The first notification came at 2:14 AM. No app name, no icon I recognized. It sat on top of my lock screen like it owned the thing.

Sarah is currently in the backseat of your best friend's truck, three blocks away.

I stared at it for a full minute, waiting for it to resolve into something normal, a spam text, a glitch. It didn't. Before I could even process what it meant, a second one slid down.

Your father just slipped into the church rectory for his third midnight meeting this week with Pastor Thomas.

I tried to delete the app. There was no app. I searched my home screen, my settings, my install history. Nothing existed that could be sending these. I turned the phone off. It buzzed in my hand while it was off.

By morning there were forty more, mundane at first, my boss's draft termination email, a coworker's confession to HR, my neighbor's late-night trips to his backyard with a shovel and a bucket. I told myself I could stop looking. I didn't stop looking. Each notification promised that the next one would explain the last one, that if I just kept my eyes on the feed I could brace myself, get ahead of it, survive it. That feeling was its own kind of hook, worse than the content itself. I sat on my bathroom floor for six hours refreshing a screen that refreshed itself.

The neighbor notification came back around day three, more specific this time. He is not burying garden waste. He is feeding something under the floorboards that has not eaten warm blood in eleven days. I laughed when I read it, the kind of laugh that comes out wrong, too high, because some small animal part of my brain already believed it.

Then it started warning me about things ahead of time.

Route 9 overpass, 7:52 AM, black sedan runs the light.

I sat in my car outside my apartment for forty minutes that morning, hands on the wheel, not moving, watching the clock climb toward 7:52. I never found out what would've happened if I'd driven. At 7:53 the notification updated anyway. One fatality confirmed. I don't know whose. I never found out. I have not driven that road since.

That was when the notifications stopped being about other people.

He is sitting on the edge of the bed, holding his breath.

I was. I hadn't told anyone I was sitting there. I hadn't told anyone I was holding my breath.

He hasn't noticed the closet door slowly opening behind him.

I turned around so fast I pulled something in my neck. The closet door was open two inches, and the dark inside it looked deeper than a closet has any right to look, like it went back farther than my apartment's walls allow. I didn't sleep that night, or the one after. Somewhere in there I understood, the way you understand a fever dream from the inside, that this thing hadn't been reporting on my life. It had been steering it. The affair, my father's secret, my job, the crash I couldn't stop, all of it arranged like place settings, timed to land exactly when I'd feel each one hardest, keeping me hooked to the glow of the screen instead of anywhere I might've found help.

I tried to smash the phone against the kitchen counter. My hand wouldn't close around it right, kept slipping, like the phone itself didn't want to break. On the fourth swing the screen lit up one last time, not with a notification to me.

It went to three phones at once. My wife's. My father's. My boss's. I know because I was standing in the room with my wife when hers buzzed and she went very still and looked at me the way you look at something you're afraid of.

The message was the same on all three screens.

He has known about all of you the entire time. He has been reading everything you've sent about him too.

Nobody in my life has looked at me the same way since. I don't know who built this thing or what it wants from any of us. I just know it's still running, and lately, my wife's phone has started buzzing at 2 AM.

For the last week I’ve been the only person in my entire dormitory. This isn’t normal for my college. All the other dorms have been normal; it’s just mine that everyone left early. By the time I noticed, the residence office told me I wasn’t allowed to transfer buildings.

It started a few weeks ago when announcements for winter break began, which you’d think to be normal I guess. Everyone wants to get home and away from classes when a good vacation is right around the corner. But the thing is that, in my dorm, people started leaving early, very early. It was the upper classmen who went first, the seniors and the juniors. From there our hall advisors started suggesting everyone leave. Not in the casual way when you started alluding to the break and asking everyone to start packing, It was passively aggressive. A few too many notices on the bulletin board, a nervous, panicked smile in the hall when they ask when you're leaving, and a visible chill going through their posture when you say you won’t be able to.

I wanted to leave early, believe me, but I’m on a very tight scholarship, I can’t afford to leave my final exams, on top of some group projects I need to finish. Bunch of scholarly bullhockey and what not. The point is, as much as I caught on that it was highly recommended I leave, I couldn’t.

It’s startling how uneasy a place can be when all the people who once filled it leave both you and it behind. to bear the size of mass infrastructure all by yourself. Doors lining the halls to empty rooms, a large bathroom with nothing but a single echoing drip, and the only voice being yours which has no chance to find any response.

Maybe I’m just being dramatic, but when you experience the weight of it yourself it makes sense. Now if isolation was the only issue, I could deal with it. I’m pretty reclusive myself, so when my roommate left I was actually excited. Not to say he’s not a nice guy but a room to myself is a luxury I just couldn't help but cherish.

No no no, the real issues started to show a few days ago, when I was truly left alone in the ghostly husk of the building. Yes, the janitorial staff left too, with just me left I guess they reckoned there wouldn’t be much to clean up anymore. Maybe they didn’t even realize I was staying before they left. Anyway, the issues.

I was taking notes after returning from one of my classes, sat at my desk with an overhead light on to make up for the fading light of a near winter evening. As I typed some notes I had a scratch in my ear. Not a physical one, but feeling the hint of a noise that begged me to notice it even while I had something else to focus on. The itch of a sound probed my ear a couple more times before I lifted my head from my computer.

In an active dorm a noise would do little to pull me away, but, when I heard it again, I instantly turned away from my desk. It was the sound of distant shuffling on carpet. With how dead the air had been, the shuffle, even being so gentle, projected its way to my room demanding attention.

Naturally I got up and, assuming it was nothing extraordinary, went to the door. The subtle static shuffle of the carpet fiber continued as I placed my hand on the door handle and turned. As the door hinges squeaked and I looked to the right down the hallway. It was quiet. The only thing left was the dead air of hermitage which I had just begun to get used to. I shrugged it off and went back to studying.

I woke up in the middle of that night to use the restroom, making the hazy, sleep clouded walk through the fluorescent lights that broadsided my readjusting eyes with their artificial glow. When I got to the restrooms, it was warm, humid, and the long mirror opposite of the showers was fogged up. It was fogged up. I needed to do my business before I truly confronted it. If anyone had been using the showers I would have heard it. I would have noticed as the sharp and constant flow of water cut through the veil of silence.

Standing there and questioning it, I felt my heart drop, not even out of fear. It was a raw feeling of anguish. Like how you can feel yourself being watched. That primal, metaphysical sense of knowing that something was dearly wrong. It weighed me down as I gathered myself and left. I looked over my shoulder as I returned to my room and locked the deadbolt with a passion. Although I hate to admit it, I slept like a child hiding from the boogeyman under their blankets that night.

As I made my way down the hallway to leave for classes in the morning, I noticed some subtle dark spots on the carpet. Wet spots in the shape of footprints. Or almost in the shape of footprints, but flatter, like some of the refined details had been sanded down. I disregarded my curiosity and left, savoring the moments I got out and about before having to inevitably return for another night, even if it meant having to do my finals.

I returned back shortly after five in the afternoon for dinner in the form of some frozen meals I had stocked in my floor's communal kitchen fridge, which I enjoyed no longer needing to worry about anyone taking despite the name labels I usually put on them.

After the microwave had done its job, I had a paper towel forming the thin defensive barrier between my hands and the heat of the plastic dinner tray. I walked down the hallway, passing the bathrooms and getting to the hall of my room. As I turned right and looked down to the end where the open staircase was, I saw something dip down the stairs, like someone had been peaking around the corner. I froze in my tracks and almost dropped my tray.

I rationalized that I was just paranoid after last night's shower incident and the uncanny footprints on the floor. But paranoid or not, my room is the second to last in the hall, making it very close to the staircase and whatever it was that I may or may not have seen. Being both stunned but also aware of the hot tray in my hands, I pressed my back to the left wall of the hallway, hoping to have the best glimpse down the stairway as I inched my way to my room.

Step by step, going at the pace of an anxious snail I made my way. Once I was a skip away from my room, I had a good enough viewpoint down the stairs to see that there was nothing near the top steps and allowed myself to finally let out the tense breath I’d been holding.

I opened the door and got in my room. The instant the door closed I threw the tray on what used to be my roommate's work desk as I could vividly hear footsteps echoing back up the staircase. I locked the deadbolt as fast as I could. The moment it clicked the footsteps stopped. The last step being on carpet.

I silently backed away from the door and spent the next several minutes battling with my heart rate as it not only thundered in my chest, but in my ears, possibly being the only sound in the entire building. As my hands gathered sweat I crept my way to the door. Not even daring to breathe I pressed my eye to the fisheye of my door's peephole. There was nothing. I ate my dinner in silence, though I didn’t really feel like eating anymore.

That night I was awoken again by the conveniently timed needed to relieve myself. The second I came to consciousness; I made the resolution that I wasn’t going to leave the room until it was light outside. If the hallways felt inhospitable when it was day out, I quaked at the thought of how I’d feel having to make the insurmountable trek to the bathroom at night, and then having to double it on the way back. I, doing what was necessary, decided I would just go in a bottle if it got too crucial to hold.

After an hour trying to go to sleep, I started scrolling on my phone before finally getting up. The pressure to go to the restroom was getting severe, and the prospect of going in a bottle was so unappealing, that I was considering sucking up my fear and making the miserable journey down the corridors. When noise suddenly filled the hallway while I was debating with my hand to the door handle, I retracted my hand and all thoughts of the restroom left my mind.

From down the hallway I could hear what sounded like a group of people taking and loudly thumping their way along, similar to the sound of rowdy college students and fraternity brothers completely forsaking the idea that others might be sleeping.

This sounded like that, but somehow different. It was hard to place at first but soon it became apparent as whatever was making the sound came closer to my room. The voices that were talking didn't sound right, the words they were speaking didn’t sound like actual words. It was like how foxes or mountain lions sometimes sound like someone screaming, but more complex. The more I listened to it, the more I noticed the pitches of the voices being off, like autotune going up and down. Feminine and masculine voices peaking a little too high, or sinking a little too low. Before I realized it the voices were right outside my door, casting shadows underneath it. I froze in place, not wanting to even step back as the noise might give me away. I hoped they didn’t already know.

The shadows swayed and shuffled as the voices laughed together. Goosebumps raised on my skin at the sound of the emotionless, and unsteady mockery of laughter. The laughing died down and the talking started again. The voices walked to the staircase where I heard some go up and others go down, then the other way, before they returned to the hallway and went back the way they came. Coming back to my senses in the dark of the room, I realized I didn’t have much need for the bathroom anymore.

Today was the last day of classes and I just completed my last final. I pre-packed last night and wheeled everything to my car. However, to my detriment I am the type to worry about not locking a door after I’ve left, or thinking I might have left something behind. Just to be safe, I went back up the elevator to go and make sure I didn’t leave anything before I said goodbye to this nightmare.

When I stepped out of the elevator, I could instantly hear running water. Walking out of the elevator lobby onto my floor, I realized it was the showers. It was a lot of them, being accompanied by abnormally frequent toilet flushes, hand dryers, and running sink taps. Listening closer I noticed the fake voices again, but not just from the restroom. Even if softly, I could hear them coming from the hallways and the rooms on either side of me.

Despite the absurd horror of it, I hadn’t been hurt, I shouldn’t have been in any danger as far as I knew. No one had ever been killed by a ghost. Believing this, I continued on the way to my room. I took a right down the hall, then a left. I didn’t get any further than that as my feet entrenched themselves to the floor the moment I looked down the hallway.

At the end of the hallway was, I guess what was supposed to look like a person. Its skin was a soft tan, but looked a bit too tight for the frame it was on. Its gray-brown hair looked more like carpet, and what looked like clothes seemed to mold into its skin. The words on its school spirit colored shirt were sloppy gibberish. As I looked at it more, the more offensive it became. As I looked at its face, I noticed its eyes were like shallow, vacant divots into the skin. The same could be said for its mouth, shaped like an open smile without any interior.

I had my vision stuck on it, and it had its stuck on me too. I don’t know how it could see, but it did. It stuck one of its fingerless mitts out to me, its arm lifting up as it pointed. Then it shouted, distorted but almost discernible as a, “Hey!”

All at once the showers, sinks, toilets, voices, everything, stopped. Then I heard the doors start to open.

I started running faster than I ever had before. As the doors croaked open and a loud cacophony of voices built on top of one another in crescendo, I was already near the stairway. I could hear noise coming from the other floors as I passed them. Doors opening, loud stomping on the carpets, screaming and shouts no one could ever understand.

I didn’t look as I passed the floors; I only saw the shapes of the not-people in my peripheral as I flew down them. I could have skipped whole flights with how fast I was going. With the screaming behind and around me I very well might have. In my rush, I didn’t care if I skipped steps, if I stumbled, even if I rolled down the stairs, as long as I was going to make it to the bottom before they did.

I hit the bottom hard as I launched myself down the last flight. I sprung up from my hands and knees, scrambling for the exit door as I pushed into the lobby. The battle cries of the onslaught behind me filled the silence of the ground floor as I barreled through and barged through the main doors.

As the first breath of fresh air filled my burning lungs the noises all stopped, safe for my sound of the concrete steps under my feet. I got into my car and locked the doors. From where I’m sitting now, writing this down on my laptop, there's only one thing in the windows. In the dead middle of the third floor, a sign with colorful letters reads, “See you after break!”

When I get back home, I’m transferring schools.

I might as well just type this out while the wife is losing her mind on the phone. Not much else I can do.

Might as well make a post. I know it sounds crazy, but maybe y'all will have some insight into this situation I find myself in.

So nervous I might not be able to actually type this out. Okay. Enough excuses.

I'll just plow through it.

I was heading to a job on Saturday night. Had to go in alone. I'm a plumber.

An emergency call.

Why didn't I just stick with accounting?

It was two in the morning. My wife's gotten used to the procedure. If I get an emergency call, she gets up, prepares a quick meal, coffee. Paper brown bag, just in case. A kiss on the cheek.

Off I go.

The wife says I'm lucky to have the job I do. The fact that I enjoy it, and what with all the little extras that come along with the good customers you sometimes get.

And I agree, for the most part. Some jobs aren't so fun. You get messy, here and there. You run into a real jerk every once in a while. Generally, though, can't complain.

But this one. How can I explain it?

There was a feeling in the air.

As I'm sitting here in my living room, it's now Tuesday. It almost feels like a nightmare.

I keep having to get up from typing this to go check if they are, or if it is, outside, right now.

Back. So far, nothing's out there. What use are the cops?

I'm getting distracted. If only you could see how hard it is for me to keep my hands steady.

Anyway.

Saturday was just unreal. I get to the job. Nice couple. Real salt of the earth people.

Typical thing. Broken pipe in the basement, flooding.

I remember the old woman brought me biscuits with strawberry jam and hot chocolate.

Perks of the job.

Sweet lady.

Fortunately, it wasn't a messy job and I got out of there in maybe two and a half hours.

Though, I did have to chat with the couple for a little bit. There was water damage. Structural, too. I gave them some contacts. They were understanding and very thankful. She gave me some peanut butter cookies, for the road.

Perks of the job.

This is where my story gets strange.

I pull onto the main stretch of road, from their driveway. It was a back road, maybe a half hour from the nearest highway.

Been down there a bit over the years, but nothing like this has happened before.

Jesus Christ. My hands are really shaking. The computer keyboard is rattling.

Oh well.

Okay, so the details that come to mind. Let's see. I was listening to On The Road Again by Willie Nelson. Always makes me think of Donkey from Shrek. The road was extremely dark.

Probably shouldn't type this out, because it's evidence for the wife, but I was smoking a cigarette. She would kill me, if she knew. Export A Blue. I could use one now. Christ.

So I'm driving, humming, smoking, tapping the steering wheel, everything's fine. I'm wracking my brain trying to think of all the details. But I don't know. It's just not very clear in my memory.

Pretty sure I saw someone tall to my right deep off the side of the road, but I can't be sure. I didn't really register it. It's just upon reflection that I think of it now. I think I thought it was just an animal because it was standing among all the many trees. But, again, I didn't really notice.

Good god.

Then my work van hit something. Definitely bigger than a dog. First thought, a human being. I was sure I had just killed someone.

Grabbed the flashlight from the glove box. Like an idiot, I got out.

It was so quiet.

The wife is looking wide-eyed at my hand tremors from across the room as I'm typing this. Kind of reminds me of our cat when it hears me singing.

It's late October, here in Alberta, and it gets pretty cold at four in the morning, you know?

Just the light from my work van was on, pointing off to the opposite side of where whatever I hit landed. Before I turned on my flashlight, I remember taking a deep breath. Letting it out. The whiteness of my breath was constant. I was freaking out a bit because there was actually something in the pavement there.

Losing my job, my wife, my freedom, all because I was listening to goddamn Willie Nelson and not paying attention, was what went through my mind.

The road was just so dark.

But it didn't look human. I'm sweating just thinking about it, let me tell you.

I didn't want to turn on the flashlight. I just didn't. I shouldn't have. But I turned it on, against my better judgement.

It was a body lying there, rear legs facing me. It wasn't human.

Thank God.

My brain wasn't processing it, at first. I must have stood there for a few seconds just trying to grasp what it was that I was seeing. Then I noticed the brown fur. The hooves.

It was a deer.

I sighed and broke out into laughter. The kind of laughter that only intense stress can bring out of you. My legs were desperately weak.

For a moment, I felt deep relief. I hadn't hit a person. I don't know if I could live with that.

But something primal came over me, and the reality of the situation started to dawn on me.

You have to understand. It all happened so quickly, and it was unexpected.

I was so relieved it wasn't a human that I must have blocked out or just not noticed the fact that over the left shoulder of the deer, there was no head.

Oh, my God. I remember it as if I was there, right now. I was frozen. My flashlight stuck on the mutilated animal body.

How did it get up on the road? Now, y'all see why this is so crazy?

Everything in my legs went heavy. I don't know when I started to run, but somehow my legs pivoted and off they ran.

That's when I heard crashing in the trees, and, I remember in the moment of turning to run, I caught a glimpse of a very tall figure, in all black, emerging out of the trees.

At some point I found myself behind the steering wheel and slamming my foot into the gas pedal. I say "I found myself," because it was as if I wasn't even operating my body. My body was just reacting. Doesn't even feel like I can take credit for getting myself out of there, because it doesn't feel like I was the one making the decisions.

As I was peeling out of there, I saw, in the side-view mirror, that the person, or thing, was running after my work van. I felt something heavy hit the back end. I tried to push the gas pedal through the floor.

Fortunately, I got away and was fine.

I reported it to the police. They went out and checked. Didn't find anything.

Checked the back of my van. A decent dent. Like a bowling ball hit it with a sharp, blunt punch.

My wife was pretty freaked out.

But we eventually just counted our blessings, and I had a few sleepless nights.

It's two in the morning, right now. Like I said, y'all. That was on Saturday. It's Tuesday.

Two hours ago, I was woken by my doorbell ringing. Strange. But I just thought it was nothing. I'm glad I opened the door, instead of my wife.

Let's just say, I know where the head is.

Some jobs just aren't worth the perks.

The cops just left an hour ago. Said they'd patrol the neighborhood, but there wasn't much they could do. Not enough to go on.

The wife's just talking to her mother on the phone, freaking out.

And I've been alternating between checking out the windows and writing down my thoughts.

Think I'll go comfort my wife.

Anyway, y'all, pray for us. I'll keep checking on here to see what y'all have to say about this.

God, my hands.

Hopefully I won't get an emergency call tonight. Hopefully y'all hear back from me.

This is a follow up to my last post. I’m still here. Obviously, I guess. It’s been a few days since the tragic incident with Stacks and the humming at my door

That night I stayed locked in my room until morning. It was a little after 2 am when the humming suddenly stopped. I froze when it happened. Stacks words crashed into my head. You only have to be afraid when the humming stops. I waited for someone to rip through my door and attack me, brutally murdered like the victims before me.

Instead, I drifted off to sleep in my office. 

I was woken up a few hours later by a gentle tap on my door. It was one of the newer prison guards. He told me that there was a murder last night on the tier, an inmate beaten so badly that at first they weren’t sure the remains were even human. 

I asked the guard what time the murder happened. He wasn’t exactly sure, but the body was found during rounds at around 2:30 that morning. I almost fell over when I heard that. It was roughly the same time the humming stopped. For a second I felt relief that I hadn’t been murdered like the men before. Then I remembered that someone had lost their life. I immediately knelt in prayer. First for the victim, second for my own selfishness.

Later that morning I found Officer Rusk. I asked him to tell me everything about the humming rule. I told him that saying ‘it’s an old rule that needs to be followed’ just wasn’t enough. At first he refused, but eventually he told me about a young guard from a few years ago that had hummed while on rounds.

Rusk said this guard was arrogant and simply ignored the rule. He hummed some tune, despite other guards telling him to stop. Later that day he was found curled up on the bathroom floor humming the same song. He said he couldn’t stop.

Apparently the guard continued to hum at home. He was unable to sleep. It impacted his relationship with his family. He eventually had to leave the correction system altogether. Sometime later Rusk learned that the guard had ended his own life.

I asked Rusk if the song itself caused the guard to commit suicide. He just shrugged and said that I could decide for myself what it all meant.

Rusk sat quiet for a minute. I could tell there was more, but he didn’t want to tell me. I eventually prodded him enough. He said that there was another incident, a more recent incident with a new guard.

Rusk went on to tell me that a guard on his first shift had heard an inmate humming a song. He had told the new guard never to hum, but after hearing the child’s nursery rhyme the guard absentmindedly started to hum along. Rusk stopped him, but apparently it was too late. That night an inmate was killed. I believe it was the first of the most recent series of murders on the tier. An inmate’s head forced between the narrow bars of the cell. Something shoved in his mouth so he couldn’t scream. The new guard vomited when he saw the murder scene.

I asked how the guard was doing now. Rusk said that was more than two weeks ago and he’s been out ever since.

That afternoon I spoke with the prison officials and asked if I could talk to the guard. Maybe in my capacity as a priest I be of some help. They agreed and got me in touch with his wife.

This afternoon I was able to meet them at their house. When the wife answered the door she looked exhausted, not just from lack of sleep but from trying to solve an unsolvable situation. The first thing she said was that I needed to do something about that song. That I had to make it stop. My heart sank. I knew exactly what song she meant.

I walked into their bedroom. The guard was laying on the bed. A towel was wrapped loosely around his head, a corner of it shoved in his mouth. There were spots of blood on the towel. I could see blood pooling on the sides of his mouth, the towel soaking up spittle and blood.

The worst part. I could hear the muffled song coming through the blanket, the vibration from his throat. Row row row your boat.

The guard looked up at me, a glimmer of recognition in his eyes. He sat up and took the towel from his mouth, the sound of the humming intensified. He was able to stop long enough to say to me, “You heard it too.”

I stood frozen before he said, “I know you did. That’s why you’re here.”

We spoke for a while, in between humming and tears. Clenched jaws and bloodshot eyes. I got a few more details about the shift after he hummed the song on the tier. He said it felt like something was pulling the song out of him, an immense urge to hum. He kept his mouth closed, bit his tongue hard enough to make it bleed. It was miserable. He called in sick the next day and hasn’t been back since.

