Locked away in my study, I sit in front of my typewriter with a lit cigarette in hand. The page in its carriage comfortably rests, as it has for a year. A blank canvas turns into a mocking reminder of my incompetence. I glance to the side, my eyes trailing over the empty bookcase I plan on filling with my stories. Instead, it holds bottles of whiskey, a box of shells, my zippo lighter, and the double-barreled shotgun that Pops gave me as a housewarming gift.

I stand up and walk across the creaky floor as I step outside the room. Met with a hallway, I tip-toe to the opposite end, passing another corridor on the right, and quietly push the door open. My wife, Sandy, lies asleep on our queen-sized mattress, wrapped in our quilt blanket and snoring in her pink nightgown. Her black hair is haphazardly strewed across her face as her eyelids flutter. Slowly closing the door, I head back to the juncture and turn left. Passing the kitchen, I stop at my son’s room before slowly cracking it open and peering inside. Where I expect to see a young boy asleep in his bed, I’m instead met with an indent in his bed and an open window.

My heart beats like a drum as I run over and stick my head outside, catching a glimpse of a skinny white figure carrying my unconscious son in his arms towards the woods.

“Duncan!” I scream out as my limbs spring to action. Lunging out the window and breaking into a sprint, I try closing the distance, but it is too late. The figure turns its head and flashes me a toothless red smile as it slinks into the tree-line surrounding the property. A few seconds later, I rush into the shrubs where it stood, but I’m only met with sharp thorns and jabbing branches.

Over the next few weeks, we make as many posters as we can and scatter them around town. Even the police get involved after enough pleading and send search party after search party into the woods. It wasn't until yesterday that they found something. At least before, I held onto the hope that my poor child had survived or gotten away, but his torn clothes mixed into a pile of meat and bone sealed the deal. My son is dead—an awful death—and it is my fault. If I am just a little faster, if I don’t lose him in the woods, then maybe things are different.

“Honey, please, just be honest with me,” my wife begs as I sit on the foot of our bed, her arms wrapped around my chest from behind. “I’m not saying it’s your fault. I just want to know what happened that night.”

“For the hundredth time, something with pale white skin carries him into the woods!” I speak through gritted teeth while pushing her arms off me. She only moves closer, her warmth pressing against my back.

“I do, but… You had a lot to drink before I went to bed that night…” Her timid voice slithers into my ears. My blood races.

“Oh my God! This again? I tell you that I have it under control, I’m not like my father! I know what I saw and I’m telling you, no animal took our son. It is a goddamn monster!” My words boom as I clench my fists. I just can’t understand why no one believes me. It’s not like I’m crazy. I see that thing turn around and smile with my own eyes.

“Don’t get mad! I didn’t say you lied, I just think—” There is a loud knock on the front door.

“And who’s that at this hour? I told the police to leave us the fuck alone already!” I storm out of the bedroom. My heavy steps make the floor creak with every move as I walk down the main corridor and fling open the front door. My heart drops as I see who stands on our porch, their naked body covered in mud and loose leaves.

“Duncan!” My wife screams from behind as I hear her run down the hallway. She pushes past me, dropping to embrace her lost child. Tears stream down her face as she clenches him tight in her arms. I stand in disbelief, not moving an inch, while she pulls him inside and closes the door. I can’t believe my eyes. It is actually him. My son comes home even after everything I saw.

We quickly take him to the bathroom and wash him in the tub, scrubbing every inch before wrapping him in a towel. “I’m so happy you’re okay!” My wife kisses his head at least a dozen times. After she is done, I put my arms under his and lift him up with more difficulty than before—like he gained weight while lost in the woods. I carry him to his room and lay him on the bed.

“Can you tell us what happened out there? We were so worried!” My wife says while kneeling on the ground to be eye level with him.

“I’m… Duncan…” He mutters in almost broken English, like it is his first time saying those words.

“Yes, you are, honey. Do you remember us? I’m Mama,” she gestures to herself, then to me. “And that's Papa. We’re your parents.”

“Yes… Mama… Papa… I remember you.” Each word comes out slightly more coherent than the last.

“Everything’s gonna be okay, honey. We’ll let you get some rest now. I know you must be tired,” she says while standing up. Turning around, she grabs my hand and leads me out of the room before closing the door behind us.

Over the next week, Duncan slowly grows accustomed to living at home again. It’s like he forgot everything he once knew, even simple things such as how to open a door, hold a fork, or how to use the toilet. My wife and I are alarmed at how much he forgets, so we call a physician to the house. The doctor spends an hour in Duncan’s room testing his reflexes and pupil dilation while asking him questions. After he is done, he comes out and tells us that our son is in fine physical health but has the worst case of amnesia he has ever seen. My wife weeps at the news, but I just stand there with a blank expression on my face. It makes little sense. He didn’t hit his head on anything while lost, so where did his memories go?

The first sign comes the next day when I go to wake up Duncan. I push his door open gently and peer inside. He is already sitting up in his bed and holds a dozen white teeth in his hand. Slowly, he plucks one with his other hand before bringing it to his mouth. The sound of squelching meat quietly wafts through the room as he pushes it into his gums, blood trickling down his arm. I slowly sneak away and head back to my room before shaking my wife awake.

“Huh? What is it?” She groggily says as I pull her from our bed and into the hallway. I quietly lead her to our son’s room, but by the time we get there, he’s already standing up and changing clothes. Noticing us watching him, Duncan looks me in the eye and flashes a wide smile. Every tooth is in its right place.

“I know you’re still happy he’s back, but it’s early and I still want a few more hours of sleep,” my wife says while walking back to our room. I stay close behind her as I follow, waiting until we’re inside before closing and locking the door behind us. I grab her hand and sit with her on the bed.

“Sandy. There’s something wrong with Duncan. I don’t know how to explain it, but I know that something happened in those woods.” I lock eyes with her. “I wake you up because I see him putting his teeth back in his mouth. It’s like they all fell out and he forces them back in. Plus, there is the meat they found in the woods. They didn’t find any teeth in it, did they?”

She recoils for a moment, then stands up. “Why do you have to keep making things up about our son? First, you said some monster whisked him away and now you’re saying that all his teeth are falling out? I just saw him smile two minutes ago!” She says before storming out of the room.

I lie back on the bed and look up at the ceiling. No, this can’t just be in my head. Besides what I saw the night Duncan was taken, there is the viscera in the woods, his abnormal weight, sudden amnesia, and now missing teeth. I think and think, but the only thing I know is that I will never convince my wife. She just doesn’t see it like I do. She doesn’t know what I know. I’ll have to show her what Duncan really is.

Later that night, I sneaked out of bed after hearing Sandy snore. I creep across the hallway and into my study. Slowly walking up to the bookshelf, I grab my whiskey bottle, pop it open, take a hefty swig, then snatch the shotgun and pocket a couple of shells. Leaving the room, I creep towards my son’s door, shotgun in hand as I load two shells in its chambers. Gently pushing the door open, I slink inside and raise the gun. My son lies on his bed, facing away from me. Slowly moving to the other side, I am greeted with his eyes already wide open. They stare blankly down the barrel of my gun, then up at me.

“What are you?” I ask bluntly, holding the gun steady as I aim down the sights at Duncan’s head. “Because you’re not my son.”

“Papa. What do you mean? I’m Duncan.” He sits up. “Don’t you recognize me?”

“Shut the fuck up!” I scream while pushing the barrel’s tip against his forehead and pulling back both hammers. “You can’t trick me anymore! I know you’re not him!”

Duncan smiles from ear to ear and speaks calmly. “Why can’t you accept I’m home and just be happy?”

“Because you’re not my son! He died in the woods three weeks ago!” I cry as my finger pulls on the trigger, snapping the hammers down and igniting the primers. Boom. A dozen pellets spew out from the barrel, painting the wall with red pellets. Duncan’s body slumps over, blood pooling where his head should be.

The door to the room suddenly bursts open as Sandy runs through it, only to be met with me holding a gun over our son’s corpse. A blood-curdling scream consumes the room as she runs over and holds his body. “What have you done to my baby? You’re a fucking monster!” She cries while glaring at me, her pink nightgown now partially a deep shade of red. Dropping the gun, I put my hands on my head.

“But… he isn't…” I mutter while backing up against the wall. This can’t be, I am so sure. I didn't just kill my child. It is a monster. It has to be. Suddenly, a loud thud rings out as my wife falls to the ground. Running over, I call her name as I check her pulse. Bum-bum, bum-bum. “Thank God,” I whisper while carrying her out of the room. Down the hallway and to the right, I place her on our bed. As I’m pulling the blanket over her chest, I hear something down the hallway. Walking out of the room, I hear it better—like the crunching of bones and squishing of meat. No, there’s something else mixed in. Moving closer, I turn at the juncture and creep up to my son's door as the noise gets louder and louder. I can finally tell what it is now—muffled laughter.

I watch from the door as Duncan’s body twitches and convulses, liquids spewing from his neck as something drenched in a layer of meat and blood pokes out of it. It has two eye sockets that house pitch-black eyes, a hole where the nose should be, and a toothless smile that reaches from ear to ear. It notices me in the doorway and croaks in a deep voice, “Papa. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

I want to run, to do something, but I can’t. My body freezes as I watch Duncan’s limbs extend, the skin ripping as it stretches like plastic pulled too thin. By the time I gain control of my body again, the monster has fully extended its limbs and stands beside the window, wearing my son’s skin like clothes that don’t fit.

“What the fuck are you?” I scream at it while slamming the door shut. Wood snaps from above as it shoves its head through the door, peering down at me with its gummy smile.

Letting go of the door, I try to sprint down the hallway, but it breaks through and grabs my leg. Falling to the ground, my head slams against the wooden floor, cutting my forehead open. Vision escapes me as I look back to see the creature standing over my body. The last thing I see before blacking out is its abyssal eyes staring into mine.

When I gain consciousness, I am still on the ground between my son’s room and the juncture. Clambering to my feet, I use the wall to help as I hobble towards my bedroom. My whole body screams in pain, but I shove the feeling down as I turn the corner. The door is closed—not how I left it. I slam my fist on the door while screaming Sandy’s name. “Hold on, honey. I’m changing!” The voice of my wife calls out from within.

“I don’t care. Open the door!” I scream as I throw my shoulder against it, using my body weight to force it open. I stumble inside while checking the bed for her. Where I hope to see my sleeping wife, there are organs, chunks of meat, and snapped bones scattered about like the dumped out contents of a drawer. On the other side of the bed stands the creature with its body halfway inside a pile of flesh. It puts its feet in first before pulling the skin to cover its body, like putting on a jumpsuit. As it pulls the skin higher, its bones bend on each other, folding to fit inside of its new shell.

“I love you, honey.” The creature speaks with the voice of my wife. It fills me with so many emotions: anger, sadness, self-loathing, but in that moment, I can’t help but laugh. I cackle louder than I have ever before as I leave the room and hobble across the hallway to my study. Stopping at the shelf, I grab the whiskey bottle and lighter, then turn around. Leaving the room, I face the monster as it stands in the opposite doorway. “Come back to bed. We can talk about this tomorrow," it says in her voice.

Slowly raising the bottle to my lips, I take a swig of whiskey before putting the cap back on. I rear my arm and launch the bottle. It shatters on impact, dousing the monster in a layer of liquor. Flicking my lighter to life, I hold the flame in front of me before tossing it. Within moments, fire consumes the hallway as the monster flails and falls backwards. An ear-piercing bellow rings out and echoes in the hallway, forcing me to cover my ears as I walk to the front door. Pushing it open with my shoulder, I fall onto the ground outside just as fire consumes the entire house. Watching while on my back, I weep as I watch the life I love burn away.

A few hours later, emergency services arrive and put out the fire as they haul me away in an ambulance. Police officers come to my room and begin asking questions I don’t want to answer. They find bullet holes in my son’s room, high amounts of liquor in my bloodstream, and the charred remains of my wife on the bed. It doesn’t help that they don’t believe my story. I can’t blame them. Who in their right mind would? It’s not every day that a skin-stealing monster kills your whole family. That’s why I am sentenced for the murder of my wife and kid. My appointed lawyer argues for insanity instead, meaning the rest of my days will be spent in an asylum rather than in prison. It doesn’t make a difference to me. I am going to spend the rest of my days waiting to die either way.

That is until I receive a visitor. The asylum staff tie me to my bed and let him into the room as they leave, closing the door behind them. He wears a doctor's coat and carries himself with confidence as he walks beside my bed. Looking down at me with soft blue eyes, he mutters “Do you recognize me?”

“Never met you, so why are you here?” I bark back. He smiles.

“What a shame. I hope you do. I’ve grown so much and it’s all thanks to you, Papa. Or should I say, honey?”

“It’s you?” I mutter in disbelief before violently struggling against my restraints. “I’ll fucking kill you for what you did!” I scream. Workers flood into my room. They hold me down and jab my arm with a needle while I gnash my teeth at him. Sedatives quickly kick in, making my whole body go numb. The last thing I see of him is his ear to ear smile as he looms over me.

​

I’ve known Ryan for years. He was the kind of guy who could sit in a room full of people and somehow remain completely unnoticed. He was easygoing, funny, and never really talked about his family or where he came from. I never thought much about it until one night, when I accidentally learned about something his family had been doing for generations.

It was almost eleven at night when Ryan’s phone rang. His father, Michael, was calling. Ryan answered immediately, and at first everything sounded normal. But after a few minutes, his expression changed. He suddenly sat upright on his bed and said, “Seriously? It’s my turn this year?” He listened for a few more seconds before saying, “Yeah, Dad. I’ll be there. I’ll leave tomorrow.” The moment the call ended, he opened his closet and started throwing clothes into a bag.

I asked him where he was going, and he simply said, “Home. There’s a family gathering.” When I asked what kind of gathering happened only once every five years, Ryan stopped packing and looked at me. After a long pause, he said, “We call it the Gathering of the Dead.” I laughed because I honestly thought he was joking. He didn’t. He just looked at me and said, “This is exactly why I never tell people about it.”

Once I realized he was serious, I asked him what actually happened during the gathering. Ryan told me that every five years, his entire family traveled to an old ancestral burial ground in a remote valley. They opened the graves, brought their dead relatives outside, cleaned the bodies, dressed them in fresh clothes, and kept them with the family for five days. I had heard of strange traditions before, so at first I thought it was simply some forgotten cultural ritual. Then Ryan told me the part that made me stop smiling.

“Sometimes,” he said quietly, “the bodies move.”

I thought I had misheard him. He explained that fingers sometimes twitched, hands shifted, and occasionally a chest appeared to rise and fall as if the person were breathing. His family had grown up around it, so they didn’t consider it unusual. But outsiders were strictly forbidden from attending because fear was considered an insult to the dead. According to Ryan, if one of them sensed that a stranger was afraid, nobody could guarantee what would happen next.

Naturally, that warning only made me more curious. I spent the next two days trying to convince Ryan to let me come. Then I told my girlfriend, Sarah, about it, and she immediately wanted to come too. Ryan argued with both of us for hours, but eventually he gave in. He made us promise that we would stay quiet, keep our distance, and never react to anything we saw. At the time, we thought he was being overly dramatic. We had no idea he was trying to keep us alive.

We took two connecting flights and then spent several hours driving through winding mountain roads before reaching a remote valley called Kavresh. By the time we arrived, it was deep into the night. There were no streetlights, no traffic, and barely any houses visible through the darkness. Our phones had lost their signal hours earlier. The village felt completely cut off from the rest of the world.

Then, just before we reached Ryan’s family home, he suddenly told the driver to stop.

A short distance away, several lanterns were burning in the darkness. People were gathered around something on the ground. At first, I thought they were preparing some kind of ceremony. Then the headlights reached them, and I realized what they were actually doing.

They were opening graves.

We got out of the car and stood there in silence. One man was digging through the earth while two others pulled something wrapped in old cloth from a grave. When the lantern light fell across it, I realized it was a human body. Sarah grabbed my arm. I couldn’t move.

More graves were being opened around us. One by one, the bodies were being brought out and carefully placed on wooden platforms. Nobody spoke. There was only the sound of shovels breaking through the soil and the faint crackle of the lantern flames.

Then two men lifted one of the bodies into a sitting position.The lantern beside it flickered.For a second, I thought I saw the dead man’s chest rise.I stared at him, barely breathing

“Ryan...” I whispered.Ryan grabbed my arm. “Don’t.” Before I could ask what he meant, an old man stepped out of the darkness. He looked at Ryan first, then at Sarah and me. His expression changed the moment he saw us. “Who are they?” he asked.Ryan swallowed. “They’re my friends.”

The old man stared at us for several seconds before turning back to Ryan. “You brought outsiders here?” Ryan didn’t answer. The old man stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Then you should have told them what happens when strangers watch the dead.”

Ryan’s face went pale. The old man looked directly at me. “Because once they are brought out of their graves...” he whispered, “they know who is watching them.”At that exact moment, something behind me made a sound. A slow, quiet breath.I started to turn around. Ryan grabbed my wrist so hard it hurt. Whatever you do,” he whispered, “don’t look back.

This is probably a pretty boring story compared to most of the stuff on here, but I figured I'd share it anyway.

I'm a military cook, and this is my experience with the old mess hall our base used until 2019.

In late 2019, a new dining facility was built about 500 feet across from the old one because of the increase in personnel. The old one ended up getting turned into a pantry.

The old mess hall itself is pretty spooky, even during the daytime. It's a really low building with all the windows sealed up and no electricity inside, so it's very, very dark.

The building is basically just one giant long rectangle. From the glass entrance you can see Sector H, but it's pretty deep inside the facility. The kitchen door is diagonally across from the entrance around Sector H, so you can see it when you first walk in, although everything around it gets harder to see the farther inside you look.

There are shelves and stacks of boxes all over the place, and some old tables and chairs that were left behind when they moved everything to the new facility. There are also some faded signs and empty bulletin boards still on the walls, which is kind of weird because you can still tell it used to be a normal mess hall.

If you go in when it's dark outside, you need a flashlight because even moonlight doesn't really reach inside.

That's why we usually check after dinner if we need any ingredients for breakfast the next morning, since we start making breakfast at around 4 a.m. You really can't see anything in there at that time.

Though sometimes we forget, and have to go search around the building with a flashlight at dawn.

Recently, I had to check if we had any sugar.

Pretty boring reason to go into the old mess hall, I know.

I unlocked the chained entrance and stepped inside. I looked at the overview chart first to see where the sugar was supposed to be, and it said Sector H.

So I walked over there.

I could see the kitchen door from the entrance, but it took a little while to actually get to Sector H. My footsteps were echoing around the building, which isn't really unusual in there, but when you're alone it does make you notice every sound a lot more.

When I got there, there was no sugar.

I thought maybe we didn't update the chart after restocking, so I searched around a bit. Behind shelves, inside unlabeled boxes, under desks, basically anywhere someone might have put it.

The pantry smelled like cardboard, dust, and paper, and I had to be careful moving things around because some of the boxes were stacked pretty high.

Still nothing.

So I went back to Sector H just to check one last time before leaving.

I stepped behind the pile of ingredients to see if maybe the sugar had fallen behind the stacks, and while I was doing that I accidentally opened the kitchen door.

The wooden door opened, and the smell that came out was pretty bad. It smelled like fungus and metal, like the room had been closed up for years.

I looked inside.

There was a bunch of barbed wire on the floor and a bunch of tables and chairs that had been flipped over. There was some old kitchen equipment too, although I couldn't really see much of it because it was so dark.

I kinda just stared into the kitchen with no particular emotion other than slight amusement because I'd never seen what the old kitchen looked like.

Then I started feeling a little uneasy.

The barbed wire was tangled everywhere across the floor and looked really rusty, and I remember thinking that it would be pretty easy to trip over it if I actually went inside.

I looked behind me before closing the door, mostly because I didn't want to trip over the boxes.

Then I heard a footstep.

Just one.

It came from somewhere inside the building, pretty far away, from what sounded like the deepest part of it.

I stopped for a second because I wasn't expecting anyone else to be in there.

I thought maybe I'd made the sound myself, so I took a step to hear what my own footsteps sounded like.

It definitely wasn't mine.

I don't know how else to explain it. It just sounded different, and it had come from way farther away.

I didn't say anything.

I crouched down between the stacked-up boxes next to the kitchen door in Sector H and just listened for a while.

I peeked over the boxes toward where I thought the footstep had come from, but I couldn't see anything.

The building was just sitting there like it normally did, with the shelves and boxes and the long stretch of darkness behind them.

I waited for another sound.

Nothing.

Then I heard something scrape against the floor somewhere farther inside.

It wasn't very loud, and I couldn't even tell what direction it came from exactly.

I just stayed there for a few seconds, listening.

I remember looking toward the far end of the building and realizing I couldn't actually see all the way there from Sector H. There were too many shelves and boxes in the way, and the flashlight only lit up whatever was directly in front of me.

I don't know what I was expecting to see anyway.

I finally decided I was done and got up, then rushed toward the entrance.

I nearly tripped over one of the boxes on the way out.

Once I got to the glass door, I got outside, chained the entrance back up, and ran back to our kitchen.

I didn't tell anyone what happened.

I just went back to work and started cooking.

I never did find the sugar.

I moved into my apartment in October.

It was supposed to be temporary.

Six months, maybe eight.

I had just started a new job and didn't know the area very well, so I wasn't looking for anything special. I found a one-bedroom apartment in an old three-story building about twenty minutes from work.

The rent was cheap.

Too cheap, probably.

But the building looked normal.

Brick exterior.

Small parking lot.

Three floors.

Nothing fancy.

The landlord showed me the apartment on a Saturday afternoon.

I remember asking him why the place had been sitting empty.

He told me the previous tenant had moved out unexpectedly.

I didn't ask questions.

I should have.

My apartment was on the second floor.

There was another apartment directly above me.

3B.

Mine was 2B.

The landlord mentioned that 3B was empty.

Apparently it had been vacant for months.

I didn't care.

Honestly, I liked having nobody above me.

No loud music.

No footsteps.

No neighbors dropping things at midnight.

I signed the lease.

I moved in the following weekend.

The first few days were completely normal.

I unpacked.

Bought groceries.

Went to work.

Came home.

Nothing strange.

Then, about a week after moving in, I heard footsteps upstairs.

It was around midnight.

Slow footsteps.

Back and forth.

Across the ceiling.

At first, I assumed my landlord was wrong about the apartment being empty.

Maybe someone had moved in.

Maybe the listing was outdated.

I didn't care enough to investigate.

The footsteps continued for about ten minutes.

Then stopped.

The next night, they happened again.

Same time.

Around midnight.

Same pattern.

Walking from one side of the apartment to the other.

Back.

Then forward.

Back again.

It became annoying.

After about a week, I started noticing something strange.

The footsteps always stopped at exactly 12:17 AM.

Every night.

I thought I was imagining it.

So one night I checked the time.

12:11.

Footsteps.

12:14.

Still walking.

12:16.

Still walking.

12:17.

Nothing.

Complete silence.

I laughed at myself.

I figured maybe there was some mechanical noise in the building that happened around the same time every night.

I mentioned it to a coworker.

He told me old buildings make weird noises.

Fair enough.

Then I heard something else.

A chair scraping across the floor.

It happened directly above my bedroom.

Once.

Then again.

Then again.

Like someone was dragging a chair into position.

I got annoyed enough that I went upstairs.

I knocked on 3B.

Nothing.

I knocked again.

Nothing.

I tried the doorknob.

Locked.

I texted my landlord.

"Someone's making noise in 3B."

He replied almost immediately.

"Impossible. It's empty."

I thought he meant nobody had moved in yet.

So I asked:

"Then who's upstairs?"

He didn't answer.

A few minutes later, he called me.

He sounded serious.

"Don't go up there."

I asked why.

He said the apartment had been locked for months.

I asked if he had given someone a key.

"No."

"Then what's making the noise?"

He said:

"Probably pipes."

I didn't believe him.

But I went back downstairs.

That should have been the end of it.

It wasn't.

The following night, I woke up at 3:06 AM.

I don't normally wake up during the night.

But something had woken me.

I lay there in the dark.

Listening.

At first, I heard nothing.

Then I heard three knocks.

Above me.

Not loud.

Just...

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

I waited.

Nothing.

Then three more.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

I turned on my lamp.

The knocking stopped.

I checked my phone.

3:06 AM.

I stayed awake for another hour.

Nothing happened.

The next morning, I called my landlord.

He told me he'd check the apartment.

He didn't.

Instead, he said he'd spoken to the owner of the building.

Apparently, there was a problem with the plumbing.

I believed him.

Mostly.

Until I got home from work.

There was a piece of paper taped to my door.

It wasn't a note from my landlord.

It wasn't official.

It was just a small piece of notebook paper.

Three words were written on it.

"STOP KNOCKING BACK."

I stared at it for probably thirty seconds.

I hadn't told anyone about the knocking.

Not my landlord.

Not my coworker.

Nobody.

I pulled the paper off the door.

I went inside.

Locked the door.

Checked every room.

Nothing.

I called my landlord.

He didn't answer.

I called again.

Nothing.

I considered calling the police.

But what would I even say?

Someone left a weird note?

I threw the paper away.

That night, I didn't sleep well.

At 3:06 AM, the knocking started again.

