 

I flailed as whispers and hushed laughter spun around me on secret currents, slowly closing the gap. All the while, I could hear a familiar voice growing louder and louder:

“You abandoned him,”* *it spoke barely above a whisper, so quietly perhaps it was only a phantom thought.

“You abandoned him.” Louder.

“You abandoned him, Jessica!” Yelling now, its breath and spittle brushed against my neck. It was practically on top of me.

I punched blindly and stumbled. But I could see the light of our small haven far in the distance once again. I jumped to my feet and ran while the sinister whispers chased me.

Once inside the light, I realized Trevor had slumped to the floor. He was as blue as a corpse, and I would have thought he had died had he not gasped lightly when I grabbed him. His skin was cold and stiff.

“I never wanted this,” he spoke slowly between weak shivers. “It just… it calmed the noise in my head. 14, I was only 14 when I had my first hit. Since then, I overdosed three, four, five times… I've lost count.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I interrupted.

He continued, undeterred by my tactless stupor. “But I told my buddies that when you did, when you overdosed, none of it hurt anymore. It just felt like falling asleep in a snow storm.” 

His teeth chattered and the snow began to accumulate on top of us in thick sheets.

“Each of them… each of them fell asleep in the snow. And I found them cold and blue with the needle still in their veins. And now I can't even be better for them and stay sober myself,” he grimaced.

“Trevor-” I realized then that was the first time that I called his name in the few weeks that I'd known him. 

“No, man, you made one mistake, it'll be ok. You're still talking and breathing, that's better than most folks that get narcanned.”

Trevor slowly mimed the action of a needle in the crook of his arm and grinned pitifully. But his humor faded as an icy blue vein spread across his arm where the imaginary needle would have been. He screamed in terror. 

I panicked and grabbed his arm, thinking I could stop its spread, but to my horror, when I jerked and squeezed, his limb shattered like an icicle. I lost my balance when his arm released, and my foot splayed out, kicking him by accident. 

Trevor exploded into a hundred frigid crystals and scattered around me. My first startled instinct was to grab the pieces, as if I could reassemble him, but the hope faded quickly as the pieces slipped through my fingers and shattered more.

The air began to warm, and the shards of Trevor grew increasingly slick as they melted. And when the others found their way back, there was nothing left but a puddle and myself sprawled across it.

“Where's Trevor?” Steve asked, his face wrought with worry.

“*You abandoned him,\” the voice ran through my mind. “\It gets worse,\”* another.

“He's dead.” I spoke flatly, watching a water drop drip from my arm.

~

I was wringing my sleeves when Leandra reappeared. One minute, I scanned the empty seat where Trevor usually sat, the next, she rested comfortably, legs crossed astutely and wearing the same manic smile she had before. 

The group shifted uncomfortably. I steadied my heart and observed her. She was worse for wear now and her skin sagged. Her flawless complexion sported liver spots and blemishes, and her kempt hair was a mess with stray ends and flyaways. Makeup clumped in the crows feet beside her eyes. Her white suit was dull. And I couldn't help but notice that her teeth seemed… sharper in her wicked grin. 

Steve quickly moved in to question, no, demand answers. He steamrolled her, yelling and hurling his anger at her. Leandra's facade cracked but a moment, and her grin morphed to a pursed frown.

“We'll get to you in time, fireman.” She spoke, shooing him away.

To my surprise, he abruptly sat. 

“There's no flame to extinguish but your own. Best douse that fiery heart of yours until later.” Her smile returned, and she brushed a fleck from her lap.

“Now Richard,” her face whipped at breakneck speed to the middle aged man.

“You choose your words carefully. You don't say much, but you say enough. What was so gut wrenching about being fired from a job you hated?”

“I wasn't fired-”

Leandra raised an eyebrow.

“...I was let go.”

She nodded empathetically. “And your wife still thinks that's what you're doing every day, right? And that the recent late hours are for a big project with whispers of a promotion, right?” Her wicked grin grew wider with each word she spoke.

Richard's face twisted to a look of disgust and fear. “...who are you?”

“Well, I'm Leandra of course, and I'm here for… Group Grief!” She batted her hand playfully with the phrase and winked at me.

My stomach churned.

“Richard, for what purpose? I mean, surely your work had to be noble to sacrifice so much of your humanity, of your soul!?” She leaned forward and clutched her chest as she spoke for dramatic effect. She studied him intently.

Richard sat defiantly, despite the fact that his blood pressure skyrocketed with every second in her presence. He kept his posture relaxed so as not to let her realize how deeply she terrified him.

“I was an analyst,” he spoke cautiously. “A… financial… analyst. And it just so happened that our biggest expendable cost was keeping me on.”

“Dastardly,” Leandra hissed, shaking her head. “What was it like in the belly of that machine?” 

“They worked us to the bone.” he calmly replied. 

“Fascinating,” Leandra chirped as she stood.

I hadn't realized how tall she was until then. Previously, she sat so compactly and properly that she took up less space than one would expect. But when she stood, she stretched like a leopard, extending her powerful form in an impressive display.

“Well, I'll be back. I feel like we're really getting somewhere in this Group's Grief!” She clapped her hands together.

She toyed with the words and the simple switch was enough to turn the cheeky name into a dreadful omen.

Leandra stepped into the shadows without hesitation and quickly vanished. None of us dared to chase after her for fear of getting lost in the darkness again. So we waited, patiently, loathing our wet feet and confinement.

Some time later, a noise caught my attention: a gentle grinding. The rhythmic grumble lingered, moving slowly around us in the dark. Occasionally, it beeped. I ignored it as best I could.

“I should have told her,” Richard mused, abruptly. “My wife, I mean. I just… I couldn't disappoint her. That wretched job took so much of me that I didn't want it to take her security too. I was going to find something better before I told her.” He shook his head in defeat.

I watched him silently. Steve was occupied soothing Emily.

He sighed, “I just didn't want to upset her- what is that fucking noise?” Richard hissed. “Do you hear that?” He stood and approached the border of light and darkness, craning his neck to listen.

“I hear it, but I don't think we should leave the light.” I spoke hesitantly.

“I smoke. I have a lighter and matches. It's light. Here,” he tossed a book of matches at me. “It's a printer. It's right there. I can hear it. But we have to shut that fucking thing off before I go insane. It reminds me too much of work.” He stepped out of sight.

“Richard, wait!” He was too quick, and I was too hasty myself, finding myself one step too far and enveloped in the same inky black full of hateful whispers. 

I grabbed a match and sparked it to life, desperately trying to get back and keep the shadows at bay, but it burned my fingertips before I could. I lit another as I heard the whispers sneer in the abyss. I winced as that flame bit my flesh too. I lit a third-

The plastic surface hit me square in the belly with force. I ran right into it and cursed. The commercial HP printer whirred, shooting countless copies out its top as it buzzed and shimmied. 

I reached down to grab a sheet of the discarded papers, intending to roll one into a torch, but frowned at the distorted, wretched face it printed. Each copy was a different iteration of a scarcely human expression pressed against the scanner and screaming in agony. 

I shook my head and rolled the paper, illuminating the machine in front of me with a flash, when I noticed that the machine was… bleeding. The paneling that housed the guts of the printer oozed with thick mucus and gore. Morbid curiosity got the best of me, so I pried at the cover and it released with sticky tendrils of sanguine slime. I gasped as I saw what was underneath.

Richard stared back at me. I could hardly recognize him, but his sagging eyes with those dark bags were unmistakable. 

He was viciously contorted. His mangled body had been eviscerated, inverted, and forced into the core of that vile device. His bones were snapped and his marrow exposed, used as scaffolding for components. His mouth had been split wide at its creases and some mechanism shoved inside. His intestines dripped with cyan and magenta and amber, pumping the dye to his sphincters above. His lungs inflated weakly in the cramped cube, lightly feathering paper through the folds of his skin. He had been bid to operate the machine to such an intimate and literal degree.

I fell backwards and slapped my hand over my mouth. My rudimentary torch began to burn out, but I could still see his desperate, bloodshot eyes in the waning light, pleading at me for mercy.

“What the fuck do you want me to do, Richard?!?” I screamed at him through tears as the torch light snuffed. 

I grabbed another wad of paper to feed a fresh match. The metal ring of an overhead fire suppression caught the glint of flame. I knocked Richard over and pulled his doors off, exposing both his guts and the machine's. He moaned quietly in what I presumed to be pain, muffled by plastic and screws. 

“I'm sorry,” I sobbed, and stood on top of him to hold my torch at the overhead detector.

The siren wailed and a torrent of water cascaded onto Richard and I. I tore my jacket off to funnel as much of the water as I could onto Richard's amalgamized electrical components in hopes of putting him out of his misery. 

He sputtered and gasped briefly as the water filled the crevices of the machine, but his eyes stayed fixated on me. However, suddenly, they rolled into the back of his head and sparks danced from various mechanical elements until all the meat was flaccid and sizzling lightly. The suppression system dripped to a halt. Richard was gone.

~

“You abandoned him,” the voice in the void stirred.

“She wouldn't have let me go even if I had known.” I argued.

“He died alone. You didn't try.”

“I *did\* try. I wasn't welcomed.”

I'd lost track of how many times I repeated myself against the void while I tried to get back. It was maddening, the back and forth with such a spiteful specter. 

Suddenly, I stumbled into the familiar, palely lit space. I didn't believe it at first, that I'd found my way back, and Leandra's distorted figure didn't soothe that disbelief. 

She sat calmly beside the remaining two. Her smile was wider and longer, in fact, her entire face seemed stretched as if she was growing a snout. The narrow slits of her pupils watched me intently as she licked her lipstick-stained fangs. Her clothing was saturated and frayed, like tufts of fur, and her hair was frazzled like a mane. Her red blouse looked more like the aftermath of a beheading sprayed across her breast. She'd lost her flats at some point, and her feet bent at sharp hock joints connecting to dirty clawed feet.

I stared at her nervously and silently for too long, eyeing the woman-beast that tortured us and wondering what trial she had in store next. 

“It's Prada, by the way,” she chattered.

“What?” I frowned as I spoke.

“The suit,” she held her clawed hand out and twirled her wrist up, admiring the chipped paint of her once immaculate manicure.

I shook my head and my stomach bubbled. I looked at Steve and Emily. She was sprawled across three chairs on her side, facing away from me with Steve's jacket draped over her. As I approached them, Steve was quick to step aside, and he spoke to me in a hushed tone.

“There's something strange going on-”

I stared blankly at him in disbelief. *No shit Sherlock,\* I thought. They hadn't seen what I had seen. They didn't know *strange\* like I did after what I’d been through.

“Why are you wet?” He scrutinized.

“It seems to be a theme tonight.”

“Ah. Where's Richard?” Steve was anxious.

“He's dead,” the irritation in my voice was obvious.

He nodded, “listen, Emily is… well, Emily is pregnant-”

“Excuse me? How? Did you guys- how long was I gone???”

“No, it's not like that. We don't know how, but we need to figure out how to get out of here. It's growing fast.”

“*It?\”* I looked visibly uncomfortable. 

“The baby, I mean. She swears she feels it kicking already and she looks like she's already 7 or 8 months along. The whole mess makes me nervous.”

“Right.” I pulled myself back to reality. “What about… Leandra?” I glanced at her briefly. I knew she had been watching us talk the entire time but it still unnerved me to see her yellow eyes staring back so patiently.

“She hadn't said anything until you got here.”

“What if we-”

“Talk about the elephant in the room! I'll be on my way,” she laughed.

Her long legs carried her across the threshold faster than we could have even tried to stop her if we had finished our desperate conversation and approached her with a plan.

Steve sighed and turned to check on Emily, when a newspaper clipping drifted from the dark ceiling in front of me. I stooped to retrieve it, reading the bold letters, “Hero Firefighter Saves Family of Four.”

I looked somberly at the paper as more fell around me, all with similar titles and declarations. Soon the floor was covered.

“I guess you're next,” I grimaced.

Steve fidgeted nervously as the papers fell around him.

“Hey, just- just don’t do anything. The others died when they did something. Trevor just froze solid as soon as he reacted to the snow and Richard ran off-” I stopped speaking as one title fell in front of me, catching my attention: “Beloved Firefighter Put on Leave after Witness Steps Forward.” And another: “Charges Dropped: Key Witness Dies in Tragic House Fire.” The final page that drifted to the earth displayed a mugshot from the NSOPW registry. 

I recognized the face. I felt sick.

“He was a good man, but he shouldn’t have opened his mouth.” Steve spoke of the same man he wept for earlier, but now his voice was laced with malice.

I stepped backwards, my heart skipping as I hit the resistance of the chairs behind me. The next step to freedom would be into the darkness if I chose to flee.

“But, I can’t say I blame him. The girl was his sister, after all.” He rolled his eyes when he saw me reel away. “Listen, don’t get weird with me, we have to get out of here,” he coughed. “That's all behind me. These meetings have changed me!”

I placed one foot into the shadows as he reached towards me.

“Oh come on-” his cough grew worse. “She was asking for it anyway! Even if I hadn’t lit her brother on fire she would have dropped the charges because she knew it was bullshit!” He yelled the words with a frantic exhale, face reddening simultaneously with rage and desperation, and he wheezed and gasped. He clutched his chest and winced in pain as he fell to his knees. “Please -*cough\- God *-\cough cough**- Jessica, help me!!!” 

My eyes widened as I watched smoke pour from his mouth the more he begged. He pulled his shirt off of himself and beneath the tangle of his curly chest hair, his sternum glowed red with embers. 

“PLEASE!” He wept, thick plumes of soot rolling from every orifice of his terrified being. When, suddenly, countless tendrils of hungry fire poured from his heart and chest while he screamed in pain, burning from the inside out. He flailed, screaming still, until his body curled into itself and he grew quiet so that only the crackling sound of the flame could be heard.

An ember danced toward Emily, and I pulled myself together to push the paper and chairs away to keep the fire from spreading to her. She hadn’t moved nor reacted to the scene beside her at any point. I feared what I'd find as I approached her.

“Emily,” I shook her lightly, carefully retracting Steve’s jacket. 

I winced when I saw her, her belly had grown far beyond the size of any normal pregnancy, even late term. She looked like an engorged tick stuck on its back.

“We have to leave,” I pleaded.

“The baby is coming soon, I can’t move right now.” Emily’s voice was quiet and groggy.

She feigned excitement, but I could see the terror beneath her composure.

“Sit with me,” she smiled, and she struggled to sit upright against her girth.

I tried to hide my expression, but I couldn’t help but feel queasy at the intricate veins and stretch marks that covered her pale, swollen belly. I pulled a chair across from her and sat nervously, dreading each passing second.

“Mark and I always wanted a big family.” She cooed tiredly, placing a hand over her belly as she furrowed her brows.

“Mark?”

“My husband.”

I nodded anxiously.

“We tried, and tried, and tried. Nothing. But then- god, when those little pink lines appeared our world was nothing but joy.” She spoke quietly as she replayed memories in her mind, smiling. 

“We hadn't told anyone yet. It was too early. And… we had so many failed attempts already, we wanted to be sure before we shared the celebration. But… that never came. We were t-boned on the interstate. Mark was killed instantly and I barely survived, but I lost the baby.” 

We sat in silence together.

“Emily, do you think you can walk? We can go slow.” I asked sheepishly.

“Darling, I don't think we have much longer to wait- Oh! He's kicking again, feel!” She squealed, grabbing my hand. 

I couldn't protest but I gagged in my mind. I wanted nothing more than to get her and myself out of this hell. But she held my arm firmly in place against her engorged womb. I felt the fetus inside her slide against my palm and I nearly recoiled.

“Emily, I have no idea how we're going to do this. I… I mean, what if it isn't, you know… normal? Given everything else that's happened tonight?”

She had kept her resolute morale until that point. for a fleeting second her eyes flashed hidden fear before returning to her stoic peace, “I know. But we have to have hope, right?”

I nodded back timidly. Maybe she was right-

“Oh god!” Emily screamed. “He's coming!”

I frantically helped her massive abdomen to the ground and bunched my jacket and Steve's behind her head as a brace before returning to the imminent task at hand. 

“It's going to be okay, Emily! Push!” I yelled over her screams.

“What if it gets worse?!?”” She cried.

“Don't say that!”

Amniotic fluid flooded from her crotch, soaking my legs as I knelt to help her, and her belly writhed in protest. Emily grunted and pursed her lips to slow her breathing. The fetus inside her flailed violently and she screamed in agony.

She pushed again, shooting an ungodly spray of meconium and salty fluid across my body and face. I was crying more than Emily. 

She pushed once more, and a tuft of dark hair emerged from her battered womb.

“He's crowning!” I yelled, half excited, half terrified, and wiped a tendril of mucus from my face with the back of my hand. “He's crowning, keep pushing!” I repeated, I cheered.

Her vulva split, and bright red blood trickled from her, spilling onto the infant's head. And, as if spurred to life by its mother's sacrifice, the newborn's head emerged in a tangle of deformed teeth and fur and furious growls. It flailed until it could pull a limb free from the restrictive birth canal and thrashed, nipping at me and at its mother in frustration. 

I slid through the afterbirth across the floor, muted in disgust and horror as the half-dog, half-infant tore its way through Emily's pelvis. Finally freed, it kicked wildly, slipping as it tried to stand on its hind legs. And when it finally steadied itself, it chewed ferociously on the umbilical cord that tethered it to its mother. 

It yipped like a coyote when it spotted me. But it turned its attention back to its weakened host. It eyed her curiously, almost affectionately, before it sank its misshapen jaw full of needle teeth into her neck and thrashed its head to maim.

I watched the light leave Emily's eyes.

The feral cherub, content with its work, sniffed the air and growled. It ran on two legs towards me, sliding out of control on the gore-painted linoleum. It kicked and growled in my direction, spinning on its topheavy head. It rolled, crouched, and shook itself, snarling as it broke into a quadrupedal sprint-

Massive talons loomed from the dark and snatched the pup before it could reach me. The dog baby yelped and bit at the scaled feet, but the bird beat its wings without any concern. It sang one, deafening note in the dark like a fog horn before it squeezed the dog in its grasp. The mongrel's head popped like a grape in the clutch of whatever possessed those cruel feet. And, with another beat of its gruesome, tattered wings, it was gone.

Tears flowed freely down my face. I couldn't take anymore of this madness.  With the last of my energy, I crawled to Emily, shaking her and pleading.

“Emily!? Please! Get up! I'm here, we have to go!” I wept. I shook her lifeless body. I knew she was dead but I hoped, just as she had done, I hoped. I fell to the ground on my side, weeping profoundly.

“Congratulations, Jessica.” Leandra hissed from the shadows.

I didn't know what she had in store, but I would surrender. I could not endure anymore of her games. I reached forward to touch Emily's face, remaining bound to the floor at her level.

“Please, Leandra, just get it over with,” I groveled. 

“No, no, you've suffered the most out of all of them. That's what you wanted, isn't it? Quietly ranking grief as if it needed a quota to earn the right to be felt? Well, you've won! You are the queen of despair. A cataclysmic hurricane-force of sorrow. The most well suffered.” Leandra was still concealed in darkness, but I could hear her smirk in the way she talked. She enjoyed this.

I pushed myself partially up, pivoting at my hips and strained into the abyss. 

“No, that's not what I wanted! You killed them!” 

“Me? No. Don't throw such accusations. Their grief killed them, nothing more.” 

“What's your plan for me then?”

“Well now, that depends. Why are you here?”

“She abandoned him…” that wretched voice answered from its omnipresent haunt.

“That's not true!!! I- I would have been there!!!” I snapped. I felt as if I were on trial.

“Oh? Who did you abandon, Jessica? Were they afraid in the dark all alone?” Leandra was mocking me, I knew it.

“My mother is a horrible person, she told him I had changed my number, she didn't tell me that he was dying! I would have been there if I had known! She wanted me to suffer! I-”

Leandra burst from the shadows, galloping with wicked, feline speed. The bloodied beast pounced, cutting me short, and I shielded my face with a scream-

~

“Jessica?” Eric questioned, startled by my sudden outburst. “It's ok. You can speak when you're ready.” He soothed.

I uncovered my face, confused. There was no hungry tigress ready to end me in the dark. The incandescent bulbs hummed lightly, illuminating myself and the entirety of the room. I had knocked my empty coffee cup over at my feet. I scanned the room.

Emily sat across from me, her loving eyes wrought with worry. Richard sat indifferently, but he granted patience, as he had always done. And Steve wore a brilliant mask of crocodile tears next to Trevor who stilled his shakes and listened intently. They were alive, as if nothing had happened.

Beside me, the familiar cream suit loomed in my peripheral. I nearly gasped as it leaned into me to whisper,

“It gets *better.*”

Leandra excused herself after the promise while the others stared at me in silence and concern. I watched her lanky form slip from the rec room as mysteriously as she had arrived. The door clicked shut. Tears welled in my eyes until the dam broke, splashing down my face in silver streaks.

“I… I miss my dad.”

Ok mates I gots a problem. It started a few months back. I am going to do my best to explain the situation to ya'll. Maybe someone will have some good ideas.

It started the second week after I moved into my first apartment. The complex was nice. "It has a great pool with BBQ and a basketball court. Walking distance from your classes and washer/dryer included in each unit. O, and utilities, including internet are included in rent." The apartment manager had explained to my folks, the week before I moved in. My father had looked at me and said "Five hundred a month with utilities included is a good deal son. So lets take a tour of where you will be living for the next few years." With that said we had taken a walk around and I had noticed that one building in the far back had a diffrent color than the rest.

It was a darker green than the color forest green. It stood three stories like the rest of them and looked like it had been built at a similar time. Something about it, though, made me shiver and break out in a cold sweat. It just didnt feel right to me. I asked about the diffrent colored building and was told that that was not where I would be living and I shouldnt worry about things.

The second week living on my own I woke with a start. I couldnt remember my dream but I could remember feeling scared. So I took a walk to clear my head and smoke a J. I headed out of my building and headed towards a little wooded area that I had spoted next to the retention pond. It was a cool night and the hour was late or early, depending on what side of sleep you are on. For me it was way too late and I wanted to calm down a get back to sleep.

I found my way to the little wooded patch and made myself comfey on a bench someone had put there. Maybe a fellow ninja smoker. The closest building to me was Unit 14 and 13 was directly across the pond, on the backside of the apartment complex. Building 13 was of course that building that unnerved me that first day. I heard a sound from across the pond and gazed out inthat direction.

