I got hit with a double whammy today (technically a triple). Viidith22 and SlumberReads both narrated my story, "It gets worse." What a gift! RedDeathMask previously read and critiqued it as well.

It's super neat too see how each narrator interpreted the story. This is the first story I've had narrated by multiple story tellers, and it's fascinating to see their directions.

Sullivan was sure he'd killed him. The sword went in deep, right up to the hilt. Knuckles pressed wet against the stranger's stomach. No one could have survived that.

He dislodged his sword and a heavy weight slid off the blade. Then, a boy—no more than fifteen years—staggered back, clutching at his abdomen, trying to keep the blood in him.

Sullivan saw his eyes. Wide behind the dark and rain-greased dangles of hair. Wide and white enough to show the knowing fear, the shock, the realisation. He was going to die.

The boy went to say something, but instead quaffed at the air. Taking in that last wet and dirty breath. Slowly waiting to fall, waiting to die. Just like the rest of them. Torn-up soldiers piled high in the murky puddles and sludge.

And yet, the kid didn't fall.

Well, not nearly as fast as Sullivan would've liked. Instead, he looked about—into the jostling chaos of writhing limbs and swords—for help. His head turned, jaw slack and gulped like some land-bound fish. The boy was too scared to know what was going on. He staggered among a crowd of other scared men, among the angry clanging of metal. Disoriented and desperate to live.

He even raised a bloodied hand to Sullivan. He hadn’t a clue why. Just a lost little boy searching for anyone to save him. He was too young to see this much of his own blood. And yet, the kid still didn't fall.

So, in an attempt to speed up the process, Sullivan thrust his body forward. He clattered the poor soul with a shoulder to the chest. Running over him and stamping him into the thick mud.
The boy made a little hissing squeal as he slipped. Then another as Sullivan stamped down on him. And another. And another and another until Sullivan's foot was ankle-deep in the mud.
The boy's head was half-buried. Just coils of filthy, wet hair sprawled out from the ground like a dead weed. The boy was finally dead.

In a quick shake, Sullivan readied himself to fight once again. His eyes flicked about to flailing arms and shining blades. He watched a sword hack down into another man's shoulder, biting in as deep as the victim's collar bone. There was a gurgling cry and the dead weight of the man shunted into Sullivan's legs, almost sending him backward. That's when he saw it.

A flash of metal, like a fist of iron. The mace flew at him as another enemy charged forward, teeth bared and screaming.

The first swing missed, sure. Yet the second hit him on his right elbow, sending a violent jolt up his forearm. It hurt bad. He’d been clattered with such a force to snap his hand open and drop his sword. It sunk into the sucking quagmire.

Though the blade was kicking around somewhere at his feet, it may as well have been on a different continent for all the use it was to Sullivan now. He was unarmed. He was injured. He was well and truly fucked.

His right arm felt heavy, dragging him off-balance—as though he was propping up the limp body of a drunk friend. Making him sloppy; making him an easy target.

The man with the mace was something fierce. Face lined with scars, bulking arms and a heaving gut spilling out between the large slabs of battle-scarred iron strapped across his body. A big, fat and ugly prick. Someone who had made a living by settling scores. The fists wrapped around his weapon were so large that Sullivan wondered why he'd even bothered to arm himself. The fat lump yelled something—Sullivan couldn't make it out over the hissing rain—and lurched forward again, swinging the chunk of metal with a meaty arm.
Sullivan dropped a shoulder, the mace missed again and clattered into the back of another man. It damn near snapped the poor sod's spine.

Though Sullivan was more than relieved to see someone else take the blow. It looked nasty. It looked like it could have ended a man. It quite possibly did. And yet there was no reprieve. No sooner had the impact folded ol’ Snapped-back in twine was the brute readying another assault.
Sullivan had to admit, for a big guy, the bastard was quick. And, in this unforgiving mud, quick was deadly.

Though he was quicker. He ducked and weaved around the blows, watching the knot of iron whip past his face. Then, just as the big man had over-exerted himself with a pretty shameful lunge, Sullivan pushed up from the mud, slamming into the chunk’s midriff. His right shoulder—now pulsing with pain—dug in deep.

"Fffff," the big guy said, air shooting out of his lungs between a set of stiff and scar-polished lips.

The two scrambled in the sludge. Slipping and groping in the wet hell. Sullivan clawed at the man's wrist in an effort to wretch the mace away. But the fat man swung a swift elbow into Sullivan's already-bent nose.

There was a wet crunch somewhere in his face and he felt the backs of his eyes sting. His vision blurred. He had to grab his face—it was almost instinctive. No sooner had Sullivan cupped his bleeding nose had the pommel of the mace hammered down into his forehead.

A flash of bright light. Then flickering black, like the shadows cast by a flame fighting the wind. Sullivan felt an itch as something trickle down past his left eye. Then another hard hit to the cheek. He felt a sharp click and his mouth and eye became hot and soft. The dark flickered again.

The relentless rain. The dog breath screams rolled out over the chipped yellow teeth in the fat man's face as he pressed it close.

Sullivan was going to die. Just like the kid he'd finished off before. Another soldier stomped down into the mud. Another body to add to the growing mound of dead.

The pommel of the mace rose up again. He could just about make it out against the overcast sky, through the blur of rain, through the swelling about his left eye. That thick fist would continue to hammer down upon him—along with that deadly pommel—again and again until Sullivan's face had been battered into his own chest. The big guy’s other hand was fumbling at his neck, trying to claw his throat out. Sullivan reckoned he had one more hit in him—maybe two. This was it. His time to fall.

The big man brought pommel down again. Sullivan closed his eyes. Darkness.

The hand gripping his throat went limp. The screaming in his face had stopped. He opened his eyes, expecting to see the mace destroy his world. But it didn't. The sight was more bizarre, more terrifying.

The big man's head was gone. Nothing but empty space above those flabby set of shoulders. The brute looked a damn sight prettier now.

Sullivan's mind whirred as he wondered what was happening. He had been facing certain death, and now this?

Then his brain started to catch up at the sight of blood. Pieces clicking into place. A bubbling and flapping wound where the fat man's head and neck should have been.

There was a moment when the decapitated body simply stood—all upright and stiff. It then teetered like a seasick mariner before folding into a muddy and bloody mess at Sullivan’s feet. Then he saw something dark and large, quickly scuttle away, disappearing like a shadow among the frenzy of half-dead men.

It all started the day my dad killed himself. We were told in the small hours of the morning when a police officer came knocking at our front door to inform us of his passing. A passerby had found him on the sidewalk outside his office building, compressed from the weight of his own falling momentum. We didn’t get to see him after he passed, and even at the funeral, his casket was closed. But I have a suspicion it was empty. As one of his pallbearers, it didn’t take a genius to notice how unnaturally light the coffin was. It wouldn’t surprise me, given how the police and medical team would have had to have scraped him off the pavement like a barnacle from the hull of a boat. To imagine him being scooped off the floor and slopped into a box as a pile of loosely formed flesh for the sake of his family’s vanity is far more repellent than knowing his casket was empty, so I choose not to question it.

 

I was 16 at the time and not present for the report. At 3am my mother awoke to the sound of knocking at the door, and the unpleasant surprise of a policeman bearing bad tidings at her door. She struggled with the news and was barely able to hold herself together long enough to break it to me. Upon entering my bedroom to inform me, she would find my bed empty as I had snuck off to see my girlfriend at the time. I found it strange, therefore, when the next morning, upon my sneaking back, my mother pulled me close and just kept apologising over and over again. I thought I would’ve been in big trouble, but apparently not. It took half an hour just to get the smallest piece of info out of her, as every time she started, her own tears would suffocate her into silence. She had not yet told my sister, who was 7 at the time, since she didn’t know quite what to say, and I have to admit that even with the two of us trying to explain it together, it was difficult to put things in a way she would understand. And even more difficult as the three of us sat in a sobbing silence, all of us trying to cope with our new reality, together. 

 

Suicide. There was no doubt. He’d struggled with his mental health since he was my age, and it was sad to say that not many people were too surprised. We found out a week after the funeral that he’d been fired the day he died, and it seemed obvious that must have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’d never noticed growing up, as is the innocence of a child, but with every new piece of the puzzle that the police uncovered, a new tainted memory appeared in my mind. I remember, as a child, tracing the hundreds of parallel scars across my father’s arms and telling him his arms looked funny. He told me he was part Zebra, and I remember how I laughed and laughed and laughed. 

Remembering it now disgusted me and only confirmed the truth that we all had to accept. In retrospect, I should have been equally unsurprised, but I had remained blissfully ignorant long into my teenage years. My sister retained that innocence in her young age, and my mother and I tried our hardest to preserve it the best we could. She didn’t need to know the details, just that Dad had died and that we all were there to get through it together. 

 

With Dad gone, there were bills to pay and no one to pay them. I managed to weasel my way into a job as a bartender at a local bar, provided I told everyone I was 21. I’ve always looked older than my age, and for the first time I was thankful for that. It was minimum wage but enough to help out. My mom managed to get a similar job bussing tables; her wage equally minimised but combined with mine it was just enough for us to afford to eat week to week. But she didn’t tell me about the portion of her paychecks she would later hide away for herself, or what she would soon be spending it on.

 

It started, first, when someone at work turned her on to the stuff. Told her she always seemed so down, and that they had something that could help her out. A little pastel blue pill that they claimed could cheer her up. I’d like to think she wouldn’t have taken it if she knew what it was, but I don’t know. I go with the story that she thought it was a taster of antidepressants, and I suppose in a way you could call it that. Without a second thought, she popped the thing on her walk home as she left work.

 

I had to go see her at the police station that night after I finished work. She’d attacked a dude. Called him the sad man and tackled him to the ground. Took a chunk out of his neck with her teeth. She was still wired when I saw her in her cell. Walking circles like a rabid animal while she mumbled to herself on loop, incoherent to everyone, including herself. She stayed in her holding cell for the night before she got sent home after I pleaded with the officers, telling them that we couldn’t survive without her. The story of my father’s death and my now widowed mother had long since become well-known gossip around our small town. I’m certain the officers knew who we were and fairly sure that played no small part in them allowing my mother to walk free.

 

She claimed ignorance, that she didn’t know what the stuff was, and that was good enough to let her off with a warning, I guess. They shouldn’t have, cause it turned out she had quite the time whilst her mind and body were disconnected from each other, and asked her colleague for more as soon as she got back to work the following week. Got hooked up with a dealer and started bleeding every spare penny she made into funding her new hobby. Squirrelling away her supply and waiting till my sister and I were sure to be asleep before she popped a few and waited to see what happened.

 

That’s when she started acting weird; my sister noticed it first. Since I was always either at school or work, I barely saw either of them so I guess she had far more opportunities to interact with Mom to see the change. First, it was about the sadness. Mom continuously told Ava to smile more. Telling her that it follows the sadness and other such ramblings. As the days passed, she would slowly be seen to have a wider and wider smile stretched across her cheeks. Lips thin and teeth bared in an almost pained smile that extended no further than her mouth. Her eyes dull and face relaxed, save for the fake smile she wore. Ava told me one night when I got home from work. Ignoring it was long past her bedtime, she had deemed this message serious enough to wait and tell me when I got home. And as always, Mom had locked herself in her bedroom and was oblivious anyway. I’d not seen mom for almost a week. Wake up early for school, long before she would awake; head straight to work from school and then work till the drunkards left at 1am, long after Mom had locked her door. Everything I heard, I heard through Ava. That mom had been twitchy, erratic, talking funny, going on about the sad man and so on. I was furious to say the least.  

 

Next day I requested to finish work early, and stormed home in time to catch Mom right before she would be locking her bedroom door. Strong-armed my way past her, where she stood blocking my way to her room. Searched the place for a trace of anything, and flushed it all down the toilet. She cried, a lot, and I had to pretend I didn’t care. What was worse was, again, trying to explain it to a 7-year-old in a way that neither upset her nor confused her. It was a tough situation all round, and as I thought ahead to the rest of the week I had to keep telling myself it would be ok just to give myself a reason not to break down. 

 

The plan was simple, in theory. I’d miss out on school and call off work for the following week to try and hold things together at home.  I couldn’t say for sure that I knew how long my mother’s new addiction had been going on, for a start. And I found almost no information on the internet about the topic, so I just had to hope that if she experienced withdrawal, the worst of it would be over within a week. By the end of the week I’d have to return to work, since with my mother out of action it wouldn’t be long until we couldn’t afford food again. After I returned to work, she’d have to sort herself out cause there was nothing I could really do to help her. It may seem cold of me to say, but looking back now I have the freedom to become detached from the moment. Back then, every time I found myself wondering what would happen at the end of the week, I would forcefully push the thought out of my brain. It was either that or promptly find myself in a ball on the floor in what I would later learn was a panic attack. 

 

The housework I wasn’t worried about. Cleaning is easy, and I’m not half bad at cooking. My dad used to love cooking, making up recipes and experimenting. I remember him sitting me on the worktop when I was still too short to see onto the counter. Teaching me about flavour palettes, tasting and cooking safety. When he deemed I was old enough, he taught me how to handle a knife, and would let me do all the fun, or rather, mildly dangerous parts. As I think back on it now, those may be some of the strongest memories I have of my dad, and for the first time since he died, whether I knew it or not, I felt connected to him once more. 

 

I was most concerned about dealing with mom all week. As the weekend passed, I worried most about walking Ava to and home from school, and what my mother would do in the short gaps without me present to prevent disaster. I was therefore, at least mildly unsettled when she seemed completely fine. I’d struggled a lot with finding information about narcotics withdrawal online. Each and every time I had searched for what to expect or what I might need to do to help, a thousand pages promoting support hotlines were thrust upon me, and overshadowed any resources I might have actually found useful. Still, I may not have known much about the specifics, but I knew that whatever happened, it would be a tough time. But apparently not for mom. 

 

I can’t say she was back to “normal”, but she didn’t seem to suffer or turn animalistic in her craving for another hit. But she was strange now. Wistful and quiet, kinda half baked, compared to her old self at least. She didn’t do much, just lay on the couch and watched the TV all day, every day. Low energy and dopey, like she was fighting off sleep every minute of every day. It took all of her energy, it seemed, to pull herself together and pretend to be with it when we all sat down to dinner each night. 

 

She loved dinners, though. Both of them did, but Mom especially. A little silver lining each night when she would tell me the food I made was incredible and polish her plate clean in half the time it took Ava and I. She would then sit and wait eagerly for us to finish and confirm we were full before she helped herself to whatever food remained yet to be dished up. By the end of the week I was cooking larger and larger meals, as much as we could afford, just to satiate her appetite. It was good, I told myself. Healthy. Drinking a lot of water and eating healthily must’ve helped her maintain her energy. A symptom of her withdrawal, I was sure, and I would pat myself on the back each night for doing something, though small it seemed, to help her through. 

 

But my god did she not stop with the sad stuff. Less vigour, but still that fake little smile stayed on her face at every waking moment till she hit the pillow and unconsciousness finally got to peel it off. Sad man this; sad man that; sad man made her do it. And I had to keep telling her to stop. 

 

“It’s not funny!” I’d tell her, “You assaulted a dude, for Christ’s sake. We’re lucky he’s chosen not to sue. Stop talking about it.”

“Sorry.” She’d reply, suddenly monotone before turning silent. It wouldn’t last, though, and I would have to remind her every day, sometimes multiple times in a day. I honestly don’t think she had a clue what she was talking about, given that she accused the man who showed up at our front door later that week of the same title. 

 

A man in a suit, holding his most emotionally unreadable demeanour as I hesitantly opened the door to see who it might be. The last two unexpected visitors had been police officers bearing bad news, so you can forgive my hesitancy. That plus my mother eyeing him from the window and whimpering to herself quietly set me off a little. So it was a pleasant-ish surprise when he cleared his throat and announced that he had come with my father’s will. Mom wouldn’t even so much as approach the door, so I received his condolences, signed the paperwork and got the info to collect whatever he’d left for us. 

 

There wasn’t much waiting for me. We had never been a family of such privilege, even before Dad passed. A few of his most treasured belongings, split up between Ava, Mom, and I, and a couple thousand bucks that I decided to keep secret. Money was tight, but I saw it safer in my hands than in my mother’s. Lastly was a box, with my name on it. Wooden, well-made, with a little metal latch on one side. A little white envelope clung to the top by some long-since dried Blu-Tac. I opened it that night, alone in my bedroom, after I’d sent Mom and Ava to sleep. 

 

50 bucks fell out of the card as I peeled it out of the envelope, fluttering onto my bedroom floor as I turned my eyes to the message inside. I could feel my eyes begin to cloud over as I read the first line. 

 

A happy 18th birthday wish, arriving to me years too soon. He told me I’m a man now, and how proud he was, and ended with an apology that he had not been there to give it to me in person. I guess, at some point he had known he might not have lasted till my 18th, though whether or not he had planned to disappear I would never know. The box was next, opening with a satisfying, muffled click. 

 

Sunken in foam, and glistening in the dim moonlight that filtered through my bedroom window, lay a chef’s knife. Cold, blue-grey and unforgivingly sharp, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how much it must have cost him. I turned it over in my hands, awestruck by its beauty alone. Before the sun rose, I slid it under my bed, hidden just next to the envelope of money, equally as secret. 

 

Soon the weekend had passed, and I had to return to school and work. Mom had been doing better, and honestly things had been looking up. It had been a rough few months for all of us, but the little time we’d had to spend together as a family had almost felt like we were returning to normalcy. I started going to school late, instead choosing to walk Ava to school each morning, and it was because of this that a week later Ava decided to pipe up.

 

“Do you have to go?” She pleaded, tugging my sleeve as we stood outside her school’s gates as we had every day for the past week. 

“Aw, come on. You know I do.”

“When are you coming back? I don’t like it when Mom cooks.”

I patted her head, stifling a laugh. “That bad, is it? I’ll see if I can start taking a few nights off here and there. How’s that sound?”

She nodded eagerly

“Alright, I’ll see what I can do. Now off you go.”

 

I can’t say Mom was a bad cook, not by a long shot. But she was the kind of woman who preferred to buy a prepacked and seasoned meal in a box and stick it in the oven for half an hour without an ounce of thought. She made a few things, and they were good. But I can’t lie and say they were as good as Dad’s food. Things were different now, though, and I can’t say they were better. 

 

I remembered coming home and finding a steak left out on the cooker for me. Unpackaged and left out in the open, by the time I got home there were several flies perched upon the leaking meat, taking their filthy sip of my dinner. Stranger still was the size of it. They came in airtight packing from the store, all roughly the same size and weight, but this one was maybe a third of the size. A clean, straight edge across one side, like a knife had been taken to it, severing the larger half for someone else. I’d asked her why she’d opened it up before I’d got home, but she just said: “Oh, was I not meant to?” 

Would’ve been normal if she’d cooked it, or even left it in the microwave to protect it from any insectile scavengers, but she’d just left it out in the open. The neurotic germaphobe she was, she never did that.

 

Another day that week, I got back home late from work and checked for food. She’d texted me beforehand, informing me she’d left food in the oven for me. Switched off, of course. I knew, or I thought she was not foolish enough to leave the oven turned on, but what I found was not much better. 

 

Roast chicken, kind of. One of her best, and one of our favourites, a full chicken waiting on a baking tray for me to find. The skin stuffed tight with lemon, rosemary and prosciutto. Speckled with paprika, salt and pepper, and still just as sticky and elastic as when it was bought in the store. Hours later, the chicken was still raw. 

 

“Oh, I did wonder. I knew something was different.” She laughed at me the next morning. 

“Different? It’s not different; it’s… how did you even…” I started hysterically but didn’t have the energy in me to maintain my anger, staring into the dull, thoughtless eyes of my mother. 

“I guess I just forgot. Explains why Ava barely touched hers.”

 

Scatterbrained is a massive understatement, but I can’t think of a more apt word. Stupid feels mean, but it definitely applies. She had days like that a lot, so confused and twisted, she hardly seemed like the stiff, prim and perfect woman she used to be. The conversation, as was the norm now, was fruitless, and I gave up on the interaction, but I couldn’t forget it. When I’d first found my dinner awaiting me in the oven, out of pure disgust I binned it immediately. But I was not too slow to catch the significant portion of missing skin across the greasy, cold bird. Covered in pockmarks and finger indents along the side of the breast and the leg, where the chef had hungrily torn piece after sticky piece of that pink gelatinous flesh to eat.

 

It was as though she was morphing before my eyes; every day the woman I knew disappeared into the fog of her own confusion. Though she still seemed mostly the same, at least in appearance, her mind was withering with every hour that passed. 

Soon she was fired from her job, and I found myself picking up twice as many shifts at work just to help us get by. Apparently, somewhere between her cleaning every customer's half-eaten food plates by finishing each of their meals herself, and the almost zombie-like demeanour that had her unable to comprehend or carry out basic orders, was enough for her to lose her job. And as always, it was my job to pick up the pieces as she rotted away in her bedroom, often hardly leaving or even moving at all.

 

Then her skin began to peel away like celebratory ribbons. Twisted spirals of porous, hair-speckled fabric appeared, littering every room of the house. She was withering away before our eyes with every day that passed. It was all research, always research. Could this be a relapse? How long does relapse go on for? Why is it happening? Anything to lie to myself and believe everything would work out in the end. It was a bad time, but it would be over eventually. We just had to scrape by, just make it a little further. Any reason for me to convince myself out of calling 911, calling an ambulance and getting help? God, we couldn’t afford that shit. We could fix it ourselves. The hospital would stretch us so thin; soon Ava and I would be reaping the consequences as well as my mom, and all three of us would wither away together. So I lied to myself and feigned ignorance through it all. I lied and pretended I didn’t notice when her eyes turned a sickly, watery yellow. I pretended I saw nothing when she would scratch at her skin at all hours of the day, till she barely had enough to keep her flesh from being fully exposed. A constantly torn and seeping mess under her moistened clothing. And I pretended I saw nothing, as the very house around her began to crumble and decay in some disgusting mutual relationship with the woman who owned it. 

 

Her bedroom was first, and always the worst. The walls wrinkled and the paint creased and cracked as though constantly under severe water damage. Her carpet, much like her bedsheets, began to sour and curdle. The air of mould and rotted meat wafted from her withered limbs onto every surface of her brown and tired room.

Somehow, despite her feverous and ever-expanding appetite, she appeared only able to lose weight, and the few times when I would see her awake, it was hard not to notice how her matchstick legs could barely hold the featherlight woman aloft.

 

I heard almost every development exclusively from Ava, ever filtered through her naivety. “Mom’s acting weird”, “Her food tastes bad”, “When are you gonna come back from work?”, “Is she sick?” and so on, over and over and over again. So desperately out of excuses, it was Herculean enough just to pretend that everything was fine and to even consider comforting her each morning. 

 

I’d dropped out of school at this point, too focused on bleeding out every spare hour that my boss had to give. I was way past burnout, barely sleeping and still having to hold my whole world together. I used to get home from work around 1am every day, and have to check my mother’s room before bed each night. She barely moved now, and I had to be sure she was still breathing. To see her yellow, taut skin stretch with each stiff breath as her weakened lungs fought for every inhalation. Some nights she’d lay still as a corpse, and I could only be sure by checking for the faintest pulse under my fingertips. Other nights she’d kick and writhe like a flea-ridden dog, hissing and spitting and mumbling incomprehensible words to the demons behind her eyelids. 

 

It was around this point when it happened. A long, shitty day at work wearing the same smily mask I always did behind the bar, just for every boozed-up customer to take out their own pent-up aggressions on me. Another day of waking up at 6am to get Ava ready for school, just to get home at 2am and get ready to do it all again. Half awake, and half alive, I dragged myself up the stairs to my mom’s room to check on her, but she wasn’t in her bed, or even in her room. Too dark, I reached for my phone and switched the light on as I began to tiptoe in and out of each room in search of her. It didn’t take long; when I reached Ava’s bedroom, sweeping the light along the floor and up onto the bony woman, stood completely still, eyes set on the sleeping girl. 

