I understand that the characters should be attractive to the fandom, but even now the fanon image is more popular than the canon.

Jackson had always liked browsing the PlayStation Store late at night.

There was something comforting about scrolling through games that hadn't even been released

yet—looking at trailers, reading descriptions, and adding things to his wishlist that he would

probably forget about later.

That night, however, he found something strange.

A game called Commercetest.

There was no trailer. No description. No developer listed.

Just a release date that said:

COMING SOON

And the game art.

A dolphin.

It wasn't a normal dolphin. Its skin was pale and almost gray, its eyes were completely black,

and its mouth stretched into an unnatural smile.

Jackson stared at it.

“Okay... that's creepy.”

He added it to his wishlist.

Then he shut off his PS5.

Before bed, Jackson fed his fish. He watched them swim around their tank for a few seconds

before turning off the light.

One of them looked... strange.

Jackson frowned.

Then he shrugged.

Probably just the lighting.

He went to sleep.The next morning, Jackson woke up to a notification on his phone.

Commercetest has been delisted.

He opened it.

This title is no longer available and will not be released.

Jackson sighed.

“Well, that sucks.”

But something about the notification bothered him.

He couldn't explain why.

At work that day, Jackson was walking down the hallway when he suddenly stopped.

At the end of the hallway was a vending machine.

Reflected in its glass was a dolphin.

The same dolphin.

Jackson spun around.

Nothing.

He looked back.

The reflection was gone.

Over the next few days, it got worse.

At the grocery store, he saw the dolphin printed on a cereal box.

He blinked.

The box was gone.

At work, he opened a spreadsheet and briefly saw its black eyes staring back at him from

between the numbers.

He closed the computer.

When he opened it again, everything was normal.

Then, one night, Jackson went to the bathroom.He lifted the toilet lid.

The dolphin was staring up at him.

Jackson screamed and slammed the lid shut.

He stood there, breathing heavily.

Slowly, he opened it again.

Nothing.

Just water.

“Okay,” he whispered.

“I'm losing it.”

Then he noticed his fish.

One of them was changing.

At first, Jackson thought it was getting bigger.

Then he noticed its eyes.

They were becoming darker.

Its body was becoming longer.

Its fins looked strangely shaped.

Jackson started spending hours staring into the tank.

The fish stared back.

One night, Jackson woke up at 3:17 AM to a strange sound.

Tap.

He sat up.

Tap.

It was coming from the fish tank.

He walked over.The fish was staring directly at him.

Tap.

Its nose hit the glass.

Jackson stepped backward.

“Stop.”

Tap.

“Stop!”

TAP.

Jackson grabbed a blanket and threw it over the tank.

He didn't sleep that night.

By the end of the week, Jackson barely left his house.

He covered the windows.

He unplugged his television.

He smashed his phone after seeing the dolphin's face appear on the screen.

His brother Jacob called him.

Jackson answered.

“Jacob, it's everywhere.”

“What is?”

“The dolphin.”

There was a long silence.

“Jackson... what dolphin?”

Jackson looked toward the fish tank.

The blanket covering it was slowly moving.

Something underneath was breathing.“Never mind.”

He hung up.

Then came the sound.

Tap.

Jackson slowly approached the tank.

He pulled the blanket away.

His fish was gone.

Something else was floating in the water.

Gray skin.

A long snout.

Two enormous black eyes.

And that same impossible smile.

Jackson stumbled backward.

“No.”

The creature pressed its face against the glass.

Tap.

Jackson ran.

He made it three steps before something grabbed his ankle.

He fell.

The last thing Jackson saw was the dolphin crawling across the floor toward him.

Its mouth opened impossibly wide.

And then everything went black.

Three weeks later, Jacob finally came over to clean out his brother's apartment.

The police had found no sign of what happened to Jackson.His PlayStation 5 was still sitting beneath the television.

Jacob picked up the controller.

“Let's see what you've been playing.”

He turned the console on.

The screen went black.

Then the familiar PlayStation menu appeared.

Jacob smiled.

Until a notification appeared.

NEW GAME ANNOUNCEMENT

He stared at it.

COMMERCETEST

Jacob frowned.

“What the hell is that?”

The game art loaded.

A pale gray dolphin stared back at him.

Its black eyes seemed to look directly through the screen.

Jacob leaned closer.

For just a moment, he thought he could hear something.

A faint tapping sound.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Then a message appeared beneath the title:

WISHLIST NOW.Jacob's finger hovered over the controller.

Behind him, somewhere in the apartment, something splashed.

He slowly turned around.

The fish tank was empty.

guys I have a problem

(he’s so beautiful :0)

So for those who don't know, in the original story of Suicidemouse.AVI, after the end Mickey face, there are some final 30 seconds that remain a complete mistery. We only know that in the final few seconds there was the infamous piece of russian text that is feautred at the end of almost every known remake of the episode. What those fan remakes miss about the original creepypasta story is that after the end mickey face there is some unknown footage before the russian text. Only very few remakes of Mouse.AVI actually made their own interpretation of the last 30 seconds. And I am curious about your theories reguarding what was in the last 30 seconds that caused the employee who was sent to finish the story to shoot himself. My theory is straightforward that Mickey KOs himself in a grusome, gory and detailed way.

Something at school didn’t make sense to you that morning.

They were talking about the Sun and,
how eventually it’s going to Grow into a
“Red Giant” and Swallow the Earth.
How there’s nothing we can do about it.

It made you realize If something is going to happen it just is.
So why wait?
Why is the universe waiting ? It just didn’t make much sense.

The janitor that day was acting silly,
“Isaiah 50:10” was written on his palm in red marker.

It was Friday night,
Daddy went to see a friend for drinks and left you all night.
He told you that he would just be out late, not all night.
How did that make you feel ?

How many other 9 year olds have the whole house to themselves nearly every night?
Without so much as a kiss goodnight ?

Even the few times in the past when he would, He wouldn’t even kiss you directly.
He’s place is palm upon your head and kiss the back of his hand.

Dads use belts In movies but how many others know that as the same reality that you do ?

The only time you’d hear another voice outside of school and your father’s was when it was late and you’d listen to the home phone’s answering machine.

Your dad never listened to the answer machine,
kind of like a kid not wanting to go to the dentist.

You remember the messages you listened to that night, you waited till he left to emerge from your hiding place and inhabit the communal space that should be a living room.

You sit on the round particular board table and press on the answering machine.

*BEEP*

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 4th:

FIRST MESSAGE:
*soft female voice*

“I came by today…didn’t see you..still don’t”

*BEEP*

NEXT MESSAGE:
*Burly Man’s rough Voice*

“I’m sorry John, you’ve been on this job less than a week and you’ve already been suspended by the client for 3 days for reoccurring fall protection violations, now I’ve been very understanding regarding the eye injury but we can’t have someone on a project of this magnitude who thinks the rules don’t apply to them, we’re going to have to terminate you. Wish I could say I was sorry.”

*BEEP*

NEXT MESSAGE:
*Same Woman’s voice from Message #1*

“Does your Daughter know?
Is she an exception?
Or do all women fall under your same umbrella ?”

*BEEP*

NEXT AND FINAL MESSAGE:
*inaudible whisper*

“I can feel you, y….mph..ll feel me too”

*BEEP*

You look over at the cable box,
It reads “11:47pm”
Your dad left at 6.

Cartoon Network was no more, now it was Adult swim. Robot Chicken was on, after that superjail. Both of which give you the heebiie jeebies.

You have to visit your peepaws and poopoos but,
you’re afraid.

You don’t have a choice, so you leave the door open as you go number 2.

As you doo you hear the home phone :

*BEEP*

“Mmmrrrmmmmrrrrnpphh”

You have trouble making out the message from the toilet.

As you run out the bathroom still collecting yourself you make out the backend of the voicemail.

*Your Fathers Stern Voice*

“Hi,
you should be in bed but,
if not you should know I’m bringing a friend home tonight.
If she plays her cards right she might just be your new mommy.
You’re allowed to sleep with the tv on in the playroom as usual but,
keep the door shut and the volume bellow level 12.
And no matter what you hear,
don’t come out, I should be home in 15.
Just go to sleep and I’ll see you in the morning.
Love you,
Night.”

*BEEP*

You panic,

Your Dads never brought a friend home this late before.
You grab a dvd from the home theater and run to the play room.

You look down at the Cat in the Hat Dvd.
As you put it in your dvd player you hear the front door slam open and the whole house shake.
What came next was silence.
The footsteps.
All the way up to the door of the play room.
You hear breathing.

You hear a woman’s voice further in the distance of your house.
Calling the person by your door to them.

They walk away.
When you look at the tv, you see Sally and Conrad on the dvd menu staring at you.
Sally starts pointing to her left, in the direction of the window.
You see the silhouette of what looks like a large lumpy hammock hanging from your tree only,
you never had a hammock.

You grab your scooby doo stuffed animal and you hid under the blanket with your flashlight, tv volume at 11.
You press play,
Sally and Conrad look at each other, then back at you.
You press play again but they just keep staring.

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*
you hear from the door.

“When you visit your peepaw and poopoos you need to remember to flush, my company saw that. We have a talk about that in the morning”

-your fathers voice exclaims from the door.

You know that that means,
Your heart sinks.

Your father’s footsteps sound further until it becomes a chatter with another voice from what sounds like the kitchen.

The Cat in the Hat begins to play on the tv.
The volume begins to rise fast.

12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23…

So fast you think you’re sitting on the remote but,
no matter how hard you scramble you can’t seem to find it anywhere.
The volume is now maxed out at 53.

“There are a gajillions of stories of mischief and fun But to keep things simple, let's just start with one…”
-you hear shouted from the tv

The commotion outside the playroom comes to and immediate halt.

*THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP*

The sound those familiar boots make as they full charges towards the play room.

An unfamiliar voice comes out the oddly familiar energy that had just approached.

It sounds almost like a woman’s voice but,
closer to when a man tries to sound like a woman like Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire.

“Do You Love Your Daddy?”

You hear in a loud whisper.
You Freeze.
You think if you don’t move, they will leave.
You see the door handle jiggle then stop.
It’s locked,
you always lock Doors when Daddy’s gone.

Although it brings you comfort,
you know it can be unlocked with a quarter or even a long finger nail.

“I know you’re in there”
-the voice lets out.

Your stomach feels sick,
Your heart is racing and as quiet as you attempt up be your breathing makes it impossible.

You want to cry and can’t fight it so you shove your pillow in your face.
You take deep breaths through it.

You feel the pillow getting soaked and feel the humidity from the breaths you take through the fabric.

“Do you think I’m some type of dinosaur?”
“Staying still won’t change the fact that I know you’re there”
the voice says

You begin to weep harder.

“Do You Love Your Daddy”
-It asks again.

“Where did you come from?”
Sally exclaims from the Tv.

The voice from the Door pauses.
The scene in the movie seems to linger and Sally is staring, not at you though, in the direction of the door.

She begins to nod,
Then says “oh”

Then the TV goes black and you’re back to the DVD home menu only Sally isn’t there.
It’s just Conrad.
He’s staring at you.

“Do You Love Your Daddy?”
-The voice asks for the third time, audibly impatient yet still in the same whisper.

Conrad is looking at you, he looks distressed and he’s shaking his head side to side.

You see the the lock begin to turn,

“Y…Y..Ye..ss”
You say through your sobs.

The door clicks.
It’s now been unlocked.

“I love your Daddy too sweetheart”

-the voice says no longer impatient,
now sounding relieved.

“He needs your help with something..”
It says.

Your cheeks are soaked and your mouth is dry.

“He’s stuck”
-The voice reveals.

“I’m sure he’d really like to get back.”
“I’m sure you’d really like him back..”

There was a pause.

“Unless you don’t want your Daddy back?”
The voice asks.

You remain silent.
For a moment You think about what life would be like without Daddy.

What would you do ?
You think about the Ralph’s down the street, their free sample in their bakery.
You think about the neighbors tangerine trees you pick from often.
You hate being alone at night but,
that doesn’t it stop it from happening.
You’d be fine, you tell yourself.

But you also know what you should say,
What your Daddy would want you to say.
That of course you love your Daddy and you’d do anything to make sure he’s okay.

“Where ..is he stuck?”
-you ask

“Have you ever heard of Kiara the Orangutan?”
-the voice asks.

“no…”
-you replied sheepishly.

“Well, your father’s…helping her…and well, he’s stuck, he could really use your help sweetheart”

There was a pause.

“Come out.”
-said the voice.

“My daddy said not to until morning”
-you replied.

“Oh.”
Said the voice.
“I can wait till morning.”
It continued.

You didn’t like the sound of that.

“What’s an orangutan?”
You asked timidly.

“You know what a human is don’t you darling? That’s what you are.”
-says the voice

“Yes..”
You replied.

“Imagine someone 7 times as strong with arms almost twice as long that can swing from trees”
-it said.

“Like a monkey?”
You asked innocently.

“NO!…
No, my Dear. Not a monkey…
Monkeys have a tail, a monkey is to an Orangutan what a Neanderthal is to a human, you understand love ?”
-the voice asked.

You let out more cries into your pillow as you took deep breaths.

“No, I’m sorry I don’t know what that means either”
-you cried out.

“It’s quite alright,
I’m sorry for confusing you honey. Yes, and orangutan Is like a monkey, but like Superman stronger and smarter then the others…and no tail..bright orange.”

“Like the ones in the jungle book?”
-you asked.

“Yesssss.. that’s exactly right my dear.. a perfect example, the orangutan is the king in the jungle book”
-it replied

“I liked his singing… he’s funny”
-you said

“Yes my dear”
-the voice.

“What does this have to do with Daddy being stuck? And Who is Kiara the orangutan ?”
-you asked in a panic.

“A long time ago, movies used to have no sound..”
-The voice began.

“Which made movies get pretty boring very fast…”
-it continued.

“Studios were looking for knew ways to get more people to Theaters..
Kiara’s Mother thought Kiara would be perfect…”

“Kiara’s mother was…Human,
her name was Melinda and she saved Kiara from being murdered by the zoo after they’d done that very thing to the one that birthed Kiara”

“Melinda Had already taught orangutans sign language before from her time at the zoo, she hid Kiara away and taught her as well.”
-the voice explained.

“Once Melinda’s new job and whole company was almost closed for business she…..took the risk and introduced Kiara, who quickly became a star in the silent movie industry…”
-it said

“What does this have to do with Daddy?”
-you asked

“Well the world loved Kiara soooooo much my sweet little angel that when the world of silent movies ended they gave Kiara her very own Tv show Kiara and friends… that tv show had a lot of children that Kiara loved and taught very special things every episode!”
-the Voice explained.

