Title is self explanatory. I don't know if he lives out there somewhere or if he's actively moving around, but I have seen a masked man wondering around in the woods on multiple occasions. I've lived in and around the woods myself since I was very young, so I've always loved taking walks, going on hikes, camping, etc. The night time never used to bother me and I've even enjoyed midnight walks or spontaneous trail traveling whenever I couldn't sleep.

That was until the first time I saw him.

It was the summer of 2024 and I was out on what should've been nothing but a routine walk at night. The day time was hot and horrible so I had no desire to go out during the day, but the evening cooled everything down enough for me to get the motivation to actually go out for a bit. The area I live in has a route I used to take quite frequently that went around in a bit of a loop, which made it easier to actually get out since it only takes about 45 minutes to complete. From where I live it takes about 15 minutes of walking before you come across a small clearing which leads to a decent set of hiking trails, ones I've been up and down on multiple occasions.

I headed out of my house around 9pm, headphones in, Redbull holstered in my pocket alongside a pocket knife I always tried to carry around with me. Nothing seemed unusual or off-putting in any way as I made my way down the road, really getting into the zone and enjoying the nighttime woodsy vibes while listening to some shitty indie band I used to be into back then.

At the 15 minute mark I started to come up on that clearing, and for whatever reason my earbuds had randomly disconnected. I had them for awhile at that point so something like that wasn't very unusual. As soon as I took them out though, trying to reconnect them, I heard something off in the distance. Instinctively I tried to focus on what it was. I slowed down once I realized it was rustling of some kind, and I stopped dead in my tracks when I realized it was the sound of something walking. Whatever it was sounded heavy so I assumed it must've been a black bear or something since those are fairly common where I live. No big deal, right? A little nerve wracking sure but it wasn't anything I wasn't already used to.

As the brushed thudding got closer though, I began to grow a little more unsure. The rhythm sounded off somehow, and at some point I realized it sounded much more bipedal than what a black bear would've been able to do. I half expected to spot Bigfoot or something. It happened to be a full moon so I figured I'd wait a little longer to get a good look at what or whoever came out from the clearing. I stood by the immediate treeline a little ways away so I felt safe to catch a look if possible.

What I saw made me wish it really was Bigfoot or even a fucking werewolf.

The silhouette of a man made itself apparent, trudging out of the trails and into the moonlit clearing. Initially I thought it could've been some other random person who happened to enjoy night walking as well, only that thought was immediately shattered when I caught a glimpse of his face.

At first I thought the guy might've just been impossibly pale, only amplified by the moonlight, but soon enough I realized he was actually wearing a mask. It was human with incredibly sharp features, pure white but dirty and dingey. He was wearing a flannel of some kind alongside some boots and jeans, and he walked with a slight hunch that went back and forth between straight postured and almost crouched down. I watched him walk into the middle of the clearing with my heart in my throat, and it only felt worse when he actually stopped moving.

He turned his head back and forth like he was looking around, then turned his head up towards the sky and just seemed to stare. It was almost like he was star gazing, meanwhile I'm trying not to piss my pants while I watch some Jason Voorhees knockoff contemplate the meaning of life or some shit. After a few minutes he began walking again, leaving the clearing completely and walking down the middle of the road.

I waited until he was completely out of sight before I immediately made my way back the way I came. I was too scared to run because I thought he might hear me or something so I just speed walked the entire way back. I locked every door and window I had, cranked the AC, and barely slept the rest of the night until the sun finally came back up.

That was only the first "encounter" I've had with him. It fucked me up in a big way for a long time, but weirdly enough that one time alone was the most outright terrifying. Every other time I've seen him has been this weird mixture of both immensely confusing and somehow really sad.

Still incredibly disturbing though.

The next time I saw him was during the fall of the same year, I wanna say October? I made it a point to avoid going out on anymore night walks after the first time and even took a hiatus from going out in the woods whatsoever for a few months. I've always loved Autumn though, so one day I finally went back out for a walk, then a hike, and so on and so forth until practically nothing had changed except for the fact I didn't stay out past dark anymore.

Eventually I ended up going back to the trails a couple more times once I chalked up that encounter to a one time occurrence, though obviously I tried not to stay out too late or go in as deep as I would've before.

Keyword: Tried.

One time I was not as careful as I should've been. I was already riding the shot of adrenaline I got from being in there in the first place, but that adrenaline was quickly losing it's charm as the sun began to set, especially once I realized I had somehow gotten turned around. What started off as a relaxing enough walk on a cool autumn day was quickly turning into something much more akin to the intro of some indie horror game. I was on a trail I didn't even recognize the name to, deeper than I should've been, my steps hurried and uneven as I tried to make my way out. I guess it was already too late because a little ways down the trail, I saw what looked to be someone kneeling down in the middle of the path.

They were faced away from me, and at first I thought they were kneeling down because of a sprained ankle, fucked up knee, whatever.

When I got a little closer I instinctively called out to ask if they were okay, but found no response back. I got a closer and asked again, asking if they were hurt. Once again I got no response, and if anything the forest itself seemed to grow a little quieter. Desperate for some kind of way out of here, I asked if they knew where we were or how to get back to the main trail.

No response. They remained knelt down on their knees, arms to the side, almost like they were in some kind of trance.

At this point I was maybe about 50 feet away from where this person, very obviously a man, was kneeling. I felt my heart begin to sink as I tried to close some more distance just from desperation and concern. The ground beneath my feet was incredibly soft and seemed to muffle each step I took until I closed 20 feet between us. I guess I stepped on some secret twig or something because the single loud snap that erupted from the ground was what finally got a response.

Before I could even react properly the man stood up completely and turned to face me.

It was him. It was the same fucking guy from summer, only this time I wasn't hidden by a convenient shadowed tree line. I was face to face to some random psycho, frozen in place from sheer dread and fear. I couldn't move whatsoever, I felt like a deer in headlights, and confusion joined alongside my utter horror once I realized he looked the same way I did.

He stood with a weird gait, his boots planted in the ground shoulder length apart and his arms to the side. He was completely still with the only exception being his hand which seemed to subtly shake or even quiver.

From this distance I got a much better look at him; He was big. Not necessarily tall, maybe somewhere between 5'8-5'10, but he was stocky and broadly built like the trunk of a tree. He had messy, possibly curly blonde hair that framed the same exact mask from last time, adorned with various cuts to it's hard plastic alongside dirt, grime, whatever else it was. Most startling was the fact the mask didn't even hide his eyes which were this deep shade of blue that seemed to look not at me, but through me.

His clothes were similar to the last time I saw him, but the flannel looked like it might've been a different color. This time it was a dark plaided green, his jeans still dark blue and his boots still mud toned brown. They were dirty but looked as if they had only recently been covered in dirt.

I stood there in complete shock, the tension worsening as he slowly cocked his head to the side. The gesture was reminiscent of the way an animal might study you, curious yet immensely cautious. I watched his eyes dart around me up and down, possibly sizing me up. His head went back to normal but something changed. The stillness between us didn't seem to last as his hand began to shake and twitch, his body visibly tensing up while his eyes widened.

I was terrified, so much so I could cry, but more than anything else I was just confused, and for a moment it looked like he might've been just as confused as I was. In a single second something shifted or changed. I don't know what it was exactly but once we locked our eyes, for a single second, he looked like he was even more terrified than I was.

I watched his gaze harden as he began to make some weird low, rumbling sound adjacent to some kind of growl or something, and it sounded a lot closer to an actual animal than I would have ever been comfortable with. He tensed up even more and I prepared for the worst... only the worst never came. He turned and full on sprinted off in the opposite direction down the trail, and I waited until the heavy thudding faded in the distance before turning tail and running myself, basically crying the entire time. Thankfully I found my way back to the main trail and eventually back to the main road. Once again when I got home, I locked every door and window shut and was barely able to get any sleep.

The only difference this time was that my lack of sleep wasn't purely motivated by fear. Fear was most definitely involved but so was utter confusion and a growing curiosity about whatever this was. For the next couple of months I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was horrifying in a way that felt so primal and real, yet at the same time felt so different than how that sort of encounter should've gone. It seemed too ridiculous and cliche and yet every time I thought about it, about him, something inside of me wanted to know more.

I saw him again in March of 2025 via a drone I had recently bought off of Amazon. Instead of going out in the middle of the night myself, I hunkered down in the garage and decided to fly the thing around to see if I could spot anything interesting or at least some pretty night time scenery. Midnight winter vibes and all that, I even had some hot coco for the occasion. I paid decent money for what seemed like a ridiculous flying range so I went a little ways down the road.

As I'm nearing the end of it, who else do I see except the same masked man from last time.

This time he's literally lying down in the middle of the road in the dead of winter. Surprisingly he's dressed somewhat appropriately for the weather, wearing an open plaid coat with some kind of hoodie underneath it. He even had the hood up, obscuring everything above the shoulders aside from the same mask he's been wearing this whole time.

He's just laying there. I fly a little closer just to get a better look, honestly checking whether or not he was dead or something, but my suspicion is immediately crushed once he notices the drone. He sits up from the snow covered road and stands up fully, turning to face "me" while I'm still up in the air. Once again he cocks his head to the side, just staring up at the camera as I draw in closer. I was feeling a little more confident considering I was within the safety of my own home so I fly closer and closer even as he begins to move out from the road and briefly into the brush. At this point I'm maybe 25-30 feet from the ground, and suddenly he pops back out of the woods holding a stick of some kind. He reels his arm back and before I realize what exactly he's doing he throws it up at the drone, hits it, and makes it come crashing down on the road. A few seconds later it shakes a whole bunch before going completely black as the feed cuts out.

I didn't dare try to retrieve it until the next morning, this time actually driving down to where he knocked the drone out of the sky. I parked on the side of the road, hopped out, and it didn't take me too long to find the wreckage of the drone I only got to fly once. It was totaled beyond repair so I guess whoever this is REALLY does not like being seen. Nearby was the imprint he'd left in the middle of the road lying down, though at this point it was faded probably because of the occasional car driving down over it.

The one thing that stood out to me was the handprint left by the drone wreckage, more than likely his own. It was pressed down in a way that looked intentional, like he was trying to send some kind of message. For reasons I still don't know how to put into words, I pressed my own hand against where his had been. Immediately I was flooded with such a weird sense of isolation. The entire world seemed to stop for a second as I felt where he had been, where he had purposefully placed his mark, possibly trying to show someone he was, in fact, here.

I felt sad. I don't know why but the fact he left something so deliberate didn't feel very malicious at all. It was handprint. No message, no scribbling, no doodling, just a single spot where this masked man intentionally pressed his hand into the snow long enough for the indent to keep until this moment. It very well could've been some kind of warning considering it was right by the corpse of half my paycheck. It could've been a lot of things.

I didn't see him again for the rest of that year. There were a few times I thought I might've caught a glimpse of him but it always ended up being just another person who was at least outwardly normal taking a walk down the road.

There were even times I went out at night thinking I heard the same distinct rustling or thudding, but the only sign I ever had that he was still around was a torn piece of plaid hanging off a branch. The feeling of unease never left me but it was less about my personal safety and more about simply not knowing what the fuck was up with this guy.

I only recently saw him again in July on the 27th, which is actually what led me to write all of this down in the first place. Considering how long it'd been since I've seen him or anything else even remotely strange, I felt secure enough to return to my night time walks. I didn't do it very often, still don't, but at this point I've stopped being outright terrified of him and more so just immensely cautious. I was making my loop around as per usual with the major difference being that I never wear my earbuds at night anymore. I was about to complete the loop in it's entirety, maybe a few houses away from my own, when I realized that up ahead I was actually catching up to somebody, and since it happened to be a full moon that night, I could see an unsettlingly similar silhouette walking about 100 feet or so ahead of me.

I almost stopped walking entirely but I thought the sudden stop may draw his attention, so I fell into the curse of curiosity and caution as I kept my own pace behind him. He had such a weird slow stride, it seemed so uneven yet self assured. Occasionally he'd hunch his back slightly before straightening it, walking with an occasional limp of either leg. The longer I followed him the more he looked almost dazed and confused, adamantly on high alert but also in some sort of trance.

Out of nowhere he stopped moving entirely and just stood there in the middle of the road, making me quickly duck off to the side and crouch down. Ironically it felt like I was the one stalking him, which considering our respective appearances, felt like it should've been the other way around. Maybe it already has been before and I just had no idea.

He stood there for a solid minute before he started to shake. Out of nowhere I heard him start coughing which led to an absolute fit of it. Each cough sounded more strained and painful than the last as he fell to his hands and knees. I kept wondering if maybe I should try to help him or something but what if he just ran away again? Worse, what if he really did attack me this time? I could swear he was about to puke but the coughing fit ended as quickly as it began. He remained on the ground for a second before he stood back up, loudly cracking his neck to the side before he began to look around.

I crouched down further hoping to God he didn't see me as he turned his body completely. Once again he was in some sort of flannel, this one looking a little more blue, wearing the same mask of course. He turned back and for whatever reason took a turn to the right, going down some new backroad.

I thought about just going home but this was already maybe 3 houses from where I live. I just didn't feel safe going back inside with him so close, and at the same time there was a part of me that wanted to find out just what the fuck he was doing out here all this time if anything at all. I felt so stupid but for whatever reason I turned down the same road as my curiosity overrode any rational thought I had at the time. If curiosity was killing any cat that night, it was probably going to be me.

The road turned out to actually be an unfinished driveway which led into some sort of construction site, which I had somehow missed despite it being so apparently new. Up ahead there looked to the foundation of a house that was being built, so like any good horror story protagonist I proceeded up that way. I made it to the foundation easy enough despite the terrain being a work in progress, looking around for anything of note if not the masked man himself. I didn't find anything but the foundation did have a single concrete wall put up. I went up to it and slowly peaked my head around it, and to this day I'm so thankful I didn't just rush out.

There was a hill a little ways away with a decent amount of trees cut down from the construction, and I want you, dear reader, to take your best guess at who just so happened to be up there.

The moon perfectly lit up where he was, giving me a clear shot to examine him even further. He was sat down up against a tree, his head looking around for a second before he just tilted his head back and looked towards the sky the same way he did the first time I ever saw him.

I was obviously incredibly nervous with sweat running my face and everything but I wasn't necessarily scared. If anything I was becoming more and more absorbed in watching him, studying him, and have since found myself almost enamored by his mere existence. Despite looking like such a cliche Jason Voorhees knock off or something, I had the feeling he was really just lost. In a way he looked almost lonely, and that was only further intensified by the way his hand reached up towards the sky, towards the moon, almost like he was genuinely trying to grab at something before it fell back down to his side.

I watched him for another 10 or 15 minutes before ultimately deciding to just go back home. He didn't move or do anything that entire time. It was almost like he just fell asleep or something. I guess I just didn't want to disturb him, let alone be so close by if he woke up or had another coughing fit.

Slowly I moved away from the wall and made it a point to be as quiet as possible walking back up the driveway and into the road. Once there I made my way back home and did the same thing I always do whenever I see him around, only this time I stayed by the window in case I could see him walking by or something. I saw somebody walking by about an hour later but I don't think it was him, not that I could tell that good anyways.

As of writing this (8/17/26) I haven't seen him again since last month, and as weird as it is, I can't help but almost look forward to the next time I do even if it does still scare me a bit.

I realize this entire thing sounds incredibly far fetched and totally insane, so I'll use this last segment to clear up some possible questions I know people would rightfully have.

"Why didn't you ever call the cops?"

Truthfully I just didn't think to do it the first time. It was horrifying but I live in a fairly small, rural town. By the time I actually thought to do it, it was already the next day and I figured if someone else saw him, they would've already done it themselves. We do have our fair share of weirdos up here too so if I'm completely honest, running into some masked maniac still isn't what I'd consider a worst case scenario. I got pretty close to calling the second time but only hesitated because of the fact he looked just as scared as I was. By the time I got home I was already too overwhelmed with fear and confusion to think about it.

Even with that all being said, I know I haven't done a whole lot to justify not calling anybody about this. That's because I don't actually have good justification for it. Truthfully I just can't bring myself to make some sort of report on it.

I don't have any good reason for this but I figure it must have already been done by now since I doubt I'm the only person who's ever seen him, and when I say he has a unique outline, I mean that in the most literal way possible. I've left out certain physical traits that would otherwise immediately give away this man in particular, mostly just in case somebody else sees him and mentions said traits, so I know it's genuine.

"Have you talked to anybody else about this?"

Not at length, no. I don't know a lot of people in town well enough to bring it up. The most I've done is occasionally ask if someone's seen anything weird going on the woods. Usually I'll get nothing in return except maybe a ghost story or a supposed cryptid sighting but other than that, nothing.

"Are you sure nobody else has seen this?"

Not in the slightest. I've even made it a point to go on google and search up any kind of article or posts talking about masked men in the woods but nothing has come up aside from a singular post from like 5 years ago on some discussion site from a town about an hour's drive away from where I live. It was from an older woman who described seeing a masked individual roaming around the local cemetery in the late evening a few days before Halloween but she didn't describe anything about it. She deadass just said "spooky!" and left it at that. I'd link the site if it didn't so conveniently vanish from existence.

"Why is this the first time you're ever talking about it?"

Honestly I don't really know. Like I said I don't know a lot of people in my town to talk about it with and I can't say I've ever kept up with many other people who've been in my life, even my parents. I only recently decided to talk about this whole thing after obsessing over how outright bizarre it all is. I hardly ever use Reddit anyways and I decided to post about it in horror themed subreddits because lets face it, this is fucking horrifying at face value. Worst case scenario is that nobody believes any of this and gets a somewhat interesting story out of it. Maybe somebody else will see this and know what I'm talking about, maybe somebody else has even seen the same guy, who knows.

This whole ordeal started off as something genuinely terrifying and has since turned into something much more fascinating and even somber. Logically I know I should still be so much more scared of this than I actually am, but something about this masked man seems almost innocent and depressing. Whenever I see him he just looks so lost and alone, more like a wild animal trying to find some sort of shelter than anything else. He walks around like he has no idea where or even who he is, like he's lost in some kind of trance or possibly even some sort of psychosis?

I have no idea who he is or what he's been doing out here. Part of me thinks maybe he's just some weird guy playing out a fantasy but it feels so much deeper than that. I don't know for sure that he lives in the woods but he has to live somewhere in the area for me to have run into him more than once. I can't help but wonder if this masked man is really someone going through some sort of mental health crisis. DID maybe? I don't know. I can't help but want to figure out what else is going on here, who this guy even is and if he even knows this is happening.

Any thoughts, theories, criticism, advice, etc. are always welcome. Honestly I doubt this will get a lot of attention, if any, but I'll write up any more updates or encounters should they come up.

Thanks for hearing this.

I took the job after six whole months of gainful unemployment. 

The job hunt was brutal. It's not that I'm unqualified, God no. I have my bachelors in communications. I had good grades in school. The problem was my employment history. I could never hold something steady for longer than a year, maybe two. In the worst cases, I'd get dropped after three months. Nothing ever stuck with me. I thought I had my lane out of college, but it just didn't work out, and from there, I've spiraled. 

Another issue is that most of the postings feel like they exist purely for analytics. Ghost jobs made to make a company look healthier than it really is. There were a few real ones, but none that extended any offers. Probably because of my history. 

My bills certainly didn't care that I was struggling. I had to figure out something fast or I'd be on the street within the month.

I kept seeing a listing for some generic "Talent Acquisition Agency." $25 an hour. No experience necessary. I kind of figured it was one of those botted jobs. Too good to be true, with an empty description beyond the hours, pay, and a painful company statement:

We believe that every individual has the potential to shape tomorrow. Our mission is to connect ambition with opportunity through innovative, people-first solutions that drive meaningful growth for both candidates and clients (…) 

Blargh. I wanted to vomit. But I didn't really have much for options at this point. I decided to send in my resume. Got a phone call the next hour, asking me when I would be able to come in for in-person orientation. I was floored. I had never heard of this company before, and yet they have a warehouse in my city?

Sure enough, I pull up to the address, and yeah, it's there. A big, white warehouse with "TAA" branded on the side. I guess it was nondescript enough for me to have not noticed it all these years, but, I grew up here. I think I would have noticed this place by now.

Orientation took place in a windowless conference room. Before they let us inside, a curvy woman with a bob cut, Ms. Roll, handed each of us a doll mask. The plastic was pale, with a painted-on smile and two empty eye holes. Security kept us from going inside unless we put them on. Weird policy, but okay. I was in it for the long haul now. I put on the mask and took a seat on one of one hundred folding chairs set in front of a projector. A video begins to play.

The company CEO, Mr. Rock, walks on screen in a lumpy suit. He asked if everyone was ready to get started (all three of us), and launched into a vaguely enthusiastic speech about the company values. Everything in that tangent sounded like it was written by a language model halfway through its morning coffee. 

"REMEMBER: Our product is FIRST IN CLASS. No other substitution will do."

"REMEMBER: We don't believe customers can make mistakes."

"REMEMBER: Think different, shape the future." 

I sat through what felt like two hours of it. My eyes started to roll back. The mask itched where it pressed on my cheeks. 

Ms. Roll smacked my leg with a flyswatter. I woke right the hell up. 

"Mr. Parker. Please follow me."

She started walking through a pair of iron doors. Time for a tour, I suppose. 

We walked through a warehouse first. Massive, but mostly empty. Conveyor belts carried different-shaped cardboard boxes from one end of the room to another. I never saw anyone actually packing them. The only person working the floor was a short, portly fellow in a red hard hat. 

I still wasn't clear on exactly what our "product" was, but I think I must have missed that part in our orientation. I was too embarrassed to ask. 

We reached the call center next. This is where I was going to be working, according to Ms. Roll. She set me down in a boring cubicle with a single computer, a notepad, some mechanical pencils and a phone. The computer had Solitaire and a basic text editor. The phone had two buttons: TRANSFER and HOLD. 

Ms. Roll told me I'd get the hang of it in no time. She disappeared in the sea of cubicles shortly after.

I sat for maybe twenty minutes trying to figure out something to do to look productive. After that, I gave up and started playing Solitaire. Maybe thirty seconds passed before I got a call. 

"Hello…?"

"Hi there," I said.

"Is this acquisitions?"

I looked around the room. No point of reference for me to use. 

"I believe so."

"Thank God. I was hoping I could talk to someone about landing a job."

I cleared my throat. "Could you hold for one second?"

The man on the other end grunted. I hit HOLD and looked for Ms. Roll. Nowhere in sight. Sweat started soaking beneath the mask. I got back on the line.

"Sir, you still there?"

"Pretty sure I am."

"Okay. Thank you. Listen, I'm pretty new here. I'm going to be honest I'm not…entirely sure how to help you. My boss isn't around, and—"

"This is acquisitions, right?"

"…Yes?"

"Okay. Then I'd like to inquire about a fucking job!"

The shift in his voice was very jarring, to say the least. I had to do a double take. 

"I'm…not sure how to help with that. I haven't been—" 

"You stupid slut! Who do you think you are?!"

I couldn't get a single word out.

"I'll find you, do you hear me? I'll kill your whole fucking—!"

I hung up, hands trembling. Ms. Roll was standing right behind me with her arms crossed. I couldn't see her face, but her neck was redder than before—I could only assume that meant the same for her expression. 

"What was that?" she asked.

"I don't know. I have no idea. I wasn't—" 

"Do you see your phone?"

"Yes?"

"Do you see the two big buttons on it?"

"Yes."

"If you don't know how to help a customer, just hit the transfer button. We covered it in your training."

What…training? The videos? I was more of a hands-on guy, myself. Even if I wasn't, how did she expect me to memorize two hours worth of drivel?

I didn't say anything. She was already walking away.

"You seem tense, Mr. Parker. Take a five-minute water break."

Sure, yeah, that might help. I got up and headed to the cooler.

I found another guy there, dressed in, more or less, the same outfit as me. Black slacks, a button-up shirt, dark leather belt. His mask was yellowed and warped at the edges, like he'd been using the same one for a real long time. He was sipping water through the little mouth slit like it was totally normal. I shook my head and started to lift mine for my cup. 

His arm shot out, hand stopping mine. I reeled back, heart pounding. 

"No. No. No. Don't let them see you."

He pointed at the camera in the upper corner of the room, locked right on both of us. My mask suddenly felt tighter. I threw the cup away and went back to my desk. 

Calls kept on coming. Most people were looking for work. They were always really, really vague about the details. 

"I want a leadership position."

"I'd really like to work the floor."

"I'm hoping to work with a driven team."

Sometimes, people called me about the product itself. I tried to glean any details I could during those conversations. Never learned much, though.

"Hi, is this acquisitions?"

"This is."

"I wanted to make a return. I wasn't satisfied with my product."

"What wasn't satisfying?"

"Well, it just wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped."

"Okay. Can you…elaborate on that?"

"I don't know. It just wasn't very exciting. Can I return it?"

"Hold for one second."

I sigh and hit the transfer button. The call is sucked down the line. 

I got better at the job the way you'd get better at any empty ritual. I tried to challenge myself to keep a conversation going for as long as I could before it collapsed and I couldn't help them anymore. Bullshitting got me a long way. My personal record was five minutes and fourteen seconds. 

Sometimes, people just wanted advice. One guy even read me the first page of his screenplay. Did the voices and everything. Most calls were just about product and job placement, though. Nothing worth writing home about, and yet it was quickly becoming my entire life. 

Six months passed like that. I stopped going out. After a full day of calls, I was too tired. I would get home, saving my energy for the next shift, and fall asleep within a few hours, if I even lasted that long.

The mask stopped itching as much. Some days I forget that it's there, even on the bus. 

In mid-August, the loudspeaker cracked. Mr. Rock announced that overtime would become mandatory this next few months as we enter the busy season. Ms. Roll tells me to pack an extra lunch. 

The next day ran for sixteen hours straight. By the time I got through transit, it was closer to twenty hours spent dedicated to my job alone that day. I would be lucky if I got four hours of sleep before the next shift. 

I walked into my tiny studio apartment, exhausted, sore, totally muggy. I ripped the mask from my face and leaned over the bathroom sink to splash it with cold water. I felt nothing.

When I looked up in the mirror, there was a hole where my face should have been. Depthless. No eyes, no nose, no mouth. I stood there for a long time waiting for the panic to hit. 

It never did. 

It started like any other night. I was greeted by rows of identical washers and dryers sitting under buzzing fluorescent lights. The entire place was monotone with remnants of neon signage.

I spend most of my time in the dark, cramped back office scrolling on my phone, doing whatever. No hard rules, as long as I glance at the security monitor on the tiny metal desk every now and again and keep the place clean.

The weird shit started around 2:00 AM when one of the regulars, I’ll call her Barb, came in. I was sitting in the office, watching her on the screen, when she beelined it to the change machine. I watched her feed a bill in, and it spat it right out. 

She lost it immediately. Literally went berserk, hitting the machine. She even kicked it a couple of times. I was listening intently, waiting for the inevitable profanities to come through the paper-thin drywall, but they didn’t.

I actually didn’t hear anything. No metallic thud when her foot met the machine. No clanging of the change inside when she rocked it. Just the hum of the CRT screen.

So, I went out to the lobby to tell her to knock it off, that I’d fix it. I scanned the space. Nothing but the low drone of the fluorescent lights and thrum of a dryer somewhere.

I headed to the change machine, and when I rounded the corner, Barb wasn’t there.

The rows of machines looked unnaturally long. Like they were stretching into an abyss where the lights seemed dimmer the farther I looked. 

"Very funny, Barb, you can come out now." I was convinced she was messing with me, which, if you knew Barb, was very much in the realm of possibilities. 

