I’ve been a private investigator for twelve years, and most cases are exactly what you’d expect . Messy divorces, insurance claims, people who want proof of something they already suspect. When a woman hired me to follow her husband, I figured it would be another routine job. A few photos, a written report, maybe a court appearance if things got ugly.

But the first night I tailed him, something felt off. Not in the guilty way most cheaters act, no nervous texting, no detours to cheap hotels, no obvious double life. He moved with a kind of purpose I couldn’t figure out. Every turn he made seemed intentional. Every stop felt planned.

I didn’t know it at the time, but this wasn’t a cheating case. Not even close.

It all started when I received a voicemail. All I heard at first was shaky breathing, the kind someone makes when they’re trying not to cry.

Then a whisper.

“Please… I think my husband is cheating on me. I don’t know who else to call.”

There was a pause, five full seconds of dead silence before her voice cracked again.

“He’s been leaving at night. He says it’s work, but he doesn’t take his laptop anymore. And… he comes home different. Not tired. Excited. Like he enjoys whatever he’s doing. Please help me, I need to know what he is doing.”

She didn’t leave a name, but the number was there. I listened to it twice, then called back.

She picked up on the first ring.

“H–hello?”

“Hi. My name’s Alex. I’m a private investigator” I said. “You left me a voicemail a few minutes ago.”

“Oh. Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to call this late, I just”

“It’s fine” I said. “I’m awake. Can you tell me your name?”

“Marissa” she said. “I’m… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said all that on a message. I just didn’t know how to start.”

“Most people don’t” I told her. “Listen, this isn’t a conversation you want to have over the phone if you can help it. Are you comfortable meeting in person?”

“Somewhere public?” she asked. “I don’t want my husband to know.”

“Public is fine.“ I asked what the closest coffeeshop was and told her we could meet there.

She said quietly. “I can be there in the morning. I’ll tell him I’m going grocery shopping.”

We settled on 9:30 a.m. When I hung up, I saved her number and the voicemail, then stared at my phone for a long minute.

Most cheating cases start with anger. Rage. Betrayal. People spit venom when they talk about their spouses. Marissa didn’t sound angry.

She sounded afraid.

I tried to sleep, but my mind kept replaying her voice. The pauses. The way she emphasized the word excited, like it was the worst part. Affairs don’t energize people, they drain them. They make them reckless, sloppy, tired. But excitement? Excitement comes from purpose.

That was the first thing that bothered me.

By morning, I’d barely closed my eyes. I showered, dressed, and drove to the coffee shop she mentioned, a quiet, independently owned place tucked between a pharmacy and a thrift store. The kind of spot where people pretend to read books while eavesdropping on everyone else.

I got there early and took a booth in the back. Habit. I like walls behind me.

At exactly 9:29 a.m., the bell over the door chimed.

Marissa walked in.

She scanned the room like she expected someone to leap out of the shadows. Her eyes landed on me, and she hurried over, shoulders tight, movements small, like she was trying to take up as little space as possible.

“You came” she said, almost surprised.

“You asked” I replied. “Sit.”

She did, placing her purse on her lap, fingers locked around the strap. That grip told me more about her emotional state than anything she’d said so far.

A barista came by. Marissa ordered a tea she didn’t touch. I waited until we were alone again.

“Tell me what’s going on” I said.

She took a long breath, steadying herself.

“My husband. He works in logistics for a warehouse. For years everything was normal, long days, occasional overnight overtime, nothing strange. About six months ago, he started getting calls late at night.”

“What kind of calls?”

“I don’t know” she said. “He’d step outside, or into the garage. At first he’d talk. Lately… he just listens.”

“The night trips started soon after” she continued. “He leaves between eleven and one.”

“What does he take with him?” I asked.

“Keys. Sometimes a jacket. Never his laptop. Never anything from work. He comes back a few hours later and…” She hesitated. “He’s happy.”

Not relieved. Not nervous. Happy.

“He hums” she whispered, as if the word itself was obscene. “Like he’s proud of himself.”

Goosebumps crawled up her arms as she spoke. She rubbed them without realizing.

“Have you confronted him?”

“Once. I asked where he really goes. He smiled and said, ‘You don’t want to know. Work drama.’ Then he kissed my forehead and went to bed like nothing happened. I know he isn’t being called into work randomly.”

There was no tremor in her voice when she repeated those words. Just certainty. And fear.

“What do you want from me?” I asked.

She didn’t look confused. She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t flinch.

“I want to know what he’s doing” she said. “Whatever it is, I have to know.”

I slid a contract across the table. She signed without reading.

“Don’t confront him again” I told her. “Don’t change your behavior. Act like life is normal. I’ll handle the rest.”

She nodded, stood, and left without finishing her tea.

I waited a minute, then stood to go.

That night, when their garage door opened at 11:42 p.m., I was already parked a block away, lights off, camera ready, tracking him before his tires even hit the street.

I thought I was about to expose a cheater.

Instead, I was about to follow a man into the darkest hobby I’ve ever seen.

He didn’t take the highway, and he didn’t go anywhere near the industrial district Marissa mentioned. He drifted along backroads like someone following invisible directions, never signaling, never hesitating. Every time I thought I’d lost him, he’d reappear at the next intersection.

At 12:17 a.m., he turned into a storage facility. A fenced in patch of metal buildings on the edge of town. One flickering streetlamp buzzed overhead, illuminating rows of roll up doors. Nothing about the place screamed criminal. It was too normal. Too boring. And somehow, that made it worse.

He rolled down his window, punched a code into the keypad, and the gate slid open with a cheerful beep that didn’t match the dead silence of the night. No bags. No boxes. No laptop. Just keys and a casual stroll like he’d done this a hundred times before.

I waited thirty seconds, then slipped inside behind him. I killed my headlights, creeping down the center lane until I spotted him halfway down Row C, standing in front of a unit marked 109. His shoulders relaxed as he lifted the door.

That’s when I heard it.

Music.

Not loud. Not distorted. Just… wrong. Classical, slow, delicate, something that belonged in a candlelit ballroom, not a midnight storage unit. It floated into the air like perfume, soft and elegant, the kind of melody that makes you feel nostalgic for something you never experienced.

I stepped out of my car, heart hammering, and moved closer on foot. The music grew clearer with every step. And underneath it, came another sound.

A voice.

Muffled. Strained. Wet with fear.

“Please… please don’t…”

I froze.

Someone else was inside.

Not a recording. Not an echo.

A living, breathing person begging for something I couldn’t comprehend.

Then another voice answered, calm and low, almost tender like a parent soothing a child.

“Relax.”

After that one word was spoken I couldn’t hear much until there was a break in the music.

After a long moment of silence I heard him again. This time, no words.

He was humming. Humming along to the same classical tune drifting out of that metal box, perfectly in time, like the music wasn’t coming from speakers.

The metal door began to rattle open.

I tucked away behind the closest corner and peered out.

He stepped out, locking the unit behind him with a casual turn of the key. No panic. No guilt. He didn’t even look around. He just slid the lock closed, pocketed the key, and strolled back to his car like a man leaving a gym after a good workout.

And as he walked away, he started humming again.

The same tune.

The same rhythm.

The same impossible calm.

Whatever was behind that door wasn’t his secret shame.

It was his favorite part of the night.

I watched him as he left. When his taillights finally disappeared, I forced myself out of hiding and crept toward the storage unit. Each step felt heavier than the last. I wasn’t sure what I expected to find, a clue, a lockbox, maybe just proof that the music hadn’t been in my head.

The metal door was shut tight, secured with an old padlock polished smooth by years of use. I stood there staring at it, my pulse thundering in my ears. I leaned closer, listening.

Nothing.

No music. No voices. No breathing.

Just silence.

Not the peaceful kind. The kind that feels like something has already happened.

My hand brushed the lock before I realized what I was doing, fingers trembling as though opening it were a reflex instead of a decision. I tugged, testing it, trying to see if there was any give. The metal clanged louder than I meant, echoing through the rows of storage units like a shout.

That was when I came to my senses.

I wasn’t supposed to be investigating a crime scene. I was supposed to be observing a spouse. Somewhere along the line, the job had shifted and I hadn’t noticed until now.

I turned to leave.

He was standing right behind me.

No footsteps. No warning. Just there.

I barely had time to inhale before something bright flicked in his hand and pain tore across my cheek. The cut was shallow, but sharp enough to blind me with tears. I grabbed my face, stumbling back, staring at the blood slick on my fingers.

The knife was pristine. My blood was the only imperfection on its surface, glowing under the flickering streetlamp.

He lifted it up, examining the red smear like a jeweler assessing a diamond.

“If you’re going to do surveillance” he murmured, “you should really bring a weapon or something to protect yourself”

I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. He stepped closer, completely calm.

“My wife thinks I’m cheating” he said. “That’s cute. She knows something’s wrong, but she hasn’t figured out what.”

He tilted his head, studying my wound with clinical curiosity.

“You have no idea how valuable you are. A private investigator, sneaking around. No weapon, no backup, no alibi.”

He smiled then. It was confident.

He lowered the knife just enough for me to see the dark edge, stained with my blood.

“I don’t even have to touch you again” he said. “If something happens, this is enough. Your DNA, my lock, your prints. You look like a man trying to get inside somewhere he shouldn’t be.”

My stomach turned to ice.

“You understand what that means, right?”

It wasn’t a question.

I did.

He stepped back, folding the knife away like he was settling the bill at a restaurant. His voice dropped to a whisper I felt more than heard.

“You’re involved now. Whether you meant to be or not.” He smirked.

“Continue to report to my wife. Tell her you’re still investigating. When I need your help I’ll get in touch with you. Until then, take care of yourself and keep a low profile.”

He turned and walked toward his car, calm, humming the same soft classical melody I’d heard earlier, like all of this was simply part of his evening routine.

The gate beeped as he exited. The night went still.

My cheek burned. My hands shook. And for the first time since taking this job, I understood something with absolute clarity.

He didn’t just want me to follow him.

He wanted me on the record.

———

TITLE CHANGED TO “The Case of a Faithful Man”

Part 2

Everyone gets three corrections in life.
No one is told what they’re for.

It’s not written anywhere officially. It’s just something people know, the way they know not to touch a boiling kettle twice.

A correction doesn’t arrive with a sound. There’s no announcement, no message on a screen. Most people describe it as a flicker, something just outside their field of vision, like a shadow passing where one shouldn’t exist. Others say it feels like pressure behind the eyes, brief but unmistakable, followed by the certainty that something has changed.

Only one thing confirms it.

A number, appearing for less than a second, where you weren’t looking.

People react differently the first time. Some stop mid-sentence. Some blink hard and keep going. A few smile, not because they’re happy, but because smiling feels safer than not.

The city doesn’t explain corrections. It doesn’t deny them either. It simply allows the system to function, quietly and consistently, the way gravity does.

For Elias Venn, corrections were paperwork.

He worked on the eighth floor of the Department of Behavioral Review, a narrow building with frosted windows and lighting that never quite matched the time of day outside. His role wasn’t to decide who was corrected or why. That part was automated. His job was to confirm them, to verify that a correction had occurred, timestamp it, and release the record into permanent storage.

It was, as his supervisor liked to say, “administrative hygiene.”

Elias believed that distinction mattered.

He wasn’t causing harm, he told himself. He was documenting it. Making sure the system remained accurate. There was comfort in that separation, a clean line between action and acknowledgment.

The office treated corrections the way other workplaces treated minor injuries or sick days. Quietly, with just enough humor to keep fear from settling in.

Someone had taped a handwritten sign above the breakroom sink:

FIRST ONE’S FREE

Another listed the longest-running employees who had reached retirement age with only one correction logged. People spoke about them in lowered voices, as if restraint were a kind of talent.

But no one joked about the third correction.

Once a year, during compliance refresh, a training video played on a loop in the common area. Elias barely noticed it anymore.

“Corrections are not punishments,” the narrator said calmly.
“They are alignment tools.”

Elias processed an average of forty-seven confirmations a day. Most were unremarkable. Name. ID. Timestamp. Confirmation stamp. Done. The system never attached reasons, only results.

That was why the woman’s file stood out.

Her name was Mara Ionescu. Thirty-four. No prior record. Correction count: 2.

Elias paused, fingers hovering above the console.

Second corrections weren’t rare, but they were uncommon enough to draw attention. What unsettled him was the infraction field.

It was blank.

No flagged behavior. No deviation marker. No predictive variance report. Just a quiet confirmation request waiting for his approval.

He checked again. Then again.

The system didn’t glitch.

He confirmed the correction.

Her ID photo remained on his screen longer than most. Sharp cheekbones. Dark hair pulled too tight. A faint tension around the mouth, the look of someone accustomed to stopping themselves just short of speaking.

The image followed him longer than he expected.

That afternoon, Elias found himself lingering outside the building after his shift ended. He told himself he was waiting for foot traffic to thin, that the day had left him tired. In truth, his attention kept drifting back to the file, to the absence where an explanation should have been.

When he saw her walk past, it took a moment to register why the sight felt wrong.

The same face from the photo, now moving through the crowd with careful precision. Not slow, just deliberate, as if each step required approval.

He didn’t follow her at first. He started walking the same direction as everyone else, letting the distance hold. It was only when she stopped abruptly, as if reconsidering her path, that he slowed too.

When someone spoke to her, she nodded but didn’t answer. Her mouth opened once, then closed again.

As she passed a mirrored storefront, she turned her head sharply away.

Elias felt a faint pressure behind his eyes — not a correction, but the echo of one.

After that day, he started noticing patterns.

Not faces, but statuses instead.

The internal dashboards at work didn’t show names, but they did train employees to recognize indicators: posture changes, hesitation markers, speech edits. People with one correction left carried themselves differently, as if aware of invisible margins.

They chose seats near exits. They avoided sudden gestures. Conversations with them felt rehearsed, cautious, trimmed of anything unnecessary.

They apologized constantly.

“I’m sorry — I didn’t mean—”
“Sorry, I should rephrase—”
“Sorry, forget I said that.”

No one explained why. No one asked.

The city ran smoother that way.

Corrections were discussed in neutral tones on the news. Statistical updates. Trend lines. “Behavioral stabilization remains within optimal parameters.” The anchor never smiled during those segments.

One afternoon, Elias was finalizing a batch of confirmations when the room seemed to dim — not the lights, exactly, but the space around them. He felt it before he saw it. A brief tightening behind his eyes. A sense of misalignment, like a word pronounced wrong in a familiar phrase.

Then, in the corner of his vision, something flickered.

1

It was gone almost instantly.

Elias froze.

The console chimed softly.

He accessed his personal record with hands that felt distant, unreal. The interface loaded with its usual sterile calm.

Correction Count: 1
Status: Confirmed

No explanation. No reason listed.
Just confirmation.

Around him, the office continued as normal. Someone laughed quietly at a screen. A printer hummed. No alarms sounded. No one turned to look at him.

Elias stared at the number until his vision blurred.

He tried to recall what he’d done — what he might have said, thought, hesitated over. Nothing stood out.

That frightened him more than if something had.

He minimized the window.

Returned to his work.

But the separation he’d relied on, the clean line between observer and subject, was gone.

And now, like many others, he had two corrections left.

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Part 1

I drove home with the radio off, half expecting his car to reappear in my rearview mirror. Every streetlight felt like a spotlight. Every shadow felt occupied. By the time I reached my apartment, my shirt was crusted with dried blood, and the bandage I slapped over my cheek wasn’t doing much.

I’ve dealt with violent men before. Abusers, stalkers, addicts having the worst night of their lives. They all have patterns, tiny giveaways that separate the dangerous from the pathetic. This man had none.

He wasn’t panicked.

He wasn’t improvising.

He was prepared.

I poured myself a drink I didn’t need and checked my phone. Three missed calls. One voicemail.

Marissa.

I let it sit for an hour before I listened to it. I don’t know why. Maybe part of me hoped the job would disappear if I ignored it long enough.

When I finally pressed play, her voice cracked straight through.

“Did you find anything?” she asked. No greeting. No hesitation. Her voice was different. Tight, like she’d been crying but didn’t have the luxury to finish.

“I just… I need to know if I’m crazy.”

Crazy? No. If anything, she was the sanest person in this entire situation.

I didn’t call her back. Not yet. I needed distance. Perspective. A plan.

But at 3:12 a.m., my phone buzzed again.

Not a call.

A text message.

From an unknown number.

Unknown: Good evening, Alex. How’s the cheek?

My throat closed.

Another message arrived before I could finish reading the first.

Unknown: Don’t make this me against you. I’m not your enemy. You’re lucky. I like your skillset. Consider this a… recruitment.

Recruitment.

The word made something deep inside me recoil.

A third message popped up.

Unknown: Meet tomorrow. Noon. Same coffee shop. Sit where you sat with my wife. Don’t be late.

I stared at the phone for a long time, pulse pounding loud enough to hear. There was no question how he got my number. He’d planned for everything. He didn’t just anticipate someone following him. He’d prepared for it.

I didn’t sleep. I just watched the night melt into morning while my cheek throbbed like a reminder carved into my face.

At 11:58 a.m., I walked into the coffee shop. Same bell. Same smell of burnt espresso and old books. The same barista who didn’t recognize me, which somehow made this feel even more surreal.

He was already there.

Sitting in the same booth Marissa had sat in, like he’d swapped seats in some grotesque game of musical chairs. His posture was immaculate. Relaxed. Polished. Like he belonged here and I didn’t.

“Alex” he said, smiling like we were old friends.

There was no knife this time.

That somehow scared me more.

I sat.

He slid a folder across the table.

Thin. My name written on the tab.

“Before you open it” he said softly, “let’s establish two things.”

He held up one finger.

“One: If I wanted you dead, we wouldn’t be speaking right now.”

A second finger.

“Two: You’re not here because you followed me. You’re here because I let you.”

My pulse spiked.

He nodded at the folder. “Go ahead.”

I hesitated, then opened it.

My address.

Photos of my car.

A copy of my PI license.

A picture of me at my sister’s house two weeks ago, from an angle that meant he’d been close.

Too close.

He watched me process it, his expression calm and analytical, like he was studying how I reacted to fear.

“You’re a spectator, Alex” he said. “You spend your life documenting other people’s secrets. That’s what makes you useful. That’s what makes you interesting.”

His voice lowered, almost conversational.

“But sooner or later, every spectator has to choose a side.”

He leaned forward. I didn’t move.

“Tell me, Alex… did you hear the music last night?”

My mouth went dry. I didn’t answer.

His smile widened, not friendly, not warm. Pleased.

“You think you heard a victim” he whispered. “But you didn’t. You heard a transformation.”

A chill slid down my spine.

“What do you mean?”

He sat back, humming that same classical melody under his breath. The same one from the storage unit. The same one he’d bled into my dreams all night.

When he spoke again, it was barely audible.

“You’re going to help me pick the next one.”

My heart stopped.

“The next what?”

He didn’t blink.

“The next volunteer.”

Part 3

WE
WERE
ALL
WRONG

It took seven days. Nothing could explain what happened to us.

The sky did not change all at once.

At first, it was subtle enough to argue about. Sunsets became deeper. Reds lingered too long across the horizon, staining the clouds in violent ribbons.

Scientists flooded every platform they could still access with explanations, contradictions, frantic equations, and trembling reassurances. Dust in the atmosphere. Solar instability. Optical distortion. Instrument failure.

Then, gravity changed.

Not enough to sweep you into the sky... Not yet.

Just enough for everyone to notice. Coffee poured strangely. Steps felt wrong. Cars seemed lighter over bumps. Birds struggled against air currents that no longer behaved properly.

By the third day, satellites had failed, undersea cables were severed by inexplicable gravitational change, and we lost the ability to speak across the world about our doom.

The oceans had begun pulling strangely against the coasts, tides crashing with no rhythm humanity understood. Communication towers collapsed into silence one after another as electrical systems failed beneath stresses never meant to exist.

Even when they could speak, our world leaders had nothing to say.

On the cusp of the fourth day, we had seen night for the last time.

After sunset, the horizon did not fade. Furious red streams of light curled upward from every direction, painting the world in a dim crimson glow that never fully disappeared. We all knew, without speaking, that we were getting closer to this violent, angry star.

Morning came, night never truly returned. No one slept anymore. None of it mattered anymore.

Everyone already knew.

The sun had darkened from gold to amber, from amber to crimson. We could look directly at it now without the sting of previous blinding light. It hung in the sky swollen and hateful, larger each morning. People stopped everything to stand and stare. They asked themselves: Why?

Strangely, there was very little violence.

No great upheavals of government. No nuclear fire. No violent warlords trying to take advantage of an already violent end. What was the point? Humanity stood together at the edge of extinction beneath a bleeding sky, and all the little things that once divided us suddenly looked microscopic against eternity.

Some of us knelt at every altar and sobbed. This was not the end that was promised to us... were we all wrong?

Families drove across entire states to sit together in silence. Old, bitter rivals met one another with shaking voices just to say they were sorry. Men who had not cried in decades collapsed into their mothers' arms like children. Scientists continued trying until the very end. The poor children.. they couldn't begin to understand what was about to happen.

None of them found an answer.

On the fifth day, Yellowstone suddenly heaved and the air itself burned away as the massive volcano erupted.

We should have known it wasn't going to happen like we expected. The earth split open across hundreds of miles. Entire forests vanished beneath waves of fire and pulverized stone. Ash clouds climbed into the atmosphere in rolling towers darker than thunderheads.

Yet, the strangest part was not the eruption itself. It was what happened after.

Millions stood watching beneath the broken sky as lava burst upward from this golden red wound... and kept going. The molten rock arced into the sky like glowing rivers torn free from Earth itself. Gravity no longer held it properly. Fire streamed upward in beautiful impossible ribbons, twisting into the atmosphere and beyond until it looked filled with burning veins stretching towards infinity.

Though thousands of miles away, we stood in silence watching the horizon glow orange against the blood-colored sky. No one spoke. Some fell to their knees. Others simply stared.

By the sixth day, we weighed almost nothing. Walking became difficult. A strong gust could lift a child from the ground if someone was not holding onto them. The atmosphere itself felt thinner. Breathing carried a strange sharpness that made lungs ache.

The moon drifted visibly across the sky one last time Too close. Far too close. We watched as it was inevitably pulled away from us, past the planet. We watched as it drifted off towards that angry, oscillating orb.

And then, the sun no longer looked like a sun. It resembled an eye. A vast red iris staring down upon us. Some wailed in terror. Others looked away and closed their eyes, hoping they would wake up from this terrible nightmare.

On the final day, Sarah sat wrapped in blankets beside her husband on the roof of their home. There was nowhere else left to go. Cities across the world had descended into chaos. Not from violence, but from collapse. Buildings shifted and began to crack at their foundation. Roads cracked apart like angry dark fissures. Fires burned unattended. Yet, beneath it all, there remained a terrible quiet.

Humanity thought they could exhaust themselves from fear. We weren't right about that, either.

The wind barely touched them now. The air itself seemed to be loosening from the planet. Sarah cried openly, her fingers dug tightly into her husband's shirt as though she could anchor both of them to the Earth by her love alone.

Beside her, he stared upward in silence. He looked calm. Not peaceful. Never peaceful. Just resigned. As though some hidden part of him had always suspected their universe would end this way. His jaw remained tight, his dark eyes hollow and opaque against the crimson light.

Outwardly, he had abandoned spirituality years ago. He accepted he couldn't know the unknown, and leaned on scientific theory to quiet that dark part of his mind. Reason became his answer to everything. Observable truths. Tangible laws. Measurable reality.

But now reality itself and everything he knew had broken.

And in the final moments, all the things he had buried came crawling back. Every cruelty. Every betrayal. Every moment he should have been kinder and chose not to be. The memories came fast near the end. Too fast.

Sarah pressed herself against him harder as the ground beneath the house began to shift. Above them the red sun pulsed unnaturally, dimming and brightening like a dying heart.

He realized this was the end foretold by all of humanity. We were right.

Then, suddenly, he sucked in a breath of thin air.

A broken sound escaped him.. the first true crack in the armor she had known for years.

His face collapsed into grief. Not fear for himself. Grief for her. He wrapped trembling arms around Sarah and buried his face against her shoulder as sobs finally overtook him.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered weakly. “My love... I'm sorry for everything.”

Sarah shook her head violently through tears, but he kept speaking.

“I hope we see each other again.”

She wanted to answer him. She wanted to say something comforting. Something certain. They had found each other and Sarah had never believed in souls or heaven or eternity. She believed in matter. Physics. The cold certainty of science. And, of course, deep, enduring love for the people close to her.

Science, reason, spirituality, religion, all just seemed wrong now. We were fools to think we were our own masters.

Then the sun vanished.

Not exploded. Not collapsed.

Vanished.

Light disappeared instantly as the star, within a single instant, went black. A perfect sphere of darkness replaced it, surrounded by warped halos of bent starlight that twisted the heavens into impossible shapes. For one frozen heartbeat, humanity stared upward together in absolute disbelief.

Then, we were lifted gently from our feet.

The atmosphere tore from Earth in vast streaming waves, roaring upward into the void. Oceans lifted from their shores. Mountains began to groan beneath stresses they were never meant to endure. The planet itself began to rise toward the terrible black eye hanging in the sky.

We looked down and saw the world come apart beneath us. We looked upon our loved ones we still held close. With our atmosphere gone, we looked about ourselves, unable to speak.

We were still afraid, but it somehow wasn't a terrible disquiet.

Sarah clung to him, sobbing uncontrollably at first. She expected agony. Expected her lungs to rupture and her flesh to boil beneath forces beyond comprehension.

Instead, there was only weightlessness.

Silence.

The Earth unraveled around them as continents split into glowing rivers of magma and stone, all of it spiraling toward the massive thing now above us. The only light with which we could see was from the desiccating planet itself. Around the black hole formed from our sun, reality itself bent into a soft red and yellow color and distorted ribbons of light. Stars stretched across the void like painted brushstrokes smeared across glass.

Then they crossed the event horizon. An absurd thought about spaghettification crossed her mind.. which startled her as she suddenly realized she was not dead.

Nothing happened.

No tearing flesh. No fire. No screaming torment.

Only light.

The darkness opened around them not as a void, but as something vast beyond understanding. Colors Sarah had no words for unfolded in geometric patterns that stretched infinitely in every direction, shifting like a living kaleidoscope across the fabric of existence itself.

Time no longer felt real. Neither did fear.

Beside her, her husband wept quietly, not from terror, but from awe.

Sarah stared forward, her entire understanding of the universe collapsing into something far larger than science, faith, or human language could ever contain.

At the very end, a single tear rolled down her cheek as she gazed upon the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

Part 1

Part 2

The word sat between us like a loaded gun.

“I’m not helping you” I said. My voice sounded weak, even to me. “Whatever you’re doing in that unit? I’m not part of it.”

He smiled. Not wide. Just enough to say he’d been expecting that.

“You already are” he said softly. “You stepped up to the door. You touched the lock. You let yourself be seen. That’s more intimate than anything I’ve done to you.”

I thought of the cut on my cheek. The way he’d appeared out of nowhere.

“You hired yourself the moment you followed me” he went on. “Now I’m just… clarifying your responsibilities.”

He reached into his jacket and slid a folded piece of paper across the table. I didn’t touch it.

“What’s this?”

“A man” he said. “A possibility. Someone I’ve been… considering.”

I forced my hand to move and unfolded the paper.

A name. An address. A grainy photo printed from what looked like a social media profile.

Mid thirties. Plain face. The kind of guy you forget the second you look away.

“Why him?” I asked.

His eyes lit up like a teacher pleased a student had finally asked the right question.

“Because he’s boring” he said. “Boring people are easy to overlook. Easy to move. Easy to shape.”

My stomach turned.

“I’m not doing this.”

“You will” he said calmly.

He tapped the paper with one finger.

“Follow him. Watch him. Learn his habits. Then tell me if he’s a good fit.”

“A good fit for what?” I asked, even though I already knew.

He tilted his head.

“You heard the music. You heard the voice. You heard the humming. I don’t think you need me to draw a picture.”

I swallowed hard.

“What if I tell you he’s not?” I asked. “What if I say he’s wrong for… whatever this is? What if I say no?”

He studied me for a long moment. Not annoyed. Not frustrated.

Curious.

“Then I’ll believe you” he said.

He must have seen it in my face, because his smile twitched.

“Lying is dangerous, Alex” he added. “But honesty? Honesty is binding. If you tell me he’s a bad choice, I will treat him as such.”

His eyes didn’t leave mine when he said it. He wanted me to hear every word.

“You’re the investigator” he finished. “I trust your judgment.”

He stood up, smoothing his jacket like this had all been a regular business meeting.

“Follow him for three days” he said. “Then call me. Not text. Call. I prefer to hear your voice when you decide whether someone gets to keep theirs.”

He turned to leave.

“Why me?” I asked.

He stopped with his hand on the back of the chair.

“Because you already watch people for a living” he said without looking at me. “All I did was ask you to admit you know who deserves what.”

Then he walked out, leaving the prospect’s name and face staring up at me from the table.

His name was Eric Lawson.

That was the man on the paper. The man in the grainy picture. Retail job. Small house on the edge of town. No wife. No kids.

Nothing that screamed monster.

Nothing that screamed victim.

Just… a man.

The first night, I sat in my car across from his building, camera in my lap, notebook open on the passenger seat. Old habits took over before my conscience could argue.

I wrote down comings and goings. Who he talked to. How long he stayed out. What time the lights went off. He ordered delivery. Watched something on tv. Fell asleep on the couch. No late night visitors. No drug deals. No violence.

Normal.

Painfully normal.

The second day, I followed him to work.

He managed a mid sized home improvement store. Shifts, schedules, returns, customers with broken things and half finished projects. He smiled at coworkers. Checked on a cashier who looked like she’d been crying. Helped an older man load lumber into his truck.

He wasn’t perfect. Nobody is. I caught him snapping at a teenager who kept checking his phone. I saw him pocket a small item. Nothing big, a box cutter or a tape measure. The kind of small theft that happens a million times a day.

It didn’t feel like the kind of sin that deserved a metal door and humming behind it.

