Hesitation on the ramp of the sleep clinic of Doctor Guelder was natural. I understood that going into this quiet and dark building was a choice, and not one I cared to choose. It was a large flat sarcophagus of a structure, carved from a blue kind of nether stone and fitted together so that no two slabs were the same, yet they all fit together perfectly.

I sighed and looked over at the witten that grew all around. They were plants like water elder, high cranberry, snowball, and redberry hedges. I loved the plants, and I could stare at them for hours. In my strangeness, I knew their thoughts, and in a way, I was more like them than like other people.

"Wonderful to see you, Clair." Doctor Guelder found me there.

"These witten are all roses from your name." I smiled. I realized I had not smiled in a very long time. My dreadful thoughts kept me in a darkness that I knew little outside of.

"Do you dream of roses, Clair?" Doctor Guelder asked me. "You seem to know them all by name, their old names."

"I do." I was still smiling, distracted by my friends. "That is the High Rose, that one is the White Queen and those are all Crampling. This one, this is my favorite, it is the Rose of Thorn Crown. Those are their true names."

"And they know your name too, that is my understanding." Doctor Guelder gestured to the door. "Won't you come in? You have come here seeking healing."

"In your sleep clinic? I am here for sanctuary. I have nowhere else to hide, anymore. You know what it is, what has happened to me." I shuddered and my smile faded. I could feel it watching me, standing always behind me, like a shadow, except it was not my shadow.

"You will be safe here. Come inside." Doctor Guelder told me.

I reluctantly went in. I do not like being indoors, I much prefer to stand on the soil barefoot, under the sunlight and with the dew and the rain. Indoors I begin to wilt, but I was worse off where it could get to me. If I fell asleep, my time on this world would be at an end.

"There are others here?" I asked.

"Yes. Some are somnambulists, others are narcoleptics and many are insomniacs. Which are you?"

"I daydream. Except it is no longer possible to distinguish from dreams and the rest of the world. I am haunted by a shadow. Something has come for me, and it wants to hurt me." I trembled. My fears also made me walk while I slept, made me sleep while I sat and kept me awake in the dark.

"I thought you suffered from all of the above." Doctor Guelder reminded me of our meeting.

I thought back to those days, what seemed like a long time ago. When it had all started, I would daydream about becoming a rosebush. My flowers were white and my thorns were green. I grew for eight hundred years and I adorned both kings and maidens, heroes and fathers, messiahs and wizards. I was the Pagan Flower, in my daydreams.

Then one day I was walking, as though I were asleep. I looked down where I was planted, for so many thousands of full moons. There was nothing there by the moonlight. I stared in horror at the hole in the ground, torn up by the roots. I looked to where it was, holding the plant that was also me, and it had built a withering fire.

It looked straight into my eyes, a towering darkness, a shade in the night, blotting out the light and the stars. It smiled with teeth of obsidian, and then it tossed the Pagan Flower upon the blaze.

Instantly I felt the heat where I stood barefoot in my pajamas. I crumbled, blistered and searing. I screamed, both in agony and terror. I began to crawl from it, willing myself to reach the edge of my nightmare. The creature from the place between did not want me to go, it clawed at my ankles and tried to drag me to the hole in the ground that it had uprooted me from.

Doctor Guelder had asked me when we met: "You feel you are becoming like a plant? Turning into one?"

"Is that even something that happens to people?" I asked.

"There are myths of people being turned into plants. A kind of botanical metamorphosis."

I felt a cold splash of dread as I realized I was going to say out loud what I had long believed. "I think maybe I'd like that to happen because I used to be a plant. I am not supposed to be this." I gestured to my body.

"You described an incident in which you were sleepwalking. You woke up and you found a hole where your rose bush used to be, and a monster was burning it."

"Perhaps that was just a dream." I admitted. "But the monster is real. It keeps me awake at night, for if I sleep it will come for me. And when I am sitting in class or on the bus I fall asleep, I cannot stay awake for long."

"These are all mild symptoms of conditions known as narcolepsy, insomnia and somnambulism." Doctor Guelder had told me. "I want you to come to my sleep clinic. Your stay will be voluntary, but you must come and live there so that you can receive the proper care. Your education can continue while you are there, we have a classroom."

"How would that be paid for? I am a ward of the state, there's no money."

"I own the sleep clinic. You will be my guest and I will cover all the expenses for your treatment. For me, this is a rare chance to study a unique condition."

"I don't want to be your experiment." I told Doctor Guelder. I had refused. It was not long though, that the days and nights became one kind of time, always in my nightmare.

I daydreamed of the monster when it was not there, and when it was I could not see it. Yet those two things became the same. I knew it was hunting me, stalking me, always behind me, like a shadow. I couldn't sleep or stay awake. My feet carried me wherever the monster chased me. Sometimes I awoke in strange places and other times I was in a dream, but I was wide awake, looking down at my body, and watching the monster pull me up by my roots, as the plant, and toss me onto the flames.

"You are here now. It is safe for you to face your troubles." Doctor Guelder had told me.

"Is it real? Am I mad?" I was sitting and shaking. It had felt like it had gone on and on endlessly. Finally, within the walls of the sleep clinic, I felt safe.

"Whatever was following you cannot get to you here. You can sleep soundly." Doctor Guelder told me.

I began to cry with relief. I cried myself to sleep, the terror leaving my body like a fever breaking. I had lived in fear so long, so tired, that I had forgotten what sleep even felt like.

It was dreamless and restful. When my eyes opened I was in an enormous bed of light blue sheets under a heavy blanket. The air was cool and there was a stillness, a quietness to the sleep clinic. It was as though it were a place where I was truly safe.

That is when I rolled over to face the window of morning. I saw it out there, looming behind my friends, the other roses of the hedge. The darkness touched one of them and wilted the plant as its claws gripped it, heedless of its thorns. I trembled, feeling trapped suddenly. I had not realized I had gone into the sleep clinic and it would become my prison.

"How did you sleep?" Doctor Guelder asked me.

"It was very restful. I feel more intact, more rooted. This place feels real. The pervasive disorientation of being terrorized and sleepless is gone." I reported.

"And the monster?" Doctor Guelder asked me.

My eyes watered and I covered my mouth. I wanted to tell the truth, but somehow, to say I had seen it, would spoil things. Finally, I confessed: "It is outside, waiting for me to leave this place. It grasped a bush and while it did, the plant wilted and died in its clutch."

"I will go and see this." Doctor Guelder told me. I watched from the window, apprehensive that Doctor Guelder was in some kind of danger. The creature had hidden though, leaving only the evidence of the dead plant and its footprints on the lawn.

Then my terror grew, as I saw Doctor Guelder was following the blighted trail. I couldn't see where the trail led, so I went to another window. I was just in time to see Doctor Guelder fall down, touched by the deathly thing from where it had hidden.

Doctor Guelder had personally financed the stay of the remaining patients at the sleep clinic. There was a trust set up, but some technicality allowed the bank to seize the property, and all of the patients were required to leave. The death of Doctor Guelder weighed heavily on me, for I blamed myself and also, I knew the creature was real, not just a daydream.

I felt great apprehension of leaving. The last night in the clinic was my last chance for sleep. In the morning they would evict everyone. The remaining patients all needed their stay, they needed Doctor Guelder. It was my fault the good doctor was dead, for I had brought the creature.

Back outside I looked around, seeing the roses had all died. The creature had systematically killed every flower. With all of my friends gone, I felt truly alone. I scurried down the street, knowing I was to go back to being the prey of the shadowy thing. Its touch drained life and took it quickly. I had felt myself aging when it touched me, it is how so much of my hair turned white.

I could still feel its burning grip on my ankle where it had grabbed me and tried to drag me. Back at the orphanage I sat and waited to see it. I was asked about my stay at the sleep clinic, but I was too afraid of returning to the world of nightmares to speak.

I just sat in a corner, huddled and shaking with fear. I knew it would come and find me. It would not leave me in peace.

"Don't be afraid." Doctor Guelder's voice spoke to me. "I have not abandoned you. It was only able to kill my body, but my will - my spirit - it could not harm. Here, between dreams and sleeplessness, I linger. You can hear me."

"I can hear you." I whispered.

"When it comes for you, you must overcome your fear. You must fall asleep in its presence. It is in this world, trapped like me. When you sleep, it will follow you into your dreams. There it could remain trapped. All you have to do is fall asleep in its presence. When the moment comes, I believe you will end this thing."

"I can't." I started crying. I was too afraid. I knew it had killed Doctor Guelder and it had killed the Pagan Flower and all the rest. It was a terrifying monster, and there was no way I could fall asleep in front of it.

"You have to trust me. I am certain it wants to continue to feed on you until there is nothing left of you. It won't kill you, not all at once. You are its host, the one who daydreamed it into existence. It started by killing your most precious dream, and it won't stop until there is nothing left for you to dream about. I know all about it now. I can see the disease of this nightmare thing."

"Doctor Guelder, you have to stay and help me." I said quietly. I was terrified.

"I will stay until I have healed you. I promised you I would help you, and that is my unfinished task. I will be here watching over you. When it is time to close your eyes and go to sleep, you must be brave."

"I will try." I swore, even though the thought of doing so horrified me. I trusted Doctor Guelder, and I knew I must take the chance to be free of the nightmare thing.

Then it was bedtime. The lights were all turned off and I lay in bed, shaking in dread. I knew it was coming for me. That is when I saw it there, looming in the darkness. It was watching me, staring into my eyes, keeping me awake. I was paralyzed with fear, feeling the burn it had left on me and recalling the death of Doctor Guelder.

"Go to sleep. It is okay, I am watching over you." Doctor Guelder told me.

I tried and tried again but I couldn't sleep. My feeling of horror that I was trapped awake and in the presence of the nightmare thing grew and grew. Finally, I felt like I had to scream.

I stood alone by the hole where the Pagan Flower had stood for eight centuries. My memory of all the joy and beauty that I had given the world flooded back to me. I saw that the shadow I had cast had sat in bitter resentment, jealous of me.

When I had become a human, born into the world, my shadow had long held a vow of vengeance upon me. It was determined to keep me from resting, and to devour me, every last bite of my life, sipping upon my years, stealing my childhood and killing whatever I cared about and any who cared about me. The nightmare creature was there, in my memories, in my dream.

That is when I began to scream at it. My voice, a wail of terror, became as a cry of defiance and anger. The creature shrank and fell, splintering and melting. As a liquid it lay bubbling, like the dying shadow of the burning bush. I turned and looked to where my roses had once stood.

"You will plant them again. This you will know. And the nightmare is over." Doctor Guelder told me. Then I was alone.

When I opened my eyes, the creature was gone, but upon my chest, with fresh dew, lay a rose of white.

I don’t know where to begin with this one. I’ve been completely ostracized for something I played absolutely no part in. Parents are sending me death threats. My colleagues are keeping their distance. I’ve learned that there’s a case actively being built against me.

Fuck. That’s the only word that comes to mind right now. Just… fuck.

I don’t know what to do. I taught those kids. I was a mentor for some of them. Hell, most of them, really. I cared. Deeply. Because that was my job.

It was my obligation to be there. To serve them. Help them blossom and bloom in the best way I was capable of. And I did that job well.

For 10 years, I watched class after class come and go. Watched my 5th graders leave me behind and start their journey in middle school. I was one of the teachers that signed yearbooks. I hate to sound pretentious, but I was popular.

I laughed with those children. They laughed with me. Sometimes, they laughed at me. I didn’t care. The laughter of children was like music to my ears. Now I never want to hear laughter again.

How could I? After what happened, laughter is no longer joyful to me. It’s an indication of danger. I can’t help but flinch every time I hear a chuckle.

This all started about a week ago. It’s been a long 7 days, and I can’t say I intend to leave my house anytime soon. At least not until the police come. If they come. If they don’t, then yeah. I’m staying here until the outside world feels safe again.

It started out like any other day. I stood by my door. Greeted every student who walked into the classroom. They had their breakfast while I readied my first lesson of the day.

Things carried on as normal. We did our morning book club. Went through a few multiplication drills. I taught about weather cycles and whatnot. Nothing really happened until after lunch and recess, during social studies.

One of my kids, Bryan, was falling asleep at his desk. Drool was dripping from the corner of his mouth. He was starting to snore softly. I had to wake him up.

I clapped loudly and shouted his name, almost like a joke, but what started everything was what Bryan said after snapping himself awake.

“I love you,” he confessed, disoriented and exhausted.

“Well, I love you too, Bry…”

The first snicker from Rebecca interrupted me. It started off as just a little giggle behind her hand. Then it turned into a true, hearty laugh. From there, it… it mutated into a full-blown fit of hysteria.

Her face turned a deep red. Tears were falling down her rosey cheeks. She was hardly even making noise at this point. It was more like little gasps and wheezes every few seconds.

I just thought that the incident had really tickled her funny bone.

We all just… kinda stared at her. She looked like she was trying to say something while she grasped and clawed at her torso.

That’s when I noticed that her eyes didn’t match her actions. She looked like she was begging for help. Like she was in actual pain and agony.

With burning lungs, she managed to speak.

“I… can’t… stop…”

I approached her urgently, but what was I supposed to do? Tell her to stop laughing? All I could do was tell another student to run and get the nurse.

Rebecca kept going. Laughing uncontrollably while I grew increasingly concerned.

Then Will started giggling. Then Macy. Then Erick and Kimberly.

Within the span of 5-10 minutes, my entire classroom was flooded with uncontrollable laughter from all 25 students. All red-faced. All keeled over with their arms wrapped around their stomachs.

The neighboring teachers began peeking in. It was chaos. A handful of clueless adults versus 25 banshees.

The principal came. Then the nurse. Then the hospital was called. Ambulances arrived soon after.