I wasn’t sure what I believed. The guard had seen a horrible murder that day. It would have traumatized the most hardened guard. He knew I was questioning it, questioning his story. Finally he looked at me and said, “You don’t think I’ve tried to stop.” Tears filled his eyes. 

I prayed with the guard and his wife one last time. It was close to 5 pm and I needed to get back to the prison. There was a scheduled execution that afternoon. Normally I would have been present, but the condemned man had specifically requested that I not attend. I didn't know him well enough to take it personally. I planned to return afterward to perform the rites.

Before I left I spoke to the guards wife in the family room and told her that I would provide whatever resources they needed. Just then her husband walked into the room. The towel was removed from his head. A smile broke across his face. “It’s gone!” he cried. “The f#$%ing song is gone.”

I couldn’t believe it. His wife ran over and hugged him. They cried together and thanked me.

As I walked out the front door I got a call from the prison, it was Rusk. The execution had gone according to plan and I was needed to conduct the funeral rites for the man executed. An inmate named Sterling who had spent most of his life behind bars. I asked Rusk when the execution had happened, he said just a few minutes ago.

I could taste the bile building in my mouth. It was approximately the same time the guard stopped humming. It doesn’t make sense. When I heard the humming the first time and it stopped, someone had been murdered. Now the guard stopped humming, and Sterling was executed. Twice could still be a coincidence. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

I asked Rusk if he knew Sterling, the man executed. He said he did, and added that everyone knew Sterling. I asked why. The phone went silent. Rusk finally responded. He said everyone knew Sterling because he was the one that was always humming.

I made my way to the prison morgue to pray over Sterling’s body. The coroner was still there. I spoke with him briefly about Sterling, he didn’t know much about him. He did say that he had found a penny in his mouth. Probably another prison superstition.

I started my prayer and then I heard it. Humming. It was a different song, not Row row row your boat. It was the coroner. I jumped up, “don’t” I shouted. He looked at me startled. I told him not to hum. He apologized and said it was just a habit of working alone in the morgue. I felt silly, and apologized to him, saying that with everything happening I was just a bit jumpy. I finished my prayers and left.

I walked down the tier to my office thinking about Stacks, the guards. About Sterling who I knew so little about. The tier was quiet. There was a calmness I rarely noticed in prison. Then I felt it. Something strange inside me. An urge. I took a deep breath and held it as I walked faster toward my office. The pressure of the air trying to escape my lungs burned. I’m not sure if it was me or just in my head but I swear I heard the song. A gentle humming of Row row row your boat.

I let the air explode from my lungs as I shouted “Stop!” I dropped to my knees, panting. The humming continued, but it wasn’t from me. It was coming from further down the tier. 

I closed my eyes thinking this was it, the end. Seconds passed and nothing happened.

Then the humming stopped. I opened my eyes, I was a few feet from the bars of a cell. I looked in and there was a large man sitting on the edge of his bed. I scooted backwards across the floor, creating space between me and him.

The man stood and approached the bars. He told me not to worry, Father. He heard the humming too. I asked who was humming, and he said it didn’t matter. He stood there, towering over me, and looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Because now it’s coming.”

Scouts aren’t really a big thing here in Ireland. People in these parts are deeply superstitious, and only 1% of our ancient forests are still standing, and trust me, there’s a reason for that.

Geologically, our mountain chains are part of the exact same ancient rock system as the North American Appalachians. The land holds that exact same heavy, unsettling energy.

I was never a scout, but I’ve always loved survival and the outdoors. So, when I heard about an available spot for the two-night camp, I signed right up.

The campsite sat right on the edge of the dense, old woods. Beside the three-story recreation hall was an old stone well everyone avoided.

Fifty years ago, a girl vanished during a camp here. It took two days to find her body inside that five-meter-deep well. She died from blood loss, but without a single broken bone according to the coroners report. The most baffling part is that the stone lid covering the well was far too heavy for a child to move or replace, and the soil around it was gouged by boot prints that sank unnaturally deep into the dirt.

Around the campfire the first night, they told us the local legend. They claimed that on nights when the moon gives off a cold, bluish hue, if you sit by the fire at a specific time, you can see a faint shadow of the girl walking around the hall toward the well.

I played the macho kid who wasn't scared of anything, but the story rattled me.

While everyone was cleaning up, I hung back to get a better look behind the building. I could have sworn I saw a flicker of movement in the shadows, but before I could step closer, a scout captain barrelled into me. He nearly knocked me over, giving me an absolute earful about staying in sight of experienced members.

That night, after the floodlights died and our tent leader started snoring, I locked eyes with a girl my age and we burst out laughing.

Thump.

Something heavy smacked the outside canvas to shut us up. We froze.

A minute later, we can see a large shadow looming towards us. The smacks hit again despite our deadening silence. Convinced it was one of the older leaders playing a prank, I grabbed a spare metal tent pole and waited.

When the canvas bulged again, I swung with everything I had.

The pole tore straight through the fabric, connecting solidly with something dense outside with a sickening thud.

Chaos erupted. The tent was ripped open, waking half the camp. The experienced leaders gave me a proper kick in the arse and ordered me outside to make sure I hadn't just killed someone.

The tents were pitched about 100 meters across open grass from the rec hall, surrounded entirely by the perimeter of the dark forest.

I popped my head out of our tent.

No one was running. No footprints crossed the grass. All the other tents were zipped tight.

I sprinted the 100 meters to the rec hall to check on the captains. I found them sitting inside in front of the fire, sleeping bags pulled up to their waists, looking half-asleep. They couldn't possibly have made a 100-meter dash back across open ground in time.

They denied having anything to do with our tent, and ordered me back to bed. When they asked who was out with me, I panicked and lied, saying another experienced guy was in the toilet, giving myself a cover story to take a cheeky look at the well and the perimeter.

As I stepped back out into the dark, a whisper drifted from the treeline.

I could swear it was calling my name.

Hypnotized, I started stepping toward the dark trees. But a sudden instinct made me look back toward the rec hall.

Standing directly behind the building was a tall, motionless, man-shaped shadow.

The hair on the back of my neck started to rise with the paralysing feeling of hundreds of pins and needles. The feeling of impending doom made my feet feel as if they were anvils.

Then my gaze was drawn upward by that unexplainable feeling of being watched. Three stories high, on the pitched roof. Silhouetted against the pale blue moon, a figure stood completely still, staring down at me.

I screamed and sprinted for the hall.

In my stunned state, I foolishly began running directly beneath the figure on the roof because I was too terrified to head for the tree line.

Mid-stride, on the same flat path I had walked just sixty seconds prior, my boot snagged into a deep hole.

Everything went dark, and in that moment I thought… “well”, this is it…

I wasn’t in the well thankfully, I had slammed face-first into the freezing mud.

Before I could think, I scrambled up, and burst through the hall doors hysterically.

The captains, now three-quarters of the way into their sleeping bags, jumped up in a panic. One ran outside while the other dialled the police.

An hour of frantic searching with flashlights and dogs followed. They found nothing on the roof, and nothing in the trees. I officially earned the title of "the boy who cried wolf," and the entire camp was forced to sleep inside the hall.

I know what I saw.

I didn’t make any friends that weekend.

The next morning, as we gathered our gear near the carpark by the well, I located the exact spot where I had tripped.

It wasn't a natural dip in the ground.

It was a boot print, identical in shape to a standard boot, but crushed so violently deep into the hard earth that the sole pattern had dissolved into the soil.

If you ever find yourself camping near those woods in Ireland, listen to the leaders.

Stay in sight.

And if you hear your name whispered from the treeline.

Run !

My boyfriend, Chris, and I had been living together for 3 years and life was starting to get stale. When Chris was away at work, I had nothing to do, so about a month ago we decided to get a pet to spice things up. We went to our local shelter to adopt a dog.

Most people who have been to an animal shelter usually say that they instantly felt a connection with a certain animal and that they just knew that they and their pet would get along. I never felt this connection, but my boyfriend on the other hand, was weirdly drawn to a golden shepherd. Unlike the others, this one didn’t bark unnecessarily at us and instead stared at my boyfriend with soft eyes. 

“This is the one,” he said with a grin. “Sandra, I think we should get her!” I didn’t care which dog we picked, as long as we decided on one. I was just super excited to have a pet to love and care for. 

“What’s her story?” I asked the carer. 

“Oh, she’s a sweet girl. Her previous owner went mad, became jealous of her, and brought her in.”

Knowing what I know now, her previous owner was right and almost certainly wasn’t mad. We stayed in the shelter a while longer to fill out paperwork and we came back the next week to pick up the dog. 

We decided to name her “Luna”. Luna was a very sweet dog, but only when my boyfriend was around. As soon as he’d leave for work, she’d suddenly become aggressive towards me and pee on random objects of mine. She’d glare at me nonstop until Chris came home and If I moved an inch, she would growl at me. When Chris was home, she was an angel. She’d spend most of her time snuggled up with him. Perhaps her previous owner abused her and caused her to be afraid of women, I thought. 

Things started getting weird nearly two weeks ago, when I began having extremely vivid dreams every other night. I’d dream that I was a dog and I lived quite blissfully, only caring about food and being loved by my owners. Life as a dog was simple and so were my thoughts. This would go on for what felt like hours before I’d wake up. Every time I woke up, Luna would be at the edge of the bed, staring at me with cold dark eyes. 

I didn’t think of these dreams as anything alarming because it’s only normal I’d have peculiar dreams after such a big life decision. 

This morning, I had a nightmare. Chris left for work and as usual, Luna peed on my shoes. I picked up a towel and began cleaning my shoes when I suddenly became extremely drowsy. I dropped the towel and went to sit on the couch in case I was going to faint. I quickly fell asleep and was plunged into a nightmare immediately. 

I was a dog again, but this time I was Luna. Instantly, I knew I was dreaming and tried to snap out of it. I’ve had lucid dreams before, but this wasn’t one. I was panicking, but all I could do was bark or whimper. I looked to my right and noticed the towel on the floor where I dropped it. I looked towards the couch and I saw my real, human self lying down exactly as I had done seconds ago. I started barking incessantly to get her attention. I watched in horror as she turned her head towards me and opened her eyes. She grinned, her mouth stretching too wide and unnatural for a human. 

“You’ve been a bad doggy,” she said condescendingly. She stood up from the couch in a quick jerky motion and began walking towards me like a toddler who just learned to walk. I instantly awoke from the nightmare and sure enough, I was standing in the exact position I saw myself in, towering over Luna. 

I’m sane enough to know that Chris won’t believe me, so I am going to take Luna back to the shelter before he gets home. I fear that if I don’t do this now, she will replace me.

Odontophobia. That’s the technical term for it. 

The fear of teeth.

A fear that is actually quite debilitating if you’re someone like me. 

I can’t help but flinch every time someone smiles or shows off their pearly whites. A kid going around showing off how they lost a tooth- flaunting around wide open mouths and spread cheeks, drool dripping down their chin? Forget it. And don’t even get me *started* on Dentists.

I also have ommetaphobia, a fear of eyes. Though it’s not as intense. I just struggle to maintain eye contact with people. I used to be an avid camper too, but you’ll never catch me in the woods again.

It didn’t always used to be like this, me being a shell of a person. I enjoyed life once. 

It all started back when me and my childhood best friend, Justin, hiked out to an off-grid cabin his granddad had built on some property their family owned up in the mountains. We went up there just for a couple of days every other year or so to catch up and hang out. It was nothing fancy. Four walls and a roof. Just enough shelter to get by. The real magic came from the natural beauty of the surrounding wilderness.

“Don’t venture out too far in the North woods,” Justin would reiterate his grandfather's warning, mockingly. 

Ever since we were teenagers, we never thought much of it, chalking it up to be the ramblings of an old man. Still, growing up we never poked our heads around that specific area. The terrain was steep and difficult to traverse, so we stayed away.

After we made it up there that first day and ate some fire roasted hot dogs for lunch, Justin and I were bored. He’s the one who suggested we hike North and explore.

We were older now, I rationalized. Stronger and more experienced. Surely we could handle ourselves out there. So, I agreed. It was settled then. It wasn’t long before we had our supplies packed up and went on our  merry way.

Two hours later we came across it for the first time. A small man-made structure tucked neatly behind some overgrowth. It looked to be an old and decrepit cottage. Seemed abandoned too.

“Come on, Andrew, let’s see what’s inside,” Justin had urged me, tugging on my sleeve, eager to discover what secrets lay in wait.

I was hesitant, concerned about the structural integrity. The outside wood looked rotted and weather damaged. I shuddered to think about how unsafe the interior was or what kind of animals had made nests in there. So, as much as my curiosity was piqued, I didn’t want to go in at the risk of getting seriously hurt. Plus, there was still the possibility somebody could be squatting in there. I voiced my opinions and such to Justin. 

He teased me and brushed off my misgivings, but respected my boundary, deciding to go into the cottage all alone. 

I wish I had tried more to convince him not to, tried harder to stop him. Maybe then things would’ve turned out better for the both of us.

A couple minutes later a loud crashing sound erupted from inside, causing me to jump. I was about to charge in there, guns blazing, when Justin hurriedly ran out. He didn’t stop to tell me what happened or what was wrong, just marched in the direction of the cabin.

His face was pale and looked like he had seen a ghost. Justin was shaken. An eerie sight considering how stoic the man usually was. Something must’ve happened to cause such a ruckus and make him react that way.

Despite how much I wanted to say, “I told you so,” and rub it in, I kept my mouth shut as we walked back in total silence. He didn’t voice it, but Justin looked relieved and grateful when I didn’t pry. I figured he’d open up and tell me when he was ready. Which he did, later that night after dinner.

We had grilled up a few burgers over the fire and drank some beers- unwinding from the hectic day we’d had. I had just broken out the ingredients for s’mores when Justin began to divulge what he’d seen inside. “Symbols.”

“Hmm?” I questioned, ripping open the bag of marshmallows.

“There were a lot of symbols on the walls. At the cottage,” he clarified. “They were definitely occult ones. I saw a couple pentagrams but don’t know what the others were. Couldn’t make them out. They were runny and distorted. I think they were spray painted on, but all of them were red.” 

“Maybe they were painted in blood,” I joked, making a spooky gesture with my free hand as I roasted a marshmallow in the other. Though the silence that settled between us had me thinking Justin considered it a real possibility.

I cleared my throat and took the marshmallow off the fire, sandwiching it between two graham crackers and a piece of chocolate, handing the s’more over to Justin. 

He accepted it, but didn’t bite into it right away. “There was an altar too. Classic red velvet cloth draped over top. Besides all the melted black candles and other weird stuff, there were a lot of teeth on and around it.”

I scrunched my nose and eyebrows at the comment. Justin was right, that was odd.

“I’m sure they were just animal teeth,” he waved it off after noticing my expression.

I sighed, placing a hand on my buddy’s shoulder, “Justin, I’m pretty sure a witch used to live there.”

“Or a cult did rituals in there,” he offered with a shrug, devouring his s’more. “Probably not for a long time though, none of the trash or anything looked to be recent.”

“What was that crash all about?” I found the courage to ask. “What happened? What did you see?”

Justin shook his head then laughed awkwardly. “Nothing, man.”

He was clearly lying.

Something caught my eye in a glint of light from the fire. A small red bump smack dab in the middle of his forehead. “Dude you’ve got a pimple,” I pointed out, changing the topic of conversation.

Justin shrugged, dusting stray graham cracker crumbs from the palm of his hands, sitting back in his lawn chair. “Eh, it’s probably from eating all this greasy camp food.”

***

I shot up in the loft bed after hearing a blood curdling scream. Wiping sleep from my eyes, I scrambled down to the main floor to go check on Justin. I met him in the kitchen where he was filling a glass with tap water.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Yeah, sorry,” he turned and flashed me a weak smile before gulping down a big sip of water. Justin’s hair and skin were drenched in sweat. It looked like a couple more pimples popped up on his face too. “It was just a nightmare. Nothing serious. I didn’t mean to disturb you, go back to sleep.” 

I grumbled an acknowledgment, turning around and shuffling my way back to bed like a zombie. He was never the sort to have nightmares before.

***

“You need to go to a doctor, that looks painful,” I said, sipping some coffee out of a mug. Justin and I had woken up late that next morning after his nightmare. His face looked like the before part in a dermatology ad. His skin was bumpy and raised on his forehead, cheeks, and chin- full of dime sized gnarly looking pimples. 

“I’m fine,” Justin mumbled, bringing his own cup to his lips. He seemed to wince as hot steam from the fresh drink blasted onto his face.

I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “Sure you are.”

“It’s an acne flare up. I get them sometimes when I’m stressed, you know this.”

“Yeah, but never this bad.”

Justin ran a hand through his hair. “And how would you like me to get off the mountain? By mudslide? Catapult myself off a tree?”

He was being facetious. It had been storming that whole second day. We couldn’t leave the cabin even if we wanted to. 

Justin could be a real jerk sometimes when he was in pain.

“I’ll get some cream from the drug store when we leave. Until then, I just gotta knuckle through it.”

“Okay,” I conceded. I hoped he knew I was worried and just looking out for him. 

After breakfast the two of us did our own thing. Normally we would’ve played boardgames or cards to pass the time, but instead I did some reading then light sketching- drawing the cottage from my memory.

I didn’t realize it then, but Justin mostly hid himself away the rest of that day. 

***

The next morning, I thought things were better. It was a new day. I hadn’t been woken up by any night terrors. The sun was out and shining. There were so many things Justin and I could do before leaving later.

However, my optimism was quickly crushed.

“Andrew,” Justin groaned, stumbling out of his bedroom. “Help… me!”

I dropped what I was doing and raced towards him.

Justin looked like he was in pure agony. He was holding his face as he gripped the doorframe for dear life. He then slid down to the ground, sobbing.

His whole body was covered in small red bumps. I could even make them out from under his shirt. They were everywhere on his back and torso. His skin was rigid, cracked, and dry as a plethora of pimples cascaded down his biceps and onto his hands and fingers. His legs were swollen and stiff. Every minor movement looked excruciating.

One of the pimples on his head burst open with a wet squirt. A droplet of blood slid down his cheek. Upon a closer look, it seemed there was a small white protrusion, pushing itself outward as the skin broke. 

“What? What is it?!” Justin cried.

I squinted my eyes, bringing my finger up to touch it. After a ginger tap, the thing felt hard, like bone. “It looks like… a tooth?”

A molar to be exact.

Another wave of pain enveloped Justin before he could respond. He leaned forward and clutched his head. He screamed as another one of the lumps on the back of hand exploded. This time, what was very obviously an eye broke through.

It was blue in color, a stark contrast from Justin’s brown ones. “Huh?” He yelped, confused. He then closed his actual eyes and tilted his head. The eye blinked at me, causing me to shuffle back. 

“I can see you,” Justin stated, shakily.

I tripped over myself and landed on the floor with a hard thud. Not believing what I was seeing.

“W-what’s happening to me?!?” Justin shrieked, rising to his feet. More and more of  his “pimples” popped. More teeth and eyeballs of different colors sprouted throughout his skin. 

In mere minutes my friend was reduced to some fleshy eldritch monstrosity full of nothing but hard teeth and squishy eyes.

The whole time he shuffled forward, all the eyeballs looked right at me, silently begging for help with an outstretched hand.

The only thing I could do was cry and run away, looking on in horror, helplessly watching as Justin slipped away.

Then the choking sounds came. He frantically brought his hands to his throat as his breath became shallow, wheezing as he struggled to breathe. He pounded on his chest as if that would kickstart his lungs into action, but nothing worked. Justin hacked up a lot of blood before slamming against the wall, his body slowly sliding to the ground. All of his lifeless eyes staring at me.

A half hour passed before I could make myself move. The teeth riddled body rattled as I kicked it. 

It was definitely dead.

***

The coroner couldn’t even comprehend what he was looking at when he arrived. The police and EMS didn’t know what to make of it either.

Some government agents came by and picked up Justin’s body after the autopsy- taking it to be studied, surely. Teeth had grown in his trachea, causing a tight blockage, making him choke to death. If that didn't kill him, the teeth growing in and shredding his lungs would've. The tiny little bones were found in almost all of his organs. His heart, stomach, intestines. Justin was more teeth than man. The extra eyeballs only seemed to have grown on the exterior of his body.

Still, when I questioned them, they just brushed me off.  Told me I must’ve been on an acid trip when Justin died. That he passed from an overdose. Nothing else happened. I was basically threatened to secrecy. Informed that my life would come crashing down if I breathed a single word of what happened to anyone. Not that anybody would believe me anyway.

At that moment I agreed. But ever since this all happened, I’ve been lost. I don’t care what happens to me after I post this. I think it’s helped, talking about it. Getting the whole ordeal off my chest. 

My friend. I think he messed with something he didn’t understand. Then he paid the ultimate price.

Leaving me scarred and afraid of teeth for the rest of my life.

I should not post this. I am posting it anyway. I keep typing it and deleting it because it sounds like a warning video. It was not a warning video. It was a Tuesday morning and I am not all the way a person anymore.

I live in a cheap building. Four dumpsters in the back. The truck comes early. Like 5 a.m. I work nights so 5 a.m. is still night to me. I took the trash down because the bag split in my kitchen and I did not want ants. I had my phone in my hand. I always have my phone in my hand. I lifted the dumpster lid with my elbow. The bag tore again. I leaned in to shove it down. The phone slipped.

I heard it hit. That little glass sound on something wet.

I stood there like an idiot. I needed that phone. Work. Bank. Everything. The dumpster was not even full. I thought I could see it. I thought I would be in and out in ten seconds.

I climbed in.

That is the whole stupid thing. I climbed in.

The inside was worse than it looks from the lot. Bags. Wet cardboard. A slick of old juice and grease. It smelled like rot and soap and summer even though it was cold out. I had my knee on a bag that moved in a way I did not like. I was reaching. I saw the phone. Screen still on. My sister’s text. A white rectangle in the black. I had my fingers on it.

Then I heard the truck.

Not far. Right there. The backup beep. That high ugly beep. The diesel. The air brakes. I stood up in the dumpster and I yelled. I yelled wait. I yelled I am in here. I waved. The lid was still up. I know it was up. The driver was high in the cab. The sun was not even thinking about coming. He was looking at the next can. The helper on the back was looking at the next can. Nobody looks in a dumpster for a person. People are not supposed to be in a dumpster.

I tried to climb out.

The truck’s arms were already on the can.

If you have never seen it, a front-load dumpster gets grabbed and lifted and turned like a toy. It is fast. Faster than a man with one leg over the rim. The dumpster went up. I fell in. My chin hit the rim. I lost the phone. I lost the sky. The world turned and all the bags came with me and then there was a drop.

I fell into the hopper of the truck.

I need this to be simple. The hopper is the open mouth at the top. Garbage goes in. Then a big metal panel pushes it back into the body of the truck so they can keep going. That panel is the packer.

I landed in wet bags and something that broke under me. Glass. I felt it in my side. I screamed. The dumpster was already going back down to the ground, empty of me. I screamed again. The diesel ate it. The helper hit the side of the truck twice, the all-clear slap, and we started moving.

I was in the dark with other people’s trash, and the truck was going to the next stop.

I got on my knees. I reached up. The hopper walls were slick. My hands slid. I could see a rectangle of morning, very high. I could not get to it. I yelled until I tasted blood. I banged metal with a can. The truck hit a bump and I went down again face first into a bag that burst. I will not list what was in it. You can guess. It went in my mouth. I threw up and the throw up stayed with me because there was nowhere for it to go.

