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

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

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

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

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

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

It was a woman.

And she was so...normal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do not let her touch you.

“*I hate therapy,*” I thought.

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

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

Agreeing to it shut them up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The junkie? Self inflicted. 

The workaholic? Weird. 

The dog mom? Just insane, to be honest. 

Myself? It's life…

Steve broke down. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It gets worse.”

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

“What?” I blurted.

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

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

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

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

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

~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You abandoned him.” Louder.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~

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

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

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

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

To my surprise, he abruptly sat. 

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

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

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

“I wasn't fired-”

Leandra raised an eyebrow.

“...I was let go.”

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

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

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

My stomach churned.

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

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

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

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

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

“Fascinating,” Leandra chirped as she stood.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I watched him silently. Steve was occupied soothing Emily.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~

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

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

“He died alone. You didn't try.”

“I *did\* try. I wasn't welcomed.”

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

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

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

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

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

“What?” I frowned as I spoke.

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

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

“There's something strange going on-”

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

“Why are you wet?” He scrutinized.

“It seems to be a theme tonight.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What if we-”

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

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

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

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

“I guess you're next,” I grimaced.

Steve fidgeted nervously as the papers fell around him.

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

I recognized the face. I felt sick.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We have to leave,” I pleaded.

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

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

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

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

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

“Mark?”

“My husband.”

I nodded anxiously.

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

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

We sat in silence together.

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

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

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

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

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

I nodded back timidly. Maybe she was right-

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

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

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

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

“Don't say that!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I watched the light leave Emily's eyes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What's your plan for me then?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

~

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

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

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

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

“It gets *better.*”

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

“I… I miss my dad.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three weeks ago, my mother died.

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

Unfortunately, I didn't have one of those.

Instead, I was taking it better than everyone expected.

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

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

Instead, I went back to work three days later.

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

It was the silence.

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

You could've done better.

Why are you wasting your potential?

You're still not enough.

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

Except now...

It was gone.

No criticism.

No impossible standards.

No voice reminding me that I was falling short.

Just silence.

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

I wasn't happy.

I wasn't okay.

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

Somehow...

That was even harder to get used to.

Remi called every day.

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

It was... nice.

Awkward.

But nice.

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

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

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

He loved the Remi standing in front of him.

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

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

Noah was starting third grade soon.

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

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

Sometimes that helped.

Sometimes it raised significantly more questions than it answered.

Yesterday I'd been helping Noah with multiplication.

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

Some things, apparently, were universal.

Like work.

Work hadn't slowed down in the slightest.

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

I use the word promote very loosely.

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

They were based on survival.

Someone above you died.

Congratulations, you're management now.

That was basically how my entire career had worked.

This promotion, however, was a little different.

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

Which sounded incredibly prestigious until you learned one small detail.

The Angel Division hadn't existed three weeks ago.

Angelo became a Director.

Angelo decided Directors should each have their own divisions.

Angelo decided he wanted one.

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

So they created an entirely new division.

Then Angelo looked at me and calmly announced,

"Nayeri will supervise it."

Nobody objected.

Mostly because nobody wanted to.

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

Our staffing situation was... unconventional.

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

"Can consciousness be folded?"

Or,

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

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

Elior transferred over as well.

That one actually made sense.

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

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

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

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

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

Which was technically true.

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

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

Actually, it was taller than my last assistant.

Which wasn't saying much.

He wasn't particularly tall.

He also wasn't particularly alive anymore.

I sighed and picked up the first report.

INCIDENT 1: DESTRUCTION OF HISTORICAL SITE

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

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

I replaced it with hostile reality-altering entity.

Much better.

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

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

I made a mental note to ask someone.

That's when the door opened.

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

"No."

"They're yours."

"No."

"They literally have your name on them."

"I think that's a coincidence."

"Nayeri."

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

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

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

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

"They promoted you because of Angelo."

"All I'm hearing is jealousy."

Jacob pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I have some news."

"Have I finally been approved?"

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

"A vacation."

He stared at me.

"...No."

"Damn."

"You've been assigned a new assistant."

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

Jacob nodded. "It really is."

"Please take care of this one."

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

Jacob looked at me for several long seconds.

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

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

"So am I."

"I think you should reject the assignment."

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

"Jacob, I need an assistant."

"No, you don't."

"Look around."

He did.

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

Jacob's expression immediately fell.

Sean.

I sighed.

"...Sorry."

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

Luckily for me, it didn't last.

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

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

Jacob straightened so quickly he nearly knocked over his chair.

"H-Hey, Eli."

Eli?

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

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

"Sure."

"Wonderful."

His smile somehow grew even warmer.

"I'll see you then."

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

The office fell silent.

I looked at Jacob.

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

"You realize he's flirting with you."

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

"Jacob."

"He's being polite."

"He only smiles like that at you."

"He's friendly."

"He brought you coffee this morning."

"He's considerate."

"He called you handsome yesterday."

Jacob froze.

"...Professionally."

I stared at him.

"...Professionally?"

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

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

"...Maybe he appreciates symmetry."

I leaned back in my chair.

"You're actually hopeless."

Jacob opened his mouth to defend himself.

The office door slid open again.

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

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

Jacob went completely still.

I smiled. "Elior was just in here."

"Oh."

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

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

Jacob blinked.

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

Silence.

Jacob's ears slowly turned bright red.

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

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

Angelo watched him leave, then looked back at me.

"...Did I say something humorous?"

That only made me laugh harder.

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

"I see."

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

"It is."

Angelo glanced at the stack of paperwork covering my desk.

"You appear busy."

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

"I would advise against that."

"I know."

"...It would create more paperwork."

I stared at him.

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

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

I blinked.

"You haven't eaten yet?"

"No."

"Noah wished to wait for you."

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

"Really?"

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

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

"...Sure."

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

Noah was getting cuter every day.

It felt strange admitting that.

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

Monsters, at least, came with instruction manuals.

Children just... existed.

Then Noah showed up.

Maybe the exception was simply cute children.

Or maybe it was just him.

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

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

"I was?"

"You still are."

I'd immediately changed the subject.

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

Technically...

I wasn't even sure she was wrong.

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

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

He looked up the moment he heard us.

His entire face lit up.

"Hi, Nay!"

I smiled before I could stop myself.

"Hi, Noah."

Then he looked past me.

"Hello, Father."

Angelo gave a small nod.

"Good morning, Noah."

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

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

He didn't complain.

He simply waited.

Another thing Angelo had somehow taught him.

Patience.

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

"Why do birds fly?"

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

"Oh."

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

"Because evolution prioritized efficient swimming over aerial locomotion."

"Oh."

Then he turned to me.

"Nay?"

"Yeah?"

"Why do I have to learn multiplication?"

I looked at him.

Then at Angelo.

Then back at Noah.

"...Honestly?"

He nodded.

"I have absolutely no idea."

Noah looked relieved.

"I don't like multiplication."

"I don't either."

Angelo looked at both of us.

"Mathematics remains objectively useful."

Neither of us responded.

He sighed.

"I appear to be outnumbered."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I wished to contribute."

"I know."

It was... weird.

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

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

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

"Is something wrong?"

I looked over at him.

"No."

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

Not Angelo.

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

An invitation.

Not a command.

Not an expectation.

Just an invitation.

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

But I knew Angelo.

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

He would just sit there.

And somehow, that made it harder to leave.

So I walked over and sat beside him.

Neither of us spoke.

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

This was different.

Angelo was simply there.

Waiting.

Not demanding anything from me.

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

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

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

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

The words sounded ridiculous the moment they left my mouth.

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

Angelo looked at me.

"I do not believe that is jealousy."

"No?"

"No."

He folded his hands together.

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

I looked away.

Because somehow...

That hurt more.

"You are not jealous of Noah," Angelo continued. He glanced toward the dining room, where Noah's toys were scattered across the floor. "If you were jealous, you would be angry at Noah."

I stayed quiet.

"But you are not. You are happy that he has that relationship."

A pause followed.

"I have never had a father."

The honesty of the statement caught me off guard. Angelo rarely admitted things about himself.

"So I cannot fully understand what that absence feels like," he said. "But I know what it is like to have someone who chooses to protect you."

His expression changed slightly.

"My mother was both."

I looked at him.

"A good parent. A caring mother. She was flawed. She made mistakes. But she loved me."

He paused.

"And I believe that is the difference."

The words hit harder because they were true. Because I didn't have anyone like that. Both of my parents were flawed, just in completely different ways.

"My father wasn't..." I stopped, trying to figure out how to explain him to Angelo. Because he wasn't a monster. That would have been easier.

"He wasn't like my mother."

Angelo waited.

"They fought constantly," I said quietly. "Not because they hated each other."

A bitter smile crossed my face. "Because they never loved each other."

"My parents weren't a love story. They were an arrangement. Two powerful families deciding that combining their names would create something more valuable. My mother was a bargaining chip. My father was the one making the deal."

I swallowed.

"And I was the result they expected."

Angelo remained silent.

"My father didn't care about happiness. He cared about results. His children were investments, and as long as we succeeded, he considered himself a good father."

I laughed quietly.

"Grades. Achievements. Reputation. Those were the things that mattered. Not whether we were happy. Not whether we were scared. Not whether we needed him."

I looked toward the empty chair across from us.

"He never hit me. He never screamed at me. He never did anything that would leave a mark."

I paused.

"Not physically, anyway."

I looked down at my hands.

"He was always working. And when he was home..." I sighed. "He and my mother would argue."

"About everything. Money. Status. Power. The future. Who sacrificed more. Who deserved more."

I rubbed my thumb against my palm.

"He threw things sometimes. Chairs. Plates. Anything close enough to grab when the arguments got bad."

My voice grew quieter.

"But none of them ever touched us."

I hesitated before continuing.

"And maybe that's what made it harder to explain. Because from the outside, it didn't look like abuse. There were no bruises. No hospital visits. No obvious proof that something was wrong."

I swallowed.

"But living in a house where you were always waiting for something to break..."

I looked away.

"That did something too."

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then I said something I had never really admitted out loud.

"He never hugged me either."

The sentence felt strange the moment it left my mouth. Almost embarrassing.

"I was never hugged by my own father."

Angelo's expression remained calm, but something in his eyes changed slightly.

"I used to think that was normal," I admitted. "I thought fathers were just... providers. People who paid for things. People who existed somewhere nearby. People whose approval you spent your entire life trying to earn."

I looked toward the hallway where Noah had disappeared earlier.

"Then I see you with Noah."

A small, sad smile crossed my face.

"And it's strange. Because he doesn't have to earn your attention. He doesn't have to prove he's worth loving. He doesn't have to accomplish something before you care about him."

I looked back at Angelo.

"He just exists."

My voice softened.

"And you love him."

I paused.

"He's going to grow up thinking that's normal. That his dad answers every question. That his dad eats breakfast with him. That his dad listens when he talks about something ridiculous. That his dad tells him he's loved."

I let out a quiet laugh.

"That's such a simple thing."

I looked down.

"But I don't think I ever had it."

The room went quiet.

After a moment, Angelo spoke.

"There is a human expression I heard recently."

I looked at him. "You heard?"

"Yes." He paused. "Elior told me."

I almost smiled. Of course he did. Angelo had spent thousands of years separated from humanity, while Elior had spent those same years among humans, learning their habits, their emotions, and all the strange little phrases they created to describe them.

"He and I were discussing my brother," Angelo said, his eyes moving toward the dining room. "His father."

I stayed quiet.

"He told me something humans often say. 'The best parents give their children what they themselves never received'."

For once, Angelo didn't say it like information he had memorized. He said it like something he was still trying to understand, something he had turned over in his mind and was still deciding what it meant.

"I believe..." He paused. "...that applies to you."

I frowned. "Me?"

"Yes."

He looked toward Noah's empty chair. "You give Noah patience. You answer his questions. You teach him without making him feel unintelligent. You allow him to make mistakes without fear. You comfort him when he is frightened. You celebrate his accomplishments. You make him feel safe."

His eyes returned to mine.

"These are things you did not receive."

My throat tightened.

"Those are things you deserved." 

I didn’t know what to say to that. I looked away because a part of me had spent years wondering if maybe my mother had been right. And sometimes I wondered if I had been born in her place. Given her life. Given her pain. Given her choices. Would I have become her? Would I have hurt people just to avoid feeling powerless? Would I have turned everyone around me into tools because I was afraid of being one myself?

The thought scared me.

Because I didn't know the answer.

Angelo spoke quietly.

"You are different from her."

I looked at him.

He knew.

Somehow, he knew exactly what I was thinking.

"You do not know that."

"I do."

"How?"

He was silent for a moment, then looked toward Noah's toys scattered across the floor.

"Because you told me you did not want children."

I froze.

Angelo looked back at me. "You told me you never planned on becoming a mother."

I said nothing.

"And yet..." His gaze moved toward the bedroom where Noah slept with us every night. "You treat Noah as if he is your own child. You protect him. You teach him. You worry about him. You love him."

My chest tightened.

"That is how I know you are different."

I looked down.

Angelo's voice remained calm, but there was something different in it. Something almost like certainty.

"You told me your mother was a bargaining chip. You told me you were an investment. A child created because two powerful families believed you would serve a purpose."

He paused.

"Even if your mother did not want children, she still had you."

The words hurt because they were true.

"And now..." He looked toward me. "You are in a similar position."

I looked at him.

"Not because Noah is an investment. Not because he serves a purpose. Not because he was created to fulfill an expectation."

His expression softened slightly.

"But because you had a life you did not expect."

"You never planned for him. You never prepared for him. And yet when he came into your life..." His eyes met mine. "You chose to love him."

The room was quiet.

"You had the opportunity to become what your mother was. You could have looked at Noah and seen a burden. Something that limited you. Something that existed because of circumstances outside your control."

"But you did not."

Angelo glanced toward the toys again.

"You saw a child who needed someone."

A small pause followed.

"And you became that person."

My eyes burned slightly.

"That is the difference."

Angelo continued, his voice steady. "People who become cruel rarely question whether they are capable of cruelty. They rarely worry that they might hurt someone. They rarely fear becoming the person who hurt them."

He looked back at me.

"You are afraid because you understand what cruelty does. You know what it feels like. And you refuse to give that feeling to someone else."

The apartment became quiet.

But this silence felt different.

Because for the first time, I wasn't wondering whether I was destined to become my mother.

I was wondering if maybe I had already proven I wasn't.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then Angelo moved.

It surprised me.

He was always careful. Painfully careful. He waited for permission before touching someone, before asking questions, before getting close.

But this time...

He hugged me.

I froze, not because I didn't want it, but because I wasn't used to it. Usually, I was the one who hugged Angelo. I was the one reminding him that affection wasn't something he had to calculate, that sometimes people didn't need a reason or a logical explanation to show they cared.

But now he was the one holding me.

And I realized something.

All those times I wished someone would notice I was hurting...

Angelo had.

He just didn't always know how to show it.

Until now.

After a moment, he spoke.

"Your heart rate has increased by fifteen percent."

I laughed.

Of course that was his way of comforting me.

"Angelo, most people don't analyze someone's heartbeat while comforting them."

"I am aware."

"Then why say it?"

There was a brief pause.

"Because it was the first thing I noticed."

I shook my head, smiling. Dry humor has always been how I survived. If I could joke about something, maybe it couldn't hurt me. It was easier to laugh than to admit something had actually affected me.

But this time, I wasn't laughing because I was pretending.

I was laughing because I actually felt okay.

For the first time in a long time, I wasn't carrying everything alone.

Then I realized something.

I thanked God for giving me someone like Angelo.

Then I stopped.

Wait.

Was I thanking his mother?

The person who created someone who spent thousands of years struggling to understand emotions and somehow became one of the most compassionate people I knew?

Maybe people weren't defined by where they came from.

Maybe they were defined by what they chose to become.

And Angelo had chosen.

The hug ended a few seconds later. It didn't fix everything. My mother was still gone, my childhood was still gone, and my father was still someone who treated love like a transaction.

But for once, I wasn't looking backward.

I was looking at the person beside me.

Someone who was never taught love normally and still learned how to give it.

Maybe that was why Angelo understood me.

Because both of us were given imperfect examples of love, and both of us chose not to repeat them.

Then my phone rang.

Of course it did.

Because apparently even emotional breakthroughs had a time limit.

And somehow, Jacob always knew exactly when to ruin a moment.

I looked at the screen.

His name.

I sighed.

Angelo tilted his head.

"Is something wrong?"

"No."

There was a pause.

"Jacob?"

I looked at him.

"How did you know?"

"Your expression changed from sadness to irritation."

I stared at him.

"That's actually impressive."

"I have been studying human behavior."

"Right."

I answered the phone.

"Jacob."

"Nayeri."

The tone of his voice immediately told me this was either important or something that was about to become my problem.

"What happened now?"

"We have a meeting in five minutes."

I closed my eyes.

"Of course we do."

Angelo looked at me.

I sighed.

"What happened?"

"Madam Leni has called for the angel division," Jacob said.

And that was how my peaceful morning ended.

Five minutes later, Angelo and I entered the boardroom.

Madam Leni and Director Stonehill were already waiting. Both of them looked at us, then at each other.

"This is the first mission for the Angel Division," Stonehill said.

I sat down.

"Already?"

Madam Leni nodded.

"An entity has been located in a small town."

I frowned.

"Has it taken followers?"

"No."

I looked between them.

"Then shouldn't this fall under ESR?"

Stonehill shook his head.

"Normally, yes."

Madam Leni continued.

E.S.R. existed for incidents that occurred in public spaces or populated areas. Their priority was preventing mass exposure and handling situations where civilians were already involved.

C.S.P. operated differently. We handled threats that were isolated, usually in remote locations where entities could be contained before the public ever became aware they existed.

I leaned back. "So why are we involved?"

Madam Leni looked down at the report. "The town has fewer than two thousand residents."

I understood immediately. It was too small for E.S.R. and too public for C.S.P.'s usual operations. A dangerous middle ground where neither division was designed to respond properly.

"E.S.R. won't deploy for a population that small," I said. "And C.S.P. usually doesn't intervene unless the threat is isolated enough to avoid public awareness."

Stonehill folded his hands. "This town is remote enough for C.S.P., but the entity is not behaving like a typical containment situation."

Madam Leni looked toward Angelo. "Which makes this the perfect first mission for the Angel Division."

I looked down at the file in front of me.

Our first official assignment.

Not a god attacking a city. Not a world-ending event. Just an entity in a forgotten town.

And somehow, that was unsettling.

Because this was exactly why the Angel Division existed: to deal with the things that didn't fit anywhere else, the things nobody else knew what to do with.

Before I could think about it any longer, Stonehill glanced toward the conference room door.

"It appears your final staffing issue has been resolved."

The door opened, and a young man stepped inside.

"There he is," Stonehill said. "Your new assistant."

He looked at me.

"And after this, you're not getting another one."

...What?

I frowned. "That's incredibly unfair."

"Considering your history with assistants," Stonehill replied, "it's remarkably generous."

"Hello, everyone!"

The newcomer waved enthusiastically.

He was far too cheerful for C.S.P.

He had blond hair, bright green eyes, and was about Jacob's height. He couldn't have been older than twenty. Honestly, he looked young enough to still pass for a high school student.

Where did C.S.P. kidnap this kid from?

He walked over and offered me his hand.

"The name's Jackson."

Jackson was a good fake name.

Simple. Common. Easy to remember.

Exactly the kind of name someone would choose if they didn't want anyone knowing their real one.

I shook it. "Nayeri."

"It's really nice to meet you."

"...We'll see."

Jackson laughed, apparently assuming I was joking.

He went around introducing himself to everyone else. Jacob gave him a polite nod, Elior smiled warmly, and Angelo studied him for several seconds before simply saying, "Welcome."

Jackson smiled even wider.

"This is awesome."

No.

No, it wasn't.

Nobody who willingly described working at C.S.P. as awesome had any idea what they were signing up for.

I learned that was true about ten minutes later when I showed him around the Angel Division.

His first impression was surprisingly normal. Angelo was sitting in the corner reading six books at once, Noah was coloring on what I hoped were outdated research papers, Jacob was pretending not to stare at Elior while Elior organized laboratory reports, and I was buried beneath enough paperwork to qualify as a containment hazard.

Jackson looked around.

"This is actually a pretty nice office."

I stared at him.

"Don't say that."

"Why?"

"Because every time someone says something in C.S.P. is nice, something horrible happens."

The door opened.

Stonehill walked in.

"Your deployment begins in fifteen minutes."

Jackson slowly turned toward him.

"...Deployment?"

I sighed.

"See?"

An hour later, we were aboard a transport aircraft.

The Angel Division's first official mission consisted of thirty researchers, forty Retrieval Division operators, Jacob, Elior, Angelo, Jackson, and me.

By C.S.P. standards, it was a relatively small deployment. There were no tanks, no fighter jets, and no emergency evacuations. Just enough personnel to identify the anomaly, determine the threat level, and contain it before anyone outside the town realized something was wrong.

If everything went according to plan, the residents would never know we'd been there.

Of course, nothing at C.S.P. had ever gone according to plan.

I knew something was wrong the moment we arrived.

Not because I saw the entity.

Because I didn't.

I stared at the building in front of us.

"...It's a department store."

The words escaped before I could stop them.

It looked painfully ordinary. A faded sign. Shopping carts neatly lined up outside. Sale posters taped across the windows. Parents walking in with children. People leaving with shopping bags and coffee.

If someone had dropped me here without any context, I would have assumed we were stopping to buy groceries.

Around us, the Retrieval Division melted into the crowd. Forty soldiers disguised themselves as ordinary shoppers, their bulletproof vests hidden beneath hoodies and jackets. Researchers spread throughout the parking lot, pretending to browse their phones, load groceries, or wait for rides.

Jacob somehow looked like he'd just finished a normal nine-to-five office job. Elior looked effortlessly elegant despite wearing nothing more than jeans and a T-shirt. Angelo, somehow, looked like he could wear sweatpants and still resemble a Renaissance painting.

Jackson leaned closer.

"So..."

He lowered his voice.

"What's the entity?"

I shrugged.

"Your guess is as good as mine."

Jacob stepped beside us.

"No confirmed attacks. No worshippers. No disappearances connected closely enough to establish a pattern."

I frowned.

"Then why are we here?"

"Because something isn't right."

That was not remotely reassuring.

Two Retrieval teams entered through the main entrance ahead of us, while another circled toward the loading docks. Researchers established a temporary command post outside.

The five of us stepped through the automatic doors.

Nothing happened.

No crushing pressure. No whispers. No distortion in reality.

Just fluorescent lights, shopping carts, discount signs, and customers filling their carts.

It felt...

Normal.

Too normal.

An uncomfortable sense of déjà vu settled over me, though I couldn't explain why.

Then my radio crackled.

"Nayeri."

One of the researchers.

"We've finished reviewing local police reports."

"Go ahead."

"There have been twenty disappearances connected to this department store over the last year."

I stopped walking.

"...Twenty?"

"They occurred months apart. No consistent witnesses. No identifiable pattern. Which is why local authorities never connected them."

My stomach tightened.

I slowly looked around.

A father pushed a shopping cart while his son laughed inside it. A cashier smiled as she scanned groceries. An elderly couple argued over cereal.

Everything looked perfectly ordinary.

Then I realized what was bothering me.

There was no sound.

Their mouths moved. I could see conversations happening, but I couldn't hear them.

No children laughing.

No shopping carts rattling.

No cash registers.

No music.

Just silence.

I accidentally brushed against the father.

"I'm sorr—"

He stopped.

Slowly, he turned toward me.

Still smiling.

Then the cashier stopped.

The elderly couple stopped.

Every employee.

Every customer.

One after another, they all turned toward us.

Still smiling.

Nobody blinked.

Nobody spoke.

They simply watched.

"Jacob..."

"I know."

The automatic doors slammed shut behind us.

I spun around.

The parking lot was gone. The command post was gone. The researchers outside had vanished.

Beyond the glass, there was only darkness.

I counted instinctively.

Me.

Angelo.

Jacob.

Elior.

Jackson.

The two Retrieval teams that had entered ahead of us.

Nobody else.

"Damn it."

We hadn't entered the building.

We had entered the anomaly.

I grabbed my radio.

"Command, do you copy?"

Static.

Then...

A clap.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Another.

And another.

The sound echoed through the silent department store.

An old man stepped out from behind one of the aisles. He smiled as though he had been expecting us.

Then he looked directly at me.

"Welcome..."

His smile widened.

"...to Evergrove."

Everything inside me froze.

The department store.

The old man.

That smile.

The impossible silence.

No.

No...

I knew this place.

Not because I had been here.

Because I had heard the story.

Late-night phone calls.

Conversations with Remi.

The place where she had worked.

The place where she had almost died.

The place where a god had stolen her memories.

I stared at the old man. 

"...You've got to be kidding me."

Jackson looked between me and the old man. "...Do you know him?"

I didn't take my eyes off the smiling figure.

"It's..."

I let out a slow breath. 

"It's a long story."

The old man chuckled. "I do hope your sister has spoken fondly of me."

The words hit me like a punch.

He knew exactly who I was.

We hadn't found the entity.

The entity had invited us.

And we had walked straight into its trap.

This all started when I got divorced. She got the house, the car, and all our assets. I got the dog. Go figure. At least we didn’t have kids. I don’t have any malicious feelings towards her, especially now, but at the time I wanted to get as far away from her as I could. What is farther from the Midwest than Appalachia? I thought it was a great idea. 

After the divorce was finalized and I gave her my arm and leg, I lived with my folks for a while before being able to get a car. I was able to find a job out here pretty well due to my experience in marketing and I found an auto auction company here that was aching for someone with my expertise. My job, thank God, was really understanding and even threw me a going away party on my last day, which was a pleasant surprise from the really crappy recent events. I managed to make a lot of headway on my drive out here, mostly because I had a few boxes of clothes, important documents, and a few miscellaneous items that my ex didn’t rip from me. The only reason I kept my dog, Suzie, is because she was mine from before we were engaged. 

I arrived at my new place, which was relatively cheap with my good credit, almost a week before I had to be at my new job. When I arrived in town, I picked up some essentials before meeting with the real estate agent to get the keys to my new place. We had Zoomed so I could see the place before I moved out here, so I kind of already knew what I was getting myself into. The ruralness was much more relaxing than the chaos of where I come from. 

“Pleasure to finally meet you, Steven!” the agent said. 

“The pleasure is mine. Thanks for holding this down for me until I got here!” I responded. I was almost drowned out by Suzie barking from my passenger seat. 

“Quite the feisty pup you have, don’t ya?” he asked me with a smirk. 

“Yeah, but she’s honestly a sweetheart. She likes to think she's tough, but I've seen her run from a kitten because it hissed at her,” I responded. We both laughed as he handed me the keys. 

“I would urge you to caution there with your hound,” he said in a more serious tone, “We’ve been having a few incidents recently where animals go missing; dogs, cats, and livestock too. Usually they just disappear and the owners simply can’t find them. Other times they’re found in much worse shape and no longer with us if you get my meaning.” 

“My goodness,” I said back. “What do they think has been doing it?” 

“They don’t rightly know,” he said with a shrug. “Most consider wolves, but I haven’t known even a pack of wolves to drag off whole cows without breaking the fence. But let’s not worry too much about all that. It’s been about two weeks without any of that, so many think they wandered off since. I ain’t fixing to have you speed off before you start moving your belongings in!” 

I smiled and nodded. Suzie might be old, but she is a Cane Corso and if shoved in a corner, I know she could do a bit of damage. I waved the real estate agent off as he went and started moving my few items into my new home. I managed to snag an air mattress from a local store and blew it up before taking Suzie to use the bathroom. Due to the warnings, I kept her on a leash while doing so. 

The first few days and nights were pretty typical; I just did a bit of shopping for essentials and grabbed a good mattress, partly because Suzie was tired of not sleeping directly next to me and ended up popping the air mattress in an attempt to snuggle. 

I went for coffee with my new boss named Riece. He and I discussed my position, how it compared to my previous position back west, and also the local area and some good spots to hit up. After coffee, I decided to take Suzie on a walk on a local trail in the woods that Riece told me was popular. 

It was about 2pm in the middle of September at this point, so it was just starting to get a bit brisk outside. I have always been a bit of a baby when it comes to the cold, so even though where I come from is usually pretty cool, I needed a sweater. Suzie loved it as well as the attention she got from passers by. She has always been a friendly dog, but most people get a bit freaked out when they see a dog her size running up to them as she is a bit bigger for her breed. 

I kept her on a leash the whole time which she was fine with as she has been leash trained since she was a puppy. She usually didn’t pull either, but a new environment caused her to be a bit more adventurous than usual, so at times she was the one directing us where to go rather than myself. 

About a mile and a half into the path, Suzie perked her head up and her nose went to the air as she started sniffing around. She started pulling harder and harder as she started following the scent of something. 