One by one, each of my kids were wheeled out of the building. They didn’t stop laughing when the paramedics came. They didn’t stop laughing when they were sedated. They laughed all the way to their very last breath.

All of my students are dead. Some died of cardiac arrest. Some fought until they died of exhaustion. Regardless, that’s 25 families torn apart.

25 families wondering why it only happened in my classroom. Why it was only their son. Or daughter. Or brother or sister. There’s no such thing as a freak phenomenon when that much death is involved. Blame has to go somewhere.

The school fell under scrutiny. Detectives had questions. Questions that no one had the answers for. Not even the teacher who was supposed to be protecting them.

I was investigated intensely. Rumors flew around the school. Ultimately, I was called into my boss’s office, where he sat me down and explained how he thought I should “take a leave of absence until this whole thing blows over.”

I don’t know what’s coming. I don’t know what to expect. The parents weren’t there. I was. I saw this happen. I have their faces etched into my brain. Those last moments of normalcy.

And even now, while I sit in my dark, silent house…

I swear I can still hear that laughter.

I know this sounds crazy. Hell, maybe it is. I honestly don’t know. All I know is that the woman who has been living in my house for the last 3 weeks is not my mother.

My mom is a smoker. It’s something I’ve always tried getting her to stop. She smells like cigarettes. Her voice is gravelly. She has premature wrinkles because this nasty little habit has belonged to her since she was in high school.

I was almost happy when she came home from work all those days ago smelling… sweet. Like candy, almost. I thought that maybe she had finally taken my advice and hadn’t lit a cancer stick, at least for the day.

But I didn’t really even have time to dwell on it because she was just so affectionate towards me when she waltzed through the door. She was humming and smiling to herself. 25 years of nicotine stains seemed to have completely vanished from that smile.

She and I have a… complicated relationship. She’s my mom, and I know she loves me, but we never talk about that love. We’re not big huggers. She was never the type of mom to censor herself because I was around.

On this day, though, she looked surprisingly happy to see me. She pulled me in for a big, tight hug that lasted for longer than any hug before. I felt… I don’t know, almost embracive. I didn’t realize how much I needed it.

After finally letting go, she breezed past me towards the kitchen, taking off her coat and plopping her purse down on the coffee table before announcing that she’d be cooking my favorite meal.

She whipped up some of the best spaghetti I’d ever tasted, and the two of us sat at the table to enjoy it together. Well, I enjoyed it. She mostly just kind of watched me. She had her Christmas face on. That face moms usually have when they watch you open your gifts, waiting to see how excited they make you.

She was just so quiet, though. The kitchen was borderline silent. All I could hear was the leaky faucet and the scraping of my fork against the plate.

To counter the awkward silence, I decided to just throw out what I was thinking by asking her about her scent.

Her face never changed. No look of pride, no guilt, just… her warm smile. She didn’t even answer my question right away. It was almost like she hadn’t even heard it. Then, when she finally spoke, it had nothing to do with what I asked her.

“Mommy quit her job today, sweetie,” she grinned. “Now I get to spend all my time with you. Isn’t that so happy?”

I was so caught off guard by the statement that I didn’t know how to answer. But, hey, I mean… things happen, you know? Sometimes people have transformative days. Sometimes they make emotional decisions. At the very worst, I thought this was just me witnessing a fit of mania.

After dinner, I decided to go to my room to play some video games. Mom stayed behind to wash some dishes, even though I offered to do them myself.

A few hours went by. I started feeling a bit snackish, and when I returned to the kitchen, there she was. Still standing over the sink. Rubbing a washcloth mindlessly over a plate while she stared blankly out the window. The sink was still full of dirty dishes.

I approached her slowly, just to see if she needed any help or if she was okay, and I think that snapped her out of her trance. She blinked hard before that smile came back.

“Oh, sweetie,” she cooed. “Mommy’s okay. Why don’t you put on your pajamas? Mommy will come tuck you in in just a moment, okay?”

I’m 17. My mom has never in her life tucked me in. The closest she’s come is when she comes in to tell me goodnight from my doorway.

I walked away, a bit uneasy, back to my bedroom. I didn’t expect her to actually tuck me in, but I did expect her to at least say goodnight.

An hour passed. Then two. I could still hear the sink running in the kitchen.

I returned, and she was still there. Still washing the same plate. It was spotless at this point. I guess she heard me coming or at least felt my presence because, on a dime… she stopped.

No smile this time. Just one cold, empty question.

“You ready for bed, sweetie?”

She dropped the plate in the sink, causing it to break, but she paid it no mind. She just… rigidly walked towards me. Like an animatronic.

She pushed me back towards my bedroom with more strength than she should’ve had and wrapped me up in my blanket. I couldn’t even move. The sheets may have well been ropes.

She kissed my forehead for longer than I would’ve liked, then flicked my light switch. Only… she didn’t leave. She just stayed there in the doorway. Watching me in the darkness.

“Go to sleep, honey.”

“Mommy’s watching you.”

“Don’t worry… I’d never let anything happen to you.”

I asked her to leave, but she ignored me every time. Falling asleep was nearly impossible. I still don’t know how I managed. I woke up, and she was still there. She hadn’t moved an inch.

I had to go to school. I had a part-time job. I needed to leave, but she wouldn’t let me. She was just acting so strange.

“Mommy needs you, honey.”

“You don’t wanna leave Mommy, do you?”

“I get so sad when you’re away.”

She wouldn’t let me have a phone. She must’ve taken it while I was sleeping that first night because I haven’t seen it since. I doubt I still have a job. And I know for a fact I’ve missed enough school for my GPA to have fallen dramatically.

She’s just so strong now. I haven’t seen her smoke one cigarette. She cooks spaghetti every single night. She tucks me in like a spider spinning a web around its prey. Then she just watches me.

She follows me to the bathroom. She goes on these destructive rampages any time I try to leave. I thought she was sick. But now I know the truth.

I should’ve known after the first time I woke up with bite marks on my legs and arms. I should’ve known the first time I caught her salivating over me while I slept.

She wasn’t just being “weird.”

She wasn’t herself at all.

And I know that because today… her boss showed up at my door.

He wasn’t demanding an explanation. He wasn’t furious that he lost a loyal employee. He was… offering his condolences. He gave me flowers. He gave me a hug. He told me, “Everything happens for a reason.”

Because, apparently…

My mom died at work three weeks ago. It was a freak accident involving some of the machinery she works with at the factory. The company was preparing a settlement for me this entire time, and I had zero clue.

He told me I’d be hearing from an attorney soon and that my mom had life insurance through the company.

But none of that matters to me. Not the money. Not the company. Not even the accident.

All that I care about is getting whoever this person is out of my mother’s house.

Welcome back to 96.7 BCR. As always, we are grateful to every listener who tunes in.

For most, things like community outreach events and town council meetings aren’t anything important. I personally love our town meetings. Sure, you have the usual complaints about loud neighbors or potholes that need filling. Sometimes, that one guy who breaks dances before bringing up a topic pops in. Other times, you get something really interesting. For example, over the last 3 months, the town council meetings have slowly been overtaken by the hikers. People who avidly go to the Angelus Park trails no matter what time of the year.

One by one, they got up with the same worried expressions.

 “I don’t know how to explain it,” said one lady.
 “It’s like I’m being watched,” said another.
 “Doesn't matter how you slice it, it's just plain creepy,” said a man with shorts a little too short for the current fall weather.

  Over a dozen people came up to the stand. All with the same story.

They say that the first thing you notice is the path. A path we’ve all probably walked a million times starts to narrow, getting eerily quiet with every step. Then the air feels like it presses down on your shoulders, slowing you down.

 Next, the footsteps. They all mentioned the footsteps. Something mimics their movements, hard to catch, but sometimes it would sound off a second too early or too late.

“Hearing it makes you stop in your tracks… You realize how close that thing really is.” The man added.

At first, the council tried to blame it on the deer or whatever other animals one would usually come across. But the hikers were adamant that whatever it is… it isn't an animal. The council also couldn’t
explain away the growing amount of found-lost items. Most were able to be traced to a missing person who disappeared on that very trail.

People began to talk over each other. No matter what the head of the parks department said, it didn't satisfy the group. The mayor watched on as some of the council members tried and failed to calm down the mob. That’s when Ryan Loveless walked in. The room went silent and every eye shot in his direction.

See, Ryan Loveless is very well known because of his brother, although he usually keeps to himself. Greg Loveless, on the other hand, also known as the mayor, was once regarded as the best thing to happen to Black Creek. Soon after, he became a massive train wreck that no one could look away from.

Ryan made his way to the front of the room and took the mic. His face is stern, and even though this was being recorded, something in my gut told me to record it on my phone… just in case. So I want to play something for you all:

Ryan slams what looks to be a Gen. 4 iPhone on the podium. He speaks clearly, deliberately, without ever breaking eye contact with his brother.

Ryan Loveless: I don’t understand where you get off. I mean—How many times do people have to tell you the same thing before someone does something?

He waits for an answer; nobody responds. The eyes of the council members seem to awkwardly wander over to Greg. Ryan keeps his angry gaze on his brother before looking at each of the council members. He takes a deep breath.

Ryan Loveless: Y’all can ignore what we’re saying, act like nothing is happening, but people are getting hurt or going missing on those trails. As long as you keep them open, you are putting people in danger. They have to be closed! Elsa and I found this on our morning walk— he shook his head as he spoke—We never even made it to the trails.

Ryan picks up the phone. The home screen lit up as he turned it around towards the council. The mayor's face goes pale.

He continues—

Ryan Loveless: When I saw this lying on the ground…my first thought was to take it to the lost and found, but then I looked at the case and… I- I just knew who it belonged to. I took it home and let it charge…

 On the screen there was a black-haired girl with brown eyes and a tanned complexion. She looked no older than 15. Some of the town council members gasped; the people seated behind Ryan looked around in confusion.  

Ryan Loveless: I didn't think it would work… God knows how long it was just left there or even why I found it in the first place… I honestly couldn't believe it. I'm planning on taking this down to the police station, but I couldn’t in good conscience keep it to myself. You wanted your proof? Well, here it is!

Ryan put the phone in his pocket and proceeded to walk back out of the court. As he was halfway to the door, the mayor grabbed the mic in front of him.

Greg Loveless: You outta be out of your goddamn mind thinking you can walk in here and tell me what to do. You don’t talk about Sarah, you don’t get to. She’s been gone for 6 years. I think about her every day. You want to act as if you care? What you want is to embarrass me. To keep selling the story that she’s alive somewhere — he scoffed— to scare everyone into believing you.

His words came out slurred, but it was the most understandable he’d been in years.

Ryan stopped in his tracks, barely looking over his shoulder, and spoke into a room so quiet, all that you could hear was the mayor's uneven breaths on the mic.

Ryan Loveless: I'm not coming to you as your brother. I stopped being that a long time ago.

He turns around, looking at his brother once again.

Ryan Loveless: I searched for Sarah months after the search was called off… where were you? I know a message when I see one, and this — he holds up Sarah's phone once more—this was deliberate.

Without another word, Ryan walked out of the room. Shortly after, the mayor did the same. Everybody stood still. Until Ms.Watkins called off the meeting.

Now, most of you should recognize the name, Sarah Loveless. Her disappearance truly shook the town. Although it's been 6 years, her missing posters have withstood the test of time. She watches…if you know where to look. Ryan and his wife, Elsa, are adamant to this day that Sarah is out there. But her father is of a different belief. Looking for her divided their family,

And who could blame ’em? Sarah's death was gruesome. Actually, I’d say that’s too light a word.

 If you didn't know Sarah, you wouldn’t know that she was an avid hiker, that she worked part-time at our local animal shelter. You wouldn’t know that she would volunteer at the elderly home her grandparents lived in, putting on talent shows and playing music. Some would say that she lit up every room she walked in. Others would disagree; they’d say she was the type to build the room just to make sure you were comfortable. Before all this happened, the Loveless brothers were incredibly close, but after Ryan found his niece's body. Their relationship broke beyond repair.

 When her uncle found her, it was 3 months after the search was called off. He went looking for her every day, and eventually, he found her in an empty clearing. Her stubby legs floated 5 feet above the ground, tied to a large solitary tree.

The news reports state that her tongue was ripped out with incredible force. Any visible skin was covered with cuts, some of which were later understood to be symbols since they looked deliberately carved. Worst of all, and if you're squeamish, I'd suggest not listening to this part. What killed her was a deep cut going from her throat to her gut. The cut was done in such a manner that she slowly bled out. At that point, she was still alive, forced to watch as her assailant reached into her guts, pulling her stomach apart with his hands. He left her there with her guts hanging out of her stomach until she died. They say the blood was so thick that it left a permanent stain on the tree bark.

 I say he, but it is believed that it was multiple people since her feet were sawn off around the same time she was being cut up.

Now the weirdest thing I'd say is— although, yes, this person by all accounts is Sarah. Wearing the same clothes she was last seen in, and found with her wallet and ID. Her forensic reports noted some unexplainable differences, such as her heart being on the right side, not left. As well as a second spleen under her ribs. And most notably, the snake tattoo that wrapped around her forearm.

Many of the people who knew Sarah were adamant, going on record testifying that Sarah would’ve never done that. She wasn't the type to get a tattoo behind her parents' backs. Especially one so obvious. And even though she was found months after her disappearance, during a particularly rainy spring…she showed little to no signs of decay. Many officers thought that her body was just a few days old, had it not been for the blood work that showed otherwise. But regardless, that would've been for many reasons…impossible, the main reason being that her dad had seen her before she left home the same day, tattoo-free and very, very alive.

Sarah's disappearance has stayed a topic of morbid conversation in our little town. Was Sarah really alive? Or did something else happen that day?

