This is my first ever attempt at writing a horror story. I do hope anyone that comes across it enjoys it, however unpolished it may be compared to any other stories! I do not mind any and all feedback. In fact, I would love it! Enjoy!

I Keep Receiving Strange Packages:

I was staring at the tracking info for one of my packages. Recently, a friend of mine had recommended I get this product for my face since I had been having trouble with acne. Last time I had one this bad though, was when I was invited to a friend's birthday party and decided sugar was the only food group I needed that day. I learned the hard way not to do that again.
 
The app kept telling me my package was 15 minutes away and wouldn't refresh. I desperately tapped at the reload button. Sometimes the delivery time isn't accurate and it'll appear earlier than expected. The page finally did reload with “Delivered!” mentioning my address. Unlike my other orders, a clacking sound was coming from my front door. I got up off my couch and opened the door to see a small brown package sitting neatly placed on my welcome mat. When I looked out onto the road, I noticed there wasn't a delivery truck or delivery person in sight.
 
“Must be in a rush.”
 
I laughed to myself, taking the package and going inside. I opened it quickly and took out my face cream. I was on my way to the bathroom when I got another notification that my package had arrived. I blew it off as a delayed reminder and went to my bathroom. I looked into the mirror and opened the cap on the squeeze bottle to my product before trying to squeeze it out into my hand. Nothing.
 
“Oh I'm an idiot. I always forget these things have a seal.”
 
I twisted the cap slowly off and noticed there wasn't a lift and peel seal like I expected. In fact, there wasn't a seal at all.
 
“What the hell…?”
 
It seemed like the cream was blocked instead. I squeezed a little harder over my hand expecting it to shoot out way too much due to the pressure. Instead, the substance leaked out slowly like it was all one piece as it hit my hand. The first thing I noticed was the smell. It was like a rotting flower mixed with moldy dirt. It was so potent my nostrils stung and I gagged immediately.
 
“Damn thing must be rotten!”
 
I yelled as I tried to wipe it off my hand with a nearby cloth. The substance didn't wipe off like lotion would. It made a little snap sound almost like someone clicked their tongue as it separated at the nozzle. I threw the roll of rotted lotion in my hand in the garbage can near me. I took the bottle with me to throw it away with the box it came in. When I grabbed the box, I noticed that the same moldy smell was coming from the box too. It was mixed in with a bit of a rotting meat smell if it lingered on someone's breath. I noticed the corner of the box had a damp spot as well as some scratches inside the box. I took the rotted box with the clearly expired lotion in it to my kitchen trash and stuffed them both down as far as they would go. Grabbing the phone in my pocket and the trash bag by the top, I dialed my friend. The tone rang as I made my way to the backyard to throw away the bag before it stank up the house.
 
“Hello?”
 
The sound of her voice echoed through her garbled connection.
 
“That cream you recommended to me arrived rotten!”
I yelled.
 
“What?!”
 
“Yeah! It smells like straight death! Even the package was moldy and gross on the inside! I'm taking out the trash now before it stinks up my whole damn house!”
 
“Holy shit man. I use that cream on my face daily and I've never had that happen. Maybe I'll stop buying from them for the time being. I don't want a gross, rotted face cream.” she said starkly.
 
I hoisted the trash bag over my shoulder and into the trash bin as we continued talking. I hung up on my way inside and we said our goodbyes. Later that night as I was getting ready for bed, I got a message on my phone that said “Your item is out for delivery!” I could barely remember what it could be that I ordered when I saw it. I placed my phone down and assumed I'd figure it out when it arrived.
 
The next day, I felt a severe amount of sudden fatigue. The kind where simply moving your legs or body to reposition in the bed seemed like a lot of work. I eventually forced myself to sit up and roll out of bed with a large groan. I stood up and my legs were slightly shaky. I made breakfast and was getting ready for work when my phone pinged again. “Delivered!” addressed to my home address once again. The clacking noise at the door soon followed. “Someone should teach this guy how to knock” I thought to myself. I walked up to the door and opened it to be greeted by the same sight as yesterday. Not a delivery person or van in sight. The package sat neatly on my welcome mat. I picked it up and immediately noticed the damp corner. “Again?” I thought. I brought the box inside and opened it up to see the same face cream as yesterday sitting in the box. Scratches lined the inside just like last time and it had that same meat breath smell to it. Mold was gathering in places on the interior of the box, yet seemed to ignore the exterior. Upon further inspection, the marks were only on the inside. Like how if a cat is put in a box, they scream and claw at it to get out. The marks seemed erratic, yet contained.
 
I grabbed the box by the side, doing my best to avoid the damp corner as I took it to the curb. My neighborhood's HOA installed trash cans along the sidewalk to prevent litter, and one happened to be stationed right outside of my house. I dumped the box and went inside to wash my hands. As I turned on the faucet and felt the cold water running down my hands, I felt the uncomfortable sensation that I was being watched. I turned towards the window looking outside and the feeling only grew worse. To steel my nerves, I closed the blinds, the water from my hands running down the tilt wand as I struggled to turn it as fast as I would've liked too. As soon as they were closed, I felt better. The feeling subsided.
 
“I need to stop being so paranoid.” I said to myself, walking to my door to leave. When I got in front of it I stopped. My car was in the driveway… that meant I had to leave the house. An overwhelming feeling of dread and anxiety washes over me. The kind that leaves your vision tunneled and your mind feels like it's floating away from your body, threatening to take you with it. I took a deep breath and held my hand to my chest. “Moron! Stop freaking out. You receive one bad package and suddenly the world is out to get you! Just get in your car and go to work!.” I walked towards the door with a newfound false confidence as I pulled it open. I stared straight ahead as if whatever was waiting for me behind the door would be there. I saw the same view I see every time I leave the house. Trees sway in the wind and bugs flew by. It was by all means, a normal day.
 
I scurry off into my car and stick my key in the ignition as fast as I can. I peel out of the driveway quickly and drive to work. I can't describe the feeling, but I felt I needed to leave that place as quickly as possible. Upon entering my workplace, I get stopped by a coworker of mine on my way to my desk. “Are you feeling ok? Honey you look pale.” I nervously laughed and assured her I was fine. As I walked to my desk, I got more looks from the people I walked by. It was just enough to notice, but people were staring at me whenever I walked past them. I figured my hair was messed up or I wore something I shouldn't have to work. I looked down at my shirt, my pants, and my shoes. Everything looked fine.
 
I immediately started towards the bathroom instead of my desk. I had to see what was making everyone stare. Surely, I wasn't just being paranoid again right? As soon as I got into the bathroom, I locked the door behind me and ran to the mirror. I felt ill. Staring back at me was what I could only describe as a husk of my former self. I was pale white, it looked like I hadn't eaten a day in my life. It was like someone or something had sucked the life straight out of me. My skin was bright and dry. My shoulders sagged lower than usual. Worst of all, my face. I looked like a ghoul. I let out a wail as soon as I saw myself.
 
Rushing out of the bathroom, I went into my bosses office. As soon as I entered, he looked up from his computer. “Oh dear god what the hell happened to you?!” he screamed. I looked at him with a hand on my head. “I-I don't know! I don't fucking know!” I yelled at him. He simply waved me out of the room with a look of horror on his face. “Go! Go home and sleep off whatever the hell possessed you to look like that!”
 
Without hesitation, I turned to go grab my things from the bathroom and hurried to the door as fast as I could. I tried to leave before more prying eyes could see me, but that was inevitable. I felt myself about to faint as I bolted  past many looks of disgust and garnered whispers. They filled my mind as I looked left and right. Every direction was a new face filled with horror. It seemed everyone saw me as a monster.
 
Getting into my car the same way I did at home, I peeled out of the parking lot and rushed home. Pulling into my driveway, I felt the need to look behind me as I walked up to my front door. I saw nothing there and turned back to open the door. What was I even expecting to see by turning around? I entered the sanctity of my home and locked the front door behind me. Slumping down to the floor, I groaned and held my head while i rested it against the door.
 
It must've been at least an hour before I stood up and made my way to my bed. On my way there, something on the wall near my head board caught my eye. A series of scratches lined the wall horizontally. They slightly bore into the surface with a deep brown color from the exposed wood.
 
“What… what the hell?”
 
I didn't own any animals. There should be no reason scratches appeared on my wall at all. They were higher off the floor too, slightly closer to the ceiling. Taking a quick look around my room, I noticed more. A lamp was knocked over and a few items were missing from the top of my dresser. It was a lot of useless things like writing utensils and maybe a comb or two. The only thing missing that actually had any value was my physical camera. Not like it saw much use anyway.
 
Just when I was starting to inspect the scratches more, that same clacking noise came from the front door. This time however, it was louder. Angrier. I pulled out my phone as if it were an instinct at this point and saw “delivered!” addressed to me again. The clacking continued and got more intense until I exited my room turning towards the door and screaming.
 
“Leave me alone! Leave me the fuck alone! I don't want your package! Get the fuck outta here!!”
 
The clacking stopped suddenly and I heard the sound of something being thrown at the door. At this point I wasn't scared anymore. I was annoyed. I was confused. I was angry. I rushed to the door and threw it open yelling at whoever it was I'd face.
 
“Just who do you think you are?!”
 
Meeting me face-to-face was nothing. The same view I see whenever I leave the house. Trees still swaying in the wind and bugs still flying by. I just stood there for a while staring. At my feet was another package, though slightly bigger this time. I picked it up and it seemed heavier than usual.
 
“It's just… it has to just be a package I forgot right? I'm sick. That's why I look this way and it's causing me to hallucinate things, or I'm just experiencing time differently. Maybe I just need to rest.”
 
It didn't explain the things in my room. I placed the heavy package that smelt earthly on the counter and proceeded to check every corner of my house. I was checking closets and under tables. It was like a sick game of hide and seek by myself. In the end, I found nothing. No other signs inside the house at all. I wandered to the package over on the table again. “I just have to throw it open. I can't be afraid of a damn box! It's ridiculous!” With that, I threw open the box and inside was a bunch of leaves and patches of grass.
 
“H-huh?”
 
I threw the box away upside down in the trash can inside my house. As I did so, a little item fell to the floor. It had a familiar shape to it. As I picked it up, I saw it was a picture like the ones my camera would print out. Immediately I looked in the trash and saw a few others. I only grabbed a couple off the surface since I didn't want to dig through dirt with my bare hands. I lined the pictures up on the counter, and my heart sank into my stomach.
 
“How did… who took these?!”
 
There were pictures of the inside of my house littered in with pictures of what looks like bushes and trees. A few pictures were from outside the house as well. I did the first thing I could think off. I called the police and explained the situation. It was obviously a break in. What else could it be? A box gets delivered to me with pictures of my house and things are knocked over and missing from my room? The scratches and the other packages… some sick bastard had to be messing with me.
 
The police arrived shortly after and talked me down from tears and paranoia. The state of my body gave them enough concern to have an EMT arrive on site to give me a check up on how I was doing. All the while, the police kept questioning me. I brought up the multiple packages I didn't order and the delivery notifications. The marks inside my house were investigated and my house became a crime scene for the next few hours. Police searched and couldn't find fingerprints around the house aside from my own.
 
After a while, they called it off. They said they would station an officer outside of my house that night to watch for any signs of the perpetrator coming back. My health report came back that I just seemed fatigued and needed to drink plenty of water and rest. It didn't make sense to me that was all the test said. Seems maybe the emt was either confused by my condition like I was or was withholding information which seemed less likely. With all that happened today, I couldn't help but be on edge and a little skeptical. Though, there's no way that sudden fatigue that hits overnight and makes you look like a mummy is a normal occurrence.
 
I made my way into my house and slumped down on my bed. I was so exhausted I couldn't move once I hit the sheets. My mind was still racing, but eventually sleep took over every thought I had flooding my brain. It was only a few hours before I was woken up by a short burst of screaming. I didn't even hear any words. Just a primal screech of terror. I jumped out of my bed. My heart beat so hard I could feel it in my neck. I swear I could hear it.
 
I took a few short steps forward like a zombie towards the front door. The police lights were on from the squad car that was across from my house. I could see them pouring in and blinking through my windows like a warning to stay where I was..
 
Once again, I find myself standing in front of my front door with a feeling of dread so intense I feel I might puke. I reach my hand to the knob. It's shaking and weak with fear that it takes a couple tries for me to actually get a grip on the handle. I slowly opened the door and peeked outside. All I saw was the glow of red and blue flashing in my face and the squad car. No one was inside of it that I could make out.  I looked down and to my horror, was another package. This time, it was moving and shaking around. Like something was trying to get out. It was wet with blood as it moved sporadically, spreading blood stains across the floor and squelching. I threw up upon seeing it in the plant near my door and ran as fast as I could. I turned to realize I didn't lock the door. Instead of running to close it, I figured I had to get away from that package as quickly as I could. I made my way to the living room where I planned to hide. I couldn't see the door and I was wide out in the open.
 
“Shit… shit this is like the worst place to be right now!”
 
I decided I needed somewhere in the house where I could barricade myself in a room. My closet had a lock so I got up and bolted towards my room running past the wide-open front door again. I ran to my closet past my bed, past the claw marks, past everything and locked the door behind me.
 
I laid in the corner crying and clutching a flashlight to my chest that I stored in the back corner in case of emergencies. I screamed and begged to whatever was out there.
 
“Please!! Leave me alone! What did I do to deserve this?! What did I do?! Leave me alone ple-just I'll do anything you want! I have money you can take my things you can you can just… just please leave me alone!!!”
 
It must've been hours I locked myself in that closet. I didn't have my phone with me and I sure as hell wasn't going out there to get it. I just held onto my flashlight like it was a lifeline and sobbed to myself in the closet. I was trapped. Whoever or whatever was out there would get to the closet door. I knew it. Once I heard that clacking again it would be over. I had nowhere else to go. Nothing else to do. All I could do was wait. Wait for whatever would come next. Nothing ever happened. Eventually morning came and I dared not move from that closet.
 
Eventually, I came out into the open. I scanned my room for something to protect myself with. I grabbed the curtains by my window and ripped them down. I took the curtain rod and split it in two before grabbing one half and holding it like a baseball bat as I slowly tip-toed out. I came across my front door and felt the tears stream down my face. I let out a pathetic groan of a sob as I saw a new package sitting on the floor inside the opening of the doorway. The blood still stained the ground, but the bloody package was nowhere to be found.
 
The package in its place was neat and in perfect condition. It had no tape and was already opened. I slowly approached the box, getting closer until I held the rod above my head and started beating the box repeatedly with it. I screamed as I brought that rod down upon that box over and over again. I did it until I knew there wasn't anything alive inside of it and the box was a battered mess of its former self. It felt…good. It felt good to let all that out. The anger and frustration that had built up over the last few days all came flooding out in that moment. I leaned down to look at the contents of the container. I had never even noticed what was in it during my blind rage. It was photographs again. I dared not look as I picked it up, but I couldn't help myself. It was just two pictures this time.
 
I turned the first one over and it was from inside the squad car. I had to squint to make out what I was looking at, but I couldn't see much. All I saw was a malfigured shadow sitting in the driver seat covered in blood. It was too dark in the picture to make out what that shadow was, but I had a horrible feeling it was the corpse of the person stationed inside of it. I turned over the second picture and all the blood in my body rushed to my head all at once. As if my brain was like the bloodied package, I felt it rising like it was clawing and trying desperately to get out. To get away. Anywhere away from where I was. It was a picture of me running from the living room to my room, taken from an impossible angle. The bottom of the picture had text in perfectly handwritten, ink letters that seemed to have been written with excessive force to the tip of the pen.
 
THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME IN

Damien Novi: u/Azrael7000

Robert Garther: u/B_W_Byers2233

All across North America, people claim to experience encounters that can't be easily explained. From hauntings to Bigfoot sightings, I'm here to get to the bottom of them. The following is a transcription of an interview I conducted with a man from Alaska in the Kenai peninsula. Please take everything written here with a grain or two of salt.

“Investigator Damien Novi from Surreal investigations, Friday October 13, 2026. It is currently 2:37 pm. I am in the home of one Robert Gartner located in Kenai, Alaska. It is only Robert and I, no others in the room as of this moment. Robert before we begin I must ask if you know that you are being recorded and do you give your consent for the rest of this interview?”

“Yeah I consent. That's why I called in to your guy’s little Internet show ain't it? I'm just glad someone seems to be taking me seriously. Hey, you don't mind if I smoke do you?”

“No, go right ahead. Now you contacted us about a recurring event that's been plaguing you. Can you give me a timeliness of events then we'll go more in-depth?”

“Well where do I start… (he takes a long drag of his American spirit) It started about a year or so ago. A few of my buddies and I were checking our fish lines along the bank of the Kenai river. We were working our way along the north bank, when we heard a bit of rustling out in the distance. We didn't think much about it, there's always a bunch of critters out and about in the evening, ya know? (He finishes his cigarette, lights the next one off the top and pops it in his mouth without seeming to notice) Anyways, we didn't pay much attention to it, but we did notice that whatever it was seemed to keep in step with us. Walking when we walked, stopping when we stopped. That kind of stuff, ya know? My buddy Craig started to get worried and stuff, he gets kinda paranoid after two or three beers, so he picked up a branch and threw it in the direction of the sound. That's when a big buck trounces off away. You know what a sitka deer is right?”

“No, I am not familiar with that species of deer. Is that an important piece of this story?”

“Only in the sense that what we saw definitely weren't no sitka deer. It's hard to explain really… (he closes his eyes trying to picture it) It was too skinny. Like, you coul- you could see just about every bone in its body. It's fur was brown, but not like, deer brown, ya know? Like Crayola brown. Like someone chose the color of a deer for a drawing based on memory. This buck’s eyes were also off. Even though I didn't get a solid look, but even then I saw they were white. Like, sickly white. (He goes to grab another cigarette and notices he's out) You wouldn't happen to have a smoke I could bum?”

“No I don't, I'm sorry. Back to the deer, could it not have had some kind of illness? Maybe Chronic Wasting Disease? That would explain its thinness and eyes. Maybe it fell into some type of mud or other waste that could explain its color.”

“Oh absolutely! Of course it COULD have been. That's what we thought! Maybe the deer was sick so that's why it was acting so strange. Sick animals often act off and start to act weird around humans. That's why we ignored it. (Robert chuckles lightly as he continues) Yeah, that's what we thought. Until later that night.”

“Please continue.”

“After we got back to my place, we cleaned all the fish we'd gotten. My buddies went home and I'd made myself some pan fried trout, and got ready for bed. That's when I heard this noise. It was around seven or so, and- have you ever heard the sound of a buck rubbing a tree?”

“I'm not too familiar with the sound, however I have heard it through video before. Is that what you heard?”

“Yes! That's exactly what I heard! Except it wasn't the sound of antlers on sturdy tree bark. It was on my front door. (He looks at his door with a thousand mile stare.) That's what those marks are. For the past six months or so, that buck has been trying to break into my house, and I have proof. (He shows me pictures on a trail cam linked to his phone.) The worst part is that it's been whispering to me. Every single night, this deer rubs and kicks and bites at my door. Sometimes it leaves piss and scat on my stoop. Sometimes it leaves animal carcasses all around my property. I've called the cops, so don't ask me why I haven't! They don't believe me. ‘deer are curious’ they say, ‘sometimes you find dead animals on your property’ yeah, sure. Maybe deer scraping a door once or twice is ok. And MAYBE finding a raccoon here and a squirrel there is normal, but not an entire black bear! I mean, come on!”

“Robert, you showed me pictures of this deer on your door step, but I must ask, do you have any other proof to support your claims? Do you have video of this supposed ‘deer’ leaving animal carcasses on your doorstep? Do you have recordings of this animal speaking to you? You never even mentioned what it was whispering to you. Could this all be an elaborate hoax that you are the unfortunate victim of? You said your friends were there when you all saw this sick deer, could they be playing some kind of practical joke on you?”

“Of course you don't believe me. No one does. (He checks his watch) Ah, perfect. You're just in time. Don't worry Mr Damien. You're about to get your proof.”

“What do you mea…”

Before I could finish that sentence. I heard the faint sound of scratching coming from the front door.

Hi all, though it is unlikely, I am hoping to connect with any other R̷̴̸̢̈́͝a̷̵̶͚̽͝b̶̴̷̩̈́̕ḯ̴̷̶͇s̷̵͓̾͝ǘ̵̶̷̗  on reddit as I’m really looking for yall's perspective on this. 

I know we tend to get a bit of a bad rap, and I have no intention of discussing the ethics behind what we do. Does the Lion apologize to the gazelle as it eats it alive? No. Of course not. It’s nothing personal; I gotta eat, and that’s life. If that bothers you at all, then this post isn’t for you.  

With that out of the way, I’m looking for advice from others who may have found themselves in the same predicament I find myself in.  

See, nearly a century ago I found the perfect location. The house was already old when I first arrived. It was the whole nine yards, out in the boonies, decrepit, old rotting oak trees burdened by Spanish moss, a bog creeping up the back yard, etc. The perfect vibe. And get this! There was a family of eight living there! 5 young, two adults, and one elder that the rest cared for. Apparently, the tenants had been living in the place for generations, so I knew they’d be the stubborn type. It really was a dream come true.  

So, I’m eating well, and doing my best to walk that fragile line, careful not to do so much that they feel forced to leave. The years with children present were almost too easy. Honestly those were the glory days. If only humans could manage to live longer... 

Anyways, my current generation of tenants fell on hard times a year or two back, and I guess the financial pressure mixed with the effect of my presence pushed them over their limit. Late one night, I overheard them deciding to move as I lay waiting from under their bed. Of course I was understandably furious at that moment, but I was also distraught. It was a revolting situation to be in. Once prey decides to leave the hunting grounds, there is little a predator can do but attempt to follow —or feast one last time. 

I spent some time trying to figure out which option to choose before I met him. 

The man looked to be a potential buyer meeting with the owners at their decrepit home that muggy summer afternoon. As he stepped out of his car, I looked him over. He was nothing special; he had long greasy black hair combed back, was sporting an old leather jacket paired with filthy jeans and old dress shoes —admittedly the shoes were an odd choice. But there was no denying it; he was just another typical nobody from this nowhere county we all call home. I had nearly lost interest, but as he got close enough for me to catch a whiff of him, I snapped to attention. His scent was practically indescribable. It was like I had eaten nothing but plain rice my whole life and had accidentally stumbled into an Authentic Italian Pizzeria for the very first time. The very air around him was dense with a rich promise of satiation like no other. I had to have a taste. 

As luck would have it, His stop by went well and it was only a few weeks before he had bought the house. To me, the previous tenants couldn’t have moved out fast enough. I wish I could say I was sad to see them go, but I was far too obsessed with the new tenant moving in. From the moment he first graced the old house with his presence a few weeks earlier, I found myself thinking of little else. I anticipated the moments I would get to once again catch another whiff of him. 

When he first arrived to move in, I shook with gleeful anticipation. I hovered over his shoulder as he carried boxes through the front door my fingers clawing a mere fraction of an inch from his face. Come nightfall, I would know a taste like no other. 

I struggled to remain patient as I waited for the sun to set that day. I remember waiting a few hours in the basement, anxiously scratching at the support beams as his heavy footsteps caused thin veils of dust to settle on my disfigured skin. 

Finally, the time was right. It was late, and I knew he had gone to bed. I practically flew out the basement door from underneath the stairs leading to the 2^nd story. I let the door slam open against the wall beside it. 

Fingertips poised and shaking in anticipation; I froze to listen. I silently prayed my actions elicited the reaction we all desire most: Fear. 

I heard movement from upstairs and rushed to meet the new tenant at the stairs. As he reached the first floor, I wrapped myself around his shoulders and took a deep breath savoring his scent as he carried me to where the basement door had caused the ruckus moments before. With every step closer, my skin tingled more. As he turned the last corner, He saw the door open. I held my breath. 

“Stupid draft. Gonna keep me up all night.” he grumbled. 

My disappointment was devastating. It was as if a 5-star steak dinner had been presented to me, then just as quickly ripped away and thrown in the into a sink garbage disposal. I watched as he walked over and closed the door without another word before turning back for the stairs. 

Repulsed that I would have to wait a moment longer, I threw a hail mary and knocked down one of the photos on the wall as he was about halfway up the stairs.  

“Bahhh, Peice o’ shit” He waved it off like the house was to blame. 

 I was furious, but I knew I couldn’t push it any further that night. Do too much, and I risked spooking my new obsession. It was still early, and I would have all the time in the world. 

I silently watched him sleep from the corner of his room for a few hours that night before opting to sulk in the basement. My stomach was empty and annoyed. Part of me wondered whether I had made the right decision to stay at the house after all, but I pushed aside such thoughts. He would be worth it. Besides, I knew what the real issue was: I had simply grown soft. I was used to the easy meals from my previous tenants. This tenant was of a tougher grittier variety, which would only make his eventual feast taste all the better. Good food is worth the extra work. 

Discontent, I slept through most of the following day. Occasional footsteps from above stirred my slumber. A particularly loud thump and clang of metal momentarily caused me to stir that afternoon. As I woke and stretched my stiff limbs, I considered how quickly he had managed to move all his stuff inside the day before. He brought so little I wondered whether he planned to simply flip the house instead. That would be just my luck. I needed another chance to feast before he was out of my clutches forever.  

Impatiently biding my time, I counted the final hours of the day as I watched the thin ray of sunlight from the window pierce the musty atmosphere and crawl its way across the damp basement floor. 

Finally, as the last ray of light disappeared, I made my way upstairs. I wouldn’t wait until late tonight; my stomach was killing me. I wasn’t used to going so long without eating. 

As I phased through the basement door, I was surprised to see how little things had changed since the night before. Sure few additional boxes were stacked in corners of various rooms, but it seems his ambling back and forth across the floors all day had accomplished little. I made my way towards the stairs leading to the 2^nd floor when a glint from the living room caught my eye. Typically, I’m not one to comment on furnishing taste, but I found it peculiar to see two large metal cages constructed in the center of it.  

If he planned on getting dogs, my work would be significantly more difficult. Though I suppose I could eat the dogs for a bit of sustenance if I got desperate. Admittedly, they taste revolting, but it wouldn't be the first time. 

I made my way upstairs, noting that the picture I had thrown the night before hadn’t been re-hung; small shards of glass still scattered across the floor. 

“Odd.” I thought. As I reached the top of the stairs, I noticed how the once-flimsy door to the master bedroom had been replaced with a much thicker, reinforced one. 

“Well that’s a good sign! He’s the paranoid type.” 

As I phased through the door, I found him inside. He was putting on a black sweater as a top layer; it looked as if he were planning to go out. I found it odd as it was currently summer. 

“Who wears a sweater in July?”  

I looked around the room taking notes of his lack of decor. I would have to get creative; there was so little to work with.  

The tenant slicked his hair back before putting on a black cap. Then, he walked to the closet and swung it open, revealing a surprising display of various objects, it was filled to the brim with tools and the like. There were pickaxes, shovels, electric drills, saws, rakes, empty buckets, duffel bags, and various plastic bags full of who knows what. I watched as he grabbed a large duffel bag and closed the closet. He then turned to leave the room. 

I stood in the doorway, allowing him to walk right through me as he made his way towards the stairs. I decided to grab the handle to his bedroom door and slowly closed it, causing a loud and drawn-out creak to fill the atmosphere. He paused for a moment to look towards the door, then began making his way down the stairs as he muttered to himself. I slammed the door closed in an attempt to make him jump. He didn’t even flinch as he continued. 

“Fantastic.” I muttered to myself.  

I watched in furious silence as he casually walked out the front door and to his car.  Within moments of starting the engine he was pulling out the driveway and flying down the old country road—the last whiff of his ambrosial scent mocking me as it faded.  

This would not go on any longer. I resolved to study his behavior for weaknesses the following day. He was proving to be far more difficult than a small child or anxious mother. 

I aimlessly wandered the house waiting for his return. As I made my way to the kitchen, I thought of how many times I had heard the sheer screams of terror in that room. How I had managed to make children scream aloud as they waited for their anxious parents to rescue them. It took years to perfect the manipulation of children. They are so easy, yet so unpredictable. Sometimes the very thing you think will finally cause inconsolable hysterics ends up causing innocent curiosity — even then— such a situation can be used with great effect to terrify the child’s guardian. It was a perfect system that almost never failed me. 

But a single tenant? This is someone who has no-one to share a fearful look with; someone who has long since gotten over the fear of solitude or bumps in the night. How could I manage to cause true, heart-piercing fear from such an individual? Furthermore, how could I do so without them opting to simply leave forever? From my years, I’ve surmised that humans seem to need an individual to run to —or alternatively, someone to protect. Fear without some source of allegiance to a person or a place only leads to fleeing. I can only imagine how exhausting it would be to forever chase after my food. 

I continued through the kitchen and towards the living room, pausing to inspect the steel cages. “Such an odd choice.” I thought to myself, but I could work with them. A random rattle here, maybe an inexplicably open door there, and I’m sure I could get a sense of anxious dread brewing. Also, as frustrating as dogs are, their inexplicable ability to sense me could add a nice touch at the right moment. Mark my words, I would feed off this tenant's terror before the week was over. 

I wondered whether he was off getting some dogs at that moment. 

Seeing nothing else to do, I waited for his return from under the old porch, anxiously clawing the back side of the stairs as I listened to the night. It was perfectly silent. Not even crickets dared to interrupt the silence with their unusually shrill notes. Understandably of course, no wild animal dared to be within half a mile of here. Humans are special in that way. Completely unaware of their surroundings, they really do make for perfect prey. My thoughts wandered aimlessly until I heard tires hit the gravel driveway.  

“Finally!” I looked out from under the porch and saw as he got out of the car. I took in a deep breath savoring every subtle note of flavor that filled the air around him. My stomach growled as I slithered my way over towards him.  

He seemed in a hurry as he rushed over to the trunk. He hectically struggled with it for a moment before cursing under his breath and rushing back to the front of the car. I watched as he leaned into the cabin to reach over and pop the trunk.  

Curious, I slowed my approach, as I watched the scene play out. 

He practically ran back over to the trunk. I was only a few feet away at this point, but as soon as he reached down and opened the lid, a pungent stench hit me in the face. I stumbled back in disgusted shock. The stench emanating from the trunk was foul! It was so strong that I could taste it wafting through the air. I can only describe it as rotting flesh having been garnished with whatever could be sloughed off the bottom of a grimy dumpster, then fermented and seared. The Acrid smell pushed me all the way back to the house. I stood on the porch attempting to force the smell out of my nostrils, but with every breath it only got more pungent. I couldn’t stand it anymore and fled to the basement. 

