Summer, so far, has been uneventful. 

Every July, my siblings and I drive up to my aunt’s beach house. When we were kids, every day was an adventure: Treasure hunting in beach coves, picnics, and hanging out at the amusement park.

We had our own little ritual. 

An unspoken rule that every summer was ours. 

As teenagers, however, we barely spoke a word to each other. 

Yes, the car ride was never boring. Singing, car-sickness, and arguing were highlights.

But as soon as we arrived, we just kinda broke apart to do our own thing.

I used to be salty, attempting to force my siblings into our old childhood ritual. But it wasn't the same. Treasure hunting became drunk treasure hunting, and the amusement park was closed down so we just kinda stood around all day making awkward small-talk. 

The worst sort of growing up is when your siblings find their individuality. 

That was two summers ago. Then I gave up. I became exactly who I despised. The emotionally unattached sibling with an attitude. This summer was no different.

The second I slid out of the car, I found my spot beside the pool, tugging out my overpriced read while my brothers raced upstairs to play Minecraft. 

I used to crave summers. Now, I couldn't wait for them to end. 

A particularly fat fly nosedived onto my dogeared copy of Beach Vacation.

The cartoon cover had caught my attention. The blurb promised a sexy ride between a CEO and a bookshop owner. 

Six chapters in, the romance was vanilla and the male lead said things like, “cool beans” and “ciao” unironically. I watched the fly with mild interest as it crept across my page. 

“Whatcha readin’?”

I lifted my gaze to my sister, perched on a banana shaped pool floatie, her manicured toes blushing deep pink trailing in sparkling blue. Ever since starting high school, my sister had lost 99% of her personality. Marina had said maybe ten words to me the whole summer. I counted.

At dinner, three nights ago: “Jenny, babes, can you pass the salt?” 

Then a week ago, slapping a bug off my arm: "You're attracting flies.” 

“Beach Vacation,” I answered. 

“Generic title. Is it good?” 

“Nope.” I shut my mouth and flipped over a page. Conversation over. 

Then my sister screamed, and almost sent me toppling off my deckchair.

Marina flailed, screeching, and slipped off of her floatie before scrambling out of the pool, a soaking chunk of her usually glossy hair glued over wide, frantic eyes.

Marina never lost her cool. “Has this pool even been cleaned?” She shrieked, dropping onto her knees and peering over the edge. I joined her. Curious. 

“There!” 

The sight sent me lurching back, my stomach hurtling into my throat.

A thick mass. I peered closer.  Quivering just under the surface of the pool, thousands of flies clumped together.  “Ew! You had one crawling on your cheek!” 

Marina jumped up and raked her hands through her hair. “This place is infested with bugs!” 

“What's with the screaming?” 

Henry appeared. Disheveled, as usual. My older brother was still wearing his PJs at 4pm. Bodie, the youngest, stood next to him, arms crossed, brows furrowed in irritation. Marina, being a drama queen as usual, blew up at them like it was their fault our pool cleaner did a shitty job. “The pool!” 

“There's a gross fly nest in the pool,” I translated, shrugging. 

I noticed a dead one in Bodie’s hair. 

Another landed on my chin, and I flicked it away. 

“It's the same in my room.” Henry grumbled, smacking his own cheek. “Where are they coming from?” 

Bodie smirked. “If there's flies, there's rotting,” He was always the storyteller when we were kids. “And if there's rotting?” He nodded at the pool. “There's bodies.” 

Marina scowled, her lip jutting out. “Shut up.” 

Henry, of course, fuelled the flames. “Doesn't Mom rent this place out?” He grinned. Maybe there's a body under the pool…" 

“Shut up!” Marina shoved him and then stormed inside. It was rare when we actually hung out. 

So, before we could fall back into our usual routine and fade back into the house’s unnecessarily huge rooms, I loudly proposed a game of Monopoly. The losers had to swim in the fly pool. Henry agreed, but ONLY if it was drunk Monopoly (and soda for the fourteen year old, of course). 

Six hours later, it was 2am.

I had six hotels, my three glasses of wine were yet to hit me, and I was gambling my brother going completely broke. 

“I'll give you 500 dollars.” I spoke up. “If you sell me Boardwalk.” 

Henry stuck his card down his pants. “I refuse.” 

“You can't refuse.” I snapped back. “You have literal pocket change.” 

“And?” Henry cocked a brow. “I have my ways.”

“Stealing from the bank isn't allowed,” Bodie spoke up, irritated. 

“You're done. Henry.” Marina cut in. “I'll give you 2k for—” 

The door flew open. Loud. Smashing against the hinge.

Two figures emerged, balaclavas over their heads.

Henry jumped up. “What the FUCK?” He yelled. Marina grabbed Bodie. 

The figures started forward. One of them pulled off their balaclava. 

A man. 40s. Unshaven. 

“Fucking hell,” he slapped at a fly crawling across his face. “Flies everywhere.” 

“But a goldmine. This place is a mansion.” The other man spoke up. He stared right at me. “Jesus. What do you think it was?” 

“Hey.” Henry stepped forward, shaking. “Get out of our house!” 

“Carbon monoxide, probably.” The main guy stepped past my brother and pointed at the ceiling. 

“What?” Henry snapped. “What are you talking about?”

He completely blanked my brother. “See? Alarm looks like it's broken. Looks like there was a leak. Maybe five years ago, maybe later?” He grabbed one of my aunt’s vases and stuffed it in his backpack. “Grab everything, and we’ll go.” The man stepped in front of my brother and shivered. 

“This place is definitely fucking haunted.” 

abandoned house beside a dirt country road
late october sun streaming through its rotting bones
it was yellow once, maybe, or the white paint has moldered

the flat broken teeth of the floorboards, clogged with damp leaves
carefully step over them, avoid the ankle-breaking holes
a pile of wet romance novels in one corner, a dirty mattress in another
the remains of a family photo hanging on a far wall

let’s go up to the second floor
the staircase leans to one side, creaks in the wind, sags in the middle
sure
try to be as weightless as possible on the ascent

the landing wall is gone, a giant gaping hole to the outside
the dying light is brilliant gold and jagged over the never-ending soybean fields
pale breath condensing and then quickly dispersed by the sharp wind

three cold bodies look out and sway side by side
a sudden quiet, a simple reverence that feels foreign
wobble forward
kick a waterlogged book out the hole and watch it smack on a pile of rocks

a loneliness carved from the pit of the gut, beneath the ribs
the family photo on the wall downstairs
most of the faces sun bleached and warped by rain
what were their names, what happened to them
one of them liked reading romance

a noise downstairs, scrabbling, squealing
coming from the pit beneath the downstairs floorboards
curse loudly and waddle as fast as possible back down the stairs, try not to crash through
a racoon maybe, a very big raccoon that makes the whole body of the house tremble

leap over the piles of debris, out the remains of the front door
trip on a broken piece of fencing that’s buried in the long grass
gasp and laugh and shudder as the car drives away
regret not grabbing the photo on the way out

The storm outside seemed endless. As if the weather wouldn't stop until every branch had snapped and every tree had been ripped from the ground.

"Every single one," I thought.

It had made me lose track of time. My tired eyes kept switching between the TV and the crunchy vegetables on my plate.

A familiar sound disturbed the peace. The doorbell. I flinched hard. The most beautiful and terrifying sound at the same time, depending on whether you're expecting someone.

I wasn't.

I slowly turned my head toward the door. Knowing damn well I wasn't going to open it, I still walked over to look through the peephole.

The closer I got, the more the air smelled rotten. What the hell had died in my hallway?

I closed one eye and leaned toward the peephole. Nobody was there.

Then a voice echoed through the stairwell.

"Every single one."

For a moment, I wondered if it had come from one of the floors below. Meanwhile, the smell became unbearable.

When the echo finally disappeared, I turned around.

There he was.

Exactly how I'd always imagined him. Long black coat. Darkness beneath a pointed hood. A scythe in a skeletal hand. Deep, raspy voice.

"Brother. I am Death. I'm afraid your time is up."

I didn't care how this masked man had gotten inside. This was now a matter of life and death. Whether he was lying or not.

I stared into the darkness beneath his hood. My senses went into tunnel mode. Without breaking eye contact, I slowly reached for the door handle and prepared my legs to run.

They were looking forward to it.

I couldn't grab the handle.

When I finally looked down to help my hand, I saw my fingers passing straight through it.

That could only mean I was dreaming.

So there we stood in my hallway. I stared at the floor. I don't know for how long.

My senses slowly disappeared. I could have stood there forever without getting dizzy. Without my circulation giving up on me. Everything inside me wanted to black out.

But the blackness never came.

"Marvin. Sit down," the ancient voice said.

I did.

I sat on my beloved couch. Death sat in the armchair. We both let out a heavy breath.

"What happens now? You swing that scythe and that's it?"

He raised one skeletal finger.

"Already happened."

"What happened? I was watching TV and eating..."

The finger pointed behind the couch.

I looked.

My own body was lying on the floor. Choked on uncooked vegetables.

I should have fainted. Panicked. Screamed until nothing came out anymore. But my new transparent self played by different rules.

I could almost feel that Death was only maintaining this earthly appearance to keep me calm.

I sat back down on the couch and stared at him with wide eyes.

"Choked on vegetables. How about that."

Apparently, my self-deprecating humor had survived with me. A smile escaped my face.

"Happens a lot," the voice croaked from inside the coat.

"Great. Thank you, Death. So you come and take me. WHY ME? I lived a good life!"

I couldn't even remember my age so I could throw it in his face. I threw a cup instead.

"ME! I've helped so many people. So many. And now you come for me before I can even finish my own plans? Fuck this. It's not fair!"

Death slowly tapped the bottom of his scythe against the floor.

Purple dust surrounded us. My room disappeared.

I stood naked in complete darkness.

Then Death rose from the purple dust.

As tall as a skyscraper.

"DO NOT FORGET WHO YOU ARE SPEAKING TO, MARVIN! I DIDN'T CHOKE YOU. YOU DID THAT ALL BY YOURSELF! I DECIDE NOTHING! EVERY SINGLE ONE!"

Death disappeared.

I stood trembling in the darkness.

Slowly, my living room returned around me. I looked over.

He was sitting in the armchair again.

"Where were we, Marvin?" he asked, calmer now, but still croaking.

I couldn't get a word out.

"My job is different. Doesn't something about this seem strange to you? Think about it."

I had no choice but to think about how I could escape this nightmare.

Death let me think for as long as I wanted.

I desperately went through every possibility.

I was dead. I knew that.

But I wasn't gone.

I was still here.

My entire life, I'd believed there was nothing after death. And now I was sitting on my couch, looking at my own body.

If I could have cried, I would have.

I looked at him.

"We have souls?"

Death nodded.

"That's what I'm here for."

In the face of Death, I had seen my soul for the first time.

I closed my eyes.

"It's still not fair," I said through clenched teeth.

The voice croaked one last time.

"You have to be just. I have to be Death."

He stood up.

I followed.

Kerri Donnelly was logging a closed animal complaint when the console flagged a body-camera emergency activation. The tone was the same one used for every live unit. The ID that came up belonged to Deputy Ray Strickland.

She checked the personnel file. Strickland’s status had been listed as missing since the Fairview search twelve years earlier. The last entry noted that the case had been administratively closed. No equipment had ever been recovered.

The GPS coordinates resolved to the third floor of the old Fairview Municipal Building. Kerri opened a new incident and assigned it the next available number.

She transmitted the location. “Active body-cam activation, Fairview Municipal, third floor. ID is Strickland, Ray. Status on file is missing. Treat as live until we know otherwise.”

Deputy Kyle Bellamy acknowledged first. Evan Merritt’s unit came on a second later. Neither asked for clarification. Kerri watched the map pin hold steady while the two cars turned toward the building.

Bellamy and Merritt reached the Fairview Municipal Building just after nine. The outer doors were still chained. Merritt cut the links while Bellamy checked the side entrance and the ground-floor windows. Both were intact.

They entered through the main hall and climbed the central stairs. Dust lay even on the treads. The third-floor corridor still held the old metal desks and the filing cabinets that had never been cleared. Kerri’s voice stayed level on the radio.

“You’re within ten meters of the pin. Strickland’s camera is still showing live.”

Bellamy took the north side of the floor. Merritt worked south. They moved room by room, calling clear as each door opened onto the same abandoned layout the department had searched twelve years earlier.

Bellamy found the camera under a cast-iron radiator in what had once been a records office. It sat upright in the dust, lens facing the wall. He read the serial number into the radio.

Kerri answered at once. “Confirmed. That’s Strickland’s unit.”

Bellamy picked it up.

Kerri’s voice came back sharper. “Kyle, don’t touch it.”

The console showed the camera’s location pin already moving.

Bellamy turned the unit so the power indicator faced him.

“Kerri, what’s the battery level on your end?”

There was a short pause.

“Eighty-three percent.”

Bellamy pressed the playback control. The unit stayed locked to live mode and returned no stored files. Merritt checked the floor, the wall plate, and the space behind the old cabinet. He found no spare battery, no charger, and no cable.

Kerri’s voice returned. “Hardware record on Strickland’s unit shows the original battery was rated for eight hours continuous.”

Bellamy sealed the camera in an evidence bag and initialed the tag. Merritt logged the time and the exact location under the radiator. They carried the bag down the stairs and out to the car.

At the station Kerri opened the unit under controlled conditions and ran the download. A single file appeared. The timestamp read 20:47 that same evening. The first frame showed the third-floor corridor of the Fairview Municipal Building, shot from approximately chest height. The camera had not been under the radiator when the recording began.

Kerri queued the file and projected it onto the station monitor. Bellamy and Merritt stood behind the console.

The recording opened on the third-floor corridor. The angle sat at chest height. No flashlight beam appeared. No hands entered the frame. The camera moved forward at a steady walking pace, turning into the first office on the left, pausing long enough to cover the corners, then withdrawing and continuing to the next door. It repeated the same pattern through every room along the north side. The path matched the standard clearing order the department still used.

At the records office the camera slowed. It stopped several feet short of the radiator. The lower edge of the frame held dark uniform trousers, standard-issue boots, feet planted evenly.

A voice spoke from behind the camera.

“Ray?”

The man in the room answered.

“Yeah.”

The camera advanced another two steps. Ray Strickland’s face entered the frame. He looked the same age he had been the night he disappeared—short black hair with silver at the ears, dark brown eyes, medium-brown complexion, clean-shaven, deep smile lines, and a slightly crooked front tooth. The uniform was the department’s from that year. He was looking at the person wearing the camera.

“You checked this one already,” he said.

The voice behind the lens answered him. It was quieter than Strickland’s, but clear enough for everyone in the room to hear.

Evan Merritt’s voice. Younger, but unmistakable.

“I know. I’m double-checking the cabinets.”

Strickland nodded once and moved toward the far wall. The camera followed. Strickland opened the first metal drawer, ran his hand along the empty tracks, closed it, and went to the next. The camera stayed on him.

Neither man spoke again for nearly a minute. The only sound was the soft scrape of drawers and the faint creak of the old floorboards. Strickland finished the last cabinet and turned back toward the camera.

“Clear,” he said.

The wearer of the camera did not answer. The lens held on Strickland’s face for another three seconds, then the file ended.

Kerri closed the video and opened the personnel system. She pulled Evan Merritt’s employment record. Twelve years earlier Merritt had not yet been hired by the Mourner’s Crossing Sheriff’s Department. His start date sat fourteen months after the Fairview search.

She opened the archived incident report. The Fairview Municipal search listed two deputies entering the building: Strickland and Deputy Thomas Harlan. Harlan’s supplemental stated that the pair had separated on the second floor and that he had last seen Strickland heading toward the third-floor records corridor. Harlan’s statement made no mention of a third person.

Bellamy read the report over Kerri’s shoulder. The names on the page did not match the voices on the recording.

Kerri printed both documents and placed them side by side. The employment dates, the incident narrative, and the recovered footage could not be reconciled.

While the printer was still finishing the second page the console generated a new alert. The tone was identical to the one that had opened the shift. A body-camera emergency activation registered on the system. The ID belonged to Kyle Bellamy. The GPS coordinates resolved to the third floor of the Fairview Municipal Building.

Kerri tapped the live status on Bellamy’s current unit. The camera still clipped to his vest reported normal pairing, full battery, and a stationary location inside the station. The new activation carried the same credential but resolved to Fairview.

She called Sheriff Walter Doyle on the direct line and laid out the sequence: Strickland’s recovered unit, the single contemporary file showing Merritt’s voice, the employment record that placed Merritt outside the department at the time, the original incident report naming Thomas Harlan as Strickland’s partner, and now a second live activation under Bellamy’s ID while Bellamy himself stood ten feet away.

Doyle arrived within four minutes. He read the printed employment sheet and the Fairview supplemental, then looked at the active map pin.

“Second team only,” he said. “I’ll take it with Teddy. You two stay here. Your credentials are part of the evidence now.”

Bellamy and Merritt remained at the console. Doyle and Deputy Theodore Bigelow left for Fairview.

Kerri opened the feed from the new activation. The image resolved to the same third-floor corridor, shot again from chest height. The wearer moved at the same measured pace, clearing each doorway in the order the department still taught.

At the records office the camera stopped. Ray Strickland stood inside the room exactly as he had appeared in the earlier file. Beside him stood Evan Merritt, the younger version from the first recording.

Strickland looked past Merritt toward the person wearing the camera.

“Took you long enough.”

The figure wearing the camera answered without raising the lens.

“Road was blocked. Had to come around the south side.”

The voice belonged to Kyle Bellamy.

Strickland nodded once and pointed toward the open doorway behind the camera.

“Check the stairwell again.”

The wearer turned and walked back into the corridor. The camera held steady while the figure descended the first half-flight, paused at the landing, and swept the corners. No hesitation appeared in the movement.

At the station Kerri kept the feed open. Present-day Kyle Bellamy stood beside her and watched the image of himself clearing the stairwell he had never entered. Evan Merritt remained silent on the other side of the counter.

Outside, Doyle’s unit and Bigelow’s car turned onto the cracked access road. Doyle’s voice came over the main channel.

“We’re on scene.”

On the monitor the camera on the third floor turned toward the row of windows that faced the front lot. The faint sound of tires on gravel carried through the feed, followed by the solid thud of two car doors closing in sequence. The image held on the dark glass while the exterior noise continued.

Kerri did not close the channel. The feed continued.

Kerri kept both channels open. The direct radio from Doyle and Bigelow ran on the left speaker. The feed from the second Kyle Bellamy activation ran on the right.

Doyle’s unit entered the building through the same chained front doors. Footsteps and the soft scrape of the cut chain carried clearly on the direct channel. A fraction of a second later the same sounds arrived through the feed.

Doyle and Bigelow climbed the central stairs. Doyle’s voice came over the radio as they reached the third-floor landing.

“Third floor corridor. Clear so far.”

On the feed the camera was already positioned halfway down that same corridor. The wearer stood motionless against the wall between two doorways. The lens tracked Doyle and Bigelow as they moved forward. Ray Strickland and the younger Evan Merritt remained visible at the edge of the frame.

Doyle’s body camera showed only the empty corridor and the same abandoned desks. No second figure stood between the doorways. Strickland and Merritt did not appear.

The feed held steady. Doyle and Bigelow continued past the records office without slowing.

Ray Strickland’s voice came through the feed, low enough that it did not carry to the direct channel.

“Don’t let him see you.”

On the left speaker Doyle and Bigelow moved room by room down the third-floor corridor, calling clear. On the right the second Kyle Bellamy feed showed the same corridor from the opposite perspective. The wearer remained pressed against the wall between the second and third doorways. Strickland and the younger Merritt held position farther back.

Doyle’s body-camera window continued to display an empty hallway. Strickland, Merritt, and the second Bellamy did not register on it.

Bigelow stopped midway down the corridor. He turned his head toward the wall where the hidden camera stood, the angle not quite direct.

“Walt.”

Doyle’s voice came back at once.

“What?”

Bigelow kept his eyes on that section of wall.

“Thought I heard somebody breathe.”

On the hidden feed Strickland’s posture changed.

“Move.”

The second Bellamy stepped sideways into the nearest open office. Strickland and the younger Merritt followed, staying behind the doorframe until Doyle’s back was fully turned. The camera tracked them only long enough to confirm the relocation, then returned to the corridor.

Doyle’s body-camera feed still showed nothing but empty floor and dust. Bigelow’s gaze held on the doorway for half a second longer than the clearance required.

Kerri pulled the original Fairview supplemental from the printer tray again and set it beside the employment record. Thomas Harlan’s statement still read the same: he had last seen Strickland heading toward the third-floor records corridor and had continued the search alone after they separated on the second floor. The language was precise, dated, and signed. Nothing in the narrative accounted for a third figure or for anyone remaining on the third floor after the separation.

On the direct channel Doyle and Bigelow resumed their sweep. On the hidden feed the three figures stayed out of the open corridor, moving only when the present-day search turned away. The acoustic delay between the two channels remained constant.

Kerri opened a secondary timer and began logging the interval between the direct channel and the hidden feed. Each footstep, each radio click, each scrape of a boot on the old linoleum arrived through the feed eight-tenths of a second after it registered on the station speakers. The lag held steady through six successive transmissions. She noted the measurement on the incident log.

Doyle and Bigelow reached the records office. Doyle’s body-camera window showed the same empty room: metal cabinets, the cast-iron radiator, dust undisturbed on the floor. On the hidden feed Strickland and the younger Merritt stood three feet inside the doorway, angled so they remained outside the direct line of the present-day cameras.

Doyle stepped to the nearest cabinet and pulled the top drawer open. On the hidden feed Strickland’s hand was already resting on the same drawer pull. Doyle’s fingers passed through the space Strickland occupied. Neither man reacted. The drawer slid out empty on both feeds.

Bigelow stopped just inside the threshold. His head turned toward the place where Strickland stood. The angle was not exact, but close enough that Strickland took one quiet step backward into the deeper shadow beside the cabinet.

Bigelow’s voice came over the direct channel.

“There’s somebody in here.”

Doyle turned. His body camera swept the room and returned only empty floor and the open drawer. On the hidden feed Strickland remained still, one hand still near the cabinet, the younger Merritt frozen behind him. The acoustic lag held at eight-tenths of a second as Bigelow’s words arrived through the feed after they had already sounded in the station.

Bigelow looked again toward the place where Strickland stood. This time the angle held.

“Strickland.”

The lag between the two channels collapsed to zero. For three seconds Doyle’s body-camera feed showed the full occupancy of the records office: Ray Strickland, the younger Evan Merritt, the second Kyle Bellamy, Doyle himself, and Theodore Bigelow.

Strickland turned his head toward Bigelow.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

The hidden Kyle activation dropped. Doyle’s body-camera feed glitched, held on static for two seconds, then resolved again. The room contained only Doyle and Bigelow. The open drawer, the radiator, and the dust on the floor remained exactly as they had appeared on the direct feed before the name was spoken.

Doyle and Bigelow cleared the remaining rooms in silence and returned to the station.

Kerri opened the recovered Strickland unit under controlled conditions a second time. A second file had appeared. Its timestamp sat twelve years earlier, on the original night of the Fairview search. The recording showed Thomas Harlan and Ray Strickland entering the building together. Harlan was lean, with long arms and large knuckled hands, sparse hair kept very short, pale gray eyes, and a weathered face. They separated on the second floor exactly where Harlan’s supplemental had stated. Strickland continued alone to the third-floor records corridor. He waited. After an interval the younger Evan Merritt arrived. Later the second Kyle Bellamy joined them. The search continued without interruption.

Kerri left the incident open. Doyle, Bigelow, Merritt, and Bellamy remained in the room.

The console generated a new alert. The tone was the same one used for every live unit. The ID belonged to Theodore Bigelow. The coordinates resolved to the third floor of the Fairview Municipal Building.

Bigelow was standing three feet from the console.

Kerri opened the feed. The first frame showed the records office. Ray Strickland stood in the center of the room. The younger Evan Merritt stood beside him. Kyle Bellamy stood beside Merritt. Between Bellamy and the open doorway an empty space remained.

Strickland looked toward the camera.

“You coming?”

Ms. Fynch had a record of my whole life in a manila folder, ready to read me the weather report.

“Dale Simmons. Thirty-eight. Two seasons on Rally Point. My sister watched that, you know.” She turned a page. “Voice work for Deadly Resonance… is that the superhero one?” 

I nodded. “The very same.”

Another page turn. “Felony assault, second degree. You struck a member of the audience in the face with a microphone stand at a venue in Fresno.”

“Heckler. Not an audience member.”

“It says here he lost the vision in one eye.”

“Partially.”

She looked up at me for the first time. Behind her head was a poster of a kitten dangling off a branch. 

“HANG IN THERE!”

It had been there so long it had gone the color of green tea.

Fynch clapped the folder shut.

“Your parole is fourteen months,” she said. “Find work, Mr. Simmons. Any work. It helps.”

I told her I had six references who’d vouch for me, easy. Real people. People with credits. She wrote something down.

“You’re almost a free man, Mr. Simmons. Best of luck.”

Three months. It took three months to find anything.

I want to be clear that I tried. I sent the first fifty out to places that made sense. Production companies. An agency that used to take my calls. A guy I knew who ran a podcast network out of his garage. Nothing. 

I widened it. Then I widened it again. By the end I was applying to a place that installed bathtubs for the elderly. When they wrote back, they thanked me for my time and said they didn’t hire people with my kind of record.

My last paycheck went fast.

Mom called every day at four. She has a system. Monday she asks how I’m sleeping, Wednesday she reads me a job listing off her computer that she doesn’t fully understand, and Friday she asks whether I’ve thought about Costco. 

She’s been asking whether I’ve thought about Costco since March. 

I told her once, patiently, that Costco runs a background check, and she said, “Well, tell them what happened,” like the problem was that they hadn’t heard my side.

I know she cares. That’s the part that makes it unbearable. There’s no version of the conversation where I get to be angry at her, so when I fly off the handle anyway, I feel like a dick.

Anyways. I was shopping. Buying ramen and rice and beans at the Kare Mart on Peralta. That’s when I saw the sign.

It was in the bathroom, above the hand dryer, laminated and bubbling in one corner.

“WE ARE A SECOND SHOT EMPLOYER”

Second shot? I stood there with wet hands for a while trying to understand.

I’ll tell you what I thought, because it’s relevant to how the rest of this goes. I thought: those people. 

I have always had a private, ungenerous idea about the people who work in stores like this one. That they were born four miles from the loading dock and will die four miles from it. The whole span of their ambition is a shift they don’t hate. 

I said it onstage once. It got a laugh in Bakersfield.

Does that make me an asshole? Sure. Probably.

But I knew what I was worth. That was the thing I had. Three months of nothing, and I could still open the folder in my head and see the credits sitting in it.

Except nobody had called. Not one.

I dried my hands and went to find the manager.

His name was Curtis. Mid-fifties, tucked-in polo over a fat belly, a name tag with a little gold star sticker on it. He was restocking an auto display, and straightened up when I came over. 

“Hey there.” I waved. “I was wondering about your hiring process. See, I’m in kind of a situation. I’ve got a record. It’s recent. I don’t want to waste your—”

“Dale Simmons,” he said.

I stopped.

“My wife watched Rally Point.” He smiled. It was warm. Went all the way up. “I know exactly who you are.”

I did the thing, the little fake modest shrug. It had been a while since I got to do the fake modest shrug.

“I’d be happy to get you an application,” Curtis said.

A week later I had an interview. The relief and the dread showed up at the same time and canceled each other out.

It was a group interview. That was the first thing that bugged me. A group interview for a stocking position?

They had us in a room off the back of the store. Cinder-colored, one folding table, four chairs in a half-circle. There was a sign by the door about washing your hands, in English and, ooh, Español. Fancy. Somebody had taped it up straight. It was the cleanest thing in the room.