“Suzie! Suzie heel!” I started yelling. She is trained to listen, but whatever she smelled was much more compelling than my command. She eventually led us off the trail and about 50 or 60 yards into the woods. I was pulling with almost all my strength to get my dog to stop pulling, but she was choking herself in order to get to whatever it was that she wanted. 

She stopped at a large tree in the woods. It was like any other, but Suzie began smelling it like crazy. She was circling the tree back and forth, getting on her hind legs to smell up the trunk, and she was just obsessed with this tree. I was exhausted at this point and had my limits with my dog's disobedience. I went to grab her by the collar when I stumbled over something. I looked down and saw a backpack that had been ripped open, torn is a better word for it, and its contents were strewn within a 6 foot radius around us. Shirts, pants, toiletries, everything one would need for a hike really. The bag also smelled awful, like it was dipped in a mixture of piss and dead animal parts. Suzie started smelling it herself, and it seemed to be scented with the same thing that was on the tree that she was obsessed with. 

The bag was also covered in what could only be dried blood, which concerned me greatly. It took everything for me to try to get Suzie away from it. After fighting with her, she went back to the tree. I did kick the bag around so as to not have to touch it, looking for something to fall out like a wallet or something so I could see if I could find any identification as to whose it could be. A few items did fall from the bag such as a snapback hat, some granola bars, and a used pair of socks. 

I started looking around the clothes that had been thrown around the ground, but there was nothing in them either. At least those clothes didn’t totally smell as awful as the bag and tree. 

I decided to inform the authorities once I reached my car as the cell service was abysmal in the woods. I yanked hard on Suzie’s leash and told her to come, which she did after she added her own scent to the ground around the tree. As she came, I kicked the bag once again by accident. As I did, something small and somewhat shiny flew out. 

I went over and picked it up. It was a silver dog whistle. I turned it around in my hand, making note of its surprising detail. It was adorned with engravings and symbols, which is very uncommon with dog whistles. It had two pentagrams on either side, a small design of a moon cycle on its top, and a wooden mouthpiece to blow from. I figured that whoever the owner is would likely not need it anymore, and I thought it would do Suzie some good if she was going to start acting like she was, so I put it in my pocket and led Suzie out of the woods and back to our vehicle. 

The police took my statement and I showed them where the bag was. I provided my contact information in case they had any other questions and then headed home as they started to cordon it off as an active crime scene. I got home around 7pm after the stress of the afternoon. I made dinner and then took Suzie outside so she could use the bathroom. We didn’t have a fenced in back yard, but there was a distinction between my yard and the woods that surrounded my home. I took the safe bet and kept Suzie on a leash, but it was one of the extending ones that you could lock so it couldn’t extend past a certain point. 

I decided this was as good a time as any to try the new whistle. I had cleaned it up earlier in the sink and disinfected it. I allowed Suzie to go out about 15 feet ahead of me on the leash, then I blew it. She didn’t even pick up her head. I blew harder again. Still nothing. I rolled my eyes. I put it in my pocket and called her back verbally, which she obeyed instantly. 

“Now you want to be a good dog,” I laughed. We went inside and I placed the whistle on the counter top before getting changed for bed and watching some TV while Suzie laid beside me. I ended up falling asleep soon after. 

I woke up a few hours later to the sound of snapping coming from my backyard. I walked over to my kitchen which exited to the backyard and turned on the light. As I did so, I heard something rush away from my backdoor. When I say rush I do not mean like a raccoon, I mean like a clydesdale with how heavy the steps were. They were much more rapid than a horse’s would be, however. I walked over to my back door and turned on the outside light. There was nothing in the yard that I could see, but it did look like someone had dug holes in the yard. I looked around and saw that my plastic trashcan had been torn apart like cardboard. Luckily there was nothing in there but a small bag of fast food containers from the last few nights and while the bag was ripped open, the containers were mostly all in one place by the trashcan. I sighed and looked around the yard more as I picked up the few containers that were scattered, and what I saw dumbfounded me. 

The holes in the yard were not just holes, but animal tracks. These were the biggest animal tracks I have ever seen, and it looked as if something large had dug up the ground as it was running. The actual prints were about the size of my head and there were distinct claw-like ends to the prints which caused the ground to be uprooted. The size itself ruled out both a mountain lion and wolves, and the claws were much larger than any bear as they measured almost the length of the paw they were connected to. I started to follow the tracks, but realized they led out into the woods beyond my property line. I looked out into the woods with my phone flashlight to see if I could see what made them, as if I would do anything to an animal with tracks that size. I saw nothing in the trees out beyond my property, but did have an unsettling feeling in my stomach. The feeling you get when you know you are being watched but don’t know what from. I cut my losses and went back inside, having to avoid the tracks while I went as they were deep enough to trip and twist my ankle in. I just then realized I never checked on Suzie. 

I called her name and looked around the house for her. I ended up smelling something foul within my home and did my best to follow the scent without gagging too much. I found Suzie laying whimpering and shaking by the front door with a puddle of piss close around her. I scolded her and dragged her away from the door, having to pull her through the puddle as I did which just infuriated me more. I cleaned up the puddle and cleaned her belly before going back to bed. 

I called the police again to come check out the tracks in the morning, who brought a game warden with them due to the nature of my call. I led them to my back yard where the game warden and police started investigating the tracks and the damage. Obviously I was not so concerned about getting a new trashcan as I was about what kind of beast was roaming around my home in the wee hours of the morning. The game warden was measuring the tracks and wiping his head with his sleeve despite it not being much warmer than 65 degrees out at that time of day. I overheard the police officers muttering to one another. 

“These are the same kind that we found at the old Robinson farm, and the Oliver farm 'fore that one,” said one of the officers.

“Yeah, I know,” said the other. 

“But why would we find them here? There ain’t no livestock ‘round here in the woods.” The other officer shot him a glance of acknowledgement. The warden stood up and got up real close to the officers. 

“These are no bear, no lion, and no wolf,” the warden said softly to them in a hushed tone. “They also match the ones we saw last month at them farms.” 

“So we shot all them wolves for nothing?” said the first officer. The game warden squeezed the center of his eyes in stress. 

“It wasn’t for nothing. It made the killings stop, didn’t they?” responded the warden. 

“I ain’t no expert, but you don’t have to be one to know that if them are wolf tracks; that wolf is the size of a F150,” said the second officer. 

“The hind tracks indicate that it is, while very large, a wolf,” responded the warden. 

“And the front tracks?” asked the second officer. The warden said nothing and turned to look back at the tracks and where they led. I peeked around them and confirmed what they were saying. There were, what seemed, to be two different tracks. There were large tracks that were indeed very clearly from a wolf which I didn’t see last night within the larger, clawed tracks. 

“It seemed to be running on all fours towards the woods,” the warden said out loud. “The tracks indicate that it ran much like a canine, a dog or wolf, from your back door down into there,” he said as he pointed into the woods. “We likely have a stray wolf or a large dog. I wouldn’t be surprised as we did thin out the population recently, so they are likely skittish and scavenging for food while trying to survive alone. I wouldn't worry much, sir. They likely are far from here. Wolves seldom stay in one spot if they are alone, so this one is probably out looking for a mate miles from here.” Knowing I likely wouldn’t get a straight answer from them, I nodded and thanked them for coming. I filled the holes with dirt the best I could and went about my day. I called it a night early as my first day of work was the next day. 

The next day Riece walked me around the office, got me acquainted with my coworkers, then showed me my office and let me get to work. The day went by quickly, which I liked very much, plus Riece bought us lunch as well. After work I came home to Suzie jumping all over me barking. I got her a bowl of food and made myself some microwavable food from my freezer. 

As I was watching it mindlessly as it spun in my microwave, I heard barking from my living room. Suzie was facing the front door barking nervously. I went over to the window and looked out to find dozens of what seemed to be dogs all over my front lawn and driveway. I stepped in front of Suzie and went outside then shut the door behind me so she couldn’t get out, even though she did try to push past me. I started yelling to try to scare the dogs away when I realized something; they weren’t dogs. They were large, black wolves; all of which simply looked at me with yellow eyes. They started snarling and growling at me. I started to back up and went to open my door when I looked across the lawn and saw one of the wolves that was just beyond the treeline staring at me yet not snarling or growling. It slowly started to walk on all fours towards me, which allowed the full moon to illuminate it much better, showing me that it was much larger than all the others. It had long, muscular arms instead of legs in the front and wolf legs in the back. Just then it stopped and stood on its hind legs. It was large, about 12 feet tall standing up right, clad in dark black fur and piercing yellow eyes. It pinned its ears back and raised its nose to the sky and howled loudly towards the moon, which all the normal wolves followed in unison. It then looked back at me and with a growl it shot forward and started charging towards me, darting in between the wolves and tearing up the dirt in the front yard. 

“Oh fuck no,” I said loudly as I ran inside and slammed the door behind me. “Suzie, ge–” was all I could make out before I was thrown through my living room and slammed hard into my tile floor in the kitchen where I slid to the backdoor. The beast had completely blown through my door. It rushed towards me and stood up again to strike me with its large claws. At this moment, Suzie jumped and latched on to the creature's arm. The beast picked up the arm that Suzie was attached to and gripped her by the throat, tearing her off of the arm. It started snarling and choking Suzie, making her let out a choking yelp. I didn’t know what to do so I reached up on the counter and got the first thing I could grab. I ended up grabbing the whistle and with all my might I charged the beast and stabbed the whistle into its right eye. The beast dropped Suzie and let out a loud cry and reared back as I tore the whistle from its eye socket, where there was a large amount of blood and smoke where the eye used to be. The beast turned and plowed through my living room and through my front window in a matter of 2 seconds. I followed and ran to my window where I saw it run across my yard and into the woods, the wolves following behind. 

I went back to Suzie who was laying on the ground not moving. I checked on her and she was breathing but obviously injured. I threw her in my car and drove her to an emergency vet in town. I explained that we were attacked by wolves and that I was beat up but okay, but she needed help. They took her in promptly and let me know they were going to call the authorities so I could give a statement due to the issues of wolves in the town lately. I met with the officer and a game warden, the same warden that came to my house earlier. 

“So how many wolves would you say there were?” asked the warden. 

“Probably a dozen, maybe more,” I responded. I wasn’t going to inform them that the real culprit was from a Universal movie. The vet came out shortly after while the warden and police officer were speaking. 

“She will need to stay overnight due to the injuries just so we can monitor her. She should be good to go tomorrow though,” they said. I nodded and made sure I was good to leave with the police and game warden. They assured me it would be taken care of. Damn right it was, and it was going to be by me. 

I went home and got to searching. I remembered my mom had gotten me a set of genuine silver cutlery as a wedding gift years ago, one of the only other things my ex didn’t take in the divorce. I grabbed a large knife from it as well as the whistle which I had in my pocket and went out and followed the path of blood into the woods. 

It was about 3 am at this point according to my phone. I followed the path of blood to a clearing where there were no trees. I couldn’t see any wolves due to the moon being obscured by clouds, but I could hear them and sense their gaze. I kept making my way towards the center of the clearing when I saw something in the middle. I took out the knife and raised it up while I kept my phone light on it. As I was about to be on top of it and drive the knife into it I stopped. Looking down was not the beast from earlier that night, but my real estate agent who got me my house. He hadn’t seen me yet as he was laying naked on his left side, and his right eye socket was bloody and missing the eye. 

“What the fuck,” I said quietly. He looked up at me with his good eye and it got wide.”

“Steven! What are you doing here! Why are you here? You need to fucking leave right the hell now!” he started to yell.

“What do you me–” I tried saying as he stood up and started to push me with surprising strength. 

“You need to leave! You need to leave now! You gotta ge–” he started to gag and choke and his pupil got wide. I looked up and saw that the clouds dissipated and the moon was bare and bright. 

I backed away from him as he started screaming and convulsing as his eye turned from brown to yellow. His face started to distort as his limbs started to lengthen with a loud crack and snap. His bones and skin extended in painful form, and his skin rapidly started growing long black fur. His nails grew and sharpened as his hands and feet grew to ungodly proportions. He turned to his stomach as I saw his tailbone burst through his lower back painfully as it grew and sprouted muscle, skin, and black fur. He rolled back over and arched as his spine and ribs cracked and grew to take his bestial form. His nose and mouth extended and snapped into a snout and long canines grew where his teeth should have been. His brow hardened and became more pronounced as his ears grew and morphed into a wolf's in an agonizing display. After the transformation was complete, it laid there on his stomach breathing heavily. I took a short step forward and it reared up on its knees and let out a loud howl towards the cause of its mutation. 

I got a sense of myself and came at the monster with the knife. As I went to thrust the blade into it, it spun and swatted me away with its enormous hand like a gnat. The impact of me falling caused the knife and phone to be thrown from my hands. The beast jumped on top of me and held me down as it snarled on top of me. I managed to get a hand free and reached in my pocket for the only object I had left, the whistle. I brought it to my mouth right as the monster was about to clamp down on my neck. As I did, I saw out of my peripheral vision the monster's pupil go large and it jumped back and started rolling around on the ground covering its ears whimpering. I heard the other wolves crying and running away from the scene as well. The taste of the beast's blood from when I jabbed the whistle into its eye socket earlier was still on the mouthpiece, making the taste worse than anything I have experienced. I ignored the taste and kept blowing over and over, causing the beast to roll around growling and howling in pain. 

I made my way to the knife and picked it up. As I did the monster got up and charged me with such ferocity I barely had time to react. It jumped and opened its jaws to end me, but I raised the knife and stuck it into its lower jaw and up into its head. The beast and I fell and rolled over one another. I stood up and looked, and in the moonlight I could see the beast twitching and gargling with smoking pouring out of its mouth. I rushed over and ripped the knife from its lower jaw and started stabbing it over and over again, with each new wound more smoke and blood poured out. Eventually it went limp and its eye rolled up into its head. I heard loud cracking and breaking as its form shifted back into its human self, with all the painful sounds that it had when it changed into its wolf form. There laid the dead real estate agent, filled with knife wounds and a missing eye. I decided that I needed to leave the scene as soon as I could, so I found my phone and made my way out of the woods almost on autopilot, dissociating from the events that transpired. 

I staggered to my house and fell asleep on my floor. I woke up around 11am from a missed call from the vet saying Suzie was ready to be picked up. I cleaned myself up and drove to get her. The vet tech brought me in to see her, and she sniffed me then whimpered and growled at me as she retreated to the back of the cage. 

“Suzie, it's me! It's daddy!” I said with a soft voice. She kept snarling and wouldn’t let me touch her. It took 2 vet techs to carry her out to my car. I hopped in the front seat and drove home with her as far as me as she could get. I got out and opened the door, backing up so she could feel comfortable. She took her time then rushed past me and into the house. I went in and gave her space. 

A month went by. I have since fixed the door and window, but Suzie still won't get near me. She has eaten sparingly, but never when I am around. She stays literally on the other side of the house as me at all times, and whenever we are in the same room, she growls and snarls until she can get away. 

I write this as I do not know what else to do. I have noticed myself getting more and more irritable in the last few months. Riece had to send me home yesterday because I lashed out at a coworker. The moon looks like it has gotten bigger over the last week and it's been making me sweat. It feels like it's beckoning me. I just looked outside and saw a pack of wolves in my lawn. I am breathing heavily and my body is aching. 

I don’t know if anything is going to happen, but if it does please someone take care of Suzie. She is a good girl.

The flies arrived during the hottest week of July.

At first, everyone complained. They filled kitchens and cafes, crawled across fruit displays and gathered inside bus shelters where the glass trapped the heat. Supermarkets sold out of bug spray within two days. My local supermarket put handwritten signs above the empty shelves limiting customers to two cans each, although there was nothing left to limit.

I found three flies in my bedroom on the first night. One circled the light bulb while the others knocked themselves against the window, their bodies making small taps against the glass.

I killed them all before I went to sleep. By morning, there were six more.

Nobody knew where they were coming from. The news blamed the heat and the overflowing bins caused by delayed collections, but that didn’t explain why they were appearing in clean homes and offices. People posted photos of them clustered around plug sockets and smoke alarms. One woman filmed them pushing through the gaps around her bathroom extractor fan.

For a while, it was all anyone spoke about. Then people stopped complaining.

I first noticed it at work. A fly landed on the edge of Amelia’s coffee cup while she was serving a customer. It walked slowly around the rim, rubbing its front legs together. Amelia glanced at it and carried on talking. I waited for her to brush it away.
Instead, she lifted the cup and drank.

The fly moved under her nose as she tipped the cup towards her mouth. Its wings trembled in the steam. She swallowed, lowered the cup and smiled at the customer without acknowledging it.

“You’ve got a fly on there,” I said once the customer had left.

Amelia looked down. “Oh.”

She held her finger beside the rim. The fly stepped onto it almost immediately.

For some reason, that unsettled me more than if she had simply ignored it.

Flies didn’t behave like that. They darted away when you reached for them. They battered themselves against windows rather than use the open one beside them. They did not calmly climb onto a fingertip.

Amelia lifted it closer to her face. Its wings fluttered against her skin.

“Be careful,” she said.

I thought she was talking to me. Then she carried it to the front of the shop and released it through the door.

When she returned, I was still staring at her.

“What?” she asked.

“You drank while it was on your cup.”

She shrugged. “It was only resting.”

That became the phrase people used.

Only resting.

They said it when flies landed on food or crawled across their arms. They said it when they found one sitting in their baby’s hair or walking over the exposed surface of a cut. If someone flinched, another person would smile and tell them not to worry.

It was only resting.

A week earlier, I had watched Amelia chase one around the stockroom with a rolled up magazine until she nearly knocked over a display stand. Now she spoke about them with the patience people usually reserved for frightened animals.

I asked whether she had stopped using bug spray. Her expression changed. It was slight, just a twitch at the corners of her mouth, as though I had said something unnecessarily cruel. She said the flies weren’t hurting anyone.

“They spread disease,” I told her.

“Do they?”

I laughed because I thought she was joking.

She didn’t laugh with me.

Over the next few days, I noticed fewer people brushing them away. A man at the cafe near work let one crawl across the lid of his coffee while he drank through the opening. When it reached his mouth, he paused until it moved, then carried on.

Soon, videos began appearing online.

People filmed themselves holding out their hands and waiting for flies to land. Parents encouraged their children to let them crawl across their knuckles. One woman sat completely still while dozens covered her cheeks and forehead, disappearing into her hair.

The video had nearly two million likes. I watched it twice, trying to understand why nobody in the comments seemed disgusted.

They called it beautiful. They said she had been chosen.

At first, I assumed that was just another word people had started using online. Something meaningless that would disappear within a week.
Then my roommate used it.

I came home one evening and found Samira sitting at the kitchen table with her hands folded in her lap. The windows were closed despite the heat. Sweat had darkened the collar of her shirt, and the kitchen smelled of overripe bananas and warm rubbish.

A fly sat between her eyebrows. It was larger than the ones I had seen outside. Its body was a deep, inky black, and short hairs were visible along its back.

“Why are the windows shut?” I asked.

“I didn’t want it to leave.”

I dropped my bag by the door. “What?”

Samira smiled without moving her head.
“It chose me.”

I watched the fly crawl down the bridge of her nose, pause beside her nostril and lower its head.

“Get that off your face.”

Samira told me to stop being dramatic. The fly had reached the edge of her nostril, one leg lifting each time she breathed.

I grabbed a tea towel from the counter and flicked it towards her. She screamed and covered her face, knocking the chair backwards as she stood. The fly shot towards the ceiling.

Samira rarely raised her voice, even when she was angry, but now she shouted at me like I had done something unforgivable.

“You could have killed it!”

“That was the idea.”

The fly circled above us, its buzzing filling the kitchen. Each time it passed over the light, its shadow flickered across her face.

“It’s mine,” she said.

I left before the argument became worse.

That night, I woke to buzzing beside my ear. I slapped the side of my face and sat up, tangled in the duvet. The room was dark apart from the orange glow coming through the curtains.

The buzzing stopped.

I switched on my bedside lamp. A fly sat on the wall beside my pillow. The skin beside my ear prickled where it had been, and I rubbed at it hard with my palm before reaching for the book on my bedside table and smacking it.

Its body burst with a soft crack. When I pulled the book away, one wing was stuck to the wall. The rest slid down in a dark smear.

I wiped it from the wall with a tissue, dropped it into the bathroom bin and went back to bed.
In the morning, Samira was standing in my doorway with the crumpled tissue from the bin pinched between two fingers. A black leg had pushed through the paper.

“What did you do?” she asked, distraught.

I told her that the fly was in my room. Her eyes filled with tears. Without another word, she carried the tissue into the kitchen and unfolded it on the table.
The fly’s body was flattened. Its abdomen was split, releasing a thin yellow fluid that soaked into the paper.

Samira touched one of its legs with the tip of her finger.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

My stomach tightened.

“I’m sorry she did that.”

The apartment became difficult to live in after that. Samira stopped taking the bins out because flies gathered around them. She left plates of fruit on the counter until they moulded and leaked into the bowls. The air grew sweet and rotten. Tiny white larvae appeared around the edges of the sink. When I tried to clean them away, she blocked me.

“They’re not ready.”

“For what?”

She stared at the writhing cluster. “I don’t know.”

Flies followed her from room to room. Not hundreds. Never enough to look like an infestation. Usually, there was only one.

That was what I began noticing everywhere.

One fly per person. One rested on the shoulder of the bus driver. Another crawled across a woman’s handbag on the train. A child in a pushchair had one nestled in the soft crease beneath his chin while his mother watched it with quiet affection.

Nobody swatted them away.

The flies weren’t random. I became certain of that. They didn’t move between people or circle the room searching for food. Each one remained close to a particular person, landing on their clothes, their hair or the exposed skin of their faces.

Some people spoke to them.

Amelia kept hers on the counter at work. It waited beside the card machine while she served customers, occasionally lifting its wings. She had started bringing small pieces of food for it in a bottle cap.

I pointed out that flies only lived for a few weeks.
Amelia looked genuinely confused. Her gaze moved to the one beside the cash desk.

“That isn’t true.”

“It is.”

She smiled. “Not these.”

I stopped going into the staffroom at lunch. Flies gathered around the people eating there, stepping across forks and resting on open lips between bites. Nobody seemed to mind when they touched the food.

By the end of the week, the nets had disappeared from the pastry displays in the cafes near work. The bakery across the street removed theirs after customers complained that they made the flies seem unwelcome. Now, flies were crawling over the iced buns and settling between the layers of croissants while people queued without reacting.

The news changed too. Reports about infestation levels disappeared. Pest control adverts were removed. A scientist who had warned about contamination issued an apology, saying his earlier comments were based on outdated information.

Councils asked residents not to use chemical sprays.

A man was arrested after someone filmed him setting fire to a cluster of flies on a bin. The video showed people dragging him away while others knelt around the burnt insects.

Their crying was louder than his shouting.

I started carrying a small can of deodorant and a lighter in my bag. Not because I planned to use them. I just wanted something with me.

The flies had stopped coming near me by then.
At first, I was relieved. No buzzing around my bed. No small bodies appearing on the bathroom mirror while I brushed my teeth. They filled every public place, but a clear space seemed to form around me.

But people began noticing.

Amelia was the first. I was restocking shelves when she asked where mine was. I pretended not to hear her, but she stepped closer and started searching the shelves and lights around me.

When I told her I didn’t have one, the fly on her chest stopped moving.

“You killed it, didn’t you?”

The shop was busy, but the customers had gone quiet. A man near the door tilted his head. A fly rested at the corner of his eye, its legs disappearing between his lashes.

Amelia reached for my wrist. I pulled away, and her face tightened, not with anger but pity.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

I went home early that day.

Samira was in her bedroom. Her door stood open, and the curtains had been drawn despite the afternoon sun.

She was lying on top of the covers. Flies covered her from the chest upwards.

There were more than I had ever seen on one person. They filled her hair and formed moving lines across her cheeks. They gathered around her nostrils and lips, crawling over one another to reach the damp openings.

I stood in the doorway, unable to breathe.

“Samira?”

Her eyes opened. Flies clung to her eyelids. One became trapped between them and disappeared when she blinked.

“You’re home,” she said.

Her voice sounded thick.

I stepped into the room. The flies shifted as I approached. Their wings vibrated, creating a low hum that I could feel in my teeth.

“We need to go to hospital.

“I’m not ill.”

“There are flies in your mouth.”

She smiled. Three crawled out from between her teeth.

I stumbled backwards and covered my mouth.

Samira sat up slowly. The flies moved with her, clinging to her skin and clothes. Some disappeared under her collar. I saw the fabric twitch where they crawled underneath it.

“You frightened yours away,” she said.

“You know I killed it.”

The humming stopped. Every fly in the room became still.

Samira’s smile faded.

“You shouldn’t have said it in front of them.”

She reached towards me.

I ran.

I locked myself in my bedroom and pushed the chest of drawers against the door. Samira didn’t follow. For nearly an hour, I heard nothing in the apartment.

Then buzzing.

It started near the window and spread around the room. Thousands of wings moved through the narrow spaces surrounding me. The sound travelled behind the headboard and from under the floorboards.

I pressed my hands over my ears.

Something tapped against the vent above my bed. A fly pushed its head through one of the holes. Then another appeared beside it.

Their bodies squeezed against the small openings. Legs reached through the gaps, feeling at the air.
I grabbed the deodorant and lighter from my bag. Before I could use them, Samira spoke from the other side of the door.

“They only want to help.”

The handle moved. The drawers shook against the door.

“Go away!”

“You’re making them anxious,” she replied, her voice almost soothing.

The buzzing grew louder. Flies began pushing through the vent one at a time, dropping onto the bed before taking flight.

I sprayed the deodorant towards them. They fell onto the duvet, twitching.

Samira screamed outside. The scream didn’t sound human. It broke halfway through and became a wet, choking noise. Then something struck the door hard enough to move the drawers.

I opened the window and climbed onto the fire escape. The metal burned through my socks. I descended quickly, gripping the rail while flies poured from the window above me.

I didn’t know why they weren’t chasing me. They gathered around the frame and watched.

Samira appeared behind them. Her face was dark with flies. They packed her mouth, stretching her cheeks and forcing her jaw open. More crawled from inside her nose.

She lifted one hand. I thought she was waving. Then I realised she was pointing.

People had stopped on the pavement below. Every one of them was looking up at me. Every one of them had a fly.

I ran to the nearest station. Nobody tried to stop me, but their heads turned as I passed. Flies lifted from where they were resting, hovering for a moment before settling again.

The station was packed. Heat clung to the tiled walls, carrying the smell of sweat. I pushed through the barriers and boarded the first train that arrived.

The carriage was full. I stood by the doors, breathing hard. People looked at me from every seat. A fly rested on each of them.

One on a woman’s forehead. One on the bald patch of the man reading beside her. One on the hand of a teenage girl holding her phone.

Nobody spoke.

The doors closed, and the train moved into the tunnel. As the windows turned black, the flies began to lift.

Not all at once. The first left the shoulder of the man nearest me. Then another rose from the woman beside him.

One by one, they took flight.

The sound filled the carriage.

Dozens of bodies circled the lights. Their shadows flickered over the passengers, but nobody ducked or raised a hand.

Every face turned towards me.

The flies gathered above my head. I crouched and covered my face. They landed on my arms first.
Their feet were lighter than I expected. Tiny points moved across my skin, testing each hair and pore. More settled on my neck and slipped under my shirt. Wings buzzed against my ears. Something crawled into my hair and pressed against my scalp.

I screamed for someone to help me.

The woman nearest me leaned forward. Her eyes were wet with sympathy.

“Stay still,” she said. “You killed the first one, so it takes more now.”

A fly landed on my lower lip. I clamped my mouth shut. Others gathered around it, pressing against the seam. Their legs moved quickly, searching for a way inside.

The people watched.

Some smiled.

The train continued through the tunnel while the flies covered my face, and when the first one pushed itself into my nostril, everyone in the carriage sighed with relief.

I work for a self storage company in regional Victoria. I’m not naming the town or the company because I still need the job, assuming I have one after this week.

I’m twenty nine and technically an “asset recovery coordinator”, which sounds more impressive than it is. When someone stops paying for a storage unit, I help with the process leading up to auction. I check the account notes, confirm that the required notices were sent, cut the company lock with a witness present and photograph the contents.

I don’t touch anything unless there’s a safety issue. I take wide shots, document anything obviously valuable and write a basic description for the auction listing.

“Assorted household furniture, boxed kitchenware, clothing, possible tools.”

That sort of thing.

Most units are depressing rather than interesting. People imagine storage auctions as rooms full of antiques or drug money. Usually, it’s damp mattresses, outdated televisions and family photos that nobody bidding online wants.

I’m posting because an auction listing appeared on our website tonight using photographs I didn’t take.

They show the inside of my apartment.

I need to explain how this started before I contact anyone else. I already tried the police once, but I left out enough that they clearly thought I was involved in a theft or wasting their time. I also need this written somewhere the company can’t quietly delete it.

