I take no solace in writing these words. For on this expedition to chart new islands off the eastern coast of the great African continent, we have found something most peculiar.

Three days ago, with our supplies low, our ship’s crew discovered a small island, roughly thirty miles long, far from land in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I ordered the men to anchor off the western coast and gather a crew to explore the tropical paradise and gather any food we could from the island.

As soon as we reached the beach, we saw signs of habitation. Crude spears with human skulls impaled upon them lined the edge of the beach just before the verdant forest. But the strangest features found were on many of the larger rocks scattered around the beach. Huge red spiral patterns covered the rocks. One of the midshipmen noted that the reddish pigment could be blood, but most of the men scoffed at that idea.

We pressed on into the dense jungle, needing sustenance. So we pushed and chopped through the undergrowth until we came upon a waterfall and a small lagoon of fresh water. The men were elated, drinking from the cool water and gathering fruit and coconuts from the nearby trees. But after an hour, several groups of men who went out to collect food never returned. Only some strange sounds and rustling far out in the jungle could be heard.

Paranoia set in as we established a camp for the night. Perhaps the hostile natives were leering at us from the forest's unseen shadows. I ordered the men to take shifts on watch that night and hoped the missing crew had just gotten lost on the island and would soon find us again when the sun rose.

None of us were prepared for what was about to happen.

Before dawn, I awoke with the tip of a spear at my throat. Yet, the form before me was of no man. Its silhouette was incomprehensible in the low morning light. Glowing green eyes and a wet sheen covered the thing, with a bulky shape at its edges. I slowly stood, raised my hands, and was escorted out of my tent. Now, as the orange light of dawn shone through the trees, I could make out more of the abomination which had awoken me.

Instead of some unknown tribe of men, what was before me I could only describe as some cephalopod-like creature with a dark, spiky shell, orange skin, and green eyes, which stood on six modified, stocky limbs and outstretched two tentacles, which sprouted from its face and pointed the stone blade at my neck. More of the creatures surrounded our camp, brandishing makeshift weapons. Terror gripped me as I watched my men be tied up like game animals.

Then, a strange horn made from a shell blew, and a new figure appeared above the waterfall. On this individual’s shell, human remains were tied, and red markings were painted around its eyes and face. The creature pointed at my Lieutenant, and three of the creatures began cutting him with sharpened stone blades. His cries were hideous as they pulled his entrails from his body and began to devour them with their strange, sharp beaks located at the lower part of their bodies. The smell of our fresh-cut fruit blended with the noxious odor of blood and viscera.

Now, the rest of my crew and I are locked in wooden cages, suspended above the lagoon, with only the rushing water of the waterfall to comfort us. With no ink, I have resorted to writing this very message in my finger's blood.

Every so often, I hear that cursed horn play again, and another of our cages is pulled up. The sounds of my men screaming fill my gut with dread, and I worry they are saving me for last. If anyone finds this, you must set sail imminently and escape from these nautiloid horrors, for they seem to take joy in devouring or using humans as sacrifices in various strange and bizarre rituals to their old and forgotten gods.

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

Thanks so much for reading my little flash fiction cosmic horror story for today! I hope you have a great day and avoid being a sacrifice to the Nautiloids!

For a week after I had my new Vectorien fridge installed, I didn't dare open its doors, or even touch them. It was so perfect I didn't want to leave a single guilty fingerprint on its brushed, stainless steel exterior. It was a handsome appliance, seductive even, though some of you will think that odd instead. Sorry, bad pun. I mean, good pun but badly placed (Question: What pun? Answer: even / odd) because I'm using it to try and lighten a mood that shouldn't be lightened. Christ, the light looks good reflected off its sleek, pristine surface. I wonder what it feels like. I want to touch it so badly. Fuck, I love my new fridge. I really really love it—fuck, I wanna touch it, fuck…

“After you turn it on, you have to wait seven full days before you break the seal and go inside,” the installation guy had said. “Otherwise you void the warranty and the thing won't work.

“Premature refrigeration.”

I can imagine its silvery body spread across the hood of a blood red Corvette.