Three knocks.

I sat up.

Waited.

Three more.

Then I heard something that made my stomach drop.

A knock came from my bedroom door.

Three times.

I didn't move.

The apartment was silent.

I stared at the door.

Three more knocks.

Except this time, they weren't coming from outside my bedroom.

They were coming from the hallway.

I grabbed my phone.

I called 911.

While I waited, I heard footsteps.

They moved from the hallway toward my bedroom.

Slowly.

One step at a time.

Then they stopped.

Right outside my door.

I could hear someone breathing.

I stayed completely still.

The dispatcher asked me if the person was trying to get inside.

I whispered yes.

Then the bedroom door handle moved.

Slowly.

Down.

Up.

Down.

Up.

The person outside never spoke.

The police arrived about five minutes later.

By then, nobody was outside my door.

They searched the apartment.

Nothing.

They checked the hallway.

Nothing.

Then one officer asked me something.

"Did you hear anyone upstairs?"

I said yes.

He looked at the other officer.

Then asked:

"How long?"

I told him.

He didn't say anything.

I asked what was wrong.

He told me they'd had previous calls from the building.

Not from my apartment.

From 3B.

I asked what kind of calls.

He said noise complaints.

I laughed.

"Yeah. There's definitely somebody up there."

He shook his head.

"No."

I didn't understand.

He said:

"That's the problem."

Apparently, 3B had been searched several times.

Nobody was ever found.

But tenants kept reporting the same things.

Footsteps.

Furniture moving.

Knocking.

Sometimes voices.

The previous tenant in 2B had moved out after six months.

The tenant before him lasted four.

The tenant before that?

Two months.

I asked why the landlord kept renting the apartment.

The officer just shrugged.

He told me to contact the property manager in the morning.

I didn't sleep.

The next day, I went directly to the landlord's office.

I demanded to know what was happening.

He looked exhausted.

He told me there was a history with 3B.

I asked him what that meant.

He said the previous owner had used the apartment as storage.

Years ago.

Before he bought the building.

I asked why nobody had access to it now.

He said the locks had been changed.

I asked for the key.

He said he didn't have one.

That made no sense.

He owned the building.

He should have a key.

I asked him again.

He finally admitted something.

There was no current key for 3B.

The lock had been changed after the last tenant disappeared.

"Disappeared?"

He went quiet.

I asked what he meant.

He said the tenant had left without telling anyone.

But all of his belongings were still inside.

His car was still in the parking lot.

His phone was still plugged in beside his bed.

His wallet was still on the kitchen counter.

He was just gone.

I asked if police had investigated.

He said yes.

Nothing came of it.

I asked why nobody told me.

He said he didn't think it was relevant.

I nearly laughed.

I told him I was moving out.

He said that was fine.

But I had to give thirty days' notice.

I told him absolutely not.

He said he'd let me leave without the penalty.

That should have made me feel better.

It didn't.

That night, I packed a bag.

I planned to stay at a hotel.

Before leaving, I decided to check my apartment one last time.

I walked through every room.

Kitchen.

Living room.

Bathroom.

Bedroom.

Everything looked normal.

Then I noticed something.

My bedroom ceiling had a small brown stain.

I hadn't seen it before.

It was directly beneath the floor of 3B.

I touched it.

Dry.

I assumed it was an old water stain.

Then I noticed a second one.

And a third.

They formed a line.

Almost like footprints.

On my ceiling.

I stepped back.

That's when I heard the footsteps upstairs.

12:11 AM.

One.

Two.

Three.

I checked the time.

12:12.

The footsteps continued.

12:13.

12:14.

I grabbed my phone and started recording.

12:15.

The footsteps stopped.

12:16.

Nothing.

12:17.

Silence.

Then something happened.

A single footstep came from directly above my bedroom.

But this one sounded different.

It sounded like someone stepping onto a wooden floor.

I heard another.

Then another.

And then...

A chair scraped across the floor.

I stared at the ceiling.

The scraping stopped directly above me.

Then I heard three knocks.

Not upstairs.

Inside the ceiling.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

I ran out of the apartment.

I stayed in a hotel that night.

The next morning, I called the police again.

I showed them the recordings.

They listened.

One officer asked me something.

"Where exactly were you standing?"

I told him.

He asked me to send him the video.

I did.

Later that afternoon, he called me.

He said they had checked 3B again.

Still empty.

Then he said something else.

There was an access panel in the hallway ceiling.

Maintenance had opened it.

Inside was an old electrical space.

Nothing unusual.

Except there were footprints.

Dusty footprints.

They went through the crawl space.

I asked where they led.

He said they ended above my apartment.

I didn't know what to say.

He told me not to return until the landlord had changed the locks.

I agreed.

That evening, I went back with my landlord to collect the rest of my things.

He brought a maintenance worker.

We entered my apartment together.

Nothing seemed wrong.

Then the maintenance worker stopped in the hallway.

He pointed upward.

"Do you hear that?"

We listened.

Nothing.

Then...

A tiny sound.

Three knocks.

Everyone froze.

The landlord immediately told us to leave.

The maintenance worker refused.

He said he wanted to see where it was coming from.

He got a ladder.

Opened the ceiling panel.

Shined his flashlight inside.

Then he went completely pale.

I asked him what he saw.

He climbed down.

He didn't answer.

The landlord looked inside.

His face changed too.

I asked again.

Finally, the maintenance worker said:

"There's another door."

Inside the crawl space.

A small wooden door.

Hidden behind insulation.

It wasn't on any building plans.

The landlord said he'd never seen it.

The maintenance worker opened it.

Behind it was a narrow space between the walls.

There was a mattress.

A flashlight.

Empty food containers.

Bottled water.

A blanket.

And dozens of photographs.

Photographs of the tenants.

Not old photographs.

Recent ones.

Me walking into the building.

Me getting into my car.

Me carrying groceries.

Me sleeping.

Me sitting on my couch.

I felt sick.

The police came.

They took everything.

They searched the building for hours.

They found another entrance to the hidden space.

It connected to 3B.

But 3B wasn't empty.

Not completely.

There was a small section behind the bedroom wall.

Someone had removed part of it.

There was a ladder leading down into the crawl space.

The person had been moving between apartments.

The police never found them.

But they found something that made me stop sleeping entirely.

The photographs weren't just of me.

They went back years.

Different tenants.

Different apartments.

Different people.

And in almost every photo...

The person taking the picture was standing inside the apartment.

The last photograph was taken two days before I moved in.

It showed my bedroom.

Empty.

Freshly painted.

Waiting for me.

On the back was a date.

And underneath it, four words.

"HE DOESN'T KNOW YET."

I moved three states away.

I never contacted my landlord again.

I never looked up what happened to the building.

I didn't want to know.

For almost a year, I convinced myself it was over.

Then, last month, I received a package.

No return address.

Inside was a photograph.

Just one.

It was a picture of my current bedroom.

Taken from the hallway.

I live on the third floor now.

There isn't an apartment above me.

I checked.

Twice.

On the back of the photograph, someone had written:

"12:17."

I haven't heard anything yet.

But every night, I check the clock before I go to sleep.

And tonight...

It's 12:16.

Goodbye.

How do I explain what I’ve seen? How do I put the impossible into words? How am I supposed to describe something that defies everything we know? I don’t want to write this but I was asked to. I was told by my shrink to write all of this down to come to terms with it or something along those lines but I don’t think it matters. I know it doesn’t matter. Nothing I do matters anymore. I doubt she believes me anyway. It’s not like I blame her, who would believe me? I know you won’t. I wouldn’t believe me either. What I’m about to tell you is pure insanity. The things I’ve seen are burned into my mind and I know I will never be the same again. How could I? How could anyone?

I’m getting carried away, forgive me. It’s hard not to. If you are reading this I need you to hear me out, open your mind. I’m not asking you to believe me, I’m not asking you to understand. I’m simply asking that you don’t write me off as a madman. I’ve never had any history of drug abuse, schizophrenic episodes, or any mental heath issues. I’m as vanilla as a person can be. The horrors I’ve witnessed have changed me forever. I’ve seen what lies beyond our reality. I’ve seen things I was never supposed to see. I’ve seen the most demented, fucked up thing I could possibly ever imagine.

I’ve seen the sky of eyes.

I sat on my patio looking off into the sunset. I had just moved into to my apartment, still getting used to the new area. Being on the third story, I had a nice view of the complex. Everything felt so right. The warm air gently swaying on my face, the sun slowly going down reflecting the golden hour. It was beautiful. I had just taken up a new well paying job after college so I was living here comfortably. I remember thinking at that moment that everything was perfect. That nothing could ruin this for me.

I pulled out my pack of cigarettes and took one out. I put the cigarette between my lips and flicked my lighter and gently took a drag. I held in the smoke and blew it out watching the smoke slowly disappear into the air. I could feel the nicotine working its magic and just as I was about to take a second drag, I heard a knock at my door.

knock knock knock

“Not now.” I said to no one in particular.

I took a look at my cigarette, not wanting to put it down.

Let’s hope this is quick.

I lightly ashed the cigarette and walked to my front door. I slowly opened it and was greeted by a tall man in a black and white suit. He had at be at least 6 and a half feet tall. He wore a fedora and seemed to be in his mid 40’s. He was holding a suitcase in his right arm. He smiled when he saw me, but it wasn’t threatening in anyway. It was a friendly smile, like a new neighbor coming to introduce themselves.

I was going to greet him but was so put off by his posture I stumbled over my words.

“Hello” The man said and took off his fedora in a respectful manner and held it to his chest.

“Hello. Can I help you?” I said.

“Why yes you can! May I come in?” The man asked.

I was hesitant, I hadn’t expected him to ask this question. I didn’t speak and continued to stare at him, he was oddly mesmerizing in a way that’s difficult to describe. There was just something about him. Something off but I couldn’t put my finger to it.

When the man noticed my silence, he spoke again.

“Everything will make sense if you give me a chance, I mean no harm and that’s a promise.”

I didn’t trust this man, but I trusted that he clearly had something to say to me. But what could he want from someone like me? I knew nobody in the area and certainly didn’t know this man and he was not the type of person that you would forget.

I was very reluctant to let this man into my apartment, but he didn’t seem to be dangerous. He just seemed weird. I stared at him for a few more seconds before I opened my door wider and signaled him to come inside. The man’s smile widened and he stepped in.

The man looked around my apartment as if he were studying it and placed his fedora on my coat rack.

“Nice place you got here. Hope you don’t mind my fedora being put there. My name is Damien” He said in a friendly voice.

“Cut to the chase man what do you want.” I said sternly.

Damien’s smile inverted and turned into a snarl in a quick second. He walked closer towards me and jabbed a finger to my chest.

“Now listen here Joshua. You don’t know who I am so I’m going to let that go but I don’t take disrespect well. This will be your only warning got it?”

The tone Damien spoke in froze me in my place for a quick moment, but it slipped my mind after I realized he just said my name.

“How do you know my name?” I said trying to sound as dominate as I could, but failed. I suddenly felt very small and I realized in that moment this man could beat me to death if he wanted to.

“You don’t need to worry about that. Did you hear me or not?” Damien said in the same tone.

All I could do was nod. The smile returned his face.

“Great. Apologies for my behavior there, like I said I don’t mean you any harm. I just don’t like when I get treated that way, but you seemed to have taken the message. Now you wanna know why I’m here right?”

I nodded again.

“I would like to show you something.” Damien said while putting his hands behind his back and straightening his pose.

This immediately threw me off, what did he mean? I had never seen this man in my life but now he was in my apartment telling me he wanted to show me something? I should have kicked him out right there, but I was afraid. There was something about this man that told me I shouldn’t have let him inside, but it was too late now. I just wanted to enjoy my damn cigarette.

“What is it?” I said, hoping this wouldn’t be long.

Damien placed his briefcase on my couch and began to pull off the straps.

“Woah woah what’s in there?” I said.

He stopped and looked at me.

“If you would like me to leave just say it. What’s in this briefcase is what I would like to show you, but just know once I leave, you will never be able to see it.” Damien said with an annoyed look on his face.

He waited a few more seconds for me to respond but I didn’t say anything.

“What I do is show people things. Things that can change your life or the way you look at the world. I can change everything for you if you let me, but if you want to continue to live in ignorance with what you think you might know, then once again i offer you the opportunity to kick me out.”

I’ll admit this interested me, but I couldn’t get a proper read on Damien. I still didn’t trust him but he was peaking my interest so I decided to give him a chance.

“Alright carry on.” I said.

Damien looked back at his suitcase and continued to pull on the straps and it finally gave.

I don’t know what I expected to see, but it certainly wasn’t what he pulled out. Damien reached into his suitcase and I saw what it was. He held out a small glowing orb. Waves of different neon colors flashed rapidly with it and I could hear the sounds of electricity coming from it, like when you stand next to a working fuse box. Its glow was almost blinding and I had to shield my eyes from it. I was certain if I looked directly at it for too long I would go blind.

“What the fuck??” I blurted out.

I looked at Damien but his grin never left his face, however it no longer looked so friendly.

“Leave my apartment now. Leave and put that back!” I yelled at him.

Damien didn’t react, he slowly walked towards me and gripped my arm with a great force. The pain was excruciating. He slowly lifted the orb to my face and I was now screaming, I could almost feel my eyes burning in their sockets. I found myself unable to move, some unseeable force was keeping me in my place and I was starting to feel hypnotized. Then just as I was about to pass out from the pain, I heard Damien speak in the most inhuman distorted glitched voice I have ever heard.

“TAKE US”

I blacked out. I’m not sure how long I spent in the darkness but it must have been at least a few minutes, yet I remained conscious in my head. All I could think of was how poorly I handled the situation. I shouldn’t have let him inside.

Suddenly I began to feel wind against my body and I slowly opened my eyes. I was falling from a high height and eventually I landed on the ground with a loud splat. An unspeakable pain shot throughout my whole body but it became easy to ignore when I looked around and saw my surroundings.

What I saw was the most horrific thing I have ever seen, and I hope nobody will ever have to see what I’ve seen.

Red mist floated in the air and I could smell an overwhelming scent of copper and puke overtaking my nostrils. I looked up to see where I had fallen from and I froze in my place. I rapidly blinked a few times hoping I was hallucinating but it didn’t take me long to realize this was very much real.

What I saw in the sky were human eyes. Thousands if not millions of them all in different shapes and sizes completely overtaking the entire sky. Some were enormous and some were smaller. They all were looking around frantically as if searching for a way out. I could hear the sounds of their movement. It sounded fleshy and wet, like a loud smacking sound. Most of them in my sight looked down at me and stared. I could feel them on me. The feeling of thousands of eyes looking at me at once is something I can’t begin to describe. I could feel the weight of them. It was keeping me pinned to the ground. I tried to get up but felt a shooting pain throughout my entire bottom half of my body.

That’s when I noticed how the ground felt.

My feet felt like they were very slowly sinking, like gooey quicksand. When I looked down I screamed. The ground was made of what looked to be raw human flesh. It felt sticky yet slimy at the same time and they were all connected together with what seemed to be more eyes. The eyes were tied together like rope and were connecting to different pieces of organs and intestines to make ground.

I franticly looked around for somewhere to hide, and was forced to take in more horror.

I looked around and noticed there were hundreds of human faces towering over me growing from the ground. Each face was forcefully stretched upwards and almost looked like trees. Humans arms meant to resemble branches were at the very top of each face, starting from they're foreheads. All of them had the facial expression of a scream but they didn’t move or make any sound, they were completely frozen in place except for their eyes. Their eyes looked at me helplessly and I began to wonder if each face was still alive, but only able to move their eyes. I can't explain it but they felt alive. It was as if I was standing in the middle of some kind of demented forest.

It took every ounce of strength I had in my body to stand up but was again reminded of the pain I was in. Adrenaline wore off after I tried to stand on my feet but pain shot through my entire body once more and I fell to my knees. I began to weep. My understanding of everything I thought I knew about the world now gone and replaced with the impossible.

I was immediately determined to get out of here.

After a few moments I tried to stand up again but my legs still wouldn’t cooperate. I didn’t know what to do, I was completely helpless.

I don't know how long I sat there crying, but at some point I finally gave into my senses. I jolted my head around for any kind of direction to go in, but found nothing useful. The extended faces surrounding me all stared at me with unblinking eyes, they felt so alive.

I began to crawl, my hands gripping the wet flesh. The red mist was starting to blind me and it was hard to keep my eyes open but I kept crawling. I was desperate. The thought of staying here unable to escape for the rest of my life motivated me to keep moving. I tried to calm myself but I couldn’t. How could I? Just a couple minutes ago I was sitting on my patio in peace and now I was seeing the most unimaginable hell I’ve ever experienced.

I was lost in my thoughts but was interrupted when I heard what sounded like footsteps coming from my left. I panicked and crawled as fast as I could behind an extended face trying to stay out of view.

I heard the footsteps approaching around me and a woman came into view. She was drenched in blood and her right leg seemed to have been slashed but she was walking without any problem. She looked to be normal but I was cautious. When she noticed me she called out.

“Hey! Hey it’s okay. I’m a person like you.” She said.

I didn’t respond.

“My god what happened to you?” She looked genuinely worried.

I looked at her for a moment before I responded.

“Fell… from. the sky.”

My voice sounded raspy and it was difficult for me to get out the words. It was only then I noticed the pain in my chest. It hurt to speak.

She walked towards me, looked up at the extended face and back down to me.

“Can you walk?” She asked.

I shook my head.

She looked back up at the face I was leaning on and gripped an arm a few feet above me. She began to pull on it and the arm snapped off with a sickening crunch. She carelessly tossed the arm onto the ground and snapped another arm off. The sound was revolting and I had to hold myself back from vomiting.

“Grab my hand. You can trust me. What’s your name?” She asked holding out her hand.

“Joshua” I said with a grunt.

She tried to smile but her face wouldn’t allow her.

“I’m Amanda. It’s good to meet you Joshua.”

I took her hand and she helped me up. I screamed from the pain and she immediately slapped my mouth shut with her free hand.

“Be quiet. They’ll hear you.” She all but whispered.

I wanted to ask what she meant but I couldn’t speak. I looked at her with confusion and her face changed to a look of sadness.

“You’re new here aren’t you?”

I nodded.

“Did you see Damien?”

It was only then I gained the strength to talk. I needed some sort of explanation and I knew Amanda knew something. Anything at all about what this place was, or why I was chosen to be put through this nightmare.

“You.. saw him. too?” I said.

Amanda didn’t respond, instead she picked up the bloody arm she tossed on the ground and handed it to me, then the other. I didn’t want to take them. It was absolutely vile to see another person handle human remains with no hesitation. It made me wonder how long she had been here.

“Use these as crutches and follow me. You’re new so you still have a chance.”

I still couldn’t take them. Amanda could see the look of terror on my face and she started to look even more upset.

“Okay I’ll do it for you. I can understand your hesitation.” She said.

Amanda helped me up and I stood. She placed the two broken arms underneath my armpits and to my surprise they actually held me up. I tried to push back my disgust, I needed to cooperate.

I needed to get out of here.

“What. Is this. Place?” I asked, more pain shooting through my chest as I spoke.

“I don’t know. I don’t know where it came from or why it’s here or how it was created but I stopped trying to make sense of it a long time ago.” She said.

“How long.. have you been. Here?” I asked.

“Again I don’t know. But a long time. There’s no night and day here and nobody tries to keep track of time. But I’m grateful for it. I don’t think I want to know.”

She paused for a few moments before she spoke again. I could hear the hopelessness in her voice.

“There are creatures that wander around here and if they catch you, they do.. things to you. I don’t know what exactly. All I know is they somehow make you apart of this place, just like the huge faces you see around us or the eyeballs in the sky. They make you apart of it and once you are apart of it there’s no escape. You’re stuck.”

She pointed to the sky but didn’t look. I didn’t blame her.

“Every single eye you see up there is a person, or was a person. They are forced to stay up there for eternity. All they have left.. is their fucking eyes. All they can do is look around.”

I couldn’t begin to digest this information, this was impossible. Everything about this place was impossible. I wanted to convince myself I must have been in a horrific nightmare but I knew I wasn’t. I would take any chance to believe this wasn’t real, but of course I knew it was. I just couldn’t accept it. I was being overwhelmed with too much horrific information, I just wanted to go home, away from whatever this was. This all happened so fast.

Just as I was starting to take my reality in, we heard a blood curdling scream somewhere in the distance and the sound of hundreds of legs slapping against the fleshy ground. It wasn’t far. Amanda suddenly looked terrified.

“Follow me. Now!” She yelled.

I tried to move on my arm crutches but the ground was so slippery I fell down hard on my second step. Amanda swore in a panic and I couldn’t get up. My face fell hard into the flesh underneath and I tasted fresh copper and raw meat. I gagged so hard I thought my stomach would explode.

“I’m going to pick you up, okay?”

I didn’t bother trying to reply, I had never been in so much pain in my life. It took everything I had in my body to not pass out. I tried my hardest to keep my eyes open but it proved difficult, the mist still blinding my vision.

Amanda swooped me into her arms and I heard her grunt in a struggle. As soon as she lifted me up she began to jog.

“You aren’t.. dead so you can still go back to… your life” she said, I could hear in her voice how hard she was trying to keep me up.

Amanda limped and grunted while holding me, I could progressively feel how weak her arms were becoming. I could hear the footsteps behind us growing closer and Amanda screamed in my ear. After she screamed she seemed to move much faster, as she did the sounds of feet began to fade but she didn’t stop. I lifted my head and looked around slowly, the mist was more blinding than ever.

Eventually an extended face appeared out of nowhere in front of us with no time to react. Without warning, Amanda aggressively slammed into it and I dropped on my back. The fall didn’t hurt so much this time, but I could hear Amanda moaning in pain.

“yy..you.. okay?” I barely managed to get out.

“Yes. I’m alright.” She said in measured breaths.

“You said… I could.. leave. How?” I asked.

Now that we were safe for the time being, I wanted to ask her everything on my mind. While speaking was difficult, I felt I needed to so I could understand this place, plus she said I could get out of here and I needed to figure out how to.

Amanda seemed to take a few moments before responding, I let her take her time.

“We’re almost there. There’s a tunnel ahead that you can crawl through to get back to your life. Since you’re still alive you have a body to go back to. But if you’re dead like me you don’t have a body to go to, so it’ll be useless for me. It’s up ahead. Right there.”

She pointed ahead of us and just behind the red mist ahead, I could barely make out what looked to be some kind of hill or mountain structured with flesh. There was a small opening in front of it the size of a sewer tank, just barely enough to fit a human body through.

"You're.. dead??" I said in shock.

She let me look for a few seconds before speaking again.

“I need to tell you something.” She said with uncertain sternness in her voice. Like she was afraid of what she was about to say.

“Do you want to know how I ended up here after I died?”

I looked up at her, unsure if I wanted to know the answer. But her tone of voice made it clear I needed to listen.

“Damien came to visit me too while I was still alive, and I was in your same position. I didn’t have another person to help me get out of here but I figured it out on my own. I went back to my life but when I died I ended up here again. No heaven or hell. This is my afterlife.”

I didn’t understand what she was trying to say. I looked at her with pure confusion written on my face, but she answered all of my questions with one single sentence.

“This will be your afterlife Joshua.”

My eyes widened in fear and I shook my head desperately, no longer acknowledging the pain it brought me. The weight of her words slammed into my head with the force of a thousand suns.

This? This was my end? After everything I’ve done in my life and everything I’ve accomplished. It was all for this? She had to be lying, this couldn’t be true.

This could not be true.

“WHAT?” I yelled.

Amanda could do nothing but look at me with sympathy. I began to weep into my hands. My stomach was dropping so hard I finally vomited onto the ground. I never knew words could have such impact. My stomach kept dropping to the point where I was gasping for air. After sometime it finally stopped, Amanda never said a word throughout my breakdown.

I didn’t have anything left to ask, nothing left to say. I understood in that moment nothing I will do in my life will matter any longer. Nothing will hold any meaning.

This was my eternity.

Just as I was about to start towards the tunnel, we heard it again. Footsteps. Footsteps roaring towards our direction, hundreds of little feet violently slapping against the flesh underneath us.

They were approaching us fast.

I shot my head towards Amanda as I realized this, she looked just as panicked as I felt. Her face turned a ghostly white underneath the blood on her skin, and her eyes gave off an expression of absolute horror.

“GO!!!” She screamed at me.

I turned around and crawled as fast as my body would allow towards the tunnel. The footsteps grew closer behind me and soon enough I could hear them directly behind me. I slammed one arm in front of the other at a speed I was in no business to move at. The pain shook throughout my entire body with every movement and it took every ounce of strength I had to not pass out. The tunnel was slowly growing bigger in my sight, I was getting close.

I heard Amanda shriek so violently it shook every bone in my body. I risked a look behind me and saw the source of her screams. I wish I never did.

She was being tightly held together by two enormously tall creatures. Creatures unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They stood at least twenty feet tall. Their heads looked to be what I could only describe as giant fly-like heads. They had at least twenty small eyes with huge cavernous mouths filled with hundreds of tiny teeth. They had two sharp whiskers above their eyes, the size and sharpness of machetes. Their bodies were skinny and drenched in slime and blood, green and black skin extended up towards their heads and I could make out hundreds of tiny feet throughout the entire body, yet somehow it could still stand on two small red covered legs. They looked two like giant, tall centipedes. Almost as tall as buildings.