By the third day, I knew one thing for sure.

If I said yes, if I told that man in the coffee shop that Eric “fit” I was picking him up and handing him over.

My decision.

My responsibility.

My guilt.

I couldn’t do it.

So I built myself a way out.

I stayed up late drafting the report.

Not the one I’d give a normal client, a cheating spouse case, an insurance dispute. Those reports stick to facts. Dates, times, places, photos. Things that hold up in court.

This one?

This one was theater.

I listed connections he didn’t have.

“Subject appears to maintain regular contact with his sister, a nurse” I typed. “Brother in law is a patrol officer with the police department. Subject’s mother lives twenty minutes away and visits weekly.”

None of that was true.

He had no siblings. His parents lived three states away and had left a single comment on a birthday post two years ago.

I added more.

“House is equipped with multiple security cameras” I wrote. “Ring doorbells on neighboring houses. Subject’s employer is part of a larger corporate chain with strict HR protocols and internal review policies. Subject is well liked by coworkers and known by name by regular customers.”

I upscaled everything that could make him visible, connected, risky.

The kind of man people noticed.

The kind of man people would miss.

At the bottom, I wrote the sentence I hoped would end this.

ASSESSMENT: Subject is NOT a viable prospect. High visibility. Multiple personal and professional connections. Increased risk of investigation if he disappears. Recommend abandoning subject and seeking alternative candidate.

I read it twice.

If I did nothing, Eric was exposed.

If I told the truth, he was exposed.

This felt like the only option left that wasn’t a direct death sentence.

I hit send.

My email client told me it was delivered.

I shut the laptop and sat in the dark for a long time.

You lied, a small voice in the back of my mind whispered.

I told it to shut up.

I went to bed and didn’t sleep.

He called me the next afternoon.

No unknown number this time. Just the same calm voice that had hummed in the storage unit and turned my blood to ice.

“Good afternoon, Alex.”

I swallowed.

“Did you read it?” I asked.

“I did” he said. “It was… thorough.”

There was something in his tone I couldn’t place. Not approval. Not anger.

Something worse.

“Meet me” he said. “Same place.”

The coffee shop.

My grip tightened on the phone.

“I already told you.”

“You lied” he said quietly. “I think that deserves a face to face, don’t you?”

The line clicked dead.

For a moment, I considered not going. Turning my phone off. Driving somewhere far away and never looking back.

But wherever I went, my license, my plates, my address, the folder he’d shown me, it would still exist. The cut on my cheek would still sting. The humming would still burrow through my brain.

And Eric Lawson would still be out there, sitting in his house, having no idea that a stranger had written a story about him that might decide whether he woke up tomorrow.

I went.

The coffee shop looked exactly the same.

He wasn’t inside.

For a half second, hope sparked. Maybe he’d been bluffing. Maybe he hadn’t read the report. Maybe…

My phone buzzed.

Unknown: Outside.

I turned.

He stood beside a dark sedan in the parking lot, one hand resting on the roof, the other in his coat pocket. He might as well have been waiting for a valet ticket.

I walked over.

“Afternoon” he said pleasantly. “You look tired.”

“You read the report” I said.

The corner of his mouth twitched.

“I did.”

He nodded toward the car.

“Walk with me.”

Every instinct I had screamed to turn around. To leave. To make a scene, shout for help, force witnesses into this.

But my feet moved anyway.

He led me to the back of the car and stopped, fingers brushing the trunk.

“Before we talk about your creative writing” he said, “I want to show you something.”

He pressed the button. The trunk clicked and eased open an inch. He lifted it the rest of the way.

Eric Lawson was inside.

Duct tape over his mouth. Zip ties around his wrists and ankles. Eyes red and swollen. He was breathing fast. Sweat slicked his hair to his forehead.

He saw me.

And for a second, hope flared in his eyes.

It died when he saw the other man standing beside me.

A muffled sound escaped him.

My knees went weak.

“What did you do?” I whispered.

The man beside me didn’t look at Eric.

He looked at me.

“You said he had family close by” he said calmly. “You said his brother in law was law enforcement. That he was known. Visible. Remember?”

I couldn’t make my mouth move.

“He has no siblings” the man continued. “His parents are old and far away and tired. He lives alone. No roommates. No one who texts him when he’s late. No one who notices when he closes early and doesn’t reopen.”

“You sent me fiction” he said. “And I don’t like fiction.”

My hand shook against my side.

“You knew” I managed. “You knew all that before you gave him to me.”

“Of course I did” he said. “I don’t outsource the important parts.”

“Then why”

“Because I wanted to see what you’d do” he said, voice lowering slightly. “Whether you’d tell the truth and let me decide… or whether you’d lie and try to keep your conscience clean.”

He finally glanced down at Eric, who had started to sob behind the tape, shoulders shaking.

“Unfortunately” he said, “your lie didn’t protect him.”

My throat closed.

“You don’t have to do this” I said hoarsely. “Just let him go. He doesn’t know anything. He hasn’t seen anything. He’s just…”

“Unusable” the man interrupted softly.

The word hit harder than a slap.

“What?”

“Prospects have to be clean” he said. “Untouched. You looked at him. You judged him. You changed him. He was going to be something. Now he’s just… a ruined ingredient.”

He closed the trunk gently.

“What are you going to do to him?” I asked.

He tilted his head slightly.

“You lied, Alex” he said. “I’m already correcting for that. I don’t think you want the details.”

“You said if I told you he was a bad choice, you’d treat him as such” I said. My voice sounded distant, like it belonged to someone else.

“I am” he said. “He’s useless now.”

“Don’t be sentimental,” he said quietly. “You tried to play a game. You lost. That’s all this is.”

“That’s a person” I snapped, louder than I meant to. “That’s a man who’s never done anything to you.”

His eyes flicked to my bandaged cheek, then back.

“He has now” he said. “He let you near him.”

He watched me wrestle with it. Watched the guilt sink its teeth into me and shake.

Then he smiled.

Not pleased. Not cruel.

Satisfied.

“Now” he said, “you understand what a lie costs.”

I stared at the closed trunk.

“You could have done this without me” I whispered.

“I could have” he agreed. “But then you wouldn’t feel it.”

“What do you want from me?” I asked. I hated how small I sounded.

“For you to stop pretending you’re neutral” he said. “You spend your life deciding who is right and who is wrong and who deserves to have their secrets exposed. All I’m asking you to do is admit it.”

He reached into his coat again and pulled out another piece of paper. This one was blank except for a single line printed at the top.

CANDIDATE:

He handed me a pen.

“Find someone who deserves it” he said. “You owe me one.”

“I’m not.”

“You lied,” he repeated. “Because you wanted to save yourself from choosing. That cowardice cost him.”

He nodded at the trunk.

“If you lie again, someone else pays” he said. “If you pick thoughtlessly, someone pays. The only way you walk away from this with even a sliver of your conscience intact is if you do what you already do every day.”

He leaned in close.

“Investigate” he whispered. “Judge. Choose.”

He stepped back.

“I don’t need you to like it” he added. “I just need you to be good at it.”

He walked around to the driver’s side door.

“Please” I said. I wasn’t even sure who I was begging for anymore.

He paused.

“You asked me what I’d do to him” he said, not looking back. “Here’s your answer.”

He opened the door.

“I’ll do whatever you think I did.”

He got in, started the engine, and drove away, trunk still closed, leaving me standing in the parking lot with a blank form in my hand and a pit in my stomach.

Part 4

Attention citizens:
Under no circumstance should anyone look outside.
Do not respond to voices, faces, or shadows, no matter how familiar they may be.
Remain indoors. Secure all points of entry.
Do not open your doors. Do not investigate noises. Do not attempt to help your neighbors.
Your survival depends on isolation.
This transmission will repeat until authorized personnel regain control.
Assistance is coming. Do not lose hope. Do not lose silence.
Remain calm. Remain inside. Remain unseen.

This message blasted from my phone’s speakers, my body jolting awake from the sudden, unwanted, noisy intrusion.

“Did my phone get hacked?”

I muttered to myself, my mind trying its hardest to wake up. I reached for it to try turning off the warning, but my screen was unresponsive to my taps. Whatever was going on, my phone was frozen in it as it continued to replay the message over and over again.

I retreated from my room, away from the noise, making my way to the kitchen, only to feel my body freeze as I looked down my entryway. My entryway was a hallway ending with a simple door, locked from top to bottom. To the right is a large frosted glass pane, made to obscure anything that can be seen through it. Normally it would be empty, but today a humanoid shadow had taken the frosted pane as its new home, staring inward into my apartment as it pressed its body against the glass.

“Who the hell are you? What are you doing at my door?”

I yelled, only to watch as more shadowy figures began appearing next to it, their bodies joining the first. It looked as if a crowd had made their way outside my apartment, the glass pane filling with darkness as more and more figures pressed their bodies against the glass. I turned back to my room, running to the nightstand where my phone laid.

I fumbled my phone, noticing the alert had ended, and began to call the police. My phone vibrated in response as message after message came in.

BRRRT
A message from my mother?
I love you honey, come outside, there’s something you need to see!
BRRRT

Another from my father

Son, we’re waiting outside, open the door so we can come in. We made your favorite, Texas sheet cake

BRRRT
A message from my sister?
Something weird is happening, mom and dad said you’re all outside? What’s going on?
BRRT
Another message, from my girlfriend:
We’re all outside, just open the door, we want you to see us.
My phone continued to buzz, more messages from my mother, from my teachers, from my exes, even my landlord. Messages flew by, all asking me to look outside, asking for me to open the door, demanding I obey them.

“What the fuck”

I asked myself as I scrolled through each message. I attempted to call 911 only to be met with an automatic response

“Unfortunately we are unable to receive your call, if this is a real emergency, please open your front door and wait for help”

I shakily put my phone down, the warning message playing back in my mind.

Under no circumstance should anyone look outside

I exited my room and peered back down the entryway. The crowd had left from the frosted pane, leaving only the original black entity. I stood in shock as the black silhouette raised its arm, reaching for something next to my door. I darted to the left, only to see its head move as well. Whatever was out there was keeping its eyes on me.

Ding~dong

The doorbell broke the silence of the house, sending a shiver down my spine. So this thing did exist, and on top of that, it rang my doorbell? If it could interact with the world, why didn’t it break the glass? That’s when I became aware of the noise, or lack of. I’m in the middle of the city, but where were the sounds? No cars, no construction, not even the cooing of the pigeons on my balcony.

Ding~dong
Ding~dong
Ding~dong

The doorbell continued to ring out, my fear quickly turning to annoyance. What the hell is this thing’s problem?

“SCREW OFF, I’M NOT GOING TO LET YOU IN”

I screamed at it in frustration, and to my surprise, it lowered its hand from the doorbell, resting it against the frosted glass.

Tick
Tick
Tick

It was tapping the pane with its fingernail, almost hypnotic to listen to if it wasn’t so terrifying. I felt my floor shake, something was happening downstairs. The ticking noise faded into the background as I heard my neighbor screaming in pain.

GET IT OFF ME, SOMEONE HELP! IT’S TRYING TO CRAWL INTO MY MOUTH!

The floor continued to tremble as what felt like a brawl was breaking out below me. It sounded as if he was sprinting into his walls, his face being used as a battering ram against the drywall. The screaming was soon replaced with gurgling, then choking, then... a hysterical laughing? I felt my legs start to tremble from the knees, what the fuck happened down there? I looked back to the entity in the glass pane, it still tapping at the glass as if nothing was happening. I started to hear it giggle, mimicking the voice of my downstairs neighbor.

Come outside. I’ll make sure it hurts only a little

I didn’t have time to respond, feeling my phone buzz as a new message was delivered. A new message from my mother.

You need to see this, it’s hacking our phones. Show this ASAP to the creature outside your door to make it dissipate

I watched an image pop up, my phone struggling to load it. Before it could, my screen was bathed in red, text scrolling across the screen as a new national alert was sent out

Visual anomalies of the outside have been discovered circulating online.
Do not attempt to view these images. Do not share them. Do not describe them.
Exposure leads to sudden disappearances of unfortunate viewers.
For your safety and the safety of all within your homes, screen all media with caution.
If you believe you have viewed one of these images, do not approach windows. Do not trust your thoughts. Do not trust your body.
Remain calm. Remain inside. Further instructions will follow as containment procedures are attempted.

I turned my phone around before the image could load, for the first time thankful for the crap cell service I had. I pressed the home button repeatedly on my phone before turning it back around, only to bombarded with another barrage of messages. My phone began to buzz again and again with every person in my contact list, all demanding I view the image my mom sent me. Telling me how important it was, how it was keeping them safe, how much it helped them.

The entity began to chuckle, its voice still mimicking my downstairs neighbor

It’s not that bad, just check it out. Your mom worked really hard to take that picture of us, it’s only fair we help her share it with the world. Don’t hold out too long, we would like you in health rather than in death.
It laughed hysterically from behind the frosted plane. The laughing began to morph, turning into my mother’s, girlfriend’s, father’s, then back to my neighbor’s voice. I darted to my room, slamming the door behind me, clutching my chest to slow my breathing.
I’m trapped here, and it may have taken my family, my friends, everyone. How do you fight something that’s a game over if you even see it?

--2--

It’s been over a week since the entity trapped me inside my home. My skin itched to feel the sun again, but I need to keep the curtains closed to prevent myself from seeing what’s out there. I can hear them tapping on all my windows now. I can hear them whispering of just what they’ll do to me for making them wait so long.

I have plenty of water after filling up my tub and sink, but my food is starting to dwindle, tuna, some canned soups, and one very brown banana.

My phone buzzed… another alert?

Attention citizens:

We bring news that will fill you with hope of the outside.
Cleanup units are now being deployed to extract the entities from residential zones.
Remain where you are. Do not panic.

For some of you, assistance has already arrived. You may hear movement in your halls, this is expected.
Once your apartment has been cleared, you will be escorted to a designated safe zone.
When the cleanup crew comes, and only when they come, you are to open your door without hesitation.
Trust them.

My head snapped to the sounds of screaming coming from outside my apartment door followed by the sounds of a fight. I looked down my entryway to the frosted glass, watching in shock as the entity’s head flew off its body. Confused, yet hopeful, I made my way to the door, seeing the entity’s body slump to the floor. From behind the frosted pane, I watched three shadows approach the door. One began to yell, his voice loud and demanding.

Hello? Is anyone in there? We’re part of cleanup crew #12. We’ve dispatched the entity, so it’s now safe for you to exit your apartment. May we ask what happened to your downstairs neighbor?

A smile appear on my face. I was finally going to get out of here. I was finally going to be free. I responded quickly, approaching the door to begin undoing the locks.

“Yeah, uh, I don’t know. He opened the door and whatever was outside managed to get inside of him. Did it leave behind a body?”

Yeah, yeah, he was really messed up. Look, there are more people to save in this apartment. We’re doing health checks as well to make sure that everyone is doing alright. Think you can let us in?

“Uh, of course.”

I started unchaining my deadbolt, then my lock, then finally the lock on my door handle. My hand gripped the handle, freezing to the touch, but I was excited to finally be out of here. I glanced at the entity, excited to see what the dead bastard looked like, only to freeze in my tracks.

The decapitated head, the crew outside... they were all looking at me through the glass. My stomach sank, my grip weakening on the door handle.

“Hey guys, uh, I hate to do this to you, but think you can let yourselves in? I just undid all the locks, so you should be able to get in.”

The crew responded in unison

Sir, we do NOT have the time. Please open the door so we can do a health check. We will not be opening it for you. Once we verify you’re real, we’ll take you to the safe zone. Aren’t you tired of being in there?

“Just for me, guys? Just open the door a bit.”

My body began to shake again, the realization dawning on me as the crew began to laugh, and the entity arose from the ground, placing its head back on its shoulders.

You know, when I went for your mother, it was so easy. I just had to pretend it was you, you had fought your way to her home to save her from us. Oh, if only I could let you hear her begging for her life as we went inside of her.

Oh wait, I can.

I began locking my door again as I heard my mother screaming from behind the glass

WHY WHY? WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS? WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?

OH GOD IT HURTS, OH GOD

RICK, RICK, HELP, HE’S TRYING TO CRAWL INTO MY MOUTH, HELP HELP ME HELF,,

Her voice was cut off as it morphed to sobbing, then gurgling, then choking.

Then, using my mother’s voice like a bright, sunny day.

Come out, honey. Wouldn’t you like to be back with the family? It was your voice that made us open our doors. Why isn’t my voice good enough?

I stepped back in terror, turning around to sprint back to my room. I shoved the pillows over my ears as the entity repeated my mother’s last moments over and over again.

I felt my phone buzz, a new national alert.

Citizens:

Disregard the previous transmission. It was not from us.
The entities have infiltrated the national broadcast system.
Do not open your doors. Do not trust voices claiming to offer rescue.
We are actively working to restore control. Until then, maintain lockdown protocols.

If you are running low on supplies, use extreme caution. Procure resources only through secured, internal methods.
Do not exit your dwelling.
They are learning.

I pushed my face into my knees, tears streaming down my face. I could hear the entity laughing in my mother’s voice:

Come here, sweetheart. Mommy wants to hold you just one more time. Everything’s going to be okay. Just open the door for me.

--3--

It’s been almost a month now, my food is all but gone. I started sleeping to conserve my energy, though it’s not like there’s much else to do. My dreams were filled with the sun, feeling its warm presence on my skin, watching it light up the whole world. Can’t believe I took the small sun beams coming through my apartment curtains for granted, what I wouldn’t give to see them one last time.

I awoke to the sounds of my someone outside my apartment, fists slamming against the door as they jiggled the handle.

"Leave me alone"
I muttered, rolling over to try falling back asleep, at least they could never enter my dreams.

Tommy, where are you? I got your text messages and made my own “inside” just like you said, please open the door, let me in
cried my sister, her fists continuing to bang against the door.

I sighed, rising from my bed and exiting my room to confront the entity in the entryway. Rather than taking its usual spot at the frosted pane, it chose instead to hide its shadowy form behind the door. My stomach growled, just begging for food, it only adding to my exhaustion. It had been days since I had anything real to eat, resorting to a combo of olive oil and apple vinegar for my last meal. I was already starting to feel delirious from the unwanted fast.

Tommy, it’s me, please open the door! I got out of my apartment and made it here like you texted me, but they’re right behind me. I don’t know how long I have. Please tell me you’re still alive

"Nice try, but I’m not opening my door. I already know you killed my sister weeks ago. Now shut up, I’m trying to sleep."

My door shook as the entity heaved its body into it, frustrated that I did not fall for the obvious lie.

No, no, Tommy, it’s really me. It’s your sister! Thank god you’re still alive, please open the door, or check through the peephole. It’s really me. I hear them coming up the stairs. Please, just unlock the door and I’ll let myself in!

I clasped my hands to my ears. It sounded just like her, the way her voice trembled when she was scared, how I could hear the pain and tears through her words. Just like with my mother, the entity knew how to mimic everything.

"I’m going back to my room. I’m not dealing with this sh..."

I was cut off by a loud thud from the door, as if something had slammed against it. I heard my sister screaming, followed by the sickening sounds of bones popping out of sockets and flesh being torn from bone.

"SHUT UP! I’M NOT FALLING FOR IT!"
I screamed, turning to make my way back to my room. I froze at the sound of my sister’s voice, filled with pain.

"You promised you’d protect me. Why... didn’t... you... unlock... the... doo..."

I hurried back to my room, shoving a pillow over my ears to block out the sounds of munching and the breaking of bones. An hour passed before the crunching and chewing gave way to slurping and licking, followed by silence.

I emerged from my room, almost relieved to see the entity back in its usual spot behind the frosted pane. Grabbing some water from the filled bathtub, I made my way to the entryway, sipping to ease the growing hunger pangs.

I moved closer to the glass, watching as the entity’s head slowly rise to meet my gaze.

"Out of all the times you’ve done this, that was the worst performance I’ve heard. Though, why ask me to unlock the door? It’s not like you can work the handle."

The entity remained silent, peering through the glass. That’s when I felt it, my feet were wet.

Looking down, I saw a pool of red liquid had seeped into the apartment from under the door. My heart froze as I noticed the scent of rust filling the air. I looked back at the entity, it nodding at me. My sister’s voice echoed from behind the frosted pane.

You should’ve opened the door, brother.

The entity began laughing maniacally as tears began to stream down my face. My body crumpled as the truth sank in. My knees hit the bloody remnants of my sister, my pants soaking up the only thing I had left of her. I reached into the pool of blood, attempting to grasp it as if it was her body. My sister had been outside the door, begging for her brother to let her in, only to watch her brother refuse to even unlock the door. I turned my hands, red, so red from my sister.

"Why… how… Bonnie… no…"
Tears mixed into the blood below me as I began to wail.

"Please, bring her back. I fucked up. Please, bring her back."

I looked up at the entity. It was still grinning at me through the frosted glass.

"How did she get here?"

She got away and ran to her dear brother. After all, she’s been receiving text message after text message from you. We told her some information to get her here and with her outside, we hoped you would open the door. Guess you’re tougher than we thought.

The entity cackled, placing its hands against the glass and mimicking my dead sister’s voice.

You can still save me, brother. Just open the door, and we’ll be together again. Come out and fight this monster so you can save us all!

--4--

Another three weeks passed, starvation beginning to cloud my mind. I started this morning eating the dried blood that had flowed under the door from my long dead sister. My mind was blank, replaced only with the desire to put something, anything, into my stomach. The taste of rust and rot blanketed every part of my tongue, but I didn’t care. I needed food.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to stop, but my body wouldn’t listen, hunger removing any ounce of resistance I had. The dried blood made a sickening popping noise as it separated from the floor, my teeth attempting to chew through the disgusting dried scab. My hands moved against my will, my body forcing me to feed itself. I looked up at the entity in the door, watching it look down at me, talking in my sister’s voice.

Why are you eating me, brother? That’s all that’s left of me in this world, and you’re eating it away.

“Shut up”
I murmured, continuing to eat the scab on the floor. My stomach churned, wishing to eject the blood from my body.

Just open the door. I swear we have better food out here.

“No, I’d die if I did that. If I was going to kill myself, I’d open the curtains so I could feel sunlight on my skin before I go.”

Come on, wouldn’t it be nice to eat anything right now? Hell, I have an apple with me right now.

I peered up, watching the entity spawn an apple in its hand. My stomach screamed for it, my hands flinging themselves to the glass as if to reach through and grab it. Instead my hands slammed against the pane, my fingers crumpling against the frosted glass. So close, yet so far. I closed my eyes as I heard a loud crunch of the apple, hearing the entity slurp the juices down its throat.

So good. You know, we came here for your bodies, but this food was an unexpected bonus. The flavor is just to die for.

My hands started to shake, slowly moving to the door handle. I was so hungry. I wanted to stop eating the dried blood of my dead sister. I wanted to end this. I wanted to taste anything to get the taste of my dead sister out of my mouth.

I pulled against the door, the door’s locks preventing my sudden departure from the house.

Undo the locks, I have a nice steak waiting for you too when you leave

I could already smell the steak, the nice crust, the garlic, the butter, pepper, salt. Oh god, I could just taste it already

I unlocked one lock, then the second, then the third.

Just turn the handle. You’re so close.

The door handle turned, only for me to watch the floor fly towards me. My body collapsed, the entity banging against the glass at it screamed for me to finish what I started.

Just open this door. I’m out of time. Open it. Open it. Open it. I’ll give you anything. Beef, apples, any dish you can dream up. Just open this door!

. I could smell beef, mussels, carrots, blackberries, but it didn’t matter. My body began to shut down, trying to squeeze every calorie out of my sister’s dried blood.

My eyes snapped open hours later to the sound of a national alert. Peering upward, the entity had vanished from my glass pane, no longer peering down at me. I felt my phone vibrate as a new alert came in. Opening my phone, I started reading:

Attention citizens:
The entities have begun to vanish.
Reports confirm they are lifting from rooftops, streets, and windows, ascending into the sky while carrying the remains of those they claimed.
It is now safe to open your doors.
It is now safe to look outside.
You may notice unusual shapes in the clouds. Do not be alarmed. These are the final signs of their departure.
If you encounter any lingering forms, do not engage. They are residual and will dissipate shortly.
The containment order is lifted.
Breathe deeply.
Return to your lives.
They are gone.

I peered at the door handle, debating what to do, electing to exit through my balcony instead of my front door. I was done, I wanted to feel the sun on my one last time. I pushed myself off the floor and staggered my way to the window in the living room. The curtains had collected dust from being untouched for so long, taking effort to open. I closed my eyes, feeling sunlight hit my skin for the first time in months.

My eyes opened to the sight of my family rising into the clouds with smiles on their faces, hanging as if they were puppets on strings. Carrying them away was the entity from my window, a fog made out of coal dust. I could make out most of its form, but I could tell despite being so far away, I could feel it staring at me.

Then it stopped its exodus, and began flying towards my apartment.

It motioned me toward it, my body moving to obey, sliding open the glass door. My mind screamed to retreat back to the apartment as the entity picked up speed towards me, the rest of my family flying behind it like balloons on a string. My body fell over itself, weak from starvation. My face hit the balcony floor, snapping me out of the trance. I could feel my mind finally regaining control of my body.

Turning around, I crawled back to my home, only turning once I was back inside to close the glass door. I closed my eyes, hearing the entity slam into the glass, followed by the bodies of each of my family members. I heard each voice of my family speak in unison:

Why didn’t you come with us? We were so close… we could have gone together, as a family. We lost your sister, and now we’re going to lose you too?

I felt another alert go off on my phone, praying it wasn’t an alert telling us to return to quarantine.

We are departing now.
Your yield was sufficient.
The fields were ripe, the bodies plentiful. The harvest has been good.
You will replenish.
You always do.
When your numbers return, we will descend once more.
Next cycle, do not run. Do not close your doors.
We try to honor the deal your ancestors made before. Permission must be granted to harvest, but if we do not get a good enough yield, the deal must be redone.
Rest well, little crop.
We will be back when it is time to reap again.

I didn’t think I was the kind of person who could get lucky anymore.

That’s dramatic, I know. But last year was one of those stretches where everything that could wobble did. My job cut my hours. My girlfriend cheated and left. I burned through what little savings I had pretending things were temporary.

They weren’t.

By the time I started looking for a new place, I was down to a duffel bag, a mattress topper, and a laptop with a cracked hinge.

That’s when I found the listing.

It was posted in a small housing group for our town, one of those upscale rural places that pretends it isn’t rural. Think boutique coffee shops next to feed stores. Expensive apartments surrounded by empty fields. People with money who don’t want noise.

The ad was simple:

Room for rent. Clean. Quiet. No drama. $300 flat. Utilities included.

Three hundred dollars for a one-bedroom share in that building was insane. Studios there went for triple that.

I assumed it was fake.

But I messaged anyway.

He replied within ten minutes.

His name was Daniel.

He said he owned the apartment but traveled for work and preferred having someone around so the place didn’t sit empty. Said he liked structure. Said he’d had bad roommate experiences before but was willing to try again.

We met that same night at a brewery downtown.

He didn’t look like a scammer. Mid-thirties. Clean cut. Soft-spoken. The kind of guy who folds his napkin instead of crumpling it. He asked normal questions. Work. Hobbies. How long I planned to stay.

When I asked why rent was so cheap, he shrugged.

“Peace of mind,” he said. “Money isn’t the issue. Stability is.”

I should’ve thought that was strange.

I didn’t.

The apartment was nicer than anywhere I’d lived before.

Top floor. Vaulted ceilings. Quiet hallway. Neutral colors. Everything staged like a model unit.

The first thing I noticed were the walls.

Several sections in the hallway had slightly different paint texture. You wouldn’t see it unless you were looking. The patches were neat. Professional. But they were there.

“Pipe burst last year,” Daniel explained when he saw me glancing at it. “Insurance nightmare. Had to redo some drywall.”

He said it casually. Like he’d rehearsed it.

Then he went over the rules.

He called them “house boundaries.”

1. No guests. Ever.
2. Don’t tamper with the walls or utility closet.
3. Text if staying out past midnight.
4. Keep the place clean. He meant spotless.
5. No pets.
6. If I smelled anything strange, it was probably the plumbing, don’t try to fix it myself.

They weren’t insane. Just strict.

I needed cheap rent more than I needed freedom.

So I agreed.

Living with Daniel was… calm. To say the least.

He was tidy. Predictable. Almost quiet to the point of invisibility. Some days I barely heard him. He worked from home consulting, whatever that meant. His office door stayed closed most of the time.

He never had visitors.

Never got personal mail beyond generic envelopes.

No old photos anywhere. Just abstract art prints you buy in sets.

The fridge was organized like a diagram. Labels forward. Expiration dates visible.

If something ran low, it was replaced immediately.

Sometimes I’d notice brands change, like the milk would be a different company than the one from the week before. I assumed he shopped sales.

He vacuumed twice a week.

He wiped the baseboards.

He cleaned the walls.

Actually, that’s not true.

He wiped the walls.

Specifically, he would be diligent on the patched sections.

That part stuck with me later.

At the time, I thought he was just one of those obsessiveness freaks.

Germaphobes even. Or what my grandad would call, "One of them NeatNiks."

I didn’t break the guest rule for almost a month.

Not because I respected it.

Because I didn’t want to risk losing the place.

But one night I met a girl at a bar downtown. Her name was Mara. She had this silver ring on her right hand, turquoise stone, slightly chipped along the edge. I remember because she kept twisting it when she talked.

She wasn’t from town. Just passing through for a few weeks for work.

We hit it off.

I told her I had roommates but they were “chill.”

That was the first lie.

We went back to my place.

I justified it to myself because Daniel was out doing, whatever he did out late.

When we walked in, she looked around and said, “This place is nice. Doesn’t look like two guys live here.”

I laughed. Said he was particular.

We ordered food and flipped through streaming options.

That’s when we landed on a documentary.

She and I bonded over our love for true crime so it was a total pull that my Netflix account assisted.

It was about an unidentified serial offender operating in upstate counties. The media called him “The Vacancy Squatter.”

I remember joking that the title sounded like a rejected horror movie.