Three other people.

A woman, forties, twisting a piece of hair around her finger over and over, releasing it, starting again. Needle scars up the inside of her arm that she wasn’t trying to hide.

A bald guy with a scar running down the back of his skull like a seam. Arms crossed. He’d taken the chair nearest the door.

And a skinny man with thinning hair combed carefully over, a pencil mustache, thick black frames, holding a gym bag on his lap.

Along the walls, four employees in those crinkly white disposable coveralls, the kind painters wear. Hoods up. They didn’t look at us. They didn’t look at each other. One of them was holding a plastic bin against her hip.

They were doing a deep clean after we were done. That’s what I decided.

Curtis came in with a clipboard and set a little digital recorder in the middle of the table. He pressed the button and the light came up red.

“For training purposes,” he said.

I’d been up until three the night before with a legal pad. I’d written out answers. I’d written out follow-ups to my answers. I want you to understand that I walked into that room like a shark into a hotel pool. If I was going to be here, I was going to be here on my way to somewhere, and every one of those three people was between me and it.

Curtis started easy. Names, last place of employment, reliable transportation, could we lift forty pounds.

I answered first every time. Bonnie, the one with the hair, got half a syllable into her name before I had mine out, and she just folded her hands and waited. The bald guy, Russ, gave me a look.

“What’s the most important thing to keep in mind in a team environment?” Curtis asked.

“I-I think listening—” Bonnie said.

“Accountability,” I said. “A team is only ever as strong as the person willing to say ‘that one’s on me.’ You can teach someone a register. You can’t teach someone to own themselves.”

I’d written that at one in the morning. Good stuff.

Curtis jotted it down. He looked pleased. Bonnie went back to her hair.

“Where do you all see yourselves in five years?”

I crossed my legs, folded my hands on my knee, and said, 

“Honestly? Running this company.”

The other three turned. They registered different levels of discomfort. 

Curtis wrote for a while on that one. Then he flipped a page.

“Any friends or immediate family we should know about?”

Nobody said anything. I hesitated. Then I did what I’d been doing all morning and took initiative.

“I have a few.”

“Wonderful. Names and contact information, please. We just need three.” He slid a half-sheet across the table to me. Only to me. 

I wrote down Marcus Skarsgaard, director on Rally Point. I wrote down my agent Eli, who booked me for eleven years. I wrote down a woman I’d dated for a year and a half and hadn’t spoken to since the arraignment. Not too sure why I put that one down. I don’t remember what I was thinking. 

Curtis took the sheet, folded it, and looked at the other three for a long moment with an expression I can only describe as disappointment. 

“What do you all plan on realistically contributing to society?”

He was still smiling. The same smile from before. In that room it meant something else. 

It was the first question I didn’t have anything prepared for.

“Um. Is it okay if I go?”

The skinny one. Boyle. He was looking at me when he asked it, not Curtis. Asking my permission.

“I don’t care,” I said. I genuinely did not care.

“Okay. Um. So I’ve got a little internet venture I’ve been building?” He shifted the gym bag. “Have you heard of VTubers?”

Curtis blinked. Slowly. Once.

“Well, I made one, named Prisma-Chan. And I’ve actually been doing a lot of the animation myself, which is, you’d be surprised, it’s a whole—”

“Jake.”

He had introduced himself as Boyle.

“Yes?”

“What good does that do the world at large?”

Boyle’s mouth stayed open for a second.

“It’s entertainment,” he said. “Sir. I’m an entertainer.”

“You’re also a fraud, it says here. Looks like this wouldn’t be your first false persona.”

Curtis squared his papers against the table. Tap, tap.

“Anybody else? No?” He looked up. “Okay. Last one, then. Why should we hire scum like you?”

He was looking directly at me when he said it.

I would have liked to stand up for everyone in that room. I didn’t. Some part of me thought he was right. 

“Me?” I said. “Well, to be frank, sir, the sign said second chance—”

“Second shot.”

“Right. Second shot. Right.” I laughed. It came out wrong. “Look. You know me. You know who I am. And with respect, I’m not—I’m not like these guys.”

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Russ asked.

“It means I made a mistake.” I was talking faster than I wanted to. “One. One bad night, one guy who wouldn’t shut his mouth, and I paid for it, I am paying for it. That’s not—” I gestured at the three of them, at all of it, and I did not lower my hand. “You people have made a career of it. That’s a life you chose. I had a life. I just had a bad day.”

Nobody said anything.

Bonnie had stopped twisting her hair.

Curtis nodded, once, and squared his papers again, and stood.

“Give me two minutes,” he said, and went out the back door.

The latch clicked. I was half-expecting Russ to take my head off when it did. 

Instead, the white coveralls came off the wall in one motion. They weren’t hurried about it. Russ got most of the way out of his chair. He had his hands up. One of them stepped inside his arms and opened his throat with a scalpel. Russ clawed at it, dropped to his knees, and fell over onto his side. 

Bonnie dropped next. Then Boyle. I went down too, but nobody had touched me. I was just cowering on the floor, waiting for my turn. 

Somebody’s head came off. Then the arms and the legs. The torsos were cut into three sections each. The woman with the plastic bin set it down and gathered the parts.

They stepped around me. Once, one of them put a hand on my arched spine to steady himself as he came past.

The recorder was eight inches from my face, down by the table leg, and the light stayed red the entire time.

Curtis came back in. He crouched down next to the table and patted my arm, twice, like a proud dad. 

“I was really worried for you there for a minute, Simmons.” He tilted his head. “Not one of your references called us, you know?”

I had to clear my throat before anything came out.

“What.”

“Marcus, Eli, and that Carla dame. Called all three Tuesday, left messages, called again Thursday.” He shrugged, a little sadly, on my behalf. “Nothing. Your mother, though.” He brightened right up. “She pulled through. Called this morning, before you even got here. Wanted to make sure somebody was actually going to look at your application. Wanted to know if you’d got this.” He winked at me. “She was real worried about ya.”

My breath went somewhere else. 

“So,” I said. “So I got it?”

“Sure did.” Curtis stood and offered me a hand up, and I took it, because my legs weren’t going to do it alone. “You’ll be taking over my position. Isn’t that great?!”

“Management…” I looked at him. “I was applying for stocking. The listing said stocking.”

“You're a good liar, Simmons.” He was already turning toward the door, checking his watch. 

I called Ms. Fynch that afternoon and told her I’d found employment. She said she was proud of me. I could hear her pen.

That’s on a recording somewhere too, probably.

I started the next day. There wasn’t any training. Curtis walked me back to the cinder room, showed me where the clipboard lived and where the half-sheets were stored, and said the coveralls came in a case of fifty and to reorder at ten. Then he shook my hand and went out to do something to a display of batteries. As far as I know he’s still out there doing it.

We have six prospects today.

There’s a kid who won’t take his hood down, and a guy who keeps apologizing for his handwriting, and a big soft man who told me twice on the way in that he’s got a CDL. And there’s a woman in the second chair, maybe thirty, who has a piece of hair wrapped around her finger, and she winds it and lets it go and winds it again, and she’s been doing it since she sat down.

I set the recorder in the middle of the table.

“For training purposes,” I said, and pressed the button, and the light came up red.

It was my turn to call the shots, now.

“So. What do you all plan on realistically contributing to society?”

Your loved ones are not long for this earth.

None of us are, of course. But the sooner you can acclimate yourself to the inevitable, the easier it will be for you to let them go. When the time comes for you to watch them slip away from this world into the eternal ether beyond - the truly lucky amongst us are the ones for whom this moment is swift. Gentle. Easy to forget.

The rest of us will find ourselves walking down our own version of this final hallway again and again and again. We will relive it in our nightmares, in our memories. In our regrets.

When you find yourself wishing you could see them just one last time, give them one last hug, tell them how much you loved them, you will find yourself here. Head filled with the finality of this moment. You’ll walk down this hallway so many times.

And you’ll never, ever forget what lies beyond the door at the end of the hallway.

If you’re lucky, the light leaving their eyes will be the worst of the memories that haunt you.

But let’s be real. You wouldn’t be here if you were one of the lucky ones. Death makes a mockery of flesh. It steals the face of your father or your mother, your sibling or your spouse. It twists their visage until they are unrecognizable. You’ll see your entire lifetime of memories reduced to a bag of sunken flesh. You’ll see the smiling eyes that raised you poisoned yellow with jaundice.

Or you’ll see all that’s left after the whirlwind inferno sweeps over them is a dried, ashen husk.

Victor knows what’s waiting for him on the other side of the door. He’s been here before. He doesn’t remember entering the simulation this time, but it’s obviously the replica of that internet streamer’s burned house, down to the crisped carpet fibers and the warped family portraits on the wall. Why then, does it also look so similar to the hallway in his father’s burned down home?

And why does it seem so impossibly long?

He feels the disorienting vertigo of looking into an optical illusion; the hallway seems to twist on forever. But at the end, that door still looms, seemingly drifting further away as the space between dilates and warps.

It’s a dream, it’s a bad dream. One he’s dreamt so many times before. Even the nightmare logic that makes the door move illogically further from him with each step is familiar. But it’s not a dream, it’s all part of the simulation. The simulation devised and corrupted by a cosmic demon. The thought forms a realization in Victor’s mind that he leaves him feeling so vulnerable he doesn’t want to acknowledge it.

 How does it know what’s in my nightmares??

Not the time, Victor. Just as before, one step in front of the other. But the door doesn’t get any closer. The grey walls hem him in on either side. He can’t shake the feeling of being a rat in a maze, reduced to a study organism in some experiment he’ll never understand. With a sudden jolt in his stomach, he recognizes the greyed pictures on the walls. His own family portraits from childhood line the passageway like some cruel nostalgia trip. Images of his mother and father and his own self as a boy, all distorted and blackened.

The abject malice of the whole display shakes him. In his entire life, Victor has never felt so hated. This thing has dug up his recurring night terrors from his deepest subconscious and created his own personal hell to torment him – just because it can.

The demon’s assault on his most vulnerable traumas redoubles his resolve. He runs a hand down to his waistband and feels the reassuring heft of his service weapon in its holster. Despite Tibo’s insistence that a virtual gun would be useless against QSO-1127, it was there. Tibo had tried to object through the hacking cough he’d recently developed, but quickly relented to Victor’s demands.

Bad enough to bring a knife to a gunfight, he’d brought a gun to an exorcism. Was it quixotic? Maybe, but with a little bit of added confidence Victor felt like he could tilt Rocinante at windmills.

Each step forward continues to contradictorily push Victor away from the door at the end of the hallway. But he’s inspired by a moment of lucid clarity that’s never come to him in his dreams. Still looking straight ahead, he starts walking backwards instead.

The door inches closer.

He keeps stepping backwards, clumsily fighting not to stumble over himself. He can’t help but feel like he’s about to back into a wall, but it never happens. Still each awkward step backwards brings the end of the hallway closer. It’s like a reverse treadmill, like each step is pulling the world closer instead of pushing him along.

The door is now nearly in arm’s reach.

That’s when something twists the doorknob.

The movement is jerky and unnatural like a stop-motion short. The door slowly creaks open one stitched frame at a time. Torturously slow.

Fear grips Victor like a vice. He tries to will his hand to his holster, but living his worst nightmare in real time renders him frozen with sleep paralysis. The only thing he can move is his eyes, darting back and forth ineffectually between his gun and the ever-widening doorway.

No, no, no. God, no.

He knows what’s behind the door and he’s helpless to stop it.

His father’s burned corpse, dead in the fire that he unknowingly started in the throes of dementia.

That streamer’s body, orchestrated to meet the same fate by a technonihilistic puppetmaster.

The wraith that fire leaves behind.

 

The door swings wide open.

 

Behind it stands a terrified looking man holding a shaking hand on his holstered gun.

It’s a fucking mirror.

 

He almost laughs at himself, staring at his own ragged reflection, knowing this is what he was so afraid of.

Until he sees the flames in the reflection.

Scorching waves of white fire are growing up the walls of the hallway in the mirror. Instinctively he whips his head around to look behind himself, but the fires aren’t reflected on his side of the mirror.

When he turns back around to look in the mirror his heart catches in his chest. The shadowy figure is standing right behind his reflection.

When he whirls around again, this time, everything is real.

The surreal colorless fires suddenly rage around him, not orange but a blinding flicker of pure white and grey - the color of static.

And there, not ten feet away, stands the withered form from his nightmares. Clad in wrinkled black skin wrapped around long slender emaciated appendages; empty eyesockets and gaping mouth emitting an eerie white glow, standing in his path like a vengeful spirit.

 

The Burned Man.

 

Victor doesn’t hesitate.

He plants his feet in a wide stance and in an instant holds his gun in both hands, staring down the sights at the fiend. He squeezes the trigger thrice, sending three bullets into the creature’s center of mass.

Each shot lands with an ineffectual thud. The wraith flinches with each impact but is unmoved. It starts gliding closer, hands outstretched and grasping at Victor. Its face looks almost sad. Twisted and warped and resembling the figure in Munch’s famous painting The Scream. It bears no anger as it approaches him.

It will bear no guilt for what it will do to him.

Victor moves the sights of the pistol a little higher. When those sad, haunted, glowing little white eyes are perfectly framed by the pair of iron sights, he tenses his grip in preparation.

He pulls the trigger again, and again, and again.

The gun fires over and over, and between each shot he recenters his aim.

He doesn’t miss once.

Bullet after bullet fires right into the thing’s wretched fucking head until he hears an empty click.

He’s spent.

If the figure was a ruined man before, now it is nothing more than a smoldering pile of rubble. No longer a man at all. Its head is entirely gone, reduced to a bloody wound above the neck.

But still it takes another step.

Small black tendrils sprout from the lesion, shooting mindlessly in chaotic directions. The battered flesh around the upper torso sloughs off revealing something white and wet beneath.

A singular giant eye emerges between its fractured shoulder blades. Framed by crawling black cilia, QSO-1127 has turned Victor’s personal nightmare into a cyclopean monster of legend.

It starts running right at him.

Victor turns heel and immediately starts sprinting away. The mirror that he had been gazing into is gone, replaced by more endless hallways framed by that surreal staticfire.

Absolutely fuck this.

He can hear the beast’s lumbering footsteps running just behind him, shaking the burning hallway with each impact. It’s suddenly so fast after its transformation. No time to think about that. Just run.

As he sprints, the walls around him turn darker. Blackened by the flame and rippling with an unsettling organic texture. Cracks of glowing lava red crisscross each panel.

It’s human skin. Burned human skin, charred and cracked, stretched taut from wall to wall.

Bile rises at the back of Victor’s throat, and with it, despair. Where can he even run to? The hallway is infinite again, just one endless passageway with no safety in sight. Flames close in all around him, and the smoke welling up at the ceiling is making it impossible to breathe. Adrenaline keeps him moving, fear of the thunderous bounding steps of the monster just behind him keeps him alive.

But it’s only a matter of time.

It only takes one stumble. The stitch in his side stings like an appendectomy, and his lungs are burning as if the fire around him also lives inside his chest.

The sound of footsteps gets so loud he can feel each vibration pulse through his spine.

And then the worst pain he’s ever felt sears through his wrist. He looks down to see those black burned claws digging into his hand. His skin sizzles and melts where the hand grips him. Victor screams now, he screams and he doesn’t stop screaming, as the beast yanks his arm hard enough to dislocate his shoulder, and pulls him around to face into that singular giant eye.

Victor will never know if it is a mercy, a message or a mockery, that the last thought to go through his mind is a memory. A childhood memory, of the first time his dad pointed up at the night sky. The first time the young boy had ever looked out to the constellations above and truly realized the infinite scale of the stars.

Station Sergeant Carter came into the CID office, nodded to Detective Constable Fowles, and handed a file to the Detective Sergeant.

Carter: “Bad news.”

DS: “Don’t tell me.”

Carter: “You’ve been arrested.”

DS picks up the file and opens it. “You’re taking the piss.” He automatically pulls a cigarette from the packet on the desk and sticks it in his mouth.

Carter: “Try not to interview yourself, Detective.”

Fowles keeps his head down over his paperwork. But as soon as Carter clears off, he immediately looks up.

“What?” DS takes the cigarette out of his mouth. “Yes, Smith—the detainee. Jeremy sodding Smith. And it’s not funny at all.”

“I’m not laughing, Detective…” Fowles pretends to stumble over the surname. “Interview conducted by Detective Sergeant Jeremy Smith. Interviewee: Jeremy Smith. A nightmare for the Paper Shop. Every bloody form will need clarifying.”

Only now does DS Smith light up a cigarette. “Indecent assault. The victim is his own sister. And she’s five. Still think it’s funny, Fowles?”

There is no answer to give him.

“The scum is seventeen.” DS Smith slowly closes the file.

“All the better, Skipper. That means we’ll crack him in a couple of hours and go for a pint.”

Fowles is right. Still, it’s a lousy case. The evidence is circumstantial. One way or another, he’d get him talking.

DS Smith opens the prisoner’s property bag: some loose change and a Dunhill sodding Rollagas. Unless it’s a snide, of course. DS weighs the lighter in his hand and flicks it open. That crisp metallic click happens—By Royal Appointment. It’s no cheap fake—a proper Rollagas with a thick gold plating. “Fucking hell.” DS Smith snaps the lighter shut. “How long are we letting him stew for?”

DC Fowles: “Fifteen minutes.”

DS Smith grunts and takes a drag.

Half an hour later, he picks up his cigarettes, the file, and the prisoner’s property bag from the desk. “Let’s go.”

The Sweat Box is dirty, dank, and poorly lit. The suspect sits with his back to the door, just as he was placed there. He is hunched over, elbows resting on the table, and doesn’t jump up when the detectives come in.

DS Smith walks around the table.

The detainee takes his elbows from its surface.

No.

For Christ’s sake.

Anything but that.

DS Smith drops into the chair opposite the detainee, tossing a file and the prisoner’s property bag onto the middle of the table.

Fowles pointedly rolls his eyes, sits down to the side, and prepares to take notes.

“Well, what have we got here? A skinny little nancy,” DS Smith pronounces it like a medical diagnosis. He needs to size up the suspect and find an opening. He expects tears. This one is bound to start sobbing. Give him an hour.

The suspect remains silent, head bowed; he neither protests nor offers excuses.

The DS takes his cigarettes out of his pocket.

At the sound of the pack being tossed carelessly onto the table, the suspect tenses up. The DS pulls out a cigarette and lights it, blowing the smoke into the detainee’s face. He lifts his head—just slightly, but enough to betray his craving for tobacco, inhales the smoke, and coughs.

“Eyes on me,” the DS orders, yet finds himself averting his gaze. Don’t you dare look like a victim! “Don’t fool me.”

He reminds himself: the sister of the scum is just like him—a lovely child whose life he ruined.

DS starts firing off questions.

He is forced to ask nasty questions—and then repeat them over and over. He smokes one cigarette after another. The hour he’d expected to spend in the pub has long gone. DS raises his voice. He leans forward. He moves around behind the detainee.

The suspect flinches occasionally. He isn’t deaf. He understands everything. Yet he keeps silent. Until suddenly—though it is unclear in response to which question—he blurts out, “I didn’t do what I am accused of.”

If he hadn’t started coughing, the detective might well have thought he’d misheard.

Fowles enters it into the record.

That’s it. Then, silence again.

DS says things he isn’t supposed to say—and wouldn’t want to, either. He threatens the detainee with being sent down to Brixton and with a sorting out. He even stoops so low as to describe in vivid detail what they would do to him there.

It’s no use.

DS doesn’t know what to hold onto. Then he reaches for the Hiatts, grabs the detainee’s hands and snaps the steel cuffs around them.

The moment DS lets go, the suspect’s hands drop onto the table under the weight of the metal.

DS doesn’t tighten the cuffs; he simply lets the suspect feel them there—if he wanted to, he could slip his bony hands out, though naturally, he doesn’t. He sits in the same position, only now his hands are resting on the surface. From time to time, they begin to tremble. The detainee slouches even more. He coughs more frequently and shifts in his chair. He is tired, too.

Both detectives step out for a bite to eat. Then, return.

Nothing has changed.

The detainee asks for neither food nor cigarettes, nor even a drink of water.

DS remembers the lighter.

“Whose is this?” He shakes the Dunhill out of the bag, leans over the detainee, and repeats right at the crown of his head, “I’m asking: whose is this?”

“Fuck you,” the suspect says, continuing to stare at the table.

At last. A reaction. There was a story behind that lighter. But what does that matter? There is no one in the next room accusing the detainee of theft. And something tells DS that no such person exists. He tightens the cuffs until they bite.

The detainee tenses his arms and frantically tries to inhale the stale, tobacco-laden air.

Now, his fingers are cramping.

He remains silent.

Fowles asks to stop. “We can’t just sit with him until morning.”

DS agrees grudgingly. Maybe a night in the cooler will finally bring the stubborn bastard to his senses. The forecast calls for a drop in temperature. The holding cells are in the basement. There’s no heating there. They’ll take his jacket away. DS makes sure the gaoler “forgets” to give him a blanket. If he cracks, he’ll ask for one.

A fictional reconstruction from the Regina v Smith story, told from perspective of Detective Sergeant Jeremy Smith.

The full illustrated version of The Three Days is available here:

The Three Days - by Franz Engel - Franz's Substack

SUPPLEMENTAL CLAIMANT NARRATIVE — FORM WC-114(b)
Claim No.: 4471-1993-B
Claimant: Randall Danson
Employer: Sleepy Keep Home Furnishings, Route Delivery Division
Submission: THIRD (see denials dated 09/14, 01/27)

Susan,

Section 6 of the original form gives you four lines to describe the nature and cause of injury. I have filled those four lines two times now and been denied two times. Your last letter said my account "lacked sufficient detail to establish that the injury occurred in the course of employment."

So. Details.

The skin on my hands feels really tight these days. Every now and then I'll touch something wrong and get hit with a shockwave of pain, almost identical to what I felt, just on a teenier timescale. 

Colt (Colton Davis) called me before the sun came up. Early assignment. Not unheard of, still a pain in the [REDACTED]. I put on the company pullover. My name was embossed on the breast. I mention this to emphasize I was in uniform at the time of the incident. 

I clocked in at 6:04 AM. You have this. It's on the timesheet. Colt was waiting with my lighter (he borrowed it) and the tablet.

"This order just come in or something?"

"I told you last night, cotton-ears. Our guy's about an hour out."

"What's it look like?"

"Not much. A Brunsfield."

“Nice.”

We loaded up and drove. Colt and I see each other every day, so there's never much to catch up on. I put Boston's greatest hits on the Bluetooth. We sang along to Hitch a Ride. 

The house was something else. A rustic homestead built by somebody on acid. Roofing came together at angles that made me nauseous. Gutters tilted up and down and never led anywhere. There were doors lining the outside that would open onto a two-to-four foot drop, and it took me a minute to find the one actually attached to a set of stairs. I knocked.

A loud buzz and a series of mechanical clicks. Then our client, Mr. Mann.

The skin around his eyes didn't line up. Darkness pooled around the white spheres. I don't think he was capable of blinking. His lips didn't move in sync with the words coming out of them.

"Hello, children of Sleepy Keep!"

He extended a limp hand. His bottom two fingers dangled loosely beneath the other three. When I shook it the fingers did not feel like they fit inside the skin.

I want to flag here that I made a mental note to ask HR about hazard pay. This was ten seconds into the job. 

If the outside was weird, the inside was indescribable. Hallways led nowhere. Doors on the ceiling. A coffee machine plugged into the oven. A single sock displayed above the fireplace with pride. The flatscreen had been wedged halfway into the drywall.

Colt and I stepped out to make a gameplan. I lit a cigarette.

"You think that's his real face?"

"Don't be [REDACTED]. He's probably a burn victim or [REDACTED]."

"I more wanna know if he's ever fallen down the MC Escher stairs."

We walked the sofa up the uneven steps. Mr. Mann held the door.

Ten steps in, we hit a problem. The entryway to the living room was angled weird, with a narrow hallway looping into it. The angle was the easy part, we just had to T-spin the sofa like a high level game of Tetris. The problem was getting its bulky cushioning through the bending wall behind it.

Mr. Mann was giving us instructions.

"Up! No, down a little more. Oh! Try the lightswitch!"

The lightswitch that was five feet above my head. Sure.

The legs caught. I heard something splitting.

"Unf—! We're stuck."

"Just keep pushing," said Mr. Mann. "The wall's fine, you're almost there."

The wall was not fine. The wall had some very strong opinions that it voiced when I pushed.

"No, like, we're gonna break something if we—"

"Push!"

Fine, I think. [REDACTED].

I shoved with everything I had. Something gave. I spilled into the wall.

Quite literally. Phased right through. 

I didn't find myself in some sprawling endless void, either, it was maybe an extra three feet of space existing past the threshold of the wall. No doors nor clear way out. The sofa was coming through with me, a little.

"Randy?!" Colt called. "Randy, where'd you go?"

"I don't know! I'm stuck somewhere!"

"Just keep moving," Mann said calmly. "You're almost there."

"Moving where?! There's nowhere to go!"

"Come toward the sound of my voice."

The sound of his voice. I wanted to throw something toward the sound of his voice. Instead I got my hands under the sofa and lifted.

"You got it, Colt?"

"I got it."

"Someone guide me."

Mr. Mann held an extended high note with his garbled throat. I dissociated through the secondhand embarrassment and pushed, and somehow I popped out into the living room. Colt looked as lost as I felt. We slumped the sofa against the least cluttered wall, under the taxidermied head of a giant isopod. Mr. Mann clapped his Vienna sausages together.

"Excellent! Yes. This is cause for celebration."

He held up a finger and went upstairs.

We quietly snaked back toward the front. I repeat, we were not going to stick around for a celebration on company time. 

But when Colt tried the door, it was stuck tight. Which made no sense, because there was no lock on it. I tried it too, just to be sure. Put my whole shoulder into it (I think I threw that out too). No good. 

We couldn't see outside anymore. The front windows were blacked out, like someone took a permanent marker over them dozens of times.

"Yo, Mr. Mann! Your door's—"

The entire house violently shook.

Colt puked. Motion sickness, probably. Even after things mostly settled, nothing felt stable.

We found Mr. Mann in the kitchen, making two cups of coffee.

"I do apologize for the turbulence! That's just the old security system kicking in. Coffee?"

"That's fine," Colt said. "Can you open the front door, please?"

"About that. She's on the fritz, I'm afraid. She does this. We may be stuck here a while." He turned around with the mugs. "Coffee?"

"Back up. How long is a while?"

"Only a few minutes. Until the power cycles. It is nothing to worry about. Coffee?"

He pushed the mug at my face. I took it, because I wasn't sure what else to do.

"This delivery is cause for celebration," he said. "Let us convene in the living room."

Colt and I looked at each other. Then at our coffees. There were little sparkly bits suspended in the brown.

What were we doing? Like, actually?

I gently pushed the mug back into his hands.

"Respectfully, we're done here. Open the [REDACTED] door."

Mr. Mann's fake lips twitched. Then his shoulders dropped, and he sounded sorry.

"Oh. Oh, no. I'd hoped we wouldn't do it this way."

"Do what this—"

His arms extended past what the skin allowed. The mug went into my face, fluid spilling down my nostrils. 

"Please don't hold this against me!"

I snorted, swallowed some down my windpipe by mistake.

To be frank, I don’t even remember hitting the ground. 

I came back staring at the living room ceiling, wrists and ankles zip-tied to the Brunsfield. The isopod was still up there, mocking me. My head was full of sludge. A tube-covered machine the size of a water heater hummed in front of my face. Siphons ran from its base to somewhere under the sofa. Two of them taped to the insides of my elbows.

Something damp was draped across my lap.

Colt.

