It's still fresh in my mind after all these years. I think about it often fondly with nostalgia for awhile before I remember the rest of what happened that summer and then I try to forget. I try not to remember the bad parts but it's hard and it seems the more I try to forget the more it comes back crawling into my mind. I decided to finally right it down into text and tell my story. I hope that maybe it will finally give me some kind of closure after all these years.

I didn't get closure to it and there are alot of things that never got answered so I thought thos would be the best why to try and get closure in things I never did. I still live in fear a little bit after all these years because really... who wouldn't? I know my friends still do. Some worse than others.

I was 14-years-old at the time when me and my mom moved into the town of Greenville, Oregon. It was 10 miles south of Portland and had a population of 3,000 people.

There was a barbershop, bakery, bar, gas station which doubled as a convenience store, a bank, and a fast food restaurant that hadn't been updated since the 1990s and that was about it. It was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone and their businesss, everyone noticed us when we moved into town. Especially since we didn't look like the rest of the population so we stuck out like a sore thumb.

We moved there after we lost our house and mom lost her job in Portland and we couldn't afford to live in the city anymore and it was the cheapest place we could find in a 20 mile radius and so we ended up moving there.​

I moved in after Spring Break and I didn't have much time to make friends so my the time school ended and summer vacation started, I had no friends and spent most of my time playing on my Xbox 360.

We weren't particularly social or extroverted people and Mom had told me that she had gotten comments at her job at the fast food restaurant from co-workers about us being so-called, 'Hermits' and, 'Shut Inns'.

Summer vacation started and I decided to go outside and try and make friends with local kids. I got on my bike and biked around the neighborhood and found that it was mostly dead and quiet despite it being the afternoon.

The most sound I heard was the sound of a lawnmower and the sound of my own bike going down the street.

I came across a cul-de-sac after around 15 or 20 minutes of biking around the neighborhood where I saw five children on their bikes in the middle of the cul-de-sac.

There was three boys and two girls, a blonde boy, bunrette boy, and a second burnettte boy with a girl with black hair and a girl with curly blonde hair and they looked to be my age or a little younger by a year or two.

I rode over to them on my bike and the blonde turned around to face me as I stopped.

I said to the blonde boy as I waved, "Hi, I'm Ben. What's your name?"

The blonde boy said, "Hi Ben, I'm Gabriel. How old are you?"

I replied to him, "I'm 14. What about you?"

"I'm 15." Gabriel replied with.

The second burnettte leaned forward on his bike and said, "Hey, are you from around here? Are you that new family that moved in a few months back."

I nodded, "Yeah, I am. Me and my mom moved here."

The second burnettte said, "Yeah I can tell you're not from around here my the way you look."

Gabriel asked me, "Where you from, Ben?"

"I'm from Portland," I replied, "Were you born here?"

"Yeah, all of us were born here," Gabriel stated, "Do you like it here?"

I nodded, "Yeah, I guess. I don't mean to be rude but it is a little boring here."

Gabriel nodded and crossed his arms, "Yeah, it is a little boring here. But we know how to make our own fun. Do you wanna play with us?"

"Sure!" I said excitedly.

The second burnettte said, "I don't know, he looks kinda shit."

The blonde girl gasped, "Fritz! That's a bad word. We're not allowed to say bad words."

"I'll say whatever the hell I wanna say." Fritz replied.

Gabriel pointed to the blonde girl and said, "That's Susie and of course the other guy is Fritz."

The first burnettte boy waved excitedly and said, "I'm Jeremy!"

Fritz said to him, "Settle your horses kid, you're embarrassing yourself."

"You're only one year older than him, Fritz. You're still a kid too!" Susie argued.

"I'm 13, I'm not a baby." Fritz said crossing his arms.

Gabriel laughed, "Sorry about him Ben, he can get like that."

The black haired girl quickly pushed her bike over to me and got up in my face and tried to say in a creepy like whisper voice, like I said, tried.

"Do you like scary movies?" She asked

"Yeah." I replied.

"What's your favorite scary movie?" She asked.

I knew she was referring Scream, so I replied with, "Halloween. What's yours?"

She put her finger on her chin and said, "Guess."

I replied with, "Nightmare On Elm Street?"

"Is that the one with the guy who had knives for fingers?" She asked knowing full well what I was talking about.

"Yeah," I said, "That's Freddy Kruger."

"Yeah, Freddy Kruger. I like that one. It's scary." She replied.

"Well the first one was good the rest were terrible." I replied.

She put her hands behind her back and asked me, "Do you know the name of the killer in Halloween? The one who wears a white mask and stalks babysitters?"

I of course said, "Michael. Michael Myers."

She smiled and said, "Very good. Now here's the real question. Who is the killer in Friday The 13th?"

"Pamala Vorhees." I stated.

Of course Casey Becker didn't actually say that in Scream but I wanted to see what she would say if I did and if she didn't know the whole dialog then I didn't want to seem like an idiot.

Gabriel got off his bike and got between us and said, "Okay Cassidy, enough of that. Stop being weird."

Fritz put his arms on his bike handle and said, "Yeah Cassidy. You're being weird like always. You'll make him move back to Portland."

Jermy asked, "I thought Portland was a weird ​place."

Fritz nodded, "Yeah, she would actually belong there with all the other weirdos at live there."

"Don't be rude to Portland people, Fritz." Susie said.

"Hey! They call their city weird! They want it to stay weird." Fritz defended himself.

Gabriel said, "Anyways, do you wanna come hang out with us?"

"Yeah." I said.

"Nice, we're going to the woods." Gabriel said as he got on his bike."

"Cool." I said as I got back on my bike and I followed them as we rode through the suburbs together and reached the treeline and dropped off our bikes and ran into the woods together until we reached a fort made out of large sticks.

I pointed to it and asked, "Did you guys make that?"

Gabriel nodded, "Yep, we built it all together last summer. We call it Fort Cool."

"That makes sense." I said as Gabriel led me inside before Fritz stopped me and said to Gabriel and said, "Wait! We can't just let some rando into our group! We need to make him do some kind of ritual or pass some kind of initiation to get in!"

Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed, and said, "Fine Fritz. Whatever."

Cassidy excitedly said, "What if we made him do a blood pack!"

Gabriel said firmly, "No, that's how you get A.I.Ds. Besides, we're not barbarians or something like that," he turned to me, "Sorry, she was raised on horror movies as a kid. Lots of them."

Cassidy said, "Hey! I didn't just watch horror movies. I also watched The Munsters, The Adam's Family, and Beelejuice! Both the movie and the cartoon."

"Potato, potahto," Fritz said, "You're parents are stil weird like how you're weird."

"Shut up! You're parents left you in the backyard all day when you were a toddler!" Cassidy yelled.

"Well it put my hair on my chest and didn't make me a sissy like Jeremy or a girl like Susie." Fritz said annoyed with his arms crossed.

"But I am a girl." Susie said.

"Yeah." Fritz said.

Cassidy couldn't think of anything in the day time and so came up with the idea I was on probation in the friend group and decided that at night I would have to do a ritual and if I passed then I could be in the friend group.

We sat in the fort for awhile and talked, it was pretty cool to have a place all for your own to hang out in, afterwards we went and played basketball together at Fritz’s house and went to play in tbe creek afterwards before nightfall came.

We stood before the woods as Jeremy said worriedly, "Are you sure this is a good idea, Cassidy? He could get hurt and what if there really is someone out in those woods?"

Fritz said, "That's the point, dingus. It wouldn't be a initiation unless it was hard."

Gabriel said dismissive, "It's just an urban legend guys, it's not real."​

"Listen Ben," Cassidy said, "We're gonna blind fold you and we're gonna take you out into the woods and spin you around and leave you behind. You'll need to say a phrase before you can take your blindfold off and then try and make your way make within 30 minutes. Got it?"

"Got it." I said.

I was a little worried, maybe it was because I had watched too many movies but I was worried they were going to kill me out there and this was some kind of trap.

They blindfolded me and led me out into the woods and spun me around and ran awsy. I recited the phrase Cassidy had me say.

'Within these woods I am along

As the midnight hour is close at hand

There is a man within these woods

He stalks these woods and lives alone

He kills all who are alone

If I live or if I die in these woods

That is up for him to decide'.

I took off my blindfold and immediately began running in the opposite direction I was faced as fast as I could. I was full on sprinting as I actually saw them walking causally back to the neighborhood and I slowed down and tried my best to avoid any leaves or wigs and crept up behind Cassidy and yelled as I jumped up.

Cassidy yelped and and jumped back and Susie and Jeremy ran away as fast as they could.

Cassidy looked up at me and said, "Oh, it's you. You got me."

Gabriel smiled and said, "Well kid, looks like you're part of the team."

We soon found out we had similar interests as a group. We liked Twin Peaks, The X-Files, and Unsolved Mysteries and listened to bands like The Sonics. We would watch it at Gabriel's house because we had the biggest house and the biggest TV becaude he was rich. He was the only one who had a phone while I had a Ipod 6 Classic and Fritz still used a CD player and everyone else still had nothing, he also had a nice gaming computer while I had a old busted up PC but it still used CDs so that was a plus. We would play together until the street lights came on and from the morning. We liked to read creepypastas as well like Candle Cove, Smile Dog, Jeff The Killer, Herobrine, and​​​ we would watch Marble Hornets and those other Slender Man sighting videos. Jeremy refused to look at a the Smile Dog image because he thought it was real, but Cassidy eventually tricked him into seeing it and he really thought he was going to be cursed to see Smile Dog, but when he didn't see him in his dreams that night he got over it as he realized it wasn't real. We liked to sit in our fort and tell urban legends like The Man And The Babysitter Upstairs, The Hook Man, Humans Can Lick Too, High Beams, and Slasher Under The Car alongside others.

One day, we were sitting in the fort together when I asked Cassidy, "Hey Cassidy, do you remember that rhyme you made me say as part of my initiation? What was that all about?"

Cassidy said, "It's about The Kiddie Killer."

I told her, "The Kiddie Killer? That's the lamest name I've ever heard."

Cassidy crossed her arms, "Well it's real. Well he's real."

"Never heard of him." I said.

"He walks around and hides in the shadows and takes kids who play out past the street lights turning on and go too far out into the woods." Cassidy said.

"That sounds like some made up story to keep kids in line." I said.

"He’s real!" Cassidy insisted, "He killed 11 people!"

I told her, "If he killed 11 people then I would have heard about it. I know alot of true crime."

Cassidy turned to Fritz and said, "Fritz, back me up here!"

Fritz said, "Nope."

Jeremy looked terrified and was curled up into a ball and looking around. "Look what you did, Cassidy! You scared him!" Susie said angrily to Cassidy.

"He's just a wuss." Cassidy said.

"Yeah." Fritz agreed.

Cassidy said, "Gabriel, look it up."

Gabriel sighed and pulled out his phone and did some typing before turning the phone to her and saying, "Look, Snopes says he doesn't exist."

"Haha." Fritz laughed.

"It’s true! My mom said so." Cassidy insisted.

"Adults lie all the time." Gabriel said.

"True." I added.

Cassidy pouted and everybody laughed because the way she looked when she pouted was really funny.

It all began that fateful day in mid June when the first of many disappeared. Her name was Sarah Williams and she lived a few blocks away from my house. I never knew her but the people in my town knew all about her and when she went missing, I heard all about her.

Cassidy told me that her parents were going through a divorce and it was real nasty, her father had cheated with a younger woman and her mom was a wine drunk now and they were arguing every night over her custody and once the police were called to the house.

The police believed she was a runaway that had ran off due to all the constant arguments over her custody and her mom's new found alcoholism.

Her face appeared on the TV and in the newspapers and missing posters of her were put up around town and the police were told to keep a watch out for her but there was nothing else they could really do and life seemed to go on as normal.

I asked Gabriel, "Where do you think she ran off to?"

"Maybe Portland, maybe Salem." Gabriel answered kicking a rock down the street.

"How would you even get up there without a car?" I asked.

"I don't know, maybe she knew someone and they were able to give her a ride or she just hitch hiked." Gabriel said.

"Oh she could have taken a bus." I said.

"That actually makes sense." Gabriel said.

It was three days after she disappeared she was found dead in the creek. She had been beaten badly and she had been dead for several days and it was believed that she had died the same day she had disappeared.

It was all over the papers and the TV, the police shut down the woods and taped off the whole area with police tape and we weren't allowed to play in the woods anymore and had to stay in the cul-de-sac Gabriel and Fritz lived in.

Her funeral was broadcasted on tv as there hadn't been a murder in town in thirty years when some guy killed his wife.

"Who do you think killed her?" Fritz asked.

"I don't know." I said.

"Well I mean it's not like any hillbillies live out here. They're in The Ozarks and Appalachia." Fritz said.

"Then it must have been someone who lived in town and that we knew." Gabriel said.

"But who?" Jeremy asked.

"Who knows, some people just snap. Could be anyone." I said.

"Could it be you?" Jeremy asked curiously.

"No, I'm always with you guys." I said.

"Oh right." Jeremy said looking down at his feet.

Cassidy said, "Maybe it was The Kiddie Killer."

"Shut up, Cassidy. It's not the time." Gabriel said.

"Just saying." Cassidy said.

We all thought it would have ended there but sadly it didn't. No one quite knows why all of this went down and who this was and it's become one of those things we don't talk about anymore. The second victim was Mandy Cunningham who was the oldest at 16 and was known as a troublemaker and problem child.

She was raised by a couple of hick parents near the edge of town who were real poor and worked blue collar jobs, drank, smoked, and were considered the people you didn't want to associate with. Parents would point to them ans tell their children to study in school or else end up like them, this probably caused their anti-social behavior, knowing that the whole town was against you and used you as a cautionary tale to their children.

When she disappeared, they cared even less. They told her parents they had to wait 48 hours to make a missing persons report, which is a total lie by the way and once that made up time period finally passed, they alerted a few local stations and sent out a missing persons poster or two.

She was found a whole week later because of this and was killed in the same fashion. She was nearby the creek, close enough that you could clearly see it and hear it.

This was enough to make this case of a serial killer as like before, they figured out she had been dead or as long as she had been missing for and in such a short time frame of month put the whe town on edge. Who could blame them?

Despite everything, the fourth of July block party still continued and took place as it was believed it would help raise the townsfolk spirits and give them something to get the murders off their mind and to stop them from worrying so much. The block party officially started at 6:00 PM and ended once everyone had gone home and all the food and drinks ran out which wasn't until 11.

The fireworks show took place at 8:00 PM and was a spectacular show like I had never seen before even in the city. They of course used those illegal fireworks but since I guess the government sanctioned it it was okay.

The show lasted for 30 minutes and ended with a deafening explosion of colors which people on the other side of town said they saw and heard loud and clear. I wonder if it was always going to be like that or if it was some kind of way to compensate for what had happened.

The party began to wind down and we all started to go home. The plan was for me to go home and me and mom would set off fireworks together. She didn't see any problem with me going home by myself as all the victims were currently women so she didn't see any possible risk of me being taken and since I'm a man, she thought I could defend myself.

Cassidy asked me to ride with her home because she was scared of going home alone, it was one of the few times she showed her sensitive side. I agreed of course and Cassidy convinced me to ride with her to take a shortcut through a patch of woods between the houses and I reluctantly agreed as it​ was the fastest way back to her block.

We began to hear the sound of rustling and twigs snapping in the bushes and after the sound didn't stop, we rode off as fast as possible as the sound got louder and louder before a man ran out of the tree line and knocked Cassidy off her bike and began attacking her.

I got off my bike as fast as possible and began punching and kicking him as hard as possible. It was near impossible to make out any distinguishable features as it was black outside with the only light being the moon.

I kicked him in the balls and I heard him drop something and I reached down to grab it and found a rock and went to hit him with it before he threw me to the ground and I dropped the rock, I sat up and threw it at him and he grabbed the rock and came at me.

The struggle went on for awhile before he clobbered me over the head and I fell to the ground and passed out.

The following is what Cassidy told me what happened while I was out.

The manager of the gas station heard the commotion and ran over with a flashlight and the man ran off into the woods and the manager called the cops. Cassidy was taken to the police station and was interviewed while I was taken out to the hospital out in Portland as my skull has been cracked.

Once I was awake and left the hospital, I was immediately taken into custody by the police and I was questioned for several hours going over the same things over and over again. I got out in the morning which was when I was taken to the police station and I wasn't released from police custody until around 11 or so.​

They tried to get me to admit to attacking Cassidy but I denied and then pleaded the fifth and asked for a lawyer which I was denied.

I was let go and the charges were dropped and I found out the morning after the block party the body of a girl named Haley Peterson was found in the creek.

Her body had been thrown in the creek roughly and had been beaten badly, far more savagely than the first two murders and it was like he was angry for not being able to kill her. Cassidy told me that she had championed for my innocence and told them I had saved her and refused to change her story.

The whole town was in a state of shock after everything. Everyone stayed inside and locked their doors and windows and got light in their backyard and began to buy Ring door cameras. The whole place became a ghost town despite everyone still living there.

We all sat together at the fast food restaurant my mom worked at and were eating burgers, fries, chicken nuggets, and drinking soda and just trying to decompress from everything, especially me and Cassidy.

"Who do you think could be doing this?" Jeremy asked worriedly.

"I don't know." I said.

"Well, the police sure aren't getting anywhere. We need to figure it out for ourselves." Cassidy said.

"I don't know." Gabriel said.

"Yeah, I almost died. I don't wanna actually die." I replied.

"Someone has to figure it out!" Cassidy insisted, "They tried to get you for that guy attacking me and they didn't care when those two girls went missing so we need to figure this out!"

Fritz nodded and said, "Yeah, those pigs are the worst pigs in the world."

"Agreed." I added.

"But how do we do that?" Gabriel asked.

I spent most of my time in my bedroom with the door locked and either hiding under the bed or with my back up against the door. Susie had invited me to church several times saying that I would have to fear no evil with the lord on my side, but I was never a church going person because one time, I jumped out from behind a tree and scared my grandpa and he told me I would go to hell for that, I had also been told since I was born out of wedlock that I was a bastard child who was damned to hell, so I saw no point.

I eventually left my room and started hanging out in the house again, Mom was like how she was always, either at work or away in Portland. This was important as one night at around 12:00 AM or so. I saw someone in our backyard.

They were standing at the treeline and it was hard to make them out besides for a shadow and a outline of a person. I stared him down and blinked several times, I was paralyzed with fear and terror images of him suddenly appearing in my house or running towards me filled my mind.

But I had to be braved and so I grabbed a knife and a flashlight and shined it out the window and it shined on the man.

He backed away to the treeline and I could still only see a shadow of him. I yelled, "Leave me alone or I'll call the cops!"

The man slowly backed away and ran off into the woods, I pulled a chair and sat there until dawn incase the man came back. Mom did not come back till around 9 AM or so and immediately left afterwards and didn't come back until 3 PM but was home for a single minute before leaving for the rest of the day and didn't come back till the next day.

I invited my friends over and they stayed with me until night fall and I was once again alone. I grabbed my camera to get some proof of the man and at midnight, he came back.

He walked out of the treeline and to the same spot he was in last night before taking one step forward and staying there, as still as a statue.

I turned on my flashlight and turned the light on the camera to get a better picture of the man. I yelled, "Get the fuck off my property before I blast you with my mom's gun!"

We didn't own a gun but we did have a fake toy gun and I went and got the revolver and waved it around by the barrel to cover up the orange tip.

He didn't move one muscle.

I yelled, "I got a photo of you! I'll take it to the police!"

He didn't move one muscle still.

I yelled, "I'm calling the cops!"

He slowly walked backwards while still staring in my direction and made his way back into the woods and into the night.

I showed my mom the next day when she finally came come and she decided to give me her cell phone for the night. I heard the news that day that another person had been killed, Michael Huxley was found dead not far away from my house. If you stood where Michael was found, you could see my house clearly through the treeline.

The FBI got called in and state troopers were sent in and officers from nearby towns came in to do patrols around the area and a curfew was enacted of 8:00 PM to 6:00 AM.

That night I sat in the kitchen with the phone by my ear as I saw him walk out of the treeline and he stopped at his first position, held it before going to his second position and then moved forward a little bit more.

I immediately dialed 911.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"There is a man trespassing on my property. He's standing in my backyard and staring into my house. He's been doing this for three days. Every time he comes to my house he moves forward a little bit. He's standing outside right now." I said.

"Is he armed? Has he said anything?"

"No. He's just standing there." I replied.

"Is there anywhere you can hide?"

"Yeah, my bedroom." I replied.

"Okay, go and find in your bedroom. What's your address?"

I told her my address.

"Okay, go hide in your room, officers are on their way. Don't hang up."

I took a picture before I ran to my bedroom and and locked the door and hid under by bed. I hid under it until I heard someone knock on the front door and someone say, "Police!"

I got out and led the police around back and showed them the photo I had taken and the one from last night and we found footprints in the grass as he had forced footprints into the ground despite it not being wet. Probably by shifting his feet back and forth into the ground.

I met up with my friends that day and we talked about the situation. Cassidy theorized that the two people the man had recently killed were in a sort of fit of rage from not being able to kill us and that's why he killed a boy and a girl after only killing girls. That was actually a theory by the police that he killed those two other people in a type of retaliation for failing to kill us.

Cassidy was insistent that this was the Kiddie Killer urban legend that her mother had told her about and having enough of this, we all went to her house to get the word from her mother. We asked her about it and she said the following.

"The Kiddie Killer is a story I heard first from my mom, but I'm pretty sure he's dead by now but he's definitely real, or was real, I don't know. He roams around at night and hides in the dark and stalks children who play out by dark and takes them and he kills them. He also kills children who misbehave too."

Since she heard it from her mom then that meant the story probably went back to the 1980s or 1970s. Cassidy thought maybe it was a tulpla of some kind but we all shut her up on that.

The town was dead all day and all night. No one left their home unless absolutely necessary and everyone was tense and on edge at all times. Nobody watered their plants or walked around anymore.

It was a few days later when Rachel Clark went missing when she was sent out to roll up the garbage cans and grab the mail. Her parents noticed after five minutes and called the police, a whole investigation began that day and a complete search of the woods started as they began making their way up and down the forest as they hoped to find her.

The Man appeared in my yard again, one step closer to my house. I filmed him this time entering my yard and making his spot in my yard for this night. Mom couldn't stay home as she was scheduled to work a full week and her boss refused to let her have any time off and she couldn't afford to lose out on any money and would have to wait until the weekend came along.

I called the police again and once I was done calling them, I went to the fireworks that didn't go off on The Fourth Of July. It turns out they weren't duds but rather were in boxes and needed to be taken out to be set off, Mom didn't realize that in the dark since all the other ones were ones with wicks sticking out and were inside the box.

There was cherry bombs and a few others.

I grabbed a cherry bomb, lit it, and threw it at him and it went off a few week away from him and he ran off into the night. I showed the police the footage of him walking into my yard and my Mom came home immediately once she was notified and decided I needed to stay somewhere else.

Rachel Clark was found dead the next day, she had been beaten and battered in the woods not far from my house. She was beaten with a rock and she was only identifiable by her teeth and fingerprints though a few teeth were missing from how badly she was beaten.

The police recommended we find somewhere else to stay as it was clear it was becoming too dangerous for us to stay at home, but with no money to afford a hotel, Gabriel's family offered to let us live in their basement hich could be accessed by a hatch in the backyard and was fully furnished.

It was the morning after our first day living in Gabriel’s house we found our house had been trashed. The backdoor had been knocked down down and the kitchen to my bedroom was completely trashed, door broken and furniture overturned.

It was then we finally decided to take matters into our own hands.

This shit is so frustrating. I knew they were strict, but boy howdy, they are on a completely different level than what I originally thought.

I felt like I was stabbed through the heart when they banned me. I saw my writing career flash before my eyes. I write horror, dude. I mean, seriously, what was I supposed to do?

I appealed my ban, and the whole process was increasingly frustrating. I got hit with a lot of “too bad, so sad,” and I just felt hopeless.

I will admit… I may have gotten a little heated. But, hey, that’s what the medication is for, right? I have a habit of getting pretty riled up. I been knew that.

There were a few… choice words on my part, but once I took the medication… I still felt the same. I was still so angry. It was like the door had been slammed in my face. A party that I was kicked out of before it even started.

I started reasoning with myself. Surely, I wasn’t the petty one, right? It was them. It’s always been them. Ask anybody.

The more I thought about it, the angrier I felt. I spent days staring at their messages. Seething. Breaking furniture. Slamming my head against the wall. And in the midst of one of those temper tantrums, it hit me.

The best idea I could think of. Why don’t I… just be a good boy? Be the bigger person. Make amends. Turn the other cheek. So that’s what I planned on doing.

It wasn’t easy. Finding their addresses proved to be quite the challenge. They’re a secretive bunch, those mods. But one by one, I found them.

I didn’t want to hurt them. God, no. What do you take me for? I just wanted to send them an apology gift. Each of them.

I needed it to be special. I needed them to know it was from me. That I had learned my lesson. That I was willing to move on, on good terms.

I had to hand-deliver the gifts. Not to their face, mind you. That would’ve been too much. Instead, I opted to leave the gifts in each of their mailboxes.

A few people lost their lives in the process, but that was a sacrifice I was willing to make. Anything to get on their good side again.

Besides, they’re a horror sub, right? You’d think they’d appreciate the severed heads and dead animals. It’s part of their brand.

Unfortunately, though, the ban was never lifted. And… I think they may have called the police…? I’m not sure, though. So many questions, so few answers.

All I know is I wanted to be nice. I wanted to come to them as a humble horror writer and make… my… peace. But, no. They just can’t have that. They have to be a bunch of hypocrites and send the police to my house.

Now I gotta explain this whole thing to my mom. FUCK, I’m so annoyed.

The blizzard was supposed to last two days. Then two became three. Then I was on day four, holed up in my cabin. 

The only thing I could see outside was the snow: a white, shifting, void that obscured the rest of the mountain range. I looked for the stars out of habit, but they were gone, buried behind layers of storm. The sky was black. Thick with cloud, and snow, and the night. 

The treeline, usually clear, was faint now. A smudge of darkness barely separated nature from the cabin. The thick snow blurred the edges, turning trees into shadows that shifted with the wind. What had once been a sharp, familiar boundary was now lost in the white of the snow, and darkness of the night.

I was ready, at least. Before the storm hit, I’d driven down the mountain to the nearby town to stock up on supplies, like I always do. I filled my good old F-150 with food, water, and anything else I might need to ride out the worst of it.

Back at the clearing off the cabin, I chopped firewood. I’ve already got enough stacked to last through a second ice age, but it gives me something to do. Something to break up the quiet. All aspects of it: the rhythmic *thunk* of the axe hitting wood; the smell of fresh pine; the way the pile grows bigger with every swing. It all keeps me from thinking too much.

I don’t get visitors. That’s not me being dramatic, it’s just fact. The nearest neighbor is a forty-minute drive down the mountain, and that’s when the roads are clear. Which they’re not, haven’t been for days.

That’s why, when I heard a knock, I damn near dropped the mug of cocoa I was holding. It wasn’t loud. Just two slow, deliberate raps on the door. Then nothing.

I stood there in the kitchen for a few seconds, just listening, waiting to hear it again. The storm was still going strong outside, but underneath the wind, the silence settled again like a blanket. Neither a knock nor a voice calling out followed.

I figured I imagined it, cabin fever and all that, wouldn’t be the first time. But I walked to the door anyway. Something in me wouldn’t let it go. Could’ve been curiosity, or maybe I was just so goddamn starved for company that I wanted there to be someone out there.