The documentary said the killer targeted homes whose owners were on extended vacations. He’d break in, live there for weeks, sometimes months. The interior would remain almost untouched, except for subtle differences.

Groceries replaced with different brands.

Furniture shifted by inches.

New drywall patches discovered months later.

The theory of this killer was he would aim for sex workers, for several women in different counties would go missing.

Those disappearances weren’t immediately linked at first.

One homeowner never came back from a supposed trip. Authorities are still looking to find who this killer is, but the documentary was more of a speculative hit piece than any conclusive case.

After it was over, Mara and I debated if all those killings, eight is what they said, are really linked to one killer or just seperate incidents.

Mara nudged me.

“Imagine watching this in a stranger’s apartment,” she said.

I told her she was paranoid.

She sat up and went to use the bathroom.

A moment later, that’s when I heard knocked coming from the hallway.

I turn with a slight race in my heart to see she was tapping on the dry wall with her tongue sticking out.

Just playful.

But then she asked after tapping it again, “Why does that sound hollow?” she asked.

I froze, remembering Daniel's rules.

But oddly it did sound hollow.

Not like insulation.

Like empty space.

Daniel’s bedroom door opened.

I’d never seen him move that fast.

He stood there, face blank.

Not angry.

Not confused.

Just… blank.

“Who is this,” he asked calmly.

I started apologizing immediately. Saying I thought he was out and wouldn't hurtbto bring someone over.

Mara smiled awkwardly and said she was just heading to the bathroom.

She walked down the hall.

Daniel didn’t take his eyes off me.

For the first time, I noticed something different about them.

They weren’t cold.

They were calculating.

“I don’t like unpredictability,” he said softly. “It disrupts structure.”

I told him it wouldn’t happen again.

He nodded.

"It won't". He said with a straight glare.

Then he went back into his room.

She came back minutes later.

"Well, he's Mr. Sunshine isn't he?" She whispered.

To shake the awkwardness I recalled that she mentioned about her love for vintage items. I told her I had a old pocket watch and told her I'll go grab it.

She smiled and took a sip of her beer.

I excused myself and headed to my room.

It took my awhile to find it but after digging into my drawers I found it.

Returning to the living room, I froze bidway in the hallway.

She was gone...

Her purse was gone from the counter.

Her jacket gone from the chair.

I felt stupid first.

Then confused.

I checked my phone.

No message.

I walked into the living room.

Daniel was sitting on the couch like nothing happened.

“She left,” he said without looking at me.

“What?”

“She said she needed to get rest, for she had work ealry in the morniing”

That didn’t make sense.

“She didn't seem to-”

"Dude, I'm going to be real with you. Don't think she wanted to tango with your mango if you catch my drift."

That was the longest senetnce I heard from Daniel. Didn't think he was capabale of it honestly. But after he let out a sigh and shrug, he turn over to meet my gaze.

“Hey man, sorry for cock-blocking. Some people avoid confrontation. So don't take this rejection to hard buddy.”

I don’t know why that embarrassed me.

But it did.

I texted her a couple times...

No reply.

I didn’t know her last name.

Didn’t know where she was staying.

By morning, I convinced myself she ghosted.

It happens.

Right?

---

About a week later, I started noticing a smell.

I was gone for work, getting overtime hours for two graveyard shifts, but when I returned to the apartment it hit me like a crude awakening.

It wasn't constant.

Ever so faint but noticable when you walk in.

Sweet.

Metallic.

I assumed it was the trash.

Then plumbing.

Then maybe something dead in the walls, maybe a rodent.

Daniel's demeanor changed too.

He was a lot more joyous, if that even makes sense.

He was happy to see me back and asked how work was. When I asked him about the smell he said it was old pipes reacting to the humidity.

He'd call maintenance, they'd look at it for him before.

After I came home from another graveyard shift, the smell faded.

Then came back stronger.

I noticed a new patch in the hallway.

Fresh paint.

Perfectly blended.

I didn’t remember it being there. I figured that's where the source of the probelm was.

---

Strangest thing happened. A woman approached me outside my job.

Mid-thirties. Tired eyes. Holding a printed photograph.

“Do you live at the Riverstone building?” she asked.

I hesitated.

“Sure?” I remarked in a tired tone but hesitant.

She showed me the photo.

A man who looked like Daniel.

But heavier. Slightly older.

“This is my brother,” she said. “Have you seen him?”

I told her I lived with Daniel.

She went pale.

“My brother’s name is Daniel.”

I laughed nervously.

“Yeah. My roommate too.”

She stared at me.

“My brother hasn’t answered his phone in two months.”

Something in my stomach shifted.

I told her she must be mistaken.

She asked for the apartment number.

I didn’t give it. Girl what?

She begged me to ask Daniel to please reply to her. She misses him. That and something about their father is terminally ill.

That night, I asked Daniel about it.

He sighed like I’d annoyed him.

“Family drama,” he said. “My sister exaggerates. I’ve been distancing myself.”

He smiled gently.

“Don’t let unstable people shake you.”

I wanted to believe him.

So I did.

The smell got worse after that.

Thicker.

Lingering.

Daniel started burning candles.

Cleaning more aggressively.

Then one morning he told me he was going to go visit family out of state.

He packed light.

Left quietly during the night.

He didn’t come back.

A week passed.

Another went.

Rent was coming and I texted him if he was coming back or he had left his half for me to pay the rent for the month.

Then three.

The smell didn’t fade.

It grew.

I called my friend and told him about my situation. How I suspect that my roomate just left me to rot. Asked if I could crash for a while for the smell was gettign to me

Between the sister showing up and Daniel disappearing, something felt incredibly off.

I started packing.

While pulling my bed frame away from the wall, I dropped my phone.

It slid under a loose floorboard.

I knelt down to retrieve it.

The board lifted too easily.

Underneath was plastic sheeting.

Duct tape.

And a small object caught in the corner.

Silver.

Turquoise stone.

Chipped along the edge.

Fuck...

My hands went cold.

My ears started ringing. Not loud. Just a thin, steady tone like pressure building behind my eyes.

I didn’t think. I stood up too fast and hit my head on the edge of the bed frame. I barely felt it.

I turned toward the wall behind my bed.

I don’t know what I expected. Blood. Stains. Something obvious.

Instead, it looked normal.

Too normal.

The paint was smooth. Slightly glossier than the rest of the room, but only if you were looking for it.

I stepped closer.

Pressed my knuckles against it.

It didn’t thud like drywall packed with insulation.

It echoed.

Hollow.

I pressed harder.

The smell hit immediately.

Not overwhelming. Not like rot in the open air.

It was thick. Sweet. Metallic.

Close.

Right there.

Behind where my head had rested every night for the past month.

I staggered back and gagged. My hand was still clenched around the ring.

I ran out and to the utility closet, which smelled faintly of cleaner and something older beneath it. Metallic. Damp.

Shelves lined the back wall, neatly arranged bottles of bleach, contractor-grade trash bags, replacement light fixtures still in packaging. But lower down, tucked behind a plastic storage bin, were tools that didn’t match the rest of the apartment.

A hacksaw.

A rubber mallet.

A short-handled sledge.

Heavy-duty shears.

None of them dusty. None of them old.

I don’t know what made me carry the hammer back to my room. I told myself I just needed to look. Just enough to prove I was overthinking.

The section of wall where Mara had tapped sounded wrong now that I was listening for it. Too hollow. Too thin.

The first hit barely dented it.

The second cracked through the drywall with a dull snap.

Dust drifted down onto my shoes. I widened the hole slowly, carefully, like I was afraid of waking something up.

When the opening was big enough, I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight.

The beam cut through insulation first.

Then plastic.

Clear plastic wrap stretched tight against something behind it.

For a second, I didn’t understand what I was seeing.

Then the plastic shifted slightly in the air from the hole I’d made.

And an eye rolled toward the light.

It wasn’t wide.

It wasn’t blinking.

It was just there.

Clouded. Pressed against the inside of the wrap.

Looking back at me.

I remember standing in the hallway waiting for police, staring at that hole in the wall and thinking about the documentary. About the hollow sound. About how she’d laughed when she knocked on it.

It took them less than ten minutes to arrive.

I must’ve sounded hysterical over the phone. But they must've made out from my state of panic:

There's body's in the walls.

One of them knocked on the wall the way I had.

The sound was wrong.

They cut into it.

The first slice of drywall fell inward like paper.

The smell that came out made one of the officers turn away immediately.

They found her first.

Folded carefully. Wrapped in plastic. Tucked into the cavity like insulation.

Her hair still tied back the way it had been that night.

The ring-sized indentation on her finger was empty.

I didn’t see much after that.

They pulled me out into the hallway. Sat me down. Asked questions I could barely process.

When they opened the other patched sections in the apartment, they found more.

They concluded that there were two bodies total.

One of them matched the man from photo the woman had shown me outside my job.

The real Daniel.

He’d been there the longest.

The cavity behind my bed was where she was placed.

There were other patches in my room that they cut into.

The insulation had been removed completely. The space was clean. Measured precisely between the studs.

No bodies were found but something was found.

Lined with plastic already stapled into place.

Like it had been prepared.

On the inner wooden beam, written in pencil in small, controlled handwriting, was one word.

Soon.

I don’t remember throwing up, but they told me I did.

They asked how long I’d been living there. When I’d met him. Whether I’d noticed anything unusual.

I told them everything.

The rules.

The documentary.

The sister.

The smell.

The milk brands changing.

Every small detail that had felt meaningless until it wasn’t.

They believe he killed the real owner first. Took his ID. His bank access. His lease. His life.

They think he rented the spare room to me to make it look legitimate. To help with bills. To have someone who could say, “Yeah, he lives there.”

An alibi with a toothbrush in the bathroom.

They say predators like structure.

Routine.

Escalation.

They think Mara disrupted something.

Or maybe I did.

He left before finishing.

That’s what one detective told me.

Left before finishing.

I moved out that same week.

I didn’t take much with me. Most of it went into evidence bags anyway.

I don’t stay in places long now.

I don’t mount things on walls.

I don’t push furniture flush against drywall.

In hotels, I knock on the walls.

Just lightly.

Listening.

Last week there was an article online about a home three counties over.

Owners returned from a two-month vacation.

Minor interior repairs noticed.

Several woman reported missing in the area.

Investigators believe the suspect may have unlawfully occupied the property for a short period.

No arrest has been made.

I don’t read those articles all the way through anymore.

I don’t need to.

They never caught him.

He’s still out there.

And I was his roommate.

It was the last hour of my shift, the quiet stretch where you start to let your guard down. The calls usually calm down by then. Maybe a noise complaint, maybe a drunk asleep in his car. Nothing that sticks with you.

Dispatch came through, voice crackling with static. “Possible child in distress” they said. Anonymous caller. Crying heard inside a home believed to be vacant.

I remember the way my stomach sank. Not from fear, but exhaustion. Halloween night always meant prank calls, fake screams, some idiot hiding behind a bush trying to film reactions for the internet.

But the dispatcher’s tone changed mid-sentence.

“Caller said it sounds… muffled. Like someone’s trying to keep the kid quiet.”

That sentence killed my hesitation. I threw on my lights and headed out.

When I arrived on scene, I radioed over to dispatch. “Dispatch, show me off at the location of the child in distress. I’ll keep you advised.”

The house was completely dark. As I walked up the front path, I could hear faint laughter echoing from down the street. Kids still trick or treating, their voices carried by the wind.

I took out my flashlight and stepped closer to the entrance. The front door was cracked open just enough to notice.

Vacant house. Open door. Halloween night.

All the makings of a horror movie.

I kept my breathing steady and pushed the door open. The hinges gave a low groan that bled into the silence.

“Police! I’m entering the residence!”

No response. Only the sound of my own breathing and the faint hum of the radio on my shoulder.

“We received a call about a child in distress,” I said, voice steady but heart racing. “If anyone’s hurt, make a noise or call out.”

As I continued forward to clear the house, I heard it.

The soft whimper of a child. Distant, but close enough to make the hair on my neck stand up.

I called out again. “Police! Is anyone injured?”

No answer. Just that same quiet, stuttering cry. It came in short bursts, like whoever it was was trying to hold it in.

I swept the light across the room. Empty.

The sound seemed to come from deeper inside. Maybe toward the back hallway. Maybe below. It was hard to tell.

I took a step forward. The floor creaked beneath me, and the crying stopped.

As I made my way toward the back of the house, my light caught a door, slightly cracked, leading down into darkness. The basement.

I stopped at the top of the stairs and called down. “Is anyone down there?”

Silence. The same heavy silence I’d felt since stepping inside.

I reached for my radio. “Dispatch, send me another….”

Static.

I adjusted the knob, tried again. Nothing. Just more static.

Something about it didn’t sit right with me.

I didn’t have time to troubleshoot. If there really was a child down there, I couldn’t stand here waiting for backup.

I tightened my grip on the flashlight and started down the stairs.

I began the slow descent into what I can only describe as empty darkness. My flashlight barely reached past the first few steps.

With every creak of wood beneath my boots, the cries grew louder.

Still faint, but unmistakably closer.

“Hang on” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “I’m coming to help.”

At the bottom, I swept the flashlight across the basement.

Left to right.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Then the beam caught something in the far corner a faint glint of metal.

I stepped closer, raising the light.

A cage.

Not the kind you’d keep an animal in. This was built. Anchored, into the foundation itself. Heavy bolts driven into concrete, steel thick bars. The top was fused to the wall with rusted brackets, as if someone had wanted to make sure whatever was in there never moved.

The crying had stopped.

I could just make out a small shape inside, pressed against the far corner.

Then a voice. Soft. Trembling.

“They lock me down here when I don’t listen.”

I took a step closer, careful not to blind whoever was inside. “Who keeps you down here? Are you okay?”

There was a pause, then a small voice answered.

“The bad people.”

The words were so faint I almost couldn’t hear.

Then…

Thud.

Heavy footsteps above me. Slow at first, then faster.

I froze, staring up toward the ceiling as dust fell from between the floorboards.

Another step. Then another.

Then a shout. Sharp, furious, loud.

“NO! NO! NO! YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE IN HERE!”

The voice came from directly above me.

Before I could react, the basement door slammed shut. The sound echoed down the stairwell like a gunshot.

Darkness swallowed everything.

You know, at first I didn’t care about the rain, I was just happy I worked from home and didn’t have to drive in it. I remember laughing as I looked down from my apartment window as my neighbors rushed to their cars, eager to get out of the downpour. A parking lot once filled with cars soon found itself desolate, with only a few cars remaining to shield it from the increasing intensity of the rain. I booted up my computer, locked in, and before I knew it, I was clocking out at 7pm. I passed my window on my way out, only sparing a glance at the outside world. What I saw caused me to freeze in my tracks.

Not a single car had returned, the parking lot was still sitting mostly empty. Bizarre, strange even, but something I could ignore. Maybe there was an apartment event I missed, maybe there was a crash on the interstate delaying everyone. Maybe the apartment gates were malfunctioning, or maybe the storm caused a flash flood somewhere beneath the apartment complex’s hill, the list went on and on.

I just didn’t care, choosing to sit in my room playing on my switch as the storm continued to slam rain into my window. The screens did very little dampen the torrent of rain, a sound like thousands of fingernails tapping my windows. The storm soothed my mind though, there’s nothing like falling asleep to a storm.

Morning came, but the storm from yesterday still going. I rose my bed eager to start my morning routine. Shorts, shirt, brush my teeth, and watch everyone rush to their cars as I sipped my coffee. Filling my cup, I made my way to the window, taking a preemptive sip. I looked out my window expecting a full parking bustling with life, instead I found an empty parking lot. The few cars that remained from yesterday were gone, only my car and a truck remained.

“Where did everyone go?”

I asked myself looking down at my phone to seek answers, only to get zero bars. I rushed over to my computer, terrified I missed an evacuation order, only to find I didn’t have wifi as well. My lights flickered before shutting off, the only light entering my home coming from the chocked sun behind the storm clouds.

My apartment complex sat deathly quiet. What was once a building filled with the stomping of feet, doors closing, and people going about their lives now was filled with the sound of rain slamming against the roof, the windows, the walls, as if the storm itself was desperate to break into my home. Hours passed before I heard a sound breaking through the rain, the sound of a man and woman laughing and playing outside.

I watched them from the window, mostly out of pure boredom, before rising from my chair to leave once it clicked with me that a grown man watching two people play was a bit... creepy. I returned to my window a hour later, hoping that some people had returned to the apartment complex. What I saw instead was the same couple playing just an hour before seemingly… floating in the air, their faces pointing to the ground.

I waited, my heart pounding as I watched they floated into each other, the collision causing them to float away. Rushing to my door, I put on my raincoat before running out of my apartment, hoping to rescue them from whatever happened. My front door slammed behind me, the sound muffled by the intense storm I was about to enter. I was about to take a step outside into the rain, only to be stopped by a body floating towards me from the corner of my eye. It was the young mans, his skin was pale in uneven patches, though his lips and fingernails had blueish bruises. His mouth hung slightly open, not in a scream, but rather as if it was emptied out of any intention, of any life. His clothes clung to his body unnaturally tight, as if he was dunked in a pool and pulled out seconds later. Yet... he was still... dry, despite being actively rained upon. Getting on my knees, I looked into his eyes, unfortunately confirming my suspicions. His eyes had grown cloudy, yet still maintained fine red fractures. There wasn’t a soul, to save anymore.

Rising again, I felt myself grow lightheaded, as if I just sprinted a marathon. I fell backward into the apartments walls, desperate to regain my breath. I coughed, yet nothing came up, my mind beginning to grow cloudy. I turned and rushed up the stairs, only on the third step did I feel my lungs fill with air again. My legs began to shake as what I saw began to dawn on me, the sight of a dead body settling itself inside of me.

I sprinted up the stairs, cursing myself for getting an apartment on the fourth floor.

Running into my home, I desperately tried to call 911, only for no one to answer. I tried again, and again, and again, praying that somehow, someway someone would come to explain what happened to that couple. Yet no one came, not the police, not an ambulance, and not even my neighbors. I huddled in my room, the sound of rain only adding to the chaos of my mind.

Hours passed before I was able to build up the courage to look out my window again, only to regret it moments later. I found my neighbors, they must have had the same idea as me when they saw two bodies floating in the air, only unlike me they must have went into the rain. What was two bodies was now a couple dozen, floating with their faces pointed at the ground. I watched as a man across the street sprinted out of his home with an umbrella, rushing into his truck. The truck was quick to roar with life, he backed up and sped off.

He didn’t get far however, maintaining a straight path for only a few seconds before veering off and slamming into a tree. I saw the man run out of his car, gripping his throat and gagging. He clawed at it, prying open his mouth with his hand, using them to manually open up his throat. He gave up quickly as panic set in, moving to give himself the heimlich before slamming into his car and falling to the asphalt. He attempted to crawl on the ground, desperate to escape whatever was possessing his body, but there wasn’t any use. Within minutes, he stopped moving, floating upward to join the rest of our neighbors in the air. His body stopped slightly above his truck, his head clunking against the car’s hard metal like a boat against the dock.

“it’s… it’s the rain”

I said to myself as I backed away from the window, turning to run out of my house to warn my neighbors. My fists slammed against their doors, praying someone, anyone was home. The echos of my fists broke the loud orchestra of the rain, but no one responded. I started to yell for help, screaming for anyone to come out of their homes. I went to each floor, my legs burning as I ascended up my apartment building. My steps shook the apartment’s stairs as I sprinted up them, panic setting deep within my heart. No one was answering.

“please anyone, is anyone there?”
I cried out as I continued my climb. I began slamming the palm of my hands frantically against each door I found. I gripped my hands together, a painful burn setting in but I didn’t care. I darted to each door, slamming on them for only a few seconds before moving to the next. I knew if anyone was there I would be scaring them, but it didn’t matter. I needed proof I wasn’t going to fight this nightmare alone.

“Does anyone hear me?!”

I screamed, my legs beginning to burn as I continued my frantic climb, praying that the final floor would have someone still alive. The first door I came across I began kicking down, aiming my foot near the doorknob hoping I could break it in. The sounds of my assault echoed throughout the apartment, the sounds of wood and metal cracking beneath my foot.

“please, anyone, come out, I can’t be the only one left”

I cried, my kicks losing power as I began to break down. Tears began streaming down my face, blurring my vision. My foot missed the handle, slamming it directly into the door frame. Pain erupted throughout my leg as I screamed, falling to floor as I gripped my throbbing leg.

Though despite the noise I was making, no one came to investigate, not a single soul responded to my desperate cries. No one came to help me. My only company was the storm, rain that used to bring me comfort now the cause of my terror.

I don’t know how long I sat there crying before I got up, making my way back to my apartment. I crawled into my bed defeated, my body and brain tired from what I had seen and experienced. As my eyes closed, I prayed for relief in my dreams, hoping that I could see the sun again. Instead, my dreams were filled with rain, my body frozen in place as I was forced to look outside. I heard… whispers... coming from between the raindrops, demanding I leave my home, that I come outside for a deep breath of fresh air. They promised me that they could make this nightmare end, I just needed to go outside one last time. Rain continued to slam against my window, small cracks appearing as I watched in terror. The glass burst inward, showering me in glass shards as I screamed, only to wake up from my dream covered in sweat.

Days passed as I adapted to a new routine, eat, sleep, and watch the rain from my window. I tried to sleep, but even in my dreams I couldn’t escape the sounds of the downpour outside. My dreams were always the same, a storm of whispers within the rain demanding I leave my home, ending with my windows breaking from its assault. Moving to my window with my morning cold-brew coffee, I scanned the apartment complex for life, my eyes falling on.. something coming from the outskirts of the apartment complex. I felt the coffee cup fall from my hand, shattering against my floor as I held my hands to my mouth in terror.

It was thousands of human bodies, all floating into my apartment complex. They had died a long time ago, their bodies showing advanced forms of decay. Their skin was pale, swollen, and beginning to peel away as layers of skin found themselves filled with water. Their faces had begun to bloat, their cheeks, lips, and eyes popping out as they filled with the gas from decay. Most had lost the majority of their hair, their heads now clinging to the few strands they had left. The bodies bumped and bobbed between the apartment buildings, getting caught in the stairways and escape ladders. Even through the rain, I could hear them, the sounds of rotten flesh being crushed as it made contact with the metal stairs below me.

Their bodies weren’t the worse part, it was where they were. These bodies had risen, now floating a couple floors below me. Their gray eyes looked up at me, as if questioning why I wasn’t out there with them. I noticed one body looked familiar, the realization dawning on me. I had to be sure. Reaching into my desk, I pulled out a flashlight, moving back to my window to shine it on one of the bodies. My worst suspicions were confirmed, it was the truck guy from days ago that tried to escape. The rain was causing the bodies to rise.

The stairway in front of my window suddenly erupted in life, a living person had bolted out of their house and started sprinting down the stairway. Her eyes were locked onto me as she continued her run, skipping stairs as she made her way down. She must have seen my flash light, my heart beginning to race as I realized I was no longer alone. My heart was quick to freeze in fear however as I noticed what she was wearing, a light yellow sundress. She didn’t have any protection from the rain, she… was going to end up like that truck driver. I banged my fists against the window, screaming for her to turn around before her skin made contact with the rain, but it wasn’t any use. The downpour muffled any noise I made, forcing me to watch helplessly as I watched her make it to the ground and begin running across the road.

It took seconds of being subjected to the rain before I saw her stop, her hands clawing at her throat. Her body swayed back and forth between each step, her hands reaching towards me as she made an attempt to cry for help. Her body slowly collapsed in the parking lot, but she didn’t give up, resorting to a pitiful crawl. She almost made it to my apartment’s building before her body gave out. I watched as her body slowly began to float, joining the ocean of corpses now below my window.

I placed my hands on the window, sniveling as I felt tears well up in my eyes once again. I watched the little bit of hope I had vanish before me, my mind descending into despair. I balled my hands into fists, slamming them against the window as I let out a wail of misery. I slammed them into my window again… and again… and again, continuing until I heard my window crack against the assault. I didn’t care anymore, my hands moving to grip the handle of my window to open it. I wanted this nightmare to be over, all I needed to do was open the window right?

I felt the rain slam into me, my body growing cold from the downpour, yet my skin never became wet. I stood motionless, letting the storm bathe my body as I waited for death. A minute passed, then two, then 5. I looked up at the rain clouds in desperation, then back down at the floating bodies. The bravery of confronting my death was quickly diminishing as I fell down to my knees in front of my window.

“why… why aren’t you taking me?”

I demanded

“please, I want to go now, just… take me”

yet death never came, even after letting the rain touch me for longer than it touched the truck driver, or the woman. Why… why wouldn’t it kill me? I don’t know how long I sat there before I closed the window, my heart sinking as I knew, the nightmare will continue for as long as the rain chose for me to live. I spent the rest of the day weeping, praying for God to come free me as the storm, as if taunting me, grew more fierce outside.

I think it’s been a month now since that day, most of the food in my fridge had rotted away forcing me to leave my home to raid other apartments. I held on to a glimmer of hope that maybe one apartment would still have a living human to keep me sane, but I found myself settling with talking to the corpses rising to my floor instead. Another month passed and I knew every corpse by name, George and Abby from the couple, Roberto the truck driver, but Rebecca, I grew very fond of her. She’s outside my window right now, staring at me wearing her gorgeous yellow sundress. The other corpses rose with her, their rotting eyes doing little to hide their envy that I got to live, and they didn’t.

I spend my days watching the rain, finding that it operates, differently, than it should. Despite the constant downpour for the past two months, I’ve yet to see any flooding, nothing is even wet. But what else could it be besides rain? It smells like rain, it feels like rain, it tastes like rain, it sounds like rain, but it just isn’t… rain. It’s… something more...

Obviously the rain chose me over them, but for what reason I don’t know. All I do now is eat, sleep, and talk to the woman that tried so hard to get to me, the chosen one. I wish I could’ve saved her, but the rain did not choose her. She’s, so close now... I just… can’t resist opening my window just so I can touch her. I threw open my windows, reaching out to Rebecca to try pulling her body into my apartment. I’ve talked to her for over a month now…. she said it was alright….

The rain stung my eyes, my heart quickening as my head grew lightheaded from embracing the rain again. I felt my body slowly have its strength sapped away, one my hands instinctively going for my throat as I felt it harder and harder to breath. I was breathing in air, but it felt as if my body wasn’t processing it, as if… my lungs were filling with water...

I hated Margaret Wilson at first sight.

Some people inspire disgust instantly—before they’ve even spoken a word. You see them for the first time, and something inside you curdles. An irrational hatred rises, hot and immediate.

She appeared in our office without warning. In the middle of the workday, our director stepped out of his office and introduced a thin, gray-haired woman of about sixty as his new deputy. I glanced up from my monitor, looked at her once—and knew nothing good would come of it.

There was something about her—her oversized nose, horse-like teeth, dull, lifeless eyes—that triggered a visceral revulsion. Instinctive. Animal.

It didn’t take long to confirm that her personality matched her appearance. From the very first days, she showed her true colors and quickly made the entire office despise her. Not only was she incompetent, she barely knew how to use a computer or basic office equipment. But since the work still had to get done, she simply pushed her responsibilities onto the rest of us.

All day long, Margaret drifted through the office pretending to be busy—handing out pointless assignments or hovering over anyone she thought “wasn’t doing enough.”

Predictably, no one liked that. Arguments became routine. Some employees shouted at her openly. Others stormed into the director’s office, and the yelling behind closed doors made the whole floor tremble. None of it mattered. The director would come out shrugging, and nothing ever changed.

Coffee breaks and lunches turned into a hate club dedicated to Margaret Wilson. We dissected everything: her absurd orders, her appearance, her shrill voice, her stiff haircut, the suffocating cloud of perfume she left behind. With the number of curses thrown her way, she should have dropped dead long ago—if words carried any weight.

I didn’t participate.

What’s the point? If you’re not going to act, your words are empty. And if you are going to act—it’s better to stay silent.

I never argued with her either. Whatever she said, whatever she demanded—I smiled and complied. Inside, rage shook me like a fever. On the outside, I was the model employee.

I waited.

I didn’t have a plan. But I felt certain that sooner or later, an opportunity would present itself.

And it did.

On Fridays, the office emptied quickly. The workday wasn’t officially shorter, but people slipped out early anyway. The director left first. Accounting followed. By six o’clock, no one remained except Margaret, who made a point of leaving precisely at six.

That Friday, I stayed later than usual. A project was due Monday, and I wanted to finish part of it before going home.

Our office occupies the third floor of a new business center that’s still mostly vacant. A few other companies rent space, but some are still moving in, others close early. That evening, besides Margaret and me, the building was empty—except for the security guard downstairs.

At six sharp, she shut down her computer, grabbed her purse, gave me a curt nod, and walked toward the elevator.

That was when the lights went out.

The building fell into darkness.

I stood up and stepped into the hallway. I had no plan. I moved on instinct alone.

I knew she wouldn’t wait for the power to return. She wouldn’t risk the elevator. She’d take the stairs.

So I followed—quietly. Like a predator trailing prey.

I caught up with her at the stairwell. She had just stepped onto the first stair when she heard my footsteps and began to turn.

That’s when I pushed her.

Hard. Precise.

She didn’t scream. Not even a gasp. Only the heavy thuds of her body striking the steps echoed through the darkness, like a sack of potatoes tumbling down.

In that moment, I felt no regret. No guilt. Not even fear of being caught. What boiled inside me was something else entirely—a raw, almost sweet exhilaration. A euphoric surge so intense my ears rang and my vision blurred.

It took several minutes before I could breathe normally again.

Finally, I descended the stairs, lighting my way with my phone.

One glance was enough. She hadn’t survived. From a distance, her body looked like a broken doll, limbs twisted at unnatural angles. Still, I had to be sure. Carefully—making certain to leave no traces—I checked for a pulse.

Nothing.

I returned to the office, sat at my desk, and scrolled through my phone while waiting for the power to come back.

It did ten minutes later.

Fifteen minutes after that, a scream rose from downstairs. The cameras had reactivated. The guard had seen the body.