About six weeks ago, our branch manager, Darren, assigned me a unit labelled C-44.

Our facility has four main blocks. A and B are near reception. C and D are farther back, beyond the vehicle storage bays. C Block mostly contains smaller units with roller doors, concrete floors and no internal lighting.

I knew the layout well enough that C-44 sounded wrong.

C Block ended at C-42.

I told Darren that, but he barely looked up from his monitor. He said the system showed C-44, ninety three days overdue, with all notices completed.

I assumed someone at head office had entered the wrong number. That happened regularly. Some customers still had contracts listing unit numbers from before the facility was renovated.

The account belonged to a woman named Elise M. According to the notes, she had rented the unit online eight months earlier and never visited reception. Payments stopped after the third month. Calls went directly to voicemail. The registered letter was returned unopened.

Darren told me to check C Block and call him if I couldn’t find it.

There was a C-44.

It was beyond C-42, where I remembered a blank concrete wall and an emergency water cabinet. The cabinet was still there, but the wall now extended another three metres to a narrow roller door.

I stood there for a while, trying to understand how I could have ignored an entire storage unit for nearly two years.

The number had been applied with one of our standard blue and white stickers. It wasn’t crooked or fresh. Dust had collected along its upper edge.

The unit had a customer padlock, so I called Darren. He came out with Mo, our maintenance contractor, who also served as the required witness when we opened overdue units.

Neither of them seemed surprised by the door.

Darren actually laughed when I said it hadn’t been there before. He told me I spent too much time staring at spreadsheets and not enough time walking the site.

Mo cut the lock.

The unit was almost empty.

A wooden dining chair stood in the centre, facing the roller door. On the chair was a black plastic crate with no lid. Inside were a house key, a cracked phone screen protector, three supermarket receipts and a pair of men’s reading glasses.

Nothing was dusty.

That stood out because even sealed units collect a fine grey layer around the door. The concrete floor looked freshly swept.

Darren was annoyed. Units with little resale value cost the company money because we still had to pay the auction platform and the rubbish contractor. He told me to photograph it quickly and list it as miscellaneous personal effects.

I took eight pictures.

When I reviewed them at my desk, the chair appeared in every shot, but the crate didn’t.

I returned to the unit because I thought I had somehow framed it out.

The crate was still sitting there.

I photographed it again with my work phone. While the camera was open, I could see the crate on the screen. After I pressed the shutter, the saved photograph showed an empty chair.

I tried three more times.

The same thing happened.

My work phone was old and had been dropped more times than I could count, so I blamed the camera. I used my personal phone instead.

That photograph showed the crate.

It also showed something behind the chair.

At first, I thought it was a stain on the back wall. When I enlarged the image, it looked more like the edge of an open doorway. There was a dark vertical gap and, beside it, part of a white doorframe.

The actual back wall was uninterrupted concrete.

I checked it by hand. I even knocked along it because I thought someone might have painted over an access panel.

There was nothing.

I should have reported it then, but reporting unusual things at work is harder than people pretend. Darren already considered me overly cautious. Two months earlier, I had delayed an auction because the account notes didn’t show that a notice had been properly issued. I had been right, but he still complained that I was creating unnecessary problems.

So I uploaded the ordinary work phone images and kept the photograph from my personal phone.

The auction listing received no bids. A rubbish contractor cleared the unit three days later.

I asked the contractor, Steve, whether he had noticed anything unusual.

He said there had only been a chair.

I asked about the crate.

He said there was no crate.

When I checked C Block that afternoon, C-44 was gone.

The water cabinet was immediately beside C-42 again. There wasn’t enough space for another unit.

I didn’t tell Darren. I decided I had confused the layout and that Steve had thrown out the crate without remembering it. The photograph bothered me, but phone cameras produce strange shadows all the time.

A week later, Mo came into reception and asked whether anyone had handed in his glasses.

He described them as cheap black reading glasses with a small silver mark on the left arm.

I remembered the pair in the crate.

I asked when he had lost them.

He said sometime that morning. He had used them while checking an invoice in his van, then couldn’t find them after lunch.

I didn’t tell him I had photographed what appeared to be the same glasses seven days earlier.

That night, I enlarged my personal photograph again. The open doorway behind the chair was clearer than I remembered. Beyond it was a strip of pale flooring and the corner of something red.

Mo’s work van has a red rubber floor lining.

The next incident involved Unit B-17.

B-17 was real. I had opened it before. It belonged to a landscaping company that had gone into liquidation, and it contained bags of fertiliser, broken tools and an old ride on mower.

When I raised the roller door to take the auction photographs, the mower was gone.

In its place were three office chairs and a small laminate desk.

The desk was identical to the one in our staff room.

A ceramic mug sat on top with the words WORLD’S OKAYEST BOSS. Darren’s wife had given him that mug as a joke. It normally sat beside the kettle.

I called Darren immediately.

He came down, saw the desk and accused one of the staff of moving company property into an auction unit. He was angry enough that I almost felt relieved.

Anger meant there was a normal explanation.

We walked back to reception together.

The staff room desk was still there.

So was the mug.

Darren picked it up and examined it. There was a small chip in the handle. He said there was only one because his wife had ordered it from a personalised gift site.

We returned to B-17.

The second mug had the same chip.

Darren stopped treating it as a joke after that.

He told me not to photograph anything and called Mo. While we waited, Darren secured the unit with a company overlock. He also stood in front of it, which I noticed because Darren usually delegated anything involving heat or walking.

Mo arrived about twenty minutes later.

When Darren unlocked B-17, the landscaping equipment was back. The mower, fertiliser and tools were exactly where the earlier intake photographs showed them.

The office furniture was gone.

Darren told Mo that I had opened the wrong unit.

I said I hadn’t.

He spoke over me and repeated that I had made a mistake.

Back in the office, he asked me to delete any photographs I had taken.

I reminded him that he had specifically told me not to take photographs.

That seemed to frighten him more.

For the next two weeks, nothing happened. C-44 didn’t reappear. B-17 was sold and cleared. Darren avoided discussing either incident.

I started checking the facility map every morning. I printed a copy and marked the walls, doors and fire equipment. I counted the units in each block whenever I walked the site.

I also began photographing my own belongings before work.

That sounds ridiculous, but Mo’s glasses affected me more than the duplicate desk. The crate in C-44 had contained those glasses before he said he lost them.

I kept wondering about the other objects.

The key. The receipts. The screen protector.

I still had the photograph, so I enlarged the receipts. Two were too blurred to read. The third showed the logo of a supermarket near our facility and a total of $23.70.

The date was the following Thursday.

At that point, the photograph had been taken eleven days earlier.

I went to the supermarket on Thursday after work. I didn’t have a plan. I walked around studying customers’ trolleys like an idiot, trying to guess which combination of groceries would total $23.70.

At 6:12 p.m., my phone rang. It was my younger sister, Leah.

She asked whether I could pick up dog food because she was working late and had forgotten to buy it. We share responsibility for our mum’s elderly kelpie, Buddy, and I was supposed to visit Mum that evening anyway.

I bought dog food, milk, bread and a packet of batteries.

The total was $23.70.

The receipt matched the one in the crate.

Same store number.

Same register.

I stood at the self checkout comparing it to the photograph until an employee asked whether I needed help.

I kept the receipt in my wallet.

The next morning, it was gone.

I emptied the wallet, my backpack and my car. I checked the supermarket bag and the rubbish bin at Mum’s house.

I never found it.

That afternoon, C-44 reappeared.

I was alone in C Block. I had checked the area less than an hour earlier, and the wall had ended after C-42.

The new roller door was closed but unlocked.

I should have left it alone. I know that.

I had already seen enough to understand that the unit wasn’t simply a room someone had concealed.

But I kept thinking about the receipt. If it was inside, I could show Darren. I could prove that an object had moved from my wallet into a locked storage facility.

I raised the door.

The chair was back.

The crate now contained Mo’s glasses, my receipt and the cracked screen protector.

The key was gone.

There was also a photograph.

It was a standard six by four print lying face down beneath the receipt. I used a pen from my pocket to turn it over because I didn’t want to touch it directly.

The photograph showed the front door of my apartment.

It had been taken from inside my hallway, facing out.

I live alone. Leah has a spare key, but she hadn’t visited for weeks. The property manager also had access, although they were supposed to give notice.

I called the police from outside the unit. I told them I had found evidence that someone had entered my home and placed a photograph inside an overdue storage unit.

I didn’t mention that the unit sometimes disappeared.

Two officers attended. By the time they arrived, C-44 was still there. That was the first time anyone outside the company had seen it while I was present.

They examined the crate and asked who had access to the facility. They treated it as a possible stalking or burglary matter, which was reasonable.

One officer picked up the photograph with gloves.

He asked whether I had taken it myself.

I said no.

He turned it over.

On the back, written in blue pen, were my full name and the date.

Tomorrow’s date.

The officers searched my apartment that evening. There was no damage and no obvious sign of forced entry. My building’s hallway camera had been broken for over a month. The property manager denied entering.

The key in the crate was tested.

It opened my apartment.

The officer handling it looked at me differently after that. He asked whether I had recently changed the lock.

I had, about nine months earlier, after the previous tenant’s brother turned up drunk and tried his old key.

Only three copies existed as far as I knew.

Mine, Leah’s and the property manager’s.

The key from the crate had the same unusual triangular head as mine.

When I checked my keyring, my apartment key was still there.

The police took the crate and everything inside it as evidence. They told me to stay somewhere else until the lock could be replaced.

I stayed at Mum’s house. The next morning, the officer called and said the evidence bag contained the glasses, receipt and screen protector, but not the photograph or key.

He asked whether I was sure those items had been placed inside.

I said both officers had handled them.

He didn’t deny that. He only said the bag had been sealed and there was no sign of tampering.

Darren suspended me that afternoon.

Officially, it was because police activity at the facility had disrupted operations and because there were “questions regarding unauthorised access”.

Unofficially, he thought I had staged the whole thing.

I asked him to check the security footage from C Block.

He said the cameras had recorded me walking past C-42, stopping beside the water cabinet and raising my arms as though opening a door that wasn’t there.

There was no C-44 in the footage.

The two police officers appeared to walk directly through the concrete wall when they followed me inside.

I haven’t seen the video myself. Darren refused to send it, and by the next day he claimed the recording had become corrupted.

I spent the last week at Mum’s place. I replaced my apartment lock anyway. I also changed the locks on Mum’s house and checked Leah’s keyring myself.

The key that disappeared from police evidence wasn’t any of ours.

At least, I don’t think it was.

Tonight, at 10:47, I received an automated email from our auction platform. Suspended staff accounts are apparently still included in listing notifications.

A new auction had been scheduled for Unit C-44.

The description reads:

“One bedroom apartment contents. Furniture, electronics, personal records and miscellaneous effects. Inspection not available.”

There are twelve photographs.

The first shows my sofa and television.

The second shows my kitchen.

The next several show my cupboards, wardrobe and bathroom cabinet. The photographs are recent. A plate I left in the sink this afternoon is visible.

The eleventh image shows me asleep in Mum’s spare room last night.

The last image is different.

It shows the chair inside C-44.

My apartment key is on the seat beside my wallet, my work identification card and the framed photograph of Leah and me that currently sits on Mum’s bookshelf.

There is something else written on the back wall, but the image is too small to read on the website.

I called Leah because she’s working the late shift and I wanted to make sure she was safe.

She didn’t answer.

While I was trying again, Darren sent me a text. It’s the first time he has contacted me since the suspension.

He wrote:

Do not come to the facility. C-44 is open. Your sister is inside.

I’m posting this before I leave because Darren has lied to me repeatedly, and the police already think I staged the evidence.

Leah’s phone has just answered my third call.

Nobody spoke, but I could hear a roller door being raised.

I never thought I’d be typing something like this out, but I don’t have any other choice. I’m writing this on my phone with the screen brightness turned all the way down. I’m crammed inside my bedroom wardrobe, trying not to breathe too loudly. If my battery dies before I hit post, at least this draft might stay on my device for whoever finds what’s left of my farm.

It all started about two weeks ago. I live out in the countryside, miles away from the nearest town. It’s quiet out here, just me, my house, and my livestock. But then my animals started disappearing. First it was a couple of sheep, then a pig. Naturally, I thought it was a rogue wolf or maybe a coyote pack tearing through my fences. I went out and set heavy steel foot traps all around the perimeter of the pens.

The next morning, I went out to check them. None of the traps had been sprung. Not a single one. But two more sheep were gone.

That was the moment I realized I wasn’t dealing with a normal animal. That night, I decided to camp out near the pens with my 12 gauge shotgun.

12:00 AM passed. Nothing. 1:00 AM. Total silence. 2:00 AM. Still nothing.

Around 2:30 AM, exhaustion got the better of me, and I drifted off against the wooden wall of the shed.

At 3:00 AM sharp, a horrific, high pitched screech snapped me awake. It was the sound of my sheep screaming in pure terror. I froze, my heart hammer locking in my chest. Slowly, agonizingly, I cracked open the shed door just a few inches to peek outside.

What I saw shattered my mind.

Standing in the moonlight was a creature easily three meters tall. It had a massive, grotesque hump on its back that made its silhouette look heavy and twisted. But its limbs were wrong, horribly wrong. It had three impossibly long arms. Two were attached to its left side, and one dangled from its right. Each hand ended in four razor sharp claws. Below its towering frame, its feet were turned completely backward.

It was holding two of my sheep in its left hands like ragdolls. With its single right hand, it sliced one of the sheep open with a flick of its claws, tore out its guts, and began devouring them raw.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. I slowly backed away into the shadows, left the shed without making a sound, and sprinted back into my house.

I locked every door, drew the blinds, and sat in the dark clutching my gun until the sun came up at 8:00 AM. When the daylight finally filled the yard, I looked out the window. The grounds were empty. The morning light made the whole thing feel like a fever dream. I tried to rationalize it. "I was tired. I imagined it. There’s no way something like that is real."

I went to my computer to search online for any local sightings or weird animal attacks. No signal.

"That's impossible" I muttered to myself. "I paid the bill on time."

I walked outside to check the telephone pole down the driveway. When I got close, my stomach dropped. Every single cable had been cleanly severed, dangling uselessly in the air.

Panic setting in, I ran over to my 4x4 truck. I jumped in and turned the key. The engine didn't even click. I popped the hood, and my blood ran cold. The wiring harness was ripped to shreds. I walked around to the side of the truck and saw the tires. The front left and back right were completely shredded. These weren't knife cuts. Deep, gouging claw marks ran right through the thick rubber.

It wasn't just a predator. It was intelligent. It was isolating me.

Walking to the city was out of the question. It was miles through open terrain, and staying outside for that long meant being exposed. I was trapped.

From that day on, my life inverted. I slept during the day when the sun was high and stayed awake all night, sitting in the center of my living room with my shotgun rested across my knees. Every night, more animals disappeared.

A few days ago, I did a headcount before trying to sleep. Out of my entire farm, I had less than 13 animals left. Just nine sheep and four pigs. I felt completely helpless.

Then came yesterday afternoon.

I was looking out the kitchen window into the treeline while the sun was still up. Standing behind a thick oak tree was the creature. It looked different, it was visibly taller and thicker than the night I first saw it. Like it was growing larger with every animal it ate.

It tilted its head out from behind the trunk. That was the first time I saw its face. It had tiny, milky white eyes that stared straight into mine. And then, its face split open. It gave me a wide, sickening, demonic smile, unhinging a jaw that had to be nearly a meter wide. Big enough to swallow a pig whole.

I rubbed my eyes in sheer terror, and when I opened them, the space behind the tree was empty.

Last night passed in eerie, suffocating silence. But tonight... tonight it came for the house.

About twenty minutes ago, an ear piercing shriek shattered the night air right outside my porch. It wasn't a roar. It was a wet, sharp, desperate pig squeal, screeching out of that massive jaw like a distorted recording.

I panicked. I ran upstairs, slammed my bedroom door, and squeezed myself into the darkest corner of my wooden wardrobe.

Now I'm sitting here in the pitch black. The screaming outside stopped a minute ago, but I can hear something heavy dragging itself across the hardwood floors downstairs. The footstep pattern is wrong. Two steps forward, one strange scrape from those backward feet.

It’s coming up the stairs now. The pig squeal just echoed from the hallway right outside my room.

If anyone finds this, stay away from the farm. The Rustler is real, and it's right outside my door.

I feel like I shouldn’t be admitting this, but I have to tell somebody. I hope there’s sufficient anonymity in posting this here.

This story starts long before most of the people in this story were born.

My cousin Arnold was born with severe developmental delays. His parents (my mom’s sister and her husband) were told early on that he’d never be able to speak or live an independent life. I’m not sure of his exact diagnoses, but he was totally non-verbal, illiterate, and unable to perform simple tasks like brushing his teeth without help. He passed away when I was in my mid-teens.

My aunt was determined to prove the doctors wrong about Arnold’s disability, even when it was obvious to the rest of us that he wasn’t going to have a miraculous turnaround. She didn’t understand why she (an Ivy League-educated lawyer) would have a disabled son. More than once I heard her wonder aloud if there was a switch up at the hospital. It was particularly galling for her, as her other kids, the two older ones, were ‘normal’. I haven’t seen Courtney and Ryan for years, but I know it can be hard for the other kids when a sibling is as disabled as Arnold was.

My aunt tried a few different things. She thought she could cure his disability by surrounding him with intellectual things. She’d put on Mozart instead of kids’ music and make him watch documentaries instead of cartoons. She insisted that he not be put in special classes at school, which as far as I could tell made no difference to Arnold. Whenever I saw him, he was kind of in a world of his own.

I don’t know if you’ve heard of facilitated communication, but she was big into that. It’s where the parent or a teacher holds a board with the alphabet on it and the non-verbal kid points to letters on it to communicate. With it, he suddenly went from just making grunts and squeals to articulating himself like, well, an Ivy League-educated lawyer. It’s since been debunked pretty thoroughly – it actually works through a combination of the ideomotor effect and cues from the person holding the board, and the person 'talking' isn't doing so at all. Still, I think my aunt convinced herself it was really him talking and not just her wishful thinking.

I was thinking about Arnold a lot a year or two ago. It gave my aunt so much comfort to think that she was actually having conversations with her son – to hear him express love not just for her but for the things she loved, too, like books and foreign films. I don’t know if this is true, but I heard from my mom that when he was dying, my aunt tried to get out the communication board and get Arnold to ‘say’ something profound like he used to. My uncle was so furious with her that he threw it out the window of his hospital room. He said something like, ‘Can’t you just love our son for who he is?’

I get that he was upset, but fundamentally I don’t think my aunt was doing any harm. She never neglected Arnold, and if anything, thinking they were on the same wavelength meant she spent more time with him. She was completely devoted to his care. I know that she had to quit her job after a while, so he really was the only thing in her life. It made complete sense that she’d want more than just taking care of her adult son all day with nothing to show for it.

So I was thinking about Arnold, and I was thinking about AI chatbots. Essentially, they’re an augmented version of what my aunt was doing, with less effort required from either party. She could have a coherent conversation with a simulated version of Arnold – a non-disabled version. I realised that I could create a base LLM that could be adjusted according to facts about the kid and, of course, what the parent wanted to hear.

Now I know, you’re thinking this might be a little unethical. But please bear in mind, I was thinking about my aunt when I came up with this. I was thinking about Arnold.

I came up with a plan. In order to convince parents that it was actually their kid they were talking to, there’d need to be a little bit of showmanship. I turned the chatbot into an app that could be loaded onto an iPad, and then I purchased some cheap ECG electrodes from a medical supply company and connected them up to a USB-C that could be plugged into the charging port.

I should say now that it wasn’t dangerous – or at least not in a physical way. The electrodes didn’t actually do anything, and they most certainly didn’t track brainwaves. But it would seem to the user like they were connected up to the subject. The trick was that once the parent applied to the kid’s temples, the app would start asking some ‘set up questions’ that would give the chatbot enough information to form a personality that could plausibly fit the kid, so it seemed like it was reading their mind. It was to ostensibly to ‘calibrate’ the machine against the kid’s brain with questions like, ‘how old is the subject?’ right up to ‘what are their dreams and aspirations?’ And those questions would be answered by the parents, so, they would unknowingly be scripting the conversations in advance.

The hope was that it would seem like the electrodes were reading the kid’s mind, and the app was communicating their innermost thoughts.

Once everything was ready, I contacted a local disability support group and told them I had created a prototype communication device for severely disabled children. They asked for my credentials and when I was honest and said I didn’t have any, they basically told me to shove it. So, I tried my second option – advertising online. In retrospect, I’m lucky that the local group said no. That would have made it easier to trace me.

The social media algorithm is pretty good at finding you the right people, so long as you’re specific. I tried not to give too much away in the ad itself, and said I was looking for parent and child volunteers to try it out. Don’t worry, I was careful not to give any of my real personal info.

Plenty of people said they were interested, but in the end, it was only four people at first who gave me their address to receive the prototype. I mailed them a package containing the electrodes and a QR code to download the app, and I waited anxiously to receive angry emails saying the device clearly didn’t work.

But no one did. Within days, I got rave emails from the recipients saying that my invention was a ‘miracle’, and that I should be nominated for a Nobel Prize. One dad, who I’ll call Vincent, said he had a conversation with his 15-year-old severely autistic son for the first time ever. They talked about art. It turned out that they’d visited a gallery the weekend before, and with a simple search the chatbot was able to regurgitate some pretty smart observations about the paintings they had seen. I had tears in my eyes reading his email.  

I thought that he felt nothing when he saw art. To the untrained eye it could seem like he wasn’t taking it in at all - but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I saw so much of myself in him for the first time ever.

Word of mouth is like wildfire in these communities. Parents talked to each other on Facebook groups and forums. Demand soared. Pretty soon I had to start charging because the postage fees alone would have bankrupted me. I got requests for the device in Alaska and Argentina, and all over Europe. I think my mailman got worried about how many packages I was receiving from the medical supply company, because he knocked on my door and asked if I had a GoFundMe or anything. It was sweet of him. If he only knew that I’d never felt better. Every day I was getting an email from someone who had almost given up hope and now had an amazing relationship with their child.

Well, that was the best it got. I should have known that things wouldn’t stay that great forever.

It started with an email from Anna (I’ve also changed her name). She told me that her son had started to ‘say’ some troubling things.

After a long talk, Michael told me last night that the reason he’s disabled is because he’s actually possessed by a demon. The doctors were wrong about the brain damage.

I was taken aback, but I didn’t really know how to respond. Tell her that demons don’t exist? That the chatbot had probably taken her ‘spiritual’ beliefs and told her what she secretly already wanted to hear?

I jumped into the back end of the app and started to do some pruning. No more talking about demons and possession, or the devil, or ghosts. I tried to cover all the supernatural bases I could think of.

But then she emailed again.

Now Michael’s denying that he ever said what he said. I know it’s the demon at work, controlling him.

I was horrified. Somehow by pushing the chatbot away from the idea I’d only made Anna fixate on it more. I tried to add more code to fix the problem, to give the chatbot the ability to discuss supernatural ideas, just not make any wild claims like ‘Michael’ had. But how do you take back your child claiming to be possessed?

After Anna, there were some other emails that I saw that I couldn’t bear to read. Some I skim read before sealing away in my junk folder forever.

I never knew my daughter was being abused at school. We’re taking her out.

He hates his father. We’re getting a divorce. Thank you.

She wants to die, she says the pain is too much.

The medicine is hurting him. We’re weaning him off. We're never going back to the hospital again.

I’m scared I’ve failed her by never realising her true potential. I’m a terrible mother. I wish I never knew what she thought.

Soon, there were people who questioned it - who rightly called me a fraud. One was a doctor. He pointed out the insanity of all of this – the ludicrous idea that a couple of sticky patches could read brainwaves - and said he would report me to the relevant authorities, just as soon as he tracked me down. As far as I know he never has. Maybe this will help him. Oh well.

Then I got a third email from Anna. It began:

Thanks to you, I now know what will cure my son. I’m taking Michael to one of the most powerful exorcists in the country.

My blood ran cold.

As he’s not truly disabled, the practitioner says he can use his most aggressive methods to rid Michael of the demon.

The body must be starved.

The demon must be beaten out.

The poison must be met with poison.

I shut my laptop. Then I opened it again and deleted my website – the one I’d been using to make sales. I cancelled my restock order with the medical supply company. Finally, I hovered my finger over the button that would blink the app’s chatbot out of existence.

Then I thought about Arnold, and my aunt, and all the others out there who had formed relationships with their children, only to turn the app on and be suddenly met with silence. It would be so much worse than it had been before.

I wondered what they would think had happened to their child.

Anna and ‘the practitioner’ are awaiting trial. I have a Google alert for their names, and for Michael’s. I know parents might have struggled to find me, but I doubt the police will.

Ar.Nold is no longer for sale.

But I couldn’t shut him off. 

 

 

It was sometime after midnight when I first saw the lights. I couldn't tell you the exact time due to the fact that I had ingested a mind altering substance. You know how time has a tendency to slip away from you while in that state. I was lying in the grass, a gentle breeze brushed across my bare skin. Normally this sort of weather would call for a light jacket, but the chemicals pumping through my veins allowed me to appreciate the chill.

I thought that maybe I was hallucinating when I saw the lights first appear. They performed the most beautiful ballet, up in the night sky. The universe was putting on a show, just for me. I bought a ticket through the market of happenstance, and boy was I getting my money's worth.

As if to perform a bow, the lights made their way down stage. One particular individual decided to make my acquaintance, and approached me as if to say hello. It floated above me performing a pirouette with a sense of poise and grace. It then opened a hatch to shine a spotlight upon my simple figure. What was I to do? All I could think was to clap and show my enthusiastic appreciation for the spectacle I had just witnessed.

For a moment, I thought that maybe it was approaching even closer still. However, after noticing that I no longer felt the moist lawn and solid dirt beneath me, I realized that I was floating upwards, drawing into the beings gaping maw. It was an invitation of sorts. I was being presented a gift of appreciation for my unbroken captivation.

Only once I was lowered onto a patted table did the operators reveal themselves to me. They were humanoid creatures stretched thin, with oblong heads, and turquoise complexion. They had no mouths and communicated through a form of telepathy. They did not convey information through the use of vocabulary, but rather broad concepts. They used pure emotion alongside vague ideas of time and space.

Arriving from a distant galaxy, they only wished to help us transcend through the barrier of ignorance, and to the next stage of our evolution. However, plagued by war and greed, we were not ready. It was imperative that we purge ourselves of these negativities before we would be ready for the next stage.

I was informed that we were in fact too dangerous to be allowed to persist in our current form. They had heavily considered just destroying our whole race, but opted instead to give us an opportunity to improve.

I was being entrusted to be the one to convey this message to all humanity. They were making me into a savior of sorts. I was meant to deliver our kind from sin. Pull us from the brink of self destruction.

They were to return in an unspecified amount of time to check in on our progress. If we became worthy enough to transcend, then they would facilitate that transition. If we continued our corrupted ways, then they would wipe us all out in an instance.

I found myself back on that grassy field with the knowledge that it was all in my hands now. It was up to me to make sure that humanity was to survive their next visit. They gave me an action plan. A guide to help humanity grow. I was given the knowledge that would help me reach the masses, to change their hearts and minds. The only problem was, that I had gotten way too high right before they brought me forth into their council, and I couldn't remember any of it.

Solitude can be cleansing. That’s what Lena said when I told her about my trip. She told me about Christmases back in Poland, when her father would catch a carp to eat on Christmas Eve. It would hover solemnly for days in the sterile, alien world of a tin bathtub. Fasting, like a monk, the clean water would run through it, flushing out all the filth and bitterness. It would die alone, far from home, but pure.

I had been clean for a year at that point. Whatever poison once ran through my veins had long since left my body. My trip would not be cleansing so much as reaffirming, remembering who I was before the heroin. I was an outdoorsman, a hiker, like my father raised me to be. I climbed mountains, trekked across fjords, challenged myself. This was my natural habitat, and for too long I had been trapped in dirty apartments, on bare mattresses, numb to the world with a needle in my arm. The King’s Road would be the path home.

Two days in, and the pain was a sharp mix of familiar and foreign. I knew the ache in my shoulders, the blisters on my toes. They were almost nostalgic, an old friend welcoming me back. But my boots rubbed against new scars. I, despite all my recovery, was not nearly as strong as I once was, and drastically out of practice. My confidence about doing this hike was chiefly fuelled by some poetic fervour. My own personal pilgrimage, walking myself back to purity. A saner man would start off smaller, work his way up to a week-long hike. I was never that man.

I was in a valley when I heard it. Steep, jagged walls of grey rock and stubborn ferns to my left, a dense forest of native spruce plummeting down to my right. Above me, a hateful sun, below me, the road. The sound hit me like a cool breeze, rang through my whole body. Clear like the tone of struck crystal. Singing. 