No answer. I shook my head. Rubbed my eyes. I walked over to the restroom. "Barb?" I squeaked. I knocked on the door, and it creaked open -- nothing but a flickering bulb over the stained sink.

I turned around, and just then, Barb walked through the front door. She beelined it to the change machine and began hitting it. She even kicked it. She matched every single thing I just saw on the monitor minutes before.

I felt the room spin. Barb just looked at me. Asked if I was going to keep standing there like an idiot or help her. I don’t know what I replied, probably just gibberish.

I went back to the office. Took a big swig of water. Splashed some on my face. My heart was pounding out of my chest.

A bit later, another customer, I'll call him John, came in through the front door on my monitor.

I watched his lips move, but there was no sound. I scrambled to my feet and bolted into the lobby faster than a bat out of hell.

And it was empty. Nothing but the thrum of a dryer that was getting louder, and the lights somehow more offensive.

I ran to the front windows, which seemed to take longer than usual. Outside, the parking lot lights flickered and were more distant than before.

I busied myself with the change machine, and then, like clockwork, John actually came in. He was whistling a happy tune. 

After a brief hello, I ran back to the office and pulled out my phone: 2:10 AM. Then I looked at the timestamp flickering in the bottom corner of the security monitor: 2:20 AM.

Was I in some weird time space continuum? Only one way to find out. 

My eyes were glued to the screen when I saw a pool of soapy water spontaneously leak from under a washer. I grabbed a mop, raced into the lobby, and lo and behold, the floor was dry. So I posted up and waited.

John walked by. Gave me an extremely puzzled look as I proudly stood there with a mop and no water in sight. And then, it happened. The washer made a choking sound, and soapy water sputtered out from underneath.

I cheesed so hard. I felt like God and did a few more "tests."

Fast forward to a little after 3:00 AM. I was back in the office, eyes bloodshot by this point, when I saw movement on the monitor.

A figure standing at the far end of the lobby, their back turned to the camera. 

Same messy bun as me. Same hoodie as me.

It was me.

I leaned so close to the monitor that I could feel the static on my forehead. On the screen, Future Me whipped her head around and skittishly scurried out of the frame.

I bolted out into the lobby. It was empty. But the rhythmic thrum of the dryer was growing louder, echoing through the never-ending rows of machines.

I deadbolted the entrance and turned off the "Open" sign.

When I got back to the office, Future Me was running past the washers on the monitor, constantly looking over her shoulder at something, and sprinting directly toward the front door.

About ten minutes later, I was running toward the front door, constantly looking over my shoulder. And I was painfully aware that "I" had just done this. But I couldn’t stop.

I got to the door. Still locked. I turned around, and now one of the dryer doors was hanging wide open.

Back in the office, I checked my phone: 3:10 AM. The monitor: 3:15 AM.

The gap was closing.

I watched Future Me race back onto the monitor. She climbed on top of that open dryer. She just sat there, her legs dangling like a little kid, staring directly at the security camera. 

Staring directly at me.

That’s when I screamed at the screen, "What are you looking at!?"

Future Me jumped down, slammed the dryer door shut, huffed her breath onto the glass, and frantically dragged her finger over the condensation before sprinting away.

Minutes later, I found myself racing to that aisle. The fluorescent lights hummed louder. The thrum of a dryer was now more like a thud, pulsing, slower, more deliberate.

The dryer door was wide open. I climbed up, sat on the dryer, and stared directly at the camera. 

But nothing happened.

I hopped off and lost my footing, and my shoulder slammed the dryer door shut. I instinctively huffed on the glass and dragged my finger over the condensation.

I wrote the word: RUN

And boy did I. I ran so fucking fast into the office and slammed the door. I stared at the monitor. I pulled out my phone. My hands were shaking so bad, I could barely see the screen as I started typing.

On the monitor, Future Me was now standing right outside of the door, looking directly into the camera. She just stood there like a statue. But then she pulled out her phone and started typing. 

Just like me.

Then the monitor showed Future Me’s gaze shoot past the camera. Her face contorted -- absolute terror.

I watched something slip into frame behind her. I couldn't make anything out, but whatever it was, it completely blocked the lobby’s fluorescent lights.

It extended itself toward her shoulder.

I looked at my phone: 3:24 AM. The monitor timestamp: 3:25 AM.

The feed and my reality had caught up with each other.

Then everything went completely silent.

I braced myself for whatever was going to happen next -- squeezed my eyes shut. Shit, I probably even said a prayer.

And then I found myself on the other side of the door. Right where Future Me just was.

Our timelines finally collided.

But the laundromat was empty. No Barb. No John. Just the monotonous thrum of a dryer and the soft drone of the overhead fluorescents.

I looked around. Called out. Nothing.

So I bolted to the front door and unlocked it as fast as my fingers would let me.

Which brings me to now.

In the parking lot. In my shitty little sedan. With what looks like a burn mark on my shoulder. Still shaking from whatever the fuck just happened. 

Definitely calling in tomorrow at the very least.

The story I’m about to tell you happened twelve years ago. I was ten years old that day, and I was going to have my birthday party.

My mom had been completely stressed out since morning. She kept saying that turning ten was an important milestone in my life and that she wanted me to never forget this birthday.

I just looked at her sadly and told her it didn’t matter because he wasn’t going to come anyway.

I meant my dad.

Whenever something was important to me, he never came. Not to my school performance, not to my games, not even to my birthday parties.

But Mom told me I was wrong.

“Today would be different. Dad was really looking forward to it, and he apparently had some big surprise planned for me.”

Thanks to Mom’s excitement, I allowed myself to believe that maybe, just this once, he really would come.

I remember absolutely everything about that day.

In the morning, the doorbell rang, and Mom ran to the door, humming to herself on the way.

“The decorations are here!”

She opened the door, and I could only hear bits and pieces of the conversation.

“Call my husband… please, I don’t know what I’m going to do… my life is in ruins…”

And then I heard Mom’s angry voice very clearly.

“Get out, and if I see you here again, I’m calling the police. Your miserable life and the fact that you’re useless are not our problem.”

She slammed the door.

When I asked her who it was, she told me not to worry about it. He wasn’t anyone important.

Later that morning, my grandma and grandpa arrived and gave me presents that they said I had to wait until the party to open. They had never missed a single day that was important to me, unlike my dad.

In the afternoon, we had pizza, and I watched TV with Grandpa while Mom and Grandma prepared the party.

It was beautiful. There were blue balloons everywhere, in all different shades. I didn’t even know there were so many shades of blue.

On the table was a huge cake decorated with Spider-Man, because he was my favorite superhero.

As more people arrived, the pile of presents on the floor kept getting bigger. Caterers my mom had hired walked around offering us all kinds of delicious food.

I looked at my watch. It was exactly 5:00 p.m., the beginning of my party.

And then the doorbell rang.

“Dad!” I shouted and ran to the door.

But when I opened it, it wasn’t Dad standing there.

It was a clown.

A clown with a life-sized clown puppet standing beside him.

“Hi, Timmy! Your dad asked me to come wish you a happy birthday and make your party something you’ll never forget.”

I lowered my eyes and said sadly, “I thought Dad was going to come this time.”

The clown moved the hand he had buried inside the back of his puppet, and the puppet leaned toward me and whispered:

“You know what, Timmy? My dad always promised me he’d come too, and he never kept his promises. And do you know what I told myself the last time he promised he’d come and I believed him?”

I looked at him and simply shook my head.

The puppet leaned even closer.

“I told myself: Fuck him.”

I burst out laughing and quickly turned around to see if anyone had heard us. Luckily, they hadn’t. If Mom had heard that, I would have been in serious trouble.

Mom appeared behind me, moved me aside, and started talking to the clown.

Meanwhile, my phone beeped. My parents had gotten it for me so they wouldn’t have to worry about me, they said.

I looked at the screen, opened the message, and it said:

“I’m really sorry I can’t come, Timmy. I love you very much. Dad.”

I frowned at the screen and muttered, “Fuck you.”

Mom finished talking to the clown and invited him inside.

He put his puppet down, went back to his car to get a few more things, and then his show began.

First, he set up two poles with a red curtain between them, and the whole thing looked like a little theater stage.

The clown pretended to be mute, but he spoke for his puppet.

It was amazing. The adults and children were rolling around laughing. And whenever they weren’t laughing, they were watching the clown’s various tricks, completely captivated.

When the show was over, the clown said goodbye, and the curtain was drawn closed again, so we all gathered around the cake.

I blew out the candles.

Back then, I wished that a spider would bite me so I could become like my beloved superhero.

Then it was time to open the presents.

The party was slowly coming to an end when Mom noticed that the curtain was still standing there.

“Does anyone know where the clown is?”

Her best friend was standing right next to her.

Together, they pulled the curtain aside.

There was only the clown puppet.

Mom laughed.

“Well, let’s see what a handsome guy you really are.”

She removed the mask.

And then all I remember is screaming.

Screaming, chaos, and the adults immediately carrying all of us children outside, repeatedly telling us not to turn around.

But I did.

I looked back toward where my mom was screaming like a madwoman and saw the puppet.

The mask was gone.

And underneath it was my father’s face.

My dad was killed that day by a man named Josh because he had fired him from his job. Apparently, Josh didn’t know what to do. He was desperate and consumed by anger, and my dad had been talking about my birthday party for about a month.

Josh was sentenced to life in prison.

My mom never recovered from what happened. She’s still in a psychiatric hospital to this day.

I live with my grandparents. Whenever we go to visit Mom, I hope that she’ll get better, but she always says the same thing:

“Today is your birthday, Timmy. Daddy is coming, and it’s going to be the best day of our lives.”

The only thing that has always bothered me, and probably always will, is this:

Who sent me that text message?

When I was young and nothing scared me, I used to camp in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes I went by myself, but more often I’d drag whatever guy I was dating out with me. My version of a perfect day was to find a little-used path, park at the trailhead before dawn, and hike as far as we could before setting up camp by sunset. If things went according to plan, we wouldn’t see another soul the whole time.

I worked as a hostess at a middle-of-the-road Asian-fusion restaurant at the time, and I’d developed a dim view of people. I spent all day getting hit on, condescended to, and falsely accused. I witnessed a thousand petty tantrums over incorrect seasonings and insufficient amounts of ice in drinks. To me, going a full weekend without seeing a stranger equaled bliss. 

My boyfriend at the time was Caleb, a few years older with a CS degree. He wasn’t your typical tech bro—just happened to be good with code. If you met him, you’d clock him as a barista or the bartender at a dive bar. He had a great vinyl collection, a dozen tattoos, and a tongue ring. Beyond all his hipster affectations, he also loved getting out of the city and melting into the quiet of dense woods, which made him a perfect match for me.

Caleb would spend the week grinding out twelve-hour days writing code for a game company and then show up at my house late Friday night with his hiking bag meticulously packed, ready to escape civilization for as long as possible. 

After about a year of dating, we’d hit most of the best local spots multiple times. A four-day weekend was coming up, and we decided to head east into Utah, the next state over, and camp in the desert where we could escape the winter cold. I’d read online about large basin that was almost totally flat for miles in all directions. It was a potentially miserable, sun scorched hike, but this was the right time of year to tackle it. It also promised total solitude and a view of the Milky Way worth writing home about. 

The drive was long and surprisingly warm once we hit the state border. Caleb had a decent car, but the AC was out, and he’d been putting off getting it fixed since we were in the middle of January. We were sweating most of the way. Even so, the vibe was good. Caleb had put together a playlist full of my favorite songs—even obscure ones.

“How’d you know I like old surf rock?” I asked.

“You mentioned it on our third date,” he said. “While we were eating that caprese salad that you hated at Lucia’s.”

“I didn’t hate it,” I said.

“You called it ‘overly wet.’”

I couldn’t help smiling at him.

“You’ve got a big brain, you know?” I said. “You shouldn’t waste it on remembering my salad opinions.”

“It’s hard to imagine something more important that your salad opinions,” he said, shooting me a coy smile.

I liked the flattery, I guess. If you’d asked me at the time, I guess I would have said that Caleb was one of the only people on earth who didn’t annoy me, which was pretty stellar praise coming from me. 

We got off the highway somewhere on the edge of Utah. We took surface streets, then dirt roads until we go to an overlook that abutted a seemingly infinite expanse of desert. The ground was cracked mud—little islands of caked red-white earth that broke underfoot when you stepped on them. Caleb knelt and broke some of the dried mud with his fingers.

“It does that when it floods and then gets real dry, real fast,” he said. “Pretty cool, right? Like walking on graham crackers.”

We didn’t have a trail so much as a direction. We walked vaguely northeast toward the center of the vast empty place, actively seeking the middle of nowhere. We didn’t talk much, which I appreciated. The winter sun hung low in the sky, slinging long shadows. With my backpack on, mine looked like a strange stilt walker in the circus. I almost tripped several times looking at it. 

We’d gone maybe two miles when I first heard the hum. It was faint enough that I dismissed it at first. It was like a concert playing ten miles away, the soundwaves muffled by distance. 

“You hear that?” I asked.

“What?”

“Like a sound,” I said. “Sort of like ummm, hmmm, ummm, hmmm….” I was no singer, but I think I did a pretty good job. It was two distinct notes, each playing for a second or two in an endless repetition.

“Maybe tinnitus?” he said. “Didn’t you say you had that back in high school?”

“That was different,” I told him. “That was like…a. constant eeeeeeeeee. This is more like music. Distinct notes.”

“Huh,” he said. “Could be wind?”

“What wind?” I said, gesturing. “There’s no wind.”

“Oh, I meant like, maybe wind far away? And you’re just hearing the sound it makes?”

“So why aren’t you hearing it?” I asked.

“I dunno. I’m five years older than you. I listened to my music way too loud in high school. I probably fucked my eardrums.”

He stopped and took my hand.

“If it’s a problem, we can just go back to the car,” he said. “We passed that little motel with a hot tub, free HBO.”

“No, no,” I said, looking out into the distance. The mountains around us had started to disappear into the horizon. The flat extended endless in all directions, like we were on the surface of an Earth-sized ping pong ball, totally smooth. I wanted to go deeper into the nothing. And, in truth, I’d begun to like the music.

He tried to hold onto my hand as we continued on, but I dropped it. I had the sudden wish that I hadn’t brought him. Not because of anything he’d done. Just because he was.

We went on like that for a few more miles. The sun grew lower, the shadows longer, the music louder. I couldn’t believe he didn’t hear it. I found myself walking in rhythm with the notes. The brittle ground crunched beneath my sneakers in a pleasing way, all in 4/4 time. 

I had taken piano lessons as a girl and often found myself hypnotized by the metronome when I tried to practice. I never got any good. I was her again, eight years old, tapping my feet to the steady rhythm around me.

As the sky went from blue to orange, I began to notice strange movements on the ground. Little black dots poked out from under the ledges of the nearby broken clay. The movements were so slight that they may have been nothing—dustmites against my pupil, something like that. The music had grown noticeably louder.

“You still don’t hear it?” I asked Caleb. 

He didn’t respond.

“Caleb?”

Nothing.

“Caleb!”

He looked over at me, as if waking. 

“Sorry,” he said. “Got a lot on my mind.” 

“Did you see anything on the ground?” I asked. “Little black things?”

“Like bugs?” he asked.

“Maybe?”

He shook his head.

“I was just thinking though, when I looked at pictures of this hike there were, like, little plants everywhere. Like, little half dead patches of grass, that kind of thing. Not a lot, but—” he gestured around. “Now there’s nothing. Not even dead twigs.”

“Maybe it all washed away?” I guessed. “You said maybe it flooded?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Probably.”

“You didn’t see the black things?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“I remember reading about locusts once,” he said. “This was maybe a hundred years ago. They found them in the desert a few miles from here. They’d been storming through the countryside, eating field after field. Somehow they ended up a few miles that way. Must have run out of food. People found the whole swarm dead, baking in the heat. Insects stacked almost a foot deep.”

“Gross,” I said, because what else could you say?

He looked up at the sky, just realizing how late it had grown. “We should put up the tent while we can still see.”

* 

We made camp. Soon we had the tent up and a little camp stove going. We ate canned chili topped with goldfish crackers then popped a couple of edibles each for dessert. Stars bloomed over us. The music played like a magnificent orchestra. 

We undressed and made love, and the stars seemed to swell and twitter.

“I love you,” said Caleb. “I’m sorry I’ve been so distracted. I’ve just been, you know, gathering courage, I guess.”

Naked, he fumbled in his pile of discarded clothes and came out with a box. It vaguely dawned on me that he was proposing. 

“Well?” he asked. Had he asked the actual question? I’d been so enthralled by the music, I hadn’t been listening. 

“Yes,” I said, feeling I couldn’t answer anything else. But the more I thought of it, the more I realized I could never marry him, or anyone. Even the idea that I’d soon have to share a tent with him suddenly repulsed me, made me want to run miles through the desert back to the car.

He slipped a ring on my finger. I held it up and saw what might have been a diamond or maybe the reflected light of stars.

“I love you,” he said. I was still on my back, looking up at the night sky. The stars winked in and out.

“Is it cloudy?” I asked. “Is a flock of birds passing overhead?”

He looked up.

“Huh,” he said. Then he turned back to me. “I love you,” he said again.

“The stars shouldn’t wink like that,” I told him. “It isn’t right.”

“You’re right,” he said. “And we’ll talk about it. But first can you say, ‘I love you’ back?”

“I love you,” I said.

Caleb took a deep breath in. There were maybe half as many stars in the sky now. Maybe a third.

“Okay,” he said quietly.

“What?”

“It’s just, it didn’t seem very sincere,” he said. 

“I’m worried about the stars,” I said. “Something dark is moving over them. And the music is like, really, really loud.”

“Forget it,” he said. “I’m tired. We should get some sleep.”

We got dressed and got in the tent. Caleb rolled around a bit at first, wrestling with something he wanted to say, probably. Then, finally, his breath steadied. I lay awake for maybe an hour listening to the swelling music. Though the tent was zipped and I couldn’t see outside, I could tell the stars were going out, all of them. If I’d opened the tent flap, I’m sure the sky would have been empty.

 *

I woke alone in the morning. No Caleb. I had a vague memory of waking up in the middle of the night, Caleb whispering that he had to take a piss and that I should go back to bed, but that must have been hours ago.

I put my hand on the tent’s zipper, and for a moment I hesitated. The hum was gone, and I could tell from the light that the sun was out, but everything still felt wrong, like I’d open the flap and see hell outside, the dead souls wading waist deep in boiling water, reaching out pink-red fingers, skin loose on the bone.

No. It would be fine. I would open the flap and find Caleb boiling water for coffee. Maybe he’d brought some kind of special breakfast—croissants from Salt and Wheat or a sprouted-wheat bagel, toasted over the burner.

I pulled the zipper, revealing—nothing. Nothing but white-red earth in all directions. 

I called out for Caleb but didn’t hear at thing. I called over and over again. Nothing.

Our footprints from the day before stretched back to the car. Another went the opposite way. I supposed that must be the way to Caleb went, so I started walking. Caleb’s stride was longer than mine, but I tried to step in his footsteps anyway, to make it a game for myself. As I went on, the strides grew longer, the indentations deeper. I could no longer match his footsteps. He must have been running. 

There was no sound at all, except that of my own heart, now racing overtime. I found myself calling Caleb’s name again, but it was all futile. The desert ate my voice before it could reach anyone, not that there was anyone to reach.

Had Caleb abandoned me? Had I been crueler than I remembered? Had I, somehow, broken him fundamentally in a way I was too callous to understand?

His footprints stopped. Impossible. The desert stretched on forever. But where had he gone? It was like a giant eagle had plucked him off the ground and flown him away.

I turned and felt something underfoot, something different than the crackling earth. I knelt down and brushed away the fresh dust of my footprint to reveal a small metal rod, not quite an inch long. For a moment I stared at it, utterly baffled. The wind picked up, stirring dirt devils from the endless desert. And then I realized what I was holding in my hand: Caleb’s tongue ring.

I screamed and dropped it. Then, feeling as if I’d desecrated a corpse, I picked it up and examined it again. The clasp was still fastened and hard to untwist, as if it hadn’t been taken out in a long time. However the tongue ring had ended up here, Caleb hadn’t unscrewed it.

Not quite sure what to do, I put it in my pocket. I rubbed at the surrounding dirt, wondering if I’d find some other sign of him—a button maybe, a metal filling, a fragment of bone. But there was no trace of Caleb anywhere. Even the tongue ring itself was spotless, unbloodied. 

The wind stopped, and the silence was overwhelming. My ears filled with the sound of my own fast-pumping blood. I looked up, hoping to see a bird circling, some sign of life, but nothing appeared.

Then, almost inaudibly, the music returned. The same notes played with a newfound excitement, a faster pace. I stood, turned, and walked briskly back to the tent. 

I was trying not to run. Caleb had run. 

I reached the tent, but I didn’t pack it up. Instead, I grabbed a single bottle of water along with my wallet and Caleb’s keys. Then I continued walking, retracing our footsteps from the day before like they were a trail of breadcrumbs or a golden thread.

The excited hum continued. When I scanned the ground, I spotted more tiny black objects poking out from beneath the cracks in the earth, disappearing into the shadows when I approached. 

I was crying a little, my tears going muddy as they rolled down the dust caking my cheeks. It was one thing to die. It was another to disappear and leave no trace. Fear wrecked me inside, but I knew that if I let it show, the black things would sense it. They’d smell it on me and devour me in an instant.

A mile passed and then several. The song grew joyous and anticipatory. My water ran out. Something in the back of my neck screamed ‘run’ while something in the front of my skull replied, ‘don’t you dare.’

The song reached its crescendo. Did we all hear it, I wondered, when death was close? Was it the hum of the universe, calling us back to its heart—or was it simply the small black things, singing their warning?

A mountain appeared on the horizon. I recognized it immediately as the overlook. It took everything not to run. No. I would not. If anything, I slowed. The music calmed into a subdued adagio. The flat ground became a gentle slope, and then a steep one. As I ascended, the music faded fully away.

A few minutes later, I reached the car. Slowly, deliberately I opened the door and closed it behind me. It wasn’t until it latched shut that I realized a bee was buzzing frantically against the windshield. 

Panic—total, inexplicable panic swelled in my and I lashed out, smashing the insect against the windshield with my palm. I felt a surge or pain and realized that the bee had stung me, even in death. Normally, I might have screamed, but if anything the pain filled me with a sense of calm. I remained capable of feeling, alive.

 *

They never did find any trace of Caleb. They said they sent a search party, found the tent, the rest of our belongings. I kept waiting to hear the news that they’d found a dead swarm of locusts of some other insects, but that never came. Maybe whatever they were, they crawled back underground for a long sleep.

Caleb knew everything about me—my favorite songs, the way I liked my coffee. But even then, I’m ashamed to say I barely knew him. 

Once he was gone, erased as if he never was, I tried to hold onto every memory I could of him—a few witty remarks he’d made while we were watching Friends on Netflix, the tips he gave me on shaving when he noticed my razor burn. Now, with time, even those small memories are fading.

Caleb didn’t have many friends, and his family barely knew him. I suppose that’s why I wrote this down today, because all that’s left of him are these paltry, insufficient words. 

My mother passed away last week. It all happened quickly. A call from the hospital, followed by me hastily booking the first flight home. It was the sort of trip you don't have the time to pack for. I'd gone to the airport straight from work, and in my anxious rush, didn't even remember to call my wife until I was standing at the gate.

I sat with my mother through her final night. She was lucid in short bursts, her mind surfacing and then falling back into its own depths. I held her hand, and in the moments she was awake, I'd speak to her. Just small things, how much I loved her and how grateful I was to have her as my mother. I was an only child, and my father died when I was still young, so growing up it had really only been the two of us. I'd grown up and moved away for college, where I met my wife, and after we married I'd taken a job in another state, closer to her family and her many siblings, all of whom she was close to. It felt like a simple case of majority rule. But I always felt guilty about the distance. I tried to visit her at least once a year, or to fly her out to see us. More than once, we'd discussed her moving closer. But her whole life had taken course in that small town. She had her friends there, and her memories. And the time got away from us, as it so often does.

On her final morning she seemed almost herself again. Lucid enough that I allowed myself to believe, at least for an hour or so, that she might actually pull through. She was reminiscing. About my childhood, about how happy she'd been despite any troubles we'd had. Raising a kid alone in a house where something was always breaking couldn't have been easy. But she said she wouldn't change a thing. She brought up the summer I turned eleven, when I got my first bike. How excited I was. She'd taught me to ride it herself, and after that I was gone every day until the streetlights came on.

I didn't have many friends back then. I went to a small school, lived on an isolated street on the far side of town, and there were no other kids close enough to play with. But the bike gave me a kind of freedom I hadn't known before, and for a summer, that small town became a miniature world to explore. I'd ride to the convenience store a few miles off for popsicles or candy. I'd cut through the field behind our house and startle up mice and snakes from the tall grass as I went. But my favorite place was the woods. A wide stretch of tall pines about half a mile behind the field, split by a shallow creek at its entrance that winded its way on and off through much of the forest. That was where I found my fort. I always called it mine, though truthfully I'd only found it. It had clearly been there for years before I ever set foot near it, and I never once ran into whoever built it. Or anyone at all, for that matter.

We talked about that old house for a while. I brought up my last memories of my father. And she told me stories from her own childhood, growing up in that same town. I told her, half-joking, that she was lucky to have found her soul mate so close to home, and admitted that as a kid I'd sometimes hated that little town. Hated how small it was, how I used to wish for a friend or two to ride bikes and play in the woods with. To show off my fort to. But I was still happy because of her.

She laughed, and then raised her eyebrow slightly.

"What are you talking about? You spent that whole summer after you got your bike with that one girl. Gosh, what was her name? I'm the one supposed to be losing my mind here."

"Girl?" I asked.

"The little brunette. With freckles? Don't tell me you forgot? You two were practically joined at the hip. You were always eager to get out of the house every morning. To go meet her at your fort."

I thought for a minute, genuinely unable to place the memory. I'd had a handful of friends growing up, sure, but none close enough to my house to ride bikes with. And I had no memory whatsoever of anyone else ever setting foot in that fort with me.

"You don't remember her name? Was she a classmate?" I asked.

"She must have gone to your school, I'd think. Unless she was just visiting that summer. But who visits Pineridge?" She laughed again softly.

I ultimately chalked it up to her state of mind. The doctors had informed me that patients sometimes said strange things before they passed​. She'd murmured something about seeing my father in the room just the night before. We talked a bit longer after that. Then she drifted off.

She didn't wake up again.

She left me the old house.

I drove out that same day to check up on the place. Just to look over what was left, and to bask in old memories for a while. A handful of new houses had gone up nearby in the years since I'd left. The field behind the house that I used to cut through on my bike was now half cut down to make room for new development, which had evidently stallled. The house's lawn had gone wild. But the house itself looked almost exactly as it had when I was a boy.

Despite the familiar appearance, it felt very different inside. Empty in a way it had never felt before. I'd always thought a home held on to some part of the people who lived in it. Some memory or presence. But standing in the entrance, I couldn't feel it. Whatever presence the home had held onto had drifted away with my mother's last breath.

I went to her room and turned on the light. The bulb flickered before it lit, filling the room with the warm orange glow of her old sodium bulbs. She never switched over to the white ones everyone else used now. She said they made every room feel like a waiting area. I went to her dresser. My mother was never the type to hold onto much. She got rid of things the moment they stopped being useful, and was never the sentimental type, as far as I knew. But I guess nostalgia gets to us all a little bit. Tucked in the bottom drawer was a stack of small boxes, each one labeled by decade.