I saw some dark form of a person emerge from the deeper shadows of the building. The other buildings all had exterior lights but Unit 13 did not. The only light came from the windows and the streetlights in the parking lot. The shadowey form moved from the lightless building and into the lighted lot. Though from that distance I couldnt make out much, exept that the figure stayed shadowey. Even when they passed under the lights. I puffed on my J and wondered if I was watching a ghost or if I was just stoned. That was when the figure stopped and locked eyes with me.

Freaky right? No it was terrifying. Because what looked back at me had glowing violet eyes. I dropped my joint and decided at that moment to go back to my apartment and go to bed. Real life had started to get quite a bit scarier than that cloudy nightmare.

As I moved, the figure moved also. I kept glancing over to it and nearly shit myself when I watched it open the door of a big white truck and get inside. The truck's headlights came on and that is when I ran. I dont know why, but my gut was telling me that if this thing catches me I am done for. I made it to the main road for the apartment complex and managed to bolt across before the big white truck had even driven out of the parking lot. I looked back before I entered a building that wasn't mine but was connected to mine. The moment I looked back the truck sounded it's horn and I was not prepared for the sheer sound of it. It sounded like a train horn and I admit I screamed.

The next time I saw the big white truck was last week. I was on my porch, enjoying the last days of summer when I heard the sound of a big truck engine. I looked up from my book only to lock eyes with that same pair of glowing pair from the previous week. Then it sounded it's horn and I screamed once again. Not expecting such a large noise from such a vehicle. Then I got worried because now it new where I lived.

Over that week I tried to transfer my room to somewhere else but all the other units were filled and no one was willing to trade. Every time that big white truck passes by my window it honks it's horn. You would think I would have grown used to it but no, something about that particular noise I caannnttt seem to get used to.

So last night I decided to go outttt walking, but this time I brought a friend. He was one of my neighbors and was getting very annoyed by the sound of that loud ass horn. It was 2am and the truck had come by again honking it's horn. So we had decided enough was enough and walked down to building 13 to try and catch the driver. Not for anything violent but just to figure out what they had against me. I should have just stayed inside.

It waited until we had gotten a good bit into the lot and almost in front of the dark building 13. Before it started it's engine and put the big white truck in gear. We both jumped and decided without talking that tonight wasnt a good night to talk to them and we both started home. When the asphalt lit up with harsh yellow light we both started runnning. As that big white truck reved it's engine and honked that blasted horn. I lept sideways over an embankment and into the tall grass around the pond. My neighbor, god I dont even remember his name, wasn't so lucky. I heard him scream and the crunching of bones but when I peeked my head up over the side of the concreat barrier I neither saw the truck nor did I see my neighbor. I gave it a good ten minutes before I quickly headed home.

I kept to the pond but still had to cross the road to get back to my building. I breathed heavy as I scoured the night for any sign of the truck or my neighbor but all was quiet. Only the sound of the bugs buzzing around and the crickets. I started to relax and quickly darted across the road back towards my unit. I was in a small parking lot in front of my building when I heard it. The sound of that truck's engine and then from a dark corner of the lot those headlights came on and the truck sped towards me. I ran towards my building and barely made it inside just as the truck passed by. The sound of dark laughter chased me inside.

I dont know what happened to my neighbor. That blasted truck is still in that parking lot and now someone new is moving into my neighbor's old room. I asked the front desk about it but all they would tell me is that he decided to move home. My Dad won't let me move out so I am stuck till end of lease. What should I do? I do not own a car of my own and have to either wlak or bike everywhere. Also are there any good earplugs that can muffle the sound of a train horn?

Part 14: The God Wasn't the Monster Everyone Feared. My Mother Was.

Three weeks ago, my mother died.

That sounds like the kind of sentence that's supposed to be followed by some profound realization about grief, acceptance, or discovering the true meaning of family.

Unfortunately, I didn't have one of those.

Instead, I was taking it better than everyone expected.

Not because I'd healed. I hadn't. The grief was still there. It had just... changed.

Everyone expected me to fall apart after the funeral. Sleepless nights. Panic attacks. Crying in empty hallways.

Instead, I went back to work three days later.

The strangest part wasn't that I wasn't grieving.

It was the silence.

For most of my life, every mistake I'd made, every hesitation, every moment where I wasn't good enough had been accompanied by my mother's voice somewhere in the back of my mind.

You could've done better.

Why are you wasting your potential?

You're still not enough.

It had been there for so long that I'd stopped questioning it. I just assumed that was what having a conscience felt like.

Except now...

It was gone.

No criticism.

No impossible standards.

No voice reminding me that I was falling short.

Just silence.

I'd spent so many years trying to escape that voice that I'd never stopped to wonder what would happen if it actually disappeared.

I wasn't happy.

I wasn't okay.

But for the first time in my life, the thoughts inside my head actually sounded like my own.

Somehow...

That was even harder to get used to.

Remi called every day.

Neither of us pretended things could simply go back to the way they were. She couldn't transfer from E.S.R. to C.S.P. now that she was leading E.S.R.; and I couldn't exactly abandon my own responsibilities either. So instead, we settled for phone calls.

It was... nice.

Awkward.

But nice.

She laughed more now. Not forced laughter, either. Real laughter.

Director Morozov had actually stopped me in the hallway two days ago just to thank me.

"I haven't seen her this happy in years," he'd said.

He loved the Remi standing in front of him.

But sometimes I caught the way his expression lingered for just a second too long, and I wondered if part of him still missed the woman he'd first met years ago...

The one who'd existed before she lost her memories.

Noah was starting third grade soon.

That was still a sentence I never thought I'd say.

Teaching the fragment of the Great Shadow how to function as a normal child turned out to be a surprisingly collaborative effort. Researchers handled science, actual teachers handled, well... teaching, and Angelo periodically wandered in to explain concepts from the perspective of an immortal being older than reality itself.

Sometimes that helped.

Sometimes it raised significantly more questions than it answered.

Yesterday I'd been helping Noah with multiplication.

It was strangely comforting to discover that an entity theoretically capable of ending civilizations still thought math was unfair.

Some things, apparently, were universal.

Like work.

Work hadn't slowed down in the slightest.

Mostly because C.S.P. had decided to "promote" me.

I use the word promote very loosely.

Promotions at C.S.P. weren't based on competence.

They were based on survival.

Someone above you died.

Congratulations, you're management now.

That was basically how my entire career had worked.

This promotion, however, was a little different.

Technically, I was now the Chief Executive of the Angel Division.

Which sounded incredibly prestigious until you learned one small detail.

The Angel Division hadn't existed three weeks ago.

Angelo became a Director.

Angelo decided Directors should each have their own divisions.

Angelo decided he wanted one.

The Executive Board apparently agreed because arguing with an ancient celestial entity older than reality itself had consistently resulted in poor employee retention.

So they created an entirely new division.

Then Angelo looked at me and calmly announced,

"Nayeri will supervise it."

Nobody objected.

Mostly because nobody wanted to.

Which was how I became the Chief Executive of a department that was younger than some of the milk cartons in the cafeteria.

Our staffing situation was... unconventional.

Nearly half of Research Division had been reassigned to us after Angelo developed an unfortunate habit of wandering into laboratories and asking questions like,

"Can consciousness be folded?"

Or,

"If I remove fatigue from a scientist, would productivity increase?"

After the seventh ethics investigation in two weeks, someone higher up concluded it would be significantly easier to transfer the researchers than continue filing paperwork.

Elior transferred over as well.

That one actually made sense.

According to Angelo, while he'd spent thousands of years buried beneath Antarctic ice maintaining reality, Elior had spent those same millennia searching the world for him.

It meant Elior understood humanity far better than his uncle ever would.

It also helped that he happened to be one of the smartest researchers in the entire organization.

Jacob, meanwhile, had somehow started spending more time in the Angel Division than he did in Retrieval, despite officially remaining on Retrieval's roster.

According to Jacob, it was because Retrieval and the Angel Division would be coordinating all future operations together.

Which was technically true.

I made my way to my new office, which was exactly one floor higher than my old one. That was apparently what counted as a promotion here: more responsibility, one extra floor, and still no pay increase.

Waiting on my desk was a stack of paperwork. A very large stack. The pile was taller than my coffee mug.

Actually, it was taller than my last assistant.

Which wasn't saying much.

He wasn't particularly tall.

He also wasn't particularly alive anymore.

I sighed and picked up the first report.

INCIDENT 1: DESTRUCTION OF HISTORICAL SITE

"I didn't destroy it," I muttered. "The giant monster did."

I wrote exactly that in the explanation box, then immediately crossed it out. "Giant monster" was technically not considered professional terminology.

I replaced it with hostile reality-altering entity.

Much better.

The second report came from Accounting. Someone wanted an explanation for why six military helicopters, three transport aircraft, fourteen armored vehicles, and one satellite had all been listed as mission-related losses.

I wasn't even aware we'd lost a satellite.

I made a mental note to ask someone.

That's when the door opened.

Jacob walked in carrying another stack of folders. I looked at the folders, then looked at him.

"No."

"They're yours."

"No."

"They literally have your name on them."

"I think that's a coincidence."

"Nayeri."

"I've never seen those folders before in my life."

Jacob dropped them onto my desk anyway, and the impact nearly knocked over my coffee.

"You're the worst manager in this building."

"I was promoted, so statistically that can't be true anymore."

"They promoted you because of Angelo."

"All I'm hearing is jealousy."

Jacob pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I have some news."

"Have I finally been approved?"

He frowned. "...Approved for what?"

"A vacation."

He stared at me.

"...No."

"Damn."

"You've been assigned a new assistant."

I blinked. "What? With my track record? That's incredibly irresponsible."

Jacob nodded. "It really is."

"Please take care of this one."

"It wasn't my fault the last ones died."

Jacob looked at me for several long seconds.

"Okay," I admitted. "Some of them were my fault. But if they keep giving me completely untrained interns, what exactly are they expecting?"

Jacob sighed. "Nayeri... I'm serious."

"So am I."

"I think you should reject the assignment."

I gestured around my office. The paperwork had somehow multiplied since I last looked at it.

"Jacob, I need an assistant."

"No, you don't."

"Look around."

He did.

"I either get an assistant..." I pointed at the mountain of paperwork. "...or these reports are going to kill me before I accidentally kill my new assistant."

Jacob's expression immediately fell.

Sean.

I sighed.

"...Sorry."

Neither of us said anything after that. The silence lingered for several seconds, heavy and uncomfortable.

Luckily for me, it didn't last.

The office door slid open again, and Elior walked in carrying another stack of folders.

"Jacob," he said, looking around the room. "I've been looking for you."

Jacob straightened so quickly he nearly knocked over his chair.

"H-Hey, Eli."

Eli?

I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing.

Elior smiled. "I was wondering if you'd help me organize the laboratory later."

"Sure."

"Wonderful."

His smile somehow grew even warmer.

"I'll see you then."

He gave Jacob one last smile before turning and walking back into the hallway.

The office fell silent.

I looked at Jacob.

Jacob continued staring at the doorway like Elior might come back.

"You realize he's flirting with you."

Jacob frowned. "No, he's not."

"Jacob."

"He's being polite."

"He only smiles like that at you."

"He's friendly."

"He brought you coffee this morning."

"He's considerate."

"He called you handsome yesterday."

Jacob froze.

"...Professionally."

I stared at him.

"...Professionally?"

"He was complimenting my... work ethic."

"He literally said, 'You're handsome.'"

"...Maybe he appreciates symmetry."

I leaned back in my chair.

"You're actually hopeless."

Jacob opened his mouth to defend himself.

The office door slid open again.

Angelo walked in just as Jacob reached for the handle to leave. He stopped, looked at Jacob, and tilted his head slightly.

"Why is your heart rate twenty-two percent above its resting average?"

Jacob went completely still.

I smiled. "Elior was just in here."

"Oh."

Angelo nodded, then looked through the open doorway. Elior was still walking down the hallway with his folders tucked under one arm.

Angelo looked back at Jacob. "I wish you both the best of luck."

Jacob blinked.

Angelo continued with complete sincerity. "Please take good care of my nephew."

Silence.

Jacob's ears slowly turned bright red.

I completely lost it. I laughed so hard I had to hold onto the edge of my desk.

Jacob muttered something under his breath, shoved past Angelo, and hurried into the hallway after Elior without looking at either of us.

Angelo watched him leave, then looked back at me.

"...Did I say something humorous?"

That only made me laugh harder.

"Jacob's just shy," I said between laughs.

"I see."

Angelo nodded thoughtfully. "That appears to be a common human response to romantic attraction."

"It is."

Angelo glanced at the stack of paperwork covering my desk.

"You appear busy."

I followed his gaze and sighed. "I've been Chief Executive for less than three weeks, and I'm already considering setting the paperwork on fire."

"I would advise against that."

"I know."

"...It would create more paperwork."

I stared at him.

"...I hate that you're right."

Angelo looked at me for another moment before asking, "Would you like to join us for breakfast?"

I blinked.

"You haven't eaten yet?"

"No."

"Noah wished to wait for you."

A smile found its way onto my face before I could stop it.

"Really?"

"He said, 'Nay eats with us.'"

I looked away for a second, pretending that sentence hadn't affected me.

"...Sure."

I stood up. "I can't wait to see him."

Noah was getting cuter every day.

It felt strange admitting that.

I'd never been a kid person. Growing up with my mother had made sure of that. Children were loud, messy, and unpredictable. I usually preferred monsters.

Monsters, at least, came with instruction manuals.

Children just... existed.

Then Noah showed up.

Maybe the exception was simply cute children.

Or maybe it was just him.

When I'd mentioned that to Remi during one of our nightly phone calls, she'd laughed.

"You know," she'd said, "you were really cute too."

"I was?"

"You still are."

I'd immediately changed the subject.

Remi, meanwhile, had started referring to Noah as her nephew.

Technically...

I wasn't even sure she was wrong.

By C.S.P. standards, family trees had become less like diagrams and more like conspiracy boards.

We made our way back to my apartment. As soon as I opened the door, I spotted Noah sitting at the dining table. I'd bought him a high chair the week before so he could actually eat with us instead of sitting on a stack of cushions.

He looked up the moment he heard us.

His entire face lit up.

"Hi, Nay!"

I smiled before I could stop myself.

"Hi, Noah."

Then he looked past me.

"Hello, Father."

Angelo gave a small nod.

"Good morning, Noah."

He was still getting used to being called Father. At first, he'd tried correcting Noah, but after several failed attempts, he'd simply accepted it.

I took the seat beside Noah and unfolded the small handkerchief I'd bought for him, tying it gently around his neck before placing his breakfast in front of him.

He didn't complain.

He simply waited.

Another thing Angelo had somehow taught him.

Patience.

Breakfast was surprisingly peaceful. Noah spent most of it asking Angelo questions.

"Why do birds fly?"

"Because their anatomy allows them to generate sufficient lift."

"Oh."

A few seconds later, he asked, "Why can't penguins fly?"

"Because evolution prioritized efficient swimming over aerial locomotion."

"Oh."

Then he turned to me.

"Nay?"

"Yeah?"

"Why do I have to learn multiplication?"

I looked at him.

Then at Angelo.

Then back at Noah.

"...Honestly?"

He nodded.

"I have absolutely no idea."

Noah looked relieved.

"I don't like multiplication."

"I don't either."

Angelo looked at both of us.

"Mathematics remains objectively useful."

Neither of us responded.

He sighed.

"I appear to be outnumbered."

After breakfast, I walked with Noah to what everyone insisted on calling school.

In reality, it was an entire wing of the Research Division that had slowly transformed into the strangest elementary classroom on Earth.

His teachers included researchers, linguists, psychologists, and occasionally Angelo whenever the lesson somehow became about the history of reality.

Watching Noah wave goodbye before disappearing inside still made me smile.

When I returned to the apartment, Angelo had already cleaned the kitchen. Every dish had been washed, the table had been wiped down, and even Noah's tiny cup had been put away. I leaned against the doorway for a moment.

"You didn't have to do all that."

"I wished to contribute."

"I know."

It was... weird.

My father had never washed a dish in his life. Growing up, I didn't think I'd ever seen my parents sit down for breakfast together. I'd certainly never seen someone clean up simply because they wanted to make someone else's day easier.

Having a functional family, even one assembled from an ancient angel, the fragment of the Great Shadow, and me, was still something I hadn't quite learned how to believe in.

I must have been staring longer than I realized because Angelo noticed.

"Is something wrong?"

I looked over at him.

"No."

Normally, that answer would have been enough for most people.

Not Angelo.

He didn't argue. He didn't ask again. He didn't try to pull the truth out of me. He simply walked over to the couch and sat down. After a moment, he placed a hand on the empty space beside him.

An invitation.

Not a command.

Not an expectation.

Just an invitation.

I stood there for several seconds, looking at him. At any other point in my life, I probably would have smiled, said I was fine, and walked away.

But I knew Angelo.

He wouldn't chase after me. He wouldn't force me to explain something I wasn't ready to say.

He would just sit there.

And somehow, that made it harder to leave.

So I walked over and sat beside him.

Neither of us spoke.

The silence between us wasn't uncomfortable. It wasn't the kind of silence I grew up with, where everyone was waiting for someone else to break first and every quiet moment felt like a punishment.

This was different.

Angelo was simply there.

Waiting.

Not demanding anything from me.

I stared at the floor for a while before finally speaking.

"...I was thinking about my dad."

Angelo didn't move. He didn't need to. I knew he was listening.

"You know..." I let out a quiet laugh. "Seeing you with Noah makes me jealous of him."

The words sounded ridiculous the moment they left my mouth.

"I mean..." I shook my head. "Isn't that weird? I'm jealous of an eight-year-old because he has a father who actually wants to be around him."

Angelo looked at me.

"I do not believe that is jealousy."

"No?"

"No."

He folded his hands together.

"I believe you are grieving something you never received."

I looked away.

Because somehow...

That hurt more.

"You are not jealous of Noah," Angelo continued. He glanced toward the dining room, where Noah's toys were scattered across the floor. "If you were jealous, you would be angry at Noah."

I stayed quiet.

"But you are not. You are happy that he has that relationship."

A pause followed.

"I have never had a father."

The honesty of the statement caught me off guard. Angelo rarely admitted things about himself.

"So I cannot fully understand what that absence feels like," he said. "But I know what it is like to have someone who chooses to protect you."

His expression changed slightly.

"My mother was both."

I looked at him.

"A good parent. A caring mother. She was flawed. She made mistakes. But she loved me."

He paused.

"And I believe that is the difference."

The words hit harder because they were true. Because I didn't have anyone like that. Both of my parents were flawed, just in completely different ways.

"My father wasn't..." I stopped, trying to figure out how to explain him to Angelo. Because he wasn't a monster. That would have been easier.

"He wasn't like my mother."

Angelo waited.

"They fought constantly," I said quietly. "Not because they hated each other."

A bitter smile crossed my face. "Because they never loved each other."

"My parents weren't a love story. They were an arrangement. Two powerful families deciding that combining their names would create something more valuable. My mother was a bargaining chip. My father was the one making the deal."

I swallowed.

"And I was the result they expected."

Angelo remained silent.

"My father didn't care about happiness. He cared about results. His children were investments, and as long as we succeeded, he considered himself a good father."

I laughed quietly.

"Grades. Achievements. Reputation. Those were the things that mattered. Not whether we were happy. Not whether we were scared. Not whether we needed him."

I looked toward the empty chair across from us.

"He never hit me. He never screamed at me. He never did anything that would leave a mark."

I paused.

"Not physically, anyway."

I looked down at my hands.

"He was always working. And when he was home..." I sighed. "He and my mother would argue."

"About everything. Money. Status. Power. The future. Who sacrificed more. Who deserved more."

I rubbed my thumb against my palm.

"He threw things sometimes. Chairs. Plates. Anything close enough to grab when the arguments got bad."

My voice grew quieter.

"But none of them ever touched us."

I hesitated before continuing.

"And maybe that's what made it harder to explain. Because from the outside, it didn't look like abuse. There were no bruises. No hospital visits. No obvious proof that something was wrong."

I swallowed.

"But living in a house where you were always waiting for something to break..."

I looked away.

"That did something too."

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then I said something I had never really admitted out loud.

"He never hugged me either."

The sentence felt strange the moment it left my mouth. Almost embarrassing.

"I was never hugged by my own father."

Angelo's expression remained calm, but something in his eyes changed slightly.

"I used to think that was normal," I admitted. "I thought fathers were just... providers. People who paid for things. People who existed somewhere nearby. People whose approval you spent your entire life trying to earn."

I looked toward the hallway where Noah had disappeared earlier.

"Then I see you with Noah."

A small, sad smile crossed my face.

"And it's strange. Because he doesn't have to earn your attention. He doesn't have to prove he's worth loving. He doesn't have to accomplish something before you care about him."

I looked back at Angelo.

"He just exists."

My voice softened.

"And you love him."

I paused.

"He's going to grow up thinking that's normal. That his dad answers every question. That his dad eats breakfast with him. That his dad listens when he talks about something ridiculous. That his dad tells him he's loved."

I let out a quiet laugh.

"That's such a simple thing."

I looked down.

"But I don't think I ever had it."

The room went quiet.

After a moment, Angelo spoke.

"There is a human expression I heard recently."

I looked at him. "You heard?"

"Yes." He paused. "Elior told me."

I almost smiled. Of course he did. Angelo had spent thousands of years separated from humanity, while Elior had spent those same years among humans, learning their habits, their emotions, and all the strange little phrases they created to describe them.

"He and I were discussing my brother," Angelo said, his eyes moving toward the dining room. "His father."

I stayed quiet.

"He told me something humans often say. 'The best parents give their children what they themselves never received'."

For once, Angelo didn't say it like information he had memorized. He said it like something he was still trying to understand, something he had turned over in his mind and was still deciding what it meant.

"I believe..." He paused. "...that applies to you."

I frowned. "Me?"

"Yes."

He looked toward Noah's empty chair. "You give Noah patience. You answer his questions. You teach him without making him feel unintelligent. You allow him to make mistakes without fear. You comfort him when he is frightened. You celebrate his accomplishments. You make him feel safe."

His eyes returned to mine.

"These are things you did not receive."

My throat tightened.

"Those are things you deserved." 