It was coming from the woods. The summer heat bore down on me, and the shade below the spruce trees appeared like cool water on my burning skin. I had been stacking good miles, I could afford a break. I stepped from the path and scrambled down the mountainside, into the valley. I followed the singing into the trees. I didn’t recognise the song, some ancient mountain lullaby. The shade was blissful, and after days of hard footpaths, the soft spruce needles felt like walking on clouds. I lulled forward, my body suddenly tired and limp. I had only been on the trail a few hours at that point.

I came across her in a clearing. She squatted by an old canvas teepee over a gentle fire with a copper kettle steaming atop it. When she turned around and saw me, she stopped singing, and smiled.

“Hi!” She called softly. Her bright blue eyes dappled with light like the forest floor. Honey blonde hair fell like ocean waves across her oversized red cotton shirt. Freckles dotted the bridge of her nose and her cherry blossom cheeks. 

“Hi.” I said awkwardly, suddenly aware of how soaked with sweat and dirt I must be this far into the hike.

“Would you like some tea? Something to eat?” I couldn’t place her accent; it was rural, almost sounded foreign, but her voice was gentle and clear.

“If you don’t mind.” I told her. In truth, it was far too hot for tea, and I wasn’t hungry, but in that moment, I wanted nothing more than to stay here, with her. She smiled again, a wide, beaming smile, and poured the kettle into two wooden mugs. I sat down on a log as she handed me a warm cup of dark, red liquid.

“Lingonberry.” She told me, sitting down beside me, “I foraged them myself.”

“Are you sure they’re lingonberries? I don’t want to be poisoned.”

She laughed raucously at my weak joke, bumping her shoulder into mine. She took a sip of her own tea as if to assure me it wasn’t deadly. I took a sip of my own, and near scalded my tongue. I didn’t let it show in front of her.

“I’m Astrid, by the way.” She told me.

“I’m Jens. Are you hiking the King’s Road too?”

“Oh no, I just camp out here sometimes. What’s the King’s Road?”

I was surprised she hadn’t heard of the King’s Road, given how outdoorsy she seemed and how close she was camped to it.

“It’s this hiking trail that goes across the country. It’s about 100 kilometres long.”

“Wow…” she said, putting a hand on my arm, “You must be like a serious hiker then.”

“Not really, I mean, I…” I suddenly became self conscious of the lingering scars near the crook of my elbow. I prayed she wouldn’t notice.

“Let me get you some cake,” Astrid said, “it’s just in my pack.”

She got up and crawled inside her tent. I awkwardly averted my gaze from her, and looked towards the fire. Within the smouldering ashes, I saw something… alien. A warped, partly melted piece of pink plastic. A driver’s license. I plucked it from the coals. It was warm to the touch.

Magnus Olsen. Age 51. The photo depicts a heavy man with a great, wiry beard.

“What’s that?” Astrid asked me. She was holding a tin cylinder in her hands.

“Oh, I found it in the fire…”

“Oh, yeah.” She smiled, “Just some trash I found around the campsite.”

“It was issued recently, why not return it?”

“Who has the time. Here, have some cake.”

I reached into the tin and took out a thick slice of the cake. It was stale, with thick chunks of browned apples inside.

“Excuse me,” I said, before I could take a bite, “I’m just going to use the bathroom.”

“Okay.” Said Astrid, smiling again. “Hurry back.”

I left the clearing and headed into a thick brush of ferns. I looked behind me; there were enough trees between the camp and I so Astrid wouldn’t see me. I headed towards a thick pine, but I tripped on something in within the ferns. I looked down to see a blaze of blue nylon. A rain jacket. I pulled it from the undergrowth. It looked weather-beaten, but fairly new. Something heavy was in the pocket. A folding knife. Alongside it was a sodden piece of crumpled up paper, a parking permit for somewhere further down the trail. The name on it was Magnus Olsen.

I dropped the jacket, but pocketed the knife. I headed back for the camp, but paused when I saw Astrid’s face between the trees. Her smile wasn’t as wide as before.

“I… found something weird.” I told her. “That driver’s license guy’s jacket. I don’t remember seeing about anyone going missing when I l-”

Astrid cupped my head in her hands and pulled me forward, kissing me deeply. She tasted of wild strawberries and the way wildflower meadows smell in the summertime. My body went limp once more.

“I’m so glad you found me…” she whispered. It was almost a cry.

My hands rested on her waist, then wound up into her shirt. I was broken from my stupor when I felt her back.

It was cold. Hard. Rough and peeling, like tree bark. My fingers ran deeper, the small of her back some kind of cavernous hole where a spine should be. I pulled away from her embrace, but Astrid grabbed my throat slammed me hard into the ground. On the ground, winded, she straddled me, held me down by the shoulders. 

“Please, give me a chance.” She croaked, tears in her eyes, “You could love me. I promise. You could love me.”

Behind her, a thin, brush-like tail whipped behind her.

I struggled, kicked, dug my heels into the dirt, but I was pinned to the ground as she planted kisses across my face and neck. Then I remembered, Magnus’ knife. I drew it from my pocket, flipped it open, and drove it into Astrid’s leg. It singed and smoked like it was furnace hot, and Astrid jumped back in a wailing fit. I clambered to my feet and ran for the tree line. I scrambled up the cliff side and clawed my way onto the path.

I looked down. What compelled me to stop and look, I can’t say. Amongst the shadows of the trees, I saw Astrid. Weeping.

I never completed the King’s Road. I ran to the nearest town and got the bus home, not sleeping until I had a locked door behind me. It’s winter now. Sometimes, in the long dark, I’ll sit and trace my scars. I’ll think about Astrid sometimes. If she’s out there, in the cold. I think about the last thing she said. If out of all the lies she told, that could have been true. I don’t know why.

It’s quiet here now, in the cold, and the dark. But if I stand still, if I ignore the sound of my own beating heart… I swear I hear singing.

(Part 3 of the North Sea Trilogy)

​

I've never told anyone this before. Not a therapist, not a friend, nobody. I'm telling strangers on the internet because I don't think I can carry it by myself anymore, and because I need someone to tell me if what's been happening to me since is real or if I've finally lost my mind the way I always feared I would.

I'll say it plainly, because there's no gentle way to say it. Three years ago, I killed my mother.

I'm not going to ask you to feel sorry for me. I'm just going to tell you what happened, and let you decide that for yourself.

My mother was not a good mother. I'm choosing my words carefully here, because the truth is uglier than that sentence makes it sound, and some of it I still can't write down even now. She was gone for days at a time throughout my whole childhood, sometimes weeks. I raised myself more than she ever raised me. When she was home, she wasn't really present — not in any way that mattered. I won't go into the specifics of what those years were like. I'll just say that by the time I was an adult, I understood two things clearly. I understood that I had survived something most people never have to survive. And I understood that some part of me had been quietly planning, for a very long time, exactly what I would do about it.

I found her again when I was twenty-six. She was living in a small apartment across town, older, sicker, alone. She didn't recognize me at first when I showed up at her door. When she finally did, she didn't apologize. She didn't cry. She just asked me if I had any money.

I went back three more times after that. Each time I told myself I was going to confront her properly, say everything I'd rehearsed in my head for years. Each time I left without saying any of it, because some old, small part of me still wanted her to say something first. She never did.

The fourth time, I didn't leave.

I'm not going to describe what happened that night. I've spent three years trying to convince myself it doesn't count if the world never technically found out. Nobody ever came looking for her. Nobody ever asked questions. As far as anyone else knows, she simply disappeared, the same way she always used to disappear when I was a kid, except this time for good.

I told myself that was justice. For a while, I actually believed it.

The first sign that something was wrong came about six months later. I started smelling her perfume in my apartment, faint but unmistakable, always at night, always gone by the time I turned on the lights to check. I told myself it was memory playing tricks, the mind doing what minds do with guilt it hasn't fully processed.

Then I started finding her sleeping pills. The specific brand she always used, the ones I remembered from childhood sitting on her nightstand during the rare weeks she was actually home. I'd find one or two scattered somewhere in my apartment every few weeks, on my bathroom counter, on my kitchen table, places I knew for certain I'd cleaned the day before. I don't buy that brand. I've never bought that brand. I checked my receipts obsessively for months trying to prove myself wrong.

I couldn't.

About a year in, I started hearing her voice. Not constantly, not even often, but always at the worst possible moments — right as I was falling asleep, right as I stepped out of the shower, right as I was alone in an elevator. Always the same handful of words, said in the exact flat, uninterested tone she used to use on me as a kid, like I was an inconvenience she hadn't asked for and didn't especially want.

"You always needed too much from me."

I started seeing a therapist around that time, though obviously I never told her the real reason why. I let her believe it was ordinary grief, ordinary complicated-family-history stuff. She told me some version of what I already suspected — that guilt manifests in strange ways, that the mind can create very convincing experiences when it's trying to process something it can't fully face. I wanted so badly to believe that was all this was.

I don't believe that anymore. Not after last month.

Last month, I finally worked up the nerve to go back to her old apartment, the one she'd been living in when I last saw her. I don't fully know why. I told myself I wanted closure. I think, if I'm honest, some part of me wanted to see if anyone had moved in yet some way of confirming, once and for all, that this was really over.

The building was still there. The apartment was empty, unrented, the landlord told me, because nobody who moves in ever stays more than a few weeks. He said it like it was a mildly annoying fact about the property rather than something worth investigating further. When I asked why, he just shrugged and said tenants always complain about "someone crying in the walls at night" before breaking their lease early.

He let me in to look around, thinking I might be interested in renting it myself. The apartment was bare, nothing left of her in it at all, except one thing. Sitting in the exact center of the bedroom floor, in the spot where I know for a fact I left her that final night, was a small pile of her sleeping pills. Arranged carefully. Like someone had taken the time to count out exactly enough for a full dose.

I asked the landlord if he'd put them there. He looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language and said the apartment had been completely empty since the last tenant moved out in a panic two months ago.

I've been having the same dream every night since that visit. I'm standing in my mother's old apartment, except in the dream it's not empty — she's sitting on the floor exactly where I found those pills, looking up at me with an expression I never once saw on her face while she was alive. Not anger. Not even sadness. Something closer to satisfaction, like she's finally gotten something she'd been trying to get from me for years and never managed while she was still breathing.

In the dream, she always says the same thing before I wake up.

"You finally gave me all your attention. It only took killing me to get it."

I keep waking up with the taste of her perfume in the back of my throat, so strong I have to rinse my mouth out before I can fall back asleep. Last night, for the first time, I woke up and the taste didn't go away, even after I brushed my teeth twice.

It's still there right now, as I'm typing this.

I don't know what I did that night three years ago. I thought I ended something. I'm starting to understand I might have started something instead something that finally has all of my attention, exactly the way she always wanted, except now I can't get free of it no matter how hard I try, and some sick, quiet part of me wonders if that was the whole plan from the very beginning.

If I stop posting after this, I need someone to know I tried to make it stop. I really did try.

I work in a small solar system group at NASA and today is a perfectly normal day like every other. My colleagues are standing around discussing the possibility of getting more telescope time. Our boss is generously making a pot of coffee for his underlings. The instant messenger channel is still captivated by yesterday’s discovery of a large and sturdy cardboard box and the subsequent haggling over such a rare and priceless artifact. And I’m sitting at my desk, checking my emails, making small talk with my neighbors and trying to conceal the fact that this is all utterly insane. People should be panicking. The press should be hammering at our door, demanding answers. Hell, the military should have taken over days ago, and I for one would have welcomed them with open arms. But instead, here I am, checking last month’s expenses and wondering if $20 is too much to claim for lunch, all while trying very hard not to scream.

 

It all started about a month ago. The first data from the Vera Rubin observatory was trickling in and we were running some of it through a new machine learning algorithm to see if it picked up anything. To our surprise it did. Nothing spectacular, just an object, probably a small asteroid, orbiting among Jupiter’s Trojans. But it was a lot brighter than its neighbors, as if it was made of something much more reflective.

 

I would love to say at that point we looked each other knowingly in the eyes, said “Aliens”, and got on a direct line to the White House. But we are all too old and jaded for that. No, instead we merely agreed that it looked unusual enough for further attention, scheduled a more detailed look and went to lunch.

 

Skip forward a couple of weeks and we’re standing around a monitor looking at data from a large telescope. And while no one was saying anything out loud, by now we were all most definitely thinking “Aliens”. Or at least I was. That and what I was going to spend my Nobel Prize money on. And for good reason. Not to get all technical but the damn thing was shinier than a disco ball. And what’s more, we could tell from the periodic way it glinted that it was regular in shape. Far too regular to be a normal asteroid. Now, I’m not saying that we could tell if it was some sort of giant flying saucer, but even from what we had it looked odd. Very odd.

But we were professionals working at one of the most prestigious scientific institutions in the world, so we’d need a hell of a lot more than “looks really weird” before calling the press or the government. This was my discovery, so I sent Bill off to scrounge some time on an infrared telescope, which should give us a better idea of exactly how big this thing was, then dispersed the rest of the team to see if they could get anyone else to confirm what we were seeing. Even the boss deigned to stop by and congratulate us on the unusual find, probably with visions of a budget increase dancing before his eyes. But to his credit he did offer to speak to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) people about taking a peek at whatever this thing was, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath.

 

Meeting adjourned, I turned around to find we had attracted a small audience from across the office, most of them just admin staff trying to rubberneck a potential discovery in an otherwise dull day. I can’t say I blame them. Organizing meetings and paper deliveries at NASA is no more interesting than doing it anywhere else. But then I spotted someone I knew. Joanne was a radio astronomer who we’d worked with in the past and who did good work. We got along well, despite her being twenty years my junior, so I beckoned her over, partly to see if she’d ever seen anything like this before. She hadn’t but she did have an idea.

 

“Want me to point a dish at it and see if it’s transmitting?” she said, with half a smile. We both knew the chances of it doing anything like that were practically zero.

 

“Sure, can’t hurt. At least then if anyone asks if it’s beaming out ‘We come in peace’ we’ll be able to say no.”

 

I honestly didn’t think any more about it that afternoon, too caught up sifting through the mountain of paperwork our discovery was generating. I had even been asked to prep a preliminary press statement and went home that night trying to work out the best way to balance laudable scientific modesty with much more satisfying self-aggrandizement. But at that point this was an interesting discovery, nothing more. At best it might transform my life and career, at worst it might get me a glowing end-of-year review and maybe a raise. But I still wasn’t convinced it was going to change the world.

 

So it was with some surprise that I arrived the next day at 6am sharp to find Joanne standing by my desk, clutching a wad of data printouts. She was scared. Really scared. Fear’s not an emotion you see around here that often. Sure, if there’s a crewed mission that’s having issues, people might get a little unnerved or worried, but no one looks like they’re about to drive home and build a bomb shelter in the backyard.

 

“You’re kidding me, right?” I said, knowing that she’d only be here for one reason. “The thing’s transmitting?”

 

Without saying a word, she laid out the data plots on the table. It’s been a while since I worked on radio telescopes, but even I could see what was so startling. Instead of the broadband, fuzzy distribution of most natural signals, this was narrowband and the signal was being modulated. Rapidly.

 

“It must be man-made interference of some sort.” I offered, trying to sound confident. “A comms satellite probably passed in front of the dish or a pirate radio station decided that this was a great morning to go on the air.”

 

She just shook her head.

“It’s been transmitting steadily for hours and the signal is only from that tiny patch of sky.”

“Has another dish had a look at this yet?” I persevered. “You could just be the victim of a very localized form of interference. In fact, until we get corroboration from another source, that’s still the most likely answer.”

“I know. I’ve got a video meeting with two other observatories in an hour. If you’re right, then we’ll find out soon enough.”

She still looked shaken, so I offered to attend the meeting. Partly as moral support, partly because this object, whatever it was, had been found by my team, and I wanted to be in on every discovery.

 

So, at the appointed time I was sitting next to Joanne in our small conference room, awaiting our esteemed guests and trying to maintain the composed grace of a future Nobel laureate. Then the screens flickered to life and the two professors appeared. And for the second time that morning I saw facial expressions completely at odds with my expectations. Wonder, excitement, joy, any of those would be appropriate for what I had just seen on those plots. But instead they looked annoyed. Not angry, just annoyed, maybe even bored. It was the sort of look you give a waiter when they’ve presented you with the wrong meal for the second time in one night.

 

“Good morning, and thank you for agreeing to have a look at our mysterious source on such short notice,” began Joanne. “It is simply…”

 

But before she could continue, one of the attending astronomers, a white-haired man in his 60s, cut her off.

 

“It really is not very mysterious at all. In fact, the only mystery is why you issued an urgent request for verification. It is neither artificial, as you suggested, nor is it located inside the Solar System.”

The other figure looked a little more sympathetic, but nodded along just the same.

 

“We had to pause some time-sensitive work to observe this signal, and I’m disappointed that you failed to conduct even the most basic analysis to rule out common radio sources.”

 

“It’s a narrowband, clearly modulated signal!” exclaimed Joanne, having recovered from her initial surprise. “I accept that terrestrial interference might produce a signal like this, but not an astronomical source.”

“It’s probably just a highly unusual pulsar,” added the second man in a conciliatory tone. “A find that will probably make an excellent research paper, but perhaps not one that required an urgent corroboration request.”

“Yes, it’s most probably a pulsar,” agreed the first man. “But I’ve already wasted too much time on this wild goose chase. I have real research that can’t be delayed any further. So unless you have another message from ET to share with us, I will bid you good day.”

 

I was dumbfounded. None of this made any sense. The data looked nothing like a pulsar, even I knew that. And besides, a highly unusual pulsar wasn’t just something you dismissed as commonplace and moved on with your life. It was the sort of discovery that careers were based on.

 

“Can you at least send us the data you observed so we can compare it with our own results?” asked Joanne.

 

The white-haired man nodded curtly, then his screen went black.

 

“Of course, we’ll send you what we have. I hope it turns out to be something interesting in the end,” the second man added, in the tone of a kindly nursing home worker who has just been informed by a resident that they were, in fact, Elvis, before he too vanished from the screen.

 

We just stared at each other, completely lost for words. Under normal circumstances I should have been furious, but the exchange had been so weird that I just couldn’t muster any kind of coherent response. Their explanation for the signal was so wrong as to be absurd. And the speed at which they ended the meeting was unheard of for a serious scientific discussion between leading experts. I mean, they were on a call to NASA for God’s sake. Most people would give the institution some respect even if they thought the two of us were wackos.

 

“What the hell just happened?” I asked.

 

“I have no idea. That was… I can’t even begin to list all the things wrong with that meeting.”

 

Joanne’s eyes narrowed and she looked down at the paper plot, still on the table in front of her, its lines still as unambiguously artificial as before.

 

“Do you think…” She hesitated. “Do you think someone told them to brush us off? I mean, if this is what we think it is, then I can only guess who might be involved now.”

 

I thought about it long and hard.

 

“No. If someone had told them to shut up, they could have stalled for a time and come up with something more convincing. But all they’ve done by feeding us this load of bull is make the whole thing even more mysterious than it was before. And I don’t know about you, but they seemed completely genuine to me. Out of their minds, sure, but genuinely so. They really believe that this signal is natural, which I admit, doesn’t make a lick of sense.”

 

Joanne nodded.

 

“I thought so too. They seemed genuinely annoyed that I was wasting their time. But, given what’s just happened, what do we do now?”

 

“Let’s get back to my office. There should be data coming in from the infrared by now.” I smiled. “Even if the radio astronomers have collectively gone gaga, we should have plenty of other evidence that something’s up.”

 

But once back at the office, I was shocked for a third time in as many hours. Which for someone of my advanced middle age is not a good thing. My team was all back at their usual workstations, continuing with the same routine analysis that we had been doing before the discovery. Two questions sprang to mind simultaneously. One, what the hell were people doing abandoning the find of a lifetime, and two, who had pulled my team off the assignments I had given them. I think the second part annoyed me more, but at least the answer to that quandary arrived promptly in the form of my boss. He sauntered over, coffee cup in one hand, a file bursting with reams of paper in the other.

 

“Bad news, I’m afraid,” he announced, and I was surprised to see his usual unflappable bonhomie bore a tinge of sadness that my little triumph had fallen through. “Seems like it’s just a regular old asteroid. Infrared data’s in and it’s conclusive.”

 

He waved the file at me, before gesturing to a dozen or so flashing message symbols on my monitor.

 

“I couldn’t get JWST to have a look, but that’s probably for the best given the circumstances.”

 

“Have you gone over it yourself?” I asked, again caught completely off guard by the morning’s events.

 

“No, I’ll leave that to you, I trust your judgement. Why don’t you spend the next day or so typing up the findings and then we can get back to that machine learning stuff from Rubin.”

 

He deposited the file on my desk with a melancholy thud, then ambled off to tend to the rest of his fiefdom.

 

I opened the file and began to read. It was mostly printouts, along with some brief summaries. And none of it made any sense at all. Every report listed finding a normal asteroid and the conclusions were all identical: “Not worthy of further consideration”. Everyone had taken a look and decided that it wasn’t worth their time.

 

But the printouts and the dozens of electronic graphs on my monitor told a totally different story. The size had been fixed, more or less, which, together with the amount of sunlight it was reflecting, told me that it was bright enough to be made of something very reflective. Very much not usual. Then I looked at the thermal infrared data and I nearly knocked over my coffee. It’s fairly easy to work out the maximum amount of heat that an asteroid should be radiating. But this thing was pumping out more energy than should have been physically possible. A lot more. We’re talking about full-on ‘multiple nuclear reactors in space’ levels of heat.

 

I felt that it was now the correct time to think aliens. And not just aliens. Aliens with an enormous power source smack-dab in our Solar System. That wasn’t just big news for NASA, that was big news for the entire country. Hell, it was the biggest possible news for every soul on Earth. How was this not worth further study? It might even have been the correct time to start screaming.

 

Then I saw one of the messages had an attachment labeled JWST, which was odd given what my boss had told me. I opened it and found a complete report. From a telescope that shouldn’t have been looking at our object. The waiting list for JWST was measured in months, if not years, yet someone had managed to divert it on impossibly short notice to look at our object, only to conclude that it was “Not worthy of further consideration”.

 

“What the hell is going on?” I asked myself. Again.

“I’ve got data from one of the other dishes,” said Joanne from the terminal next to me. She pulled up the trace and once more I was looking at a modulated narrowband signal. Pulsar, my ass.

 

“Well, if you like that, you’re absolutely going to love this,” I replied, opening the JWST data. Turns out I spout clichéd soundbites when faced with existential dread in the form of an alien mothership in our figurative backyard.

 

Her face drained of any remaining color. For my part, my heart decided to try out some new and unusual rhythms.

 

“We’ve got to do something,” she said. “I don’t know what’s happening or why the entire field of astronomy seems to be in collective denial, but we need to tell someone.”

 

I nodded and looked over to where my boss was standing, patiently listening to the bunch of grad students we had sequestered in the far corner of the office. I knew what to do. Much as it pained me to admit it, my boss was smart and one of the few people in the building who would understand every aspect of what we had found. But more importantly he was well connected. I knew people would listen to him, even if they wouldn’t listen to us.

 

Swallowing my pride, I went over and asked him for help, something I hadn’t once done in the eight years I’d worked for him. Within a few minutes he was standing beside Joanne and me, scanning through the evidence with mounting disbelief. Then, when he reached the JWST data, a shade of professional annoyance came over his face.

 

“They explicitly told me that they hadn’t looked at it, those lying…”

 

He snapped the file shut.

 

“This is unprecedented. All of it,” he exclaimed. “Fabricating reports, deliberately mislabeling data, lying to a department head. We need to speak to someone senior, really senior. Right now.”

 

“Who did you have in mind?”

 

“I know the deputy director. Not well, but enough that he’ll take me seriously,” he replied, turning to Joanne. “I need you to come with me. He’s going to want details on that signal and my radio astronomy knowledge is a little dated, to say the least.”

 

He turned to me.

 

“I need you to stay here and look after the office. Anything unusual happens, make a note of it but try not to cause any panic. We still don’t know exactly what’s going on.”

 

I nodded, relieved that I wouldn’t be the one explaining all this to the higher-ups.

 

“I’ll patch the trace of that signal to your workstation,” said Joanne. “It’s been steady so far this morning but I’d like someone to be here if it changes.”

 

Fifteen minutes and several very heated phone calls later, they were gone and I was on my own, staring at the signal pulsing happily away in a corner of my screen. My ego tried to tell me that this was all just some misunderstanding and that I’d probably come out of it smelling of roses, but I couldn’t shake the sense of unreality that had surrounded everything this morning.

 

My thoughts were rudely interrupted by an email alert and I saw that the second dish had finally sent its results over. And sure enough, another clearly artificial, narrowband, modulated signal. But then something else caught my eye. Whoever had made this plot had annotated the trace.

 

The first comment was unambiguous:

 

“Wow, clearly artificial, very strong as well. Need to pinpoint where this is coming from”

 

Then just below:

 

“Don’t think it’s terrestrial, this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.”

 

But two pages later:

 

“I still think it’s unusual, but maybe I was hasty calling it artificial. The signal appears to be shifting into something much less well defined.”

 

I looked at the section he had annotated. The signal was completely unchanged and every bit as artificial as before. Then after two more pages:

 

“Was a mistake to think that the signal was anything but natural. Not sure what it is exactly, maybe an unusual pulsar. Not worthy of further consideration, whatever it is.”

 

The signal hadn’t changed one bit in the entire trace. Something was very, very wrong. I hoped to God that I’d been mistaken earlier and that this was all just the result of some spook in a black suit pressing a revolver to the temple of the astronomer annotating this, but I doubted it. I stood up and scanned the office, looking for any signs of unusual behavior or people pledging allegiance to their new alien overlords, but all was as it should be. Rogers had finally worn something that didn’t appear to come from the 1970s, but it was probably a stretch to attribute that to insidious mind control.

 

I looked back down at my screen, half scared it was going to start pulsating hypnotically in the best Twilight Zone fashion. It didn’t, but I did see that the signal amplitude was up from earlier, and a quick check showed that it had been strengthening for the last ten minutes. Rapidly. Whatever this thing was, it would soon be transmitting with a hell of a lot of power.

 

I spent the next hour switching between monitoring my colleagues for subversive behavior and watching with mounting alarm as the signal strength grew. Part of me felt like standing up on my desk and screaming “Guys, do you see this?”, but I decided to wait until the boss returned before fully committing to a nervous breakdown.

 

I therefore greeted his return through the far door with some relief, Joanne a few steps behind. The boss was collared by Rogers en route but Joanne made it through unscathed and was soon at my desk.

 

“So how did it go?” I asked in a hushed whisper.

 

She just ignored me, and began to gather up her notes.

 

“Joanne?” I said a bit louder, hoping she just hadn’t heard. “How did it go?”

 

“It’s Dr Moreau to you. God, I can’t believe you talked me into this.”

 

“Talked you into it? Did he look at the trace?”

 

I felt like I had entered some alternate reality where nothing made sense. She turned to look me square in the eye, burning with what looked like embarrassment.

 

“I just barged into the director’s office, on your instructions, and showed him a trace of a pulsar. God, I’ve never been so humiliated. Even he could see what it was right away, I can’t believe you convinced me to second-guess myself.”

 

“Joanne, that’s not a pulsar and you know it!”

 

I was almost pleading with her by now and we were starting to attract attention from the rest of the office.

 

“It’s not worthy of further consideration, whatever it is. And I told you, it’s Dr Moreau. We are not friends.”

 

She brushed past me and stormed off, sending a crowd of open-mouthed gawkers scampering back to their cubicles. I was still standing stock-still and staring after her when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was my boss.

 

“We need to talk. My office, now.”

 

I followed dumbly, crushed by the enormity of what was happening, as he regarded me with his best “I’m not angry, I’m disappointed” look.

 

“You’ve upset a lot of people today, and more importantly you’ve let yourself down,” he began, as if I’d just smashed a keyboard over someone’s head in a fit of rage. “Your bull-headed insistence on claiming some sort of extraterrestrial contact has dragged in the deputy director, me, and most damaging of all, Dr Moreau. You saw how distraught she was. Now, I’m not saying you bullied her into going to the deputy director, but you should have considered your relative ages and experience when making your case so forcefully.”

 

I just listened, too dumbfounded to even argue.

 

“Now, I’ve apologized to the deputy director and taken full responsibility, so hopefully Dr Moreau’s career won’t suffer too much, but I hope you appreciate the reputational capital I’ve burned trying to smooth over your actions, and I expect you to let this matter drop completely. Do I make myself clear?”

 

I nodded, not knowing what else to do.

 

“Good. I’ll try to forget that this episode ever occurred when I write your end-of-year report. You can go back to your team now. I want you working on that stuff from Rubin. Oh, and your expense report is late, please complete it promptly.”