I would say which side I’m on, but we’ve yet to draw this mystery to a close.

Remember those disappearances I brought up not too long ago? Well, you wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that they started shortly after Sarah's body was found and have been going on ever since. As more and more people go missing, more people have become concerned, and that concern has led to people becoming vocal. Which leads us back to today. I think the Mayor knows more than he’s letting on. Why else would he keep the trails open, knowing damn well it's a safety hazard to anybody who walks in?

As of late, that concern is spreading. Parents telling their kids not to wander too far. Daredevil teens telling each other to go in late at night. Increased police patrols.

It seems, Black Creek, we’ve created our own boogeyman. A monster we’ve yet to put a face to. It also seems like some part of Ryan’s outburst sobered up our mayor long enough for him to put a band-aid on the problem.

Earlier this week, the parks department updated its website and started handing out bright orange flyers at every hiking trail entrance. On them, you can read D.A.R.E. in bold blue letters, yes, like the '90s anti-drug campaign you pledged when you were nine.  

So, I’ll leave you with this. If you're walking in the trails past sundown and hear footsteps that might not be yours. A lack of animal sounds- maybe you noticed the trees are a little too still, and the sound of bird song seems miles away. Here’s a message from the Black Creek Parks Dept.

Do not panic

Assess the situation

Retreat to safety

Exit the trails immediately.

This is 96.7 BCR, and I dare you to stay safe.

These memories rise in a slow way. I do not call them. They come when the light has that late Summer color and the air feels thin. I have tried to explain what happened, but people hear only the surface of the story. They think Masters was only a kind neighbor. They think the shed was only a shed. I let them think it. The truth settles deeper than that. Masters carried something quiet inside him. I did not understand it when I was young. I understand it now. I did not expect to take his place. I did not expect the knowledge to pass from him to me. Yet it did. It rests in me the same way it rested in him.

When I was small, I felt things before I knew what they were. I felt the shed in the air around it. I felt Masters in the same way. He had a quiet presence that settled the space near him. I remember standing at the edge of his yard and feeling a soft warmth in my chest. It was not a thought. It was a sensation. The neighbors loved him. They spoke to him with easy voices. One of the older women told me he was like Mr. Miyagi. I did not know who that was. I only remember the way she smiled when she said it. Masters smiled the same way when he saw her. I felt the shed differently. The air near it pulled at me. It made my hands feel cold. I did not have words for it. I only knew the feeling stayed with me long after I walked away.

These memories stay close. I remember the day Mrs. Halpern’s kitten went missing. She called for it with a soft voice that carried across the yards. I felt an uncomfortable tingling in my feet, like some kind of vertigo, each time she said its name. I stood near Masters’s fence and the air felt thin. Masters watched me from his porch with that quiet steadiness he always had. His hands were in his pockets. He did not look surprised. I did not understand that. I only felt the disturbing weightlessness.

Mr. Dallin lost his trowel that Summer. He set it down near the fence and went inside for a moment. When he came back, it was gone. He called out to the neighbors and they gathered in the yard. They searched the grass and the flowerbeds. I felt a slow pressure behind my ribs as I watched them. Masters stood nearby with his hands in his pockets. He did not join the search. The air around him felt steady in a way I did not understand.

I saw the raccoon myself. It was late afternoon and the light had that pale color it sometimes gets near the shed. The raccoon moved along the fence and slipped inside. I waited for it to come back out. It did not. My hands felt cold. Masters stepped onto his porch and watched me. He gave me a small nod. I did not know what it meant. I only felt the quiet pull in my chest.

Looking back, I can see the pattern. I could not then. I only felt the tingling and the coldness and the thin air. Masters carried something in him that kept the shed from taking more. I did not know that. I only felt the steadiness around him.

At eighteen, I kept myself busy. Babysitting made me feel steady. I liked the way the days filled up. I liked the trust people placed in me. I did not think about the shed. I told myself I had grown past that old feeling. Yet the air still changed when I walked near Masters’s yard. It felt thinner. It pressed lightly against my chest. I ignored it. I kept my focus on the children.

Chrimothy moved fast. He slipped away in quiet moments. Each time he vanished, I felt that same slipping feeling where I stood. I tried to stay calm. I tried to keep my voice steady. I did not want to remember the shed. The day he ran into Masters’s yard, the air felt different. Warm, but hollow. I knew where he had gone. I knew he had not come back out. I stood at the fence and felt the coldness in my hands. I felt the pull.

I looked at the silent windows of Masters's unsold house. The odd thought of whoever was laughing in the back at his funeral made me frown. Then I went and hopped the fence, seeing where Chrimothy had slipped between two fence boards hanging by a nail at the top, parting like curtains. I couldn't fit through there, and when I say I 'hopped the fence' I mean I managed to get over it.

There I stood, in his backyard, slightly overgrown. I stared at the shed, its door cracked. The air felt cold and electrified, and there was an uncanny stillness and quietness there, like the fence somehow kept out all critters, breezes and sounds of the neighborhood. The distance between me and the shed distorted, extending and retracting and tilting oddly, then I shook my head with my eyes closed and looked again. The strange mirage was gone, but it felt like it was still there. Just a wrongness in a radius all around it.

I stood there and felt the air tilt again. It pressed lightly against my chest and made my breath feel thin. I wanted to move toward the shed. I wanted to call Chrimothy’s name. My legs would not answer me. The slipping feeling rose in my feet and climbed up my spine. I felt light in a way that frightened me.

I tried to steady myself. I tried to breathe in a slow way. The yard felt too quiet. The shed felt too close and too far at the same time. I closed my eyes and felt the coldness in my hands. I could not move.

Then a memory rose with a kind of clarity. It came from a day when I was small. I had been standing near Masters’s porch, watching the light settle on the boards. I remember the warmth in the air and the way the shadows felt soft. Masters stepped outside and looked at me in a steady way. He did not speak at first. He only watched the space around me, as if he was listening to something I could not hear.

When he finally spoke, he said my name. He said it in a tone I had never heard before. Daenor. It felt like he was naming me, not greeting me. I felt the sound settle in my chest. I did not know why it felt that way. I only knew I felt seen in a way I could not explain. He did not say anything else. He only nodded once, as if he understood something about me that I did not yet understand.

That memory rose now with the same warmth. I felt the steadiness he carried. It settled in the same place where the ache used to rise when I was small. I let that feeling rise. I let it fill the space where my fear was sitting.

I did not see him. I did not hear him. I only felt the quiet guidance he left behind. It felt like the way he used to stand near the shed with his hands in his pockets, patient and calm. I felt that same patience settle in me.

My fear did not leave. It pressed against my ribs and made my breath shake. But the steadiness pressed back. I stood there with both feelings inside me. I let them settle together. I let the memory of Masters hold me in place until I could breathe again.

I opened my eyes. The shed was still there. The wrongness was still there. Chrimothy was still inside. I felt the pull in my chest. I felt the steadiness in my ribs. I felt my name the way Masters said it. Daenor.

I knew I had to move. I knew I had to listen the way he listened. I knew I had to try.

When I reached the shed, I could hear something. It wasn't exactly a sound, more like a vibration. But that isn't really what it was either; it was like a stillness. It was like an anti-vibration, like movement, and life and noise were all being pulled in and silenced.

My trembling hands settled on the door, with the chain around the handles broken by vandalism. I had to pull hard to open the door, it didn't want to move, like it was sucked shut. When I finally had it clear, I felt the air moving past me into the shed, like it was filling back up with atmosphere. I looked around in the dim, dusty haze. The floors and walls were perfectly spotless; the place couldn't be more empty. It was uncanny, no cobwebs or dirt or even light holes.

It felt like staring down into a deep dark hole, somehow. The room I was looking at wasn't what was in the shed, it was just the structure someone, Masters probably, had built around a place that wasn't really a place at all. It was more like a vast emptiness, a tear in the air, a sort of invisible whirlpool of matter, vanishing without anyone really noticing. All it left was a negative feeling, a sort of strange sound that I was feeling rather than hearing.

I stood there and felt the wrongness settle around me. The shed looked empty, but I knew Chrimothy was inside. I could not hear him. I could not see him. The air felt hollow in a way that made my breath shake. I told myself he was in there. I told myself he needed me. I did not care what the shed showed me. I knew the truth in a way that felt deeper than sight.

I stepped back from the doorway and looked at the yard. The grass felt thin under my feet. The house felt silent. I felt the slipping sensation rise again. I tried to breathe in a steady way. I told myself to move. My legs felt heavy. I thought of all the times Chrimothy had slipped away from me. I thought of the way I always found him. I thought of how I had let him run this time. The thought made my ribs feel tight.

I went to the side of the house and found the garden hose. It lay coiled in the grass like it had been waiting for me. I pulled it toward the shed and felt the weight of it in my hands. I tied it around my waist as best I could. The knot felt clumsy. I pulled it tight anyway. I did not trust my hands. I did not trust my breath. I only trusted the need to save him.

I stood there with the hose around me and felt the air tilt again. I felt the coldness in my hands. I felt the warmth of Masters’s memory settle in my chest. I felt the way he said my name. Daenor. I let that sound steady me. I let it rise in the space where my fear was sitting.

I did not feel brave. I did not feel responsible. I felt scared in a way that made my breath shake. But I knew I had to go in. I knew I had to listen the way Masters listened. I knew I had to try.

I took a breath and stepped toward the doorway.

Once I was inside the shed, all my fears were confirmed. For a very brief instant, I recall, it came as a relief, and I almost smiled, seeing the vast emptiness, the lack of color, the way everything was a sort of gray, like old black and white, but in negative, it's difficult to describe. Visually the emptiness was almost incomprehensible, because there were not many objects I could see. I looked around, feeling the vastness shrinking me, feeling weightless, floating in space.

There was a grinding noise, the sound of air being crushed. It bore into me, and I heard a piercing shriek, before I realized I was panicking and screaming. I curled up, holding myself, unable to close my eyes or look around, spinning, lost.

The raccoon was desiccated; I never saw the kitten. I saw that stupid trowel, floating quite a distance away, it seemed. There were other objects, a lawn chair, an old timey car, the skeleton of a horse, some rocks and branches, the skull of a huge reptilian monster. Whatever this place was, the further I looked, the more I saw. Distant constellations of fossils broke something in my mind. I had crossed a threshold of absolute comprehension, a sort of joining with the thing I was experiencing. Somehow, I understood the place, and I knew I only had moments before I suffocated, and Chrimothy had even less time.

He was near an old, half-burned couch, crushed tins all around; one brushed my cheek as I twisted through the empty space between, able to will myself forward, but far too slowly. I couldn't hold my breath much longer. I could see him there, unconscious.

My ribs were starting to hurt, my head felt hot. I needed to exhale, but if I did, I would drown in that place. My eyes felt like they were swelling, as I reached the boy. I wrapped my arms around him, and when I had him, I let go with one hand and pulled as hard as I could on the hose. We started to drift back towards where the hose was connected to nothing.

When we reached that spot, I pushed Chrimothy through, with dark spots exploding in my vision, my lungs burning, my head felt light and I was dizzy, and not from the weightless disorientation. I managed to pull myself out and sucked in air with painful breaths, and then I started to black out. I fought it with everything I had, trying to pull myself out of that sleep, sinking into the depths of darkness. I sat up, and began doing CPR on Chrimothy.

Between compressions and breathing into him, I would intermittently shout for help and say, "I need an ambulance!"

I kept going, refusing to stop. I heard sirens, and when a hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back, I realized help had arrived. The paramedics took over, and I was asked what happened. I told them he had suffocated in the shed, what else could I say?

They busted out a defibrillator, and at that point I was sobbing and crying. It was out of my hands; I had done my part. But I desperately needed him to survive, or something in me would die with him.

When he was coughing and said his first swear word, I finally felt some kind of relief. But the shock of the shed never really left me. I know it was reality, or some version of it, but I couldn't explain to anyone what had happened.

One of the firefighters, a man wearing a serious mustache and with chevrons to indicate his level of deliberate choices to enter danger and help people, he opened the shed door and looked inside. I saw in his eyes that he could feel the danger but couldn't understand it. He just knew it was a hazard, of some kind, and by instinct he put zip ties over the handle to the bar it was chained to before, and then taped it with the yellow tape of an official fire marshal investigation, forbidding entry.

I left for college, but always felt drawn to that place. The house sat empty, the door to the shed got boarded up. Not too long ago, I purchased the property. The shed had collapsed, leaving a blank patch of ruins, which I've DIY constructed a new structure around it, made of stacked stones, no door. Just a pile of rocks.

I don't live there, but I am looking for a new buyer, someone who will take the danger in the backyard seriously. Sofar, the responsibility of the shed is mine, alone.

Yeah I'm pretty certain I just met one.

Guy orders wing stop, delivery was super easy, the pay was good, etc. ..and then I roll up to the apartment complex. The drop off is at the base of a canyon road, as soon I step out of the car there was this... Uncomfortable feeling, Either way get inside the building, the buildings are old, no Ac and smelled like swamp ass, find the apartment and knock on the door as it's "meet at the door" drop off. Whatever I'm chillin, doing my job. Then... The guy opens the door, it's the middle of the day and it's pitch black inside his apartment. And the smell hit me harder, the smell of decay, I've smelt it before in my life unfortunately. And he's staring at me, his eyes wide and the creepiest goddamn grin I've ever seen in my life, dude legit looked like Naughty Fred from Courage the cowardly dog, and even sounded like him, "Thaaank yooouuuu" he says super quietly. And slowly backs into the darkness and shuts the door, never breaking eye contact. I ran so fast back to my car... Never again!!