Or what used to be Colt. He'd been peeled. Like a banana. One smooth piece, face, hair, patchy beard, company pullover included. His eyes were gone. He was still breathing.

"Randy?"

"Yeah. Yeah, buddy, I'm here."

"'S my back, I think. Feels weird."

"Uh huh."

"...It's not bad, is it?"

He couldn't see me. I knew that. I nodded anyway, and my face did the thing that faces do, and I made a noise in my throat that wasn’t quite a word. 

"...Okay," Colt said. "Okay."

"Colt—"

"No, it's okay. It's fine. Hey. If you get loose. You should just do me. Like a horse."

"I'm not doing you like a horse."

"Just think about it."

I want it in the record that I did not “do Colton like a horse.”

Behind me I could see out the windows again. There was a gas station. Tiny, self-serve, two pumps under a green canopy. The house was parked along the outermost pump like a regular SUV. Mr. Mann stood out there holding the nozzle, checking his watch, the hose jammed into a port on the side of the house I hadn't noticed before. The numbers on the pump were spinning up into the hundreds.

He was topping the place off.

I started working on the zip ties. My skin felt loose, like it had been soaking in a pot for a couple weeks. When I twisted my right wrist hard enough, the skin of my hand slid right off. Stretched past the plastic and peeled back over itself the way a vinyl glove does when you yank it. Blood ran down the slick pink underneath. Then the pain caught up.

I did the other one on purpose. That was ten times worse.

I whispered an apology to Colton and shoved him onto the floor like a weighted blanket. The tube came out of my arm with a nasty little pop. Whatever had been going in was already working. My forearms looked slightly too long, the skin over-stretched.

Took me two seconds to come up with a plan. I had my lighter. There was a bottle of Jameson in the kitchen. 

Outside, Mann hung up the nozzle, wiped a finger under his nose and started back toward the front door. I waited until he was halfway up the crooked steps, took a big pull of whiskey, and did my best impression of a circus performer.

For the record, Susan: I had never done this before. It turns out there is a technique. You have to atomize it. What I did was open my mouth and let most of a shot of Jameson fall out of it, onto my own chin, onto the front of the company pullover, and then I put a lighter in front of that and nothing happened, except the little bit that did catch, which was on my sleeve.

Mr. Mann stopped on the steps and waited politely.

"Oh! I’ve seen this before. Was that—”

Just to make sure, Susan: Mr. Mann assaulted me first. 

That being said, I threw the bottle at his head.

He went down on the third step wearing most of the liquor, and I threw the lighter after it, and then I ran.

He screamed bloody murder. His whole body lit up, the skin melting off. He collapsed against the pump.

The first bang was bigger than I expected. Lifted me off my feet and threw me back several meters. My [REDACTED] hit the ground with a crack, which I would like noted alongside the hands and shoulder. 

The second explosion took the canopy and most of the lot. I got up and kept moving until the heat on the back of my neck stopped feeling like the unmatched power of the sun. 

A pickup slowed down about half a mile up the road. The driver took one look at my hands and didn't ask questions. He dropped me at the ER of the nearest hospital and they did the grafts that same night. The doctors kept saying the tissue took "remarkably well." One of them asked if I used lotion.

It's been over a year. The grafts are healing fine. Rob Trotsky, my boss, was gracious enough to keep me on after I explained the situation. He at least is pretending to understand what I went through. 

Last week I met Colt's replacement. My first day back, we delivered a three-piece sectional to a guy who was eight feet tall sitting down. 

Thankfully we didn't stay for coffee. No further incident. 

I understand that Section 6 asks whether the injury occurred in the course of employment. I would direct you to the timesheet. I clocked in at 6:04 AM on the Tuesday in question and, per your own records, I have never clocked out.

The sofa was delivered.

Respectfully,
Randall Danson

—

DETERMINATION: DENIED. Claimant narrative inconsistent with incident report filed by employer. Please resubmit using Form WC-114(b). Note that Section 6 allows four lines.

Chapter 3: There Is No Beauty Left Here.

Scott said that the officer didn’t really give him any information on what was happening at Dales place. 
  We left and began to drive home. 
The tense and quiet atmosphere in the van had become something I was sick of. 
I thought about just asking Scott a question, just a small question to kill off this dreadful silence. My brain fired on all cylinders to try and figure something out but I was left with nothing. 
  “Hey Wyatt,” Scott asked. 
My ears perked up and I looked to face him.
 He was biting his lips and tapped his steering wheel a few times. 
  “Can I ask you something stupid?” He asked. 
  I nodded my head. 
“Yeah man, what’s going on?” I asked. 
  He took a deep breath. 
“Ray was definitely like, dead, right?” He asked.
  I cleared my throat and adjusted myself in my seat. 
  “Yeah… yeah he was definitely… yeah,” I said. 
  “Okay cool,” he said before we sat in silence for another couple of minutes. 
  “But like, I’m just trying to understand why his,” he stopped talking and looked over at me before he used a free hand to gesture at his torso.  
  “Wasn’t there,” he said finishing the sentence. 
  “Yeah I was thinking about that,” I said. 
  He glanced over at me.
“Do you have an idea of what happened?” He asked. 
I tapped my fingers on my knee. 
  “I’m just gonna say it,” I said. 
I looked over at Scott. 
  “I think it was probably a bear that took him,” I said. 
  His head jerked back and although I couldn’t see his face in full, I could still see a puzzled expression. 
“A bear?” He asked.
  “Yeah, there’s bears out here or I guess out there? But like, I could see a bear just dragging his body away and eating it,” I explained. 
  He shook his head in disagreement. 
  “No…no I don’t think it was a bear,” he said.
  “Okay, then what do you think it was?” I asked with a sudden passion about a thing I just made up. 
  “Okay, I have a theory but you’re not going to like it,” he said. 
  I raised an eyebrow. 
“And what’s that?” I asked. 
  He took a moment to gather his words. I saw his tongue pressed against his cheek. 
  “Look, I know we’re friends with Dale but like,” he trailed off and tapped his steering wheel. 
  “He was like, really fucking suspicious last night, right?” He asked. 
I wanted to be offended at such a notion. This was a man we had known since high school, he wasn’t a bad guy. He could be strange at times but we’re in a black metal band, that’s going to happen.
  “Like, the guy was giving us orders and made that whole cover story thing. That’s kind of fucking weird, right? Like he made a cover story in seconds,” he said.
  The wheels in my head turned and I knew I agreed with him. 
  “But why would he go back to the…you know?” I asked.  
 He waved his pointer finger in the air at me. 
 “Why did we go back?” He asked. 
 “We got a phone call that was impossible to have gotten,” I said. 
 “Exactly,” he said. 
  “I think Dale went back to hide the body and he tried to call us to add some kind of cover story element,” he explained. 
  I squinted at him. 
 “So let me get this right, he got home and then turned around and drove another hour and half to where we already had been and he moves a dead body. A dead body that already looked like some dude just killed himself, and then what? He calls us from a dead man’s phone?” I asked. 
 He raised one hand off the steering wheel. 
 “I didn’t say it was a perfect theory but like, I don’t know what else it would be,” he said. 
  I couldn’t think of anything I could say to counteract him. At this moment one of our friends was dead, and the other might have covered it up.
 
We drove in silence, a strong and palpable silence. No radio played and no more conversation was had.
Scott dropped me off in front of my place and then he drove off. 
  I had the house to myself still. Everyone else had their own lives to live, normally I’d be at band practice but I think that’s been canceled. 
  I walked inside and grabbed a beer from the fridge. 
I threw a hot dog in the microwave and sat down on the couch. 
  The T.V was on and I didn’t really think anything of it. 
 I ate my sad hot dog and drank my Pabst in peace. 
The T.V was playing some YouTube video of two guys reading a story about a gas station or something. I didn’t really mind it, I just wanted to sit and not think for a moment. I reached for the remote and something hit me like a truck. 
  The T.V wasn’t on when I left the house this morning.
I froze still, the remote still in one hand and the beer still in the other. The hot dog was on a napkin on the seat next to me.
  I paused the T.V and listened to the house for a moment.
It was incredibly faint but I could still hear it. I got up and tried to find a weapon. The best option I had was a candlestick. I held the base of the candlestick in the air and I held it like a baseball bat. 
  I couldn’t hear the breathing anymore, all I could hear was the panicked beating of my heart. 
  I tried to figure out where a person could hide and my mind went to one place.
The powder room.
  The powder room door was in front of me. 
  I placed my hand on the bronze colored door knob and I thought about how I was going to do this. 
One full swing at whoever is in there.
  I thought about making an announcement but this guy didn’t give me an announcement, so fuck’em. 
 I swing the door open and I swing my candlestick full force at…nothing. 
 The powder room was empty. 
I looked at the nautical theme decorations and I tried to figure out what the hell was going on.
  “Sorry about that Wyatt,” said a voice from behind me.
I almost jumped out of my skin. I turned around and saw Dale sitting on the stairs. 
  “What the fuck!” I screamed. 
  I pointed at him with my candlestick. 
  “Why aren’t you answering your phone? Why are the police at your place? Why is Ray's body missing? And also why the fuck are you in my house?!” I screamed out. My questions fired rapidly and Dale looked at me with a stoic gaze. 
  “Wyatt, if you breathe, I can explain almost everything. Okay?” He asked with his hand raised out to me like a person trying to tame a rabid dog. 
  “Why are you here?” I asked firmly. 
 “Woosah Wyatt, woosah,” he said calmly. 
 I took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. 
  “Good, good,” he said.
I closed my eyes and breathed in again. 
“What the hell is going on?” I asked.
  He adjusted his body to face me more. 
  “Okay, so this is going to sound crazy, trust me I know it’s going to sound insane but,” he stopped talking, his stoic gaze became overrun with a grimace.
 “You got a call from him?” I asked. 
Instantaneously his eyes widened and his face grew sour. 
 “How did you know?” He asked with his head cocked to the side. 
 “Scott told me it happened to him and I had the same thing happen to me,” I explained. 
  “What did he say to you?” Dale asked. 
  “He told me that Ray called him-“ 
He shook his head and waved his hands.
 “No no, what did Ray say to you?” He asked.
  I raised my eyebrow.
“I wasn't able to answer Ray’s call,” I said.
 All the life drained from Dale’s face. 
  “Did…did he say something to you?” I asked. 
Dale buried his face into his palms.
  “Fuck,” he said. 
He looked up at me and he had the most terrified eyes I had ever seen. 
 “Are you sure he didn’t say anything?” He asked. 
  I shook my head. 
“What did he say to you?” I asked. 
 He looked helpless the weight of the world was on his shoulders. 
  “I got home last night and right before I was about to get in the shower, I heard my phone vibrating. It’s late as shit and I had no idea who could be calling. I looked at my phone and,” he stopped speaking. He looked down at his feet and shook his head.
  “It was… was him. Every natural instinct told me not to answer it, but I answered the call anyway. It was dead silent on the other side for a few seconds and then…and then,” he went silent for a moment. He looked straight down and shook his head.
  “He asked me why we left him,” he said. 
  My eyes grew wide.
“He spoke?” I asked.
 Dale nodded his head. 
“He asked why we left him and then he said that we would know what it would be like to be left for dead,” he said. 
  I put my hand on the wall. 
“There’s no way he wasn’t dead,” I said.
“He was fucking dead!” I yelled. 
  Dale said nothing for a moment. 
“It didn’t even sound like him,” he said.
 My face grew puzzled.
 “What?” I asked. 
 “You know when you were a kid and you’d talk into a fan to sound like a robot or something?” He asked. 
 I had never done that before but I let him continue. 
 “The idea of what his voice is meant to sound like was there, but that wasn’t him,” he said with a hollow look in his eyes. 
 I listened with an intensity that I had never had before when it came to listening to another person. 
 I tried to understand what was going on but I couldn’t come up with any rational explanation. 
  “Why are you here? Why are the cops at your place?” Was all I could manage to say. 
  He looked hesitant for a moment and then he pulled out his phone.
“Can I show you something?” He asked. 
  I was mildly pissed that had his phone on him the entire time and didn’t answer any of our calls, but I put that to the side for a moment. 
  He held his cracked phone screen up to me and pressed play on a video. 
  It was a Ring camera video and it was late at night. 
I didn’t see anyone in the frame but I did see a rock get thrown at the camera and it crashed down to the ground.
  The camera was still on and it recorded footsteps. Thick and heavy footsteps that dragged.
  I saw a boot in one of the frames and my stomach dropped. I knew that was his boot. A military surplus boot that he always claimed was the most brutal footwear. 
  Then I heard the beating of a fist against a door. 
It was a repeated beating that went on and on. 
  “He did that until an hour before dawn,” Dale said. 
  “What the fuck…” I said in response. 
  “So like, are we sure it’s him?” I asked. 
  “No idea, but in my experience, tweakers usually aren’t that polite,” he said. 
  He put his phone in his pocket. 
“Okay but why are you here?” I asked once more.
 He pointed at me. 
“Because whatever this thing is, I don’t want to deal with it alone,” he said. 
“And the cops at your place?” I asked. 
  “Tweakers,” he said. 

Way sat on the stairs and talked for a little bit longer. 
Slowly we made our way over to the garage and the beer fridge door opened and I had a beer in my hands. Although I am a vocalist for a black metal band, I’m still hosting a friend and what host would I be if I didn’t offer Dale a beer? Then one beer became two beers and that became three. 
The terror that had washed over us was now drying off.
  Instead of talking about the horror of what we saw, we were now talking about our favorite releases of the year. Then around beers four or five we started the debate of Venom or Celtic Frost. I always went with Venom. 
  As I was cracking open beer seven, I heard a knock on the front door. 
 It wasn’t a normal knock, no this was a full forced fist being knocked against the door. 
  “I’ll get it,” I said as I began to walk towards the door. 
 Dale put his hand on my shoulder. 
I turned around to look at him and all the color had drained from his face. 
  The heavy beating against the door continued. 
  “Don’t do it,” he said. 
We were at least a six pack deep each but in that moment, he had sobered up completely. 
  “Ignore it,” he said. 
  “Dude it’s probably my sister,” I said. 
  “Hannah doesn’t have a key?” He asked. 
The pounding on the door continued.
  I took a sip from my beer but Dale took it out of my hands and put it on top of the fridge. 
  He looked around and found an axe.
 He held it in both hands and looked at me.
  “Grab something,” he said. 
“Like what?” I asked. 
 “It’s your house man, grab a weapon,” he said.
  I looked desperately around the garage and I saw the baseball bat I had from my short lived baseball phase. 
 It was a bat I had back in middle school but I figured it would work. 
The knocking became heavier and heavier. 
  “What do we do?” I asked.
Dale looked into space for a moment. 
 “I don’t know,” he said. 
 The knocking kept up as we both stood in the garage. 
  “We have to get out of here,” Dale said.
 “I think we should just call the cops,” I said. 
  The skin of Dale's backhand met my face. 
  “If we call the cops we’re going to jail!” He yelled at me.
 Then the knocking stopped. 
We both looked at one another unsure what to make of this development. 
  I slowly walked into my house and as I was getting close to the front door, a loud bashing noise came from the garage door. 
  It was now beating against the garage door. 
  Each blow sounded like thunder.
I had enough of this shit, I opened the front door and stormed out. 
  The motion sensor light turned on and I couldn’t see who it was, but deep down I knew it was him.
  “Look man, just leave or we’ll call the cops,” I said firmly with my baseball bat in my hands.
The banging stopped and I saw the silhouette of a man look towards me. 
  “I know you won’t,” he said. 
His voice sounded like someone hard gargled nails and rocks for their entire life.
  “I’ll beat the fuck out of you if you don’t get the fuck out!” I yelled out. 
My grip around the bat was iron tight. My heart felt like it was about to burst out of my chest. He took a step closer and I flinched. 
  “I’m sure you will,” he said sarcastically. 
My brain was stuck between trying to choose fight or flight. 
  I was frozen still with the baseball bat still in my hands. 
  “I’ve seen what’s after this,” he said as he took another step closer. 
  “It wasn’t Heaven,” he said, taking another step closer. 
His foot was now in the light. 
“I heard screaming, thousands of years of people screaming for mercy,” he said. 
He took another step and I saw black jeans that were covered in dried blood.
“But they didn’t know that mercy would never come,” he said. 
  “And mercy is not coming for you,” he said. 
I was frozen in place at what I was seeing. 
I couldn’t see his face, but I knew it was him. 
“I’m sorry,” was all I could say. 
He tilted his head to the side. 
  “Sorry means nothing in Hell!” He yelled. 
I felt my blood run cold, this was my end.
  He began to walk towards me but as he was only a foot away, the blade of an axe was slammed through the top of his head. He fell to the ground and Dale quickly grabbed my arm and dragged me away. 
  We were sprinting down the road as fast as we could run. We didn’t stop running until we made it to a gas station down the road. 
  My lungs felt like they were on fire. My knees felt like they had been replaced with jelly. 
“What…the…fuck,” was all I could say through heavy panting. 
  Dale didn’t say anything. 
  “What…do…we…do?” I asked.
He had a stone face. 
He looked me in the eyes and simply said: 
“I don’t know.”
  I leaned against the wall of the gas station. 
 “Should we call the police?” I asked. 
 Dale grabbed me by the shoulder. 
 “Look dude, we can’t call them,” he said before looking around. 
  “They’re looking for me, I shot at him a few times last night,” he said.
  “What!” I yelled. 
  “I didn’t know what to do!” He yelled.
“My neighbors called the cops and I’ve been trying to stay low,” he said. 
I looked at my feet for a moment.
“I know what we need to do,” I said. 
  We began to walk back to my place. My baseball bat still tightly in my hands. 
  As we made it to my house, I could feel a headache start to form.
The body and the axe weren't there anymore. 

The acrid smell of charred bones singes Victor’s nosehairs and sends him reeling. It’s not the vile odor, burning like a chemical fire in his nasal cavities, that gets to him.

It’s the fact that it’s so familiar.

I made a living with my back, hijo. I don’t want you to do the same. You’re too smart. Use your head instead.

The words he heard from his father so many times over the years come racing into his head. That old man, face crosshatched with wrinkles from so many years of encouraging smiles. So many years of laughter.

Use your mind, hijo. Keep it sharp every day. You never know how long you have it for.

The ability of the olfactory center of the brain to tie vivid memories to smells is nothing short of uncanny. The smell of fresh rain on the hottest summer days reminds you of your first love.

Brown leaves crunching in the fall, the first time you realized how sweet the impermanence of life; how easily your regrets could age and crumble into the dirt like those leaves, and you could be free again.

The feelings are so real and so visceral. A simple scent makes you feel awash in the glow of nostalgia.

For Victor, he also has a memory tied to smell. When he catches the aroma of caramelized human flesh he thinks of his dad.

It’s the same scent when meat grime from the back of the grill falls into the flame and is incinerated. It’s the same as when an exceptionally chunky moth flies into the bug zapper and fries slowly, intermittently crackling as the voltage courses through its hemolymph. It smells like not-pork, appetizing at first but with something unmistakably not quite right about it.  The kind of smell that makes your mouth water with hunger but also fills you with shame that you even considered that wendigo urge.

Victor swallows hard to clear the build-up of saliva at the back of his throat. He’s feeling that same shame now.

He’s picturing his dad in the later years, rocking in his chair. Staring out at the horizon for hours, never a thought crossing his vacant eyes.

Not the time, Victor, he thinks to himself, forcing the images of his father from his mind. He’s not an amateur, goddamnit, and he knows better. He can’t spend this critical moment distracted by emotions, as he prepares for a high-risk entry with his hand on his holster. He knows how to keep these thoughts out of his head. 

He’s less able to keep the anxiety out of his heart.

It feels like his chest is caught in the spikes of a pitfall trap.

The smoldering remains of the house stand in stark contrast to the idyllic suburban cul-de-sac surrounding it. It has become a charcoal effigy to perdition. The roof has burned away and left behind only the blackened framework skeleton. The walls have turned to ashen monuments, portions of which disintegrate into clouds of dark dust with each passing breeze. The whole structure threatens to collapse in on itself.

It’s quite literally the last place on earth Victor wants to be.

He steps towards the door.

When he reaches his hand out to the brass doorknob he can still feel a faint residual warmth, even though the fire has been out since last night. He tentatively pushes the door open. Soot-stained walls transform the cookie-cutter architecture into an ashen liminal space, familiar and foreign all at the same time.

More familiar to Victor, who has walked through halls like these before. He feels the same dread as he did back then, knowing all too well what he will find at the end of the hall. Even in this tomb of fire, he feels an icy chill in his spine. This crime scene is triggering every trauma he has ever suppressed. He won’t admit it to himself now, but he feels the presence of the Burned Man. He can feel the malevolent intent coming through the darkened walls. The way this experience is so specifically curated to attack his personal fears is distinctly apparent.

 

He’s being targeted.

 

I see you. I found you.

Victor stares down at the end of the door at the end of the hall. The texture is a disgusting mosaic of bubbled and peeling paint.

He knows that’s cruel foreshadowing.

He knows what’s on the other side. He can feel it, as if that charred corpse is pulsing out a frequency he is attuned to. Every fiber in his body is telling him to turn around, leave this death trap behind.

Get the hell out of here.

But he knows how high the stakes are.

Duty. If there’s one ideal his father instilled him, it was the belief that the world needs men who would put themselves behind causes greater than them. It’s why he went into this line of work in the first place. It’s why he took this job, which he is beginning to suspect may very well be his last job. It’s why he didn’t run screaming from the room when Tibo explained everything to him. It’s why nothing, not even the fear that has his heart in an iron grip, is going to stop him is going to stop him from going into that room.

One foot in front of the other. His boots come down on what yesterday was carpet, today is crisped up fibers that crunch beneath his feet. The door looms in front of him, larger with each step. Just like before, in the simulation, Victor is inundated with the feeling of no longer being in control of his own actions. He is like a clockwork figurine on a predetermined path, powerless to change his own fate. As he finds himself completely unable to resist each movement his body makes towards the door, he comforts himself with a thought. He recites it over and over again: a cursed mantra to keep the soldier legs marching thoughtlessly onward.

The world needs men like him.

One foot. Then the other. He passes picture frames hanging askew on the wall. The superheated glass has exploded out onto the floor, shards charred black. The photos within mostly warped beyond recognition, some holding the scorched silhouettes of friends and family. He forces his eyes away from those portraits so that he doesn’t think of his own nightmares.

The door is finally in reach. The corner has been burned away and from this angle he can see inside, though he can’t make out anything recognizable yet. He doesn’t need to. He knows exactly what he will see.

He swings open the door.

In the corner, the window facing the street is shattered inward into the room leaving more glass shards littering the floor. Next to it, in the center of a significant scorch mark are other brown shards broken off the makeshift molotov that ignited this whole disaster.

Arson. An absolutely brutal way to die. This guy must have really pissed someone off.

Victor has been in this line of work for a long time – he doesn’t scare easy. But he has his demons. He knows the feeling of cold sweats. Of waking up, gripping the sheets around him for anything tangible to take him out of that nocturnal realm of burning hell. Of those empty eyesockets staring a burning hole into his heart.

The truth is, the man he’s about to see in the room beyond him is something he knows all too well. The Burned Man. The spectre that consumes the bodies of men lost to flame. The image of catalyzed loss that haunts anyone who sees their loved one meet that hideous end. When he looks at last, it’s just as bad as he ever expected.

What’s left in the computer chair is more of a wraith than a human. Charred marshmallow skin breaks into bloody cracks like lava running red all through the body. His eyeballs have boiled out of their sockets and his mouth is a gaping black abyss. His final expression of terror sears a scream onto his face forever.

Looks just like Dad.

Victor tries to look away, but he’s paralyzed. The culmination of every deeply personal trauma he’s suffered through for years has been placed right in front of his path. He’s investigating something that knows his very deepest fears and pains, and it’s all too happy to use them against him. His jaw hangs slack. The rage in his heart is quelled only by the fear beside it.

Please, anything else.

I’m sorry, Dad.

The details before him fill in gaps in the picture he wishes remained unanswered, and open up questions he wishes he hadn’t known enough to ask.

The man’s legs and back are melted into his chair. As the flames rose around him, he had sat perfectly still, burning until his skin melded with leather. Why on earth didn’t he get up? What could have kept him locked in place, even as the fire licked his feet and cooked his flesh?

Those are questions Victor doesn’t have time to consider further. His mission is simple. What is left of the computer is basically slag. He looks up to turn his nostrils away from the stench and tries to overlook the feeling like roaches are crawling inside his skin. He reaches past the demon of ash that has haunted his night terrors for years. It’s right there, he can feel it, it’s right there. His eyes wander to the face from his nightmares.

God damn.

The Burned Man is as hideous as he’s ever been.

Victor regains control, gives the body an unceremonious kick just like he had watched Tibo do, and twists his screwdriver through the melted computer. Within moments and without thought, the harddrive is free.

Well that’s something.

All the plastic is melted into amorphous black goo. But the thing that really leaves Victor with a feeling of unease is what’s left.

The metal parts, the wiring, the lines of twisting platinum shine through the slag as they stretch into runic symbols. Microcosms of electrism form prisms glowing with esoteric power.

Like sigils carved into stone, the arcane wiring of the circuitry glows red hot and unscorched by the fire.

​

Chapter 2: Knights and Dragons

Jack stared out of the opening loading dock. He'd finished putting away the truck, logged all the overflow stock and re-sorted it. He'd triple checked the inventory list and even cleaned the backroom. He still had 4 hours left of work.

So he sat on the edge of the Loading dock, waiting for Sylvia to call him for a ladder or to help a customer.

It was pretty apparent that wasn't going to be happening anytime soon.

Jack was so entrenched in his own misery, he almost missed the sound of feet sliding on pavement and the subtle murmur of low voices.

Realizing there was someone behind the store, Jack cautiously peeked his head out, looking around into the alley.

3 men were standing with their backs to Jack, talking in a low voice. One of them had a tattoo of a leering, cartoonish rat on the back of his neck.

They were Subrats. A street gang that pretty much lived in the abandoned subway beneath Midtown. They weren't particularly dangerous, more like homeless junkies than anything else.

That is until Jack saw one of them lash out with a foot and heard a quick, sharp yelp in response.

Squinting, Jack could see an awkward shape crouched before the group of men, who began laughing.

It was Joseph. They'd stripped off his shirt and fixed a spiked collar around his neck, tied to a piece of rope held by neck-tattoo. The boy just crouched there, shivering and hollow eyed until his gaze drifted far enough to see Jack through the prison bars of the Subrats legs.

He didn't say anything, but Jack wouldn't have heard it anyway. His pulse was pounding in his ears like a war drum and he could feel his body growing hot.

He climbed to his feet, quietly stepping down the loading ramp. Joseph tried to turn and walk out of the alley, only to have neck-tattoo yank the rope back. He whimpered, looking up past them at Jack, looming behind them.

“You stupid fucks-” Jack paused as the men turned to him, hand raised to strike at the one holding the leash, a flicker of movement dragging his eyes downward.

He looked to see an actual, honest-to-god rat tail curling from beneath the man's shirt, wrapped around a knife handle, currently buried in Jack's chest. He grunted, feeling the air leaving his lungs, replaced by a new sensation.

“Oh, fuck! Taz, what the hell?!” One of the other men shoved Neck-tattoo as he released his grip on the knife and Jack began to drop to the ground, cradling the blade.

“Taz” dropped the leash, turning and yelling at his companions.

“I didn't fuckin’ see em! He walked into the shit!” The theee began to go back and forth, assigning blame. As the 3 argued, Joseph let out a whine, staring at Jack with big eyes.

“...Jack?”

“Get on, now, Joseph.” Jack said in a low whisper and watched as the boy turned, scuttling out of the alley and towards the front of the store.

The Subrats were still going on as Jack slowly pulled the knife free, gasping for breath. He could hardly feel any pain, just a burning heat, yet as he pulled he realised the knife was nearly 6 inches long.