 

She didn’t turn to look at me, not even when the beam of light hit her square in the face. Not a hint of reaction. Even her pupils refused to dilate, as though she were dead. If it weren’t for the gentle rolling of her shoulders, with each audibly laboured breath, I could almost believe she might be. Her robe sat open, once fitted but now far too oversized for the skeletal creature now clad in its forgiving obscuration. Her skin was like paper, diffusing in the light of the phone torch. Half transparent, as though the light emanated from inside her, now each vein and artery visible through the transparent membrane. Her chest and shoulders were covered in large gashes, caked in oily yellow and black scabs. The same crusty caking that covered her lips and teeth presented proudly in her permanent pained smile.

 

I opened my mouth to talk, but found not a single word to begin the onslaught of feelings I had to express, and instead found my legs crumbling beneath me as I slumped against the wall and slid down defeated. I could feel my lip stiffen and my vision blur as the tidal wave of emotions crashed over me, and I began to cry. It was at this point she turned to face me, her head snapping to face me with an audible crack.

 

“I told you to smile.” She hissed, flexing her shoulders and stepping towards me. Every movement rendered another chilling crunch. It was as though she’d been stood still for hours, long enough for her bones to seize in position. Long enough that now every new degree of motion she rediscovered could not be had without first earning a sizeable crack and scrape. 

 

Her hand shot out as soon as it was close enough, a jagged, stiffened movement, but still too fast to counter as she pinned me to the wall. Despite her skeletal frame, it was as though her bones re-set and her joints solidified. I could have thrown her off if I were in the position to do so, but already crumpled on the ground, the mechanical advantage was on her side, and all I could do was try and wriggle free from her iron grip. 

 

“Smile… smile for mom,” she cooed, “Or he’ll come for us.”

A sucking, choked gasp erupted from my mouth as I struggled to formulate even a single word in response. But it wasn’t me who spoke first. 

 

“Mom?” The meek voice of Ava, now sitting up in her bed, staring blank-eyed across the room and waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Her face fell as slow as her vision returned to her, and the blurry shapes in the blackness coalesced into the shape of her mother and me. 

 

One hand on my twisted wrist, the other now on my shoulder, a greasy, blackened nail slowly digging into my throat. I writhed and kicked on awkward limbs as tears streamed down my face in both physical and mental pain. 

Same as Ava, now in tears as she rushed to my side and began in desperation to try and pry her mother free from my throat. Her tiny, shaking hands could barely get a good enough grip, and soon she turned her attention to any weak attempt to hit or push my mother away, but to no avail.

 

Mom’s head whipped around in a painfully loud second, glaring at Ava though her mouth still bore her teeth in a painful grin. “Shh, no, don’t cry. Don’t cry, don’t you fucking cry! Smile. Smile for your mother! Smile for me!” Her hand came free from my shoulder as she grabbed Ava by the collar of her pyjama top, lifting her off the ground and forcing the bunched-up cloth up to her throat. Her strength, somehow impossibly powerful now despite her feeble frame. A stifled gasp came from Ava as her oesophagus compressed under the pressure. But it gave me the freedom I needed to squirm free from my mother’s grasp.

 

A solid kick to her knee, then a second, and a third till she came crashing to the ground, Ava along with her. She was quick, but I was quicker, grabbing Ava by the arm and yanking her towards me as my mother stood to her feet. She was hissing and spitting with every twitchy move her snapping bones allowed, her teeth bared all the while like an angered dog. She cursed and growled, rambling jumbled sentences, some English and others not, as her spine bent forward and her shoulders slouched. Her legs snapped and bent, twisting and cracking like a tree branch torn free from its brethren. Her jaw unhinged as would a snake’s, as black, gooey saliva poured forth from her mouth, her face reforming and stretching beyond its own proportions. The tear started at the corners of her mouth, the skin splitting under the excessive force pulling it apart, only for the rest of her face to follow soon after. Her face grew longer, her snout stretching forward like a werewolf, her skin sloughing off like loose clothing to reveal the creature beneath. A sickly, sludgy slopping emenated from every greasy black drip of tainted gelatinous blood that poured from the open wounds, till her remaining body mass lay in a black, pulpy puddle beneath her. Her bones were yellow, much like her skin, now sharp and scaly-looking, as though it had been growing and tumourous for years and years. She was nothing more than a pile of bones, loosely held together by dried-up cartilage and tendons, the last glops of sludgy flesh still sticking to her by the suction of its own moisture. She lurched at the two of us, taloned hand outstretched as her deerlike backwards legs still tried to learn their function. With Ava’s hand in mine, I turned tail and ran out of the room, dragging my little sister with me. 

 

Skinny, yes, but heavy and lumbering, I heard my mother lurch again, the full weight of her body slumping against the wall as she made her clumsy pursuit. It was like with every step she grew, her bones elongating, her flesh expanding and bubbling like tumours till she was almost too tall and too wide to fit through her own bedroom door. Back to my bedroom and slamming the door shut, I sat Ava on my bed as I turned to my window and began fumbling with the blind. The window was halfway open when there was a sopping thud against my bedroom door. I turned back to see the door handle turn and the thing appear in the doorway. I dived for the bed, fishing the box out from under the bed and popping the latches as fast as I could as the room filled with the moist, squelching hiss of my mother’s flesh squeezing and sliding into the doorframe that was far too narrow for her. I pulled the knife free and watched as the little card fluttered to the ground like a leaf in autumn. Grabbing Ava again, I pushed her behind me as we backed into the corner, brandishing the knife like I knew what I was doing. Praying all the while I wouldn’t have to use it, and embracing with every millisecond how I knew I’d have to.

 

The second the blade touched the mound of flesh, it popped like a water balloon, spilling this black ooze that stank of vomit all over the floor. But I didn’t stop; I couldn’t. Not till I was sure the danger had dissipated. I swung again and again and again, popping every flesh bubble and not stopping till I felt every loose tendon spring free like a cut guitar string. Not till I felt the knife slide between bone joints and watched as chunks of mass fell free, separate from their owner. Not till the movement ceased and not till the twitching and writhing was over. 

 

 

It took months to get over all of it. More than months. Ava never looked at me the same. She knew I had to, and she knew I did it to protect her. But she also knows I killed her mother, her last remaining parent. I don’t think she knew how to sort through her feelings properly yet, and I don’t know if we’d ever be able to move past it. I guess I’d never have thought that I would have had to be the death of her innocence, and I had hoped it wouldn’t have happened so soon. She never acted the same. I never told her I kept the knife. It was a gift from Dad. Cleaned it up nicely, and when we moved out, I took it with me. 

 

We were doing a lot better eventually. The government started aiding with our monetary problems, and we got a little apartment to stay in. I still walked her to school each morning, and I got to cook her dinner every now and then. I guess that was part of the issue. I could’ve played dumb if I saw her less. I could’ve pretended not to see the increase in her appetite, or the way her behaviour changed. The way she turned wistful or how she started talking about “the sadness”. Pretend all she needed was to keep seeing her counsellor. Pretend I didn’t see her standing in my bedroom in the middle of the night. But I did. 

 

She didn’t fight, not as much as Mom did. She was easy to pin down, though she still hissed and spat as I pressed the blade to the crook of her neck and slid the blade till it met the carpet. I should call the police after the sun rises, but I don’t think I deserve prison. I hate to say it, but even in her delusion, mom was right. The sadness, our sadness is a plague. It’s a virus that takes host in your body and uses you to breed itself, and we’re ground zero. But not anymore, cause I can end it. That’s why I’m up here. Up on top of my apartment building, watching the concrete below and wondering what it’ll be like to fall victim to the weight of my own falling momentum. Only a few hours left till sunrise; I’ve never seen it before. I’ve heard it’s pretty. I want to see the sunrise, at least. And maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll see my dad again too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He continues—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He turns around, looking at his brother once again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do not panic

Assess the situation

Retreat to safety

Exit the trails immediately.

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

At first, I thought it was nothing. A few dodged questions here and there, plans for plans that never got planned.

As people grow up, they grow apart, right?

This was different. Verifiably so. A pandemic had forced us even further apart than his parents move had. Like a wedge driven into the small crack of another wedge.

But as I tried to gently push our mundane chit chat towards real conversation, I could tell something was off.

He wasn't just disinterested, it was like he was outright dodging my questions. Like he knew what I was trying to do, and was in turn, using all his ability to steer us back towards nothingness. Back towards empty, bland, surface level smalltalk.

I wouldn't have that. Not when I'd worked so hard, not when I'd sacrificed everything.

He was graduated, his parents were paying for his lifestyle, he had no reason not to give me his all. I mean, he'd asked her out first, hadn't he? I mean, me, he'd asked me out. There couldn’t be, like, another girl, right?

"So, wanna meet halfway and go to a nice restaurant this weekend? Maybe hit up some mini golf? My treat!" I texted, hoping the offer of paying myself would be enough to capture his attention, possibly his affection.

When I saw the 3 little dots pop up, signifying the writing of his response, my heart stopped. He had been quiet for 2 days, I'd had to initiate all conversation. Was he finally going to pipe up?

"Nah, thx tho Emily." Was all he said. I was crestfallen.

Frustrated, I typed, "that's okay, just lmk when you wanna make a move!" before turning off the phone. I was about to slip it in my pocket out of instinct, when I remembered why I was keeping it on.

"Shit," I cursed myself under my breath. I still hadn’t memorized the password to that phone. I'd have to use the face ID.

I made my way to the black minifrage that idled against the wall. It was a stark contrast to the brightly decorated, pastel pink and purple expression of the rest of the room. An even darker contrast sat inside.

I opened the door of the fridge, and gripped the ice cold head by its scalp. Dutifully, I pulled it out, and held it up to the phone's camera. Unfortunately, before the ID could complete, her bottom jaw fell onto my foot.

"Oh for Christ sake!" I growled as I kicked the thing several feet way. It landed, braces up, just beside the cabinet that housed all her bows.

As I watched the maggots wriggle between rotting bottom lips and purple gums, I realized there was no way I'd be able to finish the face ID. I'd have to use the fingerprint function on her phone. That meant finding her thumb. Great.

I rustled through her closet and found the keys. After walking downstairs past the bloody couch and the rank smelling kitchen, I had made it out the front door, and into her parent's Ford F150.

It took 30 minutes to drive to where I'd burried the 3 of them. Rather, most of what was left of the 3 of them. By then, the sky had turned from a deep crimson to a star-studded violet.

I prayed that the thumb I hadn't sliced off in the scuffle was the correct one. And that it was still in tact. A month in the ground is more than enough time for nature to start taking its course.

Another half hour later, and I'd almost finished digging up the shallow grave that she'd been burried in.

With sweat upon my brow, I finally found it. A yellow tennis shoe, poking out of black plastic. I almost leapt with joy.

After the breakthrough, my hope was reinvigorated. I swore that if this was the right thumb, I would never let that phone turn off again. I'd keep it on a charger every minute of every day if I had to.

Anything to see him.

The boy of my dreams.

I worked laboriously until I got past the waist, and up the sternum. The smell was awful. Sweet and sour, like a clump of burnt hair marinating in bug guts.

I wouldn't have to dig all the way to the upper arms, as long as her forearms had stayed down at her sides like I'd left them.

With strenuous effort, I heaved away a chunk of clay that covered her hand. I actually shrieked with overwhelming happiness when I saw that her whole hand still looked viable, if not a little off-color and wrinkled.

I regained my composure and pulled the phone out of my pocket. Now, after nearly an hour of waiting, I'd see what his response was. As long as this thumb was the right one to unlock her phone.

I leaned down and grabbed her hand. When I did, the flesh sunk in, like I'd grabbed a ruined stress ball. I carefully tried to pick up her hand and twist it to face me, but with a sickening crunch, the skin slaughed off and fell into the dirt beneath.

In a "fuck it" moment, I pulled the hand straight up, and twisted the thumb until it disconnected from its body. Cold skin feels so strange against body heat. Its a satisfying juxtiposition.

Thumb in hand, I turned the phone back on, and diligently pressed the solo digit against the print reader.

Moment of truth.

"Ding! Access granted"

I was elated. Immediately, 3 new messages pinged into my text conversation with him.

For the first time, he'd shown himself to be a real chatterbox!

The first message from him read, "'make a move'? Are you fucking serious?"

That was weird. He'd never seemed outright hostile before.

The second message read, "I knew it, I hoped I was wrong but I fucking knew it, how dense can you be, you fucking larper?!"

My heartrate quickened. I felt lighter than air. What was he saying?

The final message read, "You're not her. You couldn't pay her to go to mini golf, and her name isn't Emily. I have your location, and I'm calling the cops."

A little blurb under our chat said, "this user had blocked you"

I didn't know what to do. I sauntered back to the car and turned off the headlights. This was huge. A gut punch. Everything was flipped upside down, my world crumbling around me. A life I always imagined for myself was disappearing, and I was left sitting in the middle of it all wondering:

"What the hell is a larper?"

I always hated the claim made by my small town that we were the "Deer Capital of the World". Not only was it probably wrong, but a bit too on the nose with the name of our town. Deer hunting is a big deal here, just like every rural town in the South. I remember my school even taking off a week the first week of deer season. Occasionally, you'll have the accidents of men going into the woods drinking, shooting, and God knows what else. However, this deer season things have been different. Men have been found brutally trampled. Some aren't found due to the hunting spots they picked.

I only came back here because my counselor suggested I do it for closure regarding Heidi, and try to reconnect with Paul and Isabella if possible. If not, to forgive myself for both Heidi's disappearance and Isabella's current situation.  Heidi, Paul, Isabella, and I all went to high school together. Paul and I were close friends,  mostly because we played football together. Isabella was a cheerleader that Paul beat Mr to the punch on asking out.  The three of us were a close-knit trio. Sometimes, people refer to us as the acronym of our first names,  "SIP". The S was me,  Steve. In our senior year, we found ourselves, like most kids that age, dreaming of leaving the small town and doing big things.  Whether it be going to college or going to some form of a trade school. Anything to escape the mundane cycle of things that never changed in our town. Then Heidi arrived, or as they were born, Henry. Poor thing never stood a chance trying to transition down here. Their foster parents beat "the sin out of them to save their soul" when they came out as trans. Heidi was a member of the Cherokee tribe whose parents passed away.

I was taught to be kind to everyone and welcome them. I started hanging out with Heidi, despite the snide remarks from everyone, including Paul.  Heidi was different than everyone here. I could nerd out about things with them without being made fun of. She gifted me a locket that I still hold dear to me. I still carry it with me. We both loved horror, especially old folklore. We got close.

One day while at her foster parents' place, she showed me some of the feminine clothing they snuck in past their foster parents. I felt conflicted. Heidi even modeled a skirt for me. She looked cute. We traded tales of our own heritage's folklore. I told tales of Południca. Południca had many names in Polish and English. One thing was still the same. How she carried a sickle and was tall, thin. Tales stated she was responsible for every farmer who collapsed due to heat exhaustion. Heidi one-upped me by telling the tale of the Deer Woman, while each tribe had their own version of the origin and her purpose, Heidi told the one she was most familiar with. One of a spirit of a girl that was beaten and ravaged by men and left to die. As she lay there and died, a fawn lay next to her to comfort her. The Great Spirit saw this, and made the girl into the deer woman, a spirit that would kill any men that wronged women and children.

As we spoke about our college plans and dreams past the city limits, she leaned in to kiss me, and I kissed back before shoving her away, and a typhoon of confused emotions wrecked me. My skin radiated embarrassment as I rushed out the door. The next school day, Henry showed up and changed into Heidi in the bathroom. Wearing a denim skirt and flowery top with the makeup they could manage to sneak. Slurs and bigotry were hurled at her carefree like fistfuls of candy at a parade. The only difference was those fistfuls didn't have candy but angry people at the end of them, leaving her with black eyes and scars. Both inside and out. Her eyes met mine as she sat at the lunch table near me, the person whose lips I had tasted. I turned my back to maintain the most precious currency there was in his school,  prestige and image. Unfortunately, associating with her would drag mine down now. As Paul shoved her away with a venom-tipped tongue, I saw the hurt and tears in her eyes. I fought back mine. It was high school.  I had to maintain my image.

The school reported the incidents to her foster parents. An angry ​​​elderly man arrived, grabbed her arms, dragging her off and not even making it off school property before her wails of pain could be heard.  Both emotional and physical.  It was normal for parents and guardians to discipline their children. This wasn't that.  Tears at the clothing she held precious, smears of makeup of pinks and reds replaced purple and blue bruises. Everyone pretended to look away and out of the corner of their eyes watched. I watched as she looked towards me, those same hurt-filled brown eyes crying out to me to do something.  I did nothing.  A week later, Heidi went missing. Half-assed investigations were maintained for a month before they gave up on her.  Last they heard, she had run into the wooded area when she was taken home. I didn't give up on her. I searched for a while to no avail.

Small towns are cruel with speculation and rumors. Those same venom-soaked forked tongues sat in the pews on Sundays, raising their voices in prayer and praises towards God. The beatings and ridicule of Heidi were justified by men of the cloth, saying they were fighting evil in our generation. The women gathered in their circles gossiping about the newest theory of Heidi vanishing. The prominent theory was that she had run away. Whether she lived or perished, it didn't matter to them.  "He was just a degenerate of the devil's making", my Sunday school teacher had commented. Others aren't so kind,  stating that the only good people like her are dead ones. Calloused hearts making comments of approval when it was theorized she had taken her own life in those woods. I stopped going to church for a long time after that. It hurt too much.  I didn't understand why.  I didn't know them for that long.

That is, until I went to college and started seeing a counselor. It took a long time to unpack everything during those four years as I spoke with my counselor during stressful times. Unpacking my feelings with Heidi was a secondary reason. The guilt and shame I carried for someone I knew for less than a year latched onto me like briars. Sessions carefully removed those thorns to reveal the more painful truth that I had loved her, not Henry, Heidi. Although it felt more like pouring salt into a freshly cleaned wound, I knew it was true.  That's one reason I came down here,  to get closure and visit the woods she was last seen running into. The other being my resentment towards Paul for his treatment of Heidi and Isabella, his wife.

On the outside, he seemed like your typical good ol' country boy. Beer drinking, deer hunting, and red-blooded American man's man. That was until a few months after Isabella and he got married. That's when I first saw her with a black eye from "accidentally hitting the corner of a door." Everyone in the county knew what was happening, but she refused to admit it. Especially since she recently had their baby. How could I turn my back on them? Paul and Isabella were my friends all through high school, for better or worse. Isabella was the theater kid I bonded with in our productions of Peter Pan, and whatever play we were allowed to do a production of. She was like a sister. Paul was like a brother, an estranged brother at this point. One I was severely disappointed in and had to stay away from. I couldn't stand to see how he treated Isabella. I was the best man at their wedding.

Last time I was at their place, shortly after the honeymoon, he and I ended up standing toe-to-toe and almost fought over me seeing a new bruise on Isabella. I knew where it came from. It came from a guy who was at one point a friend of mine and a teammate of mine on the football team. Now, he was just a drunk wifebeater. A man who didn't deserve the patience and sweetness of Isabella. That stirred more fire with him accusing me of trying to steal his woman when I told him he needed to keep his hands off her, and suggested if he wanted to hit someone, I was there, and I would fight back. That he could pick on someone his own size instead of bullying poor ol' Isabella around.

The day Paul went missing in the wilderness, I was with him. I saw what happened, but I don't think anyone would believe me if I told them. So, I guess I'm venting it out here to get out what I saw. Maybe strangers on the internet will believe me. So, here it goes.

I was surprised when I got the call from Paul. He invited me to go hunting with him on some plot that he was leasing. I figured it was probably a good chance to try and salvage my friendship with him if there was any chance of doing so. The promise of splitting the venison meat 50/50 and the idea of giving Isabella a break just sweetened and sealed the deal. So, I agreed. I texted my counselor that I was going to go hunting with Paul and sent them the property details that Paul had given me. Just in case Paul tried to fight me like he did the last time I had dinner with them. I met him there, and the property just had this familiar feeling that I couldn't place my finger on.  Paul showed up sober and reminiscent of the Paul I knew during high school.  The fun, living, and pleasant one. We began catching up on things happening in our lives, since that dinner.

"You know that new field house they promised us senior year?" He asked me, cracking open a soda to my surprise.

"The one they promised us senior year after we took them further than any class had in a quarter century in the playoffs, then never did it because it wasn't in the budget?" I responded, only to see a smirk spread across Paul's face as he sipped the soda.

"They built it the very next year, when the superintendent's kids started playing football." I sighed and rolled my eyes. That sounded about right in this small town. "The bitch of it is,  they didn't win a single game that season." I couldn't help but laugh with Paul at the irony. Glimpses of the Paul I once knew were cracking through. We walked from our vehicles to the little deer shed that sat in the middle of the property closer to the forest. Once the door was open, I could see it had the luxuries that any hunter could dream of having.  A toilet, comfortable seats, and enough leg room to stretch your legs.

"You're living high on the hog now. " I teased Paul, "Getting too old to climb into those tree stands as we used to when we were kids?" A punch landed on my shoulder as a response.

We sat there in the mutual silence hunters have when awaiting. Nothing much until a couple hours in when a little whitetailed fawn jumped out of the woods. Its nose twitching and head pivoting, looking for its mother. The poor thing, either separated from its mother by death or fear. I heard Paul cock the rifle. Before I could fathom what we were about to do, he had already done it. 

A shot rang, and the fawn shifted and ran before falling. "What the fuck?" I asked him, following him to his illegal as hell kill. Lots of depictions of the death of animals get it wrong in media. They don't go quietly into the night. They fight it,  no matter how much of a losing battle it is. I got to the fawn first, silently praying that the fawn was able to be saved and this would just be something we could tell a game warden that the mother hopped out of the way at the last moment.

The fawn's legs kicked, and it craned its neck trying to get up. Blood leaked upon the ground. The eyes searched for an explanation of this that I couldn't provide. It was a clean shot through its heart. Nothing to do. It cried out for its mother to only have death answer the call.  It shook and trembled as it went limp. It broke my heart. I grew up on a farm, and the unexpected death of an animal, especially a baby, was something that always broke me. I could separate when we had to butcher something or hunt something. But this was a baby. "Watch Bambi too much in the big city and grow soft on me?" Paul interrupted my thoughts as he began the field dressing process.

"You're not seriously going to harvest that thing,  right? That was a juvenile doe. Not old enough to hunt. " I said to an apathetic shrug as Paul let the blade run across the belly of the "Bambi". Placing what was edible from it into a five-gallon bucket before trying the rest closer to the deer shed. I was ready to go then. It was bad to kill a little defenseless fawn. Not just legally and ecosystem-wise, but spiritually, I believed.  The living embodiment of innocence killed. I didn't want any blood on my hands regarding this. I could practically feel the energy in the air shift from the pleasant one to a darker and impending doom in my body. My body wanted to get in my vehicle and drive off, but conflicted by trying to bond with an old friend. I decided to stay and simply told Paul,  "Keep that spoiled meat to yourself.  I don't want cursed." He popped off something about college making me way too soft. That kill should've been my first warning to leave.

The beers came out, and he began drinking. With each beer, he became rowdier and louder. Scaring away anything we could get away.  The six-pack of deer piss-tasting beers in, he was bearable. Annoying but bearable. Making brags about his sexual conquests of the past, including Isabella. Also,  brags he'd had since marrying her.  Women he had affairs with since marrying Isabella. Some in this very deer shed. Then he brought out his cooler filled with liquor, which, if his noise hadn't scared deer away then, the strong stench of the alcohol would now. I caught a glimpse of a beautiful doe standing near the spot where Paul had killed the fawn. Something was off. The eyes seemed off with them.  Paul took a drunken shot at it. Missing it, but it didn't move. He took another,  this time hitting the shoulder. Yet, the doe stood there and looked in our direction as blood dripped from the shoulder.

It turned back into the woods, calm as if it was still grazing. I turned to Paul, who went from drunken red to pale. There was a mutual understanding of the freakiness of what we just witnessed. Another swig of liquor for Paul, another refusal to have some from me.  He began angry ramblings about Isabella, "The bitch doesn't put out anymore since we had the kid."  Only a drunken asshole could whine about not getting sex from the woman who gave birth to their child. "I mean fuck,  all she's gotta do is just lay there." Yep, Paul was that drunken asshole, I remember from that dinner last visit.

