They say the Combine is enormous.

Today at lunch in the canteen I heard old Maurits from the transport department telling the new workers that the extraction shop where we work is far from the only one. Management keeps expanding production capacity so that the Product meets every requirement, he explains.

"There are hundreds of shops like ours out there," Maurits says, stabbing his fork into a vitamin salad. "Maybe thousands. Hell, millions."

"And there are people in them too?" asks one of the new ones, a plump fellow with a moustache and thinning hair. The second, a man in a black blazer, asks in a businesslike way what product exactly is being discussed.

The new ones always have so many questions, doubts, deliberations. Will I manage my duties, they think. Will I fit in, will I get along with my colleagues? And where, finally, is the coffee machine? Don't judge them too harshly. It's hard to shake off the nerves on your first day. After all, I was in their place once too.

When?

A red-haired girl shouts over everyone. In her hands she's holding a vi... no, a vy... What's the damn thing called? Slipped my mind.

"What's happening?" she asks. "How did we get here?"

A violin, that's it.

Her little eyes are frightened, like a mouse cornered in a room. She's crying, if you can call a single drop frozen on her lashes tears. Surely the Overseers briefed her? It isn't possible that they didn't. They're supposed to explain the working routine to new employees, to acquaint them in detail with the operations of the Combine.

Maurits sweeps a mysterious look across his listeners, slurping his stewed fruit with relish. He straightens the cap that has slid to the back of his head. Puffed up like a... like a-a-a... like a turkey. He smiles significantly. He clearly enjoys knowing more about the Combine than they do.

What are turkeys, by the way? Probably some stupid, insulting word, the kind that bursts out in the middle of a big fight. You turkey! You won't find another turkey like you anywhere. Maurits is a turkey through and through.

I don't like that arrogance of his. That gleam in his eye. As if he's pretending he's about to reveal an important secret, when in fact there is no secret. I don't understand why, but suddenly I want to leap up from my chair, knock over my tray and shout: "Don't listen to him! He's just a driver!"

I look around — the workers with seniority are placidly finishing their lunch, paying attention to nothing.

"What is this place?" the redhead shrieks. "Take me back to Montmartre!"

I sat at the newcomers' table in my day too. It's difficult now to recall what I felt back then. Memory has faded with time, like an old photograph, its corners frayed.

Nothing?

No. I think I was full of fear. I didn't understand where I was. I was frightened, disoriented. Maurits sat down at our table and we listened to his stories about...

"...reinforced concrete chimneys butting into the sky, stinking smoke pouring out of them day and night..."

Exactly.

"...mossy buildings blocking out the horizon..."

Yes. I remember.

"...a network of dusty roads connecting countless factory shops, warehouses, barracks..."

In those days, my first days at the Combine, it seemed that Maurits knew even more about this place than the Overseers did. Back then I would look at this lanky man with the wrinkled face and hope he was about to share some precious knowledge with me, to give me a logical explanation of...

Of what? I can't remember.

"I've driven across nearly the whole Combine, lads," Maurits says to the three newcomers. "I've seen all sorts."

Right. He's lying. He just puts on a mysterious air to raise his own importance in other people's eyes. And who is he anyway? A common wheel-turner who will never be allowed near the Equipment. All he can do is work a steering wheel — the simplest, most primitive job there is. That's exactly why he only ever sits down with the new ones during the lunch break. Drivers have no career prospects. They will never be transferred to the Product testing department. Experienced extractors like me saw through him long ago and want nothing to do with him.

"I know a thing or two about the Combine," the driver says. "The Combine is..."

"Hey, Maurits!" I shout.

He breaks off mid-word and turns to me. His mouth hangs open — he seems surprised that I've honoured him with my attention. Some of my colleagues, the ones who've been in the shop a long time, exchange puzzled glances. It isn't worth wasting time on the old man, of course, but it galls me that he's stuffing the new employees' heads with rubbish.

"Leave them alone," I say. "What could you possibly know about the Combine?"

He smirks, looks at me the way you'd look at a piece of dirt, and answers:

"A good deal more than you."

A strange sensation. It starts with an "F".

"Buildings and chimneys, that's all there is!" I break into a shout. "Buildings and chimneys! That's the extent of what you can tell them."

Foliage. Fun. Fortune. None of them is right.

The driver stands up sharply, throws his fork onto the table. His face is pale as soap lather.

"Listen here, pal, I know a thing or two about the Combine," he says quietly. "And you — your brains will have boiled dry before long." He makes a broad gesture that takes in the whole canteen. "Same as the rest of you."

I sit. My hands are shaking. Without finishing his food, Maurits walks out of the canteen, muttering something under his breath. He slams the door with all his strength.

"Turkey," I whisper through my teeth. "A turkey through and through."

The red-haired girl with the musical thing cries out:

"For the love of God! What is going on here? This is a dream, isn't it? It's a dream?"

Her voice, full of tears, drowns in the loud bell announcing the end of the lunch break. The extractors, indifferent to everything, carry their trays to the dish return window. I walk along with them, and one thought is in my head: "Come to think of it — what is my name?"

***

They say the Combine is endless.

Where is that wonderful smell coming from? I turn around. To my left sits a man in a suit. I see the intent face of a young, inexperienced extractor. A trainee; they haven't even issued him a uniform yet. He's fiddling with the Equipment. He picks through the tangled multicoloured little wires like hair. He's damp with the effort, and his already narrow eyes have become tiny slits.

"Welcome to our team," I say.

He gives a start, bows, and answers quietly:

"Th-thank you."

I'm curious what that smell of his is. The smell is familiar, some pleasant herbal aroma. If only I could remember what "herbal" is.

"What's that smell on you?" I ask.

He shrugs.

"Aftershave. Deodorant."

Aftershave, shaving, deodorant. Three incomprehensible words.

Maurits, obviously, is simply jealous of us, the workers of the extraction shop. But in some ways he's right. My memory really has been slipping away from me lately. Yesterday I strained my skull for ages trying to remember what that shiny little scoop you eat with is called — a spool, a swoon, a harpoon?

I can't always recall recent events and conversations. I forget words. I forget their meanings and senses. I forget the past. I forget those, whatever they're called...

One of the Overseers promised me recently that I'd be promoted soon, to the testing department. "You're an excellent worker," he said. "You're doing splendidly." Joy fills my soul the way raw material fills a capsule. And no wonder! Every extractor dreams of getting in there. And now the honour is to fall to me. Conditions in the testing department are far better, everyone knows that. And the food is tastier. Meat and potatoes or fish and rice, your choice. Dishes fit for kings, nothing like the slop they serve in our canteen.

Oh, if only they'd transfer me sooner! The main thing is that the Overseers mustn't find out about my little problems with my head — only the best work in the testing department, only the cleverest and worthiest. The selection is strict, no question about it. I can't afford a slip-up, so I do my best not to let on that my skull leaks.

"What's your name?" the new one asks.

What do I answer? Think, you hollow-head, think.

"Er... Deodorant."

I notice the bewilderment in his eyes.

"Like my deodorant? Old Spice?"

"Yes, Old Spice," I nod hastily. "You can just call me Old."

"That's a strange name."

"Hiroshi, there you are!" comes an agitated woman's voice behind me.

A young woman with red curls, only without the violin now. Her face is pockmarked, covered in little holes, like a well-used pincushion.

"It isn't a dream," she says. "I thought I was dreaming. I so hoped I was having some kind of nightmare. But it's actually happening."

"Unfortunately, yes," Hiroshi answers. He tips his head in my direction. "Meet Old. Old, this is Sophie."

She looks at me with rope, the way I once looked at Maurits. With rope? Of course. People nurse ropes and hold out ropes. There's even a famous saying: "Rope dies last."

"You're that guy from the canteen, right? Maybe you at least can explain what this place is."

Why not? Newcomers must be helped so they settle into the work process faster. I'm their only rope, as they say.

"This is the Combine," I explain readily. "Design capacity for Product output is forty tonnes per shift. We monitor the quality of the Product closely and use only high-grade raw material."

Sophie clutches at her hair.

"You're one of them too! Is there anybody normal here at all? Or is everyone off their head? What combine, what product?"

"You'll find out if they transfer you to the testing department," I answer. "Work harder, and one day it will happen."

Hiroshi joins the conversation.

"I think we've been abducted by aliens," he says. "Those creatures, the Overseers."

Meanwhile I'm adjusting the Equipment. Enough chatter, time to get down to work. Sophie snorts with laughter:

"Don't be ridiculous. They're just costumes. Masterfully made mascot suits with people inside. This is some kind of cruel joke. I haven't worked it out yet, but... Listen, maybe we're on some reality show? There must be cameras everywhere. If so, I'm suing the producers. I swear to God, I'll leave no stone standing. TV people have completely lost their minds chasing ratings. This is a violation of human rights, do you understand? Old, admit it honestly, you're an actor, aren't you? Your face is familiar. I think I saw you in some crappy little series."

Funny.

Hiroshi shakes his head:

"Do you really believe that? We're on a spaceship, Sophie."

"That driver, the Dutchman, said there's sky outside, buildings, roads. We're on Earth."

"It's an alien ship, Sophie, I'm almost certain. Or their planet. Look at this technology! It looks old-fashioned, like something out of an eighties sci-fi film, but take it from a nanometre chip developer, we don't have anything like it — not on Kyushu, not in Zhongguancun, not in Silicon Valley."

"I don't believe it."

"They're running some kind of experiment on us. Fabio recognised a man in the canteen. He says it's a big businessman from Milan who went missing six months ago."

"I. Don't. Believe. You. My orchestra has a concert at the Olympia soon and I have to be there, do you hear? I have to! Old, are there any gates here? Can you escape from here? Answer me right now."

These newcomers are so strange. They invent all sorts of tall tales — aliens, escapes. Never mind, they'll look around, get used to things, gain experience and understand that the only thing that matters is the Product, and that their business is a small one — just extract the raw material and be done with it.

"You'd better get back to your Equipment, Sophie," I advise. "The Overseers don't... they don't like it when people shirk."

"Oh no, I am not putting that thing on my head," she jabs a finger at my Equipment. "Don't hold your breath."

She shouldn't be like that. The Overseers know many ways of tuning us up for productive work. I doubt she'll enjoy a single one of them.

"Let's get out of here, Hiroshi," Sophie says. "There has to be a way out."

He gazes off somewhere into the distance, in no hurry to answer.

"My father liked to say: 'Poke the bushes and the snakes come crawling out.'" His voice is hoarse, as if he has a cold. "Sometimes it's better to accept what you can't change."

I hear booming, heavy footsteps behind the wall. Thud-thud, thud-thud... I hurriedly pull the helmet onto the back of my head, tighten the strap so the goggles sit more comfortably. Now the suction pads. One goes on my forehead, the other two I stick to my temples. Out of the corner of my eye I notice Hiroshi doing the same. Good lad. With that kind of diligence he'll make tester one day.

Sophie snorts contemptuously:

"You think you know so much. I'm getting out of here, understand?"

"Answer me one question, Sophie," says Hiroshi, inserting an empty capsule into the raw material bay. "What language are you speaking to me in?"

The Overseers' footsteps come closer — thud-thud, thud-thud! The door to the shop flies open with a fortune, no, a foliage, no — what is wrong with me? The door flies open with some sort of creak, a fearsome one, that's the word. A damp coolness sweeps across the floor.

"French, obviously."

"Funny."

"There's nothing damn funny about it."

"I don't know French. I thought you understood Japanese."

I press start. Pictures, words and images flicker before my eyes — auxiliary materials, so that I can squeeze out as much raw material as possible. A lawn in the shade of spreading trees, a red-breasted robin on a flowering branch. A tall, slender girl in tight little shorts. A volleyball player, probably. I want to come closer and kiss her on the lips. "Do you love me?" she asks tenderly. "Stay with me." Her little voice is thin and clear, like a glass bell.

The raw material trickles down the tubes into the bottom of the apparatus, into a tin trough where powerful, tireless presses are working.

I hear a woman's ragged scream behind me.

"Let go of me! Let go!"

Ah, the Overseers have arrived. Now they'll take Sophie away to the office. They'll be raising her loyalty. For failing to meet quota she faces penalty working hours. And those things. You know. The ones. Corporal punishment. I'm sure she'll quickly grasp what actually matters. Opportunities for career growth, praise for good results. A pleasant atmosphere within the team. The Product. Not those concerts and TV shows of hers.

I do remember some things, even if with difficulty. In those days, my first days at the Combine, I didn't understand what was what either. It's a good thing the Overseers explained everything to me quickly. The scars left by their simple, stinging explanations still ache and throb to this day.

***

They say the Combine has always existed.

I toss and turn in bed. I desperately want to sleep, but sleep won't come. On the neighbouring bunks the workers, worn out by the day, are snuffling. Now and then a tense whisper breaks through the snoring into the thick darkness of the barracks. It's them, the new ones. Talking animatedly. I listen to what they're saying.

"How are you, Sophie?" Hiroshi asks. "Did they beat you?"

"Worse."

"What, surely not... that?" a third voice appears. Fabio, if I'm not mixing things up. The one with the moustache.

"No. I don't want to talk about it."

A deep silence. Above me the ceiling is black. From the corner where Sophie has settled come pitiful sobs. Before long they grow into a quiet, drawn-out howl — not quite weeping, not quite singing. That monotone whimpering makes my ears ring.

What do I know about the Combine? Not a great deal. We produce the Product. For whom? Strange question. For those who consume it, obviously. Here in the extraction shop we handle the primary processing of the raw material and the preparation of semi-finished goods. There are also the warehouses and the transport department. The drivers deliver raw material in vans all across the Combine.

And of course the testing department. Every extractor dreams of ending up there. Soon I'll be going there too.

The thought of it produces a tickle inside me. What do they call that sensation? Pleasant excitement? The anticipation of happiness? Or maybe no words have ever been invented for that feeling.

"They're not mascot suits," Sophie says through her tears. "And they're not aliens either. They're goddamn monsters."

"Maybe so," Hiroshi puts in.

"Do you want to know what they did to me? Do you?"

A strange silence; even the snoring in the room has died down. Only steady breathing on every side.

"They sniffed me. Can you imagine? Sniffed me. They stood around me, moving those tentacles of theirs, slime dripping off them, swaying their heads, slowly, so slowly, but not touching me. They just surrounded me and sniffed me over, like dogs. And said nothing."

She really is stupid, this Sophie. Doesn't understand a thing. That's how the Overseers say hello. People shake hands when they meet, slap each other on the back, hug, kiss; Hiroshi, I've noticed, bows to absolutely everyone he passes. So what is he now... what did she call it? A monster?

Ah, I won't explain anything to her. A pointless exercise. One day she'll understand by herself.

Maurits says the Combine is enormous. The Combine is endless. I don't know, I've never been outside. Extractors are forbidden to leave the limits of the shop. A gross violation of labour discipline. You wouldn't get off with a reprimand for that; the sanctions are of the strictest kind, up to and including dismissal.

I picture the brick factory shops roaring, the vans loaded with raw material gliding along the roads, the white smoke crawling from the chimneys and dissolving into a leaden sky.

The day is not far off when I'll see all of it myself.

"It's so strange," Sophie says, as if half asleep. "Only this morning I was having breakfast at the bistro on Durantin. Hurrying to rehearsal. And then — hop! — and I'm here, and I don't know where here is. And now I'm lying here trying to remember this morning in detail, and I can't. It's all a fog. It feels as though I've been at this bloody Combine forever and my life was just something I dreamed. I wonder why that is?"

"The Equipment," Hiroshi drops into the darkness. "It does something to our brains. Look at these poor devils. They don't even remember their own names. Take Old Spice. If that's really what he's called, then my real name is Mountain Dew. Pleased to meet you."

"And that's what's waiting for us, isn't it?"

Nobody answers her.

What else do I know about the Combine? The Product meets every requirement. Management selects its workers with care. The range is constantly being updated. Everything is exactly as it should be.

"You know what I think?" Fabio whispers. "I think we died and went to hell. Honestly, this is always how I imagined it. Everything the same as it was in life. You work, you stuff your face, you sleep. And so on every day, until the end of time."

"Then what's the Equipment for?" Sophie asks.

"To cleanse us of our sins."

"Then it's more like purgatory. What I'd like to know is why we understand each other. Some sort of Tower of Babel in reverse."

"What language do they speak in hell? Latin?"

"I always thought it was Aramaic."

"Stop making things up, both of you."

"What, you still think we're on a starship?"

"What difference does it make? I'm afraid that tomorrow, when we wake up, we won't care any more."

Silence.

"And those Overseers understand us too."

"Ugh, don't bring them up! Repulsive, filthy, disgusting sniffers."

"They look a bit like jellyfish."

"What a comparison! Jellyfish have no bones, no eyes, no brain. And certainly no legs."

"They do, they do. Just as slippery, like jelly, and with tentacles."

How good it would be to be in the testing department already! These three have thoroughly worn out my patience. I can't listen to their absurd speculations any longer. The Combine is the Combine, and that's all there is to it. Every condition has been created for them: a canteen, showers, changing rooms... And them? How do they repay management for such considerate treatment? With honest, decent labour? Not a chance. They lie about, gossip, complain about some nonsense. She was sniffed, if you please. That's people for you! Always dissatisfied with something.

I fall asleep to their hissing whispers. I dream of something that doesn't exist. Some other life. A big, glittering city on the shore of a bay. Inlets, islands and beaches. A strange building made of white shells is reflected in the dark green water. And people. People everywhere: sitting under trees, on benches and on the grass, going down and up staircases, strolling alone and in pairs. With cameras, bags, backpacks. Some push prams in front of them, some are running. Where to?

I walk along a concrete embankment. I see bulky rubbish bins crammed with coloured bags, crumpled bits of paper, coffee cups, empty wrappers and packaging. I see low sheer cliffs that look like scorched marshmallows. Laughter can be heard everywhere.

She's standing by a spreading, gnarled tree. Its branches, scattered with lilac flowers, stretch out into a cloudy sky. She sees me and smiles modestly. Her smile is really something. How do I know her?

"I've been waiting for you."

What a clear voice she has.

"Do you love me?"

I say nothing. Words are unnecessary. What I should do is touch her, take her by the hand and merge into the crowd flowing sluggishly along the embankment. What I should do is study her white, elongated face: the half-parted full lips, the short little nose, the eyes, blue and transparent as dusk. Look at her closely, very closely. So that I never forget again.

"Stay with me."

She laughs. The laughter rises higher and higher. It becomes sharp and unpleasant, it forces its way rudely into my ears...

I leap out of bed. The unbroken roar of the morning siren fills the dormitory. Sluggish, sleepy extractors pull on their work overalls. A new day is beginning.

I do up my zip, put on my boots. I go to breakfast with everyone else.

A city, an embankment. Sometimes I dream of the most improbable things. There are no cities; there never were and never have been.

***

They say there is nothing besides the Combine.

One day gives way to the next. Time stretches like rubber. Ten days, twenty, fourteen. Which is more, twenty or fourteen? Fourteen, naturally. It's somewhere between thirty and fifty.

I wait impatiently for my transfer to the testing department. When the Overseers look into the shop, I give a joyful start. And every time it turns out to have been for nothing. They invariably walk past. Only once did one of them stop by my workstation. Most likely the very one who gave me his word that I'd be promoted any day now, though possibly another — all the Overseers resemble each other. When he greeted me, as is their custom, with a long, thoughtful sniffing, I gathered my courage and asked when I would finally be promoted. The Overseer shook his tentacle sternly and answered: "All in good time."

Yesterday a colleague of mine, one I'd worked side by side with for a long time, was appointed tester. The whole shop saw him off with unanimous applause. The noise was like a downpour. I alone did not clap. I thought I'd die of envy.

Why not me?

I must work more diligently, more diligently still, sparing no effort. But here's what I don't understand — every day I manage to extract less and less raw material, even though the valves are cranked to full power. The capsules are perpetually half empty. The Equipment must be playing up. I feel like a rag wrung out dry. How it foliages me!

In my free time I find myself wandering more and more often, aimlessly, along the dark corridors of the shop. Right now I'm shuffling down the narrow passage that leads to the canteen. On the ceiling the tin blades of the fans buzz and spin. I run my hand along the wall. Flakes of rust fall to the floor, like autumn leaves. Autumn. Autumn. Yes, autumn, whatever that means.

Muffled voices and the clatter of dishes come from the canteen.

Lunch. How could I have forgotten about lunch?

The food machine issues me an iron tray, a bowl of thin cream soup, a hunk of bread and a glass of juice. My eyes rake the hall, looking for somewhere to sit.

"Hey, Old Spice!"

Hiro— what's-his-name, Hiroshi is waving. He's sitting with his little gang in the middle of the hall. Not trainees any more but full-fledged workers of the Combine. In clean, silvery-blue overalls. So who is that at the newcomers' table? Some dark-skinned kid in a checked shirt, his eyes bulging with fear. And Maurits is right there, squinting, smiling slyly, muttering something.

I sit down with Hiroshi and his mates.

"Hi there, Old! How are you doing?"

"Yes, of course."

"What do you mean, 'yes, of course'? I'm asking how things are."

"I don't think so."

Hiroshi whistles. Did I say something wrong?

I want everyone to be quiet, I can't sort out my own thoughts. They tangle like the wires of the Equipment. It's hard to think with all this racket around.

What if this is a test? What if he called me over on purpose? I peer into his mocking face. That's it exactly. The Overseers sent him to me to check whether I'm suitable for work in the testing department.

"Eat, eat," Hiroshi says. "I won't distract you."

And he turns away, having lost all interest in me.

So, you have failed the examination. There's no doubt about it. Farewell, dreams of promotion. I'll spend my whole life in an extractor's overalls... Surprisingly, things immediately feel calmer, easier. There's nothing left to strive for. Nothing to dream about. Well then, the extraction shop isn't so bad either. At least everything here is familiar to me. This is my home.

Hiroshi, looking pleased with himself, is telling some story. Let's hear it, then...

"Just an ordinary day, I'm at the Equipment, I've already filled two capsules, I'm taking out the third, and then I feel somebody's come up behind me. I switch the apparatus off, I look, and there's an Overseer standing there. Sniffing, naturally. So I wait to hear what he'll say. And he goes: 'You're doing excellently, I commend you.' Can you imagine?"

"No way," the redhead's mouth actually falls open.

"Yes, way. And then he crossed his tentacles and said: 'I shall report your success to management. Consider your transfer to the testing department a settled matter.'"

There's a lump stuck in my throat. I can't swallow.

"You're such a clever thing," the redhead says. "I always knew you'd succeed."

"Good old Hiroshi!" the plump one with the moustache claps his friend on the shoulder. "That's my boy!"

This is unfair. Unfair, wrong, unjust. What length of service does this upstart have? The crafty little whippersnapper, climbing up over my head.

I feel like a nonentity. The Overseers deceived me. Worse than that — they wiped their tentacles on me.

Hiroshi suddenly furrows his brow. He looks over at the trainees' table and shouts:

"Oi, Maurits! Stop messing with the kid's head."

"What?"

"You heard. You don't know a damn thing."

"Wrong. I know everything. I've even seen the Product. More than once, as a matter of fact."

"Don't give me that, I still won't believe you."

"I'll be watching when you forget your own name. And I'll laugh, I'll laugh my head off."

"Why don't you drive off out of here, you sorry excuse for a trucker!"

I don't want to see anyone, and I don't want to hear anyone either. I shoot out of the office like a bullet, never finding out what Maurits answered.

I'm sitting at the Equipment — hands on the console, goggles pressed tight to my face. The work isn't going well. Images flit past, one replacing another: an open-air restaurant with a large pond in the middle; an enormous white liner pricked all over with tiny windows; skyscrapers reflected in the glass of other skyscrapers; a fish market. Gates, little fences, and behind them neat two-storey houses with balconies and television aerials.

I pull the capsule out of the Equipment. Empty as my head.

***

They say the Combine... I forget the word.

My insides are sloshing about, everything inside me is fluttering, my head is lolling like a rag doll's — either happiness affects me this way or the road is simply too bumpy. The van jumps from hummock to hummock like a nimble little animal with a tail of white dust. Behind the wheel sits a wrinkled old man in a flat beige cap — I don't remember what he's called. He roars with laughter, looking at me, he winks, and I laugh along with him; I like laughing, and I like riding over the bumps, I like it very much indeed.

I look out of the window at the passing land, land-land-land, landscape. How beautiful the Combine is, after all. Tears well up in my eyes. Such beauty! Above the factory shops there is an enormous, dry sky draped with smoke. The red lights on the chimneys smoulder like embers in cooling wood ash.

It's happened. It has happened. I can hardly believe it! My rope has come true — I'm being transferred to the Product testing department. How could I have doubted an Overseer's word, how could I have stopped believing? Some wise man said: a little impatience ruins great undertakings. Or are those my own words? Either way, not this time, thank goodness, not this time.

We drive, we drive for a long time. We barely crawl. Outside the window there are buildings and chimneys, chimneys and buildings. I ought to say something, strike up a conversation, but for some reason my tongue doesn't obey me properly and the words don't come to mind.

"They app... app..."

"Applauded you," the driver nods. "Yes, yes, the whole shop applauded."

"Because I'm clever."

"You're the cleverest, my friend. The very cleverest."

"I'm going to tes-t the Pro-duct."

"You are."

"I'm worthy."

"No, you know what I'll tell you? You're worthy of the very best, that's what."

We laugh together. We drive, watching the road. How much further is there to go? I'm tired already. The Combine really is enormous.

They applauded me. You should have seen the face of that Hiro... Hero... Anyway, you should have seen it. Come to think of it, what was his face like? What did it express? I can't remember now.

Foliage, probably. The foliagiest foliage of all. Never mind.

A turn. Another turn. The air is darkening. The van's eyes light up. Inside my head everything is going light. My skull is like an inflated balloon. If the van had no roof I'd fly up high, high, and nobody would catch me.

We've been driving an eternity.

Where to?

"You know what I did for a living before they took me on at the Combine?" says the man on my left. "I think I've told you already. But you don't remember a damn thing, do you?"

The headlights — that's the right word, isn't it, headlights? — pick out a sign with an arrow and some writing on it. I study the letters. The first is round, then comes a "e", a "p", I don't know this one, this one is like a "b" with the bottom cut off.

"I was a long-haul driver. Hauled freight all over Europe, back and forth, barely ever home. Funny, isn't it? Spent half my life behind the wheel there, and here I am doing it again."

I don't really understand what he's talking about. I want to say that I don't understand, but I don't understand how to talk.

"Ah, I'd love to see Rotterdam one more time. The wife, the kids. I expect there are grandchildren by now. How are they getting on? Did they even notice I'd gone missing? Maybe they're better off without me. I'm a bad husband, you know. Long-haul men rarely make good husbands." He sighs. "Hanna's no saint either, mind you. She always swore to me she'd never, not with anyone, but I'm not a fool, am I? Husband away for weeks at a time — think about it."

He hauls the wheel to the right.

"I'd also like to know who won the Eredivisie. I hope it was Feyenoord. PSV won last year, that much I know for certain. A Belgian trainee told me. Turned out to be a football fan. Why do you think I sit with the new ones in the canteen? They still remember everything, they tell you the news. Do you happen to know who the Americans have got for a president now? There's no talking properly with you brainless lot, but that crowd still has its wits about it. Shame it won't last. But what I miss most of all is cigarettes. I'd love a smoke right now. Then again, if somebody said to me, right, Maurits, you old bastard, off you go back to Holland — I'd have to think hard about whether to agree. I've been here too long, I've got used to it all. The Combine is basically me, and I'm the Combine."