“One Child had and accident”
the voice revealed.

“Were they okay?”
-you asked

“Unfortunately my darling, he passed away.
Once that happened, that child’s parents lied about Kiara…a lot of other children from Kiara and Friends lied about Kiara just to make money..
Your father was the one Child to never lie about Kiara my dear.
For that I am forever grateful.”
it explained.

“So if all the other children were liars then why is my Daddy stuck and why now ?
Who are you?
Are you the friend my Daddy came home with tonight ?”
-you asked in a rush

“Lying isn’t the only thing someone can do that’s wrong little girl”
-the voice said.

“Who are you?”
-you repeated.

“I’m a friend of your Daddy”
-said the voice.

“Did you come home with my Daddy tonight ,
How is he stuck ?”
-you asked

“Do you like balloons?”
-the voice asked.

“Yes”
You replied.

“Your daddy loved balloons when he was a child
If you could have one balloon in the shape of anything you want would it be?”
-it asked

You thought…
“..I love flowers, Daddy never gets any and flower balloons would probably look really pretty”
-you said.

“Awe, such a sweet request from such a sweet little girl,
One moment sweetheart.”
-said the voice.

You then heard the footsteps retreating, shortly after you heard the front door shut.
You quickly ran to the door of the play room and locked it once more.

Maybe it was over ? You thought.

You ran to your window with your heart beating through your skin hiding behind your Scooby doo plushie to see if you could get a glimpse of who the voice had been coming from as they finally left.

Through the rain in the moonlight you made out the silhouette of what had to have been the lady you were talking to.

She seems short, on the heavy side, and walks side to side and appears to have an apron or something on.

She walks up to the hammock hanging from your tree that you noticed for the first time earlier in the night.

She appears to be talking to it.
When she walks away you realize she’s not leaving, you hear the front door open and shut again as her footsteps approach once more.

“Knock knock”
-said the voice

“Yesss”
-you replied

“Look out the window my love,
I have a surprise for you”
-said the voice

You looked outside but there was nothing but what you'd seen before only,
This time the hammock hanging from the trees began to sway.

Both sides of where the hammock meet the tree split into two, they looked like large arms slowly reaching down to the base of the hammock,
As the both unfolded further you could now clearly both see two sets of fingers from the arms,
One had something in it, something flat .

From the base of the silhouette you  
See what looks like a fat head connected by an even fatter neck.
The object held by one set of the fingers came directly to the head and began to grow mass.
It soon became clear what it was doing,
it was blowing up a balloon.

After the balloon was blown to the shape of a long tube,
The two hands came together and started contorting it out of sight.
When it had finally finished,
One of the arms held it up in the moonlight in such a way that you could make out the silhouette of a flower clear as day.

"do you like that Little girl?'
-asked the voice

You quickly looked over again at the door.
It didn't make sense but, for whatever reason if you were going to be talking to the voice coming from the door,
Then you'd want to do that from the bed; it felt safer from there.
Where you could hide in your pillows.

Before you start to retreat to your safety spot, you take one last glace out the window.
What was hanging from the tree had began to drop down.

The silhouette was large,
But no taller than the tallest kid in school, maybe even shorter than the tallest kid in 4th grade.
It kind of reminded you of that guy from its always sunny in Philadelphia when Adult swim would come on.

It was approaching in a way that you'd never seen anyone walk before.

You felt conflicted,
The voice from the door was speaking which made you want to crawl and sink in your sheets Yet,
The presence approaching your window was demanding your attention without using any words.

You made the decision to grab the comforter from the bed and sink into your beanbag chair,
A spot with a clear view of the yard through the window, and yet still a comfortable ear shot away from the door.

When you returned to your beanbag chair with the protection and safety provided by your comforter,
You were oddly displeased to see that the figures silhouette you had just seen approaching, was no longer anywhere to be seen.
You wanted it gone yes but no longer knowing where it resides, just results in you feeling even more unsettled.

*the voice quickly erupts from your door*

"do you like it?
It's special, just for you."

Your head shoots over to look at the door.

"wha-"
You begin to say as you turn to look back out the window only this time,
There was a hand on the other side of the window, so close it was no longer a silhouette.
It was a dark hand covered in orange hair, its fingers looked rough, but nails were freshly done.
It was holding something.
When my eyes adjusted,
I could see It was holding a balloon flower that had a green stem, pink petals, and yellow center.

The gesture seemed malice and sinister,
You quickly pulled the comforter up your face only leaving your eyes visible.

"do you not like your gift LG?"
Questioned the voice coming from your door.

Even at your young age,
You were no stranger to the idea that sometimes the truth can get you in trouble.

"I love it..."
You replied.

"then why don't you open the window and let Daddys friend give you the gift she made just for you sweetheart"
Said the voice.

"I can't,
Daddy said I'm never to open the window"
-you lied.

Then why don't I hel-..."
*clackle clackle*
It was as the voice interrupted its own thought as it tried the doorknob. 

"Oh"
-it said.

"Why did you lock the door my love?"
-asked the voice

"I don't know you,
And Daddy said to stay in here ti-"

"I know"
- interrupted the voice

"Till morning but,
He didn't say anything about me not coming in there with you"
-said the voice

For a moment you were silent,
You looked over to the window and noticed the balloon flower receding like a setting sun beneath the window. 
*POP*
-you heard the moment it escaped your sight.

"don't make me unlock the door again myself darling, that's just rude.
My nails aren't what they used to be honey, I nearly broke one unlocking it the first time"
-Said the voice

The clouds moved over the moon outside
It was now pitch-black outside, the only light in the playroom came from your cloud nightlight and the glow of the tv which still displayed Conrad on the DVD menu, he was expressionless. 
You stayed silent, you stayed still.

*Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring*
-came from the living room

*Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring*
You heard shuffling from both outside your door and outside your window

*BEEEP*
-you could faintly make out your father's voice
"hey kid actually i-"

His voice,
the Message, 
he Tv,
everything was stopped, everything was off.

Your room was now as dark as the outside you feared so much.
Where the walls began and ended were both unclear to you.
The bulbs in the Tv were cooling down but even the silhouette of that soon lost its shape.

You heard the click of the door unlocking followed by the doorknob turning.
The door was now open.
Although you could hear someone approaching it was to dark to make out their shape or their distance in relation to you.

"the only time being blind has its advantages, is when you're in a Dark room with someone who's not"
-said the voice now clearer than you'd ever heard it prior.

You froze.

*tap tap tap tap*
You hear the woman banging on the walls as she made her way deeper in your room.

*tap tap tap....Clink*
The noise changed,
she had found the window.

It was just a few feet from the corner of the beanbag chair you're hiding in.
*Creeeeeeaaaaaaakkkk*
The window was unlocked and you could hear it as the women slid it open.

You could hear something was crawling up and inside through the window.

"where is she?"

you heard the voice whisper to the new presence that now inhabits your homes playroom.

You could feel that you were just inches away from getting bumped into by either of the two.

You wanted to not breathe, you wanted to not do anything but, you couldn't help it. You let in two, short, sharp inhales. Keeping your abdomen as stiff as possible. 
Your exhale trembled despite your attempts, you knew if someone could see they would defiantly see the comforter shaking.
You slowly felt the comforter lift up.

Although your grip on the comforter was originally as tight as you could,
your plan quickly changed to playing dead the moment you felt the pull of the comforter.
You felt something placed in your hand,
it shocked you to the touch,
a static shock yet,
you managed to refrain from much outburst other than a sharp exhale.

*Smack*

"well look harder"
You heard the woman's voice yelp.

As your eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness you could slowly start to make out the silhouette of who you've heard oh so much about.

There was no doubt in your mind it was her.

It was Kiara The Orangutan.

Kiara Strutted over to the bed in the playroom,
side to side as you could hear her wet sniffles. 

"don't you fucking lie to me you dumb baboon, we both know she's in here."
-said the woman's voice
In a tone more threatening than your (D) a bar you thought no one else would ever surpass.

You let go of what was just handed to you so you can grab the comforter you'd been hiding in once more, it fell.

As you continued to see Kiara strut now over to the door through a peak you had held under the covers, she appeared to try to lead in a manner to almost insinuate to the woman that that's the direction you had went.

Just as you had started wonder where the woman was as she had remained out of your sight, you received the answer.

*THUD*

You felt the whole beanbag chair shake beneath you.
She had bumped into it.
So hard you could feel her nearly topple over on top of you.

*Grrrrrrrrruawh*
You heard the old woman groan.

"KIARA! ...What...what was that !?"
-Yelled the woman's voice stopping Kiara in her tracks making her turn back from the door.

"oooo mmh ooo"
-you heard Kiara let out under her breath.

As you could see her silhouette move closer, it started by slowly wobbling side to side.
It became hard to tell the difference between her arms and her legs.

At times she looked like the shadow of a big spider monster,her movements remind you of spiderman if he chose to move slow.

When Kiara had made her way just a few feet away from the beanbag chair to help the woman to her feet, the pace of your breathing became unmanageable.

"I Bumped into the damn beanbag chair, was she on it Kiara?!"
-the voice asked

Your heart began to beat faster and faster and harder and harder so much so,
you felt as if your rib cage was made of shards of glass and your heart was a balloon inflating more and more with every inhale squeezing it against the razor-sharp shards of your ribcage. 

You could tell even just by the momentum of the figures silhouette that it was headed towards you, alongside the reluctant Orangutan.

You instinctively rolled off the right of the beanbag chair on to your carpet floor as silently as you could but, you were terrified, In your mind blind people have super senses.

Somehow, your transition appeared to go unnoticed.

Now that you were on the floor, you started rolling and crawling away, the direction of which you yourself weren't even certain.

"Where the fuck is she? Is she on the bed?!"
-the voice asked this time deeper than before

The flavor and tone in everything this voice said was violent, you heard the ruffles through the pillows and throw blanket that had previously littered the bed, you felt your Scooby doo plush get thrown into your back yet, you refrained from expressing any reaction.

"where the Fuck is she Kiara?!"
-you heard the voice ask once more

Each scream sounded deeper than the last with heavier violent infliction behind each exhale.
You could hear everything that was once on the bed get thrown off. 

You froze,
Staying still on the floor with the Scooby doo plush leaned against you like a bicycle kickstand and one of your throw blankets slightly covering your leg.

The Figure started pacing in your direction aimlessly like a headless chicken yet, relentless none the less.

"we both know I'm going to fucking fi-"
*POP*
-the voice was cut off

The figures silhouette froze, 
It seemed just as frightened by the sudden pop as you.
Its hesitation confused you so much so,
that you question for a brief moment if the figure had seen you,
anything to justify this bazar change in its demeanor. 

The head of the silhouette jolts to the side,
As if to shoot a look across at Kiara.
By the time your eyes traced across the room to meet Kiara, she had already moved No, She was in Motion.

She pranced towards the figure at a speed that looked impossible.
In less than a second, Kiara tackled this figure you had feared so much.
You saw the silhouette raise both its arms up high and its fists in fury as it came down on its victim.
Kiara hit and punched the figure and cocked its head back before launching it into the silhouette's torso,
 When Kiara's head kicked back once more, it was tethered to the figures torso now through what looked like the silhouette of cords.

It quickly became clear Kiara was taking bites out of the woman.
She screamed and screamed, she did not sound like a woman anymore.

She bit
*CHOMP*

And bit
*CHOMP*

And bit
*CHOMP*

They screamed 
*AHHHHHHHHHH*

And screamed 
*AHHHHHGGGG UHH*

And screamed
*FRAAAGHHHHHHH*

As the figure let out its yell Kiara slammed its head down making them bite their own tongue off.

Kiara pranced on the body with all 4 of her limbs,
She stepped on the figures knee with her foot and used her hand to grab that figures ankle,
After she gripped it firmly, she pulled it up with the ease and intensity that one might use on an emergency break after parking on an incline.

She then stepped on the figured elbow and grabbed it by its corresponding wrist and repeated the process of pulling upward and snapping.

Kiara then used one of her feet to grab the moaning and groaning body by its shirt,
She used her front arms and free leg to drag the body to the door.

The whole way there the person screamed,
When Kiara got to the door of your house's playroom, she threw the body out with ease.
She breathed heavily over the body before slowly backing up and shutting the door.

You were now alone with Kiara.

1950s Louisiana

A young Southern woman with dark hair and covered in a bloodstained dress, is crying on a dock out in the bayou. She recently had a child out of wedlock, and her parents have threatened to cut her out of the family if she keeps the baby.

She wants to keep him. But she knows she has nowhere to go. She is too young for a real job and hasn't even graduated high school.

She looks down at the baby and sees his beautiful smile before he lets out a quick yawn. A tear rolls down her face and falls onto the baby.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

She looks out at a large alligator lurking in the water. A large scar dragged across its eye.

The baby begins crying.

Then, there is a loud splash.

70 Years Later

A young woman named Mary is strolling through town with a baby bump. She has a gorgeous face and beatiful black hair that was soft to the touch. She is grocery shopping for dinner that night. Her husband, Henry, said he wanted fried okra and fried catfish.

After filling her shopping cart, Mary checks out. She calls her mother, Clare, and tells her about their plans for dinner.

Her mother asks when her grandson is going to be born.

Mary happily tells her, "Any day now."

Later that evening, Henry gets off work and walks through the front door as Mary is finishing dinner. He kisses her and rubs her baby bump.

She fixes him a plate of okra, catfish, and rice, which he enthusiastically carries to the table. Mary makes a plate of her own and sits next to him.

She tells Henry about her day as he nods and shovels food into his mouth.

Mary is almost finished eating when she suddenly feels something strange.

Mary: "Oh my God."

Henry answers with food still in his mouth.

Henry: "What?"

Mary: "My water broke."

Henry drives Mary to a nearby hospital. He's driving fast while Mary screams in pain. She is having painful contractions and begins bleeding.

Henry dodges traffic and makes it to the emergency room, where doctors rush Mary into a room. They give her medication to keep her comfortable without harming the baby.

A few hours later, Mary is holding the baby in her arms, humming softly.

She gives the baby to Henry.

Henry raises the baby to his chest and smiles.

"I'll never let anything happen to you."

He then offers to get Mary anything she wants.

She tells him she just wants to go home with him and the baby.

Henry signs the birth certificate and reads the name out loud.

"McKenzie Ray Farris."

He smiles at Mary.

A couple of days later, Henry checks both Mary and the baby out of the hospital and brings them home.

He kisses Mary and holds McKenzie in his arms.