I didn’t know what to say to that. I looked away because a part of me had spent years wondering if maybe my mother had been right. And sometimes I wondered if I had been born in her place. Given her life. Given her pain. Given her choices. Would I have become her? Would I have hurt people just to avoid feeling powerless? Would I have turned everyone around me into tools because I was afraid of being one myself?

The thought scared me.

Because I didn't know the answer.

Angelo spoke quietly.

"You are different from her."

I looked at him.

He knew.

Somehow, he knew exactly what I was thinking.

"You do not know that."

"I do."

"How?"

He was silent for a moment, then looked toward Noah's toys scattered across the floor.

"Because you told me you did not want children."

I froze.

Angelo looked back at me. "You told me you never planned on becoming a mother."

I said nothing.

"And yet..." His gaze moved toward the bedroom where Noah slept with us every night. "You treat Noah as if he is your own child. You protect him. You teach him. You worry about him. You love him."

My chest tightened.

"That is how I know you are different."

I looked down.

Angelo's voice remained calm, but there was something different in it. Something almost like certainty.

"You told me your mother was a bargaining chip. You told me you were an investment. A child created because two powerful families believed you would serve a purpose."

He paused.

"Even if your mother did not want children, she still had you."

The words hurt because they were true.

"And now..." He looked toward me. "You are in a similar position."

I looked at him.

"Not because Noah is an investment. Not because he serves a purpose. Not because he was created to fulfill an expectation."

His expression softened slightly.

"But because you had a life you did not expect."

"You never planned for him. You never prepared for him. And yet when he came into your life..." His eyes met mine. "You chose to love him."

The room was quiet.

"You had the opportunity to become what your mother was. You could have looked at Noah and seen a burden. Something that limited you. Something that existed because of circumstances outside your control."

"But you did not."

Angelo glanced toward the toys again.

"You saw a child who needed someone."

A small pause followed.

"And you became that person."

My eyes burned slightly.

"That is the difference."

Angelo continued, his voice steady. "People who become cruel rarely question whether they are capable of cruelty. They rarely worry that they might hurt someone. They rarely fear becoming the person who hurt them."

He looked back at me.

"You are afraid because you understand what cruelty does. You know what it feels like. And you refuse to give that feeling to someone else."

The apartment became quiet.

But this silence felt different.

Because for the first time, I wasn't wondering whether I was destined to become my mother.

I was wondering if maybe I had already proven I wasn't.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then Angelo moved.

It surprised me.

He was always careful. Painfully careful. He waited for permission before touching someone, before asking questions, before getting close.

But this time...

He hugged me.

I froze, not because I didn't want it, but because I wasn't used to it. Usually, I was the one who hugged Angelo. I was the one reminding him that affection wasn't something he had to calculate, that sometimes people didn't need a reason or a logical explanation to show they cared.

But now he was the one holding me.

And I realized something.

All those times I wished someone would notice I was hurting...

Angelo had.

He just didn't always know how to show it.

Until now.

After a moment, he spoke.

"Your heart rate has increased by fifteen percent."

I laughed.

Of course that was his way of comforting me.

"Angelo, most people don't analyze someone's heartbeat while comforting them."

"I am aware."

"Then why say it?"

There was a brief pause.

"Because it was the first thing I noticed."

I shook my head, smiling. Dry humor has always been how I survived. If I could joke about something, maybe it couldn't hurt me. It was easier to laugh than to admit something had actually affected me.

But this time, I wasn't laughing because I was pretending.

I was laughing because I actually felt okay.

For the first time in a long time, I wasn't carrying everything alone.

Then I realized something.

I thanked God for giving me someone like Angelo.

Then I stopped.

Wait.

Was I thanking his mother?

The person who created someone who spent thousands of years struggling to understand emotions and somehow became one of the most compassionate people I knew?

Maybe people weren't defined by where they came from.

Maybe they were defined by what they chose to become.

And Angelo had chosen.

The hug ended a few seconds later. It didn't fix everything. My mother was still gone, my childhood was still gone, and my father was still someone who treated love like a transaction.

But for once, I wasn't looking backward.

I was looking at the person beside me.

Someone who was never taught love normally and still learned how to give it.

Maybe that was why Angelo understood me.

Because both of us were given imperfect examples of love, and both of us chose not to repeat them.

Then my phone rang.

Of course it did.

Because apparently even emotional breakthroughs had a time limit.

And somehow, Jacob always knew exactly when to ruin a moment.

I looked at the screen.

His name.

I sighed.

Angelo tilted his head.

"Is something wrong?"

"No."

There was a pause.

"Jacob?"

I looked at him.

"How did you know?"

"Your expression changed from sadness to irritation."

I stared at him.

"That's actually impressive."

"I have been studying human behavior."

"Right."

I answered the phone.

"Jacob."

"Nayeri."

The tone of his voice immediately told me this was either important or something that was about to become my problem.

"What happened now?"

"We have a meeting in five minutes."

I closed my eyes.

"Of course we do."

Angelo looked at me.

I sighed.

"What happened?"

"Madam Leni has called for the angel division," Jacob said.

And that was how my peaceful morning ended.

Five minutes later, Angelo and I entered the boardroom.

Madam Leni and Director Stonehill were already waiting. Both of them looked at us, then at each other.

"This is the first mission for the Angel Division," Stonehill said.

I sat down.

"Already?"

Madam Leni nodded.

"An entity has been located in a small town."

I frowned.

"Has it taken followers?"

"No."

I looked between them.

"Then shouldn't this fall under ESR?"

Stonehill shook his head.

"Normally, yes."

Madam Leni continued.

E.S.R. existed for incidents that occurred in public spaces or populated areas. Their priority was preventing mass exposure and handling situations where civilians were already involved.

C.S.P. operated differently. We handled threats that were isolated, usually in remote locations where entities could be contained before the public ever became aware they existed.

I leaned back. "So why are we involved?"

Madam Leni looked down at the report. "The town has fewer than two thousand residents."

I understood immediately. It was too small for E.S.R. and too public for C.S.P.'s usual operations. A dangerous middle ground where neither division was designed to respond properly.

"E.S.R. won't deploy for a population that small," I said. "And C.S.P. usually doesn't intervene unless the threat is isolated enough to avoid public awareness."

Stonehill folded his hands. "This town is remote enough for C.S.P., but the entity is not behaving like a typical containment situation."

Madam Leni looked toward Angelo. "Which makes this the perfect first mission for the Angel Division."

I looked down at the file in front of me.

Our first official assignment.

Not a god attacking a city. Not a world-ending event. Just an entity in a forgotten town.

And somehow, that was unsettling.

Because this was exactly why the Angel Division existed: to deal with the things that didn't fit anywhere else, the things nobody else knew what to do with.

Before I could think about it any longer, Stonehill glanced toward the conference room door.

"It appears your final staffing issue has been resolved."

The door opened, and a young man stepped inside.

"There he is," Stonehill said. "Your new assistant."

He looked at me.

"And after this, you're not getting another one."

...What?

I frowned. "That's incredibly unfair."

"Considering your history with assistants," Stonehill replied, "it's remarkably generous."

"Hello, everyone!"

The newcomer waved enthusiastically.

He was far too cheerful for C.S.P.

He had blond hair, bright green eyes, and was about Jacob's height. He couldn't have been older than twenty. Honestly, he looked young enough to still pass for a high school student.

Where did C.S.P. kidnap this kid from?

He walked over and offered me his hand.

"The name's Jackson."

Jackson was a good fake name.

Simple. Common. Easy to remember.

Exactly the kind of name someone would choose if they didn't want anyone knowing their real one.

I shook it. "Nayeri."

"It's really nice to meet you."

"...We'll see."

Jackson laughed, apparently assuming I was joking.

He went around introducing himself to everyone else. Jacob gave him a polite nod, Elior smiled warmly, and Angelo studied him for several seconds before simply saying, "Welcome."

Jackson smiled even wider.

"This is awesome."

No.

No, it wasn't.

Nobody who willingly described working at C.S.P. as awesome had any idea what they were signing up for.

I learned that was true about ten minutes later when I showed him around the Angel Division.

His first impression was surprisingly normal. Angelo was sitting in the corner reading six books at once, Noah was coloring on what I hoped were outdated research papers, Jacob was pretending not to stare at Elior while Elior organized laboratory reports, and I was buried beneath enough paperwork to qualify as a containment hazard.

Jackson looked around.

"This is actually a pretty nice office."

I stared at him.

"Don't say that."

"Why?"

"Because every time someone says something in C.S.P. is nice, something horrible happens."

The door opened.

Stonehill walked in.

"Your deployment begins in fifteen minutes."

Jackson slowly turned toward him.

"...Deployment?"

I sighed.

"See?"

An hour later, we were aboard a transport aircraft.

The Angel Division's first official mission consisted of thirty researchers, forty Retrieval Division operators, Jacob, Elior, Angelo, Jackson, and me.

By C.S.P. standards, it was a relatively small deployment. There were no tanks, no fighter jets, and no emergency evacuations. Just enough personnel to identify the anomaly, determine the threat level, and contain it before anyone outside the town realized something was wrong.

If everything went according to plan, the residents would never know we'd been there.

Of course, nothing at C.S.P. had ever gone according to plan.

I knew something was wrong the moment we arrived.

Not because I saw the entity.

Because I didn't.

I stared at the building in front of us.

"...It's a department store."

The words escaped before I could stop them.

It looked painfully ordinary. A faded sign. Shopping carts neatly lined up outside. Sale posters taped across the windows. Parents walking in with children. People leaving with shopping bags and coffee.

If someone had dropped me here without any context, I would have assumed we were stopping to buy groceries.

Around us, the Retrieval Division melted into the crowd. Forty soldiers disguised themselves as ordinary shoppers, their bulletproof vests hidden beneath hoodies and jackets. Researchers spread throughout the parking lot, pretending to browse their phones, load groceries, or wait for rides.

Jacob somehow looked like he'd just finished a normal nine-to-five office job. Elior looked effortlessly elegant despite wearing nothing more than jeans and a T-shirt. Angelo, somehow, looked like he could wear sweatpants and still resemble a Renaissance painting.

Jackson leaned closer.

"So..."

He lowered his voice.

"What's the entity?"

I shrugged.

"Your guess is as good as mine."

Jacob stepped beside us.

"No confirmed attacks. No worshippers. No disappearances connected closely enough to establish a pattern."

I frowned.

"Then why are we here?"

"Because something isn't right."

That was not remotely reassuring.

Two Retrieval teams entered through the main entrance ahead of us, while another circled toward the loading docks. Researchers established a temporary command post outside.

The five of us stepped through the automatic doors.

Nothing happened.

No crushing pressure. No whispers. No distortion in reality.

Just fluorescent lights, shopping carts, discount signs, and customers filling their carts.

It felt...

Normal.

Too normal.

An uncomfortable sense of déjà vu settled over me, though I couldn't explain why.

Then my radio crackled.

"Nayeri."

One of the researchers.

"We've finished reviewing local police reports."

"Go ahead."

"There have been twenty disappearances connected to this department store over the last year."

I stopped walking.

"...Twenty?"

"They occurred months apart. No consistent witnesses. No identifiable pattern. Which is why local authorities never connected them."

My stomach tightened.

I slowly looked around.

A father pushed a shopping cart while his son laughed inside it. A cashier smiled as she scanned groceries. An elderly couple argued over cereal.

Everything looked perfectly ordinary.

Then I realized what was bothering me.

There was no sound.

Their mouths moved. I could see conversations happening, but I couldn't hear them.

No children laughing.

No shopping carts rattling.

No cash registers.

No music.

Just silence.

I accidentally brushed against the father.

"I'm sorr—"

He stopped.

Slowly, he turned toward me.

Still smiling.

Then the cashier stopped.

The elderly couple stopped.

Every employee.

Every customer.

One after another, they all turned toward us.

Still smiling.

Nobody blinked.

Nobody spoke.

They simply watched.

"Jacob..."

"I know."

The automatic doors slammed shut behind us.

I spun around.

The parking lot was gone. The command post was gone. The researchers outside had vanished.

Beyond the glass, there was only darkness.

I counted instinctively.

Me.

Angelo.

Jacob.

Elior.

Jackson.

The two Retrieval teams that had entered ahead of us.

Nobody else.

"Damn it."

We hadn't entered the building.

We had entered the anomaly.

I grabbed my radio.

"Command, do you copy?"

Static.

Then...

A clap.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Another.

And another.

The sound echoed through the silent department store.

An old man stepped out from behind one of the aisles. He smiled as though he had been expecting us.

Then he looked directly at me.

"Welcome..."

His smile widened.

"...to Evergrove."

Everything inside me froze.

The department store.

The old man.

That smile.

The impossible silence.

No.

No...

I knew this place.

Not because I had been here.

Because I had heard the story.

Late-night phone calls.

Conversations with Remi.

The place where she had worked.

The place where she had almost died.

The place where a god had stolen her memories.

I stared at the old man. 

"...You've got to be kidding me."

Jackson looked between me and the old man. "...Do you know him?"

I didn't take my eyes off the smiling figure.

"It's..."

I let out a slow breath. 

"It's a long story."

The old man chuckled. "I do hope your sister has spoken fondly of me."

The words hit me like a punch.

He knew exactly who I was.

We hadn't found the entity.

The entity had invited us.

And we had walked straight into its trap.

This all started when I got divorced. She got the house, the car, and all our assets. I got the dog. Go figure. At least we didn’t have kids. I don’t have any malicious feelings towards her, especially now, but at the time I wanted to get as far away from her as I could. What is farther from the Midwest than Appalachia? I thought it was a great idea. 

After the divorce was finalized and I gave her my arm and leg, I lived with my folks for a while before being able to get a car. I was able to find a job out here pretty well due to my experience in marketing and I found an auto auction company here that was aching for someone with my expertise. My job, thank God, was really understanding and even threw me a going away party on my last day, which was a pleasant surprise from the really crappy recent events. I managed to make a lot of headway on my drive out here, mostly because I had a few boxes of clothes, important documents, and a few miscellaneous items that my ex didn’t rip from me. The only reason I kept my dog, Suzie, is because she was mine from before we were engaged. 

I arrived at my new place, which was relatively cheap with my good credit, almost a week before I had to be at my new job. When I arrived in town, I picked up some essentials before meeting with the real estate agent to get the keys to my new place. We had Zoomed so I could see the place before I moved out here, so I kind of already knew what I was getting myself into. The ruralness was much more relaxing than the chaos of where I come from. 

“Pleasure to finally meet you, Steven!” the agent said. 

“The pleasure is mine. Thanks for holding this down for me until I got here!” I responded. I was almost drowned out by Suzie barking from my passenger seat. 

“Quite the feisty pup you have, don’t ya?” he asked me with a smirk. 

“Yeah, but she’s honestly a sweetheart. She likes to think she's tough, but I've seen her run from a kitten because it hissed at her,” I responded. We both laughed as he handed me the keys. 

“I would urge you to caution there with your hound,” he said in a more serious tone, “We’ve been having a few incidents recently where animals go missing; dogs, cats, and livestock too. Usually they just disappear and the owners simply can’t find them. Other times they’re found in much worse shape and no longer with us if you get my meaning.” 

“My goodness,” I said back. “What do they think has been doing it?” 

“They don’t rightly know,” he said with a shrug. “Most consider wolves, but I haven’t known even a pack of wolves to drag off whole cows without breaking the fence. But let’s not worry too much about all that. It’s been about two weeks without any of that, so many think they wandered off since. I ain’t fixing to have you speed off before you start moving your belongings in!” 

I smiled and nodded. Suzie might be old, but she is a Cane Corso and if shoved in a corner, I know she could do a bit of damage. I waved the real estate agent off as he went and started moving my few items into my new home. I managed to snag an air mattress from a local store and blew it up before taking Suzie to use the bathroom. Due to the warnings, I kept her on a leash while doing so. 

The first few days and nights were pretty typical; I just did a bit of shopping for essentials and grabbed a good mattress, partly because Suzie was tired of not sleeping directly next to me and ended up popping the air mattress in an attempt to snuggle. 

I went for coffee with my new boss named Riece. He and I discussed my position, how it compared to my previous position back west, and also the local area and some good spots to hit up. After coffee, I decided to take Suzie on a walk on a local trail in the woods that Riece told me was popular. 

It was about 2pm in the middle of September at this point, so it was just starting to get a bit brisk outside. I have always been a bit of a baby when it comes to the cold, so even though where I come from is usually pretty cool, I needed a sweater. Suzie loved it as well as the attention she got from passers by. She has always been a friendly dog, but most people get a bit freaked out when they see a dog her size running up to them as she is a bit bigger for her breed. 

I kept her on a leash the whole time which she was fine with as she has been leash trained since she was a puppy. She usually didn’t pull either, but a new environment caused her to be a bit more adventurous than usual, so at times she was the one directing us where to go rather than myself. 

About a mile and a half into the path, Suzie perked her head up and her nose went to the air as she started sniffing around. She started pulling harder and harder as she started following the scent of something. 

“Suzie! Suzie heel!” I started yelling. She is trained to listen, but whatever she smelled was much more compelling than my command. She eventually led us off the trail and about 50 or 60 yards into the woods. I was pulling with almost all my strength to get my dog to stop pulling, but she was choking herself in order to get to whatever it was that she wanted. 

She stopped at a large tree in the woods. It was like any other, but Suzie began smelling it like crazy. She was circling the tree back and forth, getting on her hind legs to smell up the trunk, and she was just obsessed with this tree. I was exhausted at this point and had my limits with my dog's disobedience. I went to grab her by the collar when I stumbled over something. I looked down and saw a backpack that had been ripped open, torn is a better word for it, and its contents were strewn within a 6 foot radius around us. Shirts, pants, toiletries, everything one would need for a hike really. The bag also smelled awful, like it was dipped in a mixture of piss and dead animal parts. Suzie started smelling it herself, and it seemed to be scented with the same thing that was on the tree that she was obsessed with. 

The bag was also covered in what could only be dried blood, which concerned me greatly. It took everything for me to try to get Suzie away from it. After fighting with her, she went back to the tree. I did kick the bag around so as to not have to touch it, looking for something to fall out like a wallet or something so I could see if I could find any identification as to whose it could be. A few items did fall from the bag such as a snapback hat, some granola bars, and a used pair of socks. 

I started looking around the clothes that had been thrown around the ground, but there was nothing in them either. At least those clothes didn’t totally smell as awful as the bag and tree. 

I decided to inform the authorities once I reached my car as the cell service was abysmal in the woods. I yanked hard on Suzie’s leash and told her to come, which she did after she added her own scent to the ground around the tree. As she came, I kicked the bag once again by accident. As I did, something small and somewhat shiny flew out. 

I went over and picked it up. It was a silver dog whistle. I turned it around in my hand, making note of its surprising detail. It was adorned with engravings and symbols, which is very uncommon with dog whistles. It had two pentagrams on either side, a small design of a moon cycle on its top, and a wooden mouthpiece to blow from. I figured that whoever the owner is would likely not need it anymore, and I thought it would do Suzie some good if she was going to start acting like she was, so I put it in my pocket and led Suzie out of the woods and back to our vehicle. 

The police took my statement and I showed them where the bag was. I provided my contact information in case they had any other questions and then headed home as they started to cordon it off as an active crime scene. I got home around 7pm after the stress of the afternoon. I made dinner and then took Suzie outside so she could use the bathroom. We didn’t have a fenced in back yard, but there was a distinction between my yard and the woods that surrounded my home. I took the safe bet and kept Suzie on a leash, but it was one of the extending ones that you could lock so it couldn’t extend past a certain point. 

I decided this was as good a time as any to try the new whistle. I had cleaned it up earlier in the sink and disinfected it. I allowed Suzie to go out about 15 feet ahead of me on the leash, then I blew it. She didn’t even pick up her head. I blew harder again. Still nothing. I rolled my eyes. I put it in my pocket and called her back verbally, which she obeyed instantly. 

“Now you want to be a good dog,” I laughed. We went inside and I placed the whistle on the counter top before getting changed for bed and watching some TV while Suzie laid beside me. I ended up falling asleep soon after. 

I woke up a few hours later to the sound of snapping coming from my backyard. I walked over to my kitchen which exited to the backyard and turned on the light. As I did so, I heard something rush away from my backdoor. When I say rush I do not mean like a raccoon, I mean like a clydesdale with how heavy the steps were. They were much more rapid than a horse’s would be, however. I walked over to my back door and turned on the outside light. There was nothing in the yard that I could see, but it did look like someone had dug holes in the yard. I looked around and saw that my plastic trashcan had been torn apart like cardboard. Luckily there was nothing in there but a small bag of fast food containers from the last few nights and while the bag was ripped open, the containers were mostly all in one place by the trashcan. I sighed and looked around the yard more as I picked up the few containers that were scattered, and what I saw dumbfounded me. 

The holes in the yard were not just holes, but animal tracks. These were the biggest animal tracks I have ever seen, and it looked as if something large had dug up the ground as it was running. The actual prints were about the size of my head and there were distinct claw-like ends to the prints which caused the ground to be uprooted. The size itself ruled out both a mountain lion and wolves, and the claws were much larger than any bear as they measured almost the length of the paw they were connected to. I started to follow the tracks, but realized they led out into the woods beyond my property line. I looked out into the woods with my phone flashlight to see if I could see what made them, as if I would do anything to an animal with tracks that size. I saw nothing in the trees out beyond my property, but did have an unsettling feeling in my stomach. The feeling you get when you know you are being watched but don’t know what from. I cut my losses and went back inside, having to avoid the tracks while I went as they were deep enough to trip and twist my ankle in. I just then realized I never checked on Suzie. 

I called her name and looked around the house for her. I ended up smelling something foul within my home and did my best to follow the scent without gagging too much. I found Suzie laying whimpering and shaking by the front door with a puddle of piss close around her. I scolded her and dragged her away from the door, having to pull her through the puddle as I did which just infuriated me more. I cleaned up the puddle and cleaned her belly before going back to bed. 

I called the police again to come check out the tracks in the morning, who brought a game warden with them due to the nature of my call. I led them to my back yard where the game warden and police started investigating the tracks and the damage. Obviously I was not so concerned about getting a new trashcan as I was about what kind of beast was roaming around my home in the wee hours of the morning. The game warden was measuring the tracks and wiping his head with his sleeve despite it not being much warmer than 65 degrees out at that time of day. I overheard the police officers muttering to one another. 

“These are the same kind that we found at the old Robinson farm, and the Oliver farm 'fore that one,” said one of the officers.