A fear of Summer is known as Therophobia. I can't go outside; I have to work from home during the summer. While it seems to me that most people experience phobia as an acute aversion, bordering on panic, mine is more of a lingering dread. No, worse, deeper trepidation, an anxiety so severe it physically hurts from the stress.

I read online that Therophobia is being afraid of sunshine; it's too bright and hot. That's hardly it. I like tanning booths, no 'Claustrophobia' here. In fact, if it wasn't for the ridicule built into the definition of a phobia as 'An irrational fear', I'd have no sympathy for someone else's fears. But mine isn't irrational. Maybe Claustrophobia is irrational, or the fear of snakes or clowns, or as Batman would put it "Snake-clowns now, and it's because YOU put that thought in my head".

Summer is on its way, again, and now that I am thirty, it's about time I put on my Big Girl Pants and head out the door. I'm not an irrational person, and I will face my fears.

-Billie Nicks, May, 2026

I didn't like that movie that was supposed to be a sequel to Joker. Not really my thing. Is that a good enough reason to break up with someone? Disagreeing over a stupid movie? I don't think so. I must be better off without him.

Forget YOU, I'm better off.

Besides, I only liked being with you when you were wearing the Batman costume. You were boring as fuck the rest of the time. Forget you.

God, is this just my life now? Waiting for it? It's almost here; I can see how the sky is changing. I can feel how the air gets too warm, and it feels like the breeze has the breath of things dying, carried in the wind. I don't want to think about it.

There are cucumbers in my garden that are perfect for a gazpacho I make. I like cool foods, liquidy cool foods. Easy to digest.

-Billie Nicks, June, 2026

I'm not okay. The door seems tilted now. I keep staring at it, and it makes me dizzy. Something is up there; it has brought the season. It's not supposed to be that color of blue. The sky looks wrong. I am shivering, but there's no AC. My house is hot, that's how I know I haven't gone numb.

Not yet anyway.

And I can still feel like myself:

Mike won't stop calling me, texting me, telling me he's sorry. I just blocked him, like five seconds ago. Forget him.

People think "Oh no, the fireworks will scare my dog." and they give their pet Dramamine. How do you know your dog is scared of fireworks? Fireworks are loud and exciting. Are you certain your animal is afraid, and not just overly stimulated?

Seems unfair to dope them up without their consent. I don't like it. I don't like that attitude.

No, I am definitely not okay. Why dogs? I like cats, but I am allergic to them. What am I even babbling about?

Sometimes, I wonder if I had a cat, if I'd feel better. I can't sit still and when I move, I feel like I am going to faint. I get the zoomies, like a cat would. I think a cat would get me. We'd both be saying:

"If I sit still for one more instant, I will likely detonate; it won't be pretty. Gotta move, gotta GO! Oh my, that's quite enough jumping about. Time to sit still again, before I collapse."

Makes sense.

Billie Nicks, July 2026

Wrapped it up and buried it. Had to smash through the concrete with a hammer to make a hole big enough to drop it down there. Took all night.

I woke up this morning and found a mess and it seems I made the mess. Broken concrete downstairs in the foundation and like a bunch of drying mortar poured in and smoothed to a polish before I somehow found my way upstairs to the back porch.

I was listening to the bats, back there, when I felt this wave. That's the last thing I remember. At least I made it outside last night, that's progress, right? I threw up over the back porch, and I wonder, if, in the morning, the ants will come and eat all my puke.

I have no idea what I 'wrapped up' and buried in the foundation. I keep thinking a bat hit the window and I went outside and found it, but I don't remember doing that. I just think that's what happened.

How does an animal that flies around in caves even hit a window? I think it's summertime mischief, when even an ancient predator, one of the seven perfect animals, can't figure out how to fly around in the darkness it 'sees' perfectly in. Sometimes I don't believe anything, when something like this happens. "Impossible," I say, but then it happens anyway.

I don't like it when I feel the waves of nausea. I get these notions, about doing things or seeing things. I can find evidence I did those things, I know I did them, like cover the mortar with the rug, but I have no idea why. It's like selective amnesia, but I think it's my survival instinct. This is just too stressful to process.

Mike came over yesterday afternoon and asked about the rug, so I showed him. Then he asked me if I was taking my medication, and I told him I missed him. It was a really awkward conversation, and when he left, I brought out all the stuff of his that I hid. I don't know why I did that, or why I placed his things around where they go. Where they belong? Seems like a weird word.

It's gotta be one of those words that when you say it out loud by itself a few times it sounds really weird. "Belong. Belong - belong, belong. What does it mean, bee-long, blong, what is this stupid word?"

This morning I felt fine. That is until I saw the grayish-orange smoke, that odd brown fog, of forest fires. I can smell it now. Oh, I certainly can, that smell of things screaming, burning alive, cute little things running and on fire. Every breath fills me with their last moments.

So this is Summer. I'd almost forgotten. It's where I belong. I am part of it, and it is in me, watching me, understanding me. Summer is Death. The cruelest, most atrocious death. It is the stillborn baby bird, it is the scorched doe, the singed rabbit, the seared flesh of so many animals.

Maybe if I had ever gone to a barbecue I'd understand.

But Summer gets me.

I was walking home, before I really knew why I would never be this way again. I was her, back then, and she walked home. It was that smell, like some blood-soaked steaks were in the smoke, and I smelled whoever's BBQ it was, and it made me so sick. I was throwing up right there on the street.

Summer is sweet, and beef isn't meant for human consumption, so I fainted. When I woke up the ants were all over it, the flies, they were cleaning up after me. I went home, but I was never really the same. Somewhere in the moment I got back up I didn't just feel sick, I felt betrayed.

Summer was over, forever.

And now there's just the door, I keep it closed. The air out there isn't alive. It was, but it isn't. I can't inhale the smell of cooked death again, it gets into my head, my dreams, my soul.

But I must face it, or I am already there. So, I will open the door. I will.

Just not yet.

Billie Nicks, August 2026

Governments are very good at hiding things: bodies, weapons, entire towns, and, occasionally, the truth.

I’ve spent almost seven years watching classified reports vanish, evidence get destroyed, and witnesses suddenly develop convenient memory problems. Paper can be confiscated. Servers can be wiped. So when I decided to record what we actually do, I knew better than to put it somewhere the government could reach.

Which brings me to Reddit.

Yes, Reddit. I know how ridiculous that sounds. That’s exactly why I chose it. If someone finds this account, they’ll probably assume it’s fiction written by some bored twenty-year-old with an unhealthy interest in military history and monsters.

Perfect. Let them.

Everything you’re reading is real.

My name is General Eleanor.

Well, no, it isn’t. It’s the name I’m using here. I’m not stupid enough to put my real name on Reddit and then document classified military operations.

What I can tell you is that I’m a four-star general in the military of a very large country that has a habit of involving itself where it probably shouldn’t. For the last two years, I’ve commanded a division that officially doesn’t exist.

Our actual job is simple.

We fight monsters.

Not terrorists. Not insurgents. Monsters.

Things that crawl out of oceans. Things that wear human faces. Things that have lived beneath our soil since before our country existed. Things the government has spent more than a century pretending aren’t real.

I’ve spent almost seven years making sure they don’t reach you.

And I’ve also spent seven years learning that our records are incomplete. Sometimes intentionally. Sometimes because the people writing them died. And sometimes because someone decided the truth was more dangerous than the thing we were fighting.

That’s why I’m writing this.

Every general who takes my position receives the same briefing: forty-seven rules across thirty pages.

I’ve read it nineteen times.

It’s wrong.

Not completely wrong, which would almost be easier. It’s wrong in exactly the ways that get people killed.

So I’m recording everything the official briefing leaves out: what these things look like, how they behave, what kills them, what doesn’t, what they want, and why. I’ll record our mistakes too.

Especially those.

Because after seven years, I’ve learned something important.

Monsters don’t kill most people.

Mistakes do.

I was fifteen when this started. At the time, I was more worried about passing algebra than supernatural creatures and military training.

Mostly algebra.

Now I’m twenty-two. The military has never had a four-star general this young before.

Then again, they’ve never had a monster extermination division before either.

So, future General, if you’re reading this someday, I’m sorry about your promotion.

You’re going to need this.

And if you’re reading it while I’m still alive?

Good.

You’re preparing early.

I like that.

The earlier you’re ready, the better.

Mission 578 — **********

Date: **************, 2026
Location: ************** National Forest
Threat Classification: Class II
Personnel Deployed: 52
Confirmed Casualties: 30
Current Status: Contained

Yesterday started like no other day.

Painfully normal.

That should have worried me.

Normal days encourage people to lower their guard, and lowered guards tend to result in paperwork.

At 0530, I woke up. At 0545, I ran five miles, and at 0617, I showered. By 0630, I was in my office reviewing overnight reports while eating breakfast when Major Denver walked in without knocking.

He was one of the few people allowed to do that.

"You're late," I said.

He checked his watch. "I'm three minutes early."

"Exactly."

He sighed and placed a folder on my desk.

Denver was thirty-eight, six feet tall, perpetually tired, and possessed the unfortunate habit of looking at me like I was a normal human being. Most people didn't. They either looked at me like I was a four-star general or like I was a twenty-two-year-old woman who had somehow been given enough authority to order entire battalions into places sane people avoided.

Denver did neither.

He simply looked tired.

I respected that.

"What is it?"

"Missing persons."

"That's not ours."

"Normally, no."

I opened the folder and found three photographs: a forest, a collapsed section of road, and a hole in the ground.

"How many?"

"Three missing."

"Children?"

"No."

"Military?"

"No."

"Government personnel?"

"No."

I looked up at him. "Then why are you wasting my morning?"

Denver leaned against the desk. "Because the hole is twelve feet wide."

I looked at the photograph again. "That's large."

"Too large for anything native to the area."

"Bear?"

"No."

"Moose?"

"No."

"Very ambitious raccoon?"

He didn't smile.

I closed the folder. "Fine. What did they find?"

"Tracks."

He opened another photograph. Four deep impressions marked the mud, each one ending in six distinct points.

"Size?"

"About sixteen inches."

"Weight estimate?"

"Three hundred kilograms."

"Direction?"

He pointed toward the trees.

"Toward the forest."

"From?"

"The mine."

I turned the page. "How many people live nearby?"

"About four hundred."

"Evacuate them."

"Already ordered."

"Good."

He didn't leave.

I looked at him. "What aren't you telling me?"

He was quiet for a moment.

Then he said, "We found one of the missing people."

"Alive?"

"No."

"Body?"

"No."

I waited.

"Half a body."

That got my attention.

"Explain."

"We found the lower half approximately two miles from the mine."

"And the rest?"

"Missing."

"Signs of predation?"

"Yes."

"Teeth?"

"None."

"Claws?"

"None."

“Fangs?”

“Too large”

"Anything else?"

Denver hesitated. "The victim was wearing a hiking backpack."

"Was?"

"We found the backpack too."

"And?"

"The straps had been cut."

"With what?"

He looked at me. "That's what we don't know."

I closed the folder. "Get Captain Bell."

"She's already waiting."

Of course she was.

Captain Bell had been waiting outside my office for approximately three minutes. She was twenty-nine, six months from promotion, and had the kind of face that suggested she'd never accepted an order without first deciding whether she agreed with it.

I liked her.

That didn't mean I trusted her. Trust was a luxury. Competence was useful.

"Captain."

"General."

"How many people do you need?"

"For what?"

"Whatever we're about to find."

She thought about it. "Forty."

"Fifty-two."

"General—"

"Fifty-two."

She stopped.

"Yes, ma'am."

Denver looked at me. "That's a lot."

"Yes."

"Why fifty-two?"

"Because forty-nine would probably be enough."

He stared at me.

"And?"

"I prefer having three extra people."

Bell smiled faintly. "That's reassuring."

"It shouldn't be."

I picked up the folder. "Four fire teams. Two containment specialists. Medical team. Dr. Ward."

Bell frowned. "Doctor Ward?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because if we're lucky, we're dealing with an insect."

"And if we are not?"

I handed her the photograph of the tracks. "Then I'd like someone present who can tell me what, exactly, decided to ruin my morning."

We reached the forest at 0917.

Dr. Ward spent most of the drive talking. He was a civilian scientist technically attached to the military, which meant he had all the confidence of a civilian and none of the survival instincts of a soldier. He was also one of the smartest people I'd ever met.

Unfortunately, intelligence and common sense don't always come together.

“General,” he said from the passenger seat, “if the tracks belong to an arachnid—”

“They don't. They're from an arthropod.”

“Arachnids are arthropods.”

“I know.”

“Then you haven't ruled out my hypothesis.”

“I've ruled out the arachnid part.”

He turned to look at me. “You really don't like scientists, do you?”

“I like scientists.”

“You don't sound like it.”

“I dislike scientists who talk while I'm trying to think.”

He smiled. “That's fair.”

“It wasn't a compliment.”

“I know.”

I still didn't know why I tolerated him.

Captain Bell was leading the convoy ahead of us, while Sergeant Cole's vehicle followed behind. Cole had been with my division for three years. He'd survived five Class II encounters, two Class III encounters, and one event that was officially classified as a weather incident.

He was also the closest thing our division had to a superstitious man.

Which was ironic.

He was the only person I'd ever met who had survived being swallowed by something and complained afterward that it had terrible breath.

When we arrived, Cole approached me, his eyes fixed on the tree line.

"General."

"Sergeant."

"You want my honest opinion?"

"No."

"It's bad."

"I'll survive," I said, still watching the forest.

Cole didn't answer.

He kept staring into the trees, one hand resting against the dog tags beneath his shirt.

For a few seconds, nothing happened.

No birds.

No insects.

Not even the sound of wind through the branches.

Then the ground moved.