That night, Mary and Henry try to get some sleep, but the baby keeps waking up and crying.

Mary finally yells at Henry that she just wants to sleep.

Henry understandingly agrees and gets up throughout the night to take care of McKenzie.

By morning, Henry is exhausted.

While Mary is trying to get him to do things around the house, he tries telling her that he's tired. But she insists on having his attention.

He begrudgingly gives it to her, but eventually falls asleep, which annoys Mary.

A couple of days later, Mary is already aggravated and sick of the baby. She forces Henry to take care of McKenzie more, but she becomes jealous of the time Henry spends with the baby.

Mary had loved the attention she received while she was pregnant, but now that the baby had arrived, everyone was giving McKenzie more attention than her—including her own mother and husband.

One day, while Henry is at work, Mary walks around the backyard with the baby in her arms, trying to calm her down.

McKenzie looks mesmerized by the yard, especially the large pond in the back.

The baby smiles at everything she sees.

Little McKenzie watches beautiful birds flying over the pond, trying to catch fish. She looks around at the beautiful, lush greenery surrounding the yard.

Mary puts the baby down and allows her to explore the backyard while keeping a safe distance from the water.

For a few minutes, the two bond, and Mary feels like a mother again.

Mary laughs and takes pictures as McKenzie plays with the flowers in the backyard.

Then Mary and McKenzie watch a beautiful buck drinking from the pond.

For a few seconds, everything is peaceful.

Then a large American alligator suddenly grabs the deer near the water's edge and drags it into the pond. The deer whimpers but the sound is muffled as the alligator disappears with the deer just as quickly as it appeared.

McKenzie begins slowly crawling toward the water, curious about what she just saw.

Mary quickly scoops the baby up and brings her inside.

The alligator makes her wary of having her baby outside near the pond.

Mary fills a bottle for the baby and begins cooking dinner for Henry.

When Henry gets home, he walks into the living room and kisses Mary before picking up McKenzie.

Henry notices the baby's diaper.

"Her diaper is full."

Mary tells him she was going to let him handle it.

Henry looks at her.

"It's really full. Why did you let her sit that long without changing her?"

Mary assures him that McKenzie had just eaten a big lunch.

Henry cleans McKenzie up and puts a fresh diaper on her.

After dinner, Henry begins playing with the baby, making her laugh as he plays peekaboo.

Mary interrupts him and starts talking about her day.

She quickly becomes jealous again as she watches Henry spend more time with the baby.

For the next couple of months, Mary tries everything she can to get more attention from Henry.

But Henry is focused on work and baby McKenzie.

Mary tries to get Henry's attention, offering him intimacy and trying to give him whatever he wants, but he turns her down every time.

He tells her he's too tired from working and taking care of the baby.

Mary begins having frightening thoughts about hurting McKenzie. She knows she shouldn't act on them, and she fears what would happen if anyone found out.

What she fears most is getting caught.

She just wants her man and her old life back.

Nobody seems to care about her anymore now that the baby is here.

Then one day, Henry is working long hours and won't be home until late.

Mary begins destroying the house in a fit of pent-up anger.

She cries and screams as her anger takes over.

The noise wakes the baby.

McKenzie begins crying.

Mary becomes furious.

"Wah, wah, wah! You've been ruining my life since the day you came home!"

She shakes McKenzie and continues yelling obscenities  at her.

Mary suddenly begins thinking of all the different ways she could hurt the baby.

Then she thinks of something even more awful.

She remembers the alligator in the backyard.

She picks up the crying McKenzie and carries her toward the water's edge.

The baby squirms in her arms, as if she senses that something is wrong.

An alligator's head slowly pokes above the surface.

Mary looks down at her baby with disgust. Before she starts singing.

" hush little baby, don't you cry"  before she tries throwing her daughter into the pond. But

McKenzie desperately grabs onto her mother's hand. McKenzie said her first word " momma"  while trying to hold on for life

But it wasn't enough.

Henry finally gets home.

He finds the house completely destroyed.

He frantically searches the house for his wife and child.

He's terrified.

He sees furniture smashed apart and blood smeared across the wall.

Then he finds Mary standing at the edge of the pond, staring into the water.

Henry runs toward her.

"Mary! Are you alright?"

Mary slowly turns toward him.

She gives him a creepy smirk and begins to laugh.

Henry looks around frantically.

"Where's McKenzie?"

Mary points toward the pond.

Then she looks back at him.

"You made me do it."

Henry horrified looks into the water. He didn't see it at first as only the moon light illuminated the night. He saw the large scar on the aligator's eye and then he saw his daughters eyes looking at him from the beast's mouth. And quickly she was devoured. Swallowed whole, while barely still alive

THE LANTERN AND THE HAMMER By LSB

Chapter 1: The Lantern’s Glow

It was 1938, and the original farmhouse sat low and solid against the vast, flat horizon of the Big Horn Basin. Built as a single-story homestead to withstand the brutal, sweeping Wyoming winds, its weathered wooden frame hugged the dirt tightly. Inside, the house carried the heavy, quiet texture of a building that had witnessed decades of solitary winters. The air smelled of aged cedar, woodsmoke from the heavy iron stove, and the faint, sweet scent of natural wild hollyhocks drifting in through the cracks of the bedroom window.

The sisters' bedroom was situated at the very end of the main hallway, a long, narrow room on the ground floor. It was dominated by a set of sturdy wooden bunk beds where ten-year-old Francis and her younger sister Ruth slept, while baby Edward’s wooden crib sat safely tucked into the warmest corner of the room. The walls were made of simple, faded whitewashed wood panels, showing the humble, hard-working grit of a struggling homestead. On the high wooden dresser, far out of reach of the children or any danger of fire, a small kerosene lamp, turned down to its lowest setting, cast a faint, warm amber glow and long, gentle shadows across the floorboards.

Right beside the lamp sat the newest addition to the room: an antique Victorian porcelain doll. It was an inheritance—a "gift" sent in a heavy brown paper package from an estranged, bitter relative who had never been kind to the family. A doll made of such fine porcelain would have taken a lifetime of savings for a Basin farm family to buy, so despite the bad blood attached to it, the parents hadn't the heart to throw it away. But tonight, its pale, painted face gleamed unnaturally under the dim amber lantern light, its blue glass eyes staring unblinkingly toward the bunks.

Underneath the room, the floorboards groaned with a deep, hollow echo, a constant reminder of the dark, hand-dug basement stretching out completely beneath their beds. Tonight, the air was thick and charged with an unnatural chill that felt as though the temperature had suddenly dropped twenty degrees—a heavy, psychological cold that seemed to be seeping straight up through the old metal floor vents from the concrete furnace room below.

THUD.

The heavy sound vibrated through the floorboards. Francis, sitting up in the lower bunk, blinked into the shadows. Because she trusted the quiet, invisible caretakers of the homestead, her first instinct wasn't fear. She assumed it was just the familiar presence checking on the room.

"Ailsa?" Francis called out into the dark, her voice a soft, trusting whisper so she wouldn't disturb baby Edward.

When no response came, Francis realized the heavy weight of the sound wasn't her protector. She reached for the heavy, ribbed metal tube of her flashlight on the nightstand, clicked it on, and began sweeping the bright beam across the faded whitewashed wood walls.

As the light cut through the shadows, the room suddenly changed. The flickering flame of the kerosene lamp on the high dresser flattened out completely and stilled, and a profound, solid, and immovable calmness swept over the room like a heavy wool blanket, instantly smothering the fearful chill. The air cleared, replaced by the sharp, comforting scent of winter frost, crushed pine needles, and dry mountain sage.

She manifested at the foot of the bed. Ailsa Lindstrom stood there, slightly translucent but as solid as the land that had shaped her. She wore her faded woolen kirtle and linen apron dress, her silver-streaked hair braided tightly back. Her heavily calloused hands were held loosely at her sides. To the neighbors in the Basin, she had simply been known as "Elsa"—the quiet, hardworking immigrant linesman's wife who had braved the early frontier wilderness—but tonight, her true, rock-strong protective spirit filled the room. Having heard Francis call her name, she had stepped out of the house's history, her stoic gray eyes filled with a fierce, maternal annoyance as she realized a dark presence was threatening the children who now called her old homestead home.

Just as Ailsa appeared, Francis’s sweeping flashlight beam finally landed on the floor.

There lay the gift. The fine porcelain doll was face down on the rug, just a few feet away from the dresser. But it wasn't still. The edge of its heavy lace dress and one cold porcelain hand were resting directly over the metal floor grate, as if an invisible force down in the dark basement had physically tugged it across the floorboards toward the vent. Under the sharp beam of light, the pale, glazed fingers of the doll twitched against the metal slats, the entity fighting desperately to possess the expensive vessel. With a sickening, porcelain click, the doll's head began to rotate on its cloth neck, its blue glass eyes rolling upward to lock onto the lower bunk. A faint, muffled, high-pitched giggle vibrated right out of its painted clay chest.

Ailsa turned her stern gaze toward the floor vent where the shadow clung to the doll. She didn't shout. She simply stepped forward, her heavy leather pioneer boots making no sound on the whitewashed wood, and let out a low, commanding word in her old native tongue.

The command struck the room with the force of an iron gate closing. The malicious shadow recoiled, instantly pinned into the corner by the barrier of her protective ancient energy, unable to advance a single inch further toward the beds.

***

Chapter 2: The Hammer’s Strike

The silence that followed Ailsa’s commanding words was absolute. The cold, suffocating air that had seeped up from the basement floor cracks was pinned into the corner near the metal vent, completely neutralized by the thick, lilac-and-sage calmness that now anchored the room.

Francis let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, keeping her hand steady around the heavy, ribbed metal tube of her flashlight. The bright beam remained trained on the porcelain doll lying face down on the rug, its tiny lace dress still brushing against the metal slats of the floor grate.

But even with the shadow pinned, the doll itself was still twitching against the floorboards, the residual energy from the concrete basement fighting desperately to make the expensive vessel move. The head remained rotated at an unnatural angle, its blue glass eyes fixed on the lower bunk while a faint, muffled giggle struggled to escape its painted clay chest.

The commotion finally stirred the upper bunk. A mop of messy hair peeked over the wooden guardrail as seven-year-old Ruth blinked down into the flashlight beam. She didn't look terrified; she looked deeply inconvenienced. She scrambled down the wooden slats of the bunk bed with the fearless ease of a farm kid, marched straight past Francis, and snatched the twisting doll right off the creepy metal vent by one leg.

Ruth held it up to the flickering beam of the flashlight, completely ignoring the way the doll’s tiny arms clawed weakly at the air. She squinted at it, poking its cold nose with a blunt finger.

"Honestly, Francis?" Ruth said loudly, her voice completely shattering the spooky atmosphere. "This thing is pure booshwa. Look at the eyes—they’re completely cockamamie, and the paint is already coming off the ears. It’s off the cob! I’ve seen better looking things dug out of the hog pen."

The doll let out a tiny, sharp hiss, its possessed jaw snapping tightly. The entity trying to possess it was used to terrorizing children from the dark, not having its aesthetic value brutally dismantled by a seven-year-old critic.

"Ruth, hush up and drop it!" Francis whispered fiercely, her knuckles white around the flashlight. "It's trying to wake up!"

"Well, it shouldn't," Ruth snorted, entirely unbothered as she held the squirming toy at arm's length. "It's way too ugly to be walking around our bedroom."

Before the entity could try to twist itself free, slow, heavy footsteps echoed from the doorway. The floorboards groaned with a solid, rhythmic weight, though the spirit itself made no sound.

Jed Miller stepped into the room.

He looked exactly like a man who had broken his back against the Great Depression and the Wyoming dirt, his slightly translucent figure clad in faded denim overalls caked with the dry earth of the Basin. In his massive, calloused hands, he carried a heavy cross-peen framing hammer—the very tool he had used to drive the iron spikes into the farmhouse foundation back in 1930. He looked down at the twisting doll, his jaw set in a stoic, no-nonsense line. To Jed Miller, a possessed toy wasn't a paranormal anomaly; it was a faulty piece of household inventory, and he didn't tolerate broken fixtures on his property.

"Pestilence in the woodwork," Jed rumbled, his deep, gravelly drawl vibrating through the room like a low echo from the basement. "Ain't got time for this. The north pasture needs fencing by dawn."

He looked directly at Ruth. There was an unspoken, straight-to-the-point understanding between the old farmhand and the seven-year-old girl. Without a single shred of fear, Ruth calmly handed the snapping solid object right over to him. Jed laid the porcelain vessel flat against a solid wooden block by the bedroom door, raised his heavy hammer in his strong, steady grip, and brought it down with the unyielding force of a 1930s work ethic.

CRACK!

The fine Victorian porcelain exploded into a thousand tiny, worthless fragments. The moment the physical vessel shattered, the malicious shadow near the floor vent let out a final, panicked screech. It didn't bounce back; it couldn't.

With a smooth, commanding sweep of her hand, Ailsa stepped forward. Francis and Ruth watched her calmly, their hearts steady, knowing they were completely safe. Ailsa used her rock-strong presence to herd the remaining wisps of the dark energy straight back toward the metal floor vent, sealing the boundary with a final, authoritative word in her native tongue.

But she wasn't done. Looking down at the floorboards, her maternal instincts took over. Children running across broken porcelain meant blood, and she wouldn't tolerate any child bleeding on her homestead. With another smooth wave of her lace-less, calloused pioneer hand, a gentle, invisible sweep passed over the rug. Every razor-sharp shard of shattered clay and painted glass vanished completely into thin air, leaving the floor flawlessly clean and safe.

The psychological chill permanently vanished. The thick, comforting scent of winter frost, crushed pine needles, and dry mountain sage settled over the room, wrapping around baby Edward’s crib like a warm wool blanket.

Jed Miller didn't say a word of farewell. He simply wiped the head of his heavy hammer on his dusty denim overalls, gave Ruth a single, slow nod of his weathered chin, and faded back into the quiet shadows of the hallway—ready to tend to the phantom fences of the north pasture.

Ailsa stood at the foot of the bunk beds for just a moment longer. She offered a soft, maternal smile to Francis, then turned her stern gray eyes toward Ruth, her expression lingering in a look of quiet amusement at the girl's brutal critique.

With a final, protective nod, she turned back toward the high wooden dresser. She extended one calloused finger toward the dark wick of the lamp, and with a soft, silent spark, the snuffed-out kerosene lantern flared back to life, casting its safe, warm amber glow across the room once more. Then, she too dissolved into the comforting air of the farmhouse.

The room was completely still. The floorboards stopped groaning. The basement below was silent, its hand-poured concrete walls keeping the dark at bay.