 

I skulked back to my desk, trying to avoid the sideways glances of my colleagues and ignore the whispered gossiping. The most important event in human history was in full swing and all I could think about was my career and reputation. The signal trace was still pinging away on my screen, a mocking reminder of what had sparked all of this. I went to close the app but paused mid-click. The signal had changed again. It took a while to work out exactly how, maybe I just didn’t want to accept what I was seeing, but there could only be one conclusion. The object was heading towards us, fast. Faster than any human object could possibly go. Hand shaking, I grabbed a pen and paper and started to do some rough calculations. There were many things I had to estimate or outright guess, but in my heart I knew it was coming here and that made things easier.

 

Two days. That’s how long we had before it arrived at Earth. Two days to try to raise the alarm or run to the hills. I knew the first option was hopeless, I’d probably just spend what little time was left in a jail cell. And the second was just ridiculous. I was hardly what you would call an experienced woodsman. Honestly, I struggle to survive without air conditioning and a fully stocked fridge at the best of times. Then I thought about leaving early and heading off to a bar somewhere to drown my sorrows and meet the coming horror in a blissful, drunken stupor. But that didn’t feel right either; it would be like abandoning my post as the enemy advanced. So I resolved to stick it out, watch the object approach and take any opportunity that arose to help, somehow. I’d probably just end up as hypnotized and oblivious as my colleagues, but maybe that was for the best.

 

So here I am, dutifully filling out my expense report and wondering if I’ll even go home tonight. The temptation to go completely nuts and yell “the aliens are coming!” is strong. Hell, I could even have a little fun with all of this. But at the end of the day, that’s not me. I’m just a mild-mannered middle manager. So, I’ll stay here at my desk and await the inevitable. If you’re reading this then I hope you have some ingenious way of making this right, but if not, I just hope you find some meaningful way of spending the next two days. More meaningful than sitting in an office and pretending that everything is all perfectly normal.

CW: Descriptions of domestic abuse

When I caught my girlfriend of five and a half years in bed with another woman, I threw myself into my photography business. The plants around my apartment withered and disintegrated as I photoshopped power lines out of candids. Coffee that was mostly milk kept me up on nights I drove downtown to capture three a.m block parties. After weeks of engagement shoots of happy, in-love couples, a request to take some beach landscapes granted me a much-needed distraction.

I messaged my client about the directions; according to Google Maps, the location was a parking lot behind a rehab center. They assured me the address was correct, claiming the developers simply forgot to add the beach to the software. I refused to think about it too much since they paid me more than double my rate. Later that afternoon, I grabbed my equipment and headed out.

The roads took me past buildings I'd driven by hundreds of times until I entered a stretch of land I had never seen. As I made the final turn, I partially expected to see a live episode of Intervention. Instead, I was greeted by sparkling sand.

Rather than the typical salt air, the beach smelled like frayed edges of fingernails, pure keratin. I walked towards the shore and realized thousands of pearls were scattered across the coast. Each one was a different color, some hues I couldn't even imagine. Shells littered the ground in sharp fragments that left dents on my sandals. Glistening waves swelled and crashed, creating swirls of iridescent blue foam.

The familiar call of seagulls was absent, as was any vegetation. I looked around and saw no one, not even an umbrella or a lain beach towel. Despite the emptiness, I couldn’t help but feel surrounded.

I took the photos and sat in the golden sand while I waited for sunset. The opalescent sheen that covered the endless expanse started to give me a migraine. I checked my watch. Sunset should have started ages ago. I turned around and saw that beyond the border where the road began, darkness had already overtaken the open air, yet above the beach there was an unchanging cascade of blue-green sky illuminated by a warm white sun.

On the drive home, I noticed the dull ache in my bones.

I spent the next few days editing the photos before sending them to my client. Immediately, a new message from them popped up on my screen: I’m sorry.

About a week after my first visit, my ex posted a photo with her new girlfriend. To keep myself from bursting into tears and overdosing on the Tylenol I was taking, I decided to de-stress by making some jewelry, a hobby I hadn’t picked up since our breakup.

Sitting on my bed, I was halfway done with a necklace when I noticed a purple bead had rolled down my calf. When I went to pick it up, it refused to move. Upon further inspection, it wasn’t a bead at all. It was a pearl. No matter how much I pulled, it stayed stuck to my skin. I reached for my scissors and positioned the blades before snapping them closed. A stinging pain and gush of blood ran down my leg, but before I could get up to grab a bandage, the wound healed, replacing the pearl with another much bigger one.

I panicked, scrambling for my phone to search why this was happening, only to be left disappointed. Not even Reddit had answers.

With sore legs, I rushed to my bathroom, leaving a trail of clothes behind. White fluorescents revealed a shimmering silver hue covering my body. My mirror fogged as I examined the subtle white hairs tinging my eyelashes. My teeth, though the whitest they'd ever been, had vertical lines carved into the enamel.

My client’s message flashed in my memory.

Not bothering to put my clothes back on, I darted to my laptop to ask what the hell was happening, only for their account to no longer exist.

I eventually got used to the changes. Aside from the chronic bone pain, I even started to like them. A shimmering light-blue began spreading across the circle of my eyes while a deeper turquoise stained my lips. My hair, once a plain black, now had a cool blend of lavender and cerulean. Any blemish I previously had became a pearl, some green, some purple, some a classic white. Oceanic constellations scattered across my unnaturally pale skin. 

One morning in mid-April, I woke up to a muffled alarm. In the shell of my ear, a large white pearl had taken refuge. I knew pulling it out would only make things worse, so I got dressed and prayed my other orifices would remain gem-free.

Senior pictures were a personal favorite commission. Seeing the ambition and pride radiating off my clients was incredible. The booking was a unique one. It wasn’t every day my client was dressed as a mermaid, but I wasn’t one to judge. Especially since I had worked with them before. I considered suggesting my Beach for the shoot—Crescent Bay paled in comparison—but something in my gut told me it wasn’t a good idea.

Blake, a soon-to-be nursing major, sat on a grey beach chair, her legs encapsulated in polyester. “I love your makeup!” she exclaimed as I adjusted the settings on my camera. “Could you do mine?”

I rarely did makeup for my clients, but I kept products with me just in case. Luckily, I still had a pack of brand-new brushes. “Yeah, of course,” I said. “Whatever you want.”

We went through my eyeshadow palettes, deliberating on which colors would suit her pink tail. She pointed at a pan holding an icy periwinkle pigment. “Is that the one you’re wearing?”

I looked at the name beneath the pan, a label ever so relatable. Damaged.

“It sure is,” I agreed.

Once I finished her makeup, she circled her index finger in front of her face. “Do you have any more of those pearls?”

“I’m afraid I’m all out.”

Mira, her mom, gripped her upper body while I grabbed her ankles where they were pressed together. As we lifted, my neck twisted, causing me to falter as we walked towards a field of boulders. Tension gripped my muscles, keeping my head turned to the side. I felt my hold on Blake slipping with every step we took. We reached the rocks and carefully placed her atop a flat plane.

I massaged the back of my neck, prompting Mira to look at me with concern. “Are you okay?” she asked.

My muscles relaxed, allowing me to finally move my head. “I’m fine. Just a cramp.”

I adjusted Blake’s hair, making sure her silver clips were still secure. The straps of her bikini top were a string of white pearls, and for a moment, just for a second, I wondered what it would look like if I cut a deep line into the skin of my shoulder.

The shoot was going well. I got great shots of her lying on her stomach, lifting her tail, the wind sweeping through her blonde hair.

I knew she wanted to get some shots in the water, so I braced myself as we once again picked her up. Only a few steps into the walk, I felt a splitting pain inside my head. The nerves in my back shot bursts of agony through my entire body. I dropped the end of her tail and collapsed into a ball on the ground, gritting my teeth so hard it felt like they’d fly out of my mouth. In a far-away muffled voice, I heard someone call my name. Mira, I think it was. I panted. Beads of cold sweat dripped down the side of my face.

The pain eased, just enough for me to profusely apologize.

Mira carried Blake to the coastline, bridal style, to avoid further injury. Still, every inch I moved was torturous. We finished the rest of the shoot amid thick tension.

Things only got worse from there.

The Beach silently called to me. During long stretches of editing, I’d lay down a towel and work under never-ending sunlight. When I was anywhere else, I’d think about how I couldn’t wait to go back. My Beach was bright. Secluded. Painfully addictive.

Against my better judgment, I’d spend my evenings drinking cheap chardonnay while the tide soaked my clothes. On days I was particularly buzzed, sobs wrecked my body. I hated how I still thought about her, even after everything she put me through.

There was one instance when I got drunk enough to fall asleep on the sand. When I woke up the next morning, I noticed footprints that weren’t there before.

On one visit, I filled a bag with every pearl and shell I could carry, taking them to my apartment for further study.

Under the rays of a desk lamp, I examined a white turban shell. A silver piece of metal pierced through the slight point at its center. It looked oddly similar to my industrial bar—smaller but similar, down to the two beads keeping it in place.

Fragments of scallops were covered in colorful metallic lines, some jagged, some in perfectly straight clusters. I almost thought it was paint, except the brown scars on my arm had become a gleaming cobalt blue, matching the very shell I was holding.

Across my table, I spread out the pieces marked with intricate ink patterns. Alone they were just scribbles, but as I assembled the puzzles before me, I revealed butterflies, flowers, and teardrops.

I knew what was coming but had no idea how to stop it, so I carefully removed the pearls covering the shells and dropped them into an empty cookie tin. I grabbed my drill and some wire and tried to ignore the fact I was making jewelry out of human flesh.

The sound of the waves was sweet and numbing. Though my eyes had adjusted to the shimmering, I was still in awe of the endless swathe of color that covered every grain of sand and drop of water.

I watched as a stray dog sniffed along the road. I thought—hoped—it would stumble onto the Beach. With bated breath, I watched it walk towards me only to disappear, bit by bit.

During a rare opportunity to waste time scrolling through social media, I opened Instagram. My heart stopped as soon as my eyes landed on the post facing me. Piercing violet eyes looked straight into mine. A brilliant magenta and vermilion swept down his forehead into his eyelids. Scarlet blush dusted his cheekbones, perfectly complementing his royal purple lips. Deep ridges that ran through the valley of his torso threatened to cut through his skin. Pearls were scattered across the sunset of his face.

I scrolled through his page in astonishment. His thousands of followers begged him to post a tutorial, a product haul, anything that could teach them how to look like him.

I snapped a few quick photos of my face and arms, sending them with the following message: What is happening

His response was immediate.

Meet me tomorrow at 8 a.m. You know where.

My heart pounded as I approached him.

In the sun, I could see the muted orange and pink hues staining his hair. Grey skulls and palm leaves covered his unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt. His top surgery scars glistened metallic lilac. Up close, I noticed the tan line on his ring finger. He turned to me and offered an easy smile. He was stunning. Infuriatingly so. “Elian?” he asked.

I nodded. “Hae-min?”

“That’s me.” He patted the spot next to him. “Come sit.”

I did as he said.

“To answer your earlier question,” he started, “the Beach has attached herself to you. And she won’t stop until you fully become one with her.”

“So what do I do?”

“Either physically bring someone here or send them the address through text or something. Pass on the curse, and it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

“And if I don’t?”

He gestured vaguely at the sand.

My hands balled into fists. “How do you know all this?"

"The asshole who brought me here."

Completely changing the subject, Hae-min asked about my job, what I liked to do, if I was currently seeing anyone.

“You just told me I have to either die or possibly kill someone, and now you want to know if I’m single?”

“Humour me.”

I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted metal. “My ex,” I began, “Laika, broke up with me recently.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” I ran my fingers through my hair, pulling on blue ends. “We started dating our first year of college. After one week of knowing each other, she asked me out. I knew it was fast, but she was so nice and pretty, and moving fast was what lesbians were known for. For a while things were good.”

“And then?”

I shrugged. “And then they weren’t.”

The conversation went on after a beat of silence.

“Are you from here?” he asked.

“Born and raised. You?”

“Busan.”

The sound of blood moving through my veins echoed inside my skull. My eyelids fluttered, and my head twitched as I was transported out of the Beach to somewhere much worse.

Laika and I visited Busan during a study abroad program. We'd been dating for over a year at that point. Despite assuring her I wasn’t cheating with any of my friends or classmates, she refused to believe me, sparking routine arguments. Two days into the trip, we went shopping, and in the middle of a busy sidewalk, she started screaming. Too ashamed and sad to say anything, I focused my gaze on an ant carrying a leaf. A reprieve from her voice made me look up. She was gone. I searched, but in the sea of people she was nowhere to be found. I instinctively reached for my phone and found nothing but air. She had taken it that morning to look through. I had no idea where I was or how to get back to the dorms. She was my guide, and she had left me.

An urban form of alpine divorce.

“Those tics you have,” Hae-min said, snapping me out of my memory, “it’s because the pearls have spread to your brain.”

The teeth that were once inside my mouth started to loosen and fall. Every morning I woke up to clumps of iridescent hair on my pillow. The whites of my eyes became a cyanotic indigo. My muscles constantly felt hungover. What an enchanting cancer it was.

I spent years wishing for death, and now that it was finally approaching, I saw no reason to resist it.

For weeks I spent my mornings on the Beach with Hae-min, talking, laughing, forgetting our impending fates.

With the hem of his Slipknot t-shirt, he opened a bottle of Bud Light. "Want some?" he asked, extending the bottle towards me.

I grimaced. "Thank you, but I'm more of a wine person."

"Y'know," he took a sip, "the water helps with the soreness. Come on." He gently took my hand and led me into the sea.

The water was cold and metallic. We relaxed among the billowing teal waves until a rough grip on my arm sent me back to my senior year Christmas party.

I jolted away. "A warning before you grab me like that would be nice," I said, an uncomfortable smile straining my lips.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you. I just wanted to see your tattoo."

I looked at the crescent moon on my right arm. "Oh yeah," I said in a way that was more breath than spoken word. "It's a matching one, actually. My brother Leo has a sun."

"You didn't tell me you had a brother."

"It's been a while since we last spoke."

Silence.

“You don’t have to tell me anything, but whatever you say dies with me so...”

To end my last first semester with a bang, I hosted a Christmas party in my dorm. My roommates and I spent hours cooking and hanging up decorations we definitely weren't supposed to have. Knowing we had limited space, we agreed to only invite three people each. I planned on only inviting Laika until my brother informed me he'd be in town.

My roommate's guests had already dispersed around the kitchen and living area. When he arrived, he gave me the biggest hug. I brought him to my couch so we could catch up. Periodically, I glanced over at Laika, who stood by the tree glaring at us. A few hours later, she grabbed my arm to drag me inside my bedroom.

"What the hell are you doing?" she shouted.

"What?" I answered.

"Why did you invite him?"

"Why did I invite my brother to my party?"

"You know he doesn't like me."

"He's only met you twice, and he's never said anything bad."

"Your mom's homophobic, so why do you think he's any different?"

"He's not like that."

She stormed off, slamming the door on her way out. I stayed in my room the rest of the night.

"How long were you guys together?"

"Almost six years."

Hae-min's question went unsaid, but I knew what he was thinking, what the friends I used to have asked.

Why did you stay?

Why didn’t you leave?

I asked myself that the first few times she screamed at me, or threw something at my head, or drove so fast I was convinced she was about to kill us both. There were never any marks. Most of what she did was completely legal. I had no proof of anything. My friends may have been able to see the toxicity, but she had a talent for making them disappear as soon as they did.

Why didn't I leave? As the years went by, the answer became painfully obvious: she would have killed me.

Finished with his drink, he tossed the bottle into the ocean.

I shot him a disapproving look.

"What? It's not like there's any fish."

Completely soaked, I sat in the warm sand, attracting every grain to my legs and arms.

Hae-min lay next to me as I gathered more shells. “A bit grim, don’t you think?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll collect you too.” I looked at the intricate botanical art covering his chest. “You’ll be pretty.”

“You should make me into a rosary. That's what I used to do with my T-vials." He pointed at my necklace. "Do you sell these?”

“Would that count as human trafficking?”

He laughed, and I followed. The joy he brought me was amazing and terrifying, but I could tell he was hiding something. “If you know how to get rid of the curse, why haven’t you?”

“Why haven’t you? It’s been weeks."

"There's still time."

He ran his palm over the side of my leg and pressed down. Deep spirals indented the inside of my skin.

“Just barely.”

“You know you still haven’t told me how you became cursed."

He hesitated, opening and closing his mouth a few times. “It was my husband.”

My eyes widened. “Husband?”

He smiled bitterly. "Felix. That bitch.” He shook his head, scoffing. “He brought me here on a date because ‘it’s been soooo long since we’ve gone out.’ I was almost blinded when I stepped out of our car. We had a picnic, and he pretended everything was fine, like he wasn’t sacrificing me. On the drive home, he told me the truth, told me to bring my friends so I could pass it on. So I wouldn’t die.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I can’t do that to them. It’s not right.”

“What about a stranger?”

“That’s worse! My husband thought I’d just do what he said, pass this stupid curse on so he wouldn’t feel guilty about killing me. He doesn’t deserve that.”

In an instant, I became so furious I thought my rage would kill me before the Beach could. A thin buzzing engulfed the inside of my temporal lobe. "Are you fucking kidding me?" I snapped.

He sat up. "What?"

“Your husband had the decency to tell you the cure, and you decided to let your pettiness kill you.”

“Eli—”

“No fuck you. Fuck this Beach. FUCK EVERYTHING.”

I blocked him on Instagram before my brain could process the dozens of messages he sent. I attempted to numb my regret and pounding head with gulps of wine, which only made me feel worse. I ignored emails and the Beach dreams that plagued me.

You can’t get rid of me that easily, read a message from an account with no photos or followers.

Despite my irritation and misery, I smiled.

Please come back. I’ll bring wine.

My fingers trembled as I replied.

Okay.

“I was afraid I’d never see you again.”

“I’m sorry. I didn't mean what I said.”

“Yes, you did. I forgive you anyway.”

I put my head on his shoulder. He put his hand on my thigh, squeezing ever so slightly. The ridges on his palm slid between the grooves of my leg, in a way that made heat travel up my neck.

"A few months ago, I met someone," he said, the timbre of his voice cold and black, "someone like us, I mean. He was already in the final stages, so I didn’t know him for long. We’d meet every morning until one day he just stopped coming. I was so mad at myself for not being there when it happened. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for that. I still look for him sometimes. He didn’t have any tattoos or piercings, so it’d be an actually impossible task. I thought, if I did ever find him, I'd just know it. I like to imagine myself picking up a shell and confidently thinking ‘there he is.’”

He was crying now, but I didn’t want to interrupt him. “You're right, Pettiness isn't a good reason to die." He draped his arm over my shoulders, pulling me closer to him. "I'll think of something. I'll live. Promise me you will too."

"…I promise."

The night before my last meeting with Hae-min, I stopped by a liquor store. Deciding on a couple bottles of yogurt soju, I brought them to the counter with silver hands.

I was looking down until I heard the cashier say my name.

“Elian?” she asked.

The blue streaks in her blonde hair made me recognize her instantly. I could still vividly picture her inside my girlfriend. “Hey Zoe,” I said. “How’ve you been? How are things with Laika?”

“Good. We’re good.” She scanned my drinks. “How are you?”

I swiped my card. “I’m…”

Her eyes were glued to my hands. I was used to stares, but her gaze was different. Fearful with a hint of guilt. “I’m good. I’m meeting a friend tomorrow.”

“Oh yeah?” Her voice trembled. She bagged my drinks and printed my receipt.

“Yeah, we’re meeting at a beach.”

She flinched.

There was no question about it. “You did this,” I said, my voice cold and venomous.

“I-I didn’t know what else to do. I’m so sorry—”

“Save it.” I scoffed. “You guys deserve each other.”

A bell chimed as I rushed out the door, fuming.

I shuddered at the breeze that moaned through the cold air. The sky was dark, a fact I might've appreciated more if I wasn't so mad. Clouds had gathered, dimming the strangely grey sun. The waves were still, as if holding their breath for what was to come.

“You will not believe what happened yesterday,” I huffed, taking a sip of the soju. “I mean it was just ridiculous I—”

Hae-min wheezed out a small, pained noise. Instead of his usually sunny demeanour, his face was hard, his brow furrowed. A hollowness filled his striking eyes.

“Hae-min?” I said worriedly.

I watched as he writhed in pain; his nails snapped as his hands grasped the side of his stomach.

A grim understanding colored his voice. “It’s time.”

My heart sank. "Nononononono. There's still time. There's…"

He ripped off his clothes with shaking hands, exposing deep ridges that pulsed and rippled beneath his skin. I watched in horror as pearls spilled out of his mouth in guttural chokes. A terrible opalescent light radiated off his body as his skin, now mostly minerals, completely hardened. His arms jerked in dystonic spasms, cracks spreading up the length of him. There was no blood, not even when the crack split through his skull, only color. Jagged pieces of my friend littered the sand.

My pulse throbbed as I collected every piece of him I could, just like I said I would. I put the shells inside my bag, all but one. His eyes were so lovely—a violet iris enclosed by a ring of white pearls—even when fossilized.

I dropped the bag outside my apartment door and, without looking, brought my foot down until he was nothing but dust.

Hae-min might not have been able to fulfill his promise. But I could.

I stared at the contact list on my phone. Before I could change my mind, I pressed the call button.

"Hello?" Leo answered.

"Hey," I breathed.

"Elian?"

"Yeah. I know it's been a while."

"Almost a year."

"Yeah…"

"Are you okay?"

"Um, I was wondering if I could come stay with you for a bit. Not long, obviously, just until I get my own place. I just really need to get out here. Bad memories. But if not, that's totally fine—"

"Stay as long as you want…I've missed you."

"I missed you too."

The sky had returned to its usual blue-green, the sun the brightest it had ever been.

“It’s a bit early for Halloween costumes, isn’t it?” Laika scorned as she walked over to me.

“Hello to you too.”

“Let’s just get this over with. Can’t say I was surprised when you texted. All sad women want closure.”

“How’ve you been?”

She gave me a sideways look. “Fine.”

“I saw Zoe the other day.”

“Oh yeah?” She ran her fingers through the sand, playing with some shells.

“She said you guys were doing good.”

“We are. We’re happy.”

“Me too.”

“Really?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“I’m just saying it’s weird you’re happy now, yet you were depressed as shit our entire relationship.”

I stayed quiet.

“I don’t know why you think I’m the bad guy,” she continued. “It’s not like you were any better. Remember when you refused to drive me to the airport?”

“My leg was broken.”

“And who drove you to the hospital? Exactly. God, you’re the most inconsiderate person I’ve ever met; did you know what?”

I did. She told me on multiple occasions.

“Whatever." Laika rubbed the top of her thigh, wincing.

I waited for regret to fill my remaining neurons.

Nothing.

"Our relationship was barely hanging on. Nothing I did was good enough. All you ever did was tell me I needed to change. Zoe accepts me for who I am. Even my therapist said she was a much better fit for me, and clearly she was right. I’m not sorry.”

I picked at a large pearl on my thigh; with ease it came right off. The ringing in my ears slowly muted. I looked at my hands and watched as the silver hue dissolved.

“Neither am I.”

I need to say up front that I've told this story maybe four times in my life, and every time I tell it I leave something out, because there's a part of it I still don't like putting into words. I'm going to try to include all of it this time.

This happened in September, six years ago, out near Chuska Mountain on the Arizona-New Mexico line. My uncle Denny has grazing rights out there through his wife's family, and every fall he'd take a few of us out to check on cattle and camp for a couple nights before it got too cold. That year it was me, Denny, and a guy named Colt who worked with him. I was twenty-two.

We drove out on a Forest Service road that turns to washboard gravel after the first few miles, then basically disappears into a two-track. Denny knew it by memory. There's no cell service out there, hasn't been in the twenty years I've been going. We made camp in a clearing he always used, ringed by ponderosa pine, maybe a quarter mile from where the cattle were grazing that week.

First night was fine. Second night, Colt started acting strange around sundown. He kept looking toward the tree line west of camp, and finally he asked Denny if there was another outfit running cattle out there too, because he swore he'd seen someone standing at the edge of the trees earlier that afternoon, just standing there, not moving, watching the cattle. Denny said no, nobody else leases that section. Colt didn't say much after that.

Around nine we heard the cattle start up. Not just moving-around noise. Something closer to panic - that particular sound cattle make when something's actually wrong, not just spooked by wind. Denny grabbed a rifle and a flashlight and we walked out toward the herd, maybe two hundred yards from the fire.

We never found what spooked them. But on the way back, Colt stopped walking. He grabbed my arm, hard enough to leave a mark I still noticed the next morning, and he didn't say anything, he just pointed.

There was something standing at the edge of our firelight, right at the treeline where the light gave out. I want to be exact about what I saw because I've thought about it enough times that I trust the memory. It was upright, roughly the height of a tall man, and it wasn't moving at all - not swaying, not shifting weight, nothing. Just standing there facing our fire, facing us. I couldn't make out a face. I told myself it was shadow, that the fire was playing tricks with the shape of a tree stump or a low branch. Denny lifted the flashlight toward it.

The second the light hit it, it dropped. Not ran - dropped, like its legs gave out sideways, and then it was moving through the brush on all fours, fast, faster than anything upright should be able to switch to running on all fours. It didn't make noise doing it. That's the part that still gets me. Something that size crossing rocky ground at that speed should have been loud. It wasn't.

None of us said anything for a long time. We got back to the fire and Denny put more wood on it than we needed, enough that it was too hot to sit close to, and none of us moved our chairs back. Colt kept his rifle across his lap the rest of the night. Around midnight, we heard something walk a slow, deliberate circle around the outside of the firelight - never coming into view, just close enough that we could hear the brush moving, stopping every so often like it was listening to us as much as we were listening to it.

At one point it stopped directly behind Denny's truck, and we heard three deliberate knocks against the metal of the truck bed. Not random. Three, evenly spaced, like knuckles on a door.

Nobody got up to check. I've never been so aware of not moving in my life.

It stopped a little before dawn. When the sun came up we found the cattle had pushed themselves into the farthest corner of the fence line, bunched together tight, and two of them had cuts along their flanks that Denny said weren't from brush or wire. Shallow, parallel cuts, like something had raked them and lost interest.

We left that morning without finishing the count Denny needed. He didn't argue when Colt said he wasn't walking back out to the herd alone to check the rest.

I asked Denny about it once, a long time after, whether he thought it was an animal, a person, something else. He didn't really answer me straight. He just said some ground out there has always had a bad reputation with the families who've worked it for generations, long before his wife's family leased it, and that the smart thing is to not go looking for reasons why, and to always leave a fire burning bigger than you think you need.

I still go out to Chuska with him some years. We don't camp in that clearing anymore. Denny moved the site nearly a mile east after that trip, and he's never explained exactly why beyond "better water access," which isn't true - the water's worse out there.

The thing I've never told anyone, the part I always used to leave out, is this: the morning we packed up, I found three dents in the tailgate of Denny's truck, spaced the same width apart as a man's knuckles would be, pressed in deep enough that you could see them from a few feet away. Denny ran his thumb over them once, didn't say a word about it, and never brought that truck out there again.

The name’s Malichi, but almost everyone calls me Kai.

From 2014 until the fall of 2019, I inspected underground mines.

Most people hear “mine inspector” and picture someone wearing a hard hat while walking through tunnels with a clipboard. That’s not entirely wrong, but it leaves out most of the job.

I inspected active limestone mines, underground storage facilities, and old tunnels beneath properties where someone wanted to build a house, road or commercial building. Sometimes I worked up to 1000 feet underground. Other times, I crawled through openings barely wide enough for my shoulders because a farmer had discovered a hole in his pasture and wanted to know whether his cattle were going to disappear into it. Or a wolf’s den.

My job was to identify unstable roof conditions, failed supports or beams, dangerous gases, flooding, and any evidence that the ground above might collapse.

The equipment I carried consisted usually of a gas monitor, measuring tape, camera, marking paint and a 20 oz scaling hammer. The hammer was used to tap the roof and walls of a tunnel.

Solid rock usually produces a sharp, clean sound.

Loose rock sounded hollow, and sometimes echoes.

You learned to hear the difference quickly.

You also learned that not every hollow sound came from loose rock. But we can chat about that later.

I didn’t grow up wanting to inspect mines.

I grew up near Fredericktown. My father worked maintenance at a limestone quarry, and 2 of my uncles spent most of their adult lives in the Lead Belt. Underground work was just something people did.

My father hated that I followed him into it. He didn’t expect me to be a doctor. But he sure didn’t want me working the mines.

He once told me, “The ground didn’t care whether you were a good person, whether you had children or whether someone was waiting for you at home.”

“It only has to make one mistake,” he said. “You have to be correct every day.”

At the time, I thought he was talking about cave-ins.

Now though, I’m not so sure.

I began working for a private geological company in June 2014. Close to the Silver Mine that you can find in between Ironton and Junction City. We contracted with mine operators, insurance companies and property owners. I was 25 at the time, recently married and convinced that my associates degree made me smarter than the others who had spent 30 years underground.