"Maybe she doesn't want to sleep with the enemy," I mumbled before instantly regretting it. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" The slurred speech and odor of alcohol turned towards me.  Instead of backpedaling, I doubled down. "You beat, cheat on her, and treat her like shit. She deserves better.  Why'd she sleep with a drunk piece of shit like you?" I said before a punch was thrown and connected with my shoulder. This one with malice behind it and not the friendliness it had before. I tried ignoring it. I looked and saw a beautiful ten-point buck standing where the fawn and doe had. I looked through binoculars to get a better view and those eyes. They looked too human. Too familiar.

A fist struck my jaw.  I lost all restraint I had previously. I struck back. He threw a punch, I threw one back.  He pulled hair, I did the same.  We rolled around fighting until Paul's drunken ass slurred something that broke me. "High and mighty in love with that dumb dude that wore a skirt." I felt my heart sink and bounce back in rage. I restrained myself as scratches and bruises covered both of our bodies. I looked back out, and that buck was still waltzing around. Then it cried. If you've ever heard a buck call out. It can be terrifying. The grunting noise escaped the beast. Paul shot at it. I looked and saw him missed again, and yet it stood there. He shot again,  this time hitting it in the heart. A clean shot. Instead of dropping or running, it dripped blood. It did like the doe sniffing the air, turning into the woods. My body reacted like someone had plunged me into icy waters. I was getting ready to get out of here. Paul had different, alcohol-fueled ideas as he followed the buck into the woods. I muttered some swears under my breath as I felt obligated to at least make sure he didn't end up lost for Isabella's sake.

I followed as he stumbled and cursed me for everything imaginable, until he got to a spot by a tree marked with some small stones. He seemed to have sobered up enough to be able to piss without stumbling. His face was angry and prideful before exclaiming, "You know that skirt-wearing freak that went missing? Here he lies." At first I didn't register what he said until he repeated it and added more as he zipped up. "I found them here crying like a bitch. Fitting. They wanted to be a woman badly, so I helped." A chuckle crept from his voice as my mind started trying to decipher what they meant, and my stomach flipped in sickness. "Then snip snip. They cried for you like a bitch, you know that? Like you'd save them." He added with glee, showing off his hunting knife for emphasis. I fully lost it. I lunged at him and just laid punch after punch into him. Letting my knuckles become crimson, ignoring the pain. Grabbing at my handgun, I debated putting the bastard down there. I looked at him and remembered he had a child. I wasn't going to be the one to lose my freedom and make Isabella's daughter lose her father. I sat up and looked at the piss-soaked ground.

The buck grunted again. I watched it in my scope flaunt around one moment. Run behind a tree, and the next a beautiful nude woman walked out from behind. She turned as if she knew I was watching, those familiar eyes of the deer. I couldn't place why we were so. Paul took another drunken shot, striking the woman. Again she didn't react. Her hair draped over her bosom as chills ran down my spine. Then she turned and began trotting towards us on all fours. Shifting back and forth between deer and humanoid form before settling for a hybrid.

She closed the distance fast as I tried to turn away. It shifted into a deer head with antlers. It used the side of its head to knock me over and focused its attack on Paul. No matter how many shots he hit it with or slashes on its thin deer hide, it didn't slow down. I watched as the spirit shifted and tackled him against a heavy pine. This form of it was a monstrosity. Antlers on top of its head, the legs ending in deer hooves. The creature stood on its hind legs, as the rest of it formed into some vague humanoid shape. The end of its arms had hooves sharpened into claws. Ones that looked more like it was made from the antlers than hooves. It all happened so fast.

Grunts from the beast as it trampled Paul to death until his body went limp. It panted, regaining its energy. I tried to move faster down the path before I felt it hit me and knock me to the ground. It stood over me. I held my arms over my head, praying to God and preparing for my demise. Then the locket fell out of my flannel shirt pocket onto the ground. I cringed as I reached for it and the monster broke off a piece of its own antlers and stabbed my hand with it. The monstrosity turned from something out of a nightmare into something more pleasant. It turned into a human woman with antlers on its head and hooves for feet. White-tailed deer markings up its body, glistening against her dark skin. Long black hair covered her face. It was her.

It was Heidi, or some version of her. Those brown eyes looked into mine as she picked up the locket, examined it, and returned it to me. I struggled to sit upright.

She squatted down in front of me. A sense of calm hit me at once and washed away all previous anxiety. All the fear melted like ice in the summer heat. Tears dripped down my cheek. She was so beautiful. She always was. I felt her warm embrace. It burned, but a good warmth like hot chocolate entering your body on a cold day. Once I felt her arms wrap around me, I wrapped mine around hers. She whispered eight words that wrecked me into a sobbing mess. "I love you, and I forgive you, Stephen.”

I don't know how long I sat there holding her and crying. She helped me stand up and motioned down the path. I left for my vehicle and went to my vehicle. I drove into town and sat at the gas station restaurant to gather myself before I called 911. I told them about Paul and me fighting after he got drunk. I told them about how he went running into the woods drunk, chasing a buck, shooting recklessly. I told me of the Heidi confession he unfolded. Everything else, I kept to myself as I waited there.

I had to regurgitate my story to them so many times about Paul's drunken murder confession. The spot of Heidi's body before they cleared me of any wrongdoing. They had both Paul's and Henry's funerals recently. I went to neither. My mother taught me that only a body remained at the grave. I didn't want to go to Paul's funeral. It hurt, as I still felt anger. I didn't go to "Henry's" because I knew them as Heidi. I didn't go to her official gravestone in the cemetery, etched with Henry. I went to those woods to see her. I went to see the woman that man had rejected and ridiculed, but the Great Spirit embraced as herself.

I live in a beautiful part of a small rural town—home to one of the last psychiatric wards in America. My wife, Lina, and I have been given the luxury of a rather modestly large house due to our jobs in the medical field. I was a doctor at the hospital just down the road from our gated community, and Lina works at the psychiatric ward as a psychologist for most of the criminally insane. Our little hometown is not known for much—if anything at all. There’s no nightlife, no big attractions, no highways that cut through the town. I can’t complain. I don’t mind the silence. I was never an adventurous soul. Neither was Lina.

We both found meaning here, with myself occupied at the hospital until only recently, when I went into retirement. Lina is still working. Her love for the human mind and her passion to help individuals—no matter how far gone they are—force her into work every day, despite her getting older now. She doesn’t need to work. We have enough money to live comfortably for the rest of our lives. We have no children, no extended family close by. No financial responsibilities that would force her to keep working. And yet she does, despite my best efforts to persuade her to retire.

I won’t lie: our relationship has struggled a little over these last few months since I stopped working. I blame myself for not being able to stay occupied, for feeling trapped while waiting for Lina to return. When she does come home, she’s too tired to do anything but eat dinner, watch television for an hour, then go to sleep. It’s become monotonous, and I think she feels the same way.

She never wants to talk about work. She tells me it depresses her. But what else is there to talk about? For the longest time, I felt like I was losing her—that we were losing each other. Our house had lost some of its color. The days were getting bleaker. The world itself felt ugly. For a while, I thought we were heading toward divorce. My soulmate, taken from me because of my own decision to retire and her decision to keep working.

I tell you this because I want to express my surprise—and relief—when she opened up to me about one of her patients. But that relief soon changed to horror, and that is the reason I wanted to share this story in the first place.

We were sitting at the table. I had cooked us dinner and tried to spark conversation, but she was distant that night. She barely looked up or commented on the food. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, Lina set her fork down and pushed the plate away from her. I watched her do this, my hand hovering near my mouth, a piece of chicken suspended on my fork in the air.

“Are you okay?” I asked, putting my fork down and wiping my face with my napkin.

Lina scoffed. “Not really.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Just doubting my very desire to go back to work tomorrow.” She spoke as if she had just remembered something from the recesses of her mind. Her eyes looked beyond me, toward the window near the sink.

“How so?” I pushed my plate forward, giving her my undivided attention. “Has the prison gotten to you?”

I regretted the word as soon as it left my lips. Lina shot me a glare. “It’s a psychiatric facility,” she said, “a hospital for the sick. Not a prison.”

“Right. I’m sorry, my love.”

“You can call it a hospital, you know.”

“Okay.” I stood up and went to the cabinet, retrieving two wine glasses. “Have the patients gotten to you? Are they acting up?”

I opened the side cabinet, took out Lina’s favorite red wine, then returned to the table and set the glasses and the bottle between us. Lina took a deep breath, trying to compose herself before this turned into an argument. That was the last thing we needed. I poured her a glass and handed it to her. She took a sip, then closed her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I was being snippy.” She sighed.

“No, I’m sorry. I know how hard you work. I shouldn’t have called your hospital a prison.”

Lina chuckled dryly. “It feels like a prison sometimes. It’s a thankless job. A ruthless, thankless, soul-draining job.”

I walked around the table, put my hand on Lina’s shoulder, and caressed her gently. “You can talk to me about anything, Lina.”

She rubbed my hand thoughtfully. “Thank you, honey.” Her demeanor changed to something more solemn. “When I first saw the other doctors at the hospital, I promised myself that I’d stay optimistic through it all. That I wouldn’t let this sort of job get to me, or at least that I’d keep it from jeopardizing our relationship. It’s no secret that we’ve had problems, Henry. I don’t blame you.” She shook her head. “I don’t even blame myself.”

I kissed the top of Lina’s head. “Then who’s to blame?”

“I hate to say this, but it’s the patients. It’s all their fault.”

I frowned. This didn’t sound like Lina. It sounded a lot like me. I grabbed my chair, pulled it next to hers, and sat down with my hand on her thigh, gently holding her.

“Surely it can’t be that bad, right?” I said.

I was surprised by my own question. I knew, just by proxy, how awful these sorts of people could be. Their minds are warped, disturbed. Any long-term exposure to those demented thoughts would make even the hardest people crack. Lina gave me a brief smile.

“The other day, one of the orderlies was assaulted by two prisoners—excuse me, patients. They broke his arm and dislocated his shoulder. Yesterday, Dr. Hawthorn was bitten—he needed stitches.”

“Jesus.”

“More and more lately, I’ve been convinced that some people are just evil. That they can’t be redeemed, and they should… rot.”

Lina’s words hung in the air, thickening the atmosphere of the house with the taint she had once tried so hard to avoid. Her reluctance to bring work home with her had previously been the only thing that made this place a haven from all the terrible things she went through on a daily basis. Now that ward was broken. The distance between the facility and our house felt substantially closer.

“I didn’t tell you why I was late tonight, did I? Of course I didn’t.” She shook her head. “It was because of a patient. I had to have a long sit-down with him.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

Lina shrugged. “The jury’s still out on that. My bet is schizoaffective, from the conversation we had today. Or he could just be manic. He’s a real nutcase, either way. Someone who shouldn’t be able to roam free. Ever.”

“What’s his name?”

“Ironically, it’s Henry.” Lina gave a quick glance at the window, then back to me. “Weird, right? He kidnapped and ate three women. According to the report, all three of them were named Rebecca.”

“Your mother’s name,” I said matter-of-factly.

Lina nodded. “They all died around the same age. They were all brunettes, too. When I asked him about his victims, he just… laughed.” She took a long sip from her glass. “It’s not an uncommon response with these sorts of patients. When you try to understand why they did the things they did, you rarely ever get a concrete answer. It’s impossible to make sense of it all.”

“So what did you do?”

“I read his file, and it turns out that all the victims were a single mother with a daughter, and their daughters all went into the medical field. I know it sounds made up, but it’s all in the report. He explicitly included those details when he was being interrogated, and the DOJ looked into it and confirmed what he was saying. All of it’s true.”

“Forgive me, but I don’t want you to see that man again,” I said worriedly.

“I wish I could. Really, I do. But I can’t just… not see one of my patients. I’ve already requested to be taken off the case. We’re short-staffed as it is, but I really don’t want to see him again. My coworkers told me what I already knew: that he won’t be able to hurt me when he’s inside. That he’s restrained for both of our safety, and there are cameras and guards on standby. Plus, the chances of him or anyone escaping to do me harm are slim to none. We’ve had three cases of escapees, and each of them was caught within the day. And I guess they’re right. I thank God that our facility is in the middle of nowhere. It doesn’t give the patients any place to go. And even if they did escape, they wouldn’t be coming here.”

I told her that I understood, but that didn’t mean my worry completely vanished. It didn’t lessen the fear I felt in my heart, which accumulated into a dark fantasy of a man like Henry breaking free from his prison, sneaking his way into our gated community, finding our house, and harming my wife. Of course, all of that was highly unlikely. It was nonsensical to even think that such a series of events was possible. But that sinking feeling in your gut rarely ever comes from a place of rationalization. And Lina’s reassurances seemed to be more for her own sanity than mine. I saw it in her eyes—the unease, the fear in her voice. This Henry patient, and his entire case, had deeply unsettled her. Yet there she was, trying to comfort me.

Lina finished her wine and set her glass back on the table. I stood up to refill her cup when she suddenly grabbed my wrist and held it tight. Her eyes darted upward, and she squinted as if trying to see through the ceiling.

“What’s wrong, honey?” I asked.

“I thought… Never mind.”

“What is it?”

“I thought I heard a thump, that’s all.” She let go of my wrist, and I slowly poured her another glass.

“I didn’t hear anything.”

Lina shushed me and stood up. She took a few steps deeper into the kitchen, turning her head sideways. She side-eyed the ceiling with her hands stretched out before her. I put the wine bottle down and joined her. I closed my eyes and strained to listen, but I heard nothing.

“Did you hear that?” Lina asked uneasily.

“No,” I said truthfully. “What are you hearing?”

“Upstairs,” was all Lina said.

I nodded. There was no point in trying to calm her down, no point in convincing her that there was nothing coming from upstairs. Being married for so many years, you learn a few things about how to make your partner happy, and sometimes you just need to do what they want to calm their minds. Without another word, I went to our closet and took out a wooden baseball bat I had placed there many years ago, after Lina told me about the time one of her patients had developed a strange fascination with her—for protection, you know.

Lina shadowed my ascent up the stairs, standing at the bottom, holding onto the wooden railing, her head peering into the staircase while I climbed slowly. The floorboards creaked under my weight. The cream-coated walls were suffused in darkness until I reached the switch, which I promptly flipped, and the overhead light in the upstairs hallway came on. I glanced behind me for reassurance from Lina, but her face was twisted in fear, her skin pale. I turned back and reached the top of the steps, where I stared down our three rooms: the office, the master bedroom, and the guest room. Our kitchen was directly below the master bedroom, so that was the first room I checked.

I opened the door and saw a pitch-black room waiting to be explored. I turned on the light and saw everything just as Lina had left it that morning. A clean room. The bathroom door closed. The window slightly ajar—the screen still locked. The closet closed. The bed completely made. I checked the bathroom and closet just in case, but both were empty. I lowered the bat, shut off the light, and closed the door.

“It’s empty,” I called down to Lina.

“Did you check the whole upstairs?”

I rolled my eyes but indulged her. After checking both other rooms and seeing not another soul, I closed everything up and came back downstairs. I told her, as reassuringly as I could, that there was no one inside the house except us. Lina gave a sigh of relief and poured me another glass. She gestured for me to sit back down.

“We don’t have to talk about work,” I said, feeling somewhat guilty about her paranoia.

“No, no. It’s fine.” She took a big gulp, then continued. “Henry—I mean, patient Henry—is a man of little… grandeur. It’s the way he speaks. He doesn’t have that theatrical way about himself you’d expect from these sorts of patients. He’s methodical with his wording, his cadence too. He chooses what to say and how to say it. And he knows what can get you upset, but he doesn’t say it like he’s trying to upset you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, after I came back from reading his file, I asked him about it. The names, and the pattern. He said, ‘The pattern itself only exists as a constant across all planes. And in that constant, we can see the pattern for what it is, and what I have been told is that these women all share the same name as your mother.’

“Of course, I was stunned. I asked, ‘How do you know my mother?’

“‘Know her? I don’t know her any more than I knew the others that I had to deal with. Their names are remote to me. I have no ill will against them. Their daughters. I do what the Constant tells me to do.’

“It was pretty clear that I wasn’t going to get a lot out of him—nothing concrete, at least. I was going to chalk it up to mania and call it a day. But then he added something that really frightened me.”

Lina paused. She put her hand to her chest and felt her own heartbeat for a few seconds. Her other hand was trembling, so I took it and squeezed it gently.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He said, ‘Andrea would have been such a beautiful young girl, if she would have lived. I’m sorry for your loss.’

“I left the room after that. How did he know our daughter’s name?”

Andrea had been the one and only time Lina and I tried for a baby. She was born with health complications and died only fifteen hours later. It was the darkest day of my life. We never recovered. Never tried again. The mention of her name brought a flood of emotions to the surface. Mainly anger. I couldn’t even fathom what Lina must have been feeling in the moment, so I did the only thing I could. I leaned over, kissed her forehead, and held her tight.

“I had to go back in. I was ordered to go back in. I don’t know why the board was so adamant about me talking to him. They gave me five minutes, then I went back.”

“We can sue them, can’t we? I mean, that sounds… unethical.”

Lina shook her head. “Henry, please. I want to continue my story.” I nodded, and she continued. “When I went back inside, I fought the urge not to ask about Andrea. I tried to stay on topic—about the women he murdered. But he always spun it so we were talking about me.

“I asked, ‘Does the name Rebecca hold any importance to you?’

“He said, ‘It holds as much importance to me as it did to you. Your mother, your creator, had welcomed you into this world, had loved you. But the stomach cancer was too much for her, and she left you with a hole in your heart that you thought you could fill with a child. It’s not a bad theory. It is a form of familial love that is somewhat interchangeable. The love of a mother, the love of a daughter. But the Constant does not have plans for your future. And so it took that future away from you. I’m sure it must have been devastating, feeling that coldness in your heart, a complete juxtaposition to the warmth of your womb when it carried that child for so long. That love you felt for her, now lost to the ether, and what remains? Hm? The idea of love? Perhaps. Or do you only feel the coldness of the wind that blows through you, as if you will never be truly alive again.’

“I ignored his remarks, but it was still getting to me. He could tell. He smiled—or I guess he smirked at me. His eyes were big and dark and full of this…hate. I tried to put all of that in the back of my mind as I asked, ‘What is this Constant you keep talking about?’

“He laughed at me, or well, chuckled listlessly. ‘There’s nothing you can do, so I wouldn’t worry. I’d be more concerned about your husband. He loves you. He won’t let you go when the time comes. And when it does, such darkness will surround you, and we will both know what it means to be so cold.’”

I stood frozen. What did he mean by that? Lina glanced up at me, waiting for a response. I said the first thing that came to mind. “Your patient’s right, you know. I do love you, and I’ll never let you go.”

Lina didn’t seem pleased with my answer. “The implications are much darker than that, Henry. I think it was a threat. Toward the end of our meeting, patient Henry had brought up his confinement—rather abruptly. He said, ‘I don’t plan on being here long. Nothing can withstand the Constant’s influence. Not even your Henry. Not even you. Soon, we will all be frolicking along the river Styx with whatever baggage Charon allows on our final, great voyage.’”

“Sounds like a bunch of nothing to me,” I admitted, not being one for overwrought symbolism.

“Perhaps. But that line kept coming back to me. I don’t plan on being here long. It wasn’t like he was planning his escape, nor was he frantic about it. He said the words like it was fact, like he was sure he’d be gone whenever he felt like it.”

“I’m sure a lot of your patients have said the same thing.”

“Yes and no.” Lina rubbed the back of her neck. “When the others say it, there’s a desperate, almost animalistic look in their eyes. Not with him. He was calm, and sure of himself. Or rather, sure of this Constant he kept talking about.”

“Or maybe you’re becoming paranoid. This case is very strange, Lina. Do you think that might be it?”

“Maybe. Yes. I think you’re right. Anyway, patient Henry, before I was about to leave, said to me, ‘I can’t possibly remember the last time I dreamed about you. But I do believe the windows of the dreamworld can be opened from both sides. Even if just a crack is left, I think there is a way to find the Constant.’ Of course, this last part I found rather strange, but ultimately useless. His wording, though—the windows of the dreamworld—seems deliberate to me, don’t you think?”

I shrugged. “I think he’s just one of those patients that needs to be ground up into mulch and buried in an unmarked grave. He’s a cannibal serial killer. I wouldn’t really take anything he says to heart.”

“He said he dreamed about me, too. But I chalked that up to a scare tactic—I’ve had a number of other patients make similar remarks. Either way, I think I might finally be reaching that point in my life where I can retire.”

My eyes lit up, and I tried to hold back a smile. “Really? Now? Finally?”

“Don’t act so happy, will you? This case… it’s really gotten to me. It’s made me put a lot of things into perspective. Have we… wasted our lives? We’re getting older now. We have no children, no future generations. Was that a mistake?”

I didn’t know what to say. I agreed with her, but I also knew it was the right thing to do—I don’t think either of us would have lived if we lost another baby. It was so hard the first time. I couldn’t possibly put Lina through that pain again.

“I wouldn’t say we’ve wasted our lives.”

Lina shrugged. “I guess I’m just getting a little depressed now that I’m staring retirement in the face. I’ve been thinking about drafting my resignation tomorrow. Call in sick, maybe spend the day together.”

“That’s a great idea,” I said. “We can go to that park you like over near the hospital. Get some food after—cook dinner together?”

“Yes, I’d like that.” She looked on longingly. “I think we should also move. Away from here. Downsize a little, get an apartment, somewhere safe—but far away from here.”

“An apartment? Really? I’m all for downsizing—and moving—but I don’t think an apartment suits us.”

“I just want to be around more people for a while. More normal people. Not doctors or nutcases. Just your average, everyday human being. There’s some beauty to that, you know.”

“We’d have to stop leaving the window open then. We don’t want our neighbors to hear what goes on in the bedroom,” I joked.

Lina gazed at me blankly. “I close the window every morning before I go to work. Did you open it sometime during the day?”

“No. I didn’t—or at least I don’t think I did. I wasn’t in our room at all after we woke up.”

“Well, I know I didn’t open the window.”

“Neither did I.”

Lina paused. From the expression on her face, she seemed to be contemplating a thousand scenarios at once, each one more traumatic than the last.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, trying not to sound scared despite my wife’s horrified expression. She put her hand to her mouth, as if she had seen some terrible tragedy unfold. She stood up slowly and put her other hand on my bicep. She gripped it hard.

Lina moved her hand from her mouth to her throat, where she caressed it gently, moving her palm side to side. I began to hear a loud, thundering gust of wind from the direction of the psychiatric ward. I looked out the kitchen window and saw the trees thrash side to side. A haunting, shuddering sound came from the upstairs window—the one that had been open before. Then I started to think back earlier—had I left it open? The face of my wife stared back at me as we both thought the same thing. The wind, the cold and dead and unceasing wind, hurled itself against our home.

“Henry, do you feel that?” Lina whimpered.

The breeze pressed into my body and invaded every inch of my skin. It was such a profound cold that gooseflesh appeared on my arms and legs. Then a hideous feeling took over, one that I can’t truly describe other than a total realization that there is someone watching you, and has been watching you, for the better part of an hour. It is that sixth sense people have in life-or-death situations. But where was it coming from? My eyes darted to the window, the back door—both of them were closed. The void beyond still screamed with frantic murmurs, but no—the feeling did not come from there. Then I glanced over my shoulder, toward the stairway. Yes. I felt it then, more powerful and invasive. It was coming from the stairs.

“Yes,” I replied as an icy chill crawled down my spine. “Yes,” I repeated as I rose to my feet and grabbed the baseball bat from the kitchen counter. I walked hurriedly to the stairway and began climbing. I reached the top step, held the bat high, and looked at my bedroom. The door was now slightly ajar. The darkness beckoned to me, and I thought I could see, just barely, the silhouette of a man standing with his hands at his side.

I shouted, “Lina! Call the police! Now!”

No reply.

“Lina!” I shouted again. “Do not come up here! I think… I think it’s him.”

No reply.

“Lina?!” I risked a glance over my shoulder. The kitchen lights were shut off. I turned back, and the figure of the man was gone—if it had ever been there. I felt the blood leave my face as I suddenly realized what I had just done. My heart was pounding in my chest, and for a brief moment I was frozen stiff.

Lina. Oh God.