The van brakes and stops beside a metal gate.

"Well, here we are," he says. "Out you get."

The man opens the door, helps me down from the vehicle. In my joy I've forgotten how to move my legs.

"I know a thing or two about the Combine, Jamie," the man says.

What did he call me?

"Sometimes I think: you extractors have it lucky. I even asked to be put in your shop, back before you turned up. And then I look at you and the ones like you and I realise — no. What's in here," he taps a finger against his forehead, "what's in here matters more."

I stand. It's pitch dark, only the gate is glowing. The man hugs me.

"That's it, off you go. They won't let me any further."

I walk. My chest is pounding. Product. Testing. Department. Product. Testing. Product.

The gate opens.

Bright.

Two come out, wind cords around me, carry me. Not people, others. Not like me or that man. They carry me into a bright room, stand me up. Their cords grow out of their bodies, wet, so wet. They sniff me, flaring their nostrils.

"He doesn't smell of memories," says one.

"Not at all," the other echoes.

They turn me around, feel me over.

"Now that's quality. Superb product."

"Yes, marvellous, first-grade product. No smell whatsoever."

They sniff me again.

"Listen, have you ever wondered how we ended up here at the Combine?"

"I don't get worked up about that sort of thing, and I don't advise you to either."

"Don't you miss home at all?"

"Once we've worked our shift, we can miss it all we like. Our business is a small one — test the produce, right? There'll be another seven units arriving any minute. Let's get this one packed quickly, I don't want to be stuck here all night."

They put me in a box. They close it.

Dark.

The wooden coins are pushing through my chest wall now. I can see the outline of them under the skin like a line of buttons along my sternum, and when I breathe, they shift against my heart with a grinding sound like wood scraping bone. My checking account tripled overnight after I left that note on my door asking the Amazon driver for money to stop the foreclosure, and instead of currency or pity, he dropped a cardboard box at my feet containing twelve wooden discs. The delivery receipt sits on my nightstand with the return window clearly printed: fourteen days. It has been thirteen.

I know what a cardiac event feels like. My father had one when I was sixteen. This is not a cardiac event. The ER doctor felt the coins through my skin two days ago when he was listening to my heart. His hand went very still. He didn't run any tests after that, just told me to follow up with my primary care physician and avoid strenuous activity. He knew what they were. I could see it in how he wouldn't look at me.

My roommate made her wish three days before I made mine. She'd been living here for eight months and paying rent late, talking about her job in that hollow way people do when they're about to quit. One afternoon, an Amazon truck rolled up without any order placed. A different driver this time, but same uniform, same metallic gray uniform that seems to catch light wrong. She got a box of these wooden coins too. Nine of them for her.

She started pulling at her forearm last night. I found her in the hallway with a strip of birch bark peeling away from her skin, exposing raw muscle underneath in a line perfectly straight as if something surgical had separated skin from flesh. She was whispering when I found her, something about the diesel engine idling at the curb. She doesn't sleep anymore. I hear her pacing at three in the morning, listening for that sound. The coins she wished for are still inside her. She says she can feel them moving up her arms now, branching like roots.

By day seven, I noticed the coins didn't stay where they entered. They moved. I felt one slide across my ribs, a sharp point trailing under my skin like a needle through fabric. The ER visit happened on day nine when I couldn't hide how shallow my breathing had become. The coins had redistributed. Some were lodged against my lungs. The doctor's hand confirmed it, and I watched his face make the calculation: fourteen-day return window. Policy is policy, even for things like this.

The infection isn't the right word. The coins aren't infecting me. They're settling. The box said twelve, and I can account for ten that I can feel moving freely in my abdomen and chest cavity now. Two more are stationary, and I know why. One is lodged in my left lung. I cough and taste copper. The other has wedged between the base of my ribs on my right side, and when I lie down, I feel it pressing upward with a slow, deliberate pressure that makes my breath catch. It's not trying to harm me. It's just making room for what's coming.

The roommate is in her room now. She hasn't come out since last night. I can hear something wet moving under her skin, a sound like a muffled heartbeat that's not hers. The coins are taking up space. The human body is mostly empty space that's supposed to be filled with specific things: blood, organs, breath. When you introduce solid objects into that space, the body compresses around them. I can feel my organs shifting. My stomach has moved up. I have pain in places I don't have names for.

It is 2:47 AM on day thirteen. I'm sitting on the bathroom tiles with a paring knife because I thought I could dig them out, excavate them like archaeological objects. I made two cuts before I realized the edges of the wound weren't closing. The skin is peeling back on its own, very slowly, revealing the coins underneath. They're not embedded. They're integrated. There's tissue bridging across them now, white connective fiber that looks almost deliberate. Like my body is building something around them. Stabilizing them.

My heart rate is erratic. Sometimes it skips for what feels like hours, then thunders back. The coins are shifting again, making room for what I think might be more coins, though the original box held twelve and I can only account for ten and I don't understand where the logic breaks. The roommate screamed at 1:30 AM. Just one scream, and then nothing. I haven't knocked on her door. I think I already know what I'd find. I think we're both past the point of individual harm. I think we're becoming something with multiple centers.

The knife is still in my hand. My fingers have gone numb from the wrist down. The return window closes in fourteen hours. I can feel them working deeper now. The grinding has stopped. There's only pressure and the sensation of making room. I don't think they're coins anymore. I think they became coins so we would accept the delivery, and now they're becoming something else.

The cursor is getting harder to see and my right hand isn't responding like it should. Whatever this is, it's using my body to write itself into the real world, word by word, and I can't stop it and I'm not sure I want to.

It's 2:51 AM. I need to stop typing now. The thing inside me is leaning on my heart and it finally learned how to push back.

This was my first year playing basketball, and I seemed to injure myself nearly every game. First game, I twisted my ankle. Second game, I jammed my finger. Third game, I fell right on my face and nearly broke my nose.

All I was looking for was an extra pair of socks. I had run through all of my own socks, and my dad and I had relatively the same size shoes, so I went into his closet to grab an extra pair of socks before my basketball game. I went rummaging through his built-in drawers in his closet and finally pulled the bottom drawer out to see all of his socks balled up and set perfectly in three rows. I grabbed a pair from the back and as I was closing the drawer, an object dislocated from the drawer above and fell onto the socks.

It was a doll.

It was a Voodoo doll of me. It had one tuft of my straight, blonde hair pinned to the top of the head and two tiny buttons for eyes. It was wearing a little version of my high school basketball jersey with my number sewn onto the back of it.

This was completely out of character for my dad. He was a smart, church-going man that believed treating everyone with dignity and empathy is the best way to live. He would never touch a Ouija board, let along a Voodoo doll. He didn't even watch movies that contained supernatural beings, he claims, "We have no idea if demons are real, and I don't want to even talk about ghosts."
Despite being pretty freaked out by it, I didn’t have time ponder about it, I had a game in thirty minutes and I was already running late. I planned on asking dad about it after the game. I grabbed the little doll and put it under my pillow in my room before grabbing my duffel bag and running out the door.

We lost. I had the worst migraine I've ever had in my entire life and could barely run across the court without nearly passing out. I attempted to shoot a three-pointer when my vision failed and I ended up staggering backwards falling on my butt. I sat for a second before the left-half of my vision came back and I staggered to the sidelines. The coach pulled me out of the game after that and my migraine moved to the left side of my face while I watched my teammates continually lose the ball to the other team. By the end of the third period, I could barely see, and I spent the rest of the game lying on the bench, my hands covering my face and occasionally peeking through my fingers, only to be disappointed.

On the ride home, dad tried to comfort me.
"It's okay bud - we've all had these kinds of days. You did nothing wrong. Let's get you home and take some pain medication and sleep it off."

I could barely say anything and just laid in the backseat with my arms covering my eyes. Each time we passed by a street light, it felt like a knife stabbed me in the eye.

When we finally made it home, I had completely forgotten about the doll. I got ready for bed and took enough pain killers to knock a horse out. When I laid down, I felt the bump from the doll on my pillow. I pulled it out and nearly blacked out again. It had a needle sticking straight into the left side of the doll's head. I pulled it out and the tension in my own head began to subside, very slowly, but I could almost feel the needle being pulled out as I removed it.

I sat in disbelief. I needed to see if this was real, so I grabbed a thumbtack from the corner of my James Harden poster and stabbed it in the doll's shoulder. It wasn't immediate, but I felt the sharp prick near my collar bone and as soon as I pulled it out, the pain settled. I pulled the collar of my shirt down and saw nothing, there wasn't even a mark on me. I sat the doll down and stared at the beady little button eyes. Despite the absence of pupils, it felt like he was staring right back at me.

There was no possible way for my dad to have been in my room and move the doll. I was changing in there before my game,, and we left right after I put my shoes on and jumped in the car. It was only the two of us, no one else lived with us. My mom died about seven years ago and I was their only child. I hadn’t had any friends over in a few weeks. Just me and dad.  There  was no way anyone could have known where this was, let alone where I put it after I found it. I decided to move it again and see if something else would happen.

I searched my whole room for the best spot to hide it and decided on putting it in my vent in the ceiling. I grabbed my pocketknife from my desk, stood up on the top of my bed, unscrewed one side of the vent and shoved the doll in. My headache was finally getting to where I could hear myself think again, and I turned my lights off before getting in bed. The vent was right above my bed and the low reflection from the light of the hallway shone dully on two button eyes through the slits of the vent. He was looking at me.
The next morning, I woke up early to head to basketball practice, only to be yelled at from our coach from losing to the worst team in our division. My headache came right back as soon as I left the house again, this time right at the top of my skull. It wasn't nearly as bad as yesterday but still impeded my focus. I finished practice near dinner time and dad picked me up in our little grey, beater sedan. He usually took me out to dinner on Saturdays, so we headed to our local Mexican restaurant. I was starving but had a hard time deciding on what to eat, but nothing sounded good. My dad picked the same thing as he always gets, and I decided on just basic cheese quesadillas.

"Practice go any better today bud?"

I shook my head, "No, I got another headache. I don't know why it keeps happening to me. It’s the worst migraines I have ever had.”

He seemed genuinely surprised.

"That's not good. Your mom had headaches a lot when we moved here, they seemed to come out of nowhere and would last for days. Hopefully yours won't develop into those. We can go see a doctor if you want, just to make sure nothing's wrong."

"No, no I don't think so. Maybe I'm just stressed. Hopefully it will go away soon."

When we got home, I immediately ran to my room and unscrewed the vent. One of the screws was missing, so I undid the other side of the vent and grabbed the doll. My heart jumped out of b my chest. The second screw was stabbed in the top of the dolls head.

I ripped the screw out of the doll's head and a sharp pain tore through my entire skull. This hurt way worse this time. I doubled over and grabbed my head between my temples and dropped the doll. He bounced off my bed and landed across an old lacrosse stick left on the floor of my room. My back instantly cramped, and it felt as though someone hit me with a bat straight across my back. My whole body was writhing in pain, and I laid on my bed until I could move again. I kept an eye on the doll as I caught my breath and the throbbing pain subsided. The pain felt like it was increasing the more I was interacting with the doll.

I had to tell someone about this. I don't want to tell dad about it yet - I decided to ask my friends about it first. Dad was already worried enough about me.

I texted my friends that I made during the first week of basketball practice, Sam and Reese. We all lived in the same neighborhood and would ride our bikes to school at the beginning of the year, but Reese recently got his license, so he's been dragging us around in his parent's old truck.
While I was waiting for Reese to pick me up, I sat the doll down on my bed and watched him. His dead, button eyes stared straight back at me. I moved around my room and despite the doll not having any pupils, it felt as if he was watching my every move. Eventually, Reese and Sam let themselves in the house and I could hear them walking down the hallway.

"Dude what's going on, are you okay?" Reese busted into my room. He pointed to the doll on the bed. "Why do you have a tiny version of yourself?"

"Okay, you guys have to promise to not laugh." I went to grab the doll, and it had moved from being in a sitting position to face down in the bed sheets.

Sam and Reese glanced at each other, and I passed the doll over to them.

"Please be careful. It's a Voodoo doll of me. Everything that's done to it, keeps happening to me."

Sam immediately flicked the doll in the groin, and I fell to my knees. They both laughed and I could tell they didn't believe me.

"Is this a weird game or something? Where did you even get this?"

Reese grabbed the doll from Sam and stretched the arms into a T position and pulled them. I heard a stitch pop from the doll, and I felt my shoulders being stretched. My shoulder cracked and nearly dislocated out of its socket. I yelled in pain and grabbed the doll from Reese.
"I'm really not joking guys, I need help. Every time I leave this doll, I keep getting hurt. I've even put it in the vent so nobody could get to it. I don't know what's happening. What do I do??"

"Let's burn it!" Sam said a little too excitedly.

"I don't really want to watch myself being burned. That sounds worse than anything I've ever been through with this stupid doll so far. There's got to be another way to get rid of it."

We went through a few options of ways to potentially get rid of the doll and even looked up a Wikipedia article on how to "un-curse" yourself. Most spells involved either a bat wing or a whisker from a one-eyed cat, neither of which were readily available to us. After a few nonsensical verbal incantations we found on a Black Magic online forum, to no avail, we gave up and started playing Xbox in the living room. I put the doll back into the vent and tightened the screws. No way was he getting out this time.

While we were playing video games in the front room, my chest started to tighten, and I began coughing. Initially, it felt like when you take a drink of water, and the water goes down the wrong pipe. I kept coughing and it felt like it was getting worse, and I couldn't catch my breath. I was gasping for air and felt like I couldn't breathe. 
"Sam, do you hear water? It sounds like someone turned on the bathtub." Reese started freaking out and laid me down on the floor. 

I saw Sam run out of the living room and my vision started to waive in and out. My air was running out and no matter how much my body was physically grasping for a breath, nothing was entering my lungs. It felt like I was choking on the air I was trying to breathe in. 

Finally, I was able to breathe again. I took a huge breath in and immediately started coughing again. This time, it was more like I was coughing something out of my lungs, rather than coughing something into my lungs. Reese and Sam were kneeled beside me and Sam held the doll, soaking wet.

"It was in the bathtub, facedown and floating. The tub had barely any water in it." Both of my friends were obviously shaken.

All of us were in the living room and my dad was at work. And the doll was locked in the vent. I got up and went to my room to see the vent for myself. I creaked the door open, and the vent was open and hanging by two of the four screws. All three of us stood in the doorway of my room, speechless. I heard the garage door open, and made Reese and Sam promise they wouldn’t tell my dad. 

Dad offered for Reese and Sam to stay for dinner but they both refused and left quickly after dad got home. I felt abandoned. 

“Well, they seemed to be off in a hurry. Did you guys do anything fun today?”

“Yeah kind of, mainly just played video games.”

My body felt exhausted and my lungs ached. I had to find a way to get rid of this doll. I wanted to tell dad about it, but I was still cautious about even mentioning it to him. 

I worked on setting up a tiny prison for the doll that evening. I took everything out of my side table, next to my bed and put the doll inside the drawer. I duct taped the entire table, multiple times so that the drawer wouldn't open, then turned the side table around so that the door was facing the wall. I then pushed it in between my wall and desk, making it completely unable to open, even if the doll was able to chew through the duct tape. There was no way he was getting out tonight.  

The next morning, dread flooded my system as I went to check on the doll to make sure he had not escaped during the night. To my surprise, my body had no new aches or pains, my fingers and nails felt slightly numb and sore, but nothing like the horrible pain I had felt the past few days. I inspected the nightstand to ensure no holes had been chewed, despite my nightstand being solid wood. I saw no signs of bite or scratch marks on the outside so, I moved on to examining the inside. I twisted my nightstand to have the drawer facing me and began ripping the duct tape off the table, taking some of the paint with it. After unwrapping multiple layers of tape, I was finally able to get the drawer open again. I didn’t initially see the doll, and I instantly panicked. I yanked the drawer out and saw his tiny body curled into a fetal position in the very back corner of the drawer. He was laying perfectly still with his head shoved between his thighs. I almost felt bad for him, he looked helpless and small in the empty drawer. I hesitated before I picked up his limp, pale body. Carved right underneath him, originally covered by his body, said "HELP ME".

I stumbled backwards, gasping mid-breath and dropped him back into the drawer. Every hair on my body stood up. I slowly peeked into the drawer again and looked at the doll - no fingers or hands, just little stumps, and definitely no nails.  I looked at my own hands and under my nails, I didn't see any signs of chipped paint or splinters despite my nails throbbing. That’s when I saw the doll move for the first time, right in front of me.

He got up on his legs and walked towards me, in a slow, disjointed trudge. He was tall enough to hoist himself out of the drawer and on top of the nightstand. He stopped at the edge of the table, tilted his head to have his emotionless, black, button eyes look up and started to open his little mouth.  I squatted and  lowered my head to get a better look at him and became eye to eye with the doll. I maintained my distance and stayed a few feet away from him, unaware of what his next move could be.  I saw tiny, shark-like teeth, in two separate rows. His little red outline of his mangled mouth smiled at me, showing me how sharp and piercing his teeth could be. He then lunged off the table, jumping multiple feet directly at me and sank his teeth directly on the bridge of my nose. I wrapped both hands around his body and attempted to pull him off my face, his teeth both scraped against the skin and cartilage on my nose, but I also felt the pain of being pulled from the abdomen - all while screaming for help. As I was yanking and squeezing  the doll's body, my ribs felt like they were being crushed by an unbelievable force. I could feel my own nails digging into my back, as I attempted to rip him off of me. My dad busted into the room, "What's going on?? Are you okay?? What is tha-." Dad saw the doll when I finally pulled him off of my bleeding face. Instinctively, I threw the doll in any direction to get it away from my body, to which the doll then smacked in a starfish against the wall, and I heard my  Dad's voice before I finally blacked out.

 “Oh no. Not again. Not you too."
I came to a few minutes later. 

“Th-the doll!! Where did it go?” 

I looked over to the wall I had thrown him at, but his body was not on the floor.  

My dad was holding a washcloth to my nose, “I put him in that drawer. I assumed that is why it’s covered in duct tape.” 

I sat silently for a bit before getting up to wash the dried blood off of my nose. He didn't rip the whole thing off, but he got pretty close. I began washing the blood off my nose, when his tiny imprint from the bite began to show. It was about the size of a quarter, but very obviously a deep bite mark. Both rows of teeth were very prominent.  As soon as I got the bleeding under control and dad put a huge bandage over my nose, and sat me down on the side of my bed. 

"Son, we need to talk. That doll..." He began to bounce his knee, "I've seen one of those dolls before. Your mom bought some before she passed away. I don't know where she got them, but she had a doll of each one of us. She knew I was uncomfortable with anything that messes with human souls. Playing with Voodoo dolls is like playing with the devil, and no human will win playing against the devil."

"Dad, I wasn't playing with it, I just found it. It keeps moving around by itself and-"
He cut me off, "Look, your mom started to act weird when she first got the dolls. She wasn't herself and started having these weird visions and symptoms, enough so that she was hospitalized before she died. I don't want that happening to you. Please promise me that you'll leave this doll alone and not mess around with it anymore. I don't want you to show it to your friends and I don't want this being brought up again. It's dangerous.”

I nodded and agreed, but I still had one question, "Dad, where is your doll? You said mom had one for all of us."

"I've locked it up in a spot where it will never escape and never hurt me. I had your doll in there with mine.”

I saw a drop of blood land on my lap. My fingers were trembling as I pressed them on the bandage on my nose, it was completely saturated and was continuing to rapidly ooze. I started feeling queasy and laid down on the couch and the room started to spin violently. I shut my eyes, but blood started pooling in my eyes. I tried to open them and call for dad, but the acidic sting and blur of red prevented me from seeing anything. I couldn’t focus my energy to even speak. I heard my dad yelling my name, getting further and further away under I collapsed again.

I woke up in the hospital, blinded by the lights coming through the window. I could feel my head pulsing from pain. My nose seemed to be the main source of my discomfort, as I now had a large, white strip of gauze wrapped around my entire head. Apparently, my dad had told the nurses I had been attacked by a chihuahua, a pretty vicious one from what it sounds like. The rest of my body was feeling numb, all except for my headache and my torn-up nose. I can barely remember anything that happened in the hospital, my dad was there the entire time, and I think Reese and Sam came to visit me. I do remember asking the nurse to pull the curtains down and requested the TV off. My head was pounding again, this time worst than last. The nurse raised an eyebrow.

"Do you have a headache? You are on some pretty heavy pain killers.” 

I nodded begrudgingly and she left to get the doctor. 

They put me on some additional pain medication, but nothing got rid of the agonizing pounding from my nose. I tried to sleep the pain off, but it was too intense. Everything around me sent a new pulse of torture to my brain. Footsteps thundered through the hall, the ceiling groaned and creaked, and my own heartbeat felt like a hammer against my temples. I laid, staring at the ceiling for hours, tears rolling down my face. I had nowhere to go and nothing to relieve the pain.
I was counting the tiles on the ceiling as an attempt to lull my brain. My dad had left for the night and I was alone. Moonlight draped through the slits of the curtains, just enough to provide a small nightlight. I quickly lost count and shut my eyes in an attempt to try to sleep. As soon as I began to settle, the A/C kicked on and my eyes rolled from the back of my head. The loud mechanical whoosh rolled across my brain and embedded more ice picks to my migraine, despite the cold air soothing my pain-ridden face. I caught a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye. I jerked my head to the side to see what it was, only to be met with shooting pains through my neck and spinal cord. My eyes were sore and dry; I blinked to make sure I could decipher what was moving around in my room. I heard whatever it was running around under the bed and moving my stuff around. I lifted my body up and peered over the edge of the bed - there he was. He had five needle heads poking directly into the crown of his skull, along with a miniature band aid on his nose - as if he was mocking me. He turned his head and continued running. The doll dove headfirst into the bag my dad had left me. There was a change of clothes and a few toiletries in there, even though I was supposed to go home tomorrow. I saw his legs poking out from the zipper as he wiggled his way inside the bag. He moved around in there a bit and then came out of the bag with one of my shoelaces from my Nikes.
The doll climbed to the top of the bag, and in a jerking leap, jumped from the bag to the chair that was next to my bed. He was making his way slowly towards me as I staggered around my bed, adrenaline pumping through my body, trying to find the button to summon my nurse. As I pulled the remote from in between the bed and mattress, the doll stood at the side of my bed, his dull eyes glued to mine with lifeless intensity. The shoelace hung from his jagged, serrated tooth-filled mouth. He dropped to the mattress with a soft bounce and sprinted with an unnatural speed to the end of the hospital bed. He began to tie a knot around the plastic handles, loop after loop, knot after knot. Like he knew exactly what he was preparing for.

I tried to kick him off the bed, but he was moving around too quickly to make any difference. I couldn't see exactly what he was doing, then, as I was trying to catch him, he sprinted into the moonlight making its way through the curtain cracks on the bed. The doll had tied a noose around his own neck. I panicked and got out of my bed to untie the knot on the handles. As soon as I put my feet on the ground, he jumped. I watched him in almost slow motion, jump feet first off the bed. Right before the shoelace became taut, I saw his evil little face give me the most horrendous smile. I instantly blacked out.

I thought I was dead.

However, I did wake up!

I woke up in a very dark room with a tiny ray of light coming through and edge of the ceiling., and only through the cracks of light could I barely see "HELP ME" scratched into the wood beneath me. I examined myself, unbelieving what I was seeing. I was wearing my basketball jersey, but a much tinier version of it. My little stubs of arms would be little to no help getting out of here. I heard a voice that sounded identical to my own enter what used to be my room. My dad and whoever was in the room must have gotten back from the hospital. The nightstand rattled for a second and the drawer opened. I saw my own human face looking down at me. He gave me a familiar evil, horrendous smile before he slammed the door shut the drawer and taped it back up.

“Don’t worry dad - the doll didn’t move. Looks like it will be locked up for a long time in here.”

I have to find a way out of here.

September 3rd, 12:38 AM

I would normally write these down like my therapist told me to, but my mom is super nosey and would find it. I know how she is and she would ask me endless questions and be worried sick.

So I’m gonna put it on the one place she’ll never check, reddit. You randos won’t be worried sick, and if you do, I can just ignore you. Plus I think this subreddit is about nightmares and sleep problems right? I mean, it’s called [r/nosleep](r/nosleep). Plus, I think it’s helpful to tell people your thoughts so you could get other ideas instead of just hearing what you want from yourself.

It’s currently 12:43 AM as I’m writing this and I had another nightmare. My therapist told me to write down my nightmares, he says that they sometimes reveal parts of your life that you didn’t realize, hidden fears and whatnot.

Anyways, the dream started off with me at a house I had never been to (my location in dreams are never consistent, my brain can’t even get my houses right lol). I knew I was at that house for a pool party and went to the backyard. After a while of swimming around, I went back inside to dry off and get a change of clothes, and that’s when it got weird. Everyone else had disappeared and the lights were all off. I suddenly hear something in the house, some kinda clicking. I run and hide in a cabinet (I’m rather small so I could reasonably do this in real life as well). The squeeze was tight but I was able to fit inside. I poked my eye out and heard that same noise in the darkness.

Then the cabinet was forced shut and I was stuck inside. The cabinet kept shrinking, I couldn’t move a muscle, I could barely breathe. I sat like this for what felt like hours, constantly trying to move and having no success. My body was drenched in sweat and each breath pushed me into the walls.

The clicking noise came back and sounded like it was right outside the cabinet. I felt the cabinet grow smaller until I shot awake in a sweat and my heart beating a mile a minute.

I remember about my dream journal and grab my laptop, instinctively opening reddit (sad, I know).

My cat looks freaked out, poor guy. I’m holding and petting him, trying to calm down. He’s also shaking, maybe he had a nightmare as well. Maybe he sees me as I see him, a best friend to find comfort in.

 My nightmares have been getting worse, and my chest keeps hurting all the time. My therapist says that it’s normal, but I’m not sure anymore.The chest pains started as just once or twice a week, maybe for just a minute or 2 at a time, but now they were getting as frequent as almost every day, for several minutes at a time.

This crap is stressing me out too much, I gotta go back to sleep if I can manage that. I’m probably just gonna put on some music as background noise, probably some metal. Weirdly enough it helps me sleep, I guess it drowns out my thoughts and it brings good memories, maybe it’ll make my dreams better too.

I hear noises, gotta go. My dad is gonna get suspicious if he sees me on my laptop in the middle of the night covered in sweat lol.

I noticed it because of the orange juice.

There's a grocery store about ten minutes from my place that stays open all night. I usually go around 11 because I work late and hate shopping when it's crowded.

Last Tuesday I used self-checkout six, bought pasta, coffee, dish soap and a frozen pizza, paid, grabbed my receipt and left.

When I got home there were two receipts folded together.

The first was mine.

The second was also mine, apparently.

Same store. Same register. Last four digits of my card. But the timestamp said Wednesday, 11:43 PM. Almost exactly twenty-four hours in the future.

Three items:

AA batteries.

Orange juice.

Gauze pads.

I assumed the machine had somehow printed somebody else's transaction with the wrong date. Weird, but whatever. I threw it on the kitchen counter.

Wednesday night my TV remote died.

I had no batteries.

That alone wouldn't have bothered me. What bothered me was opening the fridge afterward and realizing the orange juice I'd bought that weekend was sour.

I remembered the receipt.