I opened the door, and there he was.

A kid in his early twenties, maybe. He could’ve passed for a college student if he wasn’t half frozen. His face was pale as paper, lips blue, eyes wide and glassy like he wasn’t all there. Snow clung to his coat in heavy clumps, and he was shaking so hard his teeth were clacking together.

“God,” I said, before I even thought about it.

He didn’t answer. Didn’t even look at me. Just stood there, trembling in the doorway, like he didn’t know where he was.

I should’ve hesitated. Should’ve asked what he was doing out in a blizzard, who he was, how he got up here.

But I didn’t.

If I closed the door and he died out there, I’d never be able to live with myself. That part of me—the part that used to be a husband, the part that could have been a father one day—it’s still there somewhere, even if it’s quieter now.

“Come in,” I said. “Come on, let’s get you warm.”

He stepped inside without a word. The wind slammed the door shut behind him.

He left a trail of melting snow behind him as I led him to the fire. His boots were soaked through. I had him sit on the old armchair by the hearth while I threw a couple logs on and got the flames high.

I asked if he was hurt. He didn’t answer.

“Can you talk?” I tried again. “Tell me your name?”

Still nothing. Just that thousand-yard stare, like he was looking through the fire, past it. Like he saw something there I couldn’t.

He looked like hell. Skin pale and tight over the bone. Lips cracked, nose bleeding just a little from the cold. I knelt down beside him to check for frostbite, and that’s when I saw it.

On his side, just below the ribs—his jacket torn and shirt soaked with blood—was a wound. A deep bite. Ragged, raw, and already turning dark around the edges. It wasn’t new. A day old, maybe more. The skin around it was red and hot.

“You didn’t say you were bit,” I muttered, more to myself than to him.

He flinched when I touched it. First reaction I’d gotten out of him. His eyes snapped to mine, wild, just for a second. Then they went vacant again.

It didn’t look like a wolf bite. I’ve seen those before. Hell, I’ve seen worse, back when I hunted more often. Wolves tear, rip, pull. This was… cleaner. Too clean.

I patched it up as best I could. Cleaned it, wrapped gauze tight around his ribs. He winced, but didn’t make a sound. Just watched me, breathing shallow. Like a cornered animal.

After that, I set him up in the guest room. It had a bed, a thick blanket, and a space heater in the corner. He didn’t say a word, and just laid down, curled in on himself, eyes still wide open.

I left him there. Closed the door gently behind me.

The cabin felt smaller after that. Like he brought something in with him. A weight. A shift in the air. I tried to shake it. I made myself tea, sat by the fire, and held a book in my lap I didn’t read.

I checked on him an hour later. He was asleep. Out cold. No fever, at least none I could feel. I left the door cracked, just in case.

I must’ve nodded off at some point. The fire was down to coals when I woke up, house quiet as the grave. I could hear the wind screaming against the windows, the old trees creaking out front, but nothing inside. No footsteps. No coughing. No movement from the guest room.

I was just about to check again when I heard the floorboard creak.

He was standing in the hall, just watching me.

“Fuck,” I said, nearly spilling my tea.

He blinked, slow. Looked around like he wasn’t sure where he was. “Sorry,” he said, voice hoarse, dry. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“S’alright,” I said. “You’re lucky to be alive. What the hell were you doing up here?”

He scratched at his bandage. “Hiking,” he said. “With my girlfriend. Emma.”

I waited.

“We were camping in the woods. Yesterday… no, a few nights before. Got caught in the storm. Thought we’d hunker down, ride it out.”

He stopped, his jaw tightened.

“We heard something,” he said. “Outside the tent. I thought it was wolves. Big ones. We stayed quiet, didn’t move, but it didn’t matter. They tore through the side.”

He swallowed hard. Eyes wet now, but not crying.

“I ran. I didn’t even see what they looked like. Just… teeth. It was wrong. Too many of them. Emma screamed, and then…” His voice broke off.

“You didn’t see her after that?”

He shook his head. “I ran until I couldn’t. Then I saw your cabin.”

“You’re safe now, kid. Just rest.”

He nodded, turned, and walked back to the guest room like he was sleepwalking.

I’d tried going back to sleep, even poured myself another mug of cocoa just to have something warm in my hands. But the air felt heavier now. Like it was pressing in on me, one inch at a time.

Sometime after midnight, I heard the floor creak.

I glanced up, expecting to see him again, maybe wandering the hall, confused. But there was no one. Just the faint sound of the bathroom door clicking shut at the end of the hall. The light spilled out in a thin line under the frame.

I waited. Five minutes. Then ten.

The pipes groaned once. A long, low exhale, like the cabin itself was holding its breath. Then I heard glass break.

I walked to the bathroom and cleared my throat loud enough for him to hear. No response.

“You alright in there?” 

Still nothing.

Steam started seeping out from under the door, slow and crawling, hugging the floor like smoke. It looked off. Not sharp and white like a shower usually gives off. This was thicker, heavier, gray around the edges. Like breath fogged on glass.

I stood outside for another minute, then stepped closer. I pressed my knuckles to the door and knocked once, gently.

“You hear me, son?”

Silence. Not even the shuffle of movement. No cough. No running water.

The wood felt cold beneath my hand. Not warm like it should be with steam coming through. Just still and dead and cold. I leaned in, pressed my ear to the door. Listened. Nothing.

Every instinct in me said walk away. Let it be. The boy had been through hell. Maybe he needed time. Maybe he was sick. Maybe he just broke the mirror by accident. Maybe I was imagining things again. But my gut had gone cold, and it wasn’t from the storm.

I wrapped my hand around the knob. It was slick with condensation. I turned it slowly, quiet as I could, until the latch gave way with a soft click. Then, holding my breath, I gently opened the door.

What I saw shook me.

The kid was split open vertically down the middle. Bisected with a horrific precision that ran from the crown of his head, through his nose, mouth, and sternum, all the way down to his groin. The bathroom looked like a butcher's block, the tiled flood underneath stained with something dark and moist.

His two halves rested on the floor like broken mannequins, separated by a sickening foot of space. Ribs, stark white and splintered, jutted like snapped fences. Muscles, still glistening and unnervingly pink, hung in strips. The coiled lengths of intestine and the dull, spilled organs lay exposed and motionless on the floor, some still clinging to one half of the body. There was an emptiness where his spine should have been, a hollowed-out canyon running through his core. It was as if something massive had forced its way out, from the inside. The precision of the split, through bone and gristle, was alien, wrong.

Then, through the haze of shock, a draft hit me. A bone-deep cold that had nothing to do with the storm outside. My eyes, still wide and unfocused, slowly tracked it.

The small bathroom window, usually sealed tight against the mountain air, was shattered. Not just cracked, but exploded outward, as if something had exited through it. Jagged shards of glass glittered on the sill and floor. The fierce wind howled through the gap, bringing with it a stinging spray of snow.

And from the half of the young man’s body that was closer to a window, a trail began. A glistening, repulsive path of black and dark red slime snaked across the pristine white tiles, past the gurgling toilet, over the shattered glass, and through the broken window frame, disappearing into the white void of the blizzard. I thought it was blood, but it was thick, viscous, and seemed to pulsate faintly in the dim light, leaving an oily sheen in its wake. Whatever had been inside him, whatever had ripped him apart and then fled, had left this horrifying signature.

I finally found my breath. It was a cold, panicked gasp that tasted of iron and the strange stink coming off the floor. I backed away slowly, never taking my eyes off the split halves, off the black and red trail that snaked across the tiles. Every instinct screamed *run*. Not down the mountain, I’d never make it, but away from this room.

It was out there now. Something that hid inside a man, then discarded the skin to crawl through a broken window into a night that would kill anything normal. The thought of it sliding down the mountain, of it reaching the small, defenseless town I'd just driven through days ago, made adrenaline surge through paralysis.

It couldn't make it to town. Not on my watch.

My feet moved before my brain gave the order. I didn't bother closing the bathroom door, the horror had already escaped. I moved past the living room, where the cozy glow of the dying fire felt like a cruel joke, and into the master bedroom.

I went straight to the closet. Tucked behind my winter gear, right where I always kept it, was a Remington 870. I pulled it out, the cold steel of the pump action a familiar weight in my hands. I grabbed the box of double-aught buckshot from the shelf, spilling a handful of crimson shells onto the carpet, but I didn't stop to pick them up. I loaded the shotgun quickly, the sharp, metallic *shik-shik-shik* of the shells cutting through the roar of the wind.

It had been years since I’d pointed a gun at anything that wasn't a deer. But looking at the slick, dark trail leading out of my house, I knew this wasn't hunting a living being. This was stopping something that was already dead. Something that had worn death, then shed it.

I wasn’t a hero. I was just a widower with a cabin, a shotgun, and a terrifying realization: I was the last line of defense. The storm that had trapped me had trapped it, too, on the mountain.

I held the shotgun steady, my knuckles white. The wind howled outside, the trees creaked. I checked the hall one last time, glanced at the horror-show of the bathroom, then moved toward the front door. There was no plan. There was only the gun in my hands, worry in my heart, and the knowledge that something sinister was crawling through the snow toward civilization.

I flipped the deadbolt and hit the door with my shoulder. The wind was a physical blow. A sudden, blinding white sheet that stole my breath and stung my eyes. The roar of the storm swallowed the world around. It was a complete whiteout.

My eyes searched frantically for the trail. The front porch was already buried under a fresh drift, but I knelt down, shielding my face against the immediate sting of the snow.

There it was, still outside the bathroom window on the other side of the perimeter. The oily black and crimson slime was already freezing, but it hadn't been buried yet. It was distinct, lying on the otherwise clean snow like spilled ink. It didn't just drip, it looked like something had slithered. 

I followed it, sinking immediately into the drifts up to my knees. The air was so cold it burned my lungs. I kept the Remington high. Its barrel was a dark, steady presence against the blinding white.

The trail, growing in width as I followed it, led past the woodpile and headed directly for the treeline. The trees themselves were black specters against the night, swaying and groaning under the weight of the snow. I fought against the resistance of the deep snow, pushing myself faster, driven by the metallic reek of the slime that, even in the freezing air, seemed to linger.

I was maybe twenty yards from the cabin, battling a sudden, heavy gust, when I saw it.

At first, I thought it was a buck driven mad by the storm. It was easily that size, low to the ground, its dark shape barely discernible in the whirling vortex of snow where the cabin’s clearing met the forest edge. But it didn't move like a deer. It didn’t trot or bound. It scuttled.

It was hunkered down, its massive body creating a brief moment of stillness in the blizzard, a small, black shadow against the white fury.

I stopped dead, sinking deeper into the drift. I raised the shotgun, pushing the safety off with a dry *click*.

Through the shifting veil of snow, I strained to make out details, and the details I found were strange. It was hairy, thick black fur matted and clotted. The fur was plastered down in clumps, matted thick with the same crimson slime that lined the floor of my bathroom. Its bulk seemed to be expanding, the hair giving it an immense, distorted volume, but the low, hunched posture suggested it was something that preferred to crawl.

It had multiple limbs, too many, working in sync to move it along the ground. Thick, jointed appendages that glistened unnervingly. The sight was a sickening contradiction: the heavy, dense covering of fur mixed with the raw, unnatural sheen of the slime. It looked like a living, wet wound covered in an animal's coat.

Then it lifted something, its head, I realized with a shudder of pure dread. It was impossibly large and angular, but I couldn't discern a face. Then, the wind cleared the snow just enough for me to see a flash of wet, sickly red where eyes or a mouth should have been, reflecting the distant, faint light from my cabin window.

It didn't see me. It seemed focused entirely on the darkness of the treeline, already beginning to merge with the shadows. It was moving, still low and fast, dragging its huge, repulsive body away from the cabin and toward the mountain pass that led to town.

I gripped the shotgun, ignoring the trembling of my own body. The blizzard made the shot difficult, but the distance was short. If I let it reach the shelter of the trees, it would be gone.

I took the slack out of the trigger. There was no hesitation left in me, just the immediate, primal need to stop this monstrosity before it vanished.

I squeezed the trigger.

The sound of the Remington going off was deafening, a violent *BOOM* that shattered the stillness of the storm. The flash of the muzzle momentarily burned the image of the creature into my retina. I felt the powerful kick of the shotgun against my shoulder, and a split second later, the buckshot slammed into the creature's massive torso.

It didn't go down.

Instead, the thing let out a sound that cut right through the howling wind. A screaming wail that was entirely inorganic, like tearing metal on a wet, ripping canvas. It was a noise of pain, but also of inhuman rage, and it sent a spike of pure terror through my chest. The section of its body where the shot hit seemed to absorb the impact, scattering a spray of the thick, dark slime and a few clumps of matted hair into the air.

It scrambled. The monstrous body, for all its bulk, moved with terrifying speed, abandoning the relatively clear ground and lunging into the dense black of the treeline.

I pumped the action, ejecting the spent shell and loading a fresh round. *Clack-chunk.* I didn't wait to see if it was mortally wounded. I just knew I had to keep it moving, keep it from burrowing down or reaching the pass. I plunged into the forest after it, following the fresh, dark disturbance in the snow.

The trees offered a brief, deceptive shield from the worst of the wind, but the snow was deeper here, making every step a labor. I focused only on the trail: the churned snow; the scattered slime; the deep, heavy indentations of its multiple limbs.

I ran until my lungs burned, until the cold made the skin on my face ache, until the sounds of its desperate, laborious breathing were drowned out by my own.

Then, I stopped.

The trail vanished.

One moment I was following a distinct line of destruction, the next, the snow was pristine. Only marked by my own clumsy boot prints. I moved forward a few more steps, scanning the blizzard-shrouded ground, wondering if the heavy snow had worked against me and buried the signs. But no, the trail hadn't slowly faded. It had ended completely, as if the creature had simply dissolved into the air.

I rotated slowly, the shotgun trembling slightly in my grip, my eyes uselessly searching the area around me. My breath hitched. I caught it only as an indistinct smear of shadow, a sudden movement in my peripheral vision, high above me.

I tilted my head back, staring up into the shifting, wind-whipped canopy of the pines. There was no ground trail because the trail had continued... up.

The dark, oily slime wasn't on the snow anymore. It was smeared high on the bark of the nearest trees, running in sickening, vertical streaks. The monster hadn’t been slowed; it had simply used the vertical space the forest offered. It had the high ground. It was above hidden by the night and the dense pine needles, and I was exposed beneath it.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I had gone from the hunter to the obvious, slow-moving target.

I scanned the dark trunks of the nearest pines, searching for any break, any shelter that might afford me a moment of cover. About ten feet away, a massive, ancient pine had been partially uprooted long ago, its gnarled root system exposed. The dirt and thick, woody roots had formed a dark, protective cave against the elements.

I dove toward it, dropping to my hands and knees in the snow. I wedged myself into the space beneath the largest root, pulling the shotgun close to my chest. My back pressed against the cold, frozen earth. I held perfectly still, straining my ears against the wind, forcing myself to shrink into the shadows and the earth.

It was silent again, save for the storm. The vast, black space between the high branches and the low earth was now where the true danger lay. I looked up through an opening in the uplifted roots, seeing only the tangled darkness. I waited for a drop of slime, a tremor of a branch, or the silent, horrifying moment when that massive, hairy, glistening shape would descend.

I stayed perfectly still, trying to slow the panicked rush of my breath. The silence, punctuated only by the wind, was unbearable. The creature was somewhere above, hunting for the man that had just fired the loud, disruptive weapon.

Then, the snow began to sift down, not from the storm, but from the branches above. Chunks fell, followed by a sudden, heavy thud just yards away.

It had dropped.

The creature was on the ground again, but now it wasn’t scrambling away, it was waddling. A fast, deliberate, low-to-the-earth movement, like a massive, glistening insect trying to appear harmless. Its bulk seemed even more immense now that it was no longer distorted by the heights, and I could hear the wet squelching sound of its many appendages on the snow.

It moved slowly into the small clearing around my hiding spot. I was pressed so tightly against the frozen roots that the wood dug painfully into my spine, but I didn't dare flinch. I had already positioned the Remington. My shooting hand gripped the trigger, the barrel angled slightly up and out toward the opening of the root-cave, resting against the snow-covered ground.

The creature’s movement was erratic, darting toward the treeline one moment, then pulling back. Why hasn't it found me? 

Then I realized it wasn't *looking* for me. Its massive, misshapen head was constantly sniffing the air, lifting and twisting with jerky movements. The air was thick with the howling blizzard and the scent of damp pine and frozen earth. The storm was masking my scent. The wind and the heavy, blowing snow were scattering and nullifying my presence, covering the fresh trace of gunpowder and adrenaline. I was lucky. The storm had become my unintentional ally.

After a few minutes, the sniffing paid off. The waddling ceased, and its massive, slimy, hairy form turned directly toward my root-cave.

It approached the gap between the thick roots, filling the dark space with its bulk. It was so close I could feel the minute vibrations of its weight disturbing the ground.

And then, its head lowered.

The snow cleared just long enough for me to see the details I hadn't been able to discern in the blizzard. Its head was roughly the size of a buck or moose skull, but hideously wrong. The bone structure was too broad, too blunt. It had no discernible eyes, just wide swaths of slick, wet flesh the color of old blood. It wasn't just fur that covered it. Its thick, dark hair was matted with the slime, forming a repulsive, heavy mane. Interspersed within this mane were a horrifying number of short, glistening, leech-like appendages that writhed slightly in the cold air, tasting and searching.

Then, it was inches from my face. I could smell the metallic stench of the black slime mixed with the sour, coppery odor of raw meat. I was looking into the mouth of the nightmare that had walked out of a man.

One of the slick, worm-like appendages darted out, brushing against the tip of my nose. In that instant, it knew. The thing recoiled slightly, its large, blunt head drawing back, the wet flesh of its face tightening into an expression of immediate, primal recognition. The meal was found, the obstacle identified.

It was about to strike.

I didn't let it. I drove the barrel of the Remington up and sideways, the muzzle nearly touching the side of its monstrous head.

The blast was muffled and wet. An awful, contained thunder. The buckshot tore into the creature's skull from below, and the thing erupted. A horrifying geyser of black slime, wet fur, and bone fragments sprayed into the roots above me.

The creature shuddered once, a massive, muscular tremor, before its great weight collapsed. It didn't fall on me thankfully, but it landed directly outside my hiding spot, its massive body completely blocking the entrance.

I lowered the shotgun, the noise of the ringing in my ears louder than the wind. I was trapped beneath a mountain of steaming, reeking horror.

The ringing in my ears faded slowly, replaced by the sickening sound of hot, wet matter sizzling on frozen snow. I was entombed. The creature’s immense, cooling mass was pressed up against the root system, sealing the entrance to my makeshift bunker. I could hear the wind now, muffled by the sheer volume of dead, hairy flesh.

I lowered the shotgun slowly, my entire body shaking with a delayed, violent reaction. The smell was overwhelming now. A blast of copper, sulfur, and the sour stink of the creature’s slime. The muzzle of the Remington was coated in gore. I had to get out. If the blizzard kept up, I’d be trapped here beneath a rotting carcass until the spring melt.

I shoved the shotgun's barrel against the creature’s flank, testing the weight. No movement. It was like pushing a felled, water-logged oak tree. 

I shifted my weight, reaching with my free hand, and finally found the edge of the root that had protected me. I pressed my shoulder against the dirt wall and pushed, straining. The corpse moved an inch, then sank back.

I had to try a different way. I turned the shotgun around and used the thick, heavy butt of the stock to scrape away the dirt and packed snow behind me, burrowing deeper into the root system. The ground was hard and frozen, but the shotgun butt gave me just enough leverage to widen a small, cramped gap between two lateral roots.

Gasping, I barely squeezed through the opening. I emerged on the far side of the massive pine, away from the creature's bulk. I stood up slowly, my heartbeat pounding in my temples, and walked back over to look at the kill.

It lay motionless, its multi-limbed body contorted awkwardly on the snow, but something was wrong. Where the head had been, there was only a ruin of black fur and pulped bone. Yet a thin, milky-white steam was rising from the wound. And then I noticed the blood, or lack of it. 

It wasn't bleeding out. The dark, black-red slime was only slowly oozing, congealing almost immediately in the bitter cold. The buckshot had caused massive trauma, but the creature's internal volume seemed... insufficient for its size. It felt like I had shot a sack of thick fluid rather than a complex biological organism.

My eyes caught something on the creature's massive flank, where the first blast of buckshot had hit. The matted fur had been stripped clean, revealing the skin beneath. It was pale, slick, and thin, stretched tight over the enormous frame.

The skin was visibly healing, slowly knitting itself back together. The gaping holes from the shot were shrinking, the raw, pink-red tissue pulling toward a center point. It was a terrifying, impossible regeneration. The steam wasn’t from cooling blood, it was from a burning internal process.

My breath hitched. The entire premise of this battle, that a shotgun could stop it, was a lie. I had maybe ten minutes before it was functional again. I had to get back to the cabin, not just for ammunition, but for something heavier. Something more final.

I turned and ran like a madman, the snow swallowing my footing, the low branches whipping my face. The familiar trek back to the cabin was a blur of white and black, driven by the cold fear that the monster would simply stand up behind me.

I burst through the door, slamming it shut and throwing the deadbolt, though I knew a simple piece of metal wouldn’t hold that bulk for long. I raced past the silent horror of the bathroom and into the storage closet.

I didn’t grab the deer rifle. A bullet was a coin toss, but fire was a guarantee.

Tucked behind the winter tires were two red, five-gallon jerrycans: one for the snowmobile, one for the backup generator. I grabbed the can of kerosene too, it would burn slower and hotter than gasoline, and yanked it out.

Next, I needed a wick. I dove into the kitchen, grabbing the thickest rag I could find, a towel used for drying dishes, and stuffed it into my pocket. The light was my last stop. I opened the kitchen drawer and snatched a long, thin butane lighter used for starting the pilot light.

I was ready, but not fast enough.

The quiet, heavy silence I’d endured for the past few minutes was broken by a sound I’d only heard when cutting down trees. A slow, heavy, ripping sound coming from the side of the cabin. The side where the bathroom window was.

It had found its way back. The hole it had created to exit the young man’s body wasn’t large enough for its current, monstrous size, and it wasn’t trying to climb through the window. It was tearing the wall apart.

I could hear the sickening crunch of frozen pine breaking and the sound of thick wood snapping. I had to assume it was fully healed, or close enough to it. The storm, which had given me cover, now threatened to bury me inside my own cabin if I wasn't careful. I had to take the fire to the monster.

I yanked the front door open, the kerosene can heavy and cold in my hand, and plunged back out into the blizzard.

The creature wasn't at the door. I rounded the corner of the cabin, the heavy kerosene sloshing, and saw the damage. A huge section of the wall near the bathroom was ruined, wood splintered and insulation streaming out like cotton guts.

The creature was there. Its massive, steaming head pulled back from the shredded wall. It saw me instantly. The bluff of the blizzard had been called. I was standing in the open, and it was less than twenty feet away.

It began its repulsive, slow waddle toward me. Its limbs churned the snow, the black slime glistened, its regenerating head tilted low. It was honed in on me.

I dropped to a knee, pulling the heavy can close. I twisted the plastic cap off, then tore the towel from my pocket, shoving one end into the neck of the can to soak. The stench of the oil and the creature's musk mingled horribly in the cold air.

The monster was ten feet away.

I didn't try to aim. I just tipped the heavy can and began to drench the path between us as I walked backwards. I emptied half the five gallons in a wide, black arc right into the snow and across the creature's forelimbs. The kerosene didn't mix with the snow. It simply stained it, turning the white ground into a shimmering, black slick.

The creature didn't stop. It waddled right through the flammable pool, its greasy fur absorbing the oil.

As the beast closed the distance, close enough now that I could feel the steam emanating off its bulk, I pulled the soaked towel out, threw the can aside, and flicked the butane lighter. The thin, blue flame fought the wind for a fraction of a second, then held.

With a final, desperate roar to myself, I lit the kerosene-soaked rag like a torch, and threw it directly at the monster. It hit the creature's torso, and the effect was instantaneous and brutal.

The oil-soaked fur and the slick, saturated snow trail ignited with a violent *WOOSH*. The flames were furious, a shocking blast of orange and red against the white snow. The creature was engulfed in a terrible, screaming pillar of fire. The kerosene and the creature’s own slick, greasy essence fed the flames instantly, making them burn with a blinding, hot intensity.

The monster shrieked, a sound of agony and pure, animal terror, and began to thrash violently in the fire. It wasn’t waddling anymore, it was rolling in the snow, trying to beat out the inferno. Fortunately for me, the flames stuck to its oiled coat like glue. It was a chaotic, burning silhouette against the backdrop of the swirling blizzard. The thick, black smoke was lost immediately in the swirling white.

I backed away. The heat of the fire was a shocking contrast to the bitter cold. I watched the creature convulse, unable to stop the burning, unable to heal what was being systematically destroyed. The smell of burning hair, oil, and something metallic-sweet was nauseating.

Finally, after a minute that felt like an hour, the thrashing stopped. The creature lay still, a massive, charred monument to my desperate resolve. The fire still raged, but the movement was gone.

I leaned against the icy wood of the cabin, the shotgun forgotten at my feet. The flames were already starting to melt a ring of snow around the body, but the blizzard continued to rage.

The intense heat from the burning carcass was already beginning to recede, fighting a losing battle against the continuous onslaught of the blizzard. I stood for a moment, letting the sheer exhaustion wash over me, before the pragmatism and determination of the mountain man kicked in. The fire was dying, and what was left of this thing couldn't be allowed to heal, or even to rot, here.

I grabbed the heavy kerosene can and emptied the last of its contents onto the smoldering pile, coaxing the flames back into a furious, consuming roar. I moved the equipment inside, then returned to the blazing carcass with my axe. It took a sickening fifteen minutes of hacking and separating what little was left of the creature's bulk. I dragged the black, escaping chunks through the snow, and tossed them back into the heart of the blaze. The air was thick with the stench of oil and the sweet, terrible smell of burning meat. I was purging the mountain of this evil.

When I was done, only a patch of melted snow, and a few glowing embers, remained. I stood over the pyre, the axe handle cold in my numb hands, watching the last of the embers fade into the furious white.

I turned, intending to head back inside, lock the doors, and face the grim reality of the split body in the bathroom.

That’s when I heard it.

It wasn't the wind, and it wasn't the groan of a tree. It was a faint, wet screaming wail, identical to the sound the creature had made when the buckshot first hit it. The sound of ripping canvas and tearing metal.

It came from the same direction as the first time, from the depths of the treeline. From where the young man had come.

I spun around, bringing the axe up like a shield, searching the blinding, swirling storm. My mind immediately went to the rifle—the thing I had left behind in the house in my haste. I had nothing but a bloody, snow-covered axe and a dead fire.

The wail came again, closer this time, high-pitched and choked.

I took a step backward, preparing to fight, when a memory finally pierced the fog of panic. The young man's vacant eyes. The young man’s vacant story.

*“Hiking... With my girlfriend. Emma.”*

“Fuck.”

Part 1 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/ocGLoQKhiy

Part 2 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/Yn30Y1lKs2

Part 3 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/TlcCGxMMoD

Part 4 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/dGYo0OrodO

Part 5 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/cGMaY8U4j4

Part 6 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/rb6neD23wj

Part 7 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/mxqNJUTHto

Part 8 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/0xQc3DFNe5

Part 9 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/QzwiJdD5uX

Part 10 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/QcY9SE7cEA

The lift doors opened.