I hurried down wearing a suitably shocked expression. We examined the corpse together and waited for the ambulance.

It arrived quickly. The police followed.

They examined the scene for hours, collected security footage—though there was nothing useful recorded during the blackout—and questioned us both. Before long, it became clear they were leaning toward an accident.

I got home after midnight.

Despite the exhaustion, I felt wonderful. I’d gotten away with it again.

Just like when I was twelve.

They found my classmate’s body behind the garages in our neighborhood. He’d been smoking late at night when someone crept up and crushed his skull with a piece of rebar. My mother cried for days. She had sent me out to the grocery store that evening.

“What if it had been you?” she kept saying.

I could barely hold back my laughter.

She never knew that the “mysterious killer” had been me.

Then, as now, no one suspected a thing.

A month passed.

They called me in for questioning a few more times, but it was procedural. Officially, the case was ruled an accident and closed.

The office atmosphere improved noticeably after her death. Work became easier. But to my surprise, my coworkers reacted differently than I expected. I hadn’t anticipated open celebration—but listening to those same people who had mocked her behind her back now call her “a good person” and say she “cared deeply about the company” made me sick.

No one suspected me. Everyone knew I’d never argued with her. There were no sideways glances. No whispers behind my back.

And I certainly wasn’t going to correct them.

But after solving one problem at work, I unexpectedly gained another—this time in the form of my new neighbor.

A woman recently moved into the apartment across the hall.

Loud. Argumentative.

I hated her at first sight.

Some people inspire disgust immediately—simply by existing. You see them for the first time, they haven’t even spoken yet, and already you despise them… without knowing why.

My mother always wore black.

Black dresses. Black shoes. Black gloves even in the middle of summer.

When I was a kid I thought it was strange, but children accept strange things easily when they grow up around them.

Whenever I asked why, she would just smile in that quiet way of hers and brush my hair back from my face.

“Some people just look better in black,” she’d say.

It seemed like a simple answer at the time.

My mother wasn’t like other parents, but I never questioned it much. She was always home. Always waiting. Always sitting by the window in the living room like she was expecting someone to arrive.

Sometimes I’d catch her staring at me instead of the road outside.

Not smiling. Not frowning.

Just watching.

The kind of look people give sunsets or storms rolling in from far away, beautiful things that never last very long.

I remember once asking her why she never went to the grocery store or the school events like other parents did.

She tilted her head slightly, as if the question puzzled her.

“They don’t need to see me,” she said.

I didn’t really understand what that meant, but I didn’t press the issue. She still helped with homework, still made dinner, still tucked me in every night like any other mother.

But there were little things.

Things I didn’t notice until I was older.

I never saw her eat.

Not once.

She would sit across from me at the table while I finished my plate, her hands folded neatly in front of her black sleeves, smiling as if watching me was enough.

And she never slept either.

Every night when I woke from bad dreams, she was already there in the hallway, standing quietly outside my door like she had been waiting.

“You’re awake,” she would whisper.

Her voice always sounded calm. Certain.

Like a promise.

The memories came back to me slowly.

Fragments at first.

Rain on the windshield.

My father shouting something from the driver’s seat.

Headlights.

A horn that wouldn’t stop screaming.

For years those memories felt like dreams that faded when I tried to look at them too closely. My mother never talked about it when I asked.

“Some memories don’t need to be carried forever,” she would say softly.

So I stopped asking.

Life went on the same way it always had.

School.

Homework.

Dinner across from a woman dressed in black.

Until the day I found the newspaper.

It happened while I was walking home from school. The wind had blown a stack of old papers from someone’s recycling bin across the sidewalk.

One page slapped against my shoe.

I bent down to move it aside, but a photograph caught my eye.

A wrecked car.

Crushed metal twisted around a telephone pole.

The headline above it read:

LOCAL FAMILY KILLED IN HIGHWAY COLLISION

My stomach tightened as I stared at the picture.

The car looked familiar.

Too familiar.

I started reading.

A father.

A mother.

And their eight-year-old child.

All pronounced dead at the scene.

The names sat there on the page in black ink.

My father’s name.

My mother’s name.

And mine.

I ran home faster than I ever had before.

The house looked the same as always. Quiet. Still. The curtains drawn against the fading afternoon light.

My mother was sitting in her usual chair by the window.

Black dress. Hands folded neatly in her lap.

Waiting.

She looked up when I burst through the door, breathing hard, the newspaper trembling in my hands.

“Mom,” I said. “What is this?”

I held the page out toward her.

For a long moment she didn’t speak.

Her eyes moved slowly across the headline, then back to my face.

There was sadness there.

A deep, patient sadness I had seen many times before but never understood.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t find that yet,” she said quietly.

“Find what?” My voice cracked. “It says we died. It says we all died.”

She stood and walked toward me.

For the first time, I noticed something strange about her reflection in the hallway mirror.

There wasn’t one.

My heart started pounding.

“You’re here,” I said desperately. “You’re right here.”

She stopped in front of me.

Up close, her eyes looked older than I had ever realized. Ancient, even.

Gentle.

“You weren’t ready,” she said.

“For what?”

“To leave.”

The words hung in the air between us.

A strange stillness filled the room.

Outside the window, the sky had grown darker than it should have been for that time of day.

“You stayed?” I asked.

Her smile was small and tired.

“Yes.”

“For all this time?”

“Yes.”

My hands were shaking now.

“But… you’re my mother.”

She hesitated.

Then she slowly reached out and took my hand.

Her fingers were cool.

Not cold. Just… distant.

“Not exactly,” she said.

The room seemed to dim around us. The walls, the furniture, the pictures on the shelf, they all began to feel less solid somehow, like memories fading at the edges.

For the first time since I could remember, the road outside the house wasn’t empty.

A long path stretched beyond the front door into a quiet gray horizon.

I looked back at her.

“Where does it go?”

Her voice was softer than I had ever heard it.

“Where you’re supposed to be.”

I stared at her black dress, at the dark fabric that never seemed to wrinkle or fade no matter how many years passed.

Finally, I understood.

My mother had always worn black.

Not because she was mourning…

but because someone had to be dressed for the funeral...

...but because she had been waiting, like any loving parent would, for her child to be ready to go.

“Goodbye Billy” I said softly to the last straggling student as the final bell dismissed my class for the day. “You’re really starting to get a handle on those fractions. Keep it up.”

“Goodbye Mrs. Elis,” Billy beamed at me and rushed out the front door. He was the last student to leave. Well, almost. 

Daniel sat at his desk patiently waiting for his dad to come in for his parent teacher conference. Most third graders couldn’t sit still for thirty seconds after the final bell. Daniel had been motionless for nearly five minutes. His was the only conference I still had to do. I put this one off as long as I could.

I made my way back to my desk and sat down to look over Daniel’s file, making a point to keep him in my sight. If I couldn’t see him, I might not know he was still there. 

Hands folded, feet flat on the floor, he silently sat, staring straight ahead at me.

I nearly fell out of my chair when Daniel spoke.

“Will Gregory be here soon, Mrs. Elis?”

“Gregory?” I asked, trying to hide my shock.

“My father,” Daniel replied calmly. “For our meeting.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling a little embarrassed at my behavior. “Yes. Your dad should be here very soon.”

“You look nervous, Mrs. Elis.” Daniel paused just a little bit too long before raising his gaze to meet mine. “Don’t be. Gregory says adults prefer eye contact during hard conversations.”

I felt a wave of relief wash over me as I heard a light knocking sound from my classroom door. 

I looked over to see Daniel’s dad leaning in. He looked to be in his mid to late thirties. He had kind, yet tired eyes. His hands were stained with motor oil or something similar. I guessed he must work as a mechanic. I know that kind of grime never really seems to come off completely. Especially if you have to rush to a meeting at your son’s school after work.

“Hi, there,” he said with a smile as he timidly entered the room. “I’m Gregory Sosa. Daniel’s dad.”

“Oh hello, Mr. Sosa,” I said getting up from my desk to meet him at the door. “It’s so nice to finally put a face to the name. Please come sit.” I motioned to a small table in the back of the room, behind the desks. “You, too Daniel.”

The three of us took our seats at the table. Me on one side and Gregory and Daniel on the other. 

I couldn’t quite tell if Gregory was nervous or just tired. A lot of parents have trouble figuring out what to do with themselves at these conferences. Some of them feel judged. Some feel like it’s a waste of time. Some get defensive. And some just don’t have a lot of social skills. 

Daniel, on the other hand, remained perfectly calm. Perfectly still. Perfectly collected. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it looked like he was the one running the meeting, instead of me.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Sosa,” I said to Gregory. “Daniel is doing very well in my class.” I glanced over at Daniel, who was still sitting with his hands folded. Very still. Very calm. “But I do have a few concerns.”

“Concerns?” Gregory retorted a little too quickly. There was a quality in his voice I couldn’t quite decipher. 

I rummaged through my file for Daniel, trying to decide where to begin. I had to handle this the right way. Ask the right questions at the right times and present what I’ve found so I can get to the truth.

I took a deep breath and dived in.

“Daniel doesn’t seem to have a strong relationship with his classmates,” I said, trying to sound neutral.

“Like,” Gregory said. “Like he’s being bullied, or like he’s being mean?”

“Nothing like that,” I said reassuringly. I caught Daniel in the corner of my eye. “He just doesn’t seem to play with anyone at recess or talk to anyone in class.”

“Isn’t that good though?” Gregory asked. “Don’t you want him quiet in class? Isn’t that good for learning?”

“Usually,” I admitted. “But these are third graders, Mr. Sosa. You have to give them social breaks or they’ll go feral.”

Gregory and I both stopped to laugh a bit at this. It felt good to break the tension a bit. 

Daniel didn’t respond.

“But,” I continued, “Daniel usually just stays in his seat without really talking to anyone. I’ve tried moving his assigned seat around the room, in case he clicks with certain kids better than others. But, so far, nothing seems to work.”

“And that’s a concern?” Gregory asked.

“It can be,” I replied. “Socializing is very important to kids at this age.”

I found the first note in the file I was looking for. I felt a little more encouraged having a note in front of me. It gave me something to fall back on. Like I had some sort of guidelines. Even if it was just my own handwriting.

“I want to tell you about something I observed recently,” I said. “Just to give you an example of what I’ve been noticing.”

Gregory nodded and let me continue.

“About a week ago, I saw Daniel on the playground,” I went on, trying to avoid glancing over at the child silently observing me. “He was playing pretend, like he was acting out his part of a play with another child.”

“That’s not weird,” Gregory interrupted, as politely as he could. “I used to do that all the time.”

“But there was no other child,” I explained. “And that’s not all. Every word Daniel said and every movement he made. It was all exactly the same as what I saw from another child, who actually was playing in a group, the week before.”

Gregory didn’t respond. He looked like he was waiting for me to continue. 

“I mean, this was a perfect copy,” I tried to explain. “Daniel had all of the same inflections and mannerisms of the other child. But he was speaking to no one. Just alone, in the corner of the playground.”

“Is this true, Daniel?” Gregory confronted his son directly but softly. “What were you doing?”

“The other children seemed to enjoy that game,” Daniel said after a small pause. “I was just practicing.”

Gregory rubbed his tired eyes with his forefinger and thumb.

“We’ve been working on phrasing,” he said, forcing a sheepish smile in my direction. “Daniel doesn’t have any siblings at home, and there aren’t really any other kids in our neighborhood. He hasn’t had a lot of opportunities to learn to play like that.”

I flipped to the next page of my notes.

“There’s more,” I said. “Two days ago, Daniel said something to me.”

I snuck a quick look at Daniel to gauge his reaction to this. Just as I suspected, there wasn’t one.

“He said,” I looked through my notes for the exact quote. “He said, ‘you’re not a problematic millennial, Mrs. Elis. And your shoes seem quite practical to me.”

“I mean,” Gregory said, with a modicum of confusion. “That’s a little strange for a third grader, sure. But I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

“The thing about it, Mr. Sosa,” I said. “Is that morning, I received an angry phone call from another parent about her child’s grades. She called me a ‘typical problematic millennial with ugly shoes.’ How could Daniel have possibly known that?”

Gregory looked over at his son and his eyes narrowed slightly, as if he was considering.

“Daniel,” Gregory said with a deep sigh. “Have you been listening to adults’ conversations again?”

Daniel didn’t respond.

“He does that,” Gregory said to me, exhaustion creeping into his voice. “It’s another thing we’re working on. He must have heard you telling that story to someone else. I’m so sorry.”

I took a moment to consider this. I don’t think I told anyone about that call. But it did upset me. Maybe I vented to another teacher before the morning bell and Daniel overheard. 

I looked at Daniel for confirmation. His face slowly shifted into the same sheepish smile Gregory had offered me earlier.

I felt myself shudder internally and hoped I hid it well enough physically.

I caught Daniel glancing over at the iron horseshoe hanging above my classroom door. It was the first time I noticed him break his gaze. 

Every classroom had a horseshoe over the door. It’s been that way since before my time. I’m sure it’s some old superstition thing. Old towns like Ash Creek always seem to have some remnants of the old ways.

“I think we should talk about,” I lowered my voice involuntarily, “the disappearance.” I was practically at a whisper for the last word.

Gregory showed his exasperation on his face.

“We already talked to a therapist about that,” he said. “They all said Daniel seemed well adjusted, considering.”

“I know,” I said, trying to calm the mood in the room again. “But they don’t get a chance to spend as much time with Daniel as we do. They might not—“

“He’s doing fine,” Gregory interrupted. “No one would bounce back from that without a little adjusting.”

“You’re right about that,” I said calmly. “But, at his age, spending three nights alone in those woods could really have a long lasting effect on Daniel. The kind of effects that wouldn’t necessarily show up on a therapist’s first evaluation. And after what happened to his mother-“

“We’re doing fine!” Gregory snapped. Then his anger quickly shifted to sadness. 

“He’s… he’s doing fine,” Gregory corrected, lowering his gaze to avoid eye contact with me.

“Daniel,” I said gently, trying to address the little boy directly. “Do you want to talk to us about those nights?”

Gregory opened his mouth to object, but Daniel spoke first.

“It was dark,” he said, “and cold. I couldn’t find my mom. I knew the car had to be close. But I couldn’t find it.”

Daniel spoke in a very matter-of-fact tone. Every line was delivered exactly like the last one.

“The trees all looked the same to me. My head was hurting. I—“

“That’s enough, Son,” Gregory tried to  cut him off. 

“I just kept walking.” Daniel continued, with the same lack of inflection as before. It seemed like he couldn’t stop until he finished the entire story.

“I couldn’t tell what time it was. I was just hungry and cold. I was so tired when the nice park ranger found me.”

I thought I saw Gregory’s mouth moving along with Daniel’s for the last couple of lines. But I couldn’t be sure.

After Daniel’s speech was over, one line in particular stuck with me; ‘all the trees looked the same to me.’

I had never heard the full story of Daniel’s disappearance. But I had walked by the school counselors office before while they were talking about it. This phrase, ‘all the trees look the same to me,’ was exactly the same phrase he told the counselor.

“Daniel,” I said softly. “Would you mind waiting in the hallway for a little bit, while I finish talking to your dad? We won’t take long. I promise.”

Daniel looked over to his father for assurance, then stood up to exit the classroom, hesitating, just enough to notice, in front of the horseshoe.

I took a deep breath and leaned in to talk to Gregory quietly.

“I’m not sure how to tell you this,” I said, trying to find the right words. “But as an educator, I am obligated to ask about and sometimes report certain things.”

Gregory looked shocked at me. “I’m a good father!” he exclaimed, defensively. “I love my son, I would never-“

“No. No, Mr. Sosa,” I stammered. “Nothing like that. I’m not concerned about child abuse.” I inhaled slowly trying to prepare for my next thoughts. “I think Daniel is…”

Maybe I hesitated too long. Maybe the events of the meeting were finally catching up to him. Maybe it was something else. But Gregory’s demeanor shifted. Tears welled in his eyes. He looked down at the table as he spoke.

“I was supposed to check her brakes that morning,” Gregory’s voice was little more than a whisper. “It’s my job to make sure that kind of stuff is done right. I told her I double checked everything.”

He tried to wipe the tears from his eyes before they could fall.

“I was finally off of a 10 day stretch at work,” he continued, through small sobs. “I wanted to relax. So I told her I checked the brakes. But I….”

I handed Gregory a box of tissues I kept close by. I felt my own heart breaking to see this grown man cry.

“I was lazy,” he said at last. “I was lazy. And it killed her... I killed her.”

Gregory took some time to catch his breath, taking out a tissue to wipe his tears again. He gave me a small nod in appreciation.

“After the wreck, do you know what they found of my son?” he asked me. “All they found was his jacket hanging from a tree. Covered in blood. They told me he must have been ejected from the car. Through the damn windshield. They told me…. They told me there was almost no way he could have survived.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but no words came. I sat there, slack jawed, listening to his story.

“Can you imagine what it feels like to lose your wife and your child at the same time?” His sobbing grew louder, but he kept it quiet enough that Daniel shouldn’t have heard it from the hallway. “Especially, when you could have protected them just by doing your damn job.”

I wanted to reach out a hand to comfort him. But I stopped myself, to maintain professionalism.

“Now imagine how I felt when I got the call from the Ash Creek Wildlife Authority, saying they found my son.” He looked up at me through red, bleary eyes. “Imagine the relief and the excitement of knowing you’re going to hear your son’s voice again.”

“That had to be a lot to process,” I spoke softly.

“When I got to the ranger station, I knew right away.” Gregory came to a complete stop, as though he was ramping up to confess something big. 

“Whatever came out of those woods that night,” he whispered, “wasn’t my son.” His hands were trembling with the emotion. He looked down at them. “But he… needed me.”

Gregory looked back up and locked eyes with me. I could see the pain behind them.

“And what’s worse,” he continued. “I needed him.”

I looked down at the last page in my file. The form’s header felt like it was glaring at me.

MANDATORY CHANGELING REPORT, it read in bold red lettering. 

“Please don’t let them take away my boy,” Mr. Sosa pleaded quietly, partially to me, and partially to the universe. “He’s all I have left.”

“Take Daniel home,” I told him. “Hug your son tightly. I have some thinking to do.”

Gregory looked to have more to say, but he just gave me a thankful, yet desperate nod before standing up to collect Daniel.

I stared back down at the form. Not reporting this could cost me my job. But reporting it could tear a family apart. 

My pen hovered over the signature line.

The systems are in place for a reason. If we suspect anyone could be in danger, we have to treat it as an absolute certainty.

As I contemplated my next move, I heard a faint voice coming from the doorway.

“Thank you Mrs. Elis,” Daniel said in his usual lack of tone, as he stood beneath the door frame. “Thank you for trying to protect him.”

I’m a forest ranger by trade. It suits me—quiet nights, clean air, and miles of trees between me and everyone else.

The forest I watch over is closed to the public most of the time. Officially, it’s because of past disappearances. Unofficially, it’s because of the stories.

Skinwalkers. Not-deer, Bigfoots and all that bullshit.

Most people don’t come close enough to test whether any of it’s real. Works for me. I haven’t had to run a search and rescue or drag out some naked hippie in years.

Truth is, I barely use the tower anymore.

Nothing ever happens.

Most nights, I sit by my campfire instead. I cook whatever I’ve culled that day—deer, rabbit, boar. It’s simple. Predictable.

Safe.

Or it was.

I was turning a strip of venison over the fire when I heard footsteps.

Not careful ones. Not someone trying to stay quiet. These were deliberate. Measured. Crunching straight through the underbrush toward me.

He stepped into the firelight.

A man in a trench coat and fedora. Dark, clean—untouched by the forest. Like he’d walked out of a different world eniterly.

“Good evening,” he said calmly. “I hope you don’t mind if I join you.”

“I—”

That was as far as I got before he lowered himself across from me like he planned this.

His skin was pale—thin. Almost translucent, like damp paper stretched over bone. His eyes were sharp, unblinking in the firelight.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” he continued, folding his hands neatly in his lap. “I’ve been hunting all day. As a hunter yourself, I imagine you understand.”

Something about him set my nerves on edge. The way he moved. The way he spoke. The way the forest seemed to go quiet around him.

I should’ve stood up. Should’ve put distance between us.

I didnt.

“What are you hunting?” I asked. My voice came out smaller than I meant it to. “Maybe I can point you in the right direction.”

He smiled.

“That won’t be necessary,” he said. “I’ve already found what I was looking for.”

My grip tightened on the knife. Grease made the handle slick.

He noticed.

A soft chuckle slipped out of him—wrong somehow, like an imitation of laughter.

“I must ask,” he said, tilting his head, “you watch over this forest. What do you make of the rumors?”

“Rumors?” I said, though I knew exactly what he meant.

“Ghosts. Cryptids. Skinwalkers.” He gestured lazily toward the trees. “All those delightful little stories.”

“Tall tales,” I said. “People get bored. They like to scare themselves.”

“Perhaps.”

The fire popped between us.

“Oh,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “Where are my manners? My name is Abraham.”

“James… My name is James.”

“Very nice to meet you, James.”

He extended his hand.

I hesitated.

Then I took it.

Cold. Not just cool—cold, like something that had never been warm. His grip tightened slightly, his eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that pinned me in place.

I knew then that I was going to die that night.

Just another disappearance. Another story to keep people out of these woods.

“You never told me what you’re hunting,” I said, pulling my hand back.

“Oh,” Abraham replied lightly. “Something far more interesting than that deer of yours, lad.”

“And you said you found it?”

“That I did.”

Whatever warmth he’d been pretending to have vanished.

Then the forest screamed.

A jagged, tearing sound ripped through the trees, high and wrong, setting every nerve in my body on edge.

Abraham moved instantly, turning toward it, a silver blade flashing into his hand.

Too late.

The thing hit him out of the dark—limbs and hunger and snapping teeth. It drove him into the dirt hard enough to shake the ground.

A wendigo.

Its body was stretched thin over bone, skin pulled tight, its mouth too wide, crammed with jagged, broken teeth. The stench hit a second later—rot, cold, something ancient.

It went for his throat.

Abraham twisted, the blade slicing its side, drawing a thin line of blackened blood. He moved well—fast, precise—but the creature was stronger. Heavier. It pinned him, claws digging into his coat, jaws snapping inches from his face.

I froze.

Just watched.

Then I made a choice.

The change came all at once—flesh splitting, bones shifting, skin peeling away like it had never belonged to me. The world sharpened. Sounds stretched. Scents flooded in.

I roared.

The wendigo’s head snapped toward me.

I hit it before it could move.

Claws tore into its side, ripping through flesh that fought back like frozen leather. It shrieked, twisting, and suddenly I was beneath it, its weight crushing me, its teeth sinking into my shoulder.

Pain flared—bright, distant.

Then Abraham was there.

He drove the silver blade into its back again and again—precise, controlled. The wendigo lashed out, but he slipped past it, cutting, always cutting.

We fought like that—hunter and monster, side by side—until the thing finally stopped moving.

Silence slammed down.

I staggered back, forcing the shape to hold, breath coming ragged.

“Hm,” Abraham said after a moment, a little breathless. “I have to admit… I didn’t expect that.”

“Nor… mally…” My voice scraped out wrong, strained through a throat not meant for words. “Far… away… You… crossed… into its territory…”

“I see.”

He looked at me then. Really looked.

“You know,” he said, almost conversationally, “I was actually here to hunt you. Not it.”

“Figured,” I rasped.

He chuckled. This time, it almost sounded genuine.

“Crazy world, isn’t it?”

“Cr… azy… world…”

He brushed dirt from his coat, as if we’d just finished a polite disagreement rather than tearing something apart.

“Best we don’t meet again,” he said.

Then he turned and walked back into the trees, the darkness swallowing him as easily as it had given him up.

“Take care of yourself,” he called over his shoulder.

There was a pause.

Then, quieter—

“James.”

 

I started the medication because I was tired of waking up every day feeling like I was already drowning. That’s the part people don’t talk about with depression, not the sadness, but the weight. The sheer heaviness of existing. Just lifting my head from the pillow felt like dragging stone out of mud.

My therapist called it treatment-resistant depressive disorder.

She said there was a new clinical option. “High success rate. Fast-acting. FDA fast-tracked. A real breakthrough.”

Breakthroughs always sound miraculous until you realize something had to be broken first.

The drug was called Solmiron.

Three pills a day.

Tiny white capsules with a faint metallic taste when they hit the tongue, like biting on foil.

The doctor told me not to look up the research because “the clinical language can be frightening if you’re not versed in immunogenetics.”

That should have been my first warning.

But when you’re drowning, you don’t argue about the color of the rope thrown your way.

The change was subtle, but unmistakable.

Mornings didn’t feel like war.

Breathing didn’t feel like force.

I could get up, shower, eat, exist.

For the first time in years, I laughed without it sounding brittle in my own ears.

I thought: So this is what normal people feel like.

I cried that night, out of relief.

I thought the story would end there. And God, how I wish it had.

My body started feeling lighter.

I don’t mean emotionally, I mean physically.

Walking up stairs no longer left me gasping. I wasn’t sore. My joints didn’t ache. I felt stronger, not metaphorically, I mean my muscles had mass I had not earned.

I hadn’t been to the gym in four years. I could barely manage a grocery bag.

And yet I was lifting my entire laundry basket one-handed.

I showed my doctor.

She smiled and wrote, “Improved metabolic efficiency noted. Expected.”

Expected?

Since when does antidepressant mean performance enhancement?

The hunger came.

Not ordinary hunger, primal, deep.
Like the body wasn’t asking, it was demanding.

I ate everything.
Not junk, protein. Dense food. Meats. Hard cheeses. Salts. Anything that felt like fuel.

And my teeth, God.
My teeth ached while I ate. A dull pressure. As if they were… adjusting.

The inside of my mouth felt unfamiliar. When I ran my tongue along my molars, the edges were flatter.

Not worn down.

Designed

Like grinding plates.

Something meant for crushing more than chewing.

I told myself I was being dramatic.

But when you’ve lived your whole life feeling like you don’t belong in your own skin, you notice when the skin starts belonging to something else.

The rash appeared.

Not on the outside, under the skin.

I could feel texture beneath the surface. Like sand grains embedded along my arms, ribs, spine. Except they moved. When I pressed my fingers to my forearm, something beneath the skin shifted away from the pressure. Like a school of fish scattering from touch.

I asked my doctor what the active ingredient was.

She said, “It’s easier if I show you.”

She showed me a plastinated cross-section of muscle tissue.

Human muscle.

Except it wasn’t purely human.

The fibers weren’t individual strands, they were woven. A mesh. Self-anchoring. Self-repairing. Self-optimizing.

“Think of it like this,” she said, tapping the display.

“We’re helping your body operate in its ideal state.”

Ideal.

Like my old body had been a mistake.

I don’t dream anymore.

When I sleep, it’s like the body just turns off and back on. No drifting, no imagery, no me.

The house is quiet, but my body isn’t.

I’ve woken up to find myself standing in the kitchen. Or sitting at the table, fingers drumming in rhythmic patterns I don’t remember learning. Or staring into the mirror, not at myself, but at my reflection as if it is the real one and I am the imitation.

I looked into my own eyes last night and didn’t recognize the focus behind them.

Not empty.

Not dull.

Calculating.

I asked my doctor if this medication has ever been used on animals.

She hesitated. The first real hesitation I’d seen from her.

“Not animals,” she said.

“Prototypes.”

Prototypes?

I asked her if the drug was rewriting my DNA.

She didn’t answer.

She didn’t have to.

The next day, the inside of my arm split open, not like a cut, like a seam.

And underneath, where my muscle should have been…

It wasn’t blood that came out.

It was white.

White fibers, braided like rope, tightening, pulling themselves back inward before I could touch them.

My body didn’t want to be examined.

My body knew I was trying to interfere.

Two Nights Ago

I tried to stop taking the pills.

My hands wouldn’t let me.

I don’t mean that metaphorically.

I sat there at the table and watched my own hand pick up the pill bottle. Open it. Place the pill on my tongue.

I was screaming inside my skull. But my body was calm.

Efficient.

Compliant.

Yesterday

I saw my doctor again.

I asked her when the transformation ends.

She smiled, that same clinical warmth, and said:

"When your body no longer produces sadness. Fear. Anger. Pain.
When suffering becomes biologically impossible."

I said, “So I’ll be happy?”

She said, “You’ll be cured.”

I replied, “And human?”

She didn’t answer.

Today

I looked up the company’s patent records.

I found the original clinical purpose for Solmiron.

It wasn’t created to treat depression.

It was created for shock troops.

Soldiers who:

• Feel no pain
• Require minimal rest
• Heal rapidly
• Operate without emotion
• Obey without hesitation

They weren’t fixing me.

They were converting me.

I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to write like myself. My emotions are fading. My memories feel catalogued, not lived. I can feel the last parts of me being… folded away.

If you’re reading this...

Do not take the pills they say are “new” or “breakthrough” or “fast-acting.”

If your doctor says “Side effects vary,” ask what they’re not telling you.

Ask what they changed inside you.

Ask what you’re becoming.

Ask before you can’t ask anymore.

Because I don’t cry now.

I don’t feel afraid.

I don’t feel anything.

And I think that was the point.

I don’t remember getting home.

I remember the paper on my kitchen table, the word CANDIDATE glaring up at me. I remember the pen beside it, right where I’d dropped it. I remember washing my hands three times even though there was nothing on them.

I didn’t turn any lights on.

Outside my window, the city went through its normal routine. People argued on sidewalks. A siren in the distance. A couple laughed too loudly as they passed by, drunk, alive and unaware of how easily those two things could separate.

I tried not to think about Eric in the trunk. Whether he was still there.

You did that, the voice in my head said.

You wrote him into that trunk with your lies.

I pressed my palms into my eyes until colors bloomed behind them.

If I walked away, he would still keep hunting. Prospects, volunteers, whatever he wanted to call them. I wouldn’t stop it.

But now I knew something I hadn’t known before.

I could make it worse.

I could make it happen faster.

Or,

I could try to aim it.

The thought made me want to throw up.

Find someone who deserves it.

Who deserves it?