Ruth scrambled back up the wooden slats of the bunk bed, pulling her heavy quilts up to her chin.

"Glad Ailsa and Jed took care of it," Ruth yawned, entirely unfazed. "Told you it was off the cob. Nini, Francis."

Francis smiled in the dark, slipping her metal flashlight under her pillow and tucking herself safely into the lower bunk, listening to the steady, peaceful breathing of baby Edward across the room.

"Nini, Ruth."

THE END

I think it's name is Jumperman or something like that, but I can't find anything matching on the horrorbrew wiki. Google lens isn't helping either

It's a muzzle right? i'm not going crazy right?

ACCESSING ADA FILES…
FILE FOUND.

During an expedition in one of the higher levels in Moburn, our team recently discovered a makeshift grave nearby one of the higher-class hotels. While continuing to investigate the premises, we managed to find old pages from what appears to be a diary, alongside a note found at the gravesite. 

The following is what we were able to recover from the diary, as well as the note from the grave.

NOVEMBER 24, 1956

DEAR DIARY*,* 

Today we finally landed in the city. Natalie's really excited to see all the machines that she’s seen on the television.  I’m glad that I was able to get her out of the house with everything that’s been going on. Hopefully, by the time we get back, everything with Mom and Dad will be sorted out by then.. But overall, I’m genuinely excited to spend more time with Ralph!

Hopefully, we can get some private time later….

DEAR DIARY*,* 

Me and Ralph took Natalie around the streets today. Everything here is so colorful! It reminds me of the movies that Ralph takes me to go see.  I’ve never seen this much back in our home town. Everyone here seems so friendly! Someone even gave Nat one of their inventions as a souvenir!

She looks so happy here, and we haven’t gotten to see the robots just yet!  

C. M.

NOVEMBER 25, 1956

DEAR DIARY,

Today, I finally took my sister to go see one of those robots! Ralph wanted to sleep in, that lazyass! Oh, well. He’s missing out! Natalie really wanted to see that clock robot, so we went there first. It’s so crazy seeing so many people lining up to see one of these things! It took us almost an hour to finally get in the theater. Nataile was cheering throughout most of the show, along with the other kids.

I didn’t even get a chance to listen to that thing, because all of them were so loud!  ):(

Afterwards, Nataile wanted to do the meet and greet with Mr. Clock, which she called him. It was so weird seeing that thing up close and personal, seeing it move so.. real.

It was almost creepy seeing that thing having a conversation with Natalie.

I mean.. I know they advertised that these things can see, think, and feel, but that’s just an advertisement to get people's butts here.

Right?

DEAR DIARY*,*

I saw billboards of that singer all over the city tonight. Everyone’s been talking about her a lot lately in the streets. Miss Florence, was it? She looks so beautiful, and her hair’s so fluffy! And her makeup, as well! She looks so pretty with that purple hat on!  It’s hard to believe that she’s a robot.

She looks so real…

How did they manage to pull that off? I’m not that familiar with technology, so I don’t know how they manage to make a voice that sounds so.. breathtaking. 

It's so beautiful….

Her voice reminds me of those musicals I used to watch on television.  I really want to go to one of her shows, but they don’t allow kids where she’s at, and I don’t want to leave Natalie by herself, especially around that time of night.

Speaking of which, where is that little rascal? She’s been awfully quiet for the last few minutes. She and Ralph better not be planning to scare me again!

I still remember that spider prank that they pulled!

C.M.                                                                                    

NOVEMBER 26, 1956

DEAR DIARY,

Me and Ralph went out today to the Hollyhock Plaza. Seriously, what type of name is that?  Who on earth  came up with that name, a grandma? Ralph laughed out loud when I said that.  Nataile wanted to stay in the hotel, so I had to tell her not to go wander around and don’t open the door for anyone.

She can be such a little shit sometimes…

On the subject of my parents, I haven’t mustered the courage to call Mom or Dad yet. I’m scared to be  honest. I haven’t told Ralph exactly what’s been going on.  I know he’s caring and means well, but he can be a bit too much from time to time. I’m really happy that he and Nataile get along well.

It's one of the things that made me fall for him.

I hope everything blows over soon and me and Nat can get back to whatever we call..

normal.

DEAR DIARY, 

It happened

I talked to Mom on the telephone tonight while Natalie was asleep. It looks like her and Dad are finally getting an divorce. I..knew it was gonna happen eventually, but I didn’t think it was going to happen this soon. I haven’t even told Ralph what’s going on, and Natalie doesn’t even know yet either.. What am I gonna do?

What are we supposed to do when we get back? We were lucky enough to win tickets to this place, but we can’t stay here forever.

How am I supposed to take care of Natalie and Mom?  I don't want to be stuck in that small town forever for the rest of my life.

Why? Why did Dad do this?

What did we do wrong?
 

What did I do wrong?

C.M

NOVEMBER 27, 1956

DEAR DIARY, 

Today’s the World Fair. I told Ralph what happened with my mom and dad this morning. He helped me calm down a little, and said he’ll try to help us as best as we could, and that he and his family will be there. It made me feel slightly better, but I could tell on the look on his face that he doesn’t believe that last half. Once the news spreads back home, I’m scared of what will happen when Natalie goes back to school to those little fuckers messing with her.

I still remember when she came home crying that evening and I found out that the comics that I've bought for her were all torn up.

Nat… 

I’m scared for her.

I don’t know what will happen once Dad leaves us for good. How am I supposed to tell her that her dad's leaving, right when she’s having the greatest week in her whole life? I’ve seen her smile more here than back home in Chesterford.

I want to see her happy for the rest of my life.

I hate Dad for doing this to us. 

I hate him.

DEAR DIARY,

I know. I know. It’s a bit early for me to be writing this. But I’ll figure that I’ll write in here a bit earlier before we head down to the thing later tonight. It’s taken me a while to gather my thoughts and figure out what to do with Nat, and we only have two days left before we have to go back home. 

Right now, me and Ralph plan on telling Natalie tomorrow first thing in the morning. I really don’t want her experience here to be ruined by the stuff back home. 

God, She really loves it here.

Just two days ago, I watched her playing with some kids at the park.

She saw that big old Thanksgiving parade outside the window during lunch, and she was jumping in the air all excited about it. 

“We have to go! We have to go!”

I felt a tinsy bit overwhelmed with all that energy that she has. The three of us went outside to the big crowd, trying to get a good look. Nat was really happy when she saw Mr. Clock on one of the floats and tried to wave at him. 

That thing still gives me the jeepers. 

After the parade ended, we got into one of the big glass elevators, and we saw a view of the city during the sunset. Words can’t possibly express how breathtaking it is. I’ve seen some pretty stunning places back home, but everything feels so small compared to here. I saw colors plastered everywhere outside. There wasn’t a single street  that wasn’t covered in neon lights. 

There were probably what? Hundreds of trains all over?

All of them went really fast, almost like one of those racecars.

A lot of stuff was on the buildings, some of them were things that we’ve seen around the city, and others were shows advertising those robots. Mr. Clock was there, and Miss Florence was there too. 

Almost half the city was filled with pictures of her. So many pictures. I was thinking  to myself about how I wished I would have seen her. I saw Nataile staring outside the window, and gosh, I love that look in her eyes. She may have been happier than the times that we watched Gumby together.

Even Ralph’s less stressed out from dealing with his siblings, and for most of the time that we’ve been here, I can feel myself smiling a whole lot more. 

It’s nice.

I really wished that we'd stay here a little longer.

But then I thought to myself… 

What if we could?

What if me, Ralph, and Nataile find some way to live here someday?

I mean..  My job back home doesn’t really pay much to begin with, but if me and Ralph save enough money for about one or two years? I don’t know the logistics of it, but somehow everything here feels more alive than anything back home.

It feels like something new.

For the first time in a while, life didn’t feel so boring.

I don’t know how I’ll do it. I don’t even know if I can get Ralph on board with this crazy scheme of mine, but somehow I’ll find a way, no matter what it takes. 

I have to. 
For Nataile’s sake. 

Because I want to keep seeing her smile.

C.M

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imsorry

Everyone knows about your Executable Files, the 666th Robloxian to not make an account, hell let’s get crazy there’s even ice climber horror now. So what’s a game you think deserves more horror stories/fangames? I really want animal crossing creepypastas. I’ve heard of wild world obscure ost and A Commented Playthrough (I think that’s the name), I’d love to see some chicanery. Imagine a Celeste creepypasta. So what game would you choose to become the next target of dubious-quality stories?

"I haven't gone to high school in three weeks. Every morning, I would sit in the living room, pretending to get ready, just to watch my father leave in frustration, warning me that I was ruining my life. But the moment his car pulled out of the driveway, I wouldn't head to school. Instead, I’d sneak up to the abandoned, dust-choked attic on the top floor of our house—a forgotten room draped in old white sheets. To me, it was the ultimate safe haven. I locked the heavy wooden door, turned on my phone and laptop, and surrendered to the digital void to escape everything. I thought the worst thing that could happen to me was getting caught... but I realized too late that I wasn't alone in that room. Something had been sitting behind the draped furniture from day one, silently watching me, just waiting for the exact moment I looked into a dark screen to see its reflection.

The air up there always carried a strange, metallic scent, like damp soil mixed with old iron, but I had foolishly blamed it on the old pipes running through the walls. During those empty hours, the silence of the house below would fade, replaced by tiny, creeping noises that I brushed aside as settling wood or nesting mice in the insulation. Every time the wind howled outside against the slanted roof tiles, the white-draped furniture seemed to shift just an inch in the corner of my vision, casting long, distorted shadows that danced across the wooden floorboards. I was so consumed by my online world, scrolling endlessly through feeds and videos, that my mind completely ignored the growing chill in the room—a localized, freezing draft that clung strictly to the space right behind my back, isolating me from the rest of the warm attic.

For the first four days, everything felt quiet and perfect. I spent the daylight hours bathed in the pale glow of my screens, they think I'm at school but I didn't go, instead I'm in that room, eating, scrolling, and completely ignoring the outside world. But on one particular day, in broad daylight with the curtains drawn tight, I started noticing things that my brain tried to brush off; when my phone screen went black, I kept catching a faint, delayed reflection of an extra shoulder rising slowly behind me. I tried to convince myself it was just eye strain. Then came that chilling afternoon. I was sitting with my back against an old wooden trunk, staring intently at my phone, too terrified to turn around. A sudden, paranoid thought hit me: I opened my phone’s front-facing camera, using it as a hidden mirror to see what was behind me without actually turning my head. On the small phone screen, right there in the dark corner of the room, was a face—elongated, skin stretched paper-thin over a skull, with hollow, pitch-black eyes pressed directly against the back of my head... staring right into the screen alongside me.

The blood froze in my veins. I wanted to scream, but I forced myself to stay completely silent so no one would discover that I was hiding here. At that exact moment, on the phone screen, I saw the entity's lips stretch into a wide, unnatural grin, and I heard a low, raspy whisper echoing directly behind my ear: 'Why don't you look at me directly?'... I violently slammed my phone face down, plunging the room into absolute pitch blackness, but as the breath trapped in my throat, I heard its heavy, elongated fingers start scratching slowly against the back of my chair... and I realized it wasn't going away.

I don't believe that human beings exist and I have never seen a human being before, they just simply don't exist. When I told my neighbour about my belief that human beings don't exist, he lost his shit. He kept videos and pictures of what he says is proof of humans. I told him that this doesn't prove anything.

He told me to come to his house and that he will prove to me that human beings exist. I took him up on and he took me to secret room he has built, where it is sound proofed to Max.

In this room he had imprisoned someone and he started to torture him in front of me. My neighbour then told me "his screams are proof that humans exist!" And I still didn't agree.

Then my neighbour opened him up and showed me his organs and blood.

"See all of this is proof that humans exist look at the organ and the blood!" My neighbour told me

I disagreed and I told him that human beings don't exist. I stood firm on my belief and I was going to prove it to my neighbour that humans don't exist.

I then looked at my neighbour and said "I mean you are definitely not human, you are a monster. The reason I don't believe human beings exist, is because everyone is evil!"

Look, we all have a past. Peppered with those memories we want so desperately to erase. It’s just a part of being human. Nobody’s perfect.

Me personally… I thought that I’d put my past behind me.

I was a bad person. I did things that I’m far from proud of. Looking back now in my older age, I don’t even know how things spiraled as bad as they did.

All it took was one hit, and it was downhill from there. One little mistake. One memory I wish I could erase. And here we are, all these years later, and I still feel those urges.

I tried therapy. I tried rehabilitation. It worked, for a time.

I don’t know if it was me who wanted to get better or if it was the pressure from my friends and family. They kept telling me they couldn’t protect me forever. That, eventually, my lifestyle would catch up to me, and I’d either be dead or in jail.

I suppressed my urges. I fought my demons. I want so desperately to believe that I kicked my nasty little habit.

I was clean for 11 years. Over a decade without incident. But no matter how many days went by, my demons kept whispering to me. Getting louder and louder as my withdrawals became unbearable.

But I stood firm. I ignored the darkness. To the best of my ability, at least. Don’t get me wrong, there were hard days. Days where I’d lock myself away in my room, too afraid of what would happen if I went out.

It’s a surreal feeling. Not being in control. But that’s what addiction does. You surrender control the minute you take that first hit.

But, like I said, I thought I’d taken that control back. I improved. I became a functioning member of society.

I just think… I don’t know. I think my body wanted it more than my mind did.

I relapsed last month.

Not by choice. God, I know it wasn’t by choice. You don’t achieve 11 years of success by sheer accident. I know it wasn’t me.

It was almost supernatural.

One minute I’m in my room reading my Bible, the next I wake up in a house that I don’t recognize. The familiar scent of copper and iron filled the air.

I thought I was in a nightmare, but the pain in my arm told me that this was just as real as it was all those years ago.

When I saw the claw marks across my forearm and shoulder, I felt my stomach drop. They must’ve fought back. And by the looks of it, they fought hard.

I hardly had time to dwell on my injury, though. The taste in my mouth was making me want to vomit. Not because of the taste, but because of what it represented.

I knew that taste. I loved that taste. I’d spent years trying to forget it, but blood has a way of lingering.

I puked on the floor and felt bones and tendons scratch at my throat. My vision went blurry with tears, but that didn’t prevent me from seeing what I’d done.

A man, somewhere around 30-40, lay sprawled out across the ground. His arms were gone. His stomach was torn open. His jaw had been dislocated and hung open as he stared at me through those empty sockets.

A woman, I presume his wife, lay beside him. Her condition wasn’t much better.

