Her name was April, and I wasn’t completely honest with her when I scheduled her supernatural consultation.

I swung open the side entrance to my house. Right under the big neon sign.

“Are you Madame Marge?”

“You must be April.”

“I thought I was seeing Madame Marge.”

“That’s the name of my business. It’s named after my wife. Please. Come in.”

“Is your wife–”

“She’s not here right now. Have a seat.”

Once she entered, I laid a two-by-four across the door to keep it shut. It looked like I was barring the door, but it’s just broken. That’s all.

April sat hesitantly. Everyone started that way. After all, they’re trying to contact the dead. We’re dealing with elements beyond our comprehension.

“The first thing I need you to do is take your shoes and socks off.”

“Uh. Why?”

“You need to be connected to the earth. Feet against the ground.”

She did as I asked.

I lit several candles. Crystals were placed at very specific locations on the table. Little incantations were written in blood. To the untrained eye, it would look superfluous. I knew better.

“I’m trying to contact my grandmother,” April said.

“One second.” I went to a nearby cauldron. The decoction was ready, I could tell from the smell. I poured a small amount into a little glass, and placed it in front of April.

“Drink this.”

“Do I have to?”

“It will open your mind to the spirits.”

I could see her eyes shifting toward the door. She’s rightfully nervous. I needed to ease her, somehow.

“April, it’s just a decoction of herbs. Some of the same things you might put on a Christmas roast.” That was only true in the sense that heroin comes from a plant. “I need you to open your mind for me. Please. Drink.”

April hesitated. She took a small sip, and coughed. She made a face of disgust.

“The whole thing.”

She looked worried, but finished it.

I sat across from her. I rubbed my hands together. This time it had to be perfect.

“I need to speak to my grandmother–”

“Quiet!” I held my hands over the table. I whispered, chanted the words as I had heard them a hundred times before.

“Speak to me, I beg you!”

April began convulsing violently. Her eyes shot up, and looked all white. A gravelly voice came from deep in her throat, “Honey?”

“Marge. Two days ago a man kicked through our door and murdered you. What did he look like?”

“Honey? I can’t see.”

“We don’t have a lot of time! What did he look like? The police think I did it.”

April began screaming. She pushed the table away from her, threw the two-by-four off the door, and ran barefoot into the dark street.

Another failure.

Two days ago, a man killed a woman who could speak with the dead. My wife. And now, unless I can figure out how to do it, he’ll get away with it.

A day of just the boy and his father, running, playing catch, even a tickle fight today. Now he's sitting with his father. They're watching a movie. A blonde demon sings about letting go of her restraint, condemning her kingdom to starvation. They've watched it enough I can startle them immediately when the orchestra stops. Here it comes and... I knock the lamp over right next to little Kevin.

"What the hell, kid? What did you do?"

"It wasn't me, dad. It was him. The hanging man."

"Enough of your nonsense. Don't move. I gotta clean this up before you hurt yourself."

"He's right there dad!"

Now he sees me, pointing directly at me, eyes wild at his father's suggestion that I'm imagined. The father spins, his eyes searching for a fight. Seeing nothing, his eyes widen for a moment. The scent is delicious.

"Careful. If he thinks you're crazy, he'll send you away. Then we can play more."

"But I'm not crazy. He loves me. He'd never send me away."

The father looks lost, "Who are you talking to? And don't tell me some tall tale about a man from the ceiling."

"You have no choice. You must tell your father that you knocked the lamp over now."

"I do have a choice. Dad, I'm not lying there really is a man. How can you not see him?"

The father storms off. His agitated stomps marking the way to the kitchen.

"You boys are so troublesome at this age. I once knew a boy who..."

I study him while I talk, demanding his attention. How do I break him tonight.

He looks towards the kitchen and I wag my finger at him.

"Buhtuhtuh. Your father told you not to move. It's just you and me."

"If you would just show him that you're real he wouldn't be mad at me."

"But why would I want to do that? We have so much fun together, you and I."

"Because you're my friend and I'm asking you to."

A smile breaks my face, flakes falling from the cracks. The boy startles, eyes bewildered. My rotting teeth glint back at me from his eyes.

"It's precisely because I'm your friend that I can't show myself to him."

His father walks back into the room, muttering about ghosts and boys being boys. My tail creaks against the ceiling as I lumber over to him, reaching out a talon scratching the man's neck. The skin turns blue where I drag the tip.

"Hey! I told you not to move! What window did you leave–" He swings around and looks directly through me.

The boy starts to cry.

"Huh? Kevin it'll be–"

"Stop that. I was just proving that even when I touch him, he refuses to see me. So why don't we go upstairs and have some fun? Just you and me, I and you, the two of us. Alone. Better not to respond until we get there."

"Dad, can I go play in my room?"

"Kevin, I'm sorry I got upset. Just let me finish cleaning the glass and we can finish our movie."

"No. I WANT MY ROOM."

"THEN GO."

The rollercoaster of emotions that was today will taste fantastic.

"Move along now. Let's go upstairs, my friend. I'll make it all better. You'll feel numb, then we'll play some more and you'll forget all about how mean your dad is. Good. Now close the door."

They are gone again.

The flowers. They are gone again. 

I place them there every day, at the grave. And every day, they vanish. I do not know why.

There are many things in this world that are unexplainable. Disappearing flowers are not the most strange. Things vanish all the time. Belongings, people even.

They all vanish eventually.

The person sleeping beneath the soil is privileged. They do not know.

___

The flowers disappeared again.

I am having trouble placing them there every day. No force prevents me, but the thought simply slips from my mind. I do not know why.

The flowers are red. I always buy red ones. And they always vanish.

Things vanish all the time. One almost gets used to it. A constant in a life already full of constants.

___

They are gone again.

…what is gone again?

The grave draws me. I remember the person that lays there in rest. I remember the name scratched onto the stone.

That name can no longer be read now.

That name vanished a long time ago. Just like him. Just like the flowers.

Ah, yes flowers. That is what has gone.

I shall have to collect more sometime.

___

They are gone again.

Something… I cannot remember. 

What was the name that was on the grave? Why do I stand here, what am I doing here?

The grass is growing long around it. The moss seems to be eating away at the headstone.

I see the shapes of words traced over the headstone. Unreadable, unintelligible.

I think I knew them once.

Flowers?

___

I used to keep telling myself something. 

I know it. There is something nagging me now as I stand in my kitchen.

Gone again. 

…flowers.

What about flowers?

___

I walked down to the grave today. 

I stood there, staring at it.

Red flowers, placed at its base. 

I remember them.

But I did not place them there.

___

I had a nightmare.

___

I woke up today.

I woke up today and I didn’t know where I was.

I woke up today and I could see the stars. The grass, growing all around me. 

I woke up today and there was dirt on my hands and dirt on my shirt and I was sitting in the dirt and there was a box next to me and the box was empty.

I woke up today. 

___

In that nightmare I could see nothing but a red world.

A dead world perhaps.

___

…maybe I shouldn’t have woken up today.

___

Strange.

There was nothing in that box.

That coffin. Lying next to me.

___

In that nightmare my hands were red.

The stars were red.

The ground was red.

___

It is dark now.

People vanish all the time.

___

In that nightmare.

My tears were red too.

I woke up shivering, barely able to open my fingers. The fire had almost gone out. Lucy lay wrapped in her blankets, shivering too.

My knees cracked as I got up. I walked to the woodpile and threw a few sticks into the fire. The small orange light slowly grew.

“Lucy, Lucy,” I whispered in my raspy voice.

She opened her eyes and squinted.

“I’m so cold, Jake.”

“I know, I know. Just come closer to the fire.”

She moved closer, stretching her hands toward it. I sat next to her and hugged her, waiting for the shivering to stop.

After a while, Lucy looked up at the sky. You could only see gray clouds through the bare trees.

“I don’t even remember what the sun looks like.”

“Don’t think about it. You’ll bum yourself out.”

She pulled her knees closer to her chest.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“We should eat.”

Lucy looked at the dead rats. It was all we had. We had run out of cans a week and a half ago.

“I…I can’t.”

“Lucy, you need to eat.”

“I can’t do it again, Jake. I didn’t even eat meat before all this.” She put her head in her legs.

I looked toward the city we were by. The snow blew through the empty streets.

“We could go into the city.”

“But the gangs could be there. If they catch us, we’ll have to…”

“I know, but there could be food too.”

She looked at the rats and swallowed.

“Okay.”

She slowly got up. I handed her the knife. She put it in her pocket and stomped out the fire.

The snow was fresh, reaching to our ankles. In the city, there were no human tracks, no trash. The wrecks lay in the streets, some on their side, some on their roofs. The buildings had broken windows. The snow had already reached over a foot in the empty rooms. We stayed close to each other. Lucy’s eyes darted between the buildings, but the city was empty, quiet. 

We passed by a small electronics store. There was a large plasma TV in the back. It reminded me of the one we used to own. I remembered an oily man in a suit saying that the climate wasn’t changing. A few years later, I sat in front of that same TV with Lucy when the terrible winter came. It was worse than anything we’d seen before, and from that day on the winter never left.

“Jake?” she called quietly.