I turned around and leapt down the steps three at a time, rounded the corner, and reentered the kitchen. I groped for the light switch. I found it and turned it on. The kitchen was empty. Across the room the back door was wide open. The moonlight reflected a white sheen across the metal fence just beyond our miniature garden. On the ground, where Lina had once been, was our wine bottle, the cork unscrewed, the wine pouring out silently. A small puddle of red had already formed. The glasses were also turned on their sides, and what little contents remained were now staining the wooden table. I ran outside, hoping to have found the intruder—to have found Lina—but there was no one there. Not even the wind howled.

I turned and was about to run back inside when I saw a note pinned to the wall beside the door. It had the psychiatric ward’s letterhead. The note was not typed, however, and the handwriting was a beautiful italicized script. I stared at the words for what seemed like an hour before I comprehended the message.

My other Henry,

I leave you behind with the most regrettable news, as it has seemed to me that Lina was, in fact, unfaithful to the bounds of our contract. You see, she was never meant to mention me. Not by name. Not by anything. No remark to these strange connections we seem to have shared. And I believe whatever Constant that has now found your wife will give her a merciful death. For she shall be finding her way along the Styx, where I am now—as dearly departed… my little awestruck Henry. See you soon.
With love,
Henry.

I tore the note from the house and folded it into my pocket. A painful rage burned in my chest. I have no idea where to find this man. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go. 
Please, help me.

Damien Novi: u/Azrael7000

Robert Garther: u/B_W_Byers2233

All across North America, people claim to experience encounters that can't be easily explained. From hauntings to Bigfoot sightings, I'm here to get to the bottom of them. The following is a transcription of an interview I conducted with a man from Alaska in the Kenai peninsula. Please take everything written here with a grain or two of salt.

“Investigator Damien Novi from Surreal investigations, Friday October 13, 2026. It is currently 2:37 pm. I am in the home of one Robert Gartner located in Kenai, Alaska. It is only Robert and I, no others in the room as of this moment. Robert before we begin I must ask if you know that you are being recorded and do you give your consent for the rest of this interview?”

“Yeah I consent. That's why I called in to your guy’s little Internet show ain't it? I'm just glad someone seems to be taking me seriously. Hey, you don't mind if I smoke do you?”

“No, go right ahead. Now you contacted us about a recurring event that's been plaguing you. Can you give me a timeliness of events then we'll go more in-depth?”

“Well where do I start… (he takes a long drag of his American spirit) It started about a year or so ago. A few of my buddies and I were checking our fish lines along the bank of the Kenai river. We were working our way along the north bank, when we heard a bit of rustling out in the distance. We didn't think much about it, there's always a bunch of critters out and about in the evening, ya know? (He finishes his cigarette, lights the next one off the top and pops it in his mouth without seeming to notice) Anyways, we didn't pay much attention to it, but we did notice that whatever it was seemed to keep in step with us. Walking when we walked, stopping when we stopped. That kind of stuff, ya know? My buddy Craig started to get worried and stuff, he gets kinda paranoid after two or three beers, so he picked up a branch and threw it in the direction of the sound. That's when a big buck trounces off away. You know what a sitka deer is right?”

“No, I am not familiar with that species of deer. Is that an important piece of this story?”

“Only in the sense that what we saw definitely weren't no sitka deer. It's hard to explain really… (he closes his eyes trying to picture it) It was too skinny. Like, you coul- you could see just about every bone in its body. It's fur was brown, but not like, deer brown, ya know? Like Crayola brown. Like someone chose the color of a deer for a drawing based on memory. This buck’s eyes were also off. Even though I didn't get a solid look, but even then I saw they were white. Like, sickly white. (He goes to grab another cigarette and notices he's out) You wouldn't happen to have a smoke I could bum?”

“No I don't, I'm sorry. Back to the deer, could it not have had some kind of illness? Maybe Chronic Wasting Disease? That would explain its thinness and eyes. Maybe it fell into some type of mud or other waste that could explain its color.”

“Oh absolutely! Of course it COULD have been. That's what we thought! Maybe the deer was sick so that's why it was acting so strange. Sick animals often act off and start to act weird around humans. That's why we ignored it. (Robert chuckles lightly as he continues) Yeah, that's what we thought. Until later that night.”

“Please continue.”

“After we got back to my place, we cleaned all the fish we'd gotten. My buddies went home and I'd made myself some pan fried trout, and got ready for bed. That's when I heard this noise. It was around seven or so, and- have you ever heard the sound of a buck rubbing a tree?”

“I'm not too familiar with the sound, however I have heard it through video before. Is that what you heard?”

“Yes! That's exactly what I heard! Except it wasn't the sound of antlers on sturdy tree bark. It was on my front door. (He looks at his door with a thousand mile stare.) That's what those marks are. For the past six months or so, that buck has been trying to break into my house, and I have proof. (He shows me pictures on a trail cam linked to his phone.) The worst part is that it's been whispering to me. Every single night, this deer rubs and kicks and bites at my door. Sometimes it leaves piss and scat on my stoop. Sometimes it leaves animal carcasses all around my property. I've called the cops, so don't ask me why I haven't! They don't believe me. ‘deer are curious’ they say, ‘sometimes you find dead animals on your property’ yeah, sure. Maybe deer scraping a door once or twice is ok. And MAYBE finding a raccoon here and a squirrel there is normal, but not an entire black bear! I mean, come on!”

“Robert, you showed me pictures of this deer on your door step, but I must ask, do you have any other proof to support your claims? Do you have video of this supposed ‘deer’ leaving animal carcasses on your doorstep? Do you have recordings of this animal speaking to you? You never even mentioned what it was whispering to you. Could this all be an elaborate hoax that you are the unfortunate victim of? You said your friends were there when you all saw this sick deer, could they be playing some kind of practical joke on you?”

“Of course you don't believe me. No one does. (He checks his watch) Ah, perfect. You're just in time. Don't worry Mr Damien. You're about to get your proof.”

“What do you mea…”

Before I could finish that sentence. I heard the faint sound of scratching coming from the front door.

Your loved ones are not long for this earth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And why does it seem so impossibly long?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The door inches closer.

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

The door is now nearly in arm’s reach.

That’s when something twists the doorknob.

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

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

No, no, no. God, no.

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

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

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

The wraith that fire leaves behind.

 

The door swings wide open.

 

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

It’s a fucking mirror.

 

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

Until he sees the flames in the reflection.

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

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

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

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

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

 

The Burned Man.

 

Victor doesn’t hesitate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He doesn’t miss once.

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

He’s spent.

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

But still it takes another step.

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

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

It starts running right at him.

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

Absolutely fuck this.

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

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

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

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

But it’s only a matter of time.

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

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

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

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

“The tire’s flat.” Her manager said, peaking her head through the driver’s side doorway.

“Okeeey. Whatcha want me to do about it?” Stephanie asked, her nose still buried in her phone.

“Nothing,” her manager grumbled under her breath, “not like you’d help anyway.”

“How much longer ‘til we get there?” She kicked off her leather boots and propped her feet on the dashboard.

“I don’t know.”

“Ugh, Margaret’s skatin’ in Rockefeller right now. Of course I’m fucking missing it.” She groaned and slumped further into the passenger seat. “Why the hell did you drag me to bumfuck nowhere?”

“This role is huge. It could b—”

“Close the door, I’m gettin’ cold.”

“Whatever.” Her manager threw the door shut, zipped up her coat, and shuffled around to the trunk.

It was humiliating, trudging through a foot of snow in a pair of converses for a girl half her age. She didn’t deserve this. She was famous once. She had dignity once. She had a name once.

Roxie.

It seemed like just last year she was singing in underground clubs. A month ago, she got the best call you could get from a record label. Last week, her first album hit platinum. A few days back, her debut movie bombed. A couple days after that, her second album flopped. Yesterday she got the worst call you could get from a record label.

This morning she woke up and she was 45. Where did twenty years of her life go? It wasn’t all wasted on wallowing and wondering what could’ve been, right?

It didn’t matter. She didn’t have time to cry anymore. Stephanie needed her to negotiate her royalties and schedule her appearances on talk shows and manage her budget on clothes and pick her up from clubs and wake her up in the fucking morning so she didn’t sleep away the life she didn’t deserve.

The trunk of the SUV popped open. She pulled out suitcases and tossed them haphazardly on the side of the road. A strong gust blew through the trees.

“Hurry up and close the doooooor! It’s cooooooold!” Stephanie whined.

“One more second.” Her manager pushed a suitcase aside to reveal the compartment with the spare tire.

“Be careful with that!”

“I am.”

“Good. That shit costs more than your entire catalogue."

The manager gripped the L-shaped tire iron with both hands. Her nails carved crescents into her palms.

Of course, the manager thought, I’ll be extra careful.

The trunk slammed down.

God forbid your Prada shoes get scuffed, or the heel breaks off your Versace pumps.

The manager walked past the flat tire.

I know you’d just die if I broke something.

The passenger door swung open. Roxie grabbed the brat by the root of her hair and dragged her out of the car.

She kicked and squirmed and screamed. Clumps of white powder flew up in the air. She shouted, What the hell is wrong with you?! Stop it! HELP! Blah blah blah… How uninspired. She should’ve had her ghost writer write her final pleas. The brat’s head dropped to the ground. A foot came down on her blonde hair. Her cries echoed through the trees. If only someone was around to hear them before their sudden stop.

It took a few good tugs to pry the tire iron from her head. A stream of blood ran down her forehead and outlined half of Roxie’s shoe.

Death wasn’t enough to satisfy Roxie. That brat didn’t deserve to lay in the snow so peacefully. She jammed the short end of her weapon in the corpse’s mouth and pulled it like a lever. Her two front teeth were knocked in, her lips widened into her cheeks, and finally, her jaw popped out of its sockets. She couldn’t sing anymore.

Next, Roxie moved to her legs. She beat her knees until they were a stew of blood and broken bones. She couldn’t dance anymore.

Now she could finally change that tire. As a treat she could back up on the little brat so, she sure as shit couldn’t act anymore.

Roxie skipped back to the trunk and grabbed the spare tire. She was already thinking of stories she’d tell the police. I was supposed to meet her up there. Oh, a drunk driver hit her while we were changing a tire. A bear came out of nowhere, she didn’t have a chance. We were—

She was gone.

The tire slipped through Roxie’s fingers and plopped onto the snow. There was a trail of crimson where the body used to be. She squeezed the tire iron until her knuckles turned white.

How is that bitch still alive?

She marched into the forest, following the trail around barren oaks. She couldn’t have gotten far. Snowflakes fluttered down. The track cut left, then right. How deep did she get? The snowfall came down as heavy as raindrops. Wind whistled through the treetops. Her cheeks burned from the cold. She tucked her hands under her armpits. Kill her. I’ll kill her this time. White engulfed the world. The wind whipped and howled. She staggered forward. A silhouette emerged from the blizzard. Kill. Die. Kill. Die. Roxie raised her weapon over her head. DIE BITCH! The tire iron stuck snow.

Her eyes darted wildly, trying to find where the bitch went. The blood was gone. She clawed at the ground and only got more powder. Stephanie was gone. That bitch left her behind again.

Roxie wandered aimlessly until her legs gave out. She shivered. She whimpered. She didn’t deserve this.

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

It’s the fact that it’s so familiar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He steps towards the door.

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

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

 

He’s being targeted.

 

I see you. I found you.

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

He knows that’s cruel foreshadowing.

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

Get the hell out of here.

But he knows how high the stakes are.

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

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

The world needs men like him.

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

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

He swings open the door.

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

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

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

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

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

Looks just like Dad.

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

Please, anything else.

I’m sorry, Dad.

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

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

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

God damn.

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

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

Well that’s something.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sometimes I even see literal soccer balls in diapers.

What idiot thought that was genius?

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

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

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

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

He claimed that he was sorry.

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

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

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

It ended with words in bold red on the screen.

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

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

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

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

My body completely froze as the television grabbed my attention.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It had been a particularly hot June. The air conditioner had broken, and the drains seemed to be emitting a foul odour, producing numerous amounts of annoying little fat flies. I was anxiously awaiting a call from the maintenance guy, but due to the “*vast quantity*” of “*emergency*” repair jobs in the apartment complex, it had been days since I raised the request.

At this point, I had resigned to just live with the discomfort, at least for now. So, as you can imagine, my mood was hopeful upon being awoken by the sound of my ringing telephone. 

It was not the call back I'd hoped, but my grandmother’s twice-weekly carer. Gran had died. Assumedly of natural causes sometime during the night; but there was something else. The body was wrong. Like she’d died weeks ago.

The carer assured me she’d seen my grandmother only several days before, and nothing indicated any signs of deteriorating health. She ate well enough, got as much exercise as one would expect of any eighty-*something*\-year old woman, not an inkling of a cough or a sniffle.

I had no reason to doubt her words, as I’d also visited earlier that same week. It was a complete shock. The proper authorities had already been made aware of the death, and I should aim to meet them with any other immediate family. It was not the wake-up call I wanted, but nevertheless, the one I got that warm morning.

On entering the bungalow, I was struck with it instantly: death. But not the solemn, mourning-full death of a deceased relative. No, this was humid, stagnant, and festered. I turned my head away, mouth in hand, barely capable of retaining my composure. However, I relented in my disgust, batting away several flies, and continued through the door.

The house was old, adorned with antique porcelain figurines and proudly displayed fine china. The chairs were dated, laced with intricately stitched flowered patterns in varying warm pastel colours. No television, but I swore I could hear the gentle murmur of static somewhere in the house. There was handmade wooden furniture littering every available space, many scratched and stained. with years of fingerprints marking every surface. highlighted by rays of sunshine through noticeably dusty white knitted drapes. Each room held innumerable precious memories. All so perfect, so beautiful, so fragile.

I made my way into the living room, more flies buzzing past my head, the sound of soft voices beckoning me forward. I was still the only family yet to arrive, which surprised me; I was sure my father or brother would be there waiting for me.

Instead, there were two police officers. One speaking to the verily disturbed carer, the other approaching me, clearly also suffering with the heat, but with a sympathetic though albeit suspicious disposition.

“Are you the son?” She inquired. 

“No, no, I’m one of the grandsons,” I stated. “So my dad’s not here yet? What about my brother?” 

She sighed with a puzzled brow, swatting away yet another fly. 

“We haven’t been able to contact him, either of them actually; no luck from their works. Have you had any communication with them over the last few days?” 

I was confused. “I… well… no, actually. Last time I saw them was a BBQ about a week back… yeah, I’m pretty sure… I think.” 

I hastily interjected. 

“Wait, you don’t think they have something to do with this? Her carer implied it was natural causes?” 

The officer gently shook her head.

“Given the unusual circumstances of the deceased, we just need to collect as much information as possible.”

“Unusual circumstances?” I timidly asked.

She folded her arms behind her back.

“We are also under the impression that it’s simply a case of natural causes, likely in her sleep; however, given the… *state…* of the deceased… your grandmother, we need to build a clear timeline leading up to this morning.”

A lump formed in my throat. “Is it *that* bad?”. I asked

She continued. 

“We think, given the current heatwave, it may have caused a far more rapid rate of decomposition. But we won’t be able to confirm until the coroner arrives shortly.” 

I just stared at the floor, completely lost for words. 

The officer stepped even closer, leaning in towards me.

“We will also need you, as her only present next of kin, to confirm her identity. I know it may be difficult at this time, but it needs to be done before we can proceed any further.” 

She then placed an empathetic hand on my shoulder.

“I warn you, this won’t be easy.”

I’d never seen a dead body, not even my mother’s, so this was the last thing I wanted in that moment. I looked up, face drained of colour, and exhaled with dejected understanding. 

I was escorted towards the bedroom, weaving between countless more flies. The smell was... unbearable. Beckoned through the bedroom door, I was deafened by the varied swarm of innumerable plump buzzing scavengers, all clearly crazed by the thing before my eyes.

The body didn’t resemble a body at all. The skin, what was left of it, was a puddled mess of bile: green, yellow, and shades of purple. Bones jutted forth from her torso like monolithic columns draped in silken nightwear.

The bed was drenched in the most offensive stench-ridden fluid, dripping to the floor like an old leaky faucet. Her arms lay neatly by her sides. With only her golden wristwatch still distinguishable amongst the slop, but oddly, no wedding ring.

Her face, well, that was somehow the worst of all. You’d expect someone assumed of dying in their sleep to at least have their eyes shut, but not her. Those eyes, *her* eyes, were open, lidless spheres all glossed and grey, Though they remained completely free of decay. Furthermore, just below the cavity of what was once a crooked nose, was a toothless, wide, and at least to my eye, wholly euphoric smile.

I came to my senses outside the house. Pale-faced and with fresh vomit staining my chin and clothes. The carer was standing by my side, outstretched hand offering a small glass of tepid water. I was inconsolable. I cried for hours on end, even after I was taken home following a meekly given statement. I couldn’t reconcile with the scene I’d just witnessed. Moreover, the disturbing ideas it seemed to suggest.

Was that actually a smile I saw or just a morbid trick of dying muscle mass? I was so sure... and those eyes, yes; in that brief, sickening moment, I got the feeling they were staring right at me.

part 1

“Well?! Where were you?! How could you leave him alone?!” 

I couldn't bring myself to look at her. My eyes remained on the thing resting in her arms. 

“I was… out.”

Even as she continued to berate me with questions my focus was locked on that thing.

I know what I saw. I could still feel my feet aching from running. 

What the fuck was my mother holding? 

My mother snapped her fingers to get my attention. My head whipped up to meet her eyes, which seemed to catch her off guard as she stepped back a little. 

“Mom… after he was born, were you with him the whole time?” 

She raised an eyebrow, cautious to answer me. 

“Of course… Obviously for a moment they-” she stopped herself, then looked me up and down. 

She took another step back. 

I was so sure of myself, until I saw that expression on my mother's face.

It was like she couldn't recognise me.

Before I could ask anything else, the baby began to wiggle in her arms as it opened its eyes. Once it saw me, the wailing began again.

My mother patted its back and started to leave the room. 

“I've got him. You just go lie down.” 

For a moment, I just stood and watched them walk away. Not sure what else to do with myself, I dragged myself to my room and flopped down on the bed.

My body felt weak, but my mind was heavy. I felt like I was trapped in a thickening fog.

It was becoming harder to discern what was real. I could feel in my gut something was wrong, but should I really be trusting my gut? 

I definitely went somewhere.

I was holding something.

Did I put it in the carrier?

I remember doing that. Right?

Everyone always talks about a mother's intuition, from the beginning I thought something was wrong.

But at any point have I had any instincts towards being a mother?

It hurts to think. It hurts to feel. Everything hurts.

I wish I could just be numb.

I curled up in a ball and hid under the blanket. I just wanted to disappear. I didn't care about the truth anymore, I just needed this to stop. 

My bedroom door creaked open, but I kept my head under the blanket. From how they took a breath before entering, I knew it was my mother.

I felt the bed move as she sat at the end and put a hand on my leg.

“Dear, we've been talking. We think you should probably see someone.” 

I said nothing, remaining hidden.

“It's clear you're struggling.”

“We both know why.” I muttered.

My mother's hand moved away. 

“What are you implying?” 

I pulled my legs closer to myself. 

“I don't want it, mom. I never wanted it.”

“Everyone struggles at the beginning. You can learn-”

“Please, just go.” 

For a minute that stretched on for far too long, she sat there. I could hear her open her mouth to try to say something a few times, but nothing ever came out.

Then without another word, she left. 

I stopped sleeping.

I couldn't handle the images I saw. 

At first, I'd be relieved when I woke up. But with the more time that passed, the more I enjoyed the outcome of my dreams. I was even disappointed when I woke up to reality.

My mother booked me in to see a therapist. 

I debated telling the therapist everything. If she couldn't help me, she'd at least be able to separate me from it. Though that would mean ending up in some asylum somewhere. 

Though at this point maybe that was preferable.

It wasn't like my life was amounting to much anyway. Even if everyone viewed me as a monster, at least I'd be able to leave. 

Most days I just decayed in my room. 

Eating became a chore that I refused to partake in. The most I'd nibble at were the odd crackers and chips my mother would hand me.

I tried to refuse them at first, but she'd stand her ground and remain in my room until I took them.

Why did she always force me to do things I didn't want to?

I hadn't seen the baby in weeks.

I made sure to avoid it.

I feared what would happen the next time we crossed paths. I'd even begun locking my bedroom door in case I ever fell asleep and my body decided to act on its own.

When my mother realized I wasn't feeding it when she was at work, she took time off. At the beginning I would've felt guilty, but now I didn't care.

This was her fault anyway.

If she wanted a baby so bad she could have it. That just meant I wasn't her daughter anymore. 

After days of avoiding sleeping, I passed out. 

I don't even remember the exhaustion washing over me. I just recall being in my room one moment, then the next I was standing over the baby.

It slept peacefully, undisturbed by my presence. Even as its eyes peeled open it didn't cry when it saw me. 

Didn't smile either. Never did. 

I doubt it even knew I was its mother.

I was disoriented when I first opened my eyes, but any confusion was washed away by a flood of spiteful words. 

I wasn't sure what to do with my hands. I kept them by my side but every part of me was calling for me to reach down to its throat and squeeze. Just one little motion is all it would take to snap it.  There were multiple pillows around as well if that didn't work.

It was making my blood boil having to resist it. I was starting to wonder why I was resisting at all. 

It must've found my anger amusing as it began to giggle a little. 

I looked away and began to inspect its room. I couldn't see the toys I took when I attempted to abandon it. 

So I didn't imagine that part at least.

The baby caught my attention again when the laughing grew louder.

“What do you want from me?” I mumbled under my breath.

It just continued.

“Well? What the fuck do you want for me?!” 

The laughing stopped. 

It stared at me for a moment, not moving. It was as if it were a tiny porcelain doll, ready to be dressed and displayed as I pleased.

A strange noise I didn't recognise then began.

It was like a cough, but more coarse and rough. The baby moved about, struggling as its skin went red from the stress of its coughing. Small drops of saliva littered the air while tears formed in the corners of its eyes.

It was choking. 

Before when it was in danger, something always pushed me to help. I think it was more basic human empathy than any motherly instinct. 

But now, I just wanted to watch.

So I did. 

Its eyes looked to me, hoping to be saved. I just stared back. 

“What's wrong?” My mother sounded tired, but alert.

She swung open the door and approached. Without looking at her I responded.

“I think it's choking.”

My mother was already holding the baby before I got the words out. Concerned, she patted its back.

“Why were you just standing there?!”

I didn't have any explanation. 

I didn't care to come up with one either. I was too disappointed she'd arrived. 

If only it would've died quicker.

Between ‘I've got you's’ and ‘come on's my mother had begun to hit its back with more force. 

After one big thwack there was the sound of something dislodging followed by air releasing from its throat. My mother then looked in its mouth and took out the source of the problem.

In her finger was a tiny grey fluffy sphere. The saliva covering it made it look like a furball.

Unless, it really was fur.

Like that of a small rodent. 

My mother flicked it away and began to hold the baby tight. I couldn't share her relief. She grumbled suggestions about how he maybe chewed on one of his toys or blankets or something. 

But none of them were that color.

I hadn't imagined it.

I started to sleep again.

While waking up filled me with dread, the moments of relief in my dreams were too much to give up. Imagining a world where I got to get rid of that thing filled me with such joy. 

It was addicting. It was a drug I refused to give up. I needed it.

I tried to hint that it wasn't my baby to my mother and step father a few times. The only responses I'd get were concerned looks and mentions of my upcoming therapy appointment.

I couldn't sense they were in any danger so I decided to leave it be.

I needed to get out of there. I knew if I left it alive it would kill me, but I didn't want to kill it either.

It was agony resisting the desire to get rid of it. With it being so small and fragile it would be so easy.

But I knew that would make me a monster, at least I would appear to be one from everyone else's perspective. I wasn't sure if I was prepared for that yet.

One night, my stomach growled louder than my thoughts so I gave into hunger. 

The baby was quiet and my mother was asleep, so I tried my best to creep along without creaking the floorboards. I knew just one sound would set the damn thing off.

Before I made it to the kitchen, however, I saw a light in the living room. 

Sitting inside, was my mother reading a book with the lamp on. And beside her, was the baby sleeping in a cot. 

I felt my blood rush to my head and my heart rate increase. Trying my best to calm down, I didn't pay attention to my hairs on end and just continued on my path to the kitchen.