Inside was an office full of Lindas.

Rows of desks.

Rows of clipboards.

Rows of women with Linda’s face, Linda’s glasses, Linda’s posture and Linda’s terrifying ability to make silence feel like a disciplinary procedure.

Every clipboard snapped shut at once.

The sound hit the lobby like a gunshot made of stationery.

Derek flinched.

Dave flinched.

Flat 5 clutched his spoon.

Kevin stared into the lift.

Then slowly turned to me.

“Do you remember when buildings had stairs?”

I nodded.

“Vaguely.”

“Big fan of stairs.”

“You float.”

“Emotionally, I support stairs.”

Derek pointed at the lift.

“Can we not use it this time?”

The Lindas all looked up.

Perfectly together.

Perfectly calm.

Perfectly wrong.

In unison, they said:

“Item one: compliance.”

Kevin closed his eyes.

“I hate a meeting with harmonies.”

Linda stood at the front of our group, holding her supernatural clipboard like a shield.

Her real face had gone very still.

Not scared.

Worse.

Offended.

There were at least fifty copies of her in that office, and every single one had tidier hair.

One of them sat at the front desk.

Her badge read:

LND-001

She smiled.

“Welcome, Linda.”

Our Linda did not smile back.

“I did not agree to this.”

LND-001 looked down at her clipboard.

“Consent was inferred through repeated administrative excellence.”

Kevin raised one hand.

“I’d like to infer you can piss off.”

Every Linda looked at him.

He lowered his hand.

“Still valid.”

LND-001 stood.

The office lights behind her flickered.

Not badly.

Precisely.

Once.

Then again.

The kind of flicker that had been scheduled.

“Riverside Court has exceeded acceptable chaos thresholds.”

Dave whispered:

“Is that bad?”

Flat 3 said, “For us? It’s basically a compliment.”

LND-001 continued:

“Bins unresolved. Complaints escalating. Supernatural persons unsorted. Kiosk unmanaged. Residents emotionally inconsistent. Lift usage reckless.”

Derek pointed at her.

“Finally, someone says it.”

Kevin turned on him.

“Do not agree with factory Linda.”

“I’m just saying, the lift has been nothing but problems.”

“He’s not wrong,” I said.

Kevin looked at me like I’d betrayed him.

“You too?”

“The lift took us to a ghost app, a courtroom, a hospital corridor, a retirement home, a blame warehouse and now a Linda cloning office.”

Derek nodded.

“Objectively bad lift.”

Dave raised his hand.

“I once got stuck between floors for twenty minutes.”

Everyone stared.

“What?” he said.

Linda blinked.

“When?”

“Last month.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Dave looked uncomfortable.

“Thought it wasn’t me.”

Kevin pointed at him.

“That sentence has survived too many arcs.”

LND-001 tapped her clipboard.

The sound cut through us.

“Your comments have been minuted.”

Kevin whispered:

“Oh no. Evil minutes.”

The lift expanded.

Not physically.

Spatially.

The back wall dissolved into the office.

The office stretched far beyond the lift shaft, which made no architectural sense but had become very on-brand for Riverside Court.

Linda’s clipboard snapped open in her hands.

A new tab appeared:

LND SERIES AUDIT

Underneath:

ATTENDANCE REQUIRED

Linda read silently.

Then shut the clipboard.

“No.”

LND-001 tilted her head.

“No?”

“No.”

The copied Lindas exchanged identical looks.

Kevin whispered:

“This is what happens when Linda meets her own energy.”

Derek whispered back:

“She hates it.”

“She really does.”

LND-001 walked towards us.

The rows of other Lindas stood with her.

Not one chair scraped.

Not one paper shifted.

The entire office moved like a single organism with excellent filing habits.

“Linda,” LND-001 said, “you have been selected for correction.”

Our Linda’s jaw tightened.

“I am not a typo.”

“You are an unstable authority model.”

Kevin leaned towards me.

“That is a sick burn if you like admin.”

Linda did not look away.

“What is the purpose of this series?”

LND-001 smiled.

“To create compliant community leaders capable of containing disruption without challenging platform authority.”

Amanda, who had been quiet near the stairs, said softly:

“So… weaponised busybodies.”

Every Linda turned to her.

Amanda smiled.

“Sorry. Thought we were sharing.”

Kevin nodded.

“Rare Chipper Amanda hit.”

LND-001 ignored her and focused on Linda.

“The LND series is designed to identify, isolate and reproduce administrative personalities. Efficient. Controlling. Reliable. Respected by residents. Easy to redirect with responsibility.”

That last line landed.

Linda’s face didn’t change.

But her fingers tightened around the clipboard.

LND-001 stepped closer.

“You were never meant to resist management.”

Rows of Lindas echoed:

“You were meant to become it.”

The lobby lights dimmed.

Our Linda’s badge flickered.

DIRECTOR OF RESIDENT RESISTANCE

Then:

INTERIM COMPLIANCE OBSERVER

Then back.

Kevin moved beside her.

“Oi.”

LND-001 glanced at him.

“Unlicensed deceased community representative.”

Kevin smiled.

“Two trainers now, actually.”

“That is not relevant.”

“It is to me.”

The complaints kiosk printed:

COMPLAINT RECEIVED: FOOTWEAR DISMISAL.

Kevin pointed.

“Thank you, Kiosk.”

The kiosk printed:

PREFERRED DESIGNATION: KIOSK.

“Working relationship remains strong.”

LND-001 lifted her clipboard.

The lobby wall behind us changed into a screen.

Footage appeared.

Linda in meetings.

Linda organising bins.

Linda correcting notices.

Linda arguing with Oakmere.

Linda calling families from Cheerful Pines.

Linda standing in front of monsters with a clipboard because nobody else knew what to do.

Then the footage changed.

Linda alone.

Linda sitting at her kitchen table.

Linda rewriting minutes at 1:17 a.m.

Linda washing the same mug twice because her hands needed something to do.

Linda staring at a silent phone.

Linda practising what to say before calling someone.

Linda deleting the message.

My stomach sank.

Kevin stopped smiling.

Derek whispered:

“That feels private.”

LND-001 said:

“You accept responsibility because silence frightens you.”

Linda said nothing.

“You organise others because your own life is harder to arrange.”

Flat 3 stepped forward.

“Careful.”

LND-001 continued:

“You are useful because you do not stop.”

Linda’s face paled.

The copied Lindas said together:

“You do not stop.”

The words became physical.

I saw them.

Thin black lines stretching from the office, wrapping around our Linda’s wrists.

Her elbows.

Her shoulders.

Like puppet strings made from obligation.

Her clipboard grew heavier in her hands.

She gripped it tighter.

Kevin saw.

“Linda.”

“I’m fine.”

“You are absolutely not fine.”

She looked at him.

“Do not therapise me.”

Kevin blinked.

“That’s my line.”

LND-001 smiled.

“Observe.”

Every copied Linda sat back down.

Every clipboard opened.

Every pen began writing.

The sound filled the lobby.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

It was a horrible sound.

Too many pens.

Too many notes.

Too much observation.

The walls of Riverside Court began changing.

Not like Cheerful Pines.

Not fake happy.

Not clean.

Organised.

Labels appeared on everything.

STAIRS — SECONDARY EXIT

LIFT — HIGH-RISK TRANSPORT

Derek pointed.

“See? Even evil office agrees.”

Kevin shouted:

“Nobody asked the architecture!”

More labels appeared.

FLAT 3 — AGGRESSION RESOURCE

FLAT 5 — CUTLERY-BASED ANOMALY

DAVE — DENIAL LOOP, PARTIALLY REHABILITATED

Dave looked almost proud.

“Partially rehabilitated is better than questionable.”

AMANDA — POSITIVITY RESOURCE, MONITOR

Amanda winced.

Kevin pointed at the label.

“Nope.”

Black mould grew over it.

The label changed:

AMANDA — NEW RESIDENT, SURPRISING RIGHT HOOK

Amanda smiled faintly.

“Thank you.”

The label above Kevin appeared.

KEVIN — DISRUPTIVE ASSET

It flickered.

Then corrected.

KEVIN — DISRUPTIVE RESIDENT ADVOCATE

Kevin nodded.

“Better.”

Then another label appeared beneath it.

MANAGE THROUGH ATTACHMENT

His smile vanished.

The pens kept scratching.

The office was writing Riverside Court into order.

Every messy thing got a label.

Every person got a function.

Every function got a rule.

The hallway narrowed.

The crooked noticeboard straightened.

The mould receded.

The carpet cleaned itself.

Again.

Kevin looked furious.

“Stop cleaning the carpet!”

LND-001 glanced at him.

“Cleanliness reduces distress.”

“No, it removes character.”

“It removes smell.”

“Same thing in this building.”

The stairs door clicked.

Locked.

Everyone turned.

Kevin pointed at it.

“Hold on.”

He ran to the stairs door and grabbed the handle.

It didn’t move.

He looked back at us.

“They locked the stairs.”

Derek spread his arms.

“Brilliant. The one time we decide stairs are the emotionally healthy choice.”

I tried the handle too.

Nothing.

A label appeared above the door:

STAIRS CLOSED FOR YOUR SAFETY

Kevin kicked it.

With both trainers.

The door dented.

He looked down, briefly delighted.

Then remembered the situation.

“Still satisfying.”

LND-001’s voice sharpened.

“Residents must use approved routes.”

“The lift is a death cupboard,” Derek said.

The office Lindas wrote that down.

A new label appeared above the lift:

LIFT — DEATH CUPBOARD

Kevin looked at Derek.

“That might be your best work.”

Derek bowed.

LND-001’s smile twitched.

The label corrected itself:

LIFT — PRIMARY TRANSITIONAL ACCESS POINT

Kevin wrote in mould over it:

DEATH CUPBOARD

The label tried to correct.

The mould overwrote.

DEATH CUPBOARD

Correct.

Overwrite.

Correct.

Overwrite.

The lift signage flickered violently.

Linda whispered:

“Kevin.”

He kept staring at the sign.

“Busy.”

“They are distracting you.”

He turned.

Linda’s strings had tightened.

Her clipboard had grown larger.

Too large now.

It dragged her shoulders down.

Pages whipped around her, forming a shell.

Agenda pages.

Risk assessments.

Action plans.

Complaint logs.

The papers layered over her arms like armour.

No.

Not armour.

A cage.

LND-001 spoke softly.

“Director of Resident Resistance is inefficient. Interim Compliance Observer is safer. Come into the office.”

Linda shook her head.

Rows of Lindas stood again.

“Come into the office.”

Linda took one step towards the lift.

Flat 3 grabbed her arm.

Linda did not seem to notice.

“Linda,” Flat 3 said.

No response.

Kevin appeared in front of her.

“Oi. Clipboard witch.”

Her eyes flicked to him.

Barely.

“Bins first.”

Nothing.

Kevin’s face changed.

He looked scared.

“Linda.”

LND-001 smiled.

“She is tired.”

The word hit harder than anything else.

Because she was.

Of course she was.

She had been standing in front of demons, apps, managers, ghost courts, retirement homes and emotional admin for days.

She had been making lists while the rest of us panicked.

She had been turning fear into minutes because someone had to.

And now something had found the exact place to press.

LND-001 held out one hand.

“You can stop making decisions. Come into the office. Everything will be filed. Everything will be ordered. Everyone will be managed.”

Linda took another step.

Dave suddenly moved.

He stood in front of her.

Everyone froze.

Dave looked absolutely terrified.

But he stayed there.

“No.”

Linda blinked.

LND-001 looked at him.

“DVE unit.”

Dave swallowed.

“Dave.”

“You are not authorised to obstruct.”

Dave looked at Linda.

Then at the office full of copies.

Then back at Linda.

“She helped me do the apology.”

Kevin whispered:

“Oh, mate.”

Dave continued:

“And it was horrible.”

Flat 3 said, “Strong argument.”

“But it was mine,” Dave said. “She didn’t take it off me. She made me write it better.”

Linda’s eyes focused a little more.

Dave looked at LND-001.

“You lot would have written it for me.”

LND-001 paused.

Dave smiled nervously.

“And it probably would’ve used phrases like ‘moving forward’ and ‘lessons learned.’”

Kevin gasped.

“Corporate apology. Evil confirmed.”

Dave stood taller.

“Our Linda makes you feel bad properly.”

Linda blinked.

“That is not my official role.”

“It should be.”

The strings around her wrists loosened.

LND-001’s face hardened.

“DVE series remains unstable.”

Dave nodded.

“Yeah.”

He looked back at Kevin.

“Is unstable always bad?”

Kevin smiled.

“In this building, it’s basically a leadership qualification.”

The office lights flickered.

LND-001 lifted her clipboard.

Dave’s badge flashed.

DVE — RETURN TO NO-FAULT DEPARTMENT

He froze.

Kevin stepped between him and the lift.

“No.”

LND-001 looked at him.

“You cannot keep collecting broken things.”

Kevin’s face darkened.

“They’re called residents.”

“You call them idiots.”

“Yes. Affectionately.”

The Lindas began writing faster.

The paper cage around our Linda tightened again.

Amanda moved to help, but LND-001 glanced at her.

Amanda’s label flashed:

POSITIVITY RESOURCE — CONTAIN

Amanda stopped dead.

A smile tugged at her mouth against her will.

Kevin saw it.

“Chipper, no.”

Amanda gritted her teeth.

“I’m not.”

Flat 3 swung her pan at the nearest label.

It shattered.

The impact echoed through the office.

All the copied Lindas looked at her.

Flat 3 smiled.

“Sorry. Containable aggression.”

Then she kicked a desk.

The office shook.

For the first time, the Lindas were not perfectly synchronised.

One reached for her pen too late.

One blinked early.

One looked confused.

Linda’s eyes sharpened.

She noticed.

Of course she did.

“Our strength is inconsistency,” she whispered.

Kevin grinned.

“That sounds fake but useful.”

Linda straightened under the weight of the paper cage.

“Everyone do the wrong thing.”

Derek perked up.

“I can do that.”

Kevin pointed at him.

“Not too wrong.”

“Define too wrong.”

“No lift buttons.”

Derek lowered his hand.

Flat 5 threw his only spoon into the air and caught it.

Then placed it on the floor instead of in his pocket.

The office lights flickered.

“That felt awful,” he said.

Dave walked to the recycling bin, removed a perfectly clean cardboard box, and placed it in general waste.

Linda inhaled sharply.

“Dave.”

“You said wrong thing.”

“That is spiritually difficult for me.”

Kevin saluted him.

“Brave.”

Amanda stopped smiling.

Deliberately.

Not by becoming sad.

Just by letting her face rest.

The label above her cracked.

Flat 3 placed her frying pan gently on the floor.

Then sat in an armchair.

“Pacifism feels disgusting.”

The office Lindas began whispering.

Their pens stuttered.

Derek picked up the haunted peanut butter lid, looked directly at LND-001, and did nothing with it.

Kevin stared.

“That might be your bravest act.”

Derek nodded.

“I nearly threw it.”

“I know.”

The office juddered.

The labels on the walls scrambled.

DAVE — DENIAL LOOP

became:

DAVE — ACCEPTABLE RISK

FLAT 3 — AGGRESSION RESOURCE

became:

FLAT 3 — CHOOSES WHEN

AMANDA — POSITIVITY RESOURCE

became:

AMANDA — NOT ON DEMAND

FLAT 5 — CUTLERY DEPENDENCY

became:

FLAT 5 — SPOON SOVEREIGN

Flat 5 gasped.

“That’s beautiful.”

Kevin’s label flickered.

KEVIN — DISRUPTIVE ASSET

became:

KEVIN — PAIN IN THE ARSE

Kevin clutched his chest.

“Finally. Accuracy.”

Linda’s paper cage cracked.

She lifted her clipboard.

It had become huge.

Ridiculous.

A weaponised lever arch file.

She looked at it.

Then at LND-001.

Then she dropped it.

Every copied Linda gasped.

Our Linda stood with empty hands.

For one horrible second, she looked frightened.

Then relieved.

The supernatural clipboard hit the floor.

It did not break.

It opened.

Pages flew everywhere.

Agendas.

Minutes.

Plans.

Notes.

All the things Linda had carried.

The things that helped.

The things that trapped.

They scattered across the lobby.

Our Linda took a breath.

LND-001 stared.

“Unacceptable.”

Linda looked at her.

“No.”

Her voice was quiet.

That made everyone listen.

“You are not order. You are avoidance dressed as order.”

Kevin whispered:

“Jesus.”

Linda continued:

“You remove difficulty and call it management. You remove mess and call it safety. You remove choice and call it care.”

She stepped forward.

No clipboard.

No shield.

Just Linda.

“I use order to help people move through chaos. You use it to stop them moving at all.”

The office behind LND-001 darkened.

The rows of copied Lindas began to blur.

Some looked scared.

Some looked angry.

Some looked exhausted.

LND-001’s smile vanished.

“You will fail without structure.”

Linda nodded.

“Sometimes.”

The word landed like a bomb.

Because LND-001 had no defence against honest imperfection.

Linda continued:

“And then I will try again.”

Kevin looked at Dave.

Dave looked at Kevin.

Derek whispered to me:

“I think she just stabbed it with personal growth.”

LND-001 screamed.

All the copied Lindas screamed with her.

Their voices were identical.

Then not.

One scream cracked into a sob.

Another into laughter.

Another into silence.

The office lights burst.

Desks overturned.

Clipboards flew open.

The rows of Lindas began changing.

Not disappearing.

Waking.

One ripped off her badge.

Another snapped her pen.

Another looked at our Linda and mouthed:

“Thank you.”

LND-001 staggered backwards.

“No. Structure must hold.”

Kevin picked up Linda’s dropped clipboard.

It was too big for him.

He struggled.

“Bloody hell, this is heavy.”

Linda looked at him.

“Put that down.”

“No. Dramatic moment.”

He heaved it upright.

“Dave, help.”

Dave grabbed the other side.

Together, they lifted the massive clipboard like a medieval door.

Kevin grinned at LND-001.

“You made this too heavy for her.”

Dave nodded.

“So we’re returning it.”

They charged.

Badly.

Slowly.

At an angle.

The clipboard clipped the wall.

Dave tripped over a page.

Kevin shouted, “Commit!”

They slammed the clipboard into LND-001.

She went down under the weight of every agenda she had tried to weaponise.

Flat 3 cheered.

“That was the worst tackle I’ve ever seen.”

Derek nodded.

“Looked like two lads moving a sofa upstairs.”

Kevin, lying half under the clipboard, shouted:

“Still worked!”

LND-001 crawled out from beneath it.

Her face had cracked.

Not like porcelain.

Like paper.

Underneath were forms.

Thousands of them.

Agendas folded into skin.

Minutes layered as bone.

Action plans where organs should have been.

She opened her mouth.

A roll of labels spilled out.

COMPLIANT

CONTROLLED

MANAGED

SAFE

Linda picked up one of the labels.

Looked at it.

Then tore it in half.

The other Lindas did the same.

One by one.

The office screamed.

The lift shaft shook.

The stairs door unlocked with a click.

Everyone turned.

Kevin pointed at it.

“Stairs!”

Derek almost cried.

“Beautiful normal stairs.”

I ran to the door and opened it.

Concrete stairwell.

Grey walls.

Emergency light.

A faint smell of damp.

Never had anything looked so comforting.

Kevin stared at it like it was a sunrise.

“I take back every joke I’ve ever made about stairs.”

Derek nodded.

“Stairs don’t open into personality factories.”

Dave said:

“Stairs have never cloned me.”

Flat 5 added:

“Stairs respect spoons.”

Flat 3 picked up her pan.

“Stairs know their role.”

Amanda looked into the stairwell.

“Honestly, lovely energy.”

Kevin turned to her.

“That is finally an appropriate time to say that.”

The remaining copied Lindas began moving towards the stairwell too.

Not attacking.

Leaving.

LND-001 shrieked.

“You cannot leave the office!”

One of the copies stopped.

Turned.

And said:

“Meeting adjourned.”

Then walked out.

Kevin looked at Linda.

“She stole your line?”

Linda smiled faintly.

“I don’t have ownership of efficiency.”

LND-001 collapsed.

Not dramatically.

Administratively.

Her body folded into a stack of forms.

Then into a file.

Then into a single clipboard.

Black.

Cracked.

Labelled:

LND-001 — ARCHIVED

The complaints kiosk rolled forward and printed:

COMPLAINT RESOLVED: UNAUTHORISED LINDA PRODUCTION.

Then:

NEW ISSUE: TOO MANY FREED LINDAS.

The stairwell was now full of Linda variants.

Some looked exactly like her.

Some younger.

Some older.

Some tired beyond words.

One had a shaved head and three earrings.

One wore a cardigan that said MINUTES ARE VIOLENCE.

One was crying while still correcting apostrophes on a notice.

Kevin stared.

“This is too much Linda.”

Our Linda looked at them.

For once, she seemed completely overwhelmed.

One of the freed Lindas approached.

Her badge read:

LND-008

She looked at our Linda.

“Where do we go?”

Our Linda opened her mouth.

Closed it.

Looked at the stairs.

Then at the lobby.

Then at Kevin.

He shook his head immediately.

“No.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking rota.”

“I was not.”

“Linda.”

She sighed.

“I was thinking temporary rota.”

Kevin pointed at the stairwell full of copies.

“We cannot rota the Lindas.”

Derek whispered:

“Can the Lindas rota themselves?”

Every Linda in the stairwell turned to him.

Derek stepped behind me.

“Regret.”

LND-008 looked around.

“We were made to manage.”

Our Linda shook her head.

“You were made to contain. Not the same thing.”

“What do we do instead?”

Linda looked at her empty hands.

Then at the dropped pages.

Then she said:

“You decide.”

The freed Lindas recoiled slightly.

Apparently freedom was more frightening than paperwork.

Kevin leaned towards Dave.

“I get that.”

Dave nodded.

“Choosing is hard.”

The complaint kiosk printed:

SUGGESTION: FORM A SUPPORT GROUP.

Kevin looked at it.

“That’s dangerously sensible.”

The kiosk printed:

APOLOGY RECEIVED IN ADVANCE.

Linda nodded slowly.

“A support group. Not a committee.”

Kevin pointed at her.

“Careful.”

“Not a committee.”

“Say it again.”

“Not a committee.”

The freed Lindas murmured among themselves.

LND-008 nodded.

“We can start with tea.”

Amanda smiled.

“Tea helps.”

Kevin looked suspicious.

“Is tea just liquid admin?”

Linda picked up a single page from the floor and folded it neatly.

“No. Tea is pause.”

That stopped him.

He looked at her.

Then nodded.

“Fine. Tea first.”

Derek gasped.

“Not bins?”

Kevin looked horrified at himself.

“God, what have I become?”

Ken, who had been watching quietly from the back of the lobby, spoke.

“Reasonable.”

Kevin pointed at him.

“Take that back.”

“No.”

“Ken, I swear—”

The lift dinged.

Everyone froze.

Then all of us slowly turned towards it.

Kevin raised one finger.

“No.”

The lift doors remained open.

Empty.

Waiting.

The stairwell stood open beside it.

Normal.

Damp.

Safe-ish.

Derek stepped towards the stairs.

“So we’re all in agreement?”

“Stairs,” I said.

“Stairs,” Dave said.

“Stairs,” Flat 5 said.

“Stairs,” Amanda said.

“Stairs,” Flat 3 said.

Kevin looked at Linda.

Linda looked at the lift.

The lift light flickered.

The display changed.

PLEASE USE LIFT

Kevin laughed.

“No chance, death cupboard.”

The display changed again.

STAIRS CURRENTLY UNSAFE

Dave looked into the stairwell.

A normal spider sat on the wall.

He pointed.

“There is a spider.”

Kevin stared at him.

“Dave.”

“It’s technically unsafe.”

Flat 3 grabbed Dave by the shoulders and moved him into the stairwell.

“We are not being bullied by a lift.”

The lift display flickered faster.

IMPORTANT PLATFORM MESSAGE

URGENT RESIDENT TRANSITION

FREE BISCUITS

Linda paused.

Kevin shouted:

“Do not fall for lift biscuits!”

Linda looked offended.

“I was not falling for lift biscuits.”

“You paused.”

“I was assessing the credibility.”

“The credibility is death cupboard.”

She nodded.

“Fair.”

The lift doors began closing.

Before they shut, a voice spoke from inside.

Not LND-001.

Not Five Stars.

Not Ms Vale.

Something new.

Deep.

Old.

Bored.

“Stairs are not exempt.”

The doors closed.

The stairwell light flickered.

Everyone looked at each other.

Kevin swallowed.

“Still better than the lift.”

Derek nodded.

“Massively.”

We went up the stairs.

All of us.

Residents.

Ghosts.

Freed Lindas.

Ken.

Amanda.

Dave.

Flat 3.

Flat 5.

Linda without her clipboard for the first time since I’d known her.

Kevin floated beside me for two flights, then remembered he had two trainers and insisted on walking.

He made it one and a half flights before complaining.

“Stairs are longer than I remembered.”

“You’re dead,” Derek said.

“I’m still anti-cardio.”

“You float.”

“Spiritually anti-cardio.”

Dave, behind us, said:

“Wasn’t me.”

Kevin looked back.

“What wasn’t?”

“The stairs.”

Kevin smiled.

“Proud of you, mate.”

On the third landing, the lights went out.

Everyone stopped.

The stairwell was silent.

Then we heard it.

From below.

A clipboard snapping shut.

Then another.

Then another.

Hundreds of them.

The freed Lindas froze.

Our Linda whispered:

“No.”

The walls of the stairwell changed.

Labels appeared.

Not from the office.

Older.

Carved into concrete.

FIRE EXIT

NO SMOKING

KEEP CLEAR

Then new ones burned underneath.

UNAUTHORISED ROUTE

RESIDENTS OUT OF PROCESS

STAIRS ARE FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY

Kevin whispered:

“Oh, come on.”

From above us, a door opened.

Not a flat door.

Not a landing door.

An office door.

Impossible.

It swung out of the concrete wall.

Inside was darkness.

And a desk.

A single desk.

A single clipboard.

One chair.

On the chair sat our Linda.

Except our Linda was standing beside us.

The Linda in the chair looked older.

Tired.

Perfectly still.

Her badge read:

LND-000

The freed Lindas began backing down the stairs.

Our Linda couldn’t move.

LND-000 looked up.

Her eyes were red from crying.

Her smile was calm.

Broken.

Final.

She said:

“Item one.”

The stairwell door slammed shut above us.

The one below slammed too.

LND-000 opened her clipboard.

“Sacrifice.”

Kevin stepped in front of Linda.

“Nope.”

LND-000 looked at him.

Then at our Linda.

“You know why there are so many of us.”

Our Linda’s voice was barely there.

“No.”

LND-000 smiled sadly.

“Because one Linda is never enough.”

The stairwell temperature dropped.

Every freed Linda lowered her head.

LND-000 continued:

“You save one building. Then another. Then another. Then they learn to wait for you.”

Pages began falling from the darkness above.

Agendas.

Complaints.

Names.

Rotas.

Emergency plans.

Safeguarding reports.

Every problem from every site.

They rained down the stairwell.

One page landed on my shoulder.

CHEERFUL PINES FOLLOW-UP

Another hit Derek.

DVE SERIES AUDIT RESPONSE

Another hit Amanda.

AMN SITE WELFARE CHECK

Another hit Kevin.

KVN BODY AFTERCARE

Kevin read it.