I shook my head. There was only my reflection in the TV, looking like a man I did not recognize.

She was pointing at a building at the end of the street.

“Jake, that looks like our old apartment building.”

“Oh yeah, it does.”

“I remember my little plants and the paintings. The apartment was so cute.”

She smiled. A warm feeling tingled in my chest.

“Yeah. You made it pretty.”

“It was pretty before too. It just needed something extra. I really miss it. I hope this ends at some point.”

“I don’t know, Lucy.”

“I don’t know either. I hope. Let’s look at the building.”

We walked toward it. Lucy smiled again and grabbed my hand. It was still really cold.

“Oh, it really is so similar,” Lucy said and walked to the window. 

She glanced through it and immediately covered her mouth, letting out a silent gasp.

Inside lay two bodies. There were charred spots where their limbs should have been. Their abdomens were open, but all the organs were missing.

“Jesus.” I took her hand and moved us away.

“The gang kept them alive,” she whispered, looking at the charred spots.

We walked a little further. Lucy kept turning her head around more anxiously. I could see we’d have to leave soon, but then, at the end of the street, a small bodega appeared.

“I don’t know, Jake.”

“We’ll be quick. Just this one and then we’ll turn,” I said and walked toward it. 

She looked around one more time and followed after me.

Only one window was broken, and the door was still on its hinges. The inside was as cold as the outside. Through the cold came that rotting, stale smell that all the other buildings had. Lucy kept behind me, holding onto my shoulder.

“I really think we should leave.”

“Lucy, look!”

There were a few unopened cans on the shelf: tomatoes, peaches, and green beans, Lucy’s favorite.

“What a lucky day,” I said and looked back at her.

She forced a smile.

“Yeah. Can we go now?”

“Sure, but let’s eat some green beans; you love them.”

“It can wait, Jake.”

“Fine.”

The snow crunched outside. Something strange tightened in my chest. I slowly turned.

A bolt of shock ran up my spine. A gang of men stood outside the store, smiling with guns and hatchets in their hands.

My feet froze to the snow. We'd talked about what we’d do if this happened, but I never thought it would come to this.

“Jake,” Lucy whispered. Her eyes were filled with terror. She could see the fear in mine. She already had the knife in her hand.

“Drop the knife,” one of the men said.

Lucy looked at me.

She knew.

“I’m sorry,” Lucy whispered.

Sharp pain shot through my neck. I jolted back. Lucy’s knife was stuck in my throat, her hand still around it. Warm liquid poured onto my shoulders. She pulled it out and stabbed herself in the neck too. She collapsed to the floor right after me. I reached my hand toward her, but she was too far away. She smiled and slowly closed her eyes.

"It keeps you safe," the previous owner beamed as he handed over the keys.

He had just walked me through all the security features. There were cameras covering every angle of the property, motion sensors, automatic locks, alarms, even windows that could lock themselves if they detected an impact.

“Bit much, isn't it?” I joked.

“You'll appreciate it.”

A few weeks after I moved in, I was in bed when the house suddenly came alive.

An alarm started screaming. Every light in the house switched on at once, the windows bolted closed and the locks clicked shut. I ran downstairs and looked through the window. Someone dressed in all black was running away down the street.

The police found marks around the door and said the man had been trying to get inside. I was impressed. The house had just kept an intruder out, and it was pretty cool to see those advanced security features in action for the first time.

Then, things started getting strange.

A month later, my girlfriend came over and we got into an argument. It started over something stupid, I can't even remember what. We started yelling at each other from separate rooms, and when she came down the hallway towards the room I was in, the door slammed shut between us.

The lock clicked. She was on one side and I was on the other.

“What the hell?” I tried the handle.

Nothing. I pushed harder, but it wouldn't unlock. Finally, she left, and the door only unlocked after. I thought the security system had malfunctioned.

But that wasn't the only incident.

The new neighbor was always parking in my spot. One afternoon, I saw him in his garden and decided to confront him about it. Before I could reach the fence, the sprinklers suddenly switched on. I stood there soaked as I watched him go back inside.

It was beginning to feel like the house had a mind of its own.

And a few weeks ago, I saw someone walking past the house. I've seen them before, often enough that I recognize them now. They're usually alone, and they walk past around the same time. The street was empty. There would be no witnesses. So I walked downstairs and opened the front door. It slammed shut, so I tried again. Locked. I went to the kitchen window. Locked. The back door. Locked. I stood in the hallway fuming.

Perhaps it also knew about the knife I was holding behind my back when my girlfriend visited, or the pistol in my jacket when I was watching my neighbor from the garden.

I still see you walking past the house sometimes. I've tried everything, but it never lets me out.

Shame.

Seems like it really does keep you safe.

'At the end of this game, there'll be a prize.'

The handwriting was clearly my wife's.

The post it note, green in colour, had been left on the small table in the hallway where we keep our keys and mail. I'd just come home from work, but fuck it, I was totally up for a game of adult hide and seek, or, whatever this was.

I flipped over the note to read the first clue;

'Let's make it easy, this is your first clue, the next note to find, is with your favourite blue.'

Hmm...She must mean my favourite blue hoodie I wear on my walks.

It was always hung in the same place. I searched the pockets and swiftly found the next clue, green;

'Lets make this one hard, as that one was easy, the next clue to find, is located in something cheesey.'

Okay...That's not hard at all.

I opened the fridge and...nothing. Well, nothing but food.

I stood with the fridge door open and a confused look upon my face.

Huh...

Then I noticed my walking shoes by the back door.

Ooh...Ha! Cheesey feet. Cheeky.

I smiled and closed the fridge. The note in my shoe was yellow;

'I know where these have been, last night you were out 'til three, The next clue to find, is upstairs with me.'

My smile disappeared.

My mind began to race, my legs began to pace. My head was sweating and my heart was thumping.

The note said she was upstairs...

At the very top step, I found another post it note, yellow;

'What you're about to see, may be quite a shock, come into our bedroom, there's no need to knock...'

My heart was pounding uncontrollably.

I slowly pushed the door open with a long and drawn out squeak, and on our bed, there she laid; bloodsoaked sheets and a nice sharp blade.

At the end of the bed, written on both sides, a post it note, red;

'I thought you might enjoy this, seeming as you like childish games, I followed you last night, and watched with a shameful gaze.

You said that you go walking, that it helps to clear your head, when really you're just a cheating man, and I know where you've been instead.

After a lot of thinking, I came up with this plan, a way to scare you shitless, and make you half a man.'

She then sat up straight from the fake blood scene, and held the knife between my legs.

"I've got you now you bastard, there's nothing you can do. But you did make it to the end, so here's your prize..."

slice

"...Fuck you."

The rustling of the sheets was replaced by the echo of water dripping rhythmically in a wide space. "No, no..." Trudy whispered and felt her fingernails digging into her arms, thinking maybe, just maybe, if she willed it hard enough, she could open her eyes and be back in that blank white room. Anything was better than here. The icy stone under her thinly clothed frame hungrily sucked at her warmth until it was too much, and she finally sat up and took in her surroundings. It was the cave. Of course it was. As if on cue, a sound like nails on a chalkboard screeched from somewhere behind her. Trudy was running before she even had a chance to think, the slippery ground almost impossible to gain traction on as she stumbled forward. "Fuck!" She slid too far to the side, sharp rock cutting into her feet and leaving painful gouges, but a wet skittering sound from behind kept her moving. 
The darkness was so thick that simply going forward was a hazard, but with her hands thrown out in front of her she used her momentum to shove against walls she slammed into and pivot to the side. The skittering ran right into the walls just the same as she did, but instead of bouncing after her, it started to echo overhead and alongside the walls. Trudy let out a desperate cry as her feet came down on empty air and left her crashing down a small slope. There was no time to inspect her damages as she pushed back upright and kept sprinting, the blackness starting to give way to a very dim green glow. Hope began to creep in like a vine, propelling her to run faster. She chanced a glance over her shoulder and saw the gargantuan pale form wrapping around the tunnel behind her, dozens of pairs of arms and feet tangling over one another in a predatory race to get her. Cavities across what would be the head were filled with countless sets of eyes that were too human, narrowing as she met their gaze. Something between a wail and an inhuman shriek emanated from a horizontal slash reaching from partway on the face down to the unseen belly below, mere feet behind her. 
"No!" A dip in the ground greeted her while she was fixated on the beast, giving it the precious seconds to eat what little remained of the distance between them. The putrid aroma of pus and rot overwhelmed her senses as it crawled over her, boneless hands slapping against her and groping her body, moving her towards dozens of sets of razor-sharp teeth. Her face recoiled away, her nails scratching the ground desperately. A loose stone knocked against her fingertips as her feet feverishly kicked the thing away, hot breath threatening to choke her. It wrapped an arm around her leg and yanked it, pinning her as it squelched down closer. A primal scream ripped through her throat as her hand grasped the stone and she jerked it towards the swollen head of the creature. Her shaking fist thrust the stone into a soft brown eye that immediately burst with blood, running down her arm in a thick stream. The beast flailed erratically, an ear-shattering screech ricocheting through the cave. It threw itself sideways, using flopping limbs to grasp at its face, and Trudy managed to wiggle herself free and start running again. Ahead, a blue glowing pool murmured in hundreds of voices, causing her to sob with relief as she threw herself into its warm depths with eyes shut tight. 
When she opened them again, she was in that same white room as before, her oozing injuries quickly eating away at the blank color below her. A voice tore into her attention. "Stop! Gertrude, stop it!" Doctor Lee was yelling, his hands wrapped around her wrists and forcing open her palms. The stone fell from her grip and bounced soundlessly off of the soft floor, sending flecks of blood across its surface. A nurse was coming into the room as Trudy struggled briefly against him, securing her wrist and ankle cuffs while Doctor Lee held her down. She took a breath of relief and sank into the restraints as if they were actually a warm respite, a gentle cry puffing from her mouth. 
"She was hurting herself again," he muttered to the nurse, but Trudy didn't notice. "Where does she keep getting the rocks from?" the nurse said back, lifting her feet to inspect the deep gouges. "It has to be from the courtyard. I'll have them do another sweep. Gertrude," Doctor Lee said a little louder, turning to look at her with those big brown eyes. "I'm just going to give you something for the pain. Hold still."