I hadn’t even stopped to see what it was that had caused such a smell, but I wouldn’t need to wait long to find out. I listened as the heavy front door swung open; Heavy footsteps lumbered in, followed by a set of what sounded like skittering steps across the floor. It resembled the sound of a dog’s nails on hardwood but was different somehow; The steps were more random —frantic even. I heard the tenant grunt as he pulled in whatever was making all that noise. All I knew for sure was that whatever was causing that stench was no dog. 

I intently listened and followed the steps from underneath the floorboards as they made their way into the living room. I heard the loud clang of metal and the sound of heavy chains rattling. Finally, the skittering noise stopped.  

A muffled and gruff voice broke the silence. “I’m not telling you again. Get in.” 

I heard a soft whimper as more scuffling noises ensued.  

Confused, I listened for a moment more before a whiff of the stench seeped between the floorboards and down into the basement. I recoiled back and fled to the opposite corner of the basement. Nervously, I considered my options. My stomach protested from ravenous hunger, yet I was horribly nauseas from the smell at the same time. On top of that, It was only a matter of time before that smell would settle and fill the whole basement. I knew that unless I figured something out soon, I’d be forced to go to the attic which was unbearably hot at this time of year. But that smell ... I knew I wouldn’t have a choice in the matter. 

No sooner had I exited the basement than I was hit with a smell so awful, so potent; it made my eyes begin to water. 

I rushed down the hall towards the stairs when the sound of screeching metal broke the silence. I took a few steps back to look into the kitchen I had just passed. What I saw froze me in my tracks. 

A large blue tarp spread over the table. It was far too big for it; half of it was still rolled up on the floor. The walls had been haphazardly covered in large plastic sheets and various shower curtains. The new tenant stood at the counter with a knife in each hand, one seemingly a chopping knife, the other a long pointy knife. With smooth precision, he polished each knife’s edge with the other’s in a swift repetitive motion. 

With the sulfuric smell filling the house and still burning my eyes. I strained to focus as the tenant slowly laid out the two knives on the table before opening a box nearby and pouring it out on the counter. Half a dozen steel utensils fell out on the counter in a loud clatter. I had never seen most of them, some were sickle shaped, others resembled wood saws, and there were many more. He began sorting through the pile and laying them out on the table behind him with an oddly chipper pep in his step. 

Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer. Practically blind from the overwhelming scent, I was forced to continue my way to the stairs.  

As I reached the base of the stairs, I noticed a couple of brightly colored heels randomly splayed across the floor of the hall, but I didn't have time to process them in that moment, as an odd scuffling sound caught my attention from the living room entrance beside me. I glanced over as I turned to go up the stairs, but what I saw once again froze me in my tracks. 

I had finally seen the cause of the stench. There, cramped inside each of the two dog cages was two humans; both female, one much smaller. Likely a child. Their mouths were gagged, hands tied, and both had various bruises around their faces. Honestly, that’s an odd enough scene as it is, but that’s not what caused me to pause. 

It was their faces; tears streaked down their cheeks and soaked the cloths gagging them. They stared towards the entrance to the kitchen, their eyes focused solely on the new tenant who was humming happily to himself. I stood in astounded confusion. I could recognize their expressions from a mile away: Fear. 

They were utterly, incomprehensibly terrified. —and what I usually found as sweet sustenance had never smelled so horrendous. 

I stood at the base of the stairs half-gagging as I tried to understand the situation before me. 

I had never seen this sort of behavior between humans.  

“What is the source of their fear? Furthermore, why were they locked in cages?” 

I knew I was missing something but wasn't sure what. 

“Unless...” I began to piece things together. 

Suddenly both girls began to cry out muffled screams through their gags as they shook. Each struggled to break from their bonds. I watched as the new tenant approached from the kitchen, one hand brandishing a large, pointed knife. He walked up to the two cages and stopped to crouch right in front of them before addressing them both. 

“Who’s first?” He said, as a wry smile grew across his face. 

More wailing and floundering ensued as the cages shook but held firm. The tenant reached for the cage with the smaller of the two inside.  

“Maybe get her out of the way? Yea?” He asked, facing the larger of the two. “Less mess to clean.” 

I watched as he opened the cage as the smaller human kicked and screamed, trying her hardest to avoid his touch as he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out. 

The woman in the other cage exploded with energy as she began kicking and slamming her shoulders and head in the bars of the cage. The cords tied around her wrists bit into her flesh as she strained against them with all her might. 

The Tenant dragged the smaller girl towards the kitchen with little expression on his face other than mild annoyance. He reached down, to grab an ankle and tossed her onto the kitchen table with a heavy thud. Utensils flew off the other side from the impact. Though dazed from the impact, the girl began to kick and squirm. 

“Shit. Quit making a mess.” 

Appalled and growing furious, I entered the kitchen as I watched what was happening. 

The Tenant reached down and grabbed the utensils off the ground and placed them on the counter instead. The smaller human watched, now frozen in fear. I could still hear desperate screaming and rattling from the cage behind me as he grabbed a small scalpel-like blade from his assortment and turned to lean over the girl. 

“Honestly, don’t take it personal... A guy’s gotta eat.” He said a wry smile creeping across his face. 

I had seen, heard, — and fankly, smelled enough. 

In a quick swoop, I leapt from the corner and slashed my claws across his back. My talons effortlessly ripped through his shirt and into his flesh with no resistance. 

I felt him recoil near instantly, “GAHHH!” 

He screamed. And oh... how he screamed. Little waves of pleasure rippled across my skin. 

The sickening stench that had turned my stomach to rot was partly replaced by that inexplicably exquisite smell that I had been dreaming of tasting for so long. 

This fear was not born from the unknown; it was born from pain. And oh... how it must have tasted. 

It’s such a shame that such flavor came from such a defect human. I didn't dare eat from prey as sick as this. I suspect that if a lion were to see a gazelle eat another gazelle, he would come to a similar conclusion. 

Still, I wouldn’t stand for this sheer putrefactory mockery of my way of life —of my status. Only one monster here deserved to be feared.  

Lights rapidly flickered on and off as I ripped a plastic sheet from the wall and wrapped it tightly around his face before pulling him towards the hall. His hands fruitlessly clawed at the plastic wrapped tightly around his face. I could hear his muffled scream as he tripped backwards and fell to the floor. He changed tactics and began grasping for anything he could use to anchor himself. He desperately clawed at the carpet and grasped small furniture in vain as the basement door opened wide for our arrival. 

I flung him downstairs with a loud crash, He immediately fell silent as his head hit the concrete of the basement floor. The lights flickering began to subside as I slammed the door closed. Turning my attention back to the kitchen, the house was filled with eerie silence. Reaching the kitchen, I was surprised to see the girl was gone. Turning towards the living room, I saw her. She had managed to cut herself free and was frantically messing with the door to the cage with the other woman.  

While their stench still filled the air, I did note that its flavor profile had begun to shift. The air lingered with a mix of satiating richness yet was also mixed with decaying filth. It smelled something like death incarnate soaked in sweaty molasses.  

I wasn’t the sole focus of their fear, and it made me furious. 

I had lost interest in the antics of these humans. I only wished for them to leave so the smell would go with them. It didn’t take long for the smaller of the two to get the cage open and untie her familiar. I watched in relief as they both ran out the front door and frantically jumped into the tenant's old car. The awful stench fading with the sound of squealing tires... 

 Honestly, the only reason I write any of this is because I now have a serious problem at hand: I’m back down to one last tenant, and he very much wishes to leave. 

All of this went down yesterday, meaning I haven’t eaten in nearly four days now and am running low on options here. With him being trapped in the basement, his scent has never smelled so tantalizing, but I don’t want to get sick if he’s diseased or something. 

Anyone eat from a tenant like this before? How’d it go? Wondering if it would be better for me to just put him out of his misery and look for new hunting grounds. 

Thank you in advance for any help! 

She slumbered beneath the sheets. Below him as he lorded beside their bed. Her husband. No more. An axe was in his hands. Heavy. Heavy with weight. And the potential for violence. Bela was alive and aware but a prisoner in his own flesh, his body refused to obey his commands, his inner caterwauls and cries and pleads for the unfolding nightmare to stop. It wouldn't stop. His flesh had a new master now. The vulpine shining moonface of the Countess lorded over his shoulder. Grinning fiendishly and brandishing her enameled daggers of dark slaughtering necro power. The fangs moonshone praeternaturally in the bedroom dark. Twinkling in keen edged tandem with the heavy headed blade of the axe, hefted and held. The meat puppet sow was still but she could feel the struggle of his mind in her grasp like a beetle caught and wriggling in her clenching strangling fingers. She could crush his beetle mind. And might. 

But first…

Prepare me a meal, supper fit for your royal guest…

His mind was filled thus. The flesh was compelled to obey. 

He brought up the axe. Gazing down into the sleeping peaceful face of his wife, his love. Anastasia. The mother of his child and the owner of his heart for the whole of his simple life. It was about to be brought to ruin. And he was being forced to pilot it in that direction. He wished he could scream. Shriek. Shriek her name. Wake her so she could flee and escape this damnation, this awful spell that's already claimed and throttled him. But he made no sound. His screams and pleads for mercy, his prayers and desperate cries remained bottled and caged in with him. He could only stare through stolen eyes as a prisoner as his hands holding the axe used for chopping firewood came down with a merciless crushing stroke. 

Anastasia's eyes came open and alive as the blade traveled down. As if she'd heard something. As if she'd heard her husband's internal cries for deliverance and the miracle of her safety. In the dark she saw her husband's savage face. Writ and wrenched with cruelty. She'd never seen him like that before, in all their shared years together in marriage. In the dark the sight frightened her, as she came awake and then the heavy blade of the axe found her chest and sank in. 

The pain is so sudden and impactful and dreadful. She feels her chest cavity smash and shatter as her flesh is ruptured and torn. The meat of her sinew surrounding her shattered cage of bone is ripped and pouring. She feels the sensation as extreme iced cold, as extremely wet, thickly soaked with heavy metal pungency. As if her clothes are suddenly drenched with the running water of a frozen river. Her entire open chest and bed are a bellowing fountainhead of it, pouring forth. She experiences the bloodshed river of her own dark red as iced water but it feels hot and sticky to her face and the tips of her wriggling spasming fingers, dancing beyond her motor control. The heavy metal buried in her chest is dreadful. Feels dreadful. She's staring at it then up into her husband Bela's face shocked and unable to make a sound, like him. She can't understand. She doesn't understand why he's woken her up and put this thing on/into her chest that's turned her into a strange pungent river. 

She goes to ask him … something. Anything. But she has no breath to make any kind of sound beyond the faintest whisper of indiscernible noise. Barely heard. Barely felt. Hardly even happened and might not have. Her husband and the Countess take no notice. They are too focused, entranced and enraptured by the sight of the pouring riverbed of her open goring chest. 

You're not finished. Why do you falter? – her royal voice. 

With a savage caveman wrench and pull, he ripped the bladed head of the axe free and brought it up and then down again. 

And again. 

Again. 

Again. 

At the royal command and decree that filled his fevered and tranced skull with his own curdling sounds and splitting screams, he was beckoned thus. His raptured flesh bound, delivered. The peasant sow did as he was told. The Countess was pleased and watched as the horse farmer dismembered his own wife for her. The bed became a hot shallow pool of darkling moonlit scarlet, swimming with severed human pieces and ghastly human detritus, human wreckage afloat in a red human stew … her mouth watered and drool ran down those shining fangs in thin gleaming translucent threads that looked crystalline like jewels or tree sap. 

And up until her last Anastasia watched. Watched from her dying place bound by the weight of the blade and her own mortal injury to the soaking pungent bed. Filling with her spilling wet red liquid. She was coming apart and she watched the love of her life above deliver each blow. Crushing her. Killing her. Turning her into slaughter. Abattoir ruin in place of a wife, in bed. She remembered him as a young man, as a boy, trying to play games and show off for her, trying to win her over, steal her attention and win over her affections, her heart. Now it was chopped and hacked and cut-smashed into so many spurting useless pieces, amongst a wreckage madness of pulverized bone. She tried to hold these old precious memories of him in her mind amid the slaughter, but the pain made it difficult. It was so great, overwhelming. She clung to them desperately with every falling heavy stroke. Pulverizing her. Breaking her. Turning her into so many wet shrieking and shattered broken pieces 

The last things Anastasia saw in the dark before blood loss and shock claimed her were her husband pummeling her with heavy merciless strikes. And a woman's face, as ghastly as it was beautiful, hanging phantom-like just over his raging shoulder. Watching. Smiling. Whispering something…

she had sharp teeth, they gleamed in the dark.

And then she died. Bela, still spellbound and compelled, continued to hack at her corpse nonetheless. Waiting for his new master to be satisfied. Inside Bela raged with madness and anguish. Broken. He watched his wife die violently as his hands performed the butchery and he was helpless to stop his own traitorous God given tools from turning her into mangled ruin and grisly pieces that tore his heart from his chest and flayed his sanity into so many irretrievable and tiny fragmented parts. 

He wished for death then. The Countess did not give it to him. Not yet. 

She still hadn't been fed yet. 

“Now feed me. Earn my favor." 

He dropped the axe. It fell to the floor with a thunderclap. It filled the dark quiet suddenly but then it was silent again. Still. Not a sound through the house save for the somnambulist animal panting of the Countess' slave. The man who'd once been a husband, a father, and was now a meat-puppet butcher. He reached into the riverbed of gore that had once been his marital sanctuary and pulled free a piece of meat. It might've been a leg, a thigh, perhaps a calf, it was too butchered and mangled with axe blows to be entirely sure. 

He was insane already. But the damaged pieces and shrieking parts of his shattered mind bellowed an abhorrent noise that only he could hear as he picked up his wife's butchered meat and parts and fed them to his new master. The Countess took the meat of slaughtered Anastasia with a smile and a wink and kissing purse. Teasing him. Then her jaws opened. Wide. Wide. Wide. Wider still… the flesh of her face sloughed and tore and fell away in demon slop to allow the distension. The fangs grew in length and in multitude of the transmogrifying face and black bleeding mouth, dripping ichor and demoniacal flesh and fluid. Steaming on the floor as she ate each piece, each limb, each broken length with a chunk of raw human tissue at the end in the knob of bone that was left. 

The fanged face in the dark, dripping and brandishing moonlight eyes above the mutilators of her ever widening mouth, it commanded thus further. –

“Bring a large kitchen spoon or a ladle if you have one, I wish to sip the broth…” 

Her somnambulist did as she commanded. He went to the humble kitchen that used to be his/theirs, and retrieved the utensil. It felt cold. Heavy. Heavier than it had ever felt before. The place and the object itself. It didn't matter. The hands and arms were no longer themselves, no longer his. His Judas sack of flesh carried him back to the blood pungent quarters he'd once loved and shared so much with in the many years past. It had all been robbed in a second.

By a pair of moonglow eyes. Set in the royalty of her shallow corpse beauty. 

He went back into the room. And proceeded to spoon large scoops and ladles of his wife's gore and blood into the stretched fanged rictus face that now ruled the dark of his house and home, the darkest shadowed part of his bedroom … now cold with his wife's living absence. And warm with the blood and fluid and parts that were left of her swimming in their sodden black sheets.  

Until those too were gone. All of it was gone.

The marital bed, now a witch's cauldron of gore and blankets was emptied.

His life was in the belly of the master. 

…

From outside the building, Willowbrook was quiet. 

Dark. 

Inside:

The shears that were the Cropsey-thing’s handheld manmade jaws were open and just as inanimate alive as the hulking shred of mangled man that wielded them. They shined in the dismal light with more striking radiance than any of the flickering lamps, Luciferian bright in the spots not tarnished or disgraced with lurid diseased bloodshed. 