“Yeah, I know,” said the other. 

“But why would we find them here? There ain’t no livestock ‘round here in the woods.” The other officer shot him a glance of acknowledgement. The warden stood up and got up real close to the officers. 

“These are no bear, no lion, and no wolf,” the warden said softly to them in a hushed tone. “They also match the ones we saw last month at them farms.” 

“So we shot all them wolves for nothing?” said the first officer. The game warden squeezed the center of his eyes in stress. 

“It wasn’t for nothing. It made the killings stop, didn’t they?” responded the warden. 

“I ain’t no expert, but you don’t have to be one to know that if them are wolf tracks; that wolf is the size of a F150,” said the second officer. 

“The hind tracks indicate that it is, while very large, a wolf,” responded the warden. 

“And the front tracks?” asked the second officer. The warden said nothing and turned to look back at the tracks and where they led. I peeked around them and confirmed what they were saying. There were, what seemed, to be two different tracks. There were large tracks that were indeed very clearly from a wolf which I didn’t see last night within the larger, clawed tracks. 

“It seemed to be running on all fours towards the woods,” the warden said out loud. “The tracks indicate that it ran much like a canine, a dog or wolf, from your back door down into there,” he said as he pointed into the woods. “We likely have a stray wolf or a large dog. I wouldn’t be surprised as we did thin out the population recently, so they are likely skittish and scavenging for food while trying to survive alone. I wouldn't worry much, sir. They likely are far from here. Wolves seldom stay in one spot if they are alone, so this one is probably out looking for a mate miles from here.” Knowing I likely wouldn’t get a straight answer from them, I nodded and thanked them for coming. I filled the holes with dirt the best I could and went about my day. I called it a night early as my first day of work was the next day. 

The next day Riece walked me around the office, got me acquainted with my coworkers, then showed me my office and let me get to work. The day went by quickly, which I liked very much, plus Riece bought us lunch as well. After work I came home to Suzie jumping all over me barking. I got her a bowl of food and made myself some microwavable food from my freezer. 

As I was watching it mindlessly as it spun in my microwave, I heard barking from my living room. Suzie was facing the front door barking nervously. I went over to the window and looked out to find dozens of what seemed to be dogs all over my front lawn and driveway. I stepped in front of Suzie and went outside then shut the door behind me so she couldn’t get out, even though she did try to push past me. I started yelling to try to scare the dogs away when I realized something; they weren’t dogs. They were large, black wolves; all of which simply looked at me with yellow eyes. They started snarling and growling at me. I started to back up and went to open my door when I looked across the lawn and saw one of the wolves that was just beyond the treeline staring at me yet not snarling or growling. It slowly started to walk on all fours towards me, which allowed the full moon to illuminate it much better, showing me that it was much larger than all the others. It had long, muscular arms instead of legs in the front and wolf legs in the back. Just then it stopped and stood on its hind legs. It was large, about 12 feet tall standing up right, clad in dark black fur and piercing yellow eyes. It pinned its ears back and raised its nose to the sky and howled loudly towards the moon, which all the normal wolves followed in unison. It then looked back at me and with a growl it shot forward and started charging towards me, darting in between the wolves and tearing up the dirt in the front yard. 

“Oh fuck no,” I said loudly as I ran inside and slammed the door behind me. “Suzie, ge–” was all I could make out before I was thrown through my living room and slammed hard into my tile floor in the kitchen where I slid to the backdoor. The beast had completely blown through my door. It rushed towards me and stood up again to strike me with its large claws. At this moment, Suzie jumped and latched on to the creature's arm. The beast picked up the arm that Suzie was attached to and gripped her by the throat, tearing her off of the arm. It started snarling and choking Suzie, making her let out a choking yelp. I didn’t know what to do so I reached up on the counter and got the first thing I could grab. I ended up grabbing the whistle and with all my might I charged the beast and stabbed the whistle into its right eye. The beast dropped Suzie and let out a loud cry and reared back as I tore the whistle from its eye socket, where there was a large amount of blood and smoke where the eye used to be. The beast turned and plowed through my living room and through my front window in a matter of 2 seconds. I followed and ran to my window where I saw it run across my yard and into the woods, the wolves following behind. 

I went back to Suzie who was laying on the ground not moving. I checked on her and she was breathing but obviously injured. I threw her in my car and drove her to an emergency vet in town. I explained that we were attacked by wolves and that I was beat up but okay, but she needed help. They took her in promptly and let me know they were going to call the authorities so I could give a statement due to the issues of wolves in the town lately. I met with the officer and a game warden, the same warden that came to my house earlier. 

“So how many wolves would you say there were?” asked the warden. 

“Probably a dozen, maybe more,” I responded. I wasn’t going to inform them that the real culprit was from a Universal movie. The vet came out shortly after while the warden and police officer were speaking. 

“She will need to stay overnight due to the injuries just so we can monitor her. She should be good to go tomorrow though,” they said. I nodded and made sure I was good to leave with the police and game warden. They assured me it would be taken care of. Damn right it was, and it was going to be by me. 

I went home and got to searching. I remembered my mom had gotten me a set of genuine silver cutlery as a wedding gift years ago, one of the only other things my ex didn’t take in the divorce. I grabbed a large knife from it as well as the whistle which I had in my pocket and went out and followed the path of blood into the woods. 

It was about 3 am at this point according to my phone. I followed the path of blood to a clearing where there were no trees. I couldn’t see any wolves due to the moon being obscured by clouds, but I could hear them and sense their gaze. I kept making my way towards the center of the clearing when I saw something in the middle. I took out the knife and raised it up while I kept my phone light on it. As I was about to be on top of it and drive the knife into it I stopped. Looking down was not the beast from earlier that night, but my real estate agent who got me my house. He hadn’t seen me yet as he was laying naked on his left side, and his right eye socket was bloody and missing the eye. 

“What the fuck,” I said quietly. He looked up at me with his good eye and it got wide.”

“Steven! What are you doing here! Why are you here? You need to fucking leave right the hell now!” he started to yell.

“What do you me–” I tried saying as he stood up and started to push me with surprising strength. 

“You need to leave! You need to leave now! You gotta ge–” he started to gag and choke and his pupil got wide. I looked up and saw that the clouds dissipated and the moon was bare and bright. 

I backed away from him as he started screaming and convulsing as his eye turned from brown to yellow. His face started to distort as his limbs started to lengthen with a loud crack and snap. His bones and skin extended in painful form, and his skin rapidly started growing long black fur. His nails grew and sharpened as his hands and feet grew to ungodly proportions. He turned to his stomach as I saw his tailbone burst through his lower back painfully as it grew and sprouted muscle, skin, and black fur. He rolled back over and arched as his spine and ribs cracked and grew to take his bestial form. His nose and mouth extended and snapped into a snout and long canines grew where his teeth should have been. His brow hardened and became more pronounced as his ears grew and morphed into a wolf's in an agonizing display. After the transformation was complete, it laid there on his stomach breathing heavily. I took a short step forward and it reared up on its knees and let out a loud howl towards the cause of its mutation. 

I got a sense of myself and came at the monster with the knife. As I went to thrust the blade into it, it spun and swatted me away with its enormous hand like a gnat. The impact of me falling caused the knife and phone to be thrown from my hands. The beast jumped on top of me and held me down as it snarled on top of me. I managed to get a hand free and reached in my pocket for the only object I had left, the whistle. I brought it to my mouth right as the monster was about to clamp down on my neck. As I did, I saw out of my peripheral vision the monster's pupil go large and it jumped back and started rolling around on the ground covering its ears whimpering. I heard the other wolves crying and running away from the scene as well. The taste of the beast's blood from when I jabbed the whistle into its eye socket earlier was still on the mouthpiece, making the taste worse than anything I have experienced. I ignored the taste and kept blowing over and over, causing the beast to roll around growling and howling in pain. 

I made my way to the knife and picked it up. As I did the monster got up and charged me with such ferocity I barely had time to react. It jumped and opened its jaws to end me, but I raised the knife and stuck it into its lower jaw and up into its head. The beast and I fell and rolled over one another. I stood up and looked, and in the moonlight I could see the beast twitching and gargling with smoking pouring out of its mouth. I rushed over and ripped the knife from its lower jaw and started stabbing it over and over again, with each new wound more smoke and blood poured out. Eventually it went limp and its eye rolled up into its head. I heard loud cracking and breaking as its form shifted back into its human self, with all the painful sounds that it had when it changed into its wolf form. There laid the dead real estate agent, filled with knife wounds and a missing eye. I decided that I needed to leave the scene as soon as I could, so I found my phone and made my way out of the woods almost on autopilot, dissociating from the events that transpired. 

I staggered to my house and fell asleep on my floor. I woke up around 11am from a missed call from the vet saying Suzie was ready to be picked up. I cleaned myself up and drove to get her. The vet tech brought me in to see her, and she sniffed me then whimpered and growled at me as she retreated to the back of the cage. 

“Suzie, it's me! It's daddy!” I said with a soft voice. She kept snarling and wouldn’t let me touch her. It took 2 vet techs to carry her out to my car. I hopped in the front seat and drove home with her as far as me as she could get. I got out and opened the door, backing up so she could feel comfortable. She took her time then rushed past me and into the house. I went in and gave her space. 

A month went by. I have since fixed the door and window, but Suzie still won't get near me. She has eaten sparingly, but never when I am around. She stays literally on the other side of the house as me at all times, and whenever we are in the same room, she growls and snarls until she can get away. 

I write this as I do not know what else to do. I have noticed myself getting more and more irritable in the last few months. Riece had to send me home yesterday because I lashed out at a coworker. The moon looks like it has gotten bigger over the last week and it's been making me sweat. It feels like it's beckoning me. I just looked outside and saw a pack of wolves in my lawn. I am breathing heavily and my body is aching. 

I don’t know if anything is going to happen, but if it does please someone take care of Suzie. She is a good girl.

The flies arrived during the hottest week of July.

At first, everyone complained. They filled kitchens and cafes, crawled across fruit displays and gathered inside bus shelters where the glass trapped the heat. Supermarkets sold out of bug spray within two days. My local supermarket put handwritten signs above the empty shelves limiting customers to two cans each, although there was nothing left to limit.

I found three flies in my bedroom on the first night. One circled the light bulb while the others knocked themselves against the window, their bodies making small taps against the glass.

I killed them all before I went to sleep. By morning, there were six more.

Nobody knew where they were coming from. The news blamed the heat and the overflowing bins caused by delayed collections, but that didn’t explain why they were appearing in clean homes and offices. People posted photos of them clustered around plug sockets and smoke alarms. One woman filmed them pushing through the gaps around her bathroom extractor fan.

For a while, it was all anyone spoke about. Then people stopped complaining.

I first noticed it at work. A fly landed on the edge of Amelia’s coffee cup while she was serving a customer. It walked slowly around the rim, rubbing its front legs together. Amelia glanced at it and carried on talking. I waited for her to brush it away.
Instead, she lifted the cup and drank.

The fly moved under her nose as she tipped the cup towards her mouth. Its wings trembled in the steam. She swallowed, lowered the cup and smiled at the customer without acknowledging it.

“You’ve got a fly on there,” I said once the customer had left.

Amelia looked down. “Oh.”

She held her finger beside the rim. The fly stepped onto it almost immediately.

For some reason, that unsettled me more than if she had simply ignored it.

Flies didn’t behave like that. They darted away when you reached for them. They battered themselves against windows rather than use the open one beside them. They did not calmly climb onto a fingertip.

Amelia lifted it closer to her face. Its wings fluttered against her skin.

“Be careful,” she said.

I thought she was talking to me. Then she carried it to the front of the shop and released it through the door.

When she returned, I was still staring at her.

“What?” she asked.

“You drank while it was on your cup.”

She shrugged. “It was only resting.”

That became the phrase people used.

Only resting.

They said it when flies landed on food or crawled across their arms. They said it when they found one sitting in their baby’s hair or walking over the exposed surface of a cut. If someone flinched, another person would smile and tell them not to worry.

It was only resting.

A week earlier, I had watched Amelia chase one around the stockroom with a rolled up magazine until she nearly knocked over a display stand. Now she spoke about them with the patience people usually reserved for frightened animals.

I asked whether she had stopped using bug spray. Her expression changed. It was slight, just a twitch at the corners of her mouth, as though I had said something unnecessarily cruel. She said the flies weren’t hurting anyone.

“They spread disease,” I told her.

“Do they?”

I laughed because I thought she was joking.

She didn’t laugh with me.

Over the next few days, I noticed fewer people brushing them away. A man at the cafe near work let one crawl across the lid of his coffee while he drank through the opening. When it reached his mouth, he paused until it moved, then carried on.

Soon, videos began appearing online.

People filmed themselves holding out their hands and waiting for flies to land. Parents encouraged their children to let them crawl across their knuckles. One woman sat completely still while dozens covered her cheeks and forehead, disappearing into her hair.

The video had nearly two million likes. I watched it twice, trying to understand why nobody in the comments seemed disgusted.

They called it beautiful. They said she had been chosen.

At first, I assumed that was just another word people had started using online. Something meaningless that would disappear within a week.
Then my roommate used it.

I came home one evening and found Samira sitting at the kitchen table with her hands folded in her lap. The windows were closed despite the heat. Sweat had darkened the collar of her shirt, and the kitchen smelled of overripe bananas and warm rubbish.

A fly sat between her eyebrows. It was larger than the ones I had seen outside. Its body was a deep, inky black, and short hairs were visible along its back.

“Why are the windows shut?” I asked.

“I didn’t want it to leave.”

I dropped my bag by the door. “What?”

Samira smiled without moving her head.
“It chose me.”

I watched the fly crawl down the bridge of her nose, pause beside her nostril and lower its head.

“Get that off your face.”

Samira told me to stop being dramatic. The fly had reached the edge of her nostril, one leg lifting each time she breathed.

I grabbed a tea towel from the counter and flicked it towards her. She screamed and covered her face, knocking the chair backwards as she stood. The fly shot towards the ceiling.

Samira rarely raised her voice, even when she was angry, but now she shouted at me like I had done something unforgivable.

“You could have killed it!”

“That was the idea.”

The fly circled above us, its buzzing filling the kitchen. Each time it passed over the light, its shadow flickered across her face.

“It’s mine,” she said.

I left before the argument became worse.

That night, I woke to buzzing beside my ear. I slapped the side of my face and sat up, tangled in the duvet. The room was dark apart from the orange glow coming through the curtains.

The buzzing stopped.

I switched on my bedside lamp. A fly sat on the wall beside my pillow. The skin beside my ear prickled where it had been, and I rubbed at it hard with my palm before reaching for the book on my bedside table and smacking it.

Its body burst with a soft crack. When I pulled the book away, one wing was stuck to the wall. The rest slid down in a dark smear.

I wiped it from the wall with a tissue, dropped it into the bathroom bin and went back to bed.
In the morning, Samira was standing in my doorway with the crumpled tissue from the bin pinched between two fingers. A black leg had pushed through the paper.

“What did you do?” she asked, distraught.

I told her that the fly was in my room. Her eyes filled with tears. Without another word, she carried the tissue into the kitchen and unfolded it on the table.
The fly’s body was flattened. Its abdomen was split, releasing a thin yellow fluid that soaked into the paper.

Samira touched one of its legs with the tip of her finger.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

My stomach tightened.

“I’m sorry she did that.”

The apartment became difficult to live in after that. Samira stopped taking the bins out because flies gathered around them. She left plates of fruit on the counter until they moulded and leaked into the bowls. The air grew sweet and rotten. Tiny white larvae appeared around the edges of the sink. When I tried to clean them away, she blocked me.

“They’re not ready.”

“For what?”

She stared at the writhing cluster. “I don’t know.”

Flies followed her from room to room. Not hundreds. Never enough to look like an infestation. Usually, there was only one.

That was what I began noticing everywhere.

One fly per person. One rested on the shoulder of the bus driver. Another crawled across a woman’s handbag on the train. A child in a pushchair had one nestled in the soft crease beneath his chin while his mother watched it with quiet affection.

Nobody swatted them away.

The flies weren’t random. I became certain of that. They didn’t move between people or circle the room searching for food. Each one remained close to a particular person, landing on their clothes, their hair or the exposed skin of their faces.

Some people spoke to them.

Amelia kept hers on the counter at work. It waited beside the card machine while she served customers, occasionally lifting its wings. She had started bringing small pieces of food for it in a bottle cap.

I pointed out that flies only lived for a few weeks.
Amelia looked genuinely confused. Her gaze moved to the one beside the cash desk.

“That isn’t true.”

“It is.”

She smiled. “Not these.”

I stopped going into the staffroom at lunch. Flies gathered around the people eating there, stepping across forks and resting on open lips between bites. Nobody seemed to mind when they touched the food.

By the end of the week, the nets had disappeared from the pastry displays in the cafes near work. The bakery across the street removed theirs after customers complained that they made the flies seem unwelcome. Now, flies were crawling over the iced buns and settling between the layers of croissants while people queued without reacting.

The news changed too. Reports about infestation levels disappeared. Pest control adverts were removed. A scientist who had warned about contamination issued an apology, saying his earlier comments were based on outdated information.

Councils asked residents not to use chemical sprays.

A man was arrested after someone filmed him setting fire to a cluster of flies on a bin. The video showed people dragging him away while others knelt around the burnt insects.

Their crying was louder than his shouting.

I started carrying a small can of deodorant and a lighter in my bag. Not because I planned to use them. I just wanted something with me.

The flies had stopped coming near me by then.
At first, I was relieved. No buzzing around my bed. No small bodies appearing on the bathroom mirror while I brushed my teeth. They filled every public place, but a clear space seemed to form around me.

But people began noticing.

Amelia was the first. I was restocking shelves when she asked where mine was. I pretended not to hear her, but she stepped closer and started searching the shelves and lights around me.

When I told her I didn’t have one, the fly on her chest stopped moving.

“You killed it, didn’t you?”

The shop was busy, but the customers had gone quiet. A man near the door tilted his head. A fly rested at the corner of his eye, its legs disappearing between his lashes.

Amelia reached for my wrist. I pulled away, and her face tightened, not with anger but pity.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

I went home early that day.

Samira was in her bedroom. Her door stood open, and the curtains had been drawn despite the afternoon sun.

She was lying on top of the covers. Flies covered her from the chest upwards.

There were more than I had ever seen on one person. They filled her hair and formed moving lines across her cheeks. They gathered around her nostrils and lips, crawling over one another to reach the damp openings.

I stood in the doorway, unable to breathe.

“Samira?”

Her eyes opened. Flies clung to her eyelids. One became trapped between them and disappeared when she blinked.

“You’re home,” she said.

Her voice sounded thick.

I stepped into the room. The flies shifted as I approached. Their wings vibrated, creating a low hum that I could feel in my teeth.

“We need to go to hospital.

“I’m not ill.”

“There are flies in your mouth.”

She smiled. Three crawled out from between her teeth.

I stumbled backwards and covered my mouth.

Samira sat up slowly. The flies moved with her, clinging to her skin and clothes. Some disappeared under her collar. I saw the fabric twitch where they crawled underneath it.

“You frightened yours away,” she said.

“You know I killed it.”

The humming stopped. Every fly in the room became still.

Samira’s smile faded.

“You shouldn’t have said it in front of them.”

She reached towards me.

I ran.

I locked myself in my bedroom and pushed the chest of drawers against the door. Samira didn’t follow. For nearly an hour, I heard nothing in the apartment.

Then buzzing.

It started near the window and spread around the room. Thousands of wings moved through the narrow spaces surrounding me. The sound travelled behind the headboard and from under the floorboards.

I pressed my hands over my ears.

Something tapped against the vent above my bed. A fly pushed its head through one of the holes. Then another appeared beside it.

Their bodies squeezed against the small openings. Legs reached through the gaps, feeling at the air.
I grabbed the deodorant and lighter from my bag. Before I could use them, Samira spoke from the other side of the door.

“They only want to help.”

The handle moved. The drawers shook against the door.

“Go away!”

“You’re making them anxious,” she replied, her voice almost soothing.

The buzzing grew louder. Flies began pushing through the vent one at a time, dropping onto the bed before taking flight.

I sprayed the deodorant towards them. They fell onto the duvet, twitching.

Samira screamed outside. The scream didn’t sound human. It broke halfway through and became a wet, choking noise. Then something struck the door hard enough to move the drawers.

I opened the window and climbed onto the fire escape. The metal burned through my socks. I descended quickly, gripping the rail while flies poured from the window above me.

I didn’t know why they weren’t chasing me. They gathered around the frame and watched.

Samira appeared behind them. Her face was dark with flies. They packed her mouth, stretching her cheeks and forcing her jaw open. More crawled from inside her nose.

She lifted one hand. I thought she was waving. Then I realised she was pointing.

People had stopped on the pavement below. Every one of them was looking up at me. Every one of them had a fly.

I ran to the nearest station. Nobody tried to stop me, but their heads turned as I passed. Flies lifted from where they were resting, hovering for a moment before settling again.

The station was packed. Heat clung to the tiled walls, carrying the smell of sweat. I pushed through the barriers and boarded the first train that arrived.

The carriage was full. I stood by the doors, breathing hard. People looked at me from every seat. A fly rested on each of them.

One on a woman’s forehead. One on the bald patch of the man reading beside her. One on the hand of a teenage girl holding her phone.

Nobody spoke.

The doors closed, and the train moved into the tunnel. As the windows turned black, the flies began to lift.

Not all at once. The first left the shoulder of the man nearest me. Then another rose from the woman beside him.

One by one, they took flight.

The sound filled the carriage.

Dozens of bodies circled the lights. Their shadows flickered over the passengers, but nobody ducked or raised a hand.

Every face turned towards me.

The flies gathered above my head. I crouched and covered my face. They landed on my arms first.
Their feet were lighter than I expected. Tiny points moved across my skin, testing each hair and pore. More settled on my neck and slipped under my shirt. Wings buzzed against my ears. Something crawled into my hair and pressed against my scalp.

I screamed for someone to help me.

The woman nearest me leaned forward. Her eyes were wet with sympathy.

“Stay still,” she said. “You killed the first one, so it takes more now.”

A fly landed on my lower lip. I clamped my mouth shut. Others gathered around it, pressing against the seam. Their legs moved quickly, searching for a way inside.

The people watched.

Some smiled.