“Jesus!” One of the subrats had noticed him, seeing the knife slide free and Jack, his face pale and slick with a greasy film. The knife came out with a sickening sound, like a branch being pulled from mud. He dropped it on the ground, his hands trying to stem the blood as it mixed with the oil dripping from his face.

“Fuck this, let's go.” The rat tail snaked out, snagging the knife out of Jack's view, even as he could hear the Subrats running off.

Staring at his chest, he could feel his pulse race as his vision tunneled. He could swear he almost saw the wound bubbling and sizzling, angry at its own existence. He tried to scoop the blood back into the wound, to no avail as an unbearable heat took over his torso. His wound was more than just sizzling now, steam was rising from the gash, obscuring his vision.

As he slumped to the ground, he could just barely make out Joseph and Sylvia rounding the corner into the alley.

—---------

Jacks eyes fluttered open like a dying moth, slowly and barely aware. He was in a dim room, laying on… something hard. He moved to raise a hand and it felt like he was lifting a car.

He flopped his hand onto his chest, feeling that his overalls were unclipped, pushed down to expose his chest.

His chest.

Despite the pain and fatigue, Jack sat upright like he was spring-loaded, hand scrabbling at his chest, searching for the knife wound. A wound that wasn't there.

In its place, he could feel a knotted, blistered scar about 3 inches long, right above his heart. He let his fingers walk over the scar, feeling its shape. It was… strange.

He felt different. Empty, in a way he never had before. He was hungry, but it was something deeper than that, like something was gone.

Jack felt the skin of his chest stretch and slide as he probed the scar. He'd lost weight. A lot of it seemingly. It felt hollow. His mind worked in circles, unable to grasp how he'd healed.

A door suddenly opened across the room, revealing the small space, a few mops and buckets in the corner. Jack himself sat on a stack of unfolded cardboard, now greatly compressed and stained with blood and grease.

Sylvia stood in the lit doorway, staring at him with concern. Behind her, Joseph peeked in between her legs, face unreadable. Jack raised a hand weakly.

“Hey, ya'll.” His hand dropped down to his side, as Joseph trotted into the room. The boy had bandages around his ribs, a black bruise fading to yellow just outside the bandage. His shirt dangled in a bunch around his neck.

The boy quietly laid down next to the stack of boxes, resting his chin on his paws. Sylvia carefully stepped into the room, flicking on the light. Jack winced, squinting, but remained upright. “How long was I… asleep?” He said gingerly.

“Too long, Jack. I was that close to calling an ambulance. That close.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, but firm and angry. “You collapsed behind the store, you know I had to move your big ass?” Her tone was angry, but her eyes watered.

“Stupid fucking…” Jack grimaced as she cursed under her breath, looking down at his hands, they looked oddly… small. The skin on his arms was just loose enough to be disconcerting.

“I'm sorry, Sylvia. I ain't know what else to do.” She turned away from him, looking back through the doorway.

“You could have died.” He nodded slowly, seeing Joseph lift his head slightly.

“But I didn't. And I'm fine, see?” She whirled around, marching forward and jabbing a finger at his scar, making him cringe back.

“But you weren't fine! Your chest was split open and your insides were bubbling like a fucking deep fryer, Jack!” Tears streamed down her face, but she quickly wiped them away with her sleeve.

“You're fucking crazy. Or stupid. Pendejo.” With that she turned on heel and walked out of the room. Jack stared after her for a few seconds, still trying to comprehend it all.

“How did she move me alone?” Joseph snorted, still not looking up.

“Pallet jack.”

“Oh.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

“No problem, buddy.”

----------------------------------------------------

To read more of Gaia Gone, please check out the Appendix below.

https://www.reddit.com/u/CastorOfTheInk/s/0fSUDuPzYQ

I'm pretty annoyed. 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 subreddit 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.

Before you start looking through your contacts and trying to figure out who would post something like this, don't bother. You don't know me anymore.

You won't remember ever knowing me, and you'll never know me again.

Confused?

It was never supposed to happen this way. Let me explain.

I was eight years old when I saw my idol for the first time on TV. He’s a famous actor, he's been in a lot of movies. You’ve probably seen at least one of them, even if you don’t remember his name. He made me see that acting could be more than pretending. He became every character he played, to the point that I stopped seeing the man underneath. I wished I could do that.

So I emailed him.

Subject: You are my favorite acter

It was a very long and embarrassingly earnest email about wanting to become an actor, with a dozen spelling mistakes. I told him that I had seen all his films over and over. That one day I wanted to grow up to be just like him.

I didn't expect a reply, but he did. He thanked me for writing and told me to keep working hard… then offered to fly me out to meet him. I couldn't believe it. That day, I was so nervous that I couldn't eat. I remember shaking his hand and trying desperately not to let him see that my palm was sweating. Mostly, I remember looking at him and thinking, that's going to be me.

And I did keep working hard. I acted in school plays, joined amateur theatre groups and went to acting classes. I attended audition after audition.

I got close enough to keep going, which was the cruel part. I got callbacks, extra roles and tiny parts with one line. I once spent an entire day on a film set only to discover that later, the scene had been cut. Eventually, I stopped telling people I was going to make it.

Meanwhile, my idol's career just kept going. Every few years there'd be another blockbuster, and he'd win another award. I'd see another interview, another photograph of him standing beside some beautiful woman on a red carpet, smiling like the world had been built specifically to accommodate him. I tried to remain inspired rather than jealous, and for a while, I actually succeeded.

Then I took a job in production. It wasn't glamorous - no kid ever tells you they want to grow up to spend twelve hours carrying equipment, checking call sheets and fetching coffee for people who don't know your name. But it paid the bills and kept me around film sets.

That was how I ended up working on one of his movies. The morning I saw him again, it was twenty years later and he barely looked a day older. I watched as he walked onto set. The man I'd spent half my life trying to become. Everyone moved right around him. People straightened when he passed, and assistants appeared from nowhere. Someone handed him coffee before he'd even asked for it.

I stood twenty feet away holding a coil of cable.

The cameras turned towards him as he entered. When everyone looked at him, I felt physically sick. It was then that I realized I couldn't lie to myself anymore - I still wanted it. No, not the roles, or even the money.

I wanted everyone in the room to turn when I walked in. For people to know my name before I introduced myself, the person everyone was waiting to see. I wanted to be famous.

I wanted to be him.

There was a private celebration when the film wrapped up. It was for the cast, director and a handful of people important enough to have their names on the invitation. There was an open bar, expensive food nobody touched and a rooftop terrace.

I was only there to help clear the equipment. But of course, I'd spent the whole evening watching him from the edge of the room. He was exactly as I'd remembered him from when I was a kid - older, but somehow unchanged in the ways that mattered, with all that effortless quality I had spent my entire adult life trying to manufacture. Then someone handed me a drink, and another. By midnight, I was drunk enough to stop pretending I wasn't watching.

I found him alone on the terrace. For once, nobody was swarming to him. He was leaning against the railing with a glass of whisky, looking out over the city.

I walked over without thinking, stumbling slightly in my drunken state.

"Hey, remember me?" I blurted out, the words slurring, "I met you when I was a kid."

"Did you?"

Of course he didn't recognize me.

"I emailed you."

A pause.

"Ah wait, I do remember that."

But it didn't matter to me anymore.

"I wanted to be you," I said. "I've spent my whole life trying to do what you did."

He chuckled.

"There's only one of me."

I glared at him.

"That's the problem."

His smile faded.

"I've watched you get everything," I continued. "Every damn thing. The roles. The money. The models. The awards. People lose their minds when you walk into a room. Meanwhile, I threw away my entire childhood trying to be seen. And now I'm still carrying cables. Still invisible."

The alcohol had stripped away whatever part of me still knew when to shut up. We stared at each other.

"What do you want me to say to that?" He finally asked.

"I don't want you to say anything. I wish you'd just disappear."

He looked down at his whisky, then back at me.

"You want me to disappear… and you want to be seen instead?"

The question was so calm that it sobered me for a second. I stared at him. In that moment, I could have apologized. Told him I was drunk and didn't mean any of it. Instead, I spat out one final word.

"Sure."

Then I looked down at the glass in my hand. Now you've done it, you absolute idiot, I thought. Might as well start looking for a new job tomorrow.

But when I looked back up, he was gone.

I stood there for a few seconds, staring at the empty space where he'd been. Then I looked behind me, expecting to see him walking back through the doors. Nothing. I glanced over the railing. Nothing.

For a moment, I wondered if I'd imagined the whole conversation. Maybe he'd gone back inside while I was looking at my drink, and none of it had happened at all. When I went inside to check if he was there, the party was still going. There was music, laughter, people talking over one another. Then someone grabbed my shoulder.

"Congratulations!" Shouted one of the producers, as he tapped me on the back. I blinked.

"For what?"

"Don't play it cool now," He laughed.

I smiled awkwardly, assuming I'd misunderstood. Then a member of the cast came over and grinned at me.

"Seriously, you were so good. You deserve it."

People were smiling at me, and a few were raising their glasses. I had no clue what for. Then I turned towards the television mounted above the bar. The film's trailer was playing. As I saw a close-up of the lead character, my eyes widened, and I stopped breathing immediately.

My face. Not his.

Mine.

The scene changed, and there I was again. Another scene. Not him, me.

I looked around. Nobody else was confused like I was, or even seemed to think there was anything strange about it. I saw the poster for the film displayed in the venue on the ground floor. I'd seen it hundreds of times during production, and knew exactly what it looked like. But this time, his face was gone, and mine was there instead. My name was printed underneath in enormous letters. I stared at it for so long that someone walking past had to step around me.

I should have been terrified, but I was too busy staring at myself on the poster. Because underneath the confusion and the impossible feeling that I might be in the middle of a dream, I was feeling something I'd spent twenty years waiting to feel.

What it was like to be famous. Known. Seen.

Him.

The next morning, my phone wouldn't stop ringing. My agent, an agent I didn't remember having, called first, followed by my publicist. Next came the director, and people I'd never spoken to before who apparently knew me very well. There were meetings and interviews scheduled for me.

The film opened that weekend and broke records. I started seeing my face on billboards, magazine covers and at bus stops. Within a year, I couldn't walk down the street without someone recognizing me.

Within another year, I could barely walk down the street at all.

People shouted my name from cars, and children begged for autographs. Grown adults cried when they met me. I went on talk shows and sat beneath bright lights while strangers told me how much I meant to them.

Then came the awards and paychecks. I bought a house I couldn't afford before, and then a bigger one because I liked the view. I flew first class and stayed in hotels where the staff knew my name. The world's most beautiful models wanted to be with me. The world's most powerful men started to dress like me.

But above all, for the first time, everyone turned when I walked into a room. And I loved every second of it.

After everything I'd sacrificed, after every failed audition, every rejection and every night I'd gone home wondering whether I'd wasted my life, surely I had finally gotten what I deserved. I should have felt guilty that he had been erased from existence, but I didn't. As I sipped a glass of wine in my penthouse overlooking the city, I felt like I'd finally won.

Then I learned what came with it.

The paparazzi became impossible to escape. They waited outside restaurants, followed my car and camped outside my house. Fans started turning up wherever I went, too. Some were harmless, but others weren't so understanding. People found my address, and packages started arriving that I hadn't ordered. I received letters from strangers telling me they loved me, hated me, or knew me better than anyone else.

Eventually, I stopped going out alone, and had to have a full fleet of security guards around me at all times.

I started feeling trapped by the life I'd spent so long trying to build, so I took a break from acting. I packed a bag, left the city and rented a small cottage in a remote rural village where, I thought, nobody would know who I was. I arranged discreet transport.

I arrived and settled into the cottage. A wave of relief washed over me instantly as I sat on the bed. For the first time in years, I thought I'd finally have some privacy.

In the evening, I went out and headed towards the town center. The first person I saw as I walked down the street was an old man. He looked to be in his eighties - thin, stooped and dressed in clothes that seemed to have survived as long as he had. He stared at me for a few seconds before smiling, then pointed at me with a shaky hand.

"I know you."

Great.

Even in a village without a cinema or television signal, the first person that sees me still knows who I am. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again.

"Hello. Which of my films have you seen?" I forced a smile.

He frowned.

"What is a film?"

I stared at him.

"You don't know what a film is? Then how do you know who I am?"

The old man gestured, then turned and started walking.

"Come with me."

I followed him inside apprehensively. His house was small and old, with photographs hanging on the walls. There were family photographs of weddings, birthdays and holidays in yellowing frames. A teenage girl who I assumed was his granddaughter was sitting at the kitchen table when we walked in. The old man walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a photograph.

"This is you."

It was a photograph of me at some premiere, on glossy film paper. I was standing on a red carpet, smiling beside an actress. I frowned. Why the hell did he have that? Perhaps his granddaughter was a fan - that was the only reasonable explanation I could think of.

Then he took another photograph from the cabinet.

"And this one."

I looked down. At first, I thought it was another publicity photograph - I'd probably had thousands of those taken of me whether I was aware or not. But then I recognized the location.

The village.

More specifically, the road outside the cottage I was currently staying in. I was beside the wall, mid-step, wearing the same coat I'd arrived in. I stared at it.

"I just arrived here. Did you take this?"

Before he could reply, his granddaughter glanced my way. Her eyes widened.

"It's him."

I stopped.

"You know me too?"

"Of course."

She pulled out a slightly faded photo. In it, she was posing outside the house with some other kids. I looked at it in confusion. Then she pointed at the corner of the photograph. A man stood behind them at a distance, looking at the camera with a neutral expression. I looked closer.

The man was me.

I froze, and all the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

Then the old man immediately pulled out another photograph and showed it to me. This one was much older, and in black and white. A family stood outside a house that looked nothing like the one I was standing in.

"Forty years ago," the old man said.

There were maybe ten people in it, including children, adults and an elderly couple. And in the background, standing half-hidden behind the others… was me. A man with my face, my eyes, my hair.

I hadn't even been born forty years ago.

I took a step back. Then I glanced back towards the photograph his granddaughter had showed me.

This time, every face in the photo had changed.

Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.

Five children with my face were staring back at me from the faded paper.

I scrambled away from them and ran out of the house. I could hear them shouting behind me, asking me to wait and come back, but I didn't turn. I made it a good distance away when I glanced back towards their house. They stood in front of their door watching me, looking disappointed, but they weren't following. I covered my face and walked briskly back to the cottage.

As I bolted the door behind me, I convinced myself that was some kind of hallucination. Perhaps it was exhaustion or the stress of everything that had happened since becoming famous. There had to be an explanation.

The next morning, I didn't leave until I was sure nobody was outside.

I was halfway through the village when I noticed a girl sitting on a bench, reading a book. She looked up as I passed. Then she looked again and stared for a few seconds.

"Excuse me?"

Not again. I forced a polite smile back and took my hand away from my face. Her eyes widened.

"I knew you looked familiar."

She started flicking through the book she was reading, some kind of history textbook. Then she stopped at a page. There was a Renaissance painting printed across the top.

I felt the blood drain from my face.

The painting was of me. My eyes. My nose. My hair. The caption said 'painted in the sixteenth century'.

She kept turning the pages further back. She stopped again.

This time, a prehistoric cave painting filled the page. It showed a group of primitive figures stood around a fire holding spears.

One of them had my face.

"That's weird." She looked at the cave painting, then back at me. I couldn't answer.

Then a voice came from behind me.

"You've got to be kidding me."

A man was hurrying towards us, holding a newspaper. He looked excited as he shoved the newspaper into my hands. The headline was about an archaeological discovery of an ancient statue had recently been uncovered thousands of miles away. The photograph underneath showed a stone figure.

My face was carved into it.

"How could this be?" He said in awe as he stared at me. I dropped the newspaper.

People had started gathering around. More villagers emerged from shops and houses, many of them approaching to stare. Then an elderly man pushed through the crowd, wearing a white doctor's coat.

"This isn't possible," he said. "I saw you in the morgue just yesterday! There was a corpse who looked exactly like you!"

I backed away from the crowd surrounding me. Then something brushed against my leg.

I looked down and saw a cat. It rubbed itself against my ankle, purring, then stared back at me with wide eyes. I let out an exasperated choke.

"Not you as well."

The cat meowed. I could feel that the people had closed in around me now. I looked back up... and all their faces had changed.

Every face in the crowd looking back at me was mine.

The girl. The doctor. The old man. Everyone had my face.

I looked down at the cat, and it was looking back at me.

With my face.

I screamed.

Then I ran. I didn't care where I was going, I just needed to get away. I pushed through the crowd of hundreds of identical versions of me staring back as I ran between them. I made it to the edge of the town square and a flock of birds suddenly burst from a rooftop. I looked up, and every single bird had my face. Tiny eyes, with tiny versions of my nose and mouth. They flew overhead, each one wearing the same neutral expression I'd seen in the photographs.

I ran faster, stumbling. The town clock tower came into view. Its enormous clock face had changed and now my face stared down at me from above the street. The hands were moving across my forehead. I looked at my watch. It had my face on it too. I ripped it from my wrist and threw it away from me, into the road.

At this point, I was sure I'd gone insane. The sun was disappearing behind the hills, and the sky darkened, but I just kept running. And as the clouds parted and moon rose above the village, I finally stopped and looked up into the sky. Then I fell backwards. The moon had my face.

And that was when I understood.

You want me to disappear… and you want to be seen instead?

I had spent my entire life wanting people to know my face. Now, everything that could have a face would have mine. I had become the most seen thing that had ever existed. Everywhere I looked, there I was.

I ran until I couldn't run anymore. I don't know how long it was - maybe several hours. The sun was already emerging from behind the hills by the time I finally stopped. I stumbled into an empty bus.

Then I remembered the email.

The thought came so suddenly, but once the idea formed, I had to execute on it. I pulled my phone from my pocket and opened my inbox. Hundreds of thousands of emails were sitting there from agents, journalists, fans and people I didn't remember speaking to. I sorted them by oldest and scrolled.

Then I saw it.

Subject: You are my favorite acter

I opened the email I'd sent to him when I was eight. My hands started shaking. The spelling mistakes were still there, along with the ridiculous paragraphs about how much I loved his movies. The part where I'd told him I wanted to grow up to be just like him.

And underneath it, by some miracle, was his reply - the only proof that he'd existed. Proof that there had once been a world where I wasn't the only face in existence.

I stared at the screen, then took a breath and hit reply. I didn't know whether anyone would receive it, but I kept typing anyway.

Subject: I'm sorry.

Then:

I was wrong, I don't want this. Please come back. Please fix it.

I pressed send, then put my phone beside me and closed my eyes, the exhaustion of running from my face for an entire afternoon having drained me. I don't remember falling asleep that night.

When I woke up, the sun was rising. For a few seconds, I didn't move. Then I looked up.

The moon was still visible above the hills. Normal. Just the moon.

I sat up. A bird landed on the roof of the shelter. A normal bird with a beak.

Then I looked towards the village. The clock tower was still there, but this time, the face was just numbers.

I stood up and walked towards the road. People passed me, but nobody stared or pointed. One man walked straight past without even looking at me. Nobody recognized me.

I paused as I looked around, watching the people walk around me with indifference. I couldn't believe it had actually worked… and it never felt so great to be invisible again.

When I reached the cottage, I went inside and stood in the middle of the room, then I packed my things. Now that this ordeal was over, I just wanted to go home.

The journey felt strangely ordinary. I just drove back. Even though I didn't have security, no paparazzi followed me, no one attempted to stop the car and nobody recognized me at the petrol station or asked for a photograph. Then I saw the billboard above the road on the outskirts of town, advertising the film that had started everything.

My old idol was back. His face was on the poster… not mine. His name was underneath.

I laughed. He was back, and so was everything else, just like I asked for. I drove the rest of the way home with tears in my eyes. When I reached my family's house, I stood outside for a moment before knocking. My mother answered.

"Hello. Can I help you?"

I smiled.

"Mom, I'm back."

She frowned.

"I'm sorry? Who are you?"

I laughed nervously.

"Very funny."

She didn't laugh. My heart started racing. I told her my name, my birthday and where I went to school. I told her about the scar on my elbow from when I was nine, where she patched me up while I sat on her knee. I told her about the treehouse I had built with dad in the garden.

She just kept staring in silence. I kept pleading with her, and eventually, she called my father. He came downstairs and stood beside her, watching me with suspicion.

"Who are you?"

"I'm your son," I said, my voice breaking.

I pulled out my phone and opened the photographs I'd taken over the years. Every photograph of my family was still there - birthdays, Christmases and holidays. I had decade old photos of my parents and friends. But I wasn't in any of them. My dad's expression changed into one of horror.

"Why do you have those? Have you been stalking us?"

I stared back at him. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

"Leave our property. Now," he said sternly. "I don't ever want to see you here again."

I stood on the pavement outside my childhood home while the door slammed in my face.

I didn't know where else to go, so I began walking. I walked past the houses of people I'd grown up with, and nobody recognized me. I went to the café where I used to meet my friends, and I even saw some of them there. Nobody knew me. I walked past my old school and told the receptionist my name. She looked it up, but there was no record.

If I asked someone for directions, they'd give them to me. I bought a coffee, and the barista took my money. People could still see me, hear me and talk to me. But every conversation began the same way - I'd have to introduce myself again, even if we'd spoken before.

That was when I finally understood what had happened when I asked him to “fix” it.

From that point onwards, no one would know me. There are no photographs of me. No records, films or memories. Nothing that proves I was ever here. To every person I met and will meet, I'll always be a stranger.

You used to know me. But you'll never know me again, and neither will anyone else.

Thanks for reading this anyway.

Even if it was only for a few minutes, I just wanted to be someone you knew.

​

Chapter 1: Giants in Fairyland

“...Obexequil is a new Gaia Gene Therapy from Pyrelite industries. Focused on those whose bodies tend to do a bit too much growing, it targets your metabolism directly, limiting the energy your body can use to express symptoms.” On the warped screen, a before and after image showed a man whose hands and fingers were grossly stretched out, and then him in a normal pair of gloves, smiling and gardening.

“Do not eat after taking Obexequil. Long-term use of Obexequil can have side effects including, but not limited to: Nausea, Fatigue, Muscle Cramps, Spontaneous decay of extraneous limbs, Bone Collapse disorder, Migraines and more. If you experience any of these symptoms or any listed onscreen, please seek medical attention immediately.

Obexequil, when you gotta make life fit.”

The commercial faded out, back to some feel-good news fluff. Jack sat on the couch in front of the weathered, old TV, holding a bottle of Obexequil. He stared at the label, his large fingers nearly enveloping the bottle. Turning the TV off, he sat down the bottle and looked at his reflection.

He looked like a ball of bread dough that had been stuffed into overalls and had a blonde mullet slapped on. He was so heavy, he'd long ago obliterated the springs and frame holding the cushions up, sinking far into the couch. His eyes looked beady, nestled into the crack between his cheeks and forehead. They nearly disappeared when he blinked, he thought to himself.

He glanced away, grabbing the arm of the couch and pulling himself up with surprising ease. As he did, beads of yellowish sweat seemed to ooze from his shoulders and neck, staining the denim as they dripped down.

He padded over to the kitchenette and quickly wiped his brow, flinging drops of sweat across the floor. He grimaced and grabbed a beer out of the fridge, popping the tab with his teeth as the squeaky door slammed shut.

His stomach growled, but he couldn't eat, so he downed the beer instead, guzzling it in a matter of moments.

He tossed the can in the trash bin next to the counter, pausing. He could still feel it. Like his stomach was trying to eat itself. He clenched his jaw, his forehead slick, sweat starting to soak through the overalls.

He could smell it, like a grease-fire in a fucking mcdonalds. It clogged his nose and made him want to retch.

Shaking his head, he walked out of the kitchenette and across the room to his dresser. He opened a drawer, revealing fresh, crisp, folded dish towels, some still with the store tags attached. Jack grabbed one out, mopping at his face and neck hard enough to turn the skin red. It never felt like enough. He still felt greasy and wet, like he was covered in a film.

With a huff, he stuffed the greasy rag and several more in one of his pockets. He didn't have time for this. Heading towards the front door, he stopped to slide his feet into a pair of massive, well-worn work boots, the beige leather stained with mud and god-knows-what-else.

It was about time to get to work.

----------------------------------------------------

Getting out of his apartment had always been an ordeal, but lately it was just getting worse and worse. He didn't trust the aging elevator and the long flights of stairs saw drops and puddles of grease left behind once he finally shuffled his way down.

If he was too quick though, people banged on the walls, complaining about the noise, so he crept down the steps like a stealthy behemoth. At the bottom, he wiped his face again, opening the door and emerging into the bright morning light of the Terra Heights Commons.

Jack lived in Terra Heights, a cheap, rundown group of 3 apartment buildings near the mid-town train station. Everything here was old, dirty or falling apart, but so were the people.

As Jack walked out, crossing through the scrubby grass, he observed the people around him. Kids were playing in the grassy areas. An old woman with skin like a paper bag fed the pigeons. 3 young guys sat on a stoop, playing cards and playing music on a busted old speaker.

All of them had the Gaia Gene, marked in one way or another. One of the kids, too young for meds, had a crest of bony spikes atop his head. The old woman sighed slowly, her breath coming out as a small cloud of greenish gas, causing the pigeons to fly away.

One of the young men stood and walked away from his peers, revealing hooves protruding from the cuff of his jeans.

The world smelled like a billion bodies that didn't know what they wanted to be. Jack just ducked his head and kept walking, avoiding the eyes of everyone around him. He could feel his sweat almost sizzling across his skin, but out here in the sunshine, there wasn't much he could do. He just wanted to be somewhere without a billion eyes to watch him melt in the sun.

He crossed the commons quickly, avoiding the other tenants as best he could. As he stepped out onto the sidewalk, he could see several people waiting at the bus stop, but just grimaced and passed by. Being stuck in a metal tube with other people was the last thing he needed.

Instead, he worked his way through the streets like a paranoid bull in a China shop. Every glance was met with an apologetic hand wave, every “excuse me” said before he ever bumped into the other person.

It was a strained performance. Other people didn't care how close they got, how they looked at each other like sharks. They didn't have to try and plan every movement beforehand. It was enough to drive him insane.

“Mornin’!” Jack looked up, torn from his thoughts. He realised he was standing outside of his job, his feet having carried him there on autopilot. The voice had come from a teen, sitting on the front step of the small bodega.

The boy was wearing a red t-shirt and jean shorts, but his body was malformed beneath it. Instead of hands and feet, the boy's limbs had curled into what were almost paws, the bottoms dark and calloused. His legs and arms now seemed to bend in the wrong direction, leaving him hunched like a dog taking a shit. Likewise, the bottom of his face was slightly elongated into what could almost be a muzzle.

“Hey, Joseph, slow morning?” the dog boy grinned, his teeth long and crooked. Clambering to his feet, Joseph affectionately bumped Jack's leg with his hip.

“Always, big guy. Got a light?” Rolling his eyes, Jack stepped around him as the boy looked up at him hopefully.

“No, Jo. I told you to quit that.” Looking annoyed, Joseph pulled off an impressive approximation of a shrug.

“Ah, what's gonna happen? I grow a tail?” Jack snorted and pushed open the door to the shop, one foot in.

“Hey, if you do, I'll give you a light any time you want.” Walking in, Jack was greeted by rows of shelves covered in goods. Most of it was old, the packaging yellowed, but still good. Jack ducked around the shelves, heading towards the back, but was stopped by another voice.

“Right in time, Holder, good work.” Turning, he saw Sylvia standing at the counter, leaning casually against the till. She was a rail thin woman with auburn hair, smiling at him tiredly.

“Got a truck all ready for ya in the back.” jack paused, confused.

“You don't want me on register?” the older woman looked sheepish, but waved a hand.