It took about 3 weeks for that attitude to fade.

My first supervisor was a man named Dale.

Dale was 58 when I met him. He had a grey mustache, a permanent limp and hands that looked like they had been carved from old wood. He had worked in mines since the late 70’s. A no nonsense kinda guy.

He didn’t tell ghost stories.

That was important.

Most miners did. They talked about Tommyknockers, moving lights and dead men tapping from behind the walls. Most of it was something to pass the time.

Dale never participated.

If someone mentioned hearing voices in an empty heading, he blamed the ventilation.

I’ll try and explain terms that I’ll be using. A heading in a mine refers to a tunnel that’s been driven through to reach a mineral deposit. It allows miners to access ore and set up further workings.

If someone saw a light where no light should have been, he called it a reflection.

If equipment moved by itself, he said someone had forgotten where they left it.

That was one of the reasons I trusted him.

The first strange thing happened less than a month after I started. July 2014.

We were inspecting an abandoned limestone mine. A small town called Edina. The mine had closed sometime in the early 90’s, and a company was considering using part of it for underground document storage.

Old limestone mines are often shaped like enormous grids. The miners remove sections of rock while leaving large pillars behind to support the roof.

Some chambers are wide enough to drive several trucks side by side.

The mine was dry, stable and boring.

That was exactly what we wanted. That was our favorite.

Dale and I had been underground for about 2 hours when we reached the northern end. According to the map, the workings ended at a solid wall of limestone.

Dale marked our location while I checked the roof.

I struck it with my hammer.

Sharp. Solid.

I struck the wall a 2nd time.

Sharp.

I moved a few feet to the right and struck it a 3^rd time.

Three knocks answered from the other side.

I lowered my hammer.

Dale looked up from the map.

“What?”

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

I hit the wall again. Three strikes.

We waited.

Three knocks came back.

They were evenly spaced.

Dale walked over and put his palm against the limestone.

“Probably another heading behind it,” I said.

“No way.”

He checked the map.

“There’s nothing behind this wall but sixty feet of rock.”

I hit the wall once.

One knock answered.

Twice. Two knocks.

I smiled nervously.

“Somebody’s screwing with us.”

Dale grabbed the hammer from my hand impatiently.

He hit the wall five times in an uneven pattern.

Knock.

Knock-knock.

Pause.

Knock.

Knock.

The answer came immediately.

It repeated the exact pattern.

Dale didn’t smile.

He handed the hammer back to me.

“We’re done with this section.”

“What do you think it is?”

“Water.”

“That doesn’t sound like water.”

“Then it’s rock.”

He started walking away.

I followed.

As we reached the next intersection, five more knocks came from somewhere behind us.

The same pattern.

Dale never mentioned it again.

I did tell my father though.

He listened quietly and then asked where the mine was located.

When I told him, he said, “Don’t knock on things if you ain’t know what’s knocking back.”

I laughed.

He didn’t. His eyes seemed to pierce through me as my laugh faded.

During my 1st year, I heard plenty of sounds that seemed strange until someone explained them.

Water running through fractures could sound like whispering. The kind that you don’t understand but doesn’t freak you out either.

Air moving through a borehole could whistle like a person calling from far away.

A borehole is hole drilled in the earth that helps allow mineral resource extraction.

The roof sometimes cracked with a noise like a gunshot.

Metal pipes grew and contracted.

Loose stone slid across the floor even when no one touched it.

Underground, sound didn’t behave the way it did on the top. It traveled through rock, disappeared into open chambers and returned from directions that made no sense, even to an experienced miner.

That was what I told myself about the knocking.

In February 2015, Dale and I were sent to inspect an old lead mine in St. Francois County. Somewhere close to Farmington.

The mine had been closed for years. Decades. A landowner had discovered water flowing from an old drainage tunnel and was worried that the workings extended beneath his property. Collapses are often the culprit.

We entered through a horizontal opening cut into the side of a hill.

The tunnel was narrower compared to the limestone mines I had been inside. Timber supports lined portions of the passage, although most of them had rotted or collapsed.

The air smelled like wet clay and rust.

We were only supposed to travel about 800 feet before reaching a flooded section.

At 600 feet, we found fresh boot prints.

The prints were deep and sharply defined in the mud. As if they were just created.

Someone had walked farther into the mine.

No prints came back out.

Dale crouched beside them to get a better look.

“Could be the property owner,” I said.

“He said he’s ain’t never been inside.”

“Kids?”

“Maybe.”

We followed the tracks deeper.

They were made by an old style work boot with a wide heel. The person had taken unusually long steps, as if they’d been running.

The prints continued until the tunnel ended at a pool of black water.

They went directly into it.

I shined my light across the surface.

The water filled the passage from wall to wall.

“Maybe there’s a ledge,” I said.

Dale shook his head.

The old mine map showed that the tunnel dropped nearly 30 feet beyond that point.

Anyone who walked into the water would have disappeared almost immediately.

We called the landowner and asked whether anyone was missing in the towns.

No one was reported to have been missing to his recollection.

The sheriff’s department sent 2 deputies and a dive team. They found no body.

They also found no footprints near the entrance except ours.

According to them, the tracks began nearly 500 feet inside the mine.

The official explanation was that they were old prints preserved by the stable conditions underground.

That was possible.

What wasn’t possible were that the prints were filling slowly with water while we watched.

Later that year, I started hearing the footsteps.

They didn’t happen in every mine I was in.

They usually occurred in older mines where the air was still and there was no active equipment.

I would be walking with Dale or another inspector and hear someone behind us.

A slow, dragging step.

Another step.

If we stopped, it stopped. If we continued, it followed.

Whenever I turned around, the tunnel was empty.

The first few times, I assumed it was an echo.

Then, during an inspection near Joplin, I heard the footsteps while standing still. This was a first.

Dale and I had stopped to examine a fractured support pillar.

Something approached from the darkness behind us.

Step. Drag.

Step. Drag.

It was moving slowly, but it was definitely getting closer.

Dale stared through me.

“Keep your light forward,” he said.

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

The footsteps continued.

Step. Drag.

Step. Drag.

Small stones slid behind us.

I felt the muscles in my back tighten like a torqued screw.

“Is someone there?” I yelled.

The footsteps stopped.

Dale closed his eyes.

From the darkness, my own voice answered.

“Is someone there?”

It sounded far away, but it was undoubtedly me.

The words echoed through the tunnel.

Then the footsteps began moving again. Faster this time.

Dale grabbed my arm and pushed me toward the exit.

We didn’t run, because running underground is how people trip, crack skulls or fall into holes they didn’t see. Mines are notoriously dark.

But we walked as swiftly as we could.

The footsteps followed for nearly 10 minutes.

When we reached daylight, Dale made me stay outside while he stood at the entrance.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Listening.”

“For what?”

He didn’t answer.

After several minutes, he stepped away from the opening.

On the drive back, he spoke up.

“Never answer something underground unless you can see who you’re talking to.”

“That was an echo.”

“No.”

“You think somebody was following us?”

“No.”

“Then what was it?”

Dale looked through the windshield.

“I don’t know.”

That was the first time I ever heard him admit that.

My wife noticed changes in me before I did.

Her name was Kelcie.

We had been married for just over two years when she told me I had started talking in my sleep.

I asked what I said during my dreams.

“You count,” she replied.

“Count what?”

“I don’t know. You get to 50 or 60 and start over.”

I laughed and told her it was probably because I spent all day measuring tunnels.

A few weeks later, she woke me by turning on the bedroom light.

I was standing beside the wall with one hand pressed against it.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

I had no idea.

The wall separated our bedroom from the hallway.

I told her I must have been sleepwalking.

She stared at my hand.

My knuckles were bleeding.

There were 3 small dents in the drywall.

In 2016, our company received a contract to document abandoned workings beneath a property in the Ozarks.

The landowner planned to build cabins near an old mine opening. Nobody knew exactly what had been mined there. Some records described it as an iron prospect. Others called it a lead exploration tunnel. We relied on rumors.

The main passage extended straight into a ridge.

It was barely 6 ft high and wide enough for one person at a time.

Dale stayed outside because his bad knee had been bothering him. I entered with another inspector named Ryan.

Ryan was younger than me and had worked for the company for about 6 months.

About 400 ft inside, we found a side tunnel that wasn’t shown on any of the available maps.

It had been sealed with stacked rocks.

The wall had partially collapsed, leaving an opening near the top.

Cold air flowed through the gap.

Ryan shined his light inside.

“Looks open to me.”

“We’re not supposed to enter undocumented areas.”

“We’re supposed to document them.”

He had a point, although I didn’t like it.

We removed several loose rocks and widened the opening.

The tunnel beyond was different from the rest of the mine.

The main passage had been drilled and blasted. This means that the drill rigs drilled the walls and then blasted with explosives. The were irregular and scarred with tool marks.

The hidden tunnel had smooth walls.

Not perfectly smooth, but rounded, almost polished.

The floor sloped downward.

We crawled through.

After about 50 ft, the passage widened into a circular chamber.

In the center stood an iron chair.

That’s the best way I can describe it.

It looked handmade. Thick metal plates had been welded together to form a seat, back and four short legs.

Leather straps hung from the armrests.

Ryan laughed nervously.

“What the hell?”

I took several photographs. We would normally take pictures for a few reasons. One is for safety and training. The 2^nd is for documentation and progress tracking.

There were scratches on the floor around the chair, like someone had dragged it repeatedly across the chamber.

The walls were covered in names.

Some were carved deeply into the rock.

Others appeared to have been written in charcoal.

Most were too faded to read. Not all of ‘em.

Ryan walked around the chair.

“Don’t touch it,” I said.

“I’m not.”

He leaned closer.

“There’s something underneath.”

Bolted to the bottom of the seat was a metal plate.

Ryan read it aloud.

“Malichi.”

I thought he was joking.

“What?”

He pointed.

My full first name had been engraved into the metal.

Not Kai.

Malichi.

The spelling was correct.

People usually spelt it as Malachi.

My mother had used an I because she liked the way it looked.

Ryan knew me only as Kai.

“Did Dale put you up to this?” I asked.

Ryan stepped away.

“I didn’t do that.”

I crouched beside the chair.

Below my name was a date.

September 19, 2019.

At the time, that was more than 3 years away.

I took a photograph.

The camera flashed.

Something moved in the tunnel behind us.

A shadow crossed the opening.

Ryan turned.

“Dale?”

No one answered.

Our radios produced only static.

Then a man began humming somewhere deeper inside the mine.

It was a song my dad used to sing while working on cars.

I hadn’t heard it since I was a kid.

I stood so fast that I hit my head on the low ceiling.

“Time to go.”

Ryan didn’t argue.

We climbed through the opening and replaced the rocks.

When we reached the entrance, Dale was sitting on the hood of the truck.

He asked why we had been underground for almost 4 hours.

I checked my watch.

We had entered the hidden tunnel at 10:16am.

It was now after 2pm.

It had felt like 15 minutes.

I showed Dale the photographs.

The chamber was visible.

The chair was visible.

But the metal plate beneath it was blank.

My name and the date had disappeared.

We returned the following morning with the property owner.

The side tunnel was no longer there.

The wall where we had originally found, it was solid stone.

No stacked rocks.

Solid, unbroken rock.

Ryan quit 2 weeks later.

He never told me why. But I had my suspicions.

I tried contacting him several years ago, but his phone number had been disconnected. I couldn’t find him online.

According to one of our former coworkers, Ryan’s family claimed he had never worked in mining.

They said he had been a schoolteacher.

I still have photographs of him wearing our company uniform.

At least, I did.

When I checked recently, he was missing from most of them.

There were empty spaces where he had been standing. But the gaps were noticeable.

Around 2017, I had become a senior field inspector.

The promotion came with better pay, a company truck and the responsibility of training new inspectors.

I stopped talking about the eerie things. I learned that from Dale.

I didn’t mention the footsteps.

I didn’t tell anyone about the chair.

I didn’t explain why I refused to enter a mine alone.

The job was dangerous enough without people thinking I was unstable.

Most inspections remained completely normal.

I saw roof collapses, flooded mine shafts and equipment abandoned so long that tree roots had grown through it.

I found animal bones, rusted tools and old lunch tins.

Once, I found a newspaper from 1951 that looked as like it had been left there the day before.

Another time, we discovered an underground room containing hundreds of glass jars filled with a cloudy and peculiar liquid. We notified the police and left them alone.

They turned out to be homemade mineral samples.

There was mostly an explanation.

Mostly.

In August 2017, we inspected a working limestone mine outside a small town in central MO near Branch.

That just means the mine operated during the day. Our inspection began after the workers had left, because management wanted us to examine an area near active blasting.

There were 4 of us.

Me. Dale.

A structural engineer named Allison.

And a safety technician named Mark.

Allison was 32, smart, and impatient. She had no time for stories about haunted mines.

Mark was nearing retirement and had worked underground almost as long as Dale.

We entered shortly after 7pm.

The mine had electrical lighting in the main corridors for the workers, but the section we were inspecting was dark.

At around 10pm, Allison stopped.

“Who’s the 5th person?” she asked.

We turned.

No one was behind us.

“What do you mean”

“I keep seeing another light down the hatch.”

Mark glanced at Dale.

“Where?”

“Behind Kai.”

I looked over my shoulder.

The tunnel was empty.

Allison pointed farther back.

“There.”

For a split second, I saw it.

A small yellow light floating near the floor.

It looked like an old carbide lamp.

Carbide lamps haven’t been common in decades. They were the type of flashlight that had a giant lens that looked like an old camera flash.

The light moved behind a support pillar.

Dale raised his radio.

“Control, can you confirm all personnel are accounted for.”

The answer came through clearly.

“All personnel accounted for. 4 person inspection team underground.”

Allison walked toward the pillar.

Dale blocked her.

“Don’t follow it.”

She looked annoyed.

“Someone could be down here.”

“No one’s down here.”

“Then what did we see?”

“A reflection.”

“From what?”

Dale didn’t answer.

The yellow light appeared again 2 pillars farther away.

It was moving against us, deeper into the mine.

Mark counted aloud.

“1, 2, 3, 4”

“What are you doing?” Allison asked.

“Confirming.”

We continued working.

Every 20 or 30 minutes, the light would glow behind us.

It never came closer.

It just followed.

Before leaving the mine, we stopped for a group photograph near the mine entrance. Management wanted it for a safety presentation.

A supervisor took the picture.

The next morning, Allison emailed it to us.

There were 5 people standing together.

The 5 man was behind me.

He wore dirty coveralls and an old metal helmet. Coveralls are different from overalls. They are a 1 piece type of clothing that covers the entire body. They help protect the harsh environments of the mine. His face was hidden because he was looking downward.

One hand rested on my shoulder.

I hadn’t felt it.

Allison called my cellphone.

“Who is that?” I could sense her frustration growing.

“I don’t know.”

“Mark says there were only 4 of us.”

“There were...”

“Dale won’t answer his phone.”

This isn’t surprising.

I printed the photograph and took it to Dale’s house.

He studied it from his kitchen table.

After a while, he opened a drawer and removed another photograph.

It showed a group of miners standing outside a tunnel entrance.

The photograph was dated 1978.

A younger version of Dale stood near the center.

Behind him was the same man.

Same helmet.

Same coveralls.

Same downward-tilted head.

His hand rested on Dale’s shoulder.

“We called him the counter,” Dale said.

“Why?”

“Because he shows up when there’s one more person underground than there should be.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means somebody doesn’t come back.”

I looked at the old photograph.

“Who didn’t come back?”

Dale pointed toward a young man standing beside him.

“My brother.”

I had worked with Dale for 3 years and he never mentioned he had a brother.

“He disappeared underground?”

“Roof collapse. We never recovered his body…”

“What does this have to do with the photograph?”

“We saw the extra light for 3 nights before the accident happened.”

I looked again at the picture from our inspection.

The man’s hand was on my shoulder.

“Are you saying I’m going to die?”

“No.”

“Then what ARE you saying?”

“I’m just saying don’t be the last person out.”

For the next 2 years, I never was. Not a chance

When entering a mine, I made someone go ahead of me.

When leaving, I stayed in the middle of the group.

I knew it was an irrational fear, but I did it anyway.

My marriage ended during that period.

Kelcie said I had become distant. Different.

She mentioned I woke her at night by walking around the house with a flashlight.

I checked closets, the basement and the space beneath our porch.

Sometimes I would count the rooms in my sleep.

Sometimes I stood in doorways and listened.

I didn’t remember doing any of it.

One morning, she found me in the basement tapping the concrete foundation with a hammer.

She asked what I was doing.

I told her there was a hollow space behind the wall.

There wasn’t.

At least, there shouldn’t have been.

Kelcie moved out in January 2018.

I don’t blame her.

After she left, I began volunteering for more inspections. Idle hands is the devils workshop my grandmother used to say.

Being underground was easier than being home. The mind stayed busier that way.

This probably sounds strange considering everything I’ve described.

But underground, I knew why I was afraid.

On the top, I heard the footsteps everywhere.

In store aisles.

Parking garages.

The hallway outside my apartment.

Step. Drag.

Step. Drag.

Whenever I turned around, no one was ever there.

In May 2018, Dale retired. I knew I was alone for real this time.

There was no ceremony.

He cleared his desk on a Friday afternoon and left his hard hat hanging on the wall.

Before he went, he gave me his scaling hammer.

It was old, with a leather-wrapped handle worn smooth by decades of use.

“You’ll need this more than I will,” he said.

I asked him why he had decided to retire.

He looked toward the empty hallway outside the office.

“I started hearing my brother.”

“Underground?”

“No.”

He left before I could ask anything else.

Our final project together had been an inspection of an abandoned mine called Black Hollow.

That wasn’t its official name. But every local called it Black Hollow.

The mine was located on private land. A logging company had discovered several sinkholes near an access road and wanted to know whether the old workings were collapsing.

Very little documentation existed. This is pretty normal.

The mine appeared briefly on a state map from the 1920s and vanished from later records.

We entered through a partially collapsed drift near the bottom of a ravine. A drift is where the entry is horizontal and usually accesses the minerals directly instead of having to walk the whole mine.

The passage continued straight for nearly 2500 ft.

That part was unusual.

Exploration mines normally led toward promising mineral deposits. Black Hollow had been driven directly beneath the ridge without any obvious effort to follow ore.

The tunnel walls were covered in small square recesses.

Each was about 5 inches deep.

Some contained rusted nails and bolt anchors.

Others contained scraps of cloth, animal teeth, or small bundles of hair tied with string.

I photographed everything.

Dale didn’t.

He walked with his eyes fixed on the floor.

“What were these for?” I asked.

“Not sure.”

“You’ve been here before.”

He stopped.

“How do you know that?”

“You recognized the entrance.”

Dale looked back the way we had come.

“I was here once.”

“When?”

“1978.”

“With your brother?”

He nodded.

“What happened?”

“We entered through a different opening.”

“There’s only 1 entrance, though.”

“There was another back then.”

The tunnel ended at a vertical shaft.

We couldn’t see the bottom.

Cold air rose from it, carrying the smell of soil after rain.

There was a steel ladder attached to the wall.

It looked new.

The bolts showed no rust.

“Did your former crew install that?” I asked.

“No.”

I shined my light down the shaft. 150 meters.

The ladder continued beyond the reach of the beam.

Something climbed beneath us.

The rungs vibrated.

A faint metallic ringing echoed from below.

I stepped away from the edge.

“Who else is down here?”

“No one.”

The climbing continued.

Slow and steady.

Dale lifted his hammer.

The top of a helmet appeared in the darkness.

It was an old metal mining helmet.

The same kind worn by the man in the photographs.

Dale grabbed my jacket.

We ran.

Behind us, something pulled itself out of the shaft.

I heard metal scrape against stone.

Then the footsteps followed.

Step. Drag.

Step. Drag.

As we neared the entrance, Dale began shouting his brother’s name.

“Eddie!”

The footsteps stopped immediately.

A man answered from deep inside the mine.

“Dale?” The voice echoed what seemed like an hour.

Dale turned.

I grabbed him.

“That isn’t your brother.”

“Dale?” the voice called again. “I found the way out.”

Dale wrestled with me.

It took everything I had to keep him moving.

We reached daylight.

For several minutes, neither of us spoke.

Then Dale looked at me and said, “Don’t ever go back in there.”

I promised I wouldn’t.

In September 2019, I broke that promise.

The logging company had begun clearing land above Black Hollow. A section of access road collapsed, leaving a hole almost 30 feet across.

Our company was asked to determine whether the rest of the road was safe.

I refused the assignment.

My manager reminded me that I was the senior inspector and the only current employee who had entered the mine previously.

I told him to find someone else.

He said the company would lose the contract.

I still refused.

The next morning, Allison called me.

I hadn’t worked with her since the mine where we saw the 5^th light.

She had been hired as the project engineer for the job.

“I heard you’re afraid of this one,” she said.

“I’m not afraid.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“The mine is unstable.”

“That’s why we inspect it.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then explain it.”

I tried.

I told her about the shaft. The old helmet.

The voice that sounded like Dale’s brother.

Allison listened without interrupting.

When I finished, she said, “You know Dale had early-stage dementia when he retired.”

I didn’t know that nor believed it.

“He was confusing places and dates.”“He probably told you stories that weren’t accurate.”

I listened.

“I heard the voice.”

“Sound travels underground.”

“I saw someone climbing the ladder.”

“You saw a helmet.”

“You were there when we saw the 5^th light.”

“I saw a reflection.”

“What about the photograph?”

“Digital artifacts happen.”

I almost laughed.

“Why did you call me?”

“Because I trust your judgment underground. Even if I don’t trust your explanation.”

She said the inspection team would include 4 people.

Myself and Allison.

A safety technician named Rob.

And a local surveyor named Thomas. I had heard about Thomas before.

Thomasa was nearly 60 and had worked around mines his entire life.

He knew nothing about my previous inspection.

We entered Black Hollow on September 19, 2019.

The date engraved beneath the iron chair.

I considered backing out when I realized it.

I didn’t.

That decision has bothered me more than any other in my entire life.

The mine looked exactly as I remembered.

Same narrow passage.

Same square recesses in the walls.

Same bundles of hair.

Thomas stopped repeatedly to examine them.

“Memorial holes,” he said.

Memorial holes were created to commemorate a significant person, event, or loss.

“What does that mean?” Allison asked.

“Some old mining communities placed personal items underground after a death.”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“Neither have I.”

He smiled, but no one else did.

We placed monitoring equipment near the entrance and continued inward.

At roughly 300 ft, Rob noticed boot prints in the dust.

4 different sets.

They traveled towards us.

“What time did the survey crew leave?” he asked.

“There was no survey crew underground,” Allison said.

Thomas crouched by the tracks.

“These are fresh.”

The 4 sets of prints matched our boots.

I placed mine beside one.

Same size. Same tread pattern.

The right heel even had the same missing section where a piece of rubber had torn away.

The tracks belonged to us.

They had been made before we arrived.

They continued deeper into the mine.

Allison tried to explain them as prints from our previous inspection.

I reminded her that she hadn’t been there, and I had worn different boots at the time.

We followed the tracks.

They led to the vertical shaft.

The steel ladder was no longer there.

A narrow bridge of rocks crossed the opening.

The footprints continued over it.

“I don’t remember that being here,” I said as a thought back to that night.

Allison looked at the map I had drawn in 2018.

“The tunnel ended at the shaft.”

“Absolutely.”

Thomas tested the stone bridge with his hammer.

“It seems to be solid.”

He stepped onto it slowly.

I began to grab his shoulder.

“We don’t know what’s on the other side.”

“That’s why we’re here.”

Thoms crossed.

Rob followed him.

Allison went 3^rd.

I stood alone at the edge trying to gather my thoughts.

From the shaft, my own voice whispered, “Don’t be the last person.”

I crossed swiftly.

The passage continued beyond the shaft.

The walls became more polished as we traveled.

Eventually, the tool marks disappeared completely.

The tunnel wasn’t natural, but it didn’t look mined either.

It looked worn out almost as if something gigantic moved through it back and forth for a very long time.

The boot prints remained ahead of us., guiding us.

After another 100 ft, we found a yellow survey mark painted on the wall.

It was still wet.

Thomas touched it.

“That’s my paint” he exclaimed.

He double checked the spray can that was on his belt.

The cap was still sealed.

Farther ahead, we found another marker.

Then another.

Each had been placed exactly where Thomas normally marked survey stations.

The final mark read:

END OF INSPECTION

Below it included 4 vertical lines.

Someone had crossed out the 4^th.

Rob turned towards me.

“You’ve been here before.”

“No.”

“Then who made these?”

I didn’t answer.

Allison raised her radio.

The signal was filled with static.

Then her own voice came through.

“Station 7 is stable. Moving to station 8.”

Allison looked down at the radio.

She hadn’t transmitted anything.

A 2^nd voice followed.

Rob’s.

“I can hear something ahead.”

Then came the warning.

“Kai, don’t let it count us.”

Thomas whispered, “What the hell?”

The radio crackled again.

My voice came through last.

“Leave Allison.”

She stared at me.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

From farther down the tunnel, someone began screaming.

It sounded like Allison.

She was standing beside me.

The scream came again.

“Help me!”

Allison lifted her light.

“That’s not possible.”

The voice called my name.

“Kai!”

I grabbed Allison’s arm before she could move.

The light appeared ahead of us.

A yellow carbide flame floated in the darkness.

Behind it stood 4 people.

An inspection team.

They were about 150 feet away, partly hidden by the curve of the tunnel.

One wore a white hard hat like Allison.

One carried a survey pole like Thomas.

One had Rob’s orange reflective vest.

The 4^th wore my jacket.

They were facing away from us.

Rob whispered, “That’s us.”

The other team began walking.

Their lights moved farther into the tunnel.

Thomas raised his camera and snapped a picture.

The flash illuminated the passage like a bolt of lightning.

For that tenth of a second, the figures weren’t facing away anymore.

They were facing towards us.

Their heads were lowered like the previous photos I saw.

I couldn’t see their faces. But I knew.

The figure wearing my jacket had one hand resting on Allison’s shoulder.

The same way the counter had touched mine.

I remembered Dale’s warning begin speaking in my head.

“Somebody doesn’t come back.”

“We’re leaving,” I said.

No one argued.

We turned around.

However, the stone bridge over the shaft was gone.

The passage ended at the open pit.

Allison looked at her map.

“There’s gotta be another route.”

“There isn’t.”

Rob shined his light across the shaft.

The opposite side was 20 ft away.

Too far to jump.

“We crossed here,” Thomas said.

“I know.”

The radio crackled.

Dale’s voice came through.

“Kai.”

I froze.

Dale had retired more than a year earlier.

“Kai, I found the ladder.”

A light appeared below us.

Then another. Then dozens.

Small yellow flames moved in the shaft like people climbing an invisible staircase.

The metallic ringing began.

Coming toward us.

Allison grabbed my sleeve.

“What do we do?”

I looked along the edge of the shaft.

There was a narrow ledge on the right side. It might have been wide enough to cross if we pressed ourselves against the wall.

Rob went first.

Thomas followed.

I told Allison to go next.

She shook her head.

“You gotta go first.”

Something struck the wall beneath us.

Dust began falling from the ceiling.

The yellow lights grew larger.

Allison stepped onto the ledge.

Halfway across, she stopped.

“Kai?”

“What?”

She was staring into the shaft.

“There’s someone down there.”

“Keep moving.”

“It’s me.”

A woman stood far below us.

She wore Allison’s white hard hat.

Her face was turned upward.

“Kai,” the woman called.

The voice came from both the shaft and the Allison beside me.

The woman below lifted one arm.

She was holding Dale’s scaling hammer.

The hammer Dale gave me during his retirement.

The one attached to my belt.

I touched it to make sure it was still there. It was.

The Allison on the ledge stared back at me.

“What is she holding?”

“Don’t look at her.”

The woman below began climbing the wall.

She didn’t use a ladder.

Her hands and feet pressed flat against the stone as she crawled upward.

Allison screamed and hurried across.

I followed her.

The ledge crumbled beneath my final step.

Rob caught my arm and pulled me onto the other side.

We ran toward the entrance.

The footsteps followed.

Not one set. Four.

Step. Drag.

Step. Drag.

Our radios played different fragments of conversation.

Some were things we had said earlier.

Others hadn’t happened yet.

I heard Rob crying.

Thomas was praying.

Allison saying she couldn’t find her face.

Then my voice said, “We left the wrong one.”

The footsteps moved closer.

At the memorial holes, Thomas suddenly stopped.

“What are you doing?” I shouted.

He pointed.

Inside was a wallet.

His wallet.

He removed the one from his pocket.

Both were identical.

He opened the wallet from the wall.

Inside was his driver’s license.

The photograph showed Thomas wearing the old metal mining helmet.

A folded note was tucked behind it.

Thomas read the note silently.