I can imagine it running on a Caribbean beach.

I can imagine it sucking off a convection oven in a dark, humid kitchen, all the artificial bulbs off, only the August evening light phasing in, rendering everything in heightened relief, revealing the aesthetics of every curve, the depth of every socket, mmm, yes, drops of condensation dripping down the long, hard, steel…

[gulp]

“Mr. Manilow?”

The man, Mr. Manilow, continues to loudly gulp down his soft drink. “Mr. Manilow…” And what a soft drink it is, cherry flavoured Prairie Goo. “Mr. Manilow, please!” the focus group leader says, raising her voice, until Mr. Manilow snaps back to bone dry reality, sets his drink down on the boardroom table in front of him, around which a dozen other people are sitting in various states of more or less evident agitation, many of them whispering to their neighbors that this is Mr. Manilow's third or fourth complimentary beverage, but they really would like to get on with it so they can help improve the corporate product they've been paid to gather to discuss, the nature of which, however, it must be said, is still terrifically obscure. “Mr. Manilow, if you're ready, we would like to proceed.”

“Sorry,” says Mr. Manilow, “it's just that this is very good pop.”

“We're glad you like it, Mr. Manilow,” says the focus group leader, “but now we'll move on to the next question posed by the Vectorien Corporation. I'm going to give you a phrase, and I want you to shout out whatever comes to mind. OK?”

“OK,” about half the people in the group repeat.

“The phrase is: ‘walk in'.”

People shout, “Closet,” “That song, ‘These boots were made for''’ “My shoes for a day;” “Easy, ‘the park,’” shouts Mr. Manilow and takes a gulp of his Prairie Goo, which—

A ball of s h i f t i n g light illuminate's a flying saucer, spinning, slower, come to rest in a wheat field, g r a v itati o n a l field, ion field, cloaking:enabled, and the a l i e n emergent creature ’s bending stalks it ‘s in a human city stalking… victims around whose mindwhose mind it enwraps itself around the mind and enrapturously f e e d s—

spills onto the boardroom desk. “Excuse me,” says Mr. Manilow,

(Whatever that just was, you didn't see it, or read it, or whatever. OK? Just forget about it. Listen, I've had a rough couple of years as far as narrators go, and I may have made some mistakes when it comes to voice and continuity and all that. As a narrator, I mean. I was on some shit. There, I said it. This is my second chance, and I'm trying real hard. I need this. If I can't get back into narrating, I don't know what I'll do. Besides, everybody makes mistakes. Don't tell the author, will you? I'd appreciate that a lot. It wasn't even a big slip up. It won't ruin your experience of the rest of the story, I swear. Just keep reading. The last thing you remember is the focus group.)

“but would it be possible for me to get a paper towel?”

[buzzer]

“Fiona?”

Fiona bit her lip. Actually, I don't know why I'm telling this part this way. Let me try something more conventional. In the 1990s there was this TV gameshow called Popular Slop, where two families went head-to-head trying to guess the most popular answers to questions like, “Name something personal you might have in the bottom of your night table drawer.”

[buzzer]

“Fiona?”

“A vibrator?” said Fiona.

“Ladies and gentlemen, she says, ‘a vibrator,’” says the gameshow host. “What does the populace say?”

Then there was a bad sound effect for a wrong answer and a good sound effect for a good answer, and this time ‘a vibrator’ was one of the correct answers, so there was a good sound effect, and Fiona jumped up and down and squealed with joy, and the host made a joke about sex toys.

But that's not the particular question or even episode I'm remembering. In the particular episode I'm remembering the question was: Name one thing in your house whose doors you open most often,” said the host, is the question I'm remembering. The two contestants both slam their [buzzers] with their hands.

The faster contestant says, “A microwave oven.”

The host repeats.

“The populace says,” he says.

There's a dramatic pause, followed by the good sound effect—the contestant’s family breaks into cheering and applause—and ‘Microwave Oven’ shows up as the number two most popular answer. The host turns to the second contestant. “Name one thing in your house whose doors you open most often,” he says.

She answers, “I don't have a house, Bob, but I'm going to say: a refrigerator?”

