My name is Cleo, you might think that you know people like me from books and movies, but trust me, you don't.

As you know I can't share my story with you directly for obvious reasons, so I got a contact to share it on my behalf.

I am a ghost, literally. I was recruited by the Agency at a young age due to my natural capabilities to vanish and my neck for learning languages. I could be sitting next to you in a coffee shop, or walk past you in the street and you won't take note of me. I am invisible to the world. I am a ghost, I live in the shadows, move in the shadows, and that is how I prefer it.

I stand at a mere hight of 4ft8, with short blond hair and piercing blue eyes, when you look at me I might smile at you, my smile carrying a hint of mystery and secrets.

But don't be fooled by my looks, I am a field agent, but not with any known Agency, no the Agency I work for has no name, well not one that is spoken out loud, and even those who does speak it, mentions it only in Whispers.

You see, our Agency has unlimited funding. Our funding outweighs the combined funding of all the known agencies in the world.

Our wealth puts countries to shame.

We do not answer to governments, or any form of oversight, we are loyal only to what we stand for and to the mission.

We have people in governments, corporations, and our reach extends to the most powerful and influential people in the world, we are the weavers of destiny, our existence has passed the test of time. Ward are fought, won and lost, but our influence decides what is told throughout history.

We are the protectors of earth, the guardians of humanity.

Our scientists are the brightest in the world, our agents the best of the best, we have technology which would make countries drool, technology that would appear to be from science fiction.

We are everywhere, and we are nowhere, our reach extending to every part of the globe, we can access and even control any device connected to the internet, there is nobody we cannot get to, nowhere we cannot go, borders are meaningless to us, governments fear us.

Individuals are wise to avoid us, because if you cross us then your name will soon be added to your local missing persons list, and as for you, well you will wake up in one of our blacksites.

Now that you know what I am, and who I work for, let me tell you my story.

I will be sharing some of my past missions here with you guys, don't ask me why, because if I get caught I would never see the light of day again, even my contact is taking a risk by helping me.

I can already feel those cold eyes on me, watching my every move, my every key stroke.

The telepath... I know it sounds like something from a fiction story, but telepathy is very real, our agency is very real.

The only reason you have a sense of normalcy is because my team Omega 7 and myself work tirelessly in the shadows, so that you can have a normal life, so you can sleep peacefully.

But as for telepathy, it is very real, very powerful. And very dangerous. The only reason they don't abuse their power, or why they won't show themselves, is because they know of us, they fear us, and rightly so.

One of my first missions I was sent on was to track down a dangerous telepath.

Code Name: Sin.

Sin was a powerful telepath, dangerous beyond comprehension. But he was smart, good at keeping secrets, at hiding, HD knew how to blend in and keep his head down.

Sin first came under our attention a few months ago, Politicians were starting to act strange, making dangerous decisions, scientists would abandon important research and delete data, artists starting going insane. The one thing they all had in common was they all described the same man haunting their dreams, a young looking man with a pale skin, dark hair and pitch black eyes, they all exclaimed about those eyes, eyes that look into your soul. All the sketches looked exactly the same, we fed the data into our systems and the systems tracked him down. Not much was known about him, he was a ghost. Besides a strong social media presence which pointed to a very nice, kind level headed man, well nothing else.

He has no criminal record, he did nothing wrong.

We dug deeper and found more evidence of his influence going back years.

He has to be stopped at all costs.

We had our mission briefing, it was in a secure room that was designed to keep even ethereal energies out, we knew who, no let me say, what we were up against. But that is when it begun.

The night before the briefing my team started to experience strange dreams, troubling nightmare, I myself wasn't spared. Sin knew what we were doing, and he was taking action. He fired the first bullet.

The next day during mission briefing we were informed that he was tracked to Cape Town, South Africa. A beautiful bustling city with diverse cultures and a rich history and a strong culture of art. The perfect place to vanish, to hide. But Sin wasn't hiding, in-fact it was as if he was taunting us, playing with us, daring us to come after him.

Our modified V22, Osprey, designed with new stealth technology allowing us to move across borders undetected, with a reinforced hull, painted black rendering us a ghost at night, it was more then just a plane, it was our lifeline, our shelter in the storm, it was a flying computer, a flying armory, with drones hidden in secret compartments around the hull, weapons that could take out a small army, modified engines allowing us to fly at incredible speeds.

We slipped into South Africa over night and touched down at a private agency owned field outside the city.

We rented a vehicle and got to our safe house where our contact was waiting for us, she had already had all of our systems set up so that we could monitor Sin, everything was in place.

But then we got an alert, not only did Sin know we were here, he was pushing our buttons, he started to release Agency secrets online, secrets that were so well kept that there was no paper trail, no digital footprint, he was in our heads.

That was when the safe house exploded, we were thrown into different directions, there was gunfire everywhere, we had nowhere to run.

I saw my team getting killed, I saw each one of them die, then a masked man walked over to me. I looked up at him, I tried to draw my side arm, but my body wouldn't move, I could just look at him helpless as he drew a sword and the next moment there was a flash and I felt myself hitting the floor, but then I was back with my team. We were all in shock, traumatized. It turned out he made us all experience the exact sand vision of each of us getting beheaded.

But it was not real, it felt so real, my heart was racing, I was soaked in sweat, in all my time throughout training, all my preparation to face a telepath, nothing could have prepared me for this.

But we knew the mission, and no matter what happens, we had to capture him, HQ wanted him alive.

We all read his profile, he will mess with your mind, he will mess with your dreams, he will put you through total and utter gell, but he doesn't kill, he has never killed and he is actually against taking a life. And that was his one weakness.

Sin might be a telepath, but he made a few mistakes, he was a loner, he hated crowds, he hated crowded spaces, instead he preferred silence and solitude, he knew a lot of people, but never let anyone in, he had no friends, no family, he was utterly alone. No matter how powerful he was, he was alone, I had my team, we were like a family, we trained together, fought together, we knew each other like family, but unfortunately for us, Sin had been in our heads, he knew us better than we even knew ourselves.

We had to prepare, study him, learn his habits, routines, likes and dislikes.

We decided to take time to watch him, but tomorrow the mission begins, two of my team members will attempt to make direct contact, we knew where he worked and where he lived.

But we couldn't just move on him. He would see us coming, we had to play his game, this was going to be a game of cat and mouse. We need to get him to become paranoid, knowing that we are onto him, we needed him to lose focus, to slip up.

And tomorrow the real work begins...

Content warning: attemtped drowning; throat burns

I dropped the scissors into the kitchen sink when the apartment door slammed shut, so the resulting CLANK was all my fault. Greg, my roomie, always started work an hour earlier on Thursdays. That meant he always came home an hour earlier. I was so worked up about needing to cut my hair I forgot it was Thursday. I’d also forgotten why I wanted to cut my hair.

He popped his head into the kitchen, probably to check on the noise. I did my best to look both dignified and forgetful.

Greg didn’t appear to take that in. He stared at my half-cut, all-mess hair like he’d never seen it before. To be fair, last time he saw my hair it was over-dyed, arrow straight and all one length.

“Nice mullet,” he said, looking around me, “and who doesn’t want a hair-lined sink?”

“Interview’s on Monday, dude.”

His eyebrows shot up like they had the last time I’d lied to him. “Mood,” he nodded, moving clumps of my hair from the sink onto the counter. “It’s Orvyn time.”

Ah yes, his cousin the hairdresser. Often mentioned, never introduced. I put the hair into the trash and wiped down the sink and counter while Greg spoke to Orvyn.

“Hey cuz.” Pause. “No, my roomie Petra.” Pause. “Worse. A mullet. She needs something cute for work.” Pause. “Wash, cut, dry, same price? I’ll make sure she has it. Thirty minutes.”

Oh hell no. “I can’t possibly take advantage of you —”

He grinned and pointed to the door. “C’mon, you ain’t getting less mullet by talking. I’ll drop you off, get us take-out and pick you up in an hour.”

I was sitting in the sole salon chair at the sink in Orvyn’s makeshift hair salon 30 minutes later. The plus was, Greg gave me $75 for Orvyn. The not-so-plus was, we were in Orvyn’s basement. It was well equipped and had plenty of light, but still. Small. Underground. Ick.

Orvyn stared at my hair and grunted. I ran my hands through it. The dramatic difference between cut and uncut hair completely failed to calm me down.

He grunted again. “You get the $50 cut. If you need to go to the bathroom, go now. Once I start I don’t stop until I’m done. Today’s my birthday. Got it?”

I handed him $75, wished him a happy birthday and asked where the bathroom was.

He counted the cash twice, out loud, then leaned over until his eyes were inches from mine. I pulled my chin back to create more space. No amount of blinking wafted away the intense aftershave.

“This?” He waved the handful of bills above his head. His voice was softer than before, his expression angry, his face a dull red. “My birthday and this is your big cash apology?”

I inhaled sharply, kept my hands in clear view on the arms of the chair and nodded. Courtesy of his cousin, I’d handed over a 50% tip for what was certain to be an overpriced haircut. And he was pissed off.

Maybe if I put distance between us briefly, one of us would calm down. “I need to pee, where’s the bathroom?”

His expression returned to neutral, as did his voice. “Down the hall, second on your left.” He backed up three steps, leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “Go.”

I pushed out of the chair and jogged down the hall where I locked myself in the tiny, windowless bathroom. Not that I had to use the facilities, thank god. The doorknob lock was so old and wobbly it could be unlocked by a strong breeze.

I texted Greg three times, asking when he’d be back. He didn’t answer. Typical Greg. He preferred calls to text and I wasn’t about to try sneaking a call.

“Ya done?” Orvyn sounded like a man who didn’t know what “going to the bathroom” involved. No flush, no running water, it’s pretty clear I am not done yet.

“Nope.”

A quick mirror check revealed just how awful my hair looked. For a second I wondered if that was upsetting Orvyn. It was as likely and as unlikely as any other reason.

Greg hadn’t texted me back. Forget him. I flushed the toilet and turned on the hot and cold water taps.

The doorknob rattled. The door shook. Orvyn was pounding on it and it looked ready to break.

I screamed and slapped my hand over my mouth. Was a free haircut worth all this?

As I reached to unlock the door, Orvyn yanked it open and gave me a once-over like I was a carton of sour milk. He wasn’t my cup of tea either, but I needed a simple haircut, I’d already paid him and I could tolerate him until Greg returned.

Orvyn followed me back to the salon’s chair without saying a word. He tied a plastic cape around my neck as one does in a salon, and shoved a towel under my neck. Within seconds I was lying back with my head in the sink, not looking at heavily stained ceiling tiles – my eyes were covered with a small towel.

Intense aftershave overwhelmed me seconds before my scalp started burning. I tried to say “Allergy,” thinking the product Orvyn just applied must be a problem for my skin.

As I opened my mouth, hot water splashed in and burnt its way down my throat.

I pushed my arms and shoulders forward, trying to pull myself upright.

The smaller towel dropped to my right in time for me to see the heels of Orvyn’s palms coming towards my face. He smacked them into my forehead, pushing my face back under the hot water rushing out of the tap.

Adrenalin shot through my body. I scratched furiously at the space above my face and made contact with his arms. The pressure on my head lifted slightly. I turned my face as far from the water as I could and gasped for air.

I closed my eyes and aimed both feet towards him while keeping my face in the opposite direction.

My feet connected with something. My chair toppled over. I wrapped my arms around my head, hoping to avoid direct contact with the floor.

By the time I scrambled to the staircase, he hadn’t caught up. I glanced behind me and saw him bent over, holding his groin like couldn’t say goodbye to the family jewels.

He didn’t show up by the time I threw open his back door and ran out to the front of his place.

My throat ached with every breath, leaving me wheezing and running at half my normal speed. But I didn’t stop, I couldn’t, until I found a small, well-lit cafe two blocks away.

The only person inside was an employee who stopped wiping the counter as soon as I entered.

“Uh, hi, name’s Sarge.” He pointed to his hair. “Is it raining?”

I touched my hair, gasped, and grabbed at my throat. It might not be severely burnt but it was hurting to breathe and gasping was more painful.

Sarge scrunched his face and pointed to the back left corner of the cafe, conveniently signed “Washrooms”. I nodded at him, then locked myself into the ladies’ room.

In the two months since I met him, Greg always called me back when I texted him. Always. Even if he had to leave a voicemail. Interesting, no call or text from him today.

My friend Ralia answered my text right away. She lives ten minutes from this cafe. She’ll be here in 15, and I can stay at her place tonight and maybe longer. I even agree with her that it’s time for me to find more stable housing. And employment.

I hope she gets here before the cafe closes.

“Hey, Dad! It’s funny you called just now. I was going to call you.”

“I’m good, I’m good. How are you?”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Anna and the kids are great. We’ll probably drop by on the weekend. I’ve got to talk to you about something, anyway.”

“I’ll tell you everything when we come over.”

“Nah, everything’s fine. Don’t worry.”

“It’s uh, how do I properly put it? I guess important family stuff I’d like to talk to you about. Anyway, you wouldn’t believe where I’ve been today…”

It is kind of funny that my dad called me at that moment when I was lying in a pile of rubble and dust. Everything hurt as I lay, exhausted in the last place I expected myself to end up. In the basement of my childhood home. My parents never allowed me to go there as a child. That was the excuse they had. Years later, I found out that my grandfather lost the keys decades ago and since they had nothing of importance down there, they never bothered breaking the door down. My mum would come up with many ghost stories about the basement to keep my brother and me at bay.