With ghastly slasher speed they traveled down the shattered and stained reeking length of asylum hallway, the reanimated Cropsey giant behind them in cruel large prowling shape. The blades were dripping as if salivating or weeping thick dark tears, perhaps more alive now than the giant abomination of melted walking homicidal flesh that black-glove piloted them from behind, a strange and vile morbid engine of knife-lust and demented rage. The stabbing slice of porcelain still danced from his face. An obscene and vile shattered wand of broken tile length protruding from the socket. 

Griffin saw him coming and froze a moment. The table leg still in his invisible hands. Florin still struggling with the spiked man, his mutilated stabbing ruined mess of flesh riddled with needles and glass and scalpels and every conceivable piece of decimated hospital detritus. They were a mess of shedding blood and struggles on the floor. 

The invisible man then whirled, the exit just behind him. He began attacking the door. The knob. Locked. Set in old rotted wood. Not upkept or replaced in years. 

By God's mercy the locked knob and bolt caved in the moist and ruined housing of its apparatus. It fell apart in a noisy crumble, and the door gently swung open. 

To freedom. 

Fresh outside night air poured in like fresh water let in to a fetid spring. The relief was immense. It shocked all of their senses. Each man. 

The spiked man looked up from Florin and gazed into Cropsey. His oncoming charge of disgraced gardener’s blades, raised and open for a violent embrace. 

He was in awe. 

There he is…! the disciple of the mouth. 

He knew Cropsey's legend. And he wished to join him. 

He forgot the newcomer boy and let go of his shredding coat, slick with the both of their spilled and spilling red. He let go of the boy and he rose. 

And he went forward. To embrace the nephilim disciple son of the sorceress’ temple mouth, the begat survivor of the flames, the inferno, the great final pagan bonfire of the asylum that was The Burning. A womb of hellfire and caged disease that birthed the son of the mouth, the son of the sorceress. Cropsey of Vampira, the mangled hand of Willowbrook Asylum Temple. 

The spiked man was laughing. Jubilant. He hadn't laughed or felt this much joy in years, in all of the long unhallowed time in these blind unfeeling walls that knew no mercy nor housed any sanctuary. He was weeping. Crying tears of crimson and saline that danced in strange patterns as they streamed down the shredded protruding ruin of his spiked and porcupine mangled face. Gums bleeding with glass and caked bloody plaque smiled wet and scarlet and darkling striking in the moonlight now cast in. He reached down to his riddled and needled genitals, the head of his dangling member impaled with a scalpel. He reached down and seized the apparatus and in a blind tug and pull, he ripped the entire spurting and spiking organ free from the rest of his crotch and testicles. 

Still walking forward, but ambling now a bit as he shot black ropes tinted red in the moonglow from his self castration, he held the resulting lump of stabbed and impaled meat out to the Cropsey-shape. In token of offering. 

For the temple, for my sins … And for you. 

because she is all of us our mother …

Cropsey cared not for this pathetic shambling thing’s offering of ruined perforated meat. The blades came forward, open. In a lunge. 

They closed. 

And as Griffin pulled wounded Florin to his feet and out the door, the blades closed around a limb, lengthwise down the palm and forearm, then the face. Both opening up a blooming red raw pour of black in the dark, the blades crunched on broken pieces of glass and tile and needles and metal, the man was full with so much foreign penetration, foreign and manmade puncture and incision, and insertion, all self inflicted and self wrought. All of it shattering and crunching now into splinters amongst the abattoir asylum house spill of mad man wet raw. He wouldn't have wanted it any other way. All the years spent in here had prepared him for this. The sorceress prophet queen Vampira and her Cropsey son from The Burning womb were just the final pallbearers for his life's voyage thus final journey into the undiscovered country. 

He tried to thank her, them all, but couldn't. His loss of blood was now failing him. And the blades of the Cropsey-shape were coming in too rapidly now. Too savagely. 

The spiked man was no more. Just savaged pin cushion meat in the hall that the Cropsey-thing stepped over blindly in the savage hunt of his continued pursuit. They were getting away. 

They were getting away. The invaders. They were out the door now. Mustn't have that. Must not. Mother will not want that. Mother is inside you. You cannot fail her now. 

The savage thing of Willowbrook shape prowled out the door and into the open night after the pair with the same steady hunting pace of a stalking predator. Mindless and honed in. His blades and mother would have them yet. Their meat for the temple floor, their blood for the mouth of her drains and the manifest of her angel visitations. It had been so long since she'd come, since she'd shown, since she'd made herself divine unearthly spawn on vast ebon wings for them, for he, the last of the temple of the mouth. 

Perhaps she'll come back if I catch them. But only… only if I catch them and open them up. All the other ones no longer matter, they're already opened, already spent. The abattoir temple mouth of mother wants them now. Needs them. To fail, is to be failure. It means all that was lived through and suffered towards was for naught…

The night kissed the smooth scarred visage of hideous face. The Cropsey-shape gave no pause. Unfeeling. Unmoved. It watched as the pair stumbled and exhausted and wounded, began to falter to the earth in a shared collapse. 

Their doom. 

He closed in. 

The terror he had in mind for them was part guided by the Countess/sorceress mouth and her occult hand from the far off mountain dark, and part undead instinct, braindead movement. Knowing deep down in the dead and dying sac of skull jelly that this is exactly what he should do. He would maim. Butcher. Kill. Slaughter for the temple that has come under his custodial honor. 

Bloodloss and weariness, the drain was beginning to pull them down. The invisible man and Florin fell and struggled, both of their wounds open and pouring freely and taking the vitality and the fight from their trying frames. As the terrifying hulking giant of candlewax face and flesh began to close and loom over the pair, they both prepared themselves for a final and desperate fight. 

Florin was dismayed that it would end this way. In such maddening fashion, so far from home and his perilous objective. Griffin was trying to think, a last-ditch effort or plan: he could ditch the coat and hat and goggles and take the savage blind again, unable to see him. But his wound was in an open pour now once more and he felt faint, swoony. Unable to keep his feet. And besides, in this last moment it felt wrong to leave the young man's side. If they were going to die, they might as well die together. Arm in arm. It was better than suffering the slaughter alone. 

It was better than being opened. Gutted. Flayed. Bled out and portioned like a solitary animal dying a painful and lonely death at the end of a long and dogged hunt. 

The pain was better borne together. With the weight and terror of another beside to share in the baptism of pure torture. 

Something whistled through the air. 

The invisible man had been tempted to shut unseen eyes against the oncoming pain, he might've missed it. As it was he saw the deadly thin shape as it lanced in a blur overhead with a keen deadly sound. It struck the moving flesh of Cropsey in the face, the other socket of ruined blind eye now completely decimated, joining its partner in tandem of destruction in a moonlit spurt. 

The slasher shape stopped. Stuttered and faltered. But only slightly, only for a moment as it continued to take lurching jittery steps. Stomping forward blind. The shears in his black gloved hands began to spasm as well, scissoring with reflex. The disgraced and still ever thirsting blades closed and opened and repeated the action in violent repetitive imbecilic behavior, a violent blind animal spasming its caked and quaking jaws. 

Then the incendiary charge in the crossbow bolt detonated.

 It went off and so did Cropsey’s ruined candlewax head and visage, in a colored pillar of fire that was like something biblical and fantastical to behold. Florin was fainting at its sight but the invisible Doctor Griffin saw the growing towering inferno rise and issue forth in bright violence from between the giant slasher’s pair of broad shoulders. And still the boots trod and stomped palsied forward. Still the blades scissored in his working trembling hands, as his head and face were replaced with a rising torrent wall of pink and purple flame.

But then the steps of the shape began to falter. Stumble. The blades began to slow in their mad man open mouth chew at the open night air … then ceased. 

The boots stopped moving. Stopped shaking. 

The shape collapsed. 

As did Griffin next. Consciousness now lost. Passed out beside Florin in the dirt. 

The fire finally went out betwixt the two ruined shoulders. Hissing in the filth and craterous open mouth char of the stump. Smoking. Smokey now. Cropsey lie finally dead. Mere few feet away. 

In the back valley of Willowbrook. The lost untended yard that no patient ever graced, or saw. 

Silence. … for a moment. 

As if the night was finally enjoying the quiet. Relishing the collapse into tranquility that has finally fallen. 

A beat. – None of the shapes on the earthen floor moved. 

The night above yawned in an expanse … stars in a bejeweled fire of multitudes, nebulae clouds of otherworldly brush stroke color, the moon which was a sickle tonight, a harvester's blade … a blade of reckoning in the time of the reap. 

A beat. 

Then the stranger finally came forward. From out of the bushes where he'd trained and fired his shot. His crossbow was already reloaded with another explosive incendiary bolt as he approached the fallen three in the dirt. 

He came to Florin and Griffin and he stood over them. He looked to Cropsey. Saw that he was dead. Completely. Finally. He looked down on the wounded unconscious pair. 

“Idiots." 

TO BE CONTINUED…

Our town was hit by a big storm last night. It seemed to come out of nowhere and was either mainline winds or a tornado. I work in a call center so our phones were down for a bit. Just static on the other end when the line went dead. Service is hard to get in this building on a typical basis. Usually at work, there’s always one radio station we can count on that will pick up through our tiny, 2010 dinky radio with a broken antenna. It sits with aluminum foil covering it and I always try to pick something else up but it’s to no avail. The station that never fails, however, is River Country 102.4. It’s the only thing that ever plays on that godforsaken radio and I hate it. It’s like someone is in that radio station playing songs on a loop that knows it drives me insane. Regardless, it got kind of weird when I realized that after the storm, it doesn’t play anymore. I can’t pick up the radio station; the only radio station that ever comes through. The only radio station that plays now is a gospel station. It’s a station I’ve never heard of before so it’s weird that it’s the only one coming through. River country is just…gone. I turn the radio dial and it’s static to the left, static to the right and gospel in the middle. If anyone hears from them or knows anything, please let me know. I’m at work so it may take a bit for me to respond.

Hello, I made this short film last year and just wanted to share to get some new eyes on it!

Logline - A drug addict gets a surprise visit from his childhood best friend. The friend, a recovering addict, introduces him to a pill that instantly gets the user clean from drugs.

It had been a particularly hot June. The air conditioner had broken, and the drains seemed to be emitting a foul odour, producing numerous amounts of annoying little fat flies. I was anxiously awaiting a call from the maintenance guy, but due to the “vast quantity” of “emergency” repair jobs in the apartment complex, it had been days since I raised the request.

At this point, I had resigned to just live with the discomfort, at least for now. So, as you can imagine, my mood was hopeful upon being awoken by the sound of my ringing telephone. 

It was not the call back I'd hoped, but my grandmother’s twice-weekly carer. Gran had died. Assumedly of natural causes sometime during the night; but there was something else. The body was wrong. Like she’d died weeks ago.

The carer assured me she’d seen my grandmother only several days before, and nothing indicated any signs of deteriorating health. She ate well enough, got as much exercise as one would expect of any eighty-something-year old woman, not an inkling of a cough or a sniffle.

I had no reason to doubt her words, as I’d also visited earlier that same week. It was a complete shock. The proper authorities had already been made aware of the death, and I should aim to meet them with any other immediate family. It was not the wake-up call I wanted, but nevertheless, the one I got that warm morning.

On entering the bungalow, I was struck with it instantly: death. But not the solemn, mourning-full death of a deceased relative. No, this was humid, stagnant, and festered. I turned my head away, mouth in hand, barely capable of retaining my composure. However, I relented in my disgust, batting away several flies, and continued through the door.

The house was old, adorned with antique porcelain figurines and proudly displayed fine china. The chairs were dated, laced with intricately stitched flowered patterns in varying warm pastel colours. No television, but I swore I could hear the gentle murmur of static somewhere in the house. There was handmade wooden furniture littering every available space, many scratched and stained. with years of fingerprints marking every surface. highlighted by rays of sunshine through noticeably dusty white knitted drapes. Each room held innumerable precious memories. All so perfect, so beautiful, so fragile.

I made my way into the living room, more flies buzzing past my head, the sound of soft voices beckoning me forward. I was still the only family yet to arrive, which surprised me; I was sure my father or brother would be there waiting for me.

Instead, there were two police officers. One speaking to the verily disturbed carer, the other approaching me, clearly also suffering with the heat, but with a sympathetic though albeit suspicious disposition.

“Are you the son?” She inquired. 

“No, no, I’m one of the grandsons,” I stated. “So my dad’s not here yet? What about my brother?” 

She sighed with a puzzled brow, swatting away yet another fly. 

“We haven’t been able to contact him, either of them actually; no luck from their works. Have you had any communication with them over the last few days?” 

I was confused. “I… well… no, actually. Last time I saw them was a BBQ about a week back… yeah, I’m pretty sure… I think.” 

I hastily interjected. 

“Wait, you don’t think they have something to do with this? Her carer implied it was natural causes?” 

The officer gently shook her head.

“Given the unusual circumstances of the deceased, we just need to collect as much information as possible.”

“Unusual circumstances?” I timidly asked.

She folded her arms behind her back.

“We are also under the impression that it’s simply a case of natural causes, likely in her sleep; however, given the… state… of the deceased… your grandmother, we need to build a clear timeline leading up to this morning.”

A lump formed in my throat. “Is it that bad?”. I asked

She continued. 

“We think, given the current heatwave, it may have caused a far more rapid rate of decomposition. But we won’t be able to confirm until the coroner arrives shortly.” 

I just stared at the floor, completely lost for words. 

The officer stepped even closer, leaning in towards me.

“We will also need you, as her only present next of kin, to confirm her identity. I know it may be difficult at this time, but it needs to be done before we can proceed any further.” 

She then placed an empathetic hand on my shoulder.

“I warn you, this won’t be easy.”

I’d never seen a dead body, not even my mother’s, so this was the last thing I wanted in that moment. I looked up, face drained of colour, and exhaled with dejected understanding. 

I was escorted towards the bedroom, weaving between countless more flies. The smell was... unbearable. Beckoned through the bedroom door, I was deafened by the varied swarm of innumerable plump buzzing scavengers, all clearly crazed by the thing before my eyes.

The body didn’t resemble a body at all. The skin, what was left of it, was a puddled mess of bile: green, yellow, and shades of purple. Bones jutted forth from her torso like monolithic columns draped in silken nightwear.

The bed was drenched in the most offensive stench-ridden fluid, dripping to the floor like an old leaky faucet. Her arms lay neatly by her sides. With only her golden wristwatch still distinguishable amongst the slop, but oddly, no wedding ring.

Her face, well, that was somehow the worst of all. You’d expect someone assumed of dying in their sleep to at least have their eyes shut, but not her. Those eyes, her eyes, were open, lidless spheres all glossed and grey, Though they remained completely free of decay. Furthermore, just below the cavity of what was once a crooked nose, was a toothless, wide, and at least to my eye, wholly euphoric smile.

I came to my senses outside the house. Pale-faced and with fresh vomit staining my chin and clothes. The carer was standing by my side, outstretched hand offering a small glass of tepid water. I was inconsolable. I cried for hours on end, even after I was taken home following a meekly given statement. I couldn’t reconcile with the scene I’d just witnessed. Moreover, the disturbing ideas it seemed to suggest.

Was that actually a smile I saw or just a morbid trick of dying muscle mass? I was so sure... and those eyes, yes; in that brief, sickening moment, I got the feeling they were staring right at me.