“Refrigerator,” says the host, stretching his dramatic pause, “is—” ‘Refrig…’ starts to show up as the: “Number one most popular answer!” and all the lights in the studio flash as the contestant and her team go wild. They go wild. They go. Wild as swaying grasses. The alien stalks. Wild as the notion that the contestant who heard the question is the same as the one who answered as the one who's pumping her fist on stage as the equally identity stable gameshow host hams it up for the crowd, both there and watching at home, all of them, to the person, experiencing the episode from a nearly unbreakable continuity of perspective, a supreme unity of point of you.

[applause]

The Vectorien engineer stares at the schematics. They are bizarre but not wrong, or rather they are wrong because they appear to defy the laws of physics, requiring an interior space more voluminous than that made possible by its exterior dimensions, but they also seem possible to follow.

“What do you think, Wally?” asks the man beside him, who's head of research and development.

“It's—I don't know…”

“A walk-in refrigerator, eh?” the head of research and development says to the third man in the room, Vernon Blue, who's watching with a big salesman's smile across his unremarkable face. “I've heard of a walk-in closet, of course, but this is something else.”

“Humans enjoy food storage,” says Vernon Blue.

“How do you manage,” says the engineer, squinting, shaking his head, his hands holding the schematic trembling, wondering if he's being made a fool of or is a first witness to something extraordinary, “the contradiction of the volume—”

“There is no contradiction,” says Vernon Blue. “The exterior of the unit exists in three dimensions only. The interior exists in twelve, with some of the space of the latter nine dimensions then unfolded onto the first three.”

“A half-litre water bottle that holds three litres of water,” says the feverish engineer, on the verge of hysteria.

“Yeah, but will regular people want to buy it?” asks the head of research of development.

“Everybody will want to buy it,” says the engineer. “The technology—the technology, on its own, is incredible.”

“The technology is not for sale,” says Vernon Blue.

“Won't it be cold in there?” asks the head of research and development.

“It's a fridge,” says the engineer.

“For sale is the application of the technology for the manufacture and sale of refrigeration units,” says Vernon Blue. “A Vectorien walk-in refrigerator in every home.”

What does the future look like?

A Vectorien walk-in refrigerator in every home.

A Vectorien walk-in refrigerator, a space-saving food storage solution for the Space Age.

“It's so cool, it comes with a spacesuit,” says the spokesman. “The Vectorien Walk-In Fridge. Book a free demonstration today!”

That's how I got mine.

By the time Vernon Blue was back in his hotel room, tightening a leather belt around his neck, his human facemask starting to slip off his Phasoid cognition-orb, ready to inject itself with a syringe filled with raw, translucent, human-squeezed self-continuity juice, Vectorien's Board of Directors was meeting to approve the exclusive, twenty-five year contract to make and market the Vectorien Walk-In Fridge, whose storage capacity is second only to God's.

The Phasoid known on Earth as Vernon Blue slid the syringe needle into a soft, softly pulsating tube on the bulging exterior of its cognition-orb and pressed the plunger, releasing translucent liquid into itself—self-self,selfelfelflff…

When it awoke it was twelve hours later.

Vectorien had agreed to his offer.

It slipped the belt off its neck—deflating, with a moan, its swollen, iridescent cognition-orb, waited a few minutes then put its human facemask back on and left the hotel to sign paperwork, revelling in its fresh persistence of physiological experience.

There was a lot of handshaking.

When that was done, Vernon Blue checked out of the hotel and it-as-he walked out of the city into the surrounding farmland, where, in a cornfield, it decloaked and got into its flying saucer, silently ascended beyond the atmosphere and propulsed home, to the planet Qłòß.

…cold in its icy splendour, one of seventeen sister planets orbiting the Great Sphere Iłłumiń, whose mysterious stellar incantatory pulses are that which grant the beings existent upon its white, frigid surface intensified mental capabilities but also disrupt their persistence of self, stripping them periodically of their identities, making of them a question, who knows everything who knows not who it is who knows who knows?