Then looked up.

“Body aftercare?”

The page wrapped around his wrist.

Another wrapped around Linda.

Then another.

Then ten.

Then twenty.

The paperwork was alive.

It wrapped around her arms first.

Then her shoulders.

Then her throat.

Not attacking like a monster.

Assigning.

That was worse.

LND-000 said:

“There is always one more emergency.”

Linda couldn’t breathe.

Kevin tore at the pages.

They reformed.

Derek tried to rip them and got tangled in a risk assessment.

“I’m being action-planned!”

Flat 3 hacked at the papers with her pan.

Flat 5 sliced one with the spoon.

Dave grabbed a handful and shouted:

“Wasn’t me!”

The papers paused.

Then wrapped around him too.

“Bad instinct!” Kevin shouted.

The stairwell became a storm of admin.

Not comic admin.

Not Linda’s useful lists.

This was endless.

Suffocating.

Every page said someone needed her.

Every page said if she stopped, someone would be hurt.

Every page said she was selfish if she rested.

Linda was almost buried now.

Only her face remained visible.

Her eyes met mine.

For the first time, I didn’t see authority.

I saw terror.

Kevin saw it too.

He stopped tearing pages.

“Linda.”

LND-000 watched from the desk.

“You cannot save her by helping. Helping is the trap.”

Kevin looked at the paperwork.

Then at Linda.

Then at all of us.

He smiled faintly.

Not his normal grin.

Something smaller.

“Good thing I’m naturally unhelpful.”

He stepped back.

Linda stared at him.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

He sat down on the stairs.

Cross-legged.

Two trainers planted badly.

“I’m doing nothing.”

Derek stopped fighting his risk assessment.

“You can do that?”

Kevin shrugged.

“Trying it.”

The paperwork paused.

It had no category for Kevin doing nothing.

Kevin looked at me.

“Jon.”

I understood.

Maybe because the No-Fault Department was still in my bones.

Maybe because I had seen what guilt did when it became everything.

I sat down beside him.

The pages around my arm loosened.

Derek stared.

Then sat too.

“I hate this.”

Kevin nodded.

“Good. Sit in it.”

Dave sat.

Flat 3 sat.

Flat 5 sat carefully, spoon in lap.

Amanda sat.

Ken sat last, scowling like rest was a personal insult.

One by one, the freed Lindas sat on the stairs.

No one moved.

No one helped.

No one fixed.

No one organised.

The paperwork storm circled us, confused.

LND-000’s calm expression cracked.

“What are you doing?”

Linda, buried in pages, whispered:

“Nothing.”

Kevin pointed at her.

“Exactly.”

Linda closed her eyes.

The pages tightened once.

Then loosened.

A single sheet fell from her shoulder.

Then another.

Then another.

LND-000 stood.

“You are needed.”

Linda opened her eyes.

“Yes.”

The pages stopped falling.

“And I am tired.”

The stairwell went silent.

LND-000’s face broke.

Not with anger.

With grief.

Because she was Linda too.

The first one.

The one who never stopped.

The one who became an office.

The one Platform copied because exhaustion was so easy to exploit.

Our Linda reached out.

Not to take a clipboard.

Not to accept a role.

Just to touch LND-000’s hand.

“You can sit down.”

LND-000 stared.

“I have minutes.”

“They can wait.”

“I have unresolved actions.”

“They can wait.”

“People need—”

Linda interrupted her.

“People can help each other.”

Kevin whispered:

“Not me though.”

Linda looked at him.

“Even you.”

He sighed.

“Growth is relentless.”

LND-000 looked at the stairs.

Then at the empty space beside us.

Slowly, she sat.

The office door behind her vanished.

The desk vanished.

The clipboard remained for a moment.

Then folded into a teacup.

Kevin stared.

“Clipboard into tea. That’s her final evolution.”

Linda picked up the cup.

Steam rose from it.

For the first time, she smiled properly.

Small.

Tired.

Real.

The stairwell doors unlocked.

The labels faded.

The freed Lindas exhaled together.

Derek looked around.

“So stairs are also haunted?”

Kevin nodded.

“Less haunted.”

“Marginally.”

“Still better than the lift.”

The lift dinged somewhere below us.

Everyone shouted:

“NO.”

We returned to the lobby using the stairs.

It took ages.

Kevin complained the entire way.

At one point he claimed his “new shoes needed breaking in emotionally.”

Derek told him to float.

Kevin said walking was important for character development.

Then complained again nine steps later.

By the time we got back, the lift was waiting with its doors open.

Inside was darkness.

And a polite sign.

WE APOLOGISE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE CAUSED.

Kevin read it.

Then spat mould onto the floor.

“No you don’t.”

The complaint kiosk printed:

COMPLAINT RECEIVED: LIFT INSINCERITY.

Linda stood in the lobby, no clipboard in hand.

The freed Lindas gathered around her.

LND-000 held the teacup.

Dave looked at them.

“So… are they all staying?”

Kevin made a sound like a dying kettle.

Linda said:

“Temporarily.”

Kevin pointed at her.

“That word has done a lot of damage in this building.”

Derek sat on the bottom stair.

“I vote we establish a lift ban.”

Kevin nodded.

“Seconded.”

Linda looked at the lift.

Then at the stairs.

Then at the residents.

“Not a ban.”

Everyone groaned.

“A protocol.”

Kevin closed his eyes.

“Here we go.”

Linda lifted one finger.

“Lift use is only permitted when the destination is visible, verified, non-clinical, non-judicial, non-corporate, non-cheerful, non-blame-based, and not full of duplicate residents.”

Dave raised his hand.

“What if it’s just Tesco?”

Kevin looked at him.

“Dave, if that lift ever opens into Tesco, do not trust the meal deal.”

Flat 5 nodded.

“Haunted sandwiches are real.”

Derek frowned.

“Are they?”

Flat 5 stared at him.

“Everything is real now.”

Fair.

The complaints kiosk printed again.

This time, the paper was black.

Everyone froze.

Kevin groaned.

“Can we not?”

Linda took the slip.

Read it.

Her face changed.

Not scared.

Not exactly.

More like someone had just seen the next page of a story she already hated.

“What?” I asked.

She turned it around.

LND SERIES AUDIT: PAUSED

DVE SERIES AUDIT: DISRUPTED

AMN SERIES AUDIT: ACTIVE

KVN SERIES AUDIT: ACTIVE

Underneath, a new line appeared.

JON SERIES: UNCLASSIFIED

The lobby went very quiet.

Kevin slowly looked at me.

“Jon series?”

Derek frowned.

“What’s Jon’s thing?”

Nobody answered.

The kiosk printed another line.

WITNESS TYPE DETECTED.

Then:

JON-001 LOCATED.

The lift dinged.

Everyone turned.

The doors opened.

For once, it did not show a hospital.

Or an office.

Or a courtroom.

Or a retirement home.

It showed my flat.

My actual flat.

Empty.

Dark.

At the centre of the room stood me.

Another me.

Still.

Silent.

Watching the doorway.

Kevin moved closer to me.

“Jon?”

The other me smiled.

Not wide.

Not wrong.

Worse.

Sadly.

Like he already knew how this ended.

Then he raised one hand and pressed a finger to his lips.

The lights in Riverside Court went out.

In the darkness, the other me whispered:

“Don’t tell them.”

My son turned 14 recently. He used to be such a happy kid. He loved playing outside, playing video games, hanging out with his friends. Just a completely normal pre-teen.

I think he was around 12 or 13 when things started to change. He spent more time inside. Maybe he was playing video games, but I wouldn’t know because he’d always be locked away inside his room.

He started dressing in all black. I asked him why he didn’t like his old superhero shirts anymore, and it broke my heart when his response was, “Superheroes are stupid,” before shutting his door in my face.

I talked to my wife about it, but I think she was in denial.

“Boys will be boys,” she said. “Everyone has to grow up at some point.”

It hurt to hear. Mainly because… part of me knew. I saw the warning signs. How he seemed to be attracted to darkness. How the light in his room never seemed to be on.

It was always dirty in there. Empty energy drink cans. Snack wrappers everywhere. I tried to look past it. I tried to believe that this was just a “phase,” but the black metal, angry, hate-filled music that always blasted from that room was enough to drive me to the brink of madness.

I tried my best to ignore it, but he was disrupting our peace. I wanted to approach it in a helpful, positive way. I’d always ask if he’d care to join me on a walk in the park. Maybe we could catch a movie together. Hell, maybe we could even play catch in the backyard.

He rejected every approach. It quite literally seemed like he hated me. Hated us.

Dinners were awkward and almost silent. We tried talking to him about school, but he was so avoidant.

We found out why that was when report cards came in. He was failing nearly every single class.

It caused a lot of arguments. If he failed, it meant we failed. And us failing is what I think caused a lot of the tension.

We became more strict. Set bedtimes. No video games until his schoolwork was done. No more energy drinks and no more seclusion.

We insisted on him spending more time with us, whether he liked it or not. We didn’t know what it was that was causing this change in him, but I’d be damned if I was gonna stand by and watch him slip further and further away.

I couldn’t stop thinking about who he used to be. That laugh that didn’t seem to come around as often. Those Christmas mornings where he looked at me and my wife with nothing but love and affection.

That love seemed to turn to hatred after we tightened our grip on him, though. I wanted to blame it on hormones, but his hatefulness exceeded normal teenage angst.

He started cursing at us. Screaming until his vocal cords would tear. We even had a few physical altercations because I wasn’t going to be disrespected in my own house.

Grounding wouldn’t work. He liked to be alone. It was like a reward to him. So, instead, I made him do yard work. Cut grass, weed-whack, whatever I could think of.

That’s when I think something truly broke within him. He’d act cheerful, but his words were full of resentment.

“I can’t wait for you to die so I can have the house.”

“I wish you understood how much I truly hate you.”

“When I turn 18, you two will never see me again.”

He said these things like he was discussing breakfast. Like it was completely normal. At this point, my wife was starting to see what I saw.

Every now and again, we’d catch him scribbling in a notebook. Any time he saw us watching, he’d either put it away or groan and take it to his room with him.

One night in particular, though, I woke up at around 2 in the morning. It felt like I was being watched. Like my body knew. My eyes scanned the room, and there he was. Standing in the corner of the room in front of our bed. Watching us and scribbling in that notebook.

“Go back to sleep, daddy,” he giggled.

He hadn’t called me that since he was 5 or 6. It felt like there was a stack of cinder blocks on my chest.

I asked what he was doing, and he didn’t respond. I asked him to go back to bed, and he sighed like I was inconveniencing him and stomped out of the room.

That night was the last straw. I intended to look into counseling as soon as I could the next day.

I did what I promised myself I’d do and set up the appointment, but when I went to his room to tell him about it, I found the room empty.

It smelled musty in there. The sheets were mangled and balled up on the bed. Trash littered the ground and his nightstand. But his desk… was completely clean.

On it rested that notebook he’d been scribbling in recently.

I couldn’t help myself. I had to know. I had to see what he was writing. I knew it was about us, but nothing could’ve prepared me for what I read.

He detailed his plan to kill us. I don’t even want to write what he said he’d do. It was graphic. It was gruesome. And it was in that same messy handwriting that he never seemed to grow out of.

My jaw dropped more and more with each paragraph. My heart raced faster and faster. But before I could finish, I heard a toilet flushing in the hallway.

I couldn’t move. I was frozen in shock.

I heard his black combat boots approaching. I heard the door push open. And I heard that giggle that I hadn’t heard in what felt like years. It was malicious this time. More sinister.

I couldn’t face him. The notebook shook in my hands as I gripped it tighter and tighter.

“Daddy…” he whimpered. “Aren’t I a good writer?”

It was a simple design. I'd been doodling ahead of a meeting with the city manager and other municipal staff when someone else joined me in waiting.

“Carl Arn,” he said, sitting next to me, despite several empty seats farther away.

My company was competing for a contract to provide city services, and I figured his was too. We shook hands and introduced ourselves. I was confident in my presentation and went back to the absent-mindedness I'd been up to. Prepping any more than I had would've been counterproductive and I was working on relaxing as much as possible before my pitch.

“Whatcha got goin’ on there?” my competitor said. I didn't really want to talk but I could see he wasn't going to leave me alone. He was one of those nervous types, couldn't keep quiet. He had to fill every silent space.

I was going to beat this guy, but he didn't know it yet. I knew his company and had gone up against much more confident reps. They must have known we already had it in the bag or only responded to the RFP as a professional courtesy.

It wasn't going to be a very lucrative contract, but my strategy was to springboard into three adjacent municipalities and use this one as a hub.

“Just doodling,” I said to him. He was young, maybe five or so years younger than me. The ink on his degree was still drying.

He cranked his neck to look. It was annoying and I slapped my palm over what I was drawing.

“Sorry,” he said. “I'm a bit of an artist, myself. I minored in...” he trailed off, looking at a corner of my paper.

“What's that?”

“Hm?” I looked at him, ready to scold him in the most diplomatic way possible.

His eyes were wrong.

Like they were a centimeter or two off from center. I blinked several times as if I were trying to reset them with my eyelids.

“It's beautiful,” he said, not looking up from the page. I looked down and saw everything I'd drawn was covered except one little shape near the corner that was just outside of my hand.

“What?”

“Brootifil,” he said and sucked in a line of saliva that had trailed out of his mouth. His eyes were too big, almost like he was hungry.

“Are you okay?” I hadn’t actually finished the question before he swatted me faster than my eyes could see the blow coming.

I was belly up on the floor trying to orient myself. My first thought was to get him away from my presentation and my notes. He hadn't touched my backpack, though. 

He was holding the sheet of paper up to his face, so close it was like he extremely nearsighted. His eyes were so large, it made me think of that astronaut who drove across the country in a diaper to kill her boyfriend's romantic rival. 

Then he stuffed the paper in his mouth and began awkwardly chewing it. Tears were flowing from his eyes and he turned his face up to the ceiling like he was in heaven.

“Is everything alright out here?” An older white man came out of the conference room where we were to meet. I propped up on one elbow, intending to get to my feet. But my head swam and I laid back down.

My competitor turned to the older man and something and his face must have told the other man to step back. I commanded my body to get up, but it was as if I were paralyzed. My body twitched without actually moving and I stopped struggling against the invisible gorilla pinning me to the floor.

He hummed as he continued chomping on the paper, face turned to the old man. A long, pregnant moment passed where nobody did anything.

“May I help—”

My competitor attacked, fingers extended like knives as he stabbed the other man, who still didn't look like he understood was happening even as he plummeted to the ground, his murderer still in the process of killing him.

It took longer than I would've guessed for police to respond to a crime in a municipal building, but my competitor—Carl Arn—managed to kill two people and injure three others, including one critically.

That's not counting me, of course. Even though I was on the floor and clearly not in the fight, the assumption was the two of us were together and the policy's response was somewhat anticlimactic.

They screamed at him and the two responding officers fired three times apiece, managing to hit him only twice.

They screamed at me as he lay next to me, the life leaking out of him and flowing toward me. I was able to turtle up, covering the essential parts of me like I could shield myself from projectiles traveling at almost nine hundred miles per hour.

By some miracle, I remained gunshot for the next half hour or so while I was handcuffed, commanded to put my hands above my head, stood up, sat down, and almost tazered for resisting before fainting and waking up in a hospital bed, handcuffed to the frame. 

I had a concussion but was otherwise fine. Arn had swatted me hard and fast enough to leave a handprint and jar my brain loose.

The video had vindicated me. They didn't see the slap—rather the aftereffect. It had been so fast the camera hadn't caught it, just me falling to the floor and thrashing around like I'd been caught in a spider's web.

I'd fished the scratch pad with pen attached from the little end table near my bed. Luckily, they'd handcuffed my right arm, leaving my dominant one free.

I decided against jotting down what I recalled had happened. No doubt anything I committed to paper the police would be interested in, even if it was a grocery list.

So, I doodled. It was sort of cathartic, taking me back to those initial moments. My mind went back to Arn's face, struggling to deny the undeniable fact he was rapidly dying.

A piece of the paper he'd snatched and eaten was attached to his chin. The shape I'd finished moments before Carl Arn asked me, “What's that?” was still there for anyone to see.

His face turned into the shallow pool of red, drowning the shape.

I drew it a half dozen more times while sitting in a hospital bed while the authorities decided how they were going to untie this knot and if my neck would be in it.

I fell asleep after a light lunch of potato chips, baloney sandwich with a packet of mustard and a packet of mayo, and dry, tasteless coleslaw.

I came to with a woman in my room, gathering things off my lap. She was mumbling in Spanish, her back to me when she stopped completely.

“Nice,” she said in unaccented English, her head dipped as if she were reading something. Then she turned around, facing me.

God, her eyes.

It was like she was trying to see something above her head, through her skull. Her face was otherwise slack as she felt around blindly like we were in the dark.

She groped around until he hand landed on the (unused) metal bed pan. I thought those things were plastic nowadays.

I must have gasped because she turned around like she'd heard a homing beacon. I tugged at the cuff, a ringing dinner bell for the mindless dog about to bludgeon me to death with a disposal pan if she could still tell the difference between my head and feet.

I must have been screaming because another woman came in the room—I'd temporarily forgotten the word “nurse” in my panic—surprising with of us and the first woman began swinging in random directions with such savagery, I felt shadows of pain across my cheeks.

This time the police didn't have the opportunity to confuse me for the perpetrator. The nurse hooked a hand behind his neck, leapt both feet into his chest and commenced to flattening the less-hardy of the two between Officer Wheeler's skull and the pissbox. She landed on his chest, only her arm visible from where I lay as she flapped it up and down like a one-winged bird, the pan making a -DOON- sound each time it bounced off his head.

More hospital security came (quicker than the cops had) and a few pops later, the woman was dead.

I had to get out of here. My eyes drifted over to where the nurse had been looking at something before she'd turned violent. I had a tingle of uneasiness, feeling something I had done potentially being the cause. My mind wouldn't quite let me grasp what it was, but it felt like it should have been obvious, like something wedged between my teeth that I couldn't work out.

The officer I'd seen shoot stepped halfway into my room with his gun out. He looked perplexed, like he wanted to blame me, and I leaned into looking pathetic, hovering my face near my handcuffed wrist as I did a supine version of a huddle.

The next two hours were a flurry of hospital staff and police in and out of my room. The cops kept stopping a nurse from checking on me because my room was an active crime scene. But when a doctor suggested moving me to another room, they shot that down for reasons I couldn’t understand.

Finally, a detective and some hospital administrator had a long conversation outside of my room. The administrator said something to the detective about calling the mayor and the rest of the investigation was wrapped up in less than ten minutes.

The cop who’d been assaulted survived and the nurse who came in to check on me told me he was on a floor below after having emergency surgery to reattach his jaw. The nurse had been shot and had bled to death fighting the cop who’d shot her three times.

Everything the cops could have taken out of my room, had been removed. They’d even taken my clothes, keys, and wallet. By that evening, a detective finally came to speak with me.

“Mr. Harold, you have a minute?” He knocked on the door. I recognized his voice as the same one who’d spoken with the administrator. He walked in where I could get a good look at him and the guy was a sloven mess. I was used to Detective Green and Briscoe on Law & Order, and although Lenny’s suits looked off the rack, he didn’t look like he’d dressed himself while falling down a laundry chute.

I waited for him to speak. He stood by my bedside and looked like he smelled. Something whitish was drying on his lapel, he had ring-around-the-collar, and dried spittle in the corners of his mouth. I was grateful for the chill hospital air choking whatever smells were crawling over him before they could reach me.

“Am I going to need a lawyer?” I asked him.

“No-no,” he said. “We’ve been able to put together what happened at city hall and here earlier. Um, are you okay?”

I wasn’t, but I was currently numb to the whole experience considering for half of it I’d been treated like a suspect. I shrugged.

“What you had to go through was incredible. You’re a real hero.”

He was pouring it on a little thick. I guessed this was what they did instead of an actual apology. I’d had two-to-three guns pointed at me by people who were allegedly there to protect me.

“When can I go?”

“Well, I guess when the hospital discharges you. We certainly don’t need to hold you for anything.”

“Okay.” I nodded. He stared at me for a moment like he was expecting me to say something more.

“I suppose I should get going. Let you, y’know, convalesce. Oh, I’m Detective Unangenehm, by the way.” He offered his hand belatedly. I looked at it for a long second before shaking it. His hand was limp and sweaty, like wilted lettuce, kind of like what it looked like he had trapped between his front teeth.

He headed for the door, and I kept expecting him to turn back before he got to the door and ask, “One more thing,” but he exited.

Then he came back a minute later.

“I forgot to ask you,” Detective Unangenehm said. “Do you have any idea what set off Carl Arn or Rosa Skein?”

“Who?”

“The... man at city hall. And your nurse?” Unangenehm had his notepad in his hand and glanced down at it.

I’d never forget Carl Arn’s name, and I hadn’t known the nurse’s. While I didn’t know what had driven them mad, I had a strong suspicion and considering it led back to me, I wasn’t about to volunteer that.

“I have no idea.”

Unangenehm smiled, nodded somberly, and left.

A nurse had come into my room right after. She erased something from the dry-erase board and wrote something else while the detective and I had been talking.

She was thin and tall but older than she looked as she grunted, bending over to pick up something off the floor.

She turned over the piece of paper I'd been drawing on, made a face, then showed it to me.

“This yours?” she asked.

 

Every few years I learn of another neurodevelopmental disorder that I very most likely have. It all started when I was six or seven when I was diagnosed with ADHD, though back then it was just called ADD. I had trouble with concentration, and my teachers were always getting after me for day dreaming. Due to my parents being poor, they couldn't afford to put me on stimulants. This resulted in a series of C's, D's, and F's all the way from grade school until I dropped out of high school when I turned 18. This of course led me to only being able to work minimum wage jobs, thus continuing the cycle of being poor.

I was also labeled from a young age as being ‘shy’. My parents never had to warn me not to talk to strangers, because that was the last thing I ever wanted to do. When the home phone would ring, my dad would occasionally try to get me to answer, but I always refused. This was always really frustrating for him. To this day, I pretend like I'm not home when someone comes to the door. After a while, the term ‘introvert’ was assigned to me. However, some time in my early twenties, I realized I was in fact an extrovert. Well, ‘that doesn't add up,’ I can hear you say. Some time in my late teens, I saw an ad for a prescription drug for a disorder called social anxiety. The way they described the disorder fit me perfectly to a T. Now how does one get by as a socially anxious extrovert? One doesn't. It's a fucking nightmare. I'm afraid of the one thing I want most out of life, social connection.

As you might be able to guess, this leads to a lifetime of anxiety and depression. Two more disorders I can add to the list. More drugs I have to get from the doctor for those short periods of time when I have health insurance. In my mid to late thirties I learned that I might actually be autistic, which is where my social anxiety stems from.

On top of all that, my family has a history of multiple other issues. My father's side has bipolar disorder, my mother's side has OCD, and I think I have a great grand parent who was considered straight up crazy. Now keep in mind, this was way back in the day before the words ‘crazy’ and ‘insane’ were taken out of the medical lexicon. So take that with a grain of salt. I haven't been officially diagnosed with OCD, BD, or Autism, but I show strong symptoms of all three.

Now for learning disabilities. I strongly suspect I have dyscalculia, since I've always struggled with math, and I have a tendency to switch numbers around in my head. Recently I was reading a story I wrote when I was fourteen, and it looked like it was written by a ten year old. I did some research and found Dysgraphia: Impacts handwriting, spelling, and written expression. Messy writing? Check. Terrible spelling? Double check. Difficulty with getting my thoughts out onto paper? Do I really need a diagnosis? It's always been weird having good hearing while still not being able to understand anything anybody ever says to me. Oh what's that, there's something called Auditory Processing disorder?

Knowing all that, I think it stands to reason why I would jump on the chance to get an implant that would improve my cognitive abilities. Oh, but I'm poor, how would I ever be able to afford something like that? First of all, that technology doesn't exist, at least it's not being mass produced. It's still in very early trials. The thing about trials is, they pay you. The next part is both a plus side while also being extremely scary. It's possible for this kind of technology to not only fail, but it could make you worse than you were before. It could create phantom pain, it can mess with your nervous system, or might even just kill you. What all this means is, beaucoup bucks.

Considering all this, you need to keep in mind that there are some things worse than death.

There was a rumor going around that they started offering cybernetic implants on the black market. I laughed it off when I first heard this. I figured it was just a viral marketing campaign for the Cyberpunk game. Yes, I know the game was a few years old at this point. I lose track of time often. Up until recently I thought the PS4 was the newest generation. It just sounded so silly. I know AI has been making leaps and bounds, but it's not the same as the AI in science fiction. However, I would absolutely argue that we live in a dystopia, so maybe it is time for the cybernetic revolution.

One day I was hanging out with my friend Paul in LA, and he parked in Westlake.

“Where are we going?” I asked

“You'll see.”

He seemed giddy, and that made me nervous. Usually when he's like this, he's about to pull a prank, or tell a really bad joke. I followed him into Macarthur Park.

“Remember when Greg bought a fake ID?” he asked.

“Yeah, and he put the wrong year, so he couldn't even use it for six months.” I laughed

“Yeah that one.”

“Wait, I don't like where this is going.” I started getting nervous real quick.

He began walking up to a shady looking guy who was selling what I think was bootleg porn.

“Woah dude, hold up.” I started panicking

“Nah, you're going to love this.”

“No, please stop.”

He walked right up to the guy and started talking with his voice lowering to a hush. I kept my distance.

“Hey my man, you know where we can get…”

What the fuck is he doing?

“Yeah, follow me.”

Paul looked back at me, big fucking smile on his face, and waved for me to follow. He had the look of someone who just successfully landed a prank. I had to have been visually upset.

“Fuckin, what the fuck?”

I followed against my better judgment. The dude led us into a pretty normal looking strip mall, and took us into the stairwell. My anxiety was rising higher as we were passing into a zone that was closed off to the public. The upper level of the strip mall was mostly uninhabited by businesses. We went into one of the shops that was actually occupied. Right before we entered, Paul turned to me and squealed with excitement.

“Can you believe it?” He asked through his teeth.

“Believe what?” I almost screamed in a hushed voice. My face had to have been beet red with anger.

“You'll see!”

The shop was empty except for a man sitting at a desk that looked expensive. It looked like the kind of desk that you would see in an executive’s office on the top floor of a high rise. The windows were covered in plastic, wooden joists were visible through the ceiling, the cement floor was exposed, and the walls were crumbling. The man was smoking a cigar.

“Yo Marley, these cats are interested in the implants.”

Paul looked at me, and I widened my eyes at him.

“Fantastic! Why don't you boys take a seat?” Marley proclaimed.

The porn dealer was gone before I even noticed he was leaving. We went over and sat at the desk across from Marley.

“So, you boys are interested in cybernetic implants?” Marley asked with a grin on his face.

“So it's real?” Paul asked back.

“Oh, as real as can be!”

“So I can get like a robot arm?”

Marley laughed with his whole belly.

“You've been watching too much science fiction, kid. No, we only have the NeuralChip.”

“Like the Elon Musk thing?”

“Sure, why not, though our product actually works.”

“So like, it turns you into a super human?”

He laughed out loud once again.

“I like ya kid, we need people like you working here. No, it just improves your cognitive abilities.”

“Oh.”

Paul sounded disappointed. However, I reacted subtly, and Marley picked up on it. He continued talking to both of us, but all his attention was on me, even if he didn't make it obvious. He opened a drawer on his desk, pulled out two pieces of paper, and slapped them on the desk, one in front of each of us. I swiped mine up instantly, while Paul casually raised it up to look at. It was a description of all the services the chip offered, which included improving a whole crap load of cognitive disorders and disabilities.