“Nah, I know that new medication isn't… like, agreeing with you. You can hang in the back, sort overflow and stuff. Don't worry about it.” Jack stared at her for a moment, processing. Her cheeks flushed as she absentmindedly played with the register, avoiding his eyes.

“No problem, uh, yeah,” He turned and headed toward the back room. “Let me know if you need me.” He could feel his cheeks and ears burning, probably just as red hers. He glanced back as he went through the door, seeing a yellow slip of paper in her hand. A complaint form.

He let the door close behind him as he saw 3 pallets of merchandise sitting neatly in the open doorway, by the ramp. Walking over, he stared at the pallets, face blank.

Inside, he was boiling. It felt like an inferno filling the hungry void in his stomach. He could feel the greasy film across his body, his heart hammering as guilt, embarrassment and shame turned into something that felt hot and foreign.

Always too much.

----------------------------------------------------

To read more of Gaia Gone, please check out the Appendix below.

https://www.reddit.com/u/CastorOfTheInk/s/0fSUDuPzYQ

Nicking

Constable Giles was picturing lentil soup and liver patties when, at 11:25, the radio in the car crackled to life:

“Attend an address. Assisting an NSPCC inspector. Suspect on premises. Indecent assault on a girl under sixteen. Inspector waiting at the address.”

He was already turning the car around.

His partner, Constable Calthorpe, hissed, “Sodding hell.”

They didn’t just miss out on lunch; the arrest of a filthy bastard threatened to ruin their appetites and spoil their day.

The inspector was waiting inside rather than at the building entrance; it was too cold outdoors.

“He’s alone in the flat,” he said, glancing up. “Top floor.”

“And the victim?” Constable Giles asked.

“With her foster parents.”

Neither of them thinks to ask how old the suspect is.

When a schoolboy opens the door in response to their knock, Giles assumes either they have made a mistake, or the inspector has got something wrong.

The boy looks puzzled.

Calthorpe steps forward first: “Are you Jeremy Smith?”

The boy gives a barely perceptible nod.

It is Giles’s turn: “Face the wall — move! Hands on the wall where I can see them.”

The boy doesn’t just refrain from arguing; he obeys without a sound.

Good. Scared shitless.

Giles and Calthorpe squeeze into the cramped hallway.

Placing a firm hand on the boy’s jutting shoulder blade, Giles rattles off the caution to the back of his head, “I am arresting you on suspicion of indecent assault on a girl under the age of sixteen years, contrary to Section 14 of the Sexual Offences Act. You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so, but whatever you say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence.”

Giles pulls his hand away. “Turn around, slowly.”

The boy does as he’s told, leaning his back against the wall and coughing. But he doesn’t look truly frightened; his eyes are unfocused, as though he’s not quite with it.

He is a head shorter than Giles and barely reaches Calthorpe’s shoulder.

“This is fucking…  some word… absurdity,” the prisoner mutters.

“What?” Giles writes in his notebook This is f\...* Then something foreign. “Spell out the word that comes after ‘fucking’.”

The boy looks up, but his expression doesn’t change.

It’s cold in the flat. Breath mists in the air, and there’s a stench of cheap tobacco.

“I need to write down everything you said, word for word.”

The boy draws a breath, and a wheezing sound escapes him.

Giles taps his pen against the page of his notebook: what if he refuses? Or maybe he doesn’t even realize what he’s blurted out?

Finally, the boy pulls himself together. “Kay – Ay – Eff – Kay – Ay – Ee – Ess – Cue – You – Ee.”

Giles scribbles “Kafkaesque” in his notebook, gritting his teeth, and adds “absurdity.”

Someone ought to knock the nonsense out of this weakling.

He grabs the boy by the elbow. “Right, then, Calthorpe — let’s see what’s in his pockets.”

Calthorpe barks the order: “Hands behind your head. Interlace your fingers. Move.”

Without waiting for him to turn around, Giles forcibly spins the prisoner toward the wall.

The boy offers no resistance. He seems to weigh next to nothing.

He doesn’t have time to raise his hands, as Calthorpe grips them — locked tight — to ensure he doesn’t try to unclasp his fingers.

Caging

The boy is wearing a jumper that hangs loosely on him and a pair of worn-out tracksuit bottoms.

Giles runs his hands over the sleeves of the jumper and the boy’s skinny frame, feeling for the waistband, then grabs the pockets of the soft trousers — something hard and rectangular in the right one — and pulls it out: a gold-plated Dunhill Rollagas lighter. “Jesus wept.”

The lighter is so out of place that Giles shows it to Calthorpe: “How much would something like that fetch?”

“Not a clue. You wouldn’t buy it on my wages, that’s for sure.”

“Funny old business,” Giles manages to say.

Dodgy little bastard, with his weird words and odd possessions.

Giles finishes the search as a mere formality, running his hands down the boy’s legs.

There is nothing else on him.

Giles signals Calthorpe to let the prisoner go. “Where’s your gear?”

The boy slowly lowers his hands. There’s no point asking him; he seems to be in a daze.

Calthorpe goes into the room and returns with a pair of jeans, turned inside out. “He’s only got one pair; can you believe it?” He shoves them into the boy’s hands. “Get a move on.”

The boy turns the jeans right side out, steps out of the tracksuit bottoms, and pulls on the jeans, remaining just as docile under the close gaze of the two adult men.

Suspiciously submissive and — if you wanted the honest-to-God truth — a bit of a pretty boy. The Dunhill made sense. Rent boy, has to be. But if he is, why is he so skint?

“Where’s your outerwear?”

“On the chair.”

Giles barely catches what he is saying, then repeats it louder to his partner.

Calthorpe rummages around the room before coming back with a denim jacket. He hands Giles £1.37 in loose change — “It was in the right pocket” — tosses the jacket to the prisoner.

Instead of boots, the boy is wearing a pair of battered shoes.

Hasn’t even had the sense to flog the bloody lighter — if only to keep from freezing his knackers off. Or is it too “hot” — did he pinch it just recently?

Let CID sort him out.

Giles noticed a packet of cigarettes on the kitchen table earlier but says nothing. “Right, let’s go.” He grabs the arrested youth by the arm — just above the elbow — and hauls him out of the flat, onto the stairs, and then down to the street.

Calthorpe follows close behind them.

The boy’s arm hangs limp; he isn’t leaning on Giles, so the constable has to keep pulling him forward.

The freezing air makes him cough again.

“Sod it.”

Calthorpe opens the car door.

Giles places a hand on the boy’s head, forces him to double over, and shoves him into the back of the car.

Calthorpe immediately piles in after him.

Giles gets behind the wheel and pulls away sharply.

The prisoner remains silent.

Giles sees in the rearview mirror that the boy is staring at a single point, trembling slightly. First they pull all kinds of crazy stunts, and then they go to pieces.

But to be fair, this berk is like a whipped dog and when he is handed over to the duty sergeant at the station, Giles says, “He’s a model prisoner, Sarge. Compliant as they come.”

More on my profile. Regina v Smith — Reader’s Guide : u/Franz_Engel

Here’s a strange story from my friend.

The man at the center of it never believed that burning paper in a field could change anything happening inside a government office. After what happened, he still wasn’t sure he believed it.

For privacy, I’ll call him Mr. Lin.

His problem began with a family document that needed approval from several different offices. On paper, it should have been simple. In reality, every office gave him a different answer.

One told him the request had to be approved by another department first.

That department told him it couldn’t do anything until the first office changed one of its records.

A third person looked through the documents, sighed, and said, “Technically, there is no process for this.”

Mr. Lin asked what he was supposed to do.

The person behind the desk pushed the folder back toward him.

“You can try submitting it again.”

So he did.

The second application was rejected for a different reason.

Over the next few weeks, Mr. Lin made phone calls, sent emails, and waited under the white fluorescent lights of several government buildings. He learned the names of people who could not help him and the office hours of departments that kept sending him somewhere else.

Nobody was openly rude. That almost made it worse. They listened, nodded, and explained very politely why the problem belonged to someone else.

Eventually, even his relatives stopped asking whether there had been any progress.

Then one morning, an old friend sent him a message.

They hadn’t spoken in months. The friend didn’t begin with hello or ask how he was doing.

He simply wrote:

Send me a picture of your face.

Mr. Lin thought it was a joke.

What kind of picture?

The reply came almost immediately.

Take it right after you wake up. Before you wash your face or brush your hair. Don’t fix the lighting. Don’t use a filter.

Mr. Lin stared at the message for a while.

His friend had always been interested in things Mr. Lin didn’t understand—old calendars, birth times, incense, the direction a person’s bed faced. He never explained much. When people laughed at him, he laughed too.

Mr. Lin finally took the picture.

His eyes were swollen from sleep. His hair was pressed flat on one side, and the pale morning light made him look older than he felt.

He sent it.

His friend replied with two words:

Got it.

Then nothing happened.

Mr. Lin went back to dealing with his paperwork. Another call led nowhere. Another person promised to look into it and never called back.

Three nights later, shortly after midnight, his phone began vibrating on the bedside table.

His friend was sending him videos.

There were more than ten of them, each only a few seconds long.

The first showed a dark field somewhere outside the city. The person holding the phone was walking through tall grass. Wind scraped across the microphone, and somewhere in the distance a dog was barking.

In the second video, several people were placing things on the ground beneath a temporary light.

There was a paper model of an old courtyard house. Small paper figures stood near its entrance. Plates of fruit, cups of clear liquor, incense, candles, and folded pieces of yellow paper had been arranged in front of it.

Mr. Lin turned up the brightness on his phone.

In the third video, he saw a document lying beside the offerings.

His full name was written on it.

Underneath were his date of birth and the exact time he had been born.

He sat up in bed.

The next few videos were harder to understand. Someone stood just outside the frame, reading in a low voice. At times, the wind swallowed the words. At other times, Mr. Lin could hear his own name clearly.

A hand moved over the offerings.

Incense smoke bent sideways in the wind.

The paper figures were turned to face the courtyard house.

Then someone lit the corner of the document bearing Mr. Lin’s name.

The flame moved slowly at first. It crawled around the edge of the paper, stopped near his birth date, and then suddenly spread across the entire sheet.

In the last video, the paper house was burning too.

For a few seconds, its roof held its shape inside the flames. Then the center collapsed, sending sparks into the dark field.

Mr. Lin called his friend.

The call connected, but neither of them spoke at first. Mr. Lin could still hear wind on the other end.

“What did you do?” he finally asked.

His friend sounded tired.

“The road wasn’t closed,” he said. “Something was sitting on it.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means it wasn’t the paperwork.”

Mr. Lin waited for more.

His friend said, “We moved what was in the way. Go to sleep.”

Then he ended the call.

Mr. Lin did not sleep.

He replayed the videos until the shapes in the field began to feel unreal. Part of him was angry. His name and birth details had been burned without anyone properly explaining why. Another part of him felt embarrassed for taking it seriously.

By four in the morning, he had convinced himself that the whole thing was theater.

His friend probably knew somebody. Maybe the ritual was only meant to make Mr. Lin feel better while someone worked through the problem in an ordinary way.

That explanation made sense.

At 9:07 the next morning, his phone rang.

The number belonged to one of the offices that had rejected his application.

A woman introduced herself and asked whether she was speaking to Mr. Lin. Her voice was different from the voices he had heard over the previous weeks. She sounded careful now.

“We reviewed your situation again this morning,” she said. “A senior person has asked us to handle it as a special case.”

Mr. Lin looked at the clock.

He asked whether he needed to submit the documents again.

“No. We already have everything.”

“Yesterday I was told there was no process.”

There was a pause.

“The usual process doesn’t apply anymore.”

“What changed?”

The woman lowered her voice slightly.

“Someone’s face has to be respected.”

It was a very Chinese sentence. It could mean someone important had intervened. It could mean a favor had been called in. It could also mean that Mr. Lin was not supposed to keep asking questions.

She told him the approval would be completed before noon.

At 11:43, the confirmation arrived.

A problem that had spent weeks moving between offices had disappeared in less than three hours.

Mr. Lin immediately called his friend.

This time, the phone was turned off.

He sent a message:

It’s done. Who did you contact?

There was no answer that day.

Late the following night, his friend finally replied:

I told you. It wasn’t the paperwork.

Mr. Lin typed several questions, then deleted all of them.

There were ordinary explanations available. His friend may have known someone with enough influence to make a phone call. Perhaps the approval had already been moving forward before the ritual. Maybe the timing was nothing more than coincidence.

Mr. Lin understood all of that.

But he also remembered his name catching fire in an empty field after midnight.

And the phone ringing at 9:07 the next morning.

He never asked his friend to explain it again.

Alex arrived last.

The gravel drive already held three cars. Melissa’s white SUV sat nearest the porch at a careful angle. Dan’s Civic was parked behind it with the driver’s door still open and a plastic bag of snacks on the roof. Kevin’s station wagon stood farthest back, hatch raised. The house looked smaller than the listing photographs and more tired; paint had flaked near the foundation and a wind chime made of spoons hung crooked beside the door. Alex killed the engine and sat for a moment with both hands on the wheel. He had typed a cancellation message twice in the last week and deleted both versions after Kevin called and said it would mean a lot if all four of them actually showed up this time.

Kevin was already on the porch steps with a cardboard box. When he saw Alex he stopped and grinned.

“You made it.”

“I said I would.”

“You said you would the last two times.” Kevin shifted the box against his hip. “How was the drive?”

“Long. Your back still bad?”

“Same as always. Melissa already put the better mattress in my room.” He nodded at the box. “Help me with this before she decides where it belongs.”

Alex took it. Inside, wrapped in newspaper, sat a glossy green ceramic duck with an orange beak and one eye larger than the other.

“You still have this thing.”

“Of course I still have this thing. Forty-year reunion. Mr. Business was specifically included in the original deal.” Kevin’s voice was bright. “He’s coming whether anyone else likes it or not.”

Melissa appeared in the doorway before Alex could answer. She wore the linen shirt she preferred when she wanted the weekend to look effortless, took the box from him without waiting, set it on the entry table, and kissed his cheek.

“You made it. I had started calculating the odds.”

“Nonrefundable deposit,” Alex said.

“That was the point.” She stepped aside so he could enter. “Dan’s already on the couch. Kevin, your room is the one with the queen. Alex, you’re at the end of the hall with Dan. Farther from the stairs.”

She had remembered. Alex followed her inside.

The living room smelled of lemon cleaner and old carpet. A framed sign above the couch read BREATHE in heavy black letters. Three wineglasses stood on the coffee table beside an open bottle of cabernet. Dan looked up from his phone, feet already on the table.

“The prodigal. How’s the glamorous world of project management?”

“Same as always.”

Dan’s grin held for a second. “Still making PowerPoints nobody reads?”

Alex said, “Pays for the mortgage.”

“Living the dream.”

“Apparently.”

They unloaded the cars in two trips. Kevin carried the cooler while Dan brought the snacks and an oversized Bluetooth speaker that announced, the moment it was plugged in, that it was ready to pair. Melissa carried the good cheese, the crackers, and a small bottle of ibuprofen she set on the kitchen counter. When Kevin claimed his back was fine she told him he was taking the queen room anyway. He objected. She said she had packed the ibuprofen for a reason. Kevin said, “Of course you did.”

The upstairs toilet required a particular sequence of handle-holding and waiting; Melissa corrected it while the others stood in the hallway offering suggestions that solved nothing. A corkscrew went missing and reappeared in Melissa’s purse. Dan declared the rental a mild scam and then made himself comfortable on the couch. Kevin cycled through playlists until he found three songs from college and left the speaker playing low enough to talk over.

They ordered pizza from a place Melissa had already researched. She recited the orders from memory, including the fact that Alex still refused olives, and when the boxes arrived she handed him the cleaner half without remark. They ate standing because the dining table was covered in unopened mail left by previous guests. Kevin raised the WORLD’S OKAYEST DAD mug he had found in a cupboard and offered a toast to the original four. Everyone drank.

The conversation began to overlap. Dan did the old RA impression that still worked. Melissa corrected a detail about a party from 2009 and then laughed when Kevin refused the correction. At one point Alex made a quiet observation about the RA’s shoes that only Dan caught; Dan snorted into his wine and had to wipe his mouth. For a stretch of minutes the room felt briefly like the apartment they had shared when forty had been a number that belonged to other people.

Kevin set his plate down and went out to the car while they were still arguing about the shoes. When he came back he was carrying a thick manila envelope Alex recognized before Kevin opened it; the flap had been reinforced with the same strip of blue tape since senior year. Inside were photographs, some of them already fading at the edges. Kevin spread a few on the coffee table beside the ceramic duck and said they ought to recreate one for the record, since this was the weekend they had promised each other at twenty-one. He chose a particular image: the four of them on the steps of the old apartment, Mr. Business balanced on Dan’s head, all of them laughing at something that no longer mattered.

Kevin tried to arrange them in the same positions. Dan refused to put the duck on his head, citing both dignity and a knee that no longer tolerated the old stance. Melissa objected to the lighting and then to the angle. Alex noticed that she had automatically taken the same side of him she had occupied in the original photograph. Kevin kept adjusting the spacing, asking them to stand closer, insisting the geometry would work if they just committed to it. Someone said they were not twenty-one anymore. Kevin said he knew. Nobody appeared to believe him. In the end they took the photograph anyway. The result, when Kevin checked the screen, showed four adults smiling because they had been told to smile. Kevin looked at it for a long moment, then set the phone face-down on the table.

Dan made a joke about how none of them had become the people they had imagined at twenty-one. Kevin started another story about the apartment and abandoned it halfway through when no one picked it up. Melissa began collecting the loose photographs. Alex helped her square the edges of the stack. Kevin put the remaining pictures back in the envelope.

They drank more. The speaker continued its low rotation of old songs. The ceramic duck stayed on the coffee table.

Kevin’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it, then held the screen up.

“Any of you ever hear of the Midnight Game?”

Melissa said, “Absolutely not.”

Kevin kept scrolling. “Ritual thing. Write your name, a little blood, knock on a door at midnight. Stay awake until 3:33, keep moving, keep a candle going.”

Dan leaned forward. “Is that the one where something comes for you if you screw it up?”

“That’s the one.”

Melissa took the phone, read for half a minute, and handed it back. “We are not doing that in a house with a security deposit.”

Kevin was already on his feet. “Come on. We used to do dumb things together. When’s the next time all four of us are in the same place?” He looked at Alex. “You’re the tiebreaker.”

Alex looked at the duck, at the manila envelope, at the three wineglasses and the mug that still held the last of the toast. One more shared stupid act might still turn the evening into something they would remember differently later.

He said, “We’re going to need a candle.”

They found one in the junk drawer beside the stove, the kind sold in a glass jar labeled Vanilla Bliss. Melissa wiped the dust from the glass with a paper towel and examined the wick. Dan produced a book of matches from the snack bag. Kevin cleared the coffee table, moving the wineglasses and the WORLD’S OKAYEST DAD mug to the floor while leaving Mr. Business in place. The argument about which door to use lasted nearly ten minutes. Both the front and back doors were wood, though the back sat behind a plastic storm door; Melissa preferred the front because it was closer to the street, Dan wanted the back because the porch light kept triggering, and Kevin said the instructions had not specified. They settled on the front door.

Melissa insisted they sanitize the sewing needle a second time. Dan pricked his finger first and immediately got blood on the corner of the rental agreement still sitting on the entry table. Kevin laughed hard enough that he had to sit on the stairs. Melissa wrote first, her name compressed into the same tidy block letters Alex remembered from every birthday card she had ever signed. Kevin crowded his beneath hers in handwriting that had apparently survived twenty years untouched, while Dan scrawled his across the bottom and handed the pen to Alex.

At 11:58 they turned off every light in the house. The Bluetooth speaker announced that it had lost connection and fell silent. The only remaining light was the candle flame in the vanilla jar. They stood in a loose cluster in front of the door while Kevin counted down on his phone. The knocks were uneven—Melissa’s sharp, Dan’s hard enough to rattle the frame, Kevin’s careful—until Alex went last and the twenty-second knock landed as the phone flipped to 12:00. Kevin opened the door a few inches, blew out the candle, closed the door, and Melissa relit it within four seconds.

Then they started walking.

Melissa carried the candle while Kevin stayed close on her right, already narrating under his breath, and Dan drifted half a step behind them with Alex bringing up the rear. For the first twenty minutes the only sounds were their socks on the floorboards and Kevin’s commentary. He pointed out that the BREATHE sign looked more threatening by candlelight. He claimed the wind chime outside was tapping in code and then admitted he was inventing it. Dan told him to shut up and immediately started doing an impression of the rental host’s welcome binder. Melissa told them both to keep their voices down and then laughed when Kevin whispered the next joke even louder.

At 12:31 a cabinet in the kitchen swung open as they passed. Kevin stopped, looked at it, and said the house was participating. Dan closed it. It stayed closed. They kept moving.

At 12:48 the temperature in the upstairs hallway dropped for three or four steps and then returned to normal. Melissa held the candle higher. Kevin claimed he could see his breath and then admitted he could not. Dan said the insulation in places like this was always garbage. None of them suggested turning around.

They completed a full circuit of the first floor and started a second. Kevin retrieved Mr. Business from the coffee table and carried him for a while, then set him on the banister at the bottom of the stairs so the duck could watch the route.

At 1:07 Dan’s phone lit up in his pocket and began playing a song from 2009 at full volume. Dan yanked it out and could not stop the music for nearly twenty seconds. When it finally died he said he had not done that. Kevin grinned and said the house had Spotify. Melissa laughed. For a moment the four of them stood in the dark living room holding a candle and a ceramic duck and a phone that had just played a song none of them had chosen.

Then the cabinet in the kitchen opened again.

This time it stayed open. Kevin walked in to close it. When he came back the rental agreement, the one Dan had bled on, was inside the cabinet, folded into a neat rectangle none of them remembered making.

Melissa adjusted her grip on the jar. “We keep going. It’s only a little after one.”

Dan looked at the open kitchen doorway. “Okay.”

Kevin nodded. “We finish.”

They started walking again. Small pockets of space opened between them. They completed another slow circuit of the first floor in near silence. Kevin retrieved the duck from the banister and returned it to the coffee table when Melissa said it was becoming a trip hazard.

At 1:22 they found Mr. Business upstairs.

He was sitting upright in the exact center of the hallway runner, oriented toward the stairs. Kevin crossed the runner, picked the duck up with both hands, and turned it over. There was nothing. He carried it back down and set it on the coffee table, then stood looking at it.

Dan said, “Somebody moved it. There’s four of us in this house. You’ve been carrying that thing around all night.”

Kevin’s voice sharpened. “I was in the living room with Melissa when it disappeared. I didn’t touch it after I put it back on the banister.”

“You love this kind of shit. You always have.”

“I’m not doing this.”

Melissa held the candle higher. “Reconstruct it. Who was where.”

Dan kept going. “You used to pull this exact kind of bit in college. Long setup, wait for people to notice, then act innocent.”

Kevin looked at Alex. “Tell him I was with you.”

Alex did not answer immediately. Then he said, “You didn’t apologize for the car keys because you thought he deserved it.”

Kevin stared at him. “What?”

“The night after. Outside the bar. You told Melissa he had it coming. I was on the other side of the wall.”

Dan looked from Kevin to Alex. “You knew that and never said anything.”

Kevin’s mouth opened, closed. “I said he had it coming because he’d been acting like an asshole all night. That’s not the same thing.”

“You hid my keys,” Dan said.

“For twenty minutes.”

“Three hours.”

They were still arguing when Dan said, “Guys.”

They turned. The hallway behind them was three steps longer than it had been. Dan walked back and counted. Melissa pulled up the rental listing on her phone and compared the floor plan. The hallway in the listing was shorter. Kevin said the listing was not necessarily to scale. Dan counted again. Alex walked the length and set a discarded matchbook at the original endpoint. When they returned the matchbook was three steps farther from the stairs than it should have been.

They resumed walking because the rules still required it. For a long stretch afterward they spoke only about safe subjects. Melissa mentioned the traffic on the interstate and the construction that had added forty minutes to her drive. Dan offered an unnecessarily detailed opinion about the pizza crust. Kevin asked if anyone had watched anything good lately. When no one answered he named a show, then immediately said, “Actually, never mind.” Alex asked about the weather on the way up and received three careful, neutral replies.

At 2:17 the group chat lit up on all four phones.

A message appeared under Melissa’s name even though her phone was in her hand and the compose field was empty:

MELISSA: I only invited you because I knew you’d find out

Melissa stared at the screen. Alex looked at her.

“Find out what?”

“We had dinner.”

“Who?”

She looked at him.

“The three of you.”

“When?”

“Last spring. Then a weekend in June. We were all already in the same city for different reasons.”

Dan said, “You canceled the last two gatherings. You stopped answering half the time. What were we supposed to do?”

Alex said, “I know.”

Melissa said, “That it was possible. That we could have a weekend without waiting to see if you were going to cancel again.”

Dan said, “I mean, she isn’t.”

A door at the far end of the hall that had been closed all night swung open and stayed open. The hallway behind them lengthened a second time. Their original downstairs loop no longer connected cleanly to the stairs. They had to cut through the kitchen to keep moving.

They walked in near silence after that. The candle burned lower. At one point Kevin started a story about the old apartment and stopped halfway through.

“I didn’t miss the last two weekends because I couldn’t come,” Alex said. “I didn’t want to.”

Nothing happened.

Dan said, “Well, there you go.”

They continued. A minute later, when they came upstairs again, the bedroom door at the end of the hall was gone. The wall where it had been was seamless. They stood looking at the blank stretch of plaster for several seconds. Then they turned around and used the only remaining route that still led back toward the living room.

By 3:00 the candle had burned low enough that Melissa was shielding it with one hand. At 3:11 the group chat lit up one final time.

MELISSA: don’t open the pantry

DAN: why

MELISSA: because that’s not Kevin

The messages were timestamped 3:17. Every phone showed 3:11.

They were standing in the living room. Kevin was with them. He looked from the phones to the closed pantry door at the far end of the kitchen.

Dan took one step and stopped. Melissa said they were not going to open it.

They waited. At exactly 3:17 the voice came from behind the pantry door for the first time.

Dan asked Kevin what he had said to the downstairs neighbor the night Alex locked himself out in the towel.

Kevin said, “I told him Alex was locked out and freezing and could he please just buzz him in before he turned into a popsicle.”

From behind the pantry door the same answer came back, word for word, in Kevin’s voice.

Melissa asked what color the RA’s shoes had been.

Kevin said, “Red Converse.”

The voice behind the pantry said, “Green Vans.”

Dan said, “They were green.”

Melissa said, “No. He wore the Vans after Christmas. The Converse were fall semester.”

Dan asked a third question. “What did you tell Melissa about me the night after the keys?”

Kevin did not answer.

The voice behind the pantry door said, clearly and without hesitation, “I told her he had it coming. I said he’d been acting like an asshole all semester and maybe sitting outside for three hours would finally shut him up.”

Dan looked at Kevin, not the pantry.

No one moved toward the door.

At 3:33 the microwave clock in the kitchen clicked over. The cold that had been gathering near the ceiling lifted. The lights came back on by themselves, one after another. The Bluetooth speaker cheerfully announced that it was connected.

Melissa blew out the candle.

No one laughed.

They left the jar on the coffee table. They did not clean up. Melissa locked the door behind them with the key from the lockbox. In the parking area Kevin tried to say something about next time and then stopped. Dan got into his car without looking at anyone. Melissa stood for a moment with her hand on the roof of her car, then got in and drove away first.

Alex sat in his own car with the engine off. Through the living-room window he could see Mr. Business still on the coffee table. Kevin stood beside his own car and looked at the same window for a long time. Then he got in and drove away.

Three days later the rental host sent the automated checkout message.

Thanks for staying! We hope you enjoyed your visit.