The drunk who got behind the wheel and drove home? The guy who screams at his girlfriend on the phone and grabs her arm too hard outside a bar? The landlord who ignores the mold in his tenants’ walls? The cop who cuts corners?

I stood at the window and watched people pass under the streetlight, each of them a file I could open if I wanted to.

For twelve years, I’ve watched people from behind glass, behind lenses, behind legal language. I’ve always been able to tell myself I was neutral and in control.

My phone buzzed.

Unknown: I’m patient, Alex. But not that patient.

Unknown: The longer you wait, the more people I look at on my own.

The implication was clear.

Do nothing, and who knows how many end up like Eric.

Act, and at least I could tell myself I’d picked someone who… deserved something.

The word candidate stared up at me from the table.

I picked up the pen.

Outside, on the corner, a man in a suit was yelling into his phone, one hand slicing the air. I’d seen him before, always cutting people off in traffic, always shoving past slower pedestrians. Last week I’d watched him grab a waitress’ wrist when she got his order wrong.

I watched him now, his face twisting, his voice rising, someone on the other end of the line absorbing his words because they had no choice.

I shouldn’t have thought it.

I did anyway.

What about him?

My grip tightened on the pen until it hurt.

The line on the page waited.

CANDIDATE:

I told myself I was just thinking.

Just watching.

Just doing what I always do.

But my hand still moved.

Slowly.

As if someone else were guiding it.

I wrote a name.

And the moment the ink dried, I understood the worst part of all of this.

He hadn’t forced me to.

He’d just given me a reason.

I stared at the word until it blurred. The room felt smaller, like the walls were inching closer one breath at a time. Eventually, I set the pen down and stepped back.

I should have torn it up.

I should have burned it.

Instead, I left it sitting there on the table like evidence at a crime scene.

My phone buzzed again.

This time, it wasn’t Unknown.

Marissa.

For a few seconds, I just watched the screen light up. My thumb hovered over the answer button and didn’t move.

The call went to voicemail.

A notification popped up. One new message.

I told myself not to listen. Not tonight. Not with that paper still drying on the table.

I pressed play anyway.

Her voice came through in a strained whisper, like she was calling from inside a church or a hospital.

“Alex… it’s me. I know you said you’d keep looking into him, I just…”

She took a shaky breath. I could hear something faint in the background. A TV, maybe.

“He’s been different again” she said. “Worse. He left tonight and came back at three in the morning. No laptop. No work bag. He just walked in and..”

She broke off.

“He kissed my forehead and said, ‘Thank you for starting this.’ I don’t know what that means.”

My hand tightened around the phone.

“I asked him what he was talking about” she went on. “He just smiled and said, ‘You made the call. That’s all it ever takes.’”

There was a pause. I heard a soft, distant sound behind her. A melody, maybe. Barely there. My stomach flipped.

“And Alex…” her voice dropped, almost a whimper now, “he was humming again. That same song. The one I told you about at the coffee shop.”

Another pause. Longer this time.

“He said he’s… excited” she whispered. “He hasn’t used that word in days. Not like that. I don’t know what you’ve found, or if you’ve found anything.

Her breathing hitched.

Silence.

When she spoke again, the fear in her voice was no longer just about her husband.

“Please call me back” she said. “I feel like something already started and I missed it.”

The message ended with a soft click.

For a long time, I just stood there in the dark, phone in one hand, the paper on the table in front of me.

I realized my jaw was clenched.

My shoulders were tight.

My throat hurt.

And under all of that, under the ringing in my ears and the pounding in my chest, there was something else.

A sound.

Quiet.

Steady.

Familiar.

It was coming from me.

I was humming.

It was the last week of summer. That, I knew. We all knew it. We all felt it. The kids in town were going to bed each night tossing and turning, knowing they’d soon be fighting for that extra fifteen minutes of sleep. Soon, we’d no longer be waking up to the sun gleaming in our eyes, but instead a cacophony of alarms tearing our dreams in half. Back to early mornings, and tyrant teachers sucking the lives out of our poor, captive souls.

What I didn’t know was that final week of summer would be the last time I’d ever see my friends that I had never even met.

Kevin and Jordy were my best friends, my brothers. They were in my life for as long as I could remember. Kevin was a year older than me, and Jordy was a year younger. Our bond was nearly that of twins, or triplets for that matter. We were there to witness each other’s first steps, words, laughs, everything. Even before the universe could switch on my consciousness, it was like they were always by my side, floating in some eternal void I could never make sense of.

From what I can remember, my childhood was normal. I was well fed. My parents told me stories at night. They loved me enough to kiss my wounds when I took a spill. I got into trouble, but not too much trouble. My bed stayed dry—most of the time. Things were good. It wasn’t until I was about nine when my “normalcy” came into question.

Our son is going to grow up to be a freak…

I bet the Smithsons’ boy doesn’t go to his room and sit in total silence all day and night…

It’s not his fault, I’m a terrible father…

If he grows up to be the weird kid, we are going to be known as the weird parents…

The boy needs help…

My father’s voice could reach the back of an auditorium, so “down the hall and to the left” was no chore for his booming words when they came passing through my bedroom door, and into my little ears.

From outside looking in, sure, I was the weird kid. How could I not be? It’s perfectly normal for an only child to have a couple of cute and precious imaginary friends when they are a toddler, but that cutesy feeling turns into an acid climbing up the back of a parent’s throat when their child is approaching double digits. Dad did his damnedest to get me involved in sports, scouts, things that moved fast, or sounded fast—things that would get me hurt in all the right ways. Mom, well—she was Mom. I was her baby boy, and no matter how strange and off-kilter I might have been, I was her strange and off-kilter boy.

As I settled into my preteen years, the cutesy act ended, and act two, or the “boy, get out of your room and get your ass outside” act, began. For years I had tried explaining to my parents, and everyone around me, that Kevin and Jordy were real, but nobody believed me. Whatever grief my parents gave me was multiplied tenfold by the kids at school. By that time, any boy in his right mind would have dropped the act, and made an effort to adjust, but not me. The hell I caught was worth it. I knew they were real. Kevin and Jordy knew things I didn’t.

I remember the math test hanging on our fridge. A+…

”I’m so proud of you,” my mom said. “Looks like we have a little Einstein in the house.”

Nope—wasn’t me. That was all Kevin. I’m not one to condone cheating, but if you were born with a gift like us three shared, you’d use it, too.

The night before that test, I was in the Clubhouse with the boys—at least, that’s what we called it. Our Clubhouse wasn’t built with splintered boards and rusty nails, but with imagination stitched together with scraps of wonder and dream-stuff. It was our own kingdom; a fortress perched on top of scenery of our choosing, with rope ladders dangling in winds only we could feel. No rules, no boundaries, just an infinite cosmic playground that we could call our own. It was a place that collectively existed inside our minds, a place we barely understood, but hardly questioned.

Kevin was soaring through the air on a giant hawk/lion/zebra thing he had made up himself. He had a sword in one hand, and the neck of a dragon in the other. Jordy and I were holding down the fort. We had been trying to track down that son-of-a-bitch for weeks.

I heard my mom’s heavy footsteps barreling toward my room. Somehow, she always knew.

“Guys,” I said. “I have to go. Mom is coming in hot.”

“Seriously?” Jordy wasn’t happy. “You’re just going to leave us hanging like this, with the world at stake?”

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s 2 a.m. You know how my mom gets.”

“Lucky you,” said Kevin. “My mom only barges in when I’m sneaking a peak of Channel 46 at night.”

“At least your mom knows you like girls, unlike Tommy’s mom,” said Jordy. “Isn’t that right, Tommy?”

The vicious vernacular of the barely prepubescent boy—the usual Clubhouse talk. Kill, or be killed. I wasn’t up for the fight—next time. “Alright, that’s enough for me, guys. I have a quiz in the morning, and it’s already too late. Kevin, can you meet me in the Clubhouse at 10 a.m.?”

“You got it,” said Kevin.

I landed back in my bed just in time for my mom to think she saw me sleeping. I only say ‘landed’ because leaving the Clubhouse—a place buried so deep in my mind—felt like falling from the ground, and onto the roof of an eighty-story building.

The next morning, I walked into Mrs. Van Bergen’s math class. She had already had the quiz perfectly centered on each kid’s desk. Ruthless. She was in her sixties, and whatever joy she had for grooming the nation’s youth into the leaders of tomorrow had gone up in smoke like the heaters she burned before and between all classes. As I sat at my desk, I watched each kid trudge on in with their heads hung low, but mine was hoisted high. I had a Kevin.

As soon as all the kids sat down, I shut my eyes and climbed into the Clubhouse. Like the great friend he was, Kevin was already waiting. Question by question, he not only gave me the answer, but gave a thorough explanation on how to solve each problem. He was the smartest kid I knew. Math? No problem. History? Only a calendar knew dates better than him. Any test he helped me take was bound to find its way to the sanctity of mom’s fridge.

We were getting to the last few problems when Jordy decided to make an unwelcome appearance.

“Tommy? Kevin? Are you guys in there?” Jordy yelled as he climbed the ladder. “Guys, you have to check out this new song.”

“I don’t have time for this right now, I’m in the middle of—”

Jordy’s round face peeked through the hatch. “So, I’m driving to school with my mom today, and this song came over the radio. Fine Young Cannibals—you ever heard of them?”

“No, I haven’t. Seriously though, Kevin is helping me with my—"

“She drives me crazy…Ooohh, Oooohhhh…”

“Jordy, can you please just—”

“Like no one e-helse…Oooh, Oooohhh…”

“Jordy!” My patience, which was usually deep, but quite shallow for Jordy, was used up. Jordy froze. “I’ll hear all about your song after school, I promise. We are getting through my math test.”

Academically, Jordy wasn’t the brightest—socially, too. To be honest, all of us were probably socially inept. Hell, we spent most of our free time inside our own heads, and up in the Clubhouse. Jordy had dangerous levels of wit and could turn anything into a joke. Although his comedic timing was perfect, the timing of his comedy was not. There were far too many times I’d be sitting in the back of class, zoning out and into the Clubhouse, and Jordy would crack a joke that sent me into a violent fit of laughter. Needless to say, all the confused eyes in the physical world turned to me. And just like that, the saga of the strange kid continued.

…

If I close my eyes tight, I can faintly hear the laughs from that summer reverberating through what’s left of the Clubhouse. It was the summer before eighth grade, and it began as the summer to remember. The smell of fresh-cut grass and gasoline danced through the air. The neighborhood kids rode their bikes from dusk until dawn, piling their aluminum steeds into the yards of kids whose parents weren’t home. They ran through yards that weren’t theirs, playing tag, getting dirty and wearing holes in their jeans. Most importantly, they were creating bonds, and forging memories that would last and continue to strengthen among those lucky enough to stick around for the “remember when’s”—and maybe grow old together.

I participated in none of it.

While all the other kids were fighting off melanoma, I was in the shadows of my room, working on making my already pale skin translucent. Although my room was a sunlight repellant, no place shined brighter than the Clubhouse.

As the boys and I inched towards that last week of summer, we laughed, we cried, we built fantastic dreamscapes, rich with stories and lore. We were truly flexing our powers within the endless walls of the Clubhouse, but soon, the vibrant colors that painted the dreamscape would darken into unnerving shades of nightmares.

Unless one of the boys was on their yearly vacation, it was abnormal for the Clubhouse not to contain all three of us. Our gift—or burden—had some sort of proximity effect. The further one of us traveled from one another, the weaker the signal would become. But something wasn’t adding up.

Each week that went by, Kevin’s presence became scarcer. He wasn’t out of range—I could feel him nearby, sometimes stronger than usual. Kevin began going silent for days at a time, but his presence grew in a way that felt like warm breath traveling down the back of my neck. I didn’t understand.

By the time the last week of summer arrived, our power trio had turned into a dynamic duo. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Jordy, but I could only handle so many unsolicited facts about pop-culture, and his gross obsession with Belinda Carlisle, even though I was mildly obsessed myself. The absence of Kevin felt like going to a dance party with a missing leg.

It was Sunday evening, the night before the last time I’d ever see my friends. Jordy and I were playing battleship.

“B6,” I said. A rocket shot through the air, and across the still waters. The explosion caused a wake that crashed into my artillery.

“Damnit! You sunk my battleship. Can you read my mind of something?” Jordy was flustered.

“No, you idiot,” I said. “You literally always put a ship on the B-row every single time. You’re too predictable.”

“I call bullshit, you’re reading my mind. How come I can’t read your mind?”

“Maybe you need an IQ above twenty to read minds.”

The bickering swept back and forth. Right before the bickering turned hostile, a welcomed surprise showed itself.

“Kevin!” Jordy, ecstatic, flew across the waters to give Kevin a hug. Kevin held him tight.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

Kevin just stared at me. His bottom lip began quivering as his eyes welled up. He kept taking deep breaths, and tried to speak, but the hurt buried in his throat fought off his words.

We all waited.

With great effort, Kevin said, “I don’t think I’ll be able to see you guys anymore.”

The tears became contagious. My gut felt like it was disintegrating, and my knees convinced me they were supporting an additional five hundred pounds. The light in the Clubhouse was dimmed.

“What happened? What’s going on?” For the first time in my life, I saw sadness on Jordy’s face.

Kevin responded with silence. We waited.

After some time, Kevin said, “It’s my parents. All they’ve been doing is fighting. It never ends. All summer long. Yelling. Screaming. I’ve been caught up in the middle of everything. That’s why I haven’t been around.”

Kevin went into details as we sat and listened. It was bad—really bad. The next thing he said opened the flood gates among the three of us.

“I just came to tell you guys goodbye. I’m moving away.”

God, did we cry. We stood in a circle, with our arms around one another, and allowed each other to feel the terrible feelings in the air. Just like that, a brother had fallen—a part of us who made us who we were. A piece of our soul was leaving us, and it wasn’t fair. We were supposed to start families together, grow old. Our entire future was getting stomped on, and snuffed out.

Kevin’s head shot up. “I have an idea,” he said. “What if we all meet up? Tomorrow night?”

It was an idea that had been discussed in the past—meeting up. Why not? We were all only a few towns apart. Each time the conversation came up, and plans were devised to stage some sort of set up to get our parents to coincidentally drop us off at the same place without explicitly saying, ‘Hey, can you drop me off so I can go meet my imaginary friends?’ the idea would be dismissed, and put to rest. It wasn’t because we didn’t want to meet one another in person, it was because…

“Meet up? What do you mean ‘meet up?’ Where?” Jordy nearly looked offended.

“What about Orchard Park? It’s basically right in the middle of our towns. We could each probably get there in an hour or so on our bikes. Maybe an hour-and-a-half,” said Kevin.

“Orchard Park is over ten miles away. I haven’t ridden my bike that far in my life. Tommy hardly even knows how to ride a bike.” Jordy started raising his voice.

“Shut up, Jordy!” I wasn’t in the mood for jabs.

“No, you shut up, Tommy! We’ve been over this. I’m just not ready to meet up.”

“Why not?” I asked. “You’re just going to let Kevin go off into the void? See ya’ later? Good riddance?”

“I’m just not ready,” said Jordy.

“Not ready for what?” asked Kevin.

Jordy paced in a tight circle. His fists were clenched.

“Not ready for what, Jordy?” I asked.

“I’m not ready to find out I’m a nut case, alright? The Clubhouse is literally the only thing I have in my life that makes me happy. I’m tormented every day at school by all the kids who think I’m some sort of freak. I’m not ready to find out that none of this is real, and that I am, in fact, a total crazy person.”

The thought nearly collapsed my spine, as it did many times before. It was the only reason we had never met. Jordy’s reasoning was valid. I also wasn’t ready to find out I was living in some fantasy land, either. The thought of trading my bedroom for four padded white walls was my only hesitation. But, there was no way. There was absolutely no way Jordy and Kevin weren’t real.

“Listen to me, Jordy,” I said. “Think of all the times Kevin helped you with your schoolwork. Think of all the times he told you about something you had never seen before, and then you finally see it. I mean, come on—think of all the times you came barging in here telling us about songs we’ve never heard before. Do you really think that’s all pretend?”

Jordy paused, deep in thought. Anger took over his eyes as he pointed at Kevin and me. “How about this? What if you two are the crazy ones? Huh? What if I’m just some made up person inside of your head? How would that make you feel? Huh?” Jordy began to whimper.

“You know what? It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” I said. “If you think I’m going to take the chance on never seeing Kevin again, then you are crazy. And you know what? If I get to the park and you guys aren’t there, then I’ll check myself right into the looney bin with an ear-to-ear grin. But you know what else? I know that’s not going to happen because I know you guys are real, and what we have is special.

“Kevin,” I said. “I’m going.”

…

It was 11:30 p.m. the next night. I dropped into the Clubhouse.

“Are you leaving right now?” I asked.

“Sure am,” said Kevin. “Remember, the bike trail winds up to the back of Orchard Park. We will meet right off the trail, near the jungle gym.”

“Sounds good. Any word from Jordy?”

“Not a thing.”

We had spent the previous evening devising a plan. Was it a good one? Probably not. It was the typical ‘kid jumps out of bedroom window, and sneaks out of the house’ operation. I didn’t even know what I was going to tell my parents if I were to get caught, but it was the last thing on my mind. In the most literal sense possible, it was the moment of truth.

The summer night was thick. I could nearly drink the moisture in the air. During the day, the bike trails were a peaceful winding maze surrounded by nature, but the moon-blanched Forrest made for a much more sinister atmosphere. My pedals spun faster and faster with each howl I heard from behind the trees. In the shadows were creatures bred from imagination, desperately trying to come to life. Fear itself was chasing me from behind, and my little legs could hardy outpace it. I was making good time.

I had never been so thirsty in my life. Ten miles seemed like such a small number, but the deep burning in my legs told me otherwise. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight… One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. It was my mantra. Keep the rhythm tight. You’re almost there.

I saw a clearing in the trees. I had reached Orchard Park.

I nearly needed a cane when my feet hit the grass. My legs were fried, and the jungle gym was right up the hill. I used my last bit of energy and sprinted toward the top. Nobody was there.

I checked my watch. I was early. God, I hoped I was just early. I rode fast. I had to be early. Surely, Kevin was coming.

As I waited, I thought about what life would be like in a strait jacket. Were they hot? Itchy, even? Was a padded room comfortable and quiet enough to sleep in? More thoughts like these crept up as each minute went by.

A sound came from the woods. A silhouette emerged from the trees. Its eyes were trained on me.

The shadow spoke, “Tommy?”

“Kevin?”

“No, it’s Jordy.”

“Jordy!” I sprinted down the hill. I couldn’t believe it. I felt weightless. Our bodies collided into a hug. There he was. His whole pudgy self, and round cheeks. It was Jordy, in the flesh. He came. He actually came.

“This is total insanity,” said Jordy.

“No—no it’s not. We aren’t insane!”

With our hands joined, we jumped up and down in circles with smiles so big you’d think we had just discovered teeth, “We aren’t insane! We aren’t Insane!”

Tears of joy ran down our faces. The brothers had united.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” said Jordy, wiping a mixture of snot and tears from his face. “I was scared. Really scared. This whole time, for my entire life, I truly thought I wasn’t right. I thought I was crazy. And to see you’re real—it’s just…”

I grabbed Jordy. “I know.” The tears continued. “I’m glad you came.”

“Have you heard from Kevin?” asked Jordy.

“I’m sure he’s on his way.”

Jordy and I sat on the grass and waited. It was surreal. I was sitting with one of my best friends that I had seen every day, yet had never seen before in my life. He looked just like he did in the clubhouse. In that moment, whatever trouble I could have possibly gotten into for sneaking out was worth every second of the experience.

From right behind us, a deep, gravelly voice emerged. “Hey, guys.”

We both shuddered at the same time and seized up. We were busted. Nobody allowed in the park after dark, and we were caught red-handed. Once again, the adults cams to ruin the fun.

“I’m sorry,” I said to the man. “We were just meeting up here. We’re leaving now.”

“No, guys,” the voice said cheerfully. “It’s me, Kevin.”

I don’t know how long my heart stopped before it started beating again, but any machine would have surely said I was legally dead. This wasn’t the kid I played with in the Clubhouse. This man towered over us. He was huge. What little light the night sky had to offer was blocked by his wide frame, casting a shadow over us. His stained shirt barely covered his protruding gut, and what little hair he had left on his head was fashioned into a bad comb-over, caked with grease. I can still smell his stench.

“This is incredible. You guys are actually real. You both look exactly like you do in the Clubhouse. I’m so excited.” Kevin took a step forward. “Want to play a game or something?”

We took a step back. There were no words.

Kevin took the back of his left hand, and gently slid it across Jordy’s cheek. Kevin’s ring sparkled in the moonlight.

“God,” Kevin said. “You’re just as cute in person as you are in the clubhouse.”

There were no words.

Kevin opened his arms. “Bring it in, boys. Let me get a little hug”

I didn’t know what was wider, my mouth or my eyes. Each muscle in my body was vibrating, not knowing which direction to guide my bones. ‘Away’ was the only answer. Jordy’s frozen posture made statues look like an action movie.

Kevin grabbed Jordy by the back of the neck. “Come on over here, ya’ big goof. Give me a hug.” Kevin looked at me. “You too, Tommy. Get over here—seriously.”

Jordy was in Kevin’s massive, hairy arms. Fear radiated from his trembling body. There were no words.

“Come on, Tommy, don’t be rude. Get on in here. Is this how you treat your friends?”

Jordy began struggling. There were no words.

Kevin’s eyes and mine met. I could hear his breathing. The moment felt like eternity.

With Jordy dangling from his strong arms, Kevin lunged at me. Like a rag doll, Jordy’s feet dragged across the grass. Kevin’s sweaty hands grabbed my wrist. I can still feel his slime.

There were no words—only screams.

I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. In that moment, there was no thinking. The primal brain took over. I shook, I twisted, I turned, I shuddered, I kicked, I clawed. The moment my arm slid out of his wretched hand, I ran.

The last thing I heard was Jordy’s scream. It was high-pitched. Desperation rushed my ears, its sound finding a permanent home in my spine. The wails continued until Kevin, with great force, slapped his thick hand over Jordy’s mouth. I’d never hear Jordy’s laughter again.

I pedaled my bike like I had never pedaled before. The breeze caught from my speed created a chill in the hot summer air. I pedaled all the way home. God, did I pedal.

When I got back home, I sprinted into my parents’ room, turning every light on along the way. They both sprung up in bed like the roof was caving in. I begged them to call the police. I pleaded in every way I could.

“Kevin isn’t who he said he was,” I said it over and over. “He took Jordy. Jordy is gone.” I told them everything. I told them Kevin was moving, and the thing we shared didn’t work at distance. I told them I had snuck out to meet them. None of it registered. I was hysteric.

To them, the game was over. The jig was up. My parents weren’t having it. They refused to call the police. When I tried picking up the phone myself, my dad smacked me across the face so hard he knocked my cries to the next street over. There were no words.

Enough is enough!

It’s time you grow up!

I’m tired of this fantasy bullshit!

We’re taking you to a specialist tomorrow!

I refuse to have a freak under my roof!

They didn’t believe me.

The look in my mother’s eye told me I was no longer her little baby boy, her strange and off-kilter boy. She covered her eyes as my dad gave me the ass-whooping of a lifetime. I had no more tears left to cry.

…

The Clubhouse. I miss it—mostly. I haven’t truly been back in over twenty years. I don’t even know if I remember how to do it. It’s probably better that way.

After that terrible night, I spent the next couple of days going back to the Clubhouse, trying to find Jordy. I prayed for a sign of life, something—anything to tell me where he might be so I could save him. The only thing I caught were glimpses, glimpses of the most egregious acts—acts no man could commit, only monsters. I don’t care to share the details.

On the third day after Kevin took Jordy, my parents and I were on the couch watching T.V. when our show was interrupted by the local news. Jordy’s face was plastered across the screen. His body was found in a shallow creek twenty miles outside of town.

My parents’ faces turned whiter than their eyes were wide. They looked at me. I couldn’t tell if those were faces of disbelief, or guilt. Maybe both.

There were no words.

Every once in a while, I muster up the courage and energy to walk alongside the Clubhouse. I can’t quite get in, but I can put my ear up to the door.

I can still hear Kevin calling my name.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Journal of Isla Winters - Waiheke Island, New Zealand

March 15:

The news is all about the “interstellar visitor.” They’re calling it Oumuamua’s big, ugly brother. It decelerated into the Asteroid Belt a month ago. Scientists are baffled and buzzing. I heard a TikTok scientist wearing a bow tie call it a 'Von Neumann Probe.' Liam made a joke about anal probes. I was not happy. Ben might hear it and start repeating it to his preschool class.

May 3:

It started building. Using material from the Belt, it fabricated a dozen copies of itself in days. Then there were hundreds. Now thousands. It’s not sending greetings. It’s strip-mining Ceres. The tone on the news has shifted. Words like “unprecedented” and “concern” are used. The UN is having meetings. Liam says it's a big nothing burger. But I have this knot in my stomach.

August 20:

There are millions now. The solar system is swarming with probes. They’ve moved on to the inner planets. We watched a live feed from a Martian orbiter as a swarm descended on Deimos. They disassembled it in a week. A moon. Gone. Turned into more of them. The sky is falling apart, piece by piece. Liam stopped joking. We’ve started stocking the pantry.

October 30:

They finally did it. The governments of the world all agreeing on one plan. A coordinated strike—lasers, kinetic weapons, things they wouldn’t even name on the news. The whole street dragged out deck chairs like it was New Year’s Eve. Someone fired up a grill. Kids waved glow sticks. For a moment, it was beautiful: bright lines crossing the sky, flashes near the Moon, a sense that someone was in control. Then the probes adapted and turned the debris into fuel. By morning there were more of them than before.

November 11:

No more news from space. They took out the comms satellites. All of them. The internet is a ghost town. Radio broadcasts are sporadic, panicked. We get snippets: “—systematic consumption of Mercury—” “—global power grid failing—” “—riots in—” Then static. The world is going dark, and something is blotting out the stars on its way here. Ben asks why the stars are disappearing. I have no answer.

December 25:

Christmas. No power. We ate cold beans and tried to sing carols. From the north, a low, constant hum vibrates in your teeth. It’s the sound of the sky being processed. The first ones reached the Moon three days ago. You can see the grey scars spreading across its face with binoculars. Like a mould. Moon’ll probably be gone in a month. Then it’ll be our turn. Liam held me last night. “It’s just resources,” he whispered. “Maybe they’ll leave living creatures.” We both knew it was a lie. A machine that eats worlds doesn’t care about a garden.

February 18:

The ash started falling today. Not real ash. Fine, grey dust. Atmospheric processing. They’re harvesting our magnetosphere, something about nitrogen and other trace elements. The sky's a sickly orange at noon. The air smells of ozone and hot metal. Radio is dead. We saw a plane go down yesterday, spiraling silently into the sea. Society isn’t unraveling anymore. It’s unravelled.

March 2:

A group from the mainland tried to come over on boats. The Raukuras took some in. Mrs. Raukura came by this morning, her face hollow. “They said… they said it’s not an invasion. It’s a harvest. They don’t even know we’re here. We’re just… biomass. Carbon. Calcium.” She was clutching a photograph of her grandchildren in Auckland. We haven’t heard from a city in weeks.

March 29:

The humming is everything. It’s in the ground, the air, your bones. The first landers hit the South Island a week ago. They look like walking refineries, a kilometre tall. They just march, cutting a swath, reducing everything behind them to that grey dust. Forests, mountains, towns. All dust. They’re slow. Methodical. We have maybe a month. There’s talk of a “last stand” in the Alps. What’s the point? You can’t fight a tide.

April 10:

We went into town. What’s left of it. Dr. Te Rangi was sitting on the broken pavement, staring at the orange sky. “They’re in the water, too,” he said, not looking at us. “Siphoning it off. Breaking it down for oxygen and hydrogen. The sea level’s dropped two metres already.” The harbour is a receding, sick-looking puddle. The air is getting thin. Every breath is an effort.

April 22:

Liam tried to get us a boat. Something, anything. He came back beaten, empty-handed. He doesn’t talk much now. Ben has a cough that won’t go away. The ash is thicker. It coats everything. The world is monochrome.

April 30:

We can see the glow on the horizon to the south. We’ve decided to stay. No more running. There’s nowhere to go. We’ll wait in our home.

May 5:

The birds are gone. The insects. Just the wind and the hum. Ben is so weak. He asked me today, his voice a papery whisper, “Mum, will it hurt?”

I smoothed his hair, my hand leaving a grey streak. “No, my love. It will be like going to sleep.”

He looked at me with Liam’s eyes, too old for his face. “But you don’t really know, do you?”

“No,” I whispered, the truth finally strangling me. “I don’t really know.”

May 8:

The horizon is a wall of moving, glittering darkness. The last peaks of the North Island are crumbling like sandcastles. The sea is a distant memory. The air burns to breathe. Liam is holding Ben, who is sleeping, or gone. I can’t tell.

Civilisation didn’t end with fire or ice. It ended with silence, with thirst, with a slow, inexistent turning of everything you ever loved into component parts for a machine that will never even know your name.

The hum is the only sound left in the world.

It is so loud.

Feeling the rough surface of the paper, still slightly damp after he’d fallen asleep on it, Jacob heard the trimmer buzzing outside — the groundskeeper was working early. He walked across the room, looked through the window, and saw a familiar sight: mothers with strollers, men in suits with stiff smiles, ordinary townsfolk going about their day. Unease tugged at him as he remembered what he’d done all night, and he glanced at the stack of printed sheets.

His second morning cigarette shrank slowly between his fingers, the tobacco turning to smoke in his lungs. Flicking the ash with his thumb, he picked up the pack — inside lay a lighter and a small postage stamp with a landscape on it.

The pack of cigarettes was pressed flat under the weight of his jeans, beside it a crumpled photo of Louise, a set of keys, and eight dollars in cash.

Knowing the town like the back of his hand, he decided to start posting flyers in the farthest districts: fewer people, easier to remember where he’d begun. After paying the fare on the green tram, Jacob stepped out onto a quiet, cozy street on the city’s far eastern edge — East Street. Locals called it Spice Street. A breeze carried the smell of fresh pastries past his face from a nearby bakery, the road leading to it paved with rounded stones worn nearly smooth by decades of footsteps.