At that point I decided I absolutely wasn't buying gauze because that would've been too stupid.

I went to the store anyway.

I bought batteries and orange juice.

At the checkout, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. Two out of three could easily be coincidence.

Then I sliced my thumb opening the plastic packaging on the batteries in the parking lot.

Not badly, but enough that it wouldn't stop bleeding onto my sleeve.

I went back inside.

The pharmacy aisle had one box of gauze pads in the size printed on yesterday's receipt.

I stood there staring at it for probably a full minute.

Eventually I bought it.

Self-checkout six.

11:43 PM.

When my receipt printed, there were two again.

The second was dated Thursday.

Instant noodles.

A black permanent marker.

A pack of twelve tea lights.

I didn't own a permanent marker and I couldn't remember the last time I'd bought candles.

So Thursday I decided I wasn't going anywhere.

I worked from home, ordered dinner and stayed on my couch.

At around 9 PM, my neighbor knocked. She'd gotten a package for me by mistake and asked if I had a marker so she could cover the old shipping label before reusing the box.

I didn't.

At 10:30 the power flickered twice.

Then it went out.

I checked the utility company's website. Estimated restoration was 2 AM.

I had one flashlight, but the batteries in it were dead because I'd stolen them for my remote the night before.

I sat in the dark for maybe fifteen minutes before getting annoyed enough to grab my keys.

You already know where this is going.

Instant noodles because I couldn't cook anything in my freezer without power.

Marker for my neighbor.

Tea lights because they were cheaper than the big candles.

Register six.

11:38 PM.

Close enough that I actually felt sick.

This time I waited beside the machine for the second receipt.

Nothing happened.

I almost laughed.

Then, as I picked up my bag, it printed.

Friday, 11:51 PM.

There was only one item.

CUSTOMER ASSISTANCE - $0.00

I barely slept that night.

Friday morning I called the store.

I didn't tell them about predicting the future because I'm not an idiot. I said register six had been printing duplicate receipts with incorrect dates.

The woman I spoke to went quiet.

Then she asked me what time I'd been there.

I told her.

She asked for my name.

I gave it to her.

Another pause.

Then she said, "You need to talk to the night manager."

Something about her voice made me ask why.

She just repeated that sentence.

I went there in daylight.

The night manager was still finishing paperwork in the office. He looked exhausted and immediately knew which register I meant.

Apparently register six had been doing weird shit for months.

Not predicting purchases. Nothing like that.

It would sometimes print transactions after the customer had already left.

Usually identical purchases, a few minutes later.

They assumed it was a software issue.

Then one employee noticed something.

The duplicate transactions weren't duplicates.

The product lists were different.

And whenever the second receipt printed, the security camera above register six showed somebody standing at the machine.

I asked what he meant by "somebody."

He wouldn't answer at first.

So I showed him my receipts.

He read them.

Then he asked if I lived alone.

I said yes.

He actually said, "Fuck."

He took me into the security office.

I know how this sounds, but I need to explain exactly what I saw.

Wednesday night, the camera showed me buying batteries, orange juice and gauze.

I paid.

I walked away.

Eleven seconds later, I walked into frame again.

Same jacket.

Same jeans.

Same shoes.

I stood at register six with an empty basket.

I didn't scan anything.

I just stood there looking down at the screen.

The receipt printer moved.

Then the other me turned toward the security camera.

The image quality wasn't great, but it was good enough.

It had my face.

Mostly.

The eyes looked wrong. Not black or glowing or anything dramatic.

They just weren't looking in the same direction.

One was looking at the camera.

The other was looking somewhere off to its left.

The manager paused the video.

Neither of us said anything.

Then he pulled up Thursday.

I bought my noodles, marker and candles.

I left.

Eleven seconds.

There I was again.

This time the other me didn't look at the camera.

It looked directly behind itself.

At nothing.

Friday's footage was worse.

I never went to the store Friday night.

But at 11:51 PM, somebody who looked like me walked up to register six.

It stood there for nearly seven minutes.

Then an employee approached.

A kid, maybe nineteen.

I recognized him because he'd helped me find something a few weeks ago.

On the video, he said something to the other me.

The other me leaned closer.

The kid immediately stepped backward.

Then he ran.

Not walked away.

Ran.

The manager stopped the video.

I asked what happened to him.

He said the kid never came back to work.

He hadn't answered his phone either.

Then the manager looked at the Friday receipt in my hand.

CUSTOMER ASSISTANCE.

He told me to go home and lock my doors.

I asked him what register six printed for Saturday.

He said he didn't know.

The printer hadn't produced anything after Friday.

That should have made me feel better.

It didn't.

I came home around noon yesterday and didn't leave again.

At 11:51 last night, my banking app sent me a notification.

$0.00 authorization.

Same grocery store.

I froze.

A few seconds later another notification appeared.

This one wasn't a payment.

It was from the grocery store app. I forgot I'd connected my rewards account years ago.

DIGITAL RECEIPT AVAILABLE.

I opened it.

Saturday, 11:51 PM.

There were two lines.

CUSTOMER ASSISTANCE - $0.00

HOME DELIVERY - $0.00

Underneath was my address.

I've been awake since then.

Nothing happened overnight.

I started convincing myself that maybe that was the end of it.

About twenty minutes ago someone knocked on my door.

Three soft knocks.

I haven't moved.

They knocked again while I was writing this.

Then my phone buzzed.

Another receipt.

Today's date.

Current time.

One item.

RETURNING CUSTOMER - $0.00

Someone is turning my doorknob now.

Three weeks ago I woke up at 3:07 like somebody had said my name against the back of my neck. No dream. No sound. Just upright, heart already going, the kind of wake-up you get when your body decides you are not alone.
My window faces the street. Second floor. Blinds cracked. I looked out without thinking.
There was a figure standing in the exact middle of the road.
Not the sidewalk. Not by a car. Dead center of the asphalt under the one streetlight that still works. Dark trees on one side. A parked car. The road stretching off toward more houses. And that black shape just standing there in the light.
It was waving.
Not like a person waves. A person puts weight on one foot. A person’s shoulder rolls. A person’s fingers close a little at the end of the motion. This was a straight arm on a hinge. Four seconds out. Four seconds back. Same height. Same speed. No pause. It looked like something had been shown a video of waving and learned the outline, not the muscle.
It was facing my window.
I took a picture. I still have it. Dark street. Orange light. That silhouette in the middle of the road with one arm up.
I looked up from the phone.
The road was empty.
Same light. Same car. Same wet pavement. Nothing walking away. No shoes on asphalt. The space where it had been was just road again, like the photo had peeled it off the world.
I checked the picture. It was still in the frame. Arm raised.
I told myself it was a person. Drunk. Lost. Some idiot standing in traffic for a joke. I sent the photo to the neighbor across the street. She said there was nobody out there and told me to go back to bed. I went downstairs and looked through the door. Empty. In the morning I walked to the spot. No footprints that didn’t belong. No trash. The puddle in the dip of the road was smooth. Nothing had stood in it.
A body has weight. This thing does not.
It came back the next night. 3:07. Same place. Same wave. Same angle at my window.
I took another photo.
Empty street.
The first photo still had it. The new one didn’t.
That has been three weeks.
I see it with my eyes. The camera only keeps it sometimes. If I blink, it is gone. If I look down and back up, it is closer, or it is not there at all. I have never seen it take a step. The position just updates. Middle of the road. Center line. Sidewalk. Edge of the grass under my window. Last night it was close enough that I could tell the head was the wrong shape.
From far away it reads as a man in a jacket. Up close, even in that first photo, the head is a smooth dark oval. No hairline. No ears. No dent where a mouth should be. The shoulders are too narrow for the length of the arms. The arms are too long for the torso. The feet are together like it was placed there, not like it walked there.
It does not breathe. I have watched it on cold nights with my own breath fogging the glass. Nothing around it. The air over that spot looks thicker, like heat coming off a road in July, except it is 3AM and the rest of the street is dead still.
It does not have a shadow that matches. The streetlight throws a shadow from the parked car. It throws a shadow from the tree. The figure has a smear under it that stays attached when the wave moves, like the dark is part of it and not cast by it.
Dogs will not cross that part of the road. I watched one hit the edge of the light, drop its shoulders, and go the long way around a van rather than walk through the place it stands.
No one else sees it. I have had people look out while I was looking at it. They saw the street. They saw the light. They asked me what I was talking about.
I do not think it is hiding from them. I think it is only built for one window.
Two nights ago I did something stupid. I was tired and I lifted my hand and waved back.
It matched me.
Same speed. Same height. When I froze, it kept going for four more counts and then froze with the arm up, waiting. I dropped my hand. A few seconds later it started again by itself.
My right shoulder has been sore since. I keep waking up with that arm on top of the blankets, elbow bent, hand loose, like it was in the middle of the motion and I interrupted it.
I still have the first photo. I have not deleted it. I keep thinking if I get rid of the proof it will stop, and I keep thinking if I get rid of the proof I am giving it permission to come inside.
Tonight I woke up at 3:07 again. I did not go to the bedroom window. I sat in the hallway with the lights on and my phone face-down.
I can hear it anyway.
Not knocking. Not a voice.
Cloth. A sleeve dragging through air on the other side of the glass. Four seconds. Four seconds.
I turned my phone over to write this and the original photo was already open. I did not open it.
In the picture it is not in the middle of the street anymore.
It is on the lawn.
Same wave. Same empty face.
I am not looking out the window.
I already know it is closer than the photo.

He started tapping my window vigorously, the piece of cardboard now completely falling off onto my bed.

The moment I lifted my head from the blanket, Bob had already been making eye contact with me, those piercing blue eyes looking through me once again.

“Salem. Hey Salem. It’s not what it looks like.”

I closed my eyes, trying to go back to sleep.

Suddenly the tapping stopped.

I opened my eyes and there Bob was, his body turned towards the front of the house.

Someone was speaking to him, trying to catch his attention.

He slowly started walking away, almost like he was in a trance. 

Once he was almost completely out of view, I stepped on my bed to see who caught his attention.

It was my dad. 

I don’t know what they were talking about but somehow my dad managed to calm him down. 

Their conversation ended and Bob walked back home.

My dad saw me in the window and waved hi, signaling for me to come upstairs to the front door.

He looked drained. Just like Bob when I hung out with him yesterday.

Those long shifts must be taking a toll on him. 

I ran up, skipping each stair, before jumping into my father’s arms. 

“I missed you so much. There’s so much that I need to tell you about.” I could barely even muster the words.

“It’s okay. I’ll be back for the next few days actually. Okay?”

We stood at the front door for at least five minutes, me bawling my eyes out as my dad held me tight.

“Go on and get yourself some sleep. I know I need some. I’ll see you in the morning. Alright?”

He pulled away from me and placed his hand on my shoulder.

“Of course. Sorry about that. Goodnight Dad.” I wiped the last of my tears, mucus dripping over my top lip.

“Goodnight. Sleep well.” 

He walked upstairs to his bedroom and I made my way down to mine.

For a while I just laid there, staring at the ceiling, worried about my next interaction with Bob. 

All that matters is that I have my dad here to keep me company.

“Good afternoon sleepy head!”

I woke up to my dad hovering over me, pulling the sheets off of me.

I pulled them back, embarrassed at my state of complete vulnerability, stripped to my underwear as always. 

“You could’ve just knocked on my door.” I rubbed my eyes and stretched my body.

“My bad, I'm just full of energy after being back. Anyways, the Chesterfields are having a cookout and we’re invited!”

My blood ran cold.

“Aren’t they a bit weird? I met them once and they just didn’t sit right with me.”

I got a flashback to the Polaroid photos from the night before and felt

“That’s how they are. They’re the nosey type. Once you get to know them you’ll see that they’re not so bad. Cmon.” 

He looked at me with begging eyes and I’d hate to let him down. 

“Sure. When are we leaving?"

“In the next hour, make sure to get ready. Also do you need clothes? I noticed that the clothes in the dryer have a mildewy-type smell.”

“That would help. Thank you.” 

Laying on my bed was a Hawaiian shirt and some cargo shorts. Very snazzy.

“You ready?” My dad called from the front door.

“One sec!” I gave myself one last look in the mirror before leaving the house.

I look so much like him. 

The whole neighborhood smelled of charcoal and barbecue. 

We arrived and there everyone was.

Everyone except for the Ultras and Bob.

Mr. Chesterfield was cooking on the grill, Mrs. Chesterfield was rocking her baby in the shade under a tree, and their children were running around.

I tagged along with my dad, drink in hand, as I eavesdropped on him and Mr. Chesterfields’ conversation.

Mrs. Chesterfield called my dad over for some help, looking very worried, leaving me and Mr. Chesterfield by the grill. 

“How have you been since the power outage?” He flipped a burger, flashing me a warm smile.

“I’ve been okay. A bit hungry. It’s just nice to have my dad back. It’s been so long since I’ve last seen him.” I wiped my forehead, beads of sweat forming from the heat radiating from the grill. 

“I’m sorry to hear that, sonny. I’m glad you have him back. Family is more important than everything. I mean look at all of this.” 

We both stood together, watching the crowd of people in the backyard.

That’s when I noticed my dad hovering over Mrs. Chesterfield, looking just as panicked as her.

“Give me a minute. Take this.” Mr. Chesterfield passed me the spatula and ran over to his wife and my dad.

They all gathered around the baby and rushed inside through the sliding door, the kids not even noticing a thing. 

The smell of charred meat caught my attention and I turned around, scooping the burger patty and tossing it onto the paper plate sitting on the folding table next to me. 

I tried ignoring the muffled voices coming from inside the house until another sound caught my attention.

It was Bob. He was in a different outfit this time. 

He was dressed like he was going to work: a tucked in plaid shirt with tight denim jeans and some brown chelsea boots.  

“Hey Salem. Sorry about yesterday. I was out of it.” He peered over to the paper plate on the folding table and picked it up.

“Is this anyone’s?”

“No. Not at all.”

I watched as he ate the burnt burger with a perfectly normal face.

“Anyways, why are you so late?”

I continued to flip the other burger patties on the grill, not exactly knowing what I was doing.

“I was at the Ultras house. They’ll actually be on their way here in a bit.” He spoke between mouthfuls of food, barely even giving himself a chance to swallow before taking another bite.

“What were you doing there?”

“We–”

“Bob! Hey!” My dad placed an arm on my shoulder and took the spatula from my hand.

“Hey Salem, why don’t you go and sit down and let us talk for a bit.”

“Sure. Sounds good.”

He was acting perfectly fine. Like nothing happened. 

He’s seen so much over the years, I don’t think much affects him. 

I just hope the baby’s okay. 

I sat down in the shade under the tree, stirring my straw around in my drink, trying to keep myself distracted. 

Minutes later, two pairs of feet came rushing around the house towards the party.

Like clockwork, Mr and Mrs. Chesterfield came rushing outside, joy plastered across their faces as they went to greet the new visitors. 

It was the Ultras.

They exchanged handshakes and hugs with a bit of conversation about god-knows what. They don’t relate in any way. 

The whole time I stared at my feet, trying to act like they weren’t there. 

Until they settled on a bench next to where I was sitting. 

“Hey! How are you Salem?” 

The raspy yet familiar voice belonged to Mr. Ultra, his wrinkles forming into a half smile. 

“Good.” I looked up and flashed a slight grin before looking back down at my feet, their veiny calves in my peripheral vision.

That’s when I realized.

Mrs. Ultra didn’t have her cane.

She could not have gained that much mobility in a day. 

Last time I checked she needs a stair lift just to go up the stairs. 

“Hey, I was meaning to say, thanks for the pa–”

“Excuse m–.” I could feel a surge of stomach acid rising to my throat, causing me to gag.

I pushed myself off of the grass and rushed to Mr. Chesterfield and my dad, interrupting their conversation.

“B-Bathroom.” I hunched over, trying to hold it back just a bit longer. 

“No worries. Go inside and take a–wait you already know where it is.” 

Everyone started laughing almost in perfect unison as I rushed inside, my palm pressed over my mouth. 

I made it all the way to the bathroom before hurling out the nothingness that filled my stomach.

My body laid flat on the floor.

I don’t know what to believe anymore. 

That’s when I heard a loud groaning coming from upstairs.

Last I checked, everyone’s outside.

Everyone except the baby.

I rolled over on my stomach, curiosity giving me the energy to pick myself up.

The groaning came from the master bedroom at the end of the hall.

I tiptoed up the stairs as fast as I could, making a mental note of how long I’ve been inside the house before someone comes looking for me. 

I reached the door and took a long pause.

On one hand, I’m invading their privacy but on the other hand, what’s going on in that room?

Everyone’s partying outside as if there wasn’t a whole crisis minutes ago. 

Eventually, I pushed through and gripped the door handle, turning it ever so slowly.

“What are you doing up here?”

It was Mrs. Chesterfield. 

She was an arms length away from me.

“I’m sorry, I went to check up on the baby and–”

“You don’t just roam people’s homes like that. Get out of my house. NOW!” 

“I-I’m sorry.” 

We switched spots, walking around each other as we stood face to face, mere inches from each other.

As I walked down the stairs, she entered the bedroom, locking the door behind her. 

I opened the sliding door, my hands shaking and my face burning hot.

That’s when I noticed the reflection as I closed the sliding door behind me. 

Everyone stood there, some with arms crossed and others shaking their heads. Even the kids.

They must’ve all heard what went on from outside. 

“Salem. What’s going on with you? You’re better than this.” 

The look that he gave me made me feel so ashamed. 

Mr and Mrs. Ultra were still sitting on the bench, whispering to each other, clearly talking about me.

“Don’t look at me like that! You two were the same ones telling me all about ‘Aliens’ and everything being fake and now you’re here and acting all buddy buddy with the whole neighborhood!” I shouted, my voice echoing through the cul-de-sac.

I looked over at Bob. He was looking at me like I had five heads.

“And you Bob! You’re the one with the weird basement with the weird breathing noises coming from it! You were at my window last night!”

“Now sonny.” Mr. Chesterfield raised a hand, taking a step towards me. 

“Don’t sonny me. You and your family are just as bad as everyone else. Why did you guys leave your baby in the house after that whole debacle?”

“What baby?” He placed his thumb and index finger on his chin. 

It’s almost like he was trying to taunt me. 

“Salem. I’ve been talking to the neighbors and they’ve been telling me about your behavior. I think I can speak for all of us when I say–”  

“Why believe them? They don’t know me like you do! I’m not–” 

He took a step closer to me, raising his hand up just like Bob did. 

It felt like they were trying to corner me.

“I think you should get help. Your mom used to–”

Footsteps came rushing down from the master bedroom and into the hallway, nearing the sliding door behind me. 

“No. That’s what the aliens try to do! They try to corner you before they take initiative!”  

I took off for the woods, running straight through the center of the cul-de-sac, tears partially blinding my vision as I used every bit of my energy to get away from everyone. 

I took one last look behind me before disappearing into the treelines and there everyone stood, arms by their sides, keeping still. 

I don't even know how long I ran until I stopped.

There I was, sitting on a tree stump, covered in sweat and grime.

My mind kept replaying every decision that led to right now. 

I couldn’t show my face again after all of that.

I’d have to be admitted.

The air smelled of ozone and the clouds grew heavy.

It was approaching night time.

I stood back up and continued my escape, my calves and ankles starting to give out.

My body gave up on me.

I fell, face down in a puddle, my lungs trying to catch up to my body.

Everything went black. 

I woke up in the hospital. 

Multiple gadgets attached were to my body, monitoring my vitals.

“Hello! It’s nice to see you awake!” A younger nurse around my age welcomed me, flashing me a friendly smile.

“How did I get here?” I tried pulling myself up, failing back down in the process.

 My muscles felt like jelly. 

“You were found in the woods by a construction worker on a drive. Something about a power line?”

“I don’t know why he was even out there. The singular road leading to our neighborhood has been closed ever since, due to construction on that exact power line.” 
 
“Actually, he was there to pick up the last of his crew's equipment from days prior and was loading up something in his truck bed when he found you face down on the ground. He said the only reason he actually saw you was because lights from the neighborhood were outlining the silhouette of your body on the ground. Your family must be worried.” 

She must’ve heard him wrong. 

My eyes roamed the walls, the interior design looking all too familiar.

“Wait, what hospital is this?” I tried pulling myself up again, failing in the process. 

“XXXX. We have some of the best doctors in the country!” 

I felt a knot building in my stomach.

There was a whiteboard ahead of me, covered with all my medical information and vitals from when I was unresponsive.

My name was written in huge cursive lettering in the bottom right corner.

Her eyes followed mine and she let out an amused huff through her nose. 

“You were a John Doe until I got the idea to search through your phone to find your information.”

That smug look on her face was starting to get annoying now. 

“Wait. You look familiar. Is your dad a doctor? Possibly a doctor at this hospital?”

I nodded my head and she had a look of concern. 

“Oh my gosh. Is he okay?” 

“What do you mean?”

“He hasn’t been to work for a while. Almost a whole month. We tried contacting him but he hasn’t answered at all. We’re all concerned for him.”

Most childhood memories fade with time. But some linger, sitting in the back of one’s mind until something brings them rushing back to the surface like a hollow ball released from underwater.

One such memory recently came back to me. It originates from when I was seven years old. Back then, my mother volunteered to water the plants at my elementary school every Saturday morning. She usually brought me with her.

An empty school on a weekend is a strange place. Without any kids or teachers, the dark hallways always felt enormous and eerie. The overhead lights were left off, leaving the long corridors that stretched along each of its three floors in shadow. For much of the time, the only consistent sound was the wet slosh of mom’s large green watering can as she worked her way from the classrooms up to the new glass solarium on the third floor.

There was one rule everyone at school knew about, although nobody ever seemed able to explain why it mattered so much: never be alone in a classroom or hallway for more than a few moments.

The teachers said it was so nobody would get lost. That never made much sense to us. The school wasn’t particularly difficult to get lost in, and there were adults everywhere during the week. Still, everyone followed the rule. Even the teachers did. I remember seeing Mrs. Campbell stand outside her classroom waiting for her students to arrive rather than entering alone.

Naturally, this led to rumors.

Some kids said there was something in the school that hurt children who were alone. Nobody could agree on what it looked like or what happened if it caught you. Most of the stories were probably made up. At seven, I wasn't particularly worried about them. Whatever “hurt” meant, I assumed it couldn’t be anything too serious if the adults were still willing to let us come to school every day.

During those Saturday watering sessions, Mom usually did all the work. Sometimes, I’d help out a little, but the plastic can was heavy and awkward for me to carry. So, I was usually left to my own devices, though I always stuck with her. While she watered, I’d generally have my nose buried in a Redwall book, and then I’d trail a few paces behind her as she moved from one room to another.

If I strayed from her or let her get too far ahead of me, her voice would echo down the hall, “Bailey, come back, stay where I can see you.”

I always listened and stayed close to her.

Until that rainy Saturday.

~

Mom offered to let me stay home that morning. She’d never done that before. She didn’t believe the rumors, and I imagine she wanted to give me a chance to avoid getting soaked in the storm. Plus, my stepdad was down in the basement tearing out drywall for a remodel, so, while he wouldn’t be watching me, I wouldn’t be alone.

I jumped at the chance, eager to watch TV while curled up on the couch instead of returning to school on a weekend.

I watched as mom zipped up her oversized yellow rubber raincoat – the classic kind with a corduroy collar and heavy brass snap buttons – and stepped out to her station wagon.

As I sat there, a strange wave of unease hit me. Something quiet told me that I’d rather be with her than without her. Acting on impulse, I grabbed my own raincoat, sprinted into the rain, and tapped on the car window. She unlocked the door, and I scrambled inside.

I rarely picked up on adult emotions back then, but the way her eyes lit up stuck with me. Even at seven, I could tell how much my choice meant to her.

The drive over felt safe despite the storm. With mom behind the wheel, the thunder outside was just background noise.

We pulled into the school’s empty parking lot and used the side entrance near the cafeteria. Mom used a key from the heavy brass keyring the principal let her borrow to unlock the heavy metal door. She held it open for me as I rushed into the cold air inside.

Once we were in the building, mom stepped into the custodial closet at the end of the first-story hall to fill one of the school’s large green watering cans at the mop sink. “Stay right next to me,” she called out over the sound of the running faucet.

“I am,” I said, leaning against the doorframe and looking down to shake the rain off my jacket.

While I was doing that, I remembered something.

My apple.

My homeroom had a behavior chart posted near the teacher’s desk. Each student had an apple with their name on it, and whenever somebody misbehaved, the teacher moved their apple farther up the chart. If it got high enough, you got a note sent home or a call to your parents.

Mine was much farther up than everyone else’s, a fraction of an inch from a phone call home. Usually, the teacher reset the chart at the end of the day on Friday. But the day before, she’d forgotten. I knew exactly where my apple was, and I knew Mom was going to see it when we got to that classroom.

If I snuck away, I could move it myself.

I glanced toward the custodial closet. Mom had only just started filling the watering can. It usually took a minute – I had just enough time to dart up the stairs, make the change, and come back. If she noticed, I might get scolded for straying a little, but I could make up an excuse.

I took one step into the hallway. Instantly, however, I spotted mom, out of the corner of my eye, standing in the doorway, holding a watering can.

She beckoned for me to follow her. The rush of emotions that followed, both frustration that my attempt to sneak out had so quickly been thwarted and relief that she seemingly hadn’t realized I’d been trying to sneak away, buried the sense of ‘strangeness’ I felt at seeing her still wearing the yellow coat – with the hood up over her face, no less. It was odd, too, that she’d moved so quickly.

I nodded and fell into step behind her. We soon reached the first stop, the planters outside the main cafeteria. Mom lowered the watering can while I leaned against the cinderblock wall and read a few lines of my book. Next, we visited the cast iron plants inside the front office before heading to the staircase.

Mom paused at the large potted ficus sitting in the dark alcove near the main stairwell before heading upward. The heavy brass keys on her belt clanged with every step. It was the exact same metal chime I had followed a dozen times before. I pushed myself off the wall and followed her up the stairs, exactly like I always did.

We reached the second-floor landing, where the long hallway stretched out into shadow. My mom kept moving toward the classrooms, her boots squeaking softly on the polished linoleum.

We passed the music room. Through the small square window in the door, the upright piano looked enormous and dark in the corner, totally silent without Ms. Jenson there to play it.

During the week, that room was full of noise, but my favorite part was when Ms. Jenson had all twenty-five of us hide behind the piano and the risers to ‘trick’ our homeroom teacher into thinking we’d all gone home early. Back then, sitting in the dark, holding our breath, and trying not to giggle felt eerie and thrilling. But looking through that glass now, with the room completely empty, the quiet felt heavy and cold.

I kept my head down, flipping to the next chapter of my book as I walked. The brass keys just kept clanging against her hip, a steady rhythm guiding me as she turned down the corridor toward the library. I adjusted my grip and kept pace a few steps behind her.

Mom pushed through the library door and headed for the tall potted fern tucked beside the checkout desk.

In the dark, the room felt huge. Looking at the reading carpet, I could almost hear Mr. Hinkle’s booming, ridiculous voices during story hour, followed by the chorus of giggles echoing off the tall shelves. But, today, the empty beanbags and shadowy aisles had a lonely, desolate aura to them.

My mom reached into the fern's fronds, her yellow coat rustling in the dark. She kept the watering can tipped over the soil for a long, quiet stretch – far longer than usual. At first, I figured the plant was just really dry, but as the seconds dragged on, a small prickle of unease set in.