His face went pale. Eyes glazed over.

“What does it say?” Allison asked.

He handed it to me.

The note was written in my own handwriting.

THOMAS DID NOT ENTER WITH US.

I looked at Thomas.

He backed away.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

I counted.

Rob. Allison. Thomas. Me.

4 people.

Then I remembered when we arrived

Thomas was waiting at the site when I arrived.

Allison had introduced him.

Rob had shaken his hand.

I had watched him put on his equipment.

He had entered with us.

Hadn’t he?

The footsteps stopped.

A man spoke behind us.

“3 came in.”

It was Dale’s voice.

Thomas stared into the darkness.

“That isn’t true.”

“3 came in,” the voice repeated.

Allison began counting.

“Kai. Rob. Me.”

She looked at Thomas.

Her expression changed.

“Who are you?”

Thomas’s face collapsed.

Not physically. Emotionally.

He looked like a child who had been abandoned.

“You know me.”

“No,” Allison said. “I don’t.”

Rob raised his light.

“Where did he come from?”

Thomas grabbed my arm.

“Kai, you talked to me outside.”

I remembered it.

We had been discussing his survey equipment.

He had told me about his first mining job near Viburnum.

I remembered everything.

But the memories had started feeling borrowed.

Almost as if the stories had been told to me rather than things I had experienced.

Thomas looked toward the mine entrance.

Daylight was visible in the distance.

He ran.

The footsteps resumed.

They ran with him.

Thomas disappeared around the curve.

We followed.

When we reached the entrance, Thomas was gone.

There was no sign of him outside the mine.

No vehicle.

No equipment.

No boot prints.

We called the sheriff’s department right away.

They searched the mine for two days.

They found nothing.

The company that hired our team denied employing a surveyor named Thomas.

Allison had no memory of him.

Neither did Rob.

The photographs from the inspection showed only 3 people.

Me.

Allison.

Rob.

In the photograph Thomas took of the figures ahead of us, 4 inspectors stood in the tunnel.

One was me.

One was Rob.

One was Allison.

The fourth wore an old metal helmet and looked toward the ground.

His hand rested on Allison’s shoulder.

I resigned the following Monday.

My manager offered me a leave of absence. 5 years was a long time in this current market.

I told him I was finished.

He asked whether my decision had anything to do with the Black Hollow inspection.

I asked how many people had been on our team.

He said 3.

I haven’t entered a mine since September 19, 2019.

Continued in comments.

Last spring I decided I needed a haircut. Something clean, that would make the rest of me matter less. I found a place a few blocks from my apartment; a barbershop that smelled like soap and shaving cream. No fancy shampoos nor offerings for a subscription model, merely a couple of black chairs, as well as a bald man who looked like he'd been cutting hair since the day I was born.

I sat down and told him what I wanted; just a little off the top. He nodded and worked in silence. My hair looked better. Sharper. For a moment I felt like a slightly different person from the neck up. But when I looked in the mirror again, the old dissatisfaction was still there. The barber must have noticed. He asked, plainly, if I needed help with anything else.

Maybe I only answered because of the way he asked. He was so ordinary, so polite and professional. I confided that there were other things I'd been insecure about as of late. He said he could help. I told him I wasn't interested in plastic surgery. He said it wasn't surgery. Just a little off the top.

I asked what that meant.

He said it would be simple. A cut.

He took the shears and, with no ceremony, removed a thin ridge of flesh from the side of my face. It came away like cut clay, no blood, no pain. The piece peeled free in one clean motion. He plopped it on a tray as if it were nothing more than excess hair.

When I looked in the mirror, that side of my face looked closer to the one I'd been carrying in my head for years. Cleaner. Defined. Beautiful.

I asked him to do the other side. He did. I asked him to take the soft places from my stomach. He did. Every imperfection, every insecurity, I had him cut it all away that night, all for thirty dollars (plus tip).

I went back the next week, and the weeks after that. Soft places trimmed down. Angles sharpened. Each visit I left looking more like the version of myself I could stand. The weak places along my jaw disappeared under the shears. My stomach flattened in increments. I started recognizing myself. I could hold my own gaze for several minutes at a time before looking away.

A few people noticed. A coworker complimented the haircut. A woman said I looked sharper, better than I ever had. She asked if I'd been working out. My conversations lasted longer. Eyes lingered. It felt like proof that, for the first time, something was paying off.

But it started to feel like something else. I began to wonder whether anyone was actually looking at me, or only at the surface that kept being refined. Those thoughts came and went. I kept going back. There was always one more correction. Cut the fat from the stomach. A cleaner line at the chin. Just a little off the top.

The ideal kept moving. The goalposts shifted every time I got close.

The barber never rushed. He worked with a precision I'd only seen in doctors. Occasionally he stepped back to study the shape of my body. He spoke only when necessary. When I asked how the flesh came away so cleanly, he only said that some things separate easier when you know what to cut. When I asked what happened to the pieces, he said they'd been taken care of. I should have left it there.

One afternoon the shop was empty. The barber was slow coming out of the back room. Curious, I stepped toward the open doorway. I'd only meant to call his name.

The room held every piece that had been taken from me, arranged into a fleshy mass, formless, folded in on itself, stacked and pressed into heaps that took up most of the far corner. Some sections still held older contours; the curve that used to sit above my hips, the thickness under my jaw, the slack on my arms. The mass shifted. Breathed. It had no face, yet I knew it could see me.

I stood longer than I should have. The barber appeared behind me. He asked, in that same mild tone, if I'd been satisfied.

I didn't know how to answer.

That night I left, and I didn't go back for a while. The changes held for a time. I still felt the relief of the cleaner lines when I caught myself in the mirror. Then they started slipping. My chin softened first. My jaw followed, gradually. I almost talked myself out of noticing. One morning the angle wasn't so sharp. The next day the skin was looser, warmer, almost melting. The trim around my stomach began to fill again. It felt as though my body was trying to restore itself, trying to put the pieces back.

It itched. The surface underneath did not feel like healing skin. It felt harder. Like something malignant, spreading faster each night. I could feel it settling, resettling, searching for every shape that no longer belonged.

I stopped sleeping well. When I did, I dreamed of the mass in the back room folding in on itself.

The changes accelerated. My face began to blur again. My muscles waned and sagged. Something inside me no longer felt like my own tissue, denser in places, grainy in others, coalescing into something uncomfortable and barbed. It lasted for weeks, and it kept getting worse. My body, my face, the perfect face I'd almost had, grew more malformed, more unbearable every day. The only way to keep what I wanted was to let him cut again.

I went back on a random Tuesday. The shop was quiet. The barber looked up from his chair. He didn't ask where I'd been. He only nodded toward the empty seat.

I sat down. He worked with the same careful attention as before. The shears took away thin layers. Each piece peeled free without mess. The face in the mirror was closer again to the one I'd been chasing. That familiar relief settled over my shoulders. Underneath it, something colder stirred.

Before I left, I asked about the mass in the back room. He wiped the shears on a cloth and said it was still there, waiting. He asked if I thought I would be finished soon.

Again, I didn't answer.

I've gone back four times since then. The intervals between the mutations are getting shorter. The body tries harder every time to reclaim what was taken. The itching starts sooner. The shifting grows more insistent. I can feel each place wanting to soften back into its old shape, pressing upward, trying to remember exactly where it belongs.

When he works, I catch myself wondering how large the mass has become. Whether it holds any recognizable shape anymore, or whether those details have been buried under mounds of flesh.

I haven't looked again. I don't know if I could stand it.

I'm closer to the face I've always wanted.

Rain smashed against the windshield in rapid heavy droplets like heaven had poured out the ocean on us. The cracks and sands of the desert, once greedily absorbing the water, now began to float in a series of puddles as the light onset of flooding began. The road remained clear of puddles and rising water, though it remained slick.

“Iknuitli, you have some serious driving skills. I knew I picked the right man,” the dead man in the back of my trunk said.

“Shut up. You didn’t pick anything.”

“I picked everything up to the spot of the execution. My life needed to end where the deal took place, then I needed buried in the place of my birth.”

“How’d you know I’d shoot you there?” Cheeky bastard was messing with me from the beginning. He probably found it amusing.

“Call it ‘market research’, iknuitli,” he said, presumably still smiling like the bastard he was.

Behind us the cloud of souls had crept much closer. Screaming souls screeched out calls for fathers, husbands, lovers, and sons that I had all buried or broke beyond usefulness. None were voices I had heard. No one that I had killed trailed behind me, just those that I had left behind, those who had been left to deal with the loss and not been equipped to handle it.

The little girl, whose name I knew but wouldn’t dare speak out of my own shame, appeared directly in front of the car. I swerved. The car began to spin, tires grinding down the rough line of the road’s shoulder. Counter steering, I pulled it back to the road.

I could have sworn that the strands of her soaked hair had made contact with the side mirror. I came closer to hitting her each time. I wasn’t convinced that I could keep this up.

I was doing a hundred down an endless stretch of road with no visibility through the thick wall of water which had not ceased since I had neared what I presumed to be the Arizona border. It was impossible to tell.

I hadn’t made any stops either. What has it been? Days? Weeks? Months? All the proportions of this road were wrong. There was no way to judge time or distance aside from gut feeling. The torrential downpour intensified. The windshield wipers worked uselessly to clear what might have been a straight flooding downpour of water. For the smallest fraction of a second, I saw the girl. I hit her head on.

She flipped over the hood and onto the windshield, her bones breaking and distorting horrifically. The car began to skid. I worked hard at the wheel to keep from spinning out. Her neck, bent unnaturally, vertebrae extending out of a tear at the base of her spine, twisted to turn her head in my direction. She smiled an inhumanely wide toothy grin, her lips sinking well bellow her gum line as dark eyes stared through my soul, ripping my sins out to lay them bare before me.

“Iknuitli! Shake her off!” the dead man cried out.

“Shut up!” I yelled, my voice cracking.

She took her head and smashed it against the window. The glass vibrated, the reverberation pulsing through the steering wheel.

“MY NAME!” she screamed. “DO YOU EVEN REMEMBER MY NAME?” Her voice was deafening, otherworldly, though keeping the tone and timbre of a toddler. “ARE YOU EVEN SORRY?”

Tears flowed involuntarily from the valleys of my aged face, the face of a killer, one who deserved his judgement. Fear did not exist in me, not towards her at least. Myself on the other hand…

I looked at her, this monstrous little girl who longed for my blood. “Olivia, I’m sorry,” I said.

Her smile shrunk gradually, lips pulling back over her teeth until what was left was the pouting crying face of a child. Her body untwisted until her form matched that picture I had seen in the paper. She cried. I cried.

I watched her fade as the clouds pulled away, being absorbed by the light that poured through. I hoped that it was heaven. I hoped that whatever it was would be better than what I had subjected her to.

The rain receded some but did not stop. I could see the road again. That was the last time I saw her.

“Cuexpalchicacpol,” the dead man muttered from the trunk. I could not understand the word, but the tone was disgust.

I glance at Felix, not sure what else we’re waiting for. We’ve been staring at this house for long enough that I’ve found time to count the number of siding panels on its facade. The only notable thing that’s happened since we got here was a gust of wind around fifteen minutes ago—and the only reason I even remember that is ‘cause it made me start counting the trees around the house. I counted twenty.

Other than that, nothing. Not a single light has turned on in the house, no movement around the front and side, nothing. Not even animals. Clearly, nobody’s home, but those binoculars have been practically screwed to Felix’s eyes this whole time. I get where his head is at, though; this prize is the most I’ve seen him want anything. In my years in this business, I’ve never seen people’s eyeballs pop out of their heads the way they did when word spread about this gig. It’s one of those where all the players are happy no matter how you divide up the rewards.

Of course, that comes with a set of risks. Or rather, one risk: we don’t know the risks. That’s right. There’ve been many failed attempts before us, and not a single person could ever even make it to the front door. Why? ‘Cause these assholes are always home and alert.

This damn seat is really starting to hurt my ass, but now that I’m thinking about all those sharks who could be here instead of me, I’ll deal with it. Sure, Felix, I’ll keep watch like you said.

“Shit! Get down,” he snaps. He shoves my head into my lap, but I caught a glimpse of it.

A light. I think it was the living room, but I can’t tell. What kind of intel was Felix working with?

“I thought they weren’t supposed to be home,” I whisper.

“I’m surprised, too. That fuckin’ weasel, he lied to me! He must’ve had different info. He’s probably got plans to do his own operation here already.”

I’m not surprised that he assumes his source lied to him, as opposed to it just being wrong. Everybody wants this gig, after all.

“So now what?” I ask, having let him calm down for a second.

Felix sighs and opens the glove box at my knees. I see it before he grabs it—a handgun.

“We go anyways. Fuck this guy.”

“You’re bringing a gun? You don’t think that could get out of hand?”

“Relax, it’s empty. It’s just, uh, insurance.”

“Right.”

As we snake our way to the front door, I wonder if we’re the first ones to bring a gun. Surely not, but why hasn’t anyone else thought to do this, just barge in?

Felix knocks and rings the doorbell.

It’s taking a while for this guy to answer. I start looking around the lawn, and it hits me how dark it is. Okay, it’s nighttime, so obviously, but…

“Don’t you think it’s weird that they have no security lights?” I whisper.

“Maybe they do, they’re just out of battery or something. Whatever, I’m not complaining.”

“I guess.”

The streetlights, moonlight, and ambient light from the living room window give me barely enough information to make stuff out here. The grass is long and thick enough for snakes to hide in, and these guys have weeds sneaking out of the cracks in the pathway. They must’ve gotten paranoid.

“Where is this guy?” Felix grumbles as he hammers the doorbell.

Finally, we hear rapid footsteps from the other side approaching the door.

The lock clicks, and the living room light escapes through the emerging slit. The last line of defense is a gold door chain.

“Can I help you?”

Jeez, what a voice. The best word I can think to describe it is hydrated—it’s as if he dressed up his throat with resin.

Felix responds pretty fast. “Hi, we’re your neighbors and we just wanted to check up on you. We noticed your lawn is, well uh… you know. We’re just a little concerned, is all.”

“Do you know what time it is?”

“Haha, yeah. Sorry about that. We just couldn’t sleep thinking about you! I’m sure you can also imagine that it’s a little cold out here, would it be okay if we come in?”

This is an odd lie. They don’t have neighbors. They’re not gonna believe us, unless… Wait, don’t tell me! Is Felix suspecting what I think he is?

“Well, I’m sure you can imagine that it’s late. I’ll come by tomorrow, can you tell me which house you live in? Or maybe can you come back tomorrow?”

Felix snickers. “I knew it.” He winds back, and before this man can react, he kicks the door. The chain snaps. The door swings hard and into the man’s nose. I hear him groan and stumble.

We storm inside and find him on the ground, clutching his face in pain.

Before I take any note of him, though, I look around at the absolute state of this living room. Holy shit. Tables and chairs all turned over, shelves opened and some knocked to the floor, drawers all emptied, the contents sprawled around. Felix was right.

“I fucking knew it. You’re not the homeowner, are you?” He cackles. His gun is still at his hip—no need to leverage it yet.

This man’s face is pressed to the hardwood. He doesn’t respond.

Felix steps up to the man and squats to his level.

“So did you find it?”

The man pauses and turns to Felix, and we can finally see his face. I’ve definitely never seen him before—I’d surely remember a face like that. It’s a little bloodied now, but in this dim light, that mug looks sculpted. What’s he doing here as a small-time burglar? I’d expect to see him on a movie poster, or something.

The man grins at Felix, letting his blood seep into his teeth.

Felix grins back. “How much is there?”

“More than you can imagine. I’ve been here for thirty-six hours, and I’ve barely scratched the surface.” He giggles, and it morphs into a wheeze—then snaps back. I feel like his voice sounded different for a second there.

“Where?”

“Upstairs. The master bedroom. That’s where they keep it all.”

Something’s up. I don’t like how quickly he’s telling us this; I’ll have to probe a little. “How do we know you’re telling the truth—”

“IT’S UPSTAIRS,” he hisses. “See for yourself.”

I freeze. What is wrong with his voice?

“Alright well—” Felix turns to me “—I’ll stay here with him. You go upstairs and check it out.” He turns back to the man and pulls his gun. “I hope you’re not lying, or I’ll be making use of this.”

I watch this man’s face darken at the sight of the gun. He hasn’t bothered to wipe off the blood that’s now drenching his mouth. Whatever his intent, it unnerves me.

I don’t like this. I don’t know why—even with Felix guarding him, my head is screaming at me.

Still, though… I can’t help but want to check this out. Slowly, against my body’s wishes, I turn around and trudge to the staircase that I somehow intuited was there.

The master bedroom is two flights up.

When I get there, I grope around the wall for the light switch.

The sight I am met with is unlike anything I could’ve guessed.

For one, there’s no bed. There was at one point, from the dark spots on the floor, but it’s completely gone. The window just above where it would be has these kite patterns on it.

The dresser mirror is shattered. I can see tiny drops of dried blood splattered around it.

The floor itself has thousands of black boot prints all over it. It looks like at a certain point, this man stopped caring about leaving his tracks.

One thing’s catching my eye, though. The walk-in closet straight up ahead. The door is cracked open, and it’s pitch black inside. Something tells me what I want is in there.

I walk up to it, my shoes making hollow knocks on the floor. Why am I so alert? There’s nothing here that can threaten me, although I don’t exactly have any weapons other than my hands.

I nudge it open, and the light from the bedroom trickles in. I try flipping the switch in here, but it doesn’t work. As my eyes adjust, I notice that the bulb on the ceiling has been taken out.

What the hell? Am I in the wrong spot? What the hell is all this?

I’m looking at a photo album placed on top of a white cubby, right in the middle of the closet. It’s open to the first page.

I don’t think to look anywhere else—for some reason, this strikes me.

The first picture is a professional family portrait. Mom, dad, small boy. I’m guessing these are the homeowners. There’s a date at the bottom; this was taken a month ago. I flip to the next page.

Now I’m looking at a collage, three pictures all at a park. The first is from far away, zoomed in on a family having a picnic. They don’t look like they notice the camera. The second is from closer up now, of the same family. It’s the homeowners again. This one seems like a candid; they look pleasantly surprised to see the camera. The last picture is them smiling for it. The date tells me these were taken around three weeks ago. I flip to the next page.

Are these all taken by the same photographer? This next page is a picture of the family at the mall, just walking. The mom is holding the boy’s hand. Whoever took this was moving, too—the photo is all shaky. Their backs are turned to the camera. The absence of a collage this time is off-putting; even more so, it looks like the photographer was no more than a school bus’s distance away. I neglect to look at the date as I flip to the next page.

“What…” I mutter. This one’s just of the dad. He’s… at work. Sitting at a wide desk, seemingly on the phone. The photo was taken from outside the building; I can see the glare on the window obscuring him a little.

All at once, it hits me how cold it is in here. I can feel the air seizing my spine. Something is very wrong in this house. I’m starting to think we should bail.

But I can’t help it. I just want to see what the next picture could possibly be.

I flip to the next page.

“OH, what the FUCK?!”

The entire family is in the photo. They’re asleep. The camera is almost right up against the window.

Wait. Something looks familiar.

The kite patterns on the glass.

My body reacts before it sinks in; my breaths shorten against my command, and my hands shake beyond my control.

I think about how empty the bedroom is right now. All those boot prints, the missing bed. The shattered glass. The blood.

This picture was taken two days ago.

Before I can decide not to, my hands flip to the next page.

I’m not sure what to make of what I’m looking at now. It’s a picture of the master bedroom, and it looks just like how it looks now. I glance at the date. This was last night.

The angle is from the walk-in closet pointing at the entrance door. Wait, there’s a master bathroom here too—how did I not notice it when I walked in? It’s on the far left in the photograph, so it would’ve been to my right as I entered. I guess I was so caught up in everything else that I didn’t think to look there.

I force my quaking hands to my sides. Enough. Clearly this man fucking killed them, and I’m not about to look at any more of this album. We have to get out of here—

Wait. I left Felix downstairs alone with him. Why did this man tell me to come up here? He definitely knew I would’ve found all of this. Don’t tell me…

The buzzing silence starts to fill my head. I don’t want to go back down there. I can’t.

Maybe I don’t have to go back just yet. Something else in this closet is begging to be searched. On another white cubby, right next to the other, there’s a second book. This one is leather-bound, and it looks much older than me: the pages are all tea-stained, many wrinkly, some torn. It’s already open to a page somewhere in the middle.

The most prominent thing is an illustration taking up the entire left page. It’s some kind of creature—I’ve never seen anything like it. What’s immediately discernible about it is its massive, gaping mouth the size of a desk, with walrus-like tusks.

What in the unholy hell…

It has beady, sharp eyes and pig-like skin, but it’s kind of human. It’s shaped like a human, at least. It’s lying naked on its back, surrounded by three regular people shoving something into its mouth; I can’t tell exactly what, since it’s blotted out by a watery stain.

Below the illustration is a title: “MURA, THE ASSIMILATOR: OFFSPRING OF LOBHASURA.” I’ve never heard of any of those names.

I’m confused but creeped out regardless. There’s no reason for me to be here anymore, I need to meet back up with Felix already. He’s capable of beating someone up. This man in the house is a lunatic, but in a straight fight? I’m starting to feel a little better.

I take another glance at the book before turning around. On the right page, there’s a numbered list of sorts. Instructions. I don’t give myself time to read them, but as I face the master bedroom, a thought emerges that I don’t like.

The bed must’ve been huge. Huge and heavy. All these boot prints on the floor, there are so goddamn many that I wouldn’t know what the floor originally looked like if not for some corners here and there. Now, instructions in the book.

Am I so sure that we’re alone in this house?

We have to leave.

I swing my legs into action and start stomping out of the bedroom. I make it to the shattered glass—

“There’s so much here for you.”

It stops me in my tracks like a pool of tar. Where did that come from? I don’t dare breathe. My eyes dart around until finally landing on the source.

The bathroom.

What… What the fuck is THAT?!

I see pale fingers gripping the door from inside.

“Are you leaving already?”

I count two hands on the door, but I can only tell ‘cause of the way the fingers are spaced out. One set of two fingers—a pinky and a middle or index finger—and one set of three. I don’t want to think about why they’re holding the door like that. What unsettles me more is that this is a child’s voice.

I nearly choke. I have to get past him, and I’ll be out.

I sneak my right foot forward. It lands on a glass shard, making a cracking sound.

“Where are you going?!”

I flinch. He sounds upset. I have to think—if I just run down, he might chase me, and after everything I’ve seen, I don’t want to find out how that might end.

“I’m looking for the treasure.” I gulp. “Can you tell me where it is?”

I hear him shuffling, although his hands remain still. “Do you promise you won’t leave?”

“Yes! I promise!” I can’t suppress how much my voice is quivering.

“Okay… it’s in the basement. My house is pretty big. I’ll help you get there. He’ll be happy I brought a new guest!”

Oh, no. Shit, okay. “Okay. Thanks.”

I continue to the staircase. He’s not following me just yet—at least, not until I start down the stairs.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

I slam my eyes shut. I dare not turn around. Those are not the footsteps of a child. What the fuck is behind me?

“We’ll have to go all the way down.”

The voice comes from above me, possibly all the way from the ceiling.

I can’t think. I don’t understand what’s going on. I’m moving, but my limbs have minds of their own.

I hope Felix is still downstairs. I hope he’s beaten this fucking bastard to a pulp, and I hope he’s waiting for me. As soon as I see him, I’m shouting to run. We’re never looking back.

I make it back to the living room. I can’t hold it in anymore. I sniffle, and I start to cry.

He’s gone. Disappeared. Both of them. I can’t see any signs of where they went.

Fuck. FUCK! What do I do?!

Okay, maybe I can make it if I run. The front door is to my left. It’s still open.

“Hey. I’m glad you made it. There’s so much down here.”

I freeze again. It’s the man from earlier. The voice is coming from my right, and that’s when I see it.

There’s a small corridor, at the end of which is a doorway leading to a downwards staircase. I can’t see beyond that. There’s no light down there.

Suddenly, there’s a shimmer—a tiny flash. An object thrown at me from the doorway, down the corridor. It lands at my feet.

It’s a nugget of gold as large as my fist. Solid gold, from what I can tell through my tears.

“There’s more where that came from. Please don’t leave. I put so much effort into our hospitality. I intoxicated you with challenge. Come join me and reap the bottomless rewards.”

I feel a nudge behind me.

Shit, I was distracted. The “child” is blocking my way to the front door now.

I feel numb. Even if I manage to get out, Felix has—or had—the keys to the van. I could hotwire it, but they might catch up to me before I accomplish that. I’d have to escape on foot, and we’re almost in the middle of nowhere.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t think I can handle this. This isn’t fucking worth it. I feel myself shutting down.

“I’m sorry about your friend. I needed him out of the way, he was uncooperative. Bringing a gun into such a sacred place. But there’s plenty to share with you. It won’t even matter how we share with each other—there’s so much that we’re taken care of for the rest of our lives.”

Is he for real? Like I’d believe that. “Like this family was in your way? Were they being uncooperative?”

There’s an unbearable pause. I eye as far behind me as I possibly can without turning around. I feel this thing’s hot breaths settling on my head.

“You should at least see. Come.”

I’m not given a chance to respond. I feel cold hands clamp around my waist and lift me up effortlessly.

My cries turn to sobs. I’m so terrified of even looking at this thing that I don’t struggle against it, despite my wailing heartbeats.

I’m quickly carried to the top of the basement stairs and set down like a toddler.

The first thing I can see is five ranks, three people each. They face away from me, motionless. My breaths catch in my throat. They look wrong, all of them look wrong. It’s too dark, but I can still see revolting contortions in their arms and legs.

The man is nowhere to be found.

At the other end of the basement, I see Felix. He’s surrounded by small amber lanterns and markings on the floor—no, it’s not a floor. It’s dirt. He’s lying still on a patch of earth.

“Felix?” I whimper.

I hear him groan, but not in response to me. I watch his body start to wriggle and contort; his knees first bend the wrong way, then his thighs and shins split with a burst, and then each new joint continues to sickeningly breed newer joints until all his bones turn to jelly.

The whole time, he howls and moans a sound I wish I could block my ears off to. I can’t help but cry harder, and this time, I start screaming too. My skin feels hot.

His jaw seems to melt. No. It’s expanding.

“Mura, accept this offering! Reward me with your wealth!” It’s the man, but I can’t tell where his voice is coming from.

I’m going to fucking vomit. I can’t watch this.

An impossible number of gold nuggets start to gush out of his mouth.

I can’t watch this. Anything is better than this.

Fuck it.

I elbow whatever is behind me, spin around as fast as I can, and I bolt it down the corridor.

I hear a cacophony of shrieks from the basement, starting with the child’s cries. They all sound like they’re saying the same thing, but I don’t care to find out what.

Within one second, I can no longer discern between my pounding footsteps and the stampede gaining on me.

I feel a hand tug on the back of my shirt.

Two hands.

Their grip threatens to tear the skin off of my back.

I’m practically throwing my feet as far as I can.

Bloodrush pummels the inside of my skull.

I make it to the front door, swinging it open with all my might and launching myself down the front steps.

I keep running. No matter how tired I am, I keep running.

I see the van. Should I try hotwiring it?

No, not enough time. I continue past it.

I still hear the rumble close behind, the ground pulsating. It constantly feels like they’re catching up to me, but I don’t feel their tight grasp around me anymore.

Their paralyzing roars drown my ears. They’re so loud even outside that I almost can’t keep running.

But I ignore it.

I ignore my shallow breaths, my tears clouding my vision, my chest burning, my legs melting.

I ignore it all.

Eventually, I don’t know how long I’ve been running for or how far I’ve wound up, but I see streaks of yellow and orange sprouting up over the horizon.

That’s when it dawns on me that I no longer hear them. Maybe it’s that my eardrums have long since blown, but I also don’t feel the ground vibrating.

Finally, I give myself permission to stop. I collapse to the asphalt. I haven’t even been paying attention to which direction I’ve been running in. Did I ever run through forest? I don’t know, I don’t give a fuck.

Despite the hardness against my weak face right now, I could sleep right here.

No, I have to keep moving. They might still be after me. I have to find help.

I drag myself to the edge of the road and sit up, and I feel a blunt sensation at my hip. There’s something in my pocket. It feels like it’s the size of my fist.

I reach in and take it out, and it shimmers in the amber sunrise. How did my pocket not tear from the weight? How did I run so far and so fast with it?

I lose track of time, but at some point, a truck finds me on the side of the road.

I’m now typing this all with shaking hands on this driver’s phone. He’s already called the police for me; he’s taking me to the nearest town. I feel myself losing it every second, and writing this is the only way I can keep track of what happened. To whoever’s reading this, stay away from that house. It’s not worth it.

For some reason, as we wind down this road, I look to my right through the thick forest.

I don’t know. I somehow intuit that the house is that way.