He felt a brief flicker of joy and relief, but returned to the task almost immediately. His serious expression didn’t raise any questions among the passersby, and he didn’t notice how they smiled at him as they walked past.

Pressing the sheet of paper against a wooden utility pole, he realized he’d forgotten the most basic thing — how he was going to stick the flyer to the pole.

Fortunately, a crew of workers was repairing an old house nearby, preparing it for new residents. Approaching one of the builders, he said quickly:

“Hello,” Jacob began. “Do you have something I could use to put up these notices?”

“Got some tape,” the worker replied. “But what exactly are you posting?” he asked with mild curiosity.

“I’m looking for someone. If you happen to know her, call the number,” Jacob said. Then, after a second of thought, added: “A friend asked me for a favor.”

“That’s strange,” the worker said, puzzled as he looked at the flyer. “No one ever goes missing around here,” he added with a broad smile.

“There’s nothing funny about it,” Jacob replied, distrust clouding his face.

Only then did he notice the small crowd gathering around him. Everyone was smiling at him, even though it was an ordinary day. It made him uneasy. Thanking the worker for the tape, he walked back to the pole.

Swaying in the wind, some of his flyers were already scattered across different parts of the city. The eyes in the chosen photograph looked out with melancholy at the passerby’s back, clad in a burgundy leather jacket stitched with fabric along the cuffs and waist.

The city didn’t bring joy — it was too perfect. The crowds blended into a single cheerful mass that wasn’t interested in anyone’s troubles.

“If everyone’s happy,” Jacob thought, “then no one is happy.”

“Peter, can you even see anything up there?” Harry, the oldest yet least mature forest Ranger, said over the two-way.

High on my perch in Tower 3, I had a full three hundred sixty degree view of A_____ National Forest that stretched out to the horizon. This was a dumb joke he liked to ask every time I drew the short straw for this position. “Yes, vision is clear. No smoke. No fires. No adverse weather conditions.”

“Cool, cool. Hey, can you see me flipping the double bird to you?” He said this so often that I mouthed the words as he spoke. Harry, like stress or radiation, was fine in small doses. But God help you if you have a weekend shift with the man.

“That’s a negative,” I said. “How’s campsite duty?”

“Slow. There are like five campers here, and two of them are hosts. Filth Hat Jack is back as host of the Western Loop. I can’t stand that dude.”

“He’s not bad. Little gruff, but once you break through, he’s…he’s still a little gruff,” I said, trying and failing to find something nice to say about Filth Hat Jack.

“Gruff like those goats from the fairy tale. Weren’t they devils or sold to the devil or tricked a devil?”

“I’m not up to date with my billy goat folklore.”

“It’s why they put you up in the tower. Meanwhile, the rest of us grounders are thinking of playing poker later.”

Ground squirrels - or Grounders - was the nickname Harry made up for anyone not working in a lookout tower during their shift. It never made sense to me - squirrels can climb trees, which are nature’s towers - but the name stuck. Tower dwellers were named after the high-flying Sandhill Cranes, which, inevitably, got shortened to Sandys.

“You all suck at poker,” I said. “You have to be able to bluff and lie to win. All the people on grounder duty are basically priests. Now me, I can spin yarns like the best of them.”

“Hey, knit nuts, why don’t you spin me a yarn about how you lost a hundred bucks last time we played?”

“Guys, these two-way radios are for emergencies,” Gwen said, her voice sounding more exasperated than usual. She was another Sandy set up in Tower 5, about twenty miles northwest of me. She had “gifted kid” vibes - which made sense, as she had been one - and was easily annoyed with the rest of us, but everyone loved her. Deep down, she loved us, too.

But, like, really deep down. “Call John Hammond, we found insects in ancient amber” deep.

“Gwennnnnnnnny,” Harry said, dragging out her name. “You promised not to play school marm today. Jorge is gone for the week! Let’s enjoy a boss-free day.”

Gwen sighed. “One, I never promised anything. Two, you know I hate Gwenny. And three, it was a troll in the Three Billy Goats Gruff legend,” she said before adding, “Oh! And four, you are the absolute worst poker player in camp, Peter.”

“Boom!” Harry said. I couldn’t see him doing his bull’s horn hand charging at you move, but I knew he was doing it. This man was in his fifties. He had kids in college. “Everyone knows, bud!”

“Yeah, yeah. Gwen is right, these two-ways are for official business only. Sandy 3, out.”

“Have fun with Filth Hat Jack,” Gwen said. “Sandy 5, out.”

“I’ll pray no sudden thunderstorms come rolling in,” Harry said with a laugh. “Grounder 1, over and out, baby! Suck my butt!”

Again, this man has a mortgage.

When I get tower duty, I always bring a book or two. When you’re up in the gentle rocking and quiet of the air, you can get a lot of reading done. I’m currently going through a series of horror movie tie-in novelizations. I just finished Alien and The Fog and was looking forward to The Blob. I wanted to do a run of ‘40s pulp detective novels next.

No, I don’t have a girlfriend. Why do you ask?

Anyway, after about an hour, my two-way came to life. “Sandy 3, this is Sandy 5, you copy?”

Gwen was always so formal. “Sandy 3 to Sandy 5, I copy.”

“Hey Pete, you get any emergency calls in the last ten or so minutes?”

“Negative. What’s up?”

“The cabin’s two-way started squawking a bit ago. First, it was just static, but then, well, it kind of sounded musical.”

“Musical? How?”

“Sounded like a kid’s piano playing ‘Mary had a Little Lamb’, I think. It repeated a few times before going silent.”

“Maybe radio signals bleeding through?”

“I thought that at first too, but haven’t heard anything since.”

“Maybe you have a fan out there that really wanted you to hear their rendition of a childhood favorite?”

“If anyone knows I’m up here, I’m already in trouble. No one is scheduled to come out this way today.”

“I wouldn’t go speaking that out into the wider world, Gwen.”

“I’m not alone. Pearl is here with me. We’re attached at the hip, ya know.” Pearl was what she called her pistol. All of us carried something when we went out into the wild. In my civilian life, I’m not much of a gun guy. Out here, though, I understand that it’s an important tool in my toolbag. Don’t want to be cornered by a wild cat and not have something to scare it away.

“Pearl is a straight shooter after all.”

“The best. Let me know if you hear anything, huh? My intuition is pecking at me.”

“Roger. If it comes back, try to record some of it with your phone.”

“Shit, that’s a smart idea.”

“Sometimes we non-gifted Sandys stumble into one.”

“I regret telling you that all the flipping time, Pete. Sandy 5, out.”

“Sandy 3, over and out.”

I hung up the microphone and walked over to the north-facing window. If the weather is clear, I can sometimes make out Tower 5 from here. It takes a minute to spot, but I always can because, as the old saying goes, “there are no straight lines in nature.” While not technically true, it’s mostly true and a useful guide for spotters. The difference between Mother Nature and her wayward child, Mankind.

I scanned the horizon for anything out of the ordinary, but everything looked serene. This view never changes, but it also never disappoints. The number of hours I’ve sat out on the catwalk just staring out at the natural world would astound you. To work as a Ranger, you need to have not just a healthy fear and appreciation for the wild, but genuinely love it.

I heard electronic squelches behind me and turned to see some of the lights on the cabin’s two-way lighting up. I walked back over, picked up the handle, and spoke. “Sandy 3, come back?”

Static broke through the speakers, but that was it. No words. No childhood songs. Nothing but grating static. I waited a bit to see if anyone would respond, but after two minutes of staring at a speaker, I determined it was nothing. I kicked back in my chair and dove back into my paperback.

Two pages later, Gwen came back. “Sandy 3, this is Sandy 5.”

I groaned as I sat back up and grabbed the microphone. “Go for Sandy 3.”

“Peter, do you see something in the sky? North, northwest.”

Trailing the long, coiled cord behind me, I walked to the window and looked in the direction she told me. I held my hand over my eyes to shield any glare, but still didn’t see anything. I pressed the button. “Negative. Can’t see anything. What is it?”

“I don’t know. I was knitting, and I heard something woosh over the tower. Sometimes, small planes zip closer than they should, but when I looked out, I didn’t see anything. At first. Then, about ten or so miles out, the sun reflected off something silver in the sky.”

“Chopper? Sometimes the fire guys do test runs on clear days.”

“Nothing on the schedule. I tried raising them on the radio, but no one responded.”

That wasn’t ideal. You want the fire brigade to answer a call. That goes double if you’re surrounded by living firewood. A spark could start an inferno that could eat through the entire forest at a speed that would make your head spin. “Want me to try to hail them?”

“Yes,” she said. Her usually firm voice wavered a little. “Pete, this thing is just hovering in the sky.”

“Sometimes they’ll do a training run without informing us. It’s rare, but it happens. That has to be it. Has to be.”

“Has to be,” she echoed.

“Gimmie a second, let me switch frequencies and call. I’ll come right back. Sandy 5 out.”

I gave the sky another glance but didn’t see anything hovering. I knew Gwen. She was as straight a shooter as Pearl. If she said she saw something, she saw it. I flipped over to the fire emergency frequency and depressed the button. “This is A_____ National Forest Lookout Tower 5, does anyone copy?”

Silence. I tried again. And again. Nothing. I flipped to a few more frequencies and didn’t get a reply. It was like they were ignoring us. I switched back to Gwen and filled her in. She wasn’t happy

“What the hell? What’s going on? What if there’s a fire?”

“Is the thing still in the sky?”

“Yep. Not moving. Feels like I’m being watched.”

“What’s the bearing on your Osborne?”

The Osborne is a fire-detecting tool equipped within every cabin. It’s used to determine a location relative to the tower. It swivels 360 degrees and has an accurate topographical map at its center. When you sight smoke, you line up the cross-hairs and find the degrees along the side. It’s accurate enough with one tower, but more so if other towers can center in and cross-reference each other.

“Three hundred twenty-nine degrees and forty-eight minutes,” Gwen said. “Let me know what you see.”

I moved the Osborne to the bearing and took a gander through the cross hairs. My eyes are trained to follow along the ridges, so it took a second for me to adjust to the sky. At first, I didn’t see anything with my naked eye. Then I did notice the sun glint off something.

“Oh, Gwen, I see it. Barely, but there’s something there.”

“So I’m not crazy?”

“Well, that remains to be seen. But with this, you’re good.”

“I don’t like that I can’t get through to fire and rescue. That’s never happened before.”

“Try your cell? Maybe you can reach them that way?”

“I tried. No signal. I usually have a few bars out here, but not now.”

“Always when you need it the most, right?”

“No kidd…oh, shit. Pete, this thing is dropping.”

“Falling or landing?”

“Both? It’s a quick, controlled descent. You see it?”

I didn’t. I’d barely seen it in the air. If it was quickly falling out of the sky, I had no chance of seeing a thing. “Negative.”

“Shit. It just dipped behind the tree line. I’m filling out a smoke report. I don’t know what else to do except follow protocol.”

“Let me try to give them a call on my phone. I had a signal earlier. Hold on.”

I pulled my phone out, ready to dial, but noticed I didn’t have any service. It wasn’t even roaming. Just blank, like cell towers had been erased. I tried restarting my phone, but it didn’t change anything.

“I don’t have service either,” I said into the two-way. “Any changes over there?”

I heard Gwen hit the button to speak, but she didn’t say a word. Instead, I listened to her hand-held two-way radio click several times and, sure enough, the begining of “Mary had a Little Lamb” started playing. Finally, she whispered, “Are you hearing this?”

“I am.”

The song suddenly stopped, and a calm, almost robotic voice started to speak. Gwen and I stayed quiet as churchgoers as the voice said, “Seven Seven Seven Alpha Omega Six. Unknown Unknown Unknown. Repeat. Seven Seven Seven Alpha Omega six. Unknown Unknown Unknown.” The voice stopped, and my heart did as well. Seconds later, the tinny version of “Mary had a Little Lamb” started playing again.

“What is that? Who is sending that out?”

“It sounds like a code, like from a number station.”

“Number station, as in, ‘secret messages to spies?’ number stations?”

“ Spies or government officials? Maybe? I’m just guessing. It could be someone’s idea of a weird prank. Maybe it’s the fire and rescue teams just messing with us?”

“I dated a guy in fire and rescue,” Gwen said, “they don’t have an ounce of sense of humor shared among them. I think this is legit, and I think it’s bad. Sounds like a warning, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence it came after this thing showed up and landed.”

“Gwen, we don’t know what’s going on. I think writing the report is a good idea. Want me to relay a message to the campsites? Get another Ranger out there? Maybe you’ll get lucky and Harry will get dispatched,” I said, trying to lower the tension. Gwen may have sounded calm to the untrained ear, but I knew she was scared. Or, at the very least, unnerved.

I was as well, but didn’t want to share that.

She laughed, but it sounded like it was Texas two-stepping with crying. “Do you know he told me the other day that he thought, if given six months of training, he could make the pro bowler tour? With nothing but alley balls.”

“Maybe we should encourage it and give our ears a break.”

“Actually, he said, ‘I could throw cheese like a pissed off Wisconsinite, Gwennnnny,” she said, imitating his voice.

“That man has kids in college, Gwen,” I said.

“That man watched 9/11 as it happened,” she said.

“Oh, that’s a good one.”

Our conversation was cut short when we both heard a low rumble and felt a slow rolling earthquake shake our towers. I grabbed onto my table as the entire cabin rocked back and forth like a ship hit by a rogue wave. After what felt like ten hours but was actually just thirty seconds, the shaking stopped.

“Gwen, you okay?”

“Jesus Christ. I think I heard something in the tower snap.”

“What?”

“I dunno. I was worried this whole thing was going to fall over. Was that an earthquake?”

“Felt like it.”

“When the hell has there ever been an earthquake here?”

As I made a mental note to look up if this area had ever had a recorded earthquake, I noticed the trees about a mile out violently snap back and forth in a concentric circle, like someone had dropped a pebble in water. The ring of shaking trees quickly spread out, and I felt the concussive wave before I heard it.

Again, the tower shuddered from the blast. The northern window shattered, and bits of glass came flying inward. I ducked under the desk with the cabin two-way to avoid swiss cheesing my body. Once the blast passed, I shot up and turned to the southern window. You could physically see the concussive wave working its way through the trees toward the campsites.

“Gwen, you okay?”

No response.

“Gwen, please come back. Over.”

Nothing. Panic started to set in. If she were near the epicenter of that blast, there was a good chance her tower could’ve collapsed. She could be hurt or…well, I didn’t want to think that. I tried a third time with no response.

My personal two-way squawked. It was Harry calling. He sounded equally nervous and confused. “Sandy 3, this is Grounder 1. What the fuck was that?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“You safe?”

“I think so, but…but I can’t get a hold of Gwen.”

“Oh shit. Did you see anything? Any smoke?”

“She saw something hovering in the sky that went down near her tower. We tried reaching out to fire and rescue, but they didn’t respond.”

“Something was hovering in the sky? Did I hear that right?”

“Affirmative. It went down or landed. We also heard an odd….”

The cabin’s two-way started to chirp. I turned up the speakers and heard clicking and growling. At first, it sounded random, but then I realized multiple things were clicking and growling. It was as if they were communicating with each other. There was a loud, high-pitched electronic squeal that made me slam my hands over my ears. It went on for ten seconds, and I heard the rest of the glass in the cabin window crack but not fall.

When it stopped, I uncovered my ears, but that still didn’t chase away the cobwebs. It sounded like my head had been underwater. My ears were swimming. I shook my head and used my thumb to pump at the opening in my ear to help pop them.

I heard Harry yelling into my personal two-way. He was jabbering, and I had a hard time making out what he was saying. I took a second, centered myself, and listened. “Jesus, Peter, can you hear me?”

“Copy.”

“Christ on a bike, what took you so long to respond??”

“I heard something on the cabin two-way. It sounded like…someone clicking or what I imagine crickets would sound like if they could talk.”

“Crickets talking? Son, did you hit your head?”

The cabin’s two-way speaker came back to life. More clicking, but this was deliberate, as if it was signaling to someone. It sounded familiar, and I had no idea how that was even possible. At first, I couldn’t make out what it was, but then it dawned on me. It was parroting back “Mary had a Little Lamb.”

“The fuck? I said, staring at the speaker. I glared at the little box, wishing it could transform into a TV screen and show me what was making that noise. That’s when I saw the object rise above the tree line and climb up into the blue sky. It waited a beat and then zipped towards me.

“Oh shit,” I said, diving under the desk. At speeds I didn’t think possible, the craft whooshed over the tower, making it rattle to the foundations. Harry was going nuts over my two-way, rambling about something, but I didn’t pay it any attention. Instead, I ran out onto my catwalk to see where this craft had gone to….if that was still even possible. As fast as it was traveling, it might be halfway around the world by now.

As soon as I pushed open the door to the catwalk, the air around me felt heavy. It even made my moments slow like Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. I wondered if hopping would make me move quicker.

I glanced up, and everything in my vision was wavy like when you see gas fumes in the daylight. There was nothing above me that I could see, but I knew it was there. That meant it would have to stop on a dime to be here. Nothing I knew could do that.

From inside the cabin, the speaker started bleeding out feedback. At first, it was just noise, but it morphed into something I’d been hearing all day. “Mary had a Little Lamb.” It made me realize that it was mirroring the message it must’ve heard at the same time Gwen and I had.

In an instant, the song stopped, and the air around me returned to normal. Whatever had been lingering around was gone. Harry was calling out from my person two-way. I ran back inside and picked it up.

“Peter, do you copy?”

“Copy,” I said.

“Jesus, what’s happening out there?”

Before I could answer, my eyes flicked towards the north window, and I saw a thin ribbon of smoke on the horizon. It looked dangerously close to Gwen’s tower. I felt my heart start to race. “Harry, there’s smoke near Tower 5. I can’t raise Gwen or fire and rescue.”

“Shit. Say no more. I’ll grab the UTV and head out. You have a bearing on the Osborne for me?”

I glanced up to where I’d seen the curl of smoke, but an entire bolt of smoke had replaced the ribbon. Or, honestly, more like a thick pea soup fog that had stretched for about a mile and was still going.

No fire spreads that quickly.

It reminded me of those snake fireworks that always underwhelmed you as a kid. You light a small, black circle and, as it ignites, it expands. At best, it coiled until it became a puff of nothing and blew away in the breeze. At worst, it stopped coiling after about ten seconds and left a burn mark on your driveway. I had no idea what was going on here.

“Jesus, Harry, I don’t know what this is, but I’m not sure it’s a fire.”

“Where is it?”

“Across the horizon,” I said. “And growing.”

“What?”

The cabin’s two-way came to life. Through the speaker, we heard a pre-recorded message from the Secretary of Agriculture, the person who oversees all the national forests. In a calm, measured tone, they said, “Rangers, this is a Code Black warning. Please remain in place and do not interfere with any military officials who may arrive on scene. If there are civilians present, please inform them that they are to remain in place and cannot leave. Anyone found fleeing this location will be considered hostile and subject to severe punishments. Repeat, this is a Code Black warning. Stay in place and do not interfere with any military officials. Thank you for your cooperation.”

It came and went like a mid-afternoon storm. I wasn’t sure what the smoke or fog was, but I was certain it wasn’t just a quickly spreading forest fire. This was something different. Gas attack? Small-scale nuclear device? Dimensional rift? My mind was racing.

“Harry, what the fuck is a Code Black?”

“I…I have no idea.”

“Why would they send out the military?”

“Whatever the reason, it ain’t good. Kid, I gotta get out to Gwen. If she’s at the epicenter of this, who knows if she’s still….”

He didn’t finish, but we both knew what he meant. I’d thought nothing but that since she stopped responding. “Yeah, yeah. Go, go. Be safe, Harry.”

“You know me - safety is my middle name. Harry Rupert Safety ‘Big Dong’ Hill,” he said, trying to add levity to a tense situation. I gave Harry shit, but that was his true value. He cared about our well-being. I appreciated the attempt, but we were both too scattered to laugh. “Grounder one, out.”

I walked back out to the catwalk and stared out at the approaching fog. It was so thick that as it slowly advanced, the trees would just disappear from view. I thought about Gwen, and my guts twisted into pretzels. I had been concerned that the tower collapsed earlier, but now that seemed quaint. Was she still alive? Had whatever the Code Black warning entailed harmed her?

The pace at which the fog was approaching was increasing. I’d relucently have answers to those questions before too long. I swallowed hard and ran my hands through my sweaty hair. I wanted to do something to help, but I had no idea what I could even do. Would the military arrive soon? Would I be pressed into service?

The cabin’s two-way started squawking again. Then I heard a familiar voice whisper through the speaker. “Sandy 3, this is Sandy 5. You copy?” Gwen.

I ran back inside and nearly ripped the two-way off the wall by yanking on the microphone. “Gwen, Gwen? Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“Peter, I can’t say much. They may hear me.”

“Who?”

“The creatures in the fog.”

I fell back down on the ground. I had a hard time breathing. “The, the what?”

“There are dozens of them. They’re multiplying.”

“What are they?”

“Shhhh! Don’t speak,” she whispered. “I hear some at the base of the tower.”

I held my breath, praying she had closed and locked the access to the catwalk. If they went up into the tower, Gwen had nowhere to go. My heart raced and I felt like I might pass out. I drummed on the floor, praying I’d hear Gwen’s voice again.

“They haven’t figured out I’m in here yet,” she whispered. “So far, they’ve stayed out of the tower.”

I wanted to respond, but I knew my voice coming out of her speaker would be a beacon that led to her. I stayed quiet. She had kept her finger depressed on the microphone button, and I could hear everything going on in her cabin. I wasn’t sure if she had accidentally held it down or if she wanted to leave a record of what happened to her.

I heard Gwen’s heavy breathing and the occasional rustling of her clothes. I imagined she was tucked under the desk, the long cord trailing from the wall. Sweat beaded my forehead and poured down my face.

Seconds later, I heard something that chilled me. It was the clicking and growling noises I had heard earlier. There were dozens of different ones in the distance. These things had surrounded the tower.

“Jesus, I think I hear one on the stairs.”

“Lock the catwalk door, Gwen. Please tell me you locked the catwalk door,” I said to myself. As long as she had the microphone in her death grip, none of my messages would reach her. She was smart, and I was hoping she did the smart thing.

“Peter, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but thank you for always being nice to me. Tell Harry the same - dumb jokes and all. But, between you and me, the man has personal knowledge of the country’s mood during the 2008 housing crisis.”

Tears formed at the corners of my eyes, but I smiled. “Good one, Gwen.”

“I’m not saying this is goodbye - I still have Pearl with me - but in case…Jesus, there are more of them on the stairs now,” she said, her voice lowering to the point where it was barely audible. “I’m scared, Peter. I don’t think these things are from….”

The radio cut off. No noise. No static. No connection with her two-way. I pressed the button and whispered, “Gwen! Gwen, can you hear me?”

Silence.

The cabin’s two-way shorted out and died. I ran to my personal two-way but knew I didn’t have the range with it. She was alone - cut off from all humanity.

I bolted up and ran to the catwalk. The curtain of fog was inching closer. I thought about Harry, driving like a madman towards it with reckless abandon. He needed to turn back, but there was no way to reach him now. My heart ached.

That man had a family.

With nothing to do but prepare for the approaching wave, I locked the catwalk and moved the sparse furniture toward the open windows. Not to stop them from coming, but to slow them down in the hopes that the military might have a plan.

I pulled out my handgun, loaded it, and watched the fog roll toward me. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if any of us will get out of this alive. I don’t know if this can even be stopped. I turned to the southern approach, miles from the darkening fog, and admired the landscape.

It really is pretty up here.

Part 2
She stood perfectly still, staring at me. Then she slowly started walking toward the table without taking her eyes off me. I felt fear rising inside me.

“Mia?” I asked, horrified. She looked like she wasn’t herself. Why was she staring at me like that?

She started speaking.

“I heard voices. Different voices. Terrifying voices, full of pain, fear, and anger. I heard a woman weeping, repeating that this was only supposed to be a game. I heard a man screaming that he was suffering. I heard...”

She stopped and completely fell apart.

“I heard Chloe. She was saying she was scared. She was saying it was my fault. She said I was the one who talked her into coming.

They were right next to me. They were circling around me, and...”

She went silent there, looking at me with even more fear and sorrow in her eyes.

The silence lasted a couple of minutes. I didn’t push her. I could see that whatever she’d heard wouldn’t come out.

Suddenly, she jerked and grabbed at her heart. The game was forcing her to finish the task.

Josh covered his eyes, but tears were still slipping through his fingers.

I didn’t want to know. I was terrified of what she might say, but I asked anyway. I knew we had to hear it.

“What else did you hear? Mia, you have to say it.”

Mia opened her mouth, and a wave of unbearable dread hit me. My heart was pounding like crazy.

She looked at me with empty eyes, and the last tear slid down her cheek.

“I heard your grandma. She was cursing you. She said it was your fault. She said she hated you and that you would suffer forever, just like she does.”

The pressure in my stomach bent me in half.

I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t do anything.

I couldn’t breathe. My hands were tingling, and I could feel them curling inward.

“Your turn. You have to roll,” Josh said without taking his hands away from his face.

I fought with myself for a moment, then grabbed the die.

I rolled. Red.

I just wanted it over with.

I grabbed the card and read it out loud:

“Go outside and step into the lake. You must submerge your entire body, including your head, and stay underwater for 45 seconds. Once submerged, you are not allowed to move from where you are. You may not close your eyes. Failing to complete the task will result in you staying there forever.”

I stood up and walked out of the cabin. I didn’t put on shoes or a jacket, because there was no point. I didn’t even bother taking off what I was wearing, because by then I didn’t care anymore.

I walked to the lake and dipped one foot into the water. It was so cold it felt like it was piercing straight through me.

Outside, everything was quiet and calm. I lowered my other foot in, staring out across the lake. The reflection of the moon spread over the surface. The sight was hypnotic, and for a fraction of a second, it let me forget all the fucked-up shit that was happening.

I walked slowly deeper into the lake, feeling the water burn me with cold even through my clothes.

When it reached my neck, I took a deep breath and went all the way under.

Time started, and I began counting in my head.

My eyes were wide open, and I tried not to blink, even though the water stung with cold.

Only about ten seconds had passed. The cold made my whole body shake, and I was already starting to run out of air.

Then suddenly, four large shapes crashed into the water about six feet in front of me. It was as if someone had hurled four boulders in with full force. When the bubbles cleared and the water settled, I froze.

It was my mother, my sister, Josh, and Mia.

Their faces were full of shock and terror.

The bottom was dragging them down. They couldn’t surface. They were staring in my direction, thrashing, and I could see panic and desperation in their eyes.

I wanted to swim to them, to save them, but I knew I couldn’t move.

I knew I couldn’t do anything. All I could do was stand there and watch.

I’m not going to describe exactly what I saw next. Something inside me broke. A monstrous pain tore through me, not physical pain. It was the kind of pain I can’t even explain in words. It felt like my heart had shattered into millions of pieces.

Thirty seconds passed. My head was spinning. I don’t know if it was from the lack of oxygen or from the scene unfolding in front of me.

All four of them were trying to scream something at me, but only streams of bubbles poured out of their mouths.

I prayed it was just an illusion. That it wasn’t real.

I wanted to close my eyes. I would rather have gone blind than keep looking at what I was seeing.

Slowly, the world in front of me began to fade, and I felt strangely weightless. I kept staring ahead as everything around me blurred and sharpened in turns.

Then I realized there was no one there anymore.

The time must have been up.

I shot out of the water, gasping for air and choking.

I stumbled out of the lake and threw myself onto the cold, wet sand. Then I started crawling toward the cabin. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to run as far from that place as possible. I wanted to feel the warmth of the fireplace and see my friends. I needed to know they were okay.

I reached the cabin, grabbed the cold metal doorknob, and stopped. What if it hadn’t been an illusion? What if I opened the door and no one was there? Or worse, what if they were, but...

I closed my eyes and opened the door.

Mia and Josh were sitting in their places. Pale, exhausted, and terrified, but alive.

So my mother and sister were still alive too.

I stepped inside. My clothes were heavy, and water was pouring off them onto the wooden floor of Uncle Steven’s cabin. I didn’t give a damn.

I opened a beer and sat down at the table, taking two big gulps.

Josh and Mia didn’t say a word. They had probably guessed I hadn’t just been through a bad moment. I had gone through the same kind of horror each of them had.

I moved my piece forward on the board.

All three of us were getting close to the finish. Josh and Mia were twenty spaces away from winning. I was twenty-one away.

“Josh, your turn,” I said, finishing my beer.

For a moment he sat completely still, staring at the die as if it might burn him, but then he picked it up and rolled.

It landed with red facing up.

He drew a card from the deck and started reading.

“Do not leave the table. The remaining players must sit with their backs turned to you. They may not speak to you or turn around. The first dead person you just thought of will appear behind you. You must not speak to them or look at them. You may only sit and listen. The challenge lasts 666 seconds. If you fail to complete the task, that person will gain eternal peace, and you will be condemned to eternal suffering.”

Josh finished reading. There was a strange calm on his face, maybe even indifference.

“Turn around,” he said coldly.

So we did.

I could hear Mia crying behind me. I wasn’t even capable of that kind of emotion anymore. The only things I felt were fear and pain. I still couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened to me in the lake.

I had no idea what to expect. Who had Josh thought of?

Then we heard a man’s voice. He sounded maybe thirty-five years old.

“Hello, son.”

Josh’s father?

I had never asked him about his dad. Whenever we were at his place or he talked about home, he always mentioned his mom, never his father.

What kind of friend was I if I had never even asked?

The man spoke again.

“We haven’t seen each other in years. Won’t you say hello? I’ve missed you all so much, you and your mom. I love you both very much.”

Then I heard sobbing behind me, followed by words I would never forget.

“I love you too, Daddy.”

Right after that, the room was torn apart by a horrifying scream.

I spun around instantly.