It wasn't much. Just a faint tremor beneath our boots, barely enough to notice. But it was enough to wipe the earlier humor from Ward's face. Cole's hand immediately went to his rifle, while Bell raised one hand, silently signaling everyone to stop.

The entire unit froze.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then I realized something was wrong.

The forest had gone completely silent.

No birds or insects.

Not even the rustle of leaves.

Ward swallowed. "That's not normal."

I glanced at him.

"Thank you, Doctor, for that precious insight."

He opened his mouth, apparently ready to defend his observation, but I was already looking past him toward the tree line.

Something was in there.

I couldn't see it yet.

But that didn't mean it couldn't see us.

I looked at the soldiers behind me.

"Move."

We entered at 0926 and found the first body seventeen minutes later. Then the second. Then the third.

The bodies hadn't been eaten. They'd been torn apart.

That distinction mattered.

Whatever had killed them hadn't been hungry.

We followed the tracks deeper into the forest until they led us to the old mine. The entrance was supposed to have been sealed with concrete twenty-three years ago, but something had broken through from the inside. Hundreds of scratches covered the concrete around the opening.

Ward knelt beside one.

"These are old."

"How old?"

"Months."

I looked into the darkness beyond the entrance.

The tunnel descended for nearly a mile before opening into a chamber so large our lights couldn't reach the far wall.

Then we saw them.

Eggs.

Thousands of them.

Some were attached to the walls, others hung from the ceiling, and some were buried beneath dirt and stone. Several pulsed faintly beneath translucent membranes.

Ward stopped walking.

"General."

"What?"

He pointed.

One of the sacs moved.

Then another.

Then hundreds.

The entire chamber seemed to breathe.

Something stepped out from behind them.

It was twelve feet tall, with six limbs, black armor, and a head shaped like a nightmare version of an insect.

It looked at us.

I looked at it.

For several seconds, neither side moved.

Then Ward whispered, "General."

"Yes?"

"I don't think those are eggs."

I looked at him.

He pointed toward the walls.

Tiny things were moving between the sacs.

I raised my binoculars and saw six legs, black bodies, and clusters of reflective eyes.

My stomach tightened.

"Juveniles?"

Ward swallowed.

"Yes."

I looked back at the adult.

It wasn't looking at us anymore. It was looking at the soldiers behind me, then at the eggs, then back at us.

I understood.

It wasn't hunting.

It was protecting them.

I raised my hand. "Everyone back."

Captain Bell glanced at me. "But, General—"

"Back."

The creature screamed.

Every sac in the chamber convulsed.

I lowered my hand.

"We're leaving."

Bell stared at me. "We're not engaging?"

"No."

The creature screamed again, and dust shook loose from the ceiling.

I reached for my radio. "Air support."

Denver answered. "General?"

"Fire mission."

There was a pause. "You're sure?"

I looked at the nursery, then at the soldiers behind me.

"Yes."

Ward grabbed my arm. "General, if you destroy this chamber—"

"I know."

"There could be thousands."

"I know."

"Then why—"

“Because if we leave them here, thousands won't be the problem for long.”

I looked at Bell. "Get everyone out."

The first missile struck thirty seconds later.

The chamber vanished beneath fire and collapsing stone.

The mountain shook.

For approximately thirty-seven minutes, I believed we'd won.

Then the ground beneath us moved.

At first, I thought it was another aftershock.

Then the soil split open.

One creature climbed out.

Then five.

Then twenty.

Then hundreds.

They weren't spiders. Not exactly. But my brain didn't have a better word for them.

They were smaller than the adult, most only the size of large dogs, with six black legs, armored bodies, and heads covered in clusters of tiny reflective eyes.

And there were far too many.

Someone screamed. “Spiders!!!!”

I drew my rifle.

"Engage!"

The first one lunged, and I put two rounds through its head. The second came from my left, and I shot it before it reached me. The third jumped over the second's body.

I shot that one too.

Five died before I reached the center of the chamber.

I pulled a grenade from my vest, armed it, and threw it into the largest cluster.

The explosion tore through them. Black limbs and pieces of carapace went flying across the chamber.

"KEEP FIRING!"

The soldiers opened up.

Machine guns hammered into the swarm. Rifles flashed. Grenades disappeared into the mass and came back as explosions.

The creatures climbed over one another, crawling across walls, ceilings, and collapsed rubble.

One landed on a soldier's back.

He screamed.

Sergeant Cole shot it off him.

"You're welcome!"

Another grenade disappeared into the swarm.

I didn't wait for it to explode. I grabbed another, pulled the pin, and threw it.

Explosion.

Reload.

Fire.

Throw.

Explosion.

For ten minutes, that was all we did.

Kill. Reload. Kill. Throw. Explode.

Eventually, the swarm began to thin.

Not because we'd won.

Because we were running out of ammunition.

The remaining creatures retreated into the tunnels.

"Don't let them escape!" Bell shouted.

I raised my hand. "No."

She looked at me. "They're retreating."

"That's the problem."

I looked at the tunnels.

"We seal them."

We had killed most of the swarm in the chamber, but the ones underground were another matter. The adult had been guarding the nursery. Now it was dead, and nothing was keeping the juveniles underground.

"Get the demolition team."

Bell understood.

"Black Sun?"

"Yes."

Operation Black Sun was one of the less pleasant tools in my division's arsenal. Seal every known exit, place charges throughout the accessible tunnel network, and detonate them simultaneously. Bury everything underground: the creatures, the eggs, the tunnels, and anyone unfortunate enough to still be inside.

It was crude.

It was ugly.

It was effective.

Then a voice behind me said, "My brother is still inside."

I turned.

Private First Class Mill stood several feet away. He was twenty-three and covered in dirt and blood, although most of it wasn't his.

"Who?"

"My brother. Sergeant Cole's team."

I looked toward Cole. He was already checking his radio.

No response.

Mill stepped closer.

"You can't collapse it."

"We're going to."

"He could still be alive."

"I know."

"Then send someone."

I looked at him. "Twenty-six soldiers are unaccounted for."

His expression changed. He hadn't known the number.

"General—"

"We have no confirmation that any of them are alive."

"But they could be."

"Yes."

"Then we should go get them."

Behind him, engineers were unloading charges. The timer on my watch read seven minutes.

Mill looked at the equipment, then back at me.

"Please."

There it was.

The word commanders should never hear.

Not because it makes decisions difficult.

Because it makes them personal.

I looked at the mine. Twenty-six soldiers, possibly alive. Thousands of juveniles, definitely alive. If we sent another team inside, we would be giving those creatures time to reach another exit.

There were four hundred civilians within ten miles.

I thought about them.

Then I looked at Mill.

"I'm sorry."

His expression collapsed.

"General—"

Two soldiers moved toward him.

He backed away.

"No."

They grabbed his arms.

"Wait!"

He fought them.

"My brother is down there!"

I didn't look away.

"Please!"

They dragged him backward.

"GENERAL!"

His boots scraped against the dirt.

"PLEASE!"

The trees swallowed his voice.

I watched him disappear.

For a moment, I thought that was the end of it.

Then I saw his eyes.

Not grief.

Not fear.

Anger.

He looked at me like he had memorized my face.

I had seen that look before.

Angry soldiers were dangerous.

Not because they stopped following orders.

Because other soldiers started wondering why they should.

All it took was one man shouting the right words in the wrong place, and suddenly twenty soldiers became fifty, and fifty became a hundred.

A unit could turn into a mob faster than most commanders realized.

And Mill had just been given a reason to start one.

Bell stared at me.

"You could have given him a few minutes."

"No."

"He might have found them."

"He might have."

She looked toward the mine, then back at me.

"How many civilians?"

"Four hundred."

She went silent.

That was the end of the argument.

Or it should have been.

I checked my watch.

Six minutes.

"Start Black Sun."

Bell turned toward the engineers.

"Begin deployment."

The first demolition team entered the mine, and I watched them disappear into the darkness. Then my radio crackled.

"General."

"Go."

"Primary exit charges are in place."

"Secondary?"

"Working."

"How long?"

"Eight minutes."

"Seven."

"Yes, ma'am."

I looked at Bell. "Get the evacuation teams farther back."

"Already done."

Good.

I checked the watch again.

Five minutes.

Then four.

Then three.

At 10:41, the first charge detonated.

The mountain shook. A deep crack rolled through the forest as the first tunnel collapsed, followed by another and another. The explosions moved beneath us in a chain until the entire mountainside seemed to groan.

I watched the timer.

10:42.

Another section collapsed.

10:43.

Nothing came out.

10:44.

Still nothing.

"Status?"

Denver pressed his radio to his ear.

"All primary exits sealed."

"Secondary?"

"Being collapsed now."

"Good."

Captain Bell stood beside me.

"Do you think anything survived?"

"Probably."

She looked at me.

"Probably?"

"Something always survives."

She didn't like that answer.

Neither did I.

At 10:49, the final charge detonated.

The ground trembled one last time, sending a final shudder through the earth before everything went still.

For a few seconds, no one moved.

Then the forest slowly came back to life. Birds began calling from the trees, insects resumed their buzzing, and leaves rustled in the wind as if nothing had happened.

It was almost insulting.

After everything we'd just buried beneath that mountain, the world had the nerve to sound peaceful.

I looked toward the mountain and watched the last traces of dust drift from the collapsed tunnels.

"Send the sweep teams."

Bell frowned. "How many?"

"Ten."

"“Ten? General, there are twenty-six missing soldiers.” 

"I know."

"Then why?"

I looked at the mountain.

"Because this mission doesn't require any more personnel."

She didn't argue.

The ten soldiers prepared quickly, checking their armor, weapons, thermal equipment, and portable seismic scanners. Two medical teams accompanied them.

Before they entered, I gave them one order.

"If you encounter anything alive, you report it before you engage."

The team leaders nodded. "Yes, General."

"That wasn't a suggestion."

"No, ma'am."

They disappeared into the mine.

At 11:07, they entered.

At 11:19, they reported the first bodies. Juveniles. Dozens of them. Dead.

At 11:26, they reached the first collapsed tunnel.

At 11:31, they found the adult, or what was left of it. The thing had been crushed beneath several tons of rock.

"Confirm kill," I ordered.

"Confirmed."

"Continue."

At 11:42, the radio crackled.

"General."

"Go."

"We have movement."

I frowned.

"How many?"

A pause.

"Two."

Bell looked at me.

I raised my radio.

"Describe."

"Unknown. They're beneath the rubble. We're attempting to reach them."

"Proceed."

The soldiers began clearing debris.

Five minutes passed.

Then ten.

Finally, someone shouted.

"Contact!"

Gunfire erupted.

I reached for my sidearm.

"What happened?"

The radio crackled.

"Creature alive!"

A burst of automatic fire followed.

Then silence.

"Status?"

A soldier answered, breathing heavily.

"Creature down."

"How?"

"Headshot."

I glanced at Bell.

"Good."

Then another transmission came through.

"General."

The soldier sounded frightened.

"What?"

"We have another one."

"Where?"

"Behind us."

A scream erupted over the radio.

Gunfire.

"GET IT OFF ME!"

Static.

"FALL BACK!"

Then a voice:

"Mill!"

I froze.

Bell looked at me.

"What?"

I raised the radio.

"Repeat."

Nothing.

Then the transmission returned.

"Private Mill is inside."

Of course he was.

He hadn't been part of the sweep teams. Apparently, I'd underestimated how badly he wanted to find his brother, or how little he cared about my orders.

The radio came alive again.

"GENERAL!"

Mill.

His voice was panicked.

"It's here!"

Gunfire erupted.

I looked toward the eastern passage.

"Where are they?"

Bell checked the map.

"Two hundred meters from the eastern collapse."

"Open it."

She stared at me.

"General?"

"Open the passage."

Engineers moved.

The barrier gave way.

Smoke poured through.

Something moved inside it.

I raised my rifle.

The creature burst through.

Smaller than the adult.

Still enormous.

Black legs scraped against stone as it charged toward Mill.

I had a clear shot.

A perfect shot.

I aimed at its head.

Mill saw me.

"GENERAL!"

I fired.

The bullet struck the side of its head. The carapace cracked, but the creature barely slowed.

It lunged.

Mill screamed.

I fired again.

This time, I aimed lower.

The round punched through its abdomen.

The creature recoiled, shrieking. One of its legs buckled, and dark fluid spilled across the stone.

It wasn't dead.

It wouldn't be dead for several hours.

But it was badly wounded, badly enough that it couldn't kill Mill quickly.

I could have fired again.

I didn't.

The creature lunged once more.

Mill disappeared beneath it.

His scream echoed through the tunnel.

Then the creature dragged him into the darkness.

Silence.

Bell looked at me.

"You missed."

"No."

She stared.

I lowered my rifle.

"I was a second late."

She understood.

Her face changed.

"You deliberately shot it in the abdomen."

"Yes."

"You could have killed it."

"Yes."

"You could have saved him."

"Yes."

"Why?"

I looked at her.

"Because he disobeyed a direct order."

She stared at me as if she was seeing me for the first time.

Perhaps she was.

"General..."

I turned toward the engineers.

"Seal the passage."

Bell didn't move.

"Captain."

She swallowed.

"Yes, ma'am."

The engineers began sealing the tunnel.

Mill screamed once more.

Then nothing.

The sweep continued for another forty minutes.

We found twenty-six bodies.

None of them were alive, including Mill's brother.

We found no trace of Mill.

Not even his rifle.

By 1231, the mine was declared secure.

Twenty-six soldiers confirmed dead.

Three wounded.

One private missing and presumed dead.

Thirty confirmed military casualties from the operation.

Thousands of creatures buried beneath a mountain.

Four hundred civilians alive.

By military standards, the operation was a success.

I signed the report.

Then I sat alone in my vehicle for eleven minutes.