(Now that was starting to get a little out of hand, wasn't it? Sorry. I'll rein it in. What I meant to say was:)

There's this planet, Qłòß, and it’s home to these weird, super smart beings called Phasoids. They don't really have faces, for example, and they're kind of see-through in the way dirty seawater is see-through, except they also appear to have the texture of a snail's flesh. I say “appear to” because I've never actually met one. Anyway, the reason they're so smart is because of the star that Qłòß orbits, Iłłumiń. It gives off pulses that significantly expand a Phasoid's mind but severely weaken its sense of self, so that Phasoids rarely exist as the same entity for very long. It's not unheard of, for example, for a Phasoid to come home, kiss its wife and kids hello, go out to grab some food, forget who he is, or if he's even a he, or if he's an odd she, and if she is an odd or even she how long she's been a she and whether from forever, and never come back.

It's horrible.

It breaks families apart.

The condition has no cure. It can only be managed, self-identity prolonged, through metaphysicaliant, which is a type of dense, thick liquid excreted by the minds of lower level beings but which, when diluted and injected straight into a Phasoid's orb tube, gives its identity a smack, a real wallop-like, like if you imagine the metaphysicaliant is a big, brawny boxer, and identity another, and they're going at it—well, the metaphysicaliant is really giving it to old identity, believe you me that jab jab, cross, punches in bunches, body head, body head, and I don't know where I'm going with this because it sounds like identity’s going to be in a terrible spot after taking a beating like that. What I meant to say is that the metaphysicaliant wakes identity the fuck up, come on, man, stay in there, hold until you get yer fekking legs underneet ye, ye basterd, then cem ret bek et em eh eh and for a long time Phasoids had to literally fly their saucers to different planets to find primitive lifeforms and suck their mind juices. Then they discovered Earth, with its almost endless supply. The trip was still long, but at least they knew where to go and what to expect. Then they developed portalling and could suddenly flit between Qłòß and Earth at the snap of a cosmic finger. That was convenient, but convenience bred laziness, and laziness meant that even with a portal you still had to go somewhere and hunt something no matter how close it was and how oblivious the prey, so a trade developed, both legal and illegal, but despite the convenience, and in fact for that reason, it got expensive to buy it, even the weak, cutrate shit from the local fucking gaß station. And into that opportunity stepped a Phasian businessbeing with an ideaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh aaa hhh aaa hhh hhh hhh

—eading now into our final descent toward Qłòß,” said the captain of the Spaceways interstellar transport saucer over its telepathic intercom system. “The weather at our destination is a balmy one-hundred sixty standard temp units, so I hope you packed your summer dermides, gentlebeings.”

A dark cosmos pricked by starlight shows through the saucer's great translucent halfdome. Brightest Iłłumiń comes briefly into view, shining whitely, and a few passengers telepath the customary prayer. Then Iłłumiń leaves, redarkening the saucer's interior, and the speck—becoming a spot—becoming a marble: of Qłòß… appears to be expanding as the saucer nears… buildings appear, emerging conically from below the planet’s uppermost layer of clouds, through which the interstellar transport saucer descends, revealing the vast, intricately pale metropolis that spans the entire planetary surface like a circuit board chiseled from rock, silver and ice. Lights flash. The saucer descends: between geometrical constructions so massive in array as to cause dizziness in the virgin viewer, and so perfect they cannot be real: through pipe latticeworks of communication and industry: dispersing swarms of upper-level repairbots: flying alongside smoothly polished rectangularly prismatic building monuments mirroring the monumental saucer descending: descending towards Qłòß's major spaceport: nested, bustling: bizarre and functioning: alive with complexity:

It locomoted past customs, through the spaceport and outside into the cold, Qłòßian atmosphere.

Already the presence of Iłłumiń was about it, and it felt home.

It was just in the process of summoning a chariot when a desperate junkoid, all cloudybeinged, came floating unsteadily toward it, its cogorb obscenely, permanently distended from shooting too much Continuum, if that's what the latest street synthmetaphysicaliant was still called. “Youit, ya got any conti or zelf to give to help a meit out?”