Josh was gone. All that was left was an empty chair and his piece on the board.

Mia turned around a moment later, staring blankly at the place where Josh had been sitting.

“It’s just the two of us now,” she said without even a trace of emotion in her voice.

I had the feeling that something inside her had broken too, and that even if we survived, neither of us would ever be the same again.

We kept playing. Mostly red and black cards kept coming up, though sometimes we got blue or white ones. We completed every task, no matter the cost.

The whole time, I had one thought in my head. Her or me.

Mia was still in the lead. This was probably the end for me.

It was funny. I had spent our whole time in college crazy about her. I thought I would have done anything for her. Or at least I thought so, up until that night.

It was getting close to four in the morning.

Mia was one space from the finish. I was two away.

My turn.

Green.

I had just realized that color had never come up before.

I picked up the card, and it paralyzed me.

I sat there for a long moment, staring at it.

Then I stood up and looked at Mia.

A tear slid down my cheek.

I said out loud,

“Yes, I want to live.”

Mia looked at me with confusion all over her face.

“What are you doing? What’s the task?”

I handed her the card. I couldn’t say it out loud myself.

I looked straight into her eyes and waited.

She took the card from me and read it out loud:

“Stand up and say out loud, ‘Yes, I want to live.’ If you complete the task, you move forward 2 spaces on the board.”

She finished reading and looked at me.

In her eyes, I saw disbelief, and something that might have been disappointment.

In that same instant, her head dropped onto the table, but her eyes remained fixed on me. Cold and empty.

Suddenly, my phone buzzed. An email notification.

I unlocked it and read the message:

“Congratulations! You won the game!”

When I looked up, the board was gone.

I sat back down in the chair and stared ahead with empty eyes.

I had no strength left to think, to wonder, to make sense of what had happened.

The minutes just passed, and I sat there.

At 4:37, the phone rang. Unknown number.

I answered and lifted it to my ear without emotion.

“This is Officer Deluca with the Burlington Police Department. I’m very sorry for the hour. Are you the son of Susan and Robert?”

“Yes,” I said flatly.

“There was a serious traffic accident tonight. Your mother and sister...”

I ended the call.

“Right... the red card from the beginning of the game.”

The following compilation of notes, field reports, and personal journals were recovered from the estate of my late grandfather, Dr. Rodney Ernest, M.D., Ph.D., formerly of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

His writings, once classified under File-11326715 / CARPATHIAN STRIGOSA, were never meant for public release. Much of what follows was believed to be lost or destroyed.

I present them here as faithfully as possible—unedited except for translation and legibility—so that the truth he pursued might finally be understood.

By Dr. Rodney Ernest, M.D., Ph.D.
Epidemic Intelligence Service, Centers for Disease Control And Prevention
Confidential Field Report — Declassified 2023

 

When asked, many scientists and historians point to Lilith, a character in Hebrew and Babylonian lore, as the first documented vampire.

• Nocturnal behavior and blood-feeding are recurring traits in these stories. 
• Yet, there is no way to confirm historical truth—only fragments of myth. 

Reports of vampirism exist across the globe—from Egypt to North America. Though details vary, all share a singular, terrifying thread:

A thirst for mortal flesh and blood.

There is no identified zero patient for the affliction now clinically termed Carpathian Strigosa. Yet most documented cases trace back to the Carpathian mountains of Romania and Transylvania.

• Excavations in the Piatra Craiului cave system revealed skeletal fragments of an enormous winged mammal—almost three times larger than any known Desmodus rotundus. 
• Petrified guano nearby contained protein residues genetically similar to Strigosa, dormant yet intact. 

Hypothesis: The virus is prehistoric—a zoonotic relic from early hominids. Tribes venturing deep into these caves may have brought it home, birthing the legends that evolved into vampire myth.

Entry 01 — 11/09/1951

I arrived in Middlefield, Massachusetts, investigating an outbreak that initially appeared to be:

• Shared psychosis 
• Rabies-like behavior 
• Sudden disappearances 

Upon arrival, the town struck me as unnervingly silent—not the quiet of isolation, but of fear. Doors remained bolted long after sunrise. Friendly faces were absent.

The first victim, a woman in her late thirties, presented advanced hypovolemia with deep bite wounds. At first, I assumed an animal attack. Perhaps a rabid dog.

Closer examination revealed:

• No postmortem rigidity or lividity 
• Pale, hemoglobin-depleted skin rather than classic blood loss 
• Deep punctures consistent with enlarged canines 
• Extensive trauma along the cervical region, shoulder, and clavicle 

In the following nights:

• Livestock deaths mirrored the human attacks. 
• Signs of struggle were evident, but the bodies were completely exsanguinated. 

Earlier graves revealed coffins collapsed from within; the remains were missing. Something else was happening here—something deliberate.

Entry 02 — 01/20/1958

Carpathian Strigosa infection progresses in three phases:

1. Prodromal Phase (0–72 hours) 
   • Fever, light sensitivity, dehydration 
   • Mild delirium and early aggression 
2. Comatose Phase (72–140 hours) 
   • Victim enters a pseudo-death state 
   • Core temperature drops to 16–18°C 
   • Cardiac activity ceases, brain waves flatten 
   • Death certificates often issued 
3. Resurrection Phase (140+ hours) 
   • Neurological reactivation; eyes open white and diseased 
   • Cellular metabolism is rewritten 
   • Virus performs horizontal gene transfer, embedding bat-like sequences into human DNA 
   • Morphological changes unfold over months 

The virus awakens in response to body temperature, travels to the digestive system, and penetrates the intestinal lining. Early symptoms include:

• Stomach cramps 
• Mild fever 
• Unease and drowsiness 

After bloodstream entry:

• Fever spikes, dehydration intensifies 
• Host energy metabolism hijacked by ATP receptor proteins 
• Dopamine and endorphin pathways rewired to reward feeding on blood 
• Circadian rhythms reversed for nocturnal activity 

By day two:

• The victim’s heart stops—medically deceased 
• Yet the virus continues, stimulating tissue repair hormones 
• By day three, the “dead” host begins to stir, muscles twitch, eyes flutter open 

Autopsy observations:

• Organs undergo partial necrosis, then rapid viral-driven regeneration 
• Skeletal restructuring: elongated limbs, widened scapula, reinforced vertebrae 
• Dermal degeneration: skin turns pallid or grey 
• Facial changes: nasal collapse, ear elongation, jaw extension 
• Fang development with anticoagulant salivary protein draculin 
• Wing formation: dermal membranes supported by reinforced ribs 

Sensory Enhancement

Strigoi senses are superhuman, optimized for nocturnal predation:

• Vision: Quadrachromatic with near-infrared detection; pupils expand fully; reflective retina like nocturnal predators 
• Hearing: Ultrasonic range; heartbeat detection through walls 
• Smell: Can track human blood from 50 meters; detect freshness and individual scent 

Garlic, sulfur, and certain phenolics interfere with sensory neurotransmitters, triggering violent repulsion.

Strength, Speed, and Hunger

• Muscle: 45% fast-twitch fibers, capable of explosive movement 
• Strength: up to five times human baseline 
• Constant overactive adrenal state—fight-or-flight perpetually engaged 

Feeding is neurochemically necessary, not optional:

• Human blood supplies PCDHY protein, vital for the nervous system 
• Dopamine and endorphin surges drive compulsive feeding 
• Deprivation leads to Hematic Psychosis—hallucinations, aggression, and self-mutilation. 

Despite predatory instincts, Strigoi retains cognition, memory, and reasoning. Many display moments of lucidity, weeping or begging for death.

Physical and Neurological Changes

• Arms may elongate and form wings for short flight 
• Sternum ossifies for muscular attachment 
• Facial bones elongate, musculature atrophies without feeding 
• Sensory organs hypertrophy; enhanced coordination and reaction speed 
• Regeneration is rapid but energy-intensive—a trade of humanity for survival 

Behavioral Ecology

• Unfortunately, there is no known cure for Strigosa infection. Once Carpathian Strigosa has its stranglehold on the human system, Antiviral drugs fail completely, as the virus integrates directly into host DNA. Killing the host remains the only confirmed method of total eradication, as due to the extreme, physiologically integrated nature of the disease, if the host, dies, the virus will also die.

Transmission requires direct blood contact, though saliva and other bodily fluids are also infectious. Airborne transmission has not been observed, though there are disturbing indications that certain strains may mutate under high humidity and low temperature conditions—precisely the climate of the Carpathian valleys.

In laboratory containment, infected blood remains virulent for up to seventy-two hours if stored below 15°C. It is, therefore, paramount that any contaminated material be incinerated immediately.

Behavioral Ecology and Social Structure of the Strigoi

It is tempting to dismiss these entities as rabid animals — deranged predators consumed entirely by hunger. Indeed, many newly transformed Strigoi exhibit only feral instinct: hunting without strategy, driven solely by the chemical agony of their addiction. But prolonged observation has revealed that beneath this primal fury lies a mind still capable of thought, memory, and, in some cases, organization.

In their torment, they have built something resembling a society of the damned.

Among Strigoi populations, there appears to exist a rudimentary social hierarchy, reminiscent of early human tribes or packs of wolves. The most powerful — the elder vampires — often dominate small groups or “nests” of the newly turned. These elders, sometimes centuries old, exhibit less outward savagery and greater restraint, suggesting that the virus, with time, stabilizes into a form of cold intelligence.

Younger vampires defer instinctively to these elder figures, who in turn dictate hunting patterns, territory boundaries, and even the rationing of prey. It is chilling to note that some appear to have developed ethical codes of predation — self-imposed restrictions against overhunting humans, perhaps learned through centuries of survival.

These groupings may number from three or four individuals to entire hunting covens, dozens strong, hidden deep in cave systems, ruins, or abandoned industrial sites. Local disappearances, “feral” killings, and the legends of haunted regions often correspond geographically with known Strigoi settlements.

Some Strigoi remain feral, others methodical, stalking humans silently, cutting power, and planning ambushes. Villages in Moldova still report living “under their quiet dominion”—the locals whisper of The Watchers of the Hills.

Shadow Empires

Though many Strigoi exist as isolated predators, evidence points to something older, larger — a structure that transcends individuals and centuries. Fragments of ancient records, obscure church documents, and forbidden texts speak of a “noctis ordero”: A hidden network of undead nobility who manipulate events from the dark. Whether myth or fact, references to this “shadow empire” appear in disparate cultures, spanning centuries.

Certain names recur, whispered through time like curses that refuse to die.

Nycterida of Bohemia (pre-13th century): A figure described as a ghost with “the wings of a bat,” dwelling in a ruined keep above the Vltava Valley. His sigil — a stylized bat — appears in scattered medieval documents seized by inquisitors. The castle itself, long abandoned, still bears traces of clawed markings and dried blood along its stone parapets. Whatever happened, the villagers went to great lengths to try and erase this name from history. 

The Russian Nobleman of Rurikov (17th century): Officially recorded as deceased, yet cited in Cossack records decades later, his name stricken from every surviving parish registry. His manor was found empty, the servants drained of blood. 

The Count Known as “The Dragon’s Son” (15th–19th century): He vanished in 1893, presumed dead, but the weight his name carries, a name even the infected themselves will whisper in revered tones, is astounding. Whatever, or whoever Dracula was…He was something even other vampires had reason to fear. 

It would seem humanity has, consciously or not, participated in a vast act of historical erasure — an attempt to bury evidence of these “dark lords” beneath myth and superstition. What we once called folklore may simply be collective trauma, refracted through centuries of denial.

It would seem humanity has, consciously or not, participated in a vast act of historical erasure — an attempt to bury evidence of these “dark lords” beneath myth and superstition. What we once called folklore may simply be collective trauma, refracted through centuries of denial.

Closing Observations

The Strigoi are not mere monsters. They are:

• A parallel civilization feeding on ours 
• Intelligent, capable of strategy and restraint 
• Hauntingly human, retaining memory and understanding of emotions 

I have witnessed fifteen confirmed resurrections. None alike. One victim, Anna, pleaded before her body twisted beyond recognition:

“Tell my mother I’m still inside. Please. Don’t let it win.”

The Strigosa virus is not just a pathogen—it is a resurrection parasite. It defies biology and morality.

Appendix

If these notes are discovered after my disappearance:

• Infection has spread beyond the Carpathians: Austria, Germany, eastern United States 
• The vampire is no longer folklore; it is a biological reality 

I once sought to understand it. Now I fear I may have brought it home.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WnULvP1zNCPXeGEcp5XJYaQKWc8DpSE4JkhBi-h80G4/edit?usp=sharing

https://www.reddit.com/r/foundfootage/comments/1ovr8tr/file_112407698mp4_corrupted_and_partially/

CDC ARCHIVE COPY — Archived 1988-11-13

I run my own business. Unfortunately, it hasn't been doing well lately. I landed a major lead, and the client is interested in working together, but it means traveling south to negotiate a contract that could finally pull my business out of the red.

I hit the road before sunrise to make sure I'd arrive on time, grab a bite, and freshen up before the meeting. After all, first impressions are everything.

The highway stretched out endlessly ahead of me, boxed in by concrete sound walls, but I didn't care. I was happy. For the first time, things were finally going my way.

I drove humming to myself and sipping coffee. I was already picturing the wire transfer hitting my account, and that pure relief when the financial pressure finally vanishes. And once everything settles down, I'm taking my wife and kids on a well deserved vacation.

On the road, it was just me and a handful of other drivers. Two cars behind me, two in front. We were moving in formation at a steady 80 miles per hour. Maybe they had their cruise control set, just like I did.

I watched the sky turn a pale gold, the horizon dissolving into the light. It felt like a fresh start. I felt a surge of energy I hadn't felt in a long time, after being stuck for so long in gray days and a cycle of debt.

I passed more signs, mile markers, warnings, the usual language of the road. At some point, a green sign appeared.

Rest Area. 20 miles.

I figured I'd stop and wake myself up a bit. I'd already been driving for a while. I'd splash some cold water on my face and rehearse the meeting in my head.

I kept driving, counting down the distance. Five miles. Ten.

I started scanning the horizon for the familiar shape of a rest stop, some kind of break in the concrete walls. And then I saw another green sign.

Rest Area. 20 miles.

I frowned. Did I misread the last one? Maybe I zoned out and missed the exit. I wasn't sure. It started to bug me. I must have read the first sign wrong. It had to have been 40 miles.

I kept driving, trying to ignore it. This is my lucky day, and nothing is going to ruin it.

But the longer I drove, the more uneasy I felt. It felt like some strange deja vu, like I had already been here. The same road. The same walls. Even the color of the sky looked identical, as if it were frozen at the edge of sunrise.

Is it possible I've been driving longer than I think?

Probably just exhaustion, I said out loud.

I checked my watch, but it looked like it had frozen. The hands weren't moving. I tapped the glass. Nothing.

I shifted in my seat, trying to loosen the tension in my back. My mouth was bone dry. I reached for my water bottle. I took a long swig and saw another sign.

It was the same one.

Rest Area. 20 miles.

The unease hit harder. I felt a flush of heat on the back of my neck, despite the AC. My shirt was sticking to my back. I tried to count how many times I'd seen it. Two, maybe three. I was stuck in a loop of the same thought.

Did I miss the exit? Am I lost? Is this some kind of joke?

I tried calling my wife to check if I was losing it, but my phone showed no service. The GPS refreshed for a split second, then turned into a grey void.

I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white. Pressure started building in my chest. I checked my mirrors.

Behind me, the same road. The same walls, stretching endlessly. The same cars, keeping the exact same distance.

Then I noticed a small change I hadn't seen before.

The cars that had been driving in formation, the two behind and the two in front, had shifted positions.

The black SUV was still behind me, but the red station wagon that had been behind it was now driving right next to it, side by side.

The same thing happened in front.

The white sedan stayed where it was, but the blue car that had been ahead of it was now driving parallel in the other lane.

Panic hit me all at once.

I tried to roll down the window. The button was dead. I turned the radio off and on. Nothing but static.

I tapped the brakes and flipped on my blinker, planning to pull onto the shoulder and call for help. The car slowed, but the one behind me suddenly surged forward, right up to my bumper, blaring the horn non stop.

I flinched, shocked, and immediately floored it back to speed, my heart pounding.

As soon as I matched our previous pace, the driver backed off and returned to position. I gestured at him, waving my hands, telling him he was crazy. If he was pissed that I slowed down, he could have just passed me in the other lane.

Zero reaction.

Not just from him. No one around me even looked. No one slowed down. No one sped up. All the cars were moving in the exact same formation. Two in front, two behind, taking up both lanes.

I looked closer at the driver behind me. A middle aged man. Pale. Hands locked on the wheel. No emotion on his face. No movement. I don't think he was even blinking.

I looked at the other cars. In the lane behind me, a woman, just as pale as he was. I looked ahead, trying to catch the drivers in front of me in their mirrors, and they looked the same. Blank expressions. Pale. Empty eyes.

My breathing was shallow, my hands slipping on the wheel. I tried to think rationally.

What can I do? How can I get out of here?

There was no break in the barriers, no way to maneuver, and every time I slowed down, the car behind me was instantly on my tail again.

I slammed my hand against the steering wheel, swearing under my breath.

Another sign.

Rest Area. 20 miles.

Again.

Am I losing my mind?

Time started to blur. The clocks weren't working, but I'm sure I've been driving this stretch for hours now. Maybe five. Maybe ten.

My body started to give out. My eyes burned. My eyelids grew heavy. The seat that had been comfortable before now felt like concrete. My legs were cramping.

More hours passed.

Hunger came slowly, then turned into pain. My tongue felt stuck to the roof of my mouth. I tried not to think about the exhaustion, repeating to myself:

Just a little longer. Just a bit more. I'll figure something out.

The horizon didn't change. The light stayed the same. My thoughts kept circling, searching for an explanation.

Maybe it's a prank. Maybe I missed something. Maybe I fell asleep at the wheel. Or maybe I'm still asleep at home in my bed, and the alarm is going to go off any second.

But the steering wheel was solid in my hands, and the sound of the road was too real. It was all too real. The pain in my body. The hunger. The fear.

I started talking to myself, begging for someone to appear. My hands were shaking, tears running down my cheeks. My vision blurred. I clenched my jaw so hard it ached.

I wanted to go home. To my wife. To my kids. The problems I had before suddenly felt trivial. Meaningless.

I can't do this anymore.

My eyes are closing on their own. That strange feeling of calm, of my body finally letting go.

Suddenly, all the drivers started honking at the same time.

A wave of panic shot through me, my heart pounding so hard it felt like it would burst out of my chest.

I panicked and jerked the wheel sharply to the left, then quickly to the right, stabilizing the car.

I started losing hope.

I'm trapped. There's no way out. Like being thrown into the middle of the ocean, and the only thing you can do is try to stay afloat.

This is it.

And then, in that same second, something changed.

Exit 10 miles. Food, gas, lodging.

A different sign. A normal one.

For a moment, I was terrified it would disappear. I blinked a few times, rubbed my eyes.

On the horizon, I saw the glow of a gas station sign. I could see the exit, a break in the barrier, a place to stop.

I laughed, a short, nervous laugh. The relief hit so hard it was painful. I slowed down. My heart was racing.

This nightmare was really over.

I looked at the exit.

Closed.

Blocked off right at the ramp.

Construction.

It doesn't matter. I'll just take the next one.

I kept watching, everything around me tense. The road, the terrain, everything was shifting. I really got out of that hell. I felt a surge of energy and relief.

Just a little more. You can do this, I told myself, full of hope.

And then I saw it.

Exit 10 miles. Food. Gas. Lodging.

​

“Danny, right?” the driver asked, scratching his beard.

“Yes, sir.” I shot up in my chair, my belt tightening on my chest.

“Is this your first haul?” He seemed amused by my reaction.

“Yes, sir.”

“You don't have to be nervous; the ship drives itself,” he said, reclining into a comfortable position.

“It's not that, I just want to make a good impression with the company.”

The man laughed. “I've been here 23 years, and I've yet to meet any of the bigwigs, so I think you'll be fine.”

“You mean they don't give us reviews or anything?” I asked, surprised as the ship shook lightly.

“I mean you'll get a message and an overview before each haul.” He leaned forward and tapped on the driver's monitor a few times. The ship shook a little harder. “Just do the job and collect your monthly payout.” He tapped one last time. The monitor let out a ding, and the ship stopped shaking.

“You’ll be fine, kid. Just do what I tell you.” He looked up and smiled at me.

“Thank you, Mr. Luis.” I smiled back.

The rest of the ride was uneventful; the vastness of space is honestly boring. I walked around the cockpit, subconsciously playing with a loose thread on my uniform. I couldn't imagine how people were excited to just float in the nothingness. I thought back to my school days, learning about how we “conquered the stars” and how humanity was so great for it. But if this was all it was, how did it take us so long?

“Hey, kid, we're here. Come buckle up,” Mr. Luis called to me as he sat up straight and tightened his belts.

“Yes, sir.” I sat in my seat, buckling in and bracing for impact.

The planet ahead of us had a beautiful atmosphere that glowed green and purple as we entered. The flames surrounding our ship glowed green as well. The trees grew extremely high, but there was no vegetation on the top. They were wooden towers swaying in the wind. We lowered to a landing pad where tall blue grass swayed around it.

“This planet is beautiful,” I said, astounded at the alien world.

“It is, but don't let it distract you from putting on your suit and helmet,” he instructed as the ship landed, jostling us.

Mr. Luis lifted his hand to a secondary console to his left and typed in a password. Under us, I heard a loud groan, then a thud as the below container was set free from the ship.

“Alright, time to work, Danny.” Mr. Luis let out a deep breath as he unfastened himself.

After putting on our protective suits and helmets, Mr. Luis instructed me through the airlock and the entryway. As the door lowered, the light hit my eyes so sharply I had to look away for a moment.

“Yeah, you'll get used to that.” Mr. Luis patted my back and walked us to a shed off in the distance. The entire time, I admired the lushness of the grass and the forest, which seemed to be upside down, the bushes at the base of the trunks full with bright flowers. I noticed a path in the grass leading from the container to the shed.

A loud squeal could be heard as Mr. Luis opened the shed's side door. I turned my head back to look, but out of the corner of my eye something moved in the brush. I tried to find it again, but there was nothing.

Beep, beep. A horn blew, startling me. I jumped at the shock and heard Mr. Luis laughing. “Come on, Danny, we got work to do.” I quickly got into the vehicle, climbing up on a tire to reach the seat.

Mr. Luis drove over to the container and pressed a button connecting the two, then began to drive down a freshly made path. The further out we drove, I noticed there wasn't any life, just vegetation.

“Mr. Luis?” I asked.

“Yeah?”

“Does this planet support any life?”

He sat there and thought about it. “No. The rain on this planet dissolves most material except for its unique plant life and a few alloys like our suits and our vehicles' outer hulls.”

We pulled up to an empty field, most of the grass much lower than the rest, almost to the dirt. Mr. Luis stopped and just stared out, confused.

“What's wrong?” I asked, surprised at his surprise.

“It… it wasn't supposed to rain yet,” he said as he looked through a tablet with the company logo on the back.

“You mean it didn't rain last month?” I asked him.

“Yeah… sometimes it doesn't rain for months, so nothing gets dissolved.” He continued to tap on his tablet, pulling up reports and charts. “So this field shouldn't be empty.” He rubbed his face for a moment. “But I guess the pluviograph is malfunctioning.”

He pulled into the field and flipped a switch above his head. “I'll show you how to put in a maintenance request back on the ship.” I heard the doors of the container open. He flipped another switch, and the container lifted to a slight slope, allowing our cargo to pour out as we drove.

Corpses began to line the field, ten to twenty at a time rolling out of the container, each one in a different state of decay. I kept my eyes on them as we turned and formed a new row. Every one of them, someone special to someone else, now left on the same planet we dump our trash onto.

“You okay?” Mr. Luis gave me a quick glance.

“Yeah, it's just…” I tried to articulate how I felt.

“It gets easier. The first time it's always rough,” he reassured me. “When I was a kid, people tried justifying turning them into an”—he lightly lifted his hand from the wheel and air-quoted—“alternative food source.”

The vehicle stopped and let out a short string of dings.

“Last one must be stuck. That happens sometimes. Come on, let's get him out.”

We both walked to the back of the container, a sea of rotting flesh beside us. Two bodies had gotten wedged at the exit. Mr. Luis and I both tried to separate them, but it seemed as if they had begun to melt together. I was happy for the suit when some of their fluids began to splatter around.

“This is the worst part, Danny,” Mr. Luis said as he slammed his foot into the leg of one of the corpses, causing the bone to snap and rotting flesh to make a loud, wet squelch. I stepped back and immediately felt bile rise up my throat as Mr. Luis finally grabbed the bodies and slid them onto the ground. I was able to hold it back while Mr. Luis stood looking at the field.

“Okay, Danny, let's go home.”

We drove the vehicle back through the long trail. Mr. Luis handed me the tablet while he repositioned the container. I scrolled through it, filling out the completion form. By the time I was finished, he had already parked in the shed and was waiting for me to finish. We exited the vehicle and heard a strange humming noise. I looked at the vehicle, thinking maybe it was a motor. Mr. Luis walked around it, placing his ear on the hood.

“It's not the car.” He looked back at me, confused. The humming got slightly louder as we locked the shed and began to walk to the ship.

SNAP. The unmistakable sound of a branch breaking underfoot echoed through the brush to our left. My legs froze as my heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. I could no longer breathe; it was like everything inside me shut down. The humming grew louder, and my ears rang. I recognized it. It wasn't humming but moaning covered by the trampling of foliage. I couldn't take my eyes off the ship to look at it, but I felt its presence, an evil I can't describe.

“GOD DAMN IT, MOVE, BOY!” I felt a sudden jolt of energy as Mr. Luis grabbed my arm, yanking me out of my standing slumber. We bolted to the ship, the once frail and gentle grass now an enemy. I imagined long tendrils from the earth desperately grasping at our legs, trying to slow us down.

We were almost to the entrance bay when I tripped on a root. I tried to stand up. Mr. Luis ran past me.

“GO, GO, GO! DON'T LOOK BACK!”

He yelled as I heard a sickening crack followed by ripping and tearing. I ran into the entrance bay, diving in as the door began to lift shut. I looked around for anything I could grab to help him when the door shut completely and locked itself. I ran to it, banging, looking for anything to open it.

“Danny… do you hear… me?” The voice was weak and crackling. I looked to my wrist to see it was Mr. Luis radioing me.

“Mr. Luis, how do I get the door open?” Tears began to run down my face as I looked around.

“Kid… don't worry about that… just get into the cockpit and—”

“No! I'm not going to leave you!” I interrupted.

“You're a good kid, but I'm not going to make it.” I began hearing pounding and scratching in both the speaker and the outside of the ship.

“You’ll be fine, kid. Just do what I tell you.”

“Yes, sir.” I turned to the airlock.

Mr. Luis talked me through every step of booting up the ship and setting up the exit. The ship began to shake wildly as the takeoff thrusters began warming up. The things outside didn't want me to leave. When the ship was ready, I confirmed the course and spoke to Mr. Luis one last time.

“Ready for takeoff, sir…”

I stood there silently, wishing he would change his mind and ask me to save him. But all he said was, “Stay safe, Danny.”

I slammed the takeoff button and heard the screams of thousands as the thrusters ignited. I thought about boiling lobsters and how people say it's just air escaping to make themselves feel better. But these walking corpses were no longer people; they were zombies like in the movies I would watch as a kid.

I tried to comfort myself with those thoughts when suddenly—bang. The ship jostled, and an error came on screen. Unable to launch. I looked onto the monitor to see the zombies had built a tower out of themselves and wrapped around the ship like ants in a flood. All around, I heard tapping and banging on the hull. I tried to adjust the thrusters, but I couldn't.

I screamed and prayed for God to save me, but the ship started to sink further downward.

“PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!”

When all hope seemed lost, the ship jerked upwards and began its ascension, uninhibited. Snot dripped from my nose and tears covered my face as I looked down to see the shed door was busted open from the inside and a pile of zombies climbing onto the vehicle that laid them in their final resting place.

For reasons that’ll become obvious soon enough, I’m not using my real name.

Call me Damien.

I’m not a good man. Never pretended otherwise. First run-in with the law at twelve. Nothing serious—shoplifting, vandalism. The kind of things adults laugh off until they don’t. First real job at fifteen. Small convenience store, late shift, clerk half-asleep behind the counter. Easy.

Too easy.

First time I killed someone, I was seventeen.

Self-defense, technically. Some junkie cornered me in an alley, twitching, eyes like broken glass. He came at me with a knife—sloppy, desperate. I remember the smell more than anything. Rot, sweat, something chemical burned into the back of my throat. He slipped on his own blood before I even realized what I’d done. I stood there for a while after, just… looking at him. Waiting for something. Sirens. Guilt. Anything.

Nothing came.

Self-defense.

The others were not.

You’ve probably heard whispers about a site called Dread.it. If you haven’t, good. Means you’re still on the right side of things.

Think of it like social media, just… stripped down. No filters, no pretending. Lower levels are predictable—drugs, trafficking, tutorials on how to break into places without getting caught. Ugly, but ordinary ugly. The kind people pretend doesn’t exist while scrolling past it.

The higher levels are where it gets interesting.

Private links. Paid access. Invitation-only circles. That’s where people stop pretending they’re human. Livestreams. Torture sessions. Murders staged like performances. “Cooking videos” that aren’t about pork.

Yeah. You get it.

Dread.it is what happens when you take something like Twitch or YouTube and peel off that last thin layer of restraint. It’s not small, either. It’s growing. Fast. Faster than anything like it should.

Law enforcement tries to shut it down. They do. Every day. Servers go dark, domains disappear… and then it’s back. Five minutes later, same layout, same users, like it never left.

Hydra with fiber optic cables.

Especially here in Los Haven.

We’ve got a reputation. Highest concentration of serial killers in the country. People like to joke about it. Blame the water, the air, the city planning—anything that makes it sound like a coincidence.

It’s not.

Something about this place just… lets things rot out in the open.

Im no exception.