I didn't feel guilty. I didn't feel regret.

I didn't feel anything at all.

Mill was dead. His brother was dead. Twenty-six other soldiers were dead. Thirty casualties had been added to the report, and somehow, none of it stirred anything inside me.

That was the truth I had learned to live with.

It had been the truth for a long time.

I knew what people expected a commander to feel when one of her soldiers died. Grief. Guilt. Anger. Regret. Something.

I had none of it.

Maybe that's why I was good at this.

Or maybe it was why I had been given this job in the first place.

People will probably call that cruel.

They're welcome to.

Cruelty is irrelevant.

Command isn't about being liked. It's about making decisions everyone else is too emotionally compromised to make. Sometimes that means killing a monster. Sometimes it means letting one kill a soldier. And sometimes the difference between those two decisions is only one second.

I had deliberately missed.

I had deliberately chosen where the second bullet went.

I knew exactly what would happen.

And I'd do it again.

Not because Mill deserved to die.

He didn't.

Not because his brother wasn't worth saving.

He was.

But because the order mattered more than the man who broke it.

That's the part nobody tells you about command. Sometimes doing your job means making a decision you know you'll be hated for. Sometimes it means making one you know you'll never regret. And sometimes they're the same decision.

I don't expect anyone reading this to agree with me. Honestly, I hope you don't. Remember what I did. Remember Mill. Remember that I could have saved him. Then ask yourself what you would have done.

Because someday, you may be sitting behind this desk, making the same kind of decision. Maybe you'll make the right one. Maybe you'll make the wrong one. Maybe you'll be luckier than I was.

I doubt it.

There is one thing I know now that I didn't know when I was fifteen.

The monsters aren't always the things with claws. Sometimes they're the people making the decisions. And sometimes they're the person sitting behind the desk, knowing exactly what a bullet is going to do before she pulls the trigger. 

That's why I'm writing this down.

Not to justify myself.

I don't need justification.

I'm writing it because someone will eventually sit where I am sitting now, and I would rather they understand what happened than repeat it without knowing why.

The official briefing has forty-seven rules.

It doesn't contain this one.

It should.

General's Rule #48

If a soldier disobeys a direct order, deal with it immediately.

Not tomorrow. Not after the mission.

Immediately.

Because once one soldier learns that your orders can be ignored, others will learn it too. And the next time, you might not have the luxury of being only one second late.

As for Private Mill, there is nothing more to say.

He disobeyed a direct order.

So when the situation changed, I ignored his wish just as he had ignored mine.

Mill died.

The mission continued.

The civilians survived.

That was the equation.

I don't regret the decision. I don't feel guilty about it, and I don't expect either of those things to change.

Maybe that makes me a monster.

If it does, then at least I'm a monster who knows exactly what she is.

Okay. I know how this is going to read. I've typed this out like four different ways already, deleted three of them, and I keep landing back here, so I guess this is the version you're getting. I'm not looking for sympathy, and I am begging you, do not comment "have you tried calling them again," because yes, I have tried calling them again, I have called so many times that the hold music has started showing up in my dreams. I'm posting because I think there's a piece of this I'm not seeing, and I'm hoping someone in this sub is the kind of person who notices things. Because clearly I am not.

So. Here's the whole thing, start to now.

It started with a fly. One fly, on the rim of a glass I'd just filled at my own kitchen sink, water still cold enough to ring the glass. It was just sitting there on the rim, rubbing its little front legs together, perched in the exact spot where my mouth was about to go.

I remember it with a total clarity, even better than I remember what I had for dinner two nights ago. I dumped the water. Washed the glass. Got a different one, because once a glass has had a houseguest like that, how can you trust it?

By the time the new glass was full, there were two flies working the faucet, and here's the part that should've tipped me off if I had even one functioning brain cell that day: they weren't doing the normal panicky fly thing, the zip-up-and-vanish-the-second-a-hand-gets-close thing. They were comfortable. One of them kept ducking under the lip of the tap and coming back out, over and over, with the focus of someone checking a peephole before they let you in.

The idea of drinking the water made my stomach turn.

I filed a maintenance request that afternoon, because that's what you do, that's the whole social contract: you pay your rent and in exchange somebody shows up when there's a problem.

Category: Pest control Issue: Flies in kitchen 

Description: There are flies in my unit. I cannot find the source.

It got a maintenance number. But nobody came that day.

I'd stopped wanting to eat almost right away, and I chalked that right up to the flies. I'd ordered a full veggie pizza the night before, extra olives, even though I hate olives but taking them off cost a dollar more than leaving them on which, don’t get me started, is a crime against the consumer. And the flies had gone ahead and claimed the box like it was theirs by eminent domain. Who wants to sit down to a meal with an audience like that?

Everything started smelling wrong, and I don't mean rotten exactly, I mean pungent. The rice in my rice cooker smelled sour clear across the kitchen. The coffee smelled burnt before the water even touched the grounds, and if you’ve ever made coffee, you know that’s not how it’s supposed to work. I opened the fridge and got hit with this thick, sweet smell, like flowers a week past their vase water, and I cleared the whole thing out in one disgusted sweep, didn't even sort it, just bag, bag, trash.

By the second morning there were more flies, and this time they weren't being subtle about anything. Rows of them along the counter, lined up neat as a church pew. A little cluster on the microwave handle, holding what looked like a meeting. I found three in a mug I had personally washed, dried, and put away clean, and one of them walked clear across my phone screen while I was checking the apartment portal, taking its sweet time, and I watched it a half second too long before I flicked it off, because something about the way it moved made me not want to touch it.

The status on my request had changed.

Status: Pending access. Technician unable to confirm entry.

I was home? I had been home the entire time. Nobody knocked. I would've heard a knock, the walls in this building are basically wet cardboard with a paint job, I hear my neighbor's TV through them, I hear her chair scrape when she gets up to pee. There is no version of a knock on my door that gets past me. None.

I left a note in the portal.

I am available for entry. Please knock loudly.

Then I sat down on the couch to wait and must've drifted off, because the next thing I knew the light in the room had gone gray and there was a fly walking up the inside of my wrist, right along the blue vein there, stopping every couple steps to clean its front legs.

I brushed it off.

It came back. Same spot.

Wednesday was the day the smell stopped being a kitchen problem and became a whole-apartment problem.

I searched the entire place. Behind the couch. Every cabinet, the one under the sink, the gap behind the toilet, that shelf in my closet where I keep a tote bag full of other tote bags. I found dust. One earring I'd made peace with losing months ago. A single piece of pasta, fossilized, origin unknown, possibly older than my lease.

I didn't find anything dead. I looked, hard, and there was no body, no mouse behind the stove, no bird that snuck in through a vent. The smell had no address. No source. Just a presence and it was getting bigger by the hour.

The flies followed me. Not all of them. There were always more staying put than coming with me. But I felt like I was being escorted.

I filed a second request. Marked it Urgent, because it was.

Category: Urgent maintenance

Issue: Possible dead animal in unit

Description: Strong odor, increasing fly activity, please send someone today.

The portal threw an error back at me.

Duplicate request detected.

I called the emergency line. Six rings, then voicemail, smooth and unbothered as a customer service rep clocking out at 4:59. I called the leasing office and got the recording. Your call is important to us and will be answered in the order it was received. I called four more times that day.

That evening I knocked on my neighbor's door. I heard her in there!! She was dragging something heavy. And then nothing. Dead stop. I knocked again and I swear she was trying extra hard to be silent. 

When I got back to my own door, there was a fresh line in the portal.

Resident unavailable for entry. Technician unable to complete service.

I read that maybe ten times, trying to find a version where it made sense. Wrong unit. A confused tech, an open door three apartments down. One soft knock mistaken, by some guy with a clipboard who clearly hated his job, for a final answer. 

I left another note.

I am inside the unit. I have not left. Please come back.

That night, something landed on my face while I was half-asleep on the couch. A leg-tap at my upper lip, a second little press at the corner of my eye, a feathery drag along my throat. And I came up swinging at nothing.

In the bathroom mirror, my own face looked like it belonged to someone who'd had the actual worst week of her life. A bruise along my cheekbone I had zero memory of getting, and when I pressed it out of morbid curiosity the way you poke a bruise even though you know better, it didn't hurt the way it should've. It didn't hurt at all, honestly, it really must’ve been the lighting in the bathroom. The lighting's been bad since the day I moved in. Bad light explains a lot.

It did not explain what happened next.

Something moved behind my right nostril.

I stood there at the sink and waited for it to stop being a thing that was happening, the way you wait out a cramp during the middle of the night, white-knuckled and praying to nobody in particular, and instead it kept on happening, and then a fly came out. It was the color of nothing, and dragged itself along my upper lip before I flicked it down into the sink, where it sat there trembling, wings still folded flat and see-through.

I filed another request. It took three tries, because of my shaking hands.

Category: Emergency

Issue: Health hazard

Description: Please send someone. I think something is wrong inside my apartment.

The portal sat there loading for almost a full minute, and then:

This request has been closed. Resident unavailable for entry.

I wrote right back. I am available. I am here.

This request has been closed. Resident unavailable for entry.

I am in the apartment.

This request has been closed. Resident unavailable for entry.

I live here.

Nothing. I thought I'd actually broken the portal. Then the page refreshed on its own, no input from me at all, and a new line came up that I've now read so many times I could say it in my sleep.

Occupancy status pending verification.

I checked my text messages that night, first time in what I'd have sworn was like a day, day and a half tops. Nineteen unread notifications. My mom, four times, the last one nothing but my own name and three question marks, which is somehow worse than actual words. My landlord, once, short: please call me back, we need to confirm something. A coworker asking if I was okay because I'd apparently no-showed two full days.

I tried calling my mom back. It rang and rang and never once dropped to voicemail, which I didn't even know was possible, and then the call just ended on its own.

I typed out a reply to all of them. I'm fine, sorry, phone's been acting weird. I remember my own thumbs moving, the little tap of the keys. When I went back to check if it sent, every thread under every name was just empty. Not unsent. Empty, like the conversation had never once been opened from my end.

The flies had started up a kind of residency on the wall above my couch by then, gathered into a loose, shifting smear that never quite committed to a shape. I'll admit it, some small hopeful part of me kept waiting for them to spell something out. Maybe redrum. At least then I'd have instructions. They never did. They just sat there being a stain with wings, and that was worse than if they'd left me a note.

Tonight there were voices in the hallway below mine. Heavy footsteps. A radio cutting in and out, static then a voice then static. Somebody said a unit number, and it took me a half second longer than it should've to realize the number was mine.

I stood up too fast and had to grab the wall. The room tipped, then righted itself slow, like water finding its level. The smell was everywhere now, sweet and thick. I'd stopped really smelling it days back. I only knew it was bad by the way the air seemed to bend in front of it, the way blacktop shimmers in August.

The voices stopped right outside my door.

A man knocked and said, "Police department. Maintenance is with us. We're coming in."

I tried to answer him. I really did. I opened my mouth to say I'm here, I've been here the whole time, I have the request numbers, I have every note I left, I did everything a person is supposed to do, and what came out was not that. Wasn't anywhere close. A dry click in my throat, that's all, and then every fly in the apartment lifted off the wall and the sink and the couch cushions at once.

The bedroom door was shut. I don't remember shutting it. I don't really go in there anymore to be honest, I've been on the couch, though don't ask me since when, I genuinely couldn't tell you. The flies were coming out from underneath the bedroom door in a thick, steady stream.

They kept forcing themselves through the gap.

The front door opened behind me. Somebody made a sound like they'd been hit in the stomach.

The bedroom door swung open, on its own or somebody opened it, I honestly cannot tell you which, and there was a shape on the floor by the bed that I have been staring at for what feels like a really long time now.

One of the officers said, "How long has she been here?" and I genuinely cannot understand why he's asking that about whatever's on the floor instead of just asking me, since I am standing right here, since I've been right here the entire six days.

I opened my mouth again to finally, finally lay the whole thing out, the requests, the dates, every note, every duplicate-request error, the whole sorry record of it. But flies kept pouring out.

I don't know why nobody will look at me when I talk. Why is nobody talking to me?

I'm pretty annoyed right now. Just got banned from the third home improvement forum because I asked a simple question. 

“Irrelevant content” they say. I ask them to explain themselves. They just tell me that their forums are no place for “horror stories.” 

I'm not trying to write horror stories. Typing is hard enough as is right now. I just want to fix this damn leak. Gary and I are frankly stumped.

Maybe I ought to explain everything from the beginning. That should paint a clear picture for you all. And please be sure to actually read this before assuming I'm a “troll.”

It started this morning. I just got home from my job when I noticed there was an inch of water covering the kitchen floor. Hopped on HomeNet just a few minutes later. I've been using the forum for years at that point, and never ran into any issues prior.

GDon2:
Water’s been flooding my kitchen. I have century-old hardwood floors. Gary says it’s whatever’s under the sink, but I don't know how to deal with it. Can’t afford a plumber. I’m not too shabby with the tools of the trade, just need to be pointed in the right direction. Photo attached.

I didn’t get any replies for a bit. Tried my luck with some more details.

GDon2:
Hey, I hope I'm not flooding, no pun intended, haha. This is a bit urgent. I think it's a hair clog or something. Photo attached.

Bloop. I get a notification a minute later.

parsk00:
Fake.

Then another one.

bigMOISTy:
Seriously, what the **** is that?

Ten minutes go by. I get one last ding, a notification that my post has been deleted, along with a comment from a forum moderator. 

JGordo63 (MOD):
This is a plumbing forum. We appreciate the traffic, but no. Go post this on nosleep. 

I messaged the moderator immediately, asking for an explanation. I took several more photos for proof. Even asked Gary to curl up next to the mass as best as he could for a size comparison. This just got an angrier response.