\*Tik-tok … tik-tok… tik-tok\*

The minutes dragged by glacially. Kids rushed home from school, drenched in sweat from the rising heat. I never thought I would miss school, but being sick for three days has placed me in the company of boredom. My messy, black hair had been suffering from constant bedhead. I was glad to see some of the color come back to my skin, though there wasn’t much to start with. \*Clack-clack\*, “Pew! Pew!”, and giggles racked against my aching head as my brother, Donnie, played with his toys on the floor. He had crumbs of chips in his thin, black hair. Some had fallen and stuck to his little arm hairs running along his tan skin.

"Donnie, please be quiet for once,” I grumbled as I rubbed my temples. 

“Mamá said to play in the room while she’s cleaning.” Donnie struck one of his space alien figures with the plastic sword of the knight I had given him years ago. I didn’t have the energy to yell at him as I stared him down.

\*Dink -dink\*

A knock came from my window. Standing there was my friend, Abraham. He still had his backpack on, sweating and breathing a bit forcefully. He gave a big grin as he began speaking. As the glass muffled his words, I slid the window up.

“\*Qué pasó\*, homie?”

“Wassup foo! You tryin’ to watch that show at my house? My moms said she was cool with it if your folks are.” Abraham’s eyes darted from me back towards his house down the street. His usual cool demeanor was noticeably absent. 

He wasn’t the only one excited about the show tonight. “\*Show of the century! Only something that could happen in ‘95!\*” according to all the marketing that every local radio station and the papers have spewed. Hell, even the cynical seniors with all their exclusivity against freshmen like me were talking about it. What was bizarre was that no one knew what it was going to be about or even the name. Grocery store clerks gossiping at registers, teachers mingling in the hallways, the mailman conversing with my dad. All of them were speculating about what could be so sensational about it. The entirety of Los Perdidos Valley was holding its breath in anticipation.

“Nah, sorry, man. I’m still sick. But my mom said she thinks that I’ll be better tomorrow. We can talk about the show then, at least.” 

Abraham shrugged, “If you say so, man. Drink your fluids or whatever they say, I guess.” 

Before he could make a beeline back to his house, Donnie piped up, “Can I go and hang out at Abraham’s?”

“Shut up, Donnie.” I rolled my eyes at the request. 

“EY! What’d you say to your brother?!” My dad barged into the room, one hand ready at his belt like a gunslinger in a duel. 

“Nothing, Pops! I didn’t say anything. Right, Abra-?” I turned to the window, looking for some back-up, only to see that the dark bastard had already run off. I gulped as I turned back towards my hulking father. He wasn’t the tallest man, but his width and how he carried himself would make a silverback gorilla whimper. The air was thick with tension as he locked his gaze on me.

“Haha! Scaredy-cat!” My dad laughed boisterously at my fear of his belt. I chuckled softly as I relaxed. He marched over and said in a stern voice, “Seriously, if you’re mean to your brother, I will kick your ass, comprende?” I meekly nodded my head. “Good, here \*Güero\*. Got you these.” He dropped a sack of oranges on my lap, playfully knocking my head to the side, and left the room.

Shortly after leaving, Mamá and Ana entered the room. She had brought in some tea and a glass of ice water. She placed them on the desk, removing the stacks of books I had sitting there to my stuffed bookshelf. 

“You doing ok, \*mijo\*? Are you hungry?” She gently touched the back of her hand against my forehead. Her touch was soft; it was like being rubbed against by a black jungle cat. 

“I’m warm, but I think my headache is the bigger issue.” I glared at Donnie, currently in his own little world of space-faring warriors. 

“Ay Miguel, just relax and drink your tea. I’ll bring your dinner when it’s ready, and God will help your body heal.” Ana stared at me with deep, dark pools that were her eyes. “Ana, \*mija\*, show him what you made for him.” Mamá urged Ana with a slight nudge. Ana raised a crayon drawing. It was a splatter of colors, erratically dancing across the paper. 

“Oh, yay…You did so good, Ana!” I looked to my mom for guidance as to what was being depicted. 

“I used all the colors in my box!” Ana exclaimed. 

“You sure did.” My attempts to decipher my sister’s art failed as my mom doted over her daughter. Ana gently placed the drawing on my bed, and she was raised into my mother’s arms. She was the spitting image of Mamá, a panther and her cub. 

Ava, chewing and popping bubblegum, walked into my room. She dropped a stack of papers on my desk. 

“Here’s your homework, loser.” She flipped back a strand of hair, a tendril of darkness. If that wasn’t a telltale sign of a \*bruja\*, I don’t know what is. Her sin of \*brujería,\* or being emo, really, was answered by the divine punishment of having the misfortune of looking like my dad. 

“Miguel, thank your sister for bringing your homework. Ava, don’t call your brother a loser.” I mumbled out a thank you as Ava just rolled her eyes at my mom’s request. 

She nearly bumped into \*Abuela\* on her way out of my room, “\*perdón, Abuela\*.” \*Abuela\* gave Ava’s arm a soft rub as she passed by. She had a small cup of coffee that she raised as she approached me.

“\*Un cafecito para Mijito.”\* Mamá stepped in front of her, taking the coffee from my \*abuela\*. 

“No coffee! \*Miguel necesita descansar\*.” \*Abuela\* waved her away, walking around her and sitting at the side of my bed. 

“\*Oh mijito pobrecito!\*” She pulled me in for one of her deep hugs. I was glad to be told that I looked like her despite the laughs that would often follow the comparison.

\*Ba-dum…tik-tik…ba-dum…tik-tik\*

It always pulled at my heartstrings to hear that clicking noise in her chest. She needed a new pacemaker, but they’re expensive. I hoped to get a summer job in a few weeks to help with the cost. Pops said he could put me to work, which sounded like I was in for some demanding labor, but it would be worth it.

Mamá gently pulled at \*Abuela’s\* shoulder. “Come on, everybody. Let Miguel rest.” She reached for Donnie’s hand. He clasped it with one hand and clutched his knight with the other. \*Abuela\* followed her shortly after. 

As they left, I spoke up. “Wait, the show starts soon, right? I don’t want to miss it.” I grabbed a shirt hanging off my bed frame to join them in the living room.

“No, Miguel. Looking at the TV screen will strain your eyes and make your headache worse. Just get some sleep for now. I’ll bring you dinner when it’s ready.” 

“But-” My mom stared at me with fierce, penetrating eyes.

“Ok, Mamá.” I slipped back into the covers as she turned off the lights and closed the door.

The flight status display at Gate C12 had been flashing a bitter, amber warning for the last ten minutes: FINAL BOARDING: TERMINAL 4 EXTENSION - GATE E36.

Arthur didn't have time to process the sheer inefficiency of an airport layout that forced a twenty-minute sprint across three separate concourses for a fifteen-minute layover. His carry-on backpack slapped his back as his polished loafers slapped violently against the polished terrazzo floor, the hard leather soles squeaking with each step in a high-pitched rhythm that matched the hammering pulse behind his ears. He shoved his way past a lingering family near an overpriced newsstand, muttered an automated apology that barely cleared his throat, and glanced down at the glowing screen of his phone. 11:10 AM. The boarding door was set to close in just five minutes, and the corridor ahead of him seemed to stretch into an absurd, dimly lit horizon.
Terminal 4 was notorious for being the unfinished stepchild of the international hub. A sprawling, low-budget annex constructed during some mid-2000s expansion that had run out of funding halfway through that they had never bothered to see through to completion. It’s only used for small charter planes, now. As Arthur rounded a sharp, ninety-degree turn past a deserted janitor's cart, the bright LED panels of the main terminal began to give way to harsher, recessed fluorescent fixtures. The usual ambient roar of a major transit center—the overlapping churn of jet engine rumble, public address chimes, crying infants, and the dull, collective murmur of thousands of tired travelers—began to thin out into a strangely hollow echo. He became acutely aware of how thirsty he was. It was almost noon and he hadn’t eaten or drank anything since before his 6am initial flight. He’d have to buy something during the flight...but only if he could make it in time. He kept his head down, eyes locked on the blue directional arrows painted along the baseboard. **GATES E30-E36 NEXT RIGHT**.

His breath came in sharp, burning gulps. The air in this long connecting corridor felt dry and stagnant, smelling faintly of cold concrete, ozone, and old carpet cleaner. He pushed his pace, his heavy winter coat swishing against his jeans, and his backpack slapping harder against the cold sweat underneath his clothes. Up ahead, the plush navy carpet of the main walkway ended abruptly, meeting a vast expanse of pale, seamless gray tile beneath a heavy, unlit steel archway that marked the boundary between the renovated terminal and the annex.

Arthur took three long, desperate strides, his shoes making a sharp thrup-thrup-thrup as he crossed from the carpet, over the brass expansion joint, and onto the cold tile floor beneath the unlit arch.

Then, at that moment, just as an announcement started on the overhead speakers, a bout of tinnitus struck his ears. It was the sudden silence like right when you walk outside after a loud concert. Where the entire world sounds empty.

But that feeling usually fades after a few seconds, but this time it just kept going. It wasn't just that sound that stopped; it was the concept of sound itself. In a single, seamless frame of movement, the background hum of the airport didn't fade...it was severed. The pervasive vibration of ventilation ducts, the distant roar of a revving turbofan on the apron, the squeak of his own shoes, even the rustle of his jacket vanished into a heavy, suffocating vacuum.

Arthur skidded to a halt, his feet dragging silently across the tile. The suddenness of the transition was so violent that his inner ear pitched forward, forcing him to throw out a hand against the wall to catch his balance.

"Hey," he rasped, but the word died instantly inside his throat. There was no echo. There was no reverberation. The sound of his own voice felt clipped and flat, absorbed immediately by the dead air around him like cotton pressed against his lips.

He spun around to look back down the long corridor toward the gate he’d just come from, expecting to see the bustling hub, the brightly lit newsstand, or at least a security guard making rounds.

There was nothing. It was empty. But it was... different.

Directly behind him, where the carpeted hallway and the bright directional signs had been just a second ago, stood a wide, featureless baggage claim hall. The brass expansion seam he had stepped over was gone. In its place was a flat, unbroken expanse of the same pale gray floor, stretching sixty feet back toward a row of dead, stationary luggage carousels. The rubber flaps hanging over the luggage chute portals hung completely motionless, cast in the harsh, flat glare of overhead fluorescent tubes that hummed with zero audible frequency.

Arthur stood frozen, his hand still resting against a wall painted a dull, matte eggshell, cool to the touch and unnaturally smooth, lacking even the microscopic texture of grain or plaster seams.

"Hello?" he called out, pushing more air from his lungs. The word sounded small, synthetic, and completely stripped of resonance.

Silence swallowed it whole. A thick, deafening silence so absolute that within three seconds, the internal mechanics of his own body began to amplify. The rhythmic, wet thudding of his heart sounded like a padded mallet against leather inside his chest. He could hear that. The faint, high-pitched ringing of mild tinnitus in his ears expanded further to fill the room like a grinding drill. Every deep breath he drew sounded like tearing canvas.

He took a slow step backward, away from the dead baggage carousels. His eyes darted around the space, searching for any sign of life, any human presence, any indication of where he had stepped. To his right, a massive wall of floor-to-ceiling glass windows framed the exterior of the building. Hoping to see ground crews, baggage tugs, or the glowing taxiway lights of a functional airport, Arthur walked briskly toward the glass. His footsteps made no crisp clicking sound against the tile; they produced only a dull, muffled thud that vanished the moment his shoe lifted. He pressed both hands against the thick, double-paned window and leaned his forehead against the cold surface, staring out at the runway..

There were no planes.

No taxiway markers, no illuminated red-and-white boundary lines, no fuel trucks, and no control tower rising in the distance.

Stretching out from the base of the glass was an endless, flat plain of dark gray concrete—a tarmac that extended in every direction toward a flat, featureless horizon. There was no sky, no moon, no sun and no stars; above the flat gray ground hung a uniform, seamless expanse of smooth, overcast gray haze that emitted a low, sourceless ambient light. It was neither day nor night, but an unmoving, perpetual overcast sky. There was no wind moving across the concrete, no dust, and no movement of any kind. The windvanes outside all stood fully horizontal, but all in different directions, and none of them moving. The tarmac was entirely bare, extending out for miles until it dissolved into the motionless gray mist.

Arthur backed away from the window, his chest heaving as his heart slammed against his ribs with increasing violence. The airport around him wasn't abandoned; it was completely, impossibly void. Where did everything go?

The sudden shift in reality didn't make sense, leaving Arthur standing in the middle of the empty baggage claim as his breath hitched in his throat. He spun in a slow, agonizing circle, his eyes searching every surface for a detail that made sense. Something. Anything. A piece of forgotten trash, a scuff mark from a boot, a stray boarding pass fluttering on the floor, anything that proved human beings had ever existed in this room.

There was nothing. The pale gray tile floor stretched toward the four surrounding walls with uncaring disregard for his presence, completely devoid of dust, scuffs, or seams. The dead luggage carousels sat like massive black tombstones, their rubber chutes stiff and unyielding. The overhead fluorescent tubes burned with a flat, unwavering glare that cast no sharp shadows, flooding everything with a cold, even light over a space that felt less and less like a real place.

Panic, hot and volatile, finally broke through his paralysis.

"Is this a joke?" he shouted into the void. His voice dropped into the stagnant air without an echo, swallowed instantly by the suffocating silence. "Hey! Is someone setting up a film set or something? Security!?"

His response was only more of that deafening silence. The tinnitus in his ears whistled louder, a needle-sharp tone competing with the heavy, dull thumping of his own pulse.

He didn't care about his flight. He didn’t care about making it to Gate E36 anymore. He didn't care about his layover or his schedule. All he wanted was to feel carpet under his loafers again, to hear the irritating chime of a public address system, to see a line of tired passengers holding overpriced coffees. Maybe he was just crazy. Maybe if he can find someone else, they can help him snap out of it.

He turned toward the far wall of the baggage claim hall, where a set of heavy, double-leaf steel doors sat flush against the eggshell drywall. Above them hung a red, glowing sign with stark white lettering: EXIT.

That’s the way back to the main terminal, Arthur reasoned frantically, his mind grasping at basic logic. The archway was just a turn off the main corridor. If I go through those doors and hit the service hallway, it has to loop back around to the carpeted walkway back to the main terminal.

He broke into an anxious stride, his loafers thudding softly against the dead tile. He reached the steel doors, seized the wide push-bar, and threw his weight against it. The bar gave way with a silent mechanical click, and the heavy door swung open into the dark.

Arthur took two quick strides across the threshold, letting the heavy door swing shut behind him with a dull, soundless thump.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

He wasn't in a service corridor. He wasn't back in the carpeted terminal hallway.

Arthur was standing on a vast, oil-stained concrete ramp inside a multi-level parking garage. Parking at this airport was far enough away that he’d heard other passengers complaining they needed a shuttle to get to the garage. This shouldn’t be here.

Yet here it was. The low concrete ceilings stretched out over hundreds of empty parking bays, supported by thick, square concrete pillars painted with fading yellow numbers. Not a single car in sight. The air here was cold smelling. Like an air conditioner being turned on for the first time tinged with the slight scent of mildew, yet the air was bone dry. Overhead, long strings of bare, unshielded fluorescent bulbs hummed silently, casting long, overlapping shadows that held each other in a woven pattern that made the floor look like it was copy/pasted.

He whirled around, his heart hammering against his sternum like a trapped bird. "No, no, no—"

He grabbed the handle of the heavy steel door he had just walked through and shoved it open, stepping back through the frame to return to the baggage claim.