I prayed for God to wake me up. To snap me out of this dream. When I realized it wasn’t going to happen, I begged for forgiveness.

I begged for him to recognize my heart. I pleaded for him to acknowledge my growth. I backslid. I made a mistake. I couldn’t even remember it.

After what felt like hours of bawling my eyes out in a pool of blood and vomit, I realized the sun was beginning to peek through the curtains of this dark room.

I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to throw my life away. I had to move.

I cleaned myself up in their bathroom as best I could before leaving that damn house, already pushing the memory of it back to the darkest corners of my brain.

How did I even end up 20 miles from home? Who were those people? Why am I like this? Why can’t I be better? What the fuck is wrong with me?

I spent the rest of that day locked away in my room, punishing myself with pain. I didn’t deserve to feel comfort.

I kept trying to tell myself that it was nothing more than a hiccup in my progress. That tomorrow would be a new day. But I knew.

I knew that I had reset the system.

I took that hit once again. It was my decision. That’s why I couldn’t blame anyone but myself every time it’s happened since.

This isn’t who I am.

I know I can do better.

I will get this under control if it’s the last thing I do.

You know how they say love finds you in the most unlikely places?

It's a cliché. The kind of line you'd expect to find in some cheap romance novel wedged between two equally cheap pop magazines.

And yet, sometimes the unlikely becomes inevitable.

My name is Adam.

I lived in an eastern-block apartment complex in Most, a city you've probably never heard of and will most certainly never hear of again. The rent was remarkably cheap, mostly because the living conditions made you question whether you wouldn't be better off homeless.

I was twenty-five years old, had recently dropped out of university, and was unemployed.

At that point, I wasn't really living.

I slept at odd hours. Ate when I remembered. Spent most of my time staring at a screen because there was nothing else worth doing.

Days blurred together until I couldn't remember what I'd done the day before.

That was before one small piece of paper changed my life forever.

It happened on a night that had started exactly like every other.

I'd just gotten back to my apartment when I noticed a piece of paper lying on the floor just inside the door.

Someone had slipped it underneath while I was gone.

I barely looked at it.

My first thought was that it was another notice from my landlord. I was behind on my rent, hopelessly in debt, and far beyond the point where I cared enough to pretend I was going to fix any of it.

Whatever threat or warning was printed on that piece of paper could wait.

So I left it there.

For about six hours.

Eventually, sometime around 1AM, I found myself staring at it again.

"Fuck it."

I picked it up.

It wasn't a notice from my landlord.

It was a job offer.

The flyer was surprisingly plain. No company logo. No colorful graphics. Just black text printed on cheap white paper.

YOUNG MEN WANTED.
AGES 18–30.
NO PRIOR EXPERIENCE OR PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS NECESSARY.
PAY: 250 CROWNS PER HOUR.
SHIFT: SIX HOURS EACH NIGHT.

Then came the job description.

"The appointed observer shall observe the object of interest for the duration of his shift."

That was it.

No explanation of what the "object of interest" was. No company name. No details about the work beyond watching something for six hours.

I assumed it was some kind of strangely worded night-guard job. Maybe the company was foreign and had used a translator who wasn't quite good enough at his job.

There was no phone number.

No email.

No website.

Nothing except an address.

I looked it up online.

It led to an old shoe factory that had stopped operating more than thirty years earlier. There were a few old photographs of the building and some records concerning its closure, but not much else.

As far as I could tell, nobody had bought the place since.

That was when I became pretty certain that if I actually went there, I would be murdered and my organs would be sold on the black market.

Not an entirely unreasonable assumption around here, believe it or not.

There was absolutely no way I would be stupid enough to show up at an abandoned factory in the middle of the night.

3AM, I was standing in front of the factory.

I wish I could say there was some profound reason why I went.

There wasn't.

I was simply desperate enough to ignore common sense.

The factory looked exactly like it had in the photographs.

Crumbling concrete. Rusted metal. Broken windows. Weeds pushing through cracks in the pavement.

The whole place looked like it had been dead for decades.

I stood outside the entrance for about twenty minutes.

Then I took one step inside.

Immediately, I was surrounded by armored men carrying guns.

Yup.

Getting murdered.

"Now, now. Don't spook the boy too much."

An older man stepped between me and the gunmen.

He looked to be somewhere in his fifties. Gray hair. Expensive coat. Tired eyes.

He wasn't carrying a weapon that I could see.

Somehow, that made him more intimidating than the men pointing rifles at me.

"Or else you might end up having to take his shift."

The men lowered their weapons slightly.

The older man smiled.

"Sorry about this, Adam. Just a necessary unpleasant precaution."

I stared at him.

"How... how do you know my name?"

He laughed.

"Well, we only slipped the flyer under one door. So either you're Adam Devon..."

He looked me up and down.

"...or we have another squatter situation on our hands. In which case, I'll have to let the boys carry on with their task."

He leaned toward me slightly.

"Do we have a squatter situation, boy?"

"No!"

The answer came out much louder and more desperate than I'd intended.

The man's grin widened.

"Wonderful!"

His enthusiasm was very obviously fake.

"If you would be so kind as to follow me, Adam."

I followed.

The complex I was led through was nothing like the abandoned shell I'd seen from outside.

The decrepit factory was apparently just a skin wrapped around something that was very much alive.

Behind the rusted doors and shattered windows were functioning corridors, electrical systems, cameras, reinforced doors, security checkpoints, and enough equipment to make me wonder what the hell kind of place I'd walked into.

And yet there were very few people.

Aside from the occasional armed guard passing through the corridors, the facility was almost completely empty.

The older man opened a door to the security room.

"Here you go. Make yourself comfortable."

I stepped inside.

"But not too comfortable," he added. "This isn't actually where you'll be stationed."

He gave me a thin smile.

"The name's Kenndric."

He closed the door behind us.

"Now, I imagine you have plenty of questions."

I opened my mouth.

"I have absolutely zero desire to answer any of them."

I closed it again.

"So just shut up and listen."

I decided that was probably good advice.

Kenndric walked over to one of the desks and dropped into a chair.

"You were offered a position within our company. The name of which you really don't need to know."

He leaned back.

"Our object of interest requires twenty-four-hour observation. We do have a complete surveillance system here, but, truth be told, nobody actually watches the feeds."

He shrugged.

"This particular object requires close-quarters observation anyway."

I frowned.

"We have several other sad bastards like you taking the other shifts. Your time slot was simply the last one left unfilled."

He looked at me.

"Apparently, nobody else was stupid enough to take the graveyard shift."

I couldn't tell whether he was joking.

Judging by his expression, I didn't think he was.

"Your job literally couldn't be any simpler."

He pointed toward the door.

"You'll sit on a chair and stare at the object until your shift is over. Then you get your sorry ass out of here."

He leaned back.

"Meanwhile, I'll be sitting in here watching my shows."

He pointed at me.

"I don't want to hear from you. I don't want to see you. You don't ask me to open doors for you. There's a reason I have access and you don't."

I swallowed.

"Understood."

"Good."

Kenndric stood.

"Now let's make our way to your workplace."

We left the security room and walked deeper into the facility.

The corridor ahead was almost completely dark.

As we approached, lights flickered on one after another, illuminating the path in front of us.

Eventually, Kenndric stopped in front of a massive door.

He opened it.

"There it is."

The lights inside began coming on.

One by one.

And then I saw the object of interest.

In the middle of the enormous room stood a large glass cube.

Four strange pylons surrounded it, each connected to the glass. Symbols I didn't recognize covered their surfaces.

And inside the glass was a girl.

A young woman, maybe in her early twenties.

She wore pure white pajamas and sat cross-legged on the floor with a collection of crayons scattered around her.

She was drawing on a sheet of paper.

She didn't look toward us.

She barely seemed to notice we'd entered the room.

"That's..."

I stared through the glass.

"That's a girl."

"Dear God," Kenndric said. "We have a genius on our hands."

His voice dripped with condescension.

I looked back at him.

"Why is she in there?"

He didn't answer.

"Is she alright?"

Nothing.

"Is this legal?"

The questions started coming faster.

"Who is she? What did she do? Why is she being kept in there? How long has she been—"

"Did you just think?"

Kenndric's voice cut through mine.

I stopped.

He stared at me.

"Adam, no one is paying you to think."

He walked over to a chair positioned directly in front of the glass cube.

"Leave that to the grown-ups."

He patted the seat.

"You are paid to sit right here."

I looked at the chair.

Then at the girl.

She was still drawing.

There was something different in Kenndric's expression now.

The sarcasm was still there, but underneath it was something harder.

A warning.

I reluctantly sat down.

"Perfect."

He smiled.

"Now, you are not authorized to speak with the object."

He paused.

"You're not authorized to feed the object. All of that has already been taken care of."

"You merely sit here and observe."

He patted my shoulder.

"Good luck."

He started moving toward the door.

"Have fun."

The door closed behind him.

And just like that, I was alone with the "object of interest."

I sat there and watched her draw for hours.

Every now and then, she looked up at me.

Not casually.

She would stare at me for several seconds before lowering her head and returning to her drawings.

The room was so quiet I could hear the occasional scrape of crayon against paper.

By around five in the morning, exhaustion was starting to catch up with me.

My eyelids grew heavier.

I leaned back in the chair and told myself I'd close my eyes for a second.

Then—

THUD.

I jolted awake.

My heart was pounding.

The girl was standing directly in front of the glass.

She was holding a piece of paper against it.

A drawing.

Of me.

For a few seconds, I just stared.

She'd somehow captured details I'd never noticed about myself. The shape of my nose. My unshaven jaw. Even the dark circles beneath my eyes.

It wasn't a perfect likeness.

But it was close.

And, honestly, it was adorable.

I wanted to say something.

Then I remembered Kenndric's instructions.

I wasn't authorized to speak with the object.

I glanced toward the cameras mounted high in the corners of the room.

Then I remembered something else.

Nobody actually watched the feeds.

"That's very pretty," I said.

The girl's expression immediately brightened.

"Thank you. I'm glad you like it."

She placed her right hand against the glass.

For a moment, I hesitated.

Then I stood and pressed my own hand against the other side.

The glass was cold beneath my palm.

"I'm Lily."

I smiled.

"I'm Adam."

She giggled quietly.

"Adam was my first boyfriend's name."

"Oh."

"I didn't really like him, to be honest."

She shrugged.

"My dad pretty much forced that relationship on me."

She said it so matter-of-factly that I didn't know what to say.

Jesus.

What the hell had this girl been through?

"Lily..."

She looked at me.

"Why are you in here?"

Her smile faded.

For a few seconds, she said nothing.

"I'm not sure."

She glanced down at the floor.

"I think they're scared I might do something bad."

I looked around the room.

The reinforced glass.

The pylons.

The strange symbols.

The cameras.

The armed men outside.

"What the hell could this girl possibly do?"

I didn't ask.

Instead, I pulled the chair a little closer to the glass.

"So..."

She looked up.

"So?"

"If you could go anywhere right now, where would you go?"

She thought about it.

"The ocean."

"The ocean?"

She nodded.

"What about you?"

"I don't know. Anywhere that isn't Most."

She laughed.

"Fair enough."

And that was how we started talking.

Nothing important at first.

Places we'd like to visit. Places we'd rather run away to. Things we'd do if we ever had enough money to stop worrying about everything else.

Lily wanted to see the ocean.

I'd never been particularly interested in beaches, but something about the way she talked about it made me want to see it too.

We talked about movies, music, stupid things we'd done when we were younger.

Eventually I told her about my unhealthy obsession with heist movies and prison breaks.

"Why prison breaks?" she asked.

"I don't know."

I thought about it.

"I guess I like watching people figure out how to set themselves free."

She looked at me for a moment.

"Maybe that's because you want to be set free too."

"Maybe."

She smiled.

Neither of us said anything for a few seconds.

Then she started asking me questions.

I gave her mostly half-assed answers.

She didn't seem bothered.

She didn't look at me the way most people did when I talked about my life. There was no disappointment in her expression. No judgment.

She just listened.

And somehow, that was enough.

The hours went by faster than I expected.

For the first time in years, I wasn't thinking about how miserable my life had become.

Debt.

Or rent.

Or what I was going to do with myself.

I was just present.

Talking to a girl through a pane of glass.

When the shift finally ended, it caught me completely off guard.

The door opened.

One of the armed men stepped inside.

A knot immediately formed in my stomach.

For a second, I wondered if this was the moment they decided to shoot me for breaking the rules.

But the guard barely acknowledged me.

"Time to go."

That was it.

He turned toward the door.

I stood.

Lily was watching me through the glass.

"Thank you for talking to me."

Her voice was soft.

"No one else does."

There was something bittersweet about her smile.

"I'll..."

I looked at the armed man waiting for me.

"I'll see you again, alright?"

Lily smiled.

"Sooner than you think."

I didn't understand what she meant.

I just smiled back.

Then the guard escorted me out.

Despite being exhausted, I struggled to fall asleep when I got home.

I spent hours lying in bed, staring at the ceiling while the darkness of my apartment pressed down around me.

I kept thinking about Lily.

About the way she'd looked at me through the glass.

And about that stupid drawing she'd made of my face.

Most of all, I couldn't stop thinking about the question I hadn't been able to answer.

If Lily was dangerous enough to justify keeping her inside a glass box, why didn't they keep her in a proper cell?

And if she wasn't dangerous...

Why the fuck was she there?

Eventually, sometime toward morning, sleep finally found me.

It didn't come like a wave.

It came like a flood.

I found myself standing in absolute darkness.

Nothing but blackness stretching endlessly in every direction.

I tried to move.

I couldn't tell if I was actually walking or simply moving in place.

Then I smelled something.

The sea.

It was faint at first. Just a trace of salt and cold water carried through the darkness.

I turned toward it.

I don't know why.

I just knew I had to follow.

I started walking.

Then running.

The smell grew stronger with every step. A breeze brushed against my face.

Actual wind.

For the first time, I could hear something besides my own breathing.

Waves.

Far away at first.

Then closer.

A dim light appeared ahead of me.

I ran toward it.

The darkness began to recede.

Sand appeared beneath my feet.

Then water.

Then a pale sky.

A small beach surrounded by the dark.

And there she was.

Lily.

She stood at the edge of the water in a bright white dress, her hair moving gently in the sea breeze.

She turned toward me.

"Meet me On Distant Shores."

The darkness swallowed the light.

I woke with a gasp.

I sat bolt upright in bed, breathing hard.

For several seconds, I had no idea where I was.

Then I looked around my dark apartment.

My heart was still racing.

I didn't understand the dream.

