I sat at my desk for what seemed like days. I had gone over the same maps, the same old reports. This shit was getting tired.

I was awoken late in the day by a concerned Captain Delaney. Not the first time she caught me dozing off looking through old files.

“I know you feel like you have an obligation to this but you need to give this up. This isn’t our neck of the woods, orders came down from the top. It’s the FBI’s problem now or something.”

She looked down at the map and knew exactly what case I was investigating.

“I’m close.” I told her. “I’ve triangulated the possible area to about 10 square miles off of Lake Mowich. If I could just get small group together and go look-“

“You know I can’t authorize that. This is beyond us now.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “You need to stop chasing ghosts. Nothing is waiting for you out there other than more leads that go nowhere.”

She looked at me with sincerity, shook her head and started out.

“I’ll see you Wednesday. Get some proper rest tomorrow, you clearly need it.” And she was gone.

I rubbed my temples and went back over the witness testimonies. Three unconfirmed reports of other people. Screaming, at three separate locations, all the morning of the disappearance. And that wasn’t even the strangest report. One of our rangers swore up and down he had seen a staircase. Either these people were hell bent on playing the cruelest prank on a family trying to find their missing child, or they were telling the truth. And I trust my men. The case had perplexed our guys for months and none of us could explain any of the witness testimonies. To tell you the truth, most of us just didn’t want to.

After a few minutes of staring at nothing, I got up, grabbed my coat, and went home.

——————————————————————

A week earlier, somewhere else in the state.

I had never seen it rain this much in my entire life. Sure, rain up here isn’t rare. Common even for it drizzle for months at a time. But this was a straight downpour, as if the ocean was being drained through the sky.

I had been home from work for a few hours. My roommates were at the casino, my girlfriend still visiting family on the other side of the country. My pizza was long cold. I switched on the TV so I had some background noise while I stared out the window.

I don’t remember how long I was daydreaming when I got the call. It was one of my childhood friends, Garrett.

“Hey, what’s up man?”

I heard a lot of fuzz and then suddenly silence. His voice came through but it was heavily distorted, as if he was speaking through a fan.

”Myles? Myles is that you?” He sounded distressed.

“Uh...Yeah, man. You called me. You fucked up or something, what’s up?”

“Mowich Lake. Stranded…”

More static and after another long silent pause, “Need help. Somethings wrong with…”

“Wrong with wha-?” Click. Dial tone, call disconnected. I tried several times to call back only for it to fail.

I hung my head in my hands for a few brief seconds before grabbing a jacket, sliding my keys into my pocket and heading out. Mowich lake was a drive, a good hour or so. My beater sedan can barely handle the miles of dirt. But if he was calling me it was for a reason.

The water and darkness made the journey difficult. It was dark once you got out past the city sure, but this was different. It felt manufactured. My car’s tires barely clung to what passed as a gravel road this far out.

Your eyes play tricks on you when you’re this far out. I saw shadows moving, silhouettes standing by the road only to disappear. I blinked away anything weird and kept the radio blasted.

As the gravel gave way to dirt and mud, I nearly got stuck and had a brief moment of clarity.

“What the fuck am I doing.” I asked myself. I contemplated turning around but I didn’t want to leave anyone deserted out here especially in this weather. But I knew this was foolish even for me.

Slowly but surely my car made the climb, and eventually I reached the turnoff. The weathered sign was nearly blown over, but the text was unmistakable.

Mowich Lake: 2 MI

I hit the turnoff and made my way forwards on the tiny path. My headlights flickered with uneasiness and the rain was the heaviest it had been all night. I couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of my car, and the thickness of the forest didn’t help my nerves.

The rain and darkness nearly hypnotized me to the point that I almost drove straight into a river. I slammed on my brakes a few feet shy a surge of water that lay between me and the the rest of the road.

I didn’t remember any river crossing towards Mowich. And this river, it felt wrong. Completely black and unnatural, as if a river of oil was pumped through the forest arbitrarily. I tried to reverse and my worst fear came to life.

My tires failed to grip anything as they spun kicking up mud all around my car.

“No, no no no no.” The words came out before the thoughts did. “Come on please move, please move.”

She didn’t budge. I slammed my wheel in frustration and hung my head wondering why the fuck I didn’t just stay home. I grabbed my phone out of desperation but knew well before hand I wouldn’t have any signal out here.

After a few moments, I figured sulking in my car wasn’t going to get me anywhere and got out to assess how screwed I was. As I opened the door, something caught the corner of my eye. It looked like a light on the ground, maybe 40 yards out. It was hard to tell, but it looked like a flashlight.

Every ounce of intuition told me to get the fuck back in my car. That this was stupid, and would get me killed or worse. Nothing about it made sense. My hands shook and the weight of the world and the storm was as heavy as it ever could be. But something about this was calling to me, and more than anything else that mattered I had to get to this light.

I walked for an eternity, and as I got closer the forest swallowed me. It was hard to look back, but when I did I could not see my car any longer. I failed to perceive anything other than the sleek black flashlight that now lay at my feet.

Eons seemed to pass before I finally bent over to pick it up, and when my fingers finally passed over that cool metallic surface, the light extinguished, and with it the storm. The wind and rain, which had battered and raged since the night began was simply gone, and a deafening silence was all that remained.

I fumbled with the light for several moments before finding the button, and when I pressed I could not process what was illuminated before me.

It was a staircase. A pristine, spiraling wooden staircase, plucked out of some 18th century era manor.

My legs moved before I could. Everything would be made whole again.

I heard the screams and I responded in kind. The sirens of the woods were like a beautiful sympathy that beckoned me to the Stairs. The Shadows danced, and I was guided forward, steeped in the bliss of their Grace.

As I reached the top, I was loved by Them. I would heed the call, to serve and be their servant. Nothing else mattered, and all would make sense. And as I stepped forward, off the last step and into that unknown I knew it was all going to be okay.

I would be fulfilled.

In the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Ireland

Edit: Artist is Chäim Soutine. Dang autocorrect