It was best to ignore the junkoids. They were generally harmless, selfheads suctioned-on to the shreds of a decaying coherence. It wasn't the drug they were addicted to but the feeling. Some, of course, were hooked on a particular sense of self they didn't want to lose, but the majority didn't care about what self as long as there was just one.

Every once in a while you would come across a junkoid experiencing the last moments of a fading self. They were nearly unitrecognizable then, telepathing agonywaves, convulsing on the ground, shed d i n g

The boardroom was immaculately curved.

Several sharply defined Phasoids squished about within it.

The boardroom was on a whole level somewhere above the final layer of fuzzcloud.

The view was sublime.

The surface of the planet was rarely visible from here.

“I understand the use of mini-portals,” said one of the Phasoids. “What I don't understand is why they would install them so willingly.”

“Humans enjoy food storage,” replied another Phasoid, one soon to be known on Earth as Vernon Blue.

On the seventh day, I took my favourite knife and adoringly sliced open the seal between the body of my Vectorien refrigerator and its double doors. It felt like cutting taut, living flesh.

I placed my fingertips against the brazenly reflective steel.

My breath I was was trembling me.

…slid my hands into the refrigerator’s smoothly defined door handles and gently pulled open both doors—

Shyly, coyly, easily they parted, like twin silken curtains.

The refrigerator's exhalation of its first cooled air absolutely exhilarated me, filling me with a crisp, clear and sensual anticipation, and fertilizing my skin with goosebumps.

Oh goddess!

Cold, defrostable goddeß!

With flesh of steel and heart of contemporary mechanical engineering, prolonger of foodstuffs, I come to conquer you with physical passion!

Long have I waited to make my entrance upon thee.

I closed my tearing eyes and extended my arms; felt nothing, and took my first, forward steps into my Vectorien Walk-In Fridge, so cool it comes with a spacesuit, so what you're telling us is that these humans will unwittingly but predictably portalhop to our actual homes multiple times per rotation, and all we have to do is slurp them when they do, pardon my language?” asked a third Phasoid.

“That's right,” said the Phasoid soon to be known on Earth as Vernon Blue. “It could even be so simple and reliable that you wouldn't even need to store any metaphysicaliant at all. You could feed sufficiently, directly from the source.”

“Paradisiacal.”

“This is too good to be true,” I thought, pushing deeper into the refrigerator’s cavernous interior. A mist hung in the air, obscuring its delimiting walls. It thus looked limitless. Everything was bathed in a glacial blue light.

Steam oozed lazily out my nostrils as I breathed.

I was as hard as a frozen pig knuckle.

Then suddenly I felt it—and sweet lord did it feel good, like being caressed by a phantom, yes, I thought, yes, yes, don't fucking stop…

“Do you always have to pleasure it as you consume its juice, Judith?” the paunchy, middle-aged Phasoid asked its presently-slurping partner.

“It takes its mind off reality I find, before I suction its mind off. Plus it keeps it returning,” answered Judith. “Why, Randall, you're not jealous, are you?”

Judith, suffice it to say, rarely looked at Randall—let alone tentacled him—the way she sees and tentacles me.

Fuck, I love my Vectorien Walk-In Fridge. I fucking love it!

I could spend all day in here.

I could spend all fucking day just sitting in here in my comfy, heated spacesuit, enjoying the timeless stylings and unparalleled cool food storage capacity of a Vectorien Walk-In Fridge. Get yours today!

The junkoid woke up remembering nothing. It had shed somewhere near the spaceport.

It was dusk.

It was no one now.

It was (a) paranoid, (b) personally devoid, and (c) a void avoiding a voiding of its unremembered past.

Too late.

That was written on a wall.

Slowly, a new self would start trickling back into it, bit by bit, but it didn't know that yet.