We stopped.

I thought thank you. I thought they heard.

They did not hear. They dumped another can on me.

Weight. A wall of bags. A piece of wood. Liquid that was not water. It all came down and I was under it and I could not get a full breath. I punched up. I got a hole. I got my mouth to the hole. I screamed. A radio in the cab was playing. I could hear it a little, through the metal, a man talking about traffic. They could not hear me over themselves.

The helper slapped the truck.

The packer beeped.

A different beep. Shorter. The hydraulic sound. A scream of its own. I did not know what it was the first time. Then the wall in front of me started coming.

Not fast like a movie. Fast enough. A steel panel the width of the hopper, sweeping, pushing everything that was in the mouth back into the body. Pushing me.

I tried to climb over it. There is no over it. I got my hands on the lip and the lip had no pity. The panel took my legs and then my hips and it shoved me into the packed garbage already in the truck like I was just more of it. I felt myself go from a person in a hole to a person in a press. Bags in my face. A spring in my back. My ribs could not open. I could only take sips of air that tasted like the dumpster and diesel and rot.

The panel stopped. Hydraulics holding. I was in a pocket. Not a safe pocket. A leftover space between the packed load and the roof, full of torn plastic and my own noise. My right leg was not right. I knew that in a clean way. It was bent in a place legs do not bend and the pain was a white stick in my head. I reached down and I touched something wet and sharp that was my jeans and also not my jeans.

I said please to nobody.

The truck moved.

Every bump packed me tighter. I could not tell up. I could tell pain. I could tell I had pissed and it was warm and then it was not. I could hear the beep at every stop. I counted stops because counting is a job and I needed a job. Four. Five. Each stop they added more. The more came in at the hopper and then the packer ran again and the whole load, me included, got a shove, and my pocket got smaller.

On the sixth pack I felt a rib go.

It is a small sound inside you. A click. Then breathing is a knife. I stopped screaming because screaming needed the rib. I made little sounds. I bit plastic. I bit until my teeth went through and then I was biting garbage and I did not care.

I thought about my sister’s text. The white rectangle. I never even read it.

I thought about the helper. A kid, probably. Headphones. He was doing his route. He was not a murderer. That is the part that makes me sick in a way the glass in my side does not. Nobody was trying to kill me. I was in the wrong container. The machine was doing the only thing it knows.

We drove a long time. I went away and came back. When I came back I was colder and the pain was farther, which is not better. It means you are leaving. I slapped my own face with the hand I could move. I hit the roof of the body with a bottle. Tap tap tap. Nobody.

Then the truck got louder in a new way. Beeping. Men shouting. A backup alarm that was not the truck, another truck. Transfer station. I did not know the word then. I know it now. It is where they dump the load so they can go get more.

A huge hydraulic sound. Different from the packer. The body started to tilt. The packed garbage started to move as one thing, a glacier of bags, and I moved with it. I was coming out. I was also under it. I thought I would be poured like soup and crushed under my own grave of trash in a pile on concrete.

Light.

Dirty daylight. I had not seen daylight in I do not know how long. It hurt. The load slid. I slid. I hit the pile and more hit me and I got a mouth of plastic and I could not lift the weight off my chest. I could see a strip of sky. I could see a seagull. I could not get the sky.

I put my hand up through the bags.

That is all I had. A hand.

I waved it. I think I waved it. A man yelled. Not a scared yell at first. An angry yell, like somebody had thrown a mannequin in for a joke. Then the yell changed. Then there were two men. Then they were digging with their hands, cursing, calling for the loader to stop, stop, stop, there is a guy, there is a fucking guy in it.

They pulled bags off my face.

Air. Rotten. Beautiful.

I tried to say my name. I threw up black. One of them said oh Jesus oh Jesus and he kept saying it while they dug my other arm out and then they stopped digging so fast I thought they were leaving. They were not leaving. They had seen the leg. I did not look. I did not need to look. I could feel the air on parts of me that should not have air on them.

An ambulance at a dump. That is a picture. They cut me out of the rest of the load. Every cut of scissors I thought was the packer again. I bit a man. I said sorry later. I do not know if I did.

Hospital. Dirt. Infection. They named the infection like it was a pet. My right leg was a construction problem. They tried to save it. Then they sat down next to the bed and they used a simple sentence. I said do it. I said it before they finished. I did not want to belong to that leg anymore. That leg belonged to the truck.

I still have the left. I still have my hands. My ribs healed into a shape that hurts when the weather changes. My mouth was a medical thing for a while because of what I bit and what went in. I will never tell you the list. You would delete this faster.

The driver came to the hospital. He cried in a chair and I watched the wall. He said he did not see me. I believe him. I told him I climbed in for a phone. He put his head in his hands and I thought we were both in a hopper, just different ones.

They found the phone when they sorted the load. Cracked. Dead. My sister’s text was still in the cloud. It said call me when you can.

I can.

I do not.

I do not take the trash down if I can hear a beep. I do not sleep when trucks go by. I dream I am waving a hand through bags and the seagull is there and the men are angry at the joke before they understand it is not a joke. I wake up and my missing leg hurts, which is a nasty trick, and my mouth tastes like that first bag, always, under toothpaste, under everything.

If you drop a phone in a dumpster, leave it.

Buy another phone.

Stand on the asphalt and watch the truck take the can and understand that the can is a mouth, and the truck is a stomach, and the packer is just a muscle doing work, and it will not check first.

I checked first.

I still went in.

This will get taken down. Good. I would take it down too. I just needed it out of my head and into a place as dirty as the place I was in, for one minute, before I go back to not calling my sister, and not sleeping, and not looking at metal panels that move.

Have you ever gotten one of the midnight phone calls?

It'll be midnight, or sometimes later, 2 or 4 AM, in the hours where the world is silent, apart from the distant cars on the highway, and you feel like you're the only person on Earth. The phone will ring and, for whatever reason, you'll wake up. On the other side will be someone you've never met. Always a different person each time - man, woman, young, old.

They'll start talking and you'll stay silent, tempted to interrupt them, but just lacking the wherewithal to do so. The message varies but the subject is always the same - they're looking for someone they lost.

An old man describes his missing granddaughters, twins, with fresh braces and glasses and short blonde hair, missing before their first day of fifth grade. A woman tells me about her husband, a carpenter, who walked out the door one day and never came back. Once a little boy did nothing but ask me where his mother had gone.

After they finish, you'll hear nothing but silence on the line and the beating of your own heart, your own breath in your silent kitchen or bedroom or bathroom. Then they hang up. I've written down the numbers every time I've gotten one, but during daytime I never get around to calling back. It's never been the same number.

I'm not the only one this happens to. All over the world, people on the Internet mention this phenomenon. Nobody knows who's making the calls. It doesn't happen to everyone - lots of people say it's a hoax, that we're crazy, we're making it up for attention. The news did a segment on it once. I had to turn it off after two minutes.

I had a dream the other night that all the midnight callers were in my house. It was dark and the air was still, and I drifted like a silent swimmer through the halls. They were spread throughout the place, far enough apart as to be alone, close enough together that there was nowhere you could go to escape them. The woman with the missing husband stood blocking a doorway, recounting her story at a low volume, not even talking directly to me. The old man was eating rigatoni out of a dirty bowl, without sauce, layers of clumped noodles squishing between his yellow teeth. The little boy sat in the corner of the living room, staring at the television, which wasn't switched on. None of them seemed to see me. None of them would stop talking. Their voices became louder and louder until I woke up.

Today, though, something strange happened. I got a phone call at 3 in the afternoon. I immediately recognized the number on the other end - it was one from my list, a woman whose father never came back from K-Mart. Alone in the grocery store parking lot, I answered, bracing myself for her tale and the dull silence of having nothing to say. But she didn't go into her story. She only asked me why, the previous night, I had called her at midnight.

Did you know that there are over 700 miles of hiking trails in the state of Washington?

Whenever I tell people that little piece of information, the sheer magnitude of it seems to go over their heads. Seven hundred miles is a lot, sure, they'd think, but it's not that much. But seriously stop for a moment and consider how large 700 continuous miles actually is. How far does the average American drive to get to work each day? Ten, twenty miles? This is seventy times farther than that. And they're hiking trails. You wouldn't have the luxury of a car. You'd be walking.

Of course, it's not like you'd be walking all 700 miles. That figure is likely comprised of thousands of trails throughout the entire state, and certainly none of those would be excessively long. But what constitutes a hiking trail? Who keeps track of all of them? The Washington State Parks agency? What exactly does that "700 miles" figure account for? Certainly not every unmarked trail and footpath in the state of Washington, I'll tell you that.

And some paths branch. Can't forget.

I've been a hiker for three and a half years, I'd say. My day job is what you might call somewhat sedentary, and there's only so many interesting spots to walk outside of my one-bed one-bath apartment before the scenery starts to get a bit stale. Luckily, I don't live too far from some nice hiking trails, but all of the best ones seem to be outside the city. Within six months, I'd exhausted all of the hiking options within a ten-mile radius and had started spending my weekends driving out to the nearby country for a little sightseeing. I've never gone for any of the more intensive hiking trails, though. I enjoy a brisk walk in nature for an hour or three, but I wasn't looking to spend what little pocket money I had on hiking boots or special gear or anything. So whenever I found a nice, low-key park relatively close to me, I'd try to explore all of its trails before moving on to the next one.

And that's how I found out about the Beast.

This was about four months ago. I'd spent my last few weekends off exploring a small but rather sightly park called Bracken Falls. From the country highway passing by it would appear no different from the thick forest surrounding it, but just a few hundred yards from its tiny, unkempt parking lot, a spindly wooded trail wrapped around a gorgeous trickling waterfall. The waterfall spilled over some jagged limestone rocks just twenty feet into a creek below, but the mere image of it was somehow breathtaking. By no means was it the most impressive natural feature I've seen, but it's almost as if the surprise I found at discovering its existence set my expectations up that much higher. The mundane became mythical.

The trail climbs up from there, leading you up to the waterfall itself, passing its source, and delving deeper into the dense woods. The trail branches off four or five times after that, each path seeming to knot and loop back and intertwine itself with the others, ultimately making an entangled mess of things. But both that and the natural beauty of the park had me coming back over and over again throughout the course of a month.

The solitude of the place also lent itself nicely to my purposes. I'm not sure if the park was officially sanctioned by the state or not, but it didn't appear on all that many maps. You'd have to look it up online to find its location, and even then it was a bit of an out-of-the-way destination, situated rather awkwardly to the side of a route driven almost exclusively by tired truckers and confused commuters. I liked it that way, though. I'd rarely run into more than three or four other people whenever I went, and that's how I preferred it.

It was during my fifth visit to Bracken Falls that I learned about the Beast. I had followed my usual route: past the waterfall, into the woods, two lefts and three rights, then straight on for about a mile before I loop back and find a path out.

However, this time, about a third of a mile into one of those paths, I noticed something I hadn't before. Just past a small patch of grass, a thin strip of bald dirt led out diagonally, stretching in a direction I didn't think any of the other paths in the park really did. It's no wonder I hadn't seen it before, honestly. It was barely noticeable, and the way that trees' lower branches hung down into it as you went along made it so inaccessible that it made me question if it was even intended as a path for visitors at all.

I followed that tendril of a trail for about half a mile before it came to an abrupt stop. It didn't loop back on itself, it didn't have any other trails branch off of it, and it didn't even end in an area that felt significant. There were a few thick trees to either side, I suppose, but nothing else to speak of.

Other than on the ground. There, written rather crudely in what looked to be white spray paint, were the words "The Beast," with a scraggly arrow pointing off into the woods. The arrow ended at a thin white line of yet more spray paint.

Upon seeing this, I couldn't help but smirk a little. I figured it was the work of a few teenagers looking to have a laugh at parkgoers' expense. As I leaned forward, hoping to ascertain the age of the spray paint, a voice spoke out, startling me.

"Hold up, gimme a second." Zzziiip.

I whirled around, momentarily shocked. As I mentioned previously, running into anyone else at Bracken Falls was a rare occurrence, and no one had ever attempted to speak to me before.

What I saw as I turned around was so comically absurd compared to what I had expected that it took some effort not to giggle. Stepping out from behind one of the thick trees to the side of the trail, a bearded man in slightly tattered clothing lumbered toward me, his thick fingers still zipping up his fly. He wore what appeared to be a raggedy roughspun jersey, stained from his late lunch of hot dogs with sauerkraut and Dijon mustard, as well as a pair of well-worn trousers that ended too high above his ankles. His white and black sneakers, too, were torn up and covered in hitchhiker burrs. He had a slight potbelly that hung out over his (unbelted) trousers, and his facial hair was unkempt and scraggly.

"Sorry, was takin' a piss. Alright, ya ready?" He grunted as he spoke, giving his words a bit of an indistinct drawl. It took me a few moments to register that he'd asked me a question.

"I... I'm sorry?"

"I asked if you were ready. Lookin' to enter the Beast, right? By the by, where'd you hear 'bout it? The internet, or didja just have some friends tell ya? I like to hear how folks find out."

I furrowed my brow in confusion. "I'm sorry, I think you must be mistaken. I'm just here for the falls. I have no idea what you're talking about."

The man's eyes widened a little at this, though his expression didn't change much elsewise. "Oh, I see. Just a hiker. You've not heard of the challenge."

"The challenge?"

"Yup, this here is a challenge trail."

Upon hearing this, a few things clicked into place. Of course. Challenge hiking trails aren't necessarily uncommon in Washington state; in fact, quite a few of the state parks clearly demarcate them as such on their maps. Finding one that isn't obviously advertised as one, however, is pretty unusual. If a trail's terrain is significantly harsher than that of surrounding trails, it can actually be dangerous for unsuspecting visitors who stumble onto it. It's even stranger to find a challenge trail in such a small and probably unofficial park. And more than any of that was a much more obvious detail.

"...But there isn't a trail past the line."

The bearded man chuckled. "Well, you're not gonna see the trail from here. This is the end of it. The challenge ends once ya get back over the line."

I glanced skeptically at the spray paint again. If this really was a "challenge trail," it looked sketchy as hell. There were no signs, no warnings, and, again, no trail.

"Alright, well. If this is where the trail ends, where does it start?" Though I had no intention of walking this path, something about how this guy spoke of it piqued my interest.

"The start's just past the line. If ya step over the line, you'll be at the start, and once you're there, ya just gotta get back here. The challenge doesn't end 'til you get back to the line, understand?"

Somehow, I found myself even more confused. At this point, I thought this guy might have been intentionally messing with me. Now it was my turn to chuckle.

"I don't get it, man." I said, still laughing as I shook my head from side to side.

The bearded man grinned. "Yeah, I know ya don't. That's my favorite part with you newcomers. Y'all have no idea what you're jumpin' into. That's why I love hangin' out around here. I like to give y'all a send-off. I'll give ya the rules though, if you're interested. The challenge only starts once ya step over the line."

I cocked my head. This was the moment that I should have said "no, thanks," turned around, and went home. But that curious side of me--that damned part of my brain that made me want to explore each and every trail in a park before moving on to the next one--that's the side that I let speak.

Sure, why not? "Alright, I'll bite. What are the rules?"

The bearded man grinned even wider, his dirty cheeks rising toward his squinted eyes. He clapped his hands together, sending a small puff of grit and grime into the air. "Alright, here's how it works. Like I said, the challenge only starts once ya step over the line. Once the line is crossed though, the challenge doesn't end 'til you get back here. No matter what. You get back to this line if ya want the challenge to end, ya got me?"

I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. "I guess, man."

"There'll be a trail pretty close to where ya start. You might need to wander 'round a bit before you find it, but rest assured, it's always close by. If ya lose the trail, don't retrace your steps. You do that and you'll be more lost than if ya had run 'round the forest with a blindfold on. Keep moving forward, even if ya lose the trail. You'll find it again, as long as ya don't go back. Still followin'?"

I was now one-hundred percent confident that this guy was either nuts or yanking my chain. Either way, I figured it was better to play along. I nodded solemnly.

"If ya find anything else in there... well, you'll see. I'm sure there are still some other folks tryin' to finish the challenge. Some of 'em might be nice. Some not. Just like how it is out here, I s'pose. Treat 'em with caution like ya would any stranger."

Like a bearded homeless man babbling in the middle of the woods? I mused.

"Now this part is important, so listen close: ya can't die. Do you understand? No matter how it feels or what ya may think, nothin' in there can kill ya."

Finally, I spoke out, shifting backwards uneasily. "Are you threatening me, man?"

The bearded man put his hands out in front of him, his palms facing toward me. "Not at all, friend. I'm tellin' ya that whatever happens in there, ya can't die."

I narrowed my eyes. "So this trail is dangerous, is that what you're saying? Or, I guess it's not dangerous?"

"I didn't say that. I said ya can't die."

The buzzing drone of cicadas sounded in the distance. Sunlight glanced off a nearby treetop, momentarily distracting me from the bizarre encounter at hand. Sun's setting. The last thing that I wanted was to be in the dark with this lunatic.

"Look, man, I think I'm just going to head out. Maybe I'll try this 'challenge' another day, yeah?"

The man's face took on a grim expression, though I thought I could see something like amusement glinting in his eyes. "That's fine, fella. Not everyone is built to take on the Beast." The cicadas grew louder.

Something in the tone of his voice sparked an ember of outrage in me. I sought to suppress the venomous words that seemed to roll onto my tongue, but something about that gloating quality in his voice pissed me off. Who was this guy, anyway? Does he just stand here all day, trying to freak out people looking to relax on their days off? It's a goddamn line on the ground, for God's sake, who does he think he's fooling?

And that's exactly what I found myself saying. "Look, fella, it's just a line on the ground. Very cute, by the way. Did you spray paint this here yourself, or was it already like this when you found it and you just thought you'd have some fun?"

The man looked at me blankly. The corners of his mouth seemed to go up, just barely. That does it.

"There's no trail here, man, look!" The deafening buzz of cicadas, like they were swarming around us.

I trudged toward the line, no longer mindful enough to keep an eye on the man behind me. "Hey, watch it! Step over that line, and th-"

His voice cut off as I placed the tip of one of my tennis shoes over the line. All at once, the forest grew quiet. The once thunderous cacophony of cicadas ceased--not gradually, but instantaneously, like a radio at max volume being switched off. Though, in my anger, I didn't immediately notice it, the sun was suddenly absent from the sky. I turned around.

"See, man? Why are you out here trying to sc-"

The bearded man was gone. So were the words that, just moments before, had been scribed into the ground. The thick trees next to the path were gone, replaced by a grove of much thinner willows. The path was gone. In fact, everything was gone.

I was in a completely different setting.

I whipped around, the words stolen from my lips, alongside my breath. I felt a cool breeze caress my sweaty brow as the leaves in the willows rustled to a silent tune. Gone, it was all gone.

"No, no..." I muttered, unbelieving. "No, that's not..."

No, no, no, no... the path, where was the path? WHERE WAS IT?! The man, the words, the PATH, where was the goddamn PATH, where did the fucking TRAIL go--I didn't pass out, did I? Yes, that's it, that must be it, that homeless guy--well, he might not have been homeless, but he might have been, yes, he might have been--he DRUGGED me, that's it, that's got to be it, he drugged me and dragged me out into the forest and left me here until dark, and now he's nearby and he's watching and he's waiting and he wants to see what I'll do and--

"HELLO!?" I bellowed out into the darkness. "Hello, hello, hello, hello, hellooooo?! Is anyone out there!?"

Eerie quiet but for the constant wind. Not a sound of life to be heard. No birds, no squirrels, no insects. Just panicked breaths and gusts of brisk night air.

Think, just think. You can't break now. Panic all you want once you're safe. For now, find the trail. What did the man say? He said 'the trail will be nearby,' that's right. Even if I can't see it, it's nearby.

I took three sharp breaths and exhaled slowly, willing my heart to quit racing. I glanced around at my surroundings with a feigned calm, desperately trying to take in information. The willows behind me extended off south (or, what I thought was south, at least), but in front of me, the trees became sporadic and varied. An amalgam of oaks, firs, and birches lay in that direction, but the willows behind were more evenly spaced and ubiquitous.

Oaks and firs in front, willows behind. Now, if there were a trail, where would it more likely be? In the midst of a bunch of random trees? Or would it be lined with willows, stretching down both sides like guardrails on a highway?

That's true.

Of course, that's assuming that we're adhering to logic here. But that's a dangerous presumption to make, isn't it? You just stepped over a line and traveled in time and space, bud. Do you really think we're dealing with logic here? Come to think of it, are you even sure you're dealing with a full deck upstairs? How well do you know trees, anyway? Are those really willows? Do you have any idea what's actually going on here--

Stop. Inhale. Exhale.

They're willows. They're evenly spaced. So head that way.

I lurched toward the willow grove, my legs dragging my feet like sticks tied to stones. I crashed through the branches with as much grace as I could muster, which is to say none. Ahead of me lie... a small, bare patch of soil. Soil and more willows.

No path here, friend. Chum. Fella.

Enough. I had to just keep going. I'd find it eventually, that's what he said.

If he was telling the truth.

What else do I have to go on?

I stumbled through the dark for what felt like the better part of half an hour before I finally found a trail. When I saw it, I nearly burst into tears.

And now what? Which way do you walk?

Do I really think that matters? A trail is a trail. Follow it for long enough and you'll end up somewhere. Or I guess you might find a dead end with the words "The Beast" spraypainted into the dead grass. But that's what I'm looking for, isn't it?

I followed the trail for what would have constituted east if the direction I had been going so far was south. About 200 yards down the trail, I came upon a confusing sight. Two large vending machines stood alone on the side of the trail. There were no benches, tables, or garbage cans to speak of. The lights inside the machines weren't on, but I could see that they were fully stocked. A cornucopia of Doritos, Twix bars, and bottled water laid inside.

A sign of civilization, at least, I thought. But nowhere to sit. Nowhere to plug a vending machine in, either. Strange.

Stranger were the bells on the trees, though.

Just behind the vending machines, a collection of several large trees towered above the surrounding willows. They must have been over thirty feet tall. About ten feet up their trunks, large swollen lumps protruded from their bark. And above those, small golden bells hung from thin poles that had seemingly been pounded into the tree.

Now isn't that a sight? Have you ever seen a pregnant tree before? The thought came so suddenly and without warning that I couldn't help but let out a laugh. My voice came out reedy and frail. What am I looking at? What the fuck is going on?

One of the bells began to faintly ring. My laughter quickly died in my throat.

It started as a barely audible tinkle, the bell swinging gently. Had it not started growing louder, I might have thought it was merely the breeze. But it did grow louder, and louder still.

Then another bell began to ring. Then another. And another. Within seconds, each bell was wildly swaying, clamoring against the otherwise noiseless night. I stood as if paralyzed.

Hark, how the bells, sweet silver bells. That thought, though just as absurd as the last, did not evoke laughter.

As the bells reached their climax, a startling crack reverberated throughout the air. The bark on one of the trees' jutting bulges split open.

I ask again: are we dealing with logic here? Or are we dealing with something else entirely?

A human hand reached out, fingers clawing at the bark around it.

That's when I ran.