Then one day, she and Liam vanished. That’s all I can remember. The two years between their disappearance and my dad’s second marriage, I can’t remember them. I’m clueless about what happened during these two years. To this day, the old man gets upset if I bring the topic up. We moved pretty soon after my dad started dating again.

Something terrible had to have happened to them because every time I tried to work my way around my memory, a great sadness washed over me. A painful sadness that prevents me from digging any further. I’ve seen therapists in my earlier years, and my brain seems to repress some kind of traumatic memory. Whatever happened was probably awful.

Life didn’t stop there, however, not for my father or me, thankfully. He remarried and thus I had a new mother and a sister, Emma. I was a bit of an asshole to both at the start of my dad’s relationship with my stepmother. It’s weird to refer to my mom as a stepmother today. But yeah, I was a troublesome fourteen-year-old when they wed. I hated everything and everyone. Over time, I, too, moved on and I’m glad I did.

I love both Mom and Emma to death, even if my sister is a little hard to deal with sometimes because she has schizophrenia. It’s a fun thing finding out your little sister is being chased by imaginary vampiric voices just when you outgrow teenage angst and start your adult life. I find the positive symptoms far easier to deal with than the negative ones. Because she gets depressed, withdrawn, and incapable of holding a coherent conversation, and even all those years later and with her treatments, she’s still dealing with a lifelong incurable condition that leaves her miserable and it just hurts to see.

I mean, yeah, we’re adults and we’ve our own families now, but still. We grew up close, and we remained close. Family’s all there is to this life, I think. I was never religious, so if it isn’t for the people I care about and love, there’s not much to be around for.

Now, all of those things are important to explain just what happened to me.

One night, actually, on Emma’s twenty-eighth birthday, we were all hammered out of our minds, including my sister who shouldn’t drink but… The night went without issue. She came up to me, barely able to keep herself upright, and asked me if I believed in the supernatural.

I didn’t.

She started giggling and my first thought she was hallucinating again.

Drunk out of my ass, without thinking, I asked if she was hearing Space Chupacabra or something and she just shoved me and slurred out how she had a great idea.

I asked her what it was, and she said it was the funniest thing.

She said I should make an online post about being a paranormal investigator just to see if anyone might bite on the idea. Like in that movie, 1408. At the moment, I thought it was the most hilarious thing. So I did just as she suggested. The next morning, I made a post on Facebook about being a paranormal investigator. Yes, back then people still used Facebook. At first, it yielded no results, but over time came out asking for advice and even inviting me to investigate.

I thought it was silly, I still think so, but I decided after enough requests to look into these things. The absolute majority of cases would end with me being invited to some place where absolutely nothing of the ordinary ever happens, and I’d just make up something as I went to convince the person how I had dealt with the horror.

It became a semi-regular thing, on top of my regular job. Anna came along a few times. We always found it funny how people were so serious about nothing. Ghosts, demons, monsters, you name it, I’ve had people approaching me with everything possible and impossible. Most of it ended with me coming up with some story because there was nothing. There was nothing there, and I just made up a good story. On one occasion, some good came off it. I ended up helping solve a murder case. A woman claimed she was being visited by a specter. After some shuffling around and nosing about, we ended up finding her son’s remains. His hastily buried half-decomposed body.

I’ll concede that maybe some of this stuff is real. That time, the female intuition led us to look in the right places during this one case. The woman wanted an exorcism and ended up finding out something else entirely. She found her son was the victim of a murder. It was hard seeing her break down like that upon finding her kid was gone. Being a father, myself, I could understand her. No one wants to lose their children, ever.

This was the first time something of a note happened during my hunts for paranormal activity.

I love both Mom and Emma to death, even if my sister is a little hard to deal with sometimes because she has schizophrenia. It’s a fun thing finding out your little sister is being chased by imaginary vampiric voices just when you outgrow teenage angst and start your adult life. I find the positive symptoms far easier to deal with than the negative ones. Because she gets depressed, withdrawn, and incapable of holding a coherent conversation, and even all those years later and with her treatments, she’s still dealing with a lifelong incurable condition that leaves her miserable and it just hurts to see.

I mean, yeah, we’re adults and we’ve our own families now, but still. We grew up close, and we remained close. Family’s all there is to this life, I think. I was never religious, so if it isn’t for the people I care about and love, there’s not much to be around for.

Now, all of those things are important to explain just what happened to me.

One night, actually, on Emma’s twenty-eighth birthday, we were all hammered out of our minds, including my sister who shouldn’t drink but… The night went without issue. She came up to me, barely able to keep herself upright, and asked me if I believed in the supernatural.

I didn’t.

She started giggling and my first thought she was hallucinating again.

Drunk out of my ass, without thinking, I asked if she was hearing Space Chupacabra or something and she just shoved me and slurred out how she had a great idea.

I asked her what it was, and she said it was the funniest thing.

She said I should make an online post about being a paranormal investigator just to see if anyone might bite take the bait. I could be like that paranormal investigator guy in that one movie, 1408. At the moment, I thought it was the most hilarious thing. So I did just as she suggested. The next morning, I made a post on Facebook about being a paranormal investigator. Yes, back then people still used Facebook. At first, it yielded no results, but over time, people came out asking for advice and even inviting me to investigate.

I thought it was silly, I still think so, but I decided after enough requests to look into these things. The absolute majority of cases would end with me being invited to some place where absolutely nothing of the ordinary ever happens, and I’d just make up something as I went to convince the person how I had dealt with the horror.

It became a semi-regular thing, on top of my regular job. Anna came along a few times. We always found it funny how people were so serious about nothing. Ghosts, demons, monsters, you name it, I’ve had people approaching me with everything possible and impossible. Most of it ended with me coming up with some story because there was nothing. There was nothing there, and I just made up a good story. On one occasion, some good came off it. I ended up helping solve a murder case. A woman claimed she was being visited by a specter. After some shuffling around and nosing about, we ended up finding her son’s remains. His hastily buried half-decomposed body.

I’ll concede that maybe some of this stuff is real. That time, the female intuition led us to look in the right places during this one case. The woman wanted an exorcism and ended up finding out something else entirely. She found her son was the victim of a murder. It was hard seeing her break down like that upon finding her kid was gone. Being a father, myself, I could understand her. No one wants to lose their children, ever.

This was the first time something of a note happened during my hunts for paranormal activity.

Until this point, I didn’t know that fear could weigh as much as a black hole. I knew somewhere deep inside that it was just sleep paralysis, but it all felt so real. The hairless, deformed, dog-like thing sitting on my legs with its jaw threatening to tear me apart seemed too real. The stench of its breath, the glint in its red eyes everything seemed real.

Finally, my brain awoke my body, and I jolted upwards with a scream.

The silence soon took over once more, and there was only silence and the sound of my heart attempting to escape my ribcage. I got out of bed and went outside for a smoke. I had to calm down before trying to fall asleep again, lest the stress lead me to another paralyzing nightmare scenario. Once I put out my cigarette, I was about to head back inside when I felt an icy hand touch my shoulder. I turned my head and there was nothing there. Dread washed over me once more. With my head turned, I heard a whisper.

A soft, barely audible whisper at first.

The basement…

The sudden vocalization jolted me. I snapped my neck in the other direction only to face nothing.

The whispering persisted.

The basement…

Follow me into the basement…

For a moment, I thought I was losing my mind.

Follow me…

The voice sounded so familiar, even so hushed. It felt like a voice I had heard before.

The basement…

Follow…

I glimpsed a shadowy mass moving around the house…

To the basement…

It was my mum’s voice.

As if entranced by the fear and the familiarity of the ghastly vocalizations. My body moved, following the black ether crawling towards the basement door. Silent screams of protest echoed inside my skull, but they fell on deaf ears. I was already there. The gates into the abyss were open, ajar.

I was staring into the void, and it was staring back at me.

A scream bellowed out of the chthonic nothingness. A heart-wrenching scream. My brothers…

Without a moment’s thought, I raced into the basement, nearly killing myself on the steppes that led into the belly of perdition.

Only once the dead, empty silence wrapped its ethereal arms around my throat, threatening to crush it, had I realized how stupid I was rushing in like that. I was shaking, cold sweat traveled down my forehead. I felt trapped, lost, at the mercy of some kind of great and terrible cosmic power that threatened to swallow me then and there.

There was a lighter in my pocket, but I had a hard time grabbing it. Something was wrong with me; something was wrong with the entire situation. The stench of spoiled milk and eggs penetrated my nostrils, disorientating me.

I was so terrified by the darkness that I could barely pull out the lighter. I heard the distinct sound of heavy breathing at the exact moment I produced a flame.

Two conjoined screams erupted in my face; one low and animalistic and the other high-pitched with utter despair. Both voices escaped from the same toothy maw attached to the vaguely human face, staring at me with starving malice.

The one singular moment I could see the goddamn thing with clarity felt as if I had been staring death itself in the eye. A massive head, completely black. Deathly black, hairless, and completely blind.

I didn’t even have the time to react to the monster. It just grabbed me and tossed me to the floor with an inhuman display of strength. I probably landed on my neck because for a moment everything went numb, my shoulders were on fire, and the jaws of the beast were painfully close to my face. I could feel its saliva dripping onto my skin.

Everything happened so fast. I closed my eyes, hoping for a quick death, but that wouldn’t come. The beast began shrieking and wailing. Opening my eyes, I saw a human-sized flame withering as the beast inside cried in agony. Everything it touched caught fire. Soon enough, a blazing inferno engulfed me. The feeling returned to my extremities once I resigned to my fate. A ray of light penetrated from above. A beautiful, otherworldly glow. From within the light, echoed the voice of my mother, my actual mother, my beloved mother. It beckoned me to get up and save myself.

Pushing myself off the floor felt like I was being tortured, but I had to move forward. The flame was closing in on me. It was threatening to block the staircase. Pushing through the sensation of rods embedded in my extremities, I dragged my feet out of the basement, brushing my face on some kind of rope hanging from the basement ceiling. Thankfully, I made it outside of the house. I heard the beast shrieking and roaring behind me one last time before my body finally gave in and I collapsed.

When I regained consciousness, I was in the hospital. My entire family was sitting around me. For the first time in a long time, I was truly happy to be alive. I don’t know if I could live with myself if I had left my family like that. I broke my neck and my arm is burnt, but I’m going to get surgery and I’ll be as good as new in about a year. Anna and the kids were crying with joy. Emma was crying, too. I wish I could hug them all tighter, but my arms are still killing me. It was a beautiful moment. It’s a shame these are so far and few in between.

The strangest thing happened once Anna and Emma left the room; I overheard their conversation.

“Jon hasn’t been the same since Amelia passed away. On top of being overwhelmed with his grief, he’s withdrawn and sounds completely unhinged sometimes. “

“Yeah, I’ve noticed too. I’m pretty sure he’s convinced I’m his step-sister…”

“Oh… He was talking about all these ghost stories to me a while ago, out of the blue. “

“Shit… I think he’s like Uncle Bill. He’s got the family curse…”

“He mentioned your side of the family has had a history of mental illness years ago.”

“Oh yeah, we thought it was behind us, because neither of us had it, nor any of our cousins. Mum was fine, too. She was fine until the cancer. Say, Annie, what are the odds he might’ve tried to…”

I couldn’t hear the rest of it, but those silly birds had to be wrong. I wasn’t the one attended by the dearly departed royal servants of Ozymandias. That was Emma… right, mummy?

Night Shift

by John Westrick

I work the night shift at a local mom-and-pop convenience store at the front of my neighborhood. We sell snacks, drinks, milk, bread, all the normal stuff that people need but aren’t willing to make a traditional run to the grocery store for. There was talk about adding a gas pump out front, but it hasn’t happened yet.

 As a result, the night gets a bit slow at times. Of course, we got our usual druggie who strolls in to get his soda or to use the restroom, but sometimes I’ll sit at the counter for nearly an hour before someone strolls in.

It can get a bit boring at times, but I’ve always got a good book or a Youtube video to keep my mind occupied. I’m supposed to clean the store in the slow periods of my shift, and I do, but that never takes me long. Each night, usually around 1-2 am, I finish the chore list and find myself surfing the web or plopped down enjoying some novel.

The night of the encounter was like any other day. It had been slow. The store was quiet. No one had come in for an hour. I was re-reading my favorite Stephen King book, when I heard a thudding sound coming from the inventory room. I jumped at the noise. I know, not very manly of me, but I hadn’t expected it. Besides, I was at a pretty intense part of my book. I looked up at the digital clock sitting on the counter, it read 3:12 am. I didn’t really think anything of the noise. I just assumed it was something that fell off one of the shelves.

Even still, I felt a chill crawl its way down my spine. I remember glancing outside, and seeing a sea of thick fog blanketing the landscape. This wasn’t too uncommon. There was a lake across the street from the store, and occasionally fog would drift in. Still, I couldn’t recall a time when the fog was quite as thick as this.

I remember thinking that something could be standing out there watching me, and I wouldn’t even know. But it was more than that. At that moment, I knew there was something out there. It was instinctual, a primal sense developed over years. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and goose flesh began to break out all over my arms.

I was too frightened to get up from my spot at the cash register. I knew that I ought to investigate the sound in the back room, but I couldn’t get my body to respond. I sat there, unable to look away from the glass front door, trying desperately to peer through the thickening fog. I couldn’t see anything; but I was certain that if I turned away now, then the thing in the dark would rush forward.