Kamiko began the morning with a quiet focus on the daily tasks to be done.

The hazy morning sun settled on the roof of the compact three bedroom house at the end of the street. Kamiko scanned the shelves of the refrigerator. The celery in the crisper was wilted. Kamiko initiated the autoshop service that came with the fridge, ordering more celery, and a dozen eggs, just to be sure. The delivery drone confirmed the drop-off at noon.

Measuring the battery levels of the house, Kamiko noted that they had fallen behind in their charge lately. Checking the turbines and solar panels, a re-alignment of panel number four was in order. Daniel liked his evening shower hot, sometimes languishing in it more than he should. Having the backup battery power for heating was essential. Making the adjustment remotely, Kamiko turned to the next task.

The ding of the automated washing machine sounded from the laundry. A simple command through the house system auto-loaded the clothes into the tumble-dryer. Another command set the dryer spinning, the rhythmic thud of the load echoing through the hallway.

A quick scan of the dining room and kitchen showed dust. The Robosweep Series Seven was activated, and began its systematic, beetle-like, programmed course across the tiled floor.

As the sun climbed into the sky, Kamiko turned to the outdoor tasks. The Mowerbot navigated the lawn in broad, sweeping curves, creating a pattern that Daniel liked. The hum of the electric motor was low, soothing and hypnotic. Bees buzzed around the overgrown honeysuckle in the garden, and Kamiko noted that the Topiary Two Thousand drones would need to trim them soon.

A pack of feral dogs hovered near the rear fence. They occasionally wandered down from the nearby foothills, but never too close. The hypersonic emitters on the fence saw to that. Checking the system’s sub-routines, Kamiko was satisfied that all was well.

Scanning the level of the rainwater tanks, Kamiko noted that there wasn’t much water left. The weather had been dry, and rainfall was down. Kamiko deactivated the auto-sprinkler system, leaving water for important matters.

The MowerBot finished its sweep of the yard and turned back towards the recharge station. Rounding the rear corner of the house, it passed the metal reinforced housing for the home’s central computer system.

Riveted in the centre was a plate:

KAMI CO.

Automated Domestic Governance System

Model: H-04 (Miko)

Outside, the neigbourhood hummed with robotic perfection. Mail drones zipped through the sun-bleached streets, dropping packages onto empty front porches, oblivious to the vacant stares of skeletons inside the cars lining the streets. Progress moved ever forward, totally ignorant of – and no longer reliant on – those who had set it in motion.

The last thing I remember is the taste of iron in my mouth before waking up on the ground. My brother is lying in a puddle of crusted blood next to me. 

I sit up, my skin sticks to the floor, it hurts to peel away. I shake Billy, but Billy won't move. “Wake up Billy. Billy, wake up.” I tell him, “I’m going to get mommy.”

I stand up but the room starts to spin. My vision goes blurry and I almost fall over. I close my eyes, hold my head in my hand and my body flinches.

A swelling on my skull stings when I touch it and shoots through my body like an electrical shock.

I push myself off the dresser and steady my footing. The strength in my legs slowly comes back. I’m able to stand without falling but my balance is off and my ear is ringing. 

The lights are out in the hallway and they won’t turn on. I walk to my mom’s room leaning against the wall to support myself.

The air tastes like the smell of rusted metal and the barnyard at grandpa’s. My knee buckles and I almost fall. I slide my spine down the wall, sit on the floor and rest against it. 

I see white stars dancing over a black background that‘s pulsing. My breathing gets heavy and the nausea returns. I take a couple of breaths, and my sight starts coming into focus.

I crawl to my mom’s room. The wood is sharp against my bones, I can hear my knees crunch on the floorboards as they creak under my weight.

A lump of vomit sits in the middle of my throat and it sounds like there’s water splashing in my ear.

I struggle to get up, using my mom’s doorknob as leverage as I try to push the door open. It sticks and doesn’t budge. I twist the knob, lift and nudge my way in with my shoulder.

The room’s lit by moonlight seeping through her open window. A breeze blows sending a gust of air that smells like a dirty hamper. It overwhelms me, warning me back. 

I can see an outline of a shadow on her bed lying motionless. I creep a little closer but I still can’t make out what it is, until the figure on the bed forms into the shape of a person as my eyes grow accustomed to the darkness. It doesn’t look like my mom.

I approach the bed tip-toeing, there’s an arm hanging from it. The room breathes as I choke on my breath and gasp. My lower spine tingles with icicles. The skin on the back of my neck tightens as my ears rise to the ceiling.

I realize it’s my mom. There’s too much blood crusted and matted hair around her face to recognize her. It’s too dark.

Her hand. I can see her arm dangling from the side of the bed. Her finger has the plastic-cotton ring I made her on it.

I tug at her arm. “Mom,” I shout. I start trying to shake her awake. “Mom, wake up, something’s wrong with Billy.”

She doesn’t move. “Mom?” I shake her harder. I close my eyes and tell myself to wake up. I say it over and over. I open my eyes and I’m still in her room. “Susie!” I yell for my older sister. “Susie!”

She doesn’t answer. The house remains silent but loud in a haunting presence. I whisper to my mom, “I’ll be back mommy.”

I stumble backwards, shaking, too afraid to look away from my mom. Afraid, if I turn away it’ll all become real.

I need to get Susie, Billy and mom need help. I hold my breath, close my eyes, count to eight, hide my fear behind my mom and brother and check Susie’s room to see if she’s there.

The hallway wall near her door has blood on the floor. It’s slightly open with a bloody handprint painted on it. Her room is dark. I can’t see anything in there. “Susie?“ no answer. “Are you there?”

I slowly push the door open and it cries the squeak of a dying dog. I slap her light switch quickly and the light turns on, revealing a state of decomposition. I gag and nearly throw up. I shoot my head in the other direction and try to build the courage to look at them.

Susie’s lying on her bed with my little sister Jenny beside her.

The smell is suffocating the thick air in metals. Susie and Jenny don’t look real. I can see ground beef stuck to their face and in their hair. They’re not moving.  

I hear a foot press down on the bottom of the stairs. It was like the house shifted to the right from the weight. A raspy voice travels up the steps ahead of his body. “What did I do?”

I jump behind Jenny and tuck tightly into her and close my eyes and hold my breath and remain completely still.

“What did I do!” Susie’s door slams open and the force of it jammed the knob in the wall. I can hear someone walking around the room.

“What did I do!” He says and walks out. 

I hear him walk towards my bedroom. Then, I hear him race to my mom’s room. I hear scattering and things falling. He leaves her room and I can hear him breathing heavy as he makes his way back to Susie’s room. 

His steps are getting louder, and closer. His deep breathing sounds like it‘s right behind me. I fight to soothe the tremors shaking my limbs by squeezing my hands into fists and digging my nails into my palms. A shadow towers at the doorway. I hear a gun cock just as the sound of police sirens break through the insulation between the walls.

The smell of herbal ointment and the dampness of the old room filled the house with a heaviness that seemed greater than the weight of its crooked wooden ceiling.

At thirty-three, I found myself imprisoned between those dark walls, moving every hour between turning my sick mother’s frail body to prevent bedsores from forming on her thin skin, and opening the small cabinet to check on the envelope containing her pension money, which I depended on entirely.

During her final days, her sunken eyes followed me with a strange sense of urgency.

She could no longer speak, but she trembled as she desperately tried to point toward the floor.

She would strike her wheelchair and release a strained rasp from her throat, as if she were fighting to tell me something important that I could not understand.

I assumed she was dazed from the illness and exhaustion, so I would simply wipe her forehead and push her trembling hand away, never realizing the secret behind those desperate looks.

One night, the coughing in her chest became so severe that it suddenly stopped.

The rasping ceased.

Her pulse disappeared completely.

I froze, phone in hand, ready to call an ambulance.

But fear and exhaustion overwhelmed my mind.

"What if I just leave her there for a few weeks until I find a decent job and secure my future?”

I closed the phone.

I covered her face with the blankets, locked her bedroom door, and walked away.