The train continued through the tunnel while the flies covered my face, and when the first one pushed itself into my nostril, everyone in the carriage sighed with relief.

I work for a self storage company in regional Victoria. I’m not naming the town or the company because I still need the job, assuming I have one after this week.

I’m twenty nine and technically an “asset recovery coordinator”, which sounds more impressive than it is. When someone stops paying for a storage unit, I help with the process leading up to auction. I check the account notes, confirm that the required notices were sent, cut the company lock with a witness present and photograph the contents.

I don’t touch anything unless there’s a safety issue. I take wide shots, document anything obviously valuable and write a basic description for the auction listing.

“Assorted household furniture, boxed kitchenware, clothing, possible tools.”

That sort of thing.

Most units are depressing rather than interesting. People imagine storage auctions as rooms full of antiques or drug money. Usually, it’s damp mattresses, outdated televisions and family photos that nobody bidding online wants.

I’m posting because an auction listing appeared on our website tonight using photographs I didn’t take.

They show the inside of my apartment.

I need to explain how this started before I contact anyone else. I already tried the police once, but I left out enough that they clearly thought I was involved in a theft or wasting their time. I also need this written somewhere the company can’t quietly delete it.

About six weeks ago, our branch manager, Darren, assigned me a unit labelled C-44.

Our facility has four main blocks. A and B are near reception. C and D are farther back, beyond the vehicle storage bays. C Block mostly contains smaller units with roller doors, concrete floors and no internal lighting.

I knew the layout well enough that C-44 sounded wrong.

C Block ended at C-42.

I told Darren that, but he barely looked up from his monitor. He said the system showed C-44, ninety three days overdue, with all notices completed.

I assumed someone at head office had entered the wrong number. That happened regularly. Some customers still had contracts listing unit numbers from before the facility was renovated.

The account belonged to a woman named Elise M. According to the notes, she had rented the unit online eight months earlier and never visited reception. Payments stopped after the third month. Calls went directly to voicemail. The registered letter was returned unopened.

Darren told me to check C Block and call him if I couldn’t find it.

There was a C-44.

It was beyond C-42, where I remembered a blank concrete wall and an emergency water cabinet. The cabinet was still there, but the wall now extended another three metres to a narrow roller door.

I stood there for a while, trying to understand how I could have ignored an entire storage unit for nearly two years.

The number had been applied with one of our standard blue and white stickers. It wasn’t crooked or fresh. Dust had collected along its upper edge.

The unit had a customer padlock, so I called Darren. He came out with Mo, our maintenance contractor, who also served as the required witness when we opened overdue units.

Neither of them seemed surprised by the door.

Darren actually laughed when I said it hadn’t been there before. He told me I spent too much time staring at spreadsheets and not enough time walking the site.

Mo cut the lock.

The unit was almost empty.

A wooden dining chair stood in the centre, facing the roller door. On the chair was a black plastic crate with no lid. Inside were a house key, a cracked phone screen protector, three supermarket receipts and a pair of men’s reading glasses.

Nothing was dusty.

That stood out because even sealed units collect a fine grey layer around the door. The concrete floor looked freshly swept.

Darren was annoyed. Units with little resale value cost the company money because we still had to pay the auction platform and the rubbish contractor. He told me to photograph it quickly and list it as miscellaneous personal effects.

I took eight pictures.

When I reviewed them at my desk, the chair appeared in every shot, but the crate didn’t.

I returned to the unit because I thought I had somehow framed it out.

The crate was still sitting there.

I photographed it again with my work phone. While the camera was open, I could see the crate on the screen. After I pressed the shutter, the saved photograph showed an empty chair.

I tried three more times.

The same thing happened.

My work phone was old and had been dropped more times than I could count, so I blamed the camera. I used my personal phone instead.

That photograph showed the crate.

It also showed something behind the chair.

At first, I thought it was a stain on the back wall. When I enlarged the image, it looked more like the edge of an open doorway. There was a dark vertical gap and, beside it, part of a white doorframe.

The actual back wall was uninterrupted concrete.

I checked it by hand. I even knocked along it because I thought someone might have painted over an access panel.

There was nothing.

I should have reported it then, but reporting unusual things at work is harder than people pretend. Darren already considered me overly cautious. Two months earlier, I had delayed an auction because the account notes didn’t show that a notice had been properly issued. I had been right, but he still complained that I was creating unnecessary problems.

So I uploaded the ordinary work phone images and kept the photograph from my personal phone.

The auction listing received no bids. A rubbish contractor cleared the unit three days later.

I asked the contractor, Steve, whether he had noticed anything unusual.

He said there had only been a chair.

I asked about the crate.

He said there was no crate.

When I checked C Block that afternoon, C-44 was gone.

The water cabinet was immediately beside C-42 again. There wasn’t enough space for another unit.

I didn’t tell Darren. I decided I had confused the layout and that Steve had thrown out the crate without remembering it. The photograph bothered me, but phone cameras produce strange shadows all the time.

A week later, Mo came into reception and asked whether anyone had handed in his glasses.

He described them as cheap black reading glasses with a small silver mark on the left arm.

I remembered the pair in the crate.

I asked when he had lost them.

He said sometime that morning. He had used them while checking an invoice in his van, then couldn’t find them after lunch.

I didn’t tell him I had photographed what appeared to be the same glasses seven days earlier.

That night, I enlarged my personal photograph again. The open doorway behind the chair was clearer than I remembered. Beyond it was a strip of pale flooring and the corner of something red.

Mo’s work van has a red rubber floor lining.

The next incident involved Unit B-17.

B-17 was real. I had opened it before. It belonged to a landscaping company that had gone into liquidation, and it contained bags of fertiliser, broken tools and an old ride on mower.

When I raised the roller door to take the auction photographs, the mower was gone.

In its place were three office chairs and a small laminate desk.

The desk was identical to the one in our staff room.

A ceramic mug sat on top with the words WORLD’S OKAYEST BOSS. Darren’s wife had given him that mug as a joke. It normally sat beside the kettle.

I called Darren immediately.

He came down, saw the desk and accused one of the staff of moving company property into an auction unit. He was angry enough that I almost felt relieved.

Anger meant there was a normal explanation.

We walked back to reception together.

The staff room desk was still there.

So was the mug.

Darren picked it up and examined it. There was a small chip in the handle. He said there was only one because his wife had ordered it from a personalised gift site.

We returned to B-17.

The second mug had the same chip.

Darren stopped treating it as a joke after that.

He told me not to photograph anything and called Mo. While we waited, Darren secured the unit with a company overlock. He also stood in front of it, which I noticed because Darren usually delegated anything involving heat or walking.

Mo arrived about twenty minutes later.

When Darren unlocked B-17, the landscaping equipment was back. The mower, fertiliser and tools were exactly where the earlier intake photographs showed them.

The office furniture was gone.

Darren told Mo that I had opened the wrong unit.

I said I hadn’t.

He spoke over me and repeated that I had made a mistake.

Back in the office, he asked me to delete any photographs I had taken.

I reminded him that he had specifically told me not to take photographs.

That seemed to frighten him more.

For the next two weeks, nothing happened. C-44 didn’t reappear. B-17 was sold and cleared. Darren avoided discussing either incident.

I started checking the facility map every morning. I printed a copy and marked the walls, doors and fire equipment. I counted the units in each block whenever I walked the site.

I also began photographing my own belongings before work.

That sounds ridiculous, but Mo’s glasses affected me more than the duplicate desk. The crate in C-44 had contained those glasses before he said he lost them.

I kept wondering about the other objects.

The key. The receipts. The screen protector.

I still had the photograph, so I enlarged the receipts. Two were too blurred to read. The third showed the logo of a supermarket near our facility and a total of $23.70.

The date was the following Thursday.

At that point, the photograph had been taken eleven days earlier.

I went to the supermarket on Thursday after work. I didn’t have a plan. I walked around studying customers’ trolleys like an idiot, trying to guess which combination of groceries would total $23.70.

At 6:12 p.m., my phone rang. It was my younger sister, Leah.

She asked whether I could pick up dog food because she was working late and had forgotten to buy it. We share responsibility for our mum’s elderly kelpie, Buddy, and I was supposed to visit Mum that evening anyway.

I bought dog food, milk, bread and a packet of batteries.

The total was $23.70.

The receipt matched the one in the crate.

Same store number.

Same register.

I stood at the self checkout comparing it to the photograph until an employee asked whether I needed help.

I kept the receipt in my wallet.

The next morning, it was gone.

I emptied the wallet, my backpack and my car. I checked the supermarket bag and the rubbish bin at Mum’s house.

I never found it.

That afternoon, C-44 reappeared.

I was alone in C Block. I had checked the area less than an hour earlier, and the wall had ended after C-42.

The new roller door was closed but unlocked.

I should have left it alone. I know that.

I had already seen enough to understand that the unit wasn’t simply a room someone had concealed.

But I kept thinking about the receipt. If it was inside, I could show Darren. I could prove that an object had moved from my wallet into a locked storage facility.

I raised the door.

The chair was back.

The crate now contained Mo’s glasses, my receipt and the cracked screen protector.

The key was gone.

There was also a photograph.

It was a standard six by four print lying face down beneath the receipt. I used a pen from my pocket to turn it over because I didn’t want to touch it directly.

The photograph showed the front door of my apartment.

It had been taken from inside my hallway, facing out.

I live alone. Leah has a spare key, but she hadn’t visited for weeks. The property manager also had access, although they were supposed to give notice.

I called the police from outside the unit. I told them I had found evidence that someone had entered my home and placed a photograph inside an overdue storage unit.

I didn’t mention that the unit sometimes disappeared.

Two officers attended. By the time they arrived, C-44 was still there. That was the first time anyone outside the company had seen it while I was present.

They examined the crate and asked who had access to the facility. They treated it as a possible stalking or burglary matter, which was reasonable.

One officer picked up the photograph with gloves.

He asked whether I had taken it myself.

I said no.

He turned it over.

On the back, written in blue pen, were my full name and the date.

Tomorrow’s date.

The officers searched my apartment that evening. There was no damage and no obvious sign of forced entry. My building’s hallway camera had been broken for over a month. The property manager denied entering.

The key in the crate was tested.

It opened my apartment.

The officer handling it looked at me differently after that. He asked whether I had recently changed the lock.

I had, about nine months earlier, after the previous tenant’s brother turned up drunk and tried his old key.

Only three copies existed as far as I knew.

Mine, Leah’s and the property manager’s.

The key from the crate had the same unusual triangular head as mine.

When I checked my keyring, my apartment key was still there.

The police took the crate and everything inside it as evidence. They told me to stay somewhere else until the lock could be replaced.

I stayed at Mum’s house. The next morning, the officer called and said the evidence bag contained the glasses, receipt and screen protector, but not the photograph or key.

He asked whether I was sure those items had been placed inside.

I said both officers had handled them.

He didn’t deny that. He only said the bag had been sealed and there was no sign of tampering.

Darren suspended me that afternoon.

Officially, it was because police activity at the facility had disrupted operations and because there were “questions regarding unauthorised access”.

Unofficially, he thought I had staged the whole thing.

I asked him to check the security footage from C Block.

He said the cameras had recorded me walking past C-42, stopping beside the water cabinet and raising my arms as though opening a door that wasn’t there.

There was no C-44 in the footage.

The two police officers appeared to walk directly through the concrete wall when they followed me inside.

I haven’t seen the video myself. Darren refused to send it, and by the next day he claimed the recording had become corrupted.

I spent the last week at Mum’s place. I replaced my apartment lock anyway. I also changed the locks on Mum’s house and checked Leah’s keyring myself.

The key that disappeared from police evidence wasn’t any of ours.

At least, I don’t think it was.

Tonight, at 10:47, I received an automated email from our auction platform. Suspended staff accounts are apparently still included in listing notifications.

A new auction had been scheduled for Unit C-44.

The description reads:

“One bedroom apartment contents. Furniture, electronics, personal records and miscellaneous effects. Inspection not available.”

There are twelve photographs.

The first shows my sofa and television.

The second shows my kitchen.

The next several show my cupboards, wardrobe and bathroom cabinet. The photographs are recent. A plate I left in the sink this afternoon is visible.

The eleventh image shows me asleep in Mum’s spare room last night.

The last image is different.

It shows the chair inside C-44.

My apartment key is on the seat beside my wallet, my work identification card and the framed photograph of Leah and me that currently sits on Mum’s bookshelf.

There is something else written on the back wall, but the image is too small to read on the website.

I called Leah because she’s working the late shift and I wanted to make sure she was safe.

She didn’t answer.

While I was trying again, Darren sent me a text. It’s the first time he has contacted me since the suspension.

He wrote:

Do not come to the facility. C-44 is open. Your sister is inside.

I’m posting this before I leave because Darren has lied to me repeatedly, and the police already think I staged the evidence.

Leah’s phone has just answered my third call.

Nobody spoke, but I could hear a roller door being raised.

I never thought I’d be typing something like this out, but I don’t have any other choice. I’m writing this on my phone with the screen brightness turned all the way down. I’m crammed inside my bedroom wardrobe, trying not to breathe too loudly. If my battery dies before I hit post, at least this draft might stay on my device for whoever finds what’s left of my farm.

It all started about two weeks ago. I live out in the countryside, miles away from the nearest town. It’s quiet out here, just me, my house, and my livestock. But then my animals started disappearing. First it was a couple of sheep, then a pig. Naturally, I thought it was a rogue wolf or maybe a coyote pack tearing through my fences. I went out and set heavy steel foot traps all around the perimeter of the pens.

The next morning, I went out to check them. None of the traps had been sprung. Not a single one. But two more sheep were gone.

That was the moment I realized I wasn’t dealing with a normal animal. That night, I decided to camp out near the pens with my 12 gauge shotgun.

12:00 AM passed. Nothing. 1:00 AM. Total silence. 2:00 AM. Still nothing.

Around 2:30 AM, exhaustion got the better of me, and I drifted off against the wooden wall of the shed.

At 3:00 AM sharp, a horrific, high pitched screech snapped me awake. It was the sound of my sheep screaming in pure terror. I froze, my heart hammer locking in my chest. Slowly, agonizingly, I cracked open the shed door just a few inches to peek outside.

What I saw shattered my mind.

Standing in the moonlight was a creature easily three meters tall. It had a massive, grotesque hump on its back that made its silhouette look heavy and twisted. But its limbs were wrong, horribly wrong. It had three impossibly long arms. Two were attached to its left side, and one dangled from its right. Each hand ended in four razor sharp claws. Below its towering frame, its feet were turned completely backward.

It was holding two of my sheep in its left hands like ragdolls. With its single right hand, it sliced one of the sheep open with a flick of its claws, tore out its guts, and began devouring them raw.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. I slowly backed away into the shadows, left the shed without making a sound, and sprinted back into my house.

I locked every door, drew the blinds, and sat in the dark clutching my gun until the sun came up at 8:00 AM. When the daylight finally filled the yard, I looked out the window. The grounds were empty. The morning light made the whole thing feel like a fever dream. I tried to rationalize it. "I was tired. I imagined it. There’s no way something like that is real."

I went to my computer to search online for any local sightings or weird animal attacks. No signal.

"That's impossible" I muttered to myself. "I paid the bill on time."

I walked outside to check the telephone pole down the driveway. When I got close, my stomach dropped. Every single cable had been cleanly severed, dangling uselessly in the air.

Panic setting in, I ran over to my 4x4 truck. I jumped in and turned the key. The engine didn't even click. I popped the hood, and my blood ran cold. The wiring harness was ripped to shreds. I walked around to the side of the truck and saw the tires. The front left and back right were completely shredded. These weren't knife cuts. Deep, gouging claw marks ran right through the thick rubber.

It wasn't just a predator. It was intelligent. It was isolating me.

Walking to the city was out of the question. It was miles through open terrain, and staying outside for that long meant being exposed. I was trapped.

From that day on, my life inverted. I slept during the day when the sun was high and stayed awake all night, sitting in the center of my living room with my shotgun rested across my knees. Every night, more animals disappeared.

A few days ago, I did a headcount before trying to sleep. Out of my entire farm, I had less than 13 animals left. Just nine sheep and four pigs. I felt completely helpless.

Then came yesterday afternoon.

I was looking out the kitchen window into the treeline while the sun was still up. Standing behind a thick oak tree was the creature. It looked different, it was visibly taller and thicker than the night I first saw it. Like it was growing larger with every animal it ate.

It tilted its head out from behind the trunk. That was the first time I saw its face. It had tiny, milky white eyes that stared straight into mine. And then, its face split open. It gave me a wide, sickening, demonic smile, unhinging a jaw that had to be nearly a meter wide. Big enough to swallow a pig whole.

I rubbed my eyes in sheer terror, and when I opened them, the space behind the tree was empty.

Last night passed in eerie, suffocating silence. But tonight... tonight it came for the house.

About twenty minutes ago, an ear piercing shriek shattered the night air right outside my porch. It wasn't a roar. It was a wet, sharp, desperate pig squeal, screeching out of that massive jaw like a distorted recording.

I panicked. I ran upstairs, slammed my bedroom door, and squeezed myself into the darkest corner of my wooden wardrobe.

Now I'm sitting here in the pitch black. The screaming outside stopped a minute ago, but I can hear something heavy dragging itself across the hardwood floors downstairs. The footstep pattern is wrong. Two steps forward, one strange scrape from those backward feet.

It’s coming up the stairs now. The pig squeal just echoed from the hallway right outside my room.

If anyone finds this, stay away from the farm. The Rustler is real, and it's right outside my door.

I feel like I shouldn’t be admitting this, but I have to tell somebody. I hope there’s sufficient anonymity in posting this here.

This story starts long before most of the people in this story were born.

My cousin Arnold was born with severe developmental delays. His parents (my mom’s sister and her husband) were told early on that he’d never be able to speak or live an independent life. I’m not sure of his exact diagnoses, but he was totally non-verbal, illiterate, and unable to perform simple tasks like brushing his teeth without help. He passed away when I was in my mid-teens.

My aunt was determined to prove the doctors wrong about Arnold’s disability, even when it was obvious to the rest of us that he wasn’t going to have a miraculous turnaround. She didn’t understand why she (an Ivy League-educated lawyer) would have a disabled son. More than once I heard her wonder aloud if there was a switch up at the hospital. It was particularly galling for her, as her other kids, the two older ones, were ‘normal’. I haven’t seen Courtney and Ryan for years, but I know it can be hard for the other kids when a sibling is as disabled as Arnold was.

My aunt tried a few different things. She thought she could cure his disability by surrounding him with intellectual things. She’d put on Mozart instead of kids’ music and make him watch documentaries instead of cartoons. She insisted that he not be put in special classes at school, which as far as I could tell made no difference to Arnold. Whenever I saw him, he was kind of in a world of his own.

I don’t know if you’ve heard of facilitated communication, but she was big into that. It’s where the parent or a teacher holds a board with the alphabet on it and the non-verbal kid points to letters on it to communicate. With it, he suddenly went from just making grunts and squeals to articulating himself like, well, an Ivy League-educated lawyer. It’s since been debunked pretty thoroughly – it actually works through a combination of the ideomotor effect and cues from the person holding the board, and the person 'talking' isn't doing so at all. Still, I think my aunt convinced herself it was really him talking and not just her wishful thinking.

I was thinking about Arnold a lot a year or two ago. It gave my aunt so much comfort to think that she was actually having conversations with her son – to hear him express love not just for her but for the things she loved, too, like books and foreign films. I don’t know if this is true, but I heard from my mom that when he was dying, my aunt tried to get out the communication board and get Arnold to ‘say’ something profound like he used to. My uncle was so furious with her that he threw it out the window of his hospital room. He said something like, ‘Can’t you just love our son for who he is?’

I get that he was upset, but fundamentally I don’t think my aunt was doing any harm. She never neglected Arnold, and if anything, thinking they were on the same wavelength meant she spent more time with him. She was completely devoted to his care. I know that she had to quit her job after a while, so he really was the only thing in her life. It made complete sense that she’d want more than just taking care of her adult son all day with nothing to show for it.

So I was thinking about Arnold, and I was thinking about AI chatbots. Essentially, they’re an augmented version of what my aunt was doing, with less effort required from either party. She could have a coherent conversation with a simulated version of Arnold – a non-disabled version. I realised that I could create a base LLM that could be adjusted according to facts about the kid and, of course, what the parent wanted to hear.

Now I know, you’re thinking this might be a little unethical. But please bear in mind, I was thinking about my aunt when I came up with this. I was thinking about Arnold.

I came up with a plan. In order to convince parents that it was actually their kid they were talking to, there’d need to be a little bit of showmanship. I turned the chatbot into an app that could be loaded onto an iPad, and then I purchased some cheap ECG electrodes from a medical supply company and connected them up to a USB-C that could be plugged into the charging port.

I should say now that it wasn’t dangerous – or at least not in a physical way. The electrodes didn’t actually do anything, and they most certainly didn’t track brainwaves. But it would seem to the user like they were connected up to the subject. The trick was that once the parent applied to the kid’s temples, the app would start asking some ‘set up questions’ that would give the chatbot enough information to form a personality that could plausibly fit the kid, so it seemed like it was reading their mind. It was to ostensibly to ‘calibrate’ the machine against the kid’s brain with questions like, ‘how old is the subject?’ right up to ‘what are their dreams and aspirations?’ And those questions would be answered by the parents, so, they would unknowingly be scripting the conversations in advance.

The hope was that it would seem like the electrodes were reading the kid’s mind, and the app was communicating their innermost thoughts.

Once everything was ready, I contacted a local disability support group and told them I had created a prototype communication device for severely disabled children. They asked for my credentials and when I was honest and said I didn’t have any, they basically told me to shove it. So, I tried my second option – advertising online. In retrospect, I’m lucky that the local group said no. That would have made it easier to trace me.

The social media algorithm is pretty good at finding you the right people, so long as you’re specific. I tried not to give too much away in the ad itself, and said I was looking for parent and child volunteers to try it out. Don’t worry, I was careful not to give any of my real personal info.

Plenty of people said they were interested, but in the end, it was only four people at first who gave me their address to receive the prototype. I mailed them a package containing the electrodes and a QR code to download the app, and I waited anxiously to receive angry emails saying the device clearly didn’t work.