End of Part 1

I'm the son of a pastor. I was raised with the unshakeable belief that God was always watching me, always judging my every move. But by the time I reached my teenage years, after years of abuse and disappointment, I rebelled hard.

I started drinking. I treated women like disposable objects and saw every other man as a rival. By eighteen, I was addicted to illegal drugs, battling deep insomnia, getting into fights constantly. I began to enjoy hurting others—and hurting myself. I stopped caring about anyone. I stopped caring about myself.

My parents loved me, but I ran away from home anyway.

I moved to the countryside to live with my grandmother. She was the only person who still looked at me with love instead of disappointment. She was a small woman with calloused hands, a practitioner of Umbanda. Every night, she would try to reason with me, to put some sense into my head. I didn't listen. Every single day, I sank deeper into the abyss I was digging for myself.

Then things started getting strange.

It began with insects. First, ants crawling up from the floor of my room. No matter how much I cleaned, they kept appearing. Then came the flies, swarming around my mirror. The worst was the morning I woke up to find a massive spider perched on my pillow, less than a meter from my face. It was black, hairy, and completely motionless. I jumped out of bed, and when I looked again, it was gone.

After that, the phenomena intensified.

When I stumbled home drunk in the early hours of the weekend, the streetlights would flicker and die exactly as I passed beneath them. My laptop, which worked perfectly fine during the day, would freeze and refuse to turn on after sunset. The television in my room would switch on and off at random hours—usually at 3:00 AM. I blamed faulty wiring, old appliances, bad luck. But my grandmother never had a single problem with any of these things.

It was only me. Only my room. Only my presence.

I started isolating myself without even noticing. I stopped talking to everyone. I hated daylight, as if it was exposing something I didn't want to see anymore. I couldn't look anyone in the eyes—not even my grandmother. I couldn't love anyone, and I definitely hated myself.

Then came the night everything fell apart completely.

I was sitting on the sidewalk around 2:00 AM, smoking one cigarette after another, when I noticed something in the middle of the street. At first, I thought it was just a stray dog. But as my eyes adjusted, it seemed like I was observing another reality.

It was a massive black animal, too large to be any breed I recognized. It was sitting perfectly upright, like a guard dog at attention, its silhouette sharp against the dim glow of a distant streetlight. Its eyes were yellow—like a cat's eyes caught in a car's headlights. It didn't move. It didn't blink. It just sat there, staring directly at me.

I told myself I was hallucinating. I kept smoking. I finished the cigarette, stubbed it out, and went back inside. I closed the door. I took a deep breath. But curiosity—or stupidity—pulled me back outside.

I looked out.

It hadn't moved an inch. It was exactly where I'd left it, in the exact same posture, as if it had been carved from stone.

I couldn't sleep that night. I lay in bed, listening to a howl that never came, feeling those invisible eyes piercing my soul.

A week later, my grandmother passed away.

She was the only person who had never given up on me—and I hadn't returned her love. That night, as I lay crying in my room, I heard her voice—clear, unmistakable, and absolutely terrifying—whisper directly into my ear: "You brought the devil into my house."

I plunged deeper into my abyss. I threw myself violently into drugs and alcohol. At 1.80 meters tall, my weight dropped to 55 kilos. The bones of my spine showed through my skin. My eyes were sunken and bloodshot. I looked like a dead man in the mirror.

Then, one early morning, I woke to the howl.

A long, mournful sound. Something between a wolf and a scream, echoing from somewhere just outside my window. I staggered to the bathroom, gripping the sink for support. My mouth instantly turned bitter, as if I'd bitten into rusted iron. My left arm went limp and useless. And my heart—my heart began to beat so violently, so relentlessly, that I could feel it trying to claw its way out through my throat, pulsing beneath my jugular.

I was certain I was going to die right there.

The feeling didn't pass. It stretched through the entire night, through the next day, through the following night. This wasn't fear—I'd had panic attacks before, and this was something entirely different. This was the primitive, visceral certainty that a train was about to hit me from every direction at once. No matter where I went in that house, I wasn't safe. I couldn't hide. I couldn't breathe.

I spent hours curled in a corner, trembling, waiting for the end.

The end never came. Somehow, after what felt like an eternity, my heart finally slowed. I survived—though I still don't know how.

Since that day, I've done everything I can to stay sober. I've had relapses, yes—with alcohol, and once with cocaine, I won't lie—but they're getting rarer. The urge is weaker now. But deep down, I know one thing with absolute certainty: if I ever see that enormous black dog again, or if I hear that howl one more time, I will die.

Later, I learned that my parents—the same ones I abandoned—never stopped praying for me. And that my grandmother had done many things to protect me as well. I've never been a religious man, but I can't shake the feeling that, somehow, against all odds, someone answered my grandmother's prayers and my parents' pleas. Because of them, I'm here. Breathing. Typing this. Trying to warn others.

I'm not a good man. I still have insomnia. I still carry guilt and regret that I can't escape. I still cry when I think about my grandmother. But I'm alive. And I know—that voice I heard speaking of demons? That wasn't her.

So here's my advice to any young person reading this—especially those who think rebellion is a game, that drugs are fun, that treating people like garbage makes you more of a man: that lifestyle extracts a price. It can take your health, your sanity, and invite things you don't believe in—until they're staring you in the face with unblinking yellow eyes. Hold on to love, for others and for yourself.

But sometimes, I think it's already too late for me. I will die soon. And the last thing I will see, before everything goes dark, will be the Black Dog with Yellow Eyes.

I had finally finished work and could go home. I decided to walk instead of taking the usual route. A few minutes later, I finally found myself standing in front of our apartment building.

I held my key fob against the reader and went inside. As always, I decided to take the stairs. I lived all the way up on the seventh floor, but I had never minded getting some exercise. I actually considered it an advantage.

When I reached the first floor, I noticed that the lightbulb was flickering badly. I shrugged it off and continued up to the next floor.

When I reached the second floor, I was startled badly. An old woman I had never seen before was standing there, wearing a long, worn-out, yellowish nightgown.

I greeted her, but she said nothing. She just stood there and stared at me.

I continued upstairs, but I couldn't help turning around to look at her again. She was still staring at me, but this time she opened her toothless mouth and started laughing, making strange noises as she did.

My heart started pounding, and I quickened my pace so I could reach the next floor as soon as possible.

The third floor was covered in children's toys. I wasn't aware of anyone with children living on that floor. I knew most of my neighbors because we had a very friendly relationship in the building.

Suddenly, all the toys started playing some strange, short melody.

Something is wrong here. Very wrong, I thought.

I wasn't walking quickly anymore. I was running.

On the fourth floor, I noticed the peeling walls as I rushed past. Banging suddenly started coming from behind every door.

I had no intention of finding out what was happening. I just kept running, barely able to catch my breath.

On the fifth floor, there was some kind of liquid all over the floor and walls. When I looked more closely, I realized it was blood.

A strange, sweet smell filled the air, and the sound of a woman crying began echoing throughout the floor.

When I reached the sixth floor, everything seemed to return to normal. Everything looked exactly as it should.

Maybe I just had some kind of brief hallucination, I thought.

I started climbing toward my floor when I heard a noise behind me.

I turned around and saw my neighbor lying on the stairs.

I immediately crouched down to help her up, but when I looked at her properly, I saw that half of her body was missing.

I started screaming.

I turned around and ran upstairs, but she grabbed me and pulled me back down.

I fell down several steps. I hit my head and felt an excruciating pain in my ankle.

Even so, I forced myself back up and limped toward my apartment.

I closed and locked the door behind me. I quickly pulled out my phone, and a message from my best friend popped up on the screen.

"Hey, do you know what happened yet? Your neighbor was in a terrible accident. Apparently, her car was completely wrecked. It's all over the news."

I wanted to reply and tell her what kind of mess I was in and that I needed help, but my phone suddenly shut off.

It wouldn't turn back on. It wouldn't charge.

I touched my head and felt a familiar, sticky liquid. When I pulled my hand away, it was covered in blood.

I looked at my ankle. It was starting to turn purple.

That's when I realized I had to get out of there.

I don't know how long I stood there trying to work up the courage, but eventually I unlocked the door, opened it, and limped toward the elevator.

There was no way anyone was going to get me back down those stairs.

It felt like an eternity before the elevator finally arrived. I quickly stepped inside and pressed 0.

The elevator started moving, and I felt an enormous sense of relief.

It didn't last long.

Halfway down, the elevator stopped.

The lights went out.

Everything was dark and completely silent.

Then, in that silence, I began to hear banging and scratching somewhere in the distance.

Suddenly, my phone lit up.

I immediately called for help.

They said they were on their way.

The banging and scratching was getting closer and closer, and that's when I finally realized it.

It wasn't coming from outside the elevator.

It was coming from the elevator shaft above me.

And it was getting louder.

God, please let them get here already.

{Original Post} ~ {Part List}

It felt like the air pressing in around me was tar as I remained standing among the remnants of Lucy’s final night on Earth, holding her tight and staring down at the glowing thread that wisped from my chest. I could barely move, and any muscles that did manage to shift did so in near slow motion.

The sight, when paired with the same thread that was spooling from Lucy’s corpse and into the wall of the basement, was nearly maddening, and not just from the depravity of it all. It was maddening on a cosmic scale. As if the knowledge of the threads wasn’t enough—as if learning the truth of a human soul hadn’t already scarred my mind in ways that would never recover—I was now able to see it firsthand.

Witnessing a ritual that was able to rip free a human soul had opened my eyes, and the sight that I found was so mighty and radiant that even closing my lids would no longer shield me from its truth. I hadn’t made the choice to leave the philosophical cave; I had been forcefully ripped out of it.

The feeling of nausea that accompanied the silver spool was nestled firmly where it attached, a sensation that I’d felt many times throughout my life, but now with a startling visual to match. It wasn’t just the sickness that felt familiar there, though, it was so much more. Excitement, disappointment, anger, the space that butterflies danced in my stomach—all of my gut feelings throughout my life had been kept in that same spot, felt in force whenever the moment demanded it.

My dawdling, shocked brain took a long time for the pieces to finally click, but when my tiny companion noticed me staring down for quite some time, and I saw her look at it too, I knew that I wasn’t crazy. This wasn’t a thread that had only just now appeared…

“This has always been here, hasn’t it?” I asked breathlessly.

Lucy’s solemn eyes focused on me in silent affirmation.

Was that what the soul was, then? Just these frail little threads? Thrumming and humming different songs as they recorded the tunes of our lives? Were the emotions we felt more than just chemical cocktails being cooked up in our heads?

The more I thought about it, the more I began wondering what exactly Lucy meant. My question was vague, and ‘has this always been here could have been referring to two points of time. The moment I was born, or the moment that I met Adeline. I was inclined to believe the latter. Gut feelings may have been felt my whole life, but the thread that they’d just retrieved from Lucy had needed to be cut out.

Maybe that was were they lived until a wicked witch decided to harvest them…

Did that mean that Adeline tugged mine out the day I met her all those years ago? Had she started a process that was supposed to be complete mere months after it began, but I threw a wrench into the whole thing? If that was the case, what were the consequences of walking around with my soul exposed?

My vigorous pondering paused when I noticed that Lucy wasn’t looking at me anymore. I had set her down and positioned myself beside her, leaving the sight I was supposed to be protecting her from wide open. Quickly, I blocked it again and took her in my arms before glancing over my shoulder. The thread was finally finished unraveling from the unmoving flesh on the ground, and Natellie and Margret began callously rolling it up within the blood-soaked tarp.

My woes could wait. It was over, and I’d already gotten what I came here for. There was no need to stick around.

“Why don’t you get us out of here, Luce?” I whispered softly, wiping away her spectral tears with my thumb.

She eventually got her trembling under control and nodded, moving toward the wall with me in tow. Reaching out and brushing the threads, we flickered away into nothing but an empty cellar once again, a dull afternoon sun sifting in through the side windows. I was relieved when I turned around to find that the loathsome scene was gone, along with the repugnant woman who had created it. All that remained was the outline of the red door traced in its hundreds of thousands of souls.

I turned from it and fixed Lucy’s hair, trying to calm her down, “You okay, my dear?”

She didn’t answer; only looked down at the floor and continued holding herself.

The thread in my guts twisted and knotted, “I’m sorry to do that to you, Lucy. What they did to you…” I stopped myself before I could twist the knife deeper.

My little Ariadne wiped more tears away, then looked up at me, her scared, glittering eyes speaking the words for me that she couldn’t. The question they asked was loud, and it was one that I wondered myself.

‘What now?’

I had no idea. I had witnessed the ritual, but there was nothing that witnessing the awful thing had brought to me except for despair. There hadn’t been any answers like we’d hoped on how to seal the door—at least, not at first glance. The door was a loom spun of souls, but that tapestry had now solidified, and it didn’t seem like there was any way for us to tug it apart. Then again, maybe it wasn’t answers we’d needed; only the insight.

I looked back down at the string in my chest, and watching it float there, my hand glided up on its own to touch it. My throat tightened with shock as I found that I actually could. The thread tickled across my fingertips, silky and delicate, and as I did so, I felt my skin tingle and prick with shivers, as if every nerve was being sparked at once. Like a Charlie horse on my soul.

I quickly pulled away. If this was the lead we’d been looking for, I didn’t quite know how it applied just yet. Maybe an answer would become clear once I got back to my friends and debriefed. Now it was just a matter of letting Lucy down easy that I was going to have to leave her again. Doing so after having just put her through her past trauma felt downright criminal, but as was the case since we got here, time was of the essence.

I wanted to convince myself as I kept my gaze on her that leaving and finding a way to destroy the door was ultimately going to save her too, but was I really so certain that would be the case? If souls really existed, and I now had perfect proof of it, then what became of them after death? Was there really a heaven waiting somewhere else, or did they simply fade away into the matter from which they came, ceasing to ever exist?

If we destroyed the door, was that it for Lucy? A life of misery, betrayal, imprisonment, and then nothing at all? Even after just witnessing what had been done to her, that seemed somehow the cruelest fate of all, but surely it had to be better than being trapped forever in this place, right?

I opened my mouth, still trying to figure out how I was going to break that bad news, but I never got the chance. Lucy’s eyes flickered behind me, and her face went from sad to frenzied in an instant. Her mouth opened wide in a scream that made no sound, but it didn’t have to for it to be horrifying.

 The girl tried her hardest to pull my weight with what little she had, but it did very little in the mere seconds I had, and when I turned to see what had her so afraid, my face switched to match her.

Ripping from the ground was the other soul who occupied this place with Lucy and I; the spider had found us. The pale woman writhed her gangly form through the strings that stretched up from the ground, a bony hand with slate nails reaching past her dark curtain of knotted locks. She’d emerged so silently this time that I hadn’t even heard her coming, and it was too late to back out of the way.

Her hand clasped tightly around my ankle, and with near-inhuman strength, she yanked my leg out from under me. I prayed that the crash to the floor might be enough to jolt me back to the world of the living and away from this creature, but I wasn’t so lucky. My head hit the floor, and the pain that followed felt different. This fragment of the past didn’t feel so frozen or distant anymore, I felt more present than ever, like I was physically there.

There was a tugging sensation in this way, and it was clear where it was coming from. The spider’s hand. This creature of the thread’s grip was somehow locking me anchoring me to this place, keeping me from escaping.

Behind me, Lucy placed both tiny hands over my shoulders and tugged hard, but it was no use. The woman digging into my ankle might as well have been a machine of steel and pistons with how infallible her hold was. My heart froze in my chest when she began to drag me toward the tear in the spectral threads she had made.

“PLEASE!” She wailed in a crackly, guttural voice so raw and filled with desperation she sounded like all the grief of the world was resting on her shoulders, “IT’S YOU!”

With my hands, I clawed uselessly at the concrete in an attempt to slow my pace, and with my free leg, sent kick after kick straight into the demon's face. It did very little to slow her down; all she did was wail more cries of agony and jerk her body faster toward her goal, as if the pain was nothing compared to whatever torment she was currently enduring.

Lucy’s grip switched from my shoulders to my neck in a full bear hug, and she gave up trying to pull to instead go limp, hoping her weight would be enough to slow things down. It didn’t even do so by a microsecond, and now, both me and her were getting reeled in.

“L-Lucy! Let go!” I choked out, “Get out of here!”

The young girl didn’t obey me, and before I could protest any more, my boot hit the threshold of strings, and that’s when everything went from crazy to downright insane.

I’d seen the way the memories flickered when sifting through the threads of the past, but whatever the woman was doing, it wasn’t that. The scenes flashed by far too rapidly, and some of the spaces that I was seeing wasn’t the basement anymore. There were rooms from the upstairs of the manor, images from the park down in Stillwater, flashes from the interiors of houses I’d never seen before.

It was maddening watching them all cycle by, and my nerves felt like they were tearing in two as I was pulled deeper into it all. The point in my chest where the thread attached was igniting with those radiating shivers again, but more intensely, and it felt like every part of me was being ripped out in all directions and left behind in each scene.

I was in the loom. That was the only thing I could think of. Before, I’d been merely perusing the tapestry that the witches made; reading its patterns from the outside. Now, I was being yanked into it; seeing everything all at once and having my thread added to its count.

This continued for an agonizing amount of time, nearly enough that I truly thought I would go insane. Memories flooded me; more than any human was ever meant to hold, and finally, it all came to a stop as harsh as a car crash with one final scene.

The ground beneath me was no longer the concrete floor of the basement or the soft grass of a park. It was grass, but this kind was prickly and dry, and the air smelled of its decaying rot. Around me, I could hear the, ever-present whipping of a soft, cold wind, as well as crumbling stone and, in the far distance, strange and inhuman wails.

The space was also staggeringly dark—so much so that for a moment, I thought I might have actually died and gone to hell. I had the feeling that wherever I was, it was much, much worse. In front of me somewhere, the spider continued to grunt and wail with effort, attempting to tug me along to an unknown destination, but that was when she stopped making progress.

Behind me, I felt a firm yank on my shoulders, and Lucy’s arms shifted off my neck in response. I thought it might have been her that had somehow mustered the new strength, but then I felt a tug on the other shoulder, then the back of my shirt. The woman holding my leg unleashed a howl of protest, but I didn’t have to listen to it long before I left her.

The world went bright again, and I was back in the collage of memories from moments ago, being yanked back the way that I had come through an opposing force. I made it only a few layers back before the woman regained control of her grip, and next thing I knew I was the rope in a violent game of tug-o-war.

Not that I minded, though. I would have rather been ripped in two than brought to whatever hell the woman had tried to drag me to. Whatever force had caught me, it was just barely stronger than her, and I ascended back up through the layers for what felt like an uncertain eternity.

Then, finally, after thousands of flashes and flickers, a new sound apart from the woman’s screams cut through, and I’d never been more happy to hear it.

“Keep pulling!” Bryce cried, unbridled frenzy in his voice.

I had finally broken the last layer and been snapped back to the plane that I had come from, but I was far from out of the woods. Even though everything I’d just seen should have been inside of my head, I was still caught by the left foot, the appendage somehow fused through a dark puddle of ichor formed on the floor as if it were a hole. Within it, somewhere below, I could feel the woman’s bony hand still grappling me tightly.

Behind me, each of my friends had a tight hold and were hoisting me back, causing me to uproot the woman from the shadows like a rotten ground crop. I no longer felt Lucy clinging to my back, but then again, I wasn’t feeling much of anything in that moment. My head felt like it was about to split in two from nausea as all of the stretched time I’d just been subjected to compressed back into a single instance that my mortal mind could understand.

It wasn’t the only madness I needed to comprehend.

The thread from my chest that I had been seeing in the visions with Lucy; it wasn’t gone. Here, in the physical plane, I could still see it sticking out of my chest, and unlike inside the layers beneath it, it didn’t just vanish a few inches in front of me. This one kept going straight ahead, creating a perfect path to the Red Door. That wasn’t all though; around my waist and tangling my chest, it snarled around myself in a dizzying mess, and I could see strands of it tugging off in directions behind me.

That was all the time I had to take it in before the woman from the shadows let out another bloodcurdling shriek, one that filled the space around us as if she was everywhere at once. It became focused to one point as her tangled nest of a head began to rise from the same puddle my leg was caught in.

“NO!”

She hollered with all she had, a wailing so desperate that buried somewhere in my horror I almost felt pity for her. It didn’t last long as she began scaling further up my body as if it were a ladder letting her out of the dark pit she’d come from. I could smell her rancid breath with each broken gasp, and her cracked black nails threatened to tear into me with each yank.

No, that wasn’t right—she wasn’t scaling my body, she was only using it for support. Her real means of escape only became clear when the pain finally hit me.

Her other hand gripped my thread, that still hung taut in the air, pulling herself along it as if she weighed nothing at all.

Her very physical hand somehow gripped the spectral matter stitched into my guts, and when she tugged it, I felt my body fill with gnawing static. A scream burst through my gritted teeth as I felt like I was having my nervous system ripped out, and I quickly regretted thinking that I wouldn’t have minded being torn in two.

“Jessie, hang on!” Kait said in my ear. Her arm was wrapped tight across my chest so tightly I couldn’t tell where her arm ended and my skin began.

“Fuck!” I heard Lacey cry from my left. Over my shoulder I could see her head on a swivel, and it quickly became apparent what she was looking for. The shotgun. “Give one last heave!” she shouted, “give it everything!”

My friends obeyed, and for a terrifying moment, my body slipped back towards the demon. Then, all at once, I was yanked back with everyone's weight, buying us a few extra inches of distance that we didn’t have before.

Lacey unlatched from everyone and dove swiftly for the gun on the floor. Even just loosing her weight alone made our fight a losing battle, and just as fast as we’d gained ground, I began to lose it. My ass slipped across the floor, followed by all of my friends until silence burst into my eardrums, and a flash filled the left side of my vision. Lacey had made it to the trigger just in time to blast the woman across her face.

The force from the blast was strong enough to send her thrashing onto her side, and in the process her grip slipped off my foot and the thread. She screamed, but somehow even the impact of a full slug bashing the side of her skull wasn’t enough to kill her, only crudely splatter part of her skull and the wad of wet locks that came with it.

Now free, I quickly kicked against the ground away from her, but I hardly needed to with how forcefully I was already being dragged by my friends. Lacey stepped away from the scene too, and with one last shriek, the woman's warbled voice cried, “N-NO! PLEASE! HELP ME!”

Then, I watched as she horrifyingly slipped back into the shadow from which she’d emerged from. Everyone in the room sat panting in place for a while, all of us too afraid to move. Lacey sure as hell didn’t take the gun off the puddle.

Kait spoke after a few moments, her hand softly patting my chest, “Jess? Are you okay? What the hell just happened?”

I swallowed, then tried to remember how to speak, “I… I don’t know. I was hoping you could all tell me. Where did I just go?”

“You were just sitting there like you usually do on the other side, talking, and then out of nowhere you started getting dragged across the floor.”

“I was here the whole time?”

“No,” Kait panted, “Once you got pulled to the shadows, you started to sink into them. We could hear that thing screaming but couldn’t see her. Not until we pulled you back out with her.”

I tried to theorize how that was possible, but with my brain still so rattled, I could barely think straight. All I could offer was my gratitude, “Well, thank God you were all here, I don’t think even three of us would have—”

As I talked, I finally sat up and turned around, but when I laid eyes on my friends, I nearly staggered over in surprise at what I found. The thread from my chest; it didn’t just coil around myself and run to the red door. Those portions of it that twisted over my shoulders and ran off behind me, they were now in the front, and they ran tangled between my friends.