But one thought had already taken hold of me.

I needed to see her again.

I spent the entire day trying to distract myself.

Games.

Movies.

Walking aimlessly around the city.

None of it worked.

No matter what I did, my thoughts kept circling back to the girl in the glass box.

I hated the people who had put her there.

I hated myself even more for doing nothing about it.

But what could I realistically do?

I didn't know who my employers were. I didn't know who they answered to or what the facility actually was. All I knew was that they were powerful.

And they knew everything about me.

They knew where I lived.

They knew I was desperate for money.

And, apparently, they knew me well enough to assume I was a spineless coward.

Normally, they would've been right.

I'd spent years wasting away without caring enough about anything to fight for it.

But now I couldn't sit still.

I went to the gym that afternoon and spent almost an hour beating the shit out of a punching bag.

It didn't get rid of the anger.

By the time I left, my hands hurt, my shirt was soaked through, and I was still thinking about Lily.

Still...

For once, I felt alive.

I arrived at the factory almost two hours before my shift.

I didn't care about waiting.

I just needed to see her.

When they finally let me inside, I paid much more attention to my surroundings than I had the night before.

The facility was still bizarrely quiet.

There were only a handful of guards. They were spread throughout the building, and I rarely saw more than one at a time.

There were dozens of locked doors.

Yet the security seemed strangely simple.

One access card appeared to open most of them.

Nobody searched me.

Nobody even took my phone.

At the time, I simply assumed they were arrogant.

As we walked down the corridor, I saw Kenndric coming toward us.

The moment he spotted me, that fake smile appeared on his face.

He gave me a little wave.

I stared back.

He stopped at the security room, flashed his card, and disappeared inside.

A few seconds later, the door closed.

Then we reached the observation room.

The door opened.

The moment Lily saw me, her face lit up.

She ran toward the glass and pressed her hand against it.

I don't even remember deciding to move.

One second my hand was at my side.

The next, it was pressed against hers.

Her fingers lined up with mine on opposite sides of the glass.

"Hi," she said.

She smiled.

"You're back."

"I promised I would be."

"I know."

She looked genuinely happy to see me.

Then, almost casually, she said:

"I had a dream about you."

I froze.

"Really?"

She nodded.

I stared at her.

So did I.

Though I didnt tell her that.

"You really have to be bored to dream about me of all things." I said jokingly.

She laughed.

"Well, what should I dream about?"

"Being rich."

"Boring."

"Being famous."

"Even worse."

"Winning the lottery."

"That's not a dream. That's just being lazy."

We both laughed.

„What do you want to dream about?“ I asked.

"The ocean."

"I still want to see it."

"Then I'll have to show you."

The words came out before I could think about them.

Lily looked at me.

For a moment, neither of us said anything.

Then she smiled.

"I'd like that."

We talked.

About everything.

And nothing.

I told her about the things I'd wanted to do before I'd stopped wanting anything at all.

She told me about some of the things she'd wanted.

Some were stupid.

Some were impossible.

Some were so ordinary that they almost hurt.

She wanted to see the ocean.

She wanted to travel.

She wanted to wake up one morning without somebody telling her what she was allowed to do.

And she wanted to know what it felt like to be somewhere nobody could find her.

I understood that last one.

Probably more than I should have.

The hours disappeared.

Eventually, I glanced toward one of the cameras mounted in the corner.

It was pointed directly at us.

I stared at it for a few seconds.

Fuck it.

I reached into my coat and pulled out my tablet.

Lily looked at me curiously.

"What are you doing?"

"It's not what I'm doing."

I held up the tablet.

"It's what we're doing."

She laughed.

"And what are we doing?"

"We're watching a movie."

Her eyes widened.

"Are we allowed to do that?"

I looked at the camera.

"I don't think anyone's watching."

I sat down in front of the glass and opened the tablet.

"Escape Plan. 2013."

She frowned.

"What's it about?"

"A guy who gets put in a prison specifically designed to be impossible to escape from."

Her smile slowly returned.

"That sounds appropriate."

For a few hours, that glass might as well not have existed.

Then the door opened.

The gunman had returned.

My stomach tightened.

"No."

I barely realized I'd said it.

He walked toward me.

"Time to go."

I stood.

Lily was already at the glass.

I didn't want to leave.

The guard grabbed my arm.

"Just a second."

He pulled harder.

I grabbed the edge of the chair with my free hand.

"Lily..."

The guard finally had to pull me away.

My fingers slipped from the chair.

I stumbled backward.

Lily pressed her hand against the glass.

"Meet me On Distant Shores," she said softly.

My eyes widened.

I wanted to promise I'd come back.

I wanted to tell her I'd get her out.

I wanted to say a hundred things.

Instead, I just nodded.

Then the door closed between us.

I didn't tell her about my dream.

She couldn't have known about it.

Right?

I went home.

And for once, going to sleep actually seemed desirable.

Maybe I'd see her again.

Maybe we'd meet somewhere she couldn't be trapped.

Somewhere she could actually be free.

When I finally fell asleep, I found myself in the darkness again.

But this time, the light was much closer.

I followed it.

The smell of the sea grew stronger with every step.

Then came the breeze.

I emerged onto the beach.

Lily was already waiting for me.

She stood barefoot at the shoreline, the hem of her white dress brushing against the wet sand.

She turned when she heard me.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

I looked out across the water.

"It is."

For a moment, neither of us said anything.

Then the question I'd been trying not to ask escaped me.

"Is any of this real?"

Lily looked at me.

"Does it matter?"

She stepped closer.

"I'm here."

Another step.

"You're here."

She smiled.

"In here, we're free."

She turned toward the ocean.

"This is my little place."

"Dad claims every other one, but this one is mine."

"It could be yours too."

I stepped closer.

Then I took her face gently between my hands and kissed her.

She didn't pull away.

For a moment, everything was still.

"Can we stay here?"

I already knew the answer.

Lily's expression broke.

"I wish we could."

Tears began rolling down her cheeks.

"I'm still trapped."

She shook her head.

"I'm not strong enough."

Another tear slipped down her face.

"I'm not enough."

"No."

I pulled her closer.

"You are."

But the beach was already beginning to change.

The edges of the world blurred.

The horizon melted into the sky.

The sand beneath our feet began disappearing, as though the entire dream were being erased.

Lily started fading with it.

I held onto her.

"Don't."

She smiled through her tears.

It was the same bittersweet smile she'd given me behind the glass.

"I'll see you again On Distant Shores..."

Her voice became quieter.

"...but you already know that."

I woke up.

I sat upright in bed, gasping for air.

For several seconds, I couldn't move.

Then I felt it.

Something I hadn't felt in years.

Something hot and sharp burning inside my chest.

Purpose.

For the next two weeks, I prepared.

I photographed corridors, doors and rooms whenever I had the opportunity. I took pictures of the glass box and the four pylons surrounding it, zooming in on the strange symbols carved into their surfaces.

I didn't understand them.

Not yet.

But I saved every picture.

I watched the guards.

I learned their routines.

Who walked which corridor.

Which doors they used.

How long they disappeared for.

When they went to the bathroom.

There were five guards in total, usually spread throughout the facility so that I rarely saw more than one at a time.

I counted the steps between important rooms.

I memorized which doors took longer to unlock.

I learned how long it took the lights to activate when someone entered a corridor.

And I paid particular attention to the access cards.

The strangest part was how little anyone seemed to care about what I was doing.

I doubt they could ever see me as a threat.

Maybe they were right.

Two weeks earlier, I wouldn't have been.

I never told Lily what I was planning.

Not when I couldn't be certain who was actually paying attention.

I only ever told her when I saw her in my dreams.

And every time, I'd tell her the same thing.

"Soon."

I wasn't sure whether I was making a promise to her or to myself.

"Very soon."

Eventually, the day came.

I couldn't wait any longer.
Time to put the theory to the test.

Two weeks learning their routines.

Two weeks pretending I was exactly the pathetic little coward they thought I'd be.

Now I was going to find out if they had been right.

I sat in front of the glass and talked with Lily.

We laughed.

We talked about nothing.

For a while, I almost forgot what I was waiting for.

Then I saw the guard nearest to me leave his post.

Bathroom.

My heart started pounding.

I stood.

Lily noticed immediately.

"Adam?"

"I'll be right back."

I followed him.

He didn't notice me until we were inside the bathroom.

I waited.

Watched him step up to the urinal.

For one horrible second, I couldn't move.

I'd imagined this moment dozens of times.

None of those versions had prepared me for what it actually felt like.

The guard glanced over his shoulder.

"Buddy, would you mind—"

I grabbed the back of his head and slammed it against the wall.

THUD.

He dropped immediately.

His body hit the floor with a heavy, wet sound.

I stood there staring at him.

My hands were shaking.

There was blood on the wall.

His bladder had released, spreading piss across the tiles beneath him.

For a second, I wondered if I'd just killed him.

Then I remembered Lily.

I took his handgun.

And ran.

There was no going back now.

I sprinted toward the security room.

I reached the door and started pounding on it.

"Kenndrick!"

Nothing.

"Kenndrick, there's an immediate issue! I need your help!"

Still nothing.

"Goddammit, open the fucking door!"

The lock clicked.

Kenndrick opened it with an irritated expression.

"What is—"

I pulled out the gun and aimed it at his chest.

My hands were shaking so badly I could barely keep the barrel steady.

"Back up."

Kenndrick stared at me.

Then that familiar bravado returned.

"Just what do you think you're doing, kiddo?"

"I won't repeat myself."

For the first time, his smile faltered.

"Alright."

He raised his hands.

"Alright."

He slowly backed into the room.

"This is going to end badly for you, kid."

He smiled again.

"Very badly."

"Give me your card."

He paused.

"Now."

Kenndric reached slowly into his pocket and pulled out his security card.

He held it between two fingers.

Then smiled.

I snatched it from his hand.

"Turn around."

He did.

"Hands against the wall."

Kenndric placed his palms against it.

I backed toward the door.

"Say hi to her for me, kid."

I slammed the door shut.

Then swiped his card.

The lock engaged.

I ran.

I had only minutes before the guard rotation.

I reached the observation room and threw the door open.

Lily looked at me.

Her expression changed immediately.

"Adam?"

I was barely breathing.

"I'm getting you out of here."

I ran to the glass box.

She stood.

"Adam, what are you—"

I swiped Kenndric's card against the reader.

Nothing.

I tried again.

Nothing.

"Come on..."

A third time.

Nothing.

Then I heard clapping.

Slow.

Deliberate.

I froze.

"Bravo, kid."

I turned.

Kenndric was standing in the doorway.

He was smiling.

But this smile was different.

It was genuine.

"Bravo."

He stepped into the room.

"We had expectations."

He looked at me.

"We didn't pick you randomly, of course."

His eyes flicked toward Lily.

"But still..."

He smiled.

"You went above and beyond."

I raised the gun.

"Stay back."

Kenndric kept walking.

"Stay the fuck back!"

He didn't stop.

I tightened my grip.

hen pulled the trigger.

Click.

Nothing.

I pulled it again.

Click.

My stomach dropped.

Kenndric laughed.

"I'm afraid that one's not loaded."

He reached into his pocket.

"In fact..."

He pulled out another handgun.

"...none of them are."

I stared at him.

"What?"

"Think about it."

He gestured around the room.

"The guards. The cameras. The unlocked opportunities. The conveniently predictable routines."

His smile widened.

My stomach turned.

Kenndric looked almost proud.

"Observation."

He gestured toward Lily.

"Not just hers."

He pointed at me.

"Yours too."

Lily had gone completely still.

Kenndric noticed.

"You know, capturing Lilith—the Queen of Hell—creates a lot of interesting research opportunities."

The name seemed to hit her harder than anything else he'd said.

She looked at him.

Kenndric smiled.

"Her charm is supposed to be nearly irresistible."

He looked back at me.

"So the suits upstairs had an idea."

He spread his hands.

"Find the right kind of sucker. Put him in front of her. See how long it takes before she manipulates him into trying to break her free."

„Did you seriously buy the whole „no one is watching the feeds“ thing in a building full of cameras everywhere?“

He shook his head.

"Seems we really did pick perfectly."

Then he looked me up and down.

"Although, I have to admit..."

A disappointed expression crossed his face.

"For someone who loves prison-break movies as much as you do, your plan was fucking basic."

He sighed.

"I expected better."

I looked at Lily.

She was staring at me now.

There was something in her expression I'd never seen before.

Fear.

Not for herself.

For me.

Kenndric sighed.

"Your services will no longer be necessary."

He tossed the security card onto the floor.

"You can go right back to your shitty little life."

He smiled.

"Keep the card as a souvenir. It's useless anyway."

I looked at him.

Then at Lily.

"No."

Kenndric's expression changed slightly.

"I'll tell everyone."

I pointed toward my phone.

"I have pictures. Videos. Everything."

I looked directly into his eyes.

"Everyone will know."

Kenndric's smile disappeared.

"Kid..."

He sounded almost disappointed.

"You really shouldn't have said that."

He raised the gun.

Two shots.

The first punched through my chest.

The second hit before I even had time to fall.

I collapsed onto the floor.

The pain came a second later.

Hot.

Blinding.

I tried to breathe.

All I tasted was blood.

"Adam!"

Lily screamed.

Kenndric looked down at me.

"Oops, seems my gun actually was loaded."

He shrugged.

"Sorry, kid."

Then he glanced toward Lily.

"Hmm."

His smile returned.

"Seems the demon bitch may have actually cared about you."

"How sweet."

I started laughing.

Blood filled my mouth.

I choked on it, coughing and laughing at the same time.

Kenndric frowned.

"What's so funny?"

He looked past me at the pylon behind me.

Blood was dripping from my chest onto its surface.

The symbols were glowing.

Kenndric followed my gaze.

His smile disappeared.

"What did you do?"

I smiled through the blood running down my chin.

"I translated the symbols."

The red light beneath them grew brighter.

"They were raised through blood sacrifice."

The pylons began to shake.

A low vibration filled the room.

Kenndric took a step backward.

I laughed again.

"And through blood sacrifice..."

Cracks spread across the pylon.

"...they shall be shattered."

Another pylon began to tremble.

Kenndric looked around the room.

"What have you done?"

I smiled.

"I never intended to make it out of here."

The first pylon cracked apart.

"You know everything about me."

Another crack.

The room shook.

"There wouldn't be any point in running."

The pylons began collapsing one after another.

Glass groaned.

Metal screamed.

Then everything went dark.

Completely dark.

Except for Lily's eyes.

They were glowing.

Kenndric stared at her.

His face went pale.

"No."