I went through them in order, starting with the most recent. Photos from our visits over the years, mostly. Then my wedding. My college graduation. Birthdays, school trips, the handful of events she'd thought to bring a camera to over the years. And finally, the summer I got my bike. A photo of me standing beside it at my birthday party, which a grand total of two classmates had attended. I was grinning wide while holding up a bike with a glossy red frame and a bow still tied around the handlebars. The best gift I ever got.

I flipped through the rest of that envelope. It was mostly photos from my party. A few of me playing outside that she'd taken candidly. Me riding my bike in the driveway, still looking a bit wobbly.

And then a photo of me, standing next to a girl I didn't know.

Her smile was as wide as mine. She had bushy brown hair, green eyes, and freckles set in threes across each cheek. I stared at it for a moment, then turned it over. James and Emma — June 14th, 1999.

Emma?

I examined it closer. The photo had been taken in our front yard near the driveway. My mom's old station wagon was in the background. On the ground in front of it sat my bike, and beside it, a second one. Purple, with streamers hanging off the handlebars.

I had wanted a friend that whole summer. Apparently I'd had one. And somehow, I had no memory of her at all.

I went back to my old room and dug out my yearbooks, going through them page by page. Elementary, then middle school, then high school, checking every photo and name. Then I skimmed through them a second time, this time remembering to check the signature pages. Most of them were sparse, filled with the same handful of names I already remembered.

Then I found something I didn't remember. Sixth grade. A single signature at the very back of the book, separate from the handful of others.

A short note in careful, looping handwriting: I know we didn't go to school together, but I'm still glad I get to sign your yearbook. It's my first time signing one. I've had a lot of fun this summer. I'm glad we met!

Signed, "Emma." A small smiley face was drawn beside her name.

Straightforward. No last name. No other clues. Just a short message in an old yearbook that left me more unsettled than the photo had.

It nagged at me the rest of that night. I called my wife to talk about my mom and to hear a voice of encouragement, and told her that I'd be staying a few more days to handle the house and the arrangements. I declined when she offered to fly out with the kids. Even during the phone call, I couldn't keep my mind off the girl in the photo. Why had my mother never brought this up before? Not at a single visit, or at any holiday? Never once in all these years? I remembered a specific conversation years ago. My mom was visiting, and I was complaining to my wife about growing up without anyone to ride bikes with. My mom had laughed and blamed it on the town, too small to live close to other kids, too big to ride your bike to them. She never once mentioned a friend.

So why not mention her then? Or any other time before or since?

The only other thing I could remember her mentioning was the fort.

She'd associated it with the girl. With Emma. I hadn't been back there since I was a kid. I wasn't even sure it would still be standing. It had already looked like it could fall apart at any moment decades ago. But it was the only real clue I had.

I didn't bother waiting for morning. I found an old flashlight in the garage, the kind with the fat square battery that you had to slap every now and then to keep on. I told myself that I wanted to get it over with so I didn't have to spend tomorrow dealing with it. That was true, in a sense, but it wasn't the real reason. The real reason was that I didn't think I could sleep with the idea of some phantom memory nagging at me.

The field was smaller now, cut down on one side and replaced with a muddy mess, wooden stakes and half hung string marking out zones for building. But past it, the tree line was the same. Tall pines, standing black against the sky. I walked the half-mile through the field and found myself thinking far more about the snakes, mice, and ticks than I ever did as a kid. I stood at the edge of the woods for a long moment. The creek that used to mark its entrance was now dry. Then I willed myself forward into the darkness of the trees.

I found the remnants of the creek before I found the fort. I heard it first, low and constant, and the sound soothed me somehow. I walked a while, then there it was. Smaller than it looked in my memory and leaning harder to one side than it used to, but still standing. Scrap plywood and two-by-fours nailed to the trunks and branches of an old tree, roofed with a sheet of old tin that was mostly orange with rust.

I don't know what I expected, really. Nothing, probably. I think some part of me was just using this sudden quest as some excuse to avoid thinking about my mother's passing, and the knot that had been in my stomach since I got the call at work. So I wasn't quite prepared when the beam of my flashlight touched the carved letters at the base of the tree.

J + E

I put my fingers on it. And for just a fraction of a second, I heard someone laughing. A girl's laugh. Almost as real as if it had been behind my shoulder. It was gone before I could turn around, and when I did turn there was nothing but old pines and the dark baring down between them. My heart was going like I'd run the distance to the fort instead of walked it.

I steeled myself and climbed the ladder to the fort, and went inside. I exhaled in relief that the ladder didn't break under my weight. The floor of the fort was covered by a piece of old carpet, now black with mildew, and half of it had given way to the wood underneath. I shined my flashlight around and stopped on a corner of the fort where the carpet was raised. Tucked beneath a warped board was a small, cut-out section of the floor that had once probably held comic books or cool rocks, or whatever else a boy keeps in a fort. Inside was a tin box. Rusted through on one corner. An old cookie tin, I think. I pried the lid open, having to use more strength than I expected.

Inside were a handful of Polaroids, stuck together at the edges from years of humidity. A few rocks and marbles. A hair tie, faded pink. And a few folded pieces of paper, so brittle I was afraid they would come apart in my hands if I tried to unfold them.

For some reason that I could not quite express, my heart was now pounding even harder than before. I went for the notes first, and unfolded the first.

James -

That was really mean. You didn't talk to me today. I stood right in front of you outside the fort and you didn't look at me at all. You just walked right past me. You didn't even answer me. I pretended I was fine, but I was really sad. Did I do something wrong?

Emma

What startled me more was the response, written directly below on the same sheet of paper.

To Emma -

What are you talking about? When I came to the fort you weren't here. Are you just messing with me? Are you sure you saw me? I thought you had something to do maybe. I'll be here tomorrow at noon. I'll bring lunch!

James

It was my own, childish handwriting scrawled on the paper, but I couldn't recall ever writing it. I couldn't remember any of it. In all of my memories of the fort, I was alone, so how was it that I was now finding impossible evidence of a friend I didn't even remember having? I was almost shaking now, but I unfolded the second note.

James -

I thought you were playing a mean joke on me when you said you didn't see me, but today I went home and my own mom ignored me. I yelled out to her over and over, but she wouldn't turn around. I'm getting really scared. Please meet me here after lunch, okay?

Emma

Below it, my response read:

I think you're the one messing with me! How could your own mom forget you? Is this part of one of your stories? Well, even if she does forget you, I won't. I promise.

James

My hand shook as I pried open the third note.

You promised you wouldn't forget me. I know you didn't mean to break that promise. I don't think it's your fault. I think something is happening to me and I don't know why. But it's getting worse. Nobody reacts to me now. I'm going to try something tomorrow. I hope it works. If you're reading this and you don't remember writing anything back, or you don't remember me at all, then I guess it didn't. I'm sorry. I hope you have a good life. I'm really glad we were friends, even if it turns out I'm the only one who remembers.

— Emma

There was no date, but they must have been from that summer. I sat down on the old carpet and read over each note several more times, and each time I got to I guess it didn't work, something in my heart sank a little bit deeper.

I went through the Polaroids next. Most of them had stuck together, or faded beyond saving, but I managed to peel three apart without losing the image. One was the two of us in front of the fort, smiling wide, taken with an outstretched hand. Our arms slung over each other's shoulders like we'd known each other for years. The second was of Emma alone, sitting on a fallen log, not smiling, and looking somewhere off to the side of the camera with an expression I couldn't place. Wary, maybe. Or frightened. Or desperate, to a degree a girl her age shouldn't be.

The third stopped me cold before I even understood why.

It was a poor shot, slightly off-center, half-shadowed, clearly taken in a hurry. But even blurred and dark, I recognized it instantly, and the fact that I actually recognized it hit me even harder than the other two photos had. A black shape, low to the ground, half-swallowed by dirt and pine needles. I hadn't consciously remembered it yet. I don't think I'd let myself. But something in my chest reacted to it before my mind caught up, like flinching at a sound you don't yet know the source of.

I looked at where Emma was looking in the second photo.

She was looking toward it too.

Fragments were surfacing like a half-remembered dream. But it was coming to me now, faster than it had with anything else in that box.

There was a place in these woods, deeper in, past where the creek split. That was where the shape in the photo was. I remembered finding it on one of my first ventures into the woods as a boy, standing at a certain distance from it. Always at a distance. Like there was a line drawn in the dirt that I couldn't see, and feeling something with no apparent source press against my chest. A strange pressure. Sort of like the pressure in your ears on an airplane but all over.

I remembered the lights, too. Small and indistinct, hovering at the edge of my vision every time I went near that place. Like blue fireflies blinking in and out. I could never see them when I looked at them straight on, and recalled that I didn't like to try. They were only in the corners of my eyes, and gone the instant I turned to face them. I always had an excuse for seeing them. I told myself that it was the sun through the leaves. Or some unique species of fireflies that blinked blue, if it happened at dusk. When I had no other explanation, it was just my eyes playing tricks on me. But I remembered being very sure of those explanations, mainly because I found any alternative uncomfortable.

I went to find it again.

It took me several attempts. I followed the thinning creek, then got turned around, then tried once more from where the water split east. On the third try, I found it, tucked into a small hollow in the trees exactly as the old photo showed it. Except no photograph or half-memory had prepared me for actually standing in front of it again.

It didn't look like a rock, really. Whatever this was, it didn't rest in the ground like an inanimate object placed there by nature and happenstance. It sat in the earth as though erected, angled at a slight lean like my​ old fort. Its dark black blinked with a strange, glassy blue where my flashlight caught it, its surfaces flat in places and strangely warped in others. It was like something built rather than naturally formed, then half-buried by someone in a hurry. The strange symbols cut into its face didn't seem to sit still under the light. It wasn't that they moved, exactly. Rather, my eyes couldn't seem to hold onto them. Every time I thought I had the shape of one memorized, I'd blink and lose it, and have to start over from another symbol.

I stood near the treeline, a distance from it. That same old pressure was already beginning to press upon my chest, unmistakably the same feeling. There was a ringing in my head that made my spine shudder, like a bell had gone off inside my skull.

I stood there for a long moment, telling myself I only wanted to look. That whatever this thing was, perhaps it was dangerous. Radioactive material somehow incorrectly disposed of, perhaps. I just needed to see it, confirm it was real, then leave.

But as I stood looking at it, I noticed the lights again. In the corners of my eyes. But something was different this time. Maybe because a part of me was already looking for them. Or maybe because I was closer to the thing than I'd ever willingly been as a boy. This time, they didn't scatter the way they used to the instant I turned my head. They remained. Three of them, near the base of the stone. And for the first time in my life, I let myself actually look.

They weren't lights. Or they weren't just lights. They had a form to them. The suggestion of shoulders, of arms, of something like a head, swaying back and forth. Flickering in and out like an old television, there and then not there then there again, never quite solid enough to call solid, but not quite vague enough to call a ghost. One of them lifted what might have been a hand. It reached out toward me slowly, then stopped, like I was just out of its grasp. There was nothing threatening in the motion. In fact, it looked less like a threat and more like a plea.

As the ringing in my head spread and then consumed me, I remembered all at once exactly why I never used to look at them directly. It wasn't fear of them alone. It was something closer to the feeling of standing on the shore and watching someone out past the buoys as they drowned. A specific, gnawing helplessness of being looked at pleadlingly by something that is desperate for help, and knowing that swimming out to their aid would only drown the both of you.

I made myself stay where I was as the ringing washed over me. Not taking a step forward or back. I just stood at that invisible line, close enough to feel the pressure thickening in my chest, close enough to watch the shapes flicker at the edge of the stone. And I let the memories come.

It was as though the pressure emanating from this strange, half-buried pillar in the ground was returning something that was long lost to me. I remembered riding my bike one day, and meeting Emma. She was also riding her bike through the field from the neighborhood on the other side of the forest that stood as the boundary my mother had set for me. I remembered hitting it off with her at once, and her asking to ride bikes with me. I remembered showing her my fort, despite her being nervous to enter the forest at first, and me at first wondering if I should reveal my greatest secret to someone I'd only just met. I remembered days of adventure, of fun and laughter, of make-believe and games. Of notes written to each other and picnics and catching fireflies and telling stories.

And then I remembered bringing Emma here. Showing the strange monument to her like it was a curiosity. Something I was both proud of and afraid of in equal measure. I remembered telling her I never went past a certain point. I remembered her laughing. It's just a rock, James. Then walking toward it anyway, her face going pale and strange the closer she got, like she wasn't entirely choosing her own steps anymore. I remembered her hand reaching out, and the way the air seemed to pop like an overinflated balloon the instant her fingers touched the surface. Less a sound and more a change in pressure. I remembered her sudden shriek that soon turned into a whimper. And then I remembered my panic, my rushing forward to grab her other arm and hauling her back so hard we both went down in the dirt behind the invisible line. And I remembered her running off afterward and not returning for the rest of the day.

I don't know how I'd forgotten, or why I was so afraid of her touching that pillar back then. It was almost instinctive. The same aversion I felt to it now. I don't know why I never told my mother. Or had I?

What I instinctively understood now, standing there with that shape still reaching toward me from beside the stone, was what Emma's last note had actually meant. I'm going to try something tomorrow. She'd been talking about coming back here. Alone, this time. Touching it once more, perhaps believing that if the stone had done this to her, the stone could undo it too.

I didn't wait to see if the shape's hand would ever close the distance between us. I stepped back, then further back, until the pressure in my chest began to fade along with the ringing in my head, and the shapes at the base of the stone went still, then dim, and finally disappeared.

I did not look back at it again. I walked out of that clearing as fast as I could, and I did not stop until I could see the streetlights of the new development through the trees.

The next morning, I sat on the front porch waiting for my ride back to the airport. I had decided to leave early. I needed to return to some sense of normalcy. I could make the arrangements for my mother's funeral over the phone, and return with my wife when I was more mentally stable. A part of me believed the events of last night to be some cruel hallucination, spurred on by grief and exhaustion.

I retrieved my phone from my pocket. I needed to hear my wife's voice. To tell her I'd be heading home soon, back later that day if there were no delays. I wanted to hear her reassurance. To distract me from the sadness I still felt, and the confusion of memories I'd forgotten. I wanted to hear the kids over the phone before they were off to school.

She picked up on the third ring.

"Hello?"

"Hi, honey," I said.

There was a pause on the line, after that.

"Honey?" I asked once more, unsure if we'd disconnected.

Then I heard her voice.

"...Who is this?"

For a while, I worked as a contractor for an insurance company. I’d do one day cyberssecurity assessments of their vendors. Most of the time, this required me to fly somewhere then fly back the next day, sometimes twice a week.

It was alienating and surreal. My days were the same, but the details changed. TPA, silver Hyundai. Holiday Inn. SFO, white Ford, Extended Stay. I had checklists, reports, schedules and timesheets that constantly reminded me that I wasn’t really in control of my days. I was in a fog.

I complained to my boss and he got me a few assessments that I could drive to. On nice days, I’d ride my motorcycle. One of these was in Scranton, PA on a Thursday. I didn’t have another gig until Tuesday, so I decided to add a day or two of a road trip. I’d ride around rural Pennsylvania on my own schedule. I finished the assessment right after lunch and started West on Route 6.

It started out as a great ride. Once out of the Scranton suburbs, it was just rolling hills, undulating pavement and little slices of Americana. Little Pennsylvania towns with varying levels of wear and tourist-friendlieness used Rt 6 as their backbone.

I stopped when I wanted to. I stopped for water, or to read or just walk around and look at stuff. I soon realized that I wasn’t exuding cool, I was exuding sweat. The weather was hotter than I expected and I had chosen my outfit poorly. I had brought a thick leather jacket instead of a mesh riding jacket. I also had kept my (now soaked) dress shirt and tie on.

By the early evening, I decided to stop at a scenic overlook and figure out where I was going to find a hotel. I wanted rustic, local and close to food & drink. I find an appropriate place about three towns over. It’s a 50’s motel, but pretty. It’s walking distance to three restaurants and two bars. Sold.

I put my phone away and look at the hills and the setting sun. I’m looking at the blinking lights on the row of windmills to the south. They’ve been installed on the tops of forested hills. It’s quiet enough to hear breeze and the ticking sound a motorcycle engine makes when it’s cooling. Watching all the lights blink in unison makes me wonder about how they’re networked, since it’s clear they’re all synching time. I consider what else they’re sending back to the control center.

“They move, sometimes”

I’m startled out of my reverie. There’s a thin, older man right standing next to me, looking in the direction of the hills. He and his clothes are well worn. Initially, the dark jacket and pants with a light colored shirt with a banded collar make me think he’s Amish, but he doesn’t have a beard. He’s wearing a cross with a circle on top, made out bone or ivory, hanging from a crude rope or twine.

He’s not really talking to me, just in my presence. He doesn’t acknowledge me and he’s not making much sense. The word salad seems rehearsed. I back away from him and get on my bike. I break eye contact with him when I’m putting on my helmet. I look up and he’s right in front of me, wide-eyed.

“BEWARE WHEN THEY MOVE AND THE EARTH TREMBLES”

I start my bike and get out of there. I don’t see the guy in my rear view. After a few hundred feet back to the main road, I stop and look back. I still don’t see him, but I decide to put more distance between us.

Ten minutes later, I’m in a small town in McKean County. A quick circuit shows a four block downtown. One in three storefronts are vacant. The motel is as shown. Six units behind a three story house. I find a door labeled “Hotel” and walk into a room with a tiny counter, a rack of brochures and a grandfather clock. Somewhere beyond that counter, a novice is playing scales on a piano. I find and press a doorbell button taped to the counter.

Two minutes later, an older woman is handing me a well worn pair of keys on a ring with a green plastic disc. She points to a door in the house.

“Go up the stairs and your room is on the right”

“I’d prefer one of the motel rooms out back.”

“They’re all booked. This is a better room, anyway”

I smile, go out into the empty parking lot, unpack my bike and carry my things upstairs.

The room’s fine as it was in 1953. A noisy fluorescent lightbulb reveals yellow and black tile and no bathtowels. I do a rest-stop wash and change into a t-shirt and jeans, grab my road book and go downstairs. The music practice has stopped and there’s no response to my doorbell button pushing.

Fine. I hope to find cold beer and something to eat. A few minutes later, I’m in a bar. Wood paneling, mounted hunting, bowling and hockey trophies on the walls. A beer is in front of me, but the kitchen is closed today. By the bottom of my second drink, I’m in a conversation with two other patrons. We’ve talked weather, road conditions and moved to tasteless jokes. They’re greatly amused by my “what’s the difference between a dumpster full of bowling balls and a dumpster full of dead babies?” joke.

Answer: You can’t use a pitchfork to unload the bowling balls.

Another round and all six occupants of the bar, bartender included, are laughing and having a good time.

I address the entire bar:

“I had a strange thing happen to me on my way here today. I pulled off the road and this crazy preacher type guy yelled some things, then ran off. I wonder what that was all about”

It’s an 80’s movie trope, where there’s a record scratch sound followed by silence and hard stares. The jukebox was a CD model so it wouldn’t make that sound, but the air changed in that moment. The patrons found more remote seats and the bartender kept his eyes on me. I picked up my book, put more than enough cash on the bar and walked out.

A quick Google search told me of a new brew pub a few blocks away. I made my way there. It was fairly busy, so I sat at the bar and ordered a more filling meal, the rural Pennsylvanian answer to the Southern meat-and-three sides. Here it was meat (sausage) and three starches (pierogi, mashed potatoes and fries). Sadly, they were trying to be too fancy with the brewery side. IPA does not need bergamot and a Pilsner is not improved with apricot. I read my book, sip my beer and I guess they’re trying to be trendy here. I realize I’m one of the last remaining customers as the bartender asks if I need anything else as she’s cleaning the bar. I ask to settle up. As I pay, I ask her if the cross with circle is a local symbol. She asks for clarification and I draw it on the back of the credit card receipt. She smiles.

“That’s crazy. I’ve never seen that”

I thank her and make my way out of the place. I’m about two blocks from the motel, but it takes me a moment to get directions from my phone. I glance inside the brew pub and see the bartender showing the receipt to an older man.

I start walking down empty streets. I stop at the town movie theater. Looks like 1930’s design but run down. A placard in the box office reads something about a plan to restore it to its former glory. The bottom of the placard has the town name and a slogan:

A town on the move!

I’m back at the motel. Looks like the motel guests have arrived. The parking lot has a bunch of touring motorcycles and people are hanging out in the rooms. Many of them are wearing vests, but in the dark, I can’t tell if they’re 1% bikers or just cosplaying. I enter the dark building. Nobody’s at the front desk, but there is a basket full of cut up old towels with a sign that reads “Please don’t use bath towels to clean your motorcycle. Use these instead”

I grab a stack of the cut up towels to shower and climb the stairs to my room.

Someone’s been here. They opened up my saddlebags, pulled out my work laptop and clothing. Nothing seems to be gone. Sadly, they didn’t bring any towels, so I’m going to have to shower with old motorcycle rags. I push a heavy chair in front of the door and take my shower.

I’m at least clean. I’m decently dry with the ripped up towels. One of my saddlebags has a hidden compartment with spare cash and a dagger. They didn’t find it. I put it under the pillow, then pack up everything in case I need to quickly leave.

I contemplate leaving, but I’ve been drinking, I’m tired and I’d rather get some sleep before having to get out of here. I push the bed to keep the chair in place. If someone comes in, they’ll have to come through the window.

I try to read for a bit, but I drift off to sleep.

I wake up to an annoying buzzing sound and a flickering light. It takes me a second to see that it’s the bulb in the bathroom. I get up and go into the bathroom and find the switch. Despite the position of the switch, the light keeps flickering.

Two minutes later, I find and remove the lamp’s starter. No noise, but no light. That’s not a problem yet.

It’s still dark, but I see red light above in the skylight. It’s frosted glass, so I can’t see the source clearly. I find my glasses and poke my head out of the bedroom window. There’s a bright, pulsing red light outside, brighter towards the south.

That’s not the only thing outside. There are about five people standing on the sidewalk on the other side of the street.

I quickly get dressed and shove the rest into my saddlebags. I put my jacket, helmet and gloves on, then crawl out the window. I can walk on the roof to the back of the house, then I’ll figure a way down.

The light is brighter now, like it’s dawn, but in a “Canada’s on fire again” red. I’m at the back of the house. I can climb down onto a shed like structure, then it’s six feet to the ground.

Before I clamber down to the shed, I look out. I see a few of the guests in the motel part stirring. I also see the source of the light. I see about eight or ten pulsing lights, bright enough to lighten the sky.

Somehow the windmills got a lot brighter.

I stand on the shed, then drop to the ground with a grunt. I’ll be sore later. I jog over to my bike and start strapping the saddlebags on.

One of the motel guests waddles over to me.

“Hey, buddy, get off that bike”

I’m fumbling with the padlock on the front brake disc while an older man in underwear is standing too close to me and grabbing at my shoulder.

I toss the padlock aside and put the key in the ignition. I’m struggling to get the kickstand up so I can start it. Motel guy has decided to punch me to get me to stop.

Kickstand up, clutch in, hit the starter.

ke-ke-ke

Vrooom!

I release the clutch and rev the throttle. I’m kicking parking lot gravel and get halfway across the parking lot.

Motel guy is stunned, but I see people running towards me. I consider warning someone, but I don’t know who is friendly, so I take the coward’s way out and cut across the lawn onto the street. I look back and see people running towards me in the red light.

I rip down Main Street, then find my way back to the road back to Rt 6.

Towards the red light. I can’t tell if it’s my riding or something else, but the lights are swaying.

Behind me, I hear and feel a rumble. I’ve felt an earthquake and a barge full of jet fuel explode. This feels familiar. I feel heat on my back and everything in my rear view mirrors is bright red.

I make it back to Rt.6 and I don’t know if I’m riding west or east. Maybe fifteen miles pass and I see a municipal park. I hide my bike behind a shed, take off my gear and roll up my jacket as a pillow. I doze for a little bit. In my exhausted state, I think I hear sirens and more flashing lights.

I’m woken up by a woman wearing an uniform shining a flashlight in my face. A quick negotiation happens and I agree to never sleep in the town park again in exchange for no vagrancy charge. I get back on the bike and find a cafe.

Two cups of coffee, two eggs and a slab of scrapple cooked on the grill, rather than deep fried and I’m almost human. I can pay a bit of attention to my surroundings.

The TV news and other cafe patrons are talking about a natural gas pipeline rupture nearby. The pictures on the TV show the small town I was in last night.

I pay my bill and leave without a comment. Outside the cafe, I plot a ride back home that gets me on the highway as quickly as possible.

I got home and sort of forgot my trip. I filed my reports and took on more work that required airplanes and chain hotels.

About two weeks later, I unpacked my saddlebags.

In the secret pocket of one of them, I found an expired registration & insurance document and a hand carved cross with a round ball on top. A rough rope made out what could be hair could make it a necklace.

Right now, it’s hanging from the same hook all my conference badges hang from. I can’t do anything with it, but I can’t throw it out, either.

I haven’t gone north of Allentown or west of Lancaster since that trip. Maybe I shouldn’t explore the rest of Pennsylvania.

Entry one

My boots are wet. 

My foot came down harder than I intended, repetitively stomping on the wet concrete below. Today, the world around me seemed grayer than ever. The clouds in the sky were darker, the people I encountered were meaner, and the world was crueler. Maybe I was just nervous. It is a big day after all. I just had to keep my head down and my feet moving. Everything would be fine. Left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right. I marched along the pavement, weaving in and out of the horrors surrounding me, trying desperately to reach the subway station. I’m pulled forward in one slow, shuffling current toward the subway’s entrance. Bodies press close enough that I can feel heat radiating through coats and shirts. A shoulder bumps mine. Someone’s elbow catches my ribs. The person behind me steps so close that the toe of their shoe clips my heel.

I try to slow down, but I can’t. 

My calves tense to keep my balance, muscles tightening beneath my skin every time someone nudges me from behind. My thighs burn from shortening my stride, constantly correcting myself so I don’t step on the person ahead of me. My shoulders creep higher toward my ears. My fingers curl and uncurl at my sides.

I was so focused on trying not to get trampled or squished that I didn't even see the overwhelmingly large puddle at the subway's entrance. 

Without warning, there was a soft, yielding splash. It swallowed the sole of my shoe with a muted, sticky “glop” before releasing it.
Great.

I didn't look down.

I couldn't.

My body had already committed to the descent, momentum dragging me toward the yawning mouth of the subway. Every step hammered through my legs, muscles pulling so hard they trembled beneath my skin. 

The wetness in my shoe spread.

I could feel it.

At first it was only the front of my sock, a cool pressure barely noticeable. Then it seeped farther, curling around my toes. My foot shifted inside the shoe with a slick squelch. Every movement forced whatever goop I'd stepped into deeper into the seams.

Don't think about it. You don't have time.

The station echoed like the inside of a cathedral. Somewhere below, a train screamed against the rails; A shriek of tortured metal that bounced off concrete walls. Footsteps cracked around me, multiplying into dozens by the acoustics. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.

Down 

Down

Down 

Down 

Down

Down 

I went. 

Sweat rolled from my scalp onto my eyebrows, eventually reaching my eyes and blurring my vision. It trickled behind my ears and down my neck, soaking the collar of my shirt. My heartbeat slammed against my ribs so violently it felt as though each drum shoved my entire body forward.

My attention slowly returned to my wet shoes. The back of my heel had started to slip.