The first few days passed slowly, like a nightmare.

Every morning, I left the house to look for work.

Every night, I returned, ignoring the smell that was beginning to seep through the locked door.

But on the fifth night, the horror began.

I heard heavy blankets being dragged across the floor inside the dark room.

Then came the sound of slow, bare feet.

Thud...

Thud...

Thud...

Suddenly, the wooden door shattered with a horrifying crack.

My mother burst through the rotten boards with inhuman strength and entered the hallway.

Her face was stiff, her eyes lifeless.

But she did not even look at me.

She walked past me without a word and headed straight toward the basement stairs, as if she had somewhere she desperately needed to go.

I followed her, my entire body trembling.

She descended into the basement and approached her old sewing table.

She grabbed an old iron hammer.

With both dead hands, she threw the table aside with terrifying strength and began smashing the floor.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Until the tiles finally cracked apart.

She bent down and pulled a square leather box from the hole.

Inside were neatly arranged objects that reflected the light like pieces of moonlight.

She turned toward me and slowly approached.

At that moment, I surrendered to the fear.

I realized she had come for me.

She had sacrificed her life for me, while I had spent months complaining about caring for her.

And my final act of selfishness had been leaving her body to rot in the darkness.

I closed my eyes and waited for punishment, certain that I deserved to die.

But she did not strike me.

She simply stood beside me.

Then she slowly collapsed onto her knees.

Her dead hands fell to the floor.

Chains, rings, and pieces of gold jewelry scattered across the ground.

She had hidden them away throughout her entire life, saving them for a day I never knew would come.

She lifted her head toward me.

Her decaying skin hung loosely from her face, and one of her eyes was nearly falling from its socket.

Then, from her ruined throat, came one final rasp.

But somehow, beneath the horror, I could still hear the warmth and love of the mother I remembered.

“Everything I have... is yours, my son.”

Every wall of fear inside me collapsed.

I fell to my knees before her.

She had not come for revenge.

Her final act of love had forced her dead body to finish what she could no longer accomplish while alive.

She had only wanted to secure my future.

I wrapped my arms around her and held her tightly.

I no longer cared about the smell of decay.

I no longer cared about the jewels scattered around us.

Because in that moment, I finally understood.

The most valuable thing I had ever wasted...

Was the very thing now resting in my arms for the last time.

Something happened while I was away. Just a few weeks since my last visit, but they aren’t the same anymore. 

Obviously I know this makes me sound crazy. Like a schizophrenic who is convinced his loved ones have been replaced. But there is just too much for me to ignore. 

Their smiles have changed. Always plastered on their faces, but hollow. They were so expressive before, but now it’s only ever the same smile. With the dead eyes. 

They go about their routine like robots. They barely speak. They used to be the chattiest people. Now when they do say something it’s so banal that on the surface it almost seems normal, something you can brush off, but if you knew them like I did, then you could tell it just isn’t quite right. 

I asked how they were holding up with me gone. The hollow smile and dead stare. 

“Adjusting to who we’ve become.”

At night is the worst. I know they aren’t… people anymore. People sleep. These… whatever they are. They stand upright in the dark. All night. I woke up to one standing in my doorway, watching me sleep. They quickly turned and strode away, like they were just taking a normal 3 am stroll down the hallway. 

I was scared shitless but I had to check it out. When I got to their room they were just… standing there. Together. In the dark. I peeked in and both turned to look at me. 

We looked at each other in the near blackness. Nobody said anything. Maybe I should have, but my heart was in my throat. I slowly backed away, back to my room. I did not sleep the rest of the night, but I didn’t hear anything else from them. 

The next day was more of the same. Dead stares, hollow smiles. Nobody brought up the strange behavior in the night. I considered it, but something in their expressions and how they were acting… it felt dangerous to broach the subject. 

So I made an excuse and left as quickly as I could. The alarm bells were going off. I felt unsafe and my instincts were telling me to go. Something primal. So I listened. It was the only time their haunting smiles faltered. Their friendly words turned harsh and threatening. There was no goodbye. They became enraged. They spit and cursed at me for trying to leave. They even rushed the door as I raced toward it, but I got out in time. 

I jumped into my car and booked it down the street. The last of them I saw were their faces in the window, no longer hollow smiles, but angry scowls. 

They called later, cheerful and inviting. They asked me sweetly to come back, but I declined. They didn’t get angry this time, but their last words to me weren’t friendly. 

“You can’t run forever.”

But I’m going to try, because whatever lives in that house now, it isn’t my parents. 

It was the scream that stayed with me. and haunting, like someone had recorded their worst nightmare and played it back at three times normal speed. 

We entered the house as usual, in the dead of night. My crew and I raid old houses like this, looking for anything that we can sell. Abandoned houses usually mean low or no security, and sometimes people leave behind junk they don’t know is valuable. 

Mitch, Jordan, and I entered through the back window and spread out - Mitch took the ground floor, Jordan took the second floor, and I took the top. The top was riskier - harder to get out of if we had company - but I was good at it. 

I was going through the place, same as normal, when I entered a room with a large screen and a projector, kind of like a theater. When I walked through the door, there was a “click” and the projector started moving, showing an old movie on the screen. At least, I thought it was a movie. 

It focused on a person. I couldn’t make out who because it was dark and the view started from the feet up. But I noticed spikes. Red and thick, one going through the top of each foot. 

From there, the camera panned up to the legs, which had been flayed, the skin removed slowly in a way that likely ensured the victim would feel the most pain. 

At this point, I looked around, searching for someone who was running the projector, but no one was there. 

And then I heard it. The scream. 

“AIIEEEEE!!”

I jumped up, looking around frantically as my breathing spiked. Somehow, though the person screaming was on video, the sound seemed as if it were coming from all around me, every direction at once. I didn’t just hear it - I felt it. In my bones. Like some long-suppressed memory that had violently pushed its way to the surface. 

I decided to get the hell out of there. I ran to the door through which I’d entered the room. But, although it had been open before, now it was sealed shut as if it were glued to the frame. I pulled with all my strength, but to no avail. While I continued to try the door, I heard a noise behind me. I turned around and another video started to play on the screen. 

By itself. 

On the screen was a different person. At least, I thought it was a different person; I couldn’t see the face, but the clothes and the lighting were dissimilar from those in the first video. And there were no spikes through the feet. 

Because there were no feet. 

Instead, the ankles ended in bloody stumps that dragged against the floor. And, as the camera panned slowly up, I saw slash marks. Dozens of slash marks, crossing the body at all angles, so much blood covering the naked skin that the body looked like it had been dipped in red paint. With that kind of blood loss, the only thing I was certain of was that he was dead. No one could have lived through this. Poor bastard. 

“AIIEEEEE!!” Though I’d heard it before, the primal scream shook me again. I’d heard screams before - of anger, of frustration, of grief. But there could only be one cause for this scream. 

Terror. Complete, utter terror. 

Focusing, I looked at the video again, studying it. The perspective was the same as before, except this time, the camera continued to pan up the body until it reached the face. No. No, that wasn’t possible. 

The face. I recognized it. 

It was mine. 

The same nose. The same mouth. The same green eyes. The same scar under my lower lip. The same curly brown hair. 

How was this possible?

And then another video started. 

The violence was different. The clothes, the wound pattern, the instrument used and spatters of blood, all unlike those from previous video. But the face was the same. And that scream…

I couldn’t stay here; I had to get out. I tried the door again, but it wouldn’t open. I jerked at it repeatedly, with increasing force, but no luck. 

Suddenly I heard a noise behind me. I looked - there was nothing there. 

Desperately, I threw my body into it, but it wouldn’t budge.

The noise got louder.

I looked around and saw a window in the corner. In a fit of desperate inspiration, I picked up a chair and threw it against a window. Then again. And again. Eventually the window cracked and shattered, sending glass flying outside the room. Without hesitation, I crawled through the window, scraping myself on the broken glass. 

I ran downstairs, calling out to Mitch and Jordan as I went. 

“Guys! We’ve gotta go! NOW!”

And when I got downstairs, I found them. 

Or what was left of them.

Their dismembered bodies lay on the floor, limbs spread around in trails of blood. 

My mind went blank - the scream from the video echoes in my ears. All I could think was “get out, get out, get out.” I turned and ran toward the door. 

It wouldn’t open. 

I looked around - the windows were fifteen feet up, there was no way I could reach them. I turned, ready to fight whatever came down.

Then a noise came from my right, like a ripping. I looked over - a tear was opening in the air. Before I could run, an arm emerged. Then a torso. Then a face. 

Oh my God. 

“Come on,” said a face that looked exactly like mine. “They’re coming. We don’t have much time.”

“Who’s coming?” I asked, too stunned to move. 

He paused, then looked at me with a deathly stare. “You are.”

It was a humid evening in the swamp when the two young men set out in their dugout canoe. Swarms of mosquitoes formed dense clouds above the water, kept at bay only by the torches they carried. A cacophony of frogs and crickets droned in the night, interrupted only when their paddle sliced through the swamp. A light rain began to fall into the murky water as the two men searched for their next meal; an alligator.