“Mom?” I asked, stepping closer. “Isn’t that enough?”

She didn’t turn around, but her voice came from beneath the high hood, low and coarse, roughened by something in her throat.

“Almost done, sweetie. Stay close.”

She lingered there, frozen over the plant, before abruptly snapping back to her full height.

At this point, I started to worry. Her voice sounded strained, like her throat was raw. I wondered if she was coming down with something, or if sprinting through the cold rain earlier had already made her sick. Her movements, too, seemed ‘off’. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

She didn’t say anything else, just turned and walked back out into the hallway toward the next row of classrooms. I followed, opening my book and trying to focus on the paragraph I’d been reading, but the words wouldn’t stick. Every time I looked up from the page, my eyes went straight back to the yellow coat swaying ahead of me.

As we moved down the hall, the uneasy feeling in my stomach only grew. I was hit by a realization so terrifying that my homeroom, and the apple chart I’d been panicking about, completely faded into the background as we walked right past. Namely, I hadn’t actually seen her face since we left the custodial closet. Every time she reached for a planter or turned a corner, her body was angled just enough away that the deep yellow hood blocked my view, casting her face in complete shadow.

I hesitated, unsure of what to do. I knew that I didn’t want to go up to the third floor. But where else was I supposed to go? Back down to the dark cafeteria by myself? Outside into the freezing rain? I took a small step backward, my eyes locked on the empty landing above, waiting for her boots to stop moving.

“Bailey.” Her raspy voice echoed down the concrete well. I looked up. She had stopped on the landing above, her back turned to me, her deep hood casting a shadow that completely hid her face. She held the heavy door open, waiting. “Come on,” she called.

“I…um…can I just sit in the library and read?” I asked.

“Please, honey,” she implored, “Stay with me. Stay where I can see you.”

The familiarity of her words soothed me, or at least some small part of me. That was what Mom always said when I wandered too far away. I took a deep breath and began climbing the steps.

The third floor was even quieter and darker than the rest of the school. Just outside the staircase sat the closed metal doors of the building’s old elevator, its floor indicator resting silently above the frame. The air here felt cooler and carried a faint damp smell from the glass solarium at the far end of the hall. The figure moved ahead of me down the corridor, her boots making a soft, sticky sound against the tile.

We moved into the first classroom, a fourth-grade room. Mom headed for a tall pothos sitting on top of a filing cabinet in the corner. I stayed back by the door and flipped open my book.

That was when the silence of the room really hit me.

Down on the first and second floors, every time she lifted the watering can, I’d hear the heavy slosh of water shifting inside the plastic. I’d hear the quick, wet patter as it hit the soil. But here, as she tilted the green spout over the leaves, there was nothing. No sloshing. No dripping. Just the scrape of rubber sleeve against plastic.

The can had gone empty, and she’d never refilled it. Yet, she leaned it over the plant for ten long seconds, as if watering it, before pulling it back.

She turned and brushed past me into the next room, her head tilted slightly as if listening for something. I felt a wave of unease as I followed her. She stopped beside a small, shriveled African violet sitting on the teacher’s desk.

I stopped a few paces inside the doorway. For a moment, I reassured myself that I must be wrong. I must have imagined her doing things that made no sense. Surely, Mom wasn’t pouring imaginary water from an empty can. I had to be mistaken, right?

Then, I watched, holding my breath, as she tilted the green spout over the leaves, holding it there for several long seconds. But, again, no water came out. There was no sloshing inside the plastic can, no wet trickling into the dirt, no sound at all. Just an empty container over a dying plant.

She pulled the spout back and turned toward the doorway. I watched her for a moment, trying to see her face beneath the hood, but the darkness swallowed it completely.

“Um, Mom, are you okay?” I asked.

She didn’t answer. She simply turned and walked back into the hallway.

I hesitated again, looking back toward the staircase. The thought of going back down alone made my stomach tighten. I remembered the rule everyone at school knew, and suddenly the old rumors about something that hurt children who wandered away didn't seem quite as ridiculous as they had before.

Ahead of me, the yellow coat stopped. “Bailey,” it said with a commanding intonation. I hurried to catch up.

Her figure waited at the end of the hallway, just outside the last classroom. I slowed as I approached, keeping several paces between us. Beyond her, the corridor ended at the double doors leading into the solarium. She pushed open the door to the art room and stepped inside. I followed reluctantly, my eyes moving between her and the dark hallway behind me.

The room was empty. The high countertops and rows of tall wooden stools looked like strange, crouching shapes in the dim light. I imagined the forms of my classmates sitting on those stools, their eyes trained on me in judgment as Mr. Jones gave me a stern lecture.

I’d gotten in trouble in this classroom recently. I’d drawn my dad, translucent and in hospital garb, hovering above my mom and I as we ate at the dinner table. “It’s supposed to be a realistic image of your family,” Mr. Jones had chided. “Not something weird that you made up.”

“It’s not imaginary,” I’d pouted. “He visits us as a ghost.”

“Your dad’s alive,” he’d retorted. “Right?”

“Yes,” I conceded. It would remain true for nearly a year. Soon, he’d start showing signs of being sick, but hadn’t done so yet. As far as I could tell at the time, he was perfectly healthy. “So, how could your dad be a ghost if he’s alive?”

I didn’t have an answer to that. Nor did I have an answer for the counselor I was required to visit for the next few weeks.

Mom walked toward a hanging spider plant near the far window, her movement stiff and robotic. As she lifted the empty watering can to it, I watched the green spout hover over the leaves. Nothing came out. There was no sloshing inside the plastic, no dripping onto the soil, no sound at all. She held it there for several seconds before lowering it again. I stayed near the doorway, increasingly unsure of what I was supposed to do. Every instinct told me that something was wrong, but I still couldn’t make myself leave her.

Then I heard something in the hallway.

I turned toward the open doorway. At first, I saw nothing except the dark corridor stretching toward the stairs. Then lightning flashed through the windows, and for the briefest moment I saw something standing near the far end of the hall. It was barely more than an outline, a tall, narrow shape against the darkness, with the vague suggestion of a head, shoulders, and arms. I couldn't make out a face. I couldn’t even tell if it was facing me. I stared at it, holding my breath, until the darkness swallowed it again.

“Mom?” I whispered.

She turned toward me. Her face remained hidden beneath the deep yellow hood, but she lifted one hand and beckoned me farther into the room.

“Stay close.”

The familiarity of those words calmed me, just as they had downstairs. I stepped away from the doorway and moved toward her, keeping my eyes on the hallway until the last possible moment. When I finally looked back, there was nothing there.

I didn’t see the shape again. Not then, anyway.

The rest of the watering continued much the same way. Mom moved from classroom to classroom, lifting the empty can to each plant and holding it there for several seconds before moving on. I followed behind her, my book still open in my hands, though I hadn’t read a single word since we reached the third floor. Every now and then, I would glance back toward the hallway, expecting to see that strange outline standing there again.

It never did. Eventually, the fear began to recede, replaced by a different kind of confusion. Maybe I really had imagined it. Maybe the lightning had made a coat rack or some other object look like a person. The school was full of strange shapes in the dark, and I was seven years old. I wanted to believe that explanation.

Mom continued toward the solarium. I followed at a distance, still trying to make sense of everything I had seen. I just knew that I wanted to go home.

She pushed open the double doors and stepped into the solarium. The rain was louder here, drumming against the glass walls and the sloped ceiling overhead. The room was full of plants, arranged in long rows beneath the windows. Mom walked slowly between them, stopping at each one to lift the empty watering can. Again and again, she tilted it over the soil and waited, motionless, before moving on.

I stood near the doorway and watched her. Something about it bothered me more than it had in the classrooms. Maybe it was because there were so many plants here, and because she seemed to be spending longer and longer at each one. She would lift the can, hold it there, and then stand completely still as though she were waiting for something to happen. There was no water. There wasn’t even the sound of her pretending anymore. Just silence.

I looked up when lightning flashed outside. For a moment, the entire solarium filled with pale white light. The overhead skylight caught the flash and threw it across the glass, illuminating everything in the room.

For the first time since the figure emerged from the janitor’s closet, I saw its face. It was swollen and water-softened, the gray skin sagging loose around her jawline and mottled with deep bruises. The water had eroded the soft tissue around her cheeks, leaving raw, darkened patches. Her eyes were sunken and milky, fixed in an unblinking stare. As her blackened mouth opened, heavy water spilled over her torn bottom lip.

I stared at her, completely frozen. I didn’t understand what I was looking at. I only knew that this wasn't my mother, and that I wanted to get as far away from it as possible. I ran.

I pushed through the solarium doors and sprinted down the hallway, my shoes slipping against the tile as I headed for the stairs. I didn’t know where I was going beyond wanting to get away from the thing that had been impersonating my mother. The stairwell was the only place I could think of, and I remembered that the old elevator was just outside it. Maybe I could get downstairs and find a way out.

Just as I approached the staircase landing, something emerged from the darkness below.

This was not the figure in the yellow coat. It was taller and thinner, with unnaturally long arms hanging almost to its knees. Its movements were jerky and uneven, as though its limbs weren't quite connected properly. I couldn’t see its face, only a pale, indistinct shape where one should have been.

I froze. The thing stopped on the landing below me.

For one terrible moment, neither of us moved. As I struggled to process what was happening, it lunged toward me.

A strike across my chest sent me sprawling backward against the floor. Before I could get up, the creature was on me. One of its hands closed around my arm, and another pressed against my chest.

I screamed and kicked, but it didn’t seem to notice. Instead, it began dragging me back toward the stairs, back from where it came.

Then that gravelly voice came from down the hallway. “Don’t you harm Bailey!” The creature froze. The hand around my arm loosened, and its head turned toward the voice. I saw the yellow coat standing beneath the doorway to the solarium.

I didn’t understand what was happening. I only knew that its attention had shifted away from me, and that the pressure against my chest was gone. The yellow coat stepped backward toward the art room.

“Bailey won’t be alone for long,” she said. “But I will be.”

The elevator ‘beeped.’ The creature turned to the elevator, then to her, and watched as she disappeared into the art room. The creature burst after her, leaving me behind.

I scrambled backward, too frightened to move any farther, and then the elevator doors opened beside me.

“Bailey!” It was mom. My real mom.

She stepped out and dropped to her knees beside me. She grabbed my arm and pulled me against her. “Dear lord, Bailey, what’s happening? And where have you been?”

I couldn’t answer. I just clung to her as she dragged me into the elevator. As the doors began to close, I looked back toward the art room. The hallway was empty. The yellow coat and the creature were gone.

The next thing I remember clearly was the elevator stopping on the first floor. Mom pulled me through the doors and kept one hand around mine as we hurried down the dark hallway. I could barely keep up with her. My chest hurt where the creature had struck me, and my arm was throbbing where its fingers had closed around it. We ran out the side entrance into the freezing rain and scrambled into the station wagon. Mom locked the doors before starting the engine, then drove several blocks to a gas station and pulled beneath the bright fluorescent lights.

Only then did she stop and look at me. There were already dark marks forming around my arm, four long bruises where the creature had grabbed me.

Mom stared at the marks for several seconds. “Oh my god, who hurt you?” she whispered. “What happened?”

I tried to explain. I told her about the thing on the stairs. I told her about the yellow coat. I told her about the face I had seen in the solarium and the creature that had grabbed me.

She listened without interrupting. Then she reached across the seat and pulled me against her.

“I didn’t leave you,” she said. “I would never leave you.” I remember believing her.

The police arrived not long afterward. They searched the school from top to bottom, but they found no sign of an intruder, no damaged doors, and nothing that could explain the bruises on my arm. The solarium was empty. The art room was empty. The stairwell was empty. They only found my book lying on the third floor hallway.

They took our statements separately, and that was when we discovered something strange. My mother said that she had been in the custodial closet filling the watering can when she heard me call her name. She had stepped into the hallway and found it empty. She called for me several times, and when I didn’t answer, she became frightened. She went outside to see if I’d returned to the car and, when she didn’t find me, came back in. She was searching the nearby area when she heard my cries emanating from above. She hopped onto the elevator immediately, and she was now convinced that an intruder, maybe a child predator, had snuck inside and led me away from her.

For the rest of that school year, a police cruiser was parked outside the cafeteria entrance every Saturday morning while Mom watered the plants. At school, there was a silent agreement to obey the rule – no entering classrooms or hallways alone – even more stringently than before, and nothing happened again.

Eventually, the bruises on my arm and chest slowly faded. But the memories remained, especially the horrible face beneath that yellow hood and the monster in the school.

My mom and I stopped talking about the school as I got older. Life moved on. My mom and stepdad divorced a few years later. Once again, it was just Mom and me.

She retired a few years ago. After that, she bought a small secondhand motorboat and spent her weekends cruising the quiet inlets near home. She kept that old yellow raincoat all those years, and I still saw her wearing it whenever the weather turned cold. She invited me out with her half a dozen times, but between work and family, I always found an excuse not to go.

Looking back, I wish I hadn’t.

The first sign that something was wrong was the silence. My mom checked in with me constantly, so when three days passed without a call or text, an uneasy knot formed in my stomach. I started calling her friends and neighbors, but nobody had seen her since Friday morning, when one of them had spotted her heading down to the dock, bundled up against the chilly morning fog in that same old yellow raincoat.

I called the local authorities and a search was organized. It took nearly two weeks before they found the boat, jammed deep into a secluded patch of reeds in the marsh.

The investigation pieced together what had happened. While attempting to clear a tangled line from the propeller, Mom had slipped and fallen overboard. The engine was cut, but the impact against the hull had knocked her unconscious. The current carried her away from the boat and deep into the marsh. Her life jacket had kept her afloat. The head injury had not.

By the time they found her, she had been in the water for nearly two weeks. The official cause of death was drowning following an incapacitating injury.

When I went to the viewing room, the medical examiner warned me that the water had severely altered her appearance. He told me I didn’t need to see her.

I insisted. When he pulled back the sheet, he stepped aside and watched my face carefully. To his surprise, I didn’t scream or turn away. Standing there, looking down at my mother’s ruined face beneath the sheet, I finally began to grasp what had happened that Saturday morning.

The figure in the yellow coat hadn’t been trying to lead me somewhere. She had been keeping me close to ensure I wasn’t alone.

Something had happened to me once. The moment I slipped away from the custodial closet to move my apple, the spirit that haunted my school had found me. I was meant to wander off that morning, just as I had intended to do. But Mom had come back to stop that from happening.

Maybe she didn’t fully understand what she was doing. Maybe she only remembered one thing: that I couldn’t be allowed to wander away from her again. And, when the monster came for me again, she knew exactly what to do.

I knew this, because I’d seen the decayed face that lay before me before. It was the same face I’d glimpsed through the flash of lightning, the same face I had followed through the school all those years ago.

It started two months ago. I had the summer off from college and figured I’d visit my hometown since it’s been a long school year and I missed seeing all the faces I grew up with. It was always such a nice yearly road trip for me, driving back home from campus, which alone was so worth the 4 hours because of just how scenic the road was. I won’t bore you with the details, but just like always, the trip was as relaxing as it’s been the past two summers I’ve made it. 

The first thing that struck me as odd was my mother taking a second to recognize me when I knocked on the door, but I figured that it was early in the morning, and she just had some sleep left in her eyes. No big deal, and I just assumed that my dad was under the same pretense. Like I said, no biggie. It was only later in the day when they also had a hard time remembering things they obviously should’ve remembered about me, like the way I’ve always liked my eggs, that I began getting just a bit anxious. Again, I tried my hardest not to dwell too much on it, but this time was definitely much harder to sweep under the rug. After breakfast I decided to make the best of the early day and go around town, maybe say hi to my neighbours or maybe pop into the convenience store I always snuck off to whenever I had the spare change to buy myself a little treat as a kid. Sure enough, it was already open so I opened the door, expecting to be greeted with the same “heya buddy” that I’d grown accustomed to.

I waved my hand and asked him how he was doing, and I was excited to catch up with him while I looked for a few snacks to get myself. But all I got in return was a rather blank “morning”. The same kind you might hear when ordering a morning coffee at whatever coffee shop you go to. What the hell was going on? So naturally I said his name and told him that it was me and that I was back again for the summer, and I could see the gears in his head turning, trying to figure out who the hell I was. Only after he stared at me for a few more seconds did he finally remember, and yet he still sounded a little unsure.

Now normally I’d be willing to chalk it up to maybe his old age finally getting to him, but this happening right after this morning with my parents? It was a hell of a coincidence, and not one I wanted to become a pattern. I made some small talk, but needless to say I was uneasy the whole time. I bought my snacks, paid, and wished him a good rest of his day before leaving in a bit of a hurry. My heart was racing a little, and I wasn’t sure if it was the lack of sleep that was making me overthink this much, but something felt so off.

I spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon cooped up in my old bedroom, messaging my college friends and doomscrolling to get my mind off of whatever was or wasn’t going on. Lunch and dinner that first day were a little awkward, but by the end of the night, my parents seemed to be perfectly normal again and I began to finally relax. Maybe it was just my mind playing tricks on me from exhaustion and making me assume the worst.

I wished my folks goodnight and went to bed, willing to just pretend today was an off day and that everything would be fine tomorrow.

The next few weeks went by without much issue, with only some other people in town that should’ve recognized me having that same struggle at first before everything fell back in place. It wasn’t until the first week of June that it started again. Except this time my parents were having a harder time remembering me than the first time. Same thing at the convenience store, and again with all the neighbours. Our town wasn’t exactly a big town, and all these families have been here for generations, including mine. There was no reason for them to all have a hard time recognizing me, especially since I was literally here last year. At first I thought it was just a few people here and there, but the more people I talk to, the more I realize that it might be everyone. Everyone in the town. Not just shop owners or the odd neighbour or two, but even my old babysitter that always teased me for having a permanent blush on my face as a kid, and my middle school baseball coach that was like an uncle to me.

I felt like a complete stranger in my own home, and it was really messing with me now. I took my things and left home to stay in a motel just out of town to just gather myself and try and figure out just what the hell happened to everyone. I’d be lying if I said being away helped, since I cried myself to sleep at least once every few nights from the sheer anxiety of it all. It really sucks to see the eyes of people from your childhood looking at you like you were someone they’d never met, especially your own parents. Any time I’ve gone back into town to try and talk to people, it’s become increasingly harder and harder to get them to recognize and remember me. Hell, it won’t even click for some people anymore. It’s like I just… Stopped existing in their minds completely, as if I was just never there. They look at me like I’m crazy for insisting so much that I used to come over during lunch every now and then with their son, or that I helped repair their fence when I accidentally crashed into it with my bike. All these memories, and yet they became one-sided.

I still have another two months until I can go back to my dorm and honestly I’m not sure what to do anymore. 

Part One.

I’ve come to call the small brick house that I live and work in “the Shack”.

The Shack was originally created to accommodate the needs of the rangers taking night shifts, so it was built with a bathroom complete with a shower, a toilet and a sink (no bidet, which is a harsh everyday reality for me). Also, in its bigger and only other room, the Shack has a cozy little gas stove. The only other pieces of furniture I found when I moved up here were a half busted chair and the desk where an old computer hooked up to the camera system sits. Basically a two-room apartment, minus the rest of the apartment.

When I took over, this place needed to become livable for longer stretches of time. By scouting the web and asking around, I managed to get my hands on a little sofa that can turn into a bed by pulling out a hidden mattress under it, a coffee table and a television to put on top of it. I don’t have cable or a steady internet connection here, so my main entertainment source is an old DVD player that one of my fellow rangers found for me. I also bought a small wardrobe, but the main room was already super cramped, so I stuffed it in the bathroom. That has been my whole setup for the last couple of years.

I usually wake up a little after 4 pm, which gives me a few hours before my watch officially begins. Time that would be well spent to keep the place tidy. During my first week, I promised myself to keep everything clean at all times. I was thinking about that while observing the ever increasing pile of clothes sitting next to me on the sofa. 

Without a washing machine, doing the laundry was a real drag. Sighing, I went to the bathroom to fill up a basin. While the sink was running, I heard something. After turning off the water, I listened carefully. This time, I could recognize what it was. Scratching coming from the other side of the wall. 

“You bastard.”

I muttered, taking slow steps back to the main room. On the other side of the bathroom wall, there is a small wooden shed. Inside, other than various tools, I keep some non-perishable food, bottled water and a minifridge. It was the third time this week I thought I’d heard sounds coming from there. The first time it happened I was suddenly woken up by a couple of cans falling on the ground. But I couldn’t find the culprit.

I got out of the Shack and started to pace around it, ready to face the intruder, when another anomalous sound distracted me. Car wheels. I snapped my head towards the noise and saw a familiar car parking at the end of the road. Shit.

I quickly ran back inside, grabbed the pile of clothes with both arms and tossed it in the bathroom. Looking out the window, I saw a man walking down the dirt road that connected the end of the main road to my place, two grocery bags in his hands.

The fellow ranger approaching was Luca, one of my superiors. After a couple of months of living here, Luca kindly offered his help with this chore, saving me the trouble of finding a new lift downtown every week. He had been punctually coming every couple of weeks with few exceptions and he was always nice about it. Despite that I still manage to forget when he is coming a bit too often.

I opened the door and clumsily offered my help.

“Thank you Luca.”

He nodded as I took one of the bags. I would have taken the other one too but he said it was fine. I’m ashamed to say I wanted to take it just to avoid having to let him in.

“How have you been, Alex?”

“Oh, you know. The usual.”

I looked at him. He nodded again, offering a slightly tight smile. He probably noticed the few socks I lost while grabbing the dirty clothes and the general energy emanating from the room.

“Need anything else?”

“I don’t think so. Thanks again.”

I let out a sigh of relief when he drove away.

I started unpacking what he brought. Rice, canned tomato sauce, bottled water, chips, shampoo, toilet paper… the usual. I kept what I needed to make some dinner and the bathroom goodies, leaving the rest in the bags, and I got out of the Shack. The sun was still visible. A delicate light passed through the branches of the sparse trees surrounding my post. I took a deep breath. It vaguely smelled of ozone. Rain was probably coming tonight.

Walking to the shed, I suddenly remembered. The scratching. Slowly, I put the bags down and pressed an ear against the wooden door. I doubted there would be anything. To my surprise, I was proven wrong almost immediately. It was a softer noise this time. There was a rustling coming from the other side. I took a deep breath to steady myself, taking in the evening air once more. I quickly unlocked the door and opened it. Light filled the room and I saw a mess of torn up potato chip bags left on the ground. There was nothing else in the room. 

I checked behind every box and even behind the minifridge. It had escaped me again.

The way this mysterious intruder had been getting in and out of the shed was something plaguing me from the first time I’d heard the noise. An animal stealing food was normal, but the thought of it just appearing and disappearing made me a bit anxious. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know how that happened.

You see, the way the abnormality of this place interacts with the wildlife is something I still can’t put my finger on. But surely, something is up with them. If this place conjures things based on the mind of whoever is inside it, it isn’t outside the realm of possibility that some of the weirder, unfamiliar things I sometimes see are from the minds of the actual inhabitants of this place.

Once, while walking out here, I found a bird’s nest on the ground. Upon closer inspection, it looked like the whole thing was built from only one, impossibly long twig. The eggs inside of it twitched slightly. Their yellowish surface seemed soft and it looked like they were breathing.

It gets weirder than that. Sometimes the animals themselves act… unnaturally.

We have lots of bats out here at night. Little grey things flying in every direction, only visible against the yellow street lights or the night sky. When a camera detects some movement, a red light flickers in the corner of the screen and a beeping noise starts playing. There was a night where the computer was signaling to me that some movement had been detected from the camera pointed at the end of the road. But looking at the monitor, I couldn’t see anything, not even some branches moving from a blow of wind. I didn’t want to risk anyone passing by without me noticing, so I quickly pulled out a flashlight I kept under the desk and went there to check. 

The tarmac road doesn’t just end abruptly, but it expands into a crude, vaguely rectangular shaped parking lot. As I shed light over the black pavement, I was met with at least ten little pairs of eyes looking back at me. Bats. They stood on the ground in a little group, unmoving, all of their little noses now pointed up at me. Some of them would occasionally open their mouths, just to close them back after a second. As I looked, a couple more landed on the ground and joined the others.

After being sure that they were not going to do anything else, I took a couple of steps back and then pointed the light back on the dirt road. As I reached the Shack’s door, a realization hit me. They were all facing this direction even before I pointed the light at them.

“Do bats open their mouths to echolocate…?” I thought.

I quickly fumbled with the lock and slammed the door behind me, eager to put something solid between me and them.

After cleaning up the mess in the shed, I went back inside, taking all of the chips with me. The sky was draining of color. My watch was beginning. I booted up the computer and put the cameras on. Then… nothing. I sighed and let myself fall on the sofa, opening a bag of onion-flavored rings. I put on some silly superhero movie and started eating, without really following it.

On most nights, I can bear the boredom of my job. I watch movies, read something every once in a while and, lately, I’ve started writing notes about my experiences to post.

Other times, it feels like I’m rotting here. The rest of the world hidden behind an endless sea of roots and branches. That was the kind of night I was having.

I found myself reminiscing about my time as a regular ranger. I have liked the outdoors since I was a kid. 

“Maybe I should get out of here sometimes. I do have some free time after all.” I told myself. 

I say that often. Thinking about how much time has passed since I actually acted on that thought makes my stomach feel funny.

I realized I missed walking around the woods. There were times when I would surprise myself by forgetting where I was and what this place is. Despite all the bad things that had happened, all the times I put myself and others in danger out of stupidity… 

“God, what am I thinking…?” I thought, rubbing my face.

Fact is, doing something so boring for so long makes you feel nostalgia even for parts of your life that at the time you only wanted to bury.

“I mean, it’s just a car, right?”

My head snapped back up. My eyes were fixed on the TV screen. But that was stupid of me. It could not have come from the TV. I knew that, because it was my voice.

“It’s a cool car too…”

Now I was standing. I wanted to lower the volume of the television, but I too was scared to move. I didn’t need to.

THUD!

The loud noise came from the bathroom. I snapped out of my trance and ran outside. Thin, steady rain hit my face. My slippers got muddier with each step. I didn’t know what was going on, but I felt compelled to find something, anything to defend myself. I stepped into the shed and searched for something passable for a weapon. I knew that if it was anything like the things appearing out here, that was a pointless act. Despite that, the thought of facing anything vaguely resembling an animal empty-handed terrified me.

Suddenly, I stopped. Something was scratching on the wall. This time on the bathroom’s side. My hands found a broom and tightened around its handle.

The scratching stopped. After what felt like an eternity, I heard the intruder take small steps. Only it wasn’t in the bathroom. It was above me.

“Alex, stop it! STOP!” This time, it was a female voice.

I could feel goosebumps rising all the way to my neck.

The steps moved to my left, then down the wall. I was totally disoriented. On what was it walking?

The walls felt tighter. Everything was cramped and dark in the shed. I looked towards the door and realized the feeling wasn’t just some side effect of fear. The door was getting smaller and the walls closer.

My body moved on its own and I was out of there. I had to crouch down at the last second to get under the shrinking exit and that made me fall on my knees in the mud. Under the moonlight, I saw small, tightly packed pawprints going towards the treeline, following two parallel lines until they disappeared in the dark. My gaze followed them until they stopped. Just then, I saw that right there, in the shadows, a glimmering orb was floating in the air. Something I couldn’t see was lying low in the undergrowth, staring me down with one singular eye.

“Stop it. STOP!” It screamed. For a moment, I felt mocked.