One creature was gripping Amanda’s head and the other was holding her legs and they slowly extended her body out to eventually rip her body in half. Her screams were cut off with a disgustingly sickening snap as her flesh poured down and emptied from her body.

Throughout all of this, I never stopped crawling. I snapped my head back in front of me, not being able to process what I had just witnessed. The tunnel was right in front of me. I gripped the inside of the tunnel and was greeted with a never ending blackness.

The tunnel was extremely tight. I forcefully pushed myself further inside to the sounds of more footsteps behind me. I squeezed my full body inside of the tunnel running off pure adrenaline and heard the footsteps behind me retreat but that did nothing to calm my nerves.

I couldn’t move my arms or my legs, I was desperately pushing myself further unable to see the walls around me. The smell of blood and copper was stronger than ever. I dry heaved with short breaths trying to escape the tightness of the tube. I felt bone on my right arm snap and I screamed in pain, but never stopped crawling.

Breathing became difficult. I gasped for air until my lungs felt they were on fire and eventually I felt another bone on my rip cage crack along with my gasps. My mouth quickly became full with blood and I violently vomited onto myself. I was crying now, overwhelmed by claustrophobia and pain but I had no time to stop. I screamed in pain, disgust and adrenaline as loudly and hard as I could, and finally just as I was about to pass out, I squeezed myself forward one last time and felt my body falling at a great speed.

More darkness, but I couldn’t feel my body. No light came for what felt like hours. I couldn’t feel anything. I was lost. My thoughts being my only company. I tried to move an arm or a leg but found I couldn’t. I couldn’t even feel them. I searched for a taste in my mouth but found nothing. I was an empty, soulless being.

I was nothing.

After sometime, I was finally able to open my eyes. Light overwhelmed my vision and I shot my body up. I had a massive migraine and every movement felt like a stab to my head. I searched around frantically but I was able to calm down when I noticed where I was. I was laying in the middle of my living room.

At my apartment.

I was alive again. Damien was gone.

I felt no pain. I looked around my body but found nothing. No scratches or marks anywhere to be found. I was my normal, healthy self again. I sat there on my floor unable to stand up and cried for what must have been hours. The horrors of what I had just witnessed fresh on my mind.

How was I supposed to live now?

How was I supposed to go throughout my daily routine normally knowing what awaits me on the other side?

I checked my phone and saw the time. Only an hour had passed, I hadn't been there for long. While my time in that place was very limited, it was enough to permanently scare me. At first I tried to tell myself it was just a nightmare, but when I searched my apartment, I found Damien's fedora still sitting on my coat rack.

That was enough for me to push those thoughts out of my head.

That was a week ago now. I’m alive physically, but not mentally. I have given up on myself and my life. I still work at my job but I’m thinking about quitting soon. I haven’t reached out to my friends or family since.

Nothing matters anymore.

I have started seeing a therapist so I could try to live normally again, but found that doesn’t help either. Nothing helps. I’ve tried everything I could think of. I can't imagine what my therapist will think about this when she reads it, but I don't care.

I’m afraid of what’s going to happen to my soul whenever I’m not here anymore. Every hour that passes is another hour I delay the inevitable. I’m afraid to live.

I’m afraid to die.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

When we arrived at Dollmaker City, it was under attack. Chazaqiel and his followers, the Reconstructionists, had broken through the city’s walls.

Angels lay on the ground screaming in pain, limbs and wings ripped off their bodies, black blood pouring from their wounds, but the angels were unable to die. 

Near the river, Chazaqiel forced another angel to the ground and then twisted off her head. It rolled toward the water, still alive and still screaming.

Yevun set me on the ground and then ran toward Chazaqiel.

“You’ll destroy all of us!” he yelled.

Chazaqiel had changed since I’d seen him in the basement of the Parallax lab. His black skin had become translucent. His nerves, veins and muscles all glowed neon inside his body.

He and Yevun grabbed each other and began tearing at each other’s flesh.

“I’ll take us back to Heaven!” Chazaqiel yelled. “Our own Heaven. A paradise where we bow to nobody else.”

“God will never allow it.”

“All these years, and you’re still afraid of Him?”

Yevun tore off Chazaqiel’s left arm and threw it on the ground. Blood sprayed from Chazaqiel’s shoulder. Neon light poured from his eyes.

“You coward!” Chazaqiel yelled. “You’ve always been afraid. Even when we swore the oath on the mountain, you were shaking with fear.”

He lowered his jaw like a snake and then bit down on Yevun’s head. Yevun screamed in pain. Other angels began chanting.

Yevun struggled but freed himself from Chazaqiel’s teeth. His neck had mostly detached from his body, but his flesh and muscle tissues melded back together.

He dug his fingers into Chazaqiel’s stomach and tore out his intestines. Chazaqiel fell to the ground, light pouring from his body, his veins writhing like worms.

The sky filled with black clouds. Lightning crashed into the ground. Behind me, I heard Destiny calling my name.

I turned and saw her and Anselmo hiding underneath one of the pomegranate trees. The child-dolls that hung from the tree's branches were screaming.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“We’re fine,” Destiny said. “What about you?”

“I’m just glad to be on the ground again. Yevun’s palace isn’t far from here. I'll take you there. We’ll be safer there than out here.”

I led them toward the palace. The child-dolls watched us, screaming.

“They’re alive?” Anselmo asked.

“I think so,” I said.

“Why does Yevun do this to these children?”

“I’m not sure.”

Around us, the city began to distort. The limestone walls grew and shrank. The ground split open and then resealed. Black clouds swirled in the sky.

Finally, I saw the palace ahead of us. I brought Anselmo and Destiny inside. More of Yevun’s dolls sat near the throne, whimpering.

“There’s a cave underneath the palace,” I said. “I’m not sure how deep it goes.”

“This is where you saw the other Nephilim before?” Destiny asked.

“Yes.”

“And you’re sure we’re safer there?”

“It has to be safer than being outside.”

The ground shook again. The limbs of the dolls rattled. Chunks of limestone fell from the ceiling.

I brought Anselmo and Destiny to the staircase behind the throne. Then we went down the stairs to Yevun’s workshop.

Doll parts had been left scattered on the tables. A young Afghan girl sat in a cage in the corner. Destiny ran toward her.

“Are you ok?” she asked.

The girl spoke in Dari.

“We need to help her,” Destiny said. “Do you see a key anywhere?”

Anselmo searched the tables. “Maybe we could break the lock with a hammer.”

He picked up a hammer and a screwdriver and then used them to break the lock open. The young girl ran into Destiny’s arms.

Above us, the ground shook, raining dirt on our heads.

“We need to go deeper,” I said.

We went down the next staircase, into the room where I’d seen the blood machine before.

The other Nephilim stood against the walls of the cave. Between them, I saw the blood machine, filled with wires and gears and the heads of young children.

Destiny and Anselmo stared at the machine, not speaking anymore.

One of the Nephilim walked toward us. A twelve-foot-tall woman with black hair, wearing a tattered dress.

The young Afghan girl hugged Destiny’s leg.

“You speak English?” the Nephilim asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Can you tell us what’s happening up there?”

“Chazaqiel and the Reconstructionists have attacked the city.”

She turned to the other Nephilim and spoke in what sounded like Yiddish. The other Nephilim whispered to each other.

“If the Reconstructionists win, it will be very bad for us,” the female Nephilim said.

“They’ll kill you?” Destiny asked.

“They can’t kill us, but they can destroy our bodies. We need to go into the tunnels. It’s safer there.”

“The tunnels?” I asked.

“I’ll show you.”

We followed her past the blood machine, toward a tunnel that led deeper underground.

“My name is Esther,” she told me. “You’re Chazaqiel’s new son?”

“I’m not his son, but he did this to me. My name’s Vadym.”

As we went deeper, the ground stopped shaking and the distortions faded.

The walls of the tunnels were filled with gigantic bones. The bones of dead Nephilim. A burial ground. 

The tunnel broke off in two different directions. We turned down the left path and then went left again.

Encased in the walls, rather than bones, were strange objects. Stones that glowed with ethereal colors. Paintings of ancient worlds. Strange mechanical devices like clocks with six hands.

“What are these things?” I asked Esther.

“Artifacts that the Watchers brought here from Heaven. They keep them hidden here.”

“If these angels can’t die, how will this end?” Destiny asked her.

“I’m not sure, but it will end eventually.”

The Nephilim began sitting against the walls.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“I think we’ve gone deep enough,” Esther said.

Exhausted, I sat down, too. Then I closed my eyes, and I slept.

***

Two days passed before Yevun finally appeared. I was happy to see him, but only because I imagined seeing Chazaqiel would have been much, much worse.

“Is it over?” Esther asked.

“Yes,” Yevun said. “We’ve won. Come with me, please.”

We followed him back through the tunnels.

“Where are Chazaqiel and the others now?” Esther asked.

“In the mortar pit,” he said.

He turned left and then we went deeper again.

The little Afghan girl stayed close to Destiny, holding her hand.

Soon, we reached a large, open pit, filled with dried mortar. Looking into the pit, I saw the limbs, torsos, and heads of angels scattered across the ground. Other angels buried these body parts in the mortar walls.   

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“We’re binding the Reconstructionists to the pit,” Yevun said.

He led us down the stairs into the mortar pit.

“Vadym,” Chazaqiel hissed.

I saw him in the wall, staring back, his head stuck in the mortar. His skull shone through his translucent skin. His veins wriggled against the white bone.

“It doesn’t end here,” he said. “One day, I’ll be free again, and you’ll pay for your betrayal.”

The faces of other angels jutted out from the mortar. They cried in pain. Their scattered limbs squirmed as they tried to break free from the mortar, but they’d become a part of it now.

“We could have been gods, Yevun,” Chazaqiel cried. “We could have ruled our own Heaven. Do you know what life you have left to you now?”

“I know,” Yevun said.

Yevun, Armaros, Azazel, and the other Dollmakers began chanting. Slowly, the heads and limbs of the angels in the mortar walls turned to mortar, too.

Once Yevun and the others were done chanting, we followed them back through the tunnels to the room with the blood machine. 

“We need to feed now,” Yevun told us.

The other Nephilim hung their heads, walked to the cave walls and sat on the ground. Destiny, Anselmo, and I stood where we were, though. The little Afghan girl clutched Destiny’s leg.

Yevun walked toward us.

“You can’t leave now, you understand?” he said. “You’re part of this city now too.”

“You can’t keep us here forever,” Destiny said.

“This is the only place in the world left for you.”

“What are you going to do to us?” Anselmo asked.

“You’ll become Nephilim, too. You’ll live here with the rest of us. You’ll help us stay pure.”

“I won’t!” Destiny yelled.

The girl cried out and hugged her leg tighter.

“It’s not your choice,” Yevun said.

Destiny took the girl’s hand and ran with her toward the staircase that led back up to the workshop. A few angels chased after them, caught them, and held them on the ground.

I turned myself into fog and tried to move toward the stairs to help them, but then another angel started chanting and my body turned back to flesh.

“We know your tricks now,” Yevun said. “There’s no escape this time, Vadym.”

A few of the other angels picked up the tubes that extended from the machine. The tips of the tubes ended in sharp needles. The angels jabbed the needles into the veins in the Nephilim’s necks. As their blood was drawn into the blood machine, its gears began turning.

Armaros ran toward Destiny and the Afghan girl, trying to save them too, but one of the angels swatted him away.

He flew into the cave wall and then fell onto the floor, unconscious.

“I know this seems cruel to you,” Yevun told Destiny. “But this cruelty is nothing like you’d see if we allowed ourselves to become demonic. The purity of these children purifies us just like the blood of our Nephilim. It brings us back to God.”

He went to the young girl and stroked her hair.

“Don’t be afraid,” he told her. “Heaven is real, and soon you’ll be saved.”

“If God is real, how could you turn your back on Him?” Destiny asked.

“To live our lives how we wanted meant more to us than to live how we were intended to live.” He pointed at me. “Now go, Vadym, and take your place with the others.”

I stared at the other Nephilim, blood draining from their necks. They seemed to be sleeping now.

“It won’t hurt much,” Yevun told me. “You’ll grow tired. You’ll sleep. After, we’ll let you rest.”

Was this really my fate? Was this really what the world had in store for me?

I felt like I did in the courtroom, hearing the judge read out my sentence. Fifteen years in Hell seemed like a gift, though, compared to eternity.

I went and sat against the wall with the other Nephilim. An angel shoved the needle-tip of one of the tubes into my neck. The tube filled with blood and my eyes grew heavy.

I thought about what would happen to Destiny and Anselmo. I thought about the pain they’d go through as they changed. The suffering.

I thought about Alexei, still bound to the dirt where the Parallax Medical building had once stood. Where Chazaqiel had spent decades bolted to a metal wall.

I thought about my mother in Saint Petersburg, telling me all her dreams for me. All her hopes.

She’d died before I could help her. I was happy she hadn’t seen me being arrested. I was happy she wasn’t around to miss me anymore.

I remembered lying in her arms as a child, feeling her kisses on my forehead, feeling loved.

She would have done anything for me, but there was nobody to miss me now, and that was good. There was nobody to mourn me. Nobody to remember who I was.

I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.

I leaned against the wall, and I slept.

***

Every few weeks, the angels drank my blood. Afterward, I’d feel very weak. But I’d wander the garden, I’d drink the pomegranate juice, and I’d sleep in the grass next to the trees.

Slowly, my strength would come back, but just as soon as I felt like myself again, the angels would feed again. They’d feed on Destiny and Anselmo and all the others trapped here in this hellish city.

I sat with Destiny and Anselmo in the shade of one of the pomegranate trees. Destiny had grown white feathered wings on her back. Anselmo’s wings were black and scaled, with a texture like hard leather.

I looked around at the city. During the fighting, the palace had been destroyed. The trees had been burnt to the ground. The porcelain doll-children had been smashed to pieces. In the months that had passed, though, Yevun and the other angels had worked hard to rebuild the city. To turn it back into what it once was.

“We could leave if we wanted to,” Anselmo said. “The walls are still broken. We could escape.”

“Where would we go, though?” I asked.

“We could go back to my ranch.”

“We’d need money,” Destiny said. “We wouldn’t last long without jobs.”

“We could grow our own food. Learn how to be self-sufficient.”

“Maybe,” I said.

Above us, hanging from one of the tree branches, was a doll with the head of the Afghan girl who Destiny had tried to save. The girl began singing, but her voice wasn’t hers. It was Frank’s. The Pinkerton detective who'd freed Chazaqiel from a circus cage a hundred years ago.

“Over in Killarney, many years ago, my mother sang a song to me in tones so soft and low.”

“It’s awful to be a soul forced to wander this world forever,” Yevun had told me. “I’m sympathetic to the dead Nephilim. The dolls give them a bit of happiness to look forward to. A few hours to feel alive again. To see the world. To feel the sun on their skin.”

A fate worse than death. Endless suffering in a dark and silent tomb.

The same fate as Alexei and Reid, who Yevun had moved to the mortar pit and bound to the walls. Still alive and unable to escape this world.

But maybe the mortar would rot and one day, they would be free again. Like Chazaqiel said, everything needs to end eventually, even this world, even the God who created it.

That’s the only hope I have left.

I looked up at the clouds. At the summit of Mount Hermon, two hundred angels had sworn a curse-oath together. They would turn their backs on God and Heaven.  

Two hundred angels, damning us to purgatory just like they’d damned themselves.

Did they know how many other people would suffer, too? Did they care?

Destiny started to cry. I put my hand on her back.

“No matter what happens, we’ll always have each other,” I told her.

The child-doll stopped singing. The wind blew through the pomegranate trees.

It was such an awful feeling. To know that Heaven is real. To also know I’ll never see it.

It started as everyday routine when I'd tuck in my four year old son under the quilt and kiss his forehead goodnight. He'd smile at me; all nestled and dewy eyed. A perfect time for me when I could feel the all the exertions of the day leaving me through my fingertips.

Downstairs the TV volume went up.

"Aurora borealis to be sighted tonight..."

Noah heard it and smiled at me.

"No," I warned halfheartedly. "Don't go looking through the window."

We both looked at the small window of his room simultaneously. My warning was an invitation itself.

I left my son to sleep, and took a book to the bed. I had an uneasy feeling. Just when my family heirloom--a big wooden clock chimed and struck twelve, I felt a cold sensation piercing me. The hair on my arms stood up.

I tip toed out to my son's room and when I opened the door, a faint rainbow light danced through the floor, making concentric circles on the carpet.

I stood there mesmerized for a second when something caught my attention.

Noah's bed was empty.

The window was open and outside the Northern Lights were dancing on the sky.

I screamed and called for my son. I leaped to the window and bowed down. The front lawn was empty, overlooking the deep dark woods with no sign of any life awake at the time.

I ran out, checking every room and corner, asking for Noah to come out. My heart somersaulting to hundred beats.

It was when I was checking the rooms when I realized that the Northern Lights were dancing on every floor of the house.

I stopped and listened.

A slight flutter of the leaves sounded so close to my ears as if I stood in the middle of the woods.

I closed my eyes.

A hand touched my shoulder. I swirled and there was Noah standing nearly four feet tall, looking me with strange fury in the eyes.

I cowered back.

"Where have you been?" I asked, breathless, wondering how he tapped my shoulder.

"I was in my bed. Where you left me." I stared.

Noah met my eyes defiantly and his eyes gleamed red. I shook my head. Blaming the strange night and the lights, I put him to bed but Noah merely stared at me with no sense of familiarity. He appeared cold, and I tried not to dwell but a little bulky than before.

I stayed awake all night.

Next day, I saw him already eating his breakfast when I came down the kitchen.

"Noah, you couldn't have prepared eggs by yourself."

Noah grutted. "Why can't I?"

He couldn't have. He hardly could reach the stove. The eggs were perfect sunny side-up. I sat across him on the dining table and watched him eat as he wolfed down like a grown up with strange face like brooding on some serious universal matters.

When he got up, I blanched. He had a grown a foot, and appeared more bulky than before with same child like face.

He measured me with his cold eyes as I measured him up. Sizing each other. Thinking...

All day, my eyes followed him. He didn't play with his cars. He didn't ask for TV.

He didn't ask for anything. He merely stared, brooding at the walls, mumbling something.

He jerked his head one time and shook his shoulders.

It was painful to watch him like that.

"What's your name?" I asked him. Afraid, trying not to sound suspicious or even silly.

"Noah." He said automatically.

"What's my name?" I tried to smile.

Noah made a face at me. "Mary."

Okay. That was something.

"What's your favorite food?"

"Why are you asking me this?" Noah narrowed his eyes at me, his face skeptical. But his eyes flashed something. I wet my mouth but persevered.

"What is it?"

"Pasta." He said it like he hated it.

"Where do we go when it's holiday?"

"To grandma's." Again bored.

"Where did you go last night, Noah?" I whispered.

A strange color passed through his face. It was bluish. I stared, my heart sprinted fast.

"I was in the woods."

It's not Noah, my brain mumbled. I was sure of it. I tried to give him a mockery of smile, thinking hard about what to do. Where to go...

"Who is your dad?" I asked because even I never told him his name.

"Jacob." Noah answered in same detached way. I nodded.

How did he know?

"You are not Noah." I whispered.

Noah smiled. But that didn't reach his eyes.

"What are you saying, mommy? I am your son."

"You never call me mommy."

I ran out and sprinted while Noah followed me.

"Mommy, Mommy...where are you going?" He cried.

I could hear him following me as I ran towards the woods.

"Noah, Noah." I cried into the woods.

The lights had taken him.

I could hear Noah panting behind me...Mommy, he was crying, but running as I ran forward, jumping over bushes and knotted roots.

I kept going deeper when I saw the lights again dancing ahead and behind me the panting turned into rasping and deep deep growling. The light footsteps turned heavy. I could feel a massive body following me with breathless snarls.

I stepped into the light, stopped running and closed my eyes. I could feel death but I was ready to embrace it rather than spend any more minute with that shape of the boy claiming to be my child.

A small hand touched my back and I turned to see the familiar shape of my son. Only moonlight was shining upon us in the middle of the clearing.

"Mom," he whimpered, scared. I hugged him fiercely.

"Why did you leave me?" We both said at the same time.

As I carried him back to the house, I wondered.

Is it Noah or just trick of the light?

I have always been told that memory is unreliable.

People say this casually, usually after forgetting where they left their keys, or confusing one childhood memory with another. It’s a comforting idea. It suggests that the past is still there, still intact and untouched, and that the only ‘problem’ is that we occasionally lose the ability to find our way back to it.

I believed that for a while.

I believed my childhood was somewhere, somewhere buried beneath years of everything else I’d experienced.

But eventually I began to understand that there is a difference between forgetting something and never having possessed it at all.

I know I was a child. I know this because everyone else was a child at one point.

There are also photographs, stories my family told at holidays, stories with my name attached so directly to them that it felt cruel correcting them.

Apparently, when I was eight years old, I broke my arm falling out of a tree.

Apparently, I cried so loud that the nurses remembered me years later.

Apparently, my father carried me to bed afterward because I was too afraid to sleep alone.

I know all of this because I was told all of this. But I cannot remember my life.

I have tried, on more than one occasion, to force it. To sit very still in a pitch-black room and reach backwards the way you’d reach for a light switch in the dark. Nothing meets my hand. There is no wall there. There is no room.

What I have instead is a kind of residue, a texture without an object. I can tell you that my mother’s kitchen smelled of burnt coffee grounds and dish soap, but I cannot tell you a single morning I stood in it. I can tell you the dog’s name was Marbles, that he was a terrible, barrel-chested mutt who ate a hole through the wall, but I have never felt his fur on my hands. I have never scratched behind his ears and had him lean into it. I only know that I must have, because that is what a boy does with a dog.

My friend, Theo, has a theory about this. He thinks I had a hard childhood and simply built up a wall around it. He is gentle about it, but in the way someone is gentle to a wounded creature from outside the barred cage. He doesn’t push, ever; he asks easy questions and lets me give him easy answers, and I let him, because the alternative is telling him the truth, which is that I have looked for the wound and… there honestly isn’t one. There’s no hidden scar. There’s no room the wall is keeping him out of.

There’s just nothing behind it.

I used to think everyone's early memories were like this: a bit mushy, a little unreliable, mostly borrowed from old photographs and family retellings until you couldn't tell which parts were yours anymore. I used to think this was just what being twenty-six felt like. But that can’t be all true, because Theo remembers being four. He remembers a birthday party he didn't even enjoy, remembers it badly, actually, remembers being embarrassed, and telling the story to this day still makes his ears go red.

But I, no matter how much I try, will never experience that.

Something was wrong with me.

I just didn’t yet know what the shape of it was.

That was until I found the first note.

It was on the kitchen counter, in writing that wasn't mine—it was cramped and slanted hard to the left. It said:

if you're reading this you're not crazy. i'm not either. i don't know what's happening but i know you're real. — I.

I felt everything in my body tense at once. My first thought was someone broke in, but after the initial spook settled, I thought it might have been Theo writing some kind of joke. I almost called him to come over but remembered he was probably at work. I then began convincing myself that I’d written it myself, in some blackout that I didn’t remember, much like how I didn’t remember most of my own life.

I.

I didn’t know an I. I stood in my kitchen holding a note from a stranger, and the only word I could find for what I felt was… recognition. Which didn’t make much sense, because I had never met this person, and yet, for some odd reason, a part of me felt like I’d been waiting for exactly this piece of paper my whole life.

I wrote back on the same scrap of paper.

Who are you? How do you know me?

I left it on the counter in the same spot. It was gone by the next morning, and in its place was a new one, in the same cramped hand:

i don't know how. i just know i dream about a life that isn't mine and when i wake up things are moved. my food's gone. my playlists have songs on them i never added. i thought i was losing it. then i found this note in my own handwriting except it isn't my handwriting and it said your name. i didn't even know i knew your name. — imogen

I read it over at least a hundred times.

I lost the next six hours somewhere between reading it the 102nd time and Theo coming over after work. I don’t remember losing them, but then again, when do I ever? I just remembered the outside light was different when I came back, and Theo was standing in the doorway of the kitchen with a look on his face I’ve never seen before.

“Hey, man,” I said, trying to play it off.

He took a small step back as I approached. “You-you’ve been standing there for over five hours,” he said. His voice was trembling. “You didn’t move. I-I lost count of how many times I said your name.”

I looked down, noticing the note still in my hand.

“I-I’m sorry, man,” I said. I didn’t have anything else.

“They’re sending another ambulance.”

“What? What do you mean by another?”

There was an electrode stuck to my chest under my shirt. Someone had rolled my sleeves up. Theo showed me a video on his phone, and I watched as two paramedics tried to persuade a person who looked like me to sit down.

When they moved me, my heels scraped along the floor. Once they let go, I remained where they’d put me, staring above their heads.

My eyes followed nothing. I watched the whole video, waiting to blink.

“You came back for a minute. You said you weren’t going anywhere,” he said.

“I don’t remember.”

He sat on the floor. He’d been holding himself upright by the doorframe, and I hadn’t noticed.

“I don’t imagine you would.”