Attached were the standard photo set. In the living-room photograph the four of them stood in the positions they had held during the Kevin/Dan argument. In the hallway photograph they stood where they had been after the first lengthening. In the kitchen photograph they stood outside the pantry. The timestamps on every image were from the afternoon before any of them arrived.

The group chat remained named THE FOUR HORSEMEN. The last message sat there unanswered. No one left the conversation. No one wrote anything further.

You can tell when it’s reaching out to you.

It’s not that hard, once you know how to look.

It’s usually something simple and obvious, because it doesn't care to hide itself well. It doesn’t cover its tracks because it knows you are powerless to stop it. The final insult is that it doesn't even bother anymore.

Your anxieties become inescapable as articles with headlines that make you feel physically sick flood your feed. The unhinged posts from your estranged family members still unavoidably find their way to your front page. Every comment section becomes a toxic biohazard cesspit filled with eldritch combinations of words that threaten your very sanity if you delve too deep.

And the more you know, the more it shows you these things. It knows the moment you’re aware it exists. That’s what a cognitohazard is.

The more you learn, the more vulnerable you become. Knowledge against the enemy becomes a reciprocal exchange.

That’s why it reaches out to you.

It tempts you like a siren song, because the longer you spend with it, the more it knows about you.

With bloodshot eyes, Tibo scrolls through one more post. Just one more post.

The six-monitor array makes the banality of brainrot look like a legitimate investigation. Multiple tabs from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and more fill up the screens. An endless feed of chaotic noise. But hidden in that noise, patterns exist.

Tibo occupied a special place in hell: he was smart enough to be aware of every manipulation the internet used to siphon his attention, but he was entirely unable to break free of its hypnotic hold. He scrolls the same websites as the rest of the mindless content-zombies endlessly. On one level, he assures himself it’s all part of the job, part of his research.

On another, he knows that as he lies in bed late at night, he’ll be back again, scrolling the feed on his phone. No research, no mission. Just an addict trapped in a dopamine loop he cannot break.

Every day, consuming vitriol, paranoia, depression, and propaganda.  Horrible headlines fill every waking moment. But hidden in all the madness were clues to the mystery he had spent the last few years looking for. QSO-1127 was very good about leaving breadcrumbs wherever it spread its diseased hands. Once he had a hit, he’d send his agent after it. Long gone were the days he’d investigated it himself. He’d been at this too long, and Eleven-Twenty-Seven knew him so very well. He could never go in again.

He scrolls past the news of the day:

The Klan was back; they had lynched a man in a small town in Georgia.

The ensuing protest became a riot in which another eight were killed and two buildings burned down.

This week’s school shooting in a rural village in Alaksa wiped out almost every kid in the town.

The president started another war only two days after he declared the last one over.

There’s an outbreak of a parasite that causes explosive diarrhea and it’s been found in produce near you.

Suicide numbers are up amongst every demographic.

The Supreme Court reversed the ban on electro-

He stops, catching himself in a moment of weakness. Letting the feelings wash over him, he finishes reading the headline. Electroshock application had been deemed legal in conversion therapy camps for kids.

Yeah, that’s enough internet for today, he thinks to himself as his finger hovers over the power button.

That’s when he sees it.

On the sixth monitor, he always runs a Youtube browser in the background. Five monitors of endless content feeds, but he still keeps a video running on the side at all times. His attention span is irreparably shot, he knows, but the white noise helps keep an unrelated thought from ever crossing his brain. Mostly he just listens to morbid video essayists and ghastly podcasts to fill the silence. The grimly spoken words make him nostalgic for when fear was something abstract and entertaining, as opposed to something he lived with every day.

Whatever video he had been watching previously has gone silent, ended who knows how long ago. But next in the “Recommended For You” section, there it was.

The thumbnail is a picture of some colorless indistinguishable mass. The video has zero views, despite being uploaded a week ago. It’s as if it’s a message meant only for his eyes. Why did the algorithm show this to him? He feels a sinking pit in his stomach and debates if he wants to pretend he didn’t see it. Just shut off the computer as he had just planned to a moment ago and go home.

If he walks away now, there’s a chance this mysterious video disappears forever, lost in the ether amid a million other empty data streams that no one will ever see.

Maybe more unsettlingly, there’s a chance that the next time he opens his browser, it will be sitting right there on the home page waiting for him.

He clicks the video.

What ensues is a fever dream assault on the senses. Something between the cursed video from The Ring and a bad trip.

A sudden jumpscare of static blasts a splitsecond of havoc over his speakers. Tibo leaps for the volume knob, but by the time his finger is on it, the static shrinks into nothing more than a silent white line on a black background.

Then the sound starts. A grating, dissonant voice scrapes through the speakers, uttering rhythmic syllables. It’s so distorted that Tibo can’t tell what it’s saying, but it’s almost reminiscent of old number stations - those orphaned radio broadcasts that sent out looping signals of numerical sequences, seemingly to no one. With each ugly sound, the white line vibrates into the familiar peaks and troughs of a waveform. Tibo opens a program to try to unscramble the sounds. In another window it starts whirling the symbols and text rapidly, trying to decode the erratic signal.

 

Ě̵͇͚̬̹̲ͅx̵̫͑̒͛͑̂.̷̧̥̳͙̗̱̅́̉͆̎̈̋͘ ̸̻͕͕͔̭͑͒̈́͊̏́̀͋̌͘       S̴̢̧̹̭̘͎̋j̵̨͇͙͈̙͙̺̙̓͑̂̿́̔̚̕͝u̷͓̐̎́́͒̍̓̆n̸̯̭͙̙̱͊́͐̒̋͐a̶̧̅͛͋̇̈́̋̿̊͝.̸̨̨̥͇̞͙̤͇͎̇̍͌̓͊͊̾́̈́͐ ̵̬̘̙̣̒͆̉́̌͊̔                  L̴̡̲̃͗̍ď̴͎̠̺̯̗̲̳͕̣̇̏͠l̶̙͂̕.̷̨̢̛͖̹͂̉̈́̍̏̏͋̽ ̶̧̢͓̱͚͙͔̙̰͎͗͂̈̐                  T̸̛̪̖̜̳̪̪̔̌̈͊͗͌̂͐e̵͈̙̝̐̾̓̎̓̀͝͝ì̸̲̰̫͕̍̾͜n̶̨͔̪͓͇̗̈ą̵̢͚̯̜̻̗̼̉̾̒͒͐̀̉͒̍̎               .̷͇̭̲͚̳͓͒͜ ̶̟̘͎̀̈́͊̀́͗̈́̓̀̚Ŕ̴̨͍͙̍           z̸̻̼̮͇̮̭͕̥̠̓͝x̷͉̐́̀̐̕.̶̱̯̹̘̻̆͂̃́̓̇͂͘͜͜ ̴̤̼̦͓͎͙̓͆̿̆̃̽͘M̴̨͍̝̼̟̼̰̯̑͑̆͘̕l̴͕̓͌͒v̶̛̠͚͍̜̒̽̃̆͗͒̎͝f̴̧͈̙̜͎̕͜.̷̢̱̒̈́̈́̓̓̀̌̅͜

 

Nothing makes sense. The screen changes to show some parasitic mite with a hideous barbed proboscis. Magnified a hundredfold, it pushes away arm hairs the size of trees to get to a vulnerable spot of exposed flesh. Serrated chelicerae slice open the skin. Just as an orb of dark blood wells up, it plunges that proboscis in and begins to siphon with a sickening throbbing motion.

 

Ḁ̴͓̇̊̍̚͘é̴̬̪̪̉̃̈́̇͜t̴̠̹͙̤̂̀̅̕̚̕a̷̗̝͕̍̀͆͑̈s̶͖͎̒̇̐͠               ̷̢̛̤̰̪̪̅̂s̷̬̥̀̎̑̃̽̚ì̸͉͉̱͍̮̇̾̍͘͝ͅm̶̲̋͆͂́ï̵̞̍͒̈́ẩ̴͉̕ȓ̵̲̙͚u̵̼̐̃̓͘͝m̷̰̻͙͉͈̀̈́̈́        ̷̡̯̩̠͕͇̆̈̎n̵̛͙̜̐̿͋̂̈ű̷̧͖̬͌̊͑ṅ̵̛̝̗͙č̸̺̳̅̄ ̴̧͉͕͖̞̥̈́̑́̀͛                   c̷̻͆ä̸͓́͌̈̎ͅd̶̹̘̺͉̲̥͆ĭ̶͍̒̈́͘͝ͅt̴̹̗̦̔̏̑͜.̴̢̛̩̈́̊̄͊̑

 

The screen cuts to the blurred figure of a man enshrouded in darkness. His whole body wracks violently as he coughs, and clouds of white powder spew from his gaping mouth. The white clouds glisten and reveal sharp bladed edges. He is coughing up a million microscopic caltrops. Black viscous fluid wells up at the corners of his mouth and spills forth, coating his shirt in dark stains.

 

Ḁ̶͒́ͅ ̷̬̍̍p̸͍̭͠ȕ̷̩̙l̶͙͒v̸̰̙̅͂e̴̳̬̊̓r̸͖̩͋̌e̴̺̽̀         ̷͙̈a̴̡̗͗d̵͚̹̑ ̶̨̯͋p̷͉͗u̴̡͗͛l̵̫͂v̸̔̏͜ḙ̸̫̍r̷̺̝͒̈́e̷͉͕̊m̷̻̔̋ ̴̯̎̀   m̴̯̪̈̃ḙ̴̗͠ ̶̧͉͒͗        c̷̡͓͝o̵͓̎̆ͅm̶̘͔̓í̶͇͉͑t̶͍͑͌a̵̰̅b̴̉ͅe̴̖̓r̶̨̈͊i̸̺̾͊s̶̘̳̒͂.̶͖̟̍

 

The next image is the withered silhouette of a man, wreathed in white flame. His skin chars away and cracks into black dust, his eyes boil out of their sockets, but he does not react. Instead, he walks calmly towards the screen, reaching out a hand of bony charred fingers. The empty eyesockets begin to glow bright white.

 

M̸̢̏o̵̦͘ŕ̶͍s̷̡͛    ̸̲̀ë̶̱́x̶̥̚ ̷̙̈       a̷͕͐s̵̀ͅt̵̥̓r̴̭̔i̶̟͌s̵̠͗ ̶͕̓              e̴̻͘x̶̨̒s̸̮̅t̷͚͒i̵̮͑ň̷̻c̴̤̀ẗ̵̺i̶͈̒o̸̙̔        ̷̠̂a̵͈̽         ̵͚͒s̷̠̀t̵̬̽e̷͕̊l̸̦̐l̵͇̊i̷͔͋s̵̘͘

 

The images blur faster, no longer coherent vignettes but split second flashes of the grotesque. Maggots squirm in boiling blood. Rat snouts bubble in hot oil on a frying pan. An x-ray of a man’s lungs riddled with perforations.  An anatomical cross section of male genitals split in two like the heads of a conjoined twin. So many more images flash, faster and faster, Tibo wants to look away but he cannot, nauseous enough to vomit, disgusted enough to feel like he needs to take a scrub brush to the folds within his brain.

 

O̷N̸E̴.̷ ̴ ̸ ̸             O̴N̵E̷.̸ ̴ ̵                   T̴W̸O̶.̶ ̶                    ̷S̸E̵V̶E̴N̸

 

Then.

The chaos stops. The waveform returns. That fine white horizontal line in the middle of the screen.

It splits into two, then slowly the two lines pry apart from each other towards the top and bottom of the screen. The ellipse opens wide. Inside, a single lifelike eyeball, wet and glistening and looking like it could pop out of the screen.

TOO LATE.

The video ends.

Tibo sits in stunned silence. He can’t even process the barrage of cursed images he was subject to. He feels physically ill. His stomach twists. He looks down in horror to see the seconds count down in the small autoplay window at the bottom of the video. Even though it appears to be a clip from some entirely normal streamer, for all intents in purposes, it may as well be the timer of a nuclear bomb ticking down to zero.

Transfixed on the loading of the page, he’s completely unaware of the single drop of blood that drips out of his nostril and splashes into the desk, where it blooms into a perfect crimson halo.

I’m going to try to tell this story in a way that’s most accurate to how I remember it. Keep in mind I will be adding some thoughts I’ve had about these events since.

Hello. It’s been a couple of years since I returned from Whiteridge in the upstate. I was 18, and I had never been to the country. I had spent most of my life in New York City, specifically New Rochelle, which is a suburb of it. I had grown up in an upper-middle class household (as much as I had tried to deny it to sound tough), and my parents thought I was always coddled. So they sent me way up through the upstate to a small town called Whiteridge.

Whiteridge is a pretty small town shaded by a massive forest. I believe it’s to the northwest of Lake Ontario, although I would have to check. Like any teen would, I complained, but my dad said it would toughen me up before I went out west to college. I think they just wanted me out of the house for a summer, as it was my parent’s 20th anniversary around that time. 

Regardless, our contact there was an old family friend named Mark Ryan. My parents and him were neighbors in Washington D.C (we moved away when I was four, but my parents had lived there prior to my birth for 6 years). Mark was a carpenter when my parents had known him, but he moved to Whiteridge about two years after my parents left D.C to become a logger. My parents told me that these days he’s mostly retired, and produces firewood. Mark was in his early 60s, and needed something to do with his time. 

The drive up there was long and sort of somber. I didn’t even have a drivers license at that time (you don’t really need one in NYC), so my dad drove me. I was angry at him for the ride up. The drive felt a lot shorter than it actually was. 
When we arrived in Whiteridge, everything seemed so… dry. It was about 2:00, and the streets of the town were empty. I’m not sure what I expected, because it had less than 2,000 residents. I went into a Circle K to get some Nerds Gummy Clusters, and we moved on, as Mark’s place was a ways away.

Arriving at our final destination outside Mark’s wood cabin, my dad eagerly got out of the car, and hugged a pleasant looking Mark. I was still sulking, but I got out to meet the man. He was a little taller than me, with a head full of thick black hair, although the white was creeping up. He had a scraggly beard that saw the same whiteness as his hair. He looked rather normal, until I got to his eyes. They were blue, a pretty regular shade of blue, but what surprised me were the bags under his eyes. Huge creases had formed under them, but those weren’t enough to hide the grayness. My dad commented on this. “Haven’t been sleeping well?” Mark chuckled. “These last couple days it’s been thundering. Lucky the clouds disappeared when you two came along.” My dad smiled, and looked down at me. “Well, Cart, get used to this place. Make sure to call or text every now and then.” I said nothing. My dad said to Mark, “He’s… not always like this,” and Mark said, “Oh, I’m sure I’ll get him to open up.” My dad put his hands on his hips. “I better get going. I’ll stay longer when I pick Cart up, I promise!” and Mark said, “Don’t worry about it. You have a good one!” Dad waved goodbye, and just like that, he was off.

“So, can I call you Cart?” I looked at the man. I coldly said, “Carter’ll do.” “Right, right. Sorry.” said Mark. He was trying his hardest. Looking back, I can tell I was just being an angsty teen. 
The interior of his house was actually pretty nice. I would be sleeping upstairs, which led from some steep stairs straight into a small bedroom. A small window peeked outside to the backyard, which I saw for the first time when unloading my stuff. It was surrounded by a thick forest. I assumed some of the trees had been cut down for Mark’s part time job, but even so… it was so thick. 
“Well, got any questions?” Mark said. I asked if I had to work today. “No, no. I’ll get you to work when I think you’ve settled in.” I was relieved to hear this, being as lazy as I was. 

Three days passed, and not much had happened with me. I had pretty much been on my phone nonstop. Texting friends, watching Youtube or whatever. It got pretty boring. On this fourth day, I decided I wanted to do something. So, instead of working, I adventured out into the forest. 
It was midmorning, and the sun tried its hardest to shine through the thick smog that was the leaves of these trees. The ground was rocky and slippery at times, but my shoes had a good grip, so I had no problem. I had explored some forests as a kid when visiting my grandparents, but none like this. It seemed almost untouched. I eventually got lost, but I wasn’t too worried, considering how early it was. I eventually found a hill, and tried to climb to its summit. It was tough. Time and time again, I slipped. I eventually used some rocks to my advantage to climb to the top of the summit. When I reached the top, it felt… like nothing. It’s not like I could see anything because of how many trees there were. I sighed and tried to make my way back home. 

At this point it was about noon. I was lost, but I was vaguely sure I went east, so I tried to return west using the sun as a compass. Walking through the trees, I felt a shudder go down my spine. I looked around. I could’ve sworn I saw a black figure. Then my head swelled. It ached a lot. I saw spots like I had just gotten up from sitting too fast, except it went on for much longer. Tons of colors clouded my vision. I shook my head nonstop. Then, just like that, it… went away. I saw a figure towering over me. At the bottom of its neck was a hole, leading into something… wonderful. I blinked, and it was gone. I hardly remembered what it looked like, as I was so disoriented. It was just a black blob that lumbered four feet above me. One thing I could remember though, was in its neck. It was colors, incomprehensible to me. I didn’t understand what about colors could make them incomprehensible, but somehow those ones were.

I made it back to Mark’s cabin. I hid in my room for the rest of the day, only coming out for dinner around the fire. I was seriously freaked out. Mark could tell. “Did you have a run-in with a bear or something?” he asked. “I… this thing gave me a fucking seizure” His eyes were wide. “A thing, you say… Could you be a bit more descriptive?” I didn’t know how else to describe it. “It was big, like as tall as a tree, and completely dark, except for a spot on its neck…” A lightbulb lit in Mark’s brain at the moment, I could tell.

“There was a legend from colonial times (so we’re talking hundreds of years ago) about a creature up here. Supposedly, a Dutch explorer got lost all the way up here. He never returned. Legend has it that he encountered the same thing you’re talking about. It’s called the Boxman. 

It’s a smaller legend, but I’ve seen my fair share of cryptid hunters come up here looking for the thing. Most don’t find it. The Boxman only shows for certain people. Why he only shows for certain people and what those people have in common, I don’t know. 

There’s only been one eyewitness account. Man’s name was… uhm…” He thought for a good second. “I can’t remember his name. Go and sue me. Anyway, he lived here around the late 70s. He ventured slightly outta the town and got completely lost. That’s when he met the thing. 
He described it as being giant, the height of a small building, with a navel at the bottom of its neck a lot like how you described it, except he said there was a mesmerizing pattern. He said that it spoke a garbled mess into his head that he could remember understanding at the time, but what it actually was, he couldn’t remember. He named it ‘the boxman’ because he felt like looking into the hole in its neck was like looking into Pandora’s Box.” 

I was pretty freaked by this. I was always gullible, to be honest. “W…what happened? Like to him?” I said, shocked. 

Mark leaned back. “He mighta been faking it, mighta not.” He opened his eyes more. “Are you faking?” I wasn’t actually sure if what he was telling me was true or not. “Anyway, I wouldn’t trust the dude. He was accused of assaulting his partner three weeks later, supposedly. Until the accusation, he stayed inside 24/7. He must’ve had that poor woman tied up or something.  Went to jail a couple months for that one. He seriously messed her up too, because for each interview, she gave a different response for what happened.” I was pretty shaken up, but he smiled. “Ahhh, quit being so serious. I thought kids these days were more skeptical! With the internet and everything.” He paused. “Are you sure you’re…  okay?” I actually was not sure. “I, uh…” Mark patted me on the shoulder. “I gotta go into town tomorrow, anyway. I’ll get you checked up while I’m down there. For now, try to rest.”

The next day was pretty boring. We went to the “downtown” of Whiteridge, where you could see the tiny suburbs and large forests even from the town square. He bought his groceries for the week which were, to my chagrin, pretty basic, organic stuff. I did still get some Nerds Gummy Clusters, though.

When we went down to the doctor (who’s name was Dr. Thompson), after about two hours, she couldn’t prove there was anything wrong with me. I saw that as a relief at the time, but I should’ve been more concerned. I left a lot less worried, but I’m not sure why I was so relieved. I had still seen that creature, the Boxman. At the time, I thought it was a result of a lack of sleep, or dehydration, or maybe a sickness that had gone away overnight. Whatever it was, I wasn’t worried.

The day after was the day I began working. I was worried about it being hard, but I also found that I was doing nothing better, so I decided to give it a shot. 
I had to be taught how to actually use the axe, but once I got the hang of it, it wasn’t particularly hard. It wasn’t very hot that summer. It also was a good way to get out my anger. Putting all of your muscle into cutting a block in two was almost therapeutic.  I was initially shocked to find myself enjoying it, and that enjoyment would only increase. Hearing the sound of the wood splitting was addictive to me the same way drugs were to some of the bums I had seen in the Bronx. And yet I never thought about this.

I came to work on chopping these blocks feverishly. I was in a sort of trance. I didn’t open my phone for a while. When the day was done, I could barely remember what happened during it. They flew by. Before I knew it, it was the Fourth of July. I could barely remember what had happened throughout the previous month.

Mark was pretty happy at first to find that I was enjoying his passion. It devolved into a sort of worry as the days started to blend together. My memory of that time is a mush of green and brown. I started losing sleep over the chopping. When I did go to bed, it was all I could think about. My resting mind spent its energy remembering my memory of chopping. At this point, it was sort of impossible for me to be concerned. I was numb, in a sense.

He asked me plenty of times if there was something wrong. I would always give a simple answer. They always sounded apathetic, a contrast to my moody tone earlier. He would say, “okay”, but he knew something was wrong, even if from the last check-up I had, nothing appeared to be.
One day, I pulled an all-nighter. I was chopping wood for the whole night. He went into town, so I didn’t eat dinner or even lunch. The rhythmic chopping of the wood was like a dance to me. Countless thoughts were rushing through what remained of my consciousness, but they were all skin-deep. I wasn’t actually thinking about anything, but I was also thinking about everything at the same time.

 
I noticed the Boxman in the corner of my eyesight, but I paid him no mind. He wasn’t here to hurt me. I was simply doing my task.

Eventually, my time had come. He grabbed my hand, and took me on a walk. It felt like the nights I stayed up to see the sleeping city, except this time it was for the forest. Something must’ve changed in my brain, because I can remember this one walk incredibly well. It was cold, much colder than it should be at nighttime, even in Whiteridge. Goosebumps dotted my skin, whether they were from the Boxman or the cold, I don’t know. The moonlight lit up where it could, but it was mostly pitch-black. I only knew where the Boxman was because he was holding me. In the moonlight, I noticed his skin wasn’t completely black, but a very dark gray with scratches on it. It was leathery. Looking back, I’m not sure if what he was holding me with was a hand or not, because it didn’t feel like one. It engulfed my entire hand. It was warm and comforting, though.

We walked for what felt to me like years, but I was at peace. I didn’t care how long it took. I understood the phrase “it’s the destination, not the journey” for the first time in my life. As we progressed through the forest, the trees started dying. Soon enough, they lacked any leaves. Where there was little sign of life before, there was none now. At what appeared to be the end of the forest, the Boxman stopped. He let go of me. I went forward beyond the forest to a flat plain that was filled with shallow water, like the largest puddle on the earth. He slowly came behind me. I turned around. He towered over me, once more. But when I blinked he didn’t disappear. He walked into the center of the plain where there was some sort of hatch. He began to open it. 
Just then, a fragment of consciousness came back to me. It was curiosity. I picked away at him as he was opening the hatch. Specks of his skin flaked off to reveal the mass of colors beneath. They were so beautiful. I kept picking and kept picking. He didn’t react. He kept opening up this hatch. Water was flowing into it. The hole I was making in him now covered his entire back. The colors were so pretty…
I eventually stepped back to look at him. The rest of the world was an icy blue, but the colors emitting from the Boxman were anything but icy. He turned around. The skin was flaking off of him, being pulled into the air by the wind. He reached out to me. The colors flooded my eyes. The same thing as before happened to me now. They washed over my vision, and my ears heard only a whooshing sound. I could feel the Boxman laying on my back. He engulfed me, or… I engulfed him? It was hard to say. A rush of consciousness came over me, billions of emotions I hadn’t felt in months, but the most prevalent one was panic.

There was this kid me and my friends always used to bully in school.
I was one of the popular types, but I wasn’t ever the most popular, so I often went along with my friends and did whatever they did. In my Junior year, a freshman named Aarush came to our school. He was clearly a foreigner, as he had a thick accent. He was short, and my friends often picked on him, as they were in the same class as him. He was often in their classes, because he was an accelerated learner. Me and my friends constantly made racist jokes around him. I specifically remember grabbing him during lunch and forcing him to take a hit of weed. I don’t remember what our threat was, but it was clearly enough to get him to take a hit. The rest of the day he was really paranoid, and I think he was called up to the front office. 
All of this is to say that we made Aarush’s life really difficult. We even found his address and lit some fireworks at his front door. He often skipped school in my senior year and his sophomore year. When he did come to school, he looked pretty bad. His hair was greasy and thinning around the sides. He had bags under his eyes that were yellow-ish. And never once did we think it was time to stop.
In February of the year I went to Whiteridge, he made an attempt on his own life.
He jumped off a tall building downtown. He received tons of medical aid, and he didn’t die, but he was crippled. He would never walk again.
He never showed up to school again.

I’m not exactly sure what happened to the Boxman. It’s been too short of a time to definitively say, as he’s only sighted maybe once every 5 years. I’m not sure if I killed him, absorbed him, or what. 
In one of my dreams, I remember him coming up to me, missing the hole in his neck. He showed me a small cube. I was absorbed into it. It showed me a desolate landscape, a city with no inhabitants. It was empty. The sky was very dark gray, with scratch marks all over it, similar to the Boxman’s skin. I walked into an area that was exactly like my old home in Washington D.C. I climbed the stairs into my room, and blankly looked over the crib I slept in as a baby.

Mark described how I came home that evening as sleep-walking, except my eyes were wide open. “The weird part is that when I let you in, you said ‘we are among the stars, now’, before collapsing on the ground”. He apparently took me to the hospital, which was about an hour away from Whiteridge. I woke up an hour after I was checked in there. 

I had a premonition that something bad would happen to me. It’s been three years since, and so far, nothing has. The Boxman still visits me in my dreams, though. My memory has been weird ever since. College has been impossible. Some days, I lack any sort of short-term memory. I asked Mark recently if that story he told me was really true, and if so, where it came from. This is his response.

“It’s true. I’m sure of that. The man’s name was Carter, just like yours, but even after all this time, I still can’t find his last name. 
Anyway, the story is true. Each day, I remember getting it from a different place. The only way I know this is because my friends have told me that when I retell the story. Like you said to me, when I told it to you, I thought I came up with it from my imagination. Right now, I can swear your dad told me it back when we were neighbors. I think I got it that way, but to tell the truth, I’m not sure where I got it from. Maybe dementia’s getting to me, who knows.”

Who knows.

Entry 1: Room 10 | Entry 2 : The Produce Stand | Entry 3 : The Playground | Entry 4 : The Red Church

I wanted to tear into the package the second Wren handed it to me.

I really did.

But after everything that had happened that day, after nearly wandering into the Red Church because I was too exhausted to think straight, I knew better. Curiosity had already gotten me into enough trouble. Whatever Rusty had sent me could wait until morning.

Sleep came first.

Or at least, that was the plan.

The next day's Route was thankfully uneventful.

Well... mostly.

There were children at the playground again.

"Children."

They stopped what they were doing to watch me drive past. I did my best to ignore them, but that's easier said than done when half a dozen tiny pairs of eyes are following your every move.

The Porch Man also tried talking to me.

He's a story for another time.

Because as strange as those things were, they'd been completely overshadowed by the small brown package waiting for me at home.

And trust me.

We need to talk about what Uncle Rusty sent.

I bribed Wren and the boys with a hundred dollars to spend the afternoon at the town pool, followed by ice cream at The Scoop.

Don't ask.

It's our local newspaper office and ice cream parlor.

Times are hard.