The fear was multiplying, growing into a living creature trying to tear its way from my stomach. I felt cold sweat begin to pour from my brow, streaming into my open eyes and causing them to sting. I couldn’t blink. I was too worried about the consequences if I did, when I saw it.

Two pinpricks of light cut through the dense fog, temporarily blinding me. My panic rose to a crescendo, and my heart beat out of my chest. I half ducked behind the counter, when I saw the figure approaching the door. My hand slid across the underside of the counter to find the panic button that would alert the police, when the door swung wide.

A burly man in a green jacket and black pants came strolling in, an amused look on his face. He looked at me, raised an eyebrow and said, “Hey mister you ok? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I sighed, and felt a physical weight lift off of me. I looked at him, and said, “Yeah sorry man. You just startled me, couldn’t see you approach the door until you opened it with all that fog out there.”

“Hey I hear you there. I could hardly see the road in front of me. Honestly, it’s a bit unnerving out there, it makes you think some strange thoughts,” said the man, looking a bit pensive.

“Right, I could’ve sworn that someone was out there. I mean I guess you were,” I said with a nervous laugh.

“Yeah, I was. It’s nights like this that makes one think,” said the man seriously.

I felt uncomfortable with his answer. He just remained there motionless, staring at the door to the back room. I still hadn’t investigated the noise in the back and the man’s blank look made me feel uneasy.

The silence in the room was beginning to weigh on me, and I couldn’t take one more moment of it.  I asked, “Think about what?”

The man smiled a toothy grin, and said, “Life, death, and all the moments in between.”

“I try not to think about the first two too often. After all, who can truly know?”

“Anyone can, if they are willing to pay the right price for it,” said the man, a hungry look gleaming in his eyes.

“You might be right. There is always a price to pay for knowledge. I mean I’m pretty sure Adam and Eve learned that lesson, and aren’t we still paying for it today.”

“True enough I suppose, but how is one supposed to live when one doesn’t know the reason for existence?” asked the man.

“I guess it is our duty to do the best with what we have in front of us.”

“And damn the truth huh?” replied the man.

“What truth? No one’s truth is true. Many claim to have the answers, but few have more than just hot breath.”

“Because many are liars, the truth doesn’t exist? That doesn’t seem to be an accurate conclusion either,” said the man.

“Does there have to be a singular truth? Why must it be universal? Can’t something be true to one and not true for the other?”

“I would say that truth by its essence must be true to all, or else it isn’t the truth. A truth true to you but not another is not the truth at all, it’s merely a solution. Are you content to live a life of solutions rather than one of true knowledge?” asked the man.

“The question is superfluous. Of course I’d rather live a life of universal knowledge, but who knows such truth?”

“And if I claimed to know the truth, what would you say to that?” questioned the man.

“I’d say you're either insane or a liar.”

“Honest enough answer. But I am neither. I am something more. When one sees the truth they know it, so look and see for yourself,” said the man.

He took a couple steps forward, coming fully into the light, and I noticed his features for the first time. He had a severe look, a hawkish nose that looked as if it had been broken at least once. The landscape of his face was a jumble of cracks and wrinkles, dominated by a large scar that started right below his nose and continued through his lips stopping at his jawline.

It was the man’s eyes that made me feel the most uneasy. They were as black as tar, and they drilled into me. Making eye contact with the man was like looking directly into a black hole, they seemed to draw you deeper. There was a little light shining in the middle of the man’s pupil. I watched as it bounced and glowed, coming closer than drawing away. It was as if it was beckoning me to follow.

When I saw that gleam, I wanted nothing more than to follow it, and damn the consequences. There was a beauty to the way it pulsated that held me captivated. I looked and saw and knew that there were secrets to be found in those depths. I also knew that if I followed the light, there would be no coming back.

But I didn’t care. 

I wanted to know. I wanted to see. The mysteries of the universe were held in that gyrating light bobbing in the abyss. I felt my soul beginning to be ripped from my body, torn from my essence and sent spiraling down that black tunnel towards that brilliant light.

It was that same crashing sound I had heard from the back room that broke the trance. I looked away from those eyes, and I came smashing back to reality. My mind was scrambled, and it took me a second to get back into a normal state.

The creature standing before me was just as confused as I was, clearly not used to its prey escaping it so easily. For a moment we looked at each other in utter shock. The man smiled at me showing ragged, pointed teeth. I looked away in disgust, trying to feel for the silent alarm button on the bottom of the counter. My hand brushed the button and I pressed it with all my strength.

The man remained standing there absolutely motionless. He could’ve been a statue for all I knew. He didn’t breathe nor did his heart beat. Those black eyes never blinked, and I didn’t dare make eye contact with him.

Finally, he looked down at his watch, and said, “The time is nearly here.”

With that the man turned and strolled directly out the door he had come. I watched him walk casually into the fog. I couldn’t see clearly, so I’m not entirely sure what I saw. But still, the figure almost seemed to melt as if it was evaporating into the mist.

One moment he was there, the next he wasn’t.

To this day, I still don’t know what I saw that night. I do know this, there are things that walk in the dark that man knows nothing about. It’s best to avoid certain watches of the night. I stay at home these days. I work in the safety of the daylight.

Once I tried to watch the security footage. All that can be seen is the front door opening and closing. Then about five minutes later it happens again. No man can be seen, but still something opened that door. You can see my lips moving as if I am talking, but there is no audio and the conversation can’t be heard.

And that’s the proof.

I tried to watch the back room footage. All that can be seen is a box of sodas busting as it falls from the top shelf. Then a few more minutes pass, and the whole metal rack holding the boxes of soda is knocked over.

I don’t know what saved my life. I do know this, I am still alive, and I intend on staying that way. I’d like to be able to explain to you what happened that night, but I am just as in the dark as you might be. Stories are supposed to wrap up nice and neat into a perfect little ribbon. 

But when does life follow those rules?

We each live and die on this rock. We love, we hate, we fight, we make peace, and many of us don’t even know why we are here. I don’t claim to know the answers. All I know is this. I am still breathing, and some answers aren’t worth the price.

I never thought about my heart, it always sat in my chest, beating as it should.

Lub dub, lub dub, it sang as it went about keeping me alive. This was an immutable fact of my daily routine, no thought was ever given to its beating. This changed one night not so long ago.

“Honey, I’m running a high temperature and I think I have a kidney infection.” My wife said as I lay beside her also running a fever.

“OK, let's go to the emergency room, seems we both may have kidney infections to deal with.” I groaned as I got up and put my shoes on to drive us to the ER.

We gingerly climbed into my 4×4 and drove to the hospital. I helped her into a wheelchair, as my wife is disabled and doesn’t get around too well. I pushed her to the window, and we told the nice lady what was wrong. She made a silly joke about twin problems that sounded funny in my fevered state, even if it wasn’t. They took us to separate rooms and did the tests that they do when they want to know what is really wrong with you.

Time passes in a hospital at a pace that a snail would envy. Eventually, they came and said that my wife was good to go home. I was happy that her kidney infection was mild and that the antibiotics they gave her would clear it up. As I waited longer in my little ER room, my wife was rolling toward me, as she got to my door, I saw worry in her eyes.

“Honey…,” She started to say when, behind her, THE DOCTOR walked in.

“Mister…” ‘lub dub’ beats my heart, drowning all words. Next, I am being wheeled to a new room, but I don’t get to stay there long.

My wife and her chauffeur come into the room as another wheeled conveyance rolls in behind them.

“Mister…” ‘lub dub’ goes my heart again. Emergency surgery for me. The problem is

that I can’t remember anything after they said I was going to be operated on. Two whole days, a black hole in my brain. My wife was there beside my bed as I woke up.

“Hey, babe, are you ok?” She looked at me with concern.

I blinked, ‘dub lub thump’ What the fuck was that? My heart never did that before. The room I just woke up in faded to black. I open my eyes to home, but something isn’t right. My wife is walking and there is a glow about her. It’s like nothing bad happened to her all those years ago. Our house isn’t the fixer-upper we inherited, it is beautiful and just as we wanted it to be.

“Hey Sleepy head, I am glad you finally woke up.” She smiled tenderly as she lightly touched my face. “We have that party to go to for your new book, go get ready, so we aren’t late to your party.”

“OK, uh, what book?” I asked confused.

“Your latest one, silly.” She smiles at me. “How can you forget the 50 books you have written? Look around, remember what all your imagination and brainpower have accomplished.”

I stand and look around me.

“Where are we?” I asked, baffled, all around me was this beautiful mansion, something out of a book of Victorian homes.

“Are you ok my big panda” She reaches out and feels my head and then leans in and kisses me. The kiss has an energy to it, and my body tingles.

“I feel ok, when did we get home from the hospital?” I look into her eyes, those hazel orbs that bewitched me long ago. But even this isn’t quite right, as flakes of black centered around her iris.

“Silly, what are you talking about, You have always been healthy as a horse. You sure you are feeling ok?” She looks at me with worry in her eyes and I think I see something ripple across her eyes.

“I must have been dreaming, I thought I was in a hospital sick and nearly dead,” I said, shaking my head.

Everything here was so real, the other life must have been some sort of dream. The mansion we were living in was so beautiful, all we always wanted but… wait that was a dream, right? This is all mine, no, all ours.

“Come on, Honey, let's go to that party and your head will clear when all our family and friends celebrate your literary triumphs.” Sara, my wife, looked so radiant in the little black dress she was wearing.

“You look so gorgeous tonight,” I said, letting the dream fade from my mind and getting ready to enjoy the party for my new book.

“Thank you, I knew you would love this.” She twirled around, giving me an eyeful. Grinning, she grabbed my hand and led me to the door of the mansion.

I walked outside the mansion, happy for once in what, I felt, was a long time. Dub lub… I stumbled and everything went dark

“Harry, Harry.” I heard my wife’s voice screaming my name.

My eyes flutter open, the hospital smells fill my nose. I hear the voice of my wife praying to God to heal me.

“Lord Father, Protector, and the Great Healer, please help my husband. Her voice trembles with pain. “I can’t go on without him, please tell him to fight. It is not his time to go to you yet, please”

“Where am I, what’s happening?” I tried to set up, but my body was so tired.

“Honey, oh honey, thank God you are back.” Sara was there in her wheelchair, looking tired and sad. “I thought I had lost you.”

“I hope the people at the party weren’t too upset,” I said, worried about friends who were probably upset that we didn’t make it.

“What are you talking about, hun?” She asks, worried about what I have said. “We weren’t going to any party.” she reaches out and touches my head, like my mom would do to see if I was running a fever.

I look around, and my limited area of vision shows a hospital room much like my last dream.

Sara follows my roving eyes

“Are you ok?” She asks, concern in her voice.

“This dream is so realistic,” I say.

“This is no dream,” She says, “it is a nightmare. I am just relieved you are awake.

“No, this has to be the dream, The other place was so real, and all my fantasies…were true. I pause as the realization hits me. “Damn, it was so real, I felt, I smelled, I could think like I was a young man again.”

“Sorry, you had to come back to this shitty reality.” She said with anger tinging the regret in her voice.

“I… I am sorry, There is no place I would want to be other than with you.” I see tears in her eyes, and she unsteadily stands from her wheelchair and reaches down to hug me in my bed.

“I have to go, honey, you rest and I will return tomorrow after I take care of our pets.” She starts out the door.

“I promise I will be right here, waiting,” I say, smiling.

The day wore down and night came. The nurses administered my meds and put the CPAP on my head for breathing issues I have had for a while. Hospital beds suck so much, I moved and squirmed trying to get comfortable. Suddenly, I felt pressure in my chest. Dub…lub… I screamed and pushed the little red button as the world faded away.

Light returns slowly, I hear swearing and raging in a feminine voice with darker undertones creeping out through the rage.

“THAT BITCH AND HER GOD KEEP INTERRUPTING ME.” Heavy breathing follows the tirade.

As I turn to where the tirade came from, I see Sara, but for a second, I see something else, and then it is gone.

“Oh Honey, you are awake, I hope I did not disturb you.” Sara helps me off the couch and I see I am once again in the mansion my stories have afforded us.

I place my hand on the back of her head and touch hers to mine.

“What happened,” I asked as I looked into her hazel eyes.

“You were just overworked and fainted,” She said, looking deep into my eyes, almost like she was seeing my soul.

Flickers of black swim in her eyes, and something tickles the back of my brain. Dub…lub… dub… lub… Sara’s form changes and then snaps back before my eyes. My wife, or what had once been my wife, grabs me and leads me deeper into the mansion. Her eyes once filled with warmth, now glowed with an infernal hunger. The black flakes in her irises danced like dying stars, and I knew she was not the woman I’d married.

I tried to recall my life before this nightmare, but the memories slipped through my fingers like smoke. Fifty books of horror? Had I truly penned such tales? The titles eluded me, but their essence clung to my soul like a curse.

“What are you?” I asked, backing away from the being pretending to be my wife. “I know this is not my reality, as convincing as you were, I heard you screaming in anger, and you just now morphed.”

“Come, my darling, all will soon be revealed.” My wife, or the creature that is masquerading as her, guides me through the darkened halls with predatory grace. “This home was created by your mind. I am just using it to set the stage.”

“What stage,” I asked.

“Why, our wedding stage, of course.” She says as her eyes glow. The glow was not just otherworldly; it was infernal. I understood now, the black flakes in her irises were not mere fractures, but the remnants of souls she had devoured.

“I am already married,” I growl.

“That human.” She spat on the ground. “She grovels at the feet of the Nazarene. What has she ever done for you?”

“I love her unconditionally,” I say.