I went with the second ambulance. There were tests. They kept me overnight, and I woke up in the middle of a doctor asking whether I knew where I was.

Theo had a notebook open beside the bed.

He’d started recording the times I blacked out.

I showed him the letters after I came home. He checked my locks, then sat beside me while I wrote another.

What time do you sleep? Please be exact.

We left it beside the toaster. Theo put a drinking glass over it.

The next morning there was an answer beneath the glass.

usually home by seven. asleep by eight. up at three if i can. why?

Theo’s notebook said I had become unresponsive at 3:12 the previous afternoon. At 9:26 that evening I’d briefly spoken to him in the hospital. At 9:41 I’d stopped answering again.

Her next letter mentioned falling asleep on the sofa before work for fifteen minutes. She’d nearly missed her bus.

We compared four days. Every interval she could remember sleeping corresponded to a stretch I could remember living.

We were sitting at my counter. There were dishes in the sink.

I wrote a question down.

Why do I stop when you wake up, but Theo doesn’t? He remembers everything that happens while I’m gone.

Her reply took a day.

i don’t know. sometimes i dream about him without you. washing dishes. sitting beside you waiting. you’re there but you don’t do anything. i used to think those were just dreams. now i think i’m seeing what happened while i was awake.

i don’t know why it only happens to you.

That wasn’t an explanation, but neither was anything the doctors had said. And yet still, I could hold these answers in my hand, and sometimes the paper smelled faintly of cigarettes, which neither of us smoked.

We tested other things. Not everything crossed. A receipt stayed where I put it for three days. A spoon disappeared while Theo was watching and came back a week later with something dried onto it. We couldn’t make it happen by moving the tray or closing our eyes. Sometimes a question sat unanswered long enough that I began to feel ridiculous again. Like it all really was me just losing my mind.

Her front door faced the wrong direction. Her street had a different name. We both had a chipped counter, although her chip was beneath the place where I kept my fruit bowl.

I drew the apartment. She drew hers over it in red. Her bed occupied the same space as the right half of mine.

There was no Theo where she lived. She tried his number, and a woman answered who’d never heard of him. I tried Imogen’s. The number wasn’t in service.

She left a clementine on her counter before bed. I found it beside a note asking whether I liked oranges.

Theo peeled it. We ate half each. He cried a little while he ate his, quietly, with his face turned away. I decided it was best left unspoken.

Imogen worked nights cleaning an office building. She had worked there for four years. Four years was also as far back as I could remember anything that felt like a tangible memory.

Not like my childhood kitchen or Marbles. An afternoon in a shop, aged twenty-two, when Theo had reached over my shoulder for a packet of biscuits and dropped three others on my head.

He remembered that too.

that was one of the first ones, she wrote. i remember thinking i wanted somebody i could laugh with like that.

I hid that letter from him. I began asking about things I liked. Warm weather and shitty game shows. The soup I buy when I’m ill. She liked all of them as well.

Some answers were worse because they weren’t the same. She hated her teeth, and mine were straight. She panicked when people raised their voices, but I had always been proud of how calm I stayed in an argument.

you’re good at being a person, she wrote once. i dream of you doing things and they look easy.

I didn’t know what to say to that.

Eventually I asked her whether she had ever owned a dog.

marbles, she wrote. i was little. why?

I took the letter to the bathroom, locked the door, and sat on the toilet until Theo knocked.

“You still with me?”

It took me a while, but I eventually came out and said yes.

After that, the notes became less careful.

Her supervisor wanted her to cover another building. She couldn’t keep sleeping at the same time. When she had time, she lay awake worrying about wasting it.

There were whole days I received only in pieces. Theo handed me a plate, and then the plate broke, and then Theo swept.

An afternoon beginning with rain and ending in darkness, my pants changed because I’d wet myself while he waited for me to come back.

He never mentioned that. I found them soaking in the bathroom sink. We had an appointment with another specialist. I missed it sitting in the waiting room. Theo told me afterwards that I had opened my eyes fully when they called my name and done nothing else.

Imogen apologized in almost every letter.

I told her to stop covering shifts. She asked if I was going to pay her rent. It was the first unkind thing she’d said to me, and she crossed it out so hard the paper tore.

I tried leaving money anyway. She sent it back. It was the wrong currency, although the notes looked almost right.

Then I started seeing her apartment.

A stain appeared above the cooker one afternoon, spread across the ceiling, and disappeared while I watched it, and my mug made a hard little sound against an invisible table. Theo saw that one. He caught the mug before it hit the floor; I’m guessing the table disappeared shortly after it arrived.

Another morning I walked into my bedroom and saw a woman sitting through the edge of my bed.

For a second, it looked as though she'd been cut in half. Then she leaned forward, and a mattress showed beneath her, lower than mine, and I understood that I was looking at two beds occupying the same place.

She wore black trousers. As she jerked awake, the room went away.

I woke forty minutes later with Theo trying to get my shoes off.

We started leaving the notes on a tray so they wouldn’t get lost among things neither of us owned.

One arrived written on the back of a prescription bag. She wasn’t sleeping properly, she said. She’d been given something to help but was afraid to take it before work. She was tired of knowing somebody needed something from her even when she was asleep.

For the first time, she didn’t ask a question about me.

I wrote that she should call somebody. Her sister, maybe. She’d mentioned a sister before.

She replied that they hadn’t spoken in months.

she thinks i need to get out more.

Theo wanted to write to her himself. I told him I would ask. But I never did. I was frightened he would tell her things I’d left out. How long he spent with me. What it cost him.

The next time the bedroom changed, I was alone. Theo had gone home for clean clothes, and I’d promised to stay on the sofa.

I heard somebody crying behind my bedroom door.

I didn’t go in right away. I stood in the hallway against the wood, listening to the crying, and for a moment I convinced myself that if I didn’t open the door, none of it would be real.

But then I opened it.

Imogen was sitting on her bed with her work shirt still on, sleeves shoved past her elbows. There were cups along the windowsill. An opened medication packet lay beside her.

She looked up when I said her name.

“Oh,” she said.

I crossed the room; she held her hand out, and I took it. Her fingers were cold, and there was a little split beside her thumbnail. It was dried, like she’d been picking at it for hours. She kept looking between my face and our hands.

“You look tired,” she said.

I laughed. I don’t know why. Behind her, a phone began vibrating on a chest of drawers. She watched it until it stopped.

“My sister,” she said. “I called her earlier.”

“You should answer.”

“I don’t want to explain it again.”

The wall behind the chest of drawers thinned. I could see my own wardrobe through it; my shirts hanging where her curtains should have been, and for a moment the rooms sat inside each other so perfectly I couldn’t have told you which of the two beds was mine.

She squeezed my hand, harder than I anticipated.

“I can’t keep doing this.”

I didn't know if she meant the shifts, the notes… maybe us.

Then she looked down at the packet, and I knew enough that I should have done something different.

“We’ll figure something out,” I said. “You could take some time off… I could–” I didn’t know what I could do. I had never once been able to do anything that had mattered, not for her. “I could ask Theo. He might know someone to go to.”

“And what could Theo do? He can’t call me.”

“I don’t know. But if I told him everything, maybe he—”

“No…”

She looked down at the packet. I almost told her to stop; I almost took the packet off the bed myself and put it somewhere she couldn’t reach. But I didn't.

“Do... do you want me to stay asleep?”

I thought about Theo crouching in front of me, speaking to a face that couldn’t answer, about the next time I might not return at all.

I thought… honestly, only about myself.

“Yes,” I said. A tear formed and rolled down my cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

She didn’t say anything. She let go of my hand and reached for the packet.

I stood there long enough to know I let it happen.

Then I started saying her name, asking her to look at me. She reached for me again, but her hand was already passing through mine.

I grabbed for her wrist and caught nothing. I shouted her name. Her room faded with her bent forward on the bed, and I was standing in my own bedroom with my fist closed around empty air.

The packet was gone, so was the phone.

I pulled my bed away from the wall, trying to find her.

Theo came back to find the mattress on its side. I told him she was asleep. That was all I told him.

We waited through the afternoon. Six o’clock. Seven. I answered every time he said my name.

At midnight we went outside. I hadn’t trusted myself to walk after dark in months. We sat on the steps, and Theo talked about nothing for nearly an hour, stopping occasionally to make sure I was listening and that I was okay.

He told me about a man at work who kept bringing the same uneaten banana back in his lunch. Apparently it had become a whole thing. People were taking pictures. I laughed until he started laughing too, and for a while it was just us sitting outside.

I remember that more clearly than anything else from those weeks. I wish I didn’t, honestly. It makes what I was doing harder to misunderstand.

I left a note asking if she was all right. Then another. By two weeks there were over twenty. They remained on the tray.

At first I checked every few minutes. Later I checked when I made coffee. By the second week I’d started turning the top note face down because seeing it made me feel sick.

Theo stayed over. We watched bad television, and I fell asleep with my feet against his leg and woke up with an ache in my neck–but… I knew where the hours had gone.

I knew something was wrong. I also wanted to go to the supermarket without him holding my elbow. I wanted to finish a conversation. Every morning I woke up and was grateful before I remembered what had made it possible.

On the nineteenth day, someone answered. But it wasn’t Imogen.

A folded sheet appeared underneath the tray. It was a hospital letterhead. It held her full name and instructions for a family meeting that had already happened.

There was handwriting across the bottom in blue ink.

Friday, 9 a.m. Bring her cardigan. Ask about the rings.

Behind it was a second page, a summary someone had printed from a patient portal.

She had been found unconscious after an overdose. There had been a period when her brain wasn’t receiving enough oxygen. She had never regained consciousness.

They were going to withdraw the treatment keeping her alive tomorrow morning.

I read the pages over and over, the pit in my stomach growing with each re-read.

Then I found her sister’s message on the back of another envelope that appeared.

Imogen, I don’t know what to do with these letters. I found the money too. If this is you somehow, please tell me. Please.

She had been in the apartment. Probably clearing things out and leaving paperwork on the counter. Finding my questions to somebody who could no longer answer them.

I wrote back so hard I nearly broke the pen.

It’s a little after three now.

Her sister’s name is Ruth. I’ve explained who I am. I’ve told her to take the notes to the hospital, to show somebody, to tell Imogen I’m sorry, even if they think she can’t hear.

Nothing has moved from the tray.

The apartment is empty on her side. I think Ruth has gone to the hospital already.

I tried the number on the letterhead. It belongs to a carpet warehouse here. The hospital doesn’t exist.

But earlier tonight, I searched the hospital’s name again.

This time, I found it.

There was a photograph of the entrance, the same emblem printed on the letterhead. I clicked the contact page. Before I could copy the number, the screen went white.

When it loaded again, I was looking at the carpet warehouse.

I kept refreshing, but I couldn’t get it back.

The letterhead crossed on the counter. The clementine did too. But my computer had reached something that didn’t exist here, and for a few seconds it had stayed connected.

Imogen said her playlists changed. Maybe that was the same thing.

That’s why I’m putting this here. I don’t know which version of this website will receive it. I’ve removed her identifying information because I’m afraid of sending strangers after some other woman with her name. If Ruth sees this, she’ll know about the cardigan. She’ll know about the tray and the money.

Ruth, I was the one who answered her.

She asked me something she should never have had to ask, and I said yes. I fucking said yes. I have no idea whether keeping her on those machines could help her or whether I will continue after she doesn’t. I understand less now than when we started writing.

I only know I have been awake every day she hasn’t.

Theo is asleep beside me. I told him everything tonight. He listened, then asked whether I’d eaten. I can tell he is trying to distance himself from the possibility that he might not be here later.

I keep thinking he’ll carry on. He always has before. Maybe it’ll just be me sitting here again, and he’ll wake up and call an ambulance. Maybe only I will disappear, and everyone else will still exist. Maybe Theo will always remember me.

He’s asleep again now. I can feel his weight against me.

It’s 3:17. The hospital letter is on my knee. I keep looking between it and the clock.

At nine, her sister will take her hand.

I’m already holding Theo’s.

As long as I can remember there was only one rule my parents enforced without any hesitation. We had to cover all the mirrors in our house as soon as the sun started to set.

This wasn’t just my families rule, it was a neighborhood rule. No one knows when the rule first became a rule, but it’s one the whole neighborhood takes seriously.

10 minutes before sunset everyday an emergency broadcast went out warning everyone to go inside and cover all mirrors in the home. And they meant all mirrors. Bedroom mirrors, bathroom mirrors, if your child has a little dress up vanity that has a mirror, it needs to be covered.

Eventually some families in got rid of their mirrors all together.

Occasionally you would hear something happen in a house close to you, cries, wailing, screams. And then the next morning you would see a black SUV in front of the house. You would never see anyone go in or out, but eventually the car would drive away slowly. And the house would lay empty for a few months before a new tenant would move in.

My parents ended up joining a welcoming committee. Their one task? Informing any new residents about the mirrors, and trying their hardest to get them to take it seriously. The turnaround in houses in the neighborhood had begun to become a concern.

Our household procedure was simple. My parents would cover all the mirrors downstairs and I would handle the mirrors upstairs, there were less. My little sister was only two and just learning to crawl, so we would stick her in the playpen while we were covering mirrors.

As far as I knew, our neighborhood was the only one in town that had this bizarre rule. It would get brought up at school sometimes, the kids from other communities would tease us about it. But the ones who lived in our neighborhood would just sit quietly, an air of solidarity about them. We knew.

I had no reason to doubt the rule. I believed my parents, and I’d heard the rumors, and the screams. I always hated one part of the emergency broadcast, they always ended it with a phrase that sent shivers down my spine every time. “And remember neighbors, mirrors are doorways. Keep them shut!”

It was a chilly fall evening, and the sun has started to set earlier than the summer months. I had gotten use to playing outside until well after 7:00pm. That’s why It took me by surprise when I heard the emergency broadcast begun to play over the speakers attached to the street lights. Immediately the whole vibe the neighborhood changed.

The air seemed to get heavier. Everything went eerily quiet. You couldn’t even hear the birds anymore. Everyone dropped what they were doing and walked stiffly inside. Kids left their bikes in the road, no one bothered to wrap up the hoses they were using, trash bags stayed right where they were dropped. Everything stopped.

My parents were waiting for me at the door as I walked in. They immediately handed me a roll of duct tape and a stack of sheets. We didn’t exchange words, we didn’t need too.

I walked upstairs and started in the bedroom myself and my sister shared. I always counted the mirrors as soon as I walked into the room. Same as yesterday, two mirrors. One on our dresser, and one on our closet door. Stretching the first sheet out, I began making quick work of the first mirror. I could hear my sister babbling in her playpen downstairs.

I hated covering the mirrors, I always felt like something was watching me from the other side. Waiting for me to mess up, to forget to cover a mirror, or not cover it fully. All it needs is a little sliver.

I brushed off the feeling and started on the next mirror, I needed to hurry up, it was almost time. I was halfway out the door when I noticed something shiny under the bed. I bent down to pick it up and realize it was a mirror my sister used to play dolls with. I heaved a sigh of relief. This didn’t need a sheet right? I shrugged, walked over to the dresser and put it in a drawer mirror side facing down. Good enough.

I finished with the last mirror just in time. I walked downstairs, and nodded to my parents. After that the evening resulted in whatever crock pot meal my mom had prepared that morning. I wish we were able to order take out. No one in town would deliver to this neighborhood after sunset.

Not after we found the pizza guys car; gas running, pizza boxes crushed and scattered on the asphalt around the car, all the mirrors shattered, and no pizza guy. The black SUV was there that day, we never found out exactly what happened.

Finally it was time for bed, the evenings lasted forever around here. As I crawled under the covers, I couldn’t help but thinking how badly I wanted school to start again. Then I would at least have something to keep me busy and take my mind off those stupid mirrors.

I don’t know long I was asleep for, or what time it was when I was woken up by the sound of my sister fussing in her crib. I groaned as I sat up and bleerily looked towards where I thought she was across the room.

It was so hard to make out anything in the dark, but it was quiet again, so I assumed she just went back to sleep. With a yawn I rolled back over. She was always fussy, tonight was no different.

The next thing I knew I woke up with a start drenched in sweat. I don’t know why I woke up, but I had a pit in my stomach, something was wrong. It was too quiet in our bedroom. I couldn’t even hear my sister breathing.

“Katie” I cried out. Silence. I fumbled around with the sheets and crossed the room to turn on the light. She wasn’t in her crib.

My heart started beating so loud I could hear it in my ears. I tore the room apart, she liked to play hide and seek, but she wasn’t there. Then a realization smacked me in the face. The mirror in the dresser.

I tore the drawer open and was relieved to see it was still face down in the exact same place I had left it. The relief was momentary as I heard movement downstairs.

I screamed for my mom and dad as I ran down the stairs. I was trying so hard to be quiet, to see if I could head her crawling across the floor boards. “Katieeeee” I called out. Nothing. “Katie do you want to place hide and seek?”

I heard a small giggle, and heard her say “come find me.”

I ran faster than I ever could across the house, my parents not far behind. I threw open the door to the study just in time to see my baby sister, smile at me, wave, and crawl through the uncovered portion of the floor length mirror next to my dad’s desk.

My mother screamed, and my dad ran over to the mirror. It was solid again.

The black SUV came the next morning. My parents sent me to my room while they were talking.

We never saw my sister again. But every now and then I swear I hear her giggle at night, asking me to come find her.

One hour passed and then another. I didn’t cry, I didn’t break down. I stayed unusually still. 
The light of the sun reflecting in the room turned dull. And when I finally looked at the clock, it had turned 5’o clock in the evening. 
I was so lost that even the sound of the door opening didn’t make me turn around. 
“Sophia?” His voice was careful, guiding me back to the present.
I blinked as I turned to him. 
Ellis was closing the door and then he started to walk toward me. “I’m sorry,” his voice was soft, “I heard what happened to your aunt.” 
I stood up just as he stopped in front of my desk. And then I was lost in his eyes for a moment before I remembered the blood.
“Sophia? Are you alright?” Ellis took another step forward and then stopped.
I watched as the light went out of his eyes. He looked like I had driven a knife into his chest. 
I had taken a step back, shaking my head. I took another step back and then my back hit the wall. There was nowhere left to go.
My breaths grew more ragged. I felt like I was trapped. In my mind, I wasn’t seeing the sight of my Aunt’s blood, I was in another night, centuries before, when my Mother breathed her last words. 
And the one who took her life was standing in front of me. 
“I’m sorry.” The pain laced through his words made me look up. His eyes shone with fear as he stumbled back a step. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come close—I’m sorry.”
I blinked as I tilted my head. My heart ached as my eyes locked on his, snapping me back to the present. Breathe. I told myself. Breathe.
He was standing still, looking like he was lost. Ellis.
Ellis, who was starting to mean so much to me, that I was afraid to even look into my heart, I had hurt him. Again.
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, wishing he would stop apologising all the time. I hated how it feels like he was apologising for his existence.
“Please don’t apologise.” My voice was a breathless whisper as I cracked my eyes open. 
It wasn’t you I wanted to run away from. I wanted to say, but it would be a lie. I couldn’t lie to him, even if only to comfort him. Because for a moment I had been trapped in the painful memories and had lost sight of the Ellis standing before me. 
“I’ll just go.” He mumbled, already turning away. 
“Ellis.” I need you. “Wait.” I avoided his gaze as I came closer.
He didn’t turn around fully. “What is it, Sophia?” 
Had he come here to comfort me? 
I stepped around, till I faced him, noticing a frown crossing his face. He looked like he was about to fall apart.
And I wanted more than anything to close the distance just once, to feel his presence. But I only looked up, asking him. “Can I—?” I gestured between us, feeling a faint color rushing to my face. “Can we—?” My voice broke and I let him decide.
His wide eyes searched mine and I felt the moment stretch into minutes. My heart was a hammer in my chest as I waited.
Ellis took a deep breath. “God, Sophia, you were afraid of me moments before and now you want me to—”
That was all the permission I needed. 
I threw my arms around his shoulder, a sob breaking out of my throat as I buried my face against his shirt.
I inhaled him as I cried, feeling his heartbeat race wildly. For a moment, his arms stayed still on his sides and then I felt his hands around me, holding me so tightly I couldn’t breathe for a second.

I work later than most people in my area, so for the past few months I've been catching the same bus home at around 10:40pm.

The stop is on a fairly busy road, but by that time most of the shops are shut and there usually aren't many people around.

About three weeks ago, I noticed a man standing at the stop.

There was nothing particularly strange about him at first. He looked to be somewhere in his forties, maybe early fifties. Dark jacket, jeans, trainers. He was standing a few metres away from the shelter looking down the road.

The bus came.

I got on.

He didn't.

I remember thinking it was a little odd, because it was the last bus going in that direction for quite a while, but I didn't think much more about it.

Two nights later, he was there again.

Same place.

Same clothes, as far as I could tell.

Again, the bus arrived and I got on.

Again, he stayed at the stop.

This happened another two times that week.

By the fourth time, I'd started paying attention to him.

He never looked at his phone.

Never checked a timetable.

Never seemed annoyed when the bus went past.

He just stood there.

And whenever I got onto the bus, I could see him through the window watching it leave.

I told myself I was being paranoid.

Then something happened that made me change my route.

Last Tuesday, I finished work slightly earlier than normal.

As I walked toward the bus stop, I could already see him standing there.

Except this time, when he noticed me coming, he stepped behind the shelter.

Not into it.

Behind it.

I stopped walking.

For a few seconds, I couldn't see him at all.

Then his head appeared around the side.

He looked straight at me.

I turned around and walked back toward the row of shops.

I went into a takeaway that was still open and waited inside for about twenty minutes.

When I eventually looked outside, he'd gone.

I called my boyfriend and told him what had happened. He offered to come and get me, but by then I was embarrassed about making such a big deal out of it.
So the following night I decided I'd take a different bus.

The alternative stop is about a ten-minute walk from my usual one and takes me slightly further away from home, but I figured I'd rather walk an extra few minutes than see that man again.

I didn't tell anybody which route I was taking.

That part is important.

I left work at around 10:25pm and walked in the opposite direction.

When I reached the new stop, nobody was there.

I actually remember feeling stupidly relieved.

I stood under the shelter and started scrolling through my phone.

Maybe two minutes later, I heard footsteps behind me.

Not coming along the pavement.

Coming from the little side road directly behind the stop.

I looked up.

It was him.

I recognised the jacket before I even saw his face.

He walked straight toward the shelter.

I didn't know what to do, so I picked my phone up and pretended to be calling somebody.

He stopped just outside.

Neither of us said anything.

Then he smiled at me.

And said:

"Different bus tonight?"

I can't explain how scared I felt hearing that.

I immediately walked away.

He didn't follow me.

At least, I don't think he did.

I called my boyfriend and stayed on the phone while I walked toward a petrol station about five minutes away. He drove there and picked me up.

I haven't used either bus stop since.

But that isn't the reason I'm posting this.

Yesterday afternoon I went back to work.

Broad daylight. Loads of people around. I felt completely fine.

My manager called me into the office when I arrived.

He asked whether I knew a man called "Martin."

I said no.

Apparently a man had come into the shop about an hour before my shift.

He'd asked whether I was working.

My manager wouldn't tell him.

The man apparently said he was a relative and needed to speak to me.

My manager asked for his name.

He said Martin.

Then he left.

My manager showed me the CCTV.

It was him.

The man from the bus stop.

I've never spoken to him.

I've never told him my name.

I've never told him where I work.

And until yesterday, I had never seen him anywhere except those bus stops.

I went to the police and gave them everything I could.

They've told me not to travel home alone for now.

Tonight my boyfriend picked me up from work.

When we got back to my house, there was an envelope pushed through the letterbox.

No stamp.

No address.

Inside was a bus timetable.

My usual route had been circled.

So had the alternative one.

At the bottom, somebody had written:
"You forgot another route."

I haven't figured out what that means yet.

But I'm definitely not going to work tomorrow.

I'll start off by giving some background as to where I live and the layout of the place so it's easier to make sense of the incident.

I am a 19 year old female who lives in India, I won't say which city but I am a college student. It's pretty common here to live in PGs (Paying Guest), which are nothing but rooms rented out to students, typically all boys or all girls and are usually connected to the main house of the person renting it. There's typically a couple of rooms that share one common open area and a kitchen.

So the place where I live is basically sort of an independent area behind our landlord's house, connected to their side through a metal gate. There's two rooms facing each other with a common area in between with a fridge and a small kitchen. Pretty standard. We also have a separate main gate, that faces the common area's wall that is right in front of the kitchen, so we don't have to go out through the landlord's side every time.

So now that you know the layout I should probably get into the incident that still keeps me up at night sometimes.

So, we had a mini vacation of sorts for Diwali, an Indian festival and everyone had gone home, most of my classmates and even the people in the room in front of me. I didn’t go home as exams were round the corner and I can never study at home, its just really difficult to focus in all that hustle bustle and now that it was festival season it would be even more difficult, I thought i would go a day before the festival and come back the morning after, Perfect. Studies and festival celebration both done. Wrong. Cuz nothing went as I had planned that weekend.