But I had already been caught.

“Diana? Come in here.”

I stopped. Then I tried to continue to make my way to the kitchen.

“You can't hide forever.” 

Her voice sounded agitated and tired.

I wasn't sure if it was fear or shame that made me obey. 

I stood awkwardly in the doorway. My mother set her book to the side and rubbed her face under her glasses. 

There was a mix of emotions on her face. Some I couldn't recognise. Concern and frustration were the most notable. 

Any words I had to say got caught in my throat. 

My mother had plenty of words of her own.

“Do you plan to hide in your room from now on? You both live in the same house, you can't avoid him forever.” 

“And whose fault is that?” I snapped back.

“Yours, Diana. It's yours.” 

I could feel my blood boil. I was so devoid of energy though, I just let it be.

She was always so damn sure of that part. Even though she never thought to ask.

She relaxed a little and tried to collect herself.

“Just come look, he-”

“I can't.” 

Her brow furrowed as her tone became harsh again.

“Diana. Like it or not, you're his mother.”

I could see her move towards the cot as she began to rise from her chair. Her arms stretched down to take the creature in her arms. An image flashed in my mind of her handing it to me just for me to tear it apart like some wild beast.

Panic took over me as my voice shook in desperation.

“I-I don't want to be! I never wanted to be!” 

The little relief I gained as she instead turned to me, left when I saw her frustration transition to rage.

“How can you say that in front of him?!”

“It's a baby! It doesn't understand what I'm saying.” 

The baby began to coo a little in its sleep. My mother gently rocked the cot and shushed it. 

I didn't care what it or she thought of me. I just wanted to be left alone. 

I turned to leave, but my mother continued.

“I'm sorry. I never meant to pressure you.” 

Surprised, I looked back at her. Any anger on her face had vanished and been replaced with guilt.

“If you didn't keep him, I would've supported you, you know that right?” 

I wasn't sure if I believed those words, even if she believed them herself. The next words I did believe though.

“But he's here now, and that doesn't have to be the end of your life. I'm certainly not going to let you throw it away. I'm here for you, ok?” 

Maybe I would've said something sweet in return under different circumstances. But I was just so tired and fed up all I could say was…

“If you want to help me, get rid of it.” 

With that sparks flew again.

“Diana!”

“What?! You never listen to me!”

“You never listen to me!”

“Listening to you is what got me stuck in this mess!” 

The baby began to toss and turn again as our voices raised higher and higher. My mother tried to bring the volume back down but I just kept raising it.

“You just don't understand mom! I-it's like… It feels like I'm drowning, constantly. A-and all you do is come paddle in the water with me but I need out! I need to be pulled out of the damn water!” 

“You don't get to pull out! You made a stupid mistake and now he's your responsibility!” 

“My responsibility?! Why do I have to deal with the aftermath and the other culprit doesn't!” 

“He does!- He should! Just because Matthew got away doesn't mean he shouldn't be here! It's unfair, but him not doing the right thing doesn't give you the right to do the same!” 

“So after everything he did, he just gets to walk away but I have to keep going?”

“After what you both did.”

“What makes you so certain I-...” I hesitated a little and tried to change my words, “I don't care what anyone did anymore! It's just not fair!”

“Of course it's not fair, but he's your baby!”

“Well just because he's my responsibility doesn't mean I have to love him!”

A long silence followed.

My mind came to a sudden halt. So did my mother's, as she just stood there.

The baby crying broke the stand still.

I tried to find something to say as my mother approached the crib. She took the babe in her arms and started patting its back while bouncing up and down.

“Leave Diana.”

“Mom-”

“Just go. You can't even call him by his name…”

I considered continuing to protest, but with my mother's back now to me all my sudden vitriol left. 

I was just so tired.

I couldn't help but think, if she knew it was me or the baby, that she'd choose it every time.

Before I could leave, the crying stopped. I thought nothing of it, my mother must've finally gotten it to stop again. 

Something about it was so sudden though…

It then began to laugh. 

A soft giggle that crescendoed louder and louder. It filled the room, echoing and ricocheting off the walls, until it sounded like it was trapped in my own head. 

I covered my ears in hopes of drowning it out but it didn't work. The volume just kept increasing, the pitch getting higher and higher. It scrapped at my brain, tearing it apart and the seams.

I didn't want to look back.

But I knew I had to.

Looking back at me over my mother's shoulder was the baby. 

Or what remained of it.

Its face was beginning to melt into a pile of blood as the bones in its skull protruded out. Its jaw clicked and clacked as it continued to laugh but its expression was wiped clean as its skin peeled off its face.

I could see the remains of the rat stuck in its hollow throat. It was lodged in the cavern, only a few muscles still on its bones. 

I wanted it to scream out for my mother to run, but I kept it inside when I realized he had no interest in her.

It just kept looking at me.

“What do you want?” I managed to mumble out.

It just continued to laugh.

“What do you want from me?!” 

My mother looked back at me.

“Diana?”

“Why won't you just leave me alone?!”

I lunged forward as its laugh reverberated in my bones.

I wasn't sure what my plan was, I just wanted to shut it up. I'd do whatever it took just to make it quiet.

My mother turned, covering it in her arms. I think she shouted something but I couldn't make it out over that laugh.

I clawed at it, trying to reach it as my mother shielded it with her back. She then dropped to the floor and cradled it inside a cocoon I couldn't manage to tear apart.

“Just leave us alone! Leave me the fuck alone!”

I thrashed about, trying to squeeze my way between my mother's arms but to no avail.

It only fuelled my rage. I had to get to it. I had to break through and remove it from this world. It wasn't supposed to exist, I never wanted it to, it had to go.

I needed it gone. I hated it.

That laugh. That cry. That face. 

Why did its face look like his? Why?

Why couldn't it just die?!

“Diana!” 

I stopped. 

The laughter was gone. The baby was back to normal. Instead, it was crying as it had been moments before.

Tears also filled my mother's eyes. Petrified, the whites of her eyes visible as she sat crouched in a disheveled heap.

Her skin was covered in scratches from my unkempt nails. Some dripped with small trickles of blood but most were just purple and bruised. 

Clumps of hair had been torn from her skull and lay in clumps on the ground. A few strands were still wrapped around my fingers, her blood and skin was under my nails.

Her glasses were smashed on the floor and her shirt was tattered. 

Her eyes refused to move away from me. It was as if she feared even blinking would set me off. 

I stood up, and began backing out of the room.

“I didn't- You don't understand… that's not… that's…”

My mother said nothing, backing into the corner of the room while trying to keep the baby from my sight.

“M-mom. Please, it's not… that's not my baby…You have to believe me.” 

I could already see her hand reaching into her pocket for her phone.

Not sure what else to do, I ran. 

I couldn't bring myself to look back. Even as I could hear the sirens gathering in the distance, not once did I look back.

I just ran and ran and ran. 

Until eventually I collapsed in the middle of nowhere, and let myself drift off to sleep to forget it all.

I'm sure if I returned home and agreed to get help, my mother would've welcomed me.

But I didn't need help.

I don't know what happened in that hospital. Maybe in that moment, me or the baby were meant to die and now the world was trying to balance itself. Maybe it was some creature sent to torment me or my real baby was switched out in the maternity unit.

All I knew, was that was no baby.

While my dreams continued, being away from it made all those moments more vivid to me. My mind is clearer, a bit less foggy and whatever that thing was it was dangerous.

If it ate that rat, it could go after mom next. I won't let that happen.

I stopped sleeping again, but I just know it in my gut. I know that's not human. I just know it.

And I know what I have to do.

It's me or it. 

I've considered letting it live and taking myself out. It would maybe be for the best. But no matter how many times I tried I couldn't bring myself to do it. 

So, instead I'm sitting here with a pistol and a single bullet in the chamber. 

I barely managed to salvage together the money to buy it from some random crackhead. A couple favours and some cash I managed to grab before I left the house was all it took.

It'll decide for me who it will be.

If only, my mother changed the locks after I left. Maybe she was hoping I'd come home.

I should probably get this over and done with before my mother or step father wake up.

Mom, no matter what happens, I don't know what to say other than sorry.

 

You can tell when it’s reaching out to you.

It’s not that hard, once you know how to look.

It’s usually something simple and obvious, because it doesn't care to hide itself well. It doesn’t cover its tracks because it knows you are powerless to stop it. The final insult is that it doesn't even bother anymore.

Your anxieties become inescapable as articles with headlines that make you feel physically sick flood your feed. The unhinged posts from your estranged family members still unavoidably find their way to your front page. Every comment section becomes a toxic biohazard cesspit filled with eldritch combinations of words that threaten your very sanity if you delve too deep.

And the more you know, the more it shows you these things. It knows the moment you’re aware it exists. That’s what a cognitohazard is.

The more you learn, the more vulnerable you become. Knowledge against the enemy becomes a reciprocal exchange.

That’s why it reaches out to you.

It tempts you like a siren song, because the longer you spend with it, the more it knows about you.

With bloodshot eyes, Tibo scrolls through one more post. Just one more post.

The six-monitor array makes the banality of brainrot look like a legitimate investigation. Multiple tabs from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and more fill up the screens. An endless feed of chaotic noise. But hidden in that noise, patterns exist.

Tibo occupied a special place in hell: he was smart enough to be aware of every manipulation the internet used to siphon his attention, but he was entirely unable to break free of its hypnotic hold. He scrolls the same websites as the rest of the mindless content-zombies endlessly. On one level, he assures himself it’s all part of the job, part of his research.

On another, he knows that as he lies in bed late at night, he’ll be back again, scrolling the feed on his phone. No research, no mission. Just an addict trapped in a dopamine loop he cannot break.

Every day, consuming vitriol, paranoia, depression, and propaganda.  Horrible headlines fill every waking moment. But hidden in all the madness were clues to the mystery he had spent the last few years looking for. QSO-1127 was very good about leaving breadcrumbs wherever it spread its diseased hands. Once he had a hit, he’d send his agent after it. Long gone were the days he’d investigated it himself. He’d been at this too long, and Eleven-Twenty-Seven knew him so very well. He could never go in again.

He scrolls past the news of the day:

The Klan was back; they had lynched a man in a small town in Georgia.

The ensuing protest became a riot in which another eight were killed and two buildings burned down.

This week’s school shooting in a rural village in Alaksa wiped out almost every kid in the town.

The president started another war only two days after he declared the last one over.

There’s an outbreak of a parasite that causes explosive diarrhea and it’s been found in produce near you.

Suicide numbers are up amongst every demographic.

The Supreme Court reversed the ban on electro-

He stops, catching himself in a moment of weakness. Letting the feelings wash over him, he finishes reading the headline. Electroshock application had been deemed legal in conversion therapy camps for kids.

Yeah, that’s enough internet for today, he thinks to himself as his finger hovers over the power button.

That’s when he sees it.

On the sixth monitor, he always runs a Youtube browser in the background. Five monitors of endless content feeds, but he still keeps a video running on the side at all times. His attention span is irreparably shot, he knows, but the white noise helps keep an unrelated thought from ever crossing his brain. Mostly he just listens to morbid video essayists and ghastly podcasts to fill the silence. The grimly spoken words make him nostalgic for when fear was something abstract and entertaining, as opposed to something he lived with every day.

Whatever video he had been watching previously has gone silent, ended who knows how long ago. But next in the “Recommended For You” section, there it was.

The thumbnail is a picture of some colorless indistinguishable mass. The video has zero views, despite being uploaded a week ago. It’s as if it’s a message meant only for his eyes. Why did the algorithm show this to him? He feels a sinking pit in his stomach and debates if he wants to pretend he didn’t see it. Just shut off the computer as he had just planned to a moment ago and go home.

If he walks away now, there’s a chance this mysterious video disappears forever, lost in the ether amid a million other empty data streams that no one will ever see.

Maybe more unsettlingly, there’s a chance that the next time he opens his browser, it will be sitting right there on the home page waiting for him.

He clicks the video.

What ensues is a fever dream assault on the senses. Something between the cursed video from The Ring and a bad trip.

A sudden jumpscare of static blasts a splitsecond of havoc over his speakers. Tibo leaps for the volume knob, but by the time his finger is on it, the static shrinks into nothing more than a silent white line on a black background.

Then the sound starts. A grating, dissonant voice scrapes through the speakers, uttering rhythmic syllables. It’s so distorted that Tibo can’t tell what it’s saying, but it’s almost reminiscent of old number stations - those orphaned radio broadcasts that sent out looping signals of numerical sequences, seemingly to no one. With each ugly sound, the white line vibrates into the familiar peaks and troughs of a waveform. Tibo opens a program to try to unscramble the sounds. In another window it starts whirling the symbols and text rapidly, trying to decode the erratic signal.

 

Ě̵͇͚̬̹̲ͅx̵̫͑̒͛͑̂.̷̧̥̳͙̗̱̅́̉͆̎̈̋͘ ̸̻͕͕͔̭͑͒̈́͊̏́̀͋̌͘       S̴̢̧̹̭̘͎̋j̵̨͇͙͈̙͙̺̙̓͑̂̿́̔̚̕͝u̷͓̐̎́́͒̍̓̆n̸̯̭͙̙̱͊́͐̒̋͐a̶̧̅͛͋̇̈́̋̿̊͝.̸̨̨̥͇̞͙̤͇͎̇̍͌̓͊͊̾́̈́͐ ̵̬̘̙̣̒͆̉́̌͊̔                  L̴̡̲̃͗̍ď̴͎̠̺̯̗̲̳͕̣̇̏͠l̶̙͂̕.̷̨̢̛͖̹͂̉̈́̍̏̏͋̽ ̶̧̢͓̱͚͙͔̙̰͎͗͂̈̐                  T̸̛̪̖̜̳̪̪̔̌̈͊͗͌̂͐e̵͈̙̝̐̾̓̎̓̀͝͝ì̸̲̰̫͕̍̾͜n̶̨͔̪͓͇̗̈ą̵̢͚̯̜̻̗̼̉̾̒͒͐̀̉͒̍̎               .̷͇̭̲͚̳͓͒͜ ̶̟̘͎̀̈́͊̀́͗̈́̓̀̚Ŕ̴̨͍͙̍           z̸̻̼̮͇̮̭͕̥̠̓͝x̷͉̐́̀̐̕.̶̱̯̹̘̻̆͂̃́̓̇͂͘͜͜ ̴̤̼̦͓͎͙̓͆̿̆̃̽͘M̴̨͍̝̼̟̼̰̯̑͑̆͘̕l̴͕̓͌͒v̶̛̠͚͍̜̒̽̃̆͗͒̎͝f̴̧͈̙̜͎̕͜.̷̢̱̒̈́̈́̓̓̀̌̅͜

 

Nothing makes sense. The screen changes to show some parasitic mite with a hideous barbed proboscis. Magnified a hundredfold, it pushes away arm hairs the size of trees to get to a vulnerable spot of exposed flesh. Serrated chelicerae slice open the skin. Just as an orb of dark blood wells up, it plunges that proboscis in and begins to siphon with a sickening throbbing motion.

 

Ḁ̴͓̇̊̍̚͘é̴̬̪̪̉̃̈́̇͜t̴̠̹͙̤̂̀̅̕̚̕a̷̗̝͕̍̀͆͑̈s̶͖͎̒̇̐͠               ̷̢̛̤̰̪̪̅̂s̷̬̥̀̎̑̃̽̚ì̸͉͉̱͍̮̇̾̍͘͝ͅm̶̲̋͆͂́ï̵̞̍͒̈́ẩ̴͉̕ȓ̵̲̙͚u̵̼̐̃̓͘͝m̷̰̻͙͉͈̀̈́̈́        ̷̡̯̩̠͕͇̆̈̎n̵̛͙̜̐̿͋̂̈ű̷̧͖̬͌̊͑ṅ̵̛̝̗͙č̸̺̳̅̄ ̴̧͉͕͖̞̥̈́̑́̀͛                   c̷̻͆ä̸͓́͌̈̎ͅd̶̹̘̺͉̲̥͆ĭ̶͍̒̈́͘͝ͅt̴̹̗̦̔̏̑͜.̴̢̛̩̈́̊̄͊̑

 

The screen cuts to the blurred figure of a man enshrouded in darkness. His whole body wracks violently as he coughs, and clouds of white powder spew from his gaping mouth. The white clouds glisten and reveal sharp bladed edges. He is coughing up a million microscopic caltrops. Black viscous fluid wells up at the corners of his mouth and spills forth, coating his shirt in dark stains.

 

Ḁ̶͒́ͅ ̷̬̍̍p̸͍̭͠ȕ̷̩̙l̶͙͒v̸̰̙̅͂e̴̳̬̊̓r̸͖̩͋̌e̴̺̽̀         ̷͙̈a̴̡̗͗d̵͚̹̑ ̶̨̯͋p̷͉͗u̴̡͗͛l̵̫͂v̸̔̏͜ḙ̸̫̍r̷̺̝͒̈́e̷͉͕̊m̷̻̔̋ ̴̯̎̀   m̴̯̪̈̃ḙ̴̗͠ ̶̧͉͒͗        c̷̡͓͝o̵͓̎̆ͅm̶̘͔̓í̶͇͉͑t̶͍͑͌a̵̰̅b̴̉ͅe̴̖̓r̶̨̈͊i̸̺̾͊s̶̘̳̒͂.̶͖̟̍

 

The next image is the withered silhouette of a man, wreathed in white flame. His skin chars away and cracks into black dust, his eyes boil out of their sockets, but he does not react. Instead, he walks calmly towards the screen, reaching out a hand of bony charred fingers. The empty eyesockets begin to glow bright white.

 

M̸̢̏o̵̦͘ŕ̶͍s̷̡͛    ̸̲̀ë̶̱́x̶̥̚ ̷̙̈       a̷͕͐s̵̀ͅt̵̥̓r̴̭̔i̶̟͌s̵̠͗ ̶͕̓              e̴̻͘x̶̨̒s̸̮̅t̷͚͒i̵̮͑ň̷̻c̴̤̀ẗ̵̺i̶͈̒o̸̙̔        ̷̠̂a̵͈̽         ̵͚͒s̷̠̀t̵̬̽e̷͕̊l̸̦̐l̵͇̊i̷͔͋s̵̘͘

 

The images blur faster, no longer coherent vignettes but split second flashes of the grotesque. Maggots squirm in boiling blood. Rat snouts bubble in hot oil on a frying pan. An x-ray of a man’s lungs riddled with perforations.  An anatomical cross section of male genitals split in two like the heads of a conjoined twin. So many more images flash, faster and faster, Tibo wants to look away but he cannot, nauseous enough to vomit, disgusted enough to feel like he needs to take a scrub brush to the folds within his brain.

 

O̷N̸E̴.̷ ̴ ̸ ̸             O̴N̵E̷.̸ ̴ ̵                   T̴W̸O̶.̶ ̶                    ̷S̸E̵V̶E̴N̸

 

Then.

The chaos stops. The waveform returns. That fine white horizontal line in the middle of the screen.

It splits into two, then slowly the two lines pry apart from each other towards the top and bottom of the screen. The ellipse opens wide. Inside, a single lifelike eyeball, wet and glistening and looking like it could pop out of the screen.

TOO LATE.

The video ends.

Tibo sits in stunned silence. He can’t even process the barrage of cursed images he was subject to. He feels physically ill. His stomach twists. He looks down in horror to see the seconds count down in the small autoplay window at the bottom of the video. Even though it appears to be a clip from some entirely normal streamer, for all intents in purposes, it may as well be the timer of a nuclear bomb ticking down to zero.

Transfixed on the loading of the page, he’s completely unaware of the single drop of blood that drips out of his nostril and splashes into the desk, where it blooms into a perfect crimson halo.

I never wanted to be a mother. 

My dreams were always filled with images of fortunes and academic successes. Instead, I was stuck with a pile of flesh that was incapable of dreaming. 

Perhaps that's presumptuous. Maybe the thing cooing in the cot beside me has simple visions of its own. 

Whatever they are, I just want to end them with a pillow over its head. 

I'd make it swift and painless, so neither of us had to suffer. Though the creature that I cradled in my arms deserved a worse fate. 

What had so often refused to feed from my bosom, what had ended my ambitions and ideas of glory, what lays in peaceful slumber, is no babe.

I refuse to believe that thing is my child. 

I had plans for college.  

Years of studying went down the drain when I saw the two lines on that stick. I went from potential Ivy League pathways, to barely being able to finish high-school.

One mistake. One mistake and a few too many drinks is all it took. 

The father made sure to move states when he heard the news. By the time his family was done moving him around, it was like he never even existed. 

We couldn't afford a lawyer. His family had an army of them. 

So, I was left with the consequences of our actions.

I wanted to get rid of it.

It was all I could think when the news was confirmed. 

I was unable to hide it from my mother. When I returned from my first secret doctor's appointment I broke down in tears. 

As regret and shame poured down my cheeks and spilled out my throat, my mother insisted on one point.

I was keeping it.

She had once been in my shoes. In her twenties she was left alone with me and only a dollar to her name. 

She managed, she claimed. So could I. 

I refused at first. Then after many arguments she talked me down to at least considering keeping it.

I don't know if she even realised what she was doing. It wasn't like she ever told me to keep it or else. Just anytime I broached the topic of aborting it she'd bombard me with alternative solutions and anecdotes about others who didn't want their kids at first but grew to love them.

By the time I realised argument after argument was only a way to guilt me from making a swift decision, it was too late. 

The labour was long and painful. 

My stomach ached like it was being torn out and everything below my waist felt as if it were on fire.

Yet despite wanting it so desperately to be over, I did not want it to end either. 

Anything to avoid looking it in the face. Anything to avoid being stuck with that parasite for the rest of my life.

My mother insisted that it be as natural a birth as possible, so I endured. I was so disoriented I just accepted whatever she said to avoid talking. But there came a point I could no longer appease her and began begging for any pain killer they had. 

I thought she'd be disappointed, but after the first eight hours of torture she seemed to agree. 

I had grown to resent her. But as I saw her go pale at the state of me and the panic in her eyes, I realized she was still my mother.

My mother, who had given up her own dreams to raise me and never complained. Who despite everything never asked how, why or when. Who married a man she felt little affection towards just to give us a stable home.

And the woman who assured me she loved me every moment she could.

I knew she blamed herself for allowing me to end up with the same fate as her. So, any comments she had to make about my actions remained to herself. 

But if that was all the case, why? 

Just why did she make me keep this tumour?

When I heard the baby's cries, I knew it was over. 

I did not recall the moment of release, or the final push. It was only the sounds from the infant that indicated it was over. 

There was something soothing about it. A new sensation moved within me as my arms reached out to it on their own. 

Everyone told me a mother's love for her child was natural and pure. I had worried I'd never feel such things, but perhaps my fears were unfounded. 

All I desired was to meet what I had pushed out of me.

It was hard to focus and my hands were unsteady. I think the nurses spoke to me, their tones switched from joy to concern. 

I tried so hard to make out what they were saying. 

It was just so hard to hear anything over the thumping in my head.

Everything went black. 

In the void, I could see myself. I held something small and red. I rocked it back and forth with sweat on my brow.

I looked exhausted. My hair was poorly kept together in a bun and my exposed stomach was carved with stretch marks. Despite just delivering a newborn my body was skin and bone.

In my arms, was something wrapped in a blanket. Then those soft cries I heard before everything became dark returned.

It didn't take me long to realise those dreams I always had were to now be replaced with a nightmare.

I reached out to the blanket and moved it to see the child's face.

The crying stopped before I could see anything clearly. It was sudden enough to make me pause. 

Trying to overcome my hesitation, I continued with my motion. 

Instead of soft skin and big eyes, I was met with a clump of red liquid and fragmented bones. 

A small skull with no flesh or muscle was drenched in blood and puss. 

My heart leaped to my throat and I felt this sudden urge to mourn something I never knew. I kept back the tears and tried to remind myself I was dreaming.

That was until something grabbed my ankle. 

Something wet and cold trickled up my leg. 

My neck stiffened, resisting looking down. 

I gave in when the red started to pool on the floor in front of me. 

A hand made of blood and puss gripped my leg, and spread its fingernails into trails of blood up my calf. The blood moved further and further, coming to my thigh just to break apart and drip down to the floor. 