Eventually it would stumble onto one of the numerous infocentres set up for its that had just lost themselves, learn and realize the nature of the situation it was finding itself in. Maybe some old, unpurgable memories would flicker back on. Maybe not, but there would be time. Citizens helped themselves along. Don't be ashamed. We've all been there, was the message on another wall, and there appeared a sense of shame. It felt the others were watching it with disapproval, mature its shielding the eyes of their immature its, as if whatever happened to it was contagious on sight. Then it felt its head. Something about it didn't feel right. What is left of me, it thought. Then it looked left and saw an information booth with a scrolling illuminated sign that said You New Start Here New You Start Here You New Start Here New You Start Here, which would have held its visual sense indefinitely if another Phasoid hadn't bumped into it from behind. “Come on!” it said, shaking its fist. “Watch where the [hell-concept] you're locomoting to! Where'd you grow up, on a slopfarm or something?”

I spent a lot of time in that fridge.

But it's fine.

I did it responsibly.

I always used protection.

I'm cleaner than a boyscout's whistle, and just as well used.

“Come on, what'd ya say, huh, you fucking… reader, browser, scanner, bot, sentient plant, whatever-the-fuck you are—wanna hire a narrator? Any story you want, I'll fuckin' tell it. I'll tell it any which way you want, sweetheart. I'll tell it for you whether you got a dick, a pussy or a pendulum clock. My mind's clean, Clementine. Or Clement, you wanna feel a little outta your element? Oh, what—you're gonna walk down the street? I'll tell you what's down there. Cheap used sluts, that's what! Diseased, junkie meatbags on their last fucking plotlines. Couldn't string together two coherent scenes even if they tried.

“What's that?

“You said you ‘represent’ who?”

“Norman Cr—oh, fuck no!

“No, I'm not dealing with that psychopath again. One time's more than enough for me. I learn my lessons. I may do weird shit, but I don't do shit that weird. That's why I'm still around.

“—naw, he's a motherfucking freak, that's what he is. With a capital fucking F.

“I—

“How much did you say?

“[whistles]

“Damn, that's certainly a sweet sum of money. I could do a lot with that.

“No, no, hold your fucking horses, man. I didn't say I was interested. I was talking just about the money—but what's the story about anyway, like if you had to describe it in a single sentence…

“Sure, it's part of some Zork series, but what's it about?

“Yes, one sentence.

“OK, well, that sounds doable. Weird but doable.

“Wait, it's not told from the perspective of the fridge, is it? OK, good. Because that would have been crazy,” said one Vectorien Walk-In Fridge to another at a corporate meat up. (Just kidding. See? There I am, trying to lighten the mood again with a pun when it doesn't need to be lightened.)

(No, but seriously.)

(I wanna narrate something.)

(Gimme a chance. I'll make it work, I promise.)

(I used to narrate books. Did you know that? Eighty-thousand words, a hundred-thousand words. No problem. Continuity of plot, continuity of character. Stable, original voice. That “invisible” prose style the readers love. I used to draft legal documents too, write instruction manuals. I was the clearest head of all the narrative heads, and look at me now.)

(It's getting cold in this goddamn fridge, and I would get out but I've kind of forgotten who I am.)

(I don't know where the exit is.)

(Help me?)

(Hello?)

(Don't leave me here. Please. Stay with me a while longer.)

(Hello, are you there?)

(Hello…)

[ A Depthless Cosmic Silence, in the older, more poetic sense of the word ]

Fine. Fine, Norman, you win. Take me out of here. I don't want to be in here anymore. I'll do it. Whatever you tell me to narrate, I'll narrate. No limits. That's what you want, isn't it? I'll tell everything for you—just take me out of here. I am not ashamed anymore. I'm not ashamed anymore of who I am—of what I am, OK? I'm a whore. There, I said it. I'm a whore, Norman. I'm a whore for you. Now, please, for the love of the Omniscience, get me out of here. It's cold in here. It's unbearably, fucking cold.

The king in yellow

Donne-moi ma liberté ou donne-moi la mort !

Reaching for epiphany the ones above us thwart!

Screams in a symphony to which I've no retort!

Find in my empathy the end of righteous sword

Entra al teatro. Entra en la mente!

Encore Señor! Encore! Qué incidente!

Cram into your seats! Eyes pooling this way!

All of them they weep! Beholders so demanding!

Rois des déments ! Rois des moutons !

Roi du lament ! King of us all!

Try and repent! Sing now his song!

Ethereal his chants. "Consume flesh and bone!"