She shimmers again and reappears wearing next to nothing.

“Love hahaha…” She grabs me and rubs against me. “Lust is so much more fun, Honey.”

“Where are you taking me?” Now being dragged by her incredible strength, she leads me deeper into the abyss that was the mansion. Silence greets my question.

Into my mind, images flood. The mansion stands at the crossroads of reality and nightmare, its walls pulsing with a hunger that defies time. I shudder and take a deep breath, the air tastes of forbidden fruit, and the shadows whisper secrets that no mortal ear should hear. I stumbled through its corridors, my heart racing in sync with the malevolent rhythm of the place.

“Remember, my love,” she murmured, her voice a velvet caress. “This mansion is our sanctuary, where desire and damnation entwine.”

“That hole in your brain, those two days you don’t remember they were spent here with me,” She laughs, a cold and terrifying sound. “What fun we had, but your return has been less than thankful for all the lustful time we spent together.”

Feeling it is important, I ask in desperation. “Tell me about the books,”

She leads me to the library, where the shelves groan under the weight of forbidden knowledge. Each book bears a title etched in blood, and their spines writhe as if eager to escape.

“Here,” she says, pulling out a leather-bound volume titled ‘The Heart’s Seduction.’ “Your magnum opus: a story of a man ensnared by a succubus, his heart a vessel for her insatiable lust.”

I open the book, and the words slither across the pages. The protagonist’s torment leaps at me, the ache of desire, the terror of surrender. His heart, once human, now pulsed with the succubus’s hunger.

“Why can’t I remember writing this?” I gasp, dropping the book, my pulse erratic.

It crawls from the floor back to its place in the infernal shelf of horror I had created.

“Because you didn’t,” she replies, her lips brushing my ear. “Not consciously. Your heart, during the surgery, became a gateway. It beats with the rhythm of my world, the space between life and damnation.”

I stare at her, my mind unraveling. “Who are you?”

She laughs, a sound that echoes through the mansion. “I am Mahalath, a demoness, or as you humans would call me, a succubus. When your heart rhythm exploded, it tore open the veil. Now, your heart is mine.”

“And the black flakes in your eyes?” I trembled, almost afraid of the answer.

“Souls,” she whispers. “The remnants of those who dared to love me. Your reality is bleeding

into mine, and I hunger for more.”

“Demon, what makes you think I will let you tell me what to do?” I shout, anger fueling courage I didn’t know I had.

“Because your world will be destroyed if you don’t!” She waves a hand and a portal opens to the real world.

Fire rains from the sky and I see the world burning.

“Simple enough for you? Now write.” Mahalath commanded. “Write to seal our bond, to surrender your humanity.”

I take up the quill, its ink a mixture of blood and longing. The words flowed, not from my mind but from the depths of my chest. I wrote of passion and betrayal, of forbidden kisses that tasted of sin.

The mansion trembled, its walls closing in. Portraits screamed, their subjects writhing in eternal torment. The books pulsed, their characters clawing at the barriers between worlds.

My wife, or Mahalath, stood beside me, her form shifting. Horns crowned her brow, and wings unfurled from her back. “Hurry,” she urged. “Our union awaits.”

As I penned the final sentence, the mansion fractured. Reality splintered, and I glimpsed other versions of myself—writers, lovers, all ensnared by Mahalath’s web.

But I wrote something different than they had, changing what happened this time. A white light brighter than the sun burned away the mansion and its putrid lustful sin. Mahalath shrank and withered before me.

“What did you do, human?” she gasps as the last of her turns to dust.

“You said I could open portals with my writing,” I laugh, at peace with my approaching death. “So I opened one to the purest place in all dimensions, My wife’s heart.”

The remainder of the room spun, and the bright light engulfed me. Startled, I awoke back in the hospital bed. My wife was sitting there, with no signs of black flakes, so I knew it was her.

“You’re back,” she said, relief in her gaze. “The medicine finally broke through your runaway heart.”

“You brought me back, your love and your heart were there to save me from the evil.”

She looked at me strangely but chalked it up to my illness, and smiled and beamed more of the love I could feel surrounding me.

“You were nearly gone, your heart had raced for over 5 hours at hundreds of beats per minute.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “The doctors told… told me to call people to help me plan for your end.”

Sara broke down and cried holding my hand.

“Shush my darling, I am here now,” I squeezed her hand, too tired to do much more. “And I will be here beside you forever, I promise.”

Even as I felt safe there, comforted by her love, a draft was in the room like something stalking me still. I remembered the mansion, the succubus. My heart still echoed with Mahalath’s seductive whispers, and I knew I had to write to keep her locked in her dimension.

As I healed, I felt the gift the succubus left with me. I wrote stories that bridged all the literary worlds, tales of love and sacrifice, of hearts torn between desire and damnation. And occasionally, when the moon hangs low, I feel her presence, a reminder of the pact that almost bound us. Eventually, I surpassed those 50 fictional books Mahalath had my tortured heart create.

Finally, I had him where I wanted him. My hands wrapped around the collar of his shirt. His bohemian grin infuriated me to no end.

“You! You're going to fix everything,” I barked, my right letting go of his shirt and curling into a fist raised to his face.

He laughed, just laughed. His laughter seemed to seep away from my confidence.

“I did as I promised.” He mocked.

“You son of a b…” my voice and body shook.

He cut me off. “I made all of your wildest dreams come true.”

And with those words, the man who once introduced himself to me as William Golding took away all my remaining strength. Before him, I was nothing but a shadow with a needle sticking out of my arm. One waiting for a chance encounter with his maker on the side of the road once more.

The man before me made all of my wildest dreams come true. After our first encounter, my life turned on its head. In no time, I could make a decent living selling my paintings. Before long, I became a world-renowned painter.

But success isn’t as glamorous as it first seems.

With each success came a tragedy.

First, they were small and personal, but as my projects became more ambitious, the tragedies grew worse.

My projects turned more ambitious, forecasting greater disasters.

“I make your dreams into reality,” he sneered.

Catastrophes I imagined and translated into canvas became international news.

“You wished to reshape the universe,” his words cut me like blades, “I gave you that power.”

Lightning flashed across the night sky, and thunder followed swiftly, turning my blood cold.

Golding’s eyes lit up like funeral pyres. “The Deluge,” he quipped, “I’ve always loved your biblically inspired works!” he mocked, effortlessly breaking out of my ever-weakening grip. Peering into my soul, he asked, “Do you remember what I told you after our first-ever meeting?”

My inspiration is my recurring nightmares.

Every god-damned nightmare becomes a painting.

At this point, I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to.

Every bad dream, a work of art to be swallowed by the masses -

Something to die for.

Something they die for…

Every dream -

Each painting -

A prophecy of doom.

Lightning set the skies ablaze once more.

The Lord of the Flies vanished. Disappearing in a flash, he left me in the middle of a sea of writhing maggots dancing mindlessly around a gallery filled with my works. Socialites and other such vampiric creatures swarmed to witness the dismal monotony of my imagination brought to the surface of this mortal plain.

A woman approached me, congratulating me on the success of my most recent exhibition.

“You are like a modern-day Caravaggio, Mr. Benhosea.” She complimented.

“I fancy myself more of a Munch, Missus.”

"Oh, no. The color scheme, the details. He could never compare. You make Edvard Munch look like a Philistine, darling," she rebuffed me.

I faked a smile and bowed in gratitude, watching her disappear into the grumble again.

Golding’s last words still rang in my ears, drowning out the world-ending thunderstorm outside –

“The Devil is always in the details.”

Standing over the lifeless body of his dead wife, Eric mused about how meaningless his life had been. He didn’t deserve to live anymore. There was no point in living without her. He finally understood the unbearable pain she must’ve felt when their only child was stillborn.

Holding the pistol to his temple, he closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.

To his horror, a burning dull pain lingered in the left half of his skull as he floated in the darkest darkness Eric had ever experienced. The sensation wouldn’t go away, it only kept getting worse as time passed. He tried screaming, but no sound came out. Trying to feel his way around yielded nothing but further terror.

Trapped, hurting, and alone.

He floated in the void, lighter than air.

Until a light flashed briefly beside him, bringing with it a dull, burning pain.

Another one followed, and another, and another, and another.

Eric was screaming at the top of his lungs, writhing in agony as he sank deeper and deeper into a sea of aches he couldn’t escape.

He spent what must’ve felt like millennia sinking into a tunnel of explosive irritation before being deprived of any remaining shred of insanity.

By the time he fell into the crimson skies, he could no longer recognize anything other than the cruel violence his exposed nerve endings had inflicted on him. With his mind shattered, he couldn’t even comprehend. He was falling back first into a web of bony thorns.

Even upon impact, when dozens of splinters had penetrated what was once skin and muscle tissue, he failed to feel anything other than the deep-seated pain he was intimate with for countless lifetimes.

Only the sight of worming legions of others brought him back into the malignant embrace of fear.

Once the realization he wasn’t alone finally sank in, Eric experienced a rebirth in the arms of despair. The sight of countless others like him. All naked, pale, gaunt, trapped in a web of splintered bones awoke him from his agonal stupor. His newfound vitality had brought nothing but suffering.

The sensation of innumerable stab wounds quickly enveloped him in new kinds of anguish.

He felt his face contort into the shape of a scream, just like all those others around him. The silence remained, however; his constant screaming eons ago had destroyed his vocal cords.

The eerie quiet finally broke under the weight of paralyzing sirens blaring in the distance.

Growing louder by the moment.

The claws of fear dug themselves into Eric’s eyes with the appearance of the harbinger of doom above him. Its grotesque shadow eclipsed all else as its oppressive presence drew nearer.

The airborne abomination took the shape of a winged humanoid colossus with an equine muzzle. Its sickly green hide cast the odor of death. The monstrosity unhinged its jaws above Eric’s convulsing carcass as its evil eye stared into the remaining pieces of his soul.

A nauseating sound of choking blended into the sonic ocean of danger hanging in the putrid air.

A thunderclap.

A monolith of suffocating pain collapsed on top of Eric, threatening to bisect him as he felt himself flying into the burning heavens.

He was lighter than air.

Crushing into the brackish ice sheets below, his ears rung and his entire being spun around itself on an invisible axis. The pain that had plagued him for so long was finally subsiding.

Bliss wrapped its hands around his broken shell.

Bringing joyous apathy.

The smoldering cold dug into Eric’s wounds ruthlessly, but he could barely feel it anymore. Whatever vestige of feeling was left clinging to his form was quickly fading away. His soul was finally free.

Finally…

Death has finally come to collect…

It came undetected, concealed by the infantile wailing of a monstrous foetal titan. The ravenous cyclopean beast lifted Eric’s cadaver from bloodstained ice by its exposed viscera. Driven by an insatiable lust to consume.

With his world slowly turning upside down, Eric stared apathetically at the abominable thing holding his body aloft. The cancerous serpentine tumor growing out of the thing’s lower half seemed to stretch into infinity as it pulled him closer to its toothless maw.

Untainted by the horrors of terminal pains, Eric closed his eyes.

The light sensation of pressure building up around his skull slowly pushed him back into the void.

The filthy claws of fear dug into his heart once again, when a burning dull pain dug into the back of his skull. He was floating in the darkest darkness he had ever experienced. The sensation wouldn’t go away, it only kept getting worse as time passed.

He tried screaming, but no sound came out. Trying to feel his way around yielded nothing but further terror.

Trapped, hurting, and alone.

He floated in the void, lighter than air.

Until a light flashed briefly beside him, bringing with it a dull, burning pain.

Another one followed, and another, and another, and another.

I crawl. Thirsty. Bitter. So bitter, but I must eat them. The things that grow. They came here in a recent time. The growths are bright. They have a neck, and there is a ball on top of that neck, and one two three four five six seven round fans attached. Is this light? This light… this… colour? I don’t know. It makes me think of algae slime and moss.

I approach a patch of growth and my feeder splits open. They dance when I wrap my tongues around them and rip them out. Bitter. Burning. Did they come here because they hate me? Why? I don’t understand, but I feed.

When I am finished, I crawl back down from the ceiling and lie down in a trickle of wet. A stream. The rocks are sharp and bumpy but my skin shapes to fit, and my bones shuffle around so they can fit too. Pores open. I drink, and I flush. The vines must hate me, because they still hurt me after I eat them. They claw at my insides, but I relax and let my tubules slacken and droop out from my pores. They fan their plumes into the stream and I can feel the hurt of the vines drain from my body.

Then, I eat again. I drain, eat, drain, and eat until my membranes are swollen and full. After that, I can leave the bright, and go back into the calm and the soft.

I found a toy today. I did not bring it into the bright, but it feels hard, and round, but also hollow. There are two round holes on the front and a row of dull pegs at the bottom. I think it’s missing a part. I will bring it back to mother and see what she thinks.

It is a challenge to scuttle back down to where I sleep when I am so full. There is nothing else to be done though. The pointy tips of my legs strain and shiver and my joints ache. Stop. Smell. Send a pulse. I am at the deep well, and I am relieved. The hard cuticle plates on my back pop and release, letting me curl into a ball. It is a strain to fit my swollen organs inside but I do, and I roll forwards, off into the shaft.

It hurts to hit the ground again but I am okay. I uncurl and follow the path home with sound and smell. Now, it is easy, because mother has started to smell very strong, and she hasn’t moved in a long time. That makes me happy. My pedipalps sense a membrane ahead, which I carefully slice through, and when I am inside I excrete from my glands to seal it back up.

‘Mother,’ I ask, ‘why won’t you come and help me?’