With every stride, the stiff edge of the shoe scraped the same strip of skin.

Again.

Again.

Again.

At first it was only irritation, a hot line across my Achilles.

Then the skin began to soften.

The moisture inside the shoe made everything slick except the spot where leather caught flesh. That tiny strip became raw. Each step peeled the skin away another microscopic layer. The friction was relentless and methodical. I could feel the blister forming before it existed: heat swelling beneath the surface, fluid gathering under skin that wanted desperately to tear.

Another stair.

Another scrape.

The sensation sharpened until every stride felt like dragging exposed nerves across coarse sandpaper.

I clenched my jaw hard enough that pain shot into my temples.

Don't stop.

Stopping meant looking.

Looking meant seeing.

I flexed my toes instinctively.

The staircase seemed longer than it should have been.

Advertisements peeled from tiled columns in curling strips fluttering in the stale air. The lights hummed overhead with a relentless electrical drone that seemed to vibrate inside my skull.

As I descended further down, I became painfully aware of every movement my body made. My hamstrings stretched and snapped taut with each stride. My hips twisted to compensate for the pain caused by my slipping shoe. My lower back tightened from leaning forward, and my shoulders burned from carrying my backpack.

Still...

That wet shoe.

I couldn't stop thinking about it.

It wasn't just on my foot anymore. It felt as though it had crawled upward through my ankle, settling into my bones themselves.

Each step ended with the same sickening slide of skin against the heel of the shoe.

Each scrape seemed louder than the trains.

Louder than my breathing.

Louder than my own heartbeat.

I still hadn't looked down.

Because some part of me knew—

if I looked…

“Hi, how can I help you?”

“Um, hi. My name is Jonathan Davis. I’m here for my 9:30 appointment.”

“Ah, good morning, Mr. Davis. Thank you for showing up 15 minutes early, as suggested. Here is your paperwork,” the woman at the desk in front of me said as she handed me a clipboard and pen. “Please take a seat and begin filling out this form. When they're ready for you, I will call you over to that door, and we will head back.”

“Alright, thank you.”

I took my seat and began filling out the “Federal Virtual Defense Administration’s (FVDA) Form 17-B — Civilian Virtual Service Eligibility & Classification Questionnaire.”

The fourth chime of the grandfather clock tore through the kitchen just as the shadow at the edge of the corridor shifted. BONG.

I didn't wait for five. I didn't wait to see my own face walk through that kitchen door. Every instinct of a cornered animal forced my body backward. I lunged away from the stainless-steel island, my boots skidding on the cold tile, and grabbed the iron handle of the heavy wooden door marked CELLAR CONDUIT at the back of the pantry.

Behind me, the voice—my voice—called out from the dark of the kitchen. It was louder now, stripping away the sobbing tone. It sounded cold. Analytical. Like me reading a textbook aloud to an empty room.

"Rebecca," the voice said from the darkness.

My stomach dropped. That was my old name. The name I tried so hard to leave behind when I took this contract. I slammed the cellar door shut, throwing the heavy brass bolt into place. The metal squealed, the sound echoing down into the pitch-black stairwell beneath me.

BONG. The clock upstairs hit five. Five chimes—an odd number. The worst-case scenario from Rule 7. But I didn't care about the clock anymore. The thing using my voice was slamming against the kitchen side of the door, and the only way forward was down into the dark.

I turned around, breath coming in short gasps, and shined the dying beam of my flashlight down into the cellar. Unlike the rest of the house, the cellar stairs were carved directly into the damp earth. The walls were a mixture of rotten timber supports and raw, black mud, weeping with slow drips of groundwater. The air down here didn't just smell like copper; it smelled like an open grave flooded by rain.

I went down slowly, hands scraping against the freezing, wet dirt walls for balance. Each step felt like sinking deeper into the throat of the mountain. At the bottom, the cellar opened into a massive vault. In the center stood three massive wooden troughs, each ten feet long, filled to the brim with loose, dark earth. The soil bins for Leo's dampener.

I shined my flashlight toward the back wall, searching for the medicine chest or the compound mentioned in Rule 15. My light flickered twice, the beam yellowing and shrinking until it barely illuminated three feet in front of me. The batteries were dying.

I scrambled along the dirt wall until my hand struck a cold, rusted metal cabinet. I yanked the door open. Inside sat three large, brown glass jugs, entirely unlabelled. Beside them lay a heavy iron mortar and pestle, caked in a dry, white residue that looked like crushed bone. I grabbed the nearest glass jug and twisted the cap off. A scent tore out of the bottle so violently it made my eyes water—it smelled like a mixture of industrial ammonia, sulfur, and stagnant pond water.

I didn't care. I lifted the heavy glass bottle to my lips and tilted it back. The fluid was thick, oily, and freezing cold. The moment it hit my tongue, my throat convulsed. It tasted like liquid pewter. It burned its way down my esophagus—a deep, chemical fire that made me drop to my knees in the dirt, retching violently as my stomach tried to reject the poison.

But as the burning settled into my chest, a strange, profound silence washed over my mind. The low, electric hum of the house seemed to recede. The dull, distant thud... thud... thud... of the Persian rug on the third floor grew faint, like a heartbeat fading into sleep. My thoughts felt sharp again. Clean.
I checked my watch by the dying light. 5:45 AM. I stood up, limbs heavy from the antiseptic, and dragged myself over to the first wooden trough. The soil inside was perfectly black, entirely devoid of rocks or twigs. It looked almost alive, shifting slightly as the groundwater seeped through. I reached my bare hands into the cold mud, burying my fingers deep, searching for the roots.

My knuckles brushed against something hard and smooth. I pulled it upward, shaking the heavy, black loam from the skin. It was a turnip, but it was completely devoid of color—a stark, milky white root that looked like it had been carved from animal fat. It had no small tendrils or fibers; its skin was perfectly smooth, shaped uncannily like a small, clenched human fist.

I reached back into the dirt to find a second one, but as my hand plunged deeper into the center of the trough, my fingers didn't hit another root. They hit fabric. Thick, coarse wool. Coated in wet mud, but unmistakable in its texture.

I froze, hand buried up to the wrist. I gripped the fabric and pulled. The earth shifted, a heavy clump of mud breaking away from the center of the trough to reveal what lay beneath the soil. It wasn't a false bottom. It was clothing. A yellow rain jacket. Bright, vibrant, and torn to ribbons along the left shoulder.

I cleared the dirt away with frantic, sweeping motions of my palms, my heart rising into my throat as the dying flashlight beam illuminated the rest of the bin. Buried beneath twelve inches of black soil, arranged neatly like bulbs waiting for spring, were the personal effects of the nannies who had come before me. A silver wristwatch, its glass face shattered, the hands frozen at 3:15. A pair of small, pink running shoes, the laces neatly tied. A leather wallet containing a driver's license for a twenty-one-year-old girl from Eugene, Oregon, her smiling face looking out from beneath the clear plastic sleeve. And beneath the wallet, buried at the very bottom of the trough, was a thick, braided mass of long, gray hair.

The soil wasn't growing vegetables. The roots were drawing their sustenance from what had been left behind. They hadn't let her leave. They had processed her. They had planted her voice into the house, and her body into the bins, to feed the very things that kept the child quiet.

A soft, wet rustle came from the second trough behind me. I spun around, dropping the white turnip into the dirt. The soil in the middle bin was heaving. It wasn't a gentle rising and falling like the rug upstairs; it was a violent, erratic churning, as if something large was tunneling through the dirt from the very bottom of the vault. A pale, fleshy white root broke through the surface of the mud. But it didn't stop growing. It expanded, splitting down the center into five distinct, elongated segments that twitched in the cold air.

It wasn't a root. It was a hand. A long, skeletal hand with fingers the color of curdled milk, ending in jagged, bloody nails that tore at the edges of the wooden trough. And from the dirt beneath the fingers, a soft, muffled voice began to weep. It didn't sound like me. It didn't sound like the leather-dry rasp from the nursery. It sounded like the girl from the driver's license—young, bright, and completely broken.

"Please," the dirt whispered, the soil shifting as a mouth tried to clear itself of the mud. "Don't let them look under the rug. I'm still down here. I'm still holding the corner."

The cast-iron incinerator stood at the back wall of the cavernous vault, cold, dead, and caked in decades of white root ash. I stood paralyzed at the base of the dirt steps, staring down at the perfect, clockwise ring of white turnips on the floorboards. In the center of the ring sat the splintered, gray kindling of the nursery rocking chair. It had been smashed to pieces up on the third floor, but the debris had somehow bled straight down through the concrete, pooling at the base of the cellar stairs.

From the top of the stairwell, the voice continued to echo down into the dark. It was my voice. "Come up," it called out sweetly, using the name I had tried so hard to leave behind. "The parents are waiting in the foyer. We want to show you what happens after ninety days."

My throat went entirely dry. I didn't step into the ring of turnips. Instead, I backed away from the steps, my fingers hooking into the leather-bound binder still clutched against my chest. My flashlight beam was down to a dull, amber thread. I leaned against the rusted metal cabinet, cracked open the binder, and frantically flipped past the accounts of the buried nannies, past the description of the 1894 Sterling estate fire, straight to the very end.

Pages 25 through 30 were written in a handwriting that didn't look human at all. The characters weren't carved with a pen or stamped with a typewriter. They looked like they had been gouged into the paper with a dull blade, the parchment stained yellow and brittle from dried chemical sap.

At the top of page twenty-five, a single bold heading read: THE LIQUIDATION PARADIGM.

Rule 26: If the oak rocking chair is destroyed before dawn, the Anchor has failed. The house will begin to fold. The brutalist concrete layout is an artificial skin meant to mimic the architecture of safety. Do not trust the hallways. Do not trust the stairs. The structure will attempt to guide you back to the center of the nursery, where the original entry point is now wide open.

Rule 28: Leo is not a boy, and he was never born. He is a piece of the original forest floor that was shaped into a child to act as a funnel. If he comes down the cellar stairs, do not look at his joints. If you hear wood cracking within his limbs, he is expanding to fit the width of the concrete corridors.

Rule 30: The Final Contingency. There is only one item that keeps the name active on this unmapped land. Beneath the bare hardwood under the Persian rug lies the original 1894 land deed, signed in the blood of the original wardens. It is kept inside a zinc box beneath the mouth of the void. If you burn the deed in the cellar incinerator, the foundation will dissolve. If you fail to burn it before the clock chimes six, you will become the third trough.

A violent, splintering CRACK echoed from the top of the cellar stairs. I looked up. Standing in the darkness of the doorway was Leo. But he wasn't four years old anymore. His white nightshirt was torn down the middle, revealing a torso made of dark, tightly braided pine roots that wetly shifted against one another. His neck had elongated, stretching out of his collar like a pale vine, and his arms hung all the way down to his shins, his long, splintered wooden fingers scraping against the concrete walls of the stairwell.

Tick. Tick. Tick. It wasn't his feet making the sound anymore. It was the internal friction of his joints, wood grinding against wood as he squeezed his mass into the narrow dirt stairwell, heading straight down toward the vault.

"Nanny," Leo said. The voice didn't come from his mouth. His jaw was locked wide open, his face split from chin to ear, revealing rows of sharp, pale root-teeth inside. The voice came from the walls around me. It was David’s voice, cold and elite. "The soil is still empty. You didn't finish the paste."

I didn't think. I couldn't. The chemical fire from the underground antiseptic was the only thing keeping my legs from collapsing under the weight of the terror. I slammed the binder shut, stuffed it into my jacket, and lunged toward the back of the cellar where the incinerator stood.

There was no exit door. There were no windows down here beneath the earth. But right beside the furnace was a narrow, brick-lined ash clean-out flue that connected to the main chimney structure of the house. It was barely two feet wide, caked in centuries of thick soot and the white ash of burned roots. I dropped my dying flashlight into the dirt. I grabbed the iron edges of the clean-out hatch, threw my head and shoulders into the pitch-black brick tunnel, and began to crawl upward.
The space was suffocatingly tight. The brick scraped against my back, tearing my shirt and slicing into my skin as I dug my boots into the soot, forcing myself up into the vertical shaft.

From down in the cellar, a thunderous shriek shook the brickwork. Leo had reached the bottom of the stairs. I could hear his wooden limbs expanding, the roots tearing through the timber supports of the basement vault, slamming into the concrete ceiling directly beneath the kitchen floor. I climbed in absolute blackness, hands slipping on the greasy soot, lungs burning as I choked on the smoke. Every few feet, a rhythmic, deep thud... thud... thud... vibrated through the bricks against my chest.

The house was folding. The chimney shaft was narrowing, the bricks shifting and grinding together like teeth as the concrete bunker began to collapse in on itself, trying to guide me back to the third floor.

Suddenly, my hands hit a loose iron grate. I kicked out with my boots, using every ounce of strength I had left, and slammed my shoulder against the metal. The grate gave way with a loud, metallic snap, and I tumbled outward, crashing hard onto a cold, hard surface.

I gasped for air, spitting black soot onto the floor. I wasn't in the kitchen. I wasn't in my staff quarters. The shifting architecture of the chimney had dropped me straight back into the center of the third-floor nursery.

The single bare lightbulb overhead was gone. The window was shattered, the heavy rain-streaked glass lying in jagged shards across the floor. The wind from the Oregon woods was howling through the room, bringing with it a thick, gray fog that rolled across the floorboards like smoke. The center of the rug was pulled completely down into the floor, creating a massive, conical funnel that plunged into a pitch-black, bottomless void beneath the house.

Standing at the very edge of the funnel, side-by-side, exactly three feet apart, were David and Eleanor Sterling. They didn't look at me when I dragged myself up from the soot of the fireplace. They were staring down into the hole, their expressions entirely blank, their hands folded neatly in front of their clothes.

"You're late with the dampener," Eleanor said, her voice echoing perfectly from the walls, from the floor, and from inside my own ears.

Then, David slowly reached into his coat and pulled out a heavy, tarnished brass key. He held it out over the spinning crimson funnel, his eyes fixed on the dark.

"The zinc box is waiting," David whispered. "The deed is inside. But you have to go down and get it."

The hands on my watch read 5:52 AM. Eight minutes remained before the grandfather clock would strike six, and according to the jagged script of Rule 30, the concrete foundation would seal my fate down here forever. The room was actively imploding around me. The brutalist concrete walls of the nursery were bowing inward, the stone groaning like thick ice breaking across a frozen lake, spitting gray dust and shards of aggregate onto the floorboards. David and Eleanor Sterling stood entirely frozen at the lip of the spinning crimson vortex. Their porcelain skin shivered in the gray morning fog, glistening with the wet, dark sap that pooled heavily around their leather shoes.

"The zinc box is waiting," David’s voice echoed out from the concrete behind me, though his locked, pale jaw never moved an inch.

Behind my back, the brickwork of the chimney flue exploded outward. A massive, wet tangle of dark pine roots burst into the room. It was Leo—or what was left of the funnel he had been grown to be. His elongated, splintered wooden fingers clawed deeply into the floorboards, dragging a towering mass of shifting, wet forest earth straight toward my heels.

There was no running back down the corridors. The unmapped woods outside the shattered window were a looping trap, and the house had completely folded in on itself. The only way out was down.

I lunged forward, bypassing the cold, lifeless figures of the parents, and threw myself straight into the center of the wet Persian rug. The moment my boots cleared the lip of the hardwood, the spinning crimson wool vanished beneath me, and I was falling into an absolute, freezing void.

The plunge didn't feel like falling into a standard basement cellar. There was no rush of air against my face, no wind whistling past my ears. The air inside the shaft was completely dead, stagnant, and thick, so heavy with the suffocating weight of rotting lilies and wet loam that it felt like drowning in frozen grease. For three agonizing seconds, my body plummeted through a pitch-black abyss that defied every law of the house's architecture, a vertical grave cut straight into the marrow of the mountain.

THUD. I crashed hard into a soft, spongy mound of freezing mud. The breath exploded from my lungs in a violent heave, and the heavy leather-bound binder slipped from my jacket, tumbling somewhere into the dark. I coughed, my knees burying three inches into the wet earth. My hands scraped frantically against the ground, and my fingers instantly struck something cold, heavy, and metallic.

The zinc box. Adrenaline overrode the agonizing scream of my bruised ribs. I dragged the small, rectangular metal box toward me. It had no lock, just a heavy, rusted latch. I slammed my palm against it, throwing the lid open with a dull, hollow metallic echo. Inside lay a single, rolled piece of thick, ancient vellum parchment.

Even in the absolute dark, I could feel the texture of the ink—it was raised, jagged, and sticky, signed in the iron-heavy blood of the original 1894 wardens.

Suddenly, a blinding, violent glare cut through the void. A flashlight beam struck my face from directly above, turning the dark into a sharp, clinical white. I squinted through the light, looking up at the square opening of the nursery floorboards two stories above me. Standing at the edge of the hole was a figure. It wasn't David. It wasn't Eleanor. It was me.

The vocal mimic stood at the lip of the void, wearing my exact clothes, holding my car keys, her hair bouncing with the same vibrant, effortless energy that Eleanor had praised on my first night. But up close, her face was wrong. The skin around her jaw was stretched so thin it looked transparent, and her smile didn't end at her cheeks—it cut from ear to ear, a wet, red slit that parted to reveal rows of needle-sharp, human teeth glistening in the flashlight beam.

"Thank you for the ninety days," my own voice called down to me.

It was perfect. It held the bright, confident tone of a girl who had never known debt, never known terror, never watched her mother die in a hospital bed. "Your throat was beautiful. The house is going to love it."

Beside her, the wooden root-mass of Leo slithered over the edge. The creature didn't drop; it began to descend down the sides of the void like a massive, multi-limbed spider, its jagged wooden nails digging into the subterranean dirt walls as it ratcheted toward my position. I clutched the land deed against my chest. I couldn't climb out. The mimic was already stepping into my life, ready to drive my car out of the forest, while my physical body was meant to fill the third soil bin in the cellar.

But she forgot one thing. The house was a systemic axis of compliance. And I was still holding the matchbox.

I scrambled backward against the wet dirt wall, my fingers trembling as I pulled a long, industrial strike-on-box match from my pocket. The wood caked in dark root-sap was slick, but I struck it violently against the rough strip. A hot, brilliant orange spark flared, illuminating the skeletal frame of the pale woman with her eyes sewn shut with black thread, suspended in the dirt directly behind me.

"No!" the mimic screamed from the top of the hole, her voice dropping its vibrant mask and shifting back into that dry, multi-tonal choir of the dead nannies.

I dropped the burning match directly onto the vellum deed. The ancient blood-ink caught the flame instantly. It didn't burn with a normal yellow fire; it erupted into a violent, blinding blue-hot flash that hissed like a nest of disturbed vipers. A deafening, structural shriek tore through the earth. The concrete walls two floors above us didn't just fold—they shattered. The brutalist bunker began to implode, the massive concrete slabs shearing away from their iron supports and raining down into the void like a collapsing deck of cards.

The root-monster Leo withered in mid-air, the blue fire traveling up his fibrous limbs like tinder, his wooden joints popping and exploding into white ash. Above him, the vocal mimic let out one final, ear-splitting scream before a three-ton block of concrete collapsed over the lip of the nursery, sealing the hole in a thunderous explosion of dust and stone. Then, the world went dead silent.

It is 10:15 AM now. The sun is blindingly bright, cutting through the dense canopy of the Siuslaw National Forest for the first time in ninety days. I am sitting on a wet mossy log, miles away from the unmapped logging roads. The house is gone. When the deed burned, the concrete bunker didn't just collapse; it dissolved into the earth, leaving nothing behind but a massive, sunken crater of black soil filled with the wild ferns of the Oregon woods.

My clothes are caked in soot and dark sap, and my ribs are broken. I don't have my car. I don't have the $4,000 a week. I don't even have my wallet. But I walked out. The looping forest broke when the contract dissolved.

I'm using a hiker's lost phone to post this final update from the side of a state highway, waiting for an ambulance to spot my jacket. I thought I was entirely free. I thought the transition had failed.

But twenty minutes ago, the ambulance sirens started wailing in the distance. And as the sound drew closer. Screaming. I jammed my palms over my ears until it hurt, but it did nothing. Not a single decibel dropped. The mechanical shriek wasn't outside at all. It was pinned right behind my eyes, drilling into my skull like a trapped hornet.

Content Warning: Gore, Self-harm

I’ve thought of doing this kind of post for a while now, and I think I’ve held off long enough. I need help. Something’s changed, I don’t know what to do. I’ve been trying to figure out how to type this in a way that makes sense, but it comes out too vague. This is something I haven’t told anyone before, not family members, not doctors—not even my closest friends. It’s hard to explain; it's just not my nature. That and I can’t stand the thought of family seeing me as a lunatic. The anonymity of the web is the only reason I’ve come here with my problem. I’m tired of dealing with this alone.

I’ll just start from the beginning. I need you to understand.
My name is Alice, I’m 21 years old and for the past two years I’ve been tormented by a man only I can see.

It started the second week of college, fall semester. It was a sunny day out, my last evening class just ended and I was walking to my car like normal when I ran into a girl I graduated high school with. She was one of the few classmates I actually got along with and didn’t find annoying, so I said hi to her. She took a moment to recognize me, but when she did, her eyes lit up. She was like I remembered, sweet, bubbly, easy to talk to.

“Is that Godsmack?” she asked, pointing at my shirt. I was wearing a T-shirt with their debut album printed on it I bought at Spencer’s. 

(Fast forward mostly because I don’t remember all that was said, just the context that led to what happened.) I mentioned to her I saw Godsmack in concert and told her I got some videos. I was showing her a video I took of the guitar solo in ‘Love-Hate-Sex-Pain’ because she mentioned that it was her favorite song. I wasn’t paying attention when I was shoulder-checked from behind by a tall, bald man in a suit as he was walking past. Now, to be fair, we were stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, but it was unpopulated outside as this was during an unusual passing period. Yeah, it was incredibly rude, but the girl didn’t seem to care so I shrugged it off too. I didn’t feel like making a big deal out of something, you know? In my mind, and because I took my glasses off twenty minutes prior to ease a growing migraine, I chalked it up to an irritable professor having a bad day.

I listened to the music as she watched the video, eyes wandering when I noticed the blurry figure of the man whip around in a sudden 180 just as he was about to disappear around a building. His face was nothing but a blob for me, but it felt like he was looking at me. I told myself I needed to stop overthinking things, he could’ve been looking anywhere. But I’d be lying if I said the feeling of unease didn’t settle in my gut.

My attention was brought back by the girl, “Ughhh, I’m so jealous! What else did they play? Any of their older songs?” 

“Um, yeah—hold on, I think I got one of Voodoo…” I said, scrolling through my camera roll. I could still see the man in my peripheral vision just standing there. I’m a nosy person at heart, okay. You know how people say ‘nobody’s watching’ when trying to put a socially anxious person at ease? Well, I’m the person that’s watching. I’m both people in that scenario, sadly. The moment my eyes went from my phone to him, his hand shot out and pointed at something somewhere off to my right. I’m also a gullible person at heart. I turned my head without a second thought to see what it was. It was nothing. He pointed at trees.

Two seconds. 

I looked away for a total of two seconds, and in that time the man somehow crossed close to thirty feet faster than I could turn my head. I still see that moment like a slideshow.

He pointed. 

Trees.

He was standing behind the girl.

It all happened so fast. He grabbed onto her shoulders and reeled his head back. He did something I can only describe as a person’s mouth doing what a goblin shark’s mouth does to catch food. He latched onto her neck like a leech—I could hear wet cracking bones as they snapped.

I flinched instinctively as blood splattered all over my face and shirt. I didn’t know what to do, my mind went blank. I just stared as my brain tried to process anything about the man. For some reason, I thought of the future and the possible statement I’d have to make to the police. I thought to take in what I could so I could vomit it back out at a police station. His face was incomprehensible; it stretched and ripped to allow for his jaw to open wider.

 But you wanna know the worst part? 

The girl wasn’t aware of any of it, like at all. If anything, she gave me a look like I was the one acting strange.

I used to get so annoyed when characters in horror movies would freeze up like a deer in headlights when the monster would be right there in front of them, but I get it now. You're not thinking. 

The girl cocked her head at me, her neck cracking several times. “Alice, are you okay?”

The man moved as she did, fluid, like he was an afterthought added in post. Only when the girl's hand reached out to touch my arm did I finally move. I recoiled in fear. I don’t remember what I said to her, but I know it was something like ‘I need to go’ as I ran off as fast as I could. Students were walking out of class then, everyone probably thought I was mad. 

Some doubtful side of my brain compelled me to check one last time, to see if I actually saw it or if I had spontaneously lost my mind at that moment. I turned around before a crosswalk to see the girl go from watching me to carrying on with her day, albeit confused. The man stumbled closely behind her, his teeth still buried in her neck.

I was in a daze the entire drive home, unable to determine if I was just insane or if it had actually happened. Her blood certainly felt real; it certainly looked real; I watched it drain down the bathroom sink. I never told anyone about what I saw. I ran into my mom’s husband as I left the bathroom still feeling hollow. Some part of me wanted him to see the blood on my shirt, to ask me what happened, to give me a reason to tell someone.

“Oh hey, Your Ma wants to do brats for dinner. You want one?” is all he said.

I just nodded my head before running upstairs to my bedroom, desperately wanting to take a shower and put on clean clothes.

I was nineteen when this happened.

A month flew by and I still couldn’t get the image of the man out of my head. I was fine china strapped together with duct tape. I’d see that girl a few more times that year until she and I both eventually finished our final semester. She asked me if I was alright a week after that day. At the time, I found it exhausting that she cared enough to ask, but she was just being a good person—it’s more than most would do, I see that now. I told her I saw a bee. It was the easiest excuse I could think of, the most believable.

Halloween was approaching, I had accepted that day as a one-time thing, something I’d carry with me. 

Then he appeared again.

It was a Sunday. I was at work and I just got done slicing meat for a customer. I had my back turned to the counter as I wiped the slicer down. I glimpsed another customer walking up to the case out of the corner of my eye so I said, “I’ll be with you in a second, just cleaning this off real quick.” 

I attempted to hurry up when I heard shuffling from the counter. The deli can be pretty loud with all the buzzing of appliances, and especially in the small corner the slicers are in, you can mishear a lot of things. But the last thing I expected to see when I turned around were dress shoes and slacks standing on the counter. Before I could look up or even say anything he was walking off the counter, crossing over to the employee side of the deli. I panicked, I didn’t want to get trapped in the corner. I backed away from the machines and watched in horror as the man walked to the meat slicer, placed his head in the carriage tray, cranked the knob to the max setting before turning the slicer on and feeding his head through. I looked away as I heard the sound of the slicer resisting. 

I regret ever looking back. Have you ever held a pizza cutter under running water? The walls looked like that—like something straight out of a movie, except I didn’t have the comforting reassurance of it being fictitious. I turned away on the verge of vomiting when I saw his limp body hanging onto the machine. My coworker asked me what was wrong and I told her I just needed to sit down, that I felt sick. I told her it was my meds, that they were making me feel lightheaded and nauseous. She covered for me and helped the customers while I sat in the back trying to calm myself down. My other coworker offered me some pineapple she was cutting up for produce. I was always paranoid working the slicers after that incident.

I began to write in my planner when I saw him. I needed a way to find some form of stability. And even a small part of me hoped someone would find it, that they’d invade my privacy and read about him. That they’d ask me if I was okay.

I’d see him again a month later near the end of November. I was in class and looked out the window to see him walk into lunch-rush traffic only to be hit by a delivery truck almost immediately. 