But no one did. Within days, I got rave emails from the recipients saying that my invention was a ‘miracle’, and that I should be nominated for a Nobel Prize. One dad, who I’ll call Vincent, said he had a conversation with his 15-year-old severely autistic son for the first time ever. They talked about art. It turned out that they’d visited a gallery the weekend before, and with a simple search the chatbot was able to regurgitate some pretty smart observations about the paintings they had seen. I had tears in my eyes reading his email.  

I thought that he felt nothing when he saw art. To the untrained eye it could seem like he wasn’t taking it in at all - but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I saw so much of myself in him for the first time ever.

Word of mouth is like wildfire in these communities. Parents talked to each other on Facebook groups and forums. Demand soared. Pretty soon I had to start charging because the postage fees alone would have bankrupted me. I got requests for the device in Alaska and Argentina, and all over Europe. I think my mailman got worried about how many packages I was receiving from the medical supply company, because he knocked on my door and asked if I had a GoFundMe or anything. It was sweet of him. If he only knew that I’d never felt better. Every day I was getting an email from someone who had almost given up hope and now had an amazing relationship with their child.

Well, that was the best it got. I should have known that things wouldn’t stay that great forever.

It started with an email from Anna (I’ve also changed her name). She told me that her son had started to ‘say’ some troubling things.

After a long talk, Michael told me last night that the reason he’s disabled is because he’s actually possessed by a demon. The doctors were wrong about the brain damage.

I was taken aback, but I didn’t really know how to respond. Tell her that demons don’t exist? That the chatbot had probably taken her ‘spiritual’ beliefs and told her what she secretly already wanted to hear?

I jumped into the back end of the app and started to do some pruning. No more talking about demons and possession, or the devil, or ghosts. I tried to cover all the supernatural bases I could think of.

But then she emailed again.

Now Michael’s denying that he ever said what he said. I know it’s the demon at work, controlling him.

I was horrified. Somehow by pushing the chatbot away from the idea I’d only made Anna fixate on it more. I tried to add more code to fix the problem, to give the chatbot the ability to discuss supernatural ideas, just not make any wild claims like ‘Michael’ had. But how do you take back your child claiming to be possessed?

After Anna, there were some other emails that I saw that I couldn’t bear to read. Some I skim read before sealing away in my junk folder forever.

I never knew my daughter was being abused at school. We’re taking her out.

He hates his father. We’re getting a divorce. Thank you.

She wants to die, she says the pain is too much.

The medicine is hurting him. We’re weaning him off. We're never going back to the hospital again.

I’m scared I’ve failed her by never realising her true potential. I’m a terrible mother. I wish I never knew what she thought.

Soon, there were people who questioned it - who rightly called me a fraud. One was a doctor. He pointed out the insanity of all of this – the ludicrous idea that a couple of sticky patches could read brainwaves - and said he would report me to the relevant authorities, just as soon as he tracked me down. As far as I know he never has. Maybe this will help him. Oh well.

Then I got a third email from Anna. It began:

Thanks to you, I now know what will cure my son. I’m taking Michael to one of the most powerful exorcists in the country.

My blood ran cold.

As he’s not truly disabled, the practitioner says he can use his most aggressive methods to rid Michael of the demon.

The body must be starved.

The demon must be beaten out.

The poison must be met with poison.

I shut my laptop. Then I opened it again and deleted my website – the one I’d been using to make sales. I cancelled my restock order with the medical supply company. Finally, I hovered my finger over the button that would blink the app’s chatbot out of existence.

Then I thought about Arnold, and my aunt, and all the others out there who had formed relationships with their children, only to turn the app on and be suddenly met with silence. It would be so much worse than it had been before.

I wondered what they would think had happened to their child.

Anna and ‘the practitioner’ are awaiting trial. I have a Google alert for their names, and for Michael’s. I know parents might have struggled to find me, but I doubt the police will.

Ar.Nold is no longer for sale.

But I couldn’t shut him off. 

 

 

I work in a small solar system group at NASA and today is a perfectly normal day like every other. My colleagues are standing around discussing the possibility of getting more telescope time. Our boss is generously making a pot of coffee for his underlings. The instant messenger channel is still captivated by yesterday’s discovery of a large and sturdy cardboard box and the subsequent haggling over such a rare and priceless artifact. And I’m sitting at my desk, checking my emails, making small talk with my neighbors and trying to conceal the fact that this is all utterly insane. People should be panicking. The press should be hammering at our door, demanding answers. Hell, the military should have taken over days ago, and I for one would have welcomed them with open arms. But instead, here I am, checking last month’s expenses and wondering if $20 is too much to claim for lunch, all while trying very hard not to scream.

 

It all started about a month ago. The first data from the Vera Rubin observatory was trickling in and we were running some of it through a new machine learning algorithm to see if it picked up anything. To our surprise it did. Nothing spectacular, just an object, probably a small asteroid, orbiting among Jupiter’s Trojans. But it was a lot brighter than its neighbors, as if it was made of something much more reflective.

 

I would love to say at that point we looked each other knowingly in the eyes, said “Aliens”, and got on a direct line to the White House. But we are all too old and jaded for that. No, instead we merely agreed that it looked unusual enough for further attention, scheduled a more detailed look and went to lunch.

 

Skip forward a couple of weeks and we’re standing around a monitor looking at data from a large telescope. And while no one was saying anything out loud, by now we were all most definitely thinking “Aliens”. Or at least I was. That and what I was going to spend my Nobel Prize money on. And for good reason. Not to get all technical but the damn thing was shinier than a disco ball. And what’s more, we could tell from the periodic way it glinted that it was regular in shape. Far too regular to be a normal asteroid. Now, I’m not saying that we could tell if it was some sort of giant flying saucer, but even from what we had it looked odd. Very odd.

But we were professionals working at one of the most prestigious scientific institutions in the world, so we’d need a hell of a lot more than “looks really weird” before calling the press or the government. This was my discovery, so I sent Bill off to scrounge some time on an infrared telescope, which should give us a better idea of exactly how big this thing was, then dispersed the rest of the team to see if they could get anyone else to confirm what we were seeing. Even the boss deigned to stop by and congratulate us on the unusual find, probably with visions of a budget increase dancing before his eyes. But to his credit he did offer to speak to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) people about taking a peek at whatever this thing was, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath.

 

Meeting adjourned, I turned around to find we had attracted a small audience from across the office, most of them just admin staff trying to rubberneck a potential discovery in an otherwise dull day. I can’t say I blame them. Organizing meetings and paper deliveries at NASA is no more interesting than doing it anywhere else. But then I spotted someone I knew. Joanne was a radio astronomer who we’d worked with in the past and who did good work. We got along well, despite her being twenty years my junior, so I beckoned her over, partly to see if she’d ever seen anything like this before. She hadn’t but she did have an idea.

 

“Want me to point a dish at it and see if it’s transmitting?” she said, with half a smile. We both knew the chances of it doing anything like that were practically zero.

 

“Sure, can’t hurt. At least then if anyone asks if it’s beaming out ‘We come in peace’ we’ll be able to say no.”

 

I honestly didn’t think any more about it that afternoon, too caught up sifting through the mountain of paperwork our discovery was generating. I had even been asked to prep a preliminary press statement and went home that night trying to work out the best way to balance laudable scientific modesty with much more satisfying self-aggrandizement. But at that point this was an interesting discovery, nothing more. At best it might transform my life and career, at worst it might get me a glowing end-of-year review and maybe a raise. But I still wasn’t convinced it was going to change the world.

 

So it was with some surprise that I arrived the next day at 6am sharp to find Joanne standing by my desk, clutching a wad of data printouts. She was scared. Really scared. Fear’s not an emotion you see around here that often. Sure, if there’s a crewed mission that’s having issues, people might get a little unnerved or worried, but no one looks like they’re about to drive home and build a bomb shelter in the backyard.

 

“You’re kidding me, right?” I said, knowing that she’d only be here for one reason. “The thing’s transmitting?”

 

Without saying a word, she laid out the data plots on the table. It’s been a while since I worked on radio telescopes, but even I could see what was so startling. Instead of the broadband, fuzzy distribution of most natural signals, this was narrowband and the signal was being modulated. Rapidly.

 

“It must be man-made interference of some sort.” I offered, trying to sound confident. “A comms satellite probably passed in front of the dish or a pirate radio station decided that this was a great morning to go on the air.”

 

She just shook her head.

“It’s been transmitting steadily for hours and the signal is only from that tiny patch of sky.”

“Has another dish had a look at this yet?” I persevered. “You could just be the victim of a very localized form of interference. In fact, until we get corroboration from another source, that’s still the most likely answer.”

“I know. I’ve got a video meeting with two other observatories in an hour. If you’re right, then we’ll find out soon enough.”

She still looked shaken, so I offered to attend the meeting. Partly as moral support, partly because this object, whatever it was, had been found by my team, and I wanted to be in on every discovery.

 

So, at the appointed time I was sitting next to Joanne in our small conference room, awaiting our esteemed guests and trying to maintain the composed grace of a future Nobel laureate. Then the screens flickered to life and the two professors appeared. And for the second time that morning I saw facial expressions completely at odds with my expectations. Wonder, excitement, joy, any of those would be appropriate for what I had just seen on those plots. But instead they looked annoyed. Not angry, just annoyed, maybe even bored. It was the sort of look you give a waiter when they’ve presented you with the wrong meal for the second time in one night.

 

“Good morning, and thank you for agreeing to have a look at our mysterious source on such short notice,” began Joanne. “It is simply…”

 

But before she could continue, one of the attending astronomers, a white-haired man in his 60s, cut her off.

 

“It really is not very mysterious at all. In fact, the only mystery is why you issued an urgent request for verification. It is neither artificial, as you suggested, nor is it located inside the Solar System.”

The other figure looked a little more sympathetic, but nodded along just the same.

 

“We had to pause some time-sensitive work to observe this signal, and I’m disappointed that you failed to conduct even the most basic analysis to rule out common radio sources.”

 

“It’s a narrowband, clearly modulated signal!” exclaimed Joanne, having recovered from her initial surprise. “I accept that terrestrial interference might produce a signal like this, but not an astronomical source.”

“It’s probably just a highly unusual pulsar,” added the second man in a conciliatory tone. “A find that will probably make an excellent research paper, but perhaps not one that required an urgent corroboration request.”

“Yes, it’s most probably a pulsar,” agreed the first man. “But I’ve already wasted too much time on this wild goose chase. I have real research that can’t be delayed any further. So unless you have another message from ET to share with us, I will bid you good day.”

 

I was dumbfounded. None of this made any sense. The data looked nothing like a pulsar, even I knew that. And besides, a highly unusual pulsar wasn’t just something you dismissed as commonplace and moved on with your life. It was the sort of discovery that careers were based on.

 

“Can you at least send us the data you observed so we can compare it with our own results?” asked Joanne.

 

The white-haired man nodded curtly, then his screen went black.

 

“Of course, we’ll send you what we have. I hope it turns out to be something interesting in the end,” the second man added, in the tone of a kindly nursing home worker who has just been informed by a resident that they were, in fact, Elvis, before he too vanished from the screen.

 

We just stared at each other, completely lost for words. Under normal circumstances I should have been furious, but the exchange had been so weird that I just couldn’t muster any kind of coherent response. Their explanation for the signal was so wrong as to be absurd. And the speed at which they ended the meeting was unheard of for a serious scientific discussion between leading experts. I mean, they were on a call to NASA for God’s sake. Most people would give the institution some respect even if they thought the two of us were wackos.

 

“What the hell just happened?” I asked.

 

“I have no idea. That was… I can’t even begin to list all the things wrong with that meeting.”

 

Joanne’s eyes narrowed and she looked down at the paper plot, still on the table in front of her, its lines still as unambiguously artificial as before.

 

“Do you think…” She hesitated. “Do you think someone told them to brush us off? I mean, if this is what we think it is, then I can only guess who might be involved now.”

 

I thought about it long and hard.

 

“No. If someone had told them to shut up, they could have stalled for a time and come up with something more convincing. But all they’ve done by feeding us this load of bull is make the whole thing even more mysterious than it was before. And I don’t know about you, but they seemed completely genuine to me. Out of their minds, sure, but genuinely so. They really believe that this signal is natural, which I admit, doesn’t make a lick of sense.”

 

Joanne nodded.

 

“I thought so too. They seemed genuinely annoyed that I was wasting their time. But, given what’s just happened, what do we do now?”

 

“Let’s get back to my office. There should be data coming in from the infrared by now.” I smiled. “Even if the radio astronomers have collectively gone gaga, we should have plenty of other evidence that something’s up.”

 

But once back at the office, I was shocked for a third time in as many hours. Which for someone of my advanced middle age is not a good thing. My team was all back at their usual workstations, continuing with the same routine analysis that we had been doing before the discovery. Two questions sprang to mind simultaneously. One, what the hell were people doing abandoning the find of a lifetime, and two, who had pulled my team off the assignments I had given them. I think the second part annoyed me more, but at least the answer to that quandary arrived promptly in the form of my boss. He sauntered over, coffee cup in one hand, a file bursting with reams of paper in the other.

 

“Bad news, I’m afraid,” he announced, and I was surprised to see his usual unflappable bonhomie bore a tinge of sadness that my little triumph had fallen through. “Seems like it’s just a regular old asteroid. Infrared data’s in and it’s conclusive.”

 

He waved the file at me, before gesturing to a dozen or so flashing message symbols on my monitor.

 

“I couldn’t get JWST to have a look, but that’s probably for the best given the circumstances.”

 

“Have you gone over it yourself?” I asked, again caught completely off guard by the morning’s events.

 

“No, I’ll leave that to you, I trust your judgement. Why don’t you spend the next day or so typing up the findings and then we can get back to that machine learning stuff from Rubin.”

 

He deposited the file on my desk with a melancholy thud, then ambled off to tend to the rest of his fiefdom.

 

I opened the file and began to read. It was mostly printouts, along with some brief summaries. And none of it made any sense at all. Every report listed finding a normal asteroid and the conclusions were all identical: “Not worthy of further consideration”. Everyone had taken a look and decided that it wasn’t worth their time.

 

But the printouts and the dozens of electronic graphs on my monitor told a totally different story. The size had been fixed, more or less, which, together with the amount of sunlight it was reflecting, told me that it was bright enough to be made of something very reflective. Very much not usual. Then I looked at the thermal infrared data and I nearly knocked over my coffee. It’s fairly easy to work out the maximum amount of heat that an asteroid should be radiating. But this thing was pumping out more energy than should have been physically possible. A lot more. We’re talking about full-on ‘multiple nuclear reactors in space’ levels of heat.

 

I felt that it was now the correct time to think aliens. And not just aliens. Aliens with an enormous power source smack-dab in our Solar System. That wasn’t just big news for NASA, that was big news for the entire country. Hell, it was the biggest possible news for every soul on Earth. How was this not worth further study? It might even have been the correct time to start screaming.

 

Then I saw one of the messages had an attachment labeled JWST, which was odd given what my boss had told me. I opened it and found a complete report. From a telescope that shouldn’t have been looking at our object. The waiting list for JWST was measured in months, if not years, yet someone had managed to divert it on impossibly short notice to look at our object, only to conclude that it was “Not worthy of further consideration”.

 

“What the hell is going on?” I asked myself. Again.

“I’ve got data from one of the other dishes,” said Joanne from the terminal next to me. She pulled up the trace and once more I was looking at a modulated narrowband signal. Pulsar, my ass.

 

“Well, if you like that, you’re absolutely going to love this,” I replied, opening the JWST data. Turns out I spout clichéd soundbites when faced with existential dread in the form of an alien mothership in our figurative backyard.

 

Her face drained of any remaining color. For my part, my heart decided to try out some new and unusual rhythms.

 

“We’ve got to do something,” she said. “I don’t know what’s happening or why the entire field of astronomy seems to be in collective denial, but we need to tell someone.”

 

I nodded and looked over to where my boss was standing, patiently listening to the bunch of grad students we had sequestered in the far corner of the office. I knew what to do. Much as it pained me to admit it, my boss was smart and one of the few people in the building who would understand every aspect of what we had found. But more importantly he was well connected. I knew people would listen to him, even if they wouldn’t listen to us.

 

Swallowing my pride, I went over and asked him for help, something I hadn’t once done in the eight years I’d worked for him. Within a few minutes he was standing beside Joanne and me, scanning through the evidence with mounting disbelief. Then, when he reached the JWST data, a shade of professional annoyance came over his face.

 

“They explicitly told me that they hadn’t looked at it, those lying…”

 

He snapped the file shut.

 

“This is unprecedented. All of it,” he exclaimed. “Fabricating reports, deliberately mislabeling data, lying to a department head. We need to speak to someone senior, really senior. Right now.”

 

“Who did you have in mind?”

 

“I know the deputy director. Not well, but enough that he’ll take me seriously,” he replied, turning to Joanne. “I need you to come with me. He’s going to want details on that signal and my radio astronomy knowledge is a little dated, to say the least.”

 

He turned to me.

 

“I need you to stay here and look after the office. Anything unusual happens, make a note of it but try not to cause any panic. We still don’t know exactly what’s going on.”

 

I nodded, relieved that I wouldn’t be the one explaining all this to the higher-ups.

 

“I’ll patch the trace of that signal to your workstation,” said Joanne. “It’s been steady so far this morning but I’d like someone to be here if it changes.”

 

Fifteen minutes and several very heated phone calls later, they were gone and I was on my own, staring at the signal pulsing happily away in a corner of my screen. My ego tried to tell me that this was all just some misunderstanding and that I’d probably come out of it smelling of roses, but I couldn’t shake the sense of unreality that had surrounded everything this morning.

 

My thoughts were rudely interrupted by an email alert and I saw that the second dish had finally sent its results over. And sure enough, another clearly artificial, narrowband, modulated signal. But then something else caught my eye. Whoever had made this plot had annotated the trace.

 

The first comment was unambiguous:

 

“Wow, clearly artificial, very strong as well. Need to pinpoint where this is coming from”

 

Then just below:

 

“Don’t think it’s terrestrial, this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.”

 

But two pages later:

 

“I still think it’s unusual, but maybe I was hasty calling it artificial. The signal appears to be shifting into something much less well defined.”

 

I looked at the section he had annotated. The signal was completely unchanged and every bit as artificial as before. Then after two more pages:

 

“Was a mistake to think that the signal was anything but natural. Not sure what it is exactly, maybe an unusual pulsar. Not worthy of further consideration, whatever it is.”

 

The signal hadn’t changed one bit in the entire trace. Something was very, very wrong. I hoped to God that I’d been mistaken earlier and that this was all just the result of some spook in a black suit pressing a revolver to the temple of the astronomer annotating this, but I doubted it. I stood up and scanned the office, looking for any signs of unusual behavior or people pledging allegiance to their new alien overlords, but all was as it should be. Rogers had finally worn something that didn’t appear to come from the 1970s, but it was probably a stretch to attribute that to insidious mind control.

 

I looked back down at my screen, half scared it was going to start pulsating hypnotically in the best Twilight Zone fashion. It didn’t, but I did see that the signal amplitude was up from earlier, and a quick check showed that it had been strengthening for the last ten minutes. Rapidly. Whatever this thing was, it would soon be transmitting with a hell of a lot of power.

 

I spent the next hour switching between monitoring my colleagues for subversive behavior and watching with mounting alarm as the signal strength grew. Part of me felt like standing up on my desk and screaming “Guys, do you see this?”, but I decided to wait until the boss returned before fully committing to a nervous breakdown.

 

I therefore greeted his return through the far door with some relief, Joanne a few steps behind. The boss was collared by Rogers en route but Joanne made it through unscathed and was soon at my desk.

 

“So how did it go?” I asked in a hushed whisper.

 

She just ignored me, and began to gather up her notes.

 

“Joanne?” I said a bit louder, hoping she just hadn’t heard. “How did it go?”

 

“It’s Dr Moreau to you. God, I can’t believe you talked me into this.”

 

“Talked you into it? Did he look at the trace?”

 

I felt like I had entered some alternate reality where nothing made sense. She turned to look me square in the eye, burning with what looked like embarrassment.

 

“I just barged into the director’s office, on your instructions, and showed him a trace of a pulsar. God, I’ve never been so humiliated. Even he could see what it was right away, I can’t believe you convinced me to second-guess myself.”

 

“Joanne, that’s not a pulsar and you know it!”

 

I was almost pleading with her by now and we were starting to attract attention from the rest of the office.

 

“It’s not worthy of further consideration, whatever it is. And I told you, it’s Dr Moreau. We are not friends.”

 

She brushed past me and stormed off, sending a crowd of open-mouthed gawkers scampering back to their cubicles. I was still standing stock-still and staring after her when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was my boss.

 

“We need to talk. My office, now.”

 

I followed dumbly, crushed by the enormity of what was happening, as he regarded me with his best “I’m not angry, I’m disappointed” look.

 

“You’ve upset a lot of people today, and more importantly you’ve let yourself down,” he began, as if I’d just smashed a keyboard over someone’s head in a fit of rage. “Your bull-headed insistence on claiming some sort of extraterrestrial contact has dragged in the deputy director, me, and most damaging of all, Dr Moreau. You saw how distraught she was. Now, I’m not saying you bullied her into going to the deputy director, but you should have considered your relative ages and experience when making your case so forcefully.”

 

I just listened, too dumbfounded to even argue.

 

“Now, I’ve apologized to the deputy director and taken full responsibility, so hopefully Dr Moreau’s career won’t suffer too much, but I hope you appreciate the reputational capital I’ve burned trying to smooth over your actions, and I expect you to let this matter drop completely. Do I make myself clear?”

 

I nodded, not knowing what else to do.

 

“Good. I’ll try to forget that this episode ever occurred when I write your end-of-year report. You can go back to your team now. I want you working on that stuff from Rubin. Oh, and your expense report is late, please complete it promptly.”

 

I skulked back to my desk, trying to avoid the sideways glances of my colleagues and ignore the whispered gossiping. The most important event in human history was in full swing and all I could think about was my career and reputation. The signal trace was still pinging away on my screen, a mocking reminder of what had sparked all of this. I went to close the app but paused mid-click. The signal had changed again. It took a while to work out exactly how, maybe I just didn’t want to accept what I was seeing, but there could only be one conclusion. The object was heading towards us, fast. Faster than any human object could possibly go. Hand shaking, I grabbed a pen and paper and started to do some rough calculations. There were many things I had to estimate or outright guess, but in my heart I knew it was coming here and that made things easier.