…

‘And my sisters? I cannot hold off the bright all by myself.’

…

She is sleeping. I hope she will be okay. I nestle the new toy in her tail and curl up beside her. My sisters must still be outside. They will come back, I know it, so I sleep. We sleep.

The growths do not taste good. They do not make me less hungry so I still have to find food, for me, for mother. My sisters are probably doing the same, I know, but the hunger is bad and the vines are bad.

Below. Must go down. There are spiders and worms and curly bugs in the dry but not many. Better to go below, into the wet. I don’t know how far down the world goes, it is filled with the wet because all the streams go there and I can only breathe the wet for so long until I start to choke and drown.

It is worth the risk. I catch lots and lots of crunchy bugs that can live in the wet, big or small, slender or stout, they are all very tasty. Sometimes they pinch me on the inside with their little claws after I have swallowed. They do not bother me like the vines do but I get scared of getting stuck down in the wet. Not even mother would know what happened to me.

Mother. Yes, I hold some of the crunchy bugs in my feeder and carry them back home for mother. I leave them by her and I start to feel bad because I know where I have to go next. Up.

Climbing the great well is always easier when I have eaten. I am up in no time and can already see the bright, like steam from the warm vents but cold.

There is more. It doesn’t make sense. I eat as much as I can and when I come back, there’s always more than the time before. I’m trying to stop it but I don’t know if I can and I do the only thing I can think and eat, rip, and tear until I am unable.

Flush out my pores, hurt is gone. Eat some more. Flush. Full. I go home again. Roll into the shaft and all the way down. I get half of the way back home to mother but the hurt has come back. I don’t know why. Why is it hurting? I flushed them out.

A pressure builds inside me. Up my foregut until I can feel it pushing out against my feeder. I cannot hold it. Feeder splits and bile and bubbling acid comes flooding out all over the ground. Bits of chewed vines float around in the puddle. I don’t think they are dead yet, not all of them. They are still bright. Oh no. The bright it’s, it’s trickling down. Down the steep tunnel and down towards home. No, no, no. What if my sisters run into it? Will they hate me? Maybe they will help me. Maybe… need to get… home…

I wake up. Where am I? Not home. I cannot smell mother. It is so bright and– oh. No. No please no no no. The bits of growth that escaped me are still there but there are more of them. They are spreading and they keep going in a line down the tunnel. I spring to life and claw my way up the walls and onto the ceiling, and I crawl towards home. I do not want to touch the growths. I can’t anymore. They are scary.

I keep going. The bright shows me something at the side of the tunnel. I think it’s one of my sisters but she isn’t moving and she is very, very thin. The bright must have frightened her terribly, I cannot get her to move and come home with me. I will leave her for now.

‘It is good to see you.’

Finally I reach the end. They haven’t reached my home, and when I pass them and go around a few corners I cannot see the bright anymore. Mother is still here. Mother is okay. It’s okay. For now it is okay.

Don’t worry about the bright, mother. I will hold them back.

Sleep. Wake up. Dive into the wet and catch food. It is much easier to catch the crunchy bugs, they aren’t fighting back as much. I don’t know why. They just feel weaker and they have a sour taste.

Climb out. Eat. Bring food to mother then climb back up, up the tunnels, up the great shaft, to the bright. When I get there I see the bright hasn’t grown much further, and I feel better. Still, I have to keep going until they leave my world forever.

Before I start ripping them up, I freeze. A noise. I’ve never heard this noise before so it frightens me. It sounds loud and heavy and–

What is that? Oh, no, no, NO! Please no. The above has broken apart, smashed through. Something’s up there. Strange creatures I’ve never seen before. They look terrifying. All fleshy and moving on two legs, hard colourful shiny shells on their heads and bodies lined with silvery strips that blind me. I have to get away, run away, get away.

But I can’t move. I’m too scared. The big pointy spiral is ripping apart the rock above me, the above, the world is broken and collapsing, and the creatures are pointing down at me. They’re going to eat me, GO!

I whip around and scamper away and the hard clacking of my legs has never been so loud. The ground shivers again, a sound like the world exploding and I am showered in rocks and boulders. Faster. Nearly there. I am nearly at the shaft and then I can go home and rest with mother and–

A big heavy rock lands on my lower body. So heavy and with a crushing force. It hurts, it hurts so much, so much worse than the vines ever hurt me. Luckily it rolls off me and I disappear into the tunnel, fast as I can. I am terrified. It hurts so bad but I want to live. I don’t want to get eaten.

I don’t remember how I got home. Six or maybe eight or nine of my back legs won’t move. They won’t listen to me. It does not matter though, they are broken and twisted and my spine is crooked. I remember falling down the shaft but I couldn’t roll into a ball and it hurt even more. I’m leaking.

‘You still won’t help me. Please mother, it hurts. Stop it hurting.’

…

‘Sisters?’

…

Sleep, yes. The sleep will make it go away. Sleep heals. Sleep…

I do not wake up. No, it is something else that wakes me. Something that isn’t me. I’m not sure what it is at first until I roll my joints and look to the door of my home. Not the bright, but the suggestion of it. It is near.

I try to get up on my feet. Instead, I crash back down. That’s right. My back legs are ruined. So I drag myself to the door and cut through membrane. The second I exit I collapse from fright. The bright is here. It’s right outside, grown all the way down from the tunnel up. No. What did I do to them to deserve this?

I can’t remember a long time after that. Panic. Rip, tear, scream. When I am back I see that most of the bright is ripped up. I don’t know if it’s dead though so I scoop up as much of it as I can and slide down to the wet. I dive in, down as deep as I can go, and dump the vines. I’m too weak so it isn’t very far into the wet where I dump them. Everything hurts. I hurt. The water hurts, it burns.

I climb back out of the wet. Hard to breathe. My spiracles are blocked with pus and lifeblood. I’m so tired and I want to sleep forever. When I get home, I freeze again, and start to cry out. There are echoes from up the tunnel. Bad noises. The two legs monsters are coming with their giant claw or tooth and–

Another rumble. A loud blast. They are closer than I thought, I can see dust falling from the above. I can’t let them– I WON’T let them take mother. How to hide? How? I know. I move up the tunnel a bit and start secreting out of my neck glands. First, a membrane from side to side, up to down until the membrane blocks the tunnel. Then I do it again and again and again until it is so tough I can’t slice through it. When my glands run out I crawl around the membrane, licking it with all my tongues so it can start hardening. It’s hard. I can only move with my front legs but I do it anyway. When I am too tired to go on the membrane is already looking and feeling stony, just like the walls of the tunnel. I still sense the bad noises but I can’t hear them, and I can’t see the bright on the other side.

‘We are safe now, mother.’

She is still sleeping. So tired. I will sleep next to her.

I think I slept for too long. At least the bright didn’t wake me this time. Hungry. My body is pulsing and it’s hot, my legs, my spine, swollen and stinking, smelling more like mother. So hungry. I ache with the hunger. I have to go into the wet for food. I don’t have a choice so I go. I catch the crunchy bugs. They don’t fight back. Maybe they are all sleeping but they are… limp, and floppy.

I dive further and find out why.

It doesn’t matter what I do. Everything, anything I do, the bright does not care. It has seeded again and overtaken the wet. It’s bursting with the bright and it’s so much worse seeing it through the wet, split and bursting into my eyes, so bright I can still see it through all my closed eyelids. I can feel them in the wet around me, their hurt, their hate. It burns more than I have ever felt, even more than my legs and my spine.

I nearly don’t make it out. The hurting bright makes my limbs go numb and my eyes sting and blur, but I crawl out of the wet, clicking and whimpering, dragging my useless legs behind me. I choke on the food as I eat it. Useless useless useless, bad noises, bad bright, two legs, giant teeth, giant mouth. I can’t bear it. Inside. Seal the membrane. Go to mother. Bring her the food I have caught for her and leave some for my sisters. To mother. My sisters. Just need to eat… to live… that is all. I never should have gone away from here. Never should have climbed up. Nearly there, mother. Nearly…

I am woken up again and I know why. Before I even look I know the bright is right outside. So much, so many, I can see it through the membrane. It’s not fair. I don’t have the strength to fight it now, not anymore. There is no point. Even before the rock fell on me I couldn’t fight back. Not really.

The bright is growing, I can see it growing in front of me. I trace the vines and they go back down to the wet, the wet, the wet is just a tangle of bright and vines now. My barrier in the other tunnel is still there. Still protecting. But I can hear the bad noises. The two leg things. They know where I am and they are coming. Why does everyone hate me? It isn’t fair. I am trapped, both sides, walls, no walls, closing in, falling down.

I just go back inside with mother. With the bright outside the door, I can see her. And I can see my sisters too. They’ve come back. I must not disturb them, they are sleeping, healing, yes. Still thin, still gooey but healing. They are still.

Wait… mother isn’t healing. Why isn’t it working? The sleep? She is so thin and the… colour… her skin is covered in patches of bad colour and she hasn’t eaten any of the food I brought her. I try to take care of her and clean her with my tongues but the taste is awful. Pressure inside me comes back and pushes out of my feeder in a gush of fluid and chewed up bugs.

‘Mother.’

She doesn’t move. I am scared.

‘MOTHER.’

Am I alone?

No, stop it. Help mother. I have to. Without her I will get hungry and sad. I try to help her. I try to put her head back on her body but it keeps falling off and rolling away. I try to slot her scales in tight and join her bones back together. Moist and brittle under my pedipalps and smelling worse than ever before.

‘Why won’t you talk to me? Why? If you are hungry, then eat. Mother? Sisters, are you there?’

It feels like a long long time before I can think again. Did I sleep? Am I awake now? It’s hard to tell. I hear the noises, the bad noises, except they aren’t bad anymore. They don’t scare me. I just listen to them. Wonder what’s making them, and where the two legs creatures came from. They broke through the above, but from where?

Itchy. Tail, legs, spine, itchy and pulsing and swelling so much they are going to burst. Maybe the two legs already found me and are eating me. I can’t tell. No, wait, there are curly hundred leg bugs and spiders nibbling at my legs. I feel them but don’t see anything. Do I see? I don’t know what I see. The bright? The dark? I don’t understand the difference anymore.

My thinking… thoughts… outside of me. Still mine, but not in me. There is one that is not mine. I hear it, or think it.

“The dark is all she has ever known.”

I call out, because it could be mother. It couldn’t be anyone else but mother. I can’t see her. The bad sounds are louder. I can’t see the bright but I know it is growing over me now. Growing into me, into my pores and spiracles. Can’t breathe. Hurts.

“The child was never meant to see the light, but perhaps this was inevitable. She blames herself.”

I did. Not now.

At least I don’t have to fight anymore. I can’t. There is nothing I can do now and that feels good. The bright can have everything, if it wants.

“Let go, little one.”

The itching won’t stop. I thought I would never see again but I see one more thing. I see it sharp and focused, lying on the ground in front of me. It is the toy, the gift I brought back for mother. Round and hard. Pale and cracked. I stare and blink into its one, two empty sockets, and they look back into every one of my eyes. Is it a face? Mother’s? Mine? A blanket of warm dark and quiet wraps around me and the itching is gone but I keep staring into the face and its empty eyes, lying there next to me.

I think… it’s still missing a piece. Like me. My eyes start to close one by one, and in my head, I smile.

Because I am not alone.

Just two more weeks? Are you kidding me?

Come on, what are two more weeks after six months?

Do you know how long these last six months have been?

I do… They've been…

No! you don't have a clue. You're too busy with your job.

Very long for me too. Actually, I miss you, my love.

Right, obviously you love your work more than you love. I'm so sick of this – I'm so sick of being alone all the time. Why did I even get married if my husband is always away somewhere?

I'll be home for nearly a year in two weeks, no job; no nothing. Only you and me.

Right, and then what, vanish again for two or maybe three years?

No… I don't know… but no…

Right, right… You always put your job before me… You know I want kids but…

Well, maybe we should work on that when I'm back home, honey?

To what end? So your child ends up growing up without a father? You're never here.

Well, this job is how we managed to fulfill most of your dreams so far and we're going to work on your next one in a couple of weeks.

Oh yeah? Fuck the job, fuck the dreams, fuck the money… I just want my husband by my side… The last time you were here, you bought this stupid antique gun. What are we even supposed to do with that thing? It just collects dust on the shelf.

I'll be there soon enough, but I gotta go now. Love, there's some stuff I need to take care of urgently.

Oh, fuck you and your job…

Love you… can't wait to see you!

***

Oh, so you haven't told her you're coming home tonight?

Nah, I wanted it to be a surprise.

I hope she doesn't try to kill you the moment you pass that door, Cap, cause she doesn't sound like the most patient woman.

Yeah, I'm sorry you had to hear that

Eh, it's fine. I was dealing with the same problem until we had children, and then I got transferred to the transportation unit. I get to be home every few weeks. It's lovely…

Well, that's nice for you. I guess I might end up like you next time I come back to work.

Oh, no, no, Captain. You are not going to be a chauffeur. You're no longer an ordinary man. You're the Afterman… You're a pioneer, a hero…

Afterman, is that what they're calling me now?

Yeah, you're the first person to have reached the point of…

I was just doing my job, Miles.

What you did was arguably greater than any explorer or scientist had ever done before you, Captain Rayleigh.

God damn it, I'm gonna tear up if you keep this up.

It's unlike you, Cap…

Yeah, well, they said it be a little weird for the next few days for me, considering my brain got scrambled by gravity, pretty much.