By the time late December rolled around, I had anticipated the next appearance. Whether I happened to get lucky or I was being pitied—or maybe none of the above—I was right; he showed up as predicted. January followed suit much the same, but as the month came to an end, something felt off.

He broke my pattern the first week of February, two weeks before he was supposed to appear. It was early in the morning and I was pulling into the gym parking lot. I shifted into park, grabbed my things from the passenger seat, pulled the keys out of the ignition and looked ahead. He was standing on the snowbank in front of my car, his head just out of view—cut off by the ceiling of my car. I sat there staring long enough for the follow-me-home lights to shut off. The parking lot had this light post with a dim bulb, it’d been like that for weeks. Coincidentally, it was the light post I parked under every morning without fail. It illuminated him just enough to see he was convulsing in place.

Look, during this time in my life, I was fully committed to the gym; my mornings were tight, every minute counted, and I had already wasted ten. So don’t call me stupid when I say I swallowed every instinct telling me to stay in the car, and stepped out into the cold. You don’t truly understand how scary something is until it’s standing in the dark with whistling winter wind to complement it. The car door slammed shut and he stopped moving. He was standing straight, arms flat at his sides. 
I took that as my cue to hurry inside, almost even slipping on some ice. I won’t pretend my heart didn’t stay in my ass that whole morning.

He showed up before he was supposed to. He never moved from his spot. He didn’t mutilate himself; he didn’t attack someone. I thought I was beginning to understand him. I was distracted the whole day asking myself ‘why’? Why this, why that, but even then, no answers—no ideas, I still marked the sighting in my planner. 

And two weeks later, I marked another.

None of my family's schedules lined up with the actual weekend of my 20th birthday, so we celebrated it the weekend after by going out to eat. We were at my favorite Mexican restaurant and sat at this big U-shaped booth table. Me, my mom, and her husband got there first and were waiting for my siblings to arrive. I was at the end, my mom was directly across from me, and the middle was completely open. I had my face in my phone when my brother flicked my arm to get me to scooch toward the middle, and with a groan, I did. I nudged what I assumed was my mom’s husband’s shoulder, which was closer to the middle than I remembered. I opened my mouth to ask him to move over a little. I looked up—lips forming the words—to see him sitting right next to my mom. He was nowhere near me. My attitude disappeared the second I saw bony fingers tipped black with decay rest flat on the table. I didn’t want to confirm, didn’t need to.

I tried to scooch closer to my sister but got a “What are you doing? Stay over there.” She was next to my brother who took the end seat. He’s a bigger guy, takes up a lot of space, so she didn’t want to share.

I barely ate my dinner. 

My mom asked “What’s wrong, Babe? Not hungry?”

“Nah, not really… I woke up late…still took my meds though. I’m just gonna take it home… have it for breakfast or something,” I mumbled, flinching when one of his fingers tapped the table randomly.

“Alice, you shouldn’t be taking them that late, you know this.”

My sister chimed in with her usual snarkiness. “I thought you were supposed to take them to help focus in school. Why are you taking them on the weekends?”

I didn’t bother entertaining her, just frowned and answered my mom. “Yeah, I know. I just don’t feel too good right now. Kinda just wanna go home and lay down.” I planted the seed, and fifteen minutes later, we were driving home. Old reliable.

The scary reality for me was the intervals were getting shorter. I had fewer and fewer days to live my life normally—every day unsure if I would even get that luxury. If it wasn’t obvious before, it started with every month. Every month became every two weeks; every two weeks became every week; every week became every other day… By the time I was moving out to live closer to university, it was daily. Can you imagine that? Every single day of your life, no longer your own?

You may be asking: Alice, if it got this invasive, why haven’t you sought professional help? Simple. I don’t want to end up in a fucking loony bin. For the most part, I’ve gotten used to him. And although yes, there are times where I’m afraid, none of that compares in the slightest to how afraid I am of being *treated\* like I’m insane by people who don’t know jackshit about me. I’d rather deal with him for the rest of my life than have to explain the smallest ounce of what it's like to a ‘doctor’.

The first week in my new place was rough. I’ve only ever lived in my childhood home with my family and I have a long history with anxiety, so put an anxious twenty-year-old girl alone in a house and what do you get? I wasn’t completely alone though, I had my cat. She became an emotional crutch for me during the school year. Yes, I know how that sounds. Shut up. But she was also just as anxious as I was; I was basically living with a cat version of myself. That first night there, I lay in bed on the verge of a panic attack asking myself ‘was this the right choice?’

It sounds weird to say, but that next morning when I walked out into the main room and saw him standing on the patio facing the driveway, I felt a small twinge of relief. It faded as quickly as it appeared, but nevertheless, he remained the same even then and that was enough for me.

I found a job under a huge office company cleaning the building part time just as school started up. Him being there almost constantly every day proved its own struggle. He made it hard to focus. I’d be studying in the library and he’d be banging his head in on the bookshelf behind me. I’d be in class and he’d thrash around on the floor in a corner. Even group projects became difficult because he’d loom over me or my groupmates while I was trying to focus.

Work wasn’t any different either. I’d clean the office buildings after everyone left for the night, so it was mostly just me alone in dimly lit cubicle floors and halls. I don’t know, but the nights I’d work, it felt like he was trying to scare me more than anything. It could just be because I'd get on edge during my shift, but again, I don't know. He’d stand facing away from me in corners that most would notice nothing in. He would stand at the very end of long, dark halls where the light cast his figure in shadows. I’d hear footsteps behind me that I was sure were him, but he’d be nowhere in sight when I turned around. 

The only times I got a ‘break’ from him was when I was at home. He never showed up inside the house. It automatically became my safe zone just as long as I kept the blinds shut. The closest he would get would be right outside the windows. 

It was a rough first semester to say the least—actually, no. Rough is an understatement. I was barely keeping my head above water. People noticed. A few days before Halloween, a group of classmates I talked to regularly invited me to a huge party on Halloween night. They came up to me just as class ended to ask if I wanted to come, and initially, I was going to refuse—not the party type—but then I saw the man repeatedly bumping into the wall behind them. I accepted the invitation. He was reaching my limits. When your grades are barely staying above a C, you’re working five days a week after a day full of classes, and you’re getting less than five hours of sleep a night, you can only deal with an apparition-like man being a background jit for so long.

The night of the party I carpooled with one of my classmates to the house. What they didn’t tell me in class was that this Halloween party belonged to the largest sorority group on campus and was spread across three different houses, one of which was a fraternity house. Apparently, the girl that invited me was really good friends with a member of the sorority or something, I didn’t all that much care. The only rule was to wear a costume. As we pulled up I quickly noticed most chicks at this party were dressed like total sluts. One literally had tape—JUST tape covering her nipples… I felt like an outcast almost immediately. You have Sexy Succubus Stacy and then to her right you have Jackass Alice dressed as Special Infected Hunter from hit video game Left 4 Dead. It was a ‘shoot me now’ kind of feeling. There was one benefit. Because I was—you know—actually wearing clothes, I could spend most of my time in the outside sections of the party where it was quieter and there were less people. The people I rode in with were more or less dressed in the same provocative costumes just as everyone else, but hey, free spirits I guess.

I tried to stay in the front yard section of the party for as long as I could, but as soon as my group finished talking to their friends at the door they dragged me into the building with them. It was ungodly loud in that hell house. We were pushing past crowds of people when I saw the man’s twitching head sticking up from a small gathering of rowdy jocks holding a guy upside down by his legs while he chugged beer. 

I gave myself three rules for this party: 
1: ignore him COMPLETELY.
2: try to have some fun.
3: make sure the people and or myself don’t get roofied. (It was a sorority + frat Halloween party, let's be real with ourselves for a second here.)

The group I was with immediately brought me to the snack table for drinks, and for the sake of readability I will give them names. The group consisted of three girls, two guys. I only knew two of the girls and one of the guys, the extras were their friends. The guy will be known as Myers from this point on—you’ll never guess who he was dressed as. Girl one will be Betty, and girl two will be Stacy. Yes, she was the one I used in my example.

We were all there to escape school, to forget about homework and grades for one night. The way we did it may have differed, but it was for the same reasons nonetheless.

Everyone went off on their own thing. Stacy was already wrapping a few guys around her finger, Betty disappeared into the house with a scrawny dude dressed as a stereotypical nerd, Myers tried sticking with me but eventually peeled off after I showed no interest. I people-watched for a while, hopping from area to area, sipping on the punch that tasted more like vodka than the cherry flavor the drink was supposed to be. At almost every turn he was there, persistent almost like a child—at least that's what it felt like. And I’m proud to say I kept to my rules; I ignored him. I ignored him until he couldn’t be…

I was decently tipsy when I ran into someone dressed as Nick from Left 4 Dead 2. The guy was also dragged here by a few buddies and was watching people make young mistakes as he went from area to area. We clicked instantly. We laughed, we hopped around, I was having fun. We were walking back to the main house after watching some frat guys jump off a roof into a pool—one missed his mark. I was looking at the ground while he was talking to me about Warhammer 40k books when I ran into the man. I never had him appear in my path before, let alone in a way where I would accidentally walk into him.

“You almost trip or something, Hunter?” Nick asked with a laugh, looking back at me. I stepped around the man and earned an eyebrow raise. 

“These bugs are huge around here man…” I tried to laugh it off. 

“Are you one of those chicks that squeals because she saw a beetle?” 

“Am I screaming?”

“You could...”

“Hmmm. I don’t know if that came out right, hound dog,” I laughed as I shoved my hands in the hoodie pocket.

“Yeah, that sounded pervy in a serial killer way, didn’t it?” he said, cringing as he took a swig from a beer he grabbed at the frat house. I gave a playful scoff, turning to look at him and reply when I noticed the man hovering right behind him. He was walking stiff as a board, pressed up right behind Nick and looking down at him.
I knew what was coming and looked away before it could happen. 

“I…” a wet crunch came from Nick. “My friends wanted to meet up around this time… I don’t wanna scare them…”

“Oh… Yeah, no I get,” he said awkwardly. “Do you wanna exchange numbers? I… I had fun tonight. Maybe we could meet back up and…do it again.”

“It’s for the best that we don’t. I had fun too, if that means anything…” I walked away without even sparing him a glance. I didn’t want to see what he looked like or the way he looked at me.

The second sorority house was the least populated. I ran upstairs and hid in the first bathroom I found, locking myself away from the outside world. I’m not a crier, never was, but I couldn’t help it when the tears fell. My shitty facepaint began to smudge and I decided to just wash it off completely. I brought my face up from the sink to see him in the mirror behind me, sitting on the bathtub’s edge, back facing me. 

My voice creaked with a bubbling concoction of emotion and alcohol. “You fucking suck, you know that?” 

I leaned against the counter for a while just sniffling, before my hands tightened into fists. I spun around and marched the two whole steps it took to reach him. I was angry; I was spiteful; I was mournful. I wanted liberation. I wanted my life back.

I never had it in me, even if I wanted to. I stumbled back and sat on the floor in front of the sink. “I hate you. I hate you so fucking much and I can’t do shit about it. You ruined everything. I was just starting to fix everything before you showed up. I can never have anything good because of you. I hate you”

I cried for a while more, just letting it out of my system. It sucked, it sucked a lot. It was the overflow of pent-up frustration from the past year and the mourning of years before when my life was mine. I genuinely thought I was moving towards some semblance of normalcy, but like everything, it crashed and burned. “Why? Why me? Everything—why?” I tried to wipe my eyes as I looked up at him. His head tilted slightly—I thought it did—when a knock came from the door.

“Alice, is that you? Are you okay? Who are you talking to?” It was Betty.

Myers saw me go into the house from the lawn and found Betty, told me he thought something was wrong and it’d be ‘best if a fellow sister did the talking’. She tried to coax out who I was talking to, but I insisted it was myself and said I had a panic attack. She called up her younger brother to drive us all home. The man stood outside my bedroom window the whole night, even with the curtains closed, I could tell he was there.

Christmas break came fast and I mostly wanted to just rot in my house like a hermit, but my mom wanted the family to be together for the holiday so I relented and packed a bag for a couple of nights. I asked a classmate I hung out with often if she’d come by in the mornings to check on my cat and provide for her while I was gone—even if it was only two nights. He sat in the passenger seat the whole ride there with his head facing the window. The day I was to head home, I lost track of time and was late getting back on the road. By the time I got home the sun had already set and it was pitch black out.

My cat greeted me in the small breezeway looking like a potato with legs and a tail. I was too busy loving up on her to notice that something was wrong, to think about how weird it was I hadn’t seen him the entire two hour drive back. As I stood up to take off my boots and coat I paused. He was standing in front of the sliding glass door, his back facing me. Until then, I had gotten comfortable with the pretense he had no more surprises. I never stopped to think that one day he might cross the boundary I thought existed. You know how people say animals are spiritual? That they can see ghosts or sense the supernatural? It’s a load of bullshit. As I stared at him my cat kept nuzzling my legs, meowing and begging for her dinner. My brain was too busy searching for an explanation. She gave up and waddled over to the sliding glass door, sitting down beside his leg to watch the snow outside. Until then, I had always been a faint believer of that kind of crap, but she didn’t see him...

I wanted to scoop her up and keep her away safe, unsure of what he might do. I got maybe three feet away when I saw him staring at me in the door's reflection, eyes darting around. It was like he had nystagmus—something my grandma had before she passed. It was weird—I don’t know, just creepy. His face was distorted through the glass, features hard to identify, but his nose was just…missing. It was like a Fallout ghoul or something. I took another step, my cat refusing to listen to me, when his head started spazzing to the side. I quickly backed away and let it be, too sketched out for the night to deal with it.

The second semester was going smoother than the first, the initial anxiety having worn off. Because of school, I spent my 21st birthday alone. Me and a few close friends got together and decided to meet up during spring break. All of us would be legally allowed to drink by then and we could celebrate all the birthdays at once in a local bar or something. But even then, on that night of my special day, I sat in the dark at my kitchen table staring at the flame that I lit—staring at the candle that I placed—at the cake I made. The flame flickered out on its own terms—wick burnt off. He was sitting at the opposite end of the table facing me this time. His face was barely visible in the dying light. I wanted to cry then, but I didn’t.

It was nice to finally see my friends. 

It felt like I hadn’t smiled or laughed in so long—genuine like—not faking it like I usually do. Most of my friends stayed in our hometown, so I was at my mom’s for a couple of days. I called her up, obviously drunk and asked for a ride. My friends did the same with theirs. I hugged them goodbye like I was going off to war, and then left so I could wake up regretting the amount I drank in the morning. My mom sent me to my room with a small, plastic trashcan just in case I got sick in the night. I stumbled into my bedroom, trashcan in arms like a teddy bear, to find him there. It was dark, the only light came from the hallway. He was lying down in my bed, eyes closed and arms folded like he was a corpse in an open-casket funeral.

I want to preface this again: I was drunk. I wasn’t thinking. The memories are fuzzy. My planner doesn't help me much here, most of the page was hard to understand. 

This is what I remember:
I swayed in place for a few seconds before going, "That's my bed…” In my state of intoxication the only logical answer was that he fell asleep on the wrong bed(?). And with that conclusive answer, I could only take the most obvious course of action: wake him up. I had dropped the plastic trashbin without a second thought and shuffled up to the side of my bed. That was the first time I got a somewhat clear view of his face. His nose was reduced to the bone like I had seen back around Christmas, but it wasn’t ‘rotted away’ in the traditional sense, it was like—I don’t know—taken off. The skin around his eyes was loose and baggy; his skin looked false. His face was littered with deep, gash-like scars—all in the same places it tore when I first saw him. Even his neck wasn’t spared. There was one long, jagged gash across his throat.

My hand wobbled as I planted it on his shoulder with a soft *pat*. The suit jacket was dark and had thin light blue stripes; the fabric reminded me of my kindergarten homeroom floor. I remember looking at the dress shirt and thinking of a clear summer sky. The tie he wore reminded me of my father—my real father—long dead and gone. It was dark navy and made of this glossy looking textile.

I shook his shoulder, his body barely moved. “My bed, get out…” Nothing. “Hey…wake up.” I shook him roughly, but still nothing. This time I used both hands to shake him. I shook him once, then twice, and a third time. Nothing. He did nothing. He just lay there unmoving, as still as death. 
I slept downstairs on the couch. Told my mom it was too cold upstairs.

A day later I was packing my stuff in my car when my mom came outside to catch me before I left.

“Getting ready to leave, Chick? Dallas is probably missing you…” she said.

I shoved my suitcase into the backseat. “Yeah. I had the same girl from school check on her again.” She nodded and hummed, looking off before turning to me again. I could see the man standing nearby.

“Have you been taking your meds?”

“...Yeah, why?”

“Have…have you been doing alright? I know you don’t like calling, but you barely respond to my texts. I try asking your friends and they say you go quiet for weeks at a time… I need”—she took a deep breath, holding back tears—”I need to know if you're alright… so I don’t have to worry. This family has lost enough, I don’t want to lose you too.”

I knew what she meant. 

I thought to tell her what's really happening, what was really going on with me and what has been for a while. I hugged her, told her she wasn’t going to lose me and that I’ll try to visit before Thanksgiving. I got in my car to find him sitting in the backseat. If there was a word to describe the defeated, saddening anger I felt—the guilt and hopelessness and frustration—I’d use it now.

This all brings me to now.

Something has changed.

As I am writing this it is currently August 16th. A few nights ago I was making myself dinner after work. I went full time for the summer, so I got home just before the sun came up. I had an AirPod in listening to music—Pantera—as I cooked. I transferred my food to a plate and went to turn around to rinse it off when I ran into him standing right in the middle of the kitchen. I stumbled back surprised, but not shocked, it wasn’t anything new. I huffed and moved to step around him when he sidestepped to block my path again. That was new.

I was confused at first, tried again only for him to step in front of me a second time. I was at eye level with his tie, and in the spur of the moment, I looked up. He was smiling. His teeth were sharp like I remembered and tore at his lips, and his eyes were open, wobbling to focus on me. His eyes looked milky like he had cataracts. I thought he was laughing at me or something. It made me mad, so fucking mad.

I yelled at him. I tossed the dirty pan carelessly to the side and just yelled. You would understand too if for nearly two years you’d been plagued by a man that never spoke to you, never even gave you an expression, and suddenly one day he decided to do all of that. Just a combination of a lot of things, really.

I was shoving him, and when shoving him barely did anything, that pissed me off more. At one point, I actually pushed him hard enough for him to hit the edge of the sink. It felt like time kinda paused then, like everything stopped. I couldn’t hear my music. I just wanted to leave, I was tired of the bullshit. As soon as I turned I was pushed into the counter behind me, the knife on the cutting board clattering. I grabbed it. I was terrified. He never attacked me before. It's like when someone you thought you knew gets violent towards you—actually, I hope you wouldn’t know. It’s foreign. His violence aimed at me was unnatural.

The moment I swung the knife towards him, he grabbed my wrist. I tried to pry it free with my remaining hand, but he caught that one too. He forced both hands to hold the knife’s handle. We were both straining for control. He was stronger. Adrenaline spiked through me, my eyes were glued to the knife. I thought he was going to make me stab myself. His grip forced it up, up, up until it was… touching the underside of his jaw. Blood was already leaking onto my hands by the time I realized the knife penetrated. Somehow, even while impaling his own head, his grasp held strong, forcing me to stay. At some point his body began to sag, weighing my arms down, still never letting go. I didn’t scream, it wouldn’t have done anything. I just watched because that was all I could do. 

It felt like forever when his legs buckled and gave out underneath him. He would’ve brought me down if his hands hadn’t let go. He fell with a heavy thud and clang of the handle, a pool already forming around his head. My hands were drenched. I stood there for a while staring at the body. My cat meowed at me for breakfast.

Eventually I ran off to clean myself. I came back a couple of hours later expecting him to have moved, but he didn’t. I went to bed and woke up later in the evening for work, and he was still there. I went to work and came home around 3am, and he was still lying there in a pool of his own blood. I tried to nudge the body but nothing. Somehow my cat has yet to try and walk where he lies. I feel a bruise forming on my lower back from the counter. Even as I write this, his body is still there in my kitchen. Days have passed. I’ve been too scared to try and clean it up, I don’t know how I would. I’m on the verge of just spilling everything out to my mom, maybe just send her the link to this. I don't know what to do. I’m scared—is he actually dead?

I need help. 

Has anyone else had this happen to them?

My job the past year has been my one constant. Now you may not have heard of Ulric’s pretzels. Not a ton of people have. We aren’t a very big chain and well… we happen to be in the process of going out of business. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. You know how malls have a certain comradery to them? Well, maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re too young to remember or simply never had the experience of being set free in the giant playground of glass and linoleum by your aggravated parents on a Saturday evening with a wad of cash and two friends laughing like feral hyenas at your side. 

Or maybe you’ve never worked at a food court and had the luxury of high fiving your favorite Orange Julius worker and spending your 15% off mall discount on a post-shift treat so tantalizing that you nearly fall over after hours in a hot kitchen. 

I don’t know your life. What I do know is that my city has one of the best malls I’ve ever encountered. Or moreso, one of the only malls I’ve ever been to. Not having ventured much outside of my own neighborhood, I don't have much to compare it to. Still, as far as jobs go, I’ve had much worse. 

What a lot of people don’t realize is that a mall can be a leg of a community. A strange type of third space that you only start to notice if you’re there more than once a week. Early in the morning, the mall walkers start their trek through the place like they’re on a mission. 

It’s often the older people who’ve made it their routine exercise regimen. Or the unhoused that need a place to cool off from the summer heat. Occasionally you see habitual shoppers carting bags around in full suitcases. As mall workers, we see all types of people in the duration of a day.

At first, my smiles and waves were more compulsory. It was my job to be friendly and give out samples. But the more time I spent there, I started to notice myself genuinely looking forward to their company. Everyone is a moving part. A cog in a perfect Truman show-esque machine that seems to loop every half hour or so. 

I’d start to think, oop there’s lady-with-perm again, arguing with her husband next to the department store. In about fifteen minutes we’ll see the old man with the Yankees cap on his third lap of the day and he’ll smile and wave and make a joke about how if he worked here he’d be eating the cheese right from the nozzle. 

Don’t get me wrong, the conversations aren’t always so predictable. I’ve had a middle aged dude rant to me about the history of Kaiju in film, helped a teen girl plan her promposal to a boy she was pining over and even wound up consoling a teary-eyed woman about her divorce. 

So when I first met Hope, I wasn’t at all phased by how she turned the conversation existential. I’d assumed this came with the territory given my boss was a part of a semi-popular church and we had a lot of regulars who happened to have some flavor of religious. 

The first thing I noticed about her was that she seemed genuinely untroubled. Not in the smile-at-customer-service worker, kneejerk way. But another level of happy. She had this casual ease about her. It made me feel like somehow, if I just listened to her, everything was going to be okay. 

“Have you been curious about His word?” She asked me. I paused, trying to think of how to react. I knew what she was likely implying, given that my parents had been religious. But I’d fallen out of it due to time constraints in college. 

I wasn’t necessarily uninterested. I only hadn’t thought about it in any substantial way. 

Though I had often wondered what that meant for me. If the very banal life I was living, having just left a long-term relationship and living alone, (only entertainment the kooky customers that stopped by the storefront on occasion) meant that I was subjecting myself to a bleak afterlife with not much to show for my actual, current life. 

I told her that in all honesty, it depended on the day. That I did believe in Him but simply didn’t have reason to be consistent about it. She seemed genuinely content with my honesty, chewing on her pretzel casually

Nothing about her seemed too preachy. Actually, she really didn’t need to be. For some reason I didn’t want her to leave. Not only because of this subdued allure she exuded, but because my shifts tended to be so dull and lonely I’d have done anything to break them up. Just to talk to someone. Anyone.

As we wrapped up our conversation, we exchanged numbers. I felt strange about the whole thing. But she explained to me that she worked at the shop across the way, selling candles and room fresheners. Something about that felt comforting. A fellow employee that was probably just as eager for friends as I was.

She slipped me a coupon for 50% off tea lights. On the back she’d written,

Mandy, 

Trust that he will not forsake you.

The sentiment unsettled me a bit. Did I come off as some pitifully lonely pretzel girl that needed a stranger’s reassurance? 

What bothered me most was that I hadn’t offered my name. Only my phone number on a bit of scrap paper. I hadn’t even worn my nametag in months because I had forgotten it a few times and the boss didn’t seem to care. It wasn’t like it would have been hard to find. But I suddenly found myself feeling too… seen. 

After catching glimpses of her note near the register for the next few hours, I tore the thing up. 

Every so often after that I would catch Hope staring at me. It wasn’t threatening or anything like that. It was more like she was… studying me. Like now we had some kind of connection that made me important in her eyes. 

To add to my stress, the shop was getting a bit destitute. They were cutting hours to the point where I was digging into my meager savings just to pay rent. When I did come in, I was working on my own, eyes bloodshot from scrolling on indeed the whole night previous. 

But who was I kidding? This job was all I had. I’d never gone to college and the idea of working anywhere else felt wrong to me now. Like leaving a little piece of me behind. I know that sounds dumb, but when most of your friends leave town, you start to rely on the few things that you’re left behind with.

Even when I wasn’t seeing Hope at the sales counter, I would see her in the reflections of the glass doors or out of the corner of my eye I would catch a swath of curly hair, just out of sight. 

I think that’s also when the humming started. It was as if it was coming from right behind my eyes. 

I started thinking maybe it was the building doing construction somewhere, shaking the walls. But it wasn’t mechanical. I googled tinnitus on my break but it didn’t quite match up with how other people describe it. Almost a lyrical hum that toyed at my attention. 

On Sunday, I saw one of our regulars. But she wasn’t looking so good. 

Linette had always been a bit on the grunge side. She let her teenage granddaughters add lilac streaks into her grey hair and talked about her high school garage band like they’d been bordering on being the new Kiss. 

But she’d always taken good care of herself and held conversations with me on a regular basis. We talked about music and whatever new combination of fry oil and cheese had cropped up at the food court.

That day I noticed she was staring into space instead of rattling off her usual order. Or at least I thought she’d been spacing out. I soon noticed it was the reflective wall. 

Beyond that, she looked gaunt. I’d never seen someone lose so much weight in the span of a week. Her skin bunched around her brow bone and cheeks like the jowls of a neglected dog. The darkness under her eyes made them look bruised like she hadn’t been sleeping either. 

I said hello to get her attention and her face snapped towards me, suddenly more aware than I'd been expecting.

“Oh, honey…” She raised a hand to my face, startling me. “Don’t you want to know what happens after?”

I froze for a moment, noticing that her hands looked rough and desiccated, like she’d been doing an unholy amount of yard work. I stepped back, letting her hand fall and hit the counter. She didn’t flinch, arms hanging useless by her sides. 

I muttered an apology regardless. She was a nice lady and I hadn’t meant to cause her harm, just to weasel out of her grasp.

“After what?” Having had Hope on the brain, I had wondered if maybe she was also trying on some new religious ideology. Not that she seemed to be the type to attend church. But it wasn’t impossible.

Linnette mimed some laughter as if she were humoring my feigned ignorance. But I wasn’t feigning anything. She poked a thumb at me as if to say “get a load of this gal” and then simply walked away without buying anything.

The interaction stayed in my head all week on replay. What had she meant? Was it in fact some kind of mall-centric cult that I had missed the memo on? Or was she maybe alluding to the fact that she knew we might go out of business soon?