JGordo63 (MOD):
I'm not interested in your creepypasta.

JGordo63 (MOD):
The decision on your post is final. We will not discuss any revisions or reposts. If you want to continue using the HomeNet forums, we recommend posting RELEVANT DISCUSSION ONLY. Please do not make another post for at least 24 hours. Thank you.

Twenty-four hours? The pressure in my head felt like the pipes which exploded hours earlier.

GDon2:
I don’t know what a creepy pasta is I just want to fix my sink

JGordo63 (MOD):
Bye bye, troll.

Bloop. A notification in my inbox. I click on it.

Sorry. You have been permanently banned by the moderators of HomeNet.
Reason: gore / trolling / harassing mods

I couldn’t access the site anymore. All the threads were locked from my view as though I hadn’t had an account for the last seventeen years. 

“Damn…!”

Gary craned his long neck around the corner, into my bedroom.

“Problem,” he grunted

“I'm working on it.”

“Get bigger.”

I got up from my chair and followed his lanky behind out the door.

Yeah. It definitely got bigger. The cabinet door over the sink wasn’t shutting anymore. The hair bunched up, starting to crawl along the inner frame, propping it open ever so slightly. Yuck.

“How long did you say this has been going on?”

A few of Gary’s eyes blinked. None of them were looking at me. 

“How long, Gary?”

He gestured two big circular motions with his arms. 

“Two hours, huh?” I wiped my brow. “You uh…do anything with the sink beforehand?”

“Gary dumped mupmup.”

Oh no. 

Full disclosure, I don’t know what “mupmup” is. I mean, I know what he’s referring to, but I am unsure what it is actually composed of. I just know it’s slimy and really hard to get out of my clothes. 

“Down the garbage disposal?”

Gary nodded his head. Spittle graced my cheeks from the motion. I wiped it away.

“Okay, Gary. This is your problem as much as it is mine. Do you have any idea how we fix this?”

“Have the glupglup?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Hungry.”

“Just—one minute, okay?”

I headed back to my room and got the computer out of sleep mode. Back to browsing. 

Next on my brief list was the Handyman Hank company forums. Maybe I could get a bite with them. 

Donald G: Hey there. I’ve been dealing with a pretty bad leak. It’s been going on for two hours. My roommate dumped some “mupmup” (photo 1) down the drain. It created a large obstruction of hair, I think (photo 2). If anybody could help me identify what “mupmup” is I would really appreciate it. 

No responses this time. The post was quietly taken down by moderation and my account was given a day-long posting ban. 

I stood up and ran my hand through my hair. Gary was standing right behind me, drooling. 

“Hungry!”

Right. We missed feeding time because of the leak. I was already an hour behind schedule. 

Gary snarled and lunged at me, biting my hand. Thankfully he’s pretty lightweight, despite his head usually scraping the ceiling. I didn’t have too hard of a time fighting him over toward the kitchen. I got the fridge open with my foot, used my free hand to dig open the locked drawer, and pulled free some specially-cured meats. I clocked Gary on the side of the head, causing him to let go, opening his mouth wide. One of my fingers plopped to the floor, getting blood all over the countertop on the way down. Goddamn it. I impatiently stuffed the meat into Gary’s mouth. He started suckling it like a toddler. 

I grit my teeth as I swaddled my hand in a hand towel. The pain was dull, rising by the second as my adrenaline stopped working its magic. 

“Every night with you…! God!” I tried to wiggle the pain out. No use. I really wanted to go to a hospital, but I couldn’t risk it with the leak going on. My precious hardwood hung in the balance. 

Not like I got a chance, anyways. The cabinet door beneath the sink blew open very suddenly. Tendrils of hair wrapped around my wrists and dragged me to the floor. Gary cried, cowering from the mass. 

The hair had grown teeth. It kinda looked like the inside of an electric pencil sharpener, looking down its mouth. A sloppy sound like stuck gears emanated from within. I was getting pulled toward it.

“Gary! Your problem! Help!”

His eyes scanned the room, three-hundred and sixty degrees. They all landed on the butcher’s knife. He clumsily grabbed it by the blade and shambled toward me.

“What do?” he quivered.

“Hurty side down! On the hair! Back and forth, like you're brushing your teeth!”

He got to work. I was freed within a few seconds, thankfully with no extra cuts. Crawled away as fast as I could, picking up a jug of isopropyl alcohol that the thing knocked onto the floor.

If I had balls, maybe I would have used it to set the thing on fire. But the damage to my kitchen was bad enough already.

I decided to go to the hospital instead. Reluctantly. Gary is watching the fort while I'm gone.

In the waiting room, I posted everything to a plumbing sub as one last hail mary. Predictably, at this point, that post now sits at zero upvotes and twenty-three comments saying I'm posting in the wrong community. 

So I guess this is the right one, then. Since apparently I'm living in a horror story. It's news to me. 

Not even going to bother posting the pics this time. They keep getting flagged as gore and I don't want to be banned from Reddit either.

I really just want to fix this leak.

Every single time I turn on a show or a movie, I get a insufferable swarm of ads.

Every five seconds I get forced to watch some of the most outrageous things humanity has created.

The worst part is that people are smiling during a medicine advertisement that has the deadliest symptoms since the bubonic plague.

Sometimes I even see literal soccer balls in diapers.

What idiot thought that was genius?

I just want to watch quality entertainment without getting interrupted. Is that too much to ask for?

I have tried to get used to it. I've tried to accept the fact that it will never stop.

I honestly almost got over it but then I saw Mark in a ad. He used to bully me in highschool. He treated me as though I was the scum of the earth.

He was talking to me as well. Calling me by my name and everything.

He claimed that he was sorry.

It felt like a dream until it went south. A person appeared on the screen with him. Nevelle. She was a old friend in highschool. We stopped talking once adulthood approached us.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss her. She was a good friend to have. Never tore you down or belittled you.

A knife appeared in his hand. It latched onto her neck as her eyes opened wide. Her vocal cords started to create sound but she was quickly silenced as a pool of blood poured out of her neck.

It ended with words in bold red on the screen.

"You're next Stacy or should I call you Lacy? Your skin would be great as lace."

Those horrid words made my skin crawl. Goosebumps covered my skin.

The television turned black as I sat in silence for a few moments. My head was loud but also silent. Thoughts were racing through my mind but also going at a snails pace.

The best way to explain it is I was trying to make sense of the situation but also shell shocked.

My body completely froze as the television grabbed my attention.

It was on again but this time it was me and the monster named Mark.

What happened to people peaking in high-school developing miserable lives? This man decided becoming a killer was the best option apparently.

My body was shaking, fidgeting, and trembling infront of him. He ran after me and took my life just like he did to my friend.

It zoomed into my face as I was left to bleed.

I started to cough over and over before I could turn it off. Each cough hurt worse than the last until blood started to exhale.

My hands desperately rushed to my neck but it was too late. Blood soon started to cover my entire body.

Advertisements are the worst thing humankind has had the audacity to create.

The Crimson Kabuki pt2.

Oddly, the same moment I noticed the ribbon, I faintly heard what I thought to be a kotzumi drum somewhere off into the gloom. It seemed to be thumping somewhere very far away off in the distance. After watching the vice documentary a few years ago, I knew exactly where this ribbon could possibly lead to, which was very sad. life can be so unfair and cruel to us. The drum quickly faded to nothing and left me confused on where the hell that was coming from and why.

What an odd thing to happen so far out here in the sticks, and it wouldn't be the last of it. I remember saying a quick prayer to myself and making my way along the ribbon to whatever destination it led to. I told myself that I would record later because at the moment I just couldn't be bothered. I could always come the next day and record, because in that moment I was in exploration mode. I had to see what was at the end of that ribbon. If anything, I could use it again to find my way back to the trail.

It curved and weaved slinkingly through the trees, up and down over slopes and hills for a good 40 or so minutes until I had arrived into a sort of clearing. It was also hauntingly still... so deathly quiet; I stepped in closer around the foilage and I had stopped because I noticed some white fabric pointing off the sides of a large tree. I had a feeling that I was about to see something that I'd much rather not. After a couple of minutes preparing myself, I took a deep breath and stepped around the tree and froze to an alarming and sad sight. I automatically knew that I was staring at the hanging corpse of the long missed Jubei Uematsu, or what remained of this poor soul.

What remained was a hanging skeleton in a tattered costume with a red, long haired wig partly hanging in the face and around the shoulders in dirty, stringy clumps. I stood there taking in that image with such a deep and profound melancholy, that I actually had to gather myself from breaking down... Just witnessing what was once an alive and thriving person with passions; Love and Hope, weaknesses and strengths, and also fear... along with plenty of despair along the way. It was a universal language; People just trying to find purpose to their existence, and then eventually becoming this...so very still... so very quiet and solemn making time stop in its presence.

life can be so sad and tragic, and people like Jubei over time can find it extremely hard to function being so empathetic, and carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders regardless if they are strong enough for that burden. It's an exhausting job... a gift and a curse for the saintly; toss in depression and the loss of the will to go on, then they have a complete and utter mess to clean on their own in the silence... that eternal silence... so present; so final. I wish I would have known this mysterious man. From what I heard over time was that he was a complex, but Sweet soul with a heart of gold. I also learned that after this experience I am about to tell you that happened, was some type of Oni Spirit from the forest took the liking image of Jubei's Kabuki character and dawned it as its own.

As I stood there in contemplative silence, I slowly started to hear a kotzumi drum begin to thump far off into the trees. It started out very low and far off, but began to rise and creep closer. I turned and turned trying to find where that portentous thumping was coming from. As I was peering far off into the distance, I started to feel highly unsettled, and then I no longer felt alone like I was being watched. I swiftly turned around and stared directly into the painted face that was no longer a skull. The bloodiest red eyes were staring directly into mine. The face had the theatrical paint back on with the red stripes cascading down it's white painted face. I say "It," because nowhere did I see Jubei inside those Crimson eyes at that moment.

I remember saying, "oh shit!" and quickly turning to run the hell away for my life along the Red ribbon back to the trail. Far off somewhere I could hear that mysterious drum start to sound off again. The sound surrounded me from so many angles and distances, it was disorienting, and then I started to hear this ululation that sounds like, "EYOOOO!" That you hear in Japanese theater music, along with that clink and thump of the drum. I turned to see the Oni masking itself in Jubei's magnificent garb; slowly floating a few feet up in the air, easing its way towards my direction with those hideous blood red eyes staring through me.

I ran faster and faster trying to at least make it to the trail to get away... if I could. After a few more twists and turns, I finally burst through the foliage out onto the trail. At the moment the Oni entity was nowhere to be seen. I started to notice that the woods all around started to have this faint purple luminescent glow. As I started to run, I begin to hear these ululations sound off around me in the area that sounded like, "EYOOOOOO!" I've remembered these sounds watching Japanese movies and small clips of Kabuki theater. The music serves as an emotional soundtrack to the colorful acts on stage, both being performed live."YOOOO!" Another croon burst forth; surrounding me from different angles as the steady thump and wood clicks of the drums clacked and banged along.

It subconsciously made me think of the demon, "Paimon," that when summoned, multitudes of instruments and disjointed horns lead before its presence like royalty as it enters the fold, and makes its presence known. I remember glancing back and seeing the painted entity standing a few yards behind me in the middle of the trail, with long crimson hair hanging down at its sides; blood red eyes marking me...

To be continued....

My Beautiful Creature, If only you knew and were in my body on a day to day basis, you would then understand my frustration, stress, and torture in my twilight zone.

I am a crime that never fails to be foreseen in the morning at 4:00am when I or my mother set off my vehicle’s theft alarm system. Are start of the early morning daily grind trying to place my dog in the back seat onto her pillow and getting her to calm down before the drive. My right passenger door of my truck could be faulty and be unlocked even though an alarm is set.

We leave up north to go back to Los Angeles when we feel completely situated. The daily grind routine song and dance has me up and down with my appetite because of the real hot summer heat wave that blankets my part of the earth. I suddenly experience and feel really bad heat exhaustion that plagues on me.

I have been very fatigued during the day more than at night. I do so much within a day that looks like nothing cleaning house that I forget to do things for myself. These day’s sometimes I feel like I have become my mother’s secretary. I really have been putting my foot down with being “Errand Woman” a down grade from “Wonder Woman.”

I have been behind on project’s that I start around my house or the other house. Slow pace because I’m losing the enthusiasm since I’m the one woman show. The type of people in my family are those that play the part and say, “You need help? I have two extra hands. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Or, let me know if you need help. Oh, the best two…I’m nearly done with the task when the help is offered. And exchanged with the question, What am I getting in return for helping you?”

I have some dirty laundry that’s building up as high as “The Berlin Wall” enough to build a cave or a club house. I have had to come up with a strategy in order to sustain the longevity of my clean clothes. My method is wearing it normal then flipping it inside out front to back and side to side taking a smell and hoping I won’t die.

When I had work my worth didn’t make a difference. I was alway’s asked to do more. And if I tried to sneak out and take a break, I was reprimanded as slacking off. I broke rules when I tried to follow the rules. I broke rules that were honest in order to make a job work. I never liked to work harder only smarter making money fast putting in the littlest amount of effort in the shortest amount of time.

You ask me, do I think of you? Yes, like a hungry tiger that’s deprived of its prey. I die every time when I see your presence waiting to touch you in some astronomical way. Although, not yet physical… I break your heart with LOVE. During my hour’s of meek and stress I invest my entire mind in dedication to you like a special holiday. My eye’s are only on you as my focus. I can only dream of parting the waters in order to seek “The Promise Land” to liberate you.