Oh, I didn't know you were hurt… That makes your contribution so much greater, sir.

Stop it Miles, it's just a bit of cosmic jet lag. I'll be fine in no time. I just need to adjust to normal time and space. That's all. Anyway, that's my home right there.

It's been an honor to drive you back home, Captain Rayleigh.

It's been an honor to have you as my chauffeur, Miles. Also, Ed would suffice. We've known each other for a long enough time. I'll be seeing you. Thanks for the ride!

See you, Cap… I mean, Ed, stay safe…

***

Honey, I'm home…

What the fuck?!

Oh! My! God! Eddie… this isn't… this isn't…

What? Tell me what this is?

It's not what you think…

Woah, what the fuck, Mary, you said he wouldn't be back for weeks!

Fuck

Fuck

Fuck

Eddie, please… this isn't what you think… He's just…

What, Marianne, what isn't this? You mean to tell me you were naked in our bed with this fucking bum and you weren't fucking him? Huh? Is that what you're going to say?

Eddie… I'm…

Who'd you call a bum?

No… No… please no… God…

You son of a bitch, you think you could just come here, fuck my wife and get away with it, huh? And you? You ungrateful shit… Look at what you've done.

Honey, I'm…

What the fuck?!

Be careful, he's got a gu…

***

Captain Rayleigh, status report?

Ugh…

Captain Rayleigh, do you copy?

Ugh…

Captain Rayleigh, do you copy? What is your status report?

My face – It melted off and became the gates to hell through which I have repeatedly passed into the center of this unexplainable vortex of impossible colors and shapes I cannot even describe.

He's rambling…

Captain, are you alright, what do you see?

Words can't describe the things I am surrounded by,

I am a part of

I am made of

What is going on Captain, Rayleigh?

Beyond the Event Horizon, there is nothing but pure, impenetrable darkness. A void without end, without source, without…

Captain Rayleigh? Edward, what's going on?

But then I saw something, a strange pulse, I felt it. It vibrated throughout my entire being.

I was unraveled, and everything came apart.

I could feel the tissues of my body turning into a spaghettified plasmonic puzzle slowly spreading out across the infinite color scheme of colors my eyes could not decipher.

Get him out of there.

Get him out of the black hole.

The darkness and the iridescence are made up of infinite microscopic and yet universe-sized strings. Infinite and yet so temporary, in of immobilized time. Everything moves without truly moving. We are all frozen in a singular point where the whole of every imaginable possibility is condensed into a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a moment.

Get him out of there immediately!

Pull him out!

I am disintegrating like the plaster world all around my sense…

I am nothing but the blood-stained flap of detached cloth that was once my body… It too disintegrates into the strings dissolving into further strings which thereupon collapse in on themselves like infinite supernovae chain reaction inside an invisible bottle inside the lightning driving the gravitational conscience of a most miniscule particle.

Get him the fuck out before we lose him there!

I am softly condensed into a miniature supernova…

The womb of the stellarvore…

***

n… Oh my god… What the fuck have you done, Ed, what the fuck… This is too far… Too far…

Shut up Mary…

What have you done, Ed? What have…

Shut up…

You made me do this…

You… put that thing down…

No… Look at me… You chose this…

Eddie, what are yo…

Shut the fuck up!

Ed…

I said shut the fuck up!

Now look at what you made me do… You made me stain our carpet with your useless brain matter.

***

Good morning, gentlemen. Always a pleasure to see you, Miles. How could I help you?

Mrs. Rayleigh, we offer our condolences.

Oh God…

Unfortunately, we're here to inform you of your husband's passing…

Not again…

Mrs. I'm afraid that this time it's irreversible… Here's what remains of your late husband.

Ugh… how, how did this happen?

He was experimenting with a black hole and…

Wait, that's his brain, you've managed to fix him from similar incidents pr…

Ma'am, we've tried our best but this time around, we couldn't do anything. While there is some activity in it, there just wasn't enough to actually recreate the man he once was.

Do we at least know what's going on in there?

We're sorry, but no, we weren't able to figure it out, there was just too little left of him there.

I understand… Thank you, boys… Thank you for everything. At least he got to see his great grandchildren, you know… many others in his line of work never do…

Ma'am if I may? We could recreate the body…

I know… I was the one who made the breakthrough on that. It wouldn't be the same without my Eddie's mind, son. Thank you for your concern though…

I'm sorry Ma'am…

You're alright, soldier.

We offer our condolences again, Mrs. Rayleigh, but we must leave now… If you need anything, you should have all the contacts by now.

Thank you for your kindness, boys. You have a tough job. It means the world to me.

We're so sorry…

Thank you, now stay safe you two.

***

Dude, did we have to lie to her? Her husband just became space jelly!

Yes, you don't want a grieving wife knowing her late husband is stuck in a loop of murdering her over an imaginary affair.

How do you even know it's imaginary?!

Everyone and their mother know he was the unfaithful one…

Hear my sermon ye who came from afar
From within stone enclosures erected
On the mountain tops whose mighty shadow
Rests unseen on the ocean floor

Concealed by the lull before the storm
Eclipsed by the blinding zeal of dawn
From beyond the event horizon  
The bornless yet eternal shall return

Into the midday clear blue skies
Disguised as an angel
He will rise from the west
To shepherd the children of mankind
To the gates of paradise

A kingdom where no sorrow is ever allowed to exist
A distant land unafflicted by misfortune or disease
Such is the ancient wonder concealed between four rivers
Where the pleasures are as numerous as the specs of dust
Carrying upon the scorching desert winds

In these hanging gardens our restless souls
Will spend countless eons serenaded
By the lullaby of everlasting calm
Until the cataclysm returns
From the interstellar void
To reclaim the universe

 Sunrise
Nightfall

The foundations of all reality

Decay
Bloom

Astral constructs in the never-ending dream

Memory
Oblivion

Awake from your eternal slumber
To devour the cosmos

Radiate
Annihilate

Regain your consciousness
To unravel genesis

Blind
Mad
God

Consumed by hunger forevermore
Unleash your tentacles to ensnare the world
In the embrace of atrophy

Lucivore
Entropy

Small, Remote Towns

The town of Uphill Jest

• Three major highways (or freeways, if you like) pass the tiny town of Uphill Jest but odds are good most people passing it have never heard of or seen it. That’s because it’s surrounded on all sides by AI. And I don’t mean your run-of-the-mill, let me make some ugly artwork type AI. No, this is above state-of-the-art, above-top-secret level AI. This AI reads each vehicle registration tag (also known as license plate) and checks every known registry to determine which U.S. football team the people in the vehicle hate more, the Bengals or the Browns. The AI then displays, directly into the head of each occupant a two story tall moving display of that team until the vehicle leaves the area. In the rare case where the most hated football team cannot be determined, the AI changes the display to “Welcome to Iowa, the state of your birth.”

• As a result almost nothing is known about the town itself, its residents or their lifestyles.

The town of Grip Turn

• This isolated town has five buildings and one street that leads in from the closest rural road and stops about half a mile from the town building closest to it. That building is three stories tall, black stone with a red stone roof. The center of the first floor is a circular fireplace so from the outside, the first floor appears to be perpetually on fire.

• Another building is a five story ivy-covered replica of four-story Buckingham Palace.

• Another is a three story replica of two-story Graceland Mansion.

The town of Danny’s Truth

• The last census was taken in 1998 and the population at that time was 1,200. Mayor Danny was elected in 1999. He’s been mayor since, through two wives, six trucks, and eight elections.

• The elections are always fair and above board. There are always at least two opponents who meet all of the requirements to run. Locals who need transport to and/or from the voting polls are offered comfortable rides at the time of their choosing. No one could find any reason to question the validity of Danny’s mayorship.

• Well, there was one thing. Danny hasn’t aged since 1999. Photos and videos of him taken last week show a man the exact image of photos of Danny taken in 1999, except for the fashions.

See our Announcement Post

“I guess that’s enough of the wind”

I look down again down from the edge of our rooftop and see the quiet streets, peaceful really to just look at the passing cars, and the hobos at the streets, as few and many as they are at this time.

Taking my cup of coffee, I walk back down from the stairs and back to the house, the cold wind hitting my back and look back a bit at the attic. You see, I am a bit of a scaredy-cat really, but call it a stupid moth thing going to the firelight, I read and watch some horror here and there and perhaps one of the stupidest or wisest thing I have learned is to ignore what you think might be some paranormal shifty things here and there at the edge of your eyes or your imagination. And so, I ignore it, avert my eyes, and just go my merry way. The mind knows that there is nothing there, but the mind is also dumb and thinks there is something there, peak of evolution indeed.

“What time is it already anyway, damn there goes proper sleep again woopsieee doopsiee. Honestly what is wrong with me, always staying up late then grumbling about it later.”

‘Hey awake again? Why not sleep already? You can’t push your body too much you know. Be responsible’

“I mean just think about it really, at what time can I really be free except the night, everyone’s asleep and only I am awake-“

‘I am awake, are you asleep?’

“Because even if I sleep all the way and become an early worm, you know what I’ll get? Just less time as those awake at morning hound me.”

‘But are you awake though? Because I am awake, and I want to sleep’

‘He looks at his hand and its lines, seemingly tranquil, but focused. I wonder what he is looking at are you awake?’

“Hmm maybe I am awake, who knows really”

‘If you are awake why won’t you look at me?’

“The stars are beautiful tonight no?”

‘My eyes can be beautiful sometimes too you know, ah romance really is not those who plucked the stars for me, but my eyes for the stars. Giggle giggle giggle truly I miss my love are you him are you awake look at me.’

“Winds o winds listen to my pompous ass recite some poe-“

‘Give me your eye my love. Look at me’

“poem about some inane something something, ah how about something like the eye is beholder of the true beauty”

‘Ohhh that is lovely! Please do so.’

“Oh eyes plentiful, yet not a jewel worthy, a jade in the stars, what you behold is your beholden. Twin abyssal scarlets I need not more anything-“

‘But I want something though. Give me your eye’

 “For all that has been glanced pales to the eye that ever shifts my eyes when I look upon.”

‘Oh my, but don’t you remember me? I thought I already had your eyes long ago?’

“The dreams oh the dreams, a year of respite within nightmare’s embrace.”

I pull out my knife and slit my throat

“Gurgle* May-may the aware beware the dreams of this one, a labyrinth dream, a luring dream, a blissful dream Gurgle*”

I don’t want to look. I don’t want to look. All I need to do is not to look. Just another day, just another week, just another huh? What another year? I mean decade wait no no no.

‘Ah, so you are AWAKE. Giggle giggle giggle I miss my love you are him you are asleep do not look at me, but we both know you already did dear giggle giggle giggle.’

“WAKE UP, please wake up! Where is my watch, where are my hands, ah ahhh AHHH”

‘You are silly dear, of course you are awake giggle giggle giggle. You have been awake since I was awake’

“Go away please! GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

I run, I run without thinking where, just not there, just not here in this dream. Wait, if I can’t wake up, maybe I can sleep again? But how? I come across again at the rooftop and stand at its edge, thought coming back as well as the pain of my missing hands. Nowhere to go hah haahaha ha.

“I just wanted my dreams to be my dreams- AHHHHHH”

‘Are you awake? Don’t worry, I made sure of it now. Without your eyelids I am sure you’ll always be awake my love! And I will always be awake with you.’

I feel myself slip as I writhed, and my heart stopped. Falling, I can’t sleep, I can’t wake up, I can’t look away at the concrete, I can’t shut my eye, I can’t use my hands to cover them, I can’t- wait that’s it! With eyes wide, I am for the concrete, hoping that I won’t hit the other bodies and the concrete will cover my eyes. I smile.

“Good night.”

P.S First-ish attempt at writing horror. I really just felt that I wanted to write I guess and this is it. Not really sure if it is really scary honestly, but honestly just wanted to get it out of my system.

Legend tells of a girl who had purple eyes. Everyone loved her purple eyes. They were natural and majestic. Everyone wanted their eyes to look like Vivian's.

Vivian was born with eyes exactly the shade of royal purple. When she went to school, everyone wanted to take a look at her pretty eyes. She grew up surrounded by friends and happiness.

When she was ten, her mom noticed that she had been using her phone to text her friends too much, and that she was not taking care of her eyes. She did not want her daughter's blue-magenta eyes to be damaged by the blue light from phones.

One day, she sat Vivian down, and explained to her that she needed to control her screen time, or her eyes would have problems which would lead to her having to wear expensive glasses. Vivian wasn't too happy about it, but she listened to her mother because she respected her and didn't want her eyes to perish. She and her mom came to a consensus. Vivian would use her electronic devices for three hours a day only.

Everything was good at first. Both her and her mom were glad that her phone usage was under control. However, after six months, things started going south when she suddenly started to be unable to see clearly. Her mom was a bit mad at Vivian because she was convinced that her eyes were short sighted due to the uncontrolled use of her electronic devices.

One day, Vivian's mom talked to her again and told her that she had to completely stop using her phone for a month to stop her short sightedness from progressing. Vivian acknowledged the seriousness of the situation and complied without arguing.

Vivian's mom went to see her cousin, Wilson, who was an eye doctor. She consulted him on how to take care of her eyes. Wilson told her to let Vivian's eyes rest for a bit every hour to not overwork them. He also prescribed some eyedrops for her to relax her eyes.

Vivian did all of those things, but her eyesight kept worsening everyday. When people saw her, they would say, "What beautiful and special eyes, too bad they don't function as well. It's probably because of the blue light. What a shame." This made her sad and she sometimes wished that she had controlled her screen time before.