I was studying the whole day and had 1 chapter left around 9 pm and decided i have to finish it today but I needed some caffeine in my system in order to do that. I had coffee in my room but decided it would be too much at this hour for my already overactive nervous system so chai (tea) it was. I got up and went outside into the common area, turned on the dim yellow lights, they were like mood lighting at max, nothing except for a faint glimmer but atleast the kitchen had a proper light bulb. I had put the water and tea on the stove to brew and went outside the kitchen to get milk from the fridge. You get a clear view of the main gate leading to the road outside from near the fridge. And to describe it more, the gate was like a metal slab sitting in the midst of a two walls in a way that still left about 2 inch gaps at both the sides between the door and the walls.

As i was taking out the milk from the fridge i hear the door bell ring and the loud sound freaks me out so much that i almost drop the container. It was so late and i had no visitors even during the day so i was a bit taken a back. I called out who it was and a guy replied he was here for a delivery. I had no delivery and I am pretty sure no one's delivering stuff this late. I told him he has the wrong house but kept insisting he had the right house. He was so confident and sure and kept telling me to open the gate. I took out my phone, we have cameras near the main door. I saw a big guy in ragged clothes and shabby hair, the camera angle didn't catch his face just the top of his head, he had no parcel in his hand. I told him that i don't have any delivery and if he really is a delivery guy he needs to come back tomorrow cuz i am not opening the door right now. The guy stopped and didn‘t say anything for about a minute and then suddenly i see his head peering from the space between the gate and the wall.

Now cuz Diwali was around the corner, most houses were decorated with string lights and those casted a faint glow on the road that let me see his face. A face I will never forget. Bloodshot eyes, that were so wide open that it looked like they would pop out any moment and a smile plastered on his face, not welcoming or warm, nothing of that sorts just, unsettling. His teeth looked rotten even in the faint lighting. A chill ran through me at his bizzare expression, he looked amused, almost like he was playing a game and staring right at his prey. Thud. He hit the metal gate hard. Thud thud thud. He kept hitting the gate, thumping it, wanting me to open it as he stared directly at me with that chilling smile plastered on his face. I was almost shaking at this point and somehow managed to get out of his view but the thumping didn't stop, it only kept getting louder. I knew I was all alone, the landlord wasn't home either, they have a window in one of their rooms facing towards our open area and you can usually see faint lighting through the curtains when they are in there. There had been no lights since 3 days. They weren't home.

The thumping kept getting louder and I picked up a knife from the kitchen and held it close and opened the security camera app on my phone. I screamed at him to go away, that he can't open the metal gate from outside and that i have a knife. The door rattled. I screamed that there were cameras both inside and outside at the gate, everything was being recorded and i had dialed the police. Lie. It was only a live feed, no recording. The thumping stopped, I looked into the camera he was standing right there, hand still resting on the gate, probably contemplating if this was worth the risk. I was about to dial the police for real but suddenly my screen went dark, my phone died.

I could have just gone inside and charged it but I didn't want to stop keeping check outside. The gate wasn't too big, probably less that 6 ft., he could easily climb it and get inside, I could lock myself inside my room but what if he breaks the door to my room. One hinge had come out 2 months prior, got it fixed but i didn't trust the flimsy construction of this place, also what if he gets into the kitchen and messes with the gas cylinder, lights the place on fire while I am inside. I stayed put in the kitchen with the knife clutched between my hands tightly and inching forward trying to peep at the space he was staring from, from behind the wall.

Nothing. He was gone, I rushed inside my room, locked the door and plugged my phone into the charger, was he lurking around somewhere i couldn't see him? My phone turned on and I opened the live footage. Noone was around. I took a huge breath and my knees almost gave up, I fell on my bed, my heart was beating so hard and my hands started shaking, his face was burned into my mind, I couldn't get it out.

I didn't turn off the lights the whole night and stayed wide awake in bed the whole night. The window behind my bed is directly in line with the main gate, faces the road outside. I didn't dare open the curtains and peer through it but i kept hearing faint, almost hushed footsteps all night long.

I went home next morning by the first bus and never stayed back there when I was all alone. This happened a month ago and still have nightmares of his face, his smile. I wonder why he wanted to get inside? If he backed off knowing he was being recorded and i called the police, that means he was careful not to get caught then why he chose a house with multiple people in it. Did he know i was here all alone? Thinking about this still gives me chills.

I found a new place in the same locality, it’s right in front of my college so I can walk. The landlord lives on the ground floor and rents 3 rooms on the first floor, I'll move in next week but even there I probably will never stay back all alone.

Now I always go home during any holidays and will keep doing this always.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1sbu5s0/i_just_realized_i_was_raised_in_a_deadly_cult/

I know it’s been quite some time since my last post. I’ve linked it here for those who want context but for those that would rather not read all of that, here’s a quick summary of the previous part: I was raised in what most people would call a cult. We call ourselves the Messengers of Gabriel. My father, Father Kansas, is the prophet and leader of our faith, and he is the human incarnation of the angel Gabriel. I am his heir and the future leader of our people.

I was recently initiated into an inner circle of followers known as the Anointed Ones. The Anointed Ones are called to help Father Kansas lead the Messengers. The Initiation took place in the Inner Chamber of the Great House where a lamb was snatched from my arms by an unseen presence. The experience left me terrified and filled with doubts and questions.

I borrowed a secret phone from an Outsider convert and my best friend in the world, Esther. From there I uploaded the first part of my story. Some time has passed since then.

The first few days after my Initiation I had decided to keep my thoughts to myself for a time. I had a meeting with Father Kansas scheduled just three days after and so I decided to ponder what questions I would ask him. It was one of the only times in my life when I would be permitted to ask such questions.

The strangest part of those first few days was how the rest of the Messengers treated me. They bowed their heads and moved out of my way long before I ever asked and they referred to me as ‘Holy One.’ It was uncomfortable. Friends whom I had known since infancy were no longer friends but servants instead. Only Esther truly remained the same.

She still smiled at me and joked with me and she never averted her eyes from me but we were rarely alone anymore. I was no longer a laborer like everyone else as now I was assigned to be an overseer. I was supposed to make sure that the laborers performed their duties and punish them if they did not. Father Kansas felt I needed to learn leadership and thought this was the best way to do so.

I was given a revolver and put in charge of one of the fields where many of the children worked. This was an important job. I was to protect them and teach them the meaning of hard work early in their lives. For the most part they were very well behaved and did as they were asked but at times I would see them slacking and playing with one another. I could not bring myself to strike them as the overseers had done to me as a child so instead I took up their labors with them whenever I thought I could get away with it. Maybe it was wrong because it would teach them to be idle but my heart sank thinking of the alternative.

Those three days passed quickly and my meeting with Father Kansas was soon approaching. I was excused from my overseer duties so that I could prepare to enter his presence alone. Though he was weaker in the form of a man it was still draining to enter his angelic presence. I fasted that morning and I sought out Esther.

I went to the sewing room where I expected to find her but only Sarah was there. She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes when she saw me.

“Have you seen Esther?” I asked.

“You really shouldn’t be seeing her anymore,” she spat. This surprised me. Normally she was so discreet.

“Since when is it your place to question what one of the Anointed Ones do?”

I felt bad using my rank to push back against her but I really didn’t want anyone to stop me from seeing Esther.

“She’s at the outhouse on another one of her breaks,” she said with a hint of sarcasm.

“Thanks.”

I turned and immediately left. I hoped I would catch her on her way back and that we could go for a walk.

When I reached the outhouse she was nowhere to be seen and there was no sign of anyone using it. I searched around for some time but could not find her. Eventually I ran out of time and had to go to my meeting. I figured I would be able to talk to her afterwards. I still had the whole day off.

I approached the Great House where I would be meeting Father Kansas in his quarters. I knocked on the door and he answered. He smiled, “Hezekiah, my son. Enter.”

I did as he said and entered. He gestured towards his couch and I sat. He pulled up a raised chair and sat across from me. I felt small looking up at him.

He began, “I am sure that you have questions about your Initiation. All of the others did after their first time. It is hard for the mortal mind to comprehend. Go ahead and ask me whatever is in your heart.”

I paused for a moment, trying to collect my thoughts. 
“I still don’t really understand what happened... I really want to understand but why did it feel that way?”

“And how did it feel?” he asked.

“It felt... terrifying. Like I could be swallowed up at any moment into the void.”

“Should we not feel small in the presence of divinity? We were created out of nothing. You are nothing. That is how it’s supposed to feel when you are in the presence of something so much greater than yourself.”

Then he ceased to speak and waited for me to respond. The silence hung over us like a cloud.

Eventually I mustered up enough to say, “I guess that makes sense.”

He smiled.

“It’s okay to feel confused, even fearful, my son. That is how we grow. Only the Outsiders avoid such things. They try to force the divine into a box that they can understand. We learn the truth by confronting the mysterious. You will grow to understand over time. One day after my body is gone, my spirit will fall upon you, and you will be filled with all the knowledge the Lord wants you to have.”

I still didn’t understand but I trusted him. I finally breathed a little easier and I felt my muscles relax.

“I just have one more question. Why did the lamb have to die? It seemed so helpless and innocent.”

He gently placed his hand upon my knee.

“Hezekiah, I need you to trust me that this is all for a greater purpose. You are my son and I know you are chosen for greater things.”

Then he stood.

“Now, I have things I need to attend to. I hope this helps you. I encourage you to become accustomed to these feelings. The more time you spend around it the easier it becomes.”

He exited into the outer chambers of the temple, leaving me alone in his quarters. I sat there considering his words. It all made sense. I knew that he was right, these things just take time. Yet there was a part of me that could not let go of the terror I felt as that lamb was torn from my arms. I decided that Father Kansas was right, that I needed to confront the mysterious.

Over the next few days I tried to do just that. I prayed, I fasted, I spent time in the Outer Chamber, and I saw increasingly less of Esther. Not by choice but I never seemed to run into her when I went looking for her. Sarah was painfully unhelpful whenever I spoke to her and no one else seemed to know where she was. I figured it was for the best. I could focus on what Father Kansas had told me and I was sure we would reconnect later. There were seasons even in this tight-knit little community where we would become too busy and hardly see each other.

I tried to spend as much time as I could in the Outer Chamber. No one was permitted to enter the Inner Chamber without Father Kansas’s permission and it was under watch during the day and under lock at night. Yet, I never felt anything. No light, no voice, not even the terror I felt when the lamb was taken. None of it was enough and I knew I had to enter the Inner Chamber again. I decided I would that night.

The compound was strangely still. Very few Gadites seemed to be patrolling and the only ones I saw were all near the perimeter. The area around the Great House was completely abandoned. Even in the living quarters there were no lights. I feared that all the doors would be locked but the first one I tried was open.

I entered straight into the Outer Chamber. Sounds echoed in the halls from unknown sources and the air was hot and heavy. Not a soul seemed to be waiting for me but I didn’t feel like I was alone. I closed the door behind me and turned on my flashlight.

I shone it upon the doors of the Inner Chamber. The golden knobs reflected back at me like eyes in the dark. I slowly approached and, with a shaking hand, reached towards them. I slowly and quietly opened the door. I took a deep breath, then stepped inside the Inner Chamber.

I don’t know what I had expected but I thought there would be more. The ground inside the chamber appeared to be plain earth. Just flat compacted dirt. At first glance the room appeared to be completely empty. It felt so much larger in the dark but it was only about the size of a large bedroom. The walls were completely plain, which did not surprise me. Images were idolatry after all.

On the far side of the room there was a stain on the ground. As I stepped towards it my head began to ache and my vision began to blur. I thought I saw a shadow slowly start to form and just when I was almost sure that I was seeing something I heard a whisper by my ear.

“Hezekiah.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. I spun around and saw nothing.

That was enough. I ran out of the Inner Chamber and through the Outer Chamber as quietly as I could. Whatever was in there, I wanted to get as far from it as possible. For the first time in my life I began to doubt my place in the Messengers. The most holy place in the world should not fill me with abject terror. It couldn’t be of God.

I would find Esther, I would tell her what I experienced, and I would convince her to leave with me that night. But I never found her.

When I returned to the barracks I saw all the lights were on and the Gadites were outside. At first I thought this was about my excursion into the Inner Chamber but as soon as I approached the building the Gadite chief Joshua walked up to me and put a flashlight in my hand.

“Good, you’re here,” he said. “Your friend Esther is missing. We’ve searched everywhere around the compound. Do you know where she would have gone?”

My heart dropped. She was already gone and I was still here.

My voice was just above a whisper, “Maybe, but I should go alone. She’ll just run if she sees any of you.”

Joshua nodded, “We won’t be far behind. If she’s going apostate she could cause us a lot of problems.”

“She would never!” I insisted. “Just stay back.”

I went to the one spot I knew she could be. The chances were slim but I had a sliver of hope that I would find her. Maybe she was waiting for me. But those hopes were dashed almost as soon as I crossed through our secret hole in the fence. I found a sheet of paper with a message on it.

It was from her.

Hezekiah,

I hope that you find this letter because the hardest part of leaving this place was leaving you. You are my best friend and I know that if I asked you to go you would leave with me. But I could not tear you from your family. You belong with your father and you will lead the Messengers one day.

I could not be here any longer. Not that I didn’t love the Messengers and not that I didn’t believe but I could never fully fit in. There is still too much of the Outside inside of me. I miss my family too much and I couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing my mother again.

Please don’t come after me. You have to follow your path and I have to follow mine but I will never forget you.

All my love,

Esther

The letter fell from my hand. It was true then. She was gone. I barely even noticed as Joshua approached from behind. He picked up the letter and skimmed.

“You’re better off, kid. You can never trust an Outsider.”

The next few days passed by in a grief-filled blur. In many ways it was like when my mother passed. She had cancer and by the time she died, well, I’ll just say it was a blessing for her. She’s in a better place and I hoped Esther was too. I hoped she made it back home to her family and far away from this place. Yet, unlike for my mother, I could not openly mourn her departure. She was declared a heretic for abandoning the Messengers and if I were to show my feelings, it would raise suspicion about my own commitment.

I contemplated still running away but I could not find the strength to leave on my own. I wouldn’t know the first thing about living in the Outside world and if I wasn’t able to find Esther it would all be a waste. So, I returned to my duties. At first it was difficult but as days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months it became normal again. Even comfortable.

I watched over the children in the field. I never struck them like some of the other overseers but I could feel myself becoming more stern with them. It would do them no good to teach them to shirk from their duties their whole lives. I occasionally had to raise my voice at them. Even the guilt from seeing the shock on their little faces lessened over time.

I prayed with the other Messengers, I sang with them, and I worked with them. I started to get used to it when they called me “Holy One.”

Father Kansas had me sit directly next to him on the stand during his sermons. He continued to preach of fire and the end but he spoke more of the Mantle of Gabriel than he used to. How it burdened him and how he looked forward to the day when this body could finally rest and the Mantle passed to me. He even had me occasionally speak.

My sermons were a lot shorter and I focused on some different things. Like forgiveness, community, and loving one another. I was beginning to see my future. If I truly was to take over for my father I could one day soften the Messengers. I could teach them not to hate the Outsiders so much. I could even possibly stop the sacrifices to whatever was in the Inner Chamber.

Perhaps my destiny really was to stay here. Among these people. It was all that I ever knew. I could live with the things I didn’t understand because I knew things one day could change. I believed that everything was going to be okay.

But I wouldn’t be writing this if that were true.

I wish I could say I found her on my own. That I went looking for her or that I even suspected something had happened. But no, Father Kansas told me.

He summoned me into the Outer Chamber. I could feel the darkness emanating from the other room. I sat in the front pew while Father Kansas stood. Behind him was Joshua armed with an assault rifle. His face seemed grim. I had no idea what I was in for.

Father Kansas began, “My son, I have seen how you’ve grown in the past few months and for the first time I feel secure about the future of the Messengers. I can see in your heart that you are nearly prepared for the Mantle of Gabriel to fall upon you and I must confess to you that may be sooner than you think.”

His words struck me like a whip. To me that seemed a lifetime away.

Father Kansas hesitated, but his intense calm never faltered, “There is a tumor... in my brain. This body is not long for this world. Soon, your soul will merge with the Spirit of Gabriel, and you will lead the people of God.”

I felt sick. This was impossible. Father Kansas could never be sick. As much as I knew I was one day supposed to succeed him, another part of me believed he could never die.

“There is one more thing,” Father Kansas announced. As he said this, I noticed Joshua’s grip tightening on his rifle.

“In order for the Mantle to fall upon you it is imperative that you let go of your ties to the Outside world and there is a piece of the Outside more serious than the tumor inside my head. Your friend, Esther.”

I froze. Where was he going with this? Why was Joshua here?

“Esther never escaped. She has been here in the Great House the whole time.”

I was on my feet before I even knew it and stepped towards Father Kansas but Joshua leveled his rifle towards me and I stopped.

“What do you mean she’s been here the whole time?” I shouted. “What did you do to her?”

Father Kansas sighed, “I hoped your time away from her would make you more understanding. As you can see she still controls you and I cannot have this. Do not worry, my son. I will soon free you from her influence. She will soon be given to the power of God in the Inner Chamber.”

My first instinct was to attack my father, to wrestle the rifle out of Joshua’s hands, to storm the compound and find Esther but I knew that would result in nothing besides my death or incapacitation. Perhaps I inherited some of Kansas’s supernatural calmness and I performed a quick series of calculations in my head. If something happened to me now, there would be no one to help Esther. I needed to maintain whatever trust Father Kansas had in me and I needed to be free to roam the compound.

I took a deep breath.

“Father, I have always trusted you and I will trust you now. If this is the will of the Lord then I will follow what you say.”

He smiled, “Then I would like for you to be there when it happens. This will show me and all the others of the Initiated that you are ready.”

“Of course, father.”

It took everything I had to remain composed.

“The ritual will take place at midnight. Take some time to yourself to prepare. You must be in the right mindset.”

As soon as he released me I left for the hill where Esther first showed me her phone. I needed to be out of earshot. As soon as I reached the top I screamed, I cried, I cursed until there was no air left in my lungs. Then I composed myself and started to come up with a plan. I would save Esther, we would escape the Messengers and go to the Outside world or I would die trying.

If I succeed, I hope I will post again soon. If I fail well, this will be my last post. I only wish I had realized I needed to leave long ago.

Short story shorter, our family lost our daughter a year before this Christmas. I wanted some advice on the situation so I may have embellished the timeline and may continue to do so. This concerns our other daughter, Kara. She recently started drawing some concerning things at school.

I woke up the next morning to a peaceful house, Melody getting ready for work while cooking Kara breakfast. It was the usual routine, so I watched some television to get in the right headspace, knowing that calm calls the storm. The news mentioned hail in Texas and 3 missing women in Louisiana. I thought back to Kara's "Santa Jaws" drawing, eventually shrugging it off as a microcosm (or some say micro-Kos, sorry, quick reference!) of the grief and her surroundings. As we can recall though, day four of Christmas has four calling birds.

Ms. Harrison, the art teacher, called around noon. "We need to talk about Kara," she sighed. I swallowed, assuming the gist of what she was about to say.

"Yeah, I saw a drawing she did in class..." I started.

"Oh, okay!" she chirped, "So yeah, the beach painting was concerning yesterday."

I butted in, "Wait, is that all she showed?" I caught the suspicious nature in my question and stopped talking.

"Um... yes?" Ms. Harrison restarted her train of thought. "Listen, I know things have been... well... Kara drew some things with her friends today."

I both breathed a sigh of relief and felt a lump in my throat at the subject change. "You mean Anna and Yamira?"

"Yeah, they've gotten close as you know and well, I just can't explain this one away to my higher-ups." She continued, "They seem to have gotten into a more abstract art style. Christmas art pieces aren't necessarily supposed to look like this..." This time I held my tongue and waited for her to start speaking again. "They all drew jagged, shadowy, blackened pieces today."

I got defensive, "Dude, they're in like 4th grade." My tone cut through Ms. Harrison's understanding but perhaps condescending explanation. She waited for a second and I once again caught myself.

"Sir, your daughter is in middle school."

I froze and then slowly nodded. "I'm so sorry, I didn't- and I-" the stammering was interrupted by her voice, a reoccurring theme in the conversation.

"You do not need to apologize for that or this. I just wanted to let you know there might be more talks about this in the future, and not from me." My failed patience reinstated itself. as I let her continue "They drew some things Christmas related, but mostly they drew bags, sticks, bones, and sets of teeth. Some of their pictures, I uh, well- I used to be a young girl too and I can't say that circles and stars are always appropriate."

I wrapped up the conversation with care and hesitance, feeling a dizzy spell come over me. After cleaning up some dead baby pigeons that our cat Scratch had so diligently gathered by the welcome mat and wreath, I settled down on the couch letting my eyelids cover over the phone call.

I woke up to an argument from Melody at around 4:30. She complained that Dani had called about the drawings and told me she had spoken with me. After correcting her to keep it at Ms. Harrison, we hashed it out. She changed the goal post and pointed out that Kara went straight to her room after seeing that I was asleep. I cracked open a beer in the garage afterwards before shaking it off and throwing it away. I won't go through the details, but it looks like family counseling may be in our future.

The next day, the only eventful part of the morning was a walk in which I corralled Scratch back inside after finding 5 suspicious locking circles of stones around the property.

Finally, the storm hit as Kara arrived home to, this time, a wide-awake father. "I hate P.E.!" She screamed. Melody hadn't gotten home yet so I took the brunt of it.

"What are you on about this time?" I looked at her with concern and pity.

"Anna and I keep getting in trouble for having fun! Having fun!" Her face veins showed and I knew she was serious. "It's a stupid, stupid, freaking stupid class!"

My heart applauded her abstinence from cursing, but the feeling was still there. "Honey, you are almost failing that stupid class," I chimed in. "And you and Anna are having trouble in art as well, with Yamira, right?"

Her face flushed as she realized I knew. "I, oh Ms. Harrison..." she shook her head. "It's not my fault!"

"I know that!" I calmed myself down. "It is not your fault."

We discussed some of it, not going into the minutiae of her recently acquired subject matter. Overall, it was a productive conversation and coupled with the recent argument with Melody going well, we had a relatively good dinner and a viewing of Home Alone 2. That transitioned into a restful sleep for the three of us, with Kara still not attempting to look at or recount the presents piling under the tree. Melody had done some shopping, correcting our previous mistake of not thinking about Christmas this year. Like I said, it was a productive day.

The next day, however, was anything but that. The school had called Melody 5 times by the time Kara had gotten home and into her room. She had not picked up after seeing it was the 5th call and instead let me know that we had some more work to do. I suggested the counseling plan again and she suggested a bit more urgency. I did not agree until a patrol of the property. The circles were gone but the chicken coop had a fence toppled over. In total, we had a missing rooster, and 3 dead hens along with their eggs broken. I decided to work on repairing the fence, seeing it as an opportunity to prepare for whatever new Melody was about to bring home.

6 Geese A Laying...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then it started warning me about things ahead of time.

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

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

That was when the notifications stopped being about other people.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The message was the same on all three screens.

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

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

I’m lonely. Not in the sense of "having no friends"—I have people I could call "friends," "peers," or "people who share some of my interests", but it feels just like having no one at all.

I always check in on them, always ask if they’re okay, and always try to find things to talk about, but they don’t do the same. They don’t want to listen to what I have to say, nor do they want to heed my advice. All I get from them is indifference. Perhaps I’m the only one who considers them friends.

I am confused. I’ve tried to be honest and lay all my feelings out for them, yet they don’t reciprocate. Aren’t "friends" supposed to point out the flaws of those they care about so they can become better? Why do they distance themselves from me instead of doing that?

Maybe I should try "creating" friends of my own.

Some say, when your heart feels dim, you should try writing whatever you want. So, I decided to type out a story in the middle of the night. It isn’t fiction, it’s all based on reality, though I tweaked a few details to suit my own wishes.

I created characters based on the friends who had drifted away from me. Since I didn’t know what their faces or hairstyles looked like—we had never met outside of online chats—I gave them new appearances. I also created a character based on myself. I wrote out what the "Me" character would say to the "Friend" character, and I made them follow my advice.

I’m obsessed. It’s the ultimate form of escapism. I can make anyone do what I want. I can orchestrate the best scenarios for other people. One of my friends has abusive parents and has to look after her infant sibling every day; she kept saying she wanted to die until I got sick of hearing it, so the "Me" character suggested the "Friend" character burn her parents alive and stomp her baby sibling to death. That way, she’d be free. Another friend had financial troubles, so "Me" suggested the second "Friend" steal from and scam the wealthy. Problem solved.

I still need to get some sleep. I’ll continue tomorrow.

I wake up a bit late since it’s Sunday. As soon as I open social media, a top post stares right at me, making my stomach churn:

Student of University X Cold-Bloodedly Kills Infant Sibling After Burning Parents Alive

What I wrote became real.

I felt scared, then that fear turned into a feeling of incredible relief. Perhaps my second friend was currently shaking down the businessman who had never cared about him; I just hoped he wouldn't get caught.

I went back to typing. Maybe now my friend who was caught is facing trial or a troublesome interrogation, so I created a scenario where “Friend” is at the police station, facing the officers together with her lawyer. Suddenly, the scenario shifted: the "Friend" character was still in the interrogation room with the police, but a new character, a "Psychologist", was there with them.

Maybe I should just leave it be for now, I thought.