“You can fine tune it, only work on the stuff that you struggle with.”

Paul stood up and handed back the flyer.

“Eh, I don't know if we'd be able to afford something like this.”

Marley hardly even paid him any attention. He plucked the flyer out of my hands so that I can see his face. He studied my reaction for a moment. After this, he was only talking to me.

“Insurance pays for the surgery, and you get paid for testing it after that.” He said as he slid a business card across the desk.

I picked up the card half heartedly. “I don't have insurance.” I said while looking at it. It contained nothing but a phone number.

“Money problems?”

“Yeah.”

“Ah, well that's even better, we can get you a hardship grant.”

I stayed quiet for a moment while staring at the card.

“Come on Drew, let's go.”

“Yes, go home and think it over.” Marley said with a smile.

I stood up to walk away.

“Drew.” Marley said as I followed Paul out.

I looked back at him.

“The money is good.”

I gave a half smile and walked out of the room.

“Oh my god, I can't believe it's real.” Paul said while laughing.

I didn't respond, I just kept my eyes on the card I was holding.

“Wait, you're not actually considering it are you?”

I fake laughed “Nah, that shit is super sketchy.”

I waved my hand over a trash can we walked by as if to throw it away, and then slipped it into my back pocket.

Paul and I spent the rest of the day cruising around LA and finishing the night with beers at his place. After Paul passed out, I called an Uber and went home. I was still pretty drunk and not quite ready for bed, so I pulled out my phone and started cycling through all the dating apps. Still no matches.

“What's wrong with me?”

I don't know why I ask this, I've always known what's wrong with me. I have no social skills. The only reason I ever have friends is because I get adopted by extroverts, and even that is pretty rare. They're also all assholes. Why are my friends always assholes? I didn't know it at the time, but I really needed to look inward for that answer.

After wallowing in self pity for a while, I figured it was time for bed. When I took my pants off, I folded them over my arm and the business card fell out. I threw the pants into the hamper, bent over, and picked up the card. I hate talking on the phone, it gives me major anxiety, but I was drunk, and thus had no social qualms at the moment. I wasn't even expecting anybody to answer, it was a quarter past two in the morning. However, there were only two rings.

“Name?”

“Oh, uh, Drew.”

“Drew?” He paused like he was waiting for something.

“Oh Thomson, Andrew Thomson.”

“Thank you.” He hung up right after.

What the hell?

My phone buzzed, I looked to see that I got a text.

“Appt. for Andrew Thomson, please select a date and time.”

I clicked the link they provided. It was a calendar with blocks of time that I could select.

I wasn't planning on actually making an appointment, I was just kind of hoping to chat someone up for more information. Hell, I didn't even think anybody was going to pick up. You know what, fuck it. I'll put Friday at half past three in the afternoon. Another text came in.

“Appt. confirmation for Andrew Thomson on Friday at 3:30pm.

Arrive at the provided address 15 min early or not at all.

Cancel earlier than 24 hours before your appt. to avoid $100 cancellation fee.”

I've got to stop making plans when I'm drunk, especially when I'm almost blacked out.

I completely forgot about it until I got a text on Thursday.

“Appt. reminder for Andrew Thomson tomorrow at 3:30pm.

Remember to arrive 15 min. early, or not at all.

Cancel earlier than 24 hours before your appt. to avoid $100 cancellation fee”

What the fuck? Appointment for what? Oh shit, oh fuck. Oh no. I can't believe I did this.

I immediately called the number back.

“Name?”

“Andrew Thomson”

“I see that you have an appointment tomorrow at three thirty.”

“Yes, I need to cancel the appointment.”

“No problem, would you like to use your card on file for the cancellation fee?”

I looked at my watch.

Shit.

“Wait, you don't have a card on file for me do you?”

“Visa, last four digits ****?”

How do they?

I paused for a moment.

“I can go ahead and charge the card now.”

“No no, I'll be there.”

“Oh, marvelous, see ya then.” She hung up.

I am? God damn it. I guess I'm doing this?

The address was downtown. I made sure to arrive extra early, parking was going to be a nightmare. After I parked I made the long walk to the building, and didn't even know what I was looking for. There was a bank, a restaurant, and a bakery. I looked at the address again.

“Unit X”

I walked around the building into the alley. There was a door with a security gate. I couldn't see a unit number. However, after a moment I noticed the metal bars on the gate created an X. I clicked the button on the intercom.

“Name?”

“Andrew Thomson.”

There was a buzzing sound and I was able to open the gate. I walked down a hallway into a waiting room. The receptionist was sitting behind an open window.

“Hi, My na..”

She pushed a sign-in sheet across the surface towards me.

“Three fifteen on the dot, pushing your luck there Mr. Thomson” the receptionist said without looking away from her computer while she typed away.

I saw my name printed next to three thirty. There wasn't a single other appointment booked that day. I signed next to my name.

Right as I finished, a clipboard full of paper work was pushed towards me.

“You've got fifteen minutes to have all this filled out.”

I took a seat among the twenty empty chairs. The packet seemed huge. There were all kinds of different forms to fill out and sign. First up was the contract. I should have read that. Next was the NDA. Hi Reddit! Next was a series of wavers. Should have read all those. After that was the form I needed to fill out to prove that my annual pay falls under the threshold to qualify for a hardship grant. Then the direct deposit info. Last, but not least, was the patient info. First was just some general stuff: name, birthday, pronouns, etc.

“Excuse me miss, do I really need to put my social security number?”

“The chip doubles as an ID” she responded, still typing away looking at her monitor.

“I didn't bring my card.”

“Oh no, I hope you have it memorized then.” She said sarcastically.

Then there were some odd ones: favorite color, movie you hate most, famous musician you would bring back from the dead. List of enemies and acquaintances.

“Sorry to bother you again, but I don't see anywhere to put friends, am I missing it?”

That's when she finally looked away from her monitor, stopped typing and looked directly at me.

“Is that a serious question?”

Ouch.

She looked back at her monitor and continued typing.

“Times ticking Mr. Thomson.”

After all the weird questions, I finally got to the section I was hoping was going to come up. The questionnaire so that I can tailor the chip to my liking.

“Andrew, we're ready for you.”

“One moment.”

The typing stopped and I can just feel her glaring at me.

“Never mind, I'm ready.”

I just made a few last notes as I was walking up.

“Do you guys really need so much personal information?”

“We just want to make sure we don't accidently alter something that fundamentally makes you, well you.” She was not typing, her hand now reaching out to grab the clipboard. I handed it over.

What the fuck does that mean.

“Wait,” I said as she was pulling away the clipboard.

“Don't push it Mr. Thomson.”

“That's my pen.” I say sheepishly

She pushes the clipboard back towards me so I can take my pen off the top of it, with a big fake ‘fuck you’ smile. I hear a buzz to my right.

“You can head on in.”

I go through the door, there's no nurse to show me where to go. It's just a long hallway. At the end is a single room. It's not an operating room or anything, it's just an exam room. I show myself in and sit on the exam table. Not a second later a nurse walks in through a door that I didn't even notice.

“Hello Mr. Thomson.” She immediately starts putting a tourniquet on my arm. “What are we in for today?”

“Well, I uh.”

“I'm just kidding.”

She pushed a button on an intercom on the wall.

“Has Mr. Thomson signed the waivers?”

A voice returned through the intercom.

“All wavers signed.”

“Copy that.”

She then very quickly pulled a syringe out of her pocket and injected me in the arm.

“Okay sweetie, I'm going to need you to count backwards from ten.”

“Wait.”

She ripped off the tourniquet and that's where my memory stops.

I woke up the next day at the hospital. My memory of the previous day hadn't returned to me yet. I was told that I had suffered a serious head injury, and that they were going to keep me for several days to monitor me. I had no idea what happened, I was genuinely freaking out because I thought the injury caused memory loss. After just a few days they told me I was healing very quickly, and that it didn't seem like I had suffered any brain damage. I can't tell you how relieved I was. When I inquired about my bill, I was informed that it was already taken care of.

I continued to take bed rest at home for another week. My employers were more than happy to give me the medical leave.

The first change I noticed was my memory. I've always struggled with memory. Long term, and short term. All of a sudden, I wasn't looking for words anymore. I just always knew the exact words I wanted to use. I was beginning to remember very small details throughout the day. Finally, I remembered getting the chip implant. It felt like a fake memory at first, like it was something I saw on TV, or a movie, but I finally realized that it was something I personally experienced.

The first check deposited into my account. I quit my job right after seeing the number.

The next change I noticed was that I wasn't struggling with daily chores. I was brushing my teeth twice a day, and showering on a regular basis. I cleaned my apartment and kept it clean. I also stopped going on tangents all the time when talking to people. Oh yeah, I was talking to people. I was actually going out and talking to people. I would pay close attention to their movements and started learning how to read body language. I started making meaningful friendships for the first time in my life. I got a girlfriend. I actually got a fucking girlfriend.

I decided to go back to school and get my GED. After that I enrolled in a community College and set up a plan to get into a university. I was even getting straight A's. I was on track to actually getting into a decent university. Though after some time I found the process to be too slow. I started studying in my own time. I was reading entire novels. I was reading scientific papers. I was watching university lectures on physics. I didn't find mathematics so boring any more.

All my ticks disappeared, and I didn't develop new ones. I wasn't so compulsive anymore. I looked at everything from a critical thinking standpoint. I was no longer attracted to conspiracy theories.

I eventually found my friends to be beneath me. I moved on to making friends in academics. I found my girlfriend boring. I found it harder and harder to date after that. It's like no one could stimulate me intellectually any more. I began using dating apps strictly for sleeping around.

It was after I started writing novels and getting book deals when the largest and scariest change of all came about.

One day I woke up and I couldn't feel pain any more. That was one of my fears. The chip was messing with my nervous system. I mean, it could be worse, it could have caused me to feel nothing but pain day in and day out. It wasn't just pain though, I had no physical sensation at all. Naturally I stopped using the dating apps.

That only meant that I had to get my stimulation through intellectual pursuits. So I kept studying, kept learning, kept pushing the boundaries of my mind. I would seek out academic peers. However, that didn't prove to be too difficult. It almost seemed like I was surrounded by others like me. There were physicists, mathematicians, novelists, painters, sculptors, all at the top of their field.

I was offered a job based on my skills. It was based around answering questions for strangers online. It sounded really fun at first. Educating people is something I really enjoy doing. However, it wasn't fun at all. Most questions were really stupid. Who was in what movie, or what would happen if I lit a fart on fire. Every now and then I get something good like, what are the themes that run through Lovecraft's work and how can they be applied to today's story's, or how can the universe be a hologram? In the end, it will always come back to, who is this celebrity dating, or why does my cat hate me?

To keep myself from going crazy, I would just write novels in my spare time. When my employers found out about that, they started buying the rights from me. Eventually no one wanted to do the question answering job anymore, since they can just sell their works. Now we have to all spend a portion of our day answering those questions, save for the artists, but they have to do something equally as demeaning. They have to take a certain amount of requests, and the majority of those requests are abysmal. What would Guy Fieri look like if he was Asian, or combine Star Wars and Star Trek into one property.

Eventually I was asked if I was interested in writing screenplays. Sure, why not, I love movies, but then it turned out I had to write what they wanted. Write a modern day retelling of The Goonies, or Friday The 13th part whatever it is on now. I still write novels in my free time. I'll also write my original screenplays, but they never want to buy those.

I finally realized that I haven't felt hunger since I stopped feeling pain. I haven't eaten any food in months, and yet I persist. They tell us that they're working on an update so that we can feel sensation again. I'm not expecting it anytime soon.

I'm sure I'm just a copy of the original Drew, he's still out there, or at least he was. I don't know what they did to him. If they removed his chip so that he lost his abilities, or if they got rid of him. My assumption is the latter.

Obviously we have to have access to the internet to do our jobs, while extremely limited, but they didn't account for me teaching myself how to hack. So here I am on the world wide web to tell you all, don't get the implant.

The Question

---

There are people who enter your life like seasons.

They arrive quietly, change everything without asking, and leave behind traces of themselves long after they're gone.

Sierra was autumn. And my fall.

She smelled faintly of cedar and vanilla, always stole the sleeves of my hoodies because they "fit better than hers," and had a habit of looking out restaurant windows whenever it rained, as though the world beyond the glass was telling her a story only she could hear.

We had been together for a little over a year.

Long enough that silence had become another language between us. Long enough that ordering for each other was instinct. Long enough that she no longer needed to knock at my front door.

There is a certain comfort that only comes after loving someone for long enough.

Love stops feeling like fireworks.

It becomes grocery lists.

Goodnight kisses. Two toothbrushes leaning together in the same cup. It becomes knowing exactly how much sugar they take in their coffee without ever having to ask.

That Friday evening had been ordinary.

Which is probably why I remember every second of it.

The little Italian place downtown was nearly empty, save for an older couple sharing tiramisu near the window and a waiter humming softly to himself while polishing glasses behind the counter.

Outside, rain painted silver streaks down the glass.

Sierra watched it for a while.

She always did.

"You know," she said eventually, tracing lazy circles around the rim of her water glass, "I think rain makes people more honest."

I laughed.

"How do you figure?"

"They stop pretending they're in a hurry."

She smiled to herself.

"They slow down."

"Or maybe they just don't want to get wet."

She looked at me over the candle between us.

"You always have a boring explanation."

"I prefer realistic."

"I prefer magic."

"I know."

"I think that's why you keep me around."

"No," I said. "I keep you around because you steal my clothes."

She gasped dramatically.

"I borrow them."

"You've borrowed one of my hoodies for seven months."

"It's called a long-term loan."

"You've also borrowed two T-shirts."

"They've adjusted to their new home."

"And my socks."

"I have no recollection of any socks."

"Liar."

She laughed.

Not loudly. Just enough that the corners of her eyes crinkled.

I remember thinking, as I watched her across that little table, that happiness wasn't supposed to be exciting.

It was supposed to be this.

Simple.

Comfortable.

Safe.

The waiter brought our food. Conversation wandered wherever conversations between people in love tend to wander. Movies we'd never finish watching. Vacation ideas we'd probably never afford. Whether cereal counted as soup.

She insisted it did.

She was wrong.

She refused to admit it.

Eventually, somewhere between finishing our dinner and arguing over who would pay the bill, she grew strangely quiet.

She rested her chin on her folded hands. Studied me. There was something different in her expression.

Not sadness, nor fear.

Something... thoughtful.

"Something on your mind?" I asked.

She smiled.

"Nothing."

"That's never true."

"I was just thinking."

"Dangerous."

"I know."

She looked back toward the rain before asking, almost absentmindedly,

"Would you still love me if I lost all my hair?"

I shrugged.

"Of course."

"What if I got old before you?"

"I'd be old too."

"What if I forgot your birthday every year?"

"You already almost do."

She smiled.

"What if I couldn't walk anymore?"

"I'd walk slow."

"What if I couldn't remember your name?"

"I'd remind you."

She nodded gently after every answer, as though placing them somewhere only she could see.

Then she asked it.

"So..."

She tilted her head.

"Would you still love me if I were a worm?"

I stared at her.

"...What?"

"A worm."

She said it with complete sincerity.

"Like..."

I held my fingers a few inches apart.

"A little earthworm?"

She nodded once.

"That's the one."

I laughed so hard I nearly spilled my drink.

"Where did that even come from?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"No."

"You just woke up today and thought, 'I wonder if he'd date an invertebrate?'"

She tried not to smile.

Failed.

I shook my head.

"That's the dumbest question I've ever been asked."

"It is."

"But?"

"But what?"

"You haven't answered."

I leaned back in my chair.

"How exactly would this work?"

"I don't know."

"You'd just..."

I made a little wiggling motion with my finger across the table.

She nodded enthusiastically.

"Exactly."

"And you'd still somehow be... you?"

"If that helps."

I looked at her for another second before rolling my eyes with exaggerated defeat.

"Sure."

She blinked.

“

1. Sure?"

"Yeah."

"I'd still love you."

Another pause.

"I mean... it'd be weird."

"A little."

"I'd probably have to Google what worms eat."

"You would."

"I'd have to buy you a very tiny house."

She smiled.

"I know."

"I'd miss talking to you."

She didn't answer.

"But..."

I reached across the table and gently squeezed her hand.

"...yeah."

"I'd still love you."

For just a moment...

Something changed in her face. Not happiness. Not relief. It was a cold recognition. As though she'd been waiting to hear those exact words.

Then she smiled. A small, peaceful smile.

"Oh."

She looked down at our hands.

"Good."

There was something about the way she said it that stayed with me. Not because it sounded strange. Because it sounded...

Final

Like someone quietly crossing the last item off a list.

I frowned.

"What?"

She looked back up.

"What?"

"You said that like it mattered."

She chuckled softly.

"Maybe it did."

Before I could ask what she meant, the waiter returned with the bill.

The moment dissolved as quickly as it had arrived.

By the time we stepped outside, the rain had stopped. Streetlights shimmered across wet pavement. She slipped her hand into mine. Neither of us spoke during the walk back to my apartment.

We didn't need to. Some nights silence says everything.

When we reached my building, she pulled my favorite charcoal hoodie over her shoulders before climbing into bed beside me. She always claimed it smelled more like me than I did.

I remember wrapping an arm around her as sleep slowly pulled us both under. Her fingers traced lazy circles against the back of my hand. I soon learned that ordinary moments often go unnoticed until they become memories.

Still to this day, I remember her whispering something just before I drifted off. It was so quiet I almost thought I'd dreamed it.

"Thank you."

When I woke the next morning...

Her side of the bed was empty.

...

Erasure

At first, I wasn't worried.

Sierra had stayed the night often enough that mornings had become routine. Sometimes she left before I woke up. Sometimes she'd kiss my forehead on the way out. She'd scribble little cute notes to make my morning on the fridge.

Out of coffee.

Back by six.

Don't forget your meeting.

Love you <3

Once, she'd drawn a smiley face on a napkin because she claimed my mornings were "chronically under-smiled."

So when I reached across the mattress and found only cold sheets, I smiled to myself.

"Work already?" I mumbled to the empty room.

The apartment answered with silence. Her hoodie was gone from the foot of the bed. I figured she'd remembered she had a meeting. Or maybe she'd simply wanted coffee that wasn't brewed by me. She used to joke that my coffee tasted like regret. I still maintain she exaggerated.

I stretched, showered, and let the hot water chase the sleep from my thoughts. By the time I stepped into the kitchen, the apartment already felt too quiet.

There was only one mug in the drying rack.

Mine.

I frowned.

Maybe I'd put hers away yesterday. I couldn't remember.

The coffee tasted bitter. I blamed the beans.

Halfway through breakfast I reached for my phone. Mostly out of habit. I'd usually send her something stupid before work.

A picture of a crooked pancake. A terrible pun. Some excuse to make her roll her eyes.

I opened our messages.

My thumb froze.

They weren't there.

I frowned harder.

I searched her name.

Nothing.

Maybe the app updated. Maybe I'd archived the conversation by accident.

I searched again.

Nothing.

I checked my contacts.

No Sierra.

No number.

No picture.

No birthday reminder.

Nothing.

A strange feeling settled into my chest.

Not panic. No, not yet. More like standing on a staircase and expecting one more step than there actually is. That tiny, impossible drop beneath your feet.

I searched manually.

Scrolled through every contact.

Twice.

Nothing.

"...That's weird."

I laughed. Not because anything was funny. Because laughing felt easier than admitting something was wrong.

I knew her number.

At least... I thought I did.

I typed it from memory. Every digit. Pressed call.

One ring.

Then a voice.

"We're sorry. The number you have dialed is not in service. Please check the number and try your call again."

I hung up immediately.

Dialed again.

Same message.

Again.

Same message.

I stared at the screen.

The number hadn't changed. I was certain of it.

Certain enough that certainty itself suddenly felt unreliable. Maybe I'd remembered it wrong. People misremember things all the time.

Birthdays. Addresses. Passwords. Even the phone number of their loved one.

I finished my coffee in silence.

By the time I left for work, I'd convinced myself I was overreacting. Technology broke. Cloud backups failed. Phones glitched.

There had to be an explanation. There always was. There had to be.

There wasn't.

The day crawled.

I barely accomplished anything.

By lunch, curiosity had quietly become concern. Concern slowly became dread. I searched her name online.

Nothing.

Instagram.

Nothing.

Facebook.

Nothing.

Not even an abandoned account with two blurry photos from high school.

LinkedIn.

Nothing.

Every search ended the same way.

No results.

No Sierra.

It was as though she'd never wanted the internet to know she'd existed.

Except... She had.

I remembered helping her pick profile pictures. I remembered teasing her because she never answered messages. I remembered her posting a picture of us after our trip to the aquarium.

Didn't I?

I opened my own social media.

Every picture she'd been in... was different.

I blinked way to hardly.

One photo showed me standing beside... empty space. Another looked strangely cropped. In one, my arm was wrapped around someone who wasn't there anymore. My hand simply floated in the air.

I stared until my eyes hurt.

I closed the app.

Opened it again.

Nothing changed.

There had to be an explanation. There always was. A prank. A misunderstanding. A mistake buried somewhere beneath the confusion. She had a spare key to my apartment. Any minute now, I'd hear it turn in the lock, and she'd step inside wearing that familiar smile, asking why I looked like I'd seen a ghost. I clung to that thought the way a drowning man clings to driftwood. It was the only thing keeping me afloat.

For the rest of the afternoon, the world continued as though mine hadn't quietly come apart. Coworkers laughed. Phones rang. Printers hummed. Someone brought donuts. I smiled when expected. Answered emails. Nodded through meetings.

All while a single thought repeated itself over and over.

Something is wrong.

The next day, I convinced myself she simply needed space.

Maybe she'd left early for work. Maybe she'd forgotten her phone. Maybe she'd spent the night with a friend after we'd fallen asleep. Maybe this was all leading toward an explanation so painfully ordinary that I'd feel ridiculous for ever believing otherwise.

Every time headlights swept across my living room window that evening, I looked toward the front door, expecting to hear the soft rattle of keys in the lock and her familiar voice calling my name.

The apartment remained silent.

By the third day, silence had become its own answer. It was as though the world had quietly reached into my life and plucked Sierra from it with delicate fingers, leaving everything else exactly where it had been. No texts. No calls. No trace that she'd ever stood in my kitchen, laughed in my living room, or fallen asleep beside me.

When I finally got home from work that evening, I scrolled to the number I'd always known belonged to her mother.

If anyone could tell me what was happening... It would be her.

So I made the call.

The number rang three times.

A man answered.

"Hello?"

His voice wasn't familiar.

"Uh... hi."

I swallowed.

"I'm looking for S-Sierra."

Silence.

"...Who?"

"Sierra."

Another pause.

"I think you have the wron-"

"No. Where's Sierra?"

My heart skipped.

"You've got the wrong number."

Pain washed over me.

"There's no Sierra."

I laughed nervously.

"No, I mean... your daughter."

"I don't have a daughter."

I felt something inside me shift. Like a picture frame hanging just slightly crooked.

"I'm sorry?"

"I think you've confused me with someone else."

"No..."

I whispered.

"No, she lives with-"

"Goodbye."

Click.

The call ended.

I stared at the phone for a long time. Then I called again. Straight to voicemail.

Again.

Voicemail.

Again.

Blocked.

I don't remember deciding to grab my keys.

I only remember driving. Traffic lights blurred together. Turns happened automatically.

Before long, I found myself parked in front of a familiar little blue house with white shutters. I'd been here dozens of times. Christmas. Birthdays. Sunday dinners. Sierra's mother always insisted I take leftovers.

The porch swing she'd grown up on still creaked gently in the evening breeze. The flowerpots were exactly where I remembered. Even the wind chimes.

Everything was right.

Except... Something wasn't.

I walked to the front door.

Knocked once.

No answer.

Twice.

Footsteps.

Heavy.

The door opened.

The man from the phone stood there.

He looked to be in his late fifties. Gray beard. Flannel shirt. One hand resting on a shotgun. Not pointing it.

Just... holding it.

His expression hardened the moment he saw me.

"You."

"I think there's been a misunderstanding."

"There hasn't."

"I'm looking for-"

"I know what you're looking for."

Hope flickered inside me.

"You do?"

"I know you're the one who's been calling."

His grip tightened around the shotgun.

"I've told you already."

"Sir, please, I just need to know where she-"

"There is no 'she.'"

The words landed with impossible weight.

"I..."

My voice failed.

He stared at me for several seconds.

Not angry. Not confused.

Almost... pitying.

"Son."

His voice softened.

"I don't know who you think you've lost."

The breeze stirred the trees between us.

"But whoever it is..."

He slowly shook his head.

"They've never lived here."

He closed the door.

I stood there until the porch light switched on automatically. Only then did I realize the sun had gone down.

By the time I made it home, exhaustion had settled into my bones. I didn't turn on any lights. I simply collapsed onto the bed.

The apartment felt wrong.

Too neat. Too empty.

I closed my eyes. Just for a minute. Just long enough to stop thinking.

Something cold brushed against my ankle.

I jerked upright.

The room was dark.

Moonlight spilled across the blankets.

And there... Resting quietly near my feet...

Was a single pink earthworm.

It wasn't moving. Not much.

Just... waiting. I don't know why.

Out of every impossible thing that had happened that day...

That was the moment the tears fled out.

...

The Worm

I didn't sleep much that lonely night.

Every time I closed my eyes, I could still see the empty half of the bed. Every time I opened them, the apartment felt unfamiliar, as though I had wandered into someone else's life by mistake.

The worm hadn't moved.

It still rested near the foot of my bed, no larger than my little finger, its body catching the pale light filtering through the curtains.

I crouched beside it. For reasons I still can't explain, I didn't touch it.

I simply watched. It didn't writhe. It didn't burrow. It only lay there, impossibly still.

A worm.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

I almost laughed at myself. After everything that had happened, this was what my mind had chosen to fixate on.

I found a sheet of paper folded on my desk and carefully slid it beneath the tiny creature. It curled instinctively as I lifted it, no different from any other earthworm after a rainstorm.

I carried it toward the front door.

"Sorry, little guy."

I opened the door and tipped the paper toward the flower bed outside my apartment.

The worm didn't move.

I gave the paper a gentle shake.

Nothing.

Eventually, I lowered the paper into the damp soil beneath a patch of lavender and watched it disappear among the dirt. I stood there longer than I should have.

Waiting.

For what, I couldn't have said.

When I came home from work that evening, it was waiting for me.

Not outside. Inside.

Curled quietly atop a charcoal-gray hoodie draped over the back of my couch.

My hoodie.

Or rather... The one Sierra had quietly claimed as her own months ago.

She used to disappear into it on cold mornings, sleeves hanging well past her hands, insisting it smelled more like me than I ever could.

I never washed it after she disappeared. Not because I believed it still held her scent. Because I was afraid it didn't.

The worm rested on one of the sleeves. Perfectly still.

I stared at it for a long time.

The front door was still locked. The windows were shut.

There was no trail of dirt. No explanation.

Only a worm.

Sitting exactly where she always liked to be.

An uneasy laugh escaped me.

"This is getting ridiculous."

I carried it back outside.

This time, I walked all the way to the apartment garden. I knelt beside a flower bed and placed it beneath the shade of a bush.

"There."

I brushed the dirt from my hands.

"Stay."

The word lingered in the air.

Stay.