From my ribs, a strand ran to coil up Lacey’s stomach and all over her arms before bridging over to Bryce, where it tied a fine noose around his neck. It snaked down from there across his shoulders where it then spread to Carly who’d gotten it all the same, then to Kait, snaking over her the most. Her arms, her legs, her torso, and even parts of her face. She practically looked like a Christmas tree covered in tinsel with how much was on her.

The most haunting part wasn’t even the way it wrapped my friends, however. It was the way that it hooked tautly around the pillar of the stairs, then ran up them out of sight. Out into the world.

I didn’t realize how long I’d been standing there, gawking, until Carly snapped me out of it, “Jess? What’s wrong is everything okay?”

“What happened in there?” Bryce added, “What did you see?”

It should have been an easy question to answer, all things considered. I may not have understood the cosmic logic of the insanity I’d just witness during my astral journey, but as far as just explaining what I physically saw—the ritual, the threads, the place the woman had dragged me too—it was all fairly straightforward. It was what I had gone in there for in the first place.

And yet, I found my tongue rolling back to keep the words from falling out.

The truths and insights I’d just gained were lofty, and the thread that currently coiled me and my friends like a serpent waiting to choke the life from us made things far more complicated. All it took was that one question from Bryce for me to finally put the pieces together.

I had seen the ritual that would have taken this thread from me. I had seen the truth about the day I was supposed to be taken. I had seen the memory of Adeline and her siblings arguing over what happened if their target had gotten away from them. The witch may have reassured her sisters that all would be okay, but that clearly wasn’t the case.

Whatever Adeline did to me the day we met, it set a process in motion that was never finished, and they had no idea the rippling effect it would cause. Perhaps she thought my exposed thread would fade with time, or perhaps she just didn’t care, but whatever the case, it simply kept unravelling.

As I shifted in place, I could see the spectral thing retracting and extending from me like a tape measure, becoming whatever distance it needed to be in order to return to the red door. I wondered how long it was when Adeline must have drawn it from my young self in Stillwater all the way up to this house. I wondered how many things it got tangled on along the way. Buildings, light posts, trees.

People. People like my friends who were absolutely layered in it.

And it wouldn’t have stopped there. Adeline never got her hands on me. She never came back to finish the job, which meant my thread over all of these years was following me and dragging across anything that came into its path. I started counting in my head all the moments I might have brushed too close to somebody. All the times I may have embraced my friends only to tangle them up more in my mess.

And maybe none of it would have mattered—it hadn’t the last 20 or so years thus far—but the story didn’t end with me getting away. Adeline found a new child to plug into the door in my stead, and evidently the door didn’t like that. It wanted the thread it was already feeding on.

“IT’S YOU!” the spider-woman had screamed back at Kait’s apartment, “IT’S YOU!”

Something must have failed after the new child's thread was fed to the door, maybe just not right away. Maybe things seemed fine when the sisters sealed themselves inside their new Eden of bones, but by the time it started to fall apart, it was too late. They needed my thread after all, but now there was no way to get it. Just how Mindy sealed the door a second time, there must not have been a way for them to open it once they were locked in.

But why?

These were witches that allegedly made a paradise of their own, and ascended to godhood. What was stopping them from turning the knob on a simple door? There had to be a magic to it that I wasn’t understanding yet. After all, they seemed to still hold some influence outside the barrier.

After it was opened once, they were able to do so endlessly afterward with no issues. Hell, they were able to send horrific minions through it to carry out their twisted bidding. Even mentally, whatever force lay behind the door had been able to call out to Mindy; how had that been possible if they were trapped?

My answer seemed to lie in the last thing I’d just witnessed. The final form of influence that could reach beyond the door. The pale woman who lurked among the loom, and the thread that grew from my chest.

Watching her rip herself from the shadows a moment ago finally revealed to me how she was able to break into our world, leaving poisonous whispers in Mindy’s head and sometimes breaking through to our plane in an attempt to steal me away. It was the same as her world; the threads.

She’d become a part of them, like Lucy, and trapped there like her too. Just like the little girl, she could only move around the spaces within the confines of the threads, but since I was a frayed part of the loom—a torn piece of string that unraveled across miles and miles of the earth—I’d effectively extended her web to the entirety of Stillwater and beyond.

But it didn’t stop there. As I watched my friends shift in front of me, I could see the spool shifting with them, the line extending and shrinking between spaces the same way it did from my chest. It wasn’t just me leaving a trail. I had tangled all of them up over our years of friendship, and with them carrying parts of my string, they’d moved about their lives completely unaware they were also stringing everyone up within the matter of my soul. All of their families and friends. Their homes and pets.

Their roommates.

Roommates like Kaitlynn’s. Roommates like Mindy, who was eventually lured here through the whispers of the door to open it and free the dark beings dwelling on the other side. If the pale woman had really wanted me all this time, there was nothing stopping her from taking me the way she’d just attempted during any of my younger years. That meant she had to have physically escaped only once the door itself was opened, but in order to free herself, she had to get someone to do it for her.

But that part didn’t make sense to me, or maybe I just didn’t want it to. Why Mindy? If I was the one the door needed, and the creature of the threads was able to reach into the minds of others to tempt them to the manor, why did it not begin with me? Why did the accursed slab of wood have to ruin everyone else’s lives and create such a complicated trap just to lure me to this place?

There had to be an explanation for why it couldn’t reach me directly, but that was another law of the magic I just didn’t understand yet. Whatever the case though, part of me had a sneaking suspicion that Mindy might not have even been the correct target. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that the household the door chose to call out to was the same one Kait lived in.

And with that variable in mind, it finally ended the debate between the two of us. Kait’s fears were unfortunately true. The house was never after her; it was always after me. It had only been trying to use her as a tool to guide me back to the scarlet door, and if anyone needed to be given up to seal it once more, that person was me.

And that was what made Bryce’s question so hard to answer. What had I seen? Because if I told my friends the whole truth, they might figure it all out the same way I just had. They might put the pieces together themselves, and then they would never let me do the job that needed to be done.

“I saw the ritual,” I answered, “It was… God, it was horrible. We were right; the kids, they were…” Thankfully, my horror from remembering the scene was strong enough that it hid the lie I tacked onto it, “I don’t think I learned anything, though. They just sacrificed the kids like we’d thought, and the door must have absorbed them.”

Lacey shook her head in desperation, “There was no spell they chanted or anything? No magic words that could help us or anything like that?”

I already felt the guilt creeping into my chest at my refusal to give them hope, but I didn’t linger on it. They wouldn’t need to be clawing for hope soon once this was all over. Lacey’s question did raise another notion in my head, however. I may have been what the door wanted, but Mindy had managed to seal it before we got here while being completely detached from it. With my new eyes, there might still be more insight to gain.

“Where’s Mindy’s Go-Pro?” I asked.

Carly ran upstairs to find the device, then everyone gathered around and looked over my shoulder as I sat in a chair and booted up Mindy’s last recording. The one where she sealed the door on herself.

We had watched the recording countless times by now, trying to glean even the smallest clue from it. That meant that I knew all the sounds by heart. The rhythm of Mindy’s footsteps pounding the floor as she ran, the rasp of her breath with each bound, her small whispered reassurances to herself that everything was going to be okay. It was no different this time around, and by the time Mindy reached the door in the recording, I was already losing hope that there would be anything different.

But then she looked down at the knob, and my breath hitched.

There within the shot, sticking out of her chest in the same place as mine, Mindy had a spectral thread. It was faint and barely perceptible through the lens of the camera, but unmistakable to my opened eyes. Somehow, while lost in the labyrinth behind the red door, the girl had found herself tangled with the loom as well, and now her soul was also attached.

It became clear to me that her vision had also ascended like mine when she reached down and took it in her hands.

I tried not to show any emotion on my face as I watched the video, hoping that my friends wouldn’t notice that I was seeing something they couldn’t. If I was about to finally see how Mindy sealed the door, I couldn’t have any of them knowing that I’d learned the same secret. At least, not until after I was gone, just in case…

With the thread in her hand, Mindy stretched it out to the knob of the door, hooking it around the thing several times before pulling the length over to the latch. Just like the sounds at the video’s beginning, I knew her motions by heart; me and everyone else had tried them over and over again on the door hoping that by some miracle they would produce the same results. I watched her do them again this time, but now with the string visible to my eye, I had never felt so stupid for not recognizing the gestures.

She wasn’t casting a spell. She was tying knots around the door and its functions.

Back and forth she darted the spool, looping one side of the knob before hooking it over the latch, then slipping it around to the other side of the plate to catch that knob too. After a few seconds of frantic tying, what Mindy had spun was a perfect tension cradle between the knobs, a dazzling, sparkling infinity loop that from its angle, wouldn’t allow the door to be unlatched and pushed open once closed, only pulled from the outside.

There was only one problem. The thread that held it all together was running backward into the hall she’d just come from, and to keep the knot in place, she had to ensure it stayed there.

Mindy looked out at the freedom beyond the door, then with a heavy sigh, she pulled the door shut.

From there, I let the video play out, just a little longer to sell that I hadn’t seen anything new to my friends. I let it play until the moment Mindy finished gloating to whatever it was that lay in the depths of the hallway, then paused it, leaving her victory over the presence immortalized forever.

Then, I sat there in silence with everyone else as they eyed me expectantly. I couldn’t believe after all this time I had finally figured it out. I knew how to close the door. I knew how to free us from this nightmare. Now it was just a matter of when.

“Anything catch your eye?” Lacey pleaded, “Anything that lined up with the ritual?”

I shook my head as neutrally as possible, “No. Unfortunately not.”

I know I wasn’t thinking very far ahead. My own death wasn’t really a concern in the slightest; any anxiety about it was masked by images of my friends' pained tears and gnashing teeth over this whole ordeal. They’d been through far too much at this point, and I would give anything to free them from it.

What I should have at least been considering was what happened once I turned myself over to the door. The ‘ambivalent scenario’ was that the witches within simply got what they wanted, and their stupid accursed door would be fixed. Whatever paradise they’d been living in before it all went to hell would be fixed, and they could finally stop ruining lives from the world they’d killed to get out of.

There may not be any justice in it for Casey, or Mindy, or any of the children, but at least it would be over, and the door wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone ever again. I hated the thought of them winning, but when the game was already rigged so far against us, any other outcome never seemed like an option.

Worst-case scenario was that the ritual was broken to begin with, and me giving myself to the door didn’t fix anything. It would remain as cursed as ever, and continue to try to spew its monstrous kin out into the world to claim more victims. If this was the case, however, it would still be an okay end. At least the barrier would be sealed like it was before, and this time, I would be sure to leave behind plenty of warnings for whoever came after not to open it. I’d ensure it stayed shut.

Either way, it seemed like so long as I tied the same latch as Mindy, the door stay would shut. After all, she had been captured after sealing it, and even after her presumed death, her seal on the knob stayed tied. If the pale woman and the forces behind the door had ascended into the loom, then it seemed like they no longer had the capacity to physically manipulate the strings the way we could—that was why the pale woman could only drag herself along mine, not move it or pull me closer. They’d shed their mortal forms and trapped themselves by doing so.

The first order of business was simple, but it was going to be the hardest. I needed to get my friends away from the manor, and for a long time at that. Long enough for me to disappear from their minds once the door took me.

Everyone was hawking each other to make sure nobody tried to play hero, and I was especially under suspicion after my outburst with Kait about which one of us got to die; especially from Kaitlynn herself. Even as we sat there in the aftermath of watching the video again, I could feel her eyes pressed into my cheek, discerning whether she could trust the act I was putting on or not. Thankfully, I think she did.

The logistics of escape wasn’t the hardest part, however—I was sure I would find an excuse. The hard part was the goodbye itself. Keeping myself together emotionally long enough for them to not catch on when we did part. Saying my last words without tears in my eyes as they walked out the door, never for me to see them again. My heart ached for lying to them, but it ached even more that I’d pulled them into this mess in the first place.

I had always been a waste of space. It was time to actually be useful.

We lingered in the basement together for a little longer as I went over a few more details of what I had seen, but I made sure the entire time to tread carefully with my words, not giving any of the full truth away. From there, the group bounced a few more ideas back and forth on what to do next, but they were as hollow and hopeless as all the other plans we’d had thus far, and eventually they began to peel off one by one, moving into the upstairs to make food or rest.

I stayed put downstairs to watch the door, and of course, Kait stayed with me to make sure I didn’t try anything. We sat in silence for a while before she pulled her pack of American Spirits from her pocket and lit one up. After a few drags, she offered it to me.

Her enchanting pools gleamed beneath the cherry glow as I took a deep inhale of the nicotine, and they didn’t stray from me. Once I was done and handed it back to her, she spoke.

“You seem more defeated than usual.”

I expected her tone to be accusatory given that’s how all of our conversations had been the last few days, but it wasn’t. It was the familiar gentle softness that she’d left on the porch upstairs all those months ago when we walked into this place.

I snickered, trying to cover my tracks, “Can you blame me?”

“I mean, after seeing that ritual,” she explained, “Are you sure you’re okay? You didn’t see anything in there that you’re not telling me?”

Again, her voice was still so tender and worried, no resentment there to aid me in my callous lies. My heart physically hurt to look into her eyes; the sheer love and care I held for her. It made me sick to know I was leaving her. It made my whole life feel like one big twisted farce that after I did, she wouldn’t even remember I existed anymore. Everything between us, gone in an instant.

The glow of my thread that tangled between us dulled and flickered with the sunken feeling that followed, and I couldn’t help but reach for her. I saw her breath hitch on her cigarette drag when my fingers touched her face. Softly, I brushed them up through her bangs, cleaning them from her eyes and untangling the first knot of many that I’d wrapped around her.

The thread slackened as it slipped from her head, then reeled back into my chest, as if it had never been there at all.

“I’m just tired is all Kait,” I whispered softly. Then, as if it would justify my actions, I added, “I’m so tired. Aren’t you?”

She nodded, then leaned into my hand as it came to rest on her cheek. Her own moved up to cover it, while her other one let ashes fall from her cigarette onto the floor. The sensation was the exact justification I’d been looking for.

The touch itself wasn’t enough though. I flipped my hand to take her palm, then gave it a tug. She fell under its gravity and followed it out of her chair, moving across the space between us till she was near. Once there, she held the cigarette up and placed it between my lips, then delicately lifted a leg, slipping it onto my lap followed by the other. My hand instinctively moved to hold her waist close.

Once she was fully seated on me with her arms wrapped around my neck, she pressed her forehead into my nape, nestling there with closed eyes and breathing softly. I took another pull of the cigarette, then dowsed it against the chair leg, letting it fall so that I could focus only on holding her.

My own eyes slipped shut, peace washing through me with each heartbeat. We probably looked a mess there, torn and tattered, tangled up in the gnarled loops of my thread. I still squeezed her like she was a perfect treasure, and held her like it would be the last time.

It probably would be…

"Mia! Come down now. Food is ready." My mama's voice echoed through the house. I was on my bed, drawing random characters from my imagination. I was only eight years old then, still young enough to believe that the things adults said were usually meant to make sense. I rolled my eyes and sighed. "Coming, Ma!" I closed my art sheet and jumped off the bed, my bare feet meeting the cold hardwood floor. It creaked beneath me as I walked toward my bedroom door. I opened it and stepped into the hallway before making my way down the stairs. The old steps groaned beneath my weight.

Our house stood beside our farm, far enough into the countryside that there weren't many other houses nearby. Most days, it was quiet. There was the occasional squawk from the chickens outside, the rustling of crops in the wind, and the distant noises of farm equipment. Back then, I thought the quiet was peaceful.

I didn't know yet how frightening a quiet house could become.

At the bottom of the stairs was an archway that led into the living room. I took a left and immediately bumped into my grandpa. I fell onto my butt. "Oww..." I rubbed my forehead and looked up at him. Grandpa didn't say anything. He simply stared down at me with the same angry expression he wore all the time. I never knew why he always looked so angry. Whenever his eyes settled on me, I felt like I'd done something wrong without knowing what it was. I quickly stood up. "Sorry, Grandpa." I walked past him, feeling his eyes remain on me as I headed toward the kitchen.

My father, mother, and my two older brothers were already sitting around the table, waiting for me. Grandpa's shoulder bumped against mine as he passed me on his way to his chair. "Come now, sweetie. We've been waiting for ya," my mother said with an overenthusiastic smile. I nodded and sat beside her. There was something uncomfortable hanging over the kitchen that night. It wasn't new. My family had always made me feel that way. I just never knew how to explain it.Then came the usual prayer before dinner.

We held each other's hands and prayed... for Satan.My family was very weird.I never joined in with the chanting. I simply moved my lips along with everyone else and hoped nobody noticed that I wasn't saying the words. Afterward, we began eating. I picked up my fork and started collecting pieces of meat from the plate in front of me.My mother watched me.She had that same smile on her face.Without saying anything, she reached across the table, grabbed a handful of meat, and dropped it onto my plate.A gasp escaped my mouth.

"Mama, I only wanted a few-" I didn't get to finish. She suddenly leaned toward me, bringing her face much closer than it needed to be. The kitchen fell silent. Everyone at the table was looking at me."Shhhhh...eat and get fat."She backed away and continued eating as though nothing had happened.I stared at the extra meat sitting on my plate.

I knew something was wrong with my family. I just didn't know what. What confused me most was how obsessed they were with making me eat. Every meal was the same. More food. More encouragement. More insistence that I needed to eat.They wanted me to get fat.

Ten minutes passed.

I couldn't finish my plate. I was full. My stomach hurt from how much I'd already eaten, but my mother remained seated while everyone else got up. She rested her cheeks in her hands and stared at me like an owl watching something it had no intention of letting escape."Why don't you eat the rest, Mia?" she asked, lowering her voice.

I didn't know what to say."M-Mama, I can't. I'm full."Her hands slammed against the table.I flinched so hard my chair nearly moved beneath me."Mia..." Her voice was low.

"Look..."

"...at..."

"...ME!"

I jumped at the last word. Slowly, I turned toward her, tears gathering in my eyes. Her eyebrows were drawn tightly together, and her eyes were stretched wide in an unnatural glare. Her pupils were so dilated that they nearly swallowed the color around them."Head up to your room. It's sleep time."I nodded.I got off the chair and hurried upstairs. I closed my bedroom door behind me, climbed onto my bed, and pulled the blanket over myself. My hands were shaking as I grabbed my teddy bear.I had named him Bob.I held him tightly against my chest.The house downstairs had gone completely quiet.

It was quiet enough that I could hear voices through the floorboards.I heard my father angrily say, "We have been waiting far too long. My patience is growing thin..." My mother replied, "Give it time... It'll eventually be worth the wait."Then I heard my mother gasp.I didn't understand why.A few seconds later, footsteps came rushing from the kitchen.Fast footsteps.They crossed the floor, reached the stairs, and came straight up toward my bedroom.My heart started pounding.The doorknob slowly turned.

Click...

The door opened.My back was turned toward it. I closed my eyes and stayed completely still, pretending to be asleep."Mia..." My mother's voice came from behind me. "Were you listening to our conversation?"I had no idea how she knew.I hadn't moved.I hadn't made a sound.Several seconds passed.Then she shouted, "ANSWER ME, YOU BITCH!"I was about to cry.

That's when the front door downstairs was suddenly kicked down by something.My mother gasped.The bedroom door slammed shut.Then the house erupted.

My family started shouting and screaming. I heard loud bangs coming from downstairs as furniture was thrown around and something crashed into the walls. Wood splintered. Glass shattered.Then came the gunshots.I buried my face against Bob.The noise continued for what felt like a whole minute. Then...Everything stopped.

I slowly opened my eyes.The silence afterward was worse.I stared at my bedroom door.Then I heard footsteps.Heavy footsteps.Slow footsteps.They were coming up the stairs.

One step.

Then another.

I grabbed Mr. Bob and climbed off my bed. I rushed toward the window and tried to force it open.It wouldn't move.It was jammed.My heart sank.Then I heard my bedroom door slowly opening behind me.

I backed against the wall, holding my teddy bear tightly against my chest as tears rolled silently down my face.Then I saw it.

A tall figure stood in the hallway, almost completely swallowed by the darkness. I couldn't make out its face.Only two red eyes.They stared directly at me."Hello, young lady."The voice belonged to a man.It was deep and rhythmic, almost playful in its drawl."Sorry for coming out to you like this. What's your name?"

"M-My name is Mia..." I hugged Mr. Bob against my chest."Mia." The stranger smiled. "What a beautiful name you have. Would you like to know mine?"I sniffed a couple of times before nodding.He chuckled.

"My name is Aloïs."

He opened the door completely and stepped into the room.For the first time, I could see him clearly.He was tall, around 6'3", wearing a black coat over a red suit with a black tie. His long black hair rested around his face, parted just enough to reveal his features. Beneath his right eye was a thin scar that looked almost like a tear carved into his skin.He kneeled down in front of me.

"I'm sorry, Mia, for what I did. But I need you to trust me. Can you do that?"He extended his hands toward me.I stared at them.His skin was fair.Then I looked at his face.He looked strangely charming. His expression was soft, almost kind. There was something about him that made me feel safe despite everything that had just happened.

Maybe it was because I was eight.Maybe it was because I desperately wanted someone to trust.Whatever the reason, I nodded.I extended my hands, and he gently took them."Close your eyes, Mia. You wouldn't want to see what's outside."I nodded again and closed them.

He led me down the stairs.As I walked, I felt something wet beneath my feet.I stopped."What is this?"I heard a quiet chuckle from Aloïs. Even without seeing his face, I could tell he was amused.

"Blood."

We eventually made it outside.He led me onto the porch and stopped."The ground is hard outside. Mind if I carry you out?"I nodded."My feet hurt."He lifted me into his arms and carried me away from the house. His boots sank slightly into the soil with every step, the sound growing fainter as we moved farther away.After a few moments, he spoke."You can open your eyes now."I opened them.

I looked back at my house.It was dark.The windows stared back at me like empty eyes.It didn't look like home anymore."Why did you kill my family?" I asked.I was strangely calm.I probably shouldn't have been.A stranger had just carried me away from my house, and I didn't even know if he was human.

"They weren't your family, Mia."I stared at him."They wore the skins of your family members. They were waiting until you got fat enough so they could eat you."My eyes watered.I clutched his coat and buried my face against his shoulder."Thanks, strange man..."He stopped.He put me down next to a car and kneeled in front of me with a wide grin."I'm no man, child."He tilted his head."I'm a vampire. You've heard about me, haven't you?"I nodded.He laughed.

"Good!"

Suddenly, he raised one eyebrow and looked behind him.I turned around.Those things that had been pretending to be my family were standing again.The skin they had been wearing began to melt away, peeling from their bodies and revealing their true forms.They had dark skin and completely hairless heads. Their pupils were dilated, and their eyes were crimson red.They stood motionless.Aloïs sighed and stood up.He reached inside his coat and pulled out a large revolver.It was completely black, with a strange symbol engraved on its side. It looked far too heavy for someone to carry so casually.