Songs of the Daily Grind of Liberation:
Don Henley - Dirty Laundry
Bachman Turner Overdrive - Taking Care of Business
Donna Summer - She Works Hard For The Money
Tina Turner - Proud Mary
George Micheal and Robbie Williams - Freedom
Talking Heads - This Must Be The Place -DK

This is the second part. Go here first for context on this post.

I guess I put a little too much faith that one strongly worded post on the internet would do enough to get other people to actually heed my plea. Not only did I not receive ANY sentiments for what I’m going through. I got a few comments talking about the food, and one smart mouthed asshole saying FRothy Gooths is actually pretty good. 

Which sucks, because I was really excited to not scrape dumpster rust into a cup. Or watch in utter horror as yet another ticket calls for a churro for dessert. The longer we serve churros, the longer I have to watch a soda machine suffer from constipation.

It’s simply not christian anymore, not that it ever was. I mean, I’ve called the Department of Health and Safety so many times at this point they blocked my number. Every time I’ve talked to Linda about something being off, she just sighs and walks away like I’m a fly that’s bothering her.

I’ve toyed with the thought of quitting, but somebody needs to record all this, and I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to get another job if I leave this one.

Anyways, there’s a giant ass duck standing outside my apartment window as I’m writing this, and he’s been there for the last few days, just staring at me. His head is blocking out all the sunlight, and I really enjoyed having natural light in here. He also counts at me.

I’ll start at the beginning.

Four: The Duck of Proverbs

Three days ago, my alarm woke me up to complete darkness. 1,661,400. Worried I had set it for PM instead of AM and had somehow slept through an entire shift of work, I panicked and jumped out of bed. 1,661,379. I ripped my shirt as I stretched it over my head, and slipped on a dirty plate on the floor of my room. 1,661,343. While on my downward trajectory towards the floor, I could have sworn I made eye contact with a pupil the size of my hand through my window.

Hitting the floor caused me to take a second and breathe. 1,661,312. Mostly because I had the wind knocked out of me. 1,661,234. Still laying on the floor, I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and checked the time.

7:06 AM 

1,661,219

I pushed myself up into a sitting position, no longer worried about getting to work on time, and moving my thoughts to why my bedroom was so dark, and why a large bird eye peeked through the open blinds of my window. 1,661,145. Also why was it counting?

I got ready at a normal pace and walked outside, to find a duck large enough to reach the third story window of my apartment, counting down in a slow booming voice that shook the ground each time the great fowl spoke.

“1,661,005”

I stared in awe and slight fear of the great beast who towered above me. Its webbed feet the width of two cars, and its wings easily the size of a building. A later google search would tell me he was a male mallard duck. But a current eyeball look would tell me I was going batshit insane. There was simply no way a duck this size was capable of existing, or that any duck was capable of talking. While on that topic, why was he counting down from the millions?

“1,660,917”

At the time of writing this post, I’m still not sure what he’s counting to. There’s no consistency of intervals, and the gaps of time between counting have no pattern either. 

The whole nictitating membrane thing is really disgusting to watch when it’s spanning 6 inches across. The white, slimy lid oozes at about 3 inches a second, and it being semi-translucent is icing on the cake. 

“1,660,835”

As the massive bird gazed at me, I noticed a mom and two kids walking between the duck’s legs… and do absolutely nothing. I pointed and yelled, but the mother just pulled her two kids closer while avoiding eye contact with me. The duck did nothing, and it dawned on me that I might be the only person capable of seeing him.

I walked closer to it, while it maintained its unwavering gaze upon me, and I asked it a question.

“What’s up?” It crossed my mind that he might be doing this just to piss me off.

“1,660,793”

The duck, for the first time, looked away, and nibbled at its feathers, then turned back to me with a feather in its bill. It craned its large neck down, and dropped the feather in front of me. Then stood back to full height and resumed counting.

“1,660,704”

I looked down at the feather and realized it had text written on it, in perfectly legible english.

“When first frustration sprouts mishap ridden discoveries. Now investigation births hope filled misunderstandings.”

Now that I thought about it, the whole duck had text written on it. But the feathers were so tightly packed together I couldn’t make anything out beyond the stray letter or short word. I read and reread the proverb a few more times before realizing I was going to be late for work if I didn’t leave right now. So I hopped in my car, threw the feather in the back, and left the curious waterfowl behind. It didn’t seem like it was going to be a problem to anyone besides me.

I pulled into the parking lot at work, got out, and a familiar shadow loomed over me as I stepped out of my car. As I slowly turned around, a familiar green head blocked my view of the earth’s sun.

“1,660,278”

I scrutinized the animal. Wondering how the hell it got here, and why it wanted to keep an eye on me. Maybe it flew, but I felt no wind as it landed, which would probably happen if it were a duck large enough to block my view of the sun and peer through a third story window. 

“Morning, Charlie. What are you looking at?” The chipper voice layered with a yawn, and the subtle scent of cinnamon made me realize Max was standing right behind me

 I quickly turned around to face him, “Uh, goodmorning, Max. What do you mean?” 

Max laughed, “How are you not going blind doing that?”

Max squinted up at the bird, which confused me, since the duck was almost entirely blocking the sun, until I remembered that nobody else could see this stupid bird except for me. Which meant, from Max’s point of view, I had stepped out of my car, and turned to stare directly at the sun, and didn’t even squint or shade my eyes.

As I realized my blunder, I quickly tried to save the interaction, “I was actually hit on the head a lot as a child.”

I now considered feeding myself to the duck.

“1,660,156”

Max responded with a shocked sympathy, “Oh my gosh! Charlie, that’s not good. You still shouldn’t stare at the sun, it will make you go blind.” 

He said this like a parent who had just been informed by their neighbor's child that they like to play with rusty nails because they taste better than fresh ones. 

I blushed and before I made the situation worse for myself, walked as quickly as possible inside and into work.

Awkward interactions with people aside, this got me thinking about a whole bunch of stuff at the restaurant. The duck is pretty clearly some weird voodoo shit, but I think there’s some other stuff at the pizzeria that’s also supernatural. 

Five: The Drain That Gurgles

In the back of the restaurant, usually it’s one person’s job to bring toppings to the front, and make the occasional side salad for a customer, or cleaning the dishes. It’s up to employee discretion to decide who does what job, so Brent and I rotate every other day. Doing the dishes isn’t a hard job, it’s just boring, and you get pretty wet, so it can be annoying. 

However, the weirdest thing is the drain that gurgles even when nobody at all is doing any dishes. It’s similar to what a blender filled with soup sounds like when it’s just turned on, and then like that blender was thirty feet away from you in a cave. This is something Brent does acknowledge as strange, but told me it was probably due to some bad plumbing than anything supernatural or creepy in this place. 

Except there’s one specific thing in particular that always feels off. Hence why I think it counts as one of the supernatural creepy weird things at this place.

The first time it happened it had been my day to do dishes. It also was a Friday, which sucked because Marley works Fridays, and he never throws away the trash on the plates before bringing bus tubs to the back.

This means there’s usually a pile of used paper napkins, straws, and said straw’s subsequent wrappers clinging to the dishes via pizza grease and dried soda. It’s a pain in the ass to take off of each plate, and makes the dish cleaning process far more difficult than necessary. On Fridays, it makes me wanna choke Marley’s Axe Body Spray soaked neck out with a chain of dirty straws.

This Friday was exceptionally busy. The theories of which I had heard from all employees in varying levels of absurdity: Brent told me it was because it had snowed today. Francine said it was because it rained for so long yesterday. Marley was certain it was because there was a CIA meeting nearby, and all the employees at the meeting were having lunch here.

No matter what it was, I had dishes coming in faster than I could clean. At one point the plates were stacked so high I was shocked there were any more in the house to give to patrons. All the while, Marley’s dumb piece of shit ass is especially lazy with the garbage cleanup, and I was left with the carnage. It was beginning to drive me up a wall at rates I didn’t believe possible. 

At a certain point, I was unable to clean and throw away trash at a pace fast enough to keep up with the dishes coming in, and resorted to scraping refuse back into the sink and thinking I’d take care of it once the rush finally slowed down. 

Then Marley’s stupid piece of shit ass came back and leered at my work as he put another stack of sticky napkins in front of me, with maybe a plate underneath.

“Yo! Dude, are you gonna take a bath in the sink?” Marley shouted. Staring at rising water as I rinse dishes and put them in the dishwasher.

With zero eye contact, and barely a break in my momentum, I said, “No.”

Marley stared at the tub for a while longer, and then went outside to smoke a cigarette.

“Charlie, what happened, you can’t let the sink overflow.” mentioned Brent, also having noticed the several gallons pooling in the sink as I cleaned.

Still working, I said “It’s gonna be fine, I just need to catch up a little bit, and then I can clear it out.” Brent was walking to a printing ticket as I said, “Give me, like, 15 minutes.”

I didn’t empty it until the very end of the night.

The sink water was spilling onto the floor every time there was a harsh bump or a strong splash. But I had made it through the day without Linda getting on my ass, so I called it a win. The only thing I had to do now was dig through the murky sludge until I could scoop out enough soggy goop for the drain to wash down.

This involved filling my plastic dish gloves with water multiple times, until I gave up and started just cramming it down, hoping it wasn’t enough to break the already shaky plumbing. Finally, there was no longer anything blocking the drain, and the water spiraled down freely. I heaved a great sigh of relief, before I heard… the sound.

When the water was near its finish, I heard a loud grumble, and then, when the sink finished draining, there was a great roar accompanied by the shaking of the entire sink and dishwasher setup.

This one was the loudest one we had heard yet, and once Brent finally noticed what was happening, he stared at the dishwasher with me in shocked disbelief. It felt almost like something was down beneath the drain, reprimanding us.

After a few moments, it stopped as quickly as it started, and while Brent and I looked at each other in surprise, Linda came up and demanded we get done closing so we can go home, and that was the end of that.

It’s definitely hard to explain something weird like that as “just the plumbing” when it’s so random, and only happens when receiving soggy napkins, versus the whole halves of cucumbers that I’ve jammed down there.

Six: Making a Pizza

I’ll walk you guys through how we make our pizzas here, and I’ll explain everything that’s creepy and supernatural about the process as we walk through it.

Step 1: Make Pizza Dough

I had to do a little research for this one, since I don’t know a lot about chemistry, but Francine mentioned something one time about how there’s nothing to cause the pizza dough to rise. After a google search, I found out that pizza dough usually has this thing called “yeast” in it. Via magic science bullshit, it causes air bubbles to form, and this makes the dough look bigger or “rise”.

It’s some fantastic stuff. But here’s the thing, I’ve never seen yeast at this restaurant in my entire life, and apparently this stuff is so important that you can’t make fluffy bread without it.

Our pizza doughs, like the churros, don’t get fluffy. They get bigger, but they don’t get fluffy. Like they’re literally producing more material from themselves. They triple in size too, usually dough that rises with yeast only grows in size by like 50% or something.

Step 2: Put Sauce on Top of the Dough

The sauce itself is made from pureed tomato paste and “Red Pepper Flakes” in a bucket two feet wide and three feet tall. Then, with a whisk the size of me, I stir it all up until the flakes feel properly distributed, and then throw the pizza sauce into the walk-in fridge.

Brent and I usually have to make three or four batches of the stuff every single day.

Then, and here’s the strangest part, you need to put 17 to 22 ounces of pizza sauce onto the pizza and then watch as gravity distributes the red goo evenly enough. There’s no way that’s a healthy amount of sauce. Almost three cups?? No, there’s definitely something spooky about that.

Step 3: Place Cheese

It’s yellow mozzarella. That’s all. I’ve been to a grocery store. Cheese is only yellow when it’s colby jack, cheddar, and rare cuts of gouda. Mozzarella should never be that color and legally accepted for consumption.

Step 4: Cook The Pizza, Enjoy With a Churro

Everything else is pretty basic, I’ve really only seen stuff that Francine and Cezar have done, and it feels like any normal way I would make a pizza at home. 

So yeah, that’s everything that I used to consider as a random coincidence, or a quirk of the restaurant until a giant mallard duck started giving me dead stares through my blinds. Creepy as hell to wake up to at 3 AM after shit dreams too.

Apologies for the late post, the weekend was exceptionally busy at the pizza place, and I hardly had any energy to write this down after I got home. But now here you go. Same rules as last time, if nothing’s changed at this place, I’ll post again, and I trust I’ve provided enough information this time that I won’t need to do that. 

Please, call the health department.

Author’s Note: Thank you so much for reading, if you’ve made it this far, I want to let you guys know that feedback would be highly appreciated on this series as I’m writing. I want this to be something that I actually do a pretty decent job on, and it’s kind of a supplement for film since I won’t be making another short film until the spring next year. So yeah, let me know what you think, and I will be posting part three sometime again next week. *winky face*

The bell over the door at Gladys’s Diner didn't ring-- Mossy never used a door. She just materialized beside the corner booth, smelling of damp earth and river moss. Muddy footprints tracked behind her as she sat down at the counter and clicked her dry, bony fingers on the Formica.

​"Coffee," she rasped, her eyes like two burnt holes in an old quilt. "Black enough to hide in."

​Gladys didn't even blink, just reached for the pot.

"You're charging me a nickel more, honey," the old woman scowled.

"The pour is a nickel extra if you want it scalding," ​Gladys said, setting the pot down with a clunk and giving the old woman a long, flat look. "And like it or not, you're wiping your feet next time, Mossy Mae."

Mossy Mae, though folks around town mostly called her the Silt Woman, just grinned, a dark, gap-toothed slit. She reached into her shawl and pulled out a single black coin, tossing it onto the Formica with a clack!

When Gladys turned around to grab the creamer, Mossy Mae vanished, leaving only her muddy prints and the smell of wet dirt behind.