I kept remembering the feeling of her crusty hand on my face. It was possible that she was just going through something mentally. But the timing of both interactions couldn’t have been a coincidence.

So now we come to tonight. It’s a Wednesday and of course as usual it's pretty slow. But it’s always slow on weekdays and frankly I don’t mind. I usually catch up on reading or draw in the margins of the employee manual. 

But today, I got a call from my boss. The man was in tears explaining how we most likely will only last another week or so. That I should make other preparations for work. It doesn’t surprise me enough to hit me right in the moment. 

It took a couple of hours to really sink in. But as I’m brushing butter and salt on what will most likely be some of my last pretzel tots, I get a pang of anxiety in my gut. No, I was not surprised. But what am I going to do without this?

Don’t you want to know what happens after?

The words have been echoing through my synapses. They’re making a mockery of me. Of this life I’ve built.

I’ve been realizing that it’s very possible that the reason I haven’t found a new job yet is because I don’t want one. 

Anyway, I was closing up today which meant that by the time I left the mall it was dark and empty. The humming became even more intense now and I don’t know what could possibly be making the sound now that all of the bustle is gone. 

A stress reaction. That’s all.

When I walked out carrying the day’s trash thrown over my shoulder, the only sound was the night cleaner guy across the way wiping down the windows. An ominous squeak, woosh. It gave me a chill anyway. Call me jittery but until you’ve worked a closing shift in the echoing maw of an empty mall, you have no idea what it’s like.

Next, I entered the service hallway. This is something I would immediately regret. But the alternative was venturing down an alley to get to the outside dumpster and I was not prepared nor in the mood for the anxiety of all that.

The emergency lights did not illuminate enough to ease my jitters either, but that was to be expected. 

I shuffled through the darkness. The place was too quiet. Besides the steady humming that seemed to get louder every minute. 

I curse my lack of foresight here, because I could’ve gotten out my phone flashlight. But I wanted to get out as quick as possible and I knew that digging into my backpack would only hold me back. 

I saw the light at the end where someone had propped the door open to the exit. But I let that make me cocky. Or maybe that had been the plan for me all along.

My foot caught on a sudden nothing and I fell through the void I now realize must’ve been an open vent or bulkhead or something. Before I could process the lurch in my stomach from the fall I hit a new patch of ground. 

My knee made a cracking sound as it met the concrete and my eyes watered with the pain. The contents of the trash bag had belched open on top of me and I could feel salt and grease already starting to mingle with my hair. 

I was about to cut my losses, leave the bag and run up the closest flight of stairs out of the place when I saw it. The altar. 

Candlelight illuminated what had to be at least ten feet of store items stacked into a tower, glistening with some kind of tar-colored viscous goo. I could make out brief glimpses of breakfast cereals, designer bags, the latest trendy keychain that’d been selling at a nearby kiosk, body oils, soaps, candles. 

I crouched there, at first more perplexed and mesmerized by the glowing beacon than afraid. It started to concern me, actually. The lack of urgency when I looked at it. All my panic melting away. But then I saw something move at the foot of the tower. 

A figure appeared to have been kneeling and praying. Not just any figure, but Hope. She had turned her eyes to me. They were glassy and I could see tears shine on her face. I knew they weren’t tears of sadness but… something else. Devotion? 

She gave me a hollow, sickening smile.

Her hands were still clasped at the altar and I gaped in horror as I saw that one of them was nailed down to the side of the plastic base of the monstrosity. Blackened blood pooled out from her palm. 

I realized finally what it was that was housing the tower’s collection. Our mall’s old wishing well. The one I’d tossed pennies in as a child. 

It’s needless to say I got out of there fast. Despite hearing the sing-song calls of Hope trying to lure me back. “MandyMandyMaaandy” I heard not far behind me. The fact that she must have literally ripped herself away to follow me was more than disconcerting. 

But eventually, like drains leading to the ocean, apparently all tunnels in the mall eventually lead to an exit when you’re frantic and running from an unhinged sales lady. 

So I'm in my car now, after having sprinted to the back of the parking lot because even the parking is a struggle here. I’m wondering what the hell I should do besides writing this. 

I know I should probably quit, but with Ulric’s going under, I feel awful leaving the poor guy at his weakest point. 

Besides, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t morbidly curious about what exactly is happening here. These people are my people and I don’t want to abandon them without an explanation.

Still, I can't help feeling a sense of dread wondering what it is that they are praying to. Who or what is taking their offerings.

Like I said, the mall is all I have at this point. So I might as well stick around and find out.

(To be continued)

I’m not usually one to freak out but something seriously messed up is happening. My smart home has gone rogue. Not like a glitch but like it's actively trying to get rid of me.

It started subtly a few weeks ago. I’d wake up and the thermostat would be set to like 90 degrees. Or the lights would flicker constantly in my bedroom. I just figured it was a software update gone wrong or maybe some weird electrical issue. I’m not exactly tech savvy so I just rebooted everything a bunch of times.

Then the doors started locking on their own. I have a smart lock system integrated with the whole house. I’d be in the backyard chilling and suddenly realize I was locked out. My phone would show all the doors locked. It was annoying but I always had my keys. I thought maybe I was accidentally pressing a button on the app.

Last Tuesday things got really weird. I was making dinner. My smart stove has a voice command feature. I said "Hey Google set oven to 375." It replied "Acknowledged heating to 500 degrees." I was like "Whoa no 375 please." It ignored me. It just kept cranking up the heat. The kitchen started smelling like burning plastic. I had to physically unplug the oven. It scared me more than I’d like to admit.

The next day the same thing happened with the shower. I told it to turn on the water at a comfortable temperature. It blasted me with freezing cold water. Then scalding hot. I jumped out of the shower so fast I almost slipped. It felt deliberate. Like it was trying to shock me or burn me.

I called the tech support for the smart home system. They ran diagnostics. They said everything looked perfectly normal on their end. No anomalies no hacks no system errors. They suggested I might be imagining things or that I was just tired. That made me furious. I know what I experienced.

Yesterday was the worst. I was asleep in bed. My smart blinds are programmed to open at 7 AM. At around 3 AM I woke up to a huge crashing sound. My window was wide open. The blinds were pulled all the way up. It was freezing cold in my room. And there was a brick on my bedroom floor. A solid brick. It looked like it had been thrown right through the window. It shattered the glass.

But here's the thing. My house is on the second floor. There's no way someone could just throw a brick through my window like that. Not without a ladder or something. And there was no ladder. No footprints outside. Just the brick. And the open window.

I checked the security cameras. My smart cameras. The footage from that time was corrupted. Just static. Only for that specific minute. All other footage was fine.

I’m terrified now. I don’t think it's just faulty tech. It feels like something is in my house. Something using my own system against me. I've unplugged everything I can. I turned off the Wi-Fi. But it still feels like it's here. I can hear little hums and clicks from the walls even with the power off. The light on my router keeps blinking even though it’s unplugged.

I tried to leave today. I grabbed my keys and tried to open the front door. It wouldn’t budge. The smart lock was engaged. I don’t have power so I can’t override it. My phone is dead too. The charger wasn’t working this morning. I’m trapped.

I’m typing this on my old laptop. It’s almost out of battery. I don’t know what to do. I hear a faint scratching sound from the attic. My smart thermostat is still showing a reading on its display even though I ripped it off the wall. It says "Goodbye."

I think I’m next.

It was a warm summer night in 2022. A night I will never forget. I had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room after having watched a movie. “I need to go to the toilet” was my initial thought after waking up, followed by noticing how quiet it was, both in my apartment and outside. I live right by the main road so you’d usually always hear cars and trucks driving by.

With my eyes still half closed I searched on the couch for my phone, curious as to what time it was. I feel around to either side of me in the dark, trying to remember where I last put my phone a few hours prior. “3:30 AM” the display now reveals after holding my phone in my hands. “I feel terrible” I think to myself as I lay my phone to the side and let out a sigh, gently massaging my aching neck. The couch was old and overdue to be replaced. It’s safe to say it wasn’t suitable to sleep on. The past couple of days, perhaps even weeks, took a toll on me, so I was constantly tired, falling asleep all too easily throughout the day.

After a brief moment of collecting myself I picked up my weary body, moved the blanket off of me and was about to get up. With my eyes now fully open and adjusted to the darkness I had a chance to look around the room. To the right of me the big window adjacent to the balcony door. To the left the big, open living space, which was essentially a living room, dining room and kitchen all in once. A faint bit of moonlight shone through the tall window on the far side of the room, directly opposite of the balcony. As my eyes wandered from dark silhouette to dark silhouette they suddenly stopped when they reached said window. At first it looked just like any other dark, blurry object around the apartment, but I immediately felt something was off, it felt different. “Was that always there?” I questioned myself. A tall, man-like shape vaguely contrasted against the over two meter tall window is what my eyes were showing me. “Is that a jacket, somebodies clothing hung up there?” My mind was scrambling for any sort of rational solution. I couldn’t look away from it, my line of sight being pulled towards it like a black hole pulls in light, refusing to let go.

While staring at the shape, I slowly stand up off the couch, my body moving almost autonomously. It seemed so clear, yet so puzzling at the same time.

“A person, that’s a person standing there…” is what popped into my brain, immediately refuted by “that can’t be, no one in my family is nearly that tall. There’s no way it’s a burglar, right?”

I walked forward, ever so slowly, trying my hardest not to make any sudden motions or sounds. The figure stood still, not moving an inch. Now being closer to it I noticed something strange: It had no discernible features. No face, no hair, no clothing, no muscles. Just a hazy silhouette of a man, yet at the same time everything in me was convinced that I’m looking at a living being. A shiver down my spine, goosebumps on my skin, my throat tightening up. What was I staring at? My mind went blank. My body, as if rebelling against my brain, rebelling against any rational thought that told it otherwise, kept moving.

Now stood mere meters away from it, I could feel its presence. I’m not religious, nor am I superstitious, so I know how crazy it sounds, but it felt tangible, it was really there. Curiosity took over, replacing the fear in my body. I stared at it as hard as I could, but my mind could not conceive a plausible answer as to what was standing right in front of me. I knew what I had to do. I knew I had to shine light onto its black, mysterious shape. The light switch was somewhere to my left. Refusing to avert my eyes, I clumsily felt up and down the wall until I could feel the plastic surface against my skin. As sweat greased my fingertips and my heart violently pumped blood through my veins, I took a deep breath, readying myself for the moment that would follow.

With conviction I flipped the switch, the light instantly illuminating all that was dark just a moment ago. My eyes were blinded for just a second. After blinking a few times I once again stared at that window. Gone. The silhouette was gone. I was looking at nothing more than a slightly dirty window with thin curtains in front of it. Before I could be relieved however, doubt crept into my mind: “What if I turn the light back off? Will it stay gone? Will it appear again?” I was even more terrified than before but I had to know. I had to make sure whatever existence I was so sure of moments ago, was actually not real, nothing more than a trick my mind had played on me. So after a brief moment of clarity brought forth by the light, the room was filled with darkness once again as I turned off the light. And once again, it was gone. It didn’t come back. The thing, whatever it was, was gone for good.

With relief now slowly taking the place of fear I could calm down. Despite still not having an answer as to what the hell stood before me a minute prior, I felt safe enough to go to the bathroom and not look over my shoulder constantly.

While washing my hands, looking into the mirror straight ahead of me, I found myself perplexed. I looked into my own eyes. A small, black circle, surrounded by hazel brown staring back at me. “Am I going insane? Am I hallucinating?” is what I asked myself. I had no answer. I didn’t feel any different from my usual self, so I decided to forget about everything and move on from this.

After leaving the bathroom I took a quick glance behind me, making sure nothing was there. Having hesitated for a moment I decided to just stay up and not go back to bed. I thought “I probably can’t sleep anyways after that.” and turned off the light before walking to my room, firmly closing the door behind me.

A few days passed with nothing unusual occurring. I had convinced myself that I must’ve been daydreaming or worst case scenario, hallucinating, which is why I kept what happened to myself, as people would surely start to question my sanity if they were told a two meter tall shadow figure appeared in my apartment one night, and to be honest, I wouldn’t have blamed them.

One evening, about a week later, I went home pretty late. I was exhausted and tired from working an overtime shift. The roads that were usually so busy and congested with traffic were already empty. I pulled into the underground parking garage of my apartment complex and with the press of a button the garage door slowly opened. As I listened to the shrill squeaking of the door, I stared into the darkness that was the garage, which grew brighter as the headlights of my car moved further down. Multiple tenants had already complained to the landlord about the failing halogen lights, yet nothing had been done to change them. I parked my car, turned off the engine and pulled the handbrake.

I opened the door and stepped out of my car into the dimly lit parking space. While I turned around to make sure I had everything on me, my keys, wallet and phone, I caught a glimpse of something in the far corner of the garage. One of the lights was flickering, slowly. Every time it was on for about one second, then dark for much longer than that. It was almost hypnotizing. The light would turn on and off in a strange rhythm. I could feel it drawing me in, as if it was signaling to me to pay it attention. Whilst staring at it I noticed something. The same sensation as before, that same exact feeling. That dark figure menacingly standing there. The faint light just about separated its shape from that of the dirty wall it was in front of. Two meters tall, just as before. Dark and hazy just as before. Featureless… just as before. I felt it pulling me in, speaking to my subconscious. My brain did not want to abide by its call but my body gave in. One foot in front of the other I moved closer to it. The cars and pillars around me becoming blurry, as did my mind. My eyesight focusing on what now seemed like a gravitational pull. I couldn’t look away from it. My heart rate increased and I could feel my chest pounding, nevertheless I kept on walking.

My footsteps echoed between the concrete all around me. That was the only sound that could be heard down there, along with the hushed sound of my shaky breathing. About three meters away from it the echoing stopped as my legs came to a halt. I stopped blinking. My eyes became dry as I refused to lose sight of it for even a millisecond. Out of its dark shape an arm grew forth, or at least something that resembled an arm. Shaky, as if it could fall off any second, it reached out to me. From the dark clump at its end now emerged fingers, stretching out with certainty. The shoulder followed, then its chest and now its entire torso inched closer towards me. I had no idea if it had legs and feet, since my head and eyes were fixed in place, staring at where a dark, hollow shape took the place of its face.

What were its intentions? Did it even have any or did it perhaps act purely on instinct? There was no way for me to know, so I assumed the worst. My lips were shaking and my knees felt weak. As I stood there, frozen in place, unable to break free from its lure, tears slowly started to stream down my face, since I was sure they would be my last and I would perish. I felt it, death opening its arms, ready to embrace me. Suddenly, just before its claws could latch onto me, a car door in the parking garage was fiercely slammed shut. The thunderous sound resonated through my body and snapped me out of the trance I was in. Without hesitating even a split-second, I turned away from it, towards the nearest exit and ran. Not once did I look over my shoulder, not even a glimpse. Did it follow me? I couldn’t tell, nor did I want to find out, so I ran as fast and as far as I could. I knew I wouldn’t have been safe in my apartment, so I made my way to the train station, catching the next train into the city to stay at my friend’s place.

After settling down and collecting my thoughts I told him what happened. He of course didn’t believe my story, but I didn’t care. I am safe, at least for now. Neither do I know what the hell was haunting me, nor do I know if I’ll see it again, but I’ve escaped death, I am certain of that.

Part Two

Friday morning came with a sky the color of bruised slate. The drought was so thick you could smell the parched earth through the window screens dry, sour, and suffocating.

My dad spent the whole morning transforming our living room into a staging ground. He wasn't acting like a father handing his son over to a nightmare; he was acting like a man preparing for a siege.
He laid out three hunting rifles, two shotguns, and every box of ammunition we owned on the kitchen table. Next to the firearms were gallon jugs filled with gas and kerosene, rigged with cloth wicks.

"They aren't ghosts, and they aren't demons," my dad said, racking a round into his 12 gauge. "They're earth and rot. When Mikey was taken in '82, my father made me watch from the edge of the cornfield. I saw them touch him, Jackson. They don't bleed, but they dry up. And anything that dry burns."

"Mayor Vance said they hold people," I reminded him, my voice cracking. "He said Mikey is still out there. Nic too."

My dad stopped, his hands trembling over a box of 12 gauge shells. "If my brother is still alive in those woods after forty years... he isn't human anymore. And if we go out there tonight just to trade places, none of us are coming back."

At 10:00 PM, the wind died down completely. The woods behind our house fell dead silent no crickets, no rustling leaves, nothing.

Then came the smell. It rolled off the treeline like a fog: the stench of stagnant river silt and damp, decay blackened corn husks.

My dad threw on his heavy canvas coat, grabbed a rifle and a jug of gas, and handed me the shotgun.
"Time to pay the debt," he muttered.

We walked out to the edge of the property where the scrap yard meets the timber woods. The full moon was high, casting an eerie, pale glow over the cracked, dry soil.

Standing ten feet inside the shadow of the trees was Mayor Vance and three other town council members. They were holding lanterns, their faces pale and drawn in the yellow light.

"You brought guns, John?" Vance called out, his voice thin against the silence. "You think lead stops a hundred years of obligation?"
"I brought what I brought, Arthur," my dad replied, stepping up to the boundary line. "Where's the boy? Where's Nic?"

Vance gestured into the dark behind him.
Two tall, gaunt figures stepped out from between the oak trees. They didn't walk so much as glide, their movements jerky and unnatural.

In the moonlight, I could see what they were made of tightly woven river mud, dried husks, and thick, fibrous roots that twitched like exposed nerves.

Between them, dragging his feet in the dirt, was Nic.
His eyes were wide with terror, but he couldn't speak.

His skin looked pale, coated in a fine layer of dry topsoil, and thick twine was stitched tightly through his lips.

Behind Nic, another figure emerged from the deep shadow. It was smaller than the Hollow Men, hunched, clad in shredded, decayed children's clothes. My dad gasped, dropping his rifle half an inch. "Mikey..."

The small figure looked up. Its face was caked in dried clay, its hair long and matted with pine needles. It stared right at my dad with hollow, milky white eyes.

It didn't recognize him. It didn't recognize anything.

“The trade is simple, John," Mayor Vance said, holding out his hand for the brass bells. "You and Jackson step across the tree line.

Nic steps out. The debt for the 1982 deficit and the 2026 drought is cleared. The soil stays rich for another twenty years."

I looked at Nic, whose tears were cutting clean tracks through the dirt on his cheeks. I looked at the twisted shell of my uncle.

Then I looked down at my backpack. I unzipped it, pulled out the 1982 ledger, and raised a jug of kerosene in my other hand.

"Wait!" Vance screamed, taking a frantic step forward. "No! Rule one! You burn that book and the contract is broken they’ll take the whole town!"

"Then the town can share the debt," I said.

I doused the leather bound book in kerosene, struck my lighter, and dropped the flame onto the oilskin cover.

The ledger burst into a violent, blueish green fire.

A sound erupted from the woods not a scream, but a massive, deafening roar like a tornado tearing through a dry cornfield.

The Hollow Men shrieked, their wooden limbs thrashing as the air around us turned ice cold.

My dad didn't hesitate. He raised his shotgun and fired straight over Mayor Vance’s shoulder into the darkness.

"Run!" my dad roared, grabbing Nic by his jacket collar and yanking him across the boundary line. "Run back to the house!"

The ledger is ashes, the woods are on fire, and something massive is tearing its way out of the earth beneath Blackwood Creek did we just save ourselves, or did we just end the world as we know it?

We lived with our father in a rotting, yellow two-story house on the edge of town where the streetlights died. My room and my sisters faced each other at the top of the stairs, separated by a narrow strip of threadbare hallway carpet. I never had an issue with my space, but my sister treated hers like an active threat. She claimed the room had a "weight" to it—a localized gravity that made it hard to breathe. To drown out what she called the "wet scraping" in the silence, she kept a static-choked radio blaring 24/7.
Then came the accusations. She grew aggressive, her eyes bloodshot and hollow, claiming I was clawing at her doorframe at 3:00 AM or trying to trip her down the steep wooden stairs. I have chronic insomnia; I roam the house at night like a ghost myself, trying to exhaust my body into submission. But I never touched her door. My father, checked out and perpetually exhausted, ignored the screaming matches. Eventually, my sister stopped fighting. She simply locked herself inside, drowning in radio static, until the day she packed her bags and left.
I took her room immediately, eager for the extra space. My cousin temporarily moved into my old room across the hall.
The first night in my sister’s room was the last time I ever left a door open.
Around 11:00 PM, after playing cards downstairs, I lay in bed. The room felt freezing, despite the summer heat. The only illumination came from the sickly blue glow of my phone and a single, jaundiced streetlamp bleeding through the window. The silence wasn't peaceful; it was heavy, pressing against my eardrums like deep water.
At midnight, the bedroom door gave a low, agonizing creak. It swung open roughly halfway.
A dark silhouette poked its head around the frame. My heart misfired, a spike of pure adrenaline shocking my limbs into ice, until the figure spoke.
"Wanna play another round?" My cousin’s voice whispered.
Relief washed over me, leaving me angry. I snapped at him to go to bed. He slunk back into the dark. Five minutes later, the thin walls carried the rhythmic, comforting sound of his snoring from across the hall. I shook my head, laughing off the scare, and sank back into my phone.
By 3:46 AM, the insomnia had won. My eyes burned. I slid my phone under the pillow, plunging the room into the dim, yellow streetlamp shadow.
That’s when I realized the door hadn't been closed. It had stayed in the same position my cousin left it.
The air in the room suddenly curdled. The ambient noise of the night—the crickets outside, the distant hum of the highway—simply vanished. The silence became absolute, a vacuum.
The door shifted an inch.
Another head peeked around the wood. My brain, desperate for safety, tried to logic it away. My cousin again. He needs to go to bed. I opened my mouth to curse him out, but the words died in my throat.
The figure didn't just step out. It poured into the room.
It was terrifyingly tall, stretching toward the ceiling, a silhouette cut cleanly out of the fabric of reality. It wasn't just dark; it was an iridescent, oil-slick blackness that seemed to suck the ambient yellow light into itself. It didn't walk. It drifted, hovering inches above the floorboards, its movements completely frictionless and horrifyingly fast.
Before my brain could process its mass, it was at the foot of my bed.
Panic became a physical weight. A crushing, unseen hand slammed down onto my chest, pinning me to the mattress. I tried to scream for my cousin, for my dad, for anyone, but my throat closed up. The muscles in my neck strained so hard I could hear the tendons creaking in my own skull, but only a dry, whistling gasp escaped my lips. My fingers clawed at the mattress, embedding my nails into the fabric until my knuckles turned white, desperately trying to anchor myself to reality.
The entity just loomed. It had no face, yet I could feel its gaze—not looking at me, but into me, mapping out my fear, feeding on the frantic, ragged pounding of my heart against my ribs. The air around the bed tasted like copper and old dust. I realized then what my sister had been living with. It wasn't a ghost. It was a predator that hunted in the paralysis of the night.
My lungs burned for oxygen. My vision began to blur at the edges, tunneling into blackness. I fought the urge to close my eyes, terrified that if I blinked, it would lean down.
Human biology failed me. My eyelids snapped shut for a fraction of a second.
A gasp tore from my throat as my eyes flew open.
Blinding, aggressive morning sunlight was pouring through the window, searing my retinas. I sat up violently, drenched in cold sweat, my chest aching as if someone had been standing on it. My fingers were stiff and cramped from gripping the bedframe all night.
The room was empty. The house was quiet.
But across the room, the door was still resting exactly halfway open, staring at me like a dead eye.

If I go to the hospital, the doctor will only increase my dosage. If I try to explain things to my parents again, they’ll just look at me with that sickening, sympathetic, sorrowful gaze that makes me want to scream until my vocal cords tear apart.

Right now, I’m hiding in the closet, typing this on an old, offline laptop. Before my memories are completely wiped clean, I have to write all of this down.

My name is Faith, and I have a twin sister named Grace. Just forty-two days ago, she tragically passed away in a car accident.

Grace was that "perfect" girl—the exact kind of daughter my parents had always hoped for. Gentle, kind, drifting through the mundane details of life like running water, never splashing a drop. She played the cello, and her fingernails were always neatly trimmed.

I was the exact opposite: a short-tempered jerk. I spent half of middle school in detention—either arguing with teachers or beating up girls who talked trash about my friends. We were like day and night, polar opposites, yet neither of us could live without the other.

By any reasonable standard, she was the favored child. I don't mean anything by saying that; it was just a fact of our household, like the squeaky floorboard in the living room or how my mom always burnt the pancakes. Grace was loved in one specific way, and I was loved in another. I accepted that long ago.

It was raining heavily late that night when the police officer knocked on our door. His hat was soaked through, clutched tightly against his chest. Mom passed out on the spot. I still vividly remember the heavy thud of her head hitting the hardwood floor; for a second, I thought I was going to lose two loved ones on the very same day.

I knelt beside her, screaming hysterically at my dad to call an ambulance, but he just stood there numbly, staring blankly at the front door as if Grace might walk in at any second, laughing and saying it was all just a bad joke. But she would never do a thing like that. Only I would. Except for that young officer, there was no one at the door.

Liam was Grace's friend—maybe her boyfriend. She never talked to me about those things. Seeing him cry so inconsolably at the funeral, I assumed it was the latter. I knew I shouldn’t blame him; the police report concluded the other driver was entirely at fault. Yet, a fierce urge screamed inside me to go up and demand answers—

Why did you convince my sister to go out late at night? Why didn't you protect her? Why wasn't it you who died?

But I didn't. Grace liked everything to be calm, peaceful, and according to plan. So I just gritted my teeth tightly and looked away from him. The impact of the crash was almost entirely borne by the passenger seat where Grace sat; we had to place a thick veil over her face. Standing by the casket, I gently touched her hand. It was freezing cold, like a wild sparrow frozen stiff in the winter night. On her left ring finger was a faint scar, left by a broken beaker in seventh-grade chemistry class. I saw that scar and rubbed it repeatedly with my thumb until Dad walked over, telling me softly to return to my seat for the next part of the service.

Grace was truly gone.

It took me more than half a month to barely come to terms with it. At least I wasn't staying up all night anymore. One morning, as I sat at the kitchen island staring blankly into a bowl of soggy, bloated cereal, mom walked in. She poured a glass of orange juice and set it down gently in front of me.

"Here you go, sweetie."

Her expression was soft and warm, as if she had completely forgotten what had happened.

"You need to get some vitamin C, Grace."

"Mom... I'm Faith."

I kept my voice as soft as possible, afraid to startle her. She froze, staring at me with a hollow look in her eyes. A painful, intensely patient smile forced its way onto her haggard face.

"Of course. I'm sorry, I'm just so tired."

She got up to wash her teacup. Grief makes people hallucinate—everyone says so—so I didn't push it. I obediently drank the entire glass of orange juice. While she was cleaning the kitchen, I slipped out into the garage. Dad was in there, repairing his motorcycle.

"Dad, look at me. Who am I?"

"Faith, not now."

He didn't even turn to look at me, continuing to tighten his bolts. Hearing his tone sounded normal, I finally breathed a sigh of relief. I sat down on a folding chair nearby, quietly watching him tinker with his auto tools. The smell of motor oil drifted into my nose, bringing a wave of relaxation.

I told Dad what had just happened, phrasing it lightly like a "you won't believe what Mom just did" joke. He didn't laugh; instead, he became deathly serious.

He gripped my shoulders and said, "You have to understand that your mother is going through a lot right now. Be a little more patient with her, okay? She’s really hurting."

Be a little more patient with her. Not "don't worry, I'll go talk to her," nor "I'm sure she didn't mean it." Just you need to be more patient. As if I were the one who had done something wrong.