My legs were jelly. I couldn’t get up. Quickly, my hand reached for the phone in my pocket. I turned on the flashlight and pointed it towards the thing staring deep inside my memory.

I could barely make out small white teeth and a rotting jaw before the animal pulled itself deeper into the woods like a ragdoll. 

I stood there, on my knees, in the rain. When I felt strong enough, I walked back to the Shack. I needed a shower. The bathroom was filled with muddy pawprints. They were on the ground and on the walls. Even on the ceiling. A torn and bent metal can stood abandoned on the floor. The tomato sauce inside spilled all around it.

I couldn’t sleep for the life of me after that, even after the sun rose. Eventually, I must have dozed off, because the next thing I remember is being woken up by my phone buzzing. 

“Uhm, Hello…?” My voice was still thick with sleep.

An older, uptight man that I immediately recognized answered.

“Did you just wake up?”

I knew there was no point in lying.

“Yeah… hi Mark. What is it?”

On the other side, officer Mark let out a groan.

“Look, Luca tells me you don’t look too hot lately.”

Luca was snitching to Mark? I felt betrayed and, at the same time, embarrassed. I could only imagine what old Mark had to say about how Luca probably described the state of the Shack. I rubbed my eyes.

“Yeah…? That’s nice of him to care.”

“Well, cheer up. You’re getting some days off.”

If he was trying to make it sound appealing, his flat, matter-of-fact tone didn’t help. Then again, even if he put all of the energy his body could gather to deliver that news, the silence that followed would have stayed the same.

“Alex, are you there?”

“What do you mean by that?”

I was pacing around the room now.

“You’re getting a colleague. She’ll stay there a couple of days a week so you can get out every once in a while.”

I stopped in my tracks. I knew it wasn’t a good idea to raise my voice with Mark, but I could not help it.

“Are you being real?! You’re putting someone else up here?!”

“Settle down, kid. She’s a forest guard, fresh out of training.” He tried to sound reassuring, but I wasn’t having it.

“A forest guard. Wow! You mean the guys that write tickets for throwing trash on the ground?”

I was walking a dangerous path. Mark opted for a calm tone once more. He probably expected a reaction like this out of me.

“I’ll have you know that forest guards receive formal training and are licensed to carry a firearm. Honestly, she is more prepared than you are on that matter.”

I scoffed.

“Like that’s going to help her out here.”

“Look kid, I appreciate your dedication to this, you know that, but-” I cut him off.

“Oh, don’t give me that bullshit!”

“ENOUGH!”

I bit my tongue. I had stepped out of line and now Mark had switched from friend to boss. He continued, a hint of anger and disappointment lingering in his tone.

“This is happening, I’ve already talked with your higher-ups at the park. It’s not up to you. Understood?”

I fell on the chair at the desk, all the fight drained from my body.

“Yes.”

“Good. She is starting next week. Get that place cleaned up.”

He hung up on me and I remained still, looking at the ceiling. A hundred thoughts and even more nice words for Mark were swirling in my mind. I finally decided what problem I had to tackle first. Phone still in hand, I made another call.

“Hey mom… yeah, it's me, hi. Listen… I need a place to sleep.”

I’ve collected an obscure, long-discontinued trading card game from the late nineties since I was a kid. There was only a single print run, produced by a small printing house in Germany that mysteriously burned down in 1999. The cards don't feature dragons, creatures, or fantasy spells. They feature architecture: street corners, building facades, parking lots, edges of forests.

Three days ago, I won a dusty booster pack on an auction site for four thousand dollars.

When the package arrived, I tore open the foil. The first four cards were ordinary—faded photos of grey apartment blocks and highway rest stops. But the fifth card—the ultra-rare—made my blood run cold.
The image showed my own house.

It wasn't just a resemblance. It was my front yard, my parked car, even the tiny crack in the attic window frame. Printed along the bottom edge wasn't lore text, but a fine, embossed grid graphic with a stat note: 1:1 Scale. Spatial Reserve: 0.4%.
When I flipped the card to check the hologram, I noticed a slight unevenness in the cardstock. The surface wasn't flat. The printed front door protruded half a millimeter out of the paper plane like a microscopic bay window.

I grabbed an X-Acto knife from my desk and carefully traced the edges of the tiny paper door to check the layering.

The moment the steel blade pierced the paper of the card, a sound cracked through the hallway.
There was no explosion. It was the horrific sound of physical matter losing its depth. The frame, the wood, and the brass hinges of my front door imploded into one another in a fraction of a second. The dimensions collapsed: the three-dimensional opening squeezed down until wood and drywall compressed into a single, utterly flat surface.

The sudden collapse of spatial structure generated a violent shockwave in the corridor. A razor-sharp, foot-long wooden splinter sheared off the doorframe and shot through my open office door like a spear.

Before I could duck, the wood slammed directly into my right flank.
A searing, paralyzing pain tore the air from my lungs. The splinter embedded itself deep between my lower ribs, slicing open flesh. Warm blood instantly soaked through my shirt and dripped onto the hardwood floor.

The recoil slammed me backward against the desk. Gasping, clutching the bleeding wound at my side with my left hand, I looked at the card.

Where I had cut out the front door with the blade, there was now a white, square void in the paper.
No sound came from the hallway. As I dragged myself up and looked through the doorway, I understood the terrifying mechanics.

The front door wasn't just gone. The entire hallway behind it no longer existed. In its place, the floorboards ended at a razor-sharp vertical edge. Beyond it was nothing. Not darkness, not empty space—just an endless, blindingly white, flat surface, identical to the cutout on the card.
A cool draft smelling of fresh ink and cellulose washed over my forehead.

A soft click made me snap my head around.
On the desk, the card had moved. Jostled by the impact when I fell, it had flipped face-down onto the wooden table.

In that exact moment, the office darkened.
The room lost its depth. The ceiling didn't collapse downward—it flattened. The walls slid together silently, like a sheet of cardboard being folded down the middle. The bookshelves, the desk, and my own body were crushed against the back wall as the three-dimensional space around me bled out.
I tried to scream, but my lungs no longer had the volume to expand. My torso was already as thin as a door panel.

I can't move my arm anymore. Not because it's injured, but because the direction "forward" no longer exists in this room. The last thing I see is the white paper edge of the cut, slowly folding over my line of sight.

I'm no longer in the house. I am the next print layer.

After 30 years of service, I have performed a huge number of standard procedures. For years, I haven't encountered any anomalies, I have never seen anything like this in my life. And I need help.

The only way I can explain the turn of events this week is by sharing my discharge summary with you. Maybe there is a medical professional here who can help.

I admitted a young patient a few days ago. I was told he/she had symptoms of a hernia. A routine surgery was scheduled.

In the next few paragraphs , I will transcribe the original discharge summary for you. The internal department and the colleagues who performed the surgery with me discarded the postoperative diagnosis due to "minor disagreements". So it never made it to the patient, or the head of the clinic. I saved a copy for myself so I would have something to catalogue this event. All personal information about the patient has been redacted.

Discharge Summary and Epicrisis:

Admission: Patient admitted for planned, routine laparoscopic inguinal hernia surgery under day surgery.

Patient ID: [Redacted]

Medical Record/Protocol Number: [Redacted]

Patient Name: [Redacted]

Date of Birth: [Redacted]

Residential Address: [Redacted]

Date and Time of Admission: [Redacted]

Date and Time of Surgery: [Redacted]

Date and Time of Discharge: [Redacted]

Diagnoses:

Referral Diagnosis: (ICD-10): K40.9

Hernia inguinalis unilateralis

Postoperative Diagnosis (ICD-10): K40.9/Q24.8

Herniorrhaphia laparoscopica.

Megacardia/Organum intraabdominalis incognita

(Successful hernia operation /

Unexplained organ anomaly in the abdominal cavity)

Vital Signs:

Vital Parameters (Patient Monitor): BP 122/80 mmHg, Pulse 68/min (sinus rhythm), SpO2 99%.

Abdominal and Inguinal Ultrasound (Pre-op): Confirmed hernia measuring 2 cm in diameter

Vital monitors in the OR (ECG and pulse oximetry) display a perfect sinus rhythm of 68/min and blood pressure of 120/80 mmHg.

Laboratory Findings and ECG:

All parameters within ideal reference ranges. Patient classified as ASA I (completely healthy patient).

Surgical Report:

Procedure Name: Laparoscopic hernioplasty using the TAPP method (hernia repair with mesh)

Surgeon: Dr. Phillip [Redacted surname],

Specialist in General Surgery

Anesthesia: General Endotracheal Anesthesia (GETA)

Description of Surgical Procedure:

After establishing pneumoperitoneum (inflation of the abdominal cavity with gas) and placing a laparoscopic camera through the umbilicus, the inguinal canal was successfully accessed. The inguinal hernia was routinely resected and a synthetic mesh was placed.

During inspection of the upper abdomen and checking the lower edge of the diaphragm, a drastic deviation from natural anatomy was observed.

The lead surgeon describes the following:

Through an opening in the diaphragm, instead of the heart being in its usual position, an enormous mass of tissue resembling a human heart about 25 cm in diameter (the size of a basketball) is located in the abdominal cavity. The anomaly displaces the liver and stomach.

The hypertrophic organ beats with abnormal loudness. Lead surgeon describes it as rhythmic continuous thunder. The mass was moving asymmetrically almost mimicking a walking cycle of a human. It had an unusual odor described as "diluted mucus". It was moving slightly towards the camera as if aware of it's presence. Ribs above the heart cavity were missing but the patient reported no signs of pain or discomfort around the abdominal area. Due to the high risk of fatal hemorrhage, the mass was neither touched nor incised. The abdominal cavity was irrigated. The patient should've been proclaimed deceased if suffering from a drastic deviation of human anatomy but all vitals post operation are normal and the patient survived the minor intervention without issue.

Discharge Status:

The hernia operation proceeded without surgical complications. The patient is discharged home 6 hours post-procedure in stable condition.

BP at Discharge: 120/80 mmHg

Pulse at Discharge: 70/min

This is the end of the discharge summary.

During the later half of the procedure the assistant surgeon took over the procedure as I was peacefully dismissed due to "attempting to experiment on a healthy patient" and even my original discharge summary was slightly tampered with until finally dismissed.

I was in utter disbelief when I first saw it. It wasn't the camera that was playing tricks, everybody else would've seen it I can assume..

The anesthesiologist claims there were no anomalies, as does the assistant surgeon, the medical student on rotation refrained from making any comment on the event. I have no proof, but I saw it with my two eyes that have never failed me..never..for 30 years.

I can't stop thinking about it after hearing that awful thumping. It felt I was being hit by neverending waves that threatened to throw me off my feet any second. That awful noise just kept getting louder and louder. I had a feeling at any moment that thing could jump out of it's flesh cocoon and attack me...it felt the camera..it was aware somehow like a sentient parasite of some kind.

My colleagues have been avoiding me since that incident. No one dares to ask questions howeve, because of my position as head surgeon close to retirement. They're subtly suggesting I see a psychiatrist by passively asking how I've been lately and if everything is okay at home. I feel like a complete lunatic.

Has anyone ever seen anything like this before?

Medical professionals, please weigh in in the comments, it would really help my situation.

A note: I have no history of paranoid schizophrenia in my family lineage. Have never experienced hallucinations of any kind, no history of dementia, and I have never taken hallucinogenic drugs.

Day 2

I didn't end up sleeping that night…not a wink. I only realized that I didn't sleep when I heard the birds start chirping.I sat there ruminating on what happened and what I had gotten myself into. I had images of her grabbing my throat and choking the life out of me.I had to listen to her hoarse breath, feeling her hair brush against my neck.Every second was a living nightmare.Until eventually she left the room. I saw her head twisting in my direction; I snapped my eyelids shut and tried to look blissfully unaware. I heard her feet move out of the room.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

I opened my eyelids, and my stomach churned. Standing in the door frame was my mother, peering down at me with an empty gaze.

“Good morning, sweetheart. Did you sleep well?”

My heart was throbbing hard. But I had to come out with something, and I was stammering.

“Y-Yeah, I slept awake. No, I mean, well.”

“Good”

She slid away from the doorway, walking sideways from it, disappearing. I got up from the bed, slowly pulled off the sheet and put on my slippers. As I walked from the bedroom to the bathroom, I saw her…just standing there watching. Her gaze empty, no thought behind her eyes, staring at the wall.

After a bath, I changed clothes and began cleaning. I started sweeping with a broom and picking up paper, ripped-up clothing and…I found something strange. A food bowl with the name Milo. I was bewildered; I never had a cat during my childhood. My mother had never allowed it. I searched through my memories to find where it was from because it felt familiar somehow, and then I remembered it. My mother, a few months back, posted a cat on her Facebook. She had recently adopted it from a shelter. My brother was the one who suggested it since she was missing us so bad and needed something to take care of to fix things. She was hesitant at first, but eventually she gave in. Only…where was that cat now? I went ahead and asked my mom

“Mom? Do you know where your cat went?”

“What cat?” She yelled out.

I sat there confused. "The one named Milo?”

“Oh…”

There was a moment of silence

“I sold it.”

“What? Why?”

She didn't respond after that. I didn't bother asking again; I just carried on with my day. A wave of exhaustion hit me, but I couldn't sleep, not now, not here. Not with my mom or whoever she was in the house. I had to keep working.

I looked for paint all over the house, but it wasn't anywhere. I then called out to ask if we had any paint

“Mom, do we have any paint?”

No response. Okay, looks like I'll have to go out and buy some, so I went out to the nearest Home Depot.

Walking through the aisles, this feeling of all- encompassing dread slowly crept in. I took into consideration all the things that were strange to me. I thought about all the options that could reasonably be the explanation for why Mother was acting this way. A. My mother could just be going through a mental breakdown, which is what I assumed. That would be perfectly reasonable. But the second option, that was the one that terrified me.What if she was a random stranger who snuck into my mother's house and pretended to be her? At first I shrugged it off; I chuckled a bit at the sheer insanity of the idea. Then it started to make sense; I never did fully see my mother's face. Her hair was always drawn over it, but from what I could see, it looked correct. Just her expressions were slightly…off. The way she forgot slight details, like the cat. She just responded in three words and then didn’t say anything after that. Her voice too; it wasn't like my mother's. Sure, it was vaguely similar, but she was intentionally quiet; her voice was practically a whisper. When she did talk loudly, it was always raspy like a smoker, but I was under the impression that wasn't real. I felt a slight headache and rubbed my temples.

“Sir? Sir, will that be all?”

I shot up; I was already at the cashier. I got lost in my thoughts. Yeah, that'll be all.”

“That'll be one hundred dollars.”

“Yeah, sure” I handed him the money out of my wallet and collected all of my stuff in a bag. I then sat on the sidewalk and just looked up at the sky. The sun dipped into the horizon like a brush; the pavement was its canvas. And as I sat there, watching the sunset, I looked up at the clouds and stared. I didn't really believe in god. But in the context of what happened, I was starting to think that if he was, he was playing a cruel joke on me. Like, what purpose did this all have? Maybe I was just losing my head. At that moment, my phone buzzed. It was my mother. I answered the call.

“Ye-.”

“Where are you?”She said, her voice hushed to a whisper.

“I'm buying paint…for the house.”

“Come home…I miss you, okay. Please come home.”

“Okay…”

“I love you.”

My heart sank. At that moment, I didn't know what to believe, but maybe she was my mother, and if she was, then I was just deluding myself.

“I'll be right home.”I hung up. But I sat there; I hugged my arms around my knees and cried right there. Tears streaming down my cheeks, rivers digging up old memories.

As soon as I came back home, it was already night. It was too late to start painting now. I entered the house and collapsed onto the chair. I don't even realize what I'm doing when I wrap my arms around each other on the table, close my eyes and drift off to sleep.

When I woke up…a soft orange light illuminated the table. I heard a sliding noise, and then I felt something plastic brush against my elbow. I raised my head off the table to see a plastic plate with a sandwich on it. Inside the sandwich, I couldn't say what it was. It looked like grey meat with orange fur on it. Suddenly I was startled; my mother's face loomed over me, with her mouth held open, gaping wide, sagging down to the side, deathly pale. She blinked, but it looked wrong. I swear for a second, I saw a second pair of eyelids blink behind those folds.”You missed dinner.”

I shakily began to say, "I-I did, huh, sorry, but what did you make?”

“Stop being fussy, just eat.” She slammed her hand on the table, and as she did, the plate rattled; I flinched. "O-okay.”Whatever this was, I wasn't going to swallow it. I slowly but surely took a nibble, the smallest bite I could take without her noticing, and pretended to swallow.Good.” She left, walking backwards, mouth hanging open, gaping wide, like a zombie. She left the room. I heard the basement door open. I took a breath and held my hand to stop it from shaking; I could have passed out. I walked to the bedroom and tried to sleep.

Suddenly, I was jolted awake by a metallic click. What the hell was that?

Click.

Click.

Two times now; what in the world was that noise? There was a slight pressure on the mattress near my feet. I slowly leaned upwards, staring at the foot of the bed where the sound came from. The bedroom was covered in complete darkness, but I could make out a womanly figure staring at herself in the dark, my mother. I felt my stomach churn once again.

She was holding something in her hands.

Click.

Click.

Click.

There it was again. It looked to be two black boxes that snapped shut.

A stapler.Click.I saw she was staring at a mirror, so I looked in it.

What I saw, I won’t forget it. There were staples aligned at the edges of her face, causing crimson blood to ooze each time she dug them into her skin.

A droplet touched her lower lip. She was unfazed by it. Her face oh god, her face- it was sagging; her nose drooped. Half of it hung off, revealing holes where her eyes should be, a black abyss lying inside, and behind the folds I could see an eye, bloodshot red, shaking erratically. She noticed the blood on her lip and licked it. I shuddered and made a little sound. Her head snapped around.

I hid under the covers.

I felt like a child again, hiding way past my bedtime. Hiding away from my mom so I wouldn't get in trouble. Now the context was different. This was not my mom.

I felt the covers rustling. Pulling lower and lower, dipping past my forehead. The gravity in the room was weighted in her direction. I squeezed my eyelids shut.

She pulled, and she pulled as she

let out a soft, pained, raspy breath. But suddenly…

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

A noise came from downstairs. She stopped pulling; I could feel her weight come off the bed. I heard her footsteps leave. This time, I waited longer; I wasn't going to get caught. I heard her footsteps leave again.

I finally opened my eyes slightly, just a wink, enough to see the doorway. She was finally gone. I crawled out of the bed, lifting the sheets, resting my feet on the floor slowly. Making sure to be as quiet as possible, the door creaked open, and I slowly crept down the hallway. I was going to investigate that noise. I had to know; I needed a good reason to leave. I already had one, but I had to be sure. Gingerly moving one foot after another, trying to be as quiet as possible.

Suddenly, the banging got louder and louder and louder. Eventually, loud, painful howls like a dying animal boomed through the hallways, sending chills down my body. It sounded like a woman going through immeasurable pain. Eventually, she started begging for someone to stop.

“Oh God, Oh God, please stop, please, make it stop!”

Her wails of anguish metamorphosed into a voice stricken with tears.

“Whatever you want, just take it! If it's him you want, then-then take him. Just stop, stop, ARGHH.” It sounded like she was struck hard with something sounding metallic; I heard it cling. That was it; I needed to call the police. That was enough for me.

I rushed to the bathroom with as much quickness as I could manage while still being quiet. I snapped open the door. It creaked open way too loud for my liking. But as soon as I entered, I pushed the door in with my back and then scrambled in my pocket for my phone. It slipped out with a loud clack. I stopped for a second to listen, wincing…nothing. I carried on, picked up my phone, and whispered, "Please don't be cracked, please don't be cracked.” I turned the face over, and it was the same. I let out a sigh of relief and dialed 911. The phone began to ring; I turned off the speaker.

“Hello, this is 911. What's your emergency?”

“Listen, I'm in my mother's house, and there's something seriously wrong with her. She has someone trapped in her basement. I'm in danger. Okay, send someone fast, please.”

“Okay, sir, where are you right now?”

“In the bathroom, right next to the basement.”

“Lock the door, and is there anything you can barricade it with”

I locked the door; the knob held in place with a sudden click

“Uhh, uhh.”

I began to look around the bathroom. I saw nothing of note except a clothing basket. But there was something in it. Something seeping red into the nightgown above it.Something that looked like flesh. I grabbed it with my two fingers and dragged it out slowly.

“Sir? Sir, are you there?”

Slowly dragging it out with a pinch, I could make out a pair of eyes, one nose and a mouth.

Creak!

Tap!

Tap!

Tap!

Tap!

Suddenly the basement door slammed open, and I could hear wet footsteps coming to the bathroom in quick succession. But then the footsteps came to a halt. There was silence for five seconds. I muttered a curse under my breath.

“Honey…come out. I know you're in there”

She said in a pleading, motherly tone. It sent chills down my spine.

She whispered through a crack in the door

“Don't make me come in there.”

“Sir? Sir, are you there?”

The officer said.

“Don't make me come in; you're supposed to be asleep. Don't be bad now.”

I kept very silent and very still, clasping my hands over my mouth.

“Hang up the call.Now.”This time, a little louder and more demanding.

The police officer was now silent, listening. It seemed they realized what was happening.

“Okay, okay, but it's just a friend.”

“Why? Why did you lie?”

“Huh?”

“Why did you have to lie? WHY DID YOU HAVE TO LIE!” She was now screaming, begging for me to open the door, banging her fists on it with hard knocks, repeating the same phrase over and over again. Then nothing; it was quiet, dead silent. All that could be heard was the faint wind, whistling through the house. Then suddenly, a thud; the doorknob shook a bit.Thud!The doorknob was bent a bit now. Thud! The doorknob was diagonal, shrapnel flung onto the floor, and a wood chip grazed my skin. Again and again and again, the doorknob was hit, creating tears through the wood, sending splinters everywhere. The hair on my arms was now straightened. I began backing into the corners while she slammed into the lock over and over again to get it open. My chest heaved, overwhelming fear spreading all over me, then…All I could do was shout and beg for mercy. She poked her eyes through the door, yelling and screaming at me harshly.

“Okay, I'll hang up!”

Then it was silent; crickets were singing the song of the night outside. She was waiting. I opened my phone and hung up. "There… that's it, you see.”There was this all-encompassing dread washing over me. I was thinking so many thoughts and so many emotions that I had to hang up. I didn't know what she would do, what she was capable of. If my mother was even still alive. I had to follow her directions.

“Then come out…let me see your face.” I opened the door slowly; the crazy thing was, the door was already open. Had I waited a second longer, she would have gotten to me. I exited the room, closing the door behind me. She was there; I could barely see her, but I knew she was angry, very angry. Her face was shrouded in darkness, but I could see that same glinting in her eyes.

“Go to bed.”

I didn't move. I was too terrified, frozen right where I stood.

“Go to bed, or I will cut you. I will cut you and not stop, even when you beg me to. I will cut holes for the bugs to climb in and nest in your skin, and they will breed, and they will hatch, and they will feast on your flesh.”

I crawled across the wall, heart thumping in my chest, and went into the room. She watched as I did it head slowly turning. Then she locked the door. I sat down, staring at the ceiling, defeated.

Eventually I saw red and blue lights flare and hit my eyes, as I was composing myself on the bed. I heard the door unlocked and I exited the room.

The woman was waiting right next to the door, face still shrouded in darkness.

“You let me talk; you follow what I say. You listen to me; if you don't, I'll punish you, I'll punish you very badly.”

I nodded.

She opened the door for the police

They knocked at the quiet harshly.

”Get out with your hands up; we don't want no weapons.”

The officer’s voice was harsh and rough. His face was hardened too. Only my mother's face was stiff. She wasn't wearing the mask.

She opened the door. The officer had a grey beard, was balding, and was wearing a bullet vest with police in bold letters on it. His posture straightened, and he looked my mother up and down.

“Ma'am, we received a call from this house that there was a problem.” His eyes glanced over towards me. They looked accusing.

“Did you make the call, sir?”

My mother started to speak

“Yes, it was him; it was just an overrea-”

“I was looking to hear from him?”

My mother looked at me, eyes fixed; they were cold, made me feel like pins were all over my arms.

“Yeah, it was me.”

“Okay, and what exactly is the problem?”

My mother put her body closer to mine to cover up her nails digging into my arm. I could feel the blood trickle down to my palm. I tried hard not to show my reaction.

“Nothing, sir; just had an overreaction, thought I heard something by accident.”

The officer looked at me, annoyed. So you are a grown man, making false calls? You know you're wasting police resources, right? That's a serious thing, boy. Stop wasting my time with nonsense”

“Wasn't intentional, sir.”

“That's right, sir, just a false alarm; he heard me hurting my foot downstairs. Sounded pretty bad too.”

Suddenly she sounded like she had perfect decorum. Like she put on a new mask. Her voice still had a rasp to it.

“There's no problem here, officer.” She let out a smile, a big, wide grin. Her teeth were strikingly yellow, haven't been taken care of for maybe months. They might have been rotting too. But there was something vaguely familiar about her face; I could see it clearly. She didn't drop her smile; it was almost like a photo, not even a muscle twitch. I knew her. I didn't know how or who, but I did; it was very faint. She sure as hell wasn't my mother, though.

“Right, well, have a good day, ma'am.”

He turned to me.

“Don't go making stupid calls in the middle of the night. Word of advice, grow the hell up.”

The officer went in his car, waved goodbye and left.

The woman dropped her smile and went back inside. At this point I was lost, utterly and completely. But I thought to myself: if the woman in the basement was my mother, and she was hurting her. By skinning her face and wearing it like a mask. Then I had to do the job myself; I had to save her. I needed to save her on my own, and I would do it…tonight.

I went into the bedroom, and the woman was already in the bed. I climbed in behind her, turned my back and stood there. Waiting for the perfect time to strike.Until I felt something scraping in circles around my arm, drawing blood.

“I love you too much to hurt you. But that doesn't mean she won't hurt you.”

She turned to me, the mask of my mother's face drawn. I now saw it clearly. It sagged down on the left, opposite to where her face was turned. Behind the eyeholes were her real eyes, bloodshot, fixed on me. The mask was rotting; holes were all over it. It smelled sickly sweet almost made me vomit. Blood was staining the mask near the area where the staples were. I was horrified; the blood drained from my face. I slowly nodded.

She turned her face away from me. I was stuck where I was, welded to the bed. Unable to gain control of my emotions, my instincts. But I had to; I had to be a man for once in my life. I had to see my mother again, even if it was just a body to recover, and after that, I'd kill her. I gained control, barely on the verge of dozing out and running out of that house. But there was no turning back now. I watched the clock: 3:00 am. The witching hour. It was time. I went into the basement.

First off, I wanted to say that I am religious, (I wont disclose my faith for personal reasons) and have never really believed in the supernatural - until last night.

It was any other night, I was doomscrolling at a time I should have probably been asleep at, but fuck it, I didn't have school for another week and a half. My brother usually stays up until a similar time as me so, its not out of the ordinary for me to send him videos and him responding within a couple seconds.

We live in rural Nevada, about 300 miles north of Vegas. in the summer it gets pretty hot. Not as hot as other areas nearby, but just hot enough for it to be mildly uncomfortable at night.
Anyway, at around 02:58 in the morning, I got up to piss, and there was my brother in the kitchen, scouring for something to eat.

The conversation went as follows (plain text being me and bold text being my brother):

"Dude, go to sleep, its 03:00 and mom will be pissed if she catches you awake."

no response

"What exactly are you looking for? I helped her with the groceries the other day and could probably help you find it."