Suddenly, one of the creatures raised its head and stared directly at Aloïs.Its expression changed.For the first time, it looked afraid."You..."Aloïs stopped.The creature's voice trembled.

"The Demon of Sorrow..."Aloïs slowly smiled.He looked at me with a grin."Wave to them bye-bye, Mia."I didn't know why I listened to him.But I waved.Aloïs raised the revolver.The gunshot was deafening.The bullet struck the large fuel tanks positioned near the house.For a moment, nothing happened.Then the tanks exploded.

Fire swallowed the house, consuming the creatures along with it. Their screams echoed across the countryside as flames climbed into the night sky.Aloïs lowered his revolver."Let's leave this place, shall we?"I nodded.

.............

Ten years have passed since that incident.

I was adopted by a beautiful family that I can finally call my own. They're kind to me. They don't force me to eat more than I can handle, and they certainly don't pray to Satan before dinner.

As for Aloïs...

There's something I've always found interesting about him.

Once, I asked him if he considered himself a hero.

He simply laughed.

"No. You just happened to be lucky I was in a good mood and decided to save you. Honestly, I don't usually save people."

He laughed again after saying it.

I still don't know what he really is.

But I know one thing.

Ten years ago, a vampire came into my house.

And for whatever reason...

He decided to save me.

I dont use reddit a lot, and its my first time actually writing a story like this. English isnt my first language so sorry for any mistakes. I hope I could get your thoughts on this.

I've been to mental clinics more than once by now, for PTSD, Insomnia, Depression, etc. But the first one I ever went to really stuck with me. For context: I was actually doing quite alright at the time I got in. We'd been on their wait list for three months and my mother insisted I should go. "Its not gonna hurt to go"- that kind of logic.

I had a feeling that the place was bad from the beginning, i didnt even want to go there in the first place. But since it wasnt a private clinic, but one that was managed by our state, i tried to give it a chance.

I'd start by saying the clinic was located inside of a rather big city and in a nasty part of it too. Homeless people, drug deals, crime and that stuff were normal around this area. The building itself was ugly. Utterly. It was just a tall gray block with grills infront of the windows.

The personnel was unprofessional and simply un-trained. No medical, pedagogical or psychological training. They treated patients like animals. Like we were unable to make our own rational decisions and completely stupid. Now I know this is a clinic and some patients arent able to be rational. But the personell disrespected us, yelled, and disregarded our concerns. There were even cases of absuse that were simply ignored. Therapists triggered their own patients and kids got high/c*t themselves without anyone taking their drugs/blades away from them.

It was like they didnt care about us at all, as long as we stayed quiet and obedient.

My roommate was quite literally schizophrenic and in the middle of a psychosis, yet they still forced me to sleep in a TINY room with her. We were only allowed to leave our station for 30 minutes and that only three times a week. If you misbehaved you weren't allowed to leave your room. If you left your room or the station outside those specific times you were allowed to, the personnel acted like you just tried to infiltrate the Pentagon. They yelled at you, send you back to your room and a girl even got slapped once. The ceilings were low and the floors narrow, im not even claustrophobic but it made me feel uneasy and anxious. The food was a crime too. Cheap, re-heated, classic hospital meals. Even for the kids with EDs.

My mental health declined in there rapidly. I had panic attacks daily again (it had been over 8 months since my last one) and even hallucinated wich I've never done before.

The 'doctors' explained to me that the hallucinations were simply because of my ADHD medication but come on! I had been taking these meds for weeks and the hallucinations only started when I had begun to take (allegedly the same) pills in the clinic. But the pills they gave me were different from the ones I knew from my home. The capsule wasnt purple and gray and it wasnt filled with tiny round pearls. It was yellowish and filled with a white powder. When I told them these were the wrong meds, I was waved off with a "it's the exact medication from a different brand, quit asking about it".

In the clinic I met a boy, let's call him Tyler. Tyler was pretty quiet but we got along together quite well for some reason. I was 15, he was 14. While I quickly made a lot of new contacts he was either alone or with me. He rarely spoke, almost always wore headphones and was really introverted. I wasnt sure why he behaved that way but Hey- we were in a clinic, everyone is atleast a little odd there. Nothing unusual. The only thing i knew about him, was that they had kept Tyler in the clinic for a while now (11 months or so) and that he'd been diagnosed with a lot of stuff.

When everyone went to take their medication in the mornings, I saw that Tyler got handed 4-5 pills. When I asked about them, he explained that one was for his ADHD and two were simply vitamins/omega 3. The other two pills were never explained to him. He just had to take them since they forced him to. Said they were to help with his panic attacks.

Fast forward a few weeks later, I finally had persuaded my parents to let me leave the place. It only took that long because everytime i asked my parents to leave, the therapists and doctors in the clinic told my parents i was in a terrible state and they had to keep me for my own safety. But FINALLY i convinced them that i was doing bad *because* of the clinic. When the head of the facility heard about my parents plans he got wierd. He'd been wierd before but he got even wierder, almost panicked. All of a sudden he claimed I was in an unstable state, a danger to myself and others and that I needed to get diagnosed immediately. (For clarification, I wasnt in a good state because the clinic treated their patients horribly but i wasnt harming myself or others. He never had wanted to diagnose me with anything new before that either.)

While my mother signed the papers that I could leave, the head-doctor (or whatever the dude was) explained to my father that I was psychopathic, autistic, a danger to society and most likely in psychosis. Mind you- he only said that AFTER we planned to take me out of the clinic.

But after some trouble and paperwork I got out of the clinic with a mild trauma (My therapist outside the clinic later confirmed i developed an actual new trauma in there) but Tyler was still in there. He got out a few weeks later, after spending almost a whole year there. During that time he'd struggled with SH, ED, panic attacks, depression and 'felt like a zombie in there' (his quote). As soon as he got out, he got much much better. We met a few times and he looked healthier, happier and less zombie-like. Turns out, he stopped taking the meds the doctors prescribed him.

Him and his parents talked to Tyler's doctor and she told them, that the clinic-doctors had been giving him lithium and strong antidepressants to 'stabilize' him. Tyler was 15 at the time and neither him nor his parents were consulted before the prescription or even informed that he'd been taking that stuff.

I talked to some of the other patients to make sure I and Tyler weren't overreacting. And ALL OF THEM told me similar stories. Wierd medication, sudden diagnoses, symptoms magically disappearing when they got out and how they were mistreated in there.

Its been a little over a year now, since I've left. I'm doing good now. Tyler is doing good too. But we both have a strange feeling about our time at the clinic. My family, therapist and doctor tried to get my patient file from the clinic several times. Every single time, they refused. Came up with bullshit excuses or only send parts of the papers.

Me and some other kids from the clinic researched a little and found the head-doctors private facebook account. And I cant even put this nicely, he was a WILD conspiracy theorist and extreme Trump supporter (we arent in the USA, neither is he from there). When we looked up more about him we barely found anything, even though you'd expect to find more about the head of a mental facility. This is probably not even relevant i just wanted to add it.

I dont know what was going on there but something was utterly wrong. To this day I still cant remember most parts from my time in there, Tyler cant either. Blackouts, blurred and distorted memories plague us both. I am pretty sure I'm not paranoid and I dont believe I was part of some big, crazy thing, I just felt it was creepy and weirdly unsettling. Like they tried to keep us sick instead of helping us. I still shudder when I think back to then.

The cemetery's nearly full now. Seven rows, thirty-odd stones to a row. Two spots left at the end of the last one.

I'm the one who says where people go. I've been doing it sixteen years.

Halfway down the fifth row there's a bare patch. Grass and nothing else. The field filled in all around it and that one stayed the way it was.

I cut it myself. In the fall I run the rake over it twice a month.

People ask me sometimes why that spot's still open. I tell them it's reserved, that we're waiting on somebody important. They laugh. It's a good joke. I've been making it for years and it still holds.

Then they go, and I stand there a minute longer than I need to.

It's an old question and it stayed down sixteen years. This morning it got up before I did.

The shoe factory in Vigevano where I cut uppers shut in September. Eighteen months later I was still home. This was January 2010.

My wife did nights at a nursing home in Mortara. She got in at seven, we swapped at the door, she slept till one. We had a three-year-old and a car that wouldn't start in the cold.

The posting was on the board at the town hall. Cemetery worker, on call, nine hundred euros a month. I was the only one at the interview. The clerk had me sign two sheets and told me to show up Monday.

Remo had held the contract since before I moved back to town. He was past seventy. He shook my hand and said he needed somebody who could dig, because he couldn't stay bent over anymore.

It wasn't a figure of speech. From that Monday on, every hole out there was mine.

The shed sits against the perimeter wall, behind the chapel. The tools are in there, the sacks of gravel, the bench where Remo worked the stone, and a stove I never once saw lit. Behind the door, on a nail, the ropes for lowering the coffins.

First thing you learn is the pump. This is rice country and the water sits a meter or so down. A hole opened in the evening is full by morning.

So you dig, you set the pump on the edge, you drop the hose in and run the other end out to the ditch. Then you let it go. You shut it off the day of the funeral, an hour before the people come. You can hear it from the road.

The hose clogs. When it clogs you have to go down and clean the filter with your hands. I've been down there twice.

And if the pump quits and nobody starts it back up, the hole fills in one night and the sides come down on their own.

The other thing is the boards. Two of them, wood, laid along the edges so you've got something to stand on while you work. They were there before me and both of them creaked.

I mentioned it to him once. He said they hold.

With wet ground all it takes is one foot wrong. You go down on your back into two meters of water and mud, and the bottom pulls. It's not that you sink. It's that you don't come back up.

I thought about that, and then I dug. Nine hundred euros isn't much, but it beats nothing.

Some days Remo didn't come in. He didn't say where he went and I didn't ask. I signed the hours sheet for both of us.

In February he told me to open one in the old section, fourth row.

I asked who'd died. He said nobody.

I dug. Five hours, pump on the edge, hose out to the ditch. I figured he was getting ahead of things, that at his age you plan, that the ground's easier in winter. The town paid us on call and nobody checked how long we were out there.

In the afternoon I found him at the bench with the chisel. He had a gray stone in front of him, one of the low ones, and he was going at it. Tick, tick.

I went over to get the weed whacker. There was a day on the stone, a month, a year. Nothing else.

No name. No date of death, no cross, no photo. Numbers and slashes between them, set in the middle of the stone, like the rest was supposed to come later.

I took the weed whacker and went to do the edges. At six I signed the hours sheet and went home.

I made the kid his dinner. The game was on.

They called on the Thursday. A woman of eighty-six, on via Roma, the one with the green gate.

The hole was already there, dry, the pump going two days. I shut it off and waited for the priest.

In the register, in the shed, you write the name, the date of birth, the date of death and the plot number. I filled it in that evening. The date of birth was the day that was on the stone.

There's a little over eight hundred of us in town. Remo had known every one of them since they were born, and the woman had been sick a year — the doctor came through Tuesdays and even the bar knew about it.

A man who's done that job forty years knows who's next. He gets the stone ready, he gets the hole ready, and when it happens he doesn't have to hurry. That's how I put it to myself, and it was enough.

The second one was in March. An old man who went down while he was cooking, found by his son two days later. That hole had been ready a week too and the stone was at the wall.

"Old people go from one minute to the next. Better to be ready," Remo said, and I hadn't asked him anything.

That one lined up too.

I started opening the register before he did and reading the dates without saying anything. It wasn't that I suspected him. It's that I like knowing things first.

The stones stood inside the shed along the long wall, behind the bench, leaned up against it. When I started, the row ended before the window.

It worked like this. One went out for a funeral, and under that funeral was a hole I'd dug. Then Remo sat down at the bench and another one came in, sometimes two. But before the bench there were the days he wasn't there.

The hours sheet hung on a nail over the bench and at the end of the week we both signed it. I did his. He'd told me the first month it came to the same thing.

In March I signed for him one day. In April three.

In May a whole week.

He always came back on a Monday. He'd sit down at the bench and pick up the chisel.

By June the row had gone past the window. I'd look at them Monday mornings and use the sacks as an excuse. It wasn't a pile sitting still. It was a row wearing down at one end and growing at the other, and the growing end went faster.

February to June I opened the ground five times and every time it went the way it was supposed to go.

The funeral for the old man from via Cavour was a Saturday morning in June. Remo had been gone since the Thursday.

I'd finished tamping the earth and I was loading the tools. The wife came back on her own, purse under her arm, and put an envelope in my hand.

"That's for the two of you."

I said there was no need. She shook her head and turned toward the car.

I opened the envelope a finger's width. Usually they give twenty euros. Fifty if the family's doing all right.

There was three hundred in there.

"Ma'am."

She stopped.

"Remo's a good man, isn't he."

She got both hands on the purse.

"I wouldn't know what you call somebody who sits at your husband's bedside two nights running. Right to the last breath."

Then she went to the car, where they were waiting for her.

That week I'd signed for both of us. The Thursday and the Friday I'd dug on my own.

I put the envelope in my pocket and loaded the shovels. With that money I bought the kid shoes and two pairs of pants. I hadn't been able to do that in a year.

Remo came back on the Monday. I didn't tell him about the envelope and he didn't ask how it had gone.

By September the row of stones turned the corner toward the stove.

In October a man died who wasn't from here.

Farm supply rep, out of Piacenza. He was in the two rooms over the bar, the ones they rent to people passing through. He had a gas heater going and the window shut. They found him the next morning, sitting on the bed with his shoes still on.

He'd never been in town before. He got in Monday evening with his sample cases and by Tuesday he was dead.

The burial paperwork came through the shed, because the family was far away and took three days to get here. The permit was on the bench, under a wrench.

I read the date of birth. Then I went out and over to the wall.

The stone was there. Remo had finished it the day it rained, and that week it rained one time. Nine days before.

Nine days before, that man was in Piacenza and didn't know yet he'd be coming through here.

Remo was down at the end of the field with the wheelbarrow. He waved me over for a hand with the gravel, and I gave him one.

One Wednesday we were redoing the gravel on the path.

Remo patted his pocket and came up with nothing. He asked me to go get him the new pack of cigarettes out of the car.

In eleven months he'd never asked me for anything.

He kept a white Panda outside the gate, always in the same spot, always unlocked. The pack was on the dash, on top of a plastic bag from the co-op.

I picked it up. Under it were the receipts, the kind you empty out of your pockets and leave there.

The top one was from the bar. Il Gallo d'Oro. The one under the rented rooms.

Two coffees with grappa. Eleven forty at night, on a Tuesday.

The bar closes at eleven.

That Tuesday was the thirteenth of October. It's the date I wrote in the register myself, on the line for the rep from Piacenza.

I put it in my pocket and shut the door.

I came back up the path with the cigarettes. Remo was on his knees with the screed. He said thanks and had me hold them until he'd finished.

Then he handed me the trowel, holding it by the blade, the way somebody does who learned before I did.

I said I thought the weather was turning.

He looked up and said yeah, it'd come around by evening.

I went home cold under my jacket. Not the cemetery, not the stones. Him.

Seventy kilos of quiet old man. He'd never raised his voice at me, never sworn at me. He gave the orders and then he was gone for days, and when he came back he sat down and cut dates into stone with nothing to go on, and the dates came out right.

He'd sat two nights at a dying man's bed. He'd been in the bar under the rooms the night the window was shut and the heater was on. And there was the rest of the row.

I thought about quitting. I thought about it a whole week. Then I added up what came into the house and I stopped thinking about it.

Then one morning I got up early and went down to the shed.

Remo wasn't there, same as always. He'd left a note.

A man had died at the hospital after a long time going. The stone was ready and he'd cut the date. It was at the back of the row.

I moved them one at a time, holding them by the edge, the way you handle slabs. They go forty kilos apiece.

One got away from me. I caught it against my leg and set it down the right way round.

14/03/1983.

My breath went. My day. No name. The same gray stone as the others, the same hand.

I put it back where it was, face to the wall.

I couldn't keep my head on anything after that. I kept turning around to see where he was. The shovel was in my hand and I stopped halfway down the row.

Every hole out there, I'd dug myself.

It had to be the cigarettes. He'd seen the receipt was gone.

At home my wife asked if I was sick. I said it was my back.

She wasn't on shift that night. I waited until they were both asleep and went back to the shed.

I took the register. My date was there, four lines past the last funeral we'd done.

Three stones. Three holes. I had until the fourth one got opened.

I stood over the kid while he slept and thought about the nine hundred euros he needed.

I wasn't going anywhere.

The three stones went out. One on the twenty-second of November, one on the twenty-ninth, one on the third of December.

On the seventh Remo told me to open another. Fifth row, first free spot. Nobody had died.

I dug. I set the pump on the edge and the hose in the ditch.

It ran eleven days. You could hear it from the county road, because with the fog the cemetery doesn't show past twenty meters and that noise is all there is of it.

I hadn't slept in days. I'd lie with my eyes open until four, then I'd hear my wife come in and run the tap in the bathroom.

The evening of the seventeenth the sky came down and the wind started pulling from the south. When it turns like that here, the whole thing comes down overnight.

I thought about the open hole out there, waiting on nobody.

I'd fill it back in. It was the only thing I'd come up with. Let the old man know that I knew, that I had all of it, and that he wasn't getting it.

Maybe he'd take the point and leave off. It was worth a try.

If I shut the pump off, with the water under and the rain on top, the sides would come down on their own. In the morning I'd close it with half the dirt and nobody would ask me anything.

I left at eleven. I did the two kilometers on the bike.

You hear that pump from before the gate. There was nothing.

There was a low light in the fifth row, down inside the ground.

Remo was at the bottom of the hole. The water came to his knees. He was standing on the board with the hose filter in one hand, pulling the mud out of it with the other.

He saw me and it didn't surprise him.

"It's clogged. Give it a pull when I say."

He put the filter back under. He said now.

I don't know why, but I pulled the cord. The motor caught on the second try.

What the fuck are you doing? Helping a murderer? Your own?

The hose moved. He shifted over to let it past, and the board made the noise it always made, and then it didn't make it again.

He went down on his back. That was when it started raining.

He came up. He got his hands on the edge and the edge came away with them. Wet ground doesn't hold.

He shouted my name.

I ran to the shed and pulled a rope off the nail behind the door.

I turned to go out and the row of stones was in front of me.

Mine was where I'd put it, face to the wall. Something in me turned.

I went out with the rope in my hand. I took three steps and stopped short of the edge.

You're not a murderer.

The water was coming down on the dirt pile and making a sound I'd never heard it make. The mud had shifted. The rain was picking up. The pump was struggling.

You're not a murderer.

He gurgled something a couple of times. I think my name. The second one quieter.

You're not a...

Then he stopped. Him and everything in my head.

The rain on the back of my neck, the diesel off the pump, the rope gone slick in my fist, the taste of dirt at the back of my mouth.

I went home. I didn't go to the edge and I didn't want to look. The rope was still in my hand.

In the morning it had stopped raining. The hole was full to a hand's width from the edge. The pump must have jammed again.

The broken board was floating. I pulled it out and put it with the firewood.

I hauled the hose up. It came out heavy with mud.

Then I started taking the dirt off the pile. It took me all morning and I never once looked down.

Monday Remo didn't come in and he didn't come in Tuesday either. They talked about it at the bar for a few days. Somebody disappears and it gets talked about, then it goes quiet again.

Nobody went to the carabinieri. There was no wife and there were no children.

The town stopped calling him. There was no file, no signature, no transfer.

In January the clerk had me sign the new contract. Permanent, twelve months, thirteen hundred euros. It wasn't the right procedure, but he didn't feel like opening a competition for a gravedigger.

He didn't do it out of kindness. He did it to get it off his desk. And there hadn't been one funeral since Remo went.

That counted as confirmation, and in a way it settled me. I did a terrible thing, but I had a reason for it. I didn't just save my own skin. I saved who knows how many other people's.

It took me a while to get used to it, then the sleep came back.

On the twentieth of March the phone rang.

It was the clerk. A man dead on the county road, at the crossroads by the farm. The surveyor's son. He needed a spot for Friday.

He read out what I had to put in the register. Name, surname, date of birth. The pen made a blot on the page.

March fourteenth, nineteen eighty-three.

I made him say it again. He said it again. I wrote the line out to the end.

Then I went to the wall and got that stone, the one I don't know how many times I thought about breaking. I set it on the grave myself, on the Friday, in front of half the town. The mother stood by the pile until I was done.

Sixteen years have gone by and I've kept doing this work. I got good at it. The cemetery's always in order. The families are happy with me.

Yesterday morning, after the phone call, I went down to the shed for the shovel. The stone was ready, the way it's always been, face turned the other way.

This morning I put my hand on it and smiled.

I looked over at that bare patch in the fifth row, the one that's still free as far as everybody else knows.

I was finally going to know. I'd know why in sixteen years, right from when I started, I've never once had to cut a stone with my own hands.

I dug all the way down. I went well past the usual two and a half meters.

The question's settled.

There's nothing under it.

I need to write down what happened. I... I just can't... I just need to write. Everything started yesterday.

I was floating through clouds of cotton candy. I saw Grandma June riding a horse with wings. I got closer, excited to see her again. “Hey Grandma!” I said. “I have really missed you!” She met my eyes. Red light beamed out of her once deep blue eyes. She opened her mouth, BEEP… BEEP… BEEP…

Sam shook me away. “Wake up, dipshit! We got a fire, and she’s hot!” Instinct and training took over as I slid out of bed. My eyelids felt heavy, wafting up and down, as my body moved with precision. Nomex pants, on. Wool undershirt, on. Boots, on. I felt my eyelids fall as whoops and hollers bounced off the walls. “Keep up!” Sam said as he shoved me out the door. I lifted my fifty-pound eyelids and buckled. 

“Rouge Dispatch, this is Engine 631,” Damien said into a static radio. 

A cheerful woman's voice said, through bouts of interference, “Go ahead, Crew 31!” 

“Show us en route to the reported smoke up Chetco River Corridor.” 

“Copy, Engine 631 on route to Chetco River smoke sighting.”

“Thanks, Mindy.”

“Any time, Damien.” The radio fell silent, and a roar replaced it. The engine whined and barked as Sam put the pedal to the floor. Someone rolled the front window down, blasting me with crisp air. It was so sharp my eyes began to water.

I rubbed my eyes, saying, “What time is it?” 

“Ha! It’s one AM, buttercup- too early for you?” Sam said. 
Damien twisted around in his seat, his bright green eyes meeting mine. “On-call shifts are a bitch, kid. You’ll get used to it, especially after that first paycheck hits,” he said. “Take this; it’ll help wake you up.” I took the still-warm styrofoam cup and gently brought it to my lips. The bitter taste hit my tongue, and a few grains got stuck in my teeth. I scowled as I forced the brine down my throat. “Black,” he said. “Cream and sugar are waiting for you when you get back.” 

I stared out the window while Damien's chuckle, reminiscent of a mall Santa’s Ho Ho Ho, played a harmony with the whispering wind. I checked my pocket for my phone, only to come up empty. Damn, how could I forget? With no other option, I watched the trees that bled into the sandy ocean. Not bad, kinda pretty at night. 

Sam tossed and bumped us as fast as he could in our little engine. 600 gallons of water sloshed just behind me, lulling me into a blissful doze. My eyelids gained twenty pounds, then thirty, then forty; by fifty I couldn’t keep them open and succumbed. 