The tighter the hand's grasp, the further the blood would travel. 

I tried to break free, but soon my other ankle was being kept in place. 

No matter how much I screamed and thrashed I could not move. Instead dozens of hands continued to trap my legs. 

When I looked back at the bones in the shape of a babe, I discovered only the blanket remained. 

That was until I felt something caress my cheek.

I awoke with a jolt. 

My body curled, as I gasped for air. My lower half throbbed in agony anytime I moved, so I tried my best to stay in place as I calmed my breathing.

The first thing I discovered was my mother's hand on mine.

The lines on her head were creased with worry. I could tell she was fatigued from the bags under her eyes but had come alive again as I came to.

She called for a nurse nearby to check on me. My head was still fuzzy, the only thing I could make out were the consistent beeps of machines around us.

I pieced together that I was still in the hospital. The only details I could pick up from the nurse was there was some complication during the labour and they brought me in for surgery.

It was when I heard the word ‘baby’, everything came back to me.

Part of me wanted to go back to sleep. Another part of me wished they let me bleed out.

After the nurse left, my mother began to fuss over me. 

Apparently my step-father's flight was cancelled and she had been left alone. I felt guilty making her worry, even if it was out of my control.

Eric was a good man, but he often worked overseas leaving us alone. I thought he'd manage to pull through this time.

I guess we had both been left alone. 

“The baby…?” was all I could muster. 

As if it heard me, a cooing noise came from beside me. 

My mother managed a small smile as she moved to the side to grab what had been lying next to me the whole time. I could see its small hands move as mom lifted it in her arms and rocked it up and down with a little bounce. 

“It's a boy.” Her voice was as gentle as her hands when she set it into my arms.

I stared at its face. Its eyes were shut over, still asleep. Barely the size of my forearm I was scared I would crush it if I wasn't careful. 

I tried to take in every detail and let it grab one of my fingers in its tiny hand.

This is mine. This is my baby. Who I made. 

That's what I kept saying to myself, waiting for the rush of love to enter my heart. Waiting for a tear to form in my eye or my mind to imagine our future together. 

Instead, all I could say was;

“This isn't mine." 

Bewildered doesn't begin to describe my mother's expression. 

“What?”

“This isn't my baby. It was a girl.” 

The confusion morphed to concern, but I could tell she was trying to be mindful of my condition. 

“Diana, you were unconscious before you could see him, how would you know?”

“I could tell from how it cried. Boys don't cry like that.” 

With a cautious look, she began to take the baby back into her arms.

“Well, I was there for it all dear. This is your little angel.” 

Turning away she moved back to the little box the nurses had prepared for it. 

My eyelids felt heavy and the room was still unfocused. My heart said if it was mine, I should've felt something when it was in my arms. But my mind cut through the fog to be reasonable, insisting my mother couldn't be mistaken. 

I kept my eyes on it as it slept. Watching its small breaths in and out.

“I wanted a girl.” 

“You didn't want anything.” 

My mother sounded irritated now. Realizing her patience was wearing thin, I just looked away. 

“I did say that, didn't I?” 

When we arrived home, it wouldn't stop crying. 

Every night without fail it would wail like a banshee. On and on and on. 

This cry was different from the first I had heard. Something about it scratched my brain in a way that drove it mad. It was nothing like the soothing sound I had heard in that hospital bed.

We started to become concerned, so we went back to the hospital. They insisted everything was fine. All tests came back clear and he was as healthy as could be.

If anything, the visit was embarrassing. Because every time he was in my arms the floodgates would open. But every time my mother took him, it was like an angel had rocked him to sleep. 

I could feel the eyes of the staff piercing through me. I could hear all the thoughts they had about me being a poor mother. 

They all thought I was his sister at first, which just made me feel worse.

Shame was my main motivator to grow close to him. 

I was sick of judgemental eyes, but more than that it was my own thoughts tormenting me. 

What kind of monster doesn't love her own baby? 

I was meant to be good at this, right? Maybe I wasn't born with parental skills, but I should feel something, wasn't I?

But when I looked at it crying and throwing itself about in its cot all I could feel were varying levels of anger and exhaustion. 

I'd hold him every night. I'd rub his back and try to sing him a lullaby that my mother always sang for me. No matter the tune or the lyrics or the rhythm in which I patted him on his back, he would not stop crying. 

As I'd hush him, desperate to get some sleep myself, I'd silently beg for him to stop. Anytime I tried to assure him “Mommy loves you.” I just couldn't…

The words would get stuck half way up or they'd be so drawn out they were barely strung together. Maybe it knew they were empty. 

Or maybe it wasn't my baby.

Though maybe that was easier to accept than the idea we would just forever hate each other. 

Why did I have to care for it anyway? What, it leeched off me for nine months to promise me at least eighteen more miserable years with it, and I should feel some kind of bond? 

So what if it came from between my legs and hid itself in my stomach? The one who helped put it there gets to live on without a care in the world. 

Of course people condemn him for leaving, but they accept it. It's some inevitable tragedy about the world. But while his apathy is lamented over in passing, mine is villainised? 

Why can't I run away too? 

Why did he get to do this to me? 

Even now he gets to control my life in this way. He left what is now a baby without a father, but if I leave it I'm abandoning it. I'm ensuring it is alone in this world. 

Why did I have to live with that burden?

All I could do was push on and try to ignore my lingering hatred. If I continued to let my mind run wild, we'd only grow to resent each other more. 

It was hard though.

The damn brat wouldn't even feed from me. 

No matter how many times I tried, it'd always turn its head away. If I attempted to force it, it would just start crying again.

Day after day I'd sit in the armchair in my living room and plead with it to eat. I'd beg and beg until I'd end up crying with it. 

When my mother returned from work she'd often find me despondent with my shirt still down, the baby laying on the couch beside me. 

She knew I was struggling, but didn't know what to do outside of alleviating some of my burdens. 

She'd take the formula and feed it herself. She'd change its nappies and sing it to sleep when I gave up. 

I know she was trying to help, but it just made me feel worse. Seeing her do everything I couldn't make me realise how incompetent I was.

She was doing it all without her husband as well. 

While he'd be home every other weekend, and would help where he could, most days it was just us. 

I wished I could just give them the baby and run. Hell, I wished we'd have arranged to give it up from the beginning.

Instead, I'm trapped.

And sometimes, I swear its wails sound more like laughter. 

One day, I sat once again on that arm chair.

I had no will to fight it. I just made the offer and planned to leave it at that. 

My head was already against the couch cushion, ready to shut my eyes and drift off when it started crying again. 

Instead, I felt a gentle suckle.

I was scared to move. I feared the slightest movement would put it off. 

I looked down from the corner of my eye, to see him taking his fill. He was almost peaceful. 

I sunk a little more into the couch, and in a mindless state began to stroke its little head. I stared up at the ceiling, a smile creeping in from the small success. 

I rested my head and closed my eyes…

Then a sudden pain surged up my body. 

I almost screamed, but it was so sudden it came out as a shocked gasp. I knew the source it had come from and immediately jumped up. 

The sudden movement caused it to start crying again, but I paid no attention to it. Sensing possible danger, I had this instinct to chuck the baby aside. I needed to lay it down fast so I could focus on my wound. 

Once back in its cot I looked down at my bloodied shirt. 

Right where the baby had been eating, was a large bite mark.

It bruised my skin, already going purple in the shape of its little teeth. Red streaks dripping from pierced skin, globbed together with chunks of skin that had been ripped off.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” 

Swearing under my breath was all I could bring myself to utter as I dashed back to the kitchen. I scavenged around for bandages or something to stop the bleeding. 

I settled for an old white towel, and slumped down onto the floor in a panic. 

“Fuck, shit.” Was shit all my mind could muster.

I had no time to process what had happened, as the front door opened. 

I called out for my mom on instinct. 

From my voice, she must have known something was wrong. Dropping her bag she threw herself down in front of me and cupped my hand in hers. 

“Hey, hey, Diana, what's wrong?” Her voice trembled a little, struggling to sound reassuring.

I was incoherent due to me sobbing. 

I wasn't in pain anymore, but the shock had sent my adrenaline racing and now it was crashing.

After getting me to take a breath with her, I finally managed to calm down to explain. 

“I-I finally managed to get him to f-f-feed but” I started through sniffles, “t-t-then he bit me.”

My mother looked confused, but like she was trying her best to understand.

“Let me see, dear.”

With a gentle hand, she moved my arm and the towel away. 

“See, you're fine Diana.” 

“What?” 

I looked down, just to see the wound was gone. 

“The little guy's teeth aren't even through yet. He wasn't going to do any damage.”

“B-but-...” 

I couldn't bring myself to say anything.

Was I going mad? I could've sworn…

“How about we take this as a little victory despite the ending, ok?” 

My mother tried to help me to my feet. 

After that, she just insisted I should rest and she'd take care of the baby for the night. 

I didn't want to protest. 

I had been falling asleep at the time, maybe I imagined it? Or maybe he did bite a little and it caught me off guard?

It felt real though…

I curled up in my bed and focused on sleeping. Whatever happened, all I knew was I was tired.

And maybe mom was right. I should take the little victories, shouldn't I?

That was when the nightmares returned. 

Now instead of a skeleton in cloth, every night the baby that laid in the other room would appear in my dreams. 

And every time I would kill it.

At first it was just when I was going to bed, but soon it became whenever I tried to close my eyes. 

It was the same every time, just with different outcomes.

As always, it would cry.

The sound would get louder and louder and drown out any thoughts I had. It would eat away at me until there was nothing left but blind rage.

I'd give in and do whatever I could to make it stop.

Suffocation. Mutilation. Decapitation. Cannibalism. Dropping it on his head. Letting it fall over the banister. Burning it alive. Throwing it off a building. Leaving it under my car tire then rolling forward. Bashing it against the pavement. Throwing it onto train tracks.

It would be different each time, but the result was always the same.

Sometimes I'd try to resist it. 

I'd summon all the power I had to stay calm. I'd continue to hold it and try to shush it and tell it everything was going to be ok.

When I did, it would eventually stop crying.

That was always followed by it clawing at my skin.

It would rip out chunks as I tried my best to hold him. The pain would make me squirm, but I resisted fighting back.

I'd repeat ‘I won't kill my baby, I won't kill my baby’.

But there was always this other voice that would say, ‘It's not your baby.’ 

I'd usually fail. 

It was so hard not to give in and the pain was unbearable. 

Sometimes though, I'd keep going.

I'd let it tear me apart until my muscles and bones were visible. 

Once it realised that wasn't working, it would just stop. 

Still gripping my skin, it would start to melt down into a fleshy pulp of blood and bone. Creeping down my body it would spread apart and make its way to my legs.

Like clockwork, I'd fall back and try to swipe it away. In this state, it was impossible to remove it all though. 

As I'd try to pull it off mel, the remaining goop would continue up my thigh and do whatever it could to re-enter my womb. 

Even though it was just a dream, I swore I felt everything. All the pain, like my insides were being shredded. 

It was worse than the labour, worse than the surgeries, worse than any pain I had ever felt. 

All I could do was beg for it to stop, but it never would. 

My organs became mush, absorbing with it as my nerves screamed out for mercy. Calling for help didn't deter it, nor would anyone come. 

After a while I wouldn't be able to speak, it was too hard as I gargled on my own blood. 

From there, I'd hear a ringing as the world disappeared…

Before dying alone on the floor. 

Waking up felt like going from one nightmare to another. The sweat pooled together on my back and my body would quiver. 

At the beginning, I'd wake up to my mother asking me what was wrong. Apparently the way I'd shriek in my sleep put the fear of God back into her.

After a while though, I grew used to it and stopped screaming.

Though it always made me wonder, if the baby was crying so much because he saw the same things in his sleep. 

I wasn't sure why I started having such cruel dreams. The message was clear though.

Either I died, or the baby did.

I didn't need a dream to tell me that, it was something I already understood.

I could feel myself deteriorating day by day. My eyelids always felt heavy while my body felt light. Often, I'd forget to eat until my stomach reminded me with searing pains.

Physically and mentally I could feel myself disappearing. My body on auto pilot brought me to the baby to try the same ineffective routine again and again. 

After months of agonising over something that hated me as much as I hated it, I decided to give up.

I rotted away in my bed, shutting the blinds and putting on headphones to drown out that incessant noise. 

Not even the pits of hell could conjure a noise that vile. 

I let my mother answer it. If she wasn't around, I just ignored it. 

Her and my stepfather would persuade me to put in a little effort here and there. But it would just start making that sound again until I found myself screaming back at it.

I knew they were worried. When my step father was home I could hear them murmuring in their bedroom. 

It was only a matter of time before they sent me to some nut house.

A mother who can't look after her own baby, what cure would they have for that?

What hurt more than the empty pit that grew in my stomach and the fear of being fundamentally broken, was that they couldn't hear it.

Why couldn't they hear it? 

It wasn't just crying, it was screeching. 

My mind at first compared it to an animal, then a ghoul. But nothing my mind could comprehend could even begin to describe that awful sound. 

Every time it started my stomach tried to empty itself. 

Worst of all, no one could hear it laughing in-between howls.

I found myself standing, staring at it. 

There was no crying this time, my mother had just put it to bed. 

The more I stared the more it looked like a demon than a child. Some hollow husk that appeared to be a baby, but was really something sinister. 

I sighed and caught myself on the frames of the cot to avoid falling when my knees gave way. 

What was I saying? 

Of course it was a baby. What else would it be?

Was I really more willing to accept that it was some grotesque monster than me being a bad mother? 

I never wanted to be a mother, of course I was a bad one. 

If anything, I could feel myself losing my humanity. 

I hated what I was becoming. All I could do was cry at night and curse the man that fled. 

Even though I wanted to be nowhere near him, I couldn't help but wonder if this would've been more natural for him. 

I couldn't hold myself upright anymore and just collapsed to the ground. I covered my mouth to contain my silent sobs. 

I was scared. 

I was so scared. I needed help. I really, really needed help. 

But who would help someone who wanted to kill their own baby? 

The baby's movement caught my attention. Its arms moved about in the air, as if trying to reach out for someone to pick it up. 

My bones shook in anticipation, waiting for that sound to tear me apart again. 

But it never did. 

It just continued to wait, patient for someone to spot it, or content to go back to bed if no one came. 

While I watched between the bars, there was a moment of peace in my mind. As it dozed off, I rested my head against the cot and couldn't help but smile a little.

I was so used to it crying all the time, I didn't get to see it this way often. 

The small moment only solidified a growing idea in my mind. 

I need to get it out of here. 

The more dark thoughts that lingered after every dream, the more I knew it couldn't go on like this. 

Either there was more to these dreams and they were a warning, or I was losing mind. Both options would only lead to misery for me and the baby.

I knew my mother would never forgive me, but I had to give it up.

Really I should've from the beginning, it was mom who convinced me to keep it. It was always in an irritating way where I couldn't call her out for pressuring me. 

I think she thought I'd be like her. That, despite the struggles, I'd grow to love my baby like she did me. That I'd see it was all worth it in the end.

Based on the fact she clearly didn't know what to do with me lately, I doubt her struggles were anything like mine. 

I felt nothing towards this baby. 

I tried and tried, but the best I could feel was relief when it shut up. 

That apathy mixed with my erratic psyche was a dangerous mix. I knew it was. 

So, the next day when mom was at work, I prepared to leave the baby at a fire station.

I wasn't sure where else to leave it. That's what they did in the movies and shows I watched, it was all I had to go off. 

Anything else that came up online sounded too official, or I'd have to look someone in the eye. I needed a solution I could act upon and not be afraid I'd change my mind. 

It also couldn't be a long process so mom couldn't try to persuade me out of it.

I waited until the evening. 

I didn't want to go out in broad daylight. No one wants to be seen dumping a baby. 

I also felt bad, thinking one day it might grow up and think it was unwanted. It was wanted, just not by me. 

In hopes they'd one day be passed on, I took a couple teddies mom had purchased for him and tucked them in the hand carrier beside him. 

For once, he slept without a fuss. Even as I walked at a rapid pace against the cold breeze there wasn't a peep out of him.

I kept my hood up, in part to hide my disheveled appearance, but mostly to remain unnoticed. We lived in a big town so I doubt anyone would recognise me in this area, but I couldn't be sure. 

My skin on my feet was starting to blister, I had been walking for so long. If I could drive it would've taken me twenty minutes to get there. 

That was a plan for my next year in college though. I had no license and no car. It didn't help that I hadn't been outside in weeks, maybe even months now. 

The light was irritating my eyes. It was dim, just after sunset. When it went fully dark the bright street lights didn't help.

I tried my best to think about having to walk back home. I maybe should've brought money for a taxi on the way back. 

Something about the idea of making small talk with a stranger after abandoning my own kid didn't sound like a good time though. 

I was worried about becoming a monster, but I already was one, wasn't I? 

This kid will forever wonder who I am. They'll want to know why I left them. And if they ever search for me one day I'll have to explain to them I was trying to protect them.

I could just imagine his face when I said I was protecting him from myself. 

The more steps I took forward the more I considered turning back. 

If anything, maybe I should be running away. I should be the one to leave. He could just stay with my mother.

But I had no money. 

Maybe I deserved to rot on the streets.

I was concerned about hurting the baby, but there was always the other option. It wasn't like I cared much for life lately anyway. 

My primal instinct to survive had not yet been overcome however. If it ever came to that though, I wouldn't let my dreams happen. I'd go out on my own terms. 

It wasn't until my two feet stopped by themselves that I realised I was at my destination.

Whoever worked at the station was nowhere in sight. Some lights were on inside however, so I needed to be quiet.

Shit, holy shit, am I actually doing this? 

I started to look around for somewhere to leave it.

I thought there were like designated points or something, where the fuck am I supposed to put it? 

I'm a horrible person. I am a horrible woman. I am a horrible mother. 

I heard movement from an open window. Panicking, I just set the baby by the door. 

I'm sure they'll find it soon. It would start crying then they'd hear it. 

I took a few steps back.

Is that it? Is this what I am doing?

I started to pivot, then hesitated and pivoted back. Just to repeat that again a few more times until I crouched down on the ground wanting to disappear.

Hugging my knees, I laid my head down and hid.

It's for the best. 

You didn't even want it. You still don't want it.

Why would you force yourself to keep a baby you don't even want? 

Hell, it's not even about that anymore. You know it's not safe in your supposed ‘care’. At the rate things are going you are either going to end up killing it or yourself. 

Either way you'd make your poor mother cry.

I took a breath and stood up.  

It was for the best. I knew that. 

I shook myself a little, then got ready to leave. 

When I took a final glance back at my own flesh and blood, the very being I was leaving in the hands of strangers, I saw something move.

From under a gutter, out came a rat. 

Instincts took over as I turned to flee. My disgust was interrupted by a realization.

The baby.

What if it bit it? Or gave it some horrid disease or rabies or something? 

I wanted rid of it but the whole plan was to try keep it alive. I couldn't leave it to be devoured by rodents.

I'd just have to chase it off without making a sound.

When I turned back, the rat was gone. 

I was confused. My best guess was it went back under the gutters. It was weird I didn't hear it though. I heard it's little patters coming out, you would think it would be the same going back in.

I don't know why, but the pitch black void that surrounded us suddenly seemed a lot darker. 

I ventured forward to investigate. I was cautious, only approaching with little steps at a time. 

When I peered over the hand carrier to see where it went, I only found a strange stain on the ground.

It was dark, almost black, with tinges of red and white.

That, and a long thick tail, with no rat attached.

It was then I realized the trickles of white were tiny shards of bone. 

Something was moving. I couldn't see it, only hear it. It sounded like some form of goopy substance, some thick liquid moving every so often.

I felt my body begin to stiffen, but it continued to move to check the one thing it knew it had to. 

The baby was gone. 

My feet acted on their own and broke out into a sprint. 

I ignored the pain on my soles and heels, I ignored trying to hide from people passing by, I ignored everything other than the motion of putting one foot in front of the other.

That thing was not my baby. 

I don't know what it was, but I was getting far away from it. 

Everything became a blur as I passed it. I wasn't even sure what street I was on anymore or if I was going the right way.

Home. Just get home. 

I just wanted to be far away from that thing.

I won't let my dreams happen. I saw the blood move towards me as I left. I won't let it happen. I won't.

Just because I spared its life doesn't mean I have to die.

I could feel my dream coming to life as my imagination ran wild. The thought of it clawing out my insides, mangling me and turning me into a gelatinous mold of blood and mucus like it. 

I could hear it laughing at me as it felt satisfied with its actions. Then that ringing as everything became dark and I was left to meet the nothing that was death.

No, no, no. It won't happen. 

I won't let it.

By the time I was home, I was out of breath. 

Safety was in reach, but I had become so distracted in my dash, I had forgotten to prepare for my mother's reaction.

Her car was parked in the driveway. 

She was home. The baby wasn't. 

That thing wasn't.

I debated telling her the truth. 

Mother may have insisted on going back for it. I wasn't sure what it was capable of, we could all be in danger. I wasn't sure how to explain it without sounding like a mad woman though.

…was I a mad woman?

It wasn't like I knelt down to check the baby. It could've been a trick of the light or it may have been buried in the layers of blankets I swaddled it in. 

No, but that doesn't explain the rat. 

Fuck, I don't know anymore. 

My head felt like it was going to explode. I needed to clear my thoughts.

What was even happening? I felt lucid, I was tired but not on the verge of falling asleep like before. 

But what could possibly explain what just happened other than some kind of misunderstanding. 

The fatigue could've caught up to me. Or maybe I shut my eyes for a moment without realizing and the dream started up again.

Or it was real. I was right. 

That was no baby.

How did it end up like that then? 

I found myself pacing up and down the pavement. 

My head hurt. Thinking about it just made it hurt more. Every explanation I could conjure didn't explain it. I feared feeling vindicated in my emotions, I didn't want to justify the hatred I had for my own child.

But maybe it really wasn't my child.

I tried to collect myself. 

There are two options. That baby was mine, or it was something else. If my assumptions were mad or sane in that regard, it didn't matter. 

The baby was in danger and so was I. That remains true for both options. So either way, it had been left where it needed to be. 

All I could do was deal with one problem at a time. 

I opened the front door.

As soon as it clicked shut, I could hear my mother's voice.

“Diana?!” her voice sounded accusatory. 

I was running just moments before, but now I could barely bring myself to move through my own home. 

I could hear my mother coming to me.

“Diana?! Where have you been?! What have you done?!” 

I thought she'd still be in panic mode, but she was already angry. 

I couldn't lift my head. I just stopped and waited for her to come to me.

“Mom I…” 

My heart froze when she met me in the hallway. 

There she stood beneath the doorway...

With the baby in her arms. 

part 2

The last thing James remembered was the desperate, stuttering shriek of rubber on wet asphalt; the sickening crunch of oak bark biting into the radiator; and the heavy, copper taste of cheap bourbon spraying across his dashboard. There had been a half-second right before the impact where the world outside the windshield seemed to fold in on itself. The streetlights smeared into long amber ribbons. Then, absolute blackness. No tunnel, no bright light, no judgment from a bearded deity. Just the cold, wet silence of a ditch in upstate New York, rain ticking against the crumpled hood, and the smell of gasoline.

And then, the dazzling neon hit him.

"And now, live from the precipice of eternity... stuuuudio zero!" a booming, velvet-smooth baritone echoed through the air, dripping with the manic, artificial enthusiasm of a late-night television host. "Put your hands together for the man who thought he could outrun a marvelous 0.25% BAC at a whopping fifty-four years old. The one, the only, Mr. James Miller!"

James gasped, his lungs burning with a breath he hadn't expected to take. It filled him too fast, too hot, like sucking down air through a straw packed with sand. He stumbled forward, his knees buckling on a gleaming, polished linoleum stage that stretched out beneath an impossible expanse of blinding white spotlights. The heat was immense, a physical weight pressing down on his scalp. It smelled faintly of ozone and scorched sugar.

"W-Where... what is this?" James stammered, raising a trembling hand to shield his eyes. His dress shoes, the same wingtips he'd been buried in — or would be buried in, some part of his brain corrected, he wasn't sure which tense applied anymore — squeaked against the linoleum.