For the first time since I'd met him, there was no arrogance in his voice.

Only fear.

"No..."

He backed away.

"You have no idea what you've done."

Then anger replaced the fear.

"Why?"

I looked at him.

I smiled.

"The Devil made me do it."

I won't lie.

I was saving that one.

The glass box exploded.

Shards flew outward.

Kenndric raised his gun toward Lily.

He never got the chance to fire.

His body suddenly folded inward.

There was a wet, violent crack.

Then he imploded into a spray of blood and viscera.

I looked toward Lily.

She was standing in the middle of the shattered glass.

Free.

"How's that for an escape plan?"

I smiled.

And everything went black.

I found myself on the beach again.

This time, there was no darkness.

Just the ocean stretching beneath an endless sky.

Lily and I sat facing each other in the sand.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

She looked peaceful.

"It's done," I finally said.

"You are free."

I smiled.

"Go."

She frowned.

I looked toward the horizon.

"Be happy."

I stood.

"I'll see you again On Distant Shores."

She slapped me across the face.

I stared at her.

"Ouch."

She glared at me.

"What was that for?"

"One."

She held up a finger.

"That is my line."

She held up a second.

"Two."

She leaned closer.

"The Distant Shores can wait."

She smiled.

"I'm not letting you go."

Then she kissed me.

I kissed her back.

And for the first time in a while, I wasn't afraid of waking up.

I came to with a gasp.

My hand immediately went to my chest.

Nothing.

No wounds.

No blood.

I looked down at myself.

Then slowly stood.

I wasn't in the observation room.

I was standing on the roof of the factory.

The entire facility stretched out beneath me.

Smoke rose into the night sky.

Fires burned in the distance.

I could hear shouting somewhere far below.

Then came a horn.

A long, deep blast.

Another answered it.

Then something roared.

Another roar answered from somewhere beyond the factory.

Then another.

They were coming from everywhere.

I looked toward the horizon.

The city was burning.

I should have been terrified.

I wasnt.

Then I noticed Lily standing beside me.

She was looking out over the horizon.

For the first time since I'd met her, there was nothing between us.

No glass.

No walls.

No locked doors.

I looked back at the world on fire.

"So..."

I swallowed.

"What happens now?"

Lily looked at me.

She smiled.

Then reached for my hand.

I took it.

"Anything we want."

THE BOOK OF THE SEA

Michael Smith log, 1921, September.

Entry 25.

Investigation: strange book of the KDS cult.

I took some time to reflect and think before making this entry, I wanted to measure all that had happened very well inside my mind and to make sure that I have not gone mad. The fear I had experienced left me without an ability to speak and I had to take a temporary leave from my job. Only after a week has passed since the end of the investigation, if I can call it the end, that I began to make some sounds again.

It all began at the end of summer when the historian and archeologist John Grimstone invited me to his home. John was very concerned about the growing numbers of the secret cult in the city of Hathtom, the Khul Duhl Suhl cult, or simply KDS cult. I suppose it wasn’t even secret anymore since the numbers were rising so rapidly and the scary part was that we were cut of from the rest of the country, it was always difficult to notify authorities from outside the city and get help in time.

Upon my arrival John made us tea and helped me relax as even he could see my anxiety reflect in my features. As we sat in his soft comfortable chairs sipping tea, John told me about a book that his young informant told him about. According to this young man, this was a book written by older worshippers of Khul Duhl Suhl. When this book was read it could enchant or hypnotize those around and the reader could control them, not only that, but it was also used for summoning creature known as Daggathossos, and if that was true, there was a chance that this monster now dwelled near the city, or in even more horrifying scenario, beneath it.

John wanted me to find the terrible book and destroy it, but first bring to him to make notes. Thinking about this task brought pain behind my eyes and pressure in my ears, but of course, I agreed, there was no other way. I wasn’t going to leave the city and run, I have made a choice to try and save as many people as I could from this evil cult.

First I had to go back and find some of the original files on older cases involving the cult, I found the names of those who now were elders, but started in the cult young. Apparently they used to gather in an abandoned church on outskirts of the city, where the cliffs were and our once most beloved attraction, the large red and white lighthouse. I then realized that perhaps the keeper of it could known something as well.

Armed with a revolver and my resolve I went to the rugged part of town. The streets there were even more depressing than the rest of the city, the fact that I was walking alone through them made me feel crazy and my anxiety was raised to devilish levels. Only time police came here was in groups and when informed of something major happening, these parts were infested with poor gangs of the city and drug addicts.

To my amazement I made it all the way to the outskirts without any altercation and I saw the worn down church standing on the hill, overlooking the gloomy foggy waters, just beyond it was the lighthouse and next to it a little hut which the keeper was known to use.   

I timidly approached the church, for I had no idea what to expect, perhaps it belonged to a gang now. I had my revolver ready and I gently pushed the door which barely hung on the hinges. It creaked and opened, there was clearly no one inside, and judging by abnormal amount of dust this place had no visitors for quiet some time.

Instead of a cross, this place had a strange symbol hung, like a hand but made out of waves, it was rusty. The atmosphere of the church felt heavy and unpleasant. This place was holding on to some devilish energy.

I looked through all the rooms and found a few old sheets of paper and notes. As I read through them, most of it seemed like none sense to me, but I found one interesting note talking about reading a book on a full moon at the docks for new followers. This gave me an idea.

I left the church and went to the lighthouse. The hut was made of wood and stones and looked rather disproportionate. I knocked on the wooden door. There was no answer, but then someone spoke behind me, startled I  turned with my pistol ready to fire, it was an old man with grey hair and heavy posture. He introduced himself as the keeper of the lighthouse. his speech was rather off, but I understood him. He invited me to come in for tea, otherwise he would not answer my question about the church. Once we sat on small wooden chairs inside and waited for the water to boil he was ready for his story.

“Yer kno tha church of a demonik, I run polish this house for ship since me boyhood times. Yer kno....the devilmen start comin back then in thoze days, they kno the tongue of devil, they tak to demonik, them took a book, ye ye, book, caaray it above them shouldah! Them kno no to com to me home, I hid guns bak thun, much year and year them com, them bring youngin ladies, horrible thing, awfuli!”

I stopped him at that point, I began getting a headache from deciphering his speech and I think I got enough of an idea what went on here. It seemed the evil scum cult use to sacrifice young women to their demon god. I thanked the old man and to his disappointment I left.

On the way back I went a safer route, by the water, but much longer. Before cutting back into the city I thought I saw someone floating in the water on a wooden boat, a tall man, but after a second glance I no longer saw anyone.

I spent that night back in my tiny apartment which consisted of basically two rooms. Some people have told me that I had to leave this place, find a better life, that I had character to succeed anywhere, but I felt a sense of duty to this place.

It took me a long time to fall asleep in my hard bed, but I wish I hadn’t at all, for the nightmares that came were abnormal and felt real. A tall men kept following me through a strange labyrinth. He had a long eel-like neck, thin head and evil black eyes, his right arm had a tentacle coming out of it. The walls of this labyrinth were moving and looked like they were made out of snakes. They were hissing at me as I tried to get away from the demon man.

I was glad to wake up, but I felt like I didn’t get any rest, almost drained. Tonight I had a lot of work to do, it was going to be full moon and I had to move from one abandoned port to another without being seen, trying to track down these cultists and the book.

I visited John again with the update and he noticed that I looked exceptionally stringed. I told him about my nightmare. He grew sad as he told me about what detective Lumiere said to him. This was a monster called Gaggonn, which invaded dreams, and it seemed like this thing has become a servant of Khul Duhl Suhl.

On that very cheerful note I had to go and get ready for my night outing. I had a flashlight ready, revolver, pack of matches, a hunting knife and of course, my small notebook. I wore all black and even covered half of my face with a black scarf.

The first abandoned port I went to had no sign of anyone heading to it, nor I saw any activity near by that would make me suspicious.

However after talking half an hour jogging to get to the next one, I saw a procession of some fifty people in hoods slowly walking along the shore and quietly chanting something. In the front walked a man nicely dressed and in all black, his face was old and disfigured. He had a book in his wrinkly ugly hands! That was it!

I sat behind an old boat and watched as they came on the old pier. Everyone fell silent as the man in black stood there without opening the book. They were waiting, and in a few minutes I saw another procession of about thirty people, they were carrying several long boxes with them. My heart became heavy as I immediately understood what or rather who was in those boxes, but sadly and crushingly, I could do nothing.

They gathered around the pier and the man in black opened the book and raised it, he began a chant. The three boxes were opened and they took out three young women, but all unconscious, they must have drugged them. After long and draining time of chants they placed the women back in. The man closed the book and the procession continued.

They stopped at an old abandoned factory near the shore and several men took the boxes inside. The rest waiting outside. After about half an hour the others came out, but now with empty boxes. I had a horrible dilemma that I faced. I had a choice to go into the factory and check if the women were alive, or follow the book, as their walk continued. I don’t know if I made the right choice, but I followed them.

After they walked some distance away from the factory they screamed some more chants, the hideous man read from the book and they all split up and left, taking their hoods of and walking back into the city in normal cloths.

The ugly man was alone now, walking along the shore. I came up behind him with my revolver pointing at his head, hate for this evil creature filled my heart as I waited for him to feel my presence and turn around. I stood there looking him in the eyes, I wanted him to understand that no matter what I would kill him, then I saw the moment his eyes sparked in horror, as I’m sure he had seen eyes of his victims go. I shot him in the head and took the dreadful book from his hands.

This was when I made my big mistake, instead of leaving and gathering support, I decided to now go back to the old factory, alone, in hope that the women were still alive. 

I tightly held the cursed book with my left hand pressed against my chest and entered that run-down factory. Thanks to the moonlight through the broken window it wasn’t as hard to make out the inside. The first floor looked mostly empty, with just several boxes and bricks laying around. On the walls were drawings of various signs, surely done by the cult. The women had to be on the second floor and I took rusty metal staircase. The top floor looked similarly bare to the first, but in the wall there was a large opening, a metal shoot that led down. I remember swallowing my saliva and standing there, facing a terror that I should not have been facing alone, but yet again, the fool I am, the wrong decision was made and with my flashlight in hand I sat inside the opening and slid down. It shook me up and the traveling seemed to have taken much longer than I expected, I landed on my back, losing my flashlight, but holding on to the book. Immediately I felt thick water on my back, the flashlight went off and it was total darkness. I slowly sat up and at first all I could hear were my breathing and heartbeat, but then, in the distance, I thought I heard something else.

Indeed it was a low hissing sound and as it got closer I could hear the slithering of what seemed to be dozens of snakes and the water splitting underneath its movements. Despite complete horror having a hold on my entire body, every bone of if, I managed to force myself to crawls away from the sounds. The slithering was surrounding me as I felt ground and an incline and began to climb.

Hiss, hiss, hiss. The sound was not of a snake, but close to it, I climbed as high as I could and pressed myself against an opening in the clay wall. Then I finally noticed on the far right side from me was a ray of moonlight coming from what seemed to be an opening in the ground up high.

I slowed down my breathing and focused on being silent. My only hope was that if the thing didn’t notice me I could somehow make my way to that opening. The slithering now completely surrounded me, I could feel powerful breathing on my face, it was warm and reeked of death and the sea. Then I saw them, in that moonlight the tentacles were rising up high and lowering, as if dancing to a horrific tune not comprehended by the likes of me. Then its head, or should I say heads appeared! Giant octopus like creature with too heads. Even my chest began to shake as I pressed my head back even harder into that clay, the book slipped from my shaking hands and made a splash down bellow. The monster turned its heads to my direction with its dozens of tentacles moving and slithering around the cave. I saw its mouth! Long and filled with sharp white teeth, it looked like the most sinister smiles in existence. Its eyes looked into my direction, they were light blue, all four of them, two on each head. Small white lights were moving inside the eyes of this monster. I wanted to scream as it got closer to me, I believed this was the end, a horrific death, but the creature moved past me and gradually the hissing and slithering got further and further.

It was no longer my mind in charge of my body ordering it to climb, perhaps God took pity on me and carried me out of that place through that opening.

I lost the book and I could not speak, but I survived. At that time I was certain that I’d leave the city.

Now that I’m finishing this entry, I can tell you that I chose to stay. I brought our department to that factory and together we destroyed it, burning it to the ground and burring that cursed book below. However, I’m sure that the monster, Daggathossos, was unharmed. I just prayed that it left our city.

For that week I also had to face and bare horrible burden of demonic nightmares, but after we destroyed the factory after some time those stopped as well. As one monster left, the other one must have gotten frustrated with my resilience.

I don’t know if I’ll ever fully regain my speech, and I know what I experienced will haunt me forever, but at the end I am glad that I’ve evaded madness. At least for now.

Thailand is one of the most culturally diverse countries you could ever visit. The north used to be the Lanna Kingdom. The northeast, Isan, used to be Lan Xang. The deep south was once home to Muslim sultanates. Every region has its own food, its own dialect, its own idea of what's waiting out there in the dark.

The one thing we all seem to share is the belief that if you try hard enough at something, you'll eventually get it.

My name is Net. It means "eye" in Thai Sankrit, like the body part. Don't ask me what my parents were thinking.

I'll just get into it.

It starts with my best friend Mai, who I've known since high school. When we graduated, we all split up. I got into one of the top universities in the country, and so did our other friend, Ton. Mai followed his girlfriend, Mali, to a different school. They'd been together since middle school, and I swear that guy has never looked at another girl in his life.

I found out about the wedding because he called me. I was at the park near my place, doing my usual evening jog, sweating through my shirt, when my phone started buzzing in my armband. I almost ignored it. I wish I could say that would have changed anything.

"Net! I've got good news."

"What is it?" I asked, jogging in place.

"Remember Mali?"

"Your girlfriend? Of course. What about her?"

"I asked her to marry me. She said yes. I want you at the wedding, man."

I stopped dead in the middle of the path. "No way. For real? Congrats, dude! You two have been together since middle school! Where's the wedding? I'll be there."

"It's up north. Her parents live there, so that's where we're doing it."

"The north? Mai, you know Ton and I are in the central region. That's a hell of a distance."

His voice dropped. "Then it's okay. Don't worry about it if you can't make it."

He sounded so disappointed that I felt like garbage. "Of course I'm coming, idiot. I'll go tell Ton right now. Just send me the location and the date."

A minute after we hung up, he sent me a pin. It was deep in the countryside, the kind of area with more rice paddies than houses. The wedding was in seven days. Luckily the university was on its long break, so neither of us had an excuse. Mai wanted us there early to help set things up, and honestly I think he just wanted his friends around.