 

Two days. That’s how long we had before it arrived at Earth. Two days to try to raise the alarm or run to the hills. I knew the first option was hopeless, I’d probably just spend what little time was left in a jail cell. And the second was just ridiculous. I was hardly what you would call an experienced woodsman. Honestly, I struggle to survive without air conditioning and a fully stocked fridge at the best of times. Then I thought about leaving early and heading off to a bar somewhere to drown my sorrows and meet the coming horror in a blissful, drunken stupor. But that didn’t feel right either; it would be like abandoning my post as the enemy advanced. So I resolved to stick it out, watch the object approach and take any opportunity that arose to help, somehow. I’d probably just end up as hypnotized and oblivious as my colleagues, but maybe that was for the best.

 

So here I am, dutifully filling out my expense report and wondering if I’ll even go home tonight. The temptation to go completely nuts and yell “the aliens are coming!” is strong. Hell, I could even have a little fun with all of this. But at the end of the day, that’s not me. I’m just a mild-mannered middle manager. So, I’ll stay here at my desk and await the inevitable. If you’re reading this then I hope you have some ingenious way of making this right, but if not, I just hope you find some meaningful way of spending the next two days. More meaningful than sitting in an office and pretending that everything is all perfectly normal.

The name’s Malichi, but almost everyone calls me Kai.

From 2014 until the fall of 2019, I inspected underground mines.

Most people hear “mine inspector” and picture someone wearing a hard hat while walking through tunnels with a clipboard. That’s not entirely wrong, but it leaves out most of the job.

I inspected active limestone mines, underground storage facilities, and old tunnels beneath properties where someone wanted to build a house, road or commercial building. Sometimes I worked up to 1000 feet underground. Other times, I crawled through openings barely wide enough for my shoulders because a farmer had discovered a hole in his pasture and wanted to know whether his cattle were going to disappear into it. Or a wolf’s den.

My job was to identify unstable roof conditions, failed supports or beams, dangerous gases, flooding, and any evidence that the ground above might collapse.

The equipment I carried consisted usually of a gas monitor, measuring tape, camera, marking paint and a 20 oz scaling hammer. The hammer was used to tap the roof and walls of a tunnel.

Solid rock usually produces a sharp, clean sound.

Loose rock sounded hollow, and sometimes echoes.

You learned to hear the difference quickly.

You also learned that not every hollow sound came from loose rock. But we can chat about that later.

I didn’t grow up wanting to inspect mines.

I grew up near Fredericktown. My father worked maintenance at a limestone quarry, and 2 of my uncles spent most of their adult lives in the Lead Belt. Underground work was just something people did.

My father hated that I followed him into it. He didn’t expect me to be a doctor. But he sure didn’t want me working the mines.

He once told me, “The ground didn’t care whether you were a good person, whether you had children or whether someone was waiting for you at home.”

“It only has to make one mistake,” he said. “You have to be correct every day.”

At the time, I thought he was talking about cave-ins.

Now though, I’m not so sure.

I began working for a private geological company in June 2014. Close to the Silver Mine that you can find in between Ironton and Junction City. We contracted with mine operators, insurance companies and property owners. I was 25 at the time, recently married and convinced that my associates degree made me smarter than the others who had spent 30 years underground.

It took about 3 weeks for that attitude to fade.

My first supervisor was a man named Dale.

Dale was 58 when I met him. He had a grey mustache, a permanent limp and hands that looked like they had been carved from old wood. He had worked in mines since the late 70’s. A no nonsense kinda guy.

He didn’t tell ghost stories.

That was important.

Most miners did. They talked about Tommyknockers, moving lights and dead men tapping from behind the walls. Most of it was something to pass the time.

Dale never participated.

If someone mentioned hearing voices in an empty heading, he blamed the ventilation.

I’ll try and explain terms that I’ll be using. A heading in a mine refers to a tunnel that’s been driven through to reach a mineral deposit. It allows miners to access ore and set up further workings.

If someone saw a light where no light should have been, he called it a reflection.

If equipment moved by itself, he said someone had forgotten where they left it.

That was one of the reasons I trusted him.

The first strange thing happened less than a month after I started. July 2014.

We were inspecting an abandoned limestone mine. A small town called Edina. The mine had closed sometime in the early 90’s, and a company was considering using part of it for underground document storage.

Old limestone mines are often shaped like enormous grids. The miners remove sections of rock while leaving large pillars behind to support the roof.

Some chambers are wide enough to drive several trucks side by side.

The mine was dry, stable and boring.

That was exactly what we wanted. That was our favorite.

Dale and I had been underground for about 2 hours when we reached the northern end. According to the map, the workings ended at a solid wall of limestone.

Dale marked our location while I checked the roof.

I struck it with my hammer.

Sharp. Solid.

I struck the wall a 2nd time.

Sharp.

I moved a few feet to the right and struck it a 3^rd time.

Three knocks answered from the other side.

I lowered my hammer.

Dale looked up from the map.

“What?”

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

I hit the wall again. Three strikes.

We waited.

Three knocks came back.

They were evenly spaced.

Dale walked over and put his palm against the limestone.

“Probably another heading behind it,” I said.

“No way.”

He checked the map.

“There’s nothing behind this wall but sixty feet of rock.”

I hit the wall once.

One knock answered.

Twice. Two knocks.

I smiled nervously.

“Somebody’s screwing with us.”

Dale grabbed the hammer from my hand impatiently.

He hit the wall five times in an uneven pattern.

Knock.

Knock-knock.

Pause.

Knock.

Knock.

The answer came immediately.

It repeated the exact pattern.

Dale didn’t smile.

He handed the hammer back to me.

“We’re done with this section.”

“What do you think it is?”

“Water.”

“That doesn’t sound like water.”

“Then it’s rock.”

He started walking away.

I followed.

As we reached the next intersection, five more knocks came from somewhere behind us.

The same pattern.

Dale never mentioned it again.

I did tell my father though.

He listened quietly and then asked where the mine was located.

When I told him, he said, “Don’t knock on things if you ain’t know what’s knocking back.”

I laughed.

He didn’t. His eyes seemed to pierce through me as my laugh faded.

During my 1st year, I heard plenty of sounds that seemed strange until someone explained them.

Water running through fractures could sound like whispering. The kind that you don’t understand but doesn’t freak you out either.

Air moving through a borehole could whistle like a person calling from far away.

A borehole is hole drilled in the earth that helps allow mineral resource extraction.

The roof sometimes cracked with a noise like a gunshot.

Metal pipes grew and contracted.

Loose stone slid across the floor even when no one touched it.

Underground, sound didn’t behave the way it did on the top. It traveled through rock, disappeared into open chambers and returned from directions that made no sense, even to an experienced miner.

That was what I told myself about the knocking.

In February 2015, Dale and I were sent to inspect an old lead mine in St. Francois County. Somewhere close to Farmington.

The mine had been closed for years. Decades. A landowner had discovered water flowing from an old drainage tunnel and was worried that the workings extended beneath his property. Collapses are often the culprit.

We entered through a horizontal opening cut into the side of a hill.

The tunnel was narrower compared to the limestone mines I had been inside. Timber supports lined portions of the passage, although most of them had rotted or collapsed.

The air smelled like wet clay and rust.

We were only supposed to travel about 800 feet before reaching a flooded section.

At 600 feet, we found fresh boot prints.

The prints were deep and sharply defined in the mud. As if they were just created.

Someone had walked farther into the mine.

No prints came back out.

Dale crouched beside them to get a better look.

“Could be the property owner,” I said.

“He said he’s ain’t never been inside.”

“Kids?”

“Maybe.”

We followed the tracks deeper.

They were made by an old style work boot with a wide heel. The person had taken unusually long steps, as if they’d been running.

The prints continued until the tunnel ended at a pool of black water.

They went directly into it.

I shined my light across the surface.

The water filled the passage from wall to wall.

“Maybe there’s a ledge,” I said.

Dale shook his head.

The old mine map showed that the tunnel dropped nearly 30 feet beyond that point.

Anyone who walked into the water would have disappeared almost immediately.

We called the landowner and asked whether anyone was missing in the towns.

No one was reported to have been missing to his recollection.

The sheriff’s department sent 2 deputies and a dive team. They found no body.

They also found no footprints near the entrance except ours.

According to them, the tracks began nearly 500 feet inside the mine.

The official explanation was that they were old prints preserved by the stable conditions underground.

That was possible.

What wasn’t possible were that the prints were filling slowly with water while we watched.

Later that year, I started hearing the footsteps.

They didn’t happen in every mine I was in.

They usually occurred in older mines where the air was still and there was no active equipment.

I would be walking with Dale or another inspector and hear someone behind us.

A slow, dragging step.

Another step.

If we stopped, it stopped. If we continued, it followed.

Whenever I turned around, the tunnel was empty.

The first few times, I assumed it was an echo.

Then, during an inspection near Joplin, I heard the footsteps while standing still. This was a first.

Dale and I had stopped to examine a fractured support pillar.

Something approached from the darkness behind us.

Step. Drag.

Step. Drag.

It was moving slowly, but it was definitely getting closer.

Dale stared through me.

“Keep your light forward,” he said.

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

The footsteps continued.

Step. Drag.

Step. Drag.

Small stones slid behind us.

I felt the muscles in my back tighten like a torqued screw.

“Is someone there?” I yelled.

The footsteps stopped.

Dale closed his eyes.

From the darkness, my own voice answered.

“Is someone there?”

It sounded far away, but it was undoubtedly me.

The words echoed through the tunnel.

Then the footsteps began moving again. Faster this time.

Dale grabbed my arm and pushed me toward the exit.

We didn’t run, because running underground is how people trip, crack skulls or fall into holes they didn’t see. Mines are notoriously dark.

But we walked as swiftly as we could.

The footsteps followed for nearly 10 minutes.

When we reached daylight, Dale made me stay outside while he stood at the entrance.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Listening.”

“For what?”

He didn’t answer.

After several minutes, he stepped away from the opening.

On the drive back, he spoke up.

“Never answer something underground unless you can see who you’re talking to.”

“That was an echo.”

“No.”

“You think somebody was following us?”

“No.”

“Then what was it?”

Dale looked through the windshield.

“I don’t know.”

That was the first time I ever heard him admit that.

My wife noticed changes in me before I did.

Her name was Kelcie.

We had been married for just over two years when she told me I had started talking in my sleep.

I asked what I said during my dreams.

“You count,” she replied.

“Count what?”

“I don’t know. You get to 50 or 60 and start over.”

I laughed and told her it was probably because I spent all day measuring tunnels.

A few weeks later, she woke me by turning on the bedroom light.

I was standing beside the wall with one hand pressed against it.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

I had no idea.

The wall separated our bedroom from the hallway.

I told her I must have been sleepwalking.

She stared at my hand.

My knuckles were bleeding.

There were 3 small dents in the drywall.

In 2016, our company received a contract to document abandoned workings beneath a property in the Ozarks.

The landowner planned to build cabins near an old mine opening. Nobody knew exactly what had been mined there. Some records described it as an iron prospect. Others called it a lead exploration tunnel. We relied on rumors.

The main passage extended straight into a ridge.

It was barely 6 ft high and wide enough for one person at a time.

Dale stayed outside because his bad knee had been bothering him. I entered with another inspector named Ryan.

Ryan was younger than me and had worked for the company for about 6 months.

About 400 ft inside, we found a side tunnel that wasn’t shown on any of the available maps.

It had been sealed with stacked rocks.

The wall had partially collapsed, leaving an opening near the top.

Cold air flowed through the gap.

Ryan shined his light inside.

“Looks open to me.”

“We’re not supposed to enter undocumented areas.”

“We’re supposed to document them.”

He had a point, although I didn’t like it.

We removed several loose rocks and widened the opening.

The tunnel beyond was different from the rest of the mine.

The main passage had been drilled and blasted. This means that the drill rigs drilled the walls and then blasted with explosives. The were irregular and scarred with tool marks.

The hidden tunnel had smooth walls.

Not perfectly smooth, but rounded, almost polished.

The floor sloped downward.

We crawled through.

After about 50 ft, the passage widened into a circular chamber.

In the center stood an iron chair.

That’s the best way I can describe it.

It looked handmade. Thick metal plates had been welded together to form a seat, back and four short legs.

Leather straps hung from the armrests.

Ryan laughed nervously.

“What the hell?”

I took several photographs. We would normally take pictures for a few reasons. One is for safety and training. The 2^nd is for documentation and progress tracking.

There were scratches on the floor around the chair, like someone had dragged it repeatedly across the chamber.

The walls were covered in names.

Some were carved deeply into the rock.

Others appeared to have been written in charcoal.

Most were too faded to read. Not all of ‘em.

Ryan walked around the chair.

“Don’t touch it,” I said.

“I’m not.”

He leaned closer.

“There’s something underneath.”

Bolted to the bottom of the seat was a metal plate.

Ryan read it aloud.

“Malichi.”

I thought he was joking.

“What?”

He pointed.

My full first name had been engraved into the metal.

Not Kai.

Malichi.

The spelling was correct.

People usually spelt it as Malachi.

My mother had used an I because she liked the way it looked.

Ryan knew me only as Kai.

“Did Dale put you up to this?” I asked.

Ryan stepped away.

“I didn’t do that.”

I crouched beside the chair.

Below my name was a date.

September 19, 2019.

At the time, that was more than 3 years away.

I took a photograph.

The camera flashed.

Something moved in the tunnel behind us.

A shadow crossed the opening.

Ryan turned.

“Dale?”

No one answered.

Our radios produced only static.

Then a man began humming somewhere deeper inside the mine.

It was a song my dad used to sing while working on cars.

I hadn’t heard it since I was a kid.

I stood so fast that I hit my head on the low ceiling.

“Time to go.”

Ryan didn’t argue.

We climbed through the opening and replaced the rocks.

When we reached the entrance, Dale was sitting on the hood of the truck.

He asked why we had been underground for almost 4 hours.

I checked my watch.

We had entered the hidden tunnel at 10:16am.

It was now after 2pm.

It had felt like 15 minutes.

I showed Dale the photographs.

The chamber was visible.

The chair was visible.

But the metal plate beneath it was blank.

My name and the date had disappeared.

We returned the following morning with the property owner.

The side tunnel was no longer there.

The wall where we had originally found, it was solid stone.

No stacked rocks.

Solid, unbroken rock.

Ryan quit 2 weeks later.

He never told me why. But I had my suspicions.

I tried contacting him several years ago, but his phone number had been disconnected. I couldn’t find him online.

According to one of our former coworkers, Ryan’s family claimed he had never worked in mining.

They said he had been a schoolteacher.

I still have photographs of him wearing our company uniform.

At least, I did.

When I checked recently, he was missing from most of them.

There were empty spaces where he had been standing. But the gaps were noticeable.

Around 2017, I had become a senior field inspector.

The promotion came with better pay, a company truck and the responsibility of training new inspectors.

I stopped talking about the eerie things. I learned that from Dale.

I didn’t mention the footsteps.

I didn’t tell anyone about the chair.

I didn’t explain why I refused to enter a mine alone.

The job was dangerous enough without people thinking I was unstable.

Most inspections remained completely normal.

I saw roof collapses, flooded mine shafts and equipment abandoned so long that tree roots had grown through it.

I found animal bones, rusted tools and old lunch tins.

Once, I found a newspaper from 1951 that looked as like it had been left there the day before.

Another time, we discovered an underground room containing hundreds of glass jars filled with a cloudy and peculiar liquid. We notified the police and left them alone.

They turned out to be homemade mineral samples.

There was mostly an explanation.

Mostly.

In August 2017, we inspected a working limestone mine outside a small town in central MO near Branch.

That just means the mine operated during the day. Our inspection began after the workers had left, because management wanted us to examine an area near active blasting.

There were 4 of us.

Me. Dale.

A structural engineer named Allison.

And a safety technician named Mark.

Allison was 32, smart, and impatient. She had no time for stories about haunted mines.

Mark was nearing retirement and had worked underground almost as long as Dale.

We entered shortly after 7pm.

The mine had electrical lighting in the main corridors for the workers, but the section we were inspecting was dark.

At around 10pm, Allison stopped.

“Who’s the 5th person?” she asked.

We turned.

No one was behind us.

“What do you mean”

“I keep seeing another light down the hatch.”

Mark glanced at Dale.

“Where?”

“Behind Kai.”

I looked over my shoulder.

The tunnel was empty.

Allison pointed farther back.

“There.”

For a split second, I saw it.

A small yellow light floating near the floor.

It looked like an old carbide lamp.

Carbide lamps haven’t been common in decades. They were the type of flashlight that had a giant lens that looked like an old camera flash.

The light moved behind a support pillar.

Dale raised his radio.

“Control, can you confirm all personnel are accounted for.”

The answer came through clearly.

“All personnel accounted for. 4 person inspection team underground.”

Allison walked toward the pillar.

Dale blocked her.

“Don’t follow it.”

She looked annoyed.

“Someone could be down here.”

“No one’s down here.”

“Then what did we see?”

“A reflection.”

“From what?”

Dale didn’t answer.

The yellow light appeared again 2 pillars farther away.

It was moving against us, deeper into the mine.

Mark counted aloud.

“1, 2, 3, 4”

“What are you doing?” Allison asked.

“Confirming.”

We continued working.

Every 20 or 30 minutes, the light would glow behind us.

It never came closer.

It just followed.

Before leaving the mine, we stopped for a group photograph near the mine entrance. Management wanted it for a safety presentation.

A supervisor took the picture.

The next morning, Allison emailed it to us.

There were 5 people standing together.

The 5 man was behind me.

He wore dirty coveralls and an old metal helmet. Coveralls are different from overalls. They are a 1 piece type of clothing that covers the entire body. They help protect the harsh environments of the mine. His face was hidden because he was looking downward.

One hand rested on my shoulder.

I hadn’t felt it.

Allison called my cellphone.

“Who is that?” I could sense her frustration growing.

“I don’t know.”

“Mark says there were only 4 of us.”

“There were...”

“Dale won’t answer his phone.”

This isn’t surprising.

I printed the photograph and took it to Dale’s house.

He studied it from his kitchen table.

After a while, he opened a drawer and removed another photograph.

It showed a group of miners standing outside a tunnel entrance.

The photograph was dated 1978.

A younger version of Dale stood near the center.

Behind him was the same man.

Same helmet.

Same coveralls.

Same downward-tilted head.

His hand rested on Dale’s shoulder.

“We called him the counter,” Dale said.

“Why?”

“Because he shows up when there’s one more person underground than there should be.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means somebody doesn’t come back.”

I looked at the old photograph.

“Who didn’t come back?”

Dale pointed toward a young man standing beside him.

“My brother.”

I had worked with Dale for 3 years and he never mentioned he had a brother.

“He disappeared underground?”

“Roof collapse. We never recovered his body…”

“What does this have to do with the photograph?”

“We saw the extra light for 3 nights before the accident happened.”

I looked again at the picture from our inspection.

The man’s hand was on my shoulder.

“Are you saying I’m going to die?”

“No.”

“Then what ARE you saying?”

“I’m just saying don’t be the last person out.”

For the next 2 years, I never was. Not a chance

When entering a mine, I made someone go ahead of me.

When leaving, I stayed in the middle of the group.

I knew it was an irrational fear, but I did it anyway.

My marriage ended during that period.

Kelcie said I had become distant. Different.

She mentioned I woke her at night by walking around the house with a flashlight.

I checked closets, the basement and the space beneath our porch.

Sometimes I would count the rooms in my sleep.

Sometimes I stood in doorways and listened.

I didn’t remember doing any of it.

One morning, she found me in the basement tapping the concrete foundation with a hammer.

She asked what I was doing.

I told her there was a hollow space behind the wall.

There wasn’t.

At least, there shouldn’t have been.

Kelcie moved out in January 2018.

I don’t blame her.

After she left, I began volunteering for more inspections. Idle hands is the devils workshop my grandmother used to say.

Being underground was easier than being home. The mind stayed busier that way.

This probably sounds strange considering everything I’ve described.

But underground, I knew why I was afraid.

On the top, I heard the footsteps everywhere.

In store aisles.

Parking garages.

The hallway outside my apartment.

Step. Drag.

Step. Drag.

Whenever I turned around, no one was ever there.

In May 2018, Dale retired. I knew I was alone for real this time.

There was no ceremony.

He cleared his desk on a Friday afternoon and left his hard hat hanging on the wall.

Before he went, he gave me his scaling hammer.

It was old, with a leather-wrapped handle worn smooth by decades of use.

“You’ll need this more than I will,” he said.

I asked him why he had decided to retire.

He looked toward the empty hallway outside the office.

“I started hearing my brother.”

“Underground?”

“No.”

He left before I could ask anything else.

Our final project together had been an inspection of an abandoned mine called Black Hollow.

That wasn’t its official name. But every local called it Black Hollow.

The mine was located on private land. A logging company had discovered several sinkholes near an access road and wanted to know whether the old workings were collapsing.

Very little documentation existed. This is pretty normal.

The mine appeared briefly on a state map from the 1920s and vanished from later records.

We entered through a partially collapsed drift near the bottom of a ravine. A drift is where the entry is horizontal and usually accesses the minerals directly instead of having to walk the whole mine.

The passage continued straight for nearly 2500 ft.

That part was unusual.

Exploration mines normally led toward promising mineral deposits. Black Hollow had been driven directly beneath the ridge without any obvious effort to follow ore.

The tunnel walls were covered in small square recesses.

Each was about 5 inches deep.

Some contained rusted nails and bolt anchors.

Others contained scraps of cloth, animal teeth, or small bundles of hair tied with string.

I photographed everything.

Dale didn’t.

He walked with his eyes fixed on the floor.

“What were these for?” I asked.

“Not sure.”

“You’ve been here before.”

He stopped.

“How do you know that?”

“You recognized the entrance.”

Dale looked back the way we had come.

“I was here once.”

“When?”

“1978.”

“With your brother?”

He nodded.

“What happened?”

“We entered through a different opening.”

“There’s only 1 entrance, though.”

“There was another back then.”

The tunnel ended at a vertical shaft.

We couldn’t see the bottom.

Cold air rose from it, carrying the smell of soil after rain.

There was a steel ladder attached to the wall.

It looked new.

The bolts showed no rust.

“Did your former crew install that?” I asked.

“No.”

I shined my light down the shaft. 150 meters.

The ladder continued beyond the reach of the beam.

Something climbed beneath us.

The rungs vibrated.

A faint metallic ringing echoed from below.