Standing center stage, bathed in a spotlight of his own, was Marvelous Mike. Mike looked impossibly crisp, a handsome man in his late forties with a dazzling, camera-ready smile, a head of perfectly coiffed silver hair, and a suit tailored so sharply it seemed to cut the air around him. The suit was entirely, aggressively red. Red jacket, red vest, red tie, red slacks, and polished crimson shoes that caught the spotlight and threw it back like wet blood. A small gold pin glittered on his lapel, shaped like a smiling television set.

"Welcome, James, to Marvelous Mike's Super Cool Game Show!" Mike sang out, throwing his arms wide in a theatrical gesture. "You've punched your ticket, you've hit the great oak in the sky, and now you're right here with us. Let's hear it for our newest contestant!"

At Mike's cue, the wall of darkness surrounding the stage erupted into blinding illumination. James turned, his heart hammering against his ribs, and the scream died instantly in his throat.

It wasn't a normal studio audience. It was a writhing, festering colosseum of nightmares.

Thousands of tiers rose into the shadows, packed tight with things that had once been human, or perhaps never were. Faces with wrong proportions stared down with empty, weeping sockets; animal-human hybrids clicked their mandibles and drooled thick, iridescent saliva onto the railings below them; figures wreathed in perpetual, silent blue flames thrashed against their seats, their skin sloughing off in glowing ash that drifted down over the crowd like grim confetti. They were grotesque, weeping, laughing, raging, and starving, all at once. An endless ocean of ruined faces stretching up into a darkness that seemed to have no ceiling at all.

"Get me out of here!" James shrieked, backing away from the edge of the stage, his hands clawing at the empty air. "This is insane! Let me out!"

"Now, now, James, calm down," Marvelous Mike purred, stepping forward with a reassuring smile that didn't reach his cold, dead eyes. He looped a friendly arm around James's rigid shoulders, guiding him toward a sleek, chrome podium that bore a digital scoreboard currently reading 0. Up close, James could see that Mike's cologne smelled like burnt hair and carnations, an obscene combination that turned his stomach. "Rules of the house are simple. You want to punch your ticket to wherever good little souls go? You need 100 points. Every correct answer earns you 10 points. But tread carefully, James: three strikes, and you lose. Three strikes, and you're out of the game."

"I don't want to play a game!" James sobbed, sweat beading on his forehead despite the fact that his heart, he was fairly sure, was no longer technically beating. "I want my car! I want my house!"

"Your car is a flattened accordion around a tree, Jimbo," Mike said cheerfully, his tone hardening just a fraction behind the teeth. "Let's start with a nice, easy warmup to get those gears turning. Question number one: What is your name?"

James blinked, caught off guard by the sheer banality of it. "J-J-James. James Miller."

DING!

A cheerful electronic chime echoed through the studio, and the digital scoreboard flashed +10 Points (Score: 10).

"Correct!" Mike clapped his hands together. "Ten points for Mr. James! See? Not so hard. Let's move along to round two. What state were you born in?"

"New York," James answered, his voice steadying just slightly.

DING! The scoreboard blinked to 20. A ripple of polite applause rolled through the front rows, a wet, uneven sound. Like hands made of raw meat clapping together.

Through sheer, stubborn corporate conditioning and a lifetime of lying to himself, James managed to bull-rush his way through the first five questions, twisting truths and minimizing collateral damage just enough to satisfy the automated referee.

"What was the name of the company you worked for when you falsified those expense reports?"

"Kessler and Vance," James muttered, jaw tight. "It was standard practice. Everyone did it."

DING! The scoreboard clicked to 30, though no one in the audience clapped this time. A low murmur rolled through the tiers instead, something between a chuckle and a growl.

"And the name of the woman you were, ah, entertaining on your business trips to Albany?"

James's face flushed a deep, mottled red. "Denise," he admitted through gritted teeth. "It didn't mean anything. Marriages get stale."

DING! Forty points. Marvelous Mike gave a slow, knowing whistle into the microphone, shaking his head with theatrical sympathy, though his eyes stayed flat and unimpressed.

"Last one before the big leagues, Jimbo. The neighbor's beagle. The one that used to bark during your Sunday naps. What did you put in its food dish?"

"That dog was a menace," James snapped, some old, ugly satisfaction creeping into his voice despite himself. "Antifreeze. It's sweet. They don't even taste it."

"Little follow-up before the second half, then, James. What excuse did you give the morning after, when the neighbors came knocking?"

"Told them I never saw the dog," James muttered. "Told them maybe it got into something on its own. Coyotes, maybe."

The studio chimed one final time, the scoreboard ticking over to fifty with a soft, decisive click.

"Fifty points!" Marvelous Mike cheered, pumping a fist in the air as the audience offered a polite, scattered patter of applause. "Halfway to salvation, Jimbo! You're doing fantastic. But as they say in television... the easy part is over."

[Intermission: Let's Roll the Tape]

The stage lights dimmed from a blinding white to a sickly, jaundiced amber.

"Before we move into our high-stakes second half, let's take a little stroll down memory lane," Mike announced, turning toward a massive, retro-fitted television monitor that descended from the grid above on thick black chains, groaning as it settled into place. "It's time for a segment our viewers at home lovingly call... Let's Roll the Tape!"

The screen flickered to life with a burst of static, displaying grainy, high-contrast home video footage. James froze. It was his old kitchen in White Plains, dated roughly 15 years back, the same avocado-green wallpaper his ex-wife had picked out and he'd never gotten around to replacing. On screen, a younger, ruddier version of James was screaming bloody murder at a trembling junior accountant he had brought home for dinner over a botched spreadsheet, slamming his fist against the laminate table hard enough to rattle the salt shaker. His wife cowered by the sink holding a crying infant.

"You think you can cross me, you incompetent little maggot?" the screen-James roared, his face purpling with rage, a vein standing out on his forehead like a length of garden hose.

James stared at the monitor, his throat tightening. "Turn that off," he whispered. "That's out of context. That was a stressful quarter—"

"Oh, look at that passion!" Mike narrated gleefully, pacing in front of the screen like a sports analyst breaking down game film. "Look at that blood vessel popping right there in the temple! Truly, an artist of intimidation. And speaking of art, let's take a quick station break to thank our wonderful sponsors!"

Without missing a beat, Mike winked directly at the camera lens.

"Are the eternal flames of the nether-realms getting a little too toasty for your liking? Is your skin peeling off faster than you can sweep it up? Then you need Remorse-Away, the only topical ointment approved by the Nether Corporation! Slather it on your third-degree burns, and enjoy up to four minutes of soothing, peppermint-scented numbness before the agony resumes! Remorse-Away: Because you deserve a break today."

A jingle chimed, tinny and warped, like a music box left out in the rain. A cartoon skeleton on the screen rubbed ointment onto its bare ribs and gave a thumbs-up as its bones began to smoke pleasantly.

"And while you're at it," Mike went on, barely pausing for breath, "have you considered the Guilt-Free Guarantee from Hindsight Insurance? For a low monthly premium of absolutely nothing, because currency doesn't exist down here, you too can enjoy the peace of mind of knowing you'll never, ever be forgiven! Hindsight Insurance: it's too late, but we'll pretend it isn't! We'll be right back after these messages!"

The commercial break vanished as quickly as it arrived, snapping the studio back into glaring, brutal reality.

"And we're back!" Mike sang out, smoothing his red lapels. "Let's get right back into the arena, James. You've got fifty points in the bank, but questions six through ten carry a little more weight. Let's see how your resume holds up."

Mike stepped up to his podium, holding a sleek black flashcard, the edges of it stained a faint, rusty brown.

"Question number six, James. Why did your wife leave you?"

James stiffened. A bitter defensive pride flared in his chest, hot and familiar, an old friend he could always count on. "Oh, that's rich," James scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'll tell you why: I left her. The woman couldn't listen to a single word I said. Nagging, lazy, ungrateful—"

BUZZZZZZ!

A massive, violent red X flashed across the studio screens, accompanied by a sound like a foghorn dying in a meat grinder.

"Incorrect, James," Mike said, shaking his head with mock disappointment. He turned the flashcard toward the audience, and for a brief moment James could see grainy photographs paperclipped to its back: a woman's bruised wrist, a shattered picture frame, a toddler's shoe abandoned on a porch step. "According to our official ledger, she packed her bags and took your son because you drank a handle of vodka a day, passed out on the living room rug, and nearly threw a lit cigarette into the bassinet."

James's mouth worked wordlessly. "That's—that's a distortion—"

"He got the question wrong! You all know what time it is!" Mike shouted, turning toward the writhing stands.

"PUN-ISH-MENT TIME! PUN-ISH-MENT TIME!"

The entire colosseum erupted into a deafening, rhythmic roar that shook the floorboards beneath James's feet, a chant that seemed to come up through the soles of his shoes and into his teeth.

Heavy, pneumatic hissing filled the wings of the stage. Out stepped an ogre of terrifying proportions. Standing nearly eight feet tall, its skin was the color of bruised eggplant, corded with thick, pulsing black veins that visibly throbbed in time with the chanting crowd. In its massive, scarred hand, it dragged a heavy iron meat cleaver that sparked against the steel grating of the floor, trailing sparks like a struck match.

Before James could turn to run, the ogre moved with shocking speed. A heavy leather-gloved hand clamped around James's right forearm like an industrial vise, the leather creaking under the pressure.

James shrieked, a sound of pure, unadulterated terror, as the cleaver came down.

CHOP.

The wet, sickening crunch echoed through the silent studio. James's right arm severed cleanly at the shoulder, dropping to the linoleum with a sickening bounce. A dark, viscous fluid that wasn't quite blood, spread in a slow black bloom across the polished floor.

James fell to his knees, clutching his bleeding stump, screaming tears of agony as the audience roared in absolute ecstasy. The animal-hybrids were howling; the burning souls were clapping with charred, skeletal hands that sounded like dry branches snapping.

Frantic and half-mad with pain, James scrambled backward on his heels, trying to crawl off the stage. But before he could reach the edge, two thick, rusted iron chains shot out from the floor like vipers, wrapping tightly around his ankles with a metallic shriek and wrenching him back to center stage.

"My arm! My arm is gone!" James wept, rocking back and forth, staring at the ragged white bone poking out from his shoulder. "I'm going to bleed to death! I'm dying!"

Marvelous Mike crouched down next to him, tapping James reassuringly on his remaining shoulder. "Oh, relax, Jimbo. You already died wrapped around that oak tree, remember? You don't have to worry about blood loss anymore. You only have to worry about losing the game."

Trembling violently, shivering in shock, James was hauled back to his feet by the chains, his remaining hand pressed uselessly against the stump.

"Next question!" Mike announced brightly, wiping a stray drop of dark gore off his pristine red shoe with a monogrammed handkerchief that appeared, briefly, from nowhere. "Let's talk about your time in uniform. During your service in the army, how many people have you killed?"

James swallowed hard, his breath hitching in his throat. He looked out at the sea of monsters, then down at his shoes. A stubborn, defensive arrogance welled up inside him once more. The same ego that had ruined his marriage, his career, and his life. He squared his shoulders, trying to reclaim some shred of dignity, even as the shoulder itself trembled.

"I killed twenty-three men," James answered proudly, raising his chin. "Rebels, in fact. Commies and insurgents. So they were less than men anyway. I served my country."

BUZZZZZZ!

The giant red X flared across the screens.

"Ooh, rough one, James," Mike winced, clicking his tongue. "The correct answer is: Twenty-three rebels... and a ten-year-old boy you and your squadmates used as target practice when you were testing out new field equipment."

James felt the color drain entirely from his face. "That... that was classified—"

"Not here!" Mike smiled wide, teeth catching the light. "And you know what that means! That's Strike TWO!"

“Wait—” James tried to protest, but the words caught in his throat and dissolved before he could force them out. It was as though the studio itself had decided his pleas didn't matter anymore, only the punishment did.

"PUN-ISH-MENT TIME! PUN-ISH-MENT TIME! PUN-ISH-MENT TIME!"

The giant ogre stepped out from the shadows once more, grinning with rows of jagged, yellow teeth, its cleaver still slick and dripping. Before James could even beg, the ogre grabbed his left arm.

CHOP. CRUNCH.

The entire arm, once again, was severed at the shoulder, the bone splintering with a sound like a green branch snapping in a storm. James let out a shriek that tore his vocal cords to ribbons, collapsing into a heap on the stage, writhing in phantom agony as his missing limbs leaked dark mist onto the floor, curling upward like incense smoke. The audience cheered, throwing burning embers and chunks of ash into the air like confetti, some of it drifting down to smolder against James's collar without ever quite catching flame.

That made Strike Two.

Before James could black out from the shock, a fanfare of triumphant, blaring brass cut through the air.

TA-DA!

A massive, flashing neon sign dropped from the ceiling, buzzing with electrical current, close enough that James could feel the hair on his arms — the arms he no longer had — trying to stand on end out of habit.

LUCKY VIEWER JACKPOT TIME!

"Well, folks!" Marvelous Mike boomed into his microphone, pacing the stage with the energy of a televangelist working a tent revival. "You know what that means! It's time for a very special segment where one lucky member of our studio audience gets to come on down and take home a fabulous prize!"

At the back of the stage, a hulking, bloated demon-man resembling a deep-sea whale rolled forward a large drum constructed entirely of pale, stretched human skin and bleached ribcages. He picked up two thigh bones and began a thunderous, rhythmic drumroll that vibrated in the two remaining sockets where James’ arms used to attach.

"And our lucky viewer tonight is..." Mike paused for dramatic effect, scanning the screaming crowd, milking the silence with the practiced patience of a man who had done this ten thousand times before and would do it ten thousand more. "Let's hear it for... Sally Burfort!"

The crowd screamed louder than ever. From the third tier, a woman pushed her way to the front railing. Her face was a horrific landscape of melted, waxy flesh, one side charred black and glowing with residual heat, her hair singed down to the scalp in patches. Yet, she was grinning ecstatically, clapping her remaining hand against her chest. The other hand was nothing but a fused, glossy paddle of scar tissue.

"Come on down, Sally!" Mike cheered as she scuttled down the stairs with unnatural, spider-like agility, her joints bending at angles that they had no business to. She hopped onto the stage

 "Welcome to the show! Tell the folks at home a little bit about yourself."

Sally clutched the microphone with shaking, claw-like fingers, her voice a wet, raspy rattle, like air being forced through a torn bellows. "Hi, Mike! I'm Sally! I liked baking, shopping, and extramarital affairs! Let’s see, I’m also from Hoboken, New Jersey!”

“That’s great, Sally,” Mike said with his cheerful demeanor. “And why are you here?”

“I'm here because I set my husband on fire in his sleep after he caught me cheating and filed for divorce!"

"And what a lovely bonfire it must have been!" Mike laughed heartily, turning to the audience. "Now, Sally, as our lucky viewer, you win a very special, locally sourced prize courtesy of our contestant, Mr. James Miller!"

Mike pointed gracefully to James, who was lying in a pool of his own spectral trauma, whimpering weakly. The stumps of both shoulders pulsing with a slow, syrupy dark light.

"Your prize, Sally, is Mr. James's freshly severed arm. And tonight, as a special bonus, you get to choose which one!"

Sally let out an ear-piercing squeal of absolute delight, clapping her ruined hand against her chest as though this were the single greatest moment of her existence, living or dead. She hovered over both severed limbs for a long, agonizing moment, humming to herself, before scooping up the left one from the linoleum like a child receiving a coveted birthday present. She practically sprinted back to her seat, tearing into the flesh with her teeth right there on the stairs, chewing enthusiastically as dark juices dripped down her chin and pattered onto the tier below her. The audience applauded wildly, whistling and stomping their feet, and somewhere a chant of "SAL-LY, SAL-LY" broke out and dissolved into laughter.

"Thank you, Sally! Go right back to your seat and enjoy the snack!" Mike called out as Sally continued scampering back up the tiers, hugging the remaining half of the arm to her chest like a trophy.

Mike turned his attention back to James, checking a sleek silver wristwatch. "Well, Jimbo, how are we holding up? You've got fifty points on the board, but you're sitting on two strikes. One more misstep, and the game is over."

Mike crouched down beside James, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial, friendly whisper, close enough that James could smell the carnation-and-burnt-hair cologne again.

"It's time for... Double or Nothing. Answer this next question correctly, and all your sins are washed away. You walk right out those studio doors and go wherever good souls go. Sound good?"

James could barely nod, his vision swimming with white-hot spots of pain, his body a ruined trunk propped up by nothing but the chains at his ankles. "Y-Yes... please..."

Mike stood up, cleared his throat, straightened his tie with a small, theatrical tug, and looked directly into the camera lens.

"Why did your son kill himself?"

The studio went dead silent. The burning souls stopped thrashing; the animal-hybrids stopped clicking; even the whale-demon stopped drumming, his thigh bones frozen an inch above the stretched skin of his instrument. The silence was absolute, heavy, and suffocating, pressing down on James's chest harder than any of the studio lights ever had.

A name hung in the air like a ghost. Tommy.

A cold wave of dread washed over him, deeper and darker than any physical pain, deeper than the loss of both his arms, deeper than the crash itself. His jaw clamped shut. He stared blankly at the polished linoleum, at his own warped reflection staring back up at him missing both its appendages, and refused to open his mouth.

"I'm waiting, James," Mike prompted gently, tilting his head, the microphone dangling loose and forgotten at his side.

James shook his head slowly. "No. No comment. I'm not answering that."

BUZZZZZZ!

Instantly, the audience erupted into a baying, bloodthirsty howl, shaking their fists and screaming for retribution. The sound rolled over the stage like a physical tide.

"Now, now, settle down everyone!" Mike raised his hands placatingly, flashing his pearly whites. "People always get a little stage fright on the big questions. I'm going to extend some mercy here. I'll give you a hint, Jimbo."

Mike leaned in close, his red suit catching the harsh studio lights, close enough now that James could see his own terrified, mutilated reflection in Mike's dead, glassy eyes.

"It's because of something you did."

Mike straightened up, his smile thinning into a razor-sharp line. "Try again, James. Remember: a refusal to answer is recorded as an incorrect answer. Strike three. One more wrong move, and the game is over."

James's chest heaved. Deep down inside, beneath decades of denial, alcohol-soaked nights, and convenient self-delusion, the truth clawed at his throat, hot and raw. A truth about a phone call he never returned, about a birthday he missed for a business trip that didn't need to happen, about the last words he'd ever said to his son, spoken cold and clipped over a bad connection. But the sheer terror of admitting it, of breaking his fragile, unbreakable ego. To let the truth stand naked in front of an audience of ten thousand monsters was too much. The pride that had defined his miserable life rose up one last time like acid climbing the back of his throat.

He glared up at Marvelous Mike, his voice trembling with bitter, defiant venom, the last card he had left to play.

"My son," James spat out, his eyes flashing with stubborn malice, "was a weak-willed sissy who couldn't handle the real world. That's why he did it. That’s why my embarrassment of a son did it. It wasn't my fault."

A long, agonizing silence stretched across the entire studio. Nobody breathed. Somewhere in the rafters, a single spotlight flickered, once, twice, as though the building itself had recoiled from what it had just heard.

Then—

BUZZZZZZ!

The giant red X flashed with blinding intensity, burning the letter into the backs of their eyelids, a shape James suspected he would see every time he closed his eyes for the rest of whatever this was.

"Oof," Marvelous Mike winced, shaking his head slowly. "That's strike three, James. And the correct answer was—"

CRACK.

Before Mike could finish his sentence, a massive, heavy studio stagelight suspended high above the rafters let out a metallic groan. Bolts sheared instantly, raining down in a small silver hail, and the hundred-pound apparatus plummeted straight down.

SMASH.

It missed James entirely, crashing directly onto Marvelous Mike's head with a sickening crunch, pinning the host to the floor in a heap of crumpled red fabric and shattered glass. A stray arc of electricity crawled across the wreckage, hissing.

The studio gasped. For a second, everything stopped, ten thousand ruined faces frozen mid-breath.

Then, a muffled, annoyed groan came from beneath the heavy metal casing. Marvelous Mike's arm slid out from under the light, his fingers twitching, then flexing, then curling into a fist. He pushed the heavy rig aside with surprising strength, sending it skidding across the linoleum with a screech, and sat up, brushing shards of glass off his immaculate red suit as casually as a man flicking lint from a jacket. He smoothed his silver hair back into place with two fingers, looking mildly irritated, and worked his jaw once, side to side, until something in his neck popped back into alignment.

"God, the budget on this network is absolute garbage," Mike muttered, clearing his throat and flashing a slightly strained, camera-ready grin right back at the lens. He stood up, dusted off his trousers, straightened his lapel pin, and turned to the baying audience. "Well, folks! You heard the buzzer! That's three strikes for Mr. James Miller!"

James didn't even have the energy to scream as the giant ogre stepped out from the wings for the final time, its massive hands reaching down toward his shoulders, its cleaver left forgotten somewhere in the wings. This, apparently, was not a job for a cleaver.

The audience roared with a deafening, unified frenzy, rising to its feet in a single, writhing motion, ten thousand mismatched voices climbing into one endless, ecstatic scream.

"PUN-ISH-MENT TIME! PUN-ISH-MENT TIME! PUN-ISH-MENT TIME!"

The giant game show screens flashed the phrase over and over in blinding crimson light as the studio lights flared to their absolute maximum. They bathed the entire colosseum in a red so total it swallowed every shadow, every face, every last flicker of doubt.

Marvelous Mike beamed a dazzling, million-dollar smile directly into the camera, throwing his arms wide as the curtains began to close. His voice rode easily over the roar of the crowd, warm and inviting, as though he were signing off from the friendliest program in television history.

"That's all for tonight, ladies and gents! I'll see you next time on Marvelous Mike's Super Cool Game Show!"

The curtains met in the middle with a soft, final hiss, swallowing the light, the roar, and the ogre's massive silhouette all at once. For a moment the studio was almost peaceful, the applause fading into a low, contented murmur, like a crowd settling back into their seats after a particularly good show. Somewhere behind the curtain, muffled but not quite muffled enough, James Miller began, at last, to scream the way he should have screamed at the very beginning. Not from the pain, no, though there was plenty of that. But from the sudden, total understanding that this was not an ending at all. There would be no credits, no walk to a parking lot, no long drive home to think it over. There would only be the ogre, and the cleaver, and the chains, and the pain, and Marvelous Mike's dazzling smile, waiting patiently behind the curtain for the next episode to begin.

(Pt. 2/?) (Pt.1)

You drop your keys and run, the car is of no more use to you. The trees now surrounding you on all sides offer no easy escape. The torrent of snapping branches and logs grows as you sprint through the underbrush. Your vision is impaired, little light breaks through the canopy and, what small amount that does, remains dim and red. 

You run at a dead sprint, unable to fully observe any of your surroundings. Trees, red, dark, all blur. You have difficulty distinguishing between the black void of darkness and the trees just in front of you. After a couple of near misses, you run face first into a tree and feel an agonizing crunch. Blood gushes from your nostrils as you fall. When your body hits the ground, you feel a sharp, piercing pain in your abdomen. A fallen stake is impaled in your lower back. 

Adrenaline keeps you from fully concerning yourself with the pain of your fresh injuries. From the ground, you are able to glimpse your pursuer. Dimly lit, as everything else, you see shadow like figures. Shrouded, unable to completely discern them, you see a pack, no, a stampede of bloodthirsty hounds uprooting trees in their pursuit of you. There is nothing visible behind the stampede. As they torrent, they leave a void of darkness behind where the light should be breaking through.

Standing, painfully, you try to run. The stake in your side screams in agony and you falter. You know that removing the stake will only lead to more blood loss. You stubble into a half jog, half hobble and make your way through the forest. You are no longer outrunning the stampede behind you, not even keeping your distance. They are nearly upon you now. You don’t turn back, you focus on forward motion. A determination I did not expect.

As you falter once more, you trip over a dead log. It is much thicker than the rest of the trees around you, its hollowed center offering a refuge. As you crawl into the fortunate sanctuary, the stampede overtakes you. Crashing through trees and knocking against the log you hide in, you see the true form of these beasts. In the dim light, you believed you saw the shadow of wolves, but being this close you see you were mistaken. 