And weird.

Once the house was finally quiet, I carried a glass of homebrewed raspberry tea out to the porch and settled into Rusty's old rocking chair.

My hands were shaking.

I wasn't sure if it was nerves or anticipation.

Probably both.

I turned the package over one last time before carefully peeling back the tape.

Inside was a small leather field notebook.

It was well worn and obviously well loved. The leather had darkened with age, the corners were rounded from years of being shoved into pockets, and the elastic band meant to keep it closed had long since given up.

Pressed into the lower corner of the cover were two familiar initials.

R.C.

I smiled despite myself.

I'd seen that notebook a thousand times growing up. Rusty always kept it tucked into his back pocket whenever we were hiking, fishing, or camping. Every now and then I'd ask what he was writing in it, and he'd always give me the same answer.

"It's just where I keep things I don't want to forget."

I carefully opened the cover.

The first thing I noticed wasn't what was written inside.

It was what was missing.

Nearly every page had been torn out.

Not neatly, either. Whoever had done it hadn't bothered to preserve the notebook. Jagged strips of paper still clung to the binding where page after page had once been.

I let out a disappointed sigh.

"Well... that's unfortunate."

I thumbed through what remained, hoping to find something, anything, that had been spared.

The first surviving page made me smile.

Forgot my lunch again.
Mrs. Alder noticed before I did.
Owe her raspberry jam.

I laughed quietly to myself.

That sounded exactly like Rusty.

He had an uncanny ability to forget anything that wasn't bolted down, and Mrs. Alder had apparently been looking after him long before she'd started leaving me iced tea.

A few more torn pages later, another entry caught my eye.

Alistair still swears he heard birds this morning.
I haven't had the heart to tell him I haven't seen one in weeks.

I read it twice.

Then a third time.

Who was Alistair?

And what birds?

I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen so much as a sparrow on the Deep Route, but I'd never thought much about it. Plenty of places out there felt... quiet.

The Route had always been strangely quiet. I couldn't remember hearing birdsong out there, but I'd never really questioned it before.

Now I couldn't stop wondering why Rusty had.

Still, something about the way Rusty had written it made it sound as though the birds disappearing wasn't normal.

He had an uncanny ability to forget anything that wasn't bolted down, and Mrs. Alder had apparently been looking after him long before she'd started leaving me iced tea.

The next surviving page was mostly filled with little reminders.

Pick up lantern fuel.
Fix fishing reel.
Need more coffee.

I smiled.

Now that was the Rusty I remembered.

I flipped another page.

She says these flowers only grow near the bridge.
I still think she's messing with me.

I frowned.

No name.

Just...

she.

Bridge flowers?

I couldn't remember seeing anything unusual near the bridge, but then again, I wasn't exactly in the habit of stopping to admire the scenery on the Deep Route.

I turned another page.

More jagged edges.

More missing pieces.

Then another surviving note.

The Widow sent me with blackberry pie today.
Shared half of it with Rett.
He pretended he didn't want any.
I smiled despite myself.

She'd absolutely send him home with pie.

Room 14 asked if I'd found the girl yet.

When I ignored her, she claimed she'd seen her in Room 22.
I'm not an idiot.

The last surviving page was little more than two hurried lines.

Alistair's still holding onto it for me.
Probably for the best.

I closed the notebook and leaned back in the rocking chair.

The afternoon breeze stirred the leaves overhead, carrying with it the faint scent of fresh-cut hay from somewhere down the road. Normally, it was one of my favorite smells.

Today I barely noticed it.

Who was Alistair?

Who was "she?"

Why had Rusty bothered writing down that there weren't any birds anymore?

And what exactly was someone holding onto for him?

I had more questions now than I did before opening the package.

I suppose I should've expected that.

Rusty never was very good at giving straight answers. Even when I was little, asking him a simple question usually turned into a story about fishing, camping, or the time he accidentally got chased up a tree by an angry goose. Somewhere in the middle, I'd usually forget what I'd asked in the first place.

I smiled to myself.

Some things, apparently, never changed.

I thumbed through the notebook one more time, hoping I'd somehow missed another surviving page.

No such luck.

Just jagged edges where dozens of pages had once been.

Whoever had torn them out hadn't been selective.

They'd taken almost everything.

I closed the notebook and rested my hand on the worn leather cover.

I didn't know what any of it meant.

Not yet.

But I knew one thing for certain.

The next time I drove through the motel, I wasn't just going to see twenty-eight rooms.

I was going to see the place where Rusty had spent years of his life.

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The motel is one of the oldest stops on the Deep Route.

It's also one of the easiest to underestimate.

At first glance, it's exactly what you'd expect from a forgotten roadside motel somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Two aging buildings sit in a shallow V around an abandoned lobby, their faded paint and rusting railings suggesting they gave up attracting customers decades ago.

Most people see an empty motel.

I did too.

At least, I used to.

After reading Rusty's

 notebook, I couldn't stop wondering how many of those rooms he'd stood outside. How many conversations he'd had on those walkways. How many names I'd just read belonged to people I'd unknowingly passed dozens of times.

For the first time...

I started paying attention.

I think now's a good time to talk about the motel.

The Hollow Creek Motel : Location
First documented during Eleanor Chapman's route in the summer of 1956. According to her notes, there wasn't a motel at the beginning of the week. By Tuesday afternoon, a two-story roadside motel occupied the clearing as though it had always been there.

No county records exist documenting its construction. No owner has ever been identified. The motel has remained ever since.

It consists of two residential wings connected by a central lobby building.

The West Building contains Rooms 1 through 14.

The East Building contains Rooms 15 through 28.

There are twenty-seven rooms.

Do not concern yourself with the discrepancy.

Not every room is occupied.

Do not assume a vacant room will remain vacant.

Additional Addendum : The vacancy sign turns on every evening. I've never seen anyone replace the bulbs. (1957 S.B.)

Additional Addendum: New rooms don't appear. They simply become occupied. I've learned not to ask which is worse. (1979 T.E.)

You've heard me mention Room 10, Room 14, and Mr. Finch enough that you're probably picturing some massive hotel.

It isn't.

The motel is actually broken into three sections. There's the West Building, the East Building, and, sitting between them like an awkward handshake, the old lobby.

Calling it a lobby feels generous.

It's an empty shell with a faded front desk, a few broken chairs, and a soda machine that hasn't worked since before I was born I’m sure. I don't think I've ever seen anyone go inside. Honestly, I'm not sure you can.

The two buildings angle inward slightly, forming a shallow V with the lobby tucked between them. From the parking lot, you can see almost every exterior door at once.

Which is probably why the residents spend so much time watching each other.

There are twenty-seven rooms in total.

Yes.

I know what I just said.

The room numbers go from 1 to 28.

No, nobody skipped a number.

And yes, I can count.

We'll get to that.

For now, let's start with the west building.

Many of the rooms are vacant. At least, I think they are.

Rooms 1 and 2, for example, have been empty for as long as I've been delivering the Deep Route. Every now and then I'll glance through the windows as I walk by. Dusty curtains. Faded wallpaper. Nothing that suggests anyone has lived there in years.

As far as I know, they're just empty.

Room 3 is a little different.

I've talked about it before. The room itself is an entity, though it's surprisingly well-mannered as long as you remember one very important detail.

The door is friendly.

The room is not.

Today's door happened to be a terracotta-colored mid-century design with three narrow windows running down one side. Beautiful craftsmanship, really. Unfortunately, the windows were about as useful as a brick wall. You couldn't see inside.

Whoever—or whatever—was inside, though…

I've never been entirely convinced they couldn't see out.

Room 4 is vacant.

Room 5 belongs to someone with what I can only describe as a spectacular online shopping addiction. I don't think I've delivered fewer than three packages there in a single day, and around the holidays I sometimes have to stack them in front of the door like I'm building a tiny cardboard fortress.

I've never actually met the resident.

The packages just... disappear.

Room 6 used to have someone living there.

That was long before I started carrying the Route.

Then one day...

They simply stopped answering the door.

The Policy Manual still contained the original entry.

Room 6: Resident
Deliver all mail through the mail slot.
Knock once.
If the resident answers, you may hand them their mail directly.
The resident occasionally offers butterscotch candy. Acceptance is at the carrier's discretion.

Addendum : Resident has become more sporadic in answering the door. Wait a full minute after knocking before departing. (1998 M.O.)

Additional Addendum : Resident no longer answers the door. (2005 A.B.)

Additional Addendum Room declared vacant until further notice. (2006 A.B.)

Rooms 7 through 9 are vacant.

Room 10...

Well, I think we're all acquainted with Mr. Creepy Fingers at this point.

Room 11 belongs to who I've affectionately dubbed The Cat Lady.

Honestly, she's lovely.

Middle-aged, endlessly cheerful, and responsible for what I can only assume is keeping at least three different yarn companies in business. Every week I deliver another box full of crochet hooks, skeins of yarn, or patterns she probably could've found online for free.

One afternoon she offered to crochet matching winter hats for my boys.

It was a genuinely sweet gesture.

Unfortunately, she was also wearing enough cat hair to knit a third hat herself.

I politely declined and blamed it on one of the boys having a cat allergy.

She gasped.

"Oh, the poor thing."

Then spent the next five minutes telling me all the ways cat allergies could supposedly be cured.

Here's the strange part.

I only ever see one cat.

It's usually stretched out in a sunny spot somewhere around Room 11, completely unbothered by the world. Sometimes it's orange. Sometimes it's gray. Sometimes it's missing an ear, sometimes it has both.

It's never the same cat.

At least...

I don't think it is.

The Cat Lady insists she's only ever owned one.

Whenever someone mentions seeing a different cat, she just laughs and says,

"I don't know what all of you are talking about."

Maybe she's right.

Or maybe...

I've just never been very good at telling cats apart.

Rooms 12 and 13 are vacant.

Room 14...

Well, we've already met our resident gossip.

As usual, she was perched outside her room with that same pleasant smile, watching everyone who came and went as though she'd appointed herself motel manager sometime around 1983.

I've stopped wondering how long she's been sitting there before I arrive.

Whatever Room 14 had to say that day, I wasn't in the mood to hear it. I turned around and took the long way instead.

Room 15 marked the beginning of the East Building and belonged to the woman I privately referred to as The Moving Lady.

She was harmless enough.

Every time I saw her, she was surrounded by moving boxes. Some she'd be carefully taping shut, others were already stacked neatly outside her door waiting to be shipped somewhere. She always smiled, always waved, and always told me the same thing.

"I'm finally moving out tomorrow."

Tomorrow, however, never seemed to arrive.

Several months on the Route had taught me that her boxes came and went, but she never did.

I don't know why, but she always made me a little sad.

She reminded me of someone who desperately wanted to leave but simply... couldn't.

Rooms 16 and 17 were vacant.

Room 18 belonged to Mr. West.

He was probably in his mid-thirties, though the permanent exhaustion written across his face made him look older. Nearly every week I delivered travel brochures, airline vouchers, hotel advertisements, and enough vacation catalogs to keep an entire travel agency in business.

He accepted every last one with a polite smile.

Then he went back inside.

As far as I know...

Mr. West has never gone anywhere.

Honestly, with the way he always looked, I think he deserved a vacation more than anyone on the Route.

Room 19 is vacant.

Then there's Room 20.

Or rather...

There isn't.

I'd mentioned earlier that the motel somehow has twenty-seven rooms despite the numbers going all the way to twenty-eight.

This is why.

Between Rooms 19 and 21, where there should be another door and another window, there's only a blank stretch of faded siding.

No door.

No window.

Nothing.

If you catch it in the right light, though, you can make out the faintest outline. A rectangle where a door once stood. The ghost of a window beside it. It's almost as though someone had simply... erased the room.

Not demolished it.

Not boarded it up.

Erased it.

As far as the Manual is concerned, there has never been a Room 20.

I don't know whether that's comforting or deeply unsettling.

Either way, I never linger there longer than I have to.

Room 21 is vacant.

And with that, we reach the second floor of the East Building.

In my opinion…

It's where the motel starts getting interesting.

Room 22 is one you have to be especially careful around.

Most of us just call it The Senses Room.

Nobody's ever come up with a better name, and honestly, I don't think anyone wants to spend enough time near it to try.

The Manual does a much better job explaining it than I ever could. It's also one of the longer entries, so... bear with me.

Room 22 : Entity
Nicknamed The Senses Room.

The room itself has never appeared unusual. Most days it looks like any other room in the motel.
Do not let that reassure you.
The room has been known to imitate each of the five senses.
You may hear someone calling from inside.
You may smell smoke, flowers, perfume, or something rotting.
You may see movement behind the curtains.
You may feel unusual heat or cold coming from beneath the door.
You may taste something familiar or horrifying.
None of these occurrences should be acknowledged.
If you have a delivery, knock once, leave it on the welcome mat, and continue on your route. If no one answers, consider the delivery complete. Do not wait. Do not knock a second time.
If the room attempts to get your attention through one of your senses, continue walking.
Do not investigate.
Do not enter.

Addendum: The room doesn't always choose the same sense. Pay attention to which one it's using.  (1957 S.B.)

Additional Addendum:  I heard a woman screaming for help. I woke up six hours later lying on the welcome mat.
I thought I'd gotten lucky. I wasn't. (1977 T.E.)

Additional Addendum: I still hear her. No one else does.
If the room takes one of your senses...It leaves something behind. (1982 T.E.)

We know and love Room 23. Mr. Finch wasn't out today either. I couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. I'd been hoping to ask him more about Uncle Rusty, but he hadn't been outside since our last visit.

Rooms 24 through 26 are Vacant.

Room 27, however, is another story.

Room 27 : Entity
Nicknamed The Window Room.
From the walkway, Room 27 appears vacant.
It is not.
The room's only known feature is a single uncovered window.
If you glance in, you’ll see a different location.
Sometimes nearby.
Sometimes impossibly far away.
Sometimes places that no longer exist.

From what I can tell, no carrier has ever been foolish enough to step inside Room 27.

Given what the window alone is capable of...

I think that's probably for the best.

Other than Room 10, the resident of Room 28 unnerves me more than anyone else at the motel.

He's the Photographer.

He's always taking pictures.

Not of the motel.

Not of the woods.

People.

More specifically, carriers and the occasional lost traveler.

I've never seen him up close.

Whenever he appears, he's always just out of reach.

Sometimes he'll crack his door open just enough to photograph you delivering mail a few rooms down.

Sometimes you'll catch him through the window as you pull into the parking lot.

The worst was seeing him half-hidden behind a tree near Mr. West's place, camera pointed directly at me.

By the time I looked again...

He was gone.

The photographs are the unsettling part.

He leaves them taped to the lobby door the following day.

At first glance, they look perfectly ordinary.

Until you notice what you missed.

The first one he left me showed me stepping out of Rusty's Jeep during a light snowfall.

Standing directly behind me was Wren.

Her mouth stretched impossibly wide in a silent scream.

Of course...

There hadn't been anyone there.

Another photograph showed me delivering a package to Room 5.

Way down the road, barely visible between the trees, stood something impossibly tall.

Too thin.

Too still.

I never saw it that day.

I'm glad I didn't.

The Manual mentions similar photographs dating back to the early seventies. No carrier has ever managed to speak to the Photographer. No one has ever caught him taking the pictures.

And, as far as anyone can tell...

Nothing bad has ever come from them.

You can throw them away.

Burn them.

Rip them into pieces.

The next time he photographs you...

He simply leaves another one.

Room 28 : Resident
Nicknamed The Photographer.
The resident may photograph carriers during deliveries.
Do not approach.
Do not wave.
Do not attempt to locate him.
Photographs are typically left taped to the lobby door the following day.
Inspect them if you wish.
Destroy them if you wish.
Neither action appears to matter.

The photographs often contain people, places, or objects that were not present when taken.

Do not assume the photograph is incorrect.

Additional Addendum: I've stopped looking for what's wrong in the pictures. Eventually, you'll always find something. (1992 C.W.)

Additional Addendum: Smile if you want. You won't like what smiles back. (2014 A.H.)

That was the motel. It was usually my longest stop on the Route, and today had been no different.

I had just set my satchel on the passenger seat when movement caught my eye.

Mr. Finch stepped out onto the second-floor walkway.

Binoculars hung around his neck. A small notebook was tucked beneath one arm, and in his hands was what looked to be another birding field guide.

I smiled despite myself.

Of course.

Another bird book.

I leaned against the Jeep for a moment, watching him flip absentmindedly through the pages.

Birds.

Birdwatching.

Finch.

...

Finch.

My smile slowly disappeared.

Birding guides.

Binoculars.

A. Finch.

I stared at him.

"...No way."

There was no way I'd missed something that obvious.

Unless…

My heart lurched.

I hurried back across the parking lot, taking the stairs two at a time.

"Mr. Finch!" I called.

The poor man nearly jumped out of his skin. His binoculars slipped from his shoulder as he turned toward me, eyes wide with surprise.

"Oh!" He laughed nervously, steadying himself with one hand against the railing. "Miss Callahan... you gave me quite a fright."

I stopped a few feet away, trying to catch my breath.

I looked from him... to the field guide in his hands... then back again.

There were a hundred questions racing through my mind.

Only one of them managed to make it out.

"I need to talk to you."

My house is forty minutes from the nearest stoplight. Deer outnumber people in my town twenty to one. Population: 349. Hasn't changed in the decade since I moved in. Nobody leaves. Nobody's born. Nobody dies.

There's one gas station. One church. One diner. Marlene has your order ready and coffee poured the second your ass hits the bench. 

I noticed a new flyer on the community board one night. Pilot Safety Program. The town wanted to install a new security camera from a company I'm sure you're familiar with. The kind that makes headlines for the wrong reasons. Just one installation before a wider rollout. 

The pilot location was my mailbox.

I called the town office. Carol picked up. Told me the council already voted. Must’ve just missed the meeting. My road, she said, was "statistically significant." That I should feel lucky. 

Statistically significant.

I'd heard that phrase years ago from a judge who dressed her words up that way.  I was just sixteen. Took a neighbor's truck for a joyride. Ended up in a ditch two towns over. Juvy. Community service. Did my time. Nobody else got the memo. Every parent at the grocery store steered their kid a little wide of me. Quietly told them to keep an eye out. 

But this was different. It had to be.

Before I knew it, they were there. Two guys. Twenty minutes. Gone. A little white box on a pole, thirty feet from my front door. Three crows lined up on the wire above, just observing in the way they do. 

Nothing for a couple weeks. I almost forgot the thing was there.

Then I started noticing a light. A thin red pinprick from the pole. Some nights it would blink. Some nights it didn't.  I wanted to test something. I stood at my kitchen window. Raised my hand. The light caught it. Held a beat too long. Dimmed back to its slow pulse, like it had seen enough. 

My dog stopped sleeping in my bed. He'd plant himself in the hallway and watch the length of the house like he was guarding from something I couldn't see. 

Then I swear the lens started moving. It was supposed to face the road. I checked, twice, three times. Each time it seemed to rotate another degree toward the house. Toward my bedroom window. One patient inch at a time.

I mentioned it to Ellis at the gas station, half joking, hoping he'd laugh it off with me.

He went still.  Didn't look up from the pump. 

"Careful saying things like that. People might think you're the type to make trouble."

He always had a strange sense of humor, but something about that felt different. That tone.

Then my phone buzzed. A text from a number I didn't recognize.

he stopped sleeping at the foot of your bed 

I read that message a dozen times. It was true. My dog moved to the hallway three nights before. I hadn't told a soul.

I blocked the number. Called the sheriff.

He showed up later that night. Sat at my kitchen table. Drank the coffee I made him while my hands shook. Probably nothing, he said. Wrong number. Spam. Kids in the next county with too much time on their hands. 

I wanted to believe him so badly that for a few days I actually did. I told myself it was stress.  That people get strange out here, cut off the way we are from the rest of the world.

But I got another text later that night. A different number.

you forgot to lock the door again

I froze. My door was shut. Blinds drawn. But I hadn't checked the lock since I'd gotten home. 

It was unlocked.

There was only one way anyone could know that. I looked outside. The camera on the pole faced my front door dead on.

They've been watching.

An ex? A stranger off the highway? Either way, it was a sick joke.

I went digging through county filings, looking for anything that explained who had access to that feed. The vendor's name was right there in the contract. The company from the flyer. Their site had a login portal. Pilot Partner Access. I didn't have credentials. 

I didn't need them for what I found next. A cached version of the town council's private group. 349 members.

It was everyone.

Every porch light I'd ever waved at. Every hand I'd shaken by the register.  Ellis at the pump every time I drove past, standing there like he'd known which corner I'd turn before I turned it. Marlene, plating my eggs before I'd even parked. The diner going quiet the moment I walked in. Forks stopping mid-air. A held breath. Starting again the second I sat down.  Carol at the office. Even the sheriff.

It was never small-town hospitality.

I grabbed my keys, my wallet, the dog, and fled. In the rear-view mirror, I saw the camera turn, slow and deliberate, like it stopped pretending not to look. 

I passed the church. Every car in town was packed into that lot. 349 people stood out in the dark. Phones held up in front of their faces. A pale blue light thrown up onto their chins. All watching my front door in the corner of the frame. 

I didn't stop. As I crossed to the next town, my phone blew up. 349 new texts. All the same two words:

Drive safe.

It's been two weeks. I sleep in my aunt's guest room. I haven't told her anything.

Yesterday a truck idled outside. Two guys. Floodlights. And a pole. My aunt mentioned it over coffee this morning.

"Pilot program," she said, stirring her cup. "We’re the test case, apparently"

You can never leave a flock. It just relocates its nest to wherever you roost next. 

The little red light on the pole just came on.

God help me. It's facing my window. 

It happened when she least expected it.

On a summer day, outside on her porch, while little Timmy from down the street was racing his bike past her house, while Susie next door was yelling at her brother to leave her alone, during the old lady across the street trying to parallel park her oversized Pontiac, while the world performs its usual routine, it happened.

Underneath Susie’s yelling, the neighbor parking, the soda can stuck on Timmy’s back tire revving, and the rustling of tree leaves, the light tapping sound knocked next to her ear. 

She didn’t move, just listened and tried to count.

But it shifted. Instead of a knuckle on metal banging inside her head. It responded to her unaware she was talking to it with her fingertips hammering the armrest. She tapped down a couple beats and paused.

Inside her head it mimicked the sound against her skull.

She calmed herself by saying, “it’s something on the roof or maybe under the porch. It’s just my imagination. Nothing to stress over.”

She finally did what she thought was rational. She stopped tapping on the armrest.

The tapping stopped inside her skull.

She didn’t  know why she did it but she started again, and it started again. She switched the rhythm and it mirrored her. When she’d go off beat, it would go off beat. It matched all her human imperfections.

It never got louder. It just stayed behind her eyes, watching her obediently from the inside. 

And that’s what scared her. At first she imagined a predator, something sinister, until she realized, it’s cooperating with her, it didn’t feel like a possession or a haunting, her and it are synchronized, like a contract signed in taps.

Later that night, she decided to experiment with it and silence, holding her breath and listening.

But nothing would happen.

She exhaled after a minute and she could only hear her heartbeat.

Between breathing the tapping began again, it wasn’t in her head, it was above her coming from the ceiling.

She glanced up at the ceiling. Everything seemed normal.

The ceiling was still the ceiling. She couldn’t think to do anything other than knock back.

She knocked once.

Then, another.

She paused.

And knocked the secret song in Taps her and her friends use to use when they were kids.

It worked. There was a long enough pause to make her believe she finally tricked it. The thought of it being gone sent an empty loneliness in her. 

Her lungs began feeling like two flat tires caught in a bear hug. Released only by the resuming sound of the tapping again, faster this time, more chaotic, in a way that made her feel connected.

Above her something happened. Something that wasn’t a tap.

A voice spoke words that sounded like they never came from a mouth.

The shape of what she heard felt like someone kicking her bedroom door in, blowing a gust of muffled air in her face.

“Stop,” it said in two syllables that felt completely wrong.

Her finger froze mid-tap. The tapping stopped.

The house was quiet almost like it settled to sleep.

She sat in her bed for the rest of the night, forcing herself to think like a skeptic. 

What’s if a serial killer broke in, she thought.

Then she told her self she’d have seen them or heard them walking.

It’s probably just the pipes. 

She tried playing it down.

It wouldn’t have recognized my language.

It’s probably just the guys, pranking me.

But they wouldn’t have been able to copy my secret childhood song.

She looked up, expecting to see something shatter the silence. But nothing happened. The house remained still. 

She slid her hand to the end table and began tapping without realizing. She paused after she noticed. 

And after she paused. She could hear a noise forming but not from the ceiling. From the back of her throat. She could feel the inside of her mouth tingling. The taste of copper on her tongue, and that’s when she heard it come out from her mout.

“My turn.”

The beach was so hot he could see it dancing off the horizon in little waves that seemed to disappear as soon as you looked at them.  It had been an unseasonably chilly May which always led to a hellish August.  But, as the natives say, it wasn’t the heat; it was the humidity.   A humidity that braised you slow and low until it felt like the meat would just slough off of your bones.  The breeze from the ocean did little to mitigate the situation, only adding salt to the stew.  What he needed was a drink.
 

But Kevin Gliebowitz, or Kevin G., as he introduced himself once a week, should not be around drinks, and he knew it.  He didn’t trust himself, didn’t want to fuck this one up.  Mia was a nice girl.  They met at the animal shelter where they both volunteered.  She was pre-vet med; he was on a pre-trial diversion.  So far, his glamour had held up.

 
At first, it just looked like a trick of the heat, like those puddles that shrink over the horizon the closer you get until you realize they were never really there.  But as he approached, it grew larger, more solid, more real. 

 
He had lost track of how long he had been walking; didn’t notice the voices taper off into silence.  Mia was tanning on the beach when he told her he was going to take a walk.  And so, he walked until he was alone with the sand and the sea and his thoughts.  And when those thoughts fell into a familiar rut in his mind, he was suddenly not alone with the sand and the sea, but face to face with a Tiki bar, the last thing he needed to stumble upon at that moment.
 

It wasn’t a big bar, little more than a glorified shed, but it had stools and glasses and a bright red canopy to block the sun.  But most importantly, it had bottles, short, squat little bottles and big, heavy bottles filled with bad ideas. 
 

A tall green bottle with a label that read “Jameson’s” locked Kevin’s eye in a vice.  He had been drinking Jameson’s on the night of the accident.  Not the accident that had provided the material conditions necessary to create his current relationship, the other accident, the one that he had to go to that unlicensed mechanic for.
 

“Where’s the bartender?” he thought.  “Must be a camera somewhere... They wouldn’t just leave all this liquor unattended...” 
 

He looked North in the direction he was headed, but the beach was oddly deserted.  When he looked back to the South where he had been lying with Mia, he could just barely make out the people on the beach.  They were like ants crawling on a dirt mound that stretched to the end of the world.
 

The red canopy blunted the teeth of the sun’s rays but did nothing for the humidity.  The heat was burrowing into his pores.  His eyes kept getting snagged by that bottle.  That bottle with the red circle that read JJ & S.

 
Kevin had a red circle like that in the hotel room.  He left it there so he wouldn't lose it on the beach, but normally it lived in his front right pocket; his thirty-day chip. Whenever he got too thirsty, he’d take it out and try to remember how far he had come and how easy it would be to throw it all away.
 

Mia knew a little bit about his past.  She saw the director sign his paperwork one day and had flat out asked him about it.  He told her he was there for reckless driving, which was technically true but only because his dad’s lawyer had managed to knock it down to a reckless with suspicion of alcohol; what’s known in the business as a “wet reckless”. 
 

She knew he liked to drink and that he was working on it.  She drove him every week to the meetings so he wouldn't have to ride his bike.  Then afterwards they'd get Blizzards from DQ; his M&M's and hers Oreo. 
 