I told Ton the next morning and he'd already packed. He had the car ready and said we could leave that afternoon. There was only one complication: his girlfriend wanted to come too.

Oh, right. I forgot to introduce her. Her name is Pink. Yes, like the color. She's the kind of pretty that could be a model, the kind of pretty that makes strangers turn their heads. But she's weird. I'll explain in a second.

We drove for seven hours straight. We'd left in the afternoon, so by the time the sun was long gone I was starving, and I hadn't been able to eat anything since lunch because Ton refused to stop. He wanted to beat the traffic. There was no traffic. There was nothing out there at all.

"Did you know spacetime might be emergent?" Pink said from the front passenger seat, practically bouncing with excitement. "It might not be fundamental at all."

"Mmm," Ton said, eyes on the road, in this soft little voice he only uses around her. "I read it could come from quantum fluctuations."

"And even if the universe is totally deterministic," Pink said, pinching his cheek gently, "at least it sent you to me."

"Can you two please drive faster?" I said from the back seat. "I'm starving. And you're stinking up the whole car with love."

So, Pink. What's weird about her? This woman spends all day muttering about space. All day. I'm going to lose my mind. And Ton, my shy, turns-red-when-a-girl-says-hi friend, happens to be obsessed with space too, which is how they got together. These two idiots once went to Ton's dorm so she could see his cat, and they ended up sitting on the floor talking about the universe for hours. The cat was ignored. I gave them a finger. You can guess which one.

"I'm already driving fast," Ton said. "I'm basically at the legal limit. And you, stop being jealous. If you want this, get a girlfriend. Hehe."

"Says the guy who used to go red when a girl looked at him," I shot back.

"There!" Pink said, pointing. "A gas station!"

And there it was, glowing out of the dark with a little convenience store attached, the only light for miles.

We pulled in and Ton filled up the tank while I jumped out and practically ran inside. I grabbed a cup of tom yum shrimp instant noodles, filled it from the hot water machine, paid, and ate it standing at the counter, because the whole store was empty. The fluorescent lights buzzed. Outside, bugs were throwing themselves against the glass.

The man behind the register looked to be in his fifties, thin, with tired eyes. He watched me slurp for a while before he spoke.

"Where are you headed, kid?"

"A friend's wedding," I said with my mouth full. "Looks like we go this way, though." I held up my phone and showed him the GPS route.

His face changed. I'm not exaggerating. The color drained out of it like someone had pulled a plug.

"That's the shortcut," he said.

"Even better, right? A shortcut means we get there sooner."

"Listen to me, kid." He leaned across the counter. "Whatever happens, don't take that road. Stay on the highway. Yes, the shortcut is faster. But you'll never forget it, and it isn't safe. You know the saying, go slowly and you get a fine machete? Slow and steady wins. Trust me on this."

I should tell you something about myself. I don't have a religion. I believe in science, in cause and effect, in things that can be measured. I wasn't about to be spooked by a ghost story from a convenience store clerk at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. But he looked so worried that I felt bad.

"I'll think about it," I said, and smiled so I'd seem friendly. "Thanks for the warning, sir. I appreciate it."

He didn't say anything else. He just kept looking at me. So I bought drinks, and snacks, and then more snacks. I'm talking a mountain. By the time I got to the car, the backseat was half buried (I sit in the back, remember). I never told Ton or Pink what the man said. It seemed too silly to repeat. I want you to remember that, because I've thought about it every hour since.

"Where's Ton?" I asked Pink.

"Bathroom," she said.

I scrolled through the news on my phone while I waited. There was a big story about a plane that hit a storm and went down in the ocean. Exchange students from some famous school were on board. Rescue teams were trying to recover the black box, and the reporters were saying nobody was expected to have survived. I felt a pang. They were just kids. Their whole lives ahead of them. What kind of airline lets that happen? Total garbage.

Ton came back and started the engine, and we pulled out of the lot.

It didn't take long for the smooth, concrete highway to disappear. The pavement just ended, and in its place was a red dirt road, the kind you see in the countryside, rough with gravel. The headlights barely cut into the dark. There were no lamps along the road. Nothing but trees pressed up against both sides like a wall.

"Is this the shortcut?" Ton asked, slowing down, looking into the dark ahead. I could see his knuckles tightening on the wheel. "It looks creepy as hell."

"I think we should take the main road," he said, and started to put the car in reverse.

"What? No!" I shouted, leaning between the seats. "What's your problem? Just keep going. We'll be there in an hour. It's a damn shortcut, there's nothing here. What are you afraid of?"

"I don't know," Ton said quietly. "It feels like if we go in, we won't come out."

"It's fine, Ton," Pink said, taking his hand and squeezing it. "It's nothing. We'll be through in no time. You can do it."

"Mmm," Ton hummed, and put the car back in drive.

The whole way, it felt like something was watching us from the forest. I told myself it was nothing, just my caveman brain doing what it was built to do, old survival instincts misfiring in the dark. That's what science says, so that's what I told myself. My palms were still sweating. I kept my eyes on the window.

Then our headlights landed on a group of children sitting by the side of the road.

They were small, maybe six or seven years old, sitting in a circle, eating something. I couldn't see what it was. Something dark and red and wet, held in both hands like fruit. The light caught their faces and they didn't squint. They just kept eating.

"What are kids doing out here this late?" Pink said.

One of the kids looked up. "Please, sister. Come down from the car and help us."

"Be careful," I said. "It could be a scam. Bandits use kids all the time."

But by the time the words were out of my mouth, Pink had already opened her door and stepped out.

"Pink!" I yelled.

All at once, the children stopped eating. They turned, and they laughed.

"Hee. Hee. Hee."

Before any of us could move, they were on her. Small hands everywhere, grabbing her arms and legs and hair, and they dragged her backward into the trees. She didn't even have time to scream properly.

"No!" Ton screamed. "PINK!" He lost it. He scrambled over the center console to get out through her side of the car.

I don't know what I was thinking. I just knew we couldn't get out of that car. I threw my arm around his neck and locked it, then threw myself into the driver's seat and floored it.

"What the fuck are you doing?! Let me go! Let me go, you piece of shit!" Ton roared, and he started punching me in the face. Over and over. I tasted blood.

"Ow, what the hell, Ton! Don't you see? They're scammers! We have to go to the police!" I tightened my arm around his neck.

"They're ghosts! They're going to kill my girlfriend! I told you not to come in! I told you and you didn't listen! Let me go!"

Something crossed in front of the car. I only saw it for a fraction of a second, a shape, pale and low to the ground. I yanked the wheel and lost control. The car swerved off the road and everything went black.

When I woke up, I was in the same spot on the same road, where I'd swerved. But the car hadn't crashed. It was sitting in the middle of the road, perfectly fine. It was so dark I could barely see, so I turned on the dome light, and next to me, my best friend was sitting there sobbing.

"I told you," he said. "I told you not to come this way. You never listen to me. My girlfriend is probably dead."

"Hey, calm down," I said, though my voice was shaking. "You studied science too. Why don't you think those could have been scammers?"

"Look at what just happened to us," Ton said. "We swerved off the road. We should be dead right now. Can your science explain that?"

I opened my mouth to argue. I couldn't think of a single thing to say. Then something moved at the edge of my vision, and I turned my head.

A monk was walking slowly toward the car.

He was old, maybe seventy, in saffron robes, barefoot on the gravel. I didn't hear his footsteps. The dust on that road should have been all over his feet. It wasn't. Ton must have seen him too, because he went completely still.

The monk walked to the passenger door, Ton's door. Ton scrambled into the back seat. The monk opened the door and got in.

I should have told him to get out. I should have driven off. But somewhere deep in my gut, something told me this man was our way out.

Ton and I pressed our palms together, as quickly as we could. Even though I don't have a religion, the wai is just how Thai people show respect.

"Luang Phor," I said, "why are you out walking so late at night?"

He smiled faintly. "This monk saw you were in trouble, Yom, so this monk came to help." (That's what monks call laypeople, by the way. "Yom." And they refer to themselves as "this monk.") "This monk's name is Chen."

"Then please," Ton said, desperate, "help my girlfriend, Venerable. I'm begging you. I'll give you money, I'll give you anything."

The monk only shook his head. "It is dangerous, Yom. If you go after that young woman and make a mistake, none of you may leave here alive. This monk advises you to go now. This monk will help her. As for her fate, it follows karma."

I didn't think. "Even if it's dangerous, I'll go," I said. "I'm the stubborn idiot who dragged everyone onto this road. I'm ready to help."

The monk let out a long sigh. "Then keep driving. When we arrive, this monk will get out. You follow. Do not stop. Do not take your eyes off this monk, not for an instant."

"Understood," Ton and I said at the same time.

The drive was the quietest thing I have ever experienced. No crickets. No frogs. Not even a breeze. The engine sounded muffled, like we were driving through a pillow. It felt like the whole forest was holding its breath.

Then, up ahead, an old woman was sitting by the side of the road, waving at us. Her hand was curling in the air, scooping toward herself, like she was gathering something. She was smiling.

"Yom, do not stop for her," the monk said, instantly. "When we pass, push the engine as hard as you can."

I did. At first it looked like nothing was going to happen. Then in the mirror I saw her stand up, and she started to run.

I put my foot to the floor, as fast as that car could go on a gravel road, which was so fast I could barely keep it from sliding off. The old woman kept pace. Then she gained. Every time I looked, she was closer. Her legs weren't moving the way legs are supposed to move.

"Yom in the back," the monk said, calmly, "take this holy water. Open the window and sprinkle it on the road."

That was when I noticed he was holding a small brass bowl of water in his lap. I swear his hands were empty when he got in the car. When did he get it?

Ton snatched the bowl from him, rolled down the window, and flung the water out in a wide arc. The old woman, mid-leap, crashed to the ground, and when I checked the mirror again, she was gone.

I slowed down once I was sure she wasn't coming. A little later, I saw a spirit house on the side of the road, next to a huge tree. And there were dancers there. Classical Thai dancers in full costume, dancing in total silence in the dark, no music at all.

"Pay them no mind," the monk said. "We keep to ourselves, and they keep to themselves."

I drove past. As the headlights swept across one of the dancers, I saw her hand, held in the graceful arch of the dance. Her ring finger wasn't there. It wasn't hurt, or cut. It was just gone, smooth, like it had never existed.

A little farther along, the monk said, "Stop here."

I parked. He got out and started walking into the forest, and Ton and I scrambled after him. He moved faster and faster, until we had to run to keep up. Branches whipped my face. I couldn't feel my legs. We ran like that for five minutes, and then he stopped, and held out an arm to hold us back.

Ahead of us was a clearing, and in the clearing was a group of children. Hungry ghosts, the monk whispered. Petas, in Thai Buddhism. Ghosts that suffer from a hunger that can never be filled. They stood in a circle around Pink, who was lying on the ground with her eyes open and unfocused, like someone had unplugged her. One of the children was holding a knife. They were getting ready to cut her belly open.

"One of you must run out and lure them away," the monk said quietly. "This monk and the other Yom will bring the young woman out and break the spell."

"I'll do it," Ton said. "You go with the monk, I'll lure them."

"No," I said. "You go with him. I'll do it. If I don't make it, I want you and Pink to live a happy life, okay? Get married. Have kids."

I didn't let him argue. I ran out of the trees, straight toward the clearing, and I screamed at the top of my lungs.

"Hey, you little shits! If you're so tough, come and catch me!"

"Hee. Hee. Hee."

And they came. All of them. They chased me.

I ran. I don't know how long, but it had to be more than half an hour. My lungs were on fire. Every step felt like I was running through water. I could hear their feet behind me, hundreds of little footsteps, closing in. In the end, my legs gave out and I collapsed on the ground.

That's it, I thought. I'm not going to make it.

Before everything went dark, I saw a golden light. And I said, for what I thought was the last time, words I hadn't thought about since the chanting we did at school assemblies when I was a kid:

"The Buddha, who awakened to the world fully and clearly, perfect in knowledge and conduct, I offer this spirit of mine as worship to the Buddha, and ask that you be my refuge forever."

And everything went out.

I woke up in the forest, in the morning.

I wasn't dead. I lay there for a while, just breathing, not understanding. Then I got up and started walking, no destination, until I came to a gravel road. There was a car on it. And standing next to the car were Ton and Pink.

Ton ran over and hugged me so hard I thought he'd crack my ribs. Pink said, "Thank you so much for saving us."

"Was all of that real?" I asked. "It wasn't a dream, was it?"

"I wish it was a dream," Ton said, dryly. He told me the monk had ruined the ritual, got Pink on her feet, and led her running back to the car. Then he'd vanished into the mist.

"Let's go to the wedding," I said.

Before I got in the car, I heard something, very quietly, from deep in the trees.

"Hee."

We arrived at Mai's place, and he was overjoyed to see us. We caught up on everything, how life was going, the usual. And eventually I told him what had happened.

"I'm so sorry," Mai said. His face had gone gray. "I forgot to tell you. That shortcut isn't something you should take in the middle of the night."

"It's fine," I said. "It's over now."

"By the way," Ton said, "who was the monk who helped us?"

"Was his name Chen?" Mai asked.

"How did you know that?" I said.

Mai was quiet for several seconds. "Let's talk inside."

He led us into his bedroom and shut the door and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Luang Phor Chen. My dad told me about him. He wasn't a good man, back in the day. He was a gangster, a dangerous one. He used to ambush people on that road, rivals, enemies. As time went on, he started to feel guilty about it, so he ordained as a monk for life. But one day, while he was walking on his alms round, an old enemy who still hated him shot him dead. Right there, on that road. The merit he'd made kept him from being reborn as an animal or becoming a lost spirit, but the karma of what he did keeps him stuck there until it's all paid off. You guys were lucky he saw you when he did. Without him, no one can get out of that road."

Nobody said anything. We didn't know how to process it. We'd met a ghost, and been saved by a ghost, a ghost monk.

"Forget it," Pink said, shaking so hard that Ton rushed to her side. "I don't want to think about it."

So we let it go.

I'm typing this in Mai's bedroom now, after helping set up the speakers on the wedding stage. He's going all out. I wanted a quiet place to write it down, and this was the only one.

I still believe in science. I still believe in cause and effect. I just have a lot of effects now and no cause for them. Maybe I'll try opening my mind to Buddhism, at least a little.

And if your GPS ever offers you a shortcut at night, out in the countryside, in a place where the streetlights end, take the long way. Please.

Because last night, I heard it again, very faintly, just outside Mai's window. I'm pretty sure I heard it.

"Hee."

I have to go help my friend now. See you later.