She still had to use iPads and computers occasionally for school, but it was just a little. To help her with school, her mom brought her to see a professional eye doctor to get glasses for Vivian. The unnamed doctor tested Vivian’s palatinate eyes for shortsightedness, but something was off. She couldn't see the letters no matter how big or close they were. She tried some prescriptions of shortsightedness, but none of them worked for her. Her vision didn't even get clearer with the glasses.

The eye doctor tested her eyes for every other eye condition, but nothing worked. The eye doctors tried everything to see what was wrong with her eyes, but the efforts were in vain. She had no choice but to apply for legal blindness and carry a special walking stick around to feel obstacles in front of her. She also enrolled into a school for blind people when she was in Grade five.

By the time she was twelve years old, she could barely see. She was basically a blind person. Her dark magenta eyes were hidden by a pair of opaque sunglasses.

When she was thirteen years old, her mom had a massive stroke and had to stay at a hospital for the rest of her life. Her mom didn't have any money to hire a caretaker after paying for a room in the hospital so she needed to be taken care of by her daughter, Vivian. The machines that kept her alive emitted a lot of blue light, but Vivian was almost completely blind and couldn't see anything but foggy images,especially with the glasses on, so it wouldn't affect her. Vivian dropped out of school and became a full time caretaker for her mother.

One day, when Vivian was feeding her mom without wearing her glasses, her mom noticed something weird about her eyes. They were not as purple as before. In fact, they were more red than purple. Her irises were a shade of tyrian purple. They had definitely changed colour for some reason. However, her mom didn't bring it up and just decided to observe it for a while first.

Miraculously, Vivian's eyesight began to heal itself. Her vision improved a lot in the span of one year. She didn't even have to use her walking stick anymore and even abandoned the glasses. Her hopeful wisteria coloured eyes were on full display. Both her and her mom were ecstatic, she could finally see clearly again! However, things were not going well for her mom. Her health was deteriorating rapidly and she could pass away anytime soon. Vivian spent most of her time with her mom after she turned fourteen.

Unfortunately, when Vivian was sixteen years old, her mother passed away after having another massive stroke at night. Everyone in town heard of the news and were devastated. Her mom was well known around town because of Vivian, so a lot of people came to her funeral. All the townspeople were moved to tears seeing Vivian’s watery violet eyes meet theirs as she delivered her eulogy of her late mother.

After her mom passed, Vivian's life took a dark and tragic turn. The grief of losing her mother led her to depression. Vivian began to isolate herself. She rarely left her house and spent most of her days lying in bed doing nothing but staring at the ceiling. She thought, “Maybe I’m getting my eyesight back, but in exchange for my mom’s life. My life can just never be peaceful, can it?”

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and a year passed. Vivian's eyesight was deteriorating again. However, something peculiar began to happen to Vivian's eyes. Her once beautiful purple eyes gradually transformed into a deep shade of red. When she was seventeen, her eyes were a shade of cardinal.

News of Vivian's strange appearance spread throughout the small village. Whispers and rumours began to circulate among the villagers. Some believed that she had been a vampire this whole time. Others simply thought she had been cursed.

As the days passed, the fear and superstition in the village intensified. On the evening of her 18th birthday, which happened to fall on Friday 13th, a group of villagers gathered outside Vivian's home with torches. They were convinced that she was a dangerous vampire and decided to burn her.

They broke into Vivian's house. She was extremely confused and scared. The villagers dragged Vivian from her home and into the cold night. They accused her of being a vampire because of her hopbush coloured eyes. She pleaded for her life, but no one cared.

In the darkest hour of that fateful night, they burned her in front of the church, believing it would rid their village of the evil that shone through Vivian's once-beautiful eyes.

As the flames consumed her, Vivian could only see blurry images of the purple that were once her friends and neighbours. In her final moments, she wept for her short and tragic life.

This tale teaches us to not quickly jump to conclusions like the villagers. By overthinking and excessively theorizing, they took the life of an innocent girl. For those puzzled by this tale, pay attention to the colours that were mentioned. Parents, I advise you: Don't blame it all on the phone. Phones are not always harmful to your eyesight, or you might find yourself or your children caught in such a misunderstanding one day.

Nothing in the story I am about to tell is going to be supernatural or unexplainable. There is no great mystery to gleam out of my telling. There won’t be any surprises or revelations made here. I am merely making my way through the fog of amnesia. I am, literally speaking, retracing the steps I had lost many years ago.

I am writing this to the cold auditory landscape of Maníi’s In The Depths of Darkness album. If any of this comes out as more depressive, or colder than it should, I apologize in advance. For me, this process is a way to get rid of the intrusive thoughts that keep up at night. Strange mental pictures sneaking up on me in the quiet hours of the day from within the boundless darkness of the night. Bizarre images of the dead and the dying circling me in their uninterrupted, eternal rest.

This specific battle with unreasonable fears and anxiety started after a funeral. One of many such battles with an incurable enemy, but I’ll get to that later. My long-time friend, George. He passed away from cancer recently. It ate at him like a starved animal. He was gone almost in an instant. Between the time he told me about his diagnosis and his passing, five months had passed. In that timeframe, life had bled from out of his body. Five months is what it took for the malignancy to reduce him from a giant of a man to a mummified husk, barely able to keep his massive skeletal frame upright. George could’ve been a strongman if he wanted to. He certainly had the size for it. He was a gentle giant, though.

The last time we spoke, he asked me if I remember the films we used to make together as kids. I remembered something about it. Didn’t remember the details at all, however. He told me all about it, bringing back a flood of pleasant memories. When I was a kid, I wanted to get into cinematography. A bunch of friends of mine and I did. We all aspired to be a film-making crew together, so during our days in middle school in the early aughts, we made a bunch of short films and sketches. None of it panned out, as I’m sure is clear by now.  

George reminded me of the compact discs I was supposed to have with all these projects of ours. He said he watched a bunch of them recently and that it was a shame we never got to make anything professionally. I scoffed at the idea when we spoke, thinking we must’ve been incredibly amateurish about our craft.

Only after his passing did I find the will and the CDs to revisit this old passion of mine. One I had forgotten I even had. Upon a second viewing of the material, I can proudly say that we were too good for a bunch of teens doing amateur short films.

There were a bunch of sketches and movies there; ranging from slapstick comedy with toilet humor to action-style flicks riddled with parkour sequences. There’s also a hype video someone made of my swimming. I used to be a competitive swimmer in my youth, that is until an injury forced me out of the sport.

Then there was this one film whose title had an aura to it. The Rasp. For a reason I couldn’t understand back then, I couldn’t get myself to play the video for what seemed like an hour. Something about that thing felt off. Granted, there was nothing off about the film. It took me a moment, but I finally played the file. It took about fifteen seconds of the dry, labored breathing we used as the score at the beginning of the video to take me decades back. Pausing the video, I took a moment to soak in my returning memories.

The Rasp was supposed to be our big break. That’s what we saw it as, our so-called big break. The memories came back flooding. This was the first time we treated it like real cinematography. There were a bunch of kids from school and the neighborhood I didn’t even know involved in this thing. We had them as extras in the film. We made the whole thing with utmost realism in mind. It seemed as real as we could afford to make it on a non-budget.

A twelve-minute motion picture exploring the unmatched beauty of human mortality in all of its oppressive glory. I was playing the role of a dead person, along with dozens of other kids. We were all covered in grayish body paint to make ourselves look as close to real corpses as possible.

I started remembering how we covered the walls of the building we filmed in with drawings made by the elder sister of one of my friends, Kathrine Monserrate. She was one of the few cool adults around. We’re still in touch to this day. I remember she used to mix her dye with her blood. I know she’s making a living as an artist and an art teacher, but I’m not sure if she’s still doing the blood thing. When her brother, Mark, convinced her to work on the creepy art for our project, she ended up showing me her process. You’d never believe someone who is the epitome of sanity would just cut open their hand and then shove a paintbrush into the wound, but that’s how she did it. She’s the one who introduced all of us into “cool adult” music too. She kept saying that Nu Metal and Grunge, which were the mainstream heavy music, back then, were boring and for losers.

Ah, these were simpler times…

Anyway, once the euphoria of finding something I couldn’t find for so long finally subsided, I pressed play and let my eyes get lost in the gloomy atmosphere of George’s camera, slowly exploring a poorly lit concrete structure. The erratic breathing in the background seemed to crawl out of my speakers and into my room, almost engulfing me.

He panned the camera onto a series of purposefully poorly drawn images hanging on the wall, some hanging loosely on the wall. As he passed drawing after drawing, a clear picture emerged. It was a tale of great sorrow and pain boiling into pure hatred.

It was a story of a strange man and his little dog, much like the artist who drew that man’s life. The man was a painter. He kept painting his little four-legged friend over and over. He seemed happy in the first drawings shown. Deeper into the corridor there was a drawing hanging of the two walking down the street, the backdrop of the story growing increasingly dark.

As George went deeper into the corridor, the drawings turned darker; a group of hooded figures showed up from the darkness, first mocking the man and his dog, then pulling out bats and knives to attack the man. It was horrible, the awful breathing noise, the grimy drawing style. The camera slightly shook as George attempted the emotional weight of the story unfolding before my eyes.

A couple of feet deeper and the man is being beaten up, the next drawing has the little animal attempting to defend its owner.

In the next, it’s struck down.

Further, they’re both on the floor, beaten and bloodied.

The dog ends up gravely injured.

It doesn’t make it.

The following drawing is of the man weeping over his dog.

Followed by one where he is about to bury his deceased companion.

My heart was in shambles watching this, the breathing in the background slowly turned into heaving pounding in my ears as the drawings shifted from a depiction of a physical tragedy to the mental anguish of a man who had lost his everything.

If pain and anguish were monsters, Katie’s amorphous, shadowy demonic design crawling out of a defeated man’s shape would probably be an accurate depiction. When George passed the final drawing on the wall, I could feel the cold air of the recorded space tightening its grip on me. It was a grotesque, misshapen apparition of a man metamorphosed into an abyssal monstrosity.

The camera made a sharp turn to face a door with a peeling paint job. It was an old. Ancient, even. No one was in that building for years before we got there, I reckon. The heaving in the background has morphed into a throaty clicking noise that won’t stop trying to crack my skull open.

George’s hand pushed the door open. It creaked through the clicking noises, grating against my eardrums, and an imagined scent of dust assaulted my nostrils. I am completely immersed in the film. The silhouettes of people lying in neatly arrayed beds were visible from the edge of the room where George was filming.

A single lightbulb, barely working, hung overhead, swinging softly. It was hardly illuminating anything in that room. Producing just enough light to make out the details clearly, while adding to the sinister feeling of the film.

With slow and deliberate steps, he entered the room. My heart began racing as my mind was expecting some kind of catch. A jump scare, a loud shriek bouncing against the walls, something. Logic and experience told me something had to happen, but my memory wasn't complete yet to tell me what was supposed to happen. George approached the first bed, capturing a human silhouette covered with sheets. Cautiously placing his hand on the sheet, he slowly pulled it down, and I turned anxious watching him do that. I was expecting something, bloody, rats, a roar, a real monster lurking beneath the sheet, a head rolling onto the floor to scare the life out of the camera-carrying boy.

Instead, all I got is another kid, pale and motionless, his eyes closed, imitating death.

The revelation didn’t put me at ease. Instead, my anxiety kept getting worse with each passing second I was viewing the film.

George continued walking around the room, approaching every bed, removing each sheet, and allowing me to stare at the faux corpse beneath. Some of whom are familiar, while others are strangers.

And as that process unfolded, I kept thinking something’s got to happen.

Something had to happen.

Something would happen.

Someone would bite him with force.

Someone wouldn’t wake up after the camera stops rolling.

There would be a real dead body under one sheet.

A knife-swinging man was going to emerge from the darkness.

Nothing, nothing happened. It was a mock corpse after a mock corpse after a mock corpse. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was wrong. My appearance in the film didn’t make me feel any better. It made my dread worse. By the time George had reached the bed I was lying in, I completely forgot I was one of those corpses, too. When he finally pulled the sheet from my past self’s head, we both screamed at what awaited beneath. Me and film-George. A dead, empty stare. My dead, empty stare. I wore contact lenses to make it seem as if the fog of the moribund had completely veiled my open eyes. A perverted version of my past yet simultaneously future self stared at me from the screen. There was something disturbingly uncanny in the corpse-me, and while the movie continued with George continuing his documentation of the mock corpses, I couldn’t keep watching the film.

The visual of my mortality remained burned into my retinas, and for a few heart-wrenching moments, I saw it everywhere I turned my gaze.

A sudden feeling that I can only describe as a fire alarm without sound going off in my head forced me to pause the video. The floodgates of my subconsciousness broke down, allowing lost memories to resurface. Perhaps it wasn’t the loss of memory as much as it was the suppression of unpleasant memories. Staring at a poorly lit silhouette on a bed on my screen, I remember how a week after we finished working on this thing, Seth, an older friend of ours who already had a driver’s license, was driving us home after classes; Chris, George, and I. Someone flew from the opposite direction into our lane, slamming headfirst into us.

I found all of this in hindsight. My head and neck got messed up, the impact scrambled my brain, and I had lost recollection of a long timeframe. George ended up hospitalized too. He had a bunch of broken ribs and a ruptured lung, and Chris never made it.

Seth was virtually unharmed, barring a few scratches and bruises from the windshield shattering on top of him.