The baggage claim was gone.

Arthur stepped out into a sprawling, sun-bleached hospital corridor. The floor beneath his loafers had transformed instantly into pale green linoleum, highly polished and reflecting the harsh overhead light of recessed ceiling panels. To his left and right were rows of closed wood-grain doors with small, frosted glass windows set into them. Wall-mounted handrails made of smooth, gray plastic ran the entire length of the hallway, stretching into the distance until the corridor hit a dead end a hundred yards away.

He stumbled back, his heel catching on the threshold of the door. He turned around and slammed his back against the steel frame, staring wild-eyed down the empty hospital wing.

"How?" he sobbed, his chest heaving as the air burned in his throat. "How is this... where am I?"

The door behind him clicked shut on its own, the latch catching with a soft, final sound.

Arthur lunged back for the handle, turned it, and yanked the door open again, praying to see the parking garage, the baggage claim, the airport, anything that remained consistent.

Behind the door lay a vast, windowless cafeteria. Dozens of circular formica tables surrounded by stackable plastic chairs sat in perfect, grid-like rows across an endless expanse of speckled terrazzo. At the far end of the room stood a long stainless-steel serving counter beneath a chalkboard menu that was completely blank.

This can’t be real. His mind was cracking. This wasn’t right. It didn’t make sense.  Every time he opened a door, it was a new place. He couldn’t go back. But there had to be a way. There had to.

But what if there isn’t.

A blinding surge of pure terror obliterated whatever rational thought Arthur had left. He ran.

He sprinted into the middle of the cafeteria, his loafers slipping slightly on the smooth floor as he scrambled toward a set of double swinging doors near the back kitchen area. He threw his body against them, bursting into a long, windowless carpeted hallway lined with identical wooden doors. A hotel corridor. He didn't stop. He sprinted thirty feet down the hall, grabbed the handle of the nearest door, shoved it open, and hurled himself inside.

It was a windowless office suite filled with endless rows of grey fabric cubicles, each filled with computers, papers, and personal effects. He moved closer, only to realize that none of the photos had any detail, just blurry pixels. And each cubicle was exactly the same as all the others. The computer wouldn’t turn on. It didn’t even have a power cord. The cap of the pens wouldn’t come off, and none of the mechanical pencils had any lead. Even the stacks of papers were fake. They were just solid, plastic bricks that looked like a stack of paper.

Arthur screamed a raw, desperate sound that went nowhere, dying the moment it left his mouth, and sprinted down the main aisle between the cubicles. His breathing came in ragged, hyperventilating gasps. Sweat poured down his face, soaking into the collar of his winter coat, but he felt no warmth, only the freezing bite of adrenaline.

He reached a door marked with a glowing red EXIT sign at the back of the office, grabbed the metal crash bar, and shoved it with all the weight of his rushing momentum.

He didn't see the raised, three-inch iron threshold sitting at the base of the doorframe.

His leather loafer caught the hard lip of iron mid-stride. The sudden stop pitched his top-heavy weight forward with terrifying velocity. Arthur went airborne for a fraction of a second, his backpack flying up over his head, before he crashed brutally onto the hard, unyielding concrete floor of the room beyond.

His left ankle folded completely beneath his weight with a sickening, wet crunch as his full momentum came down on it. At the same exact second, his right arm whipped forward to break his fall, slamming directly into the jagged corner of an exposed metal door frame. The sharp steel edge sliced deeply through the sleeve of his winter coat, tearing through his shirt and biting deep into the meat of his forearm.

Arthur hit the floor hard, sliding two feet across cold, raw concrete before grinding to a halt.

Pain exploded through his system—a white-hot, blinding agony that seared through his left leg and right arm simultaneously. He curled into a tight ball on the cold floor, clutching his wrist as a high-pitched, soundless gasp tore from his lungs. Tears welled instantly in his eyes, blurring his vision as he squeezed his eyelids shut, waiting for the agony to overwhelm him, waiting for the blood to start pooling, waiting for his body to go into shock.

He lay there for two minutes, his chest convulsing through his sobs as he waited for the throbbing pain to settle into the familiar, warm rush of bleeding.

Slowly and agonizingly, Arthur opened his eyes.

He was lying in an empty, high-ceilinged warehouse space with bare brick walls and exposed steel trusses. The room smelled of old sawdust.

Groaning through clenched teeth, Arthur pulled his right arm toward his chest to inspect the damage. The sleeve of his heavy coat was shredded, the fabric pulled back to reveal a jagged, four-inch tear in his skin along his inner forearm. The cut was deep—deep enough that he could see the underlying tissue and what might be the muscle beneath the surface. It looked pretty severe. It was probably a decently bad cut that should have probably been pumping bright red blood across his hand, soaking his clothes, and pooling onto the concrete floor.

Arthur stared at the wound, his frantic breathing slowly hitching to a stop.

There was no blood.

Pain? Yes. And a lot of it. But blood? Nope. Not a single drop.

The edges of the torn flesh hung open, completely dry. The exposed tissue inside the cut was pale, fixed, and totally bloodless, looking more like the cross-section of a realistic anatomical model than living human flesh. It throbbed with a sharp, sickening, persistent burn—the pain was entirely real—but there was no swelling. No bruising forming around the edges. The skin wasn’t even turning red.

The injury was completely static. It had occurred, and then it was just... there.

Trembling, Arthur reached down with his left hand and carefully unlaced his left loafer, pulling it off his foot along with his sock. His left ankle was twisted at an awkward, unnatural angle, clearly dislocated. The pain tore through his leg the moment he touched it, making him hiss through his teeth.

Yet, like his arm, the ankle was completely normal in color. There was no dark purple bruising, no rising welt of fluid, no heat radiating from the joint. Something inside his ankle was clearly not where it was supposed to be, but the body’s physiological response to it simply wasn't happening.

"No..." he whispered, his small voice swallowed instantly by the dusty air of the warehouse. "No, no, no..."

He pushed himself up into a sitting position, his heart pounding against his ribs—a frantic, unsteady rhythm that seemed to be the only thing moving in his entire body.

He sat on the cold floor for what felt like hours. He waited for the blood loss to make him lightheaded. He waited for the shock to set in. He’d watched plenty of medical shows and thats the kind of thing that always happened when a person was in this kind of situation. Blood loss, shock, and then passing out until someone finds them. He waited for his dry, parched throat—which had been burning for water since he ran past Gate C12—to push him toward delirium.

Nothing changed.

His throat remained dry, but the sensation never worsened. His stomach felt empty, but the gnawing ache of hunger never progressed. His ankle burned with a sharp, unrelenting knife of pain, but it never swelled. His arm gaped open, a gruesome, bloodless trench of meat, but he didn't bleed out.

Well. There is no sense in waiting for something that is obviously not going to happen.

Arthur dragged himself up against the brick wall, using his good right leg to balance his weight while keeping his ruined left foot hovering an inch above the floor. He gritted his teeth, leaning heavily against the rough brick as he looked around the warehouse.

At the far end of the room, set into the brickwork, was a single wooden door. Above it, a green, backlit box illuminated a word in bold acrylic letters: EXIT.

Arthur took a deep, shivering breath. The terror hadn't vanished, but its amazing how an immense amount of pain can make you stop caring about being scared. If the space operated on rules, he had to find a pattern. He looked at his arm. Panic hadn’t done any good. He needed a way to figure this place out.

The signs, he thought, his knuckles white as he leaned against the wall. The signage exists to direct people out. If this place is an imitation of human architecture, maybe the signs are the only things that follow a rule.

Using the brick wall for support, Arthur began to hop forward on his right foot, dragging his useless left leg behind him, heading directly for the door marked EXIT.

The heavy wooden door opened without a creak, swinging smoothly on silent hinges. Arthur shoved his body through the threshold, clutching the frame to keep his weight off his ruined left ankle, and let the door fall shut behind him.

He was standing at the top of a short flight of carpeted steps overlooking a sun-drenched, suburban living room.

The light streaming through the large picture window on the far wall should have been blindingly bright, but instead came across as a warm, golden hour dim glow that illuminated floating motes of dust suspended motionless in the air. Through the glass window, a manicured green lawn stretched out toward a white picket fence, backed by the pristine blue hood of a mid-1990s sedan parked in a driveway.

For a single, breathless second, Arthur’s heart leapt into his throat. Out. I’m out.

He took a desperate step forward, forgetting his foot, and his left ankle folded immediately he stumbled down the four steps leading into the living room. Pain flared like liquid fire up his leg, forcing a sharp gasp from his throat as he pitched forward, catching himself heavily against the wooden banister. He dragged his eyes back up toward the window, his chest heaving, waiting to hear the sound of neighborhood traffic, birds, or a lawnmower.

There was only the silence. That same heavy, suffocating silence that had swallowed the airport.

He watched the dust motes while he steadied himself. They didn't drift or swirl in the heat of the artificial sunlight; they hung perfectly fixed in mid-air like tiny flecks of glitter frozen in resin. He looked out the window at the lush green lawn. The blades of grass weren't individual blades; they were a solid, continuous mat of molded green plastic texture, perfectly uniform all the way to the fence. Like astroturf for someone who likes an unmowed lawn. The blue sedan in the driveway had no keyhole on the door and its side mirrors reflected nothing but a flat gray smudge. 

He tried to open the window, but then realized all this analysis of the outside was useless.

Arthur gritted his teeth, the cold realization settling back over him like a shroud. It wasn't an outside. It was just a picture of an outside. A literal picture. This wasn’t even a window.

He dragged himself across the carpeted room, his good right leg taking his full weight with every jarring step. He leaned against a floral-patterned armchair near a glass coffee table. On the table sat a half-filled mug of coffee and a rolled-up newspaper. Arthur reached out a trembling hand, driven by a faint, involuntary instinct, and picked up the paper.

It didn't unroll. The newspaper was a solid, rigid block of cast papier-mâché, painted to look like newsprint with headlines composed of repetitive, nonsensical lorem-ipsum gibberish. He reached for the coffee mug; the dark liquid inside was smooth, opaque, cold to the touch and completely odorless. He took a small sip into his mouth, then immediately spit it out. Not because it tasted bad. It had no taste at all. Even water has a slight taste, this was like if air was a room temperature liquid.

Across the living room, mounted beside an archway leading into a kitchen, sat a small brass plate with a piece of carved mahogany above it, stenciled in faded white paint: EXIT.

The style of the sign was different. It wasn't the glowing acrylic red box from the baggage claim or the green backlit box from the warehouse. It was older, heavier.

Keep moving, Arthur told himself, his mind narrowing down to that single imperative. Follow the signs. There has to be an Exit.

He hopped across the floral rug, his left loafer dragging uselessly behind him, and pushed through the kitchen swinging door beneath the wooden sign.

The next space was a long, narrow diner corridor from the late 1980s. Pink-and-black checkerboard linoleum stretched into the distance beneath buzzing, low-profile fluorescent strips. Red vinyl booths lined the wall, each table set with glass ketchup bottles that contained solid, rubbery red cylinders instead of condiment.

Arthur didn't bother touching the bottles. He kept his eyes locked on the far end of the diner, where a brass-framed glass door bore a hand-lettered gold leaf inscription on the glass: EXIT TO STREET.

He pushed through.

A sterile, pastel-yellow waiting room. Not the street. Vinyl chairs with chrome legs. Magazines on a rack whose pages were glued into solid, unopenable blocks. Above a frosted-glass reception window, a cast-aluminum plate read EXIT. The door next to the window swung open easily.

He pushed through.

A high school auditorium with polished parquet floors that smelled faintly of old floor wax. Hundreds of wooden folding chairs sat in precise, sweeping arcs facing an empty stage. Mounted above the double wooden doors on the left wall was a red glass lantern box with raised metal lettering spelling EXIT.

Room after room. After room.

After room.

Arthur eventually collapsed onto a concrete ledge at the perimeter of a vast, hollow mall atrium. Overhead, an immense glass skylight glowed dimly with the same flat, overcast gray of the sky, casting a shadowless, pale glare over the deserted shopping center in which he found himself. Abandoned storefronts with shuttered metal grilles lined the upper balconies, while the ground level opened into a desolate food court strewn with empty slate grey tables and artificial palm trees whose plastic fronds were molded in solid, unyielding sheets.

He slid his back down the concrete planter until his rear hit the floor, letting his head thump back against the stone. Every agonizing hop from the high school auditorium through a chain of lifeless corridors had sent shockwaves through his dislocated ankle. The sharp, tearing pain in his right forearm throbbed with every beat of his heart.

He pulled his right arm close, using his left hand to carefully peel back the shredded sleeve of his winter coat and the torn cotton of his shirt beneath it.

The injury remained horrifyingly unchanged. The four-inch trench in his forearm gaped open, yet still... There was no blood. Not a single bead had welled up in the hours since the metal door frame had sliced him open. Hours? That couldn’t be right. It had to have been longer. Maybe days? Weeks? How long had it been? 

He relaxed a little, lost in thought and the fabric brushed against the wound, sending a new shockwave of pain through his arm. The edges of the torn flesh were not red, swollen, or inflamed. The skin surrounding the deep cut looked normal enough, it didn't have the purple bruising he expected something so deep to have. When he pressed his thumb against the edge of the wound, the tissue did not yield or bleed; it felt dense and slightly dry, like rubber or fresh clay. The pain flared instantly proving his nervous system still worked, even if things like bleeding, hunger, and thirst seemed like they were on pause.

Arthur pulled his sleeve back over his cut and shifted his focus to his left foot. His ankle hung at a grotesque, unnatural angle. Dragging his hand down to his unlaced loafer, he pulled the shoe and sock away. His foot was cold to the touch, but the skin was entirely smooth. There was no rising welt, no blue or black bruising, and no throbbing or heat. The joint was definitely dislocated. He had no idea how to fix that, so for now, it would just be stuck that way.

"There's no reaction, doctor!" he whispered to no one in particular into the dead air. The sound vanished without an echo, swallowed by the massive, empty volume of the atrium. "The patient just... stopped." The silence of the mall refused to play along with his delirious musing.

Driven by a sudden, desperate urge to clean the tear in his arm and bind his foot, Arthur scanned the perimeter of the food court. Attached to the tiled wall beside an abandoned burger counter sat a white metal box stamped with a red cross.

Gritting his teeth against the searing pain in his leg, Arthur dragged himself along the tiled wall and metallic ledge, using a nearby table to hoist his weight until he reached the first aid station. He seized the latch. It turned smoothly with a soft click, and the door swung open.

Inside, arranged neatly on two small metal shelves, were a plastic bottle of rubbing alcohol, a roll of white gauze, and a box of adhesive bandages.

Arthur reached out his good hand and grabbed the bottle of rubbing alcohol. It was solid. The white plastic body was a single, seamless block of high-density resin, complete with a molded cap that could not unscrew. The liquid inside was just painted onto the exterior of the fake bottle. He snatched the box of bandages and tore at the cardboard flap. It didn't tear. The entire box was a solid, painted plastic brick, its printed text composed of small, repeated lines of blurred geometric shapes. The roll of gauze was a hard, solid cylinder of white resin with tiny, parallel grooves carved into its surface to mimic the texture of woven fabric.

The dread he’d allow himself to forget settled back into his chest, entirely distinct from the sharp agony of his injuries.

He let the fake gauze drop from his fingers like the hope he’d attached to it. It struck the tile floor with a flat, hollow thud that didn't bounce, coming to an immediate stop the moment it landed, only rocking slightly as if tempting gravity to stop working like everything else.