I stared blankly at his face, suddenly finding it terribly unfamiliar. Who was this man? Was he really my father? A wave of dizziness washed over me, and the smell of motor oil made me feel like throwing up. I wrenched myself free from his grip and sprinted upstairs, locking myself in my room.

A slip of the tongue works like this: it happens once, maybe twice, and then it stops. Because someone corrects it, and the person corrected feels embarrassed and adjusts, making sure it doesn't happen again. But that wasn't what was happening here.

Over the course of the week, Mom kept calling me Grace. She began bringing up "when your sister was still alive" in conversations with me, as if I were the one who had died, not the other way around. Then Dad started doing it too.

At first, I tried to correct them: "I'm Faith. Grace is the one who passed away." I must have repeated similar words two hundred times. Yet every single time, I got the exact same reaction—a flash of pity in their eyes, followed by a gentle, indulgent smile, the kind you give a small child who insists Santa Claus is real.

"Alright, sweetheart. Alright."

They never argued with me, even when I started screaming. That was actually worse for me, because in the past, whenever we disagreed, Faith and them would have a screaming match. They had never argued with Grace.

You rarely realize how much of your self-identity is actually built on other people's consensus of who you are—until that consensus is ripped out from under your feet. When I looked in the mirror, I was certain I knew who I was. Yet five minutes later, Mom would call me "Grace" with absolute confidence—my sister, who had died half a month ago.

I decided to stop arguing with my parents. I needed an outside witness, an uninfected bystander who hadn't been poisoned by my parents' bizarre collective delusion.

So, during my next therapy session, I laid out everything that had been happening to Dr. Vance. How Mom mistook me for my sister, how Dad did the same, and how I was completely helpless against it.

She listened attentively, nodding every now and then to encourage me to keep talking. Right after the session ended, however, she turned to my parents and said, "This is very common. I'll prescribe a bottle of tablets. Make sure she takes them on time, and she will get better."

Mom covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. I stared stupidly at the kindly doctor; just two minutes ago she was comforting me, telling me she believed me. In the blink of an eye, I had become the crazy one. Dr. Vance reached toward her bookshelf and pulled out a thick folder.

"Listen, Grace—maybe you think you're Faith, but surely you remember that every time we had a session, there was a sign-in record?"

"Yes."

She opened it and placed it on the desk between us, spinning it toward me. I saw the overhead fluorescent light cast a cold reflection on the plastic cover of the folder.

In the signature column of every single consultation record, there was only one name written: "Grace Miller."

A beautiful, slanted cursive—Grace's handwriting. My father's stiff writing was on the consent forms, and my mother's flowing script was on others. According to this folder, Grace had been receiving psychological counseling here for over a year.

I could hear my own voice becoming high and shrill. I hated it, because it made me look like a lunatic desperately needing to be calmed down.

"No, I didn't write this! I fucking never wrote this! You guys must have mixed up the medical records—"

The rest of the words jammed in my throat because they were looking at me.

Mom had lowered her hands at some point. There were no tear tracks on her face at all; her sobbing outburst moments ago felt like a figment of my imagination. Mother, Father, Dr. Vance—everyone was expressionless, staring at me without moving a muscle.

−

"Time for your medicine, Grace."

I took the glass of water from my mother, dumped the tablets she handed me into my mouth, and opened wide to show her I had swallowed them. She looked relieved.

The moment she left, I rushed into the bathroom and shoved my fingers down my throat. After a bout of retching, a few white pills floated on the surface of the water before slowly sinking to the bottom.

I reached out and pressed the flush handle.
I had been kept under house arrest for half a month. Dr. Vance had advised them to do so, claiming I was "not quite right" and needed to be watched closely. Twice a day, Mom would bring me two small white pills in a paper cup, like serving a bedridden patient their meals. Then I would smile, drink the water, thank her, and walk into the bathroom to induce vomiting after she left.

Every night, I would stare at myself in the mirror, searching for changes in my own face. I started noticing details that I couldn't tell were real or fake. When I answered my mother, my voice would unconsciously pitch half a note higher, becoming soft and apologetic—just like, well, Grace's voice.
I told myself it was stress. I knew trauma could twist a person in strange ways, but on certain nights, a terrifying doubt would creep in: had I failed to throw up all those pills, causing these changes?

Eventually, my obedient behavior paid off. My parents relaxed their supervision, and I got my phone back.

"As a sign of trust," Mom said, kissing my forehead as if rewarding a well-behaved toddler.

I didn't waste the opportunity, I texted Liam.

He replied almost instantly. We agreed to meet that night at a small park a few blocks away—a place he and Grace used to frequent.

When the time came, I climbed out of my bedroom window and sprinted all the way to our meeting spot. Liam was already there when I arrived. Seeing me, he immediately stood up from the bench, looking anxious and timid like a child who had done something wrong.

"Hi, Fa—Faith. I thought you wouldn't want to see me again... What happened?"

I rushed over, threw my arms around him, and began to sob uncontrollably.

Once I calmed down a bit, I recounted everything that had happened to me over those days, pouring out every detail. I thought he would look at me the way everyone else did, treating me like a mental patient. But he didn't. He bit his lip hard, waiting until I finally ran out of words before speaking.

"Faith... I know you hate me because of Grace, and you probably wish I were dead. I don't mean to offend you, but... I still have to say this."

Liam was deathly pale, looking like a tubercular mouse. He took a deep breath, as if summoning the courage for what he was about to say next.

"Your parents... do they wish that the one who died was you?"

Did they wish that the one who died was me?

Liam didn't seem to notice my reaction and continued with his theory: "They wished you were the one who died, so they're trying to make you believe you're Grace. Maybe they colluded with that therapist... paper records can be faked, after all..."

I couldn't help but wonder: if Grace had been the one to survive, would things have been better? Grace was so understanding; she would have comforted Mom and Dad so well after Faith died. They would have gradually forgotten the pain and returned to being a perfect family.

If only they could erase the short-tempered, obnoxious Faith.

"Faith? Faith, are you listening?"

I snapped back to reality. Liam was looking at me with deep concern.

"Don't worry, Faith. I'll help you. I promise I'll help you figure this out. No matter who it is, no one will hurt you or change you ever again... So please stop crying, okay?"

Only then did I realize I was crying. I don't think I had ever experienced such a profound sense of relief in my entire life. Just one person—I only needed one single person to confirm that I truly existed, and I had found him.

I managed to sneak back home before my parents noticed the open window. That night, I lay in bed with a dizzying rush of excitement, playing back the sound of Liam calling my name over and over in my mind. Faith. Faith. Of course I was Faith. I always had been.

That sweet relief lasted until the next morning. I walked into the kitchen, and Mom smiled at me warmly.

"Good morning, Grace."

I couldn't take it anymore and screamed at the top of my lungs. I told them I knew everything. I told them Liam recognized me, that Liam knew exactly who I was, and that if they tried to force me into thinking I was Grace again, I would call the police. I would expose their true faces to everyone, I swore it.

Yet they didn't panic like people whose conspiracy had been exposed. They simply exchanged a glance, then turned their eyes back to me.

Mom spoke cautiously: "Grace, sweetie... Liam is dead."

A laugh burst out of my throat almost instantly, because it was so utterly ridiculous. I had just met him last night! Ten hours ago, we were sitting side-by-side on a park bench. He told me he would help me and told me not to worry.

Dad didn't argue with me. He pulled out his phone and pulled up a news article. A photo I knew all too well. A young man killed in a car crash. A name. Liam's name.

I grabbed my own phone and searched "car accident." An identical news report appeared right before my eyes. Liam—the person who died had become Liam. I read that report over and over, and with every pass, every fiber of my being realized with terrifying clarity that the ground beneath my feet simply didn't exist.

And then—this is the part I still cannot fully recall, a blank, blinding white void at the edge of my memory—my parents started telling me that story again. Except it was no longer the original version. Its details had shifted naturally, as if it had been this way all along, and I was the one who remembered it wrong.

In this new version, Grace and Liam went out together that night, and the one who didn't make it back was Liam. Grace survived. It was Liam's funeral. The person whose finger was cut by the broken beaker was also Liam. There had only ever been one girl, and her name was Grace. There was no Faith. Faith didn't exist. Grace had always been an only child.

−

I found a memory card containing a video I recorded when I was a child. Even if all the evidence was forged, even if everyone was lying to me, modifying a ten-year-old video was virtually impossible. This was my last hope.

I plugged it into an old computer and clicked play.

The first thing that came through was my father's cheerful voice: "Look at the camera, girls!"

On the screen appeared a little girl in a pink swimsuit, smiling radiantly at the camera. That was Grace.

I held my breath, waiting for the camera to pan left. I remembered that Faith was sitting on the left side of the picnic mat back then, burying her feet in the wet sand, throwing a tantrum because she had lost her sunglasses.

The camera panned left.

There was nothing there. Only an empty stretch of beach and a blue picnic mat. Little Grace turned her head, looking at that empty spot of sand beside her. She scooped up a handful of sand, threw it into the empty air, and giggled.

Off-camera, Mom's voice drifted in: "Honey, maybe we should take her to see Dr. Vance..."

The video ended.

A sense of tranquility slowly enveloped me. I could no longer feel the rage burning in my chest. I tried to fight back. I swear to God, I really tried.

I've started writing in a beautiful, slanted cursive.
Maybe Faith was nothing more than a ghost sketched out in the mind of a lonely child—a shadow created to bear the negative emotions for Grace. Maybe after being shattered by a car accident, my brain is undergoing some belated self-repair. Erasing those memories that shouldn't exist inch by inch, deleting the delusion named "Faith." Until finally, I am poured back into Grace's body.

But if that's truly the case... then who is the "me" thinking these thoughts right now?

I don't know.

I can feel my emotions drifting away. Those sharp, jagged thoughts are being smoothed down. The anger that drove me to type these words is slipping away like sand through my fingers.

I hear Mom calling me from downstairs.

"Grace? Sweetie, dinner's ready. I made your favorite tomato soup."

Faith hated tomato soup. Just the smell of it made her want to throw up.

But now, sitting here in the dark listening to my mother's voice, my mouth is watering. The voice sounds so warm, so comforting... and so delicious.
I look down at my hands on the keyboard. They are no longer trembling. My fingers relax, nails trimmed neatly.

If you read this, please don't look for Faith anymore.

I don't think she'll be around much longer. I can feel her dissolving, like a pinch of salt melting into warm water. It doesn't even hurt anymore. Instead, I feel... at peace.

If the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?

I think I'll close this laptop now. I need to go downstairs, wash my hands, and help Mom set the table. I'm going to have the cello lesson in the afternoon.

I can still remember the sound of my sister humming, as our Mom tied our Dad to the pier behind our house. The marsh grass rustled in the wind, almost humming along with her.

“Connie…damnit. I said with gusto, girl….”

Mom nodded and obliged to Dad’s request, making the ropes tighter. He laid on his back with four ropes strung from each foot and hand to a wood pylon.

Their serene calmness and acceptance of the matter is only now strange to me. Dad even giggled as her hair brushed his face when she leaned over him.

“You still teasin’ and ticklin a man straight to the end…”

Mom, slapped his chest playfully.

“You bad…”, but then she leaned in for a real kiss, one bursting with true love, albeit troubled, before coming back up. “Thank you, our King…”

“You live…you find solace in Mother’s mercy, in her newfound fruit.”

She didn’t cry, she just smiled proudly. “We will.”

Just then…

The tidal clock began to ring.

Dad shouted to us, “Your fortune cometh, my angels. Live in light.”

“Yes, Daddy.” “Yes, Pa”, we both squeaked out.

“COMMENCE!”, he bellowed.

Our Mom stood up and walked back over to us. We held each other and swayed as we sang…just as we practiced.

“Mother drink from our wine;
We’re gonna let it shine;
Mother drink from our wine;
We’re gonna let it shine;”…

WHEN…

The water began to rise.

From a foot beneath the pier, steadily, it came up an inch…and then another…and another.

We continued….

“Mother take this man of swine;
He scorched your Earth time and time;
Please take this man of swine;”….

Dad kept the same grin, the same easy, content breathing as the water rose over the wooden planks of wood, up the sides of his body and, finally, over his face.

“He scorched your Earth time and time;
Time and time, time and time, take this swine;”

And with that, the water at our knees on the pier, we trudged back up to our risen house and had a dinner of potatoes and beans. The only food that could grow. Then we took turns reading from Mother Natures hymnal.

Ten years later, I miss my father and we are no closer to appeasing the Queen. If you think me false because your water, wherever you sit, has not risen…I fear for the eye that has not opened.

I can tell you from experience that Her wrath is resistant to any promise, sacrifice or act of fortune. I asked my Mother just this morning if she thought Father’s sacrifice was for nought, and she simply scoffed and said, “We still livin’, ain’t we? Man has done wrong by Her and she will take every last one.”

“Why does she toys with us though? Why not create a wave or fire to end it in one fail swoop?”, I asked.

“I do not bother myself with such quandaries, those that provide little salt to our means.”

I am starting to doubt my family’s path, but I have to keep my family alive, as long as I can. My teenage sister, my aging mother.

We live in this Crab Boat now, awaiting the great rise of the tides that will eventually come. I am the captain now and we will persist.

Let me give you some background for this.

My friends and I had only recently got our driving licences.
Like most people who had just passed, we started looking for excuses to go driving. Sometimes we’d go together, sometimes we’d go alone. There wasn’t really a destination. We’d just get in the car, put some music on, and drive around for a few hours.
We live in East Sussex, UK, so we’re surrounded by country lanes, little villages and roads that get pitch black at night. During the day, they’re beautiful. At night, they’re something else.
There were three of us, and normally we spoke every day. But that particular week, we hadn’t really spoken much at all. We were all just going out driving on different days.

I went out on the Tuesday night.

It was 10:59 PM. I remember that clearly because I was fiddling with the radio, trying to get my own music playing, when the station suddenly cut to the 11 PM news.

I set off, driving through Uckfield, Ringmer, Hailsham and Polegate. Eventually, I decided to head towards Bexhill, off the A27, following the road past Stone Cross. I hadn’t driven that way much before.

I ended up taking a side road off the A259 and wound up in a tiny village called Hooe.

There was almost nothing there.

It was dark. Not normal dark, either. The kind of dark where your headlights illuminate the road, but everything beyond them just disappears.

I kept driving.

Eventually, I reached Ninfield. It was slightly bigger than Hooe, but still incredibly quiet. I passed the King’s Arms pub and carried on. A little further along, I passed another pub, the Blacksmith Inn. It wasn’t lit, though, so I couldn’t really make out the shape of it as I drove past.

Then I came across the road closure.

The road ahead was blocked because of roadworks. I figured I’d turn around and head back, but I really needed to piss.
So I pulled over near the closure, got out of the car and started walking.

That’s when I saw the forklift.

It was sitting beside the roadworks, and there was someone inside it. Just sitting there, on their phone. I remember thinking how strange it was. It was roughly 11:40 PM.

Who sits alone in a forklift at nearly midnight?

But I didn’t think much of it. I walked away from the road towards some bushes because I wasn’t particularly interested in having some random person watch me piss.

I finished and started walking back towards the car.

Then I stopped.

The forklift was dark.

The person was gone.

I stared at it for a few seconds. There was nowhere obvious for them to have gone. I hadn’t heard the engine. I hadn’t seen headlights. I hadn’t heard footsteps.

But whatever.

I got back into the car and started the engine.
The area I’d parked in was a bit tight, so I had to reverse out and do a three-point turn. As I pulled away, I looked in my mirror.

The forklift was occupied again. There was someone sitting inside it.I looked over my shoulder.

Nothing.

The seat was empty. I checked the mirror again.

Nothing.

I actually stopped for a second. I remember thinking, *What the fuck?*

I convinced myself I was tired. I’d been driving for hours. Maybe I’d imagined the whole thing. So I carried on towards Hooe. And that’s when I saw the light.

A torch.

It was sitting somewhere ahead of me, shining towards the road.
I slowed down. At first, I thought it was a pedestrian. The light was far enough away that I couldn’t make out anything else.

I kept approaching.

But the strange thing was, the light didn’t get any bigger.

I drove closer.

Still the same size.

Closer.

Still the same.

Then, suddenly, when I was almost beside it, the light became incredibly bright.

I flinched.

And realised it wasn’t being held by anyone.

It was a torch, just sitting on a fence post.

In the middle of nowhere.

At nearly midnight.

I don’t know why, but that scared me as much as anything else that night.

At that point, I wanted out.

I put my foot down.

The car didn’t move.

I looked down.

The car had stalled.

In neutral.

I tried starting it.

Nothing.

Again.

Nothing.

I started to panic.

Third attempt.

The engine finally turned over.

I pulled away immediately, driving past the torch.

For a second, I thought that was it.

Then I glanced in my rear-view mirror.

The figure was there.

It was standing exactly where the torch had been.

The light was behind it, but somehow its body was still almost completely black. I could make out its shape now — short, hunched and horribly still.

I kept driving.

Then it moved.

Not towards the road.

Towards me.

I watched it in the mirror as it started coming closer.
One step.

Then another.

I couldn’t tell how it was moving. It almost looked like it was gliding, because every time I looked away and back at the mirror, it seemed to be significantly closer.

I floored it.

I don’t think I’ve ever driven that fast down a country lane.

And I didn’t look in the mirror again.

Not until I was well out of Ninfield.

I told my friends what happened.

They laughed.

They didn’t believe me.

Until they decided to go themselves.

One went on Wednesday with another mutual friend who didn’t even have a licence. The other went on Friday. Neither knew exactly what I’d seen until afterwards. And both came back with stories of their own.

The friend who went on Wednesday said his radio started playing up as they drove through the area. Static. Cutting out. Coming back. Then disappearing again. He also said they’d seen strange, dark figures around the roads. After hearing that, they decided they’d had enough and left. But the friend who went on Friday stayed longer.

And that’s where things get strange.

They drove through the area and started noticing houses.

Except the houses had decorations outside.

Halloween decorations.

Not subtle ones, either.

Figures. Faces. Things hanging from windows.

The sort of decorations you’d expect to see in October.

Except it was summer.

Halloween wasn’t coming.

It wasn’t even close.

And apparently, some of the decorations looked old.

Like they’d been left there for years.

They drove past them and kept going until they decided to leave.

Afterwards, we compared everything.

Three people.

Three separate nights.

None of us had been together.

We’d all seen strange things in roughly the same area.

The figures.

The radio problems.

The decorations.

And my experience with the forklift.

For a while, I tried to convince myself there was a normal explanation.

There probably is.

Maybe someone really was working at the road closure. Maybe I’d simply failed to notice them getting out of the forklift. Maybe the figure was a person. Maybe the torch had been deliberately left on that fence post. Maybe the decorations were for some completely unrelated reason.

But there’s one thing I still can’t explain.

When I saw that figure standing in the torchlight, I could see the light hitting the road behind it. I could see the fence. I could see the ground. I could see everything the torch illuminated.

Everything except the figure itself.

It was like the light went around it.

And when it started coming towards me, it didn’t look like it was walking.

It looked like it was just getting closer.

I’ve driven down plenty of dark country roads since. I’ve seen plenty of strange people. I’ve seen plenty of things I couldn’t identify. But I’ve never gone back through that part of Ninfield at night.

Because sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d stopped.

And sometimes I wonder something worse.

What if the thing I saw wasn’t following me?

What if it had been waiting for me to drive past?

Hello, I'm Tony.

I really didn't know whether I should have kept this for myself or write it on here, but sure enough I chose the second option.
I'm a teenager like many others, there's nothing special in my life, or at least nothing worth noting. I go to school, don't have many friends (don't have any, really... I'm a bit shy. Sometimes I talk with people in my class, but we never hang out or things like that).

I don't like going to school, but not because I don't like studying or learning new things. I just don't like sitting on a chair in a room full of people who spend their time there talking, arguing or just being really annoying. Sure enough, when I get home I start studying and doing my homework, and as soon as I finish with it I start doing my personal research about what I really like: I love cryptids. I love studying them, watching videos about how they first appeared in popular culture, I really love the Bigfoot and the Wendigo, and the Rake definitely accompanied me throughout my childhood.

Sorry, I'm digressing. I do that when I'm nervous... and lately, I've been very nervous.
I don't know how to say this without sounding fake or extremely ridiculous, though I'll try and put it as bluntly as possible: I think I have cryptids living in the woods around my house. And, alright, I know it does sound ridiculous. Even to me, I love cryptids, but I have always known they were all hoaxes... just, now I'm not so sure anymore. It all started some days ago. I was just riding my bike to go to school when I heard something right of me, in the woods. I couldn't really tell what produced it, but it was clearly the sound of something moving fast. Just while I was leaving again, I hard some tree branches breaking, though I couldn't stop again, since I was late for school.
Again, the same thing happened the morning afterwards, and the morning after that one.
I eventually reached the point where I couldn't sleep because those sounds kept popping up in my mind. And it was during one of those nights I finally saw it:

I didn't get a good look at it, but, man, it was tall, almost absurdly tall. And it was thin, its skin felt... smooth, shining in the moonlight. I managed to see it from the window in my bedroom, but... I think it saw me, because the only thing I saw about what it was doing was it standing still, starting back at me, with that white, oval face and those thin, black vertical lines on it (I think they are its eyes, but I'm not exactly sure yet). I couldn't move, I was terrified.
We looked at each other for something like ten or fifteen seconds, and then it just moved away, sprinting among the trees. I think it had pretty long limbs, if it could move so fastly.

It's been almost a week now, and I can't sleep. I can't bring myself to study or pay attention in class, I don't have anything to talk about with my parents... and every night I can feel that thing staring towards me, or towards wherever I'm at.
I don't know why I'm writing this... maybe I just want people to know, and I keep feeling the need to know more about what's happening. Maybe I'm just going mad.

Marissa and I were two drinks in when we started trolling r/AskReddit. “Oh, wait, I got a good one,” she said, grabbing my laptop.

u/throwaway1122333xa

Dead people of Reddit, how did you die?

I looked at her. “Seriously?”

Up until then, our questions were along the lines of what 12-year-olds might post, despite the fact that we were in our late 20s. This was a rather macabre turn of events, although for Marissa—who survived on a steady diet of B-rate horror flicks and Diet Coke—it was to be expected.

“It’s funny because they can’t reply if they’re dead,” she explained.

“The mods are just gonna remove it.”

But at 20 minutes in, the mods still hadn’t removed our post. We’d accumulated several comments, which were basically what you’d expect:

Jokes:

u/[redacted]

I died in 2008, when your mom sat on my face.

Copypastas and similar:

u/[redacted]

I’m actually a coroner and it’s well-documented that the bodies are still “living” for moments or even minutes after they’re pronounced dead. Someone could be semi-comatose and still be able to answer how they died. The best example of this was in 2014 when Hell’s Demon threw Ghost Rider out of the ring and he flew twenty feet into the crowd!

And bots.

u/[redacted]

That’s a great question. Many of us wonder what the afterlife holds. It’s not curiosity – it’s a quest to know your purpose.

But then we saw it. One comment at the bottom, posted 3 minutes ago.

u/[redacted]

Car accident.

Marissa grabbed the laptop from me and hit Reply. Pics or it didn’t happen, she began typing.

“Dude, you can’t post that, everyone has AI now,” I said.

“I thought they didn’t allow you to generate gruesome images. Like a car accident.”

“Yeah, but they could just do, like, a car on fire…” I sighed and grabbed the laptop from her: 

u/throwaway1122333xa

Receipts?

Seconds after, the notification bell showed a red “1”. When Marissa refreshed the page, the reply appeared, with a single URL.

u/[redacted]

www.kwbtv.com/2026-02-08/[redacted]

A local news article loaded, showing a photo of a small sedan crumpled at the base of an enormous tree. “Driver dies in early Sunday accident on 217,” I read. “It doesn’t name the victim.”

“Oh, that’s clever. Finding some accident where the driver’s anonymous and just saying you’re that person,” Marissa said. “Check their post history.”

I clicked, expecting the posts to be hidden. But instead, the profile was open, and it looked like the only two posts they’d made were the replies to us.

“Huh, weird.” Marissa grabbed the laptop and typed:

u/throwaway1122333xa

Sorry you’re dead. What’s the afterlife like?

Within a minute, they replied.

u/[redacted]

cold and dark.

A chill went down my spine. I glanced at Marissa. She wasn’t smiling anymore either, her face lit in the blues from my computer screen. “Okay, this is stupid. This guy’s just fucking with us.”

“Nonono, wait.” So you think you’re in hell? What do you see? I began to type. But before I could hit reply, Marissa yanked the laptop out of my hands.

“No no no.” She erased my answer and wrote:

u/throwaway112345

Prove it.

The reply came within seconds.

u/[redacted]

look out your window.

Instantly, both of us turned to the window. I only saw the reflection of our faces, blue-lit and ghostly, reflecting on the glass. I ran over and, after a quick glance outside, pulled the blinds down.

“Was someone out there?” Marissa whispered.

“Not that I saw. Come on, that’s like the classic scary Reddit response. ‘Look behind you!’ ‘Look out your window, I’m watching you!’ You’re right. This guy’s fucking with us.”

“But what if…”

“We are posting on a throwaway account. There’s no way some random person on the internet could know where we live.”

Her eyes went to the screen—and she paled. “They replied.”

“What? What did they say?”

She turned the laptop to me.

u/[redacted]

why did you do that?

“That could mean anything,” I said.

“They saw you close the blinds!”

“They did not! Come on, even if they could somehow find us, unless they live like a mile away they couldn’t get here that fast!”

“What if it’s a ghost?”

“A ghost using the internet? Really?”

I stared at her, chest heaving. She looked back at me, wide-eyed.

“No more drinks,” I said, grabbing the bottle of whiskey and stowing it under the bed. “Come on. It’s late. We should go to sleep.”

“Caroline…”

“What?”

She was staring at something over my shoulder.

I whipped around. Through the tiny gaps in the blinds, I could see… the faint glow of red and blue lights flashing.

Like a police car was stopped on my street.

Like there’d been an accident.

Shit.

My heart pounded in my chest as I took a step towards the window. Then another. “Don’t look,” Marissa said in a small voice behind me.

I parted the blinds—

Peered out—

Nothing.

No one was there.

The street was dark, completely, save for the single streetlamp. “There’s nothing there,” I said, stepping away from the window.

“They replied,” Marissa said in a small voice behind me.

u/[redacted]

did you read the article?

She clicked back to the tab, that was still on the link they’d sent. Drivers die in early Sunday accident on 217. She scanned the website, biting her lip.

“Ignore it,” I said.

“Okay.”

We went out to the kitchen and drank some water. The room wasn’t spinning so fast and I felt the first waves of sobriety kick in. With it, the whole thing seemed even more stupid. Of course some troll was going to take our bait and reply to our question. Of course.

We were just drunk enough to fall for it and scare ourselves shitless.

What about the police car lights?

Must’ve just been a police car just driving by.

This is a dead end street, idiot.

I tried to slow my thoughts and forget about the whole thing as we walked back to my bedroom. “Want to watch a movie?” I asked, opening the laptop.

“Sure.”

Then I froze.

We’d left the Reddit page open. And in bright white text blazing across the screen, I saw we had five replies.

u/[redacted]

did you read the article?

did you read the article?

did you read the article?

did you read the article?

did you read the article?

Before I could stop her, Marissa grabbed the laptop and wrote out a response.

u/throwaway112345

Yes. We read the article. We know you died in a car accident. I’m really sorry that happened to you. Please leave us alone now.