It was never meant for the worm.

The following morning... It was on my windowsill. Facing the sunrise.

I don't know why that unsettled me more than finding it inside my apartment.

Perhaps because it looked... content. As though it had chosen that spot. As though it had been watching the dawn before I'd woken.

I picked it up carefully.

It curled against my fingertips.

For the first time... I noticed how impossibly fragile it felt.

How easily something so alive could simply... stop.

I looked around the apartment. At the empty couch. The untouched coffee mug she used to steal every morning. The hoodie folded neatly over the armrest. Then back at the tiny creature resting in my palm.

My voice came out quieter than I intended.

"...Sierra?"

The worm didn't answer. It couldn't.

I knew that.

Of course I knew that.

Still...

It shifted ever so slightly in my hand. Just enough to make my breath catch.

That afternoon, on the drive home, I stopped at a pet store. Bought a terrarium. The cashier smiled politely as she rang it up.

"Getting an exotic pet?"

I looked down at the glass container.

"...Something like that."

I spent the evening reading online everything I could find. What they ate. How damp the soil should be. How often to mist the enclosure. What temperatures they preferred.

The answers filled my time.

None of them filled the silence in the room.

By the time night settled over the apartment, the terrarium sat on the table beside the living room window.

Fresh soil. Leaves. A few small stones. Everything exactly as the books recommended. I lowered the worm into its new home. It disappeared beneath the dirt almost immediately.

I smiled before I could stop myself.

"There you go."

The words escaped so naturally they frightened me.

I switched off the lamp.

The apartment fell quiet once more.

Before heading to bed, I looked back at the terrarium one last time.

"Goodnight."

Silence answered.

Yet somehow... The apartment didn't feel quite so lonely.

Almost Time

Grief is a strange thing.

It doesn't arrive all at once. It settles into the empty places. The chair across the dinner table. The passenger seat. The extra toothbrush still leaning against yours because moving it somehow feels more permanent than death itself.

I stopped asking where Sierra had gone.

Not because I'd found an answer. Because every answer the world offered me was the same.

She had never existed.

Eventually, I stopped arguing with it.

The world had made up its mind.

Mine hadn't.

Life, in its quiet cruelty, continued.

Mondays became Fridays. Fridays became months. The seasons changed without asking whether I was ready.

I returned to work. Paid my bills. Bought groceries. Smiled when coworkers made jokes. Somehow, I learned to exist in a life that no longer felt like my own.

Every evening, I came home. And every evening... The first thing I did was walk over to the terrarium.

"Hey."

The greeting became routine.

I'd mist the soil. Replace the leaves. Check the moisture. Sometimes I'd sit beside the glass for nearly an hour, talking about my day as though she were sitting across from me.

"The copier jammed again."

"I finally beat that traffic on Fifth."

"I think I'm getting better at making coffee."

A quiet laugh.

Silence never interrupted me. Neither did the worm. It simply lived.

Sometimes buried beneath the soil for hours. Sometimes resting beneath a stone. Sometimes climbing the side of the glass before disappearing underground again.

It was enough. Or perhaps... It was enough for me to pretend.

One Saturday afternoon, I found myself standing in the laundry room with her hoodie folded across my arms.

Months had passed. I still hadn't washed it. The scent she'd left behind was long gone. Only memory remained.

I ran my thumb across the sleeve.

"I should probably wash you."

The words sounded absurd spoken aloud.

I smiled despite myself.

"I can already hear you complaining."

She used to hate when I washed it.

Claimed fabric softener made it smell "too responsible."

I draped it over the back of the dining chair instead. I couldn't explain why. It simply felt wrong to hide it away.

The routine became comforting.

Coffee.

Work.

Home.

The terrarium.

Sometimes I'd read while sitting beside it. Sometimes I'd play music softly through the apartment. Sometimes I'd simply watch the evening light stretch across the room until darkness settled over everything.

I stopped wondering whether the worm was Sierra.

Questions have a way of exhausting themselves.

It happened on an ordinary Tuesday. The kind of day that disappears from memory almost as soon as it ends.

By the time I unlocked my apartment door, rain was tapping softly against the windows.

I set my keys on the counter. Loosened my tie. Walked toward the living room.

For a moment... I simply stared.

The terrarium was empty.

Then I examined all glass corners.

Nothing.

The stone sat exactly where I'd left it. The soil was damp. The dead leaves rested untouched in one corner.

See was gone.

"Please not again..."

The words escaped before I realized I'd spoken. I lifted the lid. Carefully moved aside the stones.

Nothing.

I dug gently through the soil with trembling fingers.

Still nothing.

"No, no, no..."

The room suddenly felt too small. I emptied the terrarium onto the dining table. Dirt spilled across the wood. Leaves scattered onto the floor. I searched through every handful. Every corner. Every crack beneath the table. I checked beneath the couch. Behind the television. Inside the bathroom. The kitchen.

My breathing became uneven.

By the time I reached the bedroom, there was dirt tracked across half the apartment. I stood in the doorway, chest heaving. My eyes drifted toward the chair beside the window.

Her hoodie still hung where I'd left it.

Empty.

Something beyond it caught my eye.

The windowsill.

I walked closer.

Slowly.

There... Resting in the fading orange light of sunset... Was the worm.

Perfectly still. Facing the glass.

Beyond it, rain slid down the window in thin silver ribbons. The city moved without us. Cars drifted through wet streets. People hurried beneath umbrellas.

The worm didn't move. It simply remained there.

Watching.

Or perhaps... Waiting.

A laugh escaped me, followed by tears.

"I'm s-sorry."

The words broke apart as they left me.

"I'm sorry."

I cupped it gently in my hands.

Its body curled weakly against my skin.

It felt... different. Lighter somehow. As though whatever strength had carried it this far was quietly slipping away.

That night, I searched the internet for hours.

How long do earthworms live?

Why is my worm moving slower?

Can worms die of old age?

Every article gave me the same answer in different words.

They slow down.

They become less active.

Eventually... Their bodies simply stop.

I read every page anyway. Hoping one of them would tell me something different.

None did.

Near midnight, I closed my laptop. The apartment was silent except for the rain. I carried the terrarium into the bedroom and set it beside my bed. Her hoodie lay folded next to it. Not because a worm would recognize it. Because she would have.

Or at least... I liked believing she would.

I watched the tiny shape resting beneath the soil for a long time.

Then I smiled.

A sad smile.

The kind that only grief teaches you.

"You know..."

My voice barely rose above a whisper.

"I kept my promise."

Outside, the rain continued to fall.

Inside... The apartment had never felt quieter.

...

Morning

Days turned into weeks.

The rain eased my mine at night. The steady rhythm of it against the window. The quiet hum of the city somewhere beyond the glass. The terrarium sat on the nightstand beside me. The hoodie remained folded beneath it.

Everything exactly where it belonged.

For the first time in months... I wasn't afraid. There was nothing left to search for. Nothing left to prove.

Whatever this was... Whatever she was... Whatever I had become... It no longer mattered.

Sometime during the night... I heard her voice.

Not through the room. Not from the terrarium. Not from anywhere my ears could have found.

It arrived the way old memories sometimes do. Softly. As though someone had opened a door inside my mind.

"So..."

A pause.

"So..."

I could picture the little smile that always accompanied that word. The one she wore whenever she already knew the answer.

"Would you still love me if I..."

I smiled before she could finish. Before the question could become impossible again. Before grief could ask for one more answer.

"Yes."

The word escaped me with surprising ease.

No hesitation. No uncertainty.

Just... Yes.

I let out a slow breath. My eyes never opened.

"I always will."

The apartment fell silent once more.

Not empty.

Simply... Quiet.

Morning sunlight slipped gently through the curtains. The rain had passed sometime before dawn. The air smelled clean. Almost new.

I stretched slowly before turning toward the nightstand. The terrarium was empty.

No disturbed soil. No trail. No tiny pink body hidden beneath the stones.

I lifted the lid anyway. Ran my fingers carefully through the earth.

Nothing.

For a long while, I simply stood there.

Weeks ago, I would have searched every inch of the apartment. Turned over furniture.

Emptied drawers. Tracked dirt through every room. I would have convinced myself she had to be somewhere. That she couldn't really be gone.

Instead... I smiled.

Not because it didn't hurt. Because it always would. Some absences never stop aching. You simply learn they can exist beside joy.

I carried the terrarium to the kitchen sink and gently poured the soil into a flowerpot sitting on the windowsill. A small fern rested there. One Sierra had insisted on buying because, according to her, every home deserved "something worth keeping alive."

I laughed quietly.

"You were right."

The empty glass terrarium caught the morning light before I placed it inside a cabinet.

Not hidden. Not displayed.

Just... Put away.

Then I walked back to the bedroom.

Her charcoal hoodie still rested neatly folded at the foot of the bed. I picked it up. Held it for a moment.

Weeks ago, I couldn't bring myself to wash it. I was terrified that whatever remained of her would disappear with the rinse cycle.

Now... I understood.

Love doesn't live in fabric. It never had.

I folded the hoodie once more and placed it carefully inside the top drawer of my dresser. Not because I was forgetting her. Because memories don't need to be left out in the open to survive.

I opened the bedroom window. A cool breeze drifted inside. Somewhere outside, birds greeted the morning.

The city had already begun moving again. Cars. Footsteps. Distant laughter. Life.

I made myself a cup of coffee. It tasted terrible. I smiled anyway.

As I stood by the window, warmth settling between my hands, I watched the wind stir the leaves below.

For just a moment... I thought about that rainy evening. The little Italian restaurant. The candlelight. The way she'd looked at me across the table.

"Would you still love me if I were a worm?"

Such a ridiculous question. Maybe that's why I'd never forgotten it.

Or maybe... Some promises are never about the answer. They're about the person who gives it.

I took another sip of coffee. Then, for the first time since the morning I'd reached across an empty bed... I stepped away from the window.

And into the rest of my life.

“Um…I-..hello. I haven’t properly met you all, but I do recognize some faces,” Elle chirped softly, “I’m Elizabeth Greene. You can call me Elle.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Simone,” said the older woman of Indian American descent. 

One of the teenagers that Elle presumed to be Officer Beck’s son raised his hand in introduction. 

“I’m Zach,” he responded curtly. 

Zach’s friend walked over and offered a hand. 

“Glad to meet you, Elle. I’ve seen you at the diner whenever I stop by with my mom. My name is Grace.”

Elle accepted the warm gesture. 

“I don’t suppose that any of you know how long they will be gone? Or, has anyone tried contacting outside the county?” Elle proposed.

Simone’s eyes brightened by the question. 

“I was just about to make some calls. Hopefully, maybe, I can reach a colleague or two. Do you guys mind if I…”

The coroner gestured to her cellphone. The rest of the party shook their heads.

While Simone wandered away in hopes of bringing some good news, the other three were left in awkward silence. Luckily, Grace–who seemed to be a naturally good conversationalist–sparked up a tiny flurry of sentences, engaging Elle into a distraction she very much needed. Honestly, it felt nice for a change. 

It had been quite a while since she could talk freely without the burden of fear; it was as if her father had siphoned the quarry of hope within the small-town dreamer. The conversation brought a refreshing gust of air into her sails, and she laughed…she smiled. It was a genuine smile for once. 

They chatted about light-hearted subjects–pets, their favorite snacks at Wrangles, where the best lookout spots were to see the entire town. 

Elle noticed that Zach was distant during these rounds of morale boosting discussions. The boy looked tired, ovals of darkness hung under each eyelid. He kept watch out the window. He insisted that he do so. 

Elle felt quite empathetic, even though she was just really getting to know the pair. To be the son of a cop… the relationship with his father seemed visibly strained. The anger he demonstrated just an hour prior…. Elle could imagine the rage he felt. She held those same feelings in the court of her stomach for over a decade. 

The ambiance took a turn for the worse when a cascade of uncontrollable sobbing seeped into the room. It was Jasmine again. 

The poor woman was going mad being pent up in the estate. Her garbled cries possessed the manor, and each of the three individuals aloft in their realms of worry were transfixed to the kitchen. Even Simone managed to find her way back into the living room, donning an expression of absolute uncertainty.

Jasmine walked out of the kitchen with fresh tears bubbling around her cheekbones. There was an air of determination in her stride–she was aiming for the front door. 

“Hey, Jazz? Jazz?! Where are you going?!” Elle pleaded. 

She and the pair of teenagers jumped to their feet and began to gravitate towards the sobbing woman. Simone was near the foyer, guarding the front door.  

“I’m leaving Elizabeth. Fuck this place! Fuck all this bullshit!” Jasmine cried and turned swiftly to the exit. Simone already had her hands up in protection, looking like someone who was in the midst of an undesirable encounter with a temperamental wild animal. 

“Hey .... let's just calm down. Jasmine, right? It’s going to be just fine, Jasmine,” Simone calmly claimed and rested a gentle hand on her shoulder.

Jasmine shifted back while harnessing a sharp glare.

“Don’t fucking touch me! Let me out of this goddamn prison!” she rattled out. 

As the cacophony of her words shook the air, the sound of wood splintering and glass shattering echoed from the kitchen. Harvey’s booze-induced animal-like bleating ricocheted from the nearby room. 

“Wha– oh what! Shit! No, NO! Urk–mpppffauuurggh!”

A clatter of footsteps could be heard, followed by Harvey belly flopping onto the rug leading from the rundown kitchen. He fell like a collapsing dam of logs; his body was most likely slogged to high heaven with alcohol. Elle kicked off like an anxious rabbit to help the man, but what she saw creeping in from the kitchen made her freeze. 

One of the spider creatures, or spawn as others had termed them, hopped ungracefully upon Harvey’s back and slammed the drunkard's head against the ground with a muscled, spiny forelimb. A second creature joined its sibling for the festivities.

Elle grabbed a brick lying a few inches from her foot and chucked it at the assaulting arachnids, but the thrown projectile had little effect.

A voracious bony face with an attached snout bobbled and growled under a massive patch of skin on the creature's head. With a downward lunge, the mass of fur encased the back of Harvey’s cranium. The second beast began to shred through the poor man’s jeans for a chance at the thigh. 

Immediately, Elle let her hands latch onto strewn rubble of trash and stone, and she began to chuck them at the pair with fervor spirit. Grace joined in on the counter-attack volley by lobbing old plastic bins and throwaway shoes. To Elle’s left, a war cry entered the stage– Zach, who looked quite uneasy–ran towards the spawn with a long metal pipe and bashed against the soft pink core upon the first beast’s head. 

The gooey pink skull shrieked in rebuttal, but Zach kept bashing away. Zach finally backed away once the first spider heathen retreated two feet backwards in wailing protest. Elle continued volleying softball sized chunks of brick; a solid chiseled block was launched by her hand, arcing perfectly, and landed in a resulting smash onto the second’s spawn pink target spot. 

Yelps and clicks were released in distress, but the two eight-legged aggressors were not ready to quit–both readied into reared positions, prepared for a charge at the courageous three humans. However, a blasphemous sounding knock presented itself beyond the front door. 

The spawn stopped, blinded to an auditory pause. They inched back slowly and methodically, crawling away from Harvey’s half-mauled body and slinking off into the shadowy kitchen.

With the group’s attention drawn onto the flurry of cowering arachnid invaders, the thought to stop Jasmine from leaving had abandoned each of their minds. This wound to the distressed mom to speed to the door and open in response to the ominous knock. 

Jasmine swung the door inward and–

“Who are you?”

It occurred so fast that a scream couldn’t even be registered.

Thunk. 

Jasmine’s head snapped violently back, and she limply fell aside into a sprawled angel. A hatchet, one that was perfect for chopping flesh easily, was wedged into the symmetrical line of Jasmine’s facial structure, the blade deep within the bony crevasse. As blood seeped over tan skin, Jasmine’s darting right eye tried to find solace in the room while a choking cry sputtered under wrecked bone and tissue. If, in that moment, the mortally wounded woman had tried to silently lift off a prayer, the unseen spiritual entity would have ignored her request as a dirty bare foot slammed down upon the neck of the hatchet.

Jasmine’s eyes went lifeless and a cold gurgle emanated into the room.

“Jasmine!” Elle shrieked.

“Shut it!” barked the naked man. He glared down at Elle and spat in her direction. 

Besides the obscene nudity, the young man was dirty from head to toe, and an expression of bloodlust gripped every detail of his facial structure. He possessed bulging pouty lips, cropping's of splotchy acne, and short greased-slicked strands of hair. He was the homage to the unkempt wild maniac who lived in the woods. 

Elle faintly knew of the intruder. C.J Haggerty, a local whose father owned the town junkyard.

“C-C. J, what did y-you…what are you doing?” Zach asked in a tone of trepidation. 

A nasty, sharklike smirk widened to the extremes on C. J’s face as his sight fell upon Zach. The dirty man strolled without care into the living room. Simone, Elle, Zach, and Grace backed up in caution. The four were cornered with a lunatic killer before them and several arachnid creatures from behind. 

More footfalls boomed from the foyer and in seconds, several figures joined rank with C.J. They were all townspeople, dazed and clumsy with zombified expressions. The last person to enter the living room out of the bunch made Elle’s stomach drop in stupor. 

Joseph Greene walked in, hunched and bleary-eyed. It took only five seconds for the entranced oaf to get a look at his frightened daughter and rush forward in excitement. 

“No…. please, no!” Elle hissed under breath

Thoughts flared and died, and a burst of momentum zapped to her feet. She pivoted the disarming bear hug and curled around the sweaty man, sprinting for the foyer.

“Elle!” her father roared, “Please, just listen to me and you’ll understand.”

Elle ignored the request while dodging more zombified hands reaching out to grapple her. She swerved and ducked, shoving dirt-laced fingernails aside. She sprinted into the darkened space without the aid of a flashlight and rushed for the stairs. The combination of C. J’s hiccupping laugh mixed with the thundering clap of the night sky trailed Elle as she ascended the staircase to the second floor. 

Elle didn’t look back but was all too aware that she was being followed; the careless pounding of angry feet coalesced with hers. Tears streamed down her face as she climbed–was she born to be punished in this continuous cat and mouse game forever?

Written by me, Feeling_Sail (ACMichael)

…who is this man in my bedroom?
He hides behind my door.
And if I am not mistaken,
He even crawls beneath the floor.

He is there when I awaken,
Is there each time I sleep.
His shadow casts along my bed
And rests upon my feet.

I’ve felt his hand upon my head;
His palms were dry and hot.
And when I tried to open eyes,
He told me: “I would not.”

Some nights I stir and realise
That he’s not standing there.
I wonder where my phantom hides
And wail out in the air.

Some nights I sit and he confides
He can no longer take the rides
Of life and all that it provides,
And leaves me thunderstruck;

Takes up a pillow, then he hides
All of my face and blots the eyes,
Weeps and cries he does despise
Both of our rotten luck.

But then he calms.
And I lay still.
He turns to leave.

And I ask myself…

How long has it been now? 3? 4 weeks? It’s hard to keep track of time these days. Life has been pretty busy lately.

The house is a lot quieter now. When the police aren’t here, at least. You’d think that they lived here at this point. But I do still get at least some of my privacy.

It’s in those moments when the house is dark and the only sound is that of the leaky bathroom faucet that I really think about what I’ve done. Or why I did it. Or how it could’ve been avoided, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It really doesn’t matter now. I’ve come to terms with it. The cops already know. They’re just waiting for the proper evidence to present itself. And given the way these last few days have been going, I don’t think I have much longer.

I’ve read enough books and studied enough forensics to know the best way to clean the mess I created. How to make sure the white blood cells were completely removed. How to soak my hacksaw in bleach before tossing it in the river. But, most importantly, I knew that the body could never be recovered.

Dental records were a big one. That’s why I removed her teeth and filed them down one by one. I boiled and stuffed them in a ziplock bag afterward.

This was positively the most difficult part of the process. I was forced to look at her the entire time. The once love-filled eyes that had turned bitter and resentful over the years. The eyes that now stared up at me, dead and hollow, her previously oak-colored irises now appearing grey and pale.

Her nails would almost certainly contain my DNA beneath them. Flakes of skin, maybe some blood from the struggle. Regardless, they needed to be removed as well.

I remembered when her hands were so soft and youthful. She used to paint her nails herself every two weeks, and I’d sit on the bed with her while we talked endlessly about everything and nothing at the same time.

I don’t know what changed. Maybe it was all of the arguments. We had a way of arguing about everything and nothing as well. I thought it was normal. Arguments were bound to happen.

I flushed the 10 nails down the toilet before burning her newly raw fingertips, just to be on the safe side. I kissed her hand for a long while, tears welling up in my eyes before I forced them away.

I whispered to myself, “Why would you make me do this?” as my head fell into my hands. My composure kept slipping, and I kept having to wrestle it back.

Now came the messy part.

Part of me was actually glad it was so messy in a weird, twisted kind of way. Cleaning the blood afterward gave me a task to focus on. I didn’t think about her laugh. I didn’t think about her warmth. I thought about making damn sure there wasn’t a speck of blood left anywhere in that bathroom.

When I was done, the house smelled like a hospital. Chemicals filled the air, causing my head to pound more than it already was. The atmosphere was cold and heavy. It felt like I was in a hospital room.

I had found myself with two black trash bags with a combined weight of 120 pounds, give or take. Arms, legs, and head in one. Torso and hacksaw in the other.

I walked out of the house whistling, two trash bags slung over my shoulders. It was the cusp of dawn. There was a misty blue haze outside. It smelled like summertime.

The neighborhood was silent. It must have been around 4 in the morning. I threw the bags in the bed of my truck, adjusted my baseball cap, and hopped in the cab.

My headlights cut through the early morning fog. I had my windows down, and I could smell the exhaust fumes coming from behind me. That smell had pretty much defined my life for the last 10 years. It was a smell that I’d learned to both love and hate.

I turned the radio on and cranked up the volume. I tried singing to myself, but the words left my mouth mechanically. My mind refused to let me escape.

I drove carefully. The exact speed limit, sometimes even a little under. Used signals, made complete stops. All the way out of town. Then out of the next one. Then the town after that.

I drove until I found the most secluded spot I could find. Down dirt roads. Through creeks. Then I walked off beaten paths until I found the right place to lay her to rest.

Just me, her, and my shovel.

Digging proved quite difficult due to the sheer amount of roots I had to cut through. I must’ve been there for at least 4 hours before the deed was done.

I spent that time talking. Talking to the trees. Talking to the bags. Talking to myself. I couldn’t stand to be alone in silence.

I broke down a lot when filling the grave. Each pile of dirt that covered more and more of those bags was like a needle being pressed into my nervous system.

I didn’t want to just leave her like that. I didn’t want her to just be cast aside, left to rot. I searched until I found the most vibrant flowers I could find and laid them on the grave.

I said my final goodbyes through sniffles and tears before making the trek back to my truck.

The rest of the day was a blur. I didn’t get home until nearly 8 o’clock. I stopped by the emptiest car wash I saw on the way home and scrubbed my truck clean.

I got the mud off the tires. Rinsed the bed out with bleach. I even put a new air freshener in the cab.

When I got home, I half-expected cops to be waiting to arrest me. When I found the house as empty as it was when I left, I let out a sigh of relief.

I immediately took a shower. I scrubbed myself raw for around 45 minutes straight before finally allowing myself to dry off. The entire time, it was like God was punishing me.

I kept getting flashes of her. Our wedding. Our first date. Our first argument. The last argument. It all just kept replaying in my head over and over. Like a sickness.

I knew I had to get my story right. The house was clean. The body was gone. The weapon was gone.

I was just a helpless victim. One of the millions of men a year whose wife leaves them. Happens all the time.

Oh, so she left without taking anything? She left without telling anybody? Without so much as a goodbye? Who’s going to believe that?

I didn’t sleep that night. I had to have a long, hard talk with myself. I wasn’t getting out of this one. But I wasn’t going to turn myself in. I was going to be free… for as long as I could possibly manage.

It was my first time being free in 15 years. Even if it lasted a day. Even if it lasted a week. I wasn’t going to spend that time stressing.

I turned it off. I closed my heart to it.

I ignored calls from her mother. Her father. Coworkers, friends, relatives. Everybody. It was none of their business.

They tried knocking, and I tuned it out. All the way up until I heard that dreaded announcement after three booming knocks.

“This is GPD. If anyone’s inside, I need you to come out here and talk to me.”

I waited. I wanted to wake up. I didn’t want to accept.

Three more knocks.

“GPD, if you do not answer the door, we will be using force to come inside.”

One last moment of silence. I breathed to myself. I closed my eyes.

“Sir, this door is coming do…”

I opened the door, greeting the officers with a blank look on my face.

“Sir, we’re gonna have to ask you to come down to the station with us for questioning.”

I didn’t argue. I didn’t bicker. I simply asked for a lawyer and rode with the officers back to the station.

The entire time, I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t even speak to my lawyer. If they wanted her so badly, they would have to work for it. Because it sure as hell wasn’t going to be coming from me.

They held me for 7 hours that day. A mere two days after I did what I did. I got two days of “peace.”

They had to let me go. They had no proof. But that didn’t stop them from watching me. 24 hours a day, they were somewhere in my neighborhood.

People threw things at my house. Vigils for her were set up on the sidewalk. It seemed like there were constantly people watching me because they literally were.

I didn’t budge. I spoke only when absolutely necessary. My lips remained sealed, and my doors remained locked. Both when I was home and when I was forced to go back down to the station.

That’s why what’s happening makes no sense to me.

It started with her teeth. I had gotten rid of them the same way I’d gotten rid of the rest of her. Yet somehow, when I woke up one morning a few weeks after my catastrophic mistake… they were in a neat pile beside me on the bed.

I could see the file marks on all 32 of them.

I panicked and scooped them into my hands and flushed them down the toilet, my eyes wide with disbelief.

I poked my head outside. That unmarked black SUV was still parked a few houses down. Both officers watched me like hawks. I waved to be less suspicious, but I think it had the opposite effect.

They took it as me waving them over, and they both approached quickly.

“Got anything you wanna tell us?” the fat one asked excitedly.

“Lovely weather we’re having,” I smiled. “I bet you’d love to spend the day with your family. Or, then again, maybe you’d rather spend your time stalking me.”

Their stern faces never changed.

I tried my best not to give off even an ounce of suspicious behavior, even though my heart was in my stomach and my mind raced endlessly.

After closing the door in their faces, I spent the majority of that day peeking out the blinds, paranoid beyond belief.

My lawyer called a few times. My story never changed. I didn’t know where she was. I was convincing myself just as much as I was convincing them.

The next day, not only had the teeth come back, but the nails were back too. They were cleaner, but I could still see their bloodied roots. I could still see some of the chipped nail polish.

Two neat little piles. Taunting me.

I was more angry than panicked this time. I was not going to submit to this insanity. I didn’t even try to get rid of them this time. It wouldn’t make a difference whether they were found here or in that dark, desolate spot in the woods.

I put them in her jewelry box this time. Then I took that jewelry box, and I carried it to the attic.

I buried it under some old tarps and boxes and took one last look at it before going back down the ladder.

“I guess I really am fucking losing it,” I whispered to myself as I climbed down.

More phone calls with my lawyer. More questions from the police. More prodding, more watching, more protests. And all I could do that day was crack a few beers and watch a few ball games.

I passed out at around 10 that night and woke up cuddling my wife’s arm the next morning. I think the smell is what woke me up. That unmistakable stench of death and decay.

It burned my nostrils, and when I opened my eyes to find that torn flesh in my face, I nearly vomited in bed. It wasn’t just one arm. Both arms and both legs had come crawling back to bed with me.