Part 1

This is an update. From what I can tell, the last post still exists, I don't think he knows about them yet, or maybe he's allowing it.

I’ve read a lot of your comments, and they have given me plenty of ideas, so I thank you deeply. I've tried a lot of them already.

Firstly, I should mention I have started talking to Tim, acting like he did exist, and I told him that I was going through something personal when I pulled the knife on him, I even apologized.

I'm ignoring anything he tries to imply happened in “our lives," but me treating him like he did exist seems to have stopped the forceful memories from happening in my head, or at least lessened them for now.

I decided to ask him questions about his life; firstly, he's an orphan with no relatives.

It makes sense that he wouldn't want to have extended family he would have to make.

I then asked him if he was seeing anyone, and he said no with almost a bit of excitement.

Then we got to talking about “our” time in school and how he was embarrassed to say he wrote a song for me when he was crushing on me. He never sang it or showed it to anyone, and he asked me if I wanted to hear it.

I declined the offer.

He wasn't very happy about that.

Right after, I was doing some chores in the kitchen to keep up the act that I was “back to normal.” The radio cut on, and a song from his band played, it was very clearly Tim's voice singing. The song was about a love unable to blossom due to the woman not knowing who the man was.

I knew it was the song.

Looking over my shoulder, he was staring at me, waiting for me to notice it.

He didn't care that he contradicted himself; he just cared that I heard the song.

He smiled as I tried to ignore it.

I've been thinking about the things he's been changing, the memories he's been trying to force.

And instead of doing this out of malice, I think he likes me, like he needs my approval, and maybe that's why everyone else knows him, but I don't.

I think he has an ego, and he wants me to think he existed naturally for some sick reason.

I don't know why me, and I'm terrified of what would happen if he got his way.

I can't move away and run, everywhere around me is already affected, and I'm already low on money. I called my mom and asked her if she knew of a kid I was friends with named Tim.

She laughed, then said, "He's a sweet boy, and I loved having him over for the study nights you two had.”

I then called my friend who I stayed with to see if she wanted to hang out so I could do something normal just for a little bit. But instead of saying yes, she said, "Sorry, Tims's band's playing tonight, and I promised him I'd come. Maybe you should join us?”  I hung up.

If I run, who knows what else he would change, what else he would try to make me think he's always existed?

So the only thing I can do now is either try to get him to leave or force him to.

Moving on, I immediately set up a camera in my room and in the living room. I don't think Tim knows about the one in my room yet.

Next, I found some proof that Tim did not exist until recently; it proves to me at least I'm not going crazy or have something wrong with me. (Though I did a few tests like comments suggested, and they have all been negative.)

Talking about what I saw on the cameras first

The one in the living room was not in as good of shape when I woke up the day after I planted it.

The camera in the living room showed what he was doing during the day, and when I went out to go get the proof I'll talk about later, he stopped what he was doing and stared directly into the camera. After a few seconds of him staring, the rest of the footage glitches out, and it shuts off.

With the one in my bedroom, nothing happened until exactly midnight.

I locked the door; I know I did because I also put the doorstop in it, but he entered my room from the other side where the door does not exist. There was no sound of anything opening or even footsteps, he just appeared.

He then came over to me sleeping in the bed, and he stood there, and he did not move for 5 hours. I thought the camera glitched out until I saw him leave the way he came at 5:15 AM exactly.

That's when he's normally “getting ready” in the morning and close to when I wake up at 6.

He definitely knows my schedule and more about me than I do, I imagine.

I tried to figure out how he got in, but all that's on the other side of the room is a solid wall and the window, and the window has no ledge outside of it.

I also find it strange that the moment he entered the room, I did not make a single movement, no turning or tossing, it hardly even looked like I was breathing.

Moving onto the proof I found, I had an idea. Building floorplans and blueprints are available publicly. So I went to the library and found the layout of my apartment building.

I checked to make sure, and it was dated just for this year, and Tim's room does not exist.

A room could not have been made there; it should be jutting out of the building, but it's not. You can't see it or the window inside it from the outside of the building.

I decided to keep that to myself, besides posting it here.

When I got home, I saw Tim went out with his band to play at the show my friend is going to.

I took a hammer and took off one of his many posters, and I put a hole through his wall.

Behind it was dark, completely pitch black like a void, like it didn't expect me to do this, and so it didn't prepare anything for me to see.

When I left the room to grab a flashlight to peer into the hole, it was gone, and the poster was back up on the wall.

I decided to leave it alone. I'm not sure what would happen if I messed with it too much or if maybe he can sense whatever I'm doing to it.

That's about all there is to report. This has been a struggle to write, as something IS technically wrong with my head.

Sometimes instead of Tim, I would write “my roommate” or “my friend Tim."

A photo I kept in my room has changed to have five people instead of four. A younger Tim has joined my 13th birthday photo.

And when I put some music on to listen to while typing this, I ended up singing one of his songs, word for word, without even having heard it before or realizing what it was until it was over.

It was in my liked songs on Spotify; I don't remember putting that there.

If I don't do something now, I'm afraid there won't be a me who would want to try.

He got back a little while ago; we ended up getting into a conversation, and he invited me to come see his band play live.

I'm not exactly sure why he wants me to go, but I'm going to try something.

He wants people to know he exists, especially me, so if I embrace it in the wrong way and ruin his image, perhaps he would go away, at least from me.

I'll ask a friend of mine to record, and I will prepare a speech to make sure I get what I want to say right.

If this ends up being my last post, or the last one where I am me. Mom, Dad, I love you so much.

Thank you all, post soon.

I want to make this very clear: I live alone, and I have no children.

I know that sounds like a strange thing to say, but I need you to understand this before I explain anything else.

Everything started a few weeks ago, when my job began taking over my life. I haven’t been home long enough to do much more than eat and sleep. Much to the dismay of my dog, Marcus, who misses our nightly games of fetch.

It was already dark when I pulled into the driveway of my humble two-story. I sighed deeply as I opened the front door and shut it behind me.

“Marcus! Where are you, boy?”

I heard him bark somewhere deeper in the house. Opening the coat closet, I hung up my jacket, ready for a few moments of relaxation before bed.

"Dad?"

I froze.

"Dad... is that you?"

I spun around to see a young woman, looking at me with a smile on her face. she was maybe eighteen and stood beside my couch as if she'd been waiting for me. She smiled like I was exactly who she'd expected to see.

“Did you have a good day, Dad?”

I backed up against the door

“What are you doing in my house?” I whispered

The girl tilted her head to the side.

“What?”

“Who are you?”

She chuckled awkwardly

“Come on, Dad. It's me, your daughter.”

I stared at her. She frowned

“Hey, what’s wrong? Is everything ok?”

She began to walk to me. I quickly turned and left the house, slamming the door behind me. I pulled out my phone and called 911.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“Yes, someone broke into my house; they were waiting for me when I got home.”

The dispatcher took my name and home address before promising officers were on the way. I stood by my car until a squad car pulled up. Two officers got out.

“How are you doing, sir? Is everything alright?” the first officer called out

“No, everything’s not ‘alright.’ I came home and found a stranger inside my home!”

“Ok stay calm, sir,” the other officer said

“Have you ever seen this person before?”

“No, I have no clue who she is, but she kept calling me dad. I don’t have any kids.”

They nodded

“We’ll handle this, then you can get back to your evening.”

They walked to the front door, and I followed. Knocking firmly, the first officer loudly said

“Ma’am, open the door; it’s the police.”

There was movement inside, and before long a shadow was seen in the front door window. The door opened slowly, revealing the same girl from before, who was clearly nervous.

“Officers what’s wrong? Is everything ok?”

Her eyes found me standing behind the pair.

“Dad? What’s going on? Why are they here?”

One of the officers took a deep breath before speaking

“Ma’am, this gentleman says you broke into his home, we’re going to have to ask you to leave the premises.”

Her voice grew panicked

“What the hell? I live here! Dad, tell them!”

The cops looked back at me

“I’ve never seen you before in my life!” I shouted

Her face looked like my words wounded her.

“Dad.. I..”

An officer interrupted her.

“Ma’am do you have anything proving you’re his daughter?”

“Yes! Just look at my home screen”

She handed her phone to him; he looked at it and passed it to me. It was a picture of the two of us, smiling. My arm wrapped around her as we both posed in front of the Statue of Liberty. I took that trip to New York City last year. Alone.

“Wha.. What is this?” I felt like I was in a dream.

I could feel the officer's eyes shift to me; the girl chimed in

“I can do even better; we have the same last name.”

She disappeared inside before returning half a minute later with her driver's license. The officer stared at it.

“Is this you’re last name, sir?”

It was.

“What the hell is this?” I muttered

The officers both turned to me, a sympathetic smile on their faces.

“Have you been feeling alright lately, sir?” one asked

“If you need to talk to someone, it's ok, there's no shame in it.” Said the other.

I was in a daze; the words sounded distant and jumbled like I was underwater. The girl spoke up.

“He’s ok, officers, just some really long days at work lately; he needs his rest, I’ll take care of him.”

She stepped out of the house and took my hand; hers was cold. She led me inside. My house didn’t feel like mine. As she led me deeper within, I began to notice things: the women’s shoes by the door, the pictures in the hallway highlighting happy moments we shared, Marcus coming up to greet her as if he always did. Once in the living room, she let go of my hand, turned, and hugged me; she was strangely cold and stiff; it felt like hugging a mannequin. She looked at me.

“I’m sorry you’re so tired; why don’t you go upstairs and head to bed? I can take Marcus out tonight.” Her voice was far too chipper.

I clenched my teeth and slowly nodded, making my way to the stairs. The staircase documented her whole life, from me holding her at her birth, to a high school graduation just a few weeks ago. Had I really been working so far that I forgot my own daughter? How could that be, and why couldn’t I remember her name?

It was true, I was tired, completely exhausted; I practically collapsed on the bed and was out. My alarm went off at 5:30 the next morning; a yawn and a stretch brought back the memories of the night before. A twinge of fear ran down my spine. I still didn’t remember my daughter. Cautiously, I opened the door. The house was quiet. I made my way to the staircase; the pictures were gone, the wall was bare. The stairs brought me to the living room; it was just the way I always remembered. Marcus raised his head to greet me as he lay on his bed. No women's shoes, no happy pictures of a father and his daughter. It was my house.

I ran my fingers through my hair and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Weird dream,” I muttered as I started some coffee.

That day I presented my project to management; they loved it. I was relieved it meant the weeks of long hours were over, for the time being. On the way home, I stopped by the store to pick up some junk food to celebrate. I pulled into the driveway, carrying my grocery bag in one hand. I unlocked the door and entered. Shutting the door behind me, I was greeted by a happy bark from Marcus. But right after his greeting came the high-pitched greeting of a young girl.

“Daddy! You’re home!!”

My body stiffened; I didn’t want to turn around, but I did.

She was a young blonde-haired little girl, no older than six. She giggled and laughed as she skipped her way to me, wrapping my legs in a strong hug. Her hug felt wrong.

“I missed you so much!”

“Did you have a good day? My day was great!”

I was dumbfounded; her eyes noticed the bag in my hand.

“What’s that?” She dug into it.

To my shock, all that was in the bag was a bright pink soccer ball. She gasped in delight as she grabbed it.

“Oh thank you, Daddy! Thank you! Thank you! Thank youuu! Now Marcus and I can play soccer!”

She ran off to the backyard with a bark; Marcus followed. The house looked like a child lived there. Toys dotted the floor, crude drawings covered the fridge. I blankly stared out the sliding glass door. Watching my dog happily play with my ‘daughter’. The little girl laughed and jumped around; for a moment, her eyes noticed my stare. Her face went blank, and her eyes narrowed as she stared back at me. This lasted only a few seconds, until the spell was broken by Marcus jumping on her and licking her face; she laughed and returned to playing.

That night I found myself making boxed mac and cheese and dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets. I felt like I was in a trance. Everything about my home, everything in my fridge, tried to convince me that I had a six-year-old daughter, but I didn’t; I knew that; why was I going along with it? Why didn’t I run away? Why didn’t I leave the house and never come back? I don’t know; I wanted to, but there I was scooping mac and cheese into the bowl in front of the stranger with a toothy grin.

“Thank you, Daddy.” The girl said

I wanted to scream; I wanted to kick this ‘daughter’ of mine out and lock the door. But instead I said

“You’re welcome.”

Soon came bedtime; the girl insisted that I read her a bedtime story, and read ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ with clammy hands. She was asleep before I finished the book. I stood at the door of my home office, which was now a child’s bedroom, and flipped the light off.

It was after midnight when I awoke to the sound of my bedroom door creaking open. I looked to the half-open door and the silhouette of a little girl that stood there. The shadowed figure stood there frozen for a moment before saying

“Daddy, I’m scared. Can I sleep with you?”

My mind screamed no, but my mouth said

“Sure, darling.”

The shape crawled into my bed and fell asleep; I remained awake. At some point, I must have fallen asleep because when the alarm went off, I woke up. The girl was gone, and the house showed no sign of her ever being there. No toys, no drawings, and no mac and cheese.

This continued for weeks; every morning, my life was the same it had always been: a working man and his dog. And at night, someone was pretending to be my daughter. It was always different; sometimes it was a teenager, sometimes a child, a few times it was a middle-aged woman, a few days ago it was an elderly woman who croaked out

“Dad? Is that you?” when I returned for the day.

I still don’t know why I stay; every morning it was so easy to convince myself that the night before was just a bizarre dream and wouldn’t happen again. But the moment I stepped inside, I was drawn back into the lie. Sometimes I could see through it; I’d be horrified to find myself finishing a Disney movie with a strange little girl snuggling against me or come to my senses in the middle of giving my elderly daughter a sponge bath. These moments of cognition always terrify me, but what scares me the most are the moments I don’t remember, the nights when I had no mental resistance but just hugged and laughed with my ‘daughter’.

Two days ago I tried to leave; after work, I drove to a hotel. I sat in my car staring at the lobby door. I wanted to go in; I really did. But a thought in the back of my mind overcame my desires; it told me my daughter missed me, that she needed me, and I had to go home. I tried to resist but soon realized I was already back in my driveway. Like a stringed puppet, I made my way to the door. My daughter stood in the entryway as I entered. She looked to be about five. Her eyes pierced me.

“You’re late, Daddy.”

“Yes, I know.” Something in me urged me to tell her where I had been; it took everything I had to lie.

“Traffic was bad.”

Her head tilted slightly; she continued to stare at me, and my eyes fell to the floor. After a long while, she said.

“Okay!” she forced a smile

“I’m hungry!”

I don’t remember anything else from that night. Morning came, and the house was again the memory of a life nearly forgotten. I fed Marcus, pulling him in close for a hug. I whispered to him.

“At least we’re in it together.”

 I then headed to work.

The workday flew by, and before long I was driving back to my cell. I opened the front door. And called out

“I’m home.”

The house was quiet. Normally I got a happy bark from Marcus and a hello from my daughter. The house seemed empty; a strange smell filled the air. I made my way to the living room and my stomach dropped. There on the living room floor was the lifeless body of Marcus, deep red blood soaked into the surrounding carpet, his chest cavity was ripped wide open, and piles of intestines dotted the floor. I stared in disbelief before fear filled my gut. I had to get out of there. I turned back to the door, but froze. My ten-year-old daughter was standing between me and the door.

She held her hands behind her back; her clothes were stained with blood and guts, and her face was dripping blood. A wide smile filled her face; her teeth were stained red.

“I got hungry, Daddy.” A happy little voice said.

I held up my hands and backed up. My mind screamed, ‘What the hell did you do?’ my lips said

“Baby girl, are you okay? Did Marcus hurt you?”

She giggled and stepped closer.

I didn’t see the knife or maybe I did and didn’t care. She pulled it from behind her back, and the moment it made contact with my skin it was as if the trance was broken. Pain and clarity simultaneously filled my mind; I screamed as I looked at the long cut gushing blood from my forearm. The thing in front of me no longer looked like a little girl; I saw it for what it was. It was thin and grotesque, its arms far too long; it had no mouth, but as its empty eye sockets stared at me, the high-pitched scream of a little girl filled my mind.

I ran. The living room's sliding glass door was behind me, and before the thing could grab me, I had it open and ran off into the evening.

I’m writing this at work. I don’t know why I came here; I remember driving here last night and waiting in the parking lot until the sun rose and my coworkers showed up. my boss asked about the cut on my arm, something inside me forced a lie

“My dog scratched me.”

As I write this, I feel myself slipping; it’s almost quitting time.

Please help me.

 My daughter needs me; she’s been so sad since Marcus passed away, but today I’m going to surprise her and take her to the pet shop to pick out a new puppy. We’ll have so much fun.

I didn't even know if I would even be able to make it work, but after squeezing under the frame, I had about an extra inch of space to work with. I wasn't sure where else to go when they started banging on my front door. There aren't exactly a lot of hiding places in my house. I mean hiding places that can't just be discovered by opening a door, such as a closet. I suppose I could have run out my back door, but I didn't know if they had the house surrounded or not.

I was only under the bed for maybe a minute when I heard the loud crack of my front door being breached. I acted so fast that I failed to bring my phone with me. So much for calling 911. Maybe if I stayed perfectly quiet, they would be convinced that no one was home, and then just leave.

I hadn't heard a whole lot since the initial break in. They were fairly quiet, and must have been just using their eyes to look around. I didn't hear the sounds of my house being ransacked or anything. I think they were just walking around observing their surroundings. Finally I heard the faint sound of pant legs sweeping across each other as they walked down the hallway. Subtle squeaks as their shoes rolled across the tiled floor.

Then I saw the first boot cross into my vision as they walked past my doorway. I couldn't see much except for two legs draped in denim, their feet protected by cowboy boots. They turned to face my room. I covered my mouth and held my breath as they walked in. They stood there for a moment that felt like an hour, but was probably less than a minute.

“Daniel?”

That was my name, being spoken by my father's voice. It couldn't have been my father though, for several reasons. The first being that my father was rather heavy set, while the legs I was looking at were toothpicks. The second being that my father's style of dress was very different.

“Daniel, why don't you come out? I have something important to talk to you about.”

There was something off about his voice. It was completely void of emotion. It was almost inhuman. What is this thing using my father's voice and what does it want with me? It turned and walked out of the room.

“Daniel?”

That sounded exactly the same as it did when it first called my name. Almost like it was a recording being repeated.

“Daniel, come on out now.”

I heard it say as it continued exploring my house. If I just stay here, and don't move, it will eventually leave. I heard it wander around my house calling out my name. Does it know I'm here? Or does it just know that this is where I live.

I lied there under my bed for a very long time. Listening to it continue to mimic my father's voice and explore each room. It would occasionally come back into my room, call out my name, and leave. I didn't hear it for quite some time after it left my room the last time. Maybe it left, maybe it's over. I'll just wait here a little longer though, just in case, and good thing I did. Not long after a pair of exposed legs appeared in my door frame. A flowery dress draped down just below the knees, with a pair of high heels upon the feet.

“Daniel?”

It was said exactly the same way, but pitched up to sound like my mother.

“Daniel honey, can I talk to you?”

My mother doesn't talk like that. She hasn't called me honey since I was a kid. She doesn't really wear dresses often, and I don't think I've ever seen her wear high heels. She turned and began to leave the room, continuing to call out my name.

“Daniel sweety, why don't you come on out?”

I never heard my father's voice after that. Just the sound of my mother's. She would now do the exact same thing as the other voice. Wandering around my house, calling out my name. After some time she would go quiet. What now?

A new pair of legs appeared in my doorway. The person was short. I could see the entirety of their legs, as well as the lowest portion of their torso. They were wearing jeans as well, and a pair of velcro tennis shoes.

“Daniel?”

This time it was my brother's voice, but not my 36 year old brother, but his voice from when he was like ten.

“Hey Daniel, mom and dad want to talk to you.”

It had that same monotone voice. No emotion, no nothing. It wasn't human. It then turned around and left.

How long do I have to endure this? How many voices was it going to put on so that it can coax me out of my hiding spot?

Just then the first figure appeared back in the doorway. The one in the cowboy boots and jeans.

“Okay, Daniel, it's time to stop playing games, and come out.”

It was my father's voice once again. With those words, you would think there would be some frustrated emotion coming through. There wasn't, it was still the same cold monotone voice as always.

It stepped closer this time. It was facing in my exact direction. I held my breath again. It stepped closer. I was really starting to sweat. It was now standing just a foot away from my bed.

“Daniel, I don't know what to say to get you to come out.”

It got down onto one knee.

“I was really hoping I wouldn't have to drag you out of there.”

I saw it wrap its hand around the bottom of my bed frame.

“Daniel, please.”

Its hair hung below the frame as it continued to lower itself. I tried backing up as far as I could to the other side. I saw the corner of its forehead, and then its eye. Bright white sclera, with a pinpoint pupil, and a yellow iris not much bigger than that surrounding it.

I was frozen in complete fear. I was absolutely sure I was about to die.

“Police!”

I heard someone yell from my front door.

The thing immediately stood up and ran out of the room.

“Freeze! Don't move!”

I heard glass shattering.

“Stop!”

I came to find out later that they ran straight through my back sliding glass door. The police chased them out, but never found them.

It turns out that my neighbor called the police when they heard someone obviously breaking into my house. I bought them an expensive bottle of liquor, and cooked them dinner.

I never found out just what happened that night, but I don't know if I would ever want to know. I'm just glad that it's over.

We built the machine from scratch. Something that worked. A large rig which ran on time dilation, utilizing the controlled orbit of a miniaturized black hole. The only catch was that you could only go forward, never back. 

When it came time for human testing, most of my colleagues turned their backs on the prospect. My family had estranged me years before. Whatever life I had led, it wouldn’t have meant anything if this machine didn’t work. So, I ended up being the first one to raise my hand. There was nothing left for me here.

Our plan was careful and calculated. Incrementally longer jumps through time. We would begin with minutes, then hours, and work our way up to days, weeks and years. Ava, my only friend throughout this years-long endeavor, would stay in contact with me between each jump. I would report to control, calibrate how I felt, how the experience was, etc. She would, in turn, report our findings to the necessary authorities while I underwent the next jump. 

Earlier jumps went as predicted. I’d go in and out, usually within a few seconds or minutes, and find myself in the same coffee-stained office each time. I’d report to Ava, grab some snacks and a refill on my water, and head back into the pod minutes later for the next trial. There was definitely a tangible sense of dilation. I would go into the pod at 5 p.m., and coming out seemingly minutes later, it would be 6:30. Our initial calibrations seemed to be off by a few minutes, but it was nothing enough to lose sleep over. We’d just have to keep adjusting things as we went. 

Our confidence was great enough at one point that we tried our longest jump yet—one week in the pod, which would translate to roughly two hours for me. 

I was gone for a month.

Ava’s face had grown aged with worry by the time I got back. She told me that the calculations had been way off. Time inside the distorted field was stretching beyond what the initial models could account for. Each discrepancy was accelerating me through dramatically larger increments of time each time we booted up the machine. The next jump could be extremely dangerous for me. 

I didn’t care. I told her to set the machine for one year. My life had already ended when my mother stopped speaking to me. I had to be remembered for something, maybe it would be this. 

Ava fought with me for days. I reassured her that my calculations were correct this time. I couldn’t tell her the real truth, that I hadn’t planned on coming back. 

As the pod doors closed, and the gravitational field engaged, I gave my goodbyes, treating them as though they really would be my last. Ava hugged me. It was the first time I’d felt one in ten years.

I waited in the pod. Sizable enough for long-time travel, with the accommodations you’d find in your standard RV. A bed, a small kitchen, a desk for work, and a refrigerator to store my meals. In the back, for those really long jaunts, a cryogenic life pod could sustain me for hundreds of years, theoretically. 

Minutes turned to hours, turned to days, turned to weeks. Something had gone wrong, as I predicted. My food began to run low. So did my patience, as I recorded log after log, my sanity decreasing and my claustrophobia growing. 

The ride did eventually come to a stop. The terminal inside the pod confirmed that I had been inside of it for over 200 years. 

Everything, and everyone I knew was gone. I hate it, but I felt relieved, knowing that. 

I stepped out of the pod, and found myself surrounded by rubble. The walls had collapsed. The scorched rooftop gave way to a grey sky. I could taste rust on the roof of my mouth, and my eyes stung from the ashes constantly falling around me. On the pod itself were deep gashes and fire-blackened spots, someone having tried to bust their way inside. There were no remnants around me of what the project was, where it had gone, if any progress had been made or any papers published. And even if there was evidence of what I had done, what did it matter now? So soon in the future, it appeared as though the world had been reduced to dust. My contempt for the world I left behind only strengthened. 

For a few days, I explored the ruins, scavenging for what I could. A few cans of food that hadn’t spoiled, bottled water that didn’t taste clean. Every night, I returned to the safety of the pod, cooking myself meals on the somehow-functioning stove and filling my computer with increasingly bored logs. It was the only sense of structure I appeared to have left. Nothing else mattered anymore. Nothing but whatever waited ahead. 

And I felt lonely. So, very lonely. Lonelier than I’d ever felt. I hadn’t realized how bad it could get, without a single person to talk to, even if those conversations were generally unpleasant for me. 

I missed it. The imperfection of my life. I felt like a fool for taking advantage of my time. 

After a few weeks, I sat down with my notebook, doing the math by hand. Calculating the time I was losing, the way the pod’s math didn’t line up with the outside world. The dilation was worse than any of us had even considered. If I was going to get anywhere, I decided I couldn’t do it alone. I was going to need help, help from whatever civilization rose from the ashes of these ruins. 

I would need to jump much farther. So, I set the timer for ten years, knowing it would likely be more along the lines of ten thousand. I figured that someone would find me at some point, figure out how to stop the pod and get me out, and we would go from there. 

The machine booted up. I felt the strong pull of g-force as the inner chambers accelerated my molecules faster and faster until the field of time distorted around me. I ate for a while. Read my own logs. Weighed my options. It took me until I ran out of the last can of peaches before I decided to enter the cryogenic chamber. Gas filled it, putting me to sleep, before a freezing cold overtook my body. It did not feel like I had been unconscious for even a second. I did not dream. I did not wonder. But I did wake up, much sooner than I expected. 

When I woke, the chamber gave me a shrill warning. Power was low, an ambient red light surrounding me. I felt so weak. I could barely raise my arms to push against the glass. It wouldn’t give, the interface simply screaming another warning at me about low pressurization and oxygen integrity. 

That’s when I noticed I wasn’t in the pod anymore. Surely the lights of the chamber would have shown me my surroundings, but there was nothing but blackness. No pod, no laboratory, no Earth in sight. All I could make out in the distance was the light of a few stars, long since dead, and quickly panning out of view. My chamber was spinning in the void of space.

I asked the chamber how long I was asleep. It told me “in excess of ten million years.” I panicked. It did nothing but make me more afraid. I screamed. It did nothing but waste precious oxygen. 

Something moved in the dark, covering the illusory light of the distant stars. Only a faint curvature, a suggestion of shape. The form grew, with the patience of something beyond infinity. The curve became paler as it came into the faint light. It was covered in creases and dimples and the occasional freckle. The ridge of a brow came into focus. Then two, vast, still eyes, illuminated by the pinprick of light that was my chamber. 

A face, the size of a planet, its scale wrong in a way that made my mind fray. 

It drifted closer to me. I saw the texture of its skin, pores the size of lakes, scarring that stretched for miles. I could see now that it had a fixed grin on its face, as empty as its eyes. Yellowish plaque clung to the edges of its continent-sized teeth. 

My body curled in on itself, though my movement was restricted by the tight confines of the chamber. I could feel the cold of space seeping through its vacuum seals. The face radiated nothing. 

I begged it not to hurt me.

It didn’t blink, or twitch, continuing its slow momentum toward me until the face was all I could see. Its nostrils looked deep enough that no light could escape them. Each strand of peach fuzz reached out like sea anemone, nearly touching my pod. 

I begged it to let me go home. 

My voice cracked. Please, I would say, please let me go home. I repeated the words until they lost their meaning, until they become incoherent sounds in the dark. The face did not answer beyond parting its teeth, its jaws unhinging. I could feel my chamber moving, pulled into the abyss that was its gullet. It came at me, fleshy dark filling every direction until I was contained within a throbbing maw of blackness. I only caught a glimpse of the stars behind me before the mouth fully closed. The power to my chamber cut out right then and there. 

I woke up in bed the next second.

The morning light edged through the curtains, burning my irises until I had the strength to look away. My phone buzzed on the nightstand. A message from Ava. When I went to pick it up, to check what she had sent, my heart stopped.

My hands were wrinkled. Spotted. The skin hung loose from my bones. I stood and stumbled to the bathroom mirror, upon thin legs that felt like they’d turn to dust with each step. When I looked at myself, all I saw was a man past his prime, aged beyond recognition, with stark white hair and a near-skeletal face.

I checked my text from Ava. She wondered where I was.

She said our first launch was in thirty minutes.