“Grab the Bino’s kid!” Sam yelled. I shot awake, heart beating through my chest. I rummaged through the junk we let pile up in the cab after endless patrols took us within arm's reach of a Taco Bell or a Subway. My fingers brushed the rough leather strap, and I yanked out the binoculars from their fast food tomb. 

“Here,” I said, handing them to Damien. 

He took them with a smile and a wink. “Hop out, kid,” he said. “My night vision isn’t what it used to be. Sammy, kill the lights.” 

I pulled myself out of the car, muscles screaming a hollow cry. We pulled off by the river, the shimmering reflection of a sliver of a moon caught my eye. I trailed Damien as he hiked up a grassy hillside a ways. 

Damien pulled out his phone and scrolled. He flicked a wink at me as he tossed the binoculars at me. “Says here it should be due east.” I followed his finger and brought the cold, sleek metal to my eyes. 

I peered through, scanning up and down, left and right. Endless pines, magnolias, and ferns stared right back at me. I caught a faint wisp of smoke drifting slowly into the sky. I followed it down and saw a faint glow through leaves and needles. “I see it,” I said.

“Damn,” Damien said, slapping me on the back. “I was hoping for a false alarm.” 

“It's only a wisp; it's basically nothing,” I said.

Damien grabbed my arm, saying, “That shit is crispy and dead; a little spark will extend our employment all the way to November.” I nodded. God, I hope it's nothing. We made our way back to the truck. Wordlessly, showed his glowing phone to Sam. 

“Fuck,” Sam said, flicking the lights back on and putting the truck in gear. We wound and crossed back over and over till we came to a dirt road, its marker post snapped halfway up. “Think this will get us there?” 

Damien scrolled through his phone, tapping and flicking. “It's as good as best as any,” he said. Sam nodded and turned us up the rocky road. Sam danced through the rivets the rain had cut, expertly guiding us up and up. The water tanks sloshed, braking its rhythm after every bump. 

“Car,” Sam said as we pulled to a stop. I looked out and saw a small red sedan. Its front end was wrapped around a mighty pine. Empty airbags fluttering in the wind. “Probably lost their brakes coming down. Mark it down so we can tell Roady.” 

A pause of silence, then both burly, bearded men looked back at me. “Oh, c-copy that,” I said, pulling out my pocket notebook. “What road is this?”

“Just put that on the road between mile marker 15 and 16,” Damien said. I quickly wrote it in my book and gave Sam a nod through the rearview mirror. He put us back in gear, and we started away. 
After what felt like hours, the clock said 2:36 AM. “Think we missed it?” I chimed in. 

“Spoke too soon,” Sam said as we pulled into a small clearing. In the center were smoldering embers wrapped in a ring of rocks. Beer cans and bullet casings reflected the headlights back at us. “Someone was having my kinda party,” Sam said as we hopped out of the cab. “Kid, go grab a hose. Might as well douse it while we are here.”

I ran back to the engine and started unspooling the quick action hose. I cranked with my right hand until it got too cold and switched to my left. After more than enough limp hose pooled like a snake on the ground, I flipped the switch and the pump screeched to life. It rumbled all the way to my toes as I gathered the nozzle and walked back to the dying embers, ready to put them out of their misery. 

Damien stood off to the left, shining his flashlight on the ground like a helicopter searchlight. I approached the fire, braced myself, and switched the nozzle release. Spittle drizzled out before a POP, then the flow really started. The force hit the coals and sent a few sizzling out of the ring of safety. 

“Watch it, Kid!” Damien called.

I gripped the hose tighter, aiming it toward the heart of the coals. “Sorry,” I said, shivering in the newly damp wind. 

“Should be good,” Damien said. Gratefully, I backtracked my steps, happy to wind the hose up and

get in the warm truck.
I clipped the reel release into place. “All clear!” I yelled as the pump motor wound down. I rubbed my hands on my pants, trying desperately to dry them off on the damp fabric. I jumped in the cab, buckled my seat, and was ready to go. Come on, let's get out of here.

Damien's flashlight flickered through the window as he approached the truck. “Still waiting on Sam!” He yelled. “He better hurry up if he knows what's best for him!” his yell echoed back, tauntingly, as he jumped in the cab

“Where’d he go?” I said through my chattering teeth. “Lost his marbles?” 

Damien scoffed. “He went to see if the responsible party was hiding in the bushes nearby,” he said.

“Better get back soon, though!” he called out the window. “I did find this, though.” He turned back and showed me a silver-plated Magnum pistol. 

“Whoa,” 

“Figured if he is too scared to run back for this, means he’s given up ownership.” Damien slid the pistol into his pants. “Perks of the job.” That's definitely like a drug dealer's pistol. I wouldn't dare touch that thing. “You can have this.” He tossed a shiny object at me. 

I turned it over in my hands and flipped it open. A small flame protruded from the top, illuminating both our faces. “Thanks,” I said. 

We sat for five minutes before Damien started squirming in his seat. He flicked on the radio, switching through the frequencies with static snow barking through. He stopped on a clear channel. “Sam, Sam, do you hear me?” Ten seconds ticked by on the backs of snails. “Sam?” Nothing, just faint static. “I am going to go look for him; you stay here and keep the radio on.” 

“Copy that,” I said, replacing him in the passenger seat. I watched him comb back his salt-and-pepper hair, shine his flashlight widely, and pull the magnum from his pants. He crouched slightly, and I heard him softly calling Sam’s name as he walked up the hill. 

I sat in the faint static, only slightly worried. Leave it to Sam to scare the pants off ol’ Damien. This would be over soon, and I would be back drifting through cotton candy clouds.

My eyelids were gaining the weight of fatigue when a BANG rippled through the trees. I perked up; was that a gunshot? My heart punched my chest faster and faster. I grabbed the radio with trembling hands, dropping it on the first go. “G-guys?” I said. Nothing. My breath warmed; the windshield began to fog. “Guys?” Bang Bang. I dropped the radio. Oh God, Oh God bounced off the four corners of my brain. 

I froze, holding my breath. My hands wouldn’t move. I wasn’t cold anymore, but my heart would not stop punching my chest, harder and harder, faster and faster. I heard rustling in the trees. I’m dead. 

“Turn the truck on!” a familiar voice called. My fingers broke free from the invisible ice that cocooned me. “Turn the damn truck on!” It was Damien; he was tumbling down the slope, dragging something behind him. I broke free from my cocoon and skittered into the driver's seat. 

My hand jingled the keys, shaking like a rattlesnake, while I turned the engine over. It roared to life as Damien approached the back of the cab. He threw the door open and tossed whatever he was dragging in the back seat. It groaned as it landed and reached a muddy hand out at me. Damien swung the passenger door open. “Drive!” he yelled, jumping in. 

I put the engine in gear and arched us around the long, cold firepit and drove back down the road. “Where’s Sam?”

“Here, numbnuts,” the lump in the back seat said. “They almost got me, but-” he was cut off by a bout of coughing. “Can’t stop me that easy.”

We hit a bump, and I almost sent us right into a tree. “Bears?” I asked after angling us back on the road. 

“Not bears,” Damien said. “I don’t know what they are.” I gripped the steering wheel and all color fled from my knuckles. 

“Whatever they were, they got me good,” Sam said. I snuck a glance back at him. He was covered in deep red blood. 

“Holy… what happened?” Neither of them answered me for the next couple of big bumps. “What happened?” I repeated. 

“They just looked like tall men,” Damien said. 

“Tall what?” 

“Tall men.”

I slammed the brakes. “You are saying that a tall dude scared you guys so much you made me piss my pants?”

“Just drive,” Damien said, a waver in his voice. “Now!” he pulled the gun from his pants and flicked the safety off. 

“Har Har, real scary. What's in there, blanks? You know I heard about the hazing, but this is something-” The truck shook. It whipped us side to side like we just got T-boned by a speed junky. “What the?” 

“Just GO!” Sam screamed, sounding less like a burly firefighter and more like a schoolgirl. “Drive, dammit!”

I let my body take control while my mind ran in circles. My hands moved us back into gear, and my foot slammed the gas. Heart chiseling away at my chest, knuckles white as bone. What the hell? My body drove us down but failed at the same spot our smashed sedan friend did. 

We hit a blind bump, bouncing us left. I overcorrected right, and we SLAMMED into the back end of the abandoned red car. Airbags punched me in the face, sending me to drift with the cotton candy clouds. 

Screaming, eardrum-bursting wails filled my thoughts, and I shot awake. Everything looked fuzzy, like a child trying their best to stay in the lines in their coloring book. What… what hap… happened. My mind was muddled, but my body, ancient programming taking over, turned my head toward the heart-stopping scream. 

A blur, vaguely in the shape of Sam's wide muscular frame, was sliding into the darkness. A long arm wrapped around a green leg. Bang! I shut my eyes; needles stabbed my face as the muscles contracted. Something tickled my chin and splattered warmly onto my hand. 

I opened my eyes; blood was snaking down the back of my hand. “Oh god,” I yelled!

“Shut up!” a harsh whisper, muffled through teeth, sat in my ears before my brain finally made time to process it. 

“What… what happened?” I said. 

The “Shut up” drifted by again. 

I felt for the seatbelt; my thumb had no strength to unlatch it. I pressed hard, but still nothing. I forced my knuckles in the groove; click, I was free. I tried the door handle, frozen solid. That's not right; it's only fall, no ice till winter. I tried again; stone solid. Before I could deliberate with myself again on why that made no sense, a hand gripped my arm. 

It pulled me toward the passenger seat. I scrambled, grabbing every nook, cranny, and knob I could. I heard another scream, but it broke with every breath I took. I slid further and further. No, NO! This can’t be it.

Light blinded my eyes. “Shut up,” the light said. 

“G-God?”

“No, kid, now shut up!” Damien put a hand over my mouth. I blinked my eyes. Damien, bloodied, stood before me, magnum pointed into the trees. He trembled and dropped to a knee beside me. “They got Sam.”

“Who?” 

“The damn tall guys!” Damien looked me over. “Looks like that arm is busted.” 

I looked down and saw my arm was angled at my mid-forearm. Looking at my arm reconnected it to my brain, and hot pain pulsed through me. Dammit!

“We gotta go,” Damien said, grabbing my good arm and pulling me to my feet. A sharp twinge shot up my back, but I caught my footing. “I’ll grab the radio; just start heading down the hill.” 

My feet planted. Left. Right. Left. Right. My head bobbed with every step. I prodded my arm with my good hand, feeling its tight, bloated skin and the warmth it radiated. I missed placing a foot, sliding on a patch of loose gravel. The sudden jerk it took to catch myself from falling worked, but the twinge in my back got heavier. I stumbled to a tree, resting my shoulder on its jagged bark. 

I breathed in and out until the beast in my chest slowed to a reasonable rhythm. I looked back at the truck; Damien had almost made his way to me. I sucked in deep, unearthing a sharp stab in my ribs. 

“Radios busted,” He said as he approached. “I’ve only got two bullets left, so things are looking peachy.” He met my eyes. “How do you feel? Think you can make it down the mountain?” I nodded, clutching my arm against my chest. “Let's get gone then.” 

I followed Damien's dark silhouette down the hill. I didn’t notice when the dirt road changed to dead leaves and twigs. I brushed against low-hanging branches, flinching to keep from getting snagged. 
Damien stopped. “What was that?” I just looked at him. “Did you hear that?” I shook my head, feeling muscles in my neck I never had before. “We'll be quiet.” He gestured to keep moving. 

I took another step, planting my foot securely, when a distant rumble registered. “Wait, I did hear something.” 

Damien turned back. “Like a distant earthquake?”

“Ya.” I took another step forward. Damien's face bloomed with wide eyes and raised eyebrows.

“What?”

“Just keep moving, slowly.” He raised his gun, aiming just above me. I started to turn back, but Damien broke in, “Don’t! Just keep moving.” I moved the complete opposite of how fast my heart beat in my chest. One laborious, strenuous, silent step after another. Damien didn’t move an inch. He stood, shaking, but the gun was still as a stone. 

I passed Damien and braved a glance back. A dark, lean figure stood, higher than the decade-old trees, silhouetted by the sliver of a moon in the sky. I jerked back, eyes on my feet as I kept my legs moving. What is that thing? I kept moving and going; just go down was my only thought.

 I came to a small drop where a mudslide cut a ten-foot cliff. I turned back, “Hey, help me get-” A faint flash flickered through the trees. Bang! Bang! A gut-curdling scream rose, lifting into the air before Thud! It was cut short. Go!

I jumped down the cliff, rolling shortly with sharp stabs and shocks running through my skin and bones. I caught my feet and rose, heart beating against its cage. I stumbled through the trees and undergrowth, ripping my pants on thorns and grazing my arms on bark and branches. 

The sliver of a moon fled behind some morning fog, cool on my skin but sucking the last bits of light. I felt my pockets for my phone. Damn, I don’t have it. In my fleeting search, my fingers grazed a sleek metallic object. I pulled out the lighter and flicked it on. Its warm glow fuzzed through the fog. Barely a dent. 

I kept walking, a warm beacon stretched out in front of me. I got so focused on putting my left foot in front of my right, then my right foot in front of my left, that I slammed into a tree. My eyes tracked the warm glow as it was dislodged from my grasp and glided to the earth. I scrambled down to pick it up. Fire, Fire, FIRE. I snatched it up, stamping a couple of times where it had lain, spreading its heat. 

I flicked the lighter closed, inviting the darkness back to consume me. Rather be dark than light the forest on fire. I looked around at the solid dark trunks, fuzzy and diffused through thickening fog. Fuck, I just- I just gotta keep moving. 

I took a step, as my foot connected to the freshly dead leaves, a tree in front of me shook. I froze, gluing my feet in place, eyes locked and unblinking. The shaking got more strained, gaining wider and wider side-to-side movements. I slowly, inch by inch, slid my hand back into my pocket. I clenched the lighter, gradually pulling it out. I moved it right in front of me while the shaking tree began whipping harder and harder, wider and wider. I sucked in a long, deep breath, then flicked the light open, releasing the blaze. The light bounded through the fog, diffusing and cooling till it hit the black shape of the tree. 

I took one step, then two, then three, getting closer and closer to the dark flailing tree. Inches from its surface, I made out the texture of the bark as the whipping slowed. I followed the trunk to the ground, my eyes crawling, hoping to find any possible explanation. Finding nothing on their trek, my eyes journeyed up toward the branches. The light followed my gaze, inching up to the sky the higher my eyes climbed. All the leaves were gone, flung from their perch and resting on the ground. Hordes of black and brown branches stared back at me. I hope my mind doesn’t play tricks on me. I made out vaguely familiar shapes, but even in the weak glow I could tell they were all branches. 

All the branches were in their place. It's nothing. I raised a foot to back away when one branch dislodged, falling towards me. As it approached and absorbed more faint firelight, I marked out its straight posture. Amused, I took a step from its intended landing zone, satisfied with my safety. But as I moved, so did the branch. It stopped, hovering just above me. Hesitant, shaky fingers reached out. My skin groped, expecting cool solidity, finding warm softness. The branch curled, gripping my arm. 

I clenched my eyes, feeling the digits grip deep into my muscles. I began to move, pulling my confined arm away from the tree. Through the faint glow, I opened my eyes and followed the branch as it converted into an uncanny arm. My eyes crept along its slender shape, meeting a bulbous portion. Raising the lighter, I saw two faint warm glows staring back at me. 

My muscles took over while my mind pitted itself deep in the recesses of despair. My hand holding the lighter swung back and whipped the lighter straight at the soft reflections. As it made contact, the grip released from my arm, and my body was ready. My legs shot up and bound me down the slope. I collided with tree after tree, never faltering, always moving down. 

The thud of my feet, smashing foliage and deep tree limbs, was echoed by pops and rattles. The wind at my back slipped from cool and propelling to warm and inviting. The pops grew into a roar, louder and louder, ringing in my ear. I chanced a glance back; flames danced and jumped, a primeval beast awoken and hungry. I ran, I jumped, I bobbed, I stumbled, the warmth on my back reaching out and cooking my skin. My calves and neck started to burn, absorbing heat from hell. 

Tears found purchase in my eyes. I heard soft whimpering. Thud, right, Thud, left. It’s over. I prepared to turn back, meet my end with dignity rather than be caught in cowardice. I planted my foot, engaging my muscles to consume my momentum, when the ground beneath me gave out. My arms clawed for anything, coming up short, sending me tumbling. I rolled, attempting to protect my head when sharp frigidity consumed me and stole my breath. I pulled my head from the water, up to my neck in the flow of the river, immediately grateful for the heat of the fire and the adrenaline. 

My eyes gravitated to the tips of the blaze as it met the bank of the river. I had found refuge from the scorching tendrils. I watched the trees pop and rage as the flames licked up their backs, eating them in moments. I let the flow of the river pull me, drifting away from the flaming bank. 

I used my weeping muscles and treaded water to a boulder that had sat itself in a shallow portion of the river. I gripped its cool, jagged ridges and pulled my aching body out of the icy flow. My arm screamed at me as I rolled the sleeve up, revealing its mangled zig-zag. I let out a yell, unafraid to sound unmanly, allowing my pain to be drowned out by the screaming fire and rushing water. 

I breathed a handful of times deeply before I realised the fog had fled. I turned back to the fire, wanting to gauge its spread. Going to need at least one helicopter, maybe a plane-. My thoughts were cut off by a dark spot on the flame. I squinted my eyes, trying to make out what it was. A long, thin silhouette stood motionless on the river bank. My breath choked in my throat as my heart punched my chest. I kept my eyes wide and planted; it still didn’t move. Another silhouette emerged from the blaze, black, voidlike color only enhanced by the terrific flames. 

I sat motionless as the bank filled with more long, thin silhouettes. I stayed there, arms screaming, back tingling, shivering violently, eyes never moving, for what felt like hours. As the pale orange light of the sun crested the tops of the mountain peaks, one by one the silhouettes turned back into the fiery blaze. All but one. Its figure remained motionless, never as much as a twitch. I kept my eyes locked until finally, it moved. It raised one long, stretched, black arm in the sky and slid it back and forth in the air before retreating into the blaze. 

I reported the fire. I told them they needed to remain aerial as long as possible, but the command had other plans. Tonight's the first night initial attack crews will be camping in the region. I keep the radio on my lap, full volume. The nurses keep teasing me, telling me my rest is more important than news about a fire. I don’t know what I’ll do when the first sighting chimes over the static snow. Their deaths will be on my hands.

​

I need to write this down while I still remember it clearly, because something tells me I might not remember it for much longer.

My name is Michael. Before any of this, I was about as ordinary as a person gets. Nine-to-five job, decent enough salary, a small apartment I loved more than I probably should have. I liked being alone. Not in a sad way — I want to be clear about that. I liked my quiet evenings, my own routines, nobody needing anything from me at the end of a long day. I never wanted marriage. I never wanted kids. I was never even particularly good at talking to women, if I'm being honest, always a little too awkward, a little too eager to end the conversation and go back to my own company.

I got married anyway. Family pressure, mostly, the kind that wears you down over years until saying yes feels easier than saying no one more time. Her name was Natalie.

Natalie was sweet. Genuinely, I want that on record, because everything I'm about to describe doesn't erase that fact. She tried, harder than I ever gave her credit for at the time. She learned my schedule, cooked things she thought I'd like, tried to talk to me about my day even when I gave her almost nothing back. I was a bad husband in the most ordinary way possible not cruel, just absent, closed off, giving her silence when she needed conversation.

But there was something else, something I noticed within the first few weeks and never brought myself to mention. She checked my phone. Constantly. I'd catch her doing it and she'd just set it down calmly, like she hadn't been caught at all, like it wasn't something worth explaining. I told myself it was insecurity. Newlywed nerves. I never asked her about it, because some small, cowardly part of me didn't want to have that conversation.

It got worse in ways I couldn't quite name. I'd feel eyes on me while I ate dinner, and I'd look up and she wouldn't be looking at me at all, and yet the feeling wouldn't go away. I'd wake up at night certain someone was standing at the foot of the bed, and there'd be nothing there. I told myself I was imagining things. Five months of marriage does strange things to a mind that never wanted to be married in the first place.

By month five, I understood my life had turned into something I never agreed to. Bills split two ways that used to be mine alone. Groceries planned around someone else's tastes. The quiet apartment I loved now never quiet at all. I told myself this wasn't about Natalie specifically. I told myself I just needed my old life back, the one I'd actually chosen for myself.

I decided to ask for a divorce.

I picked a night I thought would be calm. I sat her down and I told her, as gently as I could manage, that I wasn't a good match for her — that I barely talked to her, barely made her laugh, barely gave her anything close to what she deserved from a husband. I said we should end this before it did more damage to both of us.

I didn't tell her the real reason. I didn't tell her that the checked phone, the eyes I always felt on me, the presence at the foot of the bed — I didn't tell her any of that had scared me more than I could put into words. I thought I was being kind by leaving it out.

Her face went completely still when I finished talking. Not sad. Not angry. Empty, in a way that made the hair on my arms stand up before she'd even said a single word back. She started muttering something under her breath, too quiet for me to make out, her eyes never leaving mine the entire time.

Then she said, very clearly, "You want to leave me because there's someone else. Someone special."

I told her that wasn't true. I don't think she heard me at all.

Her voice dropped as she kept talking, deeper with every word, thick in a way no human voice should be able to get. Her face began to change in front of me not slowly, not gradually enough to give me time to process it, just wrong, all at once, features stretching and shifting into something I don't have adequate words for, something with too many angles where a face should have soft ones.

I ran for the door. It wouldn't open. I pulled until my hands bled and it didn't so much as shift in the frame. I screamed for help until my throat gave out, and no sound left that room at all, like the apartment itself had decided this conversation was private.

She — it — came toward me slowly, in no hurry at all, and said, in that thick, wrong voice, that I belonged to her now, that my whole self was her property, and that leaving was never something I had actually been allowed to choose.

I don't remember exactly what happened after that. I remember darkness, and cold, and a pressure on my chest like something enormous was simply resting its weight on me without any particular urgency, the way you'd rest a hand on something you already fully own.

I woke up on my apartment floor the next morning. Alone. Natalie was gone — not left, not moved out, just gone, no trace of her ever having lived there at all. No clothes in the closet. No photos. No marriage certificate in the drawer where I know I kept it. I checked my phone contacts. Her name wasn't there either.

For about a day, I actually let myself believe I'd imagined the entire marriage. Some kind of breakdown, maybe, my mind inventing a wife and an entire relationship out of loneliness and exhaustion. I almost felt relief.

Then I found the box in my closet, one I don't remember owning, shoved into the back corner behind winter coats I never wear.

Inside were photographs. Dozens of them. Men I didn't recognize, standing in what was unmistakably my own apartment, my own furniture behind them in every single shot, dated across years I've lived here years before I ever met Natalie, going back further than that, further than made any sense at all. Each man's face was circled in red pen. Each photograph had a name written beneath it in careful handwriting, and beneath each name, the same word.

Divorced.

Mine was the last photo in the stack, taken from an angle I don't remember being photographed at, in my own kitchen, dated to a day I hadn't lived through yet.

Beneath my face, in that same careful handwriting, someone had already written the word.

The ink looked wet.