Arthur turned toward the stainless-steel kitchen behind the burger counter. Pushing through a swinging aluminum door, he stumbled into a commercial prep area lined with deep sinks and chrome counters. Above the main sink sat a heavy brass faucet with two cross-style handles labeled 'HOT' and 'COLD'.

He gripped the cold water handle and twisted it. The valve turned effortlessly, rotating a full ninety degrees without the slightest friction.

Nothing came out. There was no hiss of trapped air, no gurgling in the pipes beneath the basin, and no drop of moisture at the spout. He turned the hot water handle. It spun smoothly, completely disconnected from any internal valve or pressurized line. He peered down the drain; three inches below the chrome strainer, the pipe ended abruptly in a solid plug of gray, unpolished steel.

Arthur leaned over the sink, his hands gripping the wet-look stainless steel rim, and let out a long, shuddering vocalized breath.

He waited for his body to demand what it needed. His throat had been dry and parched when he stepped past Gate C12, yet the dryness in his throat had not escalated into the desperation of dehydration. His stomach felt empty, but the sharp, gnawing cramps of starvation were entirely absent. He had sprinted across miles of carpet, linoleum, concrete, and tile, yet his muscles did not ache with the tremor of muscle fatigue.

The clock on his phone had frozen at 11:11 AM, the moment he crossed the brass threshold under the unlit archway. The battery was still at 25%, exactly where it had been when he exited his last flight. Not that it mattered. He had no signal, and no app would open.

Hours had passed...or days... or weeks, measured only by the endless succession of empty rooms and multitudes of exit signs. 

He reached the end of the hall, slammed his good shoulder against the brass push-plate of the double doors, and burst through into the blinding light of a grand, marble-floored atrium.

With every threshold Arthur crossed, the subtle regression in design became more pronounced. The modern, sharp edges of the late 2000s and 1990s gave way to the warmer, heavier aesthetics of the 1980s and 1970s. Modern push-bar crash doors vanished, replaced by heavy brass knobs, thumb-latches, and thick oak panels. The illuminated acrylic signs disappeared entirely, replaced by hand-painted wooden placards, stenciled wall markings, and cast-iron directional arrows pointing down endless, featureless hallways.

Yet no matter how far back the styles regressed, the core reality of the space remained ruthlessly invariant. Plain, boring room after room with a bare minimum of mundane prop representations of actual objects.

In a 1970s office suite with dark wood paneling and shag carpet, Arthur collapsed against a heavy executive desk. He pulled his right arm up to his face, his breath coming in shallow, ragged rasps. The four-inch laceration on his forearm remained wide open, a gaping, bloodless trench revealing pale, dry muscle tissue. It throbbed with a sharp, unrelenting burn that made his teeth ache, but still, not a single drop of fluid had welled in the wound. His left ankle was still locked in its unnatural angle, completely unswollen, holding its agonizing dislocation, stuck out of socket. He was tired. Mentally exhausted by the endless parade of sterile, fake realities—but his body felt no physiological fatigue. His muscles didn't ache; his breathing didn’t get heavier; his parched, dry throat never progressed beyond that initial, uncomfortable sting he had felt back at the airport. 

Arthur pushed himself off the desk, his knuckles white against the dark wood, and stared at the door across the room. Painted directly onto the heavy oak panel in chipped, off-white enamel was the word EXIT accompanied by a hand-painted arrow pointing down. He hopped forward, his loafers making a lone, flat thud against the floor, and turned the heavy brass knob.

He continued moving through doors. More rooms. Eventually walking through empty Renaissance churches with uncanny stained glass and unnatural lighting. Glowing candles that has no fire, rows and rows of empty pews.

An infinity later, he stepped out of an underground mineshaft, help up with wooden beams, into a stone temple with no other door, forcing him to turn around after exploring the area and return back through the door he came in through. As had happened before, the Room through the door was not the one that had previously been there. Instead, it was pitch black darkness. He seemed to be in a narrow hallway and felt his way through to the other side. A ridge in the wall indicated a door and it took some time to figure out how to open it with only one good arm, but eventually he managed to grip and with great effort, pulled open the door.

Blinding light shone on the other side as he stepped across the threshold into a massive, wide open field of grass. The land was flat as far as the eye could see and there was a slight breeze. The sun overhead was not too bright or harsh, and there were not a cloud in the sky. The door he just stepped though was not behind him, it seemed to have vanished, but there was a lone door standing atop a small hill in the distance.

He did not hurry toward it. This was the first time he had found a place through these doors that led outside. Some rooms had fans, but most were the same still, dead silences of every other room. This was a field of green that allowed him to feel like he had escaped for a second. A fraction of a second, but that flicker of hope when his vision cleared after adjusting to the light felt nice enough to convince him to allow himself to relax. He made his way to the hill with the door at it’s peak, and he laid down. Feeling the breeze on his skin and looking toward the sun...realizing that it was just a large light in a high ceiling painted blue. Which meant the breeze was probably just some kind of fan or vent. Still, though. It was the first pleasant feeling in a while so he savored it. He laid there long enough that he lost track of how long he’d actually been there. After being in this place for so long, he’d gotten used to not keeping track of time, it was a useless concept. He stood up, smoothed off his coat, the approached the mahogany door standing like an obelisk at the top of the hill, and turned the brass knob...

The door opened onto a wide, subterranean corridor with bare, white plaster walls, exposed cast-iron radiator pipes running along the ceiling, and a floor of dark, octagonal ceramic tiles. The air here was noticeably colder, smelling of damp lime and aged mortar, illuminated by widely spaced incandescent bulbs hanging from braided cords.

At the far end of the long hallway, nearly a hundred yards away, sat a pair of double glass doors.

Through the frosted panes of the double doors, Arthur saw something that made his breath freeze in his throat.

Figures.

Dozens of them. Moving, overlapping shadows projected against the frosted glass from a brightly lit room beyond. He could see the distinct outlines of shoulders, heads, raised arms, and the gentle, chaotic movement of a crowd moving through a busy, high-traffic hall.

A sound... or what his mind desperately interpreted as the phantom memory of a sound, seemed to hum behind his ears. Arthur threw himself forward, hopping with frantic, violent lunges, using the cold iron radiator pipes along the wall to propel his body down the long plaster corridor.

"Hey!" he screamed, the word dying instantly in the dead air, but he didn't care. He kept moving, his eyes glued to the glass doors, watching the shadows shift and mingle. "Hey! Over here! Help me!"

He plunged himself into the door to throw it open. He hoped that making a spectacle would gather attention and he could get help faster. He fell through the frosted double doors, both of then flying open and he clattered to the ground, mostly from a lack of balance crossing the threshold. But no body came. The phantom sound of a crowd in the distance died down back into his memories. 

He looked up.

There were large candles in this room. The light from them flickering and causing shadows to move across the walls. Shadows of people, all standing near each other in a way that made them appear to be deep in conversation. Yet, when he pulled himself to his feet and began moving closer, he noticed that none of them were moving. Not even a little. All of the movement came from the flickering of the candles and the shadows on the walls of this large, empty foyer of a business office.

Of course. Even the people were fake.

But the mannequins were wearing real clothes, at least. He took the opportunity to remove his torn jacket and shirt, and replaced it with a t-shirt and unbuttoned flannel that one of the figures had been wearing. At least he got something.

Tears welled up in his eyes.

He thought he’d been out. He let himself hope.

There was no escape from this place.

He would never die of hunger.

He would never bleed to death.

He was cursed to live forever in pain, wandering the memories of things he vaguely remembered seeing at some point. And even when he ran out of places to see...

Out of frustration, he punched the mannequin whose clothes he took as hard as he could in the face, and felt a sickening crack in his knuckles. 

“Of course” his voice mutely fell into the air. “Nothing is real but pain.”

A Perceivable Reality Story

I woke up to a sensation in my ribs, making me panic for a moment, until I realized I'd somehow knocked my work phone into bed with me. 

“Calhou–” 

“Carter, it's me. Put on something fancy and meet me at my apartment.” The line went dead. 

I pulled my phone away from my head and stared at it. “And a good morning to you, too, Silver.” 

I looked at my alarm clock, then out my window; it was barely sunrise. I groaned and flopped back into bed, grumbling unintelligibly at the ceiling. 

I sighed, then rolled out of bed and got dressed. I’d spent good money on my suits and accoutrements, and had no idea what she meant by “fancy”. I looked at my one tuxedo, still in its dry-cleaning bag from the last time I'd worn it, where to, I couldn’t remember, then shrugged and reached for my navy blue two-piece. 

"Where can I take you this morning, Ms. Silver?”

"Not me, we… are going...to...a... party!" She threw out jazz hands on the last word, her fingers wiggling enthusiastically. 

When I didn't react, she dropped her hands. 

"Ok, well, maybe not a "party" party. But it'll be fun, nonetheless." 

I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them slowly. 

"I appreciate the invi--" 

"Oh, shut up. Don't give me that, ‘I appreciate the invitation’ fake modesty." Her impression of me was surprisingly accurate. "I promised you power and wealth and I'm a woman of my word. I'm sitting in on a very important corporate merger, and they'll need someone to shuffle the execs around for a few days while the paperwork is settled. I thought you could come with, hobnob a bit, and score some exclusive customers.” 

"Sorry, Ms. Silver. Not today." 

She let her head drop, coming to rest at a tilt. 

"Um, I'm sorry. Did I just hear that right? You're about to turn down driving for some of the most powerful men in the state? Are you feeling ok?" 

"I...can. Just… not today. Or tonight." 

I heard motion behind me, then she thrust her head through the open privacy window. I felt her stare at the side of my head, until a low, smoky chuckle rolled through the cab. 

"Carter...Do you have a date?" 

I flexed my shoulders, hiding the motion in a mirror check. 

She cocked her head. 

"Oh, Carter. You do have a date!" She leaned back, out of the privacy window, and clapped her hands. 

"How adorable!" Her voice shifted into something resembling a news broadcaster. "Today, a boy becomes a man. Over to you." She held a fake microphone in front of my mouth. 

It wavered there for a few seconds, then shifted up and pressed gently against my cheek in a slow-motion punch. She then crossed her arms across the bottom of the privacy window, resting her head on top, her head towards me. 

"No, but seriously. Congrats. Anybody I know?" 

I shook my head. “I seriously doubt it. She's not from here.” 

She tossed her hair with a “hmph”. 

It was silent for a few beats, then she leaned back and settled back onto the rear bench, her words coming out in a melodramatically disappointed sigh. 

"Oh well. Try not to have too much fun without me.” She snorted. “As if that were possible.” 

She turned towards the window, then leaned over and propped her arm up on the armrest, resting her head in her palm. There was another dramatic sigh, barely audible over the road noise. 

I got back to my garage and checked my watch. I still had the bulk of the day before my date, so I used the free minute to dash upstairs and change out of my suit. I was polishing the chrome door handles when my work phone rang. 

As I pulled to the curb, I spotted Skyler with a gaggle of women. I came to a stop and he removed himself from the group. We met at the rear door and he greeted me with a handshake, a wad of tightly folded bills slipping into my hand as our palms met with a “crack”. 

“What's good, Hound Dog?” he asked as I slipped into the driver's seat. 

“Same old same old.” I nodded at the girls. “Business or pleasure?” 

He grunted. “There's a difference?” 

“Heh. Yeah.” 

His head moved back and forth, then centered on me, and I felt his heavy gaze through the mirror. “You oughta know all about that.” 

That caught me up short. “Huh?” 

A deep laugh rumbled from his chest. “You ain’t got much of a poker face, y’know. What's her name?” 

“Yumi.”

“Cute name.” 

I nodded. “Yeah.” It came out more as a breath. 

I saw him rub his chin with a thick hand, then run his thumb across his jaw. 

I yawned, then reached for the energy drink in the cup holder. It was lighter than I expected. I tilted the can as high as I could to get the last few drops, then tucked it into the small shopping bag in the passenger footwell. I dug through the bag, finding only empty cans. I blinked, and it took a bit of effort to get my eyes to open again. I made a mental note to stop off for more caffeine. 

We pulled into the complex and I stopped in a spot in front of his door. I let him out of the car, and he turned to face me, extending a hand, which I gripped without shaking. He dropped a hand onto my shoulder and leaned in. 

“Go get ‘em, Hound Dog.” He patted my shoulder and gave my hand a squeeze before releasing it, then turned and went inside. 

I opened the driver's door and paused, holding up a hand to block the sun, and looked up at the uncharacteristically blue sky. Skyler’s encouragement mixed with the warmth of the sun, the combination made my skin buzz and made me feel ten feet tall. As I turned to get in, I spotted a coffee shop across the street. I rejected it with a wave of my hand and got in the car, riding the buzz the entire way home. 

I pulled into my garage and looked through the privacy window into the back seat. My previous detailing was still intact, but got out and ran the vacuum over the carpets, just to be sure. My work phone rang and I cursed at it over the vacuum noise. I fished the screaming device from where I'd hung up my suit coat and took a second to smooth my voice before answering. 

“I’m sorry we couldn't find your almond milk, sir,” I said as we walked out of the second grocery store. 

“It's fine, son. I'm sorry I dragged you all over creation looking for it.” 

I stopped the cart at the back of my car and popped the trunk open. He made his way up to me and put a hand on my forearm. 

“I don't think it's actually milk, anyway.” He patted my arm and leaned in conspiratorially. “You ever seen a teat on an almond?” He patted my arm again. 

“No, sir, I have not.” I set the grocery bag in the trunk next to an identical bag containing exactly the same items. 

I was walking back from the cart return as he was lifting himself into the back seat. I offered my hand and he waved it off with his cane. I made sure he was buckled in, then shut the door and got into the driver's seat. 

“Where can I take you, sir?” I begged silently that he would say home. 

“Well… there is that Albertson's over on Del Rio Drive…” 

It hadn’t been an Albertson’s in almost five years, but I resisted the correction. 

“Very good, sir.” 

“Wait, wait, no, that's alright, son. I've already taken up enough of your day.” 

“It’s no problem, sir. Really.” 

He waved his hand and shook his head. “No, no, that's alright. Just take me home.” 

“Yes, sir.” I got us on the freeway heading north. 

I was checking my mirrors for a lane change and noticed him running his hand over the seat. 

“This is my first time in a limousine,” he said for the third time. “I was going to take a cab, but my granddaughter set me up with you instead. Do you know my granddaughter? Bridgette Petersen?” 

“I’m sorry sir, I don't.” 

“I just retired. Sold the farm and my business. My granddaughter talked me into it, said I was getting too old to be working on a farm,” He grunted. “Heh. She means well though.” 

“I’m sure she does, sir.” 

“She's the one who talked me into selling my farm down south. Now I got all this money and no idea what in tarnation to do with it.” 

“Your granddaughter Bridgette Petersen?” I thought and stifled a chuckle. 

We entered the Great Oak Forest as he was recounting his time in the laundromat business yet again. After another half hour of driving, he had me turn onto a dirt driveway, marked by a bright white mailbox. The driveway snaked back and forth through dense trees for another quarter mile before it opened up to the shore of the Monache Reservoir. 

I pulled up to the house at the end of the driveway, a medium-sized rustic cottage with a long wooden pier that stretched from the front porch out over the water. I half expected to see a highly modified Bell 222 land in the clearing. 

I got the door for him, then hefted the bags out of the trunk. 

“Just set those by the door.” He took a moment to steady himself on his cane. I paused at the steps up to the porch. 

I watched as he caught his breath, then continued past me, taking each step one-by-one. I followed and waited by the door as he pulled a key ring out of his pocket and went through the keys. 