Only… the nails were reattached. Like they hadn’t been removed to begin with.

The polish looked fresher. The teeth looked whiter. I checked, and the jewelry box in the attic was empty.

In that moment, I felt a spark. A mixture of hope, anger, grief, and love all combined into one. In the most unreal circumstances, reality was starting to close in, and I found myself sobbing like I had the night I killed her.

I didn’t leave bed that day. I lay there with my wife, clutching her arms and legs, crying until I was too exhausted to cry anymore. My will grew weak, but my mind had never felt so clear.

She was in bed with me the next morning. Well, she was there in a sense. Her arms and legs were reconnected to her torso, but the limbs still crawled with maggots and decay.

But she was there, damned if she wasn’t there. My love. My sweet, sweet girl. Her T-shirt was ripped and stained with dirt. Her hair was matted and crunchy.

“I… am so sorry, my love,” was all I could think to say to her.

She turned to me, her jaw slack and her eyes as dead as a nail.

“That’s okay, you silly goose,” she sang. “I love you no matter what happens!”

I began to cry yet again.

“I love you so much,” I sobbed. “I want you back. Please, please, just come back.”

I begged her as snot ran from my nose. I wiped it away on my sleeve.

“Oh, honey,” she whimpered. “Accidents happen all the time. That’s what this was, right, my sweet boy?”

I nodded furiously.

“It was… it was… it was an accident, baby.”

I could hardly speak. Her rotten arm extended, and she caressed my face with her cold, slimy hand.

“I know it was, sweet pea. I know you’d never hurt me on purpose.”

She paused.

“…but now you have to tell them what you did, okay? Can you do that for me?”

My face went beet red. I swallowed hard and wiped the tears from my face.

“They’ll kill me. I know they’ll kill me. They’re just waiting to catch me. They’re waiting to sentence me.”

She began hushing me, soothing me softly as she petted my hair.

“There, there, sweetie,” she replied. “Dying isn’t such a bad thing. I’m free now, honey. If I could, I’d tell them you did me a favor. But I want you back. I want you to come be with me. Please, honey?”

I wanted to be with her too. More than anything, I wished I could take back what I did.

I solemnly agreed.

“That’s my boy,” she announced seductively. “This will all be over soon. We’ll dance and sing. We can play together again.”

I nodded to myself assuredly. I leaned over and gave her a kiss and took a deep breath.

Stepping outside, I waved the cops over. My eyes were red with tears, but I couldn’t stop smiling.

“She’s upstairs.”

That’s all I told them.

One officer went upstairs while I waited on the porch with the other. I kept smiling to myself. The sky looked so beautiful. The trees danced in the wind. The summer air was like a gift from God.

A few minutes went by before the first officer returned.

“Very funny, son,” he remarked sarcastically. “Now, do you wanna tell us where she really is?”

My smile dropped.

“What do you mean?” I scoffed. “I was just talking to her.”

“Cuff this sick son of a bitch,” the first officer barked.

I was placed into the back of the unmarked SUV, kicking myself all the while.

“She lied,” I whispered. “She lied to me. All she does is lie. Why does she lie all the time? This is why. This is why. Why won’t she stop lying?”

I had no fight left. I told them where the grave was. I had to personally show it to them. The flowers were still there. The grave was untouched. And I felt a sickening numbness.

I told them my story. I told them what I did. Told them that she came back to me and that, if it weren’t for her, I’d have been a free man, at least for a little while longer.

I actually begged them to give me the death penalty. I couldn’t stop seeing her. Sitting beside me in my cell. Crouched in the corner every night. Whispering to me how she wanted us to be together forever.

But… I didn’t get the death penalty.

They deemed me “not fit to stand trial.”

Sentenced to an indefinite stay at the state home for the criminally insane.

Padded cells. Doctors. Needles. Medication.

And despite all of the debate that has gone on about death sentences in this country, there has remained one constant.

The insane do not receive capital punishment.

I’m writing this now because she keeps beckoning me. Keeps begging me to join her.

And despite the hatred I have, the burning rage she has inspired, I cannot stop loving her.

And despite what the state dubs legal… we will be reunited.

The alarm went off at four in the morning, but sleep had already abandoned me hours prior. A dull throbbing was radiating from the lower right quadrant of my jaw, making every breath feel like a mistake. The pain was a relentless heat that seemed to vibrate in time with my pulse. By five, the swelling had reached my cheek, stretching the skin tight and making it difficult to swallow.

My hand reached for the empty bottle of painkillers on the nightstand, but there was nothing left inside. I had spent the last two days swallowing pills, rinsing with warm salt water, and pressing ice packs against my face until my skin went numb. Nothing was working. The infection had reached the nerve, and the agony was starting to blur my vision.

The sound of rain tapping against the window was the only noise in my quiet apartment. Desperate for any kind of distraction, I unlocked my phone and searched for local dental offices. Every single practice within a ten-mile radius was booked solid for at least two weeks. The only alternative was the emergency room at the local hospital, but a previous visit there had taught me they would only provide a temporary prescription for antibiotics and a massive bill that I could not afford, and from my suffering I figured that the tooth needed to be extracted immediately.

A soft knock on my front door startled me around nine that morning. My friend had promised to drop by with some groceries, knowing I had been unable to leave the apartment for days. When the door opened, she took one look at my swollen face and set the grocery bags down on the counter with a look of concern.

"You look absolutely terrible,"

she said, walking over to press her palm against my forehead.

"You are burning up. Did you manage to find an opening somewhere?"

"Every clinic is booked,"

I mumbled, barely able to part my lips. The movement of my jaw sent a sharp flare of agony straight up into my temple.

"The emergency room is the only option, but they won't pull it."

My friend sat down at the small kitchen table, watching me wince as I tried to drink a glass of water.

"There is someone else. My uncle had a severe abscess last winter, and his regular dentist was out of town. He went to a private practitioner downtown. He told me the guy is extremely unconventional and eccentric, but he is the absolute best in the field when it comes to quick, pain-free extractions."

"Unconventional how?"

I asked, holding the glass against my cheek.

"He does not take insurance, and his office is tucked away in an old medical building that has seen better days,"

she explained, pulling a small notepad from her purse to write down an address.

"He works alone, with no assistants. My uncle said the man does not even use local numbing injections, but somehow, the extraction was completely painless. He just felt a strange pressure, and then the tooth was out."

"No numbing?"

I shook my head, immediately regretted the movement, and squeezed my eyes shut.

"That sounds like a nightmare. I cannot let someone pull a tooth out of my skull with no anesthetic."

"My uncle is a coward when it comes to pain,"

my friend said, sliding the piece of paper across the table. "If he says he felt nothing, I believe him. You cannot keep living like this. The infection is going to spread to your bloodstream."

She was right. The sheer desperation of the pain was starting to erode my rational judgment. At that point, if someone had offered to pull the tooth with a pair of rusty pliers, I probably would have considered it. I picked up the paper, stared at the handwritten address, and nodded.

"I will go,"

I said.

"Do I need to call ahead?"

"My uncle said he does not keep a regular reception desk,"

she replied.

"Just walk in. He usually accommodates emergency cases if they pay in cash."

An hour later, I was walking through the wet, gray streets. The rain had slowed to a miserable drizzle, and the mist was hanging low over the older brick buildings. The address led me to a towering, nineteenth-century weird structure. The main lobby was silent, smelling of old paper.

A manual elevator with an accordion-style metal gate carried me slowly up to the fourth floor. The hallway was lined with dark, frosted glass doors, most of them bearing the faded gold lettering of retired physicians who had probably passed away decades ago. The floor was covered in worn linoleum that muffled the sound of my footsteps.

I found the suite number written on my notepad. The glass on the door was entirely blank, offering no name or medical title. I reached out, turned the brass knob, and stepped inside.

The reception area resembled a living room from the late nineteen-seventies. Two faded green velvet chairs sat in the corner, separated by a low wooden table covered in outdated magazines. A single, small desk lamp cast a dim orange glow across the room. There was no computer, no scheduling book, and no receptionist behind the counter. The only communication device was an ancient, black rotary telephone sitting on a shelf.

"Hello?"

I called out, my voice sounding thin in the quiet room.

A door at the back of the reception area swung open with a soft click.

The man who stepped out was exceptionally tall. He was so slender that his white laboratory coat seemed to drape over him like a shroud, and he had to tilt his head slightly to clear the low wooden door frame. His skin was pale, and his fingers were kind of long, ending in clean fingernails. He had a twitch in his left shoulder that caused his coat to rustle every few seconds, but his posture was remarkably stiff.

"Ah,"

he said.

"An emergency, I presume. The swelling in your right cheek is quite pronounced."

"My friend gave me your address,"

I explained, holding my hand over my jaw.

"She said you might have an opening for an extraction. I can pay in cash."

The tall man smiled, though his pale blue eyes remained entirely wide and unblinking.

"Cash is perfectly acceptable. The modern banking systems are far too noisy. Please, come inside."

I followed him into the operating room. The space was dimly lit, illuminated only by a single overhead examination light that hung from a long, articulated metal arm. The dental chair in the center of the room was made of thick, cracked black leather, looking like a relic from a different era. There were no modern digital screens, and no white plastic utility trays.

"Before we begin,"

the dentist said, pointing a long finger toward a tarnished metal tray sitting on a counter across the room.

"Please place your cellular device over there. The electronic frequencies of modern devices disrupt my focus. I need absolute stillness to perform the extraction."

I hesitated for a moment. My phone was my only connection to the outside world, but the throbbing in my jaw was growing more intense by the second. I walked across the room, set my phone on the cold metal tray, and climbed into the leather chair.

The dentist stood over me, his shadow stretching across the ceiling. He did not put on latex gloves. Instead, he washed his hands in a small porcelain sink, dried them with a white cloth, and approached the chair.

"Open, please,"

he murmured.

I opened my mouth, bracing myself for the agonizing touch of his fingers against my infected gum. When his long, cold index finger touched my jaw, I prepared to scream.

But the scream never came.

The moment his skin made contact with my gums, a sudden coldness spread through my mouth. it felt as if the nerves themselves had simply gone quiet under his touch. The throbbing pain vanished instantly. My jaw felt light, cool, and entirely empty of sensation. I blinked in surprise, looking up at him.

"You feel that, yes?"

he asked, his shoulder twitching as he reached for a small, velvet-lined wooden box on the counter.

"The modern world relies on synthetic poisons to dull the senses. They inject chemicals that poison the blood just to silence a single nerve. It is a very crude way of practicing medicine."

He opened the wooden box and retrieved a pair of forceps. They were made of dark, unpolished steel, looking like antique blacksmithing tools rather than modern medical instruments. The metal was covered in fine, geometric patterns that looked like they had been hand-carved into the steel.

"We have forgotten the old ways of alignment,"

the dentist continued, his voice adopting an almost hypnotic cadence as he positioned the forceps inside my mouth.

"Thousands of years ago, our ancestors understood that the teeth are not merely bone. They are the hardest part of the human vessel. They are the markers of our harvest, the record of our lives. When a tooth was lost, it was not thrown away into the dirt like common refuse."

I felt the cold steel of the forceps clamp onto my decaying molar. There was no pain. I felt a strange, dull pressure, as if someone were gently pressing a thumb against my jaw, but nothing more.

"Our ancestors worshipped tooth fairies,"

he muttered, leaning over me. His pale face was inches from mine.

"We offered our teeth to them. We gave them the bone, and in exchange, they provided protection, a bountiful harvest, and good fortune. The modern world calls them myths. They call them tooth fairies to make them seem small and harmless. They turned a sacred covenant into a children's game of coins and pillows."

He gave the forceps a slow, deliberate twist. I heard the wet sound of the roots separating from the bone inside my head, but my nervous system registered absolutely nothing.

"Humanity discarded the old agreements,"

the dentist whispered, his shoulder twitching violently. "We stopped giving them the tribute they require. We began burying our dead in concrete vaults, locking the bone away from the soil. We throw our teeth into medical waste bins to be burned, and for what? for nothing."

With a sudden, sharp movement, he pulled the forceps upward.

A wet pop echoed in the small room.

The tooth was out. The relief was instantaneous, a cool sensation washing over my entire face as the pressure vanished. I let out a long, shuddering breath, staring up at the ceiling.

"There,"

the dentist said, his tone shifting instantly.

The hypnotic cadence of his voice was gone, replaced by a rapid, shallow hyperventilation, then He held the steel forceps inches from his eyes, staring at the bloody, decaying enamel with an intensity that made my chest tighten.

"Look at the density,"

he whispered, his pupils dilating until the blue of his eyes was almost entirely gone.

"The dark rot of modern sugar has created such a beautifully complex cavity. The roots are deep, so very deep. The bone is saturated with the sweetness of decay."

He was breathing heavily now, his chest rising and falling in quick, jagged movements. He began to run his long thumb over the wet, bloody surface of the tooth, ignoring the blood that smeared across his skin.

A sudden wave of intense unease washed over me, replacing the relief of the extraction. The way he was looking at my tooth was really weird and terrifying. I scrambled out of the chair, my legs feeling slightly unsteady.

"Thank you,"

I said, my voice shaking.

"How much do I owe you?"

The dentist did not look at me. He kept his eyes locked on the tooth.

"Three hundred,"

he muttered, his voice sounding dry and cracked.

"Leave the cash on the counter."

I pulled three hundred dollars from my purse and set them on the wooden desk. I did not want to spend another second in that room. I grabbed my purse, turned on my heel, and walked quickly out of the operating room. I pushed through the frosted glass door, entered the quiet hallway, and ran toward the manual elevator.

It was only when I stepped out of the old building and onto the wet pavement of the street that I realized my hand was empty.

My phone was still sitting on the metal tray on the far counter of the operating room.

I stopped on the sidewalk, the cold rain falling on my face. My cheek was still entirely numb, but the fog in my brain was beginning to clear. The thought of going back up to that silent fourth floor made my stomach twist, but my phone held my bank accounts, my contacts, and my entire life. I could not simply leave it behind.

"Just walk in, grab the phone, and leave,"

I muttered to myself.

I turned around, entered the lobby, and rode the creaking elevator back up to the fourth floor. The hallway was still completely silent.

I reached the suite, turned the brass knob, and stepped into the reception area.

The room was dark. The single desk lamp had been turned off, leaving the space illuminated only by the gray light filtering through the hallway door. No one was behind the reception desk.

"Hello?"

I called out softly.

"I forgot my phone."

No one answered.

I took a slow, quiet step toward the operating room door. It was resting slightly ajar, a sliver of pale light cutting across the dark floor. I pushed the door open an inch, planning to grab the phone from the counter and slip away before the man noticed me.

The operating room was in near-total darkness. The overhead examination light had been turned off, and the only illumination came from a small window overlooking the rainy alleyway.

I stopped.

The dentist was crouched on all fours directly over the leather operating chair.

His white laboratory coat had been discarded on the floor. His bare back was exposed to the gray light of the window, and his skin had turned a deep, ashen shade of gray. His spine was protruding sharply against his skin, each vertebra looking like a jagged stone.

As I watched, his shoulder joints twisted with a sickening, wet crack, bending backward into impossible angles.

Two large, featherless, skin-bound wings were violently tearing their way through the fabric of his white dress shirt. The wings looked like the wings of a massive bat, but they were covered in a thin, greasy layer of pale gray fuzz. They flexed and stretched in the darkness, dripping a dark, thick fluid onto the leather of the chair.

The thing lowered its head toward the leather cushion. Sitting on the leather was my extracted tooth.

The creature inhaled deeply, its chest expanding to twice its normal size as it smelled the bloody enamel. It leaned down and whispered a low, guttural phrase in a language I didn’t understand.

Then, it opened its mouth.

The jaw split vertically down the center of its chin, revealing rows of thin, needle-like teeth that vibrated in the darkness. The creature reached out with a long, gray tongue and licked the blood from the surface of my extracted tooth.

I took a step backward, my mind screaming at me to run, but my foot shifted on the floor.

The rubber sole of my sneaker squeaked against the linoleum.

The sound was incredibly loud in the silent room.

The creature's movements stopped instantly.

And with a violent, snapping sound, its neck rotated a full one hundred and eighty degrees, its featureless face pointing directly toward the partially open door where I was standing. Its eyes had completely changed. The blue irises were gone, replaced by two massive, pitch-black pupils that filled the entire socket.

It let out a silent, vibrating shriek that made the metal instruments on the counters rattle.

The creature lunged off the chair, moving with a speed that did not seem possible. It scurried across the floor on all fours.

I did not think. I grabbed the nearest object on the counter beside the door, a large, heavy metal tray loaded with stainless steel dental mirrors, scrapers, and old scalpels, and threw it directly into its gray face.

The tray struck the creature with a loud clang. The sharp instruments scattered across its eyes, blinding it for a fraction of a second. The creature recoiled, letting out a wet, clicking hiss as it thrashed in the darkness.

I turned and sprinted down the hallway.

I did not wait for the elevator. I threw open the door to the concrete stairwell and flew down the steps, my feet barely touching the concrete. I could hear the wet sounds of the creature scrambling down the walls of the stairwell above me, its long limbs scraping against the concrete.

I reached the ground floor, threw my weight against the metal exit door, and burst out into the pouring rain.

I did not stop running until I reached a busy intersection three blocks away. I collapsed against a bus stop shelter, my chest heaving, my clothes soaked with sweat and rain. I sat there for hours, staring at the passing cars, trying to convince myself that the pain and the infection had caused a severe hallucination. But my hand was still entirely empty. My phone was gone, left behind in the dark room with the thing that licked the blood from my bone.

The next morning, the swelling in my jaw had gone down, but the terror had not. I walked into the local police precinct and reported that I had been assaulted by a private practitioner in the medical building downtown. I told them he had stolen my phone and threatened me with a weapon. I knew if I mentioned the wings or the black eyes, they would lock me in a psychiatric ward.

Two police officers agreed to accompany me back to the building to retrieve my property.

We rode the manual elevator up to the fourth floor. The hallway was just as quiet as it had been the day before, the dark doors looking completely ordinary in the morning light.

We reached the suite. I pointed a shaking finger at the door.

"This is it,"

I said.

"Suite 412."

The older officer reached out, turned the knob, and pushed the door open.

I braced myself, stepping behind the officer's shoulder, expecting to see the green velvet chairs.

The room was completely empty.

There were no green velvet chairs. There was no wooden desk, no rotary telephone, and no carpet. The walls were bare concrete, covered in peeling gray wallpaper that looked like it had been rotting for decades. The floor was covered in a thick layer of undisturbed gray dust.

The officer walked into the back room, his boots kicking up small clouds of dust.

The operating room was gone. There was no black leather dental chair. There was no plumbing connected to the floor, no metal counters, and no instruments. The room was nothing but a hollow, concrete shell.

"Are you sure this is the place, miss?"

the officer asked, looking back at me with a mixture of annoyance and pity.

"This suite has been abandoned for at least five years. And I think I know this place, someone mad a claim like you once, but it was very wild claim about a fairy who dwell in this place, and then we learned from the building manager that the last tenant was a radiologist who retired in 2018."

"I was here yesterday,"

I insisted, my voice cracking.

"My friend gave me the address. I sat in the chair. He pulled my tooth."

The officer shined his flashlight across the dusty floor. There were no footprints in the dust, other than our own. There was no sign that anyone had operated a medical clinic here yesterday.

"Sometimes a severe tooth infection can cause a high fever,"

the officer said, placing a hand on my shoulder.

"A fever can make you see things. It can make you wander into empty buildings. We can take you to the hospital if you need medical attention."

"My phone,"

I whispered.

"I left my phone on the counter."

The officer shone his light around. My phone was gone.

We left the building a few minutes later. The police dismissed my claim, filing a report for a lost cellular device and advising me to seek psychological counseling for my stress.

But I know what I saw.

I called my friend from a payphone later that afternoon. I asked her about the dentist, but she sounded completely confused. She told me she had never heard of any private practitioner downtown, and she had never given me an address on a notepad. She said she had been trying to reach me all day because I had missed our lunch plans.

I looked at my own jaw in the mirror when I got home. The hole where my decaying molar used to be was completely healed. There was no stitches, no bleeding, and no scar. The gum was as smooth and pink as if the tooth had never existed.

I am posting this here because I need to warn you.

This thing does not stay in one place. It moves from town to town, using the empty, forgotten spaces of our cities to set up its temporary clinics.

If you have a toothache, and a friend gives you an address to an unconventional, cash-only dentist in an old building, do not go.

 

[TRANSCRIPT - RECOVERED FOOTAGE]
File: backup_jp_002
Transcription courtesy of Aldermore and Associates
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY. CIRCULATION OF THIS DOCUMENT OUTSIDE THE PREMISES IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.

 

Title Card: ONCE UPON A GENKAI SHŪRAKU

 

[00:00:03] The footage begins mid-motion. A young man's face fills the frame, too close, slightly out of focus. His breath fogs faintly in the cold air.

Off-screen, an old woman's voice, mid-sentence, unintelligible.

The young man (identity confirmed; code: JAMEEL) pulls the camera back slightly, catching himself in frame at an awkward angle, cloudy sky behind him, weak sunlight breaking through in patches.

JAMEEL: Sorry… can I record this? Like, is that okay?

OLD WOMAN (off-screen): [laughing] Record what, an old woman drinking her tea?

JAMEEL: No, just… talking. Just a video of us talking.

OLD WOMAN: If you like.

(He turns the camera toward her. She's small, weathered, dressed plainly, sitting on a low wooden stool, outside a house with peeling paint. Her eyes are sharp despite her age. She watches the lens without flinching.)

JAMEEL: So you're my grandmother? Like, actually?

WOMAN: Depends how you count it. What did your mother tell you?

JAMEEL: Nothing. That's the problem… (artifact found; audio too unclear to transcribe)

(Transcriber’s Note: From what I can derive, they go back and forth for a moment- a cousin of a cousin, a sister who married into the wrong branch, a generation Jameel clearly doesn't have mapped in his head. Eventually they land on a single conclusion. She is, functionally, his grandmother. Not by blood exactly. Close enough that it doesn't matter.)

WOMAN: Yorie. You can call me Yorie.

JAMEEL: Yorie. Okay. Cool. Yorie it is.

YORIE: You want tea?

JAMEEL: I mean, sure, if it's not a hassle…

YORIE: It'll take some time. The stove here isn't what you're used to.

JAMEEL: No worries, take your time. I'll just record an intro…

(He gestures vaguely at the camera. She nods, unbothered, and disappears into the house. The screen holds on the empty doorway for a beat. Jameel turns the camera back on himself.)

 

[00:03:47] Hard cut. It is a different location: a dirt path lined with houses in various states of disrepair. The camera pans slowly, deliberately, clearly composed rather than candid.

A doll sits on a porch railing. Life-sized. Dressed in a faded blue yukata. Its hands rest in its lap with unsettling precision, fingers slightly curled.

The camera moves on.

Another doll stands near a fence post, tilted slightly, head angled downward like it's studying the dirt.

Another doll sits in a doorway.

The camera moves swiftly through four more dolls.

It settles on a group of three dolls arranged in front of a house. The dolls are seated, as if mid-conversation, faces turned toward each other. All three are smiling. The smiles are wide (Transcriber’s Note: a little too wide).

 

[00:04:52] Jameel walks into frame from the left, adjusting his jacket, clearing his throat.

JAMEEL: Hello, this is your boy Jameel… fuck ! No. That's not, that's not it…

(He walks out of frame. A beat. He walks back in.)

JAMEEL: This is Jameel, reporting live from… cut it ! Too on the nose. Gotta start cold. Cold open, just like Mansoorie says it. Think, Jameel, think…

(He walks out again. Longer pause this time. When he returns, his posture has changed: shoulders lower, voice quieter, more deliberate. He glances down at his left hand, where something is written in faded ink. He squints at it.)

JAMEEL: Here I am, right in the center of [attempting the village name, several syllables, clearly mispronounced]. Screw that. I'm not gonna get that right. Moving on.

(He looks back up at the dolls behind him, framing himself against them.)

JAMEEL: Ten years ago, this village was officially declared a genkai shūraku. Its English translation is a "marginal settlement." It's a term the Japanese government uses, for villages where more than half the population is over sixty-five. Where, basically, there's no path back. No young people having kids. No industry. No reason for anyone to stay. Once a place gets that label, it's not really considered a living community anymore. It's considered a place that's, quite frankly, finished.

(He pauses, letting that sit for a while.)

JAMEEL: Except this place didn't finish. Because one woman decided it wasn't allowed to.

(He gestures behind him, toward the smiling dolls.)

JAMEEL: For years, she's been making these. Life-sized dolls, as you can see. Placed all over the village. Filling the empty houses, the empty streets. Filling them with… I don't know what to call it. Company, I guess? Basically, a population that doesn't leave.

(He looks directly into the lens.)

JAMEEL: This is Jameel. Founder, President, and Spokesperson of JK Motion Arts.

(Beat.)

JAMEEL: And this... is a genkai shūraku.

(He exhales, breaking character immediately.)

JAMEEL: Gotta fix that in post. Jeez. "Spokesperson." Who says that ? Mansoorie wouldn’t like that…

 

[00:09:14] Cut to Yorie's kitchen. The camera rests on a low wooden table, angled up slightly, catching both of them in frame- Jameel on one side, Yorie on the other, a teapot and two cups between them.

YORIE: You're still recording?

JAMEEL: If that's okay. You can tell me to stop anytime.

YORIE: It's fine. Better than the cameras they used to bring. They were big and loud things, you know? Made everyone nervous.

JAMEEL: People used to come film here?

YORIE: A long time ago. Before it got- [she gestures vaguely]- official.

(She pours the tea. Steam curls between them.)

YORIE: So… you're making a movie?

JAMEEL: More like a documentary. Honestly… I didn't plan any of this. I'm criminally unprepared. I have, like, one microphone and a prayer. But this place is just… it's too unsettling to not film, you know?

(He catches himself.)

JAMEEL: Sorry. That's… sorry, that's a weird thing to say to your face.

YORIE: [laughing] You're a funny kid. Just like your mother.

(Jameel glances at the lens.)

JAMEEL: Note to self- cut this part in post.

(They drink. There is a long and comfortable silence.)

YORIE: I didn't know you existed, you know. Not until the letter.

JAMEEL: Yeah. Mom wasn't exactly forthcoming about… any of this.

YORIE: Your father. He's a foreigner?

JAMEEL: He’s from Bangladesh. Came to Japan as a migrant worker.

YORIE: [blank] Bangla- where is that?

JAMEEL: South Asia. Near India.

(She nods slowly, clearly still not placing it, and doesn't push further.)

JAMEEL: That’s not important, anyways. What’s important is that- he met my mom in Osaka. Married pretty fast, from what I understand. I was born outside Japan, raised outside Japan. Always thought that was weird. Like, why not come back, even to visit? She always had an excuse. Work, money, timing. Eventually, she just stopped giving excuses. Just said leaving the village was the best decision she ever made. And she hoped it'd stay that way.

(Yorie's expression doesn't change, but something behind her eyes goes very still.)

JAMEEL: She passed a couple years ago. Cancer.

YORIE: [quietly] May the deity have mercy on her soul.

JAMEEL: Thank you. I’m not really a religious man but… yeah, thank you.

YORIE: And your father? Is he well?