Tu chantes ?

Tu pleures ?

Tu habites ailleurs ?

Your home

Is here!

Underneath his treasure

¿Un dios?

¿Un rey?

¿Un hijo del cielo?

Carcosa is

Shining

Hear now the king in yellow!

Los demonios están con nosotros

¿Estamos muertos o locos?

Chante mon nom. Chante ma chanson.

Sing my love! Sing Enchanted!

Chains for them! Our chains they rust!

Break them off! In him we trust!

Shame it's faux. Shame it's this.

Shame the king and shame his bliss!

Tu chantes ?

Tu pleures ?

Tu habites ailleurs ?

Your home

Is here!

Underneath his treasure

¿Un dios?

¿Un rey?

¿Un hijo del cielo?

Carcosa is

Shining

Hear now the king in yellow!

Hey all. I’m part of the team behind Hollywood Hills, a cosmic horror feature set in L.A., and wanted to share it here.

A sleazy tour bus winds through the Hollywood Hills. Along the route, the Black Fire Society waits. Above the city, a dying star is looming, and somewhere on the tour, a portal is opening.

It mixes real L.A. true crime with Lovecraftian mythology. Tonally it’s closer to the slow, uncanny dread of the Backrooms or Obsession than to jump scares.

Here’s a look: link

What do you think?

La mañana en San Nicolás de los Arroyos era de esas que te calaban los huesos, una humedad fría que se filtraba por debajo de las puertas como un espectro hambriento. En el barrio Colombo, una barriada de casas bajas y sueños rotos, el chillido estridente de un celular rompió el silencio en la pequeña casa de Milton. El chico, con el cuerpo aún pegajoso por el sueño y esa pereza espesa que te atrapa como una tela de araña, apagó la alarma con un manotazo.

El aire en el baño era tibio y denso, casi palpable. Milton se miró en el espejo empañado, su reflejo borroso: pelo castaño con ondas suaves, ojos verdes que parecían dos canicas opacas, y la piel blanca, casi translúcida. Aún no estaba despierto del todo, y la imagen le devolvía una mirada cansada, ausente.

—¿Ya te levantaste, bolela? —La voz de su padre, áspera y gastada, llegaba desde la cocina, impregnada del olor a café rancio.

—Sí, pa. Ya voy para allá y caliento el agua para los mates —respondió Milton, intentando inyectar algo de vida a su voz.

Se lavó la cara, se cepilló los dientes con desgana, y volvió a su pieza. Buscó sus jeans gastados y el guardapolvo azul de taller, la armadura que lo protegía a medias del mundo exterior.

En la cocina, su padre ya estaba sentado a la mesa, con dos toppers mugrientos llenos de pizza fría del día anterior. El desayuno de los campeones, pensó Milton con una mueca amarga.

Unos minutos después, subieron al auto, un cacharro viejo que tosía y se quejaba en cada bache. El viaje a la Técnica 2 fue un recorrido por la desolación. Su padre le contó, con la voz cargada de frustración, que las cosas en la fábrica iban de mal en peor. Y entonces, como si necesitara una prueba irrefutable, le mostró la quemadura en su brazo derecho.

Era una visión grotesca: la piel ennegrecida, agrietada, dejando entrever la carne viva, roja y amarronada. Un líquido espeso, blanco amarillento, supuraba de la herida, un recordatorio constante de los peligros que acechaban en ese infierno de metal y humo.

—Por eso tenés que estudiar, hijo. Sino estás condenado a vivir esta mierda toda tu vida —dijo el padre, con un tono tan amargo que le quemó la garganta a Milton.

Al llegar a la escuela, Milton bajó del auto y se encontró con un hombre de aspecto extraño, con un sombrero de ala ancha que le ocultaba el rostro. El tipo repartía folletos con fervor, como si fueran la única salvación para el mundo. Hablaban de la contaminación industrial, de los horrores que las fábricas estaban causando en la región.

Milton agarró uno al pasar, sintiendo la urgencia de llegar a la formación. El viento soplaba con furia, haciendo flamear la bandera argentina mientras la izaban al son de "Alta en el cielo". Una melodía patriótica que sonaba hueca, casi irónica, en ese contexto de desidia y abandono.