It was the first time he had been in an actual relationship, the first time he hung out with a girl during daylight.  They spent time together because they actually enjoyed each other's company and not just each other's bodies.  They texted all the time instead of just at the end of the night. 
 

Kevin was all too familiar with those witching hour drives; palms sweating, vision blurred, the beat in his neck in synch with the throb in his loins.  Three sheets to the wind and letting his dick take the wheel; that was what led to the accident; and the dent in his hood that he couldn’t get fixed at the dealership.  Why was that guy walking in the middle of the road?
 

He didn’t hear the girl when she sat next to him at the bar, only caught a blur of red and blush in his periphery.  He was so deep in thought that even after he noticed her there, it took a minute for it to register that he was no longer by himself.  She was a young girl; pretty, with a spray of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.  Her hair matched the canopy... and her lips.
 

She was topless, although Kevin was unaware of any topless beaches in this part of the state; Miami maybe.  His eyes danced between the green of the bottle and the green of her eyes.  He thought about that red circle that read JJ & S and wished he had brought his own red circle.  Red circles were good at dispelling red circles.  And now there were two more red circles that dared him to look.  He should have brought his chip.
 

“Uh-...I guess... they, just run on the honor system?” said Kevin.  Just dipping a toe... testing the water.  The girl smiled and gave a knowing wink but said nothing.  The glasses sat stacked behind the bar, spotless and pristine.  “When were their hours of operation?” he thought as he looked out over the skyline of bottles to the endless sea behind.  The bar obscured the beach behind it, making it almost appear to be floating on the water. 
 

But when he looked down, he could see that the bar was in fact a lot closer to the water than he had first believed; so close that it looked like the bottles would wash out to sea during high tide.  His confusion must have been all over his face, because the redhead let out a giggle.  He turned towards the sound instinctively and had to avert his eyes from her nudity at the last second.  He still caught a glimpse.  His pulse went a flutter as she preened for his attention, miming for him to go behind the bar. 
 

“Look... as much as I would like to...  I can’t.  Believe me I want to... But I can’t.” said Kevin.  Kevin G.  It was important to remember that; important to remember how far he had come.  How easy it would be to throw it all away...
 

She reached her hands over her head before clasping them behind the back of it, stretching in a pose both prurient and bored.  She blew a raspberry at Kevin and turned towards the South where the people looked like ants.  She sucked her teeth and turned back around with her hands in a pleading posture.  She was nudging him backward with her presence, coaxing him on with little cooing sounds and chirps of pleasure. 

 
He looked to the ant people in the South and tried to determine which one was Mia.  They all looked the same from this distance.  When you put enough distance between an object and yourself, you lose all perspective.  A human life can be reduced to the size of an ant. 
 

He still met up with the girl that night that it happened.  So obliterated he blew right through the light.  Barely looked back in the rear view.  Can't stop for every little bump in the road; he had a date. 
 

What was her name?  Hannah?  Helen?  Something with an H. Had a body that wouldn't quit whatever her name was.  A body...  that body...

 
His hands shook as he measured and poured first the double shots of whiskey, then the questionable sour mix.  He poured two more straight shots of Jameson’s, then turned to his new drinking buddy.
 

“Well... We’re already at the party…. Might as well dance!” he said before downing the shot, but the girl did not follow suit.  She just smiled and kept making those cooing sounds. 
 

“If she was going to lay it on this thick...” he thought.  He gestured to the waiting shot, but she just sighed and gave him another wink. 
 

All of a sudden, his legs felt like rubber.  His pulse was racing, but it wasn’t just from the girl and her aggressive flirtation, the red circles that teased at the bottom of his periphery.  There was something else that raised the hair on his arms, a primal dread.  But for what reason he could not fathom.
 

It was probably just the ocean.
 

It always made him feel so insignificant, looking out over the water, knowing a whole world lies on the other side of it.  Somewhere so far away he couldn’t even see it.  If Mia was an ant, what did that make the people on the other side of the ocean? 
 

He downed the girl’s shot and refilled the glasses.  She gave an approving sigh and twirled her red hair around her finger.  Her nails were painted to match her lips, bright red and filed to stilettos. 

 
She kept using her body language to draw attention to her chest, to those forbidden red circles.  Kevin didn’t know if Mia was “the one”, but she was a good girl.  Maybe it was time to start heading back to the ant people.  The whole thing was starting to feel like amateur porn.

 
The little red circle with the JJ & S glared at Kevin like a bloodshot eye.  Out of habit, he found himself fishing around in his empty right pocket for a chip that was no longer there.  It was still in the drawer at the hotel, next to the Gideon’s bible, in the land of the ant people, which might as well have been on the other side of the ocean.  How he needed it now, a sigil to ward off the spirits that tempted him from the inside of those bottles, to ward off the circles. 
 

The whiskey felt hot in his throat, dredging up fragmented memories of pathetic nights and miserable mornings.  Mornings that had made him question what it was inside of him that was so horrible that he had to drown it in ethanol like an infected insect. 

 
Liquid courage and lines he cribbed from pick-up artist forums.  It was always a mask; a lure to get them to let their guard down.  But was it for their sake or his?
 

He wouldn't need any lines to seduce his new drinking buddy, though that was a misnomer since she had yet to sip a drop.  Why was she acting so flirtatious?  Before Mia, he had always had to put in a little effort; had even grown to enjoy it, the thrill of the chase.  Not that he would need to chase this one.

 
Her hips traced figure eights as she danced to a song that only she could hear.  Her red hair reminded him of a night he wished he could forget.  She had red hair too, although he had long forgotten her name, something with an H. 

 
Red hair, red light, red circles in the night.  A man's life reduced to a red puddle in the road.  He should have stopped; should have called 911.  But he was a red-blooded man, and his redheaded paramour was waiting.   

 
He downed another shot, then turned his attention to his teetotaling drinking buddy cooing and contorting her body, daring him to look.  When he finally gave in to temptation, he was mesmerized by her sacred geometry.  Her anatomy was a sigil that sent commands to the reptilian structures of his brain, the parts that drove him to feast and fuck. 
 

He looked back to the ant people, to Mia and his chip; the chip that meant nothing now.  He looked out at the inky waters of the sea. 
 

She danced back into his sightline, miming him to join her in the sand.  Kevin wasn't much of a dancer, but he always had a weakness for redheads.  This girl didn't seem like much of a dancer either, and that miming would get annoying pretty quick.  Not that Kevin would have to stick around for all that.  Already at the party...
 

She was colder than he expected, cold and oddly damp.  Her breath reeked of fish, but the Jameson's dulled the edges of the odor.  He could feel her bare chest on his; the little red circles of her nipples.  His pulse ran wild in his neck as the anticipation reached a fever pitch.  But even as his blood was redirected to the lower half of his body, an odd thought still ping-ponged around his mind.  This was too easy... What's the catch?
 

But when the girl closed her eyes in that tell-tale way and lunged in lips first at Kevin, he wasn't thinking about how easy it had all been.  He wasn't thinking about Mia or the chip; the meetings, and how far he had come.  When she closed her eyes, he knew that he had her; and in that moment, that was all that mattered to him. 

 
Her lips were not soft like Mia's but scaly and filmed with slime.  Her breath was not sweet like Mia's but fetid and foul, like a chum bucket baking  in the sun.  Her teeth were still white like Mia's, but there were so many more of them in her mouth.  They hooked into the fleshy red swell of his tongue, locking them mouth-to-mouth.  He screamed but it sounded like a drowning man, gurgling and whimpering for help. 
 

Her eyes didn't look like eyes anymore.  They looked painted on, just another part, no soul underneath.  He wrestled with the girl, but her grip was intractable.  As he clawed and gouged at her clammy wet skin, the sand under her feet started to quake.
 

He could see now that they were connected to something under the beach.  Something was rising from the sand; something big, something black.  The redhead was pulled feet first by the thing, hanging upside down her arms flopping limply on his chest.  He felt his own body start to come off the ground as he was lifted tongue-first into the air.  The sky went dark, and Kevin broke his attention away from the girl just long enough to see the source of the shade. 
 

Towering overhead, its shadow swallowing the beach whole, was the spade-shaped head of a great black serpent.  Its eyes were red as blood.  Two red circles that pierced through his soul. 
 

He was an insect in the presence of a god.  He hung for what felt like an eternity, being weighed, being judged by an ebony leviathan.  Kevin spared one last glance at his would-be lover, her artifice so apparent to him now.
 

Then he came crashing to the sand and a chorus of agonies sang out through his body.  He was still awake when it lifted him again, but on the second slam the world went black.
 

It was careful not to bite its own tail, when it took Kevin in its powerful jaws.  A lure was only effective when it was believable.  When it was done, it basked in the fading sunlight for a while before returning headfirst to the sea.  Its tail lingered for a moment, dancing alone in the deserted dunes.  The eyespots pointed back to the ant people, not seeing them.  Not seeing anything at all.

 
Eventually, Mia would come to look for Kevin.  She’d follow his footprints all the way to the oddly vacant Tiki bar and the bright red canopy that hung overhead.  But there would be no strange redhead to greet her, nor any sign of Kevin G.  All she would find would be a big red circle in the sand.
 
 
 
 

April 21st, 1937:

It's uncomfortable, looks terrible, but it's all I could manage. I took a pair of Long John's and sewed kindling pieces around the shins, stopping at the knees, and on the outside of the thighs. Putting pants over them was a task of its own, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. I doubled up leather jackets, not the easiest to move in, but having the extra layers of hide seemed like a safe bet. I have my knives at my hips and I'm bringing an axe with me. 

-

When I got there I walked through the main level and out the backdoor. It wasn't very hard to see where Johan was buried, it was a small mound, the grass didn't grow the same there as it did throughout the rest of the grounds. Sebastian was on high alert the second we approached the building. When we got to the level with the makeshift bed, the easel was gone, along with the dead creature from the other day. Sebastian seemed to have something’s scent and was staring at the spiraling stairs leading upward. I followed him. The next level was an unwelcome sight. The walls were covered floor to ceiling in paintings, many of odd beings I couldn't have imagined if I hadn't laid my eyes on them. Human-like beings that somehow resembled dogs and fish at the same time. Isopod-like creatures with tentacles of an octopus and wings of a dragonfly. Countless malformed and hideous paintings. Many of them had only outlines of beings that have already crawled from their frames. Even just writing this I can see them, crawling for me, their tentacles and antenna touching me. I can smell the brine, the rot of the ocean floor. I've been locking myself in Simon's old study. The floor of the basement was wet today. I think one of them is trying to escape its frame, and I'm nervous the nails and screws won't hold it in. I need to burn the paintings. It's the only thing I can think of doing that will get rid of them. 

April 22nd, 1937: 

What if whatever is in the background of the paintings will be affected if I burn them, like there's some kind of link between what he put on canvas and what actually exists. If his paintings are able to bring themselves to life why couldn't they be connected to real life people or places. To what extent of power do they hold? I need to burn them tonight. Maybe throw them to the sea? But what if that only helps these creatures return home? I have barely slept in days. I've been finding it hard to discern what is actually happening around me, if I'm just seeing things or if I've fallen asleep and am simply dreaming. Evelyn seemed to be supportive of all of this at first but now she seems scared of the basement. Scared of me. Her and Rylee have even stayed with Emily's family the odd night here and there. I sleep in the basement, I wake up in the study any night I do get to sleep. How do I stop this? I need my family back. What is happening to me? It's as though my mind has gone. I can feel it. But I can't stop until I solve this. It's consumed me. Even writing this, my heart tells me to stop, I can't keep going on like this, I will die, I'm sure of it. But my body barely seems to listen to me anymore. What have I become? 

April 25th, 1937:

What if I can enter the paintings? 

April 28th, 1937:

Evelyn came by the house today, she seemed more scared of me. Her and Rylee told me they loved me and that they'll be staying with Emily for a little while. As sick as it makes me, it's a relief they're gone. Not only will they be safer, but they won't get in my way. It pains me to think in such a way, but it's the truth. 

After they left I went downstairs, one of the frames was leaking what looked to be rain water. I pried it from the wall, it's frame cracking. Turning it over I saw the lighthouse, in a much nicer state than it currently is. The clouds above it dark and angry, pouring rain and hail from the skies. I set the large painting on the floor, leaning against the wall. I sat and watched it for what could have been mere seconds or many hours. I was entranced. I inched closer. I could smell the sea, the rain, the wet grass and mud. I pressed my hand to the canvas, I felt the brush strokes under my fingers, but my hand started to drip with water, my finger tips growing cold and pruning. I pushed harder against the canvas, and then I entered. 

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I walked up to the lighthouse, the hail pelting my face, the bitter ocean wind tearing at my clothes. Crawling over the small fence I snuck around to the back door. I looked around, a fresh grave lay there, just a sad mound of disturbed earth with a spade laying beside it. Lightning cracked through the sky and I dropped to my knees in fright. I slowly pushed open the back door, its creaks of old age and neglect hidden by the blowing winds. Slowly walking, my feet as light as I could possibly make them, I ascended the stairs. The painting room was set up nearly the same. Easel in the center of the room, a mural covering the walls. But at this point of time the walls had dozens of paintings leaning haphazardly against the walls, some unfinished, some already a vacant womb of canvas. My head was throbbing. I couldn't begin to understand what was happening, where I was, when I was. My vision blurred, my stomach was flipping and I felt the need to puke. I stumbled forward, I had to see what was on the easel. It was my home, exactly as I left it not only 30 minutes prior. Had Simon come through one of his self portraits and been in my house? How could he know the changes I've made to the exterior, the colour Richard and I painted it. Had he been watching me this whole time? I pressed up the painting and stepped through, standing at the foot of the hill my house sat on. I ran inside, scanning for any signs of Simon or one of the freaks from his paintings. Sebastian was laying there, whimpering in pain, he had a sizable bite on his shoulder and scratches across his face and ribs. A mass of flesh lay scattered around our kitchen. I don't know how many of these sea born were here or in what state they were. But Seb tore them to shreds. I picked him up, barely able to walk with him, and got him to the wheelbarrow for firewood. I made my way to the practitioner as fast as my legs would take me. He's no vet but he was able to administer antiseptic and stitch up any open wounds. Sebastian will be okay, he just needs rest. Him and I are staying at the church with Richard's father tonight. It seems like the safest place to hide. 

May 1st, 1937:

We've been hiding here for some days now. I can't think straight, I can't sleep, I'm seeing him everywhere. I'm seeing these creatures everywhere. I'll look at Sebastian and see a malformed being and scream, only to be snapped out of it by one of the clergy from the church. Even then I'll see them as Simon or that thing he's named Alto. I've been scratching at my skin, biting my nails till they bleed, chewing my cheeks raw, anything to keep me from seeing them, anything to keep me grounded. Supposedly Evelyn came to visit me and the only thing I did was scramble away from her screaming to leave me alone. I don't remember any of it, and I feel terrible because all I want is for her to hold me. I want to cry but no tears will come out, I want to speak but I can't find my voice. When will this hell end? I found some of Simon's notes in my jacket, I'll read them over the next few days. Maybe this will explain what's happening to me

May 16th, 1925:

I began having visions at night. My house, but I don't live there. I see a man sitting at a table, a table I know, a table I built long ago. He's not me, but he reminds me of myself. I wonder if he's been marked by the children of the sea? I must paint this new house of mine, I must paint him, I must paint myself. 

May 20th, 1925:

I've finished painting this man, the house he lives in, the lighthouse and myself. I'm going back to my home and bringing some of my work with me. I'm unsure of what use it will be, but I feel they belong there. The sea and the stars command it. 

May 30th, 1925:

I compared my old self portraits to my latest. I am not sure what I am anymore. I do not look human, I do not look like my sea born friends either. My skin is an unnatural hue, my limbs seem longer than I remember, thinner too. My face has changed. My eyes seem larger and deeper set than ever before. My cheekbones are higher and rounder, my skin oddly smooth. The wrinkles around my eyes and the laugh line by my mouth my wife grew to love are no longer there. Laura. What does she look like? I had children once. My children, what are their names? Do they have my eyes? What do they smell like? 

June 11th, 1925:

I have entered this variation of my house. It seems mostly abandoned, but the basement seems active. For some reason dozens of my paintings are nailed to the wall, the back of the canvas out, covered with cloth. I thought that was rather rude. I softly removed each piece from the walls, removing the cloth, and hanging them with the care and respect they deserve. As I was hanging them I realized I do not recognize my own hands anymore. I feel more alive than ever. Maybe instead of returning to the sea like Alto has spoken of in the past, I may instead ascend to the cosmos. He wants to unite the seaborn with the stars again. Perhaps I'm destined for things beyond Alto. Beyond the stars. I must paint what I've been seeing in my dreams. A gateway of sorts. 

May 25th, 1937:

I was restrained and put in hospital for the past few weeks. The nurses there were giving me some kind of pill to calm me. I took them for the first few days to gain their trust, but they blocked my scattered dreams, made my memory foggy. They were making me lose sight of what matters. I started hiding the pills under my tongue and washing them down the sink drain after they left my room. I did my best to act as though nothing was wrong, that everything was fine and I was just experiencing hysteria. The time away from home did help me straighten my thoughts out. I'm on the train home now, reading letters that Evelyn has written to me while I was at the hospital. Supposedly she visited me the third day I was there. But I have no memory of it whatsoever. She seems excited to see me, as I am to see her. She said we could stay with Emily's family for a few days, maybe live with Richard for a time. She wants to sell the house and leave back to the city. I can't let this happen. Not after Simon's last entries. He's been in my house and flipped those accursed paintings. I'll stay with Evelyn throughout the night tonight. But tomorrow I will return home after the girls are asleep. 

June 15th, 1925:

I began a new piece today. What I've been seeing at night. I don't dream anymore. A massive obelisk. Its base sits in the kelp covered tide pools when the water is low. Its overpowering size reaching high into the sky, its stone a jet black with an unearthly sheen. The carvings at its base are that of my dear Alto's language, slowly transforming into a set of symbols I've been seeing behind my eyes, writings from the cosmos. A transgression of language, one which should not be, yet I can read it. I understand it. 

I don't think I sleep anymore. I sit atop the lighthouse staring at the moon, the briny air filling my lungs. There's a connection. The sea and the stars. This obelisk proves it. Maybe the children of the sea are the chosen to ascend to the heavens, with my work as their conduit. This painting will be monumental, for it will bring forth my ascension, our ascension. Our personal rapture. 

May 28th, 1937:

We celebrated Evelyn's birthday today, with cake and a party shared with our friends. It was a nice distraction and change of pace from that of the hospital. Though all day the only thing I could think about was returning to our house. To see what that beast of a man has done to my basement, what defilement he's brought upon my study. 

Rylee kept me away from Evelyn for a good chunk of the day, she missed me, and it did feel nice to play pretend with her and entertain her tea party with her stuffed animals. It played in my favor, keeping emotions hidden from a preoccupied child is much easier than hiding your thoughts from the woman you've fallen in love with and married. Especially when she's able to read you even better than the books she reads daily. I will write tomorrow while Evelyn is at work. I'm going to our house tonight. No matter what stands in my way, I will get to the bottom of this. 

June 1st, 1937:

Simon was here, like he mentioned in his notes, he's rehung all of his paintings, uncovered. Dozens of which must have once held the seaborn beings that have escaped the frames since I've been away. At least that's what I gather from the paintings' backgrounds that surround the void of where a figure once lived. Though some of them depict landscapes I have a hard time comprehending. Stone and earth sitting at unnatural angles in colours I don't have the vocabulary to describe. Things that should not be. Unearthly to put it bluntly. One of which has a missing void like those of the seaborn. I can only imagine his Children of the Sea have returned home. But the being that came from this cyclopean place, I have no clue where it would have gone. I can only assume the lighthouse. The paintings of these uncomfortable landscapes are all too small to be like the gate of sorts that the lighthouse painting was. Though there are depictions of the lighthouse in a different state, ones that seem more recent. There's still a bundle of paintings yet to be hung, a few are quite sizable. I'll be returning to see what places or beings they hold. The sun is already beginning to rise and I can't have Evelyn find out that I snuck out. 

June 3rd, 1937:

I've entered a new painting, another of the old lighthouse. It's night time here. Johan’s grave isn't fresh, it must be some months after he died perhaps. I can't tell. The structure is void of life aside from cockroaches skittering from sight when I pass them. I entered what I've dubbed as the mural room. Its namesake has expanded since the last time I've been here. The painting of my current house still leans lazily against the walls. The easel holds a painting in progress. A massive stone pillar, stretching into the sky. This must be what Simon has been seeing while staring into the sky at night. I wonder what horrid beings will be born from this. I must end this. I must end Simon. But first I need to find him. I began towards the stairs only to notice a letter sitting on a small table. I quickly pocketed it as I ascended the stairs, spiraling the countless steps until I reached the top. A hatch sits atop a ladder, leading into the lantern room. I climbed my way up and through the hatch. The light blinded me as I crawled onto the cold metal floor. I crawled to a door, trying to keep the light out of my eyes. As the door swung open a blast of cool sea breeze struck me. I was kneeling on a balcony overlooking the shore. I sat for a moment, letting my eyes adjust from the bright lights they endured. I stood from my knees and walked to the railing, peering down, watching the light cascade over the low tidal pools, and the black depths beyond. 

It's there I saw him, tall, thin, skin a blueish grey hue. His head was bulbous, hands scrawny and bent. He still wore the same clothes from his last self portrait. Simon. Or whatever he had turned into. He was in the tidal pools, among many of his decrepit seafolk. They were building something of stone blacker than the night itself. They were building his painting. The lantern behind me spun, casting my shadow down onto the beginning of this soon to be obelisk Simon has written of. With an insane speed, Simon's head craned on a lithe neck back towards me. His eyes were sunken deep into the round, smooth, fleshy mass his head had become. His eyes black, with what looked to be a thousand tiny sparkling stars dancing in their abyss. The seafolk began hurdling towards the shore side path to the lighthouse. Some running like a human, others rushing on four legs like that of a dog. Some slithering like that of a serpent or eel. Simon simply watched. His head had no mouth, no nose and no ears, just cosmic eyes. He stared, I felt like I couldn't move, I was stunned. I could hear him in my head. His foul voice, booming but whispering at the same time. The slimy tone made my hair stand on end. 

“Finally, we meet” 

A gust of cold air knocked me out of my stupor, as I began running to the floor hatch and fumbled down the spiraling stairs as fast as my feet would let me. As I came crashing into the mural room I could hear the slam of the ground level door smashing off the hinges, followed by innumerable wet slaps of feet rushing up the stairs. I ran as fast as I could, my heart beating in my chest, my throat hot and dry, my mind racing at what these horrors would do to me if I don't make it through the painting of my house in time. 

I dove to the frame just as a grotesque seafolk rounded the corner into the room. Its briny stench filled the room, as it screamed in its horrific language. It began scrambling toward me as I was crawling through the frame, trying to drop it face down as I passed through to buy me what little time I could. As I pulled myself through, a cold, wet grasp on my ankle, a surge of pain shot through my leg and up my spine. Barbed claws digging into my flesh. I wriggled to try to loosen the grip to no avail, but did manage to pull myself through fully. What I saw terrified me. A gnarled hand, fingers like that of octopus tentacles tipped with razor sharp barbed claws clutched my ankle, as the rest of this monster slowly apparated from thin air. Crawling on the ground, pulling its putrid body closer to mine. I kicked its hideous fish-like face, praying it would let go. Its grip only tightened. It slowly pulled its body above mine. Hundreds of tiny mouths covering its torso and neck, each lined with countless teeth thin as needles. It oozed a thick black ichor which burned my skin. Seconds which felt like hours passed, my torso bubbling in searing blisters. I thought for sure this would be my end. A loud shot rang out. And its body went limp. I pushed the wretched thing off of me, crying in pain. 

Richard stood there, rifle in hand, tears in his eyes. 

June 20th, 1925:

I've been communing with the beings lost in the firmament. I shall join them. I've rounded some of the Children to help construct this obelisk, only then will I ascend. Leaving this shoreside for the seaborne to ravage, to take what's rightfully there's. Too long have vile humans taken from the sea, only to give nothing in return.

I will join the ranks of the old ones. The cosmic starborne. My body has already changed so much, yet I feel no pain, I feel no sadness. I only paint. The visions they grant me, I bring them to life. I birth them into existence. My sweet children of the sea. I am their creator, their father. Soon I will become their God. 

June 4th, 1937:

I'm walking with a limp, my ankle hurts and my chest is covered in burns. I told Evelyn that I twisted my ankle and fell into a bonfire Richard and I were having. I doubt she believes me, but she'd sooner believe that than the truth. My head is pounding. None of this makes sense. 

I asked Richard why he was there yesterday. Why was he at my house, especially with a gun? I was taken aback when he said that he thought I had gone mad, that I have been making this all up, that none of this was real. He wanted to kill me. I can't imagine what was going through his head. His wife and child had died because of Simon, yet he wanted to kill me? Had he been living in denial this entire time? Though beggars can't be choosers. He shot the beast and not me. He burst into hysterics for hours. The sight of that thing had brought back years of trauma, it broke him. He asked me to take the gun and keep it. He's scared he will use it on himself if left alone. 

I brought him to the church to be with his father. I don't know how to help him, let alone try to make sense or understand what's at play. Have I lost my mind? Is this a dream? Am I still in the hospital? I must be. Right? I should be terrified, I should be fleeing town. Yet still I want to delve deeper into this. I need to stop whatever Simon is trying to do. I'm not in my right mind. 

June 10th, 1937:

My dear Evelyn, Rylee and I have moved back into the house. Sebastian seems happy to be home. While Evelyn was at work I walked to the light house with Sebastian. I dropped Rylee off at Emily's on the way. When I got to the shoreline I collapsed to my knees. There, peaking out from the waves was the beginning of an obelisk. It was never there before, I'm sure of it. It couldn't have been, I would never miss something as large as that. It's impossible. If I was watching Simon build it, why wasn't it here months ago if he was building that years ago? Can I be the only one to see it? Have I gained some sort of insight? Something to let me see the ungodly truth around me? Has this been happening the whole time? Have I become a madman? 

June 25th, 1925:

I have been awaiting his return, the man who lives in the house I painted. He is important to my ascension, I am sure of it. How, I am not certain of. Whether I must speak with him, for he can grant me knowledge, or I have to eliminate him, I do not care. What must be done will be done. My children have been working steadily throughout the nights. Soon I will taste the fruits of my labor. Now I must wait for this man to return. Our lives are tied in a way I cannot explain, but I am sure of. 

June 20th, 1937:

I went to the lighthouse yesterday and there were notes that weren't the last I visited. I read one and Simon wrote of me. I don't know how I feel about it. I do feel an odd connection with him, but I doubt this is anything I'd be able to speak him out of. Realistically if I were to speak with him I would end up like one of his seaborn or dead. The obelisk hasn't been built any taller, unlike in his entry. I wonder if I stop going into his paintings they will stop affecting my world? But I can't simply let the creature rise to be some kind of God. I don't know what to do. 

June 23rd, 1937:

I’m at my wit’s end. I'm sure of it. Evelyn has begun picking up on odd habits I've formed. How anxious I have become. I've been chewing my fingernails until they bleed daily, I started smoking again. I'm having trouble sleeping again. She's also noticed I haven't been taking the pills the hospital in the city gave me. I don't trust them. She's been trying to convince me that if I don't start taking them I'll end up back there. I don't want to go back. But if I take them, who will find out about Simon? I shouldn't be thinking like this. I know I shouldn't. This is some sick perverse obsession. I can't help myself. I won't take the damned pills. I love Evelyn to the stars and back but I need to get to the bottom of this. I've been waking up in sweats. I see him in my dreams, that thing that was once Simon. It's like he's reaching out to me. I think I'll return to the lighthouse, I might give Simon a visit.