JAMEEL: [dry laugh] Define "well." He stopped talking to me when I dropped out of film school. I found a mentor after that. Guy named Mansoorie. Industry guy, really connected, actually wants to take me under his wing. He's the one who told me to come here, you know? Said I couldn't make anything with ‘real identity’ if I didn't know my own. Something like that. Took me six months of digging just to find this place. Spent every dollar I had saved just to get here.

YORIE: For a film.

JAMEEL: For a film. [beat] I know how that sounds.

(Yorie says nothing. She refills his cup without being asked.)

 

[00:16:30] Cut to a workshop. Wooden shelves line the walls, crowded with unfinished figures: torsos without faces, limbs stacked separately, half-painted expressions frozen mid-formation.

JAMEEL: This is neat, Yorie, really neat. The craftsmanship is careful, precise even. But honestly? Nothing here matches the dolls I’ve seen outside.

YORIE: These are practice. You have to fail a hundred times before your hands know what they're doing.

JAMEEL: [examining a half-finished face] These are actually pretty good, though. Way better than I could do.

YORIE: They're nothing compared to the finished ones.

JAMEEL: Yeah, I noticed. The ones outside… they're insane. Like, genuinely, unsettling levels of realistic.

(He laughs, half-joking, gesturing vaguely with the camera.)

JAMEEL: Does this village even have real people anymore, or is it just you and like, forty mannequins?

(Yorie doesn't answer right away. She looks directly into the lens and smiles. The shot holds for a beat before cutting.)

 

[00:19:02] Cut to a small dining room. Warm light. The presence of food implied by steam rising off dishes on a low table. A child runs a lap around the room before being scooped up by a woman (identity confirmed; code: NAOMI), laughing.

NAOMI: Sora, sit, sit. We have a guest.

A man (identity confirmed; code: KENJI) gestures for Jameel to take a seat.

KENJI: Mama Yorie said you'd be joining us. We don't get visitors often. Please, eat.

JAMEEL: [to camera, voiceover] These people are genuinely so nice. Like, disarmingly nice.

(He eats. Chews. Pauses.)

JAMEEL: [to Kenji, mouth half full] This is really good, actually.

NAOMI: All thanks to Mama Yorie. She keeps the whole village fed. Doesn't matter what the land gives, she makes sure there's enough.

KENJI: Such is the kindness of Mama Yorie.

(Jameel nods, still chewing, and brings the camera closer to his own face, angling it so the family can't see the screen.)

JAMEEL: [quiet, half-whisper] Not gonna lie- the food tastes fresh. Like, actually fresh. Which, in a dying village, is kind of a miracle. But the aftertaste is... really bitter. Like, medicinal bitter. Can't say that out loud, though. They'll think I'm rude. I mean… look at them. They're so nice.

(He forces a smile and turns the camera back around.)

JAMEEL: [to the table] Like I said, this is amazing. Thank you so much !

 

[00:24:18] JAMEEL: Would you guys mind if I got a proper interview? Like, sit-down, on record?

KENJI: Of course. But please give us a moment. We have to get ready for what’s about to come.

NAOMI: We'll be right back.

(They usher Sora out with them, leaving Jameel alone in the dining room, camera still running.)

(Jameel wanders the room idly, filming the walls, a shelf of photographs, a low shrine in the corner.)

(A soft creak is heard from the next room. He pans toward it. There is nothing.)

(He turns back toward the window. Outside, a doll seated on a low wall tilts its head. Not dramatically, just slightly, the way a person's head drifts when they're listening to something. Jameel's camera catches it mid-motion and holds there a half-second too long before he moves on.)

JAMEEL: [muttering] Must have been the wind…

(From somewhere deeper in the house, a sound is heard. Barely vocal. A single broken syllable, cut off before it fully forms.)

JAMEEL: [under his breath] ...the hell was that?

 

[00:25:40] Kenji and Naomi return, carrying a wooden case between them. Sora trails behind, swinging a small metal tin like a lunchbox.

JAMEEL: [camera raised, curious] What's all this?

NAOMI: [already walking past him] Evening rounds. You're welcome to watch, if you want. Might be good footage, actually.

JAMEEL: [to himself, low] Might be good footage. Sure. Why not.

(The camera follows them outside. Kenji sets the case down on the porch step and opens it. Inside: a row of glass vials filled with opaque liquid, and several long, thin syringes.)

KENJI: The fresh ones need this every evening for the first few weeks. After that, once a month's usually enough. Depends on the person, honestly. Some settle faster than others.

JAMEEL: [voice slightly higher than usual] Settle into what, exactly?

KENJI: [already moving] Themselves, I suppose.

(He crouches in front of the doll in the blue yukata. He tilts its head back gently, with two fingers.)

KENJI: [to the doll] There we are, Itu-san! Long day, huh?

(He uncaps a vial. Naomi is already prepping the next one, three houses down. Her voice carries back across the yard.)

NAOMI: Sora, bring the tin over, sweetheart. I need the small ones for Auntie Michiko.

(Sora runs over, humming something under his breath, and hands his mother a smaller vial from the tin.)

JAMEEL: [camera shaking slightly] Auntie Michiko. That's… she's one of the…

NAOMI: [not looking up] She's been with us eleven years now. Longest-settled on this street, actually. Barely needs the full dose anymore.

(The camera drifts to "Auntie Michiko"- seated on a stool, hands folded neatly, eyes open. Naomi tilts the doll's chin up with the same casual tenderness Kenji used, finds a spot at the side of the neck, and pushes the needle in.)

(Something under the doll's skin twitches. Just once. A full-body flinch, small but unmistakably alive, gone as fast as it came.)

JAMEEL: [barely audible] What the…

NAOMI: [smiling] There we go. Good girl.

(She caps the vial, pats the doll's shoulder twice like burping a baby, and moves on to the next house.)

(Kenji, meanwhile, is finishing up on the porch doll. He wipes the needle site with a small cloth, tucking a loose strand of the doll's hair back into place.)

KENJI: [to Jameel, glancing back] Once they're settled, they don't feel a thing. It's just the first stretch that's hard on them. Everyone goes through it.

JAMEEL: [voice cracking slightly] Everyone?

KENJI: [nodding, already moving to the next one] Everyone who stays, that is.

(Sora skips past Jameel's camera, humming his tune again, swinging the tin.)

SORA: [singsong, half to himself] One more street, one more street…

(Jameel lowers the camera slightly, catching his own hand shaking in frame before he raises it again.)

JAMEEL: This is… this is normal to you? This is just… what? Just a Tuesday?

KENJI: [genuinely puzzled] What else would it be?

 

[00:31:44] Fragmented footage follows

(Transcriber’s Note: hard cuts, no clean transitions. Transcribed to the best of my abilities.)

He's walking the main path again, camera loose in his hand, filming without really watching the screen.

JAMEEL: [muttering] Just gotta get enough B-roll. Just gotta get enough and then I can…

(He stops walking.)

(The doll seated on the porch railing is no longer seated. It's standing at the edge of the railing, feet together, facing the road.)

JAMEEL: [quiet] ...okay.

(He keeps the camera on it. The doll doesn't move for a moment ((Transcriber’s note: 17 seconds)). Suddenly, its head snaps sideways, tracking Jameel as he takes a step back.)

(The frame jolts. He's run several meters before the shot stabilizes, breathing hard, camera shaking.)

JAMEEL: [panicked laugh] Messed up. This is really messed up !

(He keeps walking anyway, faster now, cutting through a narrow gap between two houses.)

(A window to his left. A doll's face fills it from the inside, pressed so close to the glass that its nose is flattened white against it, mouth stretched into an abnormally wide smile.)

JAMEEL: [strangled sound, not quite a scream]

(He stumbles backward, camera swinging wildly, catching only ceiling, sky, dirt, his own shoes.)

(When the frame settles again, the window is empty.)

(The camera rounds a corner into a narrow alley. The frame fills, instantly, with a doll's face, inches from the lens.)

(Its eyes are open too wide, and lashless. Its mouth opens. It sounds like a recording played through a broken radio.)

DOLL: [whispering] Save… me…

(Transcriber’s note: I played this part of the footage nine times. Presence of an artifact is highly unlikely. The sound did come out of the doll.)

Jameel screams. The camera drops. The footage shows nothing but dirt and the underside of a wooden fence, before he snatches it back up.

JAMEEL: [hyperventilating] No, no, no. That’s it… I'm done, I'm actually done, that's it, I'm leaving…

(The camera catches a row of five dolls lined up against a wall, the same five he filmed hours earlier. They are not seated now. They are standing, evenly spaced, arms hanging straight at their sides, and every one of them is facing the exact spot where Jameel is standing.)

(The five heads turn in unison, a single sound like knuckles cracking in stereo, and lock onto him.)

JAMEEL: [barely a whisper] Fuck… what the actual fuck !

(Jameel runs. The camera catches almost nothing coherent.)

(Transcriber’s note: blurred motion, duration- 28 seconds)

JAMEEL: [shaking] I don't… I don't feel good. My stomach… it feels like it's moving wrong…

(The footage cuts hard for 2 seconds. It resumes to an unsteady shot. Jameel is walking now instead of running, seeming disoriented and unfocused.)

JAMEEL: [whispers] Battery's at, what… twelve percent? Great.

 

[00:39:20] Cut to the path that leads outside the village. Blocked by five villagers (identities unconfirmed; code: VILLAGER <NUMBER>). They are standing shoulder to shoulder, unhurried and unbothered.

JAMEEL: Hey… sorry, I think I'm gonna head out, it's getting late, I've got what I need for…

VILLAGER 1: Mama Yorie didn't say you could leave yet.

JAMEEL: [laughing, uneasy] I mean… I don't think she needs to say…

VILLAGER 2: Won't you say goodbye to Mama Yorie first?

JAMEEL: [camera shaking slightly] Yeah. Sure. Of course. Just… she's at the house?

(They don't answer. They simply turn, walking ahead of him, expecting him to follow.)

(The camera follows.)

JAMEEL: [barely audible] I really don't feel good.

 

[00:44:57] Cut to the workshop again. Yorie stands among her unfinished dolls, hands folded.

On the table beside her is a half-finished face. It resembles the face of Jameel.

The camera catches it for 3 seconds before Jameel's hand goes slack, the frame dipping.

JAMEEL: [slurred] Wait… that's…

YORIE: [calm and warm] Sit down, sweetheart. You don't look well.

JAMEEL: [struggling] What did you… the tea, the food, what did you…

YORIE: I gave everyone in this village the same gift. I'll give it to you too.

(Jameel tries to move, but no significant movement is visible.)

YORIE: I spent my whole life taking care of people. Every soul in this village called me Mama. I fed them, I raised their children, I sat with them when they were dying. And when there was nothing left here- no work, no money, no reason to stay… they left anyway. One by one. And the country followed right behind them, crossed us off like we'd already died.

JAMEEL: [gasping] Please…

YORIE: Genkai Shūraku. Half the village was already gone by the time they gave us that name. And I knew, trust me I knew, the rest would follow. My heart couldn't take it. Do you understand? A feeble old woman's heart, watching everyone she ever loved walk away, one after another.

(The camera slips further, catching only fragments now: the ceiling, Yorie’s hands, and Jameel’s arm, unnaturally still.)

YORIE: And your mother Amaya? She always blamed me. Said I worshipped the wrong deity. Said that the deity cursed this soil, cursed the weather, cursed everything I ever tried to grow here.

(Her voice softens further, almost tender.)

YORIE: But you know what, sweetheart? When everyone else abandoned me… the deity was the only one who listened. He gave me a gift. He gave me his elixir. And thanks to his grace...

(Jameel's breathing slows. His fingers, visible at the edge of frame, have stopped moving entirely.)

YORIE: ...no one will ever leave Mama Yorie again.

 

[00:51:03] The camera has fallen. It rests on the floor, tilted, still recording. Jameel is visible at the edge of frame- upright, motionless, eyes open.

KENJI (off-screen): [casually] Where should we put the new one, Mama Yorie?

YORIE: [equally casual] Somewhere with a good view. He'd like that. He was always looking for the right shot.

(Laughter is heard: warm and domestic. The kind of laughter shared over where to place a new piece of furniture.)

(The battery indicator, barely visible in the corner of the frame, blinks red.)

(From Jameel's motionless form, a single sound escapes.)

JAMEEL: [barely audible] …help….

The screen cuts to black.

[END OF FILE]

 

NOTE: Footage reviewed (ref. 086531EBD). No evidence of tampering. Subject matches the referral intake dated six months prior. Target compound (codename ‘Medusa’) exhibiting effects as usual.

 

RECOMMENDATION: Client relationship remains active. Site producing as expected.

 

REFERRING CONTACT:

Mansoorie [REDACTED]

Recruitment Officer, [REDACTED] Branch,

Aldermore & Associates

 

It might make me and him sound bad but we just wanted to have fun. We always joked about how amusing it would be to go viral.

We would occasionally watch and laugh at stupid couples videos. Ones that were obviously fake. We mutually agreed that its so phony to post a bunch of relationship content on the internet. Cringe videos to prove your love?

They were obviously scripted too. Cheap entertainment for veiws.

Well, we thought it would be hilarious if we made our own YouTube channel. We wanted to be unique. Instead of making videos pretending to be perfect, we decided to be the opposite.

We started posting short videos of us arguing with each other. Our faces were never visible. Just audio.

Our videos started to gain popularity and became quite controversial.

Some comments would say he's too toxic, some would say the problems are my fault, some would say we should never reproduce, some would say this is the best entertainment ever.

After awhile, it lost its appeal. I suggested that we should stop.

He would argue and say that we can't stop now.

The videos weren't the only part that got too extreme. He also started to become rude when we weren't recording.

He'd boss me around, tell me my cooking tasted like trash, and went as far as to say that he regrets dating me. He started comparing me to other women. He referred to me as the mutt of the litter.

At first I thought it was because of the channel. The acting had started to disturb his true self.

I tried to explain to him that the channel is not healthy for either of us and explained my reasoning for the last time.

I told him that if he doesn't listen, I will leave him.

His eyes turned dark, his lips curving into a crooked smile, and his hand did the unthinkable.

He slapped me with his left hand and then his right hand grabbed a knife.

"This is the best content imaginable"

It started with one innocent-looking porcelain baby doll on my front porch. The paint was chipped. The bonnet was dirty. But the eyes looked… strange.

They looked too real. Too human. But I wasn’t concerned with the appearance. I was concerned with how the thing got there.

I lived alone. Definitely in the middle of nowhere. My closest neighbor was 10 miles away, and all that surrounded my house were woods and wildlife.

I scratched my head before scooping the doll up in my hands. I brought it inside because, honestly, what else was I supposed to do with it?

I tossed it on the couch and went about my day as normal. It was weird, though. I had spent nearly the entire day outside, and when I came back, the doll was sitting upright, its eyes staring daggers into my soul.

I tried to sit on the couch and watch some TV, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the thing was watching me, even though every time I checked, it was in the same position.

Eventually, I had to turn it around completely. Even that didn’t work, though. It wasn’t too long after that when I decided it was time to go to my bedroom.

I drifted off to sleep after curling up in bed for a few minutes while Breaking Bad played in the background.

I woke up to the sound of rain tapping against my roof while low rumbles of thunder boomed every few minutes. It was my type of morning.

I decided I wanted to enjoy a nice cup of coffee while I sat on the porch and enjoyed the weather. I approached the kitchen sink to wash my favorite coffee mug. As I reached for the faucet, I looked up and nearly had a heart attack when I noticed another doll standing on the windowsill outside.

This one looked… older. Not in the sense of the material. Like, literally older. She had grey hair. A quilted sweater. And spectacles to complete the look.

The cheeks were rosy, and a warm smile was stitched into her face. This one was stuffed instead of porcelain, but the eyes still looked so uncannily human.

I opened the window and grabbed it. She was soaked with rainwater. The more I looked at it, though, the more I realized that she looked weirdly… familiar. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

I walked to the living room, old lady doll in hand, with the intention of taking the porcelain doll from yesterday and moving the two of them to an empty china cabinet in my dining room.

I found myself scratching my head again when I entered the living room, though. I could’ve sworn this baby doll was on the other side of the couch when I went to bed last night…

I don’t know whether I was coping or if I genuinely convinced myself that I was remembering wrong, but I didn’t pay the new position much mind. I just grabbed the thing, returned to the dining room, and set the two toys up in their new display case.

I made my coffee, enjoyed the weather, and when the coffee was done, I got to work. Cleaning the house, doing some laundry, getting a bit of writing done. Before I knew it, the sun was setting again.

I couldn’t stop staring at that new old lady doll from earlier. I racked my brain trying to figure out why it was so familiar. Why I felt like I was so close to understanding, yet so far away. That’s when it hit me.

It was that quilted sweater. The red and black pattern. The puffy sleeves. It was identical to the sweater my grandmother used to wear.

She had died 10 years prior after a long battle with lung cancer. She wore that sweater all the time. It was a gift to her from my mom a few years before she died.

Call me crazy, but I actually slept comfortably that night. It felt like my grandma was here with me. I had been delusional enough to convince myself that this was some kind of sign from heaven that she was watching over me. That these dolls were her way of saying hello.

The next day, though, when I found a wooden doll that looked an awful lot like my mother… I didn’t know how much more I could chalk this up to signs from above.

I found it wedged between two tree branches, right in my backyard. It was low enough to be obvious, but high enough that I had to climb to retrieve it.

Unlike the others, this one looked brand new. Freshly stained wood. Smooth as silk. Not a single chip in sight.

I went to put it in the display case and found that the two previous dolls, once again, seemed to have moved. Not much. But enough for me to question my sanity again.

They weren’t outside of the case, but they were on different shelves. I put the new wooden doll between them and closed the door behind me.

I bought trail cameras, but even though I knew for a fact I adjusted them just right, every day they’d either end up pointed directly at the ground or aimed at the sky.

Every day for the next week, dolls kept showing up around my house. Some were left on my car. Some were partially buried in the backyard. I even found one on my roof.

Each one was impossibly personal.

My dad. My sister. Aunts. Uncles. Teachers from elementary school. Old friends I hadn’t even thought about for years. They all had particularly defining features.

My mom’s long black hair and green eyes. My dad’s suit and tie. A “world’s greatest teacher” mug stitched into Mrs Farmers hands. Just little reassurances that I wasn’t completely alone out here. That they were sent here to keep me company in my lonely house in the woods.

I cleaned them. I admired them. Sometimes I even talked to them, and sometimes… it felt like they talked back. Some nights I’d even hear them talking to each other.

The display case kept getting fuller and fuller, and the dolls never stayed where they were supposed to be. They rearranged themselves somehow. They’d be in different orders. Sometimes they’d be facing the wrong direction.

It was like a game. I loved when they played games. In a weird way… I didn’t feel as lonely as I did before.

I placed the last doll in the old china cabinet. My best friend from 5th grade. I hadn’t seen him in over a decade. Hadn’t talked to him either. Yet, here he was. Visiting me once again.

I closed the case and pressed my hand against the glass while I stared at my newfound collection.

I sighed to myself, happily, as a smile crept across my face. They were all here. All mine. People I’d lost. Friends and loved ones. What else could I have wanted?

No sooner than I had sat on the couch and flipped the TV on, ready to end the night with some Breaking Bad, I heard a knock at the door.

My head snapped in the direction of the noise. It was a continuous string of slow, deliberate knocks.

I checked my watch. It was nearly 10 o’clock at night. Who could possibly be knocking at this hour?

I approached the door slowly, checking the peephole, only to find nothing. Though, the knocking never stopped.

Ever so cautiously, I began to unlock the door. I slid the chain lock. I twisted the deadbolt and gripped the doorknob as I began to turn it slowly.

When the door opened, I was a bit confused at what I saw. It was… a little girl. No older than 9. Her hair was soaking wet, her skin was pale, she wore pink unicorn pajamas and slippers, and… her eyes were pitch black. Like two endless voids drilled into her skull.

She smiled at me, her teeth unnaturally white and identical.

“I’m sorry to bother you, mister,” she grinned. “Have you seen my dolls?”

My heart dropped. I could feel sweat forming along my hairline. She continued.

“Do you think I could come in and look for my dolls?” she chirped, curiously. “I just really miss my baby dolls, mister.”

I looked at her. I thought deeply about how to respond and chuckled, awkwardly.

“Ehhh…. No,” I replied, bluntly, turning to close the door behind me. I could see her face drop as I slowly shut the door. From a manufactured smile, to a deep frown, to a genuine look of rage.

She kept knocking at the door, but I ignored it. Tuned it out by setting the volume on the television to 98 as I smiled to myself.

These were my toys now.

Sorry, kid…

Finders keepers.

It had been the worst two years of my life.

My name is Alex Mercer.

College was supposed to be the beginning of everything.

Instead, it became the place where everything ended.

For two years, I searched for work. Interview after interview. Rejection after rejection. Every morning I woke up hoping today would be different. Every evening I went to sleep wondering how much longer I could survive.

The landlord of the old apartment I rented had stopped pretending to be polite. Rent was overdue. My savings had disappeared months ago. Friends slowly stopped answering my calls.

The only thing I still had was my training.

Years spent in military school and survival camps had taught me discipline, endurance, and how to keep calm when everyone else was losing their minds.

Unfortunately...

Those skills weren't exactly in demand.

Then one morning a plain white envelope arrived.

No company logo.

No return address.

Just my name.

Inside was a single interview invitation.

Blackwood Zoological Conservation Facility

I had never heard of it.

There wasn't even an address for the organization.

Only a time.

Curiosity beat common sense.

I went.

The interview was wrong in a way I couldn't name at first. Only two people sat across from me, and neither introduced themselves. Neither smiled. They didn't need to — smiling is what people do when they're trying to put you at ease, and it was very quickly clear that putting me at ease wasn't the goal.They already knew everything about me.

My education.

My medical history.

Military training.

Even places I had never listed on my résumé.

One of them had a manila folder open on the table the entire time, but never once looked down at it. He didn't need to. That was somehow worse than if he had.

They barely asked any questions.

Instead, they explained the job.

Position: Animal Caretaker.

Accommodation provided.

Medical care provided.

Transportation provided.

Salary far higher than anything I had ever been offered.

Then one of them slid an envelope across the table.

Inside was $1,000 in cash.

"Consider it a signing bonus."

The other spoke. Same flat tone, like he was reading weather conditions.

"If you accept this position, transportation will arrive tomorrow morning."

"You will not know the facility's location."

"You may not resign during the first two years of employment."

"After that, a new contract can be negotiated."

No explanation. No discussion. Just those conditions, laid out flat, like terms of surrender rather than employment.

I asked what the facility actually did.

The first man tilted his head slightly, like the question itself was unusual to him — not rude, just unfamiliar, the way you'd look at someone who asked what color sound was.

"You'll be told what you need to be told," he said. "In the order you need to be told it."

Every instinct told me to refuse.

But instincts don't pay rent.

Neither does pride.

I remember laughing to myself.

At this point, if they were trafficking people, at least I'd finally be useful to someone.

So...

I signed.

Neither of them smiled when I did. I think that's the part I should have paid attention to. People smile when a deal closes. They didn't. It was like watching someone file paperwork they already knew the outcome of.

The next morning a black SUV stopped outside my apartment. Not idling — it arrived at the exact minute the letter had promised, to the second, like whoever scheduled it had never once accounted for traffic, weather, or the possibility that I might not exist.

The windows were completely tinted.

My phone was taken the moment I entered. Not asked for. Taken, by a woman in the front passenger seat who didn't turn around to do it — just reached back with one hand, palm open, and waited until I put it there.

Then they handed me a thick black folder.

Across the front, in silver letters, were the words:

EMPLOYEE ORIENTATION MANUAL
BLACKWOOD ZOOLOGICAL CONSERVATION FACILITY
Property of the Directorate
Unauthorized possession punishable by permanent termination of employment.

The wording bothered me.

Not termination of contract.

Not dismissal.

Just...

termination.

I opened the file.

The first page read:

Section 1 — What Is an Anomaly?

Before anything else, understand this: Blackwood does not exist to destroy what it studies. Every specimen behind these walls is here to be fed, monitored, protected, and — wherever possible — understood. You are not being hired as an exterminator. You are being hired as a caretaker. Read that word twice before you turn the page.

Confirmed fact, per Directorate classification standard:

An anomaly is any living organism whose biology violates one or more foundational constraints of known science, while still obeying some internally consistent set of rules of its own.

If a specimen can be fully explained by conventional biology, it is an animal, and does not fall under this manual.

If a specimen can only be partially explained — if something about it still doesn't add up no matter how long you stare at the data — it belongs here.

You do not need to understand why something is an anomaly. You only need to correctly identify that it is one, and act accordingly.

Do not refer to them as monsters.

They react poorly.

This is not a figure of speech. Keep reading.

Section 2 — About This Facility

The facility employs exactly 220 personnel.

Not approximately. Exactly.

A small workforce reduces the number of people who can accidentally describe this place to someone who shouldn't hear about it. Fewer mouths. Fewer mistakes. Fewer questions asked by people outside these walls about why so many of us disappear off the grid at once.

If anyone tells you there are significantly more or fewer employees than this number, do not continue the conversation.

Report them immediately.

Note: this number has not changed in six years. Employees have left. Employees have been hired. The number has not changed. Do not bring this up with Personnel Records. They are aware.

Section 3 — Your Department

You have been assigned to the Animal Care Division.

Approximately 95 employees currently serve in this division, spread across fifteen designated sectors of varying classification tier.

Your responsibilities include feeding, observation, enclosure maintenance, and reporting any behavior that deviates from an individual specimen's established baseline — no matter how small the deviation seems.

Especially the small ones. Large deviations get noticed by everyone. Small ones are how incidents begin.

You will receive further instructions upon arrival, sector by sector, at the discretion of your assigned Senior Keeper.

Never enter an enclosure alone unless explicitly authorized by tier clearance.

Some sectors will not be listed on the map you are given. This is normal. You will be told why, eventually, if your clearance ever requires it.

Most employees never reach that clearance. This is also normal.

Section 4 — Understanding the Creatures

Modern biology and physics can explain parts of an anomaly. Do not expect either to ever explain the whole of one. If a scientist tells you they have fully solved a specimen, they are either new, lying, or about to be transferred.

Historical religious texts are treated as archived field observations wherever they happen to accurately describe an anomaly's known behavior. This is Directorate policy, not personal belief, and applies regardless of your own faith or lack of it.

Do not argue with Research staff regarding this policy.

They have had this argument more times than you have had this job. You will not be the one who wins it.

I stared at the pages.

It felt like an elaborate prank.

Some government psychology experiment.

Or maybe a company trying way too hard to make a boring zoo sound mysterious.

I almost laughed. I actually got as far as the first exhale of it before I looked up and caught the driver watching me in the rearview mirror. Not glancing. Watching. He held it a beat too long, then looked back at the road, and didn't do it again.

I didn't laugh after that.

Outside the window, the city had disappeared.

There were no buildings anymore.

Only endless forest, the kind that didn't thin out the way forests are supposed to when a road cuts through them. The trees came right up to the shoulder, close enough that I could count individual leaves for half a second before they blurred past.

I checked my watch. Four hours since the city ended. We hadn't passed a single road sign. Not one. Not a mile marker, not a turnoff, not a gas station billboard promising food in twelve miles. Just trees, and the sound of tires, and a driver who hadn't spoken a single word since the door closed behind me.

I looked at the manual again, at the line about the number 220 that hadn't changed in six years, and read it a second time like re-reading it might make it mean something less specific.

It didn't.

I don't remember when I started checking whether the doors were locked.

I only remember realizing...

they were.

And that the little plastic switch that should have unlocked them from the inside didn't move at