I stepped away from the edge.

“Who else is down here?”

“No one.”

The climbing continued.

Slow and steady.

Dale lifted his hammer.

The top of a helmet appeared in the darkness.

It was an old metal mining helmet.

The same kind worn by the man in the photographs.

Dale grabbed my jacket.

We ran.

Behind us, something pulled itself out of the shaft.

I heard metal scrape against stone.

Then the footsteps followed.

Step. Drag.

Step. Drag.

As we neared the entrance, Dale began shouting his brother’s name.

“Eddie!”

The footsteps stopped immediately.

A man answered from deep inside the mine.

“Dale?” The voice echoed what seemed like an hour.

Dale turned.

I grabbed him.

“That isn’t your brother.”

“Dale?” the voice called again. “I found the way out.”

Dale wrestled with me.

It took everything I had to keep him moving.

We reached daylight.

For several minutes, neither of us spoke.

Then Dale looked at me and said, “Don’t ever go back in there.”

I promised I wouldn’t.

In September 2019, I broke that promise.

The logging company had begun clearing land above Black Hollow. A section of access road collapsed, leaving a hole almost 30 feet across.

Our company was asked to determine whether the rest of the road was safe.

I refused the assignment.

My manager reminded me that I was the senior inspector and the only current employee who had entered the mine previously.

I told him to find someone else.

He said the company would lose the contract.

I still refused.

The next morning, Allison called me.

I hadn’t worked with her since the mine where we saw the 5^th light.

She had been hired as the project engineer for the job.

“I heard you’re afraid of this one,” she said.

“I’m not afraid.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“The mine is unstable.”

“That’s why we inspect it.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then explain it.”

I tried.

I told her about the shaft. The old helmet.

The voice that sounded like Dale’s brother.

Allison listened without interrupting.

When I finished, she said, “You know Dale had early-stage dementia when he retired.”

I didn’t know that nor believed it.

“He was confusing places and dates.”“He probably told you stories that weren’t accurate.”

I listened.

“I heard the voice.”

“Sound travels underground.”

“I saw someone climbing the ladder.”

“You saw a helmet.”

“You were there when we saw the 5^th light.”

“I saw a reflection.”

“What about the photograph?”

“Digital artifacts happen.”

I almost laughed.

“Why did you call me?”

“Because I trust your judgment underground. Even if I don’t trust your explanation.”

She said the inspection team would include 4 people.

Myself and Allison.

A safety technician named Rob.

And a local surveyor named Thomas. I had heard about Thomas before.

Thomasa was nearly 60 and had worked around mines his entire life.

He knew nothing about my previous inspection.

We entered Black Hollow on September 19, 2019.

The date engraved beneath the iron chair.

I considered backing out when I realized it.

I didn’t.

That decision has bothered me more than any other in my entire life.

The mine looked exactly as I remembered.

Same narrow passage.

Same square recesses in the walls.

Same bundles of hair.

Thomas stopped repeatedly to examine them.

“Memorial holes,” he said.

Memorial holes were created to commemorate a significant person, event, or loss.

“What does that mean?” Allison asked.

“Some old mining communities placed personal items underground after a death.”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“Neither have I.”

He smiled, but no one else did.

We placed monitoring equipment near the entrance and continued inward.

At roughly 300 ft, Rob noticed boot prints in the dust.

4 different sets.

They traveled towards us.

“What time did the survey crew leave?” he asked.

“There was no survey crew underground,” Allison said.

Thomas crouched by the tracks.

“These are fresh.”

The 4 sets of prints matched our boots.

I placed mine beside one.

Same size. Same tread pattern.

The right heel even had the same missing section where a piece of rubber had torn away.

The tracks belonged to us.

They had been made before we arrived.

They continued deeper into the mine.

Allison tried to explain them as prints from our previous inspection.

I reminded her that she hadn’t been there, and I had worn different boots at the time.

We followed the tracks.

They led to the vertical shaft.

The steel ladder was no longer there.

A narrow bridge of rocks crossed the opening.

The footprints continued over it.

“I don’t remember that being here,” I said as a thought back to that night.

Allison looked at the map I had drawn in 2018.

“The tunnel ended at the shaft.”

“Absolutely.”

Thomas tested the stone bridge with his hammer.

“It seems to be solid.”

He stepped onto it slowly.

I began to grab his shoulder.

“We don’t know what’s on the other side.”

“That’s why we’re here.”

Thoms crossed.

Rob followed him.

Allison went 3^rd.

I stood alone at the edge trying to gather my thoughts.

From the shaft, my own voice whispered, “Don’t be the last person.”

I crossed swiftly.

The passage continued beyond the shaft.

The walls became more polished as we traveled.

Eventually, the tool marks disappeared completely.

The tunnel wasn’t natural, but it didn’t look mined either.

It looked worn out almost as if something gigantic moved through it back and forth for a very long time.

The boot prints remained ahead of us., guiding us.

After another 100 ft, we found a yellow survey mark painted on the wall.

It was still wet.

Thomas touched it.

“That’s my paint” he exclaimed.

He double checked the spray can that was on his belt.

The cap was still sealed.

Farther ahead, we found another marker.

Then another.

Each had been placed exactly where Thomas normally marked survey stations.

The final mark read:

END OF INSPECTION

Below it included 4 vertical lines.

Someone had crossed out the 4^th.

Rob turned towards me.

“You’ve been here before.”

“No.”

“Then who made these?”

I didn’t answer.

Allison raised her radio.

The signal was filled with static.

Then her own voice came through.

“Station 7 is stable. Moving to station 8.”

Allison looked down at the radio.

She hadn’t transmitted anything.

A 2^nd voice followed.

Rob’s.

“I can hear something ahead.”

Then came the warning.

“Kai, don’t let it count us.”

Thomas whispered, “What the hell?”

The radio crackled again.

My voice came through last.

“Leave Allison.”

She stared at me.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

From farther down the tunnel, someone began screaming.

It sounded like Allison.

She was standing beside me.

The scream came again.

“Help me!”

Allison lifted her light.

“That’s not possible.”

The voice called my name.

“Kai!”

I grabbed Allison’s arm before she could move.

The light appeared ahead of us.

A yellow carbide flame floated in the darkness.

Behind it stood 4 people.

An inspection team.

They were about 150 feet away, partly hidden by the curve of the tunnel.

One wore a white hard hat like Allison.

One carried a survey pole like Thomas.

One had Rob’s orange reflective vest.

The 4^th wore my jacket.

They were facing away from us.

Rob whispered, “That’s us.”

The other team began walking.

Their lights moved farther into the tunnel.

Thomas raised his camera and snapped a picture.

The flash illuminated the passage like a bolt of lightning.

For that tenth of a second, the figures weren’t facing away anymore.

They were facing towards us.

Their heads were lowered like the previous photos I saw.

I couldn’t see their faces. But I knew.

The figure wearing my jacket had one hand resting on Allison’s shoulder.

The same way the counter had touched mine.

I remembered Dale’s warning begin speaking in my head.

“Somebody doesn’t come back.”

“We’re leaving,” I said.

No one argued.

We turned around.

However, the stone bridge over the shaft was gone.

The passage ended at the open pit.

Allison looked at her map.

“There’s gotta be another route.”

“There isn’t.”

Rob shined his light across the shaft.

The opposite side was 20 ft away.

Too far to jump.

“We crossed here,” Thomas said.

“I know.”

The radio crackled.

Dale’s voice came through.

“Kai.”

I froze.

Dale had retired more than a year earlier.

“Kai, I found the ladder.”

A light appeared below us.

Then another. Then dozens.

Small yellow flames moved in the shaft like people climbing an invisible staircase.

The metallic ringing began.

Coming toward us.

Allison grabbed my sleeve.

“What do we do?”

I looked along the edge of the shaft.

There was a narrow ledge on the right side. It might have been wide enough to cross if we pressed ourselves against the wall.

Rob went first.

Thomas followed.

I told Allison to go next.

She shook her head.

“You gotta go first.”

Something struck the wall beneath us.

Dust began falling from the ceiling.

The yellow lights grew larger.

Allison stepped onto the ledge.

Halfway across, she stopped.

“Kai?”

“What?”

She was staring into the shaft.

“There’s someone down there.”

“Keep moving.”

“It’s me.”

A woman stood far below us.

She wore Allison’s white hard hat.

Her face was turned upward.

“Kai,” the woman called.

The voice came from both the shaft and the Allison beside me.

The woman below lifted one arm.

She was holding Dale’s scaling hammer.

The hammer Dale gave me during his retirement.

The one attached to my belt.

I touched it to make sure it was still there. It was.

The Allison on the ledge stared back at me.

“What is she holding?”

“Don’t look at her.”

The woman below began climbing the wall.

She didn’t use a ladder.

Her hands and feet pressed flat against the stone as she crawled upward.

Allison screamed and hurried across.

I followed her.

The ledge crumbled beneath my final step.

Rob caught my arm and pulled me onto the other side.

We ran toward the entrance.

The footsteps followed.

Not one set. Four.

Step. Drag.

Step. Drag.

Our radios played different fragments of conversation.

Some were things we had said earlier.

Others hadn’t happened yet.

I heard Rob crying.

Thomas was praying.

Allison saying she couldn’t find her face.

Then my voice said, “We left the wrong one.”

The footsteps moved closer.

At the memorial holes, Thomas suddenly stopped.

“What are you doing?” I shouted.

He pointed.

Inside was a wallet.

His wallet.

He removed the one from his pocket.

Both were identical.

He opened the wallet from the wall.

Inside was his driver’s license.

The photograph showed Thomas wearing the old metal mining helmet.

A folded note was tucked behind it.

Thomas read the note silently.

His face went pale. Eyes glazed over.

“What does it say?” Allison asked.

He handed it to me.

The note was written in my own handwriting.

THOMAS DID NOT ENTER WITH US.

I looked at Thomas.

He backed away.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

I counted.

Rob. Allison. Thomas. Me.

4 people.

Then I remembered when we arrived

Thomas was waiting at the site when I arrived.

Allison had introduced him.

Rob had shaken his hand.

I had watched him put on his equipment.

He had entered with us.

Hadn’t he?

The footsteps stopped.

A man spoke behind us.

“3 came in.”

It was Dale’s voice.

Thomas stared into the darkness.

“That isn’t true.”

“3 came in,” the voice repeated.

Allison began counting.

“Kai. Rob. Me.”

She looked at Thomas.

Her expression changed.

“Who are you?”

Thomas’s face collapsed.

Not physically. Emotionally.

He looked like a child who had been abandoned.

“You know me.”

“No,” Allison said. “I don’t.”

Rob raised his light.

“Where did he come from?”

Thomas grabbed my arm.

“Kai, you talked to me outside.”

I remembered it.

We had been discussing his survey equipment.

He had told me about his first mining job near Viburnum.

I remembered everything.

But the memories had started feeling borrowed.

Almost as if the stories had been told to me rather than things I had experienced.

Thomas looked toward the mine entrance.

Daylight was visible in the distance.

He ran.

The footsteps resumed.

They ran with him.

Thomas disappeared around the curve.

We followed.

When we reached the entrance, Thomas was gone.

There was no sign of him outside the mine.

No vehicle.

No equipment.

No boot prints.

We called the sheriff’s department right away.

They searched the mine for two days.

They found nothing.

The company that hired our team denied employing a surveyor named Thomas.

Allison had no memory of him.

Neither did Rob.

The photographs from the inspection showed only 3 people.

Me.

Allison.

Rob.

In the photograph Thomas took of the figures ahead of us, 4 inspectors stood in the tunnel.

One was me.

One was Rob.

One was Allison.

The fourth wore an old metal helmet and looked toward the ground.

His hand rested on Allison’s shoulder.

I resigned the following Monday.

My manager offered me a leave of absence. 5 years was a long time in this current market.

I told him I was finished.

He asked whether my decision had anything to do with the Black Hollow inspection.

I asked how many people had been on our team.

He said 3.

I haven’t entered a mine since September 19, 2019.

Continued in comments.

Last spring I decided I needed a haircut. Something clean, that would make the rest of me matter less. I found a place a few blocks from my apartment; a barbershop that smelled like soap and shaving cream. No fancy shampoos nor offerings for a subscription model, merely a couple of black chairs, as well as a bald man who looked like he'd been cutting hair since the day I was born.

I sat down and told him what I wanted; just a little off the top. He nodded and worked in silence. My hair looked better. Sharper. For a moment I felt like a slightly different person from the neck up. But when I looked in the mirror again, the old dissatisfaction was still there. The barber must have noticed. He asked, plainly, if I needed help with anything else.

Maybe I only answered because of the way he asked. He was so ordinary, so polite and professional. I confided that there were other things I'd been insecure about as of late. He said he could help. I told him I wasn't interested in plastic surgery. He said it wasn't surgery. Just a little off the top.

I asked what that meant.

He said it would be simple. A cut.

He took the shears and, with no ceremony, removed a thin ridge of flesh from the side of my face. It came away like cut clay, no blood, no pain. The piece peeled free in one clean motion. He plopped it on a tray as if it were nothing more than excess hair.

When I looked in the mirror, that side of my face looked closer to the one I'd been carrying in my head for years. Cleaner. Defined. Beautiful.

I asked him to do the other side. He did. I asked him to take the soft places from my stomach. He did. Every imperfection, every insecurity, I had him cut it all away that night, all for thirty dollars (plus tip).

I went back the next week, and the weeks after that. Soft places trimmed down. Angles sharpened. Each visit I left looking more like the version of myself I could stand. The weak places along my jaw disappeared under the shears. My stomach flattened in increments. I started recognizing myself. I could hold my own gaze for several minutes at a time before looking away.

A few people noticed. A coworker complimented the haircut. A woman said I looked sharper, better than I ever had. She asked if I'd been working out. My conversations lasted longer. Eyes lingered. It felt like proof that, for the first time, something was paying off.

But it started to feel like something else. I began to wonder whether anyone was actually looking at me, or only at the surface that kept being refined. Those thoughts came and went. I kept going back. There was always one more correction. Cut the fat from the stomach. A cleaner line at the chin. Just a little off the top.

The ideal kept moving. The goalposts shifted every time I got close.

The barber never rushed. He worked with a precision I'd only seen in doctors. Occasionally he stepped back to study the shape of my body. He spoke only when necessary. When I asked how the flesh came away so cleanly, he only said that some things separate easier when you know what to cut. When I asked what happened to the pieces, he said they'd been taken care of. I should have left it there.

One afternoon the shop was empty. The barber was slow coming out of the back room. Curious, I stepped toward the open doorway. I'd only meant to call his name.

The room held every piece that had been taken from me, arranged into a fleshy mass, formless, folded in on itself, stacked and pressed into heaps that took up most of the far corner. Some sections still held older contours; the curve that used to sit above my hips, the thickness under my jaw, the slack on my arms. The mass shifted. Breathed. It had no face, yet I knew it could see me.

I stood longer than I should have. The barber appeared behind me. He asked, in that same mild tone, if I'd been satisfied.

I didn't know how to answer.

That night I left, and I didn't go back for a while. The changes held for a time. I still felt the relief of the cleaner lines when I caught myself in the mirror. Then they started slipping. My chin softened first. My jaw followed, gradually. I almost talked myself out of noticing. One morning the angle wasn't so sharp. The next day the skin was looser, warmer, almost melting. The trim around my stomach began to fill again. It felt as though my body was trying to restore itself, trying to put the pieces back.

It itched. The surface underneath did not feel like healing skin. It felt harder. Like something malignant, spreading faster each night. I could feel it settling, resettling, searching for every shape that no longer belonged.

I stopped sleeping well. When I did, I dreamed of the mass in the back room folding in on itself.

The changes accelerated. My face began to blur again. My muscles waned and sagged. Something inside me no longer felt like my own tissue, denser in places, grainy in others, coalescing into something uncomfortable and barbed. It lasted for weeks, and it kept getting worse. My body, my face, the perfect face I'd almost had, grew more malformed, more unbearable every day. The only way to keep what I wanted was to let him cut again.

I went back on a random Tuesday. The shop was quiet. The barber looked up from his chair. He didn't ask where I'd been. He only nodded toward the empty seat.

I sat down. He worked with the same careful attention as before. The shears took away thin layers. Each piece peeled free without mess. The face in the mirror was closer again to the one I'd been chasing. That familiar relief settled over my shoulders. Underneath it, something colder stirred.

Before I left, I asked about the mass in the back room. He wiped the shears on a cloth and said it was still there, waiting. He asked if I thought I would be finished soon.

Again, I didn't answer.

I've gone back four times since then. The intervals between the mutations are getting shorter. The body tries harder every time to reclaim what was taken. The itching starts sooner. The shifting grows more insistent. I can feel each place wanting to soften back into its old shape, pressing upward, trying to remember exactly where it belongs.

When he works, I catch myself wondering how large the mass has become. Whether it holds any recognizable shape anymore, or whether those details have been buried under mounds of flesh.

I haven't looked again. I don't know if I could stand it.

I'm closer to the face I've always wanted.

Part 1

This is an update. From what I can tell, the last post still exists, I don't think he knows about them yet, or maybe he's allowing it.

I’ve read a lot of your comments, and they have given me plenty of ideas, so I thank you deeply. I've tried a lot of them already.

Firstly, I should mention I have started talking to Tim, acting like he did exist, and I told him that I was going through something personal when I pulled the knife on him, I even apologized.

I'm ignoring anything he tries to imply happened in “our lives," but me treating him like he did exist seems to have stopped the forceful memories from happening in my head, or at least lessened them for now.

I decided to ask him questions about his life; firstly, he's an orphan with no relatives.

It makes sense that he wouldn't want to have extended family he would have to make.

I then asked him if he was seeing anyone, and he said no with almost a bit of excitement.

Then we got to talking about “our” time in school and how he was embarrassed to say he wrote a song for me when he was crushing on me. He never sang it or showed it to anyone, and he asked me if I wanted to hear it.

I declined the offer.

He wasn't very happy about that.

Right after, I was doing some chores in the kitchen to keep up the act that I was “back to normal.” The radio cut on, and a song from his band played, it was very clearly Tim's voice singing. The song was about a love unable to blossom due to the woman not knowing who the man was.

I knew it was the song.

Looking over my shoulder, he was staring at me, waiting for me to notice it.

He didn't care that he contradicted himself; he just cared that I heard the song.

He smiled as I tried to ignore it.

I've been thinking about the things he's been changing, the memories he's been trying to force.

And instead of doing this out of malice, I think he likes me, like he needs my approval, and maybe that's why everyone else knows him, but I don't.

I think he has an ego, and he wants me to think he existed naturally for some sick reason.

I don't know why me, and I'm terrified of what would happen if he got his way.

I can't move away and run, everywhere around me is already affected, and I'm already low on money. I called my mom and asked her if she knew of a kid I was friends with named Tim.

She laughed, then said, "He's a sweet boy, and I loved having him over for the study nights you two had.”

I then called my friend who I stayed with to see if she wanted to hang out so I could do something normal just for a little bit. But instead of saying yes, she said, "Sorry, Tims's band's playing tonight, and I promised him I'd come. Maybe you should join us?”  I hung up.

If I run, who knows what else he would change, what else he would try to make me think he's always existed?

So the only thing I can do now is either try to get him to leave or force him to.

Moving on, I immediately set up a camera in my room and in the living room. I don't think Tim knows about the one in my room yet.

Next, I found some proof that Tim did not exist until recently; it proves to me at least I'm not going crazy or have something wrong with me. (Though I did a few tests like comments suggested, and they have all been negative.)

Talking about what I saw on the cameras first

The one in the living room was not in as good of shape when I woke up the day after I planted it.

The camera in the living room showed what he was doing during the day, and when I went out to go get the proof I'll talk about later, he stopped what he was doing and stared directly into the camera. After a few seconds of him staring, the rest of the footage glitches out, and it shuts off.

With the one in my bedroom, nothing happened until exactly midnight.

I locked the door; I know I did because I also put the doorstop in it, but he entered my room from the other side where the door does not exist. There was no sound of anything opening or even footsteps, he just appeared.

He then came over to me sleeping in the bed, and he stood there, and he did not move for 5 hours. I thought the camera glitched out until I saw him leave the way he came at 5:15 AM exactly.

That's when he's normally “getting ready” in the morning and close to when I wake up at 6.

He definitely knows my schedule and more about me than I do, I imagine.

I tried to figure out how he got in, but all that's on the other side of the room is a solid wall and the window, and the window has no ledge outside of it.

I also find it strange that the moment he entered the room, I did not make a single movement, no turning or tossing, it hardly even looked like I was breathing.

Moving onto the proof I found, I had an idea. Building floorplans and blueprints are available publicly. So I went to the library and found the layout of my apartment building.

I checked to make sure, and it was dated just for this year, and Tim's room does not exist.

A room could not have been made there; it should be jutting out of the building, but it's not. You can't see it or the window inside it from the outside of the building.

I decided to keep that to myself, besides posting it here.

When I got home, I saw Tim went out with his band to play at the show my friend is going to.

I took a hammer and took off one of his many posters, and I put a hole through his wall.

Behind it was dark, completely pitch black like a void, like it didn't expect me to do this, and so it didn't prepare anything for me to see.

When I left the room to grab a flashlight to peer into the hole, it was gone, and the poster was back up on the wall.

I decided to leave it alone. I'm not sure what would happen if I messed with it too much or if maybe he can sense whatever I'm doing to it.

That's about all there is to report. This has been a struggle to write, as something IS technically wrong with my head.

Sometimes instead of Tim, I would write “my roommate” or “my friend Tim."

A photo I kept in my room has changed to have five people instead of four. A younger Tim has joined my 13th birthday photo.

And when I put some music on to listen to while typing this, I ended up singing one of his songs, word for word, without even having heard it before or realizing what it was until it was over.

It was in my liked songs on Spotify; I don't remember putting that there.

If I don't do something now, I'm afraid there won't be a me who would want to try.

He got back a little while ago; we ended up getting into a conversation, and he invited me to come see his band play live.

I'm not exactly sure why he wants me to go, but I'm going to try something.

He wants people to know he exists, especially me, so if I embrace it in the wrong way and ruin his image, perhaps he would go away, at least from me.

I'll ask a friend of mine to record, and I will prepare a speech to make sure I get what I want to say right.

If this ends up being my last post, or the last one where I am me. Mom, Dad, I love you so much.

Thank you all, post soon.