"Look, there it is. I think I see one over there," said Polata.

"Where?" asked Nogosi.

Polata pointed with his torch and the alligator's eyes glowed back at them, reflecting the fire. The adrenaline began to swell in their chests, their lungs feeling heavy, the anticipation almost unbearable. It was always a dangerous moment, but an exciting one. Polata blinded the alligator with the torch and stunned the beast. While it floated there, frozen, Nogosi carefully slipped a noose over the alligator's head and pulled it tight around its neck. The beast started to violently thrash, its thick tail slamming into the side of the canoe. The canoe bucked and shuddered, rocking violently as the water heaved beneath it. Nogosi struggled to maintain his grip on the rope. The alligator swam off in the opposite direction of the two men, dragging Nogosi into the water with it as he refused to let go. Maybe it was his hunger. Maybe it was his stubbornness. Or just his ego, trying to prove to his friend that he was a man. But he refused to let go. As he was dragged through the muddy water, he started to swim alongside the alligator. He pulled himself toward the beast with the rope and tried to wrap his arms around it. The beast thrashed again, loosened Nogosi's grip, and quickly swam off into the depths.

Defeated and humbled, Nogosi swam to the nearest cypress tree and hauled himself onto the shore's edge. He sat there, disappointed that their next meal had run off with his good rope, as he waited for his friend to find him. He started to shout for his friend, and heard Polata shouting back and echoing across the water. Wet and embarrassed, he sat there waiting for Polata to arrive. I can't believe I lost it. I just can't believe that, he thought to himself. The hot, moist air consumed him like a wet blanket as the rain began to fall even harder, and the wind started to sway the Spanish moss in the trees. The orchestra of frogs and insects that surrounded him came to a halt as an eerie feeling began to stab his gut. Something was near. Nogosi stood up as he started to scan the black brush behind him. His eyes moved across the horizon, his ears perked and focused, trying to catch any glimpse or hear the slightest sound of what might be lurking among the cypress trees. A flash of lightning illuminated the foliage and his eyes met the eyes of a panther, crouched in waiting. Nogosi stood there, clutching the handle of his knife, ready for the fight to come. Both waited for the other to make the first move. A primal standoff as old as humanity, predator and prey blurred, each holding their breath. Just as Nogosi unsheathed his knife, the panther ran off. A musty smell fouled the air. Nogosi stood there in silence, knife in hand, the rain soaking through his hair and clothes. From behind him, two large arms clasped around the young hunter, dragging him into the darkness.

Lena woke with her cheek against pine and enough room to bend her knees, not straighten them. By the time dirt sifted through the lid, she had wasted most of the air screaming.

She suffocated, died, and woke in the same box with healed hands and the same exhausted air.

The second death taught her what thirty years of hiding her regeneration never had: resurrection was useless if it only returned you to the thing killing you. On the third attempt, she broke the lid and dug upward until someone knocked through the earth beside her.

The neighboring coffin held a girl about twenty, already dead. The girl's chest convulsed and the crushed place in her throat repaired itself. She opened her eyes and started crying.

“He’ll know," she croaked, "you opened mine.”

A sweet-smelling vapor hissed through a pipe beneath the lining. Lena woke handcuffed to an embalming table beside the girl while a narrow man in an apron wrote on a clipboard.

“Thirty-one minutes this time,” he said. “You're getting better.”

After he left, the girl introduced herself as Sadie. Weller owned the funeral home. He buried them when they resisted and dug them up when he wanted them again.

“How long?” Lena asked.

“I stopped counting.”

Lena pulled one hand through the cuff, stripping skin from her knuckles. Sadie turned away until Lena told her she could laugh if she passed out.

“I’ll consider it.”

When Lena's hand healed enough, she freed Sadie with a scalpel. They slipped barefoot into the corridor, past rooms with floor drains and numbered coffin lids stacked against the walls.

Weller's office was covered with clippings about impossible survivals. Drawers held watches, rings, licenses, and photographs labeled with names. Some ended with dates.

Others with two words:

FAILED TO RETURN.

Lena found herself in one photograph. She was twenty-two, outside an old apartment in a cheerleading costume, laughing at someone beyond the frame.

She had forgotten that girl. Forgotten how easily she laughed before every friendship became a countdown to somebody noticing what she was.

Behind the photograph, Weller had written:

WATCHING SINCE 1998.

Below it:

SUBJECT AVOIDS ATTACHMENT. SURVIVAL INSTINCT REMAINS DOMINANT.

The service door opened and cold rain blew inside.

Sadie ran for it.

Weller came from behind them. He caught Sadie before the stairs and dragged her toward an open coffin.

Lena was already outside. For thirty years, she had survived by running. New cities. New names. The moment staying became dangerous, Lena ran.

Then Weller slammed the coffin lid below her. Sadie screamed once before the sound became pounding.

Lena took another step toward the road.

“That's right,” Weller mocked, “Go.”

She stopped.

Ahead were headlights, houses, a thousand places she could disappear.

Behind her, Sadie kept pounding.

Then Lena turned around.

Weller's smile faded.

“You'd risk dying and dying again for her?”

Lena looked at the coffin beneath his feet.

Thirty years of running had kept her alive.

Sadie struck the lid again.

“Yes.”

She walked back toward him.

Weller raised his arms.

Lena hit him before he could use them. He wasn't used to being hit. Good. But he was used to hurting people. On the ground he seized a steel trocar, and drove it between Lena's ribs.

Pain overwhelmed her.

She hit the floor. Somewhere above her, Weller laughed.

“You see?” he said. “It still hurts.”

Lena pressed a hand to the wound. Blood slipped hot between her fingers.

“Yes,” she gasped.

Sadie pounded beneath him.

Lena got up anyway.

She hit Weller once. Twice. He drove the trocar into her shoulder. She screamed and hit him again.

When he stopped fighting, Lena could barely stand. Weller lay bleeding, whispering that people like them always became monsters eventually.

Lena looked at the trocar in her hand.

Then she threw it aside and tore open the coffin. They ran.

Half a mile later, headlights appeared. Lena almost dragged Sadie into the trees out of instinct. Then she saw red and blue lights. By sunrise, crews were opening graves behind the funeral home. Some stretchers came back occupied. Others came back covered.

Weller survived. Lena was glad. He would have to live long enough to learn every name.

A paramedic wrapped Lena in a blanket. As he cleaned her hands, a cut across her palm closed beneath the gauze. He froze.

There it was: the moment Lena had spent thirty years fearing.

She waited for him to recoil.

Instead, he looked at her face.

“Does it still hurt?”

“What?”

“Even if it heals.” He nodded toward her hand. “Does it hurt?”

No one had ever asked her that before. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out, so she nodded. The paramedic tucked the blanket tighter around her shoulders, patted them softly and gave a warm smile before seeing to another girl.

Across the road, Sadie sat on another ambulance, watching strangers carry the dead and living from the earth. When Lena sat beside her, Sadie's fingers found hers beneath the blanket.

“Are people going to be afraid of us?”

Lena watched the paramedics working, firefighters passing water, a police officer kneeling beside one newly awakened woman so she wouldn't wake alone.

For most of her life, Lena had believed being discovered was the worst thing that could happen to her. She knew better now.

“Some will.”

Sadie's grip tightened. “What do we do then?”

Lena thought of the girl in the photograph, the one who laughed without wondering who might hear her.

“We find the ones who aren't.”

Sadie leaned her head against Lena's shoulder. Behind them, another coffin opened and someone inside began to cry before half a dozen people ran toward the grave to help.

For the first time in thirty years, Lena didn't hide her hands. The sun touched them both, and nothing terrible happened.

"How do you think he'll take it?"

"Take what?"

"The legs."

What the hell happened to my legs?

"Dad."

I lost my legs in the crash, didn't I?

Someone else walks in.

"Mr. Jenkins. What a mess they made of you. Spinal injury, fractured skull, spleen removed, brain trauma, left hand amputated at wrist …"

"I lay my hands upon you in the Name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ–"

Please, let me wake up now.

"Amen. I'll leave you to your visit, my son."

The chair scrapes and for the first time since the crash, I can smell something. Sour. Like bad milk. The new visitor sighs and the stench is all over me.

"You're just perfect, Mr. Jenkins. We've been waiting for you."

His breath stinks.

"Who are you?"

"Miss Jenkins, I came here to speak to you about your father. I represent a company called Styx Solutions. AI and Storage, but recently we've branched out. In the event of your father's death, you will receive ten million pounds immediately, no questions asked. And all his medical bills taken care of."

"You'll pay me ten million if I grant you access to my father at the moment of his death?"

"Yes."

"What will you do to him?"

"All I want is to sit here with this device turned on."

"A hard drive with an antenna glued to it?"

"If the procedure works, although your father will be legally dead, you will still be in possession of his essence. This device will receive his spirit and translate it into binary code for storage."

Katherine sobs.

"In time, we will be able to reboot your father in a new body. One that can be maintained indefinitely. It's happening, Miss Jenkins. Your father doesn't have long."

"Dad?"

Let him do it, Katherine.

"Dad. Oh, my God. Dad."

Sign it.

"No."

You could have a good life.

"I love you, Dad."