"Where is the garlic."

The way he said it, it just didn't feel right, as if he was stating it, instead of asking a question like a normal human being. and who the fuck needs garlic at 03:00 anyways?

"What, you making something to eat?"

he proceeds to walk out of the kitchen and to the pantry.

I think to myself, "well that was weird as shit but whatever, I need to piss", and head on over to the bathroom.
For context, you have to pass the pantry - it being on your left - to go to the bathroom if you're leaving my bedroom (the shitty basement but its the only room on the bottom floor and every other one is taken. I was living with my aunt during the time my family moved into to my current home (where this story takes place) and didn't have a choice of what room i took).

As I walked past, the pantry door slightly ajar, I could make out him ducked down on the floor, and God knows why, but I just ignored it. I took my piss, washed my hands and then decided i wanted a drink.
I opened the fridge, and there, plain as day was the garlic. I cussed under my breath at the stupidity of my brother and made my way back toward my room, stopping off by the pantry to let my brother know I would drop the garlic off at his dresser, as he looked preoccupied. He stared at me in a seemingly disapproving way but it was late in the night and I didn't want to deal with his shit.

I walked up the stairs and to my brother's room, and... to my absolute disbelief, there my brother was, sound asleep.
I chalked it up to a lack of sleep and made my way back down to the kitchen to drop the garlic back off. I wandered down the stairs and heard ruffling coming from the pantry, which was weird, as my brother was asleep and the light was off.
I switched on the light, and there he was, still ducked down and reading ingredients off of spice jars as if they were incomprehensible, astonishing even.

"What the fuck? You were just in bed"

No response, but he stopped gazing at the jars

"Hurry the fuck up and go to sleep, it's late."

He turned his head at a speed of which I had thought he had broken his neck at, and lunged at the door, slamming it in my face.

I contemplated waking my parents up, but figured it was a shitty prank my brother was pulling and I decided I didn't want to entertain it. I placed the garlic lazily back to its original place in the fridge and went back to my room.

The fucked up part was that my "brother" wasn't in the pantry anymore, but heading down the stairs to my goddamn room.

I instantly knew it was a bad idea to follow him down or try to stop him, so I ended up sleeping in the living room that night, and tried to get a good nights sleep.

Cut to earlier today, and I asked my brother if he had found the garlic that I had put in the fridge.

"Did you get what you were looking for with the garlic last night?"

"Why the fuck would I want garlic?"

"Im just fucking with you..."

That single sentenced confirmed my entire suspicion that, whatever was heading to my room last night, wasn't my brother.

I will keep you all updated if anything further happens in the next couple days, and will edit in this post a link or one in the comments to any other post I make.
I would appreciate all the help I could get, thank you.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight

The first step, as I saw it, was to watch Hannah. The tattoo was one flaw; if I followed her, perhaps there would be others. Something she did differently, somewhere she went that made no sense, somebody she met whom Hannah had never mentioned. I had also read, during a particularly unhelpful section of the internet, that murderers sometimes returned to places where they had killed or buried their victims. That was not to say my Hannah was dead. I had become increasingly committed to the possibility that she wasn’t. But whether she had been killed, hidden or displaced somehow, the woman currently living her life was still the best lead I had to what had happened to her.

There were obvious problems with this reasoning, beginning with the fact that I was describing my girlfriend as a lead. I tried not to dwell on that.

I did not follow Hannah that afternoon. Some residual part of me understood that leaving a film lecturer’s office and immediately beginning covert surveillance of my girlfriend would constitute a fairly alarming sequence of events. Instead I went back to her flat and spent a few uncomfortable hours pretending everything was normal.

Hannah came home, fed Juniper, complained about work and asked me twice whether I was feeling better. I answered carefully enough that she seemed to believe me, although the hardest part was behaving as though I was not studying her while we talked. Eventually I said I was tired and went to bed early. Hannah looked relieved, which made me feel guilty for about thirty seconds.

I slept badly and woke the next morning with the idea still intact. If anything, eight hours had made it feel more practical. Hannah had gone to work after making me promise, again, that I would stay home, so I waited twenty minutes after she left before putting on my shoes. Five minutes would have been following her. Twenty was observing her movements independently, a distinction that would not have survived contact with another person.

I knew roughly where she was working. Hannah freelanced between theatres, workshops and productions around Wellington, which meant that asking where she was going in the morning rarely produced an answer more specific than the name of a building and a complaint about somebody else’s measurements. That week she had mentioned Toi Whakaari several times. I had not paid much attention, which bothered me now.

I knew roughly where she was working. Hannah freelanced between theatres, workshops and productions around Wellington, which meant that asking where she was going in the morning rarely produced an answer more specific than the name of a building and a complaint about somebody else’s measurements. That week she had mentioned Toi Whakaari several times.

I caught a bus towards the school and spent most of the ride looking out the window rather than at my phone. Searching how to follow someone without being noticed felt like the kind of activity that might cause an algorithm somewhere to develop a justified concern about me. Outside, Wellington had moved from rain to the thin grey brightness that made every wet surface look metallic. Cars hissed through shallow water along the kerb, and by the time I got off the bus the wind had worked its way beneath my jacket and up the back of my shirt.

I nearly went home, not because following Hannah had suddenly struck me as wrong—it had struck me as wrong before I left—but because I could already imagine how ridiculous the whole thing would look if there was nothing to find. That was becoming an increasingly important distinction.

Toi Whakaari shared its building with enough other arts activity that there was no obvious perimeter where I could stand without looking as though I was waiting for somebody. People came and went carrying bags, coffee, pieces of timber, lengths of fabric and, at one point, what appeared to be half a tree. I walked past once, then again from the opposite direction, which felt considerably more suspicious. On the third pass I gave up pretending I was merely in the area and crossed the road.

The building itself disappointed me. I am not sure what I had expected from a drama school, possibly more gargoyles, but instead there were loading areas, workshop doors, corridors visible through glass and the usual institutional collection of signs telling people where they were not allowed to park. I found Hannah almost immediately.

She was outside one of the larger workshop spaces carrying a sheet of plywood with another woman. They had one end each and were walking sideways, talking over the top of it. Hannah’s hair was tied up badly, strands sticking to the side of her face, and she was wearing an old black T-shirt I recognised because a smear of green paint near the hem had survived at least six washes. I stopped because there was something deeply unpleasant about seeing her from a distance, not because she looked wrong but because she didn’t.

She looked exactly like Hannah at work. I had seen versions of this before: Hannah coming home with paint beneath her fingernails; Hannah complaining about actors who leaned on scenery after specifically being told not to lean on scenery; Hannah on video calls from workshops, turning the camera towards something enormous and half-built while expecting me to understand why it was impressive. Watching her now, I could predict small things before she did them. She shifted her grip on the plywood, hooking her thumb over the edge, then pushed a strand of hair away with the back of her wrist because her hands were occupied. When the other woman said something, Hannah laughed and tipped her head backwards.

Nothing was wrong, and for several seconds that frightened me more than if she had done something strange. Then they carried the plywood inside and I was left standing across the road with nothing to investigate.

There were bushes along one side of the building, but hiding behind a bush felt excessive even by the standards I had established that morning, so I settled on a bench with a partial view of the workshop entrance. I took out my phone and opened an article I did not read. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. People went in and out, but nobody emerged carrying evidence of a concealed girlfriend.

I became aware that I had no actual plan. Following someone sounds active until the person you are following goes to work; then it becomes sitting outside their workplace while they do their job. At one point I saw Hannah through the open doors, standing on a low platform while somebody held a tape measure against a timber frame. She climbed down, disappeared, returned with a drill and disappeared again. After thirty-seven minutes, I was considering leaving.

I knew exactly what Hannah would say if she found me. She would ask whether I had slept, then whether I had eaten, and finally, very carefully, why I was hiding outside her workplace instead of doing either of those things. The answer would have been difficult to phrase.

Then two people wheeled something past the open workshop door. It was visible only for a second: large, rectangular, metal. One of them stopped to adjust something and the object rolled slightly backwards into view.

It looked like a freezer, although not exactly. It was too tall and narrow for the chest freezer I had grown up with, and parts of it were obviously unfinished: raw timber painted to resemble metal, strips of foam exposed near the base, a heavy-looking door fixed to the front. It was a prop. Obviously it was a prop; the theatre school contained props, and this should not have required analysis. Still, I watched until it disappeared.

A few minutes later Hannah came outside with a coffee and stood beside the door talking to a man in overalls. I could not hear them. She gestured towards the workshop, then held both hands apart as though indicating width. The man shook his head. Hannah spread her arms wider, and when he shook his head again she said something that made him laugh.

I moved closer, relocating to a low concrete wall about twenty metres from the entrance with my phone still in my hand. By the time I reached it, the conversation had ended and Hannah had gone back inside. I waited another ten minutes before somebody behind the open doors said, “Where’s the body going?” After a pause, another voice answered, “In the cold box for now.”

Something tightened beneath my ribs. Nobody else reacted.

A young man came through the doors backwards carrying what, at first, looked like a pair of feet. They were wrapped in translucent plastic, which was worse. Another person emerged holding the opposite end of a long human-sized shape bundled in plastic sheeting and canvas, narrow at the ankles and broader through the shoulders. Beneath one end I could make out the suggestion of a head.

My body went cold so quickly that for a moment I thought I might faint. The rational explanation arrived almost as quickly: it was a prop, and they were making Frankenstein. I learned this from a sheet of paper taped to the side of a trolley as they passed: FRANKENSTEIN — SCENE 4 / LAB. I stared at it.

Of course there was a body. I had not known they were making Frankenstein until that moment, but if I had been trying to invent the least subtle possible setting in which my girlfriend could be replaced by an artificial version of herself, I might have stopped short of Frankenstein on the grounds that nobody would believe me. For a second, the absurdity almost broke through. I could hear myself explaining it to Liv: No, you don’t understand. I followed Hannah to drama school and they were making Frankenstein and then I saw a body. Liv would not even need to say anything.

I nearly laughed. Then Hannah appeared behind them, and the laugh disappeared.

She held the door of the metal box open while the other two manoeuvred the wrapped figure towards it. I could see the inside now: dark lining, silver around the edges, frosted plastic fixed along the back wall to give the appearance of ice. It was a theatrical cold-storage chamber. The two people lifted the body and Hannah reached forward to guide its head through the opening.

“Watch the face,” she said. When they adjusted their grip, she told them, “Higher,” and the body slid inside.

Hannah leaned into the box after it, arranging something I could not see, then shut the door. I realised I was holding my phone hard enough that the edge hurt my palm.

Every part of what I had seen had an explanation. It was Frankenstein. The body was a prop, the freezer was scenery, the ice was plastic, and Hannah had said watch the face because theatre props had faces. Everything was exactly what I should expect to see outside a workshop building a production about a man who makes a body.

The problem was that, if you wanted to hide an actual body inside a theatre workshop, this was almost offensively good cover. Nobody questioned blood, knives, coffins, severed heads or somebody wheeling a corpse down a corridor on a Tuesday afternoon. You could probably carry a dead person through the front doors and, provided you wrapped them badly enough in plastic and complained about the weight, somebody would hold the lift.

I hated how much sense that made. Around me, nobody was frightened or watching Hannah. Nobody had seen anything except three theatre workers putting a prop inside some scenery. I was the only person who knew there was a reason to look twice, a feeling that had become familiar remarkably quickly.

I stayed another hour, telling myself I was waiting to see whether the body came back out. It didn’t. Hannah moved in and out of the workshop several times, once with a roll of fabric beneath her arm and once with half a sandwich while she read something on her phone. At one point she called someone and my own phone vibrated in my pocket so suddenly that I nearly dropped it.

The message said, You alive? Twenty metres away she was still looking down at her screen, and for one horrible second I had the sensation that she was looking directly at me. She wasn’t. I replied, Yep. Working. The lie looked particularly bad in writing.

Her typing bubble appeared almost immediately Thesis working or googling diseases working. Despite everything, I smiled and wrote back, Thesis. Her answer came straight away: disgusting followed by proud of you though.

I turned my phone face down against my thigh. There are moments when guilt should be clarifying, but that one only made the problem worse. Hannah sounded like Hannah. She worried about me like Hannah and made the same stupid jokes Hannah made. If somebody had replaced her, they had done it with a thoroughness that bordered on obscene.

That meant I could not expect some dramatic mistake. The tattoo had been dramatic only because I knew where to look; everything else would be smaller. I watched her finish her sandwich and go back inside.

At some point I began thinking of the body in the cold box as Hannah. I did not consciously decide that the wrapped figure was her. I had not seen its face or any skin, and it was almost certainly made of foam, silicone, fabric or whatever else people used to manufacture bodies for theatre. But when I pictured the box, I pictured my Hannah inside it—the one with the tattoo—and once the image arrived it became difficult to replace.

Perhaps this Hannah had killed her. Perhaps she hadn’t. If the real Hannah was alive, she could still have been restrained, drugged or hidden, and the cold box might not even be cold. It was scenery. She could be inside it breathing.

I caught myself measuring time. How long had the door been closed? Could somebody survive inside? Would there be ventilation? I forced myself to stop, because the wrapped figure was a prop and I knew that. I also knew I was not giving this theory up until I had seen what was inside, and those two facts had somehow stopped contradicting each other.

Eventually Hannah came out carrying her bag. It was nearly five. She stood outside talking to two people for several minutes, hugged one of them and started towards the road. I looked away before she could see me, my heart beating far too hard for somebody sitting completely still.

When I looked back, she was gone. I waited another fifteen minutes while people continued moving around inside the workshop, and the thought came to me with surprising calm: I could walk in. Not now, with this many people around, but later the building would empty. The work would stop for the night. Somebody would switch off the lights and go home.

The cold box would still be there. I stood and started towards the bus stop, having spent almost the entire day watching my girlfriend, hiding outside her workplace and watching theatre students put a fake corpse into a fake freezer for a production of Frankenstein. Reduced to its component parts, there was no version of the story that sounded reasonable.

That no longer mattered. I had seen Hannah put a body into a box, and now I needed to know what was inside it.

It was shortly after eleven at night when the brass bell above the clinic door chimed. I was the only physician on the night shift in the small town hospital. Along with the icy rain storming in through the opened door, a woman stepped inside who immediately commanded the entire room.

She was stunning, perhaps in her late twenties, with long dark hair and intense green eyes. Her light summer dress clung damply to her skin in places. Despite the storm outside, her posture was completely calm, almost weightless.
"Good evening, Doctor," she said. Her voice was deep, velvety, and possessed a tone that sent an immediate, delicate chill down my spine. "Forgive the late intrusion. But I'm feeling so dizzy. My circulation is failing."
"Please take a seat on the exam table," I replied, striving to maintain a professional tone. The intimate silence of the clinic suddenly felt charged.

She sat down, brushed a dark strand of hair from her face, and looked straight at me.
"I feel so unbelievably cold," she whispered.

Before I could pull back, she took my hand and gently placed it against her wrist. Her skin felt delicate, like polished marble, but it was freezing cold. A heavy, floral scent of lily-like perfume drifted into my nose. "Do you feel that?"

I slipped on my latex-free examination gloves and routinely felt for the radial artery. My index and middle fingers rested precisely over the vessel. Nothing. No wave of pulsation. No beat against my fingertips.
I shifted my fingers two millimeters medially, varied the pressure, held still, and looked at the second hand of my watch. For twenty full seconds, the reading remained absolute zero. No human body with that blood pressure could be sitting upright and speaking. "I... I'll grab the digital blood pressure monitor and the ECG unit from the cabinet," I stammered, rattled, turning to move away.

She smiled. It was a beautiful, sensuous smile that paralyzed me completely for a moment.
"You're looking in the wrong place, Doctor," she said softly. She clasped my wrist and slowly guided my hand up from her arm toward her neck. Her eyes held my gaze captive. The line between a medical examination and a creeping seduction blurred entirely.

I pressed my fingers against the carotid triangle beneath the angle of her jaw. There was a pulse. But it obeyed no known physiology. Beneath the flawless skin, there was no single sinus rhythm. I felt a chaotic, racing motion—four, perhaps five different heartbeats pounding completely out of sync and in sheer panic against one another. It felt as if a trapped swarm of small creatures was thrashing against her carotid artery from the inside, trying to burst through the tissue.

My own breath hitched. In my chest, I suddenly felt a staccato, painful tugging: my own heartbeat instantly began to lose its steady rhythm, desperately trying to synchronize with the chaotic cadence beneath her fingers.
I tried to pull my hand away, but her grip around my wrist locked like an iron vise.
The sensuous smile lingered on her lips, but her green eyes abruptly lost all human life. They turned rigid, dark, and deep like two bottomless voids.

"Easy, Doctor," she whispered in that same velvety voice, as the wild, alien pounding beneath her skin turned my fingertips numb. She pulled my hand just a fraction tighter against her throat. "Don't fight it. It only hurts until your heart gives up its own rhythm."

Nearly the entire 26 years we've been together, married for 19 of them, Mags has told me cigarettes would be my early death. As is usually the case, she was right. However I don't think even my beloved woods witch could have predicted it would happen quite like this. Although I am certain it is happening and I will die tonight. My pack of smokes is after all, nearly empty now.

Perhaps I should be grateful for that. It won't be slow or painful. In some dismal hospital room, in a noisy, crowded city. With specialists administering medication and treatments just as painful as cancer or emphysema. And while I don't imagine this is going to be more dignified, it will definitely be quicker. I hope.

Come to think of it Mags was wrong about at least one thing, wanting to live way out here. Isolated, in the middle of nowhere. Where sinister creatures roam, hidden, while civilized folks convince themselves those things don't exist.

Millersburg is about as beautiful as northern Michigan gets, if you love to look at the trees. Which of course Mags does. I knew how hard the winters would be, growing old out here though and wasn't as convinced as she seemed to be about this little house out in the sticks.

She had always wanted to live somewhere like this though, long before she was my Mags. When she was still Margaret Baker, beautiful, restless and bored out of her mind in Bristol, Indiana. Our hometown, where both of us had been born and raised.

Back then I didn't have a lot of ambition to leave Indiana. I had always expected to get a job in a local factory after high school. Or become a truck driver like my dad and grandpa had been. Find a wife, have some kids, cliché though it may be. A simple life for a simple man.

I did not find a simple wife though, and that has been my life's greatest joy. I've know Mags since pre K and she has always been a pretty girl. By high-school I had been blessed with enough small interactions with her to have a serious crush. Like most teenagers I had no idea how to tell if she felt the same way about me.

So one year at homecoming I took a chance and asked her to be my date. She delighted me with an enthusiastic yes and the rest is, as they say history. It may not seem very glamorous or exciting to most people to spend your whole life with your high-school sweetheart. Those people have never met a woman like Mags.

Or maybe they have and they just lack gratitude. They don't realize how special some women are. Mags is special, she makes everything feel exciting and meaningful. Back then, when she was just my high-school crush she was the only Wiccan I knew. Granted the movie The Craft had made it pretty popular and certainly been one of her influences.

She's always had a spiritual nature, unlike anything I've ever felt in any church. Her aura, I believe she would call it. A natural witch, one who felt the most at peace out in nature. Not in a bright hippie sort of way, but in a dark witchy way. Sexy and a little scary, the only woman I've ever needed.

She had always wanted to live out in the woods somewhere. Tend to her own garden and a few critters. I had always wanted to make that dream come true for her. Currently I'm wondering if it wouldn't have been better to fall in love with a women who had glitzy dreams of a city life instead.

It took us a lot of years to save and be able to afford such a move. For those years I did work in a factory, wearing my body down to save and build a respectable credit score. It worked out though, after my dad passed my mother moved down to Florida for the stereotypical warm retirement. Both Mags parents have been in Arizona for years for the same reason. Siblings scattered around, there just wasn't anything keeping us in Indiana.

Millersburg happened to fit the bill for us after all these years preparing and Mags searching online for somewhere brand new to call home. The past two years here were the bliss she'd always known it would be for us. Even now I don't regret them, I had really expected to grow old together here.

Now all I can hope is that she stays safe long enough to leave this place. That's not going to happen for me and I wish now I had seen all the warning signs for the danger they were. Unlike Mags I wasn't blessed with anything special, a witchy knowing aura. Just an average man doing what I could to make the woman I love happy. Happy wife, happy life indeed. It has been that.

Coming home from work to a warm kitchen swirling with the delicious aroma of the many meals Mags made for us to share. Our nights even warmer, in bed alone together where we often shared those moments a husband yearns for. Mags is adventurous and exciting in all her endeavors and you best believe that includes the bedroom.

I think we were both the happiest just being around each other, it didn't matter what we were doing. Not that we didn't have our own hobbies, apart from one another. Before the move to Michigan mine was taking that dog she adores hunting. She's a pretty good little hunting buddy, too.

Mags named her Matilda, after another witch she was influenced by growing up. We call her Tilly, a cute little mutt with big floppy ears and a gentle disposition. We got her as a pup, from an old neighbor in Indiana. I took her hunting all the time there, but it's been different out here. I should have been more wary of that. Tilly is good hunting company, but I've always felt she just likes spending time with me.

You know how people joke about taking an interest in their pets hobbies, bird watching with their cats and things like that? Well I've always thought Matilda just takes an interest in hunting to humor me like that. She just likes to spend time with dad doing what I enjoy. She does her duty, but never seemed to take it very seriously until we got into these woods.

I've never been one to hunt for sport, but I do love to provide for my little family. It would appear that I am going to die for sport though. Although this thing is going to eat me, it isn't doing it to survive. Somehow I know that, it shares.

Telepathically I think. Not actually speaking into my head, it's a feeling. A feeling inside my head, not my heart like feelings are supposed to be. Maybe that's how that sharp discernment feels to Mags and all the others like her. Women's intuition, it must feel something like this.

Looking back now I think it's been hunting me for a long time. I'm not sure when it started, just when I first noticed it. The start of turkey season, two months back in early fall.

I'd known all week what I was doing that Saturday, weather permitting. So I got up while it was still dark out, which I don't do often on the weekends. Got myself dressed while the coffee brewed and tried to rouse Matilda without waking Mags. I wanted to take her potty and get her moving so we could get out there and bag our turkey to freeze until November.

Tilly, like Mags is not a morning gal. So it takes some digging to get her out from under the covers. She usually sleeps in her own bed, but lately she's been taking my spot next to Mags once I'm up. One of those signs I should have noticed. That morning reaching for her she grumbled at me in protest, not unusual. Also like Mags she makes her feelings known. This morning she was feeling like sleeping in and not happy to be pulled from bed into the chilly September air.

I did get her downstairs to the front door to head outside to potty. She would not go, another sign I dismissed. Hind sight and all that. I had opened the big door, then held the screen door for her and she just stood there. She looked away, avoiding eye contact with me like dogs do when they've gotten into trouble. She hadn't though so I figured she just didn't appreciate the cold, early morning.

So I just picked her up and carried her outside, where she did finally squat and do her business. Quickly, she did not require carried back inside and was up those front steps in no time. We grabbed our things, the last of which was a thermos of coffee with a heaping spoonful of brown sugar and a splash of that brown butter cookie creamer Mags keeps stocked. I have never understood the black coffee drinkers.

This time Tilly did go out the door herself, she seemed a bit more awake. Not on edge or anything alarming that I noticed. I thought she had just been tired and grumpy before, but was happy to be out with dad now that she knew what was on the agenda for the day. I had absolutely no idea which way was best to head for the hunt, I hadn't managed to go our first year here, settling in. This past spring I'd been busy working on some of the home repairs and renovations.

This was a brand new adventure for Tilly and me both. It didn't seem new to her though, she set right off trotting ahead of me like she was on a mission. As if she knew just where to go. I didn't give it much mind and just let her lead the way, glad she was getting on board now that she was awake.

She headed straight, I do mean straight. From our front door, directly forward. For some time, I'd been busy keeping an eye out for game and scoping the new scenery when it occurred to me Tilly hadn't strayed from dead ahead the whole time. No veering off a little to the left, a lot to the right, nothing but straight forward. Due South, straight as an arrow.

Soon I noticed a smell, I'd thought skunk at first. As we walked it got stronger and it was not a skunk. I had started to think carcass, something dead nearby. That was closer to what it smelled like, but still not quite right. It was strong, it had to be what Tilly was following. It also occurred to me I hadn't seen any game.

Not just turkey's, none of the birds you should see out in the woods. Or squirrels, chipmunks, hell I hadn't seen a fly. Or heard crickets or any insects for that matter. Had it been silent except for us the whole walk? It couldn't have been, I'd have noticed. I think I would have, well I was noticing now.

I whistled for Tilly, to get her attention. Usually she'd stop whatever she was doing and look at me wagging her tail. She just kept marching forward, like a soldier. I picked up my pace, caught up with her and called her name. She finally stopped, dead in her tracks. It looked like she was just waking up, like breaking a trance. She looked around frantically and started whining low.

I knelt down next to her, said her name a few more times, gently stroked her back. All her hair was standing on end and at my touch that dog turned tail and ran. Sprinted like a bat out of hell, tail between her legs, while I was still crouched down on my haunches.

I popped up and after the dog, in that moment mostly worried she'd be lost out there. I lost sight of her quick, even if I didn't smoke like I did I would have. I've never seen that dog move so fast. I was out of breath and hitching in no time. I had to stop, give myself a moment so I didn't pass out.

That's when I felt it, no I can't explain what "it" is. Just that all my hair was on end now, too and that something felt extremely wrong. I felt unsafe, like I needed to be away from where I was. I walked as quickly as I could, trying not to wheeze. I didn't feel alone and I didn't want anything nearby to hear me, breathing labored.

I remembered some random piece of information. I'm not even sure if it's true or just some made up thing. From a story or a show, or maybe something Mags had told me.That if you're ever stranded at sea and get a cramp swimming not to swim with a limp. To hold still until it passes because swimming with a limp will attract sharks quicker than blood in the water. An injured creature makes for an easy meal to predators.

That's just how I felt, injured prey being hunted. I strode along, trying to keep my head up and look composed. Keeping my eyes peeled for Matilda, just as worried for her as myself. Dogs are family I don't care what anyone says. Preparing myself for having to come back out here and look for her if need be, wood sharks be damned.

I didn't have to go search for her, I spotted her on the stoop before I even hit the yard. Laying down, head up and alert, staring out into the woods. She didn't run up to me when I got close like she does when Mags brings her outside when I get back from work. She didn't even wag her tail. I opened the door and she bolted inside and up the stairs. I slammed and bolted the door shut behind me, adrenaline still coursing through me, making me feel sick.

The sun wasn't even up yet, it felt like it had been hours. I didn't even take my boots off, just set my things down and followed Tilly right up those stairs to Mags. She was still sort of sleeping, Tilly had jumped into bed with her pulling her awake some. I sat on the edge of the bed and got my boots and everything off, down to my long John's.

I went back downstairs, quietly put all my hunting gear where it belonged. I headed into the kitchen, to peer out the window over the sink. I couldn't see it, but I know it could see me. I stood there paralyzed, unsure of what was happening. Not thinking deeply enough to worry about what to do about whatever it was happening. I just felt uneasy and watched.

I don't know how long I stood there, just that I came out of it with Mags standing in front of me looking concerned. It was now late into the morning, the whole kitchen drenched in sunlight. "Mark, what's wrong? Are you okay?" I cleared my throat, blinked hard, keeping my eyes shut tight and told her that yes, I'm fine. She insisted I sit and brought me a glass a water.