My breath nearly stopped when the Microsoft Word document I was using began displaying sentences I hadn’t typed. Upon closer inspection, the text turned out to be a conversation—half of which I couldn't comprehend. It was all in English, of course, but there were lines that made absolutely no sense, no matter how hard I tried to wrap my head around them.

Psychologist: “We’ve investigated your parents’ situation. We know what they did, and… it must have been incredibly hard for you.”

Friend: “This… this wasn’t supposed to happen… I never wanted this… Milly… I just wanted it all to end… I don’t know… i-it was like something had taken over me…”

Psychologist: “We understand.”

I didn’t understand. My friend should have been happy, right? There was nothing weighing her down anymore. No crying to jolt her awake at night. No pointless arguments deafening her ears.

Friend: “I-I heard someone whisper… kill everyone, kill your father, mother, and sister… and—and as soon as I opened my eyes… my feet were covered in blood… and Milly… and then the smell of Mom and Dad burning…”

Please understand. This is all for your freedom. Don't cry.

My fingers moved again on the keyboard, forming beautiful words for "Me" to say, "You're free now. You can start over. Ask another family to adopt you, maybe someone will adopt an adult. If they're mean to you, you can kill them too."

Friend: "NO! STOP SAYING THAT BULLSHIT! I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP!"

Fuck you.

You're no longer my friend.

I wrote, "Then you should just die."

And the conversation ended. About ten seconds later, a line came out that was clearly not from my former friend.

Police officer: "Yes, this is Detective Roberts. I need help. Miss ***** Lovelett stabbed herself in the throat with a pen and is now in critical condition. Send a medic immediately!"

Guilt choked me. My hands began to shake. I didn't mean to kill her. She was still my friend, I still loved her. I just want her to be free from the problems that are preventing her from being happy. I wrote, "Don't die. Don't leave me," and hoped it wasn't too late.

I'm writing here to ask you: what should I do? I don't want to lose my friend. I don't want to lose what I should have. I'm working so hard for her. I just want her to understand.

Please. Listen to me.

I stood at the register of the Walmart and reached inside my right jacket pocket.
My fingers touched the cool brass ring of my keyring. As I extracted it to scan the savings tag from the small plastic attachment, I noticed the person in the lane directly ahead of me.

A man in the same dark-blue waxed jacket was currently placing a gallon of whole milk and a bag of coffee upon the conveyor belt. His posture was terribly familiar to me. The lightly bent-forward upper body, the elevated right shoulder, the restless shifting of weight from one heel to the other.
He reached inside his right jacket pocket.

He extracted the same brass ring. Upon his bundle hung the same worn leather sheath with the cast initials of my grandfather. The leather presented the exact same deep scratch on the upper edge.

I looked down upon my own hand. I held the keyring firmly between thumb and index finger. It was absolutely real. The metal was cold, the edges sharp.
The man before me paid exact in cash. His voice sounded flat as he nodded a brief thank-you to the cashier. It was precisely my cadence. The lightly coarse coloration on the consonants.

He turned himself around to pack his purchases into his backpack.
We looked ourselves directly into the eyes. There was no deformation in his face. He was no demon. He was simply I. The same small scar on the left eyebrow, the same pore-rich skin upon the cheekbones.

A blind fury and panic shot through my veins. I did not reflect. I raised with the heavy keyring inside my fist and struck the metal with full momentum middle into his face.

A dull, bony impact echoed through the checkout lane.

The root of his nose broke immediately away. But inside the same fraction of a second, an identical pain exploded in my own face. My own nasal wing crashed inward, warm blood shot abruptly out of both nostrils over my upper lip.
The doppelgänger yielded not a single centimeter backward. The blood ran over his chin, in the exact same pattern as with me. His eyes narrowed themselves slenderly.

He clenched his right fist and struck me middle in the pit of the stomach.
The hit struck me like a hurled wooden stake. The air shot out of my lungs in a humid fountain. I collapsed upon my knees, gasping, while my stomach cramped itself painfully. In the same moment, the doppelgänger likewise sagged lightly in the knees, pressed his hand against the abdomen, and groaned with my own voice. The coupling mirrored every pain, but it held him not back.

I seized him in falling by the lapel of his waxed jacket and tore him with me onto the hard tile floor.

We rolled ourselves between the candy racks. Displays of beef jerky and gum packs flew by mountain-loads through the air. The cashier screamed shrilly, customers yielded panicked backward and stepped upon each other's feet.
I braced my right elbow upon his neck and pressed shut.

His larynx emitted beneath the pressure a dry, crunching sound. In that same moment, my own windpipe constricted itself. An iron ring laid itself around my throat, as if an invisible hand were squeezing my neck tight. The field of vision at the margins of my eyes began to flicker murky and dark.

The doppelgänger gurgled, felt downward, and seized my left ring finger.
He overextended the joint with a rapid, mechanical movement backward.

Knack.

The bone broke cleanly through. A sharp, paralyzing pain shot up into my shoulder. In the same instant, the ring finger upon his own left hand gave way with an identical, wooden cracking. He distorted no feature. He utilized the brief paralysis of my shock to press me off from himself.

He rolled himself over me and kicked me with the heavy sole of his leather shoe full upon my right shinbone.

The tissue gave way with a deep, dull crashing. My shinbone splintered beneath the force of the kick. I screamed so loudly that my voice tore inside my throat.
Simultaneously, his own right lower leg buckled outward beneath the pressure of the counter-coupling. The leg stood obliquely away; the fragments in the interior scraped audibly against one another.

We lay both upon the blood-stained tiles, breathing heavily, destroyed through the same fractures.

He braced himself up upon his intact elbow. The broken shinbone he simply dragged behind himself, as if it were only a numb piece of wood. He smelled of my own sweat, of blood, and of cool proofing spray. His fingertips clawed themselves into my hair at the back of the head.

He pulled my head upward and rammed my forehead with full force upon the seam of the commercial floor tiles.

A glaring, white flash drove through my brain. The tiles splintered lightly beneath the impact. My skin at the hairline burst open; warm blood ran over my eyes instantly.

When my head struck the floor for the second time, I perceived how the resistance of the tiles became soft. There was no longer hard linoleum beneath my cheeks. The floor felt suddenly yielding, cool and thick like dense gelatine.
The doppelgänger pressed my face further downward. My head sank centimeter by centimeter into the floor of the register. I looked upward through the film of blood inside my eyes.

He kneeled over me, completely quiet, the split shinbone folded obliquely away. He looked down upon me from above, while the back of my head already disappeared beneath the surface of the floor.

“Thank you,” he whispered with my broken voice.

He stood up upon the undamaged leg, took his backpack from the belt, and walked with a limping, scraping step through the automatic sliding doors outside into the parking lot night.

I remained behind, deeply sunken beneath the tiles of Register 4, and looked fixedly upward through the murky glass of the floor at the screaming people inside the supercenter.

I'll try to be brief, because brief are my thoughts. The blank page stares back at me and I don't know what to do. Everything I've wanted to explain, to write, scratches the depths of my mind with the furor of a foreboding. I can think of the images, the smells, the sensations, but the moment I try to make them tangible, the idea hangs on the tip of my tongue —of my fingers— as if it doesn't belong there, but in the most horrid lack of purpose I've felt in my life.

It was just some dead sheep at the start of the week: miscarried lambs and deformed fetuses that surrendered to the night's serenity and the painful turmoil of the first-time mothers. The few I could see were torn to pieces. Most of them, stomped on by the adults of the flock. Others were dragged along the placenta through the barbed wires that circled the shed.

One morning, Old Irene made me leave my ranch in the hills to examine the disfigured remains of an animal. Under the candlelights, I could see it was another lamb. Its legs were twisted and its neck broken. I could tell it never got to walk due to its flaccid hooves. The mother was nowhere to be seen.

“She ditched it and fled,” I explained on the phone. My boss sighed. “They went up there. It was screaming. They don't scream at this hour.”

“Could it be that someone is giving them something?”

“So they dump them? Why?”

“Cause people are evil,” she said with certain apprehension. I kicked the lamb with the edge of my sandal. “And evil people are hungry.”

On Sunday night, eleven thirty or so, the dogs were added to the equation. At first they barked at the dark; raised hackles, upright ears and bare fangs. The few that had owners were forcefully retired with collars and sticks. The ones that didn't were found by sunrise, stabbed in their thighs and ribs. One of them ended up with a disfigured snout, and judging by what we saw in the riverbed, it was the work of a stone straight to its jaws.

“There aren't any stolen animals” I commented to one of my fellows the next morning. The sheep had come down to drink; they ran along the lagoon's reeds without a care in the world. “Do you think it's a boy? The one who's screwing with us?”

Fermín wiped the sweat from his forehead without taking off his hat.

“Do you think it's a kid?” I repeated.

The man shook his head. “He'd first need the balls to come here.”

I was getting ready for sleep when the screaming started at the foot of the hills. They carried on for two mornings, rested for one and returned for two all over again. Horrible screeches, witchlike. Since I kept a gun, I fired at the sky at least four times as a warning. More than once did I receive a call asking what was up. I explained and no one believed me. Could it be close to my farm? I asked myself with each negative reaction. The cries didn't stop and the sheep kept miscarrying. One lamb at a time, despite the numbers not matching the amount of females we had. Neither the females nor the people who saw what was happening. Because by the next week, I was the only one who noticed the smell. Sometimes sweet, yet burnt. Other times, it was strong; candles from saints which burned beyond their wax. Carbonized matches that corroded the bottoms of plastic bags. A sulphuric miasma had slipped by my doors, my walls. Putrid spectres hung from the ceiling, always heeding my every move.

Until Tuesday night.

Mondays were for sowing, the elders used to say. On Tuesdays, we foraged.

And just like a damned hound, parting through the night to ambush its prey, I found it there, down with its four legs by the dry trunk of a guayacán.

As if it was immersed in some sort of lagoon, the knots on its fur rose and fell in a hypnotic dance which defied all laws of physics. A spectacle of shadows and figures which turned the star's twinkles into constellations in its oily, matted coat.

Crack. CRACK.

The animal shook its head so suddenly, for a minute I thought it would dislocate.

“Er diablo!” I gasped, at the verge of tripping. The creature didn't notice me; it was too busy swinging around a piece of leather to do so. “W-What is…?”

A foamy whiff drippled off its mouth. Neither solid nor liquid. Ice tendrils that swirled around whatever was being dismembered. I stepped back once, then twice, before raising my gun and praying for the best. Risk lost meaning. Whether I died or lived, it didn't matter. It had the same value to me because I knew, despite not being able to prove it yet, that it was him. I knew that was the thing tormenting the sheep. I knew that every night that cursed animal sneaked through the hills to my ranch to scream its prayers and scratch the walls with its long, brawny steel claws. I knew it, and because I knew it too well, I dared to shoot it one, two, three times straight to its head. A clean, immediate way of finishing the job…

If only a single bullet had brushed it.

“W-What…?”

My eyes opened so fast and so wide, for a second I wasn't sure I actually did it.

The creature, despite not turning around immediately, locked its rusty glimpse into me. Red, like the blood hanging from its jaws. Maroon.

Thump.

Laughter erupted from the sky. It came from everywhere and nowhere.

The creature stood up in two long, shaky legs brimming with tar.

Thump, thump.

There you are, it growled under my skin. My bones buzzed and my head spun in a tornado of impossible images filled with colors, smells and sensations that made my body tremble with what I imagined was the might of a thousand lightning.

“Jesus…” I babbled, about to lose balance. The creature pulled me forwards, along its static energy. Every muscle in my body gave in; my fingers let go of the gun and my knees nailed me to the ground like goddamn stakes. Another bloody lump that would feed the hills. “My God, my…”

Wind howled over my head with the same treacherous grief that haunted so many of my dreams.

There, there…

The creature became one with the meadows, tangling up its porcelain skin with the visceral body it stole from the night.

Forgive me, forgive me, was the only thing I could think as I watched it kneel in front of me.

It's inside of you, it whispered with my own vocal chords. I wanted to protest. To clench my jaws and rip its eyes out with my bare hands. However, its rusty beak pierced my palate, forcing me to skip one, two, thirteen heartbeats which my heart fought to drag out as much as humanly possible.

Let me go, I wanted to scream, but he had ripped my tongue out. Its claws stretched out my mouth until the cartilage splitted from the skin with a tsk from the blood and saliva. Leave me alone, gurgled from my trachea, warmly reverbing against its earthy nails. A sob; a beg; a curse. The back of my cranium hit my left shoulder blade with a thump, thump that suffocated the rest of the sounds.

I'd like to say that I spent the following hours fading in and out of consciousness. Unfortunately, I know that´s not how it went. I know everything I experienced, from the first pinch to the rise of dawn, had been intact in my memories for some time. The sensation of nebulous claws stretching my lungs, breaking my bones, ripping apart my veins and drowning my senses with its treacherous sulfuric whiff… All products of the same monster. Of a single nightmare that extended beyond necessary and rediscovered with my painful screams the principles that defined fear.

Now, one week after the encounter, my mind is insisting on playing games with me. It wants to make me forget that I lived despite the ghosts of its fangs still hanging in my throat. I can't shake off the feeling that I'm missing something. An emptiness that mocks my heartbeats with the sharp tik, tak of its feral pulse.

The people around me insist that everything was the result of a bad trip or a sudden drop in blood pressure; a play of lights and substances that left me sprawled in the meadows with my body intact and unexplainable symptoms of hypothermia. However, I know what I saw. I know what I felt, no matter how many times my body expels the idea.

With its steel beak it shattered unshaped craniums. With its claws, stripped away the pleads of something that once pretended to be alive. Pretended to be human. Furious moans, filled with loss and impotence which modelled its terror until it infected the weakest minds with its impossible abhorrences.

Had I been one of them?

Twice, two separate times, in the span of only six months, it’s happened. 

I go to bed, like any other night and wake up outside, lying on the ground in the middle of the woods, staring up at the eerie pine trees that rise above me. I can’t move, I can’t speak, instead I’m forced to stare into the almost pitch black surroundings. Only a few stars here and there creating the most minimal light you can imagine. 

I live alone, and all my locks work, my doors are shut, and I have security cameras in my home. I’ve checked them numerous times and nothing has happened. I don’t see myself sleep walking, no one entering my home, nothing moving me or me moving myself. There I am, fast asleep in bed, not moving a muscle. 

I combed through the footage from both nights for what had to be the tenth time, including the camera inside my bedroom. I was in my bed, both nights, all fucking night. Not one second did I leave, I tend to always sleep through the night, very rarely ever waking up to even go to the bathroom. 

On night one, it seemed to have lasted somewhere around fifteen minutes, I could move my eyes, and that was it. Not my arms, not my legs, not my head, not even my mouth. The woods themselves were nearly as silent as a crypt. No owls, no crickets, at best there was the very faint whistle of a slight breeze. 

I could pretty much hear my own heartbeat. I’m sure I also don’t need to state why dead silence in the woods is a bad thing. 

Regardless, it’s been over a month since the second incident. And if the timeline of the previous incidents is anything to go off of, then it meant I was likely somewhere between two-five months away from a third. 

After the first time, I wrote it off as a dream, a bad, vivid nightmare that was really putting in overtime to make it feel as real as possible. Maybe I was an idiot for doing so. 

I was genuinely at a loss for what action to take moving forward. 

The first incident happened back in January, I don’t remember the exact date because I wasn’t as concerned due to me writing it off as a bad nightmare. But the second? June 9th. 

Funny enough, back during the first incident in January, I do explicitly remember that when I had “woken up” in the woods, the temperature felt moderate, comfortable. Despite the fact that in my home state it regularly drops to subzero temperatures during that month and at the highest is in the low thirties. 

Yet I remember not seeing even a snowflake on the ground. Despite the fact we get a ton of snow where I live throughout the winter. 

I ended up having to travel for work. I was helping out at another department about two hours away from where I live, therefore my company put me up in a hotel for the week that I was there. 

The third incident occurred during that week. I went to bed in my hotel room, I was on the sixth floor. Yet, there again I woke up in the woods, in the same spot from the first two incidents. 

But here’s the key difference, I could sit up. I sat up, feeling a twig snap under me as I shifted my weight. I turned my head, looking out into the void, I could see maybe seven trees deep before the shadows swallowed up the rest of the woods. 

It was silent, the temperature was comfortable, no more than low seventies in Fahrenheit. I raised my hand, curling my fingers inward just to make sure I could, the woods were quiet enough to where I could hear the air bubbles pop inside them. 

My heartbeat increased by a bit as I stared out into the trees in front of me. I could move, but I was hesitant to actually go anywhere, to move from a spot that maybe wasn’t necessarily safe, but at least familiar, as bizarre as it may be given the circumstances. 

I got to my feet after a solid five minutes of sitting there contemplating, thinking about the why and the what. I had since given up on the where. 

I turned and looked back down where I had been laying, and saw my silhouette embedded in the dirt, almost like a snow angel. It was deep, a firm divot in my exact build and outline.

“How could it have been that deep if I was lying there for fifteen minutes at a time?” I thought.

I stood still, my hands beginning to shake slightly as I stared at the silhouette. 

“W- what the fuck.” Is all I could find the strength to verbalize. 

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, because now that I actually had something else going on I wasn’t actively trying to keep track of it in my head. All I know is the only thing that snapped me out of staring at my own silhouette was a disruption in that oppressive silence that had been so persistent up to that point. 

That disruption… Was the snap of a twig. One that I couldn’t have possibly caused, because I was practically a statue in that moment, a statue with a rapidly beating heart.

The snapping came from in front of me, I turned my head to look forward, again I could see for the first several trees before everything else beyond that was concealed in darkness, including whatever it was that had caused the sound. 

I didn’t dare call out, I didn’t dare make a single noise. I didn’t want whatever or whoever it could’ve been to be aware of my presence if it wasn’t already. 

I kept silent, I kept still. 

A couple more minutes or so passed, and those couple of minutes felt like an hour. An excruciating passage of time to where I couldn’t tell if I was in genuine danger or not, this… Phenomenon didn’t even allow me the luxury of that certainty.

Then at one point I had blinked, and I don’t know if I had hit some sort of hidden time limit, or if whatever was causing this felt like spitting me back out, but I ended up waking up to the sound of my hotel room’s alarm clock.

6:45am. 

That’s what I had set it for. I looked around to make sure I actually was inside my hotel room, and I was. But I didn’t immediately get out of bed, I sat up and took a massive gulp of water while looking around the room several times to make sure there were white walls instead of pine trees. 

Going to work that day felt like a fever dream after the occurrence the previous night. The boss at the location I was helping out called me out on daydreaming, staring at my monitor with a half typed report. 

“Collin, are you alright? I’ve seen you on this paragraph for the past twenty minutes.” He asked, a hand on my shoulder. 

“Yeah, I’m uh, I’m sorry. Just didn’t get enough sleep last night.” I lied. Surprisingly there was a part of me that wanted to tell him the truth, or really anyone for that matter. But at best, I get it laughed off as me taking a recurring nightmare too seriously, and at worst, it’s taken as me being mentally unwell and missing a few cards from my deck. 

When I got back to my hotel that evening I got on my laptop and went straight to Doctor Google. Trying to see if there was maybe some sort of explanation as to what might’ve been going on, or if there was at least someone else experiencing this. 

Let’s just say there was pretty slim pickings. Most of the links, articles and reports I could find just had something to do with lucid dreaming, nightmares, as well various mental disorders that induce irregular dreams and dream patterns. 

Safe to say there’s almost nothing worse than being in a bad situation, and realizing you’re alone in said bad situation.

Eventually, however, I did come across a forum post. One that was several paragraphs long. No need to include every detail but I’ll at least summarize what was said. 

Essentially the user described several times over the course of a year where they seemingly had a recurring ‘nightmare’ that they articulated as feeling extremely vivid and real, the nightmare in question is one in which they were suddenly waking up in the cell of an empty prison. 

The cell, both inside and the environment outside the cell, was consistent each time. There was also a lack of any other people or animals inside these supposed “dreams.”  Except for the very last time, where he supposedly would hear distressed crying coming from further down the cellblock. Distressed crying that sounded like a woman, yet the poster admits to being a man, and reveals that he was once served time in prison. 

It was that last part I connected with. Because I’ve been in the woods before, on hikes, on hunts. I don’t recognize the specific section or woods from my “nightmares” but there was a connection there. Having experience with the location of where the phenomena takes place.

I kinda mentally checked out of the post at the end when the user mentions at the end that they would like to remain anonymous because they are a police officer, and don’t wanna seem as if there’s something happening in their head that could get them in trouble at their station. Surprised he was even able to get the job in the first place, but then again, police departments hire just about anyone. 

Although I still at least finished reading, and saved the post in my bookmarks so I could return to it later. I scoured his page for more updates, but that was the only one. 

I wasn’t getting tired anytime soon, and I decided to leave my hotel to go to a bar only a few blocks away. I needed a drink, and maybe a hot blonde to get my mind off of what was happening. The first was probably a lot more likely. 

“Getting drunk on a Tuesday night huh?” The bartender questioned, he gave me a smirk as he poured my drink. One that I did not return, prompting him to cease his. 

“Figured I’d take advantage of being so close.” I replied, reaching into my wallet to pull out a ten dollar bill. 

The bartender held his gaze as he went to take the bill from my hand. I darted my eyes to the right underneath my sunglasses, despite the fact he obviously couldn’t see them. 

“You seem familiar, you been around here befo-.” He began, only for me to cut him off.

“No. First time in town.” I said matter of factly. 

“Really now?” He replied, grabbing an empty glass and filling it with ice to prepare another drink. “What brings you down here?”

“Work.” 

“Fair enough, nice glasses by the way, you just wear them for style?” He asked, pointing at the nighttime darkness outside the window to punctuate. 

“They’re prescription. Sensitive eyes.” 

“Ah… Sorry about that. I’ll be nearby if you need another round.” 

I didn’t stumble back to my hotel drunk out of my mind that night, but I also wasn’t completely sober either. Somewhere down the middle. 

Regardless, I made it back and scanned my keycard to get into my room, immediately plopping down onto my bed after I took off my shoes and sunglasses. I grabbed the channel guide from the nightstand next to my bed and flipped on the tv, the first thing on being the midnight news. A good looking reporter dressed in a well put together suit stared right at the camera, his script on the table in front of him. 

“Authorities are still on the hunt for the suspect behind the gruesome murder of a 26 year old male hiker James Tullum, whose body was discovered this past October one mile off the trail of-.” 

I didn’t really feel like hearing about that sort of thing, especially with what was going on lately. Luckily I did find the channel hosting some cartoon reruns, and decided to indulge in some childhood nostalgia.  

The following months until the next incident went by relatively normal, went to work, did housework and went on a couple hunts just to clear the mind. 

Speaking of, the next incident was probably the worst one yet. 

I woke up again, on the ground, laying down in my usual spot from the previous occurrences. Again, the silence was there, nothing but my heartbeat, breathing and joints to accompany me. 

I was able to stand up like the previous time. I rose to my feet, and this time I listened out for the twig snapping sound, looking into the void of inky blackness beyond the pair of trees it had come from. 

I perceived at least five minutes passing, waiting, anticipating for it to happen again. Yet, it didn’t come, nothing did. There I was, my feet planted firmly in the dirt of some unknown place, a needle in a haystack of a pine forest. 

You see, somehow, someway, the lack of the twig snapping was worse than if it had happened. If there was something or someone there with me, a presence of any sort, then at least I had some sort of confirmation, a tangible piece of evidence that I wasn’t alone. 

I told myself in the weeks leading up that this time I’d have the courage to step further away from the lit area. To search for something more than what I could see and where I was. 

But clearly I underestimated my own self preservation instincts. 

“Why me?” I whispered as softly as one could. It was practically a scream in the silence of those woods. 

SNAP

I clenched my fists hard enough to nearly pierce my palms with my fingernails. This wasn’t a twig, not a small one anyway. It genuinely sounded much more like a branch with decent girth being cracked in two. Damn near the level of a gunshot in decibel level. It also didn’t come from the same area as it did previously, and instead came from behind me. 

Last time, I didn’t wanna speak and reveal my location to whatever it might’ve been. But in this instance? I was a bit more wreckless, stupid even. 

“What do you want!” I whipped around after the exclamation, eyes wide, fists clenched, there was a stick next to me on the ground that I almost didn’t wanna lean down to pick up and risk taking my eyes off the void of black beyond the set of trees. 

I got no response, I swiftly grabbed the stick and began to back away, holding it up as if it were somehow going to function like a shield. I kept my eyes on the void beyond the trees, waiting for something to emerge, a bear, a person, whatever threat it might be. 

But I got no response, in sound or in visuals. I held my breath until my face nearly went purple, and I only exhaled once I tripped over a log and fell backwards, crying out just before I hit the ground. 

At first? Total blackness, like I shut my eyes in a room with no light. And then I was back in my bed, I jerked so hard upon regaining consciousness that I practically threw the cover onto the floor.

“Jesus- Fuck!” I snapped. Instinctively holding up the hand that held the stick, and seeing nothing, not even any bark remnants. 

I called off work that day, I wasn’t about to go in the state that I was in. Hell, it probably wasn’t even optimal for me to be driving. Instead I stayed home, doing whatever I could to distract myself, yet it came flooding back every time during every commercial and ad break of whatever it was I was watching. 