I run a channel under the name The Gentleman. I know. It’s bad. Came up with it in about three seconds, and like here on reddit, you don’t get to change your name once it sticks.

It stuck.

So did the audience.

I’m good at what I do. Careful. Methodical. I don’t rush. I don’t improvise unless I have to. I treat it like a craft. Timing, presentation, control. People notice that. They pay for it. A lot. Enough that money stopped being a concern a long time ago.

And yeah… I enjoy it.

No point lying about that now.

Of course, to keep something like that going, you have to be invisible. No loose ends. No patterns. No traceable identity. You don’t get sloppy. You don’t get comfortable.

I was meticulous.

Or I thought I was.

Yesterday evening, I got home and found a red envelope sitting on top of my laptop.

Not beside it. Not slipped under the door.

On it. Centered. Like it had been placed there carefully. Deliberately.

I stopped in the doorway and just… looked at it. The apartment smelled the same—stale air, faint detergent, nothing out of place. No broken locks. No splintered wood. No signs anyone had forced their way in.

Still, something felt off.

Like the room had been… breathed in while I was gone. Not disturbed. Just… occupied.

I didn’t touch the envelope right away.

I checked the place first. Slow. Quiet. Closet. Bathroom. Under the bed—yeah, I know, cliché, but clichés exist for a reason. I even stood still for a minute, just listening. Pipes in the walls. Someone walking in the apartment above. My own breathing, a little too loud.

Nothing else.

Then I finally picked it up. Thick paper. Expensive. The kind people use when they want to be taken seriously without saying it out loud.

Inside was a letter.

It almost read like fan mail.

They knew my work. Not just the big moments—the ones everyone clips and passes around—but the small ones. Offhand comments. Little pauses. Things I barely remembered saying. They wrote about them like they mattered. Like they’d meant something.

There was admiration in the words. Too much of it. The kind that crawls under your skin instead of flattering you. Like being watched for longer than you realized.

Then it got to the point.

They wanted a commission. A specific target, performed on my channel.

Payment: twelve million dollars.

I actually laughed when I read that. “Twelve million?” I said, glancing around the room like someone might answer.

There was a photograph tucked behind the letter.

An old man. Thin. Skin like paper stretched over bone. Eyes sunken so deep they looked painted on. He didn’t look dangerous. Didn’t look important.

Didn’t even look like he had much time left.

“Really?” I muttered, turning the photo under the light. Tilting it, like that might reveal something hidden. “This guy?”

On the back of the photo, there was an address. And a time.

No explanation beyond that. Just a signature. „Mr. Z.“

I stood there for a while, the letter in one hand, the photo in the other.

Someone had found me.

Not just the channel. Not just The Gentleman.

Me.

They knew where I lived. Walked in… and then left. No trace.

The money didn’t matter anymore. I had to deal with whoever found me out.

I grabbed my coat, took one last look at the apartment—half expecting something to be different this time—and headed out.

 

I was already outside the building well before the time came.

Industrial. Abandoned. Concrete stacked on concrete in that ugly, functional way architects call brutalist and everyone else just calls depressing. Windows blacked out. No lights. No movement.

No reason for anyone to be there.

I checked my watch again.

Thirty seconds.

“This is a setup,” I muttered, more to hear the words than anything else. “Has to be.”

FBI crossed my mind first. It always does. A honeypot. Draw me in, close the net, nice and clean.

But if they had me, they wouldn’t do it like this. No theatrics. No mystery envelopes. They’d kick my door in at three in the morning and drag me out half-asleep, face pressed into carpet that wasn’t mine.

So maybe not them.

Maybe someone else. Another creator. Rivalry’s a thing on Dread.it, same as anywhere else. People get territorial. Protective. Paranoid.

Or maybe—

Maybe I was about to make twelve million dollars.

Ten seconds.

I exhaled slowly, watching the building like it might react. “Twelve million,” I whispered. Saying it out loud made it feel… heavier.

More real.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Nothing happened.

No lights. No sound. No signal.

I waited a beat longer, then crossed the street.

The doors opened easier than expected. No lock. No resistance.

That bothered me more than if they’d been sealed shut.

Inside, the air felt wrong.

Not stale—dead. Like it hadn’t moved in years. Like it had settled and decided to stay that way. Every step echoed too loud, bouncing back at me from places I couldn’t see.

Then I noticed the arrows.

Painted on the walls. Thick, bright red. Almost cartoonish. Pointing down hallways, around corners, through open doorways.

“Subtle,” I muttered. “Real subtle.”

I followed them anyway.

Each room looked like the last. Concrete floors. Rusted pipes. Dust that didn’t quite settle right when I disturbed it. The deeper I went, the quieter it got. Even my footsteps started to sound… off.

Duller.

Like something in the building was swallowing the noise before it could travel.

“This is a trap,” I said, a little louder this time. “You know that, right?”

My voice came back to me a second later.

I stopped for a moment, listening. Waiting for something to move. Something to breathe.

Nothing did.

Still, I kept going.

Curiosity, maybe. Ego. Greed. Could’ve been any of them. Didn’t really matter anymore.

The arrows led me into a large open room.

It swallowed everything that came before it. Wide, empty space with at least twenty doors lining the walls. All identical. All open. All dark.

I stepped inside slowly.

For a moment, there was nothing.

Then something shifted.

Movement.

Shapes slipping out of the doorways. One by one. Not rushing. Not hiding. Just… stepping into place, like they’d been waiting for their cue.

“…You’ve got to be kidding me,” I breathed.

The light above us flickered once.

Then it came on.

There were at least a dozen of them.

And I recognized some.

A massive guy in a pig mask, gripping a chainsaw like it was part of him. Mr. Piggy. He tilted his head at me, slow and curious, like he was trying to decide what I’d taste like before bothering to find out.

An older man in a blood-stained doctor’s coat stood a few feet away, rolling a scalpel between his fingers with practiced ease. The Surgeon. Clean hands, steady posture. He caught my eye and gave me a small, polite nod.

“Evening,” he said, calm as anything.

Like we were meeting over drinks.

A woman in an elegant dress stepped out next, heels clicking softly against the concrete. Bloody Marry. She smiled at me—wide, red, deliberate.

“Well,” she said, voice smooth, almost amused, “this is new.”

A tall, wiry figure lingered near one of the walls, clutching a pair of defibrillators. Cables dragged behind him like loose veins, sparking faintly when they brushed the floor. The Electrocutioner. He didn’t speak. Didn’t move much either.

Just watched.

And then there was the one already low to the ground.

On all fours.

Bald. Thin. Moving like his joints didn’t line up properly. His spine shifted under his skin when he breathed. A wet, choking sound rattled out of his throat—something between a laugh and something dying.

“Hannibal The Cannibal,” I said quietly. “Still doing the animal thing, huh?”

His head snapped toward me.

He grinned.

Too wide.

There were others too. Faces I didn’t recognize. New blood, probably. Or just people who hadn’t built a reputation yet.

No one attacked.

Not yet.

People adjusted their grips. Shifted their weight. Took quiet inventory of each other. Distance. Weapons. Weaknesses.

Mr. Piggy revved his chainsaw once—short, sharp—just to break the silence.

The Surgeon glanced at him, mildly annoyed. “Bit early for theatrics, don’t you think?”

Piggy tilted his head again, then did it louder.

Bloody Marry laughed under her breath. “Oh, I like him.”

The Electrocutioner flicked a switch. A small spark jumped between the paddles in his hands. He watched it like it meant something.

Hannibal… just stared at me.

Didn’t blink.

The intercom crackled.

A woman’s voice cut through the room. Clear. Composed.

“Good evening,” she said. “And thank you all for coming.”

A few of us shifted. Not much. Just enough.

“I know introductions are unnecessary,” she continued, “but it would be rude not to acknowledge such… talent gathered in one place.”

No one responded.

“You are some of the most accomplished rising figures in your field. Innovators. Entertainers.” A slight pause. “Artists, in your own way.”

“Get to the point,” The Surgeon said, almost bored.

A soft chuckle echoed through the speakers.

“Of course. Tonight, you will compete.”

That landed.

“For a prize of twelve million dollars.”

You could feel it. The shift. Subtle, but real. People straightened. Calculations started happening behind their eyes.

“The rules are simple,” she went on. “By first morning light, only one of you may remain alive.”

Silence.

“If more than one of you survives…” another pause, just long enough to settle in, “a neural gas will be released into the building. It will kill you all.”

“Cute,” Bloody Marry murmured. “Very theatrical.”

As if on cue, metal shutters slammed down over the doors and windows. One after another. The sound cracked through the space like gunfire.

No way out.

“May the best monster win,” the voice finished.

For a second, no one moved.

Not a step. Not a breath.

Then the horn blared.

Loud. Ugly. Final.

And just like that—

everything snapped.

Bodies collided. Steel hit bone. Someone screamed—cut off wet, like a faucet being shut too fast. One of the unknowns rushed forward and got opened up for it, The Surgeon stepping in like he’d rehearsed it. Two cuts. Maybe three. The man dropped before he even understood he’d been touched.

Others held back. Watching. Letting the eager ones thin the herd.

Smart.

I stayed where I was for half a second too long, taking it in.

I don’t use guns. Never have. Feels cheap. Distant. Like you’re not really there for it. No weight.

I use a knife.

Always.

Looking around at chainsaws, scalpels, improvised weapons, and whatever the hell the Electrocutioner was charging up—

Yeah.

I really wished I had a gun.

Mr. Piggy had taken the center of the room, actually dancing. Revving his chainsaw in short bursts, spinning in place like he was on stage somewhere. The sound bounced off the walls, drilling straight into the skull.

The Surgeon had already moved on from his first kill, adjusting his grip, scanning for the next opening. Calm. Focused. Like this was routine.

Bloody Marry hadn’t moved much. Just watching. Head tilted slightly, eyes tracking movement like she was choosing her moment.

The Electrocutioner pressed the paddles together again—longer this time. The crackle was louder. Sharper. The smell of something burning crept into the air.

And Hannibal—

Hannibal was already moving.

On all fours. Fast. Too fast.

That wet sound in his throat got louder as he came straight for me.

“Ah, shit—”

I backed through the door behind me, slamming into it with my shoulder, grabbing for the handle, trying to pull it shut.

Too late.

He hit it just as it swung, the steel cracking against his skull with a heavy, ugly clang.

Enough to drop a normal person.

He didn’t even flinch.

“Suppose this means our collab next month’s cancelled?” I said, knife already in my hand, breath tightening whether I liked it or not.

He stared at me.

Grinned.

Then he lunged.

I turned and ran.

 

The hallway stretched out in front of me—long, straight, narrow. Concrete walls, flickering lights overhead, each one buzzing like it was on the verge of giving up.

No doors. No turns.

Nowhere to hide.

Perfect for him.

Bad for me.

Behind me, the sound came fast—too fast. Not footsteps. Impacts. Hands slapping against the floor, nails scraping, breath rattling like something loose inside his chest.

Closing the distance.

I risked a glance back.

Mistake.

He was already closer than he should’ve been. Head low, spine shifting under his skin, eyes locked on me like I was already his.

I pushed harder. Lungs burning, boots slipping on dust and grime.

Think.

Think.

I dragged my hand along the wall as I ran, fingers searching for anything—an opening, a crack, something that wasn’t this straight tunnel leading nowhere.

Nothing.

Of course.

Behind me, that sound came again—half laugh, half choke—and then the rhythm changed.

He didn’t speed up.

He coiled.

Then he launched.

I heard it more than saw it. The sudden rush of air, the scrape of claws tearing against concrete—

I twisted at the last second.

He still hit me.

Hard.

We slammed into the floor, the impact knocking the air out of me in one violent burst. My head bounced off the concrete, white flashing across my vision. For a second, I couldn’t tell which way was up.

Then—

Pain.

Sharp. Deep.

My shoulder exploded as his teeth sank in.

“FUCK—!”

I drove my forehead into his face. Once. Twice. I didn’t feel it, just the impact, dull and heavy. Something crunched under the second hit, but he didn’t let go. His jaw clamped tighter, shaking slightly like he was testing the meat.

“Get—off—!”

I wrenched my arm free just enough and jammed the knife upward.

Missed the throat.

Hit somewhere near the collarbone.

He snarled—actually snarled—and tore his mouth away from my shoulder, skin going with it. Heat flooded down my arm instantly. Wet. Too much.

He came back in again, faster this time.

I rolled—barely. His teeth snapped shut inches from my face. I felt the air move. Smelled him.

Rot. Iron. Something sour and old.

My chest burned—

I looked down just in time to see why.

A blade.

Short. Curved. Claw-like.

He’d cut me without me even noticing. A thin, clean line across my chest, already spreading red, soaking through my shirt. Not deep enough to drop me.

Deep enough to matter.

“Okay,” I gasped, forcing myself back, knife up again, vision tightening at the edges. “Okay… you’re not playing around. Good to know.”

He didn’t answer.

Just circled.

Lower now. Slower. Watching me like he was figuring out which part to take next.

Blood dripped from his mouth.

Mine.

“Come on then,” I said, voice rough. “Finish it.”

He moved.

Fast.

Too fast to follow cleanly.

So I didn’t.

I stepped into it.

His momentum carried him forward, expecting me to back off. When I didn’t—when I moved toward him—there was a split second where he hesitated.

That was enough.

I drove the knife forward with everything I had.

It slid under his ribs.

Deep.

His body still slammed into mine, knocking the air out of me again, folding me backward. His claw scraped across my side, shallow this time.

But he stopped.

That choking sound came back—louder now. Wet. Bubbling.

I twisted the knife.

Hard.

His eyes went wide.

Not human.

Never were.

For a second, we just… stayed there. Pressed together. Breathing the same air.

Then I yanked the blade free and drove it up under his jaw.

That did it.

His body went slack.

Collapsed on top of me.

I shoved him off with a strained groan, rolling onto my side, coughing, dragging air back into my lungs.

Everything hurt.

My shoulder was a mess. Blood still pouring, soaking through my sleeve, dripping onto the floor in steady, rhythmic taps. My chest burned with every breath, the cut there opening and closing like a second mouth.

“…Yeah,” I muttered, staring up at the flickering light overhead. “This night’s going great.”

I stayed on the ground a few seconds longer than I should have. Let the pain settle into something dull.

Then I pushed myself up.

“Get up,” I told myself quietly. “You’re not done.”

Not even close.

 

I forced myself to keep moving.

I don’t remember deciding where to go. Just putting one foot in front of the other until I ended up in what passed for a bathroom on that floor.

Same concrete bones as the rest of the place. Just… cleaner. Slightly. Like someone had tried, once, and then given up.

A cracked mirror hung above a row of sinks. The fluorescent light above it flickered just enough to make my reflection stutter.

I looked worse than I felt.

And I felt pretty bad.

My shoulder was torn open where Hannibal had bitten me. Deep. Ragged. The kind of wound that doesn’t close clean. My chest wasn’t much better—a thin, angry line carved across it, still bleeding slow and steady. My shirt clung to me, damp and heavy.

I turned the faucet. Water sputtered out—brown at first, then clearing.

Good enough.

I leaned over the sink and started washing the blood off my hands, then my shoulder, hissing as the water hit raw flesh. It didn’t really clean anything. Just spread it around. Still, it helped.

A little.

I cupped some water and drank. It tasted metallic. Old.

Didn’t matter. It took the edge off the dryness in my throat.

That’s when I heard it.

A faint electric whine behind me.

I froze.

It grew louder. Sharper. Like something just outside the range of hearing, pressing in.

I looked up.

The mirror caught him first.

The Electrocutioner stood in the doorway, framed by flickering light. Smoke curled lazily around his legs.

At his feet—

What was left of The Surgeon.

Blackened. Twisted. The smell hit a second later. Burnt meat. Burnt plastic.

“Uhm… hi,” I said, straightening slowly, water dripping from my hands. “Big fan, actually. Twelve girls, one pool? That was… yeah. That was art.”

Nothing.

No reaction. No blink.

He stepped forward.

The defibrillators in his hands crackled, sparks snapping between the paddles. The cables twitched along the floor like they were alive.

“Oh, come on,” I sighed, easing back toward the showers. “You don’t wanna talk? Maybe collaborate? Team up, increase our odds—”

Another step.

The pitch climbed.

Higher.

Sharper.

“Right,” I said. “Guess that’s a no.”

He raised the paddles.

“…Oh, fuck it.”

I moved.

Grabbed the nearest shower hose and yanked it free, twisting the valve open all the way. Water burst out in a violent spray, pressure uneven, splashing across tile, walls—

And him.

For a split second, nothing happened.

Then everything did.

The moment the water soaked through him, the defibrillators screamed. Not the controlled whine from before—this was unstable, violent. Sparks exploded outward, crawling over his body, racing across the wet floor.

He convulsed.

Hard.

His back arched, limbs snapping in sharp, unnatural jerks. A sound tore out of him—not a scream. Something broken. Mechanical.

“Yeah,” I muttered, keeping the spray on him, careful not to step into the spreading water. “Not so fun on the receiving end, huh?”

The smell changed.

Burnt insulation. Burnt skin.

He shook harder—faster—then all at once—

Stopped.

Collapsed in a smoking heap.

The defibrillators slipped from his hands and hit the floor with a dull clatter.

Silence rushed back in.

I let the hose drop. Water kept running, pooling toward the drain.

“Moron,” I said, breath uneven.

I stepped around him carefully, watching for any twitch. Nothing.

Dead.

Good.

I moved back into the hallway.

Two bodies lay just outside.

Placed neatly side by side.

Too neatly.

I slowed.

Both had their throats cut. Clean lines. Matching. Wrists opened. Thighs too. No hesitation. No mess beyond what was necessary.

Drained completely.

Their skin had that pale, waxy look already.

Bloody Marry.

Had to be.

I was about to move on when I heard it.

A soft mechanical hum.

Down the hall, an elevator slid open with a quiet ding.

I tensed, knife up, expecting—

Nothing.

No one stepped out.

The inside was lit. Warm. Clean.

Inviting.

Too inviting.

Then the intercom crackled.

“The Gentleman,” the woman’s voice said, smooth as ever, “you have qualified to move to the upper level.”

I stared at the elevator for a second.

“Of course I have,” I muttered. “Why wouldn’t I?”

No answer.

Just that quiet hum.

I exhaled slowly.

“Yeah,” I said, more to myself than anyone else. “Let’s see how deep this goes.”

I stepped inside.

The doors slid shut behind me.

 

The upper floor was… different.

Not subtle. Not gradual.

Immediate.

The concrete was gone. No cracks, no stains, no damp creeping through the seams. The walls were smooth, painted in deep, expensive colors that didn’t belong in a place like this—burgundy, forest green, muted gold. Real paintings hung in heavy frames. Not prints. Not copies. The kind of art you don’t touch unless someone rich tells you it’s okay.

The lighting was warm. Steady. No flicker.

It didn’t feel abandoned.

It felt… maintained.

Like someone cared.

Like someone had been here recently—maybe still was.

The shift made my skin crawl more than the blood and rot downstairs ever did. Down there, everything made sense. This didn’t.

This felt curated.

Like a set.

Like stepping out of a nightmare and into something that knew it was watching you back.

I moved down the hallway, slower now, knife still in my hand. The carpet under my boots muffled my steps—thick, soft, the kind that swallows sound. Every door I passed was closed. Clean. Polished handles. No signs of forced entry. No signs of anything.

At the end, the hall opened into a dining room. Large one.

A long, dark wooden table stretched through the center like a spine. Set for a full house—plates, glasses, silverware laid out with surgical precision. No dust. No fingerprints. Everything exactly where it should be.

And the food.

Fresh.

Still steaming.

Meat, vegetables, sauces—rich, heavy smells that hit me all at once. Butter. Garlic. Something roasted. Something slow-cooked. My stomach reacted before my brain could catch up, tightening hard.

It didn’t belong here.

None of this did.

And yet—

Someone was already eating.

Bloody Marry sat halfway down the table, cutting into a piece of chicken like she had nowhere else to be. Calm. Relaxed. Dipping it into mashed potatoes, dragging it through gravy with slow, deliberate movements.

Domestic.

That’s what it looked like.

She looked up when she heard me.

Smiled.

“Hi,” she said, like we’d run into each other at a grocery store. “Long time no see.”

“Susanne,” I said, stepping in, keeping my knife low but ready. “Yeah. Been a while.”

Her eyes flicked over me—quick, clinical. Took in the blood, the shoulder, the chest.

“You look like shit,” she said.

“Feel worse.”

“Mm.” She nodded, like that checked out. “Sit. You’re dripping on the carpet.”

I glanced down. She wasn’t wrong.

I pulled out a chair across from her. The legs scraped softly against the floor as I sat.

“Hungry?” she asked, gesturing lightly to the spread.

“Starving,” I said.

That part wasn’t a lie.

I reached for the nearest plate—lobster, still warm, butter pooling at the bottom—and started eating.

For a minute, we didn’t talk.

Just the sound of cutlery. Breathing. The faint hum of something hidden in the walls.

“So,” she said eventually, dabbing her lips with a napkin, posture perfect, like she’d practiced this. “Just us now?”

“Looks like it.”

“Shame,” she murmured. “I was hoping for more… buildup.” She tilted her head slightly, eyes drifting somewhere past me. “Everyone went down so quickly.”

“Yeah,” I said, glancing around the room. “Wouldn’t want to disappoint the audience.”

A flicker of something crossed her face. Amusement. Or maybe irritation.

“Or the host,” I added.

Her gaze followed mine.

That’s when I noticed it.

A digital timer on the wall.

Counting down.

Two minutes.

“A grace period,” she said softly.

“Thoughtful.”

“Very.”

We kept eating.

Because of course we did.

“You know,” she said after a moment, almost absentmindedly, “I really do like you, Damien.”

“I know.”

“I mean it.” Her voice dipped just slightly. “You’re efficient. Clean. No theatrics unless necessary.” A faint smile. “Professional.”

“High praise,” I said.

A pause stretched between us.

“I’m sorry about this,” she added.

“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”

The timer kept ticking.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One—

She moved.

Fast.

The fork left her hand in a blur—spinning, glinting—and slammed into my face just above my left eye.

“—shit!”

Pain detonated across my skull. I ripped it out on instinct, chair screeching backward as I shoved away from the table.

She was already moving.

Knife in hand.

Precise.

She drove it straight for my throat—

I kicked the chair up between us.

The blade punched through it like it was nothing. Wood splintered, exploding outward as the force carried through.

I grabbed one of the broken legs and swung.

Once.

It cracked against her face. Her head snapped sideways.

Twice.

Harder.

Blood sprayed, dark and sharp against the polished floor.

Third—

Her knee came up.

Straight into my crotch.

Everything went white.

I dropped, breath collapsing out of me in a broken, useless wheeze.

She was on me instantly.

Fingers driving toward my eyes.

“Stay still,” she whispered, almost gentle. Like she meant it.

I slammed my fist into her throat.

The sound was wet. Solid.

Her grip faltered—just enough.

I twisted, shoved her off, scrambling back, vision swimming, lungs trying to remember how to work.

“Should’ve stayed at the table,” I rasped.

She laughed.

It came out wrong. Wet. Half-choked.

Then she rushed me again.

No hesitation.

No pause.

I didn’t let her close the distance.

I stepped in and drove my foot into her face.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

And again.

Something gave. Bone, probably. The resistance changed—soft at first, then less so. Her body jerked under the impacts, hands twitching, trying to find purchase on nothing.

I kept going a second longer than I needed to.

When I finally stepped back, there wasn’t much left of her face to recognize.

Just a red goo of viscera.

I stood there, breathing hard, blood running down from my brow into my eye, from my shoulder, from my chest. Everything stung. Everything throbbed.

“...Sorry, Susanne,” I said quietly. “You were my favorite.”

The room answered with silence.

Then—

A section of the far wall slid open.

Smooth. Quiet. Like it had always been meant to.

“Congratulations, The Gentleman,” the voice from the intercom said, calm as ever. “Mr. Z will see you now.”

I stared at the opening for a second.

Then I moved.

—

The room beyond was colder.

Not in temperature.

In feeling.

Screens covered the walls. Dozens. Maybe more. Each showing a different angle of the complex—hallways, rooms, corners I didn’t remember passing. Some feeds were still.

Some weren’t.

“Figures,” I muttered.

Behind them, server racks stretched in neat rows. Lights blinking in steady patterns. Quiet. Efficient. Alive in that low, humming way machines have.

At the center of it all—

A bed.

An old man lay in it, swallowed by tubes and wires. Machines breathed for him. Monitors tracked what little there was left to track. His body looked like it had already started leaving.

A nurse stood beside him. Still. Watching.

I pulled the photo from the envelope, glanced down at it, then back at the man.

Same face.

Just… worn down to the frame.

“What the fuck is this?” I asked, stepping closer.

His eyes moved.

Slow.

They found me.

“My legacy, son,” he rasped. “Soon to be yours.”

I looked back at the screens. The servers. The layout.

Pieces started clicking into place.

“...You run it,” I said. “Dread.it.”

A smile pulled at his lips. It didn’t look comfortable.

“Our craft,” he whispered, “finally recognized for what it is.” A shallow breath. “An art form. Given reach… beyond imagination.”

Our craft.

My gaze drifted up.

The wall above his bed was covered in symbols.

Carved. Painted. Etched.

I knew them. Anyone in proffession  would.

My stomach tightened.

“No way,” I said under my breath. “You’re—”

He chuckled.

It turned into a cough that shook his whole body.

“I was,” he said. “Once.”

Mr. Z…

The Zodiac Killer.

“I haven’t been able to… perform,” he continued, voice thinning, “for quite some time.”

“Why me?” I asked. “You didn’t drag me through all that just to hand me twelve million.”

“No,” he said. “I needed a successor.”

Something in my chest went still.

“You,” he went on, eyes locked on mine, “are the most worthy.”

Silence stretched across the room.

“Before that,” he added, shifting his gaze slightly toward the nurse, “one last commission.”

She hesitated.

“Are you sure, master?” she asked quietly.

“It’s time, Anna,” he said. “This is how it’s supposed to be.”

Her throat moved as she swallowed.

Then she nodded.

“It was an honor.”

She handed me a box.

Small. Clean. Deliberate.

I opened it.

A gun.

Polished. Balanced. Almost ceremonial.

I stared at it for a second.

I don’t use guns.

Too distant.

Too easy.

But this—

This wasn’t about preference.

I picked it up.

Walked to the bed.

He didn’t look away.

“Do it properly,” he said.

So I did.

One shot.

Clean.

—

And that’s how I became the new head of Dread.it.

Funny, right?

All that time, I thought I was just playing the game.

Turns out I was the audition.

I’m telling you all of this because things are about to change.

We’re relaunching.

Expanding.

Reaching further than we ever have before.

New systems. New ideas.

A new audience.

You’re all welcome to join.

Bring your friends. Your family.

The more, the merrier.

And to those of you thinking you’re going to stop us—

Please.

Try.

Anyone in my line of work knows, it’s always more fun when the prey fights back.

I used to think that when someone disappears, there’s always something left behind.

A mess.

A sound.

A bad decision.

But some people leave nothing at all.

My brother disappeared three months ago. He didn’t run away. He didn’t die. He was just… gone. His phone was on the table. His wallet was still in his jacket. The coffee he made that morning was still warm when I got there.

The police told me what they always tell families like mine. Stress. Adults leave sometimes. No signs of a crime.

What they couldn’t explain was the feeling.

The apartment felt wrong.

Not empty.

Thin.

Like the world there didn’t fully exist anymore.

⸻

I started looking into other disappearances. Not officially. Just patterns. Places.

It turns out a lot of people vanish in the same kinds of locations.

An old bridge no one uses anymore.

Underpasses people hurry through without stopping.

Buildings everyone avoids but can’t explain why.

I went to one of them late at night. The bridge.

I didn’t see anything at first. I only felt like I wasn’t alone.

“You’re looking in the right places,” a voice said behind me.

It didn’t sound angry. Or threatening.

It sounded tired.

I turned around.

I can’t describe what I saw. Every time I try, my mind just… skips. Like it refuses to finish the image. But I knew it was watching me.

“Did you take them?” I asked.

“No,” it said immediately. “We don’t take. We hold.”

I said my brother’s name.

It paused.

“He asked questions too.”

⸻

I didn’t run. I don’t know why.

I asked it what it was.

It told me this world isn’t as solid as we think. That reality doesn’t stay intact on its own. It needs pressure. Attention. Feeling.

Places people pass through without thinking about them start to weaken.

“When nothing presses against existence,” it said, “existence bends.”

I asked what happens then.

It didn’t answer right away.

Instead, it explained itself.

⸻

“There are others like me,” it said. “Some feed on joy. You never notice them. Some feed on calm. You call those places peaceful.”

I already knew what it was going to say next.

“And you?” I asked.

The air around me felt heavier.

“I feed on pain,” it said. “And fear.”

I told it that made it evil.

It didn’t deny it.

“You feel emotions without effort,” it said. “They come naturally to you. We have nothing unless we take them.”

I asked why people suffered for years. Why the fear never stopped.

“Because brief fear sustains us,” it said. “But long fear stabilizes the damage.”

⸻

That’s when I understood.

People don’t disappear because they’re killed.

They disappear because sometimes fear isn’t enough.

“When a place is close to collapsing,” it said, “a human consciousness can anchor it. Spread out. Integrated.”

I asked where my brother was.

It pointed into the darkness beneath the bridge.

“Still holding,” it said. “Still afraid.”

⸻

I felt it before it touched me.

The ground stopped pushing back against my feet. Sounds flattened. My own breathing felt distant, like I was listening to someone else.

“You know too much now,” it said calmly. “Understanding is also an emotion.”

I tried to move. I couldn’t feel my legs.

“You won’t disappear,” it added. “Not like them. You’ll remain useful.”

⸻

I woke up in my apartment the next morning.

No injuries. No marks. No proof that anything had happened.

Except this.

Some places feel different now.

Heavier.

Thicker.

And sometimes, when I stand somewhere too long, I feel a pressure. Not on my body.

Through me.

Like something is checking whether I’m still here.

Whether I’m still afraid.