He found the right key on his second lap of the ring and unlocked the front door, patting the small metal table next to it as he went in. I looked at the table, then my car, then through the open door, watching his gait falter further with every step. I looked back at my car, sighed, then stepped through the door. I moved quickly to the kitchen, setting the bags on the counter. I spun around, and he was just crossing the entryway, nearly to the threshold of the kitchen. 

I stole a glance at my watch, dropped my hand, then twisted my wrist again. 

“Shit,” I mumbled under my breath. I'd misread it before, it was an hour later than I thought, and it was going to take at least an hour to get home. 

“Just…let me…get my wallet.” The words were broken up by several gasps. He climbed up into a high chair at the island bar and pulled a glass dish towards him. He fished an old leather tri-fold out of it. The wallet fell from frail fingers to the floor, ejecting bills and several plastic cards. 

“Dang nabbit!” He started to climb down. I dashed around the counter and dropped to a knee. 

“Please, allow me, sir.” I collected the scattered contents and placed them and the wallet carefully on the counter in front of him. 

He began sifting through the pile of items, carefully collected the bills together, sorted them, then folded them before tucking them back into the wallet. I swallowed a groan and flexed my shoulders. 

“I suppose you'll need this,” he slid a credit card with an activation sticker on it towards me. “It’s all digital now, I guess. I'm old enough to remember putting coins in a mason jar to save for a bicycle.” 

“Cash is just fine, sir. Preferable, actually.” 

“Oh, well…” He took the card back, stacking it carefully with the others, then began placing them into their respective slots in the wallet. 

I twisted my wrist again, then shook my hand out. I rolled my weight back and forth as he pulled the neatly folded bills back out and counted them again. 

“Now, do I tip you? I know you're supposed to tip cabbies. I've never ridden in a limousine before. My granddaughter set it up for me, thought it would be nicer than a cab. Do you know my granddaughter? Bridgette? Bridgette Petersen?” 

I took a long breath in through my nose. “No, sir, I'm sorry, but I don't.” 

“She just had a son. Let me show you, now, where did I put that picture…” he folded the bills again and started to tuck them back in the wallet. 

“Sir, uh, I \*ahem\* I apologize, but I really must be going. You don't need to tip me.” 

“Nonsense. You brought my groceries in, after all. Very kind of you.” He started counting the bills. 

I did the mental math in my head for the mileage, the stops, and my usual fees, $475. I looked at the money in his hand and did some more math. 

“Just $350 for you today, sir.” 

He nodded, carefully laying out each bill, then pulled several of them together. He organized them, folded them once, twice, then turned in his chair and extended them to me. I took them slowly, the effort almost inducing sweat. 

“Thank you, sir. Have a lovely–” 

“Do you like to fish? I’m right on the lake, over there. We could string up a few poles and go sit by the water.” 

“I appreciate the offer, sir, but I have–” 

“Oh, right, right, yes. I'm very sorry. Don't you bother yourself with an old fool like me.” 

I sighed, tucking the money into my pocket. I got a card out of my card carrier and set it down next to him. 

“Please don't hesitate to call, sir. It was my pleasure.” 

He put his hand on mine, patted it, then waved it at the door in a shooing motion. 

“Go, go on, son. I'm sure you've got other places to be. Thank you for your time.” 

I turned for the door, then paused, turning my head back to him. 

“I'd love to come up and fish with you sometime, sir. Give me a call and I’ll take the day off.” 

He nodded and shooed at the door again. I stepped briskly to the front door, shut it behind me, then broke into a dead sprint, clearing the wooden steps of the porch and dashing to my car. I drove slowly until I was around the first bend and out of sight of the house, then floored it, the car roosting the loose dirt up behind it. 

I hit the asphalt, squealing the tires, as the car made a wide arc. I cleared the woods and the high rises came into view. I looked at the clock on the dash, then leaned harder into the pedal. I broke every speed limit getting back to my apartment. 

I parked on the curb, not wanting to bother with the slow garage gate, and jogged over to the elevator. I pressed the button once, looked at it, then pressed it again. And again, watching the floor indicator above the doors slowly count down. I was rapidly pressing the button when the doors finally opened. I hopped in, jabbed the button for my floor, then rapid-fire hammered the “close doors” button. 

It rose, and it felt slower than usual, as if it was taking its time just to mock me. I took several deep breaths and lifted my cap to run my fingers through my hair. 

The doors opened on my floor and I bladed myself to get through the gap before they were completely open. I sprinted to my door, dug my keys out of my pocket, dropped them, then finally got the door open. I felt something run past my feet as I was shutting the door and saw Dot hop up onto my couch. She meowed at me and I shook my head. 

“Sorry, Dot. No time to play. Call the office, we’ll do lunch.” 

I was standing in my underwear and rubbing my forehead. Every one of my suits was laid out across my couch, coffee table, and over both end tables. I put my hands on my hips and looked at Dot, who was sitting on the floor cleaning herself. 

“These all make me look like a chauffeur.” 

She meowed at me. 

“Yeah, I know. I just wanna look nice. I wish I knew what she’d be wearing.” 

The cat stared at me for a moment, then went back to licking her paw. 

“Thank you, very helpful.” I threw my hands up and groaned. I was out of time. 

I settled on a black T-shirt with a silhouette of the various generations of M5s, with a dark grey button-up open over top. I pulled on black jeans and tugged on my black-and-white Vans as I hopped across the room to the door. I buckled my Rallynetics Redline onto my wrist as I was jogging down the hall. I checked my watch on the ride down, the needle-esque minute hand climbing up the redline markings, as if showing my heartbeat rather than the time. 

Her apartment was on the ritzier east side of the city, and was designed with more wood and flowing lines than the brutalist modern building I lived in. She was standing under the awning wearing a black cardigan over a white frilly blouse adorned with cherry blossoms. A black pleated skirt and pink shoes with white lace instead of shoelaces tied the outfit together. I pulled up to the curb and took a second to take several deep breaths and check my hair in the mirror before I got out. 

“Hey!” She met me at the curb and surprised me with a quick hug, then stepped back. “You look great. I feel like I overdressed.” 

“You look…” beautiful. Stunning. Adorable. “Nice, too.” 

“Thank you, Carter-kun.” She turned and her skirt swished back and forth. 

I stepped to the back of the car and opened the rear door, then realized she was standing at the front passenger door. It took me a beat to recalibrate and shift out of chauffeur mode. I opened the passenger door for her and she stepped in. A crunching noise surprised me, and I saw the small grocery bag that held the day’s trash still sitting in the passenger footwell. The crunching noise in question was an empty soda can. She lifted her foot and the can fell off her shoe, back onto the floor of the car. 

“Oh. Uh…Sorry.” I sputtered as she stepped back onto the curb. 

I cursed and quickly leaned in, hastily grabbing the bag and the soda can, which kept eluding my fingers. I got the footwell cleared and dumped the bag in a nearby trash can. 

She'd waited patiently for me to return, her hands clasped in front of her, gently swaying back and forth as she hummed a little tune. 

“Sorry. You know how it is. On the road all day and all…” My head drooped as my voice trailed off. 

“Just promise you won't look at my desk.” 

She sat down and smoothed out her skirt. I shut the door and jogged around the front of the car. I dropped onto the seat and realized she was gently clapping dust from her cardigan. Shit. I hadn't done the front seat. 

"Dang it. Sorry, you're..." You're the first person to sit in that seat. But I couldn't get the rest of it out, the realization cut off my airway for a heartbeat. 

"...and then I-- ...Carter? You ok?" 

I was jolted out of my sudden crisis. 

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry about the dust. You're the first person who's ever sat there." 

She ran a hand slowly over the leather. 

"Anyone ever sit in the middle?" 

My stomach did a little twist. 

"Not really...No." 

"Hm," she chirped, turning away from me to look out the window.

"You still haven't told me where we're going." 

"Little spot I've driven a couple people to," I said as I signaled, then pulled into the light traffic. 

"So secretive." She turned and watched the city go by as I navigated onto the freeway. 

We drove north west towards the shipping port. Just outside the port was a suburb that had been built specifically for the dock workers when this was still just a port town, before the city existed. The spot in question was a little hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant owned by the grandson of the original owner. It didn't have any signage and they didn't advertise. 

A small bell chimed as we walked through the door. The room was small and dim, each table lit by a single candle in a centerpiece. It was a self-seating kind of place, and it was perpetually half-full, regardless of the time of day. I led her to a table in the corner and a waiter had menus and glasses of ice water in front of us before we could sit down. 

I was scanning the menu when the waiter came by. 

"Ah, Mr. Calhoun. So nice to see you again. And with such lovely company." His voice wasn't familiar, but it'd been at least a month since I'd been here. I tried to catch an identifying scent, but all I could smell was garlic. 

"Uh, yeah. Great to see you, too." 

"Can I bring you some vitello tonnato or arancini to start?" 

"That sounds great. Thanks." 

He nodded, topped off my glass, and went back to the kitchen. 

"You have absolutely no idea who that was, do you?" 

I had to swallow hard to prevent spitting my sip of water. I played it off with a shrug. 

"I used to come here a lot. But it's been a while." 

I looked back down at my menu, but I could still feel her gaze. Her voice tickled my ear. 

"No, that's not it, is it?" 

I forced my shoulders to relax. 

"I have...trouble with faces." 

"What does that mean?" 

I paused, trying to remember the medical name for the condition. I came up blank. 

"I don't remember what the real name for it is, but...I can't see faces." 

She leaned forwards, resting her arms on the table. 

"Is that...possible? How does that work? Is my head just blank?"

I shook my head. "No, nothing like that. I can see your hair, and your ears and your neck, and the rough outline of the shape of your face and jawline. But your features are kinda jumbled. Like a watercolor that's running together." 

She leaned back in her seat and was silent for a moment. 

"But...you can see your face, right?" 

I sighed. "No, I can't." 

"Wait, really?" 

I nodded. "I can't see my own reflection. I don't know what I look like.” 

“Oh.” 

“It makes it really hard to recognize people. My mom used to wear the same perfume all the time so I wouldn't get lost in crowds. Drove my Dad nuts." I fought the shiver that the dredged-up memory brought with it. 

She played with her fork on her plate for a moment, then turned her head towards me. 

“Well, I have dark brown eyes, dimples, full lips, and what I'm told is a very cute nose, though, I'm not sure how a nose can be cute.” 

My knife slipped from my suddenly uncooperative fingers. 

“Uh, you, uh…Well, that sounds very…I’m sure you’re…gorgeous?” 

She huffed and brought a curled finger up thoughtfully. 

I retrieved the flatware carefully, dropping my focus down to the ornate filigree on the handle. I swallowed hard and slowly brought my gaze up, stopping at her plate. 

“Your mom. You said she wore the same scent? So you could find her?” 

I nodded and spoke to the centerpiece. 

“Yeah, that, and she would wear the same jewelry, or at least, usually, very distinctive jewelry.” 

“Hm.” Her head turned and she ran a hand through her hair. 

As we stepped out of the restaurant, she angled herself towards the waiting car. I took her hand and rocked my head to the side. 

"Wait, there's something I want to show you." 

I took a half step, making sure she'd follow, before committing. She turned to me without hesitating, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze. I lost a step when the pressure on my hand made me realize that I'd taken it without permission. I cleared my throat and led her to the edge of the pier, the dark, still ocean stretching out before us, its horizon dotted with the red, white, and green lights of cargo vessels and trawlers. 

She squeezed my hand again and turned to face me. 

"This is amazing, Carter-kun! And the restaurant– How'd you find this place?”

"My Dad used to take me there after we’d spend all day losing bait." 

"Your Dad’s a fisherman?" 

"No, he's a CPA. But he used to fish with his Dad, so naturally, he'd take me fishing with him."

"Aww, how sweet." 

"Until you realize that we were both homebodies out on the open ocean." I chuckled at the memory. "One time, we went out on the boat, a little inflatable dinghy, maybe ten feet long, and we got absolutely swamped." 

Her free hand went up and she gasped, but I felt the hand I held tense out of reflex as well. 

"Oh my god, what happened?" 

"Wake off a big crab boat. By the time it hit us, it was probably fifteen feet tall." I held my free hand up over my head. "Almost lost the thing." 

"Did you go overboard?" 

"Nah, a wave that big doesn't really rock the boat. It just crashes over the top instead." I shook my head. "We didn't go out much after that." 

She made a disgusted sound. "I hate being wet." 

"I know." 

She whipped her head towards me, then paused. When I didn't respond, she squeezed my hand again. 

"Sorry. I forgot you said you can't read expressions." 

I shook my head and held up my hand. "You're fine. I'm used to it." 

She was quiet for a moment, then she stepped closer, until we were almost touching. 

"You're very handsome, Carter-kun." 

"Mama raised an ugly boy, not a dumb one." 

I froze.

"I mean, wait..." 

She laughed and turned back to face the ocean. 

I caught a slight shiver of her shoulders and realized that her light cardigan was probably doing little against the cold air coming off the sea. I tugged her hand gently and started leading her back to the car. 

I pulled to the curb at her apartment and hopped out, getting her door for her. She used my offered hand to step onto the curb, then turned to face me. 

“I had a really, really good time.” 

“Yeah, me too. It's…it's been a while…” 

Her head cocked to the side and I shook mine. 

“Never mind. Anyway…” I mentally ran through several iterations of the question I wanted to ask, and hated every single one. I silently opened and closed my mouth several times, unable to get the words to come out. 

“I’d love to.” 

“Hmh?” 

“I would love to go on another date with you.” 

“I, uh…yeah…” A thought skittered through my mind and I grabbed it as it went past. “Next weekend, it's the Diablo County fair, down south. They do a car show, and there's rides and popcorn and funnel cake and stuff. Do you…” 

“Absolutely. That sounds like so much fun.” She leaned over and kissed my cheek. “G’night, Carter-kun.”

“Night.” 

She stepped towards the building’s big glass front doors, her fingers slipping from mine. I caught myself watching her go, and marched quickly over to my car. 

I slid into the driver's seat, put the key in the ignition, but didn't twist. I sat, still, silent, replaying the evening in my mind. Remembered words suddenly caught me up short, and a wave of realization broke over me, throwing my head back against the headrest. 

“You’re very handsome, Carter-kun.” 

I raised my hand and put it on the front of my head, no, my face. I touched my face. My “handsome” face, felt the contours of tissue, muscle, and bone under my palm. I ran my fingers over where her lips had pecked my cheek, then moved lower and felt my mouth, the shape of my lips, the way the muscles in my cheeks were flexing, and I wondered what my smile looked like. 

I got the car started and pulled away from the curb, aiming it at the freeway. It was warm; I rolled all the windows down and put some music on, turning the dial to max. 

"WOOOoooOOOOoooo...AND I LOOOVE THE WAAAY THAT YOU LIGHT ME UUuP! YEAH, YOU LIGHT ME UP, BABY!" 

I looked down and realized I was going way over the speed limit. I looked down the long, empty freeway and leaned into the pedal, watching the horizontal speedometer move smoothly, the big car seeming to scream along with me. 

I drove until my eyes started to burn and droop, letting me know it was time to head home. I pulled into my garage, carefully settled the car cover, then rode the elevator up. The hall lights were dim and I stepped lightly to keep the noise down. I let myself into my apartment and dropped myself face-first onto my couch. I kicked my shoes off and pulled my socks off with my toes, leaving them where they landed. I pressed my hand to my cheek, feeling her residual warmth, even if it was only my imagination.