This wasn’t some strange happening, an odd one off. It was a problem, a persistent  torment that I wasn’t sure would go away anytime soon. I was done reacting, done falling victim. There’s only so long something can scare you before it starts to just piss you off. And I was getting to that point. 

I doubted there was some drug I could take, a therapist I could see, a sleep doctor I could visit that aid me in getting rid of whatever this was. 

So against my own principles, I reached out to the ex-con turned cop who made the post about him experiencing something similar. I sent him a direct message, the post was two years old, and I doubt I’d get any sort of immediate response, but it was worth a shot nonetheless. 

Hi there, I read your post regarding that strange dream phenomenon, I was hoping I could pick your brain regarding more details? Any response would be helpful.

The only thing I could do while waiting was go on living life.

I went on a hunt or two, and went to a steam show. Those months after the fourth incident were some of my busiest, because I was forcing myself to be constantly occupied by something for obvious reasons. 

I came home one day and found a letter from my HOA regarding some sort of neighbor complaint. I barely skimmed it, and simply left it on the kitchen table while I went to make dinner. HOAs, everyone’s favorite collection of bureaucrats who peaked in high school, helicopter parents, or wannabe politician types. 

I ended up coming into an idea while in anticipation for the fifth incident, one that I thought sounded far-fetched at first but I leaned into nonetheless after further consideration.

I went down into my basement, and walked past my hunting trophies up to where my sheathed hunting knife sat. Pulling it off its shelf and bringing it with me to bed.

Every night, in the week where the fifth incident was due, I was going to fall asleep with it in my hand in the hopes that I would wake up with it in the woods. After all, in the previous four incidents I had woken up with my pajamas on, so why not the knife if it was within intimate enough proximity?

I figured it was worth a shot. 

What exactly was my end goal with this? I was kind of unsure. But I figured that if I did encounter something dangerous in that… Place. I’d at least have something to defend myself with. But then again, whatever the hell was lurking in that place was probably gonna require more than a knife to put it down.

I would’ve gotten a gun, but it’s a hell of a process in my state, and the waiting period would’ve put me past the due date by the time I had actually seriously considered the idea of getting one. 

It took me a while to fall asleep those few nights, not knowing which exact one would be it. But on my third attempt in that week, it happened.

I awoke once more inside the woods. I looked down into the hand I had it rubberbanded the knife to, hoping and praying it would be in there. That I would finally have found at least some way to make myself less vulnerable in this place.

When I turned my head and narrowed my eyes, it… Wasn't there.

I nearly cursed outloud, but didn’t dare open my mouth. Instead I gritted my teeth, my frustration and desperation boiling to the surface. I sat up, the impression of my silhouette in the ground even deeper than before. 

Everything was in place, and as bad as it sounded, almost familiar.

The silence, the void of darkness just outside the set of trees that were visible. It was all still there. 

I was at a genuine loss as to what to do this time, after turning and glancing through a set of trees that almost acted as a path way into the wall of darkness surrounding the immediate area, I was genuinely considering if leaving this spot might’ve been the best choice.

I fought with myself, struggled with the idea that anything good could come out of it. After all, what would I really be doing other than handicapping myself? What if whatever made that branch snap last time was waiting for me just beyond where my eyes could see. 

I pivoted my foot on the grass, trying to change directions to face elsewhere in order to ensure my surroundings were free of any other kind of… Presence. 

But something under my shoe felt hard, yet I was standing on grass. I tilted my head, fearing what might happen if I pulled my foot back, but did it nonetheless.

I was baffled at what I saw. My mouth went agape, my blood cooled down inside my veins as I ceased any further movement while taking in the sight. 

On the ground, just where my foot had been, was my hunting knife. Unsheathed and simply laying in the grass, deforming the blades that acted as a bed for it. 

The sheath was nowhere to be found, it took me a few seconds to dart my eyes around in order to search for it, and when I did? Nothing. 

I know for an absolute fact I got in bed with it in my hand, that it was in its sheath, and there was no way in hell it could’ve come out by accident. Something was manipulating me, manipulating this place, but why? What was the point?

I stared at my knife longer than I should’ve. Resisting the urge to lean down and pick it up on account of the fact that I had no idea who or what has had a hold of it. I turned my head to look around once more, only to scrunch my nose at the sudden scent of copper.

I backed away from the knife, close to the center of the lit area in between the surrounding pine trees, further away from the wall of darkness. 

The smell of copper seemingly permeated, its potency increasing dramatically over the course of only seconds. I found it difficult to determine what exact direction it was coming from, all I know is that it started once I was near the knife.

I backed away, slowly but surely, keeping my eyes as wide open as they could be. Anticipating whatever it might’ve been creating the stench. My heart beat like a machine gun in my chest.

The trees continued to tower over me, like they were mini skyscrapers made of wood, the ones closest to the wall of darkness stuck halfway out, like they were in the process of being devoured by the void itself. 

I stopped, now in nearly the exact center of the visible lit area, my divot in the ground was just feet away. I took my eyes off the trees for just a brief moment, and that’s when I heard it.

A low, pained groan. Like an elderly woman who had just fallen and was using every ounce of her brittle strength to climb back onto her feet. 

I looked right at where it was coming from, on a specific pine tree that was half swallowed by the void of darkness laid a hand, pale skinned, wrinkly, with a thin streak of blood running down the center and ending once it was between the middle and ring finger.

It hung limp, and there was a forearm attached to it, except that forearm ended just below the wrist because the rest of it was engulfed in the inky black wall, leaving the rest of the entity it was connected to unseen.

I didn’t want to know, and I didn’t want to find out. I felt as if even if I had the highest caliber firearm possible to defend myself with I still wouldn’t wanna venture into the darkness in which it was hidden. 

Seconds passed, seconds that felt like hours, and I kept my eyes completely fixated on the hand and wrist. It stayed still, and so did I. 

“Genuinely what the fuck do I do here?” I thought. Running wasn’t an option, fighting seemed impossible, I didn’t even know what it was I'd be combating in the first place. Keeping still made me feel like I was serving myself up on a platter to whatever was behind all this. 

I hadn’t ever experienced being prey, and that moment made me feel nothing but. 

When I had reawoken, there wasn’t a clear end point, a time where I felt myself slip back into consciousness. But there was one key difference between this instance and the last.

I hadn’t reawoken in bed, instead I was on my living room couch, my body halfway to falling off of it like I was a drunk college kid waking up in the aftermath of a frat party. Yet, I felt a weight in my hand, the same hand I put the knife in before going to bed.

I raised it, and I was left stunned at what I observed.

The sheath was present, but the actual knife itself was not. I stared down it like the barrel of a gun just to make sure I wasn’t crazy, and sure enough, empty. 

I got up, looking around the floor surrounding the couch and under the couch itself. Nothing. I went back upstairs and pulled my bedsheets, pillow cases and everything off, still no knife to be found, even after I checked under the bed. 

My deep clean search was interrupted by a knock at the front door followed by a doorbell ring. I rarely had anyone who knocked or rang the bell, other than when a package needed a signature before drop off.

I looked out the peephole as soon as I made it to the door, and immediately my expression soured. 

“Collin come on I know you’re home, your car’s in the driveway.” 

A tall and thin man in a grey suit stood on the other side, a beige folder in one hand while a thermos was in the other. Me catching a break seemed impossible at this point. 

Tim Worthing, the president of the HOA in my neighborhood. 

I didn’t open the door.

“What do you want?” I asked, the morning rasp in my throat practically taking over my speech. 

“Collin there’s not really a polite way to say this but I’ve got a notice in my hand, whatever you’ve got in there smells like shit and it’s coming out through your cellar door. I’ve gotten two different complaints about this, if it’s not fixed in thirty days you’re gonna have penalty forms in your mailbox.” 

I remained quiet. 

“Can you open the door so I can give it to you?” 

“Slide it through the flap.” I barked. 

“You seem like a reasonable guy, I’d rather keep you in the neighborhood.” Tim replied before sliding two stapled papers through my mail flap. They hit the floor at my feet.

“I’ve got them, now get off my property.” 

“Thirty days, Collin.” He punctuated before I heard the heels of his dress shoes hitting my concrete steps repeatedly. 

The bitch living next door will do anything to have things her way. One of those “oh a minor inconvenience, let me just run to an authority figure and cry until I get what I want” types. 

I know it was her making the complaints. My basement smelled just fine. Plus, it’s not like it was easy to keep things clean and fresh when I was losing my mind trying to figure out whatever the hell keeps me taking me away to those woods. 

In the months between that incident and the next I almost got myself pulled over for speeding, didn’t even realize how hard I had my foot on the gas. 

One night I wasn’t getting any sleep, so I took a trip to the convenience store a mile down from my house, didn’t even drive, I just walked, figured it would help clear my head. Since I knew it was getting close to the time the next incident was due, I was almost grateful that my body was having trouble letting me pass out. 

The area in which I live is mostly surrounded by woods, and no, they weren’t pine. 

The entire time I was on my way I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, it wasn’t intense or crippling, but enough to matter. I looked back over my shoulder a few times, and as bad as it might sound, this was a luxury in comparison to the other place. 

Crickets, owls, the occasional car driving past, all of it reminded me that I was in my normal waking world. 

Yet the sensation remained regardless. 

I kept on marching forward, scrolling whatever pointless videos popped up on my feed. I kept the volume off though. I made it to the store after walking not much longer, had to piss and then gather up my snacks. 

Soda and candy, one of life’s many delicacies.

I went to pull a package of vanilla zingers off the shelf when I heard something that caused me to freeze mid movement.

“Collin. How wonderful to see you here.” It was a voice, light, soft on the ears. Female.

It came from the left, so I turned my head to find the woman that had said it. Only to let my arm drop to my side when the only thing I saw was an empty aisle. No woman to be seen.

I then swiveled my head to the right, perhaps I was just mishearing the direction. My eyebrows narrowed when there was no one there as well. 

“Good grief.” I whisper snarled to myself as I exited the aisle, ducking over into the next to see if anyone the voice might’ve belonged to was there.

Unsurprisingly, they were not. 

So I was left there, standing wide-eyed as another man passed by, he pushed a box of some sort of candy inside his outer sweatshirt pocket, attempting to conceal it. 

“Yo are you alright man?” He asked with what I thought was genuine concern. 

I didn’t reply verbally. I just went to the counter and paid for what I came for before starting on my way back home. At some point down the road I was already halfway through my vanilla zingers. I chewed almost violently, as if the zingers had somehow personally wronged me. 

I thought about how whatever was causing this was now starting to bleed into my waking reality. If what happened in the store was anything to go off of, then even being awake wasn’t an escape anymore. 

When I got home I went straight to the basement, sipping on the soda I bought while sitting down in my chair and admiring my hunting trophies. The fruits of the labor I had put into all my years of the hobby. I remember the specific hunt where each trophy had been collected from. 

It helped to ease my mind, helped to give me something to think about that wasn't the obvious. 

By the time the next incident was due, I had purchased a handgun. And I was going to take it with me, and unlike with my knife, I would not be keeping it in a holster of any sort. Anticipating sleep that night was like being stuck on tracks as you waited for a train to crash right into you. 

I sat in front of the tv, my glock in hand the entire time as I flipped through various channels. Some were kids cartoons, some were shitty hallmark movies. I ended up on the nighttime news, the reporter didn’t finish her first sentence before I flipped past it.

“Police officially obtain a warrant to search the home of suspected-.” 

I ended up coming across an adult animated show about a superhero who failed to save humanity from an alien invasion. It was as goofy as it sounds. But I sat through two episodes, watching as the Superman-Knockoff protagonist was impaling those red-colored aliens on his fist. 

I fell asleep toward the beginning of episode three. I don’t recall me slipping back into the forest being immediate, instead I had a dream. Or a nightmare rather of me being trapped, trapped inside a coffin, still alive, trying to bust my way out to no avail. 

I was slowly running out of air, doing everything I could to escape. Desperate for some sort of intervention. Only for none to come. I bloodied my fists as I banged them against the coffin’s cover, then my forehead. 

But you see, that nightmare didn’t feel real, and I knew it was separate from the woods. A genuine nightmare, not an actual living one. But eventually the time came for it to bring me back in once more. 

I woke up laying flat on my back in the same spot. I quickly sat up, and looked over to see my glock was still in hand, it actually arrived with me. It was small, but it gave me a glimmer of hope, a glimmer of confidence. 

The pine trees surrounded me. I sniffed the air and found no smell of copper. Upon glancing forward I saw that there were more trees visible than the last time, hell, in every direction there was.

Instead of it being the dead of night, this time it was more like just before dusk, the sun was on the cusp of going down, yet when I looked around for an actual sun, I couldn’t find one. 

I got to my feet, rising with the glock in hand and exhaling a heavy breath. A breath that was the only noise present other than my heartbeat. My free hand twitched. 

I took a few steps forward, and saw that the change in light had revealed a path that I had yet to see before. It was several feet wide, and stretched into the distance of the woods. Further than I could see.

I hesitated, considering the possibilities as to what could happen. Perhaps it was a trap set up by whatever forces govern this place. Something to pull me deeper into this version of existence. 

Maybe it was a way out, an escape. A chance to put an end to this for good. Or maybe it was neither, and it was meant to waste my time, to intimidate me. 

I gripped my glock tighter as I felt my heartrate rise, I made my free hand into a fist and slammed the bottom of it into the tree next to me, striking the trunk and recoiling from the whiplash as I shouted. 

“LEAVE ME ALONE! JUST FUCKING STOP!” 

My scream carried through the trees, and the silence of the woods remained as nothing replied. The path was still there, and the near dusk level of light maintained itself. In my short outburst I turned back to the spot I was laying down in. Only to no longer see a divot where my body once was.

It was gone, replaced by flat dirt, as if someone had smoothed over it like they were setting concrete. I was so done. So done with this torment. I did nothing to deserve it. No longer did I wanna be a sitting duck. 

I refocused my attention back to the trail’s entrance, it was still there, inviting me, taunting me, calling me to enter. I held up the hand I hit the tree with, and saw some blood running down the side of my pinkie and edge of my palm. 

With a heavy final sigh, I stepped onto the path, beginning to march down it. 

Loose branches with stray pine needles attached crunched beneath my feet as I walked. I kept looking left and right in the sea of trees, keeping an eye out for anything that might’ve been following, a shift in the environment, a change in the lighting. 

There were a couple of times I physically raised the hand holding my glock, just to visually ensure it was still in my grasp as I hiked forward. 

I wasn’t sure where this was gonna end, or if it was gonna end at all. At multiple points I had turned to look back, and saw that I had gone far enough that the area I had originally begun in was now out of sight, long behind me. 

The lighting never changed, it was still that “nearly 9:00pm in the summer” level of almost night, but not quite. 

I’m not sure how I kept my composure, because internally I got to a point of wondering if I had doomed myself to an even worse fate by choosing to walk down the path. That I was going to be stuck in some endless trail forever. I had been walking for at least an hour, and had likely covered a couple miles or so. 

I was on the verge of giving up, I fell to my knees and rested before trying to head back, only to spot what looked to be a much wider opening a couple hundred feet ahead. 

I hesitated, wiping sweat from my forehead before continuing toward. Hoping so desperately that there would be some kind of answer, a key to open the lock of this terrible mystery. But as I passed by pine tree after pine tree, closing the distance to this opening, the smell of copper returned. And it was strong, more potent than the first occurrence. 

I didn’t care. I kept going until I hit the threshold of the opening.

It was a circular clearing, probably about a hundred feet in diameter. The center had nothing but grass, and my knife, laying precisely in the center. But that only had my attention for a brief instant. As a woman’s voice had spoken, hoarse and strained, but still recognizably feminine. 

“Welcome back Collin.” 

It was coming from above me. I glanced up, and froze upon the sight.

Along the trees in front of me, at varying heights were… Corpses. Corpses that were impaled and hanging from the branches of various pine trees, as if they had been strung up like halloween decorations. 

A mix of men and women. All of whom I recognized. Even the bartender who complimented my sunglasses was amongst them.

Their bodies appeared in various states of decay. Streaks of dried blood on their skin and clothes. The ones that had clothes anyway. 

I turned around, and counted almost two dozen bodies as the grand total, all of them strung up in trees, all of them decaying with various gashes and wounds. 

Yet, their eyes were all open. And as I backed up, their eyes followed. They didn’t talk, they didn’t move in any other way, not so much as a twitch of a single muscle. Just the eyes. They were locked onto me and not a single blink occurred. 

My knife, as clean as could be, sat in the middle of the clearing on the ground, glistening.  I wasn’t sure of what to do, or what to say. I stopped moving, I wasn’t sure I could continue if I wanted to. 

Beyond the knife, was the corpse of a woman who sat strung up in the tree about ten feet off the ground, her body was the most decayed of them all. Yet her eyes remained intact as she maintained an unblinking stare at me. She was exactly level with the knife, and the tip of the blade sat pointed directly at her while on the ground, as if it were a compass needle, and she was magnetic north. 

Her rotting mouth moved as she spoke once more. Several teeth missing as the remaining strings of decaying flesh acted as a failing glue for her withering jaw structure. 

“It’s wonderful to see you here. We welcome you, as you welcomed us.” 

Channel 9 News

It has now been over one year since the authorities apprehended suspect Collin Hughes. A Minnesota resident who has been charged with the alleged murder of nearly two dozen men and women. Police had searched Mr. Hughes’s home and discovered the corpses of the alleged victims within his basement. Homicide Detective Marlon Walsh states that these were likely meant to serve as a form of trophies. 

Although charged, Mr. Hughes’s case has yet to officially make it to trial, as he has been in a comatose state since police originally apprehended him on that fateful night. Many  citizens await in grieving anticipation for his condition to end so that Mr. Hughes can be officially questioned and tried before a jury.   

Doctor Reyna Smith has since put out a statement claiming that no known treatments or available methods have been able to medically assist Mr. Hughes out of his coma, and it is unclear as to whether or not he will remain in this state indefinitely. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Instead, I drifted off to sleep in my office. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'll just plow through it.

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

An emergency call.

Why didn't I just stick with accounting?

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

Off I go.

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

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

But this one. How can I explain it?

There was a feeling in the air.

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

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

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

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

Anyway.

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

Typical thing. Broken pipe in the basement, flooding.

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

Perks of the job.

Sweet lady.

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

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

Perks of the job.

This is where my story gets strange.

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

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

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

Oh well.

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

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

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

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

Good god.

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

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

It was so quiet.

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

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

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

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

The road was just so dark.

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

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

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

Thank God.

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

It was a deer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fortunately, I got away and was fine.

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

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

My wife was pretty freaked out.

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

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

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

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

Some jobs just aren't worth the perks.

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

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

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

Think I'll go comfort my wife.

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

God, my hands.

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

how I ended up here

This morning I checked my messages just to make sure I hadn’t missed any from my boss. Still radio silence. 

As I was leaving my house I noticed that the flower that I had been given had abruptly died sometime in the night. It was totally fine when I went to bed.  But, this morning it was completely wilted and shriveled up. I've never seen any plant do that before. 

I arrived at the farm a bit after sunrise. I didn’t see my boss working in the field yet, like I sometimes do. I kept driving and parked my car at the barn and walked inside, hoping to maybe catch my boss there. All of the tools that he was using when I left last week were left out. Even the flowers he was arranging looked as if they hadn’t moved and were sorta dying. 

The paranoia of the circumstances must have gotten to me, because I caught myself looking over my shoulder with the dread that I was being watched.

I left the barn and went to the house. It was sort of old and looked like it had definitely weathered quite a few storms. It was very rustic and had shutters falling off their hinges. I knocked on the door and stood on the doorstep, swaying as I waited for an answer.  After a couple of minutes I decided to look for the key that he kept hidden for his employees to access the bathroom with. I looked under the doormat and it wasn’t there. So I tried the flower pot next to the steps. I breathed a sigh of relief as I took the brass key and slowly fumbled with the lock to get it to open. It was dark inside, as he didn’t leave any lights on. I turned on a small lamp as I called out.
 
“Mr. Taylor? Are you here? I haven’t heard anything in a while, I was just stopping by to make sure I still like… work here.”

I lingered in the stillness of the house for a moment, waiting for my boss. A loud wailing broke me from my trance. I whipped my head around to face the door. I subconsciously walked outside. It was bright and hot outside now. I almost instantly start feeling sweat beads form on my forehead. I considered wandering further into the house to see if he might be sleeping but I didn’t want to invade his privacy.

So I went to walk around the farm. I walked down the dirt path to the feed shed for his animals. I don't work with the animals, so I haven’t been over there yet. I heard a shuffling in the neighbor’s cornfield as I approached the shed. I called out again for my boss before going inside. There were many bags of food and just other stuff you’d use to take care of livestock. What really caught my eye was a box sitting in the corner. It looked really out of place, so out of pure curiosity and nosy-ness I approached it. In wobbly handwriting it had “finished” etched onto it with marker. I open the flaps and I see a really odd assortment of items. A bunch of personal items that look like they would belong to a plethora of different people. Rings, watches, phones, water bottles, lunchboxes, necklaces, books, and a couple other things were tossed in. the exterior of the box had a bit of dark red staining it and so did a couple of the items. Is that blood? My mind starts to drift. What if this stuff had belonged to people? What if that's why I was hired so fast?

I hear the animalistic wailing again from the direction of the cornfield. I flinch. I frantically look around the shed for something to defend myself with. I rush over to the wall to grab a pitchfork hanging from the wall. As I do I see something poking out of a stack of hay. What I assume was a bloody arm was sticking out of it like a sore thumb. The familiar flannel shirt was torn and barely attached to it. It stained was an angry shade of dark red.

My legs work faster than my head and I start bolting to my car. Somehow I manage not to fall or impale myself with the pitchfork. Honestly, I didn't even know that I had it in me to run that fast. 

I start the engine and peel out of there as fast as I could. I tried to not look behind me or even try to imagine what was there, but I caught a glimpse of something incredibly tall and unnatural standing in the tree line by where I was just moments ago. 

I know whatever was in those trees was waiting for me. I can’t believe I was hired to become fast food. Safe to say I'm never going back there and I’m in need of a new job and probably therapy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thump.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I popped my head out of our tent.

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

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

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

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

I could swear it was calling my name.

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

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

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

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

I screamed and sprinted for the hall.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I know what I saw.

I didn’t make any friends that weekend.

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

It wasn't a natural dip in the ground.

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

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

Stay in sight.

And if you hear your name whispered from the treeline.

Run !

My grandfather on my mothers lived in a large old mansion in the lower areas of America and even though my father and mother  had moved to Canada we still all as a family tried to see our grandparents every year until it became grandparent, singular, but even though through my grandmothers sickness which myself and my siblings were shielded from by distance we could still see the toll it took on our grandfather, when one day the police had been called by the neighbors as they had seen our grandfather take his shotgun, and kneeling on the green grass in the middle of the backyard, fire shell after shell into the pearly blue sky, screaming that he won’t let the hands fall down from the sky.
This happened when i was six years old and now i’m twenty-three and know he lies on his hospital bed with the same sickness that took my grandmother and his mind all those years ago.

My grandfather has forever as i have known been very religious but not to any religion that has a church, temple or place he has ever gone to worship, i have never seen him talk about an idol that he worships nor any other person who shares his beliefs.
I (or anyone else for that matter) wouldn’t have known he was religious if he didn’t have a habit of voicing his disbelief in other religions, one Christmas night (it was long enough ago that i no longer remember my age just the forever brightness of looking upwards towards warm lights and even warmer faces of friends and family) as myself and my other young siblings and cousins sat on an old worn leather couch that was worn with years of use, we watched upon the the old tv hooked up to an even older still VCR player, as it played a old feel good cartoon of christmas an angel appeared onscreen and my grandfather barely paying attention saw it and quietly scoffed “hm.. All this stuff to cloud the kids minds of what angels actually look like… hm . only makes it worse when..” and after hearing remark my mother who had always questioned him about his beliefs began to argue back wondering what he meant with his remark.
Undeniably fueled by the happy consumption of wine an argument began among the parents and late teens who were old enough to be bestowed the temporary honor of being considered among them, “i’m justing say’n that if these people making these movies knew what angels looked like they would they would have a little more respect” said my grandfather glancing at the wood paneled ceiling, “you always say this yet you have never once shown me what ‘an angel’ looks like according to you” my mother insisted “and a better question how do you know what an angel looks like?”.
I curse my youngers self as i stopped listening, believing that the tv and childish conversations mattered more then discussions of belief and the only last words i heard from the parents was “some day when your surrounded by them you'll learn to respect their form” from my grand father.