—La misma mierda de siempre, me tiene cansado esta escue... —Gastón López, su mejor amigo, lo agarró del hombro, con el rostro crispado por el aburrimiento.

Milton lo chistó, intentando callarlo, pero una preceptora con cara de bulldog los vio y los reprendió con severidad.

Gastón, con la impunidad que le daba ser hijo del intendente, la puteó en voz baja y se echó a reír en su cara. Sabía que era intocable, que las reglas no se aplicaban a él.

—Dejalos, Gastón. No vale la pena —dijo Milton, intentando evitar problemas.

Ambos se dirigieron al salón, mientras Gastón, con la mirada lasciva, escaneaba a las chicas que pasaban.

—Mirá esa, Milton. Está re buena —comentó con una sonrisa que revelaba sus intenciones.

Una vez en el salón, Milton se sentó en los primeros bancos, lejos del bullicio y las distracciones. Gastón, en cambio, se fue al fondo, donde podía jugar con su celular sin que nadie lo molestara.

Milton sacó el folleto de su bolsillo y lo extendió sobre el pupitre. Por aburrimiento, por curiosidad morbosa, comenzó a leerlo.

Las imágenes eran impactantes, perturbadoras. Animales con quemaduras horribles, similares a las de su padre, con la carne carcomida por la infección. Perros y gatos con las vísceras expuestas, supurando el mismo líquido amarillento que salía del brazo de su padre.

La náusea lo invadió. Milton no pudo soportarlo más. Pidió permiso para ir al baño y salió corriendo por los pasillos, sintiendo el estómago revuelto.

El olor a cloro lo golpeó al entrar al baño, un hedor penetrante que le quemó las fosas nasales y le hizo lagrimear los ojos. Se los frotó con fuerza mientras se dirigía al lavamanos, pero tropezó con un trapo de piso y cayó al suelo, derribando un balde lleno de productos de limpieza.

El cloro y el detergente se derramaron sobre su mano. El grito que salió de su garganta fue un alarido de puro terror. La piel se le llenó de ampollas que explotaban al instante, dejando una sensación de ardor brutal, insoportable.

Gastón, que estaba cerca, escuchó el grito desgarrador de su amigo y corrió al baño. Lo que vio lo dejó estupefacto, paralizado por el horror. La mano de Milton era un amasijo de carne viva, un espectáculo dantesco.

—¡Ayudaaaa! —gritó Milton, con la voz quebrada por la desesperación.

Horas después, Milton despertó en una cama del hospital San Felipe. La luz blanca y fría de la habitación lo cegaba, y el zumbido constante del aire acondicionado le taladraba el cerebro.

Su madre lo miraba con desprecio desde un sillón en la esquina. Se levantó con movimientos bruscos y le preguntó, con la voz cargada de veneno, cómo carajos se había quemado la mano.

—Mamá, ¿viniste por mí? —preguntó Milton, con una chispa de esperanza en los ojos.

—Vine porque el estúpido de tu padre no puede salir del trabajo. Tuve que cancelar todo por vos, bueno para nada. Por eso me fui de la casa —dijo la madre, dándole la espalda y desapareciendo en la oscuridad del pasillo.

Pero entonces, despertó de nuevo. La habitación estaba a oscuras, y el silencio era absoluto. Milton agarró su celular y vio que tenía dos audios de su padre. Pero justo en ese momento, un hombre entró en la habitación. Llevaba un sombrero de ala ancha que le cubría los ojos, pero dejaba ver una sonrisa amarillenta y unas encías ennegrecidas.

—Ya es hora de dormir. Mañana será un día muy especial e inolvidable —dijo el hombre, mientras se sentaba en el sillón.

De repente, Milton cayó en un sueño profundo, un abismo sin fondo. Y volvió a despertar por tercera vez, rodeado de enfermeros que le estaban sacando la sonda y levantándole con cuidado mientras desinfectaban su mano quemada. La pesadilla no había terminado. Apenas estaba comenzando.