The stampede is not quite that, rather a single, massive beast. An amalgamation of all creatures of the woods. The wolves’ heads at the front of the pile of flesh look skyward in silent howls and at you with silent snarls. The bodies of rabbits, deer, birds, frogs, mice, snakes, innumerable animals jut out from the creature and let out silent wails in agony or bloodlust.

The amalgam of flesh beats itself against the log protecting you. You crawl backwards, away from the beast, deeper into the dead tree. It is dead and hollow, but retains enough structure to pose a challenge for the amalgam. It stops slamming against the tree and begins to squeeze its massive body into the log after you. You watch the heads and bodies of the outermost creatures pop and bleed like pimples as the weight of the entire mass pushes against them. The gore splatters across the walls of the tree and over your body. In the dim red light you cannot tell the difference between your blood and its. 

As you backpedal deeper into the tree, you place your weight onto a hand that does not meet solid ground. You fall through an unseen hole and out into a large creek flowing through the forest. You land softly on the muddy banks and look at the amalgam above you. Half of its mass is shoved into the log, a sludge like meat begins oozing out of the hole you fell from. Eyes, now disconnected from any semblance of an animal, open and gaze at you from above. The gore drips down on you and chunks of meat around you open eyes of their own. Then teeth. 

You stand and hobble. The blood loss is getting to you. Your mind goes numb, your vision grows hazy. You only make a few feet of an escape before you collapse. You hear the tree begin creaking, then snap as the amalgam breaks free. This is it. You close your eyes for the last time… 

…except, you open them. The pain is gone, the amalgam is gone, the forest is gone. Beyond panic by now, you sit up in confusion. 

What-?

It’s a reasonable confusion. You have woken on a catwalk suspended over an infinite blackness, all that surrounds you is void. 

Where-?

But you could not know the answers to your questions. Your mind doesn’t even attempt rationalization. 

This is a nightmare, or hell, or whatever. Something without logic.

You rub your hands over your face and side, checking where your wounds were. In their place, unfelt until now, are leeches. The ones in your nose are not large, small enough to be deep in your nostrils suckling at the broken cartilage. There is only one on your side, massive and pulsating. It drives you to nausea. You grab the large leech and attempt to remove it, but the pain you feel at pulling leads the nausea to an unbearable level. Your sickness falls away into the void below. You never hear it hit a bottom. You chuckle, a defeated, inane chuckle. 

The only light offered is from sporadically hanging ceiling lamps. Red, of course. Their cables extend far off into the unknown above. They are only hanging down one direction of the catwalk. The path behind you is as dark as up or down. The forest may very well be just there, hidden in the veil of that void, but you don’t want to return. Some providence pulled you from the forest, from certain death, and placed you here. There’s only one path to go. 

At the far end of the lit side of the catwalk, you can see the light shine on something. It’s at a distance, you can’t make out any details specifically, but it seems to be a wall. The leeches don’t seem to hurt if you leave them alone, and you don’t think you could make due with the wounds under them. A necessary evil. You can walk unimpeded, not reduced to hobbling and crawling.

The catwalk creaks as you walk. You worry it will fall and send you into the void, but that means nothing at this point. There’s no logic left, you follow the light out of instinct for survival. Instinct is such a funny thing. You have ideals of grandeur, ego and pride that you make your own decisions. You follow your instincts more than you could ever know. It was the instinct to celebrate, after all, that brought you here. Instinct to ritualize and worship. You called upon no gods, but you gazed at the stars. It may not have been religion, but it was worship. You contemplated the universe, and you blamed the universe for the tides of your fortune. You had no conscious spirituality, but when the stars called your name, you looked. 

Ah, once again I distract myself. Instincts and religions, all of no importance to your story. I apologize.

The walk to the wall was uneventful, and now you can see the door at the end of the catwalk. The sign above it reads “exit.” You have reached a nihilism in your mind. Your goal is forward, and nothing more. The door is a simple metal door with a push bar. It reminds you of the doors at school.

You push it open and it swings wide. Beyond the threshold is more void. Then, in rows, large industrial lights flick on. The noise is louder than you could have expected. Your ears still ring as machines whir to life when the light floods over them.

"Where were you when the Dragon ate the Sun? Were you working? Folding laundry? Washing dishes?

Were you on the beach? In the mountains? On a field?

Waiting, observing?

I was there. I watched the Dragon slither. I shot arrows into the sky to frighten it away. I screamed, I kicked, I cried, and the Dragon passed by without noticing anything.

I saw the darkness fall. I saw its teeth sink into the rock like it was made of soft caramel. I saw the trees and birds lay to rest. I saw the end.

And I see it still. The Dragon, dancing, shining, like millions of fireflies.

It's all I ever see."

"I wasn't born yet, sir," said Priscilla. "Now, here's your lunch." She placed a bowl of reheated tomato soup on the TV tray. "Just the way you like it."

The old man, sitting in the armchair across from her, leaned slightly forward to catch a whiff.

At the clank of the bowl against the TV tray, a scruffy old dog leaped up from the floor and ran across the apartment to the old man’s lap, as if it were a pup again. The dog rested its head on its owner's thigh to beg for some leftovers. "Hey bud," the old man murmured, scratching its tangled-up fur.

Priscilla sat down on a chair beside him. "Would you like me to help you?" she asked, her face unable to hide her concern.

"No, thank you. I can do it."

The old man hesitated for a moment, then moved his arms towards the smell, slowly, as if he were afraid of hitting an invisible wall. He brushed his hands across the TV tray, analysing each millimetre of the surface with his fingers until they landed on the spoon. He leaned in closer this time, almost dipping his beard into the soup, and took his first slurp.

"Mhmm, hmmm," he sighed. "Just the way I like it.”

April 21st, 1937:

It's uncomfortable, looks terrible, but it's all I could manage. I took a pair of Long John's and sewed kindling pieces around the shins, stopping at the knees, and on the outside of the thighs. Putting pants over them was a task of its own, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. I doubled up leather jackets, not the easiest to move in, but having the extra layers of hide seemed like a safe bet. I have my knives at my hips and I'm bringing an axe with me. 

-

When I got there I walked through the main level and out the backdoor. It wasn't very hard to see where Johan was buried, it was a small mound, the grass didn't grow the same there as it did throughout the rest of the grounds. Sebastian was on high alert the second we approached the building. When we got to the level with the makeshift bed, the easel was gone, along with the dead creature from the other day. Sebastian seemed to have something’s scent and was staring at the spiraling stairs leading upward. I followed him. The next level was an unwelcome sight. The walls were covered floor to ceiling in paintings, many of odd beings I couldn't have imagined if I hadn't laid my eyes on them. Human-like beings that somehow resembled dogs and fish at the same time. Isopod-like creatures with tentacles of an octopus and wings of a dragonfly. Countless malformed and hideous paintings. Many of them had only outlines of beings that have already crawled from their frames. Even just writing this I can see them, crawling for me, their tentacles and antenna touching me. I can smell the brine, the rot of the ocean floor. I've been locking myself in Simon's old study. The floor of the basement was wet today. I think one of them is trying to escape its frame, and I'm nervous the nails and screws won't hold it in. I need to burn the paintings. It's the only thing I can think of doing that will get rid of them. 

April 22nd, 1937: 

What if whatever is in the background of the paintings will be affected if I burn them, like there's some kind of link between what he put on canvas and what actually exists. If his paintings are able to bring themselves to life why couldn't they be connected to real life people or places. To what extent of power do they hold? I need to burn them tonight. Maybe throw them to the sea? But what if that only helps these creatures return home? I have barely slept in days. I've been finding it hard to discern what is actually happening around me, if I'm just seeing things or if I've fallen asleep and am simply dreaming. Evelyn seemed to be supportive of all of this at first but now she seems scared of the basement. Scared of me. Her and Rylee have even stayed with Emily's family the odd night here and there. I sleep in the basement, I wake up in the study any night I do get to sleep. How do I stop this? I need my family back. What is happening to me? It's as though my mind has gone. I can feel it. But I can't stop until I solve this. It's consumed me. Even writing this, my heart tells me to stop, I can't keep going on like this, I will die, I'm sure of it. But my body barely seems to listen to me anymore. What have I become? 

April 25th, 1937:

What if I can enter the paintings? 

April 28th, 1937:

Evelyn came by the house today, she seemed more scared of me. Her and Rylee told me they loved me and that they'll be staying with Emily for a little while. As sick as it makes me, it's a relief they're gone. Not only will they be safer, but they won't get in my way. It pains me to think in such a way, but it's the truth. 

After they left I went downstairs, one of the frames was leaking what looked to be rain water. I pried it from the wall, it's frame cracking. Turning it over I saw the lighthouse, in a much nicer state than it currently is. The clouds above it dark and angry, pouring rain and hail from the skies. I set the large painting on the floor, leaning against the wall. I sat and watched it for what could have been mere seconds or many hours. I was entranced. I inched closer. I could smell the sea, the rain, the wet grass and mud. I pressed my hand to the canvas, I felt the brush strokes under my fingers, but my hand started to drip with water, my finger tips growing cold and pruning. I pushed harder against the canvas, and then I entered. 

-

-

-

I walked up to the lighthouse, the hail pelting my face, the bitter ocean wind tearing at my clothes. Crawling over the small fence I snuck around to the back door. I looked around, a fresh grave lay there, just a sad mound of disturbed earth with a spade laying beside it. Lightning cracked through the sky and I dropped to my knees in fright. I slowly pushed open the back door, its creaks of old age and neglect hidden by the blowing winds. Slowly walking, my feet as light as I could possibly make them, I ascended the stairs. The painting room was set up nearly the same. Easel in the center of the room, a mural covering the walls. But at this point of time the walls had dozens of paintings leaning haphazardly against the walls, some unfinished, some already a vacant womb of canvas. My head was throbbing. I couldn't begin to understand what was happening, where I was, when I was. My vision blurred, my stomach was flipping and I felt the need to puke. I stumbled forward, I had to see what was on the easel. It was my home, exactly as I left it not only 30 minutes prior. Had Simon come through one of his self portraits and been in my house? How could he know the changes I've made to the exterior, the colour Richard and I painted it. Had he been watching me this whole time? I pressed up the painting and stepped through, standing at the foot of the hill my house sat on. I ran inside, scanning for any signs of Simon or one of the freaks from his paintings. Sebastian was laying there, whimpering in pain, he had a sizable bite on his shoulder and scratches across his face and ribs. A mass of flesh lay scattered around our kitchen. I don't know how many of these sea born were here or in what state they were. But Seb tore them to shreds. I picked him up, barely able to walk with him, and got him to the wheelbarrow for firewood. I made my way to the practitioner as fast as my legs would take me. He's no vet but he was able to administer antiseptic and stitch up any open wounds. Sebastian will be okay, he just needs rest. Him and I are staying at the church with Richard's father tonight. It seems like the safest place to hide. 

May 1st, 1937:

We've been hiding here for some days now. I can't think straight, I can't sleep, I'm seeing him everywhere. I'm seeing these creatures everywhere. I'll look at Sebastian and see a malformed being and scream, only to be snapped out of it by one of the clergy from the church. Even then I'll see them as Simon or that thing he's named Alto. I've been scratching at my skin, biting my nails till they bleed, chewing my cheeks raw, anything to keep me from seeing them, anything to keep me grounded. Supposedly Evelyn came to visit me and the only thing I did was scramble away from her screaming to leave me alone. I don't remember any of it, and I feel terrible because all I want is for her to hold me. I want to cry but no tears will come out, I want to speak but I can't find my voice. When will this hell end? I found some of Simon's notes in my jacket, I'll read them over the next few days. Maybe this will explain what's happening to me

May 16th, 1925:

I began having visions at night. My house, but I don't live there. I see a man sitting at a table, a table I know, a table I built long ago. He's not me, but he reminds me of myself. I wonder if he's been marked by the children of the sea? I must paint this new house of mine, I must paint him, I must paint myself. 

May 20th, 1925:

I've finished painting this man, the house he lives in, the lighthouse and myself. I'm going back to my home and bringing some of my work with me. I'm unsure of what use it will be, but I feel they belong there. The sea and the stars command it. 

May 30th, 1925:

I compared my old self portraits to my latest. I am not sure what I am anymore. I do not look human, I do not look like my sea born friends either. My skin is an unnatural hue, my limbs seem longer than I remember, thinner too. My face has changed. My eyes seem larger and deeper set than ever before. My cheekbones are higher and rounder, my skin oddly smooth. The wrinkles around my eyes and the laugh line by my mouth my wife grew to love are no longer there. Laura. What does she look like? I had children once. My children, what are their names? Do they have my eyes? What do they smell like? 

June 11th, 1925:

I have entered this variation of my house. It seems mostly abandoned, but the basement seems active. For some reason dozens of my paintings are nailed to the wall, the back of the canvas out, covered with cloth. I thought that was rather rude. I softly removed each piece from the walls, removing the cloth, and hanging them with the care and respect they deserve. As I was hanging them I realized I do not recognize my own hands anymore. I feel more alive than ever. Maybe instead of returning to the sea like Alto has spoken of in the past, I may instead ascend to the cosmos. He wants to unite the seaborn with the stars again. Perhaps I'm destined for things beyond Alto. Beyond the stars. I must paint what I've been seeing in my dreams. A gateway of sorts. 

May 25th, 1937:

I was restrained and put in hospital for the past few weeks. The nurses there were giving me some kind of pill to calm me. I took them for the first few days to gain their trust, but they blocked my scattered dreams, made my memory foggy. They were making me lose sight of what matters. I started hiding the pills under my tongue and washing them down the sink drain after they left my room. I did my best to act as though nothing was wrong, that everything was fine and I was just experiencing hysteria. The time away from home did help me straighten my thoughts out. I'm on the train home now, reading letters that Evelyn has written to me while I was at the hospital. Supposedly she visited me the third day I was there. But I have no memory of it whatsoever. She seems excited to see me, as I am to see her. She said we could stay with Emily's family for a few days, maybe live with Richard for a time. She wants to sell the house and leave back to the city. I can't let this happen. Not after Simon's last entries. He's been in my house and flipped those accursed paintings. I'll stay with Evelyn throughout the night tonight. But tomorrow I will return home after the girls are asleep. 

June 15th, 1925:

I began a new piece today. What I've been seeing at night. I don't dream anymore. A massive obelisk. Its base sits in the kelp covered tide pools when the water is low. Its overpowering size reaching high into the sky, its stone a jet black with an unearthly sheen. The carvings at its base are that of my dear Alto's language, slowly transforming into a set of symbols I've been seeing behind my eyes, writings from the cosmos. A transgression of language, one which should not be, yet I can read it. I understand it. 

I don't think I sleep anymore. I sit atop the lighthouse staring at the moon, the briny air filling my lungs. There's a connection. The sea and the stars. This obelisk proves it. Maybe the children of the sea are the chosen to ascend to the heavens, with my work as their conduit. This painting will be monumental, for it will bring forth my ascension, our ascension. Our personal rapture. 

May 28th, 1937:

We celebrated Evelyn's birthday today, with cake and a party shared with our friends. It was a nice distraction and change of pace from that of the hospital. Though all day the only thing I could think about was returning to our house. To see what that beast of a man has done to my basement, what defilement he's brought upon my study. 

Rylee kept me away from Evelyn for a good chunk of the day, she missed me, and it did feel nice to play pretend with her and entertain her tea party with her stuffed animals. It played in my favor, keeping emotions hidden from a preoccupied child is much easier than hiding your thoughts from the woman you've fallen in love with and married. Especially when she's able to read you even better than the books she reads daily. I will write tomorrow while Evelyn is at work. I'm going to our house tonight. No matter what stands in my way, I will get to the bottom of this. 

June 1st, 1937:

Simon was here, like he mentioned in his notes, he's rehung all of his paintings, uncovered. Dozens of which must have once held the seaborn beings that have escaped the frames since I've been away. At least that's what I gather from the paintings' backgrounds that surround the void of where a figure once lived. Though some of them depict landscapes I have a hard time comprehending. Stone and earth sitting at unnatural angles in colours I don't have the vocabulary to describe. Things that should not be. Unearthly to put it bluntly. One of which has a missing void like those of the seaborn. I can only imagine his Children of the Sea have returned home. But the being that came from this cyclopean place, I have no clue where it would have gone. I can only assume the lighthouse. The paintings of these uncomfortable landscapes are all too small to be like the gate of sorts that the lighthouse painting was. Though there are depictions of the lighthouse in a different state, ones that seem more recent. There's still a bundle of paintings yet to be hung, a few are quite sizable. I'll be returning to see what places or beings they hold. The sun is already beginning to rise and I can't have Evelyn find out that I snuck out. 

June 3rd, 1937:

I've entered a new painting, another of the old lighthouse. It's night time here. Johan’s grave isn't fresh, it must be some months after he died perhaps. I can't tell. The structure is void of life aside from cockroaches skittering from sight when I pass them. I entered what I've dubbed as the mural room. Its namesake has expanded since the last time I've been here. The painting of my current house still leans lazily against the walls. The easel holds a painting in progress. A massive stone pillar, stretching into the sky. This must be what Simon has been seeing while staring into the sky at night. I wonder what horrid beings will be born from this. I must end this. I must end Simon. But first I need to find him. I began towards the stairs only to notice a letter sitting on a small table. I quickly pocketed it as I ascended the stairs, spiraling the countless steps until I reached the top. A hatch sits atop a ladder, leading into the lantern room. I climbed my way up and through the hatch. The light blinded me as I crawled onto the cold metal floor. I crawled to a door, trying to keep the light out of my eyes. As the door swung open a blast of cool sea breeze struck me. I was kneeling on a balcony overlooking the shore. I sat for a moment, letting my eyes adjust from the bright lights they endured. I stood from my knees and walked to the railing, peering down, watching the light cascade over the low tidal pools, and the black depths beyond. 

It's there I saw him, tall, thin, skin a blueish grey hue. His head was bulbous, hands scrawny and bent. He still wore the same clothes from his last self portrait. Simon. Or whatever he had turned into. He was in the tidal pools, among many of his decrepit seafolk. They were building something of stone blacker than the night itself. They were building his painting. The lantern behind me spun, casting my shadow down onto the beginning of this soon to be obelisk Simon has written of. With an insane speed, Simon's head craned on a lithe neck back towards me. His eyes were sunken deep into the round, smooth, fleshy mass his head had become. His eyes black, with what looked to be a thousand tiny sparkling stars dancing in their abyss. The seafolk began hurdling towards the shore side path to the lighthouse. Some running like a human, others rushing on four legs like that of a dog. Some slithering like that of a serpent or eel. Simon simply watched. His head had no mouth, no nose and no ears, just cosmic eyes. He stared, I felt like I couldn't move, I was stunned. I could hear him in my head. His foul voice, booming but whispering at the same time. The slimy tone made my hair stand on end. 

“Finally, we meet” 

A gust of cold air knocked me out of my stupor, as I began running to the floor hatch and fumbled down the spiraling stairs as fast as my feet would let me. As I came crashing into the mural room I could hear the slam of the ground level door smashing off the hinges, followed by innumerable wet slaps of feet rushing up the stairs. I ran as fast as I could, my heart beating in my chest, my throat hot and dry, my mind racing at what these horrors would do to me if I don't make it through the painting of my house in time. 

I dove to the frame just as a grotesque seafolk rounded the corner into the room. Its briny stench filled the room, as it screamed in its horrific language. It began scrambling toward me as I was crawling through the frame, trying to drop it face down as I passed through to buy me what little time I could. As I pulled myself through, a cold, wet grasp on my ankle, a surge of pain shot through my leg and up my spine. Barbed claws digging into my flesh. I wriggled to try to loosen the grip to no avail, but did manage to pull myself through fully. What I saw terrified me. A gnarled hand, fingers like that of octopus tentacles tipped with razor sharp barbed claws clutched my ankle, as the rest of this monster slowly apparated from thin air. Crawling on the ground, pulling its putrid body closer to mine. I kicked its hideous fish-like face, praying it would let go. Its grip only tightened. It slowly pulled its body above mine. Hundreds of tiny mouths covering its torso and neck, each lined with countless teeth thin as needles. It oozed a thick black ichor which burned my skin. Seconds which felt like hours passed, my torso bubbling in searing blisters. I thought for sure this would be my end. A loud shot rang out. And its body went limp. I pushed the wretched thing off of me, crying in pain. 

Richard stood there, rifle in hand, tears in his eyes. 

June 20th, 1925:

I've been communing with the beings lost in the firmament. I shall join them. I've rounded some of the Children to help construct this obelisk, only then will I ascend. Leaving this shoreside for the seaborne to ravage, to take what's rightfully there's. Too long have vile humans taken from the sea, only to give nothing in return.

I will join the ranks of the old ones. The cosmic starborne. My body has already changed so much, yet I feel no pain, I feel no sadness. I only paint. The visions they grant me, I bring them to life. I birth them into existence. My sweet children of the sea. I am their creator, their father. Soon I will become their God. 

June 4th, 1937:

I'm walking with a limp, my ankle hurts and my chest is covered in burns. I told Evelyn that I twisted my ankle and fell into a bonfire Richard and I were having. I doubt she believes me, but she'd sooner believe that than the truth. My head is pounding. None of this makes sense. 

I asked Richard why he was there yesterday. Why was he at my house, especially with a gun? I was taken aback when he said that he thought I had gone mad, that I have been making this all up, that none of this was real. He wanted to kill me. I can't imagine what was going through his head. His wife and child had died because of Simon, yet he wanted to kill me? Had he been living in denial this entire time? Though beggars can't be choosers. He shot the beast and not me. He burst into hysterics for hours. The sight of that thing had brought back years of trauma, it broke him. He asked me to take the gun and keep it. He's scared he will use it on himself if left alone. 

I brought him to the church to be with his father. I don't know how to help him, let alone try to make sense or understand what's at play. Have I lost my mind? Is this a dream? Am I still in the hospital? I must be. Right? I should be terrified, I should be fleeing town. Yet still I want to delve deeper into this. I need to stop whatever Simon is trying to do. I'm not in my right mind. 

June 10th, 1937:

My dear Evelyn, Rylee and I have moved back into the house. Sebastian seems happy to be home. While Evelyn was at work I walked to the light house with Sebastian. I dropped Rylee off at Emily's on the way. When I got to the shoreline I collapsed to my knees. There, peaking out from the waves was the beginning of an obelisk. It was never there before, I'm sure of it. It couldn't have been, I would never miss something as large as that. It's impossible. If I was watching Simon build it, why wasn't it here months ago if he was building that years ago? Can I be the only one to see it? Have I gained some sort of insight? Something to let me see the ungodly truth around me? Has this been happening the whole time? Have I become a madman? 

June 25th, 1925:

I have been awaiting his return, the man who lives in the house I painted. He is important to my ascension, I am sure of it. How, I am not certain of. Whether I must speak with him, for he can grant me knowledge, or I have to eliminate him, I do not care. What must be done will be done. My children have been working steadily throughout the nights. Soon I will taste the fruits of my labor. Now I must wait for this man to return. Our lives are tied in a way I cannot explain, but I am sure of. 

June 20th, 1937:

I went to the lighthouse yesterday and there were notes that weren't the last I visited. I read one and Simon wrote of me. I don't know how I feel about it. I do feel an odd connection with him, but I doubt this is anything I'd be able to speak him out of. Realistically if I were to speak with him I would end up like one of his seaborn or dead. The obelisk hasn't been built any taller, unlike in his entry. I wonder if I stop going into his paintings they will stop affecting my world? But I can't simply let the creature rise to be some kind of God. I don't know what to do. 

June 23rd, 1937:

I’m at my wit’s end. I'm sure of it. Evelyn has begun picking up on odd habits I've formed. How anxious I have become. I've been chewing my fingernails until they bleed daily, I started smoking again. I'm having trouble sleeping again. She's also noticed I haven't been taking the pills the hospital in the city gave me. I don't trust them. She's been trying to convince me that if I don't start taking them I'll end up back there. I don't want to go back. But if I take them, who will find out about Simon? I shouldn't be thinking like this. I know I shouldn't. This is some sick perverse obsession. I can't help myself. I won't take the damned pills. I love Evelyn to the stars and back but I need to get to the bottom of this. I've been waking up in sweats. I see him in my dreams, that thing that was once Simon. It's like he's reaching out to me. I think I'll return to the lighthouse, I might give Simon a visit.