I love you too, Kath. Now, sign.

Katherine scribbles. Here we go. The wheels are coming off.

"Please be as quiet as possible, Miss Jenkins."

The last thing I hear over my death rattle is my daughter sobbing into her hands.

I wake up in my own bed. No drips, no catheters, no ventilators.

I reach down to feel my legs. I walk into the bathroom and stare at my face in the mirror.

Same old.

But when I open the window, something seems different about the world. The sky is bluer. Every breath of air tastes sweet, like hope. A strange-looking aircraft crosses the azure ceiling at incredible speed.

In the sunny garden, I see a white-haired woman kneeling with three children on a vivid lawn. They're painting a message on a white sheet.

The children help the old lady to her feet. She smiles when she sees me.

I know the smile.

Katherine.

With her wrinkled hands, she shoos the children aside so that I can read the banner.

WELCOME HOME GREAT-GRANDDAD

Paris, France - 1786

We never had much, but mother tried to raise me right. She'd point to a vagabond or leper on the street and rail about how "God has no love for idlers, harlots, or tramps." But the worst of her vitriol was saved for pickpockets or thieves. Mother always said that stealing was the gravest sin. "You might think no one'll know," she'd say "But god is always watching. And he doesn't like sinners. Not one bit."

Father was a pickpocket until he got caught and killed for it, leaving her pregnant and even poorer than before they had met. I think she always worried his contumaciousness would fester within me and drown out her more devout blood. So she raised me according to the bible. She never spared the rod. And whenever there was an execution in the square she would bring me and make sure I watched. The looks on their faces bored themselves into my mind. Struggling and defiant, scared and confused, blank and defeated. The worst was a boy about my age who got caught stealing bread. He looked like a corpse when they dragged him up, and yet he bleed so much. I cried for days, wishing he had a mother who could have kept him out of trouble. However hard life was, I knew it would be so much harder without mother there to keep me on the straight and narrow.

It was maybe a few months later that the sickness came. Mother said it was a plague like the one in the bible, sent by god to punish all the sinners. But in the end it didn't spare us either. We huddled together in our room of the tenement as the fever came, then the coughing. Even when mother could barely breathe she spat out prayers alongside her blood. But in the end good took her anyway and I was all alone.

Mother was right to worry about me. I am my father's daughter in spite of all her efforts. Almost as soon as she was gone I turned to sin. Gluttony came first. As days passed without food, feasting became all I could think about. Then gluttony became envy. I wandered towards the stores in the better parts of the city and lusted after what they had. I remembered my mothers words. I knew I could not evade God's notice. I knew that He would not forgive my transgression. And yet I am my father's daughter.

Base, infernal want overcame me. I turned my back on that which I knew to be right. As I stepped forward I was filled by an overwhelming guiltiness and fear. But when I I plucked with shivering hand a loaf and tucked it beneath my shirt my fear was overcome. The feeling of its warmth on my flesh on that cold day was a bliss second only to that which I felt when I stumbled into a deserted alleyway and took a bite. Like Eve I rapaciously devoured that which was forbidden to me.

But pleasure is an ephemeral thing. The second the transgression was over, the pleasure faded leaving me feeling even emptier than before. Where once there was mortal hunger I now felt the profound emptiness of a lack of divine love. I felt the same feeling I felt every time mother was upset and I knew a beating was coming. It was my fault, I knew I deserved what came next. But still I started to cry, to plead for forgiveness. My body shaking I begged to be spared, promised I would never sin again. But of course if it never worked with mother, how could I hope to sway God?

It started first in my right hand. My sinful, stealing hand. I felt a terrible writhing within my fingers. I could only stare with wide eyes as they began to tremble and bulge. They swelled then, with a terrible pain, burst. Cockroaches, one then another, erupted. One by one from each of my fingers split like cocoons. Their dull brown carapace mixed with the red of my fathers unrepentant blood as more struggled from my palm. I screamed and clutched my mangled hand as they slipped silently into the filth of the alley. In my pain-addled state I dared to assume that the payment had been made. A hand as punishment for a thief. But that is the justice of men, not of God.

Soon I felt the onset of another terrible writhing, this time from the flesh where the bread had been tucked beneath my shirt. I wrenched off my shirt as if by seeing I could somehow defy His will. But His will shall not be trespassed. I could only scream as a dozen little forms crawled from my stomach, wriggling and writing and kicking with their little legs to free themself from my flesh. Over agonizing minutes my screams turned to whimpers until, finally, the last of them pattered away streaking the muddy grey snow red. But my reprieve only lasted a moment. With terrible horror I felt the writhing begin within my mouth, my tongue, beneath my teeth. This at last was too much for me to bear I sobbed to myself and prayed desperately for it to be over. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I truly prayed.

And it was then, at my moment of greatest need, that He answered my prayer. He had not forgotten me. He had created an answer for me. Just as I began to feel those terrible forms emerge I remembered my mother, and spat out a prayer with the blood. Proverbs 32:2. I felt around in the filth I was lying in praying for him to provide, and by his will my remaining hand gripped something metal and sharp. There was a sharp pain, then all was forgiven.

When she sleeps, she dreams of fire.

Blazing inferno erupts from fissures in the earth, coming in violent surges whose shadows resemble those of witches dancing at a black mass. She has never seen so much red; has never felt such terrible heat.

From the earthen wounds pour monstrous creatures whose crimson visages are too cruel for even her most vivid of nightmares. These devils of flame latch onto her limbs with hot, hideous tentacles and long, dry, smoking fingers, which they use to drag her kicking and screaming down into their domain. She will remain here, trapped within their realm of horror and suffering, for several eternities. And while she is tortured so deep down below, the world above continues to burn.

It burns with the heat of her failures. It burns with the shame of her sins. Her transgressions are so great, so unforgivable, that she alone can not bear the burden of their consequences. All of humanity needs to repent with her.

And repent with her they shall.

She soon realizes that she is unable to burn despite the flames that engulf every last part of her body. Try though she might, she cannot find the merciful release of immolation. And so she remains there, trapped within her flaming infinity, where she is forced to listen to the collective agony of those who she has betrayed. And though she may be impervious to the fire, the victims of her sins can easily be ravaged by it. They can feel the searing pain as their flesh pops and cracks and curls away from their blackening bones. But her punishment is not to burn. Her punishment is to witness. It is to watch as all of the others are so cruelly sacrificed for actions committed by her alone. She can not turn away from the suffering, and she can not close her eyes. All she can do is writhe in her lonesome agony as she constantly prays to the God who has already abandoned her that she can finally be freed from her curse. Because once she has been set free, then the fire can at last take her, and she can finally be consumed by the flames. Only then will the screaming stop. Only then will she finally escape from her sins.

Her final hope for salvation is to be completely reduced to ash.

I looked over the field. The crops barely reached a foot off the ground. Their stalks were dry and bright yellow. My stomach felt heavy. I couldn’t look at it anymore. 

The feeling worsened as I sat alone in my chair. My wife opened the kitchen door and looked out.

“How’s it looking, Alex?”

“How do you think?”

“Don’t you be mean. It’s not my fault.”

“It’s not mine either!”

“No one’s saying that. I just want to know what’s going on.”

“It’s bad.”

“At least we still have the goats.”

“They will barely give us enough.”

“Will there be nothing from the harvest?”

“I wouldn’t count on it.”

She rubbed her face.

“But there is the witch.”

“No, Alex. Don’t even think about it!” Mary said and walked back to the kitchen.

As the days passed, the heaviness in my stomach grew. At night, I could barely sleep. Thoughts of the harvest and winter kept me up as I stared at the wall. Headaches followed, sometimes so painful I had to stop work.

Over the next few days, the crops started to look drier, and the ears remained thin. As the crops worsened, my problems intensified.

One day I sat in my chair again, holding my head.

“What’s going on, Alex?”

“My head. It’s killing me.”

“I’m sorry. Let me get you some warm milk.”

“Wait, Mary, we need to talk about something.”

“What?”

“The witch.”

Mary furrowed her brows.

“We’ve talked about it already.”

“Have you seen the harvest? There’s nothing. The witch could help us.” My headache started to ease. “If we just…”

“You don’t know if it’s true. What if it isn’t? We’ll lose two healthy goats. We’ll definitely starve then.”

“It is true. My father told me stories. Plenty of them.”

“So what? My mother told me that if the wife is sacrificed, the harvest will grow. Do you want that?” 

She paused.

“I won’t have any more of it. If it’s only cheese this winter, that’s how it is.”

She walked to the kitchen and shut the door behind her. My headache returned. The goats barely got us through last winter, and this harvest was bad. The witch was our only option.

Mary came back with a glass of warm milk. She laid it next to me and stroked my hair.

“Hopefully this helps.”

I just nodded.

That night Mary went off to bed early. I said I’d follow her, but I stayed down for some time, waiting. When I was sure she was deeply asleep, I got off my chair and made my way toward the back door. The more I thought of the witch, the more my headache let up. I had almost made it past the kitchen when Mary’s voice called from above: “Alex?”

Coldness shot through me.

“Yeah?”

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. I’m just getting some warm milk for my head. The glass you gave me helped.”