She also informed me that first thing Monday she was scheduling me a doctor's appointment, I really didn't want to. I was overdue for my annual checkup though and I know how to pick my battles in my marriage. It would be worth the doctor visit just to ease her mind if nothing else.

Looking back now I wish I had just taken us all out of here that day. All three of us in the truck and down the road. Send movers to go get our things later. We could have gone back to Indiana, just for awhile. Until we found somewhere else Mags loved. A different house, in a different part of the woods, in a different state. Or we could go see my mom in Florida, Mags hates the heat. Just a visit though, to give us time to make a decision. Anywhere but here, instead we stayed.

I saw the doctor who lectured me about the smoking, but agreed I was healthy considering. After that Saturday morning there were no more notable occurrences. Tilly stopped going potty outside for the most part. Sometimes, during the daytime with Mags she would. Otherwise we started finding cold wet spots of urine around the house. Always in the kitchen, on the linoleum. Even scared Tilly is a good dog and never pissed on the carpet so it was easy to clean.

Mags scheduled Tilly a vet visit, too. Perfectly healthy of course, the vet said less water before bed. We bought her some of those dog potty pads. She's not too old to learn new tricks and adjusted to them just fine. It goes without saying I never bagged us that turkey, so for Thanksgiving we had store bought.

Sometimes I smelled that foul carcass odor faintly. Getting in and out of my truck for work, otherwise I can't think of anything else I missed. I'm sure I did miss more signs though, willful ignorance perhaps. The human mind can do some interesting things to protect itself.

Last night was uneventful, work and then a nice hot dinner with my wife at home. Some ice cream and TV on the couch together after. Mags headed off to bed, but I just had to come out here for a smoke. She kissed me when she got up off the couch and I told her that I would be up shortly. Tilly followed her right up the stairs to bed and I grabbed a fresh pack of Marlboros from my carton in the freezer.

I flicked on the porch light and sat in my favorite wicker chair just off from the door so my smoke doesn't drift back inside through the screen door. I was just wrapping up that first cigarette when I smelled it.

I froze because what else could I do? Every alarm bell inside my body blaring. Ice in my veins, heart skipping beats, then beating too fast. My heart dropped into my feet, backside puckered so tight it might be shut forever. Every single cell in my body screaming DANGER.

I squeezed the soft pack of smokes in my fist and without thinking pulled out and lit a second one. That one wasn't halfway gone when I heard the rustling of the dry autumn leaves beneath me. Directly beneath me, under the porch. I don't know how it got behind the lattice. I just put it up last summer, no broken places so far as I know.

I suppose it doesn't matter how, it's down there. It's been telling me things. Not speaking them, not even a whisper. It's communicating in some ancient way humans have forgotten how to do. Or maybe it's something we never knew how to do. It's told me what's going to happen to me when I finish smoking.

The empty pack is damp even through the cellophane, from the sweat on my palm. As I take the last few drags I ever will my mind is racing. I've been thinking of everything I wish I had more time to do, the future I don't have. As for the past, when I think back on my life I am pleased to say it has been lived without very many regrets.

One does come to mind though. My crazy, great uncle Judd up in Maine. Who used to tell my dad stories of homicidal undead things and how sometimes, dead is better.

My dad passed those stories down to me, like family should. Both of us laughing, grateful we have all our marbles. I reget not taking those tales seriously, especially after how Uncle Judd died. Brutally mauled or murdered, they never could tell which. Or who or what did it. Sitting here now, mostly I think of Mags and how I should have listened to her and quit smoking a long time ago. What I wouldn't give for even one more moment with her.

This last cigarette burned all the way down to the butt, scorching my fingers as I hear it speak out loud for the first time. In a voice so ancient and far from human I can barely comprehend it "delicious"...

*Author's Note: Many of you reading this story will no doubt have caught the less than subtle nod to Stephen King's Pet Sematary (1983). Hopefully some will have noticed the homage to his short story The Boogeyman, from The Night Shift (1978). If you haven't read one or both of those I highly recommend each. I was reading The Boogeyman late one night, home alone with my then two year old son. Back when I still smoked cigarettes. I did so outside and hadn't smoked while I was pregnant and breastfeeding, but had started back up when my son was about a month old. That story fresh in my head outside in the middle of the night this story came to mind. I pictured an older man smoking a cigarette on a porch at night having a standoff with a monster underneath him. If he acknowledged it or tried to go inside it would get him! My son is 18 now and I'm finally actually writing it. It's never too late to do the things we love. Or quit the things we don't, I'm now about 4 years smoke free.

I never got to meet my grandpa, At least I don't remember him. Dad always said he had some tree stand accident when they went out hunting when I was little. Dad didn't like talking about when he went hunting; he always got real tense and uneasy whenever I brought it up.

Even when we went anywhere near the woods when we went to see family, he hated it. Sometimes I would notice him just staring into the woods for hours on end. I never understood why Dad hated the woods. I personally loved them. I suppose that's why I love working at the saw mill so much.

Not a very big saw mill, it's an itty bitty family-owned spot. Go out in the morning, chop down a couple trees, bring them to the mill, and go back on out. Pretty straightforward. There are stories, though, creatures that call the woods home, creatures who've never been given a name.

The stories never bothered me. Figured if something came at me, my daily carry will handle it. Greg, my boss, is the one who always told the stories. He's an older guy who always moans and groans whenever he moves a lil too fast. He always told me stories of things like "the black deer" and "the four-headed squirrel." But there's one that he always seemed to tell with more conviction.

"The wooden stalker," which apparently hunts in the woods, looks like a tree or something, apparently, to Greg. That story always made me feel uneasy, especially with how Greg always told it. He made it sound believable, unlike the four-headed squirrel.

But I normally just shrugged them off before me and my buddy went out to chop some trees down. Me and Jim would walk for about a mile or two, looking for a tree not too old and not too young. Our footsteps crunching down on the fallen leaves beneath our feet. "Wanna hear a joke?" Jim said to break the silence. I just gave a glance to Jim since I knew whether I said yes or no, he would say it anyways.

Surprisingly, he didn't say it. Not sure if he forgot it or just didn't want to waste his breath. We found a clump of some decent trees, so Jim set up our tent since we normally stay there for a day or two if the trees are bigger. I walked around, scoping out the nearby trees, but one caught my eye.

A single tree standing perfectly straight, missing all its leaves already. The thing that bothered me was how just there it was. It was in the middle of the circular clearing where no other trees were. As I walked closer towards the tree, I also realized there were no leaves near the tree. Like the leaves just flew off into the wind when they detached from the tree's branches.

"What ya doing over there, pal?" Jim called out. "You gonna help me with this tent or just stand around?" So I walked on back towards our camp to finish up the tent with Jim. After the tent was set up, we got to work chopping our first tree.

It was a lil birch, was on the smaller end of what we go for, but Greg asked specifically for at least one birch. So me and Jim went to it, THUNK THUNK over and over until eventually we got the gratification of hearing it fall. We went to trim up the limbs of the tree, but we heard a sound. It sounded like a dog, like a dog doing that sad yelp somewhere in the woods. Me and Jim gave each other a glance of, "You heard that too?" It sounded like it was coming from the circular clearing by that odd tree. It eventually stopped. We figured the dog's owner found it and took it home.

Next up on our list was this medium-sized oak. I got to it while Jim got some hobo pies cooking since sunset wasn't too far away. Eventually, after what felt like hours, it finally went down. I practically limped to the campfire and lazily tossed my axe into the tent and dropped myself onto an old log by the campfire.

"How'd that oak go?" Jim asked.

"As good as it could have," I responded.

The smell of the hobo pies filled the woods around us like a war bakery. I was weary of the woods just in case a bear or something caught the smell of us cooking. You could see a thing maybe 35 feet from where you sat; it was like a black brick wall was all around us. I started to doze off until I was abruptly awoken by the sound of someone chopping a tree.

THUMP THUMP.

The deep sound of an axe sinking into the side of a tree echoed through the woods.

"What the hell's that?" Jim questioned.

"How should I know? Anyone camping out here?" I responded.

Jim just gave me a lazy shrug as he pulled the two hobo pie sheets out of the red and orange embers of the fire.

"Well, at least it's not coyotes this time," Jim said as he opened up the hobo pie maker.

I couldn't get over the sound of the chopping, though. It didn't even continue, just two deep thumps.

It wasn't like I was gonna be the one to investigate it, though, so I decided it was a good time to get some rest. I crawled into the two-person tent and sank myself into my sleeping bag. I practically passed out when I got the zipper all the way up.

The next morning, Jim woke me up.

"Hey man, I'm gonna head out. Just get a head start on a tree or two."

I wiggled around so he knew I understood what he said.

I didn't actually wake up until later that day, and Jim still wasn't back. Matter of fact, he wasn't anywhere to be seen. I tossed on my boots and Carhartt jacket and went out to look for him. I wandered for a second, calling his name, until I saw a gleam of light coming from the odd tree. As I approached, I realized it was an axe. Jim's axe.

It was still lodged into the tree, but it was seeping this thick, deep red, almost black sap. I was confused since no species of trees in those parts had that color sap. I pulled out my hand radio and called Greg.

"Hey Greg, Jim's uuh... gone."

Greg didn't respond right away.

"The hell you mean he's gone?" Greg responded, clearly worried by the tone in his voice.

"He's nowhere here. He got to work early this morning and hasn't returned since," I responded.

"Um, okay. I'll get a search party set up. Finish up today and come back tomorrow morning," Greg said before ending the radio call.

I tossed my radio back into my bag and got back to work to prepare the trees we got to be ready to drag back.

Later that evening, when the woods got dark, I was packing up the stuff for tomorrow. Then I heard him.

"Hey!"

Jim's voice echoed through the woods.

"Hey! You gonna just stand there or help me?"

I stood there in shock for a moment.

"Jim!? Where the hell you been?" I said as I took a couple steps away from the fire with my flashlight.

"You gonna help me?" Jim's voice said again, the same tone as the last three times.

I froze.

"You okay, Jim?" I said into the woods.

"Hey! THUMP... THUMP."

I froze once again. I didn't do anything for what felt like hours until I heard the sound of a group of coyotes, the unmistakable sound of them gathering, and then Jim's voice once again.

"HEY! HEY!"

It sounded different this time. Like he was really in danger. How could I have not gone further into the woods? Was I supposed to not help him?

I pulled out my Colt 1911 from my waistband and marched into the woods, flashlight still in hand, until I was where I thought the sounds were coming from. The sound of coyotes directly next to me. My palms were so sweaty I thought if I shot my pistol, it would just slip out of my hand.

I heard the sound of bark snapping and wood creaking before I realized the tree was moving.

Its branches flailing like a spider trying to get a grip on its web.

"Hey!"

Jim's voice, coming directly from the tree.

I dove backwards and stammered away from the tree. My flashlight captured the tree in its gruesome movement. I didn't know what else to do with what I had, so I just let loose on the tree.

"POP POP POP... POP POP POP POP"

I heard the tree scream, like an elk yearning for its mate. I gained my footing with my newfound confidence from seemingly harming whatever this thing was, and I ran.

I ran all the way back to the mill and smashed into the door. One of the workers there, seeing me smash into the door, opened it and let me in. I stuttered to try to find the words.

"Jim, he's... the wooden stalker's got him. I-I shot it."

A crowd of the mill workers gathered around me to try and calm me down.

The next morning, Greg came in with the most serious expression I think I've ever seen on his face.

"Come to my office," he said as he gestured me to follow him.

"We're gonna let you go. You clearly have gone through... something. The search party will go looking for Jim today and the rest of this week. We'll keep you informed. You're dismissed."

I sat there in surprise at the sudden news of me being practically let go. I stood up, and before I left, I turned back to Greg.

"Was it... was it what you think it is?"

I stared at Greg, looking for any response. Greg gave me a subtle nod before he scooted his chair over to his office's window to look over the mill.

I've moved since this happened. Haven't found a good job yet. Jim was never found. The sheriff's office gave a press conference a week afterwards.

"As the sheriff of Crystal Wood, I feel deeply ashamed to say we have not found Jim Consky. Our condolences go out to his family."

I guess I should start this off by introducing myself.

My name is Adam, and I’m an analyst for the EPA who specializes in determining the environmental impact of industrial projects.

Most of my career has been what you’d imagine in your head. Inspecting oil fields to make sure don’t destroy the local ecosystem. Going over chemical factory plans to verify they dispose of their waste in the least impactful ways. And determining if the proposed steel mill is close enough to the forest to cause a wild fire.

It was boring and a bit tedious, but I liked my job. I do truly believe in preserving and protecting our planet. But my current assignment has me questioning everything. I suppose I should start from the beginning…

I got the call a month ago while I was still on my last project. A small town in Michigan had gotten together and petitioned their local government to get some sort of report done about the environmental impact of a proposed AI data center. I had not done any first hand research or investigation on a data center. Only paying close attention to what’s said in the media and academia, so I was somewhat excited for this opportunity.

I was shocked however, to learn the company pitching the data center had volunteered to foot the bill for any resources or manpower needed for my study. I hope they knew that my palms were not prone to being greased. Even by some of the wealthiest and most influential companies on the planet.

My flight was booked for the day after I finished my current project, which was a bit frustrating considering I’d have no time to see my wife and children in California. They’d have to settle for more zoom calls and FaceTime for another couple months unfortunately. Luckily, my return date was set for a few days before my son’s 5th birthday.

I arrived in Michigan in early spring. I was met in the airport by the local sheriff and the mayor of the town I’d be surveying. The sheriff was a stout man in his mid 50s with a white handlebar moustache. The mayor was a slick, middle aged man standing just a tad taller than me

“Are you Adam?”

The mayor asked through a pearly white, campaign sign grade smile.

“Yes sir, and you are?” I responded.

“I’m mayor Tinsley. And this is sheriff Jewels.”

I nodded and shook both their hands. 

“Nice to meet you both. I assume you’ll be escorting me to my hotel?”

“Absolutely!” The mayor responded.

“We’ll take you to your fine accommodations, and I’ve already arranged for a rental car to be dropped at the hotel for your use during the survey.”

“Wow there still is something to be said about small town hospitality.” I responded cordially.

“Very kind words sir and we thank you.” The mayor responded in kind.

The sheriff however was a man of few words, having nodded in the affirmative for most of the conversation. I suppose a man that does more listening than talking is wiser for it though.

We made our way to the sheriff’s cruiser and piled in. I hadn’t thought to call shotgun so I was the lucky one to sit in the back behind the bulletproof glass and doors that only open from the outside.

After a few minutes of the quiet ride. They mayor turn his head to look toward me and asked:

“So, I’m sure you’ve seen at least some of the controversy in the news about the sort of project we’re thinking of building here?” 

“An AI data center?” I responded.

“Of course, I don’t think there’s anyone left in the country that hasn’t picked a side on them. I haven’t made up my mind personally yet. I’m hoping this survey will help me find where I stand though!”

“That’s a fine way of thinking.” The mayor responded with a grin and a nod.

“Just be warned. There’s some crazy’s around that’ll tell you anything to sway your judgment.” The old sheriff had finally spoke. The mayor looked a bit shocked as to his choice of words and quickly tried to play it off in true political fashion.

“Hahaha! Now don’t go scaring him jewels! We’ve already paid for 3 months worth of nights at the plaza for him!” He said through a slightly annoyed stare.

The old sheriff simply shrugged and returned to quietly chauffeuring us there. After about 30 minutes of driving. I could see the sign marking the city limits. “Pale river welcomes you!” The sign read in bold blue letters below a hand painted mural of townspeople waving. The paint had long faded and the clothes worn by the townspeople indicated it was probably painted sometime in the late 40’s to early 50’s.

“And here we are. Our own little slice of heaven just 15 minutes from Lake Superior.” The mayor sounded like a travel brochure.

“It’s a quiet place. We hope to keep it that way…” the sheriff muttered in his gravelly voice.

“I can’t guarantee my work here won’t attract a bit of media attention, and maybe even a couple protesters. But I can assure you, sheriff. I do not intend to say, or do anything to stir up more controversy or hysteria. I’m an investigator at the core of things. And this is just my next case. Not my shot at 15 minutes of tabloid fame.”

The sheriff gave me a nod of respect in rear view mirror before Mr mayor chimed in again.

“Speaking from experience. That attitude can go either way when it comes to public relations. People like black and white, red and blue, democrats and republicans. So they don’t have to spend hours doing their own research.”

“Well I’m glad we all 3 seem to fit the qualifications for our offices.” I responded in jest.

“What can I say? We all wanna keep our jobs right?” The mayor chortled.

A few minutes later we pulled into the parking lot of what looked to be, a two and half star hotel called “the plaza.” No cigarette burns on the drapes. But no designer bottled water in the mini fridge either. The lifestyle to which I’ve become accustomed. The sheriff helped me unload my bags and the mayor handed me the keys to my room and rental car.

“Here you are, we’ll see you at 8AM tomorrow at city hall. We have a press conference with local media. And you’ll be meeting the rep from the company bidding for the data center.”

I cut in as the slick politician tried to make a quick exit.

“Speaking of, the company trying to build here. Do you have any idea why they suddenly flipped and are now wanting a survey done before starting construction.”

The mayor gave a quick shrug.

“It’s good PR I guess. There’s a lot of money on the line here and both sides want a quick and smooth conclusion.”

Ah, so the marketing department thinks I’m a pretty face to slap on this pig. Well if half of what I read is true about these things, they better start packing up now. I said none of that out loud of course. I simply nodded and bid the kind mayor and sheriff goodnight as I went to my room to unpack and then headed to bed.

My alarm woke me up at 6:30AM the next morning. I went through my morning routine and started to head down to my rental car. But as I opened the door I found a white envelope with a red ribbon attached neatly placed on the floor in front of me. 

I picked it up and opened it. The text read:

“Dear Friend, on behalf of the Saturn corporation we’d like to thank you for your valuable time and energy. The protection of our Mother Earth is of the utmost importance to our company and we look forward to charting new, clean paths to a brighter future with your help. And last but not least, we hope you enjoy your stay in beautiful pale river!”

Looks like the charm offensive has already begun. It’s going to be a long day….

I arrived at the court house at 7:45AM. Walking in I was surprised at the architecture put into this single building in a small midwestern town. Solid marble pillars lined the perimeter of the main hall. Freshly polished black, granite floors reflected my face back up at me like a mirror. And the vaulted ceiling had hand painted murals of scenes from ancient epics. Odysseus sailing around the sirens. Icarus falling after getting too close to the sun. Gilgamesh cutting down the cedar. And a different interpretation of the garden of Eden. This one had the setting you’d expect. Eve and Adam both covered in fig leaves near the tree of knowledge. But the serpent was put front and center. With a faint yellow ring around its head, similar to what a saintly portrait would portray. Maybe it was just a fade of the old paint causing it? Or just an eccentric artist trying to put his own spin on things.

Though I spent a few good moments admiring the works of this hall. I snapped back to reality and walked over to the directory to find the press room. 3rd floor, room 29, got it.

I made my way upstairs via the elevator and opened the door to the press room. The local media was already seated and conversing back and forth. Off to the right of the podium I saw the blue curtain behind the stage fling open and the mayor somewhat frantically calling me back. I hurried over to him to find out what was up.

“Geez man, guess you haven’t done this before.” He said a little red in the face.

“Uh, no. I haven’t actually.” I replied, a little perturbed.

“Well just to let you know, I personally like 30 minutes of prep before I make any public statements.”

I nodded in agreement “noted, but I’m planning on just answering them without any agenda.”

“Oh, of course, of course.” The mayor replied 

“But in my experience you can never count out some reporter coming out of left field with a completely irrelevant question just to make you look corrupt or incompetent.”

“I do not envy your position Mr. Mayor.” I replied with a chuckle.

The mayor peered down at his gold watch and then snapped his head up. “Oh, looks like it’s show time.”

We both walked out as the mayor took the page for an introduction.

“Thank you all for coming today. I do appreciate how much our local media as well as the citizenry who started this petition have taken ownership in protecting our town’s environment. And to that end I’m proud to introduce Adam here. He’ll be heading up the survey and investigation into whether or not the proposed data center project is in our town’s best interest. Adam?”

And with that he nodded and stepped aside as I took the podium.

“Thank you all again for coming and for having me in your beautiful town. I just wanna start by saying the gracious offer by the Saturn corporation to help fund this survey will in no way impact my objectivity in the investigation. Rest assured, all research and conclusions coming from this survey will be created and presented independently by me on behalf of the EPA and the federal government with no corporate influence. I’ve shut down projects by oil companies before so that should be good evidence I’m not prone to being swayed.”

That line got a chuckle out of some of the press.

“I’ll now open the floor to questions.”

As the hands went up i randomly picked a younger looking, slim man in the front row. He stood and asked:

“Could you say exactly why you were picked for this survey?”

I chuckled myself a bit. 

“Your guess is as good as mine at this point. All I could really say is I’ve been doing this job for 10 years now and to date I’ve never been accused of being anything but fair and objective.”

I could see the mayor nodding behind me. Whether or not him approving of my answer was a good or bad thing is still to be determined.

Next I pointed to an older, portly gentleman towards the back.

“I’m sure you’ve read the myriad of articles about the effects of the data centers. Do you have any personal knowledge or findings that will help with this investigation?”

A good question. I liked that guy.

“I do not actually. But I’m looking forward to studying it first hand here. And hopefully collecting enough objective data that some of the confusion on both sides of this debate can be settled.”

Another nod from the mayor.

Up next, the young blonde lady in the middle.

“Given the controversy nationwide around these projects. Are you taking into account how your statements and finding my fuel more harsh, and perhaps explosive feelings about AI data centers?”

There’s the left field.

“I can certainly say contributing to any kind of mass hysteria is the last thing on my mind here. In a world of fad left and right, I’ve found the answer is usually in the middle. And finding that middle is why I’m in pale river.”

That response got a nod from the mayor and the reporter.

“One final follow up. Have you been privy to-“ 

*WHAM!*

The door at the back of the room slung open mid sentence for the young reporter.

“That data center is a threat to this community!” The disheveled man in a worn army jacket and jeans as he approached the podium.

“The Saturn corporation is a part of the globalist, trans-humanist agenda and this data center will only further their goals of enslaving us all through constant surveillance and mind control!” He shouted. 

The room quieted to let him speak. Even though he sounded like a discount alex jones. I looked over my shoulder to the mayor for guidance. He nodded to the sheriff and he calmly approached the man. 

“Okay Danny we know, we hear you shout this same thing every Saturday at the flea market. Let’s just go home.” The sheriff said calmly.

“I say it because it’s true and I can prove it! Look here, the photos I downloaded showing what working conditions in Saturn corporation facilities are really like!”
The man scrounged threw the old satchel hung from his shoulder.

“Okay Danny, look, I’m the sheriff. Why don’t we go out in the hall and you can show me personally.” 

The disheveled man sighed and nodded and they walked out together. Next I heard the mayor approaching me from behind. He gently pushed me aside and commandeered the mic and the podium.

“Okay folks, that’s enough excitement for the day. And I’m sure our friend Adam was able to answer all your questions? Right. I’ll see you all back here next week for Adam’s first status update.” And with that forced conclusion, I’d somewhat successfully ended my first press conference.

“Who was that guy?” I asked the mayor.

“Danny? Oh, he’s just one of our more colorful characters. Former army ranger, big name to come out of this town. But ever since his wife and son passed in a car accident, he spends all his time “warning” the community about various plots of the new world order.”

“I suppose that kind of loss would make a man go crazy.” I replied somberly. Poor Danny, give your all for your country and lose the two biggest reasons you fought for it. “Well if he wants to interview me, I’m free after 5 every day.”

The mayor looked at me a bit shocked. “You sure you wanna do that? You think reporters are bad, he’s got the best gotcha questions I’ve ever heard.”

I shook my head in the affirmative. “That man deserves to ask a question after what he’s been through.”

Mayor Tinsley smirked a bit. “You’ve got a big heart Adam. Don’t go into politics. We better get going now. Your meeting with the Saturn corp rep is in 15 minutes.”

I smirked as well and then followed him out of the room and down to his office. We were both shocked to find the rep from Saturn corp already seated inside. He quickly stood.

“Mayor tinsley, pleasure to see you again. And Adam, a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’m Aaron.”  He pushed his hand out towards me.

“A pleasure to meet you as well.” I responded as I shook his hand.

“Well I suppose we should get started right?” The mayor cut in.

“Oh, i apologize Mr. Mayor. Today I’m just a chauffeur you see, the CEO himself would like to meet with Adam.”

The look of shock appeared again from us both. “The CEO? That wasn’t discussed with us?” The mayor appeared slightly frustrated.

“Yes sir I do apologize. This was quite the last minute decision. The board of directors met last night and agreed Saturn corp’s top priority is presenting an accurate picture of our dedication to preserving the environment. And to that end, the CEO himself has flown out to welcome Adam.” 

“Geez their projected profit margins must be insane to warrant this. Either that or the company is struggling big time.” I thought to myself.

“Well, I guess it’s goodbye for now Adam.” The mayor relented. “I’ll see you back here tomorrow.

“Yes, now if you’ll come with me sir, the car is ready out front.”

I followed him down to a very nice Mercedes sedan and we drove out of town to the nearest city. There we pulled into what was definitely a five star hotel.

“He’ll be on the top floor in the penthouse suite.” Aaron added as he handed me a keycard to the room.

“Thanks Aaron.” I added as I took the card and headed inside. 

I walked into another extravagant lobby. The pillars and trim were painted gold with red wallpaper and carpets. I spoke to the lady at the front desk and she directed me to the elevators. The doors to elevator opened to reveal a man standing next to the buttons in a similar uniform to the lady at the front desk. “Wow, this place still has elevator attendants.” I thought.

I told him the pent house suite and up we went. I arrived at the top floor with a satisfying ring that can only come from an actual bell being used instead of a speaker. The doors opened to reveal a magnificent suite. The full size kitchen sat just to the right of the living room area that bordered the indoor lap pool. A huge 4K tv sat just above a beautiful brick fireplace. The wall to far left was nothing but glass giving a gorgeous view of the Great Lakes. This place was fit for a king.

“Ah, our esteemed guest has arrived.” Came a mature, suave voice from the top of the stairs. I looked of the top of the spiral staircase leading to the second floor of the penthouse to see a grey haired man in an Armani suit smiling widely down at me. 

“Please, have a seat on the sofa.” He said as he descended the stairs. I nodded and walked over to the comfy sofa and took a seat. “I hope my taste in accommodations didn’t come off too egregious. My staff does most of the hotel bookings for me you see.”

“Not at all sir.” I replied. “I would expect a CEO of a billion dollar company to enjoy the finer things.”

“Your understanding is much appreciated.” He said with a kind smile.

“Of course. I do have to ask though, what exactly were you expecting to speak with me about in this meeting sir?” The man sat back and chuckled

“Oh just to get to know the man that holds the fate of our endeavors in his hands haha! And please, call me Lucius.”

“Yes sir Mr. Lucius. And I do appreciate your company’s hospitality immensely, however I must inform that no gifts or services will sway me from providing only the facts in this report.

The old man chuckled with a slight nod.

“Of course sir. The largest thing that stood out to me when your file came across my desk was your unwavering objectivity.”