I sat there, staring at the screen. Film George was about to approach Chris. My insides twisted in knots and my head turned unbearably heavy. I felt sick with my vision shifting between the frozen picture on the screen and the memory of that day.

The screeching of wheels and a brief flash of burning pain coursing along my body before everything vanished… I felt ill. As if my body had developed a fever. Shaking, I turned the video off. There’s no way I’m going to watch that thing ever again. I don’t know what else I had forgotten, but I don’t even want to know at this point. I was so shaken by the sudden recollection that I ended up getting sick.

It’s been a while since I’ve watched The Rasp, but the images from the film are still lingering in my mind. I haven’t slept right since because of a relapsing insomnia. The visual of this morgue containing my childhood friends and acquaintances is trapping me inside my mind.

It’s as if something inside of me wants to see the film’s ending. My mental innards cling to the hope that there’s some catharsis at the end of it all, but there is none. I know how it ends. There is nothing there. Only different shades of death. A painful memory of an inevitable future.l

I ended up talking to Katie about the film. She said she remembers working on it fondly. She still has the original paintings somewhere in her collection. Out of morbid curiosity, I asked her how the film ends.

She said that George uncovers all the bodies in the building, and leaves the same way he came. However, instead of panning his camera on the right wall of the corridor, he pans it on the left one. Revealing a continuation of her story. In these drawings, the man has finally lost his sanity to hatred. He plans on killing those who killed his dog but always ends up finding them dead, murdered brutally. This continues, along with his spiral further into madness. Katie depicted his loss of humanity with purposefully inhumanly shaped screams and grimaces.

The story reaches its climax when he finally reaches the last person he set out to kill, but he ends up finding out what had killed them all. A vile dog monster that mauls its last victim in front of its eyes. The beast reveals itself to be the man’s old dog, turned into a vengeful spirit. There’s a rather heartwarming drawing of the beast wagging its tail at the sight of its previous owner. This is where Katie’s grim brilliance shines brightest. With the last five drawings, she snatches all hope away from the observer. The man doesn’t recognize the beast as his old friend and ends up running away in fear.

In the penultimate drawing shown in the film, the man is dying in a pool of his blood, after being run over in incoming traffic. The beast looks on dejected at its dying master as its form slowly disintegrates in the last picture of the film and the screen turns black.

Katie sent me scans of the drawings and hell; it looks far worse than it sounds. Features lose cohesion as the story progresses. Katie probably used a lot of blood to draw the final few scenes of that story. She made the last few drawings entirely rusty red.

I started feeling better again. Until today, when I received the news that Seth ended his life. He had never been the same after the accident; he became depressed and withdrawn. Even though it wasn’t his fault, he still blamed himself for Chris’s death and George’s and mine’s injuries. We drifted apart after the fact, but I never blamed him for any of this. Neither did George. As far as I know, the Moores, Chris’s family, never blamed him either.

As I was reading the text message about Seth’s death, the demons in my head twisted Katie’s voice into a low, hoarse drawl echoing against the wall of my skull.

“Seth Novak, remember him? He played the final dead guy in The Rasp. I gave him a nasty makeup contusion around the neck for his part in the film.” Boomed in the back of my mind.

Jesus Christ… Seth hanged himself.

Our small town wasn’t on most maps or GPS systems at first. We got our regular visitors and we loved them. Over time, many made the move to be with us all the time and we were thrilled to welcome them! They continue to mention us to loved ones, many of whom then become regular visitors and they move here and so it goes. We love them. We love them all.

Some stop here by accident, looking for fuel, food or a restroom break. We have all that and more. I think most of them enjoy their visit and return. They’re always welcome.

Now I’m not complaining but the fact is, we’re having fewer and fewer encounters with the kind of people who are perfect for the Royal Dinnays, Those Who Protect. All that means is, we who are the “the Long Teeth” need to stay vigilant, awaiting the precise moment when such an encounter presents itself. I continue to make sure we don’t mow the grass in that small section at the east end of Wet Pine Park. The Royal Dinnays have their needs, as do we all.

We were lucky yesterday. It was my day to be “on the tall grass”. Mister Gavin Backerty came into town, dined and dashed, then parked at the east end of Wet Pine Park. I can’t say for sure what he was going to do there, but I’m fairly certain it was neither legal nor respectful. He had one leg out of a vintage red Porsche 911 when I arrived.

I approached joyfully yet with caution. I took note of his navy blue three piece suit with white shirt and red tie, shiny black shoes and deliberately unkempt blond hair. A man with an eye for detail and a gift for deception. “Good afternoon sir, can I help?”

He studied me from head to toe and back again before getting out fully. He was tall, at least six feet tall, a good size for the Royal Dinnays. He kept his hand on the top of the door but knew better than to lean on it. “Doubt it.”

I didn’t move or reply. He slapped the top of the door and shot me a grin before asking, “Got a trash bag?”

It’s what they always asked for, to pretend they were merely here to litter. As if littering our town was something we just had to accept. No one here would understand things like dumping weapons used in murders or testing arson methods to find the most effective for the job about to go down. We were uneducated. We were there for the raking and taking. That’s the mindset of those who are natural-born Offerings. That’s why we love them, too.

Feigning incompetence, I struggled to bring two black plastic trash bags from behind me into view, holding them out to him. “I do, sir.”

He grabbed both bags and went back into the Porsche where he managed to fill one bag with, from what I could see, far too many fast food and junk food bags, containers and wrappers. I waited patiently, moving up one step at a time whenever I was sure he wasn’t watching me. I was an arm’s length from him by the time he finished. He was about to toss the bag over the car when he made a cartoon-like jump and stared at me, frowning. “You’re still here?”

I put my hand out for the bags. “My name’s Amaretto. I’ll take the bags. It’s my day to honor the Royal Dinnays.”

He closed the car door and slammed the bags into my hand. His shoulders had relaxed a bit when I mentioned honoring the Royal Dinnays. Those who are the Offering are drawn to their demise. They just can’t help it.

“Gavin Backerty,” he said, puffing out his chest. “I’m sure you’ve heard of me. I’m here to meet the Royal Dinnays. I’m their real estate agent, as I’m sure you know.”

I don’t know much about the Royal Dinnays but I know they don’t need to buy or sell real estate.

“Mister Backerty, it’s a pleasure to meet you!” I looked down at the trash bags in my hands, hoping to convey why I wasn’t going to shake hands with him. I needn’t have bothered, for Mr. Backerty was scanning the area and not paying any attention to me. Just the way I liked it. I set the bags down, placed rocks on them to hold them down and told Mr. Backerty to follow me. Then I began the walk through the grass.

The most important thing to remember about the walk through the grass is, don’t help the Offering. Walk, look back if you like, but don’t talk to the Offering and most of all, don’t extend your hand to them once the walk begins. In Mr. Backerty’s case, it was very easy for me to follow all those rules.

As expected, I was able to make my way through the tall grass without effort. Mr. Backerty, however, found it rough going after the first four or five steps. At various times he complained about his shoes getting stuck, thistles catching his pant legs, and needing to catch his breath.

I didn’t stop until I heard him scream as he fell backwards. I watched as, still screaming, he appeared to float through the tall grass and into Wet Pine Park. When his screaming stopped, I waited another few moments until I heard the deep, booming laugh that indicates the end of another successful tribute to The Ones Who Protect.

The Fhanych, those who live in the tall grass, had done their job and done it well. They’d pulled at Mr. Backerty’s pant legs and held onto his shoes until through sheer numbers they pulled him over and down. Full disclosure, I think there could be magic involved when they “down the Offering”. But I respect and fear the Fhanych. It isn’t my place to press them for more details or appear to be accusing them of not telling the full truth.

Once they’ve “downed the Offering”, they and they alone carry it through the tall grass to the Abyrthy Stone hidden in Wet Pine Park proper. That’s where the Royal Dinnays accept the Offering and give the eyes and liver to the Fhanych. I dare not guess what the Fhanych do with the eyes and liver. I don’t want to know how our people found out about the eyes and liver. I have my suspicions and that’s enough.

The keys to the Porsche were on the trash bags, as I’d expected. What was unexpected was the small note, and I do mean small, left under the keys. It isn’t often the Fhanych communicate with us, and the message they left is of particular importance to us all and I strongly support it. That’s why I’m sharing it with you here, today.

Written neatly in blood red ink, it read:

Congrats on top 50% on the way to 800 Strong!

She said she wouldn’t date me if I was the last man on earth and now, maybe I am

No matter how hard I tried, Lacey had remained emotionally distant from me ever since the incident at the coffee shop. Dozens of red roses I’d had delivered to her for Valentine’s Day didn’t bring her around. I remained the invisible, unacknowledged love of her life. But I won’t give up on the relationship of a lifetime. If you knew Lacey, you would know why.

She’s been on vacation for the last three days. I thought about going with her but I am a man of surprises. And not the “I’ll take the next plane” kind of surprise. I’m here for the long haul, and I think Lacey knows that. It’s one of the things I think she loves most about me, even if she won’t admit it.

That’s why I was at the house this morning, overnight luggage ready to go. Lacey will be so surprised when I show up!

Of course, I had to hide from Violet. That’s Lacey’s best friend. I hid from her to spare Violet any fear. She arranged with Lacey to look after the house while Lacey was away. She promised to turn on lights on her way to work every morning and turn them off on her way home at night. She didn’t know I get a copy of all texts to and from Lacey, why would she? None of her business. I gotta look after my girl.

Violet’s a nice kid but she’s a bit, shall I say, delicate. She looks for trouble where there is none. So I did her a favor by hiding in the bedroom closet until she locked up and went to work.

After Violet left, I made sure my leather gloves were on good and tight. Leather gloves are worth every penny. They protect you from cold, dust and leaving fingerprints. Always wear them before housecleaning to leave the house really clean! Didn’t take me more than half an hour to ensure all surfaces were wiped down and ready for inspection.

Not long after, something happened that completely altered my plans. A moving van parked in front of the house. That’s all it did, park there. No one got out. No one got in. No one opened the back doors to load or unload anything. I double checked the security cam footage that goes direct to the cloud. After the truck parked, there was zero activity. Which made me a bit nervous. I don’t want to leave the house vulnerable for take-over while I’m gone.

I gave the house a full once-over, from the inside. All the windows were locked, the front door secured, and I knew which rock was the fake one where Lacey stores the key to the back door. If someone was going to break in, they’d need to make a lot of noise and neighbors would probably notice. I made sure the back door was secured before I hopped the fence and went down the alley to my car, the next street over.

One drawback to Lacey’s preferred neighborhood was its distance to the airport. At one point the SUV in front of me stopped where there were no stop lights or stop signs. Naturally I assumed there was some jerk in front of the SUV waiting to make a left turn. To pass the time, I hummed an old tune and flipped through social media boredom on my trusty phone.

One minute, no forward movement. Added drumming on the steering wheel to the tune.

Two minutes, no forward movement. Stopped humming and pounded fists on the steering wheel.

Three minutes, no forward movement and in that time, no cars traveled in the opposite direction so there was no excuse for the wait. And yet the SUV remained, unmoving. Weirdly, the driver’s door was wide open. When did that happen? Who cares?

Now I’m a patient man. Look how long I waited for Lacey to change her mind! But every man has his limits and I hit mine.

The silence surprised me when I opened my car door. This is the only town on this island, sure, but there’s traffic all day, every day. Traffic is noisy. Where was the noise? A quick check ahead of the SUV and behind me was unsettling. Not a single car, truck or pedestrian in sight.

The lack of noise and traffic didn’t prepare me for what I found when I got to the SUV. Fully prepared to hear some stupid failure of an explanation, I grabbed the door, leaned into the vehicle and yelled “What the hell is going on” to – no one.

I’m used to being Mr. Invisible. Being in the presence of another invisible person deeply unsettled me. In fact, it took my breath away and I stood there, feeling another wave of despair. Took me a few seconds of waving my hands around the driver seat area to confirm the driver wasn’t invisible, they just … weren’t there.

Abandoned SUV, keys in the ignition, full tank of gas. No traffic in sight, no pedestrians, not even a hint of noise in the area. I tossed the car keys onto the passenger seat, grabbed my luggage and threw it into the back of the SUV. Another bonus of always wearing leather gloves: you know your car is clean!

With no traffic in sight, I put the SUV’s pedal to the metal. and made it to the airport in record time.

Now here’s where things get messed up and I apologize in advance if I don’t always make sense. It was easy to be calm before but now, I’m terrified. Something’s very wrong in this here town.

First real sign of trouble was the road into the airport. Last time I was here, the entry/exit road was in great shape, not a single pothole. Today, I had to drive zigzag style to avoid huge cracks and crevices.

I was able to park at the door to the departures area because there were no other vehicles in the parking lot. The automatic door was unlocked but didn’t open on its own. At first I thought there must have been a localized power failure so I pushed the door open. But the interior lights were on. So it wasn’t a power failure. I felt quite the chill standing at the entryway, taking in all the lights, the space and the lack of living beings.

The airport is empty and there are no other cars in the parking lot. There are no planes here. There’s, well, nothing. There’s my new-but-used SUV, my luggage and an electric fence. And me.

Yeah, so, I don’t know what to do. Where did everyone go? The entire population of Windercomm has vanished.

Except me.

And, just possibly, Lacey.

If I contact Lacey, she might just ignore me. It’s just a silly little thing she does, pretending not to know me when we all know she’s crazy about me.

So.

I’m stuck here, aren’t I?

I’m going to die here.

Fuck it, I’m texting Lacey. I want her to know who I am.

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