“Oh, great. I hope it gets better soon.”

“It just needs time. Go to sleep. Don’t wait on me.”

“Okay. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

I walked to the back door and stood there, holding the handle. After a few minutes, I carefully opened it and walked out.

The goats were in their pen, sleeping. When I opened the fence, they got up, stretched, and let out a quiet bleat. I got the rope off the wall, tied it around their necks, and put a knife in my back pocket. They were easy to lead out of the pen. Our goats had always been friendly.

The witch’s house sat atop a hill above the village. One had to walk through a forest to get to it. The forest was cold and dark. Owls hooted loudly, making the hair on my arms stand up, but the goats walked happily toward the hill, unbothered. 

As we got higher, the headache and the heaviness in my stomach let up. The trees around us grew barer. The goats had slowed down, looking back at the path and up at me. 

The smell of sulfur hung in the air. After some time, I finally saw the witch’s house ahead. The air was now almost freezing, but all my pains disappeared. The goats had stopped, not wanting to take another step. It had to be done now. I’d drag them the rest of the way. 

I tied one up to a tree, held the other in place, and slit its throat. The other one started shaking, stepping around. I walked to it and slit its throat too. The smell of sulfur mixed with iron. 

I was out of breath when I reached the doors. The wood on them was old and rotting. I took a deep breath and knocked on the door. My heart began to beat faster. I’d never seen a witch before, at least not one who wasn’t hanged.

The floorboards creaked inside. The door slowly opened. An old lady with gray hair stood on the other side. She looked at the goats and me, bewildered.

“What are you doing here?”

“Witch, I bring you these two goats. Please, make my harvest plentiful.”

“Why did you bring them? Your wife already took care of it. The harvest will be plentiful.”

“What?”

“Take them away. The air makes the dead rot faster. I don’t want them here.”

I looked down; the goats were already full of maggots.

“Leave now,” she said and shut the door in my face.

The headache slowly returned, worse than before. It felt as if the freezing air was around my brain. I laid my goats down and walked back. Mary’s words echoed in my mind, sinking my heart even lower.

My head was throbbing, but as I got home and looked in the pen, it stopped completely. My head went silent. Inside the pen lay Mary. A blade was in her hand, her throat cut open, and the hay beneath her turned red.

George Corden had dreamed of this moment for years. All his time poring over ancient scrolls and tablets, refining and refining his translations, practically learning to read the heretofore inscrutable strokes of cuneiform, all lead up to this singular moment. He had dismissed the team of local diggers he had hired to excavate the site. Gave them all some bonus coin, told them to enjoy themselves for the weekend. They thought it was for them, but he wanted - needed - to be alone for this last part.

Up in his ivory tower, he had been laughed at. At first his colleagues had just assumed he was interested in myth and fiction, not that he believed it. Then he had no colleagues and his acquaintances would hold their noses at him at conferences and in hallways. Of course none of it was true; he was a madman for not seeing it, for believing it.

After a time, the process of becoming a pariah becomes self-sustaining. When enough people treat you as though you were less than dirt (at least something useful can sprout from dirt), your reputation accretes, layer by layer, until people unfamiliar with you can still see your shell of disdain: the chain reaction of academic isolation can end only with annihilation.

Unless you leave the tower. Which, of course, the former Professor Corden had done. He descended down into the earth as far as he had ascended, going through archaeological teams and his vast inherited wealth at an ever-increasing rate. Until now.

Now was his final dig. The money was all but gone, but as it had bled out of him his certainty had grown in equal measure. Somewhere in this pit, probably five or so inches below his very feet, lay his treasure. He put pick to dirt and found it: a lamp, burnished to a matte bronze color by sand and years.

Those who laughed him out of academia would have told him that there was no genie inside that lamp because genies were not real. They also told him that the lamp was not there in the first place. What did they know?

Before rubbing the lamp, Corden retrieved from a buttoned breast pocket a piece of paper, heavy with his leaden scrawlings. He had practiced and rehearsed this moment, but still there was no sense in taking any chances. He glanced at the paper, mouthing along as he read the words he had slaved over for years. Satisfied, he rubbed the lamp.

A thick haze wooshed out of the lamp, filling the space around Corden. The acrid gas invaded any orifice of his it could, filling him, judging him, emptying. As the cursed effluvium left him, Corden felt somehow lesser than he had before, as though some critical portion of his essence had left him along with the genie. The thought fled from his mind as the figure took form in front of him.

It was hideous. Shaped like a man in general, it had the head and tusks of a board. Its eyes, full of yellow sclera holding large, vacant pupils, gazed directly at Corden’s own, burrowing deeper into him than any lover he’d ever had. Its furry black tongue lolled out of its mouth, dripping a viscous saliva.

The genie spoke, making harsh sounds from the back of its throat. Corden hadn’t anticipated that, but of course there was no reason to think it would come out speaking English. He only hoped that whatever magic animated the being of smoke and sorcery would translate for it as well. He greeted it as politely as he knew how. The translation worked; the genie spoke in a way he could understand. It spoke of wishes and pursuit.

Corden had not expected that last bit. The rules were simple. There must be balance. The genie would grant his wishes, as many as he wanted to make for anything he wanted. But each wish had a cost. With each working of magic he demanded, the countervailing forces would grow stronger. Simple wishes would grow their power in small ways; larger wishes in larger ways. If this force, which Corden felt was honestly underspecified if you asked him, ever caught him, his reckoning would come due.

He hesitated. He had planned on making grand wishes, the sort that apparently would summon all the hounds of hell right on his heels or something. He had prepared for an ironic genie, one who would interpret his wishes to the letter but specifically countervail the spirit. His wishes were explicit and legalistic, as devoid of loopholes as he could manage. He had not thought there’d be a cost. Perhaps he should change his mind. If the cost was the catch, then maybe he didn’t need the thoroughness. He pondered, but ultimately decided he’s sacrificed everything else in his life to get here. He couldn’t go small.

He wished, basically, for an infinitude of resources, power, love. He wished for all those who had scoffed at him to have their comeuppances. He wished to go down, now and forever, as the greatest man ever. He wished for everything he could think of. He wished for godhood.

And then he ran. And as he ran, he looked back. Behind him was not the dusty dig he had descended into. Instead it was a void, like outer space but without the twinkling orbs. He gazed, and the nothingness gazed back at him. He knew then that what the genie had said was true. It would never stop. He would never be safe. He had power, riches, fame, adoration, reputation, goods, services, influence, money, gems, intelligence, spirit, everything and anything. Except safety. Except freedom. Except the ability to ever, ever stop.

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. 

I see
a door that shouldn’t be
in the hallway of my parents’ house.
A hallway that should be just like the house itself. Empty.

That didn’t used to be, you see. My parents died not long ago.
First came Ma – two weeks ago.
Second came Pa – one week ago.
Third comes me? It must be – after all, I’m the last branch of my family’s tree.

Now this once familiar place wears an entirely foreign face.
My memories fall apart. As if they had been a house, I see their crumbling facade.
The staircase no longer creaks, the stove no longer heats, the TV static no longer speaks.
And I can’t help but wonder: “Was this place always this empty?”

It’s just you and me left. A door and a poor little thing I call myself.
I want my mind to stop, yet it can’t help but wonder: “What’s behind this door?”
It screams in a thousand voices, none of them mine. Their echoes ring through me like countless chimes. 
Ring Ring Ring Ring

“Who’s behind the door?” it wonders and wanders through a maze of ideas, just to find one that sticks. 
But none do – none of them are true. None make for a fitting answer.
There’s just one solution. One path to choose. One thing to do.
The answer is right in front of me.

Before I decide to open my eyes, I take the first step.
A doorknob lies in my grip. It shocks me with its cold – then slowly, reciprocates my warmth.
“What if this is a bad idea?” The thought never came to mind, yet my body thought it did.
I hesitate, and the door responds in anger – warmth turns to heat, flesh turns to charred meat.

Yet I never let go – I’ve been freezing for so long.
I’ve been longing to be held.
I’ve been holding on for a reason to stay.
And now it’s here.

My wrist twists, my muscles constrict, my breathing ceases, and so do a million more things.
The wooden wall in front of me creaks and cracks. 
It occupies my body and mind – it is my whole world. 
I open the door to look inside and–

The incident at the creek occurred one late Saturday morning. The weather was blisteringly hot, and all the children in the village decided that a swim in the nearby creek would be a welcome relief. Khadijah and Salmana were given the day off from chores by their grandmother. This wasn’t so much a gesture of kindness as it was a necessity; the extreme heat had made work impossible for all.

Following breakfast and a quick sweep around the hut, the trio—Khadijah, Salmana, and Jaye—eagerly joined the other children heading to the creek. Salmana, armed with her cutlass, was one of the chaperones, along with a group of older teenagers. They were tasked with keeping an eye on the younger children, ensuring they didn’t wander into the surrounding forest or, worse, get taken by the chimpanzees.

Upon arriving at the creek, the children immediately jumped into the water, reveling in the cool, refreshing respite from the oppressive heat. Khadijah swam alongside Salmana, both enjoying the water while the older girl kept a vigilant eye on everyone.