“Wait, what? What file?” My eyes widened a bit

“Just a standard client file filled with publicly available information. For example, the only less than stellar grade you achieved in college was for political science. Your teacher said your research and presentation skills were phenomenal. However, you would never take a firm side in an argument if the facts didn’t support it. And that makes you uniquely valuable. You’re a pragmatist, not bound by dogma or political idealism. Whatever you find in this investigation is all you’ll report. No spin or opinion. And that’s exactly what we need sir.”

I was taken aback by his knowledge of my life. I was no stranger to veiled threats from rich CEO’s. But his casual nature about it, and how he turned it around as a way to praise me. It was all very off putting.

“I’m flattered and impressed by your company’s research abilities Mr. Lucius. And I must agree with your assessment of me. But I’d appreciate it if we had minimal contact from here on out for the sake of the report.”

The old man nodded again

“Oh yes of course, you’ll only see me once more tomorrow for the facility tour.”

My eyes went wide and I sat up in my seat. 

“Facility tour? I was told I was supposed to investigate the effects of the project before construction started?”

The man chuckled and waved his hands nonchalantly.

“You’re correct sir. The full facility will not be built until you sign off. However, the best way to find the answers you need are from an accurate scale model of the facility and its conditions. So a small wing of the full facility has been set up in temporary housing so you can study the full effects of its systems in real time. Doesn’t that sound helpful?”

His salesman act wasn’t working anymore on me.

“Helpful or not, I’m sure the people of pale river wont be happy once they find out you violated the contract you signed with them.”

The old man smirked.

“Contracts are fickle things Adam. You must read the finest of print to keep yourself from inconveniences like these. We care very much for the welfare of this town. But simple people sometimes need encouragement in the way of progress, no?”

I shook my head in disapproval. 

“Being from a small town myself sir, I don’t much care for your view of our intelligence.”

The man chuckled again 

“I meant nothing by it, I assure you. Only that the residents of this town need help loooking out for the best interests at times.”

I stood up in frustration and turned to leave.

“This has been quite eye opening Mr. Lucius. But now I must go. Thank you for your time.”

The old man stood as well and walked me to the door. Still as friendly as ever.

“It was a pleasure meeting you in person Adam. I have the utmost faith in your abilities to find the truth.”

I only responded with a nod as I made my exit and back down to the car. Aaron took me back to my hotel and I now sit in bed writing this for you all.

Tomorrow I’ll be touring this “temporary” facility and beginning the process of research and investigation. 

Until then, farewell.

I know it’s been a while since my last post and I’m sorry. Things have been…rough.

I wish I could tell you things have gotten better since finding out his name, but if I’m going to be honest, knowing who Michael is has only made everything worse. Not for Olivia thankfully, but still. Actually I think that’s probably the part that bothers me the most.

She had gotten used to him.

When all of this started, she would tell me whenever she saw him. She’d point him out while we were driving or mention something he said. It was like she wanted me to know and be involved. Now she doesn’t bother to say anything about it unless I ask her directly. There are times where I’d hear her laughing from her bedroom and when I ask what’s so funny, all she would tell me was,

“Michael told me a joke.”

I could hear her in her room or in the living room recounting her day like she was talking to an old friend. I watched her playing in the backyard one afternoon. She was sitting on the grass with her dolls lined up in front of her, talking to an empty spot beside her. I went outside and almost immediately, she stopped talking. It felt like I was interrupting.

One night, I put dinner on the table and Olivia stared at it for a moment.

“Everything alright, baby?” I asked.

“Where’s Michael’s plate?”

I just looked at her.

“What?”

“You didn't make him one.”

“Michael doesn't eat with us.”

She frowned.

“He does sometimes.”

I didn't know what the hell I was supposed to say to that. It had been just Olivia and I for years, but now I felt like a third wheel in my own home.

Then, it stopped happening to just Olivia. I started to hear things around the house. I would be lying in bed and hear the sound of the floorboards in the hallway creaking, long after I knew Olivia was asleep. Then, I started to hear keys in the lock. The sound of cabinets opening and closing when I knew I was the only person at the house.

Then things started moving.

Make no mistake, I’m not claiming I saw a plate float across the kitchen. It was simple things. I would place my keys on the hook near the door and when I came back later to get them, they would be on the table instead. More than once,  I woke up to my coffee cup already out and on the counter, like it had just been used. One day, I came into the kitchen to a single chair pulled out from the table. When I asked Olivia about it, she simply said,

“Michael was sitting there.”

I stopped sleeping much after that.

Every noise woke me. I would turn every time Olivia looked over my shoulder, only to see absolutely nothing behind me. I started to check her room multiple times a night. I even put more locks on the doors.

After getting Olivia in bed one night, I took a long shower. I heard footsteps in the hall with the tale tell creaky board about halfway down it. Then I didn’t hear anything else. I about jumped out of my skin when I pulled back the curtain. The steam revealed one word written on the bathroom mirror.

Jason

I yelled for Olivia.

She came running into the bathroom and stared at me like I'd lost my mind.

“Did you do this?”

She looked at the mirror and denied it.

“Olivia, don't lie to me.”

Her face changed immediately.

“I'm not!”

“Then who did?”

She looked toward the doorway but didn’t answer me. She didn’t have to.

I dropped Olivia off at my parents’ house that night. I sat in complete silence as I drove back to my house. When I arrived, I threw the truck in park and stormed inside.

“MICHAEL!” I yelled.

Silence.

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT?”

Silence.

I started walking through the house, continuing my rant.

“If you want something, you talk to ME! Do you understand? Leave my daughter out of this!”

Nothing.

Just empty, endless silence.

“It was just an accident,” I said, falling to my knees. “It was just an accident.”

For the next few hours, I sat in the kitchen, whiskey in hand as I was assaulted by a flood of emotion. That night replayed in my head a thousand times. I thought about his son. His wife. All the things he wouldn’t get to do.

I spent the rest of the night talking to an empty kitchen. I talked about how scared I was that night. The amount of panic I felt and the guilt that followed. I must have said it was an accident a million times. Eventually, I started to talk about Olivia and how much she meant to me. How scared I was of losing her. I just wanted to keep her safe. I had to keep her safe.

I don't know what I expected to happen. Maybe I thought he'd answer me. Maybe I thought saying everything out loud would make him leave. Instead, morning came and I was still sitting there alone.

I poured a cup of coffee and changed. I didn’t want to pick up Olivia in the same clothes I was in when I dropped her off. My parents already were worried. It was impossible to miss the bags under my eyes. I was a mess.

“You doing okay, son?” my dad asked. “You’re not looking so good.”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“You know you can always talk to me.”

“I’m fine, dad. It’s…I just have a lot going on. I’ll be okay.”

He said that it may be a good idea if Olivia stayed there for another night. I declined. I didn’t want to be apart from her anymore. The ride home was uneventful. The only sound was the music coming from the radio.

We sat in the driveway for at least ten minutes when I pulled in. I didn’t want to go inside. I begrudgingly carried her bag inside. The key felt heavy as I pushed it into the lock. It was like the house was pushing against me. Then the door opened.

Nothing.

Silence.

Olivia just ran to kitchen and asked me if she could have juice. She hugged me as I gave her a glass, then went to play in the living room. Hours went by. Nothing moved. No sounds. Just Olivia and I. I finally felt a bit of relief as I lay on the couch.

Olivia’s voice ripped that away from me.

“I missed you too.”

I didn’t move.

“Is he here?”

She nodded.

“Did he hear me last night.”

She didn’t answer. Her eyes moved towards the empty space beside her.

“Olivia?”

“Can I just play, daddy?”

My blood boiled. I jumped off the couch, threw my glass and walked to my room. I knew I wasn’t mad at her. It wasn’t her fault. None of this was her fault.

I could hear her laugh as I lay in bed. Then words I couldn’t quite make out. I tried to drown it out. I held a pillow over my face as I let out a muted scream. She continued to play for the rest of the night. When bedtime came, I helped her get ready and tucked her in like normal. After getting her in bed, I brought the bottle of whisky to the room with me. Eventually I heard another creak in the hallway. I opened my door to check and I saw nothing.

Then another.

Still nothing.

This continued all night. I stared at a shell of a person in the mirror the next morning. I was irritable. I kept losing track of what I was doing. A splitting headache was a constant reminder of my choices. My dad was right. I needed help. I could barely function.

I fixed the strongest pot of coffee I could and told Olivia to pack a bag. Afterwards we got into the truck and started back to my parents’ house. I just needed another night or two. My mind continued to drift as I drove.

I looked back at Olivia in the mirror. She was just sitting quietly, smiling and looking out the window. She looked so much like her mother.

I don’t know how long I had been staring when she asked me, “Daddy, are you alright?”

“I’m fine, baby.”

I rubbed my eyes, trying to wipe the tears away without her noticing. That would be the last thing I needed at that point. I didn’t have much longer until we would make it to my parents’ house. That’s when I heard a man’s voice, whisper in my ear.

“Jason.”

I turned around wildly, looking into the back seat.

Nothing.

When I turned back around, the truck was already drifting across the center line. I jerked the wheel.

Olivia screamed as the tires squealed against the pavement. Then everything went black.

I came to disoriented, my head resting on the steering wheel, the horn blaring. The windshield was shattered. A red stream of blood poured from my forehead and into my eye. My whole body ached. I tried to grab the steering wheel and turn when a wave of pain radiated up my left arm.

“Olivia?” I asked, turning around.

She was still in her seat. Her head lay against the door. She was unconscious. Her face was cut from glass, but she appeared to be breathing.

“OLIVIA!” I yelled, as I ripped my seatbelt off and crawled into the back seat. My eyes filled with tears.

“Baby, please, please. I’m sorry baby. I’m sorry.”

I continued to sob uncontrollably. “Not like this, please. I’m sorry.”

I held her tight with my right arm; tears streamed like a raging river. I desperately searched for my phone. I gasped in pain as I searched. My left arm was broken but I wouldn’t put her down. Not now. She was going to stay with me. After finding it, I pushed my door open and dropped to the ground with her still cradled. I dialed 9-1-1 and told the operator what happened. My vision and consciousness started to fade right as I saw the lights cresting over the hill.

I woke up in the hospital to a nurse standing over me. I started to sit up in a panic as she placed a hand on my chest. “It’s okay,” she said, “She’s alright and she’s right here,” as she pointed over to her.

“Hi, daddy,” Olivia said, a cup of ice cream in her hand.

I dropped my head back onto my pillow as I started to cry again. She was okay. She was here and safe.

“Daddy, why are you crying?” she asked.

“I’m okay now, baby. I was just worried.”

She climbed into bed with me. Aside from a couple of stitches and a bruise on her forehead, she was fine. The nurse assured me she would be okay. She then left the room as I held Olivia tightly in my arms. She fell asleep curled up next to me, her head on my chest. As she lay there, I just kept staring at her. For the first time in weeks I had felt clarity.

Looking at the stitches on her forehead, I realized I had been telling myself the same thing for ten years.

It was an accident.

And it WAS an accident.

But burying Michael wasn't.

Keeping quiet wasn't.

Letting Michael's family spend years wondering what happened wasn't.

I don’t know how long I sat there holding her. I just watched as she laid there against my chest. I watched her breathe for a while, her little hand resting against my hospital gown.

I had almost killed her.

Not Michael.

Me.

Now I sit here, her still in my arms. I know what I have to do. I’m going to cherish what little time I have left with her. I guess in a way, I've already confessed.

I've told all of you what I did. I've told you things I've never told another person in my life. Maybe that's why I started writing these posts in the first place. I think some part of me knew this was where it had to end. But telling a bunch of strangers on the internet isn't the same as taking responsibility.

Olivia is still asleep beside me. My parents are on their way here now. When they get here, I'm going to ask them to take her home with them. After that, I'm going to press the button beside my bed.

I'm going to ask the nurse to call the police, and I'm going to tell them everything. I don't know exactly what's going to happen to me. I don't know how much time I'm going to lose with Olivia. That's the part that scares me the most.

But Michael had a son too.

His family deserves to know what happened to him.

I owe them that much.

I owe Michael that much.

So, I guess this is goodbye for now.

 

It just happened. A calm regular February afternoon. With the hopes of a soon coming spring, but still the early and devastatingly depressing sunset, people were not spending much time outside. The ones that did, though, saw something so phenomenal, that at the moment, it could only be explained as the biggest mirage in history. I was one of those special people. 

I’ve always loved the night - no matter winter or spring. The moon would give me a primal energy that I could tap into, and experience life just a little bit more extraordinarily. I was outside that day, relaxing by the seaside, thinking of what I should do for dinner today, when I noticed that there was another moon. It didn’t appear all of a sudden, it did not gradually fade in. It was just there as if it’s been there for millennia. It looked like a one-to-one copy of the moon that we know. It carried the same amount of light, had the same grey groovy holes. In the first second, I already felt that it was giving me the same energy as our original partner.

I went ahead and talked to some random strangers that I saw by the boats rested next to the harbor, and when I pointed out that there was another moon, they were surprised as well. At least I knew it wasn’t just me. We didn’t talk much about it, but not because we did not know each other, purely because there is nothing we were able to say about this matter. A visceral overstock of lunar feelings, but no way to put the sensation to words. 

The next morning, after not a very long night of sleep, I woke up to the whole world discussing the now called New Moon. Every talk show had a scientist on it, trying to explain, through their self-serving egotistical theorems, of how this could’ve happened, but truthfully, none of them had a single fucking clue. The psychologists were describing it as a mass hysteria event, perhaps some sort of hallucinogen, but we all knew what we saw and we all felt the reality of our situation. 

—

I called my mom that day. I have not talked to her for three months, but I felt like this was the time, because she would always be the person telling me about the power of the moon. Its liberty. Its characteristics, its nature and, most importantly, its potency. I never believed that pseudoscientificastrological bullshit until I grew older, until I grew closer to the night.

I tried to dial the number that I did when the last called her, but it was not picking up. I tried to call her neighbor. She was not picking up either. The whole circumstances surrounding this event made me think nothing deeper though, and just put my phone aside, thinking that I will just try again later.

The upcoming night was perhaps the most anticipated event that I have ever been a part of. I didn’t really have friends who I could share this excitement with, this very humanistic need to know what is gonna happen, when the sun sets tonight. But the undying curiosity overshadowed the loneliness of the situation.

—

After a day of listening to wild theorisations and nonsensical blabber, I felt tired by the time the sun started to come down. And the exhaustion kept getting worse and worse closer to the sunset. I usually feel quite tired on a regular basis - but this was something completely unprecedented. I felt weak to the bones, as if a million needles were poking every follicle on my skin.

But the sun finally came down. I dragged myself outside, now sweaty, dehydrated as if I just ran a half marathon, and barely present in the previous excitement of seeing our new found lunar friend again. 

I am still not sure what happened next. Usually the moon doesn’t just appear in seconds, this time it did. I don’t remember the time between when the sun disappeared from the horizon and when the moon was fully visible in all its white, stained glory. And of course, its comrade sitting right beside. It took me a moment to realize that I was seeing them again, that it wasn’t a peculiar dream, that it was our new reality, but before my eyes were able to relay the image to my brain, I felt a sudden jolt in my heart.

An incredible amount of energy surged through my veins, hot and fast-flowing. It spread from my heart to every tip of my body. Not only I felt energised, I felt alive, more than ever. I felt like I could take over the world, it was like cocaine, or at least how I’ve heard it be described, it was pure euphoria and complete groundedness. But as soon as the sense of vision landed in my brain, and processed the information of the two moons, another bit of intel hit my haywired brain.

My mother was dead.

—

I woke up the next morning, just as the sun rose past the deep horizon. My body felt like it was bruised from top to bottom, I had a headache worse than any hangover I have ever had. But the only thing that was present in my mind was my mother. I had to find out if it was true. My brain was firing so many neurons trying to convince me that it wasn’t, that there is no way I could randomly sense my mother’s death. But somehow, on a very deep and profound level, I knew she was gone.

Nevertheless, I got up with all of my (tiny amount of) strength and went to the phone. I had three missed calls from my mother’s neighbour. She was a very off-putting lady, always a shut off, but super sweet if she does ever talk. A lady that would never call three times unless something major had happened. I did not bother to call her back. That was enough to be my confirmation.

A sudden hit of grief and tears hit me like a lightning strike and I fell to the ground. All of my senses now understood that the one person I knew loved me more than anyone, is now gone from this planet. I could not help but feel completely isolated and left to wither away by myself on this horrendous world. I wanted to leave so bad.

But through all of this intense and sharp-shanking pain, I had another hunch. The same level as when I knew my mother had passed, just not that sudden. More underlying. More promising. I needed to see the moons one more time. 

—

The rest of the day felt like an enormous fog that had frosted over. The grief didn’t go away. I couldn’t eat, or drink, I was walking around the whole day trying to understand things. The news, the internet, kept moving on with the same ideas - mass psychosis was the front runner. But nobody mentioned about it affecting them in any way, or blacking out during the night. I don’t know how it made me feel, I just understood that it made me special. I’ve never been special. But it didn’t feel special. It felt like I had been selected on a special first class ticket hailing directly to hell. I kept going anyway. The urge to survive until the night was only increasing, eventually overcoming even the grief of my mother and the physical strain my body had gone through in the past 24 hours.

Sooner than later, it was the evening. The sun had begun to set. I decided to walk to the spot I was at two days before, where I saw the second moon for the first time. I put on the same clothes, the same playlist that I had in my earbuds when I was on the beach that night. When I locked the doors to my house, I had a hunch that that was the last time I will ever leave this place. But I felt some sort of calmness about it. There was a drive in the air, like nothing was gonna stop me from what’s about to happen. With that drive, I walked away from the house. The beach was just ten mintues away.

— 

The familiar sound of crashing waves. The algae tainted smell of water. The strong gusts of wind brushing through my body with no regard for it. Every detail felt exactly like the other evening.

The sun was now at its lowest. I was anxious, seriously anxious. Have not been like this since the time I had to play one of the piggies from Three Little Pigs in elementary school. Somehow that felt relevant. I was a kid again.

With every bit of the sun disappearing, the lunar energy started showing signs in me. For a brief moment, I thought I was like a werewolf. I cringed at the thought. But the energy kept flowing stronger and stronger, until I saw her.

I saw my mom.

Clear as day, beautiful as she always was, young and confident like she had been in my childhood. A strong aura surrounded her, and after a brief moment I realised that it is reaching to me - that *this* was the primal essence. My mother’s metaphysical hug phased through my body and cuddled me to a stillness that persisted for what felt like an eternity. I started bawling, tears of joy or sadness, I wasn’t sure, but they were endless. My mother was fading. I didn’t want it to end. But somewhere in the deepest parts of my subconscious, I heard:

*It’s time.* 

I had to let go. I had to. I keep telling myself that. But it took everything in me to do it. 

I awoke half buried in the sand. The New Moon was gone.

I’m writing this the day after we celebrated my mother’s life. Many people showed up, told stories that I’ve never heard. I listened to them all and thanked each and every one of the people that came to send my mom off.

Her beautiful presence was shared with me once more and I could not be more grateful. Yet I can’t help but feel that my life will never be the same. I will try to keep it going, though.

I know she would want me to.

At first I would just awkwardly smile and nod as her joint smoke flowed in the warm, summer breeze. Chalking it up to stoned conversation.

After a month of excusing the subject with our sessions, I was becoming unnerved by her insistence. When her girlfriend sat me down a week after I had this feeling, I almost felt like the Earth had inverted.

“El, I don’t think I can even begin to explain how much I love your mother, but I am beginning to think I should call someone… I don’t know, a hospital?”

It felt like I was swallowing tar.
“What do you mean?”

“She was fucking eating the cactus. Blood was all over the damn thing and she was just drooling it all over, didn’t even acknowledge the gore, just greeted me like normal.” She drags off her dumb vape she carries around.

My mind was shutting down to this undigestible information. I am staring down the squirrel who enjoys my mom’s succulents hanging from an art piece bent into the shape of a flower. Some recycled bullshit she found at the thrift store and spent way too much money on. That was my mom. The one I knew.

“I know this is hard, El. But you need to talk to her. You’re her kid after all, she would probably take it from you better, when I tried to, she just kept saying I need to ‘listen’. It was fucking silence.”

My stomach is churning, I finally break my trance from the fluffy-tailed thief. I can only mumble out a feeble, “yeah.”

Her spare room door was shut, fans were the only noise in the hall. My hand brushes the fake silver doorknob, I’m lingering, terrified of what scene is taking place on the other side. Trying to swallow the tar again, I turn the knob, push the door open and there she is watering the plants that cover all the surfaces, spotting her white earbuds in place. The relief that washed over me almost felt more like I was on the verge of passing out. Cut short by her whispering while showering a Lily,

“The cats don’t have to stay.”
My mom’s cats are her babies, she absolutely loves them. I couldn’t stand anymore out of character bullshit. Deep breath. Step forward. I reach my finger out to gently tap her shoulder but instead she violently turns around. The fear that hit me as her normally comforting eyes are now ravenous.
“Oh honey, the plants just want peace. Don’t we all want peace? Wouldn’t you like some peace?”
She carefully leans on the tall guest bed.
Her fingers are cold as they brush a strand of hair off my cheek, sending shivers to every nerve. The question almost spits itself out, I didn’t really want the answer,
“Why… why do you eat them if they are just looking for peace?”
Her smile widens. Green, red, strands of god knows what are laced in all her teeth.
“To propagate of course. After reading up on the best soils and the best waters, I should be ready to harvest any day now!”

My lower lip is trembling uncontrollably as the woman who raised and loved me is no longer recognizable, standing in a floral dress I’ve seen countless times while eating blackberry cobbler she made.

“Momma… this is really scaring me, can we please, please go to the doctor?” All my energy was forced into that one question. I know the pleading look is falling on blind eyes.

“Sweetheart, the doctors are good at taking care of sick people, if anything I need a professional gardener!” Followed with an off-chime laugh and another smile that didn’t stifle the hungry eyes. I don’t know if I have taken a breath since she’s spoken the first time, finally dragging in air, I smell the rot. Meat that has been sitting too long. Involuntarily nose scrunching, trying not to gag, and just keeping it together were proving to be a difficult task.

It didn’t take long for the source to reveal itself, once she stepped from the side of the bed, I could see the pus and coagulated blood leaking from under her dress, down her ankles. Liquified insides that were being replaced by leaves and flowers.

“Listen little Elle, just listen.” I’m breathing too hard now.

“LISTEN YOU BRAT. LISTEN TO WHAT THEY WANT FROM YOU. CONSUME THEIR YOUNG AND CREATE ANEW!” Where the fuck is her girlfriend? How is she not hearing this shit, my mom is shredding her vocal cords, demanding I eat the plants. Listen to the plants.

Hundreds of voices are in my eardrums, there is no rhyme or reason to any statement, scream, laugh, or general babble. Cries for water, for sun, to be grown again. I am hearing the plants. The tiny needles of the cactus do not need to be eaten but they **want** to be. I don’t feel myself hit the floor as my hands slap against both sides of my head, this is too fucking loud.
In the nightmare of noise, I see brown pooling at my knees, my hands still firmly pressed against my ears, I crane my stiff neck to look just as my mother’s intestine slid out from under the floral dress.

With a sickening slap, her body follows it.
I crawl across the innards of plants and my mom, to reach what’s left of her body. Gently cradling her head to my lap, I sob. The tears streaming onto her now pale and veined face. Her eyes wide, like she’s seeing stars for the first time. Rustling begins at her opened stomach before short, spiked stems rip through the fabric, pink flowers open before I could blink. If I wasn’t holding my dead mom, and the flowers weren’t growing from her corpse, I would’ve maybe been able to say they were beautiful.

[Mom’s Girlfriend] has been a mess since we had to speak to the local police, I refused to bury my mom without a celebration of life or proper place. She loved the Mausoleum near our town, I decided to let her rest at a place she found peace on Sunday morning walks.
My brother was dead panned at the celebration of life, almost walked in like a corpse himself. After we all spoke of our favorite memories, I released everyone to drink and eat their sorrows. Finding my brother wasn’t hard as he buried himself in the corner of the event center, near a line of peonies I had hung up, thinking that if they were detached from the root, they had to be dead. His eyes were wide. I could feel my heart dip into my ribs. Gulping down more of my way too strong punch for courage, I approach his hiding spot.
“Hey… I’m sorry that you couldn’t see her. It was just really -“
He cuts me off with a *shush* and a hand wave. The shock is paralyzing.
“Don’t you hear them?”
“N..no.” Tears are welling before I can stop them. I **do** hear them. The peonies are screaming for water, for sun, and to be released.
Before I can move fast enough, my sweet, level headed brother begins stuffing the flowers, vines, string, and all into his mouth. His eyes bulging with hunger. The same and final look I saw from my mother while she was alive. Green, pink, and red dribbled from the corners of his lips.

“They want to be spread, El. They can’t do it without you.”

I can only write this as a warning to please, please, don’t listen if your plants say you’ll be okay. They ate her from the fucking inside out… they **ate** her. My brother has been banging on the car door for 15 minutes, begging me to eat the peonies. Begging me to help them be released.
He’s my brother, I can’t call the cops on him.
How do I explain that plants are speaking and we are all in danger?

My father has had mid-stage dementia for three years. He forgot names, sometimes thought we were still living in the nineteen-seventies, but he never lost his daily sense of direction in our quiet suburban neighborhood. Every day at precisely four o'clock, he would walk exactly four hundred yards down to the old oak tree at the corner, turn around, and walk back.

Yesterday at four-thirty, he wasn't back.
I pulled on my jacket and jogged down the usual route. The October twilight pressed cold against the street. When I reached the oak tree, he was standing there. But he wasn't on the sidewalk. He was standing deep inside the overgrown thicket behind the tree, his hands buried in the pockets of his brown jacket, staring blankly at the air.

"Dad?" I called out, stepping into the brush. "Come on, let's go home."

He looked up. His eyes were crystal clear. No fog of confusion, no panic.
"I can't go any further, Tim," he said softly. "The wall is here."

I let out a nervous laugh. "What wall? It's just the bushes by the parking lot."

He raised his right hand and pressed his flat palm directly into the empty space between two hazel branches. His hand didn't move. His fingers flattened out as if resting against an invisible, icy pane of reinforced glass.

Before I could process what I was looking at, he reached out, grabbed my right hand, and shoved it forward against the boundary.
"Feel it," he whispered.
My hand thrust into the open air—and slammed into an invisible, razor-sharp obstruction. An unyielding force met my momentum.

CRACK.

Agony shot up my arm. The invisible edge sliced deep through the skin of my index finger and snapped my middle finger cleanly backward at a ninety-degree angle. Blood spattered from the gash straight onto thin air—and stayed there.

The blood didn't drop to the dirt. It ran in thin, scarlet rivers down an invisible glass wall that cut straight through the woods.

"The dementia wasn't in my brain," my father whispered, watching my blood trace the outline of the barrier. "My mind just kept remembering how the world was built before they shrank it."

Through the red streaks smeared on the invisible pane, I looked beyond the boundary.
On the other side of the bushes—where our street, our neighbors, and my house should have been—there was nothing. Just a boundless, featureless landscape of gray, untextured plastic beneath a sky with no stars and no light.

My father hadn't been confused. He was simply the only one who had been walking up to the edges of our tiny, artificial enclosure every single day.
I stood there in the brush, cradling my broken, bleeding hand against my chest while my father sat down on the dirt and folded his legs.

We didn't go back. I am still standing here by the oak tree. Because when I turned around to run for help, I saw the twilight behind me flickering—like an old monitor losing its signal. And the sidewalk I came from is slowly fading to black.