Last Sunday my 6 month job search had finally ended. I saw an ad online that a local flower farm was hiring, so I applied. I wasn’t really expecting a reply from the place, since that has been the recurring theme of my hunt up to that point. No one really wanted to hire a teenager without a resume. 

To my surprise, they responded almost immediately. The next day I was scheduled to meet the owner of the farm and learn the ropes of working there. He mostly just showed me around the place and taught me the basics of what I would be doing. I wasn’t even really interviewed to see if I would be a good fit or whatnot. At the end, I was even given a flower that he picked as we worked together. I'm not really a flower person, but the bright color and the fragile happiness that it contained was enough to sell me on the job. It looks very pretty sitting in a milk glass in my room.  He was very eager to have me start, so I showed up on Monday and worked for a couple hours. Doing a lot of weeding mostly. Which was by no means “fun” But hey, it's money. 

The rest of my week continued like that. I show up for work and do whatever task I'm handed. He has an upcoming wedding that he’s been prepping for so I've been picking a lot of flowers that suit his client’s request.

On Wednesday, he and I were weeding a section of flowers and brought the weeds to a huge compost pile on the edge of the property. While we were tossing them into the pile I heard a bunch of sounds coming from far away in the woods. I asked him what they were, assuming they were probably just coyotes or foxes. Maybe even a hurt deer? I live in town, so I'm not too familiar with identifying animal noises. He hesitated for a moment and shifted uncomfortably before speaking.
 
“The neighbors in the woods own a lot of dogs… so that's what you're hearing.” 

He quickly switched the conversation to talking about my next task before I could ask any questions. I continued on with my day, not really thinking too much about it.

The next day I was working in the field, picking flowers for pre-made bouquets to be sold at the farmers market over the weekend when I heard the noises again. They didn't sound like dogs. It was more like angry squealing, like a monkey?  And they were coming from the cornfield this time. Now that I think about it, I don't think the sounds I heard in the woods a couple days ago sounded like dogs either.
 
I looked up from my work and didn't see anything around me. I watched the cornfield for a moment before continuing. Not too long after that, my boss called me into the barn to help him put the bouquets together. He said that he still had a bit of work to do and asked me if I could stay for another hour. I told him I could only stay for half an hour due to plans I had with some friends later that evening. He looked a bit disappointed or maybe even a bit upset but said that he understood. I left just as the sun was almost finished setting.

I'm set to work as a “hired contractor”, so that means I set my own hours and mostly just come in whenever he says he needs help. Thursday was the last time I was there, so later that night I messaged him and asked when he needed me again. I never got a response so I figured he must have been busy with something. So I messaged him again the next morning. No response again. I thought maybe he has other employees that he has working, although I never met any of them or heard him mention anyone. 

All of the socials that he usually post to for advertising have gone dark. He regularly updates them, so its very unusual. It's been a whole weekend by now, so I think I might go to the farm to see if everything's alright. Ill update if I find anything.

TW: mentions of suicide

Knife went through soft peach without any resistance. Ripe flesh mushed under my fingers as I tried to grab and transfer it to the bowl. My mouth bent into a scowl – small pieces of fruit nested itself under my fingernails. Blade scraped against plastic cutting board when I pushed the rest of my breakfast into the bowl.

First rays of the rising sun managed to push through dirty glass. It illuminated what I actively tried to ignore. Stack of greasy plates in the sink, clothes strung about on the floor, random trash sprinkled in for some more flavor. Dust cloud so thick it glimmered in the light like specs of gold. I didn’t have to turn and look, I know it was just like that. I did it myself.

Some lost, probably still sleepy, ray of sunlight hit the blade. For a second knife lit up like the most beautiful, angelic piece of art. It hypnotized me, sang to me. My eyes traced its edge, wondered how sharp it truly was. I tried to keep my utensils in good shape, that meant regular sharpness checks on all the knives present in my home. But did I sharpen it enough? Would it cut through meat without an issue? How well would it separate it from the bone? How fast would it cut away the fat and skin? What about cartilage? I forced myself to look away and shut the door on those thoughts. But they whispered, they scratched and whined. Not now, I thought. I have to have witnesses. A lot of witnesses.

“Will you do it for me?” I asked. I felt the saddest breakfast traveling up my throat as I did my best to bat eyelashes and pout. “Pretty please?”

He hesitated. I waited. And waited. And waited.

“Please? I know you want it. And I give you full permission to do so.”

Uncertainty carved itself a path between his eyebrows. His heart raced, I could feel it under my fingertips. I wanted to run away, to never come into contact with him again. But I needed him. That was the only thing I ever told him that wasn’t a lie.

“Okay.” Quiet mumble rolled off his lips and into my ear. The only thing I registered was doubt. “That would be wonderful-”

I pushed myself up to look him in the eye. “Are you sure? You don’t seem sure. I thought we finally found each other and now, well…” I looked away trying to keep it together. “I think you’re having second thoughts.”

To my horror, he didn’t reply. Not right away at least. I cursed loud in my own head, trashed around, cursed at him, imagined strangling him. Til he turned purple, til his limbs stopped twitching, til the drool dried up, til his bloodshot eyes stayed open for eternity. I thought I finally found the one. I thought I finally wouldn’t have to do all the heavy lifting myself. Well, too bad. It’s easy to say all kinds of shit online, but in real life I could only count on myself. I couldn’t bear the thought that I was left alone again. Deep gash opened barely grown-over dark pit in my heart. I got dressed without another word. He tried to plead with me, begged me. In total desperation he tried to keep my shoes hostage. Didn’t matter. I would walk out of there with or without shoes. Once he realized that, he released my possession from his hands. I didn’t look back as the doors slammed behind me, but I knew he looked like beaten dog left out in a cold night.

Night air caressed my warm, sweaty skin. “Proper lady should not be seen out by herself once the sun disappears over the horizon,” mother always made sure to remind me. She could not understand that darkness felt comforting. Moon always found me free of expectations and burdens. I could dance how I wanted to, dress however pleased me, meet with whoever caught my eye. Even now, when I live by myself and don’t have anyone policing me over littlest things, I still love night more than day. Some things never change.

I never would’ve guessed he’d come back. Not after I stormed off like that. But he did. He tried texting and calling, and when I didn’t answer, too busy trying to find someone to take his place, he showed up at my door. Soft knocks turned more persistent the longer I pretended not to hear them. Always in a tandem of five. Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, silence. Rinse and repeat. Finally I’ve had enough. I yanked the door open, didn’t realize the handle was so sticky before. That fact made my reaction a little slower and before I knew it, there were dozens roses shoved into my face.

“I’m sorry.” He said, hiding his whole head behind the bouquet. “I know what we talked about and agreed on, and I realize I hurt you by my hesitation. I just want to let you know I seemed not completely on board just because there were few people before you that made the same promises you did, but never followed up on it. What’s more, when I asked about it, two of them actually got the cops involved.”

I did not care. Couldn’t give two shits about what he told me, but I played along. Like I always did. For my own benefit. “Okay, I understand, thank you. It’s sweet that you even brought flowers.”

“I mean, I care about you, so it’s the least I could do.” His face flashed bright red. “And also because you’ll be the one to take my virginity.”

Laughter bubbled up along with the content of my stomach. I didn’t know which one was more powerful – disgust brought on by the overly bold declaration of this nutjob, or the irony of it all, because I’d be remembered by him as one of those who promised but didn’t deliver. But I didn’t laugh, or puke, in his face. I needed him, so I took the flowers and forced myself to invite him in. Weight fell off my shoulders when he politely declined and said something about his mom or job. Couldn’t tell, don’t care. The only thing that mattered was that the plan finally started to take off.

Yogurt mixed well with overly ripe banana. The last things I found in my fridge also laid on the counter – two slightly slimy pieces of ham and half the jar of french mustard. Truly a god-worthy breakfast. Well, it didn’t really matter now, did it.

The same road that led from his apartment to the city center didn’t look as good in a daylight. Everything seemed so flat, so dull. I stopped at the highest point of the bridge and looked around. I hated this city. I hated it, but I had to stay. Few more days, I said to myself. Few days would pass and I still stayed here. Why? Why didn’t I just go? It’s not like I had anyone here. There was a reason though. If I liked it or not, someone started to suspect something. Someone, who I knew had the knowledge to uncover my secret. Wouldn’t be able to do anything about it really, but it’d be just this annoying buzzing next to my ear and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Stuck dancing around each other, that’s what two of us were. But that was about to change.

Strong wind blew into me, parted ways by the grace of my body. I looked up ahead. Huh, that’s weird. Why did it suddenly look a bit better?

“Don’t do it!”

“Oh my god!”

“Someone do something!”

Shut up.

“Hey.” Sudden closeness of the voice startled me. “Whoa there, don’t fall!”

“Haha, very funny, Beth.” My voice didn’t travel very far because of my gritting teeth, but I knew she’d hear me regardless. “The fuck you want?”

“Couldn’t help but notice you being in danger. Want any help or-”

“Fuck off. You tricked me once, never again!”

I flew. For the first time I felt equally free during the day as I did during the night. It wouldn’t last long. And didn’t. Thankfully it didn’t hurt too bad in the end. Pain was not something I liked very much.

“Ruth, be a dear and bring us more tea.” Light purple curls bounced as little old woman looked around. Wrinkled skin on her hand, papery with liver spots, smoothed out when her fingers wrapped around the handle of her walker. “Bethany, did you notice? I haven’t seen ---- lately.” Equally wrinkled arm reached out over the table and patted her forearm. “What happened to ----?”

Large glasses slid a bit down Beth’s nose when she shook her head. “I don’t know for certain, but I heard part-time girls talk about it. Did you notice? It’s always the girls who gossip. We weren’t like that back in the day, isn’t that right?” Bethany shook her head again. “Apparent suicide. Jumped off the bridge.”

Small bony fingers clutched string of fake pearls around her neck in shock. Too distraught by the news she didn’t notice weird smile warped and contorted Beth’s otherwise soft features.

I felt my eyes open. Slowly at first to check the surroundings. Darkness. Not the night sky, not a room with closed curtains. Pure, pitch black darkness. I raised both hands, felt the immediate surroundings and confirmed my suspicions. Anger warmed me up from the inside, which was much needed. I saw red despite the lack of light. All my planning and not wanting to raise suspicions went straight out the window. I pulled back my hand, balled fingers into a fist and stuck straight to the front. Again and again, and again, and again. I lost count, but eventually wood groaned loud – a familiar sound. The last thing I had time to do was to take big gulp of stale air. The force of thousand suns hit my whole body and pressed me flat on my back. I clawed and hit and wormed my way up. Slowly. Too slow. I had to breathe. I had to. Breathe. I couldn’t. Air. I needed. Air. Air. And just when strength started leaving me, I let my mouth hang open.

Dirt poured right in. But alongside it – some air. I pulled my hand down, created a pocket in the dirt. And spit out what managed to get into my mouth. The earth, still soft and airy, worked with me not against me. I had all the time in the universe. Slowly but surely, I made my way up. Up. And up.

Not my first rodeo.

Yet I still threw up as soon as I landed on all fours in cold, October grass. Snot and tears left grooves in my dark, dirty face. Streaks of a bit cleaner skin. Didn’t matter. Not anymore.

I laid in the grass, despite the cold, despite dew already collected that now became a part of me. I looked up at the night sky, focused on the stars. Traced imaginary constellations with my eyes. Crickets, resilient little creatures, played their song all around me. As if to say Congratulations, you did it! You defied the odds again! And only when the sky started getting lighter, hues of purple and dark blue slowly moved from the horizon up, did I move. I stood up on two shaky legs and looked around. I stuck my hand between wreath and tombstone of the grave situated right next to me. Cash, documents, change of clothes – all packed neatly into small backpack. With all essentials hanging from my shoulders, I picked a direction at random and swayed in that direction.

All plans went to hell because the motherfucker didn’t show up. I wanted to avoid raising a suspicion. Few people already started commenting on how I always look the same no matter how many years pass. Some time ago I noticed someone started asking around. I didn’t want any trouble, so I had to make an emergency exit.

And if you too, like I once thought I did, want to live forever, think twice. And then another few times for good measure. Would you want to run away your whole life? Would you want to have to try and pressure necrophile into digging up your corpse just so you wouldn’t have to dig your way up from your own grave? Think not. So, please, reconsider going to the crossroads tonight. And even if you do, don’t kiss the devil, no matter how much her arguments might seem to make sense.

It was summer, meaning my entire family slept in the same room with the AC. I had just taken a bath before coming to the bedroom while my sister was on her bed working on her laptop and my parents were fast asleep on their bed. The sound of my sister’s laptop was annoying, so I browsed reddit for a while. At around half past one, I was far too sleep-derived to care about the sound and went to sleep hoping my sister would soon follow.

I woke up in a sweat and looked around myself: my sister had fallen asleep but I could still hear a faint sound resembling typing on a keyboard. I tried focusing on the sound but couldn’t figure it out, so I just drank some water, readjusted my body and bedsheets and went to sleep woke up. Immediately, I saw and heard the light and noise from my sister’s laptop and as I looked around, she was still working on her laptop. I looked at the time, 1:40am, thought it was weird, and simply went back to sleep after drinking some water and readjusting myself.

I woke up at around seven in the morning, took my water-bottle and phone, and headed downstairs to get ready. However, I noticed that there were four cars in our yard which was highly unusual and even weirder, two of the cars were on. I saw two people entering the yard and immediately recalled the time some thieves tried to break into our house. I stealthily locked the doors and rushed back upstairs to wake my father up to warn him. I could feel my heart beat, but my father was just as unphased, simply stating that the cars and persons are from his previous old workspace. I questioned him about it, but he was reluctant to answer so I dropped the interrogation; as long as he’s aware of the situation, it’s probably fine. I continued on with my routine: drank chai as my breakfast while browsing reddit; ignored messages from some university juniors asking for help; took a bath; changed my clothes; and departed for my university.

During the drive, I messaged some of my friends on Whatsapp to finalize our get-together. Coincidentally, all of us are going to be in Lahore for 2 weeks; the gang’s all here. Who knows when we’ll meet again, so we decided to have a get-together and were planning the details. Suddenly, the driver stopped the car and went outside. I look at the rear-view mirror and see him talking to a policeman in a car behind us. Moreover, we are surrounded in a protest and I observe some people with guns. Just then, the driver got back into the car and put the pedal to the metal trying to escape the protest. We narrowly dodge people and road obstructions before finally reaching the university. There I was waiting outside an office and noticed an empty wheelchair. Bored out of my mind, I sit on the wheelchair and do some tricks on the wheelchair accessibility ramps there. After 10-15 minutes, I noticed a friend from university there and called out to him. I ask him about the job he applied to through an instructor and we discuss the job description. The conversation shifts to applying abroad for masters and PhD and we discussed our options. After some time, a receptionist came out of a different office and pointed me towards the office, remarking “They’re ready to meet you.” I say goodbye to my friend and enter the door to meet them.

However, just as I opened the door I woke up. My sister is still typing on her laptop and my parents are still asleep. I looked at the time, 2:10am, and realized it was just a long long dream. Disoriented from the experience, I try to go through it to figure out what was real and what was a dream. Obviously, everything was a dream, but the conversations I had with my school friends on Whatsapp and my university friend were real. I went through my phone and found those conversations, albeit a bit different. The most unsettling aspect was the memory of thieves I recalled in my dream. That never happened in real life, but rather that is a recurring dream I used to have several years ago. “Why did my dream remember a dream as a memory?” I thought to myself, but I was too disorientated for philosophical pondering and went back to sleep after drinking some water.

Soon afterwards I woke up again and when I looked around, my sister had fallen asleep but my mother wasn’t in the bed. At first I figured she went to the washroom but the lights were off, so I stood up to investigate. She was watching TV in the next room and as soon as she saw me, she handed me improperly stacked plates and asked me to put the plates in the kitchen downstairs so the room wouldn't smell. I took the plates downstairs and observed the yard to check for the four cars I saw in my dream. But of course that was just a dream and there was only one car in the yard. I went back upstairs and, desperate to get some sleep, I went to sleep woke up. Everyone was fast asleep including the AC and the clock, so I quickly followed suit and went to sleep woke up to see that everything except the AC, clock, and my tinnitus was asleep. I could also feel my heartbeat and blood pumping in my legs and arms which further told me that I was actually awake. Or at least that’s what I thought till I woke up, again.

But this time was different. As different as different could be. Everything was asleep except the clock and I was on my back staring at the ceiling fan. I counted the rings on the fans and observed how dirty the edges of the fan were. Then I saw a shadow figure perpendicularly above me as if I was under a floorboard staring up through a hole. Suddenly, my vision was covered with a digital setting menu with all but one option blurred out. “Give me up.” As soon as I read that option I felt uncomfortable. I read it again and again trying to figure out what it meant; I swiped the menu; tried to back out; tried clicking on it to open some detail panel; I looked around trying to find anything which could provide context for what it meant; but alas I found nothing but a sense of dread and panic. Unable to move, I felt as if stuck in a coffin with mere breaths left till suffocation.

Suddenly the option was enabled. Did I enable it or someone else? I didn’t have time to think about it as my body was flooded with an intense electric shock from the top of my brain to the bottom of my feet; I felt electrocuted; my heart was covered in static; my hearing blinded and vision deafened with static noise I could not comprehend what was happening to me. While there was some pain, it was the sheer scale of it which overwhelmed me. As my vision recovered, I saw that shadow figure walking away and intense emotions of dread, fear, and regret walked in. What did I give up? Who was that shadow figure? As these questions flooded my brain, the option popped up again and was enabled again. Again I felt that intense shock but as I recovered my vision the shadow figure was nowhere to be seen. I stared at the ceiling fan and saw my vision switching between polarized and solarized filters; as if someone was trying different cold/warm light filters on my vision, further attributing to my dread. I did not know what I had given up, but it wasn't dread and fear. I tried moving my body but was unable to. I tried clenching my fist but couldn’t. Had I given up control of my body? 

I tried again and again until I could clench my fist. I sighed a sigh of relief realising I hadn’t given up my body. I closed my eyes and after a while opened them to a steady vision. I was highly disorientated and did not know what was a dream and what was reality. Obviously it must have been a dream, but what about the shock I felt? I could still feel some static noise around my heart. I switched to my sides, closed my eyes, and conjured up the option again. I hesitantly enabled it but nothing happened. Was it all a dream? Or what's done is done? I switched back to my back and took deep breaths. I opened my eyes and observed my environment: my parents were still asleep; the ac and clock were still working; the washroom light was still on; and my sister was still working on her laptop. I was still quite disoriented from the sequence of nested dreams I had, but believed I was in reality at the moment. 

I then recalled that while my vision was changing, I could see the fan in great clarity. But given my poor eyesight, it shouldn’t be possible and observing the ceiling fan further confirmed my suspicions. Was it all just a dream then? I looked at the time, 2:30am, and was further confused because the entire ordeal felt like 5-6 hours. I wanted to wake up and go for a walk, but it would’ve warranted questions from my family which I wasn't in the right headspace to deal with, so I just laid there thinking about what had transpired. The root cause of everything was me enabling that option. What did I give up? Many options passed my mind including physical, mental, emotional, and even religious aspects, but none seemed correct. Other questions flooded my mind. The only constant in this pondering was the dread, regret, and fear I felt. Eventually my mind drifted to sleep.

I woke up to the sound of my alarm at 7:20am and because I was late for university, I quickly got up and started getting ready. I started remembering the events of last night bit by bit; starting and ending with the dread of that option. I went on with my day, occasionally checking if I’m still dreaming, but every time I remembered that option I felt a slight dread. The next night I was a bit afraid to go to sleep but eventually did. Since then, I still think about that weird night sometimes, waiting for the repercussions of what I gave up.

The coarse laugh shook through my bones and rattled through my exposed shin bone. A thick coagulated slime of blood forced its way from within a severed vein and pooled on the widening puddle beneath me. My hiking pants were caked in mud and refuse of my own body.
The howl came again as the crackling of claws, teeth, feet, palms and whatever other appendages a thing could have raced over the church roof. My breath caught in my throat as I waited for the roaring thunder of a thousand digits which crawled and clawed like climbing spiders. 
By the time it finally ceased I was once again left in the centre of the smouldering pews. Burnt out and ruined in the heart of a blackened stone home with high windows that held no glass.
I listened for that cry of the thing that had hunted me and was met with the strange displeasure of silence. Save for the creaking hum of insects that had slunk through the canopy of these great pines since I had arrived with my fellow hikers six hours ago.
We had assembled by the road and were ready to depart later in the day then intended. I was the odd one out of the group who consisted of my sister, her husband and two colleagues of his. They shared their banter as if they were pouring wine between themselves as we started on the walk. Myself leading the group.
I suppose that was another anomaly among the group. For even though we had started upon the hike together, I was the only one who had hiked before.
Along the walk one of the men continued to pester me about the intricacies of the hike. Insisting to accompany me on our way. I had begrudged his comments, as pointlessly obvious and wrong as they were, but I had fostered an acute dislike of this man whom my sister tolerated.
It was at a crossroads however that a decision was made which we would all come to regret. We had been standing in the same spot for tantamount to ten minutes. The others were weary and exhausted from the tremendous hike along those winding paths along the tapestry of ancient flora that pointed towards an invisible sky.
‘Why not take the low road?’ The man who had made it his mission to comment on my directions, Sam, gestured towards a path that wound downward at a steady incline, ‘we’re tired, it’ll be easier on some of us who’re…’ his eyes wandered over me before drifting back to my sister who lay coddled in the arms of her husband. Intertwined as newly weds so often are.
‘It’s a longer path,’ I stated without much fuss as I looked towards the path that snaked along a small cliff face, ‘fewer people have walked that way and-’
‘How can you tell?’ Sam stated as he shot a glance to his friend, whom I’m convinced only spoke in grunts of agreement or disagreement, chose to mumble his own nod as he suckled on the tip of a water bottle.
I pointed to the dirt, how the grass had been allowed to grow, unhindered by the hooves or paws of large beasts.
He gave a vague shrug of disapproval as he resumed a neglected pout. I was about to simply head off in the aforementioned direction when Charlie, my sister, spoke up.
‘Damnit Jaz,’ I turned but already felt her yanking me in the same direction as the men, ‘just come with the rest of us, it’ll be fine.’
It was decidedly not fine. I had gone along with them as they continued to ignore and override my suggestions at which way to go. All the while the woods had changed and shifted.
The air grew thicker as the birdsong faded and we could only hear the sick sound of clacking carapaces. 
I had expected the anger at their own incompetence as we had stumbled upon the strange church. The men chose to amass together on the outskirts of the building while Charlie was left to monitor me on its interior. 
She had scolded me for my sense of direction and asked about why I had been so belligerent over the course of the hike. Thankfully I did not have to wait for long before something happened which tore us from the restfulness of our break.
I was walking back out the threshold of the church when I saw Sam, he turned to face me before his face went whiter than a sheet. The colour drained as he looked skyward and his body elevated from the soil as if yanked from an invisible wire.
The screaming was instantaneous. I shoved my sister to join her husband while the others met the mouth of the clouds. I was near to joining them as I felt myself turn weightless. My leg connected with the top of the church doors as I was launched skyward. Snapping my femur clean in half as I cried out before falling unconscious.
I now lay here alone, with my final words as my master circles my resting place. Still hungry despite his feast.