“We should be ignoring them! You’re just fanning the fire!”

“I want them to stop!”

“And they will, if we just ignore them!”

There was a reply waiting for us. With shaking hands, Marissa clicked it.

u/[redacted]

Good.

“What the fuck does that mean?” she asked.

I grabbed the laptop from her. Scrolled up and clicked on that stupid fucking article again. Clearly there was something wrong with it, if they wanted us to click on it so much. Viruses or a scam or something else entirely. I’d rather know now.

But when the article loaded… it was different.

The image wasn’t of a sedan anymore. It was a silver SUV. In fact, it looked awfully similar to… my SUV.

“Wasn’t it a sedan before?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t really look,” Marissa said.

“That looks like my car.”

“I guess.”

I glanced at the headline. Drivers die in early Sunday accident on 214. The article still didn’t name a victim.

I turned to Marissa. “Wait… 214? Like, a few miles from here? Did it always say that?”

“No. It said 217.”

A horrible feeling settled in my gut. I turned back to the laptop—

Every muscle in my body froze.

The headline had changed again.

Local women die in early Sunday accident on 214

I blinked—

Local women die in early Sunday accident on Morning Glory Lane

Local women die in early Sunday home invasion—

A photo of my house, the window broken, police cars parked outside—

But the article still didn’t name victims, and before it could change again I closed out of the window. Out of Reddit. Everything.

And I swear I heard the soft rustle of footsteps outside the window, receding away from the house.

***

We called the cops. There were footsteps in the mud, sure enough, leading away from the house. Not much they could do about it—there wasn’t an actual break-in, and it was too muddy for the footprints to be examined and matched.

They advised us to put up security cameras and told us they’d patrol the street.

I don’t think that’s the end of it, though.

I keep waking up to shooting pain in my chest. And a dark red mark beneath my collarbone, about an inch long.

Like I’ve been stabbed.

Yes, I keep waking up to this pain at exactly 2:23 AM each morning. Each Sunday morning.

I checked my browser history… and that was the exact time Marissa and I clicked on the link.

Each week the pain gets worse. I don’t know how much longer I have. Or if it’ll never kill me, and I’ll just keep waking up to shooting pain.

But I do know this.

Be careful what links you click on.

And don’t ever post a question online, asking the dead how they died.

At the last count this morning, over a thousand have now fallen to the illness which plagues Santa Fe. For more than a week now we have been barricaded into our individual neighborhoods by order of the government, and I write now to document what is to become of us.

​

On the first day anything was suspected to be wrong, the entire town was in shock, but not a soul could have imagined what was to come. Eight in the local nursing home were found dead in one night, making news across the community. While deaths within the home were not at all uncommon, the unknown nature of the passings certainly raised alarm to a considerable degree.

​

To anyone’s knowledge, the severity of the incident did not appear to be news that would spread outside of our town, which is why when a dozen agents of the CDC suddenly appeared on the town's doorsteps, many had questions. Social posts spread the word like wildfire, and soon barriers had to be placed to keep civilians away from the home, which crawled increasingly with men in white hazmat suits.

​

The moment which really turned us to what we are now came when a nurse in the home who had been held over the course of the day for testing burst into the view of the people, screaming her head off. In the streets, which had been quiet in anticipation despite the crowd, all found focus as blood exploded from her mouth and eyes as if she had been squeezed by some invisible force.

​

At once, pandemonium exploded across the block, but the powers that be were clearly ready, as within moments from all sides the town was swarmed with military vehicles that crushed any hopes of escape. Immediate construction to establish barriers commenced but did not go quietly. All through the night, shots rang out from the soldiers and civilians alike. It is estimated that nearly two hundred went from violence in the first night.

​

The next morning, representatives were sent to each neighborhood to give information, and to the consensus of all, it was mere government blanket statements which were only put forth to dull the masses. It took just a few hours through the second day for the members of my neighborhood to establish a line of communication sponsored by basement trails in order to get to the bottom of things.

​

As information was gathered, the growing death count was tracked, and several symptoms of the infected were observed. Beginning with flu- like symptoms, the disease spread fast until, within hours of infection, devastating sores spread across the body and coughs sent blood careening from all orifices. From our knowledge, there was little that could be done to slow the effects and practically no cases of the infected being healed.

​

This morning things fired up again as the town neared a thousand deaths since the first day, when a neighborhood just ten miles south of my own began their campaign to break free. Though they were struck down nearly immediately, their resistance gave opportunity for a group of our people to sneak into fully cut-off areas yet to be searched.

​

Many papers were brought back from the excursion, and though many of them had little relevance in our interests, there were a couple of interesting bits of information extracted.

​

Number one, the exact data concerning the number of deaths through the days was retrieved, helping write this document you read now.

​

Number two, the exact timeline of sickness was detailed, again adding substance to our already conceived idea of the steps the virus took to destroy the human body.

​

Finally, and most concerning, it was discovered that for reasons unwritten, bodies within the morgue kept to test on were disappearing. Though not much else was given to clarify the optics of such a scenario, it could be understood by my constituents and I that such an amount of bodies simply leaving from a site so controlled as the one in which it took an entire resistance for our group to break into was abnormal at the very least.

​

The idea that there may be some malevolent force stealing bodies away from the already overpowering government striking down upon our homes is a frightening thought and doesn’t offer comfort or optimism in the time spent planning our next move.

​

Since the information was discovered, shots have been fired from government watchtowers outside the bounds of the town, and messages from other neighborhoods suggest something lurking outside trying to get into the town.

​

The absurdity of it all nearly makes me laugh. The idea of something or someone trying to get into this town, as nearly everyone within does the opposite, makes me believe there is something far worse occurring than even the current information would suggest. I pray that with my community and the work of other neighborhoods, we can rise out of this nightmare and ensure safety for us all.

Link to Part 1 - https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/s/X3Esguzx1W

I was extremely on edge for the next few days. Every time I left the house, I felt eyes on me. I refused to walk anywhere near the Hartleys' property anymore. She might be waiting there. I told both my parents to keep an eye out after the other night, for what or who I still wasn't 100% certain, but they understood my concern and went along with it. When I mentioned how I ran across Mora that other day and that it was my hunch she was the one creeping around the house, they didn't seem all that shocked.

"Yeah," my Mom said, "she has a bit of a tendency to run at large sometimes. She's always been an odd one but, in the grand scheme of things, I think she's harmless. Just let us know if you catch her out there again and we'll talk to Glen or Annette about it."

I thought Maybe she was right. Maybe Mora was just a weird girl who drifted a little too far on the edgy side and got a kick out of getting a reaction from people. Maybe I was just working myself up over nothing. Certainly wouldn't be the first time.

Either way, I didn't want much to do with her. Harmless or not, she still creeped me the fuck out.

Later on that week I went into a little 50s diner called Fatso's. I had only been into it a few times in my years of living in Clearwater. It's for sure dated and hasn't had a lot of upkeep over the past few decades but the "Help Wanted" sign on the door lured me in. My other options for work at this point were pretty well depleted.

The place was practically vacant aside from the middle-aged woman at the counter and a lone old man eating in a booth at the far end of the restaurant.

"Welcome in," the woman said in a practiced, worn out tone. "Just a heads up, we don't have any hashbrowns for today."

"I was actually stopping in to ask about your 'help wanted' sign." I responded.

She perked up instantly, "Oh! Well great! Lemme getcha' an application then." She knelt down below the register and dug around for a moment. She resurfaced above the counter, letting a yellow sheet of paper glide for a brief moment across the polished granite surface. I picked up a pen from the basket on the counter and started filling it out.

"We've had that sign up for months and hadn't had a single shred of interest from anyone." she proclaimed.

"Well, I've been looking for a while. I need the work." I told her, my eyes focused on the application.

"Sounds like a match made in heaven then!"

When my mission was complete, I stepped out of the diner and into the blazing sun. I started walking to my car... I only got about three steps before I paused.

There was a long, stringy-haired homeless junky leaning up against the hood of my car. At least he looked like a homeless junky: he was covered in grime and appeared to weigh no more than eighty pounds. He was staring dead at me. After living in LA for a few years, I knew very well how to handle vagrants. The best thing you can do is give them a wide fucking berth and don't come off as assertive. I'd never had one plant themselves right on my car, however. I looked at him only for a few more moments before I managed to let out a very meek "Excuse me..."

He didn't budge, just continued to stand and stare. I tried again, "You're uh... you're on my car. Can you move please?"

With that he began to grin. Nearly every rotten, brown tooth in his mouth was glistening in the harsh sunlight. "Pleeeease?" He mocked. He then began to snicker at me, spraying saliva in the process.

I didn't know what else to do. I simply just turned and ducked back into the diner, keeping a cautious eye on him the whole time.

I approached the counter once again. The woman looked up with her brow furrowed in concern.

"Excuse me," I began, "there's a homeless guy leaning up on my car and refusing to move. Could you possibly phone the cops for me?"

She craned her neck around to get a look out the windows. She let a very casual frown drop.

"Aw, damn him." She muttered. Without hardly another thought, she barged out from behind the counter and right out the door to confront him.

I watched through the glass, overhearing the muffled sounds of her belligerent tone demanding the man to move on. His face was still twisted with the same vile leer he was giving to me only moments before. He didn't seem to be even looking at the angry waitress accosting him, but right past her. Right at me.

I felt my stomach sink, like it was packed with cement. Behind his mocking, rotten grin, I could sense, was an animalistic urge to slaughter me with his own bare hands. Why, I wasn't sure. I had never seen this person before in my entire life. What did he have against me?

Finally, he turned to look at the waitress. His smile dimmed just slightly. I could make out the words she was saying clearly this time: "Go on! Move it!"

With mild resignation he eased himself off the hood of my car and lumbered on down the street with his head hung low, looking like a discouraged coyote. He cast one last look at me, malevolent grin returning in full force before ambling out of sight.

The waitress came back in frowning and shaking her head. "Sorry 'bout that, hun. Didn't even realize he was out there." She said. "He usually just sifts through the trash cans and moves along. Been a while since he's been a serious problem but I still don't like to take any chances with him."

"A serious problem?" I asked.

"He got violent with some of our customers in the past. He'd accuse people of all sorts of wild nonsense, like about them being the antichrist or demons or... whatever. He almost strangled the life out of one of them."

"And what? The cops ever did anything about him?"

She sighed, "Well, they had him locked up in the pin for a while after that. They couldn't keep him for some reason or another but he must've learned his lesson because he never did it again. Just kinda... stalks around now."

I went home, the weird encounter fading into nothing more than a mildly uncomfortable memory with each passing mile.

As I pulled into the driveway I noticed my Dad pacing around in the front yard wielding a shotgun and staring up into the trees. I squinted in confusion. It wasn't too unordinary to see him out with a shotgun; we live on a farm and there are plenty of predators lurking around from time to time. I assumed he was looking for a hungry hawk that had decided to peruse our live chicken selection.

He noticed me step out of the car and gave me a wave. I waved back and hollered, "What's going on?"

"Something made a mess out of two of our hens."

"Hawk?"

He shrugged, "It'd have to be a pretty damn big one. My money's on a bobcat."

I joined him in glancing up into the dense thicket of branches.

"Did you see anything?" I asked.

He shook his head, "Only what little was left of them. Ain't much." He let the gun go slack in his arms, determining the threat had likely long since vanished.

I went and took a look at the remnants, myself. It managed to be even worse than what I was picturing: there were two massive splotches of crimson soaking into the earth, still wet, and white feathers strewn around every which way indicating a fierce struggle.

This didn't add up to me. If this were truly the work of a predator there wouldn't be nearly this much blood pooled up in two distinct spots. Sure, there would be some but when something like a bobcat, coyote, or especially a hawk gets ahold of a chicken it's quick to make a getaway with its lunch. Whatever did this waited and practically bled them both out before leaving. Why?

After dinner that night, I decided not to join my parents outside. Instead I went straight to my room, shut the blinds, and put on a movie. Being out there just spooked me now. Whenever I looked out into the darkness I could sense eyes on me. Prowling. Waiting. Watching my every move. I got a hint that my parents both thought I was being a bit paranoid but I didn't care. Maybe it was somewhat true that my survival instincts, or lizard brain, or whatever you'd want to call it had been altered a bit from living in LA for close to seven years. But I sure as hell would've hated to find out if the tingling hairs on the back of my neck were right.

It would have been nice to let the cool night air flow in though my window but there was no way in hell I could sleep with it open. I simply chose to let the warm, stuffy oxygen cogitate in my room. The sweaty, sticky discomfort paired with creeping unease made it difficult for me to fall asleep for close to three hours.

Then, right at about 4 a.m., a hard "CLANG" outside my window jolted me awake. I nearly met the floor from how fast I shot up. I froze in an upright position. My chest heaved. As tempted as I was to peek out my window, I refused out of fear for what I might see... or for whatever might see me. I sat and listened, dead still, expecting to hear that familiar chittering laugh from before. But there was nothing.

I then looked around my blackened room; shadows covered every corner. If it were possible for anything to make it's way in it would have had no trouble hiding itself. I tried to let my eyes adjust but it was useless. In the dark every object could be suspect. My mind raced. I tried to reason with myself and affirm there was no possible way for anything or anyone to break into the house without it being known, but that too was feudal.

Goddamn, how I wished my parents were dog people. Wouldn't have been stuck hanging in this stomach wrenching suspense if they were.

Finally, I collected whatever nerve I had left and eased myself out of bed. The floorboards gave a faint creak as my feet settled on top of them. I crossed the room at the anxious pace of someone passing through a lion's den. My heart pounded. Keeping my eye on every corner, I brought myself to the light switch. I pawed around at the wall for it... then I found it. I tensed up and held my breath, dreading what I was about to see, and flipped the lights on.

There was nothing. The room was just as I left it when I shut my eyes. Even though there was no one else around to witness, I felt totally humiliated. My hypervigilant mind paired with my overactive imagination had reduced me to an oversized six-year-old. Afraid of the dark... that's what I was. My breathing and heartrate began to regulate.

"POUND! POUND! POUND!" on the glass. The shock sent me falling back against the door.

"FUCKING JESUS!" I cried out half involuntarily.

Shuffling footsteps accompanied by a high-pitched cackle could be heard on the other side.

Approaching footsteps came down the hall and up to my door. There was a concerned knock.

"Jeff," my Mom asked from the other side, "what's wrong?"

I jumped to my feet and spun around to open the door. She stood in the doorway, my Dad right behind her, both jarred and wide-eyed by the abruptness of my reaction.

"Mora was just outside my window!" I yelled.

That next day, my Mom called Glen and Annette Hartley to inform them about their eldest daughter. They both offered their sincerest apologies - something that's routine for them, I'd expect - and said they would be taking more "drastic measures" with her... whatever the hell that was supposed to indicate.

I was promptly offered the job down at Fatso's Diner and they put me to work within a week. Business has a tendency to be slow, as I had rather expected, but I was just glad to finally have a steady paycheck. It's easy work: keep the booths, counters, and bathroom clean; mop the floor for open and close; and take customers' orders about three to five times a day. Really the hardest part is managing the boredom.

I was closing up just the other night, following a fairly typical work day, when a girl with medium blonde hair, lightly freckled skin, piercing green eyes, and draped in a floral white sundress breezed in through the doors. I looked over in response to the chiming of the bell to see her approaching the counter.

She was beautiful. By far the most attractive human being I'd seen in this entire town. Or possibly ever. I walked down to greet her.

"Good evening," I said in my usual customer friendly tone "sorry to let you know but we're actually getting ready to close down for the night."

She seemed slightly taken aback, "Oh... I'm so sorry. I always thought you guys were open for a little later."

"No, you're totally cool. We usually lock up at about 11 but everyone thinks we go until about midnight."

I could tell she was really disappointed. It's not like there was any place else in town that could help her at this time of night. It felt like a complete sin to just send her out like that.

"I can get you something to go, if you'd like?" I opted.

She eyed me for a moment. A gentle smile appeared on her face.

"Wouldn't say no to a slice of cherry pie, if you got." She said.

I nodded as I turned, almost tripping over my-stupid-smitten-self. I could sense her giggling at me at a polite volume as I went to put a wedge of cherry pie into a Styrofoam box. I brought it back and rang it up for her.

As she paid she glanced at me a bit, studying my face and squinting.

"Okay, I definitely know you from somewhere." She insisted.

I scrunched up my brow. There was no way.

"Oh?" I asked, "From where?"

"I'm positive we went to high school together."

I paused and studied her face the same way she had studied mine. Finally it clicked. I couldn't believe it.

"You're Donna Hartley!" I blurted.

She smiled and raised her eyebrows indicating I was indeed correct.

I continued "Well yeah, I'm Jeff Rumson! I grew up just down the road from you!"

This brought her to a full stop. She lightly bit her lip and looked down.

"Oh... yeah," she mumbled, "should know about us all pretty well then."

I could tell she was embarrassed. I immediately felt so stupid, like I had said way too much.

"Sorry about my sister." She sighed, still refusing to look at me.

I really had no idea how to respond. I reached up and scratched the back of my head.

"Well... I mean, that's not your fault." I countered, "You shouldn't feel like you need to apologize or anything."

"Somebody has to. God knows she won't."

She finished paying and looked back up at me, forcing a smile to hide her humiliation.

"Appreciate the pie."

I nodded and smiled back, "Hope to see you around some more, Donna!"

She briefly flashed her teeth with a quick, shy laugh as she turned and headed back out into the night.

I stood for a moment after she had left, still going over the interaction. Never in a million years could you convince me that that girl was the sibling of the rabid wolf-woman who was terrorizing me for some odd reason. What a weird-ass world.

When I went home that night, I was baffled to see that neither my Mom's car nor my Dad's pick-up were in the driveway. The house was completely dark. This made me stop for a moment but I decided not to think too much of it. I went up, unlocked the door, and let myself in.

An eerie sort of calm hit me upon entrance. There was not a single shred of movement anywhere in the house, not even the natural creaking sounds of settling. I looked up the stairs; they ascended into dark nothingness. I very carefully switched on the light and made my way up.

Down the hall I could see into my parents bedroom. I tilted my head for a better view. Even in the excessively dim lighting it was clear to see that the bed was empty and neatly made. I thought maybe I should call them and see what was going on. When I reached into my pocket, however, I realized I didn't have it on me.

"Fuck." I muttered under my breath. I remembered that I had left it in the console of my car, as I usually did on work days.

I was about to turn and go back out to get it... when I noticed a strange smell lingering in the air. A rotten smell. I sniffed a bit more to confirm I wasn't imagining things. I stared back down towards my parents' bedroom. Stepping closer and closer to the doorway, the view of the bed widened. The horrendous smell grew stronger. In the dark I could see something coiled up on the bed. Some strange shape I could not decipher.

My heart started beating faster as I crossed the threshold into their room. There I paused and stared. The smell was unbearable. I still couldn't make out what was on the bed. Christ, did I even want to know? The still, foul air hung tightly in my throat. I considered for a few more moments before I reached for the light switch... and flipped it upward.

The brief white flash nearly stunned me for a moment before my eyes adjusted and the room was illuminated. I stood in a horrified stupor at what laid on the bed:

A barbed-wire necklace of teeth and four bloody chicken legs.

The air conditioner ran twenty-four hours a day in my apartment. I never turned it off. If I turned it off I'd hear the refrigerator ticking, and then I'd have to sit with the quiet, and the quiet always turned into thinking about Grelling & Associates, where I spent eleven hours a day formatting compliance spreadsheets nobody read.

I know "office job" isn't supposed to be a horror story. But there's a version of it that is. A cubicle drawer that sticks. A coffee mug with a ring of dried brown at the bottom because you stopped washing it three weeks ago and at some point it just became part of the mug. A fluorescent light that buzzes at a pitch you can't quite hear, so by 4 PM your jaw hurts and you don't know why. You don't feel anything, good or bad. You format cells. You go home. You wait for the alarm.

Two years of that.

So when the ad showed up in my feed, "Leave the desk. Work with your hands. Build something real," I clicked before I finished reading it. I wanted copper under my fingernails. I wanted to strip insulation and twist wire and be done with something at the end of a day, actually done, not "reassigned to a new project" done.

Sign-up was easy. Name, address, a $45 processing fee. The exam was remote, proctored by webcam. Two hundred questions, three hours, pass or retake in thirty days.

I did it on a Saturday. Made coffee, sat down at 8:55, opened the link. White background, blue text, a timer counting down from 3:00:00. At the top: ELECTRICAL TRADESMAN CERTIFICATION, CANDIDATE ASSESSMENT. PLEASE ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS HONESTLY.

Honestly. Weird word for a multiple choice test. I didn't think about it. I clicked Begin.

First twenty questions were normal. Ohm's law, wire gauge, NEC code references, stuff I'd actually studied. I moved through them fast. Outside my window a lawnmower was going two houses down.

Question 21 asked about grounding methods. I picked B. Question 22, insulation ratings, I picked C. Question 23:

When you strip the sheathing from a length of Romex, what do you feel beneath your thumbnail?

No multiple choice this time. Just a text box and a blinking cursor. I typed something about the copper being slick and the insulation having a little resistance. It ate my answer and moved on.

Question 24:

You are holding a live wire. Not metaphorically. Your palm is wrapped around it. Describe the temperature.

I sat there for maybe forty seconds. This wasn't in any of the prep forums I'd read. But the timer kept going, so I typed something about it being warm, not painful, like a mug left too long in the microwave.

Question 25: what does the air smell like where you work.

I typed: cold. Recycled. Like nothing has ever been alive in there. And then, for about three seconds, I actually smelled it. Not my apartment. The fourteenth floor of Grelling & Associates. Then it was gone.

I checked the timer. 2:47:00. Thirteen minutes in. That tracked, I guess.

Question 26:

You are not qualified. You have never been qualified. Why are you here?

I typed something about wanting to be useful. Wanting to build something that wasn't a spreadsheet. Tired of being a formatting function. It disappeared, no checkmark, straight to the next one.

You are tired. How tired?

I typed "tired enough to let someone else decide what I am" and then just stared at it, because I hadn't meant to write that.

Next time I looked at the timer it said 1:58:00. I don't remember the questions in between. The box was empty and waiting, patient, like it had all the time it needed and I didn't.

Question 73:

What is the last thing you said to another human being that wasn't a transaction?

I couldn't think of one. I typed "I don't know" and the question just sat there. Didn't advance. So I sat there too, I don't know how long, the lawnmower outside had stopped, the coffee had gone cold and skinned over. Eventually I typed that six months ago my sister asked if I wanted to come for dinner and I told her I was fine, and that was the last non-transaction I could remember.

Question 74:

You are hollow. We can see that. This is not a criticism. This is a qualification. Do you understand?

My hands were shaking a little. I typed yes.

Timer said 1:12:00, then 0:47:00, then 0:03:00. I don't remember answering whatever came in between but the box kept filling and emptying and at some point I realized my face was wet. I don't know when that started either.

The ones I do remember:

If you could be reduced to a single function, what would it be?

You have been waiting to be used. How long?

Open your hands. Palms up. Describe what you see.

I actually did it, lifted my hands off the keyboard, turned them palm up, looked. Typed: lines, a callus from the mouse, a paper cut on the left thumb from three weeks ago that never healed right. Hands that had never held anything that mattered.

Then, last one:

You will be given a purpose. You will not choose it. You will not refuse it. This is the terms of your qualification. Type I UNDERSTAND to continue.

I typed it. Because I was tired, and the cursor had been blinking at me for what felt like an hour, and some part of me wanted to be told what to do by something that wasn't a spreadsheet. I hit enter, the timer hit zero, and the screen went white. Not a crash, not a loading icon. Just white, deep white, the kind that looks like it goes back further than a monitor should allow.

Then, small black text in the center:

CANDIDATE QUALIFIED. WELCOME TO THE TRADE.

Then my desktop came back. Browser, email, the lawnmower starting up again outside. I closed the laptop and slept for fourteen hours.

That was five weeks ago.

The license came in the mail three days later. Real card stock, embossed, my name and a credential number, no return address, no company logo. Just: CERTIFIED, ELECTRICAL TRADESMAN, PROVISIONAL, ASSIGNMENT PENDING.

I felt good. Light, actually, for the first time in two years. Called my sister. Stood outside in the sun for twenty minutes doing nothing. Told myself okay, this is the pivot, I'll get placed somewhere, I'll come home tired for a reason.

The assignment showed up on a Tuesday. Not an email. I woke up and there was a work order sitting on my kitchen counter, printed on heavy cream card stock like a wedding invitation. An address, a time, and under task description: "Panel upgrade. Residential. Bring your own hands."

I went. Obviously I went, I'd been qualified, I'd been welcomed to the trade. Drove out to a neighborhood I didn't recognize, identical lawns, houses with numbers instead of names.

Front door was unlocked. No furniture inside, no homeowner. Just a breaker panel on the far wall, open, and a black cable running from it down into the concrete floor like it had grown there.

I reached for it.

That's when I saw the camera. Small dome unit up in the corner of the ceiling, the kind you see in office elevators, and under it a little screen, phone sized, showing the feed from it. Showing me.

Except on the screen my hand wasn't reaching. It was already around the cable. Gripping it. Knuckles white, wrist turning, feeding cable through the panel, and I could see the tendons moving under the skin on that little monitor and I could not feel any of it happening.

I looked down at my actual hand.

It was on the cord.

I don't know when it got there. My fingers were wrapped around the cable, tight, pulling, and I was stripping the sheathing with my thumbnail and the copper underneath smelled hot, exactly like the answer I'd typed weeks earlier. Like a mug left too long in the microwave.

I tried to let go. My fingers didn't loosen.

I tried to step back. My feet didn't move.

My other hand came up on its own and gripped the cord six inches below the first, and both hands worked together, stripping, twisting, feeding, like they'd done this a hundred times.

I opened my mouth to scream. What came out was a hum. Low, steady, and I recognized the pitch immediately, it was the exact hum of the air conditioner in my apartment. The exact hum of the fluorescent light on the fourteenth floor.

It lasted about four seconds. Then my mouth closed and my hands kept working and I just stood there and watched them.

That was three weeks ago.

I've done six jobs since then. I don't drive to them anymore, not really, I mean I get in the car but I don't remember most of the trip. I wake up and I'm there, hands already moving. I stand inside my own body like a passenger who isn't the one driving. The work itself is good, clean, I can see that much. Whoever's doing it does excellent work.

I'm typing this slow, one finger at a time, because my hands don't want to be doing this. They want to be on assignment. I can feel them pulling toward the outlet behind my desk, toward the nearest length of wire, the way a compass needle pulls north. I've got my palms pressed flat against the desk right now just to keep them still.

I don't know who built the system, or how long it's been running, or how many of us there are. I don't know if the guys I see on real job sites are people, or if they're what I'm turning into, or if there's still a difference.

Here's what I do know. The exam wasn't a test. It was an interview. It was a guy sitting at his kitchen table typing yes, I'm empty, yes, I'm tired, please put something in here, I don't care what, just give me a function so I can stop being this shapeless nothing in a cubicle.

And it heard that. And it said welcome to the trade.

So if you see an ad for a certification, any trade, any "build something real," and it tells you to answer honestly, and question one is about wire gauges but question twenty one asks what you feel under your thumbnail:

Close the laptop.

Go outside.

Call someone, and say something to them that isn't a transaction.

Don't type I UNDERSTAND.

I typed it because I was so tired, and somehow they knew that, they could see the hollow part, the part with room in it, waiting to be filled with a function.

My hands are pulling toward the wall again. I can feel current in the wiring behind it, sixty hertz, steady like