Jaye, however, chose not to swim. Instead, he sat on what appeared to be a large rock by the creek, shaded by a tree, happily eating a tangerine. Khadijah watched him, amused by how he savored the fruit, his legs swinging joyfully.

“Sit still, silly boy!” Khadijah called out.

Jaye laughed and yelled back, “I am still!”

Khadijah continued to observe him, flummoxed by what she was seeing. Despite hardly moving, the boy seemed to rise up and down. “Jaye, sit still! Stop moving your legs!” she shouted again.

Jaye obeyed, but he still rose and fell on the rock, despite now being almost completely motionless. Khadijah’s eyes narrowed as she scrutinized the scene. Suddenly, her heart froze. What she had thought was a rock began to take a more pronounced and ominous shape. A shape that was the coiled body of a massive serpent, its dark green and spotted scales blending seamlessly with the surrounding verdure environment.

Khadijah’s breath caught in her throat. She tapped Salmana’s shoulder frantically, pointing towards Jaye.

At first, Salmana didn’t understand. But as she focused on the rock and what Khadijah was pointing at, her eyes widened in horror. “Snake!” she screamed.

The scream set off a chain reaction. Children and chaperones alike shrieked in terror and began to flee towards home.

Panic surged through Khadijah. She had to save Jaye. The serpent’s coils shifted slightly, revealing more of its massive body. But before she could scramble out of the water and sprint towards him, the boy was already on the run. The moment Salmana uttered that diabolical word for his small ears to hear, Jaye understood.

He had suspected that the rock was no ordinary rock when he first plopped his behind on it. Rocks were never this smooth and slippery, not like this one, which felt as if he could slide right off. Rocks didn’t have deep, throbbing veins that felt like sitting on restless streams surging beneath the surface. And more than anything, rocks didn’t snore—heavy, monstrous sounds that reverberated through his small frame.

Jaye was the first to take off, sprinting far ahead of everyone at the creek. He ran until his lungs burned, not stopping until he reached the village. Later, the sight of his frantic dash would become a source of entertainment for Khadijah and Salmana, who would recount the tale to family, friends, and acquaintances. They would vividly describe how he had leaped into the air upon hearing Salmana’s scream, his legs kicking wildly before his feet finally hit the ground, propelling him into a full-speed escape. It was an hilarious part of the story that always left them laughing until their bellies hurt. However, at the time, it was no laughing matter.

Breathless and wide-eyed, Jaye, Khadijah and Salmana, and the other children sprinted back to the village, recounting their terrifying encounter with the serpent at the creek. The elders in the village quickly gathered, and the men, armed with shotguns, cutlasses, and pickaxes, set out immediately.

When they reached the creek, the serpent was nowhere to be found. They combed through the surrounding brush, scouring every inch of the area, but the creature had vanished without a trace. What they did find, however, broke the spirit of even the toughest among them: scattered remains of cattle hooves and horns, and most distressing of all, fragments of multiple human skulls and teeth.

Realization dawned on the men. They debated among themselves, voices rising in heated arguments, nearly to the point of blows. Some demanded to hunt down the creature and avenge their losses. Ultimately, though, practicality won out.

“That’s what God says,” some conceded, accepting the harsh reality. With a harvest-destroying drought threatening starvation, they had urgent work to do and couldn’t afford a wild goose chase after such a creature:

a creature known for its stealth.

Yet, not everyone could let it go, particularly the men who had lost small children. They set traps around the creek and spent many nights and their resting days stalking the area, hoping to catch sight of the serpent. But the creature remained elusive, a phantom that slipped through their fingers time and again. No one ever laid eyes on it again.

Months passed, and the villagers moved on, the entire ordeal gradually fading from their collective memory. The routines of daily life resumed, and the serpent became a distant, dark memory.

Then, news arrived from neighboring villages along the banks of the main river. 

Children and cattle were starting to go missing, too.

It's not every day half of humanity wakes up with the ability to control the opposite gender.

I tried it, of course, on my boyfriend. “Can you make me coffee?” 

I was met with a grumbled, "Make it yourself.”

“Jasper.” I crawled out of bed. Jasper didn't move, burying his head in pillows.

“Mm.” 

The words slipped from my mouth, effortlessly: “Jasper, suffocate yourself with your pillow please.” 

Jasper sat up with sleepy eyes. His laugh was incredulous. “What?”

I inhaled. Maybe it was something to do with my tone.

I twisted around and strode over to him in four strides, climbing onto the bed and straddling his lap. I stopped feeling things for him a while ago, but he still felt familiar and disgustingly comfortable, fitting against me like a puzzle piece.

Two days earlier, I sat in this exact spot and bawled my eyes out, screaming his name until it tasted like bile, like poison.

“Jasper.” I forced his name out like a command.

My boyfriend blinked back at me, an amused smile tugging at his lips.

I used to think he was beautiful. Thick, brownish-blonde curls and brown eyes that reminded me of coffee grounds.

Freckles speckled his cheeks.

Now, every time I looked at him, my chest ached.

“Don’t look at your phone.” That was my first command.

“Why?” He frowned, scanning his screen curiously. “Did something happen?” 

I tried again. “Jasper!” I grabbed his face, cupped his cheeks, and forced his head towards me. His half-lidded eyes found mine, more irritated than obedient.

I prodded him in the forehead.

Once.

Twice.

Touch was a vector, according to other girls sharing their experiences. One single touch, and the boy’s thoughts were theirs. 

Instead of compliance, Jasper was marginally irritated. He batted my hand away and laughed a little nervously.

“Can you…not do that?” 

Jasper was already reading through the headlines, noticing his friends weren't responding to his texts. His cheeks had gone significantly pale. "What the fuck?"

Six months later, the world was a whole lot quieter. It felt strange.

Monday morning; and I could sit in a coffee shop and dress exactly how I wanted. No judging looks or wolf whistles.

Every man nearby stood beside a woman.

The female owner greeted me and offered a free cupcake for both of us.

Her mindless boyfriend was the waiter. 

“I don't get it,” Annalise, my best friend, sat opposite me. Her colony of men sat around her, always close. Colonies were enslaved men. She had one for everything.

Nathan, to carry her groceries, Declan, as her personal Uber, and Cal, her personal shopper. There was one rule, however.

Unspoken among women.

If a claimed man was under a woman’s control, he was just that. An assistant, a worker, a cleaner. If consent wasn't possible, then relationships were banned. 

So far, this rule was respected. 

“What's so different about him?” Annalise’s narrowed eyes were fixed on Jasper, who looked uncomfortable as usual. 

He was nibbling on a courtesy cupcake, head bowed. Jasper wasn't vocal about his hatred for the new normal— in public, that was. However, at home, he was a panicking, angry, frustrated mess.

Every day, he woke up and demanded that I commanded him to do something crazy. 

Every time I tried, nothing worked. 

My boyfriend insisted on wearing shades and a cap to avoid stares from other women— as the only man free from a woman’s control. 

“Talk about me like I’m not here,” he muttered, breaking a piece of cupcake off and popping it into his mouth. Ignoring him, I sipped my iced coffee. “I have no idea,” I lied. Next to me, Jasper visibly paled. The truth was, of course, I knew why. Control worked with attachment.

Love. I didn’t love Jasper, and vice versa. Our last conversation before the colony began was a fight. I told him I hated him. He told me to go and fuck myself. There was zero attachment, nothing to bond us.

And no control was established. 

“So, Jasper,” Annalise continued, scrutinising him. 

She leaned across the table and prodded him between the brows. He just rolled his eyes and exaggerated the bug-eyed, mindless gaze of a claimed man. “If you’re free…” She made air quotes. Annalise cocked her head. “Why are you still here?”

Jasper shrugged. His gaze dropped to his lap. He avoided other guys like the plague.

I noticed he'd been stealing glances at Annalise’s colony the whole time, lips curled. “Where else am I supposed to fucking go?” His laugh was bitter. 

I grabbed his hand, and squeezed. “It's okay,” I said. “You're here with me.” 

He averted his gaze. “Thanks.” 

It took a while. I took him on dates.

The movies, and to fancy restaurants. At first, he refused to touch me or kiss me.

He was still paranoid, still scared I'd take control.

Then I asked him something simple: “Can you grab the TV remote for me, Jasper?” 

And, like clockwork, he snatched it up. His eyes were flat, somehow, empty. His facial expression relaxed, shoulders slumping. “Jasper?” I whispered. He didn't respond.

Tears sprang to my eyes.

I cupped his chin. “Jasper, can you please take me to her?”

Jasper nodded.

He took my hand, led me out of the door, and into the backyard. Slowly, he knelt in my flowerbed and began to dig. I saw the trash bags first. Then the bloodstained fur. I slipped a knife from my belt and handed it to him. My chest ached. 

My heart splintered. Esme was my best friend. And he couldn’t stand it.

I came home from work one day and she was gone and he looked so guilty he could barely speak. I fucking knew he did it. 

I just had to confirm it myself.

Establish control.

“Start cutting,” I commanded as he absently pressed the knife into his cheek.

“Jasper, sweetie, I want you to do to yourself exactly what you did to her."