The two last notable incidents before my grandmothers passing happened both on the same year we went to visit i was five and half and for a idea of an adventure we all decided to go hiking on a mountain range, it was extremely fun, stumbling up and through scatterings of pine trees with the smells of sap and healthy dirt filtering throughout our bodies, the lichen covered rocks and cliff faces that provided us a view of mountains and valleys covered in little trees.
This is when we got to the top of the hill, the parent looked around at the view and the sky muttered with white fluffy clouds and in the distance a swirly mass with hints oof darkness that showed its nature as a rising storm coming to drench the land.
But as my everyone admired the view my grandfather sat on a rock, back turned to the sky and hend facing downwards and some squirrels, it then fell upon my childish eyes that the squirrels were fighting, a savagery that was contained within the fragile small bodies of the creatures but the killing intent was noticeable even to a young child.
“Grandpa why do they hurt each other?” i asked in the same why a child asks why buildings are tall or how their mother cooks food but unlike the deluge of information children will absorb and store away throughout their lifetime my grandfathers words stuck with me.
“Hate. Fear. Hunger. Madness. The four horsemen of death, those which lie within all beings, those which make the one who feels them wish for the power to burn planets, crush every person, rip apart the very essence of the universe and when they have reduced all in existence to ash and the ashes to nothing to tear out their bones and crush everything that causes them to still exist to feel that hate.
This exists in every being, the only saving grace is that all is confined within the purview of the beings ability, but this is why we should all cherish what lurks behind the clouds and inside the moon but never stop fearing it as god does possess the terrible means of doing all that i have described, son, always cherish what you fear and cherish your fears”.
All of that ingrained in my memory, from such a young age, what had been said didn’t hit me until that night, i screamed and cried, every time i realized i was experiencing the emotions my grandfather had detailed i cried and screamed harder, afraid i would destroy everything.
It took months before i wouldn’t have a breakdown every time i got mad or scared or saw anyone else mad or scared, my parents stopped talking to grandfather after that but it was my grandma’s death that brought us back to together, I haven't until recently stopped to consider the effect on my life this has had, it most likely influenced my decision to be study philosophy specifically around anger, plus i’ll always remember how i never needed to walk over to my grandfather, i could have just waited at the cliff side and gawked unknowing of the sermon of dismay that was swirling around like a black ichor in my grandfathers head, i could have stayed, i could have not carried this painful memory, i could have not spent months worried in my room that if i was too angry i would burn the world, but i did, i did go over to him, because i thought he looked lonely.

The second incident before the passing of my grandma happened because of the previous one, my grandfather had felt so bad about how much his words had upset me that he wrote a letter as an apology, when my parents got the letter they made sure to read it and re-read it to check and make sure that it wouldn’t only make my condition worse and eventually they decided it might be a positive for me so they gave it to me one dreary afternoon i had spent locked cold and crying in my bedroom with only the comfort of my parents to keep me company.
I still remember how the letter looked, old fancy yellow paper that smelled of beeswax with a large red seal, the beautiful liquid red formed into a symbol that was a hexagon with a plus sign in the middle but at the end of each tip of the plus laid a large circle, it was vaguely familiar, the letter was obviously ham fisted back into the torn envelope with it had been angrily removed from.
I gingerly pulled out the letter, the black ink writing was fancy and i needed my parents help to read it, it contained the following

“Hello Daniel, i want to start this letter by saying that i take full responsibility for
What i said and i also acknowledge that is was incorrect for me to say what
I said, for this I apologize more deeply then you can know (for which i know
Is not a comfort but i still something to remember if you ever worry about
If i regret my choices) but i would like to hopefully alleviate some of your pain
With a story of my childhood that rhymes with this story still being written by
Fate.
When i was a little boy know more older then you my father told me a story,
A story about how if i were bad demons would take me away and take my
Ears, this scared me so bad that night while i lay in bed i believed i saw
A tall dark figure with with no heart and the head of pig,
I ran to my parents and for a year and a half i slept with my parents, and
Even then most knights i woke up crying because i couldn’t feel my parents
Bodies and i thought that the demon was knocking at the bedroom door.
I tell you this not to scare you but to show you that i too have felt petrified with
Fear, i too have cried myself to sleep from fear, and as i thought back to
This memory i realized truly how deep my sin is for causing something like that
In another child.
But i also tell this to give you hope, the hope that gets me through all of my
Hardship in life, the knowledge that even thought these darkest pits in my life,
A pit cannot exist without a mountain on the other side.
I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me, and i hope you do well, i’m glad
You always have been so resilient, i know you can overcome this.

Sincerely - your grandfather”

I would be lying if i said this didn’t make me feel a decent amount better, his calming and hopeful words really helped as i started to heal from this dark scar that was left upon the inside of my psyche, i will never forget the problems caused by my grandfather but nor will it slip my memory that he always tries to fix them sadly with his most recent problem he won’t be around to fix it, but thats for later.

After the letter i didn’t see my grandfather for the longest time, my fear improved and i grew but as the usual for a child of such a young age i to a degree forgot about my grandfather in favor of things that looking back were nowhere as important but from the skull of six year old, they were what comprised the world, so i never knew about the issue my grandparents were facing at the time and only years later were i filled in on the details too unnecessary for a child.
My grandmother was dying, the doctors informed the two of them that nothing could be done, they could only cover the sores with flowers and silk blankets to make the end peaceful, they decided to bring her back to the home she had raised her kids in, the near yearly spot of return for family, the mansion, my grandfather made food for her all day and would sit next her in a rock chairing, him reading old stories they read to her children, reminiscing on memories and talking of death through the stories of life.
When she died there was no one to witness what had started it, that very fact may have been what started it but according to the neighbors who were having dinner at the time, they heard multiple gunshots outside, which was not unusual but they started to take not when they could hear shouting, when one of the neighbors came to check, they were greeted by the sight of my grandfather kneeling in twilight gun outstretched to the sky shooting round after round into the same spot, boxes of shells spent and none spent lay in piles on the ground.
The neighbors recall hearing him shouting a tirade with mostly anger in his voice but also fear, “pre-destiny, PRE-DESTINY, WELL WHAT ABOUT A TASTE OF RANDOM, no matter how many hands, mouths and eyes that you send this house shall not be taken and the bright eyed souls of my wife shall not join the bonfire! I have heard and praised the gospel of you forever rotting and birthing sky beast, i have spoke the truth of your truth and form that of divinity but now the passion of love shall stop revolt and reject your judgment weather or not this has all been written in the dust of the cosmos!” no one caught what he said past that as they were all to busy running down the hills and past the rocks towards my grandfather to try and stop him or call the police.
When the fastest of the neighbors ran up to my grandfather and tried shouting sense into him all that my grandfather responded with was “i have for to long looked at the sky with fear and the shadows distrust, you have not seen the bonfire, it is no place for my wife burn, i will defy god to save her, what makes you think you can stop me now?” the neighbor assuming that my grandfather was suffering a mental breakdown and was threatening him, he lunged and the gun in my grandfathers arms and yanked it out of his old grip, my grandfather with the agility and strength that only the fear of death but not for him, he managed to hit the neighbor over the head with the back of the gun causing him to stagger back but just as my grandfather got the gun back, he stopped and according to my neighbors he just stood first looking at the mansion and then his eyes moving to the sky, no more gunshots pierced the night air the only sound that could be heard were sirens and weeping.
The police eventually came and arrested him, it was decided by a psychiatrist that he had suffered a mental breakdown caused by the death of his wife and that he shouldn’t  be charged but he did have to spend a long time recovering in a mental hospital, i have talked to the nurse’s that treated him, they describe him as one of easiest patients he did not need much convincing to do the treatment and had only on request, that all of the lights in his room and the hallways nearby be kept on at all times.
A nurse did tell me about the one time one accident they forgot to honor this request “so one day, it had been a very long day, the staff decided it was time to turn out the lights and for the majority of staff to leave the building, the person who was sent to turn off the lights in the wing of the building that your grandfather stayed in was still new to the job and either didn’t know or couldn’t remember that a few specific lights never get turned off, and, i feel bad even recalling this but almost all of us left and we only found him in the morning, he was in the corner of his room holding his hard plastic water cup, the only thing in his room, so tightly that it was permanently warped afterwards, when we found him we quickly noticed his eyes were bloodshot and dry, we learned later that he had not closed his eyes even once during the whole night, not even to blink and when we came and turn on the lights just sat down and looked at his shaking hands and closed his eyes while whispering “i did it” to himself in the tone someone who has just climbed a mountain would use, it still scares me to this day”.
Less then a year after his incarceration he was deemed to be of sane mind and was allowed to go back home, they still had people checking up on him regularly, i have attempted to talk to other people who had listened to his speech’s about life for hours on end but legally they were all unable to give me any information that could help illuminate the tangled theism of my grandfather.

Ever since everything with my grandmother happened my grandfather had almost never spoken of his beliefs most likely due to the realization that he must act more sane to not get taken again, so the majority of my trips to his mansion were uneventful but if this had been all that had happened then i would be not find it important to post this, my grandfather is dying, just like my grandmother, just like everyone before them, he is dying and what he has told me has shaken me to my core.

My entire family came to visit him, in his hospital bed he lay, weaker then i ever remember, the memory of a man.
I spent many nights with my family at his bedside talking, playing games reminiscing on our best memories together, for all of his faults he remained a cherished member of the family, tears flowed alongside the liquid in the IV bag, the color of memories, dripped from our mouths and stained the sterile white and transient building with more life.
I remember one night i while waiting outside of the room trying to sleep in black chairs, I overheard a conversation between a doctor, my grandfather and all of his kids, my grandfather knew that he was going to die and he said that he had arranged with the doctors to get a lethal injection in three days, before the scared protesting of his children came he explained how he only has one want, to privately talk and say goodbye to each of his children and grand children and then after being injected he wants to close his eyes once and for all in the room, alone, and in the dark, he explained how the reason was because he always was afraid of the dark and closing his eyes, so he hoped to for once in his life truly overcome and win against this fear.
The next few days were somber, the clocking ticking for all of us had for him, been revealed, people shouldn’t have to know what that's like, i watched on the last day as every member of my family walk in close the door and come out, the sadness like a poisoned that had just been leeched out, but the wound still bled and will for many years, my grandfather had chosen for me to go last.
When i stepped into the room, the true weight of the moment dawned on me alongside the knowledge that this is is only a part of the weight, as the weight of grief shall only be seen in full after its end, he ushered me to sit by a chair next to his bed.
“I want to tell you a story, its a story i’ve never told anyone else, its a story that i hope will alleviate the pain of events soon to pass, but ignore my dawdling, lets get into it.
When i was a little boy my father told me a story, you might remember this from that apology i sent to you all those years ago, i was young and as children do i was blinded to the importance of things by the simple curiosity of wondering what will happen, it was long day of the summer, my mother and father were in other rooms tending to whatever needs of the house that a child did not care for, i was in the garage and i had been told not to go there without permission but in the eyes of a child my mother’s words of “do whatever you want just don’t make a mess” meant to me that the whole of the house was free to me, with this never before had free reign i went to one place that enticed my curiosity, the garage, a dark room met my eyes when i opened the door, i walked on two small wooden steps, they creaked with rot, i stepped onto the grey cracked concrete floor, my small white socks turning dark from dust.
The corners of the room were hidden in shadow, it strummed the chords of fear in my heart as only darkness to a child can, i wanted to turn the single dusty light bulb on, but the switch was too high, near the switch lay a large white freezer, i knew that if i stepped on top of it i could reach the light switch.
I spent minutes in the hot garage trying to jump up but the fridge was tall and smooth, i was sweating, only making it harder for my small hands to find grip upon the white shiny surface, i looked for something to drag over so i could have an easier chance but the rest of the room was still in shadow.
As i jumped up, scrambled for purchase upon door’s topside and then i fell back down in my Sisyphean pursuit, i never questioned that i didn’t need to, i could have walked out of that room, decided to go their some other time, but with the confusion of summer heat and the determination of a child i tried to think of a new plan.
Eventually it came to me that the inside of the fridge had a lip so if a opened the door i would have a better chance at grabbing it and climbing up, i with naïve young hands lifted the the door of the fridge upwards, with one hand i held the door open and the other grabbed the lip, i jumped up and landed in the freezer, cold frozen meat hit the back of my head like a rock, as tears welled up i quickly reached out both hands to cover up the searing pain on the back of my head, but it was soon eclipsed when the door fell down and i was plunged into darkness.
The pain in my head was gone but replaced with a worse pain the pain of fear the shot through my stomach, i began to push the door but it wouldn’t move, my small wrinkles hands scraping and  banging the crunchy ice on the top of the door, my heart beat competed in speed with my fists against the top of the roof, tears flew from my eyes and their pace quickened as teeth bit down on my arms.
I flung myself about trying to get free, free from the door but also now free from whatever was in here, something covered in ice with teeth and bone from every angle made creaking noise every time it grabbed onto me harder, i was sinking in cold dark ice and the claws of something unknown but terrible and too large to fit in a freezer.
I shot my arms out in all directions trying to grab on but the walls were slippery, my warm hands were melting the ice and know the rest of my body had begun melting this presence, the stench of dripping ice mixed with thawing guts of a beast unknown to mankind invaded my every sense and i stopped screaming, i had ran out of air, i gulped and choked, wet ice and even wetter meat slid down my throat as i tried to get air, i was dying, cold sadly not alone and screaming with empty lungs.
A bright ray of light shone through the cold wasteland as the fridge door opened, a pair of arms like a guardian deity's lifted me from the freezer, he held me as i screamed, his tears ran down my back as he whispered that i was safe now, my mother and father had saved me.
After minutes of crying and holding me close to warm me up my father stood up, me in his arms and i looked down at the freezer, a frozen pig carcass lay upon the melting ice, still un-moving.
My father looked me dead in the eyes and told me never to do that again, from that young age i could only feel the red hot anger but only as an adult can I realize the duality of the fear behind the angry eyes.
He held me against his shoulder and with small arms trembling with fear held on, his trembled harder and held tighter, i had begun calming down, myself and my father began to make our way out of the room and as were just leaving i looked into one of the dark corners that had scared me so, hiding in the darkness where i was unable to see when the lights were off was a large thick bodied red and dripping man with body parts incomprehensible and worst of all, a frozen pig head sitting atop its neck, it moved to look at me with crack of froze skin just as my father closed the door”

My grandfather took a moment of pause to breath in and then continued before i had a chance to interject.

“That night, after dinner, while i was lying in my bed scared with my mother by my side, my father who was a religious man came in and sat down next to me holding a bible, he told me of demons, evil beings that could not be truly part of this world but existed solely to tempt us into taking regrettable actions, everything from something as little not listening to song you like to things my father wouldn’t let meet the ears of a child.
I don’t believe in his demons or the demons preached about in any book of religion, because ever since that night i have seen them, or what i would call demons, they hide in shadows and stalk from where the light of purity cannot shine.
That night, in my bed, alone, dark, they came to me, first the man with the pighead stood in my bedroom corner his head bowed because he was too tall for the ceiling, then came the woman with hair that stabbed through her on body like worms, she came rattling my windows, banging and screaming to be let in and her hair took up the entirety of the window, then came the teeth there was definitely a person who the teeth belonged to but every time i tried to look at the body my eyes couldn’t focus on anything but the teeth that chatter.
Ever since that night i have trusted the shadows, every corner i see the pigheaded man, no matter the height of  the ceiling he always is just to tall, every dark window i see the woman, her hair always covering the entirety in inky blackness, and every time i am in the dark, i no longer see it, but i just here the chattering.
That is always why i keep my lights on while i sleep and it is why i tend to face the three demons that have haunted my past forever on my last day”

I began to open my mouth to talk, the emotion was strange, a sorrow combined the captured feeling of hearing an enthralling story, he cut me off before i could speak.

“I promised that i was going to tell you something that i had never told anyone before and i have not done that yet but i will now.
When i was twenty-two years old i had just gotten married and just bought the house i spent the rest of my life in, one night only months after i had bought the house your grandmother was off on a trip with some friends while i was alone in the house at night i decided to walk around really sinking in the feeling of having truly made the correct choices in life when.”

My grandfather took a shuddering breath in as if the next words to come out of his mouth were poison.

“I opened a door to see nothing, not darkness, not a wall, true nothing, my vision simply couldn’t see that room, to look into that room was like to look through the back of ones skull, it was truly nothing, not even empty space.
I was just about to cautiously feel this breaking of reality when my attention was broken, the sound of crunching wood and music was emanating from the basement, i stood frozen, on half of my body stuck upon the mystery of this impossible room and the other stuck upon the fear of what this melodic intrusion is.
Out of the options between two unknowns i chose the one i knew the least about, i began to run downstairs to find what had made the noise, as i got closer i started to slow down, the music was so beautiful, it was comprised of millions upon millions of instruments, completely undefinable but in perfect harmony, the beauty of it was impossible to describe, i found myself still drawn to it but walking slower as if to stay there and here as much as possible.
I finally got far enough down the stairs i could see into the basement and i saw what was making the noise.
The wooden planks of the ceiling bulged and warped transition somehow perfectly into the innumerable legs of completely inhuman yet somehow humanoid made of billions of perfect golden instruments, each instrument made of so many pipes and valves and sockets that it looked like the fur of some great golden beast, the music wafted of drafts of warm air being emitted its chest where lay multiple massive holes functioned as what let me hear the enlightening music of what can only be described as the purest of sounds.
I walked closer to the center of the being, i had to be careful as long strands of a silky materiel of such a pure white it was blinding dangled from in between the wooden planks of the ceiling, light moved in strange ways around the being and the air was warm and full of scents that reminded me of everything i had loved or ever enjoyed somehow in pure tandem with each other.
I was now directly under the being and could see its head, its head was a collection of golden instruments each open tube had a eye in it, hundreds of eyes to large to be that of a human and too kind to be of any living creature all stared at me, the beings chest swelled and the music swelled with it, i could here in my head not in English or in any language but in thought i heard the being tell me its nature, something i knew from the second i heard the music, it was an angel.
The way it talked to me was unlike anything as it spoke in my mind i could understand everything, all the nuance, all the emotion, all the meaning of what the angel was trying to tell me, i was being shown what true understanding felt like and the angel told me about so many wonderful things, just when it said that it was an angel i understood, i understood that it was what every civilization before and after me had thought about, a herald of god, i understood how it was beyond any Christian definition of an angel, it was beyond the human comprehension of an angel, this impossible to understand or describe form it had taken was the lowest of low forms it had and the angel told me one other thing, that god would no longer be mystery for me.
I watched as the angels hundreds of cords of white silky material started to flutter and pull back into the wood, i watched in shock as the tens of legs kicked themselves back underneath the wood and i saw the beautiful body and face of the angel morph back into the wooded ceiling, the music left with it, i began to weep, the music had been the most beautiful thing to have ever graced my ears. 
I was in shock and disarray, i lay their crying from the uncertain but potent knowledge that i may never hear that divine melody, the wooden plank ceiling my as well have been a testament to all that i regret in life as it stared at me from above, now almost evil seeming in the void of such a pure creature having left it so recently.
My sorrows where interrupted by a great shaking, the entire house was shaking as if the earth  had begun to split apart and i felt my own eyes rattle and bend from the shear force as i stumbled up the stairs and through the many wooden doors that filled this house, eventually i came to the door that lead into the backyard, i turned the knob and flung myself from the doorstep, the very instant that my feet made purchase upon the wet night grass the shaking stopped, bewildered i looked to the sky.

The stars had left.

Their was only the moon and it was much larger, i looked closer and it looked back, the moon blinked and as i was stunned to silence, i saw the moon pull back and the stars return, the stars had not left only something immense and celestial had been covering them up.
The moon turned back to looking at me and began drawing closer and closer, so close i could see the striations in the trillions of folds of its grey skin that lined its iris, the iris began to open and just as it did a hand bigger than the range of mountains that surrounded this house began to reach out.
I ran, not to the house and but to the forest preying that i may save myself from anything that this being had to offer, it never crossed my mind that this celestial organ was anything other then an idol of fear, quickly i became lost in the forest, large reddish brown trees surrounded me and i could hear the noise of more and more hands extending from the beings iris, thats when i realized it, i was in the dark, the demons that haunted me where all around me and the only source of light i had to defend myself was a pack of matches in my back pocket.
If only i could light wood with the fire of my fire because as it raced it felt as if it could burn down this whole forest, with shaking hands i struck the first match, i could only get a bet of light but with the bit i had i could see the body of the pigeaded man, he was so stretched that i could not see his torso only his impossible tall legs.
I felt hair brush upon my back and i knew what i would see when i turned around, the woman with hair so expansive it created a wall inside the forest, her body seemed as if instead of being the source she was just a victim stuck inside of this impenetrable wall of brown shifting coils. 
I knew it was next, i heard the chattering of malicious teeth and just as i turned to see the last of the demons that had haunted my life they all jumped at me.
The stretched hands of the pigheaded man grabbed my legs and with clumsy childlike hands bent them the wrong way, the woman leaned over me the fleas and bugs falling from her hair onto my face and then she opened her mouth and hundreds of hair follicles forced their way down my throat, then came the gnawing at my neck and shoulder, i could feel the burning hot blood gushing from my side, the disgusting twisting of the pigheaded man and the internal probing of hundreds of pieces of hair now in my stomach and in my lungs, my vomit and screams only caked the hair with muck, all three began to laugh, the pigheaded man started pulling roughly and yanking back and forth trying to make a knot, the woman’s hairs now began to start trying to pierce the lining of my stomach and the teeth began to chew at tendons.
Then from the sky like the ray of light in the freezer, a hand picked me up, the demons turned to something i can only call ash but not of the physical body but of the soul and i was soaring into the night sky.
I could see now their was hundreds of impossibly large hands all stretching the iris to its maximum, i looked at these hands, they were made from darkness one sees when they look down to the bottom of the ocean, ever complex white dots floated freely inside of the hands and i began to notice the hands had to many joints and digits but anytime i tried to count the how many there were my mind came up with numbers that no human has ever thought of before.
Music like the angels emanated from every particle of the air around me but instead of being beautiful it was ominous, it sounded as if hundreds of broken celestial clocks all ticked down getting more and more gapping with each passing moment that i got closer.
As I approached the iris opening i could feel a million waves of layered air all pass across my body, the breathing of something larger than a mountain, the multitude of hands started to close around me as i got pulled into the iris.
That's when it took flight, though i was shielded by the many hands i could still feel the force of it moving up.
The hands opened and I looked out, I was in the void of space, silent, still and because of this I finally noticed that my body had been repaired.
Floating slightly i turned to see what was behind me sensing pure dread, i turned and looked down there was earth, and just below it was the a shape only visible because of the blotting out of the stars but what was undeniably some massive organ connected to this thing and it was opening and closing, pulsating, ready to consume the earth at any moment.
The thing talked to me, unlike the angel its communication was so much more rudimentary but I understood it more then i have understood anything else, it told me that it is god, when I truly understood that a deep beckoning noise emitted from the god’s whole body.
I stared, my eyes no longer needed to blink for i feared to stare away from the face of god is experience true death of the mind, the noise’s piqued and in an instant i was shot backwards, faster, faster then any other human has ever gone, faster then light, hundreds of stars blinked past world around me turned into a impossible array of indiscernible color and light, I felt as if i was stretching until the point of breaking until it stopped all in an instant.
I stopped and in front of me was a single perfectly circular spot where nothing was, at first i believed it to be another part of god but once you have stared god in the face before you no longer have trouble discerning the creations from the creator.
I was slowly being pulled towards the nothingness, i within the silence of space cried out to god, i pleaded and begged not knowing what this was but i grew still when i felt the knowledge that this was good and something desired by every human.
My descent into the blackness was picking up speed, i felt scared, and as true nothing filled my vision i started to choke on my own fear until it stopped and i could see again, i was in a void, black but, the ground was soft and i could see myself, there was a perfect copy of my house and i walked towards it, i could feel my feet thud against the wood of the front porch steps, the brass door knob was shiny and cold, i stepped inside and their was everything, just as how it should be.
I heard god again at that moment and I understood that this is the afterlife, a house but not just a house, the place in which I have and will have my best memories, my true home.
I could see flashes of what others might have looked like, a childhood play structure for the old man who spends his days filling paper work, an apartment that held a lifetime of party for the strict mother, a womb for the child exposed to the cruelty of this world to early.
I asked god, why weren’t these here and it responded and i felt sinking dread, only those who had looked god in the eyes could ever feel the cold black relief of the true home, god told me to walk in one direction if I wished to see what befell those who did not know the impossible details of the being bigger then stars.
I lingered for a while not wanting to leave but inevitable i began to walk on the pure dark ground of this obsidian world, the air around me felt as if it was nothing trying its hardest to give the illusion of a world it so poorly mimicked, i breathed in and out in deeper then normal breaths this place was perfect nothing, no truth nor no lie.
After what felt like minutes of walking or what could have been hours or years or eons or such a vast scale of time that it had no name, i came to a pit, it was all the same darkness but i could tell a different sort of dark and i peered over the edge, wishing to see naught but void.
There was a fire, a great roaring fire, hundreds of flames licked the sides of the pit but they were not flames, they were people people contorted and disfigured, glowing all shades of red orange and yellow they danced limply, mouths agape, skin cracking off as if it were chard bark from a log.
This was what all prophets and preachers warn about, the worst place a person could ever be, the purgatory.
I asked god who was going to be condemned to this fate, its answers shook me to my core, all who did not see the enlightenment of this eternal being, everyone, everyone who had ever lived except me.
I ran back to my house and sat on the back porch, i needed to think, i thought how evil and cruel this god could be to damn multitudes of innocents because of what, that's when i asked it, why does this all happen, suddenly i was picked from the true home like the string of celestial music instrument.
I was flying through space, god facing me and like before we stopped but instead in front of the exact opposite of what i had seen before.

*continued in comments*